abdulraheem
This week the world has been celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War. It was the most brutal war in human history, and almost two-thirds of the world’s people were sucked into the carnage as the world came together to defeat Nazi and Fascist barbarism. However, the anniversary has also become the occasion to attempt to re-write the history of the war. Western commentators have in the past one week done everything possible to play up the contribution of the west in the war, and have also done everything to underrate the enormous contribution of the Soviet Union to the liberation of the peoples from Nazism. Even though the Soviet Union is no more, it must be made clear, that it was the Soviet Union, in the words of Winston Churchill that tore the guts out of the German war machine. Far more German divisions were massed against the Soviet Union than were faced by the combined Western allies on the Western front. In all eight million Soviet solders lost their lives and over eighteen million Soviet civilians were killed during the Second World War. No other country lost about twenty seven million people in that war, and no nation or a combination of nations made as much sacrifice to defeat Nazi and Fascist barbarism, as the Soviet people. These are facts that we in the developing world must not forget. It is so instructive that imperialism continues the ideological war against the Soviet Union, even 14 years after its demise. Memory and history are contested terrains that must he fought for and won or lost. It’s great to be back on this page after a 42-day break.
