Russia at war 1941-1945

rear, but the German rear is a volcano ready to blow up, and to bury the Hitlerite adventurers.

And thirdly, there was the coalition of the Big Three against the German-Fascist

imperialists. This was a war of engines, and Britain, the USA and the USSR could

produce three times as many engines as Germany.

He then referred to the recent Moscow Conference attended by Beaverbrook and

Harriman, to the decision to supply the USSR systematically with planes and tanks, to the earlier British decision to supply raw materials to Russia such as aluminium, tin, lead, nickel and rubber, and the latest American decision to grant the Soviet Union a one

billion-dollar loan.

All this shows that the coalition between the three countries is a very real thing

{stormy applause) which will go on growing in the common cause of liberation.

In concluding, Stalin said that the Soviet Union was waging a war of liberation, and that she had no territorial ambitions anywhere, in either Europe or Asia, including Iran. Nor did the Soviet Union intend to impose her will or her régime on the Slav or any other peoples waiting to be liberated from the Nazi yoke. There would be no Soviet

interference in the internal affairs of these peoples. But to achieve this, the peoples of the Soviet Union must do their utmost to help the Red Army with armaments, munitions and food. And he ended on the usual note:

Long live our Red Army and our Red Navy!

Long live our glorious country!

Our cause is just. Victory will be ours!

Much more dramatic and inspiring was the setting in which Stalin delivered his speech to the troops on the following morning. In the distance Russian and German guns were

booming, and Russian fighter planes were patrolling Moscow. And here, in the Red

Square, on that cold grey November morning, Stalin was addressing troops, many of

whom had come from the Front, or were on the way to the Front.

Comrades! We are celebrating the 24th Anniversary of the October Revolution in

very hard conditions... The enemy is at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad... Yet, despite temporary failures, our army and navy are heroically repelling the enemy

attacks along the whole front.

Russia, Stalin went on, had survived worse ordeals than this; he recalled 1918, the first anniversary of the Revolution and, stretching some historical points, he said:

Three-quarters of our country was then in the hands of foreign interventionists. ..

We had no allies, we had no Red Army—we were only beginning to create it—we

had no food, no armaments, no equipment. Fourteen states were attacking our

country then... And yet we organised the Red Army, and turned our country into a

military camp. Lenin's great spirit inspired us in our struggle against the

interventionists. .. Our position is far better than it was twenty-three years ago. We are richer in industry, food and raw materials than we were then. We now have

allies, and the support of all the occupied nations of Europe. We have a wonderful army and a wonderful navy... We have no serious shortage of food, armaments or

equipment... Lenin's spirit is inspiring us in our struggle as it did twenty-three years ago.

Can anyone doubt that we can and must defeat the German invaders? The enemy is

not as strong as some frightened little intellectuals imagine...