Yalta at 70 and the end of the Second World War

6079_Smith_W wrote:

They don't say when the Ukrainian terrorist attack is scheduled for. Does that mean I have to sit through the whole thing?

Zakharchenko, the DPR leader, said that he expected such attacks in Donetsk and in the DPR generally. That would be today. Don't forget that Minsk-2 violations are continuing, though badly underreported, and that this area is a war zone in which the bombing of civilians is going on.

The endless attempts by the jackboot NATO regimes, and their captive MSM, to equate the victors of World War II with the Nazi regime is really quite despicable. The regurgitation of these same animal dropping here undoubtedly performs a service to the US Empire and its endless quest for war, death, and extermination of the other.

Contrast this with the remarks of the Russian FM on the end of WW2. Remarkable.

S. Lavrov, Russian FM wrote:

Dear veterans, esteemed colleagues, friends ...

Speaking at a meeting of the Pobeda (Victory) Organising Committee on March 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that May 9 is a day of glory, a day of pride for our people, and a day of the utmost respect for the generation of winners. Our country played a key role in smashing Hitler’s war machine and freeing Europe and the world from the madness of Nazism. It was due to the courage, heroism and self-sacrifice of Soviet soldiers and all the peoples of the former Soviet Union, who bore the brunt of the war, that Europe was able to embark on the path of constructive development and partnership. To us, the Great Victory will forever remain a source of national pride and a foundation for bringing up the new generation in the spirit of patriotism. We are all deeply indebted to the veterans. We bow to you.

We have never divided the Victory into ours and somebody else’s. We have always praised the contribution of our anti-Hitler coalition allies, all those who fought against Nazism shoulder to shoulder in the name of truth and justice. On May 9, many heads of state and government, heads of international organisations and veterans from over 20 countries will be in Red Square. Military units from our partners in the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as India, China, Mongolia and Serbia, will march together with Russian participants in the parade....

Unfortunately, as those events recede further into the past, the effect of the anti-Nazi vaccine, administered by the Nuremberg Trials, is beginning to wear off. Radical nationalist forces are rearing their heads, and Nazi ideas and values are being openly promoted in some countries, including those that claim to be model democracies. The attempts to falsify history, put victims and executioners on the same plane, and glorify the Nazis and their henchmen are outrageous. The aim of these actions – and President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly spoken about this – is obvious: to provoke historical and political phobias and pit entire countries and nations against each other in order to gain one-sided geopolitical advantages and achieve global domination. Russia will continue to stand fast against such attempts, which threaten the stability of the international order and the fundamental principles of democracy and human rights.

Full recognition of the results of World War II, as enshrined in the UN Charter, is imperative for all Member States. We will not allow the heroic deed of the victors over Nazism to be debased or the truth about the Great Patriotic War to be distorted. We will continue to fight racism, xenophobia, aggressive nationalism and chauvinism in all its forms. In December, a resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism, which was initiated by Russia and co-sponsored by a large number of delegations, passed by an overwhelming majority in the UN General Assembly. Today, at the initiative of Russia, our CSTO partners and China, a special session of the General Assembly to commemorate the victims of World War II will open in a few hours in New York.

Today, like never before, it is crucial to remember the lessons of that global catastrophe and the terrible consequences of faith in one’s exceptionalism. Seventy years ago, the members of the anti-Hitler coalition succeeded in rising above their ambitions and disagreements, and joined forces to defeat a common enemy and eradicate a criminal ideology of hate. Today, it is critically important that we work together, if we want to effectively address the many challenges of our time. The fate of the world cannot be determined by a single state or a narrow group of countries. [u]Genuine security can only be equal and undivided, and can only be ensured collectively, as enshrined in the UN Charter.[/u]

70th Anniversary of the Great Patriotic War

Slumberjack wrote:

I believe The Battle of Khalkhin Gol between Japan and the Soviet Union was enough of a deterrent in itself to cause Japan to shift it's war objectives elsewhere.

Soviet scholars in the past claimed that with the defeat of this million man army, Japan was defeated in their strategic rear and thereby defeated generally. Hence the US use of nuclear weapons was completely unnecessary and, thus, constituted an unpunished and horrific war crime.

My understanding is that the final agreement that Japan signed differed little from the agreement they first proposed, well before the nuking of the two Japanese cities. They wanted to retain the Emperor and not have him prosecuted for war crimes, etc. And they got that key demand.

It is one of the points most anti-Soviet commentators are most obstinate on; they deny that the Allies insisted that the Soviets join the war against Japan, trivialize the Soviet contribution in that battle/conflict anyway, laud the slaughter of the thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as necessary and a means of "saving (US) lives", throw in a few racist remarks about the Japanese, and try to depict the Soviet contribution as one of "trying to grab some of the spoils of war" in Japan. And that Stalin was a bad guy who deserved to lose anyway, etc.

The article above underlines the Chinese role here and, as I noted, I think this is a good thing. Imperial Japan, like Italy in Africa, like the Nazi-supported fascists in Spain, contributed to the conflict well before its official beginning in September 1939 with the Nazi invasion of Poland. This is actually an interesting point; how should historians in the future break down this historical period?

However, as I noted above, with the avalanche of scholarship, lots of it US scholarship, refuting these noted anti-Sov fairy tales, such views are becoming the property of a shrinking, Xenophobic minority.

NDPP wrote:

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is Used As A Weapon Against Russia

http://fortruss.blogspot.ca/2015/05/the-molotov-ribbentrop-pact-is-used-...

The number of so-called Non-Aggression Treaties by virtually every single European country with Nazi Germany in the 1930's is quite remarkable, as outlined by that article. This puts the breathtaking hypocrisy of the noisy denunciations of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact into an historical context; but, as we all know, when you wish to declare "an evil empire" or blame equally the Nazis and the Soviets for the start of WW2, then history is forgotten and anything goes.

This all bears a remarkable resemblance to the present; today's Russians are expected to put up with endless NATO expansion, right to their very border, as none of their busines, and, in reply to serious questions about associated ABM systems aimed at their country in the territory of these "new" NATO member states, are told that these deadly systems "aren't aimed at them" but rather aimed at unidentified terrorists, or Iran, or some other fabrication.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The important point is that all of these regimes, virtually without exception, conducted friendly state-to-state relations with the Nazi regime, [in some cases, as with Poland, dividing the spoils of a dismembered CzechSlovakia only to have its own territory overrun] which is in remarkable contrast to the official narrative, which you seem to swallow whole, in which only the Soviets had dealings with the Nazis, or truck or trade with them.

NDPP wrote:

I found the comment by 'Suvorov' below the piece also of interest:...

He documents in detail how the Soviet Union tried in 1939 to forge a military alliance with France and England, which would have included the territorial integrity of Poland, and committed more than twice as many Soviet troops as French and British troops.

The role of the pro-Nazi Polish regime was more significant there. They actually rejected offers by the Soviets to defend Poland against the Nazis, had long dealings with the Hitler regime, ripped part of CzechSlovakia away in 1938 along with their Nazi ally [with the blessings and kisses of England and France] and were rewarded by their leadership fleeing from the country and a Nazi invasion.

Some of these articles show just how complicated the border history in this part of the world really is. Isolating particular snapshots, especially the pathological anti-Soviet ones, for geopolitical advantage, trivializes the history. And with the current Russophobic climate, we're getting plenty of that.

Even while the UK, US and Soviet Union were Allies, the UK PM Churchill was busy hatching plans to re-arm the Nazis and, allied with the remains of the Hitlerite Army, attack and destroy Russia ....

Operation Unthinkable

Quote:

In late May 1945 Josef Stalin ordered Marshall Georgy Zhukov to leave Germany and come to Moscow. He was concerned over the actions of British allies. Stalin said the Soviet forces disarmed Germans and sent them to prisoners’ camps while British did not. Instead they cooperated with Germans troops and let them maintain combat capability.

Stalin believed that there were plans to use them later. He emphasized that it was an outright violation of the inter-governmental agreements that said the forces surrendered were to be immediately disbanded. The Soviet intelligence got the text of secret telegram sent by Winston Churchill to Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, the commander of British forces. It instructed to collect the weapons and keep them in readiness to give back to Germans in case the Soviet offensive continued.

According to the instructions received from Stalin, Zhukov harshly condemned these activities speaking at the Allied Control Council (the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France). He said the world history knew few examples of such treachery and refusal to observe the commitments on the part of nations that had an allied status. Montgomery denied the accusation. A few years later he admitted that he received such an instruction and carried it out. He had to comply with the order as a soldier.

The commemorations around the 70th anniversary of the surrender of militaristic Japan and the defeat of fascism by China were attended by many Asian, Latin American and African countries. The NATO member states - not so much. "Western" leaders essentially shunned the event. Nor did Japan send significant representatives.This, despite the fact that China does not take the Western view of limiting the anti-fascist fight to 1939-1945 only, but includes the many years of Japanese occupation (back to 1933), etc.

This is important; China lost MORE lives, if you take the longer time frame, than the Soviets did. You don't get that fact in Western potted histories. But then, certain people seem to be valued less in the West.

China has noticed the Western shunning. Xi Jinping, on the 70th anniversary of victory over Japanese aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.

"After making a good start, we should ensure that the cause achieves fruition."

Did you get that? I did.

Chinese President delivers Speech

Xi Jinping wrote:

Today is a day that will forever be etched in the memory of people all over the world. Seventy years ago today, the Chinese people, having fought tenaciously for 14 years, won the great victory of their War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, marking the full victory of the World Anti-Fascist War. On that day, the world was once again blessed by the sunshine of peace....

Ladies and gentlemen,

Comrades and friends,

The Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War were a decisive battle between justice and evil, between light and darkness, and between progress and reaction. In that devastating war, the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression started the earliest and lasted the longest. In defiance of aggression, the unyielding Chinese people fought gallantly and finally won total victory against the Japanese militarist aggressors, thus preserving China's 5,000-year-old civilization and upholding the cause of peace of mankind. This remarkable feat made by the Chinese nation was rare in the history of war.

The victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression is the first complete victory won by China in its resistance against foreign aggression in modern times. This great triumph crushed the plot of the Japanese militarists to colonize and enslave China and put an end to China's national humiliation of suffering successive defeats at the hands of foreign aggressors in modern times. This great triumph re-established China as a major country in the world and won the Chinese people respect of all peace-loving people around the world. This great triumph opened up bright prospects for the great renewal of the Chinese nation and set our ancient country on a new journey after gaining rebirth.

During the war, with huge national sacrifice, the Chinese people held ground in the main theater in the East of the World Anti-Fascist War, thus making major contribution to its victory. In their war against Japanese aggression, the Chinese people received extensive support from the international community. The Chinese people will always remember what the people of other countries did for the victory of their War of Resistance.

(unlike some other sons of b****'s ...)

"Ravaging through Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania, that war inflicted over 100 million military and civilian casualties. China suffered over 35 million casualties and the Soviet Union lost more than 27 million lives..."

and so on. Full text.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

, it might be good to mention that the westerner who did the most to save people during the invasion of Nanking was a card-carrying Nazi.

Interesting how you can manage to compliment a Nazi and ignore the Chinese sacrifices  altogether, in response to a contribution noting the spectacular 70th anniversary events in China recently. I guess the Chinese only merit a mention as victims, then?

That's quite skillful in an ugly sort of way. Well done, Smith.