Don't mention the war

Don’t mention the war.

It’s a brave man or a fool who goes anywhere near the theme of the Great Patriotic War.

 This is what Russians call world war two, and it is almost impossible to exaggerate how significant it is to the Russian sense of self, just as it is almost impossible to discuss it: the American notion of “the greatest generation” comes nowhere near the mythic power it possesses here.

  When the subject comes up you should start by admitting that, yes, you were previously under the impression that Tom Hanks had won the conflict almost single handedly and that the Western powers spent the vast majority of that period drinking tea in England and waiting for the Russians to do all the work. Then you are expected to nod sympathetically while Stalin is described as a great military leader, and the whole tale is told with zero references to the holocaust, the lend lease agreement, the battle of Britain, the Molotov Ribbentrop pact or soviet postwar domination of Eastern Europe. Likewise anything that happened between 1939 and 1941 is as lost in the mists of time as what happened to soviet soldiers after the war finished.

  Should you be English and over 40, or have read any books, you will recognize much of this as a different version of the tale you grew up hearing when you were a kid and every war game started with ten minutes of “No, YOU be the Germans!”. Before, that is, you went home and had another shot at painting your Airfix model of a spitfire. However, you might also remember the part where you grew up and read about the British air force’s firebombing of Dresden or the moment when you finally figured out that the heroism of Dunkirk was actually a story about how the British got their asses kicked and ran away home. In essence you end up thinking it was the last “good war” but that, as with any war, no country comes out of it entirely bathed in glory.

  But, with exceptions, that just doesn’t hold here. There is one story to be told, it is clear and simple and has none of the complexity that might be expected of a major war between two brutal dictatorships, and it is told afresh every may 9^th.

 It wasn’t always so, 10-15 years ago many people wished to speak of the war, firstly to make sure that I understood quite what Russia had sacrificed, but when they saw that I did, people were keen to explore other questions around it. They were interested in the Jewish aspect, for that had never been a central part of the Soviet narrative, whereas in the west it is the heart of the matter. (Why is Hitler our go to point for the notion of pure evil? Because of the camps, because of the Eichmann trial, because of Schindler’s list, that’s why: not because of the eastern front battles.) They knew nothing of the wave of goodwill that arose regarding the Soviet Union in the latter part of the war, but many older people remembered eating American made spam and wanted to know how that came about. Then they wanted to know where all that goodwill went, and when we discussed Hungary in 56 or Prague in 68 there was a conversation to be had, rather than just a truth to be accepted or rejected.

 There are still a good number of people who acknowledge complexity: the internet exists now too, there are plenty of versions of reality to be explored and compared, and there are some who are willing to go there. But, that said, when the subject comes up in a class or a bar or a meeting room the wise foreigner knows his best course of action is to ask no problematic questions, and certainly not to challenge notions that are solidifying into facts, or at least factoids. When you are told that Britain didn’t help, remember not to mention that Britain started fighting in 39 because Hitler invaded Poland, and for Christ’s sake don’t talk about what happened in the Russian occupied area of that country nor question the idea that the Poles are just plain ungrateful. Agree that Finland represented an existential threat and accept that the huge death toll Russia experienced means everything, while the death toll Uncle Joe contributed while in power is not a matter for discussion.

 In short, unless your Russian friends head into a world of complexity and moral ambivalence of their own volition, then don’t bother going there yourself, and don’t imagine that your love of Russia, and your genuine appreciation of the hell they went through gives you any right to ask the wrong questions.

  Moreover don’t ever ask why the authorities are so keen on keeping this one section of soviet history alive that they distribute posters about victory day to shopkeepers who say they wouldn’t dare refuse to hang them in their windows.

Russia essentially won the second world war more than any other state did and it paid a higher price to do so. This is true, and if you want to stay on good terms, let this be the only truth.