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Explanation: The national mythology of Russia in the modern day is very heavily based around how they ‘defeated the fascists’ in the Great Patriotic War (WW2).
Of course, one shouldn’t look too deeply into how eager and helpful they were to the fascists before Nazi Germany invaded them…
Honestly, half the world seemed to be chill as fuck with them until the Nazis attacked them personally. Really not cool how twisted that has become in history. Because nobody really gave a fuck, a lot even cheered, until the Nazi menace was upon them.
There was a lot of deep apprehension about the Nazis at the time, but also, within living memory, a war which killed some 15% of the military-age men of the entire continent because no one knew when to back down. Poland searched desperately for friends, France attempted to make anti-German alliances of deterrence with the Sovs and Britain; even the isolationist US regarded the pro-German Bund, Silver Shirts, and America First movements as absurdities.
The thing is that the only cure for fascism is to break fascism - utterly. No half-measures. So all of that was pointless in the end.
I wish we would have learned that lesson. It is why current events are so frightening. We aren’t breaking it.
The thing is that the only cure for fascism is to break fascism - utterly. No half-measures.
Fascists only speak one language: their own blood.
And the six countries they invaded during that time. Spoiler alert: they kept all that land after the war.
I mean, I get the point, but it’s not like rewriting the 1917-1945 history is uncommon in Europe.
The anti Soviet museum in Lithuania doesn’t talk about the Holocaust of Jewish people at all, for example.
There was a well organized campaign to promote revisionist history on the Croatian Wikipedia.
And Poland codified denialism into law.
The Jewish population of the region that used to be the Western Russian Empire remembers the violence as starting in 1917, not in 1939 when the Germans showed up. This had been a recurring thing, but nobody seems to remember that.
