After watching Russian television and reading the news from their information agencies, it seems that for the Kremlin the Second World War is not over. The threat of fascist aggression still hangs over the world. Its epicenter has shifted eastward, to Kyiv. The only source of its resistance is still Moscow – the global pillar of anti-fascism.

Russian propaganda is using the Soviet military propaganda’s form and meaning. Its language is full of terms from the Second World War: the Ukrainian government are “fascists”; the Ukrainian army are “vigilantes”; the people who collaborate with them are “aids”; and, the terrorists who oppose Ukrainian authorities are the “militia.”

The Kremlin argues that the current war against Ukraine is not an aggression against a neighboring state but rather a continuation of the fight against the fascists who threaten Russia and the world. And many people in Ukraine and Russia believe this propaganda to the point where they have taken up arms. They act like actors in popular Soviet movies about the Great Patriotic War, where the Germans are evil and they are the good guys who oppose them. But in this game of war, they pay with their lives and the lives of those who they are fighting against.

Myths about the Second World War are used in Russian propaganda not only in Ukraine or Russia, but throughout Europe and the entire world. Russia confidently monopolized the Red Army’s victory over Nazism, even though within its ranks there were millions of Ukrainians and other nationalities. According to the Russian leadership, this victory is a pardon for their present actions: “We cannot be aggressors, because we liberated the world from Hitler.”

Experts and journalists who are not familiar with the history of Ukraine, believe this threat of Ukrainian fascism because they see the Bandera red-black flag on the Maidan or among Ukrainian soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

But the history of Bandera – (imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp and a victim of Soviet propaganda and finally killed by the KGB in 1959) – is still unknown, as is the history of the movement he headed. Its members, after a brief period of collaboration with the Third Reich in 1939–1941, launched a massive anti-German insurgent struggle at the end of 1942.

During Soviet times, one could not write about this fight because the USSR was anti-fascist and everyone who was against the main anti-fascist, Stalin, must then be a fascist. A similar division still divides half the world. Today’s Russian propaganda is the only place where Putin, THE main anti-fascist, is seen. Fascists include the Ukrainians who disagree with Russian policy.

The modern means of influencing the population has been updated but is still based on an old influence of social representation, stereotypes and myths which were formed and maintained by the totalitarian regime for decades. Deconstructing these myths in Ukraine could not take place after the fall of the regime.

The memory of the war was central to the post-war Soviet ideology. Victory Day was intended not to mark the anniversary of the surrender of Germany, but rather the day after – 9 May (obviously, an isolationist policy for the USSR in their victory over Germany and the appropriation of this victory) – became a major public holiday. Gradually, this holiday pushed even 7 November – the anniversary of the October Revolution – into the background which was, before this, the most important holiday of the Soviet communists.

This myth was to serve as a basis for the formation of Soviet identity and in the long term, a Soviet nation. Its elements were based on mass patriotism and sacrifice in the name of the Soviet Fatherland, unprecedented mobilization of all “Soviet” people in the fight against a terrible threat, and a messianic march westward with the goal of liberating Europe. The Great Victory – was the last great accord of this myth because it confirmed the correctness of the Soviet leadership and communist government’s chosen course, power and insuperability.

A peculiar preparation occurred in the 1920–1930s when it was totally installed within the public due to the massive destruction of everyone who did not fit the image of an ideal “Soviet man” and who thought independently.

The necessity of accepting this new myth was understood during the first months of the war. Several million soldiers were unwilling to defend the USSR because they did not consider it their homeland and were captured and later died in German or Soviet camps.

They were replaced by a new generation who were more influenced by Soviet propaganda. This generation remembered less of the horrors of the previous decade and the helplessness of the first days of the war. In addition, at this point, these people saw the real horrors of the Nazi occupation and therefore did not believe in the liberation of the Germans. With the strengthening of the German occupational regime and the victory of the Red Army, the number of those loyal to the Soviet government grew steadily and went far beyond the pre-war period.

The circumstances of the war years created the ideal conditions for the formation of a new Soviet identity. Millions of people of different nationalities were in the Red Army – they had to speak the same language, where cut off from the outside world, answered to their political officers who instilled in them a new Soviet consciousness and new values.

Difficult shared experiences, situations that were constantly bordering between life and death, the presence of a common enemy who repeatedly demonstrated their inhuman nature, and a belief in a joint mission created the best conditions for such a task. The army became a melting pot – representatives from various nations came out as a unified Soviet nation. And one can assert that it, at least partially, fulfilled its task. Today, many years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the war veterans remain principally the most consolidated and articulated pro-Soviet group in the post-Soviet society.

The “Great Victory” was a rehabilitation of Soviet power for the terrible crimes committed. Fear of Stalin, the executioner, turned into a sense of gratitude to the leader and protector. Outside the USSR, it contributed to the establishment of a more pro-Soviet sentiment in the world after the war, more than any of the Communist International’s efforts put together.

The “Great Victory” served another important function for the Soviet leadership after Stalin – it legitimized its power, providing it with the required heroic aura. In fact, after Stalin’s purges, no allies of Lenin were left – the people ordained during the October Revolution.

The myth of the “Great Victory” continued to live even after the fall of the USSR. In each former republic, and now independent state, the 9 May anniversary was regularly celebrated. The 60th anniversary of the war, which took place in Moscow in 2005, attested to this: for the Russian leadership this was more than just a tribute to tradition or a certain historical inertia. The “Great Victory” again became a key part in the new state ideology of the Kremlin.

Russia went to great diplomatic scandals to protect the “sacred memory of the victory”, mercilessly criticizing all attempts to revise the outdated Soviet concept of the war. They even prepared to adopt a special law that would punish anyone who tried to question the “Great Victory.” The force of the new law would apply to all post-Soviet countries, although how is not known.

The last point is very important – it shows that Russia is not just reviving old historical myths but they are actively trying to export them.

The resuscitation of the concept of the “Great Victory” is only one element in the new Kremlin policy – the essence of which is the restoration of the Russian influence in the former Soviet space. For this, it uses everything: energetic blackmail, the presence of the Russian-speaking population and even the possession of nuclear weapons. Not least in this arsenal is the so-called “common history”, a central point of which is the concept of the “Great Patriotic War” and the “Great Victory” and the Soviet myths about the war. Their extensive use in propaganda by means of film, television and literature, aims to retain the former Soviet nations within the orbit of Russian influence. The joint heroic past has become a platform for the creation (or maintaining) of a strong pro- Russian lobby in independent states.

Another mission of the “Great Victory” is to push into the shadows the great slaughter which ended in the USSR with the “Cold War’ – forgetting about it, throwing it into the historical dustbin along with the “terrible years of the Yeltsin democracy.” That is an important task for a government which says that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe in history and draws its strength from the past of a “country, in which everyone counts.”

Therefore, the myths of the war are used not only as a humanitarian function – they are seen as an important tool for restoring this geopolitical influence.

There has been almost no problems with these myths in most post-Soviet states, with the exception of the Baltic States. In the Baltic States, Russian influence is essentially confined to a Russian media presence which demonizes and creates “terrible examples of their history” for Russia, after their entry into NATO and the EU.

Suddenly, the Kremlin began having problems with their implementation of Soviet/Russian propaganda of the World War in Ukraine. Especially after 2004, when Ukraine began to implement their own politics of memory which not just opposed but sometimes diametrically opposed those of Russia. Condemnation of the crimes of the communist past, the opening of archives of the communist secret services in Ukraine have occurred almost simultaneously with the attempts of rehabilitating the Soviet past in Russia. Not surprisingly, this history became another arena for rivalry between the two countries, hotter still than their competition in the energy sector.

It is also not surprising that after the elections in 2010, the pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych undertook significant changes in Ukrainian national memory and perhaps this most clearly manifested itself in matters relating to the history of the Second World War.

Through the efforts of the Dmytro Tabachnyk, the Minister of Education, the term “Great Patriotic War” returned to the history books and there was an extraction of information about the Ukrainian liberation movement and its leaders. A law was passed on the usage of the so-called Victory Flag (in reality, the red Soviet flag) during 9 May celebrations which again appeared during military parades. Member of Parliament, Vadym Kolesnichenko, tried to borrow Russia’s historical laws which envisioned a consolidation of a Soviet view of the war. Some of them were even included in the notorious dictatorship package of laws on 16 January 2014.

The existence of Soviet myths about the war in Ukraine was extremely important for Russia because they became the main and last elements of Soviet identity for our citizens.

As events showed, after the fall of Yanukovych, Russian President Vladimir Putin drew on this island of Soviet identity, using it to sabotage Ukraine.

It is not the Russians or the Russian-speaking Ukrainians, (whom Putin supposedly protects), that are the basis for terrorism in eastern Ukraine or the annexation of the Crimea but rather the “Soviet people.” It is no accident that one of the key elements of their symbolism is the so-called “St. George’s ribbon” – the same Russian imperial (hence its name) and Soviet symbol linked to the concept of the “Great Patriotic War.”

Myths about the past war became weapons in the present war. That is why debunking them is important. Not only to understand what actually happened but to see the true face of one of the greatest tragedies in our history. This is important not only within the new humanitarian policy of the state but also as an element of our security policy.

Since the spring of 2014, a special state body, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, introduced new commemorative practices for dates related to the Second World War.

Celebrating the anniversary of the end of the war is no longer a reason for militarist propaganda but rather an opportunity to remember all the victims of those terrible years. The new symbol of this memory has become the red poppy and a new date, 8 May, is now the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation.

These changes were quickly and easily accepted by Ukrainian society because it occurred against the backdrop of current extreme experiences. The war helped many modern Ukrainians see and understand how many lies surrounded them about the war. They stopped believing the Soviet propaganda because modern Russia echoed it. But because of this, they want to know more about what happened in the past.

Ukrainians try to answer these questions by searching in books or articles and watching films. Historians are not ready to meet this rapidly growing demand because it requires something unusual for academic researchers – primarily an educational-popular format. Its peculiarity is in the fact that authors are very knowledgeable on this topic but cannot explain complex issues in clear language for those who do not understand it and do not hold a research degree in it.

The educational-popular format, designed for a wider audience, can dispel the myths about the Soviet war which still have a significant impact on public consciousness. The same can be said about the nature of this work which combines the efforts of a group of historians at the Institute of National Remembrance, the the LikBez. Historical Front, a public initiative, the Center for Research on the Liberation Movement and the Book Club “Family Leisure Club”.

Dear reader, the result of our collaboration is this book that you are holding in your hands. We hope that it will help you understand the main lesson of the events of 1939–1945: it should not be repeated again. This should be the truth, at the very least.

Volodymyr Viatrovych,
PhD Historian,
Director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance