Scylla defeating Charybdis: WW2 in Belarus

My article on TOL blog Belarus

Reflections on the official holiday of Victory Day, 9th of May, 2007 by Aleś Čajčyc for Pozirk.org.

Translated from Bełarusian by eolonir and ox populi.

The Ninth of May. The “red day” as it is also known, one marked red both in the calendars and in peoples' memories. The Victory day. The day which I can't help calling the day of Pobeda. (Pobeda means “victory” in Russian, whereas in Belarusian it is called “pieramoha”). I catch myself at trying to use this Russian word in my language. The Russian and Soviet clichés and stereotypes are rooted too deeply in my mind – it is difficult to separate the Soviet myth and Soviet name of the event from the actual event.

In the Soviet mythology the victory over Fascist Germany in the Great Patriotic War – Vialikaj Ajčynnaj Vajnie (in Belarusian) -- Velikoj Ociečestvennoj Vojnie (in Russian) was a part of a long and awesome epic story about the power of communism. Soviet propaganda aligned all anti-communist movements, among them the “White Army”, the Western Democracies, the Belarusian Liberation movements under one category -- the enemies of communism, the dark forces. Victory over the Nazis was presented as the first step to the world communism domination.

Such holidays are usually celebrated to honour a victory against an external enemy and to honour the national army which made that victory possible. For Russia, the predecessor and successor of the Soviet Union, this war had really been the national patriotic war, the war for the national liberation. One can understand that it might be possible for the question about crimes of Stalinist regime and terror inside the country to be moved down the agenda – considering the threat to the existence of Russia as a country. The Russians were fighting for the very right to exist. Incidentally, the tradition to commemorate victories long after they have taken place is typical of Moscow – the 1812 Victory or taking over Kazan' had been celebrated for decades.

Lukashenka's Belarus has added another, special meaning to the celebrations of the 9th of May. Having no ideological or metaphorical grounding on which to build up the state system, the regime keeps grappling at the remnants of the past, at these emotional Soviet symbols. Moreover, it enslaves the present within the remnants of totalitarian past. How “patriotic” had this war been for those who had been occupied themselves? How much of a holiday is this for Bełaruś?

Liberating from the liberators

The fact is simple: no party in that war should be considered an ally of Bełaruś and a representative of its interests. Both communists and Nazis have made enough good and bad things for us.

Communists have tolerated our conditional sovereignty within the USSR. Bełaruś existed as a marionettic, but de-jure an independent state inside the Soviet Union. Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus of the 1920ies represented to at least some extent a reincarnation of the Bełarusian People's Republic, when communistic government has allowed development of Belarusian culture and usage of our language – although that period had been quite short. At the same time the Germans returned private property, formed Belarusian National divisions and allowed using our national symbolics by local administrative units.

Acting in accord, the two had actually served for unification of the Western and Eastern parts of the country according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Before that Belarusians lived in two prisons, while after September 1939 all of them got into one Soviet cell. Albeit not for a long time – a month after the unification, Vilnia has been given to Lithuania and renamed to Vilnius. Also, the Belarusian-populated region of Biełastok (Białystok) has been given as a present to Poland after the war.

Still, the criminal record of both “great leaders” is a great deal longer. Hitler has commenced a war which has taken every forth Belarusian life away. All acts of war perpetrated by the Nazi forces are widely known – and I perhaps even the Soviet propaganda did not inflate the count by a considerable margin. Slave labour in German factories, villages burnt with all their inhabitants, gallows stretching along village roads, atrocities of the Nazi who have lost all their resemblance to humans. Mały Traścianiec, Chatyń, Miensk ghetto. 800 thousand Bełarusian Jews had perished in Nazi camps and as the result of Nazi “clearance raids”. Every seventh victim of Holocaust originates from Belarus.

The Soviet Union has entered the Second World War in alliance with Hitler's Germany: the date of 1st of September 1939 marked the date of another disaster in the European history as the Soviet Army acted in accord with the German counterparts and entered the Polish territory from the East. Pre-war Soviet period on the “newly liberated” territories had been short, but it had been enough for Western Bełaruś to get a taste of what its Eastern sister had been suffering for more than a decade already. Thousands of villagers and city dwellers who used to stand out either with their money, intelligence, or civil position, had been stripped of their property and exiled to Kazakhstan and Siberia. Tens of thousands have died on this road and their bodies had been thrown away from the dirty cargo trains where all these unlucky human beings had been travelling to their destinies. Thousands had been killed in Kurapaty, Vańkovičy forest by the Soviet NKVD. This list can be continued endlessly.

After the war was over, assimilation and repressions have restarted. Repressions against national culture in Soviet Latvia, for instance, are comparable to the long-term occupation and assimilation plans of the Nazis. Belarus has become a part of the evil Soviet project, a part of an empire which existed only for the sake of inflaming the Second and then –- in perspective -- the Third World War and would never stop until communism would dominate on the globe. Belarus was meant to become a platz-d'arms for the new invasion to the West –- and the first victim to the returning blow in that awful apocalyptic war of the Soviet Union against the human civilization. The Chernobyl catastrophe happened to be the finishing chord . It has become a symbol of corruption, inefficience, and what is more – indifference of the Moscow functioneers to the people of their “Western territories”.

They only managed to do one thing right -- either side liberated us from the other. However, every next liberator did not intend to leave himself afterwards.

Was the Soviet Union really better than the Nazi Germany? Can one totalitarian bloody system be better than another one? The only hope for the independent Bełarus had been democratic Europe toppling Hitler and starting a new war against the USSR. Luckily for the world that wasn't ever meant to happen.

Commemoration Day

Flowers on the victims' graves and at the pedestals of monuments, tears in the eyes of people who were born many decades after this war was over. What would be the true meaning of this day for us after all?

It should become the Day of Memory. The day when we recall and commemorate one of the most tragic episodes of Belarusian history. The Day of Commemoration without militaristic pathetic parades, without blood-coloured “Victory Banners” and definitely without the mascarade shows on the renovated “Stalin defense line”. On the other hand, this should not be a Day for SS-commemorating parades or demolishing the Soviet memorials. May 9th should become the day of the Belarusian soldiers fighting on different sides should be finally reconciled -- they were fighting for one Belarus and for the right to live their lives as humans, not like animals. In the end what does it matter which uniform they used to wear -- one of the Soviet Army, of the BKA (Belarusian Local Self-Defence), of the Anders Army or even of Waffen-SS. Uniforms of innocent victims are the same before the face of death.

Let the May 9th become the day to commemorate war and post-war forest partisanship and the anti-fascist Christian democratic resistance movement. Let it become the day to honour the memory of Belarusian Jews, an integral and valuable part of our nation who had fallen victims to Nazi genocide and the survivors of whom were later forced by the Bolsheviks to emigrate. Let it be the commemoration day for all those who have not lived to see the end of that catastrophe.

There is no Victory we should be celebrating this day. De-facto that had been the victory of one Belarusian enemy against another, liberation from Nazi occupation by the Bolshevik occupants. A paradox, but Belarus is perhaps the only country generally seen as “winner” which has lost territories after the war finished. Belarus simply had no chance in the war, where enemies had been standing on both sides of the frontline.

Still, there is something to celebrate. We can celebrate that the war had finally come to an end, and that the peace was established -- even under another occupation. Cities were no longer burning and useless butchery was no longer the agenda. While there is life -- there is hope. We have lived through 70 years of Soviet occupation -- and we will live through the 10, 15, even 20 years of stupid post-Communist dictatorship. While we are alive -- we shall fight: the fathers had been fighting against much deadlier evil. Victory of life over death – maybe this is the real meaning of the “Victory Day”? Our Dzien pieramohi?

http://blogs.tol.org/belarus/2007/05/10/scilla-defeating-haribda-ww2-in-belarus/