March 01, 2014, 20:01 / Opinions

Andrey Zubov: It already happened

We are on the verge of complete destruction of the system of international treaties, economic chaos and political dictatorship

Andrey Zubov

Friends. We're on the threshold. We are on the verge of not including a new entity into the Russian Federation. We are on the verge of complete destruction of the system of international treaties, economic chaos and political dictatorship. We are on the verge of a war with our closest, related people of Ukraine, a sharp deterioration in relations with Europe and America, on the verge of a cold and, possibly, a hot war with them.

After all, all this has already happened. Austria. Beginning of March 1938. The Nazis want to round off their Reich at the expense of another German state. The people are not very eager for this - no one infringes on them, no one discriminates. But the idea of a great Germany turns the heads of the radicals - the local Nazis. To put an end to the dispute about the fate of Austria, its Chancellor Kurt Alois von Schuschnigg announces a plebiscite for March 13. But the Nazis in both Berlin and Vienna are not happy with this. What if the people speak out against the Anschluss? Chancellor Schuschnigg is forced to resign on March 10, in his place the president appoints local Nazi leader Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and German divisions are already entering Austrian cities at the invitation of the new chancellor, whom he himself learned about from the newspapers. Austrian troops capitulate. The people either enthusiastically greet the Nazis, or sit home in irritation, or urgently flee to Switzerland. Cardinal Innitzer of Austria welcomes and blesses the Anschluss... On March 13, arrests began. Chancellor Schuschnigg was arrested the day before. The plebiscite was held on April 10. In Germany, 99.08% voted for unification with Austria, in Austria itself, which became the Ostmark of the German Empire - 99.75%. On October 1, 1938, the Czech Sudetenland was also reunited with its half-blooded Germany, and on March 22, 1939, the Lithuanian region of Klaipeda, which overnight turned into the German Memel. Most of these lands were indeed inhabited by Germans; everywhere many of them really wanted to unite with Hitler’s Reich. Everywhere this reunion took place amid fanfare and cries of jubilation from the crowd, maddened by chauvinistic frenzy, and with the connivance of the West.

“We must not deceive, much less encourage, small weak states by promising them protection from the League of Nations and corresponding steps on our part,” Neville Chamberlain said in the British Parliament on February 22, 1938, “since we know that nothing this cannot be done.”

And Adolf Hitler said something completely different on March 23, 1939, from a balcony on Theater Square in newly annexed Memel. Two hours earlier, he had theatrically sailed aboard the newest battleship Germany into the port of Memel. “...The Germans are not going to do anything bad to anyone in the world, but it was necessary to stop the suffering to which the Germans were subjected for 20 years from the whole world... Germany once abandoned the Memel Germans to the mercy of fate, when they resigned themselves to shame and infamy . Today the Memel Germans... are again becoming citizens of the mighty Reich, determined to take control of their destiny, even if half the world doesn’t like it.”

And everything seemed so radiant. And Hitler's glory shone at its zenith. And the world trembled before Great Germany. The annexation of regions and countries to the Reich without firing a single shot, without a single drop of blood - isn’t the Fuhrer a brilliant politician?

And six years later, Germany was defeated, millions of her sons were killed, millions of her daughters were dishonored, her cities were razed to the ground, her cultural treasures, accumulated over centuries, turned to dust. 2/5 of the territory was torn away from Germany, and the rest was divided into zones and occupied by the victorious powers. And shame, shame, shame covered the heads of the Germans. And it all started so brightly!

Friends! History repeats itself. Russians really live in Crimea. But did anyone oppress them there, were they second-class people there, without the right to language, to the Orthodox faith? From whom should the soldiers of the Russian army protect them? Who attacked them? The entry of troops of a foreign state into the territory of another state without its permission is aggression. The seizure of parliament by persons in uniform without identification marks is arbitrary. The adoption of any decisions by the Crimean parliament in such circumstances is a farce. First, the parliament was seized, the prime minister was replaced by a pro-Russian one, and then this new prime minister asked Russia for help, when his assistants were already here, they had been controlling the peninsula for a day. It’s like two peas in a pod to the Anschluss of 1938. And even a referendum-plebiscite a month later under friendly bayonets. There - April 10, here - March 30.

Have the Russian authorities calculated all the risks of this incredible adventure? I'm sure not. Just like Adolf Aloizovich did not calculate in his time. If I had calculated it, I wouldn’t have rushed around the bunker in April 1945 under Russian bombs, and wouldn’t have eaten an ampoule of poison.

What if the West does not act like Chamberlain and Deladier in 1938, but introduces a complete embargo on the purchase of Russian energy resources and freezes Russian holdings in its banks? The Russian economy, already in its death throes, will collapse in three months. And unrest will begin here, in comparison with which the Maidan will seem like the Garden of Eden.

What if the Crimean Tatars, who are categorically against the Russian government, who remember what this government did to them in 1944 and how it did not let them back until 1988, what if the Crimean Tatars turn to their co-religious and consanguineous Turkey to protect their interests? After all, Turkey is not across three seas, but on the other side of the same Black Sea. And she ruled Crimea longer than Russia - she ruled it for four centuries. The Turks are not Chamberlains or Deladiers: in July 1974, defending their fellow tribesmen, they occupied 40% of the territory of Cyprus and, ignoring all protests, still support the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which no one recognizes except them. Maybe someone would like to have a Turkish Republic of Southern Crimea? But if the hotheads from the Crimean Tatars rise to fight, then Muslim radicals from all over the world will gladly join them, and especially from the North Caucasus and the Volga region. Will we bring the storm from the ruined Crimean resorts to our Russian home? Why are our own terrorist attacks not enough?

And finally, having acquired Crimea, torn apart by internal strife, we will forever lose the people of Ukraine - Ukrainians will never forgive the Russians for this betrayal. What do you think won’t happen, that it’s too much, it will grind - there will be flour? Don’t get your hopes up, dear Russian chauvinists. At the end of the 19th century, Serbs and Croats considered themselves one people, only separated by borders, religion and alphabet graphics. They strove for unity - how many books they wrote about this then, smart, kind books. And now there are few peoples as embittered towards each other as the Serbs and Croats. How much blood was shed between them, and all for some pieces of land, some towns and valleys in which they could live richly and joyfully together. They could have, but they couldn’t. Greed for brotherly land made enemies out of brothers. But doesn’t this happen in everyday life? Is it worth losing our brotherly people forever because of illusory lusts? And the schism of the Russian Church would then be inevitable. Its Ukrainian half will break away from Moscow forever.

But the Kremlin’s success in annexing Crimea will turn into an even more terrible defeat. If everything works out easily, then tomorrow the regions of Kazakhstan populated by Russians will be asked to come to Russia; you see, there are South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and Northern Kyrgyzstan. Austria was followed by the Sudetes, the Sudetes by Memel, Memel by Poland, Poland by France, and Russia by France. It all started small...

Friends! We need to come to our senses and stop. Our politicians are dragging our people into a terrible, terrifying adventure. Historical experience says that nothing will work out like this. We should not be led, as the Germans were in their time, by the promises of Goebbels and Hitler. For the sake of peace in our country, for the sake of its real revival, for the sake of peace and true friendliness in the spaces of historical Russia, now divided into many states, let’s say “no” to this insane and, most importantly, completely unnecessary aggression.

We have lost so many lives in the twentieth century that our only true principle should be the principle proclaimed by the great Solzhenitsyn: the preservation of the people. Preservation of the people, not gathering of lands. The lands are collected only with blood and tears.

We don't need any more blood or tears!

The author is Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Andrey Zubov, executive editor of “History of Russia, 20th century”