Can you fight against Fascism while denouncing the Soviet Union and Stalin?
Sumit Ghosh
“Stalin Murdabaad!”… As
Tanmay Bhattacharyya uses the ‘kopchano’ (prattling) rhetoric to explain a
liberal opinion on the cause behind the electoral debacle of the Left in
Bengal, as Kanhaiyya Kumar tries to catch up with the liberals and their
economism in a TV show, as historian Ramachandra Guha senses similarity with
Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi in terms of dictatorship, as Mahua Moitra
equates with Mussolini and as the majority ultra-right elements of the European
Union compares with Nazi Germany in terms of war devastation, let us peep into
the decisive outlook of the Soviet Union and Com. Joseph Stalin on the context
of World War II to analyse the aforesaid claims.
On the analysis of the
character of Fascism
In 1924, Stalin wrote an article on the political nature of
fascism. In ‘Concerning the International Situation’
(1924), he stated, “Firstly, it is not
true that fascism is only the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. Fascism
is not only a military-technical category. Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s
fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the
moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting
organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or
in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy. There
is just as little ground for thinking that Social-Democracy can achieve
decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active
support of the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. These organisations do
not negate, but supplement each other. They are not antipodes, they are twins.
Fascism is an informal political bloc of these two chief organisations; a bloc,
which arose in the circumstances of the post-war crisis of imperialism, and
which is intended for combating the proletarian revolution. The bourgeoisie
cannot retain power without such a bloc. It would therefore be a mistake to
think that “pacifism” signifies the liquidation of fascism. In the present
situation, “pacifism” is the strengthening of fascism with its moderate,
Social-Democratic wing pushed into the forefront”. This article reveals what
should be the outlook of the revolutionary camp during the pre-fascist era
i.e., the united struggle of the communists and leftists against all the
populists and fascists.
Georgei Dmitrov's thesis “The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the
Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism”, delivered at the 7th World Congress of the Communist
International in 1935, revealed the class basis and economic nature of fascism.
The steps taken on the basis of this thesis helped the Soviet Red Army to win
against the Nazis. This essay has so far been the most successful in uncovering
the economic basis of fascism.
Dmitrov was a Bulgarian communist revolutionary. He was arrested in
Berlin due to alleged proximity with a communist accused of the Reichstag Fire.
During the Leipzig Trial, Dmitrov famously refused legal assistance and
defended himself against Nazi accusers like Hermann Goring.
He used the trial as a golden opportunity to defend communism. He was acquitted
and expelled to the Soviet Union after the USSR granted him Soviet citizenship.
He became the head of the Comintern in 1934 and was elected its General
Secretary in 1935.
Dmitrov's definition of fascism is: '... the open terrorist
dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist
elements of finance capital'. He went on to reveal the origins of fascism
in Italy and Germany by stating: 'With the development of the very deep economic crisis, with the general
crisis of capitalism becoming sharply accentuated and the mass of working
people becoming revolutionized, fascism has embarked upon a wide offensive'. This theory advocates the tactics of forming a
front of various political parties representing different classes on the basis
of anti-fascist unity in the event of a full-fledged rise of fascism.
Revealing the nature of fascism, Dmitrov said: '... not a power standing above class, nor
the government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance
capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself’. Extremist chaotic
rule is often mistaken for a petty bourgeois lumpen regime. Many bourgeois
economists have made the same mistake while searching for the nature of
fascism.
Holodomor - a synonym of Holocaust?
The fiction of Holodomor was invented by
Ukrainian Nazi symthasizers who took shelter in Western Europe and the North
America after World War II. It referred to a great famine of 1932-33 in the USSR, including (but not
limited to) Ukraine. The theory postulates that the famine was caused due to
the Soviet policy of collectivization and destruction of Ukrainian nationalism.
This theory was supported by Ukrainian nationalists who sought justification of their alliance with the Nazis and participation in their
Jewish Holocaust. The term Holodomor was used deliberately to sound like the
Holocaust.
History
tells us that various parts of Russia and Ukraine had
suffered serious famines in 1917 just after the
revolution, from 1919-21, in 1924 and again in 1928-29. All these famines were
mainly caused by medieval strip-farming method. As a solution, the Soviet
policy of collectivization was adopted. In 1932, Soviet agriculture was hit by
drought in some regions, heavy rainfall in others and the spread of rust, smut,
insects, rodents and weeds. In 1933, the Soviet government provided massive
grain aid to famine affected regions. The Soviet government raided peasant
farms to confiscate excess grain in order to feed the poor. The successful
harvest of 1933 helped overcome this phase. According to Stephen Wheatcroft,
the famine was caused by environmental factors & the effects of the war,
and not due to the policy of collectivization or government interference. To
add, due to collectivization, the last famine that took place in the USSR
was from 1946-1947.
The Great Purges
The Moscow Trials of 1936-38 were a series of trials against the
right wing and revolutionarily disillusioned elements of the Communist Party
who were alleged to have sought to revolutionary defeatism by allying with
fascist and anti-revolutionary forces.
Prof. Grover Furr in his article ‘The Moscow Trials Defendants – Guilty by the Evidence’, states that: “Since
Nikita Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” to the XX Party Congress in February, 1956,
historians of the Stalin period in the USSR have generally regarded the Moscow
Trials testimony as false. The paradigm of the Moscow Trials has been that of
innocent defendants forced to mouth false confessions to crimes they never
committed by means of threats of torture against themselves and/or their
families. Their testimony has been universally rejected as fabricated, faked,
“scripted” by the NKVD investigators, the prosecution, “Stalin.”
Based
on his extensive research, he further asserts:
“The conclusion of our verification of
the Moscow Trials testimony is this:
Whenever we can check independent evidence, the Moscow Trial testimony
proves to have been truthful. As far as we can now determine, on the evidence
now available the Moscow Trial defendants:
(a) were guilty of at least those crimes to which they confessed;
(b) said what they themselves chose to say in their trial testimony.
In a few cases we can now show that a defendant successfully hid some
crime from the prosecution, either to conceal his responsibility for acts of
which, he hoped, the prosecution was unaware, or to preserve what remained of
the conspiracy, or both.”
Prof. Furr has further argued: “Since the defendants’ fact-claims that we can check have turned out to be truthful, we have no basis to dismiss other fact-claims whose truthfulness we cannot check. The success of this verification process means that researchers may properly use the fact-claims made by Moscow Trial defendants as evidence…”
To dismiss the
theory of forced confessions, he says: “A number of the Moscow Trials defendants – most
notably, Nikolai Bukharin — stubbornly denied some of the accusations leveled
at them by the Prosecution while confessing guilt to other serious crimes.
Differential confessions like his are good evidence that the confessions by
these defendants were not the result of force or threats...
...We have a good deal of non-Soviet evidence
that cannot have been fabricated by the Soviet investigation or prosecution.
...The
reiterated confessions of guilt in the defendants’ post-trial appeals for
clemency are further evidence of guilt and of the genuineness of the
confessions made by these defendants during the Moscow Trials.”
In order to
nullify the theoretical basis of ‘Show Trials’, he explained: “However,
the truth is not constituted by any “consensus” of authorities.” Nor is
“credibility” a category of analysis. Whether a statement, fact-claim, etc. is
“believed” has no bearing at all on whether it is true, no matter how many “authorities”
affirm it...
...Any statement, made by anyone, at any time,
might be a lie. It is invalid to assume that a statement is a lie unless there
is some evidence that it is.
...Materialists in any field of inquiry – the sciences are the clearest example – decide truth based upon evidence. History too is an evidence-based field of inquiry.”
In the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) in 1938, Stalin reported on the international situation stating that the maps of Europe, Africa and Asia were being forcibly redrawn by imperialist forces. He showed that a decline in industrial production was observed in USA, Britain and France in 1938. A slight economic revival without any production boom after the Great Depression of 1929-33 was immediately followed by this crisis of 1938. He also stated that the fascist nations like Germany and Italy were already in a war footing but lack of colonial resources was a constant threat to their internal sustenance. Due to unjust impositions of the Versailles Treaty, the fascists were demanding redistribution of world colonies. Stalin pointed out that when the colony backed imperialist forces of USA, UK and France were coming out of their economic crisis, the fascist war economies were beginning to enter a phase of economic crisis after depletion of all available reserves. In such a situation, the fascists were trying to show aggression towards the already distributed colonies by showcasing fake bourgeois unity in the name of the ‘Anti-Comintern Pact’. On the other hand, the resourceful and more powerful imperialist forces of USA, UK and France opted for concessions to the fascist camp to avoid war in fear of a proletarian revolution. They were trying to shift Nazi aggression towards the Soviet Union by catalyzing a feud on the question of annexation of Ukraine. These resourceful and more powerful imperialist forces were exhibiting neutrality and no collective resistance but continuing trade with the fascist aggressors. According to Stalin, when the fascist aggressors would get weakened and exhausted, then only would the non-fascist imperialist camp strike a deal to dictate over the situation and aggravate another World War.
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The rise of Hitler in 1933, formation of new political alliances
with Italy and Japan in 1936 and the Austrian unification with Nazi Germany in
1938 paved the way for rearmament, an aggressive foreign policy and the context
of a new set of imperialist wars.
Sensing the danger posed by the fascist bloc, the Soviet Union
proposed in favour of a political alliance with Britain, France and other
European nations against fascist aggression. But the European imperialist camp
considered Bolshevism as a greater threat and tried to shift the ongoing war
towards the east through concessions to the Nazis, such that Soviet Union were
to face the wrath and devastation of the fascist war machinery.
According to the accounts of US journalist Anna Louise Strong, Prime
Minister Chamberlain of Britain and Daladier of France kept mum during Nazi
rigging of the Saar referendum in 1935, agreed to Nazi militarisation in
Rhineland in 1936 (both German territory occupied by Entente forces after World
War I), allowed Hitler’s interference in the domestic matters of Spain and even
paved the way for mutual investments in fascist occupied territories. Through
the Munich Pact of 1938, Britain and France allowed Nazi annexation of
Sudentenland, an ethnic German population majority area of western
Czechoslovakia; this paved the way for Nazi occupation of the whole country
with the largest arms factory coming under fascist jurisdiction. Amidst such
shameful concessions, Soviet Russia urged for an anti-war conference with
Britain, France, Poland, Romania and Turkey but such initiatives failed due to
lack of Chamberlain’s willingness. Meanwhile, Nazi Germany occupied Memel
(present Klaipeda), the major port of Lithuania and disrupted Danzig, the
Polish route to the Baltic Sea as a provocation towards Poland. The diplomatic
missions between Britain, France and the Soviet Union failed due to British
apathy towards alliance with the Bolsheviks.
In such a situation, Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov resigned
in context of his diplomatic failures in Manchuria, Abyssinia, Spain, China,
Austria, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania. Concurrently, Andrei Zhanov, President
of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Supreme Soviet wrote an article in
Pravda, openly criticizing Britain and its allies of orienting Nazi aggression
towards the east. To prevent Nazi occupation of Poland, Soviet military leader
Voroshilov met with the British-French mission but the latter duo opted to wait
for the decision of the Polish government (unlike in the case of
Czechoslovakia, whose national interests were subjugated to Hitler’s desires),
who expectedly refused Soviet military aid. It is in this political atmosphere,
Soviet leader Stalin proposed for a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (named after Soviet and Nazi ministers of foreign
affairs) in 1939, to safeguard Soviet sovereignty.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact not only protected Soviet territory from
Nazi aggression but was also successful in creating a rift within the fascist
camp. Mussolini and Franco of Italy and Spain openly expressed their
disapproval of this Nazi decision. At the same time, it was also a severe blow
for Japan as it was intending to wage a war against Soviet Russia along the
Mongolian border.
While the imperialist camps of then and now continue to blame the Soviet Union of shaking hands with the Nazis based on this alleged pact, they forget their own history of concessions granted to the fascist regimes. At the same time, the allegations of Soviet aggression towards annexation of Poland, Finland and the Baltic States in the context of this pact, demands a careful eco-political dissection:
A. Poland:
According to Prof. Grover Furr, “The Treaty included a line of
Soviet interest within Poland beyond which German troops could not pass in the
event Germany routed the Polish army in a war. The point here was that, if
the Polish army were beaten, it and the Polish government could retreat beyond
the line of Soviet interest, and so find shelter, since Hitler had agreed not
to penetrate further into Poland than that line. From there they could
make peace with Germany. The USSR would have a buffer state, armed and hostile
to Germany, between the Reich and the Soviet frontier”.
When Hitler invaded Poland on 1st September, 1939,
the Soviet Red Army entered Eastern Poland on 17th September to
stall Nazi aggression. Prof. Furr counters the anti-communist propaganda of
villainizing the Soviet Union in terms of occupation of Poland with the
following:
“Rather than fight, the Polish government fled into
neighbouring Rumania.
Rumania was neutral in the war. By crossing into neutral Rumania
the Polish government became prisoners. The legal word is "interned".
They could not function as a government from Rumania, or pass through Rumania
to a country at war with Germany like France, because to permit them to do that
would be a violation of Rumania’s neutrality, a hostile act against Germany…
When Poland had no government, Poland was no longer a state.
What that meant was this: at this point Hitler had nobody with
whom to negotiate a cease-fire, or treaty.
Furthermore, the M-R Treaty’s Secret Protocols were void, since
they were an agreement about the state of Poland and no state of
Poland existed any longer. Unless the Red Army came in to prevent
it, there was nothing to prevent the Nazis from coming right up to the Soviet
border.
How do we know the USSR did not commit aggression against, or "invade", Poland when it occupied Eastern Poland beginning on September 17, 1939 after the Polish Government had interned itself in Rumania? Here are nine pieces of evidence:
1. …The Polish government declared war on Germany when Germany invaded
on September 1, 1939. It did not declare war on the USSR.
2. The Polish Supreme Commander Rydz-Smigly ordered Polish soldiers not
to fight the Soviets, though he ordered Polish forces to continue to fight the
Germans.
3. The Polish President Ignaz Moscicki, interned in Rumania since Sept. 17,
tacitly admitted that Poland no longer had a government.
4. The Rumanian government tacitly admitted that Poland no longer had a
government.
5. Rumania had a military treaty with Poland aimed against the USSR.
Rumania did not declare war on the USSR…
6. France did not declare war on the USSR, though it had a mutual defence
treaty with Poland.
7. England never demanded that the USSR withdraw its troops from Western
Belorussia and Western Ukraine, the parts of the former Polish state occupied
by the Red Army after September 17, 1939.
On the contrary, the British government concluded that these territories
should not be a part of a future Polish state. Even the Polish
government-in-exile agreed!
8. The League of Nations did not determine the USSR had invaded a member
state…
9. All countries accepted the USSR’s declaration of neutrality.
All, including the belligerent Polish allies France and England, agreed
that the USSR was not a belligerent power,
was not participating in the war. In effect they accepted the USSR’s
claim that it was neutral in the conflict”.
In 1943, Stalin responded positively to a British journalist’s postal query of a strong and independent Poland after the defeat of Hitlerite Germany and based Soviet assistance to Poland “Upon the fundamentals of solid good neighbourly relations and mutual respect, or, should the Polish people so desire upon the fundamentals of alliance providing for mutual assistance against the Germans as the chief enemies of the Soviet Union and Poland”.
B. Finland:
The independence of Finland, an occupied territory of the Russian Empire, was granted by Stalin, People's Commissar for Nationalities, of the revolutionary government of Russia in 1917, following the Leninist doctrine of “right of nations to self-determination”.
Following the occupation of a part of Poland by
Nazi Germany in 1939, the Soviet Union decided to create a buffer zone with
Finland along the Karelian Isthmus, in exchange of Soviet land, as a precaution
against Nazi advancement towards Leningrad. When Finland refused, the Soviet
Union initiated the Russo-Finnish War on 30th November, 1939. The
Finns signed the Treaty of Moscow on Soviet terms on 12th March,
1940 and agreed to the secession of western Karelia and the construction of a Russian naval base in
the Hanko Peninsula.
However unfair the Soviet position may seem, Stalin’s fear of the Finnish allowance of Nazi advancement proved correct on June, 1941, justifying the self-protective stance of the Soviet Union. The war ended on 19th September, 1944, with the Finnish recognition of the Treaty of Moscow and initiation of the evacuation of Nazi troops, who were still refusing to comply.
C. Baltic States:
The Estonian bourgeoisie were successful in stalling a revolution
and establish a parliamentary democracy through military victory against the
Red Army during the Russian Civil War in 1920. Sensing an opposition
victory in the upcoming elections, Estonian statesman Konstantin Pats
established an authoritative regime; a similar political crisis began in India
when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi initiated a state of emergency in 1975.
Though Pats tried to justify his anti-democracy government citing the
possibility of the electoral victory of the ideologically pro-Nazi “Vaps
Movement”, his own economic policies were inspired by the corporatism of
Fascist Italy. During the Era of Silence from 1934-1940, the Pats regime
rendered all opposition parties illegal and opposition leaders including the
communists were arrested and subjected to forced labour. The Soviet Union in
its quest of creating a buffer zone against the German Reich sought to
establish military bases in Estonia and put an end to the Pats regime, which
was economically “pro-fascistic in disguise”, in 1939. With increasing tensions
of German aggression, Pats was compelled to sign a mutual assistance treaty
with the Soviet Union. Johannes Vares was appointed the new Prime Minister. He
conducted the elections to the lower house of Parliament. The newly elected
parliament voted for the declaration of Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic in
1940.
In 1918, Latvia was declared an independent nation, seceding from the
erstwhile Russian Empire and German occupation during World War I, by the
national bourgeoisie who were against the Russian Revolution of 1917. By 1919,
the country was simultaneously run by three governments: Andrievs Niedra
government supported by Germany, Karlis Ulmanis government of the national
bourgeoisie and the Latvian Soviet government of Peteris Stucka supported by
the Red Army. The combined Estonian, Latvian and Polish nationalist forces
legitimized the Ulmanis government by defeating and ousting the rival
provisional governments in 1920. On fear of losing in the upcoming elections,
in 1934, Ulmanis staged a bloodless coup and established an authoritarian
regime, suspending all political parties. The government adopted the fascist
corporatism of Mussolini as its economic guideline. The Soviet Union in its
quest of creating a buffer zone against the German Reich, put an end to the
pro-fascist Ulmanis regime and established military bases in Latvia in 1939.
The newly formed government of Augusts Kirhensteins arranged for general
elections and the newly elected People’s Parliament voted for the formation of
Latvian Socialist Republic in 1940.
Lithuania seceded from the erstwhile Russian Empire and German occupation during World War I in 1918 to exist as an independent nation. The ruling national bourgeoisie ousted the Lithuanian Bolsheviks, Bermontians and the Polish forces. In 1926, Antanas Smetona staged a military coup against the existing parliament and established an authoritarian regime. His party ‘Lithuanian National Union’ was ideologically in favour of fascist corporatism. However, in 1935, Lithuania suffered from serious economic crisis and the peasant uprisings were brutally suppressed. In 1939, the country faced the threat of Nazi occupation and the Smetona regime collapsed after Soviet military intervention. The newly elected People’s Government led by Justas Paleckis voted for the declaration of Lithuanian Socialist Republic in 1940.
The War of Stalingrad
Hitler’s expansionism towards East Europe for Lebensraum (Nazi racial supremacist doctrine of more ‘living space’
for the German Master Race) began with the annexation of Austria and Hungary.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler had written earlier, “When
we speak of new territory, we must think of Russia. Destiny itself points the
way there”. Following victory over Norway, Netherlands, Belgium &
France, on 22nd June 1941, the Nazis violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact and attacked the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) with their military
policy of blitzkrieg (overwhelming attack of fighter planes, tanks, artillery
and infantry). By the December of 1941, the Nazis had captured Pskov, Novgorod,
Brest-Litovsk and Minsk. Amidst this German advance, about 3 billion soldiers
of the Red Army, in the area ranging between Leningrad and Rostov, were
martyred!!! However, the Nazis were halted near Moscow.
In need of resources like oil and food, the Wehrmacht (Nazi army)
moved towards Caucasus, south of the Soviet Union. By the summer of 1942, the
Nazis captured the oil fields of Azerbaijan. But amidst their victory, their
eyes fell on Stalingrad, a small city on the banks of the river Volga,
supplying tanks and armaments to the Red Army. Nazis chose to attack the city
because of its name! On 28th July 1942, Stalin gave Order 227 i.e.,
“Not one step back”. He said, “Let the courageous image of our great
ancestors inspire you in this war”. The locals of Stalingrad participated
in digging anti-tank ditches and create local defences to slow down the
Wehrmacht. The Soviet introduced the ‘Scorched Earth’ policy i.e., destroy all
property and lay waste anything useful to the advancing enemy. However, Nazi
commander General Freidrich Paulus began heavy bombing on 23rd
August 1942. 600 aircrafts release 1000 tons of bombs and converted the city
mainly made from wood into a funeral pyre. When the Nazis attacked Rynok of
Stalingrad, it was clear that the river Volga was the only defendable Soviet
territory before the Urals. The Soviet people gave the slogan “There is no land beyond the Volga”.
Though the Wehrmacht slowed through the city rubble, the Nazis occupied the
main railway station and the high ground of Mamaev Kurgan. So, they were able
to see the entire city from that height and was in military advantage over the
Soviets.
General Chuikov,
commander of the 64th unit of the Red Army, was sent to
Stalingrad amidst this chaos. He knew that the Nazis liked to fight from a
distance. So, his policy was to deny them space i.e., “hug the enemy”. He
formed the famous Storm Troopers who would go so close to the enemy that they
had to halt their aggression for self-defence. The Red Army declared, “We
will never surrender”.
About 1 million Soviet women participated as tank crews, gunners,
snipers etc. They exhibited a never-ending source of reinforcement. The Nazis
had underestimated the tremendous will of the Soviet people and were stunned
about this women participation in war as it challenged their sexist principle
of viewing women as homemakers and child bearers. Thus, they called it
Rattenkrieg or the ‘Rat’s War’. Later,
after the war, the women soldiers said, “We mowed down Hitlerites like ripe grain”. Com.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko, one of the deadliest snipers in history, said in her speech in Chicago
(1942), “Gentlemen, I am 25 years old
and I have killed 309 fascist occupants by now. Don’t you think, gentlemen,
that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?” On returning to the Soviet Union, she was awarded the
title “Hero of the Soviet Union”.
Though the Nazis gained more and more of Stalingrad, the arrival of
Russian winter soon led them to realize that General Chuikov was just buying
time for his superior commander General Zhukov to launch a counterattack. The
extremely low winter temperatures forced the German army to suffer from lack of
warmth and food. On 19th November 1942, Stalin’s Deputy
Commander-in-Chief General Zhukov initiated Operation Oran. He knew that the
cream of the advancing Nazis were concentrated upfront keeping the flanks and
rear guards poorly defended. Therefore, he mobilized only in the night in small
units to keep away from Nazi intelligence and suddenly launched a Soviet
counter offensive with the airforce and tanks. The German 6th Army
at the flanks were devastated. Soviet pincers closed in near Kalach and
surrounded the Germans from all sides. Soviet women soldiers participated as
fighter pilots and shooters. Com. Lilia Litvyak became the highest scoring
female ace in this war.
Paulus appealed to Hitler for retreat but was turned down. While
chief of the Luftwaffe (Nazi airforce) Hermann Goring promised airlift and
food, his concepts were delusional since it was not possible for the Luftwaffe
to supply 10,000 tons of food for 300,000 German troops every day. Operation
Winter Storm of Nazi commander General Manstein was badly defeated. When the
Nazis rejected the Soviet offer of surrender, the Red Army initiated Operation
Ring. Finally, on 30th January 1943, the newly promoted Nazi Field
Marshall Paulus surrendered with 91,000 troops. It marked the Soviet victory
over the bloodiest battle in history and the advancement of the Red Army
towards Berlin to free the world from fascist terror.
Fall of the Axis Powers
Britain
and USA had initially chosen to thrust the Russians to Nazi wrath and only opened
a western front of the war when the Soviet Red Army had already begun to march
through Poland towards Berlin on 6th June 1944, to prevent communist supremacy in all of Europe. Falling victim to the imperialist demands
of US and UK in the Tehran Conference of 1943, Stalin dissolved the Third
Communist International in 1943. The Yalta Conference of 1945, however, ensured
temporary unity among the Allies. The fall of Fascists in Italy and the Nazis
in Germany took place on the months of April and May, 1945 respectively. Though
the Soviets attacked Japan to provoke their surrender on 9th August
1945 in consonance with previous agreements of the Allies, USA dropped atomic
bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6th and 9th August
respectively to establish their world influence. This brutal mass murder
initiated from the imperialist bloc introduced cracks and fear within the
Allies’ camp. Japan resorted to unconditional surrender on 2nd
September 1945. Interestingly, the Japanese continued to fight with the
communists in Manchuria and surrendered only to the right wing Chiang Kaishek’s
army reinstalled by USA in China. This prompted towards an internal
understanding between the imperialist camps of USA, Japan and China.
Post War Reconstruction
Stalin on 9th
May, 1945:
“Three years ago Hitler publicly stated that his task included the
dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the severance from it of the Caucasus,
the Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Baltic and other regions. He definitely said:
"We shall destroy Russia so that she shall never be able to rise
again." This was three years ago. But Hitler's insane ideas were fated to
remain unrealized — the course of the war scattered them to the winds like
dust. Actually, the very opposite of what the Hitlerites dreamed of in their
delirium occurred. Germany is utterly defeated. The German troops are
surrendering. The Soviet Union is triumphant, although it has no intention of
either dismembering or destroying Germany.
Comrades! Our Great Patriotic War has terminated in our complete victory. The period of war in Europe has closed. A period of peaceful development has been ushered in.
Congratulations on our victory,
my dear fellow countrymen and countrywomen!
Glory to our heroic Red Army,
which upheld the independence of our country and achieved victory over the
enemy!
Glory to our great people, the
victor people!
Eternal glory to the heroes who fell fighting the enemy and who gave their lives for the freedom and happiness of our people!”
Among the Allies, Soviet Union suffered the most. About 2,50,0000 people were homeless. 1700 cities and 27,000 villages were completely destroyed. 38,500 miles of railway, greater than the circumference of the Earth’s Equator was totally devastated. The mines of Donbas were submerged in water. The hydro-electric plants over river Nipar were non-functional. 2,17,0000 cattle and livestock were killed by the Nazis.
The Soviet government began reinstalling the power stations and factories in 1944. They began rebuilding the strategic port of Sevastopol. General Elections to the Soviets were organized in 1946 to restore democratic functioning of the government in this post-war situation. In 1946, the 4th 5 year plan was adopted by the Soviet government. Two hydroelectric power plants were established on the river Volga at Kuibishev & Stalingrad. They generated 2000 crore Kilowatt electricity. The newly formed dams near the Ural mountains provided irrigational support to nearby 40,00,000 acres of cultivable land. The Turkmen dam was built on the Amudaria river of Middle Asia. It provided irrigational support to 30,00,000 acres of cultivable land and proved to be an oasis amidst the desert. It resulted in 7-8% increase of cotton production. Dams built in Ukraine and Crimea in 1951 increased cotton and wheat production. The Soviets created a water connection between the Volga and Don rivers and it in turn connected the Baltic Sea, Caspian Sea and the Dead Sea all together in 1947. They even implemented a proposal to establish 8 afforestation programmes throughout the union.
Meanwhile, the United States denied any economic assistance to the Soviet Union and their spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union kept mum when USA conditioned economic aid only in return for pro-US cabinets in Hungary, France, Belgium, Holland, Bulgaria and Pro-British cabinet in Poland. They also had to overlook anti-communist violence in Greece and Romania. These were some serious political setbacks of the Soviet government in terms of its role in world revolution and demand a separate article on this topic. In 1949, the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China gave the Soviet Union a new reliable partner within the socialist bloc. In 1950, Soviet Union experienced the highest production since its formation. They also solved the scientific riddles to the production of hydrogen bombs and began to harness nuclear energy for public utilisation. This scientific victory put an end to the nuclear power mediated catastrophic world dominance of USA. The Soviets also participated in the International Federation for Peace and Conciliation to promote world peace. They even sought to establish cheap export deals to aid the Third World countries.
Arise ye
pris’ners of starvation
Arise ye wretched of the earth
For justice thunders condemnation
A better world’s in birth!
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us
Arise, ye slaves, no more in thrall;
The earth shall rise on new foundations
We have been naught we shall be all.
References:
- (1956). The Stalin Era.
New York: Mainstream Publishers.
- https://www.jugashvili.com/blog/did-the-soviet-union-invade-poland-in-september-1939-the-answer-no-it-did-nothttps://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1943/05/04.htm
- https://www.britannica.com/event/Russo-Finnish-War
- https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1945/05/09a.htm
- https://mashable.com/2016/07/30/soviet-women-snipers/
- https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/02/14/the-holodomor-and-the-film-bitter-harvest-are-fascist-lies/
- https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/09/20.htm
- https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm
- http://jabardakhal.in/english/the-moscow-trials-defendants-guilty-by-the-evidence/
- https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/03/10.htm
- Stalin
– Rahul Sangkrityayan (in Bengali)
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