You're right to say, "Poles and Ukrainians would point out that history did not begin in 1920 or 2014," but it is even more complicated than that.
It's not really correct to say that Russians starved the Ukrainians during the Holodomor. It was Jewish Bolsheviks who pulled that off - at both the leadership level (Lazar Kaganovich), and the…
You're right to say, "Poles and Ukrainians would point out that history did not begin in 1920 or 2014," but it is even more complicated than that.
It's not really correct to say that Russians starved the Ukrainians during the Holodomor. It was Jewish Bolsheviks who pulled that off - at both the leadership level (Lazar Kaganovich), and the level of implementation (75% of the Cheka members who were confiscating grain and food from the Ukrainian peasants were Jews). Stalin was not a Russian, but an ethnic Georgian.
The same pattern of Jews and non-Russian ethnics suppressing both Russians and Ukrainians holds for the entire early Soviet period. Russian peasants were also starved to death by the Bolsheviks.
It all gets pretty messy, because the "locals" do get involved in doing the bidding of the evil overlords. For example, some Ukrainian peasants were ratting out the wealthier peasant farmers among them, known as Kulaks, to Soviet authorities in the late 1920s. I just mention this by way of example - you could probably rhyme off half a dozen more examples of the same kind of thing.
I think there are two things that underlie the problems in these situations - evil leadership (obviously), and what I would call "covetous underlings" who take advantage of a short-term opportunity to screw people they envy.
It's a long conversation, and not an easy one. But I am heartened that thanks to substackers like GC and commentators like you, these issues are being discussed more openly and honestly.
What really confounds me is that modern-day Ukrainians seem to lack the wisdom to see that Zelensky - a Jew being backed by other Jews (Soros, Nudelman, the list goes on) - is leading them down a very harrowing path. Ethnically, Ukrainians and Russians hail from the same Slavic group, whereas Jews have by and large traditionally been a kind of predator class within both societies.
You're right to say, "Poles and Ukrainians would point out that history did not begin in 1920 or 2014," but it is even more complicated than that.
It's not really correct to say that Russians starved the Ukrainians during the Holodomor. It was Jewish Bolsheviks who pulled that off - at both the leadership level (Lazar Kaganovich), and the level of implementation (75% of the Cheka members who were confiscating grain and food from the Ukrainian peasants were Jews). Stalin was not a Russian, but an ethnic Georgian.
The same pattern of Jews and non-Russian ethnics suppressing both Russians and Ukrainians holds for the entire early Soviet period. Russian peasants were also starved to death by the Bolsheviks.
It all gets pretty messy, because the "locals" do get involved in doing the bidding of the evil overlords. For example, some Ukrainian peasants were ratting out the wealthier peasant farmers among them, known as Kulaks, to Soviet authorities in the late 1920s. I just mention this by way of example - you could probably rhyme off half a dozen more examples of the same kind of thing.
I think there are two things that underlie the problems in these situations - evil leadership (obviously), and what I would call "covetous underlings" who take advantage of a short-term opportunity to screw people they envy.
It's a long conversation, and not an easy one. But I am heartened that thanks to substackers like GC and commentators like you, these issues are being discussed more openly and honestly.
What really confounds me is that modern-day Ukrainians seem to lack the wisdom to see that Zelensky - a Jew being backed by other Jews (Soros, Nudelman, the list goes on) - is leading them down a very harrowing path. Ethnically, Ukrainians and Russians hail from the same Slavic group, whereas Jews have by and large traditionally been a kind of predator class within both societies.
Excellent comment.