By Alexei Sinitsa

A few words about Sudetenland.

While I do believe enough parallels are being drawn between 1938 Sudetenland crisis and 2014 annexation of Crimea, I feel not enough is being understood, in the West, of the depths of these parallels. Indeed, while there are remarkable differences in tempo and other details, the implications are starkly similar.

Let’s see – indeed, the move of Germany into Czechoslovakia in 1938 was driven mainly by internal factors – revanchism and irredentism being superficially obvious to the public both domestically and internationally, whereas “limits to growth” of the Third Reich’s economy were known mainly in the high places – on the surface, the economy was humming, but structural weakness needed expansionist rectification.

While the move of Russia into Crimea was timed rather to external events, one cannot help but notice that generally, the Russian Federation was at the similar “bicycle moment” late in 2013, as Germany in early 1938 – running out of speed, it needed to be spurred, or it risked falling. Obviously limitations are unidentical, but not dissimilar – the model, chosen as the path for the economy, fails to deliver enough real product to keep the populace comfortable at current consumption levels, with enough investment made into pet projects (weapons, roads and colossal structures in 1930’s Germany; colossal structures, weapons and foreign bank accounts and real estate in 2000’s Russia).

Two things are needed – external enemy and internal patriotic frenzy. Here there are few differences, if any.
Other similarities are quite glaring – leading Western politicians of 1930’s preaching appeasement to Germany and publically announcing irrelevance and non-validity of their treaty obligations to “small Eastern European states”
It shouldn’t escape our attention to remember that both fuehrers, the original and the current copy, following their annexation moves:

a) Got high approval ratings at home, despite stagnating economy

b) Received support from multiple intellectuals internationally – ranging from hired hands and admirers – all the way to “useful idiots” of various persuasions. Top arguments in the agressor’s favors were, as usual, “managing their own back-yard”, “historic sphere of influence”, “protecting the borders”, “people’s self-determination rights”, “failed state”, artificial state”, and the king of them all – “righting the wrongs of unjust world order (or a bad treaty), depriving our Empire of its rightful place on the world arena”

c) Received little condemnation from Western populace – too busy minding their own business -- a hard thing to do, with a world economic crisis that began less then a decade ago.

d) Continued to preach that their only and paramount concern is peace, and the only reason for their actions is to right the past wrongs.

e) Insisted on previously unacceptable treatment of their compatriots in the “liberated lands”.

Truth to be told, most of the world thought of the Sudetenland story – and subsequent fall of Czechoslovakia – to be irrelevant “in the grand scheme of things”.

Few people remember – on the day the “Phoney War” ended, and German tanks poured into France – each THIRD of those tanks was built in Czechoslovakia. West betrayed Czechoslovakia, and Czechs and Slovaks realized they owe nothing to the Western democracies – they need to get by, so they showed up at the factory floors to earn their living. As long as they were paid well, they worked well. You know, that’s how occupation worked.

If Ukraine falls – we will not blow up our plants, trust me. Grand scheme of things will probably escape Ukrainian worker – as much as it abandoned a Czech one in 1930s. Ukrainians will remember that we can build, in Dnepropetrovsk, the world’s deadliest nuclear missile – SS-18.

Our shipyards in Nikolaev will start churning out destroyers, cruisers and aircraft carriers. Our tank plants in Kharkov will rekindle their furnaces and build the venerable Oplot, Bulat, T-84UD and other masterpieces. Guidance and targeting equipment factories will get busy again, as will explosives and munitions depots.

Our anti-aircraft systems will finally be produced on a large scale again. Maybe we will even be proud of those masterpieces. And then, the architects of the new “Western betrayal” will have to deal with the consequences of our industriousness.

So, before it’s too late – stop the Fourth Reich. For our and your own sakes. Or your sake will stop being ours, too.


Alexei Sinitsa is a Kiev-based Ukrainian professional.