[goldstategop]

Russia is incongruous - but note what President Putin and the Russian elite wore in the lapels of their jackets of the Victory Day - the Ribbon Of St. George - a military decoration that dates back to the Czars. Russia today reveres the Soviet victory for the simple reason is Russia did not do all too well militarily under the ancien regime. Its the one thing where it can be argued the Soviet Union did very well even while Communism was a moral and strategic failure.

[dfwgator]

And point out, that had they not lost to Japan in 1905, odds are the Bolshevik Revolution probably never gets off the ground.