Putin's Obsession with Nazis
Why does Putin bang on about Nazis as the justification for invading peaceful, sovereign Ukraine?
The media has covered, in great length, how Putin considers the fall of the Soviet Union to be a catastrophe and how he wants to rebuilt a "greater Russia," of which Ukraine is a crowning jewel. What it has not discussed in a meaningful way, as far as I can tell, is why his justification is "Nazis" rather than "the devil made me do it," or "aliens" or "the fountain of youth must be there somewhere."
What we say to justify our actions matters. It can morally validate us, or it can exonerate us to ourselves or others even if those justications — those rationalizations — are self-delusional or lies. As a reminder, Hitler could have justified his rise to power; his nation's anger at the 1919 Treaty of Versailles; and his passion for Aryan superiority by something other than anger at the Jews. After all, Fascism began in Italy in 1922 with Mussolini, and he didn't bang on about the Jews. It wasn't until 1938's Racial Laws in Italy that Mussolini even paid attention to the Jews and that was only because of Hitler's insistence.
So … why Nazis?
The Bolshevik revolution wiped out the Czar and his ministers, as everyone knows from the Rolling Stone's Sympathy for the Devil. When they did this, they did not only assassinate everyone. They threw Russian history under the bus, made a clean political and cultural break with it (to a point), and classified all of it as "bad." After all, if you're going to have a good revolution, it needs to be against something bad.
In the 1989-1990 period when the USSR crumbled and a kind of proto-democracy inspired by liberal values took root in Russia, they experienced another revolution, and this time it was the USSR that was bad. This means that — conservatively — the previous 150 years of the nation's history was now "bad."
I cannot recall any other nation in history having to build a new society on the foundations of that much self-hatred. It may be unique to world history.
So what was left? What was good?
Stalingrad.
Conveniently forgetting that Stalin had signed a pact with Hitler to divide up eastern Europe after Germany won the war, Russia looks back on the German attack on its country and the savage fighting that turned back the Nazi tide, established an eastern front in the war, and saved Mother Russia from the huns as a great victory and a sourse of pride.
Geopolitically, and as a part of diplomatic history, we know that Stalin was complicit in the suffering and at best the Russians held back their own self-serving mistake. But on a human level, on a personal level, in the drama of the heart, the Russian fight was noble and admirable, and self-sacrificing and a model of resistance that should make anyone with a soul a little misty.
Twenty million people died. Pause on that number. It is the entire populations of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, dead.
Russians hate Nazis. They may ACT like Nazis, but they hate Nazis. Both Bolsheviks and Russians — ideologues and nationalists — hate Nazis. If you're going to fight something for a good reason, and you're Russian, it's going to be Nazis.
Even if there are no Nazis.
And even if all of it was your fault.
— Derek B. Miller
2 March, 2022
The media has covered, in great length, how Putin considers the fall of the Soviet Union to be a catastrophe and how he wants to rebuilt a "greater Russia," of which Ukraine is a crowning jewel. What it has not discussed in a meaningful way, as far as I can tell, is why his justification is "Nazis" rather than "the devil made me do it," or "aliens" or "the fountain of youth must be there somewhere."
What we say to justify our actions matters. It can morally validate us, or it can exonerate us to ourselves or others even if those justications — those rationalizations — are self-delusional or lies. As a reminder, Hitler could have justified his rise to power; his nation's anger at the 1919 Treaty of Versailles; and his passion for Aryan superiority by something other than anger at the Jews. After all, Fascism began in Italy in 1922 with Mussolini, and he didn't bang on about the Jews. It wasn't until 1938's Racial Laws in Italy that Mussolini even paid attention to the Jews and that was only because of Hitler's insistence.
So … why Nazis?
The Bolshevik revolution wiped out the Czar and his ministers, as everyone knows from the Rolling Stone's Sympathy for the Devil. When they did this, they did not only assassinate everyone. They threw Russian history under the bus, made a clean political and cultural break with it (to a point), and classified all of it as "bad." After all, if you're going to have a good revolution, it needs to be against something bad.
In the 1989-1990 period when the USSR crumbled and a kind of proto-democracy inspired by liberal values took root in Russia, they experienced another revolution, and this time it was the USSR that was bad. This means that — conservatively — the previous 150 years of the nation's history was now "bad."
I cannot recall any other nation in history having to build a new society on the foundations of that much self-hatred. It may be unique to world history.
So what was left? What was good?
Stalingrad.
Conveniently forgetting that Stalin had signed a pact with Hitler to divide up eastern Europe after Germany won the war, Russia looks back on the German attack on its country and the savage fighting that turned back the Nazi tide, established an eastern front in the war, and saved Mother Russia from the huns as a great victory and a sourse of pride.
Geopolitically, and as a part of diplomatic history, we know that Stalin was complicit in the suffering and at best the Russians held back their own self-serving mistake. But on a human level, on a personal level, in the drama of the heart, the Russian fight was noble and admirable, and self-sacrificing and a model of resistance that should make anyone with a soul a little misty.
Twenty million people died. Pause on that number. It is the entire populations of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, dead.
Russians hate Nazis. They may ACT like Nazis, but they hate Nazis. Both Bolsheviks and Russians — ideologues and nationalists — hate Nazis. If you're going to fight something for a good reason, and you're Russian, it's going to be Nazis.
Even if there are no Nazis.
And even if all of it was your fault.
— Derek B. Miller
2 March, 2022
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