Just came across this absolute trashfire of a book by an American prof. I know these revisionist takes about WWII are a dime a dozen… but this one seems particularly egregious in its claims that Stalin masterminded World War II and that the only reason for the USSR’s success was that the stupefied Allies fell for his dastardly plan.
This level of brazen stupidity and/or disingenuousness borders on incomprehensible.
“Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia” yes he was? Unless they’re counting the invasion of Manchuria as the start of the World War, which is some insane goalpost shifting. Nearly every historian considers either the invasion of China or Poland as the start of the war, with a few saying it was the Spanish civil war or the invasion of the Soviet Union. Fucking no one considers the invasion of Manchuria to be the start of the war. At that point, why not say the Italian invasion of Ethiopia to be the start? Or why not say its all a continuation of the first World War? Its insane that you can just straight up lie and get away with it if you’re producing propaganda for the capitalists
i actually say this lol. its my favourite niche historiography
Pea brain: “WWII was caused by the harsh penalties of the Treaty of Versailles.”
Smol brain: “WWII was caused because the Axis were just all-around bad guys.”
Big brain: “WWII was just an extension of WWI.”
Large brain: “WWII was caused by the Depression and poor economic policies.”
Star brain: “WWII was caused by food shortages and the world being unable to effectively allocate resources, exasperated by the Depression.”
Galaxy brain: “WWII was the result of anticommunism wanting to consolidate capital in the wake of problems occurring during the interwar period as former empires lost control of their colonies, coupled with strong labor movements in the Imperial Core who saw the successes of the USSR.”
Universe brain: “WWII was leftwing infighting.”
600 IQ 11-D Chess Alternating Timeline brain: “WWII was because Stalin ate all the grain and wanted more so he tricked the Axis Powers into attacking him.”
Based on “in Asia,” they probably do mean the invasion of China. It’s still nonsense because Stalin had diplomatic involvement with Chinese nationalist and communist factions, but it was not a “World War” then and it wasn’t part of some grand design on Stalin’s part. Like, Japan was obviously an enemy of the Soviet Union, it had just invaded during the Russian Civil War, but if we’re going to say that that’s enough to unite the whole of WWII under Stalin, then why don’t we just say that the Russian Civil War was the start of WWII at that rate? Nothing means anything.
I don’t know, it just feels like question-begging. Yeah, Stalin was in power for a longer time-frame, but he didn’t want to fight these countries! It wasn’t a World War when it was Japan fucking over East Asia (and Stalin wasn’t being some kind of war monger by advising China!), it was Germany’s initiative to take over Europe and their collaboration with Japan to crush the communists that made it a World War. They are using sophistry to basically do apologetics for the Axis, who were universally the aggressors, and making it look like actually the Soviet Union was.
Germany had already taken over, in part or in whole, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, and Poland, but no, it’s when the USSR invades Poland after the Polish government had already collapsed and was about to hop the border, that’s the real key to it all and the fundamental aggression! I’m a very serious historian.
Edit: I wish that I could just not argue about WWII for the rest of my life, but people will never stop lying about the most basic facts of it.
I know that feel.
:doomer:
I’m not even a historian. Most of my knowledge comes from high school, video games, tabletop games, skimming Wikipedia, and reading white supremacist/neo-nazi brainworm shit (as examples of things NOT to say or that are definitely wrong). Yet every time I turn around, there’s some new trend that’s re-worded Holocaust denial, anticommunist contrarianism blaming the war on Marx, or downplaying crimes committed outside of Germany by other Axis members.
Like I’m a total idiot and then I see people unironically advocating for clean SS because they’re stupid dumbfuck libs that can’t filter nazi justifications.
Yeah, as a fellow idiot non-historian, it makes me sort of uncomfortable constantly wading into this shit bog, but I’m not pushing some wacky theory about how Bukharin was actually an Imperial Japanese collaborator or something, I’m literally just talking about how Mein Kampf is filled with discussions about conquering Eastern Europe and then they started conquering Eastern Europe and the Soviets knew they were preparing to invade, while these redditor fucks are claiming “nah, Stalin and Hitler were allies until Hitler bamboozled him”.