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> A blindness towards the realities of the USSR was common amongst the highly educated at that time. There's a reason the west had such huge problems with weste
by pdonis 3y ago
> A blindness towards the realities of the USSR was common amongst the highly educated at that time. There's a reason the west had such huge problems with westerners becoming Soviet double agents
It was even worse than that. Both the British governments under Chamberlain and Churchill and the US government under FDR sympathized with the USSR. There were continuous sub rosa contacts going on (for example, FDR regularly sent emissaries like Harry Hopkins over to Moscow to confer with Stalin) that were, while not publicly known, officially sanctioned. This was why the USSR was able to end up in control of all of Eastern Europe after WWII--which to any objective observer meant that WWII failed to achieve its primary goal in Europe, which was to liberate Eastern Europe from tyranny. But nobody made any such criticism at the time; the USSR was praised as an ally even while they were shipping millions of Germans and Eastern Europeans to labor camps.
- nvm0n2 3y agoHm was that the primary goal? I thought the primary goal (of the Allies) was to defeat the Axis powers because they were directly attacking the UK and USA. Liberating France and other parts of western Europe was just a requirement of getting to Berlin.
- pdonis 3y ago> was that the primary goal? Yes. The reason Britain and France declared war on Germany was that Germany invaded Poland and Britain and France had treaty commitments to defend Poland. (They also had treaty commitments to defend other Eastern European countries, which they decided not to honor when Germany invaded those countries before it invaded Poland, but that was because their governments erroneously believed that Hitler would stop invading countries if they appeased him.) > I thought the primary goal (of the Allies) was to defeat the Axis powers because they were directly attacking the UK and USA. Germany never directly attacked the US. (Japan did later on, but that was on their own initiative; they never discussed any overall war plans with Germany.) And when Britain and France declared war on Germany, Germany had not attacked Britain or France either. As I said above, they declared war when Germany invaded Poland.
- nvm0n2 3y agoFair points! I did say Axis powers (to include Japan). I think though, that the average Brit did not care so much about Poland. It was clear by that point that Hitler intended to take all of Europe and the exact event that triggered it was maybe not so important. After all it's not like France was wrong to declare war - it was obvious that they were going to be next.
- pdonis 3y ago> the average Brit did not care so much about Poland After the Nazis invaded France, I expect that's true, yes. But before that the only reason for Britain to be fighting was over Poland. > it's not like France was wrong to declare war - it was obvious that they were going to be next No, it wasn't at all obvious. Hitler's stated purpose, going as far back as Mein Kampf, was that Germany should expand to the east. His decision to move west instead was rather sudden and surprised a lot of his own advisors. And didn't happen until eight months after Britain and France declared war (the intervening period was called the "Phoney War" even at the time).
- nvm0n2 3y agoOK, thanks for the corrections!