By Harsh Thakor
ON 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF DEFEAT OF NAZI GERMANY IN WORLD WAR II LET US DIP OUR BLOOD IN
MEMORY OF THE USSR
RED ARMY WHO WERE CRUSADERS IN THE LIBERATION OF MANKIND. NO COUNTRY EVER
SINGLE HANDEDLY SAVED THE FATE OF MANKIND AS SOVIET RUSSIA DID HERE. MORALLY USSR WON WORLD
WAR 2 TO SAVE THE WORLD’S PEOPLE FROM THE TYRANNY OF NAZI FASCISM.
As of May 2nd, we commemorate the 75th
anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany in World War II, who had morally
surrendered to the Russian red army on May 2nd. Soviet Russia led by Joseph Stalin
did not create but saved the new epoch of Socialism defined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
and but for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) the
entire globe would have been enslaved by the tyranny of Nazi fascism. It was
the immortal sacrifice of Socialist USSR that principally won the war against
the Nazi fascists, with USA
and Britain
playing a very minimal role in comparison. In the history of man so much pain
and suffering has not reached the height of World War 2 or has any nation
single-handedly saved the fate of mankind in the history of the world as late USSR
did. In World War 2 objective historians recount the sequence of events that
led to the creation of Adolf Hitler. The conspiracies of the Allied powers led
by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt to even aid Hitler to destroy USSR and even
in the end plotting against Soviet Russia. Even non -Marxist historians,
anti-Stalinists or liberals acknowledge that it was Soviet Russia who mainly
deserve the credit for the victory over the Nazis in the world War. Quite a few
historians who condemn Stalin's purges or class him as a dictator hail him and USSR
as the savior of the world masses like Max Hastings, Ishaan Tharoor,
Geoffrey Roberts etc. We may refute their evaluation of Stalinist Russia but
still have to give them credit for their insightful analysis on Russian war
effort. The Red Army was "the main engine of Nazism's destruction,"
writes British historian and journalist Max Hastings in "Inferno: The
World at War, 1939-1945." The Soviet Union
paid the harshest price: though the numbers are not exact, an estimated 26
million Soviet citizens died during World War II, including as many as 11
million soldiers. At the same time, the Germans suffered three-quarters of
their wartime losses fighting the Red Army.” "It was the Western Allies'
extreme good fortune that the Russians, and not themselves, paid almost the
entire 'butcher's bill' for [defeating Nazi Germany], accepting 95 per cent of
the military casualties of the three major powers of the Grand Alliance,"
writes Hastings. The epic battles that eventually rolled back the Nazi
advance—the brutal winter siege of Stalingrad, the clash of thousands of
armored vehicles at Kursk (the biggest tank battle in history) -- had no
parallel on the Western Front, where the Nazis committed fewer military assets.
The savagery on display was also of a different degree than that experienced
farther west.”(Ishaan Tharoor) Sadly still a great section of the world
population is a slave of the Western propaganda glorifying the role of America or Britain . Historical BBC World War 2
documentaries basically still project Soviet Russia as villains and place
untold glory to Battle of Britain,'D-Day etc. Virtually the figures like
Churchill, Roosevelt, General Bernard Law Montgomery or George S. Patton.
The conspiracy the West hatched to overthrow USSR
was exposed when it virtually refused to form a second front against Hitler
even in 1941. Bourgeois historians treat Stalin as a kind of fascist and
literally describe the Eastern European liberated regions as an “Iron
Curtain." What took place from 1945 was not a Cold War but restructuring
the strategy to demolish Socialist Russia. There is proof that Churchill had
launched a plan in the early 1940's to achieve this. Even in 1944 Churchill
planned a conspiracy against Russia
with German commander in Italy Kesselring in the autumn of 1944, Churchill,
with full American knowledge, entered into negotiations with them for a
separate peace. Stalin came to know of it and questioned Churchill on it.
Churchill was obliged to tender an apology, which Stalin accepted. In mid-April
1945 the Nazi generals made a collaboration with Churchill. I may give the British,
French or American soldiers partial credit for anti-fascist spirit or
determination but their endurance is not comparable to the Russian red army
when entering Berlin
in 1945. It was more like giving an icing on the cake created by the Soviet
forces. USSR had no choice
but to sign the Ribbentrov-Molotov pact which saved them from an attack by the
Imperialist countries or Germany
and in no way did it ally with Nazi Germany's war machine. There was an
organized international conspiracy with an espionage system even infiltrating USSR to
overthrow it. The USSR Red army blended the tenacity of a boulder resisting a
most powerful gale with the planning of an engineer skill of a surgeon and
imagination of a painter. It was the genius of the 5 year plans that laid the
ground for USSR
to build a strong infrastructure to resist the fascist forces.
The Socialist planned economy played a major role in
creating the required supplies for a war. The great literacy for the working
class played an important role in sharpening their orientation. The
Marxist-Leninist ideological base facilitated non conventional forms of warfare
like the guerilla warfare of the Soviet militias consisting of those without
conventional military training. A form of a people’s war was waged dispelling
all bourgeois conventions. With untold mastery the Soviets maintained a reserve
force to replenish losses and garnered production for the cause of the war.
Logistically industries were built to withstand an enemy attack. A form of
de-centralization took place during the war which enabled creation of people's
militias. Partisan warfare made a great impact. By 1942 10,000 people, 250
regional groups and 1,013 partisan detachments were formed. Partisans
constituted people never previously exposed in military warfare or trained.
They made outstanding innovations in implementing people’s war. The young
guards made arguably the greatest sacrifices to defeat an enemy in the last
century. (From revolutionary journal ”The Comrade”) Several Communist party members
were sent to the front to infiltrate the enemy and organize resistance in the
occupied areas. They played a great supportive role in rebuilding morale of
people in starvation affected and besieged cities. They helped the people
organize defense and train themselves in fighting. Even non -military elements
in cities were trained and mobilised.Seventy% of the party membership and 90%
of the kosmosol took part in the resistance Even Western countries could not
emulate this whose armies were virtually subdued in the cities. Best displayed
in Kiev and Leningrad , Under Stalin's guidance with
resolute determination they prevented the Nazi enemy from using any of the
nation's resources. They mastered methods of protecting it not giving away even
a drop of sand to the enemy. USSR
adopted the policy that attack is the best form of defense. The human spirit
for liberation to enslave itself from tyranny rose to metaphysical proportions.
There may never have been a better illustration of how liberation struggle was
in essence also a spiritual change in man. (From “The Comrade”) What will be
always embedded in our minds was the glorious turnabout in Stalingrad
where against all odds the red army resurrected itself from the grave to reach
the pinnacle of glory. Approaching the Baku
oilfields the German army faced the greatest turnabout in military history like
Rome being set
on fire. In the Battle of Stalingrad, the German war machine more than met its
match. From August-January, the Nazis lost nearly 500,000 troops, which is more
than either the British or the Americans lost in the entire war. Stalingrad was the greatest turning point in the history
of the world in the last century. In Leningrad the Soviet people displayed
tenacity and resilience as no people ever did From September 8, 1941 to January
27, 1944, nearly 2 ½ years, the city of Leningrad was besieged by the Nazis and
placed under a cruel embargo, in what many historians classify as a brutal act
of genocide. Of a population of 2.5 million people, only 800,000 survived. Most
died from starvation. Others perished from disease and exposure. Even when
given the chance to flee, most did not. They would stay and defend their
homeland from the fascist invaders. Who can also forget the red army liberating
the concentration camps like Auschwitz camp in 1945 on 27th January and later
liberating Eastern Europe . The first of these
camps to be liberated were in Poland ,
beginning with Majdanek in the country’s east in July, 1944, followed by
Belzec, Chelmo, Sobibor and Treblinka. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Red Army
liberated the most notorious extermination camp of all, Auschwitz Birkenau.
Thousands of Red Army soldiers would die fighting even as they were approaching
the camps, fired on by guards who undoubtedly hoped to conceal their crimes
against humanity from the rest of the world. Geoffrey Roberts writes in the
Irish Examiner, “When it came to describing Majdanek the Soviet writer and
journalist, Konstantin Simonov, warned his readers its horrors were beyond human
imagination and comprehension; not simply another scene of atrocities but the
site of systematic murder on a massive scale. ”Significant it was Socialist
Russia and not Western democracies that liberated victims of concentration
camps in spite of it being tagged as anti-Semitic by sections.” On entering Berlin in April it
destroyed the very backbone of the Nazi forces. It was the Soviet capture that
instigated Hitler to commit suicide. .The courage of the youth of the Komsomolsk is
unprecedented in history of mankind. A most touching 2 part novel, Young
guards' was written by Alexander Fadeyev depicting the never say die spirit of
the Russian youth. One does not have words to pity the plight of the Soviet
prisoners of war who received treatment worse than animals. Soviet Prisoners of
War taken by the Germans were subjected to the most horrifyingly depraved
treatment imaginable, starved to the point of no recognition. They had to
desperately fight for every last scrap of food or water, and in the most extreme
circumstances some were driven to cannibalism. 60% of all Soviet POWs captured
by Nazis during the war died in captivity (compared with 4% of American and
British POWs held captive by the Nazis). Of the 3.3 million POWs who died
mainly of starvation, 2 million of them died before February, 1942, 7 months
into the war. Even if I differ with their analysis on Stalin on issues like
totally defending purges and not acknowledging his gross errors, I feel
progressive forces owe a great deal to the research of the Stalinist Societies
in exposing the lies of the Western powers or media and defending USSR as the
true liberators. They also hit the Trotskyites ideologically with the sharpest
of swords in exposing the counter revolutionary role of Leon Trotsky as an agent
of the Nazi fascists. Although a Trotskyite historian Isaac Deutscher defended
the heroic role of Soviet Russia. It is possible that USSR may have
taken longer time than they did to defeat Hitler and Axis countries but I have
no doubt they could have won the war without Western help. Stalin no doubt
played a great role as a leader in shaping the victory displaying nerves of
Steel. It is possible that the role of Stalin was over glorified and not given
to the Soviet people as a whole as Marshal Zhukov claimed. Earlier Stain did
wrongly execute innocent party members, violate mass line and suppress dissent
to an extent. Still I doubt very much if any great Leader be it even Lenin or
Mao could have handled the situation with such tenacity as Stalin. It was victory
for the Socialist state and the Socialist ideology as a whole. Stalin’s lessons
are still as relevant to the world today on questions of 'fascism.' Stalin has
been wrongly framed by even democratic sections for wrongly executing army
generals. He was simply compelled to eliminate forces that wee virtual agents
of the Nazis who were conspiring to overthrow the Soviet state. Quoting Comrade
Harpal Brar"Through the military trial of some of the generals and the
Moscow trials, the Soviet Union had eliminated those who constituted a fifth
column who would have collaborated with the invading Nazis had they been left
at large. Far from decimating the Soviet military and political leadership,
these trials had strengthened the Soviet armed forces’ will to fight and
restored the Communist Party’s unity in the face of deadly enemies. If the
Soviet High Command had indeed been decimated, how then was it that the Red
Army produced such brilliant and world-renowned generals as Zhukov, Chuikov,
Shtemenko, Yaramenko, Timoshenko, Vasilivesky, Sokolovsky, Rokossovsky, Koniev,
Voroshilov, Budenny, Mekhlis, Kulik and many others?” Quoting historian Isaac
Deustcher"” On 24 June 1945 Stalin stood at the top of the Lenin Mausoleum
and reviewed a great victory parade of the Red Army which marked the fourth
anniversary of Hitler’s attack. By Stalin’s side stood Marshall Zhukov, his
deputy, the victor of Moscow , Stalingrad and Berlin . The troops that
marched past him were led by Marshall Rokossovsky. As they marched, rode, and galloped
across Red Square , regiments of infantry,
cavalry, and tanks swept the mud of its pavement – it was a day of torrential
rain – with innumerable banners and standards of Hitler’s army. At the
Mausoleum they threw the banners at Stalin’s feet. The allegorical scene was
strangely imaginative . . . ”The next day Stalin received the tribute of Moscow for the defense of
the city in 1941. The day after he was acclaimed as ‘Hero of the Soviet Union ’ and given the title of Generalissimo.” In
“these days of undreamt-of triumph and glory,“ continues Deutscher, ”Stalin
stood in the full blaze of popular recognition and gratitude. These feelings
were spontaneous, genuine, not engineered by official propagandists. Overworked
slogans about the ‘achievements of the Stalinist era’ now conveyed fresh
meaning not only to young people, but to skeptics and malcontents of the older
generation” It is not a sheer coincidence that the Covic -19 crisis is taking
place on the 75th anniversary of World War 2 with Neo-fascism at it's helm
since 1945 as well as world capitalist economic crisis. We have to study the
phenomena a of how fascism in Europe emerged
in the very first place and the connivance of the Western Imperialist
countries. Today a new form of fascism in era of globalization is at an
embryonic stage and only Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology can counter it at
it's strongest point. Sadly today we have lost our citadel of a Socialist
state. Vietnam resurrected
the glory of the Soviet heroes in 1975 and later even if ultimately mutilated Iraq gave strong echoes of Stalingrad when
courageously counter attacking America .
under Saddam Hussein. Whatever our critique of Islamic fundamentalist forces
and its wrong acts in modern times it is the Muslim world who have displayed the
greatest defiance to American hegemony. On 75th anniversary of end of World War
2 we are faced with the proposition of defeating the ascendancy of Hindutva
fascism which is close to reaching it's boiling point, but lack the leadership
of a tightly centralized party like the Communist Party of Soviet Union led by
Lenin or Stalin. On the international scale Zionist fascism has Nazi like
overtones but no genuine vanguard party to counter it. It is ironical that
Mahatma Gandhi treated Adolf Hitler as a friend through his letters before 1941
and wished to appease him, after being hailed as an ‘apostle of non-violence.’
Gandhi opposed the united anti-fascist resistance be it against Japan or Germany and thus his non violence
was cosmetic, having no essence in defeating fascism.
No comments:
Post a Comment