One of the factors playing into the situation is that most Russians and indeed most Soviet citizens had known almost nothing but abject poverty or at best (for a minority) something resembling lower-lower-class lifestyle. This had only marginally improved since the fall of the tsar.
Tsarist Russia had deliberately kept the vast bulk of the people dirt poor and mismanaged just about everything to the point where famines were a common occurrance during the Tsarist years. The famine of 1890-1891 stands out in that it caused, according to historian Orlando Figes, a small group of minor nobility (including a young prince Georgi Lvov) to start advocating reform. Reforms that the tsars ultimately refused to consider being goaded by his ultra conservative advisors to keep things the way they were.
Only briefly (from early 1917 to late 1917) had Russians known substantial freedoms (certainly compared to what came before and what came after).
(If it doesnât sound like in the following, Iâm actually agreeing with you. It might have something to do with you having a cooler handle than I do.
Well, ifân the Germans were short of population (20 million - wow, didnât know that, an interesting synthesis.) It doesnât surprise me at all that the âresettlementâ plan ran into lack of interest. (âWeâd like you to go into a newly-conquered country, where all the people there will hate you forever, and when they get a chance, will kill you. But your great-grandchildren might be able to make Poland German! Whoâs first? Hello? Hello?â)
The Germans had vivid memories of another Europe-wide war joined by the US, and the misery and death back home. Hitler was a man in a hurry, perhaps the most dangerous leader you can have. He wanted to do everything right-now.
And he didnât know how to run an economy, or know anybody who did (nobody he trusted, anyhow), and so wound up with Goering. He didnât know how to run a secret police and intelligence force, and so wound up with Himmler.
Hitler never forgot that although he was in power, he was Chancellor because other people in the political hierarchy were stupid; the voters wouldnât give him a majority until he outlawed all the other parties.
Maybe if Hitler had been willing to wait one more generation, Germany would have had a better time of it. But that wasnât the man Hitler was.
This was one of the best things America was able to accomplish with their economic power. They provided huge amounts of food to Europe from the Americas. Several countries could grow the food but we had the ability to move it. Using power to save lives rather than just kill is something to be proud of.
No, although the term âcommissarâ was dropped in 1942, for the not-quite-the-same-thing âdeputy for political mattersâ. This changed the role of the Party officer from equal to the military to commander to subordinate to him/her. Post-Soviet, there is still a sort of political officer, part of the âmilitary commissariatâ, which functions in administrative as well as political matters.
Not exactly, âpolitical mattersâ was in the Sovietunion a field above everything. The âdeputy for political mattersâ was no longer resposible for miiltary topics, only for political topics. No military commander in the SU was ever not a subordinate to the Party.
Fair enough - the âpolitical affairsâ folks could always call up the NKVD and âdisappearâ someone; the Great Purge of 1937-8 of the Red Army was still hanging over everybody.
