Earlier this week was the 75th anniversary of the Red Army defeating Nazi Germany.  It is remembered, rightly, throughout Europe as VE day, and the relatively small, but significant, role of Canadian, British, Commonwealth and American soldiers should never be forgotten.

Today, 104 years ago, a man from my home town of Edinburgh, James Connolly, was strapped into a chair and shot dead by the British Army.  His crime?  Merely attempting to overthrow the Government of the time, establishing a provisional government in its place, and claiming Ireland's right to self-determination through the force of arms.

Connolly was derided and jeered at and slated in the international press.  But he went to his death stoic and resolute.  And for this, he gained the respect of many.  And history was on his side.  His organisation, the Irish Republican Army, went on to fight, and to win, self-determination for most of Ireland.

Connolly, like all men, had his faults.  But he was selfless, and a man committed to equality, well ahead of his time saying that "The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave."

Connolly had uncomfortable truths to afflict the powerful and comfort the afflicted.  And so he was killed.

I look at Connolly's life and I find it inspirational.

That's all I have to say to you today.  Thank you for listening.

Of course, JimmyTheWeed - and I have made a point of honouring the other nations involved in the defeat, but The Great Patriotic War was by a considerable distance the main event in World War 2.  

I have stood on the beaches at Normandy and honoured the brave men of the allied nations who fought.

But we in the West have a habit of forgetting that it was the Red Army that provided the overwhelming human resources in the fight against the Nazi menace.

I mean, would you prefer to say that The USSR, UK, USA, Canada, the Free French, the Free Polish, Indian, Australian and other nations defeated Nazi Germany, Romania, part of the Ukraine, Russian turncoats, Norwegian traitors (the famous 11th), Japan, elements of the French aristocracy, and the quasi establisments of Sweden and Switzerland?

You aren't wrong, of course, but you're aren't as correct as me.  Unfortunately, few people are in this area, as I am very good at history and politics and critical thinking.  So you definitely shouldn't feel bad about the point that you're making but should still understand that the point I'm making is better and, basically, more important.  

I'm thinking of doing a podcast on this subject, and you could maybe be one of my guests?

My academic education was woefully lacking in information that wasn't favourable rhetoric about the western front, designed to instil feelings of national pride. The entire west owes the eastern front allied countries a debt of gratitude that shouldn't ever be forgotten.