cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3237566

I posted this on lemmygrad but also posted here for discussion. I'm sure this was discussed before but I still want to ask.

If you remember a while back there was a tweet from blinken about ussr and babyn yar. If you don't remember, he asserts that "Ussr buried the atrocity and says ukraine is suffering now".

Anyway afterwards there was a deluge of discussion all around about how disgusting the tweet was but also some people were loud about how he is actually right. And also refer to some wikipedia citation.

So I will list the points I saw at the time:

  • Soviets downplayed holocaust and never mentioned jews being singled out in babyn yar.
  • That broadly only mentioning as soviet citizens dying in atrocities done by fascists and refusal to acknowledge roma people.
  • That originally the extraordinary commision mainly downplayed babyn yar.

This brings me to the actual stuff I want to talk. Mainly there is a narrative at least that only liberalization made it possible for the victims of holocaust heard in post ussr. And that the soviets were very antisemitic and downplayed romani or other oppressed people by branding them as counter revolutionary.

What are your thoughts on this? On the narrative that liberalisation made the victims of holocaust heard and before that Ussr was only trivializing holocaust by mentioning them as soviet citizens.

  • Red_sun_in_the_sky [any]
    ·
    4 months ago

    I'll try to paraphrase the stuff I gathered from people who were condemning the whole soviet policy towards ethnic nationalism and some of the points you mention:

    Soviets used nazis as an excuse to do mass deportation akin to trail of tears.

    Soviets could also have done the same atrocities like nazis but just cause nazis were an active threat, hence they didn't do mass atrocities like babyn yar towards suspected ethnic groups and settled on deporting.

    Soviets handwaved nazi killings saying "it was cause they are communist and not cause of antisemitism"

    People who say otherwise whitewash ethnic cleansing and denial.

    These are some of the stuff I recall from some people and like certain other sources that were circulating with the claims.

    One source is some review article. The other one was a video from a channel called "WorldWarTwo". I don't have the link I'll find it. But the video essentially says "The stalinist regime never mentions jews or judaism in the trails. The soviets want to push the agenda that soviets are bigger victims than china or poland. They just want to push us vs them narrative."

    I don't know like overall people seem to just say that soviets never had intentions to liberate but just put in the position and that stalin was running a despotic regime of oppression. Hell the article I mentioned which people spam from wikipedia calls the 2014 ukraine coup "A revolution of dignity".

    • Dolores [love/loves]
      ·
      4 months ago

      Soviets used nazis as an excuse to do mass deportation akin to trail of tears

      if this is referencing Volga Germans or Crimeans, yes it's sort of apt and a gravely mistaken policy. if its talking about like the expulsion of germans from the sudetenland & poland... no. maybe try not genociding your neighbors?

      Soviets could also have done the same atrocities like nazis but just cause nazis were an active threat, hence they didn't do mass atrocities like babyn yar towards suspected ethnic groups and settled on deporting

      because the nazis only massacred millions of people because they had resources to spare? why wouldn't the soviets have scratched their secret genocide itch after the war?

      Soviets handwaved nazi killings saying "it was cause they are communist and not cause of antisemitism

      the nazis conflated jewishness and bolshevism god forbid they listen to the nazis explanation of their actions

      • Red_sun_in_the_sky [any]
        ·
        4 months ago

        I think they are referencing broadly the crimean and volga but also specifically suppression of ukraine and like soviet occupied poland. They broadly say ussr did crimes against humanity and mention stuff like deportations and katyn massacre.

        As for the "soviets could also have done the same atrocities", they don't really explain it. Its just put forth and they just say that "ussr had an active enemy that is why they just mass deported people and not shoot"

        As for the nazi conflation I think the common refrain I saw was : soviets blamed victims of holocaust by downplaying "the nazis/capitalist hate communist. Being jewish had nothing really to do with it"

        They even say the soviets were afraid of agreeing to the trails cause their atrocities might come out like katyn or something.

        Anyway I did find that one video which was the source for some of the stuff. And the weird article that has been circulated.

        • Dolores [love/loves]
          ·
          4 months ago

          it's not a very strange article at all, it's just a little bit of end-of-history decontextualization. and honestly that wouldn't be so bad if untrained internet arguers weren't trying to use it as a cudgel, i think scholars of genocide and memorial recognize that the USSR was not alone in presenting the memory of the holocaust in ways considered inadequate today. they'd recognize that what genocide was and how it should be remembered were developing concepts in the 1940s-50s. and the article does not hide that the soviets developed a more inclusive tradition that continued to get more inclusive after the soviet union. to see the USSR as an immovable obstacle to memory is simply not the content of the article.

          the video is engaging in so many deprecated antisoviet tropes and an intention to not understand the soviets that it is not worth consideration. it's almost farcical how these people can pretend to not understand why a country would try to promote unity in its peoples. the west would never do that lmao

          • Red_sun_in_the_sky [any]
            ·
            4 months ago

            Well I said this article was weird cause of several reasons. The main one being if you read the article there is a specific way they talk of ukraine. Apart from suggesting liberalization made the victims of holocaust heard, they also suggest its cause of Ukraine's 2014 "Revolution of Dignity". But it also mentions prior that the OUN or other ulranationationists pushing how they want a OUN are victims narrative. It just flips between the genocide isn't acknowledged cause just like the OUN or other nationalists the communists also just want to valorize the red army and not really acknowledge genocide. Only liberalization did the right thing.

            Which is very bizarre, since like 90s or even post 2014 if anything there has been more concerted effort to destroy monuments. Whether its victims of holocaust in ukraine or soviet war heroes. And subsequent push for victims of holodomor or even efforts to push banderites as victims through lobbies in canada or USA.

            The video itself if you observed also makes the point in the end about war in ukraine and how the stalinist repression/policy led to it.

            Yeah I agree it is farcical. Even beyond some liberals that champion EU or whatever. There's self proclaimed history learned "leftists" who keep saying how the whole unity in peoples is a stalinist ploy to cover their crimes and downplay nazi crimes. Its just very disorienting.