Skip to main content
Advertise Buy the paper Contact us Shop Subscribe Support us
Historical memory matters – 80 years on from Operation Barbarossa
A growing revisionism that equates Nazism and communism is a genuine danger that must be countered, says JONATHAN WHITE

ON THIS day 80 years ago, over three-and-a-half million German and other Axis troops attacked the Soviet Union along a 1,800-mile front. 

Some 148 divisions, representing 80 per cent of the German army, were supported by Romanian, Italian, Hungarian, Slovak and Finnish forces.

For the Nazis, in particular, this was the highest point yet of their project for fascist expansion and it was underpinned by a racist ideology toward the Jews, but also toward the Slavs living in the Soviet territories. 

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Features / 20 January 2024
20 January 2024
JONATHAN WHITE examines the meaning and significance of the concept of ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’
Concert Review / 8 June 2023
8 June 2023
JONATHAN WHITE is awe-struck by the way Roger Waters raids the past to keep an absolute and urgent focus on the present
Features / 7 May 2020
7 May 2020
There is a concerted attempt to rehabilitate fascism and downplay the resistance of working people and the communist role in defeating fascist barbarism. We underestimate this trend at our peril, warns JONATHAN WHITE
Features / 21 April 2020
21 April 2020
JONATHAN WHITE explains how Lenin’s theoretical insights were able to translate into practical action that shaped subsequent history and which continues to shape our turbulent present
Similar stories
Features / 18 October 2024
18 October 2024
CJ ATKINS exposes how over half the names on Ottawa’s disgraceful so-called Memorial to the Victims of Communism are Nazis, collaborators or linked fascist groups, the latest in a series of Nazi scandals for Trudeau
Features / 7 July 2024
7 July 2024
This year’s International Brigade Memorial Trust commemoration took on an urgent tone, with warnings of ‘terrifying wave of fascism’ in Europe drawing parallels between 1930s Spain and today, reports LYNNE WALSH
Features / 29 June 2024
29 June 2024
Teaching youngsters about the International Brigades and the Spanish civil war is vital for a proper understanding of 20th-century history, writes JIM JUMP
Editorial: / 27 January 2024
27 January 2024