| Few events captured the imagination of the peoples of the world like the Battle of Stalingrad. The times were very dark. Even before the war, treachery was the name of the game, epitomized by the sellout of the peoples by the British and French governments and those of other alleged champions of freedom and democracy. But the treachery neither began nor ended with Munich. It extended to every field of life as the Nazis infiltrated the ministries of foreign governments, their industries and strategic areas of interest. By making the Balkan countries dependent on their system of frozen credits, they set the stage for the takeover of those countries when the time was right. Then began the dark years of the Nazi onslaught as one country after another became their prey, with all the attendant crimes against humanity and atrocities intended to break the human spirit. The peoples of the Soviet Union who had been preparing for the onslaught fought back. Together with them fought the partisans of all of occupied Europe, in whose ranks it was the communists who shone the brightest. The courage of their convictions provided the Resistance with its ability to prevail against the greatest odds. Along with them we also find the armies of the Allies and other heroic peoples such as the Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese and other peoples of Asia, including the Indians who died in large numbers fighting Tojo in the Allied armies of their colonial masters. We also find many Arab peoples, Africans and all the peoples caught in the maelstrom of the anti-fascist war. This February 2 marks the 68th anniversary of the stellar Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad. This battle took its place in the annals of history for turning the tide of the great anti-fascist war in favour of the peoples and won the admiration and profound gratitude of the peoples the world over. On this occasion, TML is publishing an article "The Battle of Stalingrad -- Turning Point of the Second World War," by Dougal MacDonald. Turning Point of the Second World War - Dougal MacDonald - The turning point of the Second World War was the historic Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad, which ended on February 2, 1943. Four months before the victory, in October 1942, the Nazi armies stood barely 120 kilometres from Moscow, had broken into Stalingrad, and had entered the foothills of the Caucasus. The Soviet Union faced 257 enemy divisions of 10,000-15,000 troops each, of which 207 were German. But even in those dire days, the Soviet army and people, led by Stalin, found the strength to check the enemy and deal an answering blow. Soon they turned the tide. The Soviet troops went over to the offensive and inflicted new, powerful blows on the Germans, first at Stalingrad, then at Kursk. The Battle of Stalingrad began on July 22, 1942, with heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe. The ground attack was led by the German 6th Army and the German 4th Panzer (tank) Army, backed up by Romanian, Italian, Hungarian, and Croatian troops. Bitter fighting raged for every inch of every street, factory, house, basement, and staircase. The Soviets had converted apartment blocks, factories, warehouses, homes, and office buildings into strongholds bristling with machine guns, anti-tank rifles, mortars, mines, barbed wire, snipers, and small units of submachine gunners and grenadiers prepared for house-to-house combat. After three months of slow advance, the Germans finally reached the river banks of the ruined city. Nevertheless, the fighting continued as fiercely as ever. The battles for the Red October Steel Factory, the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory and the Barrikady gun factory became world-famous. On November 19, 1942, the Red Army unleashed their counter-offensive, Operation Uranus. The attacking Soviet units shattered the Romanian units which held the northern flank of the German 6th Army. On November 20, a second Soviet offensive attacked points south of Stalingrad held by Romanian forces, overrunning the enemy positions almost immediately. Soviet forces then raced west in a pincer movement and met two days later near Kalach, sealing the ring around Stalingrad. About 290,000 German and Romanian troops were now surrounded inside the cauldron. Soviet forces consolidated their positions around Stalingrad, and fierce fighting to shrink the pocket began. The Germans suffered huge losses in men and equipment but Hitler ordered them not to surrender. Finally, on January 31, German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus and his staff surrendered. Three days later, on February 2, 1943, the remaining German troops surrendered. After the battle was over, 147,200 bodies of killed German officers and men and 46,700 bodies of killed Soviet officers and men were found and buried. In a February 23, 1942, speech, U.S. General Douglas McArthur declared: "[Never] have I observed such effective resistance to the heaviest blows of a hitherto undefeated enemy, followed by a smashing counterattack which is driving the enemy back to his own land. The scale and grandeur of the effort mark it as the greatest military achievement in all history." Hailing the huge contribution of the Soviet army and people to the defeat of fascism, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt stated in speech on July 28, 1943: "The world has never seen greater devotion, determination, and self sacrifice, than have been displayed by the Russian people and their armies under the leadership of Marshall Joseph Stalin." The U.S. newsmagazine, Time, had already declared Stalin their "Man of the Year" on January 1, 1940, in an article entitled, "Joseph Stalin: Die But Do Not Retreat." Stalingrad, which signified the decline of the German-fascist army, was soon followed by the Battle of Kursk, which ended on August 23, 1943 in the rout of the two main groups of the attacking German-fascist troops, and in Soviet troops passing over to a counter-offensive, which subsequently turned into the powerful Red Army summer offensive. The battle of Kursk was the last attempt of the Germans to carry out a big summer offensive and, in the event of its success, to recoup their losses. The Red Army not only repulsed the German offensive, but itself passed over to the offensive and, by a series of consecutive blows, in the course of the summer period hurled the German-fascist troops back beyond the Dnieper. After Stalingrad and Kursk, the Red Army never let the initiative out of its hands. Throughout the summer of 1943, its blows became harder and harder, its military mastery grew with every month. The Soviet troops won big victories, and inflicted one defeat after another on the German troops. The German Hitlerites were driven steadily backward until the final demise of the Third Reich in Berlin on May 9, 1945. On that day, the anti-fascist forces of the world with the Soviet Union and communists of all lands at the head of the Resistance Movement declared victory over the Hitlerite Nazis who had to acknowledge defeat and declare unconditional surrender. |