Canards

So this week is the anniversary of V-E Day, and the anniversary of the end of Great Patriotic War, as its known in Russia. A lot has been made this week about the appearance of Bush at the Russian military parade commemorating the end of that war, especially at a time when Vladimir Putin is consolidating power the way the Soviets used too. But he also resurrected an old conservative canard this week, when he talked about Yalta, essentially accusing FDR of selling out people in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. This is an old canard that the really old Conservative movement, like Colonel McCormick era and the John Birch Society, love to talk about to discredit Roosevelt. The fact that Alger Hiss was present at the meeting also is important for them, to the point where they make out that Hiss wrote the whole agreement, which is why the "betrayal" of Eastern Europe took place.

The problem with this is simple. Those who believe this either refuse to acknowledge or simply don't realize the role the Russians played in defeating the Germans. 27 million Russians died under Wermarcht tank treads. By the time that the Allies were ready to accept the Germans' surrender, the Russians were in Berlin, and they'd taken Poland and Eastern Europe with them. There was absolutely no bargaining power that FDR had. He wasn't going to force Ike to fight the Russians after fighting the Germans. They tried to get free elections in Poland, because there were different governments, one installed by the Soviets, the other in-exile in London, but they didn't happen. They trusted Stalin to hold to the deal, and he didn't. But we needed his help against Japan, because we didn't know if the bomb would work.
The Allies had to go with Stalin, because they wouldn't have otherwise had the ability to be facing only part of the German army.

I'm going to talk about some other stuff on Thursday, but tomorrow I send out my best wishes to my friends in the class of 2005.