On June 24, 1945, the first parade dedicated to the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War was held in Moscow on the Red Square. The combined regiments of the fronts, the combined regiment of the people’s Commissariat of defence, the combined regiment of the Navy, military academies, military schools, and the troops of the Moscow garrison were brought to the Victory Parade. The parade was commanded by Marshal of the Soviet Union K. K. Rokossovsky, and the parade was taken by Marshal of the Soviet Union G. K. Zhukov. From the podium of the Lenin Mausoleum, Stalin watched the parade, as well as Molotov, Kalinin, Voroshilov, Budyonny and other members of the Politburo.

This film was the first colour film in the USSR. The Victory parade on June 24, 1945 was filmed on German trophy film from the warehouse of “Agfa”. After the film was shot, it turned out that most of the tape had colour defects. As the colour films were not made in the USSR, there was not enough experience in working on colour correction. Therefore, the entire film was transferred to B/W film, and a 19-minute film was edited from the material that was of suitable quality. And many years later, in 2004, the Central State Archive of Film and Photo Documents restored the colour version of the film. The film was restored, removing all mechanical damage to the film, restoring the colour and transferring the image to modern colour film.

I have translated both the full black-and-white version of the Parade, including Marshal Zhukov’s speech, and the shorter colour version. The subtitles can be downloaded separately for the black-and-while film, and for the colour film.

Below the video frames are the complete transcripts, kept here for the reference. I was translating Zhukov’s speech, based on the Russian transcript here. What I found disconcerting, is that the BW documentary was edited to remove any reference to Stalin’s contribution and guidance! It seems the editing was done during the time, when Khrushjov waged his personal vendetta against Stalin’s memory. The colour version, though it does not include Zhukov’s speech, has Stalin “rehabilitated” and properly referenced.

Related reading:

• 3 Unbelievable Stories & Amazing Historic WWII Videos! by Lada Ray
• Stalin’s Speech at the November 7th 1941 Parade on the Red Square, which is indirectly referenced by the commentator
• There was another Victory parade, held in Berlin on the 7th of September 1945. That was a joint allied parade, where the allies were already drifting away from the Soviet Union, and only USSR had its official representative at it, but that is another story…

After the 24th of June 1945, the Victory Day parades were held in the USSR 3 more times – at the anniversary dates on the 9th of May 1965, 1985 and 1990. Next time it was conducted in already Russia on the 9th of May 1995, and then annually after that date. In the USSR military parades were customarily held annually on the 7th of November, commemorating the October Revolution.

In order to be re-uploaded with the subtitles, the footage of the B/W film was downloaded from the Classics of the Soviet Cinema YouTube channel. There was one quote in a viewer comment there, which I found especially poignant (note that 9 million is the number of combatant losses according to the early estimates after the war, the total number of the Soviet citizens who lost their lives during the Great Patriotic War is 27 million people):

Once my father expressed a piercing and terrible thought: “Ten thousand soldiers and officers of the armies and fronts participated at the principal Parade in honour of the Victory Day on June 24, 1945. The passage of the parade “boxes” of troops lasted thirty minutes. And you know what I thought? During the four years of the war, the losses of our army amounted to almost nine million dead. And each one of them, who gave the most precious thing to Victory – their lives! – is worthy to walk in that parade on the Red Square. So, if all the dead were put in parade formation, then these “boxes” would go through Red Square for nineteen days… ” and I suddenly, as if in reality, imagined this parade. Parade “boxes” of twenty by ten. One hundred and twenty steps a minute. In windings and boots, overcoats, and jackets, in caps, earflaps, “budenovki”, helmets, caps. And for nineteen days and nights this continuous stream of fallen battalions, regiments, and divisions would have passed through the Red Square. Parade of the heroes, parade of the winners. Think about it! Nineteen days!
— V. Shurygin

There is such a parade now in Russia, and its name is The Immortal Regiment! This year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federative branch of the Regiment holds it march and commemoration on-line.

Continue reading →

The watershed moment of The Great Patriotic War, and of WWII, when it became clear that the Soviet Union would not fall, when the German Fascists can be defeated. The Battle of Moscow. But preceding it was an event of the utmost importance for the morale of the whole country – the Parade on the Red Square on the 7th of November 1941, as Stalin’s unifying and encouraging speech at the parade.

The documentary that I just translated tells the story of filming of the Oscar-winning documentary “Rout of the German Troops Near Moscow” from 1941. But it is much more. It de-crowns several myths – some benign, and some used by the present-day rewriters of WWII history. It tells about the heroism of the front-line cameramen, who filmed and died so that this history would not be forgotten. And it delves into a little-known side of the American-Soviet relations during the war.

Please note that translating a documentary film or an article takes a lot of time and emotional effort. I am doing it on a voluntary basis, but if someone feels like supporting my work, a Bitcoin donation to the following address is appreciated: 1Nemo1KPB8UjQjrURqn6V7Mscungx44XS2

On several previous occasions YouTube removed my uploads of translations, so to avoid any problems, here are 5 easy steps that will allow you to watch it with subtitles on your desktop machine:

1. Download the video above, using BitDownloader
2. Download the subtitles (Right-click the link and choose ‘Save As’)
3. Download and install VLC for your operating system
4. Make sure that the video and the subtitle files have the same name
5. Play the video in VLC – subtitles will load automatically

Continue reading →

The unknown and erased side of WWII brought to light in all its ugly detail in this upcoming documentary by Andrei Medvedev. I have previously translated his eye-opening investigative documentary about the history of Ukainisation, Project ‘Ukraine’. Documentary by Andrei Medvedev (with English subtitles), and I am intending to translate this WWII documentary some time after its release.

In the meantime, here is a translated summary and the complete untranslated film, as well as a fragment of the film at the official youTube channel of Vesti.

From VGTRK:

It is assumed in our historiography that the USSR and its allies – the United States, Britain and France – fought with Nazi Germany, which was supported by its allies – Hungary, Romania, Italy, and Japan. And the Soviet Union won this unbearably difficult war.

But it is very important to understand whether our allies were really sincere, on whose side were the so-called neutral countries, and why the war on the Eastern front was so violent with mass destruction of the population.

Without understanding who brought Hitler to power, who financed him, who earned money from the war, we will never realize the greatness of the feat of the Soviet people.

Without a deep understanding of the causes of the war and an analysis of diplomatic agreements, we will not see that the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 was the result of a serious geopolitical process.

An important question is: who was behind Hitler, who in Europe needed such a Germany and why? Aggressive, militarized, anti-Bolshevik and anti-Russian.

What would Germany be without American loans? Without investment from American companies? Germany could not have fought in the East without receiving for free the top-notch factories of Czechoslovakia, which it gained by the Munich Conspiracy of 1938, when England and France gave up the whole country to Hitler. What for? What were the Western politicians planning?

Why did the allies take so long to open a Second front and what is the Bank for International Settlements? Why did its participants meet every month throughout the Second World War?

How many foreigners fought in the SS, and who defended the Reich Chancellery in May 1945? For whom in Europe were Hitler’s ideas so dear: nationalism, anti-Semitism and living space in the East.

The film “The Great Unknown War” is a story about what the Soviet Union actually faced. And the terrible cost at which we won a war that we were not supposed to win.