Ilya Rogachev
British prime minister Winston Churchill, in his speech to the House of Commons, once said: “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” One cannot disagree with that.
Wisdom to preserve and analyse the experience of bygone generations is one of the key factors of development of each individual and society as a whole. By contrast, disregard of history leads to the same mistakes and the same tragic events, as in the past, wars and conflicts among them.
Churchill’s words are especially relevant today. European elites are heading towards a war against Russia, and decisions of the latest Nato summit in Washington DC corroborate that. “Europe is preparing for war. The pro-war train has no brakes, and the driver has gone mad,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said (About Hungary, 1 June 2024).
In one of our previous entries, we revealed how Western propaganda was working on public opinion, to prepare people’s moods for a clash with Russia. But the preparations, as we see, also go beyond the media space. They involve plans to reinstate mandatory military service in certain countries, mounting military budgets of European states and placing of national economies on a war footing.
As usual, Western officials choose an alleged “upcoming Russian attack” on a Nato country as a pretext, and even go as far as to name the time for it. Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius says that it should be expected in “five to eight years” (Politico, January 19, 2024). Several other EU politicians say it could be even sooner than that. Deciphering the propaganda gimmickry: this is when Germany and others will prepare for war and when a “casus belli” (act of provocation) should be expected by Russia.
The collective West is obsessed with the idea to inflict a military defeat upon Russia and reduce it to a colony status. History proves that the paradigm of thinking is a die-hard among Western elites. Every few generations, they decide to act to resolve the “Russian issue” once and for all.
There is a common opinion in Russia that approximately once in a centenary, the West braces up and comes to the Russian soil with a sword, where it gets beaten up and retires with its nose bloodied to remain calm for another 100 years. While claiming no scientific accuracy of this point, we believe it is not unfounded: Russia, as a strong international actor, has always been pain in the neck of the West, and the West never abandoned attempts to subdue it, albeit each time unsuccessfully.
Since as long ago as Medieval Ages, German knights of Livonia, Swedish and Danish feudals, with the blessing of the Roman Catholic Church, were staging attacks on Western Russian lands. In the 13th to 14th centuries, several crusades against Russian principalities (at that time fragmented and weakened by the Mongol invasion) were conducted. This is when the German term “Drang nach Osten” (“Push to the East”) appeared later turned by Nazi propaganda into a slogan of policies to conquer East Slavic peoples. Attempts to restrain Russian maritime trade through the Baltic Sea led to a series of blood-shedding conflicts between Russians and their Western neighbours in 15th and 16th centuries.
The 17th century was marked by a large-scale assault on the Tsardom of Russia from the north-west. The period of inner instability of 1598 to 1613 is known as the Time of Troubles in Russia. It followed the extinction of the royal dynasty of Rurikids and was accompanied by foreign military interventions that endangered the existence of Russia as a sovereign state.
Taking advantage of Russia’s weakness, Sweden annexed the country’s territories in the North, cutting it from the Baltic Sea for decades to come, while Poland seized Smolensk and Chernigov, and even occupied Moscow in 1610. But in 1612, people’s militia ousted the invaders, and in 1613, the Russians elected a new tsar, who established the dynasty of Romanovs.
The 18th century saw yet another major clash with Europeans, known as the Great Northern War (1700 to 1721). In the 21-year-long conflict, Russian tsar Peter I, seeking to regain access to the Baltic Sea, laid claims to the territories annexed by Sweden during the Time of Troubles.
Initially unsuccessful on the battlefield, Peter managed to turn the tide of the conflict in his favour. Having secured a foothold in the Baltics, the Russian tsar put forward a peace proposal that was arrogantly rejected. King Charles XII of Sweden repeatedly said: “Russia is a dwarf, and I will bring her to her knees.” During the invasion of Russia in 1709, near Poltava, in the territory of present-day Ukraine, the Swedish army was decimated, while the king fled to the Ottoman empire and died even before the war ended.
Five centuries before that, having defeated German crusaders on the lake Peipus, Russian Prince Alexander Nevsky said: “Whoever comes to us with a sword – from a sword will perish.” Thus, the Swedes shared the fate of other failed conquerors of Russia.
The “European family”, however, didn’t learn from the past experience. In about 100 years, a new attempt to clamp Russia was made as Napoleon Bonaparte of France led his “Grand Army” into the ill-fated invasion in 1812.
Before that, he subjugated almost the entire Europe and channelled its combined potential against Russia. Notably, only half of Napoleon’s army were the French; the rest were the Poles, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Croats, Austrians and so on. Common Russians called Napoleon’s attack “the invasion of 20 languages”. “Russia is a colossus with feet of clay,” Bonaparte used to say.
The unseen for that time armada of up to 600 000 soldiers came to Russia in June 1812, and in only 6 months their remnants were chased away by Field Marshal Kutuzov’s troops. No more than 20 000 soldiers of Napoleon’s army managed to cross the river Berezina back.
In 1814, the Russian army entered Paris. Napoleon ended his days in exile on the remote island of St Helena in the South Atlantic. History repeated itself.
Yet, even this historical lesson was forgotten: in another 100 years, Western invaders came to Russia again.
It was a difficult period for our country, essentially the new “Time of Troubles” exacerbated by the World War I, but Russia survived political turmoil with three revolutions (including in October 1917), as well as the Civil War (1918-1922) with foreign military interventions involving UK, France, US (Entente, 1919-1921).
The victorious powers – UK, US and France – failed to develop a resilient post-World War I order. French general Ferdinand Koch said that when he saw the Peace Treaty of Versailles: “This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years.” His words proved to be prophetic. Revanchism established itself in Germany paving way for the World War II which broke out in 21 years.
On June 22,1941, Nazi Germany attacked the USSR. As before, the aggressor’s strength rested on Europe’s economic and industrial potential. Following Nazi invasion, their allies Italy and Romania declared war on the USSR. The next day, Nazi Germany client state Slovakia did the same, on June 26, Finland, and on June 27, Hungary. More than a dozen others sent their troops without declaring a war or allowed their nationals to serve in Wehrmacht.
Hitler intended to conquer the USSR by the end of 1941, but it didn’t turn out the way he expected. On April 30,1945, as the Red Army was storming Berlin, he committed suicide in the basement of the Reich Chancellery.
How come most European nations found themselves on the wrong side of history, the side of Nazism? And isn’t it a reason why they have been persistently trying to rewrite history of the war – to whitewash Nazi criminals and their accomplices, forget about the atrocities “civilised” Europeans committed in the USSR, or take down monuments which remind them of their Nazi past?
Outstanding Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky once wrote that history does not teach any lessons but punishes one for not learning them. The West should stop rewriting history and start learning it, in order to prevent history from repeating itself every 100 years.
Ilya Rogachev, ambassador of Russia to South Africa
The Star