The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 3, Spring 2020 | Page 62

The Saber
Polevoi, fascism and Nazism
were not just matters of the past.
They were ‘the quintessence of
world imperialism, its extreme
manifestation.’ According to the
Bulgarian communist leader
and a former head of Comintern
Georgii Dimitrov whom Boris
Polevoi met shortly before
his departure for Nuremberg,
‘Nazism is the most dreadful
off-spring that imperialism has
ever produced ... but perhaps
the most rational for modern
imperialism.’ Pospelov and
Dimitrov were essentially suggesting
that in response to new
crises of the capitalist system, it
would be both natural and rational
for capitalists to try to preserve
their domination through
the creation of new Nazi-style
regimes in the West. Such cataclysmic
crises, according to the
communist worldview, were not
only possible—they were inevitable
as capitalism was nearing
its equally inevitable collapse ....
It seems therefore that from the
standpoint of the Soviet leaders,
exposing the crimes of the Nazi
leadership in great detail could
boost the Soviet Union’s stance
in its future confrontations with
capitalism. 32
This illustrates why Soviet authorities
wanted to cover the Nuremberg trials –
they wanted to make the event an ideological
triumph to round out the military
one just months before. With this
as the primary Party focus, ignoring
2