TimeGhost History
Published 27 Apr 20251948 plunges Greece deeper into civil war as foreign aid fuels brutality on both sides. The Nationalist government launches ruthless crackdowns, establishing notorious prison camps, while the Communist Democratic Army desperately seeks aid from Yugoslavia and Stalin’s Soviet Union. But when Stalin rejects the rebellion, Yugoslavia’s Tito steps in — until a stunning feud erupts, leaving Greek communists stranded. Will this power struggle decide Greece’s fate?
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April 28, 2025
Stalin and Tito fight over the Balkans: Greek Civil War part 2 – W2W 24 – 1948 Q4
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March 23, 2025
Rigged Votes and Terror: Stalin’s Takeover Tactics! – W2W 014 – 1947 Q2
TimeGhost History
Published 21 Mar 2025By 1947, Stalin’s Soviet Union has begun to firmly grip Eastern Europe, reshaping nations through rigged elections, terror tactics, and propaganda. From Poland to Bulgaria, countries are forced into Moscow’s orbit, crushing opposition and extinguishing democratic freedoms. As Truman declares a doctrine to contain communism, the stage is set for decades of Cold War confrontation.
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March 10, 2025
Chinese Civil War Part 1 – W2W 11 – Q1 1947
TimeGhost History
Published 9 Mar 2025After WWII, China is plunged into chaos as Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and Mao Zedong’s Communists reignite a decades-old conflict. This episode traces the roots of the Chinese Civil War — from the guerrilla strategies honed in Yan’an to the shifting power dynamics after Japanese occupation. Discover how ideological fervor, battle-hardened tactics, and the struggle for legitimacy set China on a path that would redefine its future.
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March 7, 2025
Soviet Invasion of Finland: Winter War 1939-40
Real Time History
Published 18 Oct 2024November 1939. Germany and the Soviet Union have conquered Poland, and Germany is at war with France and Britain. Moscow is free to do as it pleases in Eastern Europe and sets its sights on Finland – but the Winter War will be a nasty surprise for Stalin.
Corrections:
02:19 The dot marking Leningrad is about 80km too far east, it’s of course directly at the far eastern end of the Gulf of Finland.
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December 10, 2024
QotD: Nuclear deterrence and the start of the Cold War
Understanding the development of US nuclear doctrine and NATO requires understanding the western allies’ position after the end of WWII. In Britain, France and the United States, there was no political constituency, after the war was over, to remain at anything like full mobilization and so consequently the allies substantially demobilized following the war. By contrast, the USSR did not demobilize to anything like the same degree, leaving the USSR with substantial conventional military superiority in Eastern Europe (in part because, of course, Stalin and later Soviet leaders did not have to cater to public sentiment about defense spending). The USSR also ended the war having annexed several countries in whole or in part (including eastern Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, parts of Finland and bits of Romania) and creating non-democratic puppet governments over much of the rest of Eastern Europe. American fears that the USSR planned to attempt to further extend its control were effectively confirmed in 1948 by the Russian-backed coup in Czechoslovakia creating communist one-party rule there and by the June 1948 decision by Stalin to begin the Berlin Blockade in an effort to force the allies from Berlin as a prelude to bringing all of Germany, including the allied sectors which would become West Germany (that is, the Federal Republic of Germany).
It’s important, I think, for us to be clear-eyed here about what the USSR was during the Cold War – while the USSR made opportunistic use of anti-imperialist rhetoric against western powers (which were, it must be noted, also imperial powers), the Soviet Union was also very clearly an empire. Indeed, it was an empire of a very traditional kind, in which a core demographic (ethnic Russians were substantially over-represented in central leadership) led by an imperial elite (Communist party members) extracted resources, labor and manpower from a politically subordinated periphery (both the other Soviet Socialist Republics that composed the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries) for the benefit of the imperial elite and the core. While the USSR presented itself as notionally federal in nature, it was in fact extremely centralized and dominated by a relatively small elite.
So when Western planners planned based on fears that the highly militarized expansionist territorial empire openly committed to an expansionist ideology and actively trying to lever out opposing governments from central (not eastern) Europe might try to expand further, they weren’t simply imagining things. This is not to say everything they did in response was wise, moral or legal; much of it wasn’t. There is a certain sort of childish error which assumes that because the “West” did some unsavory things during the Cold War, that means that the threat of the Soviet Union wasn’t real; we must put away such childish things. The fear had a very real basis.
Direct military action against the USSR with conventional forces was both politically unacceptable even before the USSR tested its first nuclear weapons – voters in Britain, France or the United States did not want another world war; two was quite enough – and also militarily impossible as Soviet forces in Europe substantially outnumbered their Western opponents. Soviet leaders, by contrast, were not nearly so constrained by public opinion (as shown by their strategic decision to limit demobilization, something the democracies simply couldn’t do).
This context – a west (soon to be NATO) that is working from the assumption that the USSR is expansionist (which it was) and that western forces would be weaker than Soviet forces in conventional warfare (which they were) – provides the foundation for how deterrence theory would develop.
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: Nuclear Deterrence 101”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2022-03-11.
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November 29, 2024
Why the Communists subjugated half of Europe
World War Two
Published 28 Nov 2024From the Bolshevik Revolution to post-war dominance, Stalin’s plans forever changed Europe’s political landscape. Discover how the Soviet Union used ideology, diplomacy, military power, and ruthless suppression to control Eastern Europe and establish a new world order.
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November 9, 2024
Did US Indecision Encourage Stalin in Korea?
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 8 Nov 2024In March 1950, Stalin finally approves Kim Il-sung’s plans for an invasion of South Korea. But why now? Today Indy looks at the wider Cold War context that fed into Stalin and Mao Zedong’s decision making. He also examines whether the lack of a clear and public commitment from the US to defend the Asian theatre helped to invite the invasion.
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October 18, 2024
Operation Keelhaul: The Allies’ Final War Crime
World War Two
Published 17 Oct 2024After the war, millions of Soviet citizens are left over in Germany. Some of them are traitors, some are prisoners, some women and children. Stalin wants them back and the Western Allies are happy to help.
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October 2, 2024
QotD: Alternative history Operation Barbarossa
Knowing full well how dumb it is to bring up World War II on the Internet, consider that a pretty reasonable case can be constructed for Operation Barbarossa. Having purged all their competent, experienced officers, the Red Army had just gotten their clocks cleaned by the Finns in the Winter War. Yeah, the Soviets “won” in the end, but with that disparity of forces, there’s pretty much no possible “win” that doesn’t look like a loss … and the Soviets, to put it mildly, were nowhere near that best-case scenario. Moreover, even if you took the show trials for exactly that — kangaroo courts — their very existence showed there was a deep rift at the very top of the Soviet leadership. Anyone, not just Hitler, could be forgiven for thinking that the Soviet Union would collapse under one big sledgehammer blow.1
It works the other way, too. If we accept the “Suvorov Thesis”, that Hitler only attacked Stalin because Stalin was gearing up to attack Hitler, then we can easily construct a similar case from The Boss’s perspective: The Wehrmacht can’t play defense. The one time they came up against anything approaching a real opponent with technological parity (the Battle of Britain), it was at best a bloody draw, more than likely a stinging defeat. And the Hitler regime was reeling, internally. No show trials for der Führer, but Rudolf Hess, who was at least the number three man in the Reich and at the time Hitler’s heir apparent, had just defected to the British. Anyone, not just Stalin, could be forgiven for thinking that the Third Reich would collapse under one big sledgehammer blow.
See what I mean? Both of those cases are quite plausible, and fit with most known historical facts … and yet, they’re retcons. “Rationalizations” might even be a better word, because the thing is, even though those arguments are “logical”, and might indeed have been convincing to important people at the time, that’s not why Hitler did what he did, or why Stalin would’ve done what he would’ve done under the Suvorov Thesis. No, the truth is simpler, and much more horrifying: They would’ve done it anyway, because that’s who they were.
That’s what the Castle Wolfenstein people got right about the Nazis. Same deal with that Amazon show (which was interesting for a season) The Man in the High Castle. In the real world, there’s no possible way the Nazis could’ve invaded the USA, no matter how it turned out on the Eastern Front …
… but in the real world they would’ve tried nonetheless, somehow, because that’s just who they were. Everything Stalin, Khrushchev, et al did during the Cold War here in the real world, Hitler, Heydrich, and the gang would’ve done in the Castle Wolfenstein world where the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk went the other way.2 They couldn’t have done any different, without being different people, and while it’s fun to speculate on questions like “who would’ve been the Nazi Gorbachev, who self-destructed the Reich by attempting however you say ‘perestroika‘ in German”, it’s not really germane.
Severian, “The Man in the High Chair”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-07-05.
1. And Soviet losses were stupendous, utterly mind-boggling, in the first few months of Barbarossa. Tanks and planes destroyed in their tens of thousands, prisoners captured in millions. Even as it became clear that OKW had underestimated Red Army strength by orders of magnitude, it was still almost inconceivable that they had anything left to fight with. Just one more push …
2. This is actually the world of a fun novel, Robert Harris’s Fatherland.
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September 16, 2024
Who Really Won The Korean War?
Real Time History
Published May 17, 2024Only five years after the end of WW2, the major nations of the world are once again up in arms. A global UN coalition and an emerging Chinese juggernaut are fighting it out in a war that will see both sides approach the brink of victory — and defeat.
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August 25, 2024
Soviet Victory in Manchuria – WW2 – Week 313 – August 24, 1945
World War Two
Published 24 Aug 2024The Soviet Red Army completes its conquest of Manchuria and the northern half of Korea this week, although Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender already last week. Behind the scenes are machinations going on by Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong that they hope will lead to a Communist China in future. Vietnam might well be going communist right now, though, for the August revolution continues with the Viet Minh taking ever more control.
00:00 Intro
00:34 Recap
00:49 Chiang, Mao, and Stalin
07:32 Soviet victory in Manchuria
09:08 Viet Minh taking control
11:45 Summary
12:31 Conclusion
13:20 Julius Poole memorial
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July 28, 2024
Allies Issue Potsdam Declaration – WW2 – Week 309 – July 27, 1945
World War Two
Published 27 Jul 2024China, Britain, and the US issue a Declaration demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender, and promising complete destruction if this does not happen and happen soon. The plan is to for the Americans to use their atomic bombs on Japan if she does not comply, but by the end of the week the Japanese have not replied. They still have hopes for the Soviets to mediate some sort sort of peace. What they don’t have is a navy, as its final destruction comes this week.
00:00 Intro
00:50 Recap
01:32 The Potsdam Conference
04:41 Japanese Hopes
05:56 The Potsdam Declaration
10:53 The Initial Reaction
14:48 The End Of The Japanese Navy
15:05 The War On Land
19:10 Summary
19:30 Conclusion
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April 25, 2024
Were the Waffen-SS Really Germany’s Elite Fighters? – WW2 – OOTF 35
World War Two
Published 24 Apr 2024It’s time for another thrilling installment of Out of the Foxholes, but what sort of questions does Indy answer today? Well, it’s good stuff — about Allied security and logistics at the major conferences, about what the British navy was doing once the Atlantic and Mediterranean were secure, and about the skills (or lack thereof) of the soldiers of the Waffen SS. How can you live without knowing about such things? I suppose it’s possible, but it would be a sad life indeed, so check it out!
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April 17, 2024
Soviet Berlin Offensive Begins – WW2 – Week 294B – April 16, 1945
World War Two
Published 16 Apr 2024The final Soviet assault on Berlin begins today. The Soviets have two million men supported by tens of thousands of guns, tanks, and aircraft. Opposite them stand millions of men and boys of the German Wehrmacht, Waffen SS, Volkssturm, and Hitler Youth. The forces of Nazism are weakened and disorganised but determined to fight on as long as possible.
00:41 Roosevelt’s death
03:09 Preparations for the Soviet drive on Berlin
08:49 Zhukov’s Offensive
12:48 Konev’s Offensive
14:57 Summary & Conclusion
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April 14, 2024
Soviets Take Vienna and Königsberg – WW2 – Week 294 – April 13, 1945
World War Two
Published 13 Apr 2024The prizes of Vienna and Königsberg fall to the Soviets as they continue what seems an inexorable advance. In the West the Allies advance to the Elbe River, but there they are stopped by command. The big news in their national papers this week is the death of American President Franklin Roosevelt, which provokes rejoicing in Hitler’s bunker. The Allied fighting dash for Rangoon continues in Burma, as does the American advance on Okinawa, although Japanese resistance is stiffening and they are beginning counterattacks.
Chapters
00:32 Recap
01:05 Operation Grapeshot
01:57 Roosevelt Dies
06:01 Soviet Attack Plans for Berlin
12:45 Stalin’s Suspicions
14:31 The fall of Königsberg
17:02 The fall of Vienna
18:38 Japanese Resistance on Okinawa
20:34 The War in China
21:09 Burma and the Philippines
22:38 Summary
22:57 Conclusion
25:05 Memorial
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