Why was not Victory Day celebrated in the Soviet Union from 1947 to 1965?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Why did the leaders of the new Russia need the holiday? I'm afraid the answer is bitter …

The question is not only and not so much factual as philosophical. Indeed, the scale of the holiday on May 9 acquired under Brezhnev. Why weren't there any unfolded holidays earlier? Probably because the memories of what the war really was were too strong - about horror and abomination, about death and again about death, and not at all about the glory of Russian weapons and that molasses with oil that poured on us in the last time. I think also because the people who went through this hell were alive and strong. It is unlikely that they would have allowed turning the day of mourning into a PR company for the authorities and a Sabbath of a poorly educated public.

Why did L. I. need a holiday? Brezhnev? Many political analysts believe that this was a source of legitimization of his own power for Brezhnev. For the old Bolsheviks, it was participation in the Revolution, and for those born after it, participation in the Second World War.

Why did the leaders of the new Russia need the holiday? I'm afraid the answer is bitter - because only in the past, in war, they are looking for a platform of consolidation, that is, cementing values. Because the elite is unable to cope with its main task - the formation of the image of the future.

In this situation, the images of the past (it is the future) become standard, which we have: a constant battle with the enemy, tanks on the streets of cities (sometimes stalling, which is encouraging), mobilization as a way of life, sacrifice of well-being in the name of a great power status. Only one question arises: if people are ready to endure a drop in living standards in the name of chimeras, then why do they refuse to endure reform difficulties for the sake of their own children and their well-being?

The Russians took away the Victory Day holiday

In recent years, Victory Day has turned into a kind of propaganda madness imitating popular unity in relation to the controversial Soviet era and the extremely complex problems of World War II. The latter, by the way, continued after May 9 and ended only on September 2, 1945 - during these months thousands of our fellow citizens managed to die. And the fact is that practically everything our government puts its hand to is vulgarized and rejected. This, for example, happened with the initially absolutely remarkable initiative "Immortal Regiment" - soon, when it was appropriated by the state, filling it with its official, bureaucratic spirit, all these mass processions acquired completely different features. And now they are again reporting that in the regions they are forcibly gathering members of the Immortal Regiment.

Recently, philologist Oleg Lekmanov asked a question on his Facebook page: how many people do you personally know of the living participants of the Great Patriotic War who actually fought in 1941-1945? Many answered that not one, someone, including me, replied that only one, very rarely who wrote that he knew two or more. It is disgusting to observe in the official mass media the disguised veterans who were only 2-3 years old by the beginning of the war, or who had never been at the front, but only worked as a watchman, guarding the prisoners of the Gulag. And in general, in today's completely excessive exaltation about Victory Day, there is something not just fake, but deeply vicious and harmful. This is something akin to the hysterical defense of the "feelings of believers", when everyone is sophisticated in what else he would be offended - a poll about the blockade, toy soldiers, someone's unsuccessful tweet, an Internet picture or video, a dubious TV show, or too free a confectionery competition products.

The very desire to raise a powerful information wave, starting to shame someone en masse and accusing him of disrespect for veterans and historical memory, urging the whole crowd to punish this “someone” in the most cruel way with the help of the state's punitive machine is absolutely disgusting. Especially unpleasant are all these collective dances on the bones of those who really went through all the horror of the external war (with Germany and its allies) and internal (defending their right to life in the totalitarian Soviet Union). How did all these former communists and Komsomol members (current United Russia and Crimean Party members), who pompously talk about "grandfathers fought", "decorate" their cars with monstrous inscriptions "To Berlin!" and "We can repeat it!"

Alas, having defeated external fascism, Russia nevertheless lost to internal fascism. For a short time, I want to believe. So the May 9 holiday today began to look at least ambiguous. And it is very symptomatic that in 2015, when the 70th anniversary of the Victory was celebrated, real war veterans were denied participation in the Victory Parade on Red Square, saying that they would be allowed to go there only on pre-approved lists. And last year, the veteran of the Great Patriotic War, People's Artist of the USSR Vladimir Etush was refused to invite to a reception in the Kremlin on May 9.

At the same time, the biker Surgeon and other figures like him are now becoming the "face of Victory". So, Nikolai Travkin bitterly joked about this: “Russian motorcyclists from the Night Wolves club, who are the main organizers and participants of the Victory Road to Berlin rally, were not allowed to enter Poland,” TASS reports. would be against it if suddenly a group of horsemen, who declared themselves the heirs of the glorious victories of Khan Batu, decided to ride across the expanses of the former Golden Horde to remind …"

Thus, it has long been a "holiday" of those who, by and large, have nothing to do with the real Victory over Hitlerism, in other words, are just an instrument of state propaganda, an additional trap in the form of the notorious "spiritual bond". They tried to emasculate everything living and present from this Day and replace it with a thoughtless and blind love for the current government and Stalin, from whom this government learned a lot.