mitsho
Deity
There are other more positive examples as well. The Lithuanian and the Maltese Commissioner come to mind for example.
The European Project: the future of the EU.
- Thread starter Hrothbern
- Start date
The standards were made to let Poland pass. There would be no enlargement without Poland. And when comparing to countries like Italy, we were not that bad...
BTW its maybe EE thing, I see problems, but for me most explicit violation of democratic principles is in Catalonia.
Lexicus
Deity
What does it say about the future of the European project that the European Parliament has passed a resolution declaring that Communism and Nazism share equal blame for World War II?
Not sure how other countries with existent communist parties (by which I mean parties in parliament, or usually in parliament) reacted, but I do know that here none of the euro mps (or rather none of the large parties mps; maybe those that had just 1 mp voted in favour) voted in favour of that ruling. The ruling party is conservative, but it wasn't just for show that they voted against the ruling, imo (though the civil war history here persists and creates all sorts of problems).
As for the actual resolution: it is stupid and if anything shows just how irrelevant the Eu is globally. But what do you expect when its current commissioner is a second-tier scandal-infested failed german politician, and sent her pinky ring by Berlin and Paris instead of even being elected by the Eu parliament like Juncker was.
The whole thing has become a joke.
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mitsho
Deity
I had some troubles googling what you are talking about. A lot of the first hits are from fringe sources, but the most serious I could find was from "Der Freitag". So this looks to me like there could be some meat on the bones, but it is such a technical discussion that it doesn't generate much interest. It can very well be that 10 years from now this can be seen as a move in the wrong direction and a small step in a larger chain reaction. But please excuse me if I don't care until then, the public certainly doesn't seem to.
Lexicus
Deity
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-9-2019-0097_EN.html
It is a clear sign that Respectable Opinion in Europe is once again moving toward the acceptability of fascism as a bulwark against Communism.
Cheetah
Deity
Yeah, I can't find anything about it either...
Thanks for the link, @Lexicus.
For what it's worth: As long as it say 'Nazism' instead of 'Fascism', it should probably have said 'Stalinism' instead of 'Communism'.
As for the effects on the future of the EU, it's rather insignificant.
However, it probably shows that half of the EU suffered under Soviet occupation for half a century, and that Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Finland haven't forgotten that the Soviets invaded them either before or together with the Nazis. Couple that with some old-fashioned fear of the Reds in Western Europe as well, and there's no surprise that when combining 'Communism' and 'WW2' few people have anything good to say about it.
Which we see perfectly well in the resolution:
If we count the start of the Second World War in Europe as the attack on Poland, then its perfectly valid to hold the Soviet Union responsible as well.
Personally I have absolutely no doubt that Stalin was preparing a major westward offensive before Hitler launched his attack first. While Nazis were worse, the Communists under Stalin were also terrible, and both sides have millions of innocent lives on their hands.
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Cheetah
Deity
No, it isn't. It's perfectly possible to condemn two horrible states and their ideologies at the same time.
Perhaps long term, but in the short term he was supplying Germany with valuable raw materials and ignoring intelligence reports of imminent German attack. Stalin wasn't ready for war in 1940 and was doing his best to avoid it, which contributed to the disasterous losses the Russians suffered early on.
Cheetah
Deity
Hitler was first, but within a year or so Stalin would also have been ready. Which is why he built airfields much closer to the border than what would have been prudent for defense (but great for an offensive). He had been banking on the Germans being bogged down in France much longer than what actually happened.
And the trade of course continued. Germans also kept trading back their own products right up until they invaded. No point in giving the enemy any prior warning.
But a thread on this is rather off topic, I'd say.
Cheetah
Deity
Actually, after having read the whole thing, I now know why none of the rest of us knew about this:
It's a symbolic, but good, resolution!
It condemns Nazism, Stalinism, and totalitarian regimes and dictatorships in general, and expresses deep respect for each victim. It condemns Holocaust denial, trivialisation and minimisation of the crimes of the Nazis and their collaborators, and historical revisionism and glorification of Nazi collaborators in member states. It maintains that Russia is the biggest victim of communist totalitarianism, and condemn extremist and xenophobic political forces in Europe who are distorting historical facts and 'employ symbolism and rhetoric that echoes aspects of totalitarian propaganda, including racism, anti-Semitism and hatred towards sexual and other minorities'.
No one talks about this, because more or less everyone in Europe agrees with this!
The only thing I miss from this is that the European Union puts the values it shows here into practice, and not just lovely resolutions.
Lexicus
Deity
Yeah, no. Bad. Really bad. You're only proving my point when I say that Respectable Opinion in Europe has made clear it has lost the historical immunity to fascism, developed only through immensely painful experience. Perhaps it is wishful thinking to believe that such immunity ever existed.
Like the European Parliament you are regurgitating literal Nazi (and Cold War) propaganda, discredited by modern historians with access to the declassified Soviet archives. Claiming Molotov-Ribbentrop was singularly responsible for the outbreak of World War II is just standard ahistorical garbage. Claiming that Operation Barbarossa was a pre-emptive attack, on the other hand, is much more worrisome. It was a common claim made by the surviving German generals after the war and part of the historiography of the "clean Wehrmacht", and it was taken up by Cold Warriors who wanted to make the Soviet Union look just as bad as the USSR. It was also a common theme of German wartime propaganda when they started losing and went from triumphant Aryan supermen to the selfless defenders of European civilization from the Bolshevik-Asiatic horde.
You have absolutely no doubt that Stalin was preparing an invasion of Western Europe because you have fallen victim to Nazi propaganda. The fact is that Soviet aggression in Western Europe was strategically defensive in nature and was designed to create security against a rearmed Germany. There is also the fact that Molotov-Ribbentrop only happened because the USSR reached out to Britain and France to form an anti-Nazi alliance and was rebuffed (in fact, there was some domestic pressure in Britain to side with Hitler against the "greater menace" of Stalin) but of course the resolution wouldn't mention that.
ironic considering that the resolution, in drawing an equivalence between Nazi and Soviet crimes, is itself a form of holocaust denial.
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TBF, Mitsho is in Switzerland. The germans never lost the war there and *many* have maintained nazi mentality ^_^ (obviously I do not mean Mitsho)
The ruling was on newspapers here - I don't watch tv and wouldn't have heard of it if it wasn't on the front page of their e-editions.
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Cheetah
Deity
Err... Let's slow down, shall we?
Secondly, I can see how it is possible to read from what I wrote that I'd argued that Operation Barbarossa was a per-emptive strike. That is absolutely not my position: Operation Barbarossa was a planned and aggressive offensive against the Soviet Union, and would have come no matter how the Soviet Union would be acting or planning. Whatever excuses the Nazis gave for their attack is irrelevant to why they actually did attack.
However, how the Nazis acted does not in any way excuse what the Soviet Union did.
Would Germany have attacked Poland like they did without the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact? Probably, but maybe later, maybe differently? Maybe Poland would have stood a better chance for longer? Maybe the Germans would have had to divert forces to guard in case of a sudden Soviet intervention? Maybe France or the UK would have had time to decide to do something? And how much better would Poland have handled it if the Soviet Union didn't attack them simultaneously?
The Soviet Union, Stalin, and the Communists who supported him, are not innocent in the attack on Poland, and thus, for the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe (if we count the outbreak as the attack on Poland).
No! We condemn Nazis! And we condemn Stalinist! Both those regimes murdered millions of innocents, and you do not get to excuse and ignore the crimes of the Soviet Union just because they eventually were at war with an ideology more horrible than themselves!
We absolutely haven't lost any immunity against Nazism. We're still fully aware how horrible it is, even though we have neo-Nazis in Europe, just as they exist in other countries, from the US, to Russia, to Israel, to New Zealand.
Of course, putting any specific cause to the Second World War is a rather futile discussion. German revanchism, Nazi ideology and imperialist thought were obviously far more important for the German aggressiveness than a mere treaty, but there's no doubt that the treaty served both totalitarian states and ideologies very well.
Secondly, I can see how it is possible to read from what I wrote that I'd argued that Operation Barbarossa was a per-emptive strike. That is absolutely not my position: Operation Barbarossa was a planned and aggressive offensive against the Soviet Union, and would have come no matter how the Soviet Union would be acting or planning. Whatever excuses the Nazis gave for their attack is irrelevant to why they actually did attack.
However, how the Nazis acted does not in any way excuse what the Soviet Union did.
Would Germany have attacked Poland like they did without the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact? Probably, but maybe later, maybe differently? Maybe Poland would have stood a better chance for longer? Maybe the Germans would have had to divert forces to guard in case of a sudden Soviet intervention? Maybe France or the UK would have had time to decide to do something? And how much better would Poland have handled it if the Soviet Union didn't attack them simultaneously?
The Soviet Union, Stalin, and the Communists who supported him, are not innocent in the attack on Poland, and thus, for the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe (if we count the outbreak as the attack on Poland).
Aggressive offensive wars as defense?? Attacking and invading Poland and murdering thousands to protect themselves?! What the hell!?
No! We condemn Nazis! And we condemn Stalinist! Both those regimes murdered millions of innocents, and you do not get to excuse and ignore the crimes of the Soviet Union just because they eventually were at war with an ideology more horrible than themselves!
What you've written can't be called ironic, unfortunately. Just sad and offensive.
No, it is more of a "ww2 germans weren't the beasts - russians and communists were the same". Which is rather stupid, let alone ahistoric. Stalin was monstrous yet at least he wasn't responsible for bathing the entire continent in blood. No one would have cared more for Hitler than Stalin if he had actually just made germans suffer, instead of everyone *or, to be more apt, instead of everyone else)
And I share Lexicus' alarm for the fact that apparently most posters here haven't heard of this Eu parliament ruling that equates nazism with communism. In greek newspapers it was front-page and condemned across the political world.
Indeed. Yet one should also add that post ww2 Germany managed to get out of full pariah status with no one wanting to trade with it, by signing a massive deal with Stalin's Russia, for machine parts. Hypocrisy much?
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Lexicus
Deity
Fair enough, but only tangentially relevant to the real point which is that this imminent Soviet attack on the rest of Europe was an invention of Nazi propaganda. And here we are seventy years later, with you simultaneously declaring your absolute certainty that the Nazi propaganda was accurate and proclaiming that Europe has not lost its immunity to Nazism.
Yes. The Germans regarded Poland (or at least the western half of it) as rightfully part of Germany.
No.
Nope. Take it from me, who has studied the Polish campaign. The Polish army was destroyed and already defeated by the time the USSR invaded eastern Poland.
As I already pointed out and you ignored, the USSR approached Britain and France for an anti-Nazi treaty and were rebuffed. That is why they went with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact which, as AmazonQueen has pointed out, was intended by Stalin to hold the Nazis at arms' length for a while since he couldn't rely on the capitalist states to help him do that. UK and France both didn't do anything because their domestic politics would not tolerate taking large casualties in offensives against Germany for Poland's sake.
This is a superficial, and frankly silly view. Had Britain and France not capitulated to Hitler at Munich the outbreak of World War 2 would have been a German invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Soviets are responsible for invading and occupying eastern Poland, certainly, but to say that this makes them partially responsible for the outbreak of World War II is literal Nazi garbage.
This is all uncontroversial among actual historians of the period. I am not saying that the policy worked or that it was morally acceptable, only that to compare it to Nazi aggression is (I repeat myself, but it bears repeating) literal Nazi garbage.
And I find what you are writing to be both offensive and extremely worrisome.
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mitsho
Deity
Yeah, first of all, parliamentary resolutions are a tool quite often used. Don't overestimate its effect, whether on public opinion, academic state of art or legal realities.
What this shows is that there are quite a few different publics around Europe where the discussion of this historical reality is in different stages. I don't think debating the history is useful, but that modern conversation is very interisting from a sociological point of view. I do think our understanding of history is very much shaped by our national (education) background. But I certainly don't think it's time for a doomsday view.
What this shows is that there are quite a few different publics around Europe where the discussion of this historical reality is in different stages. I don't think debating the history is useful, but that modern conversation is very interisting from a sociological point of view. I do think our understanding of history is very much shaped by our national (education) background. But I certainly don't think it's time for a doomsday view.
Lexicus
Deity
Oh I'm not worried about its effect. I'm worried about what it reflects. Part of the concern is the extent to which the EU is apparently yielding to the rabidly anticommunist tinpot authoritarians currently governing a lot of eastern Europe...
...and why do you think a lot of Eastern Europe is "rabidly anticommunist"?
Do you think denying and/or downplaying the atrocities committed in the name of communism to people who have experienced them first or second hand is going to counter the authoritarian propaganda?
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