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The Truth and Nothing But…
| Article
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18706 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1991 |
1,314 Words |
| Author
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Alexei Savchenko
Alexei Savchenko was captured by the Nazis in World War II and
then chose to join the anti-Soviet Russian Liberation Army of
General Andrei Vlassov. He has just completed his memoirs,
which have not yet been published. |
This year we shall all celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Great Patriotic War. There were two patriotic wars in Russia: one was great, the other--in 1812--not so great. Now, what did the Russian public know of the second one, half a century later? We can, with full confidence, answer: The public knew everything to the minutest detail. The official historiography, memoirs and belles lettres had the events not only by the week and day, but by the hour and minute. All things were described, thoughts, experiences, sentiments of that period and this applies not only to the Russian but the German side too.
Let us consider the history of the Great Patriotic War half a century after it ended. What can one say about it? Take the official historiography. Its time-and-again issued and reissued multi-volume bulk carries one highly conspicuous and alarming feature: the inordinately, bulgingly, exaggerated role of the Soviet leader--the one that ruled at the time of the publication. The authors' foreword indicates that the book has been "supplemented" with "new materials" that some "traits have been specified" and some "inaccuracies rectified." As a result, the reader learns that all triumphs have been inspired and organized by Stalin. No, not by Stalin, says the next issue, it was Khrushchev. Brezhnev, says the following one, Stalin and Khrushchev were of secondary importance.
So, there's nothing to learn from history. It's silent. However, Soviet literature did pay a great deal of attention to the Great Patriotic War, but in a very one-sided way. A huge section of people's life in all its tragedy was ignored. It concerned everything that occurred on the other side of the lines, which involved some fifty million men, women, children and elderly people and another five million-odd war prisoners. A whole state.
Among the innumerable questions born of our ignorance about the true course of events during the war (1941-45), there is one that formal historiography has been especially anxious to conceal from the public: the fate of the Soviet soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans, of the Russian Liberation army and its commander, Lieutenant-General Andrei Andreiyevich Vlassov. It is our human and patriotic duty to restore in the souls of the people the memory of millions of our compatriots, for their fate is the greatest tragedy in Russian history.
Some figures: by February of 1945 5.74 million were captured. Of them 3.3 million (58 percent) died of various causes. The mortality rate was 1.58 percent among the French. 1.15 percent among
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