Another Great Patriotic War POD

[Melvin Loh]

WI the various non-Slavic minorities in the USSR during WWII had been more visible in their contributions to the Red Army ? There were such instances as Panfilov's 316th Inf Div which comprised Kazakhs and Kyrgyz who defended Moscow thruout 1941-42, and individual Red Army cdrs from minority backgrounds such as Bagramian (Armenian) and Chernakovsky (Jewish), but many other minorities such as the Chechens, Kalmyks, Balkars, other Caucasian ppls, Central Asians generally and ethnic Koreans, were perceived as pro-Nazi traitors, and subjected to wholesale deportation or other such collective punishments. Keeping in mind the feedback received on the previous thread on Chinese-American regts during the ACW, could a more prominent role of these minorities in the Red Army have changed at all Moscow's policies towards non-Slavs, or would Stalin still have imposed blanket punishments regardless ?

[aktarian]

IMO it wouldn't matter. There were Chechens who were highly decorated. They were deported anyway.

[Aussey]

Viva la Caucasia!!!jk

lol

[das]

Actually, they were. Stalin's propaganda incited not only Russian or Slavic patriotism, but also (for example) Armenian - I seem to recall a military order of the time that was named for some Armenian national hero, and there were separate Armenian (and not only Armenian, even Latvian were in late into the war) units.

[NFR]

Georgian, ahem. Stalin's name was Djugashvili, you know.

[Hapsburg]

the russian army should just carpet bomb chechnya. kill all them s*** suckers.

[aktarian]

Originally Posted by Hapsburg

the russian army should just carpet bomb chechnya.

They did.

Originally Posted by Hapsburg

kill all them s*** suckers.

They are on good path to do that as well.

[Mojo]

off the THe wings would fallplane and plummet like most rissian commcieral planes

[Hapsburg]

what about a nuke? low-yield of course...dont wanna irradiate the world...

[das]

Meh, we tried.

Actually, Stalin was very fair in distributing death. Russians, Georgians, Jews, Armenians, it didn't really matter (no patronizing! ).

[NFR]

Stalin: Man of Steel, equal oppotunity tyrant

[Hapsburg]

ehhhhaah.
thats funny...

i dont know why everyone is always flaming on Stalin. I mean, sure, he killed...millions....of people, but he helped Russia go from the brink of economic disaster to a superpower that rivaled the US.

HAIL STALIN!!

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by Hapsburg

ehhhhaah.
thats funny...

i dont know why everyone is always flaming on Stalin. I mean, sure, he killed...millions....of people, but he helped Russia go from the brink of economic disaster to a superpower that rivaled the US.

HAIL STALIN!!

Yeah, because killing millions of people doesn't matter in the slightest!

[Hapsburg]

now, now. i didnt say that.
merely, that stalins positive achievements outweigh his negative ones.

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by Hapsburg

now, now. i didnt say that.
merely, that stalins positive achievements outweigh his negative ones.

Oh come on. Are you telling me that the millions of deaths, "population resettlements", and such caused by Stalin are outweighed by what he did for the industry?

[Hapsburg]

dunno.
now that you put it like that, im starting to think differenty...
now, why did ya have to go and do that?

[Midgard]

Originally Posted by Imajin

Yeah, because killing millions of people doesn't matter in the slightest!

You know, this is actually rather interesting how the Russians view Stalin right now. My grandmother, who lives in the Ukraine, still thinks that Stalin is the greatest thing to have happened to Russia, and that draconian measures were justified... while it seems to be a point of view shared mostly by the older people, there seems to be a rising sentiment among the younger Russians as well that Stalin's measures, while brutal, helped unite the country that was on the brink of falling apart.

Then again, a counterpoint argument is the "superpower syndrome", the people of a nation that is used to be treated with certain amount of respect in the world that suddenly find themselves bumped down quite a bit. Thus, anything that gets Russia (or USSR, should that be revived ever again) back to the top is worth it in their eyes.

[Hapsburg]

which was my implied point.