Tony Judt on Yalta

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Clarissa

February 20, 2014

Tony Judt is one more in the line of eminent historians who acknowledges that WWII was won by the Red Army. He also correctly points out that blaming the allies for Yalta agreements is idiotic. There was no way Stalin would have agreed to relinquish the occupied territories. And he had no need of the Allied forces to win the war.

Judt says that Stalin’s mistake was refusing to participate in the Marshall Plan. This is a weird statement because Stalin had nothing to gain from participating.

The material well-being in the USSR soared in the 1950s and earky 1960s anyway.

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23 responses to “Tony Judt on Yalta”

David Bellamy

February 20, 2014

As I recall, General Patton wanted the Allies to keep marching eastward and conquer Russia after Germany fell. I am grateful for whatever gods convinced Churchill, Truman, and probably Eisenhower to order otherwise.

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David Bellamy

February 20, 2014

Thinking about this further, though, I think that the statement “…that WWII was won by the Red Army” is an overgeneralization. Did the Red Army really also win the war in the Pacific? I am under the impression that victory in this theatre was mostly an American achievement. Or am I mistaken?

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Michael Blekhman

February 20, 2014

Yes, David, you are, I am sorry to say. The Americans would have never won the war against the Nazis if not for the Soviet Union. I mean not Stalin, of course, but the millions of people who stopped the aggressors and thus helped the rest of the world.

And mind you that the USA threw nuclear bombs on Japan. Does it mean victory over Nazism? One of my American ex-friends told me proudly that America had brought civilization to Japan in that way. Civilizing by killing sounds an interesting idea, doesn’t it?

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  ” The Americans would have never won the war against the Nazis if not for the Soviet Union.”
  
  – The Americans didn’t win it at all. 🙂 They just hung around for a short while.
  
  But Judt gives the US an enormous credit for the Marshall Plan.
  
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David Bellamy

February 20, 2014

My question was whether the Soviet Union won the war in the Pacific as well as the one in Europe. The nuclear bombs were not really necessary; Japan was ready to surrender without them. As I understand it, Truman used them to frighten the Soviet Union. A bad business all around, for sure, but it does not answer my question.

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  “My question was whether the Soviet Union won the war in the Pacific as well as the one in Europe. ”
  
  – By defeating Hitler, the USSR made the fall of Japan imminent.
  
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David Bellamy

February 20, 2014

Also, the original purpose of the Manhatttan project was to create a weapon to be used against Germany, I believe. It was used against Japan only as an afterthought.

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cliff arroyo

February 20, 2014

The Soviet Union clearly won the European war against Germany (the less said about Itlay the better). The western allies distracted the Germans a little but the great bulk of the victory was Soviet.

The Americans (with help from other allied forces) won the the Pacific war against the Japanese. By 1945 the Japanese could not win but would not surrender. The atomic bombs were used to prevent the necessity of a land invasion (which would likely have killed many many times more civilians).

The civilizing was demilitarizing Japan, (re)imposing parliamentary democracy on the country and occupying it until they got the hang of it. More or less what the allies did in West Germany (while the Soviet Union turned the DDR into an Orwellian nightmare).

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titfortat

February 20, 2014

The Allies won the war. It was a collective. If the Germans only had to focus on the Soviet Union they would have kicked the vodka out their noses. Germany had by far the most superior force in the beginning of the war. There is no doubt the war would not have been won without the Soviet Union but it also would have been lost had there not been USA, Britain, Canada and a whole host of other nations.

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  “The Allies won the war. ”
  
  – You will forgive me if I trust the opinion of the world’s leading historians on this. 🙂
  
  “There is no doubt the war would not have been won without the Soviet Union but it also would have been lost had there not been USA, Britain, Canada and a whole host of other nations.”
  
  – Tony Judt disagrees. And a layperson’s opinion will never matter more than that of a scholar who has been doing research on the subject for decades.
  
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  1. titfortat
    
    February 20, 2014
    
    The fact that many other scholars would disagree with Judt obviously doesnt pose a problem to your biased viewed.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      February 20, 2014
      
      “The fact that many other scholars would disagree with Judt obviously doesnt pose a problem to your biased viewed.”
      
      – I read a lot of history. I mean, a real lot. And all serious historians agree with Judt on this.
      
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2. Benoni
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  Britain was just barely fending off Nazi Germany by the time the USSR entered the war. If Hitler hadn’t divided his battlefront between the USSR and western Europe, there’s almost no doubt they’d have got us eventually.
  
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  1. titfortat
    
    February 20, 2014
    
    @Benoni
    
    Had they finished off the Brits there likely would have been no D-day invasion thus freeing up valuable forces to take on the Red army.
    
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  2. Patrick Allen Foster
    
    February 20, 2014
    
    Even if the Germans had occupied the island of Great Britain, or some large portion of it, I do not take it as a given that the rest of the British Empire and Dominions (India, Australia, Canada, South Africa, etc.) would have stopped fighting.
    
    Also, in evaluating Germany’s chances against the USSR, even if they waited until after finishing the UK, we must always bear in mind the inflexible Divine Law which decrees that, whenever Russia is invaded from the west, Russia will then experience the worst winter in X years, where X = the number of years since the last invasion of Russia from the west:
    
    German soldiers, 1941-42: “OMG, this is the worst winter since Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812!”
    
    French soldiers of Napoleon, 1812: “OMG, this is the worst winter since Sweden’s King Charles XII invaded!”
    
    Swedish soldiers, 1709: “OMG, this is the worst winter since…”
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      February 20, 2014
      
      “Also, in evaluating Germany’s chances against the USSR, even if they waited until after finishing the UK, we must always bear in mind the inflexible Divine Law which decrees that, whenever Russia is invaded from the west, Russia will then experience the worst winter in X years, where X = the number of years since the last invasion of Russia from the west”
      
      – Exactly. 🙂 🙂 Jokes aside, This is why Stalin was so sure Hitler would not invade when there were just a couple of months left before the famous Russian sleet and mud and the even more famous Russian snow.
      
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cliff arroyo

February 20, 2014

In other news juan cole is embarassing himself again.

http://www.juancole.com/2014/02/racializing-democracy-failures.html

I left a comment but I doubt if it will make it through Komment Kontrol.

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  You can always leave the comment here so that it doesn’t get lost.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    February 20, 2014
    
    And now I read the article in question. Oh Lordy.
    
    “But nowadays most journalism on eastern Europe is more sophisticated than that. This Euronews article analyzes Ukraine’s divisions as generational and regional. Thus, youth under 30 overwhelmingly favor joining the European Union whereas their elders who can still remember the Soviet Union often still look toward Moscow. Those in the west of the country favor Europe, those in the east favor Russia.”
    
    – Yeah, that’s like totally a seriously sophisticated analysis. East vs West. Cool! What sophistication, what depth!
    
    “Ukraine’s economy sounds to me a very great deal like Egypt’s”
    
    – When an economy begins to sound, God only knows where these sounds would lead one.
    
    I’m also wondering since when Arabs and Slavs are racial categories.
    
    “Good social analysis does look at generational differences, at geographical ones, at economic problems.”
    
    – What an idiot, seriously. race doesn’t change, so it’s essential. But geography changes all the time, so that’s a good basis for analysis. Ukraine is just about to wake up in the sub-tropics. And then in the Sahara desert. Because that’s totally mutable.
    
    And the height of idiocy: “Why is Kyiv’s square called a ‘maidan’? Likely because the city was part of the realm of the Mongol Golden Horde, which under Uzbeg (Oz-Beg) in the 1300s adopted Islam, bringing some Arabic and Persian words in.”
    
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AcademicLurker

February 20, 2014

“FDR gave everything away at Yalta!” has been a favorite myth among right wingers in the US since forever, despite being pretty obvious nonsense for the reasons given above.

David Glantz is one of the foremost anglophone historian of the Eastern front in WWII. His take on it is:

After Moscow in 1941, it was clear that the Germans wouldn’t win.
After Stalingrad in 1942-43, it was clear that they would lose.
After Kursk in 1943, it was clear that they would lose badly.

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  Yes. I haven’t read Glantz but what he says is incontrovertible. Anybody who reads about the way the war proceeded, will reach this conclusion. If we look at the testimonies of those who lived the war, the Battle of Stalingrad was absolutely crucial. And so was the Battle of Kursk. In a way that the D-Day never was.
  
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titfortat

February 20, 2014

There is no doubt those battles were directly pivotal but had there not been two fronts you would have been facing a completely different German war machine.

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  The D-Day was in June 1944, if I’m not mistaken.
  
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