In case people aren’t aware, the Victims of Communism foundation is a US government organization that was set up by an act of congress in 1993.
Congress also passed a bill funding them to design highschool curriculum, called the “crucial communism teaching act”.
Just reminded me of a history teacher who, when teaching the Containment policy, showed us a jar with a slip of paper contained within, which read “COMMUNISM”. Displayed prominently in the classroom thereafter.
Didn’t work on me. When my assigned seat changed such that the jar and I were out of view of the teacher while at the board, I popped the lid off in front of everyone.
Lol
My high school history class stopped the tankman video right before the tank tried to move out of the way and said “this is the only footage to escape the oppressive regime. We don’t know what happened to tank man but we assume he was run over”
When I finally saw the full video I thought it was fake
Nice
I love when people pretend that the rest of Europe didn’t exist when the molotov-ribbentrop pact was signed. It’s almost as if history didn’t start until that pact signed, like Israelis pretend that history started in Oct7.
∞🏳️⚧️Edie [it/its, she/her, fae/faer, love/loves, null/void, des/pair, none/use name]@lemmy.ml0·25 days agoSince we’re starting this debate again, I do wish to ask the people that think the Soviets shouldn’t have gone into Poland: what should the Soviets have done?
With benefit of hindsight and access to whatever formerly-secret documents, what is the best course of action for them?
I mean they could’ve not made a pact with Nazi Germany to jointly divide Eastern Europe. Like start from that.
And before anyone mentions, that includes others who made pacts with them too.
But like what should they have done, reach out to other nations like UK and France to create an anti-nazi alliance?
Refuse to enable Nazi expansion, prepare for war, try to make allies. So carry on before they chose to make a pact. Making that pact with Nazis wasn’t some inevitable law of nature they just had to do. You can always resist.
There’s always a reason for all kinds of actions but it’s just an attempt to avoid moral scrutiny to present the situation as inevitable. There were other options, they chose not to do those but rather made a pact. Agree or disagree with the decision from moral or some realpolitik sense, doesn’t matter. Presenting it as inevitable is avoidance.
molotow-ribbentrop was to buy time to prepare for war. They built a huge industrial complex east of the Ural to prepare since they correctly predicted that their facilities in the west would soon be overrun. They also tried to find allies but were shut down at every turn. When it was clear that there were no allies to be found and every other nation had made a non-aggression pact with the nazis only then did they resort to making their own.
I don’t think anyone thought the USSR did it for no reason. I’m just saying they could’ve chosen not to make those pacts and that’s why dividing Eastern Europe with the Nazis is given as a moral black mark for USSR.
Lol, anti communists will never forgive the USSR for not letting the Nazis have all of Eastern Europe.
I don’t think Nazis should’ve had any part of Europe tbh.
World War II began with a coordinated attack on Poland conducted by the Third Reich and the USSR, led by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin respectively. As of 1 September 1939, the very first day of World War Two, both totalitarian regimes held joint military action against Poland. Starting from 1 September, German bombers were guided onto their targets in Poland from a radio station located in Minsk
In accordance with the secret protocol as to Hitler-Stalin Pact, also known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the new allies – Germany and the Soviet Union – were to jointly invade Poland. Red Army troops were to march into Poland three days following the Reich’s attack. Joseph Stalin, however, did not adhere to the protocol, with his troops advancing into Poland only 17 days after the Germans hit. The delay was caused by concerns over the propaganda discourse in the West, which Stalin wanted to focus on Germany solely.
The class struggle is a cornerstone of Karl Marx’s philosophy. It requires a restructuring of society in accordance with communism. When put in practice, this brought about genocide: the killing of 10 to 15 percent of a given society as well as annihilating its elites and those strata of society that were unwelcome in a communist state. For communists they stood in the way of communist rule and of harnessing entire societies under a totalitarian regime.
The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.
When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.
Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.
Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis. The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
Uhhh Russia invaded unoccupied Poland at the same time as Nazi Germany.
While it’s inaccurate to characterize them as “victims of communism” it’s full blown anti-intellectualism, and astonishingly disrespectful to the polish people, to deny their suffering under Soviet occupation.
The Soviet Union largely stuck to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades earlier, and did so largely to prevent the Nazis from taking all of Poland. Genuinely, what should the Soviet Union have done instead? Let the Nazis take all of Poland?
Oh, it all makes sense now, here you are denouncing Palestine Action for breaking the law in order to slow down genocide. You’re actually a fascist.
If this isn’t a trollpost and your not getting paid for it, then I’m just baffled on how wrong someone can be regarding generic historical facts. Aside from the idea itself, that it is somehow normal and even commendable to assist foreign states against enemies without them requesting it, all the while criticizing the US for similar actions, your opinion ignores the whole Molotov-Ribbentrop secret pact.
And for argument’s sake, let’s just pretend, that Soviets were of kind heart and mind and truly wanted to help and protect the Polish people from the horrifing Nazis they so clearly detested. Then why did they host a joint parade in Brest-Litovsk after having conquered Poland?? Or better yet, why did they mercilessly execute 20 000 officers in the woods of Katyn? Not to mention the fact that the Warsaw Uprising failed because the Soviets deliberatly waited for all future dissidents to be killed off, before “liberating” it.
Both sides killed their own civilians regularly so I think they both sucked balls from a moral standpoint; also don’t forget when the war first started Stalin was allied with Hitler.