The Soviet path to ending WWII

(Ambassador of Russia to Pakistan)

Today we celebrate a momentous event in world history -- victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. On May 9, 1945, Germany signed the Instrument of Surrender to the Allied Forces, ending the Second World War in Europe.

This triumph over the Nazi forces was preceded by six years of the heaviest fighting the world had ever seen. The bloodiest chapter of the Second World War, however, began on June 22, 1941, when German forces invaded the Soviet Union in what became known as Operation Barbarossa. It involved nearly three million troops, some 7,000 artillery pieces, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and is considered the most powerful invasion in human history.

Its goal was to crush the Soviet army in a blitzkrieg, a massive surprise attack that would capture three key Soviet cities -- Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad -- and cause the Red Army to crumble in months. Nazi leader Hitler was also driven by ideological motives, seeking to create Lebensraum (‘living space’) for the Germans in the east. This ‘living space’ under the General Plan Ost ultimately meant the ‘Germanisation’ of captured territory in Eastern Europe through the genocide, extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs and other indigenous peoples of Eastern Europe, who were categorised as Untermenschen (or ‘subhuman’) in Nazi ideology.

The Nazis had already tested their twisted ideology in the territories they had previously occupied, using systematic massacres, mass starvation, forced labour, rape, child abduction and sexual slavery.

Despite enormous losses, the Red Army managed to halt the German advance in December 1941 and launch a counterattack, inflicting the first major loss on the seemingly invincible Nazi forces since the beginning of the Second World War. The successful defence of Moscow thwarted Hitler’s genocidal plans and gave hope to all oppressed nations under Nazi rule. However, the turning point of both the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War was the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the most brutal standoffs in human history, which began in the summer of 1942 and ended in February 1943 with a devastating German defeat.

The Battle of Stalingrad lasted 199 days and cost an estimated 1,5 million lives on both sides. The besieged city quickly became a meat grinder. The losses were so significant that at times the life expectancy of a newly arrived soldier was less than a day. Battles raged for every street, house, cellar, and stairwell.

One building the Germans failed to take was the so-called ‘Pavlov’s House’. The Soviet troops managed to defend the landmark against the overwhelming German forces for almost 60 days, resisting the Nazi invasion longer than some European countries, such as France, Denmark, Poland or the Netherlands. After the heavy loss at Stalingrad, the Germans were largely on the defensive until the end of the war.

Another critical moment in the history of the Second World War was the horrific siege of Leningrad (now St Petersburg). It lasted almost 900 days, from September 1941 to January 1944. The city’s nearly three million civilian population refused to surrender, despite being completely surrounded -- becoming a symbol of Soviet resilience. During the first winter of the siege, there was no heat, no water, almost no electricity and very little food. Despite nonstop air and artillery bombardment, the city’s greatest enemies were hunger and bitter cold. The siege claimed the lives of at least 670,000 Leningraders, although some estimates put the death toll as high as 1.5 million.

The Red Army repulsed the aggressor and managed to secure its pre-war positions in March 1944. However, despite the much-needed respite, the Soviet Army began its quest to liberate the occupied peoples of Europe from Nazi occupation. During 1944-1945, the USSR, together with its anti-Hitler coalition allies, fully or partially liberated Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Denmark, Norway and Germany.

The victory in the Great Patriotic War and subsequently in the Second World War on September 2, 1945, led to the creation of the current UN-centred world order. The victory paved the way for the adoption of the UN Charter with its fundamental principles that guide international relations today.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the 1945 victory. The defeat of Nazism paved the way for liberation movements all over the world, including South Asia. The nations gained the opportunity to choose their own independent path of development. To establish their own states where the people of these countries would not be treated as second-class human beings by the colonial powers.

May 9 has a special significance for the Russian people, because it is not just a political or historical holiday. It is a very personal and emotional date for all Russians and the peoples of the former Soviet Union who paid a heavy price for the triumphant victory over the Axis powers. More than 27 million Soviet citizens lost their lives during the war. More than half of them -- about 15 million people -- were civilians who died of hunger, disease, deprivation, or were tortured and executed by the German army. Virtually every Russian family has a relative who either fought during the war, worked on the home front, or was part of the partisan movement.

Given all this, it is particularly painful for the Russian people to see attempts, especially in the West, to rewrite history, to diminish the role of the Soviet people in defeating Nazism, or even to say that the USSR bears the same responsibility for unleashing World War II as Hitler’s Germany. What would the 600,000 Soviet soldiers who helped liberate Poland have to say about such blatant accusations? Or the one million Red Army soldiers who gave their lives to free Europe?

It is also particularly alarming to see the rise of neo-Nazis in Eastern Europe, from the torch marches in the Baltic States to the glorification of the war criminal Stepan Bandera in Ukraine. It is all the more outrageous to see how the Eastern European countries, in their vicious attack of Russophobia, are waging war on the monuments of the Soviet liberators. The victory in the Great Patriotic War teaches us that unity among great powers, mutual respect and understanding contribute to the common good, while hatred and the pursuit of narrow-minded, selfish interests, ignoring the needs of others, lead only to conflicts and wars.

On this sacred day, let us honour the tremendous sacrifice of those who helped rid the world of the Nazi scourge and to whom we all owe our lives. Glory to the heroes who died for the freedom of the world! Glory to the Victory in the Great Patriotic War!