Why didn't his famous charm work on Stalin?

>>2539129
Stalin's own charm countered it like a Dragon Ball Z battle.

>>2539129

FDR was a calculating man but Stalin was in a whole different league.

Stalin had a fantastic capability to distract the people under him so much that they would end up fighting each other.

Plus other cultures see smiling faces as some oafish gesture. A face is supposed to be impressive onto the point of intimidating.

Stalin was only ever impressed by Hitler, who was a psychopath just like him.

>>2539129
He saw his legs

>>2539179
thought wheel chair was because for polio?

>>2539129
Even Hitler felt like a little bitch when negotiating with Stalin but did respect him and even said he would let Stalin stay in power east of Moscow to continue his 'experiment'.

But Stalin was a cynical and ruthless negotiator and Hitler found that out right after he invaded Poland and Stalin suddenly changed the deal when Hitler had just entered war with France and Britian.

>>2539129
Also being a snobby 'funny' womanizing faggot like Roosevelt probably was laughable to someone like Stalin.

>>2539181
i think he implying that once stalin saw his crippled legs he saw him as a lesser person

Actually, FDR had good relations with Stalin. He proposed a post-war cooperation program, which was seen positively in Russia as well. It's really a shame for me as a Russian that he died too soon. Imagine a world, where there were no Cold War, instead you got American help to restore those 25% of USSR which were destroyed in WW2 in exchange to natural resources. We would avoid the 1947 postwar famine, and the general detente would allow to invest more in development rather than in the military. Probably in the future we would have had something like a joint space program. So much greatness could've happened, but no, Truman decided to take the path of war.

Stalin was an Autist

>>2539763
>Truman decided to take the path of war
>Poland supposed to be free
>the whole war was literally about ensuring a free Poland
>Stalin puppets Poland instead of making it free
>HURR IT'S TRUMAN'S FAULT
>STALIN DINDU NUFFIN
Fucking tankie

>>2539803
not him but poland being free, while agreed upon, was totally unrealistic considering the germans attacked through there during the two world wars. the soviets wanted to make sure that never happened again, and so having a sphere of influence as far west as possible was desirable over promises to the americans. i take the line that the cold war was a mutual misunderstanding; the ussr wanted security but the americans saw this as an ideological assault on europe. the sovietts didn't trust the americans enough and thought that they wanted to keep russia exposed and weak so they could exercise their dollar imperialism and detach eastern europe from their influence. the two viewed each other through ideological lens, even if their goals were actually based on geostrategic concerns.

>>2539925
Stalin agreed to let Poland determine it's own fate. He reneged. I'm not saying Truman isn't partially at fault, but Stalin WAS definitely more at fault than Truman was.

>>2539938
I understand. I'm in agreement that he reneged, but instead of interpreting for what it was-- a move to secure a barrier against future invasions from the west-- Truman and the foreign policy establishment interpreted it as an attempt to spread Communism further. In another instance, during the Greek Civil War, Stalin refused to fund the communist partisans because Greece wouldn't add to the security of the USSR. The problem was that the US govt assumed became convinced that the commies wanted to take over the world (which they did, but the Soviets thought the collapse of Capitalism was imminent at this point, but that's a whole other subject).

>>2539958
>but instead of interpreting for what it was-- a move to secure a barrier against future invasions from the west-- Truman and the foreign policy establishment interpreted it as an attempt to spread Communism further
The two aren't mutually exclusive.

> during the Greek Civil War
Funny you mention Greece since it was literally the only instance of Stalin upholding the Percentages Agreement. It's absolutely a cherry-picked exception.

>>2539968
Sorry I haven't read on the early Cold War in a while so I can't argue so well

>The two aren't mutually exclusive.
Yes, but Poland's location had more strategic than ideological value. Without Poland the Soviets couldn't keep tabs on East German. It's why Stalin literally moved Poland left by annexing the eastern parts for the USSR while giving it all former German lands east of the Oder. USSR wanted as much space as possible between it and Germany.

> Percentages Agreement
Of course the Soviets were authoritarian in making all the states they occupied Communist, but by the time of the Greek crisis it was clear that the Percentages Agreement was a dead letter. And anyway Stalin didn't give a damn about the agreement, it just so happened that it aligned with his strategic interests in this case, which was against supporting the Greek commies.

>>2539986
A free non-aligned Poland was far more strategic than a Soviet-aligned one.

>Without Poland the Soviets couldn't keep tabs on East Germany
If you assume that neither airplanes nor the Baltic Sea exist, I guess.

>make agreement
>reneg on it
>It's everyone elses fault that they now see you as an existential threat
"No."

>>2539995
>A free non-aligned Poland was far more strategic than a Soviet-aligned one.
How? It'd have given the West be another opportunity to burnish the success of capitalism over communism.

>If you assume that neither airplanes nor the Baltic Sea exist, I guess.
But the Germans invaded by land and I think it'd be advantageous to have a contiguous piece of land so you'd have more strategic depth. Germany going through Belgium didn't work. France relying on Belgium for its strategy against the Nazis also wasn't ideal either.

>It's everyone elses fault that they now see you as an existential threat
Sure, but it's a diplomat and intelligence service's job to not take things at face value. It also doesn't help that there was pressure from important constituencies such as the Poles and Catholics more generally that opposed the Soviets for obvious reasons. Then you have the rigid anti-communist line which spread throughout the state department which was more ideological than realistic.

>>2540017
>of capitalism over communism.
like in West Berlin*

>>2540017
through Belgium during WWI, to be clear.