On Red Square, parade in memory of the "legendary parade" of 1941

Moscow (AFP)

Nearly 4,000 soldiers marched Thursday in Red Square in memory of the parade of November 7, 1941, when Soviet troops passed the Kremlin before going directly to the front to defend Moscow against the Nazis.

Officer and soldier pupils, most of whom wore uniforms and period weapons, followed one another to the rhythm of a military band and patriotic songs. About thirty vehicles used during the conflict, including the famous T-34 tanks, also participated in the parade.

"Our duty is to continue the work of the victors: to build a great country," Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a speech celebrating "a legendary parade".

"The descendants of the war heroes are now in front of the Kremlin, and we know that the future of Russia is in strong hands," said the ally of President Vladimir Putin.

After the German invasion of June 22, 1941, which caught Soviet leader Joseph Stalin unprepared in 1939 with a non-aggression pact with the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the troops of the Third Reich arrived in early November 1941 until thirty kilometers from Moscow.

Stalin then ordered that nearly 30,000 Soviet soldiers go directly to the front from Red Square, following the parade on 7 November celebrating the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

The Red Army managed to repel the German forces in the winter of 1941, before winning the vital battle of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in 1942-1943, which paved the way for the final victory of the USSR and its allies against Hitler in May 1945.

"What is the love of the fatherland? It is of course the historical memory, otherwise there will be no great future," Irina Bobakova, a psychologist at the parade, told AFP on Thursday. and whose grandfather was killed in October 1941 during the fighting for Moscow.

Organized since 2000, the year Putin came to power, this annual parade is one of the most lavish events held by the Russian authorities to celebrate the greatness of the country and the Soviet victory over the Nazis.

Researchers and opposition activists nonetheless accuse this patriotic policy of encouraging a rewrite of history that ignores the crimes and errors committed during the USSR.

© 2019 AFP