70 years since the Soviet Union defeated fascism

By Heiko Khoo
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, May 9, 2015
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The final rehearsal for Russia's Victory Day military parade is held at the Red Square in Moscow on May 7, 2015. A total of 112 soldiers from Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) march during the final rehearsal. [Photo/Xinhua]



For the Russian people, the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in World War II is an event of tremendous historical importance; it unifies and defines Russian national identity. Memorial celebrations for the 70th anniversary of this event take place this week in Moscow. Western leaders are boycotting the event, allegedly as to punish Russia's President Vladimir Putin for the annexation of Crimea and for his support for the armed rebellion in eastern Ukraine. By attending this event, President Xi Jinping shows respect for the suffering, memories and victories shared by the Chinese and Russian people during World War II.

Human memories are not fixed sensory holograms; they are revived anew each time we recall something. The mind adjusts our historical perceptions as we consciously and subconsciously amend, adjust and add to our memories. The barbarities inflicted on the people of the Soviet Union and China during World War II remain part of lived experience and are recounted by the oldest generation. They constitute the deepest collective memory of the people of Russia and China.

Until recently, Russia had three key dates in its historical calendar, but two of them – Workers' Day on May 1st, and the November 7th anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution – are intimately identified with communism. Therefore it was inevitable that since the break-up of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism in Russia in the 1990s, these days were abandoned as national celebrations. Victory Day on May 9th remains a unifying force, as it commemorates a victory that can be identified with the Russian nation rather than with socialism.

However, to downplay the role of socialism in the Soviet victory is misleading. Over a million soldiers from Germany and its allies were smashed by Soviet forces at the battle of Stalingrad (August 23, 1942 –February 2, 1943). This led Josef Goebbels, Germany's propaganda minister at the time, to correctly acknowledge why the Soviets won this battle. In his "Total War" speech, Goebbels said,

"As a result of broad concealment and misleading actions by the Bolshevist government, we did not properly evaluate the Soviet Union's war potential. Only now do we see its true scale. That is why the battle our soldiers face in the East exceeds in its hardness, dangers and difficulties all human imagining [...] The Soviet Union over the last 25 years built up Bolshevism's military potential to an unimaginable degree, and one we falsely evaluated."

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