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The myth of the Great Patriotic War, including the role of the USSR in the origins of World War II, continues to be a key element in the national identity of the Russian people. Previously, Soviet authorities mandated a narrative depicting the Soviet Union sincerely and unambiguously working for peace and against Nazi expansionism in the prewar years. This interpretation criticized the Western Powers for their alleged complicity in Hitler's aggression. After the collapse of the USSR, several competing views have appeared. The Putin and Medvedev administrations, as well as the popular "national-patriotic" school, maintain much of the former Soviet interpretation. Other Russian historians, many of them politically liberal, indict Stalin for mishandling the prewar crisis or even for promoting the onset of war for imperialistic or revolutionary purposes.
The myth of the Great Patriotic War was the most important component in defining the identity of the Soviet peoples after 1945. While some scholars have argued that the cult of World War II was cynically manufactured by the communist regime for its own propagandistic purposes, other researchers maintain that the war was a transformative experience for the Russian people and that the memory of that ordeal continues to be bound closely with their national self-conception.1 The collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, together with the economic and political turmoil that ensued, necessitated the revision of the Russian people's understanding of themselves and their nation. Not surprisingly, the postcommunist rulers of the new Russian Federation and the Russian people themselves are anxious to construct a new national narrative that will give meaning to their collective experience and guide the development of their polity and society.2 Reinterpreting the nature and meaning of Russia's experience in World War II is central to that enterprise. This article surveys the efforts of contemporary Russian historians, now free of Soviet-era restraints, to accomplish one critical component of that task-interpreting the role of Russia in the origins of World War II.3
The official soviet interpretation
From the mid-1920s to 1987 Soviet historians were required to conform their work to the principle of partiinost' or "party-mindedness." They were viewed by the regime as warriors on the ideological front, soldiers in the campaign to build communism. After the Stalin...