This article is the culmination of ‘Part I’, Part II’ and ‘Part III’ – all of which tell the story of the Battle of Stalingrad (1942) as told by the British BBC Journalist – Alexander Werth – who could fluently speak, read and write the Russian language. This ability enabled Werth to gain access to the latest and most up-to-date information – and to be allowed onto battlefields sometimes just as the fighting had ceased or moved on in a different direct. What he saw was appalling. The Nazi Germans, the Romanians, the Italians, the Spanish, the Hungarians, the Bulgarians and the Slovakians (together with a significant force of ‘Volunteer’ French, Belgian and Scandinavians and others) – all contributed troops (supported by the Catholic Church and the Trotskyite Movement) in the Hitlerite (1941) invasion of the USSR! This was an invasion of intended genocide which killed and wounded 41 million Soviet men, women and children (between 1941-1945).
It is said that 27 million Soviet people were killed – whilst 14 million Soviet people were wounded and maimed. The Battle of Stalingrad was fought between July 17th, 1942 and February 2nd, 1943. The Soviet losses amounted to 1,129,619 casualties (mostly Red Army soldiers) – whilst the Nazi Germans (and their allies) lost around 1,500,000 soldiers. This intense battle was fought over a ten-mile front and at its peak involved the Nazi Germans (and their allies) mounting around 40-attacks per day – involving SS Units, Wehrmacht Infantry, artillery, tanks and air attack. All attacks were vicious and pressed-home with the greatest of determination and discipline! Hitler’s orders issued in Berlin were immediately put into practice on the Stalingrad front-line. The Western Allies demanded that the continuous Soviet losses had to stop if the UK and US were to seriously initiate a ‘Second-Front’.
This is why the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ‘voted’ to devote untold resources (and men) into the Stalingrad front-line. The Soviet people, as part of their training, were educated as to the Marxist-Leninist reasons for working-class resistance to Hitler’s fascism. These men – and some women – willingly prepared for the battle as part of their Red Army training – and then millions were quite literally ‘blown to pieces’ as they enthusiastically took to the battlefield and placed their bodies between the hatred of Hitler’s policies – and the those he intended to torture, murder and maim! Not only this, but tens of thousands of horses used by the Nazi Germans (and their allies) were blown to pieces in the fighting – whilst thousands of others were left unattended (with their crews ‘dead’) – whilst they slowly froze and starbed to death! Learn from this suffering – and what it means to be working-class and to resist fascism!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 