The Conquerors

The rain poured down on Marshal Joseph Stalin and his commissars as they stood atop Lenin's red granite mausoleum. It poured down on 200 unblinking Red Army soldiers as they marched stiff-legged across Moscow's Red Square. It drenched the 1,400-piece military band and the cheering crowds who had braved the weather to see Marshal Konstantin K. Rokossovsky (on a black horse) and Marshal Georgi Zhukov (on a white horse) lead rumbling masses of tanks and motorized artillery in Russia's biggest victory celebration.

But most eyes were on the 200 soldiers. Each of them carried a captured German flag bedecked with captured German medals. Suddenly the massed band stopped blaring. Only hundreds of drums rumbled. As the 200 soldiers approached Lenin's tomb, they lowered the German flags (including Hitler's personal standard) and dragged them over the muddy cobblestones. In front of Lenin's tomb, the soldiers, without turning their heads or breaking step, tossed the flags into the mud.

There were special victory awards for Marshal Stalin too. By decree of the Supreme Soviet he became the second living European to receive the title of Generalissimo (the first: Generalissimo Francisco Franco). Generalissimo Stalin was also awarded the Order of Victory, the Gold Star Medal of Hero of the Soviet Union, and the Order of Lenin.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.