Only a negligible number of people in the USSR took note of the fact that, in September 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Poland in alliance with Nazi Germany, thereby entering World War II as an aggressor. Following the completion of the occupation of Poland, the Nazis held a joint "Victory" parade with the Red Army to mark the transfer of the Polish city of Brest to the USSR.
Following its actions in Poland, the USSR occupied the Baltic States and attacked Finland.
On November 26, 1939, NKVD officers carried out a provocative shelling of Soviet positions near the border settlement of Mainila, close to the Finnish border. Subsequently, the Soviet Union severed diplomatic relations with Finland, and on November 30, the Red Army launched a full-scale invasion of Finnish territory (Putin’s war in Ukraine is a carbon copy—traced line for line—of Stalin’s war against Finland). In that conflict (1939–1940), the USSR suffered senseless losses of approximately 127,000 to 131,000 people killed or missing in action, while more than 260,000 were wounded or fell ill.
Through the press, Soviet authorities forbade any criticism of German fascism, as it bore a striking resemblance to Soviet communism. In June 1941, Hitler decided to turn his weapons against Stalin (launching a "Special Military Operation" against the USSR). And suddenly the Moscow Kremlin performs a historical-propaganda somersault, singling out the German operation against the USSR as a "Patriotic War"—and a "Great" one at that—a move that is hardly surprising, given the entire history of the USSR and Russia. The authorities purged every library in the Soviet Union of newspapers containing articles that praised fascism or prohibited its criticism.
There was no "Great Patriotic War"; what took place was the Second World War. Yet the Soviet people—and the Russian people today—continue to eagerly swallow the Kremlin’s tall tales about the "Great Patriotic War" to this very day. The Kremlin even invented a whole array of medals for this "Great Patriotic War," and continues to hand them out, even though there are almost no living veterans left to receive them.
The Soviet authorities' propaganda regarding the "Second Front" during the Second World War defies all logic. The Kremlin indoctrinated the public into believing that the Western Allies were deliberately dragging their feet on opening a second front in Europe—conveniently forgetting that the Anti-Hitler Coalition was waging war against Germany and Japan across the entire globe and across every ocean—a burden the USSR managed to avoid. The USSR methodically suppressed the fact that the most significant battles of that war took place not only on the European fronts but also in naval engagements across the oceans, as well as in aerial and land battles spanning every continent.
"Russians," however, remain fixated on the very propaganda with which the Soviet authorities had been force-feeding them since childhood. That propaganda remains unchanged even today. One need only recall Dmitry Peskov’s address to students at MGIMO, in which he downplayed the significance of "Lend-Lease" and Western aid during the Second World War, asserting that the USSR would have emerged victorious even without it—despite the fact that, without such assistance, the USSR would have been annihilated as early as 1941. Even Stalin—the Kremlin’s cherished icon—declared at the Tehran Conference in 1943 that, without the aid of the West, victory in that war would have been impossible! The staggering number of casualties suffered by the USSR during the Second World War is interpreted by the authorities as an act of valor. Yet, in reality, this massive loss of life was the consequence of the USSR’s obtuse policies and the imbecilic command structure within the Soviet Army. The authorities also conveniently omit the fact that the "valiant Red Army"—as it swept across Europe—raped women of all ages (particularly in Germany) and plundered the local population. This bears a striking resemblance to the actions being committed by "Russians" in Ukraine today.
The grandiose slogan—"The Soviet people won the Second World War"—is nothing more than an empty, propagandistic illusion. The Soviet people had been held captive by the Soviet regime since 1917. And following the bloody capture of Berlin in 1945—an operation executed with the same incompetence that characterized the Red Army’s command throughout the war—Soviet soldiers, having witnessed and marveled at the high quality of life enjoyed by people in Europe, returned only to find themselves back in their Stalinist captivity.
And what of the indignant condemnation leveled against America for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the very acts that brought the Second World War to a definitive close?
I assure you: had the USSR possessed nuclear weapons at that time, one can only imagine the cataclysmic spectacle the Kremlin would have unleashed upon the world.
Of course, amidst the vast multitudes who fought in the war, there were individuals who dared to speak the truth—both about the conflict itself and about the nature of the Soviet regime. Yet the Kremlin either confined such people to psychiatric wards, expelled them from the country, or cast them into prisons. Today, nothing has changed in Russia. We are witnessing the very same psychopathic and schizophrenic mindset at the highest levels of power. The authorities in this state—the subject of our discussion—view anything intellectual, enlightened, or rational as inherently hostile. This constellation of human qualities stands as an obstacle to their ability to dictate their will to the "slaves"—a category into which they lump the entire population of Russia. And for as long as this state endures—a state whose history now spans well over three hundred years — life within its borders will remain unchanged. Its destruction is a historical necessity.
In place of the destroyed state, the West, the civilized West, will need to build a new state system: sane, civilized, rational... A complete and total lustration of the future government will have to take place at all levels of the new government.
Arthur Ginsburg
FREEDOM OF SPEECH
