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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