"The enormous latent military power of the Soviet Union had been invisible to German planners, who foolishly dismissed the fighting prowess of Slavs, the sophistication of Soviet weapons systems, and especially the unparalleled organizational powers of the Communist Party, which could calmly and efficiently mobilize tens of millions of men to fight."
Beyond the Hollywood style bluster and propaganda of western media, history repeats itself, as the US is quietly discovering now.
And the US has massively deindustrialised itself over the last 40 years (aka outsourcing to the East). It has a single tank factory and an single artillery shell factory. Extraordinary how the “arsenal of democracy” has become a dictatorship of arseholes.
Be interesting to know how much of the infrastructure is still around from those days. Grew up in the Mahoning valley in Ohio. They sent it all to China for scrap. All that's left are miles and miles of concrete slabs. The site of innumerable blast furnaces, etc...,
The Russian people have long dealt with neighbors that coveted their territory and a certain lack of the luxuries/needs that have turned North Americans into fat, entitled liabilities whose governments have connived to cull.
Minor comment/critique: You seem to obsesss a bit as to whether your posts are too long or too infrequent. So long as they are engaging, I (personally) don't think it matters too much. Most people can't write something this long and keep their audiences engaged. So long as you can, don't worry about the length!
And to think: the US teaches that Operation Overlord began the fall of Nazi Germany. The more posts of yours that I read, the more the scales fall from my eyes. Thank you.
Had the German divisions used in the Soviet Union been in France instead, we would still be waiting to invade Normandy. I've read that nine of every ten German soldiers killed died at Soviet hands.
Very prescient work considering the same hubris and cluelessness is currently fomenting in Washington and the Pentagon with the even more ridiculous idea that attacking China as well is somehow going to lead to success. Personally, the US military seems far more inept and corrupt than the Nazis ever were and they must somehow intrinsically know this and everything being projected today by the Pentagon is really an outsized bluff. If not, they have gone full retard. And we all know what you’re never supposed to do.
It would be ridiculous of the US military to send boys and girls to certain death in a ground invasion of Taiwan. They’re not built for wars of attrition in terms of ordinance or
Manpower. Couldn’t win in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan against small insurgency forces so the thought they could win against organized professional armies counting into the millions of men is ridiculous. And to then propose a two front war with Russia is in fact going full retard. So much so it has to be a bluff, these guys can’t be this stupid?
And that is why depleted uranium is such a big deal to the Russians. It's one thing to have brothers pummeling one another. It's another to have an outsider giving one of them salt to salt the fields.
You are right that the US can never win a land war, especially a war of attrition. But perhaps we are all guilty of fighting the last war? The new technologies - instant visual & electronic intel via satellite, ability to project force at distance, precision armaments, etc - these must necessarily change the nature of war. It depends on whose technology and ability to effectively use the technology is superior. Having said this, it appears that Russia is way ahead of the west also in the new forms of warfare.
And I perceive that while the Chinese people will respond like any population under attack, while having organisational advantages similar to the USSR of the 40s, I believe the US people of today haven’t near the same motivation as the Germans of the Nazi era, and the state cannot match the Chinese power of mobilisation. I’m not sure how important this factor would be in a modern war…
Have they overused the propaganda machine in the West? There was inter service rivalry when I was in the USN.
With Open hostility between red and blue, never mind the whole trans thing, how do you cobble together a winning team out of that?
Suicide at these levels implies a certain lack of enthusiasm that would certainly be a drag on any military operation.
All presidents have avoided a direct conflict with Russia. Now we are yelling at Russia and China as if we are what you see in a Hollywood movie. Duh lusional!
Have to disagree, primarily on the grounds that the US is first and foremost an air and naval power. Our military is not designed to win ground wars. If anything were to happen between Russia & NATO, Europeans must make up the majority of ground troops.
Likewise, we'd never engage or try to defeat China in a land war. And despite numerical inferiority of ships against China, I believe we have the quality and quantity needed to contain China. Perhaps they could take Taiwan, perhaps not. But where are they going to get their oil? The US has the power to interdict shipping lanes between the Persian Gulf and China. China does not seem to have the ability to project naval forces to meaningfully disrupt seaborne trade to the US.
The US navy is a sad joke. Really, you champion it. It resembles McHale's Navy. Ships smashing in to objects, sailors ill from clot shots, wokeism madness, and lack of maintenance and inadequate training all point to a second rate navy.
And oil? You do realise China borders Russia and Central Asia?
All these things described as the cracks and failures of the machine of control are microcosms to a bigger event playing out in real time. We’re all inside it so it’s difficult to take a step back and see it from an outside perspective time and history usually give us bc it’s happening right now. Much of the world outside the G7 has had enough of the invasions based on lies and the obvious corruption that’s really behind it all. The performative bullshit being used by these same gov officials as a smoke screen to deflect attention away from their graft. These countries have smart people too who can see clearly what is really going on and they are opting out of US hegemony and the fools based order they demand from everyone else. Nobody wants to pay the vig anymore in return for the safe conduct of business because the crime lords have lost plot and made a mess of it all. De-dollarization is happening and the reserve currency by gun ship diplomacy has failed. It’s over guys in our lifetime. A multi polar world is coming back. These are the initial moments but it’s clear the US doesn’t have the military capability to fight half the globe and most Americans if they truly understood what has happened and why would opt out too. We’re all the same in the end and most Americans are good kind souls too. They just haven’t been looking outward enough for the last 50 years to see they’re not better than anyone else because they have the biggest television.
All very true. People are tired of the weaponization of the dollar and the endless interference in other countries internal affairs. Our media isn't covering the coming loss of reserve currency status but it will be a disaster for the US. And it's due to the hubris of our leaders.
I'm aware of geography. Russia produces roughly 10 million barrels/day. China consumes over 14 million barrels/day. And that's just oil. Consider food and other critical inputs. Without sea transport for it's purchases and sales, China becomes an extremely difficult country to govern.
Analogy to the novel Dune. "He who can destroy a thing (spice), controls a thing." We can destroy most of China's trade. The only way they can reciprocate is through nukes, and if anyone goes nuclear, we all lose. And hopefully we all find a way to ratchet down the military posturing and learn to live with each other.
Destroying China's trade means destroying American imports. China and the US are like 2 drunk guys leaning against each other and holding each other up.
The difference is that China has the machine tools and knowhow to run them. They just need to find new customers. What does America have ?
Reserve currency status is a blessing but ultimately a curse. By it's nature, it leads to the movement of productive capacity off shore from the US. This limits US options as our domestic economy would contract a lot if it were cut off from our offshore supply chain.
Would it not then become a contest of social and economic attrition ? Which society is better equipped to compel the compliance of it's population ? America is already deeply divided and that is before most Americans take any actual war at all seriously. What happens if WOKE America is suddenly called upon to fight, die and spend their days working in factories doing actual production.
I'd say, that in the Pacific, the US would win a short naval war but would find it did not have the capacity to replace it's losses.
I don't know enough about China to know how deep the compliance of it's people would be. I hope we dont have to find out.
Thanks for the well-reasoned comment. I agree with what you're saying.
What does America have? We have the ability to feed and provide energy for ourselves. We have historic know-how as an industrial nation. We have millions of people who want to come in and work hard for relatively low wages. Is that enough to overcome our the divisions and distractions in the US? Beats me. As you said - hope we don't have to find out.
I think we agree just differently. We’ve seen now for 50 years of US invasions in other countries that in order to have a chance at winning there has to be ground troops and even then the US military has never been successful. History is clear, Air and Sea can’t do the job alone and so in my opinion there’s no chance at containment either. Not enough boots on the ground. China will get their oil from Russia now over land. That’s what this weeks meeting was all about. Pipelines will begin shortly and deep enough from the coast the US won’t be able to intercede on those. No one has beaten Russia on the ground ever including 3M of the best German soldiers ever to try. Nobody in Europe is even close to that quality of soldier anymore and they failed miserably. In the end Russia was able to field 600 divisions. A remarkable feat for any country. China could possibly match that at some point. The alternatives then get to be either mutual destruction or peace. The people paid to know this should already so it’s strange why the US is posturing like they are towards Russia and China unless it’s just a projection of power for negotiation purposes.
I'm sure the oil pipelines will be built along with gas from Russia to China. That's a long way though, and many things can happen to it.
US military never successful? I'd say two invasions of Iraq were successful, but I'm sure this depends on your definition of success. 1st accomplished aims to get Iraq out of Kuwait, 2nd attained regime change. Politically f'd up, so not the new regime we desired. Go back further than 50, I think we achieved success in Korea. Certainly on a much smaller scale, check various Caribbean adjacent countries about the inability of the US army to be successful.
I do agree with the movie quote - never get involve in a land war in Asia.
So you equate the mighty victories in Panama and Grenada as a measure of success?
You are a deluded Kool Aid drinker.
To me the most amazing thing about the internet is that it allows ignorant US military fanboys and Rambo wannabes to project their ignorance way beyond their bar stool.
Nope. Just being overly pedantic when a statement is made that US military has no successes over the last 50 years. Totally willing to see failures as well (Afghanistan, Vietnam), but we've had our share of successes. Unfortunately, presidents of all parties like to play with their shiny military toys and see most problems as being solvable through use (or threat) of force.
Yeah, I don't really understand that either. Well, let's say Korea is a draw, and a draw is a defeat for both sides. Ergo, Korea is the defeat of the USA (but also of the USSR).
But Iraq 1991 is an obvious defeat of Iraq and Yugoslavia 1999 is also a Serbs (and russians? but also Europeans in general) defeat.
I don't think that Iraq and the Serbs are any serious enemies for a country like the United States (no offense to the Serbs and Iraqis), but the outright failures of the United States after Vietnam were in the 21st century. I want to say that Panama and Grenada are not a defeat for America, but rather a disgrace. The notorious kicking of puppies, just like from the comics.
So probably the list of successes/failures of the US military looks something like
- 1946-1990 defeats and "kick the puppy!" operations.
I'm not as sure about the navy as I once was. With our Woke leadership, quality has gone down. How else do you have a destroyer with one of the most advanced radars in the world getting rammed by a merchant ship? Or a Chinese sub surfacing inside the screen of a US carrier?
Did you notice the border between Russian and China? The British spend centuries trying to avoid the emergence of a continental block of power and the US is driving the two biggest powers together just as the West willingly dismantled its industry. Nixon must be spinning in his grave.
Yes, it could very well be. Personally, I think it's a combination of the two. Whatever is causing it, I think it will cost a lot of young American men and women their lives in the not too distant future
No, he writes like a Soviet apologist. When former GRU Officer and Soviet defector Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, known by his pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov published Icebreaker in 1990, his assertion that Stalin had planned to invade Europe was ridiculed. With the opening of the Soviet archives, his assertions were shown to be true with a few exceptions. There have been several others who have accessed the archives and written their own tomes which confirm much of Suvarov's book. One more recent work is by John Wear - Germany’s War: The Origins, Aftermath and Atrocities of World War II. Which goes into some detail of the accusations of the Nuremberg Trials. I note both are missing from Big Serge's reading lists. I am not going to suggest the Germans committed no "war crimes", however, some of those allegations lack context. One is the alleged lists for slaughter of civilians, whether party members or Jews. As Robert Faurisson detailed decades ago, there are records of German soldiers being court martialed and executed for causing the death of civilians. The second is that the Treaty of Westphalia and later the Geneva Conventions required all combatants to be in uniform. Those not in uniform were spies, as were those who aided and abetted them. Spies could be interrogate and summarily executed. The Allied narrative declares falsely that the "partisans", "underground" and "free armies" were not spies. The Ukrainian collaborators who joined SS Units were given legitimacy because they were in uniform, as were 100s of thousands of others from across Europe who went to fight communists. Many of these units were tasked with dealing with the partisans. Again, I'm not going to suggest that there weren't mistakes made and innocent people killed, but the "lists" were most often those accused of being spies, including those aiding and abetting.
As General Leon Degrelle said, had it not been for Germany, Stalin would have been standing in Calais looking across the Channel at England. When it comes to war, the victor's lies prevail.
Anyone who knows at least something about the Red Army in 1939-1941 knows that it was in the process of rearmament and enlargement. The T-34 and KV tanks were powerful, but unreliable and, in fact, not much different from the early Tigers and Panthers. The new Yak, LaGG and MiG fighter planes, as well as Pe and Il bombers, were launched in a series with enormous difficulties. The navy was going to complete the rearmament with new subs, destroyers, cruisers and battleships by 1945 at best.
>With the opening of the Soviet archives, his assertions were shown to be true with a few exceptions
None of the modern Russian historians says anything like that. In fact, they claim the opposite. There is nothing like the USA Orange/Red/Black plans.
>The latter lays out what personnel and equipment was moved into place. It included tens of thousands of paratroopers...
But without planes for them. So yes...it was just fashion on this time.
>and tanks adapted with tires for paved roads, of which The USSR had none.
This is pure mythology. BT-class tanks used wheel drive, because before the invention of Gadfield steel, the tanks tracks usually falling apart after 100 km.
Rezun is an old-fashioned propagandist of the Cold War and people who take his seriously in the 21st century endlessly surprise me.
The reference to what was lined up to attack was in John Wear's book, including planes and the number of paratroopers. Why would you expect any of the modern Russian historians to say "anything like that" and to do anything other than "claim the opposite". As best as I can tell, the German reconnaissance of the build up in the weeks before Operation Barbarossa, that was denied to them at Nuremberg, is still not available to the public. How many people know of the massive amount of vehicles, materiel, and metals sent to the USSR post invasion, via the lend/lease plan prior to US entry into WWII. How many people know that Germany had met its disarmament obligations by 1922 and that by the time of the "Peace Conference" of 1932-1932, non of the WWI victors had even started? German "re-armament" only came after the refusal of the victors to meet their obligations and the refusal of German proposals for further reduction? This article was originally published in "The Barnes Review" in 2000. https://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/articles/stalwarplans.html
The official narrative of all wars is bullshit. Both sides lie, but the victors' lies prevail.
Geez. That your neighbours don’t take turns to beat the shit out of you every time you come out your door is another proof that liberal democracies are doomed.
Liberal is still generally defined as: 1. “willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas. 2. relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.”
I find it ironic that both your comments are illiberal, yet you accuse me of being a threat to "liberal democracies". It is you and your ilk that have doomed "liberal democracies". In fact, you live under the delusion that they still exist. They don't, and haven't for decades. Nowhere have I suggested that National Socialism or Fascism were ideal political philosophies. There is a simple reason for that: all political and economic theories are flawed, including the sacred cows of the US, "republicanism" and"capitalism". By the way, one does not equate to the other. Sometimes the truth may be inconvenient, but it is still the truth.
USSR( stalin) had no intention and no capability to conquer france or germany. They may have supported revolutions. Supply of weapons to Spain is not same as conquering.
WW-2 is germany initiative and response of UK( reigning superpower). The fall of france was unexpected. If france has not fell, this would like WW-1. ( germany defeated )
Have you read Icebreaker or Germany’s War: The Origins, Aftermath and Atrocities of World War II? The latter lays out what personnel and equipment was moved into place. It included tens of thousands of paratroopers and tanks adapted with tires for paved roads, of which The USSR had none. The two books were based on Soviet documentation.
Author Joachim Hoffman’s work was endorsed by the Federal German Govt; that endorsement is very hard to get; as you might expect anything showing even a modicum of positive light on The Third Reich is anathema.
Leon Degrelle is correct; Stalin was planning on hitting Germany around Spring 1942. AH beat him to the punch. Another reason Soviet losses were so incredibly high - & so much materièl was captured - was that the Red Army was jammed up against the western border prepping marshaling areas & stocking up supplies for the lunge westward.
Thanks for the link. My one concern in reading the blurb is that it seems to suggest socialism is the same as communism. While there were some "state-ists" in the early movement, none were at the level of the Marx/Engels. There were as many or more anarchists/mutualists as state-ists. Proudhon, the "Father of Anarchy" called Marx "the tapeworm in socialism" and anarchist Bakunin, who thought Proudhon didn't go far enough, compared the Peoples State of Marx to a Rothschild bank. On the main topic, not too long ago, I stumbled across an article that mentioned there were two Russian historians who had published books exposing Stalin's lies about the German invasion, much along the lines of Suvarov et al. Unfortunately, I cannot remember where I found it. I used to think Henry Ford was silly to say "History is bunk". For the past 30+ years, I'm now convinced he was correct.
„When former GRU Officer and Soviet defector Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, known by his pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov published Icebreaker in 1990, his assertion that Stalin had planned to invade Europe was ridiculed. With the opening of the Soviet archives, his assertions were shown to be true with a few exceptions.“
Andrei Martyanov vehemently refuses to acknowledge this. He is otherwise such a very keen observer and an astute analyst of military affairs. I like him a lot and trust him. Why does he denigrate the findings of that book ?
Gilad Atzmon told me once that he was nearly arrested in Germany when in some lecture he suggested to students to get rid of their „Schuldkomplex“ and rather see Stalin as the aggressor, preparing for war.
It seems the time is not yet ripe for unbiased historical research.
I admire your stamina in dealing with the „critics“ !
Thank you. I try to approach things from perspective that "everybody is lying". Some lies crumble, some stand regardless of their lack of credibility, but the question that always needs to be asked is "why?", as in what is to be gained by the action or inaction. I had never really given much thought about the official narrative of WWII despite my father and 3 uncles, who served, saying "so they say" when the official narratives were spouted. My interest really started with the first Zundel trial in Canada. I was horrified that someone expressing an opinion would be charged with spreading false news, when the news was continually false on virtually every "story", including some of which I had personal knowledge. The news of the trial was skewed, but even that skewing could not cover up the facts coming out that countered the official narrative. It astonished me - a lifelong cynic. If that was false, then what else is false about the "so they say" narrative? I suppose that makes me a "revisionist" but only in the Barnes sense- aligning the facts with history, which includes context. Sometimes what you find is not pleasant, but it is what it is.
It has everything to do with why Germany lost. Germany had no plans for invasion, yet Big Serge approaches it from the standard narrative. I would add that had the massive assistance provided by the US was likely the biggest factor.
Brilliant Analysis! Thank you for that insightful analysis. You are so right! The insane decision by Hitler to conquer the Soviet Union, egged on by his hubris of Aryan superiority and fatal misunderstanding of the capability and resolve of the Soviet Union (essentially the Russian colossus), doomed Nazi Germany, the minute that decision was made.
In some ways, we see the same hubris and failures being reenacted by the Combined West, in which I include NATO (analogous to Nazi Germany in pre WWII Europe) in the Ukraine war against Russia.
Firstly, the Combined West, with its enormous economic sanctions preparations for punishing Russia (well before the shooting war), still failed to crush Russia economically by those unprecedented sanctions. They overestimated their ability to do so. Very similar to Nazi's assumption of economic windfall through occupation of fertile and mineral rich lands of Western Soviet Union (aka Ukraine). Instead, the sanctions boomeranged to hurt the Combined West (with the exception of resource-rich US). A colossal strategic blunder by the Combined West!
Secondly, the Combined West underestimated the military industrial power of Russia. Whether it was the hubris of superiority of its race compared to slavs, or merely intelligence failure of catastrophic proportions, the effect is the same. Russia did not run out of shells or missiles or tanks. Instead, the Combined West, with its depleted miserable industrial production capacity, stares defeat in its face, due to its inability to keep up with Russia in existing armament and armament production. Turns out , Russia has an almost unlimited supply of armament due to its production capability and strategic stockpiles. The same problem was faced by Nazis, who did not expect limitless manpower and industrial resources that Soviet Union could marshall. Again, a colossal strategic blunder!
Thirdly, Russia is executing very skillfully a war of attrition, chewing up Ukrainian formations in an artillery war, where it excels, with minimal (but considerable) losses of its own manpower and materiel. Getting into a war of attrition against Soviet Union sealed the fate of Nazi Germany. The same fate awaits the Combined West. Third colossal blunder!
Fourthly, for Soviet Union, the war was existential, not one of conquest as it was for Nazi Germany. This allowed unimaginable sacrifices and hardships to be borne by the population. More than 25 million died in its Great Patriotic War, but the Soviet Union managed to crush Nazi Germany. Contrary to Western folklore, it was the Soviet Union that was mainly responsible for the fall of Nazi Germany, not the Italian and Normandy invasions by UK and US. This situation now repeats itself in Ukraine. For Combined West, the proxy war is one of conquest to maintain its hegemony over the rest of the world. For Russia, it is essentially existential. It will fight to the last Russian, if need be. Fourth colossal blunder by the Combined West!
Finally, the biggest and most consequential strategic blunder of the Combined West is in pushing Russia into the arms of China, by simultaneously pushing for a proxy war in Taiwan! The consequences are epochal! The unsurpassed industrial might of China (even ignoring its human resources) and immeasurable material (oil, gas, minerals and food) resources of Russia cannot be matched by the declining Combined West, with its emphasis solely on financial might. The inevitable emergence of a multipolar world, actively embraced by the Global South (because of the bone-headed moves, such as draconian sanctions and confiscation of private and state assets, which could one day be applied to anybody the Combined West chooses) and loss of the reserve currency status of the Dollar, Euro and Yen, is the dire consequence of colossal lack of imagination and blind belief in exceptionality and impunity of the Combined West. This is going to resonate for generations to the detriment of the Combined West. Already, BRICS has surpassed the G7 in economic might, when GDP is corrected for purchasing power parity (PPP). The trend is ominous!
Of course, all this presumes that there won't be a Third World War with exchange of nuclear strikes. If the Combined West chooses, in desperation, to escalate to this level in a conflict, where Russia has escalatory dominance, then ... ... humanity will be the ultimate loser and it will all be the result of strategic blunders and hubris of the Combined West (led by the 'exceptional' USA), bent on imposing its financial and military domination over the rest of the world.
On reflecting about the current events, it is but impossible to ignore certain facts. The Combined West, dictated by the US and UK, is an extension of old Europe (that includes UK)! Europe has always been resource poor, for centuries. In old agrarian societies, it did not matter much. But modern societies need mineral and food resources to thrive. Europe is deficient in both. So the only way for Europeans to build a 'Beautiful garden' was to conquer and pillage the 'Jungle', aka its colonies! That they have done successfully over the decades, with Spanish Empire in Latin America, British Empire in India and China, other European nations in Africa, etc. British managed to steal $41 trillion from its empire, mostly India. China was subjugated and humiliated for a century. So was India, Africa etc. One can regard US, Australia and New Zealand as essentially extensions of UK and results of its colonial conquests. No wonder, they act in unison in geopolitical matters. Germany, Japan and Korea are now mere vassals of Anglo-Saxons. But European colonial mentality is not gone! Instead, it has metastasized into conquest of the world by financial means. The petrodollar serving as the world reserve currency, combined with technological superiority, has enabled the Combined West to dominate the world, through overt and covert threats to economies of nations that do not tow its line in the global arena.
All this has been orchestrated by the so-called neo-liberals and globalists in UK and US, who have forever dreamed of imposing unipolar hegemony over the world through the so-called "Rules-based International Order", where rules are arbitrarily imposed (to subjugate) or revoked (for impunity) by the Combined West, at its whim. International order based on inviolable "International Laws," as encoded in the United Nations Charter and imposed collectively by the UN Security Council, has been conveniently abandoned by these people. It is a mistake indeed to call them neo-liberals or globalists. Instead, the appropriate terminology is neo-colonists or neo-hegemons. We do a disservice to the world by not using these labels, because a Globalist would work toward the welfare of all the world's nations and not just the Anglo-Saxons and their vassals.
It’s interesting to reflect on how much humanity’s level of technological development owns to that concentration of planetary resources into a centre.
Could the same heights have been reached if the section of mankind who had advanced the most in the pre-colonial era, had been shall we say, more ethical in its dealings with extra European cultures?
I suppose mechanisms other than greed would’ve achieved similar results. At the end of the day, all this is a spiritual problem, of a species that is terrified of existence.
An excellent write up Serge. Russia's ability to absorb defeats, retreat, regroup and return to the offensive could be observed on multiple occasions, for those who wanted to look. Napoleon's Russian campaign, the Russo-Japanese war - where Russian's eastern army was repeatedly defeated, but always successfully withdrew and regrouped in good order, denying the Japanese the decisive win they craved. For the Japanese, their 'victory' over Russia virtually bankrupted the country and set back its development for decades - the definition of a Pyrrhic victory. The same defeat and recovery can be observed during the First World War, and in the Russo-Finnish war of 1940. Everyone focuses on the Finns spirited defense, which stalled the Soviet advance for a matter of weeks. The critical outcome of that war was that the Finns lost as the Soviet's learned from their mistakes, regrouped and then continued the attack.
It's important to note that German war-gaming before Barbarossa all ended with German defeat, if the war became protracted. German intelligence about the Soviet Union was completely incapable, but that was the inevitable result of ideology. The west is doing it all over again, intelligence surrendering to ideology. https://stolzuntermenschen.substack.com/p/old-mother-hubbard
To begin by saying that I only comment on the first two chapters up to Molotov's photograph because that's what I read. Not for lack of admiration for the author but for lack of time. To say that despite a fairly recent battle and war, there is no more mythologized battle in history! Especially because this comment could have been written as early as 1945 in the US. Who swallowed the WW2 story that Nazi prisoners from eastern front told them in the same Russophobic spirit with which characters like Patton and Churchill ended WW2. Full of desire to rearm nazi Germany to go back to fighting only Russia on the Eastern front! With what army after Berlin Batle it was never understood!? This after Russophobic invertebrates like Churchill spent the whole of WW2 crawling to Moscow crying for help! Where Stalin received him in an office with a trampoline.
Back to Barbarossa It's a myth, starting with the lack of reference to the nationalities that made up the Nazi army that invaded Russia in 1941! Basically from all over Europe. Germany alone never managed to mount the Barbarossa operation with only Wermarcht soldiers. Undoubtedly an alliance with even more nationalities than those fighting Moscow in Ukraine today. In many respects, a remake. Especially because if any army has also shown itself to be a worthy successor to the Wermacht in recent decades, it has undoubtedly been the US army. Both in terms of invasions and in terms of military doctrine and tactics such as blitzkrieg. All stemming from learning from Nazi officers after WWII. The ones that didn't die or went straight from the eastern front to madhouses! And the reason for an army with so many nationalities marching across the great European plain towards Moscow is the same as always, more than an anti-communist alliance in 1941 it was actually a Russophobic alliance!
Which brings me straight to the second point or second idea that also appears in the text according to which it seems that Moscow fed some illusion in WW2 that Hitler's final objective was not always Russia!!!! When Hitler hadn't said anything else in the last 20 years!!!! Since he wrote Mein Kampt in prison! The EU itself in 2019 use the same purposeful misinterpretation of the Molotov Pact to approve an infamous resolution blaming both Moscow and Nazi Germany for WW2?! 77 years after celebrating many times together in Normandy the victory over Nazi Germany! We will say today, very hypocritically! Perhaps as a thank you for the nation with the most dead and after Stalin had spent the entire 1930s trying to convince England to both stop the rearmament of Nazi Germany prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles! With money coming from all over the Anglo-Saxon world! Like Nazi Germany's submarine program which continued to receive funds from the US via Switzerland throughout WWII! Maybe that's why it is also today the only truly dangerous armed wing of all the US Armed Forces, without great antidotes like the current missiles for ducks like the aircraft carriers! Anglo-Saxon universe, namely the perfidious Albion that had already provoked the WWI because of the Tsar's approach to the cousin Kaiser! And cousin King George V watching ships disappear over the horizon with the Empire.
And back the EU infamy that is perceived today was already part of the anti-Russia propaganda for the current conflict. That is, to legitimize the provocation of the conflict by the US as well as all the anti-Russia measures that followed by the collective West. And two years later, in 2021, the EU stopped condemning the glorification of Nazism in the UN! Already after having also legitimized the 2014 coup in Ukraine, from which emerged a First Interim President, Oleksandr Turchinov, who the EU itself had already condemned in Parliament for being openly neo-Nazi!
And to demystify the Molotov-Ribentropp Non-Aggression Pact, which apparently may even have given Russia some illusion that it would not have to face Nazi Germany despite all of Russia's industrial efforts in the 1930s precisely to arm himself for this purpose, the very Poland also signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler before WWII!! That like the Russian Pact was already signed never to be fulfilled by both parties. Like thousands of pacts throughout history! The US is still tearing up the Disarmament Treaties it signed! And Germany and France dealt with the Minsk Accords as we know!
A pact that only came about after Moscow's intelligence realized that France and England had asked Hitler during the Munque Accords in 1938 to attack only Russia, which France and England turned a blind eye to! Russia, according to historians after the opening of the historical archives of the USSR, sought mainly two objectives with the Pact. Time to arm itself precisely against Nazi Germany given the industrial backwardness with which Russia entered the 20th century! In addition to the wear and tear of the Bolshevik Revolution and World War I, no one was less prepared for WWII than Russia!
And also to try to annul a "pilgrim idea" that still crosses the minds of Polish nationalists today! With which Russia was at war practically the entire period between the two WWA. Piłsudski's Intermarum Federation as a barrier between Russia and Western Europe as if today there was still a Russian Empire or USSR?! Indeed who reads Piłsudski's speeches today will notice many similarities with Zelensky's rhetoric about the great barrier to Russia. Probably written by the same Russophobic Anglo-Saxon intelligence that has also funded Banderas since the end of WWII! Intermarum barrier from Baltic Sea to Black Sea as it's also perceived by many fans in the US! That manipulate Rumsfeld's new Europe precisely as a barrier against Western Europe! Which it seems that only Western Europe doesn't understand! Even after Borrell admitted that the two main pillars of European growth in recent decades were Russian gas and trade with China! Even after the US blew up the Baltic gas pipelines!
And Hitler lost WWII in Russia in the same way that military personnel in the past were much more classified than a megalomaniac with a tiny mustache. Because Russia has always proved insurmountable at home! As confirmed today on Donbass. Where ironically most Nazi prisoners died in coal mines in the decade following the end of WWII! And of course a lot has to do with the dimension of Russia itself! Which is not quite a gas pump as some would have believe!
"Undoubtedly an alliance with even more nationalities than those fighting Moscow in Ukraine today."
" it seems that Moscow fed some illusion in WW2 that Hitler's final objective was not always Russia!!!! When Hitler hadn't said anything else in the last 20 years!!!! Since writing Mein Kampt! The EU itself in 2019 use the same misinterpretation of the Molotov Pact to approve an infamous resolution blaming both Moscow and Nazi Germany for WW2?! "
'Instead of fighting a war of maneuver and movement (the type of war that Germany excelled at), they were now waging a battle of attrition, which was the sort of game that the Soviet Union was always going to win. ' And so to Ukraine...and Bakhmut.
"The enormous latent military power of the Soviet Union had been invisible to German planners, who foolishly dismissed the fighting prowess of Slavs, the sophistication of Soviet weapons systems, and especially the unparalleled organizational powers of the Communist Party, which could calmly and efficiently mobilize tens of millions of men to fight."
Beyond the Hollywood style bluster and propaganda of western media, history repeats itself, as the US is quietly discovering now.
And the US has massively deindustrialised itself over the last 40 years (aka outsourcing to the East). It has a single tank factory and an single artillery shell factory. Extraordinary how the “arsenal of democracy” has become a dictatorship of arseholes.
History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme!
Russia today is not the Soviet union in 1941.
The numbers are different; the proportions and the phenomenon are the same.
Be interesting to know how much of the infrastructure is still around from those days. Grew up in the Mahoning valley in Ohio. They sent it all to China for scrap. All that's left are miles and miles of concrete slabs. The site of innumerable blast furnaces, etc...,
The Russian people have long dealt with neighbors that coveted their territory and a certain lack of the luxuries/needs that have turned North Americans into fat, entitled liabilities whose governments have connived to cull.
Minor comment/critique: You seem to obsesss a bit as to whether your posts are too long or too infrequent. So long as they are engaging, I (personally) don't think it matters too much. Most people can't write something this long and keep their audiences engaged. So long as you can, don't worry about the length!
I started reading it in bed, thinking it’d be a quick read that would put me in the mood for sleeping. I had to FORCE myself to stop. It was gripping.
Big Serge,I hope all of this is going into a book,count me in on the pre order list
Absolutely. I'm already collection the single essays into an epub for better reading.
And hopefully the book version will have footnotes to match
Outstanding, simply outstanding work 👍
And to think: the US teaches that Operation Overlord began the fall of Nazi Germany. The more posts of yours that I read, the more the scales fall from my eyes. Thank you.
Had the German divisions used in the Soviet Union been in France instead, we would still be waiting to invade Normandy. I've read that nine of every ten German soldiers killed died at Soviet hands.
Very prescient work considering the same hubris and cluelessness is currently fomenting in Washington and the Pentagon with the even more ridiculous idea that attacking China as well is somehow going to lead to success. Personally, the US military seems far more inept and corrupt than the Nazis ever were and they must somehow intrinsically know this and everything being projected today by the Pentagon is really an outsized bluff. If not, they have gone full retard. And we all know what you’re never supposed to do.
And the Chinese will be the ones that can materialize army after army; should they need to.
It would be ridiculous of the US military to send boys and girls to certain death in a ground invasion of Taiwan. They’re not built for wars of attrition in terms of ordinance or
Manpower. Couldn’t win in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan against small insurgency forces so the thought they could win against organized professional armies counting into the millions of men is ridiculous. And to then propose a two front war with Russia is in fact going full retard. So much so it has to be a bluff, these guys can’t be this stupid?
stultum facit fortuna, quem vult perdere
Yes we have gone mad. The bloodlust of corruption has captured the imagination of too many weak men
Formal US policy is for the Ukranians to fight on against the Russians.
It's guys and gals, and their stupidity is vast but not yawning.
It was the perfect plan. Get “Russians” to fight “Russians”. Or so Wile E. Coyote thought.
And that is why depleted uranium is such a big deal to the Russians. It's one thing to have brothers pummeling one another. It's another to have an outsider giving one of them salt to salt the fields.
You are right that the US can never win a land war, especially a war of attrition. But perhaps we are all guilty of fighting the last war? The new technologies - instant visual & electronic intel via satellite, ability to project force at distance, precision armaments, etc - these must necessarily change the nature of war. It depends on whose technology and ability to effectively use the technology is superior. Having said this, it appears that Russia is way ahead of the west also in the new forms of warfare.
I would not doubt just about the time the US gets it's big cannon shell production up to speed Russia will change that game.
Formal policy for now.
And I perceive that while the Chinese people will respond like any population under attack, while having organisational advantages similar to the USSR of the 40s, I believe the US people of today haven’t near the same motivation as the Germans of the Nazi era, and the state cannot match the Chinese power of mobilisation. I’m not sure how important this factor would be in a modern war…
Have they overused the propaganda machine in the West? There was inter service rivalry when I was in the USN.
With Open hostility between red and blue, never mind the whole trans thing, how do you cobble together a winning team out of that?
Suicide at these levels implies a certain lack of enthusiasm that would certainly be a drag on any military operation.
All presidents have avoided a direct conflict with Russia. Now we are yelling at Russia and China as if we are what you see in a Hollywood movie. Duh lusional!
Have to disagree, primarily on the grounds that the US is first and foremost an air and naval power. Our military is not designed to win ground wars. If anything were to happen between Russia & NATO, Europeans must make up the majority of ground troops.
Likewise, we'd never engage or try to defeat China in a land war. And despite numerical inferiority of ships against China, I believe we have the quality and quantity needed to contain China. Perhaps they could take Taiwan, perhaps not. But where are they going to get their oil? The US has the power to interdict shipping lanes between the Persian Gulf and China. China does not seem to have the ability to project naval forces to meaningfully disrupt seaborne trade to the US.
The US navy is a sad joke. Really, you champion it. It resembles McHale's Navy. Ships smashing in to objects, sailors ill from clot shots, wokeism madness, and lack of maintenance and inadequate training all point to a second rate navy.
And oil? You do realise China borders Russia and Central Asia?
All these things described as the cracks and failures of the machine of control are microcosms to a bigger event playing out in real time. We’re all inside it so it’s difficult to take a step back and see it from an outside perspective time and history usually give us bc it’s happening right now. Much of the world outside the G7 has had enough of the invasions based on lies and the obvious corruption that’s really behind it all. The performative bullshit being used by these same gov officials as a smoke screen to deflect attention away from their graft. These countries have smart people too who can see clearly what is really going on and they are opting out of US hegemony and the fools based order they demand from everyone else. Nobody wants to pay the vig anymore in return for the safe conduct of business because the crime lords have lost plot and made a mess of it all. De-dollarization is happening and the reserve currency by gun ship diplomacy has failed. It’s over guys in our lifetime. A multi polar world is coming back. These are the initial moments but it’s clear the US doesn’t have the military capability to fight half the globe and most Americans if they truly understood what has happened and why would opt out too. We’re all the same in the end and most Americans are good kind souls too. They just haven’t been looking outward enough for the last 50 years to see they’re not better than anyone else because they have the biggest television.
All very true. People are tired of the weaponization of the dollar and the endless interference in other countries internal affairs. Our media isn't covering the coming loss of reserve currency status but it will be a disaster for the US. And it's due to the hubris of our leaders.
I'm aware of geography. Russia produces roughly 10 million barrels/day. China consumes over 14 million barrels/day. And that's just oil. Consider food and other critical inputs. Without sea transport for it's purchases and sales, China becomes an extremely difficult country to govern.
Analogy to the novel Dune. "He who can destroy a thing (spice), controls a thing." We can destroy most of China's trade. The only way they can reciprocate is through nukes, and if anyone goes nuclear, we all lose. And hopefully we all find a way to ratchet down the military posturing and learn to live with each other.
Destroying China's trade means destroying American imports. China and the US are like 2 drunk guys leaning against each other and holding each other up.
The difference is that China has the machine tools and knowhow to run them. They just need to find new customers. What does America have ?
Reserve currency status is a blessing but ultimately a curse. By it's nature, it leads to the movement of productive capacity off shore from the US. This limits US options as our domestic economy would contract a lot if it were cut off from our offshore supply chain.
Would it not then become a contest of social and economic attrition ? Which society is better equipped to compel the compliance of it's population ? America is already deeply divided and that is before most Americans take any actual war at all seriously. What happens if WOKE America is suddenly called upon to fight, die and spend their days working in factories doing actual production.
I'd say, that in the Pacific, the US would win a short naval war but would find it did not have the capacity to replace it's losses.
I don't know enough about China to know how deep the compliance of it's people would be. I hope we dont have to find out.
Thanks for the well-reasoned comment. I agree with what you're saying.
What does America have? We have the ability to feed and provide energy for ourselves. We have historic know-how as an industrial nation. We have millions of people who want to come in and work hard for relatively low wages. Is that enough to overcome our the divisions and distractions in the US? Beats me. As you said - hope we don't have to find out.
I think we agree just differently. We’ve seen now for 50 years of US invasions in other countries that in order to have a chance at winning there has to be ground troops and even then the US military has never been successful. History is clear, Air and Sea can’t do the job alone and so in my opinion there’s no chance at containment either. Not enough boots on the ground. China will get their oil from Russia now over land. That’s what this weeks meeting was all about. Pipelines will begin shortly and deep enough from the coast the US won’t be able to intercede on those. No one has beaten Russia on the ground ever including 3M of the best German soldiers ever to try. Nobody in Europe is even close to that quality of soldier anymore and they failed miserably. In the end Russia was able to field 600 divisions. A remarkable feat for any country. China could possibly match that at some point. The alternatives then get to be either mutual destruction or peace. The people paid to know this should already so it’s strange why the US is posturing like they are towards Russia and China unless it’s just a projection of power for negotiation purposes.
I'm sure the oil pipelines will be built along with gas from Russia to China. That's a long way though, and many things can happen to it.
US military never successful? I'd say two invasions of Iraq were successful, but I'm sure this depends on your definition of success. 1st accomplished aims to get Iraq out of Kuwait, 2nd attained regime change. Politically f'd up, so not the new regime we desired. Go back further than 50, I think we achieved success in Korea. Certainly on a much smaller scale, check various Caribbean adjacent countries about the inability of the US army to be successful.
I do agree with the movie quote - never get involve in a land war in Asia.
So you equate the mighty victories in Panama and Grenada as a measure of success?
You are a deluded Kool Aid drinker.
To me the most amazing thing about the internet is that it allows ignorant US military fanboys and Rambo wannabes to project their ignorance way beyond their bar stool.
Nope. Just being overly pedantic when a statement is made that US military has no successes over the last 50 years. Totally willing to see failures as well (Afghanistan, Vietnam), but we've had our share of successes. Unfortunately, presidents of all parties like to play with their shiny military toys and see most problems as being solvable through use (or threat) of force.
You are not listening. You will not learn. You are deluded.
The US has had no victories, no military success of any note since WWII. Korea, no. Viet Nam, no.
And the Caribbean that you mention, hell no. It shows your desperation to be vindicated that you mention illegal attacks on Carib islands as success.
Yeah, I don't really understand that either. Well, let's say Korea is a draw, and a draw is a defeat for both sides. Ergo, Korea is the defeat of the USA (but also of the USSR).
But Iraq 1991 is an obvious defeat of Iraq and Yugoslavia 1999 is also a Serbs (and russians? but also Europeans in general) defeat.
I don't think that Iraq and the Serbs are any serious enemies for a country like the United States (no offense to the Serbs and Iraqis), but the outright failures of the United States after Vietnam were in the 21st century. I want to say that Panama and Grenada are not a defeat for America, but rather a disgrace. The notorious kicking of puppies, just like from the comics.
So probably the list of successes/failures of the US military looks something like
- 1946-1990 defeats and "kick the puppy!" operations.
- 1991-1999 two wins over weak opponents.
- 2000-2022 defeats.
I'm not as sure about the navy as I once was. With our Woke leadership, quality has gone down. How else do you have a destroyer with one of the most advanced radars in the world getting rammed by a merchant ship? Or a Chinese sub surfacing inside the screen of a US carrier?
Did you notice the border between Russian and China? The British spend centuries trying to avoid the emergence of a continental block of power and the US is driving the two biggest powers together just as the West willingly dismantled its industry. Nixon must be spinning in his grave.
For me I see this lack of professionalism and attention to detail more a sign of hubris and the laziness it breeds more than gender politics.
Yes, it could very well be. Personally, I think it's a combination of the two. Whatever is causing it, I think it will cost a lot of young American men and women their lives in the not too distant future
Here we go *grabs drink*
This guy writes like a master.
No, he writes like a Soviet apologist. When former GRU Officer and Soviet defector Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, known by his pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov published Icebreaker in 1990, his assertion that Stalin had planned to invade Europe was ridiculed. With the opening of the Soviet archives, his assertions were shown to be true with a few exceptions. There have been several others who have accessed the archives and written their own tomes which confirm much of Suvarov's book. One more recent work is by John Wear - Germany’s War: The Origins, Aftermath and Atrocities of World War II. Which goes into some detail of the accusations of the Nuremberg Trials. I note both are missing from Big Serge's reading lists. I am not going to suggest the Germans committed no "war crimes", however, some of those allegations lack context. One is the alleged lists for slaughter of civilians, whether party members or Jews. As Robert Faurisson detailed decades ago, there are records of German soldiers being court martialed and executed for causing the death of civilians. The second is that the Treaty of Westphalia and later the Geneva Conventions required all combatants to be in uniform. Those not in uniform were spies, as were those who aided and abetted them. Spies could be interrogate and summarily executed. The Allied narrative declares falsely that the "partisans", "underground" and "free armies" were not spies. The Ukrainian collaborators who joined SS Units were given legitimacy because they were in uniform, as were 100s of thousands of others from across Europe who went to fight communists. Many of these units were tasked with dealing with the partisans. Again, I'm not going to suggest that there weren't mistakes made and innocent people killed, but the "lists" were most often those accused of being spies, including those aiding and abetting.
As General Leon Degrelle said, had it not been for Germany, Stalin would have been standing in Calais looking across the Channel at England. When it comes to war, the victor's lies prevail.
Anyone who knows at least something about the Red Army in 1939-1941 knows that it was in the process of rearmament and enlargement. The T-34 and KV tanks were powerful, but unreliable and, in fact, not much different from the early Tigers and Panthers. The new Yak, LaGG and MiG fighter planes, as well as Pe and Il bombers, were launched in a series with enormous difficulties. The navy was going to complete the rearmament with new subs, destroyers, cruisers and battleships by 1945 at best.
>With the opening of the Soviet archives, his assertions were shown to be true with a few exceptions
None of the modern Russian historians says anything like that. In fact, they claim the opposite. There is nothing like the USA Orange/Red/Black plans.
>The latter lays out what personnel and equipment was moved into place. It included tens of thousands of paratroopers...
But without planes for them. So yes...it was just fashion on this time.
>and tanks adapted with tires for paved roads, of which The USSR had none.
This is pure mythology. BT-class tanks used wheel drive, because before the invention of Gadfield steel, the tanks tracks usually falling apart after 100 km.
Rezun is an old-fashioned propagandist of the Cold War and people who take his seriously in the 21st century endlessly surprise me.
The reference to what was lined up to attack was in John Wear's book, including planes and the number of paratroopers. Why would you expect any of the modern Russian historians to say "anything like that" and to do anything other than "claim the opposite". As best as I can tell, the German reconnaissance of the build up in the weeks before Operation Barbarossa, that was denied to them at Nuremberg, is still not available to the public. How many people know of the massive amount of vehicles, materiel, and metals sent to the USSR post invasion, via the lend/lease plan prior to US entry into WWII. How many people know that Germany had met its disarmament obligations by 1922 and that by the time of the "Peace Conference" of 1932-1932, non of the WWI victors had even started? German "re-armament" only came after the refusal of the victors to meet their obligations and the refusal of German proposals for further reduction? This article was originally published in "The Barnes Review" in 2000. https://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/articles/stalwarplans.html
The official narrative of all wars is bullshit. Both sides lie, but the victors' lies prevail.
Jeeesus, what’s with the fascist apologists, don’t you have anywhere else you can hang out you weird freaks?
1) You have no clue about Fascism.
2) National Socialism was different than Fascism.
3) Why should anyone apologize for the truth?
4) Do yourself a favour and read documented history, not Hollywood history.
Geez. That your neighbours don’t take turns to beat the shit out of you every time you come out your door is another proof that liberal democracies are doomed.
Liberal is still generally defined as: 1. “willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas. 2. relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.”
I find it ironic that both your comments are illiberal, yet you accuse me of being a threat to "liberal democracies". It is you and your ilk that have doomed "liberal democracies". In fact, you live under the delusion that they still exist. They don't, and haven't for decades. Nowhere have I suggested that National Socialism or Fascism were ideal political philosophies. There is a simple reason for that: all political and economic theories are flawed, including the sacred cows of the US, "republicanism" and"capitalism". By the way, one does not equate to the other. Sometimes the truth may be inconvenient, but it is still the truth.
USSR( stalin) had no intention and no capability to conquer france or germany. They may have supported revolutions. Supply of weapons to Spain is not same as conquering.
WW-2 is germany initiative and response of UK( reigning superpower). The fall of france was unexpected. If france has not fell, this would like WW-1. ( germany defeated )
Have you read Icebreaker or Germany’s War: The Origins, Aftermath and Atrocities of World War II? The latter lays out what personnel and equipment was moved into place. It included tens of thousands of paratroopers and tanks adapted with tires for paved roads, of which The USSR had none. The two books were based on Soviet documentation.
Curmudge-
Great points! In addition to Suvorov’s work the chief Military Historian for the Bundeswehr was able to get access to Soviet archives (post Soviet collapse) & exhaustively researched & produced this compelling narrative: https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-Extermination-1941-1945-Documentation/dp/0967985684/ref=sr_1_1?crid=12600IXE9URRB&keywords=stalin%27s+war+of+extermination&qid=1683846915&s=books&sprefix=Stalin%27s+war+%2Cstripbooks%2C148&sr=1-1
Author Joachim Hoffman’s work was endorsed by the Federal German Govt; that endorsement is very hard to get; as you might expect anything showing even a modicum of positive light on The Third Reich is anathema.
Leon Degrelle is correct; Stalin was planning on hitting Germany around Spring 1942. AH beat him to the punch. Another reason Soviet losses were so incredibly high - & so much materièl was captured - was that the Red Army was jammed up against the western border prepping marshaling areas & stocking up supplies for the lunge westward.
Thanks for the link. My one concern in reading the blurb is that it seems to suggest socialism is the same as communism. While there were some "state-ists" in the early movement, none were at the level of the Marx/Engels. There were as many or more anarchists/mutualists as state-ists. Proudhon, the "Father of Anarchy" called Marx "the tapeworm in socialism" and anarchist Bakunin, who thought Proudhon didn't go far enough, compared the Peoples State of Marx to a Rothschild bank. On the main topic, not too long ago, I stumbled across an article that mentioned there were two Russian historians who had published books exposing Stalin's lies about the German invasion, much along the lines of Suvarov et al. Unfortunately, I cannot remember where I found it. I used to think Henry Ford was silly to say "History is bunk". For the past 30+ years, I'm now convinced he was correct.
You're so proud of the fact that you read the Icebreaker. Maybe it's worth reading his critics, say Isaev? http://militera.lib.ru/research/isaev_av1/index.html
You write correctly:
„When former GRU Officer and Soviet defector Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, known by his pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov published Icebreaker in 1990, his assertion that Stalin had planned to invade Europe was ridiculed. With the opening of the Soviet archives, his assertions were shown to be true with a few exceptions.“
Andrei Martyanov vehemently refuses to acknowledge this. He is otherwise such a very keen observer and an astute analyst of military affairs. I like him a lot and trust him. Why does he denigrate the findings of that book ?
Gilad Atzmon told me once that he was nearly arrested in Germany when in some lecture he suggested to students to get rid of their „Schuldkomplex“ and rather see Stalin as the aggressor, preparing for war.
It seems the time is not yet ripe for unbiased historical research.
I admire your stamina in dealing with the „critics“ !
And I like your comments on TOO .
Thank you. I try to approach things from perspective that "everybody is lying". Some lies crumble, some stand regardless of their lack of credibility, but the question that always needs to be asked is "why?", as in what is to be gained by the action or inaction. I had never really given much thought about the official narrative of WWII despite my father and 3 uncles, who served, saying "so they say" when the official narratives were spouted. My interest really started with the first Zundel trial in Canada. I was horrified that someone expressing an opinion would be charged with spreading false news, when the news was continually false on virtually every "story", including some of which I had personal knowledge. The news of the trial was skewed, but even that skewing could not cover up the facts coming out that countered the official narrative. It astonished me - a lifelong cynic. If that was false, then what else is false about the "so they say" narrative? I suppose that makes me a "revisionist" but only in the Barnes sense- aligning the facts with history, which includes context. Sometimes what you find is not pleasant, but it is what it is.
Thank you for that kind reply to my comment.
I completely agree with you on your approach to “history”.
The study of history is always revisionistic- if that’s a word - or „zurückblickend“.
But in our narrow minded western academia the term stands for something like a criminal offense. Sad state of affairs…
The final question after what where when and how is always why!
What has that to do with Big Serge's account of how Germany lost?
It has everything to do with why Germany lost. Germany had no plans for invasion, yet Big Serge approaches it from the standard narrative. I would add that had the massive assistance provided by the US was likely the biggest factor.
Brilliant Analysis! Thank you for that insightful analysis. You are so right! The insane decision by Hitler to conquer the Soviet Union, egged on by his hubris of Aryan superiority and fatal misunderstanding of the capability and resolve of the Soviet Union (essentially the Russian colossus), doomed Nazi Germany, the minute that decision was made.
In some ways, we see the same hubris and failures being reenacted by the Combined West, in which I include NATO (analogous to Nazi Germany in pre WWII Europe) in the Ukraine war against Russia.
Firstly, the Combined West, with its enormous economic sanctions preparations for punishing Russia (well before the shooting war), still failed to crush Russia economically by those unprecedented sanctions. They overestimated their ability to do so. Very similar to Nazi's assumption of economic windfall through occupation of fertile and mineral rich lands of Western Soviet Union (aka Ukraine). Instead, the sanctions boomeranged to hurt the Combined West (with the exception of resource-rich US). A colossal strategic blunder by the Combined West!
Secondly, the Combined West underestimated the military industrial power of Russia. Whether it was the hubris of superiority of its race compared to slavs, or merely intelligence failure of catastrophic proportions, the effect is the same. Russia did not run out of shells or missiles or tanks. Instead, the Combined West, with its depleted miserable industrial production capacity, stares defeat in its face, due to its inability to keep up with Russia in existing armament and armament production. Turns out , Russia has an almost unlimited supply of armament due to its production capability and strategic stockpiles. The same problem was faced by Nazis, who did not expect limitless manpower and industrial resources that Soviet Union could marshall. Again, a colossal strategic blunder!
Thirdly, Russia is executing very skillfully a war of attrition, chewing up Ukrainian formations in an artillery war, where it excels, with minimal (but considerable) losses of its own manpower and materiel. Getting into a war of attrition against Soviet Union sealed the fate of Nazi Germany. The same fate awaits the Combined West. Third colossal blunder!
Fourthly, for Soviet Union, the war was existential, not one of conquest as it was for Nazi Germany. This allowed unimaginable sacrifices and hardships to be borne by the population. More than 25 million died in its Great Patriotic War, but the Soviet Union managed to crush Nazi Germany. Contrary to Western folklore, it was the Soviet Union that was mainly responsible for the fall of Nazi Germany, not the Italian and Normandy invasions by UK and US. This situation now repeats itself in Ukraine. For Combined West, the proxy war is one of conquest to maintain its hegemony over the rest of the world. For Russia, it is essentially existential. It will fight to the last Russian, if need be. Fourth colossal blunder by the Combined West!
Finally, the biggest and most consequential strategic blunder of the Combined West is in pushing Russia into the arms of China, by simultaneously pushing for a proxy war in Taiwan! The consequences are epochal! The unsurpassed industrial might of China (even ignoring its human resources) and immeasurable material (oil, gas, minerals and food) resources of Russia cannot be matched by the declining Combined West, with its emphasis solely on financial might. The inevitable emergence of a multipolar world, actively embraced by the Global South (because of the bone-headed moves, such as draconian sanctions and confiscation of private and state assets, which could one day be applied to anybody the Combined West chooses) and loss of the reserve currency status of the Dollar, Euro and Yen, is the dire consequence of colossal lack of imagination and blind belief in exceptionality and impunity of the Combined West. This is going to resonate for generations to the detriment of the Combined West. Already, BRICS has surpassed the G7 in economic might, when GDP is corrected for purchasing power parity (PPP). The trend is ominous!
Of course, all this presumes that there won't be a Third World War with exchange of nuclear strikes. If the Combined West chooses, in desperation, to escalate to this level in a conflict, where Russia has escalatory dominance, then ... ... humanity will be the ultimate loser and it will all be the result of strategic blunders and hubris of the Combined West (led by the 'exceptional' USA), bent on imposing its financial and military domination over the rest of the world.
On reflecting about the current events, it is but impossible to ignore certain facts. The Combined West, dictated by the US and UK, is an extension of old Europe (that includes UK)! Europe has always been resource poor, for centuries. In old agrarian societies, it did not matter much. But modern societies need mineral and food resources to thrive. Europe is deficient in both. So the only way for Europeans to build a 'Beautiful garden' was to conquer and pillage the 'Jungle', aka its colonies! That they have done successfully over the decades, with Spanish Empire in Latin America, British Empire in India and China, other European nations in Africa, etc. British managed to steal $41 trillion from its empire, mostly India. China was subjugated and humiliated for a century. So was India, Africa etc. One can regard US, Australia and New Zealand as essentially extensions of UK and results of its colonial conquests. No wonder, they act in unison in geopolitical matters. Germany, Japan and Korea are now mere vassals of Anglo-Saxons. But European colonial mentality is not gone! Instead, it has metastasized into conquest of the world by financial means. The petrodollar serving as the world reserve currency, combined with technological superiority, has enabled the Combined West to dominate the world, through overt and covert threats to economies of nations that do not tow its line in the global arena.
All this has been orchestrated by the so-called neo-liberals and globalists in UK and US, who have forever dreamed of imposing unipolar hegemony over the world through the so-called "Rules-based International Order", where rules are arbitrarily imposed (to subjugate) or revoked (for impunity) by the Combined West, at its whim. International order based on inviolable "International Laws," as encoded in the United Nations Charter and imposed collectively by the UN Security Council, has been conveniently abandoned by these people. It is a mistake indeed to call them neo-liberals or globalists. Instead, the appropriate terminology is neo-colonists or neo-hegemons. We do a disservice to the world by not using these labels, because a Globalist would work toward the welfare of all the world's nations and not just the Anglo-Saxons and their vassals.
Very well said.
It’s interesting to reflect on how much humanity’s level of technological development owns to that concentration of planetary resources into a centre.
Could the same heights have been reached if the section of mankind who had advanced the most in the pre-colonial era, had been shall we say, more ethical in its dealings with extra European cultures?
I suppose mechanisms other than greed would’ve achieved similar results. At the end of the day, all this is a spiritual problem, of a species that is terrified of existence.
An accurate and comprehensive summation of Barbarossa's failure. Very impressive, Serge.
In high school, I learned history
In 2022 & 2023, I am learning the truth
Thank you for your amazing writings
An excellent write up Serge. Russia's ability to absorb defeats, retreat, regroup and return to the offensive could be observed on multiple occasions, for those who wanted to look. Napoleon's Russian campaign, the Russo-Japanese war - where Russian's eastern army was repeatedly defeated, but always successfully withdrew and regrouped in good order, denying the Japanese the decisive win they craved. For the Japanese, their 'victory' over Russia virtually bankrupted the country and set back its development for decades - the definition of a Pyrrhic victory. The same defeat and recovery can be observed during the First World War, and in the Russo-Finnish war of 1940. Everyone focuses on the Finns spirited defense, which stalled the Soviet advance for a matter of weeks. The critical outcome of that war was that the Finns lost as the Soviet's learned from their mistakes, regrouped and then continued the attack.
It's important to note that German war-gaming before Barbarossa all ended with German defeat, if the war became protracted. German intelligence about the Soviet Union was completely incapable, but that was the inevitable result of ideology. The west is doing it all over again, intelligence surrendering to ideology. https://stolzuntermenschen.substack.com/p/old-mother-hubbard
To begin by saying that I only comment on the first two chapters up to Molotov's photograph because that's what I read. Not for lack of admiration for the author but for lack of time. To say that despite a fairly recent battle and war, there is no more mythologized battle in history! Especially because this comment could have been written as early as 1945 in the US. Who swallowed the WW2 story that Nazi prisoners from eastern front told them in the same Russophobic spirit with which characters like Patton and Churchill ended WW2. Full of desire to rearm nazi Germany to go back to fighting only Russia on the Eastern front! With what army after Berlin Batle it was never understood!? This after Russophobic invertebrates like Churchill spent the whole of WW2 crawling to Moscow crying for help! Where Stalin received him in an office with a trampoline.
Back to Barbarossa It's a myth, starting with the lack of reference to the nationalities that made up the Nazi army that invaded Russia in 1941! Basically from all over Europe. Germany alone never managed to mount the Barbarossa operation with only Wermarcht soldiers. Undoubtedly an alliance with even more nationalities than those fighting Moscow in Ukraine today. In many respects, a remake. Especially because if any army has also shown itself to be a worthy successor to the Wermacht in recent decades, it has undoubtedly been the US army. Both in terms of invasions and in terms of military doctrine and tactics such as blitzkrieg. All stemming from learning from Nazi officers after WWII. The ones that didn't die or went straight from the eastern front to madhouses! And the reason for an army with so many nationalities marching across the great European plain towards Moscow is the same as always, more than an anti-communist alliance in 1941 it was actually a Russophobic alliance!
Which brings me straight to the second point or second idea that also appears in the text according to which it seems that Moscow fed some illusion in WW2 that Hitler's final objective was not always Russia!!!! When Hitler hadn't said anything else in the last 20 years!!!! Since he wrote Mein Kampt in prison! The EU itself in 2019 use the same purposeful misinterpretation of the Molotov Pact to approve an infamous resolution blaming both Moscow and Nazi Germany for WW2?! 77 years after celebrating many times together in Normandy the victory over Nazi Germany! We will say today, very hypocritically! Perhaps as a thank you for the nation with the most dead and after Stalin had spent the entire 1930s trying to convince England to both stop the rearmament of Nazi Germany prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles! With money coming from all over the Anglo-Saxon world! Like Nazi Germany's submarine program which continued to receive funds from the US via Switzerland throughout WWII! Maybe that's why it is also today the only truly dangerous armed wing of all the US Armed Forces, without great antidotes like the current missiles for ducks like the aircraft carriers! Anglo-Saxon universe, namely the perfidious Albion that had already provoked the WWI because of the Tsar's approach to the cousin Kaiser! And cousin King George V watching ships disappear over the horizon with the Empire.
And back the EU infamy that is perceived today was already part of the anti-Russia propaganda for the current conflict. That is, to legitimize the provocation of the conflict by the US as well as all the anti-Russia measures that followed by the collective West. And two years later, in 2021, the EU stopped condemning the glorification of Nazism in the UN! Already after having also legitimized the 2014 coup in Ukraine, from which emerged a First Interim President, Oleksandr Turchinov, who the EU itself had already condemned in Parliament for being openly neo-Nazi!
And to demystify the Molotov-Ribentropp Non-Aggression Pact, which apparently may even have given Russia some illusion that it would not have to face Nazi Germany despite all of Russia's industrial efforts in the 1930s precisely to arm himself for this purpose, the very Poland also signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler before WWII!! That like the Russian Pact was already signed never to be fulfilled by both parties. Like thousands of pacts throughout history! The US is still tearing up the Disarmament Treaties it signed! And Germany and France dealt with the Minsk Accords as we know!
A pact that only came about after Moscow's intelligence realized that France and England had asked Hitler during the Munque Accords in 1938 to attack only Russia, which France and England turned a blind eye to! Russia, according to historians after the opening of the historical archives of the USSR, sought mainly two objectives with the Pact. Time to arm itself precisely against Nazi Germany given the industrial backwardness with which Russia entered the 20th century! In addition to the wear and tear of the Bolshevik Revolution and World War I, no one was less prepared for WWII than Russia!
And also to try to annul a "pilgrim idea" that still crosses the minds of Polish nationalists today! With which Russia was at war practically the entire period between the two WWA. Piłsudski's Intermarum Federation as a barrier between Russia and Western Europe as if today there was still a Russian Empire or USSR?! Indeed who reads Piłsudski's speeches today will notice many similarities with Zelensky's rhetoric about the great barrier to Russia. Probably written by the same Russophobic Anglo-Saxon intelligence that has also funded Banderas since the end of WWII! Intermarum barrier from Baltic Sea to Black Sea as it's also perceived by many fans in the US! That manipulate Rumsfeld's new Europe precisely as a barrier against Western Europe! Which it seems that only Western Europe doesn't understand! Even after Borrell admitted that the two main pillars of European growth in recent decades were Russian gas and trade with China! Even after the US blew up the Baltic gas pipelines!
And Hitler lost WWII in Russia in the same way that military personnel in the past were much more classified than a megalomaniac with a tiny mustache. Because Russia has always proved insurmountable at home! As confirmed today on Donbass. Where ironically most Nazi prisoners died in coal mines in the decade following the end of WWII! And of course a lot has to do with the dimension of Russia itself! Which is not quite a gas pump as some would have believe!
Excellent, Paulo. Thank you!
I appreciated your first two points especially!
"Undoubtedly an alliance with even more nationalities than those fighting Moscow in Ukraine today."
" it seems that Moscow fed some illusion in WW2 that Hitler's final objective was not always Russia!!!! When Hitler hadn't said anything else in the last 20 years!!!! Since writing Mein Kampt! The EU itself in 2019 use the same misinterpretation of the Molotov Pact to approve an infamous resolution blaming both Moscow and Nazi Germany for WW2?! "
'Instead of fighting a war of maneuver and movement (the type of war that Germany excelled at), they were now waging a battle of attrition, which was the sort of game that the Soviet Union was always going to win. ' And so to Ukraine...and Bakhmut.
Thank You, Big Serge. I had studied Operation Barbarossa in college, but a lot of that was the schemings of Hitler, Stalin and Churchill.
This is a unique presentation of the facts and implications, which defiy simpistic summation.
Thank you, again. The truth has no shortcuts.
Incredibly wise analysis. Indebted.
This is an absolutely fantastic piece!