- 19 Apr 2018 06:30
#14907517
Attempts to rewrite WWII history started at the very beginning of the war, Canadian academic Michael Jabara Carley in an interview. The US and EU are manipulating facts to silence the role of the USSR in defeating Nazi Germany. Despite these actions, Moscow continues its efforts to build bridges with the West, as it did in the 1930s.
The genuine history of World War II has fallen prey to numerous falsifications aimed at downplaying and erasing the predominate role of the Red Army in destroying Nazi Germany from people's memories, Michael Jabara Carley, a professor of history at the Université de Montréal and the author of "Silent Conflict: A Hidden History of Early Soviet-Western Relations," said.
Commenting on the 79th anniversary of the Munich Agreement concluded by Nazi Germany, the UK, France and Italy on the de facto dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in September 1938, the professor noted that the treaty had become the final blow to the Soviet-led attempts to create a European defensive alliance against Adolf Hitler.
The occupation of Czechoslovakia and invasion of Poland in September 1939 by Nazi Germany clearly indicated that the policy of "appeasement" adopted by European countries had failed.
Thus, in late 1939 and early 1940 the British Foreign Office contemplated a "white paper" or "blue book" on Western-Soviet communications, which presented "a highly selective collection of diplomatic papers and other documents" to show "that the blame for failure of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations [on 'collective defense'] in 1939 lay in Moscow and not in London and Paris," Carley pointed out.
According to the Canadian academic, this compilation marked the beginning of the outright falsification of the origins of World War II.
After the beginning of the Cold War the West's attempts to rewrite historygot a second wind: "For otherwise how could one justify postwar hostility to the Soviet Union?" the academic asked rhetorically. "You could not after all have a Cold War against the valiant Soviet men and women who defeated the Nazi Wehrmacht."
Therefore "the remarkable soldiers of the Red Army had to be transformed into rapists, thugs and killers." Still it was not an easy task as at that time "British and American public opinion knew very well who was carrying the greatest burden of war against the Nazi Wehrmacht," the academic noted.
"In 1948, the US State Department produced a collection of papers attempting to show that the Soviet Union played a large role in setting off World War II," Carley continued. "Ever since that time the United States and its European 'vassals'… have sought to render [Joseph] Stalin ever present in the origins of World War II and the Red Army, invisible in the conduct of that war."
As for the US, it tries to capitalize on the World War II victory, presenting itself as a "liberator" and the winner in the war: It "cannot acknowledge the role of the Soviet Union in attempting to organize collective security in the 1930s, or the Red Army's role in the crushing of Nazism because it would undermine American mythology about the Cold War."
"Genuine history would challenge American assumptions about the US having 'won World War II' and about being the exceptional nation, 'that shining city on the hill' which leads 'the free world,'" Carley said, stressing that "present day western hostility toward the Russian Federation and its president are fed by this bogus American and European 'history'."
The professor pointed out that "the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have taken a lead role in promoting this 'history,'" which resembles nothing but "really crude anti-Russian propaganda."
It is no coincidence that the OSCE proclaimed August 23 (the date of the conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact in 1939) to be a day of commemoration for the victims of "Stalinism and Nazism," at the same time remaining mute about the implications of the Munich "betrayal" of 1938 and the part the USSR played in eradicating Nazism in Europe.
Carley believes that in some sense Russia's present day foreign policy resembles that of the USSR in the 1930s: Despite the NATO expansion and all-out anti-Russian propaganda in the US and the EU, Moscow still make efforts to build bridges with the Americans and Europeans.
"The failure to join together in the 1930s caused a tremendous human tragedy," Carley said. "Let us hope that the present day impasse in Western-Russian relations does not cause another such tragedy in the future."
The genuine history of World War II has fallen prey to numerous falsifications aimed at downplaying and erasing the predominate role of the Red Army in destroying Nazi Germany from people's memories, Michael Jabara Carley, a professor of history at the Université de Montréal and the author of "Silent Conflict: A Hidden History of Early Soviet-Western Relations," said.
Commenting on the 79th anniversary of the Munich Agreement concluded by Nazi Germany, the UK, France and Italy on the de facto dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in September 1938, the professor noted that the treaty had become the final blow to the Soviet-led attempts to create a European defensive alliance against Adolf Hitler.
The occupation of Czechoslovakia and invasion of Poland in September 1939 by Nazi Germany clearly indicated that the policy of "appeasement" adopted by European countries had failed.
Thus, in late 1939 and early 1940 the British Foreign Office contemplated a "white paper" or "blue book" on Western-Soviet communications, which presented "a highly selective collection of diplomatic papers and other documents" to show "that the blame for failure of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations [on 'collective defense'] in 1939 lay in Moscow and not in London and Paris," Carley pointed out.
According to the Canadian academic, this compilation marked the beginning of the outright falsification of the origins of World War II.
After the beginning of the Cold War the West's attempts to rewrite historygot a second wind: "For otherwise how could one justify postwar hostility to the Soviet Union?" the academic asked rhetorically. "You could not after all have a Cold War against the valiant Soviet men and women who defeated the Nazi Wehrmacht."
Therefore "the remarkable soldiers of the Red Army had to be transformed into rapists, thugs and killers." Still it was not an easy task as at that time "British and American public opinion knew very well who was carrying the greatest burden of war against the Nazi Wehrmacht," the academic noted.
"In 1948, the US State Department produced a collection of papers attempting to show that the Soviet Union played a large role in setting off World War II," Carley continued. "Ever since that time the United States and its European 'vassals'… have sought to render [Joseph] Stalin ever present in the origins of World War II and the Red Army, invisible in the conduct of that war."
As for the US, it tries to capitalize on the World War II victory, presenting itself as a "liberator" and the winner in the war: It "cannot acknowledge the role of the Soviet Union in attempting to organize collective security in the 1930s, or the Red Army's role in the crushing of Nazism because it would undermine American mythology about the Cold War."
"Genuine history would challenge American assumptions about the US having 'won World War II' and about being the exceptional nation, 'that shining city on the hill' which leads 'the free world,'" Carley said, stressing that "present day western hostility toward the Russian Federation and its president are fed by this bogus American and European 'history'."
The professor pointed out that "the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have taken a lead role in promoting this 'history,'" which resembles nothing but "really crude anti-Russian propaganda."
It is no coincidence that the OSCE proclaimed August 23 (the date of the conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact in 1939) to be a day of commemoration for the victims of "Stalinism and Nazism," at the same time remaining mute about the implications of the Munich "betrayal" of 1938 and the part the USSR played in eradicating Nazism in Europe.
Carley believes that in some sense Russia's present day foreign policy resembles that of the USSR in the 1930s: Despite the NATO expansion and all-out anti-Russian propaganda in the US and the EU, Moscow still make efforts to build bridges with the Americans and Europeans.
"The failure to join together in the 1930s caused a tremendous human tragedy," Carley said. "Let us hope that the present day impasse in Western-Russian relations does not cause another such tragedy in the future."
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