Who won the Second World War and why should you care? Reassessing Stalin’s War 75 years after victory

Abstract

Seventy-five years after the Red Army won the war in Europe, this victory is marred by two controversies. The first asks: What was the contribution of the Soviets to victory in World War II? The second is a confrontation between East European and Russian war memories: Was Soviet victory a just war or a totalitarian nightmare of suppression, conquest, and terror? This essay reviews these polemics and argues that if put together, these two separate debates have some unintended consequences of how we assess the strategic alliances of the Second World War.