Western Amnesia: It Was USSR that ‘Saved Humanity’: Izvestia, Russia
Sep 14th, 2009 | 10 responses
Continuing with our coverage of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, this article from Izvestia reflects the outrage Russians feel about being called allies of Hitler, as responsible as Germany for the last ‘War to End All Wars.’
For Izvestia, Vyacheslav Nikonov writes in part:
“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.”
After offering an exhaustive analysis of how for Russia, World War II actually began in the early 1930s with Russian clashes against the Japanese – and with Western resistance to an alliance with Moscow – Nikonov writes:
“The Soviet Union never became a German ally, it simply snatched some breathing space [with the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact]. 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 Soviet role 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.
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?”
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10 Responses to “Western Amnesia: It Was USSR that ‘Saved Humanity’: Izvestia, Russia”
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Allow me to refresh the memories of those who feel sorry for those poor, poor Russians.
It is an open question whether there would have been World war II without the Nazi-Soviet Pact. That pact, signed August 28, 1939, contained secret protocols revealed after the war with the capture of millions of documents, that gave Hitler a free hand in the west (Stalin promised not to come to the aid of Poland – something he was nominally bound to do by treaty with France) while Hitler foreswore any interest in absorbing the Baltics. To complete this cynical deal, the two dictators partitioned Poland – illegal under international law which had guaranteed Poland full sovereignty.
In addition, the treaty guaranteed monthly deliveries of massive amounts of foodstuffs, fodder, and raw materials to Stalin.
While there was much mistrust between Russia, England and France, the idea that Stalin was not complicit with Hitler in starting World War II is absurd. It was a stab in the back to his erstwhile allies in the west who were counting on Stalin to prevent war by participating in the guarantee of Poland. The French especially felt radically betrayed by the Pact – Stalin had reasonably good relations with France up until he inked the deal.
The terror the Nazis carried out in Poland was eagerly duplicated by Stalin who stole everything that wasn't nailed down in his sector while siccing his secret police on the populace.
In short, Stalin made it possible for Hitler to invade first Poland, and then the west as Hitler's rear was secured.
The anti-Hitler plotters in the army were struck a huge blow by the Pact in that they believed if Hitler had invaded Poland and all the Big Three powers of Russian, England, and France had arrayed against him, the likelihood that the Prussian officer corps, seeing Hitler make the same mistake of opening a two front war as the Kaiser did, may have felt compelled to overthrrow him.
Russian complicity is obvious on so many levels that to make the argument they were little more than innocent bystanders is revisionist history at its worst.
Sadly, this is true. The US may have broken Japan but Germany was broken on the bloody bodies of the USSR.
Well that is the hindsight argument which of course would be true if only the Russians could have predicted the future but of course they could not. Was Stalin evil with a capital E, oh yeah. Did he really think that Hitler was going to stand by the Pact, nope though he did think they would stand by it long enough for Russia to prepare for the war(they did not have the capability yet to do much) and he hoped to wash over Germany and pick up their spoils is my guess from Stalin's personality.
Either way if Russia had thrown in at that time instead of waiting for the pact to be broken Russia would have likely been worse off as WWI and WWII involved Russia pleading for help and France, Britain and the US all saying “just a little more time”, because of this I would also argue the Russians knew they would get no help from the west. Hitler lost WWII for himself and the allied powers had little to no effect on the end result in my opinion. If he would have kept the pact Europe was his without much question and once consolidated the US or USSR would have been next but of course his utter hatred for the Bolsheviks for the “crime” of turning some of the German troops in WWI against the cause got the better of him and he acted irrationally and the world is better for it(never forget a fascists irrational hatred of communists and vice versa).
Putting Russia in “league” with Germany, Italy and Japan though shows a distinct slant to your history considering Russia was already fighting with Japan and was still recovering from their internal purges.
My question is what exactly do you think they could have fought Germany with spit balls? None of this takes away from the fact that the Germans lost on Russian soil, not on D-Day as my history books so love to say. Without D-Day the iron curtain would have fallen somewhere around the mid Atlantic but Hitler was already broken. D-Day from my point of view was the first act in the play we called the cold war, and possibly the most important one.
Also never forget that despite Hitler's inhumanity Stalin wasn't much if any better.
From my point of view Stalin and Hitler saved the world by destroying one another. Without Hitler I think Stalin would have pulled something similar with possibly greater devastation. Without Stalin I think Hitler may have won with greater devastation.
As I recall the numbers, didn't Stalin manage to kill off about as many Russians as the Nazis did?
And let us not forget that Stalin had killed off many of his most experienced senior officers from fear of a coup.
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Thats why I think Stalin was actually more dangerous than Hitler but Hitler stole the show by industrializing murder. It sounds horrible but he would have eventually run out of people to kill. Stalin on the other hand had no such problem, if you had a tongue to speak, you were probably plotting against him. I will defend the Russian people and the truth of the history though, their triumph was real even if it was done in a manner that helped protect most of the world from the tyrant we left them with.