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GEORGIA`S REFORMS ASSOCIATES

MULTI PROFILE THINK TANK IN GEORGIA

The Western world celebrates the victory over Nazism on May 8

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10 May, 2022
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On the 77th anniversary of the end of the World War II, the war still goes on in Europe, specifically in Ukraine. Russia is the aggressor in this war, a successor of Soviet Russia – an ally of German Nazism, responsible for the start of the World War II.

Soviet Union has been hiding its alliance with Nazi regime for decades, separating itself from the allied victory in the World War II, trying to singlehandedly own the victory and celebrate it on May 9. Soviet Russia countered the concept of a “Patriotic War” to the World War and presented it as a war between the USSR and Nazi (Fascist in Soviet terminology) Germany.

Since the 1960s, during the Era of Stagnation, when the trauma caused by the catastrophic results (the Soviet Union’s military and civil human losses exceeded the total losses of all other parties combined) of the war has relatively weakened, the Soviet ideology machine turned the “war victory” into a main myth for the new generation. Film industry, literature, art and other direct propaganda channels made people believe that the Soviet Union was able to singlehandedly defeat the collective “Evil West” presented by the fascist Germany and the “Motherland” could face a similar threat once again.

Putin’s Russia has been using the “Patriotic War” mythology well and keeps using it today, turning it into a tool for Russian soft power and disinformation campaign. Russia still tries to awaken the sentiment for the unity of the Soviet peoples, proclaiming the exclusivity of the Soviet and Russian victory on Nazism. Alongside that, modern Russia tries to completely deny the Soviet Union’s complicity in fomenting the war and the scale of the crimes committed by its totalitarian regime in Central and Eastern European countries during and after the war.

Today, Putin’s Russia, which became openly oriented towards the restoration of the Soviet Union, reveals its connection with the Soviet totalitarianism and even with its image of an enemy – Nazi Germany. This connection is seen in Russia’s aggressive rhetoric, internal and international propaganda, disinformation campaign and its war crimes. Putin’s Russia plans to celebrate May 9, as accustomed - in a public and pompous way.

By Soviet inertia, Georgia celebrates the victory over the Nazism on May 9 as well, alike its former parent state. It is completely unacceptable to celebrate May 9 together with Russia and apart from the West now, during the Russian-Ukrainian war. The time for a clear choice has come – either we stand together with the Western civilized world, which was united to defeat the Nazism or we stay in the world of Putin’s Russia - the heir of both evils – Soviet Russian totalitarianism and Nazism.