The Immortal Regiment march took place in more than 40 countries on Victory Day. Descendants of both Soviet and American veterans participated in the march in New York. The march took place in Paris on May 8th. Descendants of veterans went to the streets with their portraits in 85 cities of Russia and 50 countries of the world. It looked especially acute on the background of the growing trend of denying the role of the USSR in the World War II by the West.
According to Alexey Fenenko, an Associate Professor of the Faculty of International Security and World Politics of the MV Lomonosov Moscow State University, “we, unfortunately, portray the anti-Hitler coalition like some knight of an alliance, in which we were almost brothers. There was nothing like this. In August 1941 there was a conference on the island of Newfoundland between Churchill and Roosevelt, where the Atlantic Charter was adopted. It became the first document, retaining the principles of the postwar settlement in the world. The USSR was not invited there and no one was going to invite us there. That is, roughly speaking, the contours of the future world order began to take shape without us. And there was a point not to recognize any territorial changes that would have been committed by force. Nowhere is it stated that this paragraph does not apply to the Soviet Union to our acquisitions due to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. And when a few months later, in December 1941, the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden arrived in the USSR, he did not give such guarantees to Stalin, despite all the demands of Stalin.”
Fenenko also says that the United States has never recognized us within the borders of June 21st 1941: “There was an asterisk in any document that the US does not recognize the Baltic States as a part of the USSR. The Great Britain recognized it somehow due to the Soviet-British treaty of alliance of May 26th 1942, but the United States never did. This was our alliance, we had such a brotherhood. It is not stated anywhere that we are recognized in the borders of June 21st 1941.The US signed agreements on the spheres of influence, but it didn’t mean they recognized the borders.”
The expert also reminded that the Coordination Committee for Export Control was established in 1949. The CoCom controlled export to the USSR and other socialist countries, making lists of strategic goods and technologies during the Cold War, which couldn’t be exported to the countries of the Eastern Alignment.
According to Fenenko, “the Germans carried out several strategic bombings of the territory of the USSR in the spring of 1943. They also attacked the Gorky Automobile Plant, where Ford's line was destroyed, delivered in the 1930s. The US never introduced another Ford’s line. That means CoCom was acting in 1949 and restricted very clearly our supply of technologies.”
Explaining reasons for denying the role of the USSR in the World War II by the West, the expert states:”This is groundwork for the transformation of the UN Security Council, a backlog for the expulsion of Russia from the permanent UN Security Council members. It is the whole debate about the war, that Stalin and Hitler are equally responsible for the war. Where does this thesis come from? If we accept at least for a moment and agree with it, immediately after a question will arise: generally what is Russia doing among the permanent members of the UN Security Council?”
