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Okay, so I(I don't mean to sound full of myself) view myself as being rather intelligent compared to the average person. That is why I am so fascinated with different things right now. I just have the personality that I always want to learn as much as I can. That is why I am so fascinated with Einstein right now.

Well, anyway, back to the point. I always thought, being the naive little American kid that I am, that World War II was a battle of good vs. evil: Allies vs. Axis. And, while I realize that Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito were indeed evil, so were Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, and Franklin Roosevelt. I am reading a book(and have actually read a few books in his series) called World War II: The Rest of the Story and How It Affects You Today by Richard J. Maybury, alias Uncle Eric. This book was an eye-opener for me. I know that everybody paints Hitler as the most evil man and history(based solely on the number of victims he murdered), but, while he was extremely evil, Josef Stalin murdered MANY more TIMES of people than Hitler did. Another point was that Allied propaganda painted it as if Hitler was planning to take over the world. This is simply not true! They merely wants some territorial gains in Europe, which is about 7% of the world's land area. At that time, Great Britain had 22% of the world's territory and Russia had over 15%. It seems to me that it was the Allies, not the Axis, who were trying to conquer the world. Also, in the book that I am reading, there is overwhelming evidence that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was not as "unprovoked" as US President FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) made it seem. The book gives tons of evidence that FDR provoked Japan to attack, and even had foreknowledge of Japan's attack, but chose to disarm Pearl Harbor and neglected to tell the base's commanding officer about the attack. Then, after the base was destroyed, FDR pinned the blame for the attack on the commander of the base.

Sorry if I am ranting. I just never realized all the evils that my country's side was involved in, and even instigated.

There are MANY other things not released to the public that Maybury discusses. I would advise everyone who reads this post to check out his books. He has a whole series of books on a wide variety of subjects. My eyes were opened by these.

Does anyone else have anything to say about WWII?

What I find fascinating about WWII is the politics behind it. I don't think any of them would be considered "evil", I think that's far too simplistic of a term to use. Although these people all did things that probably weren't morally correct, All of them had their country in mind when they acted (although that could be debated in Stalin's case). And in each case, I think something needed to be done about the problems in every country. Germany was in terrible state, the USA had major problems, the UK had major problems, the USSR might have been in the worst shape of all. So in my opinion, it's these social factors and problems that gave rise to these leaders who would do what is needed to make their country strive. I think there's a lot of nationalism involved.

I find Russia itself to be a very fascinating country, especially around this time. A close study of Russian politics shows that in order for a leader to retain power, one must be rather ruthless, whether that be the killings that Stalin took part in or the "political killings" and exiles of Brezhnev and Khrushchev. In a command economy that just took part in crash industrialization with a total command economy, there has to be a strong leader at the top. Stalin recognized this and went about consolidating the power in the easiest way so as to focus his attention on other major issues. That meant killing through the CHEKA and the KGB. Also, usually counted in the figures of the people he killed, are the people who died of famine after his five year plans. That skews the number of people he killed because Crash industrialization is not kind to the peasantry. But really all the political things going on in Russia are fascinating. Even their politics today is very very interesting.

I'd also like to say that I think one of the most important battle of WWII was the Battle of Khalkin Gol. It was between the USSR and Japan and it was fought in mongolia. It started, I believe, slightly before the majority of WWII. Russia's victory here is crucial to their defeat of Germany later on. They would have been defeated by both the Germans and the Japanese if they lost this battle, in my opinion. I think the outcome of the war could possibly have been different if Russia was forced into a two front war.

Due to my friends habit of basically LOVING world war two, alot of it gets sent to me. So i know a decent amount of WW2 history from all sides.


Well each country had its own reason for war.
Russia was undergoing alot of turmoil. So Communism had its ways with the people. Stalin was also a pretty corrupt person, but the other allies needed the USSR to win the war. Patton who was a US tank commander knew that the US and the USSR where going to fight eventually, so he famously spoke out against them (oh patton was a badass =D)
Also the USSR was built off propaganda, so their war style was pretty ridiculous.
"Die for the motherland!" and all that jazz.


Germany was REALLY messed over. Since the end of world war 1 Germany was under alot of pressure and where the short stick of ww1. Being they lost, so they had to give in to ALOT of unfair demands. So Hitler was like Obama, he spoke of change, and he made change. Germany got back into the game with him in control. But he also used the Jews as a scapegoat which is pretty bad.


The Conspiracy that FDR provoked Japan to attack the US is one of the few conspiracies that i actual consider to be pretty close to fact. Since the US needed a reason to get into the war in Europe before things got out of hand. I don't think we will hear what really happened for a while since that could paint FDR, one of the US's greatest president in a bad light. Also FDR might of pushed for them to attack, but didnt want THIS many people to die. Hell Japan could of won the war in the pacific in that one and only battle IF they killed the carrier group.


But yes war is ugly, it isnt good vs evil. Its them vs us.
"Soldiers die because Politicians lie"

Oh i want to ask have you ever heard of the US's imprison camps? Thats some of the darkest parts of WW2 on the US's side. I guess im biased because it directly affects me.

Forgive the crappy grammar!
"The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large. " - Confucius
"The guy in the back always has something to say"

The rest of yer post is fine, I just felt a need to point out that pretty every politician promises change. Name one politician whose campaign was, "THINGS ARE OKAY THE WAY THEY ARE!"

true true, but i generalized ALOT on what Hitler really said. He was also preaching to a country that was totaly messed over.

Forgive the crappy grammar!
"The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large. " - Confucius
"The guy in the back always has something to say"

Leonid Brezhnev pretty much said that to the CPSU when angling for a position of power.

You guys are so fucking smart. It makes me feel dumb, especially in things I thought I was good at.

FDR was a scathing racist and anti-Semite. However, other then the anti-semetic part, I can understand the racism towards the Japanese internment camps. Stalin was a loon who legitimately was double crossed by Hitler and double-crossed the double-crosser. Mussolini was just fucking insane.

Honestly, the world needed insane leaders for insane times, and thats what WWII bred: insanity.

"A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignificance".- T.S. Eliot

One thing that I think one can say about Stalin was that he knew how to not only consolidate power but hold on to it as well. He might have been as good as Machiavelli at it, had he been a ruler of a country. Strange thing is that this is exactly what Russia needed. If they had a rule by a few strong party members instead of one, then I think the USSR would have failed as a country and fallen apart much sooner. Once Lenin died, the revolution needed another leader that could make decisions quickly and efficiently. If Trotsky could have stuck around to rule with Stalin, the USSR would be mired in political strife. So perhaps, it was a good thing for the condition of the state that Stalin was able to consolidate power through material rewards and handle the rather large and growing bureaucracy.

There has been recent historical movements denying the popularity of full scale communism (which took place and was called War Communism by Lenin. That was nasty) and Leninism (the one most people think of when speaking of Communism) among the masses in the USSR. In fact, most people agree with Richard Pipes now (His book The Three whys of the Russian Revolution is a must read for Russian history). He insists that the grievances that the public brought to the Tsars were specific and backwards looking and insisted on fixing the current tsarist system. The masses wanted to keep the old system and make specific changes such as really freeing the surfs (rather than freeing them and making them pay ridiculous reparations). It was the intellectual class that tricked the masses into thinking that the only way to reach the liberties they wanted was to change the whole system of government (this wasn't so true though). Even when the Tsarist system failed, the supreme soviet and the provisional government that was set up was not that radical of a government body. Most of the people on there were from parties that wanted some sort of socialist democracy or something like that. In fact, The bolsheviks and menshiviks were massive minorities in the system. It's a wonder how Lenin was able to manipulate the system and put a party that didn't achieve the preferred form of government (but still achieved basic freedoms in a way which would still keep the peasantry and working class at bay) into power. Lenin himself was a very skilled statesmen to be able to do this. ALthough, he was a crap economist and didn't really care about Russia that much. All this points to the fact that the Communist system and communist ideology was not supported by the masses for any reasons. It was just accepted after a while because none of the intellectual class supported the overthrow of it. A mass without a intellectual class will not get it's grievances heard.

The soviet propaganda machine was quite amazing. Complete control of every aspect of life can do that. It's a wonder how much they were able to block out and censor in that country. The secret police can do a lot when asked to do that. I think one of the most overlooked generals in the war was General Zhukov of the soviet union. Not many generals were good enough to survive the stalinist purges but he was. He won many many battles for the Russians, including the battle of Khalkhin Gol. The whole overwhelm the enemy with numbers idea worked well for him for the most part. High casualties though.

Ah, the internment camps. I don't think they were 100 percent necessary. I'm not sure how many spies were caught up by them. But the USA kind of has a history with messing and screwing over the Asian people. I mean look what they did to the Philippines after the SPanish American war. So much for championing national self determination, right? I guess that's just another example of some of the Propaganda we used but, I digress.

The strange thing about Mussolini was that he had socialist leanings until he learned that he wasn't getting any support in the political arena. He changed pretty quickly just to gain power. Strange what opportunity does to men sometimes.

This thread is win. Learning a few new things, i know some of it, but im learning. Great stuff

Actually, FDR was quoted as saying(He was talking about instigating war with Japan) that he would be willing to risk 1 or 2 battleships(not to mention the 900 sailors aboard each ship: 1800 total) in order JUST to get Japan to attack. That was not including the war itself. FDR was not as great as everyone thought he was.

Also, FDR was a Communist. That goes against the capitalist principles that America was founded on.
Yes, I definitely know about those, and I agree with you. We didn't kill nearly as many people as Stalin or Hitler did, but it was still VERY wrong.




Like I keep saying, I don't know everything. There are TONS of other "hidden" facts that governments didn't publish that is listed in Richard Maybury's book. He also has a whole series of books on why the world today is so messed up.

The main reason, just for a preview, is that the world today runs by political law, or law backed by force. This is different from the Common Law/Natural Law that the world used to run by.
Political law may or may not be correct and is backed by force("do this or else").
Common Law/Natural Law is what is obviously correct("murder is wrong" and things like that).

I would encourage everyone to read his books. They are packed with amazing facts that we would never think about. His book are just plain amazing.