Meanwhile In The Baltic Republics And Poland...

[bd1]

Yes, the difference being is that there was a clear attempt under Stalin to Russify areas. You can see that trend in the Southern Soviet states in particular, and clearly they did attempt to do exactly this in the Baltic states as well. Was there self interest in some of this? Im sure, Khrushchev's family settled in Ukraine because they couldn't get work elsewhere after the civil war. But clearly behind that was a Soviet effort to homogenize regions. After all, they did exactly the same thing in reverse by trucking people out, of Crimea, and the Baltic states for that matter.

 

 

 

Homo Sovieticus

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Main article: New Soviet man

Homo Sovieticus (Dog Latin for "Soviet Man") is a sarcastic and critical reference to the average person in the Soviet Union, also observed in other countries of the Eastern Bloc The term was popularized by Soviet writer and sociologist Aleksandr Zinovyev, who wrote the book titled Homo Sovieticus.^[1] A similar term in Russian slang is sovok (совок, plural: sovki, совки), which is derived from "Soviet" (literally means "scoop (tool)").

Michel Heller claimed ^[2] that the term was coined in the introduction of a 1974 monograph "Sovetskye lyudi" ("Soviet People") to describe the next level of evolution of humanity thanks to the success of Marxist social experiment.

In a book published in 1981, but available in samizdat in the 1970s, Zinovyev also coined an abbreviation homosos (гомосос).^[3]

Contents [hide]

• 1Characteristics
• 2See also
• 3References
• 4Further reading

Characteristics[edit]

The idea that the Soviet system would create a new, better kind of Soviet people was first postulated by the advocates of the system; they called it the "New Soviet man". Homo Sovieticus, however, was a term with negative connotations, invented by opponents to describe what they said was the real result of Soviet policies. In many ways it meant the opposite of the New Soviet man, someone characterized by the following:

• Indifference to the results of his labour (as expressed in the saying "They pretend they are paying us, and we pretend we are working").
• Lack of initiative and avoidance of taking any individual responsibility for anything. Jerzy Turowicz wrote "it's a person enslaved, incapacitated, deprived of initiative, unable to think critically; he expects - and demands - everything to be provided by the state, he cannot and doesn't want to take his fate in his own hands".^[4]
• Indifference to common property and petty theft from the workplace, both for personal use and for profit.^[5] A line from a popular song, "Everything belongs to the kolkhoz, everything belongs to me" ("всё теперь колхозное, всё теперь моё" / vsyo teperь kolkhoznoe, vsyo teperь moyo), meaning that people on collective farms treasured all common property as their own, was sometimes used ironically to refer to instances of petty theft.
• The Soviet Union's restrictions on travel abroad and strict censorship of information in the media (as well as the abundance of propaganda) was with the intent to insulate the Soviet people from Western influence. There existed non-public "ban lists" of Western entertainers and bands, which, in addition to the usual criteria of not conforming to fundamental Soviet values, were added to the list for rather peculiar reasons; one such example being the Irish band U2, the name of which resembled that of Lockheed U-2, a high-altitude U.S. reconnaissance airplane. As a result, "exotic" Western popular culture became more interesting precisely because it was forbidden. Due to limited exposure, entertainers considered minor, B-list, or of low artistic value in the West were regarded as A-list in the Soviet sphere. Soviet officials called this fascination "Western idolatry" / "Idolatry of the West" (идолопоклонничество перед Западом / idolopoklonnichestvo pered Zapadom).
• Obedience to or passive acceptance of everything that government imposes on them (see authoritarianism).
• In the opinion of a former US ambassador to Kazakhstan, a tendency to drink heavily: "[a Kazakh defence minister] appears to enjoy loosening up in the tried and true Homo Sovieticusstyle – i.e., drinking oneself into a stupor."^[6]
• According to Leszek Kolakowski, it was the Short course history of the CPSU( that was critical in forming the key social and mental features of the Homo Sovieticus as a "textbook of false memory and double thinking". Over the course of years, Soviet people were forced to continuously repeat and accept constantly changing editions of the "Short course", each containing slightly different version of the past events. This has inevitably led to forming "a new Soviet man: ideological schizophrenic, honest liar, person always ready for constant and voluntary mental self-mutilations".^[7]

See also[edit]

[glenn239]

 

Urbanoid The will is the problem here and IF ONLY we had more of it, I could be advocating NATO expansion to Georgia and Ukraine as well. Given the current sad state of affairs, I'm not.

 

 

The most likely result of expansion of NATO to Ukraine and Georgia would be the collapse of these states into Russian-provoked civil wars. (I'm not following how doing something to cause a country to collapse into civil war is pro-that country?) With Georgia, as the US and Turkey may be headed for a political showdown that could end NATO communications into the Black Sea and Caucasus regions, maybe let’s see how things shake out between Ankara and Washington first such that we know whether the US can even reach still these places, then if things are patched up, we can think about games in Georgia?

 

Gregory You still haven't explained how NATO was supposed to defend West Germany with conventional means.

 

 

Same way that Israel won the 1973 war.

 

NATO’s armies in West Germany would act as a shock absorber to blunt the Soviet offensive, which eventually must grind to a halt for logistic and other operational reasons, with some of West Germany occupied, some not. (Only by going nuclear could Soviet armor have hoped to reach the Channel, IMO). In the meantime, once the offensive grinds down, the US has the time to massively builds up its air and other conventional power in France, Germany, and elsewhere first to establish air superiority over Western Germany, then as this creates over time the necessary conditions, land power to reconquer Western Germany.

 

The formula is to absorb the initial offensive impetus such that the logistic conditions are still available to first secure air superiority, which then leads to battlefield domination and counterattack. The reason why West Germany was conventionally defendable and Georgia is not is because West Germany had France and Britain behind it, which were good bases to build up, while Georgia is so far into the Caucuses it’s not possible. (Ukraine would fall between these two polarities, not as logistically accessible to US power as West Germany, but way more supportable than Georgia.)

[Stuart Galbraith]

Glenn, you would be hard pressed to find conventional only variants of Soviet execises. I dont mean to say they never existed. But if they did, they dont seem to have been overly emphasised. By the 1980s they were think of moving to more a conventional only variant. And were defeated in that attempt by Western introduction of new strategies (assault breaker) and new target identification and command and control systems and even new armour and antitank systems. We might still have lost, but the advantage was slipping from the Soviets and so they moved back to nuclear strategy.

 

I remember a one time poster on this site, Vasiliy Fofanov (first rate chap) posting to me a conversation he had in email with former GSFG tanker, and he relate din the 1980s he was invited into a command post with a big map on the wall. Big map on the wall showing lots and lots of nuclear strikes in his divisional frontage. Now I grant you that was an exercise, although you tend to train as you intend to fight.

 

Conventional only conflicts make great novels, but I cant see it lasting more than 6 days. On day 7 BAOR would have run out of ammunition and we would have gone nuclear even if nobody else had by that time.

 

 

Israel won because it decisively outmanoeuvred its enemy and outfought him. Arabs even in the 1970s were not up to their Soviet equivalents.

[bd1]

Let's take the Latvian National Guard as a baseline for the 'nation in arms' idea.

 

The first step is to provide a basic personal equipment to the militiapersons. They currently use G3s and G36s. There probably are enough G3s still in German stocks to provide for militia use but 7.62 NATO is a less than ideal individual weapon for militia due to the powerful cartridge and the overall length. 5.56 is a much better cartridge for militia usage. Unfortunately there really isn't any large stockpile of 5.56 rifles or carbines just waiting to be donated thanks to the current troubles all over so that means buying a rifle. The cheapest 5.56s are either a M4gery or a 5.56 AK like the Polish Beryl, Zastava M85 or Cugir. None of them take STANAG but that is probably the least of your problems.

 

The obvious choice is a M4gery, which will come in at $750 for a set complete with 7 magazines, cleaning kit and sling. Another $250 will buy you a Aimpoint-a-like fit for field use so lets say $1000 for your complete individual weapon. I'll throw in a bayonet for free. This is smoking hot and below commercial foreign government contract pricing.

 

Load bearing equipment:- $50 cheapy Chinese 'Airsoft' chest rig for mags, $30 web belt, $100 patrol pack, $20 canteen and pouch - say $250 with assorted odds and sods.

 

Personal Protective Equipment;- $100 per, cheapy ballistic helmet from China. Level III plate carrier w. steel inserts $200, ballistic eyewear $50.

 

You are already at $1,600 without uniform, boots etc,

 

If you use TN level training, it's 1,200 rounds on rifle alone for 2-3 days and that is with very high training cadre load.

 

Unless Latvians are willing to spend a ton of their own money on their militia commitments, it won't make it.

 

 

at least estonia has some 40-50000 ex-us M14´s stored , all used and probably not in very good shape, but most likely still working.

 

back in late 1990´s sweden , during one of their defence cuts, liquidated a whole lot of territorial units and donated a brigade set of equipment to each baltic state. that´s where the G-3´s (actually AK-4 , swedish clone) came, MAG´s Carl-Gustafs, mortars, and AFAIK a whole lot of mines.

 

included in this was all the rest, from tents to trucks, motorcycles, 90,mm. recoilless rifles, skis (my youngest brother with his squad skied with these the whole Tartu Ski Marathon 60 km. during his service). also there were old swedish field uniforms , butt ugly, but surprisingly comfy and actually very, very well designed and utterly practical. i spent a week in these during my refresher train. back in 2003 (?). don´t want to be photographed in these, but if i had to these would be good enough.

https://www.google.ee/search?q=swedish+m59+uniform&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=775&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAg-H3nf3NAhVMjiwKHbzBAWYQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=TlkI9tbov9AulM%3A

 

probably latvia could thus field at least couple thousand troops with equipment they probably have squirreled away...

 

if those troops have 40-year old personal gear and Javelins/mortars/Pzfausts/mines (Javelins should be at least some units of EDL), it´s still probably good enough

 

 

pareto principle at work

Edited July 18, 2016 by bd1

[Panzermann]

can´t find personnel for drill instructors so quickly* i guess is the most limiting issue, then having to put the recruits somewhere - barracks, train. areas, but yes, you are correct. they should move their asses quicker

 

* again, failure of all-pro army - that broke the connection with people (that itself was barely created, before latvia and lithuania went all-pro), cut all-pro army´s recruitment pool, and lowered actually the level of new recruits. besides, all-pro army has personnel costs that are eye-watering. even now iirc lithuania´s budget has way high personnel costs compared to acquisition/operations costs.

 

(unofficial opinion of latvian officers, according to est. officers off-record talks over couple beers)

 

well known consequence of going all professional. All the foreign officers I have met back when a eager con script told us that germany should keep conscription. Dutch, belgian, french, polish and argentino iirc. Probably I forgot a few I met at the Panzertruppenschule. All said it created lots of problems. Higher costs, less quality personnel, too few numbers to fill all slots etc.

 

 

And for the three small baltics I think a militia/homeguard system like in Switzerland or sweden is the only way to create a credible deterrant. Weekend warriors everywhere that could create a major partisan headache if occupied. And from this pool you can recruit part time and full time soldiers. But politics were all to eager to cash in on the "cold war dividend".

[glenn239]

 

Stuart Glenn, you would be hard pressed to find conventional only variants of Soviet execises. I dont mean to say they never existed. But if they did, they dont seem to have been overly emphasised

 

 

You recently said West Germany could not be defended by conventional means and now you’re arguing that the Soviets themselves had concluded they stood no chance of winning a conventional war in West Germany.

 

Conventional only conflicts make great novels, but I cant see it lasting more than 6 days. On day 7 BAOR would have run out of ammunition and we would have gone nuclear even if nobody else had by that time.

 

 

Sure.

 

Israel won because it decisively outmanoeuvred its enemy and outfought him.

 

 

Step 1. Contain enemy’s initial momentum.

 

Step 2. Obtain air superiority.

 

Step 3. Build up for counterattack.

 

Step 4. Counterattack.

 

Georgia is bullshit for NATO because all four steps are unlikely, whether on a nuclear or conventional battlefield. Ukraine we could get to Step 4 at least for the western half of the country.

Edited July 18, 2016 by glenn239

[bd1]

besides - i don´t get also why everybody gets so fixated on the forests? what about citys? a single biggish building can suck in a whole company worth mech. inf. a russian mot.inf. btl. has , what - 30-40 APC, each with a squad of 7 men. so whole btl. tactical group has around 200-300 infantry. that´s in practice inf. coy battlegroup size...

[urbanoid]

Well I can point to a very decisive effect that was achieved, and that is the ratio of Russian population to indigenous population. For example, whilst Estonia and Latvia fought well, they were besett by not having as rural a population as Lithuania. It was rather more urbanised. The result was, it was harder to maintain large forces in the country supported by helpful farmers. The result was that, though Forest Brothers survived for decades (in fact the last one was only killed by the KGB in 1980) in Estonia and Latvia they did not have as successful a campaign as Lithuania, where through a mixture of ties to the local population, Lithuanians in Poland and even limited ties to the West and the CIA, they were able to keep going slightly longer. And it was this slightly longer that mattered. Stalin died in 1953, the campaign continued to about 1956. Now look at the ratio of Russian immigrants and you can see an important difference, one that has had an effect on Lithuanian security to this day. Even at the time Lithuanians were somewhat more warily treated, its believed as a net result of their partisan campaign.

 

Estonia

• 68.8% Estonians
• 25.1% Russians
• 1.8% Ukrainians

Latvia

• 61.6% Latvians
• 25.8% Russians
• 3.4% Belarusians
• 2.3% Ukrainians

 

 

Lithuania

• 86.7% Lithuanians
• 5.6% Poles
• 4.8% Russians
• 1.3% Belarusians

 

 

Bear in mind it was in the Soviets interest to underplay now many died in the campaign. There are some incidents (its hard to be sure how accurate they are) when Forest Brothers claimed to have acheived over 10 to 1 kill ratios over the Soviets. Admittedly Interior ministry troops didnt have a great rep, but bear in mind the Lithuanians were even in combat with Soviet Paratroops seconded to them. They did well. Doomed to failure from the start perhaps, but its not like it had no effect on a 'folk memory' of resistence that the balts were able to dip into when it came to the independence campaign. There was also the side effect of the armed resistance, the printing presses and propaganda campaign, which continued long after the military component ended, I believe it didnt really end until 1991. It was one more element that illustrated Soviet domination of the region was never complete. I mean look at the hill of crosses in Siauliai. KGB bulldozed it 3 times and STILL those stubborn Lithuanians wouldnt stop putting them up again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_of_Crosses

 

So militarily, you are right. But politically the resistance was important for all these 3 nations, and in ever greater importance as they approached independence. Even to the point of recovering war dead from the campaign, which provided another focal point for disenchantment with the USSR. It avoided the myth that incorporation in the Union was via choice, which seems to be a myth that still exist over Belarus and Ukraine. The Soviets could never claim they were invited into the Baltic states, and one might say that in the end proved a key ingredient for the fracturing of the USSR.

 

For a failed campaign, these are some pretty remarkable results.

 

Stuart, those effects go far beyond the morale. Just look at the number of Russians you wrote for each Baltic state. Which of the three is least endangered by the potential Polite People™? Sure, USSR was totalitarian and all, but that doesn't mean the people had zero influence in where they're sent. And if they had any choice, they would rather not go to Lithuania, where the Forest Brothers were by far strongest among the three, right?

 

Estonia & Latvia had their cities 'Russified' to a large extent, Lithuania OTOH had them ... Lithuanised, as before the war quite a lot of their cities (including Vilnius) had Polish (or Polish/Jewish) majority. Russification didn't happen after the war for them.

 

I'm not saying there weren't any other reasons, but the correlation between the strength of resistance and Russification of the country seems quite obvious.

[Gregory]

FWIW, my grandfather who grew up in Latvia and was part of Communist underground pre-war several times mentioned to me that ethnic Latvian and Estonian communist party hierarchy did not speak up against relocation of Russians into the Baltics after the war. He personally thought that it was a mistake. According to him, Lithuanian communist party had successfully argued against it. I don't know how much of that is true and how much is scuttlebutt, so I'm just going to mention it as a theory.

[Chris Werb]

Glenn, wouldn't we be betting the farm on stealth? The Russians have a ****-tonne of state of the art mobile SAM systems. That would, to an unknown but significant extent, counter our overwhelming preponderance in airpower unless the F-22 proves really delivers on the US taxpayers' investment.

 

BD1. The reason I de-emphasised towns is because civilians tend to live in them in large numbers. Yes, if you are willing to have them Groznified, they make excellent places to grind down attackers, especially if you have lots of sniper rifles, AMRs, and AT that you can fire from enclosed spaces like Pzf-3, AT-4 Carl Gustave M2/3/4 with CS rounds etc. possibly even RKG-3M.

[a77]

The Russians have a ****-tonne of state of the art mobile SAM systems. That would, to an unknown but significant extent, counter our overwhelming preponderance in airpower unless the F-22 proves really delivers on the US taxpayers' investment.

 

No Russia have some state of the art mobile SAM system. If we shall beleve wiki there are only 152 S-400 launchers (2015) doubts that they would muster them all to a relatively smale geografic area. Becuse they protect importent targets as Murmansk etc.

 

In a WW3 senario there you enemys doctrin is to destroy your air defense first 152 launchers feel a very smale number, especiely then US have 3,500 Tomahawk cruise missiles stockpiled (wiki)

[Simon Tan]

I don't know if the Balts have that mindset. Semi-auto AKs to take home with 2 basic loads of ammo. Local area depots with heavy infantry weapons like RPGs, GPMGs and mortars.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

Stuart Glenn, you would be hard pressed to find conventional only variants of Soviet execises. I dont mean to say they never existed. But if they did, they dont seem to have been overly emphasised

 

 

You recently said West Germany could not be defended by conventional means and now you’re arguing that the Soviets themselves had concluded they stood no chance of winning a conventional war in West Germany.

 

Conventional only conflicts make great novels, but I cant see it lasting more than 6 days. On day 7 BAOR would have run out of ammunition and we would have gone nuclear even if nobody else had by that time.

 

 

Sure.

 

Israel won because it decisively outmanoeuvred its enemy and outfought him.

 

 

Step 1. Contain enemy’s initial momentum.

 

Step 2. Obtain air superiority.

 

Step 3. Build up for counterattack.

 

Step 4. Counterattack.

 

Georgia is bullshit for NATO because all four steps are unlikely, whether on a nuclear or conventional battlefield. Ukraine we could get to Step 4 at least for the western half of the country.

 

Isnt that actually saying the same thing? That an inability to defeat your enemy conventionally mean the use of Nuclear weapons in the Cold War context? West Germany might have won conventionally, in the last 10 years of the Cold war when technology was making breakthroughs ever less likely. The downside of that is the Soviets would have been even more likely to use those weapons because their offensive capacity was in the descendent. In fact, even in the 1960s when the Soviets had a very significant conventional capability, they STILL had exercise plans that emphasised the use of nuclear weapons. You talk about war in West Germany, you cannot extract yourself from the idea nuclear weapons would be used at some point. And the Russian General staff still clings to their tactical nuclear weapons like a security blanket.

 

Dont take my word for it. Read up some more on NATO's central front. Even the Author Harold Coyle whom wrote Team Yankee (a largely conventional only variant novel of WW3) admitted that with what he knows now, yes he was wrong and it would have gone nuclear from the start. I dont really see how, with both sides distrusting each other to the hilt, it could have done much else. Nobody wants to get caught on the ground.

 

 

You are getting all knotted up by saying we shouldnt get involved in defending states we cant defend. I would argue the Budapest memorandum has invalidated that for Ukraine anyway. Or are we saying we should be like Putins Russia, not respect any treaties we sign? Thats is going to have a really positive outcome for any agreements the West sign in future.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

Well I can point to a very decisive effect that was achieved, and that is the ratio of Russian population to indigenous population. For example, whilst Estonia and Latvia fought well, they were besett by not having as rural a population as Lithuania. It was rather more urbanised. The result was, it was harder to maintain large forces in the country supported by helpful farmers. The result was that, though Forest Brothers survived for decades (in fact the last one was only killed by the KGB in 1980) in Estonia and Latvia they did not have as successful a campaign as Lithuania, where through a mixture of ties to the local population, Lithuanians in Poland and even limited ties to the West and the CIA, they were able to keep going slightly longer. And it was this slightly longer that mattered. Stalin died in 1953, the campaign continued to about 1956. Now look at the ratio of Russian immigrants and you can see an important difference, one that has had an effect on Lithuanian security to this day. Even at the time Lithuanians were somewhat more warily treated, its believed as a net result of their partisan campaign.

 

Estonia

• 68.8% Estonians
• 25.1% Russians
• 1.8% Ukrainians

Latvia

• 61.6% Latvians
• 25.8% Russians
• 3.4% Belarusians
• 2.3% Ukrainians

 

 

Lithuania

• 86.7% Lithuanians
• 5.6% Poles
• 4.8% Russians
• 1.3% Belarusians

 

 

Bear in mind it was in the Soviets interest to underplay now many died in the campaign. There are some incidents (its hard to be sure how accurate they are) when Forest Brothers claimed to have acheived over 10 to 1 kill ratios over the Soviets. Admittedly Interior ministry troops didnt have a great rep, but bear in mind the Lithuanians were even in combat with Soviet Paratroops seconded to them. They did well. Doomed to failure from the start perhaps, but its not like it had no effect on a 'folk memory' of resistence that the balts were able to dip into when it came to the independence campaign. There was also the side effect of the armed resistance, the printing presses and propaganda campaign, which continued long after the military component ended, I believe it didnt really end until 1991. It was one more element that illustrated Soviet domination of the region was never complete. I mean look at the hill of crosses in Siauliai. KGB bulldozed it 3 times and STILL those stubborn Lithuanians wouldnt stop putting them up again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_of_Crosses

 

So militarily, you are right. But politically the resistance was important for all these 3 nations, and in ever greater importance as they approached independence. Even to the point of recovering war dead from the campaign, which provided another focal point for disenchantment with the USSR. It avoided the myth that incorporation in the Union was via choice, which seems to be a myth that still exist over Belarus and Ukraine. The Soviets could never claim they were invited into the Baltic states, and one might say that in the end proved a key ingredient for the fracturing of the USSR.

 

For a failed campaign, these are some pretty remarkable results.

 

Stuart, those effects go far beyond the morale. Just look at the number of Russians you wrote for each Baltic state. Which of the three is least endangered by the potential Polite People™? Sure, USSR was totalitarian and all, but that doesn't mean the people had zero influence in where they're sent. And if they had any choice, they would rather not go to Lithuania, where the Forest Brothers were by far strongest among the three, right?

 

Estonia & Latvia had their cities 'Russified' to a large extent, Lithuania OTOH had them ... Lithuanised, as before the war quite a lot of their cities (including Vilnius) had Polish (or Polish/Jewish) majority. Russification didn't happen after the war for them.

 

I'm not saying there weren't any other reasons, but the correlation between the strength of resistance and Russification of the country seems quite obvious.

 

Yes, that too. Im reading Robert Services 'Comrades a history of World Communism' (again, like everything the man writes, worth a read) and he talks of 'crony Communism', where nepotism or 'I knew that guy in Kubyshev' attitude making appearance in cadre selection. With the reputation that went around of Lithuania being a bit of a wild west, I can see that a successful campaign there might just have made volunteers for various duties hard to come by. They did after all do an excellent job of executing heads of collective farms and local turncoats. They were not any more leery of shooting Communist party Apparatchiks sent in from Russia.

 

You kind of wonder what the ratio's of the other 2 Baltic states would have been if they hadnt fought at all. In fact, its notable looking at a map how localised Russian communities often are. You kind of wonder if this is come kind of vestigial effect of the campaign where they kept them ghettoised to protect them easier. Most of the Russian dominated communities in Lithuania seem to be based around the periphery, not least the Northeast. Most of the badlands in the centre where the Forest Brothers campaign were fought seem to have very few if any Russian communities at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Lithuania

 

Anyway, interesting I thought. It illustrates that even lost campaigns can sometimes have dramatic effects that are evident even decades later. It clearly was worth fighting, even with the awful cost it created for all these states. It destroyed the fiction it was a popular uprising, and as many historians regard the loss of the Baltic states as being the zipper that unzipped the Soviet Union, its consequences are self evident. More Russian population= less chance of independence.

[Stuart Galbraith]

FWIW, my grandfather who grew up in Latvia and was part of Communist underground pre-war several times mentioned to me that ethnic Latvian and Estonian communist party hierarchy did not speak up against relocation of Russians into the Baltics after the war. He personally thought that it was a mistake. According to him, Lithuanian communist party had successfully argued against it. I don't know how much of that is true and how much is scuttlebutt, so I'm just going to mention it as a theory.

Thats very interesting, id not heard that before. Well perhaps prewar that may have made a difference, but if the book above has any veracity (and its worth remembering the author did intend it as agitprop, albeit with a large degree of truth it would appear) they were flooding the Baltic states with troops and officials postwar. So if the softly softly attitude existed prewar, it certainly didnt postwar. They seem to have regarded lithuania as an unfinished project postwar and were determined to get on with it.

 

Interesting perspective though, thanks for that.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Glenn, wouldn't we be betting the farm on stealth? The Russians have a ****-tonne of state of the art mobile SAM systems. That would, to an unknown but significant extent, counter our overwhelming preponderance in airpower unless the F-22 proves really delivers on the US taxpayers' investment.

 

BD1. The reason I de-emphasised towns is because civilians tend to live in them in large numbers. Yes, if you are willing to have them Groznified, they make excellent places to grind down attackers, especially if you have lots of sniper rifles, AMRs, and AT that you can fire from enclosed spaces like Pzf-3, AT-4 Carl Gustave M2/3/4 with CS rounds etc. possibly even RKG-3M.

Thats the central problem I have with the territorial defence model. Even if you defeat an invader, you are pretty much turning the country back to the stone age to do it. The problem is, I cant really see an alternative to it. Even if you had a substantially equipped mechanised force (as Ukraine did) its going to be ground down by cross border artillery and rocket strikes. And its not like you could move a damn without having an airforce to provide a lid on it.

 

All these forces would prove useful to hybrid war on the borders, but I really question how long they will last on the receiving end of some of the fire strikes we have seen the Russians using in Ukraine. Anything identified its pretty much dead as we can see from the Karber report.

[carrierlost]

I don't know if the Balts have that mindset. Semi-auto AKs to take home with 2 basic loads of ammo. Local area depots with heavy infantry weapons like RPGs, GPMGs and mortars.

 

I don't know about Latvia and Lithuania (EDIT: Lithuanians Riflemen got the right to keeping semi-auto at home in June 2016. ). As I already said In Estonia Defence League members are encouraged to keep their weapons at home.

Some of course have a little more than AK-4 (G3) or Galil and ammo.

 

 

Edited July 19, 2016 by carrierlost

[Roman Alymov]

 

Thats very interesting, id not heard that before. Well perhaps prewar that may have made a difference, but if the book above has any veracity (and its worth remembering the author did intend it as agitprop, albeit with a large degree of truth it would appear) they were flooding the Baltic states with troops and officials postwar. So if the softly softly attitude existed prewar, it certainly didnt postwar. They seem to have regarded lithuania as an unfinished project postwar and were determined to get on with it.

 

Interesting perspective though, thanks for that.

 

There is historical anecdote: on first session of Latvian Soviet Republic Parliament chairman opening speech was in Latvian language, and all following speakers followed in the same language. Non-Latvian members and guests where sitting unable to understand a world, but too shy to raise a voice (or not willing to be accused of Russian chauvinism) - until marshall Bagramyan, who (as commander of Baltic mil district) was also parliament member, delivered speech in his native Armenian language. Speakers got the message and following speeches where in Russian, for all to understand.

[carrierlost]

Oh those pesky Latvians wanting to speak in Latvian in Latvia.... Have you heard this joke Roman from the 80s? One soviet officer to another one after WW2 - "What do you think about Riga?". "It's a nice town. However too many Latvians".

Only about 36.5% were Latvians in 1989....

 

There were definately differences in russification between Estonia and Lithuania. In Estonia basically most of the communist party leaders up until 1980s were appointed from of descendants of Estonians who had moved to other parts of Russian empire a couple of generations ago and/or were had left after Estonian independence war. Although they had Estonian names, they really spoke Estonian poorly and frequently preferred to use Russian. This was not the case in Lithuania.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, I can remember reading that Gorbachev's Politburo in the 1989-1991 period was conversing a lot with local communist party leaders, and found them hard to deal with, to their credit perhaps. There was outside appointees in at least Estonia and Latvia, and I seem to recall they successfully lobbied someone in the Politburo to have them replaced with Locals in that period. Which looking back perhaps was another of their fatal mistakes.

 

I mean looking back, you can see that Poland was the starting point of the collapse of Eastern Europe. It seems fair to suggest the Baltic states were the starting point of the collapse of the USSR. Ukraine would never have left if the Balts hadnt campaigned to leave, and got Western support for doing so.

 

One cant really say 'The forest brothers made all this happen'. But it is fair to say it left a cultural imprint of resistance in all these countries that clearly WAS remembered, and it clearly was useful in lobbying for independence. I seem to recall Estonia's first Post Communism PM actually wrote a book on the Estonian Forest brothers. He even went and visited the countryside to gather stories from locals whom remembered them before the memories faded.

 

Its probably a mistake to focus on how militarily effective the campaigns actually were. I mean, the Americans rightly point out the Vietcong and the NVA never beat them on the battlefield. But as one NVA general latterly pointed out, its also irrelevant.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Stuart Galbraith

[carrierlost]

Changing the local communist leadership to locals was I'd say a last attempt to get things back under communist party control. But as it happened in June 1988 it was already too late. First elements of protests started in early 1987. As mass repressions didn't follow people got bolder and bolder. They organized themselves and were not afraid anymore. By May 1988 there was strong opposition already for the communist party leader Vaino. When he met the semi-freely appointed/elected delegats to Soviet CP convention he got shocked by a schoolteacher who declared that Peoples Front has decided that Vaino can not speak in name of the Estonian delegation as he no longer has peoples support.

 

This should be in the some history section....

[Stuart Galbraith]

Perhaps, but it clearly does have some relevance to the present situation.

[Roman Alymov]

Oh those pesky Latvians wanting to speak in Latvian in Latvia.... Have you heard this joke Roman from the 80s? One soviet officer to another one after WW2 - "What do you think about Riga?". "It's a nice town. However too many Latvians".

Only about 36.5% were Latvians in 1989....

 

There were definately differences in russification between Estonia and Lithuania. In Estonia basically most of the communist party leaders up until 1980s were appointed from of descendants of Estonians who had moved to other parts of Russian empire a couple of generations ago and/or were had left after Estonian independence war. Although they had Estonian names, they really spoke Estonian poorly and frequently preferred to use Russian. This was not the case in Lithuania.

No idea where you get this joke from – for my generation in 1980th “after WW2” was ancient history, so hardly worth mentioning in jokes. But cases of Baltic grassroots nationalism (like local shop assistants pretending not to understand Russian) where known at that time – it was strange for us as we, Soviet kids, were not familiar with national differences and where taught all nations are equal etc. Attitude to it was “Well, they are strange people, who cares”.

 

I am not familiar with Riga population trends, but it was considered “German town” by Russians in late XIX century. In Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” there afre words about how locals condition where considered: “my sister would prefer to become black slave on plantation or Latvian worker for Ostzean German, then…. (do something unwanted)”

 

Re “Latvians wanting to speak in Latvian in Latvia” – it is normal in Moscow to speak English on business or non-business meeting when non-Rus speakers present among participants. Not all people do this but generally it is observed.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Re history, again pulling off subject a little for which I apologise. I was trying to find a controversial documentary called 'Nashi' about the seizing of the Tv station in Vilnus, when I found this. Id never heard of any of this myself. So much history of this period that is not generally known anywhere else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_OMON_assaults_on_Lithuanian_border_posts

[carrierlost]

No idea where you get this joke from for my generation in 1980th after WW2 was ancient history, so hardly worth mentioning in jokes.

I heard the joke in the 80s. Might not be as exact, but it seems I'm not the only one who remembers it.. http://lmgtfy.com/?q="Рига"+"только+слишком+много+латышей"#seen

Re Latvians wanting to speak in Latvian in Latvia it is normal in Moscow to speak English on business or non-business meeting when non-Rus speakers present among participants. Not all people do this but generally it is observed.

You make it sound like Russian Duma sessions are regularily held in other language than Russian.