In advance of the 70th anniversary of the begin-ning of World War II, the Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation calls on the international community to assess in a fair and impartial manner the causes and consequences of that historical event.

World War II, which began on 1 September 1939, was the most terrible tragedy of the 20th century. It claimed dozens of millions of human lives. The memory of those people must remain pure and untainted by any possible distortion to suit political trends.

History has delivered its verdict: the leaders of Nazi Germany are the main perpetrators of that tragedy. The international military tribunal in Nuremberg classi-fied their actions to unleash the aggressive war as the gravest crime against humanity. The international com-munity recognized that sentence as final and irreversible.

World War II resulted from irreconcilable con-tradictions among a number of States, their egoistical ambitions and aggressive aspirations, which had been mounting since the early 1920s.

At the same time, it must be recalled that in pursuit of their own goals political forces ruling in cer-tain influential European States up until the very begin-ning of World War II hampered the establishment in Europe of an efficient collective security system, which back then was impossible without the USSR just as it is impossible without Russia now. Moscow‟s foreign pol-icy of the 1930s can be given various assessments – this is a matter of interpretation; but it is an undeniable fact that the USSR consistently advocated the establishment of an all-European system of mutual obligations and guarantees to prevent an all-out military conflict. Unfor-tunately, that position was not met with support from other States either when Hitler‟s Germany was unilater-ally dismantling the Versailles–Washington system of international relations that came into being after World War I, after the Anschluss of Austria or when to „appease‟ Hitler he was given the right to decide the fu-ture of Czechoslovakia, a sovereign European state.

World War II was not only a dreadful ordeal but also a lesson for the whole of humanity, which having survived that tragedy built in the aftermath of 1945 a system of international relations relying on the basic principles of democracy, mutual respect, renunciation of the use of force, which are at the heart of the UN and other international organizations.

However in advance of the sad anniversary in some European countries, including in those that fought on the side of Hitler‟s Germany, and in some interna-tional parliamentary bodies, active attempts have been made to review the real causes of World War II and to attribute equal responsibility for launching it to the USSR and Hitler‟s Germany and at the same time to acquit those who became Hitler‟s accomplices, commit-ted crimes on the territory of countries occupied by the Nazis and were defeated along with the Third Reich.

The Council of Federation of the Federal As-sembly of the Russian Federation firmly declares those attempts to be an open insult to our multiethnic people that paid the highest price for the hard-won peace. The moves to revise history pursue far-reaching political goals aimed at reviewing the outcome of World War II. As a result, they undermine the existing system of inter-national relations and constitute a source of new hotbeds of tension among European peoples and nations, which contradicts the key principles and interests of security and global stability.

The Council of Federation of the Federal As-sembly of the Russian Federation strongly denounces attempts to interpret historical facts in a tendentious manner used as a tool in today‟s struggle for influence in the world.

The Council of Federation of the Federal As-sembly hopes for understanding and support from those who care about the historical truth and the peaceful fu-ture of Europe and the whole world.

The Council of Federation
of the Federal Assembly
of the Russian Federation