By Caleb T. Maupin | JournalNeo.org
Seventy years after the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, a number of important historical details about the conflict have been forgotten by the US public. These facts may be unknown or ignored by the people of the United States, but much of the world hasn’t forgotten them, and they have relevance in relation to current events.
1. Hitler was a right-winger

Hitler was a creature of the international bourgeoisie, the “owning classes”. Fascism is normally the monster invoked by the ruling capitalist classes when threatened by serious social upheavals. Even many nobles in Britain and industrialists in te US were openly sympathetic to his regime.
Endless books and articles, such as “Liberal Fascism” by Jonah Goldberg, have attempted to paint Adolph Hitler as some kind of leftist. These texts often play up the fact that the Nazi Party’s official name contained the word “Socialist,” or that Hitler’s speeches sometimes talked of “revolution.”
Regardless of what Glenn Beck and much of the US media would prefer to be the case, Adolph Hitler considered himself to be a right-winger. In his speeches and writings, he frequently referred to his Nazi organization as the “Party of the Right.”
When establishing the Nazi Party in the early 1920s, Hitler made abundantly clear that he was on the right wing of the political spectrum, saying: “There are only two possibilities in Germany; do not imagine that the people will forever go with the middle party, the party of compromises; one day it will turn to those who have most consistently foretold the coming ruin and have sought to dissociate themselves from it. And that party is either the Left: and then God help us! for it will lead us to complete destruction — to Bolshevism, or else it is a party of the Right which at the last, when the people is in utter despair, when it has lost all its spirit and has no longer any faith in anything, is determined for its part ruthlessly to seize the reins of power — that is the beginning of resistance of which I spoke a few minutes ago. Here, too, there can be no compromise — there are only two possibilities: either victory of the Aryan, or annihilation of the Aryan and the victory of the Jew. “
The Nazi program, despite having some populist economic policies, sought to reinforce tradition, morality, religion, and nationalism. The Nazis had absolute contempt for the “left,” which they associated with internationalism, Marxism, class conflict, and “racial impurity.”

Obama Nazi: The imbecility and rancid ignorance of many rightwingers, either feigned or real is appalling.
This unfortunate detail does not fit in the with the neoconservative logic of “All bad people are on the left, Hitler was bad, so he must have been a leftist.” The ignorance of Hitler’s actual political views has led to many embarrassing incidents. In 1970, Ohio governor James Rhodes called anti-war protesters at Kent University “Brownshirts” before he sent in the National Guard, who killed four of them. During the direct aftermath of Barack Obama’s election, many right-wing activists hyped up by Glenn Beck’s televised sermons accused Obama of simultaneously being a Muslim, a communist and a Nazi.
2. The Soviet Union did more than any other country to defeat Hitler
This fact cannot be denied, but it is often unacknowledged. Even before the Second World War began, the Communist International in Moscow was directing and facilitating anti-fascist resistance from within the borders of Germany and Italy. The Soviet Union sent aid to the people of Spain to defend their republic against the Nazi-aligned Falangists. Communists around the world formed International Brigades to fight in Spain. The Soviet Union lost 27 million of its citizens in the battle against Hitler. [That horrendous casualty rate is the equivalent of America losing the entire population of California, Texas and New York in a single war.—Editors)
During the late 1930s, many came to consider the word “anti-fascist” to be a synonym for “communist.” The alliance between Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and imperial Japan, commonly called the “Axis Powers” in US historical discourse, was officially called the “Anti-Communist Pact.”
3. Many Zionists collaborated with the Nazis
While the Israeli government frequently invokes the crimes of the Nazis to justify its existence as a “safe refuge for the chosen people,” most Jews were not Zionists at the time of the Second World War. The majority of the world’s Jews rejected Zionism and identified with Social-Democracy, communism, or anarchism. Zionism was a political current that was only strong among Jews in Britain, where it was funded and promoted by the Rothschild banking dynasty and had the support of many prominent Christian theologians.
In the context of competing with Marxism for support within the world Jewish community, the Zionist movement openly celebrated the rise of Hitler in Germany — as a defeat for their main political rival. Vladimir Jabotinsky, leader of the Revisionist Party, predecessor to the Likud Party of modern Israel, famously said, “If it were not for the Nazis’ anti-semitism, we would celebrate the rise of Hitler. He saved Germany.”
The Irgun terrorist organization which operated in Palestine frequently published pro-Nazi statements in its publications. Many meetings took place between Zionist organizations and the Nazi officials. Many Zionists argued that a victory for Hitler would force European Jews to flee to Palestine.
4. Hitler had many supporters in the USA
Henry Ford, one of the wealthiest men in the United States, was awarded the Iron Cross by the Nazi government. He was paraded throughout Germany as a hero for his development of industrial methods. Henry Ford wrote a book called “The International Jew” which put forward the Nazi perspective that the world was ruled by “Jewish Bankers” and that communism was a “Jewish conspiracy.” During the 1930s, Henry Ford began his own newspaper, The Dearborn Voice, which put forward a pro-Hitler analysis of international events.
Henry Ford was not alone. Brown Brothers Harriman, considered one of the most important Wall Street banks, had its assets frozen under the “Trading With The Enemy Act.” The Wall Street firm was essentially operating as the Nazi regime’s Wall Street stockbroker. At the time, its employees included Prescott Bush, whose son and grandson would both become US presidents.
Charles Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest with a weekly radio program, broadcast pro-Hitler sermons over the national radio waves across the United States. He formed a pro-Hitler organization called the “Union for Social Justice.” He preached that “Jewish bankers” controlled the Federal Reserve, and were attempting to foment communist revolution to destroy Christianity. His weekly broadcasts urged Roman Catholics to join violent strikebreaking organizations and fight the labor unions, which he considered to be a Jewish-communist conspiracy.
Charles Lindbergh, the famed aviator, went to Nazi Germany many times, and spoke highly of Hitler in many public speeches. When it looked like war was imminent, Lindbergh led the “America First Committee” that urged the US to “stay out” of Europe. Among the members of the America First Committee was future US President Gerald Ford.
Many pro-Nazi organizations existed across the United States during the late 1930s. Among them were the German-American Bund, the Silver Legion of America, the Black Legion, and the Mother’s Campaign. The Ku Klux Klan collapsed due to infighting after Pearl Harbor, because many of its members supported the Nazis. The Black Legion, a pro-Hitler organization of Roman Catholics in Michigan, murdered the father of Black revolutionary Malcolm X, and mobilized to attack striking autoworkers during the famous Flint Sit-Down Strike.
When the German-American Bund held a pro-Hitler rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939, hundreds of thousands of labor unionists and left-wing activists poured into the streets to protest. A group of communist activists even charged the stage and brawled with Nazi sympathizers inside the stadium.
5. Hitler and Stalin did not “divide Poland”The non-aggression pact signed between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany was not an alliance, but a temporary statement of non-hostility. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 did not “divide Poland.”
When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the Polish government officially collapsed. The idea that the USSR “invaded Poland” in coordination with the Nazis is false. The USSR moved its troops into Poland, in response to the presence of hostile Nazi troops.
The Polish government-in-exile raised no objection when the Soviet Union moved its troops into the parts of the country that were not controlled by the Nazis. This was a logical move, as it prevented the Nazis from moving their troops right up to the Soviet border.
6. London subways were not officially allocated as bomb shelters
Many movies, documentaries, and histories tell of London residents hiding from the Nazi bombs in the subways. What’s not told is that British officials originally attempted to outlaw this. Communist Party organizers in the East End of London occupied the subways in defiance of the police. The use of the subways as a place for refuge from Hitler’s Blitzkrieg was only the result of grassroots, communist-led community organizing that saved countless lives.
7. The war secured the victory of Chinese communism
The Chinese Communist Party did not take power until 1949, but its activities from 1937-1945 were key in securing its victory. In what Chinese historians refer to as the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance, Mao Zedong’s military strategies proved to be highly successful.
The Eighth Route Army, led by communists, proved itself to be very, very effective in defeating the Japanese invaders, waging war with methods called “Protracted People’s War.” The communists won popularity with China’s civilian population by redistributing land and enacting other popular reforms in the areas they controlled.
After the war ended, the Nationalist Party banned the Chinese Communist Party from participating in the elections. In response, the communists, who had become highly popular over the course of the war, were able to rally their forces, and wage a civil war that created the People’s Republic of China.
8. Korea was not “divided” at the end of the war
When Japan surrendered, Soviet troops had already liberated the northern half of Korea. The agreement at the war’s conclusion was not that Korea should be divided into two countries, as it remains today. The agreement was that a nationwide election should take place for a constituent assembly.
Koreans all across the country anticipated voting to determine a government for the entire peninsula. However, forces in the south of the country backed out of the agreement. Supported by US troops, the “Republic of Korea” was declared by military dictator Syngman Rhee. At Cheju Island and elsewhere, thousands of Koreans who protested demanding the right to vote were slaughtered.

With typical brainwashed anti-communist contempt, an American officer who took this picture of one of the massacres at Cheng Ju simply marked it, “Korea—Mass execution of commies.” And then we wonder why so many people hate us.
Korea became divided because the United States and its allies in South Korea would not allow the national elections to take place, as had been agreed upon at the war’s conclusion.
Today, both the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (north), and the Republic of Korea (south), claim to be the legitimate government for the entire peninsula, based on the postwar agreement.
9. The Soviet Union did not “take over” Eastern Europe
After driving out the Nazis, the Soviet Union did not “take over” Eastern Europe. Soviet troops liberated Romania, Poland, East Germany, and many other countries. However, they did not install the pro-Soviet Communist Parties as the official governments.
All across Eastern Europe, elections took place in which all anti-fascist parties were allowed to participate. The Soviet Union constructed hospitals, schools and all kinds of infrastructure in the countries devastated by war. As Soviet aid poured in to rebuild the country, the people of these countries became increasingly sympathetic to the Soviet Union.
In East Germany, the Social-Democratic Party, the Christian Party, and the Communist Party all eventually merged to be the Socialist Unity Party that ruled the country. In most Warsaw Pact countries, similar mergers of anti-fascist parties took place.
The countries liberated by Soviet troops did not call themselves “Soviet republics” or even “socialist,” but rather “People’s Democracies.” At their inception they included anticommunist, Social-Democratic and even openly capitalist and religious parties.
Throughout the following decades, the countries liberated by Soviet troops frequently disagreed with the Soviet Union on matters of foreign policy and political ideology. Countries like Poland and Romania went as far as getting loans from US banks.
The post-WWII period in countries like Hungary, Bulgaria, and Lithuania is not remembered as a period of colonization, but as a period of national rebirth and reconstruction. Youth were mobilized to build highways. Efforts were made to promote national languages and traditions that had been suppressed by previous regimes.
Eastern European countries, despite moving toward socialism in the 1950s and espousing Marxism-Leninism, were not “colonies of the Soviet Union.” The Soviet Union did not extract wealth from Eastern Europe, impoverishing it in order to enrich itself. In fact, the USSR spent lots of money developing Eastern Europe. The standard of living of many Eastern European countries drastically increased due to Soviet aid.
10. During the war, Hollywood promoted Stalin
Many artists and writers had become sympathetic to the US Communist Party during the late 1930s. The Communist Party’s “People’s Front” strategy had focused on outreach to people involved in theater, art, and music.
As a result, when the war broke out, many people in Hollywood had a very favorable view of the USSR. When the two countries became officially aligned against the Nazis, this resulted in a lot of movies glorifying the Soviet Union.
One film, “Mission to Moscow,” portrays the infamous 1936 “Moscow Trials” of Zinoviev and Bukharin in a positive light. Stalin is portrayed as heroically exposing a secret pro-Hitler conspiracy within the Soviet government, led by a “bloc of rights and Trotskyites.”
Another film, “The North Star,” portrays a Ukrainian village taking up arms against the Nazi invaders, while frequently talking about their goal of a world without war, classes or exploitation. The screenplay was written by communist sympathizer and noted feminist Lillian Hellman.
An epic musical called “Through Russia” painted a positive picture of Soviet society.
The armed service propaganda series “Why We Fight,” which was shown to US troops as part of their basic training, contains an episode called “The Battle of Russia,” which presents a pro-Soviet interpretation of world events. The film goes as far as to describe the Russian Revolution as being similar in nature to the American Revolution.
Chinese Communists also got recognition on the silver screen. The film “Gung Ho” tells of a division of US marines who adopt a fighting style inspired by the “brilliance” of a group of peasant fighters who formed the “Eighth Route Army.”
The House Un-American Activities Committee launched a huge investigation of the film industry in the post-war period. Ayn Rand, later to become a well-known novelist and philosopher, gave testimony to congress, bemoaning the amount of pro-communist films produced during the war.
Many of the pro-Soviet films created during the Second World War have been suppressed, and remain unavailable to the US public.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
This material first appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/09/18/top-ten-forgotten-facts-about-the-second-world-war/
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5 comments
“Hitler was a right-winger”
That this even has to be explained these days is a good indication of how degenerate educational systems and intellectual life in the U.S. and Britain have become . I hold out some hope that a genuine leftist movement can be rebuilt, if it is it will probably have to crate parallel educational systems as its trying to accomplish with mass media.
As far as “9. The Soviet Union did not “take over” Eastern Europe” goes, it would be interesting to hear the opinion of East-Europeans. The entire section strikes me as false and inconsistent. Some examples:
– the author says: “Soviet troops liberated Romania, Poland, East Germany, and many other countries. However, they did not install the pro-Soviet Communist Parties as the official governments.” Actually, they did. The Communist Party of Romania was pro-Soviet and many of its leading figures spent time in Moscow during the war. And many of them were not even Romanians, but minorities. Moreover, Romanian Communists aided by the Soviet Comrades forced the abdication of King Michael I.
– “At their inception they included anticommunist, Social-Democratic and even openly capitalist and religious parties.” And shortly thereafter, all the parties except for the Communist one were banned and their leader were sent to camps of forced labor or to prison. Many died.
– “The Soviet Union constructed hospitals, schools and all kinds of infrastructure in the countries devastated by war. As Soviet aid poured in to rebuild the country, the people of these countries became increasingly sympathetic to the Soviet Union.” Some numbers? A few buildings is not massive aid.
– “The post-WWII period in countries like Hungary, Bulgaria, and Lithuania is not remembered as a period of colonization, but as a period of national rebirth and reconstruction. Youth were mobilized to build highways. Efforts were made to promote national languages and traditions that had been suppressed by previous regimes.” This claim assumes that the regimes of those three countries that were independent from URSS before WWII suppressed national languages and traditions. Would mind proving some evidence?
– “The Soviet Union did not extract wealth from Eastern Europe, impoverishing it in order to enrich itself.” Ask Romanians about how Russians extracted almost all uranium from the country. Learn more about Sovrom’s. If Russians did not extract wealth, then why Romanians canceled the Sovrom’s?
– “In fact, the USSR spent lots of money developing Eastern Europe. ” What are your numbers?
– “The standard of living of many Eastern European countries drastically increased due to Soviet aid.” Really? After a war, important economic development comes just from rebuilding the infrastructure. USSR provided a market, and forced a common market on the “liberated” countries.
If USSR was so good to the East-Europeans, why did they hurry to leave the Soviet block and rushed to join NATO and EU? Please, do not blame the Americans again. Speaking of Americans, there used to be a saying in Romania in immediately after USSR “liberated” Romania: “Americans will come and save us.”
The Communist parties of Romania , Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe were elected, into power after the war – in popular elections. It really doesn’t matter if your intuition, or whatever psychic sense you rely upon, tells you such (fully searchable) facts are not true.
Eastern Europe: Let’s Talk About The Facts
by Caleb T. Maupin
A response to a reader’s comment. (“Carpathia”)
The comment from this reader, disputing what I have written about the post-WWII period in Eastern Europe, is in line with the common neoliberal narrative of history. In the United States, this narrative is often repeated and rarely, if ever, challenged. Due to its position in the world, especially during the cold war, the United States has welcomed to its shores many of the most bitter anti-Communists, who will talk at length about the horrors of the system “they lived under” and also repeat this narrative.
The problem with this narrative of the “Soviet empire” that “conquered Eastern Europe,” is that it is not true. Because the reader gave special attention to Romania in his comments, my refutation of his points will specifically focus on the history of that country.
1. Reconstruction of the country.
The reader dismisses the reconstruction of Eastern Europe with Soviet aid as a “few buildings.” The Federal Research Division of the US Library of Congress, tells a different story in a document they published entitled “Romania: A Country Study.”
According to the United States government, the number of hospital beds per 1,000 people more than doubled in Romania between 1950 and 1971. There was a 25% increase in the number of doctors per 1,000 people. From 1950 to 1984, the country’s infant mortality rate was reduced by more than 75%.
When Romania was liberated from Nazism in 1945, only 27% of the people were able to read and write. According to the Federal Research Division of the US Library of Congress “illiteracy was eradicated” by 1966.
Before the war, Romania had only 2,000 university professors. By 1970, it had 13,000. The number of teachers, according to the document, tripled.
These are not small achievements by any measure. In terms of access to medical care and education, Romania made tremendous advances in the post-war period. This was all achieved with direct economic assistance from the Soviet Union.
Romania was not alone. Anna Louis Strong’s book “I Saw New Poland” describes in detail the near-miracles that were achieved in that country during post-war construction.
The Federal Research Division’s study of Hungary shows that in 1939, only 13,000 people were enrolled in the country’s educational system, but by 1970 the number had risen to 86,000. Prior to 1946, Hungary had no formal public education system, with only a small percentage of the population being educated by the Catholic Church.
2. The Political Leadership
In response to the reader’s claim that in Romania “all the parties except for the Communist one were banned” and that this somehow indicates Soviet political control of the country, one needs only to look at the official history of Romania. The political situation is far more complex.
King Michael I of Romania, who personally ate lunch with Adolph Hitler on two occasions, and had not opposed the Nazi occupiers of his country until as late as 1944, was allowed to remain on the throne until 1947. Under Nuremberg standards, King Michael I, who participated in the Holocaust, allowing and facilitating Romanian Jews and others to be sent to concentration camps, could have been executed. However, after liberating the country, the Soviet military not only did not execute this Nazi collaborator, but allowed him to remain on the throne! Michael did not abdicate until 1947, in response to popular pressure from many different forces in Romanian society.
In 1946, Romania held an election in which all parties were free to participate. The “Bloc of Democratic Parties” that included not only the Communist Party, but also the Social-Democratic Party, the Ploughmen’s Front, the National Popular Party, and the National Peasants Party, won 68% of the vote.
In 1948, the two biggest parties in the Bloc of Democratic Parties, the Social-Democratic Party of Romania and the Communist Party merged to form the Workers Party of Romania. A new constitution, written in the aftermath of this election, declared Romania to be a “People’s Democracy.”
It was not until 1965 that the Workers Party changed its name to the Communist Party, and that Romania abandoned “People’s Democracy”, and declared itself to be Socialist. This took place after long internal struggles and debates within the party, in which different factions battled each other over political questions.
The Soviet Union is not responsible for this drastic change in Romanian politics, and is likely to have even opposed it, as it took place during the period of detente when Khrushchev was very friendly to the United States. The Soviet position on many countries at this time was that they were not developed enough to have Socialism, which they defined as an economic system based on public control of industry.
After the 1965 political re-orientation as a Socialist country, led by a Communist Party, and especially in the 1970s and 80s, Romania took many anti-Soviet turns in its international relations.
In 1968, Romania openly condemned Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. In opposition to Soviet foreign policy, Romania recognized West Germany. Romania even joined the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. In the 1980s, Romania experienced huge economic problems because of debt to US banks. Such policies indicate that Romania clearly had political and economic independence from the Soviet Union.
In almost every Eastern European country, the ruling party was a merger of Anti-Fascist parties, not simply the pro-Soviet Communist Party that existed at the war’s conclusion. The Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the Polish Workers Party, and the Bulgarian Workers Party, were the result of similar mergers.
Many Eastern European countries politically defied the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia went as far as aligning with the United States against the Soviet Union and China in the Korean War.
The idea that the Eastern European People’s Democracies were politically controlled by the Soviet Union is simply counter to reality.
3. Polls say life was better in under Socialism
In 2011, a poll of the population of Romania was taken by the Centre for the Study of Market and Opinion. The results are documented here: http://www.balkanalysis.com/romania/2011/12/27/in-romania-opinion-polls-show-nostalgia-for-communism/
The poll showed that “60% of the Romanian population believes that communism was a good idea.” The poll also showed that “Half of the respondents believe that they were better off under communism.”
The poll also showed that less than half of the respondents “considered that the communist regime was not legitimate”, and only 41% considered it to be “criminal.”
The poll results showed that the opinion of Romanians regarding Communism is rising. This makes sense based on the current situation in the country.
While there was 100% employment during the period when Romania was led by the Workers and Communist Parties, Romania currently has a chronically high unemployment rate, fluctuating between 10% and 20% over the last decade.
In 2009, the International Monetary Fund ordered the government of Romania to cut the wages of its government employees by 25% in order to receive a loan to save the country from complete collapse.
According to the CIA World Factbook, Romania has a very high infant mortality rate. 10 out of every 1,000 babies in Romania die within one year of their birth.
The CIA world Factbook currently described Romania as a “major European transshipment point for Southwest Asian heroin.” Romania is also listed by the US State Department as a “major source and destination for sexual and human trafficking.” Romania does not even comply with the minimal anti-Human Trafficking requirements established by the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
Other countries have poll results showing even higher percentages believe that “life was better” under Socialism. 62% of Hungarians says life was better under Socialism. http://www.politics.hu/20080521/poll-shows-majority-of-hungarians-feel-life-was-better-under-communism/ 62% of Bulgarians said the same thing. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/europe/091104/bulgaria-communism-wall-berlin
Polls show that former even residents of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) say life was better. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html
Conclusion
The only way one can dismiss the above facts is to argue that the US Central Intelligence Agency and its World Factbook, the Centre for the Study of Market and Opinion, and the Federal Research Division of the US Library of Congress, are all falsifying information in order to present a positive image of socialism in Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
There are undoubtedly some individuals of the John Birch Society mindset who would of course believe such a thing.
However, I think that affirmation of the huge achievements of socialism in Romania and elsewhere by these bodies constitutes a “statement against interest,” make it even more credible.
Eastern Europe was not colonized by the Soviet Union. Soviet aid developed and industrialized Eastern Europe, while allowing the countries to maintain political independence.
There were certainly errors and incorrect behaviors by Soviet leaders in their relations with Eastern European countries. The relationship between the USSR and Eastern Europe was not at all times ideal. However, the USSR was not enriching itself at Eastern Europe’s expense, and throughout the latter half of the 20th century, Eastern European countries numerous times demonstrated political independence from the Soviet Union.