Russia's not a democracy?

[mikeaverko]

That's bs as not talent kiss @$$ Rice and Bush didn't criticize the SS scum being honored in Latvia and Estonia while stating that Russia should repeat what it had already previously acknowledged vis-a-vis Molotov-Ribbentrop.

Millions of Russians suffered under Stalin who was Georgian. Complain to Saakashvili who acts like a bigger dictator than what Putin could be legitimately accused of.

From what I here, it's not such an easy exam and when it was first implemented, the Latvian and Estonian governments didn't do much in terms of setting up learning centers to pass such exams. No other former Soviet republic has such crap. Clearly an attempt of ethnic cleansing with white gloves.

Why do such when most Russians in Latvia and Estonia voted for independence from USSR and no other former Soviet republic has such standards?

[Lembitu]

Why we have to make a learning centre? All russian speaking people were learning in schools where they learned besides math and chemistry estonian language. With what you explain that people who live here alread 45 years dont speak a word a local language and if you try to speak with him (her) in estonian he(she) gets angry and calls you a fashist?
I repeat that most of here living russian speaking people are very normal people who have learned our language and live their everyday life very good.
Those who complain about different things are few but they make so much noise that every people in Russian Federation is convinced that we rape russian girls and beat russian boys on daily basis. This shows clearly that you free press is showing Baltic states worse then they really are.
And I didnt understand what you told about Molotov-Ribbentrop pact? Why you mention this here?

[mikeaverko]

From Johnson's Russia List and http://english.intelligent.ru/

Dear David,

I hope you will publish this short piece on the Soviet liberation of
Eastern Europe. I hope this particularly since similar voices have been
silenced, both in their own countries and in the US press, where it seems
that only the Baltics and a few odd Poles are allowed to represent Eastern
Europe.

I will answer a simple question: why was May 8-9 a liberation day? It was
the Liberation day because the Soviet army saved countless millions of
citizens of Eastern Europe from an almost certain annihilation. People who
equate the Nazi conquest of Ukraine, Belorussia, Poland, former Yugoslavia
etc. with the Soviet (or Communist) control of these countries are simply
ignorant of history.or dishonest. The Nazi occupation of Minsk, Kiev,
Belgrade or Warsaw was fundamentally different from the Nazi occupation
of Paris and Brussels. We have it no lesser authority than Himmler that
the war on the Eastern front was the war of extermination. The role that
the Nazi envisaged for Poles, Russians, Serbs, Czechs, Ukrainians (and of
course Jews and Roma in all these countries) was that of slaves*just in
case they somehow survived. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were starved
to death, summarily executed, or taken to Germany to become slave laborers.
To give just one example that personally affected me. In the city of
Kragujeviac in southern Serbia, in one day in September 1941, the Nazis
executed around 7,000 people in retaliation for the killing of some 50 Nazi
soldiers by the Communist-led partisans. (The infamous Oradour massacre was
done by the Das Reich division that simply transferred the rules it
"learned" on the Eastern front to the 1944 France.)

Democracy is a political system. But in order to enjoy it, one has to be
alive first. And without the Red Army, most of East Europeans (except a
tiny minority who collaborated with the Nazis) would not have been alive.
This is why the Red Army was an army of liberation. It is as simple as that.

***********************

Russia doesn't honor the NKVD or Stalin wherea Latvia and Estonia openly honor those who fought in the criminal SS.

Baltic chauvinists have yet to expalin why latvia and estonia are the only two former Soviet republics with such discriminatory laws.

Most the Russians in those two republics voted for independence from the USSR and this is how they're rewarded.

The Munich appeasement came before Molotv-Ribbentrop. The USSR wasn't responsible for the former. Russia need not apologize anymore for Molotov-Ribbentrop when Latvia and Estonia carry on in the manner that they do.

[Lembitu]

You honour red army wich commited tons of crimes in Estonia. You put up statue of Dšeršinski who was murderer, you put up statues of Stalin in russian cities and your leader tells that collapse of USSR was geopolitical catastrophe. I dont see any difference here. You have your own heroes we have our own. And Im glad that Im not living in USSR anymore. I have to try more to live nicely, but I have so much more opportunities then I could ever have in USSR time.

[mikeaverko]

Dzerzhinksy was a Polish aristorcrat from Vilnius and Stalin was a Georgian.

To my knowledge, no new statues are being erected in Russia.

The Latvians and Estonians were treated as part of the master race by the Nazis. This explains why many Latvians and Estonians preferred them over the Soviets. It also explains why those such as yourself see no wrong in the SS as opposed to non-SS regulars.

Soviet propaganda downplayed Latvian and Estonian Nazi activity so as to not contradict the idea of pro-Soviet Latvians and Estonians.

[Lembitu]

Mostly we prefer german side because they didnt want to wipe out our nation what USSR tryed to do. They acted with us like humans, which I cannot say to USSR. The reason why so many estonians supported german side were reasons mentioned above. If USSR and red army acted with estonians like human beings we probably had joined with USSR side, because most of estonians were hateing germans because of their 700 years rule over our land. But one year occupation showed us clearly that USSR is worse and if we want to stay alive as nation we must join german side. And as you perfectly well know germans conscripted to te wehrmacht only germans - for foreign people was only way to join german side Waffen SS.

[mikeaverko]

Stalin was scum as was the NKVD and some elements of the Red Army behaved badly.

Post Soviet Russia formally renounced Molotov-Ribbentrop awhile back.

On the other hand, Latvian and Estonian governments aren't asked by Bush regime to denounce the Nazi actions by Latvians and Estonians.

Therein lies the hypocrisy.