Skip to content
  • Categories
  • Recent
  • Tags
  • Popular
  • Users
  • Groups
Skins
  • Light
  • Cerulean
  • Cosmo
  • Flatly
  • Journal
  • Litera
  • Lumen
  • Lux
  • Materia
  • Minty
  • Morph
  • Pulse
  • Sandstone
  • Simplex
  • Sketchy
  • Spacelab
  • United
  • Yeti
  • Zephyr
  • Dark
  • Cyborg
  • Darkly
  • Quartz
  • Slate
  • Solar
  • Superhero
  • Vapor

  • Default (No Skin)
  • No Skin
Collapse

The New Coffee Room

  1. TNCR
  2. General Discussion
  3. The U.S.-Soviet World War II Alliance: an Overlooked Legacy?

The U.S.-Soviet World War II Alliance: an Overlooked Legacy?

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General Discussion
13 Posts 7 Posters 135 Views
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as topic
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
  • A Offline
    A Offline
    Aqua Letifer
    wrote on 24 May 2021, 18:02 last edited by
    #2

    Saving an audio version to listen to later. Good find.

    Please love yourself.

    1 Reply Last reply
    • R Offline
      R Offline
      Rainman
      wrote on 24 May 2021, 18:29 last edited by
      #3

      Just started it, and will watch this evening.
      Hey, did you notice how many books that guy had?
      That's like, he must be like mucho smart or something.

      1 Reply Last reply
      • M Offline
        M Offline
        Mik
        wrote on 24 May 2021, 18:29 last edited by
        #4

        For whatever conflicts remain, I should think the Russia is more concerned with China than the US.

        “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill

        R 1 Reply Last reply 27 May 2021, 12:23
        • M Offline
          M Offline
          Mik
          wrote on 25 May 2021, 14:26 last edited by Mik
          #5

          I'm a bout 15 minutes in. Kotkin's theses about the fragility and frankly luck of the Allies vs. Axis are very interesting. I so miss my political science classes and case studies in college. always my favorite.

          “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill

          1 Reply Last reply
          • M Offline
            M Offline
            Mik
            wrote on 25 May 2021, 15:28 last edited by
            #6

            Lots of interesting perceptions there. Notably the way history does not seem to inform American political thinking at all, and how it very much does in Russia, and with good reason.

            I also appreciate that the much reviled Chamberlin understood that an alliance with the Soviets would inevitably put the USSR in Eastern Europe, and how would they get them out. I had never heard that before.

            “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill

            R 1 Reply Last reply 25 May 2021, 16:53
            • M Mik
              25 May 2021, 15:28

              Lots of interesting perceptions there. Notably the way history does not seem to inform American political thinking at all, and how it very much does in Russia, and with good reason.

              I also appreciate that the much reviled Chamberlin understood that an alliance with the Soviets would inevitably put the USSR in Eastern Europe, and how would they get them out. I had never heard that before.

              R Offline
              R Offline
              Renauda
              wrote on 25 May 2021, 16:53 last edited by
              #7

              @mik said in The U.S.-Soviet World War II Alliance: an Overlooked Legacy?:

              Notably the way history does not seem to inform American political thinking at all, and how it very much does in Russia, and with good reason.

              I agree and it is a valid observation. One of the first points my undergraduate Soviet History prof made when introducing his course back in the 1970's was that Russians sleep with a history book under their pillow and their perception of the surrounding world is shaped accordingly.

              I have been saving my copy of Kotkin's Stalin: Wating for Hitler, vol. II until his third volume is published. Now that it is clear that the latter won't be available until late autumn 2023 ( I was hoping this year) I think I'll read it. I too am curious about his point about Chamberlain, although I believe British historian, Andrew Roberts, has also made that statement. I read Kotkin's volume I Stalin: Paradoxes of Power last winter and found it very well written and researched ( Kotkin's access to Russian primary source material is a first for foreign scholars). Perhaps the best biography of Stalin to date in English.

              Elbows up!

              1 Reply Last reply
              • M Offline
                M Offline
                Mik
                wrote on 25 May 2021, 17:23 last edited by
                #8

                I cannot help but wonder what this country would be like had it endured the privations the USSR did.

                We are just led to believe Chamberlin was a fool and a coward.

                “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill

                D 1 Reply Last reply 25 May 2021, 17:34
                • M Mik
                  25 May 2021, 17:23

                  I cannot help but wonder what this country would be like had it endured the privations the USSR did.

                  We are just led to believe Chamberlin was a fool and a coward.

                  D Offline
                  D Offline
                  Doctor Phibes
                  wrote on 25 May 2021, 17:34 last edited by
                  #9

                  @mik said in The U.S.-Soviet World War II Alliance: an Overlooked Legacy?:

                  We are just led to believe Chamberlin was a fool and a coward.

                  I've never bought that. Half the people calling him an idiot later were cheering their asses off when he came back from Munich.

                  I have also wondered how much of an effect Chamberlain's health had on his ability to function - similarly to FDR at Yalta, he can't have been firing on all cylinders when he died so soon after.

                  I was only joking

                  R 1 Reply Last reply 25 May 2021, 21:27
                  • D Doctor Phibes
                    25 May 2021, 17:34

                    @mik said in The U.S.-Soviet World War II Alliance: an Overlooked Legacy?:

                    We are just led to believe Chamberlin was a fool and a coward.

                    I've never bought that. Half the people calling him an idiot later were cheering their asses off when he came back from Munich.

                    I have also wondered how much of an effect Chamberlain's health had on his ability to function - similarly to FDR at Yalta, he can't have been firing on all cylinders when he died so soon after.

                    R Offline
                    R Offline
                    Renauda
                    wrote on 25 May 2021, 21:27 last edited by Renauda
                    #10

                    @doctor-phibes

                    I don't think Chamberlain's health was an issue at Munich. In fact I think he was quite functional right up to the time he resigned from Churchill's War Cabinet. Certainly Churchill relied on his advice and Chamberlain supported the PM along with Atlee against Halifax and others who wanted to take up Mussolini's offers to broker a peace deal when it became obvious France was going to fall to the Nazis. As well it is also too often overlooked that it was under Chamberlain's watch as PM that all efforts were put towards aircraft production and preparing the RAF for war against Germany. This was a complete reversal of the wait and see policies under his predecessor, Stanley Baldwin.

                    I suspect Kotkin is a lot closer to the truth about Chamberlain. He saw Germany and France as the only continental powers capable of acting as a counterbalance to the USSR. At the same time though he was aware of France's limitations to sustain any sort of military operation despite its strength on paper. Chamberlain was therefore astute enough to know that Britain needed to focus its attention on sea and air power in the very real event France would falter. As such when Churchill was invited back into cabinet much of the policy was already in place and under early implementation to hold off Germany and keep its armies on the continent.

                    Elbows up!

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    • C Offline
                      C Offline
                      Copper
                      wrote on 25 May 2021, 22:09 last edited by
                      #11

                      The spot where this well known picture was taken is now a golf course.

                      I've played there, it is called Air Links.

                      ![alt text](c8fb97b9-b8d0-4830-8d9c-1afd7dbb8e2c-image.png image url)

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      • M Mik
                        24 May 2021, 18:29

                        For whatever conflicts remain, I should think the Russia is more concerned with China than the US.

                        R Offline
                        R Offline
                        Renauda
                        wrote on 27 May 2021, 12:23 last edited by
                        #12

                        @mik said in The U.S.-Soviet World War II Alliance: an Overlooked Legacy?:

                        For whatever conflicts remain, I should think the Russia is more concerned with China than the US.

                        Don't be too sure. Russia is culturally and socially Western. At the same time however its political values are Asian.

                        Elbows up!

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        • J Online
                          J Online
                          jon-nyc
                          wrote on 28 May 2021, 00:15 last edited by
                          #13

                          Thanks for posting this. I met Kotkin once at an academic conference. Loved his short book on the fall of the Soviet Union.

                          Only non-witches get due process.

                          • Cotton Mather, Salem Massachusetts, 1692
                          1 Reply Last reply
                          Reply
                          • Reply as topic
                          Log in to reply
                          • Oldest to Newest
                          • Newest to Oldest
                          • Most Votes

                          11/13

                          25 May 2021, 22:09


                          • Login

                          • Don't have an account? Register

                          • Login or register to search.
                          11 out of 13
                          • First post
                            11/13
                            Last post
                          0
                          • Categories
                          • Recent
                          • Tags
                          • Popular
                          • Users
                          • Groups