Stalin, the Russians, and Their War: 1941-1945Until the advent of glasnost began to lift censorship in the Soviet Union in the mid 1980s, it was impossible for Russians in Russia to truthfully depict their own struggle against Nazi Germany. Even before World War II was over, the Soviet propaganda machine began to construct an official story: through enormous sacrifice, the Soviet people had gloriously freed themselves and the world from fascism, raising the hammer and sickle higher than ever on