V-E Day 2005

Fire of Liberty

When President Bush rightly noted in his recent trip to Eastern Europe the horrors of Yalta and the onslaught of communism that wreaked havoc on Europe, he faced a massive condemnation by the MSM and the likes of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. for besmirching FDR's legacy and our ally the Soviet Union. What we didn't hear from these critics, who continued to cite the 27 million Soviet people who died fighting the Nazi war-machine, is how brutal the Soviets Union actually were to these brave people who defended their nation. Luckily, we have have historians like Max Boot who are willing to point out such left out facts. In his most recent column in The Los Angeles Times, Boot cuts through the MSM gift-wrapped presentation of the Russian half of V-E day and presents a more balanced look at what occurred in Mother Russia. Take a look below:

Stalin was ruthless in rallying support for the war effort. Surrender was declared to be treasonous. Anyone suspected of defeatist or counterrevolutionary sentiments was shot or sentenced to hard labor. During the siege of Stalingrad alone, 13,000 were executed. Though a million inmates were released from prison camps for military service, many more were consigned to the gulag during the war. Millions died at the hands of NKVD secret police.

The Red Army eventually showed considerable skill in mechanized warfare, but right up until the end its commanders were profligate with their men's lives. The Soviets suffered 350,000 casualties in the battle of Berlin in 1945. The butcher's bill could have been lessened by going slower but that would have risked letting the German capital fall into Western hands.

After V-E Day, Stalin was true to his dictum, "We do not have prisoners of war, we only have traitors." Most Russian soldiers liberated from German captivity were sent to the gulag; some were shot outright.

I'd say this is one of Boot's best columns since he started writing in the LA Times.