In September of 1939, almost exactly 80 years ago, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union started World War II by invading Poland. Though Hitler double-crossed Stalin two years later, the secret provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact explicitly divided Eastern Europe between them. How was this alliance possible – and what was it all about? False modesty aside, I think that my encyclopedia articles on Communism and Fascism are a fine place to start.
READER COMMENTS
Nick Ronalds
Aug 29 2019 at 7:32pm
Just read your entry on Communism. I’m in my 60s and have been exposed to things relating to the USSR all my life because of fathers work at Radio Liberty and my interest in economics subsequently. But I got some important new insights from your entry on Communism. In particular:
– what distinguishes Socialism and Communism were the theories and practices developed largely by Lenin.
– the USSR’s frequently vaunted “successful industrialization” was only movement along a shrinking production possibilities curve toward heavy industry, whose real purpose was arms production. That finally explains my puzzlement all these years as to what all that heavy industry was for, given that consumer products and services were notoriously shoddy to non-existent.
– “Industrialization” in the USSR (and then other Communist countries) was accompanied by falling agricultural productivity. Consistent with the stories about perennial droughts and floods etc., but still amazing.
– And mind-blowing that Lenin believed that eventually dictatorship under him would “enjoy unshakable popular support”.
Very nice summary indeed.
BTW: Your link to “Fascism” opens a Word document on Bastiat from your forthcoming book. Thanks! The Encyclopedia entry that I found is by Sheldon Richman, which was also, however, very good.
Mark
Aug 30 2019 at 11:48am
facism starts at page 20 of the pdf – I will read the article abour Thomas Sowell first – when I studied soviet-history, I was doubtfull about the “education-success”-story, the German professor insisted on (not the alphabetisation-myth – “we learned all the letters you already sent, you can send us more now”, but the expansion/explosion of numbers of institutes for higher/technical education. To me it sounded like “ton-ideology”: could that many new institutes in the Stalin era be staffed with competent instructors?? No doubt, there was an “elite” in a few places, and even regular “engineers” eventually (but hardly before the fifties) turned out to be usefull technicians. But lots of teachers in “the province” were astonishingly weak in their fields even in the nineties, when I came to teach there (German and often English – not that I am qualified at all to teach the latter).)
Henry
Aug 30 2019 at 10:34am
For me the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was largely a recapitulation of the partitions of Poland started in 1772 by Tsarina Catherine. In both cases, Poland appeared to be a prize worth stealing. Eventually, war broke out between the thieves, and this was due to organizational issues in both capitals rather than inherent morality. I bet that there are plenty in Warsaw who are thinking about mechanisms to prevent a recurrence. In the late nineteenth Poland was a low labor cost place for outsourcing of British manufacturing which they tried to turn into an alliance after the establishment of a Polish state in 1919. The German/USSR pact indicates that both thought that the enormous costs of WW I would paralyze Britain. Poland is trying to develop strong relations with the US at this time.
Mark Brady
Aug 31 2019 at 10:49pm
Bryan writes, “In September of 1939, almost exactly 80 years ago, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union started World War II by invading Poland.”
No. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. The Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland on September 17, 1939. Let’s get our facts right.
Comments are closed.