General Talk!!

[scarface]

In case of a hypothetic war, or suicide. Half of the time I'm sad. I dont see any goal in my life. I have no wife, no money and I dont know if I want anything anyway. I wonder if Im not madder than tyler durden in fact. Im a 30 year old kid you see.

[Daniil]

@humbert
BTW, you're right about cockroaches. I had joined a war with them decade ago (I was a shipboy on a tugboat for a while), and - you're correct - they never even touch cucumbers. 

About GRU - this is Glavnoe Razvedivatel'noye Upravleniye, Main Intelligence Control, outer intelligence. It was one of most secret and horrifying parts of soviet war machine. On the east and west almost nobody known about it (and wery few knows today), and even in the USSR only few peoples known this abb. It was "invisible", because formed like a cloud - it have no solid structure, pieces of it was soluted between other soviet war forces, and totally secret. GRU consists by different types of spetsnaz - diversion groups, spys, residents, diplomatic agents. All of them are very skilled, ferociously cruel monsters with minds blown away with communistic ideology - well, very nice and cool guys. 
Their main purpose was:
- at a peace time create a large agent network at an offensive countries, built a net of secret bases and hidings in an enemy countries, recruit traitors and give them a money for military, political and technological secrets
- at a war start time - sneak to an enemy a territory, using bases, agents and traitors, kill all of them who was visited and destroying all used bases, find a launchpads of nuclear weapons, and destroy them at any cost before launch.
- at a war time, for them who stay alive after first mission (previous in this text) - start to destroying a military and industry infrastructure, kill top generals and top government, eliminate any officers.

One man of GRU spetsnaz at a battle cost as 40 best american or german soldiers, one secret agent cost as 3 MI5 "Bonds". Today some of russian historicans and literature autors says that spetsnaz was "the best of russians", but - if thinking logically, they was just a mad killers, monsters who are frightening even their country.

Anyway, that was soviet "wunderwaffe" of nuclear confrontation era, ideal superweapon for nuclear war. After USSR falls, GRU was desecreted and became useless. Most of this guys turn to criminals, joined gangs as butchers, and was eliminated in criminal wars at 90-s. And it's better for us all. Only some of them, ex-agents, could became a normal guys, and became a very good and successfull businessmans and a proud and respectable peoples.

Back to your question, GRU isn't KGB. KGB is reformated NKVD (NKVD was separated to two - KGB, to fight with spys and dissidents, and MVD, which was analog of police), and works mostly with internals treats - spys from other countries, terrorists, guys who thinks different. But - in Soviet Russia even an internal police have a spy residences in outer countries.  I meant, KGB, as a GRU have an agents in other countries, but their main function was not to prepare the diversions, but to steal an information. Our Great Pu-pu (Putin) was one of them.

Also, this dualism of secret services made a bad joke with Stalin. I heared about that memo. But guy in Tokyo was KGB guy, and maybe from GRU Stalin got other information... After a longest cogitation - maybe longest in his life, on his shoulders layed fates of all peoples in Eurasia! - he made a Choice... And it was wrong.
Finlandia was "test run". Finnish "Mannergeim" defence line was very similar to a french and a german one.
Looks like Stalin really was preparing for advance war in Europe. Before war all army was concentrated on western boundaries, also most of weapons was modifiled for an advance, attacking variation. Maybe that was preparation to destroy the Hitler (all of peoples even in that time known what in fact is nazi, and maybe Stalin want to made a preventive strike to avoid an occupation), maybe that was preparation for great communistic crusade from Moscow to English channel - I can't say correct.
I told - we never could know the truth.

Also, sorry for my illiteracy, it looks like i sometimes used wrong times and syntax at a post.

[Daniil]

@scarface
Dear friend, you told about a problems of our world... I understand you, and understand your worry. But - is this problems your own problems? Forget about the world, start to solving your own problems instead. You say you're a kid and you don't like this? Well... Maybe you should try not to be a kid?

Also, that guy from "Fight club" isn't good exemplar for following to. Sometimes he's cool, but mostly all of his doings just stupid. (BTW anyway Fight Club is good cinema piece).

[humbert]

@Scarface - I'm concerned about your post. It's normal to be depressed because things aren't working out as we'd like, but based on everything you've been saying it seems you're past that point into something a little more serious. This is a medical condition that needs treatment - the sooner the better. I know that Europe is not like here and for you, medical help is available. Any chance you can talk to somebody?

@Daniil - It's one thing not to know of the GRU's existence, but more so that it existed until the day Yeltsin crushed Yanayev, Pugo and those other guys. Surely somebody who is involved in this has to be another Stalin. I'm not surprised PuPu was a member. I do know he was a strong KGB man.

I honestly think Stalin really knew about the invasion and was in denial. I heard that just weeks before June 21, Germany was still buying fuel from Russia and their planes were openly flying over USSR to bomb the Balkans. Stalin was informed of this and did nothing.

Yes, I'm familiar with Finland's Mannergeim line and generally how badly Stalin's army did. All the more reason his first priority was to rebuild after the purges, where the military was stripped of it's best leaders.

BTW - your English is great. I wish I could read and write Russian like you do with English. Do you speak it as well? Oh, and did you learn it in school like Shadow did?

[Ahmad]

I agree with Daniil in his last post.
Everyone should take care of himself, solve his own problems and do his best to be good.. If everyone does that, we will never suffer.
Even if someone passes through difficult circumstances, he will find who help him then.

I'm not saying we shouldn't prepare for those difficult circumstances.. No, I'm saying we shouldn't be panic about the future.. Instead, [As I believe] we live the present, do our best for better future and leave the rest for our maker.. Believe me, good things come from NON expected ways. After all, human science is NOT too comprehensive to know everything about the future events.

[Daniil]

@humbert
You aren't understand a scales of a Soviet Army.  Only an armies of Leningrad War District joins a fight with Finland. Yeah, I know, that their size (count of peoples) was a 1/5 of all (I mean - ALL) population of Finland. But that was "a drop in a sea", there was 27 War Districts before war, and Leningrad War District wasn't the largest and most powerfull.

As you can know, before the Great War USSR had a peace treaty (Molotov/Ribentropp Pact) with nazis. That's why nazis bombers flied to Balkans through USSR airspace. Hitler had violated that pact, and attacked.

Why he had violated - is a question. A german propaganda about "get a living space for nation" was a half-truth, I think. Maybe Stalin had prepare to attack him, and Hitler had got an information about this and tried to strike first. Try to read memories of H.-U. Rudel (book called "Stuka-pilot"). There is a proofs that soviet army was prepared for attack the Germany, but nazis strikes first. (And also there is a lot of info, why all of us in other countries hates nazis so hard! Just read. Rudel was a professional. But as a man, he's worthy of hatred).

[humbert]

@Daniil - I wasn't aware of the fact that only the Leningrad War District participated in the war on Finland. How well equipped was that district with respect to the Finnish army?

I'm aware of the famous 1939 "non-agression" pact between Germany and the USSR. I also know that Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf in 1924 "in our search for living space we must look to Russia, destiny itself points the way there". Also, even while Molotov was still in Berlin working on the pact, Hitler ordered his generals to plan an attack on Russia.

It makes sense that the Red Army made at least some preparations for an oncoming Nazi attack, and possibly even put together a plan for a pre-emptive strike. The fact that Stalin was "in denial" doesn't mean that others high in the government didn't take the many warnings from the GRU seriously. Not only that, but even before Tsar Nicholas, Russia had been looking to expand their empire. How long have they been saying one day Russian soldiers would clean their boots in a warm water port on the Indian Ocean?

The fact that a pact existed didn't give Germany the right to fly over Russian territory to bomb countries the USSR isn't at war with (i.e., that wasn't part of the deal). Even today in commercial aviation without war, there are many instances where an airline has to pay to be able to fly over another country's territory, and even then only over a specific corridor they're assigned. I firmly believe that this was simply one more symptom of Stalin's mindset, i.e., if he simply didn't bother Germany then any threat or possibility of a clash would go away by itself.

Also, given the atrocities committed during the war, it makes perfect sense that people in Russia hate the Nazis. When I traveled to Asia I also saw the same thing toward the Japanese. You've probably read in the news about Japan and China quarreling about some small islands in the Pacific. I bet anything you want that if this were with any other country, it would not invoke such a reaction. As an example, China has similar disputes with the Phillipines over some islands in the South China Sea, but you don't see them bringing out heavily armed warships.

[Daniil]

I'm searching in the book about Winter War...
Russian froces of LWD was about 425 thousands on land with 1476 tanks, 1576 artillery guns; Air forces was about 1200 planes; From sea we had about 200 ships, and about 500 planes.
Hot finnish guys had about 600 thousands on land (all their army, with reserves), about 900 artillery cannons, 270 planes (mostly old) and 29 ships. They have no tanks, but in fact tanks wasn't good in winter swamps.

In fact here in St.Petersburg, we're proud of such a neighbor as Finland. They're cool, at 1939 they had teach us modern winter war, and they didn't help nazis (Yes, there was nazis in Finland. But when Hitler hordes came close to St.Petersburg, Finnish didn't came with them. Altrough they could).
Also today Finland is good place for vacations and rest. Finnish had built constellation of a beautiful aquaparks around the Helsinki, with nice hotels, saunas, treating water springs and other.

Also, don't mix - we hate nazis, not Germans or Italians. Nazis (as any criminals) have no motherland (They may been born in German or in Italy, but they're Germans/Italians no longer - they're nazis).
And in case of China and Japan that reaction isn't only based on war legacy. I think that main reasons is economic reasons - China is old and main economical opponent of Japan in Pacific region. And they do anything for chop Japanese markets and expand their own. (IMHO).

[humbert]

First things first - I'm aware of the fact nobody hates Germans, Italians nor citizens of any nation who sided with Hitler during the war. Their problem is with Nazi philosophy and those who follow it. It's not so much that other Asians hate Japanese people individually, but rather the entire Japanese mindset that prevailed during the war and, in a way, still remains. As an example, back around 2000 the Chinese prime minister visited Tokyo and requested an apology for atrocities committed by Japan during the famous Rape of Nanking. He did not even get that! How would you feel if you were a Chinese sailor off those island with Japanese warships in the distance using the same flags an uniforms as those who could have tortured your grandfather?

By coincidence yesterday on Hulu (a streaming service) they offered a documentary on the Winter War of 1939 which I watched. The mismanagement on the Soviet side was simply incredible, plus the NKVD was interfering everywhere giving orders on topics they knew nothing about. I also agree with what you said concerning Finland. In fact, one thing I wanted to know was how the Winter War ended. It's a real shame that after the fall of Communism in 1991, Finland did not get back even one hectare of the land stolen from them by Stalin as part of the armistice when the war ended.

I'm curious about something - the documentary said NKVD agents reported directly to Stalin. What then was the role of Lavrenty Beria, head of the NKVD and as said in many documentaries, "the only man Stalin feared"?

[Daniil]

Well, that's strange documentary, made by peoples who know very few about a Winter War... Mismanagement in army during Winter War was not more than during any other time. Well, you can understand, that giant "war machine" larger than, for example, whole british army, can't be easily managed. NKVD also didn't interfering. Their function was following the army, torturing any dwellers who don't want to build "lightfull communistic tomorrow", and shooting any officers/soldiers who want to desert or flee. "No step back, Stalin watches over you!"
In fact, Winter War was ended draw. (that's why soviet historicans didn't like it - "what, giant USSR can't win a small finland?! No way!") At the beginning of March 1940 Finland, and also a USSR began to understand that forces almost at their end - Finnish army was almost destroyed, as also a forces of LWD.  At March 12 1940 we submit Finnish peace pact.
Also, Finland have no rights for get back any territory. You should know, that ALL territory of modern Finland before soviet revolution was russian territory. During the revolution they just drop us and flee, and unlawfully annexed our territory almost to St.Petersburg. Border was in 10 kilometers of St.Petersburg center, and Lisiy Nos - a part of city, in fact - was on Finnish side. And Mannergeim Line, in fact, was slightly modernised St.Petersburg defence line, built during Emperor Alexander III reign.
Well, you can see, it's all difficult. It's old countries with many old and strange offences,
As for Beria - he was raised to power much later, after the Great War. And, of course, NKVD guys almost never talks directly to Stalin (who IS Stalin, and who are they?) There was reporting system, there was special loggings, creating by NKVD every day. That loggings was analised by strategic officers, and main info reported to Stalin.