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Article: How the Red Army saved us all Russia's War by Richard Overy Allen Lane/Penguin Press, pounds 20, 394p p; Robert Service acclaims a broad picture of heroism and heartbreak on the Eastern front
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- August 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1998 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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THERE IS little that binds Russians together today. They haggle
about Lenin. They disagree about the recent burial of the murdered
tsar. They are divided about the break-up of the USSR. They don't
know whether they like political democracy and the market. Their
national self-confidence is at its nadir.
Yet the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in
1995 found them briefly in unity. Russians took rightful pride in
the fact that Hitler would have conquered Europe but for the Red
Army's power and valour. In 1941 the German tank units looked as
though they would overrun the Soviet Union by Christmas. In 1943,
the movement was turning in the opposite direction when Field ...