By Owei Lakemfa
THE authorities in Georgia, like thieves under the cover of darkness, pulled down two monuments of Joseph Vissarinovich Stalin who led the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) The monuments which were standing in Gori, Stalin’s hometown and Tkibuli, western Georgia  were erected before the 1953 demise of Stalin.

The  USSR was a huge federation with Russia being one of its biggest constituents and unarguably, its most developed, yet it  thought nothing of making and supporting in power, the son of a cobbler from small Georgia. That was one of the strengths of the Soviet Union; a preoccupation with ideology and merit, not  ethnicity, wealth, religion and other primordial sentiments.

With the dissolution of the USSR into constituent republics, the revisionist government in Georgia agreed to be used by NATO as a proxy in a war against Russia; it was worsted, and the destruction of the monuments of the most famous Georgian in history whom the Russians idolise,  is one of the impotent rear guard actions of the Tbilisi government.

It is not clear what they intend to do with the monuments; perhaps sell them to some foreign museums or art collectors. Whatever the case,  the claim by the  government that the  monuments were pulled down because today’s younger generation of Georgians  who are raised on Western ideals  want them removed, does not sound intelligent. If indeed there was a national consensus to remove them, why do so under the cover of darkness rather than in broad daylight before the populace and mass media?

The 1917 Russian Revolution carried out by the Bolshevik  Party was led by Vladimir ILyich Ulyanov  (Lenin) who died in January 1924. A three-cornered succession battle based on ideological tendencies ensued. Leading the ‘left’ of the party was Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Leon Trotsky) who argued that what was necessary to safeguard  socialism was permanent revolution not revolution in one country.

This became known as Trotskyism. He believed that the German revolution led by people like Rosa Luxemburg was at hand and that being industrialized unlike Russia, it had better chances to move the world into a revolutionary stage.

Then there was   Nicholai Ivanovich Bukharin  whose tendency preferred  a compromise over agricultural collectivisation, a measured move towards industrialisation and  some accommodation with capitalist countries.

Stalin had a middle position; he believed in revolution in one country, the need to defend the Soviet Union by all means and an urgency to transform the country rapidly into an industrial and military power that will be strong enough to withstand the repeated attempts by the world powers to subjugate the socialist country.

Stalin’s tendency won and he succeeded in his goals of defending the revolution and transforming  what was a backward country into one of the most industrialised and powerful countries of the Twentieth Century. In doing so, there were problems such as the negative aspects of the collectivisation of the peasantry and the internal purges of the Communist Party.

He was one of the greatest political theoreticians of the Twentieth Century. He had hope in the inevitability of the German revolution but insisted that the Russian one must first be defended. He turned out to be right as the leaders of the German revolution were assassinated and the revolution  was aborted.  Twenty three years before the 1949 Chinese Revolution, Stalin in published works had analysed its character and direction.

Stalin’s greatest contribution to humanity was his foresightedness on Nazi Germany and what became  the Second World War (WWII). He analysed the 1930s fascist movement in Spain under General Francisco Franco, Italy under Benito Mussolini, Japan under its generals and Germany led by Adolf Hitler.

He showed the link and the need to defend humanity against them. When the fascists in Spain began their armed coup against its democratic government, Stalin supplied arms to the government and encouraged thousands of Soviet volunteers to fight in the civil war against Franco’s fascist forces. But other nations like Britain were aloof, unaware that the Spanish war in which Hitler militarily assisted the fascists, was the dress rehearsal of WWII.

When Hitler  took over Austria, the USSR under Stalin  on April 16, 1939 formally appealed to the major world powers especially Britain and France to forget ideological differences and establish a common front with the Soviets  to stop Hitler, they refused, preferring to appease Germany.

The Soviet Union warned that “Tomorrow, it will be too late, but there is still time today, if all countries, above all the Great Powers, take a firm and unequivocal stand(against Hitler)” Rather, Britain, Italy, France and Germany met in Munich and decided to allow Hitler dismember Czechoslovakia and annex part of it.

USSR was alone in the opposition to Hitler and to worsen matters, Japan had invaded USSR. To avoid fighting on two fronts, Stalin on August 23, 1939 signed a 10-year non-aggression pact with Germany hoping to buy time to build his military. Hitler wanted time to seize other countries between them.

Germany then seized the rest of Czechoslovakia and invaded Poland at which point  Britain and France declared war. But Hitler had become unstoppable; he proceeded to occupy Poland, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and France itself while Britain was in danger of falling after Hitler launched Operation Sea Lion.

On July 21, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded Soviet Union and there began to suffer irreversible defeats until its final annihilation. USSR lost over 20 million people in the war, United States (US) 400,000 and Britain 370,000. The Soviets also lost over 700,000 villages, towns and cities. Germany had 13.6 million killed, injured or taken prisoner, 10 million of them by the Soviets who also wiped out 70 per cent of the feared German air force, and completely or partially  liberated 10 European countries.

The  US dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, and Stalin raced to produce the  Soviet atomic bomb in 1949, thereby ensuring that the USSR cannot be militarily destroyed. By tearing down his monuments, the Georgian government cannot erase Stalin’s contributions to world history.