Читать книгу The History of the West. Through the Eyes of Bears and Balalaikas - - Страница 5

Any war begins with certain considerations.

No one attacks a neighbor with sabers and machine guns just because they are evil, and the neighbor is good. However, states are neither good nor bad – they may have one regime, social structure, or system of governance or another – and that’s it. When we talk about the causes of any war, we must forget the concepts of “better”, “worse,” “us” and “them,” detach from personal biases and preferences, studying only the question of who was guided by what and what goals they pursued.

The same goes for the results Heroism and cowardice, greatness and weakness, and feat.

And betrayal – all the feelings and emotions that war unleashes have no relation to its outcomes. Hannibal was a great commander who instilled fear in the world’s largest power for decades. But Rome won the Punic Wars, Carthage lost, and now we are all heirs of Roman civilization not Carthaginian. This applies to any war, whether the Patriotic War or the Trojan War. The meaning and foundation of any science lies in its impartiality.

War, as a rule, is an unnecessary thing. It’s only in fairy tales that a king wakes up in the morning and thinks:

“Why not send my army to the neighbor?” In reality, war is a tool of politics, a means of achieving goals, one of many. If this tool turns out to be or seems optimal, only then do politicians call the generals. And the image of the sole instigator-aggressor and culprit of all evils is almost always fabricated later. Rarely, very rarely does it happen that one side wants to fight while the other tries with all its might to avoid war. And the Second World War, as well as the First, was desired by everyone or almost everyone. Each of the main participants had their own reasons to engage in war.

The Soviet Union… no, the Soviet Union did not want to conquer the whole world – to say so would be too simplistic and simply incorrect. The Soviet Union wanted the whole world to become a communist paradise. For this purpose, it created a special international organization – the Comintern14 – the Communist International – designed to encourage all countries to adopt the only correct social system. Either independently or with armed assistance from those who already recognized its progressiveness. No one was particularly eager to voluntarily establish the dictatorship of the proletariat15, although there were attempts, and some nearly succeeded – known the Red Army was supposed to somewhat assist the oppressed masses. And as soon as such an opportunity arose, the USSR began helping its neighbors adopt the ideals of socialism with enthusiasm poorly aligned with peacefulness16.

Germany, unlike other parties in the conflict, did not hide its motives. The initial significant economic successes of the National Socialists required expansion. The humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles17 wounded German pride, and the theory of racial superiority, eagerly embraced by a nation feeling unjustly wronged and oppressed, implied that it was the Germans, as the superior race should occupy a dominant position over others. From a political standpoint, the position is, by the way, obviously losing, as it excludes the possibility of mass support from the population of the conquered territories18.

For Japan, the war was the same as for Germany – a means to expand its sphere of influence and secure for the Japanese their “deserved” place as the ruling nation among other Asian peoples. Additionally, overpopulation and the scarcity of natural resources objectively dictated the necessity of external expansion for the Land of the Rising Sun.

In Great Britain and France, a severe colonial crisis was brewing and had already matured: the strain of World War I undermined the economy and especially the military power of Western countries. Maintaining, defending, and supplying the majority of the globe with qualified administrators, garrisons, teachers, doctors, missionaries, and even traders became an overwhelming burden. The economy was cracking, governments were losing popularity, and a fresh agenda was needed, along with a reason to unite and the taste of victory.

And only the USA, strangely enough, didn’t need anything. It soon became clear, however, that the economic boom caused by the war would finally pull the country out of depression and provide momentum that would last almost a century. But at the start of the war, the USA was quite content with the role of an overseas observer and trading partner, supplying friendly countries but not getting involved in others’ fights. Even Japan’s capture of British and Dutch East Indies did not become a reason for America to enter the war19, and only a direct attack forced the United States to once again abandon the Monroe Doctrine20 and non-interference in European and Asian interests.

Everyone wanted to fight, but with whom and against whom remained unclear until the last moment. One pair of opponents was considered almost certain over the last 20 years: the USSR and Great Britain. Both countries systematically prepared for war with each other, developing equipment, weaponry, doctrines, and statutes based on the capabilities of the potential adversary. There were plenty of reasons for this.

Firstly, neither England, its elite, nor public opinion could forgive the Bolsheviks for betraying the Entente21. Additionally, the execution of the royal family – close relatives of the British ruling house – did not evoke any warm feelings towards the new Russian government. In turn, the active support of the White Movement by the British and direct intervention during the Civil War evoked oppressive memories among Soviet leaders. But the main issue, of course, was not past grievances but the obvious antagonism in political and social organization: on one side, a class-based monarchy, a colonial empire with a capitalist structure, and institutional inequality as a fundamental state-forming element. Let us once again recall that pre-war England was a country where the Prime Minister was a descendant of Dukes of Marlborough22, officers predominantly noblemen, and the aristocracy – both hereditary and financial – play a decisive role in governing the state. On the other hand, Soviet Russia is a state consistently eradicating any echoes of social inequality, markedly internationalist, and officially proclaiming the power of the poor. Simultaneously, it is equally determined to impose its own “the only correct” social system worldwide. While Britain had long been establishing its own – colonial and also widespread. The systemic conflict was so clear that no one even tried to hide it.

But Germany’s conflict with either side was far from obvious. It’s important to note that now we know Hitler as the alter ego of Satan and his party as the embodiment of absolute evil. One of the most common questions, for example, about the Finns or Romanians, is “how could they fight for Hitler?” But people in the 1930s viewed things quite differently; for most of them, the National Socialist regime was by no means inherently bad and certainly not untouchable. Firstly, Hitler came to power quite legally through the most honest and democratic elections that were conducted at the time. The legitimacy of the chancellor and his party was not disputed, and the German government was recognized worldwide. There were also quite solid economic successes achieved in a record short time, as well as an unprecedented national rise and unity. Many politicians of that time openly envied their German colleague and tried to learn from his example.

No particular cruelty was associated with the Führer and his supporters at that time either. “The Night of the Long Knives”23 – ordinary intra-party disputes that happen in many countries even now, and for that troubled time, it was nothing unusual. In scale, it appeared quite moderate: compared to, for example, Stalin’s political processes – it was insignificant. Yes, the NSDAP had a very specific attitude towards communists and Jews, the Nuremberg racial laws looked unpleasant… But even here, nothing unusual was evident – hatred of Bolshevism was, and in some places remains, a characteristic feature of the Western mentality, and racial and national segregation, including laws very similar to the German ones, persisted, for example, in the USA even after the war. Yes, Hitler was quite an eccentric personality, an unpleasant negotiation partner, and a stubborn fanatic patriot, but none of these traits discredited him as a politician. And there were still a few years left until the gas chambers and mass executions of prisoners of war, and such a development of events was not seriously considered.

The relations between the Soviet Union and Germany before the war were uneven, but for the most part, rather positive: the shared interests of European outcasts played a role. The Treaty of Versailles pushed both countries to the sidelines of world politics and helping each other was more natural for them than being hostile. Moreover, the German people as a whole clearly leaned towards socialism and almost organized the second socialist state in Europe, which also connected them, if not the ruling regimes, then at least the nations.

Even more unnatural to many seemed the conflict between Germany and England. Despite the confrontation of the First World War, there was a two-century tradition of cooperation between the countries, reinforced by the ethnic closeness of the peoples and the blood kinship of the aristocracy. From the perspective of racial theory, the English could not be considered an inferior nation since they belonged to the same Germanic peoples – Saxons and Celts. British kings were ethnically German, and in principle, neither did Germany have serious historical claims against England nor vice versa. Finally, the countries had little to divide: there were no common borders or territorial claims, and British colonies, unlike at the beginning of the century, no longer represented any special interest for the Germans. Both in the German and British elite, there were powerful factions that believed the interests of the two states in the upcoming war almost aligned. To ultimately end up on opposite sides of the barricades, the Germans had to renounce Hess24 – the second man in the state, and the English had to renounce Edward VIII25 – their legitimate king.

In the east, everything was also extremely complicated. Russia and Japan had been in very tense relations since the beginning of the century and had fought each other several times – once on a large scale and many times on a smaller scale. The Japanese government did not hide its claims on the Far East but could not simultaneously wage war in the west and the south, and a simultaneous conflict with the European metropolises, the USSR, and the USA seemed blatant suicide. At the same time, the Soviet Union needed nothing from Japan except peace; its main interests were formed in Europe, not in Asia26.

As a result, all diplomacy in Europe boiled down to the Anglo-French coalition on one side and the USSR on the other actively inciting Hitler against each other with the idea of “pitting the Nazis against the enemy, preparing properly, and then attacking the victor.” In the end, the Germans made the best use of all this “Byzantine” intrigue, first gathering Central Europe under themselves with the passive support of the West, then with Soviet help defeating France and bleeding England, and finally delivering a crushing blow to the east. In Asia, Soviet diplomacy proved more effective, and Japan’s strike fell on the British, the Dutch, and then the United States.

But such an arrangement came together at the very last moment and was not at all necessary. Already during World War II, when the Red Army was struggling through the blood-soaked Karelian swamps into Finland, French volunteers were boarding ships intending to defend the Finns from “Bolshevik aggression,” and the British dominions were sending planes and weapons to Helsinki. Had the Wehrmacht delayed the defeat of France, no anti-Hitler coalition involving the USSR might have formed, especially since the Soviet Union entered Poland, and thus the war, alongside Germany. And if instead of Pearl Harbor, Vladivostok had been bombed, the United States would likely not have actively opposed it. All three military-political blocs harbored absolutely no sympathy for each other and willingly united in any combination with the ultimate goal of weakening, or if lucky, destroying the other two.

Is it any wonder that as soon as the swift victory over Germany became apparent, the former allies quarreled among themselves? And it can hardly be called a quarrel, as it seemed more like political expediency. Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill could meet in Yalta or Tehran and negotiate spheres of influence and the post-war world order, but all these agreements remained purely a forced compromise, as their ideas of what was fair, right, and aligned with their “national interests” were practically opposite from the start.