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It was running on June 18, 1940, in full WWII, when Charles de GaulleNeeding little introduction, he delivered one of his most famous speeches over the airwaves. During a few bitter days in which France remained subjugated by the Nazi boot, the Frenchman addressed all his citizens: «Whatever happens, the flame of french resistance It must not go out, nor will it ever go out.” After the liberation of the country, almost four years later, he repeated ad nauseam that that ‘Resistance’ had been in charge of bleeding the Third Reich army from the heart of the territory.
Professor José M. Faraldo – who last week revealed to ABC the true germ of hatred between Ukraine and Russia
– does not agree with him. “In France, the resistance was generated from 1944, when the war was lost for the Germans,” he explains. The reasons are exposed in his new work, ‘Against Hitler and Stalin‘ (Publishing Alliance). What is clear to him is that the French underground movements have not been the only ones idealized. “It is something that has happened throughout Europe, with the exception of Poland,” he adds. In exchange, he insists that this type of group has always been a minority and that, in most cases, they have caused more repression than freedom.
What is the objective of the work?
I wanted to see how the armed resistance had worked, those that are part of a nation’s war effort against an occupier. Although he also sought to analyze those that had a political background. One of the basic characteristics of resistance is that it sought to shape a new state that did not have the errors of the previous system. Because, for these movements, it was almost always the culprit of the occupation.
It includes the maquis…
Yes. I also analyze the resistance against Francoism, the maquis, because they were in the same European context as the rest even though they were not fighting against a foreign invader. Those who participated in the armed anti-Franco resistance in the Spanish postwar period also did so by imitating what they had learned in their fight against the Nazis in France or in the Soviet Union. On the other hand, and as regards the political background, they had members of the Communist Party sent from the east.
Should we associate resistance to the political spectrum of the left?
No, obviously. Yes, it is true that it used to create stronger movements because its members had experience in the underground. In many of these countries, the communist and socialist parties were banned by the dictatorship and knew how to function behind the scenes. On the other hand, the most extremist groups believed in the use of armed struggle and were trained to do so. So when the time came, they knew how to use rifles and explosives. Lastly, at the political level they were trained and had a clear idea of the system they wanted.
And the right?
The armed right of the interwar period, more aggressive, was either in agreement, or had no political alibi to fight and lacked support. Although there were exceptions such as De Gaulle, who was not on the left; or like that of Italy, where Catholics of both political ideas stood out.
Have we idealized the resistance against the Nazis?
The resistance against the Nazis has been idealized in all countries with the sole exception of Poland, but the truth is that it was made up of groups that had a hard time starting to walk. At first the fight was very small, at least until 1941; later, the communists already began to unite. Until that year, his thesis was that what was happening was a war between capitalists and that they should be allowed to kill each other. Everything changed with the invasion of the Soviet Union.
The French case is significantly exaggerated.
In France the resistance grew in 1944, when it was already clear that the Third Reich was going to collapse. But it is not a criticism. We must understand that these groups were always a minority. If one hundred percent of the population had been against the invasion, the country could not have been occupied. They could have killed them all, but not taken their territory.
Was the resistance effective?
Unfortunately, what the resistance achieved was often repression. They did not manage to bring freedom one centimeter closer to their countries, but rather the state repressed civilians who had nothing to do with it. In that sense they had an ambivalent balance. When I talk about the price of resistance in the book, I mean that, for every action by the partisans, there was a government response against civilians. The Germans were specialists in it. After an attack they made random captures and murdered the inmates in retaliation. This also caused a certain animosity towards interior movements.
Didn’t they have big hits?
Very rarely did they achieve real success. Rather they achieved repression. If there had not been an eastern front advancing towards Berlin, if the Allies had not come across the Mediterranean, it would have been difficult for the resistance to have liberated their countries. Perhaps a little later, during a moment of weakness for the Nazis. And the same against the Soviets.
He affirms that all the resistances were also civil wars…
The creation of resistance movements always leads to a civil war. That is why the political aspect is key. They always sold that they represented the entire town, but what history shows us is that there were clashes between different groups. The clearest example occurred in France at the end of 1944, where right-wing republicans and communists clashed… These differences led to armed conflicts in countries like Poland. There, the ‘Army of the Interior‘ –the official armed forces of the government in exile– comprised the bulk of the resistance, but they were also ‘The People’s Guard‘ communist or xenophobic nationalists. These fought more to the left-wing compatriots or the Jewish partisans than to the Nazis. In fact, one of his brigades escaped the country thanks to the Third Reich.
What differences were there between the resistance that faced the Nazis and the one that fought the Soviets?
Many. The resistance against the Soviets was more complex. They fought against the occupier, but also against the communist parties that wanted to install their political system after being liberated by the Nazis. And the same with the Red Army, which intended to Stalinize the countries after liberating them. There were also differences by country. The Soviet guerrillas, for example, had a direct relationship with the state because power had not fallen, but gone behind the Urals. It was an army on the other side, so to speak.
He talks about the day-to-day life of the partisans…
Yes. I narrate how they lived. From the fact that they had to take an oath, usually with a series of symbols, until they received a synonym for hiding. But I also tell that they got their weapons (sometimes they made them, sometimes they stole them…) and they had a series of forms of action typical of the underground. I further stress that, although there were huge armies of partisans, their purpose was usually to get shelter and food. The confrontations lasted very little, and the same happened with the concrete actions. It is true that they put bombs on railways, but it was not usual. The day to day was to survive.
Did resistance movements end with the end of World War II?
No. They will only end after 1979, albeit with changes. From then on, and in general, they stopped being violent. The only exception was the Baltic States. The rest opted for political liberation. On the other hand, we must bear in mind that the uprisings that took place in the 1950s in Potsdam or Budapest were more cultural in nature. Did it make sense, then, to give up life and youth for the resistance? It is a question that I answer in the play.
It’s time to ask about Ukraine…
Much of what we live today has a lot to do with those moments of the Stalinization of Ukraine. The Soviet Union captured the entire country and crushed all those resistance groups that had tried to create an independent state. The person in charge of carrying out that repression was the NKVD, which was endowed with its own armed forces. A real war ensued, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties and involving a huge territory within the Eastern Galicia.
Which resistance group was the most prominent in Ukraine?
The most important was the Ukrainian Rebel Army (UPA). In the 1930s, although they were in the Polish parliament – Eastern Galicia then belonged to Poland – they opted for armed struggle. That caused them to be persecuted by the local authorities. In the end, its leaders were forced into exile in Nazi Germany, where they prowled the fascist parties. When Operation Barbarossa began, Hitler’s invasion of the USSR, they thought they could go back and proclaim an independent Ukraine, but it was a mistake. The Germans did not allow it and crushed the movement. They fought in the shadows until liberation, when they had to do the same against Stalin. They were destroyed in the late fifties by the NKVD, as I have already mentioned.
Was that the germ of the hatred of Russia?
That defeat of the UPA is the one that still permeates Ukrainian nationalism. They had the chance to make their Ukraine independent, and they failed because they were crushed. So now they are very anti-Russian.