But that’s the point. This is a simple version of history, put forward by a strongman determined to transform it into a simple version of the future: one in which all so-called Russians, including Ukrainians, bow before the might of the empire—and the emperor.
archived version==> https://archive.ph/vMFDF#selection-917.0-921.114
When has there ever been a light version of Russian history?
Russians believe they are the Slavic master Race and feel entitled to rob, rape and murder their smaller neighbors. It has been so for hundreds of years and Putin is just the latest incarnation of their sick delusions.
I different version of history, Russia is just a Grand duchy of Muscovy.
All it is is a city of Moscow and environs. By itself a vasal of Kazan.
All the rest of Russia and all the “Russian sphere” claimed by Putin consist of brutally conquered lands by subsequent Grand Dukes, Tsars and Communist dictators.
The root of the problem is that the Russians in general, and Putin in particular, have not reconciled themselves to the fact that Russia is no longer a great power. Its GDP is roughly the size of that of Australia. The GDP of the US alone is $23 trillion while that of Russia is only $1.6 trillion. The combined GDP of NATO is 24 times that of Russia. Russia needs to put aside memories of past glories and start to cooperate with the west rather than attempting to compete with it. It cannot win in the latter case.
Maybe they watched us and saw what happens to a nation that wallows in every failing it has rather than stress the things they are proud of.
Mark
the only thing “great” russia ever achieved was receive stolen information from US traitors on how to build a nuclear bomb, and use stolen german tech looted after ww2 to create their space program.
not a tsrrorist?
then what in the wide wide world of sports was Stalin and his buddy Berea???
what was the insemination of “russian agents as American citizens, including siring children” all about?
(i knew of this years before a cable channel made a tv series addressing this)
putin wants to white wash his own actions within the kgb.
putin’s legacy plans must make him a hero greater than Lenin himself!
Putin’s views (shared by some other Russians) makes it clear that to many Russians the western view of the Soviet Union was in error - it was just the Russian Empire dressed in communist clothes, and all the lossed of the broken-up Soviet Union are losses of what “belonged” to Russia.
It would have been beter for Russia today if like Japan post-WWII dreams of empire were banished and Russia accepted just being a single democratic state living at peace and without suspicion of war with any of its neighbors. But that does not wash with either the imperial or Soviet Czarist views, or Putin’s. It is also why he has been a dictator and real open and free democracy has been stifled by him.
The Kremlin works hard to ensure Putin’s constructed worldview, in which Russian greatness is derived from the country’s past glory and suffering, is taught in schools and shown in all media and academic discourse as reality…A shocking and important example of this…claiming that Memorial “creates a false image of the USSR as a terrorist state and denigrates the memory of World War II.”
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Denigrating the memory of WW2 is one thing (and unacceptable on both sides, each claiming -falsely - that they were the main reason that the mutually hated Nazis were defeated). But denying that the USSR, particularly under Stalin, was a terrorist state is quite another. It is beyond question that Stalin purposely engineered the Holodomor to eliminate millions of his supposed enemies in Ukraine, starving literally millions to death, that under his leadership the USSR began to support, train and arm many of the worst terror groups in the world and that he set up the Gulag Archipelago, a massive prison system that held tens of millions over the decades in completely inhumane conditions, killing millions of them via starvation, injuries disease, etc. Millions more perished in NKVD jails in or near their home towns - including one of my great grandfathers, beaten to death in 1937 despite being in his mid-70d and suffering from cancer. The USSR was not a terrorist state? Biggest f’ing lie since “Arbeit macht frei.”
I understand that part of what makes for a long-lasting nation is myths of various types, and most of the time that kind of minor invention or whitewash of History is OK or at least tolerable. But when a shameful incident or series of events just comes up and smacks you in the face with a baseball bat, you not only can’t deny it, you shouldn’t. That definitely applies here, and the fact that Putin is supporting or driving this effort is all the more reason to despise him.
That all said, as much as I despise Putin and condemn this invasion and the atrocities being committed as a purposeful part of Russian strategy, I will always contend that: a) we have to try to understand him better; and b) that part and parcel of understanding him is an honest acknowledgment of the fact that our so-called “leaders” and “elites” have lied to the Russians about NATO expansion and thus made Putin justifiably suspicions and unwilling to compromise further. This is not the only thing that we have done. So, we bear SOME blame for pushing Putin into a corner, even as MOST of the blame is properly