I think it's far more complicated that what Paddy or Lüko think. I think Paddy is more wrong than Lüko on this in that regardless of how one feels about British entry into the war in 1939, or it's aid or not to anti-fascist struggles. WWII was first and foremost an attack by Fascism against the USSR. It was always aimed, first and foremost, against the USSR. It was secondly an imperialist war *politically* because it involved all the great Imperialist powers regardless of the *effect* of the war.
Clearly, Lüko is formally correct based on the examples he gave but there is far more to it that. What about the Filipino masses who *in their entirety* went from welcoming in the Japanese to turning against them? Or the Indonesians? WHY did they welcome British and US troops then? Was there something WORSE about the Japanese occupation vs the historic Dutch or US occupations? Or the French and Dutch whose resistance worked closely with Allied troops and whose peoples welcomed them, *in fact* liberated them from the Nazi occupation? The military tie up of enough divisions in the west to prevent, in no small part, the destruction and occupation of Moscow in December of 1941. It's clearly a lot more complicated than "all sides being equal". They were not. David ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com