Translated "Avante!" article by Jorge Cadima, Member of the PCP International Department

The Red Army’s victory , in Stalingrad, celebrated 70 years, on the 2nd February last.

It was the II World War’s turning point. The until then invincible 3rd Reich begun its retreat , which but ended with Berlin’s liberation, undergone by the Soviet troops. The German human losses in Stalingrad totalized “ a million and a half officers and men, almost 3000 tanks […] and 4400 planes - a quarter of the whole enemy forces, fighting in the Soviet-German front” (in “The Great Patriotic War”, Planet Publishers, Moscow, 1985). And yet, the Normandy disembark was yet faraway in time.

Time makes events seem inevitable, and which outcome ought to have been different. At the Stalingrad battle beginning, in August 1942, the Nazi-Fascism dominated Europe, from Lisbon to Moscow’s outskirts, from Norway to Greece. Its ascension and expansion counted from the beginning, with the dominant classes sympathy and active collaboration, terrorized with the eventuality of a revolutionary outcome for the great crisis, which , since the Ist World War, stirred capitalism, under several ways. Not only in Italy, Portugal, Spain or Germany, but equally within France, England and the USA’s “liberal democracies”, where an important part of the leader classes were pro-fascists. Mussolini, Franco and Hitler had their support. In France, they actively collaborated with the Nazi’s country occupation, following the example of 1871, when bourgeois France surrendered to Prussia, ( against which it had proclaimed war!) in order to crash the people and the Commune de Paris. The alliances among the internal and external troikas, in order to crash the peoples have deep historical roots.

The USSR had to support on its own Hitler’s military war machine attack. Professor Adam Tooze writes in his book “The Wages of Destruction” (in Penguin Books, 2007) : “ never before, nor upon, such a ferocious battle was fought, with so many men and such an extensive battle front”. And if the USSR were capable to resist and win, the reason was its people proved an unsurpassed courage and spirit of sacrifice. And because its Communist Party and political leadership did not weaken nor deserted (as many others did). And also because, the USSR, through the Five-Year Plans, had become a great industrialized power, capable of waging a modern war. And as Professor Tooze writes:” Notwithstanding having suffered territorial losses and a dismantlement, which resulted in a 25% loss in the whole GNP, the Soviet Union was capable to overcome Germany by producing more regarding almost all types of armament, in 1942[…]. This industrial superiority, contrary to all expectations, allowed the Red Army to firstly, absorb the Wehrmacht ’s second great attack and then, launch a whole number of devastating counter-attacks.[…] in November 1942. The Soviet miracle was not the result of the Western help. [ The lend-lease [loans] were but accounted for […] in 1943. But, certainly owing to the socialist system demonstrated superiority in order to mobilize all the national resources towards the supreme purpose of defeating Hitler’s invasion.

The European Union historical huge cheatings, considering fascism comparable to communism, are currently an official dogma of the decrepit bourgeoisies, which seek, through their lies, to hinder their historic pro-fascism. But do not achieve to conceal the truth of facts. The world wide peoples are in debt with the Soviet heroic soldiers, of 70 years ago. Long Live the Glorious Red Army!