I.V. Stalin's toast to the "health of the Russian people":
Speech at a reception in the Kremlin in honor of the commanders of the Red Army, May 24, 1945

Annotation

On May 24, 1945, a solemn reception was held in the Kremlin in honor of the commanders of the Red Army troops. On this occasion, Stalin made a famous toast "to the health of the Russian people." The recognition of the responsibility that the Soviet leadership and he personally bore for the defeats of the Red Army in 1941-1942 was combined here with the spell of unity of the party, the state and the people in the joint struggle against fascism and immense praise for the Russian people, who were assigned a decisive role in the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. Thus, the toast affirmed the ethnic hierarchy of the Soviet peoples headed by the Russian people and was another reflection of the russocentrism of the official ideology. At the same time, he anticipated the new rise of propaganda of Russian nationalism and Soviet patriotism that followed in the Soviet Union after the war.

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