A dreamlike fears, And the flap the flame, And the flutters the clock, And detachment of slate, And blind the night drone, Every wearily spectrum of the Pines chant! The twelfth hour is approaching Handfor HID, such as a shame; I refute the lock, And listen, and wait For young unknown.
Following the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the Kingdom of Romania under King Carol II officially adopted a position of neutrality.
However, the rapidly changing situation in Europe during 1940, as well as domestic political upheaval, undermined this stance. Fascist political forces such as the Iron Guard rose in popularity and power, urging an alliance with Nazi Germany and its allies. As the military fortunes of Romania's two main guarantors of territorial integrity, France and Britain, crumbled in the Fall of France, the government of Romania turned to Germany in hopes of a similar guarantee, unaware that the then dominant European power had already granted its consent to Soviet territorial claims in a secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed back in 1939.
Romanian Tacam T 60
Romanian tank Caesar's heir In summer 1940, a series of territorial disputes were resolved unfavorably to Romania, resulting in the loss of most of the territory gained in the wake of World War I . This caused the popularity of Romania's government to plummet, further reinforcing the fascist and military factions, who eventually staged a coup that turned the country into a fascist dictatorship under Mareșal Ion Antonescu. The new regime firmly set the country on a course towards the Axis camp, officially joining the Axis powers on 23 November 1940. "When it's a question of action against the Slavs , you can always count on Romania," Antonescu stated ten days before the start of Operation Barbarossa.
Romanian R-35 tank
As a member of the Axis, Romania joined the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, providing equipment and oil to Nazi Germany as well as committing more troops to the Eastern Front than all the other allies of Germany combined. Romanian forces played a large role during the fighting in Ukraine , Bessarabia , Stalingrad , and elsewhere. Romanian troops were responsible for the persecution and massacre of up to 260,000 Jews on Romanian-controlled territories, though most Jews living within Romania survived the harsh conditions.
Romanian Schneider 47 mm gun
After the tide of war turned against the Axis, Romania was bombed by the Allies from 1943 onwards and invaded by advancing Soviet armies in 1944. With popular support for Romania's participation in the war faltering and German-Romanian fronts collapsing under Soviet onslaught, King Michael of Romania led a coup d'état , which deposed the Antonescu regime and put Romania on the side of the Allies for the remainder of the war. Despite the Red Army's presence in Romania, Stalin not only left the king on his throne, but awarded him Russia's highest military order for his part in the coup. Further showing his intent following Yalta, to abet the restoration of the powers of the ancien regimes probellum, Stalin and local Communist leaders officially honored the clerical-nationalist official churches. {Deutscher, Stalin (1967), p. 519} Despite this late association with the winning side, Greater Romania was largely dismantled, losing territory to Bulgaria and the Soviet Union , but regaining Northern Transylvania from Hungary. Approximately 370,000 Romanian soldiers died during the war, most of them while in Soviet captivity.
The Hungarian Second Army (Második Magyar Hadsereg) was one of three field armies (hadsereg) raised by the Kingdom of Hungary (Magyar Királyság) which saw action during World War II. All three armies were formed on March 1, 1940.
The Second Army was the best-equipped Hungarian formation at the beginning of the war, but was virtually eliminated as an effective fighting unit by overwhelming Soviet force during the Battle of Stalingrad, suffering 84% casualties.
Towards the end of the war, a reformed Second Army fought more successfully at the Battle of Debrecen, but, during the ensuing Siege of Budapest, it was destroyed completely and absorbed into the Hungarian Third Army.
Hungarian soldiers towed 150mm howitzer using 31M 28M Army tractor Pavesi
The comparatively small Hungarian Army had a peacetime strength of only 80,000 men. Militarily, the nation was divided into seven corps commands. Each army corps consisted of three infantry divisions, each of which comprised three infantry regiments and an artillery regiment. Each corps also included two cavalry brigades, two motorized infantry brigades, an anti-aircraft battery, a signals company, and a cavalry reconnaissance troop. On March 11, 1940, the Hungarian Army was expanded to three field armies, each with three corps. All three of these field armies were to see action against the Red Army before the end of the war.
Hungarian Renault 35
Hungarian TNPH tank Hungary did not immediately participate in Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Adolf Hitler did not directly ask for, nor necessarily want, Hungarian assistance at that time. Most of the Hungarian forces, including the three field armies, were initially relegated to duties within the reenlarged Hungarian state . Hungary regained substantial portions of its territories that had been ceded following the loss of World War I and the resultant Treaty of Trianon.
Hungarian Toldi tank At the end of June, 1941, Germany summoned Hungary to join in the attack on the Soviet Union. Hungary continued to resist joining in the war. The matter was settled on June 26, 1941, when the Soviet air force bombed Košice (Kassa).
Captured M3 tank The Kingdom of Hungary declared war on the Soviet Union the next day, June 27, 1941. At first, only Hungary's "Karpat Group" with its integral "Rapid Corps" (Gyorshadtest) was sent to the Eastern Front, in support of the German 17th Army. Towards the end of 1941, only the exhausted and battle weary "Rapid Corps" was left. But, before Horthy would gain Hitler's consent to withdraw the "Rapid Corps," he had to agree to deploy an even larger Hungarian force. Stalingrad By April 11, 1942, the 209,000-man-strong Second Army joined the German Army Group South in southern Russia. In June, 1942, the Second Army became part of Army Group B in Operation Blue (or " Case Blue ," Fall Blau).
Hungarian solothurn 20 mm
Voronezh In June and July 1942, prior to the Battle of Stalingrad, the Hungarian Second Army was involved in the Battle of Voronezh as part of Army Group B. Fighting in and around the city of Voronezh on the Don River, the Hungarian troops supported the German 4th Panzer Army against the defending Soviet Voronezh Front. Though technically an Axis success, this pyrrhic victory fatally delayed the arrival of the 4th Panzer Army in the Caucasus.
The Don River, Operation Saturn, and disaster The Hungarian Second Army is probably the best known Hungarian wartime army because of the part it played in the Battle of Stalingrad. Before being sent to Russia, the rank-and-file of the Second Army had received but eight weeks of training. The only tactical experience for many of these soldiers were the maneuvers held just prior to the departure for the front. This lack of preparation badly affected the soldiers' morale. Map showing the Hungarian Second Army near Svoboda on the Don river, in autumn 1942
Hungarian 40m, Nimrod AA-gun In 1942, the Hungarian Second Army was given the task of protecting the 8th Italian Army's northern flank between Novaya Pokrovka [ disambiguation needed ] on the Don River and Rossosh. This allowed the German Sixth Army to continue to attack Soviet General Vasily Chuikov 's 62nd Army defending Stalingrad . The Hungarian Second Army, as almost all of the armies protecting the flanks of the Sixth Army, was annihilated when the Soviets launched Operation Uranus, Operation Saturn, and Operation Little Saturn . As part of these operations, two Soviet pincers drove through the Romanian Third Army to the north of Stalingrad and the Romanian Fourth Army to the south, cutting off the Sixth Army.
On December 12, 1942, as a counter move, the Germans launched Operation Winter Storm to relieve their Sixth Army by attacking through the pincers of the Soviet armies participating in Operation Uranus. The Soviets counter-attacked on December 16, 1942, and launched Operation Little Saturn, penetrating between the Italian Eighth Army and the Hungarian Second Army near the junction held by the Italian Alpini and threatening the flank of German forces attempting to relieve the Sixth Army by cutting the would-be relievers off at the Donets river. With heavy losses the Soviets conquered some areas west of the Don river, but were temporarily stopped and delayed in their advance. But on January 13, 1943, Russian forces, overwhelming in numbers and equipment, began the Voronezh-Kharkov Strategic Offensive Operation with the Bryansk , Voronezh , and Southwestern Fronts simultaneously. The Soviet Red Army was totally successful this time: during this offensive the Russians rapidly destroyed the Hungarian Second Army near Svoboda on the Don River. An attack on the German Second Army further north threatened to bring about an encirclement of that army as well, though it managed to withdraw and was forced to retreat. By February 5, 1943, troops of the Russian Voronezh Front were approaching Kharkov.
Hungarian Zirnyi-I 75 mm During its twelve months of activity on the Russian front, the Second Hungarian Army's losses were enormous. Of an initial force of about 200,000 Hungarian soldiers and 50,000 Jewish forced-laborers, about 100,000 were dead, 35,000 wounded, and 60,000 taken prisoners of war. Only about 40,000 men returned to Hungary, scapegoated by Hitler for the catastrophic Axis defeat. "No nation lost as much blood during World War II in such a short period of time." The Hungarian Second Army, as most other Axis armies in the Army Group B, ceased to represent a meaningful fighting force. The German Sixth Army, encircled in Stalingrad, surrendered on February 2, 1943. The remnants of the Hungarian Second Army returned to Hungary on May 24, 1943.
Hungarian Straussler A-C
Hungarian Gsaba 39M A-C Order of Battle, Hungarian Second Army (1942) Most of the field divisions sent to the Eastern Front as part of the Second Army in 1942 were light field divisions (Hungarian infantry divisions typically were composed of three infantry regiments; "light" divisions typically had but two regiments). In addition to the three infantry corps, the Hungarian Second Army included the First Armored Field Division. Most of the armor in this division was included in the 30th Tank Regiment. At the time of the Siege of Stalingrad , the primary battle tank in this unit was the Czechoslovakian Panzer 38(t). These were augmented by Hungarian Toldi tanks for scouting duties, Hungarian Nimrod armoured self-propelled anti-aircraft guns , and Hungarian Csaba armored cars . The tank regiment also had about ten German Panzer IV /F2 tanks and a few German Panzer III tanks in its heavy tank battalion. Unfortunately there were far too few of these better German tanks to make much difference.
Hungarian Stu-III
Attached to Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico Hungary becomes a battlefield On March 19, 1944, Hungarian Regent Admiral Miklós Horthy surrounded himself with anti-fascists. Relations between Hungary and Germany became more and more difficult. Horthy met Hitler on April 16 and 17 at German headquarters, where he told Hitler, "We Hungarians have already lost one hundred thousand men in this bloody war, counting dead, wounded and missing.
Hungarian Skoda 75 mm, mountain gun Those we have left have but few arms with which to fight. We cannot help you one bit more. We are through. We are doing our best to stave off the Bolshevik menace and we won't be able to spare a single man for the Balkans." The German dictator arranged to keep Horthy busy by conducting negotiations while Hungary was quietly and efficiently overrun by German ground forces in a quick and bloodless invasion, Operation Margarethe . Soon all of Hungary was to become a battlefield. By mid-August 1944, German Colonel-General (Generaloberst) Johannes Friessner 's Army Group South was on the brink of collapse. To the north, the Soviet's Operation Bagration was completing the destruction of the Axis Army Group Centre . To the south, Germany's former ally, Romania, declared war on Germany on August 25, 1944, as a result of the Yassi-Kishinev strategic offensive (August 20–29, 1944). On the eve of the Soviet East Carpathian strategic offensive (September 8–28, 1944), as Soviet forces crossed the Hungarian border, Bulgaria, too, declared war on Germany. The subsequent Budapest strategic offensive (October 29, 1944 - February 13, 1945) attack by the Ukrainian Second and Third Fronts far into Hungary destroyed any semblance of an organised German defensive line. By this time, Fyodor Tolbukhin 's Ukrainian Third Front, aided by the Ukrainian Second Front under Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Malinovsky, had annihilated thirteen Axis divisions, capturing over 100,000 men. Wartime mobilization On August 30, 1944, Hungary mobilized a reformed Hungarian Second Army and the Hungarian Third Army. Both armies were primarily composed of weak, undermanned, and underequipped reserve divisions.
General of Artillery Maximilian Fretter-Pico's recently reformed German Sixth Army represented the nucleus of what remained of Friessner's force. By October, 1944, seeing that his Hungarian allies were suffering from low morale, Friessner attached the recently reformed Hungarian Second Army under the command of Lieutenant-General Lajos Veress von Dalnoki to Fretter-Pico's army. The combination of German and Hungarian armies was designated Army Group Fretter-Pico (Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico). The desertions of Bulgaria and Romania had opened a 650-kilometer gap in Friessner's Army Group South. As Friessner desperately struggled to reform a defensive line, news filtered through to Berlin that the Hungarian leader, Admiral Miklós Horthy was preparing to sign a separate peace with the Soviet Union. If this happened, the entire front of Army Group South Ukraine would collapse. In August, Horthy replaced Prime Minister Döme Sztójay with the anti-Fascist General Géza Lakatos. Under Lakatos's regime, acting Interior Minister Béla Horváth ordered Hungarian gendarmes to protect any Hungarian citizen from being deported. On October 15, 1944, Horthy announced that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. But most Hungarian army units ignored Horthy's orders, and the Germans reacted swiftly with Operation Panzerfaust . Commando leader Otto Skorzeny was sent to Hungary and, in another of his daring "snatch" operations, kidnapped Horthy's son, Miklós Horthy Jr. The Germans insisted that Horthy abrogate the armistice , depose Lakatos's government, and name the leader of the Arrow Cross Party, Ferenc Szálasi , as Prime Minister. Instead, Horthy agreed to abdicate. Szálasi was able take power in Hungary with Germany's backing. Late in 1944, a reformed Hungarian Second Army enjoyed a modest level of combat success as an integral part of German General Maximilian Fretter-Pico's Army Group Fretter-Pico. From September 16 to October 24, 1944, during the Battle of Debrecen, Army Group Fretter-Pico achieved a major success against the Debrecen Offensive Operation . While avoiding encirclement, Army Group Fretter-Pico managed to encircle and destroy three Soviet tank corps of Mobile Group Pliyev under the command of Issa Pliyev. The defeat of the Soviet mobile group by the combined German and Hungarian forces contrasted with Pliyev's earlier, easy victory over the untested Hungarian Third Army. The victory ultimately proved too costly to the Hungarians. Unable to replace equipment and personnel lost in the Battle of Debrecen , the Hungarian Second Army was disbanded on December 1, 1944. Surviving units of the Second Army were transferred to the Third Army. In 1944, the main battle tank of the Second Armored Field Division was the Hungarian Turan medium tank, a limited improvement over the Czech Panzer 38(t) and the Hungarian Toldi tanks used by the First Armored Field Division in 1942.
Turan-I
Turan-II However, the Turan I tank (with a 40 mm gun) and the Turan II tank (with a short 75 mm gun) were still no match for a standard Soviet T-34 tank, and, compared to the T-34 /76, the Soviets had many much-improved T-34/85 tanks by 1944.
Turan-III 75 mm Manufacture of the potentially more effective Turan III tank (with a long 75 mm gun) never developed beyond prototypes. Doubly unfortunate for the Hungarians, the few better German Panzer IV tanks, Panzer III tanks, and Sturmgeschütz III assault guns were never made available to them in numbers that would have made a difference.
The Soviet Story is a 2008 documentary film about Soviet Communism and Soviet–German collaboration before 1941 written and directed by Edvīns Šnore and sponsored by the UEN Group in the European Parliament.
The film features interviews with western and Russian historians such as Norman Davies and Boris Sokolov, Russian writer Viktor Suvorov, Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, members of the European Parliament and the participants, as well as survivors of Soviet terror.
Using these interviews together with historical footage and documents the film argues that there were close philosophical, political and organizational connections between the Nazi and Soviet systems. It highlights the Great Purge as well as the Great Famine, Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Katyn massacre, Gestapo-NKVD collaboration, Soviet mass deportations and medical experiments in the GULAG.
The documentary goes on to argue that the successor states to Nazi Germany and the USSR differ in the sense that postwar Germany condemns the actions of Nazi Germany while the opinion in contemporary Russia is summarized by the quote of Vladimir Putin: "One needs to acknowledge, that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century
The film has attracted praise and criticism from academic historians and political commentators.
The Economist review of The Soviet Story praises the film by saying
"Soviet Story" is the most powerful antidote yet to the sanitisation of the past. The film is gripping, audacious and uncompromising. The main aim of the film is to show the close connections—philosophical, political and organisational—between the Nazi and Soviet systems.
It concludes its review by calling the documentary "a sharply provocative work".
The New York Times reviewed the documentary, stating
The film is not dispassionate scholarship; Mr. Snore, who is Latvian, and his backers (including some members of the European Parliament) obviously have an agenda, though to the casual American viewer it may not be clear what it is.
Various Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who were interviewed for the film, have expressed views in favour of it. According to the Latvian MEPs Inese Vaidere and Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis writing in Parliament Magazine:
The Soviet Story makes a significant contribution to the establishment of a common understanding of history and brings us closer to the truth about the tragic events of the 20th century. A common understanding of history among the member states is crucial for the future of the whole EU.
Both Vaidere and Kristovskis represent the UEN group which actively supported the production of the film.
After watching the film, Finnish MEP Ari Vatanen opined:
It is a powerful message. Thank you for telling the truth. It will awaken people. ...
We cannot build a humanity if we close our eyes to this kind of massacres. Our possibility is to serve justice to those people.
British MEP Christopher Beazley commented:
This film is very important. It's a very powerful representation of what took place in Poland, in Latvia and the other Central European countries.
Vytautas Landsbergis, MEP and the former Head of the Lithuanian Seimas (Parliament), assessed The Soviet Story as
a world class film, which should be shown to the world.
Likewise, Latvia's Minister of Justice, Gaidis Bērziņš (For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK), has said that, because of its important historical message, he would encourage the Ministry of Education to have the film shown in all schools in Latvia.
MEP from Latvia Tatjana Ždanoka, who opposed Latvia's independence from the Soviet Union and ran as a candidate of the largest Russian political bloc in Latvia, regards the film as a "propagandistic odd job, which is given out to be "a new word in history". She also thought that "the second part of the film is pure political PR": while the first part of the film pictures the point of view of some historians, contemporary politicians criticize modern Russia in the end of the film. Ždanoka also noted that "a lot of attention was devoted to the partnership of the German and Russian military. This is followed by a jump forward in time to the 1940s, with a mass-meeting of Vlasovites is shown against a background of swastika".
Soviet officer saluting Nazi SS officers, while delivering Jewish prisoners to them, 1940. (screenshot from the film).
The film prompted negative reactions from Russian organizations, press, and politicians. According to the "European Voice" newspaper, Russians are infuriated by the film which reveals the extent of Nazi and Soviet collaboration.
On May 17, 2008 the Russian pro-governmental youth organization Young Russia (Russian: Россия Молодая) organized the protest "Let's not allow the rewriting of history!" (Russian: "Не дадим переписать историю!") in front of the Embassy of Latvia in Moscow. An effigy representing Edvīns Šnore was burnt during the protest.
Latvian political scientist and cultural commentator Ivars Ījabs offers a mixed review of The Soviet Story. On one hand, it is a well-made and "effective piece of cinematic propaganda in the good sense of this word", whose message is clearly presented to the audience. On the other hand, Ījabs does not agree with a number of historical interpretations in the film, asserting that it contains errors. For example, Ījabs states that, "In late 1930s Hitler did not yet plan a systematic genocide against the Jews", as it is suggested in the film; "Everybody knows that this decision was made in 1942 at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin." Furthermore, Ījabs comments on the notion in the film voiced by the British literary historian, liberal and former political activist George G. Watson that Friedrich Engels is "the ancestor of the modern political genocide".
Ījabs says: "To present Karl Marx as the "progenitor of modern genocide is simply to lie". Ījabs admits, however, the use of the term Völkerabfälle in Marx's newspaper to describe several small European ethnic groups. Although sometimes translated as "racial trash", other translations include "residual nations" or "refuse of nations", that is, those left behind (discarded) by the dominant civilizations. Watson views have been also criticized by reviewer Robert Grant as ideologically biased and for citing evidence that "seems dubious", arguing that "what Marx and Engels are calling for is, at the very least a kind of cultural genocide; but it is not obvious, at least from Watson's citations, that actual mass killing, rather than (to use their phraseology) mere 'absorption' or 'assimilation', is in question." --------------------------- Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
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More insight can be gained by considering the work of Marx and Engels. For instance one can find the citation: "Diese Reste einer von dem Gang der Geschichte, wie Hegel sagt, unbarmherzig zertretenen Nation, diese Völkerabfälle werden jedesmal und bleiben bis zu ihrer gänzlichen Vertilgung oder Entnationalisierung die fanatischen Träger der Kontrerevolution,...", which can be translated to: "These remains from a nation, ruthlessly crushed by the course of history, as Hegel says, these Völkerabfälle will be every time and remain, until their complete extermination or denationalization, the fanatical support of the counter-revolution,...".
In this context the people presented as 'Völkerabfälle' are described as ennemies of Marx and Engels' ideas. Extermination or denationalization are presented as two possible options to remove these ennemies. Furthermore, in another citation one can find: "Der nächste Weltkrieg wird nicht nur reaktionäre Klassen und Dynastien, er wird auch ganze reaktionäre Völker vom Erdboden verschwinden machen. Und das ist auch ein Fortschritt.“, which can be translated to:
"The next World War will not only whipe out reactionary classes and dynasties, it will also 'make disappear off the face of the earth' entire reactionary peoples. And this is also a 'progress'." Note that the word 'Fortschritt' in German leaves no doubt to interpretation, that Marx and Engels see in a positive light the elimination of these "reactionary peoples", without stating their preference between the two aforementionned options of "extermination" or "denationalization". (See also de:Rassismus und Fremdenfeindlichkeit in den Werken von Marx)
In Finland the film was shown in events organized by the irredentist group ProKarelia. A criminal complaint by Johan Bäckman, member of the Finnish Anti-Fascist Committee against ProKarelia has led to a criminal investigation on suspicion of showing violent scenes to minors, incitement to ethnic or racial hatred and propaganda of violence.
The Finnish Film inspector authority, however, did not find the film's content offensive and authorized its showing in Finland. Johan Bäckman also protested against the screening of The Soviet Story on the Estonian National TV. He asked the Estonian police to start a criminal investiagion. The Police, however, turned down Bäckman's request and refused to initiate a criminal investigation "due to the lack of crime".
A number of critics condemned the film even before its premiere. Boris Tsilevich, a Latvian member of parliament representing Harmony Centre, stated that it was a "typical propaganda" and its release was timed to coincide with the 2009 Latvian elections for the European Parliament.
Film festivals and awards
The film has been screened in the following film festivals:
2008 Boston Film Festival, USA – "The Soviet Story" received the “ Mass Impact Award”
2008 KinoLev Film Festival - Lviv, Ukraine
2008 Black Nights Film Festival – Tallinn, Estonia
2008 Arsenals Film Festival - Riga, Latvia
2008 Promitey Film Festival - Tbilisi, Georgia
2008 Baltic Film Festival – Berlin, Germany
2009 Sedona International Film Festival – Sedona, Arizona, USA
2009 Mene Tekel festival - Prague, Czech Republic
2009 Politicsonfilm Film Festival - Washington, USA
2011 Free Minds Film Festival - Colorado Springs, CO
2012 Free Minds Film Festival - Colorado Springs, CO
In 2009 the film has been nominated for the biannual Latvian National Film Award Lielais Kristaps in the "Best Documentary" category.
In 2008 the President of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers awarded the director of the film, Edvins Snore with the Order of the Three Stars.
In 2009 Edvins Snore for creating the film "The Soviet Story" received the Estonian Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana.
Criticism
This photo of starving children during the famine in Russia in 1922 according to Alexander Dyukov was presented in The Soviet Story as being one of victims of the 1932–1933 famine in Ukraine.
Alexander Dyukov, a former member of the Russian ARMS-TASS Agency of Military and Technical Information, has been the most vocal critic of the documentary. He said that "After watching two thirds of the film, I had only one wish: to kill its director and to burn down the Latvian Embassy."
As a result of Dyukov's statements a criminal investigation was initiated against him in Latvia. Asked to comment on the case, Latvian Foreign Minister Māris Riekstiņš commented that Alexander Dyukov might be a "mentally unstable personality".
Prime Minister of Estonia Mart Laar called Dyukov "an officer of FSB".
Alexander Dyukov expressed his opinion that the film is a propaganda piece which makes false claims and uses distorted quotes and statistics. Dyukov later published a book "The Soviet Story: The Mechanism of lies", which made a detailed critical analysis of the alleged falsifications contained in the film.
Dyukov alleges inconsistencies in the film and questions the credibility of some of the film sequences and conclusions of some of the Russian and Western historians interviewed in the film. Izvestia (former official newspaper of the Soviet government) reported that the part of the film pertaining to medical experiments in the GULAG used Sergey Melnikoff's web-site "GULAG: With a camera among the camps" as a source, which Dyukov maintains is not trustworthy. Dyukov also alleges in the same report that the document supporting the Gestapo-NKVD partnership hypothesis presented in the film, the secret Gestapo-NKVD agreement of November 11, 1938, is a fake.
Dyukov also criticized the film for showing a famous photo which was widely published in Europe by the Nansen committee in 1922 and which bears the name "Brothers in misfortune" (Russian: Братья по несчастью). The photo which shows a starving boy feeding another starving boy was taken during famine in Russia in 1922, however in The Soviet Story, according to Dyukov, the boys are presented as victims of the famine in Ukraine. The German language DVD edition produced by the licensee Kopp Verlag does not show the two starving boys.
Boris Sokolov, one of the historians interviewed in the film, said: "I had only been an expert there and I can only answer for what I am saying there myself. I had told to Šnore that some of his narratives are obvious forgeries he was tricked by. For example, Beria—Müller agreement on killing Jews together".
Irina Yarovaya, Russian MP, member of the General Council of Vladimir Putin's and ruling Russian party “United Russia”, declared that The Soviet Story film “glorifies Estonian Nazi collaborators, those who killed people in Khatyn and in Pskov region”.
In response to Yarovaya's statement which apparently confuses Katyn with Khatyn, Mart Laar wrote: "It is indeed impressive how much wrong can be put into one sentence. First, Estonians did not kill anyone in Khatyn and, secondly, the specific crime committed in Khatyn is not mentioned in the film at all... This gives the impression that Yarovaya, actually, has not seen the film."
No part of the film talks or even mentions Estonian Nazi collaborators.[48] Moreover, the film's director has clearly stated: "The Soviet Story condemns Fascism/Nazism.
The Soviet Story also reflects a point of view which is not shared by the Kremlin. As a result, the film is labeled as Fascist propaganda, even if the film describes Hitler and Nazism as criminal."
Russian government's state news agency RIA Novosti claimed: "The film shows the alleged victims of Stalinist repression: the corpses piled in stacks and covered with logs. In fact these photographs were taken by the Soviets in 1944 and represent the victims of the Nazi atrocities in Klooga concentration camp in Estonia and in Yanovskaya camp near Lviv." This accusation was reproduced by such news outlets as Vzglyad.
Tribute
In the end credits of the film it is stated that: "The Soviet Union killed more than 20 000 000 men, women and children. This film is dedicated to them".
