Eclipse: Russian Victory Day and the British Coronation Coincide
Soviet Victory Day in 1945 celebrated unity between Ukraine and Russia; now, the capitalist reincarnations of these countries tear each other apart while Britain's latest inbred adopts a bloody throne
78 years ago, on May 9th, 1945, victorious Soviet peoples jubilantly celebrated the Red Army’s triumph over the fascist invaders of their homeland. Barbarism incarnate, fascists on both the USSR’s eastern and western borders were hellbent on curbing the nation’s nascent experiment in Communism purely for the sake of cruelty and injustice. The euphoria of the Soviet people on Victory Day, accompanied with a poignant commemoration of the Red Army’s fallen soldiers, manifested in an emotional display of workers’ solidarity. The question is begged whether Soviet Victory Day—the culmination of the struggle between fascism and proletarian society—was so hallowed an event as to be humankind’s most noble ceremony to date.
In this very newsletter, a Russian comrade recounts: “Our ancestors laid down their lives for us, their children and grandchildren. So that we could live happily and avoid more wars and fascism. So that man could no longer exploit another man.”1
However, since the unwanted dissolution of the USSR in 1991, this sacrosanct commemoration has been perverted by the loathsome Russian bourgeoisie who misconstrue history and conceal the mechanisms of class war from the masses. The new, ersatz Victory Day has devolved from its original celebration of camaraderie and hope into a display of militarization and nationalism. In a disturbing but subtle distortion of history, the parades now discordantly juxtapose the Soviet banner that decorated the 1945 Reichstag with the flag of the capitalist Russian state, which upon adoption heralded a catastrophic collapse in the economic life of post-Soviet nations.2 As petty desire for conquest over territory and influence embroil the recently-capitalist Russian and Ukrainian states in reckless carnage, the last two years of parades have uniquely betrayed the true meaning of Victory Day. Once united against fascism and in building a revolutionary new society, Ukrainians and Russians are now massacring each other in the region’s latest episode of senseless bloodlust—and for what?
Putin cynically asserts his invasion is a last-ditch effort to de-nazify Ukraine, which admittedly does harbor Nazis in its government, military, and at-large. Simultaneously, however, comprehensive documentation implicates the Kremlin in attempting rightist coups in multiple European countries, disseminating far-right propaganda on the far reaches of the internet, and consciously abetting dangerous populists like Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump345. A favorite of Boris Yeltsin, Putin is no USSR-revivalist either, as he is wont to plead.6 To the contrary, he has spent a career unravelling the positive legacies of socialism in his country, including aggressively repealing workers’ rights and deregulating the economy.7 His specious claims of nostalgia for the USSR and enthusiasm for Communist symbolism (although his aversion to Communism occasionally erupts to the surface)8 are naught but a thin veneer of deception obscuring his extreme right-wing roots and providing him with just enough credibility to mislead audiences into accepting his stated intentions abroad.
In other such post-Soviet nations, a more headstrong approach to smothering history prevails, where the Soviet banner has been banished outright; including in Ukraine, where increasingly totalitarian measures have been executed to dismember the Left, such as banning the Ukrainian Communist Party totally.910 Unlike the Russian Federation’s flag, reminiscent of regression and exploitation, the Soviet flag stands unapologetically for the solidarity of international working people. People’s movements and political organizations all over the world fly variations of the Soviet flag as emblematic of their own struggles, transcending the hammer-and-sickle from its original intent to represent the cooperation between workers and peasants and into a broader clarion call for the unity of the world’s peoples altogether.11
Russia generally upholds Communist imagery as if it were simply a historical legacy of their unbroken past—leveraging the fond memory of many citizens of their Communist roots as a way to legitimize their regime despite the ferocious repudiation of those values in practice, just as the recent Victory Day parades demonstrate. The indirect, sophisticated, and inconspicuous nature of this approach to deception is likely superior to brute-force suppression; quashing expression or ideologies wholesale is unseemly, intimidating, and invites rage from the affected and curiosity from the apathetic. Our Russian comrades, then, must have a strength of vigilance equal in measure to the strength of Russian propaganda so as to not to allow Russian capitalists to redirect the narrative. The words of our Russian comrades continuing the fight for Communism in the home country showcase how oligarchs reshape Victory Day to their ends: “Russian privatizers do not like this truth . . . they rewrite [history] themselves, to serve their own class interests. Chatter about ‘protecting historical memory’ and ‘reconciliation’ is always a one-way game.”12
In an eerie twist of fate, this year’s contemptible mutilation of Victory Day coincides with the pompous coronation of the latest inbred colonizer to sit on the British throne—the septuagenarian Charles Windsor. A grisly relic from antiquity, the ancient class of royalty was even more oppressive and destructive a class than our own modern bourgeoisie. Charles’ royal peers throughout history, commonly themselves the products of incest and civil wars, were overthrown in revolutions across the world by disgruntled serfs who recognized nobility as the intolerable parasites they were and seized the revolutionary moments necessary to upend them.
The British ruling class has prosecuted the same mission in carefully propagandizing ceremony as their Russian ruling class allies. British successes in so doing are evidenced by the lamentable fact that monarchy, with its recurrent rituals, marriages, and tabloid drama enjoys the attention and approval of most Britons. Despite the coronation costing the struggling island nation an estimated $125 million of taxpayer money while Britain’s social services fall into disrepair, the vast majority of older Britons (81% over 65) continue to observe this holiday eagerly and wish for their indefinite subjugation by wrinkly, aloof aristocrats.1314 Critically, however—and encouragingly—Britain’s youth are snatching themselves from the clutches of stupor and are rejecting the monarchy in rapidly growing numbers: 18-24 year-olds are the only age group where a plurality prefers a republic to a monarchy.15 The British ruling class, noticing this trend, are increasingly echoing Ukraine's favored methods of cracking down on dissent by suppressing protest in broad daylight.16
Likewise, the Russian regime has fallen back on blatant crackdown where and when the holding power of Russian propaganda wanes, silencing political opposition and jailing or punishing thousands of anti-war protesters before resistance can gain traction.171819
Russians must resist falling prey to the same indoctrination British nobility have imposed on their miseducated people. However captivating a spectacle, Victory Day in Russia no longer promotes the values it did in 1945. In accordance with the U.K.’s youth, Russia’s youth indeed nurses the possibility of cleaving asunder their ruling class’s falsehoods and misdirection.
An Assessment of Putin’s Economic Policy, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2008. The PIIE is a staunchly capitalist American think tank associated with the Council on Foreign Relations, itself associated with the CIA. Its effusive praise of Putin’s economic liberalization is evidence enough of Putin’s right-wing programs.
Communists face rare crackdown in Russia, upending old balance, The Christian Science Monitor, 2021. The Christian Science Monitor is a right-wing publication viewers are advised to listen to with caution.
Poles apart: the bitter conflict over a nation’s communist history, The Guardian, 2018. This article clearly illustrates how the opposition to Communist symbology is spearheaded by fascists.
The flag of the Lao People’s Revolution Party is one of many obvious dopplegangers.
King Charles’ scaled-back coronation set to cost the UK up to $125 million, CNBC, 2023. Notice how CNBC, a center-right outlet, couches the cost in the most favorable language possible in the headline.
No War, OVD-info, 2022. compiles statistics on people arrested for protesting the war.