The people of Kyrgyzstan will never forget Victory Day, May 9, 1945
Time has no power over the memory of the people. They will never forget Victory Day, May 9, 1945 — the greatest historical date. On this momentous day, the artillery salvos of the Moscow salute from a thousand guns announced to the peoples of the entire planet the end of the bloody war in Europe, the complete and crushing defeat of fascist Germany by the Soviet people and its valiant Armed Forces, and its unconditional surrender.
Forty years have passed since then. And the further we move away from the events of those harsh and heroic days, the clearer and fuller the greatness and significance of the feat accomplished by the Soviet people in defense of the conquests of socialism becomes, the more vividly we imagine and deeply comprehend the practical experience of these great achievements.
The war imposed on the Soviet Union by German fascism from 1941 to 1945 was the most difficult of all wars ever experienced by our Motherland, a gigantic armed confrontation between the world's first socialist state and the striking forces of world imperialism. It was a test of the strength and viability of the Soviet social and state system, its economic and moral-political potential, and the military might of the country's armed forces.
The Soviet people and their Armed Forces, closely united around the Communist Party, "defended the freedom and independence of the socialist Motherland," states the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the 40th Anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945," "and protected the cause of October. They made a decisive contribution to the Victory over fascist Germany and its allies, to the liberation of the peoples of Europe from fascist slavery, to the salvation of world civilization, and honorably fulfilled their patriotic and international duty. This is their greatest merit before humanity."
Pravda, June 17, 1984.
The victory in the past war vividly demonstrated the enormous material and spiritual values possessed by the Soviet people, that there are no forces in the world that could stop the development of history, or turn back the mighty flow of fundamental renewal initiated by the Great October.
The workers of the Kyrgyz SSR, united with all the fraternal Soviet peoples, made their significant contribution to the world-historical victory in the Great Patriotic War. In the military feats on the battlefields, in partisan detachments, and in selfless labor in the Soviet rear, a sense of responsibility for the fate of the Motherland, ideological conviction in the righteousness of the cause, cohesion around the Communist Party, socialist patriotism and internationalism, mass heroism, and hatred for the Hitlerite invaders were manifested.
A comprehensive study of the history and experience of the Great Patriotic War, broad propaganda of the sources and patterns of the victory of the Soviet people over the striking forces of imperialism, revealing the contribution of each republic to the defeat of the fascist aggressors, and further strengthening in the fire of the most severe trials of friendship and military unity of the peoples of the USSR represent an urgent problem, having not only scientific and ideological-political significance but also enormous educational value, serving noble goals in the struggle to prevent a new world war, for lasting peace and social progress on earth.
The study and scientific generalization of the victory of the Soviet people in the most brutal duel with fascism also gain relevance in the work of exposing bourgeois falsifiers who are trying in every way to contest the decisive role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies, distorting historical truth.
The history of the Great Patriotic War has found reflection in numerous Soviet historical, economic, and military-memoir literature. The most fundamental work is the six-volume "History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. 1941-1945," prepared by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU in creative collaboration with other scientific institutions of the country.
The extensive use of numerous archival documents, introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, allowed the authors to thoroughly illuminate the history of the Great Patriotic War in chronological order from the positions of Marxist-Leninist methodology, covering military, economic, socio-political history, and international relations of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945.
The mentioned publication reveals the nationwide character and liberating goals of the Great Patriotic War, the unity of the front and rear, the steadfastness of friendship and military unity of the peoples, and the military and labor feats of the Soviet people. It shows the multifaceted activities of the party at the front, in the rear, and in partisan detachments, and provides an analysis of the causes, patterns, and world-historical significance of the victory of the Soviet people and their Armed Forces.
The published six-volume "History of the Great Patriotic War..." and the first book of the fifth volume "History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union," the tenth volume "History of the USSR from Ancient Times to the Present Day," dedicated to the period of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, the twelve-volume fundamental work "History of the Second World War 1939-1945," as well as a number of other summarizing works, military-historical and historical-economic studies by prominent scholars of the country have significantly enriched the historiography of 1941-1945. These works on general issues of the war, as well as archival sources, have become the scientific basis for studying the history of individual republics during the Great Patriotic War.
The first articles and brochures containing descriptions of the combat actions of Kyrgyz military units, the military feats of the sons of Kyrgyzstan, and the heroic daily lives of the workers of the republic appeared during the war years. Among them, the brochure by A. N. Bernshteyn should be mentioned. However, it is necessary to emphasize that it covers a small period of time (from July 1941 to January 1942) and contains material drawn mainly from the periodical press and reports from the Soviet Information Bureau, as well as the author's personal observations. Separate chapters of this work recount the first measures for mobilizing material and labor resources for the needs of the war, the patriotic initiative of advanced collective farms in providing assistance to the front; they provide biographical information about Major General I. V. Panfilov and the heroes from Kyrgyzstan of the Panfilov Guards Division.