Molotov/Ribbentrop pact discuss here.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Yes, the Soviets sucked in 1939 too.

[polishgenius]

I'm legit struggling to believe someone framed the Soviet actions as 'agreed to be neutral in exchange for some land'. That is a mindblowing way to phrase 'co-operating in an invasion'. It's true that Stalin supposedly didn't believe Hitler actually would kill Slavs, but then it's not as if he would have cared since Stalin killed as many Slavs as Hitler did, ultimately. 

[Ran]

I'm not really surprised by the very strange skewing of history due to current affairs, especially in attempting to apply them to some sort of moral calculus about who is "right" and who is "wrong" today. 

Ukraine is a sovereign nation. It is not the aggressor. End of story. If "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" was applied, lets just say Russia would have its hands firmly in its pockets.

[A True Kaniggit]

6 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I'm legit struggling to believe someone framed the Soviet actions as 'agreed to be neutral in exchange for some land'. That is a mindblowing way to phrase 'co-operating in an invasion'. It's true that Stalin supposedly didn't believe Hitler actually would kill Slavs, but then it's not as if he would have cared since Stalin killed as many Slavs as Hitler did, ultimately. 

Wait what? Neutral? Did not Soviet forces move in and occupy from the east?

[A True Kaniggit]

Katyn Woods. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

@GrimTuesday

Seriously.  How can you think the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland in conjunction with the Nazi’s is anything but a betrayal of the ideals the Soviets purported to believe in?

[3CityApache]

40 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Wait what? Neutral? Did not Soviet forces move in and occupy from the east?

Yeah. This was in response to GrimTuesday's claim in Ukraine's thread, which was so mindblowing Ser Scot felt the urge to start another one.

[GrimTuesday]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

@GrimTuesday

Seriously.  How can you think the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland in conjunction with the Nazi’s is anything but a betrayal of the ideals the Soviets purported to believe in?

Of course I don't think that, this discussion stemmed from the following statement

Quote

Considering the entire Soviet Union was collaborating with the Nazis to dismember Poland, singling out one or two groups is not really fair.

In this case, what I was referring to was the idea that the Molotov Ribbentrop pact was in any way comparable in terms of Nazi collaboration with what the Ukrainian ultra nationalists did considering how the war unfolded.

Yes The USSR had a non-aggression pact with the Nazi's that enabled them to divide up Poland. This was wrong, and absolutely violated the values that that the USSR claimed to stand for, but more importantly it violated the rights of the Polish people themselves who should never have been invaded and brutalized such as they were. In the course of the destruction of Nazi Germany and the axis powers, The Soviet Union did horrible awful things, they committed war crimes and brutalized the people who they claimed they came to liberate, and they continued to do so even after the end of WW2.

The reason that I was "singling out" Bandera and the Ukrainian ultra-nationalists/Nazi collaborators is because they are the relevant party in the events that we are discussing.

32 minutes ago, 3CityApache said:

Yeah. This was in response to GrimTuesday's claim in Ukraine's thread, which was so mindblowing Ser Scot felt the urge to start another one.

I'm going to respond to you here since there is no need to keep it in other thread

When I say agreeing to be neutral, I mean not intervening in in the larger war to come, should have used the more accurate non-aggression pact. I am well aware of Russian war crimes in Poland and the brutality inflicted on eastern Europe during and after WW2 and they and indefensible. Stalin was a piece of shit and the only people who think differently are weirdo tankies. That said, we aren't seeing significant groups of pro-USSR paramilitary groups in Ukraine or the enshrining of Stalin as a national hero, so as far as I'm concerned, the atrocities the USSR are not relevant when discussing the legacy that collaborators such as Bandera have in Ukraine, and the connections they have with the right wing neo-nazis that I fear we are arming and legitimizing in a manner similar to the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan.

[sologdin]

the soviet agreement with the third reich was a triumph of pragmatism over principle, and is accordingly dreadful--similar to the decision at munich in 1938, which of course caused the soviet union to believe that the imperialist west would not fight fascism. in order to buy time to do so alone, the soviet union made that horrible agreement and committed crimes in performing under it. this is all fairly basic, no?

[DMC]

15 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

the connections they have with the right wing neo-nazis that I fear we are arming and legitimizing in a manner similar to the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan.

This is a preposterous comparison.  We are arming and aiding the Ukrainian government, of which far-right parties have minimal influence at the national level.  The Afghan Mujahideen eventually included many foreigners coming from the Arab world.  As far as I can tell, there is no clamoring among the far-right parties of Europe to go fight for the Ukrainians. 

ETA:  In fact, just like in the US, it appears the response of far-right parties across Europe happen to be the most sympathetic towards Russia.

[Kalbear]

 

Seemed relevant 

[IheartIheartTesla]

This isnt a particularly contentious topic I believe. I will note that when I first read about the pact I was surprised since everything i had read till then indicated Hitler had made no secret of how much he hated communists (and had even began purging them).

It was also a weird time, where a lot of moral relativism had to be applied (nothing like the current Ukrainian war). The Indian independence movement is a good example, although maybe a topic for another time.

[Ran]

8 hours ago, DMC said:

In fact, just like in the US, it appears the response of far-right parties across Europe happen to be the most sympathetic towards Russia.

Most of the far right in Europe has had clandestine and not-so-clandestine funding from Russia. The Ukrainian ultranationalist far-right is something of a rarity in being opposed to Russia and embracing the EU and NATO due to that opposition.

 

[SpaceChampion]

Isn't the Azov battalion only 900 people immediately before the war started two week ago?  Numbers I've seen are 2500 in 2014, down to 1500 in 2017 and 900 two week ago.

I've seen ridiculous claims by left-wing anarchists in Canada that ALL the fighting in Ukraine are by Azov, which is so monumentally ridiculous but lends credence to the phrase "useful idiots".

I take claims that fascists dominate the Ukrainian government with similar skepticism.

[The Sunland Lord]

15 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

This isnt a particularly contentious topic I believe. I will note that when I first read about the pact I was surprised since everything i had read till then indicated Hitler had made no secret of how much he hated communists (and had even began purging them).

Communists AND Slavs, whom Hitler persecuted and thought of as inferior peoples. 

[HoodedCrow]

Hitler’s list. He picked on everyone, but used Jews particularly to mainly arouse otherness and steal resources. There is quite a list, though, like journalists, communists, atheists, gay people. Any prejudice was exploited. Hitler didn’t want Jesse Owens to win a gold medal in track, because he was about white Aryan superiority. I don’t want to look up black triangles, pink triangles, etc. “Degenerate” art was destroyed. Propaganda was key.

[Galactus]

I do note, the Ukrainian ultras are somewhat unique becuase of when the options were "Your country is occupied by the USSR and invaded by the Nazis, do you fight A) The nazis  The Soviets C) The Poles D) other ukrainian nationalists E) Your own jewish population or F) All of the above" they picked F.