From the Great Patriotic War to the Second World War: Decommunisation of Ukraine’s memory politics

Illustration by Andrzej Zaręba

Until 2014, all Ukrainian presidents except Viktor Yushchenko participated in the celebration of the Soviet and Russian myth of the Great Patriotic War (GPW). Presidents Leonid Kuchma (1994-2004) and Viktor Yanukovych (2010-2014) participated in official commemorations in Moscow attended by other former Soviet republics. President Yushchenko (2005-2010) did not attend the celebration but neither did he seek to remove the GPW from Ukrainian memory politics. Only during Petro Poroshenko’s presidency (2014-2019) was the Soviet triumphalist and militaristic narrative of the GPW (1941-1945) replaced by commemoration of Ukraine’s participation in Europe’s victory over Nazism and the human suffering of Ukrainians during the Second World War (1939-1945) integrated into an overall European tragedy of the loss of millions of lives.

Cult of Stalin in post-Soviet Russia

Russian nationalist émigrés, Soviet officials and dissident Russian nationalists had long praised Joseph Stalin as a great wartime leader. Émigré Eurasianism and Soviet national Bolshevism, which merged in post-Soviet Russia, united “Red” Soviet, “Brown” fascist, and “White” Tsarist and Orthodox fundamentalist Russian nationalism. This extremist coalition was behind the 1993 parliamentary uprising against President Boris Yeltsin. After its failure the Eurasianist-national Bolshevik coalition was temporarily marginalised, but its ideas were incorporated into the great power nationalism that has come to dominate Vladimir Putin’s presidency. The “Red”-“Brown”-“White” coalition worked with Putin in the notorious “New Russia” (Novorossiya) project in 2014 to Ukraine’s dismember eastern-southern regions from the remainder of the country.

Demands for a return to the glorious Soviet past were promoted by Putin’s allies in the security services (siloviki) that had been indoctrinated with Soviet internationalism and Russian nationalism in the USSR.  In Putin’s Russia, Soviet symbols and the Soviet anthem were revived, and the GPW and a cult of Stalin were re-introduced. Under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the GPW had become a more important Soviet event than the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and this was the era that Putin expresses nostalgia for.

Russian siloviki viewed the West’s export of “colour revolutions” as a continuation of the West’s threat to Soviet youth which Soviet siloviki had been trained to combat. The 1956 anti-communist Hungarian Revolution is now described in Russian information warfare as the West’s first colour revolution. One manner in which Soviet and Russian regimes fought back was by militarising the GPW. Military patriotic indoctrination was revived and implemented through “anti-fascist” NGO’s Nashi (Ours), Idushchiye vmyestye (Walking Together), Molodaya Gvardiya (Young Guard) and the Eurasian Youth Movement. The GPW and cult of Stalin indoctrinated Soviet and Russian youth with great power nationalism and xenophobia towards the West and its local satellites, such as Ukraine. Today, as many Russians have a negative view of Ukraine as they do of the United States and European Union.

Putin’s rebuilding of Russia as a great power draws much of its legitimacy from the Soviet victory in the GPW. Russian analyst Pavel Felgenhauer writes that, “Modern Russian state propaganda has for years been promoting Stalin as the main organiser of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.”  Felgenhauer continues, “And this victory is projected with more and more vigour as the defining moment of Russian state history and a popular focal point uniting all loyal citizens around the flag”.

Russian textbooks are imbued with “patriotic” Russian nationalist ideology that portray Stalin as an effective manager who industrialised a peasant USSR and created a nuclear superpower. Russians are told they bear no responsibility for Stalin’s crimes and have nothing to be ashamed of. Forty-six per cent of Russians believe Stalin’s repressions were less important than the Soviet industrialisation programme to modernise the USSR. Russian media and the countries education system marginalise and excuse Stalinist crimes against humanity such as the Ukrainian Holodomor, deportations from the three Baltic states and former eastern Poland (western Ukraine), the Katyń war crime of the murder of 22,000 Polish officers, the Gulag concentration camp system and treatment of Soviet prisoners-of-war. Russia under Putin no longer apologises for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and declares it to be an example of successful Soviet diplomacy. Russia blatantly falsifies history by laying blame on the West and Poland for the war beginning in 1939. As for Katyń, there is a growing tendency to return to Soviet-era denials and blaming the Nazi’s for this heinous crime.

After two decades in office, Putin has succeeded in increasing the number of Russians who hold a positive view of Stalin to 70 per cent; incredibly only 19 per cent hold a negative view of this arch criminal. The Levada Centre, Russia’s only remaining independent sociological institution, found that “age does not differentiate respondents by the level of support for negative judgments about the leader – in all age groups the proportion of respondents with a positive attitude dominates over the share of respondents with negative evaluations, and the idea of ​​the positive role of Stalin in the history of the country over the opposite opinion.”  What is most disturbing is the high number of young Russians born since the USSR disintegrated who also have a positive view of Stalin. The Levada Centre noted that, “the youngest category of respondents from 18 to 24 years old who fall into the sample, more often than others, expresses an indifferent attitude”.

Ukrainian and Russian memory politics prior to the EuroMaidan

Russian and Ukrainian memory politics began to radically diverge under Yushchenko who emphasised the Holodomor (the Great Famine imposed on Ukraine by the Soviet authorities in 1932-1933 which killed millions of Ukrainians – editor’s note) as a genocide against the Ukrainian people. This was enshrined in a law adopted in 2006 supported by pro-western political forces but was opposed by the pro-Russian Party of Regions and communists.

More controversially at that time, Yushchenko promoted a positive image of Ukrainian nationalist groups which had been active in the 1940s. This was not only controversial vis-à-vis Russia which has revived Soviet ideological tenets against Ukrainian nationalism but more importantly, Poland.

Modelled on its Polish namesake, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance was established in 2006 to promote a new form of memory politics. Former Soviet secret police archives were opened. In 2008-2009, Yushchenko issued two decrees to remove Soviet monuments and plaques; although these were never implemented due to opposition from the Party of Regions and Communists. Yushchenko’s limited transformation of Ukrainian memory politics was bitterly condemned by Russia. In the summer of 2009, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sent a vitriolic open letter to Yushchenko blaming him for the “glorification of Nazi collaborators” and “exaltation of the role of radical nationalists”. Medvedev also criticised support for a “nationalist” interpretation of the Holodomor as a genocide directed by Stalin against Ukrainians. It would be though wrong to believe that it had been Yushchenko who had launched the campaign for recognition of the Holodomor as a genocide; in fact, this had begun earlier, during Kuchma’s presidency.

Ukraine’s re-Sovietisation under Yanukovych, who was elected president in 2010, took place at the same time as Putin’s shift to the nationalist right. Putin increasingly emphasised the “fraternal brotherhood” of Russians and Ukrainians, their age-old unity in the Russkiy Mir (Russian World), and joint suffering and victory over the Nazi’s in the GPW. Russia actively used the GPW to mobilise its pro-Russian supporters inside Ukraine.

Yanukovych’s election provided the correction to Ukrainian memory politics that Medvedev had demanded. There was a return to commemorating the GPW in Ukraine and jointly with Russia in Moscow. Yanukovych adopted Russia’s position that the 1933 famine was Soviet-wide and not directed against Ukraine. The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance was downgraded to a small government research centre and, to add insult to injury, a communist was appointed to lead it. Prior to 2010, Ukraine had not held military parades of Ukrainian soldiers, military equipment and veterans on Victory Day on May 9. This changed during Yanukovych’s presidency. The 2011 law On Commemoration of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 became a milestone in integrating Ukraine into the Russian narrative of the GPW and was celebrated with large military parades, as in Moscow.

As part of the re-Sovietisation of Ukrainian memory politics and integration into the Russian GPW narrative, the age-old struggle against “fascists” was militarised against contemporary enemies. Under Yanukovych, all pro-western political forces were described as “fascists”. Russia’s vitriolic information warfare, which drew on Soviet disinformation and ideological tirades, provided the guidelines that were used by Yanukovych’s regime. Leading up to the Revolution of Dignity and especially since, pro-European Ukrainian political forces were described as “fascists”, Nazi’s and anti-Semites, a threat to Russian speakers and Russians in Ukraine. The Ukrainian army are karateli (punishers, a term used to describe the Nazi’s) while Russian proxies fighting against Ukraine are opolchentsy (People’s Militia, a term associated with Soviet partisans in the GPW).

Continued adherence to the legacy of the Soviet commemoration of the GPW provided Russia with the means to mobilise and secure the support of Ukrainians, especially in the south and the east. Opinion polls conducted in 2003-2011 found between 65-72 per cent of Ukrainians considered the May 9th Victory Day to be the most important national holiday. Even in western Ukraine, more than 43 per cent considered it as such. The re-Sovietisation of Ukrainian memory politics under Yanukovych was evident in the growth of popularity of May 9th to 83 per cent by 2013.

Radical programme of decommunisation

The EuroMaidan revolutionaries who came to power amidst Russian military aggression believed that the Soviet and Russian narrative of the GPW was a threat to Ukraine’s national security as it emboldened and mobilised pro-Russian protestors and separatists. As the 2014 crisis and Russian information warfare has shown, Russia does not respect Ukraine as a sovereign country. Maria Domańska from the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) describes Russia’s information warfare and the promotion of the GPW as a “quasi-Cold War proxy war” waged against the West but fought in Ukraine which Russia sees as part of its “traditional sphere of influence”. Russian information warfare accuses Poland and the three Baltic states of being  alleged allies of the Nazis, the EU is bizarrely described as a Nazi brainchild and NATO supposedly represents the same threat to Russia as the Nazi’s did in 1941. Putin’s revival of the GPW as a new state religion is part of a drive to legitimise Russia’s status as a great power with a demand for a return to principles enshrined in the 1945 Yalta Agreement with great powers overseeing spheres of influence. Russia as a great power is understood as possessing full sovereignty. In a revival of the Brezhnev Doctrine which justified Soviet intervention in its sphere of influence, countries such as Ukraine are viewed as having limited sovereignty. As with the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Russia believes it had a right to intervene to “stabilize” Ukraine in 2014.

Unlike in the Yushchenko era when decommunisation was blocked, Poroshenko successfully implemented a radical programme of decommunisation. Two key factors played a role in the willingness of the state and society at large to abandon the Soviet and Russian concept of the GPW. First, there is a new public demand from below for changes in Ukraine’s memory politics, particularly a re-evaluation of the GPW and the role of Ukraine and Ukrainians in the war. Civil society, local government councils, democratic parties and nationalist groups had spontaneously removed Soviet monuments and symbols in 2014 in central Ukraine ahead of the adoption of the decommunisation laws a year later. Second, the president and parliamentary majority elected in 2014 were ready to react to this demand and for the first time introduce real decommunisation. The Revolution of Dignity, the disintegration of pro-Russian political forces, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Russian military aggression in eastern Ukraine, removed opposition while providing widespread support for changes in Ukrainian memory politics. The use of the GPW in Russian information warfare to justify Russia’s fight against the revolution “fascists” backfired. Russian military aggression and information warfare repelled many Ukrainians, especially Russian speakers, who were forced to re-evaluate the GPW which they had previously known only through an exclusively Soviet or Russian interpretation.

Ukraine’s new memory politics was aided by the disintegration of the pro-Russian Party of Regions and the unpopularity of the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) which failed to win support in the 2014 pre-term elections. In 2015 the KPU and two other communist parties were de-registered by the ministry of justice because they refused to comply with one of the decommunisation laws which banned communist symbols. As unregistered parties, they could not participate in elections.

Other important factors included the mobilisation of civil society, rise of patriotism in response to Russian military aggression, creation of volunteer battalions (often from EuroMaidan self-defence groups) and activism of nationalist groups who implemented decommunisation on the ground. Monuments of Vladimir Lenin in western Ukraine had been removed in the first half of the 1990s after democratic forces came to power in semi-free Soviet elections. In 2014-2015 Lenin monuments had been removed in central Ukraine during and after the Euromaidan Revolution. In 2014 two major Lenin monuments were pulled down in Dnipropetrovsk and then Kharkiv. Lenin monuments in eastern and southern Ukraine were mainly removed after the adoption of decommunisation laws in April 2015 in what was described as the “Leninopad” (Lenin fall). Of the nearly 6,000 Lenin monuments inherited by Ukraine in 1991, only a few hundred are left standing in Russian-occupied Donbas and Crimea.

These developments were also welcomed by Ukraine’s Jewish community who do not harbour Soviet nostalgia and support Ukraine in the ongoing war with Russia. The Holocaust plays an important part in memory politics of the European history of the Second World War but has no place in the GPW, whether in the USSR or in contemporary Russia. In Dnipro, which has the most active Jewish community in Ukraine, Jewish leaders co-operated with civil society groups, local councillors and academic experts in making changes to topographical names that replaced communist with Jewish and Ukrainian historical figures.

Important legal changes

In 2014, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, led by historian Volodymyr Vyatrovych, was re-established by a government decree and became one of the most active drivers of the decommunisation of memory politics. A centre with Soviet secret police archives led by Orange and EuroMaidan revolution activist Andriy Kohut was temporarily housed in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). As members of the Reanimation Package of Reforms (the main post-EuroMaidan lobbying NGO for reforms) Vyatrovych, Kohut and other civic activists drafted the four decommunisation laws. The Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had adopted similar legislation, but of the 15 former Soviet republics only Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had followed suit. Ukraine’s laws were on a par with these post-communist states; in pro-Western Georgia, access to Soviet archives still remains restricted.

In the autumn of 2014, the issue of when to commemorate the outbreak of the Second World War was raised by Poroshenko and the Ukrainian government. Before 2014, commemorations of the beginning of the war was held on June 22nd. Somewhat later the “Day of Liberation of Ukraine from the Fascist Invaders” was added as a Soviet holiday. In reality, for Ukrainians the war began on September 1st 1939 when the city of Lviv (Lwów, then under Polish rule) was bombed by the German air force and the 120,000 Ukrainians and Poles serving in the Polish army began fighting the Nazis. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, condemned the USSR and Nazi Germany for launching the war; Russia accused him of continuing in the footsteps of “nationalist” Poroshenko.

There was another important legal change in 2014; namely, the cancellation of the official holiday of the “Defender of the Fatherland Day” on February 23rd. Formally, this holiday was not related to the GPW, but its very existence was connected to former Soviet and later Russian celebrations of the Defender of the Fatherland. This holiday had been an additional instrument to integrate Ukraine within the Russian narrative of a common history.

A new national holiday called “Defender of Ukraine Day” was introduced which would be celebrated on October 14th, the day Ukrainians have traditionally celebrated as one of the most important religious holidays, the Protection of the Theotokos (Pokrova). October 14th is also symbolically connected to Ukrainian Cossack traditions and launch of the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1942. By 2018, 62 per cent of Ukrainians supported this new holiday.

Soviet and Russian bombastic, triumphalist and militaristic celebrations of the GPW reserved no place for the suffering of Soviet soldiers and the nations of the USSR and national and religious minorities, such as Poles and Jews.  In 2015 this was replaced with a new approach that commemorated the tragedy of war and the suffering of war victims. In March 2015 a presidential decree created the “Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation” to be held on May 8th to commemorate Ukraine’s contribution to the victory against Nazism and honour Ukrainian human losses and victims of Stalinist and Nazi crimes. The new anniversary and holiday integrated Ukraine with the European tradition of commemorating the end of the Second World War on May 8th. May 9th would continue to be celebrated but it was renamed as “Victory Day Over Nazism in World War II.” In May 2020, six years after the decommunisation laws were adopted, 39% supported celebration of both holidays on May 8th and 9th, fourteen per cent only on May 8th and 32 per cent only on May 9th. Interestingly, 56 per cent supported the statement that the USSR and Nazi Germany both began the war, with the difference of opinion between the west (63 per cent) and east (44 per cent) of Ukraine not large. Sixty-one per cent of Ukrainians opposed their political leaders participating in GPW celebrations in Moscow.

In April 2015 the Ukrainian parliament adopted the decommunisation package of four laws which fundamentally revised the country’s memory politics. These included:

1. On Perpetuation of the Victory Over Nazism in the Second World War 1939-1945. This changed the Soviet and Russian commemoration of the GPW on May 9th to that of European victory over Nazism on May 8th. The “Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation” is an official holiday on May 8th. The Soviet and Russian Victory Day on May 9th was changed to the “Day of Victory against Nazism in the Second World War of 1939-1945”. The law also declared that the main aim of official and ceremonial events during these two days is to commemorate all victims of the war (irrespective of their nationality) in Ukraine. Importantly, Soviet monuments to the war dead would remain standing but the communist symbols on them would be removed.

2. On Access to the Archives of Repressive Bodies of the Communist Totalitarian Regime from 1917 to 1991. This has led to Ukraine becoming one of the most open of post-communist states in providing access to former Soviet secret police archives.

3. On Condemnation of the Communist and National Socialist (Nazi) Regimes and the Prohibition of the Propaganda of their Symbols. This equates the two political systems as having both been involved in crimes against humanity and both ideologies as creating morally reprehensible totalitarian regimes. This law has been used to remove Soviet and communist monuments and plaques as well as removing Soviet and communist topographic names. Communist and extreme right parties which use communist and Nazi symbols are banned.

4. On the Legal Status and Honouring of the Memory of Fighters for Ukraine’s Independence in the 20th century. This listed the organisations and political parties that had fought for Ukrainian independence. These included political forces representing the entire political spectrum ranging from social democratic, liberal to nationalist. Of the four laws, this was viewed as the most controversial because the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and UPA are included in the list of “fighters”. Controversy surrounding OUN and UPA has though become less of an issue since 2014 because of changing attitudes brought about by Russian military aggression. By 2015, for the first time since Ukraine became an independent state, the number of supporters (41 per cent) of OUN and UPA was greater than opponents (38 per cent). This tendency has continued and by 2017, 49 per cent of Ukrainians held a positive view and 29 per cent a negative view of OUN and UPA.

Symbols

Russian information warfare portrays the ribbon of Saint George as a “traditional” symbol of the Soviet celebration of victory over Nazi Germany. In fact, this symbol was not used in the USSR and only appeared in Russia in 2005 as an asymmetric response to Orange Revolution ribbons. Later, the ribbon of Saint George became popular throughout the post-Soviet space due to its active propagation by Moscow on Victory Day and through the influence of Russian television and Russian information campaigns. The ribbon of Saint George has been used since 2014 by Russian proxies in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s adoption of a new symbol, the red poppy, was developed by Kharkiv designer Serhiy Mishakin with the support of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance and the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine. The symbol was reminiscent of the European and global emblem of the commemoration of war victims and Ukraine’s own traditions. At the same time the new symbol was aimed at shifting the focus from Soviet and Russian militarist celebration of the GPW to recognition of the horrors of war and the need to commemorate all those living in Ukraine who had died during the war. The commemoration of Nazi Germany’s defeat was accompanied by the new slogan “Never Again!” – meant to signify that the horrors of the Second World War should be never again be repeated.

In May 2015 the red poppy was presented on Ukrainian television and at official celebrations. It also appeared as street graffiti in Kyiv, Odesa and other Ukrainian cities. Furthermore, one could notice self-made red poppies on people’s clothes and in public transport. The red poppy turned out to be extremely successful and was embraced by a majority of Ukrainians. In May 2015 the Kyiv city state administration held Poppy flower flash mobs which included demonstrations of various ways for making the red poppy at home. This was followed by a small concert and installation of red poppies prepared by young people.

On May 7th 2015 the red poppy was presented during an event in Mystetskyy Arsenal (Art Arsenal) in Kyiv with the participation of President Poroshenko, the First Lady and their children. The red poppy was introduced on anniversary coins, postage stamps, envelopes and on TV advertisements issued for the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. A wreath of artificial flowers was placed on top of the large Soviet-era Motherland monument (part of the Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War) in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance developed special guidelines how to commemorate the war for local government councils and the public. These highlighted the need to use correct historical terminology instead of Soviet and Russian propaganda clichés – for example, “expelling the Nazi occupants” instead of “liberation from fascist invaders” and Second World War instead of Great Patriotic War. Importantly, these guidelines pointed out that Ukraine was not liberated after the expulsion of the Nazis but re-occupied by another totalitarian state, the Soviet Union. Numerous academic conferences and other events were conducted during which historians and practitioners debunked Soviet and Russian myths about the GPW and discussed Ukrainian participation in the victory against Nazism in a wide range of armed forces – Soviet (seven million), Polish (120,000), US (80,000), Canadian (50,000), and OUN and UPA (100,000). These also discussed Ukraine’s huge losses – civilians, Jews and soldiers – during the Second World War.

Breaking from the past

Commemoration of the Great Patriotic War as a state religion and cult of Stalin serves four purposes for the Russian elite. First, it rallies Russians around Putin and the ruling United Russia party in their self-appointed roles as defenders of Russian and Eurasian civilisation which are allegedly under attack from a pernicious West and its “fifth columnists” such as Ukraine. Second, authoritarian regimes such as Russia mobilise their population against domestic and external enemies who are portrayed as being in the pay of the West. These include the Russian opposition, “fascist” Ukraine, Poland, the three Baltic states, NATO, the EU, and the US.  Third, it integrates “Red” Soviet, “Brown” fascist and “White” Tsarist and Russian Orthodox nationalism which, together, constitute the political base of Putin’s regime. Fourth, commemoration of the GPW is impossible without a cult of Stalin who allegedly did the most to defeat Nazism and “modernised” and transformed the USSR into a nuclear superpower. Stalin’s crimes against humanity are forgotten, minimised and excused.

Ukrainian memory politics had been diverging from those in Russia during Kuchma’s and Yushchenko’s presidencies. Research, publication and commemoration of the Holodomor, for example, had begun under Kuchma and became institutionalised under Yushchenko. At the same time,  Presidents Kuchma and Yanukovych had continued to attend commemorations of the GPW in Moscow and Ukrainian memory politics had continued to include both national and Soviet narratives. Under Yanukovych there was a determined push to integrate Soviet and Russian narratives of history coupled with ideological denunciations of pro-western Ukrainians.

The EuroMaidan Revolution and Russian military aggression set in motion radical changes in Ukrainian memory politics that for the first time expunged Soviet and Russian narratives. The adoption of four decommunisation laws brought Ukraine closer to the decommunisation which had earlier taken place in the three Baltic states and Central and Eastern Europe. Ukraine’s decommunisation laws condemned communist and Nazi totalitarianism as morally reprehensible (as had all European institutions up to then), replaced militarist commemoration of the GPW with Ukraine’s contribution to the European-wide defeat of Nazism in the Second Word War and put emphasis on the human tragedy of war – rather than the Russian glorification of military victory irrespective of the loss of human lives. The infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was condemned and the history of western Ukraine from 1939-1941 was included in Ukraine’s history of the war. Soviet archives were fully opened. Ukrainian national liberation movements of all political persuasions were honoured.

Importantly, for Ukraine’s leaders at a time when three-quarters of Ukrainians believed their country was at war with Russia, Ukraine’s memory politics and decommunisation laws provided the basis for a Ukrainian history that was not integrated within Soviet and Russian narratives. This in turn supported Ukraine’s movement from the Soviet past, integration into Europe and strengthening of its identity as a fully sovereign state outside the Russian World.

Serhiy Riabenko is a lawyer with the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance in Kyiv.

Taras Kuzio is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, and a non-resident fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute, School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

decommunisation, Great Patriotic War, Ukraine