07) A SALUTE TO STALINGRAD

People's Voice Editorial

     This month marks the 70th anniversary of one of the most important battles in history. On February 2, 1943, the German Sixth Army surrendered at Stalingrad to the Soviet Red Army, the beginning of the end for Hitler's "thousand year reich". Five months of ferocious fighting had cost the Hitler war machine over 800,000 casualties and vast quantities of aircraft, tanks and artillery. Defending the strategically crucial city cost the Red Army over a million casualties, plus thousands of civilians. But there were no more fascist victories on the eastern front, and the drive to Berlin was under way.

     For millions of citizens of the former USSR, Stalingrad is remembered as the turning point in the life and death struggle against Nazi occupation. Those who deny the world‑historic nature of the 1917 socialist revolution should recall that the Great Patriotic War of 1941‑45 was won under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Unlike most of the European capitalist countries which surrendered to Hitler fascism, the Soviet people fought back with enormous loyalty to their homeland and their socialist way of life.

     We must never forget that 27 million Soviet citizens died in the Second World War. The Soviet Union played the main part in the defeat of fascism, and its heroic example inspired huge post‑war struggles for trade union rights, democratic freedoms, and liberation from colonialism. The victory at Stalingrad literally opened the way for decades of progressive gains for the working class in Canada and other capitalist countries. For all these reasons, progressives must always condemn the lie that communism is a "totalitarian" ideology. The truth is that the red flag of the working class and human freedom was raised at Stalingrad by the Soviet Army, against the most monstrous capitalist regime in history.

(The following articles are from the February 15-28, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)