Have fun pushing the global socialist agenda.

Have fun having your shit pushed in by Putin.

Have fun having your shit pushed in by Obama. You know what they say.

lol

I find it hilarious when commies try and berate socialism like it isn't just communism lite. There's a reason why socialism is considered one of the necessary steps to achieve a communist society.

You and comrade tatzhit are blatant shills of the Kremlin. Go back to fucking Russia, both of you.

Nobody wants to hear your fucking revisionist history.

You are still here. Why don't you go somewhere and worry about Hildog or Bernie getting elected. If that happens you will be the communist.

My favorite GRU operative. Thought you were transferred to Sakhalin Island after you shit the bed in the Ukraine thread.




Did you brush up on your pop culture and American phrases of speech?

they probably whipped his ball bag with an electric cord and sent him back to work

 

Oh you mean was right about Russia kicking the Uks ass while you guys cheered on Obama and Kerry? No once the Uks army was mopped up it was slow news days until you jumped on big O's side in Syria. Was nice to see you guys wrong again as they kicked the FSA's ass.

Interesting that you don't include yourself in with other Americans, despite your location being set to the United States.

I wonder why.

the Russians speak Russian, the Ukrainians speak Ukrainian. never make the mistake of calling them the same thing. (My wife speaks fluent Ukrainian)

I do actually but I can still be objective.

Lee Harvey was super objective

He was a Patsy. Just ask him.

Gallup data (see Slide 27 here).
Check out this picture, and think about what the results mean, for a minute:

...
...
Ready? OK.

Apart from the obvious (referendum is legitimate), we also see a large disconnect between how Crimeans view their vote, and how population in areas controlled by the new regime views their vote. In other words, Ukrainians are being lied to about what is happening in Crimea. Western mass media  mostly reprint Kiev government view of the events, too.

Another very interesting point is the percentage of people who declined to respond to the question (I assume the missing responses mean just that). It's 10% in Crimea, 28% in East Ukraine, 20% in Central Ukraine, 14% in West Ukraine.
You know why so many people decline to answer if Crimean referendum is legitimate, especially in the East? It was April 2014. People who dared to speak out against the new government were already being attacked by thugs bused in from West Ukraine, arrested, disappeared. There were already widely publicized murders and mass arrests in Kharkov. Less than a month remained until Odessa massacre, etc. People were afraid to acknowledge they don't agree with the new regime, even privately.

By the way, the same is likely true of Crimea - looks like~10% of people were afraid to say they don't agree with the new authorities, with the recent transfer of power and all. This is corroborated by the fact that 17% of the population didn't vote in the referendum for one reason or other. Still, whatever was going on in Crimea (7% openly against new gov ideology, 10% scared to talk) looks a helluva lot more legitimate than the coup against elected government in Kiev and subsequent crackdown in East Ukraine (46% openly against new gov ideology, 28% scared to talk).

Later results of a 2015 German poll specifically designed to disprove "Russian propaganda" also showed that referendum was wholly legitimate and supported by the vast majority of the population:link to article.



Moreover, this time they specifically asked Crimeans, roughly "Do Ukrainian mass media provide truthful information about what's going on in Crimea?"
Remember, Western view is essentially copied from Ukrainian sources.
Only 1% of Crimeans responded that Ukrainian(Western) reporting of events in Crimea is "entirely truthful", and only 4% responded that it's "more truthful than deceitful". I rest my case.



Are you really this naive?
G8=>G7 - "NATO/Russia discussion club falls apart after two become engaged in a proxy war". Color me surprised.

G8 didn't kick its members out when they helped islamists in Afganistan or Bosnia, enabled the largest ethnic in Europe (since WWII) in RSK, destroyed Libya, armed goat lovers to take down the secular government in Syria, etc. etc. But as soon Russia tried to do something about a forced takeover of ethnically Russian regions by rabidly Russophobic, foreign-backed regime, it's an unforgivable crime.
And OF COURSE G7 leadership will ignore the truth about Crimean referendum. They aren't in the business of "being fair to everybody". They are in the business of "looking out for their current geopolitical interests and getting corporate kickbacks", just like the Russians are.

One of my lesser known hobbies is translating poetry. There is this short poem I just had to translate for you. Imagine me playing a really small violin while you read it:

- I really think that news are honest
- That we are served by boys in blue
- Banks value people over profit
- Believe in dragons, fairies too



PS. Excuse the overly provocative tone in the last part. I understand people who don't study politics don't realize no political entity is interested in being "fair". I just couldn't resist the temptation to take some potshots at such an easy target.

The UN and the rest of the free world denounced the Crimea referendum as a sham. Only 4 countries on the entire planet recognize it. Do you know which ones Boris?

Big post on Molotov-Ribbentrop and related issues. A few people asked about it:







The biggest issue seems to be USSR's role in Hitler's rise to power and subsequent start of WWII. I will discuss it first, to the best of my limited knowledge. To keep some track of things, I will mark action/inaction that aided Hitler with a (+) sign, and actions that opposed him with a (-) sign.

So, who is to blame for Hitler's rise to power?
First, we'll briefly mention internal German politics. The German authorities resisted Hitler in the Beer Hall Putch (-). However, their ineptitude is what enabled him and other radicals to rise to power in the first place, and some richer capitalists actually supported Hitler as a tool against the communists (+) (LINK 1). Aforementioned communists were another big player; they resisted Hitler in a virtual civil war (-), but their refusal to ally with Social-Democrats against a common enemy(+) eventually caused them to lose.

Now, let's move on to foreign policy. Hitler's first overtures were to the other European powers: he succeeded in securing German rearmament and increased influence via the Four-Power Pact with Italy (+), France (+), and UK (+). The signing of the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact in 1934 also benefited Hitler, and put Poland(+) on the course of increased cooperation with Nazi Germany and away from its traditional British ally.
USSR, on the other hand, was the most disturbed by Hitler's coming to power - it ended the secret support for German rearmament negotiated with the previous government(+) and remained Hitler's staunchest opponent up until August 1939(-).
Mussolini also played an unlikely opponent to Hitler in 1934: despite being overall sympathetic to a fellow fascist (+), Mussolini reacted very strongly to Hitler's first attempt to annex Austria, and thereby probably delayed WWII by a year or so (-).

By 1936, we move on to Remilitarization of the Rhineland, and the Spanish Civil War.
Remilitarization was crucial to establishing any war-fighting capability for Nazi Germany; without it, invasion of Poland or France would be simply impossible. This was the point when Hitler could still be stopped relatively easily. Alas, French considered it to be too expensive and vastly overestimated the size of German forces (295,000 soldiers, rather than 3,000 actual) (+), the British were sympathetic to Germany (+), the Poles publicly objected but privately told the Germans they won't intervene (+), Yugoslavia, Romania, and Belgium similarly weren't willing to support France in going to war (+++). Only the Czechs stood by the French (-). The Soviets strongly denounced remilitarization(-) but couldn't do anything, being separated from Hitler by hostile Poland. Overall, Hitler won. Details here and in subsequent sections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remilitarization_of_the_Rhineland#France

In the Spanish Civil War, Franco's far-right Fascists(+) tried to wrestle control of the country from a failing democratic-socialist Republican government, with overt support from Hitler(+), Mussolini(+), and Salazar(Portugal) (+). Britain stayed neutral, but preferred a fascist victory (+); the French were sympathetic to the Republicans, but once again declined to take any meaningful action (+). USSR, as before, was the only major power to openly oppose the spread of fascism (-) and arm/send instructors the Republican government (along with Mexico(-)). Ultimately, USSR could neither match the support provided to Franco's Nationalists by three much closer European powers, nor stand against British/French efforts to block aid to the Republicans. Spain fell to the fascists.
Details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War#Foreign_involvement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-intervention_in_the_Spanish_Civil_War#Non-Intervention_Agreement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War#France

We're moving closer to the end of this fascinating story. All that remains is Anschluss, dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, and everything that happened in 1939

Anschluss (takeover of Austria by Germany) followed the similar pattern of being unopposed. It was somewhat approved of by the UK, and the French government was in turmoil at the time. Mussolini declined to intervene, and Austria's far-right government would never accept any assistance from USSR (not to mention Soviets had no common border). Austrian Prime Minister stepped down under pressure and handed the country over to Hitler.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/history/roadwar/anschluss/revision/2/

Dismemberment of Czechoslovakia was quite a bit harder to achieve, chiefly because the Czechs themselves objected rather strongly . This was another point when Hitler could have been halted, although at a considerably greater cost. Alas, the British and French once again betrayed their allies (++), while Poles, Italians, Hungarians, and Slovak nationalists effectively sided with Hitler (++++).

For example (wiki quote): "On 22 May, Juliusz Lukasiewicz, the Polish ambassador to France, told the French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet that if France moved against Germany in defense of Czechoslovakia: "We shall not move." Lukasiewicz also told Bonnet that Poland would oppose any attempt by Soviet forces to defend Czechoslovakia from Germany. Daladier told Jakob Surits, the Soviet ambassador to France: "Not only can we not count on Polish support but we have no faith that Poland will not strike us in the back."

Ultimately, the Czechs were pressured into giving in to Hitler's demands by the joint efforts of the above, most notably through the  "Munich betrayal" - an agreement drawn up by Nazi Germany, France, Italy, and UK, prescribing a de facto capitulation of Czechoslovakia, and making any future resistance futile. This was followed up shortly by land grabs in Czechoslovakia by Poland and Hungary, further supporting Hitler.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement#Resolution

There were only two forces that put up a meaningful challenge: the Soviets, as usual, offered full military assistance to the Czechs, who were receptive (-) - but these plans were completely thwarted by the Poles, who essentially told the Soviets they would have to fight their way to Czechoslovakia in order to try stopping Hitler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement#Sudeten_crisis

Curiously, another very real possibility for stopping WWII came from Germany itself - a conspiracy within the military had a very real chance of removing Nazis from power (-). However, Hitler became widely popular after he got Western powers to back him in taking over Sudetenland, and marshaling broad support for a coup became impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oster_Conspiracy

There were also a number of smaller crises, such as Poland(+) and Nazi Germany putting pressure on Lithuania with various territorial claims, further eroding European peace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Polish_ultimatum_to_Lithuania#Aftermath
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaipeda_Region#German_ultimatum

Long story short, WWII officially started with the German invasion of Poland. This was preceded by a flurry of negotiations where Stalin sought to forge a defensive union with France and Britain(-), who stalled and did not agree to anything specific (+). Poles, whose involvement was crucial to stopping Hitler, were still adamantly opposed to any Soviet army deployment (+). Meanwhile, the Baltic states signed non-aggression pacts with Germany(+).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov–Ribbentrop_Pact_negotiations#Tripartite_military_talks_begin

With less than two weeks to go until the German invasion of Poland (date set long before German-Soviet negotiations), and no foreseeable progress in forging an anti-Nazi alliance, Stalin abandoned his lonesome anti-Nazi crusade of the previous 6 years. Russian historians generally claim this was because Stalin understood the British plan was to sacrifice Poland in order to ensure USSR and Germany (which, again, loathed each other up to this point) would end up clashing and mutually annihilating. Western historians tend to claim Stalin simply understood that Western Allies were weak and conflicted, and would fail to act yet again.

Either way, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact(+) ensured that USSR would move the Soviet-German line of contact hundreds of miles further away from Moscow, and that Hitler would initially be fighting Allies, rather than USSR. It came at a cost of screwing over Poland and France, but as I have hopefully explained above, that was largely on their own heads.

There was one more moment when Hitler could still be stopped: Early September 1939. Most of the Wehrmacht was busy fighting in Poland, and Polish army was still a thing. The Soviet army also did not intervene yet - despite repeated requests from Hitler, Soviets stalled until after Polish government fled the country and resistance collapsed (ostensibly, also seeing if the French and English would finally try to fight Nazism).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Poland#Phase_1:_German_invasion

Yet again, the French and British didn't act. Although they have nominally declared war and even occasionally lied to the Poles about fighting Germans, virtually no hostile action happened. Yet again, Russian historians would tell you Phoney War was a ploy to lure Stalin into fighting Hitler with a false promise of a French second front, while Western historians will explain it away with ineptitude and cowardice. Either way, Poles chose poorly when it came to their faith in Hitler and then Chamberlain, and arguably equally poorly with their unyielding hostility towards Stalin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War

"if we did not collapse already in the year 1939 that was due only to the fact that during the Polish campaign, the approximately 110 French and British divisions in the West were held completely inactive against the 23 German divisions." - Alfred Jodl

I won't bother tallying up the (+) and (-) signs because I handed them out rather arbitrarily, and there is no way to equate say Portuguese volunteers in Spanish Civil War with Hungarian land grabs in Czechoslovakia. I think someone who bothers to fact-check the history above would agree that the causes of WWII are a very complex subject, and it was mainly caused by action (or lack thereof) on the part of UK, Italy, France, and Poland, while the Soviet Union only started dealing with Hitler at the final moment of the final crisis, and staunchly opposed him beforehand.

Two more minor points remain:
First of all, the facts above were rather well-known at the time, giving rise to the widespread resentment at English and French foreign policy. It was only during the Cold War that the complex maneuvering leading up to WWII was somehow explained away as a "Stalin-Hitler alliance" (that in fact came into play very late and largely due to complete refusal of the Western powers to stand together with Soviets against Hitler).
This serves as a good example of a very popular propaganda technique: rather than lying, focus attention only on the small piece of the truth that fits your narrative, to the exclusion of a broader, more complete picture.

Second, I used mostly Wikipedia links, with their basic, Westernized view of history. MoreAmmo keeps claiming this is because I somehow control Wikipedia . Feel free to use any other mainstream sources if you'd like to prove that e.g. Munich Betrayal never happened .

PS. Whew, that took some time. Questions on events after September 1939 would be answered later.

Do you get paid by the word/link?  You do realize most folks aren't going to read that, especially since you are an admitted Pro Russian troll.

And yet, none of your rehash addressed the points made by the posters you quoted.  

Distraction doesn't work on some of us, nor does copypasta.

So what's your favorite Star Wars character?
And did you ever get around to watching it?

Yep. Russians have realised they can't beat the West militarily, economically, or politically, so they've attacked us the only way that really matters. Just like the Germans attacked Tzar Nicholas by repatriating Lenin in 1917, they've attacked us ideologically.

What's your workload like? How many sites do they make you monitor?

If you were contacted with an offer to get you AND YOUR FAMILY safely out of Russia, how long would you have to think about it? What would your answer be?

You DO realize pogroms were largely done by the enemies of the Soviets, right?

You would sorta have a point if I was championing the Russian Empire here, but thankfully we didn't get that far back in history yet.

Not quite true. "Not rising in open revolt" isn't the same as "not having support". This is like saying Castro in 1956, or French resistance in 1941, or Kurds in recent history, didn't have popular support simply because they didn't control much territory.

The reasons for failed resistance in Kharkov / Odessa / Mariupol etc. are, roughly:

1. Lack of any prior organization of the anti-nationalist/"pro-Russian" forces.
Yanukovich cracked down on them because he viewed them as competitors/extremists, and Russians didn't fund them because they preferred dealing with the oligarchs/government directly (unlike Soros/US/EU support for the nationalists) . Because they were being repressed, East Ukrainian orgs couldn't work as muscle for the local oligarchs, either, the way West Ukrainian nationalists/soccer fans did.
In short, despite broad popular support, there was very little preexisting structure, and none above town/city level. Therefore, nationalist thugs were gathered from all over the country and bused around East Ukraine crushing isolated protests one by one, whereas locals would rarely even cooperate between neighboring towns.

2. Disarmed populace.
Kharkov and Odessa were overwhelmingly anti-nationalist, and the police forces were supportive of the local protesters, too. However, that mattered little as neither the police nor the protesters possessed any significant quantity of weapons (e.g. I recall Zhilin, one of the leaders of Kharkov resistance, speaking fondly of Zaharchenko bringing him ~two rifles from Donetsk in March 2014).
The first order of business for the coup government was emptying police and army armories in East Ukraine, and moving them to the West. The same thing happened in Donetsk/Lugansk, by the way - a lot of the takeovers of police stations were for naught, as there were none/very few rifles. IIRC the only armory taken by protesters that still contained a lot of arms was that of the Lugansk SBU (State Security were considered a lot more reliable than local cops).

Kharkov is a typical example: Some ridiculous figures are quoted for the number of people who signed up for anti-nationalist "militia" (80,000 is common). Whatever it really was, it was tens of thousands of volunteers. The nationalist attempt with busing in a few hundred thugs and taking over the City Hall ended up with them being dragged out and beaten by the crowd. A bit earlier, nationalist attacks on protesters ended with a standoff by "Social Nationalist" party HQ, where nationalists shot dead a couple protesters and wounded a few cops, then were arrested (and let go).
Anyways, the whole thing ended when State Security SWAT teams moved in and arrested the leaders of the resistance. As I said, no weapons.

3. Lack of support from outside sources.
Similar to (1), no one was particularly interested in supporting the East Ukrainian resistance after the coup, either.
Kharkov oligarchs did fly to Moscow in March 2014, and they were presumably told to quit rocking the boat because they promptly sold out the resistance to SBU upon returning. Russians didn't bother playing the "legitimate president" card with Yanukovich, either. Strelkov's armed militia in Crimea was disbanded and disarmed - he moved to Slavyansk with less than a quarter of the men and weapons he had a few weeks prior.
A good example of the overall "supply" situation for the resistance is a group that was bringing weapons to Slavyansk and was intercepted late May: IIRC they had a large number of hunting rifles, 2 or 3 single-shot RPG-18s or similar, and $10k in cash. Again, this was a major supply run for the largest resistance group, month and a half after the "war" started (the rebels then spent an inordinate amount of effort trying to POW exchange the lady who headed that supply run, eventually exchanging her for several army officers).
The Russians started support in earnest sometime in the summer (this is when we start seeing tanks and arty in rebel hands), but this was way after the whole thing had gone hot.

=======

I could go on and get into the whole discussion of protester's objectives (most places, they didn't want to fight, but rather their economic/personal interests to be respected), but you get the gist. It's not all about popular support.

Now, you do have a point that in Donetsk and Lugansk, the popular support was so overwhelming that no amount of bused-in nationalists or SWAT arrests could extinguish it.
Another difference is that in Donetsk and Lugansk, local oligarchs seemingly did offer some half-hearted support to the protesters, because their economic ventures depended very heavily on ties to Russia (curiously, that largely backfired, because militias took over their businesses when they gained power).

So, saying "militias weren't supported outside DLPR" isn't valid. They lost outside DLPR, due to a combination of factors. If Kharkov / Odessa / Mariupol, or even Dnepropetrovsk, were left to their own devices, nationalists wouldn't have much of a chance.

Do you get paid in $100 bills like the terrorists you send over to Ukraine to blow up bridges and railroad trestles?

1932-34 Stalin starving the Ukrainians or 1938 Stalin killing the Ukrainians because they had failed him previously by starving to death.  I understand some former Soviets view Stalin as an enemy of the people which would explain your answer (flawed that it is).  Either way, the soviet system under Russian control was and still is utter evil.

Russian nationalists?

He gets priority use of communal washing machine if he makes 1,000 agitprop posts.

FIFY above . Partially true, but an oversimplified view of things.

1) Ukraine was part of a unified Russian state way back. It was later conquered by Lithuanians/Poles, briefly existed as an independent statelet in the 17th century, then joined up with Russian Empire, and has been part of unified Russian state for >340 of the next 350 years (interrupted by a few foreign invasions).
Modern Ukrainian language was invented in mid-19th century by a couple guys in Austria and West Ukraine (who basically took and adapted West Ukrainian village dialects, which were not spoken in eastern villages).

2) Russian Empire was a Russian nationalist state, to some extent. It frowned upon any sort of local nationalism, and at some point forbid publishing some books in Ukrainian (ostensibly due to UA connection with Polish separatists).

Soviets, on the other hand, were initially fighting the Czarist, Russian nationalist White Armies. In the process, they supported any sort of local nationalists as those were also against Russian nationalism. This alliance between Soviets and regional nationalists didn't stop when Whites were defeated.

When it comes to Ukraine specifically, it was the Soviets who switched the education system to "Ukrainian" (which was only one of many regional dialects beforehand), published an inordinate amount of literature in the language (far more than glorious independent Ukraine, BTW), pushed Ukraine to be a founding nation in the UN, made sure that all positions of power in UA were occupied by ethnic Ukrainians, etc. etc. Heck, Khruschev was Ukrainian.

In short, Soviets actively supported Ukrainian nationalism - as long as it was also pro-communist (revisionist bitching about "Soviet repression" mostly talks about anti-Soviet Ukrainian nationalists being purged by pro-Soviet Ukrainian nationalists during internal power struggles).

3. By the way, all of this isn't meant to say that Ukraine is a "fake nation" or anything like that. It's certainly at least as real as a number of freshly-minted states such as Pakistan, Croatia, or say Israel.

But what this means is that Russians and Ukrainians are very similar - nearly identical genetically, very close culturally, and most people over there speak both languages. "Russian" and "Ukrainian" are more ideological/political labels than an actual sharp ethnic divide. For example, Crimea shifted sharply to the "Russian" ethnicity after re-unification. I would assume similar processes are in place in DLPR and the rest of Ukraine (the latter shifting more towards "Ukrainian" ethnicity, obvs). People often choose which ethnicity they are somewhat arbitrarily, especially in any sort of unofficial poll.

One way to explain it is to imagine Texas (which has only been part of US ~half as long as Ukraine was part of a Russia) becoming an independent state again, and talking in proper "Texan speak". Some people would choose to go "all Texan", some would still consider themselves "American", some would flip-flop depending on which faction currently controls TV propaganda, etc.

4. Now, finally, let's address what the language question really shows. As I have hopefully explained above, language in Ukraine is much more of an ideological/personal choice than virtually anywhere else in the world.

Nationalists speak Ukrainian and try to force everyone else to speak it. 80%+ of general population prefer Russian.
Now the problem is, government is on the side of the nationalists. Without Russophobia, there's always a drift towards reuinion with Russia - and a reunion would turn formerly Glorious Leaders of Independent Nation into run-of-the-mill ex-cons, miracle healer preachers, and unemployed persons with mental health problems.

A parallel in the US would be the whole drive towards smaller government - the majority of the population wants smaller .gov, politicians run of small-gov promises, but then do what benefits them, not the people.
Yanukovich got democratically elected on the promise of making Russian an official language and closer ties with Russia, but then did an about-face and tried to go the whole UA nationalist / EuroAssociation route (as a result, lost the support from both sides and got overthrown).

I guess the bottomline is that this isn't about ethnicity, but about ideology. The majority of UA population pretty clearly don't want rabid nationalism. It's simply that nationalists control the .gov and the media, and common people are powerless against them.

Trying to emulate the Rodina?

Tahzit, what does Putin smell like?

Stronk. Chiseled beauty and stronk.

In America, we call it "cum covered bathhouse"

All those words say is that the Russian / Putin view of the world is all that matters, to the extent that you will fabricate any scenario you chose to support that view regardless if it is based in truth or not.

All the organizers of your "protests by the people" were / are Russian FSB, not locals. They were removed by force, as any invader should be. You know this, but spout a bunch of nonsense instead of the truth.

You are not fooling anyone here; this isn't Twitter or Facebook and your audience is not a majority of Freedom hating SJW losers.

Go away Boris.

Meh, brush up on your facts. 11 states against, 58 abstained from voting, 24 absent.

Rather poor showing on the part of USA&allies, considering their clout around the world and the fact that any country's central government hates separatism / local self-determination by default.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_68/262

If you wanna talk about pointless PR gestures in the UN, how about Russia's anti-fascism resolution? One hundred twenty-six nations in favor, only three against (Ukraine, USA and Canada obvs). Doesn't mean shit, but pretty hilarious, and makes for good propaganda.

https://newcoldwar.org/canada-us-and-ukraine-vote-no-europe-abstains-on-un-resolution-condemning-racism-and-neo-nazism/

Step right up and see how Russian trolling works. His list of votes seemed to omit the 100 countries voting in favor of the measure (against Russian invasion of Crimea). The resolution passed, though Boris seems to have overlooked that part where "The UN and the rest of the free world....."

So it is (maybe) 11 countries in the entire planet that is ok with that, rather than 4; that's a fucking world majority right there.

Nice try Boris.

I'm sorry, but I'm not smart/artistic enough to explain the nuances of 1930s European political maneuvering in coloring book format

As for the ad hominem - attack the argument, not the person. What I said in there is pretty well-established history (it's all on Wikipedia for chrissakes). It's just that TV propaganda never mentions the whole context and only focuses on Molotov-Ribbentrop.

When your friends are Morales,Mugabe,Maduro,Bashir,Lukashenko,Castro,Assad,Kim and Ortega...

Pretty telling isn't it?



You are the company you keep.

They either directly or indirectly implied that Stalin collaborated with Hitler to start WWII. That was the biggest issue in there. I have pretty much shown that Stalin opposed Hitler's rise to power more consistently than any of the other big European players did.

===

I can answer the rest in short order:


I think this is combining execution of some Polish officers in 1940 and execution of some political prisoners ahead of German advance in 1941. Both of these happened under orders from Stalin, AFAIK.

While horrible, these events have to be taken in the context of an (impending) struggle for the survival of Slavic peoples as a whole, and in the context of 1940s in general. Remember, colonialism was still a thing, US was still segregated and saturation bombed civilian areas, women in France couldn't vote, Brits had famines in India, everyone ran concentration camps/political prisons of some kind, etc. etc., basically a much darker time.

We hear about Stalin's crimes constantly, and usually without context. If equal amount of propaganda was devoted to, say, massacres in South Korea or Indonesia (which executed a greater proportion of the population, and did it closer to our time), one could easily brainwash the audience to think capitalism is flawed, or that South Asian cultures are bad.



3. USSR, but that was setting up positions for impending German invasion. Sort-of worked, too, although there could be a lot of "what ifs".

4. Russian/Norwegian border hasn't changed much in something like 7 centuries. Soviets briefly entered Northern Norway for less than a year when fighting Germans, then left without issue. Not sure what this fact was supposed to show, Stalin's peaceful nature?

5-6. You mean "what events poke holes in the narrative of the USSR as an all-powerful, entirely controlling entity, and the view of communist governments as oppressive and unchangeable?". Remember, both of these events only happened because local communist governments chose to become more liberal, and Soviets only chose to intervene by a narrow margin each time (and e.g. never intervened in Yugoslavia).

That's actually another funny angle to the whole thing - you see, Russian nationalists in UA weren't supported that much by Russian nationalists from Russia... because the latter are weak, as the Russian 'gov cracks down on them rather strongly.

Unlike Ukraine, RF government has little use for the "Russia for Russians" crowd, because it has no need to prevent re-unification with other states, and Putin's grip on power is secure enough he does not have to justify it via nationalist rhetoric.

Ergo, the answer to your question is "no".

When I click on these posts, I always look over to my right wrist & make sure that the
red yarn is still there, tied with seven knots.

Just FYI - since none of these questions have serious answers, and I'm too lazy atm to make up funny ones, they're gonna remain unanswered

Pogrom (roughly, Russian word for "riot") traditionally refers to anti-Jewish riots in English press.
Howcome you don't know English terminology? Are you a foreign agent sent to spy on us?!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom

Kidding aside, pogroms happened in Russian Empire before the revolution, but Soviets were sharply opposed to them throughout Civil War and WWII(since so many of the Bolsheviks were Jewish). Soviets became anti-Semitic sometime in the late 40s when Israel double-crossed them, but by then riots weren't really a thing.

My bad - the word I was looking for is HOLODOMOR.  

Blah blah. Justifying repression by saying that anyone who doesn't agree with you is a foreign agent. A very common tactic for shutting up one's conscience; I've seen it mentioned reading about wars between Athens and Sparta, but it's probably older than that.

In Ukraine, anyone who you don't like works for Putin.
The far-right Wolfsangel clowns riot by the parliament because the government is selling the country to Putin.
The government-controlled riot police beat up the clowns, because the clowns are working for Putin by making the country look like Neo-Nazis are a force in local politics.
The journalists are also working for Putin, because they are filming the whole mess.
The grandma passing by also works for Putin, because she tells journalists Soviet Union was better than this shit.
Etc. etc.

It would be even more hilarious if people didn't get killed.

===

A good example is Odessa massacre - UA mass media reported that most of the dozens of people killed were Russian and Transnistrian citizens, and that protesters shot a bunch of nationalists first.  Of course, it later turned out that all protesters were local, and that the earlier shootout involved 4 protesters shot dead to 2 nationalists, but who cares? The false reports went to western mass media, the corrections went nowhere.

An even better one is the example of Ukrainian nationalist who was a US citizen, and went to UA to protest the government "dancing to Putin's tune" (lol). Like if you, MoreAmmo, went to UA to support your Azov buddies.
Long story short, he set up a tent in the center of Kiev and gathered a few protesters. Soon,  they were beaten and dispersed by masked thugs (with the Head of State Security commenting "Maidan Self-Defense has done a good job"). Right after, the guy was arrested by police, then handed over to masked men to be beaten and tortured. At some point, they told him to call friends and tell em he is scared and will lay low for a few months (i.e. so nobody goes looking for his body).
While all that is going on, Head of State Security (~director of FBI) is telling journalists that the detainee is a Russian citizen (false) who was getting money from DLPR "terrorists"/Putin (derp ), that he was deported (a lie, the guy has tickets to prove it). Etc.
Anyway, in a unique twist of fate, the SBU team decided against "disappearing" this guy, probably because they finally got it into their thick heads that he was actually a US citizen and an actual idiot who thinks that UA is "free" now. He was dumped in a forest without anything, and fled the country shortly thereafter.

My articles contain links to his facebook etc. - feel free to contact, I reached him pretty easily.

Just traveling to glorious democratic UA:


After being branded a "Putin's agent":


Links:
ONE
TWO

Now, the key thing here is to realize that this guy was an exception. Thousands of people who were arrested/tortured/disappeared by the new .gov were local, weren't talking to journalists, etc., and we know nothing about them. The people whose stories are well-known are "celebrities" of some sort, and obviously we only know the stories of those who made it out.

I have a few more that I translated (below), but it's enough to browse Kiev mass media - there are dozens of crudely faked stories about catching "FSB agents", whoever_the_newspaper_is currently_smearing really being a "Putin's agent",  and whatnot. Some small percentage of these stories may be true, although I can't recall seeing one that had decent proof.

Maria Koleda, a Russian journalist who spent five months in Kiev government prison
Nurse POW
"Russian mercenary" forced to lie on camera by SBU

In the spirit of fairness, I should also note that Donbass militias weren't much better with the people they disliked. Especially early on, when they were basically dozens of unconnected factions. As a matter of fact, I don't think they were necessarily "more lenient", it's simply that they operated in smaller areas with largely supportive population, and also didn't have the same resources as the coup government for catching/detaining opponents.

Yeah, as mentioned in the OP, I don't have a good article written on that, and I don't know of anything online that would explain the whole deal.
I can refer you to some US researchers, but those guys also only cover small aspects of the events.

All I can say for now is: Famine in southern USSR happened. Soviets are partly to blame.

FFS.

It's like the same bad song played poorly in different keys....

Meanwhile Boris still equates "repression" with Ukraine shooting Russian invaders.

Is Ukraine perfect? No, but they want to be. They want to be part of Europe and NATO, and will do what it takes to get there. They don't want to be part of Russia. If Russia hadn't fucked them hard for decades they would already be part of Europe / EU. Lustration and ridding the country of Russian corruption and criminals will not happen overnight, so "Get over it".

Is Russia evil? You bet they are. No amount of hyperlinks and "this is how it really happened (in your opinion btw)" is going to change that. Russia is a disease that wants to infect the whole world. The people who resist are creating "repression". Sure, ok, right, LOL.

What is this? Spain in the '30's?

Are the subtitles shitty on the Russian dubbed version of Star Wars? Or have you not watched it yet, 'citizen of florida'?