My whole generation has had constantly to reckon with memories of World
War II (or the Great Patriotic War as it was known in the USSR). First,
my grandfather was killed in action near Moscow in 1941. Second, my parents
told me about how they had looked forward to the spring: "Nettle would
grow, meaning we would not die of hunger." No comment. Third, they would
run war films two or three times a week on television. We would be playing
in the yard, and a child would run out of the house and shout:
"Hey, boys, the movie's on!"
"What kind of movie?"
"About the war."
And we would all run home to watch it. About our men running out of
munition and beating the Nazis with our bare hands. And of course playing
war was our favorite game.
With time I realized that playing war was also the Party Central Committee's
favorite game.
Why does one have to wait for twenty years to get an apartment from
the state? Because we lived through such a horrible war, the state explained.
Why are the store counters empty except for dried-out candy and cans
of sprats in tomato juice? Because we defeated Nazism and freed the peoples
of Europe, the CPSU Central Committee explained.
Then why do the Germans we defeated and other peoples of Europe we liberated
live far better than we do? Now that's blasphemy against the memory of
our fallen heroes, the true Leninists replied indignantly.
Then Yuri Gagarin was sent on the world's first manned mission in space.
Later US astronauts landed on the moon. And the Soviet people continued
to live by the adage: "There is bread, no war, so what more can one ask
for?"
Little has changed since then, except that some of the Communists turned
democrats while others proved "true Communists." Yet both continue to capitalize
on the war and victory, a stolen victory.
