Stolen Victory

Alexander Zinoviev
November 15, 2004
(Original at http://ru-vklad.kroupnov.ru/archives/2004/11/000075.html )

The Day of Victory of the Soviet Union over Germany in the war of 1941-1945 is officially declared to be the most important national holiday of Russia. At first glance, this should be welcomed. But how is this victory interpreted, and how concretely is this recognition and celebration carried out? For from this war and from our victory the most important things are, as it were, emasculated, namely – their social essence and the concrete facts of our history, which characterize them. Official circles and the mass media speak only about some abstract Russia, and not about Soviet Russia, not about the Soviet Union. And if something is said in this regard, it is spoken of as something minor or even negative. The name of the person without which this victory in the greatest war in history is inconceivable – Stalin’s name – either is not mentioned at all, or is cited as if we won despite him, as though he simply interfered, made mistakes, and committed crimes. They talk as though some abstract people won the victory.

Yes, the people conducted and prevailed in the war. But not just some kind of abstract "people", but the Soviet people. I emphasize: Soviet! The Soviet people – the people that in 1917 carried out the greatest social revolution in history of humanity. The people who became the trailblazers of a new path of social evolution, qualitatively different from all that world history knew before. The people who built a communist social structure that influenced the course of all world history. A people formed and brought up in a communist manner. A people headed by the communist party and the top leadership, with Stalin at its head. These are facts of history. To ignore them is to commit a deliberate historical falsification.

Without doubt, a complex of historical factors played a role in that victory, including the ability of the Russian people to endure the most difficult conditions of life, patriotism, aid from the West, and so on. However the main, decisive factor of victory was the Soviet (communist) social formation and the country’s leadership, including the military leadership, headed by Stalin. Whatever inadequacies they had in reality, and whatever the inadequacies that may be attributed to them by anticommunists and anti-Soviet forces, the war was won first of all by Soviet communists led by Stalin. During the war and in the post-war years even the most ferocious anticommunists and anti-Soviet forces did not dispute this historic fact. It is just as much a historic fact as the fact that the war was lost first of all by the German National Socialists led by Hitler. To ignore or distort this fact signifies a shameless ideological-propagandistic lie, an attempt to make fools of the masses of the Russian population in order to please those categories of Russians who have carried out an anticommunist revolution in our country and profit from it, and to those forces of the West which, immediately after our victory, began a new stage of war against our country — one that received the name "the Cold War ".

And the West generally concedes to our county only a supporting role in the victory over Hitlerite Germany, appropriating to itself almost completely, or at least in the main, the merits of victory. Of course the countries of the West made their contribution to the victory over Germany. By doing so they helped our country withstand and crush the aggressor. But they did not do it out of love for Russian communism. They waged war against our country from first days of its existence as the country that was building communism. They made titanic efforts to incite Hitlerite expansion against the Soviet Union. Historical circumstances, including internal conflicts in the Western world, compelled them to become allies of the Soviet. But the determining factors in their opening of the "second front" against Germany were the victories of the Soviet army, which left no hope in the West for a Soviet defeat. Moreover the fear that the Soviet army, even without the participation of the Western allies, would finish Germany and seize all Western Europe, also played a role. By opening the second front the Allies rescued themselves from the threat of the victory of communism throughout all of Europe. And it must be admitted that such fears had a serious basis in those years. In a word, victory in the greatest war in human history was stolen from those who actually took on themselves all the burdens of war, who suffered the greatest losses, who demonstrated the greatest patience and courage, who contributed to the business of victory the greatest and most flexible intellect.

According to the official Russian concept, the war of 1941-1945 against Germany was emancipatory and patriotic; Russians battled for their fatherland. Agreed. But the question is: for what fatherland did they fight? During the years of the war nobody in the world (with rare exceptions) had any doubt on this account: the overwhelming majority of Soviet people fought for their Soviet – I emphasize: Soviet! – homeland. By the time the war began the Soviet (communist) social formation had become a habitual way of life for the majority of citizens of the Soviet Union. And to separate it from the masses of the population was practically impossible. Whether people liked it or not, all defence by them of self and country meant defence of the new social formation. Russia and communism existed not side by side with each other, but in unity. The overwhelming majority of actively working citizens identified themselves first of all as Soviet people. For them, defeat of communism in Russia was equivalent to a defeat of Russia herself. In the course of the war this consciousness became stronger as one of the fundamental components of practically working mass ideology. Even those who understood the inadequacies of the Soviet social formation and were critical — at times, even hostile — to it, appreciated its achievements and understood that the aggressors threatened the loss of those achievements. So the word "patriotism" here does not adequately reflect the mental attitude of the Soviet people.

Victory of the Stalinist – yes, Stalinist – Soviet Union against Hitlerite – yes, Hitlerite – Germany in 1945 meant the victory of the communist line of human social evolution over capitalist or "Western" line. It sealed the first stage of the epoch-making social(!) war of the West against communism. Immediately after it began the second stage, which is called the Cold War. It ended at the conclusion of the twentieth century with the capitulation of the Soviet Union before the West. In the complex of the factors that have defined this defeat, the main role has been played by the defeat of the Soviet (communist) social formation. The West has taken revenge for its defeat in 1945. The winners in the "cold" war have undertaken a total falsification of Soviet history, having stolen from those who in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 won the greatest victory in the history of "hot" wars.