The confusion today remains. When you see the phrase "a Soviet", the reader thinks of an individual, whereas in primary source documents it refers to a [[collective]]. [[User:RobSmith|RobS]]<sup>[[User talk:RobSmith|Abnormal is fine. Stupid isn't.]]</sup> 11:36, January 23, 2026 (EST)
==Civilian populationsand Nazis's extermination==This article maintains the fiction that WWII was fought between professional armies. Western armies (Angelo-American & German) and the Japanese deliberately targeted [[civilian]]s for death. The Germans in the [[Holocaust]], [[Leningrad]] and elsewhere, the British in [[Hamburg]], the Americans deliberately targeted civilian populations to kill them in [[Dresden]], [[Tokyo]]. and [[Hiroshima]], and the Japanese in [[China]]. While the Soviet armies did not deliberately target civilians for extermination, the Soviet Union, like the Czarist Empire, always had a labor shortage and need for workers in Siberia. So populations could be targeted for deportation. (We see this in the case of [[Kaja Kallas]], whose grandfather was a Nazi collaborator. So the The whole family was deported. A form of "collective punishment". I leave it for the reader to decide if deporting a whole family for a [[crime]] against the state is more compassionate than splitting the family up. It's a relevant question for today: while an [[illegal alien]] mother can be deported, does her minor "anchor baby" have rights as a [[US]] [[citizen]]?). [[User:RobSmith|RobS]]<sup>[[User talk:RobSmith|Abnormal is fine. Stupid isn't.]]</sup> 04:35, January 28, 2026 (EST)
The Soviet Union was not a member of the [[Geneva Convention]].<ref>The Soviet government "based its refusal to adhere to the Geneva Convention on the ground that Article 9 thereof, [Page 1023] providing for a [[segregation]] of races in [[prisoner of war]] camps, is contrary to the Soviet Constitution." [https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1941v01/d979] [[United States SenateDepartment of State]], Office of the Historian.</ref> Hence [[POW]]s essentially earned a life sentence in a labor camp. After [[Stalin]]'s death, one of [[Khruschev]] the "reformer"'s first actions was to amnesty and release all [[German]] prisoners (those that survived the work camps). This was one of [[Solzhenitsyn]]'s biggest complaints - the fact that the [[fascist]]s were released while he, a [[Red Army]] veteran, remained incarcerated.
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[[User:RobSmith|RobS]]<sup>[[User talk:RobSmith|Abnormal is fine. Stupid isn't.]]</sup> 04:49, January 28, 2026 (EST)
:We should realize, the Red Army fought heroically in WW2 (including its large percebrage of Jewish soldiers. One might bring up the logic that the US was desperate, after years of destruction of civilians by the Axis to finish the war. As to the idea of 'extermination,' not just bombing civilians, that was specific to the Nazis plans, to exterminate certain races.[[User:Telling|Telling]] ([[User talk:Telling|talk]]) 17:01, January 28, 2026 (EST)
::War brings out the rawest of emotions. Red Army soldiers for the most part were not fighting to spread an [[ideology]]. They were defending their homeland. After [[Stalingrad]], they were fighting for revenge. But I can find no case where the [[Soviet Union]] deliberately targeted [[civilian]]s (although I don't deny it may have happened).
::But there is no denying that Western Allied powers deliberately targeted [[civilian]] [[taxpayer]]s of the German and Japanese regimes, their children and old people, to demoralize popular support for national leaders. (As General Sherman's March to the Sea did - to make the point, "your government can't defend you"). Whether killing [[civilian]]s is "[[strategic]]" or "[[ideological]]" is debatable. [[NATO]] has never abandoned that approach (as we've recently seen in the [[NATO invasion of Kursk]] where there was absolutely NO [[military]] objective).
::From the historic Soviet perspective, the debate is what's worse or better, being murdered or being enslaved? [[User:RobSmith|RobS]]<sup>[[User talk:RobSmith|Abnormal is fine. Stupid isn't.]]</sup> 18:55, January 28, 2026 (EST)
:::Maybe the tactic of indiscriminate bombing was in the last stages of war after so much destruction to civilians by the Axis, which one might argue it was a desperate attempt to end the war, after millions lost, to save others. [Hence, argument for Hiroshima/Nagasaki]. Still the term "exterminate" is something else. [[User:Telling|Telling]] ([[User talk:Telling|talk]]) 15:38, January 31, 2026 (EST)