Military Lease Termination Letter Example: Fill & Download for Free

You legally “get out of” a lease by exercising provisions contained in the lease. The lease specifies both the tenant’s responsibilities and the landlord’s responsibilities. It also specifies what can occur if either party fails to live up to those responsibilities. In addition, certain laws address specific conditions under which leases may be broken. For example, people in the military are permitted by the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to terminate a lease under certain conditions.But if you just want to move before your lease is up . . . not a good idea. Some folks have the very mistaken belief that if they’re buying a house, that they’re entitled to break a lease. That’s totally incorrect.What you can try to do is talk with your landlord and negotiate a lease termination. There may be reasons why he or she will agree to it. (Maybe he can raise the rent. Maybe your lease runs until November but you want out in March . . . a month in which it’s often much easier to find tenants. There are all sort sorts of reasons.)In addition, a landlord is supposed to take steps to mitigate his damages. That is, he can’t just sit there with an empty unit, take no action to rent it out, and then come after you for the rent. He’s supposed to try to find a tenant so that if—for example—you had 9 months to go on your lease but he finds a tenant after 2 months, you’d only be responsible for those 2 months, not all 9.Bottom line: To get out of a lease, the exit provisions either have to be contained in the lease (or governing law) or the landlord must be willing to modify the lease.EDIT: Great answer from Bruce Feldman.

Chuck Garen's answer to Who was the better leader: Alexander II, Lenin or Stalin?Since Rosa is being salty and deleted my legitimate and factually backed criticism of her unfounded and biased answer (which doesn’t even answer the question). I will post my own answer debunking her slandering accusations on both my part and the USSR. To quote her,“I don’t respond to supporters of that mass murderer and destroyer of the revolution any more than I engage in debate with fascists and azis.” - Rosa Lichtenstein, 02/07/2018 at 2:30 PMStalin was a mass-murderer apparently… to which she provides no evidence or context… Also a destroyer of the Revolution… unlike Trotsky.alright then let’s get started.For those who will inevitably cite “Lenin’s Testament”Lenin’s Testament is a questionable piece of work written at a time when Lenin was no longer in a fit state of mind and when it was becoming obvious that a successor for Lenin was going to be needed. Trotsky at that time showed his true colors and struck out as the opposition, going against Lenin’s ideas, but instead of fighting with Lenin who was all but dead, he instead focused on twisting Lenin’s words for his own purposes against his opponents, and using the authority of Lenin’s words to try and discredit them.Lenin’s testament shows that Lenin did not KNOW that Stalin would be his successor but that it was likely regardless of his flaws.On the Relations between Lenin and StalinThe “Real Stalin” Series. Part Four: Lenin’s “Testament.”https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/80/On the Alleged Forgery of ”Lenin’s Testament”Now to address TrotskyWhy Trotsky’s politics achieved nothing solidHis influence was questionable and his rhetoric during Lenin’s last days and after, revealed his true colors. He WOULD have implemented a true dictatorship in the USSR and probably drive the state into the ground too.Trotsky the father of German nazismEvidence of Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Germany and JapanTrotsky the Traitor"Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And these gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned."(Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20 p. 448, 1914)."Trotsky behaves like a despicable careerist and factionalist of the Ryazanov-and-co type. Either equality on the editorial board, subordination to the central committee and no one's transfer to Paris except Trotsky's (the scoundrel, he wants to 'fix up' the whole rascally crew of 'Pravda' at our expense!) – or a break with this swindler and an exposure of him in the CO. He pays lip-service to the Party and behaves worse than any other of the factionalists."(Collected Works, Vol. 34, p. 400)."The struggle between Bolshevism and Menshevism is... a struggle over the question whether to support the liberals or to overthrow the hegemony of the liberals over the peasantry. Therefore to attribute [as did Trotsky] our splits to the influence of the intelligentsia, to the immaturity of the proletariat, etc, is a childishly naive repetition of liberal fairy-tales....Trotsky distorts Bolshevism, because he has never been able to form any definite views on the role of the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois revolution....Therefore, when Trotsky tells the German comrades that he represents the 'general Party tendency' I am obliged to declare that Trotsky represents only his own faction and enjoys a certain amount of confidence exclusively among the otzovists and the liquidators."(The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia, Collected Works, Vol. 16 pp. 374-392)."It is impossible to argue with Trotsky on the merits of the issue, because Trotsky holds no views whatever. We can and should argue with confirmed liquidators and otzovists, but it is no use arguing with a man whose game is to hide the errors of both these trends; in his case the thing to do is to expose him as a diplomat of the smallest calibre."(Trotsky's Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform, Collected Works, Vol. 17 pp. 360362)."The obliging Trotsky is more dangerous than an enemy! Trotsky could produce no proof except 'private conversations' (i.e., simply gossip, on which Trotsky always subsists), classifying the 'Polish Marxists' in general as supporters of every article by Rosa Luxemburg...Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And thee gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned."(The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, Collected Works, Vol. 20 p. 447-8)."Trotskyism: “No tsar, but a workers’ government.” This is wrong. A petty bourgeoisie exists, and it cannot be dismissed. But it is in two parts. The poorer of the two is with the working class.War. To end the war by pacifist means is utopia. It may be terminated by an imperialist peace. But the masses do not want such a peace. War is a continuation of the policies of a class; to change the character of the war one must change the class in power.The name Communist Party is theoretically sound. The Left socialists of other countries are too weak. We must take the initiative."(The Petrograd City Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. (Bolsheviks) APRIL 14–22 (APRIL 27–MAY 5), 1917)I also find it ironic that Trotsky, the person often (inaccurately) called the originator of the word “Racism” and a supposed socialist, was rabidly racist, with similar followers and sympathizers (George Orwell for example). Trotsky’s book on Stalin described him as a beastial subhuman, barely literate and very violent. The fact that Stalin is noted to be well spoken and read several hundred pages a day (with annotations) by many of this other peers, says much about Trotsky’s slanderous nature.Onto Stalin’s actions"Communism under Stalin has produced the most valiant fighting army in Europe. Communism under Stalin has provided us with examples of patriotism equal to the finest annals of history. Communism under Stalin has won the applause and admiration of all the Western nations. Communism under Stalin has produced the best generals in this war. I was always impressed by Lincoln's answer when Grant was charged with taking too much drink.Persecution of Christianity? Not so. There is no religious persecution. The church doors are open. And there is complete freedom to practice religion, just as there is complete freedom to reject it. Racial persecution? Not at all. Jews live like other men. There are many races in the Soviet Union and not even a color bar. Political purges? Of course. But it is now clear that the men who were shot down would have betrayed Russia to her German enemy."citation; Opportunity to Win War in 1942; A SECOND FRONT IN EUROPE TO AID RUSSIA By LORD BEAVERBROOK, Britain's Lease-Lend Coordinator in Washington Delivered before the Bureau of Advertising of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, April 23, 1942But let’s dismiss that as some sort of WW-2 Propaganda… what about other people like Writers?From H.G. Wells on Joseph Stalin (Interview), we know that despite preconceptions of a stereotypical evil dictator, Stalin demonstrated himself an opposite. The same skepticism was seen from Lawyer and US Diplomat Joseph Davies, who came away from the USSR with positive views (where he traveled all over and sat through the Moscow Trials).Most of Stalin’s foreign political enemies were remarkably civil about him in private, even if their public opinions derided him. The most slanderous people were like Trotsky or Khruschev, outright attacking him. Khruschev’s attacks on Stalin were so damaging to the communist movement that it reduced popularity of communists globally.https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/khrushchev-lied.pdfEven Hitler privately was in awe, even as he prepared to destroy Russia,“And to Stalin, of course, one needs to give due respect. He is simply a genius of his kind. His ideal is Genghis Khan and those similar to him, about them he knows almost everything, his plans for economic development are so large, that only our four-year plans can overcome them. And I have no doubts than in USSR, unlike capitalist nations like the USA, there are no jobless. If Churchill is a jackal, then Stalin is a tiger.” —Adolf Hitler, Reichskanzler of Germany, founder of the totalitarian dictatorship of the Third Reich, cited in Henry Picker’s "Hitler's Table Conversations" (Picker kept stenographic notes of conversations, covering the period from 21/07/1941 to 31/07/1942).What about confirmed political dissidents?The remorse of a dissident: Alexander Zinoviev on Stalin and the dissolution of the USSRAlexander Finnegan's answer to Who is the most misunderstood historical figure?The Gulag was a prison institution with the purpose of giving criminals a chance to contribute something to society while being reformed and punished for their crimes; this mainly took the form of mining and railroad building in Siberia, which was in desperate need of industrialization (and without which, the USSR could not have defeated the fascist invasion of 1941). The vast majority of inmates were ordinary criminals:The biggest specialist in this subject, Viktor Zemskov, who worked in the Soviet archives in the period of 'Perestroika' gives the following facts1 "In 1937 there were 1,196,369 prisoners and 87% of them were ordinary non-political criminals like thieves, cons, etc. in GULAG. In 1938 in GULAG were 1,881,570 prisoners and 81% of them were ordinary criminals.From 1939 to WWII, the number of prisoners was decreasing mainly because of setting them free after the completion of their sentence. The smallest percentage of ordinary criminals was in 1947 - 40% but at that time, the prisons were full of war criminals like parricides, deserters, collaborators, marauders, and other 'innocent victims' of this kind.The largest number of GULAG prisoners was 1 January 1950 – 2,567,351 and 77% of them were ordinary criminals, mostly post-war bandits.[1]By comparison, the United States (one of the main defacers of Stalin) has a similar number of its citizens within its prisons:What do these numbers mean? Is it a lot or not? 1.9 million prisoners in the pike of 'mass repressions' or is it nothing unusual? Let's compare these numbers with "the base of democracy"- the USA, where there are more than 2.3 million people imprisoned today.2The US population is about 300 million, and the population of USSR of the 1930s was about 200 million. If we recount the proportion and imagine that the USA now has the population of the USSR in the 1930s then the US would have 1.53 million prisoners, a bit less than in the pike of the "repressions" (1.88 million), but more than in the "terrible 1937" and almost equal to number of all GULAG prisoners in 1939.[1]Yet no one questions whether the United States is rife with mass political repressions and purges.During the entirety of Stalin's "reign" (1929-1953) 1.6 million died in the Gulag [2]. Secondly, that is a very small number given how many were there over that period; in fact, it is only just over 10%. You would likely find a similar figure in the prisons of the United States.The number of dead in the Gulag is consistent with natural causes (e.g. disease). Most of the inmates died because Siberia is a terrible place to go camping for several months at a time. This is precisely the reason that Stalin used criminals (who already owed society a debt) rather than ordinary workers for the industrialization of Siberia.Footnotes:1: http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc0901/gulag.htm2: Steven Rosefielde. Red Holocaust. Routledge, 2009. ISBN 0-415-77757-7 pg. 67 "...more complete archival data increases camp deaths by 19.4 percent to 1,258,537"; pg 77: "The best archivally based estimate of Gulag excess deaths at present is 1.6 million from 1929 to 1953."Additional Sources:http://red-sovet.su/post/28731/masshtaby-stalinskih-repressij-tochnye-tsifry1974 Soviet analysis of the Gulag Archipelago;Solzhenitsyn's Archipelago of Lies : Nikolai Yakovlev : Free Download & Streaming : Internet ArchiveBooks and articles on the Solzhenitsyns lies ad the inconsistensiesThe Gulag Archipelago: An Act In DeceitГлавные ляпы в книге «Архипелаг ГУЛАГ»http://capital-online.info/pdf/the-gulag-archipelago-an-act-in-deceit66 million repressed LIE - Soviet GULag HOAX by Solzhenitsyn - Putin includes in school program | Earthly FirefliesOn Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago (1974)Solzhenitsyn: shrill; The Mortal Danger: How Misconceptions About Russia Imperil America, by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn. New York: Harper & Row. $8.9...Why Alexander Solzhenitsyn Was a Fascist and an Anti-SemiteThe Solzhenitsyn school of falsificationAmerican Historic Review data on GULAGshttp://www.cercec.fr/materiaux/doc_membres/Gabor%20RITTERSPORN/Victims%20of%20the%20Gulag.pdfhttp://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdfFor more please readHersh Bortman's answer to If Stalin was so cruel, why did Russians love him?Chuck Garen's answer to Was Joseph Stalin really as bad as they say he was in history books and shows?Now to address Lichtenstein's claims directlyIn her original answer she writes,“the Stalinist regime would have to impose an anti-democratic, autocratic, and tyrannical regime on the mass of the working population of the fSU. That is because, in order to catch up, the communist state would have to subject the working population to super-exploitation -- whereby, the proportion of wealth going to that section of society would be reduced almost to subsistence levels, and often even below that (hence the massive famines, for example, in the Ukraine) -- so that investment in heavy industry could be maximised. This in turn meant that the state had to be totalitarian, executing and terrorising hundreds of thousands — including nearly every one of the leading revolutionaries of 1917 —, since working people would resist, as they always have done, such extreme economic deprivation, anti-democratic impositions and privations. Only absolute terror would intimidate them enough.”Sounds terrible doesn’t it?The argument made is that Stalin was a psychotic mass murderer who wantonly slaughtered millions of his citizens to maintain power.The reality is that he made choices directly pertaining to the future of socialism, and made those choices in response to stimuli happening at the time. Communists often will argue about his ideology and if what he did was really the correct interpretation of Marx and Lenin. I cannot accept any criticism of Stalin's work without verifying all primary data pertaining to the question under debate and without considering all versions of facts and events.Anyway back to the matter at hand. The Great Terror saw thousands of people killed, both innocent civilians, high ranking party members, and army members. At the time internal tensions were still extremely high within the SU. The civil war had only ended a few years prior, with thousands of White Guard Russians dying in defense of the tsar. The Western Powers had rendered assistance to the Whites under in the form of 250,000 troops spread across large portions of Russia. Internally spies sabotaged the limited industrial heart of the country. Truth and trust were in short supply.The assistance provided to White Russian forces weighed heavily on the minds of the commitern leaders throughout the 20s and 30s, especially the idea of capitalist encirclement, and especially to Stalin who warned of external and internal threats to the country. Additionally, fascism was swiftly on the rise, Hitler was making no bones about his expansionist plans.One of the big things that precipitated the Russian Revolution was military defeats by the Tsarist government. Its not too difficult to see why Stalin was so worried that the revolution could be overthrown, especially considering Japans imperialist pushing in Manchuria and the rise of fascism. External threats were as much a concern as internal ones.Stalin and the upper comitern leadership therfor decided to eliminate internal and external threats that would provide a "fifth column" to the enemies invading the Soviet Union. Less a desire to murder randomly to instill terror, and more a desire to prepare the country for war. Most modern interpretations of the Great Terror believe that it was initiated at the top, to deal with close and obvious threats, but then spiraled out of control due to paranoia in Soviet society.Another thing to realize is that the Soviet Union was a vast vast entity made up of republics. Abuses of human rights thus can be attributed to local implementation. Pointing out the foreign threat does not negate the importance of ideology or Stalins personality, but it remains an important factor in what happened.As for collectivization. It was a dual implemented policy along with industrialization. Pretty much the entire party leadership, as well as almost every Communist and non-Communist engineers and technical specialists agreed that industrialization was important. Lack of industrialization had cost Russia dearly in WW1 against Germany, and contributed greatly to the military defeats suffered by the Tsar. Thus the dual policies of attempting to grow the agricultural and industrial output of the nation became matters of urgent national importance.A wave of repressions swept through the Red Army in the late 1930s and early 1940s. According to documents which have since been declassified, between 1934 and 1939, the Red Army's command lost over than 56,000 people, 10,000 of them arrested. Another 14,000 were dismissed for drunkenness and 'moral degradation'; the rest were dismissed for other reasons – illness, disability, etc. In the same period, 6,600 of the officers previously dismissed were reinstated after further proceedings. These repressions were not without reason Part of the reason the USSR lost initial fights was because several commanders did not destroy key large sections of the soviet infrastructure before retreating, giving the Nazis an easier path and available resources, these were not light mistake especially in war time. For example the famous “martyr” Tukachevsky was directly involved with the Nazis, and this was disregarding several idiotic decisions in the past (such as losing the Soviet-Polish war of 1922 by exposing his flank to the Poles and thus letting them cut the Red Army to pieces).To understand the scale of the purge, it's worth recalling that in 1937, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov said that, “the army had a total of 206,000 persons in the command structure”. The total size of the Red Army in 1937 was 1.5 million men at the time.Admittedly, poor training of the commanders of the Red Army was a problem in the mid-30s, but not one caused by repression, but rather the rapid increase of men in the armed force. Already in 1939 the army had grown to 3.2 million men, and by January 1941 – to 4.2 million. By the beginning of the war the command staff amounted to nearly 440,000 officers and staff, but training of officers is longer than of ordinary soldiers and thus it was out of proportion. The country was preparing for war, the army was growing, Being re-organized with new unit systems, undergoing rearmament, and the training of officers really did come too little, too late29% of Soviet military personnel had a higher education before the repressions. After them, the number became 38%. By 1941, the number had risen to 52%. Note that for the decade before the repressions, the number had remained stagnant at around 20-30%.ОЧИЩЕНИЕ: Кадровые чистки в РККА 1937-1939 г.г.Onto the claim of anti-democratic:Stalin planned to further democratize the USSR, but died prior to this being implemented, Grover Furr: "Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform, Part One"It is strange that a man so “power-hungry” tried to step down not once but FOUR times: Stalin’s Four Attempts at ResignationOr, rather than ruling over ignorant peasants, instead created an industrial super-power with educated people.Stalin’s Industrialization: Индустриализация в СССРAnd rather than accumulating wealth instead lived hardly better than his citizens, and in fact spent much of his PERSONAL money on them. His Stalin-Premium was taken directly from his royalty money of the books he written/published. Among its recipients is the infamous Solzhenitsyn.List of Stalin’s belongings upon his deathPrivate life of StalinAlso on the claim that Stalin forced people to live in deprivations and denied Ukrainians grain.First, we shall examine the claim of over-importation of grain from the Ukraine; opponents claim that Stalin’s policies of importing grain from the area made bled the Ukraine dry. Let us examine the figures for the importation of grains from the Ukraine during this time frame [1]:Cereals (in tonnes):1930 – 4,846,0241931 – 5,182,8351932 – 1,819,1141933 – 1,771,364Only wheat (in tonnes):1930 – 2,530,9531931 – 2,498,9581932 – 550,9171933 – 748,248As we can quite clearly see, the amount of grains imported from the Ukraine was actually far lower in the year leading up to, and in the year of the Holodomor; therefore, other causes must have been at work than importation. Dr. Mark Tauger suggests that the cause of this was mostly natural, and “fundamentally not man-made.” Dr. Tauger comes to the conclusion that the only impact that human actions had was to simply compound the already existing problem. Dr. Tauger’s data reveals that, in 1932, drought-like conditions in some areas of the country harmed production, while strangely humid weather allowed for blights to occur. Dr. Tauger gives the estimate that these entirely natural occurrences had the effect of wiping out up to 20% of the total harvest. [2]Another assault against Stalin in relation to the famine was that his administration did not do enough to try to mitigate the losses; however, this too does not stand before scrutiny.The first word of famine to reach the Soviet government in mid-January 1933, and the first shipment of food aid from the Soviet government arrived in the Ukraine on 7 Feb. 1933[3]. Food continued to arrive by the millions of pounds. Furthermore, on 20 March 1933, Stalin himself intervened, lowering the amount of grain to be used elsewhere by 14,000 tons; he further decreed that those 14,000 tons would be distributed to provide help to citizens in Kiev.The second wave of famine hit in May 1933, and the Soviet government reacted by allocating 576,000 tons[4], later to be increased to 1.1 million tons[4], to be distributed as aid to the suffering Ukrainians. However, this aid was given to local government to be distributed accordingly, and, judging by the fact that some of these local government officials were heavily reprimanded for “sabotage” of the Soviet government’s efforts[5], it is likely that these local governments bear much of the burden that is usually placed entirely upon Stalin.1: СССР в цифрах ЦУНХУ Госплана СССР. Москва 1935, page 574, 5752: Mark B. Tauger, The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933, Slavic Review, Volume 50, Issue 1 (Spring, 1991), 70-89,3: Главная? Documents 69 and 70. Also traces of such decisions (at least for Dnipropetrovsk region) can be found at Голод 1932-1933 років на Україні: очима істориків, мовою документівГолод 1932-1933 років на Україні:4: Голод 1932-1933 років на Україні: очима істориків, мовою документів5: On April 6, 1933, Sholokhov, who lived in the Vesenskii district (Kuban, Russian Federation), wrote at length to Stalin, describing the famine conditions and urging him to provide grain. Stalin received the letter on April 15, and on April 16 the Politburo granted 700 tons of grain to that district. Stalin sent a telegram to Sholokhov stating "We will do everything required. Inform size of necessary help. State a figure." Sholokhov replied on the same day, and on April 22, the day on which Stalin received the second letter, Stalin scolded him, "You should have sent your answer not by letter but by telegram. Time was wasted". Davies and Wheatcroft, p. 217Chuck Garen's answer to Was Holodomor a Genocide or a crime against humanity?SOVIET AGRICULTURE: A CRITIQUE OF THE MYTHS CONSTRUCTED BY WESTERN CRITICSlet us compare the USSR to its predecessor the Russian empire, heralded by many today as “the Russia we’ve lost”.95% of the people from Eastern Europe (mostly within the Russian empire) were poor peasant farmers who owned no land but paid high rents to the country's landlords who made up the middle/upper class, they were rich, privileged and had no problems withholding grain-stocks if necessary. Russian peasants lived in villages cut off from the rest of the world. The villages were not much more than a collection of mud huts lining the main road where illiterate peasants worked as indentured servants, farming the land to keep some food on the table and as payment of rent to wealthy landlords.Russian peasants had one other alternative to a miserable life of tenant farming. They could move to the city to find work in one of the many miserable factories that were springing up all over Russia, becoming proletariat. By Russian law workers couldn’t be forced to work more than 11 ½ hours in a day (already a huge amount), but most factory bosses ignored this and the police were easily bribed to look the other way. Wages were very low, a few rubles for a months work.The factories were dirty, dark, and dangerous. Workers were given free housing but the conditions of these barracks were so terrible that they made a New York City tenement from 1890 look like a room at the Ritz. Each room was nothing more than a long, empty warehouse where each family stayed in a room divided by a piece of cloth. Each “room” was only large enough to fit a bunk bed that often touched the one next to it, (compare that to communals that at the least had proper rooms and were in themselves created ONLY because Tsarist Russia did not provide any proper houses for the people). The Russian Empire's peak production levels were in 1913 and the top estimate put it at about 1/5 of America's production prior to WW 1 (and even less as soon as the war began).The majority of these factories used outdated and inferior equipment, the top line new Battle-cruisers and Battleships that were to be the future of the Russian navy had almost all of its systems and products made over-seas because the Russian industry had no ability to provide an alternative. At the end of WW 1 and the civil war, Russia's production levels were about 0 because almost all the factories had been destroyed. The conclusion is obvious, the USSR was a drastic improvement over the Russian empire. Хотите в Россию, которую потеряли?According to a CIA report, the Soviet economy“grew at an average annual rate of 4.6 percent from 1950 through 1981”, noting that “during the same period, U.S. GNP increased by 3.4% per year.”What has happened, says the CIA, is that the rate of growth of the Soviet economy has slowed down to roughly two percent in the past three years. This drop in the rate of growth– largely due to four consecutive years of extremely unfavorable weather conditions which led to poor harvests – is what has been seized upon by some as evidence of Soviet socialism’s final downturn.The report also notes that the Soviet economy is the second largest in the world and that its GNP quadrupled over the past 30 years, attaining an output valued at $ 1.6 trillion in 1982. Industrial output during this period went up 700 percent while the value of fixed capital – buildings, machinery, equipment, etc. – increased by 11 percent.Another misrepresentation about the Soviet economy widely popularized by anticommunist ideologues is that the Soviet standard of living is abysmally low, as a result of which the masses of people are either in a state of near-starvation or on the verge of revolt. Again the CIA finds the reality to be just the opposite.As the New York Times notes in summarizing the CIA report:“The Soviet standard of living has increased rapidly over the last 30 years, with real consumption per capita–rising at an annual rate of 3.5 percent–tripling in that period. But gains have been smaller in recent years, reflecting the drop in the overall growth rate.... The greatest benefits for consumers have been in durables and soft goods. The major shortcomings have been in the housing sector.... The growth in food supplies has been low, but the quality of the diet has nonetheless improved greatly, shifting toward a pattern of less reliance on bread and potatoes and more reliance on meat and dairy products.... This shift has slowed in recent years.”U.S. SURVEY SHOWS A STEADY GROWTH IN SOVIET'S G.N.P.Despite the stories of a food-short Soviet economy, according to Henry Stanislaus "Harry" Rowen, “despite the large-scale expansion in agricultural imports, the Soviet Union remains basically self-sufficient with respect to food.”Similarly, the conservative British journal, The Economist, notes (March 5, 1983) that“It is getting harder to pick out foreigners among the fur-hatted, warmly clad crowds on the Moscow metro. Oranges from Egypt and Greece, woolies from Bulgaria, consumer goods from Hungary and Czechoslovakia have all broadened the horizon of the Soviet shopper.” (The Economist also suggests that the recent slide in the Soviet GNP may be in the process of reversing, noting that “industrial output is said to have jumped from an average of 2.8 percent growth in 1982 to 6.3 percent in January of this year.”)Another basic strength of the Soviet economy according to the CIA is its ‘self-sufficiency’–important given the Reagan administration’s plan of waging economic warfare against the USSRThe report points out; the Soviet Union is richly endowed with an abundance of natural resources– enough coal for 200 years, iron ore reserves; 40 percent of the world’s total, one-fifth the world’s forest resources, and the world’s largest reserves of strategic and precious metals. And with a large and highly educated labor force–estimated at 147 million–the CIA asserts that“the ability of the Soviet economy to remain viable in the absence of imports is much greater than that of most, possibly all, other industrialized economies.”C.I.A. SAYS SOVIET CAN ALMOST DO WITHOUT IMPORTSC.I.A. SAYS SOVIET CAN ALMOST DO WITHOUT IMPORTS (original print-scan)Soviet Ability to progress without importsThe CIA report is a remarkable admission of the basic health and stability of the Soviet economy, it should also be kept in mind that the study downplays Soviet strength. As the New York Times pointed out, the agency’s“estimates are far below those claimed in Moscow’s raw statistics and significantly lower than those calculated by leading American scholars in the past.”"Citizens of the USSR have the right to health protection. This right is ensured by free, qualified medical care provided by state health institutions; by extension of the network of therapeutic and health-building institutions; by the development and improvement of safety and hygiene in industry; by carrying out broad prophylactic measures; by measures to improve the environment; by special care for the health of the rising generation, including prohibition of child labour, excluding the work done by children as part of the school curriculum; and by developing research to prevent and reduce the incidence of disease and ensure citizens a long and active life." (Soviet Constitution, 1936)Additionally multiple innovations in medical science that have saved countless lives: Heart-lung transplant, lung transplant, kidney transplant, MRI, Radiological Keratomy, Cadaveric blood-transfusion, blood bank, artificial heart, Gramacidin S, Anthropometric cosmetology, Ilizarov Apparatus, Oxygen cocktail, Excimer laser (can be used as an eye surgery tool), EHF-therapy, experiments in head transplantation, etc.The Soviet medical approach was also the correct one: treat the disease, not the symptoms. In the US, if you experience pain, doctors will spend years trying to find the right painkillers for you, and these painkillers can rack up bills over time equivalent to total cost of the operations needed to treat your ill properly. In the USSR, they would concentrate on finding out why you are hurting, and then try to eliminate that reason.Soviet Health Care, THE WESTERN JOURNAL OF MEDICINE - OCTOBER 1987Soviet Doctors Cured Infections With Viruses, and Soon Yours Might TooHealth in the USSRThe Kaznacheyev Experiments(although rural hospitals often had lines and had less to work with, then again they were still better than modern urban medical services in Russia as many people, including my friends, can attest to, though some only through their deaths).Безработная пара вырвала себе зубы, простояв несколько лет в очереди на лечениеDrywall is not considered a construction material in Russia, it is always concrete, brick or, at worst, wood (tree trunks) — and 30mm is the bare minimum thickness for a wall. The modern Russian buildings are also far shabbier than even the old Khruschevka’s they were supposed to replace.Housing in the USSRStalinism in art and architecture, or, the first postmodern styleСталинки против новостроекI could go on but this is enough to prove that Stalin was no “red czar” who “destroyed the revolution”“these regimes were never popular; quite the reverse, in fact — and when most of them fell nearly 30 years ago, as they were always doomed to do, not one single proletarian hand was raised in their defence. Indeed, workers were glad to see the back of them, and many even joined in their demolition.”Oh really? Pray do tell why facts say otherwise?Do these people sound or look depressed or badly off?:We Lived Better ThenКак портили бюллетени на советских выборах в КировеFreest Under Czech Communism!Central Asia in Nostalgia for the Soviet PeriodAn_experiment_in_living_socialism_Bulgar.pdfOppressive and Grey? No, Growing Up Under Communism Was the Happiest Time of My LifeIn Czechoslovakia in 1989, respondents were asked if they wanted capitalism, socialism, or a mixed economy. 47% responded socialism, 43% said mixed economy, and 3% said capitalism. Which is ironic considering how Czechs are always brought up when people harp about how communism was hated etc. etc. The facts show that despite their issues with the Soviet Union, in general they were FOR it. In Russia, a poll conducted by an American organization showed 54% preferred socialism, and 20% preferred capitalism. [Both sets of Statistics are from Blackshirts and Reds, by Michael Parenti]. In 1991, a referendum taken in the Soviet Union showed that around 80% of Soviet citizens wanted the Union to remain intact. Polls taken immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union showed similar sentiments: for example over 75% of Russians said they regretted its fall. Victor Grossman, a well-known protester from East Germany explained the 1989 protests,“most participants in the demonstrations and rebellions in the fateful autumn of 1989 wanted an improved [East Germany], not a dead one.”Now, correctly, you’ll ask, “why, then, did the USSR fall apart if it had so much support and worked?” and "Why can't people just vote it back in", The explanation is simple if a bit sad. The fall of communist states was a result of the combination a number of strange, conspiratorial events: the swift resignations by communist officials unaware of the protesters’ generalized and ambiguous demands, the right-wing seizure of power in these countries, the unlikely scenario of capitalist sympathizers (Yeltsin and Gorbachev) leading the Soviet Union and therefore the whole socialist world, and the West’s keen maneuvers at quickly absorbing as much of Eastern Europe into it’s own sphere of influence when it got the chance, such as NATO and the EU.Pavel Voloshin's answer to What was it like to live in the USSR in 1990 and 1991? Did the collapse come as a surprise to the ordinary Soviet people?Capitalist systems are structured to deliver public policy that suits capitalists, and not what’s popular. This is discounting the Western ‘Assistance’ the ex-Soviet republics received. Naomi Klein’s 2007 book The Shock Doctrine : The Rise of Disaster Capitalism covers this well. To summarize her, she says that this assistance was never actually intended to succeed in making Russia a prosperous, stable and democratic country. Even if some idealists and politicians desired that, it was actually driven by big businesses, and happened to be just a routine application of the approach (used in other countries as well, analysed in the book as in America itself) that is very useful to them. The USSR’s massive resources were sold out for a penny to the global oligarchy.So this is not raising a finger?Yeltsin violated the constitution in 1993. He was legally impeached and only stayed into power by a coup.Shelling of Parliament 1993 directed from WashingtonBill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin: When the White House fixed a Russian electionEven today the facts and stats support the USSR and East European socialism[1] 57% of Eastern Germans defend the GDR"In 2009, a study revealed that 57 per cent of former East Germans preferred life in Communist East Germany under Soviet rule, and 8 per cent of those polled refused to accept any criticism of the former German Democratic Republic"[2] 61% of Romanians think Communism is a good idea[3] 62% of Hungarians were happiest under Communist Rule[4] 36% percent in Ukraine are happy with the transition from State Socialism to Market Capitalism[5] More than 60 per cent of the respondents strongly agreed that during the communist Yugoslav period they enjoyed greater personal freedoms, the economy was stronger and their living standard was higher. Only about 20 per cent of those queried disagreed with these statements.[6] 60% of Russians see Communism as good.[7] A 2013 poll by Gallup showed that on average, 51% of former-Soviet citizens say that the breakup of the USSR harmed their country, with 24% saying it benefited it. The older the respondents were (in other words, the more they actually remembered the Soviet system) the more likely they were to say that the breakup was harmful.[8] The transition to capitalism, produced countless pre-mature deaths and continues to produce a higher mortality rate than likely would have prevailed under the socialist system. A 1986 study by Shirley Ciresto and Howard Waitzkin, based on World Bank data, found that the socialist economies of the Soviet bloc produced more favorable outcomes on measures of physical quality of life, including life expectancy, infant mortality, and caloric intake, than did capitalist economies at the same level of economic development, and as good as capitalist economies at a higher level of development.File:Soviet Union Population.gifFile:Soviet Union GDP per capita.gif[9] As regards the transition from a one-party state to a multi-party democracy, Pipes points to a poll that shows Russians view democracy as fraud. Over 3/4 believe “democracy is a facade for a government controlled by rich and powerful cliques.”[10] According to a relatively recent Gallup poll, for each citizen of 11 former Soviet republics, who thinks the breakup of the USSR benefited their country, 2 think it did harm. Those aged 45+ year, (those who lived in the USSR) were mostly in the latter group.[11] A 2003 poll asked Russians how they would react if the Communists seized power. Almost 1/4 would support the new government, 1 in 5 would collaborate, 27% would accept it, 16% would emigrate, and only 10% would actively resist it. In other words, for each Russian who would actively oppose a Communist take-over, 4 would support it or collaborate with it, and 3 would accept it[12] Only 9% of Russians think the events of August 1991 was a victory of democracy and freedom[13] 70% of Tajikistan’s population longs for soviet power and prestige.[14] The majority of people 35 and older believe that life was better in the USSR, compared to the post-breakup period, whilst most people 25 and under believe life is better now.[15] 58% of Russians in 2017 regret the USSR’s fall, 16% had mixed feelings and only 25% did not regret its fall.“When researchers asked those who regret the end of the USSR what the primary reasons were behind their sentiments, 54 percent said that they missed a single economic system, 36 percent said they had lost the feeling of belonging to a real superpower, 34 percent complained about the decrease of mutual trust among ordinary people, and 26 percent said that the collapse had destroyed the ties between friends and relatives. The same research showed that 52 percent of Russians think that the collapse of the USSR could have been avoided, 29 percent said that the event was absolutely inevitable, and 19 percent did not have a fixed opinion on the matter.”[16] "In a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied."[17] 72% of Hungarians say that they are actually worse off now economically than they were under communism.[18] Roughly 28 percent of Czechs say they were better off under the Communist regime, according to a poll conducted by the polling institute SC&C and released Sunday. Only 23 percent said they had a better life now.[19] as many as 81 per cent of Serbians believe they lived best in the former Yugoslavia -"during the time of socialism".The survey focused on the respondents' views on the transition "from socialism to capitalism", and a clear majority said they trusted social institutions the most during the rule of Yugoslav communist president Josip Broz Tito.The standard of living during Tito's rule from the Second World War to the 1980s was also assessed as best, whereas the Milosevic decade of the 1990s, and the subsequent decade since the fall of his regime are seen as "more or less the same".45 percent said they trusted social institutions most under communism with 23 percent choosing the 2001-2003 period when Zoran Djinđic was prime minister. Only 19 percent selected present-day institutions.[1] Eastern Germans Feel Life Was Better Under Communism"Life was better under Communism" says the majority of Russians, Romanians and Eastern GermansHomesick for a Dictatorship: Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism - SPIEGEL ONLINE - International[2] In Romania, turmoil fuels nostalgia for communism[3] Poll shows majority of Hungarians feel life was better under communism[4] The Rise of Communist Nostalgia[5] Poll Finds Macedonians Nostalgic for Communist Era[6] About 60 percent of Russians see communism as good system - poll,60 percent of Russians want communism back7] Judy Dempsey, “Study looks at mortality in post-Soviet era,” The New York Times, January 16, 2009[8] Shirley Ceresto and Howard Waitzkin, “Economic development, political-economic system, and the physical quality of life”, American Journal of Public Health, June 1986, Vol. 76, No. 6.[9] Richard Pipes, “Flight from Freedom: What Russians Think and Want,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004[10] Neli Espova and Julie Ray, “Former Soviet countries see more harm from breakup,” Gallup, December 19, 2013,[11] Richard Pipes[12] Poll: Russians say Aug 1991 events are tragedy, not triumph of democracy[13] Tajikistan pines for old Soviet Union strength[14] Residents of 11 Countries Compare Life Before and After Collapse of Soviet Union[15] Number of Russians who regret collapse of USSR hits 10-year high[16] Romanian Nostalgia for Communism[17] Hungary better off under communism?[18] More Czechs say life was better under communism than under capitalism[19] Serbia Poll: Life Was Better Under TitoBut hey its easier to say “they hated it” and behave like a child towards criticism.

In answer to Alex, (down below) who asked me to place my reply to hi as an individual postStalin was actually a pretty big deal in the 20s and indeed his corrections of Trotsky’s mistakes were what garnered him Lenin’s attention. Stalin sensed that people like Trotksy wanted not “world revolution” as they stated, but power over huge masses of people, using the chaos left behind in the power vacuum of decapitated governments. Lenin recognized this as well and mentioned it many times."Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And these gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned."(Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20 p. 448, 1914)."Trotsky behaves like a despicable careerist and factionalist of the Ryazanov-and-co type. Either equality on the editorial board, subordination to the central committee and no one's transfer to Paris except Trotsky's (the scoundrel, he wants to 'fix up' the whole rascally crew of 'Pravda' at our expense!) – or a break with this swindler and an exposure of him in the CO. He pays lip-service to the Party and behaves worse than any other of the factionalists."(Collected Works, Vol. 34, p. 400)."The struggle between Bolshevism and Menshevism is... a struggle over the question whether to support the liberals or to overthrow the hegemony of the liberals over the peasantry. Therefore to attribute [as did Trotsky] our splits to the influence of the intelligentsia, to the immaturity of the proletariat, etc, is a childishly naive repetition of liberal fairy-tales...Trotsky distorts Bolshevism, because he has never been able to form any definite views on the role of the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois revolution....Therefore, when Trotsky tells the German comrades that he represents the 'general Party tendency' I am obliged to declare that Trotsky represents only his own faction and enjoys a certain amount of confidence exclusively among the otzovists and the liquidators."(The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia, Collected Works, Vol. 16 pp. 374-392)."It is impossible to argue with Trotsky on the merits of the issue, because Trotsky holds no views whatever. We can and should argue with confirmed liquidators and otzovists, but it is no use arguing with a man whose game is to hide the errors of both these trends; in his case the thing to do is to expose him as a diplomat of the smallest calibre."(Trotsky's Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform, Collected Works, Vol. 17 pp. 360362)."The obliging Trotsky is more dangerous than an enemy! Trotsky could produce no proof except 'private conversations' (i.e., simply gossip, on which Trotsky always subsists), classifying the 'Polish Marxists' in general as supporters of every article by Rosa Luxemburg... Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And thee gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned."(The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, Collected Works, Vol. 20 p. 447-8)."Trotskyism: “No tsar, but a workers’ government.” This is wrong. A petty bourgeoisie exists, and it cannot be dismissed. But it is in two parts. The poorer of the two is with the working class. War. To end the war by pacifist means is utopia. It may be terminated by an imperialist peace. But the masses do not want such a peace. War is a continuation of the policies of a class; to change the character of the war one must change the class in power. The name Communist Party is theoretically sound. The Left socialists of other countries are too weak. We must take the initiative."(The Petrograd City Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. (Bolsheviks) APRIL 14–22 (APRIL 27–MAY 5), 1917)Trotsky was also a very bad leader especially militarily, indeed his ideas for the Red Army were the reason for the “purges” in 1937.“War Commissar Trotsky is often praised for being a great leader in the Civil War. However, in the summer of 1919 Trotsky, stating that Kolchak was no longer a menace in the east proposed shifting the forces of the Red Army into the campaign against Denikin in the South. This Stalin pointed out would have given Kolchak a much needed breathing spell and the opportunity to reorganize and re-equip for a fresh offensive. The Central Committee rejected Trotsky’s plan and he took no further part in the campaign in the east which led to Kolchak’s defeat. Similarly with his plan for a campaign against Denikin through the Don steppes, an almost roadless region filled with bands of counter-revolutionary Cossaks. Stalin rejected Trotsky’s plan and proposed advancing across the Donetz Basin with its dense railway network, good supplies of coal and sympathetic working-class population. Stalin’s plan was accepted by the Central Committee, Trotsky was removed from the Southern Front and told not to interfere with operations which led to the defeat of Denikin.”–Wilf Dixon (16 October 1994), “THE TRUTH ABOUT STALIN.”A wave of repressions swept through the Red Army in the late 1930s and early 1940s. According to documents which have since been declassified, between 1934 and 1939, the Red Army's command lost over than 56,000 people, 10,000 of them arrested. Another 14,000 were dismissed for drunkenness and 'moral degradation'; the rest were dismissed for other reasons – illness, disability, etc. In the same period, 6,600 of the officers previously dismissed were reinstated after further proceedings. These repressions were not without reason Part of the reason the USSR lost initial fights was because several commanders did not destroy key large sections of the soviet infrastructure before retareating, giving the Nazis an easier path and available resources, these were not light mistake especially in war time.To understand the scale of the purge, it's worth recalling that in 1937, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov said that, “the army had a total of 206,000 persons in the command structure”. The total size of the Red Army in 1937 was 1.5 million men at the time.Admittedly, poor training of the commanders of the Red Army was a problem in the 30s, but not one caused by repression * but rather the rapid increase of men in the armed force. Already in 1939 the army had grown to 3.2 million men, and by January 1941 – to 4.2 million. By the beginning of the war the command staff amounted to nearly 440,000 officers and staff but training of officers is longer than of ordinary soldiers and thus it was out of proportion. The country was preparing for war, the army was growing, undergoing rearmament, and the training of officers really did come too little, too late29% of Soviet military personnel had a higher education before the repressions. After them, the number became 38%. By 1941, the number had risen to 52%. Note that for the decade before the repressions, the number had remained stagnant at around 20-30%.ОЧИЩЕНИЕ: Кадровые чистки в РККА 1937-1939 г.г."Communism under Stalin has produced the most valiant fighting army in Europe. Communism under Stalin has provided us with examples of patriotism equal to the finest annals of history. Communism under Stalin has won the applause and admiration of all the Western nations. Communism under Stalin has produced the best generals in this war... Political purges? Of course. But it is now clear that the men who were shot down would have betrayed Russia to her German enemy."Opportunity to Win War in 1942; A SECOND FRONT IN EUROPE TO AID RUSSIA By LORD BEAVERBROOK, Britain's Lease-Lend Coordinator in Washington, Delivered before the Bureau of Advertising of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, April 23, 1942As for starvation of the masses and inviting foreign capital I explain the reason for the starvations, and why they had to rely on foreign capital here:Chuck Garen's answer to Was Holodomor a Genocide or a crime against humanity?My sources therealso explain why your “slave labor” and “no produciton statements” are false.The letter Meyerhold wrote was to Molotov and never REACHED Molotov. He was not humiliated scatalogically as even he does not write that nor is there evidence of that in his files.Due to the war and several other factors the letter of appeal to his case was only reached in 1954 and he was cleared in 1955. Your statement seems to tie Stalin directly to the deaths of all these people. but that would mean Stalin would have to sit and sign, day in and day out several hundred thousand orders per day a feat few, if any are capable of and a feat that is unlikely to be true.While his death was certainly terrible, and his exection unlikely to be warranted, the reason for it was his connections and sympathies to Trotsky. Which made him a target for prosecution by those who were jealous of him.ДОКУМЕНТЫ РГВА О ТРАГИЧЕСКОЙ СУДЬБЕ В.Э. МЕЙЕРХОЛЬДА. К 90-ЛЕТИЮ РОССИЙСКОГО ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОГО ВОЕННОГО АРХИВАHere is a rather well made analysis of Meyerholds arrest and execution:Гипотеза о причине ареста и смерти В.Э. МейерхольдаAs for your Meyerhold sourcesThe first one is mostly about Mayakovsky and Bulgakov, people who actually owed Stalin due to him literally fishing their works, (works that I highly respect and love) out of the trash bins that their colleagues had condemned. THe difference between Bulgakov and Mayakovsky and that of Meyerhold was that Meyerholds works were the equivelant of abstract art in theatre,His wife was rather prideful and was very angry at the shutting down of his theater, and sent a letter saying that thos ewho are not artistic cannot judge art, any more than artists should have an interest in politics. (a bit hypocritical consideirng how politically loaded he husbands works were). Her letter as doubly insulting to the man as he was both a poet AND was a person who was very supportive of culture. I find it strange that the critisism from his colleagues that fell on Meyerhold was no different to that which befell Bulgakov, despite Bulgakovs performances being liked by Stalin. therefore we can conclude that Stalin’s opinion is NOT what determined things but rather the opinions of fellow colleagues who complained and sent letters.As for wikipedia, using wikipedia is pretty lazy and it is a tertiary sourceAs for the rest of the Old Guard nonsense.1. He got rid of them because they had gotten rich and were establishing an upper-class and had forgotten what the movement had been about, or didn’t care.2. Many of those who were kicked out were simply exiled or banned from political activity3. Those like Bukharin who were executed, had serious conspiracies, that were very real, revealedAs for the pact, good lord how many times do I have to keep rehashing this:The Molotov-RIbbentrop Pact of 1939 was a non-aggression pact designed to delay the upcoming war. Prior to that pact, Stalin had appealed to both Britain and France, (twice) to make an anti-Hitler alliance if he attempts to invade. Britian and France rejected that as they WANTED Hitler to invade the USSR. Indeed, to help, they allowed Hitler to re-militarize the Rhineland and allowed Anschluss. Then they signed the 1938 Munich pacts that sold parts of Czechoslovakia to Germany and allowed Poland and Hungary to take portions as well before letting Hitler take over the rest of it as well. Then they gave him the leisure to take parts of Poland, thiswas when Stalin decided to take action and halt the Eastward progression of the Germans with a temporary pact.The Molotov-Ribbentrop and Munich pacts aside, there was also the Polish-German pacts as well as Estonian and Lithuanian pacts during the 30s, all aimed against the USSR. These Baltic states had crushed their communist parties and were also governed by nationalist governments, indeed Poland was planning to establish over-seas colonies and was in a frantic frevor of nationalism prior to the war. of course, in 1939 Germany wanted to re-negotiate and re-establish their alliance, and Poland basically told it to fuck off, as they felt confident about their “might” so, Germany, decided to invade, but not before accepting a non-agression pact with the USSR so as to do so with only the West to face.Back to the Molotov Ribbentrop pactThe pact ensured that the USSR would not interfere with Nazi Germany if it did not attack them or try to take its land. In return the Nazis would allow the USSR to regain the land Poland took in 1922, up til the Curzon line, which had been the original border. Stalin later gave back this land to the Poles after the war, despite it being populated mostly by ethnic Russians and Ukrainians. The details of why this was not an invasion by the USSR is too long so I’ll send some sources:The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (August 1939)The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 ExplainedDid the Soviet Union Invade Poland in September 1939?The Molotov-Ribbentrop PactLegal and Political Consequences The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact“a nation of fear-crazed slaves, without courage or dignity, ready to march against the Wehrmacht machine guns in fatalistic apathy.”A completely idiotic phrase that is the epitaph of every anti-soviet war cliche there exists.Here’s the reality:At the time internal tensions were still extremely high within the SU. The civil war had only ended a few years prior, with thousands of White Guard Russians dying in defense of the tsar. The Western Powers had rendered assistance to the Whites under in the form of 250,000 troops spread across large portions of Russia. Internally spies sabotaged the limited industrial heart of the country. Truth and trust were in short supply. The assistance provided to White Russian forces weighed heavily on the minds of the commitern leaders throughout the 20s and 30s, especially the idea of capitalist encirclement, and especially to Stalin who warned of external and internal threats to the country. Additionally, fascism was swiftly on the rise, Hitler was making no bones about his expansionist plans. One of the big things that precipitated the Russian Revolution was military defeats by the Tsarist government. Its not too difficult to see why Stalin was so worried that the revolution could be overthrown, especially considering Japans imperialist pushing in Manchuria and the rise of fascism. External threats were as much a concern as internal ones. Stalin and the upper comitern leadership therfor decided to eliminate internal and external threats that would provide a "fifth column" to the enemies invading the Soviet Union. Less a desire to murder randomly to instill terror, and more a desire to prepare the country for war. Most modern interpretations of the Great Terror believe that it was initiated at the top, to deal with close and obvious threats, but then spiraled out of control due to paranoia in Soviet society. Another thing to realize is that the Soviet Union was a vast vast entity made up of republics. Abuses of human rights thus can be attributed to local implementation. Pointing out the foreign threat does not negate the importance of ideology or Stalins personality, but it remains an important factor in what happened but also clearly porves that fear crazed is not only an over-statement but an untrue one as well.As for running onto German Machineguns:Early in the war the Soviets understood that a precision built bolt action rifle with sights graduated to 1200 yards was an expensive option and one that required considerable time and resources to train huge numbers of troops on. The Mosin–Nagant of which they made 37,000,000 was a good weapon but one that only a small percentage of their infantrymen could use to its maximum potential and as with all bolt guns was cursed with a slow rate of fire and a limited magazine capacity.The soviets realized sooner than anyone else that 90% of infantry combat takes place at close range (<=200 meters) where full power cartridges like their 7.62mm X 54R were over powered and the bolt action rifles that fired such heavy hitters had a low rate of fire. Soviet doctrine demanded that in meeting engagements their troops should be able to establish direct fire superiority quickly and then maneuver under the cover of that high volume of fire. Of course the Germans wanted the same capability but were too slow to implement the changes required in time.The German Solution:Was to place light belt fed machine guns with high rates of fire such as the MG-34 with its ~900 round/min rate of fire with infantry platoons. Thus the German squad armed predominantly with bolt action rifles was centered around its base of fire the MG34.The Soviet Solution (s):•On one level the Soviets adopted the same solution with the 7.62mm X 54R DP-28 drum fed light machine gun acting as the base of fire and the rest of the unit armed with bolt action rifles.•Another Soviet solution was the creation of SMG battalions where the predominant weapon was the easy to manufacture PPSh-41 sub machine gun (1000 rounds/min) that was supported by DP-28 LMG and designated marksmen armed with either Mosin–Nagant bolt guns or SVT-40 semi automatic rifles. These units could send clouds of lead at German troops while in the attack at a dead run.Imagine 20 Germans with 1 MG-34, 4 MP-40s and 15 bolt action rifles facing 20 Soviets with 2 DP-28s, 6 SVT-40s and 12 PPSh-41s. The German unit is over matched with respect to the volume of fire it can deliver. And it take less time and effort to train a sub machine gunner than an effective rifleman.Soviet Losses were moslty made up of Nazi Death Squads, the Comissar directive, the Jew directive and General Plan Ost which resulted in almost 3 million soviet POWs being killed or dying in concentration camps, something the Stalin had no power over.One of the greatest crimes in Western Europe was the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane, in which 642 civilians were murdered by a Waffen-SS battalion. But just one region in the East, Belarus, with 20% of France’s population, experienced the equivalent of more than 3,000 Oradours – some 2,230,000 people were killed in Belarus alone during the three years of German occupation, or a quarter of its population. At least 5,295 Belorussian settlements were destroyed by the Nazis and more than 600 villages like Khatyn were annihilated with their entire population under the cover of anti-partisan operations.Soviet military losses were on par with Germanies with a 1.3:1 ratio, with the Germans being lower only because, unlike the USSR, they purposely killed or drove to death soviet POWs.According to meticulous post-Soviet archival work (G. I. Krivosheev in Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses), the total number of men (and in the Soviet case, about 1mn women) who passed through the armed forces of the USSR was 34,476,700 and through Germany’s was 21,107,000. Of these, the “irrevocable losses” (the number of soldiers who were killed in military action, went MIA, became POWs and died of non-combat causes) was 11,285,057 for the USSR, 6,231,700 for Germany, 6,923,700 for Germany and its occupied territories, and 8,649,500 for all the Axis forces on the Eastern Front. Thus, the total ratio of Soviet to Nazi military losses was 1.3:1. Hardly the stuff of “Asiatic hordes” of Nazi and Russophobic imagination (that said, also contrary to popular opinion, Mongol armies were almost always a lot smaller than those of their enemies and they achieved victory through superior mobility and coordination, not numbers).The problem is that during the Cold War, the historiography in the West was dominated by the memoirs of Tippelskirch, who wrote in the 1950’s citing constant Soviet/German forces ratios of 7:1 and losses ratio of 10:1. This has been carried over into the 1990’s (as with popular “historians” like Anthony Beevor), although it should be noted that more professional folks like Richard Overy are aware of the new research. Note also that cumulatively 28% and 57% of all Soviet losses were incurred in 1941 and 1942 (Krivosheev) respectively – the period when the Soviet army was still relatively disorganized and immobile, whereas for the Germans the balance was roughly the opposite with losses concentrated in 1944-45.The idea that there were two soldiers for every rifle in the Red Army, as portrayed in the ahistorical propaganda film Enemy at the Gates, is a complete figment of the Russophobic Western imagination. From 1939 to 1945, the USSR outproduced Germany in aircraft (by a factor of 1.3), tanks (1.7), machine guns (2.2), artillery (3.2) and mortars (5.5), so in fact if anything the Red Army was better equipped than the Wehrmacht (sources – Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won; Chris Chant, Small Arms).To summarize, this was a very offensive and disgusting “answer” that is utterly misleading.