Who has won?

Germans do not move to Moscow

Berlin, small shop. I do not speak German and I ask if I can speak English? You can also in Russian, they answer me.

Who won the biggest war in world history? And what, they will answer you on TV, is it not clear to someone? Red flag over the Reichstag, complete and unconditional surrender, Nuremberg, a protectorate over half of Europe. Do you need to prove something else? By the way, we can repeat.

It's all true, but it's not that simple. The answer to the question about the winner depends on when we ask it. Hitler, for example, after the fall of Paris, it seemed that he had won. It was only later that he realized how wrong he was. And we, I remember, were taught "the complete and final victory of socialism." Where is she, that victory?

And in general, what is the victory? In capturing the enemy capital?

During the first war in Iraq, the Americans did not take Baghdad, but they won. In the course of the second, they took it, but, looking at what is happening in Iraq, it is difficult to answer the question about the winner. Yes, and Napoleon was in Moscow.

There is an easier question - who lost? In that war - Hitler, Mussolini and others. Their ideology, their crazy ambitions. Almost 75 years have passed, but no one arranges memorials to their memory, their ideas are a haven for outcasts and criminals. True, in Italy, not everything is simple - Mussolini's descendants are in parliament, and tourists buy his busts. Not Stalin in Russia, of course, but still. But Mussolini was not such a beast as Hitler. And yet, they - the Nazis, the fascists - lost.

Hitler could not win - he could only hold out longer and kill even more people. But his victory was impossible simply because his goals were unattainable. If it weren’t for the cruelty of the Versailles Treaty, if it weren’t for the narrow-mindedness of the then leaders of France and Great Britain, if it weren’t for Stalin, who didn’t allow an alliance of communists and social democrats, he would not have come to power, and the war might have been avoided, despite aggressiveness of the USSR. But having won Germany, Hitler began to demand not just the denunciation of Versailles, but the whole world - concessions, compromises became impossible. The last attempt - Munich - failed.

What was that war for? Of course, for the expulsion of the invaders, for the destruction of those who brought people so much grief, for depriving their comrades-in-arms of the opportunity to repeat something like that. And in this endeavor, the Soviet Union and the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition were together. But the war was also for freedom, for the triumph of those principles that were formulated in the Gospel, and in the Magna Carta, and in the Declaration of Independence. And against those who wanted to force all of humanity to march in formation. And here our country was on the other side.

Not without reason in the initial period of World War II, we were not opponents of Hitler.

Another war, the war for freedom, is not over, and the coalitions have regrouped. Germany and Japan are now together with former enemies with whom they have made eternal peace. And not because the governments wanted it that way, but because the people decided it that way. The Germans and Japanese no longer believe in the nonsense that many of them, alas, believed then. And it's not that they fell in love with the Americans or the French - no one, in general, loves anyone. And how can you love, in general, Americans or someone else? They are different. They don't like it, of course, but they want to live not in accordance with some paranoid ideas, but like everyone else, it's normal. And in this, and not only in the Acts of Surrender and in military bases on the territory of former enemies, the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition.

We are for traditional values, for a special way, for there to be a leader and we are all around him and against everyone.

For the very system, for seeing the chest of the fourth from the right! And we are alone. If, God forbid, the war goes from a cold phase to a hot one, and this cannot be ruled out, no one will join us. Yes, we won then - this is our flag over the defeated Berlin. But after? They haven't lost yet, but they haven't won either.

We are not attractive. Having won with terrible bloodshed in those battles, we not only failed to maintain geopolitical success - our former vassals are now in NATO, but lost moral capital, did not become a model for others. Nobody wants to live like us, nobody wants to imitate us, except sometimes in anti-Americanism. Former younger brothers are switching to the Latin alphabet, on the streets of once conquered cities, even without showing hostility to us, they are more willing to speak English to us than Russian, although they have been learning our language for several decades. And the number of Russian-speaking people around the world is steadily declining. We can only be proud of the monstrous losses, feed all sorts of Marine Le Pen, cling to the remnants of Yalta, and for a decade, arranging endless parades, spend time in memories of past greatness.

But propaganda doesn't work. Yes, people from time immemorial and not only here, but everywhere, easily believe in primitive tales about the war - "about grateful sharks, about radiant barracks and about rainbow cholera camps." Our fellow citizens willingly write stupid slogans on their German cars and even dress up children in khakis. But they leave to live in Berlin, in the very city that their ancestors once took with a fight. And in today's Berlin, Russian speech is heard everywhere - the speech of people who left for a seemingly defeated country for a better life. The Germans do not move to Moscow.

So who won and who lost?