That's exactly the very popular western point of view which will never be accepted in the modern Russia because it shows the extreme level of hypocrisy and dishonesty i.e. what we call triple standards of Yer Ole Bitch Europe. The USA you lot so like bitching about has double standards. Quelle horreur! And you - have triple!
What about Russia? Didn't Stalin (being a Georgian-born and grown and somehow educated) had his ugly paws all over Russia first and foremost? Did that one of my parents who was born in Gulag or my numerous relatives who died there really asked for the bloody revolution, for being ruled by the international bunch of murderers? How about the Polish twat Felix Dzerzhinsky, the notorious founder of CheKa (KGB) who is personally responsible for the death of the best of the old Russian elite? How about other two Georgians at the top of communistic power - sexual maniac and murderer Lavrenty Beria and Sergo Ordzhonikidse? They all started as revolutianaries in Tsarist Russia which was oh so cruel that sometimes sent them to Siberia (just the cosy conditions they had lived in were in no way comparable with those nightmarish ones which the millions of RUSSIAN people experienced there later) so guess which nation had the better chances to die in the very beginning of the massacre, 1917-1920 or as you put it for starters??? Georgians during the Stalin's era were the most priviledged nation, in fact they so got used to be the superior bullies that still may think we have to thankful them for him and his cronies.
Yes, later the rest of the countries which were under the Russian Empire protectorate experienced the same - Gulags, torture, agony and death - first it was their elites, less numerous than the Russian one and even more later - in 30s when the simple folk irrespectively of their nationality all over USSR realised at last that somehow they live much worse that it'd been in the previous era with Russian Tsar and nobility then the big chistka (cleansing) started. And again, why it is so difficult to understand that it wasn't the ethnic cleansing but quite international (with a big tormenting bias towards the ex-ruling russian nation) - those who didn't manage to demonstrate enough belief in the beautiful communistic future were sent to the hell of Gulag or just killed?
I DON'T know a single russian family here in St Petersburg who didn't lose at least one relative in a Siberian Gulag (or what was a prelude to it in early-mid 20s, not so centralised) or wasn't killed by the local CheKa. Do you really expect us to apologise for what the Soviets did to Georgians, Ukrainians, Latvians (quite a lot of them joined the Red Army and CheKa and with such ardour confiscated the nobility's property her in St Pete and killed and tortuted its ex-owners)?
It was brunoken who used the breakup of the Soviet Union as "evidence" that self-determination in the EU should be expected to be a peaceful business. DoDo and I are throwing out bit and pieces of Soviet history in an attempt to disabuse him of that notion. He mentioned the way Russians are second-class citizens in the Baltic republics. What I meant by "Stalin's ugly paws in Ukraine" is not only the Holodomor but also the fact that Stalin gave Ukraine a chunk of Russia in his top-down border rearrangements and from that comes a lot of the current trouble within Ukraine (we've had some detailed discussions of the minority language status of Russian for instance) and between Russia and Ukraine. It's neither the fault of the Russians nor of the Ukrainians ultimately, but as you say of "the Georgian dictator".
Back in 1991 I was appalled at the glee with which "the West" watched and even encouraged the breakup of the Soviet Union. It could have been done in a less rushed way, maybe? I don't know. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
