The controvey's main source is the celebration in Russia. First a bit of background: At 2:41 AM on 7 May 1945 Germany signed an unconditional surrender agreement with the Allies. Although Britain, France, the US, and Soviet Russia all were represented, the fact that the agreement was signed in Reims rather than in Berlin bothered the Soviet leaders. Stalin required representatives of the Allies to fly to Berlin to re-enact the signing as the only basis on which the Soviet Union would recognize the war's end. Different representatives attended the re-enactment than signed the original document, but the terms of the re-enacted surrender and the actual surrender were identical. Only Stalin recognized the re-enacted surrender as the only official surrender. That is why VE Day is 8 May to the entire world except Russia which celebrates Victory Day on 9 May each year.
Re-enactment versus reality remains a prevailing theme for Russia in respect of the topic of the second world war - known to Russians as the Great Patriotic War. During recent years Stalin regained almost folk hero status. Vladimir Putin reaffirms the old Soviet line that the Soviet Union did not occupy the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia; Soviet forces were invited there. All this is pure rubbish when examined against the facts.
Ironically a condition secured Germany's unconditional surrender. The Western allies told Germany's representatives that if they did not surrender unconditionally, the Western allies would close the eastern boundary to prevent the flood of Germans crossing to the Western-controlled districts. Recognizing the Western powers might do what they threatened, the German delegation accepted the unconditional surrender to a large extent to keep the boundary open. That facet of the surrender ensured Germany's future alignment with the Western powers and Russia's perception that it must continue to punish and seek revenge against East Germany.
Obviously by the war's end the Red Army had few friends among the people whose states it occupied. Perhaps this is most true of the Baltic states. These three states were conquered not during war but by a treaty none of them supported. The Molotov/Ribbentrop agreement (also known as the non-aggression pact) signed 23 August 1939 divided central Europe into spheres of influence that gave Russia de facto control of Latvia and Estonia and Germany control of Lithuania. This was the final gesture to Germany that assured the conquest of Poland and easy victory against Finland in the "winter war" campaign. The pact's actual terms were not disclosed until 1989. Asserting its de facto control, Soviet Russia instigated political crises in Latvia and Estonia that led to a succession of governments. As a matter of course the Soviet-installed governments did "request" Soviet Russia's assistance, but it was a "request" that evolved only because these were pro-Soviet governments that gained power only for the purpose to "request" Soviet assistance. That is a very different matter from "inviting" Soviet forces into the region. Memory of previous years of Russian rule is long along the Baltic, and such an "invitation" hardly would be extended due to lessons extracted from prior experience.
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