Cleaning Agent 说:
I was actually referring to the Treaty of Versailles.
Alright, but if you're taking the blame-game that far back you can blame the success of the Bolsheviks on the mistakes made by the Mensheviks, and further on the incompetence of the Imperial generals and the inefficiency of the Imperial Russian army, and even further back if you want to. It isn't constructive.
Cleaning Agent 说:
The only reason Hitler came to power was because of the support he had from the German people. Yes, political machinations allowed him into the position of Chancelor, but don't forget that von Kahr chose Hitler as his political partner because he felt he needed more support from the German people, support which Hitler had. It was by no means an entry into power that went against the will of the German people.
I can't really argue with this, but I can say that the NSDAP never had an absolute majority. Even when Hitler was Chancellor and had all of the machinery of government to help him manipulate the electoral process he still had to form a coalition with the Nationalists in order to get more than 50% of the vote. Furthermore, we can probably attribute much of the Nazis' electoral success before 1933 to the efforts of the SA in intimidating voters and opposition candidates, etc.
Cleaning Agent 说:
Also: No, the Bolsheviks actaully had very little support from the people. It was something of an overnight revolution, with the small bands of red soldiers simply walking into key buildings and holding them.
Again, I was thinking more of the general weakness of the Mensheviks and the Provisional Government in 1917, than a total popular support for a Bolshevik uprising.
Cleaning Agent 说:
During the war Hitler had very little active hand in his party's activities. He played factions against each other, rather than ruling the NS as a single entity. People would attempt to gain favour with him by taking initiative, suggesting policies that could be carried out and thus gaining his approval. In short, the idea for the final solution (as in, actually killing the jews in an organised fashion) was likely the idea of an underling vying for support from Hitler, rather than his own idea.
Hitler had advocated finding a 'solution' to the Jewish problem from at least the beginning of the war. Initially the Nazis didn't perceive any pressure so from 1939-42 the process of destroying the Jews progressed slowly, but it was always planned to fully eradicate the Jewish population in Europe (I think Hitler wanted to deport them to Siberia) once the war was won. When it became clear that the war wasn't going very well, the process had to be accelerated.
I admit that central authority in the Soviet Union was stronger than in Nazi Germany, and that because of this it is harder to pin blame fully on Hitler, but arguing that Hitler never made plans to kill anyone is just wrong.
Cleaning Agent 说:
As for this "neglect" thing you seem so keen on; you can hardly call killing off three quarters of your officers neglect, more like active sabotage!
I doubt Stalin was motivated to destroy the effectiveness of his military, so it wasn't sabotage. It was an unfortunate consequence of the 'necessity' to purge the army leadership of traitors and fifth columnists.
By the way, I never said that the Purges were the result of neglect. Those killings were indisputably intentional.