Message from Moscow

FROM Washington to London the message of V-E Day was clear: reconciliation with old enemies was the order of the day. Bill Clinton brought that idea with him to Moscow. Everyone is aware that triumph in the war against Hitler was quickly followed by tragedy, the drawing down of Stalin’s Iron Curtain across Europe. Clinton’s speech at the opening (ten years late) of the massive war memorial outside Moscow (designed under Brezhnev for the fortieth anniversary, but only just completed) was typically apologetic. He claimed the Cold War had obscured the Soviet Union’s sacrifices from the West, but implied that it was the West’s fault.

There were no apologies from the Russians for the Stalinist past. The “great leader” was praised for his wartime role, and no mention was made of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Military glory was the dominant, in fact the only, tone of the Russian celebrations. Some bedraggled American peaceniks sat around disconsolately in my hotel lobby wearing the only “doves of peace” I saw in Moscow.

MA

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Mark Almond

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FROM Washington to London the message of V-E Day was clear: reconciliation with old enemies was the order of the day. Bill Clinton brought that idea with him to Moscow. Everyone is aware that triumph in the war against Hitler was quickly followed by tragedy, the drawing down of Stalin’s Iron Curtain across Europe. Clinton’s speech at the opening (ten years late) of the massive war memorial outside Moscow (designed under Brezhnev for the fortieth anniversary, but only just completed) was typically apologetic. He claimed the Cold War had obscured the Soviet Union’s sacrifices from the West, but implied that it was the West’s fault.

There were no apologies from the Russians for the Stalinist past. The “great leader” was praised for his wartime role, and no mention was made of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Military glory was the dominant, in fact the only, tone of the Russian celebrations. Some bedraggled American peaceniks sat around disconsolately in my hotel lobby wearing the only “doves of peace” I saw in Moscow.