By Vestnik Kavkaza
Today many Russian historians believe that reconsideration of the results of World War II is beneficial for the forces which dream about a monopolar world order, but they need historical arguments for this. Yuri Nikiforov, head of the scientific department of the Russian Military and Historical Society, thinks that “the modern hysteria of the West in respect of the current policy of the Russian Federation, as well as some propaganda campaigns, are pretexts for forming for the Europeans the image of an enemy, manifested by Russia. This is another round, the escalation of which we can observe today. This cannot be done without the involvement of historical facts. It’s impossible to make a full-fledged image of an enemy relying on the modern and current facts, the events that took place today, or a year ago. It must be done with the help of deep involvement of the historical facts.”
Speaking about the common struggle of China and Russia against fascism and militarism, Nikiforov notes that it is intended more to defend several theses in this information-ideological confrontation. Theses which Moscow considers as reasonable, objective and corresponding to the criteria of the historical science.
Firstly, there is the thesis that objective conditions for strategic partnership and cooperation between the Soviet Union and China existed at the time of the pre-war period and then during World War II. It was not Stalin’s whim or that of the Chinese leadership at that period of time. It was an objective reality. The Soviet Union and China were fated by the conditions of their existence to become partners, collaborators and friends.
The second thesis relates to the Soviet Union’s policy in the pre-war period, I mean the traditional understanding: from 1939 till 1941. At the time of World War II, it was not aimed at promoting civil confrontation in China. “It is a lie when our foreign, and especially Western colleagues try to show Stalin's policy in the way that he deliberately provoked the strengthening of the Communist Party of China, supported it diplomatically, manipulated it in order to foment internal conflict in China. Documents of the Russian Foreign Ministry indicate that in all cases Stalin constantly supported the point of view that under those circumstances a civil conflict in China was not advantageous to anyone. Stalin was for a united and centralized China, and he didn't want to allow China to be divided into several parts by the end of the war, and the conflict was continued,” Nikiforov thinks.
According to him, “it was not the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that determined the results of the war, but the Soviet Union joining the war had a very serious, significant and determining influence for the war to be over in 1945. If we can together defend these theses in the common mass of information warfare, we can expect that our children will be able to receive an honest and unfalsified history of World War II.”
