Countering Russiagate propaganda: How the ''evil Russian Empire'' defeated the Nazis and won World War Two
It is 75 years since the Battle of Stalingrad ended and therefore quite timely to remind the public that Russia is not the source of all evil in our world. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Russian people for their huge sacrifices that brought about the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two. Winston Churchill, a fervent Russophobe, admitted in the House of Commons in 1944 that, ''...it is the Russian Armies who have done the main work in tearing the guts out of the German army.''
Churchill's rather surprising admission is confirmed by the research of acclaimed British historian Richard Overy. In 1998 Overy published a book called Russia's War which provides a fascinating account of the Russian-German conflict during World War Two. His book reveals in great detail how the Soviet Union (Russia) was able to defeat the German Wehrmacht which in 1941, had the best trained and most well equipped troops in the world as well as the vast resources of a subjugated Europe at its disposal.
Overy starts with a brief description of the development of the Soviet Red Army from the October Revolution of 1917 up to the highly damaging purges of the late 1930s. The Stalinist purges destroyed the Red Army leadership which was decimated by a wave of arrests and executions , which greatly weakened its effectiveness as a fighting force. This occurred at a time when German fascism was preparing for a full-scale invasion of the Soviet Union.
The author describes in a dramatic manner the disasters which befell the Red Army during the year that followed the German invasion of 1941, when it lost over 6million soldiers to the Nazi onslaught. As Overy reveals, the Red Army defeats of this period, that brought the Wehrmacht to the gates of Moscow, can be largely put down to the incompetent leadership of Stalin, whose interference in the work of the Red Army commanders served to turn Russian retreats into full-scale military disasters. Overy also gives credit to the tactical brilliance of German military commanders, whose rapid mastery of rapid mechanised warfare was unsurpassed at that time.
During the winter of 1941-42, when the Wehrmacht was laying siege to both Moscow and Leningrad, the Soviet Union appeared close to defeat. Yet by the spring of 1943, the balance of forces on the Eastern Front had been transformed decisively in favour of the Red Army. Overy puts this down to two interlinked processes.
The Russian economy was completely reorganised during the winter of 1941-42 as German troops pressed over 500 miles into Soviet territory. Thousands of factories were dismantled and moved to the Urals and Western Siberia. The entire population was mobilised on a vast scale into war production and the armed forces, which were made up of the Red Army and the partisan units operating behind German lines.
Overy pays tribute here to the critical role played by the state owned planned economy in the success of the Soviet armed forces. Despite the loss of most of its highly industrialised western regions, the Soviet planned economy displayed a great flexibility and organisational power that enabled it to out produce the vast German economy. By 1943 the Soviet Union was out-producing Germany in the critical area of aircraft, tank, and artillery production.
The other factor, following the massive defeats of 1941-42, was that the Stalinist bureaucracy which governed the Soviet Union was forced to ease its iron grip on Russian society. As Overy notes: 'The emergency freed many Soviet officials, managers and soldiers from an atmosphere of passivity and fear of responsibility'. On both the military and home fronts, this led to a period of 'spontaneous de-Stalinisation', which unleashed the long suppressed initiative and creativity of the Soviet people at all levels, ranging from Red Army generals down to factory workers. This led to a great improvement in the morale and efficiency of the armed forces and the military economy, which were temporarily freed from the dead weight of bureaucratic control.
As Overy points out, despite the significance of the Anglo-American role on the Western Front, it was events on the Eastern Front which broke the back of the German war machine. Over 80% of German battle casualties were on the Eastern Front where the overwhelming weight of the Wehrmacht was concentrated. The Soviet Union 'had to win its war'. The German leaders never expected the Soviet Union to recover its economic and military strength following the devastating losses of 1941-1942.
Russia's War looks at the course of the Eastern Front from the point of view of the Red Army troops and ordinary Russian peasants and workers. It also notes the high price which the Soviet people paid for the heroic role they played in the defeat of fascist barbarism. Recent estimates by Russian scholars put Soviet war dead at over 25 million.
The American media is currently churning out a tidal wave of anti-Russian propaganda with its hysterical claims that Russia meddled in the 2016 Presidential election. In the current Orwellian climate truth is being stood upon its head as Russia is being blamed for everything from meddling in elections across the Western world to supporting Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan.
Overy's book counters this wave of cold war 2.0 propaganda. It provides us with a timely reminder that Russia has played a progressive role in our world and that we owe an eternal debt of thanks to the Russian people for their heroic sacrifices during World War Two. During the struggle against fascism ordinary people both East and West realized their common interests in a struggle against a deadly enemy. Those putting out Russophobic propaganda seek to demonise Russia as a distraction from the real problems that ordinary people face such as cuts to NHS services, poverty, low pay and the destruction of the environment.