September 1, 1939—exactly seventy years ago today—is customarily considered the day when World War II began, owing to the German invasion of Poland. Of course, some belligerents, most notably the Japanese and the Chinese, had already been at war for years, and others did not join the fray until later. The United States actually began...
Read More »

When American students learn about World War II, they are usually taught that it began on September 1, 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland. They do not get much instruction about the Treaty of Non-Aggression between the Third German Reich and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, better known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (after the...
Read More »

Anthony: I agree that the Gates incident is being misinterpreted by conservatives: one indeed has the right to security in one’s home, and should not be subject to arrest or harassment therein. However, liberals are similarly misinterpreting the incident, and are just as culpable in attempting to use it for their ends to perpetuate...
Read More »

According to an AP report, U.S. president Barack Obama and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev have reached an understanding to reduce their countries’ nuclear arsenals. Under treaties currently in force, each side is permitted to have as many as 2,200 warheads and 1,600 launch vehicles. The understanding, which would serve as guidance for negotiators formulating...
Read More »

Not many people are aware that during the early 1930s, thousands of Americans emigrated from the United States to the USSR. Some, many of them unemployed engineers and technical workers, went simply in search of employment in the Soviets’ big push to industrialize; others went in search of a better society they mistakenly believed the Communists were building....
Read More »

In the spirit of Christmas, I have been striving to regain my faith in humanity. I want to believe again, as I did in my childhood, that people are better than cockroaches or staphylococci. For a while I was making progress. On Sunday, I enjoyed a magnificent performance of Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall (featuring my stepdaughter...
Read More »

Further to David’s post, I recently came across this amusing passage from John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr’s In Denial: Historians, Communism, and Espionage, about the whitewashing of Soviet crimes by the Western intelligentsia. Singled out for special condemnation is J. Arch Getty who consistently downplayed Stalin’s brutality, portraying him as “a moderate unable...
Read More »

In this short clip from the notorious, pro-Stalin film from 1943, “Mission to Moscow,” Walter Huston, playing the American ambassador, Joseph E. Davies, smears pre-war non-interventionists, defends the Soviet invasion of Finland, and depicts the Soviets as peace-loving. Apparently, Davies was not a typical fellow traveler. According to Soviet archives, he purchased art at...
Read More »

Truth does eventually come to light, unfortunately too often not in time to save countless waste or tragic loss of life. A recent case in point is the new book, The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia, recounting the tale of thousands of Americans who fell prey to the intelligentsia’s love affair with...
Read More »

After nearly eighty years, the New York Times reports that Russia may now finally be moving to de-collectivize and privatize its farmlands. From 1928 to 1933, Stalin pursued a ruthless drive to collectivize all agriculture in the Soviet Union, and implemented a series of events in the Ukraine (“the breadbasket of Europe”) to crush...
Read More »