75th Anniversary of Victory: How Russian Laws Protect Veterans and Prevent History Falsification

A wide legislative framework regulates the social security of the participants of the war and home front workers, patriotic education of the youth and prevents the history falsification.

The Federal Laws on Veterans, on State Social Assistance, on State Pensions in the Russian Federation, as well as a number of the Presidential decrees provide for the measures of the social security, monetary payments, housing provision, compensation of payments for housing and municipal services, health care services, provision of medicines etc. Nowadays, these laws apply to 821,000 veterans, including 60,800 disabled persons and participants of the Great Patriotic War. The patriotic education is regulated by the Federal Laws on Military Duty and Military Service, on Education in the Russian Federation, on Physical Culture and Sport in the Russian Federation, on Non-Commercial Organizations.

In recent years, the campaign to falsify the war history has gained momentum. It started during the collapse of the Soviet Union and is aimed at accusing the USSR of starting the war and recognizing the fallacy of the position of the Western countries, which supported the Soviet Union. The guilt for the Leningrad siege is blasphemously attributed not to the Nazi army, but those who refused to surrender the city to the enemy.

The greatest eagerness to falsify the history is shown by Poland and the Baltic countries. In the meanwhile, the recently published documents confirm that more than half a million soldiers of the Red Army died and 1,5 million soldiers were wounded during only the liberation of Warsaw.

In the recent years the illegal actions towards the military graves of the Soviet soldiers abroad have intensified. The acts of vandalism and defacement of the monuments have taken place in Ukraine, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, Estonia, Latvia and other countries.

The CIS peoples should unite their efforts to defend the historical truth and the glory of their heroic compatriots against the attempts to rewrite the history and place on the same footing the aggressor and the winner, the Soviet Union. The legislation should contribute to it.

The federal laws on the Perpetuation of the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 and on Countering Extremist Activity prohibit the use of Nazi symbols and similar images as insulting the memory of the war victims. 

The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation establishes criminal liability for public denial of the facts fixed in the sentence of the International Military Tribunal regarding the main military criminals of the countries of the axis as well as for the approval of the crimes listed in the sentence and for dissemination of false information on the activity of the USSR during the Second World War. These laws implement the provisions of the model laws of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly on Lasting Tribute to the Defenders of the Nation and on Cultivating Patriotic Element adopted in 2015, as well as the Recommendations on Improvement of the National Legislation of the CSTO Member Nations in the Field of Countering the Spread of Nazism and its Manifestations adopted by the PA CSTO in 2019.

The will of the CIS and other peoples, its faithfulness to the memory of the Great Victory is best manifested in the procession of the “Immortal Regiment”. In 2019 the processions took place in 123 countries, millions of people participated in the marches.

The CIS parliamentarians contribute to the preparation to the Victory anniversary and countering the falsification of history on different international platforms. In January 2020, at the PACE session, on the initiative of the members of the State Duma, members of the faction of the left, the Declaration on Condemnation of Attempts at Second World War Revisionism.