Still Dis-Putin’ History After All These Years
September 17 is one of these orphan anniversaries that no one wants to claim. It is too shameful to celebrate for some and too uncomfortable to commemorate for others. Many would rather not have to confront this date, yet confront it they must.
Seventy years ago, in the morning hours of September 17, 1939, the Red Army troops crossed the Polish border and over the following weeks, in accordance with the secret protocols of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, occupied and annexed large swathes of what was then eastern Poland and is now western Ukraine and Belarus and southern Lithuania. The outgunned and outmaneuvered Polish army was already by that stage collapsing under the onslaught of the first German blitzkrieg, so from a military point of view the Soviet invasion did not materially affect the outcome of the struggle. It did, however, provide a dastardly coup de grace for the first chapter of the Second World War.
But don’t expect much news and commentary about September 17; not in the West, and certainly not in Russia.
The anniversary is an uncomfortable reminder that for around one third of the duration of the war, the Soviet Union was one of the aggressors — first against Poland, then against Finland, and finally against the Baltic states and Romania — and that during that time it provided invaluable material aid to further the Nazi aggression against the West, while at the same time committing mass war crimes within the newly occupied territories, of which the so called “Katyn massacre” of some twenty thousand Polish army officers taken prisoner of war is only the most widely known.
Very few others have been investigated, none have been prosecuted (if one excludes the farcical attempt by the Soviets to pin the blame for Katyn on the Germans during the Nuremberg trials), and not one person responsible has ever been held to account. To add insult to injury, the very memory of the Soviet atrocities committed east of the Ribbentrop-Molotov line had been banished and criminalized after the war, right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall. For years, September 1, not the 17th, was the only date to remember, and for many it remains the only date that matters and the only date they know.
The commemorations of the start of the Second World War, held in Gdansk, Poland, on September 1, have been a rather somber and understated affair. Ironically, the most prominent international attendees were Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin, representing the two original aggressors. Great Britain and France sent their foreign ministers, Miliband and Kouchner. The United States sent merely the National Security Adviser, Jim Jones, and only after the outrage at the unseriousness of the initial choice, former Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry.
Contrast this with the 60th celebration of the end of the Second World War a few years ago, a poignant yet triumphant occasion which mixed inspirational pageantry with the celebration of the triumph over evil (well, one of them, in any case) and the victory of democracy (west of the Iron Curtain). But no one particularly likes to remember the start of wars, least of all this one.
For Poland it is a reminder of another dark age in its history. For Germany it is a reminder of its aggressive past. For Great Britain and France it elicits an uncomfortable realization that despite the security guarantee given to Poland months before the outbreak of war, all the aid by the Western allies consisted of air-dropping leaflets across the German border. Lastly, for Russia, it is a reminder of its own shameful role in the drama, and perhaps more importantly, of the continuing inability to come to terms with its past. No wonder that the Gdansk commemorations have received only perfunctory news coverage and no usual outbreak of the “greatest generation”-type commentary.
I am not a great believer in historical apologies. I hold a rather unfashionable view that only those personally responsible for actions or inactions can truly be and say they are sorry, and that the sins of the fathers should not be visited on their progeny. But this is not to say that moral judgments cannot be made about the past. Far from it. I did not want Vladimir Putin to come to Gdansk and apologize and abase himself for Stalin’s actions seven decades ago, but I would have liked him to clearly admit they were wrong.
Please spare me. Now Russia is to apologize for something no one in power there participated in or is in any way responsible for. I expect this kind of tripe from the Obama administration. I hope Russia realizes how meaningless and stupid this type od gesture is and tells the hand wringers where to stuff it.
To be aware of history, is important. Poland was not only treated poorly by Russia and Germany, but was not treated much better by the allies.
After the German invasion, many Polish airmen and soldiers managed to escape the occupation and travel to England to fight in the Battle of Britain and many other battles. Many of the pilots were among the most successful of all allied pilots. Most died in an almost suicidal fanaticism. Poland’s soldiers also fought with the invasion force and were highly decorated.
I heard of the pilots’ exploits from a relative who was initially a fighter pilot and later switched to bombers so as to be able to “Deliver more death to the Germans.” Nearly all of his fellow Polish Pilots were killed and he survived after being shot down three times.
After the war and the many sacrifices offered by these brave Poles, they were denied the privilege of marching in the victory grand parade in London, because the Allied High Command was afraid of offending Stalin and creating an incident.
My relative passed away a few years ago, but I will never forget the pain and anguish he felt for being on the winning side and yet still losing the war. Yes we can be proud of that one, selling out an ally that suffered 90% casualty rates in the Polish Squadrons and yet we gave away their country to feed the perverted appetites of the murderous monster, Joseph Stalin, FDR’s hero “Uncle Joe.”
Poland has suffered the rape of Socialism more severely than any other country, first by the National Socialists of Germany, then the Soviet Socialists, and also the Socialism of FDR. A rape that the United States helped arrange and encouraged.
There are sad chapters in our history and this is one of the saddest. Chamberlain gave away the Sudeten to National Socialism, and FDR gave Poland to Socialist monsters; but only after we put their patriots through the meat grinder for our own advantage and to save American lives. Who was the greatest appeaser, Chamberlain or FDR?
After the war, sorry boys, try to make yourself inconspicuous, Uncle Joe might have his feelings hurt if you, the few that are left, were to march in the victory parade. We are so sorry about your country, in 50 years or so, who knows, maybe Poland will be a country once again.
The rape of Poland was a disgrace and a blight upon American integrity and tradition. Socialism is a disease that afflicts America periodically, it brings disgrace and dishonor upon our reputation as a Freedom loving country. We must be vigilant and stand against this threat to our traditions of freedom and our integrity as a nation.
Obama celebrated the day by stabbing our Polish and Czech allies in the back and appeasing Putin on missle defense.
Final Equation: Roosevelt=Stalin=obama=Putin=liars=murderers=politicans.
Obama handed Putin his biggest gift yet by stopping the missile defense system over Eastern Europe. He’s turning America into a Banana Republic and now emboldening the Russians. Gee, I’m sure nothing bad will come of that now will it?
IMPEACH OBAMA!!
Given that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putyin attends liturgy regularly, with his wife, he would have heard these words, which come in the section just before the dismissal: “We pray for our civil leaders, that we may live a calm and peaceful life in all godliness and sanctity”.
That is the goal. How to reach it tells a lot about the person. It is easier to reach that goal if government is not beset with enemies, and past episodes of man’s inhumanity to man can easily be interpreted as an enemy. So, what to do? Ignore it is the easiest course of action.
However, ignoring past brutalities makes as much
sense as partially cleansing a wound. The dirt that is left behind makes a full recovery much more difficult, than if the wound was fully cleansed.
I think Poland and the other Eastern European countries are going to get effed over again. Look for some kind of Brussels-Moscow pact in which Russian oil and gas are swapped for a de facto recognition of the old USSR territories and turf. And the US? Our president has just told those nations that trusted us and have contributed troops to help us to pound sand.
I feel dirty today.
Old Soldier is correct- this is timely of Obama:
U.S. abandons missile shield in Europe
PRAGUE/WARSAW (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama has told east European states he is abandoning plans for an anti-missile shield there, in a move that may ease Russian- U.S. ties but fuel fears of resurgent Kremlin influence.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090917/pl_nm/us_usa_shield_4
Charles, I think Arthur made the proper distinction. To have declined to apologise would be reasonable. To go out of his way to display how Russians were also vicitms, Putin was not merely declining to apologise, or seeking to downplay any Russian fault, but seeking to use the event to rewrite the historical record in Russia’s favor.
I don’t expect American Southerners to apologise for the Civil War, nor do I expect them to just pipe down about any injustice they endured at the hands of the GAR (though one should pick one’s spots with such things). To use a public event to proclaim that it was really the Union which had held more slaves would be unacceptable.
Arthur, liked the book, BTW. I sniffed out the general shape of the ending, but you still surprised me with the last few twists.
@#1 Charles Kirtley,
Why the misdirection through straw-man argument??? The author clearly stated:
“I am not a great believer in historical apologies. I hold a rather unfashionable view that only those personally responsible for actions or inactions can truly be and say they are sorry, and that the sins of the fathers should not be visited on their progeny”
The author did not solicit any apology from anybody, but rather a recognition that the actions of the brutal Stalin regime were wrong and regretted. He wished for that recognition to come from Putin and held up the German example for comparison. His primary point is the white-washing of history by the Russians and his disappointment with it.
Did you actually read the article?
The thousands of Poles murdered by Soviets and then buried in mass graves at Katyn may be the *most* well known, but in the West it is not well known at all.
The “we’re all sinners” approach of Russia is never going to go away until you get past modern nationalism and back to the first sin and roll forward from there. John Paul II knew this and he apologized for the acts of the Fourth Crusade on behalf of the children of the Church of the West. But the apology remains incomplete because so many claim the mantle of the West but not any part in the shameful sack of a great christian city by crusaders gathered to fight muslim aggression in the Middle East.
Fix that, and you can roll forward to more recent crimes. Don’t fix it, and expect an endless array of deflection and equivalence from the Russians who view themselves as the third Rome.
I always thought the biggest mistake the Allies made was insisting upon the Unconditional Surrender of Germany. Once German military power was destroyed, the only likely army to fill the vacumn in Eastern Europe was the Soviet Army. We should have encouraged the German General Staff to get rid of Hitler and the Nazis (they almost succeeded in July 1944) but not insisted on Unconditional Surrender. Unconditional surrender made it very unlikely German generals would support any coup against Hitler.
Arthur, you write in part “It’s not simply that Putin, as a former KGB agent, feels himself to be the legatee of the Soviet past…” Here’s a telling personal observation on that point, from the Russian Embassy in Washington in Nov. 2005. I attended an MIT Club event there, involving a panel of Russian counsellors in various embassy departments, followed by a reception, which occurred in a kind of isolated building to your left as you enter the compound. On leaving, I noticed that on the wall beside the exit door was a display of portrait photos, showing the current Ambassador and each of his predecessors.
Except it was not complete. Entirely missing were all Ambassadors of the Tsar, all Ambassadors prior to the Soviets. All Ambassadors from whenever Russia first sent an ambassador to Washington (perhaps around 1790?) and continuing over more than 100 years.
A telling detail. So you are right — Putin does consider himself to be the successor of the Soviets — not of Russia. Someone made the decision to omit all the pre-communist Ambassadors, in the Russian Embassy to the United States, the most important embassy Russia has, in a building specifically used for events where Americans can enter and see. That cannot have been merely an oversight.
You’re not being fair to Putin! Just follow the lead of our former president and look in his eyes; you’ll see the soul of a saint.
When one considers that Nazism killed about 11 million people while Communism killed at least 100 million (and counting), it seems obvious that Stalin, not Hitler, should be considered the greatest exponent of evil in the 20th century.
I realize that one death is too many.
History is truly written by the winners.
Actually, it was better that I would have expected from Putin. At least he didn’t write: “Massacre! What massacre?”
Russia said for 50 years the Poles at Katyn were killed by the Germans. However the truth is the opposite the Russians murdered the 22,000 Poles. The also marched into Poland on the 17 of Sept. and took over large portions of Poland.
The allies ignored it. France and England did nothing.
At Yalta Poland was handed a communist government that lasted until 1989 and the last Russian troops left in 1993.
And on on the anniversary of the 17th of Sept Obama stops the missile agreement with Poland and the Czechs.
Poland has always been a friend of America and has sent troops to Iraq and the people of Poland must still have a visa to get into the USA.
Russia’s military objectives has had a string of successes recently, so please don’t belittle them. The removal of a missile shield (however flawed it may have been) follows swiftly on successful efforts of the new-USSR to bolster Chavez, support Iran and finally have nuclear submarines patrolling off the coast of America.
Way to go, O. The President who keeps on giving.
So, Obama chooses September 17th as the date of the announcement, thus not taking note of (or perhaps, being completely unaware of) the irony of that date. Have we ever in modern times had a President with such a tin ear? Such blinding incompetence? Buckle up folks, it’s going to be a LONG four years.
please stop. FDR/Churchill did not “give away” Eastern Europe. Read about the UK/Soviet discussions concerning the Polish Government in exile. Consider the 8 million-man Red Army that entered Poland and Germany (and Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, etc.) before we did. Consider the at maximum 4 million Allied soldiers opposing the Red Army – who for the previous 3 years had been propagandized as our great friends and the greatest bearers of the Nazi Death. We could not, effectively, on a dime turn and fight them politically (after all we were not the Soviet Union) and easily we might have been defeated by the Red Army. Consider that perhaps you do not know the circumstances as those at that time and in that place knew them. The fault lies entirely with Stalin and the Red Army.
Double irony: “Sep 17, 1787, The Constitution of the United States of America was signed by delegates at the Constitutional Convention. The U.S. Constitution is the oldest working Constitution in the world.”
“The allies ignored it. France and England did nothing”
not quite, they decleared war to Germany, and mobilised their troops, knowing that Hitler would revert his panzers armada towards west after he was finished with the “Danzig Korridor” agenda
alright, this was a phony war during 6 month, but what did America in the meanwhile ? president Roosevelt’s discourse of the 3rd september was clear, It ain’t the America’s business ! thogh that wasn’t what Wilson had promised about 20 years earlier !
I always thought the biggest mistake the Allies made was insisting upon the Unconditional Surrender of Germany.
Unconditional Surrender was meant to undo the mistake of the November 1918 Armistice, to permit the enemy to surrender on foreign soil. In this way, it would be clear to the Germans that they had really, actually lost, and so balance any resentment on the subject with a heady dose of realism. It was to prevent us having to fight the Germans again in another score of years.
In the current case, the Soviet Union was never made to pay for its historic crimes, but was permitted instead to slip gently into that good night, passing authority to a faux-democratic oligarchy that is an improvement only comparatively. That this oligarchy should be perfectly willing to play old Great-Power politics with the same tenacity as its Soviet and Tsarist forbears should surprise no one. That Obama should be naive enough to believe he can purchase their friendship with weakness shouldn’t either.
Obama green lights neo-Soviet re-invasion of Poland.
Patton was right, we should’ve kept going all the way to Moscow. At the very least, Truman should’ve said, “Screw Yalta, we have nukes now.”
Arthur, nice to see you in pixels again! I miss your blog.
@26: But we didn’t. We dropped all two of our nukes on Japan. There weren’t any more at the time, and they took a while to produce. Looking back, it would have been great had we been able to destroy the Soviets in 1945, but I don’t think we could have.
“I did not want Vladimir Putin to come to Gdansk and apologize and abase himself for Stalin’s actions seven decades ago, but I would have liked him to clearly admit they were wrong.”
The chance of Putin taking anything approaching a moral view of this or any other issue connected with Stalinism is zero. Putin’s view of what is morally right in international relations is pure KGB: what advances Russia’s interests is by definition right. He doesn’t have any other world view.
Worse, a major plank of Putin’s foreign policy is no more sophisticated than to oppose and weaken, opportunistically as the occasions arise, the USA and the west, for no other reason than visceral dislike. He has after all spent his entire working life in the lawless Russian security services, and that has given him his twisted view of what is honorable . . wtness his hero worship of Yuri Andropov.
This is why he arms the grubs and brutes who run Iran; this is why he embraces Chavez. His security services were probably responsible for the apartment bombings, to serve as a pretext for war in Chechnaya (the mullahs couldn’t care less about that war, of course; apart from anything else, ). Why would Putin be averse to Iran getting nukes, when he contemplates the devastation that could conceivably be wrought on the west, and the US in particular, by an Iranian nuke faling into the wrong hands?
Glad to see you back Arthur. My take on this is that not only have we shown the world and especially Eastern Europe that our word is not our bond but that depending on what party is in power we will stand firm with our allies or we won’t. To make this situation even more egregious is not only the date of the announcement of our retreat from the missile defense agreement but the facts of Putin’s statements and the Russian acts outlined by you. As for comments about old wound and apologies for past grievances, few can outdo our own President in that arena.
Watching Obama, with his arrogant attitude and narcissistic personality, go against Putin is like watching Gary Coleman in the ring with a heavy weight boxer.
He’ll manage one “Watcha mean comrade?”, just before Putin lands a right on the point of his chin.
The sad thing is, we are watching all of this and the liberals who don’t realize they are as much at risk as the “nutty right”, when it comes to national defense, are eagerly lapping all of this up.
Well, I guess the forty years of public education run by the left is paying off.
Whoever said Poland suffered the most is slightly more idiotic than Obama after nitrous hits. The Russian people lost 3 million soldiers, more than all other soldiers combined in the Euro theater. Add to this , they were the primary target of the rogue state—-as another poster said, this is ludicrous, noone in Putins government is responsible for Katyn, for Magadan, for the Holodomor, for the Purges, the ethnic cleansing of dozens of nations, most all of the blame can be laid at the crooked feet of one Georgian man: Iossif Dzigishvilli.
“wish we had destroyed the Soviets”, The CP destroyed the soviets, but Im sure this isn’t what you meant, I am quite sure you don’t really know what you mean, eh? Do you know what the Eastern Front was like? What the Soviet Union endured? Mass death, cannibalism, hunger(not Great Depression-Peter Fonda hunger), self-destruction, when Hitler wasn’t destroying them, they destroyed themselves.What we should have done was put more troops on the ground in Vladivostok during the Bolshevik coup, not only that but thousands more into the Crimea, onto Moscow and assisted the Czar. But, as always, western governments have always detested Russia, always. She’s def. not been great at p.r.
Nor has she been really civilized, according to Western Europes weird rules. One rule for Russia, another for us, yes?
27. The nukes would’ve taken about three weeks each to build, so we could’ve had another one ready by the time Japan formally surrendered.
Richard Wilson, enough of your trying to get away with following Kim Philby, Burgess, and the rest of that jaded lot.
When people like Sharansky, or Bukovsky, or Elena Bonner speak, they command respect. Does this diminish their “Russianness”? (Even though Sharansky is Jewish, there are attributes of Russian culture that are discernable in his character, such as what Doestoevsky points toward). No, it does not.
Therefore, accepting that the world is better off
for the writings of Tolstoy, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Doestoevsky, and Pushkin, as well as the art of Repin, Ivanov, Glazunov, Vasnetsov,
and Kramskoi, not to mention the music of Borodin
and Tchaikovsky; this speaks to the true broad mindedness that the human race is capable of.
David, first off , do you know how to read? To throw me in with Philby is disingenious. What are trying to say? I agree that Sharansky, Bukovsky and Bonner ( I met her after a talk in NYC)command respect, I did not say they didn’t—did I? So, too, does Evgenia Ginzberg, Bardach, Shalamov and hundreds more.
Please, explain what it is you are trying to say. Just because I tried to point out the “why” the CCCP did what she did, I , in no way, condone it. In fact, Mr. “Lincoln”, I have actively fought, with pen and fists, Communism, so I don’t think I need a lecture by someone who cannot write without sounding as if his mouth is full of food. Panyatna? Just because one has sympathy for the victims of the worst evil known to mankind, Communism(tied with Islam), doesn’t make one a sympathizer. I specifically said that when the Nazis weren’t destroying themselves the Soviets did fine with being as totalitarian as the Nazis.
David, excuse my brashness. I apologize for the rudeness, but to liken me to Philby cut deep. I am not a Communist, and resent being called one. True, I think there should be some kind of Nuremberg Trial for the victims of the Soviet state—perhaps even arresting any former KGB agent, including Putin. I have read everything , in Russian and English, about Communism, especially the horrors of the Soviet state. Heres a link to what I think are the best books on the evil , I created the list, so if anyone is to blame , it is myself.:http://www.amazon.com/Horrors-of-Communism/lm/R1S1T8K5LBD6A6
Communism is anti-truth, anti-Life, I sir, am not a Communist.
There is a tragic clash between Truth and the world. Pure undistorted truth burns up the world.
Nikolai Berdyaev
David, Richard, heres an essay by Conquest, you two have more in common than you think,having read both your comments elsewhere in this site:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3523261.html
New Yorkers, bar night in the city, Tea Party folks, a little r and r….
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=281756200650&ref=mf
Richard, what set me off was your reference to the “weird rules of Western Europe”. Padraig of Ireland, Martin of Tours, Ambrose of Milan, just to name 3 are of the West, yet they maintain continuity with the East. The same can be said of living witnesses like Bishop Kallistos, author of “The Orthodox Way” and “The Orthodox Church”
One of the most honourable desciptions of man’s inhumanity to man dished out
by the hammer & sickle comes to us via Richard Pipes.
Lastly, one of my uncles was a POW for 18 months in the Second World War, he
was kept near Moosburg, which isn’t that far from Dachau. Even though Soviet soldiers were treated abominably in the camp, they did not want to be
returned to the Soviet “Soyuz”. So, the rottenness of that decision is more
indicative of the fallenness that started in the Garden of Eden, rather than
what you refer to as, “Western Europe’s weird rules”.
Natalia Novikova, thanks for the link. When you have government restraining
itself, via the Magna Carta, instead of Clergy warning the government (usually the king in those days) that a line has been crossed, and the government is jeopardizing itself because of over-reach; we wind up with a different path to the desired future.