White Russia vs. the Nazis

I Beleive that You are under estimating Russia's industrialization.

IIRC Russia's industrial base was the size of Germany's,
Except Germany's was spread over 45 million people, while Russia's was spread over 160 million.

I read somewhere that Russia produced more Planes than Germany, France, & Britain combined.
OTOH The Damage caused by the War and Civil War was so bad that it wasn't till 1930 that production reached pre war levels.

So exactly how the Whites come to power, is very important here.

I can see a Fascist Germany, instead of a Nazi one, A Fascist Germany could lead to a Fascist Central Europe, united against Russia.
 
I Beleive that You are under estimating Russia's industrialization.

IIRC Russia's industrial base was the size of Germany's,
You mean pre-WWI Russian Empire? You are wrong. Empire was distant 4th or 5th in the industrial ratings of the world, trailing German Empire by far not only in industrial capacity per capita, but in absolute production too.

I read somewhere that Russia produced more Planes than Germany, France, & Britain combined.
Unless you read it about Stalin's Russia of 1939, you were in posession of a priceless artifact from a parallel universe :)
 

MrP

Banned
McLaughlin has rather a nice section on these Stalin battleships, pointing out that there was something of a lack of materials requisite for their completion. Very enjoyable book, if battleships are one's thing. :)
 
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Industrial base of White Russia would not be nearly as solid in heavy industry as USSR's. And heavy industry equal tanks, guns, planes and shells in wartime. Textiles and food processing are fine, but one can't shoot one's enemy with hamburger.
Possible, but what would you say to the idea that Russia's industrial growth was going just as quickly before WWI as it did in the 20s and 30s? I've seen this explored in Virtual History, and other works.
Stalin was cool toward "prestige projects" (I mean Navy first and foremost) pre-WWII. On the flip side, Czarist Russia spent huge amounts of money and manpower building Navy, which turned out to be massively useless, if you look at big picture. Are you sure that White Russia (possibly headed by admiral Kolchak) will avoid this trap?
What, like the White Sea-Baltic Canal? And Magnitogorsk, and similar newly-created cities? These don't count as 'prestige projects' at all? I assume you haven't heard of the Soviet tendency towards gigantomania - always wanting to have the largest this, the best that, the biggest-producing the other... no?
 

Susano

Banned
Is White Russia really the appropriate term here? White Russia is Belarus... And its not red Russia.
Heh, this is made worse by the fact that not only is there a regionc alled White Russia, but also a region called Red Russia, or Red Ruthenia (White Russia was now and then called White Ruthenia, too, appropriatly). Geographical and ideologcial colours mesh badly:D
 
Possible, but what would you say to the idea that Russia's industrial growth was going just as quickly before WWI as it did in the 20s and 30s?
What would I say about Pravda's article or Al Jazeera's coverage of ME events. Careful selection of facts (neither Pravda nor AJ lie in the pure form of this word, they just concentrate on facts they like and omit ones they don't) can create very distorted picture. All such comparisons I've seen were obsessed with tasks to prove commie regime's inferiority and to deny it ANY achievements. So usually they either took Russian stat from couple of extremely good years (usually 1912-1913, completely ignoring cyclic nature of the market), or compared all industrial output of Imperial Russia (usually with Finland and Poland), heavy industry and consumer goods lumped together, with Soviet heavy industry. Do I like this game inspired by ideology? No I don't.

What, like the White Sea-Baltic Canal? And Magnitogorsk, and similar newly-created cities? These don't count as 'prestige projects' at all? I assume you haven't heard of the Soviet tendency towards gigantomania - always wanting to have the largest this, the best that, the biggest-producing the other... no?
Whoopsie, calling Magnitogorsk "useless prestige project"... I guess you're not aware that without Magnitogorsk Russian would have to made T-34 (another example of good weapon designed in quest for asymmetric answer) out of dry Bull Dung for the lack of steel. And Belomor, for all it's faults and victims, allowed direct shipping of export timber (huge source of hard currency for pre-Oil Russia), thus giving huge savings on the transit costs. Speaking about gigantomania, beside being an obvious penis extender tool for commie leaders (and I have two words for anyone who underestimates power of propaganda penis extenders - "remember Hollywood"), it had some serious advantages, derived from the economy of scale. It is a little bit off-topic, though.
 
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How about the Palace of Soviets and similar things?

Admittedly, they had more sense than Hitler and stopped building it when they were attacked, but still...
 
Admittedly, they had more sense than Hitler and stopped building it when they were attacked, but still...
Yeah, Stalin was not free of prestige project mania, but he spen relatively minor resources on them OTL. And nothing can beat bluewater navy as money and resource drag. If you think about it, Palace of Soviets is only as big as couple of battleships or one yard to build them.
 
What would I say about Pravda's article or Al Jazeera's coverage of ME events. Careful selection of facts (neither Pravda nor AJ lie in the pure form of this word, they just concentrate on facts they like and omit ones they don't) can create very distorted picture. All such comparisons I've seen were obsessed with tasks to prove commie regime's inferiority and to deny it ANY achievements. So usually they either took Russian stat from couple of extremely good years (usually 1912-1913, completely ignoring cyclic nature of the market), or compared all industrial output of Imperial Russia (usually with Finland and Poland), heavy industry and consumer goods lumped together, with Soviet heavy industry. Do I like this game inspired by ideology? No I don't.
I don't know which particular source you assume I'm discussing here. I am in fact talking about a view put forward in 'No Finland Station' by George Feifer, in the anthology, What if? 2. I don't know what Feifer's ideological position might be, but he appears to be a Russian/Soviet specialist. I don't have the book to hand right now, it is packed away in the attic, So I can't actually quote you the article (I know, 'how convenient', you're probably thinking).
Whoopsie, calling Magnitogorsk "useless prestige project"... I guess you're not aware that without Magnitogorsk Russian would have to made T-34 (another example of good weapon designed in quest for asymmetric answer) out of dry Bull Dung for the lack of steel.
Ahahaha, funny... I did not say Magnitogorsk was "useless". That was you putting words in my mouth. I was thinking of generally vast projects, since you were claiming that "Stalin was cool towards 'prestige projects'." What were whole new cities in the middle of nowhere if not 'prestige' projects? Yes, Magnitogorsk was useful, but of the massive projects I was thinking of, that seems to have been one of the few exceptions, not the rule. Adm Canaris gives another example,the Palace of Soviets.
And Belomor, for all it's faults and victims, allowed direct shipping of export timber (huge source of hard currency for pre-Oil Russia), thus giving huge savings on the transit costs.
Really?
Gulag: A History said:
Alongside one of the locks ... the lone woman controlling the rise and fall of water told us that there were perhaps seven passing ships a day at most, and and often only three or four. That was more than Solzhenitsyn saw in 1966, when he spent a whole day beside the canal and saw two barges, both carrying firewood. Most goods by then, as nowadays, travel by rail - and, as a canal worker told him, the waterway is so shallow that 'not even submarines can pass through it under their own power; they have to be loaded onto barges.'
The shipping route from the Baltic to the Black Sea had not, it seemed, proved so urgently necessary after all.
Obviously, that is not necessarily conclusive. It doesn't paint a picture of the canal as particularly useful, though.
Speaking about gigantomania, beside being an obvious penis extender tool for commie leaders (and I have two words for anyone who underestimates power of propaganda penis extenders - "remember Hollywood"), it had some serious advantages, derived from the economy of scale. It is a little bit off-topic, though.
Yes, economy of scale is obviously important. It does seem like much effort was misplaced, though - as in the example I give above...
 
One could certainly ask whether it wouldn't have made better economic sense to concentrate industry to already existing cities, instead of building entirely new ones. And the vast initial gains the Germans made were more or less Stalin's fault anyway; with a competent defence to start with, they wouldn't have gotten nearly as far, making the industrial transfer eastwards at least partially redundant.
 
I don't know which particular source you assume I'm discussing here.
I've read multitude of "research" (and I mark this word, as a lot of it was obviously driven by Cold War's shadows) trying to prove it, Conquest being main apologist and almost prophet of this school of thinking. It all muddies up a little by the fact that 1912-1913 were very good for the Russian economy, so casual Cold Warrior goes like this "if only this development continued until 1940, Imperial Russia would be more developed". Yeah, right. Those guys had never heard of Depression or have very selective memory... But generally they don't fit my very personal definition of impartical research.

Ahahaha, funny... I did not say Magnitogorsk was "useless". That was you putting words in my mouth. I was thinking of generally vast projects, since you were claiming that "Stalin was cool towards 'prestige projects'."
I guess we have to agree about definitions first. For me "prestige project" is something with no material ROI (although propaganda effect should be taken into account), money spent on "bells and whistles". For example, buying Mercedes as opposing to American luxobarge. Same amount of car for twice or trice the money. Gigantic projects is something wastly different. It is "invest big, gain much" type of stuff. Using car buying analogy, it is buying passenger coach instead of minivan to operate busy route. You pay more, you get more. Therefore Palace of Soviets counts as 'prestige project' in my books, Magnitogorsk does not.

What were whole new cities in the middle of nowhere if not 'prestige' projects?
Industry centers to process vast mineral deposits close to mining site, as opposed to railroading ore thousands of miles? Kiruna rings a bell?

Yes, Magnitogorsk was useful, but of the massive projects I was thinking of, that seems to have been one of the few exceptions, not the rule.
I would be curious to see other examples. Otherwise we have nothing to discuss.

Appelbaum, blah blah blah...
Obviously, that is not necessarily conclusive. It doesn't paint a picture of the canal as particularly useful, though.
If Appelbaum is reliable source for your Russian coverage (and especially for Soviet history), I would suggest you subscribe to Al Aksa TV (owned and operated by Hamas) for reliable and unbiased coverage of Israeli life and politics :) Seriously, they both are equally cool-headed and unbiased. Case in point is her writings your posted here. Especially if you aware that in 1985 (when planned economy, which was environment canal meant to operate in) was at peak of it's capacity, 8 mln tonnes of goods had been shipped through it. To put that into perspective, Dortmund, being busiest freshwater port in Europe, processed 6.2 mln tonnes of stuff at it's peak capacity. BTW, canal also gave Soviet navy ability to move it's most useful ships (destroyers. subs, various cutters etc.) between Baltic and North too. So, even if it was less useful for the USSR than oil deposits are for Saudi Arabia, I would not think it is fair to call it "economically useless project".
 
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One could certainly ask whether it wouldn't have made better economic sense to concentrate industry to already existing cities, instead of building entirely new ones.
May be, but most of new cities were really built to explore previously untapped natural riches anyway.

the vast initial gains the Germans made were more or less Stalin's fault anyway
I guess Stalin is also responsible for even more dismal performance of French and British facing similar German threat. Otherwise I don't understand why is Russian screwup blamed solely on Stalin and Allied one... I dunno, just conveniently forgotten every time someone needs to play "Blame Stalin" game.

To make it perfectly clear, I'm far from being Stalin apologist, but his regime does seem uniquely adapted to face the kind of threat Russia encountered in 1941. It goes without saying that Stalin is to blame that this threat was as grave as it was IOTL.
 

I obviously don't know enough about this.
Never mind...
There is one thing: I have no idea whether Appelbaum is biased any particular way. You saying she is, does not make it so. What other stuf has she written which is massively biased? I honestly don't know.

The other stuff... fair enough, I guess.
 
I guess Stalin is also responsible for even more dismal performance of French and British facing similar German threat. Otherwise I don't understand why is Russian screwup blamed solely on Stalin and Allied one... I dunno, just conveniently forgotten every time someone needs to play "Blame Stalin" game.

To make it perfectly clear, I'm far from being Stalin apologist, but his regime does seem uniquely adapted to face the kind of threat Russia encountered in 1941. It goes without saying that Stalin is to blame that this threat was as grave as it was IOTL.

You kidding? The failure of the Western armies was due to the fact that they couldn't (yet) fight a mobile war; their armour was integrated. That, and the German push through Belgium was faster than they could cope with. Their strategy was simply far too reactive and not advanced enough. Though they certainly tried; Germany still suffered 50,000 casualties.

Whereas in the East, the Red Army was the first force in the world to practice combined operations and modern armoured warfare. Only the paranoid regime killed off the top tankers and left the army in the hands of incompetents. Never mind the supremely stupid deployment of the forces close to the border. The Red Air Force was practically destroyed on the ground.
 
You kidding? The failure of the Western armies was due to the fact that they couldn't (yet) fight a mobile war; their armour was integrated.
OK, to raise the heat a little bit I would say that this "yet" lasted more or less until the end of WWII :) Every time Germans achieved something remotely resembling local parity with Allies on the Western Front (i.e. they were outgunned less than 1:10 and actually had ammo for their guns and fuel for their panzers) they had a field day with Allies. Witness Bulge, where 6th SS Panzer Army wreaked havoc among Allies until they had any ammo and fuel at all and then left unharmed only to be grounded by Russians in Hungary.

Though they certainly tried; Germany still suffered 50,000 casualties.
Let me remind you that 50K was daily casualities suffered by German on the Eastern front.

Whereas in the East, the Red Army was the first force in the world to practice combined operations and modern armoured warfare.
Again, it is not as straightforward as it seems. 1st, "deep operation" was the ultimate result of this very quest for "asymmetric answer" I mentioned so often. Commie leadership was sure that war between "forces of progress" and "imperialists" is inevitable and was working very hard trying to find a way around Western numerical and industrial superiority. Not surprisingly Germans, struggling with same challenge, came up with similar solution (some say they were borrowing from the Soviet books, some say they developed the concept indepndently, it does not matter to me). 2nd, Soviet "deep operation" seem to be brainchild of Triandafillov more than anyone else, and the guy has several hits against him, making his quick rise through the ranks in non-Bolshevist Russia as likely as snow in July. In Sahara desert. Triandafillov was 30 when he develped concept. He did not graduate any military academy, but was humble alumnus of an Ensign school. And, to add insult to injury, he was an ethnic Greek form mountain village in farthest corner of the Empire. If you ask me how would I rate chances of young ethnic minority officer without formal education successfully pushing his weird ideas down the throats of multistar generals in White Russia, I would answer "minus 10%". Rate is negative, because there's 10% chance he will be executed for military disobedience, not just ignored.

Never mind the supremely stupid deployment of the forces close to the border. The Red Air Force was practically destroyed on the ground.
Troop location pre-Barbarossa seem to be the hottest discussion topic in history of WWII, but there's enough written of that in English for humble yours truly to be silent :)
 
Let me remind you that 50K was daily casualities suffered by German on the Eastern front.

Throughout? I doubt that; the total Wehrmacht death toll was only around 3.5 million. Even allowing for wounded/captured, that sounds too high.

Again, it is not as straightforward as it seems. 1st, "deep operation" was the ultimate result of this very quest for "asymmetric answer" I mentioned so often. Commie leadership was sure that war between "forces of progress" and "imperialists" is inevitable and was working very hard trying to find a way around Western numerical and industrial superiority. Not surprisingly Germans, struggling with same challenge, came up with similar solution (some say they were borrowing from the Soviet books, some say they developed the concept indepndently, it does not matter to me). 2nd, Soviet "deep operation" seem to be brainchild of Triandafillov more than anyone else, and the guy has several hits against him, making his quick rise through the ranks in non-Bolshevist Russia as likely as snow in July. In Sahara desert. Triandafillov was 30 when he develped concept. He did not graduate any military academy, but was humble alumnus of an Ensign school. And, to add insult to injury, he was an ethnic Greek form mountain village in farthest corner of the Empire. If you ask me how would I rate chances of young ethnic minority officer without formal education successfully pushing his weird ideas down the throats of multistar generals in White Russia, I would answer "minus 10%". Rate is negative, because there's 10% chance he will be executed for military disobedience, not just ignored.

My point was simply, they had deep operations developed and ready, made use of paratroopers, had separate armoured units etc. Then Stalin purged the Red Army, and the new leadership returned to the antiquated fighting methods. So he personally, not necessarily the Soviet system in this case, would be to blame.
 
Throughout? I doubt that; the total Wehrmacht death toll was only around 3.5 million. Even allowing for wounded/captured, that sounds too high.
No, not every day in 1941-1945, sure. But I estimate every major Soviet offensive in 1943-1945 did cost Germans that much.

My point was simply, they had deep operations developed and ready, made use of paratroopers, had separate armoured units etc. Then Stalin purged the Red Army, and the new leadership returned to the antiquated fighting methods. So he personally, not necessarily the Soviet system in this case, would be to blame.
OK, but if you remember, topic was White Russia versus Nazi. And, as far as I know, everything you listed was brainchild of young officers who would not have a chance to make their ideas heard on White Russia. Witness De Gaulle pre-WWII.
 
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