I am currently re-reading an excellent book, Alex de Jonge’s Stalin, And the Shaping of the Soviet Union. It’s hardly light reading, as you’d expect. Nevertheless, de Jonge’s writing is clear and engaging, there are even flashes of dark, dry humour. He certainly has no illusions about Communism. There are no attempts to lay all the blame for the monstrous crimes of the Soviet era on Stalin’s shoulders alone and use his undoubted personal guilt to excuse Communism and other Communists like Khruschev. I would heartily recommend the book to anyone who wants to understand just how Marxism distorts perceptions and destroys conscience, leading to the horrors that follow in its wake like night follows day.
I first read the book maybe twenty years ago, and this time round I’ve been struck by how familiar much of it feels. There are feint, but distinct echoes reverberating today. The tramp of Marxist jackboots on the long march of through the institutions can be heard in these echoes.
The blanket acceptance in the MSM of “the current thing” and their hysterical condemnation of, and attempts to silence, any dissenting voices is one such echo. Be it the CCP Virus Panda-demic, the sanctification of transexuals, belief in the coming eco-apocalypse, or increasingly extreme BLM led demands. Just like in the Soviet Union the party line is followed with desperate and vicious vigour. Anyone trying to express not even an opposing view, but just trying to ask questions or point out that the situations are complex, is shouted down as a science denier, hate filled transphobe, climate change denier, or a racist. Where the power exists, they are simply denied the ability to even present their views. You Tube channels are suspended or banned, presenters are dropped, speakers are prevented from speaking at Universities and other public spaces. This is nothing new.
An aspect of the Second World War that is less than well known among those whose knowledge of it comes from popular culture is that Germany wasn’t the only country to invade Poland in September 1939. Hitler’s tanks rolled east on the 1st, and Stalin’s rolled west on the 17th. The partition of Poland between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia was an outcome of the pact signed between the two countries on the 23d August that year. The superficial differences and antagonism between Nazism and Communism made such a pact a surprise to the world, but international Realpolitik and the large similarities between the two vile systems made the pact a reality. Not only did they divide Poland between them, but Stalin provided Hitler with massive amounts of raw materials (1million tons of grain, 100,000 tons of chrome etc.), in return for military matériel, such as the excellent German 88mm anti-aircraft gun. Stalin also provided training facilities and even allowed German U-Boats to operate from a submarine base near Murmansk. There was also moral support.
Soviet and German troops meet in Poland, 1939. 
Prior to the signing of the pact, (known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, from the two foreign ministers) the Soviets and their loyal Communist parties abroad, were of course usually highly antagonistic towards the Nazis and vice versa. With the pact a reality and cooperation with Nazi Germany the order of the day, when Britain and France declared war on Germany the Communist parties in those countries found themselves in the odd situation of having to oppose war with Nazi Germany.
The Communist Party of Great Britain’s newspaper, the Daily Worker (since 1966 the Morning Star) carried headlines such as “Stop this Imperialist War Now!” and claimed that Britain’s war aims were “not to rescue Europe from fascism, but to impose British imperialist peace on Germany”. When the Germans occupied Paris, they were met in working class districts by French Communists who greeted them with cries of “Comrade!” and the French Communist Party collaborated with the Gestapo. All this lasted until Hitler turned on Stalin in 1941 and invaded the Soviet Union. The Communist mental gears must’ve screeched as they turned 180°, much like modern leftists having to go from shrill support for “women’s rights” to equally shrill denials that there is any such thing as women other than as a social construct.
In the Soviet Union itself the need to follow the party line had serious consequences, for individuals and the country. Of course, despite the pact, Hitler and Stalin did not trust each other. Both knew there would be war between them at some point, it was just a question of when. Stalin assumed the war in the west would be sort of replay of 1914-1918 and that he had plenty of time to prepare to fight a Germany exhausted by years of a war of attrition.
He was wrong, very wrong. The astonishing speed and success of the German Blitzkrieg meant that by the middle of summer of 1940 there was no opposition to Hitler on the European mainland. Every country was either occupied by his forces, a puppet state, allied with him, or an impotent neutral. Stalin was now in a quandary. The purges of the 1930s had robbed the Red Army of huge numbers of officers of every rank. The embarrassingly poor performance of his army against in the Finns in the Winter War of 1939-40 showed Stalin he needed to do a lot to prepare his forces to face the Germans, a far more powerful enemy. Yet the very act of preparing might provoke Hitler into attacking before he was ready. Stalin had to hope that Hitler was not intending to attack him just yet.
Within the Soviet system it became very clear that calls to prepare for war with Germany and warnings of its likelihood were not career moves. One incident illustrates this dramatically. At a special meeting of the Politburo, head of the NKVD, Lavrentiy Beria, had stated that there was no immediate danger from Hitler. German troops massing in Poland were just there for R&R, British warnings were a cunning imperialist ploy to provoke war between Germany and the Soviets etc. etc. The head of army intelligence, Lt. Gen. Proskurin, dared to disagree and proceeded to demolish Beria’s narrative with awkward facts. Interjections from both Beria and Stalin as he did so were a warning sign. He may have made his point, but within twenty-four hours of the meeting he was arrested and shot.
Today, in the UK and the USA, failure to adhere to the “current thing” narrative won’t get you shot (at least not yet) but it can get your channel closed down, your business boycotted, it can lose you your job and attract personal attacks, all depending on the circumstances. Most of the people who are doing the silencing and issuing the hysterical condemnations are not consciously Marxist, but they have no doubt been influenced by Marxist thinking. BLM is undoubtedly a Marxist organisation and has no qualms about using physical violence as well as social and economic pressure. Those who refuse to see this Marxist influence are walking in the footsteps of British and American fellow travellers of the 1930s and 40s.
After the German led invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 it is natural that even dyed in the wool anti-Communists would soften their opinions a little. As Churchill famously commented to his private secretary at the time “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons,”. Of course, for the duration of the war cooperation with Stalin and the Soviet Union was a necessary evil. however, many in the west took things too far. Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, became deeply pro-Soviet, very much to the detriment of the Free Polish government in exile and the Baltic states occupied by the Soviets in 1940. Likewise, Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s special advisor, was highly critical what he called “the anti-Soviet clique” in the State Department and waxed lyrical in praise of the marvellous Soviet Union. Roosevelt himself thought that if he agreed to every demand of Stalin’s that he possibly could that “he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.”
These fools were far from alone, from card carrying Communists to well-meaning naïve “useful idiots” pro-Soviet opinion in the west helped to betray whole nations, as well as hundreds of thousands of individual Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, and others who were handed over to Stalin after the war, most of whom were never seen again. Soviet communism had a far stronger hand than it should have had in the post war world due to this treacherous naivety. Today we are familiar with moderate and often quite sound folk who ignore or deny the ideological inspiration and thread running through the events we see unfolding around us and who try to downplay the seriousness of the situation.
The silencing of opposition and the wilful ignorance of useful idiots are not the only thing in de Jonge’s book that were familiar. The acceptance of these modish orthodoxies, and the terror of senior people in every sector of falling foul of them is acting like a gentler, paler version of Stalin’s purges. If you voice opposition to BLM, or scepticism on Covid or “the Climate Emergency” the NKVD don’t arrest you in the middle of the night, but that promotion just doesn’t happen, in extreme cases you may lose your job altogether. Colonels that refuse to mouth the platitudes or implement the policies don’t become Brigadier Generals, team leaders don’t become managers, and so on.
Recently we saw a very public example of this here in Britain when the excellent Calvin Robinson, a sound commentator on the right, was the only member of his class denied a curacy by the Church of England after completing his studies at theological college. He submitted a subject access request and found out that concerns over his “libertarian anti-woke, anti-identity politics, Covid-skeptical” views, and the fact that he expressed these views publicly were the reason for the denial. This is even though another member of his class was equally, and publicly, outspoken on the left and was given a position. Calvin has since left the Church of England and is now a Deacon in the Free Church of England.
Another echo comes from American domestic politics. In the 1932 election the American Communist Party tried to run a candidate, William Z. Foster, with a black running mate, James W. Ford, who had studied at the Lenin School in Moscow. Funded by the Communist International (Comintern) their campaign would concentrate on mobilising the black vote. The innate good sense of the American people of all colours meant they failed even to get enough signatures to run. This being the case the American Communists were ordered by Moscow to support Roosevelt, who of course won. Reading about this in the book I couldn’t help but hear Patrice Cullors, co-founder of BLM saying “We are trained Marxists.”. The cynical use of black people (and gays, women etc. etc.) to advance their cause is nothing new for Marxists.
The more I see, the more convinced I am that Marxism is the common denominator between all these movements/social contagions. Again, by no means everyone involved is a Commie, and much of what is happening is the result of seeds planted by Marxists decades ago, rather than actual current conspiracy. Nevertheless, they all exhibit and encourage Marxist behaviours and help advance the Marxist agenda. They all weaken the West in one way or another. They undermine the family, undermine economic strength, undermine our militaries, undermine systems of justice, undermine self-confidence. They divide us and distract us from the growing threat from Beijing and make us less able and willing to resist it. To cure a disease you must first diagnose it. For me, Alex de Jonge’s Stalin and the Shaping of the Soviet Union has been a useful diagnostic tool as well as an enjoyable historical read.