p On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany and its allies carried out a surprise attack on the Soviet Union with a tremendous combined force of 190 divisions, more than 4,000 tanks, about ,5,000 aircraft and over 200 warships. In some decisive directions of advance, the aggressors had multiple superiority in military strength.

p The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union continued 1418 days and nights. The suddenness and the treacher) of the attack gave the aggressors the temporary strategic initiative and enabled them to occupy a large part of Soviet territory. In a situation which was extremely complicated and dangerous for the Soviet Union, for the cause of freedom and democracy in the whole world, the Soviet people and their armed forces succeeded in overcoming the heavy reverses of the initial period of the war and in turning the tide.

p Armed struggle is the main feature of any war as a social phenomenon. In the Second World War, the long and difficult road to victory over the aggressors lay primarily through the armed struggle on the Soviet-German front. In the United States and Britain the war on the Soviet-German front is often referred to as "the unknown war”, in the Federal Republic of Germany it is called "the unforgotten war”, or "the war in the East”.

Distortion of facts with regard to the decisive contribution made by the Soviet Union to the rout of the fascist aggressors is the underlying feature of much historical writing in the West. With its markedly anti-Soviet bias this falsification at the same time serves to support the myth of the 104 “dominant" role of the United States in the Second World War.