This rewriting of history is no accident - it is a deliberate strategy to consolidate US hegemony by downplaying Soviet military achievements and elevating American global influence, writes Gillian Schutte.
Image: IOL
By Gillian Schutte
The siege of Leningrad—872 days of relentless bombardment, starvation, and an unforgiving winter that turned the Neva River into a frozen tomb—remains one of history’s most haunting testaments to human endurance. From September 8, 1941, to January 27, 1944, the city stood as an unbroken fortress against Adolf Hitler’s war machine, resisting a Nazi stranglehold designed to starve it into submission. Cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union, Leningrad’s people faced a calculated campaign of annihilation. Supplies were severed, food rations dwindled to crumbs, and death crept through the streets in silence.
Each day brought new horrors—civilians collapsed from hunger, shells rained down on homes and hospitals, and the city’s frozen expanse became both a battlefield and a mass grave. Yet against all odds, the defenders of Leningrad held their ground. They endured not only to survive but to defy the German vision of their extinction. In the end they emerged victorious, breaking the siege and dealing the Third Reich one of its most devastating defeats. That legacy, once a cornerstone of Soviet pride, now stands at the heart of Russia’s struggle to reclaim its history from Western narratives that seek to erase or diminish the Soviet Union’s pivotal role in defeating fascism.
It is this struggle for historical truth that has led Russian President Vladimir Putin to declare 2025 The Year of the Defender of the Fatherland—an effort to resist ongoing attempts to rewrite Russia’s past. For Putin it is a necessary assertion of Russia’s sovereignty against forces that seek to erode its historical and geopolitical significance. His father, Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin, was among those who survived the blockade—a city that refused to fall. Now, as Western backed powers encroach on Russia’s borders and eradicate its contributions to the defeat of Nazism, Putin positions himself as a defender of historical truth, pushing back against an ideological war that mirrors the assault Leningrad once endured.
Joseph Stalin, who took power after Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924, oversaw the Soviet Union’s transformation into an industrialised socialist state. By the time Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the USSR had undergone mass collectivisation and militarisation in preparation for war. Stalin commanded the Soviet war effort, but the defence of Leningrad was led by commanders such as Marshal Georgil Zhukov and General Leonid Govorov. Nazi forces sought to exterminate the city’s population through starvation and relentless bombing, but the defenders held firm. Despite immense losses, the Red Army broke the blockade in January 1944, delivering one of the war’s most critical Soviet victories.
In the post-war years, Stalin’s wartime command was, to some extent, acknowledged by Western leaders. However, as the Cold War deepened, his role in defeating Nazism was overshadowed by an aggressive campaign to recast him solely as a tyrant. The sacrifices of millions of Soviet citizens were diminished in favour of a narrative that equated Soviet governance with oppression.
This distortion of history extended to Eastern European states liberated from Nazi occupation, where the Red Army, initially credited with freeing these nations, was later depicted as an occupying force. In Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and other Soviet aligned states, Western narratives shifted to portray Soviet influence as forced domination rather than liberation. In the Baltic states, incorporated into the Soviet Union, the Red Army’s return in 1944 was framed as reoccupation rather than the defeat of Nazi forces.
As this re-engineered narrative gained traction, the United States inserted itself into the storyline, positioning itself as the true architect of victory over Nazi Germany. Through films, literature, and official discourse, Washington promoted the idea that D-Day and the subsequent Western Front offensive in June 1944 were the defining moments of the war, overshadowing the Soviet Union’s pivotal role on the Eastern Front. The Red Army, which endured the brunt of the fighting and delivered devastating blows to Nazi Germany at Stalingrad, Kursk, and ultimately Berlin, was relegated to the background in Western retellings of history.
This rewriting of history was no accident. It was a deliberate strategy to consolidate US hegemony by downplaying Soviet military achievements and elevating American global influence as the defining force of the 20th century. In shaping cultural narratives, academic discourse, and media portrayals, the US positioned itself as the world’s ultimate liberator. This distortion of truth did more than deform history. It served a political function by justifying ongoing Western expansionism and ensuring that the Soviet Union’s immense sacrifices—and by extension, Russia’s historical legitimacy—were erased from the global consciousness.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, this rewriting of history accelerated. Russia, with its eroding superpower status, saw its role in shaping world history pushed further to the margins. Victory Day, once recognised globally as a defining moment in the war, was reframed in the West as a relic of Soviet propaganda rather than an acknowledgment of the Soviet contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany. Stalin was further vilified, his leadership in the war reduced to an authoritarian rule likened to that of Hitler.
The same pattern of revisionism now targets Vladimir Putin. In the West, his leadership is reduced to a single narrative of aggression and expansionism, mirroring how Stalin’s wartime leadership was later overshadowed by Cold War rhetoric. The complexities of Russia’s geopolitical position are ignored, and the historical grievances that led to its current confrontation with NATO are dismissed outright. Just as Stalin was cast as a villain to justify Western foreign policy objectives in the latter half of the 20th century, Putin is now framed as the sole antagonist of the modern era. His actions are decontextualised from history and placed in a vacuum of Western moral superiority.
The consequences of this rewriting of history have been felt most directly in Ukraine, where the struggle over identity and allegiance has played out both on the battlefield as well as through policy and historical misappropriation. In 2014, a Western-backed coup ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, paving the way for a government in Kyiv that swiftly aligned itself with NATO and the European Union. In eastern Ukraine, this shift deepened divisions and alienated Russian speaking communities in Luhansk and Donetsk. When these regions declared independence, Ukrainian forces responded with a violent crackdown. They launched airstrikes and artillery campaigns that devastated civilian areas. Thousands were killed, homes and infrastructure were destroyed, and entire populations were displaced. Soviet war memorials were dismantled, Russian language rights were curtailed, and legislation was passed honouring wartime collaborators who had fought alongside the Nazis.
By 2022, after eight years of escalating violence in the Donbas and NATO’s steady expansion, Russia launched a large-scale military operation in Ukraine. Moscow presented the intervention as a necessary step to protect Russian speaking communities and counter the resurgence of Nazism. It pointed to Western support for extremist factions and policies that marginalised ethnic Russians. For the Kremlin, this was both a regional conflict and a fight to stop NATO’s encroachment so as to prevent a repeat of history, where Russia once again faced a militarised adversary advancing toward its borders.
Western media, however, continues to present Russia’s military actions as unprovoked. They omit NATO’s role in stoking tensions. The steady supply of arms and intelligence to Ukraine, the training of its forces, and the economic war waged through sanctions are framed as defensive measures rather than direct participation. The United States and its allies have funnelled tens of billions of dollars into Ukraine, transforming it into a proxy battleground where the objective extends beyond aiding Kyiv. Weakening Russia as a geopolitical force remains a primary goal pursued through both military escalation and economic isolation.
Beyond Ukraine, the broader strategy is clear. Russia is one of the last major powers resisting US led unipolarity. It maintains alliances with China, Iran, and much of the Global South. Undermining Moscow serves multiple objectives. It curbs Russia’s influence over European energy markets, reinforces NATO’s dominance in Eastern Europe, and preserves Washington’s control over global financial and military structures. As the war continues, Russian speaking communities in the Donbas remain under relentless bombardment. They are deprived of essential services and treated as internal enemies.
The West insists that anti Soviet policies in Ukraine and Eastern Europe are about breaking ties with Soviet era rule. Yet removal of Soviet war memorials, the renaming of streets, and the rewriting of history reveals that more than the rejection of Soviet governance, it is an attempt to erase Russia’s role in shaping these nations.
The destruction of national remembrance extends far beyond Eastern Europe. The United States has applied similar methods in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and across Africa. Military interventions have dismantled cultural landmarks, rewritten national histories, and eliminated leaders who refused to submit to Western hegemony. Each war is framed as a campaign for “democracy”. Sovereign nations are destabilised, their resources seized, and their histories rewritten to align with Western geopolitical interests.
Russia refuses to let its history be erased. St. Petersburg, once Leningrad, remains a city that carries the weight of its past. Its monuments stand as defiant markers of the siege’s sacrifice. This is commemoration—but it is also an assertion of sovereignty and a refusal to let historical truth be subjugated to narratives that seek to control it.
* Gillian Schutte is a film-maker, and a well-known social justice and race-justice activist and public intellectual. Follow Gillian on X - @GillianSchutte1 and on Facebook - Gillian Schutte.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
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