Thousands of Russian troops marched through Moscow’s Red Square yesterday in a re-enactment of a legendary 1941 Soviet parade staged as Nazi forces closed in on the capital in the dark days of the second World War.
Clad in Red Army uniforms, some 6,000 soldiers and cadets commemorated the dramatic events of 73 years ago when Soviet troops went straight from the parade to confront the Germans who had advanced within 70 miles of Moscow.
Many of the surviving war veterans who braved freezing rain to watch the parade wept as original wartime newsreels were broadcast from a giant screen installed in Red Square. A military band played the Russian national anthem as vintage Soviet tanks and Katyusha rockets rolled across the square.
‘Sacrifice beyond compare’
In an emotional speech, Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, thanked the veterans for “saving Moscow and Russia from death”.
“You brought peace to the peoples of Europe. Your sacrifice was beyond compare and will never be forgotten,” he said.
November 7th has a special place in the Russian calendar as the anniversary of the Great November Revolution in 1917 that swept the Bolsheviks to power and paved the way for the foundation of the world’s first communist state. After the Soviet Union collapsed the holiday was replaced by the day of Russian Unity that falls on November 4th.
Vladimir Putin has revived the celebration of the legendary Soviet parade that, ordered by Josef Stalin at dawn on November 7th 1941, was intended to boost public morale as Moscow braced for Nazi air raids.
As the number of war veterans dwindles, the Kremlin has flagged the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany as the central event of the 20th century history that defined Russia’s military might and place in the world pantheon of great powers.
However, with Kremlin policies in Ukraine raising security tensions, many Europeans are looking back to the second World War more as a time of Russian duplicity and aggression than heroism.
Speaking to a group of Russian historians this week, Mr Putin defended the controversial Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact of 1939 that led to the carve up of eastern Europe at the start of the second World War. The so called Molotov-Ribbentrop pact conformed with “foreign policy methods” of the time, he said adding that Stalin had needed time to build up the Soviet military before going to an “inevitable” war with the Nazis.
Western historians tried to hush up Britain’s role in appeasing Hitler that allowed German forces to march into Europe, Mr Putin said. “Acquiescing with the aggressor in the form of Hitler’s Germany clearly led to the huge military conflict and several people [in England] understood this.”