TWO FATAL MISTAKES

Everyone knows that history does not tolerate the subjunctive mood. But still, even now, we never stop wondering what could have prevented the worst tragedy in human history - World War II. A heavy price was paid to stop the Nazi death machine - millions of lives, millions of disabled, orphans and widows, thousands of destroyed cities, burned villages and fields...

That's why the question continues to torment us: "What did those politicians, who had the fate of the world in their hands, do wrong and what did they omit to do?"

They say that if people forget about previous wars, new ones begin. For current presidents, heads of government and ministers, and not only for them, it is important to remember once again the terrible lessons of nearly a century ago. The heated debates surrounding this issue indicate that not all the wounds have healed yet, not all the conclusions have been drawn and that there is still fear and uncertainty...

In the city of Gdansk, events on 1 September 2009 began at dawn, as they did 70 years ago when Polish soldiers on the Westerplatte peninsula were attacked by the Nazi army hordes. In memory of this event, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the secretary general of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, a representative of the United States, the prime ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, Estonia, Finland, Holland and the Czech Republic and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband gathered there. The attitudes of the current leaders of countries which participated in World War II to the events of the late 1930s were the focus of world attention. Everyone was especially interested in what Moscow had to say.

Shortly before his arrival in Gdansk, Vladimir Putin published an article in the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza in which, according to many, he likened the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to the Munich Agreement of 1938: "No doubt, it is reasonable to condemn the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed in August 1939. But, the year before, France and Britain had signed the well-known Munich Agreement with Hitler, destroying all hopes of a united front against fascism."

 According to Putin, it was after the treaty of 1938, which led to Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, that Hitler decided that he "can do anything" and that France and Britain "will do nothing to defend their allies". Remember that Soviet textbooks always called the Munich agreement the "Munich plot", and sometimes even added the "Munich plot of imperialists".

"Didn't the Treaty of Versailles, which drew a line under World War I, leave many 'time bombs'? The main aim was to record not just the defeat, but the humiliation of Germany. Didn't borders in Europe begin to collapse much earlier than 1 September 1939? And there would not have been the Anschluss of Austria and dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Not only Germany, but also Hungary and Poland, actually took part in the territorial division of Europe. On the same day as the conclusion of the Munich plot, Poland sent an ultimatum to Czechoslovakia and, at the same time as the German troops, it invaded the Cieszyn and Freistadt regions. Can we close our eyes to the backstage efforts of Western democracies to 'pay Hitler off' and redirect his aggression towards the 'East'?" Russia's prime minister asked his Western counterparts.

Speaking on the causes of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Russian prime minister said that "in 1939, the Soviet Union faced the threat of war on two fronts (in August 1939 the conflict with the Japanese on Khalkhin Gol flared up)" and a situation in which the "potential allies of the USSR in the West had already made arrangements with the German Reich and did not want to cooperate".

Putin was apparently well prepared for his speech. Another Polish newspaper, Dziennik, argues that ahead of his trip to Poland, Russia's prime minister met with historians and studied documents relating to the situation in Europe in the late 1930s.

Meanwhile, Western countries have their own view of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and especially of its additional secret protocol on the fate of Poland (on the demarcation line for the partition of Poland), as well as of the free hand given to the USSR in the Baltic states, including Finland (the Soviet-Finnish War began on 30 November 1939, three months after the start of World War II).

It is quite interesting and edifying to look at the events of 70 years ago through the eyes of Winston Churchill - a politician who was not in power at the time of the conclusion of the Munich agreement or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. His vast experience in political, economic and military matters, education and innate intelligence and insight enabled him to make a very clear and sometimes almost unbiased assessment of what happened in Eurasia ahead of and during the first year of World War II.

"…Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. These countries could be crushed one by one, but united they represent a tremendous force. Then there are Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. All of these states want to preserve their identity and national independence...If this group of Danubian and Balkan states united firmly with the two great Western democracies (France and the United Kingdom) it would be the most important and, perhaps, the most decisive step towards stabilization. But even this would only be the beginning. In eastern Europe, there is a great power - Russia, a country that seeks peace, a country which is profoundly threatened by Nazi hostility, a country which currently stands as a great background and counterbalance to all the above-mentioned states of Central Europe. We certainly have no reason to bow to Soviet Russia or count on Russian aid. But no matter, what short-sighted fools we are, if now, when the danger is so great, we have created unnecessary obstacles to the accession of the great Russian mass to the cause of resistance to an act of Nazi aggression. There is, however, a third party grouping. This includes Poland and other countries to the north - the Baltic States and Scandinavian powers. If we finally managed to put together the forces I have mentioned, we would be able to offer these countries a very substantial military guarantee of peace. And from the other side of the Atlantic, the United States, too, would join us with words of encouragement and compassion," this is an excerpt from a speech by Winston Churchill, then simply an MP of the Conservative Party, which he delivered in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester on 9 May 1938.

By that time, Germany had already annexed Austria, Spain had been dismembered and, on 16 April, Great Britain and Italy had signed an agreement giving Rome a free hand in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) and in Spain. Two years earlier, all European countries had watched in silence as Hitler sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland and came very close to the border of France.

On 26 August 1938, the leader of the Sudeten Nazis, Henlein, demanded that his supporters "switch to self-defence and finish off Marxist and irresponsible Czech elements" and, on 29 September 1938, that same Munich conference of French Prime Minister Daladier, British Prime Minister Chamberlain, as well as Hitler and Mussolini, was held. The Czech delegation was not allowed into the conference room, nor was there a Soviet delegation.

Upon arrival at London airport on 1 October 1938, Chamberlain said that he had brought with him "peace for our time". How sadly mistaken this politician was! Shortly after Munich, he was forced to resign. Churchill, who categorically opposed concessions to Hitler and Mussolini, said at the time: the maximum Chamberlain achieved for Czechoslovakia "is just that the German dictator no longer needs to nick sweet chunks by stealth; he gets them on a plate, one after the other".

"It's over. Silent, enveloped in grief, forlorn and broken, Czechoslovakia is plunged into darkness," noted Churchill. He later added that Czechoslovakia "was betrayed, destroyed, and is now being digested".

His words were confirmed by a note from Hitler to Keitel, which can be found among the documents of the Nuremberg Trials: "I will take a decision on action against Czechoslovakia only if I am firmly convinced, as was the case in the invasion of the demilitarized zone and Austria, that France will not speak and, therefore, Britain will not interfere."

Not only Churchill was against the Munich agreement - he was supported by more than a hundred members of the British Parliament. They also condemned Poland for getting carried away by the Nazi feasting on the ruins of the state of the Czechs and Slovaks and capturing the Cieszyn region of the country.

It is worth noting that, according to some historians, at the time it would have been possible, if not to stop, then at least to give Hitler pause for thought. In other words, Europe could at least have bought time. Not all forces in Germany in 1938 were convinced that the country was ready for a large-scale war. But unjustified concessions to Hitler helped him to assert himself with his insane ideas. They also helped him to acquire some feared allies.

This is how the first fatal mistake was made: already by April 1939, Italy had seized Albania, and Germany had broken off a non-aggression pact with Poland.

Given all this, it is difficult not to agree with Putin's words. But there was soon a second fatal mistake...

We have to admit that now no-one can fairly answer the question as to why there was no UK-France-USSR triple alliance, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was concluded instead. In Russia now (and constantly in the Soviet Union) you will often hear the thought that Paris and London did not go for an alliance with Moscow as they hoped that Nazi Germany and Communist Russia would bleed each other. The West says that Stalin himself did not seek an alliance with Britain and France as he had his own expansionist plans. Allegedly, even at the start of the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army occupied positions that were convenient for attack, not for defence. This explains the huge losses of Soviet soldiers in the first days and weeks after 22 June 1941. That is why Stalin did not believe his agents reports, and then, according to eyewitnesses, he was clearly at a loss - so much so that he appealed to his people with words untypical of a "leader": "Brothers and sisters ..."

One way or another, on the eve of the war, Soviet foreign policy had turned towards Germany. On 22 August 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the aforementioned secret protocol were signed. Within 17 days of the start of World War II, Soviet troops entered the eastern regions of Poland. A few days later, the German and Soviet armies met, and even held a joint military parade in Brest...

So, no matter how just Putin's words seem, the assertion seems logical that if we look at the above events from another angle, we can conclude that the date of Soviet Union entry into World War II was not 22 June 1941... We should not forget the Soviet-Finnish war, nor the fact that in the summer of 1940 Moscow, "at the request of the workers" of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, annexed these states to the USSR.

Incidentally, in speaking about the events of those days, it is necessary to note a further point: in Russia you can hear now that Poland itself signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1934, intending to fight the USSR on the side of Berlin and unleash a wave of separatism among ethnic minorities in Western Ukraine, Central Asia and the Caucasus. This is from some previously secret documents from the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation...

Meanwhile, after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, even Churchill believed that, at least, "there is the Eastern Front which Nazi Germany will not dare attack..." But Germany did dare... Although for nearly two years, the Soviet Union, under agreements with Berlin, sent trains carrying food and raw materials to Germany.

After Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Britain immediately announced a decision to provide Russia with all possible assistance. Churchill knew perfectly well that if the USSR had fallen under pressure from Nazi Germany, as had happened with other countries, as France fell, and as, sooner or later, Britain itself would fall, it could not be known what would become of our world...

Different states actually have different interpretations of history. Its view of the past depends on the political structure of a country, its national interests and the countries with whom it seeks to make friends or enemies. In the former USSR, and especially in Russia, many are now looking at the history of World War II through the prism of the Great Patriotic War. And there is nothing we can do about that.

As there is nothing you can do about the fact that, in pre-war years and in the early years of World War II, the USSR committed unforgivable mistakes and took steps that were egregious in terms of political and human morality. While Stalin systematically destroyed his own people, it would be naive to talk about his peace-loving approach to Western countries. But in this period of history, the Great Patriotic War redeemed much, if not everything, including with regard to Poland...

Here's what Winston Churchill said in the House of Commons on 27 February 1945. A year later, he delivered his famous Fulton speech about the "iron curtain" which, according to many historians, was the starting point of the "Cold War": "Had it not been for the tremendous efforts and sacrifices of Russia, Poland would have been doomed to complete destruction at the hands of Germany. Not only Poland as a state and nation, but the Poles as a nation, were doomed by Hitler to extermination or enslavement..."

This proves once again that you cannot look at history or contemporary politics one-sidedly. In the same Soviet textbooks, for example, we always read that the United Kingdom and the United States, "allies" of the Soviet Union but still "imperialists", did not want to open a "second front" in the West. But perhaps it was the Soviet Union that did not open the "second front" in its time... again in the West. Do not forget that the British long resisted Hitler virtually alone. After all, before 22 June 1941, the Battle of Moscow and the blockade of Leningrad, there was a British attack on the Libyan-Egyptian border, and the Royal Air Force did its best to sink German ships, troops from Britain and "Free France" entered Syria, German planes dropped bombs on London and razed Coventry to the ground overnight...

Then there began a new round of history - World War II "turned" smoothly into a "cold" one, during which Eastern European countries saw the other side of the Red Army's victory over Nazi Germany - subordination to a new totalitarian regime. Again, it is their right to talk about this.

Questions as to why World War II began continue to be discussed also because, with respect to the past, people sometimes look for hints about what is happening in the present.

For example, all observers drew attention to the fact that US President Barack Obama did not come to the commemorative events in Poland, sending instead his National Security Adviser James Jones. Obama was either busy with other problems, or did not want to answer questions as to whether Washington still plans to deploy parts of the US missile defence system in Eastern Europe. According to El Pa?s, Warsaw is concerned that the new administration of Barack Obama will turn its back on it and abandon the ABM project which would help strengthen the eastern border of the country.

Other observers note that the wounds suffered by Poland 70 years ago are still felt - Warsaw is still suspicious of all joint projects between Germany and Russia, for example, the North Stream gas pipeline. Many Poles still do not trust Russia, recalling the killing of Polish officers at Katyn and are confident that Moscow is once again trying to assert its influence in the territory where its authority was once the only one recognized. La Repubblica writes that "the Russians have not fully settled scores with the past - they are pursuing a historic policy aimed at establishing the idea and the principle of Russia as successor to the Soviet Union".

And these problems now have to be dealt with, most importantly, in other than military fashion.

World War II started because, during World War I, the major powers did not complete the division of spheres of influence, because mankind had not yet realized what it was - a war with modern weapons on a global scale and because there was no "collective security" and every politician thought he was smarter and wiser than the others...

They say that any peace is a preparation for war. But no-one expected a war like World War II. It equated "capitalists and communists" and people of different nationalities and faiths for several years... And so I think that it is not very reasonable to expend energy on determining the extent to which Nazism can be equated with Stalinism or the degree of historic guilt of a particular country. It is much more important to develop and maintain a system of global security, so that millions of people around the world do not once again become hostage to the inability of politicians to solve their problems.