AJLEVY/ALAMY/GETTYIMAGESBritish prime minister Winston Churchill writes a greeting message
on a shell. His actions during the Second World War were the focus of
Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years (ABC/BBC, 1960–61), one of a growing
number of epic television series produced after the conflictRussian president Vladimir Putin joins the Immortal Regiment parade
in Moscow, 9 May 2019, honouring wartime valour. “Putin and his
ministers like to bathe in the patriotic sunlight,” says Robert ServiceRobert Service is emeritus professor of Russian history at St Antony’s
College, University of Oxford, and the author of a number of books. His
latest, Kremlin Winter: Russia and the Second Coming of Vladimir Putin,
will be published in October by PicadorEvery country that took a direct part
in the war has continuing memories of
its traumas, and the Russian Federation
is no exception. In each of Russia’s big
cities an ‘Immortal Regiment’ parade is
held each 9 May, in which family mem-
bers carry photos of parents and grand-
parents to show pride in their wartime
valour; the president of Russia, Vladimir
Putin, himself usually joins the throngs in Moscow.
The current Kremlin administration prolongs the preoc-
cupation with the war that prevailed under communism. The
difference is that, whereas Marxism-Leninism was the central
pivot of state ideology until the late 1980s, today’s rulers now
choose to focus on Russian achievements during 1941–45.
The dates are important. The Soviet Union did not enter the
struggle against the Third Reich until it was attacked by Ger-
many – indeed, Stalin and Hitler were allies in all but word
before the A xis invasion of the Soviet Union. Once invaded,
however, the country survived extraordinary tribulations be-
fore sending its armies to Berlin and overthrowing the Nazis.
It was the Red Army that broke the spine of the Third Reich.
At a time when Russian people have lasting material and
social complaints, the Russian authorities use the ‘Great
Patriotic War’ as an antidote to public protest. Putin and his
ministers like to bathe in the patriotic sunlight. They tend to
downplay the role played by the other peoples of the Soviet
Union who resisted Nazism, and emphasise Russian – not
Soviet – patriotism. They also use the wartime annals of Rus-
sia’s soldiers, sailors, intelligence agents and factory workers
to bolster support for the military initiatives that the Kremlin
has taken since 2014 in Crimea, eastern Ukraine and Syria.
The link that binds Russian politicians and the Russian
people concerning the Second World War is not an artificial
one. But Putin, as Boris Yeltsin did before him, reinforces the
connection. As thousands of young Russians take to Moscow
streets in anti-Putin demos, the likelihood is that the Krem-
lin will want to increase its patriotic propaganda – and the
memory of the ‘Great Patriotic War’ will remain at its core.
RUSSIA“Russian authorities today
use the ‘Great Patriotic
War’ as an antidote to
public protest”
Robert Service