“Otherwise, the Republic of Moldova could become a puppet, a satellite of Russia, like Belarus, which for the sake of cheaper gas made its own territory available to Putin for the aggression against Ukraine, as well as for the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, becoming internationally isolated and a primary target in case of expansion of the Russian aggression…
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The Yalta Accords

Seventy-nine years ago, on February 4-11, 1945, the leaders of the World War II allies– Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin – had a meeting that went down in history as the Yalta Conference or the Crimean Conference. The event was central in a series of three conferences with the participation of the mentioned leaders:  the Tehran conference of November-December 1943; the Yalta conference, and, respectively, the Potsdam conference of July 17 – August 2, 1945. It would therefore be right to consider not only the consequences of the Yalta Conference, but also of the other mentioned conferences.

As usual, we ask ourselves – why is it important to remember and reflect on events that took place about 80 years ago? First of all, because we know that history teachers in the Republic of Moldova aren’t satisfied with the way the three conferences, especially the one held in Yalta, are reflected in history textbooks for students. So, the Moldovan citizens have incomplete knowledge of the events that influenced the fate of the world and, obviously, the fate of the Republic of Moldova. Secondly, we are now discovering that the lessons of history haven’t been learned - some of the state leaders justify the Nazi aggression to substantiate it, including the one inflicted by themselves. At the same time, the democratic states seem to have forgotten the lessons of the interwar period of the last century, when, by yielding to the demands of the aggressors, obviously, for the sake of peace, they did nothing but feed the expansionist appetites of the aggressors.

Turning to the Yalta Conference, it is useful to highlight the agreements reached and reflected in the communiqué of the Crimean Conference regarding:

• The defeat of Germany. The common struggle of the Allies until the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, the non-admission of separate negotiations of the allies with the common enemy;
• The occupation of Germany and control over it. The partition, after victory, of the German territory into four occupation zones between Great Britain, the U.S., the USSR and France;
• Post-war reparations at Germany’s expense. The damage caused by Germany to the allied countries was to be compensated in kind to the greatest extent possible;
• The United Nations Conference. The founding of a universal international organization for the maintenance of peace and security with a view to preventing aggression and eliminating the political, economic and social causes of war, through the close and constant cooperation of all peace-loving peoples;
• The Declarația on Liberated Europe. The coordination of allies’ policies and their joint actions in solving the political and economic problems of liberated Europe in accordance with the democratic principles. The reconstruction of the economic life of the occupied peoples was to begin with the establishment of democratic institutions and the choice of the form of government under which they wished to live;
• Poland’s problem. Poland’s eastern border was to pass along the Curzon line, with deviations from it in some areas five to eight kilometers in favor of Poland. The USSR insisted on solving the problem of Poland’s borders by “moving west”, on the Oder-Neisse line, at Germany’s expense, keeping the Polish territories occupied after the Soviet-Nazi war of 1939, in accordance with the secret Protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, etc.

The mentioned communiqué also referred to the Yugoslavia problem and other problems, avoiding to reflect the problem of Japan and the USSR’s acceptance to enter the war against this country, after Germany’s surrender, despite  the Neutrality Pact signed on April 13, 1941 and respected by Japan.

Liberators vs. occupiers

After the war ended, in accordance with the Yalta agreements, reconfirmed and specified at Potsdam, the U.S. d on June 5, 1947 launched the European Recovery Program  thought up by Secretary of State, George Marshall, and therefore better known as the Marshall Plan, which referred to post-war economic assistance for the whole Europe, for a period of three-five years. The implementation of the plan was to take place on the basis of an agreement between European countries, defining proportionally the amount of assistance needed for each country apart. The conference of July 12, 1947, dedicated to the implementation of the Marshall Plan, was attended by only 16 Western European countries. The implementation of the plan began a year later, in June 1948, with West Germany included in the list of countries that received U.S. assistance. The impact of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe implemented until 1951., which cost the U.S. an estimated $13 billion, was a success.

The USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe, with the exception of Czechoslovakia, rejected the United States’ invitation, describing it a manifestation of the “expansion of American economic imperialism.” It’s true that the refusal came after the announcement, on March 12, 1947, of the foreign policy doctrine of the U.S. President Harry Truman, aimed at stopping the communization of Eastern Europe. In fact, the communization began before the end of the war, in 1944-1945, in countries where the Soviet army managed to defeat Nazi troops. In fact, the communization efforts never ceased, if we remember the activities of the Comintern, which were stopped only in words, in May 1943, so as not to undermine the conduct of the Tehran Conference. Obviously, communization was resumed by the NKVD troops, together with the withdrawal of the Nazi troops and with the help of local communist parties, by organizing the local secret police, obviously by the image and likeness of the NKVD. Respectively, all active citizens who didn’t share the communist ideals were neutralized. Thus, in Eastern Europe, the perception of the Soviet liberators changed, as these acted contrary to the Yalta agreements on Liberated Europe, whose countries were  “to rebuild their economic and political life by establishing democratic institutions and freely choosing the forms of government under which they would live”. In such a context, in the intellectual circles of Eastern European states, a question was more insistently asked, which today also plagues contemporary historians in Russia – Who were the soldiers of the Red Army in 1945: liberators or occupiers?

A precise answer to this question was given by the subsequent events that took place: in Hungary in 1953; and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. After the communization of the Central European states, the USSR withdrew its armed troops from Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1955, but as soon as the elites of the communist reformers in these states tried to dismantle the Stalinist constructions governing those countries, the brutal Soviet military intervention followed, which drowned in blood the aspirations for freedom, stipulated by the Yalta Conference. Respectively, genuine liberation from liberators occurred only with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The liberation was followed by the accession to NATO, in a few waves, of all the post-communist states, except for some of the republics of the former Yugoslavia. Here, it is appropriate to note that no one drew the former post-Soviet states into NATO. On the contrary, NATO made their accession very strict, which is why several waves of accession were needed.

Yalta Conference from the perspective of plagiarist Stalinists from the Republic of Moldova

We have already learned that the political forces of Stalinist origin, such as the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM), cannot pass by historical events without glorifying the Soviet totalitarian regime or Russian imperialism. This was also the case with the recent evocation of the Yalta Conference. Thus, the party press of the PCRM relapsed absolutely without any embarrassment, plagiarizing 100%,  mot à mot, an article in the Russian press about the Yalta Conference. The added value of the PCRM plagiarists consisted in adding two original paragraphs allegedly referring to: 1) “the emergence of neo-Nazi weeds in Moldova, spread through fascism for export from the United States and the United West”; and 2) “the Yalta initiative of Joseph Vissarionovich to discuss the issue of claims of participating states to the territory of the Moon."

Surely, the communist plagiarists’ invective against Moldova and its Western partners can easily be overlooked. But Stalinists overlook the fact that they can be responded in such a way that they would not like it:

• First, Nazism has as its central pivot the anti-Semitism, which was practiced as state policy in the USSR before and after the defeat of Hitlerism, from 1938 to 1953;
• The unprovoked aggression, which is exactly what the Putinist regime has done against Ukraine, is another fundamental and inalienable characteristic of Nazism;
• The third fundamental characteristic of Nazism is revanchism and irredentism, transformed into state policy by Putinist Russia, which is engaged in gathering Russian lands and gifts of the Russian gifts of the Russian people;
• Finally, the fourth essential characteristic of Nazism is the justification of Hitlerism, as Vladimir Putin did just recently, justifying the start of World War II by attacking Poland on September 1, 1939, which the USSR joined about two weeks later, on September 17. Moreover, through faulty logic, Putin also legitimized Hitler's aggression against the USSR. If, according to Putin, Poland cooperated with Hitler and later refused cooperation in carrying out his plans, thus forcing him to attack it, then the same logic is applicable to Hitler’s cooperation with the USSR. Indeed, it is impossible to deny that the USSR cooperated with Hitler by signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and dividing Central Europe together, according to the secret Protocol. If there is cooperation, let the cooperation be up to the end. Respectively, Hitler met later, on November 13, 1940, with the head of the Soviet government, Vyacheslav Molotov, already proposing the division of the world. The USSR imposed a number of conditions for the deal, namely:  a) the immediate withdrawal of German troops from Finland; b) the creation of a USSR naval base in the Bosporus and Dardanelles area; c) recognition of the USSR’s interests in the area south of Batumi and Baku in the direction of the hydrocarbon-rich Persian Gulf, etc. The given conditions turned to be unacceptable to Hitler and his allies. Thus, according to the Putinist logic, Hitler was forced to attack the USSR. Remarkable logic justifying the aggression. This is how Hitler justified his aggression, declaring that he aimed only at peace and the establishment of socialist order in Germany.

As for the myth about Stalin’s initiative to divide the Moon, it can only be said that, besides being curious, it is also extremely useful for reflections on Russia’s sovereign technological potential. First, none of the three allied powers had yet the space technologies needed for lunar exploration, since Germany, whose rocket construction developments were assimilated by the allies only after the war, wasn’t yet defeated. However, the myth peddled by Stalinist plagiarists is useful. It brings to the fore the problem of technological progress of the USSR, based on the Putinist “stealing” (“țap-țarap”) formula which was also used in the process  of industrialization of the USSR. The recent failure of the Luna-25 mission is a proof of the fact that without stealing, amidst the Western sanctions, Putinist Russia cannot develop its cosmic industry, respectively, cannot explore the Moon. It happens more than 50 years after the last Soviet success in lunar exploration achieved as part of the Luna-24 project. By the way, India – a former British colony, has now the sovereign potential that Putinist Russia no longer has.

Conclusions

As strange as it may seem, but the zeal of Stalinist plagiarists in the Republic of Moldova can be explored to highlight the disinformation strategies they promote. First of all, exposing shameless and constant plagiarism demonstrates that the potential of Stalinist, pro-imperialist forces in the Republic of Moldova is still limited and possible to combat. Obviously, sustained efforts are needed in this regard.

Secondly, the templated and primitive argumentation used by Stalinist plagiarists offers practically unlimited possibilities in combating Soviet and pro-Putinist myths, inculcated for decades by the propaganda that still pervades the information space in the Republic of Moldova.

Thirdly, the efforts of Stalinist plagiarists to propagate communist, Soviet values and the potential of Russian sovereign technologies,  based on Russian industrial espionage, dubbed “țap-țarap” by Putin, can only have the opposite effect – convincing the Moldovan citizens that their country can have a dignified future only within the European Union, where it can find its economic niche to develop on all dimensions. Otherwise, the Republic of Moldova could become a puppet, a satellite of Russia, like Belarus, which for the sake of cheaper gas made its own territory available to Putin for the aggression against Ukraine, as well as for the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, becoming internationally isolated and a primary target in case of expansion of the Russian aggression.