BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:22 PM

Okay - I think this whole thing is getting way off topic. To the extent that it's my fault, I apologize. The only thing I know about banks is I'm always getting screwed by them. I just thought they'd do the same thing to big time customers like Henry Ford--maybe not.
                  In any event, I don't want to insult anybody else, so I'm just going to shut up about it.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 16 May 09 - 02:41 PM

Riginsliger YOU'RE the one who is the banking expert here. This simply exposes your knowledge (or lack thereof) and your ability to parse that knowledge (or inabiility).

Right know you are reading like ignorance mixed with prejudice.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 May 09 - 11:17 PM

"Lindbergh, Ford, and Kennedy, in addition to being deluded in their individual ways, were also antisemitic."

    "These are people who had to deal with Jewish banking cartels. We are experiencing now what they were dealing with then."

          Okay, robomatic, let's assume that the original poster was referencing Joseph Kennedy because he is the one that is often pegged with antisemitism. Maybe he got burned by bankers, maybe not, but Ford and Lindbergh were both trying to ramp up major industrial enterprizes, where would you think they would have to go for capital on the scale they would need it?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Monique
Date: 15 May 09 - 07:18 PM

Trial of Louis XVI

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 15 May 09 - 05:13 PM

11 May 09 Peter K:

We know now that there were elements (some of them Jewish) within western capitalism that had a significant vested interest in the prospect of war.

11 May 09 Riginslinger (in answer to a comment in quotes):

"Lindbergh, Ford, and Kennedy, in addition to being deluded in their individual ways, were also antisemitic."


                   These are people who had to deal with Jewish banking cartels. We are experiencing now what they were dealing with then.

I think you guys need to be called on those bigoted remarks. What constitutes Jewish elements or Jewish banking cartels? What were the "significant vested interests in the prospect of war"? This is precisely the kind of stuff the fascists and Nazis argued (and argue still) during times of economic woe, no matter what the woe was nor who or what caused it. If you are going to persist in these comments you need to back 'em up back down. Inserted comments for effect are actions more of a guttersnipe nature than a mature member.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 15 May 09 - 05:02 PM

As far as the English Revolution goes, I'm well aware that is still a pretty controversial topic. By 'magnificent' I strictly meant from a point of view of what a nexus it was and how grand for study:

Religious motivations (Catholic, Protestant, Puritan, Presbyterian, Jewish, Millenarian)
Social (Class issues, the Levellers)
Political
Ethnic (Scot, English, Irish)
Military (Innovations in tactics and battlefield behavior).
Historical (Enabled structural changes to the American colonial governments which made the American War of Independence more likely to occur, and, having occurred, more likely to succeed).

In seeing it from an American 20th century viewpoint, it always tickles me when I reflect that Parliament put their king on trial for 'tyranny' - isn't that like accusing a bear of being hairy? What a notion! What other country came close in that time period to an ideal of limited monarchy? At least they gave him a trial, I don't know if Louis XVI ever got that much of a chance a hundred fifty years later.

And on a personal note, I got to visit London on my family's only vacation overseas, and got to see Patton and Cromwell in their first releases in English theatres.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 May 09 - 03:50 PM

As well we aren't faced with that choice. If I had to I suppose I'd have to choose the other way. It comes down to, which would be more likely to kill my family.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Les from Hull
Date: 15 May 09 - 03:39 PM

Riginslinger - I don't understand your remark about Cromwell. Our Civil War was basically an upper middle class revolution, leaving the majority of the English public unaffected, other than pushed into fighting for either side, and quite often dead. But give me Cromwell over Charles Stuart any day.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 May 09 - 04:03 AM

Please remember that posts from unnamed guests are not allowed. Use a name in the "from" box, and use the same name for every message you post.
By rights, I should delete the entire thread, since it is a non-music thread started by a non-member.
Refer to our Posting Policy.
-Joe Offer, Forum Moderator-

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 10:26 PM

Rig, please translate that last cryptic remark. And take your remark about "Jewish banking cartels" to the gutter where it belongs.   And leave it there.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 May 09 - 10:20 PM

"It's certainly likely that in 1933-34 the ignorance about Hitler on this side of the Pond would have resulted in at least some people getting the picture that the 3rd Reich wanted to portray, and that was depicted in the pages of that organ: specifically that Hitler and FDR were very similar: each one led a country with a very serious unemployment problem, and was administering tough medicine for a desperate time."

                   And the conclusion is completely dependent on who won the war.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 10:17 PM

And as far as the "English revolution" being "magnificent"--I assume you refer to the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688-- it depends on your perspective. A king was deposed, after a son had been born to him, and a foreigner was invited in to take his place, because of fear of Catholicism--and, no doubt, fear of possible entanglement with Catholic states like France, since at that point religion and politics were inseparable.   

But this is absurd to start discussing on a "Stalin" thread.

No more what-if's for me.

Separate threads, or I will read but not comment. (I'm sure some will be relieved).

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 10:02 PM

My quote about Washington's annoyance with his British superiors was again Ellis, p. 26.   I should have stated that.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:58 PM

Also: Washington:

What Dinwiddie offered was not a position as a regular commissioned officer in the British Army, but a position in the colonial army--which was considered lower-grade by the regular British army. Washington's annoyance at this attitude expressed itself in contempt for his British superiors--which probably did not help in his campaign to become a commissioned officer in the regular British Army

After the Braddock debacle, Washington "had come to regard himself as superior to anyone, British or American, in conducting this kind of guerilla war, and it rankled him that neither he nor his troops were paid at the same rate as British regulars"..."His protest on this score was more personal than ideological; that is, it derived less from any political convictions about colonial rights than from his own disappointment that neither he nor his regiment were sufficiently appreciated".

It seems likely that had a full commission in the regular British army been offered at that point, he would have been anchored in that society, and not so likely to be willing to lead the rebels.

Again, what-if's are basically nothing but a huge waste of time. If we want to discuss, we should at least break the topics up into different threads.

But a bit more on Washington:

What I find fascinating is that the "traitor" Washington, during the Revolutionary War, was in fact lionized by a large section of the British intelligentsia. It appears that the Revolution was indeed, as Stanley Weintraub depicts in Iron Tears, which I heartily recommend, Britain's Vietnam-- in so many ways.

And as for the straw man about self-interest: nobody claims Washington was without self-interest.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:55 PM

Yes, Ron.

I'm not sure which of the Toronto papers it was. It's stored away here somewhere. It might have been the Star, the Globe and Mail, or the Telegram. I don't think it was the Globe, but I'm not sure between the other two.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:29 PM

LH--

Also, It's a question of time. I did an extensive study of the picture of the US as seen in the pages of the Voelkischer Beobachter, from at least 1936 to 1945 and it was fascinating how it changed.

It's certainly likely that in 1933-34 the ignorance about Hitler on this side of the Pond would have resulted in at least some people getting the picture that the 3rd Reich wanted to portray, and that was depicted in the pages of that organ:   specifically that Hitler and FDR were very similar: each one led a country with a very serious unemployment problem, and was administering tough medicine for a desperate time.

The question is how long the parallel was seen in North America.   I'd be very interested to know the exact date of the newspaper to which you refer.

It's also well known that there were Nazi sympathizers in North America.   As I recall one group was the "Silver Shirts".   Not to mention the Bund. And the followers of Father Coughlin must have been about as tolerant as the Hitler Youth.

So who ran the Toronto paper to which you refer in those years? That would be another interesting question?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:26 PM

Rig:

I think if I were European I'd take Cromwell over Marat. Talk about going to a bad place, whatever that means.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:14 PM

Skivee-

"wined and dined"---but do we have any concrete results, aside from contented and sleepy industrialists?

Can we have some direct quotes--as I have given about Washington?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 May 09 - 10:00 PM

Cromwell took the British public to a very bad place from which many of them are still trying to recover.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 13 May 09 - 08:47 PM

There WAS an English revolution, well ahead of the French one, it was magnificent (by which I mean it was on multiple levels, dramatic and profound and well worth studying)and probably a necessary precurser for the successful American War of Independence. It may have been a necessary precurser for the Soviet Revolution, for that matter (Levellers and all that).

As Harry Truman said "The only thing new is the history you don't know!" ("Plain Speaking")

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 May 09 - 02:40 PM

"What if no one had thought to use selective breeding to bring the Dachshund into the world???"

                We'd have had to make do with Bassets!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 May 09 - 01:39 PM

How about if Max hadn't offered to host the Digital Tradition...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Skivee
Date: 13 May 09 - 01:17 PM

Some ideas are simply to horrible to contemplate.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 May 09 - 12:57 PM

An even more disturbing thought: What if no one had thought to use selective breeding to bring the Dachshund into the world??? What then??????

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 May 09 - 12:39 PM

Delay the French Revolution a decade or so, and by that time there might have been an English Revolution. Every change opens up fresh changes. And maybe they all happen...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 13 May 09 - 11:16 AM

If he had of done it would have cost old Ivan a fortune in Birthday cards!!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Skivee
Date: 13 May 09 - 10:55 AM

Hey, Wolfgang,
regarding the Nazi sub-thread, since you actually live in a place that was greatly affected by the consequences of Hitler's action, what do YOU think would have happened?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 May 09 - 02:02 AM

McGrath, I think that there probably would have been a French Revolution eventually anyway, yes, but it might have been delayed by a decade or so, because the success of the American Revolution certainly helped inspire the later revolutionary efforts in France.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Skivee
Date: 13 May 09 - 01:57 AM

Robomatic, you are correct in saying that there is some scepticism about the Intrepid book.
I took some of it with a bit of salt. I will note, however that the nature of secret opps that many people would not know the extent of Intrepid's involvement.

On the other hand, there are folks to the west of Toronto, who regarded him enough to name a park after him at the site of a spy training faciolity he ran, Camp X. Ian Fleming used many of Intrepid's exploits as models of various James Bond stories; and the points I was directing Ron to can be found in other sources. It just happened that I've been re-reading "Intrepid", so it was the first book that came to mind.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 May 09 - 09:07 PM

Obviously Grant is also not an objective observer--Custer testified against his brother early in 1876--but the question is whether what Grant says is supported.   It seems clear that it is.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:51 PM

What-if's are a classic black hole of time.   Any one of the topics raised in this thread could be a thread in itself --and some have.


I'll only address Custer this time: no time for anything else.

No way would I give Custer anything remotely approaching a B- or C+ for command.

He was a discipline-crazed hypocrite, among other qualities.   He had deserters shot on the spot.   But for himself, another standard. Concerned about his wife or desperate to see her, he rode 60 miles in a mule-drawn ambulance, then hopped a train to her.

For the shooting of the deserters and for leaving his regiment, he was courtmartialed (convicted). Sentence: to be suspended from rank and command for a year and forfeit his pay for the same time.

General Grant on the sentence: "in awarding so lenient a sentence", the Court must have taken into account his previous service (possibly in the Civil War, where he had to be rescued at least once.) Son of the Morning Star, by Evan S Connell, obviously not an objective report--name one that is!---states that Custer lost more men in the Civil War than almost any other commander.

Custer threatened to cowhide with a rawhide quirt the party who had passed on to a newspaper an account of a campaign (during the Indian wars) which displeased him.

Grant on Little Bighorn: "I regard Custer's massacre as a sacrifice of troops, brought on by Custer himself, that was wholly unnecessary--wholly unnecessary.   He was not to have made the attack before effecting the junction with Terry and Gibbon".

Why did he do it?   Connell p 259: "On at least two occasions--at Fort Lincoln and at Young Man Butte--he told the Ree scouts that this campaign against the Sioux would be his last and he must win a great victory. Yet even a small victory, he told them, would make him president."

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:47 PM

What if Adam was allergic to fruit?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:20 PM

You think that if the French had still been in force in Canada and points South and West that there would have much call in the American Colonies for getting rid of the British connection, Little Hawk? And without an American Revolution would there have been a French one?

Once you make any significant change all kinds of other things change too.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 May 09 - 06:11 PM

Possibly...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Amergin
Date: 12 May 09 - 06:06 PM

I think if Hitler had died ten years earlier...the fight would have been against Stalin...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 May 09 - 05:27 PM

There were differing reactions to the Nazis in Germany too in the pre-war era. There were many Germans who distrusted or even detested the Nazi Party. Unfortunately, there weren't quite enough of them to prevent Hitler's party from winning a plurality in the 1933 elections. Then the Reichstag fire happened, and a frightened nation gave Hitler emergency powers. (think 911) Once a party has gained that sort of power in a crisis situation, it starts re-shaping things according to its own notions...look what Bush did between 2000 and 2008. He legalized torture, invaded 2 countries, set up offshore prisons for enemy combatants....

Once a country goes to war, specially if that war is viewed as a legitimate act of defense by its own people (and it almost always is seen that way)....well, you very quickly have the public lining up willingly to do their patriotic duty. Very few voices of open dissent can be found once the bullets start flying and the bombs start dropping. This is even more true in a major war such as Germany got into in 1939.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 12 May 09 - 03:57 PM

RE: Pre-war Germany the United States was full of differing reactions to what was going on in Germany. My mother remembered German exchange students singing Nazi songs in her high school in New York City.

RE: "A Man Called Intrepid" read this a few years ago and I understand it's considered somewhat mythological regarding the importance and ever-presence of its main character. I am not steeped in the historical events but the book left me suspicious about the central character and what really happened around him.

Just read an interesting book of fiction based on a real period of history: "Germania" by Brendan McNally which is placed at the end of WWII at Hitler's demise and the brief reign of the Doenitz government in Flensburg. It is somewhat fantastical with its fictional characters but so are the real-life events of the time. It was a good read and I'm still ruminating on it.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 May 09 - 02:30 PM

I think you have hit on a pretty good assessment of Mr Custer there, Les. :-)

Mind you, the man was tremendously ambitious. That was one reason why he rose as high in the chain of command as he did.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Les from Hull
Date: 12 May 09 - 02:23 PM

LH I think what you are saying is that he would have been a great sergeant, but should have never been promoted past captain. He was bottom of his class at West Point, and even then his class was passed out early because the American Civil War had started.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 May 09 - 12:23 PM

Well, Les, I'd give Custer maybe a C+ or a B- as a commander, based on his whole career.

His strengths were: tremendous courage under fire, great enthusiasm, a good deal of charisma for leading men into battle, lots of energy and determination, and great tenacity.

His weaknesses: arrogance, over-confidence, recklessness, some dishonesty here and there in negotiations, a tendency to break the standard military rules (he went AWOL to visit his wife on one occasion and got in major shit for it) , and as you point out, an inability to admit to having made an error.

He fought well and effectively in the Civil War, though, and he did so also in the Indian wars up until his disastrous fight at Little Big Horn.

History has judged Custer harshly for one and only one reason: he screwed up at his very last battle and got himself and his men killed.

The Indians of the time admired Custer on a personal basis for his bravery and flamboyant warrior style....but they were quite angry that he had broken his word to them in various past negotiations, and they had sworn to kill him over that issue.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Les from Hull
Date: 12 May 09 - 11:29 AM

There's been some controversy over Stalin's death (whether it was a brain hemorrhage, or if he was possibly poisoned by his rivals). As it was I don't think the option of living 10 more years was open to him - too many enemies, too much booze. more here

As to the others:

The French could never have retained Canada as the British fought them three times: American Revolution, French Revolutionary War and Napoleonic War. I'm sure that in the last two a French Canada would have fallen to Britain after more American Loyalists had moved there and Britain had control of the sea.

In my not very humble opinion Lt Colonel Custer (as he was at Little Big Horn) should not have been allowed command of a Boy Scout Troop. He prided himself on never reversing a decision - even when everyone around him told him he was wrong. The only reason most people had heard of him was because of his shameless self-publicity. LH is right about what the newspapers would have said, particularly as Custer took his own journalist with him - Mark Kellogg, who died at the battle.

And as for the traitor Washington - obviously no self-interest there!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:36 AM

But what would they have called him after his hair turned white?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 May 09 - 01:19 AM

Well, it wouldn't have made too much difference to the ultimate fate of the Indians...but it would have made a hell of a big difference to the length of Custer's lifespan, I think. ;-D He might even have gone on to serve in Congress. After all, Crook was repulsed by Crazy Horse at the Battle of the Rosebud, and Crook went on to a glorious career after that.

If Custer's unit had extricated itself from Little Big Horn in reasonably good shape, I'm sure they would have spun it into a tale of bravery and grit that would have served Custer very well for helping fulfull his further ambitions.

The papers would have said something like:

"Severely outnumbered by the howling Indian hordes, the courageous 7th Cavalry demonstrated matchless skill and endurance under Custer's inspired command, and they inflicted great loss upon their savage adversaries, writing another glorious chapter in the history of the US Cavalry...blah, blah, blah!...."

Yeah, I bet it would have made great reading back East. ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: meself
Date: 11 May 09 - 11:48 PM

As to Custer - I can't see that it would have made much difference if he had fared better at the Little Bighorn.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 11 May 09 - 11:30 PM

"Lindbergh, Ford, and Kennedy, in addition to being deluded in their individual ways, were also antisemitic."


                   These are people who had to deal with Jewish banking cartels. We are experiencing now what they were dealing with then.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 11 May 09 - 11:27 PM

Washington really wanted a commission as an officer in the British Army."

          If that's what he wanted, that's what he got. From Wikipedai - In 1754, Dinwiddie commissioned Washington a lieutenant colonel and ordered him to lead an expedition to Fort Duquesne to drive out the French

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 09 - 11:12 PM

That would have been quite a psychological blow to the Russians in 1943...and the Nazis would have been in absolute ecstasy at the news! However, I think the Russians would have soon recovered from their initial shock and would still have won the war handily in any case.

Hitler was briefly elated when the news of FDR's death came in 1945 (very shortly before the fall of Berlin.) He seemed to think it was the hand of God that had struck down the American president and that the tide would turn and Germany would somehow win the war now that Roosevelt was gone. He was dead wrong about that...

He didn't understand how the American government works, obviously. It didn't stop the USA one bit. Stalin's death wouldn't have stopped the Russians either in '43, but it might have improved their government some.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: number 6
Date: 11 May 09 - 11:01 PM

what if Stalin died 10 years earlier?

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 09 - 10:42 PM

Ron, I have an old copy here of one the Toronto newspapers from about the mid-thirties, and on the front page is an article about how Chancellor Hitler of Germany is revitalizing the German economy. There isn't even a hint in the article that Hitler might in any way be a bad guy or a danger to other nations. Rather, he is presented simply as a highly effective and well respected national leader among western nations.

It's fascinating to read this article now in a mainstream Canadian newspaper of the time with the benefit of hindsight and realize that most people's view of Hitler in North America and in the UK and Europe also was radically different than it became after the Czech crisis in '38. He was clearly not seen as a threat by the average Canadian at the time that article was written. I imagine that was true of the average American or Englishman too. Given that situation, why would most North American businessmen not have happily done business with Germany when there was money to be made?

The powers that be, after all, meaning our governments and our mainstream media, had not yet officially labelled him as a threat...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Skivee
Date: 11 May 09 - 10:32 PM

Ron, one source is the book "A Man Called Intrepid" by William Stephenson. It deals extensively with the socio-politico- economico-hypheno-espianagio climate from the early 20s to the end of WWII.
There are pictures in the book of several hundred American industrialists being wined and dined by Nazi representatives and dupes in NYC. The Nazi's were drumming up alliances and sodifying new ones.
I know that this is a single example,. but it's late, and I don't feel like writing a tome about it here.
Wanna borrow the book? It's a great read.
"But we'd need more evidence before concluding that "lots of folks" in the upper strata did not view Hitler as an evil player". I'm not saying that they were right...or smart,... or moral.