“ In this connection the victory of fascism in Germany must be regarded not only as a symptom of the weakness of the working class and a result of the betrayals of the working class by Social Democracy, which paved the way for fascism; it must also be regarded as sign of the weakness of the bourgeoisie, a sign that the bourgeoisie is no longer able to rule by the old methods of parliamentarism and bourgeois democracy, and as a consequence, is compelled to accept that it is no longer able to find a way out of the present situation on the basis of a peaceful foreign policy and, as a consequence, is compelled to resort to a policy of war”( J. V. Stalin, Problem of Leninism, Report to XVII Congress of CPSU( B), P682, Peking, 1976)
Actually imperialist forces like Britain and France, were not at all interested for peace, They did not oppose when Italy attacked and seized Abysinia in 1935, when in 1936 Italy and Germany organised military intervention in Spain, when in 1937 Japan after seizing Manchuria involved North and Central China, occupied Peking, Tientsin and Shanghai, when in the beginning of 1938 Germany seized Austria. Britain and France wanted to overlook these, the USA wanted Japan to wipe out the communists. All of them together intended that the Axis powers developed by Germany, Italy and Japan be satisfied with their hold on the USSR and certain parts of China and deserts of Africa. The Munich Pact was in essence a Pact in that direction. It was connivance with the aggressor powers. The Socialist Soviet Union had time and again asked for a“ Collective security” against the aggressors to Britain and France only to be rejected by them by taking up the so-called position of non-intervention, a position of“ neutrality”. They took a non-interventionist position on Spanish Civil war( 1936-1939) while Germany was openly backing Fascist Franco to oust the Republican Gov ernment and the Comintern f ormed the“ International Brigrade” to help the Republicans. Thus all efforts of the socialist USSR to stop the aggressors from their advance and to establish peace was thwarted by Britain and France, even though in those countries as well as in the USA all progressive forces wanted to ally with the USSR to stop war.
In March, 1939 Germany started Preparation for attack on Poland. The USSR once again wanted an alliance and made it clear that its forces would come in help of Poland. In May, 1939, the attempts were made to negotiate an alliance and preparation to help Poland. But Britain and France first took a delaying tactics, finally backed out and Poland rejected Soviet help.
It became clear that the imperialist powers were trying to direct the Axis power against socialist USSR. So, finding no other alternative, but to prepare to resist
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Fascists on the basis of its own strength, the USSR made an agreement, known as Non-aggression Pact, more popularly Molotov-Ribbentrop poet on 23 August, 1939.
Very soon on September 1, 1939, Hitler obliged the appeasers by attacking Poland and the World War II formally started. Actually, Italy, Spain and Japan were not only dissatisfied, but also opposed the Pact. It was such a diplomatic manoeuvre that the so-called allied forces, the Tory backers of Hitler led by Chamberlain in London were caught on the wrong foot.
It is not possible to describe in details the events that followed. But the time between Sept 1, 1939 and 22 June 1941 when Hitler attacked the USSR, on the one hand the Axis powers were gaining control of large parts of Europe, Africa and Atlantic parts of Europe through one after another blitz which the allied forces could not withstand. But the USSR with its neutrality carried on a chess game which blocked advance of Germany in a number of fronts. This has been aptly described by Anna Louis Strong in her book“ Stalin Era”. She said,“ Hitler saw that the USSR, as a neutral, was the immediate barrier in his path to world rule. In the twenty-two months of the Non-Aggression Pact, the USSR had three times blocked the Nazi advance. The Soviet march to Poland had checked for a year Hitler’ s advance to East; the Soviet return to Bessarbia had pulled him back from invading Britain; and Moscow’ s power politics in the Balkans and Baltic delayed him at the Dardanelles”.
So on June 22, 1941 Fascist forces attacked the USSR. How the Socialist USSR defeated the Fascists
“ War is politics by other means”. Politics needs an ideology. The Socialist Soviet Union fought the war on its own politics which was based on its ideology of Communism- the ideology of proletariat. We have already discussed in relation to this policy of collectivisation and its Five-Year Plans and how deeply entrenched was the democracy of the people in the Soviet Union. It was a socialist country where“ new men” had emerged who did not live for themselves but live for the society as whole, for well being of world proletariat. They knew very well that they would have to def end socialism not for themselves, but for the world proletariat who at that time had gained one thing to lose that was the only socialist state in the world. So, not only the soviet people but also the international proletariat stood up against fascism for a determined fight to finish the dark forces in the world.
The anti-Communists serving imperialist ideology at that time went on criticizing Soviet Union and Stalin for the Non-Aggression Pact without a reference to the pros and cons of events. Now a days it has become
Class Struggle