In 1976, The Russian Version of the Second World War was published in 1976 in the United Kingdom by publishers Facts on File Publications. The novel was edited by Graham Lyons and translated by Marjorie Vanston. One thing I wanted to discuss first is the publishers. I had not heard of Facts on File Publications till now and wanted to do some research to see its credibility. The company is located in New York, New York, and has been publishing books since 1946.
Going back to The Russian Version of the Second World War, it starts off with the foreword which of course immediately caught my attention. In the foreword the first sentence states that the purpose of the text “is to show how the Second World War and some the events leading up to it are presented to young people in the Soviet Union in their schools”. It then goes on to say that the version of the war is likely to be different when told by Britain and the United States.
The foreword starts with the primary purpose of this book, and I also think it is clear by the text. I believe that no matter what war, depending on who is teaching about the events, the facts can be skewed in any way. Not only because it may be because of bias, but also because of propaganda. The Russian Version of the Second World War is a window into Russian propaganda. The Soviets believe that they won World War II. They say that they had a major impact on the war and that they lost more people than the United States. These are not exact numbers, but around 27,000,000 Soviet military and civilian lives were lost during the war. The United States had around 419,000 deaths during the war.
I think depending on who looks at this text, people can understand why this text can be banned. I tried to do some more research on The Russian Version of the Second World War, and I did not even find a Wikipedia page on it. This text does contain the thoughts of the Soviets on how they saw World War II and it was very interesting to read.