Were we(Churchill) right to become partners with Soviet Russia in 1939?

Question

As Germany invaded from the West,Russia attacked too...into Poland,Latvia,Lithuania,Estonia,small parts of Finland and Bessarabia...invading and staying for 50 years.
We imediatety went 2 a total war footing against Germany gifting ourselves 2 Russian conquest.
Leeincog seems 2 think we were only friends assisting in a just cause against an evil enemy.Were Russia nt equally as evil?
We were good friends indeed to them.Gifting them
Poland
Latvia
Lithuania
Estonia
Czechoslovakia
Hungary..how they suffered in 1956
Romania
Bulgaria
ooohhhh...yes...and half of Germany

We then went on to invent Israel.What a great service to peace that has been
This was all Churchills doing
Churchill wrecked Europe and also bankrupted us along with death and destruction.
Norway was a debacle created ...by Churchill
Remember Coventry...go visit whats left.
My own house was bombed by the Luftwaffe.
In early 1950's his order created Windscale which nearly melted Britain forever. in 1957.

Answer 1

First, you are somehow mistaken in your history. Germany and Russia were partners in 1939 (Nazi-Soviet pact, gettit?).
It was only when Germany attacked the USSR in 1941 that Britain and Russia became allies. The alliance with Russia was a natural outcome of circumstances. Germany was in any case a much closer and more immediate threat.
Evidently you would prefer Europe, including Britain, under Nazi domination.

Answer 2

Russia's genocidal tendencies at the time have been glossed over somewhat, as the atrocities committed by Germany were so much more 'in your face'.

By the fact of a common enemy, Russia was an ally. Stalin showed his true colours after the war - especially when the Berlin Wall went up. However, the Berlin Airlift served to warm the conquered Germans to their Western occupiers.

I think Israel is a spiritual problem rather than a political one. I think you give Churchill too much credit for its creation, though. The Diaspora had started returning there from about 1918, turning to a flood after the horrific treatment of Jews throughout Europe, including Russia, during and after WW2. the nation they were eventually given was not defendable, being only 9 miles wide in the middle, thanks to yet more compromises. No wonder the surrounding nations amassed against them so soon afterwards.

Windscale was built to produce weapons grade plutonium - end of story. Happily, it had a by-product - electricity.

Answer 3

yes we had to aline ourselves with Russia eventhough we were against the ideals of communism then and til the end of the cold war. Who else would u aline with when Europe is gobbled up by Germany, all u had left was England. So Germany did take over Europe til May of 1945 but we did not give those lands which u are mentioning to Russia freely, we felt that they should be free independent countries as they were before but Mother Russia took over and didn't want to make them free. Same problem with Germany, the four powers had one piece of Germany, so Western Germany formed of the three powers that combined together, Russia would not give up there land which led to the Berlin airlift and the creation of the Berlin Wall. During that time period if u messed with Russia u would pay for your mistakes so that is probably why they were annexed easily to Russia.

Then the cold war came with nuclear power and that led to the famous fight of democracy vs communist and the dominos theory. So it was hard to negoitate well with the Russians, they are tough cookies to negoiate with.

Churchill did not bankrupt Europe, Europe was exhausted by using everything to fight WW2. To this we had to supply money from the Marshall plan otherwise all of Europe would of been Russia as well. I agree that maybe Churchill wasn't the brightest person but he did a lot of good things for England during WW2. He did create the tensions for the cold war but was a great leader for England in a time of crisis. Isreal I fear was a terrible idea and should of been more thought to how they can live somewhere but not in palestinan lands. Just create headaches that are going on today from it.

Answer 4

With only Nazi-Germany or German invaded countries on the continent and a stable frontier between German influenced countries and Soviet influenced countries, Britain (with or without Churchill) would have stood no chance to survive. So yes, it was right to become partners.
If there was a mistake, it was, that the division of Europe after the war had not been agreed upon before the end of the war.

Answer 5

In 1939 Russia was actually allied with Hitler, not with Britain. It didn't became our ally until Germany invaded Russia in 1941. By then we were happy to have any one as a friend. We didn't 'gift' the Russians Eastern Europe. They 'liberated' it and then kept it. What was the West to do? fought yet another war?
It is easy from the armchair of the future to criticise the actions of the past. Far harder to understand the real problems people then were up against.

Answer 6

Russia needed border states to absorb the first wave of German attacks, if these happened. This doesn't justify what the Russians did, but it does explain it. As for keeping Eastern Europe after the war, FDR and Churchill knew that driving them out would be nearly impossible, so Stalin got what he wanted at the Yalta peace conference. The outcome was indeed bad, but it spared us a war with Russia. Russia had hundreds and hundreds of divisions in Europe at the end of the war, and they were equipped with modern tanks and modern planes. We had the atomic bomb, but we only had 2 of them, and it is unlikely that Russia would have surrendered without a horrible fight.
Finland lost some territory, but came out of the war intact. Poland suffered, but her current boundaries are much more defensible than her boundaries prior to WW II. Also, Poland still exists. It was Hitler's intent to turn Poland into hunting preserves for high ranking Nazi officers.
As for Israel, there was tremendous public sympathy for the Jews after the horror of the Holocaust was exposed. Jews didn't ask Britain for permission to go to Palestine, they just went, so it is unfair to blame Churchill for this. In fact Jewish terrorists attacked British bases and targets in Palestine until Israel declared her independence.
The USA was not bankrupted by WW II. On the contrary we emerged as the largest economy on the planet and as the most dominant power. Britain wasn't bankrupted, either. She suffered far more casualties in WWI than she did in WWII.

Answer 7

You are absolutely wrong.
In 1939 the Soviet Union was an ally of Germany in its attack on Poland and only became an ally of Britain after Hitler's invasion of it in June 1941.
This was the correct political and military move as it forced Hitler to fight on two fronts in Europe when he was having great success in North Africa.
The carve up of Europe at the end of the war was agreed at Yalta and Churchill was opposed to many of the concessions that Roosevelt gave to Stalin.
Incidentally, Coventry was well known as a hotbed of Nazi sympathisers. The mayor of Coventry kept a framed portrait of Hitler on his wall so it was rather ironic that the Luftwaffe decided to give it the benefit such a devastating air raid

Answer 8

Churchill did not like or trust Russia - he cooperated because Roosevelt wanted to. I don not think history will view him as wrecking Europe. He was the only person in all of Europe that saw what Hitler was before 1930.
It is also naive to think He alone created Israel. The UN sanctioned it - it just so happened to be under British protection at the time.Churchill did no sanction the bombing of British cities - Coventry.
Every countries research into nuclear power has led to disasters. One has to look at the time in which people lived to understand their thought process. One can not judge from today's standards of what is right or wrong. At that time being behind Russia was more abhorrent than the possible consequences of nuclear disaster.

Answer 9

Germany was the aggressor in World War Two, Hitler's unprovoked attack on Poland in September 1939 and the resulting military campaign against the rest of Europe meant that he had to be stopped. It is easy to blame Churchill for his actions, but if he had not done anything, I think you would find that the world today would be far less safe and the European Union certainly would not exist.
The fact that Germany started WW2 allowed the USSR to gain 'influence' over Eastern European countries once the War had ended. Churchill himself warned the USA of allowing them to do this, but they did not listen, to the cost of hundreds of millions of people who lived under Communism against their will.

Answer 10

You're historically incorrect I'm afraid. Churchill did not trust Stalin who was probably more evil than Hitler. As far as the bombing was concerned, what would you rather have done, allow Hitler to rule over us and infect us with nazism? At the time, this country needed a strong leader and Churchill filled that gap. At least he didn't come back from Berlin with a useless piece of paper and declare to the country 'Peace in our time'. The main reason that the Russians ended up with so much territory was the lack of willpower to stop them, fearing it would lead to another war. In hindsight, it would have probably been better to allow Hitler to finish Russia off and then invade but hindsight is a wonderful thing not given in at the time of the initial decision.