What is everyone’s thoughts on this? I think this kind of self-criticism and nuance is valuable, and a worthwhile exercise.

But I think it suffers from a framing problem. After presenting the nuances of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, re: Poland. Bad-mouse says “If you’re hearing this and thinking ‘anti-communism’ you’re missing the point”.

But I don’t get that impression from the facts, I get that impression from the way the facts are being framed. The facts are the facts, and we can, and should, have a fruitful, nuanced, discussion as to how the Soviet Union handled the national question in this period, whether the taking of certain parts of Poland after WW2 was just, relations with the Baltic states, etc.

But this isn’t framed in that way. It’s framed in an almost ultra-left, social-imperialism way, which is what leads me to react to this as anti-communist.

The Soviets anexxing a chunk of eastern Poland that roughly corresponded to what Imperial Russia took in the Third Partition should raise some eyebrows. For instance, it might lead us to ask how a socialist state, formed from a formerly feudal land empire might unwittingly inherit some forms of that old logic.

But that act, in and of itself, is not imperialism. It doesn’t match Lenin’s definition. Which, if we’re doing leftist criticism, we should be using as some kind of standard. Calling it imperialism feels disingenuous.

  • Lemmygradwontallowme [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    29·
    6 days ago

    Well, there was a GenZedong post about it

    10 reasons why the molotov-ribbentrop pact was good, actually

    1. The USSR tried to form an anti-fascist alliance with Britain and France but they refused

    2. Many countries in Europe (Poland, Rumania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Italy, Denmark, Britain, and France) made non-aggression agreements/military alliances with Germany months before the Soviets did

    3. The Polish territories occupied by the Soviets in 1939 were previously part of the Belarussian and Ukrainian SSRs until Piłsudski decided to attack them during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919

    4. Interwar Poland and Finland were fascist dictatorships with concentration camps like the Bereza-Kartuska Prison or the East Karelian concentration camps

    5. The Polish territories occupied by the Soviets in 1939 were not majority Polish (rather Ukrainian, Belarussian, Jewish, Lithuanian, etc.); these minorities within Poland were being oppressed by the Polish state

    6. Poland took part in the partitioning of Lithuania and Czechoslovakia; the USSR returned some of the land like Vilnius to Lithuania

    7. The Polish Government had already fled the country via the Rumanian Bridgehead by the time that the Soviets intervened; so the Polish State literally did not exist

    8. Hitler publicly admitted in a Berlin speech on 3 October 1941 that he was embarrassed that he made the agreement

    9. Socialism good, you can’t criticise Stalin for socialism in one country while simultaneously criticising him for his expansionism

    10.The most important reason of them all, it was preferable to giving the Nazis all of Poland. Did you know that of the 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust, over 3 million of them were Polish? The Soviet interventions in Poland, the Baltics, Rumania, Finland, and so on saved possibly millions of lives

    response to the responses to “10 reasons why the molotov-ribbentrop pact was good, actually”

    original post here (could’ve been clearer about what i meant with some of the points but oh well, too late now)

    about a week ago i posted a list of reasons why i thought the molotov-ribbentrop agreement was the right decision to make, at least by august 1939. i received a few replies in my dms and my post was even put on ShitWehraboosSay (an otherwise based sub). i want to respond to some of the points that were made in response to my list

    “The agreement didn’t prevent the Holocaust” That is correct. Millions were still killed, and millions of them were Polish. Point Nr. 10 wasn’t that it prevented the murder of Poles, but that it reduced the amount that would’ve been murdered had the Soviet invasion not have happened

    “Point Nr. 1 about the antifascist alliance is mute because of Soviet demands” How, exactly? One user said that the Soviets “demanded” military access from Poland in their mid-1939 alliance and acted as if this was an outlandish thing that ought to have been rejected. Of course, it was less of a demand and more just basic common sense. How are you supposed to send an army to fight someone when you have no common border with your enemy?

    “The Soviets still traded with the Nazis” True, the Soviets did trade grain and natural resources with the Nazis, but this was in return for weapons and industrial machinery which the Soviets would later use during the Great Patriotic War. Plus, most German oil was synthetically-made or came from Romanian oil fields, not the USSR.

    “The Franco-German Non-Aggression Agreement is different because they were trying to avoid war” So were the Soviets? Or at the very least, the Soviets were trying to postpone a war. In truth, the Western Allies wanted the Nazis to invade the USSR. They wanted the Nazis to murder all the socialists and Slavs. Harry Truman, then a Senator and later President during the final year of the war said it himself in 1941: “If […] Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible”

    “Point Nr. 3 is ethnic determinism” Not really. the point was that the land belonged to the same government that the Polish Republic had just attacked, not that it was “majority this ethnicity” or whatever you think it means. I could care less about the ethnicity of a region. If someone attacks/steals from you for no good reason, then you have a right to fight back/take back what’s yours. Especially if it is in recent memory (as the Polish-Soviet War of 1919 was). To equate this to some nationalist who bases their entire identity on the piece of rock they were born on, wanting other people’s land because it was inhabited hundreds if not thousands of years ago by an entirely different people that happened to have the same name as theirs’ is ridiculous

    “Gulags existed, so the point about concentration camps in Interwar Poland is invalid” For the millionth time Gulags were nothing more than prison labour. This could’ve been found in any country in the world at the time, at least in some capacity, and still exists in some First World nations even today

    “Point Nr. 5 is invalid because Vilnius was majority Polish too” My point wasn’t that these regions were majority-x ethnicity, but that the people here (who were majority Lithuanian, Jewish, Ukrainian, etc.) were being oppressed for their ethnicity. Bad wording on my part

    “Point Nr. 7 is invalid because they were busy fighting the Germans” Except they weren’t. They had already abandoned their land, their people, and their army as I said. And governments-in-exile really only mean anything if they have some level of recognition and are restored soon after the conflict is over. Remind me, when did the Polish government-in-exile “regain power?” Oh right, almost 45 years after the war had ended when most of the leaders were straight-up dead or too old to rule. they basically just endorsed the modern Polish government, and that was the end of it

    “Hitler expressing shame that he made the agreement is irrelevant” Is it though? It shows that neither Hitler nor the Soviets wanted to make the agreement and that it was merely an “alliance of convenience.” And if you don’t believe me and want to hear it from the horse’s mouth, then here’s the speech from a Nazi newspaper (although 99% of what Nazis say is BS if we’re being honest)

    “Point Nr. 9 is invalid because it’s justifying the deaths of hundreds of thousands” but it isn’t? I didn’t say that “it was done in the name of socialism, therefore it’s okay.” I said people criticise him when he does do something and then they criticise him when he doesn’t, and they can’t have it both ways

    “Point Nr. 10 is invalid because the Nazis took all of Poland anyways” Again, how? Either I worded it poorly or you deliberately misinterpreted what I said, because my argument wasn’t that “it prevented them from taking all of Poland period.” It was "It prevented them from taking all of Poland from the start, allowing for the Soviets to evacuate millions of Poles and reducing the amount that were murdered by the Nazi regime

    you’re insane for taking the time to read this