Dear Lemmy, as you may well be aware, racial hierarchies and colonial empires are doing good in these early 2020s. In particular, in the days of the war in Ukraine, it’s important to point out the fascist tendencies at play.
Fascism and racial/cultural hierarchies are on the rise on every continent, from Turkey to Brasil, to China, to France, to India… Fuck all Nations! Destroy all borders, and long live autonomous Communes!
On the Ukraine side of things, there’s a bunch of neo-nazis in the army, as well as more traditional nationalists/fascists. It’s not exactly a secret, and the former president was very close to these circles:
On the Russian side of things, there’s also a bunch of neo-nazis in the army as well as traditional nationalists/fascists. It’s not exactly a secret either:
Both governments have long fought against popular movements and anarchist/antifascist networks. Both countries have neo-nazi/fascist militias parading down the streets and beating/killing random people. Just like France or USA have them too.
Don’t trust me? Check out the wikipedia page on neo-nazism. Follow their sources and make yourself an opinion. It’s very instructive, although very incomplete. I definitely recommend to check out the Racism in Ukraine and Racism in Russia pages, too.
Please remember that when you try to paint one side of a conflict as the good anti-nazi hero. Nazis are fucking everywhere. Fascists and nazis have been running the show in much of the world even after WWII ended. Nazi collaborators were responsible for France’s war against the algerian people, and their grandchildren (spiritual or biological) are responsible for today’s new repression, wars and genocides.
We need to dismantle nazism and fascism at its root: the nation State and cultural supremacy. Yes, you should be proud of your local culture and land. No, that does not justify diminishing other cultures/lands.
All we exploited/struggling people have to stand in solidarity with other people struggling for freedom and equality across the planet. No border divides us in the international socialist/anarchist movement. We will fight against all Empires for autonomous communities worldwide!
PS: If you need more detailed resources on neo-nazi/neo-fascist/nationalist/traditionalist on the rise in a specific country/region, feel free to ask. There are chances i have some good articles/documentaries, and if not i’ve got ideas about who to ask.
That zooms out so far from the specifics of the Ukraine/Russia comparison as to relocate this whole conversation to a different context, totally unrelated to the conflict that this thread is intending to speak to.
It’s true that USSR expended lives and resources at tremendous scales to fight Nazis, and it’s true that nazis and nationalists are attracted to military and exist in present day Russian and Ukranian armies. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive, and the historical record of the 20th century is too remote to offer any meaningful clarification.
At best it just invites you to make indirect, speculative inferences. We have much better, more current reporting we can and should rely on.
I think, as OP pointed out, it’s inherently the case that these elements are disproportionately attracted to armed forces, and that in and of itself is adequate to explain their presence in the army of any nation with cultural exposure to nazism.
That’s a diagnosis that’s relevant to nazism as present day social phenomena, and more pertinent to the conflict than the historical record you are choosing to substitute in it’s place.
Comparing the existence of Nazism in Russia to formalised Nazi battalions and Nazi influence in government in Ukraine is roughly about as honest as comparing how much USA/UK have done for human rights versus the atrocities they have committed around the world.
This discussion is a disingenuous and deflective attempt in this particular timeframe of events going on right now, to whitewash Nazism in Ukraine and the atrocities committed in Donbas in the past 8 years.
To prove that this is a disingenuous attempt by OP, one of the very first Lemmy comments made related to ongoing events was:
They only bother to point out the 0.001% existence of Nazism in Russia, compared to what is blatantly observable in Ukraine. And OP exactly did this by posting 1 picture for Ukraine and 1 picture for Russia, highly unbalancing the discussion on purpose because they wanted to bolster their point as true, when it is not. Anyone with a semblance of morality should see corruption in this way of carrying out dialogues and discussions.
This is completely all over the map, so I’m dismissing most of this as unresponsive and returning to the original point: I don’t think bringing USSR’s history in the 20th century is as pertinent or helpful to understanding the relative influence of Nazism in the armed forces in the Ukraine in 2022, I think OPs characterization relied on analysis more proximate to the present day and more directly related to social forces that speak to what is happening there.
You’re now throwing a whole lot of unrelated stuff at the wall all at once talking about things independent of that comparison: saying there’s “formalized” representation in the Ukraine army, bringing up how it’s a “whitewashing” and how OP is disingenuous etc. etc.
I’ll just note that these versions of reality don’t align with what I’ve seen in western media™, which have noted that those arguments appear to be emphasized out of proportion to their significance, and the backdrop that these arguments are occurring in, is one where they are functioning as a propaganda role in justifying intrusion in Ukraine, and have largely been dismissed by sources I follow that have commented to the NYT and NPR.
I suspect you’re just going to that that argue that characterization as western lies, and demand elaborate, point-by-point thousand word explanations, and insist that failing to engage with you in such a manner means I’m scared or whatever. I’m just gonna roll my eyes and move on with my day. That’s gonna be the process in disputing anything: I’ll make one point, and the subject will expand to cover a dozen new things.
The point here is that the history of USSR in the 20th century isn’t as relevant to the convo as you were trying to suggest it was.
Except Nazism is more than just an archaic relic, and is actively thriving and has deep roots in Ukraine’s institutions and military for a while now. I have seen your POV across Lemmy threads and know your stand already.
…which is exactly how significant the threat of Nazism poses to the world outside of US-EU hegemony, noted by this nice tweet chain https://twitter.com/non_philosophy/status/1498000420815396872