Posted on 05/01/2005 12:41:07 PM PDT by lizol
A Bittersweet Celebration
This week, some Europeans will toast the 60th anniversary of Hitler's end, while others mourn what followed
By PAUL QUINN-JUDGE | MOSCOW
It was, Vladimir Putin said last week, "the triumph of civilization over fascism." In Russia, May 9 marks the 60th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany — an event that in Western Europe is marked the day before — and Russia is going all out to celebrate. Leaders, from U.S. President George W. Bush to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, are expected to come to Moscow for a military parade in Red Square, flyovers by World War II-era fighter planes and, organizers promise, a "stupendous" fireworks display. But for security reasons, ordinary Muscovites are not invited; instead, they've been encouraged to leave town to work their potato plots. The center of the capital will be closed off so that, in the words of political commentator Sergei Buntman, "vagrants, illegal residents, prostitutes and Muscovites" won't get in the way of the festivities.
It's a pointed reminder that for many Europeans, Victory in Europe day is a bittersweet occasion. For some, the official memories are fond. In the French town of Reims, where the Nazis surrendered, there will be three days of concerts, parades and ceremonies, while President Jacques Chirac will honor Allied war veterans in Paris on May 8. In London, pop stars and celebrities will perform in a concert for 15,000 people in Trafalgar Square. Berlin will host the "Day for Democracy" celebration, a series of speeches and concerts, around the Brandenburg Gate.
In Russia, the victory over fascism was the high-water mark of Soviet achievement. But that triumph came at the loss of well over 20 million lives, largely because Stalin's purges had destroyed the Red Army's officer class before the war started. Until June 1941, Germany and Soviet Russia were allies, and Moscow had seized the Baltic states as part of a carve-up of Eastern Europe provided for by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Even the massive German invasion seemed, paradoxically, to promise an end to Stalin's dictatorship. Russians began to hope that victory over Hitler would bring a political thaw at home after the brutality of the 1930s. They were quickly disillusioned. With victory, repression returned. Hundreds of thousands of returning pows were sent straight to the Gulag for the crime of being captured by the Germans.
There's another kind of ambivalence about V-E day in those states that were once part of the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact; many viewed the defeat of Nazism as simply a change of occupier. "We cannot pretend that May 9 was a day of liberty and independence for Poland," said Donald Tusk, leader of Poland's center-right Platforma Obywatelska. "For Poland the fight against Hitlerism and communism ended only in 1989." Rather than V-E day, Poles are more likely to recall the 1940 massacre of over 21,000 Polish officers at Katyn, in western Russia, a crime that Moscow acknowledged only in the Gorbachev era. Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga says she's going to Moscow in the hope that Russia will one day "find the courage to face up to its own past history ... and condemn the numerous crimes against humanity that were committed by the Soviet Union in the name of communism." Around Europe, V-E day will remain an anniversary with an edge.
As usual, the Poles place history in proper perspective. The claim that the National Socialist German Workers Party was ever anything other than a Socialist party of the same stripe as the one in Russia is a ridiculous farce, as is the manufactured distinction between "Fascism" and the Socialists of any other party. Indeed, before the collapse of the nonaggression pact, the Russian Socialists admittedly publicly that, "essentially we are brothers."
Of course they were. The later attempt to label the Nazi's as "right-wingers" was just one more propaganda victory by the Soviets. Luckily for humanity, the socialists of both parties lost their wars. What Europe needs is a day to celebrate both victories, and to reflect upon how the European Union is driving them back down the same dead-end road.
Click to enlarge photo SEOUL (Reuters) - Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will not join U.S. President George Bush and other world leaders in Moscow next month for Russian World War Two victory celebrations, South Korea's prime minister said on Wednesday.
"The Foreign Ministry told me that no North Koreans will attend the ceremony," Lee Hae-chan said in comments reported by the South Korean presidential office.
Big suprise. At least one of the last two Stalinist dictators left on earth has nothing to celebrate. Wonder where Fidel will be?
'W' should b---h slap Fidel and Kimmy if he sees them. I might even start putting checks in those RNC envelopes again if he does that ;-)
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