7 ms·

...seriously, BBC? "War flick not historically accurate" is news now? Are we going to get an article this length for every similar film Hollywood has spat out?

kozak 10y ago
"1984 becoming reality" is actually the news. It's not about the movie as such. The bottom part of the article tells us about someone who it being severely fined for stating a well-known historical fact, because according to the official Russian propaganda, this well-known fact (USSR initiating the WW2 together with Germans) is not considered to be truth in Russia.
- offa 10y ago
  Am Russian, can confirm. I actually had an argument about that with a friend of mine a few days ago, in his eyes (and many other Russians both home and abroad) we are the ones who have saved the world while the Allies stood by and watched. The notion is deeply engrained in the Russian cultural memory now, and seeing how WW2 is still tremendously important to the majority of the population I do not see it changing any time soon.
  - EliRivers 10y ago
    How do they square this with the Soviet Union and their Nazi allies jointly invading Poland? Does that get glossed over? I recall that recently someone was in legal trouble in Russia for suggesting that the invasion of Poland was a joint effort between the Soviet Union and Germany.
    - konart 10y ago
      Usually people just don't think about this as they view Poland as almost "ours" territory. Same for baltics\ua etc. Not to mention that usually this is viewed not as invasion, but a needed act to stop Nazis.
  - shuntress 10y ago
    I do believe there is some truth to that. Its too complex to make a serious judgement that "The Russians could have won on their own". Though it does seem clear that making an enemy of Russia was a bigger mistake than making an enemy of the USA. The losses sustained by Russia during that time are absolutely staggering and probably contribute to the "Are you guys even helping at all?" line of thought.
    - Koshkin 10y ago
      It is easy to come to blaming others for something that is, to a high degree, one's own fault. Much of the losses sustained by the Soviets during the war were due to the pitiless practice of a forced sacrificing of soldiers' lives in trying to achieve military objectives. All sides were doing that, but nothing can be compared to the scale on which it was practiced by the Soviet military command.
      - emp_zealoth 10y ago
        Stalin also murdered a lot of competent officials/generals/officers (they were percieved a threat to his totalitarian power) so the military in big part was run by people who didn't know any better...doesn't excuse the massive losses ofc
      - wbl 10y ago
        And the alternative would be to have the line break. The Germans were within miles of all of of Moscow, besieged Leningrad for months, and we all know about Stalingrad and the attempt to cross the Volga. Losing would have unthinkable consequences, and the casualties were also due to German executions of POWs.
        ptaipale 10y ago
        It was not always just desperately holding the line. There was definitely an aspect of actually exterminating unwanted elements by sending them to missions that couldn't be accomplished or which could only be accomplished through overwhelming losses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtrafbat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtrafbat
  - Koshkin 10y ago
    > stood by and watched I don't know where you got that. You should read up on the history of the war and learn a bit about all the fierce fighting in Western Europe (including the time when the Soviets were being friends of Hitler's).
    - watt 10y ago
      This [lie] is what was taught in Soviet schools. That's where he (and all other Russians) got that.
      - quirkafleeg 10y ago
        > This [lie] is what was taught in Soviet schools. That's where he (and all other Russians) got that. Do you have a source for that claim, because I find it unlikely that Soviet schools taught that their wartime allies just "stood back and watched" during WWII. I find it more likely that the Soviets simply focused on their own experience of WWII, exactly as every other country involved does. For example, I seriously doubt much time, if any, was given in Cold War American schools to the effort and sacrifice of the Soviet Union in defeating Hitler. Indeed, given the way Americans (and American movies) love to portray the USA as saving everyone's ass in WWII, it wouldn't surprise me if every country other than the USA is largely ignored in American teaching on WWII.
        Koshkin 10y ago
        A book by Antony Bevoor seems to be a pretty balanced account of most of the more or less important events - balanced, as evidenced from the outrage by many reviewers, both American and Russian. Highly recommended as a well-written introductory text on the history of the war.
        ptaipale 10y ago
        Yes, "lie" is a strong word here, and Soviets focused on their own experience, but still the teaching of that focus was somewhat selective. Naturally Soviet schools did put a lot weight on the sacrifices of Soviet soldiers to battle Germany. That is reasonable. But they stayed very quiet about other aspects of the suffering of Soviets and others. I mean things like: - the happy co-operation of Nazis and Soviets prior to the war (e.g. providing training grounds for Panzers, teaching Nazis how to run an extermination camp) - the secret protocol of Molotov-Ribbentrob pact (spheres of influence dividing Poland, Baltic countries and Finland) - the invasions to Poland, Baltics and Finland (common parade in Brest-Litovsk, staged shelling at Mainila to start Winter War) - the massacre of Polish officers and intelligentsia (Katyn Forest and Vasili Blokhin's work) - overall, the magnitude of the Great Purges and the GULAG It's not strictly speaking a lie that teaching was silent about these. But selecting what facts you talk about and what you don't talk about effectively denies truth. Particularly when there is little freedom of press and other ways to complement the knowledge after what was taught at school. Yes, of course other nations have similar blind spots; those of the Soviet system just were rather large spots, comparatively.
  - tezza 10y ago
    Whilst the Allies were very active participants, WW2 was in the end won by overwhelming Russian force. The Allies like to fancy themselves as the saviors, but without Russia fighting back the war would have gone the other way.
    - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
      Remove any of the major participants from the winning side and the war likely would have gone the other way.
      - noonespecial 10y ago
        Its a kind of category error I see all the time: Couldn't have done it without me != All because of me.
      - gozur88 10y ago
        I'm not convinced the Russians couldn't have done it on their own provided you don't take the conflict between the US and Japan out of the equation, i.e. that Japan didn't attack Vladivostok as Hitler was pushing them to do.
        TheCoelacanth 10y ago
        First of all, Russia wouldn't have had a prayer without the non-Russian parts of the USSR. The USSR could maybe have done it without help from ground combat troops from other countries. They definitely couldn't have done it without any help at all. Without the UK's navy cutting off Axis shipping and without aerial warfare against the UK eating up a huge amount of resources, there would have been far more resources committed to the war against the USSR. Without lend-lease from the US, the USSR would have had extreme shortages of equipment.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  > "1984 becoming reality" is actually the news. The book was mainly inspired by the Soviet Union and China. Russia acting this way is more news in the "let's not forget" sense than in the "new" sense.
  - quirkafleeg 10y ago
    Actually 1984 was inspired by a book written (and banned) in Soviet Russia, We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
- open_bear 10y ago
  Official propaganda exists in every country: you don't see Britain or France of Poland taking blame for letting Hitler run amok in Europe, do you? It's always the "Commies". Just a quick historical recap of what was happening prior to the September the 1st, 1939. After Hitler comes to power and starts hidden re-militarization of the Germany, Britain, France and Poland do nothing, silently looking how American and Sweden companies are building guns and ships for the Germany. In 1938 Hitler demands control of the Sudetenland(part of Czechoslovakia). USSR starts negotiations with Britain, France and Poland willing to use army to protect Czechoslovakia. Poland refuses to let Soviet troops through its territory. Negotiations are artificially prolonged by Britain. Munich agreement is signed by the Britain, France and Germany, and Hitler gets a nice gift in a form of Czechoslovakia (you never see Britain and France talking about this, do you?). On the 1st of September, 1939, Hitler invades Poland (Britain and France did not help their 'ally' in the slightest). USSR invades Poland 16 days later, when Poland ceased to exist as a sovereign state. There were two pragmatic choices for the USSR: let Germany capture all the Poland and have their border be right at the gate, or prepare for the inevitable war with the Germany by capturing additional territory. No one in the USSR believed that Hitler will be a nice neighbor - there were a lot of information available on the Germany's descent into Nazism. There is a similar story with Finland: USSR wanted to move their border further from the Leningrad (it was ~10-20 kilometers), because Leningrad is a major industrial center. USSR pragmatically wanted to trade territory with Finland, giving them a lot of land in exchange for that border shift. Finland refused. USSR was left with two choices: leave the border near your second largest city for an inevitable war (Finland was pro-Nazi) or solve this problem while Hitler is busy with France.
  - flukus 10y ago
    I always see the appeasement get blamed, not the commies.
  - dutchie_ok 10y ago
    And it had nothing to do with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... :]

kozak 10y ago

"1984 becoming reality" is actually the news. It's not about the movie as such. The bottom part of the article tells us about someone who it being severely fined for stating a well-known historical fact, because according to the official Russian propaganda, this well-known fact (USSR initiating the WW2 together with Germans) is not considered to be truth in Russia.

offa 10y ago
Am Russian, can confirm. I actually had an argument about that with a friend of mine a few days ago, in his eyes (and many other Russians both home and abroad) we are the ones who have saved the world while the Allies stood by and watched. The notion is deeply engrained in the Russian cultural memory now, and seeing how WW2 is still tremendously important to the majority of the population I do not see it changing any time soon.
- EliRivers 10y ago
  How do they square this with the Soviet Union and their Nazi allies jointly invading Poland? Does that get glossed over? I recall that recently someone was in legal trouble in Russia for suggesting that the invasion of Poland was a joint effort between the Soviet Union and Germany.
  - konart 10y ago
    Usually people just don't think about this as they view Poland as almost "ours" territory. Same for baltics\ua etc. Not to mention that usually this is viewed not as invasion, but a needed act to stop Nazis.
- shuntress 10y ago
  I do believe there is some truth to that. Its too complex to make a serious judgement that "The Russians could have won on their own". Though it does seem clear that making an enemy of Russia was a bigger mistake than making an enemy of the USA. The losses sustained by Russia during that time are absolutely staggering and probably contribute to the "Are you guys even helping at all?" line of thought.
  - Koshkin 10y ago
    It is easy to come to blaming others for something that is, to a high degree, one's own fault. Much of the losses sustained by the Soviets during the war were due to the pitiless practice of a forced sacrificing of soldiers' lives in trying to achieve military objectives. All sides were doing that, but nothing can be compared to the scale on which it was practiced by the Soviet military command.
    - emp_zealoth 10y ago
      Stalin also murdered a lot of competent officials/generals/officers (they were percieved a threat to his totalitarian power) so the military in big part was run by people who didn't know any better...doesn't excuse the massive losses ofc
    - wbl 10y ago
      And the alternative would be to have the line break. The Germans were within miles of all of of Moscow, besieged Leningrad for months, and we all know about Stalingrad and the attempt to cross the Volga. Losing would have unthinkable consequences, and the casualties were also due to German executions of POWs.
      - ptaipale 10y ago
        It was not always just desperately holding the line. There was definitely an aspect of actually exterminating unwanted elements by sending them to missions that couldn't be accomplished or which could only be accomplished through overwhelming losses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtrafbat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtrafbat
- Koshkin 10y ago
  > stood by and watched I don't know where you got that. You should read up on the history of the war and learn a bit about all the fierce fighting in Western Europe (including the time when the Soviets were being friends of Hitler's).
  - watt 10y ago
    This [lie] is what was taught in Soviet schools. That's where he (and all other Russians) got that.
    - quirkafleeg 10y ago
      > This [lie] is what was taught in Soviet schools. That's where he (and all other Russians) got that. Do you have a source for that claim, because I find it unlikely that Soviet schools taught that their wartime allies just "stood back and watched" during WWII. I find it more likely that the Soviets simply focused on their own experience of WWII, exactly as every other country involved does. For example, I seriously doubt much time, if any, was given in Cold War American schools to the effort and sacrifice of the Soviet Union in defeating Hitler. Indeed, given the way Americans (and American movies) love to portray the USA as saving everyone's ass in WWII, it wouldn't surprise me if every country other than the USA is largely ignored in American teaching on WWII.
      - Koshkin 10y ago
        A book by Antony Bevoor seems to be a pretty balanced account of most of the more or less important events - balanced, as evidenced from the outrage by many reviewers, both American and Russian. Highly recommended as a well-written introductory text on the history of the war.
      - ptaipale 10y ago
        Yes, "lie" is a strong word here, and Soviets focused on their own experience, but still the teaching of that focus was somewhat selective. Naturally Soviet schools did put a lot weight on the sacrifices of Soviet soldiers to battle Germany. That is reasonable. But they stayed very quiet about other aspects of the suffering of Soviets and others. I mean things like: - the happy co-operation of Nazis and Soviets prior to the war (e.g. providing training grounds for Panzers, teaching Nazis how to run an extermination camp) - the secret protocol of Molotov-Ribbentrob pact (spheres of influence dividing Poland, Baltic countries and Finland) - the invasions to Poland, Baltics and Finland (common parade in Brest-Litovsk, staged shelling at Mainila to start Winter War) - the massacre of Polish officers and intelligentsia (Katyn Forest and Vasili Blokhin's work) - overall, the magnitude of the Great Purges and the GULAG It's not strictly speaking a lie that teaching was silent about these. But selecting what facts you talk about and what you don't talk about effectively denies truth. Particularly when there is little freedom of press and other ways to complement the knowledge after what was taught at school. Yes, of course other nations have similar blind spots; those of the Soviet system just were rather large spots, comparatively.
- tezza 10y ago
  Whilst the Allies were very active participants, WW2 was in the end won by overwhelming Russian force. The Allies like to fancy themselves as the saviors, but without Russia fighting back the war would have gone the other way.
  - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    Remove any of the major participants from the winning side and the war likely would have gone the other way.
    - noonespecial 10y ago
      Its a kind of category error I see all the time: Couldn't have done it without me != All because of me.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      I'm not convinced the Russians couldn't have done it on their own provided you don't take the conflict between the US and Japan out of the equation, i.e. that Japan didn't attack Vladivostok as Hitler was pushing them to do.
      - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
        First of all, Russia wouldn't have had a prayer without the non-Russian parts of the USSR. The USSR could maybe have done it without help from ground combat troops from other countries. They definitely couldn't have done it without any help at all. Without the UK's navy cutting off Axis shipping and without aerial warfare against the UK eating up a huge amount of resources, there would have been far more resources committed to the war against the USSR. Without lend-lease from the US, the USSR would have had extreme shortages of equipment.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
marcosdumay 10y ago
> "1984 becoming reality" is actually the news. The book was mainly inspired by the Soviet Union and China. Russia acting this way is more news in the "let's not forget" sense than in the "new" sense.
- quirkafleeg 10y ago
  Actually 1984 was inspired by a book written (and banned) in Soviet Russia, We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
open_bear 10y ago
Official propaganda exists in every country: you don't see Britain or France of Poland taking blame for letting Hitler run amok in Europe, do you? It's always the "Commies". Just a quick historical recap of what was happening prior to the September the 1st, 1939. After Hitler comes to power and starts hidden re-militarization of the Germany, Britain, France and Poland do nothing, silently looking how American and Sweden companies are building guns and ships for the Germany. In 1938 Hitler demands control of the Sudetenland(part of Czechoslovakia). USSR starts negotiations with Britain, France and Poland willing to use army to protect Czechoslovakia. Poland refuses to let Soviet troops through its territory. Negotiations are artificially prolonged by Britain. Munich agreement is signed by the Britain, France and Germany, and Hitler gets a nice gift in a form of Czechoslovakia (you never see Britain and France talking about this, do you?). On the 1st of September, 1939, Hitler invades Poland (Britain and France did not help their 'ally' in the slightest). USSR invades Poland 16 days later, when Poland ceased to exist as a sovereign state. There were two pragmatic choices for the USSR: let Germany capture all the Poland and have their border be right at the gate, or prepare for the inevitable war with the Germany by capturing additional territory. No one in the USSR believed that Hitler will be a nice neighbor - there were a lot of information available on the Germany's descent into Nazism. There is a similar story with Finland: USSR wanted to move their border further from the Leningrad (it was ~10-20 kilometers), because Leningrad is a major industrial center. USSR pragmatically wanted to trade territory with Finland, giving them a lot of land in exchange for that border shift. Finland refused. USSR was left with two choices: leave the border near your second largest city for an inevitable war (Finland was pro-Nazi) or solve this problem while Hitler is busy with France.
- flukus 10y ago
  I always see the appeasement get blamed, not the commies.
- dutchie_ok 10y ago
  And it had nothing to do with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... :]