Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Vasily Grigoryevich Zaytsev was a Soviet sniper during World War II. Between 10 November 1942 and 17 December 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad, he killed 225 enemy soldiers, including 11 SS snipers

Who controls the past controls the future:
Said an anonymous red army soldier,
With a slightly Asiatic glint to his eye,
Just like Vasily, at the gates of Auschwitz,
Who stated unstintingly: ‘This was why we fought
The fascists so hard at Stalingrad.’

1.8–2 million Russian soldiers (including women), 
killed, wounded or captured.
On 19 November 1942, the Red Army launched
A two-pronged attack targeting the weaker Romanians and Hungarians,
Protecting the German 6th Army’s flank from snipers like Vasily.

The Nazis on the flanks were overrun
The 6th Army was cut off and surrounded in Stalingrad.
The Nazis surrendered.
World War 2 was effectively won. The cost? 
25 million Russian dead.

There was no taboo on feeling among the Soviet troops
They had a vital job to do, which they did heroically.
As witness the deeds and expertise of the sniper Vasily Zaytsev.

If this happened now would we make the same sacrifices?
Or would we negotiate with the Neo-Nazis?
Would we try to understand the other’s pain?
Nazis are human too you know. 
Or would we be prepared to risk our lives?

No. We are so weak, even afraid of refugee children,
Terrified to help a persecuted Christian woman, Asia Bibi,
As the Islamo-Fascist mobs in Islamabad scream for her to be hung

Born between Belsen and Korea
These C21 collaborators, quislings in the culture wars,
Turn the luck of birth into personal worth.
Ignore the world’s hoi polloi
Those with little but the aspiration to live…
O! money makes  machine men mean:
Status, aura,money, class, the need to seem
To be esteemed: 

Empty virtues in undecorated graves.