When the James Bond film From Russia With Love opened in London on 10 October 1963, prospects for a rapprochement between the United States and the Soviet Union seemed to be on the horizon. Exactly four months earlier (10 June), US President John F. Kennedy delivered an historic address at American University in Washington, DC praising the Russian people for their immense contribution to the defeat of the Third Reich. Unquestionably, no country fought harder or sacrificed more than Russia during World War II, and of the many battles against Nazi forces - the Battle of Stalingrad was one of the most heroic and consequential engagements of the war. It was a victory of hope and tenacity against hatred and horror - a fight by soldiers and civilians that helped save Russia and the world..
To Stalingrad
.
On 22 June 1941, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) launched Operation Barbarossa with a massive attack on the Soviet Union. As a Treaty of Non-Aggression had been concluded by Moscow and Berlin two years earlier (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 23 August 1939), Stalin, who was completely taken aback by the Fuhrer's volte face, disappeared from public sight for several days. After the initial shock of being duped by disingenuous Nazi diplomacy, Stalin recovered and began to plan Russia's defense. He would do so, however, without many talented officers. Due to his lust for power and paranoid fear of others, Stalin eliminated potential rivals in the Communist Party and in the military. His 'lucky' victims went to jail. The rest were murdered outright. In between these two ruthless dictators were the Russian people of Volgograd in the Caucasus. Renamed Stalingrad in 1925 by the Soviet leader, Hitler was determined to smash the eponymous city as a symbol of Nazi power over communism and as a personal triumph over Stalin.
.
What did Hitler want in the Caucasus? It was what he and his army needed - oil. If able to seize Russia's largest oilfields and squash Russian resistance in region, Hitler could proceed to conquer the entire country.
.
After a long summer campaign, Hitler's Sixth Army, led by General Friedrich Paulus (1890-1957), was downsized and sent to capture Stalingrad. Hitler had every reason to believe the city would fall quickly as Red Army had already taken significant losses and were in the process of conducting a demoralizing retreat. Yet, he forgot one crucial component in the equation of war - the determination of the Russian people. Regardless of his uncountable crimes against humanity, Stalin did make a few good decisions in the war. One of them was to not evacuate the civilian population from Stalingrad. He rightly understood that civilians and soldiers would pose far stiffer resistance if they stood as one in defense of their homeland. Under Stalin's directive "Not One Step Back," the people of Stalingrad braced themselves against the mighty onslaught of the Nazi war machine.
.
From August 1942 to February 1943, the Russian people fought the invaders with every fiber in their collective being. When the Luftwaffe (the Nazi air force) saturated the city with bombs, women, who constituted half of all the Russian anti-aircraft gunners, fired with success and brought down more than a few enemy planes. Despite taking ninety percent of the city, a Nazi victory proved elusive. Through building-to-building and hand-to-hand combat, the Red Army and the citizen-soldiers of Stalingrad slowly began to roll back the terrain captured by the Sixth Army.
.
And then Russia's great friend came once again - the same friend that helped defeat Napoleon in 1812 - the Russian winter. Temperatures plummeted to more than thirty degrees below zero. Significant amounts of snow fell, and German supply lines, which had been overstretched from the beginning, became even more precarious and threatened the entire operation. Realizing that the Sixth Army was now vulnerable, General Paulus wisely asked permission to withdraw on 10 November. Hitler would have none of it. Stalingrad was to be taken at all costs. It was personal.
.
Nine days later, Russian reinforcements crossed the Volga River. Partly equipped with arms and supplies from the United States under Franklin Roosevelt's ingenious Lend-Lease Act, they began a formidable counterattack. In a matter of only weeks, the Sixth Army was surrounded by Russian forces and cut off from supplies. Hitler told Paulus to wait for a rescue force to break through the Russian ring, but no such relief came. Consequently, the 250,000 soldiers under Paulus' command froze and began to starve. Many died. Paulus asked Hitler if he could surrender to save his army. The Fuhrer refused and subsequently made Paulus a Field Marshal. Why? No Field Marshal had ever surrendered. Yet, Hitler's psychological ruse did not work. Paulus capitulated on the same day of his appointment on 31 January 1943.
.
The Legacy of Stalingrad, 1942-2012
.
How did they survive? One year prior to the Battle of Stalingrad, 4,000 Russians were dying each day in the Nazi siege of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). The Battles of Leningrad and Stalingrad brought out the best in the Russian people - men, women and children working side by side with one common goal. They did not fight Hitler's tyrannical regime to have their own tyrannical government at home. They were not fighting to preserve their secret police state replete with rigged elections and a militarist foreign policy. They did not fight to live in a country where a person could be sent to a gulag (Soviet concentration camp) for expressing views contrary to those in power.
.
They fought for freedom. They fought to save their families - and refused to give up hope of a better day for Russia.
.
Along with its record of heroism, the Red Army committed terrible atrocities in Eastern Europe including the deportation of non-Russian populations and mass rape. Human beings simply cannot handle war. Long periods of systematic violence and horror can turn even the best of men - anywhere in the world - into monsters. This is why war needs to be permanently eliminated in our present century.
.
Nevertheless, the courage and the sacrifices of the soldiers and civilians at Leningrad, Stalingrad and elsewhere against Hitler's armies deserves praise, and all of us, including the German people - many of which wanted Hitler removed from power before 1945, owe a debt of gratitude to the Russian people for refusing to surrender their lives, their homes and their dreams to a regime based on lies and bent on endless war and genocide.
.
On 22 November 1963, President John F. Kennedy was tragically assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Less than a year later, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) was forced into exile by reactionaries for bravely attempting to lead his country out of its Stalinist legacy. A US-Soviet Summit, which had been in its early planning stages, did not take place, and the Cold War continued in earnest.
.
In the official collapse of the Soviet Union on 31 December 1991, the resilient Russian people achieved a feat that had at one time seemed all but impossible. They had survived both Hitler and Stalin. Since then, the promise of Russian democracy has collapsed into an unholy alliance between ultra-wealthy financial elites and ultra-nationalist politicians. Similar to Hitler and Stalin, their interest is in the state rather than the individual. That is not democracy. Democracy is an exercise "of the people, by the people and for the people" - to quote Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address (1863).
.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has consistently claimed to support Russian democracy, but actions are louder than words. If so, why has he handed over the state to a cadre of corrupt plutocrats? Why has he been allowed to essentially install his puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, into the presidency? Why does he refuse to hold a recount over recent parliamentary elections, which may have been rigged, after massive Russian protests? Why has his government curtailed freedom of the press and failed to launch a serious investigation of the murders of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and other investigative reporters critical of Putin's war against Ossetia and Chechnya? Why has Putin been allowed to wage a not-so covert war against democratic nations in Eastern Europe - using energy and energy policies as weapons? If Putin believes in democracy, why has his government allowed Russian companies to build a nuclear reactor in Iran despite Tehran's cruel dictatorship and stated intention to become a nuclear-armed power?
.
Putin and the oligarchs maintain a dark and cynical view of the world. In their eyes, the Russian people are mere pawns to be used to accumulate more political and economic power for themselves and their state. But it is not their state. Russia belongs to its people.
.
On 4 March, elections will be held to determine the next president. To honor the sacrifices made by its World War II generation, Russians must continue to organize, network and stand up for democracy in the streets. A relentless campaign must be waged until freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free elections, economic security and a full program of human rights are accorded to every citizen. It may take months or even years, but the Russian people are used to long, soul-testing struggles.
.
These are the hard realities of history and today. We cannot afford to ignore or wish them away. In so doing, Russia and the people of the world must indefatigably strive for universal justice.
.
When united for peace, hope and freedom, the Russian people cannot be defeated. That is a lesson Napoleon and Hitler learned the hard way. Soon, it will be the turn of the anti-democratic elites in Russia to do the same.
.
(Photo: A Russian solider waves the flag in victory at Stalingrad, 1943. To view additional photos of Stalingrad and to read President Kennedy's remarks praising Russian efforts during World War II in his American University Address on 10 June 1963, please click onto the kleostimes.tumblr.com link to the right and see postings for Sunday, 8 January)
.
Key Sources/Recommendations
.
1. Anthony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942-1943 (New York: Penguin, 1999).
2. Laurence Olivier (narrator), The World At War Vol II. (Documentary film, 1974).
3. James L. Stokesbury, A Short History of World War II (New York: HarperCollins, 1980).
.
J Roquen