Remembered Victory
The media have, justly, been giving ample coverage to today’s
Victory Day celebrations in Russia, commemorating the defeat of the Axis in
World War II. The coverage
of this largest-ever patriotic-military display has been better than perfunctory, examining in addition the political undercurrents which
-- more than a typical Fourth of July celebration in the States these days, say
-- deeply color this year’s remembrances.
There is one aspect of the generally unisonous coverage that I wish to take issue with,
however. The tone of the
presentation in America -- and this, through no fault of the Russians -- has been skewed
by the increasing hegemony of sentimentalist victimology in the American media’s
treatment of just about anything. Again and again, the reporters
intone: The Soviet Union suffered
27 million dead over the course of that conflict. An enormous (key word) “Sacrifice”.
Now, a funeral is not the time for the historian to step
into the pulpit; but these deaths
happened seventy years ago;
moreover, they are being cynically instrumentalised by Putin to revive the cult of Stalin -- and thus,
of Putin himself. (Kudos to the
media for having reported the recent law making it a crime to criticize the
USSR’s behavior in that war.)
First, a bit of moral clarity, to clear the head of the
fumes of sob-story sentimentalism.
If, seeing someone about to drown, you leap into the pounding sea to
save them, and so doing, die, then you can properly be said to have sacrificed your life. (Note: A sacrifice can be in a good cause or a bad one; that is not the point.) But if you are simply sauntering down
the sidewalk chewing gum, and you get squooshed by an asteroid -- that is not a
sacrifice; that is just bad luck.
Similarly: If
you spot someone being beaten or robbed, and intervene, you are sacrificing your own safety. But if you yourself have been
backed into a corner and are being pummeled with murderous intent, your
fighting back, while courageous or prudent, is hardly a “sacrifice”.
Now: What
the USSR suffered in the war was, morally, closer to bad luck than to sacrifice
(as we shall show), nay indeed was worse than the mere bad luck of the stroller
in the parable, who after all did not provoke the asteroid in any way -- did
not shake his fist at Olympus and cry “Bring it on!” But the Soviets, to some extent, indeed Brought It On.
(1) First, by
the Stalinists’ instructions to the Comintern. Although the KPD had no love lost for the Nazis, they
nevertheless, on instructions from Moscow, during “Third Period” Stalinism
(inaugurated 1928) objectively treat the SPD and other labor/reformist parties
as the main enemy of the moment (the Nazis presumably to be mopped up
later). Had they formed (as
the pejorative catchphrase had it, back in the day) a “United Front from Above”
against the Brownshirts, Hitler might never have come to power.
To be sure, one he did come to power, and all moderate or
progressive forces had been crushed like a bug, such Kommunisten as remained
did, belatedly, try to oppose the Nazis, faute
de mieux. But it was way too
late, and partly their own fault.
(2)
Second: For several months
prior to the outbreak of world hostilities in September of 1939, France and Britain had been courting
Stalin to form a pact directed against potential further aggression from
Germany, in particular in preventive defense of Poland. Stalin toyed with them, then let them
drop. Instead -- stunning the
world -- he signed a pact with Hitler. That was the signal for Hitler to
launch his Blitzkrieg. As for
Poland, Stalin and Hitler carved the thing up between them in advance (along
with much else along Spheres-of-Influence lines). Had Stalin not done this, WWII might never have occurred, or
might have been quickly decided quite differently if it had; for Hitler was, tactically, more
cautious (in the early days) than most folks are aware of. (Cf. his gingerly occupation of the
Ruhr, the plebiscites in Sudetenland and the Saar, etc.)
Presumably, those events are among those that are now illegal to criticize.
As for the Komintern … during the Popular Front that
succeeded the Third Period, the various CP’s did form anti-fascist
alliances. But the instant
Stalin inked his Nazi pact, they all turned
on a dime and began denouncing the democracies instead. So much for anti-Nazi steadfastness.
(3) During the
purges that began in earnest in 1937, Stalin choreographed the legal murder of
the flower of the early leading Bolsheviks. In itself, that is not germane to our tale. But he followed it up with the decapitation
of the Soviet officer corps, thus greatly weaking his army on the eve of world
conflict. Worse than imprudent --
reckless.
(4) True,
the Soviet Union did eventually fight the Nazis; and it may well be that the
average Soviet soldier was unusually valorous, I don’t know. But Stalin did not turn against Hitler
until Hitler turned on him -- to
Stalin’s astonishment. Stalin had
even had advance warning of Unternehmen Barbarossa from a well-connected spy in
Tokyo, but discounted the warning:
he just couldn’t believe that his good buddy Adolf would do that.
In short:
When he had a free and unforced choice
whom to ally with, Stalin chose
Hitler. Only when backed
into a corner did he fight back.
So: Not
to be churlish, but to depict the events being commemorated today as a noble “sacrifice”
on the part of the USSR, is to be blinded by the Care Bears version of world
history. Putin has been
working towards reviving the cult of Stalin as part of his pursuit of the “Total
Vertical”. The West should
not be his cheerleader in that plan.
~
As for genuine sacrifice: Britain and France get at least half credit. True, they tried apeasement for several
months; but knowledge of the
futility of this is due to
hindsight. Indeed, if Hitler had
succumbed to one of the various assassination attempts, or had choked on a
grape-pip, history might commend the Munich Pact as having spared the continent
another war. Only after
Hitler invaded Poland -- while still making irenic gestures and cooing noises
towards the West (noises that had become all too familiar, and to which the
West was now immune) -- did France and Britain realize that it was only a
question of sooner or later, and the longer they left it to later, the stronger
Hitler would be when he eventually turned on thém. So, they hadn’t been driven into a corner yet, but they
could foresee the corner: thus, at
that point, declaring war on Germany was a matter of enlightened self-interest,
not sacrifice. Still, the
general public was not widely aware of that, and grumbled at “dying for Poland”. Also, none of the various other
European states and statelets came
to their aid; so, kudos, as far as
it goes.
On the other hand, full marks go to Canada, which got into
the game early, ramping up arms production to (prospectively) support Great
Britain, and punching well above her weight in the war, when it came. This, though Canada hadn’t been
attacked, and was not likely to be.
(The U.S., of course, stayed out of it until Pearl Harbor
forced their hand.)
~
In Washington, the festivities were, by contrast, non-political, and much
lower-key: an Antique Airshow -- A
Good Time Was Had By All.
(In fact, I wasn’t even aware of the Washington celebration, though I
listen to a D.C.-based radio station;
they gave much more coverage to the event in Russia.)
Basically, for better or worse, Americans don’t pay a lot of
attention to world history, and certainly do not ‘get’ the deep psychopolitical
currents that roil the Old Continent. Thus, here an original twist on the commemoration,
from Berlin, at which Americans would merely blink:
Reichsbürger scheitern beim Sturm
auf den Reichstag
Rechtsextreme Demo am Hauptbahnhof
- aggressive Stimmung gegen Journalisten
Der 8. Mai als Tag der Befreiung
vom Hitlerfaschismus ist ein Tag, der an die grausamen Folgen von Nationalismus
und Faschismus erinnern soll. Doch in Berlin nutzen Rechtsextreme, Reichsbürger
und braune Esoteriker das Datum für ihre eigenen Zwecke. Auf zahlreichen
Demonstrationen stellen sie ihr völkisches Weltbild zur Schau - welches sie
selbst als antifaschistisch verbrämen. Unterstützung erhalten die Extremisten
von den Nachtwölfen aus Russland.
 |
| We cum 2 celebrate with U |
~
In eastern Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists put on a demo
similar in sabre-rattling tone, though not in scope, to that of Putin.
In Kiev, no military parade at all: Just a laying of a bouquet at the tomb
of the unknown soldier.
~
Yet another layer beneath these nation-specific
undercurrents, lies another, inchoate, and more obscure, which spans
Europe.
(1) Visible and above the depths of public sentiment, there is one hegemonic ideology
reigning in “Europe” -- “Europe” in the European sense of the ECC: the Eurocrats. These answer to no constituency,
but carry on merrily, demanding this and legislating that. The overall silhouette of their
proposals is to abolish traditional European national cultures, and to let go
even of much (like Christianity, traditional marriage, or masculine valor) that
has long spanned political boundaries,
and allow the European peninsula (for so it suddenly appears, exposed
and frozen, on the map) gradually to melt into the African and Middle-eastern
landmass, without resistance.
(2) In antithesis to this, are worries whether that is such
a good thing. Nervous glances at
what-all is happening throughout Africa and the Middle East, are not
reassuring. Such worries
churn the gut of das Volk, of la France profonde, but are scarcely
permitted to disturb the Narrative in the bien-pensant media. So soon as a Swede, or a German,
gives voice to qualms, he is shushed up and branded a Nazi; and we have already disposed of them.
And this is where Putin comes in: not from stage left (Stalin), but stage right.
[No time to develop this analysis further here; meanwhile, the catchword for this
countercurrent is: Eurosibérie.]
 |
| Putin and his biker buds |
[Update 11 May 2015]
Can’t make this stuff up:
.
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