<<I really doubt that the land grabs of Stalin had anything to do with defense , if Stalin were interested in Defense he might not have armed and trained the German Panzer forces and air forces with equipment and training grounds in Soviet territory. >>
The training program you are referring to began during the time of the Weimar Republic and was not renewed when it terminated some time in the mid 1930s. The so-called "land grab" occurred in 1939, by which time Stalin's ideas on defence had evolved considerably, as had the ideas of every other European leader.
<<Perhaps he might have avoided killing half of his officer corps in purges for the sake of political purity , at the cost of getting rid of most of his well educated officers.>>
I don't know where you get this "half the officer corps" bullshit - - probably the same anti-Soviet garbage that accuses Stalin of "millions" of murders - - but in fact the trial of Marshal Tukhashevsky proved clearly that Stalin had every reason to fear a coup from the officer corps and probably led by Tukhashevsky, although there is some indication now that the Marshal MAY have been framed by German intelligence. No one will ever know. In any event, there is no inconsistency between a desire to defend the Motherland by force of arms and a desire to avoid a military coup. The two are not only mutually compatible, but good policy as well.
<<No even the Polish and Finnish territory taken was useless for defense because no defense was prepared there. >>
Nonsense. The frontiers were re-located accordingly once the land was secured, and defended in accordance with whatever the general defence plan of the USSR prescribed for the frontiers. Why wouldn't they be?
<<The Red Army instead got busy carrying out its orders to consolidate dominance of the locals>>
I'm SHOCKED. An occupying army that consolidates its dominance of the locals. What an amazing concept. Obviously at odds with the idea of adding land as a buffer to an attack.
<< , in Poland this amounted to killing most of the well educated.>>
Who by some strange twist of fate happened to come from the aristocratic and haute-bourgeoisie classes and were fervently anti-Communist and anti-Russian. What Stalin SHOULD have done, obviously, was teach them all to sing the Russian version of
Kumbayah, then they could have held hands together and swayed to the beat.
<<At wars end, We should have treated France the way that the Soviet Union treated Poland and Chezhoslovachia?>>
I know, that's
sarcasm. Based on the idea that the USSR was just
beastly and
horrid to Poland and Czechoslovakia, right? Well here's a news flash for ya, plane -- - they weren't anywhere near as beastly and horrid as America was to the Vietnamese. Never dropped napalm or WP on them, that's for God-damn sure. Never killed millions of 'em. Never put 'em in tiger cages. I never saw a Polack burning himself alive to protest the Soviet occupation. Never saw a Czech prisoner thrown out of a helicopter.
<<Perhaps we should have treated Austria the way the Soviet union treated Hungary?They all participated in Natzi works and fighting but the excuse is hollow.>>
Oh, the excuse is hollow, eh? And I suppose that comes out of your vast knowledge of the Nazi occupation of the USSR, in which the Hungarian army was a full-fledged participant? Maybe you should take a look at this, plane, read it to the end if you can, it's an account of the Nazi occupation, and THEN tell me how "hollow" the excuse is, in your esteemed opinion:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1942/420106b.html<<After the war the us and the Allies underwent a massive return to civilian activity . . . >>
Huh? They DID??? I musta bin living on another planet or something. In the world
I lived in, the Selective Service Act was allowed to run its original term to one or two years after the end of the war and then extended into a permanent peace-time draft.
<<the Soviet Union could have got into the business of recovery full force the way the Allies did. >>
Yeah, sure, while the U.S. continued to enforce its Selective Service Act, which was enacted in 1940 expressly to prepare for WWII,
after WWII was all over.
<<There was no preparation at the end of the war to invade the Soviet Union >>
I don't think that would have been a good idea. There WAS this little thing called the atom bomb though, something that America had a monopoly on at the time, and just
wouldn't give up. Sure woulda made ME nervous, if I were Uncle Joe. Considering the hostility to Communism so prevalent in American ruling class circles. And not unknown in the American military either, as General Patton's example clearly proves.
<<none at all , the imperialism of the Soviet union is unexcused by anything but greed.>>
It was perfectly natural for the Red Army to lend assistance to local anti-fascist Resistance leaders, many of whom were in fact Communists or socialists, when they came into conflict with surviving collaborators who had served the Nazis in the course of the war. The USSR was not going to fight an exhausting war on Nazi Germany, only to be stabbed in the back after the war by Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian or other fascist collaborators who would like nothing better than to be allowed to sabotage the Revolution and set up "nationalist" parties to continue the Nazi project of fascist rule and killing off whatever local Jews were still left alive. A lot of Red Army men and women were raised on slogans like "Death to Fascism" and when they said it they meant it.
