PAUWELS

JACQUES PAUWELS—In Western Europe, in 1943-1944, the American and British liberators had acted ad libitum, ignoring not only the wishes of a large part of the local population but also the interests of their Soviet ally, and Stalin had accepted that arrangement. In 1945, on the other hand, the shoe was on the other foot: the Soviets clearly enjoyed the advantage in an Eastern Europe liberated by the Red Army. Even so, the Western Allies could hope that they might be able to provide a measure of input into the reorganization of this part of Europe as well. Everything was still possible over there. The Soviets had obviously favoured the local communists but had not yet created any faits accomplis. And the Western Allies were well aware that Stalin craved their goodwill and cooperation and would therefore be willing to make concessions.

JACQUES PAUWELS—The Revolution that exploded in 1789 clearly reflected the great and traumatic class contradictions that characterized the Ancien Régime. The majority of the people, the peasants in the countryside and, in the city, the patrician haute bourgeoisie as well as the plebeians, above all the Parisian artisans who would be known as the “sans-culottes”, rose up against the upper class, the elite or “establishment”, consisting of the nobility and the high ranks of the clergy, lined up behind the king. Members of the bourgeoisie took over the leadership of the revolutionary movement, but the sans-culottes performed most if not all the revolutionary heavy lifting. In the countryside, the peasants made a significant contribution to the revolutionary cause by attacking the noble seigneurs in their castles. After the cancellation of the onerous feudal obligations the peasants had resented so much, however, tranquillity returned to the countryside. Henceforth, revolutionary action would take place mostly, though not exclusively, in Paris.

JACQUES PAUWELS—Speaking of Vietnam, the American intervention in that country was a counterrevolutionary and intrinsically antidemocratic aggression, which cost the lives of two to three million Vietnamese. It is noteworthy that it was supported by US allies who were also supposed to be devotees of the democratic cause, such as West Germany, but opposed by the presumably undemocratic Soviet “satellites”, including East Germany. But this is not an anomaly from the perspective of the paradigm reflected in this book: as we have seen earlier, West Germany was far less democratic, and the “eastern bloc”-countries considerably more democratic, than we have been led to believe.

JACQUES PAUWELS—In 1943, after victories in Stalingrad in the spring and Kursk in the summer, it was obvious that, slowly but surely, the Red Army was on its way to Berlin. That is when the Americans and British, who had been sitting on the sidelines as a titanic war raged along the eastern front, decided it was high time to open a “second front” in France, so the Soviets would not defeat Nazi Germany and liberate all of Europe on their own – and reap the benefits of that achievement. While it must be acknowledged that, in the final year of the war, following the Normandy landings, the Americans and the other western allies did make a significant contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany, that triumph was due in the very first place to the herculean efforts and huge sacrifices made by the Russian and other peoples of the Soviet Union during four long years, starting on that fateful 22nd of June, 1941.