Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: a return to big politics
Reconsidering the meaning of the Second World War is a big political game, the stake in which is the future of Russia, and not one or the other interpretation of the events of 70 years ago.Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact has long been a fact stories diplomacy has become a factor in modern politics, a highly effective tool for solving geopolitical problems. At the end of 80's the propaganda of the Baltic separatists and the Russian democrats (now called liberals) turned the Pact into almost the main symbol of the "vile Soviet / Russian imperialism", and used it as a ram to destroy the USSR.
Having played a significant role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the 90-ies the Covenant came down from the forefront of world politics, but remained in the political arsenal. M. Demurin notes that the interpretation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as a criminal conspiracy between the two "evil empires" formed the basis for "political, socio-economic and cultural discrimination of the non-titular population of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, attempts to revise the outcome and meaning of the Second World War the war, the efforts for the political rehabilitation of the Nazi criminal organizations and accomplices of Nazism in the Baltic States, and then in Ukraine, of advancing claims of compensation for occupation (1) to Russia.
Along with this, the Pact was given the role of a bludgeon to incite the seemingly forever defeated adversary: as soon as Russia raised its head even a little and dared to declare its interests or discrimination of Russians in the seized territories, the ominous Pact immediately appeared and appeals to repent and to condemn. It worked flawlessly: the then Russian authorities condemned and retreated, retreated and repented.
In the middle of the zero years of the XXI century, the Pact with the Baltic backyards again moved to the center of international politics. This was due to the beginning of a massive campaign to introduce into the public consciousness a new concept of the Second World War, based on the identity of Nazism and "Stalinism", which, in turn, was due to a whole range of interrelated reasons.
Of course, attempts to revise the meaning of the Second World War have been made several times before. It is enough to recall the book of the German historian E.Nolte "European Civil War. 1939 - 1945. National Socialism and Bolshevism", published in 80-s of the last century, in which the author tried to present the war as the culmination of the all-European civil war. of war.
However, it is one thing - the work of scientists, which may contain views on the Second World War that are completely unacceptable for someone in Russia, and a political campaign to reconsider its meaning is quite another thing. The difference between them is fundamental. The first are the result (maybe erroneous) of the development of scientific historical knowledge and the search for truth, the second - a means of achieving political goals.
Although, it must be admitted that the works of E.Nolte and his followers cannot be fully explained only by the logic of the development of historical science. N.A. Narochnitskaya writes: "The fight against the" evil empire "demanded new ideologies, and the fundamental books of E.Nolte, M.Haydegger's pupil, came at an opportune time. The seemingly impossible task was skillfully solved: to debunk the USSR - the main fighter against fascism, while not rehabilitating fascism itself, but to free the West from blame for it.The goal is clear - to prove that the main evil of the twentieth century and of world history in general is Russian and Soviet totalitarian imperialism, the benchmark of which was the USSR of the Stalin period, and select all that can come down his likeness in the Third Reich "(2).
Accordingly, there is every reason to consider these attempts at revising the meaning of war not within the framework of historical science, but within the framework of the geopolitical confrontation between the West and Russia-USSR. With the only amendment that in those years, the revision of the meaning of war did not result in a large-scale campaign. But the "scientific" base prepared.
On the eve of the 60 anniversary of Victory, it was precisely the political campaign to revise the meaning of the Second World War. The heads of state and government, high-ranking officials and deputies, national parliaments and international organizations all tried to distinguish themselves in the "historical" field, to consolidate the new vision of the war in their speeches, resolutions and resolutions. Then it all repeated on the 70 anniversary of the outbreak of war and the 65 anniversary of the Victory.
It is impossible to write off the “historical” activity of politicians on the excitability inherent in the information society due to any anniversary dates. The campaign has steadily, methodically and unidirectionally developed in the usual, "skoromnye", years. There is no reason for assuming that politicians, political scientists, pen and screen sharks of all stripes and different countries suddenly became massively infected with history, and that was Russia, and not Japan or Egypt.
Before us is not a fashion or an epidemic of historical research, but "historical politics." Accordingly, the revision of history is a challenge not to the national historical science, but to the Fatherland. There is a big political game, the rate in which the future of Russia and its people, and not one or another interpretation of the events 70-year-old. By changing attitudes towards the past, we are changing the future. And this is not a theory, but a well-known practice. Historical weapon already proved its strength in the period of the collapse of the USSR.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the article “The Tragedy of the Second World War: Who is to blame?” drew attention to one paradoxical feature of the political campaign begun in the mid-2000s in the West to revise the meaning of the Second World War, which led to the return of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to big politics: "Even in the Cold War, no one ever tried to put the Nazi on a par with the regime and dictatorship of Stalin "(3). Indeed, it is strange, but behind this "weirdness" lies the logic of the modern "historical" confrontation.
During the Cold War years, the West, like the USSR, could blame the enemy for collaborating with the Nazis, downplay its contribution to the Victory and even hush up its very participation in the war. Suffice it to recall the degree of awareness of our citizens about the war on the western front and the fact that the film about the Great Patriotic War in the United States was released under the title Unknown War. However, all this was only up to a strictly defined limit beyond which the legitimacy of the post-war world order would be questioned.
Yalta-Postdamskaya system suited all the winners, primarily the United States and the USSR. She legitimized their leadership in the world, and no one wanted to turn the fight against the enemy in the cold war into a fight against themselves. After the collapse of the USSR, the situation changed radically. The collapse of the USSR put an end to the bipolar world, launched the process of political globalization, the creation of a unipolar world - the New World Order with the undivided domination of Western civilization led by America.
However, by the middle of the two thousandth it turned out that Russia had survived the 90's catastrophe. And although it has ceased to be a superpower, and its economic, military and political potential has declined many times, de jure and because of psychological inertia, Russia continues to perceive itself and, most importantly, continues to be perceived by others as one of the leading states of the world.
The reason is not only and not so much in the strategic missiles remaining from the USSR, the reserves of oil and gas — they reinforce, rather than determine, Russia's place in the world. The reason is its status as a victor state, which, together with the United States (with the participation of other allies), created the modern political system that continues to function after the war.
At the same time, by the middle of the 2000s, it became clear that America could not convert the unprecedented in human history economic and military power into unlimited political power. The policy of Bush Junior woke up on all continents, in almost all countries, even those allied with the United States, powerful anti-American sentiments, the unanticipated energy of resistance. The world did not accept the hegemony and dictate of America.
The failure of Bush Junior’s cavalry attack showed that the West cannot yet completely abandon the Yalta-Potsdam system of world order, replacing the United Nations with its permanent members of the Security Council, for example, with the United States-led League of Democracies, with the NATO bloc as a world gendarme.
At the same time, the Yalta-Pottsdam system makes it possible to “return” Russia as an independent and equal civilizational center capable of putting an end to the unipolar world in the form of Pax Americana. It would seem an insoluble contradiction.
One of the answers to this challenge for the United States and the transnational, or rather trans-state, elite was the concept of the Second World War, based on the identity of “Stalinism” and Nazism, and recognizing the equal responsibility of Germany and the USSR-Russia for its unleashing. Such an approach to the Second World War allows Russia to be transferred from the category of winning states and founding fathers, pillars of the modern political system to the category of the defeated aggressor (Germany in 1945, USSR in 1991), without undermining the legitimacy of the Yalta-Pottsddam system, and thereby promote its transformation in Pax Americana.
To achieve these goals, there is no need to falsify the facts of history, it is necessary to “only” replace the meaning of the Second World War, teach people to perceive it in a new coordinate system.
The perception of the Second World War as a struggle between good and evil has long been firmly rooted in public consciousness. Moreover, fascist Germany acts as the embodiment of absolute evil. According to the new concept, this was a war of good and evil, freedom and tyranny, democracy and totalitarianism. At the same time, inadvertently equals freedom and liberalism, democracy and good. Further, with this approach, everything is "simple" and "logical":
• The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which divided the world between the two totalitarian empires, and the joint aggression of Germany and the USSR against Poland unleashed World War II;
• The countries of the free world fought evil, but the forces were too unequal. Nazi Germany captured almost all of Western and Central Europe. The Stalinist USSR in the east of Europe occupied the Baltic countries and Bessarabia, launched a war against Finland. Freedom, good, and democracy were on the verge of death;
• imperial instincts led to the clash of two totalitarian regimes - Nazism and "Stalinism". The free world was forced to cooperate with one of the predators in order to save good and democracy;
• the grandiose battle on the Eastern Front (sometimes even recognized and paid tribute to the heroism of the Soviet soldier) between the two tyrants allowed the democracies to join forces and prepare for decisive battles;
• The victory over Nazi Germany led to the end of the first, “hot” stage of the Second World War. However, another totalitarian empire - “Stalinism” - occupies half of Europe and stretches its tentacles all over the world;
• The Yalta-Pottsdam system drew a line under the first stage of the Second World War. It laid the foundation for a fair world order (the UN Charter, etc.). But for the benefits of freedom and democracy had to pay a high price. The Iron Curtain separated part of humanity from democracy;
• The free world did not abandon the state occupied by the last "evil empire" of the state and selflessly entered the Cold War - a new phase of the Second World War;
• Victory in the Cold War is the true end of World War II. The forces of good, freedom and democracy finally defeated the forces of evil, tyranny and totalitarianism.
In the new version of the Second World War, along with the global elite and the United States, the European Union was also vitally interested. In the middle of the 2000s, the EU begins to actively position itself in the international arena as an independent player and claiming to be the leading player. However, the modern world order is still a result of Victory, and the majority of members of the European Union are not winners, but losers. They participated in one way or another in the war against the USSR on the side of Germany, which is now the undisputed leader and pillar of the EU.
It was the combination of the strategic interests of the European Union and its member states, with the psychological complexes of the vanquished, that to a large extent determined the active support of the new reading of the war by Europe. As A.Senyavsky and E.Senyavskaya noted in the study “World War II and historical memory: the image of the past in the context of modern geopolitics,” when “these psychological patterns are complemented by state interests, such a phenomenon of reevaluations and even estimated inversions becomes quite understandable : politics merges with the mass public sentiment and relies on them, even if the "new interpretations" completely contradict the historical truth "(4).
The peculiarities of the “complex of the vanquished” in modern Europe, primarily in Germany, are revealed by the sociologist AG Zdravomyslov: “The story about the war in these countries and, above all, in Germany, is not popular. ! ... But since this is impossible, the temptation arises to include some justifying arguments in it, primarily due to the representation of the victorious side, which disavows the meaning and meaning of the victory itself, equates in some respects the "winner" and " defeated o, the executioner and his victim. The concept of totalitarianism provides the logical means for identifying "fascism" and "communism" (5).
AG Zdravomyslov on the basis of expert interviews with representatives of the German intellectual elite also revealed specific forms of the modern manifestation of the complex of the vanquished. Among them, he put in the first place "the desire to introduce into discourse the concept of" equal responsibility "of Germany and the Soviet Union for unleashing war and equal" horror "of war and, as a consequence, the deeroization of the Soviet military exploit" (6).
Considering the “complex of the vanquished” as one of the reasons for the interest of the European Union in revising the meaning of the Second World War is in no way contradicted by the fact that France (the second pillar of the EU) has the status of a winning state and participant in the anti-Hitler coalition. We must not forget that the very notion of "collaboration" comes from France. The number of French from one Alsace who laid their heads under the banners of the Third Reich (mainly on the Eastern Front) is approximately 40 thousand, which is twice the number of French who have fallen in the Resistance series - 20 thousand (7). This is not counting the losses of the French volunteer units of the SS and the Wehrmacht, which were mainly defeated by Soviet troops. A case in point, only the losses of the Wehrmacht's French Volunteer 638 regiment under Borodino in 1941 were about five times higher than the number of French pilots who fought in the famous Normandy-Neman.
The strategic interests of the European Union, determining its interest in revising the meaning of the war, in the first place, should include the fact that its development has been carried out in recent years, and is planned to be carried out in the future, largely in the territories that either emerged (Eastern Europe and the Balkans), or should, from the point of view of the European strategies, get out of Russian control (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Transcaucasia).
In this regard, the new concept of the Second World War, which transforms Russia from a winner into a loser, who will have to atone for the blame for the Europe affected by its aggression, fully meets the geopolitical aspirations of the European Union. Including the real ally of the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition, England, and Poland dreaming of hegemony in the Baltic-Black Sea region. It is impossible to ignore the fact that a number of EU countries are counting on Russia’s repentance for unleashing a war to receive money and territory from it.
An essential role in the birth of a new concept of the Second World War in the West was played by the civilizational factor. One of the first to notice this was the historian OB. Nemensky: “Without condemnation of Russia, the West cannot be confident in positive self-esteem, that is, in a positive perception of its historical experience and its values. But Western values are thought of as universal (universal) precisely because they are absolutely Absolute Good. Liberal values Christianity was replaced by the West, it is religiously faithful to them, it realizes itself through them - and nothing should interfere with this. Especially - historical memory "(8). However, Nazism, interpreted as Absolute Evil, was defeated not by the Absolute Good, but by Russia, which cannot be interpreted as Good, since it is not the West. Therefore, obb notes. Nemensky, "it’s necessary to imagine that the war itself was the result of the collusion of these two evils, and thus their joint event. The fact that these two powers then began to fight each other, and one defeated the other - well, it’s their failure , Bad Evil "(9).
This inevitably gives rise to an extremely important addition to the new concept of war. The victory in the Cold War cannot be fully considered the final victory of the forces of Good over the forces of Evil - it happened "" somehow wrong ", without American tanks in the Kremlin - so that Evil still lives there, it just became weak, but therefore no less dangerous "(10).
As we see, the revision of the meaning of the Second World War was the result of the beginning of a new stage of struggle for the geopolitical re-division of the world in the middle of the zero years of the twenty-first century, the struggle created by the collapse of the USSR and the bipolar system of the world order. He has nothing to do with the development of historical science. This is pure "historical politics", or rather geopolitics. As part of this new phase, the revision of the meaning of the Second World War is intended to promote a clear and unambiguous redistribution of roles in the new geopolitical picture of the world of the 21st century:
• The West: the savior of humanity from the plague of the twentieth century (totalitarianism in the form of Nazism and "Stalinism"). He brought innumerable sacrifices to the altar of victory. His sacred duty, mission is to prevent the recurrence of the tragedy of the past century, to protect and promote democracy;
• Russia, like post-war Germany, is the successor of a defeated totalitarian empire, with all the ensuing consequences. If Germany has long embarked on the path of correction and redemption and has earned the right to enter the family of civilized nations, then Russia has yet to go this way. “Destalinization”, as well as “denazification”, is a difficult and long process. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which is a clear “proof” of the collusion of two totalitarian empires of evil against the world of Freedom, which supposedly started World War II, is called to play a key role in introducing a new sense of war. In the new concept, a strategic function is assigned to it.
It is quite natural that in these conditions the West, on the eve of the 60 anniversary of the Victory, "suddenly" remembered the Pact again, remembered and was horrified. Leading Western publications rushed to educate their readers about the horrible fact of Russian history. The freedom-loving dukes of progressive mankind thought it their duty to tell him (mankind) about the revolt that swept through them from the deal of two totalitarian monsters who unleashed the 23 of August 1939 of the Second World War. The US Congress began to adopt one after another resolution calling on Russia to repent for the USSR-based crimes committed by the Covenant.
In 2008, more than 400 members of the European Parliament signed a declaration proposing to proclaim the day of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact "Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Stalinism and Nazism". A year has passed, and the corresponding declaration has already been officially adopted by the European Parliament.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe did not stay aside the backbone: the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly rushed to approve the resolution “Reunifying a divided Europe: protecting human rights and civil liberties in the OSCE region in the 21st century”, which fully supported the initiative of the European Parliament to announce August 23 European Day of Remembrance for the victims of Stalinism and Nazism.
Poland later 70 years after the start of the Second World War unexpectedly discovered for itself and the whole world that in 1939, it became a victim of aggression not only of the Third Reich, but also of the USSR, and approved this historical discovery by the resolution of the Sejm: "On 17 September 1939, the USSR troops without declarations of war committed aggression against Rzecz Pospolita, violating its sovereignty and violating the norms of international law.The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, concluded on August 23 of the year in Moscow between the USSR and Hitler's German, gave grounds for the invasion of the Red Army . Thus it the fourth partition of Poland was promoted Poland fell victim to two totalitarian regimes -. Nazism and Communism "(1939).
Demonizing the Soviet Union with the help of the Covenant reached such a scale that the “small but proud” Baltic republics rushed to seize the moment and began to present Russia with fantastic bills worth hundreds of billions of dollars for the “occupation”, and in Estonia they came to the idea of transferring them to temporary use. Novosibirsk region (12).
The successors of the fascist accomplices from the Baltic states were soon surpassed by Romania, which during the war sent the second largest army (after the Wehrmacht) to the Eastern Front. Its president, on June 22, 2011, on the seventieth anniversary of the start of World War II, declared that if he had such an ally as Hitler, he would also have ordered an attack on the USSR in the forty-first year, naturally, in the name of restoring the territorial integrity of Romania, violated by the result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
To the call of Russia to condemn such a blatant statement by the United States, the European Union, the OSCE and the PACE responded with eloquent silence.
Further more. The US State Department on 72 commemorates the anniversary of the Covenant by declaring the USSR guilty of unleashing World War II: "On this day, more than seventy years ago, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union took steps that put Europe and the whole world on the path of imminent war" (13).
Synchronously, the EU Ministers of Justice in Warsaw are adopting the “Declaration on the European Day for the Remembrance of the Victims of Totalitarian Regimes” (14), in which they completely unequivocally speak about the beginning of the preparation of the new Nuremberg, only now over Russia (15). Following the National Investigation Department of Hungary, the loyal ally of the Third Reich, whose troops the Germans used primarily as punitive, begins the investigation of the "war crimes" of the Soviet Army on Hungarian territory in 1945 year.
The trend is obvious. The seriousness of the intentions of the US and the EU, which unleashed the campaign to revise the meaning of the Second World War, is obvious, as is the seriousness of its consequences for Russia. "Historical" battles have a pronounced global geopolitical character. Therefore, it is not by chance that the top officials of the country personally joined the fight against the use of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in order to revise the place and status of Russia in the modern world. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov clearly stated: “The height of historical revisionism was an attempt to put an equal sign between August 23 and September 1 1939 - the conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty and the German attack on Poland. Victory was too expensive for us to allow take it away from us. For us, this is the “red line.” If someone wants a new ideological confrontation in Europe, then historical revisionism, attempts to turn history into an instrument of practical politics - My path to it "(16).
However, the flywheel revision of the meaning of the Second World War continues to unwind. Of course, one should not overestimate the possibilities of modern Russia to influence political processes and public opinion in the USA and the EU, but one should not underestimate them. In addition, we must bear in mind that the main struggle is for public opinion in Russia, and not in the West. A campaign to revise the meaning of war can achieve its goals only in one case, if a new concept can be introduced into the minds of the Russian people, if it is, as it was at the end of 80's. of the last century, "will be ashamed of its past and curse it" (17).
However, the question of the reasons for the low effectiveness of Russian historical politics deserves a separate discussion.
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(1) Demurin M.V. Soviet-German Documents August-September 1939 of the Year in the Context of Modern Politics // The Second World War Score. Who and when started the war? M., 2009. C. 337.
(2) Narochnitskaya N.A. Treaty that changed the course of the war. - http://www.pravoslavie.ru/arhiv/5210.htm.
(3) Sergey Lavrov: The tragedy of World War II: who is to blame? - http://www.rg.ru/2009/09/01/voyna.html.
(4) Senyavsky A.S., Senyavskaya E.S. The Second World and Historical Memory: The Image of the Past in the Context of Modern Geopolitics // 65 Years of the Great Victory: in 6 v. - t.1. M .., 2010. C.69.
(5) Zdravomyslov AG Germans about the Russians on the threshold of the new millennium. Conversations in Germany: 22 expert interviews with representatives of the German intellectual elite about Russia - its present, past and future - content analysis and commentary. M., 2003. C.485.
(6) Ibid. C.502.
(7) Urlanis B.T. War and population of Europe. Loss of armed forces in the wars of the XVII - XX centuries. M., 1994. C.234.
(8) www.regnum.ru/news/1431866.html.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Ibid.
(11) http://www.ekhoplanet.ru/statements_528_1630
(12) Estonia agrees to forgive Russia in exchange for the Novosibirsk region. - http://lenta.ru/world/2004/05/12/estonia/.
(13) http://russian.estonia.usembassy.gov/index.html.
(14) http://www.regnum.ru/news/1439061.html.
(15) Modest Kolerov: The heirs of Hitler’s allies, the United States, the nationalists and the “de-Stalinizers” in the EU are preparing “Nuremberg” against Russia. - http://www.regnum.ru/news/1439099.html.
(16) Sergey Lavrov: The tragedy of World War II: who is to blame? - http://www.rg.ru/2009/09/01/voyna.html.
(17) Dostoevsky F.M. Full collected cit. The 30 T.T.26. L., 1983. C. 135.
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