Editing Greatest Generation (section)

===Soviet Union===
{{Main|Soviet Union in World War II}}
[[File:RIAN archive 506113 Veterans of the Great Patriotic War.jpg|thumb|[[Red Army]] veterans of the Great Patriotic War Umar Burkhanov and Tatyana Didenko exchanging addresses in Moscow on [[Victory Day (9 May)|Victory Day]], 1979.]]

As children, members of this generation came of age during [[Joseph Stalin]]'s rise to power. They endured the [[Holodomor]] [[famine]], which killed millions. The World War II generation of the Soviet Union was further decimated by the war. Stalin's [[scorched earth]] policy left its western regions in a state of devastation worsened by the advancing German Army. The USSR lost 14% of its pre-war population during WWII, a demographic collapse that would have immense long-term consequences. Mass, forced labor was often used and there were between 10 and 11 million Soviet men returning to help rebuild along with 2 million Soviet dissidents held prisoner in Stalin's [[Gulag]]s. Then came the Cold War and the Space Race. Even in the mid-1980s, around 70% of Soviet industrial output was directed towards the military, one of the factors in its eventual [[Collapse of the Soviet Union|economic collapse]]. Members of this generation are known as "[[Great Patriotic War]]" veterans, such as poet [[Yuri Levitansky]] who wrote about the horrors of the war and [[Vasily Zaitsev (sniper)|Vasily Zaitsev]], a war hero who would later be detained for two years as a victim of the post-war atmosphere of paranoia. Today, former Soviet states celebrate an annual [[Victory Day (9 May)|Victory Day]]. The latest survey conducted by Russia's Levada Center suggests Victory Day is still one of the most important public holidays for Russian citizens, with 65% of those surveyed planning to celebrate it. But for nearly one third of people (31%) it is a "state public event" while for another 31% it is a "memorial day for all former Soviet people". Only 16% of those asked recognize it in its original context as a "veterans' memorial day". The predominant emotion the holiday provokes among Russians (59% of respondents) is national pride, while 18% said "sorrow" and 21% said "both". For modern Russians, the conflict continues to provide the population with a nationalistic rallying call.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Davis |first1=Mark |title=How World War II shaped modern Russia |url=https://www.euronews.com/2015/05/04/how-world-war-ii-shaped-modern-russia |access-date=January 6, 2021 |agency=[[Euronews]] |date=April 5, 2015 |archive-date=April 21, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210421021258/https://www.euronews.com/2015/05/04/how-world-war-ii-shaped-modern-russia |url-status=live }}</ref>