9 May 1945 - Victory Over Fascism!

Today is the day on which, 66 years ago, the war in Europe ended for the people of the Soviet Union.

Why does this matter?

In an article published on Thursday, 30 April, 2009 by TomDispatch.com, bourgeois historian Andrew Bacevich of Boston University writes:

 For example, to the extent that the demolition of totalitarianism deserves to be seen as a prominent theme of contemporary history (and it does), the primary credit for that achievement surely belongs to the Soviet Union. When it came to defeating the Third Reich, the Soviets bore by far the preponderant burden, sustaining 65% of all Allied deaths in World War II.

By comparison, the United States suffered 2% [Australia suffered 0.57%] of those losses, for which any American whose father or grandfather served in and survived that war should be saying: Thank you, Comrade Stalin.

For the United States to claim credit for destroying the Wehrmacht is the equivalent of Toyota claiming credit for inventing the automobile. We entered the game late and then shrewdly scooped up more than our fair share of the winnings. The true “Greatest Generation” is the one that willingly expended millions of their fellow Russians while killing millions of German soldiers.

Between TWENTY-SEVEN AND TWENTY-EGHT MILLION Soviet citizens – soldiers and civilians, women, children and men — lost their lives in that epic struggle, five million of those in concentration camps. The German aim was to destroy the USSR and kill, deport or enslave its inhabitants — their fantasy was to turn the Soviet Union into a gigantic “theme park” with Teutonic Knights and their families hunting Russian “peasants.”  

Civilians and hostages were routinely massacred (the largest number of civilian deaths in a single city was 1.2 million citizens during the 900 day Siege of Leningrad). In three years of occupation, between one and two million Soviet Jews were killed. Other ethnic groups were also targeted for extermination, and even those nationalist groups who collaborated with the Germans (Ukrainians and Cossacks, for example) met short shrift from their new “liberators.”  Millions died from starvation as the Germans requisitioned food for their armies and fodder for their draft horses. As they retreated from Ukraine and Belarus in 1943–44, the German occupiers systematically applied a scorched earth policy, burning towns and cities, destroying infrastructure, and leaving civilians to starve or die of exposure

Prisoners of War were treated abominably — sixty percent died, starved, beaten, summarily executed, left to freeze to death or die of untreated wounds, or forced marched to be slave labourers in the Reich. And lest anyone try to excuse the Wehrmacht (the regular German Army) on the grounds that “it was all the work of the SS,” let me set you straight. Hitler’s “Commissar Order” — communicated to all ranks prior to the invasion —absolved in advance ANY soldier of the Reich who committed what would now be called “crimes against humanity.” Jewish PoWs were sent away for “special treatment,” soldiers from the Central Asian Republics were executed out of hand and on 29 June 1941, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge ordered, ‘Women in uniform are to be shot.’

Later, as their excesses ignited a protracted partisan war, the Germans reacted by issuing harsh orders calling for the execution of any Red Army personnel found in civilian clothing. An order to the 56th Infantry Division stated, ‘Soldiers in plain clothes, mostly recognizable by their short hair, are to be shot following their identification as Red Army soldiers.’ Villages were razed for sheltering Red Army soldiers, and prisoners were shot in retaliation for partisan attacks or for simply being soldiers. A field court-martial had sentenced a major to demotion for shooting PoWs for no particular reason. Hitler intervened and excused the major, stating, “We cannot blame lively spirits when they, convinced as they are that the German people are engaged in a unique battle of life and death, reject the Bolshevik world-enemy beyond all commandments of humanity.”

Wikipedia notes that, “According to a summary, presented by Lieutenant General Roman Rudenko at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, the property damage in the Soviet Union inflicted by the Axis invasion was estimated to a value of 679 billion rubles. The combined damage consisted of complete or partial destruction of 1,710 cities and towns, 70,000 villages/hamlets, 2,508 church buildings, 31,850 industrial establishments, 65,000 kilometres of railroad, 4100 railroad stations, 40,000 hospitals, 84,000 schools, and 43,000 public libraries. Seven million horses, and 17 million sheep and goats were also slaughtered or driven off.” (While Wikipedia can be “liberal” with the truth about Communism, these figures match those in my copy of the IMT’s transcripts).

I have many bones to pick with Comrade Stalin. Yet none of them would have stopped me from picking up a gun and marching with the Red Army all the way to Berlin!