Russia is the most fascist country in Europe

VLK · Russia is the most fascist country in Europe

What are your opinions? What country is the most fascist country in Europe at the moment? In my opinion, there is not a shadow of doubt that it is Russia. Funnily though, Russia accuses Estonia of being a fascist country because Estonia wants to remove war-memorials into the war-cemetary.

As you may have noticed, this has caused a very major diplomatic crisis between Estonia and Russia. This episode is the worst kind of example of a superiority-complex that some countries still have.

Russia accuses Estonia of the rise of fascism in their country but Russia itself is the most fascist country one can think of.

LAz · Re: Russia is the most fascist country in Europe

agentmancuso

Neo-Fascist Russia continues illegal electronic attacks on Estonia.

Hat tip to Cicero

VLK

LAz

RFM

Who are you supposed to be VLK, Condoleeza Rice?
For God's sake give it a break already with your cold war Russian fascist paranoia.
You want to see fascism, come take a look at America.

agentmancuso

More cheery authoritarianism from Putin via Cicero again:

Rinty

Russia is without doubt an authoritarian country with a brutal leadership. However, they follow the same line as our own government, using anti-terror rhetoric to justify their actions.

Authoritarian regimes throughout history are of many different outlooks and colours, quite literally right left and centre. I dont see that this makes russia facist in anyway.

RFM

Is Cicero trying to replace Tony Blair as the next lapdog for George Bush and Company?
The cold war ended nearly two decades ago; get over it and get a life.

agentmancuso

RFM

If Cicero wanted to be half way honest about terrible governments and tyranny he might consider the history of England.

I suppose anybody on a weekend package tour of the Baltics could be said to have "spent some time there" but it would hardly qualify one for the histronics and ranting that you and Cicero regard as an intellectual substitute for fact.

Estonia, actually known as Estland (german) one of those funny little countries that seems to have never been mentioned in the history books by that name until 1917, when it sprang onto the world stage with a ready made back-dated history. Oh those terrible Russians!

agentmancuso

I repeat:

The Soviet tyranny was as vile a regime as has ever existed- and apologists for this monstrous and bloody regime are the moral equals of Nazi apologists.

Rinty · n

LAz

Rinty

nor is it socialist

RFM

I think you people are so hung up on vilifying Russia, you seem to have forgotten a little recent history.

Russia is no longer the Soviet Socialist Union of Republics, in fact it has not been since 1989. Second, Russia does not equal Communism or Socialism since 1989. Everybody in the world except Cicero and Agentmancuso seems to know that.

But the old bitter causes die hard, if at all. What a way to live.

Dave Coull

LAz wrote

> Croatia is by far the most fascist country in Europe.

It certainly has an extremely bad record of past and present day fascism

It's hard to say which country in Europe is the "most fascist". Since I'm not a racist, I don't believe that some races are just inherently more fascist than others, I think fascism is a product of circumstances. Some circumstances change, while others may be more permanent. Things like the level of unemployment etc change, while in the case of Estonia, for instance, being right next door to Russia is a permanent circumstance.

Estonia has a very large Russian-speaking minority, I think it's about thirty five percent of the population, and the Estonian government has denied full citzenship rights, voting rights, etc to this large minority. The Russian-speaking minority is mostly working class. If you are born into the Russian minority, then even if you make yourself fluent in Estonian, if your name sounds Russian your chances of getting a job as a civil servant, teacher, etc etc are reduced. While some might see this as an understandable reaction to a previous history of Russian domination, it is a stupid policy towards such a large section of your own population, especially when you've got Russia itself taking an interest in their welfare. It is a fact that during the Second World War many Estonian Nationalists were enthusiastic collaborators with the Nazis, and the removal of war memorials has to be seen in that context. Of course the Russian minority in Estonia objected, and of course Big Brother in the Kremlin backed their protests. Yes, there are fascists in positions of power in Russia. But also in Estonia. The fact that fascists can fall out with each other doesn't make them any less fascist. In the early years of their regimes, Mussolini and Hitler nearly went to war with each other.

Cicero

I see agrentmancuso has quoted approvingly a few things from my blog, and came to have a look at the comments.

Firstly, Estonia is not Estland- that is the German and Swedish name of the country, in Estonian (a language related to Finnish) it is Eesti. The Russian population came as colonialists in the 1940s and 1950s to replace the vanished Estonians, and some still have this colonial mind set. Nevertheless, Russians and Estonians have not clashed too much, and slowly (too slowly for some Estonians) the communities have been integrating. However the riots that the Russian Embassy in Tallinn were directly involved in, have weakened trust and hardened positions.

I am not an occasional weekender in Tallinn, I started a PhD at Edinburgh on the area, and now as a banker I have several transactions underway related to the Baltic, and Estonia in particular. I have also worked on deals across Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia.

As far as whether Russia is a Fascist state or not is concerned, well in the sense of have an explicitly fascist Party in charge, then no, it is not. However a few things for the body of kirk to consider:

There are no free and fair elections in Russia. The Press and all media are controlled by the state. Opponents of the regime are routinely killed. A youth group, Nashi, harrass and threaten any individual corporate or country that they perceive is a challenge to Vladimir Putin. Freedom House Rate Russia as "Not Free".

Life, away from the gltiz of modern Moscow is pretty awful: male life expectancy is 54, and is falling as a huge AIDS epidemic adds to the tolls of drinking, smoking, poor diet and dreadful welfare. Although, the nominal GDP numbers have shot up, on the back of rising oil, gas and commodity prices, the real economy is in a pretty terrible state, with a truly shocking disparity of wealth: you can find real poverty alongside the new rich.

I do not intend to reherse the history of Estonia, you can find it youself in such places as Wiki, but the destruction that the USSR unleashed on the Baltic is undeniable- over a third of the population was shot or exiled during the course of the Soviet occcupation. Estonians (and Latvians, Lithuanians) were denied basic human rights, and although there were many problems during the inter-war period, Estonia was richer than Norway, and the occupation drastically impoverished them. Yet only 17 years later, Estonia now is a dynamic and open society, essentially Nordic like their Finnish neighbours, and the country is considered one of the most pollitically and economically free in the whole world.

Although Soviet Socialism has now, gone, in many ways it was a far more barbaric regime even when compared to National Socialist Germany, and the psychological scars are very obvious, especially in Russia. So if Russia is not exactly a fascist country, it is an extremely dangerous and very damaged one.

I was interviewed on the BBC about the Samara summit yesterday, and I pointed out that it is not just Estonia that has come directly under Russian attack, but Lithuania had their oil supply cut when they sold their refinery to Poland, rather than the Kremlins prefered Russian. Romania has been deeply concerned about Russian meddling in Moldova, Poland has had illegal trade sanctions made against them. Britain too has a few bones to pick: Litvinenko, the spy flights over Scotland, the theft of assets from Shell in Sakhalin and so on. Even though Germany is always courted by Russia, the rumours about Gerhard Schroder suggest outright bribes, and Angela Merkel is not inclined to trust them. So I hope that the EU are pretty blunt about Russian behaviour, and NATO should be sending some pretty clear signals too.

So, if not Fascist, Russia is a violent and unstable place under an increasingly nasty government. In this dispute, it is Russia that is in the wrong, and NATO and the EU should unhesitatingly support free Estonia in the face of Russian threats.

Jimbo

[quote="Cicero"]

"There are no free and fair elections in Russia. The Press and all media are controlled by the state."

A bit like here then. Surprised

"Life, away from the gltiz of modern Moscow is pretty awful: male life expectancy is 54"

A lot like here. Shocked

VLK

Thanks Cicero! That was very enlightening. I wonder who you are if you have been interviewed by the BBC. Well, perhaps that is a secret you would like to keep.

I would add to your post that until this day not even today`s Russia has acknowledged that the Baltic states were invaded and occupied by the USSR. Russia insists on the old Soviet-interpretation that the three small countries voluntarily chose to join the USSR through elections.

There indeed were election in all three Baltic states in the summer of 1940 but all other candidates than those approved by the Soviet occupiers were denied participation in the election under various pretexts.

The new illegally elected parliaments made a formal wish to join the USSR and that wish was accepted.

This brings us to the Estonian interpretation of their new independence which is based on continuation, not declaration of new independence. It means that in the early 90`s estonia did not declare independence because they had already done so in 1918. Instead, they announced that the legal state of independence has been restored. The occupation was illegal in the first place under the Estonian constitution. Therefore, independence in 1991 was restoration of the legal status. Hence the citizenship-question. The Estonians interpreted that those Estonians who were citizens in 1940 and their descendants are citizens of Estonia. All others are foreigners.

Rinty

So Estonia seem as facist as anyone if people born there are after 1940 are foeigners and their citizenship is only for 'pure bred' estonians.

Anyway, wasnt this thread about Russia and not the Soviet Union?

I dont think you will find anyone here who defends the actions of the soviet union in their expansion into other countries. But surely if a russian family moved there in 1941 their descendants shouldnt be treated as foreigners?

It's a bit like saying that my family in Nothern Ireland are foreigners if a newly independent Ireland would declare a "continuation" of things as they were before the plantations or if newly independent Scotland voted to call all people who moved there after 1707 foreigners.

It is indefensible actually.

agentmancuso

RFM

Hello Cicero,
Delightful to have the author himself to defend his opinions, but I see they are not entirely objective or without bias. In fact one could say they were paid political announcements, or just propaganda churned out for the benefit of your clients and potential customers. Certainly a long way from anything remotely objective.

The country you call Estonia was actually settled by the Germans as a part of the Hanseatic league. Before that, according to Adam of Bremen, they were little more than wandering tribes of savages. The Germans called it Estland and the new group that came to power like so many others in 1918, called it Estonia. Of course Tallinn was also another creation of 1918, for several hundred years before that it was known as Reval.

Your comparison to Norway is sadly misplaced. At least the Norwegians,indeed all of Scandanavia has never made non-citizens of its minority peoples. Estonia on the other hand revoked the citizenship of those citizens who were not citizens before 1940, or of one of the descendants. If the minorities, Russians that is, want to become citizens, first a waiting period of six years that several written examinations, all in Estonian, on among other things the Estonian constitution and citizenship laws. One is left to wonder how many Estonians might pass such a series of examinations themselves. Of course in the American south, such devices were used for over 100 years with great success to keep Black Americans from exercising their rights of citizenship
I note too that although Estonia subscribed to the European Convention against the death penalty for crimes, there seemed to be no hesitation in sentencing three young men to death for committing a robbery and murder recently. Of course the surnames of the young men betray the fact they were all Russians. One set of laws for the Estonians, another for the outsiders, human rights be damned. Whatever one might say about the Norwegians, racial bigotry is not one of their attributes.

You seem to have forgotten that it was Russia that bore the brunt of the fighting in WWII. Their military losses alone exceeded the totals of all of the allied forces. Not only was the country devastated by the Nazi war machine, while Europe had the Marshall Plan and the great financial and economic resources of America to help with their recovery. Russia was forced to recover on its own while people like General McArthur urged immediate invasion of Russia, because "we are going to have to fight them some day, so let's get them while they are weak". And recover they did, the first country to put a space craft in orbit around the moon, the first country to land a space probe on the moon and on Mars, the first country to put an astronaut around the earth. Impressive results by any measure.
And while you find the old Soviet Union morally repugnant and on a level with Nazi Germany, the English upper classes did not share that attitude at all. That is a part of history that has been carefully rewritten, but Hitler was deemed to be the man who would save the world from bolshevism. Now we have people like Cicero declaiming their moral bankruptcy.
What frightens people like Cicero about Russia today is not that the Commissars will come and take his cow away, but that Russia is starting to gain the expertise and ability to capitalize on their enormous natural resources. If the past is an indication of the future, the West has much to fear indeed. Then the fear mongers will have to come with hat in hand to the new capitalists.

Rinty

"Yes. It's nationalism."

Yes it is, but estonians wanting the right to govern themslves free of the russians isnt. How that desire manifests itself in some people in Estonia is.

Nationalism is a key part of facism along with a state approved relion, warped history and mythology as well as authoritarianism.

LAz

I look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism and I see no way how Russia is fascist.

Now to address points that are not related to this.

Dave Coull

LAz wrote "most Russians in Estonia are there since world war two, but a huge percentage of them was there well before that, were not immigrants to the place".

First of all, we should be careful when referrring to "Russians" in Estonia. In some cases, that would be about as accurate as Russians referring to Scots as "English". It would be more accurate to say "Russian-speakers". Because the standard of living was higher in Estonia, immigrants (not necessarily ethnic Russians) arrived from other parts of the USSR. The language which they had in common was the dominant language of the USSR, Russian. However, VERY FEW of the Russian-speakers in Estonia today are "immigrants". The ancestors of some of them had been in Estonia for hundreds of years. Even the ones who arrived after the second world war (if they are still alive) are now old age pensioners, and it is their children or their grandchildren, born in Estonia yet deprived of equal rights by the Estonian state, who are actively protesting about the removal of memorials to those who fought against the Nazis. Yes, of course Big Brother in the Kremlin is posing as the defender of the rights of the oppressed Russian-speaking minority in Estonia. But it is the Estonian regime which has given the Kremlin the opportunity to do this, by their racist and fascist attitudes and policies. Saying this should not in any way be taken as a defence of the authoritarian regime in Moscow. But it is hypocrisy to try to paint all Russians as fascists while at the same time praising a racist regime that seeks to whitewash Estonian Nationalist collaboration with the Nazis.

RFM

Yes David Coull, but merely saying "citizen" begs the question.
Estonia did not become a independent country until 1918; they now define "citizen" as a person who was an Estonian, whatever that means, as having acquired that status as of 1940, 22 years hence or less than one generation.

What it really seems to mean is anyone without a Russian surname. Its history includes Danes, Swedes, Finns, Germans, Slavs, and Russians. Who then is an Estonian?

Cicero

VLK- At the risk of boring people, in fact there are three documents to consider, the Estonian Constitution (which was rewritten in 1938), as you say all those who were citizens of Estonia then (and who did not leave Estonia when Hitler "called the Germans home" in 1940) and their decendents are indeed citizens of Estonia.

The second document is the Treaty of Tartu of 1920 in which Soviet Russia "voluntarily and forever" renounced all rights over Estonia- which is why the Estonians want the Russian Federation - the legal successor to the USSR- to base relations on that treaty (However the Russians moved the border in 1944 and therrefore fear territorial claims, even though Estonia has said it will renounce these potential claims in exchange for recognition of the Treaty).

The third is recent legislation which allows non Estonians who have lived in Estonia for some time and who have no other citizenship to acquire Estonian citizenship. In fact about half of the 300,000 Russian speakers are now Estonian citizens, although a number are also Russian citizens. There do remain some non citizens- the holders of the grey passports- but these are people who are unwilling to sit the (now fairly basic) citizenship test i.e. who have learned a minimal amount of Estonian and passed an citizenship test. Some Russians resent the idea of a test on principle, and the Russian Embassy has been recruiting Russian citizens amongst the stateless in Estonia.

Dave Coull

Cicero wrote

> about half of the 300,000 Russian speakers are now Estonian citizens

Very, very few of the Russian speakers in Estonia today are actually
"immigrants". Some of them can trace their ancestry in Estonia
back many centuries, but some are the children or the grandchildren
or the great-grandchildren of immigrants. Stating that "about half
of the 300,000 Russian speakers are now Estonian citizens" implies
that there must be over 100,000 people, born in Estonia, who
are nevertheless denied full citizenship of the country in which
they were born. Do you think this is a state of affairs of which
the Estonian government should be proud ?

It is a total disgrace that there should be any kind of "citzenship test"
for people born in a country. If you are born in a country, then you
should be a citizen as of right.

The policies of the Estonian government are racist and fascist.
Now , I am quite willing to agree that racism and fascism
are no strangers to Big Brother in the Kremlin. But just because
there is racism and fascism in Russia does not excuse the racism
and fascism which can be found amongst Estonian Nationalists,
including amongst the present government/regime in Estonia.

Cicero

Oh dear RFM - I will not comment on the view that until the Teutonic Knights conquered the Baltic in the twelfth century that the Estonians were savages: History is written by the winners, and there is much evidence that the Sword Brothers were extremely violent. The Baltic cities were not admitted into the Hanseatic League until at least a century after the Danes and germans conquered the area. The Estonians were there before the Germans, and they survived after the Germans were removed after the First and Second World Wars. There is evidence that Estonians settled on the Baltic almost five thousand years ago. You are right, the name "Eesti" is relatively new- until the 19th century the Estonians called themselves Rahvamaalased- the people of the land. So what?

By the way, I rather resent your implication that I am somehow paid for holding my freely held opinions.

As to your other points:

"I note too that although Estonia subscribed to the European Convention against the death penalty for crimes, there seemed to be no hesitation in sentencing three young men to death for committing a robbery and murder recently. Of course the surnames of the young men betray the fact they were all Russians. One set of laws for the Estonians, another for the outsiders, human rights be damned. Whatever one might say about the Norwegians, racial bigotry is not one of their attribut"

- This is simply not true- Estonia does not have and does not intend to use the death penalty- unlike the Russian Federation. In fact almost all of your points are inaccurate, misleading or just plain wrong- your heavy English seems to mark you out as a non-native speaker, so I might ask: who is paying you?

For the record:

In the 1938 census of the 1.6 million population, Estonia was 88% Estonian, about 10% German and Swedish and about 8% Russian. No census was taken for decades after the war, but the latest populations are of 1.4 million about 65% is Estonian and about 25% is Russian. Many of these Russians came in the 1950s and 1960s- well within living memory- and they refused to have anything to do with the estonians- just being estonian was occasionally a crime: for example Estonians were forbidden to live in Narva at all for many years.

By some miracle the Estonians got back control of their own country and they have not been fascist, they have merely found legal ways to begin integrating a large and not particularly welcome coloniol body. Sure it has not been easy, but the integration process has actually been relatively smooth- until that is the Russian Embassy got involved.

LAZ- Spouting Russian propaganda on every line is not an efficient use of brain- I judge a man by his friends- and Transnistria is a very nasty place. Murdering British Citizens with Radioactive poison on the streets of London is damn nearly a casus belli- and can not be defended at any level. Meanwhile how do you defend the repeated harassment of opposition figures like Kasparov?

Sorry- your "Orthodox brotherhood" line is exactly the kind of primitive nonsense that was used to defend the murderer and crimninal Slobodan Milosovic. If I seem intemperate in language, I saw the Yugo war at close hand and do not forgive those who started it.

Cicero

Dave- It is simply not true to call Estonians racists and fascist- and given how many of them were murdered by the Nazis, it is not only wrong but extremely offensive. The Russians were not invited guests- they were Herrenvolk, but now they are being integrated into an open and democratic state- what is astonishing is the lack of rancour- so frankly I would take back this comments.

agentmancuso

agentmancuso

RFM

To Cicero,
Your argument of Estonia as being somehow established in the 13th century, or thereabouts, is actually based on the notion of nationalism as race. That is that Germans, English, Spanish, etc. are people of a particular racial descent. I take it for granted that the recent DNA studies, sponored by various organizations such as National Geographic have exposed that old fallacy. Estonian is a political desigantion not a racial or ethnic designation.

Nobody pays me for my writing here, directly or indirectly, but if I were writing for pay, or to curry favor among my clients, or in the hopes of soliciting business, I would feel obliged to my readers to disclose that fact.
It is called bias, a matter that tends to put a certain spin on what an individual writes.

The names of the Estonians sentenced to death, are Andrew Ojala, Albert Solodov, Oleg Borisov, Vladimir Botchko and Sergei Krylov. Whether they are "citizens" or not is not disclosed, but their names make it abundantly clear what their origins are. Botchko's death sentence was commuted, but the others still await execution. See Amnesty International's reports. You seem to be uninformed about Estonia's position on the death penalty. See the Estonian ratification of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, adopted April 1993, specifically omitting Protocol #6 forbidding the death penalty.

While we are on the subject of wrong and misleading, I note you parrot the same nationalist line about it being a crime to be an Estonian before 1989 and not even being allowed to live in Narva. That was the big Soviet Naval Base wasn't it? Nobody without specific authorization was allowed to live in or near large Soviet military bases, Russians included.

I guess you find fault in Russia trying to protect its citizens when the country they have lived in for years decides they are now non-citizens unless they can pass written tests and live there for six more years. Shame on them for getting involved!

You also seem to be uninformed about the so-called spy, Litvinenko. The most likely source of the radiation poisoning, according to English newspapers, is the prominent Russian refugee currently residing in London. If that is a casus belli to you, the question to you is against who?

RFM

To Agentmancuso,
I suppose the name of Lady Astor and her social circle is a complete mystery to you. Look it up and see what she and her upper-class English friends thought about Herr Hitler and the wonderful new world order he proposed. Or who she was cheering for while English Tommies were laying down their lives for King and country. Was it not also Neveille Chamberlain who said according to Margret McMillan, Hitler was a man he could do business with? You may also recall the mysterious ride of Rudolph Hess, high ranking deputy of Adolph Hitler who came as an emissary of some sort, and where he landed (bailed out actually). Although the details have never been made public it should be reasonably clear to even the most skeptical, he thought he was meeting friends.

I am not suggesting in any manner that the excesses of the Stalinist regime with all of its crimes and bloodshed are to be excused or even considered as offset in some manner by the excesses of the Hitler regime. Both are a blot on the pages of humanity. I have no idea what it is that you perceive as "Marxist flavored history" among the professional classes, but you might want to go back and reread Cicero's column again. If that is Marxism, or Marxist flavored, you must see marxists under your bed at night too.

Dave Coull

Cicero wrote "Dave- It is simply not true to call Estonians racists and fascist".

Answer, I didn't.

I don't call ANY national or ethnic grouping racist and fascist.

To suggest that any national or ethnic grouping is inherently racist
would in itself be a racist statement !

What I say is that you can find racist and fascist opinions amongst
ANY national or ethnic grouping, and, for reasons of circumstances
and history, you can find more such attitudes amongst some
groups than you will find amongst others.

I wrote

" The policies of the Estonian government are racist and fascist".
Got that bit? I was talking about the Estonian GOVERNMENT,
and not the Estonian people as such.

I wrote

"Now , I am quite willing to agree that racism and fascism
are no strangers to Big Brother in the Kremlin".

Got that bit?

In referring to "Big Brother in the Kremlin", I was clearly referring
to the Russian GOVERNMENT , and not to the Russian people
as such.

I wrote

"But just because there is racism and fascism in Russia"
- note that this statement about what you can find in Russia
in no way refers to the Russian people as a whole - "does not
excuse the racism and fascism which can be found amongst
Estonian Nationalists" - got that bit? Racism and fascism
can be found "amongst Estonian Nationalists". It doesn't say
that ALL Estonian Nationalists are racist and fascist. "including
amongst the present government/regime in Estonia" - got
that bit? Including AMONGST the present government/regime
is Estonia does not even say that _everybody_ involved
with that regime is racist and fascist. .

Cicero writes

> The Russians

You mean the Russian speakers. Some of those who migrated
to Estonia from other parts of the USSR were not in fact
ethnic Russians, but Russian was the language which
they had in common.

> were not invited guests

Under the USSR, Estonia was a better place to live than some
other parts of the USSR. There were more job opportunities
etc. Where this is true, and where people are able to move,
you will get migration. These migrants broke no laws.
They were not "illegal immigrants".

> they are being integrated into an open and democratic state

You mean, their GRANDCHILDREN , born in Estonia of parents
also born in Estonia, are slowly and grudgingly being integrated.
Any state which denies automatic citizenship to some groups
of people born within its borders is racist, and I would question
the claim of such a state to be "open and democratic".

VLK

Estonia has not acted in a very wise manner regarding its Russian-speaking minority. When Estonia regained independence, there was a hope that all the Russian-speaking people would leave Estonia. Indeed many have left but those who have remained have absolutely nowhere to go in Russia. The population of Estonia in 1989 was 1.7m while today it is 1.3m. Both the emigration of the Russian-speaking people as well as the terrible population-statistics have contributed to this situation. In Estonia and many other Eastern-European countries the death-rate is far higher than the birth-rate. Since the enlargement of the EU, emigration has further deteriorated the population-situation.

If Estonia had embraced the Russian-speaking people who wish to be Estonian citizens, the country would have loyal Russian-speaking citizens alongside the Estonian-speaking ones. Instead, the Russian-spaeking people have agreed to become tools of the Russian-propaganda. Of course the Russian-speakers realise themselves that the Russian government does not really care about them. In the longer run, having a very large proportion of the population without citizenship benefits no-one.

agentmancuso

RFM

To Agentmancuso;

Yes, Cicero is rational, intelligent and somewhat well informed, and also seems to be the product of English secondary schools. What does that do for your suggestion that 20th century history as taught is "Marxist flavored"?

agentmancuso

It bears no relation to it whatsoever.

I myself was treated to a soft-Marxist view of history at school, but have emerged largely unscathed. Even at the time, I thought it was a bit dubious; with retrospect it was blatantly weighted. In a democracy, you see, it is possible to obtain, and even to profess alternative perspectives on history or politics, without running the risk of being silenced by the state, as is the usual practice in Marxist countries.

RFM

I don't know which Marxist countries you speak of. It was never my experience to be "censored by the State" or anyone else when discussing economics of any stripe or variety in communist countries. In fact I was always surprised at the intellectual honesty that seemed to be the hall mark of these conversations. On the other hand, in America I often found that students and government officials were ideologically driven about economics and rarely able to engage in comparative discussion. It was as though communism was a taboo subject and the less said about it the better.

Cicero

RFM- Estonia abolished the death penalty under all circumstances in 1998 and has not executed anyone since 1991. Russia has signed the sixth protocol but has not ratified it, the last execution took place there in 1999. Your allegations are completely false- no one in any Estonian gaol faces execution.

Narva was not a naval base- it is upriver from the sea and the river is not navigable. It was designated as a border zone and "Strategic industries" were operating in the town- it was therefore closed to Estonians who were considered an unreliable nationality- there were quite large parts of the country that were only accessable by special permit- the islands and Lahemaa, for example.

Since the director of public prosecutions will issue indictments against two Russian agents later today, I think your smears against "the prominent Russian refugee currently residing in London"- I presume you mean Berezovsky- are rubbish.

As far as your race/nation argument is concerned- of course national identity is not a matter of DNA- look at Scotland- however there are things like history, language, culture, religion that contribute to a sense of common national identity- and it exists more or less everywhere. You can hardly point to the Estonians as being especially nationalist just because they have a national distinct history, language, Lutheran church and above all language. These are simple the features that make the Estonian polity different from Finland, Latvia, Russia or any other place.

Dave- I think you have slightly over reacted to my point. Firstly, Estonia is trying to integrate Russians, but it is going about it based on the laws and constitution of a country that was illegally occupied. At the end of the day, Russians if not welcomed, are not being excluded either. There are many prominant Estonians of Russian heritage- Juri Luik, Igor Grazin, Segei Ivanov, and many others- so I reject your idea that Estonia- whether government or people- is in any way fascist. The fact that neither of us loves loves the Kremlin too much does not- in my view- make your point about Estonian fascism correct.

As far as Marxism is concerned- well at Aberdeen I was definately on the business end of the Marxist school, which I rejected explicitly- I do not buy the idea that "all history is the history of class struggle", and after quite a long intellectual journey I would now describe myself as in the Liberal philosophical school- which recognises that no grand theory accurately describes human behaviour- actually that sounds a bit pompous, but I can't be bothered to revise it Smile

Cicero

Just quickly responding to the "Soviet Union won World War Two" argument. The sacrifices that were made in the war were truly heroic, no one denies this- and remember that the Estonians have not destroyed the memorial, they have simply moved it to a more appropriate location, where the PM and representatives of the government laid wreaths on May 8th.

Churchill once said words to the effect that "If asked to choose between Nazism and Communism, I would choose Communism, but I pray that I am not called upon to choose either." When we look at Stalin's role in the war, there are many abiguities- after all when the war began in 1939, Stalin had already come to a deal with Hitler under the illegal secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact which allowed the occupation of the Baltic in the first place. This deal held firmly until the USSR was attacked in 1941.

Yet, as horrific as the Soviet war casualties were, even these numbers are dwarfed by the death toll inflicted by Stalin himself- 3 million starved in the artificial famine in Ukraine in the anti-Kulak drive, and nobody knows how many in the Great Terror and the Purges of the late 1930s. After the War, all of the Chechens and Ingush, Crimean Tatars and the Mesekhtian Turks were deported to Kazakhstan- by the time Kruschev allowed them to come home a third were dead. Anne Applebaum's brilliant Book "Gulag" is a very sober assessment- and gives a death toll (never mind the imprisoned) that lies between about 18 and 40 million. Even the Nazis only managed 6 million.

The fact is that the scale of the crimes of Stalin is gigantic- and it is the failure of the "Chekist" -as he calls himself- Putin to address the issue that has meant that Russia is still mistrusted overseas and psychologically damaged at home. Anyone who travels around Russia soon encounters the dreadful legacy- a brutalised and dispirited people drunkenly living in squalor. (A place indeed that makes Easterhouse look like Centre Parcs).

Personally, I think that the dispute with Estonia simply shows the Putinistas in the very worst light. They applaud the success of Stalin in "The Great Patriotic War", without really ackowledging that he was a barbarian- and a murderer on a gigantic scale.

RFM

Now, now Cicero, playing fast and loose with the facts ill becomes a good capitalist and anti-Marxist.

Estonia adopted the European Human Rights Convention in April 1993, specifically omitting protocol 6, forbidding the death penalty. In 1997, life imprisonment as an alternative to the death penalty was enacted in Estonia and abolition of the death penalty rejected. Read Amnesty International Report 1997 and subsequent reports such as Human Rights Watch. The names I gave you are still under awaiting execution as their sentences have not been commuted. What's the matter with you? You think saying "rubbish" is some sort of a response to matters of public record which anyone can look up?

Wherever do you get this silliness that the Soviets regarded Estonians as inherently unreliable? The Soviets had their own criteria for reliability, and nationalism was regarded with great suspicion in any of the several Soviet Republics, including Greater Soviet Russia, for the obvious reason that the nationalist were very clear about overthrowing the Soviet state. You think it is or was different in England, America or Germany? Give me a break.

Yes the Director of Prosecutions has announced he will issue indictments, but if you think that will be the final say in the matter, you are dreaming. As I recall one of the putative accused named Berisovsky as his employer in that matter or so the English press reported. Shall I give you the date and name of the paper or will your standard response still be "rubbish"? You might try some other response than "rubbish"; but perhaps you are simply incapable of a reasoned response.

National identity is a matter of self perception, not objective criteria, it is something akin to religion. Nations are composed of people who have been migrating around most of the world for the past 30,000 to 45,000 years. In other words somewhat homogeneous; but as Conrad put it so well there will always be some cheap politician (or nationalist) who sees an opportunity to fan the flames of hatred and fear for his own personal gain and wave the nationalist flag. If you think Estonian is something objective, you are terribly mistaken; however if that conflicts with your notions of self and who you are, well Sir, you can believe you are Donald Duck if you so desire.

Dave Coull

Cicero wrote "Estonia is trying to integrate Russians" - by "Estonia", I assume what is meant is the Estonian government, and by "Russians" I assume what is meant is Russian-speakers. Just as not all English-speakers are English, not all Russian-speakers are Russian. "it is going about it based on the laws and constitution of a country that was illegally occupied" - not good enough. By that standard, Irish Nationalists could claim that the majority of the population of Northern Ireland are incomers who can only gradually be integrated into the "nation", even though they and their ancestors were born there. If people are born in a country, then they should be entitled to full citizenship as of right. Full stop. No exceptions. If the Estonian "laws and constitution" say otherwise, then those laws, and that constitution, are in conflict with internationally recognised human rights, and no lover of freedom should touch those laws, and that constitution, or the government which imposes them, with a bargepole. Yes, the Russian government is authoritarian and has tendencies towards racism and fascism. Yes, Russia is bigger than Estonia and the Russian bear can often be a big bully. But none of this excuses the authoritarianism and the tendencies towards racism and fascism of the Estonian government. The Estonian government only has itself to blame for the disgraceful way it has treated its Russian-speaking population. The Estonian government only has itself to blame for giving Big Brother in the Kremlin the opportunity to pose as the defender of the rights of these Russian-speakers.

VLK

About choosing between nazism and communism; it is quite telling that in 1944 many Estonians fled the country together with their nazi-masters because they had had a previous experience of communist-rule in 1940-41.

Communism is far worse than nazism, of course, both are evil and alien to the human nature. When Finland was attacked for a second time by the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, the Finnish President Ryti signed an agreement of assistance with the Germans. That provided the Finns with a lot of military assistance in both terms of troops and especially weapons. Without that help Finland could not have survived.

Of course, in the aftermath of the war President Ryti was sentenced toprison but Finland managed to retain her independence.

The behaviour of Russia today reminds very much of the Soviet Union pre WWII. Similar bullying tactics.

Dave Coull

VLK wrote "The behaviour of Russia today reminds very much of the Soviet Union pre WWII. Similar bullying tactics."

If people are born in a country, then they should be entitled to full citizenship as of right. Full stop. No exceptions. If the Estonian "laws and constitution" say otherwise, then those laws, and that constitution, are in conflict with internationally recognised human rights, and no lover of freedom should touch those laws, and that constitution, or the government which imposes them, with a bargepole. Yes, the Russian government is authoritarian and has tendencies towards racism and fascism. Yes, Russia is bigger than Estonia and the Russian bear can often be a big bully. But none of this excuses the authoritarianism and the tendencies towards racism and fascism of the Estonian government. The Estonian government only has itself to blame for the disgraceful way it has treated its Russian-speaking population. The Estonian government only has itself to blame for giving Big Brother in the Kremlin the opportunity to pose as the defender of the rights of these Russian-speakers.

agentmancuso

Cicero

RFM- I won't recapitulate the argument- if you are unprepared to acknowledge the simple fact that Estonia does not have the death penalty and has not used it since independence, then it is pretty hard to engage- you are simply wrong. As for "Silliness"- Estonians were made into non-people in their own homeland- it was not a question of political opinions about the USSR, it simple things like being able to speak your own language. If you can not tell the difference between an electoral democracy and a tyranny responsible for the death of millions then you must have the political maturity of a five year old- or Donald Duck to use your own idiom.

Berezovsky can say what he likes, however offensive, because the UK is a free country- if he were to actively participate in violence, he would be commiting a crime and would face criminal proceedings- he is careful to stay within the law.

You may not like national identity- many do not, but it exists and is indeed the basis of the international system. Estonia's identity is no different from any other European State- from Scotland to Switzerland to Sweden.

Dave -parroting the same "give them citizenship line"- does not recognise the facts of how and why the Russians came to be in Estonia. You can be born in a stable but it does not make you a horse. Many of the people you are talking about refused to take Estonian citizenship anyway- and Estonia having been taken off the map once is in no hurry to naturalise a large number of people who refuse to accept the legality or even reasonableness of the idea of Estonia- these were after all the people who destroyed Estonia in the first place (but their children are integrating and those who want citizenship are free to gain it). However, as I keep saying what is extraordinary is the fact that both sides are making compromises and the problem is almost settled as it is. Accusing Estonia of racism and all the other sins is very wide of the mark. Estonia is extremely open, and you can, if you like e-mail Estonian political leaders- Sergei Ivanov in the Parliament for example or Juri Luik in the Foreign Ministry- both of them are of Russian heritage and speak good English and you can hear directly from them a balanced and reasonable assesment of what has been acheived and what stiill has to be done- on both sides of the language barrier.

I am really very disappointed to see the vehemence with which people who are uninvolved can hold positions that are not based on the facts. Objectively, Estonia belongs to the select group of completely free countries- as Freedom House will confirm. It is also one of the most IT literate countries- and Russian and Estonian speakers alike participate in an increasingly hi-tech political system- you can watch both Parliament and Cabinet meetings on a live stream over the internet. The political leaders are not, as in many countries, separated from their populations- a couple of weeks ago I saw the PM in the pub- no security needed. The debate is open and honest- in fact blunt. Estonia guarantees cultural and political rights to its minorities, and if there is lingering bitterness from the occupation, there is also a grudging respect on both sides- and a determination to build an Estonia that works for all of its people.

If you believed Russian propaganda, you expect Estonia to be under seige from outraged Russian speakers- the only seige was a bunch of "Nashi" drunks stirred up by the Russian Embassy who had come over the border for an awayday riot. Sure people were shaken up to find some local hoodlums were involved- Estonia is a pretty peaceful place, and it asks a lot of questions when teenagers start waving Soviet flags. There is much soul searching- but it is the soul searching of a democratic state. Estonia had to demonstrate that it was playing fairly to the Russian speakers in order for them to be even considered as members of the European Union- they have consistently passed every test of the Copenhagen criteria with flying colours.

Meanwhile, across the border, it is Russia that is rated "Not Free" by Freedom House, Russia that breaks its legal contracts and occasionally international law, and Russia that sends over its agents to murder its enemies. It is Russia that accuses Estonia of Fascism -they say the same about the USA, by the way. Yet, frankly this just another example of the "tell a lie big enough and they will have to beleive it" school that shows the continuing Soviet mark on the Putin regime in the Kremlin.

Rinty

Freedom House is not exactly an objective voice on these issues, it was set up to oppose communism and support opposition to communist regimes, it's "freedom" is an american version of freedom.

Cicero

Rinty- FH has a transparent process as to how it reaches its judgements, check their website for the detailed methodology that they use. The fact that it is American is irrelevent, it is a non government organisation with an extremely good reputation.

If still don't wish to accept their judgements, then how about the compendious reports from the European Union that evaluated Estonia is extreme detail during the accession process (you can find much material on the Europa website)? Or the myriad reports from SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) and other allied groups?

"Its American and Anti-Communist"- So what? Being Pro-Communist does not exactly mark you out as a defender of humanity does it? Mao killed even more than Stalin, and Pol Pot was hardly a bespectacled human rights activist was he?

The US may have many faults but I'd rather live in Pittsburgh than Perm any day of the week.

Dave Coull

Cicero wrote

> Dave - parroting the same "give them citizenship line"

To "parrot" something is to repeat someone else's views. I never "parrot" anything. Any view which I express is my own view, and it is expressed under my own name. I do not "parrot" any long dead figure from antiquity.

> - does not recognise the facts of how and why the Russians

You mean the Russian-speakers. I am an English-speaker, but I am not English. I recognise the simple fact that, given the dominant status of the Russian language both under the Tsarist Empire and under the USSR, there are bound to be many Russian-speakers who are not Russian.

> came to be in Estonia. You can be born in a stable but it does not make > you a horse.

The first time I heard that analogy used was in the early 1970s, when I was working on a building site in London, and one of my fellow building workers used it to justify his own racist views towards children born in England to immigrant parents. I have heard it used on dozens of occasions since then, and every time I hear it I know it is being used to justify racist discrimination.

> Many of the people you are talking about refused to take Estonian
> citizenship anyway

"Many" ? Exactly how many ? This sounds like a classic racist myth, based on dodgy or non-existent evidence, to me.

> Estonia having been taken off the map once is in no hurry to naturalise > a large number of people who refuse to accept the legality or even
> reasonableness of the idea of Estonia

I do not believe it is fair to depict all of the people who have been deprived of citizenship by the Estonian government as folk who "refuse to accept the legality or even reasonableness of the idea of Estonia". In any case, even if some of them DO take this view, it is IRRELEVANT . There are loyalists in Northern Ireland who are bitterly opposed to the whole idea of a Republic of Ireland, yet these people are, under Irish law, entitled to an Irish passport if they so choose. So far as Scotland is concerned, the position is that EVERYBODY in Scotland at independence will be entitled to citizenship, yes, even people who refuse to accept the legality or even the reasonableness of an independent Scotland.

> these were after all the people who destroyed Estonia in the first place

RUBBISH.

The vast majority of the Russian-speaking immigrants to Estonia arrived to work at relatively menial jobs, the same as many immigrants elsewhere. Even under the USSR the "native" Estonians tended to have higher incomes etc, and with the establishment of a regime practising "positive discrimination" in favour of Estonian-speakers this tendency became more pronounced. These were people who arrived to seek a better life for themselves and their families, same as immigrants everywhere.

> Objectively, Estonia belongs to the select group of completely free countries- as Freedom House will confirm.

You can parrot this so-called "Freedom House" as much as you like, I don't give a damn, any country which denies citizenship to some of the people who were actually born there can NOT be described as "free".

> Estonia had to demonstrate that it was playing fairly to the Russian speakers in order for them to be
> even considered as members of the European Union

My own standards are somewhat higher than those of the EU.

> Meanwhile, across the border, it is Russia that is rated "Not Free" by Freedom House

There you go again, parroting somebody else's opinion.

However, I would agree that Russia is "not free".
Neither is Estonia.

Holebender

Just to be fair and balanced, very few countries allow automatic citizenship to all people born within their territories. The UK doesn't, for example. In fact the USA is one of very very few countries which does grant automatic citizenship to anyone born within its borders.

Rinty

"Rinty- FH has a transparent process as to how it reaches its judgements, check their website for the detailed methodology that they use. The fact that it is American is irrelevent, it is a non government organisation with an extremely good reputation. "

No they are a lobby group for countries to provide the sort of freedoms acceptable to multinational corporations, they are politically motivated and biased.

They are one of those responsible for the lie that Venezuala has no freedom of the press when 90% of the press is privately owned and anti-Chavez.

Even though it is now common knowledge that the coup was staged with the help of the USA and the shootings that supposedly sparked the coup were stage managed by TV, they insist on attacking venezuala simply because of the move to public ownership and social programmes.

Freedom House is not an unbiased source and is not worth quoting as some sort of independent guide to freedoms.

Dave Coull

Holebender wrote "Just to be fair and balanced, very few countries allow automatic citizenship to all people born within their territories."

Very few countries are free.

"The UK doesn't, for example. In fact the USA is one of very very few countries which does grant automatic citizenship to anyone born within its borders."

Well, regarding the UK, like I said when Cicero mentioned the EU,
my own standards of what constitutes freedom are somewhat higher.

Holebender

It is certainly not the internationally recognised human right you say it is.

I would say in most cases people are entitled to the citizenship of their parents when they are born, but that applies no matter where their mothers happened to be at the moment of giving birth.

Dave Coull

Holebender wrote "It is certainly not the internationally recognised human right you say it is".

What you mean is, it is not universally recognised by governments.
Well, that is just a statement of the obvious !

Nevertheless, so far as genuine lovers of freedom are concerned,
a child born in a country has the right to citizenship of that country.
The fact that this right is recognised by people in many different
nations throughout the world makes it an "internationally
recognised human right".

> I would say in most cases people are entitled to the citizenship
> of their parents when they are born, but that applies no matter
> where their mothers happened to be at the moment of giving birth.

Yes, there is also THAT internationally recognised human right.
One does not exclude the other. My daughter and my son-in-law
were both living and working in Prague for some time. My grandson
was born there. I would say that makes my grandson entitled
to both Czech and British (or, when we become independent,
Scottish) citizenship. Now, as it happens, my daughter and family
did not remain in the Czech Republic. After a couple of years
they returned to Scotland. They have not sought to claim
Czech citizenship for my grandson. But what we are talking
about in the case of Estonia is people who were born in that
country, grew up in that country, got married in that country,
had children in that country, and these children of children
born in Estonia have no automatic right to citizenship,
because they were born into a Russian-speaking family.
That, to me, is a blatant abuse of human rights. The fact
that Russia is also guilty of blatant abuses of human rights
in no way excuses racism and fascism in Estonia. Two
wrongs do not make a right.

VLK

We must remember that Estonia would not have been allowed to join the EU if their policies regarding minorities didn`t meet the international standards. In this respect calling Estonia fascist and racist is exaggeration.

However, it would be in the interests of Estonia itself that as many Russian-speaking people as possible could be granted the Estonian citizenship. As has been pointed out many times, there are a lot of Russian-speaking people who do not want to be Estonain citizens but they still consider Estonia their home. This attitude, which I like to call superiority complex, stems from the old Soviet days and is especially prevalent among the elderly people. Often when asked whether they consider Estonia or Russia to be their home-country, the answer is that neither, their home-country is the Soviet Union.

It is true that many Estonians would like most if not all the Russian-speakers to leave the country. This is not a realsitic option as Estonia is their country of birth and they wouldn`t have anywhere to go in Russia. All those Russians who were bound to leave have left. When Estonia regained her independence, the Russian-speakers made up about 35% of the population, today that rate is 25%.

There is also the question of language in play. Despite its large Russian-speaking population, Estonia is officially strictly monolingual. It is impossible to get a good job without the ability to speak Estonian. As Estonian and Russian belong to completely different categories of languages, it is very hard for especially the elderly people to learn a new language.

Besides, some areas in Estonia, especially North-East around the towns of Narva and Sillamäe are effectively Russian-speaking only. When I have been to Tallinn I have noticed that you can hear much more Russian spoken there than Estonian.

Dave Coull

VLK wrote "We must remember that Estonia would not have been allowed to join the EU if their policies regarding minorities didn`t meet the international standards".

It depends what you mean by "international standards". All we can really conclude from this is that, after some prompting from the EU, and faced with the possibility of not being allowed to join the EU if changes were not made, Estonia managed to meet certain absolute minimum requirements, and the existing countries of the EU decided that it was in their interests to allow Estonian membership.

"In this respect calling Estonia fascist and racist is exaggeration". - Yes, that would be an exaggeration. But who has made such an exaggeration? Certainly not me. An exaggeration is when you make a statement with some element of truth, but expand that element of truth beyond what is truthfull. For instance, if the proportion of Welsh-speakers in a particular area of Wales is nearly forty percent, but you say that it is nearly half, then that is an exaggeration. So yes, calling Estonia fascist and racist would be an exaggeration, but it is undeniable that there is racism in Estonia, and it is undeniable that there are fascist elements in Estonia.

In my personal opinion - and I really don't give a damn what the EU says, or what this so-called "Fredom House" organisation says, I make my own mind up about things - any country which does not allow automatic citizenship to every child born within its borders can not be described as truly free. By my standards, Estonia is not free.

"It is true that many Estonians would like most if not all the Russian-speakers to leave the country. This is not a realsitic option as Estonia is their country of birth and they wouldn`t have anywhere to go in Russia. All those Russians who were bound to leave have left. When Estonia regained her independence, the Russian-speakers made up about 35% of the population, today that rate is 25%."

The phrase "bound to leave" sounds very dubious. In the UK, openly racist and fascist parties such as the BNP take the view that a large percentage of black people born in the UK are "bound to leave". VLK admits that ten percent of the entire population of Estonia has left, and that many Estonians would like a quarter of the remaining entire population to leave. That is NOT something of which Estonia can be proud.

The Estonian authorities' decided to move war memorials to those who had died fighting the Nazis. That decision had the support of at least some Estonians who really were both racist and fascist. It was opposed by many Estonian-born Russian-speakers who took the view that the part played by their parents or grandparents or other relatives in fighting Nazi Germany was something of which to be proud. In this, of course, they had the backing of the Russian government, which also takes the view that the USSR's fight against Nazi Germany is something of which to be proud. Now, of course there are many things of which Russia can not be proud. There are many elements of racism and fascism to be found in Russia. But the decision to move the war memorials to less prominent places was rightly seen as downplaying the significance of the fight against Nazi Germany. Of course this gave Big Brother in the Kremlin the opportunity to meddle in Estonian affairs. But the Estonian government has only itself to blame for creating this situation.

FreedomNow

There's a lot of countries formerely behind the iron curtain where saldy neo-nazi and facist beliefs are on the rise. In Poland there were instances when human swastikas were formed at football matches. In Russia there are also anti-asian paramilitaries being formed all over the country to attack and occasionally murder immigrants from counrties like Uzbeckistan, Turkmenistan ect who racially differ from Russians. These evil groups featured on Ross Kemp On Gangs a while back.

Neil

It is probably not true that Stalin killed more Soviets than Hitler. The generally accepted figure for Soviets killed in the war is between 24 & 30 million not the 6 million quoted. Those assesments of Stalin's killings which make any use of records are lower, sometimes much lower, than that.

The most Nazi country in Europe is certainly Croatia, a country whose territoryial integirty depends on the NATO supported genocide & ethnic cleansing of 600,000 Yugoslavs. The also did much more destruction of war memorials & such than Estonia has ever been accused of. Bosnia & Hercegovina Moslem area & Kosovo could also count but they aren't really states. One could make a case for Germany & Austria too because of their fulsome support of Nazi genocide in Yugoslavia.

Rinty

Whether Stalin killed more or not is irrelevant really. We often see figures attributed to Stalin that include everybody killed in every war while he was leader.

The fact is that Stalin had millions of people killed, imprisoned tortured or exiled.

I have been rereading a lot of russian novels recently. Most recently I read solzhenistyens "The First Circle" which includes chapters with Stalin locked in his office with his thoughts.

We can never know whether these are accurate accounts of Stalin as such, but they do accurately reflect, in my opinion, the level of denial from those on the left who refused to believe these things were any more than western propaganda, or that they were justified for the greater good.

In one chapter a prisoner who is still pro-soviet writes a poem about Moses leading the israelites to the pomised land. He attempts to link this to stalin saying that his people moaned and complained but that eventually after 40 years Moses was proved right and that the hardship was worth it.

Another prisoner points out to him that you could walk from Egypt to Canaan in 3 weeks so Moses must have severely misled his people as it took them 40 years to get there!

Neil

Genesis says that when Moses came down from the mountainn with the commandments he found the Israelites worshipping a golden calfso he got his friends & organised ,wiping out 10% of the people. After that they did as he said. Having studied for the priesthood Stain would haveunderstood what a tradition he was following. Clearly shalt not killing doesn't apply to God's anointed.

RFM

To Cicero;
So you say Estonia has never used the death penalty; look up Rein Oruste, executed September 1991. Source Amnesty International. Want more?

So you say Berisovsky lives within the law? Pray tell us all why Russia seeks an extradition order to answer for certain crimes committed in Russia? I guess you and your paymasters would say that is all political propaganda, while anything you say is the pure unvarnished truth. I note that Mr. Lgovoi also accuses Berisovsky, and British Intelligence for complicity in the death of Litvenenko. Ah Yes! More rubbish I assume?

But for anyone who takes the American shilling, objectivity is hardly to be expected.

Cicero

RFM- Why don't you grow up?

Estonia could not assert its declared independence until after the August coup. Rein Oruste (Estonian name, BTW not Russian) was killed at a time when the Estonian authorities did not have full control over the country, and certainly not the prison system.

The Restored Estonian Republic does not have the death penalty, has never used the death penalty and has no intention of restoring the death penalty. The fact that Russia chooses to beleive it own delusions is just one of the things that makes the Putinist state dangerous.

As to the American shilling- well no, not really, but if the choice has to be made than yes I am on the side of democracy -and not tyranny- of freedom -and not oppression- and fairness -and not injustice. The West, God knows is not perfect, but the rights and freedoms of liberal democracy far outstrip any other system.

BTW, the 6 million I quoted was the standard estimate of the Jews murdered by the Nazis. The number of people murdered under Stalinism is not exactly known, but it is a multiple of the Nazi death toll (albeit that it lags behind Mao). A scholarly appraisal is in Anne Applebaum's book "Gulag", which should certainly be read by anyone wishing to make an informed contribution to the debate, especially since Putin closed the archives after Anne completed the book. Her view is that the numbers can not be less than about 18 million people. The blank number, however is not as importnat as the extraordinary testimony that the book gives as to what actually happened.

RFM

Now now Cicero, temper ill becomes you, it interferes with your ability to think, I see.

So, the "Singing Revolution" of Estonia, for independence is in 1989; the Estonians declare their "Required Independence" in August 1991, in September, 1991, less than one month later they execute Rein Oruste, and you dance around about how they have never had the death penalty, never executed anyone, etc, etc,. Come on Jack, who do you think you are fooling.

Of course, it becomes clearer when you say you believe that taking the American shilling puts you on the side of democracy and freedom. I guess you, like George W. Bush believe the invasion of Iraq was really to bring the poor devils freedom. But they are too busy counting their dead to buy into that nonsense; I think they know better. Or the innocents out at Guantanamo Bay prison, unless you think one of the attributes of democracy and freedom is guilt until proven innocent, if you can ever get a trial that is. It currently looks like most of them never ever will, but you probably agree with Condoleeza Rice, it is only the birth pangs of democracy. Frightening conception of democracy by any measure. Or if you think democracy has to do with the majority of voters choosing their government, how come George W. is called president when Al Gore got more votes than he did?

Spare us the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth about the dark deeds of Adolph Hitler and Joe Stalin; that was over 50 years ago. Ask the Palestinians about the form of democracy they enjoy in their home country, consider the people who have disappeared in "renditions", ( it seems some of them are not accounted for) or the beneficiaries of western style democracy in Columbia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti, etc.

And BTW, the term "gulag" is an invention of the west, Alexander Solzenitisin being the one who coined it originally; it was never a word in the old USSR. But what's a little mythology when you have a good story to tell and a little mud to throw?

Cicero

RFM- GULAG is a Russian Acronym for Central (or Main) Camp Administration.

If you deny it existed or that millions of people died or that millions more were tortured then you are in the same league as a holocaust denier and we have not to much to say to each other.

RFM

To Cicero;
Well whatever your undergraduate and graduate work was, Russian history or languages was not a part of it.

Solzenitsin coined the expression by creating the acronym, Glavnie Upravlenie Lagerie as he admits in his book, The Cancer Ward. Maybe you ought to read it. Prisons were under the jurisdiction of the Ministersvo Vytrenie Del (Ministry of the Interior); the KGB (Kommitet Gosydarsvennie Besopastnosti) had its own system of courts, judges and prisons somewhat along the lines of Hitlers SA and SS, but there was never any central prison administration as Solzenitzen admits. Maybe you ought to try talking to somebody who has actually lived in the old USSR rather than reading fanciful horror stories calculated to titillate and thrill?

Before you run about trying to wrap yourself in the mantle of the Jewish persecution under the National Socialist government of Germany, you ought to reflect that it is people like you who cheapen that very human tragedy trying to equate it to nonsense.

RFM

To Cicero;
I stand corrected, the title of Solzenitsin's book was "The Gulag Archipelago", not the Cancer Ward. However you will note that from his first literary effort, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" which was published in Liternaya Gazetta, no mention anywhere of Gulags. In fact my memory of "Archipelago" still is that Solzenitsin says that it is a term of invention, a fact that to my amazement is utterly ignored. There are certainly enough people still around today who lived in the old USSR who can tell you that the word Gulag was utterly unknown anywhere in the USSR and the first time it was ever heard was when they came west and heard it being used here.

Cicero

RFM

So what?

Whatever you call it: Stalinshchina, Gulag, Red Terror: it amounts to the same thing: tens of millions of dead and maimed and tortured.

The Germans apologised- indeed they never seem to stop. The Russians have not even begun to deal with the elephant in their living room- indeed Putin glorifies the carnage- which is why their neighbours and primary victims do not trust them one inch.

Neil

Firstly to compare Stalin's killings with Hitler's killings of the Jews is obviously not comparing like with like. The correct comparison is all of Hitler's killings (probably up to 40 million) with all of Stalin's. The latter's killings are very much a matter of opinion - the lowest (which includes only deliberate lillings not the famine) is about 2 million. Of course if you include famine deaths you probably have to includefamine deaths in India, malaria deaths after the banning of DDT, pensioner deaths from hypothermia after we stopped building nuclear reactors & any other deaths that can be laid at the door of political incompetence.

By comparing either of the Stalin figures with comparable western figures (including Vietnam) he comes out lookingh not to bad & hitler, of course, looks like what we always thought of him. This has not prevented "de-natzified" Germany deliberately supporting ex-Nazis for the purpose of engaging in genocide against yugoslavia. I don't think Putiin can be accused of anything remotely as fascist, or indeed Nazi, as that.

RFM

To Cicero,

So what you say? For a Ph.D you seem to be a bit dense. In case you missed it let me try again. GULAG is a western word, used by people who have never read Solzenitzen's book. I won't get into the world wide literary reviews his book received; I am getting the solid impression you don't read. The Russian title was Arxipelog Gulag, which means something quite different from what you are arguing.

Nobody is interested in who killed more than someone else, as Rinty tried to tell you that sort of calculus is misplaced and simple minded. If you think someone is going to stand up and applaude your attempts to draw comparisons with the old USSR of the 1920's under Joe Stalin with the present Russian government, I am afraid you have sadly underestimated the people in this forum.

Cicero

RFM- None of your increasingly patronising comments alters the truth about what happened under the Soviet Union.

It is entirely possible to trace the problems of modern Russia to the inability to find any kind of closure on what was one of the darkest passages of human history. Almost everyone who lived under Communism has someone close in their family who was taken to the camps. Apart from Auschwitz, the most shocking place in the world of mass murder is probably Magadan, where skulls are washed out of the ground everytime it rains. If you still want to indulge a taste for the tourism of terror, then Vorkuta or Perm-35 may be more to your liking. These places are medium sized cities, but the living are outnumbered 50-1 by the dead from the Red Terror. No one knows for certain exactly how many people were killed, imprisoned, tortured but the lowest numbers are in the tens of millions.
Stalin ruled for longer than Hitler and the scale of his crimes is correspondngly larger.

So put aside your infantile and patronising tone for a moment and consider the reality- it is an insult to the dead to be so flippant.

In fact RFM, You have totally missed the point- Of course I have read Solzhenitsyn (which by the way is the standard transliteration for your future reference) and I do not confuse Gulag Archipelago (all three volumes) with The First Circle, Cancer Ward or One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The word Gulag is barely relevent- it is simply shorthand anyway. What actually happened, and to which Solzhenitsyn was a witness, is central. Indeed it is impossible to construct any idea about modern Russia without trying to get to grips with the apalling crimes of Stalin.

Neil

Russia's problems are that they are still poorer than western Europe, though catching up faxt, that they have war criminals with nukes 7 an aggressive attitude on their western border & that their Moslem population is rising fast. None of these have anything to do with Stalin.

Russia is the most fascist country in Europe

Re: Russia is the most fascist country in Europe

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