History: Why the world should not forget Russiaґs sacrifice
Who on Earth stopped Hitler?
Albert Axell: a champion of the Soviets Unionґs war efforts
Albert Axell, the American military writer, historian and author of Marshall Zhukov: The Man Who Beat Hitler, explains just how much the West has undervalued the Soviet Unionґs contribution to victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
Do you believe people are still interested in WWII, which was over a fairly long time ago?
My friend, a British professor, told me about a survey that revealed striking ignorance: 95pc of young people in the UK believe Germany was an ally of their country in that war, whereas the Soviet Union was the enemy. Today most Americans know nothing about Marshal Zhukov. And neither do the British. Yet I would like the contemporary generation in the West to fully realise to whom we owe our existence. That is why I wrote my books.
By writing your books you tipped the balance so heavily towards recognition of the role of the Soviet Union in winning WWII that a number of generally loyal observers were rattled. I heard British historians and journalists say that, although until recently the role of the USSR in WWII had been understated, you promoted it to the point of exaggeration.
I can responsibly say that most Western historians who are not politically engaged do share my point of view. No other nation in the world was prepared for such a heroic effort and sacrifice as the people of Russia. In Great Britain, WWII claimed about 300,000 soldiers and civilians, whereas the Soviet Union lost about 27m. Is it possible to "exaggerate" the price the Russians paid for the victory?
Fifty years of Cold War left their mark, with the Iron Curtain making the Soviet Union appear non-existent. Only a chosen few knew what really happened in that country or in any other Communist nation. I was astonished when I once opened Encyclopedia Britannica in Taiwan at the time of Chiang Kai-shekґs presidency and failed to find a single word on Mao Tse-tung.
Once I was invited to talk on BBC Radio 4. The second invitee was presented as "an authoritative military historian", Antony Beevor, who wrote Berlin: The Downfall, 1945, where he portrayed the Red Army as the looter and rapist. This historian says that when Soviet troops pushed into Germany, Russian soldiers raped two million German women. He quotes a source saying: "Russian soldiers were raping every German female from eight to 80." What a perfect statistic: every female - nobody needs any proof!
Joseph McCabe, a British historian and intellectual, rightly seen as one of the most outstanding minds of the 20th century, said the Second World War was the greatest crisis mankind had lived through since the fall of the Roman Empire. And Russia, according to McCabe, led the way in overcoming that crisis. Military historians believe Marshal Zhukov changed the course of history. By the end of the war, Georgiy Zhukov was so popular in the Allied countries that many in the West joked that Zhukov could win a presidential election in the United States. In any case, if Georgiy Zhukov had taken over as the head of the Soviet state, the Cold War could have been avoided, or not as cruel and protracted.
You often hear that the Soviet Union won the war by the ruthlessness of its commanding officers, who sent soldiers to their death in large numbers, rather than by the intellect of its generals. In other words, it was a case of being outnumbered, not outsmarted. Would you agree with that?
No. That war could not be won in any other manner. It was impossible to stop Hitler without heavy human losses. France, which had one of the strongest armies in Europe, surrendered after six weeks of fighting. The Sovietґs Brest fortress held out for more than a month with a small contingent. Yet if the French had made similar self-sacrificing efforts and resisted longer in their "fortress", the Russians might have sustained less prohibitive losses.
Lest we forget, here are two major points: first, we in the USA and Britain, unlike the Russians, were not fighting an enemy on our own soil. If we were, I am certain we would not treat the invader inside our house with kid gloves. Second, Hitler had an evil plan to liquidate up to 100m Slavs, in addition to Jews, gypsies and other alleged "sub-humans". This is the fundamental difference between what the Soviet Union had to take on compared to others. When the Allies were struggling in the Ardennes, Churchill called out to Moscow: "Please, help us!" and Stalin, with Zhukov, came to their rescue by stepping up pressure on the Eastern Front. The offensive meant yet more tonnes of Soviet blood. But they helped the Allies. Churchill appreciated that, and thanked the Soviet Union.
What do you think of Josef Stalin?
Today, many argue that Stalin was worse than Hitler. This obviously has little to do with reality. Whether you like Stalin or not, you should have the decency to acknowledge the facts as they are. Stalin faced perhaps the most daunting task in history of dragging the country he led from the backyard of the world almost overnight, and catching up with leading nations to reach a level which enabled Russia to win the Second World War. If Soviet Russia had failed to rise from its knees, it would have been eliminated. Many innocent people suffered during Stalinґs rule. One thing is, however, clear: under his leadership, Russia, which previously tilled its land with wooden ploughs, became a nuclear superpower. That speaks for itself.
Do not listen to those who don the evangelical mantle and preach that Russia should be ashamed of its history in the 20th century. Sadly, a fairly large number of Russians took this "shame" seriously, and began to defame their own past, forgetting, among other things, about their feats of arms during the Second World War. Remembering your victories and your heroes does not mean indulging in nostalgia. It means realising what Russia is capable of. And, as history has proved more than once, Russia is capable of achievement inspiring admiration across the world.
Comments:
Jack Sigil:
Even Soviet Russia, at its worst as a police state regime, never: -programmed its majority for genocide -pampered and supported lazy , racist parasitical minorities -allowed affirmative action, political correctness, foreign ideologies to publicly enlist Soviets in subversion schemes, a media that blatantly hated the majority, the elevation of the crudest and most incompetent \"art\" imaginable, national support of anti-culture, segregated all-african sports teams, money gouging by rich marxist-capitalists, forced sensitivity groups, discrimination against its best and brightest,dumbing down of schools to appease the moronic, a military that cannot win wars against even irregulars -subversion by primitive, medieval muslims. Soviet communism actually offered a form of tyranny that was more humane than the AfroAmerican brand of communism. Do not lie about what I have said. I have lived in Soviet Russia, you bastards.
09-02-2010
briarcavendish:
So you Americans are well educated. My butt knows more than 15 of your afrobrains. You can dance to rap and kiss Obama\'s butt but you are just more ignorant arrogant morons like subodh. You love the commies. I wish them on you.
You are dum dums looking for the same...get it Africanski baboonski?
08-31-2010
Briar Cavendish:
You lying commie swine. You mass murderers of your own people. I will take on a full vodka swilling platoon of your best in close combat. You will taste Krupp steel and explosive bullets.
As long as one commie lives the world is unsafe. If you don't like what I say come to America, we will lower your Kharma Bolshevik!
04-25-2010
subodh:
In our academic syllabus we learn about history of world, but as we grow up with emotions then we understand the depth of it. Hitler was a not a man.And Russia,...I LOVE RUSSIA and the Russian people.Even the Germany's army killed innocent people [including children],but the Russian army behave nicely with prisoner after war. Yes,RUSSIAN ARMY stop Hitler. I salute Russian army.
Finally,I would like to say that each and every human being on the earth have feelings and he/she can understand the meaning of LIFE, then live and let live, and of course HAPPILY.
02-19-2010
Terry:
I live in the USA and I believe American children are better educated then most people think. In my secondary school we were taught that Russia was devastated by the first world war and the subsequent civil war. When Stalin said the Soviet Union was 50 to 100 years behind the west he was fairly right. The Soviet Union Industrialized although a high price was payed in more then one way; it needed to be done. Stalin did not believe Hitler would attack the Soviet Union. The purges had seriously weakened the Red Army. We knew the Germans committed horrible crimes in the Soviet Union. The three Sonderkommando units killed millions of people. The crimes were especially horrible in white Russia. The Red Army took horrible losses in the beginning but nobody can deny the fact that it was the only obstacle to world domination of Hitler. By 1944, the Red Army had but defeated the German army and Anglo-American air power was destroying the Reich itself. Personally I was always awed by the Russian offensive that destroyed the German army group center in 1944. This showed more then all the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the war and won.
01-16-2010
Ambricourt:
From August 1941 to late 1945 western media portrayed the Soviet armies as gallant allies of the U.K. and U.S. But laudatory words in the early 1940s were not followed by military cooperation.
The invasion of France was delayed until 6 June, 1944. By this time the Soviet Union had borne for almost three years the brunt of the Nazi aggression on land.
Western praise for Soviet strategy and Soviet victory was short-lived.
By the end of 1945 the propaganda of the Cold War began and, led by Winston Churchill, rose to a clamorous crescendo over the following years: communism was evil, Stalin was a monster, the Soviet armies were the brutal oppressors of Eastern Europe, and Russia was about to enslave the rest of the world.
How a country which did not possess atomic weaponry and had just lost more than 20 million people could wage war against countries, like the United States and Britain which had borne minimal battlefield losses (less than one million), was never explained. But the demonisation of Stalin and the Soviet state became fanatical in its reiterated intensity.
The informational war was fully launched, aggressively affirmative, and continues...
This morning a nation-wide radio programme (by CBC Canada) reminded listeners of World War 11 by evoking the rape of East Prussian women by Russian soldiers. This was the angle, chosen to present a long and complex war! There was no mention of Nazi behaviour in Belorussia, the Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union; and no suggestion of rape by British, Canadian, American and colonial forces in their areas of conquest. The rich upper-class British accents of the indefatigable Antony Beevor affirmed Soviet atrocities.
The informational war against Russia is as powerful now as in Soviet times and is unfortunately wider in its audience-coverage.
Finally, your article asks what may one think of Joseph Stalin?
Albert Axell offers a summary of Stalin's achievements. There is no doubt he ruled by fear and fear spread through the vast reaches of all Russia. Did he have much choice, if he were to industrialize Russia in a few years before an anticipated fascist attack? Stalin had few material rewards to offer in a country subject to trade discrimination by world bankers and sanctions by foreign governments. From 1918 to 1941 the Soviet Union was a pariah nation by the dominant "international community". In 1939, buttressed by Russia's growing industrial and military strength, Stalin tried to make an alliance with Britain but he was rebuffed, and made to feel inferior.
The British and French leaders preferred to "protect" Poland - at that time a remote country from western Europe which neither Britain nor France were incapable of supplying with troops or weaponry by land or air!
Contemporary Western history, an accompaniment to the informational war, never mentions these crucial details of the 193Os and chooses instead to present Stalin as the signatory to a "treacherous" pact with Nazi Germany.
In the face of unimaginable complexities, Stalin showed a mastery of domestic and foreign strategy.
Stalin was the greatest of all the czars.
10-21-2009
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