Russia Warned The West Against Reviving the Supremacist Spirit of Nazism

President Putin’s speech during this year’s Victory Day parade on Sunday saw the Russian leader warning the West against reviving the supremacist spirit of Nazism as he noted that certain forces are presently deploying this hateful ideology in a delusional bid to advance their geopolitical interests.

World War II was the greatest tragedy in human history and it’s everyone’s mission to prevent any such horror from ever happening again. President Putin used the opportunity presented to him during this year’s Victory Day parade on Sunday to commemorate the 27 million Soviet citizens who lost their lives as a result of Nazi aggression. He also praised their descendants and implored them to keep their ancestors’ memories alive forever. It’s with this in mind that he also warned the West against reviving the supremacist spirit of Nazism that he accused certain forces of presently deploying in a delusional bid to advance their geopolitical interests.

According to him, “Those who are plotting new aggressions cannot be forgiven or justified…History demands that we learn from it. Unfortunately, attempts are made to deploy a large part of Nazi ideology and the ideas of those who were obsessed with the delusional theory of their own supremacy…Today we are witnessing the surviving members of those killing squads and their followers trying to rewrite history and justify the traitors and criminals whose hands are smeared with the blood of hundreds of thousands of civilians.” These words were all in reference to the latest trends that have been manifesting themselves in the West in recent years.

All casual observers are aware of the tensions that the US and its allies provoked with Russia last month over the unresolved Ukrainian Civil War. Although they’ve since de-escalated to a certain extent, they nevertheless remain a stark reminder of just how suddenly a larger war might break out in Europe even if only by miscalculation. Chillingly, some of the antagonists in that domestic conflict literally glorify Nazism and certain historical Ukrainian figures who collaborated with the invading Germans. Instead of being condemned by the West, they’re actually welcomed with open arms simply because they’re explicitly Russophobic.

Not only that, but a growing number of Central & Eastern European countries have recently sought to equate Hitler’s Nazi Germany with Stalin’s Soviet Union by presenting both as equally responsible for starting World War II. On top of that, the post-war geopolitical settlement that resulted in the expansion of Soviet influence across that same space has been dishonestly compared by some to the genocidal Nazi occupation. These examples of historical revisionism aim to discredit the Soviet Union’s international legal status as one of the war’s victors and misportray its successor state as complicit in alleged crimes against them from 1944-1991.

Instead of leaving historical interpretations to historians, some of these same countries have sought to politicize them in the modern day for the purpose of promoting their strategic objectives against Russia. All of the former Soviet people rightly bask in the glory of their joint victory over the Nazi genocidal machine, but only Russia is wrongly blamed as being responsible for every controversial development that happened afterwards, whether that be the post-war border changes or the USSR’s military interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Those forces that apply such double standards solely want to increase political pressure on Russia in the present day.

If they were sincerely interested in what they describe as “historical justice”, then they’d have a greater appreciation for the Soviet Union’s leading role in liberating them from genocidal Nazi occupation. That’s not to say that everyone was pleased with subsequent political developments, nor that they must self-censor from criticizing some of the aforementioned, but just that it’s both unethical and counterfactual to equate the war’s losing side with its winning one. It’s entirely possible to dislike the post-war geopolitical reconfiguration while remaining grateful that the Soviet Union saved everyone from extermination.

Regrettably, the emotional memories associated with some of the controversial geopolitical outcomes of the war have been exploited by self-interested forces for strategic reasons. They masquerade their motives under the euphemism of “historical justice” in order to rile up crowds with Russophobic accusations and thus justify modern-day aggression against that Eurasian Great Power in coordination with their American patron. Surreptitiously over the decades, these sentiments were gently guided in the direction of historical revisionism until they reached the present point of outright glorification of Nazism like is seen in Ukraine and the Baltics.

In other words, preexisting identity conflicts were externally exploited by the US as part of a multi-generational Hybrid War against the minds of the many people living within Central & Eastern Europe. The intent was to indoctrinate a new generation of Nazi-sympathizing historical revisionists who might object to such a provocative description but nevertheless perfectly fit it in most cases. These individuals were misled into sympathizing with the supremacist spirit of Nazism for so-called “nationalist” reasons driven by the Russophobia that nowadays runs rampant in their societies.

From the Russian perspective, the socio-political dynamics worryingly mirror those of interwar Europe. Just like back then when President Putin said that “The slogans of racial and ethnic supremacy, anti-Semitism and Russophobia were becoming more and more cynical”, so too are the same processes unfolding in the present. Unprovoked anti-Russian aggression driven by delusional supremacist beliefs (this time mostly of an ideological – neoliberal – nature than an outright racist one) is once again rearing its ugly head, and it’s therefore incumbent on everyone to stop it if they still can.

That’s why the President Putin reminded the world that “Russia is consistently defending international law while continuing to protect our national interests and the security of our people. Our guarantees are the glorious Russian Armed Forces, descendants of the victorious troops, and, of course, our joint efforts for the sake of our country’s development and the well-being of Russian families.” Russia will not submit before any foe and compromise on the legitimate interests of its nation and her people. The West should heed this warning lest history repeat itself and the Nazis’ ideological heirs once again end up defeated after starting another war.


By Andrew Korybko
Source: OneWorld

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