Victory Day in the USSR, 1945: Western suggestions that
the Soviets were allied with Hitler have incensed Russians.
Izvestia, Russia
Western WWII Amnesia:
It Was USSR that 'Saved Humanity'
"The
USSR broke 80 percent of Germany's divisions and lost 27 million people to the
Nazi extermination machine. The Soviet Victory Generation saved
humanity. Everyone on this planet understood that in 1945. In 2009, many don't
want to."
By Vyacheslav Nikonov
Translated By Yekaterina Blinova
September 10, 2009
Russia - Izvestia - Original Article (Russian)
What a remarkable thing: the
more time passes since the Second World War, the more we [Russians] have to
explain ourselves. The years have washed away historical memory, substituting
it with versions more favorable to others. Now it is said that the USSR unleashed
the war and acted as Hitler’s ally, and it's no longer clear who won it. And
why is there this idea that September of 1939 was the beginning of the war? Because
that's when Britain and France formally joined in? Are we to understand that everything
that happened before that date wasn't part of the war because Western
democracies don't count it as such?
[Editor's Note: Under the Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact of August, 1939, between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, Northern and
Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Poland
was to be split between Germany and the USSR. The German attack on Polish soil
began on September 1, 1939. The Russian attack began on September 17. That is
why most historians mark 1939 as the start of the war].
From the standpoint of our
country (and history), World War II began in the early 1930s, when Japan
invaded China, annexed North Manchuria
and set up the puppet state of Manchukuo.
Soviet-Japanese clashes occurred regularly, but in the West, did anyone
consider this a serious war? In Germany Hitler came to power, having set out
with the purpose of world domination - his first step being the destruction of
communism and the extermination of inferior peoples, among which were the
Slavs, Balts and Jews. Japan and Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact
aimed exclusively at our destruction. The war in Spain was not
merely a civil one, as Germany was actually one of the belligerents to
the conflict, as well as, let us note, the Soviet Union [Hitler provided weapons
and aid to fascist General Francisco Franco, while the Soviets sided with Spain's
Republican government].
Fascist Italy, the third ally
of the Anti-Comintern Pact - invaded Eritrea and then Albania, over the indignant cries of Moscow and amid the nearly
complete silence of Western capitals. Germany then conducted the annexation
of Austria - the West was silent. In Munich, Czechoslovakia
was sacrificed and Czechoslovakian requests for Soviet aid along with its right
to resist were forbidden to it. Even Poland participated in the partitioning of
the Czech Republic. In the days when Germany was preparing to attack Poland, we
were already engaged in a fully-fledged war with the Japanese, who had invaded
the territory of our ally, Mongolia.
Over 10,000 Red Army soldiers died in the Battle of Khalkhyn
Gol. By September of 1939, World War II had already been going on for a
decade, and it wasn't the Soviet Union that initiated it, nor did it pursue a
policy of appeasing
aggressors.
Before the summer of 1939, every
major European power - except the USSR - had negotiated and concluded all kinds of
treaties and agreements with Hitler. Why did Soviet leaders begin talking to
Berlin? Because Germany launched its policy of “pushing to the East” and an
attack on Poland was being discussed almost openly and officially. For Moscow,
the question was whether it was possible to stop the aggression with agreements
on joint guarantees for Polish security with Western democracies. And if not,
where would German troops stop after attacking the Poles? In Warsaw? Minsk?
Moscow? Vladivostok?
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
At
a ceremony in Gdansk, Poland to commemorate the 70th anniversary
of
WWII, which began with a Nazi attack on Poland - President Kaczynski
of
Poland described the Russian invasion of Poland that followed the Nazi
one,
as a 'stab in the back.'
[WATCH VIDEO BY CLICKING HERE OR CLICKING ON THE PHOTO ABOVE.]
The USSR was able and willing
to help Poland - which was openly hostile to us at the time. But for that to
happen, she would have had to allow us to help and accept security guarantees
from our side. But no one was able to convince her to do so. Poland might have
been helped by France and Britain, if they would have sent Berlin the message
that they were prepared to fight Germany if it attacked Poland. Instead,
Western powers sent Hitler reassuring signals that war would be declared, but
not actually fought. And it wasn’t - until the Germans attacked them.
Of course, the Soviet Union
would have preferred an alliance with the Western democracies - at least they
didn't plan to destroy us en masse - and it suggested such an alliance.
However, regretfully, the Soviet Union still wasn't seen by Paris and London as
a nation with which “proper” countries could ally themselves. Talks were taking
place in Moscow, but as it turned out, British and French representatives
didn't have the authority to enter into any sort of agreement. The
countdown to an attack on Poland was down to days, and the probability of, say,
a British-German agreement, was many times more likely than a British-Soviet
agreement. What must Moscow do, when Berlin is offering a non-aggression pact
and a line beyond which German troops wouldn't go after having invaded Poland,
while London, Paris and Warsaw have no desire to make any kind of a deal?
The non-aggression pact with
Germany, as Winston Churchill wrote, was a cynical and coldly-calculated
political move. It gave us a chance to avoid going to war with the Germans and build
up our military capabilities - in just two years, USSR defense potential
doubled. And it also made it possible to start the war - the inevitability of
which no one in the Kremlin doubted for a second - with strategically-acceptable
borders (in August, 1939, the border ran
just 18 miles west of Minsk). Those were borders that in all fairness, Bolshevik
leaders believed were unfairly imposed on the USSR during the period of
its greatest weakness - the years of the [Russian] Civil war
[1917-1923, aka/ the Russian Revolution].
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
SEE ALSO ON THIS:
NRC Handelblad, Netherlands:
On 70th Anniversary of War, Wounds in Europe Still Sting
Izvestia, Russia:
Truman and Churchill No Better Than Stalin
Izvestia, Russia:
'Shocking' Russian and American Ignorance About World War II
Vedemosti, Russia:
Soviet Theft of American Nuclear Secrets Was Fully Justified
Le Monde, France:
The Danger to the West of Not 'Helping Russia'
Der Spiegel, Germany:
Why Wasn't Hitler Stopped?
Der Spiegel, Germany:
German Editorial
Roundup on 70 Years After WW II
Guardian Unlimited:
This Rewriting of History is Spreading Europe's Poison
The Telegraph, U.K.:
Vatican Says
U.S. and Britain Knew of Nazi
Murder of Jews and Did Nothing
The Times:
Does Appeasement Look
So Bad, 70 Years Later?
Did Poland and the Baltic
countries have reason to be incensed by Soviet policies? Without a doubt. Their
territories, which over the next several months became part of the USSR, not
only lost their sovereignty, but experienced for themselves and in an
accelerated fashion, all the severity of revolutionary law that since 1917 had become so familiar
to Soviet citizens. There were a great many tragedies for those
countries and their citizens, one of which was [the massacre of over 20,000 Polish
officers in] Katyn. Another question is, if these territories had already
been occupied by the Nazis in August of 1939, would they have fared better? Of
course, the Soviet Union at the time was guided exclusively by its own interests,
as it was with all other countries. Of course, everyone else would have preferred
the Soviet Union to have already begun fighting Germany in the fall of 1939,
which would have happened if not for the Molotov-Ribbentrop
non-aggression pact.
The Soviet Union never became
a German ally, it simply snatched some breathing space. Stalin never believed
Hitler - and neither did Stalin's closest advisers. The USSR wasn't guilty of starting the war. That was unleashed by Germany and its real allies, Japan and Italy - an issue that was reliably established at the Nuremberg Tribunal, the
verdict of which some are now attempting to bury.
What was the role of the
Soviet Union in the war? It broke 80 percent of Germany's divisions and lost 27
million people to the Nazi extermination machine. There is no family that wasn't
affected by the tragedy of that war.
The Soviet Victory Generation
saved humanity. Everyone on this planet understood that in 1945. In 2009, many
don't want to.
*Vyacheslav Nikonov is
President of Russia's Polity
Foundation
CLICK HERE FOR RUSSIAN VERSION
[Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US September 13, 5:59pm]
