Vladimir Putin on the history of the Second World War and what it means today

Vladimir Putin provided us with another kind of look at how historical understanding and historical symbolism can influence and/or be instrumentalized for current political priorities in an article published last month in The National Interest, usually described as a conservative foreign policy journal. Which is reasonable, though it generally has a kind of Nixon-Kissinger realist tone. Nixon actually founded the Center for the National Interest (CNI) which publishes it. It was originally called the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom.

The journal hosted an event in April 2016 at which Donald Trump was invited to speak on foreign policy, an event also attended by Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, which later came under scrutiny. (Mueller Report, p. 105ff) The Special Counsel found no improprieties in connection with the event. But some commentators do describe the journal as "pro-Russian," which apparently means they are not unrelenting critics of everything about Russian foreign policy.

Putin's article is The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II 06/18/2020.

Jacob Heilbrunn provides an introduction to a video of a Russian and an American historian discussing the article. Did Putin Get the Origins of World War II Right? The National Interest 07/15/2020

The video is The World According to Putin: Debating Why World War II Happened Center for the National Interest 07/1572020:

The historical focus of Putin's article is the Second World War, known in Russia and the former Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War. Putin has also emphasized the Soviet victory in that war as a legitimating event for present-day Russia. We could call it a "mythic" invocation of the past as part of present-day patriotism/nationalism. As long as we remember that an event can be "mythic" even when it is based on hard historical facts.

As Stephen Kotkin of Princeton and the Hoover Institute notes in the video, the fact that the top official of the Russian Federation published this historical article under his name. He also comments rightly that Putin's account of the Second World War is basically correct. But he does take issue with some of Putin's arguments about the prewar diplomacy, especially around the German-Soviet Nonagression Pact of 1939, aka, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Hitler-Stalin Pact.

I agree that Putin's description of the Second World War is basically historically sound. It's also largely consistent with the Soviet Union's version of the war, despite the variations in emphasis over time. Not surprisingly, Stalin was given far more credit in his lifetime that later official Soviet accounts gave him, for instance.

This article is a good reminder that history matters. But at the same time, historical narratives change. And they are never entirely separate from current political priorities. As the video commentary indicates, some parts of Putin's article refer to very contemporary international conflicts. Those with Poland and Ukraine are notable among them.

Putin is responding in part to a European Parliament resolution of September 2019 titled European Parliament resolution of 19 September 2019 on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe. Here are some relevant parts:

A. whereas this year marks the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, which led to unprecedented levels of human suffering and the occupation of countries in Europe for many decades to come;

B. whereas 80 years ago on 23 August 1939, the communist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a Treaty of Non-Aggression, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and its secret protocols, dividing Europe and the territories of independent states between the two totalitarian regimes and grouping them into spheres of interest, which paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War;

C. whereas, as a direct consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, followed by the Nazi-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty of 28 September 1939, the Polish Republic was invaded first by Hitler and two weeks later by Stalin – which stripped the country of its independence and was an unprecedented tragedy for the Polish people – the communist Soviet Union started an aggressive war against Finland on 30 November 1939, and in June 1940 it occupied and annexed parts of Romania – territories that were never returned – and annexed the independent republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia; ...

J. whereas 30 years ago, on 23 August 1989, the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was marked and the victims of totalitarian regimes remembered during the Baltic Way, an unprecedented demonstration by two million Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians who joined hands to form a living chain spanning from Vilnius to Tallinn through Riga;

K. whereas despite the fact that on 24 December 1989 the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR condemned the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in addition to other agreements made with Nazi Germany, the Russian authorities denied responsibility for this agreement and its consequences in August 2019 and are currently promoting the view that Poland, the Baltic States and the West are the true instigators of WWII; [my emphasis]

The resolution certainly reads to me like a very strange way to commemorate the anniversary of the 1945 victory over Nazi Germany, in which no one that I've ever heard of questions the Soviet Union suffered by far the greatest losses in the war against Hitler.

Not surprisingly, Russia didn't particularly appreciate this resolution. As reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Russia Slams EU Resolution Stating Nazi-Soviet Pact 'Paved Way' For WWII 09/21/2019):

Russia has slammed a resolution adopted by the European Union that states the 1939 nonaggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany "paved the way for the outbreak of World War II."

On September 20, Russia's Foreign Ministry labeled the European Parliament resolution as politicized revisionism.

Deutsche Welle reported (Vladimir Putin condemns EU stance on Nazi-Soviet WWII pact 11.12.2019:

October's EU resolution said the agreement had set out to divide Europe "between the two totalitarian regimes" of Hitler's Nazi Germany and Josef Stalin's communist Soviet Union.

The governments of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania had released a statement in August saying the pact "doomed half of Europe to decades of misery."

"We will continue to talk about the events, the facts of the Great Patriotic War, to unveil and publicize archive materials in their entirety," Putin said.

The Russian president also complained that Russians disputing the assertion were being accused of indulging in "information warfare against democratic Europe."

Putin's article is both actually and nominally a response to last year's EU Parliament resolution. But it also has implications for current Russian policy and current Russian official interpretations of the positions taken by the NATO and the EU countries.