This is quite an epic, running nearly an hour and a half for both parts. Considerable time is given to a description of Russia and its many peoples, and its implacable resistance to previous invaders through history. Wartime politics being what they were, such things as Stalin’s nonaggression pact with Hitler are politely glossed over, along with Stalin’s genocidal brutality in general. There is a great climax in the battles for Leningrad and Stalingrad.