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Soviets say Allied version of D-Day is a 'distortion' of history (1984)
- barking 7y agoIt's a story from a different world, one that is almost as distant in time from us as D-Day was then. It mentions four world leaders present at the ceremony then, three are now dead but the fourth was there again yesterday and in the same role. On June 6, President Reagan will join French President Francois Mitterrand, Queen Elizabeth, and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau at ceremonies in Caen, France, to mark the occasion.
- hardlianotion 7y agoThat's a little Trudeau joke for the reader, yes?
- barking 7y agoNo, Pierre was Justin's father.
- hardlianotion 7y agoI know that. Pierre is dead and was not there in any capacity, as parent claimed. His son was.
- barking 7y agoThe quote is from a 1984 news story, Pierre was Canadian PM then and Justin would have been 12 years old at the time.
- hardlianotion 7y agoI know that too (I know when Reagan was prz for a start), but Trudeau was not there in the same capacity as before - ie Prime Minister.
- tomohawk 7y agoThe Soviet armies bled the German armies white, but that does not take away from the accomplishments of D-Day. In the closing days of WW II, many Germans fled to the US/UK side to escape the terror inflicted by the Soviet armies. In 1984, the Soviet propaganda machine was in full swing, and the Soviets still occupied a big chunk of Europe. They were making threats with short range nuclear missiles and a 20 to 1 tank advantage. It looked like WW III was about to break out, but the Soviets would be out of power within 10 years.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoThe D-Day celebrations also usually forget to mention Operation Bagration, a massive soviet offensive in June-August 1944, which is perhaps the biggest German army defeat in history and is very important to keep in mind in the context of the Allies advance in France. The fact is that keeping the Russians out of D-Day celebrations and of the D-Day narrative is a political decision.
- Mvandenbergh 7y agoThey also don't commemorate the liberation of Rome (just before) and the departure of Japanese forces from Burma (just after).
- thrower123 7y agoMark Clark basically gave away the chance to encircle and destroy the better part of the Wehrmacht in Italy so he could roll into Rome before D-Day and get the publicity, so that really shouldn't be celebrated.
- zaphirplane 7y agonever heard of it before thanks for educating us wow the casualties over 2 months is just mind boggling
- vixen99 7y agoAnd let's not forget this https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32529679 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32529679
- jrs72s 7y agoNearly everything about WWII is a "distortion of history" because the Winners write the "history".
- simonh 7y agoNot always. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Grass#Waffen-SS_revelations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Grass#Waffen-SS_re...
- mensetmanusman 7y agoNearly everything about reality is a “distortion” because your brain writes the “perception.”
- michalu 7y agoAll history is distorted. We can only learn from surviving sources (written by winners, with political agenda or simply subjectively) interpreted in whatever is the most desired way to have it interpreted at the time. A lot of evidence has been systematically destroyed. Obviously, I'm exaggerating but there's truth in it and it takes a lot of individual studying (of not just history) to get some vague idea of what could really be going on. For WW2, my history teacher believed that events should be considered a history only after 100 yeas have passed. Everything less will be a political narrative.
- azeotropic 7y agoSad to see the Soviet complaints about the allies not opening a second front in Europe until 1944 uncritically reported. The allies invaded Italy in 1943.
- Symmetry 7y agoItaly was a much narrower front and thus a smaller and safer commitment, along with most of the rest of the fighting in the Mediterranean. Mostly Stalin wanted an invasion of France ASAP, Churchill wanted to be cautious, and FDR vacillated but eventually pushed the France invasion.
- jkingsbery 7y agoThe Allies also went in to North Africa earlier too. The article also says nothing about the fact that the US also fought in the Pacific theater without Soviet help.
- dagenleg 7y agoI think you are forgetting the Manchurian operation and the impact it had on bringing down the Japanese war machine.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoChina is often hardly mentioned at all in narratives on WWII as a whole or in the Pacific.
- stochastic_monk 7y agoIt’s always mentioned in the context of Japanese aggression, e.g., the “Rape of Nanking”.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoI agree, China is always mentioned in the context of the Japanese invasion of China...
- onetimemanytime 7y agoWell, everyone will praise their own contribution more (given that both sides here are winners). But Hitler must have been shocked at what Russians threw at him. Brutal war, take no prisoners and millions upon millions of soldiers.
- userulluipeste 7y ago"millions upon millions of soldiers" That shouldn't have been a shock to Hitler, not even an unknown information. In the Russian Civil War¹ that preceded WW2, the Red Army amassed well over five million soldiers, and the soviet's control over the country and subsequently over the army enlistments could only improve since then. ¹https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War
- Mikhail_K 7y ago90 % of the German casualities were inflicted by the Red Army. The decision to hold the D-day celebrations without inviting Russia is a rude insult to the memory of the Russian soldiers, without whom there would have been no Normandy landings.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoVE day commemorations, or Battle of Berlin commemorations would seem appropriate, but they did not take part in the Normandy landings. Would you expect the US to invite the British and Russians to commemorations of the liberation of the Philippines on the same grounds?
- A2017U1 7y agoWere we not allies spilling blood in the same war lending each other equipment and assistance? What is the exact harm in it? I'm always highly impressed when foreigners come to Australian war ceremonies of their own accord.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoNo harm at all, but it would get complex quickly if it's extended for every major campaign in every theatre in a five year war. Official invite and attendance or not - where not attending will be painted by one media as a snub, and not inviting painted by the other country's media as a snub... Yet no one would think it odd or unusual if a Russian veteran or someone with a relative involved chose to go personally for whatever reason. I'm sure they'd be most welcome and hopefully treated with as much respect as any campaign vet or other attendee. I would think it odd if our PM was invited to say commemoration of the Battle of Kursk, despite that being of huge significance. I'd expect a good few Russian veterans or relatives might think it odd too. Commemorations are for the veterans and relatives of those that took part, and to honour the participants. Which tends to make it expected to have official presence for the nationalities that took part in each campaign, the former commanders, and the descendants of those who took part, or who lost a parent or grandparent. For many attending it's a deeply personal act. I'm uncomfortable, to say the least, with commemoration as national or political PR.
- flohofwoe 7y agoObligatory link to "The Fallen of WW2" (watch the video, the interactive version is broken for me in Chrome on macOS 10.15 beta): http://www.fallen.io/ww2/ http://www.fallen.io/ww2/ I think the focus of US and British WW2 movies on their own accomplishments played a big role in this "distortion of history" (OTH if you've grown up on the other side of the Iron Curtain" there was no shortage of Soviet propaganda movies about WW2 either). Personally I've come to the conclusion that the US/British invasion didn't turn the war around (it may have shortened it by a few weeks). But it most likely saved most of Western Europe from Soviet post-war-occupation. (edit: AFAIK, what was an incredibly important contribution of (mainly) the US was the Lend-Lease-Act though to provide the Soviet Union with weapons and resources)
- chopin 7y agoI've read once that Stalin insisted on a landing in Normandy fearing that the progress in Italy would cut him off Eastern Europe. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Conference
- Synaesthesia 7y agoPeople like to think of WW2 as a noble war, and I'm not for a moment suggesting that Adolf Hitler shouldn't have been stopped. But the fact is that none of the sides entered the war for benevolent reasons. An interesting historical essay is Noam Chomsky's "Background to the Pacific war" (1967) in which he explains an often missed cause of that war - the economic one. Japan being shut out of the international trade by tariffs imposed by the British and US in 1937. This crippled Japanese industry, as expected. https://chomsky.info/196709__/ https://chomsky.info/196709__/
- kryptiskt 7y agoBut the war in Asia had already started, Japan was sanctioned because of their aggression in China.
- Synaesthesia 7y agoThe western powers also colonised China, by force. One could say the war in China was over which colonial powers would have rights to trade in China.
- Nasrudith 7y agoThey had already shown what their industry was being used for in Nanking so the sanctions were eminently justified for those who don't want more of it. It was beyond the pale and appaled even imperial powers whose other history included things starting like the Opium War, passed the Chinese Exclusion Act and putting down the Boxer Rebellion. Given that military action caused it that is a rather egregious to complain about the resulting sanctions and even worse to claim causus beli over it.
- coldtea 7y ago>''The outcome of the war had already been decided'' before the June 6, 1944, invasion, according to a retired Soviet general interviewed by Tass, the official government news agency. Those who see history in a different way are, according to Soviet writers, ''falsifiers'' or representatives of ''bourgeois'' mass-information media who blend ''deliberate distortions of history together with ill-intentioned lies.'' Well, they had a point... In the 40s and 50s most Europeans who actually lived WWII considered the USSR as definitive in determining the war. It took decades of new generations who didn't witness the facts, and tons of mythologizing from Hollywood movies to turn this around. https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year-campaign-to-convince-people-the-usa-and-not https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year...
- TheAlchemist 7y agoVery interesting article, thanks ! As much as I dislike the actions of USSR at the time of WWII (I'm Polish), they should take much more credit for defeating Nazis. This doesn't change the fact, that they should also take much more blame for having started the war right next to the Nazis, in the first place, as well for what they did after the war.
- Iv 7y agoIT is true that Americans have made their own propaganda version of WWII. The D-Day is seen as a decisive heroic operation while the retreat of Dunkirk is seen as almost comical because it only involved a similar amount of French casualties, who were losing anyway (in order to help the allies retreat to UK to continue the fight but nevermind that). HOWEVER, while it is true that people who lived during WWII knew USSR was winning and would prevail, even without USA's help, there was also a widespread, majority in almost every European countries, to hope US forces would come before USSR's. Germans who deserted or surrendered, when they had a choice, overwhelmingly did so to the western allies. We knew that USSR would come to occupy while US was not interested in territorial gains. Yes, US occupation was not without propaganda and political compromises, but compare the date of the first free elections in France or in Ukraine, you will see that these opinions were founded. One could argue that the D-Day was a decisive operation for the Cold War, less so for WWII. Without US involvement, USSR would have "freed" all of Europe by 1947, but the rest of the century would have been far more different.
- whack 7y agoFor most of my life, I believed that British resistance, D-Day, and the Western front were the primary reasons for German defeat. That's certainly how it appeared to a lay person. It was only recently that I realised the vital role the Eastern front played in Nazi defeat. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_W... The Nazis lost over two million soldiers in the Eastern front, whereas all the other fronts combined produced a loss of ~800k soldiers. The turning point of the war came in Stalingrad, an entire year before D-Day even started. The Soviet Union has been a brutal regime and I'm glad they lost the cold war. But the Russian people deserve more credit than they are being given for turning back the Nazi tide.
- 6d6b73 7y agoThey were on Nazi side at the beginning of the war, so really they were trying to stop the Nazi tide that they helped to create.
- flohofwoe 7y agoEverybody downvoting this should read up on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac..., especially the secret protocol to divide Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union.
- futureastronaut 7y agoIsn't this common historical knowledge? Sad if not.
- whuaminot 7y agoIt's not. And that's reflected by the fact that amazon sells tshirts with soviet symbols (though swastikas are absent from their selection). Soviets did not just conspire with the Nazis. Nazi tank crews trained in the soviet union up until 1938. If it were a just world, the Soviet union would have been as decimated after the war as Germany was. But it is not. We just satisfice our way to survival.
- 6d6b73 7y agoLet's not forget that by attacking Poland, Finland, and by taking over Baltic countries, Russians help Hitler conquer most of Europe. They really should be considered the aggressor in WW2, not savior. On the other front, if France and England helped Poland, as they promised in the treaty the later broke, Hitler would be stopped much earlier and World War 2 .
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago> They really should be considered the aggressor in WW2, not savior. One doesn't exclude the other.
- 6d6b73 7y agoJust because I put myself in harms way, I can't claim to be a hero after I get myself out safely.
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y agoBut this whole rhetoric of hero/savior and agressor are largery inadequate to war conditions. Tell me, what was Finland? Was it a victim (attacked by Russia) or an agressor (joining the Axis)? Or maybe it just wanted to live in peace, just defending their territory? And more importantly, the war was a tragedy for all people. Especially for the millions of Russians. They didn't want to go to war, they wanted to stay with their families, but they had no choice, otherwise Stalin would have them killed. These poor people suffered enormously and most were killed leaving widows and orphans. Putting any label on them, like 'agressor' or 'hero' is so terribly inadequate.
- 6d6b73 7y agoOh come on, let's get real. Nazis, or Soviets are not some mythical creatures that was summoned by the Hitler and Stalin to do their bidding - they are regular people, who decided that not to intervene even when they knew that what's going on around them is wrong! Soviets butchered their own people, Czars, and launched multiple wars against neighboring countries. They were aggressors, and not only during the world war 2, but before and after as well. Plain and simple.
- rmind 7y agoIf anything, the 'distortion' of history is that only one brutal totalitarian regime was defeated and condemned, but not the other. It is often forgotten that the World War II was started by both the Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia [1][2]. This does not undermine the tremendous human sacrifice by the ordinary people on the Soviet/East side: it must be remembered and respected. However, the fact that the Soviet Union was on the winning side undermined the terror, repressions and immense suffering inflicted on millions of people, including their own people and the people of the countries they invaded [3][4][5][6]. The Soviet regime, as a political subject, should not be glorified; and they certainly should have had very little to complain about. Let alone the D-Day. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Poland [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_repression_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_repression_in_the_So... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_occupations_by_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_occupations_by_the_So...
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- hevi_jos 7y agoWell, what is says is true. Of course they wanted to do as much damage to the Soviet Union as possible. Most allied generals believed URSS was going to be the next enemy after Hitler. The nuclear bombs against isolated Japan were more a warning to Stalin than anything to do with Japan as disclassified documents have shown.
- michalu 7y agoIt was all decided in Teheran conference in November 1943. WW2 was considered a done deal so Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met to discuss the future of Europe. At the time of the conference, Red Army was about to enter Poland. While Churchill was happy to let Soviets do all the dying, Roosevelt cared about getting them involved in pacific. He wasn't much concerned with the war in Europe. As soon as it became clear from Stalin that, when it comes to talking about the future of Europe he holds all the leverage, Churchill decided it's necessary to jump on the bandwagon. And so the outcome of the Teheran conference was the "Operation overlord" (aka D-day) To clear any doubts about the significance of Soviet contribution all that needs to be done is go wikipedia and look at the size of the battles in East Europe and compare the to the D-day. Normandy landings don't even make it to top 10 in terms of the size. Germany was operating with 1 million+ soldiers in multiple battles compared to 50,000 including untrained and underquipped teenagers and seniors allies faced in Normandy. Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, Rzhev, Kharkow, Leningrad, etc. were mostly 10x larger in size and personnel. 90% of German army was killed in the East front. The fact that most western people don't even know what was the major turning point in the WW2 and think it's the D-day, would leave most of those generations speechless. Soviets and East Europeans (Yugoslavia liberated itself, Polish army took the Monte Cassino, the largest battle of Allies) won the war. Allies helped, then made a lot of movies about it.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoOverlord was decided and committed to at the Trident conference in the US, 6 or 9 months before Tehran. That is when the postponement to 44 was decided. Due mainly to lack of supplies.
- michalu 7y agoNo. Overlord was promised and planned before. It was continually postponed. The decisions necessary to start were made in Teheran. In many countries it is taught in schools that allies were simply taking their time, waiting for the lowest risk/highest return moment. That is one version.
- cameldrv 7y ago
- duxup 7y agoI'm not sure any given event has to be a symposium on the war in it's entirety. The Soviets sacrificed a great deal, as did many nation's and individuals. They also received a lot of support. I'm not sure an accounting of all that is required for remembering those who fought a specific battle. Let alone something like "well the outcome was already decided....." when we talk about the sacrifices people made.
- c0nfused 7y agoThe Soviets lost between 20 and 27 million people in the war. It's a sort of understandable position for a country that lost 40 people per us casualty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
- Isinlor 7y agoAs a Pole, I see the Soviet Union as badly as Germany. Sometimes when reading discussions, I think that some westerners forget that the Soviet Union assaulted Poland 17 days after Germans attacked us. So to remind everyone, Soviets started the whole bloody Second World War! Not to mention, that after they crashed Poland they killed 22 000 Polish captives by shutting them in the back of their head in an effort to eradicate Polish culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre Russians did not fully admit this crime until freaking 2010. These liars were either denying it or blaming this crime on Germans while they had documents clearly stating orders. They assaulted Poland in 1939, and they were assaulting us in 1944. They were waiting for Warsaw Uprising to fall, they were preventing western forces to help the uprising. Then they proceeded to effectively occupy Poland till 1989. Even today if we discuss historical events some Russians will tend to get upset that we are not grateful for the sacrifices of the Red Army. But they were not liberating us. They were raping, pillaging and brutally crashing anyone who dared to think. Putting any moral equality between western participation in World War II and Soviets is just wrong!
- cameldrv 7y agoNot to mention the fact that the Soviet Union kept the half of Poland that they took, and it's now part of Belarus and Ukraine.
- mikolaselo 7y agoStop calling these territories Polish ones. They belonged to Belarus and Ukraine before. Poland took these territories after 1918-1921 Soviet Polish war. These territories were Part of Big Belarusian- Lithevian country. This country was in Union with Poland.
- Isinlor 7y agoWhere did you take the "Big Belarusian-Lithevian country" from? As far as I know, this name is used neither in Polish, Lithuanian, nor English. The proper name is "the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia" (Wielkie Księstwo Litewskie, Rusi i Żmudzi), that was part of the "Crown of the Kingdom of Poland" and the "Grand Duchy of Lithuania". After the Constitution of May 3 and Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_Guarantee_of_Two_Nations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_Guarantee_of_Two_Na...), this state became the "Commonwealth of Poland" ("Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów" or as referred to in the current Polish constitution "Pierwsza Rzeczpospolita"). And... What belonged to who is quite close to meaningless. When do you want to set the date of the original ownership? Some 35 000 years ago when these lands were probably first settled or at some arbitrary point later on? How do you treat the right to self-determination and regions of mixed ethnicity with no absolute majority? Lands of current Belarus and Ukraine belonged to Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth before partitions, then they belonged mostly to Russia. After the first World War, we ended up in a very complex situation with vast regions with populations of mixed ethnicity and conflicting claims that resulted in wars. Poland claimed these lands as did Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine based on the wave of the modern ideas of a nation state. Poland managed to overpower them and focused on Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as the original ownership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Krai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Krai The idea of state ownership of land has really no absolute truth to it. There are no rules that will allow fairly dividing Africa after what was done to that continent during colonialism, Middle East including Palestine or central and eastern Europe. Well, even dealing with Brexit is quite an impossible task.
- dasKrokodil 7y agoMany items of the discussion here remind me of two books I casually browsed through without actually reading them, "Conjuring Hitler" and "None dare call it conspiracy".