Why did the atomic spy do it?
nature.com
nature.com
To be sure, the Soviets would have lost the war if it were not for the U.S. The Russian breadbasket had been taken by the Nazis, and the retreating Russians burned everything to the ground as they gave ground. But when you look at the erasure of the Russian role in fighting the Nazis, as well as the troublesome views of leaders like Churchill, you wonder not only about Fuchs, but also about the clean version of history we're taught about that war.
Of course propaganda has nothing to do with it /s
The US is an empire. So was the USSR. So are China and modern Russia. Some provinces are treated better than others, but empires are empires, and propaganda, political manipulation, corruption, violence, and torture are how they roll - together with resource capture, labour management, and various levels of market development.
Europe had a notable level of propaganda and political manipulation, and still does, and not so much of the overt violence. But just because the corruption, violence and torture were happening elsewhere doesn't mean they weren't happening at all.
I guess I should thank the SU for stealing our uran, making my fellow citizens forcibly work in the mines as a punishment for not being communist enough, and for hindering our economical development by decades (of the country that used to be one of the most advanced European states before the war, and got destroyed AFTER the war so much that it fell below Africa in HDI)? Well, thanks...
I think you don't even need the hindsight, just look at history: Soviet Union and Nazi Germany started the war as allies, their first action was splitting Poland... why would anyone expect they would have stopped there?
So, essentially, we are supposed to thank Russians for liberating us from their former allies (and even that only happened because their former allies stabbed them in the back first). I don't know... after the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union, what options had Soviet Union left other than fighting back?
If you become friends with the Nazis, start a war together as allies, then you get betrayed by them, then you defend yourself successfully (with help of many other countries) and finally defeat them... that doesn't really make you a textbook example of a good guy. You need a lot of propaganda to make people forget how this all started.
I'm curious as to which of Churchill's views (or acts) you think were more problematic than Stalin's.
And in the aftermath of WW2, which countries prospered more, those liberated by and/or occupied by the West, or by the Soviets?
Having a high death toll in itself is not a sign of good leadership or self sacrifice.
It’s a sign that some bugger is ordering someone else to put themselves in danger on pain of being shot if they don’t.
And the idea that Russians had to be forced at gunpoint to defend their country is so ludicrous and offensive I have no words.
See for example sources like: https://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/news-and-events/...
Stalin purged as many of his experienced officers as possible during the 1930s because he saw them as a threat.
Many show trials were filmed and you can watch them if you wish.
The yes men Stalin replaced them with made a lot of stupid decisions.
As a consequence a lot of people died unnecessarily.
If they’d have refused to follow stupid orders the alternative were death or gulag if the were lucky.
Sheer numbers and simple bravery are what got the Russian people through the war.
Aldrich Ames seems to genuinely believe that what he did is morally equivalent to doing for ideological reasons.
Put another way: did he change the world? That’s the goal of idealism, after all.
It seems absurd to say that the USSR developed nukes thanks to his help. And yet, I can’t help but wonder... Could one person have made all the difference?
The USSR would have developed the same bombs eventually, but not as quickly, I would guess.
But as soon as someone does figure out fusion (ITER looks good) and publishes, everyone will know, and everyone will have it.
The base of the research was deemed to be of no significant military or economic value by the USSR so it was published internationally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr_Ufimtsev#The_father_of_st...
Sure, 40 years later its all out in the open, but that's because there's no longer a reason to keep it secret.
Those are the known knowns. There are also the known unknowns, the aliases from intercepted messages who were never matched to identities, and the unknown unknowns, the ones we haven't found out about. One of the spies on the Wikipedia list only had their identity revealed last year.
https://www.spymuseum.org/multimedia/spycast/episode/atomic-...
Acquisition of nuclear weapons by Soviet Union and later reaching parity with the USA, was a major factor stopping WWIII from occurring. Long list of characters, including Winston Churchill, Curtis LeMay, John von Neumann and countless other were advocating a preemptive nuclear strike on Soviet Union.
Clearly Fuchs was played by Soviet spies, but in the greater scheme of things, he may have contributed to saving tens of millions of lives.
This was known to be an underestimate as US planning did not take into effect the thermal effects of nuclear weapons due to a degree of variability from cloud cover etc. So probably about a billion would have died - then there is the effect of Soviet weapons...
I can recommend Daniel Ellsberg's book on the topic:
https://www.historytoday.com/reviews/confessions-nuclear-war...
Sure, nukes are bad, all mankind should probably ditch the tech, but it's like a gun... i'd rather be in a mexican standoff, than empty handed staring down the barrel of a gun.
Currently, I'm not very trusting of our (US) government and their 'goals'. Trump may or may not have known Putin was murdering our soldiers. The fact is, at least there's some solace knowing nukes will probably never be used (except maybe by N.Korea - but as a suicide action by a crazy neurotic dictator), and that there's a sort of checks/balances system as far as they are concerned.
Nobody rational, wants a nuclear war or fallout or nuclear winter.
Russia never building their own, also allows one side dominate in power, and power corrupts, so maybe it helped even the equilibrium. Not saying them having weapons is great, but who's to know what future would await a nazi army rising in America and being the only country with nuclear capabilities. We still might get that future, but at least there's some balance from other countries in case certain scenarios happen.
It's naive to think 'our country' will always be benign and have everybody's best interests in mind... just as it would've been naive for Germans to think that in 1930.