The Better Bad Guys, pt. II

It is said that the victors write history. This is manifest, since in history the losers earn their title by being killed by the victors. And dead men tell no tales. Very often this truth means that the losers are assigned not just the title of "loser", but also that of "the bad guys". And while the losers are often in fact bad guys, so are the winners.

The winner's version of World War II was that the losers started it. Specifically, the losers (Germany) started the war on September 1, 1939 by invading Poland. There are several problems with this version.

Firstly, September 1, 1939 was not Germany's first aggressive action. It was, depending how we count, at least the 4th. And Germany committed NO aggression against the eventual winners on September 1. England and France declared war on Germany after Germany attacked Poland. So while Germany was certainly guilty of starting a war against Poland, it was not guilty of starting a World War.

The winners, rather, declared that World War was necessary after the invasion of Poland. But here's the problem: Germany was not alone in invading Poland. While it invaded from the west, the Soviet Union invaded from the east, fulfilling a previously agreed upon course of action. The Nazis and the Soviets were allies, and they both invaded Poland.

Yet the winners only declared war on Germany, despite that fact that the Soviets were guilty of the very same crime. Why does this not matter to us now? Because when the guns fell silent, the Soviets were one of the winners. So the fact that they cooperated with Hitler in his aggression which triggered a World War was deemed irrelevant.

The Nazis never sought war with Western Europe; they sought war with Eastern Europe. Hitler's goal was to subjugate the lands to the east of Germany. The eventual winners decreed that this was unacceptable and accepted World War as the acceptable price to pay to prevent German subjugation of Eastern Europe.

But when the war ended, one of the winners subjugated Eastern Europe just as the losers had aimed to do. The Soviet Union joined Hitler in his aggression against Eastern Europe in the beginning of the war and, at the end of the war, accomplished exactly what Hitler failed to achieve.

The World went to war to prevent Germany from conquering Eastern Europe. When the war was over, Eastern Europe had simply traded one conqueror (Hitler) for another (Stalin). And Stalin was given his prize, because he was a winner.

Hitler's evil or Germany's guilt is not at issue; what is at issue is why Stalin's evil and the Soviet Union's guilt was ignored. This is inevitable, though, because the truth lays bare an awful fact: the entire objective of the war from the point of view of England, France, and the United States failed utterly; Eastern Europe remained subjugated.

The winner, by virtue of allying themselves with Stalin, simply traded one tyranny for another, while 50 million people died in the process. As Churchill privately admitted after the War, "we killed the wrong pig".

In my opinion, Hitler was not the wrong pig, but neither was he the only pig. One pig was traded for another. And despite the mantle of "winner", and the ridiculous charade of Stalin's henchmen putting Hitler's henchmen on trial, a pig is still a pig, no matter how much lipstick one applies.