Identity parades: our VE-Day special

The Economist. Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Today we're dedicating a special episode to Victory in Europe, or VE Day. It's been 80 years since the formal end of war in Europe, even if war against Japan raged on. Hitler was dead, the Nazis had surrendered, and the Allied powers, including America and the Soviet Union, and reason to celebrate. We're taking all this time to talk about it not because 80 is a nice round number. This decadal anniversary is different from the last, from all that came before it. Which countries are allied now? Who promises to keep the peace in Europe and the world? What's left of the worldview that survived for so many of those 80 years? We'll be looking back at how The Economist reported the end of the war at the time, at what European defense looks like now, and how Britain celebrates the anniversary today. Because each nation sees VE Day through its own lens, its own perception of its role in the war and in history. And as our Russia editor Arkady Ostrovsky says, there's one country where that perception has shifted more than in any other.

The actual day, 80 years ago, when Soviet people learned of Nazi surrender was a day of extraordinary outpouring of emotions and joy and sorrow for a country that lost 27 million people in that war. And it was completely driven by people themselves. They spontaneously came out on the streets. There were young people roaming around singing, throwing each other into the air, hugging. Some young people went towards American embassies, some went towards the British embassy to embrace the Allies. And that sense of liberation that people felt, which they wanted to carry into the post-war years, all those things completely spooked Stalin because it was uncontrolled. It was not the state victory, it was not Stalin's victory, it was people's victory they were celebrating. It was the common victory. What Stalin did during the Cold War he managed to transform that common victory into a source of resentment and revanchism through the fact that he claimed that the Allies deprived the Soviet Union of its rightful place in history, that deprived it of its role and the sacrifice in Second World War, the recognition of that role. [Speaker:GHION_AI] What Putin's done, he brought back those post-war years and he again turned a common victory over Nazism into a source of resentment and into a source of confrontation between Russia and the West.

[Speaker:NARRATOR] And so what does it mean for him now, several years into the war in Ukraine, in a fragmenting world?

Even in the late Soviet period, the victory in the war, because of the scale of sacrifice, was basically the only thing that provided legitimacy to the Soviet rule after the war. It was not the Bolshevik Revolution, it was the victory in that war and the sacrifice in that war. And Putin has also developed that into the foundation of his legitimacy and his militarism. He developed an interreligious cult that puts all the wars that Russia has fought, including Afghanistan in the 1980s, including Chechnya, including Georgia, and particularly culminating in the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine, making that one continuous chain of wars that stems from that Soviet victory, which is, to anybody who remembers that war, is a complete blasphemy. But Putin started the war, started the full-scale invasion as a cosplay of that Victory Day. Remember, they packed uniforms, parade uniforms, because they expected to be in Kyiv in 3 days parading on Khreshchatyk in the centre of Kyiv. And the idea was that this would be a commemoration of reenactment of the Soviet victory, because the legitimacy of Russian rulers rests not on democratic institutions, obviously, and not even on monarchic transition of power, but on military victories. And victory is absolutely essential to holding power, which is why Putin has completely shackled his own rule to the idea of wars and to the idea of victories. And tomorrow, he will be displaying exactly that.

But is it working? If his main goal here is sort of shoring up the legitimacy, winning people over to this narrative, is it working?

Yes, it does to an extent because of the scale of that sacrifice, because of those 27 million people, because every Russian grew up with a memory of that day, because it was the most important national holiday. Yes, it works to an extent because he appeals to something that was real then. Do people see it as a sort of reenactment today of victory and a Russian triumph? Well, again, When people talk in the West about Russian imperialism, it's not imperialism in a sense that people want more territory or they want to extend Russian Empire. If you look at the pollings, the number of people who want Donbas or even Ukraine to be part of Russia is always around or less than 20%. But in terms of the great power status, which is what people crave, it's the empire in terms of the status. And that great status, yes, is derived and built on the foundation of that victory, which was initially thought by people who lived and fought in the 1940s as the moment of liberation from tyranny.

You mentioned the around 20% of people who, for simplicity's sake, let's just say are pro-war. What about the rest of the country?

There is about the same number, 15-20%, on the opposite side of the spectrum, uh, people who are opposed to war and who actually said, despite all the risks, to pollsters that they oppose the war. And you have a majority which is broadly pacifist and broadly anti-war, but comply with the message. Where the opinion of this majority, of this kind of middle ground, goes will, in my mind, determine where Russia goes next. The dominant feeling, if you ask people, what do you want? People want for this war to end. They want to go back to their normal life. They don't want to be deafened by this blasting propaganda. A lot of people will be leaving Moscow in these days of the parade. They want to escape in every sense of the word.

So in light of the way the ethos, if you like, of the day has changed and the way that Vladimir Putin wants it to be perceived, tell me what you expect to see. Who's going to be there? What's going to happen?

So in terms of what we've seen already in preparation for tomorrow's celebration is reenactments, battle scenes, children dressed up in uniforms. There are massive screens and a stage have been installed on the Russian side of Narva River facing Estonia. The frontline NATO country will be exposed to all the pageantry of that victory mania which has possessed the regime and a large part of the country. And the official part of it, Putin's speech, Red Square parade in 2005. The leaders of France, Germany, other European countries were there with Vladimir Putin and with Russia to mark a common victory in the Second World War. Tomorrow, there'll obviously be no Allied powers next to Russia. It will be Russia, a few other leaders of former Soviet republics who couldn't say no to Vladimir Putin. And the most prominent figure is going to be Xi Jinping, the president of China, who landed yesterday in Moscow, who will be there standing next to his special friend Vladimir Putin. And today, Russia, which fought along the Allies 80 years ago against Nazism, has cut its ties with Western powers, has isolated itself and has become more dependent on China than it has ever been its entire history. And that's what will be on display. It will be a very different Russia from not only 1945, but also from 1995 and 2005, when Russia was still thought of and the people wanted to be part of that joint victory. Today Russia is as cut off from the Allied powers as it had been in the immediate years after the Second World War that was succeeded by the Cold War.

Arkady, thanks very much for your time as ever.

Thank you for having me.

80 years ago today, on May 8th, 1945, the fighting between the Allies and Nazi Germany finally stopped.

Fraser McIlwraith is the author of Archive 1945, our week-by-week retrospective on how The Economist reported on the final year of the Second World War.

Crowds gathered across Britain to celebrate.

Trafalgar Square is a rallying point for many of the happy thousands who come to welcome peace.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed the nation.

Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight, Tuesday the 8th of May. We may allow ourselves A brief period of rejoicing. Today is Victory in Europe Day. Tomorrow will also be Victory in Europe Day.

Once the Red Army had captured Berlin, it was only a matter of time before Germany's formal surrender. That was issued on May 7th by Hitler's successor as Germany's head of state, Karl Dönitz. And the Chancellor, von Krosigk. 4 days after VE Day, The Economist went to press.

So the end has come. On Tuesday the firing ceased, and Europe, though a long way yet from peace, was no longer at war. Germany is totally occupied. Apart from the Dönitz-Krosigk phantom, there is no German government. The German people, in General Jodl's anguished words, are for better or worse delivered into the victor's hands. In the middle of Europe, where so recently there stood the most powerful and resourceful military tyranny the world has ever seen, there is now nothing but the emptiness of sorrow and silence.

The toll of the war was immense. Around half a million Britons had died, fewer in fact than during the First World War. Other Allied powers suffered more. Around 24 million Soviet citizens died as a result of the fighting. But The Economist was keen not to focus on anonymous numbers.

"Human life is not to be computed statistically, and of all war's wounds, an empty heart is the only one that time does not heal." As well as the dead, countless others would return home, wounded and traumatized.

The end of the fighting brought about mixed feelings.

These are days of many emotions. Uppermost, quite naturally, is that of thankfulness that the long ordeal, for half the world at least, is over, and that the sins of blindness and indolence and complacency that encouraged the aggressor, sins from whose taint none is free, are purged at last. It is right that there should be a brief pause rejoicing.

But the celebrations were tempered by two facts: first, that the war in the Pacific was still raging, and second, that Europe was quickly being divided between the Allies that had liberated it from the Nazis.

It is tragic that the victory which crowns the joint military effort of the three great powers should be overshadowed by the gravest political dissension that has yet divided them.

The latest tension had arisen over the news that 15 leaders of Poland's underground resistance had been arrested by the Soviet Union and were awaiting trial in Moscow. The episode was a taste of the Cold War brewing between the Soviets and the West. With such uncertainty over the continent's future, peace would bring only partial respite.

The period of physical courage and physical sacrifice is nearing its end. The need will now be for moral courage and mental sacrifice if the opportunity so dearly purchased is to be taken. The quieter virtues are no less difficult, especially for a generous, tolerant, easygoing people who are slow either to anger or to forethought and quick both to forgive and forget. But if the tasks of peace can be approached with the same majestic compound of unity in freedom and responsibility that has brought the British people so triumphantly through the perils of these dreadful years, then nothing will be beyond their powers.

Churchill had evoked similar sentiment in his speech on VE Day. He drove home the task of rebuilding our hearth and home, and looked towards the end of the war in Asia, where Japan still occupied portions of the British Empire, including Malaysia and Singapore. The fighting in Europe was over, but the end of the Second World War was still months away.

I have convened Katherine Nixey, our culture correspondent.

Hello.

And our defense editor, Shashank Joshi.

Hi, Jason.

To have a discussion about how VE Day resonates today in Europe. Shashank, let's start with you. How has the role, the influence of the Allied Powers changed since that first VE Day?

Well, I think the great story is that the European Allied Powers have fundamentally declined in geopolitical strength, stature, and importance, whilst America has obviously remained very mighty. It's remained a global power that is straddling the world still. And the role of the Allied power that we perhaps sometimes forget, but it was part of the so-called Big Four, and that's China, that has also grown considerably since 1945. But really what we're looking at is a world in which Britain and France have lost their empires, lost the colonial possessions they had when they were celebrating VE Day at the time. And as we discussed earlier in the show, Russia's role is perhaps the most interesting. It's no longer the Soviet Union, it no longer is at the cutting edge of global technology, sending things into space in the same way that it was in the 10, 15 years after VE Day, but it's still a huge security and defence challenge to Europe in a way that would be very familiar to those who were watching the Soviet allies turn into Soviet adversaries back in those early post-war days.

With the vantage of all of this history between the original VE Day and now, one interesting change is with France, occupied and then liberated, now the most obvious leadership force perhaps in Europe apart from Germany when Germany can get its act together. How do you think France's role in European security has evolved over all that time?

It's changed a lot. France came out of the war occupied, defeated, but then ultimately triumphant. And the remarkable achievement of France perhaps was to take from that in a moment of great weakness and difficulty, a great diplomatic success, which was a seat at the top table. And Charles de Gaulle, who was the great wartime leader of the Free French and later its president, I think should take a great deal of responsibility for that. But then he always had a very independent view, famously, which we now call a Gaullist view. The idea that France has to have autonomy from America, which would not necessarily stick around and should not necessarily be trusted. What happened is France pulled out of NATO's integrated military command, which was a very big step, and it took a more aloof posture with regards to European security for many years. What's changed very dramatically in the last 2 years since the war on Ukraine, but even in the last couple of years of the war itself, is that France has become again much more central to European security. It's plugged right back into NATO, an alliance that Emmanuel Macron, France's president, famously in an interview with our colleagues, Jason, called brain dead a few years ago. It's become much closer to Eastern European countries, and the French vision of leading Europe, of opposing Russia, has become much more distinct and strong in the last couple of years, I would say.

And what about the European defence picture more broadly, as the indications are that it may need, may be forced to defend itself?

You know, Jason, I think reflecting on VE Day and the security order that was built in Europe that followed, the distinctive thing about it was America's dominance, military dominance and political dominance. European states didn't have to squabble with each other over who would lead Europe because America did. But what we're realizing now is the flip side of that, which is what you might call the infantilization of Europe. We lost the ability to think for ourselves, stand up for ourselves. I think again, That is now changing because of the war in Ukraine. A few months ago, our colleagues tallied lots of the numbers from the top 10 defence firms in Europe, and they painted a picture of real dynamism. One German arms company alone, Rheinmetall, says that it makes more ammunition than the United States. We are seeing Europeans churn out different types of air defence systems. We're seeing them churn out tanks. We're seeing them build out their armed forces. I think there's been a real awakening. The big question is, can they wake up quickly enough to adapt to a world in which America may be leaving?

And so, given all that has changed in the intervening 8 decades, how do you think VE Day resonates with European armies today? You speak to a lot of men and women in uniform. How do they remember VE Day?

It's clear that it has this outsized importance to the British Armed Forces in a way It's a direct connection with what they would see as their most glorious moment, saving Europe initially when Britain was alone, later with allies, but doing things that people genuinely thought might be impossible, such as conducting a giant amphibious force across the English Channel to invade France and push the Germans back. That memory is an incredibly important part of the story of national success that the armies tell themselves. But I will also say one other thing, which is that Apart from the Falklands War, and I guess you could argue Korea, World War II was the last total high-intensity peer conflict fought by the United Kingdom and by most European countries. So I think VE Day carries that glorious past with it to inspire something, invigorate something about the contemporary armed forces of today.

And Catherine, that's as good a handover as I could have hoped for to talk about Britain more broadly, the rest of Britain that's not in uniform. How is VE D-Day being remembered in Britain?

Well, like all of these things, it's being remembered with great gusto and a good deal of nostalgia. There's little that Britain enjoys more than a celebration like this. So we've already seen tea parties, there's been bunting, there's over 30,000 poppies around the Tower of London, there's parades, there've been crowds outside Buckingham Palace waving flags. The royal family have waved back at them. Britain has been enjoying it enormously.

And quite apart from the British desire for a reason to hang bunting and have a party, what's the cultural resonance in Britain?

The cultural significance is twofold. One is that there is a very strong sense when people watch these events and they see the veterans who are now so old and so frail that this is history, and that this is perhaps the last time that people are going to see these veterans at one of these big celebrations. Most of them are in their 90s. They're the ones who stood alone. They are Churchill's few, but now they really are so very, very few. But the cultural significance of this in Britain goes far wiser than that, because as Shashank said, this is a moment that Britain can feel really proud of when perhaps it can't feel that proud of some of what has come since. This really was Britain's finest hour. The Second World War is constantly being replayed in films and in plays and in books. You can see it in the "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters that people put up. You could See it very clearly in the politics of Brexit, which had this idea of Britain standing alone against Europe. What will become clear to Britons as they watch these, as they see the age of the veterans, as they realize that this is the last time that they're going to see them, is that this is actually passing from us. If you think of the dates, the start of the Second World War is now closer to the Charge of the Light Brigade than it is to us, and the First World War is closer to the Battle of Waterloo than it is to us. So the past is slipping away from us. And what we call our finest hour is definitely now their finest hour. And it means that Britain will have to slightly rethink, I think, who it is.

What's interesting, and this brings me to a question for both of you really to conclude, there's a lot of echo in what you just said, Catherine, that we heard also from Arkady, that to a degree, VE Day is now about capturing, if not reliving, past glories. And in a way, it's a harking back to a world order that is very much no more. What do you reckon to that? VE Day as a geopolitical event in its way now, because it so far from that history you describe?

Of course it is. I mean, all history, as they say, is contemporary history. The past is being used by the present, as it always is, to create an image of the present that the present likes. And so Britain's role in the world is, as Shashank was saying, hugely diminished. And so we like to look back to a point when it was greater. It bolsters us now.

I think there's also a contest to own the history and Arkady talked about that in the Russian context, but there is also the American view we're increasingly seeing that tracks with Donald Trump's view of America as an imperial country that should own Panama Canal, Greenland, Canada. And that translates also into his view of VE Day. He announced two new holidays for the Americans to commemorate American victories in the First and Second World War and said, we won two world wars, we never took credit for it, everyone else does, we had the victory. So in a way, that's echo of the Russian view that erases the role of other countries and puts the Soviet Union at the center of that history and excludes all others, wipes them out. We're seeing the same myopic, petty nationalist logic taking hold in America as well.

And it's also such a good story to take hold of, I feel, the Second World War. I feel it's perhaps the last moment in history when everybody feels that they knew who the goodies were and who the baddies were. It's not As the modern world feels now, so much more morally ambiguous and confusing.

Katherine and Shashank, thanks both very much for coming on the show.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our archive 1945 project we heard from earlier is a fascinating contemporaneous account of the final year of the war week by week. Head over to our app to see how The Economist reported on the conflict's welcome end. We'll see you back here tomorrow.