By Steven Jonas
In Part 1 of this two-part series, after an
introduction about the setting for the October 25 Revolution of 1917 (November
7, 1917 on the "new," Gregorian, Calendar), I noted that for the entire 75
years of its existence, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics faced what can
be called "The 75 Years War Against the Soviet Union." In Part 1, I very briefly reviewed that setting and what has happened to the
development of socialism world-wide in the past 100 years. I also listed many of the major historical
events which, ranging from diplomatic and economic isolation, to a refusal to
join together to confront a common enemy, to continuing decades-long overt and
covert pressure for "regime change" (finally achieved at the end of the War),
to open military attack and engagement, taken together made up the War.
In Part 2, I discuss each one of those events in
a bit of detail. Of course, as I noted,
a full treatment would require much more space than we have on OpEdNews. Indeed, a book could well be written on the
subject. But this can be considered a
start on a subject which has been widely ignored. However, in my view it has to be taken into
account in any accounting of what happened in and to that great
socio-historical experiment known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The Major Elements of the 75 Years War:
1. What has been
called "The Intervention," on the side of the "White Russian" resistance to the Red Revolution,
began almost immediately after its initial success in overthrowing the
Provisional Government. It was an armed
counter-revolution led by the principal capitalist/imperialist power of the
time, Great Britain. Winston Churchill
was a leading promoter of the Intervention.
Among the other nations involved were the United States, Japan, Romania,
China, Greece, Serbia, Italy, and Canada.
2. After the end of the Russian Civil War in
1921 (and the withdrawal from Soviet territory of the Intervening nations), the
Western Powers were slow to recognize the Soviet government. The United States was the last to do so, in 1933.
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3. As the Nazi threats to peace in Europe developed
in the mid-1930s, the Soviet Union offered on a number of occasion to negotiate
an anti-Nazi pact, primarily with the two major Western powers, France and
Great Britain. They consistently
refused. Indeed, in both countries there
was considerable pro-Nazi political sentiment.
4. The "non-intervention" policy of the "Western
Democracies" (including the United States) in the Spanish Civil War made the
continuing anti-Soviet policy clear. One
major factor in these Western powers' refusal even to send arms to the Spanish
Republican government was that the Spanish Communist Party was a significant component
of the governing coalition of the Spanish Republic. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany not only sent
weapons but also fought on the side of the Spanish fascist rebellion. The Soviet Union played a limited role in supplying
arms to the Republic.
5. Then came Munich With Nazi Germany threatening to invade Czechoslovakia the Soviet Union
offered military assistance to the Czechs, as well as the British and the French,
in order to thwart the invasion. In fact,
the Red Force was warming up on airfields just across the Czech border, ready
to fly to the aid of the Czech army. But
for Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain, it was more important
to keep Hitler pointing east, towards the Soviet Union, a declared enemy from
the time of Mein Kampf--- the famous "Drang Nach Osten" --- than it was
to save the Czechs from the Nazis. After
vainly trying, on numerous occasions, to get the British and the French to sign
a joint defense pact against Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union finally gave up. With the signing of the "Nazi-Soviet pact" on
August 25, 1939, they bought time against what they knew was eventually going
to come from the Nazis.
6. The Nazi invasion --- Operation Barbarossa --- was launched on June 22, 1941. It was the only "hot" component of The 75 Years
War.
7. The delay by the
United States and Great Britain in opening of the Second Front in France on
June 6, 1944, was interpreted by some as being content to let the Soviet Union
bleed, especially after it had won what came to be recognized as the turning
point of the Second World War, victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, on February 2, 1943.
In the course of the War, all told, the Soviet Union lost between 25 and
27 million dead, military and civilian. Total
U.S. military casualties in World War II amounted to about 400,000.
Click here for the full article.
Source: OpEdNews.com
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