FOR 75 minutes, it was as if the Soviet Union had been resurrected on Red Square.
Goose-stepping soldiers in Second World War uniforms paraded beneath billowing red flags emblazoned with the hammer and sickle and portraits of Lenin. A military band played rousing Soviet tunes and cries of “Hoorah!” echoed off the Kremlin’s walls as fighter jets roared overhead.
Only it was not the Politburo surveying the lavish parade yesterday from the podium in front of Lenin’s mausoleum. It was President Putin of Russia and about 50 world leaders, including President Bush.
The parade marking the 60th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day was an unprecedented show of respect for the Soviet Union’s decisive role in defeating Adolf Hitler, and for the 27 million Soviet lives lost in the process. It was also an extraordinary show of face for President Putin as he confronts a barrage of criticism at home and abroad over his increasingly authoritarian Government.
The guests included the leaders of China, Japan, France, Germany, the former Soviet republics, and Kofi Annan, the United Nations SecretaryGeneral. Britain was represented by John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister. Many of them have reservations about Russia’s take on history and democracy, not least Mr Bush, the first US President to attend a military parade on Red Square. Those misgivings were highlighted last week by an East-West dispute over Russia’s refusal to acknowledge the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe after the war.
Among those awarded a “60 years of victory” medal by President Putin yesterday was General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who as Communist leader of Poland instituted martial law in December 1981, suppressing the free trade union Solidarity.
President Klaus of the Czech Republic, also among the guests, criticised the award, recalling that Polish troops had been among the invading Soviet-led Warsaw Pact forces that put down Czechoslovakia’s “Prague Spring” reform movement in August 1968.
Yet leaders put aside their differences to watch the Soviet-style parade and then lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier beneath the Kremlin walls.
In his opening speech, Mr Putin said: “I bow low before all veterans of the Great Patriotic War.” The President described May 9, 1945, as “a day of victory of good over evil, freedom over tyranny”.
He said the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the war, but added: “We have never divided the victory between ours and theirs, and we will always remember the help of the allies.”
Many Russians see Hitler’s defeat as the Soviet Union’s greatest achievement and complain that it was played down by the West during the Cold War. “Faced with today’s real threats of terrorism, we must remain faithful to the memory of our fathers,” Mr Putin said. “We must defend a world order based on security and justice, on a new culture of mutual relations which do not allow any repetition of wars, either or cold or hot.”
He then took his seat next to Mr Bush, chatting with the US leader in a calibrated show of friendship. Mr Bush had dined the previous night at Mr Putin’s country residence and had taken a turn at the wheel of his vintage Volga car. They avoided contentious issues and spent 40 minutes alone with just their interpreters. “I think this is an excellent relationship between these two men at a personal level and also as presidents of these two great countries,” Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, said.
But tension has arisen since Washington made spreading freedom and democracy the cornerstone of its foreign policy. US officials are critical of the Kremlin’s moves to silence media critics and abolish direct elections for regional governors. Before the parade, Mr Bush met Russian opposition leaders, who said that they had told him about the deteriorating human rights situation.
During the parade, several thousand opposition supporters, mainly Communists, gathered to protest against Mr Putin. “This Government is carrying out policies against its own people,” said Valeri Pyankov, 83, a Second World War veteran. “We weren’t allowed on Red Square and we can’t even march down the road.” At least 100 riot police and several buses had blocked off the main streets leading to the square.
The US President is bookending his trip to Moscow with official visits to Latvia and Georgia in a show of support for young, former Soviet democracies trying to shake off Russia’s grip.
On Saturday, he met the presidents of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, the first two of whom boycotted the Moscow parade, and backed their calls for Russia to recognise the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states.
He arrived last night in Georgia, where he is due to deliver a speech today praising the country’s Rose Revolution, which tore it out of Russia’s sphere of influence.
- An estimated 27 million Soviet people were killed in the war — 11 million troops died in battle or in prison camps, and 16 million civilians fell victim to massacres, disease and starvation
- An estimated 500,000 were killed defending Moscow, about 1.1 million died in the siege of Leningrad and another 1.1 million in the Battle of Stalingrad
- The Red Army’s ultimate victory is an achievement that unites all Russians. Other events of the 20th century — the Bolshevik Revolution, the emergence of the Soviet Union as a world power, the fall of Communism — remain deeply divisive
