The parade itself was ordered by
Joseph Stalin on June 22, 1945, by virtue of Order 370 of the Office of the Supreme Commander in Chief, Armed Forces of the USSR. This order is as follows: This was preceded by another letter by General of the Army
Aleksei Antonov, Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces to all the participant fronts in attendance on the 24th of the previous month which is as follows:
Parade training Intensive preparations for the parade took place in late May and early June in Moscow. The preliminary rehearsal of the Victory Parade took place at the
Central Airfield, and the general rehearsal on Red Square on June 22.
Marshals Georgy Zhukov, who had formally accepted the
German surrender to the Soviet Union, and
Konstantin Rokossovsky, rode through the parade ground on white and black
stallions, respectively. The fact is commemorated by the
equestrian statue of Zhukov in front of the
State Historical Museum, on
Manege Square. Zhukov's stallion was called Кумир ("
Idol") while Rokossovsky's was called Столб ("Pole"). The
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,
Joseph Stalin, stood atop
Lenin's Mausoleum and watched the parade alongside other dignitaries present. According to certain editions of Zhukov's memoirs, Stalin had intended to ride through the parade himself, but he fell from the horse during the rehearsal and had to yield the honor to Zhukov, who used to be a cavalry officer. However, this story is disputed by former Soviet spy
Viktor Suvorov. He claims that the story was inserted into Zhukov's memoirs as a counterargument to his theory, (although it apparently was in circulation earlier) that Stalin didn't lead the parade because he considered the war's results not worthy of the effort invested. Suvorov notes several inconsistencies in the story, along with numerous evidence that Zhukov was intended all along for the role of leading the parade; for example, the memoirs of
Sergei Shtemenko, the man responsible at the time for the preparation of the parade, state that the roles were decided from the start, and Igor Bobylev (who took part in the preparations) claims that the story never happened and that Stalin never visited the Manege at that time. Another planned part of the parade was the march of the
Victory Banner, which was delivered to Moscow from
Berlin on June 20 and was supposed to begin the procession of troops. Despite this, the weak drill training of
Mikhail Yegorov,
Meliton Kantaria and
Stepan Neustroev forced Marshal Zhukov to not go ahead with this portion of the parade. ==The parade==