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COMMENTARY: HISTORY FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN

During the Cold War some believed that it was unfortunate that the Germany had not succeeded in defeating the Soviet Union and destroying Stalinist Communism. One was teaching at Fresno State College in the late 1950s. He had been an officer in the German army that had invaded the Soviet Army and told us that Hitler's big mistake was what he did to the Jews. And there was the German character on trial in the film Judgment at Nuremberg who justified himself by saying something to the effect that you persecute us today, the Communists will get you tomorrow.

Stalin, as I see it, was a demented brute and those around him were common toadies. They made a mess of the sacrifices that the Soviet people made in defeating the German invasion. They were an evil. But Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was also an evil -- a worse evil if you want these evils on a scale. It was for the people of the Soviet Union to change their politics, not Hitler and the Germans and their allies, the Romanians and Spanish fascists. Nothing caused more suffering than the war that Hitler launched first in 1939, of which his invasion of the Soviet Union was a part. And it enhanced Stalin's power. Leaving that power alone, on the other hand, would have allowed time for communists like Khrushchev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin to rise.

The big evil in the 20th century was born of empire: the empire of the big powers, including the Habsburg empire, with the Habsburgs feeling justified in it because others did it. Habsburg empire and Russia's empire were instrumental in the creation of World War I. Hitler wanting to correct the outcome of that war and make Germany the dominant force in Europe brought war again to Europe. And Japan's imperialist war against China added the worst of all wars in history: World War II..