This is the full reconstructed version of the 1945 Victory Day Parade. While the film is in Russian, it is well worth watching it, even without understanding the language — to feel the atmosphere of Victory of 1945!
🎞 Together with the Russian State Archive of Film and Photographic Documents, the editorial office has done a unique job. Frame by frame, the chronicle of the entire festive day of June 24, 1945 has been gathered together — from the earliest morning to the evening fireworks. A lot of new authentic information from archives has been added to the program, the logic and sequence of actions have been restored.
📽 All the film footage taken during the legendary Parade has been found and digitised: there were about one and a half thousand meters of it! 72 cameramen were working on Red Square that day, and only a small fraction of their footage was later included in a previously widely known documentary. The rest was kept in special storage for many years. Now, we have managed to restore the whole picture of what was happening on and around Red Square at that time.
In fact, this is the first full-scale video recording of a real event in the history of our country, which everyone will be able to see only 75 years later.
“It’s an amazing, magical feeling. It’s like we’ve invented a time machine, and together we can travel back to that rainy day in 1945 to follow everything that happened in the heart of Moscow. So far, the whole world has seen either a 50-minute version of those events or a short 18-minute color documentary. We managed to put together almost three hours, minute by minute. This is a fantastic opportunity to plunge into the real atmosphere that prevailed at that time, to see the unedited.”
Thanks to experts and music historians, precisely those military marches and the music that really sounded that day are being played. Historical archival footage and musical accompaniment have been carefully recreated and restored manually by POBEDA TV channel.
The parade on June 24, 1945 in Moscow is a triumph of the Soviet people who defeated Nazi Germany. The Victory Day Parade was hosted by Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov. Marshal of The Soviet Union Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky commanded the Parade. Colonel-General Pavel Artemievich Artemyev, commander of the Moscow Military District and head of the Moscow garrison, led the entire event. The movement of the troops was accompanied by a huge orchestra of 1,400 people!
The text is read by the legends of Soviet television:
👉 People’s Artist of the USSR Igor Leonidovich Kirillov,
👉 People’s Artist of the RSFSR Anna Nikolaevna Shatilova,
👉 Honoured Artist of the RSFSR Dina Anatolyevna Grigorieva.
The unedited speech by Marshal Georgy Zhukov at the Victory Parade on June 24, 1945
As we told in the introduction to the black-and-white edition of the parade, Georgy Zhukov’s speech was “destalinised” during Hrushev’s era, removing all references to the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Army, Marshal of the Soviet Union Iosif Stalin. The reconstructed footage of the parade, presented a longer, un-redacted speech by Zhukov. We translated the speech, which was followed by performance of the Anthem of the USSR.
Backup at Rumble.
Still, this was not the complete recording of the speech, as we saw when studying the Russian transcript. We noticed omission of two very important fragments, important in these times when the West is rewriting the history of WWII!
Below is the complete translation of Georgy Zhukov’s speech, with the missing portions highlighted as quotation blocks.
Comrades of the Red Army and Red Navy, sergeants and petty officers, officers of the Army and Navy, generals and admirals!
Comrade workers, collective farmers, workers of science, technology and art, employees of the Soviet institutions and enterprises!
Comrades in arms!
On behalf and on the order of the Soviet government and the all-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks, I greet and congratulate you on your great Victory over the German imperialism.
Today, the capital of our Motherland, Moscow, on behalf of the Motherland, honours the valiant Soviet warriors, who won this victory.
Today, the victorious warriors pupils of the Stalinist military school, will carry through the streets of Moscow, and past the walls of the ancient Kremlin their battle banners inundated with the immortal glory of numerous victories.
Four years ago, the German-fascist hordes attacked our country like robbers. The Soviet people were forced to abandon peaceful labour and to take to the arms to defend the honour, freedom and independence of their Fatherland. The war with Nazi Germany — that insidious and powerful enemy — was a hard and formidable ordeal for us. As pointed out by comrade Stalin, it was a question of the life and death of the Soviet state, of the life and death of the peoples of the Soviet Union, of whether our peoples should be free or fall into enslavement.
At first, the course of the war was unfavourable for us. We suffered military setbacks, we had moments of desperation. The enemy was approaching the heart of our Motherland, Moscow, and was preparing to celebrate victory. At that time, not only our enemies, but also many of our friends abroad believed that the Red Army would not withstand the powerful onslaught of the German war machine. However, our Soviet people, our Red Army did not lose heart. Armed with Stalin’s brilliant foresight, inspired by the Lenin-Stalin party, we were firmly convinced of the victory of our just cause.
Defending every inch of their native land, showing in battle the wonders of heroism, the Soviet troops persistently learned to beat the enemy for sure, to beat according to all the rules of Stalinist military science. And they learned it. Having repulsed the onslaught of German troops, the Red Army, under the leadership of its brilliant commander Marshal Stalin, launched a decisive offensive, cleared the Soviet land of the enemy, transferred the war to Germany territory, completely defeated the Hitlerite army, and hoisted the Banner of Victory over Berlin. Thus, the vile German invaders shared the fate of all other invaders who encroached on our sacred Land. Having raised the sword against us, the Germans found death by our sword.
By the combined efforts of the great powers — the Soviet Union, the United States of America, and Great Britain — fascist Germany was reduced to dust. Its monstrous war machine is destroyed. The criminal Hitlerite government is destroyed. The hotbed of German-Fascist aggression in Europe has been eliminated. Humanity has been freed from its worst enemy, German fascism.
Today, everyone recognises that the Soviet Union played a major and decisive role in achieving the historic victory over Germany. For three years, the Red Army fought one-on-one against the armed forces of Germany and its satellites. Throughout the war, the main forces of the German army were chained to the Soviet-German front and were exterminated or captured by the Red Army there. On the Soviet-German front, the authority of German weapons was trampled on and the victorious outcome of the war in Europe was predetermined.
The war showed not only the heroic strength and unparalleled heroism of our army, but also the complete superiority of our strategy and tactics over those of the enemy. In the victorious outcome of the Patriotic War, we see the triumph of our advanced Stalinist military science.
In the Patriotic War, the Red Army honorably justified the great trust of the people. Her glorious soldiers honorably fulfilled their duty to the Motherland. The Red Army not only defended the freedom and independence of our Fatherland, but also delivered the peoples of Europe from the German yoke. From now on and forever, our victorious Red Army will go down in world history as a liberating army, wreathed in a halo of unfading glory.
The Patriotic Was is over. The Victory is achieved, such as history has never known before. The sources of this great Victory are our socialist system, the wise leadership of the Bolshevik party, the correct policy of the Soviet Government, the moral and political unity of the peoples of our country, the gigantic strength of the Red Army, and the valiant work of the Soviet people. We won because we were led to Victory by our great leader and brilliant commander Marshal of the Soviet Union, Stalin!
Comrades!
We won the victory over German imperialism at the cost of heavy sacrifices. Many of our fighting friends, the best sons and daughters of our people, died bravely in fierce battles with the enemy. For the sake of victory, they sacrificed the most precious thing on the altar of the Fatherland – their lives. Today, on the day of the great celebration, we will honour their sacred memory and say:
Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the battles for our Soviet Motherland!
After four years of fierce battles, we have entered a period of peaceful development. The Soviet state emerged even more powerful from the difficult war we had to wage, and the Red Army became the most advanced and powerful army in the world. But we, the Soviet people, should not become presumptuous and complacent. We need to further strengthen the military and economic power of our Motherland, tirelessly improve our combat skills, study the rich experience of the Patriotic War, and develop our Soviet military science.
Comrades!
Today will go down in history as a vivid demonstration of the strength and might of our state and its Armed Forces. There is no doubt that in the future our Red Army and our Navy will be the faithful guardian of our great conquests, ready always and everywhere to defend the state interests of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Long live our Victory!
Glory to the victorious warriors, who defended honour, freedom, and independence of our Motherland!
Glory to the great Soviet people, the victorious people!
Glory to the inspirer and organiser of our Victory — the great party of Lenin-Stalin!
Glory to our wise leader and commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union, the great Stalin!
Hurrah!
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