[liviu]

You are lucky that your country have not endured Soviet occupation like other states in Eastern Europe. Event today the economical and social signs are clearly visible on those states.

This was magnitude worse that British/American influence.

[asgard1024]

I disagree. There are examples and counterexamples on both sides. It's really hard to decide where the blame should go.

I am from Czech Republic, a former communist country. And it was nowhere as bad as Chile or El Salvador. Or, if you want just to compare Russian atrocities, occupation in 1968 was nowhere as bad as mass rapes in Germany after the end of world war, or Ukrainian famine, or Stalin's purges.

It's not just it's not black and white, it's not even one-dimensional. You can have regime without freedom of speech that puts couple tens people per year into jail (like Czech Republic in the 70s and 80s), or you can have a regime with freedom of speech that commits torture and war abroad, killing hundreds of people. To ask/answer which one is worse is meaningless.

And to compare it from economic perspective is just outright disgusting. Even if killing some people would indeed cause higher economic growth, no human should agree to such a trade.

[bad_user]

I'm from Romania, another former communist country from the Eastern block.

First of all you are comparing third world countries like Chile or El Salvador with European countries that were doing well before WWII. At least Romania was. This makes your comparison flawed, because when a country is somewhat rich, with a working middle class, with somewhat working institutions, it does have the resources to spare and it will still be doing OK.

Because of the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact between Hitler and Stalin, we've lost territories like Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, by force of course. And I must say that this was happening in 1940, with a Romania that hadn't entered the war yet. Russians later blamed us for giving support to the Germans on their invasion, but that's why they say you reap what you sow. Bessarabia is now the republic of Moldova. We still think of them as being Bessarabia, as Moldova is also the name of the adjacent region in Romania.

After the war, the soviet induced famine has hit us as well, but it hit Moldavians much harder. Hundreds of thousands of people have died of hunger and the official numbers are actually lower than what happened (my grandfather lived to tell me the story). But furthermore, we had to pay war reparations. And during their invasion on our territory, they've established what are called Sovroms, which were enterprises meant to deplete the resources of our country, with the effect that we've paid much, much more than the war reparations that were demanded. The soviets also mined us, for example we've shipped thousands of tons of uranium ore which ended up being used in their atomic bomb project.

In Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina the soviets did what Russians do best when invading a territory. They arrested, executed or deported to labour camps in Siberia hundreds of thousands of people and they also planted Russians on those territories, with the purpose of completely destroying their national identity. And this strategy of theirs does wonders. In the eyes of many Moldavians, the Russians are their "brothers" and Romania has had a "colonial policy" that has to be terminated. In return we've started granting them dual citizenship that has been their gate to the EU. We wouldn't have any economic benefit in an eventual unification of course, the difference between Romania and the Republic of Moldova being the difference between western and eastern Germany in the eighties. This is why Ukraine is so divided btw, as this is their usual modus operandi and anybody that says Russia's actions there are justified is either an ignorant or full of shit.

But back to the soviets, in Romania the result was poverty of course. But as a fun fact, even our former communist government was anti-Russian. For example at some point under Ceaușescu we declined to place our military forces under the Warsaw Pact's joint command and we also refused to increase our military expenditures. We also refused to side with Russia on several political conflicts. And Romania was actually isolated from the rest of the Eastern block. We were the pariah of the Warsaw Pact. Our neighbors had it easier.

But by far the biggest damage that the soviets did to us is the mentality, which is the cause for the corrupted system we've inherited after the communist block fell. We've been recovering quite well, but it's far from over, being much like cancer extirpation. And while our brethren from around our country are sometimes giving signs of missing the USSR, we don't. In fact that's the reason I'm proud of my country - we've always been at the intersection of empires, we're still here, we're still speaking a romance language and we hate everybody :-)

[userulluipeste]

"Bessarabia is now the republic of Moldova. We still think of them as being Bessarabia, as Moldova is also the name of the adjacent region in Romania."

Moldova is bigger than just "the adjacent region in Romania", Moldova is that and Bessarabia together. What's in Romania now is Moldova without Bessarabia.

I strongly agree with "damaging mentality", but we don't hate everybody! Nowadays we don't resent anyone other than the russians (with their wishful "sphere of influence" over us), and I hope that that will pass too.

[bad_user]

True, never meant to say anything different.

[peterfirefly]

> In return we've started granting them dual citizenship that has been their gate to the EU.

Not the best way to say "thank you" to the European Union -- not only do we have to suffer your Gypsies, we also get your Moldovans :(

(Don't put all the blame on the Soviets, the Ottomans didn't treat you so well, either.)

[bad_user]

Funny, you don't seem to complain about the invasion of our engineers, software developers or doctors :-)

Also, we don't need to "thank you" dude, as the EU is not a charity, but a mutually beneficial arrangement. If it's not mutually beneficial, then we can negotiate, but don't give me this condescending attitude and we really don't have to apologize for giving citizenship to Moldavians or for having a gypsy minority. This is who we've always been and speaking of gipsies, we've been lectured for years in how we aren't doing a good job of integrating them in society. Well, here's your chance.

> (Don't put all the blame on the Soviets, the Ottomans didn't treat you so well, either.)

Yeah, no shit, we were amongst the ones that engaged the Ottomans in battle, helping in preventing their expansion into Europe. In 1475 for example our own Stephen the Great delivered what is said to be the greatest defeat of the ottomans until that time. He was then denied European assistance, yet he kept waging war until 1484. He was a Moldavian ;-)

[peterfirefly]

I absolutely do apologize for the condescending attitude coming from Western Europe regarding the "oppressed gypsies" who were "totally good people who just never got a chance". It was wrong. They were and are more like parasites on better functioning peoples.

I was myself only briefly one of those Gutmenschen until I got hold of better data (which I actively sought and which were contradictory to everything I was taught in University).

On the other hand, this is pretty plonk-worthy:

> but don't give me this condescending attitude

and, yes, you probably should apologize for letting random Moldavians into the Schengen area.

All of the states in the Holy Roman Empire did pay extra taxes to pay for wars against the Ottomans a few decades later.

[bad_user]

We aren't in the Schengen area, that's a different treaty. And we aren't letting in random Moldavians. Applying for citizenship still implies submitting an application for review, which includes things like a criminal record, birth certificates from parents and from grandparents as proof that they were Romanians, plus proof of legal residence in Romania for 48 months. The process is for "regaining citizenship", being easier than the full process. And no, we shouldn't apologize, our relationship with them is no secret, some of us also want the unification.

[cmdkeen]

It needs to be made clear that the decision making process also did not know about the "good" Czechoslovakia of the 1980s, it knew about the brutality of the Spanish Civil War and Soviet Purges, mass starvation of Ukraine. Stalin had more blood on his hands than Hitler at that time when these decisions were being made.

Plus, because it seems to have slipped further down the list that the GP the Guardian ran a correction pointing out the article has no historical basis and the damage these incorrect allegations have done to Greece in plainly visible in the writing of the GP.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/28/readers-editor-...

[caf]

The correction does not point that "the article has no historical basis", it points out that the specific allegation that British soliders were among those to fire upon the demonstrators in the December confrontation is based only upon the recollection of those there at the time, and is not generally considered to be true.

[twoodfin]

That blows a pretty significant hole in the narrative of the article! How seriously can I take the rest of the "eye witness" reporting that makes up much of this piece if that "specific" allegation was likely simply a convenient legend?

For example, how sanguine should I be about the claimed non-violent, non-Stalinist goals of the revolutionary forces?

[caf]

If you read the correcting article, it makes it clear that confusion on the part of those present is understandable: the British did apparently fire tracers over the heads of the demonstrators; the Greek police were firing from concealed positions; the Greek forces were dressed similarly to the British Army; and there were British soldiers present on the rooftops.

As I read it, the major claim of the article is that the British supported elements of the Greek state who had been collaborating with the Nazi occupiers in purging the EAM resistance. This does not seem to have been disputed.

[andreasvc]

We can nitpick over who pulled the trigger or who gave the direct order, but the larger issue is that Churchill was waging a dirty civil war. We can discuss how violent and Stalinist the goals of the revolutionary forces may have been, but meanwhile we know about torture and concentration camps that actually happened, which seems more pertinent.

[twoodfin]

They're not nitpicks; they're major factual concerns with what is ostensibly a piece of journalism.

For that matter, the use of the term "concentration camp", while accurate, is not provided the context to differentiate it from the modern connotations associated with Nazi death camps.

This isn't journalism, but historical propaganda.

[dmichulke]

Well, these "lucky" Greeks you mention still had their share of dictatorship

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E...

In any case, justifying the application of violence with the possibility of preventing more violence some 20 years later is kind of outrageous.

[odiroot]

Exactly, my country (Poland) was traded away for Greece to the Soviets -- in Yalta or Tehran as far as I remember.

[liviu]

Many eastern countries was traded away for Greece at Yalta :)

"Greece was to be portioned 90/10 to the West, while Romania was to be divided 90/10 in favour of the USSR"

See more at: http://www.historytoday.com/blog/books-blog/taylor-downing/y...

[lentil_soup]

It's not a competition on which one is worse. If both were terrible, both should be called out and condemned.

[rogeryu]

Well you could dispute that for young people living in Greece right now, without any future, with a huge debt that will last for generations. Former Eastern European states now part of the EU may have a future that is a lot brighter. Even if people there are poorer than the average Greek right now, they are on the rise, and the Greek are falling down. Given a basic level of wellfare, I know what I would prefer, knowing where you came from.

[gadders]

That is self-inflicted.

[peterfirefly]

Or rather, inflicted by the older generation upon the younger.