Today is the 80th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the start of the most titanic conflict in human history.
Just after 3:00 a.m. 80 years ago, three and a half million German and German allied troops attacked across the border of what was then the Soviet Union. Across the Bug and Neiman rivers on the first day, toward the cites of Vilnius, Minsk, Brest Litovsk and Lvov. Just under four years later the war on what became the Eastern Front ended. But only after the deaths of tens of millions of human beings.
Winston Churchill's comment at the outset of Barbarossa was short and to the point. Churchill had long hated and opposed Communism and the political system of the Soviet Union that was based on it. His hatred of Soviet Communism began when the system itself did in the early 1920s. It extended into the early years of World War Two when Churchill recommended that Britain, with its hands already beyond full fighting the Germans, intervene on Finland's side after that small country was invaded by Stalin's Red Army at the end of 1939.
Some thought Churchill crazy in his hatred of Communism. Rabid even.
Britain didn't intervene on Finland's side (among other issues was Britain's inability to even reach Finland with troops or aid). And by June 1941, the war had taken some nasty turns for Britain. She was by then standing alone in the face of stunning German military success. Although the Battle of Britain had been won, at that point in time Britain's very survival as a nation was still in question.
So when Germany invaded east, when it took on another enemy, Churchill was ecstatic. Maybe Britain would survive the war; maybe its survival as a nation was now possible. He made his views known.
Sharp wits noticed Churchill's radical change. They called Winston on his apparent hypocrisy, on his drastic move from a rabid hatred of the Soviet dictatorship to embracing a newfound ally.
Churchill was a man of ruthless priorities though, and by this point in the war he recognized that Germany was the one enemy that Britain had to defeat in order to ensure its survival. Indeed, Germany and Hitler absolutely had to be beaten to ensure the survival of Western Civilization. There were no other threats that compared to Nazi Germany, and Britain couldn't defeat that country on its own. Churchill responded to his critics. He summed up the drastic change in his view of Britain's new ally with a few perfect words:
"If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."
