Soviet deep battle was well-developed and, perhaps more importantly, well-practiced by 1944. After Stalingrad was over, the idea of Soviet forces using ‘meat waves’ is a popular, but incorrect presumption. The Soviets were running short on manpower (without resorting to the kind of insane gambits that Nazi Germany was at the same time during the war) in 44 and 45, so they had every incentive to be (relatively) sparing about their troops, even if their tolerance for losses was still much higher than we would regard as acceptable today.

“I wonder why having artillery pointed at their capital for the past 70 years has made them think about the aggressively posturing militaristic totalitarian state to their north which claims to be their lawful government?”

The total inability of the Nazis to operate without (or, at least, operate while hiding) their ideological delusions screwed them out of their only chance to win the war in the east, since there was genuine and deep anti-Soviet sentiment in the occupied territories which the vile terror of the Nazis quickly managed to change into pro-Soviet sentiment, but had the Nazis not got lucky in knocking out some 4.5 million Soviet troops in the initial surprise invasion, even that probably wouldn’t have mattered.

Dumb motherfuckers chose to go on the offensive against an enemy twice their size, over a vast region that they had poor logistical capabilities through, alienate all potential allies in the territory they took, and juggle fighting the UK and the US at the same time.

Utter morons. High on their own supply. Too much goddamn meth in their rations. A good thing for everyone else, but terrible for the Nazis.

I mean, properly both 41 and 44 should be labeled ‘Soviet Union’ instead of Russian. But I’m far too lazy to make or edit memes.

Explanation: Early on, when Nazi Germany first turned on the Soviet Union, their ally of convenience against Poland, the Sovs were caught off-guard and performed poorly. Many units were in the process of re-equipping (a process that was, thus, interrupted by rapid German advances), command was in disarray, and the entire front was in chaos for months. Literal millions of Soviet soldiers were lost in these opening stages - also the grounds for many later myths about the Soviet military. The T-34, for example, was actually superior to most German tanks - but between the chaos of the opening invasion, and the fact that the Sovs had been unreasonably secretive about the tank to their own forces, it could not be used to its full capabilities.

However, by 1944, the Soviet army was in fighting shape, having stopped the Nazis through sheer desperation at Stalingrad, and then marshalled their resources (and understanding that the war was on their goddamn doorstep) to reform the Soviet military machine to fight the war that was happening, not the one they hoped to happen in a few years. Between that and US Lend-Lease, in which the US lent massive amounts of material aid to the Sovs, especially trucks, the Soviet army then consistently pushed back and outperformed the Nazi invaders, culminating in the end of the war with the red flag raised over Berlin.

“Time Until Trump Leaves Office If We’re Lucky”

Since the end of the Cold War, communism and anti-communism has become a non-issue in terms of foreign policy, as much as some people would love to live in the past.

Curated verses, or truly random?

IE can you get one of the many tedious genealogy verses?

Cowbee claiming to not have the patience to wade into threads on ‘liberal’ instances, lmao

They’re one of the few tankies I recognize by name, in part because their constant text walls in .world threads finally got me to stop stalling and read some Michael Parenti, albeit not the Michael Parenti text they recommended.

Was not impressed.

As long as I’m providing a little entertainment to folks online, I’m having a nice day!🙏

Explanation: As the Cold War kicked into full swing, the USA developed a nasty habit of backing incredibly brutal dictators because they weren’t painted red.

As one might expect, the real losers in this ‘game’ of politiking was neither the USA nor USSR, but the people in developing countries who got to ‘enjoy’ the dictator tug-of-war between the superpowers.

I would definitely say that they were good Emperors largely because they were adopted for the job, and Emperor Hadrian explicitly acknowledged the meritocratic implications, but the core reason why the adoptions happened were because the Emperors doing the adopting were childless gay guys (or, in Antoninus Pius’s case, a widower who only had daughters left).

“I, my friends, have not been permitted by nature to have a son, but you have made it possible by legal enactment. Now there is this difference between the two methods — that a begotten son turns out to be whatever sort of person Heaven pleases, whereas one that is adopted a man takes to himself as the result of a deliberate selection. 3 Thus by the process of nature a maimed and witless child is often given to a parent, but by process of selection one of sound body and sound mind is certain to be chosen. For this reason I formerly selected Lucius before all others — a person such as I could never have expected a child of my own to become. 4 But since Heaven has bereft us of them, I have found as emperor for you in his place the man whom I now give you, one who is noble, mild, tractable, prudent, neither young enough to do anything reckless nor old enough to neglect aught, one who has been brought up according to the laws and one who has exercised authority in accordance with our traditions, so that he is not ignorant of any matters pertaining to the imperial office, but could handle them all effectively. 5 I refer to our Antoninus here. Although I know him to be the least inclined of men to become involved in affairs and to be far from desiring any such power still I do not think that he will deliberately disregard either me or you, but will accept the office even against his will.”

• Hadrian on adoption, as quoted by Cassius Dio

Emperor Septimius Severus, the successor of the civil war after Aurelius’s dipshit son Commodus was overthrown, reportedly mocked Aurelius (in private, after Aurelius and Commodus were dead) for not killing Commodus in the metaphorical cradle for being a dipshit and saving the Empire at the expense of his nitwit son.

Of course, Severus had two nitwit sons that he didn’t ice and passed the Empire on to, so he was hypocritical as fuck, but the notion was there.

PECVNIA NON OLET!

There’s definite, if limited, evidence that Roman elite families of the Principate (ie what most people think of when they think ‘Roman Empire’) very often were small, even accounting for infant mortality - the ius trium also passed by Augustus only demanded three children to be born, not to survive to any age - and yet wealthy Roman citizens and couples constantly petitioned to get it for other reasons, because they didn’t want to pop out three kids.

When people have lots of kids, it’s either for reasons of resources (need labor on the farm), cultural values (God hates it when you pull out), or for lack of other options (if we don’t reproduce, the tribe will die out!). Romans, and especially Roman elites, didn’t have either of those problems - more kids would be a drain on resources, while population was not an actual concern to anyone except a handful of busybodies like Augustus. Rome was massive, the population wasn’t going to die off, and ‘new men’ from the lower (or at least middle) classes were always moving up to the big leagues due to how Roman society was structured. And if you really needed an heir but wasted your kid-making years, adoption was very widely accepted in Rome. So there wasn’t a whole lot of incentive for Roman elites during the height of the Empire to have a lot of kids.

There were still Roman elites who did have, or try to have, large families. Emperor Marcus Aurelius, for example, had thirteen kids, of whom only five survived him. He was certainly trying to provide an heir for the dynasty!

By contrast, the earlier Emperor Vespasian, more typically of his class, had only three kids (two sons and a daughter), all of whom survived him - but Vespasian’s babymaking days were over by the time he realized he was going to be Emperor, while Aurelius was always aware that having an heir could mean the difference between peace and war upon his death.

Funny enough, many of the people he most wanted to procreate were the wealthy elites, who were already living the good life, and would’ve had a household of slaves to take care of anything they could possibly need. Large families still simply were not appealing to most of them.

Explanation: Emperor Augustus, in order to provide a more ‘robust’ growth rate of the citizen population, restricted single citizens, male and female, of marriageable age from receiving any inheritances which might otherwise be left to them. Much like modern pro-natalist policies, its effect was… limited, at best. It’s hard to force people who don’t want to have kids to have them.

But Augustus had come down quite firmly on the side of Italian nativism during his rise to power, up to and including casting out the Romanized Gauls Julius Caesar had put into the Senate, and couldn’t countenance broadening the citizen body to furriners - so yelling at young folk to have kids it was!

@moss@lemmy.world, this looks like a bad call on the face of it. Have anything to add?

The link downloads a pdf, so be forewarned; sorry, couldn’t find a simple webpage with it. First paragraph in gives the 400 million number, but if you go further in it describes it piecemeal and in Swedish krona, if you’ve an interest in more precise figures.

This primarily pro-Soviet piece cites 16 million rubles by official figures; I missed further down where it cited an additional 36 million rubles in military aid, which would make the total 52 million rubles, which would total ~70 million USD by official Soviet exchange rates. Quadrupling that number to factor in the price of goods and miscellanea still yields 280 million to Sweden’s 400 million, however; and while Sweden was by far the largest Western backer of the ANC, it was far from the only one.

The Sovs sent 16 million rubles, or about $25 million, over the course of apartheid. Much of that was in material support, so let’s be generous and quadruple that, to account for the fact that Soviet goods would’ve been cheaper considering PPP, and put it at $100 million.

Sweden alone provided over $400 million.

‘The West’ is not just the US.

South Africa’s close relationship with Russia, for that matter, dates to the mid-2000s, not the immediate aftermath of apartheid. One might consider the immediate recipients of the success of that aid to be more grateful to their supposed benefactors in Russia than the next generation of politicians, but such is apparently not the case.

Either that, or the real reasons behind South Africa’s realignment to Russia are unrelated to support for the struggle against apartheid.

I don’t want to live through it.

Oh boy, do I have good news for you