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

Chapters 36-38 of 50.

Chapter 36

THE WARSAW UPRISING.
The Red Army's race across the Soviet Union and Europe chasing the Nazi armies
before them had been in full swing.

However, due to the Red Army's rapid advance - 350 miles on a 600 mile wide
front - the forward units were stretched to the limits of their supply lines.
They were already north east and south west of Warsaw, but were not in a
position to force the Vistula or break through the German fortifications around
Warsaw without detailed preparations. Also, in order to preserve the city,
instead of a frontal attack, they preferred a sudden encirclement. It was in the
Soviets' interest to capture Warsaw as quickly as possible since Warsaw was on
their quickest route into Germany itself. But the Germans were to put everything
they had into a massive final counteroffensive against the Soviet front; even at
the expense of neglecting their western front.

It was at this point, on August 1 1944, that the Armija Krajowa, loyal to the
Polish Government in exile in London, who themselves were hoping to restore the
old feudal Polish dictatorship, led an uprising in Warsaw. The London Poles had
the backing of the British Government but did not inform the Soviet Government
of their plans.

The British Government claimed that they did not know that an uprising was
taking place:

"It was a fact that precise information about it had not been given in advance
to the British government."

(British Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden, Aug 8 1944.)

"The decision to start a general rising in Warsaw was taken without any prior
consultation with His Majesty's Government."

(British Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Orme Sargent, Aug 14
1944.)

But the British knew all about the London Poles' plans for an uprising.

The Armija Krajowa, misleadingly referred to in British documents as the Home
Army; which since 1943 was commanded by General Tadeusz (Bor) Komorowski,
cooperated fully with the British government through the Special Operations
Executive (SOE) set up to control resistance movements.

The rising was not only known about by the British; it was part of their plans
and fitted in with their policy. SOE instructions in a Foreign Office paper of
February 8 1944 spoke of:

#"... rising of the AK, which was to take place directly after the invasion of
Europe."

#(Foreign Office paper of February 8 1944.)

The Armija Krajowa was under the operational control of the British Chiefs of
Staff:

"The Polish Home Army, being part of the Polish forces, under the command of
General Sosnkowski as Polish Commander-in-Chief, is under the operational
control of the British Chiefs of Staff. His Majesty's government have always
maintained close contact with the organisations and activities of the Polish
Home Army and the supplies of that Army."

(British directive No. 13186/761/G.)

The British Government's policy with regard to Poland was to take full advantage
of any military politically strategic situation that might arise.

Although at Teheran the British and Americans had again confirmed their
long-standing recognition of the Soviet-Polish border as legitimately coinciding
roughly with the Curzon Line, British policy was to put off till the war was
over any agreements with the Soviet Union on its post-war borders. This was in
order to try to get control of as much of Poland as possible by the Armija
Krajowa for the London Polish government.

Inside Poland the home based Polish People's Army, the Armija Ludowa, had
established the communist led Polish Committee of National Liberation in Lublin
and did not accept control from London.

Just as in other countries; the British were worried about the popularity of the
communists in Poland and feared that they would become the leading political
force at the end of the war. British Foreign Secretary Eden in a confidential
note to Churchill detailed a report from Poland that:

"The Communists had gained ground in Poland, chiefly by the industrial
workers... Among these people the achievements of the Red Army and the
activities of Soviet propaganda seem to have strengthened the belief that only
Russia can save them. The Polish government in London, he said, enjoys little
respect in such circles."

(British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, in a note to Churchill, Feb 8 1944.)
(1)

Even the British SOE reported that:

"The Army and people inside Poland adopt a considerably more realistic attitude
towards the Russians than the government in this country."

(British Special Operations Executive report, June 1 1944.) (2)

The British Chiefs of Staff did not want an uprising to be useful to the
Soviets, saying that they:

"...did not think it advisable directly to encourage the Poles to increase their
operations in a sense favourable to the Russians."

(British Chiefs of Staff document.)

The London Poles and their colleagues in Warsaw wanted to control the city
before it was retaken by the Soviet and Polish armies. The idea behind the
uprising was for the AK to take over cities and towns and establish the rule of
the London Polish government well before the Soviet and Polish armies reached
the city.

Bor Komorowski wanted the uprising to spark off:

"...a political campaign against Russia, which we must wage and win. In this
campaign we can count on Anglo-Saxon help only when we display our determination
to win it... No contact with the Red Army could so far be established and we did
not anticipate any observable effect from Soviet operations on our fight."

(Bor Komorowski.) (3)

The Burza plan of the Armija Krajowa was no different to the 1941 Truman-Moore
Brabazon policy and paved the way for British and US occupation:

"Our cause will win completely only when Germany and Russia have weakened
themselves to such an extent that final victory will fall into the hands of the
Anglo-Saxon powers, who will ocupy the German and Polish territories."

(General Sosnkowski.) (4)

(1)See:New Times, 36, Sept 1988.

(2)See:New Times, 36, Sept 1988.

(3)New Times, 34. Aug 1988.

(4)See:New Times No.33, Aug 1988.

The British knew that those planning the uprising did not intend to contact the
Red Army. Nor did the British or the Americans notify the Soviet Union of the
planned uprising. The Armija Krajowa command did not even tell its fighters that
it did not intend to co-ordinate its plans with the Red Army or that it had not
even informed the Soviets of the plan. And the London led Poles did not even
inform the Polish communists or the Lublin Poles that an uprising was planned.

"No attempts had been made to give advance warning and agree with the Soviet
military command on any actions in Warsaw."

(TASS News Agency, Aug 13 1944.)

"We had not been able to establish coordination with the Red Army Command."

(General Bor Komorowski, in his book "The Unconquerables.")

The Soviets were only officially informed of the uprising after it had started,
when the British Military Mission in Moscow received a telegram noting that the
uprising had started just after midnight on August 2 1944. A British
notification to the Soviet People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs was
dispatched on August 3 1944.

The only previous mention to the Soviets of an uprising was on the evening of
July 31 1944 - still far too late for the Soviets to have switched their
strategic military plans anyway - when Mikolajczyk vaguely remarked to Soviet
Foreign Minister Molotov that the London Polish government was merely
"considering" an uprising and "would like" help:

"The Polish government is considering a plan for a general uprising in Warsaw
and would like to ask the Soviet government to bomb aerodromes around Warsaw."

(London Polish Prime Minister Mikolajczyk, to Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov,
July 31 1944.)

Military strategy and operations in such a massive war are planned months and
even years in advance. Communications, road and rail supply routes have to be
put into operation, aerodromes have to be built or put into operation, masses of
logistics and deployment of troops and forces have to be carried out in
preparation. Such colossal plans cannot suddenly be switched on the day before
an uprising. In that type of warfare you cannot move armies around like pieces
on a chessboard.

The Soviet Supreme Command had met on July 27 1944 and discussed plans to
outflank the Germans and reach the Vistula. Had the British informed the Soviets
of the planned uprising the Soviets could have planned differently. The Soviets
would also have advised General Bor not to have carried out the uprising until
the outcome of the Soviet operations was known. On the evening of July 31
Molotov informed Mikolajczyk that the Soviet forces were within ten kilometers
of Warsaw.

In a message on August 4 Churchill conveyed to the Soviet government a request
from the Warsaw insurgents for arms and ammunition. The Soviets replied on
August 6 with their strategic plan for a flanking assault on Warsaw and later
with a two pronged flanking attack with the Soviet Army from the north and the
Polish army from the south. Now that the Soviets knew about the uprising, and
despite the hostile attitude of the initiators of the uprising, they could
modify their military strategy in support. The operation was planned for August
25. Meanwhile logistics and supplies could be planned, troops could be moved,
airfields could be moved closer to Warsaw than the Soviets had in July.

Soviet General Antipenko in charge of logistics on this front reported that in
mid July:

"Communications were so incredibly extended that no land transport could bring
supplies to the troops that had advanced far ahead."

(Soviet General Antipenko, in his memoirs.)

"Until September, the 16th Air Army was based too far away to be able to operate
in the Warsaw area. It needed bases for assault planes and night bombers, and
they were too far off."

(Soviet Air Force Marshal Sergei Rudenko.) (1)

The Soviet armoured corps approaching Warsaw had no fuel and had to go on the
defensive. Also, the Germans, to whom fighting the Soviets was more important
than fighting the Anglo-Americans, had transferred five fresh divisions to this
front at the end of July 1944. German Panzer divisions transferred to Poland
from the western front helped the Anglo-Americans to break through the Nazi
defences in France. The German command under General von Vormann also
transferred more reinforcements to be concentrated in the Warsaw area in order
to prevent the Soviet troops linking up with the insurgents. He moved in the
Hermann Goering division and two other divisions. On August 2 the German forces
launched a counteroffensive against the Soviet Ist Byelorussian Front near
Warsaw.

The advanced Soviet troops approaching Warsaw suffered a heavy defeat. This was
confirmed by a British General Staff report. On August 8 1944 Churchill inquired
why the Soviet offensive had stopped near Warsaw. The British General Staff
replied:

"The Germans are making great efforts to hold this nodal point in their
communications... they have surrounded and annihilated Russian armoured forces
which were advancing on that city."

(British General Staff reply to Churchill's note of Aug 8 1944.)

The home based Polish resistance, the Lublin government and its Polish People's
Army - the Armija Ludowa, had always pressed for coordination with the Red Army.

When plans for the uprising became known by the Lublin Polish Government and
their resistance leaders of the Army Ludowa, General Rola-Zymierski, and even
some Armija Krajowa officers tried to persuade the London Poles that an uprising
could not possibly hold Warsaw unless it started when the Soviets were
practically inside the city and that it was folly to obey the London Poles'
order and start any action until the Soviets had at least reached the Vistula
bridges. (2)

The Armija Krajowa leadership told its fighters on on August 3 that it had
"asked for help" from the Soviets; and the BBC broadcast a report that the
rebels had established contact with the Red Army. None of this was fact.
Eventually even the London led Armija Krajowa fighters began to ask why their
leadership had not coordinated their plans with the Soviets. An AK bulletin
reporting that the London Poles were considering the question of aid to Warsaw
was read out in a basement in Warsaw:

"A storm broke out in the basement. People showered questions: why so late? Why
are they still conferring? What are they planning to do? Why don't they
coordinate their actions with the Soviets and not just hold meetings?"

(Zenon Kliszko, Warsaw resistance fighter.) (3)

It is not true that the Soviets denied help to the Warsaw uprising.

Two women fighters from the home based Polish People's Army (Armija Ludowa),
managed to get out of Warsaw and reached the Red Army command asking for arms,
ammunition and food to be dropped from the air. On September 13 a letter was
dropped by a Soviet plane:

(1)See:New Times, 36, Sept 1988.

(2)See:Alexander Werth "Russia at War 1941-1945." Pan Books. London 1965.

(3)See:New Times, 35, Aug 1988.

"The Red Army extends combat greetings to the heroic fighters of Warsaw! Having
approached the walls of Warsaw, we now have a chance to render brotherly help to
you... at night we shall drop ammunition and food to you. To this end,

you must make three camp fires in a triangle on Lelewel Square or in other open
spaces in this area. If you have electric torches, you can use them instead of
the fires. The planes will come at 9.30 in the evening, 30 minutes after dark.
The parcels will be dropped without a parachute in special packing... have
people posted all over the place to watch where the parcels land and to collect
them."

(Letter dropped by Red Army to Warsaw resistance fighters on Sept 13 1944.) (1)

The Soviets continued to drop supplies to the insurgents in Warsaw.

"On the night of September 13, 1944, the units of the 16th Air Army made sorties
with 2-3 planes to a mission... 282 sorties were made, of which 19 were to
suppress the enemy's air defences and 263 to fulfil the special mission... 526
flight hours were flown. Total supplies delivered: 29,838 kilogrammes of food,
1,200 grenades and fuses for them, 68,240 rifle cartridges..."

(Soviet Air Force Marshal Sergei Rudenko's report of air support for Warsaw on
Sept 13 1944.) (2)

The British and Americans eventually dropped supplies to Warsaw but with great
losses since parachutes were used and from a great height:

"All honour to the English, Polish and American airmen who risked their lives in
perilous missions lasting almost 10 hours. It was a great feat. But the idea of
dropping parcels by parachute from a height of several thousand metres was
doomed to failure. We watched the parachutes swept by the wind to the Germans
and even to the Soviet position far to the east. So I chose a different, safer
method. We dropped the parcels from PO-2 planes."

(Soviet Air Force Marshal Sergei Rudenko.) (3)

"The rebels' morale is flagging. Most of all, they are displeased with the lack
of assistance apparently promised from the Anglo-American airborne troops."

(Polish Governor General under the Nazis, Hans Frank, in his diary, August 5
1944.)

And the Polish people in general did not have much to say for General Bor or the
uprising:

"These simple average Warsaw citizens cursed Bor and condemned the uprising."

(Warsaw correspondent, News Chronicle Jan 24 1945.)

General Bor was not even present during the uprising:

"We established that the General never was on the territory of Warsaw throughout
the time of the uprising."

(Polish General Rola-Zymierski, to a Polish Committee of National Liberation
press conference, Oct 1 1944.) (4)

Bor Komarovski capitulated to the Germans on October 2 1944

And how did the Germans treat General Bor?:

(1)See:New Times, 36, Sept 1988.

(2)See:New Times, 36, Sept 1988.

(3)See:New Times, 36, Sept 1988.

(4)See:Ernie Trory "Poland in the Second World War." Crabtree Press. Hove 1983.

"General Bor, who led the uprising, was treated by the Germans after the
capitulation with great consideration... He had at his disposal a guard of
honour serving him night and day and was able to receive visitors, among them
general von Bach from Berlin. He had a luxurious car in which he drove out very
often. He had staff officers and other officers of the Polish Home Army who were
housed at a villa in Milanowek, and enjoyed complete freedom of movement. They
had their own mess and were supplied with food and drink by the Germans. Later,
General Bor and others were taken to Germany."

(News Chronicle Jan 30 1945.)

The emigre Polish and British propaganda war against the USSR after the Warsaw
uprising is refuted by the obvious impossible position of the Soviet army
regarding military operations to aid the insurgents, as some Western
politicians, media reporters, German Army commanders, and some honest Western
historians recount:

"Militarily, the rising had been directed against the Germans, politically
against the Soviet Union....

In fact, the German armour won a limited but bloody victory to the Northeast of
Warsaw, annihilating the Soviet tank forces advancing towards the capital. The
Red Army fell back and prepared to regroup its forces. Thus, the rising took
place at a moment when the massive German reinforcements were free to deal with
it. In mid-September the Russians moved forward again to the Vistula, but by now
the Germans had expelled the insurgents from the waterfront at Warsaw and held
the river crossing in full force. A Polish brigade with the Red Army tried to
cross and was cut to pieces."

(The Observer Aug 9 1964.)

"In August and September 1944 the available Red Army forces in Poland were
genuinely not able to capture Warsaw...

There is no question but that the Warsaw uprising was a last desperate attempt
to free Poland's capital from the retreating Nazis and at the same time to
prevent the Lublin administration from gaining a foothold and establishing
itself in Warsaw once the victorious Soviet army had entered the city."

(The Times Moscow correspondent Sir Alexander Werth, in his book "Russia at War
1941-1945.")

"After several weeks' heavy fighting in Byelorussia and eastern Poland we
finally reached the outskirts of Praga about the 1st August. The Germans at this
point threw in four armoured divisions and we were driven back...

An armed insurrection in a place like Warsaw could only have succeeded if it had
been carefully co-ordinated with the Red Army. The question of timing was of the
utmost importance. The Warsaw insurgents were badly armed, and the rising would
have made sense only if we were already on the point of entering Warsaw. That
point had not been reached at any stage."

(Red Army General Rokossovsky, to Times Moscow correspondent Sir Alexander
Werth.) (1)

"The decision as to the date on which the rising should start was left to the
Polish Deputy Prime Minister, who is in Poland, and General Bor, who fixed it
for August 1st. The [London B.M.] Polish Government fully endorses the decision.
Unfortunately neither the Russian nor the British government were informed of
the decision... Any suggestion that the defenders were left to their own meagre
resources in their fight against a brutal foe is unwarranted."

(The Times Aug 15 1944.)

(1)See:Alexander Werth "Russia at War 1941-1945." Pan Books. London 1965.

"Important statements were made here this morning by General Michal Zymierski
and Mr Edward Osubka-Morawski, Director (and head of Foreign Affairs) of the
Polish Committee of National Liberation...

General Zymierski said that in all about 22 enemy divisions, including five
fresh Panzer divisions, were involved in the defence of Warsaw. It was against
this background of heavy fighting - in which the Russian and Polish forces were
striving at high cost to liberate Warsaw according to a plan that would have
alleviated the inhabitants' sufferings - that the General asked that events
inside Warsaw be considered.

The first news of the insurrection of 1st August had, he said, caused him much
concern, for it indicated that the leaders were completely unaware of the
Russian plans. He described their action in touching off a rising by people who
were eager to fight and raised to a dangerous pitch of optimism by the Red
Army's rapid advance, but whos arms were suitable for effective action only on
the very eve of liberation, as an irresponsible act which led to the destruction
of a third of the city and the deaths of perhaps 200,000 persons.

The General added that the problem of succouring Warsaw was uppermost in his
mind, but that it was impractical to supply arms or troops by air because most
of them would be bound to fall into German hands."

(The Times Lublin correspondent, Aug 28 1944.)

The Polish People's Army, the Armija Ludowa, stated on September 15 1944 that:

"Had the uprising started now, had it been coordinated with the Soviet command
and that of the Polish People's Army, the bridges could have been kept intact,
which would have served to speedily liberate the whole of Warsaw."

(Polish People's Army Commander in Chief's order of the day, Sept 15 1944.)

A Soviet statement said that:

"There is no doubt that had the British government taken steps to have the
Soviet command duly notified of the impending uprising in Warsaw, events in
Warsaw would have taken quite a different course."

(Soviet statement on the Warsaw uprising.) (1)

A Chiefs of Staff commission advised:

"It would be politically and militarily unacceptable to undertake any such
measures without the approval and co-operation of the Russians."

(British Chiefs of Staff commission document, July 31 1944.)

The Lublin Committee of National Liberation stated that:

"The Command of the National Army in Warsaw with Col. Monter at its head acting
on behalf of General Bor, who has been absent from Warsaw throughout the
uprising, has decided to surrender and deliver its insurgents and arms into the
Germans' hands...

Units of the People's Army... which do not wish to submit to the command of the
National Army, are fighting their way from Warsaw, arms in hand... Leaders of
the uprising... are liquidating the uprising with the same methods with which
they began it. They began it without any co-ordination with the Command of the
Polish Army or the Red Army, considering only their own selfish interests. They
now conclude the uprising in surrender without considering the fate of the
heroic insurgents, and prefer to deliver them into the hands of the Germans
rather than link up in fighting with the Polish Army."

(Lublin Committee of National Liberation press statement, Oct 3 1944.)

(1) See: New Times, 34. Aug 1988.

"Both Mr. Osubka-Morawski and General Zymierski expressed vehement disapproval
of General Komorowski's appointment as Commander-in-Chief. They stated that to
their knowledge he had not been in Warsaw at any time during the rising...
General Komorowski's representatives had at no time been in contact with [Soviet
B.M.] Marshal Rokossovsky or his headquarters. Mr. Osubka-Morowski stated
emphatically that his committee considered General Komorowski to be a criminal
and that to the bulk of the population of Warsaw he was a more hated figure than
General Sosnkowski. General Komorowski, he said, would be arrested if he were
found."

(Cable from Times correspondent in Moscow, Oct 1944.)

"At the end of a drive of almost unparalleled length, when their offensive force
was spent, the Russians ran into the extremely formidable belt of defenses
before Warsaw. They were driven back, had to stop to rest, regroup, build
railways, bring up supplies and begin again... That the Red Army did not
deliberately wait outside of Warsaw for the Home Army to be destroyed in the
city is fully established by the military history of the time."

#(British historian D.F.Fleming, in his book "The Cold War and its Origins.")

"The Warsaw rising started on August 1, at a time when the strength of the
Russian blow had exhausted itself."

(Nazi General Tippelskirch.) (1)

"We Germans had the impression that it was our defence which halted the enemy
rather than a Russian desire to sabotage the Warsaw uprising...

The German 9th Army had the impression, on August 8, that the Russian attempt to
seize Warsaw by a coup de main had been defeated by our defence, despite the
Polish uprising, and that the latter had, from the enemy's point of view, been
begun too soon."

(German General Heinz Guderian, "Panzer Leader.") (2)

Eventually even Bor Komorovski regarded the uprising as futile:

"In view of the present state of German forces in Poland and their
anti-insurrectionary preparations... the rising has no prospect of success."

(Armija Krajowa General Bor Komorovski.)

And his chief, General Sosnkowski had said:

"Under the existing circumstances I am absolutely opposed to a general
insurrection... A mistake in this sphere would be very costly."

(Armija Krajowa General Sosnkowski.)

Sosnkowski told the London Polish Prime Minister Mikolajczyk on July 3 that:

"An insurrection without a previous fair understanding with the USSR and honest
and real cooperation with the Red Army would be politically unjustified and
militarily nothing more than an act of despair."

(Armija Krajowa General Sosnkowski, to London Polish Prime Minister Mikolajczyk,
July 3 1944.)

Churchill himself rejected the idea that the Soviets had failed to react to the
Warsaw uprising and had not directed its forces on Warsaw. He gave the lie to
the propaganda that the Red Army held back while the Germans raised Warsaw:

(1)See:Alexander Werth "Russia at War 1941-1945." Pan Books. London 1965.

(2)Heinz Guderian "Panzer Leader." London 1952.

"It is of course even more unfortunate that it was not possible to coordinate
this rising with the Soviet authorities whose armies are alone in a

position to give really effective assistance, but whose strategic plans can
hardly be modified at a moment's notice to meet the unforseen contingencies."

(Churchill, in a note to the London Polish leaders, Aug 9 1944.)

"Despite all the efforts of the Soviet Army, the strong German positions on the
Vistula could not be taken, and relief could not come in time. British,
American, Polish and Soviet airmen did what they could to succour the Poles at
Warsaw, but although this sustained the Polish resistance beyond what would have
seemed possible, it could not turn the tide."

(Winston Churchill, House of Commons, Oct 5 1944.)

However, responding to the needs of anti-Soviet propaganda in the intenseness of
the cold war in 1948, Churchill wrote:

"The guns of the Red Army charging westward could be plainly heard in Warsaw,
but soon they grew silent as the Russians elected to call off their attack on
the Warsaw front and inexplicably leave the Poles to their fate."

(Winston Churchill, 1948.)

Most British 'popular' and even serious history books now follow this line,
despite the fact that the archives of the British military and the Armija
Krajowa have long been declassified.

The whole of the propaganda surrounding the Warsaw uprising was to not inform
the Soviets of the uprising in advance and then to make the Soviets responsible
for its failure.

The Red Army was finally able to liberate Warsaw on January 16 1945.

The Soviets proposed a special commission be set up to examine the events
surounding the Warsaw uprising. Churchill refused.



Chapter 37

BERLIN AND VICTORY -
ANOTHER CAPITAL PREPARES WORLD DOMINATION.
"We are finished, bled white, it's the end. Nothing can help us now."

(Goebbels, Feb 1945.)

The Nazis put up especially fierce resistance the closer they were pushed back
towards Germany, such as at Warsaw, and especially on German soil. Less worried
about being defeated by the British and Americans on the Western front, the
Germans transferred many divisions to the Eastern front. The battle for Berlin
was particularly fierce. Even inside the Reichstag Soviet soldiers had to fight
for every floor, every passage, every room. British and American casualties
during the whole of 1945 were 260,000. The Soviets lost over 300,000 in the
fighting for Berlin. There is now a massive Soviet cemetery in Berlin's Treptow
Park.

The bombed out city of Berlin was full of rubble and the stench of corpses.
Soviet sponsored newspapers published photos of the ruins with a 1933 slogan of
Hitler: "In ten years time Berlin will be unrecognisable." On the walls of
Hitler's arrogant Reichstag were now written messages from Soviet soldiers:
"Sidorov from Tambov", "Petrov - Leningrad to Berlin", or "Ivanov - all the way
from Stalingrad".

The arrogant German soldier of 1941, now a despondent and disillusioned war
prisoner, moaned a pathetic: "Hitler kaput" to Red Army soldiers, who, in the
main, treated him with a remarkably measured contempt, even giving him food and
clothes. The Soviets drew the distinction between the Nazis and the German
people. They put up notices saying: "Hitlers come and go, but the German people
and the German State go on - Stalin." Marshal Zhukov remarked: "For twelve years
they've had Hitler propaganda pumped into them." In the main there were very few
stories of Red Army soldiers raping and violence toward the German people. Their
revenge was not blind. The Soviet soldiers advancing on Berlin had seen
everything the Nazis had done in Europe:

"Every Ukrainian and Byelorussian city had its own horror story. As the Red Army
advanced to the west, it heard these daily stories of terror, and humiliations
and deportation; it saw the destroyed cities; it saw the mass-graves of Russian
war prisoners, murdered or starved to death; it saw Babyi Yar with its countless
corpses, among them the corpses of small children; and, in the Russian soldiers'
mind, the real truth on Nazi Germany, with its Hitler and Himmler and its
Untermensch philosophy and its unspeakable sadism, became hideously tangible.
All that Alexei Tolstoy and Sholokhov and Ehrenburg had written about the
Germans was mild compared with what the Russian soldier was to hear with his own
ears and see with his own eyes and smell with his own nose. For wherever the
Germans had passed, there was a stench of decaying corpses."

(British historian Alexander Werth "Russia at War 1941-1945.")

"Not only divisions and armies are advancing on Berlin. All the trenches, graves
and ravines filled with the corpses of the innocents are advancing on Berlin,
all the cabbages of Maidanek [fertilised by human ashes B.M.] and all the trees
of Vitebsk on which the Germans hanged so many unhappy people. The boots and
shoes and the babies' slippers of those murdered and gassed at Maidanek are
marching on Berlin. The dead are knocking on the doors of... Unter den
Linden..."

(Ilya Ehrenburg.)

"They lived well, the parasites... Great big farms in East Prussia, and pretty
posh houses in the towns that hadn't been burned out or bombed to hell. And look
at these datchas here! Why did these people who were living so well have to
invade us?"

(Soviet soldier in Berlin.) (1)

(1)See:Alexander Werth "Russia at War 1941-1945." Pan Books. London 1965.

Western propaganda likes to perpetrate the myth of a 'race for Berlin' between
the Western allies and the Red Army. There was no "race" for Berlin by the Red
Army.

However; contrary to the Yalta agreement, there was a race by the Western Allies
to gain as much of post-war Europe as possible for capitalism, and there was
certainly a race on the part of Hitler's armies to surrender to the British and
Americans before the Red Army got uncomfortably close:

"Yesterday the Fuhrer took a decision of enormous importance. He has stopped the
fighting in the West so that the Anglo-American troops can enter Berlin
unhindered."

(Goebbels to Albert Speer, Berlin, April 1945.) (1)

"The German troops on the Elbe have turned their backs to the Americans."

(Goebbels, in a radio broadcast, Berlin, April 1945.)

"I recognise that the Reich is vanquished... I am determined to spare as much
territory as possible from the Russian invasion. I am prepared to capitulate on
the Western Front. The armies of the Western powers will thereby be enabled to
advance rapidly as far as possible to the east. In contrast, I have no intention
of surrendering on the Eastern Front."

(Heinrich Himmler, to Folke Bernadotte, April 24 1945.) (2)

"The Russians must believe... that we intend to continue resisting against West
and East, while the British and Americans must interpret it as a statement of
our intention to terminate hostilities in the West and to continue fighting the
Soviets. The soldiers must be given to understand that the war is continuing,
but that at the same time its end, a favourable one for us, is near."

(Goering, in a radiogram to Hitler, April 23 1945.) (3)

It was already part of the Allied powers' Yalta agreement, which the Soviets
kept to the letter, that Berlin was to be in the Soviet zone of operations.

It was the Western leaders that had other ideas:

"Clearly, Berlin is the main prize. There is no doubt whatsoever, in my mind,
that we should concentrate all our energies and resources on a rapid thrust to
Berlin."

(Eisenhower, in a letter to Montgomery, Sept 15 1944.) (4)

"The Russian armies will no doubt overrun all Austria and enter Vienna. If they
also take Berlin will not their impression that they have been overwhelming
contributors to our common victory be unduly imprinted on their minds, and may
this not lead them into a mood which will raise grave and formidable
difficulties in the future? I therefore consider that from a political
standpoint we should march as far East into Germany as possible, and that should
Berlin be in our grasp we should certainly take it. This also appears to be
sound on military grounds."

(Churchill, in a letter to Roosevelt, April 1 1945.) (5)

(1)See:Albert Speer "Inside the Third Reich." Weidenfeld and Nicholson London
1970; MacMillan New York 1970; and Sphere Books. London 1971.

(2)See:Folke Bernadotte "La Fin." Lausanne 1945.

(3)See:Karl Koller "Der letzte Monat." Mannheim 1949.

(4) See:"The Memoirs of Field Marshall the Viscount Montgomery of Alemein."
London 1958.

(5)See:Winston Churchill "The Second World War." N.Y. 1953.

#"I deem it highly important that we shake hands with the Russians as far to the
East as possible; and, if circumstances allow, enter Berlin."

#(Churchill, in a letter to Eisenhower, April 5 1945.) (1)

Contrary to the Allied agreements, the West even wanted Czechoslovakia:

"The liberation of Prague and as much as possible of the territory of western
Czechoslovakia by your forces might make the whole difference to the postwar
situation in Czechoslovakia."

(Winston Churchill, in a telegram to Truman, April 30 1945.) (2)

#"Proposed withdrawal of the United States Army to the occupational lines which
were arranged with the Russians and the Americans... would mean the tide of
Russian domination sweeping forward 120 miles on a front of 300 or 400 miles.
This would be an event which, if it occurred, would be one of the most
melancholy in history... [US and British forces B.M.] ought not to retreat their
present positions to the occupational line until we are satisfied about Poland,
and also about the temporary character of the Russian occupation of Germany, and
the conditions to be established in the Russianised or Russian-controlled
countries in the Danube valley, particularly Austria and Czechoslovakia, and the
Balkans."

(Winston Churchill, "The Second World War.")

But the Western Allies' race for Berlin could not materialise. The Western
Allies' strength had still not been enough even to defeat Germany. At the
beginning of 1945 Germany was still intact and militarily and industrially
strong. German war factories were still turning out armaments. Soviet economic
and military strength had grown so strong that it could easily defeat the Nazis
alone. At the end of the war the Red Army could have swept on and taken the
whole of Europe and driven the Nazis into the English Channel and the Atlantic
had they so wished; they had the military strength and even the Western allies
could not have resisted them. Western allied military leaders recognised that
the Red Army could have defeated the Germans all on their own without any help
from the Western allies:

"The outstanding fact to be noted is the recent phenomenal development of...
Russian military and economic strength... In a conflict between these two powers
[Britain and the USSR B.M.] the disparity in the military strengths that they
could dispose upon that continent would, under present conditions, be far too
great to be overcome by our intervention on the side of Britain... we could not,
under existing conditions, defeat Russia. In other words, we would find
ourselves engaged in a war which we could not win."

(US Joint Chiefs of Staff to the US Secretary of State, May 16 1944.) (3)

In April 1945, from defending within 20 miles of their own capital, Moscow, the
Red Army reached the German capital, Berlin, and victory.

The Reichstag was again burning.

Only a few days before the final victory, when the Reichstag was already
burning, the Nazis were still telling the German people that they would win:

"Bulwark against Bolshevism - Berlin: A mass grave for Soviet tanks - Berlin
fights for the Reich and for Europe."

(Nazi newspaper Der Panzerbar April 27 1945.)

(1)See:Winston Churchill "The Second World War." N.Y. 1953.

(2)Winston Churchill "The Second World War." London 1954.

(3)Foreign Relations of the United States. The Conference of Berlin 1945. Vol.1
Washington 1960

#Four days later, on the First of May, the Soviet victory banner was flying over
the Reichstag. On the same day:

"It is reported from the Fuhrer's Headquarters that this afternoon our Fuhrer
Adolf Hitler fell in his command post in the Reich Chancellery, fighting with
his last breath for Germany against Bolshevism."

(Official German announcement of Hitler's death, May 1 1945.) (1)

Hitler had shot himself - "fighting with his last breath" for Germany.

#Six days after that, on May 7 1945, the Red flag was placed on top of the
Reichstag by a Soviet soldier.

German finance capital was broken.

But the war was not quite finished. Another world finance capital had already
been planning world domination at least since 1940:

"...to set forth the political, military, territorial and economic requirements
of the United States in its potential leadership of the non-German world area,
including the United Kingdom itself as well as the Western hemisphere and the
Far East. The first and foremost requirement of the United States in a world in
which it proposes to hold unquestionable power in the rapid fulfilment of a
programme of complete re-armament...

Co-ordination and co-operation of the United States with other countries to
secure the limitation of any exercise of sovereignty by foreign nations that
constitutes a threat to the minimum world area essential for the security and
economic prosperity of the United States."

(Memorandum E-B19 War-Peace Studies, Economic and Financial Group of the US
Council of Foreign Relations. 1940.) (2)

"...to think of world organisation in a fresh way. The measure of our victory
will be the measure of our domination after victory."

(US Council of Foreign Relations Director Isaiah Bowman to Hamilton Fish
Armstrong, Dec 15 1941. Bowman Papers, Armstrong File, John Hopkins University
Library, Baltimore.) (3)

Bowman formulated US plans for postwar areas of the world that were:

"...strategically necessary for world control."

(Memorandum T-A21, Jan 16 1942, Council of Foreign Relations, War-Peace Studies,
Baldwin Papers, Yale University Library.) (4)

What plans did the US have for Britain after the war was over?:

"At best, England will become a junior partner in a new Anglo-Saxon imperialism
in which the economic resources and the military and naval strength of the US
will be the centre of gravity."

#(President of the US National Industrial Conference Board Virgil Jordan, to the
Annual Convention of the Investment Bankers' Association of America, Hollywood,
Dec 10 1940.) (5)

(1)See:Hugh Trevor-Roper "The Goebbels Diaries." Secker and Warburg. London
1978.

(2)See:Denis and Cynthia Roberts "How to Secure Peace in Europe." Harney and
Jones. London 1985.

(3)See:Denis and Cynthia Roberts "How to Secure Peace in Europe." Harney and
Jones. London 1985.

(4)See:Denis and Cynthia Roberts "How to Secure Peace in Europe." Harney and
Jones. London 1985.

#(5)See:The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, New York, Dec 21 1940.

"...the British Empire as it existed in the past will never re-appear and that
the United States may have to take its place.

...must cultivate a mental view toward world settlement after this war which
will enable us to impose our own terms, amounting to perhaps a Pax-Americana."

(US Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy, May 6 1942.) (1)

As a result of her own corruption, Britain had become totally dependant on the
US economically, militarily and politically and was forced to be drawn into the
Third World War which the US was already planning.

Before the war was finished another war was starting. Even before Hiroshima and
Nagasaki and the end of World War II the US was planning World War III against
the Soviet Union:

"If there can be anything quite definite in this world, it is the future war
between the USSR and the US."

(US Under Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew, May 19 1945.) (2)

"There is, I know, a systematic whispering campaign that the next war will be of
Anglo-America against Russia."

(H.G.Wells, in a letter to the Daily Worker May 24 1945.)

"I realised even before the war ended that there were powerful groups in the
Army, Navy and State Department, working closely with important business men,
who looked on Russia as the next enemy and were getting ready for the next war."

(Roosevelt's Vice President Henry Wallace, 1945.) (3)

"If a contest of will against the Russians involving possible transit into war
should prove inevitable, it would be better to have it come after we and the
world knew of this new master weapon."

(US historian Herbert Feis.) (4)

The US "atom bomb diplomacy" started at Potsdam.

On April 12 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt died suddenly. The respected American
statesman was truly missed all over the world. In Britain the Union Jack flew at
half mast. In Moscow black edged red flags flew over the Kremlin and all over
the city.

On the same evening Vice President Harry Truman was sworn in as President.

The allies agreed that another summit meeting was necessary. Truman's
representative Harry Hopkins remarked to Marshal Zhukov that a lot of
"inflammable material" had accumulated.

"Churchill insists on meeting in Berlin on June 15. But we won't be ready to
participate in such a conference by then. Our President suggests convening it on
July 15. We are very glad that Mr. Stalin agrees with us."

(Harry Hopkins.) (5)

Why did Truman want to delay this meeting while Churchill wanted to go ahead?

(1)See:Denis and Cynthia Roberts "How to Secure Peace in Europe." Harney and
Jones. London 1985.

(2)See:Soviet Weekly July 20 1985.

(3)See:New Republic July 19 1948.

(4)Herbert Feis "Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin. The War They Waged and the Peace
They Sought." Princeton University Press. 1975.

(5)See"The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov." Jonathan Cape. London 1971.

General Elections were due in Britain on July 26 and Churchill thought that a
successful allied meeting would gain the Tories much needed public opinion from
the massive public sympathy for the Soviet Union.

Truman wanted to delay the meeting because the first atom bomb test was due on
July 16 and he wanted to face the Soviets with the "ultimate weapon".

The Potsdam conference took place from July 17 to August 2 1945. It was
adjourned for six days for the British General Elections of July 26. The Tories
lost the election and Attlee became Labour Prime Minister.

Labour were in power; and with a massive majority, due to the British people's
tiredness of war and because of the high prestige of the Soviet Union. But as
the Soviets found during the Potsdam talks on reparations and post-war
arrangements, nothing changed:

"The Russians were glad to see the last of Churchill, but when, after the
British General Election, Churchill and Eden were replaced by Attlee and Bevin,
they found they had nothing to congratulate themselves on."

(Alexander Werth "Russia At War.")

"Churchill did not return to Potsdam, but Ernest Bevin, new Foreign Secretary,
sat in his place and British policy toward Russia did not change an iota. Bevin
was a Labour Churchill, still more volcanic and irascible, without Churchill's
aristocratic graces. Bevin had long been an inner member of the Churchill
Coalition Cabinet. His opposition to Russia was even greater than Churchill's...
Neither tact nor diplomacy would restrain British attitudes toward Russia
thereafter, as the Conservative-dominated Foreign and Colonial offices stiffened
Bevin for conflict with the Soviets."

(US historian D.F. Fleming "The Cold War and its Origins.")

A day before the opening of the Potsdam conference the US tested the first atom
bomb on July 16 1945.

The next day, July 17, Truman received a coded message:

"Operated on this morning. Diagnosis not yet complete but results seem
satisfactory and already exceed expectations."

Confirmation and detailed information was brought to Truman at Potsdam on July
21; the fourth day of the Potsdam plenary session.

US world atom bomb diplomacy had begun.



Chapter 38

HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI:
US ATOM BOMB DIPLOMACY - AN ATOMIC CRIME.
"The use of the atomic bomb cost us dearly; we are now branded with the mark of
the beast."

(New York Times military observer.)

On August 6 and 9 1945 the US dropped nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki; targets which had no military significance whatever.

"I cannot certify that this bomb brought us victory, but it is certain that it
hastened the end of the war. We know that in this way we saved the lives of
several thousand American and allied soldiers who would certainly have perished
if we had not used the bomb."

(US President Truman, Oct 3 1945.)

Were the 247,000 innocent human beings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki really burned
in order to save the lives of several thousand American and allied soldiers?

Not if you consider the words of US Major General C. Chennault:

#"...the entry of the Soviet Union into the war (against Japan) was the decisive
factor that hastened the end of the war. Even if we had not used the bomb the
result would have been just the same."

(New York Times Aug 15 1945.)

Or Roosevelt, who had realised as early as 1943 that:

"With Russia as an ally in the war against Japan, the war can be terminated in
less time and at less expense in life and resources than if the reverse were the
case."

(Roosevelt, in his Quebec Conference document "Russia's Position.") (1)

Or US Secretary of State Stettinius:

"Without Russia it might cost the United States a million casualties to conquer
Japan."

(US Secretary of State Stettinius ) (2)

Or American critics Norman Cousins and Thomas Finletter:

"Why did we drop the bomb? Or why didn't we try it out under the auspices of the
allied powers, to show its tremendous effectiveness, and on that basis, send an
ultimatum to Japan, and throw the responsibility on to the Japanese themselves?
Whatever the answer to that question, if the aim of the atomic bomb lay in the
fact that we had to beat Japan before the Soviet Union could take part in the
war (with Japan), no experiment could take place."

(Saturday Review, June 15 1946.)

Or General Groves, military director of the Manhattan project for the
manufacture of the first atomic bomb:

(1)See:New Times, No.2, Jan 20 1986.

(2)E.Stettinius "Roosevelt and the Russians: The Yalta Conference." London 1950.

"There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge, any
illusions on my part, but that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was
carried out on that basis. I didn't go along with attitude of the whole country

that Russia was our gallant ally. I always had suspicions and the project was
conducted on that basis."

(General Groves, director of the Manhattan project.) (1)

Or Professor Joseph Rotblatt:

"In March 1944 I experienced a disagreeable shock. In a casual conversation,
General Leslie Groves, the head of the Manhattan Project, said, "You realise, of
course, that the real purpose of making the bomb is to subdue our chief enemy,
the Russians!" Until then I thought that our work was to prevent a Nazi
victory."

(Professor Joseph Rotblatt, The Times July 17 1985.)

Or US Secretary of State Byrnes:

"...it wasn't necessary to use the bomb against the cities of Japan in order to
win the war but our possession and demonstration of the bomb would make the
Russians more manageable in Europe."

(US Secretary of State James Byrnes.) (2)

Or British professor P.M.S Blackett:

"We conclude that the dropping of the atomic bomb was not so much the last
military act of the Second World War, as the first act of the cold diplomatic
war with the Russians."

(Prof. P. Blackett "The Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy.".)
(3)

Or even Churchill:

"It would be a mistake to suppose that the fate of Japan was settled by the
atomic bomb. Her defeat was certain before the bomb fell."

(Winston Churchill "The Second World War.)

Churchill was one of those in on the beginning of the atomic bomb plans. And at
the time he helped to propagate the myth:

"It is to this atomic bomb more than to any other factor that we may ascribe the
sudden and speedy ending of the war against Japan."

(Winston Churchill, House of Commons, Aug 17 1945.)

Or US Secretary for War Henry Stimson, who wrote in his diary that the atomic
bomb was: "to persuade Russia to play ball" and:

(1)See:P.Webber, G.Wilkinson and B.Rubin "Crisis Over Cruise." Penguin. London
1984.

See also:"In the Manner of J. Robt. Oppenheimer, US Government Printing Office,
Washington, 1954.

And:R.Palme Dutt "Problems of Contemporary History." Lawrence and Wishart.
London 1963..

And:Morning Star Oct 18 1985.

(2)See:Morning Star Oct 18 1985.

(3)Prof. P. Blackett "The Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy."
London 1948.)

"The necessity of bringing Russian orgn. into the fold of Christian
civilisation... The possible use of S1 [the code name for the atom bomb B.M.] to
accomplish this."

(From US Secretary for War Henry Stimson's notes after talks with President
Roosevelt.) (1)

"Russian entry will have a profound military effect in that almost certainly it
will materially shorten the war and thus save American lives,"

(US Secretary for War Henry Stimson.) (2)

Or Eisenhower; when told by US Secretary for War Henry Stimson that nuclear
weapons were to be used on Japan:

"I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan
was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary...
Japan was at that very moment seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss
of face."

(Dwight D. Eisenhower.) (3)

And later:

"It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

(Eisenhower.)

The Allied powers had agreed at Yalta that the Soviet Union would enter the war
against Japan on land in Manchuria three months after the Germans were defeated
in Europe. This was to give the USSR time to move the Red Army half way around
the world. The German surrender was on May 8 1945, so the date for the Soviet
attack was to be August 8 1945, which they kept exactly to the day. Churchill
called this:

"...another example of the fidelity and punctuality with which Marshal Stalin
and his valiant armies always kept their military engagements."

(Winston Churchill, House of Commons.)

But the US wanted Japan to capitulate to US occupying forces rather than Soviet.
There was no time to test the atomic bomb elsewhere, even though Kure, a
military target, was only 20 miles away, but was already damaged by conventional
bombing and therefore would not be suitable for an "experiment." So Hiroshima,
an undamaged target full of innocent civilian guinea pigs, was chosen for the
"experiment" on August 6 1945.

"It seems clear that, even without the atom bomb attacks, air supremacy over
japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring unconditional surrender
and obviate the need for invasion... Based on a detailed investigation of all
the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders
involved, it is the survey's opinion that certainly prior to December 31, 1945
Japan would have surrendered even if the atom bomb had not been dropped, even if
Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or
contemplated."

(US Strategic Bombing Survey 4, The Summary Report on the Pacific War.) (4)

(1)See:J.Burns "Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom." Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Inc. NY 1970.

(2)See:W.Averell Harriman and Elie Abel "Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin
1941-1946." Random House. NY 1975.

Quoted in:"Recalling the Past For the Sake of the Future: The Causes, Results
and Lessons of World War Two." Novosti. Moscow 1985.

(3)See:Morning Star Oct 18 1985.

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

"There was not enough time between 16 July when we knew at New Mexico that the
bomb would work, and 8 August, the Russian deadline date, for us to have set up
the very complicated machinery of a test atomic bombing involving time-consuming
problems of area preparations, etc... No, any test would have been impossible if
the purpose was to knock Japan out before Russia came in - or at least before
Russia could make anything other than a token of participation prior to a
Japanese collapse."

(Thomas K. Finletter, Chairman of US Air Policy Committee.) (1)

"The Americans had no bombs to waste. Apart from the static apparatus... There
were just two bearing the names "The Thin Man" and "The Fat Man"."

(US historian W. Manchester, in "The Glory and the Dream.") (2)

No bombs to waste; the "Fat Man" and the "Thin Man" had to be tested on live
people and the Soviets had to be kept in their place.

Japan was already effectively defeated and had already offered to surrender. The
Japanese had asked the Soviet Union to mediate in surrender terms and peace
negotiations as early as March 1945. (3)

It had been decided to use the atom bomb on Japan as early as the beginning of
July 1945; and Japan's offer of surrender on July 22 1945 was therefore
rejected.

"...the decision to use the atomic weapon against Japan was taken at the
beginning of July, 1945. The first atomic bomb was dropped on August 6 and the
offer of peace made by Japan on July 22 was not accepted till August 10."

(Attlee, in News Chronicle, Dec 5 1946.) (4)

The US were again informed on July 28 at Potsdam, before the bomb was used, that
Japan was prepared to surrender:

Stalin:"I want to inform you that we, the Russian delegation, have received a
new proposal from Japan... [Japan's note on mediation was then read out in
English B.M.] ... Japan is offering to cooperate with us. We intend to reply to
them in the same spirit as last time."

Truman:"We do not object."

Attlee:"We agree."

(At Potsdam Conference, July 28 1945) (5)

The Japanese also helped propagate the myth that the bomb forced them to
surrender by omitting to announce their surrender offers to the Soviets:

"Already the governing classes, headed by the Emperor, are desperately trying to
'save their face' by ascribing defeat to the atomic bomb, conveniently
forgetting their request to Russia to mediate with the Allies before the atomic
bomb was used...

The assertion that the new American bombs brought the Japanese war to an end is
a myth. As we know, weeks before the appearance of the atom bombs, the Emperor
Hirohito had already asked Stalin to mediate; thus openly admitting defeat. In
reality Japan had been brought down by the interruption of her sea
communications by Anglo-American sea power and th edanger of a Soviet thrust
across manchuria cutting off the Japanese armies in Asia from home."

(The Times Aug 16 1945.)

(1)Saturday Review of Literature, June 15 1946.

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

(2)W. Manchester "The Glory and the Dream." Bantam Books. NY 1978.

(3)See:Denis and Cynthia Roberts "How to Secure Peace in Europe." Harney and
Jones. London 1985.

See also: The Guardian, March 9 1981.

(4)See:Alexander Werth "Russia at War 1941-1945." Pan Books. London 1965.

(5)See:"Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam." (Transcripts) Progress Publishers. Moscow
1969.

"The entry into the war of the Soviet Union this morning puts us in an utterly
hopeless situation and makes further continuation of the war impossible."

(Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki, Aug 9 1945.) (1)

Why the rush to use the bomb?:

"We wanted to get through the Japanese phase of the war before the Russians came
in."

(US Secretary of State James Byrnes.) (2)

Churchill knew about the US atom bomb plans. But they were kept secret from the
USSR. When it was decided eventually to tell Stalin Churchill showed nothing but
deceitfulness and contempt for a loyal ally:

"Still, he had been a magnificent ally in the war against Hitler, and we both
[and Truman] felt that he must be informed of the great New Fact which now
dominated the scene, but not with any particulars."

(Winston Churchill "The Second World War.")

"I am in entire agreement with the President that the secrets of the atomic bomb
shall, so far as is possible, not be imparted to any other country in the world.
So far as we know there are at least three and perhaps four years before the
concrete progress made in the United States can be overtaken."

ET(Winston Churchill, Aug 16 1945.)

The last thing the US wanted was for Japan to capitulate to the USSR. The US
also did not want the Japanese people to have the opportunity to opt for
socialism:

"Anxious as we were to have Russia in the war against Japan, the experience at
Potsdam now made me determined that I would not allow the Russians any part in
the control of Japan... force is the only thing that the Russians understand."

(US President Truman, in his diary, July 1945.) (3)

"It is quite clear that the US do not at the present time desire Russian
participation in the war against Japan."

(Churchill, to Eden.) (4)

(1)See:Valentin Falin "The Last Nuclear Explosion." Novosti. Moscow 1986.

(2)See:US News and World Report Aug 15 1960.

(3)See:Valentin Falin "The Last Nuclear Explosion." Novosti. Moscow 1986.

(4)See:Morning Star Oct 18 1985.

"[It is] now no longer necessary for the Russians to come into the Japanese war;
the new explosive alone was sufficient to settle the matter. Furthermore, we now
had something in our hands which would redress the balance with the Russians...
[Churchill could now say to the USSR B.M.:] If you insist on doing this or that,
well... [the "well" and a pause meant an atom bomb B.M.] And then where are the
Russians!"

#(Churchill's Chief of Staff in the war Field Marshal Lord Alan Brooke, talking
about Churchill, in his war diaries.) (1)

"We should not need the Russians. The end of the Japanese war no longer depended
on the pouring in of their armies... We had no need to ask favours of them... I
minuted to Mr. Eden: 'It is quite clear that the United States do not at the
present time desire Russian participation in the war against Japan'."

(Winston Churchill, in "The Second World War.")

This fear of Japan becoming socialist is even more apparent when you consider
that Japan's and Germany's war debts and reparations were not only waived but
millions of dollars of US capital as "Marshall Aid" was pumped into these
countries, as well as Britain and the rest of Western Europe. This also helped
to prevent the possibility that these nations might have "gone communist".

"If the bomb was dropped in a desperate hurry on August 6, it must have been
because Truman was determined to drop it before the Russians had entered the
war... But that was not all: the bomb, as is so clearly suggested by Truman,
Byrnes, Stimson and others, was dropped very largely in order to impress Russia
with America's great might. Ending the war in Japan was incidental (the end of
this war was clearly in sight anyway), but stopping the Russians in Asia and
checking them in Eastern Europe was fundamental."

(British historian Alexander Werth "Russia At War.")

"The bomb might well put us in a position to dictate our own terms at the end of
the war."

(US Secretary of State James Byrnes.) (2)

The human cost of the US trying to obtain a political position where it could
dictate its own terms was right from the start played down and hidden from view
by the US; while subjecting the human and physical remnants and survivors of the
bomb to tests to assess the effects of nuclear bombing. Medical tests were
conducted by the US not for the benefit of the Japanese victims, but purely for
US military experiments. Let no one be fooled by attempts to play down the
effects of nuclear bombing, such as radiation effects, which last for
generations.

(1)See:Lord Alan Brooke's war diaries: Arthur Bryant "The Turn of the Tide,
1939-43." and "Triumph in the West, 1943-46." London 1959.

See also:R.Palme Dutt "Problems of Contemporary History." Lawrence and Wishart.
London 1963.

(2)See:Harry S. Truman "Memoirs." Vol.1. New York 1955.

"I am an atomic bomb survivor (Hibakusha) from Hiroshima.

On August 6, 1945, forty-two years ago, an A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima by
the USA. The bomb, containing only 1 Kiligram of uranium but equal in power to
13,000 tons of TNT, fell on Hiroshima with a bomb blast faster than sound and
with heat rays exceeding 2,000 degrees centigrade on the ground within a radius
of 600 meters. In an instant it blew down buildings, houses and people in
Hiroshima, destroying everything...

On the ground, numberless people had fallen, groaning or crying for water,
without anyone to help them. The neighbourhood was so full of agonising cries,
it was hell on earth.

That same day, some 9,000 12-year-old schoolboys were also engaged in work in
the city, under the national mobilisation law. In the instant of the A-bomb
explosion, most of them were charred to death. Those who narrowly

escaped being killed were left naked, their clothes burnt off. With their
blistering skin peeling, they tottered about in the sea of fire, and plunged
into the river. When they looked up from the water, they had already lost their
sight. Embracing each other by the shoulder, red and stripped of skin, they were
washed away toward the sea, crying "Mama, help!" The bodies washed toward the
sea on the seven rivers running through the city, turning the river surface
dark, have never been recovered.

Even if the cry, "Mama, help!" had reached their mothers, who could have helped
them in that "hell"? The hell, in which you could not save even your own
children, that is A-bombing.

People who survived the bombing, and those who entered the city to search for
relatives or help victims were struck down by radiation and died after losing
their hair and bleeding.

Three days later, on August 9, another A-bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The two
A-bombs completely destroyed the two cities, massacring the people without
discrimination...

A-bombing allow us neither to live nor die as human beings. A-bombs are...
basically intended for total destruction... which we human beings must never
allow to exist.

After the end of World War II, the US occupational forces and the Japanese
government tried to conceal the real condition of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from
the public by suppressing all reports on the damage of these two cities caused
by the A-bombs. This caused delay in relief work for victims and prevented the
effects of nuclear war from being known to the world as well as formation of
international opinion for the banning of nuclear weapons...

We do not want anyone to ever again go through the pain of nuclear war which we
were made to suffer. "Never make hibakusha again" - this is our hibakusha's
heart-felt desire. This is our wish to which we are determined to devote our
lives. For that purpose, we must prevent nuclear war and eliminate nuclear
weapons entirely...

Japan formerly invaded our neighbouring Asian countries and did them serious
harm...

Japanese women have been widening the range of their movements for the
protection of peace and life, with the slogans:

"Mothers who give birth to life also wish to nurture and protect life" and "Let
us join hands so as to make no more Hibakusha."

(Sakao Ito, NIHON HIDANKYO Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers
Organisations, in Women of the Whole World, journal of the Women's International
Democratic Federation.)

Japanese women's horrific tales of the bombing have made 12 volumes collected by
the women's peace committee of the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai. One of the
stories is of Mayumi Yoshida; the long extract shows many aspects of life and
what conditions and government attitudes in the West are likely to be after a
nuclear bombing:

"I have written this for the sake of my older sister, Yuriko, who has suffered a
fate more cruel than death. I have written in the hope that no other children
like Yuriko are born into this world.

Yuriko is one of twenty-two cases of severe microcephaly caused in foetuses
whose mothers were exposed at close range to radiation from the atomic bomb. She
limps because both pelvic joints are dislocated. She has a speech disorder. Her
body is the size of a middle-school pupil, though she is thirty-six. Her mental
abilities are arrested at the level of a two-year-old... She is incapable of
taking a bath, going to the toilet, or doing anything else unassisted.

Yuriko smiles when she is happy and pouts when she is displeased...

Television movies are her greatest joy...

Why has she been condemned to such a condition? Life is given equally to all.
Who was it that twisted and deformed my sister's life this way?

On the day of the bombing, Mother was happily anticipating Yuriko's birth. But,
then, in a flash of fiendish light, the bomb invaded even the sanctity of the
womb and led a mother, an unborn daughter, a whole family down a long path of
suffering...

Mother... had her baby boy, Masaaki, strapped to her back... she was temporary
blinded by a sudden flash of light... the buildings and the fifty workers who
had been there just seconds earlier had vanished. Mother saw an immense fire...
Before long a drizzle of black rain began falling...

Mother took Masaaki down from her back, only to find that virtually countless
slivers of glass were buried in his bloody head...

Mother fell ill a few weeks later...

No one knew of atomic-radiation sickness... On August 29 Masaaki died, but his
name is not listed among the atomic bomb victims since the cause of death was
reported as gastric obstruction...

The child growing in her womb was some consolation for Masaaki's death.

It was five or six years before her death that Mother began complaining of
pains... This was the beginning of her struggle with the monster known as
atomic-radiation sickness...

One day, when Yuriko was sitting next to her watching television, Mother
stretched out her thin arm and took her by the hand. Laying it on her side, she
said, "Yuriko, it hurts here. Rub my side for a little while, won't you?" There
were tears in her eyes.

"Is it very bad Mother -" I started to speak to her but stopped midway,
realising that the tears were caused not by physical pain but by love and worry
for a child that would be left behind...

[Yuriko B.M.] was born... apparently a perfectly healthy baby

Yuriko's first and second birthdays passed. My parents' third daughter was born,
and still Yuriko neither spoke nor walked... But when her younger sister was
already prattling and toddling about, Yuriko still showed no signs of
development...

They went on hoping that one day she would speak and walk normally...

Worried about what would happen to Yuriko after their deaths, Mother and Father
once sent a letter to the United States government by way of the American
commander of the Iwakuni Air Force Installation, hoping to make arrangements to
ensure Yuriko's livelihood. The Japanese government had passed a nominal law
related to medical treatment for atom-bomb victims but showed no inclination to
aid them financially. This is why Mother and Father decided to apply to the
nation responsible for the bombing. Their request was shelved without action...

In June 1968 Yuriko was at last officially recognised as an atomic-bomb victim.

In the hope that it would help the drive to outlaw nuclear weapons, each August
6 Mother and Father took Yuriko to the site of bombing and passed out
leaflets... Some of the people to whom I handed the leaflets looked annoyed and
immediately threw the leaflets away...

In the middle of December, Mother had grown weaker and could no longer see out
of her left eye.

About three days before her death, the attacks of excruciating pain abated, and
she grew so tranquil that we were unable to tell the exact time of her death...

Before the end she frequently said that she had gone on living because of
Yuriko. But at last her determination and strength were exhausted. I shall never
forget watching Yuriko, who did not understand what death meant, sitting beside
Mother and murmuring, "Momma sleep, Momma sleep."

On January 4 of the next year, Father received a letter saying that, though
Yuriko had been recognised as an atom-bomb victim, Mother was not: she had not
been sufficiently examined. The letter was dated December 25, 1978, the day
before her death... This letter symbolises the heartlessness of government
policy in dealing with atom-bomb victims.

Now, sitting alone with Father, Yuriko points to Mother's photograph and says
over and over again, "Momma dead, Momma dead." Like a clock stopped forever at
8.15, the moment the bomb fell... She and all others like her show how the
misery of that abysmal moment persists into the future. All the millions of
words spoken and written in the name of peace are necessary, but people should
come to see my sister and hear her murmur, "Momma dead, Momma dead.""

(From "People Should Come to see my Sister." Mayumi Yoshida. Soka Gakkai
Buddhist organisation, Japan.) (1)

Victims of the US atomic crime; not only were the people of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki 'liberated' from the choice of opting for socialism or capitalism by
being burnt alive; but more importantly: they were the expendable guinea pigs in
the first military acts of the Cold War.

(1)See:New Times No.32, 1988.



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.



.




"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our
minds." (Bob Marley, Redemption song.)

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

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set I go
into the other room and read a book." (Groucho Marx.)

"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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