Russians waiting for The Voice finale this April might have seen the First Channel’s special news report beforehand: what do foreign school history textbooks say about the USSR’s role in the war? The report, which mostly focused on British, French and German textbooks, was like Christmas for me. Russian school history textbooks were heavily featured in my doctoral dissertation. When my old school books came on screen, it got me again reminiscing.
There are certain and quite striking similarities between Britain’s history of the Second World War and the Soviet Victory in the Great Patriotic War. Britain’s war story is also one of a great victory over fascism. It is considered a just and moral victory, one where good triumphs over genuine evil. Also like the Soviet Victory, Britain’s is one where Europe was liberated. Britain fought both to save Europe and itself – Hitler supposedly had grand plans for Britain had he succeeded.
More so, Britain does recognise the contribution of the USSR to the victory – it would have been impossible without the USSR. There are, frankly, countless memorials up and down the UK dedicated to the Soviet war effort and our joint ventures. Why then, as the First Channel says, would British textbooks downplay the USSR’s role?
First, it is worth getting across what exactly is the British version of its victory. Over the course of the last decade living in and working in Russia, many Russians are quite surprised by it. Whilst our narratives follow similar lines, Britain and Russia practically fought in two different wars and from completely opposite ideologically underpinnings and different outcomes.
Britain fought in western and northern Europe, in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa. It takes on a much more global dimension for us, particularly in the war’s aftermath – more on this later. Britain also declared war on Germany in 1939 at a moment when liberal democracy, and capitalism, were in crisis.
Following the end of the First World War and Wall Street Crash 1929, Europe sought variously different paths forward. Germany and Italy turned to fascism, whereas Spain, Portugal, Greece, Poland and the Balkans all flirted with it. Russia turned to communism, Scandinavia to social democracy and Turkey to militant secularism. Western Europe, by contrast, stuck to liberal democracy and laboured through two difficult decades.
It was not inconceivable in the early 1920s that a revolution might break out in Britain or France. Strikes and mutinities were common in both countries. Extremist parties did enjoy electoral success and boasted large memberships – and enjoyed close contacts with foreign governments. The Netherlands also experienced a highly fragmented society, split between Christians, socialists, fascists and a group of liberals stuck in between, with power going back and forth.
Although western European states took more of an active role in providing economic security for its citizens in this era, poverty persisted and economic growth was sluggish, stuck in the Victorian times. As Winston Churchill once quipped, ‘conscience was free, slaves were free and the market was free. But hunger, cold and squalor were also free, and people wanted something more than liberty.’
But Britain weathered its crises and the war. From 1939-45, the British narrative of the Second World War is one of resilience. For two years, until 1941, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany as the rest of Europe fell. English children were evacuated to the countryside, London was destroyed and the overall military response to the German onslaught was slow and chaotic. Initially, Britain struggled in battle and politically. But its political parties all came together in a National Government and worked out a united national plan.
Gradually, British fortunes turned around. In 1941-42, Britain won in the skies, the desert, on the seas and in the jungles. Britain stood firm with the famous message to its population ‘keep calm and carry on’. Its meaning was one of composure in the face of hardship, disappointment and loss. We will get there, the state said, we must not let the enemy win.
When the USSR entered in 1941, Stalin became ‘Uncle Joe’ around the British Isles. Churchill said during the Spanish Civil War that he would always choose communism over fascism; he did. Whilst drunk in a smoke filled room at the Kremlin Palace with Stalin, he even joked about whether God or the Devil was a communist.
The entry of the USSR undoubtedly turned the tables in Europe. In the British story, it did so just as the tables had turned. Fighting on the eastern front is treated entirely separately because, with the exception of the Holocaust, it was not our war or victory. Britain did not liberate Eastern and Central Europe, or experience communism. It ended the war on different terms, creating NATO, a robust welfare state, increasing the standard of living immensely and saying goodbye to the ruins of the empire.
It is not the case that Britain downplays or ignores the Soviet Victory. It was simply not our victory. Moreover, Britain has yet to come to terms with what its own victory meant and its place in the world since. As the old saying goes, sort out your own house first.
