In hindsight, should the WAllies not have helped the Soviets?

[Indicus]

The death of even more Soviet soldiers won't stop communism's appeal in the Third World, nor will it stop the colonial devastation which caused the emergence of so many dictatorships across the Third World. If anything, a USSR which had to work even harder is even more appealing. Add to the fact that the colonial powers will be putting even more resources into the war because with less Soviet help it'll be longer, and I expect even quicker decolonization with communism an even more appealing ideology than OTL.

A longer Holocaust would hurt the world. Who knew?

 

[Dementor]

Fight smarter, not fight to be the best bulletstopper of the War.
US motto was words to the effect of
'Never send a Man to do a job that a bomb or bullet can do better'

Rather than walking penal battalions across minefields to clear them, at gunpoint, by blocking detachments.
Institutionalized Cannon Fodder

And then cry about high numbers of deaths.

It's easy to "fight smart" when you're not facing an existential threat and when you haven't lost much of your territory. It's also easy to keep down casualties when you don't have a land border with the enemy so that he can invade your main territories immediately, capture millions of soldiers and then starve or work them do death in concentration camps.

I dont have the numbers and its really amoral to even contemplate it but if in exchange for an extra year of holocaust we could have avoided communism in Central Europe (Czechslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria) and all the deaths and suffering it caused in the 40 years of its existence...

As I said I dont have the numbers but Im not sure which would have the lesser body count.

The deaths and suffering caused by an extra year of German occupation in Eastern Europe could easily result in an order of magnitude of higher deaths than in OTL. Plus there is no guarantee that you won't get Communist rule anyway in some countries or that some right-wing regime might not be just as bloody as the Communists.

 

[The Marauder]

This thread is bordering on genocide apologia.

No, millions were saved by the Western allies assisting the Soviets. If you genuinely think expending countless lives, prolonging the Holocaust, and letting even more horror be unleashed on the Eastern front is good to "save" Eastern Europe from communism, you need to rethink your values.

Also, no guarantee Eastern Europe escapes despotism or poverty after the war ends. Greece anyone?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

No, millions were saved by the Western allies assisting the Soviets. If you genuinely think expending countless lives, prolonging the Holocaust, and letting even more horror be unleashed on the Eastern front is good to "save" Eastern Europe from communism, you need to rethink your values.

It did end WW2 quicker. Then enabled the USSR to aid the spread communism in Asia, which then cost 10s of millions of people their lives in wars, political repression, and 'mismanagement' by various communist regimes. Besides, it isn't as if Eastern Europe even wanted to be 'liberated' by the USSR:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_citizens_(1939–1946)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD

Deaths At least 111,091 Poles executed
Perpetrators NKVD security forces

No one is justifying the Nazi atrocities here or even, I hope, providing apologia for them or denying they'd go on longer and be worse. It is being argued that by making the USSR's situation worse, which would drag out WW2, the horrors of the Cold War could be avoided and hopefully save 10s of millions of lives around the world, especially in China where Mao was likely responsible for 40 million deaths IOTL.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_of_landlords_under_Mao_Zedong

Deaths
4,500,000[7] (from 1947[8]–1951)

13,500,000 to 14,250,000
(from 1947–1976)[note 2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#People's_Republic_of_China

In Mao's Great Famine, historian Frank Dikötter writes that "coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the very foundation of the Great Leap Forward" and it "motivated one of the most deadly mass killings of human history."[113] His research in local and provincial Chinese archives indicates the death toll was at least 45 million, and that "In most cases the party knew very well that it was starving its own people to death."[114] In a secret meeting at Shanghai in 1959, Mao issued the order to procure one third of all grain from the countryside. He said: “When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.”[114] Dikötter estimates that at least 2.5 million people were summarily killed or tortured to death during this period.[115]

 

[marathag]

It's easy to "fight smart" when you're not facing an existential threat and when you haven't lost much of your territory

Joe wasn't fighting smart.
He was supplying Hitler with plenty of raw materials, right up to the point when the Panzers were rolling over the Molotov Line.

Not
Smart

Especially since Joe ignored warnings from the UK and their own spy network, and the frontline Army and VVS eyewitness reports sent to Moscow.
But hey, Adolph was his buddy, who had split Poland with, and gained all the Baltics

 

[KuboCaskett]

If you ask me, there is a difference between sympathizing for the plight of the Russian and other Eastern European peoples that were targeted by the Nazis in their warped colonization plans that would dwarf the Holocaust and the communist regime the people in question are unfortunate to be subject too; too many people think "Soviet=Good" simply because they fought the Nazis (hence the "Chummy Commie" trope) even though the reality says otherwise.

 

[snerfuplz]

Honestly Mao was likely to win the Chinese Civil War even with a weaker Soviet Union. Stalin was no friend of Mao and sought to wrest permenant or long lasting concessions in Manchuria until Mao outmanuvered him by implying reproachmont with America. George Marshall and the Truman adminstration also saw the nationalists as a spent force in 1945 and military victory impossible which is why they pushed for a coalition government. The Nationalists also enjoyed Soviet support even until the end of the Chinese Civil War.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Joe wasn't fighting smart.
He was supplying Hitler with plenty of raw materials, right up to the point when the Panzers were rolling over the Molotov Line.

Not
Smart

Especially since Joe ignored warnings from the UK and their own spy network, and the frontline Army and VVS eyewitness reports sent to Moscow.
But hey, Adolph was his buddy, who had split Poland with, and gained all the Baltics

Great non-sequitur there. None of that changes the fact that when the German invasion did come, the Soviets only hope in staving the Germans of was to throw forces under the treads of German panzers (mostly metaphorically, sometimes literally) until the Germans were too worn down and exhausted to further advance, at which point the Soviets finally had the breathing space to build up a proper army. That the Anglo-Americans didn't have to make that choice was thanks to the huge bodies of water separating them from the German army. In the end, the reason the Anglo-Americans took so few casualties is not because they fought any smarter then the Soviets but because they had the luxury denied to the Soviets of being able to properly prepare their forces for the ground war, one made much easier by the Soviets, thanks to a happy accident of geography.

If you ask me, there is a difference between sympathizing for the plight of the Russian and other Eastern European peoples that were targeted by the Nazis in their warped colonization plans that would dwarf the Holocaust and the communist regime the people in question are unfortunate to be subject too; too many people think "Soviet=Good" simply because they fought the Nazis (hence the "Chummy Commie" trope) even though the reality says otherwise.

The people who supposedly have sympathy for the plight of Eastern European peoples targeted by the Nazis in their warped colonization plans don't seem to have much problem with ensuring millions more of those same people (as well as hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Anglo-Americans) die, which is what the denial of lend-lease entails.

 

[CalBear]

Anything that involves cutting back Lend-Lease means the Red Army moves more slowly, fights less effectively and that in turn means more Nazis for the Anglo-Americans to fight in France and Italy along with more time for the death camps to keep killing people.

As to your fantasies of a pre-emptive nuclear strike I'm not even dignifying that madness with a response. Anyone who thinks unleashing nuclear hell is a good idea needs to have their head examined.

Since no one reported this I'm just going to remind you that telling folks to get their heads examined is not an acceptable debate response.

Play the Ball.

 

[KuboCaskett]

The people who supposedly have sympathy for the plight of Eastern European peoples targeted by the Nazis in their warped colonization plans don't seem to have much problem with ensuring millions more of those same people (as well as hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Anglo-Americans) die, which is what the denial of lend-lease entails.

Well there is a difference between suffering the horrid fate by the hands of the Nazis and dying in combat against them you know; but still the point is the whole alliance with the USSR is probably the greatest dilemma the Allies have faced in the entire war and doing the whole lend lease or not is a catch-22 at that point. Granted they could have not but then again more would have suffered like you just said but the least they could have done in an ATL is if the USSR undergoes a regime change of sorts if they stumbled and had Stalin assassinated and put under a not-so totalitarian junta of sorts that is honest about establishing democracy.

 

[Dementor]

It did end WW2 quicker. Then enabled the USSR to aid the spread communism in Asia, which then cost 10s of millions of people their lives in wars, political repression, and 'mismanagement' by various communist regimes. Besides, it isn't as if Eastern Europe even wanted to be 'liberated' by the USSR.

This depends which Eastern European you mean. Most of them would certainly prefer it to a longer Nazi rule. Also the great majority of the crimes you mentioned happened before 1941, so not helping the Soviets would not prevent them.

No one is justifying the Nazi atrocities here or even, I hope, providing apologia for them or denying they'd go on longer and be worse. It is being argued that by making the USSR's situation worse, which would drag out WW2, the horrors of the Cold War could be avoided and hopefully save 10s of millions of lives around the world, especially in China where Mao was likely responsible for 40 million deaths IOTL.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_of_landlords_under_Mao_Zedong
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#People's_Republic_of_China

If you can be certain that China actually doesn't end under Communist rule anyway. Considering the utter incompetence of the Nationalists, this is not given.

Also there is the assumption that the Nazis do not defeat the Soviets and conquer at least the European part of the USSR, leading to deaths among the civilian population which would be comparable or likely exceed those in China. And while I don't agree that the Soviets would collapse without Lend-Lease, you have argued for this in the past, so your taking this position now is at best disingenuous.

If you ask me, there is a difference between sympathizing for the plight of the Russian and other Eastern European peoples that were targeted by the Nazis in their warped colonization plans that would dwarf the Holocaust and the communist regime the people in question are unfortunate to be subject too; too many people think "Soviet=Good" simply because they fought the Nazis (hence the "Chummy Commie" trope) even though the reality says otherwise.

I don't see much evidence for this. No one has raised this position and in general the plight of the Russian and other Eastern European people (except for the Holocaust) is almost ignored. What's far more common is blatant indifference to the fate of these people under Nazi rule, despite them being the vast majority of Stalin's victims.

The very generous lend-lease to the Soviets (at least compared to what the UK received) was a result of some very questionable actions by those high up in the wartime FDR government (e.g. Harry Hopkins, etc) at the expense of other war fronts during the war.

I don't see how three times less Lend-Lease could be considered very generous.

 

[fscott]

Does nobody understand how disliked and incompetent the Nationalists were?

Yes I do but incompetent versus cultural revolution I'll take incompetent anyday.

 

[LHB]

Yes I do but incompetent versus cultural revolution I'll take incompetent anyday.

Most of the deaths under Mao were due to collosal incompetence under the Great Leap Forward. I don't see how Nationalist incompetence prevents that from happening especially since the Nationalists weren't shy about instituting their own version of political purges in Taiwan known as the White Terror. Plus the Nationalists already had a history of large-scale political violence in China so it's not unreasonable to assume something similar would happen under a Nationalist government.

 

[Broek]

Most of the deaths under Mao were due to collosal incompetence under the Great Leap Forward. I don't see how Nationalist incompetence prevents that from happening especially since the Nationalists weren't shy about instituting their own version of political purges in Taiwan known as the White Terror. Plus the Nationalists already had a history of large-scale political violence in China so it's not unreasonable to assume something similar would happen under a Nationalist government.

I suppose that is open for discussion. Personally i believe that just writing down the casualties to mere incompetence doesn't do justice to the events.
But that aside, isn't this venturing close to discussing whom was the more benevolent dictator?

 

[LHB]

I suppose that is open for discussion. Personally i believe that just writing down the casualties to mere incompetence doesn't do justice to the events.
But that aside, isn't this venturing close to discussing whom was the more benevolent dictator?

More like saying having to choose between Mao & Chiang Kai-Shek is like asking if you'd rather eat a turd sandwich or a glass salad. Saying Mao staying out of power would definitely be an improvement isn't supported by evidence of large-scale Nationalist political violence, corruption & incompetence. Odds are you'd still have a huge number of people dying for different yet similar reasons.

 

[Broek]

More like saying having to choose between Mao & Chiang Kai-Shek is like asking if you'd rather eat a turd sandwich or a glass salad. Saying Mao staying out of power would definitely be an improvement isn't supported by evidence of large-scale Nationalist political violence, corruption & incompetence. Odds are you'd still have a huge number of people dying for different yet similar reasons.

With the 1930's militant mindset it is likely that neither one was a sweet purring kitty cat.
I was unaware of the events of the White Terror to which you linked, but the Cultural revolution was well documented.

It's still benevolent dictator territory and with today's knowledge i do not want to endorse either one.

 

[LHB]

With the 1930's militant mindset it is likely that neither one was a sweet purring kitty cat.
I was unaware of the events of the White Terror to which you linked, but the Cultural revolution was well documented.

It's still benevolent dictator territory and with today's knowledge i do not want to endorse either one.

Exactly. It's also why those in-thread arguing that cutting Lend-Lease would somehow definitely guarantee the world would be a better are not proving their case. Their biggest instance (China) was a situation where Soviet involvement was minimal in putting Mao in charge in the first place and the other option was just as bad and probably would've done equally terrible things if he was ever securely in charge of the whole country. It's kinda hard to argue that extending the Holocaust, the Hunger Plan and the Three Alls in the name of preventing the Cold War is justified when the balance of evidence suggests such an outcome would actually be worse and probably guarantee the Cold War would be even more bitter while doing nothing to change circumstances in the place where the most Cold War period deaths happened.

 

[Broek]

Exactly. It's also why those in-thread arguing that cutting Lend-Lease would somehow definitely guarantee the world would be a better are not proving their case. Their biggest instance (China) was a situation where Soviet involvement was minimal in putting Mao in charge in the first place and the other option was just as bad and probably would've done equally terrible things if he was ever securely in charge of the whole country. It's kinda hard to argue that extending the Holocaust, the Hunger Plan and the Three Alls in the name of preventing the Cold War is justified when the balance of evidence suggests such an outcome would actually be worse and probably guarantee the Cold War would be even more bitter while doing nothing to change circumstances in the place where the most Cold War period deaths happened.

The soviet assistance in China came primarily from clearing out the kwantung army, leaving a power vacuum in its wake and transferring Japanese weapons to the communists.
This allowed the Chinese communists to gain a foothold which they might not have gained otherwise. With reduced LL the Chinese communist loose this advantage.

It is also worth discussing that the nationalist terror might not have been so severe without a red threat looming. Either way, it is still nasty.
Personally i think the nationalist government had better odds of developing into a functioning democracy, but that does not mean it was without a full complement of flaws.

 

[LHB]

The soviet assistance in China came primarily from clearing out the kwantung army, leaving a power vacuum in its wake and transferring Japanese weapons to the communists.
This allowed the Chinese communists to gain a foothold which they might not have gained otherwise. With reduced LL the Chinese communist loose this advantage.

Which was also a major factor in Japan's surrender in conjunction with the atomic bombs. No Soviet campaign+the known predilection for the Kwangtung Army to disobey orders and do what they wanted anyway means the Anglo-Americans now have to clear that out themselves.

Plus the biggest factor in Chinese Communist victory was, once again, Nationalist incompetence. They wouldn't have had the chance to bounce back and make a serious play for power if not for incredibly boneheaded decisions like their currency policy that led to Weimar German levels of hyperinflation, totally destroyed the economy and any confidence the peasantry had in the KMT's government. Their dependence on local warlords to maintain power, many of whom were little more than bandits with large armies, was another factor in fueling popular opposition to the KMT.

It is also worth discussing that the nationalist terror might not have been so severe without a red threat looming. Either way, it is still nasty.
Personally i think the nationalist government had better odds of developing into a functioning democracy, but that does not mean it was without a full complement of flaws.

The KMT kept the White Terror in place in Taiwan until the day Chiang Kai-Shek died and he wasn't exactly some saint while he was in charge on Mainland China. The odds are much better that the KMT somehow coming out on top especially since their government was highly unpopular, sustained itself with a network of warlords whose existence depended on preying on civilians and supporting highly hated landlords. One of the biggest reasons, much like Lenin in the USSR, the Communists came out on top was they promised land reform to the agrarian masses. It's much more likely the KMT somehow coming out on top means you'd see regular riots, uprisings and bloody massacres to stay in charge combined with expanding their already present secret police force to root out dissent. A KMT China would look a lot less like a country on the road to becoming a functional democracy and more like a massive, nasty kleptocracy sustained by regularly butchering large numbers of people.

And that's before Nationalist policymaking stupidity causes something like a large-scale famine that really knocks everything on its side. The KMT probably would've killed as many people as Mao over a longer period of time simply because the nature of the polity was a highly unstable, nasty coalition of warlords and powerful landlords, loads of corruption all around and other assorted nastiness.

 

[Dementor]

Yes I do but incompetent versus cultural revolution I'll take incompetent anyday.

This includes being incompetent enough to be defeated by the Communists even without Soviet help.