George W. Bush attended the military parade held in Moscow every year to commemorate V-E Day, the first American president to do so. Seeing the pictures of Bush and Putin standing side by side surveying the procession, one couldn't help but by struck by some dissonances.

First, there is the parade itself, a relic of a time when the Soviet Union liked nothing so much as to parade its military might before the world, the better to intimidate those conquerered and yet-to-be-conquered who might seek to oppose it. There is something a bit pathetic in a Russia, now shorn of empire and influence, resorting to this reflexive exercise, like a puny Wizard of Oz hiding behind a curtain, trying to impress everyone with simulated bravado.

Second, there is the commemoration itself. Yes, the Russian people suffered incalculable losses during WWII--what was it, something like 27 million casualties? But, tragically, their sacrifices did not bring them any closer to freedom. They traded one kind of totalitarianism for another, the sole consolation being that Stalin, unlike Hitler, was at least a homegrown commodity. In reality, cold comfort indeed.

And finally, there is the enigma of Vladimir Putin, the ex-KGB chief who finds himself at the helm of a much-diminished ex-superpower, unsure as to whether to move forward and continue in the path of democracy, or to revert to old tried-and-true habits of previous Russian despots. At this point, he could go either way. On one hand, Putin is making the right noises. During the memorial, for example, he made this stern warning about the dangers of toxic but compelling ideologies that threaten both Russia and America alike: "History teaches us that states and peoples must do everything possible to prevent their eyes closing to the emergence of new lethal doctrines, to anything that can become fertile soil for new threats. The lessons of the war send us the warning that indifference, temporizing and playing accomplice to violence inevitably lead to terrible tragedies on a planetary scale."

On the other hand, the Soviet Union's post-war occupation of the Baltic States remains a sore point, and Putin's commitment to democracy seems a bit shaky. Putin is unwilling to acknowledge the historical wrong of Baltic conquest, and Bush's stop in Latvia en route to Moscow left the Russian leader fuming.

Then again, it may be hard to come to terms with unpleasant history when another Vladimir--Lenin, the founder of the whole murderous enterprise--lies on permanent display near the parade route. The problem for Putin: are Russians to continue paying homage to the embalmed leader, frozen now in his triumphant eternal sleep, or are they to seal him up in a tomb, and continue moving forward into the light?