Victory Over Nazi-Fascism Day is celebrated on May 9th. Around this date and what it represents, the bourgeoisie has long been fueling a work of historical revisionism: it tries by every means to demonize communism, equating Stalin’s USSR with Hitler’s Germany, and to name the US and UK imperialists United the greatest merits in the defeat of Nazi-fascism.
This anniversary must, instead, be an opportunity to reaffirm the historical truth and celebrate the heroic sacrifice of the Soviet people and the communist movement, the true architects of liberation from Nazi-fascism.
The historical reality is that the Nazis came to power and unleashed the war with the specific intent of annihilating the Soviet Union and the communist movement, that is, of realizing what was the dream of the entire imperialist bourgeoisie. And, in fact, for a long time the US, British and French imperialists supported, financed and supported Hitler in his project.
Only the anti-fascist mobilization of the popular masses, fueled by the communist movement, and the maneuvers of the USSR to break the imperialist front (to the point of signing a non-belligerence pact with Germany in 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact), finally forced them to declare war on the Nazis. War in which, however, they did not engage until the defeat of the Nazis was now evident and with the main objective of leaving no room for the Soviets.
France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany on 1 September 1939 (the USA only in 1941), the day on which the Nazi invasion of Poland began. But for months they remained virtually immobile, giving the Nazis plenty of time to complete the conquest of Poland, invade Denmark and Norway and, finally, in May 1940, enter France via the Netherlands and Belgium, practically without encountering no resistance. On the other hand, the motto circulating among the French upper class at that time was: “better Hitler than the Popular Front government” (which had won the elections in 1936). And it is no coincidence that the Nazis had no great difficulty in installing a collaborationist regime in the country (Vichy France).
From that moment on, the imperialists of the United Kingdom and from December 1941 those of the USA, who formally entered the war against the Axis after the attack on Pearl Harbour, essentially remained on the sidelines, committing themselves to the maximum on secondary fronts such as the African one. Hoping for a collapse of the socialist regime, they left the Nazis, now masters of Europe, plenty of time to prepare and carry out the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Only in July 1943, when the overwhelming Soviet counteroffensive had already begun, did the Allies land in Italy, where they immediately found themselves bogged down (Rome was only liberated on 4 June 1944). And only on the following 6 June, with the landing in Normandy, will they open a real second front in the heart of Europe, as Stalin had asked them to do since the end of 1941.
It was, however, the communist movement, with Stalin’s USSR at its head, which immediately promoted the mobilization of the popular masses against fascism and worked to counter its rise; who sent weapons and equipment and organized the International Brigades in support of the Spanish Republic in what was the first real military confrontation with the Nazis and fascists: the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
And from the moment the Nazis, now masters of Europe, felt strong enough to launch the invasion of the USSR in June 1941, it was the Soviets who bore the full weight of the war. The country was invaded by a coalition that included armies of practically all European countries under the Nazi yoke, for a total of over 3 million soldiers and 600 thousand armored vehicles: the largest invasion force in military history. Hitler’s armies managed to penetrate deep into the country, reaching the suburbs of Moscow within a few months.
But the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the Soviet Union was able to mobilize all the forces of the people in an immense collective effort to stop the Nazi armies, increase industrial capacity and dismantle and rebuild thousands of factories from the occupied territories to the eastern ones. In a short time the USSR managed to bridge the industrial and military gap with the Nazi empire that stretched from Paris to Warsaw.
On July 28, 1942, Stalin issued the order “Not a step back!”. The Nazis were stopped in the city of Stalingrad, which became the very symbol of resistance to Nazi-fascism for the popular masses all over the world.
In the winter of 1943, the Soviet counteroffensive was unleashed: the siege of Stalingrad was broken, hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the Nazi coalition were captured. The advance began that would lead the Soviets to liberate all of Europe from Nazi occupation in two years, until they entered the German capital between April and May 1945: on 30 April Hitler committed suicide in a Berlin now condemned to fall into Soviet hands and on May 9 the Nazis sign the surrender.
April 30, 1945 – the Red Army raises the victory flag over the Reichstag in Berlin.
The Soviet Union at the head of the communist movement – which had heroically promoted partisan resistance in all occupied countries – had freed humanity from the Nazi nightmare, demonstrating the superiority of the socialist system and expanding the communist camp to half of Europe.
The price paid by the Soviet people was very high: 27 million deaths, including 18 million civilians. And even today this immense sacrifice is there to demonstrate that communism and Nazi-fascism are not only not comparable, but on the contrary they are opposites, because the communist movement is the only alternative to the barbarism of capitalism of which Nazi-fascism is the son and instrument.
