Yes, we shall control the past

Some time ago I wrote about the trial of Vladimir Luzgin from Perm who had the unparalleled audacity of writing on a social media outlet that in September 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Poland, admittedly more than two weeks after Germany had done.

Slightly belatedly I have found out that the conviction has been upheld by the Russian Supreme Court.

It is probably no accident that the ‘offending text’ should be Ukrainian, and fairly nationalist, however it was specifically over the following paragraph in the repost that the criminal proceedings against Luzgin were initiated:

The communists and Germany jointly invaded Poland, sparking off the Second World War. That is, communism and Nazism closely collaborated, yet for some reason they blame Bandera who was in a German concentration camp for declaring Ukrainian independence.

Russia’s Supreme Court has now agreed that this paragraph constitutes “the public denial of the Nuremberg Trials and circulation of false information about the activities of the USSR during the years of the Second World War”.

The trial, appeal, the various testimonies and final decision are so bizarre as to defy any kind of sense.

It is hard to know what is most shocking in all of this. A prime contender must be Alexander Vertinsky, dean of the History Faculty of the Perm Humanitarian-Pedagogical University. He proved willing to appear for the prosecution and claim that the paragraph really did contain “statements that do not correspond with the position accepted at international level”.

There are also two Russian courts willing to agree that since the Nuremberg Trials did not mention the Soviet invasion, the information was ‘knowingly false’. With the Soviet Union as one of the victors exerting considerable influence at Nuremberg, it was highly unlikely that Soviet collaboration with the Nazis and its invasion would get a mention.

The rulings are extraordinarily cynical. Whatever was said at Nuremberg, any genuine historian will confirm that the Soviet Union invaded what was then Poland on September 17, 1939.

To deny this is absurd when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols which carved up Poland between the Soviet Union and Germany have long been in the public domain, and can be read about in any history book.

The notion that history is to be written according to what was and what was not said at the Nuremberg Trials that were nothing more than the victorious powers finding a way of dealing with the defeated enemy and an otherwise intractable situation is preposterous. A great deal was not said at those trials.

Nobody talked about the Katyn murders though there had been a Soviet suggestion of introducing those as part of the indictment. The other Allied prosecutors refused to support that, thus proving that they and their government knew at the time who was responsible and the idea was dropped. Nobody was tried for those, not at Nuremberg, not anywhere else. Are we not to mention Katyn in history books?

As I have mentioned before (probably a few times) the Great Patriotic War remains the one great untouchable myth in the Russian psyche and in order to preserve it they would prefer not to know how much of the death and suffering was the outcome of Stalin's policies. Most certainly, there can be no discussion of anything that might throw a negative light at the country or any of the people, either at the top or lower down.

Without acknowledging the truth, which will show the people of the Soviet Union (not just the Russians but many others) to have fought and suffered with great courage as well as having committed various war crimes as a country and as individuals, Russia cannot move forward.

Meanwhile, Luzgin's lawyer, Henry Reznik is promising further appeals, probably to the European Court of Human Rights.

The past has to be controlled as much as the present

No, I still do not think that Putin is another Stalin or Hitler (and for that we may be truly grateful) but some of the ideas are worryingly similar. No, it does not surprise me - no country could have gone through what the various parts of the Soviet Union did for seventy years and emerge with sanity intact. Nor was there enough time to recover in Russia before Putin's rise to the top.

We have news of another trial of someone posting inconvenient truths on social media. This one is a little unusual.

Vladimir Luzgin, a 37-year-old man from the Siberian city of Perm, was prosecuted, convicted, and fined 200,000 rubles ($3,100) for posting an article on social media containing the well-known historical fact that the Soviet Union in collaboration with Nazi Germany invaded and partitioned Poland in 1939.

It is no longer the present that matters but the past as well - the factual truth cannot be told about either.

The Great Patriotic War remains the one sacred untouchable in Russia and the truth about Stalin's role in the high casualty rate, the Nazi-Soviet Pact or what happened in the reconquered Soviet territories and the conquered East European ones in 1944 - 45 cannot be told. Curiously, there is a kind of an ambivalence about attitudes. When there is talk about Soviet crimes, Russians rightly point out that they were not the only ones doing them - the other nationalities were involved as well. All were victims and executioners. But when it comes to the Great Patriotic War, only Russians appear to have fought and suffered. The ease with which Ukrainians, literally Russians' brothers and people who fought and suffered much in the war, could be described as fascists, carrying out fascist policies as laid down by the German invaders all those decades ago, did quite genuinely shocked me. I thought the Russian people will not accept Ukrainians as the enemy. Many did not but far too many did.

A fascinating article by Ksenia Polouektova-Krimer on Open Democracy describes the constant frenzy about the Great Patriotic War and how it is whipped up by the government for its own purposes.

Seventy years ago

Seventy years ago the first atom bomb to be used in war was dropped on the  city of Hiroshima, the second one, on Nagasaki to follow two three days later. It undoubtedly ushered in a new world politically and militarily and has remained in many people's minds the pre-eminent example of a war crime. In fact, the casualties incurred by the firebombing of Tokyo were higher and when it came to war crimes, there were many competitors for the title of the worst.

The decision to drop the two atom bombs was taken by President Harry S Truman because he  considered, probably rightly, that the this was the only way to bring the war in the Pacific to an end speedily without further very high American and Japanese casualties. That alternative would have probably meant many more British, Australian, Indian and other casualties.

This is what we really celebrate today

Seventy years ago today (just):

Anniversaries

Before the witching hour strikes I must recall two important events that happened on July 20, one tragic and one very exciting.

Seventy years ago, July 20, 1944 saw the unsuccessful attempt put together by a number of German officers, led by Claus von Stauffenberg to assassinate Hitler and bring the war to an end through negotiations. Whether that would have worked is questionable. Stalin wanted a complete defeat and the Westeren Allies tended to agree with his ideas. But, perhaps, it would have done.

The plot failed and most of the conspirators paid a horrible price. They are now heroes in Germany, which is right and proper and von Stauffenberg's son, Franz-Ludwig Gustav Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, has shown himself to be very sound on the subject of Communists and on some aspects of Germany's membership of the European Union. He, of course, can say that sort of thing.

Forty-five years ago, July 20, 1969 saw the landing Apollo 11 on the moon and a few hours later the first steps taken on it by Neil Armstrong. It was one of those events that all of us around and sentient at the time can remember in detail. And no, I don't want to hear from the conspiracy mongers.

Well, dash it all, I missed the witching hour, after all.

Seventy Years Ago

"Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. "Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened, he will fight savagely.

"But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man to man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to victory!

"I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!

"Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking."

— Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 6 June 1944.

This might sound familiar

I have been re-reading Harold Nicolson's Diaries and Letters and have now reached the third volume, which starts in July 1945 when he lost his parliamentary seat and returned to literary activity as well as the odd lecture here and there.

This is what his son and editor of the three volumes, Nigel Nicolson wrote:

On 25th October [1945] Harold Nicolson flew to Greece to give two lectures in Athens, one on Byron, the other on British democracy. His visit coincided with a new crisis in Greek politics. Greece had had no government since the resignation of Admiral Voulgaris earlier that month, and the Regent, Archbishop Damaskinos, was searching for a new leader to stabilize the country politically and economically. 

 On October 31 Harold Nicolson went to see the Regent.

I find the Regent sitting enormous with his back to the window. We have coffee and cigarettes. After compliments of the highest order the Regent tells me that the Royalists and the Liberals are meeting this afternoon to agree on a joint programme. I ask who would be Prime Minister in such a fusion. He says it would probably be 'a neutral'.I say it would have to be a pretty strong neutral. The Regent says the parties would be so evenly balanced that great strength would not be required. I say the economic situation is far more urgent than the political situation. He makes a helpless gesture indicating 'What would you?'.

On returning to London Nicolson spoke to Hector McNeil, who was then Parliamentary Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. This is his entry of November 6:

I go to see Hector McNeil at the Foreign Office. He is being sent out to Athens to examine the situation and to 'assist Greece in her efforts for reconstruction'. I tell him that the economic situation comes before anything else, and that to my mind no existing Greek politician or group of politicians have the guts or the repute to apply to the situation the drastic remedies which it needs. The only thing to do is to choose the best Government, and then to assist it by appointing British advisers to the Ministries of Finance and Supply.

Some things have changed. Britain, clearly, is no longer in a position to help or advise the Greeks in their choice of government but the EU has tried to do it on our behalf. The Communist party is no longer as strong as it used to be and not as heavily armed. For the following year, 1946, civil war broke out in Greece in real earnest.

Bravery recognized

On the whole I am not in favour of the gradual memorialization of just about everybody who took part in the Second World War. Time was the cenotaph or local war memorials sufficed for us all to remember those who fought in various wars. With the growth of what one might term the World War Two Heritage Industry, the memorials have multiplied with the latest and most hideous one going up in Green Park recently. The Bomber Command Memorial can best be described as Albert Speer's revenge.

One cannot even say that the feverish memorialization or the endless books published in the last few years have resulted in a better understanding of the war. Rather they have contributed to the entrenchment of mythology and all attempts to overcome it have been met with anger and hostility, as the Boss of EUReferendum found when he published The Many Not The Few.

However, this does not apply to the question of medals and other acknowledgement of people's bravery and achievement. Whatever one may feel about endless decorations personally, one cannot deny that the existing members of Bomber Command and of the Arctic Convoys (a messy and convoluted story) deserve honour and recognition.

So, it is good to know that the PM has accepted the recommendation that all protocol should be set aside and new medals be struck to commemorate what has been described as "the worst journey in the world", that is the Arctic Convoys who took much needed supplies to the Soviet Union (and were not exactly thanked by this country's ally at the time).

Surviving members of Bomber Command, who have not been treated equally with those of Fighter Command, will be awarded a "clasp".

And additional reason for rejoicing is that this takes the wind out of the campaign to allow members of the Arctic Convoys to be awarded (somewhat belatedly, despite the crocodile tears shed by Russian officials and their supporters here) the Ushakov Medal. Just imagine how President Putin would have milked that for publicity and bitter attacks on Britain.

Hammer and Sickle or the Swastika?

I was not going to write about Eric Hobsbawm again for some time and, in fact, this piece is not about him. I was sent a link to Peter Hitchens's column on the subject in which he quite correctly notes that young people will cheerfully wear a hammer and sickle badge (or a Che Guevara t-shirt) and not understand the question when asked whether they would wear a swastika. In fact, I was amazed at the number of people who pointed out quite seriously during the vehement discussions in the wake of Hobsbawm's death that there is a huge difference between supporting murderous Communist dictators and murderous fascist/Nazi ones as the former were motivated by a sense of decency and a desire for a better and more free world. I asked some of them whether the deliberate starvation of 13 million peasants, men, women and children, was a sign of decency. It is always fun to watch people like that squirm.

Mr Hitchens's piece does bring out a couple of other points. In the first place, he mentions one of the best books on the subject, Under Two Dictators by Margarete Buber Neumann, about which I have written before. (I still think everyone should read it.) Hitchens describes well the handing over of German Communists (those that had survived) to Hitler in 1939 but does not mention the real irony of the situation.

Not all of them were sent to camps by the Gestapo. The Jews were, as one would expect but the others, with a couple of exceptions, to their surprise were packed off home and told to report to the local police regularly. Margarte Buber Neumann was one of those who was sent to Ravensbrück and she did, indeed, have a bad time there from the Communist inmates as much as the guards because she tried to tell the truth about the Soviet Union.

The reason for her being separated from the others was that the Gestapo did not believe her protestations that she thought Heinz Neumann had been murdered (pace Peter Hitchens, she did know or, at least, heard reliable rumours from other prisoners). The Gestapo simply would not believe that Stalin would have somebody who was not just a Communist (they knew what was happening to them) but a complete Stalinist who was prepared to turn on his own colleagues at the slightest word from the Great Leader. Yet it was true.

The other amusing part of the article is the description of the way the Daily Worker twisted and turned in 1939 and 1940 when, in the wake of  the Nazi-Soviet Pact and the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland, they were on the other side of the battle. Let us not forget that while Britain did not stand alone during the Battle of Britain (there was the small matter of the Empire and the Dominions as well as individuals who had escaped from occupied countries to join the battle and other individuals who had come from supposedly neutral ones like Ireland and the United States) it most certainly did not have the Soviet Union on her side. Au contraire. Germany could not have fought in those months in the air or on sea without Soviet help. And a lot of thanks Stalin got for his assistance. About as much, in fact, as he gave to his most loyal servants.

Sayers being prescient

This is a slightly odd posting for me, firstly because I rarely use this blog for writing about a book I happen to be reading (though I seem to have ranted about modern detective stories and a history of cookery books before) and, secondly, because I may seem to be trespassing on the territory so ably occupied by the Boss of EURef, the early days of World War II.

The book I am reading is David Coomes's Dorothy L. Sayers - A Careless Rage for Life. Unusually, Mr Coomes spends considerably less time on the detective stories than on Sayers's religious writings (he is the erstwhile Head of Religion at the BBC), plays and, less happily, on attempts to get at the person beneath the carapace she had built for herself. The book is outstandingly good in that it quotes Sayers herself, her less well known essays, articles and many letters extensively. Whatever one thinks of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, there is no question, that Sayers was a superb writer. Her prose sparkles, whatever the theme.

Sayers more or less stopped writing about Wimsey in 1937, putting aside around 170 pages of a planned novel, Thrones, Dominations, completed much later by another detective story writer, Jill Paton Walsh. There are many possible explanations as to why Sayers decided not to carry on with the book and the most likely one is that she really did lose interest in the Wimsey saga and gained interest in many other things, not least the theatre and playwriting in general.

However, in the autumn of 1939 the Spectator decided that it might be a good idea to revive Lord and Lady Peter Wimsey as well as a number of other characters in order that they should discuss the war and provide some well-written patriotic propaganda. A number of Letters to and fro the various people appeared through late 1939 and early 1940 after which the scheme was abandoned. Jill Paton Walsh put the published Letters to good use as a starting point to her second novel about the Wimseys, Bunter and others, A Presumption of Death. There has, since been a third novel, The Attenbury Emeralds and I do hope that there will be no more. I fear my hopes will not be realized. (I did write about the three novels on another forum for those who might be interested.)

There is one particular passage in the Letters that is surely of interest to all of us, those who are interested in Sayers as she expressed very strong convictions and those who are interested in the way this country developed during and after the war. David Coomes, who quotes it is unhappy with the sentiments and thinks Sayers shows herself to be merely tetchy because of private problems. As an ex-BBC man he, presumably, finds those sentiments deeply unpalatable.

Lord Peter, somewhere in Europe on an unspecified mission is writing to his wife, Harriet.

You are a writer - there is something you must tell the people, but it is difficult to express. You must find the words. Tell them, this is a battle of a new kind, and it is they who have to fight it, and they must do it themselves and alone. They must not continually ask for leadership - they must lead themselves. This is a war against submission to leadership, and we might easily win it in the field and yet lose it in our own country ...

It's not enough to rouse up the Government to do this and that. You must rouse the people. You must make them understand that their salvation is in themselves and in each separate man and woman among them. If it's only a local committee or amateur theatricals or the avoiding being run over in the black-out, the important thing is each man's personal responsibility. They must not look to the State for guidance - they must learn to guide the State. Somehow you must contrive to tell them this. It is the only thing that matters. 

I think we can safely say that the battle was lost in this country and not just on the left or among professed admirers of the state. The fact that so many supposed opponents of that, so many supposed eurosceptics, so many supposedly on the side of freedom can still solemnly call for a leader to take them out of the wilderness would have horrified Miss Sayers.

Something to make you smile

The story of Wojtek the bear.

Seventy years ago

USS Arizona burning after the attack by the Japanese Air Force on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941

VE Day

I am afraid the Daily Mail was inaccurate as ever. It was not "all over" as fighting in the Pacific went on till August. But the collapse of Nazi Germany was something to celebrate.

This is timely

The Russian Duma has passed a resolution that condemned Stalin and Soviet officials for the murder of Polish officers at Katyn and two other camps. About time, too. Needless to say, the Communist Party argued vehemently against the resolution but was outvoted. Of course, this is not a completely new move. The Russian government acknowledged the crime in 1992 but since then several newspapers close to successive governments revived the old story of the Germans being responsible.
Earlier this year a few key documents to do with Stalin's and Beria's guilt were published on the internet.

Nobody has ever been convicted over the massacre, with Russian prosecutors arguing that those responsible are now dead.

A Russian judicial investigation in 2005 only confirmed the execution of 1,803 victims, while the actual number of Polish prisoners killed at Katyn and other Soviet sites is generally held to be about 22,000, including about 8,000 military officers.

The Duma declaration called for the massacre to be investigated further in order to confirm the list of victims.

The Duma also argued that Katyn was a tragedy for Russia too as thousands of Soviet citizens were executed and buried in ditches there in the years 1936-38, the period of Soviet history known as the Terror.

Which is undoubtedly true. Indeed, it is part of the evidence that the Polish officers were executed in exactly the same way as their "predecessors" in the mass graves.

This will undoubtedly make President Medvedev's forthcoming visit to Poland a happier occasion.

The Wall Street Journal, in its article on the subject, adds an interesting and very moving tale.

Other than WikiLeaks, two notable events occurred over the weekend: Russia's parliament issued a resolution taking responsibility for Stalin's murder of 22,000 Polish officers in Katyn forest in 1940, and Dave Brubeck celebrated his 90th birthday in a set at the Blue Note jazz club in New York City. Permit us to connect the dots of history.

....

Toward the end of a long and very fine set Saturday evening at the Blue Note with his quartet, Mr. Brubeck, who turns 90 next week, took hold of the microphone aside his piano and began to talk about a remembrance of Poland. He said that President Eisenhower had sent the Dave Brubeck Quartet to Poland in 1958 to perform as representatives of the American people. Earlier in his career, Mr. Brubeck had represented the American people as a member of Patton's Third Army in Europe.

After a visit to Chopin's home and being surrounded by "all these pianos," Mr. Brubeck composed a Chopinesque jazz piece with the Polish name "Dziekuje." Mr. Brubeck asked if anyone in the Blue Note audience knew what "dzieuke" means. "It means 'thank you,'" a lady called out.

"That's right," said Mr. Brubeck. "It means thank you. And I want to play this piece as thanks to the people of Poland for resisting Soviet Communism."

One of the many things Hitler and Stalin had in common was their dislike for and distrust of jazz.

A small contribution

On Friday, October 29 I was due to attend and, indeed, report from a very solemn ceremony in Great Missenden: an ecumenical Mass of Reparation for the thousands of victims who are rarely remembered. These are people of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and other parts of former Yugoslavia who were handed over by the British authorities to the Communists and were almost immediately murdered. Indeed, some stories tell of the British actually seeing and hearing train-loads of people being set down and mowed down just a couple of miles away from where the handing over had taken place.

It is incomprehensible to me why those shameful episodes should not be acknowledged (along with such matters as the prolonged silence on what really happened at Katyn). One needs no apologies. After all, we cannot apologize for what we had not done and were not responsible for. But acknowledgement is reparation. The Great Missenden Mass, which I missed for a very simple reason, a very bad cold meant that I could do nothing but sleep all day, is a start of that process. It is time the truth was told.

In the absence of any account I could have written here are a couple of links. One is an excellent article by former Ambassador to various East European and Balkan countries, Charles Crawford, published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The other by Edward Lucas (at least, I assume that is who E. L. is) in the Economist. Do try to read them both and ignore the stupid comments on both, made by people who have as much knowledge of history as I of nuclear physics. Perhaps, even less.

Well, well, well

Not only is it being officially acknowledged that the mass execution of Polish officers and civilians in Katyn and other places was actually done by the Soviet Union (more of that anon) but it seems that certain FSB documents indicate that Raoul Wallenberg may have been alive after his supposed execution for crimes unspecified.

This is not actually quite as suprising as Bruno Waterfield seems to think but then he, apparently, believes that the Wallenberg was arrested by the Soviets because of his supposed involvement with the American wartime secret service. I am not at all sure it has been acknowledged by anybody and the evidence for it is dubious to put it mildly. Could the arrest have had something to do with the fact that it was now the turn of the Soviets to commit atrocities in Hungary (and other countries) and they did not want an honourable witness whose word would be believed around? Just a suggestion.

A strange but welcome development

According to the BBC President Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has invited Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to the seventieth commemoration of Katyn in April. Putin has been known to dodge hither and thither in the minefield of Soviet history and this development is a peculiar one, given how much emphasis has been placed recently on the whiter than white record of the Soviet Union and the Red Army in the Second World War. The mass murder of Polish officers in Katyn and other places and the deportation of civilians, many to their death, did not actually involve the army but the NKVD in the ranks of whose successors, the KGB and the FSB Vladimir Putin served.

According to RFE/RL President Kaczynski plans to attend the ceremony as well, though he has not, as yet, been invited by his counterpart, President Medvedev. What will Putin's teddy bear do about it all? Is he being outflanked on the subject of criticism of Soviet crimes?

The Second World War begins

There is a very reasonable school of historical thought, which says that the two world wars as well as the various outbursts of unpleasantness of varying magnitude and violence in between constitute, in reality, one war, a second Thirty Years’ War that took place world-wide.

After all, runs the argument, neither the Hundred Years’ War nor the Thirty Years’ War in the seventeenth century involved constant fighting for all the 114 and 30 years in question; there were periods of relative peace; there were fighting sides dropping out or changing allegiance; there were localized wars that can be described as civil wars.

There is, in my opinion, a good deal to be said for that theory and it may well be that historians of the future will not be blinded by our obsessions. However, the period of vicious fighting and civilian destruction we call World War II needs to be examined and remembered separately. We are too close to it to be able to see it as part of any wider picture.

September 1, 1939, seventy years ago, the war started officially with the German invasion of Poland. Parliament hastily passed the National Service Bill and on September 3, 1939 Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany. Canada, whose contribution was as great as that of the other Dominions and of the Empire, declared war on September 10. Let us never forget that when Britain was supposedly standing alone, it had the support of the Empire and of the Dominions. The Indian Army alone increased to 2.5 million during the war and they were all volunteers. 30 Victoria Crosses were won by Indian soldiers.

But I digress. There will be many seventieth anniversaries in the next few months and years. Let us look at the beginning. Let us note that there is at least one country that is once again refusing even to look at what happened in that fateful year.

Yesterday’s Guardian carried a piece by Luke Harding that discussed the reasonably well known news item of President Medvedev announcing that neither the Soviet Union nor Stalin were responsible for the outbreak of the Second World War and to suggest otherwise would be to deny the Soviet achievements in liberating Europe that have somehow become Russian achievements.

At this point it is worth having a look at the curious way in which Putin’s and Medvedev’s Russia has become the descendants of the Soviet Union, according to official propaganda analysis.

The Soviet Union was more than just a multinational state in which several members felt that they were being oppressed. Various members of those nationalities became part of the Soviet elite or just of the Soviet experiment and it is fair to say that many of the horrors were Soviet in nature, put into place by people of differing nationalities.

On the other hand, the same is true for the courage displayed by the Soviet army and for the suffering experienced by that army and the people of the country. Much of that suffering was imposed by Stalin’s government; much of the courage was displayed despite Stalin’s leadership.

Then, of course there are various problems: the behaviour of the Red Army and of the GRU and NKVD that followed it in the “liberated” parts of the Soviet Union itself and in other countries; the fate of many returning Soviet soldiers, particularly the Chechens, Tatars and Ingushi but others, too; the fate of returning POWS, often handed back by the Western allies despite their clear reluctance to go home. It is a dizzyingly complicated pattern and countries that were involved do not necessarily draw rational conclusions. Least of all, I am sorry to say, Russia or, at least, its leadership that is intent on whipping up fear and loathing towards all western countries among the Russian people. Sometimes I think they are succeeding, sometimes I am not so sure. The Russians are well experienced in double-think.

To sum up briefly, the official Russian view is that the bad aspects of the Soviet Union – mass murder, labour camps, torture chambers, destruction of the economy, invasion of other countries – probably did not happen but if they did, they were most definitely not Russia’s fault, because it was all done by the Soviet Union and many non-Russians were involved. Very true. I frequently make that point myself to people who ignorantly substitute Russia for the USSR.

However, runs the version, even if some of those accusations are true and even if there were many non-Russians involved in the horrors, it is wrong for anybody else to mention them because that casts aspersions on the heroism of the Russian army that liberated Europe or some part of it, anyway.

This rather odd collection of attitudes prevents any kind of understanding of the Second World War (the Great Patriotic War, as it is known in Russia, and it did not begin till 1941 so what is everybody going on about) in the country. It also lies behind President Medvedev’s odd comments.

Stalin, he maintained, had no choice but to sign the Nazi-Soviet Pact or, at any rate, instruct Molotov to do so. The West had let him down; the West had let everyone down; Poland was the Nazis’ ally in dismembering Czechoslovakia, so what are they complaining about.

This conveniently ignores that the Nazi-Soviet Pact had those pesky secret protocols that divided Eastern Europe between the two giants, the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, the treatment of Polish and Baltic civilians by the Soviet authorities and the help the USSR gave Germany right up to June 22, 1941. Without that help it is unlikely that Germany could have fought the Battle of Britain or harassed British shipping to the extent it did.

In fact, if we consider World War II a separate event from all the other bits and pieces that had been going on in Europe and the rest of the world since 1918, the start of it was on August 23, 1939, when Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov signed a pact that guaranteed Hitler’s rear and divided up the countries between the two totalitarians.

The rest followed from that inexorably.

UPDATE: Der Spiegel gives an account of the commemoration of the beginning of World War II in Gdansk, adding quotes from other newspapers. Chancellor Merkel spoke well and movingly; President Kaczynski wanted more from the Russians and President Prime Minister Putin did not actually say that it was all Poland's fault. He did not actually acknowledge Soviet involvement either but the German newspapers seem quite happy with the fact that he did not deny it in so many words.

Ashes and sackcloth

The seventieth anniversary of the start of World War II will have many dates to remember. The biggest of all, though, was yesterday: the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact by the two Foreign Ministers, Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop. This act was the real start of the war and I ought to have noted it.

Two excuses: the Pact was actually dated the 24th so today will do (sort of); and it needs a long piece that will involve a discussion of matters in and around the EU. Therefore, I have decided to put up a small notice now with a contemporary cartoon and shall write about the whole episode, its significance and the shadow it casts on politics, now later on.

Sixty-five years ago

Warsaw, August 1, 1944

Start of the ill-fated Warsaw Uprising