Comments by "Not Today" (@nottoday3817) on "TIKhistory" channel.

  1. Altough you get +2 points for interesting humour at point 9, TIK, do you really have to ruin anything by pushin politico-economical ideologies up to the point it becomes retarded? Seriously, 'Hitler and Stalin wanted more control because their were socialists' (and to go on with your ideeas 'who wants free market?') What on Earth does free market even have to do with this situation? Instead of blaming everything, from individual decisions to actions to being rainy on a sunny day, on socialism how about starting to use our brains and look for more logical arguments? Hitler taking control over the state from his generals towards of the war? Maybe, was it because his generals towards of the war were freaking incapable and were planning on freaking KILLING HIM? Does capitalism encourage socialism nowadays, since supporting their 'independent ideeas' would have resulted in him getting himself killed. Soviet partisans enforcing soviet law beyond the frontlines? Well, 2 things to consider beyond 'MUAAHAHAHAHA SOCIALISM'. 1. The efficiency of an invading army is tremendously increased by it's abillity to impose it's own rule over occupied territories. If the soviet population cooperated with the germans, guess what, Germany would have had a much nicer time. And this can be applied to every freaking army throughout the ages. 2. Encourage 'independent' uncoordinated actions? Hmm, right, because after defeating the enemy in the territory you have, the best thing you could wish for is defeating another enemy which set up their own independence movement in areas critical for your economy.. Eventually, if that would happen when your main enemy is not yet defeated, that would be God damn freaking awesome, right? And this is the end of the logical points. I would make another one or two. The first one is the Forrest Brothers, which the Western Narrative tries to portray now as some righteous freedom fighter (pretty much like talibans in 1980s). They were just as bad as the soviet partisans you mention with respect to year 1941 1942. After the war ended, they had no one to support them. So they took to guerilla warfar. How did they maintain themselves? Attacking russians and russian sympathisers in their own country. Not soldiers. Civillians. Because what a fucking lunatic attacks and army camp, guarded by machine guns and tanks? Villages, farms and others are much easier targets and yield much more vital supplies, such as food or medicine for a much lower cost. And returning to the point of 'lacking initiative', well I guess Churchill was also a socialist, pushing his subordinates on attacks more and more, despite their stubborn resistance to the pressure.
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  2. The nature of warfare. Generally, we can see that everyone, Soviets, UK, US (And france lost their whole country) had a big hard time fighting the Germans, especially when the Germans were on the Defensive. If I could sum things up, Germans were shit on strategic level, but very good on Tactical level. Because they were very good on Tactical level, when it comes to defensive (which is 90% tactics, since the only strategy is 'Hold on or Get back to point X'-so simple) they were in their advantage. And it is true. German defensive doctrine was the best in the war. This defensive doctrine was even the 2nd strongest point of the 'blitzkrieg'. The panzers and mobile formations could break through, but it was the infantry and supports that would dig around encircled enemy who would win the day as the enemy units would be unable to break out. Soo, to the basics, when it comes to tactical level, there is something that TIK always said: The odds are always for the one defending [ on TACTICAL LEVEL-cannot stress that enough]. This explains why almost everyone suffered great loses against the germans and even the combined British-US forces( so 2 world empires) thought the Germans were so hard despite facing a joke compared to what the Soviets had thrown at them. Now, for why the soviets suffered so dearly compared to others. 2 factors. 1. As pointed out at the end of my last paragraph: they had to face more germans. TIK gives a ratio of 3 or 4:1 for the guy on the tactical offensive to be able to breach the defenders sucessfully. When the defender has a lot of manpower and equipment, of course it's going to be more effective than an army much smaller (like the one faced by US and UK) and the one on the offensive would suffer more. 2. Morale/pressure. If we take a look at a map, UK and US were never really threatened by Germany. UK had only one 'moment' of fear: the battle for Britain and especially the Blitz. Comparing the affected area with the whole British Empire (1/4 of the world) and considering the advantage of the defender suited them quite nicely and, even more, that none of their territories was actually invaded, the Battle of Britain had little effect on the British effort and it's a total joke compared to what some German, Romanian and especially soviet cities, including Leningrad(2nd biggest and cultural capital) suffered. However, Britain still regards it one of the most devastating and traumatising events in their history. Now, we move on the other side of the continent: USSR. The most populated areas under siege or captured, main food supply (Ukraine) captured, major deposits of Strategic Resources (Iron, Oil, coal in Ukraine/Donbass, Caucasus etc.) major cities in Rubble and enemy hands (Kiev, Kharkov, Sevastopol) and the whole masterplan Ost (slavery and extermination) as well as rapes and other athrocities hard to describe are the main things on any Soviet citizen's mind. From Soldier to High command, everyone knew they had to push the germans back. And do that FAST. The longer they would wait, the more the civillians in the captured territories would have to suffer. That's for the regular folk. When it comes to the high command, they also were thinking about how the captured territories would help their enemies. Not only that, but as war moved on, high command would also start worrying about other nations as well, like if the war drags on for too long, the "Western Allies" could pull a 180(like they did in 1918) and attack them when they saw it fit. Overall, the whole point of this: the soviets HAD TO ATTACK. They felt they HAD TO ATTACK from day one of Barbarossa. Meanwhile, the Americans and Brits simply took their time. There was nothing for them to rush for. The soviets were keeping most of the german troops in check, they were mostly on the defensive. Overall, combining the 2 reasons: The Eastern front was a ticking time bomb for the soviets who HAD TO, for whom it was imperatory to, attack and win as fast as possible, an attack which would pit them against the best and most numerous german formations who most often had the advantages of a good defensive position. Meanwhile, the Western Allies faced a much smaller and ill equiped enemy and, since they were not pressured by anything, could take their time planning each of their moves to minimise casualities
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  3. First of all, he did not have material advantage. Manpower and tank numbers at best. But in the first stages of the offesive he lacked artillery and aviation was doomed before he even arrived. The enemy also had the advantage of artillery and defensible positions which more than make up for numbers in most scenarios.
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  4.  @Melanrick  Maybe because they did not have enough russian train carts to carry all their load?
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  5. I highly doubt about 'storming through Germany'. First of all, I believe it was either TIK himself or Military history visualised that made a video called something along the lines of : 'Why Italy First'. Basically they barely had any ideea of where to finally land, not to mention HOW TO LAND and continue. Italy proved a big lesson on how to handle operations for the Western Allies.
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  6. The 'Pharisee' is almost never refered to as a member of a Jewish sect. Mostly because it was not a Jewish sect. A sect means a branch of a religion (denaturated meanings tend to the more general ideea of a branch of a philosophical belief/ideea) interpreting the 'sacred texts' in a different way (more liberal or more fanatic way). Pharisees were not a sect, but more of a social class, a distinguished part of the clergy (like the Greco-Roman priests -note by Greco-Roman I mean the ones found in the Ancient Greek and Roman civilisations, not the ones following the later established Greco-Roman religion). They appear multiple times in the Bible as anti-examples of moral and religious corruption of the Jewish faith and how it strayed from the true word of God. They are even allocated a full story in one of Jesus' teachings and that one strongly resembles the incident Marx is refering to. Sorry if I get the words wrong, but I do not know the English version of the story (God bless King George and King John and basically every king using linguistics and translators to push forward their version of the Bible), but in that teaching Jesus compares a pharisee with a border tax collector/guard. The Pharisee is considered a negative character because he knows that he's corrupt (especially spiritually), but during his prayer he dares boast of how much he serves his God and His teachings and degrades the guard for he is also corrupt. The guard is seen as a 'redeemable' character since he aknowledges his sins and his corruption. (Not going into the philosophy of the story here and its implications here).In a similar way, Marx' Pharisee is clearly a symbolic meaning as he (the pharisee, aka the morally corrupt preacher of capitalism) is trying to justify his actions by claiming to cling to values like familly and protection children, but he himself would destroy such values if he suits his interest. Also, Judaism and Jews are technically not the same thing. Judaism is generally the belief of the Jews ('ethnic' group) and those who believe in Moses' teachings (The Torah if I am not mistaken). While most Jews would deny that you can be a Judaic without being a Jew, there were some tribes of Turkik people who did embrace Judaism. Funny enough, in the Old Testament you actually have ethnic Jews being disconsidered as Jews (Judaics) by the other 'puritan' Jews and even wars erupted between those branches. If I remember correctly this division makes way into Jesus' teachings as well as he often uses people from Canaan (a disconsidered branch of Jews) as positive examples. And this does not stop to 'ancient texts'. Even in modern day you have the scandal of Israel sterilising Ethiopian Jews or Israel accusing everyone that tries to defy their exceptionalist policies as an anti-Semite while other Jews condemn Israel. In the end, accusing Karl Marx of anti-semitism is actually a funny ideea since he's a Jew by 'ethnicity'/blood, but a christian and later mostly an atheist by belief, aka a non-judaic Jew. From most of the de-contextualised quotes you've provided he's not attacking the Jews as an ethnic group (aka you should not shoot/ fire/disconsider someone just because his parents were Jews), but rather criticising the lifestyle of the Jews as greedy oportunists. The quote of Engels put forward by your viewer which you try and discredit (the comment, not the guy) actually supports this: you can have Jews not adhering to the general view of the Jewish lifestyle. And frankly, this is perfectly fine. Life-style, life-choices are usually the product of thoughts and decisions made by people and they can be changed if a person so desires (severe health conditions are also exceptions that can also confirm the rule). Therefore, since they are subject to change, they should be criticised or supported. And Marx criticising the Jews is nothing more than the same principle of a black person criticising Black Lives Movement for the chaos they are creating or criticising the ghetto or gangsta lifestyle that some choose. Or a woman criticising the MeToo movement. Or a white denouncing white supremacy outside of political campaigns. TL:DR Seems mostly like a straw-man argument.
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  7. Ok. Here we go again. From around 10:00 to 15:00 No TiK. There is something preventing people from starting their own businesses: LIMITED RESOURCES, MAN. Like seriously. Everytime I hear someone saying 'socialism does not work because you don't have infinite resources to share with others'. Guess what. Neither does Capitalism. And you just said it yourself: THE MAIN HUNGARIAN RESOURCE POOL of the hungarian industry WAS NOW OUTSIDE HUNGARY (and of course controlled by their enemies). Please, enlighten me, how would those people get resources for 'their new businesses'? And keep in mind. This is the industrial age. You need raw resources for the economy. Also. No TIK. As in a previous comment, I HAVE TO POINT OUT how wrong you are about the Hungarian marxist revolution. It did not fail because 'they had a bad taste of it'. It failed because WE CRUSHED IT. 1919, the newly reformed Romanian army, under agreement with the Entente, took a big march westwards and stopped beyond Budapest. This was the same thing that the West and Japan (and the new polish state) tried to do to USSR. Do I really need to tell you to grab a history book? Or perhaps 'grab a better history book'? Also, what's with that bloody nonsense of 'capitalis is failing. That's not true'. Errm? The great depression of 1920s to 1930s? Ever heard of that? 15:00 It's failing because a bunch of dudes took huge loans to fight a bloody war and now had their economies in shambles and could barely pay back because they expected to pay back with the money they would take from nations that they ruined themselves. That's why it's failing. It's also failing because the population in many countries, especially in E. Europe, was pretty uneducated so good luck making investments. And again. NO FREAKING RESOURCES BECAUSE MESSED UP BORDERS. So what ends up happening is that you have a bunch of guys starting to get a monopoly. And when a guy gets a monopoly, other guys can kiss their asses goodbye.
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  8.  @TheImperatorKnight  Well, I think a mixing of the numbers is the most likely answer. Judging by your video, 1st Kotluban costed the Soviets 80,000 casualities while the 2nd costed 88,000. Numbers so close together are almost 1 in a million coincidence cosnidering the different tactical approaches and compositions of units. There should be a bigger difference between them. Most likely the one who compiled the table looked a various reports with casualities (which themselves might have been compiled and dated on different dates) and concluded that he could get accurate figures only for a large period of time, like 10-20 days and tried to reverse-engineer the numbers for each day. I would say each offensive costed the Soviets around 20,000-30,000 total casualities (KIA,MIA, wounded) while the rest of 22,000 is made out of skirmishes victims.
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  9. So, it was 1am when I saw this. Encouraged by the previous video on the food shortage in Nazi Germany I though I could give this a try. But, oh dear, after 5 minutes of TIKnomics, I wanted to punch every British person out there just to make sure I get to you And then I noticed this non-sense has a length of over 1 hour, getting worse and worse. Oh Good god. Each and every 10 minutes of your video can be debunked by logic or are so weirdly mentioned that they point straight out psychois. Let's start with the most mindbogling thing. 'Black Market is not called black market because it's evill. It's actually good because it's actually free'. Are you out of your minds? Where do you think the goods on the black market come from? Aliens dropped them? God sent them on Saturdays like in the Bible? Black market goods come from the same production output as the rest of the 'evil socialist market' goods. But because people steal from the output to sell on the Blackmarket, guess what? THERE ARE LESS GOODS ON THE REGULAR MARKET. And stealing is the last freaking problem of the black market. No, no. Theft and smuggling are 'humane black market'. There are even worse reasons why people hate it. First and foremost: the market is so free that there is no protection for the consumer. Why is that a problem? Because producers (entities) don't want their stuff to be stolen before they reach their buyer, so getting things to sell on the BM is pretty hard. But, because it's a free market, some great entreprnours take this opportunity to 'enhace' their stocks. For example, a guy sells 100l of vodka on the BM, but he cannot possibly get 100l without it being unnoticed, so he steals 40-50l and dilutes it with other things to make it look like 100l. And the poor consumer is happy for some Good ol vodka and then dies of alcohol poisoning and the dude who sold it to him is nowhere to be found and the market is still freaking free. Great. And another reason why people hate black markets: origin of some goods, like human or organ trafficking. Should I even go into detail about those? So there are 3 reasons why people would hate the 'good and free BM' you propose: theft, stealing from the regular market, reducing the wealth even further; dangerous to the consumer; danger to the ones that want nothing to do with it. 'The economy was growing, but people were starving' Really? Do you even Economics, TIK? Yeah, the 'ECONOMY' was growing because economy oversees the whole system. If one branch is lagging behind for various reasons, others can still grow and contribute to the economy. How the economy be growing? Well, just look at the freaking Russian Empire before the War. It was utter shit. They and the Ottomans were the last big European Empire not to industrialise properly. Actually, with a few exceptions, they were not industrialised at all. And this was showing for a long time. Social unrest was present in the Russian literature even 70 years prior to the Revolutions. When Stalin started reforming, bringing up industry, irrigation, developing schools and many more OF FREAKING COURSE THE ECONOMY WOULD BE GROWING. You literally have entire branches that have not been taken care of suddenly exploding. And now, why are the people starving? Well, because other people were hoarding grain during a drought. Too freaking bad the evil Soviets did not have TENS OF MILLIONS OF INDIANS TO STARVE TO STEAL THEIR FOOD, instead concentrating only on the grain hoarders. They should really have followed the example of the great capitalist British Empire and steal everything they needed from others. I'm no fan of 'colonialism bad', but seriously, you cannot talk seriously aboout British economy without mentioning where those resources actually came from or what was done to protect the trade routes. Now that I remember, does anyone remember the Irish famine or the Opium Wars (plural, because apparently getting a country high and killing thousands just so you have a cheap supply of tea and spices once is not enough. You need to keep the capitalism growing so you start a second war. And good god, it's over 2 am and I need to get up less than 5 hours, or I would keep ripping those 60minutes of utter nonesense to shreds.
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  10. I think you got it all wrong. The Soviets and the West were not allies. Nazi Germany was allowed and supported to rise up to power in a Western attempt to create a buffer zone between them and the soviets. Western Politicians allowed Germany to remilitarise (League of nations conference of 1932 I believe, Western politicians and monarchy posing with nazi staff, 1936 Olympics, loans and donations from people like Ford, invasion of Czechoslovakia and Anschluss etc. etc.The reason why the Germans were allowed to get away is because they had the best experience in fighting the soviets.
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  11. Well, that's interesting since TIK mentioned in his video on Soviet POWs that many soviets were marched on foot from the frontline to the Starlags or other camps because the germans refused to have their trains 'stained' by the 'inferior' slavs.
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  12. You are falling for the same trap moder historio-economists fell for (or even set up) when talking about 'communist' or Soviet trade in general. USSR tried to branch off from the world economics as it was clear they could not succeed in it. (Russian Empire was so much behind the rest of the world that what they inherited was basically useless.) So the ideea of 'we are gonna buy what we need' would not work for them as they had too much to buy and nothing to offer (techonological inferiority and over-saturated market the subject is a bit more complex as we add up time, but for pre-war era this is the general case). Going for world trade, the balance would have been so off their economy would collapse from day one. So what they did is that they closed the borders and tried to develop their own industry. In the first years they hoped they could trade with potential new communist countries formed after glorious communist revolutions. But as the communist revolutions got brutally crushed (Germany by the Western Armies, Hungary by the Romanian Army, China -initially by nationalists backed by Western Powers, Spain by fascists etc) and USSR lost control of strategic ports and connections due to the situation after the [not-so-]Civil War (baltic ports, Poland, Finland) this trading plan went down the drain and the isolation of USSR became even stronger. What little trade they did with the outside was done under the form of bartering: you give me this and I give you those resources. This was made a bit easier in the inter-war era as the Gold Standard was still a big thing and USSR had good gold reserves, so if they needed anything, they would not pay with roubles, but with Gold
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  13. Although this is an Edit, this has to be top remark. Around 11:30. 'If you had a democratic gouvernment, it's unlikely that a democratic regime would have sided with Hitler. They would have sided with France'. BIGGEST FREAKING IRONY EVER. TIK, I know economics beyond 'mainstream capitalism' beat you up hard, but I thought you were an expert historian. THAT IS PHRASE. What you have said yourself in the second half, 'WOULD HAVE SIDED WITH FRANCE' IT'S EXACTLY WHAT USSR TRIED TO DO. IT WAS FRANCE THAT SIDED WITH HITLER. TREATY OF MUNCHEN 1938. The French were requesting the Soviet Union to not defend Czechoslovakia, despite the tri-partite treaty between them AGAINST HITLER. Soviet Union had no way to directly interfere without France because 1. France was backing the Munich Agreement 2. No direct way to reach Germany. 'Everything it builds is consumption rather than production'. So I guess in the great capitalist West, people just sat on the shit they built instead of consuming it? Really TIK? Also, 'into something that is not needed, such as guns, tanks battleships' Yeah, those T-34s were deffinetly freaking useless against the initial german onslaught. I believe some WW1 era tanks would have been more than sufficient.
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  14.  @andrewblake2254  'they had grown prosperous on it over the centuries' Bangladesh has a bigger population than Russia. Does that mean they have food for everyone, not really? They had land for agriculture, but they did not have enough for autarky and almost always they had to import as well.
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  15.  @geordi5054  TIK was actually quoting german economists and diaries of the time.
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  16. Hey TIK Amazing video. For a few points throughout QA. I am actually going to split this into 2 comments because too much of a difference between themes. So. Switzerland: why in the world would Soviets attack it? The soviet plan was an offensive defence (like the british intended to do with operation Crusader). Basically, Warsaw pact was supposed to spear as far ahead to Germany and stop around the Rhine area (because natural fortification potential) and capture as many airports and missile launching platforms/positions as possible. They would use these airports to target various ports in Western Europe which were supposed to be receiving supplies from the US or even supply chain themselves.. If this objective would have been achieved, Warsaw Pact would have won the war in a non-nuclear scenario. Had the war lasted longer, soviet missiles would have hammered important objectives for the Western Allies (quick mention, France had a bit of a rough romance with NATO, so willing to fight without necessity, big MEAH) meanwhile main production centers, especially USSR, would have been safe. Again, from the Rhine, they could deceide what to do further, either attempt a push Westwards, to further weaken Western ability to supply Europe or to open second fronts, perhaps take out Turkey and smash the middle east or most likely go for GIUK gap, and northern Norway and north and south sweden to allow their submarines to break loose into the atlantic without too much worries. However, the main point was GET TO THE RHINE( or as far westward into Germany as Possible). To do this, they would not have any resources to spare to launch an invasion of Switzerland. The only reason why they would go to switzerland would be if allied reinforcements would go through Switzerland (like from Italy), but that would be a limited war, focused more on securing the flank. Anyway, that's my humble opinion. Then we come to the chemical weapons thing. Well, now it depends on what you classify as 'chemical weapons'. If reffering strictly to gas, they did not use it too much because it already became inefficient. Yeah, in WW1 with huge 'entrenched' concentrations of troops, with no hope to gain much land or advantage in one push, yeah, gas was efficient. Gas the whole enemy trench, kill as many as possible and hope for two things: 1. There will be no reinforcements by the time gas clears out. 2. Hope the wind does not blow it in your face. However, in WW2, I think there are 3 main reason why it wasn't used on such a big scale and especially in surface/front level. Reason A: No longer efficient. WW2 was more a war of manouver, you gotta move that a$$ boy. So gas, which takes some time to be deployed and such. is not so effective. Then, units were a bit more dispersed, so again, gas efficiency was lowered. Last but not least, it is presumed that the number of countermeasures (gas masks, body suits etc.) Reason B: detrimental to the user. First of all, there is always the big risk of it blowing back straight in your face. Furthermore, if used on the offensive (like the Brits and US through Norway), because you have a war of manouver, you either had to give up the opportunity (if it was ever created) to let the gas settle, or you had to send your troops through clouds of poisonous gas. Reason C: You already stated it: fear of retaliation. This also includes the 'inhumane thing'. Germany signed the Geneva convention which would restrict them from unleashing upon the Westerners and hoped the same thing would apply to them. If we include other things in the form of chemical weapons, like incendiary, phosphorus bombs, then yes. They were deffinetly used. In Europe I believe against Dresden or Berlin and in the Pacific, well, some historians claim that the devastation left by the incineration of Tokyo by phosphorus bombs from US was even worse than Hiroshima. Edit: forgot about alcohol stuff (and generally alternative sources of fuel) First, alternative sources: there was a program to use actually steam to power tanks. Or actually boilers fueled by wood (germany had a lot of coal and wood) Several tigers were actually equiped with those things. Perhaps some cars as well. Using such methods for non-combat reasons shows how Germany was able to bypass it's fuel deficiency and still wage it's Panzer warfare even in late war(altough to a much more limited extent). As for gas for tanks and stuff like that: errm, you do not really want that. as you explained, gas is extremely flamable and volatile. Alcohol, if not handled correctly, turns into alcohol vapors, which is basically extremely explosive gas. Furthermore, alcohol is a less eficient way to store and release energy than fossil fuels. So you would have to produce quite a bunch of alcohol to cover a little of your necessities. So that's why they might not have bothered. last, but not least: ENGINES. As far as I remember, most engines at that time ran on eithe lead gasoline or diesel, because those engines could not handle the explosive force of such fuels properly, causing them to disintegrate after some time. This would have plagued alcohol engines even more. Yeah, it's a simple engineering problem, in the ideea that the basics of why it happens are simple. Getting rid of such a problem, oh boy. Trust me, I'm an engineer, fixing problems, even simple ones, is hell. And this is my first comment. The second one is going to focus on Lend-Lease thing. But going to write it in the evening
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  17. Before watching the video, let me give a guess of 4-5 reasons why not to: 1. The Nazis (and their friends) wanted the lands in Ukraine, resources in Donbass AND the oil in Caucasus. So they would have had to invade Ukraine either way, but with a much smaller force. 2. Even if they went through Turkey, they would need the SOVIET oil in the caucasus (and the raffineries). So they would still have to declare war on USSR. This means that instead of fighting USSR alone, they would need to fight USSR AND Turkey. 3. If they went through Turkey, they would fight the Soviets mainly in the caucasus. This meant that Panzer operations were limited and so would air-combat. (Caucasus maximum height is above 5.000m which was quite a feat for airplanes of the time). Not to mention the whole front would have been much narrower. Overall, it would have been much more suitable for the Soviets which would also have the benefit of the Black Sea fleet. 4. Just have a moment to think about the map? The main German assault would be through Turkey, right? But Germany had a border with USSR. Soo, USSR would just sit and watch and then try to beat Germany back THROUGH TURKEY? Couldn't they use the favorable terrain to hold the Germans off in there and strike through their common border? or strike at Romania? 5. Going through Turkey would mean that they now had a land border with the Middle East colonies of the British Empire which meant UK could now join the fight as well. Naval Power, Aviation and Army. And would probably alert the soviets too, so the whole surprise element which made almost 50-60% of Barbarossa imho, would now be gone. And now that I think of it, they would also have even bigger problem with their poor logistics
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  18. Ah, nothing gives better joy than having a nice can of beer and proving people wrong on the internet (/s) 5:00 You are building a false narrative. (really need to refresh my knwoledge with standard names for logical falacies). Putin saying Poland is to blame for what happened at the start of WW2 does not mean he's defending Hitler. On the contrary, he's doing the exact opposite. He's painting both Poland and Germany as 'accomplices' in the crimes which led to WW2 start the way it started. His speech comes in the wake of many declarations from European leaders trying to paint USSR and Germany as 'one and the same', 'sharing the blame for the start of WW2'. His statements are meant to show that not only did USSR not desire the outcome of the events in late 30s, but it had actually fought against them in an uphill battle. So your commenters are actually right: Putin never said Hitler was not responsible for WW2. That's an argument you made up yourself based on flawed, incomplete logic and twisting of words. Why would you do that? I do not know. But I assume it must have something to do with MI5 and 6 and some other defamation divisions. 14:00 (and earlier) As a Romanian here, I would have to strongly refute those statements. Romania did not double up in territory in order to create such a big state to hold against USSR (even that ideea, hold it for a moment, cause it might come back later, depending on my energy). The territories which Romania received are inhabited by Romanians were generally inhabitted by a Romanian majority (saying generally because you had enclaves). And it's not an issue of 'now it's 1918, identify with this'. Anti-romanian policies existed in Hungary since 15th century in official acts (Unio Trium Nationum). So, no, the people like that did not start to identify as romanians in 1918. In fact, the course of events is exactly the opposite. Romania deceided to join WW1 in order to unite those territories inhabitted by Romanians and their annexation was a huge issue in the negotiation talks and an even bigger one in the post-war border establishments (because we took more than what was promised, aka Bessarabia which was part of the Russian empire and annexed by them in 19th century) Overall, the whole point that you make here is almost bullcrap. Where you might have gotten that false ideea from is actually 2 separate events/ideeas. First was the Intermarium project, proposed by Britain in early 1920s, which envisioned a megastate between the 2 Seas in E Europe (Baltic and Black), based on the model of UK (England, Scotland, Ireland) or US. Another one was the Little Entente alliance between Yugoslavia, Romania and the last one should have been Czechoslovakia (IIRC) 25:20. This is basically the whole point of his speech. His speech is aimed at Polish claims against Russia (as if there wasn't a Ukrainian SSR and a Belarusian SSR in USSR as well, but you cannot milk them, right?) because Poland claimed USSR was on the same side as Hitler. Putin twists the facts in their face and asks them: So, what's it, either we are in this together, two sides that tried to play with fire and got incinerated or we are both victims? 26:16. Yeah, Putin already adressed your argument. We know of the 'secret' protocol because it got declassified. And he asks the others to declassify their archives as well. And then you have historical facts which support him. Poland DID block the attempts to save Czechoslovakia and Poland DID annex land from Czechoslovakia. This means that Poland and Hitler were allies in all, but papers and even that can be debated as we are unsure of what's happening. In fact, the course of the splitting of Eastern Europe in 1939 is exactly the same as the one done by the Great Powers following Munich. And Munich was set on paper. And why do you think 'it must be true only because Putin said so'. How about we look at the Western and German relations in 1930s? US companies were trading with Hitlers Germany. Ford was a personal supporter of Hitlers anti-semitism. You had English Ladies and Lords being photographed among nazi officials. You had the Olympics of 1936. Are we really going to argue that no talks were occuring between the horrible nazis and the honorable British people that popularised concentration camps in the Boer Wars, starved indians and wiped out entire communities in the Middle East? Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of Poland during and after the Betrayal of Munich speak the same volume as the Ribentrop Molotov Pact, regardless of how their build up was worded. Oh, and just one final thing. As mentioned USSR DID TRY TO FIGHT THE NAZIS before signing that pact. Poland did not. Around 30:00 I think it's explained earlier by Putin. USSR had to sign an agreement with Germany becasue a two front war. And this is not something you can deny or twist. USSR just signed a feeble peace treaty with Japan. And Japan always maintained a considerable force in continental East Asia. Also, that's not all. I'm surprised TIK of all people (because he claims to be a Historian and he has ALREADY DONE VIDEOS on the state of Soviet Military in 1930-early 1940's) would dare to bring up that argument of 'Why would USSR do this?' . First of all, as previously mentioned USSR DID TRY TO STAND UP AT THE NAZIS. TWICE. Once for the elected Spanish Gouvernment in the Spanish Civil War and then they tried to help Czechoslovakia. What they got in return? The first time indifference from the West and then BROKEN PROMISES AND DIRECT INTERFERENCE FROM THE WEST. Secondly USSR faced the Germans in Spain. They knew their strengths. They were also expanding their army and trying to figure out their deep battle doctrine. SO WHY ON EARTH WOULD THEY TAKE ON THE GERMAN BLITZKRIEG? ESPECIALLY WITH JAPAN IN THEIR BACK? 33:00 Ok, I'm writing this as I am watching and now I am even more (unplesantly) surprised by the audacity of this video. So TIK spent the previous 5-10 minutes trying to convince us that there is no evidence of Poland siding with Hitler/Germany or of Poland being anti-Soviet. Then casually brings up Poland and Germany conspiring together to overthrow an official in a third country, Romania -which would also push a pro-German, pro-fascist movement with disastrous consequences-in order to prevent USSR from fighting Germany in aid of a country, which out sheer ****ing coincidence (as you want us to believe) was split among Poland and Germany (and a few others) 34:00 'It doesn't meant Poland was working for the Germans' Dear reader. Here we are talking international politics and geostrategy. NO SANE NATION ON EARTH would turn itself into a slave for another nation. POLAND HELPED HITLER AND POLAND WAS PURSUING IT'S INTERESTS. THOSE ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE STATEMENTS. In lack of a contradictory or contrary proof (which it's impossible to bring since Polands actions allowed Hitler to capture the industrial base of Czechia for free) they are complementary. 35:00 The ideea of that 'if' does not mean the Soviets were unwilling to attack without France. It actually has a double meaning, which you hide for the sake of your propaganda. First, USSR was a junior partner in that Alliance. This means that for an intervention to be legal, FRANCE had to deceide help was needed first. This was done specifically to prevent USSR from intervening on a much larger scale in Europe. Second, how about you look at the map first? Where do you see a common border beyond USSR and Czechoslovakia? In the quantum realm? This meant that in order for USSR to fight Germany, without invading Poland or Romania they had to either rely on French diplomatic pressure on these countries to allow troop transports or to send troops all the way to France (like they did with Spain). It's not a matter of 'I want <<peace in our times>> as well' It's a matter of physical impossibility. 35:41 Oh, so earlier the video is like 'Why they didn't do nothing in 1939', now it's 'Do you think they would have done better in 1938?'. The goalposts are almost broken from all this movement. And no, the units still had 'commanders', inexperienced, but they were there.
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  19. Well, the thing is: everything is in a snowball effect with explosives along the mountain. First of all, let's take logistics on sea. Logistics on sea you have 4 things: Infrastructure, suprastructure, length/speed of supply routes and goods to be transported. Infrastructure in this case means port facilities. Suprastructure: ships. And 3rd and 4th are a bit self explanatory. Now, let's dive into the Hell of practice. Let's assume you have 10 ships. Now here the fun begins In the infrastructure area: you need ports to load and unload the ships. But loading and unloading takes time. If you cannot serviced all 10 ships at the same time (so 10 piers in a dock), some ships will have to wait to be serviced. This branches into 2 ways: 1A. You send in each set of serviced ships and take care of another. Problem: you are highly likely to have no damn escort for some of the sets you send in, meaning they get sunk. 1B you have to pull ships back and let others be serviced Problem: lost time and ammount of supplies which can be transported. Suprastructure: certain ships might not be serviced by certain ports. So they need to go to other ports. Others might be faster, others slower. And the biggest problem: losing ships. You do not lose only the ship itself, which alone could take months to complete. You also lose its fuel and supplies. And not only you have to make those AGAIN, this also means that some tank or soldier in the field no longer has ammo or fuel. And because you lost a ship, this means that tank or soldier won't get any more supplies because your supply capacity has been limited: AGAIN. And we get to the 3rd point: supplies themselves. A ship does not carry fuel for troops. It also carries fuel for itself. So a part of what it transports, is consumed. When you get to land warfar THIS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM. 4th. Time and efficient use of it. Ok. Efficient use of time in logistics can be interpreted as being the time a good takes to be changed between one side to another. Aka loading (port changes to ship) and unloading (ship to port). Now, if we assume those things travel at light speed, you would have no wasted time. However, in real world, ships have to travel. While traveling, ships cannot change goods. Thus your ability to transport goods is INEXISTENT. The slower the supply route, the more time it takes for the supplies to reach the destination it is needed. Now, in land warfare, things change a bit. Why? Because, unlike ships which are tied to fixed ports, the end point of the supply chain is not set. So, basically, look again at what I mentioned above: you have roads, trucks carrying supplies for the troops that go on those roads and the supplies needed to be carried. So... here is how it goes. When a force move forwards, first of all it takes more time for its supplies to reach it. However: the means of transport alos need supplies. So. You need trucks to carry fuel for the tanks. Then you need trucks to carry fuel for the trucks carrying fuel for the tanks. And in the end you might need trucks to carry fuel for the trucks that carry fuel for the trucks that carry fuel for the tanks. And then you also need fuel for the truck carrying ammo. Food. Water etc. And fuel for those fuel trucks as well :) When it comes to different types of ammo: I think the right word would be triage. It takes much longer to load and unload and distribute the supplies because you have more types of supplies needed in different places in different quantities. Furthermore, if a shipment is delayed, it means certain units are going to be paralysed because they have nothing to use.
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  20.  @chrism7969  ' Germany had access to oil and strategic resources from the British Empire as part of a peace deal' Well, the main problem with a 'peace deal' is the deal part. What if Britain did agree with Germanys demand. I mean, in our historic timeline, we've seen that Britain held out without a deal. Why would they give up their bigges advantage over Hitler (resources) in a peace deal? The only other way of gaining oil from UK after a peace deal without it as part of a peace deal would be trading. But again, for trade to occur, both parts need to agree on a deal. What could Germany, a nation struggling with resource to the point of starvation, give Britain, the largest and richest Empire in the world?
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  21. Why the Germans reduced their divisions in size? Well, I might be more than 1 year late for this video, but I believe there is quite a good explaination in it: They bit too much soviet land and started choking on it's size. I will take it as a fact that after the catastrophical fall of France, considered the most powerful land force in the world [Britain held supeirority on the seas], German planners would expect that an even better German army, supported by the armies of another 4 nations and soldiers from other 2 or 3 would have a fields day in the Soviet Union. For operations like in France, triangular divisions or, generally, better manned ones are a bit better as you have a more concentrated force, However, when the advance ground to a halt, they ran into some problems. They could no longer concentrate forces if they wanted to hold all the fronts (north, center south), each divided in multiple sub-fronts. And now the enemy was pushing back. Soo, they needed to move troops around. You cannot really move a whole division because, well, you can have problems on the strategic ballance. You cannot move individual regiments or batallions because you risk putting too much stress on commanders of regiments or divisions, creating unbalanced divisions. So, you'll need independent batallions, but then you can have CnC problems. So why the hell not just take the batalions/regiments out and reorganise the divisions while we have time instead of creating chaos in the battle
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  22. Important notices to be made (going to edit in time) At 5:41 Please notice those numbers stated in the table are the Axis forces officially involved in combat on the Eastern Front. However, the axis population pool was EVEN HIGHER. Not only it does not include Bulgaria, but Nazi Germany had quite a few supporters in countries like Croatia. I am not yet sure if the numbers also include German occupied territories (Norway, Denmark etc.). That's a little hint for those that said 'USSR had infinite manpower and that's why they won'. Judging by those numbers, even with the whole poupulation intact, USSR could barely equal the population pool of the Axis.
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  23. Hindsight. At the begining of the Stalingrad battles, few soldiers were equiped with automatic weapons. Actually, it was experience in Stalingrad which showed how effective those weapons are in city combat and later led to the creation of assault squats
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  24. Warfare is a military act. Military is influenced by economics. Politics are influenced by economics. And economics are influenced by politics And economics are influenced by nature
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  25. Because women can work? Because retired can work? Because children can also work? And yes, Germans also employed children and retirees. As far as I remember, even on the frontlines.
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  26. Hitler: 'I declare THE END OF THE WAR' The Allies: 'You cannot just say the end fo the war and be done with it'. Hitler: 'I didn't just say it, I declared it'.
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  27.  @utvara1  Well, how many civilians are there. What weapons are you allowed to use? What weapons do you have for use? You could air-strike them to Hell and back, but if you get a Nurnberg re-enactment with you as a main actor, I doubt it's worth it.
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  28.  @utvara1  I meant more like how many civillians are in the combat area, because you could have the poor bastards in 3-4 blocks, and civillians somewhere else, in which case, Air-Strike/bombard them, or they could hold the civillians hostage, in which case you are in big trouble, I would say that for your number of 1000 rebels, 4000-4500 would allow enough flexibility, maybe go down to 3000 if some of them are in armored support. Realistically, for launching an assault on a city, you would want as many troops available as possible, so you can surround the enemy and constantly harass them in a series of small skirmishes and fast dashes (to cut off lines to more isolated positions and force the enemy to attack you). This would also allow you to weasel in some diplomacy by convincing individual groups to surrender or at least leave the area. Pretty much like how Syria and Russia handled Aleppo. 3or4:1 is good, 10:1 is even better. The biggest downside is that such an operation takes a very long time and it is going to be costly on the civillians in terms of prolonged suffering (you cannot really supply them because the enemy is going to steal the food from them, they are pressed into fighting used as slaves and so on). Thinking about it, dealing with a professional army might be somewhat easier than with a group of insurgents since a professional army, in theory, would try to avoid barricading themselves in the same quarters as civillians (keywords: in theory, try) so they won't face international trials and such.
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  29.  @bezahltersystemtroll5055  @Tancred De Hauteville Nerve Gas was used in WW2. I believe there's at least one recorded instance of it being used in sweeping operations in Odessa. The reason why it wasn't used that much in WW2, on such a scale combined with WW1, is simply a different nature of the warfare. 'Large stockpiles' is a relative interpretation. I doubt a 'large stockpile' has any importance when your frontline stretches 200km just for one area of operations, let alone the whole Eastern front which has a few thousands of them.. Gas was used to some effect in WW1 due to the static nature of the warfare, where cannisters would land on enemy troops stuck in trenches, in the very crowded areas of Western Europe (more dense areas, more damage). And, of course, against fortifications, like Osterlitz, where, again, you have concentrations of troops. Throwing gas bombs left and right would only deplete your stockpile without achieving anything. Also, think about the technological differences. It's easy to launch a smoke cannister at a poor sould in a trench, stuck in 10in of mud and with 10 blokes around him, and catch him unaware, and there's a whole other thing launching gas at an advancing tank force who's not even happy to advance before your position gets battered by artillery or air-raids. Finally, gas is not a consumable you unlock in a game. It's a highly specialised weapon, with very specific requirements. You need trained personel and special built storage facilities to operate it. If you don't have that, you risk either it being leaked/contaminated, thus making it useless, or, worse, you risk poisoning your own troops. And, of course, you risk it being hit by enemy bombs and artillery strikes.
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  30. Well, pretty damn hard to build a defensive structure with only one brick, so good luck with the second option
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  31. the problem with anarho capitalists is that they don't operate on a hard system you could rely your attacks on. Socialists, statists, centrists etc. do have a set of premises like: 'The focus of economy should be doing this', 'the gouvernment should do that', therefore by pointing out that 'the gouvernment does not do that' or 'it does something else', can be an effective argument against a statist. However, a capitalist has no such thing and this is why you still have them around. Their way of thinking is: 'interactions between humans are going to solve everything on their own and everyone [still around] is going to better off'. (Basically survival of the fittest). To adress your point about 'Climate change'. Who says that would be a problem to solve? You will have people that say 'it's a problem' and take action themselves and you will have deniers. If the ones taking action are succesful, the world moves on, people are happy (probably the ones taking action a bit less since that means making sacrifices), so the capitalists are right. If climate change turns out to be real, well, not everyone's going to die. There will be some building bunkers or ships or whatever and the survivors are going to establish economic relationships between themselves and they will 'thrive' and will be happy. Again capitalists win. You could nuke us back into the stone age (arguably the last time a 'capitalist' society existed) and the capitalists will still say it's a working system becaue people will find something to do.
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  32. Pretty much what damyr said. A guard division is usually formed by experienced soldiers and officers meant to provide support to newer or weaker units as they gain experience or clean the mess if those fuck up.
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  33.  @robert48044  For TIK socialism and nazism and fascism are all the same, with only small variations (like Nazis hating the 'untermensch') For your question, you operate on a few wrong assumptions. 'the personally owned shops and markets under communism wouldn't exist would they? 'The motto of socialism, which became a meme is 'Seize the means of production'. Shops are not means of production. I know many people want to consider them as such because some economics theoriticians had to come up with some figures to justify capitalism being the superior race, so the included the tertiary sector (services) in the mix because, technically, they produce revenue. However, they are not 'means of production' and neither are more than 75% of the other services (with half of the rest, if not more, being mega corporations and/or international service companies which still don't produce anything, but bring in foreign exchange). Socialism focuses on implementing a system in which the industrial effort of a country is planned to serve the population as a whole, not a limited group of people owning the factories (farmers were included in the ideology after 1917) How successful were they in that? Pretty debatable, but they did have lots of failures. Now, back to your shops. Socialism plans the economy thinking how much would a person need in order survive and progress. However, it's a no brainer that some people might consume much less from an alocated good while other might need more. So, instead of going from door to door to shove a bunch of needed or not needed resources up someones ass, they had centers in which people could take to their hearts content, as long as resources were available. The familly of my grandmother used to own such a shop. I think it was something related with textile materials IIRC. Those shops would 'buy' (aka place an order for) their goods from 'the gouvernment' (aka production agents representing the state) at a 'fixed' (aka almost irrelevant) price.
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  34. Hello house. I had a small insight into the 'academic publishing' world thanks to some history teachers and private tutors I had in high school. Let me tell you, the moment you become 'official', like academic, you are getting tied up, hands, feet and neck. Like those guys were writing some books on a subject, taught something different (almost completely) in schools and in private talks, mentioning full picture, they said something else as well, because when you go public, you anger a lot of people. And it's not only history. It happens also in the 'scientific/engineering world'. I and a few other guys had a chance to sit at a table with the dean of our faculty (We study aerospace engineering) and he told us about how tough life really is and why the progress in technology has slowed so down in the past decades. It's because there is a huge image problem. If you publish something and get it slightly wrong or even if somebody else gets something wrong and money or worse are lost, then people will get angry and they will start going after the ones that supported you. I might not agree with TIK in everything, but this time he's correct, the academic world is a meatgrinder
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  35. mm, not really. One must think that from the people in Ukraine there must also be refugees. Also, agricultural lands East of Ukraine were not as developed.
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  36.  @yulusleonard985  except Soviet had tanks aiming at the MGs.
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  37. Yes and no. The fact is that the numbers went up. More fighters instead of more bombers doesn't mean: 'Hey, we are blasting through this', it means you have another issue on your head which you previously did not have. As for making things easier to mass produce, that's something every nation did. From USSR to US
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  38.  @TheImperatorKnight  Bad times is a severe understatement. This is not only about economics like in 2008. It's about politics and military as well. You can see more and more push from 'official' channels all over the world, from US, to UK even to Romanian outlets here, that if you do not agree to a narrative, whatever narrative, you are a 'Russian agent', demonised into hell. Not that the Russians are some saints, but this is straight out of Orwellian and Huxleyan distopias. What we see today is the western world forcefully waking up from their decade old de-industrialisation drunkness trying to regain their control over the world markets and means of production by whatever means they can. So not only will you not be able to get rid of debt, you won't be able to point out that your incabapility to do that (and million others like you) is a problem. I won't dwelve deeper into that since I am fully aware of our diferent opinions on macro-economics and politics, but I can agree with you here: We are screwed to a level beyond words
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  39. And then you kinda realise why things are like they are. You need minor meetings before the actual meeting to make sure everyone clears the schedule for the important one. Clearing the schedules means that if the meeting lasts 2 hours, you should clear 3-5 hours, because the big meeting can overextend. You need minor meetings to plan for the 'logistical' side: Where are you going to hold it? Is the location available? Book it while it lasts! Are you going to need special tech equipment? Who's going to handle that? You want to serve snaks? Who's going to handle that? And you need a review meeting to see if everything has been taken care of
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  40.  @user-qf6yt3id3w  Looking at operations like Crusader and BattleAxe I'm like: Nah. The allies had more firepower to throw at Germany.
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  41.  @Edax_Royeaux  1. Manpower is not the same as soldiers. First of all, you could recruit soldiers on the ground, not have them shipped from Moskow or who knows where. Secondly, manpower also means people building railways, repairing tanks and other equipment, building defensive structures etc. etc. 2. The food would have been a problem anyway
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  42.  @dondajulah4168  1. Because Poland is not all of Eastern Europe. 2. Send troops to French ports and fight alongside France? You know, like Britain was supposed to do? 3. How about convincing Romania to let Soviet troops pass and gain access to Czechoslovakia?
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  43. @Kaiser Conquests @TIK As usual, there are various reason for big decisions to be made. No one is risking their neck for a small quarrel. If you are in for a long-ish read, here are my top 3-4 (3.5?) and justifications: 1. Two front war with Japan. Hitler wanted to drag USSR into a war on two fronts, so distant and against two differnt enemies which would make progress on one front irrelevant on the other (like what happened to him). This is not a far-fetched ideea considering that even after Okinawa, Japan still had around a million soldiers at the Eastern Border of USSR, so the ability of Japan to wage a war against US and USSR at the same time was not a fantasy. Plus, a war on two fronts would have collapsed USSR much sooner considering they were barely catching a breath in the winter of 1941. 2. US supplies to UK and USSR. US supplied Britain and gave them a pretty big envelope where U-Boats could not hunt or search. As another comment points out, there were also incidents where US ships were harassing U-Boats. At this point, US was 'in the war' with almost everything, but the name. So, why not get it over with and declare proper warfare, at least you might be able to strike closer to ports and open new attack routes. But wasn't Germany afraid of US military might? Well, for this we get to point 3. 3. US had no military might. In 1941 they did not even have a proper fighting tank. The M4 was still in design and testing phases. M3 was a stop-gap and they faced the M3s in Africa, we know how that ended thanks to TIKs crusader video. Military doctrines were also pretty new as the whole upper echelon was replaced by new members (I think it was Marshall who did that?). They had their Navy, but it wasn't that spectacular compared to Japan and Britain. And they were dealing well with the British. Separated between two oceans, I am sure Hitler thought Japan could take on or at least resist against USN in the Pacific and there was no threat from USN against Germany And... 3.5 US was an entire Ocean away. The logistics of trying to support a war in Europe were going to be massive. It might have not occured to Hitler that US could actually be a threat. And, if we look at the European theater in WW2, well..., we cannot say this reasoning was entirely wrong. Before Normandy and Italy, major victories where US participated were in North Africa, a secondary front for Hitler, took on only because Mussolini needed help and it was annoying the British. Then came Italy. And US and UK got bogged down. Hard. After clearing the beaches of Normandy, they got bogged down a little again. And this time they were facing an enemy which was even weaker after Kursk and Kiev and attempts to capture Romania. Soo, yeah. The military ferocity of the US did not really show up in the Europe of our timeline (in the Pacific, there's another story). Had Japan declared war on USSR as Hitler expected, things were sure to have ended slightly to more different
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  44. Well, Stalingrad was almost entirely under German control in our timeline, so I believe this makes your answer. The thing is, with the city full under control (aka blocked transports)they would have had an easier time focusing on the encriclement, not fighting on all fronts
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  45. What do you mean inhumane treatment of PoWs? Soviet PoWs were not, and by some, are still not, considered humans in the first place. So, in the nazi logic, why feed the rats with the food of your children?
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  46.  @bobraible  1. So it's still enslaving and exploiting other people. 2. Not entirely true either. The Germans disconsidered the Soviets and other slavs as 'untermensch', so, for them, they were still exploiting under-developed countries. Third World did not form yet.
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  47. Technically, I believe it's more interesting to discuss the operational and strategic aspect of Manchuria. Operational because the biggest freaking Pincer we've known. Otherwise, not that big of a deal. Soviets were supperior in every aspect to the Japanese force. Basically they pulled their own Barbarossa with extra steps and properly planned. Strategically because they prevented Western Experience from a possible expansion into East Asia after Japan would fall, allowed for the recapture of Russian land taken by Japan after the 1905-1907 war and the intervention in the Russian Civil War (Civil like Hell considering how many nations were involved) and also I've heard people arguing that this Offensive, rather than the A-bombs, were the final nail in the Japanese coffin.
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  48. I think it was not his political education, but his experience. Russia fought against Germany along UK and France in WW1 and suffered some of the worst casualities. What was the result? When things did not go as the capitalists wanted, they brought the worlds strongest nations (UK, US, France, Japan) agaist Russia at their weakest point and agreed to the carving of their territory. And the 1930s were far from the ideal period we are being taught. France and UK were shaking hands with Hitler wherever they could. Hitler was invading Spain and he was hosting the Olympics at the same time. Then came Austria and Munich. How would those look for the Soviets? Could Stalin, having the experience of many wars, really belive that fighting against Hitler would not result in a war which USSR could not win and would be attacked by his 'former allies'?
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  49.  @GeographyCzar  Well, such is the life of a soldier. Let us hope we will not see those
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  50.  @razorboy251  If he got the same business education as I got as part of my training as an engineer (The courses were actually taught by professors and businesspeople from the Academy of Economic Studies in our country, trained in US and UK), it all makes sense. They makes the same points, which kinda contradict the principles of engineering (makes you wonder why production people generally hate managers). Even though, they still seemed to bring stuff which TIK kindly forgets about, stuff like how it's in the interest of each company to make the market less free and grab a hold over it.
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