Comments by "TheThirdMan" (@thethirdman225) on "Spanish Civil War - Lessons NOT Learned - The British, French \u0026 US" video.

The Spanish Civil War was important for a geopolitical reason too: namely that Europe and America were less worried about Hitler than they were about Stalin. All European countries ended up either directly or indirectly supporting the Nationalists while the USSR supported the Republic. The only other government which lent any support to the Republic was that of Leon Blum. The vast majority of the attention in Europe in the 1930s was focussed on the expansion of communism and some, particularly the British, were completely blindsided by it. Fortunately, the British parliament - led at that time by Neville Chamberlain - chose not to listen too closely to the paranoia of the Foreign Office, read the situation correctly and went about rearming anyway.
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@rusoviettovarich9221 I disagree. Communism, even under Stalin, was internationalist in its outlook., rather than nationalist. It presumed that once other countries saw the benefits of communism, they would eventually become communist themselves. The Soviet leadership had great hopes for a communist revolution in Germany at the end of WWI but it didn’t happen. That did not mean they did not continue to trade with Germany. In fact the Rapallo agreement of 1922 expanded that trade considerably and each became the others biggest trading partner and that remains so to this day. Stalin had a few territorial ambitions but they centred around regaining the territories lost at the end of WWI, notably eastern Poland. That ambition was realised with the Molotov Ribbentrop agreement in 1939. Any notion that Stalin was somehow plotting to start WWII early by becoming involved in Spain is simply not true. Unfortunately, the West has deluded itself again with large swathes of people choosing to believe Suvarov’s unsubstantiated claims of a Soviet mega tank army to take over all of Europe. It has no currency among any historians, whatever their personal bent. It certain fails to explain why Hitler was able to annex places like Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland unopposed and, in the case of Poland, with some connivance from Stalin. As far as the Spanish Civil War is concerned, Soviet aid to the republic was, in part, conditional. Stalin wanted to make sure the left wing parties in Spain were the same brand as he was in order that support be continued. This was shown in the oppression of libertarian socialist groups like the POUM, which Orwell was fighting for and left wing libertarian communist groups.
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@rusoviettovarich9221 I’ve already addressed Suvarov in an earlier post. I know his claims when I see them. No credible historian supports his claims (which he seems to re-engineer from time to time).
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@rusoviettovarich9221 What do you mean? If you call someone clueless, don't expect a polite response. If you want to read something on European history, don't bother with Suvarov and definitely don't make him your go to book. When you apply critical thinking, which most people don't these days, his claims don't stack up. It's really not hard. I've known about him for years.
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@rusoviettovarich9221 What? What agenda would that be and how did the Spanish Civil War lead ro WWII?
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@rusoviettovarich9221 Where did the Soviet Union advance post-1918? They had a brief stoush with Poland, which they lost, in 1920 and that was it. The Soviet Union was virulently opposed to Hitler because 1) he was anti-Bolshevik and 2) he was anti-communist. You don’t have to look very hard to see this.
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@rusoviettovarich9221 BTW, those countries you refer to as anti-red were more anti-Moscow. It’s been that way since the 17th century and remains to to this day.
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@rusoviettovarich9221 Do you have any reference material to support this? Exchange of prisoners isn’t a sign of support by one for another. It happens all the time between opposing side.
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@rusoviettovarich9221 No but I'm betting you haven't read Suvorov's book either. It's so much easier to watch a YouTube video... I've read a lot of other stuff on the Spanish Civil war and I've read a lot of Russian and Soviet history, including but not limited to Revolutionary Russia, the Russian Civil War, the Soviet union in the period prior to WWII and the post-Stalin era. I know enough to know BS when I hear it. Suvorov was writing to a voracious audience when he arrived in the West. Lots of people have done it, starting with people like Stephen Ambrose, once a good historian, later a writer of pulp history for an audience with an appetite for his particular prejudices.. So run away then. Suvorov has no currency with any historians I know of, whether they follow the Western line or the Russian/Soviet one. His research is far from "encyclopaedic" and in fact, some of it is not referenced at all. It's mostly speculation and conjecture.
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@rusoviettovarich9221 It's been a consistent criticism by those who have and it sure doesn't take much reading to know that his thesis - which is widely known - is wrong. I'm not going to be dictated to by someone who claims to have read one crackpot book when I have the reading I've got behind me. Pretty good at throwing around names, aren't you? If you knew what I know, you'd be a lot less free and easy with your criticisms. But when wrong is the new right, I suppose those of us who really do know will have to move over for the new age of ignorance. Alternative facts, anyone?
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Albert Grant The Battle of the Somme, as horrific as it was, was the result of Britain being the junior partner in the war against Germany. This is not meant to be derogatory either. The overall command of the Western Front was with the French. Haig was simply doing what he was told- creating a diversion, albeit a hideously expensive one in human life. But The Somme was actually less bloody than some later campaigns.
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Sounds like a dress rehearsal for what happened in Finland. For more on that, see Alexander Hill’s book, ‘The Red Army and the Second World War’.
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DuckSwagington There were other ways of doing it that did not depend on having escorts around. It depended on how for you were going. Diversion raids were frequently carried out and timed to ensure that the German fighters would be on the ground refuelling and rearming when the main force passed over. It wasn’t necessary to have Mustangs for that. These sorts of things always presented logistical problems because timing was critical and bombers and fighters fly at different speeds. Other factors were there to frustrate planners. It didn’t work at Schweinfurt because of the weather.
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joao rosendo Excellent Point.
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