VE Day: ‘Noble’ Stalinism and Western partners

There is always a time for firsts, and the Russian VE parade on Sunday to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany 65 years ago was no different. On this occasion, there was something rather unusual: forces from Nato countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France participated. As far as the British were concerned, an offering of the Welsh Guards, equipped with their red uniforms and enormous bear skins, proved colourful, if curiously out of place marching alongside their colleagues. Evidently, as the Guardian (May 9) observed, ‘the polonium murder of a Russian exile in London, a dispute over fugitive oligarchs, and even a row over the Prince of Wales,’ had not scotched this prospect. That said, not all was rosy, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vetoing a Foreign Office offer to send Prince Charles in Gordon Brown’s stead.

President Dmitry Medvedev was surprisingly warm to his non-Russian colleagues, eschewing his usually prickly anti-Western rhetoric. To more than 11,000 soldiers, he observed that ‘at this solemn parade, the soldiers of Russia… and the anti-Hitler coalition march together.’ Through being ‘good neighbours’ Russia and her partners could ‘resolve problems of global security in order that the ideals of justice and good triumph in all of the world and that the lives of future generations will be free and happy.’

Parades have a range of effects on audiences. They exert hypnotic traction. They conjure up tears. They excite voyeurs keen on viewing military hardware and exotic pageantry. And we are never made to forget the role of Generalissimo Stalin, a figure of near unmatched brutality (only few in history come close), to which the war cleansed and made pure over the deaths of millions. As Boris Groys wrote in 1992, Stalinist culture ‘does not retire to the museum, but aspires to exert an active influence on life.’

Consider the comment by one of Russia’s main papers, Pravda (May 9): ‘What is being celebrated today, Sunday May 9, across the Russian Federation, and elsewhere, is one thing, and one thing only: honouring the 26 million Soviet citizens who were asked to, and who made, the ultimate sacrifice, rallying around Stalin who galvanized his Nation to save not only their Motherland, but the entire world, from the yolk of Fascist tyranny.’ No mincing of words here, and certainly no false modesty. Stalin, even in the twenty first century, is seen as a global saviour, a messiah at the head of the victorious Red Army.

While the paper grudgingly accepts that there were acts ‘attributed’ (there is even a reluctance accepting them) to ‘Vissarionovic Dyugashvili’ seen as ‘appalling and unacceptable’, context must be remembered. As ever, moral relativism is at hand to save the dictator from his vices – he was vicious, but what of those ‘Spanish massacres in Latin America? What about the massacres of the Native Americans by the British and US forces?’ The list goes on, and the cleansing ointment is given yet again.

The language of each commemoration of the end of World War II continues to be framed in the absolutist framework of noble defender against savage foe, blurring the tragedies of two totalitarian systems that were intent on bleeding each other white. That Stalin was responsible for crippling his own armed forces through deep purges is not cited. It would be taboo to ‘attribute’ Soviet deaths to his own blunders and manifestations of paranoia before the German invasion in the summer of 1941. In truth, it was his ‘industrialisation programs that made it possible for the Soviet Union to fight the war on a sustainable basis.’

Thus, we have a modern application of agitprop, very much alive, and far from being confined to a museum display. Those working for Pravda are ever wary of those ‘attempts to derail the main issue and take the focus away from what is being celebrated’. It is not hard to understand why, given the shocking loss of human life. The destruction of 2000 Soviet cities and towns, and 70,000 villages and hamlets, are but a few examples in that monstrous war. ‘Za rodinu, za Stalina’ (For the fatherland, For Stalin), indeed.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures in politics and law at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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