RUSSIA & AMERICA GOODWILL ASSOCIATION
Russia & America Goodwill Association
  • Home
  • Русский
    • НОВОСТИ
    • СЕРЬЕЗНЫЕ АНАЛИТИЧЕСКИЕ СТАТЬИ
    • КНИГИ
    • РЕСУРСЫ
    • О НАС
    • ПАРТНЕРЫ
    • КОНТАКТЫ
  • News
    • SERIOUS ANALYTICAL ARTICLES
  • FORUM
  • Books
  • Resources
  • About Us
    • Team
    • Partners
  • Contact

CCI's founder and President for 32 years,  Sharon Tennison, will bring a group of 22 Americans from 15 American states to Moscow, Volgograd, Ekaterinburg and St. Petersburg May 31 to June 15.  

5/16/2015

0 Comments

 
Due to disintegrating  relations between Washington and Russia, the Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI) has restarted its "citizen diplomacy" work again. CCI began, as a near-hopeless cause, in 1983 during the peak of the nuclear arms race. We are a non-profit, non-governmental organization with no funding or ties to governments.

CCI's founder and President for 32 years,  Sharon Tennison, will bring a group of 22 Americans from 15 American states to Moscow, Volgograd, Ekaterinburg and StPetersburg May 31 to June 15.  The group is searching for ways to create relevant activities in 2015/16.  

Tennison says," It's critical for citizens of our two nations to work together again to offset ill stereotypes, to better understand the political realities of today, and to rebuild the goodwill bridges that existed from 1985 through most of the 2000s. 

"During those years over 6,000 young Russians from 71 Russian regions studied business development in American companies under CCI's programs.  Numerous other projects and  programs were carried out both in America and in Russia––each creating goodwill and understanding between the two countries.

"American host families and business owners still have great fondness for the Russians who came to them during those earlier decades. They respect Russians'  level of education and culture.  On the Russian side, a swath of warm relations toward Americans goes across Russia's 11 time zones.  Their gratitude to their American trainers and "Moms and Pops," (their home hosts), is unending.  Our 2016 programs will be different since conditions have changed, but there are many ways for citizens to open doors and reduce tensions, even today!"

If the above is used in media, or passed on to other E lists, great -- interviews are possible if notified in advance.

Sharon Tennison
President and Founder
Center for Citizen Initiatives
820 N. Delaware St.
San Mateo, CA 94401
650-458-8115
Email:  sharon@ccisf.org
Author:  The Power of Impossible Ideas
Site: www.ccisf.org (under revision)
Blog:  www.russiaotherpointsofview.com
Rotary Club of Palo Alto, CA.




All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org

0 Comments

Gilbert Doctorow: Moscow's Victory Day Parade - A New World Order on Full Display

5/16/2015

0 Comments

 
After watching Moscow’s 70th anniversary Victory Day celebrations, it is clear that a very different new World Order is emerging from the rubble of the post-Cold War period.
Picture
Originally published on russia-insider.com
One of the benefits of the live and continuous broadcasting of the 70th Anniversary Victory Day Celebrations in Moscow via Vesti 24 and Pervy Kanal/RT was that we would-be commentators seated at home in Brussels, New York or wherever could follow the events without intermediation of professional reporters advising on what we should make of it all, without cuts and selective editing from central studios. Given the wealth of material for those of us with Kremlinology backgrounds from a day that began at 10.00 am Moscow time and continued well into the night, our cup runneth over. Not only can we draw our own conclusions, but we can see with perfect clarity what was picked up by our mainstream media from a cornucopia of messages to suit their preconceived ideas. And it would be naïve to deny that the Kremlin surely intended to present a variety of images of Russia, even mutually contradictory images, to draw the greatest possible attention to itself.

The complexity also arose from the two very different audiences being addressed: Russians and the world at large. For the Russian population, this was a day of bread and circus. To put it in Vladimir Putin’s language, it was the biggest, most lavish block party since the opening day ceremony of the Sochi Olympics. For the world at large, it was a reminder of Russia’s decisive role in the defeat of Nazi Germany and also a demonstration of its growing military might now that the Bear is Back. Moreover, by the central role accorded throughout the day to Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was ever at Vladimir Putin’s side, and by the announcement of various major Russian-Chinese commercial agreements, the fruits of Russia’s pivot to the East and its new independence from the Atlantic Community were underscored for all to see.

Vladimir Putin’s short speech opening the parade was itself rich in nuances. Notwithstanding the celebratory mood, he saw fit to castigate US foreign policy for its pursuit of a unipolar world and military block mentality that denies equal security for all. This was the raisin taken from the cake by the Financial Times coverage: “Putin takes swipe at US in parade speech.” By contrast both the BBC and Euronews reports on the parade highlighted the Russian President’s bouquet in the speech to the wartime Allies who were not present at the parade - the U.K., France and the USA – expressing gratitude for their contribution to the common cause of defeating Nazism.

And then there was the United States print media reporting of Moscow’s celebrations. The New York Times led the way with zero coverage. As I write these lines on the day after, theNYT has not posted a single article on its online edition. Even The Washington Post saw fit to put up an article, to be sure, on how the West was absent from the Moscow events, a continuation of the black PR that we have seen for at least the last 18 months.

The parade itself was declared by the Kremlin to be the largest military show in history. That may place it in the Guinness Book of Records, but it tells only part of the story. For a layman, the parade was not just about who was present on the reviewing stand and who was not, which honor guard troops from which countries were present and which were not. Yes, the Western leaders were absent while BRICS and other nations we would previously call ‘nonaligned’ were present. But you had the pageant of Azerbaijan troops being followed directly by Armenian troops; this made Moscow the city where lions and lambs exercised mutual respect and restrain, at least for the day. The rollout of Russia’s latest military hardware was important for foreign military attaches in attendance and to prove the words of Russia’s leadership to its people about the vast improvements in national defense achieved in the past several years. Otherwise this part of the day did not break new ground.

What came next in the celebrations was entirely different and marks the age of Putin. I have in mind the so-called “Regiment of Immortals,” the march of perhaps 500,000 ordinary Russians through Red Square, each carrying photographs of their “family heroes,” their parents, grandparents, great grandparents who fought in the Great Patriotic War and died in battle or who otherwise did not live to see this 70th anniversary celebration. This march was repeated all across Russia with reports that as many as 4 million people took part.

Successful politicians are by nature or training photogenic kissers of small babies. In joining this “regiment of immortals” and carrying a photo of his own father who fought in the war as a simple soldier, not a decorated general, Vladimir Putin took politics to the heights of statesmanship. He drove home the point that this is a day for every Russian family and not just a pompous show of military capability for the high and mighty to strut on the stage. He invited a sea of emotion to sweep the land. Here you had the bread.

A BBC reporter in Moscow shared with viewers some very relevant information to appreciate what Vladimir Putin was tapping into. She cited a recent poll of Russians asking them to name the most important day in the calendar to them. Twenty-six percent said it is their birthday. Forty-two percent said it is 9 May.

The impact of the ‘regiment of immortals’ procession was such that even the normally dry-eyed UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who took part in the Moscow proceedings, commented to reporters that what he first supposed was a mass demonstration against the government was to his surprise, a vast wave of support for the Kremlin leadership. He congratulated Vladimir Putin for earning this high regard of his people. No wonder the Obama administration took such pains to keep the Allies from coming to the ceremony.

The day did not end there. In the evening, there was a gala performance staged on Red Square that combined all the talents of song, mass choreography and other entertainment forms that had first been put on display in the Sochi Olympics opening event. In Sochi, the message was that Russia has its own traditions of both popular and high culture but is open to the world and hospitable to all. Here was the circus, and as almost always in such efforts by the Russians, it was at a supremely professional level of execution, showing very great respect for the spectators, both those on the Square and the others watching it on their television as I did. And it all ended on the traditional note of a fireworks display.

During the day, press releases on the Russian-Chinese commercial deals that were being concluded ever since the arrival of President Xi Jinping in Moscow the day before gave substance to the featured position given to the Chinese leader in the constant company of Putin all day long. The most important of the announcements concerns the New Silk Road, which Beijing now will run in a Northern route passing through Russia as opposed to the expected Southern route bypassing Russia. This is a change of thinking and of politics that puts Europe on notice. Germany especially has been looking to the Silk Road as a boon to the enormous goods traffic between the world’s two largest export nations, Germany and China. Now that route, with all the opportunities for investment and participation, passes through Moscow, not Teheran.

No doubt, Richard Nixon is turning over in his grave. It took the hard work of two US administrations, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to undo the geopolitical achievements of one of America’s greatest president-Realpolitik strategists. But now Nixon’s work is undone, and a very different new World Order is emerging from the rubble of the post-Cold War period.

© Gilbert Doctorow, 2015

G. Doctorow is an occasional guest lecturer at St. Petersburg State University and Research Fellow of the American University in Moscow. His latest book, Stepping Out of Line: Collected (Nonconformist) Essays on Russian-American Relations, 2008-12, is available in paperback and e-book from Amazon.com and affiliated websites worldwide.

All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org

0 Comments

70th ANNIVERSARY: Largest May 9 Victory Day parade in Russian history (FULL VIDEO)

5/9/2015

0 Comments

 
Streamed live on May 9, 2015
The Victory Day parade staged a military show in the heart of Moscow 
to mark the 70 year of WWII Victory. 
LEARN MORE:http://9may.rt.com

© RT.com

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org

0 Comments

MAY 9 - HAPPY VICTORY DAY!  С ДНЁМ ПОБЕДЫ! 

5/9/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
9may.rt.com
Picture
Picture
TO ALL VETERANS & SURVIVORS
 OF WORLD WAR II

(THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR)
YOU HAVE OUR 
EVERLASTING RESPECT!
Picture
Picture
Elbe Day, April 25, 1945, is the day Soviet and American troops met at the River Elbe, near Torgau in Germany, marking an important step toward the end of World War II. Read: wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbe_Day
Picture

70 YEARS AGO - ON MAY 2, 1945 - USSR FORCES CAPTURED BERLIN. SEVEN DAYS LATER, ON THE 9th OF MAY, NAZI GERMANY CAPITULATED TO THE SOVIET UNION. WWII (THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR) WAS WON!


From The Entire
RAGA Team
www.raga.org
0 Comments

RAGA Antidote16: Sieff, Lozansky, McGovern on Victory Day; Dejevsky, Lockland, Lozansky, Mercouris on Putin's 15 years in power; Allison and Simes on a way out, Brumfield in Kozelsk and Optina

5/9/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Source: 9may.rt.com
Dear friends of the Russia & America Good Will Association and antiwar colleagues!

First of all, Congratulations to our Russian friends on the 70th anniversary of Victory over Germany! Please review its significance by clicking  http://9may.rt.com/

Alas, the USA and its NATO allies will be most conspicuous by their absence during the huge military parade in Moscow on May 9th. My friend and RAGA associate Martin Sieff explains in the Nation magazine why their absence is offensive to the Russians, as well as all nations of the former USSR who greatly contributed to the defeat of the Nazi Germany. He also deplores a great opportunity Western powers are missing to improve relations with Russia.

<<These spiteful and petty acts, enthusiastically embraced by American neoliberals and neoconservatives alike, can only further embitter Russians against the West. And the campaign is doomed to fail anyway. It will certainly not “isolate” Russia, which is playing host this weekend to powerful leaders from around the globe, including China, India, Brazil, and South Africa. More than one-third of the total population of the world will be represented at the events.>> Martin Sieff May 7, 2015 

http://www.thenation.com/article/206657/why-obama-trying-spoil-victory-day-anniversary

 The Tree planting ceremony in Moscow to commemorate the meeting of Soviet and American troops on the Elbe River in April 1945 went just fine, receiving a good coverage in Russian media. I was unable to attend it, but all reports indicate it was a success of peoples diplomacy. Ed Lozansky, president of American University in Moscow, was pleasantly surprised that Andrew McLean, First Secretary of US Embassy, spoke at the event, while Victoria Nuland attended the Washington counterpart of the event. The highlights of the Moscow ceremony were when Russian General Aleksandr Adgamov spoke and then Raymond McGovern, a former high-ranking CIA official who used to brief President Ronald Reagan, read Nikolai Nekrasov's antiwar poem, and he did it in Russian!

Here is Ed's laconic email report:
<<I know you had Nuland at the Elbe ceremony in Washington (surprise, surprise) but we had US Embassy officials too in Moscow. What is going on?>>

The rest is in Russian
https://youtu.be/_L6BKfSAtVY
http://msrs.ru/ournews/2015-04-14
http://www.msk.kp.ru/daily/26372.5/3252925/ >>

Missing good English? Read Ray McGovern's article "The West Snubs Russia over V-E Day"

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/04/20/the-west-snubs-russia-over-v-e-day/

<<Exclusive: Last year’s U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine – followed by violence and tensions – has soured plans for the May 9 commemoration in Moscow of World War II’s V-E Day, the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany, a war which cost the Russian people nearly 27 million dead, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern describes.>>

Watch Peter Lavelle's RT show in which Mary Dejevsky, John Lockland, and Ed Lozansky evaluate Vladimir Putin's 15 years at the top of Russian politics
http://politikus.ru/video/49209-rt-d-crosstalk-putin-15-let-u-vlasti.html

Read also Alexander Mercouris, Tue, Apr 28, 2015, article in Russia Insider
http://russia-insider.com/en/fifteen-years-putin/6145

<<As the Russian President looks forward to the fifteenth anniversary of his first election to office, we consider some of the factors that explain his extraordinary political success.>> 

<<I have previously spoken of the danger of the unhealthy conflation of Putin with Russia that is so common in the West. Russia is more than Putin and Russia matters. Indeed it is one of the great powers of this world and the last 15 years have been a lesson proving that. Westerners who treated Russia as down and out and who now rage against Putin are basically angry because he and Russia have proved them wrong.>>

Tired of endless dead-end in US-Russia relations? Read Graham Allison and Dimitri K. Simes,

"Could a U.S. response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine provoke a confrontation that leads to a U.S.-Russian war?"April 20, 2015
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russia-america-stumbling-war-12662

Their conclusion:
<<Having managed a confrontation over the Soviet Union’s attempt to install nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba that he believed had a one-in-three chance of ending in nuclear war, President John F. Kennedy spent many hours reflecting on the lessons from that experience. The most important of these he offered to his successors in these words: “Above all, while defending our vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.” It is a lesson statesmen should apply to meet the challenge Russia poses in Ukraine today.>>

Tired of politics? 

Calm yourself at the sights of Russia the eternal, thanks to Professor William Brumsfield's tireless endeavor to create a pictorial record of Russia which was on the brink of extinction in the USSR, but now is rising again. That's where Western politicians are crucially wrong: Putin is a former KGB officer, but he leads not a Marxist-Leninist ideological global power, but a new Russia that harks back to the spirituality of the old. Read the stories of Kozelsk and Optina Pustyn in Brumfield's words:

<<My current article for Russia beyond the Headlines is devoted to the town of Kozelsk, in Kaluga Province to the southwest of Moscow.http://rbth.com/travel/2015/05/01/kozelsk_a_town_resolute_in_defense_of_the_heartland_45669.html
Kozelsk is known for its legendary resistance to the Mongol forces of Batu Khan (grandson of Genghis Khan) in the spring of 1238. Kozelskalso played a role in the Battle of Moscow, a strategic Soviet victory at the end of 1941. Near the town is the large Optina Pustyn Monastery, subject of one of my recent articles in this series. http://rbth.com/travel/2014/10/03/optina_pustyn_spiritual_retreat_of_tolstoy_and_dostoevsky_40345.html For best results with the slide show (full screen), click the 4-arrow icon at lower right of photo window.

This is the 125th of my articles and photo essays on Russia's architectural and cultural heritage for the foreign-language service of the Russian national newspaper Rossiiskaia Gazeta. A unified link to the series can be found at: http://rbth.ru/discovering_russia   Through this link a total of 3,686 photographs from my documentary work in Russia are now accessible.
WB>>

RAGA mourns the death of the great Russian ballerina Maya Plisetskaya who did so much for bringing Russia to many an American home.

Malice to None. Good Will  to All. 
Peace and Justice to the World.
миру мир и благоволение в сердцах


 From RAGA site:
"We are an association of Americans who believe it is in the U.S. national interests to foster friendship with Russia on the basis of mutual Good Will and non-interference in each other's affairs. RAGA is a gathering of people who share common interests in Russia's history, culture, religion, economy, politics and the way of life. We feel that Russian people have made outstanding contributions to humankind and are capable of greater achievements. We envision Russia as a strong, independent, proud and free nation and as a partner in achieving peace in the world."

Sincerely,
W George Krasnow (=Vladislav Krasnov)
President, RAGA


All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org

0 Comments

BROCHURE: 70 YEARS ANNIVERSARY OF VICTORY DAY "We were allies then" By Russia House Associates!

5/9/2015

0 Comments

 
Source: http://media.washtimes.com.s3.amazonaws.com/media/misc/2015/04/22/UniversMoscow0423.pdf
Copyrights Russia House Associates • www.russiahouse.org



All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org




0 Comments

Russia’s Central Role in Winning World War II – and America’s Great Contribution to It

5/9/2015

0 Comments

 
By Martin Sieff

Seventy years after the end of World War II, young Americans and Russians alike in the 21st century have grown up ignorant of how crucial the Grand Alliance of World war II was to the survival of both their great nations. As all serious Western historians recognize, it was the Soviet Union and its peoples, most of all the Russian people, who made the greatest sacrifices and made the most important contributions to the winning of World War II.

At the time, the Soviet role was openly recognized and acknowledged certainly throughout Britain and also by many in the United States. “It was the Red Army that tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht,” legendary British War Premier Winston Churchill publicly proclaimed.

Nine out of every 10 German soldiers in World War II were killed by the Red Army. Even on the eve of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy, the greatest clash of arms in Western Europe during the war, less than 60 understrength Nazi divisions faced the Allies. Only 11 Nazi divisions were actually involved in combatting the Allied landings and build up over the following two months. Yet at the same time 228 Wehrmacht divisions were still fighting the Red Army tooth and nail in the East. The worst Nazi extermination camps, the industrialized killing machines of death at Auschwitz, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka – were all liberated and shut down by the advance of the Red Army. Hundreds of Soviet soldiers died in the single battle to liberate Auschwitz alone.

Andrew Roberts and Sir Max Hastings, the two outstanding military historians on all of World War II in the past 40 years in Britain, have both written and stated repeatedly and explicitly that all combined Anglo-American operations in the West, however admirable, successful and courageous, were all peripheral to the enormous scale of and strategic consequences of the victories won by the Red Army in the East.

Yet none of the most important events and anniversaries of the Great Patriotic War in the East have had the slightest impact on the America n media and public over the past year. This is a ridiculous and contemptible state of affairs and it was produced by sloppy ignorance and incompetence. It also represents a historic opportunity childishly, mindlessly thrown away and missed.

This past year we marked the 70th anniversary of The Year of Victories, from June 6, 1944 to May 9, 1945, the liberation of the entire continent of Europe by the mainly Anglo-American armies from the West and by the Russian-led and predominantly Russian Red Army from the East. This should have been a season of joint celebration, thanksgiving, the rebuilding of bridges and the recommitment of the great nations of East and West to a renewed era of mutual peace and mutual respect. It was of course nothing of the sort, though the reasons why this was so are beyond the parameters of this current conference.

Other anniversaries of World War II have completely disappeared down the Orwellian Memory Hole in the West. For History was not just extinguished and abolished in the dystopian tyranny of Orwell’s novel.

February, 2, to start with, marks a very obscure date for Americans, but it was one that saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of young American boys in World War II: It is the anniversary of the final surrender of German forces at Stalingrad – The decisive battle of World War II.

"Stalingrad changes everything," said Sir Max Hastings.

Some 400,000 German soldiers died in the more than five month battle for the city on the steep western banks of the Volga River. Another 265,000 Hungarians, Romanians and Italians in the armies of Germany’s allies were killed or captured. The battle annihilated Adolf Hitler’s Sixth Army, the most formidable infantry assault force the world had ever seen. Afterwards, the Germans only managed only one more major tactical victory, around Kharkov, in the whole war. Russian casualties at Stalingrad exceeded one million.

Today, all those generations later, the extraordinary struggle for Stalingrad still defines 21st century Russia.

The colossal scale of the fighting between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War was well recognized by Americans and Britons at the time but it has been virtually forgotten since. But it dwarfed every other battlefront of the war combined. Eight out of 10 German soldiers killed in World War II died fighting the Red Army. The colossal total of nearly 27 million Soviet military and civilian dead was more than twice the death toll of all Americans, Britons, Commonwealth, French and even Germans killed in the war combined.

And the focal point of all of it was this surprisingly tranquil and atmospheric strip city that unfolds for 30 miles along the great River Volga. Named after Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, it was the dramatic apparent last stand of the Soviet Red Army against an apparently invincible Wehrmacht that had conquered the entire European continent in less than three years. But at Stalingrad all that changed.

“Beyond the Volga there is nothing!” went the Soviet rallying cry — and there wasn’t. Even now looking east from the imposing heights of Mamayev Kurgan, it is eerie to see that on the other side of the great Volga, a river as broad and impressive as the Mississippi, the embodiment of the soul of Russia, there literally is — nothing. Just low sand dunes that gave the city it’s originally name of Tsaritsyn, or “Golden Sand” back in 1589. And they stretch off for thousands of miles across the lower Eurasian steppe.

During the 200 days of Stalingrad, the hill of Mamayev Kurgan was fought over for 130 of them. Today, it is the resting place for 35,000 Soviet soldiers.

According to British military historian Anthony Bevoir, 1.1 million Soviet soldiers died in the Battle of Stalingrad and that does not include the at least 100,000 and possibly three times as many civilian inhabitants of the city massacred by the repeated waves of indiscriminate Luftwaffe air attacks. More than twice as many Russian civilians perished in the first week of air raids as died in the Allied bombing of Dresden. When Soviet interrogators asked Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus, the captured commander of the Sixth Army, why he had authorized such needless slaughter, he really did reply that he was only following orders.

Nazi losses were colossal, too. According to Russian estimates, 1.5 million German and Axis soldiers lost their lives in the entire campaign, more than five times the entire U.S. combat dead for all of the war and more than twice the combined Union and Confederate dead of the entire U.S. Civil War. None of the Axis remains that were found and identified were buried within the city. It is sacred soil to the Russian people. Only the heroic defenders of Stalingrad and the Motherland, or Rodina, are allowed the ultimate honor of resting there.

The entire German Sixth Army — some 300,000 men — at the time the most renowned and invincible infantry on earth, perished at Stalingrad. Just 90,000 of them survived to be taken prisoner with their commander, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus. Of them, only 9,000 survived their long captivity to ever be repatriated home to Germany.

It is not only Stalingrad that has been forgotten. This past year, the 70th anniversary of D-Day was a world headlines story. Yet the biggest news from the reunion of statesmen wishing to bask in the reflected glories of the past was the deliberate rudeness of U.S. President Barack Obama of the United States and of Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

One could easily have inferred that Putin was the odd man out or leper at the D-Day celebrations, representing the discredited heirs of the Third Reich. He was there, in fact, as the head of state of the great power that had done far more than the United States and Britain combined to destroy Nazi Germany, the most evil regime in modern history.

As respected Irish military historian David Murphy pointed out in the Irish Times, when D-Day took place, only 11 German divisions directly opposed it. Yet at the same time, the Nazis had 228 divisions fighting the Red Army full-time on the Eastern Front. And the simultaneous victory of the Red Army in the Battle of Byelorussia, the Annihilation of Army Group Center, was far greater than D-Day and that was critical to its success.

As David Murphy wrote, “The D-Day operation was, without doubt, a major operation of huge complexity but the size and scope of Bagration was mind-boggling. Conservative estimates put the Soviet strength at more than 1.6 million men (against over 486,000 Germans) and Russian commanders had access to more than 5,800 tanks and 5,300 aircraft.”

It was the biggest and most decisive military victory of any land battle in World War II and it even dwarfed Stalingrad and the Battle of Normandy in the destruction it visited on the Wehrmacht. In two weeks, Hitler’s last great concentration of armies was annihilated in multiple encirclements in Byelorussia or White Russia, today the nation of Belarus.

In a handful of blinding weeks the Red Army using masterful blitzkrieg armored penetration tactics drove from the forests of its heartland all the way to the Vistula River and the outskirts of Warsaw.

The importance of Bagration was fully realized in the West at the time. The great British Broadcasting Corporation war correspondent Alexander Werth called it “bigger than Stalingrad.”

The Bagration-Byelorussia victory was crucial to victory in the West as well, Without it, Hitler would have been able to a rapidly transport hundreds of thousands of his best, combat-experienced troops west to stop the U.S. 12th Army Group’s drive through France that annihilated the German Army Group B under Field Marshals Gerd von Rundstedt and Gunther von Kluge.

Yet the 70th anniversary of Bagration went virtually un-noticed in the American and British press last year and there was no reference to it in the D-Day celebrations.

The peoples of the Soviet Union, especially the Russians, paid an enormous price for this great victory. As David Murphy wrote, “The casualties of this operation were equally staggering. The German historian Karl-Heinz Freiser has calculated German casualties at more than 399,000 killed, wounded, missing and POW. A conservative estimate of Russian casualties is more than 180,000. Total Russian wartime deaths still remain unclear with estimates ranging from 18 to 24 million, both military and civilian.”

This past year has also seen the 70th anniversary celebrations of the worst of all Nazi extermination camps, Auschwitz and Majdenek,

 As the great British military historian Michael K. Jones documented in his classic 2011 book “Total War: From Kursk to Berlin,” the record of the Red Army combat soldiers and medical support staff in caring for the liberated survivors at those death camps was exemplary.

Yet not a single major U.S. or British leader is scheduled attended any of the Russian anniversary ceremonies for Bagration and the following victories.

This continued willful ignorance of the crucial Soviet and Russian contribution to victory in the greatest of all conflicts is shameful. It is also vastly detrimental to the rebuilding of mutual respect and understanding between the great allies of World War II still so crucial for world peace.

The anniversary of the liberation of the death camps and the true facts surrounding them need to be remembered. They contain crucially important lessons essential for the preservation of world peace in the 21st century.

In recent years, Western historians have increasingly embraced a doctrine of moral equivalency between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It is perfectly true that the total death toll in Stalin’s terror, repressions and catastrophically bungled economic policies ran into the scores of millions. But an enormously important distinction needs to be made: The Red Army eye-witnesses from the lowest combat soldier to top ranking generals at the liberation of Auschwitz and Majdanek all shared appalling horror and reacted in the most decent and admirable way to the unimaginable evil they confronted. The record of Red Army medical services in trying to cope with a health crisis no one had imagined possible among the survivors was exemplary.

Michael Jones documents this vital and untold story with vivid accounts from the eye-witnesses. “When we saw what (Majdanek) contained, we felt dangerously close to going insane,” recalled Vasily Yeremenko of the Second Tank Army.

Captain Andrey Mereshenko of the Eighth Guards Army never forgot that when he arrived at Majdanek, “the ovens were still warm.”

War correspondent Konstantin Simonov wrote in the newspaper Red Star that his mind refused to recognize the reality of what he had seen with his own eyes.

The Soviet soldiers and senior officers who liberated the extermination camps reacted with horror at what they found: Many of them feared they were going insane. But they were not: They were retaining their humanity in its most precious forms.

 When death camp prisoners “realize we want to help them,” some moan with joy,” Col. Georgi Elizavetsky wrote to his wife Nina. “And when they see bread, others literally howl, kiss our feet and become quite delirious. … “There is a children’s barracks in the camp. When we entered I just could not stand it anymore.”

In recent decades, as only a handful of combat war veterans from the three great Allied nations remain alive, this crucial truth has been lost: There was no moral equivalence, it is now claimed. Yet the soldiers of the Red Army suffered vastly more casualties than the Western Allies. They inflicted 90 percent of combat losses on the Nazi armies. They did more to win the war against the Nazi evils than anyone else.

They also deserve primary credit for ending the Holocaust. On September 23, 1944, the same day the Second Tank Army liberated Majdanek, troops of the Soviet First Belorussian Front also liberated the extermination camps at Sobibor and Treblinka. On January 27, 1945, they liberated the biggest and most diabolical murder factory of them all -- Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The bravery and sheer decency of the millions of ordinary Russian, Ukrainian and other nationalities in the Red Army who won the war and liberated the worst death camps needs to be remembered and honored, not forgotten in the West, or swept under the carpet. Their achievements should be the lasting foundation for a new generation of understanding and mutual respect between the thermonuclear superpowers.

But this conference also needs to remember the truly selfless, generous and extraordinary role that the United States, and Britain played in funneling unprecedented quantities of material aid to the Soviet Union when its peoples were fighting for their very survival against the most evil, most genocidal and most formidable military machine and government the world had ever seen.

The American people and their leader, President Franklin Roosevelt, rose to that challenge: The easily accessible Wikipedia entry on Lend Lease to the Soviet Union documents the full story: Total U.S. deliveries through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion i0n materials: over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, 11,400 aircraft and 1.75 million tons of food.

$1.3 billion worth of food alone was sent. Supplies of canned spam –spiced ham – became a major protein supply for the Red Army as early Stalingrad and it became the principle protein source for the Red Army forces fighting on the central battlefronts at Kursk in 1943 and in Belorussia in summer 1944.

In all, 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. It has been estimated that American deliveries to the USSR through the Persian Corridor alone were sufficient, by US Army standards, to maintain sixty combat divisions in the line.

The United States gave to the Soviet Union from October 1, 1941 to May 31, 1945 the following: 427,284 trucks, 13,303 combat vehicles, 35,170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons of petroleum products (gasoline and oil), 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc.), 1,900 steam locomotives, 66 Diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford Company's River Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR. The 1947 money value of the supplies and services amounted to about eleven billion dollars. Today that would be nearer a quarter of a trillion dollars. I

World War II has now been consigned to the memory hole of ancient history, especially in the United States. We live in a society where last week has become ancient history, and where the ephemera of cheap insults tweeted and magnified through the social media even drive national presidential campaigns.

But the past is not so easily banished from the present. Sigmund Freud, yet another now unfashionable Dead White European, taught us that the repression of important memories is lethally dangerous. It leads to subconscious drives to act out repressed events in compulsive, irrational and self-destructive forms of behavior.

What is true of individuals is also true of nations and national cultures that are composed of hundreds of millions of individuals. That is why the study of history, the recovery of national as well as individual memory, is so crucial to renew the friendship and mutual respect of our two great nations.

This is where we must start: In remembering the true depth, scale and sacrifice of our mutual collaboration in World War II that saved the human race.

Martin Sieff

All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org

0 Comments
    RAGA РАГА

    RAGANEWS

    Strengthening ties between Russia
    and America

    Picture
    Picture
    Follow us on Twitter

    Subscribe to RAGA Antiwar Newsletter

    * indicates required

    RAGA's BOOKS
    Picture
    ORDER on AMAZON
    Picture
    ORDER on LABIRINT
    Picture
    ORDER on RAGA
    Picture
    ORDER on RAGA

    Categories

    All
    Analytical Articles
    Anna Tolstoyevskaya
    Art
    Belarus
    Business
    Charles Bausman
    Chip Hodgkins
    Crimea
    Culture
    Dmitry Tamoikin
    Dr. S. Sniegoski
    Economy
    Edward Lozansky
    EU
    G. Doctorow Ph.D.
    Great Britain
    G. Tarpley Ph.D.
    History
    J. J. Mearsheimer
    Kevin Barrett
    Martin Sieff
    Mass Media
    Michael Brenner
    NATO
    Newsletter
    Patrick Armstrong
    Press Release
    Prof. James Petras
    Putin
    RAGA
    Ramsey Clark
    Raymond Zwarich
    Religion
    Robert Parry
    Ron Unz
    Russia
    Russia Insider
    Security
    Shout Out UK
    Solzhenitsyn
    Stephen Cohen
    Trump
    Ukraine
    US
    USSR
    Videos
    V. Krasnov Ph.D

    Archives

    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    April 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    May 2008
    June 2001
    March 1999
    December 1998

    RSS Feed

Picture
Founder:
Vladislav Krasnov
(aka: W. George Krasnow)
RAGA РАГА
© RAGA.org
2003-2020
All Rights Reserved