Did the Soviets want all of Finland? I thought they only wanted the border regions.
What's the most Cringeworthy Alternate History you've ever read?
- Thread starter Silent Runner
- Start date
- Post-1900
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
They did not try to conquer Finland. In fact, the only complaints were formulated as follows: Finnish borders are too inconvenient and dangerous for the USSR, so please step to the North. Although there was a development of an option in which the USSR completely defeats the Finnish army, the closest option was considered to be changing the borders in favor of the Union. The funniest thing is that as a result of the war, the borders changed according to the original Soviet proposals - the Soviets completely receive the Karelian Isthmus, in exchange for the transfer of some border regions to the north to Finland.
As for the Baltics, Stalin annexed them only because he believed that Hitler would do it otherwise.
Stalin was also deeply paranoid about Finnic minorities in Karelia and Ingria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Finnish border is arguable, but the Baltic s was not he didn't exactly leave once Hitler was gone did he.
Come on. You are going way to far in the apologism for the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union made major territorial demands of Finland and invaded when these demands were refused. There is every indication that the intention was to install of a puppet government with this only being prevented due to their terrible initial military defeats
The idea that your empire needs to conquer lesser nations in order to prevent a far worse empire from doing the same is also one of the classic justifications of colonialism. It was a regularly stated argument in the Scramble for Africa.
I get that you want to push back against the vilification of your country and favored ideology but there are ways to do this that don't equate to a defense of imperial conquest or whitewash a period characterized by repeated genocides.
Last edited:
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Stalin would probably have said then: "Why should I refuse?"
Actually, I don't consider this apologetics. These are just facts that can be found in any good history book, which analyzes the material better than a school textbook. In any case, in my cultural-ideological circle, this is not considered apologetics.
How is presenting the argument that conquest is justified by security or to counter the aspirations of another power not apologetics? I would certainly consider the analogous argument that the U.S needed to expand and become a colonial power in the Western Hemisphere to counter the threat of European powers doing the same to be an example of apologetics (for those not familiar with U.S political history this was a common argument that shaped much of U.S policy and was particularly relevant to the occupation of the Philippines). As I also mentioned earlier, this was a key element in the justification for the policies that created the Scramble for Africa.
You might want to consider what books you are reading if they promote the classical arguments of colonialism or give the Soviet Union such a positive role in the Winter War. It is disturbingly easy to fall into a hole of only reading or believing material that justifies the glory and morality of your nation or favored cause.
I would recommend taking a step back mentally and considering how you would view the actions of the Soviet Union if they were performed by a country you are not inclined to favor and defend.
Last edited:
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
I only said that the reasons were absolutely pragmatic, and were not part of the Great Plan of conquest or the creation of a new colonial empire. And Stalin certainly did not make any historical claims - he said directly that such borders are not beneficial to him. I did not say that they were correct, or even that Stalin achieved the set task - in fact, the result of the Soviet-Finnish War (the term "Winter War" is not accepted in Russian-language historiography - neither in the liberal, nor in the conservative, nor in the pro-Soviet versions) was the fate of Finland on the side of the Fascists, the Siege of Leningrad, and the genocide (!) of the Russian-speaking population of the occupied territories. And this is a typical feature of Stalin - both in domestic and internal policy. To make a decision based on absolutely pragmatic considerations, to bring it to an absurd end, and necessarily with a huge number of victims. In some cases (Industrialization) there was a result. In others (collectivization and the entire agricultural policy in general) - everything only got worse.
Well, certainly not American - 95 percent of all articles and books that were in English (or are Russian translations) about the USSR were absolutely useless. There are a few insightful works, and a few Marxist works showing either insightful or unusual conclusions, but mostly either lies or boredom. I still remember an article by a CIA analyst who analyzed Seventeen Moments of Spring - he dared to claim that because of the negative image of spies before Stirlitz there was no spy literature. This is complete nonsense - back in the forties, books about intelligence officers were popular, and every second adventure film of the fifties included plots about spies. And although semantically the word "spy" does have a negative connotation, the word "intelligence officer" was always used in relation to Soviet spies. "Their insidious spies are our valiant intelligence officers." Even in relation to James Bond, in late Soviet and modern Russian articles one can notice the phrase "Famous British Intelligence Officer".
And the funniest thing is that foreign authors have stupid ideas not only about the USSR, but about all of Russia and many neighboring states.
I am not quite sure what you mean here as my interpretation is that you stated the following and then claimed it was historical fact rather than apologetics. That is the focus of my critique and it has nothing to do with whether Stalin was absolutely pragmatic in his public policy. I don't see how the pragmatism of a leader is at all relevant to whether the policies of the nation they lead meet moral standards.
This is getting into semantics so about we end this right here. I don't see it going anywhere good to continue and we seem to be talking past each other.
This is getting into semantics so about we end this right here. I don't see it going anywhere good to continue and we seem to be talking past each other.
Last edited:
TGG = The Great Game. It was an ancient series of interconnected fics on SB where a bunch of OC alternate timelines interact, cross over with and sometimes invade various Sci-Fi IPs.
The main factions are an American dominated compassionate conservative/neocon/neoliberal/triangulated 90's democrat Alliance of Democratic Nations, the hyperfeudalist Taloran Empire devised by the esteemed former owner/founder of the safe space in the deep desert and the insanely arch-reactionary Hapsburg-wankverse of the Holy Roman Empire (in Space!)
Most of the Sci-Fi IPs ultimately exist as props for the Alliance, Talorans and Hapsburgs to show their superiority against; especially the United Federation of Planets.
The various TLs dance the line of alternate history and speculative fiction history; there's a couple where somehow the Kaiserreich defeats the entente entirely within the bounds of 1914 and this somehow means the various great powers circa 1914 are still in power a century later. There one where the writers go to background fascist dictator is head of the EU, several where the USSR survives and embraces the free market, Imperial Britain prevails etc
Rampant monarchism is notable mostly wherever the Talorans show up; with them having forced the reinstatement of all monarchies on Earth after conquering it (and, somehow, the only city they sack is Mecca with Medina being the only city they outright annex), and insisting on establish monarchies wherever they go.
The Sisko as General Lee arises from the Federation Civil War arc where the poor oppressed colonies populated by square-jawed steely eye human frontiersmen who yearn for the days of Pax Americana, Edwardian england (where somehow the jacobite inheritance is still somehow a factor) and imagined/idealized 1940's/1950's Catholic morality rise up and secede from the effeminate one party socialist hellhole Federation and their Vulcan-Bolshevik masters. It's presumably meant to be Sisko being more of a Washington figure with a big chunk of the initial revolt being about taxation/representation; but the ACW references are so apparent even to me a non-American that it can't be anything else.
Firstly, I find the choice of the three major factions kind of strange. Not only are they all right wing, but Talorans and Habsburgs seem to be the same kind of right wing, raising the question of why they needed to be separate factions at all. Also, while hyper-monarchist reactionaries forcing everyone on a newly conquered planet into their systems of feudal nobility makes sense, the fact that the only cities they meaningfully damage or even directly claim are the two Holy Islamic Cities (which are on the small end of world cities) is really bizarre.
On the Star Trek stuff, while I don't follow the franchise, those splinter factions don't really make sense from what I know of the setting. Why would any significant chunk of people in a world of normalized multiculturalism, feminism, and matter replicators want to bother with LARPing as conservatives from dead empires lightyears away from them?
Because the Talorans are feudalistic conservative space elves with more girls and a considerable overlapping number of LGB characters (note what letters aren't there) while the Hapsburg so conservative 90's GOP culture warriors would be considered dangerously liberal.
I fixate on the Trek aspect mostly because this was the first trek fic I ever read and it pissed me off.
Anyway, how long till we start getting cringe 'if only McCain or Romney had won in 2008 and/or 2012 we wouldn't be quite so fucked as we are now' TLs
I fixate on the Trek aspect mostly because this was the first trek fic I ever read and it pissed me off.
Anyway, how long till we start getting cringe 'if only McCain or Romney had won in 2008 and/or 2012 we wouldn't be quite so fucked as we are now' TLs
Last edited:
I am only tangential familiar with the lore from one fanfic over on Stardestroyer.net but my understanding is that one of the key ideas of the setting is that the Federation is not a post-scarcity society. They instead rely on raw material and energy generated by colonies to pay for the "Utopia" of the core systems.
Ideas of this nature have been used by a few other Star Trek fanfics that seek to deconstruct the Federation economic system.
Ah, so it's a situation where the author is trying to convince herself and others that "being okay with gay people" and "being a weirdo hyper-feudalist conservative with blatant transphobic and Islamophobic undertones" are definitely not fundamentally incompatible, and also that she definitely thinks of this as a totally normal hypothetical society which she doesn't actually endorse rather than her personal dream world of... what do I even call "I wish space aliens would invade, Own The Libs, destroy Islam, and instate feudal governments?" 'Neo-feudalist Anti-Communist Posadism?'
Last edited:
The writer for the Talorans is a lesbian as far as her postings indicated, but also a founder/former owner of the Sietch; so...
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ah, so a Rohm situation. Extreme reactionary but happens to be a gay so they rationalize away the aspects of their idealogy that clash with their personal identity while keeping everything else.
The classic
Ah, updating previous post to use 'she' then. Also, something something standard 'I never thought the leopards would eat my face' commentary re: being a sexual minority who went on to found SB For Fascist Jackasses.
- Location
- USS Enterprise CV-6
TBF I do think you can make that case if Romney won in 2012 that things would be better. Mainly because it'd butterfly the rise of Trump and potentially the alt-right or at least the alt-right as well know it.
Terra Allias
World's only Magical Girl Spec Ops Asuka fan
- Location
- Cheverly
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Tbh I can see that kind of working if the goal is to make the Federation a flawed but functional setting. Because you could definitely do something with how the UFP is socialist, but not exactly revolutionary. Might require rewriting how the tech works though.
Last edited:
- Location
- Somewhere
With their observable tech plus the knowledge of what we already have, for them to not be post scarcity requires that they deliberately make themselves a dystopia. Just to justify right wing writers belief that socialism is evil and unworkable.
Terra Allias
World's only Magical Girl Spec Ops Asuka fan
- Location
- Cheverly
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's how it usually works yes. I'm just looking at it from the lens of a socialist calling the UFP fake socialists.
Restrictions on access to replicators in the name of safety? Imagine a AU UFP which still has scarcity despite replicators cause the government maintains a strict replicator monopoly and ban on replicating specific items like weapons or parts to build your own replicators. Officially this is because an unrestricted replicator is a WMD. We can all probably think of some creatively nasty ways to use the ability to manufacture anything to kill people. Unofficially, it's cause it gives the people who control access to the replicators total control of everyone else, they can still make superweapons and they don't even need to, all they have to do to keep power is threaten to cut anyone else off from accessing the replicated dole.
But that story already exists, Karl Schroeder's Permanence. The supposedly democratic space!neoliberalism Rights Economy is meaningfully ruled by a rentist neofeudal oligarchy who own the replicator templates and justify their monopoly by claiming its end would inevitably mean the grey goo apocalypse.
View: https://askjenetiakrole.tumblr.com/post/167001527769/fools-have-asked-why-did-the-dark-age-of#:~:text=It%20is%20because%20finally%20humanity,darkest%20things%20in%20all%20creation.
You're avoiding the question. If you grade on a curve then in moral relativeness, why are the Soviets "very dark grey" compared to the Western Allies? Why are the Western Allies "light grey" for fighting the Axis, but the Soviet Union is "very dark grey" for fighting the Axis?
You won't hear me singing the praises of Stalin. He was a paranoid butcher that killed millions and was an extinction event for most of Europe's communist parties in exile. It is however convenient for you to take this "Anti-Stalin but not anti-communist" stance because it allows you to elevate the crimes of the Soviet Union as a unique evil compared to its liberal peers. Even your initial framing of "In Europe" is biased, because it's based entirely in the European context. The Western Allies colonies were all outside of Europe.
When did the Belgian Congo or Dutch East Indies become "light grey" regimes? Was it before or after the numerous massacres? Was it when the Netherlands sent ships to bombard Java to reconquer the island after WW2? What about America? Did the murder and forced sterilizalization of indigenous people make them "light grey?" What about Jim Crow laws? FDR maintained racial segregation under the New Deal as an explicit point of policy to deny black people access to wealth distribution. Was the British Raj "light grey" when it imprisoned independence leaders and caused yet another famine that killed over 3 million people?
My point of contention is not that the Soviet Union under Stalin committed crimes. It did, you won't hear me say otherwise. It's the fact that you've whitewashed the crimes of the Western Allies, done before, during, and immediately after the war. You say that fighting the Nazis makes them morally lighter by comparison, yet that doesn't apply to the Soviets, whom actually did the majority of fighting against Germany. You keep trying to sidestep that. If you had said Allies and Soviets were both grey vs Axis pitch black, nobody would have raised an eyebrow.
Double Genocide "Theory" is not in fact accepted in academia. It's perpetuated by nationalists to justify the actions of regimes during the Interwar Period and Nazi collaborators during WW2. Soviet actions against innocent civilians is inexcusable, but we can see that clearly based on Soviet occupation and rule over the Baltics and Eastern Europe it does not constitute a genocide. 5 to 3 years under the Nazis killed a third of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia's population. Belarus and Ukraine suffered similar genocides under Nazi occupation. 50 years under the Soviets did not.
That doesn't even touch on the fact that those regimes in Eastern Europe were brutal dictatorships themselves that were more than happy to butcher their own people. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were all dictatorships by 1934, half of them before that. Poland had tried to conquer its neighbours numerous times and committed pogroms against its Jewish citizens. Latvia was committing pogroms against its Jewish citizens. Lithuania banned the genuinely popular social democrats from government and implemented a cult of personality. Finland was ruled by Finnish Whites that committed massacres of tens of thousands of communist partisans, peasants, and workers after winning the Finnish Civil War.
Nearly all of them were German collaborators that only declared independence when Germany lost WW1 or seized power in a brutal civil war following WW1. It's telling that if communists win a civil war, establish a socialist republic, and support their comrades abroad, they're a threat, but if fascists or nationalists win a civil war, massacre a few thousand people, and act like a belligerent power, then they're a legitimate government that should be respected, even if they're also ruled by a "a mass murdering psychopath who best case committed various cases of ethnic cleansings, ordered the murder of PoWs on multiple occasions, looked away when his army was committing rape and murder." That describe certainly fits a number of them.
Piłsudski even tried to ally with Hitler specifically to carve up Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. It should be kept in mind that these regimes, if given the chance, would have gleefully joined the Axis. None of that justifies any actions taken against civilians by Soviets, of course.
Stalin also ordered Italian and French communists to disarm, give up power, and form coalitions with social democrat and liberal parties after WW2 entirely to appease the Western Allies. French and Italian Communists literally had control over multiple cities in 45 and were genuinely popular because they formed the core of anti-fascist resistance. He basically signed their death warrants by doing that, given how America, France, and Italy collaborated to murder communist politicians to stop them from winning elections.
Last edited:
Spylobster
Centrist-Malenyevist
Poland also participated in the dismembering of Czechoslovakia when it annexed Zaolzie in 1938.
I thought the whole punchline to the idea of WWII being the one 'clear cut' war in human history was that "someone has to really be evil or really good at propaganda for Imperial Britain, Jim Crow America and Stalinist Soviet Union (lets be blunt that France was absurdly lucky not to have a boot shoved up its ass for collaboration) to be considered the factual good guys by comparison"
Last edited: