The phenomenon of the falsification of World War II history based on the example of Western political discourse in 2023–2025: an integral historical-philosophical study.

Koksharov Dmitrii Aleksandrovich independent researcher 27 Universitetskaya St., Kherson, 273003, Russia, Kherson region kokscharow@yandex.ru

Introduction

The relevance of the article is due to the year-on-year distortion of the memory of the Second World War (for political and ideological reasons or due to ignorance and misunderstanding), which is why each new generation is faced with an increasing number of diverse pseudo-historical narratives that complicate the possibility of preserving accurate information about the past in individual and public consciousness and preventing falsification of history. From a historical perspective, the subject of the article is the multiplying distortion of the history of the Second World War in anti-Soviet and anti-Russian terms in modern Western political discourse, expressed in speeches and texts by Western politicians from 2023 to 2025, persistently subjecting the history of that period to distortion contrary to firmly established facts. From a philosophical perspective, the subject of the article is to identify the causes of the phenomenon of falsification of history and to find effective ways to prevent its distortion. The purpose of the article is a philosophical and historical debunking of the myths about World War II imposed by America and Europe for many decades, which seek to portray the Soviet Union as the culprit of the outbreak of war or to neutralize its role in the victory over Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan. The novelty of the article lies in the coverage of Western anti-Soviet and anti-Russian political statements from 2023 to 2025, distorting the history of the Second World War, through the search for causes and forecasting the consequences of falsification of history based on the proposed methodology of holistic cognition. The article concludes that it is necessary to strengthen and improve Russian historical scientific and educational standards, as well as the need for worldwide broadcasting of truthful historical narratives based on a comprehensive and holistic knowledge of history in order to prevent future tragedies like the Second World War: the development and implementation of a comprehensive and holistic methodology for understanding history will effectively combat historical falsifications.. The article is addressed to scientists, teachers, teachers, graduate students, students and schoolchildren, as well as to everyone who cares about historical truth and ways to preserve it.

The phenomenon of falsification of history

The phenomenon of falsification of history has been known for a long time. The understanding that incomplete and limited historical information can lead researchers to inaccurate and erroneous conclusions is the backbone of the theory and methodology of historical science ^[27]. However, in addition to the natural causes of the incompleteness of historical knowledge in socio-political processes, man-made factors often come to the fore, deliberately distorting history and generating historical myths that deform knowledge about the past ^[20]. The very phenomenon of falsification of historical sources is international ^[10], and careful criticism of historical monuments in order to identify the originals and cut off fakes is carried out by source studies ^[19]. Nevertheless, being colored by national, political or ideological motives, the distortion of history almost always becomes a tool for manipulating individual and public consciousness. An example of such manipulation is the persistent attempts of Western countries for many decades to rewrite the history of the Second World War, as one of the most important world events of the past, in a favorable light for themselves. For Russian society in particular and the societies of the post-Soviet republics in general, this issue is particularly acute, since the countries of the former USSR are directly related to the Second World War, part of which for the Soviet Union was the Great Patriotic War, which left an indelible mark in the national memory. To undermine this memory and rewrite history, Western politicians and ideologues systematically promote their own narratives.

The main narratives of the West regarding the Second World War

European and American politicians and ideologists treat the facts of history and historical truth lightly, make various public statements and statements about the origins, course and outcome of the Second World War, trying to mislead the whole world and justify their own aggressive foreign policy ^[1]. This became especially acute in 2022 in the outspoken anti-Russian rhetoric and policies of Western countries after Russia launched a special military operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine, which inherited the Nazism of the Third Reich ^[4]. Western sponsors of the current Russophobic Ukraine, who want Russia to be strategically defeated ^[5], due to their desire to maximize and strengthen the influence of Western civilization on the whole world, seize the resources of other countries and total control on Earth ^[33], including Russia ^[13], today it is very beneficial to distort the history of the Second World War in an anti-Soviet and anti-Russian way.

The main narratives promoted by politicians and ideologists of Western countries about the Second World War in relation to the USSR, and thereby Russia, which is the legal successor of the Soviet Union ^[11], are currently as follows:

1. Comparison or identification of the policy of Soviet communism with the policy of Hitler's Nazism, despite the disparity of these political regimes ^{[6, 8, 9, 16]}.

2. Accusing the USSR along with Nazi Germany of unleashing World War II ^{[16, 17, 19]}, whereas it was Germany and Poland that divided Czechoslovakia back in 1938, while the Soviet Union tried to prevent the brewing war in Europe until the last moment ^{[15, 25]}, and the USA, Great Britain Before the outbreak of World War II, France itself encouraged or sponsored the Hitler regime, contributing to its escalation ^{[24, 9]}.

3. Denial or extreme understatement of the decisive contribution of the USSR to the victory in World War II and/or significant exaggeration of the role of Western countries in this (primarily the United States and Great Britain) ^{[1, 25]}.

4. Distortion of data on the number (downward) and results (downward) of the decisive battles of the Red Army that turned the course of World War II ^{[17, 18]}.

5. Disregard for the colossal number of human and economic losses on the part of the Soviet Union ^{[7, 23, 34, 9]}.

6. Substitution of the concept of "liberation" for the concept of "occupation" when describing the Red Army's military campaign in Europe in order to defeat Nazism ^[3].

7. Denigrating the image of Soviet soldiers in spite of the facts about the mass heroism and self-sacrifice of the Red Army soldiers during the liberation of Europe, as well as justifying or glorifying Soviet traitors and defectors ^[32].

Taking into account these trends, let's consider the most striking speeches of Western politicians in 2023-2025 on the subject of distorting the history of the Second World War in relation to the role of the Soviet Union.

Falsification of the history of the Second World War in Modern Western Political discourse

To illustrate the modern political falsification of the history of World War II, we can cite materials from the official website of the US Department of Defense, which has been led by Lloyd Austin since 2021 ^[40], and led by Pete Hegseth since 2025 ^[37]. So, on the page dedicated to Victory Day in Europe on May 8, 1945, there is not a single mention of the contribution of the Soviet Union to the defeat of Nazi Germany. Germany, as noted there, capitulated on May 7, 1945 to "allies, including the United States." Moreover, on the same page, the USSR (along with Nazi Germany) is accused of unleashing the Second World War, which allegedly began simply with the partition of Poland in 1939 without any preconditions. There is not a word about the already mentioned division of Czechoslovakia by the forces of Germany and Poland, which took place in 1938, as well as about the aggressive actions of Germany in the form of the annexation of Austria at the beginning of the same year. France is represented on that page as having "borne the brunt of the fighting," and the Soviet Union as having celebrated "its" Victory Day on May 9th. Finally, a one-sided and biased ideological assessment of the life of post-war Europe is given: "The territories of Western Europe liberated by the Allied forces became prosperous democracies, while the territories liberated in the East were occupied by Soviet troops for decades" ^[46].

Next, visitors to the website of the US Department of Defense are invited to take a test on the topic: "What do you know about Victory Day and World War II?" The test consists of four questions on topics unrelated to the significant moments of that period.:

"1. Who announced the end of the war in London? 2. Which US president celebrated his birthday on Victory Day? 3. How many American soldiers participated in World War II? 4. Formally, the Second World War did not end because Russia and Japan did not sign a peace treaty to settle the dispute over which island(s)?" ^[45].

The emphasis on the fact that Russia (along with militaristic Japan) is exposed as one of those who did not sign the peace treaty, and — with this presentation of information — looks like the culprit of the formal incompleteness of the Second World War. Despite the fact that it was the Soviet Union (and Russia as its most important part) that made the main contribution to the defeat and surrender of militaristic Japan, which ended World War II on September 2, 1945 ^{[26, 31]}. It is also not mentioned on the website page that the United States of America is responsible for the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

As a result, after reviewing the materials of the official website of the US Department of Defense, a visitor inexperienced in history has a completely wrong idea about the origins, course and outcome of the Second World War: the United States and its allies allegedly played a key role in the victory over Germany and Japan, the USSR had nothing to do with it, or even was guilty of unleashing or formal incompleteness. The Second World War.

Another example of shameless distortion of history is the speech of the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at the G7 summit held in Hiroshima from May 19 to 21, 2023 ^[36], in which she hinted that it was Russia that dropped atomic bombs on Japan during World War II: "Many of them Your relatives died when the atomic bomb leveled Hiroshima. You grew up listening to the stories of survivors and wanted us to heed the same stories, face the past and learn something about the future. It was a sobering start for the G7, which I will never forget, especially at a time when Russia is threatening to use nuclear weapons again. It's disgusting, it's dangerous, and in the shadow of Hiroshima, it's unforgivable."^[39] Ursula von der Leyen did not mention that the United States carried out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with a mass of civilians, on August 6 and 9, 1945.

On the official website of the European Commission, in the explanations to the speech of its chairman on the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27, 2024, it is reported: "On January 27, 1945, the Allied forces liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp" ^[41]. It was not reported that the Red Army had released the prisoners of this concentration camp. In the media, the distortion of this historical fact was presented as the speech of von der Leyen herself ^[2]. A thorough search for the official transcript of her speech with these exact words, however, did not yield results (perhaps von der Leyen's speech was erased or not published at all on the official web resources of the European Commission), however, the very fact that the reaction to this speech took place both in Europe and in Russia indirectly confirms that these words were probably spoken by her. So, on the same day, January 27, 2024, Glenn Disen, a lecturer at the University of Southeastern Norway, reasonably commented on the distortion of the fact about the liberators on his page on the social network "X": "Some kind of bold historical revisionism on the part of the EU. The Soviet Union was part of the Allied forces, but it was the Red Army that liberated Auschwitz."^[44] Russian Senator Alexei Pushkov, in his Telegram channel, in turn, wrote the next day, January 28, 2024, that European politicians "really want to pretend that the Soviet Union had nothing to do with it, and the Red Banner was not hoisted over the Reichstag" ^[22].

Former Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, in a speech at the American Cemetery in France on June 6, 2023, dedicated to the 79th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, did not mention at all that the Soviet Union had participated in World War II in any way, appreciating the contribution of only the veterans present to the victory over Nazism ^[42]. He also did not mention that at the time when the Allied forces were landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944 during Operation Overlord, the Soviet troops were pulling back the main enemy forces in the east.

A distortion of the history of one of the episodes of the Second World War came from the mouth of the previous US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who on September 23, 2023, wrote on his page on the social network "X": "Eighty-two years ago, the Nazis killed 34,000 Jews in Babi Yar. The Soviet authorities buried this story, which is now being manipulated by the Putin government to cover up Russia's abuses in Ukraine. The United States strives to achieve justice for the survivors of the Holocaust and to hold accountable for the atrocities"^[35]. At the same time, both in the USSR and in post-Soviet Russia, the Nazi atrocities in Babyn Yar were not hushed up, but, on the contrary, were and have been the subject of scientific and political attention for many decades. Blinken's words provoked a reasonable reaction from the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, who on September 30, 2023, raised objections corresponding to historical reality on her official Telegram channel: "The most egregious lie of the American Secretary of State is contained in the phrase monstrous in its ignorance and cynicism: "The Soviets buried (meaning they hushed up) this story.".. No other country in the world has so consistently blamed National Socialism for the crimes of the Holocaust as the Soviet Union. Already in March 1945, even before the Victory, a resolution was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR and the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)Decree No. 378 “On the construction of a monumental monument on the site of Babyn Yar”, according to which work began on the creation of a park and the installation of a monument at the burial site of the victims of the Nazi occupiers. It was opened on July 2, 1976 on the territory later named the Babyn Yar National Historical and Memorial Reserve in Kiev" ^[14].

No less characteristic are the words of the previous US President Joe Biden at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day on May 27, 2024, where, speaking about the victory over fascism in World War II, he said that "representatives of the "greatest generation" who 80 years ago... they landed on the beaches of Normandy, liberated the continent and literally saved the world" ^[43]. The fact that the Soviet Union made a decisive contribution to saving the world from fascism, as well as took on most of the blows from Nazi Germany, was not affected by the former American president.

Finally, the statement of the newly elected US President Donald Trump on the Truth Social social network on January 22, 2025 that "Russia helped us win World War II" ^[38] is also significant, because in reality, the United States helped the Soviet Union (and mainly under Lend-Lease) defeat Germany, and then not at once.

Historical and political conclusions

From our point of view, these examples of undermining the historical truth about the Second World War are seen as beneficial for modern Western politicians and ideologues seeking to inflict economic, political and informational damage on Russia. Firstly, the falsification of history allows Western countries to present themselves as the only victorious heroes, thereby elevating themselves in their own eyes and in the eyes of the rest of the world (overshadowing the truth that, having surrendered to Hitler, almost the whole of Europe fought under his banners against the Soviet Union), and to present the Soviet Union as a secondary ally, or even He was the instigator of the war (along with Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan). Secondly, Western propaganda of historical disinformation harms Russia's image and status in the international arena, weakens the faith in it of those who do not know history well, and is a ground for destabilizing the domestic political situation in the country, which is convenient for Western intervention plans. Thirdly, the information war against Russia and other post-Soviet countries regarding the distortion of the historical memory of Victory that unites them contributes to the creation of tension between them, exacerbates their confrontation and weakens them, which, in turn, opens the way for Western countries to seize the resources of the post-Soviet republics, economic and political control over them, as well as cultural expansion. in the post-Soviet space through the introduction of Western meanings, attitudes and values. Fourthly, widespread misinformation by Western politicians and ideologists in terms of belittling the role of the Soviet Union in winning World War II, with insufficient opposition from Russia and other post-Soviet republics to historically unreliable narratives, ideologically consolidates Western countries in an anti-Russian manner and inspires them to further strengthen their international positions, which inevitably leads to an increase in economic growth. political and cultural pressure on Russia, including direct or indirect military confrontation, which is clearly demonstrated by the events of recent years.

In our opinion, the spread of misconceptions about the Second World War in the world should be countered by the scientific community, the political leadership and the cultural community of Russia with the most accurate and complete knowledge of historical facts and events, the active creation and promotion of the most reliable and holistic historical narratives confirming the truth about the dominant contribution of the Soviet Union to the victory over Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan during the Second World War. The Second World War and the real role of Western countries in it. In addition, it is important to continue and develop the intensive dissemination of this knowledge not only within Russia (primarily in higher and secondary public and private educational institutions, at cultural events, in the media and media space) in order to strengthen historical memory, self-awareness and pride of citizens, but also around the world (through the broadcast of reliable information historical information through scientific, educational, cultural, diplomatic and media channels) in order to demonstrate to the world community that Russia is ready to defend the historical truth and follow its moral obligations to counter Nazism and xenophobia in the world. This is required, firstly, for the triumph of historical truth, secondly, for the illumination and commemoration of the exploits of those who played a decisive role in saving the world from evil, thirdly, for the continuity and preservation of historical memory during the generational change, and fourthly, for the inspiration of the commonwealth of States of the world (before in total, represented by the United Nations) to counteract the revival and spread of Nazi and chauvinist tendencies in international politics in the present and future, in order to prevent a repeat of a tragedy like the Second World War on Earth.

Historical and philosophical conclusions

One way or another, Russia conducts educational work to highlight the truth about the Second World War in scientific, educational, cultural, political and legal aspects ^{[28, 12]}. However, from decade to decade, politicians and ideologists in Western countries persist in their attempts to falsify and rewrite the history of the Second World War. This means that this problem has not been solved, but is being reproduced over and over again, but in new forms and conditions. Given that the memory of the past tends to deform naturally in the human mind as we move away from it, the artificial deformation caused by the deliberate falsification of history exacerbates the problem. This means that in order to truly solve it, it is necessary, firstly, to uncover the roots of the phenomenon of historical falsifications as fully as possible, and secondly, to develop effective mechanisms to counter them in the self-consciousness of Russian and world society. From our point of view, representatives of the humanities, especially history, should primarily be engaged in recognizing and uncovering the roots of the phenomenon of historical distortion by focusing on integral or integral knowledge. After all, misconceptions and lies, including with regard to the events of the Second World War, usually arise either as a result of narrowing the field of view in the field under consideration and reducing versatile and integral knowledge to a limited and one-sided interpretation, i.e. due to reductionism ^[29], or as a result of deliberate silence and concealment of facts ^[3], which In essence, it is also a reductionist narrowing and simplification. The state will should politically promote holistic humanitarian developments morally and financially, since the spiritual foundation of society, the stability of the state and the preservation of culture in the course of time depend on the quality and orientation of the humanities. Thus, promising areas in the field of combating the falsification of history, including the history of the Second World War, are proposed to put forward integrally or holistically oriented areas of research in history and philosophy while harmoniously consolidating methods of acquiring and developing integral knowledge in the individual, society and culture. It is proposed to use the existing developments in the field of philosophy and methodology of integral knowledge, existing both on Russian soil (mainly in the form of Vladimir Solovyov's philosophy of unity) and in the West (mainly in the form of Ken Wilber's integral approach), as a basis for the development of these studies and methods. Holistic or integral philosophy and methodology of cognition, including the knowledge of history, provide philosophical and scientific tools that allow researchers to cover many facets of reality, and ensure that mistakes associated with reductionist one-sidedness, bias and narrow-mindedness are minimized. In the key of historical research, a holistic or integral methodological approach examines the historical process from the standpoint of feeling, thinking and volition inherent in its participants and their forms of being, extrapolated simultaneously into subjective inner experience, objective reasonable knowledge and collective social activity ^[21]. This approach allows us to see the historical process based on the perspectives of I, WE and IT/THEY, covering both the subjective states of the researcher himself and the person he studies in history, as well as objective phenomena and processes involving humanity and the environment, to which both social structures and the natural world belong ^[30]. In this sense, the methodology of holistic or integral history is able to include all the trends, schools and approaches in historical science that have developed to date. It is logical that thanks to such tools, the level of prevention of falsification of history and ways to combat it among both professional historians and other conscientious researchers can increase many times.

Conclusion

Based on the consideration of the phenomenon of falsification of history in general and distorted narratives about the origins, course and outcome of the Second World War, captured in speeches and texts of Western politicians for 2023-2025, in particular, the article draws historical and political conclusions: Russia to protect the memory of the decisive contribution of the Soviet Union to the victory over chauvinistic Germany and Japan in the Second World War It is necessary to comprehensively develop and promote a holistic or integral methodology of historical knowledge and to broadcast narratives based on this methodology both within Russian society and on the world stage through scientific, educational, cultural, media and diplomatic channels. The article also draws historical and philosophical conclusions: in order to prevent historical falsification and to create immunity to it both in science (primarily among the humanities) and in the cultural, socio-political field, careful theoretical development and integration into practice of a holistic or integral methodology of cognition, based on which it is proposed take unifying approaches to the holistic understanding of reality, developed both at home (mainly in the person of Vladimir Solovyov, the founder of the philosophy of unity) and abroad (mainly in the person of Ken Wheeler, the founder of the integral approach).