It is a tribute to the Red Army’s organisational virtuosity that it managed to amass these enormous quantities of fire-power, accessories and provisions without giving their game away. Battle-hardened veterans Marshal Georgiy Zhukov and Marshal Alexander Vasilevskiy were made responsible for planning, coordinating and directing two fronts each: Zhukov for the two southern fronts (2nd and 1st Byelorussian) and Vasilevskiy for the two northern fronts (1st Baltic and 3rd Byelorussian). The front commanders were Generals Bagramyan (1st Baltic), Chernyakhovskiy (3rd Byelorussian), Zakharov (2nd Byelorussian) and Rokossovskiy (1st Byelorussian, the largest formation, also tasked with covering the most ground).
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STEPHEN GOWANS—The Soviet Union was a concrete example of what a publicly owned, planned economy could produce: full employment, guaranteed pensions, paid maternity leave, limits on working hours, free healthcare and education (including higher education), subsidized vacations, inexpensive housing, low-cost childcare, subsidized public transportation, and rough income equality. Most of us want these benefits. However, are they achievable permanently? It is widely believed that while the Soviet Union may have produced these benefits, in the end, Soviet public ownership and planning proved to be unworkable. Otherwise, how to account for the country’s demise?
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IVAN KOZHEDUB—In the 1930s, the Komsomol (Young Communist League) was a patron of aviation and, naturally enough, we were all crazy about flying. I remember well the words of my school teacher: ‘Choose the life of an outstanding man as a model, and try to follow his example in everything.’ For me, a boy of 16, and for thousands of other Soviet teen-agers, the famous pilot Valery Chkalov was such a man. The whole world admired his bold long-distance flights in the Tupolev ANT-25, such as his 1936 flight from Moscow to Udd Island, Kamchatka–9,374 kilometers in 56 hours, 20 minutes–or his shorter but more hazardous flight of 8,504 km in 63 hours, 16 minutes from Moscow to Vancouver, Wash., via the North Pole, on June 18-20, 1937. He was also a fearless test pilot, and it was during a test flight that he lost his life on December 15, 1938.
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He wore the same draped coat, gray raincoat, and old-fashioned suit. He always wore galoshes in chilly weather. But no one could accuse Mikhail Andreyevich of being dirty. Once at one meeting, Brezhnev even joked: “Why don’t we chip in, comrades, for a new suit for Mikhail Andreevich?” Suslov accepted the criticism of his comrades and the next day came in a new suit.
And for what purposes, you may ask, did he spend his salary as a member of the Politburo? “It’s for charity. I transferred them to orphanages and hospitals. I bought books for the library in my homeland.” He helped build the memorial at Piskarevskoye Cemetery.
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The “Global War on Terrorism” is a complex and intricate intelligence construct. The covert support provided to “Islamic extremist groups” is part of an imperial agenda. It purports to weaken and eventually destroy secular and civilian governmental institutions, while also contributing to vilifying Islam. It is an instrument of colonization that seeks to undermine sovereign nation-states and transform countries into territories.
