uksoapbox : Message: Chapters 24 - 26. 1917 AND ALL THAT: THE UNTAUGHT HISTORY SYLLABUS. In Their Own Words: A Political History Of The Cold War 1917-1983.

1917 AND ALL THAT: THE UNTAUGHT SYLLABUS.
In Their Own Words: A Political History Of The Cold War 1917-1983.
By Brian Mitchell.

Chapters 24-26 of 50.

Chapter 24

FINLAND: THE KEY TO MOSCOW.
BRITISH ATTEMPTS TO SWITCH THE WAR TO AN ANGLO-GERMAN WAR AGAINST THE USSR.
"Finland... is the key to Moscow."

(The Times.)

"The Soviet Union was never more lied about and the policy of her Government
never more misunderstood than during her war with Finland... The decision of the
Soviet Union to invade Finland, after negotiations for certain strategic
positions had broken down, has been justified by events... She had very good
reasons for fearing that Finland would be used as a jumping-off ground for an
attack on the Soviet Union... She took steps to secure ctrategic positions which
would obstruct the attack when it came _ as come it did 15 months later."

(Transport and General Union Record, March 1942.)

The Soviet-Finnish conflict of 1939-1940 is also thoroughly distorted and lied
about by capitalist historians, who depict Finland's "gallant little democracy"
as an innocent victim of "Soviet aggression".

Let us take a closer look at this "gallant little democracy". Like many of the
other capitalist states, Finland at this time was looking for allies in Nazi
Germany and Japan and Britain in a war of expansion _ for a "Greater Finland" _
directed against the Soviet Union.

The entry of Germany into the Baltic states and Finland was a repeat of
1914-1920 when German forces marched through the Baltic states and took every
port and occupied important islands and landed forces in Finland and threatened
Leningrad. In the intervention wars Britain also occupied the islands and ports
and naval bases of all four countries and attacked Soviet Russia.

Finland was part of the Tsarist Russian Empire until the Finnish revolution of
March 1917, after which Finnish Soviets of workers and peasants was set up in
April 1917. A Finnish Workers' Republic was set up on January 28 1918. After the
Finnish workers' Revolution the Finnish House of Representatives requested
independence and the right to cecede from Russia, which was immediately granted
by Lenin on December 31 1917, and a treaty of friendship was signed on March 1
1918 ceding the Soviet port of Petsamo, providing Finland with an ice free
outlet in the Arctic Ocean.

Like in Soviet Russia, after the Finns' Soviet revolution there was civil war;
but aided by the West, and by a division of German troops in the South, the
Finnish White Guards under Tsarist General Baron Karl Gustav von Mannerheim, a
Swede by birth who didn't even know the Finnish language, Chairman of the
Helsingfors Joint Stock Bank (capital at the time: 213,000,000 Finnish marks),
subsidised by Royal Dutch Shell, overthrew the Finnish Workers' Government in
1918 and took power. Then followed a campaign of mass murder against the Finnish
Reds by the British press's "Finnish democracy" of the Mannerheim government:

"Out of about 80,000 Red prisoners taken at the end of April or subsequently
arrested, more than 30,000 men and women are dead."

(The Times Feb 11 1919.)

#"White Guards, hurriedly organised by reactionaries, together with doubtful
elements of the disbanded gendarmerie, under Baron Mannerheim, a former Russian
general of cavalry, proved insufficient to maintain order. Foreign intervention
was sought, but while Sweden refused to help, Germany did not hesitate... some
15,000 men, women and children were slaughtered."

(Encyclopaedia Britanica.)

"The number of men and women arrested during the first weeks of May 1919 was
about 90,000 and of these 15,000 to 20,000 were shot out of hand. In that way
the following were executed: at Rebemaki, 5,000; at Lahti, 2,000; at Vyborg,
4,000 and so on. At Lahti, 200 women were taken out early one morning in the
second week of May, a fortnight after the end of the fighting, and were mown
down in a batch with machine guns. The remaining 70,000 were confined in prison
camps under a regime of almost incredible barbarity. Over one third died in four
months."

(Josiah Wedgewood, House of Commons, May 29 1919.)

"Finland, we learn from the capitalist papers, is appealing to England for aid.
You will remember what has passed there since the revolution of the spring of
1917... In Finland, as in Russia, the social revolution followed the political.
The Finnish bourgeoisie appealed to Germany for aid. With the help of German
troops the White Guards triumphed; the revolution was stamped out in the horrors
of the White Terror; the socialist leaders were exiled or flung into gaol; and a
bourgeois government was established. Now the Germans are going; and the
bourgeoisie know they cannot hold their power alone. So the leader of the White
Guards is now in London asking for British aid and British bayonets to keep the
revolution down. And the newspapers are backing him."

(Daily Herald Nov 30 1918.)

#The White Russians under Kolchak then refused to recognise Finlands's new
independence recognised by the Soviet Union, and with British aid Finland broke
off relations and all negotiations and agreements with the Soviet government and
joined in with the Western intervention wars against the USSR under the slogan
for a "Greater Finland up to the Urals.".

Finland was also one of the countries demanded by Germany as a condition of the
Brest-Litovsk Treaty of March 1918.

Soviet actions in Finland and the Baltic in 1939 and 1940 were recognised by
some British politicians as necessary for her security. As a result of the
Brest-Litovsk treaty the only Baltic port the Soviets had was Kronstadt, which
was icebound through winter and spring. The British, French and German fleets
therefore had control of the Baltic.

Finland had long been recognised by Britain and Germany as a good place through
which to invade the USSR in the North:

"So far as stamping out the Bolshevist is concerned... If we look at the map, we
shall find that the best approach to Petrograd is from the Baltic, and that the
shortest and easiest route is through Finland, whose frontiers are only about
thirty miles distant from the Russian capital. Finland is the key to Petrograd
and Petrograd is the key to Moscow."

(The Times April 17 1919.)

Under German supervision, German officers and German engineers, Finland was
prepared as a fortified base for a German invasion into the USSR. Financed by
the US, 23 large military airfields were constructed in Finland. The heavily
fortified "Mannerheim Line", which at one point had long range guns only 21
miles from Leningrad, was constructed along Finland's border with the USSR with
German and British military assistance under British General Kirke. Thereafter
Finnish workers called it the "Mannerheim-Kirke line".

Leningrad hasn't moved. It is still only 32 kilometres from the Finnish border;
well within the range of long range guns of 1939 behind the "Mannerheim Line".

Kirke again made an inspection of the Mannerheim Line and the Karelian Isthmus
fortifications in the summer of 1939 after Mannerheim visited Britain. In order
to protect its security the Soviet Government offered the Finnish Government on
October 31 1939 a deal whereby the Finnish border at Karelia would move 100 or
so kilometres north of Leningrad, and Finland would gain a part of Soviet
Karelia twice as large in proportion as the total areas received by the Soviet
Union. The Finns would also give the USSR naval facilities at Hango where Soviet
naval guns would face seaward in conjunction with guns on the island of Dago in
order to protect the Soviet Union's Baltic accesses. Nobody could say that this
was an unreasonable demand:

"The claim for a foothold on the mainland at Hango is justified on the ground
that in conjunction with the island of Dago, which has been leased from Estonia,
it would give Russia command over the entrance to the Gulf of Finland.
Strategically, the argument needs no emphasis. Nor can any European nation feel
wholly out of sympathy with Russia's determination to safeguard herself from
German hostile action in the future."

(The Yorkshire Post Nov 13 1939.)

Even Churchill supported the Soviet request saying to his military chiefs Pound
and Phillips on October 27 1939 that these facilities "are only needed against
Germany" and Finland's sovereignty would not be affected, adding that "It is
Germany alone that is the danger and the enemy there" and that it was "quite
natural" for the Soviets to need bases "which prevent German aggression in the
Baltic Provinces or against Petrograd" and the British Government should try to
"persuade the Finns to make concessions, and Russia to be content with strategic
points." (1)

Churchill later wrote that:

"Soviet Russia... proceeded to block the lines of entry into the Soviet Union
from the West. One passage led from East Prussia through the Baltic States;
another led across the Gulf of Finland; a third route was through Finland itself
and across the Karelian Isthmus to a point where the Finnish frontier was only
twenty miles from the suburbs of Leningrad. The Soviets had not forgotten the
dangers which Leningrad had faced in 1919... Soviet garrisons also appeared in
Lithuania. Thus the southern road to Leningrad and half the Gulf of Finland had
been swiftly barred against potential German ambitions by the armed forces of
the Soviets. There remained only the approach through Finland."

(Winston Churchill "The Second World War.")

The Soviet Government, as often today, were willing to agree to every concession
that would not jeopardise the security of the USSR. But on November 10 1939 the
Finns broke off negotiations, and on November 26 1939 the Finnish army provoked
an incident on the Soviet-Finnish border opening artillery fire on the Soviet
Union. Under orders not to be provoked, the Soviet border forces did not return
fire. After more similar provocations and attacks, the Soviets retaliated; and
on November 28 1939 the Soviet Government renounced the 1932 Soviet-Finnish
Non-Aggression Pact now violated by the Finns, who, declaring war against the
Soviet Union, mobilised the Finnish army under Mannerheim.

The Soviets then proposed that the Finns withdrew 25 kilometres from the Soviet
border in order to prevent further incidents. The Finns demanded that the
Soviets did the same. It was pointed out that Soviet border forces do not
threaten vital centres of Finland, whereas the concentrations of Finnish forces
on the border threatens Soviet vital centres. And anyway, if the Soviets
withdrew border forces that distance it would put them at the suburbs of
Leningrad. This was clearly untenable.

Fighting between the Soviets and the Finns increased and Soviet troops entered
Finland. Then the Cajander Government fell and the Ryti Government of Helsinki
came to power, but was no better. Ryti, the 'socialist' who also happened to be
the President of the Bank of Finland and who regarded Hitler as a "genius", was
also overthrown; so was the Social Democrat millionaire Tanner, who was later
jailed by the Finns for collaboration with the Nazis, and on December 1 1939, a
popular Provisional People's Government was formed in Terijoki under the popular
leadership of Otto Kuusinen with the support of insurrectionary Finnish
soldiers, workers and peasants and other Left leaders, which proclaimed:

"The people have already risen in various parts of the country and proclaimed
the formation of a democratic republic. A part of the soldiers of the

(1)See:Churchill Papers, 19/3

Finnish Army have already sided with the new Government, backed by the people.

The Soviet Union, which has never threatened or disturbed Finland, which always
respected her independence and for some twenty years tolerated a vile war of
provocations on the part of the adventurous rulers of White Finland, has now
been confronted with the necessity of putting an end to these threats to its
independence by means of the Red Army forces.

The People's Government of Finland, being deeply convinced that the Soviet Union
pursues no aims directed against the independence of our country, fully approves
and supports the actions of the Red Army... regards them as an invaluable
assistant... for the purpose of eliminating as soon as possible... the most
dangerous seat of war created in Finland by the criminal government of war
provocateurs...

Our state must be a democratic republic serving the interests of the people,
unlike the plutocratic Republic of Cajander and Erkko, which served the
interests of the capitalists and landlords. However, our state is not a state of
the Soviet type because the Soviet regime cannot be established by the efforts

of the Government alone, without the consent of the whole people..."

(Proclamation of the Provisional People's Government of Finland, Dec 1 1939.)
(1)

The People's Government planned complete democratisation of Finland,
confiscation of large estates to be divided among the peasants, State aid for
the farms of small peasants, abolition of unemployment, establishment of an
eight hour day for workers, State control of the large banks and factories, and
support for small and middle-sized businesses.

The popularity of the Finnish Provisional Government and the universal
condemnation of the fascist Mannerheim and of the 'socialist' Ryti spread to
Finns abroad:

"In Minneapolis, for instance, a mass meeting of Finnish workers unanimously
approved a resolution supporting the new government and condemning Ryti and
Mannerheim. The Finnish Federation of Berkeley, California, has unanimously
adopted a resolution pledging every possible aid for the government and has
elected a committee to rally support."

(Daily Worker Dec 12 1939.)

The USSR recognised the new Finnish government and concluded a Mutual Assistance
Pact; the terms of which transferred to Finland 27,000 square miles of Soviet
Karelia which reunited with Finland an area inhabited mainly by Karelian Finns;
and the Finns agreed to transfer 1,533 square miles of the southern Karelian
Isthmus and lease port facilities at Hango to the Soviet Union. The USSR paid
300,000,000 Finnish marks for the property and 120,000,000 Finnish marks for the
railways it took over. The USSR had already in September and October signed
mutual assistance pacts with the three southern Baltic states permitting Soviet
air and naval bases on their territory for protection of the USSR. As is to be
expected; none of this was to the liking of the Allied Supreme War Council, who,
accompanied by a virulent anti-Soviet propaganda campaign and 'sympathy' for
Mannerheim's "gallant little Finnish democracy", on December 19 1939 discussed
sending British and French troops to Finland to be used in a war against the
USSR:

"By the middle of January the principle of an Allied intervention was accepted,
and landings in Murmansk, Petsamo, or Narvik were under consideration by
experts."

#(Allied Supreme War Council, December 19 1939.) (2)

(1)See:W.P. and Z.K. Coates "Russia, Finland and the Baltic." Lawrence and
Wishart. London 1940.

(2)Arnold and Veronica Toynbee (Eds) "The Initial Triumph of the Axis." London
1958.

Murmansk was always of particular interest to the British from intervention
times since it is the Soviet Union's only ice free port in the north and any
enemy capturing it would control the entire Kola Bay.

The British government, which stuck by its policy of no assistance and "no
intervention" when the fascists overthrew the elected popular government of
Spain, and who adopted its policy of "no intervention" when Hitler entered the
Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, and who at the beginning of the war had
admitted not having the resources to invade Nazi Germany, hurriedly arranged to
send military supplies to Finland. The British sent heavy guns, tens of millions
of rounds of ammunition, aircraft, bombs and other military equipment and
supplies. The French, in need of armaments against Germany themselves, also sent
armaments, including aircraft and heavy guns.

In another example of British double standards, while not suggesting that
countries like Germany, Italy, or Japan be expelled from the League of Nations,
the British government, who had deserted the near lifeless League of Nations
since 1937, immediately tried to bring the League back to life in order to expel
the USSR from it, which it did with amazing speed on December 14 1939:

"This has been the best rush job I have ever seen the League perform. All
time-wasting has been quashed with almost totalitarian severity."

(Daily Express Dec 14 1939.)

On February 5 1940, when it became obvious that Mannerheim was going to be
defeated, the Allied Supreme War Council decided to send British and French
troops to Finland. US historian D.F.Fleming writes:

"The French and British governments were actually prepared to go to war with
Russia... all the reactionaries in the world saw their chance for an outburst of
holy fury against Red Russia... Most of the powerful ones in France and Britain
(and many in the USA) forgot all about the war with Germany... Here in the
Russo-Finnish war was a war they could really put their hearts into."

(US historian D.F.Fleming.) (1)

"In the middle of January our representative was informed by Field-Marshal
Mannerheim that he did not then require men, as his resources in man-power were
sufficient... to last until the thaw came. He did, however, say that he would be
very glad to have some 30,000 men in May, but he stipulated that they should be
trained soldiers. I may ask the House to bear in mind these two facts - 30,000
men, to arrive in Finland in May."

(British Prime Minister Chamberlain, House of Commons, March 19 1940.) (2)

In fact, Chamberlain arranged for 100,000 armed men to be ready to depart in the
beginning of March and more reinforcements would be sent later.

One of the factors preventing Britain from switching the war against the Soviets
was that Norway refused to agree to Britain troops crossing its territory.

Also in contrast with its agreeable policy towards Franco's Spain, Hitler's
Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Japan; the British Government then considered
breaking off diplomatic relations with the USSR. However, their plans were very
short sighted. Britain and France did not even have the means to go to war
against Germany, let alone the USSR as well. And guided by their desire to use
the USSR in the war against Hitler, the British government were disinclined to
break off relations and go to war against the Soviet Union:

(1) D.F. Fleming "The Cold War and its Origins." Doubleday. London 1961.

(2)Hansard, 19 3 1940.

"It would be criminal folly on their part deliberately to provoke a war with
Germany and Russia combined, and I agree with Lord Strabolgi that such a
development would end any hope of another change of policy in Russia favourable
to our interests before the present war is over."

(A.J.Cummings, News Chronicle, Jan 4 1940.)

"The stresses created by the Finnish War had already worsened our relations,
already bad, with the Soviets. Any action we might undertake to help the Finns
might lead to war with Russia."

(Winston Churchill "The Second World War.")

When on February 29 the Finnish Government requested to negotiate peace with the
Soviet Union, the British tried every means to try and keep Finland in the war.
Britain and France planned to switch the war by coming to an agreement with
Hitler and drawing Germany into a war against the Soviet Union via the
Soviet-Finnish war:

"Germany was then to have been pressed to attack the Soviet Union, having made
peace with the Western Powers."

#("Memoirs of Eduard Benes " [Former President of Czechoslovakia B.M.] The
Nation, July 10 1948.)

In preparation to switch what was then the "phoney war", which the British
government regarded as the "wrong war", to an Anglo-German-French war against
the USSR the American press and the British government, helped by the right wing
Labour Party and Trade Unionists, conducted a hateful and vicious anti-Soviet
press campaign under the slogan of "Aid to Finland" calling for a "crusade"
against the USSR:

"The American press told less truth and retailed more fancy lies about the
Finnish war than about any recent conflict."

(Institute for Propaganda Analysis, New York, June 1940.) (1)

Some of the hatred was reserved for the Finnish Provisional Government:

"Scorn has been poured on the People's Government of Kuusinen. Noble liberals
jeered at it as representative only of 'a splinter party'. It is characteristic
of the decadence of liberalism in this epoch to stand silent while communists
and other working-class fighters are decapitated, jailed and forced to hide
their identity, and then jeer at the survivors as 'splinters'."

(Labour Monthly Jan 1940.)

The bourgeois press was alive with imaginative reports from "our war
correspondent" reporting "from the front". But the truth is that no
correspondent was allowed anywhere near the front:

"It now transpires that no War Correspondent" ever saw a battle in Finland or
entered a battle zone until the fighting was all over. At the end of the
campaign some of them admitted this... The only "battle-news" to be had in
Finland apparently was that handed out by the Finnish Military Spokesman. For
the rest the "War Correspondents" spent their time travelling the large tract of
lake and woodland and snow, vainly seeking copy..."

(W.P. and Zelda Coates "The Soviet-Finnish Campaign 1939-1940.") (2)

(1) See:Michael Sayers and Albert E. Kahn "The Great Conspiracy - Against
Soviet Russia." Boni and Gaer, NY 1946, and Red Star Press. London 1975.

(2)W.P. and Zelda Coates "The Soviet-Finnish Campaign 1939-1940." Eldon Press.
London 1941.

"...an eventful fortnight which gives one a mental landscape to look back upon.
I have not been to the front, nor has any other journalist, during that time."

(Daily Telegraph Feb 17 1940.)

"No foreign correspondent here in Finland is allowed to visit any front
whatsoever when a battle is taking place. All correspondents have been barred
from the Isthmus for over a month now. They must rely for their news on the
official communique handed out in Helsinki each evening. ...averages about 150
words; anything more that is written about the actual fighting, therefore, must
be conjecture."

(Virginia Cowles, Special Correspondent, Sunday Times March 10 1940.)

"My job in Finland for the last two and a-half months was to broadcast
eye-witness accounts of the war."

(Edward Ward, BBC News Observer, Radio Times April 5 1940.)

In order to influence public opinion in preparation for the British Tory and
right-wing Labour plan to "switch" the war to one against the Soviet Union, our
"war correspondents", ever faithful servants of capital and without opinion or
conscience of their own, continued to write imaginative stories from "the battle
zone" of Soviet army "incompetence" and the "heroic resistance" of Mannerheim's
"gallant little democracy". The "butcher" Mannerheim who had massacred the
Finnish working class suddenly became a fine gentleman. One British right wing
Labour leader, H.N.Brailsford, even criticised the Tories saying that a Labour
government should start a war against the Soviet Union:

"We may have to revise all the doctrines with which we entered this war. If we
mean to conduct it as champions of a new civilisation against... Moscow, we
cannot hope for success under Conservative leadership."

(Labour leader H.N.Brailsford, Reynolds News Oct 1 1939.)

Other Labour leaders spoke out against a war against the USSR, such as barrister
D.N.Pritt, who was subsequently expelled from the Labour Party. A resolution of
a Labour Monthly conference on February 25 1940 said:

"The cause of the Soviet Union is the cause of world socialism, of the whole
international working class. We ask the working class to remember how it stopped
the anti-Soviet war in 1920, by agitation and strike action, and to act swiftly
now to prevent such a war once more."

(Labour Monthly, May 1940.)

While characteristically showing no understanding of the forces of capital
against labour in the world situation, the British Labour Party on the whole,
and some of the more progressive Trade Unions nevertheless opposed a war against
the Soviet Union:

"If British reactionaries and Herr Hitler made any move towards a Nazi-British
alliance against Russia, Labour would oppose it"

(Herbert Morrison M.P. Dec 4 1939.) (1)

Mannerheim had been defeated, and the British and French failed to switch the
war. On March 12 1940 Finland signed a peace treaty with the Soviet Union.

Britain and France then turned their attention to launching a bombing attack on
the Soviet Caucasian oilfields:

(1)See:Pat and Zelda Coates "A History of Anglo-Soviet Relations." Lawrence and
Wishart. London 1944.

"The Scandinavian gate to Central Europe, which for three months has been ajar,
is now fast-closed again. By so much the more is the importance of the other
open enemy flank in Southeastern Europe increased... We are well placed to
deliver a dangerous thrust at those Caucasian oilfields which are as vital a
spot to Germany as to Russia herself."

(Daily Mail March 14 1940.)

But due again to the fact that Britain did not have the resources to occupy the
Caucasian area, and because of the war with Germany, the plan was shelved.

On March 29 1940, countering the direct lies of the bourgeois press which said
that the USSR had annexed Finland, Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov
declared:

"The British and French press also wrote that the Soviet Union wants to convert
Finland into a mere Baltic State... The truth lies elsewhere; it is that the
Soviet Union, having smashed the Finnish Army and having every opportunity of
occupying the whole of Finland, did not do so and did not demand any indemnities
for its expenditure in the war as any other power would have done... We pursued
no other objects in the peace treaty than that of safeguarding the security of
Leningrad, Murmansk and the Murmansk railway... The Peace Treaty is based on the
recognition that Finland is an independent State, recognition of the
independence of her home and foreign policy, and at the same time, on the
necessity of safeguarding the security of Leningrad and the north-western
frontiers of the Soviet Union."

(Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov, March 29 1940.)

"The Russians won a complete military victory but confined their demands to the
territorial readjustments. It may be supposed that had they wished to do so, the
Russians could have annexed Finland."

(News Letter May 22 1941.)

The Finnish government began to build more fortifications along the new border
under Nazi supervision, and the Finns and Germans set up joint command
headquarters. Finland later joined the Nazis in their war against the Soviet
Union.

By April 1941 12,000 German troops, with tanks and artillery arrived in Finland.
German aircraft took off from Finnish bases when Hitler attacked the USSR in
June 1941. Britain eventually declared war on the "gallant little Finnish
democracy" in December 1941.

Chapter 25

BRITAIN BEGINS THE "PHONEY WAR" -
AND HITLER SHOWS HIS APPRECIATION AT DUNKIRK.
This was not called the "Phoney War" for nothing. It was called the "Phoney War"
because no serious attempt was made to oppose Hitler in Europe.

"War was declared, but appeasement lived on."

(Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott "The Appeasers.")

"Hardly a shot had been fired. The German man-in-the-street was beginning to
call it the 'sit-down' war - Sitzkrieg. In the West it would soon be dubbed the
'phoney' war... Were the Germans surprised? Hardly."

(US historian William L. Shirer "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.".)

Hitler had long planned his war strategy. He knew that the Western allies would
not seriously attack him so long as he was going to fight their common enemy in
the East:

"I experienced those miserable worms Daladier and Chamberlain in Munich. They
will be too cowardly to attack. They won't go beyond a blockade."

(Adolf Hitler, to a Wehrmacht conference, Aug 22 1939.) (1)

Also Hitler didn't want a war on two fronts:

"What has been desired since 1870 and considered as impossible of achievement
has come to pass. For the first time in history we have to fight on only one
front. The other front is at present free... We can oppose Russia only when we
are free in the West."

(Adolf Hitler, to his Commanders in Chief, Nov 23 1939.) (2)

Hitler needed Britain to stand aside while he mopped up Europe's industry
because Germany would not have had the resources for a sustained war.

Hitler also needed the resources of Europe at his disposal and a subdued Europe
in his rear before invading the USSR. And he needed the resources of a subdued
USSR before turning on Britain and the other powerful Western nations:

"The armed forces of Germany must be prepared, even before the conclusion of the
war with England, to defeat Soviet Russia in one rapid campaign.

The Army must in this case be prepared to commit all available formations, with
the proviso that the occupied territories must be secured against surprise
attacks."

(Hitler's Directive No.21. (Plan Barbarossa.), signed Dec 18 1940.) (3)

The "Phoney War" allowed Hitler to gather territories and resources in Western
Europe for his invasion of the USSR without any serious intervention in his
rear.

Because of this and the rapid capitulation and surrender of their capitalist
governments Hitler was able to occupy the nations of Western Europe one by one
in a very short time: Poland - 25 days, Denmark - 1 day, Holland - 5 days,
Belgium - 19 days, France - 44 days, Norway - 63 days. Hitler's experience of
Britain's inactivity was learnt in Poland:

(1)Quoted in:"On the Eve of World War II 1933-1939." Novosti. Moscow 1974.

(2)See:Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945, Series D, Vol.VIII.

See also:Peter de Mendelssohn "The Nuremberg Documents."

And:D.F. Fleming "The Cold War and its Origins." Doubleday. London 1961.

(3)See:"Hitler's War Directives. 1939-1945." London 1964.

Quoted in:Prof. G. Deborin "Thirty Years of Victory" Progress Publishers Moscow
1975.

"The success against Poland was only possible by almost completely baring our
Western border.

If the French had seen the logic of the situation and had used the engagement of
the German forces in Poland, they would have been able to cross the Rhine
without our being able to prevent it and would have threatened the Ruhr area,
which was the most decisive factor in the German conduct of the war."

(General Franz Halder, German Chief of Staff, at the Nuremberg trials.)

"And if we did not collapse already in the year 1939 that was due only to the
fact that during the Polish campaign, the approximately 110 French and British
divisions in the West were held completely inactive against the 23 German
divisions in the West."

(Alfred Jodl, Wehrmacht General, International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg,
1945-1946.) (1)

"The strongest army in the world, facing no more than twenty-six divisions,
sitting still and sheltering behind steel and concrete while a quixotically
valiant Ally was being exterminated."

(British military historian J.F.C.Fuller.) (2)

"It was impossible to justify our treatment of the Poles. We were letting them
down and letting them die, while we did nothing to help them."

(Hugh Dalton MP, later Minister for Economic Warfare and Chancellor of the
Exchequer, in his diary.) (3)

The British Government's "Munich" gift of Czechoslovakia to Hitler gave him a
free ride down the Danube, with all its coal and iron; and the Black Sea and its
oil.

"Today we are fighting for oilfields, rubber and minerals."

(Adolf Hitler, Nov 23 1939.) (4)

"Coal situation is desperate. Now we have shut the theatres, cinemas and
studios. This is a natural catastrophe against which one cannot succeed by
normal means. The Reichsbahn is powerless."

(Goebbels, in his diary, Feb 3 1940.)

The Phoney war put up by the British allowed Hitler a free reign in Europe when
Germany was getting short of war materials and Hitler was organising his
"Barbarossa" invasion of the Soviet Union to gain the materials he needed. A
note on drafting Hitler's "Barbarossa Plan" said:

"The main task of the organisation will consist in the seizure of raw materials
and in the taking over of all important enterprises."

(Draft note for Hitler's Barbarossa Plan, Feb 28 1941.) (5)

Hitler used tanks from the massive Czech Scoda armaments works to break through
the French army on his way to Paris and drove the British Army into the sea at
Dunkirk a few weeks later.

(1)See:"Recalling the Past For the Sake of the Future: The Causes, Results and
Lessons of World War Two." Novosti. Moscow 1985.

(2)J.F.C.Fuller "The Second World War 1939-1945.

###(3)Hugh Dalton

(4)See:"35 Years After World War Two." International Institute of Politics and
Economics of the GDR, April 1968.

(5)See:The Brown Book. War and Nazi Criminals in West Germany. Verlag Zeit im
Bild. Dresden.

Goebbels wrote in his diary:

"[Weapons B.M.] that stem from the Skoda works are exceptionally good and
usable. The Skoda works, in fact, are extremely efficient."

(Goebbels, in his diary, Oct 19 1939.)

How many British soldiers were killed by "exceptionally good" Czech armaments
given to Hitler at Munich by their British capitalists?

By 1941 almost 5,000 of Europe's military industrial complexes were working for
the German armies, and Germany's industrial potential had now become nearly 100%
greater than the Soviet Union's.

The trickery of Munich had failed. While Hitler was handed the whole of Europe's
industrial and material potential on a plate and supplied by Britain right up to
the first day of the war by the British Nazi collaborators, and because they had
sent stocks of war supplies to Finland's anti-Soviet war, the British government
had to face the embarrassment of not being sufficiently armed at the beginning
of the war:

"Huge German orders for rubber and copper were executed in London yesterday
regardless of cost. The buying of nearly 3,000 tons of copper sent the price
rocketing... Already Germany has bought over 10,000 tons this month in London
alone.

The London Rubber Exchange enjoyed almost a record turnover owing to a German
order for 4,000 tons. The price shot up... Germany is reported to have bought
17,000 tons already this month - two months' normal supply."

(News Chronicle Aug 19 1939. - 15 days before war started.)

"Only thirteen days before war was declared; 17,000 tons of rubber, 8,000 tons
of copper, large quantities of tin and lead, and other materials necessary for
armaments were furnished by Britain to Germany."

(British historian Ivor Montagu, in "The Traitor Class.")

"To execute the orders in time, heavy withdrawals were made from stores in the
UK. A third of our stocks of rubber and a quarter of our stocks of nickel have
gone and are now on their way to Germany. All deliveries have to be made by
September 1st. Mr Burgin, Minister of Supply, had the power to ban the deals,
but refused to do so."

(Evening Standard Aug 21 1939.)

"At the beginning of the war it must have been known that we should by now have
a million men under arms;... This week it was admitted in Parliament that we
could not even re-equip the divisions evacuated from Flanders, roughly 250,000
men... We are short of everything from small arms ammunition to heavy tanks."

(New Statesman June 15 1940.)

"I am permitted to tell you that the King has already arranged for a number of
sporting guns which are in his possession to be handed over for the use of the
Volunteers."

(Sir Edward Grigg, in a broadcast to the nation, June 16; reported in The Times
the next day.)

#(Year? RT: 1940?)

#Hitler occupies the whole of Europe - and Sir Edward arms the British Army for
a duck shoot.

After supplying Germany with war materials, the British Govcernment tried to
persuade the British people that Britain was fully prepared for war:

"The essential war materials, including a number of rare metals, have been
accumulated in stock sufficient to carry us through a long war."

#(Sir Thomas Inskip, later Lord Caldecote.) (1)

And later:

"There is nothing unready about the Air Force."

(Sir Thomas Inskip, later Lord Caldecote, Oct 12 1938.) (2)

"There is in almost everything _ I think I may say everything _ a stream which
might fairly be called a flood of these armaments and equipment which we need to
complete our defences."

(Sir Thomas Inskip, October 26 1938.) (3)

#Ten months later the Air Ministry was pleading for British housewives to donate
their aluminium pots and pans for the aircraft industry and the War Ministry was
calling for people to donate iron gates and railings from their front gardens.
The British Tories at Munich in 1938 had given Hitler more planes than the
British aircraft industry could build for Britain from 1935 to 1937. The British
Munich gifts to Hitler in tanks were more than the British armaments industries'
gifts in tanks to Lord Gort's British army.

"The assurance I give to the House, speaking not only as a representative of the
Air Ministry, but as a Cabinet Minister, is that our defence programme has been
framed in the light of the best estimates that can be made of the forces which
may be brought against us."

(Earl Winterton, deputising for the Secretary of State for Air, House of
Commons, May 1938.) (4)

Their "best estimates" obviously did not expect a serious war.

In February 1939 British Prime Minister Chamberlain had said:

"Our arms are so great that, without taking into account the Dominions'
contribution, 'Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock
them!'"

(Chamberlain, Feb 22 1939.) (5)

And in March, Sir Samuel Hoare said:

"The long period of preparation has come to an end... our almost inexhaustible
resources will ensure the final victory."

(Sir Samuel Hoare, March 10 1939.)

What "almost inexhaustible resources" the British did have had to be left behind
at Dunkirk a few months later. Writing about Britain's "almost inexhaustible
resources" in France even before Dunkirk, it was noted that:

(1)See:Ivor Montagu "The Traitor Class." Lawrence and Wishart. London 1940.

(2)See:Gracchus "Your M.P." Victor Gollancz. London 1944.

(3)See:R. Palme Dutt "Britain in the World Front." Lawrence and Wishart London
1942.)

(4)See:Ivor Montagu "The Traitor Class." Lawrence and Wishart. London 1940.

(5)See:Gracchus "Your M.P." Victor Gollancz. London 1944.

"The situation as regards equipment... caused me serious misgivings. I had on
several occasions called the attention of the War Office to the shortage of
almost every nature of ammunition, of which stocks in France were not nearly
large enough to permit of the rates of expenditure laid down for sustained
operations before the War.

The ascendancy in equipment which the enemy possessed played a great part in the
operations. He was able to place in the field and to concentrate no less that
ten armoured divisions in the area which he selected and later to employ at
least five of these against the weapons rearward defences."

(Lord Gort, Dispatches, on the campaign in France and Belgium before Dunkirk,
London Gazette, Oct 17 1941.)

Responding to criticism and pandering to the capitalists' basest interests,
Inskip replied:

"Such exports do help Germany to rearm... but... it is a commercial matter, not
within the province of the Government to interfere."

(Sir Thomas Inskip, later Lord Caldecote.) (1)

Why couldn't Britain equip its army even after war had begun? Where was
Britain's armaments going, as a "commercial matter"?

As a "commercial matter" they were going to Germany:

"After the "phoney war" had begun, supplies could not be sent directly from
Britain to Germany. So our friends the Americans sent them, instead of us:
cotton, oil, and all sorts of other war goods suddenly began to flood into Italy
(then neutral) and into other countries from which these supplies went directly
to the Nazi war factories. And we ourselves gave the Italians most of what they
wanted - even if we needed it, even if it was probably going to Germany."

?=(Gracchus "Your M.P.") (2)

Only the working class acted against this arming of an enemy:

"The workers on the night-shift in a department of David Brown's, Huddersfield
gear-cutting engineers, found that the blue-prints of some work they were given
to do were marked 'Subject to inspection by the Japanese military authorities.'
This at the end of 1939, after the war had broken out and Japan had showed her
sympathy with the Axis.

The workers walked straight out of the shop."

(J.P.Mallalieu "Passed to You, Please.") (3)

So sure was the British government of their appeasement policy of giving Hitler
territories in the East as their bulwark against communism that they left
Britain totally unprepared for war against Hitler. They had even refused to
raise the productivity of British agriculture from its crisis:

"What fools we should all look if we interfered with the [agricultural B.M.]
industry... to guard against a war that never happened."

(British Tory W.S.Morrison M.P. Daily Express June 11 1938.)

Such was the British "war effort" that a million men continued to be unemployed.

The very industries that were called upon to speed up arms production for
Britain after September 1939 were those who had been busy for years speeding up
arms production for Hitler.

Such was Britain's policy of appeasement and of pushing Hitler to the East, and
the accompanying unarmed condition of Britain, that Britain had to be sold,
lock, stock and barrel, to the US in exchange for war supplies.

After keeping silent about its re-armament and appeasement of Hitler, which
included the gift of Czechoslovakia with its massive Skoda tank, aircraft,
transport and armaments works, the British Government suddenly, as if surprised,
declared on September 3 1939 that war had "broken out". Thus began what became
known as the "Phoney War".

How phoney this "war" was is reflected with regular monotony in Goebbels' diary
entries of 1939-1940:

(1)See:Ivor Montagu "The Traitor Class." Lawrence and Wishart. London 1940.

(2)Gracchus "Your M.P." Victor Gollancz. London 1944.

(3)Quoted in:Gracchus "Your M.P." Victor Gollancz. London 1944.

Oct 18 1939: "Absolutely nothing is happening on the West Wall." Oct 25 "Nothing
is doing on the Western Front." Oct 27 "Absolutely quiet in the West, apart from
some tiny skirmishes... The English drop more leaflets." Nov 8 "Still quiet in
the West. The situation at the front has become rather lax." Nov 11 "Complete
quiet in the West." Nov 16 "Nothing to report in the West." Nov 21 "No activity
in the West." Jan 4 1940 "The English continue to hurl abuse until they foam at
the mouth." Jan 7 "All is quiet on the political and war fronts." Jan 14
"Nothing much is happening in the world. All quiet in politics and war." Feb 2
"The officers from the Reich Chancellery have been on a visit to the West Wall.
Morale excellent, but the continual waiting is doing no one any good. The French
are not stirring themselves at all, and there were no English in sight... How
long still?" Oct 2 "Relatively quiet. Few air incursions into the Reich. The
usual quota of bombs on London... Military situation: no earth-shattering
events. On the whole, unchanged. Things are stagnating a little." Oct 15 "Usual
attacks on London by day and by night. Few incursions into the Reich." Oct 16
"Several incursions into the Reich. Large scale attacks on London by day and by
night with discernible success... Otherwise no important military news." Oct 26
"A mass of incursions into the Reich. Considerable damage." Oct 28 "Two air raid
warnings during the night in Berlin, but few bombs. Also few incursions into the
Reich. London bombed as usual." Oct 30 "Only a few incursions into the Reich.
Our Luftwaffe believes that it has hit the English bombers hard on the ground.
Thus the lack of activity... We drop the usual load on London, and a
particularly heavy raid on Birmingham." Oct 31 "Few incursions into the Reich.
But very strong forces against London and Birmingham. Major airfields hit. Our
U-boats sink 80,000 tons. One day England must collapse." Nov 1 "Heavy night
raids on London. Also on a whole number of other English cities. Churchill
invents a new lie about a massive attack on Berlin that never actually took
place. Things must be very bad for him." Nov 3 "London and also Birmingham
attacked again, in great style. Enormous quantities of high-explosives unloaded.
Berlin main target at home. Eighteen dead, ten of them in Berlin. Also some
damage to buildings, but nothing of particular importance." Nov 4 "Few
incursions into the Reich." Nov 5 "Scarcely any incursions into the Reich... Big
U-boat successes." Nov 6 "No incursions into the Reich at all. We drop 100 tons
on London."

(From Goebbels' diaries.)

Goebbels' diary entries do not seem to reflect a country being seriously made
war on.

Even Churchill admitted that:

"The end of 1939 left the war still in its sinister trance. An occasional
cannon-shot or reconnoitring patrol alone broke the silence of the Western
Front."

(Winston Churchill "The Second World War.")

This had already been fully appreciated by Hitler:

"That they have declared war on us... does not mean they are going to fight."

(Adolf Hitler.)

"Fuhrer will not take it amiss if England were to wage a sham war."

(German Army Chief of Staff General Franz Halder, in his diary, Sept 11 1939.)
(1)

(1)See:Joseph P. Lash "Roosevelt and Churchill 1939-1941." Andre Deutsch.
London 1977.

"In the West the opening of hostilities is to be left to the enemy."

(Hitler, Directive No.2, Sept 3 1939.)

Britain did wage a "sham war", with very little "opening of hostilities" by the
"enemy". And Hitler, who was still considering an anti-Soviet alliance with
Britain, showed his appreciation by giving the British Expeditionary Forces a
"sporting" chance to escape at Dunkirk. It was also reflected in Hitler's
deputy, Hess' mission to Scotland in 1941 to discuss the conclusion of an
alliance against the USSR.

While Hitler, unmolested by the British Army, was making his preparations for
the invasion of the Soviet Union; there were British plans for negotiating an
alliance with Germany against the Soviet Union:

"She (Russia) knows that it has long been the hope of some quite influential
people in Britain that sooner or later Russia and Germany could be egged on to
destroy each other...

Our die-hards are still toying with the idea of setting Russia and Germany at
each other's throats to our own advantage. Talk of making peace with a
Conservative German Government and joining with it to fight the 'Red Menace'
isn't calculated to increase Anglo-Soviet cordiality. And such talk is
prevalent."

(John Bouverie, News Chronicle, Oct 25 1939.) (1)

#"The only chance of secure and enduring peace is by negotiation, and the only
opportunity is now, before the war is intensified."

(British Tory MP C.T.Culverwell, Nov 1939.) (2)

And, deploring a British victory:

""...the most likely result will be a strengthening of Russia, and the spread of
Communism westward. I can even visualise our troops fighting side by side with
the Germans to defeat the Bolshevist menace."

(British Tory MP C.T.Culverwell, House of Commons, Nov 30 1939.) (3)

"Strong peace rumours coming from London. We do nothing to help or hinder."

(Goebbels, in his diary, Jan 4 1940.)

"A certain group of politicians in London are talking of a possible negotiated
peace."

(Letter from Frank Knox to President Roosevelt, May 28 1940.) (4)

(1)See:Pat and Zelda Coates "A History of Anglo-Soviet Relations." Lawrence and
Wishart. London 1944.

(2)See:Gracchus "Your M.P." Victor Gollancz. London 1944.

(3)See:Gracchus "Your M.P." Victor Gollancz. London 1944.

(4)See:Joseph P. Lash "Roosevelt and Churchill 1939-1941." Andre Deutsch. London
1977.

# Get proper quotes here -

Just before Dunkirk, British Foreign Secretary Halifax wanted to negotiate with
the Nazis stating that "we could get reasonable terms."

Hitler ordered a halt at Dunkirk on May 24 1940 and announced that all he wanted
was that Britain should acknowledge Germany's position on the continent.

On May 25 1940 Halifax drafted a telegram to Roozevelt asking if the US would
approach Hitler; but it was witheld. Halifax also asked the Italian Ambassador
in London if Mussolini would act as intermediary in the negotiations with Hitler
and secure peace through an international conference. Halifax told the British
Cabinet of his plan for a peace conference sponsored by Mussolini, saying that
peace in Europe was the aim, and that we should "consider any proposals which
might lead to this."

In a Cabinet debate Chamberlain said: "If Senor Mussolini was prepared to
collaborate with us in getting tolerable terms then we would be prepared to
discuss Italian demands with him." Halifax said that "If we could obtain
terms... we should be foolish if we did not accept them." Chamberlain wrote in
his diary that Churchill said that "if we could get out of this jam by giving up
Malta, Gibraltar, and some African colonies, then he (Churchill) would jump at
it."

The British Cabinet was divided, the choice, in simple terms _ whether it would
be best to give Britain to the US or Germany, was between those, like Churchill,
who wanted to draw the Americans into the war, and the appeasers, who were
opposed to spending what remained of the British Empire with America

Although people like Oswald Moseley, head of the British Union of Fascists, and
the far right in the street had been interned, the influential members of the
far right, such as members of the Right Club and other right wing and pro-German
organisations, consisted of several MPs, Lords, bankers, financiers,
industrialists, landowners, the titled aristocracy such as Lord Lothian, the
Duke of Wellington and the Duke of Bucchleuth, even a National Liberal Whip,
most of whom were concerned with the survival of their kind of imperialist
world, were free and involved in the Government. Only one, a Tory MP Captain
A.M.Ramsey, was arrested. Their commitment was in land and property, capital,
the state and the Empire. They wanted to retain this and enter into a grand
alliance with Hitler. They didn't want to see British wealth spent with America
in order that Britain might survive.

An American spying for the Nazis, Tyler Kent, had stolen hundreds of secret
documents, many of conversations of Churchill and Roozevelt while working at the
US Embassy in London, which he had shown to Right Club member Tory MP Captain
A.M.Ramsey and Tsarist Russian emigres. Tyler Kent possessed a red book of names
of the members of the Right Club.

Lord Lothian sent secret emissaries to contact German officials. He sent Malcolm
Lovel, a Quaker, to Washington to see German officials about a peace treaty with
Germany. He also sent former head of British intelligence in the US Sir William
Wiseman to speak with the German Consul Genaral in San Francisco Fritz Wiederman
and Princess Stefanie Hohenloe, both personal friends of Hitler.

The three met on November 27 in a San Francisco hotel, which was bugged by the
FBI, where Wiseman said that: "Now that France was out of the way we could offer
more favourable peace terms to Germany."

Wiseman also contacted head of General Motors European division James D.Mooney,
who had met Hitler in March 1940, and who recorded the meetings in his private
papers. They asked Archbishop Spelman to ask the Pope to handle the
negotiations.

Hitler concluded that Halifax was the man to negotiate with.

The Duke of Windsor was quietly slipped away to become the Governor General of
the Bahamas. And at the end of 1940 Churchill sent Halifax to become British
Ambassador in the US.

By May 27 1940 Calais had fallen to the Germans. Churchill staked everything on
the RAF, even though Germany was 4 to 1 superior in aircraft. The British
Cabinet continued to discuss the issue of peace negotiations with Germany
through Mussolini. Halifax asked "Suppose Herr Hitler offered terms to France
and Britain would the Prime Minister be prepared to discuss them?" Churchill
replied that Britain would not join France in asking for terms but if terms were
offered we would "consider them."

The British were in a desperate situation. The British Army was defeated, home
defences were unprepared, and the British Cabinet was in a state of disarray.

Halifax said that "We might get better terms before France went out of the war
and our aircraft factories bombed than we might get in three months time."

Halifax concluded that the British might have to accept Hitler's mastery of
Europe.

Churchill said in a speech that: "If this long, island history of ours is to end
at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon
the ground."

The Government were gravely concerned about the public's attitude and morale,
which was poor.

The Belgians had stopped fighting. The French had surrendered. The Nazis were
masters of Europe. Churchill ordered the destruction of the French fleet.

On July 19 1940 Hitler offered terms.

()See:Anthony Reed "Conspirator."

See also: John Costello "Ten Days That Shook the West."

And:Michael Foot "Guilty Men."

Much of this is still kept secret from the British public and from researchers.
Public Record Office files on the subject are still closed. Slight hints of
British interest in a negotiated peace can be found in Manstein's memoirs and by
a careful study of the Mosely Papers declassified in the early 1980s. But the
remainder of the Mosely Papers, those from 1937 onwards, which it is suspected
could reveal British desire to cooperate in an alliance through appreciation of
Hitler's gesture at Dunkirk, are still firmly under lock and key, away from the
prying eyes of researchers at the Public Record Office. The details of Hess'
visit to discuss an Anglo-German alliance is also still kept secret from the
British people.

Evidence from the German side and from a British Major General in charge of the
British evacuation of Dunkirk shows that Dunkirk was not quite the "miracle" it
is made out to be; or if it was, then the "miracle" was due to none other than
Adolf Hitler himself:

"Churchill was quite unable to appreciate the sporting spirit of which I had
given proof by refraining from creating an irreparable breach between the
British and ourselves. We did, indeed, refrain from annihilating them at
Dunkirk."

(Adolf Hitler "The Testament of Adolf Hitler. The Hitler-Bormann Documents.
Feb-April 1945.")

(If)"...Hitler had thrown the full weight of his armies into destroying the BEF
[British Expeditionary Forces B.M.] it could never have escaped. If I am asked,
'who saved the BEF?', my reply is 'Hitler'.

Hitler was convinced that Britain would be prepared to come to terms once
France... was eliminated.

Hitler personally intervened to allow the British to escape. He was convinced
that to destroy her army would be to force them to fight to the bitter end."

(Memoirs of Field Marshal Harold Alexander, supervisor (Major General) of the
evacuation of Dunkirk.) (1)

This, and the evidence that follows, finishes the pitiful arguments of those
dishonest 'historians' who try to say that the halt at Dunkirk was not the order
of Adolf Hitler:

"On this day (the 24th) [May 1940. B.M.] the Supreme Command intervened,... with
results which were to have a most disastrous influence on the whole future
course of the war. Hitler ordered the left wing to stop on the Aa. It was
forbidden to cross that stream. We were not informed of the reasons for this...

...We also saw the armada of great and little ships by means of which the
British were evacuating their forces.

...What the future course of the war would have been if we had succeeded at that
time in taking the British Expeditionary Force prisoner at Dunkirk, it is now
impossible to guess."

(General Heinz Guderian, creator of Hitler's armoured forces.) (2)

"At that moment a sudden telephone call came from Colonel von Greiffenberg...
saying that Kleist's forces were to halt on the line of the canal. It was the
Fuhrer's direct order... I questioned it... but received a curt telegram in
reply; saying: "The armoured divisions are to remain at medium artillery range
from Dunkirk... Permission is only granted for reconnaissance and protective
movements"."

(General Rundstedt.) (3)

"My hands were tied by direct orders from Hitler himself. While the English were
clambering into the ships off the beaches, I was kept uselessly outside the port
unable to move. I recommended to the Supreme Command that my five panzer
divisions be immediately sent into the town and thereby completely destroy the
retreating English. But I received definite orders from the Fuhrer that under no
circumstances was I to attack, and I was expressly forbidden to send any of my
troops closer than ten kilometres from Dunkirk. The only weapons I was permitted
to use against the English were my medium guns. At this distance I sat outside
the town, watching the English escape, while my tanks and infantry were
prohibited from moving."

(General Rundstedt.) (4)

(1)See:J.North "The Alexander Memoirs. 1940-1945." London 1962.

Also quoted in: V.Trukhanovsky "British Foreign Policy During World War II."
Progress Publishers. Moscow 1970.

(2)See:General Heinz Guderian "Panzer Leader." Michael Joseph. London 1952.

(3)See:Richard Brett-Smith "Hitler's Generals." Osprey. London 1976.

(4)See:Richard Brett-Smith "Hitler's Generals." Osprey. London 1976.

"It was Hitler's notorious 'order to halt' which allowed the Allies to evacuate
their troops to England."

r(Guderian's Chief of Staff, General Nehring.)

"That order of the enemy high command preserved the British Army when nothing
else could save it."

(British war historian Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart.) (1)

"It was left to the infantry forces... to complete the occupation of Dunkirk -
after the British had gone."

(General von Kleist.) (2)

Hitler also refrained from invading Britain when he obviously had the chance
immediately after Dunkirk when Britain was at its weakest:

"Unquestionably, there was every possibility of carrying out a successful
landing. The greatest opportunity for this was right after Dunkirk."

(West German historian Karl Klee.) (3)

"Hitler... gave us his opinion that the war would be finished in six weeks.
After that he wished to conclude a reasonable peace with France, and then the
way would be free for an agreement with Britain. He then astonished us by
speaking with admiration of the British Empire, of the necessity for its
existence,... He compared the British Empire with the Catholic Church - saying
they were both essential elements of stability in the world. He said that all he
wanted from Britain was that she would acknowledge Germany's position on the
Continent."

(Hitler's General Blumentritt.) (4)

"The British won't be back in this war."

(Adolf Hitler to von Kleist.) (5)

On May 10 1941, a few weeks before Hitler's planned attack on the Soviet Union;
playing on the combined capitalist's fear of working class power and communism;
Hitler's official deputy Rudolf Hess flew to the Duke of Hamilton's estate in
Scotland with an offer from Hitler of an Anglo-German alliance against the USSR.

"Take me to the Duke of Hamilton, I have come to save humanity."

(Rudolf Hess, on landing on the Duke of Hamilton's estate in Scotland, May 10
1941.) (6)

Hess's mission was to suggest:

"...a profitable agreement in the form of an alliance against Russia as a result
of which Germany was to receive the Ukraine and the Caucasus oil regions, Japan
was to receive Siberia, and the rest of Russia was to be split into separate
homogeneous States. Britain's positive share, which was to be guaranteed by
Germany, was the retention of the mandated territories, especially in the Middle
East, but Germany was to receive back her former Colonies."

(The Times Oct 5 1942.)

#(1)See:Basil Liddell Hart "The Other Side of the Hill."

#(2)Quoted in: Basil Liddell Hart "The Other Side of the Hill."

(3)Karl Klee "Das Unternehmen "Seelowe". Die geplante deutsche Landung in
England 1940." Gottingen, Berlin, Frankfurt, 1958.

#(4)Quoted in: Basil Liddell Hart "The Other Side of the Hill."

#(5)Quoted in: Basil Liddell Hart "The Other Side of the Hill."

(6) See:Michael Sayers and Albert E. Kahn "The Great Conspiracy - Against Soviet
Russia." Boni and Gaer. NY 1946, and Red Star Press. London 1975.

"I always had the impression that the Fuhrer would have readily agreed to a
compromise with Britain on approximately the following terms: the British empire
would remain, but on the continent the British would have nothing to do... It
was to this end that he attempted - for the second time, it is said - to end by
his personal action the war between 'two white nations'."

(German Foreign Secretary Ernst von Weiz�cker in his diary, May 19 1941.) (1)

Some bourgeois historians try to allege that Hess was acting on his own accord.
But Himmler and Ribbentrop discussed the matter with Fritz Hesse, Ribbentrop's
former assistant and an expert on Britain, immediately after Hess's flight to
Britain, asking him what he thought of Hess' chances. It was also noted that the
German bombing raids on London more or less ceased for some time after May 10,
the day of Hess's flight.

There was also support for an alliance with Hitler in the US, especially among
the America First Committee.

"In the US we have a number of useful allies who will not allow themselves to be
persuaded that black is white, but who stand on the alert, ready at any moment
to stab Roosevelt in the back."

(Goebbels, in his diary, Sept 5 1941.) (2)

"I think that after Germany has turned to the East, roughly in September there
will be a greater readiness in the West for peace."

(Ernst von Weiz�cker in his diary, June 21 1941.) (3)

"I am certain that the end of the war will mark the beginning of a long
friendship with Britain."

(Adolf Hitler, July 1941.) (4)

"Hitler is gambling on the hope that Russia will collapse, if there is a Russian
collapse depression will set in in Britain. Churchill will be replaced by Hoare
and we shall make peace."

(Ernst von Weiz�cker in his diary, Sept 28 1941.) (5)

(1)Quoted in New Times, Moscow, No. 25, June 30 1986, available in UK in
English.

(2)Quoted in New Times, Moscow, No. 25, June 30 1986.

(3)Quoted in New Times, Moscow, No. 25, June 30 1986

(4)Quoted in New Times, Moscow, No. 25, June 30 1986

(5)Quoted in New Times, Moscow, No. 25, June 30 1986

Chapter 26

THE CAPITALIST DREAM COMES TRUE:
HITLER INVADES THE SOVIET UNION.
"The city must be blockaded so as to allow no Russian soldier, no inhabitant,
whether man, woman or child, to escape. Every attempt to break out is to be
countered with force... Where Moscow stands today a vast lake will be formed
which will forever hide the capital of the Russian people from the sight of the
civilised world."

(Adolf Hitler to his military commanders.)

"The Fuhrer has decided to raze the city of Petersberg [Leningrad] to the
ground. There is no reason for this large city to exist."

(Directive from Berlin to the German army surrounding Leningrad.)

The "Phoney War" had ended; and a very real war started. At 4.00am on June 22
1941 the capitalist's dream came true. Having the industries and resources of a
subdued Europe at their disposal, two hundred and sixty German divisions, the
largest military concentration in history, swept Eastward into the USSR.

Later that same day Churchill made a broadcast to the British people:

"At 4 o'clock this morning Hitler attacked and invaded Russia... All we know at
present is that the Russian people are defending their native soil, and that
their leaders have called upon them to resist to the utmost...

No one has been a more consistent opponent of Communism than I have for the last
twenty-five years... But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now
unfolding...

We have but one aim... to destroy Hitler... we shall give whatever help we can
to Russia...

Hitler wishes to destroy the Russian power because he hopes that if he succeeds
in this, he will be able to bring back the main strength of his army and
airforce from the East and hurl it upon this island... His invasion of Russia is
no more than a prelude to an attempted invasion of the British Isles. He
hopes... that all this may be accomplished before the winter comes, and that he
can overwhelm Great Britain before the... United States may intervene. He hopes
that he may once again repeat... that process of destroying his enemies one by
one...

The Russian danger is our danger, and the danger of the United States, just as
the cause of any Russian fighting for his hearth and home is the cause of free
men and free peoples in any quarter of the globe."

(Winston Churchill, in a radio broadcast, June 22 1941.) (1)

Before and during the Second World War the ruling classes were divided. Some saw
their greatest danger in the rising power and militancy of the working class;
others saw Hitler as a threat to British interests in the world. This showed in
their policy and strategy before and during the war.

Churchill concealed his true feelings from the British public. Churchill's fine
words were not out of sympathy for the Soviet Union, but out of a fear that if
the Soviet Union was defeated too early in the war Britain would be finished
soon afterwards. This fear guided Churchill's policy all through the war.

Away from the public view, Churchill was very excited at the idea of Hitler
attacking the Soviet Union:

(1) See:"The Universal Struggle, War Speeches of Winston S. Churchill."

See also:Pat and Zelda Coates "A History of Anglo-Soviet Relations." Lawrence
and Wishart. London 1944.

And:Joseph P. Lash "Roosevelt and Churchill 1939-1941." Andre Deutsch. London
1977.

"I've got some very exciting news. Hitler is going to attack Russia tomorrow.
We've spent all morning trying to evaluate what it means."

(Winston Churchill, at a luncheon at 10 Downing Street, June 21 1941.) (2)

(2) See:Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre "Freedom at Midnight." Avon Books.
NY 1975.

Churchill was no hater of fascism in general. He supported Franco and Mussolini,
and all the small European and other fascist regimes. But he saw that Hitler
would have been a direct threat to Britain's imperial power in the world.

The British capitalist government will support any domestic fascism in another
country so long as its profits eventually come to Britain; but not if it
threatened their imperial interests. But if a fascist power threatened a rival
to Britain, or better still especially a socialist country, that was fine for
Britain.

The British government wanted Hitler to destroy socialism, but not be in a
stronger position to threaten Britain as a result. The West wanted also to use
Soviet strength to beat Hitler, but did not want the Soviet Union to be in a
strong position at the end of the war. Britain was faced with the choice of
falling to Hitler's overwhelming forces, or enlisting the assistance of the vast
power of the Soviet Union. Britain was a past master at using one power to
defeat another and thus be rid of both of them.

Churchill's policy meant keeping the USSR involved in the war just enough in
order that Hitler could be beaten by the Western Allies but not enough that the
Soviet's could do it all themselves. This was the politically strategic policy
that guided all the military actions of the Western Allies throughout the war.

Some, like Truman and British Tory Moore-Brabazon, were more open about the
West's political intentions which guided their military strategy throughout the
war. Their policy was that Hitler should invade the USSR and both would be
destroyed or weakened in the process, and Britain and the US would march in
afterwards. Others, like Churchill, kept their true aims more subtly hidden from
public examination. But Churchill's policy would amount to the same thing.

Churchill later wrote:

"The entry of Russia into the war was welcome but not immediately helpful to
us."

(Winston Churchill.) (1)

#Not immediately helpful? Now that Hitler was fully occupied with the Soviet
Union he would leave Britain alone. It is a fact that as soon as Hitler invaded
the USSR the bombing blitz on London virtually stopped.

"We may have to pay for the comparative peace of these early summer days by
greatly increased risk of invasion in the autumn."

(Daily Mail June 23 1941.)

Germany also had to transfer the bombers that were sinking British merchant
shipping in the Atlantic and bombing London docks to the Eastern front. The
number of Allied and neutral merchant ships sunk was in April 1941 - before the
invasion of the USSR: 154; after the invasion of the USSR, in July, it had
dropped to 43, and November 34 vessels. It went up after December, but that was
because Japan had begun sinking British ships.

On July 3 1945 Stalin broadcast to the Soviet people:

(1)See:Winston S. Churchill "Great War Speeches." London 1957.

"The enemy is cruel and implacable. He is out to seize our lands... our grain
and oil secured by the labour of our hands. He is out to restore the rule of the
landlords, to restore tsarism, to destroy the national culture and the national
existence as states of the Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Lithuanians,
Latvians, Estonians, Uzbeks, Tartars, Moldavians, Georgians, Armenians,
Azerbaijanians and the other free peoples of the Soviet Union, to Germanise
them, to turn them into slaves of German princes and barons. Thus the issue is
one of life and death for the Soviet state, of life and death for the peoples of
the USSR; the issue is whether the peoples of the Soviet Union shall be free or
fall into slavery."

(Stalin, in a broadcast to the peoples of the Soviet Union, July 3 1945.)

If Churchill kept his true policy hidden behind diplomatic deceit; others were
more open about their intentions and policies. The day after Hitler invaded the
Soviet Union:

"If we see Germany winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we
ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible."

(US Senator, later President, Harry Truman, June 23, in New York Times June 24
1941.) (1)

"Hitler's victory would be preferable to the United States."

(US Senator Robert Taft.) (2)

#On July 14 1941 at a luncheon given by John Simon and presided over by Sir
Ernest Simon at the Central Hotel in Manchester, the British Minister for
Aircraft Production Colonel Moore-Brabazon said that the best outcome of a
struggle on the Eastern front would have been the mutual exhaustion of Germany
and the USSR so that Britain could move into a dominating power in Europe. But
two AEU officials were at the meeting and reported what they had heard to their
President:

"There is a point of view held in certain quarters which may result in a
nullification of the whole war effort. There are people in high places who
declare that they hope that the Russian and German armies will exterminate each
other, and that while this is taking place we, the British Commonwealth of
Nations, will so develop our Air Force and the other armed forces that if Russia
and Germany do destroy each other we shall be the dominant power in Europe. Now
this point of view has been expressed quite recently by a Cabinet Minister, a
member of the present Government, a gentleman who holds a very important
position, none other than the Minister of Aircraft Production, Colonel
Moore-Brabazon. Such an attitude I think everyone here will agree is a terrible
danger. And it is a crime - a crime against the people of this country and the
people of Russia who, during these last three months, have suffered so terribly.
The working people of this country - aye, and of all the allied countries and of
the occupied countries also - are as much concerned with the success of Russia
as they are concerned with the defeat of Nazism in all its shapes and forms...
one is conditional upon the other. If Russia succeeds, then we succeed; if
Russia fails, then we fail... it is necessary that we let it be known that we
will defeat any plot that may be in process of formation that would withhold
full and adequate aid to our allies, and, if necessary, smash any person who is
responsible for the formation or assistance of such a policy, because the
impression is still very strong that certain elements desire to switch the war
against Russia,...

...Russians have lost over 5,000 planes during the three months of warfare. They
need supplies of all kinds, particularly aircraft - bombers and fighters. Are
they likely to get all that can be given them when the Minister of Aircraft
Production holds such views which he is prepared publicly to express!"

(President of AEU Jack Tanner, at TUC Congress Sept 2 1941.) (3)

(1) See:D.F. Fleming "The Cold War and its Origins." Doubleday. London 1961.

Also:United States Week July 5 1941.

(2)See:Congressional Records, 77th Congress, Vol.87, No.120.

(3)See: TUC Congress documents 1941.

Right Wing trade union leader Walter Citrine tried to clear Moore Brabazon;
Churchill merely referred to Moore Brabazon's remarks as an "unpremeditated
indiscretion; and The Times said that Moore Brabazon's speech was "open to
misinterpretation." However, at a reception a Tory army officer remarked:

"We are all Moore-Brabazons here but he was a fool to blurt it out."

#P&ZIIp7 date etc?(British army officer.) (1)

Moore-Brabazon resigned in February 1942 saying:

"From that day [Sept 2 1941 B.M.] there was organised opposition in every works
I visited, and people hooted and shouted and booed wherever I went."

#(Minister for Aircraft Production Colonel Moore-Brabazon, on his resignation.)
(2)

Victims of their own anti-Soviet propaganda, Hitler and the Western allies were
unanimous in their ignorant underestimation of the Soviet Union and its ability
to survive whatever the world could throw at it. Talk of the USSR not lasting 6
weeks was common among even official estimates of Soviet power on the German
side and on the British side. Hitler claimed the war in the USSR would be over
before winter set in and therefore the German army would'nt need winter
clothing.

"It is likely that the Russian army, once hit, would face a still more
disastrous collapse than France."

(Adolf Hitler, to his Commanders, Dec 5 1940.)

"It would be no exaggeration to say that the campaign against Russia has been
won in fourteen days."

(Hitler's General Franz Halder, in his diary, July 3 1941.)

Such foolish notions were common among British politicians and in the bourgeois
press:

"I'll tell you what'll happen. They'll go through the Russians like a dose of
salts. God, they'll wipe them up! They'll be through in a month or six weeks."

(Lord Beaverbrook, at a luncheon at 10 Downing Street, June 21 1941.) (3)

"Well, the Americans think it will take more like two months, and our own chiefs
think at least that. I myself think they may last as long as three months, but
then, they'll fold up and we'll be back where we started with our backs to the
wall."

(Winston Churchill, at a luncheon at 10 Downing Street, June 21 1941.) (4)

"Almost all responsible military opinion held that the Russian armies would soon
be defeated and largely destroyed."

(Winston Churchill, June 1941.) (5)

(1)See:W.P. and Zelda K. Coates "A History of Anglo-Soviet Relations." Vol.II.
Lawrence and Wishart. London 1948.

(2)See:W.P. and Zelda K. Coates "A History of Anglo-Soviet Relations." Vol.II.
Lawrence and Wishart. London 1948.

(3) See:Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre "Freedom at Midnight." Avon Books.
NY 1975.

(4) See:Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre "Freedom at Midnight." Avon Books.
NY 1975.

(5) See:V.Trukhanovsky "British Foreign Policy During World War II." Progress
Publishers. Moscow 1970.

"There is nothing in what little we know of the Red Army, the Red Air Force or
the internal conditions of the Soviet State to give colour to any hope that the
full weight of the German offensive power can be resisted indefinitely by the
Russians."

(News Chronicle, June 26 1941.)

They all made the usual mistake of regarding the Soviet Union as they would any
capitalist state with opposing classes and no unity among the working class. But
the Soviet Union is a workers' state, a socialist state, with one class with one
sense of ownership, one sense of unity, and one sense of purpose.

But more intelligent, honest and saner voices knew different. One such voice was
the Dean of Canterbury who had visited the Soviet Union several times and who
knew the Soviet people well, writing several books about his travels in the
USSR:

"They were still thinking that Russia was the same Russia of 20 years before - a
land of illiterate peasants with no modern industry or technical skills...

Against this defeatist attitude, however, born as it is out of that abysmal
ignorance of all things Soviet, still too common in Great Britain and America,
the following is what I wrote and offered to the News Chronicle yesterday, and
which politely they turned down:

"Message to the British workers:

At 3.05am on Sunday 22nd June 1941, Hitler signed his own and Nazi-Fascism's
death warrant. At that hour treacherously he attacked the Soviet Union. In doing
so he made certain his own ultimate defeat...

Hitler has three months in which to crush and conquer Russia. There is no
individual or country who can do that...

These great industrial centres cannot be reached or captured by any army in the
world...

Behind every inch of ground they may capture, the Nazis will find the armed
workers and peasants of Russia ever waiting to strike. There will be no
acquiescent population to be demoralised as in every other conquered country.
The Russian people own their land, own their factories and fields. They will
fight, as they did in the revolutionary wars, to the death for them. They can
never be conquered..."."

(Dean of Canterbury 1931-1963, Rev. Hewlett Johnson, in his autobiography
"Searching For Light.")

Hewlett Johnson continues:

"I believe eventually it will be the Nazi army that will be sent reeling back,
broken and defeated, to Germany. If they do, then a new and better chapter in
the history of the human race opens. For Russia stands for all that is
progressive: for justice and equality between classes and races; for the ending
of exploitation between man and man; for a juster and nobler economic and social
order. That is why she has been so hated. That is why Hitler now attacks her.

It is true to say that the destinies of the human race are staked upon this
great battle whose opening shots are now being fired. On the one side is light
and progress, on the other the darkness and corruption of reaction and slavery
and death. Russia, in fighting for her own socialist freedom, fights also for
ours. In defending Moscow, they defend London."

(Hewlett Johnson "Searching For Light.")

"I disagree with Max [Lord Beaverbrook B.M.], I disagree with the Americans, our
chiefs and, quite honestly, I disagree with you, Prime Minister. I don't think
the Russians are going to fold up. I don't think they're going to be defeated.
This is the end of Hitler. It's the turning point of the war... First, because
Stalin's purge trials have eliminated much potential internal opposition to
which the Nazis might have appealed. Second, and it's painful for me to say
this, because my family ruled there for so long, but the people now feel they
have a stake in the country. This time they'll fight. They feel they have
something to lose."

(Admiral Lord Mountbatten, at a luncheon at 10 Downing Street, June 21 1941.)
(1)

In short; the Soviet people were not only fighting for their lives, as anyone
would; they were fighting for their revolution - a revolution for socialism, in
order to build a communist future.

Here, because the words are mentioned so many times by so many people, I feel it
is necessary for an explanation of what socialism and communism are. Because too
few people have any useful understanding at all.

Socialism and Communism are described quite adequately in good theoretical
Marxist text-books. But it is not very common to find a popular description. One
of the simplest and easiest to understand popular descriptions I have come
across is that by the late Dean of Canterbury, Hewlett Johnson:

"Socialism: 'From each according to his ability; to each according to his work'.

Communism: 'From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs'.

Both definitions had one thing in common - 'from each according to his ability'.
All must work, and work according to his ability. Some as artists, some as
artisans, others as organisers, teachers, as engineers and so forth - all must
work. It is interesting to note that the Soviet Union was the first state to put
duties into its constitution. ["He who does not work; neither shall he eat" is a
popular communist saying. B.M.]

It followed, of course, that if all must work, all must be provided for the
opportunity for work. And that brought us to the second clause of the definition
of socialism - 'To each according to his work'. It ensured the right to an
adequate reward for work. Furthermore, as work varied in value or quality,
reward in a socialist state would also vary in amount. Socialist society was not
an egalitarian society. Socialist society was the stage of society [reached
B.M.] in Russia. The corollary that each must receive an adequate reward for
work, together with provision for opportunity for work, postulated a planned
economy. It also postulated control by the whole community of land, power and
all natural resources and productive processes...

I then passed to Marx's definition of communism. Like socialism, communism
demanded work from all, in a planned economy: 'From each according to his
ability'. But there the likeness ended, the second half of the definition ran
thus: 'To each according to his need'. Not, observe, according to his work, but
'according to his need'.

Socialism came first; communism followed. You could not spring straight into
communism at once, the ground had to be prepared for 2 reasons: only a rich
state could provide enough consumable goods to give 'each according to his need'
and only a disciplined people dare try it. It would break down in a work-shy
society...

It was the contention of socialists and communists alike that the socialist
state would provide in time the quantity of goods and the quality of character -
a rich state and an advancing morality - to build communism."

(Hewlett Johnson "Searching For Light.")

(1) See:Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre "Freedom at Midnight." Avon Books.
NY 1975.

The ultimate goal, one that is ridiculed by apologists of capitalism as
"utopian" or "contrary to human nature", is communism - production in abundance
for all. But what is utopian or impossible about that? Is it not possible that
when the people own the means of production in a planned economy unfettered by
the drag of only being able to produce if private profit can be made for
capitalists, everything that people need or want can be produced in abundance?
Given time and human will and ability, all of which the Soviet people have in
great abundance; what is impossible about that?

Too few honest and objective, and too few non-communists also had any
understanding of what the Soviet people were capable of in defending their
revolution and their socialist gains:

"I went with a somewhat uncertain feeling about the Russians' ability to stand
up to an all-out war; I became convinced very quickly, however, that the entire
population was in the fight to the last woman and child.

I went rather doubtful of the Russians' technical skill; I found them extremely
hard headed and skilful at running their factories...

I went very much perplexed and troubled by accounts circulated here of disunity
and arbitrariness in the Russian Government; I found that Government strong,
competent and supported by immensely popular enthusiasm.

In a word, I went with a question to be answered: Is Russia a dependable and
competent ally?... And my question was answered for me in a ringing
affirmative."

(Vice Chairman of the US War Products Board, William Batt, on his return from an
official mission to Moscow in 1942.) (1)

Unlike the British capitalists, the British public had warm sentiments and
sympathy for the Soviet people. Even before the Soviet Union had been attacked
by Hitler, and despite the vicious anti-Soviet propaganda of the early war
years, the Soviet Ambassador in London Ivan Maisky and his wife had toured air
raid shelters in the East End of London during the Battle of Britain. When the
crowd learned who they were there were tremendous cheers and calls for a speech:

"Cheers, cries of 'Long Live Soviet Russia' and calls for a speech greeted M.
Maisky... About 4,000 people were in the shelters.

The Ambassador entered unannounced and accompanied by one policeman, but he was
immediately recognised and cheered. 'Speech, Maisky, Maisky, Maisky,' cried the
people.

Climbing on a cart, M. Maisky made a short speech concluding: 'Your warm
greetings are very welcome to me and my wife, but are more welcome to my
country.' He was cheered vigorously again as he left the shelter."

(Daily Worker Oct 14 1940.)

After the USSR was invaded; in July 1941 Maisky and his wife were mobbed by a
friendly crowd outside a West End Chinese restaurant:

"The smiling, bearded face of M. Maisky appeared at the door. Beside him stood
Mme. Maisky... 'Maisky! Maisky!' yelled the crowd, and those at the front rushed
towards them. Dozens of hands shook those of the Ambassador and his wife.
Excited people patted them on the back. Eventually the police fought a way to
their car and they drove of through a lane of waving hands."

(Daily Mail July 8 1941.)

(1) See:Michael Sayers and Albert E. Kahn "The Great Conspiracy - Against Soviet
Russia." Boni and Gaer. NY 1946, and Red Star Press. London 1975.

At the dinner, Maisky, after repeated calls for a speech, said:

"I think this is not the time yet... to talk to you at length. even at this
great hour which has arisen. I am sure that the great battle now taking place in
the East is the turning point of this war, and on the outcome of this battle
depends not only the future of my own country, but the future of the whole
world."

(Soviet Ambassador in London Ivan Maisky, July 1941.)

"We are sure that we all feel and share the great and justifiable alarm felt by
the workers in every factory that the Government is not pulling its weight
alongside Russia. It needs to be publicly stated that the factories were
seething with suspicion, that 'the Government is letting Russia down', or that
'the presence of the Halifaxes, Moore-Brabazons and Margessons is the reason why
there is no Second Front'. We warn the Government, the workers will never allow
them to let Russia down..."

(Labour Monthly Nov 1941.)

The British Red Cross organised an "Aid to Russia" fund and asked for
�1,000,000. By July the fund had over �2,000,000.

On July 12 1941, after much Trade Union and public pressure, an Anglo-Soviet
mutual assistance agreement was signed. This was not an alliance. No alliance
was concluded until May 26 1942. The 1941 agreement consisted of material aid.
But it was implemented very slowly and was a tiny fraction in relation to the
Soviets' own production, which during those times was still very low, and
reduced further by German destruction.

The Soviet people suffered a lot of defeats in the difficult early days of the
war. What the Soviet people needed most was the opening of a second front, but
the British limited their aid to Lend Lease war supplies. There were stories of
Soviet soldiers throwing tins of British corned beef at each other saying "Here
comrade, have a tin of second front!"

By July 1941 the Germans had reached the Luga river on their way to Leningrad.
By July 16 they had reached Smolensk and captured Tallinn. In August they had
occupied large parts of the Ukraine and captured Dniepropetrovsk. Also in August
they encircled large Soviet forces at Kiev.

"Kiev fell and the Russian line had to bend again. Throughout this tremendous
drama, in which the Russians were being strained to the limit of endurance, and
in which more of them were slaughtered than their Allies lost in six years of
war, no relief action came from the Allies."

(US historian Eric Estorick.) (1)

Also in August the Germans entered the Donbas region and began their offensive
against Moscow. By the end of August they had cut off Leningrad's last rail link
at Mga. At the beginning of September the Germans completed the land blockade of
Leningrad. In October they encircled large Soviet forces at Viazma west of
Moscow. They also took Orel, Kaluga, Kalinin and Kharkov and further advanced
towards Moscow, and the nine month siege of Sebastopol began. German and
Rumanian armies also captured Odessa. In November the Germans had reached within
20 kilometers of Moscow. A memorial to the defenders of Moscow in the shape of
crossed anti-tank defences now marks the place near the Moscow city suburbs
where the Nazi tanks reached. The Germans also captured Kursk and Rostov. By May
1942 the Nazis had occupied the Kerch peninsula and in June Germans and
Rumanians launched a final attack on Sebastopol, which finally fell in the
beginning of July. The Germans also took Voroshilovgrad. By August Krasnodar had
fallen and German armies broke through to the Volga river and launched air raids
on Stalingrad. By September most of Stalingrad was in German hands. Everywhere
the Germans went on Soviet soil they destroyed everything and committed the most
terrible atrocities.

(1) Eric Estorick "Stafford Cripps: Master Statesman." New York. 1949.

That it was intended that German finance capital would destroy the USSR is
evident from the whole conduct of the war.

The opening of a second front by the West was delayed for three years in the
hope that Germany might "kill as many as possible."

A second front was repeatedly called for by the Soviet Union.

As a result of the talks between the British, US and Soviet governments in May
and June 1942, a joint communique stated:

"Full understanding was reached between the two parties with regard to the
urgent tasks of the creation of a Second Front in Europe in 1942."

(Joint Communique of the Allies, June 11 1942.)

But this agreement was not kept.

A second front was not opened in 1942 or in 1943.

A second front was called for at the Teheran Conference in December 1943. It
was called for by the British Labour movement and the TUC. And it had wide and
popular public support. Even US President Roosevelt supported it. But Churchill
made all sorts of excuses, including "unsuitability of the weather" in order to
delay it.

Because of this inactivity the Germans were able to transfer 39 divisions from
Western Europe to the Soviet front between December 1941 and April 1942. (1)

Admitting that the Soviet people were bearing the brunt of the war and that the
Nazis intended to eliminate their enemies one by one, Churchill repeated that
even a limited operation in the West to assist the Soviet Union was impossible.

Churchill never cooperated when the Soviet government called for a second front.
But whenever the British asked for supportive action by the Red Army to draw off
German forces from any British operation the Soviet government cooperated to the
letter. As we shall see later; this was evident towards the end of the war when
the Germans broke through the Western front in the Ardennes during the Battle of
the Bulge. And a planned Soviet offensive was agreed by British, American and
Soviet allies at the Teheran Conference to coincide with the D-Day operations:

"Operation Overlord would be launched during May 1944...

...the Soviet forces would launch an offensive at about the same time with the
object of preventing the German forces from transferring from the Eastern to the
Western front."

(From: "Military Conclusions of the Teheran Conference final document.") (2)

Incidentally, this refutes the notion that the Soviet Union wanted to occupy
Europe as far West as possible. If it had, it would not have launched a
simultaneous offensive with the second front to keep the German forces occupied
on the Eastern front. They would have waited while German forces were drawn to
the Western front and then chased West after them. Also if the Soviets had
wanted to drive the Nazis into the Atlantic and then occupy the whole of Europe,
which they were more than capable of doing, they would not have insisted so
persistently on a second front.

The Soviet people were left to fight the Nazis in Europe virtually alone for
three years.

(1) See:"Recalling the Past For the Sake of the Future: The Causes, Results and
Lessons of World War Two." Novosti. Moscow 1985.

(2) See:"Foreign relations of the United States. Diplomatic Papers. The
Conferences at Cairo and Teheran, 1943." Washington 1961.

School and college history, economics and business studies teaching and books do
not contain any of this information.

All the material and information I have presented here is readily available to
historians, writers, journalists, teachers, educators and syllabus publishers.
Although I have spent many hundreds of hours gathering it all together, I did
not have to look very far to find any of it.

When as a trainee history lecturer, it was suggested I take the class on a trip
to the Tower of London and then set them an essay on what life was like for a
soldier in King Charles' Army centuries ago. Very useful knowledge that! A
sociology of the past perhaps? But certainly not history in its most important
sense; unless history is to mean anything old or 'interesting' that you can do
in evening classes, like antiques, flower arranging or basket weaving. When
instead I taught real history, learning from the past in order to change the
future, the collective life-experience of humanity, I was got rid of. The head
of the history department complained that the students had remarked that I made
them think; which the head of history had probably never done in a lifetime of
teaching. I ended up washing and cleaning and emptying human surgical waste in a
hospital.

Unless teachers learn to be brave and intellectually honest (difficult when they
have a mortgage and bills to pay), future historical, social and economic
education and popular 'knowledge' will also not refer to the US or British
history and continuing complicity in global plunder, exploitation, domination
and control, wars of aggrandisement and acquisition, causing the deaths and
devastation of the homes and lands of millions of people - the thousands of
children under the age of two who will die tonight through simple lack of food,
clean water, medicine and education - the untold millions of unnecessary deaths
among the overwhelming majority of humanity on this incredibly rich and abundant
and ultimately sustainable earth.

From Brian Mitchell. Evolution.

Responses and criticisms welcomed. Reply to my personal e-mail if you prefer. My
replies to criticisms will be posted.

"How long will they steal our profits while we stand around and look?" (Bob
Marley, Redemption song.)

"The most remarkable thing about the world is that you can understand it."
(Einstein.)

"If you can't answer a man's arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him
vile names." (US writer Elbert Hubbard.)

"To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as night the day, that thou
canst not be false to any man." (Shakespeare. Hamlet.)

"And if we were all capable of unity to make our blows stronger and infallible
and so increase the effectiveness of all kinds of support given to the
struggling people - how great and close would the future be." (Che Guevara.)

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