This follows on from ‘Part I‘ and ‘Part II‘ – and precedes ‘Part IV‘ – regarding the pivotal Battle of Stalingrad. This is a chapter extracted from Alexander Werth’s 1947 book entitled ‘The Year of Stalingrad’. This book appears to have been printed only ‘once’ between 1947-1991 – and has been re-printed (in a limited run) through Simon Publications (www.simonpublications.com) in 2001 accroding to the book cover (although I have reason to believe that ‘2001’ might be a misprint for ‘2010’). Although I have read Werth’s 1964 book entitled ‘Russia At War’ many times (after purchasing a ‘First Edition’ copy within the Hay-on-Wye village bookshop complex some years ago) I cannot recall Werth mentioning his Stalingrad book – even though the battle is dealt with extensively within ‘Russia At War’.
I suspect this first-hand, on-the-spot reporting from a beleaguered USSR was a problem for the US ideologues as they tried to incorporate the anti-Soviet propaganda (and ‘lies’) perpetuated by Joseph Goebbels within post-1945 Cold War ideology. The work of Werth demonstrates that Goebbels was lying – and by extension – so are the US ideologues! Religion was never destroyed in the Socialist State! If anything, when the priests and monks of the Russian Orthodox Church are freed from the requirement to participate within (and dominate) the political system – they may concentrate upon the study of the Bible and the following of a genuine spiritual path. Moreover, it is clear that the Russian Orthodox Church fully aligned itself with the Soviet State and did not deviate from its Socialist ideology!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 