As we told you, journalist, author, and “Young Turks” contributor Ryan Grim recently credited the Soviet Union with ending the Holocaust. Yes, that Soviet Union. The one with Josef Stalin and all the oppression.
it's cool to see someone learn world history in real time pic.twitter.com/1AjztMsWu5
— jordan (@JordanUhl) June 11, 2021
If by “world history,” you mean “revisionist history,” then yes. It’s super-cool.
Anyone interested in learning actual history would do themselves a favor by starting with this thread from the Washington Examiner’s Becket Adams:
lmaoooo tankies crediting the soviets for ending the holocaust, ignoring all the while the molotov ribbentrop pact, the economic and material aid the US provided the USSR, and the pogroms the soviets waged themselves against Jews. https://t.co/pnWNzypWTG
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
the USSR spent *two years* carving up Eastern Europe with Nazi Germany before Hitler invaded Russia. but sure, lets cast the soviets as the heroic liberators of WWII.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
“the soviets put an end to barbarous concentration camps”
*stares in solzhenitsyn*
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
the people who did the actual fighting in Russia against the nazis certainly deserve praise. they slogged through a literal hellscape and won. you also can’t ignore stalin's mismanagement, his efforts to enable germany, or the billions the allies sent Russia to fight Germany.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
it’s true the USSR was crucial to defeating Nazi Germany. it’s also true Russia suffered greater losses than the other allies. i’m OK with the team effort argument. but the story of Russia’s involvement in WWII involves a lot more than mere heroism, and much of it is deeply evil.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
you can’t ignore the evil the USSR enabled and participated in with Germany and you certainly can’t credit the soviets alone for ending the holocaust. it’s both factually false and ignores the death camps the Russians themselves operated both before and long after the war.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
and besides running an intricate network of gulags, crediting Russia alone with ending the holocaust ignores the billions and billions in material and economic aid the US gave russia *while also* fighting a world war on two fronts.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
and this is to say nothing of the soviet's strategy of chucking mountains of bodies — soldiers, women, and children — directly into tank and machine gun fire, hoping the millions of sacrificed Russians would eventually make the nazis run out of ammo.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
The Red Army stans also seem to have a major blind spot to the barbaric meatgrinder infantry tactics that Stalin loved so much.
— Michael (@_zrepm) June 11, 2021
Russia: 10 million dead
Germany: 5 million deadmaybe not something you want to brag about, unless you’re willing to ignore *how* the soviets coerced 10 million to their deaths.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
Stalin and the Soviet regime weren’t mourning the loss of life.
the notion the USSR alone ended the holocaust, and the added implication they are the *real* heroes in this story, is just … not so. it was a group effort, and soviet involvement certainly wasn’t for altruistic reasons (as evidenced by EVERYTHING they did pre- and post-WWII).
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
last thing, i swear: this thread isn’t aimed at Grim specifically. he’s wrong about credit, but his point is a) more nuanced than the tankies i’m actually addressing in this thread and b) he is correct when he says russia liberated concentration camps. this is a true statement!
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
Yay! Grim finally got one right!
anyway, how did i even fall down this rabbit hole? i have an actual job i’m supposed to be doing right now.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) June 11, 2021
Combating historical duncery is a very important job, Becket. Thanks for doing your part.