Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences P. A. Zhilin The publication of a 12-volume work on the history of World War II was met with great interest in the USSR and abroad. prepared by the Institute of Military History of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR jointly with the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Institutes of General History and the History of the USSR of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Such a work, which comprehensively examines complex military and political processes, was developed in our country for the first time. The great interest in its publication is caused primarily by the fact that the Second World War is the bloodiest and most destructive of all the wars that the history of mankind knows, and the victory in it over the forces of reaction is one of the largest events of the XX century. It is extremely important that the truth about the responsibility of imperialism for its preparation and unleashing, for its incalculable victims and destruction, be known to all those who strive for peace, for curbing the forces of aggression, militarism and revanchism. The work is intended to provide a deeper understanding of the complex processes of the Second World War, to appreciate the hard-fought struggle of the peoples against the reactionary forces of imperialism and the decisive contribution of the Soviet Union to achieving a world-historic Victory, to draw the necessary lessons for the fight against the military danger in our time, and to repel the ongoing attempts in the West to distort the history of the Second World War to break out its results from the historical chain of modern events in the world. The creation of a comprehensive study of the Second World War is a great achievement of Soviet historical science. It provides an in-depth analysis of all the main phenomena and processes that characterize the origin of war, its content, results and consequences. The publication performs not only an im ... Read more