Rantus writes:
You have a very distorted view of history. Aside from Stalin being a total monster, and the crimes that he committed while he was in power, you also very conveniently ignore the Russian policies towards communist satellite states after the war.
Russian “trade” policy went something like this: you give us (the Russians) the best of everything that you have, and we give you back our worst. For the entirety that soviet Russia had dominion over all those other states, that was what was done. The only thing that Russia provided consistently that was of any quality was vodka (seriously). This was used as a population control mechanism.
The only people in the eastern bloc who want Russia dictating their future is the Russians. Nobody wants them determining their national policies because of their long history of total abuse and corruption. You make them out to be some kind of noble people fighting the imperial fascists but that’s a construct in your own mind. Putin is a gangster, and he wants Ukraine for its strategic importance and its fertile soil. Who’s really the imperialist here?
This person is repeating numerous lies of US imperialism. Among them:
- The East European states were Russian colonies exploited by the USSR in typical colonial fashion.
- Russia sold the East European states lots of vodka ion order to kill off a lot of their population and keep their population at a low level.
- Russia has no allies in the former East Bloc or in the former USSR. All of the states of the former USSR and the East Bloc despise Russia.
- Russia is trying to make an imperialist land grab of Ukrainian territory in order to annex it to Russia so as the steal their land.
- The Novorussians are not freedom fighters fighting Ukrainian Russophobic fascists. The actual fascists are the Russians and the Novorussians.
None of these claims are true. I will go through them one by one below.
If Putin wanted the Ukraine, he would have grabbed it a long time ago. Putin doesn’t need any more land or more mouths to feed. And Eastern Ukraine will have to be rebuilt. Ukraine is a massive liability. It is broke and horrifically in debt. The Novorussians want to join Russia, but Russia does not want them in and keeps rebuffing them. In fact, Russia did not even want them to take up arms and rebel, and it did not want them to declare independence. Russia wanted a federalized solution to the Ukrainian model, with Novorussia part of a federalized model. The Nazis would not go for that, so there is war.
Furthermore, the Donbass, the area that Russia is purportedly trying to steal, is not known as a farming region. This is mostly an industrial and mining region. The fertile agricultural land is further to the east.
You act like there are no human beings in Novorussia. There are only robots who get told what to do by Putin. The Novorussian people rebelled on their own. Russian help would have been nice, but it was not necessary. For a long time, Russia gave them nothing more than moral support. Even now, Russia only arms the Novorussians a little bit. If Russia is 100% behind the Novorussians, why are they so outgunned? The Novorussians absolutely hate these Russiaphobic Nazis who seized power, and they want nothing to do with this new fake country they have created. That is the cause of this whole war.
Novorussia was always part of Russia. It was never a part of the Ukraine. The only true nation called Ukraine is from Kiev west to the borders on the west, excluding Transcarpathia.
Kharkov could have rebelled too. They don’t like the central government either. But they chose not to. Why didn’t Putin force them to rebel too? There are other provinces in the east which are hostile to Kiev. None of them have taken up arms yet. Why hasn’t Putin forced them to take up arms too?
The Novorussians are human beings with free agency. They simply decided of their own free will to rebel against Kiev. Russia had nothing to do with it, and in fact, they opposed it.
The commenter argues that the East European states were the colonies of Russia, exploited by the USSR. Please show me an example of a case where the colonies had a higher standard of living than the colonizer!? There has never been a case in all of history.
The East European states made a lot of their own stuff. Russian military hardware at least was absolutely excellent. A friend of mine bought a Soviet radio in Czechoslovakia and it still works to this day. He told me it’s the best radio he has ever owned.
The Novorussians, Abkhaz, South Ossetians and Crimeans want to ally with if not outright join Russia. The Belorussians, Armenians and Kazakhs are also allied with Russia.
For the rest of them, I have no idea, but Russia doesn’t want to dictate to the former East Bloc anyway, although she would prefer to have pleasant, non-hostile relations. Most of the East Bloc don’t even care about Russia. The only real Russia-haters are the Baltics – Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia – and Poland. The rest could care less and most of them have good economic ties with Russia. Also Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Greece and Bulgaria have superb ties with Russia. Within the former USSR, most states have pleasant relations with Russia. The only exceptions are Georgia and now the Ukraine.
Of course the Novorussians are antifas fighting the Nazis of Kiev. It’s so obvious.
