[Koshkin]

> 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).

[berntb]

He didn't write that he believed that.

The ones that stood by and watched were us Swedes, btw. Sitting in the middle between Hitler and Stalin, you tried to do that... but it worked just for a few. (If Sweden should had joined the war, should they have fought with Norway/Denmark -- or with Finland?)

Also, being Swedish and re historical lies... A bit of a tangent: The Swedish schools didn't tell us anything about the Polish view on the "Polish deluge". And the English schools missed the part about the "harrying of the north". Is there any country in the history of civilization that acknowledged the dark parts of their history, except the Germans?

[Edit: But covering up aspects of embarrassing history is of course something different than hate mongering towards the own population over old history, to make the present government more popular. (But that is a Swede talking, we prefer that our neighboring countries don't read too much history. Not that we have anything like Holodomor to cover up. Trust us. :-) ) ]

[ptaipale]

As a Finn whose father was on the front I say, not much to be embarrassed beyond acting in national interest. Thank you for the 8500 men in 1939-1940, 33 of whom were killed, and for the Svenska Frivilligbataljonen later.

(Plus thank you for the kind act of accepting thousands of small children as refugees, even if in the end it turned out to be not such a good idea to split families; the lesson is that don't do that as a temporary relief; if you must give children away, let them be adopted.)

[berntb]

Thousands? Around 70,000 children?

The Swedish organized force (not individual volunteers) for the Winter War was trained, organized and at the front just as the peace started, so they missed most of the blood letting.

We talk about sending a 1/3 of the Swedish military equipment, including of the air force. (Sadly not enough, the politicians had been doing downsizing defense -- just as they have now, when Putin is starting to act like Hitler in the 1930s.)

Wikipedia claimed this aid was the politicians' way of silencing a popular opinion that Sweden should do more. I don't really know. I do know that Swedes in general have no clue about the subject, after the education.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_support_of_Finland_in_...

Also, a disclaimer -- I am half Swedish and half Danish, with half the Swedish relatives from the Finn forests of Värmland. So I really don't have a horse in this race. (When Finns have problems with Swedes, I tell them about my relative in Norway 300 years ago, which became a general major by killing lots of "you damned Swedes and Finns". :-) )

[ptaipale]

Yes, it was a really significant thing, tightroping between how much Sweden can support Finland without becoming an outright adversary of USSR and its allies (first Nazi Germany, then Britain and USA).

[berntb]

Frankly, as a Swede that have a bit of insight into Finland -- I am still ashamed.

Sure, a third of the total military equipment must be something of a world record. But still.

[watt]

This [lie] is what was taught in Soviet schools. That's where he (and all other Russians) got that.

[quirkafleeg]

> 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.

[ptaipale]

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.

[quirkafleeg]

> 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)

Can you provide a source and/or further explanation for these two claims?

[ptaipale]

Sorry, "Nazis" should be replaced by "Germans" here, as the German re-armament started already before Nazis were actually in power -- the Soviet-German military co-operation started after the Rapallo treaty of 1922 and waned after 1932, to be reconciled at the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

However, it is quite well documented that the German re-armament, forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles, was largely made possible by this co-operation with USSR. It provided grounds for training armored forces in Soviet Union, allowed building and testing chemical weapons in Soviet test sites under German leadership, and had German aircraft tested in the USSR. The sources I read before this were not in English but after a quick Google one could start with e.g. http://www.feldgrau.com/ger-sov.html

It looks like "The Roots for Blitzkrieg" is an English presentation that I should read myself (thanks to prompting the search). https://www.amazon.com/Roots-Blitzkrieg-Seeckt-German-Milita...

The Germans visiting Soviet extermination camps is documented at least in "Kremlin kellot" ("The bells of the Kremlin") by Arvo Poika Tuominen (a Finnish Communist who worked for Komintern in 1933-1939 and spent quite some time observing the camps at the Baltic-White Sea Canal works and Solovki prison.) It's a pretty chilling read; the canal works were where the basic research for extermination via forced labour was done.

Solzhenitsyn then later provided a more well-known description of the GULAG.

[quirkafleeg]

> the Soviet-German military co-operation started after the Rapallo treaty of 1922 and waned after 1932

And the precise reason the co-operation "waned" was the rise of the Nazis. IOW, what happened was the complete opposite of what you claimed happened.

> it is quite well documented that the German re-armament, forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles, was largely made possible by this co-operation with USSR.

Pointing out co-operation between the USSR and Germany (not the Nazis) is one thing. Singling it out, in order to claim German re-armament was "largely made possible" due to the USSR simply doesn't hold up, and conveniently ignores the role of many other countries in German re-armament.

For example:

    In the important field of submarine warfare, Germany
    found a safe haven in Finland. [...] In addition to
    Finland, countries such as Japan, Spain, The Netherlands,
    Turkey, and Sweden helped German shipyards and the navy
    [...]
    In Germany's web of covert contacts, *Finland played
    a central role*.

From "Finnish-German Submarine Cooperation 1923-35" by Jason Lavery.

> to be reconciled at the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

The motivation behind which was a realization by Stalin that the USSR was on its own, and a requirement to delay any war with Hitler in order to strengthen the Soviet military.

Attempts by Stalin to form an anti-Nazi pact with France and Britain had failed, at least in part because Poland flatly refused to allow the Red Army (the only army realistically capable of aiding Poland) to defend Polish soil if the Nazis attacked.

We can blame Stalin for a lot of things, but I'm not sure what alternative he had to a non-aggression pact with Hitler, other than simply watching Panzer divisions roll up to the Soviet border.

> The Germans visiting Soviet extermination camps is documented at least in "Kremlin kellot" by Arvo Poika Tuominen (a Finnish Communist who worked for Komintern in 1933-1939 and spent quite some time observing the camps at the Baltic-White Sea Canal works and Solovki prison.)

From Tuominen's English Wikipedia page:

    Research by Finnish historian Kimmo Rentola has exposed 
    [the falsehood of Tuominen's claim to be against the
    Soviets during the Soviet-Finland war]. When the war
    started, Tuominen was initially enthusiastic of the war
    in expectation of a quick Soviet victory.

So the source of the claim of Nazi-Soviet collaboration on death camps is someone who supported the USSR against Finland even after supposedly witnessing the "extermination camps" in the USSR?

A man who, when he realized he would not become part of a Soviet quisling regime in Finland, switched to being overtly and conspicuously anti-Communist, with a clear motivation to lie or exaggerate the crimes of his former comrades.

> It's a pretty chilling read; the canal works were where the basic research for extermination via forced labour was done.

Soviet gulags were horrible enough places without falsely claiming them to be something they are not. And they were no more extermination camps than Indian "reservations" were, or British camps in South Africa, or the East Karelian concentration camps run by Finland.

> Solzhenitsyn then later provided a more well-known description of the GULAG.

Where does Solzhenitsyn claim gulags were "extermination camps"? In fact, where does any credible source?

Further, where does any credible source provide evidence that the Nazis received help or ideas from the USSR for their extermination programme?

The precursor to the Final Solution was in fact the Nazi eugenic and euthanasia programmes, and it's no secret they were inspired by and based on programmes in the USA (not USSR) in the early 20th century.

[Koshkin]

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.

[watt]

My grandmother was a middle-school history teacher, so I had access to history books they used in schools (in Latvia). I was a kid during 1980s.

What I am talking about is the sort of history that was taught in schools (at school level!) during 1960s-70s-80s in Soviet Union. Very simple stuff.