The Second World War: setting the record straight – issue 49 of ‘In Defence of Marxism’ magazine out now!

Issue 49 of In Defence of Marxism magazine is here! Below we publish Alan Woods’ editorial explaining the true history of WWII – which capitalist historians have obfuscated for decades. Issue 49 also explores the revolutionary legacy of the end of the war, including articles on: the fall of fascism in Italy; the liberation of France; post-war neorealist cinema; and a 1945 analysis by Ted Grant on the shifting world order. Get your copy now!

This year, 8 May marks the 80th anniversary of ‘VE Day’ – Victory in Europe Day – on which the Second World War in Europe officially came to an end.

This historic event will be marked by all manner of celebrations in many countries. In all these orchestrated official events, however, there will be one glaring absence: as usual, Russia will not be invited.

The most blatant example of this cynical manoeuvre was the recent celebration of the liberation of Auschwitz. In its initial coverage, the BBC informed us that the notorious Nazi death camp was liberated by anonymous “Allied forces”. No reference was made to Russia, or the Soviet Union.

The truth is that the force that liberated Auschwitz on 27 January 1945 was the Soviet Red Army. Yet not a single Russian representative was allowed to be present. This proves for anyone with half a brain that these pompous official jamborees have far more to do with present day politics than the events of 80 years ago.

For many decades, we have been subjected to a barrage of propaganda which suggests that Hitler was defeated mainly by the Americans and British. Heroic films showing the alleged exploits of the Western allies have been the staple diet of Hollywood ever since 1945.

The truth is that the participation of the Americans and British in the war in Europe only really began with the D-Day landings in Normandy in the summer of 1944.

Before that, it was reduced to a titanic conflict between the USSR and Hitler’s Germany, with the combined productive forces of Europe behind it. And it was Russia – or rather the Soviet Union – that was the most decisive power in that epic struggle. For most of the war, the Americans and British remained mere spectators.

The USSR and the war

There have been many attempts to portray Stalin as a ‘great war leader’. That is entirely false. In fact, Stalin’s policies left the Soviet Union at the mercy of Hitler, which almost led to the destruction of the Soviet Union in 1941.

Having abandoned Lenin’s policy of revolutionary internationalism, Stalin resorted to a series of manoeuvres with foreign governments in order to avoid getting involved in a war.

But we must bear in mind that the so-called Western democracies were themselves engaged in manoeuvres, constantly appeasing Hitler in order to encourage him to turn east and attack the Soviet Union.

Realising this, Stalin countered by signing a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany – the Hitler-Stalin pact. This was, in fact, a defensive move on Russia’s part, intended to prevent the German attack on the Soviet Union.

In principle, such a diplomatic manoeuvre might be justified for short-term practical purposes. But it provided no real long-term defence for the Soviet Union, as subsequent events demonstrated.

Stalin placed such blind confidence in his ‘clever’ manoeuvre with Hitler that he ignored numerous reports that the Germans were preparing to attack. As a result, in the moment of truth, the USSR found itself defenceless in the face of Nazi aggression.

When Hitler’s generals expressed opposition to the invasion of Russia, he answered that as a result of Stalin’s purges, the Red Army no longer had capable generals.

He bragged that all that was required was one good kick, and the whole rotten edifice would come tumbling down. In the first months following the German invasion in the summer of 1941, this prediction appeared to be justified.

When Hitler invaded, Stalin refused to believe it. Fearing a provocation, he ordered the army not to resist. The result was a military catastrophe.

The Soviet Air Force was destroyed on the ground. Millions of Red Army soldiers, unable to put up any effective resistance, were surrounded, captured and sent to death camps, where most of them perished.

The Soviet leaders were in disarray. Stalin initially panicked and went into hiding. His actions amounted to an abject failure, and a betrayal of the Soviet Union, which was placed in mortal danger by his reckless policies.

The truth is that the war was won by the Soviet workers and peasants, not thanks to, but in spite of the Stalin regime.

The Soviet Union rallies

But Hitler had miscalculated. Blinded by his easy successes in the West, Hitler seriously underestimated the military potential of the USSR. Despite the criminal policies of Stalin, the Soviet Union was able to swiftly recover and rebuild its industrial and military capacity.

The Nazis, with all the vast resources of Europe behind them, stepped up production, turning out huge numbers of tanks, assault guns and aircraft. But by 1943 the USSR had managed to out-produce and outgun the mighty Wehrmacht, by mobilising the immense power of the planned economy.

The equipment and weapons produced by the USSR were of first-class quality, and were superior to those being used by the Germans, or the British and Americans. This gives the lie to the oft-repeated allegation that a nationalised planned economy is not capable of producing goods of a high quality.

But there was another reason for the amazing Soviet success in the war – that was the formidable fighting spirit of the Red Army. The Soviet working class was fighting to defend what remained of the gains of the October Revolution.

The Red Army in the Battle of Stalingrad: the Advance on Kalac, November 1942 / Image: public domain

Despite the monstrous crimes of Stalin and the bureaucracy, the nationalised planned economy represented an enormous historic conquest. Compared with the barbarism of fascism – the distilled essence of imperialism and monopoly capitalism – these were things worth fighting and dying for.

The working people of the USSR did both on the most appalling scale. It was thus the outstanding bravery of the Soviet working class and its Red Army that was the decisive element in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

The reason why the West is so anxious to falsify the historical record and ignore the decisive role of the Soviet Union is very clear. The glorious victory of the Red Army is a testament to the colossal superiority of a nationalised planned economy which enabled the USSR to survive the first disasters and reorganise the productive forces beyond the Ural Mountains.

On the basis of terrible sacrifices, they demonstrated beyond question the viability of the new property relations established by the October Revolution.

The existence of a nationalised planned economy gave the USSR an enormous advantage in the war.

But the people of the Soviet Union paid a terrible price for the war, with 27 million dead and a wholesale destruction of the productive forces.

The demand for the second front

Following the German invasion, the Soviets repeatedly demanded the opening of a second front against Germany. But Churchill was in no hurry to oblige them. The reason for this was not so much military as political.

The policies and tactics of the British and American ruling class in the Second World War were not at all dictated by a love of democracy or hatred of fascism, as the official propaganda wants us to believe, but by naked class interest.

When Hitler invaded the USSR in 1941, the British ruling class was congratulating itself. They calculated that the Soviet Union would be quickly defeated by Germany. In the process, Germany would be so enfeebled that it would be possible to step in and kill two birds with one stone.

But the plans of both the British and US ruling circles were fundamentally flawed. Instead of being defeated by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union fought back and inflicted a decisive defeat on Hitler’s armies.

The interests of British and US imperialism were different, and even mutually antagonistic. The conflicts between Churchill and Roosevelt on the question of D-day reflected this tension.

American imperialism did not want Hitler to succeed because that would have created a powerful rival to the US in Europe. On the other hand, it was in the interests of US imperialism to weaken Britain and its empire, because it aimed to replace Britain as the leading power in the world after the defeat of Germany and Japan.

Washington, while formally the ally of London, was all the time aiming to use the war to weaken the position of Britain in the world, and particularly to break its stranglehold on India and Africa.

Churchill wanted to confine the Allies’ war to the Mediterranean: partly with an eye on the Suez Canal and the route to British India; and partly because he was contemplating an invasion of the Balkans to block the Red Army’s advance there.

In other words, his calculations were based exclusively on the strategic interests of British imperialism and the need to defend the British empire. In addition, Churchill had still not entirely given up the hope that Russia and Germany would exhaust themselves, creating a stalemate in the East.

Finally, events in the East forced their hand.

The Italian sideshow

Roosevelt was pressing for the opening of the second front in France. But Churchill was constantly arguing for delay. This led to severe frictions between London and Washington.

At a time when the Red Army was locked in a deadly struggle with the Wehrmacht in Kursk, the British and Americans were wading ashore on the beaches of Sicily.

The invasion of Italy was actually a diversion from the main war effort. The bulk of the fighting with Nazi Germany still carried on in the Eastern Front, where the Red Army was facing approximately 200 German divisions. By contrast, in Sicily the forces of Great Britain and the US were being opposed by just two German divisions.

In vain, Mussolini pleaded with Hitler to send him reinforcements. All Hitler’s attention was focused on the Eastern Front. But Churchill’s argument that Italy was to be the “soft underbelly of Europe” proved to be false.

The bungling prevarications of the American generals gave Hitler time to reinforce the Italian front, creating the conditions for the bloody battle of Monte Cassino.

Operations in Italy were further complicated by the unwelcome news that, following the overthrow of Mussolini in 1943, the powerful resistance movement led by the Italian Communists might take power.

The response of the British Royal Air Force was to immediately launch a vicious bombing campaign against the northern Italian cities, in order to prevent the Italian Communists from taking power.

The British and Americans were worried that the partisans could come to power long before the arrival of the Allied forces. Their view was that it was better to let the Nazis fight it out with the partisans and thus weaken the resistance forces.

Thus while the Allies were fighting the Germans in Italy, there was an undeclared and tacit agreement between the two sides when it came to stopping the common class enemy – in this case the Italian working class.

Therefore, even at the height of the war, the class question – fear of revolution – continued to weigh heavily on the calculations of the ruling class. And this became even more the case after the cessation of hostilities.

Meanwhile, events were taking a dramatic turn on the Eastern Front.

Stalingrad and Kursk

After a ferocious battle, the German resistance in Stalingrad had collapsed by the end of January 1943. To the fury of Hitler, who had ordered the Sixth Army to “fight to the death”, General Paulus surrendered to the Red Army.

 The Red Army in the Battle of Stalingrad: a battle inside the Red October factory / Image: public domain

Even Churchill, that rabid anti-Communist, was compelled to admit that the Red Army had “torn the guts out of the German army” at Stalingrad.

But behind these words of praise, the British leadership was gripped by a mortal fear – and one that was growing stronger by the day, even by the hour.

The Germans lost a total of 500,000 men during the Stalingrad campaign, including 91,000 taken prisoner. This shattering defeat was followed by an even more decisive event in the summer of 1943: the Battle of Kursk – the biggest tank battle in history, involving some 10,900 tanks, 2,600,000 troops, and 5,000 aircraft. It was probably the most decisive of the entire war.

The Soviet victories at Stalingrad and Kursk opened the way for the dramatic advance of the Red Army, which forced the British and Americans to act.

The scramble for D-Day

From late-1943 it became clear to the Americans that the USSR was winning the war on the Eastern Front, and if nothing was done, the Red Army would just roll through Europe.

Churchill was forced reluctantly to give in to the insistent demands of the American president. Even so, the opening of the second front was delayed until the spring of 1944.

Only in the summer of 1944, when the Red Army was rapidly advancing on Berlin, did they hastily launch the second front with the Normandy invasion. If they had not done this, they would have met the Red Army on the shores of the English Channel.

So worried were the imperialists that they actually worked out a new plan, Operation Rankin, involving an emergency landing in Germany if it should collapse or surrender. They were determined to get to Berlin before the Red Army.

“We should go as far as Berlin”, Roosevelt told his Chiefs of Staff. “The Soviets could then take the territory to the east thereof. The United States should have Berlin.”

But things turned out differently. The British and US armies got as far as the borders of Germany, but were halted there. On the other hand, the advance of the Red Army was the most spectacular in the whole history of warfare.

Omaha Beach, Normandy, June 1944 / Image: public domain

The Red Army closed in on Berlin on 25 April 1945.

The war ends

Almost to the end, Hitler continued to issue orders to non-existent troops, and to move imaginary planes and divisions. But the Twilight of the Gods had arrived. He committed suicide on 30 April. His body was soaked with petrol and burnt.

As his corpse went up in flames, the sound of Russian guns was heard in the heart of Berlin. On 2 May, the Soviet flag was hoisted over the Reichstag. The following day the Soviet forces were in complete control of the German capital. Five days later, Germany surrendered.

Churchill wrote to the Soviet Government that the Red Army’s achievements deserved “unstinted applause”, and future generations acknowledge their debt to them “as unreservedly as do we who have lived to witness these proud achievements.”

But these words reeked of hypocrisy. In reality, Churchill was not at all pleased at the Soviet victory. He immediately began to scheme to make preparations for a new war: the so-called Cold War against the Soviet Union.

It is not generally realised that the defeat of Japan was actually brought about by the shattering blow dealt to its army in Manchuria by the Soviet Union. Having defeated the Japanese army in a lightning attack, the Red Army was rapidly sweeping through Manchuria, heading directly for Japan.

On 6 August 1945 an atomic bomb was dropped for the first time in history, on the centre of Hiroshima, followed three days later by another on Nagasaki, killing up to 246,000 people. These actions were not actually directed against Japan, which was already on its knees and suing for peace. They were intended as a warning to the Soviet Union not to proceed any further. Had the Americans not done this, there would have been nothing to stop the Red Army from occupying Japan itself.

This was the first clear indication of the conflict between American imperialism and the USSR, which dominated the world for decades after 1945. The seeds of the Cold War were being sown.

New world order

Shortly before he died, Trotsky expressed the view that it was unlikely that, under the Stalinist regime, the Soviet Union could survive the war. But as Napoleon explained, war is the most complex of all equations.

Trotsky’s prognosis was falsified by history. But not even the greatest genius could have foreseen the peculiar evolution of the Second World War. In fact, the perspectives of Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill all turned out to be radically false – with catastrophic results.

The spectacular victory of the USSR in the war completely transformed the situation. It led to a strengthening of the Stalinist regime for a whole period.

Meanwhile, a revolutionary wave was sweeping the rest of Europe. It was the betrayal of the Stalinists and reformists that prevented the working class from taking power in a series of countries. This provided the political conditions for the recovery of capitalism after the war.

But the decisive element was the fact that US imperialism was obliged to intervene to prop up capitalism in Europe and Japan. Terrified by the spectre of communism, the American imperialists were compelled to underwrite the capitalist system.

The US never suffered the kind of bombing that devastated the economies of Europe and Japan. By the end of the war, two-thirds of the world’s gold was held in Fort Knox. The dollar was literally as good as gold.

This economic strength enabled the Americans to provide enormous economic assistance to Europe in the form of the Marshall Plan, which provided the material conditions for an economic upswing and the re-establishment of social and political equilibrium.

Under these circumstances, the entire world would be dominated by two giants: US imperialism and the mighty Stalinist Soviet Union. This became known as the Cold War, and it lasted for decades. This edition of In Defence of Marxism deals with these events from several different angles.

Now the great wheel of history has turned once more. The might of US imperialism is challenged by a resurgent Russia, which has recovered from the economic collapse it suffered after the restoration of capitalism in the 1990s; and the powerful, industrialised economy of rising Chinese imperialism.

The old unstable equilibrium has been destroyed. New contradictions are rapidly emerging. A new and stormy period in history has begun. There will be many defeats and setbacks, but in the midst of the storm, conditions will emerge for an intensification of the class struggle. Sooner or later, in one country or another, socialist revolution will be placed on the order of the day.