-Analysis-
PARIS — It’s worth noting that this year Ukraine celebrated the World War II victory over Nazism on May 8, along with the rest of Europe, rather than on May 9, like the Soviet Union used to do and Russia does today. The original difference in date was due to the western and eastern time zones, but came to take on extra significance over the years as the geopolitical divide widened between Moscow and its former World War II allies.
Thus on Wednesday in Kyiv, Volodymyr Zelensky celebrated the victory of 1945, calling for the defeat of those he called "the new Nazis" — in other words, Russia.
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Vladimir Putin, for his part, is in Red Square on Thursday for a military parade in support of Russian troops engaged in Ukraine against those he too calls "Nazis."
This battle over memory reminds us of how World War II has shaped our political vision of the world. For decades, this conflict embodied the unmitigated struggle between good and evil, even if it required the liberal democracies to join forces with the Communist tyrant Joseph Stalin in the fight against Hitler.
While this shared perception of history survived the ups and downs of the Cold War, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is testing its limits.
We will have an even greater test of this memory in less than a month: on June 6, for the 80th anniversary of the 1944 Allied landing in Normandy. U.S. President Joe Biden will be there, as will German Chancellor Olaf Scholz... but what about Russia, whose role was decisive in the victory over the Nazis?
A D-Day snub
France has decided not to invite Putin himself, citing the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for the Russian president. Yet, Paris wants to welcome Russia to the ceremony, as an ally against Nazism. Whether Moscow will send a representative despite this affront to Putin remains to be seen.
The foundation of the "victors of 1945" helped to maintain a semblance of global governance:
For a long time, this foundation of the "victors of 1945" helped to maintain a semblance of global governance: the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the organization born of the "never again" of the immediate post-War period.
This formulation no longer works, for multiple reasons.
China and Global South
That was the international order that represented the balance of power in the world of 1945, with its colonial empires depriving two-thirds of humanity of representation. On May 8, 1945, as the Nazis capitulated, several thousand people were killed in Sétif, in French Algeria, in a foreshadowing of the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962).
Of course, 1945 also was the start of the Cold War, with its Iron Curtain running through the heart of Europe, the Korean War from 1950 onwards, and decades of a world divided into two blocs.
The world of 2024 is certainly more complex, but just as divided as after that brief moment of euphoria in 1945. The war in Ukraine is the most tragic symbol of this, but the emergence of China and the so-called "Global South" marks a world with balances tilting in new ways.
As we commemorate the victory over Nazism, it’s worth some extra reflection on this new world — troubled, fractured and ripe to be reorganized, just as it was in 1945.