Truth was called on to be the fundamental sign of modernity. All medieval superstitions and obscurantism were to be left behind. We reached the time of enlightenment where facts could be verified through empiric confirmation. Sedition and deceit deserved a holy burial and to be turned into the bad memory of a time already gone. But the ambition of the capitalist system buried the idea of historic truth. It intended to do so, for example, through Francis Fukuyama’s adventurous thesis of the End of History, and then shielded by public opinion corporations where reality is despised and reconstructed in a Hollywoodesque script that elevates the value of some and tries to bury the sacrifice and courage of others. This mechanism, a tailored suit of the dominant hegemony, is specially used to eradicate dissidence.
It is worth walking through the unsuspected limits to which the media operation is taken as Rene Descartes would, promoting doubt before any written word, any image put out and even in the “facts” spread. But this tenet is knocked down by the logic of hegemonic liberal anger. This year, was none other than the 75 year anniversary of the victory against fascism and its racist and totalitarian pretension. Because of our diplomatic responsibilities and the deep friendship that ties us to the Russian people, last June 24, we witnessed the lavish parade organized by the Russian Federation in order to pay tribute and remember the enormous sacrifice of the Soviet people and army.
In this context, we are astonished at the unacceptable pretension of erasing the unfathomable feat of the Russian people in the Western corporate media. They intend to grossly force the disappearance of 27 million Soviet lives that we remember today with honor and pain, as the terrible balance of the Great Patriotic War. Who can deny that in 1945 the Red Army’s military strategy and the sacrifice of the Soviet people were the determinant factors for Nazi surrender? No one doubts that every one of the allied actors made proportional admirable and heroic contributions. Even less so, can reality be manipulated trying to underestimate, or even worse, ignore the role of the Soviet Union.
In defense of Truth, President Vladimir Putin published a lucid document where he explains what should not need any explanation at all. Beyond the notable exercise of historical rescue stemming from confirmed facts, this article incorporates a great lesson in world politics. It is based on a deliberation, in order to not repeat such an unmeasured cycle of violence amongst human beings. He does it evocating the tragic sense of what such moment was for humanity. He affirms that the fundamental purpose is to understand the real history: Our responsibility before the past and the future is to do all that is possible to avoid repeating these terrible tragedies.
This evocation of tragedy which the Russian President suggests allows us, at the same time, to conjure the famous Danish Prince, Hamlet, under the pen of William Shakespeare: “The time is out of joint” (I.5.190). The world is out of place, it is insane, and medieval specters reappear through deceit. History and humanity are not in their appropriate place. In the text, Vladimir Putin corrects the dislocation of the officious discourse of the hegemonic Western propaganda machine. Following a very pedagogical path he goes to the origin of the causes of the war:
The root causes of World War II mainly stem from the decisions made after World War I. The Treaty of Versailles became a symbol of grave injustice for Germany. In basically implied that the country was to be robbed, being forced to pay enormous reparations to the Western allies that drained its economy. French marshal Ferdinand Foch who served as the Supreme Allied Commander gave a prophetic description of that Treaty: “This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years”.
He goes over the causes of inequality and anger, to the abandonment of politics and of the understanding of the other in a world in conflict, out of fit, out of place. To this he adds the failure of the League of Nations, which: proved ineffective and just got swamped by pointless discussions. History shows us that this document warns us of the exercise of arrogance in politics. The causes of the war are none other than the abandonment of the sincere and understanding dialogue with the other. We will come back to this a bit later.
Continuing with his very well documented presentation, Putin reconstructs all of the negotiations that the different political actors carried out, like the meeting at Munich:
In the case of Munich Betrayal that, in addition to Hitler and Mussolini, involved British and French leaders, Czechoslovakia was taken apart, with the full approval of the League of Nations. I would like to point out in this regard that, unlike many other European leaders of that time, Stalin did not disgrace himself by meeting with Hitler who was known among the Western nations as quite a reputable politician and was a welcome guest in the European capitals (…) (…) Today, European politicians, and Polish leaders in particular, wish to sweep the Munich Betrayal under the carpet. Why? The fact that their countries once broke their commitments and supported the Munich Betrayal, with some of them even participating in divvying up the take, is not the only reason. Another is that it is kind of embarrassing to recall that during those dramatic days of 1938, the Soviet Union was the only one to stand up for Czechoslovakia.
Whoever pretends to change or ignore history, not only imposes upon the other –in this case upon the Soviet Union – the negative burden, but also shows a selective memory towards minimizing own actions, which is, at the least, questionable. In the printed version of the Western propaganda machine a sort of secret alliance was fabricated between Nazism and Communism, a diabolical monstrosity that threatened the peace and security of world freedom. But the truth is that, according to what is gathered from President Putin’s meticulous reconstruction, in a context in which all European countries negotiated: the Soviet Union signed the Non-Aggression Pact with Germany. It was practically the last among the European countr5ies to do so. Besides, it was done in the face of a real threat of war on two fronts –with Germany in the west and with Japan in the east.
In an exercise of self-criticism about its own tradition, he never removes blame from the errors that the Soviet command may have committed, but rather he puts them into the perspective of the political and military chessboard that was being knitted as the conflict became imminent. When the gunpowder and blood covered all of the European territory as a result of the immoral death framework forged by Nazism, the Russian people, the Soviet peoples, showed their faces and bared their chests on behalf of Humanity. The narrative, loaded with precision and supported by historical documents, covers each of the decisions made by the Red Army, demonstrating that it never supported the Germans, and that it calculated until the last moment, its incorporation into the conflict. We all know the results. It would have been impossible to stop Nazism without the sacrifice of 27 million Soviet lives.
Vladimir Putin’s reflection on this process is magnanimous, courageous, and measured. Far from being strident, it is consistent with historic truth, recognizing each contribution by the military and police forces that confronted the menace and laying out the need to remember historic narrative drawing it from the truth in order to avoid new cycles of violence due to the stubborn obsession of wanting to steal the laurels of victory and sacrifice from those who deserve them. If we do not learn from history, it will repeat itself until we learn the lessons. Putin tells us:
Saying this, I by no means intend to take on the role of a judge, to accuse or acquit anyone, let alone initiate a new round of international information confrontation in the historical field that could set countries and peoples at loggerheads. I believe that it is academics with a wide representation of respected scientists from different countries of the world who should search for a balanced assessment of what happened. We all need the truth and objectivity. (…) Neglecting the lessons of history inevitably leads to a harsh payback. We will firmly uphold the truth based on documented historical facts. We will continue to be honest and impartial about the events of World War II.
It is the tragedy of distorted history for the only purpose of denying the other. It is this out of place time which President Putin places in its just dimension. But he also speaks to us of another tragedy, that of the death of millions of human beings. Why did they die? What is the origin of this tragedy, of this out of place time? Eduardo Rinesi, the Argentinian thinker, invites us to pay attention on the idea of tragedy as political mediation. He explains that tragedy is a literary figure of that which is terrible, which has no solution because it ends up in death. It is that which overwhelms politics, which takes place when the exercise of politics –that which saves us from the blood reaching the river – fails. War is precisely a tragedy, because war is that which takes place when we run out of arguments to reconcile in face of conflict.
But tragedy only makes sense if it is looked upon through the lens of dialectics. If those terrible things that happen, and that have no solution, –such as all the deaths of the Great Patriotic War –somewhat help us to reflect and to not make the same mistakes. That is the direction the Russian President points to in his article. The denial of history for supremacist ends, the non-recognition of the other, the anger in speech and action, the lies and the deceit, take us to relive and repeat the tragedy, it does not allow us to learn from what is terrible in its lessons. President Putin calls for truth in order to learn from tragedy and embark in new logics for politics and for conflict resolution, otherwise sacrifice would be in vain:
We contend for genuine, unvarnished, or whitewashed truth about war. This national, human truth, which is hard, bitter and merciless, has been handed down to us by writers and poets who walked through fire and hell of front trials. For my generation, as well as for others, their honest and deep stories, novels, piercing trench prose and poems have left their mark in my soul forever. Honoring veterans who did everything they could for the Victory and remembering those who died on the battlefield has become our moral duty.
The world’s challenge, after seventy-five years since the tragedy of war, is to place our time where it rightfully belongs. It is fundamental that international diplomacy develops a greater capacity for dialogue, that we return to politics as the exercise of conflict resolution, that the norms of International Law, that precisely began to be built in the heat of the lessons left to us by World War II, are respected from the conviction that it is the only way to not return to the path of war; that State sovereignty is recognized, as well as its principle of self-determination; that coercive unilateral measures which deviate from the spirit of political mediation, cornerstone of the United Nations system, are not imposed.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is under siege by imperialist forces. The disproportion and absurdity of the actions against a people whose only crime is to have forged and sustained their own destiny, has the intention of destroying the reflective spirit of politics. That is why today we return to reflections, the analysis laid out in the article by the Russian President as the necessary word to return to the path of politics, of the recognition of diversity, of the true history that mankind has learned, through tragic sacrifices, the value of peace. Enough with the manipulation, enough with the sieges, enough with the preventable tragedies. Let’s straighten out this out of place time. May truth not be a victim of arrogance and power, may truth carry us through the path of justice, to an inexorable world peace.