So I was watching a documentary on Winston Churchill today and I noticed that a variety of sources -from textbooks to documentaries to non-fictional films- often leave out Russia's contribution to the war. I don't want to downplay British fortitude or her determination to keep fighting until victory nor America's significance in the war, but I'm curious as to why we don't talk about Russia's part in helping us defeat Germany. Were U.S history books regarding WWII written several years later when the Cold War/Anti-Russian sentiment was firmly rooted and thus, we made their effort insignificant/absent? Or were the figures of how many Russian soldiers were killed during WWII and their victories kept secret, which allowed it to evade history curriculum for decades? These may sound like really stupid questions, but how else am I going to learn more about military history!
Sidenote: I mentioned U.S history since I'm American and I haven't read or watched enough British sources to make generalizations about their perception of the war.
Thank you to anyone who decided to read all this!
I'm not a historian in any measure, but I can speak from my own experiences here.
I'm a 30 year old Australian, and studied WWII when I was in my final year of school in 2000. We absolutely learned about the role of Russia, both in helping to win the war, and in their inaction for the first stage of it. While there was more information presented about the American role, the parallel between the two countries was clearly laid out. Victory wouldn't have happened without the efforts of the US and the USSR for the final three years of the war. I like your theory about Cold War politics playing a part - the enemy of your enemy can still be your enemy - but again, I'm not a historian.
This brings me to my question for you. How is America's non-involvement with WWII for the first 2.5 years viewed by textbooks and students in the US?
Because an entirely balanced, thorough view of WW2 would easily fill an entire library shelf.
Even today we're just starting to learn of what was even going on over there- many government documents weren't declassified till the Wall fell, and even more fell into obscurity.
If you're looking for a realized, "we hate those commies so we're going to talk about them as little as possible" effort to slander the Soviets, you're going to be a bit wanting. It's typically going to be less about that and more about reinforcing the idea that WW2 demonstrated a good war for the US, since it was one where we acted out of defense, and (largely) conducted ourselves in a way as to both win the war, but also ensure we weren't setting ourselves up for going back to Europe to fight the Germans again as WW1 had managed.