[morkalork]

Reading about what the Soviet Union did in countries like Estonia and Ukraine is pretty harrowing stuff. Wanting to join NATO for protection after is completely understandable and denying them because it would upset their former (and present) abuser is a shameful thought.

[gambiting]

Everything that Russia is doing now it has done to countries like Poland in the past. That's why when we see news about Russia shipping Ukrainian kids to Russia to be "integrated" it makes our blood literally boil - it was the fate of many Polish families as well, my own relatives have stories of their loved ones having to walk back from Syberia after being sent there for "integration".

[908B64B197]

To me, one of the greatest feat of the EU and NATO is the integration of countries like Poland and Romania to the west. These two countries were economically and socially stunted by decades of communist mismanagement, failed socialism and outright theft and genocide from Russia.

It's been truly incredible to see them grow and prosper.

[coffeebeqn]

And hopefully soon Ukraine

[908B64B197]

Ukraine is going to be an incredible opportunity for the west in the coming decades.

Young, educated, motivated population with western values and a strong will for democracy and freedom. An economy that can only grow and prosper. And unlike Syrian and Afghan "refugees", there's a strong desire from Ukrainian refugees to return and rebuild.

[throwaway2037]

Real question: Why did you write Syrian and Afghan refugees with double quotes? In English slang, this is used to imply so-called status -- lesser or fake. Their countries were destroyed by war, and they again have repressive dictatorships. Their need to escape to a safer places seems real to me. Also, if Syria or Afghanistan graduated to democratic, free countries, I am sure many, many refugees would want to return home for cultural reasons.

[riialist]

Yes I agree with the previous comment. I volunteered to teach Finnish to the refugees during the last "refugee-crisis" Finland faced, when Russia opened it borders and "dumped" Central Asian asylum seekers here the year 2015. Obviously some of the young guys from Syria were just taking a fun tour. Most of these folks got the ticket back to their starting point, and accepted it.

But there were many who really wanted to learn the local language, and even if the life at the "asylum seekers centers" was not luxury, they were grateful that they had a place to stay where there was no immediate risk of death.

Some of these people had their families with them, though most of them were young, healthy males, since this segment is most likely to survive the trip. E.g. riding a bicycle in the -30 C/-22 Fahrenheit for 50 kilometres was one common way to entry Finland during this episode.

And regarding Afghanistan, for many, there is not much to be rebuilt. The country was first run over my Soviet army, then the US revenge. The minorities like Hazara have been persecuted during all the previous regimes. These people have no place to go back to.The people I know have instead build careers here, and are vocal against fundamentalist Islam.

[tasuki]

I'd like to hope so too, but hope is not enough. How do you see that playing out in reality?

[coffeebeqn]

It’s hard to predict what happens in Russia and what the peace deal will be. I can’t imagine Ukraine will accept anything that doesn’t involve something like a article 5

[riialist]

Yes, this was exactly the reason why I, as a Finnish person, changed my view on joining NATO by 180 degrees the day Russia launched its war against Ukraine. Before that, I wanted Finland to be independent from both the West and Russia. I had more friends in and felt closer to Russia than the USA.

But I have been grateful that Finland has been independent. As a child, I visited the Soviet Baltic countries since church choirs were allowed entry. I remember it clearly because I saw for the first time the fear of speaking about certain topics.

Defending the country’s independence took a whole generation, as all men who could be drafted were sent to war and women participated as volunteers. My other grandmother worked behind enemy lines as an underage girl, delivering messages. The other grandmother volunteered to work in prison camps.

When Finland was last attacked by Russia (formerly known as the Soviet Republic), Finland did not receive much help apart from thoughts and prayers and socks knitted by housewives in the UK and US. In the first round, Finland defended its independence but lost a significant portion of its most prosperous areas, including its second-largest and most international city, Viipuri/Vyborg. What happened in the second round of the war was not glorious for Finland, who allied with Nazi Germany since they were the only ones that offered an alliance against Soviet Union aggression.

I have not thought of myself as a nationalist, but I am concerned about the safety of my family and this thing we call Finland. And I don't want us to face again the situation as Ukraine is facing now.

[andyjohnson0]

Thank you for sharing this.

[BurningFrog]

Very true.

Though it's good to remember the Soviet Union did even worse things to Russia.

[kosievdmerwe]

The problem is that as far as I understand Russia claims to be the successor state of the USSR, meaning they want to claim all its glories (and crimes)

Which if true, means that Russian civilian victimization by the Soviet Union is something to hold Russia accountable for rather than a point of mutual past victimization for past Soviet Union states to commiserate together with Russia on.

That's never mind the fact that Russia is committing some of those same crimes now along with waging an expansionist war. The past suffering of an abuser doesn't matter while he's actively abusing someone else.

[KptMarchewa]

Current russia is direct descendant of Soviet Union with all the priviledges - security council seat, got all the nuclear arms.

[lazide]

Eh, Moscow always ran the USSR. That’s a bit like lamenting that how messed up an abusers knuckles got after hitting it on folks faces for so long.

[riialist]

Just please flag this if you see this comment as being too political, as in this forum we are mostly spared of these wrangles.

But anyway, I would encourage reading "The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going? Преданная революция: Что такое СССР и куда он идет?" by the exiled Soviet Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky to get perspective whether the peaople (Narodnost народность)were really represented in the Soviet nomenklatura (номенклату́ра). At least almost every Finnish speaking representative from Karelia were "neutralized", leaving the previously most prosperious part of Finland in the state as it is now. Finland would not take it back even it was paid for it.

[lazide]

To be (less) political, and apologies if this comes across as insensitive - all of those discussions (of which I've read many) are post-facto. The terrible things some power structures do to dissidents are indeed terrible.

My point, I guess, is that they happened. And the power structure that did it, did it from Moscow.

[philistine]

Trying to perform something humans do to one another, assigning blame, to a successor state who is very much not human, is the wrong way to look at the thing.

I prefer to see the Russian invasion as the delayed violence from the Soviet Union's breakup. Russian politicians were very much in control of all of Eastern Europe, and the Moscow political class was going to build a political case to try and retake Ukraine by force. That the violence did not happen in 1989 probably prevented nuclear war, and the fact it is happening now and not in 2032 is probably also preventing nuclear war.

[prepend]

I can’t reply to comment under this that claimed that people in Moscow were from all across USSR so I’m replying here.

The Soviet Union was still ruled by Russians [0]… “ From 1919 until 1991, 89 members of the Politburo were Russians (which makes up 68 percent). In distant second were Ukrainians, who had 11 members in the Politburo, making up 8 percent. In third place are both ethnic Jews and Georgians, who had 4 members respectively.”

It was less than the population since by population , 80% are Russian [1], but still shows that the USSR was ruled by Russians.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_of_the_Communist_Par...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1989)

[myth_drannon]

Well everyone was "Russian" officially. Khrushov was Ukrainian, same can be said with Gorbachev. Many Armenians. There is a concentrated effort to erase all the contributions of other nations of USSR and make Russians as the only builders and inheritors. And this is different from Tsarist Russia where very few non-Russains were allowed to rise in the ranks. That's why large part of Communist movement was comprised from minorities since they were the ones who suffered more from the brutal Tsarist regime.

[philistine]

The fact that political stars could rise to the top does not negate the point that the main ethnical actor and benefactor of the Soviet Union were the Russians. Those star Ukrainians had to please the Russians first and foremost.

It's the same thing in Communist China. Nobody can displease the Han.

[BurningFrog]

Not sure those numbers matter, since Stalin had the only vote that mattered 1924-1953.

And he happened to be Georgian.

[lazide]

Also, the label Moscovite doesn't require being born there!

And Moscovite is indeed a bad word in many parts of the old Union.

[foverzar]

> Eh, Moscow always ran the USSR

The people that were sitting in Moscow however were from all around the Union.

[carlosjobim]

> Eh, Moscow always ran the USSR.

Have you heard about Stalin? Where was he from?

[lazide]

Stalin was born in Georgia of course. But where did he live when he was doing his reign of terror?

Moscow.

Hitler was from Austria, but he still ran things from Berlin. And Berlin is where the power structure was, and still is.

It's always more than one man, even if the man is a dictator. The dictator is just the one who survives the power structures environment in a way to be 'the top'. And that power structure exists in a place.

The vast, vast majority of everything that actually happens under a power structure is done by everyone who ISN'T the dictator. And those folks don't just disappear when the dictator dies.

As to if a countries power structure represents a people or not, meh. It always says it does, and it draws resources, taxes, and conscripts from them. So regardless of any individuals take on if they are 'represented' or how that power is acquired, 'it is the people' near as I can tell.

And many of them are happy to murder anyone who says otherwise to prove it.

[carlosjobim]

Stalin and most other dictators bring their own power structures. The capital city is just that. As an example, some roman dictators/emperors never even went to Rome, but still had strong power structures.

And just because it has to be pointed out, Stalin didn't do his reign of terror from the Kremlin in Moscow, but from his dacha in Kuntsevo.

Hitler also spent most of his reign of terror from Wolfsschanze and Obersalzberg. He definitely had his own power structure, completely independent of the city of Berlin.

[lazide]

Stalin used (and took over) Lenin’s power base, and built up more as time went on. He didn’t ‘bring his own’. Even despite all the purges, for instance, the Red Army was there before and after him. The NKVD, KGB, MDB all had predecessor agencies (some back to the Tsars even, but the NKVD was first formed in 1917).

And Kuntsevo is in Moscow. Literally.

And if you’re asserting that Hitler didn’t need, or use, the Wehrmacht or other organs of state power (including the Gestapo, which was consolidated out of the prior Prussian Secret Police), and didn’t spend most of his time in Berlin, then I don’t know what to say.

[pas]

I have trouble parsing that. However, the important thing would be to accept the facts, try to process them, and move forward. Of course that's not so easy. (It's not like the US did it. Or that Germany did it super well.)

[xkcd1963]

It's true, since the October Revolution the Soviets didn't actually serve their people

[myth_drannon]

And before the Revolution, Tsarist regime did even more horrowing things to its people. Sadly Russia never had a ruling entity that was good. Well there was hope in the 80's with Gorbachev and Krushev with his Thaw period, but these were short lived and the system went back to its stable state of terrorizing its citizens.

[BurningFrog]

The Soviet Union killed between 20-60 million of its own people.

Did Tsarist Russia really do anything that competes with that?

[akho]

Tsarist Russia enslaved most of its population for centuries.

[BurningFrog]

I think we can agree that it's better to be a slave than to be murdered?

The Soviet Union also made extensive use of slave labor, where millions died.

[IYasha]

You sound nonsensical. Russian government did enslave russian population?? Just remember that "coincidentally" the whole Romanov (that's a stage name) family are germans. And official history is even more coincidentally was (over)written by germans.

[KptMarchewa]

Not the same scale, but yeah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katorga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide

[hdjjhhvvhga]

And yet, Putin says those who don't miss it have no heart.

[Gibbon1]

Thing to remember is the Russian Revolution of 1905 changed the structure of the Russian government to a constitutional Monarchy. That's what the communists overthrew and replaced with something far worse.

[go13]

russia and soviet union are not too far apart actually. Let's not make victim of poor russians, while so many of them fight now and fought in the past to kill independent nations.

[foverzar]

> while so many of them fight now and fought in the past to kill independent nations

Let's not pretend it's surrounding is really any better, especially if we start looking at the past.

Someone might think that Russia is opposing a genocidal culture, that had bourne fascism and nazism, enforced apartheid over the world and now breeds it elsewhere to achieve its geopolitical goals.