Fundamentals of Western Understanding of the Soviet Union

The basis of today’s western historiography of the Soviet Union is the enormous propaganda campaign launched by the Soviet Union during Khrushchev’s era. The 20^th Party Congress was seen as a major turning point by the western observers. They were so amazed by the fact that Khrushchev and other high-ranking leaders of the USSR were openly criticizing Stalin, that they missed the whole point of this congress. They failed to see that this criticism came only after Stalin had died, and was aimed solely to transfer all the misfortunes of the Soviet people to him, thus clearing Khrushchev and the party from responsibility.

Khrushchev’s era was a crucial turning point for WWII history as well. The propaganda was highly intensified and enriched by more false assumptions, all aimed at showing how unprepared the Soviet Union was for war. Khrushchev himself was screaming how there was only one rifle per three soldiers available. Most prominent figures that were executed during the Great Purge were rehabilitated in 1956. Part of this rehabilitation included the launching of new books and articles about them, re-publishing some of their works as well. Since the central point of the new propaganda campaign was to show Stalin as a stupid and blood-thirsty dictator, all these rehabilitated people, were presented as great military minds, statesmen, and intellectuals who had fallen victims to Stalin’s blind terror. Since, (according to the Khrushchev’s propagandists) Stalin was stupid and he knew that, he was afraid of anyone smarter or more intelligent than him, thus he eliminated them. By doing so, he decapitated the Red army, and caused the enormous losses at the start of the German invasion.

Since, Tukhachevsky was the “genius” to suggest to Stalin that the Red army needed modernization and more tanks, but he, just like many, had been purged, he was chosen to be the leading figure in this absurd campaign. This all fitted well with the main goal of Soviet propaganda, which was hiding and denial of any responsibility for World War II. The Soviets were stupid, unprepared peasants, all the smart people were purged by Stalin, and thus they became an innocent victim to the German world domination aggression. Doesn’t it sound wonderful?

The problem is that this propaganda was basically swallowed by the thirsty western historians. Once swallowed, they continued to build upon it, to publish “milestone” works and to build careers. After years of doing so, however, times changed, the Soviet Union went down, and leaked enough information in the process to basically write off 90% of what has been published so far.

The situation is so controversial, that instead of people asking the established historians, where is their proof of all the assumptions they have based their works upon, we have people asking if we have enough archival evidence for revising the historiography! Who in his right mind would imagine possible that the entire literature published for half a century is complete non-sense? As always is, such news are difficult to swallow, since they represent the historic truth, and not the pre-constructed propaganda which the Soviet Union so generously offered to the world.

To all of you who believe that freedom of speech and democracy is a system which would automatically protect you from propaganda, I strongly suggest: think again!