No. 29
August 23, 2025
August 23, 1939
86th Anniversary of Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact
Government of Canada's Cold War Historiography About Origins of Second World War
Government's Attempt to Honour Latvian Nazi Collaborator on Anti-Communist Monument
"Tribute to Liberty" Turns Its Attention to Albania
August
23, 1939
86th Anniversary of Soviet-German Non-Aggression
Pact
Government of Canada's Cold War Historiography About Origins of Second World War
August 23, 1939 is the date when the Soviet Union signed a
non-aggression pact with Hitler Germany, the Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact. It did so after Britain and France refused to sign the
Treaty of Mutual Assistance offered by the Soviet Union in 1939.
The Treaty was offered in part to stop war from breaking out
and prevent any more Munich-type concessions, where in 1938
Britain and France allowed Nazi Germany to annex
Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland.
According to historical records, polls at the time showed more
than 80 per cent public support for this offer of an alliance with
the Red Army. In May 1939, as Czechoslovakia was being swallowed
up, Winston Churchill called on British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain in Parliament to demand that the Treaty of Mutual
Assistance offered by the Soviet government be signed because then
there would be no war: "If you are ready to be an ally of Russia
in time of war, [...] why should you shrink from becoming the ally
of Russia now, when you may by that very fact prevent the
breaking-out of war?"
The refusal of the British and French to sign this Treaty of Mutual Assistance is evidence that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his French counterpart Edouard Daladier wanted a German-Soviet war in the East as announced by Hitler. It was the refusal of the British and French to sign the Treaty of Mutual Assistance offered by the Soviet Union that gave Hitler the green light to occupy Europe and start the Second World War. It is also these same countries, along with the U.S., that refused to support the anti-fascist, pro-democracy resistance in Spain as they fought to defeat the fascist Francisco Franco (1936-39). Franco was backed by the Nazis and fascist Italy while only the Soviet Union and Mexico aided Spain, alongside the many internationalist brigades who fought with the resistance, including Canada's MackenziePapineau Battalion.
But
anti-communist, pro-fascist historiography since 1946 has remained
virtually silent about these refusals, which aided the
fascists. For the refusal to sign the Treaty of Mutual
Assistance, Nazi documents captured after the war are used
to spread disinformation about an alleged secret protocol appended
to the Non-Aggression Pact which provides "proof positive"
that the Soviet Union was an aggressor in Europe, along with
Hitler. No such damning secret protocol has ever emerged, not even
after the Soviet archives became available after the fall of the
former Soviet Union in the 1989-1991 period. Even U.S. Cold War
scholars affirm that Soviet diplomatic correspondence shows
Stalin's aim throughout the negotiations with Germany, contained
in a separate protocol, was to get Hitler's undertaking not to
invade all the countries he had said he wanted to conquer in Mein
Kampf. Winston Churchill himself confirmed this in his
radio statement on October 1, 1939 when he said: "[W]e sign the
peace on condition that it includes all the neighbouring countries
listed in a separate confidential protocol."
Canada's blaming the Soviet Union for starting the Second World War goes hand in hand with the U.S., British and Canadian claim that it was thanks to them that Hitler was defeated and Europe was saved from the scourge of war while the mighty decisive role and sacrifice of the Soviet Union is ignored. This is all part of a convoluted narrative Canada uses to portray Ukrainian neo-Nazis as freedom fighters and justify making Russia an enemy to this day. Towards this end, Canada remains silent about the significance of the refusal of Britain and France to sign the Treaty of Mutual Assistance offered by the Soviet government in 1939.
Canada intentionally remains silent on the sequence and significance of events which led to the non-aggression pact signed between Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany Ribbentrop on August 23, 1939. Hitler had already annexed Austria in March 1938. The British and French signed the Munich Agreement with Hitler Germany on September 30, 1938 which was the green light for the Hitlerites to take over Czechoslovakia. The refusal of Britain and France to enter into a collective security alliance with the Soviet Union in 1939 forced the Soviet Union to negotiate a non-aggression pact with Germany to stave off a Hitlerite assault for a short time, allowing it to better prepare to face the onslaught and turn things around in what became a mighty fight which saved Europe.
Official Canadian historiography based on Cold War anti-communist ideology falsifies history. It forces the dominant Cold War version of history onto the polity by "forgetting" to speak about the pertinent facts, going so far as to remain silent about Churchill's demand for Chamberlain to sign the offer of mutual assistance with the Red Army. In this way, Cold War historiography has arranged the facts in such a way as to make Stalin appear as co-responsible for the outbreak of war.
After the war, Churchill maintained his position on this matter, despite the official silence on the subject: "There can, however, be no doubt, even in the after light, that Britain and France should have accepted the Russian offer, proclaimed the Triple Alliance [...] The alliance of Britain, France, and Russia would have struck deep alarm into the heart of Germany in 1939, and no one can prove that war might not even then have been averted. [...] Hitler could afford neither to embark upon the war on two fronts, which he himself had so deeply condemned, nor to sustain a check. It was a pity not to have placed him in this awkward position, which might well have cost him his life."
Reactionaries today use the anniversary of the non-aggression pact to slander the great deeds of the Soviet Union by repeating claims which falsify history. To his shame, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on August 23, 2019 called the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact a "sombre anniversary" and said, "Signed between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in 1939 to divide Central and Eastern Europe, the infamous pact set the stage for the appalling atrocities these regimes would commit."
Equating the Soviet Union's unrelenting battle to defeat Nazi aggression with Nazi war crimes serves a nefarious purpose of protecting the neo-Nazis and attacking Russia today. The lie that supporting neo-Nazis is "defending democracy" is criminal and cannot be condoned. Canada's declaration of August 23 as "Black Ribbon Day" should be rescinded. It is based on an anti-communist falsification of history according to which as a result of the non-aggression pact, Stalin and Hitler were co-responsible for starting World War II. In fact, the non-aggression pact simply stated the two countries would not attack each other. It was not a "military alliance" to take joint military action against some third country, as Canada claims. The pact contained no such agreement.
The anti-communist, pro-fascist outlook of the Canadian state which informs the declaration of August 23 as Black Ribbon Day is also used to justify Canada's membership in the aggressive North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), both part of the U.S. war machine and directed primarily against Russia. It is used to justify financing and training, in the name of democracy, the Ukrainian neo-Nazis in Canada and Ukraine and the U.S./NATO proxy war in that country to isolate and destroy Russia. To this day, Russia is presented to Canadians as an enemy and threat to peace while countries like the U.S., Britain and Canada which finance and support genocide are presented as the defenders of democracy to oppose the resistance movements of the peoples of the world. It is important today to settle scores with this Cold War ideology so as to end all conciliation with those who are committing crimes against humanity today.
Notes
Lies about the Soviet Union becoming an enemy of Canada because of the non-aggression pact began at the time of its signing. In January 1948, the lies then took the form of full-blown Nazi propaganda about a so-called Soviet-German "alliance." The publication by the U.S. of material from the diaries of Hitlerite officials, in collaboration with the British and French foreign offices, started a fresh wave of slander and lies in connection with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact. We are to ignore that the German documents were all written from the standpoint of the Hitler government and were without independent verification. It was a deliberate Cold War campaign against the Soviet Union by the U.S. and its allies to cover up their own nefarious post-war deeds.
The Soviet Union did not treat these lies lightly. The Soviet Information Bureau almost immediately published a significant document, Falsificators of History, to refute them.[1] These lies about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact should also not be treated with indifference today. They aim to present the values of those who are prompted by narrow ideological beliefs as Canadian values. In fact, the proponents of Black Ribbon Day are descendants of the very same Nazi forces that spread death and destruction across Europe. They present their forebears as freedom fighters. These so-called freedom fighters Canada champions were Nazis and Nazi collaborators that sent Jews, Poles, Roma, communists, resistance fighters, those they called "deviants" and many others to their deaths in concentration camps. Their values are not "Canadian values."
There is no place for a monument in Ottawa in a space called the Garden of the Provinces and Territories, or anywhere else, which espouses these values based on narrow anti-communist ideological beliefs. Such values are precisely what Canadians fought against in the Second World War in defeating the Nazis. They sacrificed their lives to win freedom, democracy and peace. Their sons and daughters had nothing but admiration for the sacrifices of the communists led by the Soviet Union. To suggest we need a monument to the "victims of communism," not to the victims of genocide and crimes against humanity carried out in Canada during colonial times and since then or to the victims of Nazi-fascism and U.S. imperialist wars of aggression, coups d'etat, sanctions and crimes against humanity in the 20th century is not worthy of Canada or what Canadians stand for.
If signing a non-aggression pact in 1939 was "helping Hitler" then the British and French had already been "helping Hitler" since signing such pacts a year earlier and Poland had been "helping Hitler" since 1934. Britain and France issued a joint declaration of non-aggression with Germany in 1938, as well as a "Pact of Accord and Cooperation" signed in 1933 when Hitler came to power. Poland signed a non-aggression pact with the Nazis in 1934, five years before the Soviet Union. These are never mentioned as a cause of war. Of all the Great Powers in Europe, the Soviet Union was the very last to agree to a pact with the Germans, a decision it was forced into by the rejection by Britain and France of collective security with the Soviet Union.
It is also significant that these same reactionaries never once mention the filthy pro-Nazi role of U.S. corporations such as Ford, General Motors, Standard Oil, Texaco, Dupont and ITT which supplied the Nazi war machine with essential equipment and materials that enabled their invasion of Europe.[2]
The history of events in 1938 both before and after Hitler's occupation of Austria in March show that the Soviet Union, as it had done in earlier years, made many efforts to persuade Britain and France to maintain collective mutual assistance and in particular to carry out their undertaking to defend Czechoslovakia against aggression. The Soviet Union was not only willing to join forces with France to defend Czechoslovakia if France would keep her word, but was prepared to defend Czechoslovakia on her own, even if France refused.[3]
All the efforts by the Soviet Union to build collective security were shunned by the British and French. The British and French refused to sign any collective mutual assistance pact with the Soviet Union because their rulers still hoped Germany would attack and destroy the Soviet Union.
The reactionaries never want to discuss the refusal of the British and French governments to sign the Treaty of Mutual Assistance offered by the Soviet Union because it was such a blatant betrayal of the world's people. It is indisputable that faced with the British and French betrayal, the Soviet Union had no choice but to take whatever measures it could to defend itself and the cause of peace.
References
1. Falsificators of History by Soviet Information Bureau (Moscow: 1948).
2. See, for example, Nazi Nexus: America's Corporate Connections to Hitler's Holocaust, by Edwin Black (Washington, DC: Dialogue Press, 2009), and Big Business and Hitler, by Jacques R. Pauwels (Toronto: James Lorimer & Co., 2017).
3. "Stalin 'planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed pact:' Stalin was 'prepared to move more than a million Soviet troops to the German border to deter Hitler's aggression just before the Second World War,'" by Nick Holdsworth, Telegraph (London, UK), October 18, 2008.
(Hardial Bains Resource Centre Archives)
No to Glorification of Nazism and Dangerous Myth that Those Who Participate in Committing Genocide
Are the True Democrats!
On August 23, the
Carney government will mark "Black Ribbon Day" -- a "memorial day"
concocted by the ruling circles of Europe in 2009 to promote
anti-communism through slanders and lies, and to glorify Nazism. It was
adopted by the Parliament of Canada under Stephen Harper in 2009.
The real historical significance of this date is deliberately covered up by this anti-communist campaign. August 23 is the date that the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) was signed in 1939. The Soviet Union had no alternative but to sign a non-aggression pact with Germany because the British and French refused to enter into a collective security agreement with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. Instead, they sought to isolate the Soviet Union, egging on Hitler to achieve the aims he clearly set forth in his book Mein Kampf which advocates the superiority of the so-called Aryan race and capture of land in Eastern Europe and Soviet Russia to be used as "living space" for the German people.
Standard Anglo-American imperialist anti-communist propaganda
equates the Nazis, who are well-known as the biggest war criminals of
that time, with the Soviet Union, which played the major role in
defeating the Hitlerites and freeing the world of the scourge of
Nazism. It deliberately promotes
the view that the Hitlerite Nazis and their collaborators, who
slaughtered the peoples of Europe and the Soviet Union amongst others,
were freedom fighters because they fought against communism, and the
anti-fascist forces who fought them to the death, especially the
communists, should be erased
from the historical record.
This ignominious anniversary is linked with the anti-communist monument the Government of Canada has erected and financed in the Garden of the Provinces and Territories across from Library and Archives Canada on Wellington Street in Ottawa. This monument to the "victims of communism," first promoted by the Harper government and then the Trudeau government, glorifies Nazis and Nazi collaborators as freedom fighters against the communists. It was initiated by the anti-communist organization Tribute to Liberty in 2008. Canadians and Quebeckers do not support such a monument and the group failed to raise funds for the original projected cost of $1.5 million. To their shame, the Harper Conservative government and then the Trudeau Liberal government stepped in and handed over at least $6 million in public monies to fund the ballooning cost of the project.
The unveiling of this wretched monument had to be postponed time
and again because of the opposition of the people to the government's
support for neo-Nazis. It was finally unveiled on December 12, 2024,
with the names of Nazis and Nazi collaborators allegedly removed.
The government's support for Nazi collaborators was made very clear
when the Trudeau government invited the Ukrainian Nazi collaborator
Yaroslav Hunka, who was a member of the Galicia Division of the Nazis'
Waffen-SS during the war, to the Parliament for the visit of Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The entire Parliament gave him more than
one standing ovation. The government has yet to find a way to talk its
way out of the debacle. After that, Canadian Heritage was given charge
of completing this anti-communist project and it went to great lengths
to make sure the names of Nazi collaborators would not appear on the
monument. All it achieved was to spend more public funds to pay
consultants to present it with different options, to no avail. At least
one name of a Latvian collaborator has now appeared. None of the
government's efforts to whitewash its support for those who collaborated
with the Nazis have succeeded.
The fact is that this monument in Ottawa is based on Canada's Cold War anti-communist ideology which upholds a democracy that conciliates with Nazi war criminals and collaborators. Far from manipulating a cover-up of its praise for these criminals, no government should permit such a monument to stand. The monument deserves to be demolished in its entirety. With or without the names of donors and the inscription of the names of these Nazis and their collaborators, its aim of declaring Canada a refuge for "victims of communism" is unacceptable because it glorifies Nazis and Nazi collaborators. Despite the insistence that the monument upholds Canadian values, it goes against everything that Canadians, Quebeckers and all those who gave their lives in the anti-fascist war stood for and which their descendants, from all corners of the earth, stand for today. The worldwide anti-fascist front of WWII made clear, no one could be for democracy and be anti-communist -- a conclusion that remains valid to this day.
There
is no monument to the 27 million people, including soldiers of the
USSR, as well as China and all the countries of Asia as well as Europe,
who gave their lives to defeat Nazism, fascism and Japanese militarism,
or to the 60 million people who died at the hands of the Nazis, fascists
and militarists during World War II. This includes many Canadians who
sacrificed their lives to
defeat Hitler and whose descendants have great respect for the
death-defying achievement of the Soviets at Stalingrad and throughout
the war, as well as the Chinese and Korean people and the peoples of all
of Asia, Africa and others from Latin America and the Caribbean who
joined the anti-fascist cause. This anti-communist project is an insult
to all Canadians, Quebeckers and peoples of the world who sacrificed
their lives to defeat Nazi-fascism and Japanese militarism.
How about a monument to them? Canada must be a refuge for all the victims of slavery, genocide, colonial conquests, imperialist wars and coups d'etat.
At a time the peoples of the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and many other countries including the mercilessly enslaved and exploited African peoples and peoples of the Caribbean islands continue to bring down monuments which exalt slavery, genocide and those who have committed crimes against humanity, for Canada to unveil such a monument based on fanatical anti-communist beliefs is unacceptable.
The monument also seeks to divert attention from Canada's official support for those committing crimes against humanity and genocide today. Today, those who commit genocide are presented as the ones who defend democracy. No matter what they do to claim otherwise, this is the truth of the matter which is why this monument must be demolished, despite the more than $6 million in public funds successive governments have already given to realize it because those who initiated it were incapable of raising funds from the public.
Cold War definitions of democracy versus totalitarianism underlie the anti-communist monument. This Cold War ideology is being resuscitated today to foment divisions among the people and to present those who do not conform to the ruling ideology on crucial questions as being anti-Semitic, terrorists and agents of foreign powers. This includes those who do not conform to the official line on issues like the U.S./NATO war in Ukraine, the warmongering aims of NATO, Canada's international role such as its support for Israeli Zionism. It is also seen in attempts to criminalize those who support the Resistance movement of the Palestinian people against occupation and genocide and to affirm their right to be in the form of a state of their own making, without foreign interference of any kind, no matter what the pretext.
The following excerpt from Justin Trudeau's 2014 letter to the anti-communist organization Tribute to Liberty, which was used to get this project going, makes this Cold War ideology evident. This is the same Trudeau who as Prime Minister was at the helm of a government which funded and trained the neo-Nazis in Ukraine and applauded the Nazi-collaborator Yaroslav Hunka in the Parliament and shouted the fascist slogan of the Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, Slava Ukraina. It bears mentioning that the Harper government which preceded Trudeau initiated this project which all the cartel parties with seats in the Parliament continue to support to this day. These are the same cartel parties which voted to make August 23 Black Ribbon Day to erase the enormous role of the Soviet Red Army and all the communists who fought and played a leading role in the anti-fascist war.
Trudeau
wrote:
"[...] We, as Canadians, must never forget the pain and suffering entire generations endured under communist rule, and it is important that we remember the lives of its untold victims.
"Memorialization is important, as it not only serves to heighten Canadians' awareness about the lives of those who suffered under oppression, but reminds us of how lucky we are to live in a country that celebrates the virtues of peace and liberty. [...]"
What Trudeau calls "memorialization" is the falsification of history, that covers up the lessons, written in blood, by those who suffered and resisted under fascist aggression. It ignores the horrific slaughter of the people who faced the massacres and destruction by the Nazi aggressors and diminishes the heroic sacrifices made by the millions who fought the Nazi onslaught to defend and preserve their sovereign homelands.
Trudeau's nonsense cannot cover up the people's awareness about the lives of those who suffered under the oppression and genocide of Canada's colonial Indian Act or the crimes of the German Nazis, Italian fascists and Japanese militarists and their collaborators during World War II. Nor can it erase their awareness of the crimes resulting from the Anglo-American Cold War policy and U.S. imperialist coups d'etat, dictatorships and wars of aggression in the last 75 years.
No to the glorification of Nazism and dangerous myth that those who participate in committing genocide are the true democrats!
Demand the Anti-Communist Monument Be Demolished!
Information
picket against the glorification of Nazism, Ottawa, August 21, 2020, at
the site of the anti-communist monument then under construction.
Government's Attempt to Honour Latvian Nazi Collaborator on Anti-Communist Monument
The Canadian state remains caught in a serious bind because the
anti-communist monument it funded to the tune of millions of dollars,
continues to feature the names of Nazi collaborators despite attempts to
make sure they were removed prior to unveiling the monument.
The aim of the monument to impose the state's anti-communist ideology on
all Canadians is not a worthy cause.
The government has no qualms about commemorating those complicit in Nazi
war crimes and genocide in World War II, just like it has no qualms
about supporting the U.S./Israeli genocide in Gaza. But it wants to
maintain the fiction that Canada is nonetheless an exemplar of peace,
justice and democracy.
It has come to light that one of the odious characters the monument seeks to memorialize was an avowed Nazi collaborator from Latvia, Janis Niedra. His name was initially installed on an engraved plaque, before being removed. Canadian Heritage initially claimed that it had not proceeded with the engravings, when in fact Niedra's name was one of hundreds completed in 2023, to meet the date of the monument's original unveiling in November 2023. Surely his name is just one of many such people whose names should go down in infamy, not be commemorated on a monument.
Of the 500 some names proposed for the monument, more than 300 were under review because they were supporters of or collaborators with Nazi fascism, and themselves accused of committing crimes against humanity. At this point in time, many of the completed plaques bearing the proposed names for the monument are in storage.
The anti-communist organization Tribute to Liberty said in its Summer 2025 newsletter, issued July 30, that its "Many donors and supporters are disappointed not to be able to see the names of their loved ones displayed." It says that the latest reply from Canadian Heritage is: "We do not have any updates to share at this moment as we are still in discussions internally." It is worth remembering that the "many donors and supporters" that Tribute to Liberty claims to have were only able to fund less than two-thirds of the original $1.5 million cost of the monument after many years. The Canadian state had to step in to provide the balance of the total $7.5 million to guarantee the creation of the monument, despite broad objections from the public.
Journalist Taylor C. Noakes wrote in February for the website Ricochet:
"In an email dated November 3, 2023, Sandra Richards, a Canadian Heritage (PCH) project manager responsible for monuments and public art, indicated to her colleagues at Canadian Heritage and the National Capital Commission that an Assistant Deputy Minister with Canadian Heritage wanted the names removed as soon as possible.
"'Per my previous email, we fully understand the need to continue production of the names in the absence of a final decision from PCH so that you can close out that contract. It may have been a misunderstanding on our part that this work would also involve installation, but the direction from senior management is that tiles should not be installed until we've reached a decision.'
"Richards further stated that she noticed the name of a known Nazi collaborator during a site visit that occurred on November 1, 2023.
"'I didn't look at all the names when I was on site, but I did notice 'Janis Niedra,' which has already been decided in principle to be removed (it's a name that can be readily researched and identified as a nazi [sic] collaborator with no ambiguity).'"
It was known from 2007, for all those who cared to see, when the
monument was first proposed by Harper government Cabinet Minister Jason
Kenney, which then led to the creation of Tribute to Liberty in 2008,
that its aim was to commemorate reactionaries and Nazi collaborators.
This vile aim, based on the claim that those who fought or were killed
fighting against fascism in Europe are "victims of communism" besmirches
the memory of all Canadians, Quebeckers and Indigenous Peoples who
fought and died to defeat Nazi fascism.
The inscription on the monument, "Canada, a Land of Refuge," is anti-communist disinformation that presents former Nazis and Nazi sympathizers as refugees from communism, not as war criminals who escaped justice by the Soviet Union and its Red Army as a key member of the Allied forces. It covers up the Canadian state's active recruitment of such forces as immigrants to Canada as an anti-worker, anti-communist bulwark meant to split the working class.
For Canadian Heritage to claim that it is continuing internal reviews of proposed names for the monument is meant to fool the gullible. The monument and its funders and instigators and their reactionary aims are irredeemable. No amount of internal reviews will make this project acceptable. The entire monument, not just the names engraved on it, should be covered up and then removed in its entirety. Such a thing has no place in Canada.
Adding insult to injury, the Ottawa Citizen reported on August 13 that the National Capital Commission (NCC) "is warning that the cost of long-term maintenance of the Victims of Communism memorial has increased four-fold to at least $1 million, according to internal commission records." According to NCC documents obtained under the Access to Information law by researcher Ken Rubin, the NCC documents "noted that cracks were already appearing in the monument and needed to be repaired."
About Janis Niedra, Key Nazi Collaborator in Latvia
In a May 17 article, the Ottawa Citizen quotes Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, a senior director at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, who said the organization repeatedly warned Canadian Heritage that numerous individuals whose names were to go on the memorial were Nazi collaborators responsible for the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity. "Over the years, we have submitted documentation detailing the atrocities committed by several individuals on the [memorial] list -- including in 2021, when we provided comprehensive evidence of the war crimes committed by Janis Niedra against Latvia's Jewish population," said Kirzner-Roberts. "It is deeply disturbing that, despite our repeated warnings and the clear, documented evidence, the name of a Nazi involved in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust was ultimately engraved on the Memorial. This is simply unacceptable."
The Spring 2021 issue of the anti-war publication Press for Conversion notes that Niedra was the founding President of the Latvian National Federation in Canada (LNAK). It says of LNAK:
"Since its creation in 1948, LNAK has had the same political
fixations as other émigré groups in Canada whose leaders also included
war criminals and Nazi collaborators. Seeing Latvia as one of the many
ethnic nationalities 'enslaved' within the multicultural USSR, LNAK
worked with pro-fascist,
Cold War networks like the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations and the World
Anti-Communist League. LNAK was also active in leading Canada's 'Captive
Nations' movement and remains central to its Black Ribbon Day crusade."
Press for Conversion writes that "Janis Niedra (1908-69), who fled Latvia to safety in Germany and then to Canada in 1951, was LNAK's first president in 1954, its vice president in 1961, its chair in 1963 and president again in 1969.
"During the Operation Barbarossa invasion of the USSR in June 1941, when the Nazis entered the Latvian town of Tukums, they were aided by Janis Niedra, a former lieutenant in the pre-Soviet, Latvian army. Yakov Karasin, a local Jewish survivor from Tukums, said Niedra 'legalized' Latvia's pro-Nazi "self defense" forces and reinforced them with ex-soldiers and police from fascist militias that were 'ardent anti-Semites, nationalists, hating the Soviets.' After rounding up all the Jews, some were forced into slave camps while most 'women, children and old people' were shot and buried in 'mass nameless graves.' Karasin's book names 350 Jews massacred in Tukums.
[...]
"At the Nuremberg trials, the USSR submitted 500 reports on the
crimes of Nazis and their accomplices. The Soviets amassed Nazi files,
scoured slave camps, gas chambers and mass graves, and gathered accounts
from victims and perpetrators. In 1966, when publishing this data from
Latvia, they
exposed Niedra's work for the Nazis and noted his 1951 escape to
safehaven in Canada. Captain Benedict Zaharans, the Nazi's Latvian army
commander in Tukums gave eye-witness testimony of Niedra murdering Jews
in 1941.
"Having proven his loyalty to Latvia's Nazi 'liberators,' Niedra was made the top official in Latvia's second largest city, Daugavpils (Oct. 1942July 1944). Of the 16,000 Jews there when the Nazis invaded, said survivor Sidney Iwens, 'less than 100 survived.' Niedra was the key organizer of a mass Nazi rally in Daugavpils, on July 4, 1943. General Otto-Heinrich Drechsler, Latvia's Nazi ruler, addressed the crowd of 20,000 from a stage festooned with swastikas and Latvian flags. Film of this rally shows Latvians marching for Nazi bigwigs, and women in folk dress giving flowers to German officers that are doing the Heil Hitler salute.
|
Reich Deputy Minister Alfred Meyer (left) meets Janis Niedra (right
front) and other local officials in Daugavpils, Latvia, August 22, 1943."In August 1943, Niedra met the two top Nazi war criminals from the Ministry of Occupied Eastern Territories: Alfred Meyer and Alfred Rosenberg, a German-Estonian who led the ministry and was executed at Nuremberg in 1946. After WWII, Niedra fled to Toronto where he met other Nazi collaborators, like Oskars Perro, a Latvian SS Obersturmführer and Iron Cross recipient. His books covered up Latvia's role in the Holocaust. Perro and Niedra worked closely together to form the Latvian Union of Officers (LVA) to serve SS veterans. Their first meeting was in Toronto in 1951 but in view of the still unfavorable position of some Western countries against the soldiers, especially the officers who fought against the Red Army -- the then Western Allies -- there were fears that the establishment and affiliation of the LVA could be detrimental to the personal security of officers.
"Although continuing to meet, these officers waited until 1954 to
officially form the LVA. Niedra and Perro were among its founders. LVA's
goals included to 'unite Latvian officers in the whole free world' and
to 'celebrate those who have fought and worked for the benefit of
Latvia's freedom.'
Canada's LVA had a key role in creating this global network of
anti-Soviet Latvian veterans.
"In 1961, as LNAK's VP, Niedra met Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and presented him with a 'hand-painted scroll with the national flags and coats-of-arms of the 18 ethnic groups' in the Mutual Co-operation League (MCL). This anti-communist lobby group for 'captive nations' urged Diefenbaker to deport Abraham Feinberg, the Lithuanian-American Rabbi emeritus of Canada's largest Reform synagogue. The MCL opposed the cross-Canada speaking tour of Feinberg, who was chair of the Toronto Committee for Nuclear Disarmament.
"In 1967, Niedra was among 13 Latvians, including five in Canada, named as war criminals by Simon Wiesenthal's Vienna-based Centre for Jewish Victims of the Nazi Regime. Although Lester Pearson's Liberal government was informed, it did nothing.
|
"Two years later, Niedra, then LNAK president, made the news, not as a war criminal but for presenting former-PM Diefenbaker with a medal and scroll for aiding the fight to 'liberate the Latvian people.'
"In 1980 Weisenthal gave a new list of war criminals to [Pierre Elliot] Trudeau's government but, again, to no avail.
"LNAK enjoyed keen media support throughout the Cold War. Even when Soviet trials exposed Latvian war criminals living in Canada, LNAK saw them as victims of communism. In 1982, Haralds Puntulis, a former police chief in Latvia (1941-44) was tried in absentia by the Soviets. 'After 19 days of testimony from witnesses and the coaccused,' Puntulis, who had lived undisturbed in Toronto since 1948, 'was found guilty of the slaughter of 713 Jews, 28 gypsies and nine Communists.' Canadian newspapers said that in 1941, Puntulis and his men carried out the annihilation of all the Jews in the hamlets of Silmalas, Malta and Riebiņi; ... he directed the firing squad in the execution of the residents of Audrini; and ... after each salvo he shot those who still showed signs of life.
"One witness testified that Puntulis executed an '11-year-old Jewish boy' by shooting him 'in the head.'
"In reaction, LNAK's president, T. Kronbergs, said such cases 'automatically create a situation where' East Europeans defend the accused 'whether he's guilty or not because they feel insulted.' Jews also felt insulted since, as Wiesenthal said, 'the typical Nazi in Canada lives free for many years ... and neighbors think he's a nice old man.'
"By vilifying the USSR, papers diverted attention from LNAK's Nazi past. Latvians were said to be either victims or heroes for fighting the USSR. LNAK president Linares Lukss told the Deschźnes Commission: 'Soviets are trying to discredit East European immigrants, by feeding rumors about Nazi war criminals ... in Canada.' He said 'Latvians who fought Soviet communism shouldn't be regarded as Nazi collaborators.' Soviet evidence on war crimes was derided as fake news that was 'very intimidating, most unpleasant' for East Europeans..., said Lukss."(Lukss cofounded and helped lead the Black Ribbon Day crusade.)
"When the USSR asked Canada to extradite Puntulis, 'the response was a firm no.' Although Canada's Geneva-Conventions law obliged it to search for war criminals and put them on trial, Canada said all Nazi war crimes were exempt. Solicitor Genernal Bob Kaplan said he would not 'risk his political career on the prosecution of alleged war criminals living in Canada.' Justice Minister Jean Chrétien said, 'I don't intend to introduce legislation in Canada for crimes committed 35 years ago in other nations.'"
The situation with Niedra and LNAK bring to mind the role of the
reactionary Ukrainian Canadian Congress and its close relations with the
Canadian state, which was brought to broad attention when the Nazi
collaborator Yaroslav Hunka was invited to Parliament and given standing
ovations in the
House of Commons in September 2023. All of this shows that the attempt
to put Niedra's name on the monument and the Hunka affair are not mistakes or aberrations, but that the promotion
of fascists, reactionaries and anti-communists is Canadian state policy. This is seen today in
Canada's support
for the crimes being committed in the present, such as the reactionary
neo-Nazi regime brought to power in Ukraine in 2014 and its brutal
massacres and other crimes committed against their fellow Ukrainians, or
the U.S./Israeli genocide in Gaza that is called self-defence. This is unacceptable.
The broad outrage from the Trudeau government's attempt to venerate Hunka, someone accused of crimes against humanity was such that the unveiling of the anti-communist monument scheduled for that November was delayed by more than a year. The fact that it now sits incomplete and falling into disrepair is fitting.
"Tribute to Liberty" Turns Its Attention to Albania
Mother Albania, monument to the partisans who gave their
lives to liberate their homeland from Nazi fascism, located at the
National Martyrs' Cemetery in Tirana.
In this year's summer edition of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism newsletter of the organization Tribute to Liberty, published on July 30, was a brief article entitled "Communism in Albania: A Firsthand Reflection on One of History's Harshest Regimes." This article, allegedly written by someone who grew up in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, throws various dystopian stereotypes at that society. Among other things, it is defined as a society full of paranoia of external forces with an illusion of self-reliance, ruled by the "iron fist" of Enver Hoxha, with an obsessive loyalty to "Marxist-Leninist doctrine," outlawing of religious practices, a cult of personality, small monthly rations and long, freezing bread lines. It ends: "Communism in Albania wasn't just a political system -- it was a totalitarian nightmare that starved its people, destroyed their faith, and robbed them of their freedom. I lived through it. I will never forget it." In other words, the same dreadful picture painted by Soviet exiles such as Solzhenitsyn and others.
It is the right of anyone to write whatever they would like about their own life experiences, and the individual in question also has this right. It is, however, easy to be a general after the battle. One must, more importantly, question why the Tribute to Liberty organization decided to publish this article at this time. Enver Hoxha died in 1985, 40 years ago this past April. The PSR of Albania essentially ceased to exist in spring 1991, and officially in 1992 -- 34 and 35 years ago, respectively. The problems of those times, in one way or another, have been solved for a time -- either permanently or temporarily. These are not current issues, and certainly not pertinent to concerns in Canada at the present time.
What would motivate someone to bring up this history of Albania? What phantasm of the mind leads to this? It can only be assumed that the intent in publishing such an article is to place a black stain on history where none existed, and to utilize a small country and people as part of a general offensive of Anglo-American historiography against anyone who, at any time, dared to defy it.
I am not writing to defend the past, but to demonstrate what a small nation can do when they are of a single will, and to defend the right of peoples to take their own path. Such articles as seen in Tribute to Liberty's newsletter are not mere criticisms of former societies but, in fact, attacks against any small peoples that decide to go their own way, in spite of the bitter and constant imperialist aggressions to force them on the road of the Anglo-Americans.
This is especially important in our 80th year of the Great Victory in the world anti-fascist war, given that the Albanian Anti-Fascist National Liberation Movement and the Democratic Government set up at Pėrmet on May 24, 1944, with Enver Hoxha at the head, was a recognized ally of the Great Anti-Hitler Coalition and made outstanding contributions far beyond its people's means to the defeat of Hitlerite fascism. The Albanian partisans, led by their Commander Enver Hoxha, were the only movement in occupied Europe during the Second World War to completely liberate their territory without the aid of a single Allied Great Power soldier on November 29, 1944.
Fighters
and cadres of the 5th Division, among whom were comrades Hysni Kapo
(third from the right standing), Manush Myftiu (third from the right
sitting) and Shefqet Peci (second from the left standing).
After Albania liberated itself, Enver Hoxha ordered three divisions
of the Albanian partisan army to cross into Yugoslav territory to
continue to fight the Nazi-fascist occupier. The 4th, 6th and later 24th
Albanian partisan divisions liberated almost the entirety of Kosovo,
most of the Sandak, and parts of Montenegro, western Serbia and eastern
Bosnia. This included Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, and the
hero-town of Rudo, where the Yugoslav 1st Proletarian Brigade was formed
on December 21, 1941. In the Sandak, a mother in the liberated
town of Sjenica was quoted as follows: "Tell the mothers, wives and
sisters of those Albanians who laid down their lives for the liberation
of the Sandak, that the sun of our mountains will warm the place
where their beloved ones fell just as the sun of your mountains."
Everywhere the Albanian partisans went in Yugoslavia, they acted with the highest professional attitude and dignity befitting an honourable people and army. In total, the Albanian partisans liberated approximately 10 per cent of Allied Yugoslavia. Hundreds of Albanian partisans fell in selfless, fraternal internationalist aid. This was an enormous contribution to not only the Yugoslav people's struggle but to the entire world anti-fascist war.
On the reverse side, traitors to the Albanian people, many of whom
fled to the West and have had their influence there, descendants of the
Albanian Fascist Party, collaborator Balli Kombėtar and SS Skanderbeg,
fought against the Great Anti-Hitler Coalition, against the National
Liberation Movement, against the Democratic Government and its head,
Enver Hoxha. Such forces in Albania fought as mercenaries of the Italian
and German occupiers, and in Yugoslavia, on the side of the Ustae and
Chetnik butchers responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.
With a total population of approximately 1,125,000 in Albania, the occupiers and collaborators killed 28,800 people, or 2.48 per cent. On a percentage basis, Albania ranked fifth highest in dead among the anti-fascist bloc. These criminals in many cases escaped to the West, including Canada, and had a profound impact on the narrative about the countries they left.
The Tribute to Liberty organization certainly feels this imprint. It
is worth noting in this vein that Mustafa Merlika-Kruja, the Prime
Minister of the Albanian fascist occupation government, died in 1958 in
Niagara Falls, New York. Mithat Frashėri, leader of the collaborationist
Balli Kombėtar,
died in 1949 in New York City where he was running his "Free Albania"
National Committee to undermine the PSR of Albania. This despite the
fact that the National Liberation Movement was sent emissaries by the
U.S. and Britain during the war and was recognized as the only
legitimate force fighting on
the side of the anti-Hitler coalition.
Fighters of the Anti-Fascist National Liberation Army of Albania and the
Anti-Fascist National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia fighting side by
side to liberate Yugoslavia from the Nazis.
It was due to the Albanian National Liberation Movement that in 1946, at the Paris Peace Conference, representing Albania, Enver Hoxha was able to proudly proclaim that despite a fascist government being set up in their name, from the first days of the Italian occupation in April 1939, the Albanian people never put down the rifle, and found themselves not as a losing nation but among the victorious. From that tribune, he was able to proclaim:
"The Albanian people, loyal to their fighting traditions for freedom and independence, and loyal to the end to the allied cause, from April 7, 1939 till the day of victory, never shirked any sacrifice. Albania rendered a major and unstinting contribution in bloodshed for the common cause. Albania's fight earned it the right to participate in this Conference, with the same title and same rights as those of the twenty-one victorious nations."
Due to this fierce stance, Albania indeed won a seat as a victorious
country. This was also a defence of the territorial integrity of Albania
against the monarcho-fascist collaborator regime which came to power in
Greece under the backing of the Anglo-Americans, which had ambitions
for southern Albania, which they called "vorio-Epirus" -- northern
Greece.
When various hostile elements came to power in Yugoslavia who were preparing to break off with the Soviet Union and had already prepared an aggressive policy towards Albania, hoping to annex it and make it the seventh republic of Yugoslavia in 1948, and had already sent two divisions into independent Albania, it was Enver Hoxha's personal vigilance which saved the self-determination of the country. He claimed in his book of memoirs The Titoites that he sent a letter to Soviet Foreign Minister V.M. Molotov and Generalissimo Stalin, informing them of this aggression, which began what is today known in historiography as the Tito-Stalin split. It is also known that after these events, and when Yugoslavia linked itself further up with the U.S. CIA in attempts to overthrow the people's democratic countries in Eastern Europe, it took in and harboured former Albanian Nazi collaborator elements, training them to overthrow the government of Albania, including Gani Bey Kryeziu and Seit Bey Kryeziu, associates of the Yugoslav State Security (better known as UDBA) and Western intelligence agencies. As late as 1959, President of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito and King Paul of Greece, in alignment with these Albanian collaborator elements in Yugoslavia and the West, as well as the former pre-war king Ahmet Zogu, personally discussed splitting Albania in two -- the north for Yugoslavia, and the south for Greece.
Enver Hoxha's time, aside from liberating the country and defending its independence from an all-sided encirclement sponsored by the Anglo-American imperialists, was marked by an enormous amount of accomplishments in building up the country. In 1938, an Albanian's life expectancy was merely 38 years old, which in 1985 reached 71 years. According to the 1991 Statistical Yearbook published by the new anti-communist government of Albania led by Sali Berisha, in 1979-80, the average Albanian ate 3,019 calories per day, somewhat less than the Netherlands at 3310, but higher than Spain at 3,049 and Japan at 2,807. According to the same anti-communist Yearbook, in 1970 Albanians ate an average of 87 grams of protein a day, and 94 grams per day in 1984. By contrast, the United Kingdom fared at 89.98 grams in 1984 and Denmark at 86.72 in the same year. So, it follows, on average Albanians were better fed than Western citizens. And this despite the fact that 75 per cent of Albanian land is mountainous and difficult to cultivate. On October 25, 1970, Albania became the first country in the world to supply electricity to its entire population down to every man, woman and child. On April 29, 1967, it became the first country in the world to abolish direct taxes or levies on the population. In 1976, it became fully self-sufficient in bread to fulfil all the consumption needs of the population, doing away once and for all with hunger.
In the PSR of Albania, there existed neither unemployment, nor debt, nor taxes or levies, nor drug-addiction, nor inflation. Discrimination, oppression and exploitation of persons by persons were being eliminated. Within its borders, violence was an unknown phenomenon, and outside of them, it never engaged in provocations against other nations. In Albania there existed a people's state power, modern industry, a truly self-reliant economy, self-sufficiency in foodstuffs, mechanized agriculture, free and modern health care, women given pride of place, positive education of the youth, flourishing folklore and culture, developing scientific fields, Albanological national studies and more.
The question of religion, which was mentioned in the article, omits the Albanian people's own historic experience, not just during socialism but in democratic movements for independence from the Ottoman Empire. Through the centuries, Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Islam had been imposed on the Albanian people as part of efforts by various Great Powers to split the population along religious lines and gain a foothold in this strategically important country on the straits of Otranto and Adriatic Sea. The Albanian Renaissance of the late 19th century, in forming a modern nation, proclaimed these differences to be anachronistic and, as early as 1878, the Albanian patriot Pashko Vasa wrote in his poem Oh Albania, Suffering Albania the famous slogan which also appeared in Enver Hoxha's time: The only religion of Albania is Albanianism!
Anyone can see that this was simple modern logic. The decision of the Albanian people in 1967 to close their religious institutions followed not from blind ideology but from this patriotic, modern thinking. The spark which led to this decision was not lit by Enver Hoxha or the Party of Labour of Albania but by the students of the "Naim Frashėri" school in Durrės. These were students who were tired of being weighed down by the prejudices of religion and superstition while they were building their new life protested. In particular, they were motivated by seeing the Albanian woman in chains through the religious obligations of the Kanun of Lekė Dukagjini, customary laws which, among other things, stated "The husband is entitled to beat his wife, to bind her in chains if she defies his word and order... Whereas the father is entitled to beat, chain, imprison and kill his son or daughter... It is the duty of the wife to obey her husband... A woman's blood is worth 500 grosh [an old Turkish coin TML Ed. Note]." Although the people were centuries removed from the integral application of these laws, the basic mentality towards women remained. One flame, started in Durrės, quickly spread throughout the entire country, and only afterwards was this formalized in the Constitution, nine years later in 1976.
It should also be noted that the Catholic church, for its activity during the fascist occupation and its role as an espionage agency of the West, was banned immediately post-war.
There were many other accomplishments which cannot be attributed to blind ideology. From November 20-25, 1972, on Enver Hoxha's suggestion, Albanian linguists from both Albania proper and from Kosovo held an Albanian Orthography Congress in Tirana, in which the Albanian language was standardized across the northern Gheg and southern Tosk dialects. It was the first time this was ever done in the Albanian people's long history. It was a massive step along the road of building a single, unified Albanian nation in their own image and not as today, when the U.S. imposes what kind of nation Albanians should have. Before this reform, these dialects were written much more distinctly than the dialects of neighbouring Serbo-Croatian, which are today called languages.
In ethno-historical matters, neither can a blind devotion to ideology be found. Based on extensive studies, Albanologists in Enver Hoxha's time proved that the Albanians descend from the ancient Illyrian people and are autochthonous on the lands they inhabit. The name "Albania" itself was inherited from the Illyrian tribe of "Albanoi" near Durrės. The continuation among personal names and toponyms in Albania between Illyrian and modern Albanian include the cities of Shkodra (Scodra), Lezha (Lissus) and Durrės (Dyrrhachium), and the Drin (Drinus) and Mat (Mathis) rivers. Lasting Illyrian influence can be seen throughout the Balkan Peninsula, including the city of Duvno in Bosnia and Herzegovina, derived from the Illyrian city located on roughly the same place, Delminium. Today, the descendants of these Illyrians live in Delvina, northern Albania, another derivative name of the same original.
Enver Hoxha was personally given numerous decorations, honours and praises by all Allies and Great Powers, even decades post-war. From Yugoslavia, he received the Order of the People's Hero, from Bulgaria the Order of Bravery, from the Soviet Union the Order of Lenin and the high honour of the Order of Suvorov, 1st Class intended only for the most outstanding military leadership, in his case his leadership of the Albanian partisans during the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War.
Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the U.S. remarked: "Do not underestimate Mr. Enver Hoxha, as he is a great head in the field of diplomacy!" Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was forced to appraise him in the following way: "One of the world's most remarkable leaders, who has presided over every negotiation table, regardless of who was seated at the table!" Zhou Enlai, former Premier of China, was quoted saying: "The only party leader whose thoughts and judgements I could never confront was Enver Hoxha!" The French President Charles de Gaulle stated: "No one more than Enver Hoxha deserves the saying, 'Glory goes to he who does not seek it'!" And Andreas Papandreou, former Prime Minister of Greece, stated at Enver Hoxha's funeral: "A people can be made to applaud their leader by force, but they cannot be made to cry for him!"
In the United Nations, the PSR of Albania was a respected member-state, known worldwide for its noble stands, especially in favour of the heroic Palestinian and Arab peoples against Israeli Zionist machinations a cause close to the heart of all progressive humanity. It was on the PSR of Albania's initiative and extensive insistence that the People's Republic of China was admitted to the UN on January 25, 1971 to take its rightful seat, fraudulently given to Formosa (Taiwan) after World War II.
Far from an isolated maniac as the author in the maniacal Tribute to Liberty piece seeks to portray, Enver Hoxha's stature was respected by both friend and foe in the world as a serious statesman and revolutionary fiercely dedicated to his country and beliefs.
Given this entire record, Tribute to Liberty should explain -- what in these facts do you condemn? Albania as an Allied, anti-Hitler victorious nation? Albania standing up for its sovereignty amidst an all-sided encirclement? Albania feeding its people? Albania doing away with backwardness? Albania as a nation-builder? Albania as respected by both friend and foe in the world? What does it serve Canadians to tell them such stories about the PSR of Albania, which ceased to exist three and a half decades ago?
Today, Albania is a neo-colony of the European Union and United States. Its beautiful seaside towns have been turned into U.S. military bases. Its people are held captive by vultures who are plucking away at the society and economy. The ravishing of modern industry and mechanized agriculture was the first task of the pro-U.S. government which came to power in 1992. Half of the population has left since that time, and polls indicate another half would like to leave. Feudal social customs such as the aforementioned Kanun of Lekė Dukagjini, which sanction the subjugation of women to man and archaic blood feuds, have been revived in these last 35 years of so-called democracy.
In this light, the German news agency DW recently reported on a man whose son committed murder, and who cannot leave his home because the Kanun gives the murdered family the right to kill the murderer's father.
This "democracy" has plunged Albania into humiliation, into the darkest days of its history, unknown even during the five centuries of Ottoman occupation. This is the kind of Albania bought lock, stock and barrel by the Euro-Atlantic masters. But history knows it is difficult to keep a people with heroes like Gjergj Kastrioti-Skanderbeg, Naim Frashėri, Ismail Qemali and Enver Hoxha down for long, with their long and storied legacy of victoriously fighting imperialists of all shades and hues.
To repeat, everyone has the right to write about their own experiences, but the peoples of the world also have the right to defy imperialism and build a nation and society of their own making. The Albanians in the period when Enver Hoxha was alive were just like any other people who wish to live in light and prosperity on their own terms. They had everything to do it, especially with their heroism emerging in the Second World War, and indeed did it with spectacular results. The experience of the Albanian people, with the Party of Labour of Albania and Enver Hoxha at the head, serves as an inspiration to our day. The peoples of the world will continue to fight in the same way, in spite of whatever apparition is concocted about the past of the Albanians or any other people.
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Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca