At first: I don't mean you personally, dargelos, what I write below is based on my experience for years.
Today we in the free world as its called, feel that Russia is our enemy.
It hasn't always been so. Looking back to WW2, we would not have defeated the Nazi menace without the sacrifice of Russian lives. And what a sacrifice that was, civil+military losses in the range 21-28 million. UK and US losses under half a million each were bad enough but over 21,000,000 friends and lovers frozen fried starved smashed and shot. That's out of a bigger country of course but it still leaves me numb with horror.
I don't like to work with numbers, their value for gaining historical understanding is limited. They also often lead to the "football mentality", where numbers are uncritically compared to see who had been "more evil". That approach is flawful, especially if it's done superficially (German revisionists like to compare Stalin to Hitler under this approach to apologize the Nazi system).
Numbers could also mislead. A friend of mine is from the West-Ukraine. We talk a lot about the war.
He was a little puzzled that the people in Germany and other Western countries have so much sympathy with Russia because of their suffering in WW2.
He pointed out that the major weight of the War in the East was on Belarus, the Baltic states and Ukraine. The whole of Ukraine and Belarus were occupied by Germany and only a small percentage of what is Russia today. And that the deaths of the civil population were mainly from those countries.
And so he asked: Why have those people sympathy for Russia? Should they not have more sympathy for Ukraine?
I told him that many Germans (which also goes for most from Western Europe I guess) still haven't taken a good look a the new "confusing" map of East Europe and still have the USSR in mind.
It was not Russia had suffered 17-25 million deaths, it was the USSR. To equalize the USSR with Russia makes the Western-USSR-states disappear, which is exactly what the Russian ultra-nationalists today say.
A country like the Netherlands had a different type of war to that experianced by UK,USA and USSR, they suffered occupation, so they had enemy soldiers eating their food,sleeping in their houses and with their girlfriends, it was humiliation on top of all the other sufferings of war.
The Germans also flooded the country, when they had to leave, which tops it all.
But here again: the western states of the former USSR suffered exactly the same as the Netherlands (except for the flood) and that in a far worse "quality". The NS-gov installed a brutal regime in Poland, attempting to kill the polish intelligence etc.
What they did in Ukraine was far far worse. The Geneva conventions (The Hague conventions, the beginning of international law, were originally made up to have a means to punish the Colonies in 1899 and 1909 btw.) were totally ignored in the East but were valid in the West. When the War ended the Ukrainians had to suffer another time, this time Moscow punished them for collaboration.
Where this is leading to is that while the Dutch have good reason to hate Russia today, if they remember their history and I'm sure they do, they'll still remember the enormous debt of gratitude they owe to the Russian people.
If you perpetuate yesterday's (supposed) friendship, do you perpetuate yesterday's hostility too?
If you say the Dutch should be grateful towards Russia, should they also still hate Germany for the "Third Reich"? And should the Federal Republic of Germany still be grateful towards the US? And how many more decades should this continue? How shall a future be built with the minds stick in the past in such a manner?
There is a point when history becomes history. It takes/took decades and new generations look at the history differently. New generations ask new questions and they have to.
West-Germany has faced the history of the "Third Reich" in different waves. But not just Germany faced painful things, also the other states. Explaining Germany would go too far. But interestingly the treatment is in a way comparable at the losing and winning side (in West-Europe).
In the late 1990s there were public discussions in several European countries about WW2. In Germany there was an exhibition called "Die Wehrmachtsausstellung", which dealt with role of the Army and the ordinary soldier.
At the same time when the new generations in the Netherlands, Norway and France asked new questions about collaboration the old comforting picture of glorious resistance got deep cracks.
When I say the Russian people I mean the honest normal citizens, I don't mean the crooks in charge of them.
I fully agree here. Normal Russians will be normal humans I guess.
What's going on in Russia today is comparable to Germany 100 years ago. There are so many similarties to Germany/Middle-Europe in 1900 - 1930/1945.
The national-conservative politicians in Russia (who are in charge) say that democracy is not "russian", that the West is decadent and that there are "certain russian values" (that are always in a blur) that are superior.
In Middle Europe, (Germany and Austia-Hungary) the democratic system had a difficult start. Before the WW1 the mood was quite similar. There was an idea of a "third way" and "Deutschtum" (germaness) that was and is difficult to grasp, as difficult as it is today to grasp the "russian way". I've read letters of soldiers of WW1, where you can see this "political construction".
After WW1 the victors failed to install democracy in Middle Europe. In 1938 every country of the former Germany, Russia and Austria Hungary with the exception of Czechoslowakia had turned into a dictatorship. Also Spain btw.
There is no doubt that Germany has overcome the “Third Reich”. People often talk about the “economical wonder” of Germany (Wirtschaftswunder). That helped a lot because it meant political stability. But the real wonder is the liberalization of Germany, the “daring of democracy” we saw with Willy Brandt.
What does that mean? Simple: you need democrats for a democracy. Something that the US politics have never really understood. That’s where the problem in Iraq come from.
Vaclav Havel said that it would take two generations to make communism forgotten and to heal its wounds. This is correct, but not only for communism. 1990 + 50 = 2040.
Unfortunately the clock is not ticking in every country. While the Czech Republic, Poland and many others are on their way (let’s not talk about a little torture here and there), nothing much has happened in the former USSR so far. Hungary has turned back to dictatorship.
There is still a long way to go for both Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine desires to be part of the West, which they showed in 2003 and last/this year again. Nationalism is strong on both sides, historical clichés determine politics. I have hope for both countries, though Russia’s way is much longer.
Still reading??? Please don’t forget that I gave an overview here. Not every detail is correct, I had to summarize at one point or the other.
