ive recently made an extremely cringe comment in a thread about the electoral victory of the (even more) extreme right in germany which i since removed. in that comment i accused the german people of being intrinsically inclined towards fascism and even called for measures of ethnic cleansing against that population, including children and elderly people. this statement was inhumane, destructive and just generally disgusting and inexcusable. so what led me to do such a thing?

(again, i want to reiterate that im in no way trying to excuse or justify my behavior in any way)

like with virtually all of the population of the former soviet union, my family history is defined by great tragedy that we suffered from the hands of the fascist invaders. many of my ancestors served in the red army (even the non-communist ones) and others still were part of one of the population groups that the hitlerites were brutally murdering in concentration camps. how this lead to a dramatic surge in germanophobic sentiment after 1941 is obvious.

but here is the thing: the direct victims of those crimes, those heroic men and women of the victorious red army that marched all the way to berlin, mostly dindt really fester this kind of sentiment. contrary to western anti-communist propaganda narrative they behaved themselves with almost unbelievable levels of humanitarianism, empathy and generosity towards german civilians, organizing soup kitchens and free abortions for women raped by western soldiers. i believe that the reason for this is that unlike reactionary ideas our worldview is humanitarian above anything else. i lost sight of that fact and this led me to say things that i now regret. and i believe that sadly this is a somewhat systemic issue within the global anti-imperialist left:

many people within the cprf, myself sometimes regrettably including, say death to america but actually mean death to americans. this tendency is unjust, as our hatred as anti-colonialists should be directed towards the genocidal american regime and not the population that also suffers from its governments vile actions. in leftist online spaces there are emerging similarly wrong viewpoints like people taking the unlimited genocide-meme way to seriously or even posting “apology forms” to vile figures like henry morgenthau. a user on lemmygrad recently stated that he would be fine with the west being “left to fester in its own fascism” and that antifascists should simply emigrate to china (i hope i dont have to explain the classist underpinnings of such views). a different person on that same instance speculated in all seriousness a few months ago, that westerners have a “racist gene” that makes them more inclined towards white supremacism.

such thinking led many western users, who form a majority on the english-speaking web, to engage in excessive self-flagellation, decrying their own cultures as inherently inferior and barbaric, denouncing even the most unproblematic of aspects like cuisine. those people should take a look at the gdr and ask themselves wether that government was trying to destroy german culture.

comrades! lets not loose ourselves to the darkness of racial and petty-nationalist hatred! justice for the criminal regimes? yes! reeducation for the propagandized? absolutely! but ultimately progress and socialism for ALL of humankind.