Europe Never Needed Superpower 'Supervision'

Editor:In Martin Walker's column on June 3, there were two general ideas:1. The Soviet army bore the heaviest weight of the war and is principally responsible for the defeat of Nazism.2. It is thanks to the two superpowers -- the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. -- that there has been peace for 50 years in Europe, and without the "paternal" protection of these two countries, Europe is incapable, because of its lack of civilization and maturity, of developing on its own, in peace and by its own methods. Permit me to make a few remarks on these two points. Concerning D-day, the commemoration involves only the allied forces that took part in the invasion. This is not meant to say that the war effort made by the Soviet army is in any way negligible, but it happens that the invasion took place in western Europe, and the Soviets were not present.It is true that the Soviet army paid a heavy price in World War II, but you forgot to mention that it was the allied forces that neutralized the German navy and, to a lesser extent, its air force. Even though the U.S.S.R. was engaged in a huge land war, it did not harm the Germans much on the sea or in the air. Finally, World War II may have been caused by the foolishness of the French and English leaders, Daladier and Chamberlain, at Munich; or perhaps by the neutrality of the United States up until Pearl Harbor. But in addition and above all the war was caused by the Soviet-German non-aggression pact signed by Molotov and von Ribbentrop in 1939, which permitted Hitler to have his hands free for the West. Ultimately, the U.S.S.R. paid the price of this pact. Peace in Europe, contrary to what you claim, is not due to the benevolent goodness of our American and Russian "parents," but rather to the real desires of a few statesmen, such as de Gaulle and Adenauer. In fact, after the Yalta summit, Europe was represented by two very bad "parents." One was bad because his real desire was not to assure peace for his "children" but to subjugate them. His name was Stalin. The other -- Roosevelt -- was also bad, not because he was nasty like the first "parent," but because he was narrow minded and perfectly ignorant of anything concerning his country's foreign policy. Luckily for Europe, one of its own immature, uncultivated children was there to represent it. His name was Winston Churchill.You write that there is an accepted belief among Americans and Russians that peace was too important to be left to the Europeans, but it is necessary to re-establish the truth in a less sentimental and much more prosaic fashion.On one hand, there were the satellite countries that provided the U.S.S.R. with a security zone; on the other hand, there was a free, capitalist western Europe that provided the United States with a market for its industrial and agricultural products. After all, who is capable of buying U.S. products other than Europe?In a French novel entitled "Carrot Hair," the author wrote: "Not everyone has the good fortune to be born an orphan." If, like you, I had to consider the United States and Russia my parents, I would prefer to be an orphan. Robert MalbertMoscowWe All Fought TogetherEditor:I have just read your article on the D-day landings and the Soviet involvement. I feel that your article was a little one sided, which may be to be expected.From the British point of view, we lost considerable numbers of men and women, from 1939 onwards. We fought a long, hard war on several fronts, not just in France. We were also heavily involved in Africa and the Middle East, as well as in the Far East. We stretched our country to the limit to defend our European allies, notably France, and more importantly, Poland.You mock our Normandy landings, but as you commented, it was the largest landing in history, and it worked!Stalingrad was indeed fierce, and anyone with a reasonably balanced idea of modern history will appreciate what the Soviets endured. However, without the Western front, the final result may have been very different -- and vice versa. Indeed, without American and British involvement against Japan, Russia might have had to fight on yet another front, as it did in the previous century.It's very easy to knock another's involvement, especially in retrospect, but the situation is very clear; without each other's involvement at the time, world history could have been very different.And as for the Europeans not being able to look after their own affairs without American and Soviet involvement: this was only to act as a buffer zone between two powers that nearly destroyed the whole planet. You should perhaps manage your own garden properly before criticizing another's. I can only hope that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, that world peace can continue.We did not invite the Soviets to the D-day celebrations as there was no direct involvement, yet it did represent the turning point of our war with Germany. I have no recollections of any Western representatives being invited to join in the Stalingrad, or other, celebrations.Even so, all our involvements resulted in Germany being defeated, and it seems a pointless exercise trying to inflate our own actions.S. HoldenNorth YorkshireEngland