It seems to me that the approach to the question of the Hitler-Stalin pact in this debate is completely off. The ordinary soldiers in the Red Army fought with great courage to defend their country from the Nazi menace. No doubt about that. But Stalin deserves no thanks for the victory. By the late 30's he had already purged his best generals. And he had wilfully subordinated the struggle against fascism around the world, and crucially in Germany, to the interests of his bureacratic class. Not to mention killing many millions of people in the gulag for good measure. Ordinary soldiers from all the allied countries fought the Nazis in WW2 because they hated fascism-- the greatest threat to their collective power and to democracy. Their rulers fought the war for completely different reasons- they fought to divide up the world and conquer it. It seems to me if one is serious about 'proletarian internationalism' it means totally dispensing with the Stalinist tradition, as Serbian workers have most recently done with such courage.
Aaron Hess
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