80 Years Ago Today

Here is an anniversary you won't see noted by the mainstream press. 80 years ago this day, on September 17, 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Poland. The Third Reich had invaded Poland earlier on the first of September. After defeating the Poles, the Nazis and the Soviets divided up Poland between them. While the Allies declared war on Germany almost immediately following the invasion, they did not declare war on the Soviets in response to their invasion of Poland from the East. After the U.S. entered the war in 1941 and the Soviets stopped the Germans at Stalingrad, the Soviets pushed West and eventually overran Germany from the East. With "victory" declared, the people of Poland along with the rest of Eastern Europe were imprisoned for decades behind the Iron Curtain. Those countries are still recovering from the economic devastation.

Joint triumphal arches were built as the Soviet communists and German Nazis celebrated defeating Poland together.

Just a reminder for all Russians who claim that the Second World War began with #OperationBarbarossa (German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941) pic.twitter.com/WqCAI49b3Q

— BasedPoland (@BasedPoland) September 17, 2019

In our eagerness to defeat a perceived monster in Hitler, we made common cause with a far worse villain in Joseph Stalin. Stalin has few peers for his sheer brutality, only Mao can compete in terms of body count. Had the U.S. not been in the European theater in such massive numbers, it is certain Stalin would not have stopped at Berlin but rather would have charged across Western Europe. But hey, we got Hitler and with Europe devastated, America ruled the world so we knocked up a ton of our ladies and created the Baby Boomers who would go on to sell their birthright for less than a mess of pottage.

Every misdeed of the Third Reich, real, exaggerated and imagined, is recounted in excruciating detail but the Soviet Union gets little attention today despite it being a far worse regime than the Nazis. When you wonder why that might be, start to look at who decides what movies and news and books we consume.

World War II, the Cold War, Vietnam. They never ended, we just changed the names and one side forgot it was still in a war.