While I was at a yoga resort in July, my friend Regis Tremblay, a peace activist and documentary filmmaker sent me an email. He’d visited Manita and Yuri, whose hostel I’d stayed at in 2015, in Sevastopol, the famous seaport and naval base, which has been part of Russia since 1783.
Manita sent a video message, “We miss you…and remember the garden you promised?”.
While there in 2015, I’d seen a patch of land that was unused, and strewn with weeds. So I’d suggested planting fruit trees there. I’d planned to go back in 2020, but Covid prevented it.
The Trip
Plus, travel is far more difficult, since Aeroflot, which I booked a flight with in 2020 does not fly between Bangkok and Moscow. And US based ticket agencies don’t show any flights either.
At the resort, a Russian yoga teacher, Kira, was planning to go to Moscow in August, and her boyfriend told me how to get a ticket. So I booked a ticket during the hot season in Russia. The flight went through Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The flight was more than 50% more expensive but what the hell?
So on August 11, I got a flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. My plan was to arrive in Bangkok about 5 PM, to catch the 8 pm flight to Dubai. When the airplane didn’t show up in Chiang Mai, I got antsy and called the ticket agency. “What do I do if the flight is late, and I miss my flight from Bangkok to Dubai?”
The ticket agent said I was likely to miss my flight and that I needed to pay an extra $1000 to get the next day’s flight. I took the chance that he was lying, and fortunately, my flight to Bangkok arrived about 5:30 pm, and I checked in in plenty of time. What’s more, the flight from Bangkok to Dubai was over 2 hours late, too.
So, I left Bangkok at about 11 pm. Taking into account time zone difference and the 6 hour flight, I arrived in Dubai at 2 am. And the flight to Moscow was at 10 am. I just walked around or sat. No sleep. The cost of food in airports is notoriously overpriced, but in Dubai, even a lousy tunafish sandwich cost $15! I had brought some dry snacks with me, so that tided me over.
The Flight from Dubai to Moscow
Several times, guardian angels appeared on this trip. Sitting next to me was a woman named Tonya, short for Antonia. She had quit her job at the Russian Central Bank as a computer person, and had done one or two Vipassana retreats in the Goenka style. I’d done some retreats with that, too. So we had a great connection.
Visiting Three Hero Cities
As it turned out, (not realizing it) I planned to visit 3 socalled “Hero Cities” of the Soviet Union’s “Great Patriotic War”. Russians call the invasion, which was only a part of WWII, the Great Patriotic War. It was an existential struggle of the Soviet people against the planned destruction of the country, and the enslavement or death of the people. The Soviet Union lost 27 million people, and one third of the country –the equivalent of from the East Coast of the USA to Chicago levelled.
By contrast, the USA lost about 400,000 people and the UK lost 550,000. They faced 11 worn out German divisions vs the Soviet Union facing 220 divisions. As you read below, both President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill knew all too well what the Soviet Union did to win WWII.
On June 22, 1941, the following countries invaded the USSR without warning, in violation of the 1939 Nonaggression Pact, which the Soviet Union and Germany signed. Other countries such as Poland, England and France had also signed nonaggression pacts with Hitler. He broke all of them. These countries allied with Germany, or sent volunteers:
Italy (under Mussolini)
Romania
Hungary
Finland
Sweden (which officially was neutral but supplied significant minerals as well as volunteer units)
Croatia (a part of Yugoslavia, which had already been occupied by Germany, and which had a substantial fascist population)
Spain, which was officially neutral, but sent 50-70,000 volunteers. The dictator Franco withdrew them in 1943.
Vichy France, controlled by Germany, sent 7,000 troops. Most French did not support them, and many French, the Free French, fought against Hitler
I think it is significant in light of the current conflict that 4 cities were Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic cities. One, Odessa, saw the massacre of at least 42 people by fascists mobs in May 2014.
The three Hero Cities that I visited were:
Moscow
Volgograd (the successor name to Stalingrad)
Sevastopol
Arrival in Moscow
When we arrived in Moscow, Tonya helped me get a Russian SIM card, so that I could use my mobile phone and access internet. She then booked a taxi to take me to my hotel, actually a popular hostel which, I discovered, is just a couple of minutes from the very center of Moscow…Red Square and the Kremlin, the nerve center of the Russian government.
I called the Kremlin and booked my appointment with Putin….just kidding. I have NOTHING to do with the Russian government. This trip was on my dollar, and not cheap since airplane costs have doubled since 2020. Since we’re bombarded 24/7 with the Western narrative, I wanted to go to Russia to see for myself what’s going on there.
Once I got settled at the Povordie Hostel, I started walking around. The Hostel is located just off of Nikolskaya Street, which is a very popular walking street.
Be sure to click on the images for best appreciation.
BELOW: The Kremlin Wall, with the Lenin Mausoleum, where you can view the embalmed body of the ‘Founding Father’ of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin. In the past, during parades, Soviet leaders would take their places on the roof to review the parade.
One of Many Beautiful Buildings in Moscow, Including the Russian Orthodox Church
There are a lot of souvenir shops in Russia, often with nostalgic memorabilia. Here are 2 T-shirts, one with Stalin, the leader of the USSR, from about 1927-1953. He is highly controversial with many criticizing him for his alleged crimes and authoritarianism, while others praise him for unifying and building the country, shattered by civil war and invasions from the West, so that the Soviet Union nearly singlehandedly defeated both the Nazi armies that invaded in 1941, as well as significantly contributing to Japan’s defeat, by defeating the 1 million man Kwantung Japanese Army that was occupying Manchuria, part of China, in August 1945.
T-Shirts, one with picture of Stalin, the other, Russian Federation Emblems
BELOW: T-Shirts, One with picture of Stalin, the other, Russian Federation Emblem. • Putin is generally very popular in Russia. • The Russian Bear, the Russian equivalent of the Bald Eagle, but, in my opinion, even more iconic. • Yuri Gagarin, still a national hero, the first man into space • And the jocular “KGB-Still Watching You”, even though it was dissolved with the end of the USSR. • A typical Soviet era style winter cap. With temperatures down to minus 40 degrees, they were pretty popular, then and even now. • Also, the flag of the former Soviet Union. You still see vestiges of that era, on the ‘Victory Flag’ commemorating the defeat of the Nazis in 1945. And the Hammer and Sickle is still seen in various places such as the Russian national airline, Aeroflot, uniforms.
Russian Bread
I’m a great fan of whole grain bread. And while many Russian people like white bread (though I never saw anyone eating Wonder Bread–which is sort of an oxymoron, since that might better be termed “Bread looking chemical fluffy mixture”) there was a great selection of different whole grain breads.
Heavy Russia breads, often made with rye or buckwheat flour as well as nuts or seeds.
More Russian bread and rolls
The Moscow Subways–People’s Museums
No, this is not a museum. This is one of the Moscow subway Metro stations. This iconic statue of a Soviet soldier with his guard dog is famous and it’s good luck to rub the nose of the dog. Many of the subway stations which were first built during Soviet times, as far back as the 1930’s, were loaded with sculpture, mosaics and other art, to make city commuting an enjoyable experience for the people.
Here, you see a young boy rubbing the dog’s nose for good luck. People constantly passing by did the same thing, resulting in the dog’s nose having a fine polish.
Helpful Friends
One major issue is how to pay for things in Russia. I brought US dollars from Thailand, and I needed to change to Russian Rubles to buy stuff. Also, in some cases, it’s useful to have a payment card. But foreign cards don’t work.
Fortunately, at the Hostel, a young Syrian guy appeared, named Dean (his English name). Kira helped me as well, setting up a bank account. He directed me to an ATM machine and helped me set up an ATM card. But how to change money into Rubles? There was a money exchange place but it charges a spread between ‘buy and sell price’.
Tonya saved the day. She wants to study in Portugal. So she bought my dollars for a good price in exchange for Rubles. Later, Dean would get me out of a real hot spot regarding a place to stay in Moscow. But during my first days in Moscow, Dean showed me where the local supermarket is, and we had a lot of discussions about politics and philosophy. Nice to meet such an intelligent guy. He speaks fluent English, Russian and his native Arabic.
Meeting My Lovely Friend Kira
My yoga teacher friend Kira showed up, and took me to lunch at a ‘real Russian’ Soviet style restaurant. Unfortunately, I was using a USB device that failed. So I don’t have pictures of it.
Kira was born in Uzbekistan, one of the Soviet Republics, however, when the Soviet Union broke up, she, like many ethnic Russians was stranded. Life was not easy for her and her family, but she’s come through it well. We talked a lot about each of our own spiritual journeys. Now she teaches yoga in Thailand.
Here are some pictures that she took which I am sharing.
Kira, left, Yana, Kira’s friend, Center, and the author.
We went for a nice walk on the Moscow river, and had a picnic with a favorite Russia food, which I think comes from Turkey, called a Shawarma…something like that. It’s a flat round bread, like a chapati or tortilla. It wraps vegetables and other items like falafel or typically chicken.
The Moscow River with Its Promenade. Note the tour boat coming down the river.
LEFT: A Typical Shawarma
BELOW: Kira’s friend Yana showed up. We went to a very interesting shop, perhaps I’d call it a Curio Shop with a lot of art objects, books, incense, bells. It even had Chinese teas which I knew of from my travel in China. Lots of Tibetan items, and even a vintage copy of the classic Hippy Book by Richard Alpert, aka Ram Dass. Be Here Now.
Here are some instruments, such as ‘bell drums, lower left’, Didgeridoos, guitars, in the background are teas.
Be Here Now
Touring with Tonya
The next day, I spent with Tonya, who took me to several very interesting places. First, we went to the Tretyakov Gallery. This gallery has something like 65 exhibition halls. It’s endless! We only got to see about 40 of them because we had other places to go.
ABOVE: Here is a portrait of the most famous Russian poet, Pushkin. One thing that struck me was the number of visitors to the museum. Apparently, Russian people are interested in art and culture beyond pop music and what passes for art these days.
We then visited the Museum of Aviation and Space, aka The Cosmonaut Museum. I wanted to see this since as a kid, I’d been fascinated by the first Satellite shot into space, Sputnik. And then, the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, who gained great fame and love. After his trip, he travelled the world advocating peace.
BELOW: Pictured here is a photo of the cooperative work of US Astronauts and Soviet Cosmonauts. There was a time of sanity, when the two countries cooperated in Space and achieved a lot by working together.
The Iconic Obelisk honoring the Soviet space program. Look carefully and you’ll see a rocket at the top.
A colorful globe in the museum
The first Earth Satellite, ‘The Sputnik’. Now, the Russian media station, also called Sputnik is banned in the West. When the Sputnik was launched in 1957, it caused panic…how could those Soviets be so smart as to beat us into space?
Rocket Engines. For many years, Russian rocket engines were so reliable and powerful, that the US bought Russian rocket engines to use in US Rockets. Due to sanctions, I’m not sure what the status of that is now.
All we are saying, is give peace a chance. During the 1970’s, the US got the crazy idea that cooperation is better than blowing up the planet in a nuclear war. So we got a nuclear arms reduction treaty. And the US and USSR worked together on the space program. The US broke the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 under George W. Bush, and the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2019 under Donald Trump. Cooperation in space has continued but due to tensions currently, it will end soon.
An inspiring tune from the early 1960's Soviet Union composed by Alexandra Pakhmutova, a Soviet composer responsible for multiple similar pieces within this time period. This particular version was sung by Josef Kobzon, a Ukrainian singer hailing from Donetsk Oblast. The last three art pieces within this video was by Andrey Sokolov, a Soviet stamp maker and painter, while the first one was by Alexei Leonov, a former Soviet cosmonaut.
(As of this writing, October, 2022, the Ukrainian government in Kiev is bombing Donetsk. And in retaliation, Russia is bombing Kiev….What the hell happened to the friendship and solidarity of Ukraine and Russia? What a tragedy!
Following our trip to the Cosmonaut Museum, Tonya took me to a Soviet themed restaurant. Here is a typical poster showing Soviet “Pioneer” kids.
Here is a popular song sung by the young pioneers.
Childhood, childhood, Kindness not warmed in vain…All people on the Great Planet Should Always Be Friends. Children should always laugh and live in a peaceful world.
Pavilion of Soviet Republics
After Dinner, we went to the Pavilion of Soviet Republics. It was night time, so we couldn’t go into the buildings, one for each of the former Soviet Republic, which featured information about each one, such as the culture, art, and products they produce. It is often referred to as VDNH. Here is a post that explains what it is in detail. But basically it is a free and open park and museum space in Moscow. https://russiau.com/vdnkh-vdnh-park-moscow/
Since it was night, there were several fountains that were lit up.
This fountain is called “Friendship of the Peoples”. What a concept. When people reminisce about Soviet times such as in Ukraine, people remark how everybody got along so well. Nobody cared what language you spoke. Now, people are killing one another over this issue. Such a pity!
This is the pavilion of Kazakhstan SSR
ABOVE: This pavilion was originally that of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic until 1964, when it was called ‘Agriculture’.
The USA and Europe like to pretend that there are no ties between Ukraine and Russia, much less friendship. So buildings like this, and the many cultural and family relationships clearly show that Ukraine and Russia are family. However, unfortunately, sometimes family disputes be a problem. If one looks into this matter, one sees foreign influence to disrupt, divide and ultimately conquer.
In Part II, the journey continues to Volgograd.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Eric Arnow is a peace activist and Buddhist. For the last 15 years or so he's been living in Thailand with a lot of time spent in China practicing Zen - and a few trips to Russia. You can find more on and by Eric at his Bumble Buddhist Blog on WordPress. There are links to that and stuff he's written about Asia etc.
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ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS
Rock and Roll and Russia: When The Wall Came Down and The Wind of Change Blew Through
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DEFEAT CAPITALISM AND ITS DEADLY SPAWN, IMPERIALISM ecological murder •
Deborah L. Armstrong
Author’s note: I wrote this after reading Scott Ritter’s article “Roger and Me.” I definitely recommend checking out Randy Credico’s podcast with Major Ritter and Roger Waters!
Itwas thirty-one years ago.
I was 25, an American woman living in the Soviet Union.
I had arrived there in January, 1991, as a member of a humanitarian project, working at the Television Center in Leningrad as a broadcasting consultant and would-be script-writer for a Russian dating game show (another article about that someday. I promise!) I’d come straight outa the balmy climes of Southern California where 50 degrees Fahrenheit had begun to feel “cold,” and landed smack dab in the middle of Russian Winter.
And it was a thrilling time to be there! The decades-long Cold War was finally ending and here we were, Soviets and Americans, working together, learning from one-another, exchanging ideas, bonding, forming friendships that would last a lifetime.
It doesn’t feel that long ago, to me. In fact, sometimes I can close my eyes and almost imagine I am there again, especially if I listen to Pink Floyd…
Us (us, us, us, us) and them (them, them, them, them)
And after all we’re only ordinary men
Me
And you (you, you, you)
God only knows
It’s not what we would choose (choose, choose) to do (to do, to do)
Forward he cried from the rear
And the front rank died
And the general sat
And the lines on the map
Moved from side to side
Every time I hear that song, it flows over me like a gentle wave. And I remember. And sometimes that wave crashes so hard against my soul that I cannot stop myself from crying.
Black (black, black, black)
And blue (blue, blue)
And who knows which is which and who is who
Up (up, up, up, up)
And down (down, down, down, down)
And in the end it’s only round ‘n round (round, round, round)
Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words
The poster bearer cried
“Listen son”, said the man with the gun
There’s room for you inside
On long, lonely nights in Leningrad, I listened to “Us and Them” on a cassette given to me by a friend who was a student at Moscow State University.
When I was in Moscow, I had hung out with him and a group of students at MSU and watched “The Wall,” Pink Floyd’s epic psychological musical drama. We even watched it again, at his parents’ apartment, with his family. It is a stunning, mesmerizing film that once seen must be seen again. In fact, I make a point of watching it at least once a year.
However, I must confess that prior to living in Russia, I was not truly a Pink Floyd fan. I knew of the band, of course, and when I was in high school, I liked the “We Don’t Need No Education” song (Another Brick in the Wall). But I didn’t truly come to appreciate the depth and profound genius of Pink Floyd until I watched “The Wall” in Russia.
We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall
All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall
The Soviet students loved Pink Floyd and though some of them did not speak English, the movie was strikingly clear without an understanding of the lyrics. The symbolism of the video and the unforgettable, iconic animations transcended our cultures and resonated deeply with us all.
I think though, that my Russian friends had an even deeper understanding of the film than I did. At that time, they were cynical about the state, having faced the deprivations of the dying Soviet economy, and many wanted to do away with the old form of government and usher in a democracy similar to what they believed we had in the west. I, on the other hand, still dreamed the American dream.
I don’t think any of us knew then, what would become of that “democracy.”
“Look mummy, there’s an aeroplane up in the sky”
Did you see the frightened ones?
Did you hear the falling bombs?
Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter when the
promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath a clear blue
sky?
Did you see the frightened ones?
Did you hear the falling bombs?
The flames are all gone, but the pain lingers on.
Goodbye, blue sky
Goodbye, blue sky.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
The Russians certainly must have felt the part about the “bombs” more keenly than I did. In Leningrad, every family had lost someone in World War Two. The brave city held out against a Nazi siege which lasted almost three years. They lived without electricity, with dwindling food supplies, and many froze to death or died of starvation. All that time they heard the bombs falling…
In all, it’s estimated that between 24 and 27 million Soviets died in the Second World War. It’s an unfathomable number. In comparison, Nazi Germany lost nearly 9 million people and Japan lost more than 3 million. The United States lost almost 450 thousand lives. For every American who died in the war, another 53 Soviets were killed. Try to imagine each coffin, stacked one atop the other. It’s hard for the human mind to conceive of so many coffins, but this video will help put it into perspective.
Number of deaths in the WW2 per country
Aside from the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Americans never experienced the terror of a foreign invasion, and certainly not on the scale experienced by the USSR and those European countries where Hitler’s armies marched. Bombs never rained down on New York as they rained down on Leningrad. Americans, by and large, don’t know how it feels to grab your kids by the hands and run, screaming, as your home is blown apart and everything you know is suddenly dust.
For most of us in America, war is a movie. It’s just something happening on a screen that can’t hurt us and doesn’t directly threaten us. It becomes easy to ignore because it’s far away.
Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
My friend from MSU who gave me the cassettes is now a diplomat in Russia’s Foreign Ministry, and I am now a semi-retired journalist. We both still love Pink Floyd, in fact, he got to go see Roger Waters in concert not too long ago, the lucky bastard! He sent me photos.
I am in touch with some of my old friends, from Soviet times, and others have drifted away over the years. But the memory of that special time always feels fresh in my mind. How young we were! Full of so much hope for the future. It was the time of Perestroika and Glasnost. The Berlin Wall had come down only two years before. I even had a piece of it. I still have it, somewhere amid the accumulated clutter of the decades.
It was such a different time. Such a stark contrast to where we are now. Back then, we were looking ahead toward a peaceful future, in which we would be allies, and we talked about the many ways we could help each other and make the world a better place.
I don’t remember if I heard the Scorpion’s song while I was living in the Soviet Union. It came out the year before I went there. It always feels good to hear it now, because we literally lived that song…
Follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night
Soldiers passing by
Listening to the wind of change
The world is closing in
Did you ever think
That we could be so close, like brothers
The future’s in the air
Can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change
If only we had known what the wind of change would bring in the decades that followed. Not the peace we dreamed of, but another Cold War, and the threat of nuclear Armageddon once again holding the world hostage.
In my rear-view mirror the sun is going down
Sinking behind bridges in the road
I think of all the good things
That we have left undone
And I suffer premonitions
Confirm suspicions
Of the holocaust to come
The rusty wire
That holds the cork
That keeps the anger in
Gives way
And suddenly it’s day again
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done
Two suns in the sunset
Could be the human race is run
Like the moment when the brakes lock
And you slide towards the big truck
Oh, no
You stretch the frozen moments with your fear
And you’ll never hear their voices
Daddy, daddy,
And you’ll never see their faces
You have no recourse to the law anymore
And as the windshield melts
And my tears evaporate
Leaving only charcoal to defend
Finally I understand
The feelings of the few
Ashes and diamonds
Foe and friend
We were all equal in the end
About the author:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Deborah Armstrong currently writes about geopolitics with an emphasis on Russia. She previously worked in local TV news in the United States where she won two regional Emmy Awards. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television.
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German prisoners of war from Operation Bagration march through Moscow.
OpEds: Operation Bagration was the real D-Day
By Chandar S. Sundaram / Originally run on Jun 13, 2014
Amidst all the recent hyperbole surrounding the 70th anniversary of the Anglo-American and Canadian invasion of enemy-occupied France in the Second World War, which claims that it was the “beginning of the end” of the German army, we have lost sight
Amidst all the recent hyperbole surrounding the 70th anniversary of the Anglo-American and Canadian invasion of enemy-occupied France in the Second World War, which claims that it was the “beginning of the end” of the German army, we have lost sight of an important, and much-overlooked fact: Compared with the eastern front, it was a mere sideshow.
Objectively speaking, the real D-Day, the real “beginning of the end” for the Wehrmacht, and Nazi Germany, was the Soviet Operation Bagration. Consider the following:
The Wehrmacht had 58 divisions in the west, of which only 11 were deployed against the D-Day landings. At the same time, however, the Germans deployed 228 divisions in the east. Thus, the Germans had almost four times as many troops facing the Soviets. And they had less than one-20th of that number in Normandy. That alone is an indication of where their priorities lay.
At no time after June 6, 1944, did the German high command contemplate transferring forces from the east to the west to counter the Normandy landings.
The initial D-Day landings were made with approximately 175,000 Allied troops against about 80,000 Wehrmacht soldiers. These figures were dwarfed by the strengths on the eastern front, where Operation Bagration, which was launched on June 22, 1944, pitted 2.4 million Russian troops, supported by 36,400 artillery pieces, 5,200 tanks and 5,300 aircraft, against the Germans’ Army Group Centre, which numbered 700,000 men, 900 tanks and 1,350 aircraft.
The Soviets aimed to retake Byelorussia (now Belarus), and in the process, destroy Army Group Centre.
Within a month of launching, Bagration had succeeded. In relentless lightning attacks, Soviet forces annihilated 17 German divisions and reduced another 50 to half-strength, which translated into a net German loss of 42 divisions. Army Group Centre was no more. Moreover, the Soviets had punched a hole 400 kilometres wide and 160 kilometres long in the German front. By September, they would be knocking on German-occupied Warsaw’s door.
German Panzer IV officers of the 5th Panzer Division. Early July 1944. They met an army that outgunned them, outmaneuvered them, and outnumbered them by several magnitudes. [By Bundesarchiv, Bild]
Meanwhile, the western Allies, wedded to Montgomery’s unimaginative tactics, were still mired on the Normandy beachhead. Only on July 26, 1944, did their attempts to break out succeed, under Patton’s — not Montgomery’s — leadership.
Their breakout was aided by the fact that Bagration had forced the Wehrmacht to redeploy 46 divisions, including some from France, to the eastern front. Even then, the western Allies’ failure to close the Falaise pocket in August allowed the retreating Germans to escape. The Soviet juggernaut made no such mistake. Indeed, as Bagration showed, by the time the western Allies got around to launching their second front, which Stalin had been clamouring for since 1941, the Red Army almost didn’t need it.
Western media continue to tiresomely trumpet D-Day as a history-making event. This term can be more accurately applied to Operation Bagration, and the earlier eastern-front battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. Taken together, these battles broke the back of the Wehrmacht, and made ultimate victory over the Nazis possible.
Soviets on the attack.
While I would be the last one to deny or belittle the sacrifice, heroism and dedication of the brave men who risked it all by landing in Normandy, the objective historical record clearly shows that Hitler’s defeat was due more to the efforts of Private Ivan than to the efforts of Private Ryan.
In the words of the eminent military historian Chris Bellamy: “If we compare the speed and scale of the Russian advances in Operation Bagration with the lengthy battle to break out of the Normandy bridgehead, which was going on at the same time, the Russian performance is clearly superior.” This fact is undeniable, and deserves fair recognition, notwithstanding what we might think of Vladimir Putin’s doings in Crimea and Ukraine.
I venture to propose that the time has come to abolish the commemoration of D-Day in favour of one that jointly commemorates D-Day and Operation Bagration. This would be a fitting acknowledgment of the enormous efforts of all the major Allied powers to defeat the scourge of Nazism that so threatened humanity seven decades ago.
Chandar S. Sundaram is a Victoria-based military historian, writer and educator
Operation Bagration: A June 22 Hitler Had Not Bargained for
Operation Bagration kicked off on the third anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, and it marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.
Stalin had long been asking that his Western allies open the second front in Europe so that the humongous pressures on the Red Army slackened somewhat. Finally, with the Allies landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944 the European front materialised.
Soviets units punching holes in German lines.
Scarcely any episode of the Second World War has received as much attention – and adoration – as Operation Overlord. After all, it marked the Allies’ getting a foothold on the continental mainland, and Berlin, the capital of Hitler’s Third Reich, was just about 1,200 km from the beachhead via a road that ran through Paris. And the mystique surrounding the largest seaborne invasion in history gives Overlord the heft to be called ‘D-Day’, the day on which the gigantic Nazi war machine apparently began to unravel.
But barely two weeks later, on June 22, 1944 began what turned out to be the largest Allied operation of World War II, a campaign that dwarfed not only Overlord but even the epic battle of Stalingrad, widely believed to have been the War’s turning point.
Indeed, in the scale of its operations, Bagration (pronounced baag-raat-see-ohn)– the Red Army’s counteroffensive through Byelorussia – towers over every other engagement of the War (with the possible exception of Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June, 1941) – including those in Moscow, Leningrad, Kursk, the Ardennes and Berlin. In under two months, Operation Bagration wiped out about a quarter (roughly 500,000 troops) of Germany’s Eastern Front manpower.
The USSR mustered more than 2 million men to assure victory against a fortified enemy estimated to number at least 850,000 men.
Of the four armies comprising the vaunted Army Group Centre, one, the 4th, was decimated and two other – the 9th and the 3rd Panzer – very nearly so. Thirty one of the 47 German divisional or corps commanders (of the rank of General) involved in the battle were either killed or captured. The Wehrmacht’s back was broken.
Bagration also restored the Soviet Union to her pre-1939 borders by throwing the Germans out of Soviet territory, and launched the Red Army on a crushing offensive that was to culminate in the battle of Berlin and the dissolution of the Third Reich.
In comparison, D-Day looks almost like a side-show: German deployment here added up to only 11 divisions (the Eastern Front had 228), and Germany lost no more than 9,000 troops here. The Allied forces were mired on the beachhead far longer than they had anticipated, progress inland was painfully slow, and the port city of Caen, a major objective only about 50 kms from the Omaha beach, was not captured before July 21, or a full 45 days after D-Day.
Bagration, on the other hand, took a little over ten days to punch a hole 400-km wide and 160-km deep in the German frontline. By the middle of August, the Red Army was knocking at Warsaw’s doors, less than 600 km shy of Berlin.
And yet, in most histories of the Second World War, Operation Bagration gets mentioned only in passing. It is only in recent years that critical attention has begun to be directed at this important episode of the War.
The 76th anniversary of Bagration is as good a time as any to go over the ground it covered and recapitulate how it panned out in those crucial two months.
In Yalta in December 1943, Britain, the US and the Soviet Union had agreed to orchestrate the Allies’ future campaigns against the Axis. Churchill and Roosevelt informed Stalin that the Allies planned to open the second front by landing in France in May the following year. In turn, Stalin promised to support that operation by launching a massive strategic offensive around the same time. Bagration – named after the Georgian general of the Tsarist army who died fighting Napoleon’s troops in Borodino near Moscow in 1812 – was the result of that commitment.
The Soviet armies involved in bloody fighting in the winter and early spring of 1943-44 had made spectacular advances, particularly in the south, in Ukraine and the Caucasus. They had also managed to lift the crippling siege of Leningrad (now St Petersburg) that had lasted nearly 900 days. At that point in the war’s eastern theatre, the Soviets had over 6.5 million troops spread over 12 fronts (or army groups) aligned along a 3,200-km front facing four German army groups and an independent army, which together numbered 2.25 million men. Of the 12 Soviet army groups, four, namely the First Baltic, and the Third, the Second and the First Byelorussian, would come into play in the operation.
Of the four German army groups, the one directly in front of these Red Army formations was the famed Army Group Centre commanded by Field Marshal Ernst Busch, not a particularly capable commander, but a favourite of Hitler’s because of Busch’s obsequiousness to the Fuehrer.
Numerically the strongest army group on the Eastern Front – it had around 700,000 troops in 51 divisions – Busch’s group had two major weaknesses other than being led by an unenterprising leader. Spread over a 780-km front, its was a thinly-held line; and its forces occupied a somewhat awkward salient: a bulge extending substantially eastwards north of the inaccessible Pripyat Marshes close to the headwaters of the Dvina and Dnieper rivers east of Vitebsk (please see map), making the flanks vulnerable to spirited enemy attacks. STAVKA (the Soviet High Command) now settled on striking at Army Group Centre in a series of surprise ‘deep operations’ manoeuvres that would destroy this jewel in Hitler’s crown.
But the Soviet decision had not been made with an eye on Marshal Busch’s vulnerabilities, personal or strategic. STAVKA had determined that the demolition of Army Group Centre would bring the Red Army to the borders of Poland and East Prussia and facilitate future operations hugely. Equally importantly, the best – and perhaps shortest – road to Berlin from the East ran through Warsaw, which sat on a straight line from General Rokossovsky’s First Byelorussian Front through the deep defences of Army Group Centre.
Besides, other options open to the Red Army at that point had been considered and dropped: for example, a strike into the Balkans by one or more of the northern spearheads (viz., the Third Baltic and Leningrad fronts) – rejected because it would still leave much of western Russia in German hands; or the option of a northwest strike from northern Ukraine across Poland to the Baltic Sea – not pursued because it would mean a long and perilous drive with dangerously open flanks.
Two SS officers discuss operations before a destroyed T-34.
Having thus decided on the broad contours of the offensive, the Red Army set about filling in the tactical and operational details, a project of astonishing ingenuity and skill, the like of which has been seen only rarely in the history of modern warfare.
First, the Soviets launched an elaborate tactical programme of deception – maskirovka in Russian. In April, the entire Soviet army assumed a defensive posture, and kept up the appearances with great verve, so that German intelligence was inclined to discount the possibility of an imminent, large-scale operation. But more importantly, the Red Army build-up managed to deflect attention to the south-western part of the front, to Ukraine, giving out clever and seemingly bona-fide signals, which the Germans picked up with alacrity, of an impending operation against Field Marshal Walter Model’s Army Group North Ukraine.
Somehow, the Germans had also persuaded themselves that a Ukrainian offensive would best serve the Red Army’s operational objectives, and when reports of a large Soviet build-up in the front opposite Army Group Centre started to come in beginning early June, the German High Command viewed that build-up as a deception, thus playing fully into Soviet hands.
The deception was so complete that the Germans, incredibly, started shifting a lot of their fire-power, and a whole Panzer corps, from Busch’s command to Model’s. Thus, as the Red Army was rearing to go, Army Group Centre lost 15% of its divisions, 23% of its assault guns, and a staggering 50-88% respectively of its artillery and tank strength.
Somehow, the Germans had also persuaded themselves that a Ukrainian offensive would best serve the Red Army’s operational objectives, and when reports of a large Soviet build-up in the front opposite Army Group Centre started to come in beginning early June, the German High Command viewed that build-up as a deception, thus playing fully into Soviet hands.
The deception was so complete that the Germans, incredibly, started shifting a lot of their fire-power, and a whole Panzer corps, from Busch’s command to Model’s. Thus, as the Red Army was rearing to go, Army Group Centre lost 15% of its divisions, 23% of its assault guns, and a staggering 50-88% respectively of its artillery and tank strength.
Hitler had no answer to the Red Army’s T-34 tank. Hitler's descendants still don't.
And the Soviet build-up on the eve of Bagration was the War’s most massive – 4,000 tanks, 5,300 aircraft, and over 25,000 pieces of mortars, assault guns and other indirect-fire weapons gave the Red Army armour, artillery and air superiority of 10:1 at the assault point, even as two million troops faced off with about 500,000 German combatants.
This build-up necessitated reinforcements to the extents of 300%, 85% and 62% respectively in tank, artillery and aircraft strengths. Marshal Zhukov, one of Bagration’s heroes, recalls that the front needed to be supplied with 400,000 tonnes of ammunition, 300,000 tonnes of fuel and lubricants, and 500,000 tonnes of food and fodder before the battle.
It is a tribute to the Red Army’s organisational virtuosity that it managed to amass these enormous quantities of fire-power, accessories and provisions without giving their game away. Battle-hardened veterans Marshal Georgiy Zhukov and Marshal Alexander Vasilevskiy were made responsible for planning, coordinating and directing two fronts each: Zhukov for the two southern fronts (2nd and 1st Byelorussian) and Vasilevskiy for the two northern fronts (1st Baltic and 3rd Byelorussian). The front commanders were Generals Bagramyan (1st Baltic), Chernyakhovskiy (3rd Byelorussian), Zakharov (2nd Byelorussian) and Rokossovskiy (1st Byelorussian, the largest formation, also tasked with covering the most ground).
A vital component of the Soviet plan was parallel partisan warfare. By this phase of the War, Byelorussian partisans, numbering close to 150,000, were a formidable force, capable of paralysing German supply lines virtually at will and demolishing bridges, highways and railway installations whenever required. The wooded and often boggy terrain made parts of Byelorussia ideal partisan country. Now well-armed and well-provisioned by the Soviets, partisans set and carried out their operational objectives in coordination with the Red Army. In the days leading up to Bagration, they stepped up sabotage and demolition very significantly, waylaying all supplies meant for Army Group Centre but taking care to let supplies in the reverse direction pass unmolested.
The Soviets’ ‘deep operations’ – a concept borrowed from the ‘Deep Battle’ military theory first formulated by Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Alexander Svechin – worked with deadly effect in Bagration. Breakthroughs were achieved at several points in the enemy line by massive infantry-led attacks with heavy artillery and air support.
When holes had been punched in the German lines, armoured spearheads rushed through them and encircled the communications and supply centres by double envelopments. Waves of such attacks would follow in rapid succession, each spearhead delving deeper than the one before it, overtaking, overwhelming and encircling enemy formations at blinding speed, and keeping the enemy continually guessing which direction the next attack would come from.
All in all, Bagration was to cover a front stretching for more than 1,200 km from Lake Neshcherdo to the Pripyat, and 600 kms deep – from the Dnieper to the Vistula and the Narew. The first avalanche of attacks began on June 22, 1944 and by the morning of the 26th, Army Group Centre appeared to be falling apart. One after another, all the major town and cities occupied by Germany since 1941 were wrested from her control – Vitebsk, Bobruysk, Minsk, Slutsk, Mogilev, Borisov, Stolbtsy, Marina Gorka, Lublin….. All Byelorussia was freed, followed by large parts of East Poland and Lithuania and, in the second leg of the operation, those parts of the Ukraine which were still in German occupation. By 25 July, the Red Army had reached the Vistula.
On the way, it had stumbled upon the Majdanek death camp – the first concentration camp to be discovered – where the Nazis had murdered at least 80,000 people in cold blood. On July 28, the Red Army liberated the historic Brest fortress. Fully, 50 German divisions had been routed, 30 of them destroyed. In the operation’s second leg, after the 1st Ukrainian Front had joined the offensive, the Wehrmacht lost another 30 divisions, eight of which were wiped out.
Konstantin Rokossovskiy and Georgy Zhukov – two of Bagration’s heroes.
The virtual destruction of the Army Group Centre was Germany’s most calamitous defeat in the War. The Soviets could now sit calmly on the Vistula, reorganising and resupplying their forces, confident of their ability to drive to the Oder, the Neisse, and then on to Berlin.
The demoralised Germans, on the other hand – now obliged to fight on two full fronts – could only mount a weak defence along the Vistula. In an irony of history, Operation Bagration, which had begun on the third anniversary of Hitler’s most ambitious military campaign, had now sealed the Fuehrer’s fate.
The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.
Originally published on december 21, 2012 To judge the Soviet Union ahistorically is to do the work of anti-communists.
Soviet soldiers memorial.
The Soviet Union was a concrete example of what a publicly owned, planned economy could produce: full employment, guaranteed pensions, paid maternity leave, limits on working hours, free healthcare and education (including higher education), subsidized vacations, inexpensive housing, low-cost childcare, subsidized public transportation, and rough income equality. Most of us want these benefits. However, are they achievable permanently? It is widely believed that while the Soviet Union may have produced these benefits, in the end, Soviet public ownership and planning proved to be unworkable. Otherwise, how to account for the country’s demise? Yet, when the Soviet economy was publicly owned and planned, from 1928 to 1989, it reliably expanded from year to year, except during the war years. To be clear, while capitalist economies plunged into a major depression and reliably lapsed into recessions every few years, the Soviet economy just as unfailingly did not, expanding unremittingly and always providing jobs for all. Far from being unworkable, the Soviet Union’s publicly owned and planned economy succeeded remarkably well. What was unworkable was capitalism, with its occasional depressions, regular recessions, mass unemployment, and extremes of wealth and poverty, all the more evident today as capitalist economies contract or limp along, condemning numberless people to forced idleness. What eventually led to the Soviet Union’s demise was the accumulated toll on the Soviet economy of the West’s efforts to bring it down, the Reagan administration’s intensification of the Cold War, and the Soviet leadership’s inability to find a way out of the predicament these developments occasioned.
Every year, from 1928 to 1989, except during the war years, the publicly owned, planned Soviet economy reliably expanded, providing jobs, shelter, and a wide array of low- and no-cost public services to all, while capitalist economies regularly sank into recession and had to continually struggle out of them on the wreckage of human lives.
By the 1980s, the USSR was showing the strains of the Cold War. Its economy was growing, but at slower pace than it had in the past. Military competition with its ideological competitor, the United States, had slowed growth in multiple ways. First, R&D resources were being monopolized by the military, starving the civilian economy of the best scientists, engineers, and machine tools. Second, military spending had increased to meet the Reagan administration’s abandonment of detente in favour of a renewed arms race that was explicitly targeted at crippling the Soviet economy. To deter US aggression, the Soviets spent a punishingly large percentage of GDP on the military while the Americans, with a larger economy, spent more in absolute terms but at a lower and more manageable share of national income. Third, to protect itself from the dangers of relying on foreign imports of important raw materials that could be cut off to bring the country to its knees, the Soviet Union chose to extract raw materials from its own vast territory. While making the USSR self-sufficient, internal sourcing ensnared the country in a Ricardian trap. The costs of producing raw materials increased, as new and more difficult-to-reach sources needed to be tapped as the older, easy-to-reach ones were exhausted. Fourth, in order to better defend the country, the Soviets sought allies in Eastern Europe and the Third World. However, because the USSR was richer than the countries and movements it allied with, it became the anchor and banker to other socialist countries, liberation movements, and states seeking to free themselves from despoliation by Western powers. As the number of its allies increased, and Washington manoeuvred to arm, finance, and support anti-communist insurgencies in an attempt to put added strain on the Soviet treasury, the costs to Moscow of supporting its allies mounted. These factors—corollaries of the need to provide for the Soviet Union’s defence—combined to push costs to the point where they seriously impeded Soviet economic growth.
With growth slowing, and the costs of defending the country increasing, it appeared as if it was only a matter of time before the USSR would find itself between the Scylla of an untenable military position and the Charybdis of arms race-driven bankruptcy. Mikhail Gorbachev, the country’s last leader, faced a dilemma: he could either bankrupt the economy by trying to keep pace with the Americans on arms spending or withdraw from the race altogether. Gorbachev chose the latter. He moved to end the Cold War, withdrawing military support from allies, and pledging cooperation with the United States. On the economic front, he set out to transform the Soviet Union into a Western-style social democracy. However, rather than rescuing the country from a future of ever slowing economic growth, Gorbachev’s capitulations on foreign and economic policy led to disaster. With the restraining hand of the Soviet Union lifted, the United States embarked on a series of aggressions around the world, beginning with Iraq, proceeding to Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, and then Libya, with numerous smaller interventions in between. Gorbachev’s abandonment of economic planning and efforts to clear the way for the implementation of a market economy pushed the country into crisis. Within five years, Russia was an economic basket case. Unemployment, homelessness, economic insecurity and social parasitism (living off the labour of others) returned with a vengeance.
On Christmas Day, 1991, the day the USSR officially ended, Gorbachev said, “We live in a new world. The Cold War is finished. The arms race and the mad militarization of states, which deformed our economy, society and values, have been stopped. The threat of world war has been lifted” (Roberts, 1999). This made Gorbachev wildly popular in the West. Russians were less enthusiastic. Contained within Gorbachev’s words was the truth about why the world’s first conscious attempt to build an alternative to capitalism had been brought to a close. It was not because the Soviet economic system had proved unworkable. On the contrary, it had worked better than capitalism. The real reason for the USSR’s demise was that its leadership capitulated to an American foe, which, from the end of World War II, and with growing vigour during the Reagan years, sought to arms race to death the Soviet economy. This was an economy that worked for the bottom 99 percent, and therefore, if allowed to thrive, would have discredited the privately owned, market-regulated economies that the top one percent favoured and benefited from. It was this model of free enterprise and market regulation which made vast wealth, security and comfort the prerogatives of captains of industry and titans of finance, and unemployment, poverty, hunger, economic insecurity, and indignity—the necessary conditions of the top one percent’s riches—the lot of everyone else.
The 21 years since the defeat of the USSR have not been kind. Stalin, under whose tutelage the world’s first publicly owned, planned economy was built, once issued a prophetic warning: “What would happen if capitalism succeeded in smashing the Republic of Soviets? There would set in an era of the blackest reaction in all the capitalist and colonial countries. The working class and the oppressed peoples would be seized by the throat, the positions of international communism would be lost” (Stalin, 1954). And just as Stalin had accurately prophesied 10 years before Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the USSR, that his country had only 10 years to prepare for an attack, so too did he accurately foresee the consequences of the Soviet Union’s falling to the forces of capitalism. An era of the blackest reaction has, indeed, set in. Washington now has more latitude to use its muscular military to pursue its reactionary agenda around the world. Public ownership and planning hang on in Cuba and North Korea, but the United States and its allies use sanctions, diplomatic isolation and military harassment to sabotage the economies of the hold-outs (as they did the Soviet economy), so that the consequences can be falsely hung on what are alleged to be the deficiencies of public ownership and planning. They are in reality the consequences of a methodical program of low-level warfare. Encouraged to believe that the Soviet economic system had failed, many people, including both communist supporters and detractors of the Soviet Union, concluded that a system of public ownership and planning is inherently flawed. Communists abandoned communist parties for social democratic ones, or abandoned radical politics altogether. Social democrats shifted right, eschewing reform, and embracing neo-liberalism. In addition, Western governments, no longer needing to blunt the appeal of public ownership and planning, abandoned the public policy goal of full employment and declared robust public services to be no longer affordable (Kotz, 2001). At the same time, privatization in the former Soviet Union and formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe expanded the global supply of wage-labour, with predictable consequences for wage levels worldwide. The Soviet Union’s defeat has ushered in a heyday for capital. For the rest of us, our throats, as Stalin warned, have been seized.
The world’s largest capitalist economies have been in crisis since 2008. Some are trapped in an austerity death-spiral, some in the grips of recession, most growing slowly at best. Austerity—in reality the gutting of public services—is the prescribed pseudo-remedy. There is no end in sight. In some parts of Europe, official unemployment reaches well into the double-digits, youth unemployment higher still. In Greece, a country of 11 million, there are only 3.7 million employed (Walker and Kakaounaki, 2012). Moreover, the crisis can in no way be traced to an outside power systematically working to bring about capitalism’s demise, as the United States and its allies systematically worked to bring about the end of public ownership and planning in the USSR. Yet, free to develop without the encumbrance of an organized effort to sabotage it, capitalism is not working. Few point this out. By contrast, the Soviet model of public ownership and planning—which, from its inception was the target of a concerted effort to undermine it—never once, except during the extraordinary years of World War II, stumbled into recession, nor failed to provide full employment. Yet it is understood, including by some former supporters of the Soviet Union, to have been unworkable. Contrary to a widely held misconception, the experience of the Soviet Union did not demonstrate that an inherent weakness existed within its publicly owned, planned economy that doomed it to failure. It demonstrated, instead, the very opposite—that public ownership and planning could do what capitalism could not do: produce unremitting economic growth, full employment, an extensive array of free and nearly free public services, and a fairly egalitarian distribution of income. Moreover, it could do so year after year and continued to do so until the Soviet leadership pulled the plug. It also demonstrated that the top one percent would defend private ownership by using military, economic, and ideological means to crush a system that worked against them but worked splendidly for the bottom 99 percent (an effort that carries on today against Cuba and North Korea.)
The defeat of the Soviet Union has, indeed, ushered in a period of dark reaction. The way out remains, as ever, public ownership and planning—which the Soviet experience from 1928 to 1989 demonstrates works remarkably well—and struggle against those who would discredit, degrade or destroy it.
What Soviet public ownership and planning did for ordinary citizens of the USSR
The benefits of the Soviet economic system were found in the elimination of the ills of capitalism—an end to unemployment, inflation, depressions and recessions, and extremes of wealth and poverty; an end to exploitation, which is to say, the practice of living off the labour of others; and the provision of a wide array of free and virtually free public services.
Among the most important accomplishments of the Soviet economy was the abolition of unemployment. Not only did the Soviet Union provide jobs for all, work was considered a social obligation, of such importance that it was enshrined in the constitution. The 1936 constitution stipulated that “citizens of the USSR have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance with quantity and quality.” On the other hand, making a living through means other than work was prohibited. Hence, deriving an income from rent, profits, speculation or the black market – social parasitism – was illegal (Szymanski, 1984). Finding a job was easy, because labour was typically in short supply. Consequently, employees had a high degree of bargaining power on the job, with obvious benefits in job security, and management paying close attention to employee satisfaction (Kotz, 2003).
Article 41 of the 1977 constitution capped the workweek at 41 hours. Workers on night shift worked seven hours but received full (eight-hour) shift pay. Workers employed at dangerous jobs (e.g., mining) or where sustained alertness was critical (e.g. physicians) worked six or seven-hour shifts, but received fulltime pay. Overtime work was prohibited except under special circumstances (Szymanski, 1984).
From the 1960s, employees received an average of one month of vacation (Keeran and Kenny, 2004; Szymanski, 1984) which could be taken at subsidized resorts (Kotz, 2003).
All Soviet citizens were provided a retirement income, men at the age of 60, and women at the age of 55 (Lerouge, 2010). The right to a pension (as well as disability benefits) was guaranteed by the Soviet constitution (Article 43, 1977), rather than being revocable and subject to the momentary whims of politicians, as is the case in capitalist countries.
Women were granted maternity leave from their jobs with full pay as early as 1936 and this, too, along with many other benefits, was guaranteed in the Soviet constitution (Article 122, 1936). At the same time, the 1936 constitution made provision for a wide network of maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens, while the revised 1977 constitution obligated the state to help “the family by providing and developing a broad system of childcare…by paying grants on the birth of a child, by providing children’s allowances and benefits for large families” (Article 53). The Soviet Union was the first country to develop public childcare (Szymanski, 1984).
Women in the USSR were accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life (Article 122, 1936), including the equal right with men to employment, rest and leisure, social insurance and education. Among its many firsts, the USSR was the first country to legalize abortions, which were available at no cost (Sherman, 1969). It was also the first country to bring women into top government positions. An intense campaign was undertaken in Soviet Central Asia to liberate women from the misogynist oppression of conservative Islam. This produced a radical transformation of the condition of women’s lives in these areas (Szymanski, 1984).
The right to housing was guaranteed under a 1977 constitutional provision (Article 44). Urban housing space, however, was cramped, about half of what it was per capita in Austria and West Germany. The reasons were inadequate building in Tsarist times, the massive destruction of housing during World War II, and Soviet emphasis on heavy industry. Prior to the October Revolution, inadequate urban housing was built for ordinary people. After the revolution, new housing was built, but the housing stock remained insufficient. Housing draws heavily on capital, which the government needed urgently for the construction of industry. In addition, Nazi invaders destroyed one-third to one-half of Soviet dwellings during the Second World War (Sherman, 1969).
City-dwellers typically lived in apartment buildings owned by the enterprise in which they worked or by the local government. Rents were dirt cheap by law, about two to three percent of the family budget, while utilities were four to five percent (Szymanski, 1984; Keeran and Kenny, 2004). This differed sharply with the United States, where rents consumed a significant share of the average family budget (Szymanski, 1984), and still do.
Food staples and other necessities were subsidized, while luxury items were sold well above their costs.
Public transportation was efficient, extensive, and practically free. Subway fare was about eight cents in the 1970s, unchanged from the 1930s (Szymanski, 1984). Nothing comparable has ever existed in capitalist countries. This is because efficient, affordable and extensive public transportation would severely limit the profit-making opportunities of automobile manufacturers, petroleum companies, and civil engineering firms. In order to safeguard their profits, these firms use their wealth, connections and influence to stymie development of extensive, efficient and inexpensive public alternatives to private transportation. Governments, which need to keep private industry happy so that it continues to provide jobs, are constrained to play along. The only way to alter this is to bring capital under public control, in order to use it to meet public policy goals set out in a consciously constructed plan.
The Soviet Union placed greater stress on healthcare than their capitalist competitors did. No other country had more physicians per capita or more hospital beds per capita than the USSR. In 1977, the Soviet Union had 35 doctors and 212 hospital beds per 10,000 compared to 18 doctors and 63 hospital beds in the United States (Szymanski, 1984). Most important, healthcare was free. That US citizens had to pay for their healthcare was considered extremely barbaric in the Soviet Union, and Soviet citizens “often questioned US tourists quite incredulously on this point” (Sherman, 1969).
Education through university was also free, and stipends were available for post-secondary students, adequate to pay for textbooks, room and board, and other expenses (Sherman, 1969; Szymanski, 1984).
Income inequality in the Soviet Union was mild compared to capitalist countries. The difference between the highest income and the average wage was equivalent to the difference between the income of a physician in the United States and an average worker, about 8 to 10 times higher (Szymanski, 1984). The elite’s higher incomes afforded privileges no greater than being able to acquire a modest house and car (Kotz, 2000). By comparison, in 2010, Canada’s top-paid 100 CEOs received incomes 155 times higher than the average full-time wage. The average full-time wage was $43,000 (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2011). An income 10 times larger would be $430,000—about what members of the capitalist elite make in a single week. A factor that mitigated the modest degree of Soviet income inequality was the access all Soviet citizens had to essential services at no, or virtually, no cost. Accordingly, the degree of material inequality was even smaller than the degree of income inequality (Szymanski, 1984).
Soviet leaders did not live in the opulent mansions that are the commonplace residences of presidents, prime ministers and monarchs in most of the world’s capitals (Parenti, 1997). Gorbachev, for example, lived in a four-family apartment building. Leningrad’s top construction official lived in a one-bedroom apartment, while the top political official in Minsk, his wife, daughter and son-in-law inhabited a two-bedroom apartment (Kotz and Weir, 1997). Critics of the Soviet Union accused the elite of being an exploiting ruling class, but the elite’s modest incomes and humble material circumstances raise serious doubt about this assessment. If it was indeed an exploiting ruling class, it was the oddest one in human history.
The Soviet economy’s record of growth under public ownership and planning
From the moment in 1928 that the Soviet economy became publicly owned and planned, to the point in 1989 that the economy was pushed in a free market direction, Soviet GDP per capita growth exceeded that of all other countries but Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. GDP per person grew by a factor of 5.2, compared to 4.0 for Western Europe and 3.3 for the Western European offshoots (the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) (Allen, 2003). In other words, over the period in which its publicly owned, planned economy was in place, the USSR‘s record in raising incomes was better than that of the major industrialized capitalist countries. The Soviet Union’s robust growth over this period is all the more impressive considering that the period includes the war years when a major assault by Nazi Germany left a trail of utter destruction in its wake. The German invaders destroyed over 1,500 cities and towns, along with 70,000 villages, 31,000 factories, and nearly 100 million head of livestock (Leffler, 1994). Growth was highest to 1970, at which point expansion of the Soviet economy began to slow. However, even during this so-called (and misnamed) post-1970 period of stagnation, GDP per capita grew 27 percent (Allen, 2003).
While Soviet GDP per capita growth rates compare favorably with those of the major capitalist economies, a more relevant comparison is with the rest of the world. In 1928, the Soviet Union was still largely an agrarian country, and most people worked in agriculture, compared to a minority in Western Europe and North America. Hence, the economy of the USSR at the point of its transition to public ownership and planning was very different from that of the industrialized Western capitalist countries. On the other hand, the rest of the world resembled the Soviet Union in also being largely agrarian (Allen, 2003). It is therefore the rest of the world, not the United States and other advanced industrialized countries, with which the USSR should be compared. From 1928 to 1989, Soviet GDP per capita not only exceeded growth in the rich countries but exceeded growth in all other regions of the world combined, and to a greater degree. Hence, not only did the publicly owned, planned economy of the Soviet Union outpace the economies of richer capitalist economies, it grew even faster than the economies of countries that were most like the USSR in 1928. For example, outside its southern core, Latin America’s GDP per capita was $1,332 (1990 US dollars), almost equal to the USSR’s $1,370. By 1989, the Latin American figure had reached $4,886, but average income in the Soviet Union had climbed far higher, to $7,078 (Allen, 2003). Public ownership and planning had raised living standards to a higher level than capitalism had in Latin America, despite an equal starting point. Moreover, while the Soviet peacetime economy unfailingly expanded, the Latin American economy grew in fits and starts, with enterprises regularly shuttering their doors and laying off employees.
Perhaps the best illustration of how public ownership and planning performed better at raising living standards comes from a comparison of incomes in Soviet Central Asia with those of neighboring countries in the Middle East and South Asia. In 1928, these areas were in a pristinely pre-industrial state. Under public ownership and planning, incomes grew in Soviet Central Asia to $5,257 per annum by 1989, 32 percent higher than in neighboring capitalist Turkey, 44 percent higher than in neighboring capitalist Iran, and 241 percent higher than in neighboring capitalist Pakistan (Allen, 2003). For Central Asians, it was clear on which side of the Soviet Union’s border standards of living were highest.
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Soviet accomplishments in space, considered in light of the mistaken view that the USSR was always a poor second-best to the supposedly more dynamic United States, is truly startling. Soviet achievements include the first satellite, first animal in orbit, first human in orbit, first woman in orbit, first spacewalk, first moon impact, first image of the far side of the moon, first unmanned lunar soft landing, first space rover, first space station and first interplanetary probe. The panic created in Washington after the allegedly innovation-stifling Soviet economy allowed the USSR to beat its much richer ideological rival into space galvanized the United States to take a leaf from the Soviet book. Just as the Soviets were doing, Washington would use public funds to power research into innovations. This would be done through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The DARPA would channel public money to scientists and engineers for military, space and other research. Many of the innovations to come out of the DARPA pipeline would eventually make their way to private investors, who would use them for private profit (Mazzucato, 2011). In this way, private investors were spared the trouble of risking their own capital, as free enterprise mythology would have us believe they do. In this myth, far-seeing and bold capitalists reap handsome profits as a reward for risking their capital on research that might never pay-off. Except this is not how it works. It is far better for investors to invest their capital in ventures with less risk and quicker returns, while allowing the public to shoulder the burden of funding R&D with its many risks and uncertainties. Using their wealth, influence and connections, investors have successfully pressed politicians into putting this pleasing arrangement in place. Free enterprise reality, then, is based on the sucker system: Risk is “socialized” (i.e., borne by the public, the suckers) while benefits are “privatized” (by investors who have manipulated politicians into shifting to the public the burden of funding R&D.)
A study by Block and Keller (2008) found that between 1971 and 2006, 77 out of R&D Magazine’s top 88 innovations had been fully funded by the US government. Summarizing research by economist Mariana Mazzucato, Guardian columnist Seumas Milne (2012) points out that the
[a]lgorithms that underpinned Google’s success were funded by the public sector. The technology in the Apple iPhone was invented in the public sector. In both the US and Britain it was the state, not big pharma, that funded most groundbreaking ‘new molecular entity’ drugs, with the private sector then developing slight variations. And in Finland, it was the public sector that funded the early development of Nokia – and made a return on its investment.
Nuclear power, satellite and rocket technology, and the internet are other examples of innovations that were produced with public money, and have since been used for private profit. US president Barack Obama acknowledged the nature of the swindle in his 2011 State of the Nation Address. “Our free-enterprise system,” began the president, “is what drives innovation.” However, he immediately contradicted himself by saying, “But because it’s not always profitable for companies to invest in basic research, throughout history our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support that they need.”
All of this points to two important facts. (1) The United States kick-started innovation in its economy by emulating the Soviet model of state-directed research because free enterprise was not up to the task. (2) Rather than emulate the Soviet model for public benefit, the United States channels public money into R&D for private profit. From the second point can be inferred a third: The fact that the Soviets socialized the benefits that flow from socialized risk, while the United States privatizes them, reflects the antagonistic nature of the two societies: One, a mass-oriented society organized to benefit the masses; the other, a business society organized to benefit a minority of business owners. Capitalism, as the US president acknowledges, does not promote innovation, because “it is not always profitable for companies to invest in basic research.” On the other hand, state-directed funding is the source of innovation. Clearly, then, a political agenda has nurtured two myths: (a) That a system of public ownership and planning stifles innovation; (b) That the profit system stimulates it.
Why growth slowed
While the Soviet economy grew rapidly from 1928 to 1989 it never surpassed the economies of North America, Western Europe and Japan. Consequently, the USSR’s per capita income was always less than that of the industrialized capitalist economies. The comparative disadvantage in incomes and living standards was falsely attributed to the alleged inefficiencies of public ownership and planning, rather than to the reality that, having started further back than the rich capitalist countries, the Soviet Union had more ground to cover. When the race began in 1928, the Soviet Union was still a largely agrarian country while the United States was industrialized. Hence, the Soviet Union had to cover ground the United States had already covered when Russia was under the stifling rule of Tsarist tyranny. Moreover, it had to do so without riches extracted from other countries, as the United States, Britain, France and Japan had based part of their prosperity on exploiting their own formal and informal empires (Murphy, 2000). True, the USSR did have an empire of sorts—countries in Eastern Europe over which it exercised hegemony, but, except in the early post-WWII years, these countries were never exploited economically by the Soviet Union. If anything, the Soviets, who exported raw materials to Eastern Europe in return for manufactured goods, came out on the losing end of its trade relationship with its satellites. So long as they remained part of the Warsaw Pact—a defensive alliance formed after and in response to the creation of NATO—and maintained some semblance of public ownership and planning, Moscow allowed its Eastern European allies to chart their own course. Soviet hegemony, then, was limited to enforcing these two conditions (Szymanski, 1979).
By the mid-1970s there was serious concern in Washington that the Soviet economy was on a course to overtake that of the United States. Since Washington always pointed to the United States’ greater average income and higher living standards to mobilize the allegiance of its population to the free enterprise system, a Soviet lead would deal a mortal blow to the legitimacy of US capitalism. Careful estimates prepared in the United States showed that Soviet gross national product was gaining on that of the United States. In 1950, the Soviet economy was only one-third the size of the US economy but had grown to almost one-half only eight years later (Sherman, 1969). From the perspective of planners in Washington in the late 1950s, the danger loomed that at current rates of growth, the Soviet economy would overtake the US economy by 1982. At that point, the entire foundation of the US population’s belief in the legitimacy of free enterprise—that it produced higher living standards than public ownership and planning—would crumble. Something had to be done.
By 1975, the CIA estimated that the Soviet economy was 60 percent as large as the US economy (Kotz and Weir, 1997). However, Soviet economic growth was starting to slow. According to figures provided by Allen (2003), Soviet GDP per capita grew at an annual rate of 3.4 percent from 1928 to 1970, but at less than half that rate, 1.3 percent, from 1970 to 1989. Had the United States, alarmed at being beaten into space, and agitated by what seemed to be the very real prospect of being overtaken economically by the USSR, set out to sabotage Soviet economic progress?
The Cold War was never going to be kind to Soviet growth prospects. Soviet leaders recognized that a planned, publicly owned economy was an anathema to the captains of industry and titans of finance who use their wealth and connections to dominate policy in capitalist countries. The USSR had been invaded multiple times, and on two occasions by aggressive capitalist powers with the objective of wiping the Soviet system off the map. In order to deter future aggressions, it was necessary to keep pace militarily. Therefore, the Soviet Union struggled as best as it could to achieve a rough military parity to maintain a peaceful coexistence with its capitalist neighbours (Szymanski, 1979).
However, the smaller size of the Soviet economy relative to that of its ideological competitors created problems.The necessity of maintaining a rough military parity would mean spending a far higher percentage of GDP on the military compared to what the United States and other NATO countries spent on their armed forces. Resources that could otherwise have been deployed to industrial expansion to help the country catch up economically had instead to be channelled into self-defence (Murphy, 2000). From the 1950s through the 1970s, the Soviets spent 12 to 14 percent of their GDP on the military (Szymanski, 1984; Allen, 2003), a figure that would grow even higher later, when the Reagan administration hiked US military spending, anticipating a Soviet effort to keep up that would harm the USSR’s economy.
Another constraint imposed on the Soviet economy by the need to deter military aggression was the monopolization of R&D resources by the military. Keeping pace militarily involved an unceasing battle to catch up to US military innovations. When the United States exploded the first atom bomb in 1945, the Soviet Union raced to match the United States’ grim scientific feat, which it did four years later. The US introduction of the hydrogen bomb in 1952 was quickly followed by the Soviets exploding their own hydrogen bomb a year later. A US first in submarine-launched nuclear missiles was matched by the USSR a few years after. No major weapon was developed by the USSR first, with a single exception—the ICBM. Unlike the United States, the USSR had no military bases ringing its ideological rival, and therefore needed a way of delivering nuclear warheads over long distances. However, the aim was self-defence, and that the Soviet Union was usually in catch-up mode on weapons systems demonstrated that the United States was spurring the Cold War forward, not the USSR. For the Soviets, the Cold War was economic poison. For the Americans, the Cold War was a way to ruin the Soviet economy. [And make enormous profits.—Ed]
Because self-defence was a priority, the USSR’s best scientists and engineers were channelled into the military sector (Sherman, 1969). Soviet consumer goods were often said to have been of low quality, but no one ever said the same about Soviet military equipment. The reason why is clear: the military got first dibs on the best minds and best equipment and was never short of funding. There is a subsidiary point: high-quality Soviet arms were produced by a system of public ownership and planning, despite the myth that such a system is incapable of producing high-quality goods (Kotz, 2008). The necessity of channelling the bulk of, and best, R&D resources to the military meant that other sectors suffered, and GDP growth was impeded. For example, the Soviets floundered in their efforts to increase petroleum production because the metals, machinery, scientists and engineers needed to boost oil output were detailed to the military sector (Allen, 2003). Half of the machine tools produced and at least half of the R&D expenditures were going to the defence industry (Schweizer, 1994).
Another reason for the post-1975 slowdown in the Soviet economy was that the USSR had become ensnared in a Ricardian trap (Allen, 2003). The Soviet Union had an abundant supply of all the raw materials an industrial economy needed, and at first, they were easy to reach and therefore could be obtained at low cost. For example, in the early years of the USSR’s industrialization, open pit mines were dug near industrial centres. Minerals were close to the surface and could be transported over short distances to nearby factories. Therefore, production and transportation costs were minimal. However, over time, the minerals that were close to the surface were scooped out and pits became deeper and narrower. At deeper depths, the quantity of minerals that could be extracted diminished and the costs of reaching them increased. Eventually, the mines were exhausted, and new mines had to be opened, but at greater distances from industrial centres, which meant higher costs to transport raw materials to factories. The Soviet petroleum industry was equally caught in a Ricardian trap. In the early 1970s, the USSR was spending $4.6 billion per year to maintain its oil industry. As oil became more difficult to reach, the Soviets had to drill deeper and through harder rocks. Costs increased, reaching $6.0 billion by the end of the decade. By the early 1980s, costs had climbed to $9.0 billion a year (Schweizer, 1994). The Soviets could have escaped the Ricardian trap by shopping around for less expensive imports. However, that would have left them vulnerable to supply disruptions. The United States and its allies—who would always be hostile to the USSR, except when expediency dictated temporary alliances or easing of tension—could interdict raw materials heading to the USSR to bring the Soviet economy to its knees or extort concessions. In other words, given the very high likelihood that the United States would exploit opportunities to place the Soviet Union at a disadvantage, shopping around for cheap imports, rather than implementing a policy of resource self-sufficiency, was not a realistic option.
Another reason the Soviet economy slowed was that the costs to the USSR to support its allies began to mount to unsustainable levels. One way to bolster self-defence is to find friends who share the same enemy, and the Soviet Union set out to expand its alliance of friends by providing economic and military assistance to countries and movements hostile to the forces of reaction. In doing so, it became the banker for national liberation movements, Eastern European socialist countries, and various Third World countries seeking to escape and remain free from domination by powerful capitalist states. By 1981, the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies had 96,000 economic advisers in 75 countries and 16,000 military advisers in 34 countries, together with a contingent of 39,000 Cuban troops in Africa, an army for which Moscow was ultimately footing the bill. At the same time, the Soviets were picking up the tab for 72,000 Third World students enrolled in Soviet and East European universities (Miliband, 1989). By 1980, Moscow was spending $44 billion a year on its allies (Keeran and Kenny, 2004). It gave $4.5 billion in aid to Warsaw from August 1980 to August 1981 alone to help contain the US-supported Solidarity movement (Schweizer, 1994). Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan was draining the Soviet treasury to the tune of $3 to $4 billion per year. In other words, the costs of sustaining allies had grown enormous, raw material costs were mounting, the best scientists, engineers and machine tools were being monopolized by the military, and military expenditures were consuming a punishingly large percentage of national income.
A large part of the predicament the Soviets found themselves in was due to a decision the Reagan administration had taken to try to cripple the Soviet economy. In October 1983, US president Ronald Reagan unveiled what would become known as the Reagan Doctrine. “The goal of the free world must no longer be stated in the negative, that is, resistance to Soviet expansionism,” announced the US president. Instead, the “goal of the free world must instead be stated in the affirmative. We must go on the offensive with a forward strategy of freedom” (Roberts, 1999). This was a declaration of the end of détente. The gloves were off.
More formally, the Reagan Doctrine was spelled out in a series of national security decision directives, or NSDDs. NSDD-66 announced that it would be US policy to disrupt the Soviet economy, while NSDD-75 committed the United States to trying to drive up costs in the Soviet economy in order to plunge the USSR into a crisis. The Soviet economy was to be squeezed, and one of the ways was to induce Moscow to increase its defence budget (Schweizer, 1994). A hi-tech arms race would be the key. It would not only force Moscow to divert more resources to the military, but would channel even more of the USSR’s scientists, engineers, machine tools, and budget into military R&D, reducing productive investments and hobbling the civilian economy even more than the Cold War already had. The aim was to force the USSR “to expend precious lifeblood to run a race against a more athletic foe” (Schweizer, 1994), a foe which had a larger economy and more resources to last the race because it had started at a higher level of development and was plundering various countries around the world of their riches.
Over the first six years of his presidency, Reagan more than doubled US military expenditures, buying 3,000 warplanes, 3,700 strategic missiles, and close to 10,000 tanks (Schweizer, 1994). To keep up, Soviet military spending, previously at 12 to 14 percent of GDP, started to climb. Already twice as large as the United States’ as a percentage of national income (Silber, 1994) the defence budget grew larger still. Military expenditures increased by 45 percent in five years, considerably outpacing growth in the Soviet economy. By 1990, the Soviets were spending more than 20 percent of the country’s GDP on defence (Englund, 2011). At the same time, Moscow increased its military R&D spending nearly two-fold. In the spring of 1984, Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko announced that ‘the complex international situation has forced us to divert a great deal of resources to strengthening the security of our country” (Schweizer, 1994).
Meanwhile, the Reagan administration had taken a page out of Che Guevara’s book. The Argentine revolutionary had called for not one, not two, but three Vietnams, to drain the US treasury. Turning Che’s doctrine against communism, CIA Director Bill Casey called for not one, not two, but a half a dozen Afghanistans. To bog down the Soviets in “their own Vietnam,” the Afghan mujahedeen were showered with money and arms. In Poland, financial, intelligence, and logistical support was poured into the Solidarity movement, forcing Moscow to increase support to the Polish government (Schweizer, 1994).
The Soviet media complained that the United States wanted to impose “an even more ruinous arms race,” adding that Washington hoped the Soviet economy would be exhausted (Izvestiya, 1986). Soviet foreign secretary Andrei Gromyko complained that the United States’ military build-up was aimed at exhausting the USSR’s material resources and forcing Moscow to surrender. Gorbachev echoed Gromyko, telling Soviet citizens that,
The US wants to exhaust the Soviet Union economically through a race in the most up-to-date and expensive space weapons. It wants to create various kinds of difficulties for the Soviet leadership, to wreck its plans, including in the social sphere, in the sphere of improving the standard of living of our people, thus arousing dissatisfaction among the people with their leadership (Schweizer, 1994).
Capitulation
By the mid-1980s, it was clear in both Washington and Moscow that the Soviet Union was in trouble. It was not that the system of public ownership and planning was not working. On the contrary, recognizing the advantages of the Soviet system, the United States itself had emulated it to stimulate innovation in its own economy. Moreover, the Soviet economy was still reliably expanding, as it had done every year in peacetime since Stalin had brought it under public control in 1928. However, defending the country in the face of a stepped up Cold War was threatening to choke off economic growth altogether. It was clear that Moscow’s prospects for keeping pace with the United States militarily, while at the same time propping up allies under attack by US-fuelled anti-communist insurgencies and overthrow movements, were far from sanguine. The United States had manoeuvred the Soviet Union into a trap. If Moscow continued to try to match the United States militarily, it would eventually bankrupt itself, in which case its ability to deter US aggression would be lost. If it did not try to keep pace, it could no longer deter US aggression. No matter which way Moscow turned, the outcome would be the same. The only difference was how long it would take the inevitable to play out.
Gorbachev chose to meet the inevitable sooner rather than later. His foreign affairs adviser, Anatoly Chernayaev, recalls that it was “an imperative for Gorbachev that we had to put an end to the Cold War, that we had to reduce our military budget significantly, that we had to limit our military industrial complex in some way” (Schweizer, 1994). The necessity of reining in the defence budget was echoed by another Gorbachev adviser, Aleksandr Yokovlev, who would later recall that “It was clear that our military spending was enormous and we had to reduce it” (Blum, 1995). Gorbachev therefore withdrew support from allies and pledged cooperation with the United States. This was a surrender. The capitulation was hidden behind honeyed phrases about promoting international cooperation and fostering universal human values, but the rhetoric did not hide the fact that Gorbachev was throwing in the towel. He described the surrender as a victory for humanity, declaring that he had averted “the threat of nuclear war,” ended the “nuclear arms race,” reduced “conventional armed forces,” settled “numerous regional conflicts involving the Soviet Union and the United States,” and replaced “the division of the European continent into hostile camps with … a common European home” (Gorbachev, 2011). In reducing the threat of a global nuclear conflagration, Gorbachev had indeed achieved a victory for humanity. However, the victory was brought about by caving in to the United States, which was now free to run roughshod over countries that were too weak to refuse US demands that they yield to US political, military and economic domination.
On domestic matters, Gorbachev—who identified himself with the virtually social democratic position of the Italian Communist Party (Hobsbawm, 1994)—tried to turn the Soviet Union into a Western-style social democracy (Roberts, 1999). He cited the need to reverse the slowdown in the Soviet economy as his rationale for the transition (Gorbachev, 1988). Economic growth had certainly slowed, and there was indeed a danger that continued slow growth would threaten the country’s position vis-à-vis its capitalist rivals. However, Gorbachev’s solution amounted to, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” The planning apparatus, which had unfailingly charted a course for unremitting growth during peacetime, was dismantled, in order to move the economy toward regulation by market forces. Rather than boosting economic growth, as Gorbachev hoped, the abandonment of planning did the very opposite. The economy tumbled headlong into an abyss, from which the USSR’s successor countries would not emerge for years. As one wag put it, “Stalin found the Soviet Union a wreck and left it a superpower; Gorbachev found it a superpower and left it a wreck.” Gorbachev is still widely admired in the West, but his popularity stops at the Russian border. A March 2011 poll found that only one in 20 Russians admire the Soviet Union’s last leader, and that “perestroika,” the name for Gorbachev’s move toward a market economy, “has almost purely negative connotations” (Applebaum, 2011).
The superior system
With few exceptions, what passes for serious discussion of the USSR is shot through with prejudice, distortion, and misconception. Locked in battle with the Soviet Union for decades, Washington deliberately fostered misunderstandings of its ideological foe. The aim was to make the USSR appear bleak, brutal, repressive, economically sluggish and inefficient—not the kind of place anyone of sound mind would want to emulate or live in. Today, scholars, journalists, politicians, state officials, and even some communists repeat old Cold War propaganda. The Soviet economy, in their view, never worked particularly well. However, the truth of the matter is that it worked very well. It grew faster over the period it was publicly owned and planned than did the supposedly dynamic US economy, to say nothing of the economies of countries that were as undeveloped as the USSR was in 1928, when the Soviet economy was brought under public control. The Soviet economy was innovative enough to allow the USSR to beat the United States into space, despite the United States’ greater resources, an event that inspired the Americans to mimic the Soviet Union’s public support for R&D. Moreover, the Soviet system of public ownership and planning efficiently employed all its capital and human resources, rather than maintaining armies of unemployed workers and inefficiently running below capacity, as capitalist economies regularly do. Every year, from 1928 to 1989, except during the war years, the Soviet economy reliably expanded, providing jobs, shelter, and a wide array of low- and no-cost public services to all, while capitalist economies regularly sank into recession and had to continually struggle out of them on the wreckage of human lives.
The US National Intelligence Council warns ominously that a crisis-prone world economy could produce chaos and distress on an even greater scale than the last crisis (Shanker, 2012). Offering a “grim prognosis” on the world economy, the UN warns of “a new global recession that mires many countries in a cycle of austerity and unemployment for years” (Gladstone, 2012). Yet at the same time, we are told that the Soviet economy never worked, and that capitalism, with its regular crises, and failure to provide employment, food, clothing and shelter to all, is both the only game in town and the superior system. Clearly, it is neither superior—on the contrary, it is clearly inferior—nor it is the only choice. Not only can we do better, we have done better. It is time to tear down the wall of politically engineered misconceptions about public ownership and planning. For too long, the wall has kept us from seeing a viable alternative model to capitalism whose track record of unequalled success points to a realistic and possible future for the bottom 99 percent—a future free from unemployment, recessions, extremes of wealth and poverty, and where essential goods and services are available at no cost to all.
Allen, Robert C (2003). Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution, Princeton University Press, 2003.
Applebaum, Binyamin (2012). “A shrinking military budget may take neighbours with it”, The New York Times, January 6, 2012.
Block, Fred and Keller, Matthew R (2008). “Where do innovations come from? Transformations in the U.S. national innovation system, 1970-2006,” Technology and Innovation Foundation, July 2008. http://www.itif.org/files/Where_do_innovations_come_from.pdf
Blum, William (1995). Killing Hope: U.S. Military Interventions since World War II, Common Courage Press, 1995.
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (2011). “Hennessy’s Index”, February, 2011.
Englund, Will (2011). “Gorbachev in London: Credit, no cash”, The Washington Post, July 16, 2011.
Gladstone, Rick (2012). “U.N. presents grim prognosis on the world economy,” The New York Times, December 18, 2012.
Gorbachev, Mikhail (2011). “Is the world really safer without the Soviet Union?” The Nation, December 21, 2011.
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Stephen Gowans is an independent political analyst whose main interest is on who influences foreign policy in the United States. His book, Washington’s Long War on Syria(Baraka Books, 2017), was widely acclaimed.
ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS
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Aviation History: Interview with World War II Soviet Ace Ivan Kozhedub
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USSR WW2 Air Ace Ivan Kozhedub Interviewed by Aviation History
Air Marshal Ivan Kozhedub was one of only two Soviet fighter pilots to be awarded the Gold Star of a Hero of the Soviet Union three times during World War II. The other, Aleksandr Pokryshkin, had flown from the German invasion in the summer of 1941 through the end of the war, during which time he scored 59 aerial victories in MiG3s, Bell Airacobras, Lavochkin La-5s and Yakovlev Yak-9Us.
Ironically prevented from fighting because his skill as a pilot made him more useful as an instructor, Kozhedub did not fly his first combat mission until March 26, 1943. On February 19, 1945, he became the only Soviet pilot to shoot down a Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter and, on April 19, 1945, he downed two Focke-Wulf Fw-190s to bring his final tally to 62–the top Allied ace of the war.
Ivan's loyal warhorse, the Lavochkin-7
In contrast to Aleksandr Pokryshkin, Ivan Kozhedub is associated with a single fighter type, the series of radial engine, wooden aircraft designed by Semyen Lavochkin. The last of them, La-7 No. 27, has, like its pilot, survived to graceful retirement in the airplane’s case at the Monino Air Museum. (See below)
AH:Could you share with us something about your youth and education?
Kozhedub: I was born on June 8, 1920, in the village of Obrazheyevska, Shostka district of the Sumy region in the Ukraine. I was the youngest of five children in our family. I had a hard time when I was a child and never had enough to eat as a teen-ager. I had to work all the time back then. My only toys were handmade stilts, a rag ball and skis made of barrel planks.
In 1934, I finished a seven-year school. At first, I wanted to go to art school in Leningrad, but realized that I’d hardly get through. For two years, I attended a school for young workers. In 1940, I graduated from the Shostka chemical technical school.
AH:When, then, did you develop an interest in aviation?
Kozhedub: A craving for the skies, which I could not identify as such at the time, was probably born in my heart when I was around 15. It was then that airplanes from a local flying club began to crisscross the sky over the village of Obrazheyevska. Later on, no matter what I might be doing–solving a difficult math problem or playing at ball–I would forget instantly about everything as soon as I heard the rumble of an aircraft motor.
AH:A lot of people are fascinated by aviation, but what caused you to take the big step from enthusiast to participant?
Kozhedub: In the 1930s, the Komsomol (Young Communist League) was a patron of aviation and, naturally enough, we were all crazy about flying. I remember well the words of my school teacher: ‘Choose the life of an outstanding man as a model, and try to follow his example in everything.’ For me, a boy of 16, and for thousands of other Soviet teen-agers, the famous pilot Valery Chkalov was such a man. The whole world admired his bold long-distance flights in the Tupolev ANT-25, such as his 1936 flight from Moscow to Udd Island, Kamchatka–9,374 kilometers in 56 hours, 20 minutes–or his shorter but more hazardous flight of 8,504 km in 63 hours, 16 minutes from Moscow to Vancouver, Wash., via the North Pole, on June 18-20, 1937. He was also a fearless test pilot, and it was during a test flight that he lost his life on December 15, 1938.
Realizing full well that it would be difficult to attend a technical school and learn to fly at the same time, I still filed an application at the local club. That was in 1938, when the Japanese violated the Soviet frontier near Lake Khasan. That fact strengthened my desire to receive a second profession that would be needed in the event of war.
AH:Can you describe your training? How many flying hours did it take to qualify as a pilot? Was your training typical for a Soviet pilot, civil or military?
Kozhedub's LA-7 in midair
Kozhedub: At the beginning of 1940, 1 was admitted to the Chuguyev military aviation school. It was the beginning of a new life for me. At the flying club, we had just been working on the ABCs, whereas at the school, serious training was buttressed by tough military discipline. At our school, to become a pilot you had to fulfill a flying quota of about 100 hours.
AH:What was your perception of the state of Soviet aviation and general military preparedness prior to and in the months following the German invasion?
Kozhedub: Of course, we were young at the time. We believed that our country was absolutely ready to rebuff any aggression. Any fighting on our own territory was considered unthinkable. Everything we read or heard over the radio about the war to the west seemed very remote to us. We realized what had happened much later. Every report about the retreat of our troops made our hearts bleed.
AH:Did the Soviet Army Air Force (VVS-RKKA) undergo any changes in structure, philosophy or strategy during the war years? If so, what changes did you notice?
Kozhedub: The experience of hostilities in the early months of the war required a change in the tactics and organizational structure of fighter aviation. The famous formula of air-to-air combat was: ‘Altitude-speed-maneuver-fire.’ A flight of two fighters became a permanent combat tactical unit in fighter aviation. Correspondingly, a flight of three planes was replaced with a flight of four planes. The formations of squadrons came to include several groups, each of which had its own tactical mission (assault, protection, suppression, air defense, etc.). The massive use of aviation, its increasing influence on the course of combat and operations, required that its efforts be concentrated in those major specialties.
Fighter air corps making up part of air armies were set up for that purpose. Hundreds of fighters took part in crucial tactical and strategic operations. Quite often, air-to-air combat developed into a virtual air battle. The arsenal of combat methods used by Soviet fighter aces came to include vertical maneuvers, multilayered formations and others. Out of the 44,000 aircraft lost by Germany on the Soviet-German front, 90 percent were downed by fighters.
AH:Did you request a transfer to the front as a combat flier, or were you given such duty by your commanders?
Kozhedub: I requested a transfer to the front more than once. But the front required well-trained fliers. While training them for future battles, I was also training myself. At the same time, it felt good to hear of their exploits at the front. In late 1942, I was sent to learn to fly a new plane, the Lavochkin LaG-5. After March 1943, I was finally in active service.
AH:What was your first impression of the LaG-5, your first combat aircraft? Did it have any special quirks or idiosyncrasies?
Kozhedub: I got LaG-5 No. 75. Like other aircraft of our regiment, it had the words ‘Named after Valery Chkalov’ inscribed on its fuselage. Those planes were built on donations from Soviet people. But my plane was different. Other fliers had aircraft with three fuel tanks, which were lighter and more maneuverable, whereas my five-tank aircraft was heavier. But for a start its potential was quite enough for me, a budding flier. Later on, I had many occasions to admire the strength and staying power of this plane. It had excellent structural mounting points and an ingenious fire-fighting system, which diverted the exhaust gases into the fuel tanks, and once saved me from what seemed certain death.
AH:Did you know anything of the less-successful predecessor of the LaG-5, the LaGG-3? Did you ever fly that plane and, if so, how did it compare with the later Lavochkins?
Kozhedub: All those planes were one family. So naturally enough, every new generation flew higher and farther. However, I did not fly the LaGG-3 myself. I know this plane was designed by Lavochkin together with his colleagues, Gorbunov and Gudkov, in 1940. It had a water-cooled engine, and like all early models, was not faultless. Its successors, the La-5 and La-7, accumulated combat experience. They had air-cooled engines and were much more reliable.
AH:To what unit were you first assigned? How were you received by the men of the regiment?
Kozhedub: My first appointment was to the 240th Fighter Air Regiment (Istrebitelsky Aviatsy Polk, or IAP), which began combat operations on the first day of the war, on the Leningrad front. Since many graduates of the Chuguyev school served there, I did not feel out of place, not even at the beginning. Our pilot personnel included people of many nationalities. There were Belorussians, Tartars, Georgians, Russians and Ukrainians. We were all like one big family.
AH:What was the typical strength and organization of a Soviet VVS regiment (Polk) or squadron (Eskadril) during World War II?
Kozhedub: Since the war was teaching us its bitter lessons, we had to change tactics as we went along. Thus, considering the experience of the first battles, the Air Force went over from 60-plane regiments, which appeared to be too heavy, to regiments consisting of 30 fighters (three squadrons). Practice showed that this structure was better, both because it made the commander’s job easier and because it ensured higher flexibility in repelling attacks.
AH:Your first week of combat was over the Kharkov sector, during the last great Soviet defeat prior to the decisive battle of Kursk. Allegedly, you yourself were badly shot-up during your first combat by German fighters. What was the state of morale among you and your comrades at this time?
Kozhedub: In my first combat, I did not get a single scratch, but my plane was badly damaged. My commander said, with good reason, ‘Make haste only when catching fleas.’ I did not heed his advice. It seemed to me I could down at least two or three enemy planes at one go. Carried away by the attack, I did not notice an umbrella of Messerschmitt Bf-110s approaching me from behind. Of course, that was a bitter experience and a serious lesson for me.
Despite general failures, our morale was quite high. Many, like myself, had their families in Nazi-occupied territory. We were all thirsting for revenge.
AH:What was your impression of the skill and courage of your Luftwaffe opponents at this time–and later? Did you perceive any changes in their skill and élan between 1943 and 1945?
Kozhedub: The sinister colors of the German Messerschmitt Bf-109s and Focke-Wulf Fw-190s with the drawings of cats, aces, arrows and skulls on their sides, were designed to scare Soviet pilots witless. But I didn't pay much attention to them, trying to guess as soon as possible the plans and methods of my enemy, and find weak spots in his tactics. However, I always respected the courage of the German aces. It would have been stupid to underrate the enemy, especially at the start of the war.
German Messerschmitts
After August 1943, the supremacy in the air finally went over to the Soviet pilots and, by the end of the war, we were locking horns with hastily trained youths more and more often. The onetime conceit of invincibility claimed by Göring’s aces had gone up in smoke.
AH:How did Soviet and German aircraft compare throughout the war? What type of enemy aircraft did you have a particular respect for?
Kozhedub: In combat potential, the Yak-3, La-7 and La-9 fighters were indisputably superior to the Bf-109s and Fw-190s. But, as they say, no matter how good the violin may be, much depends on the violinist. I always felt respect for an enemy pilot whose plane I failed to down.
AH:Describe a typical ‘day’s work’ for a Soviet fighter pilot. How many sorties did you normally fly per day?
Kozhedub: The phrase ‘day’s work’ does not fit in here, for we had to fly all day long. I myself was surprised at the potential endurance of the human body in an emergency. Three to four sorties a day during an offensive was quite routine. True, one sortie would be very different from the next.
AH:Your first success was over Kursk on July 6, 1943. What were the circumstances of that victory’?
Kozhedub: We were ordered to attack a group of Junkers Ju-87 dive bombers. I chose a ‘victim’ and came in quite close to it. The main thing was to fire in time. Everything happened in a twinkling. It was only on the ground, among my friends, that I recalled the details of this battle. Caution is all-important and you have to turn your head 360 degrees all the time. The victory belonged to those who knew their planes and weapons inside out and had the initiative. On July 7, I downed a second plane and, on July 8, I destroyed another two Bf-109 fighters.
AH:The Battle of Kursk involved thousands of aircraft in a mammoth struggle for tactical control over the battlefield. What role did you and your comrades play toward the Soviet victory?
Kozhedub: In actual fact, I had my true baptism of fire near Kursk. We escorted bombers, fought enemy fighters and neutralized air defense batteries. The battle for Kursk was a landmark in the development of the forms and methods for operational and tactical use of Soviet aviation in the war years. In its first defensive stage, our airmen flew 70,219 sorties. Tactical aviation accounted for 76 percent of the total, long-range aviation for 18 percent, and air defense fighters for six percent. During that period, they destroyed 1,500 enemy planes. Our losses were 1,000 aircraft. During the counteroffensive, our flyers made 90,000 sorties, about 50 percent of which were designed to support attacking troops, and 31 percent to achieve supremacy in the air. The enemy lost up to 2,200 planes in that time.
AH:To what do you attribute your growing success thereafter?
Kozhedub: Young pilots often ask how they can learn to fly a fighter quickly; I came to the conclusion that the main thing is to master the technique of pilotage and firing. If a fighter pilot can control his plane automatically, he can correctly carry out a maneuver, quickly approach an enemy, aim at his plane precisely and destroy him. It is also important to be resourceful in any situation. At the first stage of combat skill, I dreamt of downing an enemy plane–the tactics of an air battle were theory to me. The second stage began with the training at the front before the Battle of Kursk. The fighting near the Kursk bulge was a new stage. The battle for the Dnieper was yet another.
Having become the commander of a squadron, I began to lead groups of planes and direct the actions of pilots during combat. The next stage was called lone-wolf operations. Being deputy commander of the regiment from the 1st Belorussian Front, I flew together with another pilot to the front lines in search of targets. There were many more stages like these. It is never too late to learn.
AH:On May 2, 1944, you received an La-5FN specially dedicated ‘In the name of Hero of the Soviet Union Lt.Col. N. Koniyev.’ You allegedly scored eight victories in seven days flying this aircraft. How much of an improvement over the La-5 was that La-5FN?
Kozhedub: It was, practically speaking, a simplified version of the La-5 developed in the same year, 1942. It had a boosted engine with direct fuel injection But it was important to me for different reasons. Vasily Koniyev, a beekeeper from the Bolshevik collective farm (Budarin district, Stalingrad region), bought it with his own money and asked that it be named after the nephew of the famous Marshal Vasily Konev, killed at the beginning of the war. Indeed, this plane was a lucky one for me. Out of the eight Nazi aircraft I destroyed while flying it, five were the much-vaunted Fw-190s.
AH:In July 1944, you were posted to the 1st Belorussian Front as vice commander to the 176th Guards Fighter Regiment, and received La-7 No. 27, in which you would score your final 17 victories. What were your command responsibilities; did they affect your flying habits?
Kozhedub: At first, I was upset by my new appointment but only until I found out that I could fly with aces who went on lone-wolf operations. Day in and day out, we would fly in the morning and analyze our sorties back at the squadron's at noon. At 9 p.m., we used to gather in the canteen, where the commander gave an account of the results of the day. In this regiment, I also began to team up with Dmitry Titarenko.
The 176th Guards Fighter Regiment carried out 9,450 combat missions, of which 4,016 were lone-wolf operations; it conducted 750 air battles, in which 389 enemy aircraft were shot down.
AH:How did the La-7 compare with its La-5-series predecessors?
Kozhedub: The La-7 had top-notch flying characteristics. It was a very obedient plane, which attained a high speed by the standards of those days. I must say that the La-7, the La-9 and Yak-3 were perfect planes. Their characteristics virtually reached the ceiling for piston-engine planes.
AH:For a wooden airplane, La-7 No. 27 must have been a sturdy and reliable airplane to serve you faithfully over 10 months of combat. What was the key to the robustness of these aircraft?
Kozhedub: The Lavochkins were simple, reliable aircraft. I met with their designer, Semyon Lavochkin, and visited plants where they were built. He always listened attentively to all remarks. The margin of safety was so great that, while pursuing the enemy, I exceeded the estimated loads without thinking twice. I was certain that the plane wouldn’t let me down. I reached speeds of 700 kilometers per hour (434 mph) and even more on it. The La-7 was an upgraded version of the quite good La-5FN, which had the M-82FN engine. Lavochkin modified the design of the airfoil, changed the locations of the aircooling intakes, and upgraded the design of the central part of the wings.
AH:What were the circumstances of your success over the Me-262?
Kozhedub: On February 19, 1945, 1 was on a lone-wolf operation together with Dmitry Titorenko to the north of Frankfurt. I noticed a plane at an altitude of 350 meters (2,170 feet). It was flying along the Oder at a speed that was marginal for my plane. I made a quick about-face and started pursuing it at full throttle, coming down so as to approach it from under the ‘belly.’ My wingman opened fire, and the Me-262 (which was a jet, as I had already realized) began turning left, over to my side, losing speed in the process. That was the end of it. I would never have overtaken it if it had flown in a straight line. The main thing was to attack enemy planes during turns, ascents or descents, and not to lose precious seconds.
AH:What of your last combat, with Lieutenant Titorenko on April 19, 1945?
Kozhedub: On the evening of April 17, we went on a lone-wolf operation over the suburbs of Berlin. All of a sudden we saw a group of 40 Fw-190s with bomb loads, flying at an altitude of 3,500 meters in our direction. We climbed to the left and flew behind them under the cover of clouds. The odds were obviously not in our favor, but we still decided to attack since the enemy aircraft were heading for our troops. At maximum speed, we approached the tail of the formation, out of the sun. I opened fire almost point-blank at the wingman of the last pair of aircraft. The first Fw-190 fell into the suburbs of the city. Several planes turned to the west, while others continued their flight.
We decided to drive a wedge into the combat formation and break it up. Making a steep dive, we swept past enemy planes. As often happened in such cases, the Nazis thought that there were a lot of us. Confused, they started jettisoning bombs. Then they formed a defensive circle–each fighter covering the tail of the one in front of him–and began to attack us. Titorenko skillfully downed the plane that followed me. At that point, we saw our fighters and we turned for home. But suddenly, we saw yet another Fw-190 with a bomb. Apparently, the pilot had received a warning, for he made a quick dive and jettisoned his bomb over the suburbs of Berlin. But I still reached him on the recovery from his dive. The plane literally burst in the air. We made a good landing but our fuel tanks were completely empty. After that battle, I brought my personal score of downed Nazi planes to a total of 62.
AH:What were the highlights of your career in the VVS after August 18, 1945, when you were awarded your third Gold Star?
Kozhedub: After graduating from the Academy, I occupied several different high posts. But I always considered the training of young pilots my chief responsibility. It gave me a kind of satisfaction that could possibly only compare with one more gold star.
AH:Have you any comment on the present state of the art of Soviet aviation, military or civil?
Statue honoring Kozhedub at the air academy
Kozhedub: The Air Force is equipped with powerful and reliable aircraft, and a new generation of airliners is coming to civil aviation. That is beyond doubt. But still the main role is played by the person who is in charge of this perfect hardware–the pilot.
AH:In retrospect, which did you consider the better Soviet fighter design–the La-5 series or the Yak9 series?
Kozhedub: I always preferred the La-5s and always considered them the best ones. When I was a bit younger, I often went to Monino, about 25 miles northeast of Moscow, where my La-7 is on display at the National Air Museum. I would sit in its cabin, and life would seem more cheerful. For me, it is the time machine that takes me back to my youth, to the formidable ’40s.
AH:What do you consider to have been the best fighter airplane–regardless of nationality–of World War II?
Kozhedub: The La-7. I hope you understand why.
AH:As a flier, if you had a choice of any airplane in the world, old or new, which one would you most like to fly?
Kozhedub: My choice is the Buran–the Soviet space shuttle. I don’t know a better plane. This wonder plane was developed in the last decade, literally before my very eyes. Aviation is said to be the cradle of cosmonautics, and with good reason.
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