The Red Army's 'Liberation' of Europe

The myth

The core of the Soviet cult of Victory is the image of the Red Army that “liberated” Europe from Nazism and brought peoples their freedom. Modern Russian rhetoric is built on this image as well. But the very word “liberation” Gogun considers incorrect for these events: it presupposes “freedom,” whereas the Soviet Union was a country of total unfreedom — to free someone into a different slavery does not mean to liberate. That is why, as a historian, he avoids the term “liberation” with regard to the actions of the Red Army and writes neutrally — “occupied,” “took”^[1].

Tellingly, Stalin himself understood this shade of meaning. For cities that had been victims of Nazi occupation, the medal “for the liberation of Prague,” “for the liberation of Warsaw” was awarded, while for German cities or those allied with Hitler it was “for the capture of Budapest”^[2]. The difference in awards betrays the difference in the essence of the actions.

Plunder sanctioned from above

The material condition of the occupied territories worsened immediately. Until December 1944 Stalin condoned looting and in part rapes — by some accounts he even reproached the Yugoslav communists for their “disrespect” toward the Red Army. And the resolution of the State Defense Committee No. 7054 of 1 December 1944, formally directed against the unlawful use of captured property, in essence prescribed handing over the loot to “officers in need”^[3]. In May–June 1945 Stalin exempted soldiers returning home from customs inspection — a large-scale operation to export valuables, gold, and jewels^[4].

”Reparations” as dismantling

The largest in scale was the seizure of industry under the guise of reparations. They were paid by four states — Germany, Finland, Romania, and Hungary — although Finland and Romania were themselves victims of unprovoked Soviet aggression. Under the label of “German property” they took whatever they wished: around 5,500 enterprises were dismantled (likewise in Manchuria and North Korea)^[5]. The dismantling was often so reckless that whole production lines ended up on the scrap heap — as attested by the memoirs cited by Gogun.

The recklessness of the requisitions outraged even the new pro-Soviet governments. On 10 July 1945 the head of Poland, Bolesław Bierut, wrote to Malenkov that Soviet trophy teams in the part of East Prussia transferred to Poland were dismantling railways and electrical equipment, paralyzing the local economy without any benefit to the USSR^[6]. The canonical academic work on the Soviet zone of occupation — “The Russians in Germany” by Norman Naimark — describes the same thing as a system, not isolated excesses.

What this means

“Liberation” is a word that conceals the essence of the event under a moral sign. The Red Army did indeed put an end to the Nazi occupation — but what it brought in its place was neither freedom nor well-being: occupation, the dismantling of the economy, violence. To distinguish “the defeat of Nazism” from “the liberation of peoples” is fundamental here: the first did happen, the second is a propaganda label that to this day feeds the Russian cult of Victory.