Fighting Anticommunist Lies

On August 23, each year since 2008, the European Union marks the “European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.” The EU’s rulers want to spread the big lie that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany—Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler, in particular—were equally evil, while the capitalist imperialists stand for all things good.
The world’s capitalist ruling classes all agree that “communism is dead.” Yet each year their slanders of Stalin and the Soviet Union of his day get wilder and more extreme.
Why so much anti-Stalinism and anticommunism? Because communism remains the biggest threat to capitalism. And the period of Stalin’s leadership in the USSR coincided with the era when the world communist movement achieved so much good for the international working class.
The real meaning of this commemoration is that the Soviet workers beat the fascists in World War II despite the capitalists’ collaboration with Hitler.  But you won’t hear that from the world’s capitalist bosses!
History of M-R Pact
On August 23, 1939, Stalin’s Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty with Hitler’s Germany. It’s often called the Molotov-Ribbentrop (M-R) Pact, after the Soviet and German foreign ministers of the day. Anticommunists claim the two countries effectively agreed to divide Europe between themselves. This is a lie.
In fact, the treaty’s great significance was in defining Eastern Poland as lying within the “Soviet sphere of influence.” This meant that if the German army beat the Polish Army, it would still have to stay hundreds of miles away from the pre-1939 Soviet border. In addition, Poland would remain in existence, potentially to ally with the USSR against Hitler.
The USSR had been trying to get Poland, Britain and France to agree to declare war on Germany when Hitler attacked Poland. But the British ruling class was willing to let Hitler have Poland if he would continue East and attack the USSR.
In September 1939, the Germans whipped the Polish army in a few days. The Polish government fled the country to Rumania. Hitler was ready to allow a pro-Nazi Ukrainian state in the former Eastern Poland. So the Soviets had no choice but to occupy Eastern Poland — a region that wasn’t really “Polish,” since imperialist Poland had seized it from Soviet Russia in 1921.
The M-R Pact helped to save Europe from Hitler’s domination. In October 1941, the German army advanced within sight of Moscow before the Soviet forces stopped them. If they had been able to launch their attack 300 miles closer, the Nazi hordes likely would have taken Moscow. If Hitler had conquered the USSR, he would used its immense resources against England.
Two More Soviet Moves vs. Nazism
The M-R Pact was one of three critical moves by the Stalin-led Soviet government to save the USSR and Europe from Nazism. The other two were the Soviet-Finnish War and the defeat of the “Tukhachevsky Affair.”
1. The Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940. The border of Finland, an ally of Nazi Germany, was very close to the major Soviet industrial city of Leningrad. To create a broader buffer zone, the Stalin government demanded that Finland give up land close to Leningrad in exchange for other Soviet land. (“Since we cannot move Leningrad,” Stalin said, “we must move the border.”) When the Finnish government refused, the Red Army defeated the Finnish army and took that land.
Without this redrawing of the border, Leningrad would have been captured by the Finnish army and allied with Hitler’s forces. Millions more Soviet civilians would have died. The Nazis would have used Leningrad’s manufacturing and port facilities to intensify their attack on the rest of the USSR and on England
2. The defeat of the 1937 military conspiracy, also called the “Tukhachevsky Affair.” Some high-level Red Army commanders were plotting to seize power in the USSR, either by arresting and shooting Stalin and his government or by opening the front to a German and Japanese invasion. These former Tsarist officers were conspiring with anti-communist Leon Trotsky. In May and June of 1937, Soviet police arrested the ringleaders, who were tried, convicted, and shot.
Long Live Communism, Death to Anticommunist Lies
Each of these three events proved decisive in defeating fascism and saving the lives of millions of working people worldwide, and in preserving and strengthening the world communist movement. Which is precisely why the capitalists attack them.
The Soviets of Stalin’s day did marvelous things. They also made errors, some of which led to the return of capitalism to Russia today. We must study and learn from their mistakes, but also from their victories.
All communists and all working people everywhere should defend the M-R Pact, the Soviet-Finnish War, and the defeat of the “Tukhachevsky Affair” conspirators. We should expose the anticommunist lies that are promoted on August 23—and on every other day of the year.