Tag Archives: USSR

Demonstration in Moscow on November 7, 1991 – And yes, “We Need New Octobers”

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On November 7, 1991, despite the fact that Yeltsin banned festive demonstrations in honour of the anniversary of the October Revolution, thousands of Soviet citizens took to the streets with red flags. The most massive protests took place in Moscow and Leningrad, which had already been renamed St. Petersburg by the fake democrats. In the capital, tens of thousands of people even managed to get into the closed off Red Square.

Today, the words of these ordinary Muscovites and Leningraders about the innumerable troubles that were in store for the working people under capitalism seem like a terrible prophecy. But they could not even imagine that in a few months their country would be erased from the world map, and the lives of millions of people would be destroyed.


Backup at Rumble.
Translated by Putinger’s Cat
Source: Communist World

«We Need New Octobers»

New AI song from our comrades at the RED channel, performed live by Friedrich Engels on bass, Iosif Stalin on drums, Karl Marx lead vocals, Rosa Luxenbourg lead guitar, and Vladimir Lenin rhythm guitar and vocals.

The Great October Socialist Revolution stands as humanity’s unique breakthrough on the path to liberation from exploitation. In an age when imperialist war drenched the world in blood, workers and poor peasants rose up and took power into their own hands to build a life free from the exploitation of one human being by another. October showed that working people could determine their own destiny and change the world. The path it opened reached far beyond the land of its birth, strengthening the struggle for equality and freedom across the globe.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union did not erase the historical legitimacy or continuing relevance of this breakthrough. In the face of capitalism, which breeds war, exploitation and poverty, humanity’s need for liberation endures. Only new Octobers, new socialist revolutions that establish workers’ power—can carry humanity forward.

«We Need New Octobers» is a song of this conviction and determination. It is a call to carry October’s legacy into today’s organised struggle, to build a world of bread, peace and brotherhood with our own hands. For the future is in the hands of those who come together to create it.Organise! Be ready! Together, let us march toward new Octobers!

This is our wealth, and we must preserve it!
A 1982 poster by A. Vaganov, dedicated to the policy of careful and rational use of all resources. Source.

Lyrics: «We Need New Octobers»
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November 6 in the days of the War

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November 6 – the day before the celebration of the Great October Socialist Revolution – saw many significant events during the span of the great Patriotic War of 1941 – 1945. We marked them at “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”, and are bringing them to the Beehive!

«Our cause is just – Victory will be ours!»

Drawing by artist Vladimir Vinokur, 1948: «Stalin’s speech on November 6, 1941, at the Mayakovskaya metro station»

On November 6, 1941, the famous speech by Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and Head of the State Defense Committee of the USSR, was broadcast throughout the country from the Mayakovskaya metro station.

Stalin’s speech was short but meaningful. The Soviet leader announced the failure of the Nazi blitzkrieg, the reasons for the temporary setbacks of the Red Army, and the inevitability of victory in the war.

With the Wehrmacht storming the nearest approaches to Moscow, it was decided to hold a solemn meeting of the Moscow City Council of Workers’ Deputies dedicated to the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution in deep secrecy. The decision on this was made only on November 3, 1941. This was due to the situation at the front, with battle for Moscow raging. It was also necessary to make sure that the weather would prevent the Luftwaffe from launching a massive bombing attack on the Soviet capital, spoiling the celebration.

Due to concerns about secrecy and security, the event was held at a different location than the usual venue, the Bolshoi Theatre. Instead, it was held at the deepest metro station at the time, Mayakovskaya, which served as a bomb shelter for the residents of Moscow.

On November 5, the metro station was prepared for the arrival of guests. In the evening, the station was closed to passengers entering and leaving. Trains passed through Mayakovskaya without stopping. Late in the evening, representatives of the Supreme Command Headquarters and the State Defence Committee arrived at the station for a check, accompanied by Stalin himself.

On November 6, preparations continued: chairs were brought and placed at the station, the floor was covered with carpets and rugs, and posters were hung. The place for the presidium was set up in front of the escalators, where there was no exit from the station (the medical center was located there). A podium was set up, a raised platform with a table for the members of the presidium was installed, and a portrait of Stalin was hung on the end wall, with a bust of Lenin placed in front of it. Technicians connected microphones to the loudspeakers placed at the station, ensuring that everyone could hear the speech of the head of the Soviet Union. Radio broadcasting equipment was set up.

The tunnel leading from the Gorkovskaya station to the Belorusskaya station was de-energized. A special train of 10 cars was placed on the tracks, with tables set up for the event’s participants. A wardrobe, an orchestra for the concert, which was scheduled to begin after the ceremony, and recording equipment were also set up. The tracks leading from the opposite side of the station were free. High-ranking guests were expected to arrive there.
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The FSB declassified the archive about the Nazi executions of Poles and the falsification of the “Katyn case”

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On April 11, 2024, the FSB declassified the archive about the Nazi executions of Poles and the falsification of the Katyn case. The archive includes information, intelligence and special reports from SMERSH counterintelligence, dated 1944-1945.

This article combines translations of the publications by TASS and Zvezda News. Before the articles, we include an image gallery with 18 machine translated pages (containing inevitable translation inaccuracies) of some of the documents, along with their original versions (at the end of the article).

Foreign Agen Intel Telegram channel put it well in their post about the publication:

The truth always comes out eventually.

We can add it to a long list of crimes committed by Germany over the years. Blaming Stalin and the USSR was always convenient, both to Nazi Germany and their NATO successors. Just like we see today’s politicians in the West blaming everything from rising prices to earthquakes on Russia, so it was the case then. Nothing changed.

It also shows us how the NATO alliance is built on American and British coercion, rather than any natural mutual interests. The whole of Europe has always been at each others’ throats over the tiniest of disagreements. Yet today they aspire to lecture Russia and virtue signal about their superior morals.

Convincing their “allies” that Russia is the enemy was America’s greatest trick – you’ve been had. You Poles, you Czechs, you Latvians, you Finns and so on.

See also:

The FSB Directorate for the Smolensk Region has declassified archival documents on crimes committed by the Nazis in the region during the Great Patriotic War, including materials on the executions of Poles and the falsification of the Katyn case by the German special services.
– TASS, April 11,2024

A TASS correspondent got acquainted with copies of documents submitted to the “State Archive of the Modern History of the Smolensk Region” as part of the “No Statute of Limitations” project.

The archive includes information, intelligence and special reports from Smersh counterintelligence, dated 1944-1945. A significant part of the documents are made up of interrogation protocols of Poles who served with the Germans in the Smolensk region; the forensic medical expert of the Budapest City Royal Court, Imre Sechody; a member of the commission investigating the murder of Polish officers in the Katyn forest, Boleslav Smektal; and others involved.
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The All-Union Parade of Athletes on August 12, 1945

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It is the victorious year of 1945.

Our Cause is Just – We Have Won!

For the first time since the end of the Great Patriotic War, a parade of athletes is taking place on the Red Square. The leaders of the country are standing on the podium of the Mausoleum. There are representatives of foreign countries in the guest stands. The delegations of all the republics in national costumes are marching in columns. This parade was supposed to symbolise the revival of the pre-war tradition, which was not so much a sporting event as an ideological one.
While this was parade of the Victors.


Backup at Rumble.

Stalin Prize for 1945 in the field of chronicle and documentary cinematography went to cameramen Semenov S.A., Makaseev B.K., Shchekutyev A.G., Monglovsky Yu.V. for the colour film “Athlete Parade of 1945”

At the conclusion of the parade, all the participants sing the Anthem of the Soviet Union.

One of the testimonies found on the Internet:

To prepare for this show, my uncle was recalled from the front back in March 1945. He said it was then that he realised that the war was about to end. The daily schedule, training and good nutrition for six months made them real athletes. Everything took place in secrecy. He was even forbidden to tell anything about his residence in the sports camp and what he was doing to his relatives. He wrote that he was beating Germans in Austria, in Germany. In short, whatever Levitan would be saying.

👉 Watch also the pre-War “Blooming Youth” Athlete Parades from 1937, 1938 and 1939.

First translated to Beorn And The Shieldmaiden TG channel

Stalin: “From now on we shall know what kind of allies we are dealing with.”

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A full year passed after the telegram exchange between Winston Churchill and Stafford Cripps, where Churchill cynically laid the blame on the USSR for the start of WWII, and where Britain adopted a wait-and-see position. No second front was still forthcoming.

Iosif Stalin was fully aware of what kind of allies Britain and the USA were, as becomes apparent from the following two telegrams, sent by him to the USSR ambassador to Great Britain, I.M. Maisky on October 19 and 28, 1942.

Telegram from the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, I.V. Stalin, to the USSR ambassador to Great Britain, I.M. Maisky, on the intentions of the head of the British government, W. Churchill

From the Electronic Library of Historical Documents.

October 19, 1942
We all have the impression in Moscow that Churchill is pursuing a course aimed at the defeat of the USSR, in order to then conspire with Hitler’s Germany or Breuning at the expense of our country. Without such an assumption, it is difficult to explain Churchill’s behaviour on the issue of the second front in Europe, on the issue of arms supplies to the USSR, which are progressively declining despite the growth of production in Britain, on the issue of Hess, whom Churchill apparently keeps in reserve, and finally on the issue of the systematic bombing of Berlin by the British during September, which Churchill proclaimed in Moscow and which he did not fulfill one iota, despite the fact that he certainly could have done it.
I. Stalin

Soviet-British relations during the Great Patriotic War 1941 – 1945: Documents and materials: In 2 volumes. Vol. 1. 1941 – 1943. Moscow, 1983. p. 294.

It is noteworthy that as early as August 30, 1941 — a whole month before the Churchill-Stafford communication — I.V. Stalin wrote to I.M. Maisky:

“In fact, the British government is helping the Nazis with its passive wait-and-see policy. The Nazis want to beat their opponents one by one — the Russians today, the British tomorrow. The fact that England applauds us and scolds the Germans with the last words does not change the matter at all. Do the British understand this? I think they do. What do they want? They seem to want to weaken us. If this assumption is correct, we need to be careful about the British.”

(Soviet-British relations… Vol. 1. p. 109)

A follow-up telegram from I.V. Stalin to I.M. Maisky with arguments in favour of his point of view that W. Churchill is aiming for the defeat of the USSR

From the Electronic Library of Historical Documents.

London. Sov.Embassy. For Maisky.
October 28, 1942

I have received your suggestions. I found a lot of interesting and instructive things in them. A number of your suggestions coincide with the events we have planned.

I still think that, being a proponent of an easy war, Churchill will easily succumb to the influence of those who are pursuing a course aimed at the defeat of the Soviet Union, because the defeat of our country and compromise with Germany at the expense of the Soviet Union is the easiest form of war between Britain and Germany.

Of course, the British will later realise that without the Russian front on the continent of Europe, if France fails, they, i.e. the British, are doomed to perish. But when will they realise this?

We shall see in due course.

I doubt that the British would support the Northern operation. They’re just talking about it for show.

Churchill told us in Moscow that by the beginning of the spring of ’43, about a million Anglo-American troops would open a second front in Europe. But Churchill seems to be one of those figures who easily make a promise, in order to just as easily forget about it or even blatantly break it.

He also solemnly promised in Moscow to bomb Berlin intensively during September-October. However, he did not fulfil his promise and did not even try to inform Moscow about the motives for non-fulfilment.

Well, from now on, we shall know what kind of allies we are dealing with.

I have little faith in Operation Torch. If, contrary to expectations, this operation ends successfully, we can come to terms with the fact that they took away our planes for this operation.

I spoke to Wilkie and informed Roosevelt that in the next 12 months we will need to receive 2 million tons of wheat from the United States. Wilkie said that the United States doesn’t know what to do with its bread and that our request is quite feasible. Roosevelt responded positively, but did not offer anything concrete. Your proposal to involve Canada in this matter is absolutely correct, as Canada also doesn’t know what to do with its bread.
STALIN

“Stalin and Churchill. Meetings. Talks. Discussions: Documents, comments. 1941 – 1945.” 2004. Page 378.

Georgy Zhukov: “Not one step back – this is the Motherland’s combat order to us, the defenders of Moscow…”

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November 1, 1941 – Commander of the Western Front General Georgy Zhukov and member of the Front’s Military Council Nikolai Bulganin gave the order: “Not one step back – this is the Motherland’s combat order to us, the defenders of Moscow. This is what Comrade Stalin ordered… Deal mercilessly with cowards and deserters.”

At the command post of the Western Front in the fall of 1941. In the photo: G.K. Zhukov, N.A. Bulganin, V.D. Sokolovsky

A month after the start of Operation Typhoon, the situation at the front was becoming critical: the Nazi invaders managed to encircle a large group of Soviet armies near Vyazma, take Kalinin and other cities on the outskirts of Moscow. The capital was under siege, and enterprises and institutions were being evacuated.

Despite the difficult situation, there was no intention of surrendering the capital – Stalin and the top leadership of the state remained in the city, all city services continued to function, and on November 1, 1941, the troops of the Western Front were given order number 051, signed by the commander of the Western Front Zhukov and member of the Front’s Military Council Bulganin:

«FIGHTING FRIENDS, RED ARMY SOLDIERS, COMMANDERS AND POLITICAL WORKERS!

In these harsh days, the Motherland, our people and our Great STALIN have entrusted us with the protection of our native and beloved MOSCOW. The Motherland has entrusted us with a responsible and honourable task: to become an indestructible wall and block the path of the German hordes to our capital.

Not one step back — this is the Motherland’s combat order to us, the defenders of Moscow.
This is what Comrade Stalin ordered… Deal mercilessly with cowards and deserters.»

This order was important for maintaining discipline in the troops and raising the morale of soldiers and officers. The slogan “Not one step back!” had a strong psychological impact and emphasised that there was no land beyond Moscow, that it was necessary to fight to the death.
With the help of tough wording and measures, Commander Zhukov managed to stop the enemy’s advance, and already on December 5, the troops of the Western Front launched a counteroffensive, during which the enemy was thrown back hundreds of kilometers from Moscow — Operation Barbarossa failed.
Source: CPRF

The order of the Commander of the Western Front troops on the further mobilisation of all forces to repel the enemy

The complete text of the order as presented at the Electronic Library of Historical Documents, with the text sourced from “G.K.Zhukov in the Battle of Moscow. A Collection of Documents”, 1994, pages 33-34.

“That’s how it was… and that’s how it will be!” Poster by Nikolai Dolgorukov, 1941. Source: digital exhibition of the Nekrasov library, “The Artists of Victory”.

November 1, 1941

Active army

A month has passed since the Nazi invaders launched their offensive. The Hitlerite hordes are straining every effort and are madly rushing towards Moscow. The troops of the Western Front, who have the historic task of defending Moscow, are putting up heroic resistance to the enemy onslaught.
In heavy bloody battles, defending every inch of their native land, their families, their children, fathers and mothers, defending their freedom and independence, our troops repel this onslaught of the enemy. Every step forward is taken by the Germans at the cost of enormous losses.
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Churchill’s cynicism towards war-torn Russia

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The following material is based on a post from the channel “WWII Day by Day”. We did some additional research, locating the texts of the mentioned telegrams. Kudos to ЭТО Я for the lead and inspiration, plus DeepSeek AI for the detective work assistance.

October 28, 1941: The entire double game of England is revealed in the telegram exchange of the British ambassador to Moscow, Sir Stafford Cripps, and the British PM, Winston Churchill.

On October 26, the British Ambassador to Moscow, Stafford Cripps, sent a telegram to the Foreign Office in London, explicitly stating what the Prime Minister needed to understand:

  1. The Russians do not trust England; they know that London is waiting for them to do everything for the English.
  2. The English (the delegation that participated in the Moscow Conference at the end of September) did not bother to explain anything at the military level. And there were people who could have done so.

Harold Lionel Ismay, a British general from 1940 to 1945, was the chief military advisor to Churchill. He was in Moscow and participated in the Moscow Conference of the three powers from September 29 to October 1. Cripps explains to Churchill that the lack of proper staff-level negotiations leads to a fatal misunderstanding by the Russians of the motives of the British. In a report on the conference, prepared by Ismay himself, it was written:

“No negotiations on military matters were held with the Russian General Staff…”

Ismay only exchanged a few words with Stalin informally during a reception at the Kremlin. Stalin already told the British generals that Great Britain must have a strong and large land army:

“The entire situation in Europe has changed. England will never be able to rely solely on its fleet…”

Cripps, in general, understands everything and feels a certain moral wrongness. He writes frankly: “…We have never honestly explained our own position to them…” In other words, England was never honest with the USSR during the war, says the ambassador in Moscow!

Winston Churchill discussed this telegram with members of the British government on the night of October 27-28. And on October 28, he sent a fantastically cynical response telegram to Cripps. This is a set of instructions to him as a diplomat — the official British position. Moreover, Churchill, knowing Cripps’s character and understanding that he belonged to a different faction of the British elite, stated that he did not really want to talk about what he was writing publicly, but he was willing to do so if Cripps “gave him out”.

The telegram is also interesting because it contains the exact words that are now repeated by some of our “historians”… well, those who tirelessly call for repentance for all “Stalin’s mistakes in World War II” and in general “for its outbreak”… Read it, it’s just a manual of talking points.
Keep in mind that this is the same Churchill who, on June 22, 1941, publicly said something completely different on the radio! The one who promised to help in every way possible, but so far has not helped at all… because the Germans are at the gates of Moscow, and it seems like this is the end for the Russians… they are to blame for it themselves…

♦️ ♦️ ♦️

A partial text of Stafford Cripps’ telegram to Winston Churchill, October 26, 1941

The complete text of the telegram is not available in English on the Internet. We found the Russian translation containing five paragraphs of the telegram at the Electronic Library of Historical Documents. It is sourced from the 2015 book “The Road to Great Victory. USSR through the eyes of the Western contemporaries: Documents and Materials”, which in turn source archive number “TNA, PREM 3/395/6”. Below we present a reverse translation of the text to English.
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Brands of the Soviet Era: “The Baikal-Amur Mainline”

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On October 27, 1984, the official opening of through train service along the entire Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) took place.


Backup at Rumble.

In 1924, at the Council of Labour and Defence of the USSR, there was talk about the need to build a railway mainline parallel to the Trans-Siberian Railway, located further from the border, in the interior of the country. Two years later, topographic reconnaissance of the area began. The name “Baikal-Amur Mainline” was first mentioned in a 1930 project. Two years later, the Sovnarkom of the USSR made a final decision on its construction. At that time, the first meters of rails were laid. Even before the start of the Great Patriotic War, a second track was laid on the BAM.

However, in 1941, the already laid tracks were dismantled and used for the construction of a railway mainline along the Volga. In the post-war years, the construction of the BAM continued.

By the early 60s, more than 1,150 out of 4,000 kilometers of the BAM route were put into operation. In 1973, the Vostochny port was opened, which became the sea gate of the mainline.

1974 was the year of the second birth of the BAM. On April 24 of that year, the 17th Congress of the VLKSM opened in the Kremlin, and the Komsomol took over the supervision of the construction of the BAM. Subsequently, the BAM became known as named after Lenin Komsomol. The country’s leadership understood that it was impossible to build a railway on enthusiasm alone, in tents, without modern technology. The Komsomol members received decent salaries. For 2-3 years of work on the BAM, they could save up for a car and a cooperative apartment. But in interviews, former BAM workers, one and all, repeat that what attracted them most was the romance and the opportunity to become a participant in a large-scale project.
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The CIA first tested the Maidan technology 70 years ago in Hungary

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Channel FKT – Geschichte der Sowjetunion — History of the Soviet Union — details the run-up to the attempted fascist coup in Hungary in October of 1956. The publication translated by us at “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

👉 Read also our prior multi-part article The Hungarian “Revolt” of 1956 – a detailed historical look at the events!

On July 18, 1956, the country’s leadership resigned due to street protests. Three months later, a bloody coup took place there. The American intelligence service had been preparing this special operation for eight years.

Declassified archival documents reveal the intentions of the secret operations of the USA, reports the writer and intelligence historian Gennadi Sokolov.

THE COLD WAR

♦️The experience with organising subversive activities against the USSR is still well utilised by US intelligence agencies today. In modern history, again against Russia with the Ukrainian Maidan.

❓ How did the Maidan protests begin back then?

In Washington, it was not immediately realised that they were necessary. Initially, the goal was set to directly destroy the former ally in World War II. For this purpose, US President Harry Truman already in September 1945, the year of victory, ordered the Pentagon to develop Operation “Totality”. It was planned to drop 196 atomic bombs on the 20 largest cities and industrial centers of the USSR.

However, the enthusiasm of the American generals was dampened by the possible heavy losses of the famous “Flying Fortresses” – B-29 bombers with atomic bombs – in attacks on Soviet cities. According to Pentagon estimates, up to 55 percent!

Military experts also warned that in the event of a conflict, the Soviet tank armies stationed in Eastern Europe would reach the Atlantic coast within one to two weeks! This was also a restraining factor. However, the development of similar secret plans for a nuclear war against the USSR continued (“Chariot,” “Fleetwood,” “Trojal,” “Dropshot,” etc.).

The appearance of the atomic bomb in the USSR in 1949 forced the American “hawks” to retreat to avoid a nuclear counterstrike from Moscow. The plans for a “hot” war were replaced by a “cold” war.

Overseas, a whole complex of measures was developed in various areas:

  1. Geopolitics – founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NATO under the aegis of the USA in 1949.
  2. Economy and finance – introduction of the Bretton Woods system after the war, based on the dollar instead of gold, as well as the Marshall Plan in 1948.
  3. Propaganda – broadcasting of the radio stations “Radio Free Europe” and “Radio Liberty” in the countries of the Socialist Bloc since 1953.
  4. Secret subversive activities – founding of the CIA’s Special Operations division in 1948.

Essentially, it was already a multi-layered or, as we say today, hybrid war. Its goal was to undermine the power of the USSR and the Eastern European countries, which according to the agreements of Yalta between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill in 1945 on the division of spheres of influence after the war had fallen into the Kremlin’s sphere of influence. Thus, “Directive 10/2” was created.

What kind of directive is this?

June 10, 1948

Top secret

National Security Council of the United States

Directive NSC 10/2

… The National Security Council has decided that in the interest of world peace, the measures of the US government must be supplemented by covert operations…

This mission is assigned to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) …

The head of the new “covert” operational area of the CIA was the veteran of the American intelligence service Frank George Wisner. He is the father of secret sabotage operations, including Maidan movements, uprisings, and coups far beyond America’s borders. In countries that Washington did not approve of. However, he made a name for himself not only through the first Maidan movements in Hungary, Poland, and East Germany.
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Katyn – a lie that has become history. Why do some Russian politicians continue to repent for everything that our ancestors did not do?

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The article, the translation of which we are presenting here, was written by Yuri Krinitsky and Philip Sorokin, and first published by Military Industrial Courier (WebArchived version) on June 8, 2021 (Issue No. 21 (884)). It was later re-blogged by historian Nikolai Starikov.

“Today Katyn is a propaganda weapon of the Polish establishment in the struggle for political dividends. It uses various methods, including falsifications, lies, and double standards.”

Mikhail Gorbachev’s transfer of the “Special Folder No. 1” to the President of the Republic of Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski

On August 25, 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin said: “Forgive us,” he laid a wreath at the monument to the victims of Katyn in Warsaw. After that, the governments of Russia and Poland agreed on the construction of memorials in Katyn and Mednoye. It would seem that a a mutual rapprochement step has been taken… But over the years, the inaccuracies and falsifications in the “official” (Goebbel-Polish-Gorbachev-Yeltsin) version of the shooting of Poles have become more and more obvious. Especially if both Katyn and Mednoye themes are viewed as a whole.

There are two burials on the territory of Russia, the history of which is deliberately muddled and used for information warfare purposes. One is in the Smolensk region (Katyn forest, Kozye Gory tract), the second is in the Tver (former Kalinin) region, near the village of Mednoye. Polish prisoners of war were shot and laid to rest here in the early 40s of the twentieth century. But there are two fundamentally different opinions about the number of people killed, the date and the perpetrators of the crime.

According to the version of the Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels – which is also the version of the current Polish leadership and the liberal elite of modern Russia – Poles were executed by NKVD officers a year before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. According to the Soviet version, the prisoners did not have time to evacuate during the retreat of the Red Army. They ended up on the territory occupied by German troops, and in the fall of 1941 they were shot by the Nazis.
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The Katyn Schism. Gorbachev and his followers became confounded in repentance

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The article by Yuri Krinitsky and Andrey Romanchenko was published in Military Industrial Courier (WebArchived version ) on May 22, 2018 (Issue No. 19 (732)).

Representatives of the NKVD-NKGB commission and the special commission at the ChGK in Katyn. Photo: 2w.su

The West’s desire to weaken the authority of our country is dragging up to the surface even old disagreements that arose decades ago. In the Katyn tragedy, which any enlightened person knows about today, there are proven and controversial facts. The mass execution of captured Polish officers is generally recognised. But there is uncertainty about the date of the shooting, the number of people killed, and the perpetrators of the crime.

The discussion around these “minor details” has long acquired the character of an information struggle, in which history has become a weapon of politics. But what if, without taking a priori anyone’s position in this dispute, we conduct an uncompromising and independent assessment to what degree the knowledge that exists about the events in the Kozye Gory tract of the Smolensk region is sufficient to identify the true perpetrators of the crime committed there?
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Nuremberg Trials through the eyes of the Soviet caricaturists

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Several of the episodes described in the article Nuremberg at 80: How do you put a death machine on trial? An article reblog were immortalised in the caricatures, drawn by the Soviet caricaturists observing the trials.

The last line of the German-Fascist defence. The defenders at work

A 1945 caricature from the Nuremberg trials by “Kukryniksy”.

In Krokodil issue №6 of 1982, there was a large publication, celebrating the famous Soviet art collective “Kukryniksy” — Mihail Kupriyanov, Porfiry Krylov, Nikolai Sokolov. The publication went under the title “My Veterans”, and featured, among other, excerpts from their book “The Three of Us Together”. Below is one such fragment:
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Nuremberg at 80: How do you put a death machine on trial? An article reblog

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— An article by Evgeny Norin, Russian journalist and historian focused on war and conflict in the former Soviet Union, published at RT.

A courtroom gave the defeated Reich’s leaders a chance to defend themselves – and the world a record of crimes they could no longer conceal

RT composite. © Getty Images

On the night of October 16, 1946, 10 individuals were hanged in the Nuremberg prison. These were the main Nazi criminals who had been captured and brought to trial.

Despite the horrifying scale and brutality of the crimes, the Nuremberg Trials remain one of the most controversial proceedings in world history.

Justice instead of revenge

The idea of an international tribunal to address Nazi atrocities had been considered for some time. In 1942, the Soviet Union established a special Extraordinary Commission that gathered information about these crimes. Tragically, it had a lot of work to do. The USSR became the primary battleground for the bloodiest and most brutal war in Europe.

The range and nature of the crimes committed on Soviet soil were staggering: genocide against multiple peoples, mass killings on various grounds, all sorts of war crimes, deliberate attacks on medical facilities and civilian infrastructure, arbitrary executions, economic exploitation, and sexual violence. Essentially, every town liberated from the Nazis had enough evidence to warrant its own tribunal. When the concentration camps were liberated, it became clear that Allied propaganda had not exaggerated but rather understated the extent of Nazi atrocities.

In addition to the Soviet government, the exiled governments of occupied countries – Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Norway, France, and Yugoslavia – also wanted to hold the Nazis legally accountable for their crimes.

On October 19, 1943, the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers of the Soviet Union, the USA, and Great Britain began, with Vyacheslav Molotov, Cordell Hull, and Anthony Eden.
On October 30, they and the Chinese Ambassador to the USSR, Fu Bingchang, adopted the Declaration of the Four Governments on General Security, proclaiming the determination of the governments of the USA, Great Britain, the USSR, and China “in accordance with the Declaration of the United Nations of January 1, 1942, and subsequent declarations, to continue military actions against those Axis powers with which they are respectively at war until those powers lay down their arms on the basis of unconditional surrender.”
At the initiative of the USSR, on October 30, the Moscow Declaration on the Responsibility of the Hitlerites for Atrocities Committed was adopted.
It contained a warning that “German soldiers and officers and members of the Nazi Party <…> will be sent to the countries where their heinous crimes were committed so that they can be tried and punished according to the laws of these liberated countries.”
The declaration stated that “the Allied powers will surely find them even at the ends of the earth and hand them over to their accusers so that justice may be done.”
The leaders of the Third Reich and other officials, “whose crimes are not connected with a specific geographic location,” were to be handed over to an international tribunal.
Source: Historian Magazine, translated by Beorn And The Shieldmaiden

The outlines of the future tribunal began to take shape in the fall of 1943 during a conference in Moscow attended by the foreign ministers of the ‘Big Three’ – the USSR, the UK, and the US. The three powers agreed that Nazi leaders who committed crimes across multiple nations should be tried by an international court.

At that time, even the idea of lynching Nazi leaders seemed valid. Benito Mussolini was executed along with his mistress by Italian partisans on April 28, 1945, without any trial. Their mutilated bodies were publicly displayed. No one mourned Mussolini; similarly, no one would have objected if a Red Army soldier had shot Hitler.

Mussolini’s corpse hanged at Piazzale Loretto after his execution in Milan in 1945. © Keystone-France / Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

Sporadic acts of vigilante justice also occurred as the war neared its end. A well-known incident involved American soldiers executing the staff of the Dachau concentration camp. Polish troops beat to death Oscar Dirlewanger, the commander of a punitive brigade responsible for countless deaths in Belarus and Poland.

Yet vigilante justice was not what the Allied leaders envisioned.
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The Turkish Missile Crisis. How Khrushev twisted Fidel Castro’s words.

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On October 16, 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy was informed that Soviet nuclear missiles had been discovered in Cuba. 45 of them. Moscow had deployed them on the island in response to the appearance of American “Jupiters” in Turkey, from where a missile could reach Moscow in ten minutes. From our telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

The Cuban Missile Crisis began — 13 days when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.

U.S. declared a naval blockade of Cuba, raised strategic aviation and fleet to alert. Readiness level was raised to DEFCON-2 — first time in the country’s history. This meant one thing: everything was ready, only the order remained.

However, commander of U.S. strategic aviation announced on radio his readiness to bomb the “Reds” without the sanction of U.S. Secretary of Defense and the President. The Soviet command intercepted these messages but considered them a bluff. But they could have given the order for a preemptive strike.
An American U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over Cuba, and the military urged Kennedy to strike “before it was too late”. Kennedy delayed — and, as it turned out later, acted correctly.

The generals did not know that 12 missile complexes were already on minute readiness to launch. CIA was also mistaken, believing there were no more than 5,000 Soviet troops in Cuba — there were about 40,000.

Fidel Castro urged Khrushchev not to hesitate to use the missiles in case USA invades Cuba. When Khrushchev later pulled the missiles without consulting with Castro, it caused a cooling of relations between Moscow and Havana (more on it below). At the same time, Khrushchev granted commander of Soviet forces in Cuba, General Isa Pliev, authority to independently decide on the use of nuclear weapons in case of an attack or invasion.

Meanwhile, back-channel diplomacy was saving the world. KGB resident in Washington Alexander Fomin (operational pseudonym Alexander Feklisov) conducted difficult unofficial negotiations with the White House. He conveyed Khrushchev’s proposals, clarified the positions of the parties, and effectively became a live communication channel in the absence of a direct line. It was through him that the USSR and U.S. were able to reach an agreement. Later, Fomin would be called the first person to save the world from nuclear war.

The crisis was unfolding not only in offices. On October 7, the Soviet submarine B-59 was blocked by U.S. destroyers off Cuba’s coast. The U.S. dropped training depth charges, trying to force the submarine to surface. Inside, temperature exceeded forty degrees, communication with Moscow was lost, and air supplies were running out.

The commander, deciding that war had already begun, ordered the nuclear torpedo to be prepared for launch. Launching required the consent of three senior officers. Two were “for.” Senior assistant, Captain Second Rank Vasily Arkhipov, said “no.” The torpedo did not launch.
The same night, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, on Okinawa Island, four American bases received radio orders to launch MGM-13 Mace nuclear cruise missiles with Mark 28 warheads. The codes matched, the signal was genuine. Targets were Beijing, Hanoi, Pyongyang, and Vladivostok.
However, the readiness level remained DEFCON-2: the state of war (DEFCON-1) was not officially declared. Air Force Captain William Bassett realised something was wrong and postponed the launch. One officer accused him of treason and demanded to “immediately start frying the communists”. Bassett then ordered “to send two armed pilots to shoot anyone at the controls if they attempted to launch”. He contacted command — and the order was horrifiedly canceled.

As a result of negotiations, USSR agreed to withdraw missiles from Cuba, and the U.S. to remove theirs from Turkey and lift the blockade.
After these events, a direct “hotline” was established between Moscow and Washington — a teletype connection for transmitting text messages to avoid misunderstandings and translation errors.

It remains in operation to this day.

Source

What Fidel Castro really told Khrushev amidst the Cuban Missile Crisis

A fake quote of what Fidel Castro presumably wrote to Khrushev appeared in the source of the text above, which we edited with a comment.

It went like this: “Cuba is ready to die, but communism must win.”

The quote did not seem authentic, painting Castro as someone indifferent to the fate of the people of Cuba. So we did some reasearch, and it turned out we were not the only ones curious about that quote.

The complete research can be read here.

In short, the legs, so to speak, grow from Khrushev’s publications. The following two fragments are of interest.
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Were the events of August of 1991 a coup d’état?

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Can the events that took place on August 19–21, 1991, be called a coup d’état? And why did the coup plotters lose so quickly? Maxim Artemyev, the author of the book “The Gekachepists”, a historian and journalist reflects on this in an interview with the “Historian” magazine in a conversation with Arseny Zamostyanov. July, 2021

This was perhaps the most striking and dramatic event of the turbulent perestroika period. Top leaders of the state removed Mikhail Gorbachev, the current president of the USSR, from power and declared a state of emergency. Armoured personnel carriers on Moscow’s pavements and barricades around the residence of the President and government of the RSFSR, the White House, became symbols of the confrontation that took to the streets. However, a few days later, the political fiesta ended with the unexpectedly rapid surrender of the Emergency Committee and crowded rallies, where supporters of the President of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin, who initially called the actions of the Emergency Committee a “right-wing reactionary unconstitutional coup”, noisily celebrated the victory. Three days of “great upheavals”, which effectively became a fleeting epilogue to the entire history of the Soviet Union.

The actions of the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) are now perceived by many primarily as a gesture of desperation, doomed to failure from the outset. To this day, heated debates continue about the events of those three days. Indeed, what was it? An inept attempt to impose a harsh, semi‑military dictatorship on the country, or the last chance to save the Soviet Union? Maxim Artemyev has his own answer to this question. The biographer of the GKChP members generally believes that “their actions can be studied as a guide on how not to stage a coup”. However, Artemyev believes that the failure of the August coup is a verdict on the entire late‑Soviet elite, which by that time had already proven to be “too weak‑willed and uncompetitive”.

Press conference of the State Committee on the State of Emergency. From left to right: Alexander Tizyakov, Vasily Starodubtsev, Boris Pugo, Gennady Yanayev, and Oleg Baklanov. August 19, 1991

Was There a Coup?

– Do you consider the GKChP’s actions to be a state coup?

– I think that’s too strong a formulation. The events related to the creation and collapse of the State Emergency Committee are unique, and it is difficult to find an adequate definition for them. A coup or a coup d’etat is, as a rule, an action against the current government, while all the participants in the Emergency Committee themselves were members of the ruling elite of the Soviet Union. Head of Government and Vice-President, Chairman of the KGB, Minister of Defence, Minister of Internal Affairs…

– But they still isolated their boss, the President of the USSR…

– Please note that they constantly emphasised that Gorbachev was only temporarily unable to fulfil the duties of the President of the USSR due to his health condition. And Gennady Yanayev, at the famous press conference on August 19, kept insisting that Mikhail Sergeyevich was simply tired and, once he recovered, he would definitely return to fulfilling his duties. And it’s hardly possible to speak of complete isolation. Gorbachev simply made no attempts to leave Foros. It’s unlikely that the guards would have refused to carry out his orders if the president had decided to rush to Moscow in a hurry. According to many participants of those events (including Boris Yeltsin), Gorbachev was waiting in those days to see who would prevail and was in a kind of self‑imposed isolation. It is noteworthy that the GKChP’s appeal “To the Soviet People” contains no criticism of Gorbachev, and the only “dark forces” mentioned are nameless “extremists”, who are hard to equate with the President of the USSR.

– The main mystery surrounding the August events remains the question to which different memoirists and researchers give contradictory answers: was the “GKChP” project a surprise to Mikhail Gorbachev?

– Let’s put it this way: events took an unexpected turn for him. Gorbachev was preparing in Foros to sign the Union Treaty, which he regarded as his tactical success. The signing ceremony was scheduled for August 20. But the ideas that the GKChP relied on were up in the air. It is enough to recall Alexander Kabakov’s popular story “The Defector”, which, after the August events, was seen as a prediction of the so‑called coup. Or the popular leaflets that were distributed at democratic rallies in 1990 and early 1991: one of the most popular slogans was “Let’s not allow the revenge of the apparatus!” Society was so often spooked up by the advance of “anti‑perestroika forces” that it began to resemble the well‑known parable about the boy who jokingly shouted: “Wolves! Wolves!”, and when the real wolves appeared, no one believed him. So many perceived the GKCHP’s speech as a kind of apparatus revenge attempt, an attempt to “undo the changes”. Of course, Gorbachev was aware of the position of his conservative–minded colleagues, perhaps he considered them a counterweight to the radical Democrats, while he saw his line as centrist. At the same time, he was shocked that people who owed him everything had acted without his knowledge.
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