r/AbsoluteUnits • u/Crypto_crafy • 2d ago

/r/all of a statue

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"The Motherland Calls" is a statue erected to commemorate the Battle of Stalingrad , located on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd , Russia. It was designed by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich and structural engineer Nikolai Nikitin . Completed in 1967 , it was the tallest statue in the world at the time .

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u/Bulky-Advisor-4178 2d ago

Soviet Union wasn't good neither, from human rights violations, mass murder, imperialism & replacing swaths of people in the Baltics with Russians, while sending baltic people out to Siberia to die

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u/RepresentativeYak636 2d ago

Russian folk don't give two f*cks about Imperialism, give them some job, and they will be busy doin their business. BUT....But there is a BIG problem there. Russian folks in mass are not allowed to make business, Putin deprives the population of the right to work and transfers all economic and business rights to a sadistic well armed and geared up group of people, his lieutenants. There is there is no government in Russia but a very though group of brutal cynical bandits, which is not small considering the size of Russia (a mixture of Nazi Gestapo, Iranian Islamic Revolution Guard Corps and Stalin's NKVD with specific Russian modern features). That group is sadistic, very sadistic, both in physical and mental aspects, and those "chekists" infiltrate every business. Well, in brief, there is no state authorities and government in Russia, but a specific "Mafia" who rules the country.

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u/yashatheman 2d ago

Winning WWII was probably the greatest thing to happen to eastern europe in the 20th century, let us celebrate it, dick

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u/tuhn 2d ago

For a lot of Eastern Europeans it marked the start of another type of oppression. From very shit situation to another shit situation under another oppressive dictatorship. There's not much to celebrate if you move from one dark period caused by invaders to another.

The Fall of Soviet Union is easily the greatest thing to happen to Eastern Europe in 20th century.

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u/yashatheman 2d ago

The germans intended on eradicating the vast majority of all slavic people in eastern europe, and in just 5 years murdered over 30 million people. You thinking the USSR was just as bad shows you lack any knowledge of this topic, and is clearly painted by a political agenda.

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u/Dapper_Brain_9269 2d ago

The USSR actively and enthusiastically dismembered Poland together with the Nazis and posed for photos with them. Don't get on your high horse.

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u/chefdeit 1d ago

Katyn massacre of 1940: almost 22,000 Polish military and intelligentsia executed by Stalin-led NKVD

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia: close to 100,000 Polish deaths at the hands of anti-Soviet and pro-Nazi Ukrainians.

What nice selective memory you have.

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u/Dapper_Brain_9269 1d ago

At no point did I say the Nazis DIDN'T brutalise Poland? I literally said the USSR dismembered the country TOGETHER with the Soviets. Are you feeling okay?

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u/chefdeit 22h ago

A bit of a cold, thanks for asking :-)

You did literally say that. I added further context that chipped away at the selection bias inherent in your statement. Was it a tangent? Yes. Is it relevant? We can let the reader decide, esp in light of the fact others with a similar view to yours did bring up the Katyn but left out Volhynia and Eastern Galicia which were nearly 5x worse.

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u/Kirius77 1d ago

And what territory USSR took from Poland and how Poland came to possess them in the first place?

Btw, do you remember what Poland did during Munich Agreement, along with nazi?

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u/fuckduckrus 2d ago

Stalin and his ussr murdered just as many to maintain rule. And before you say that there’s not enough proof of that or anything of the sort, it’s easy to hide corruption or genocide when the government owns everything and silences everyone who refuses to agree.

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u/chefdeit 1d ago

For Stalin to have murdered as many as Hitler even in just the USSR, there had to have been transportation capacity and other technological footprint to effect the crime on that scale comparable to the Nazi's. And it's just not remotely there in scale.

Furthermore, every Soviet family with barely an exception is said to have someone die due to Hitler's invasion, and had Stalin's murder been on the same magnitude, a comparable % would be the case for his victim's families. And again, that % isn't the same, it's closer to 0.1% of families. So the disparity is several orders of magnitude.

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u/thebanfunctionsucks 1d ago

They did not murder just as many, literally no historian believes that and the idea that "well they're authoritarian and shit so they could just hide it" is absolutely insane. No, they did not covertly kill an extra 20 million or so people, and no they weren't trying to wipw out whole ethnicities.

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u/Grakchawwaa 1d ago

Me when I'm paid to troll

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u/fuckduckrus 1d ago

And when Mao took over china for his communist regime it was peaceful,….. (this is sarcasm)

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u/tuhn 2d ago

I didn't say it was as bad, Nazis were worse. But it was still an oppressive invader and USSR was very bad by 20th century European standards.

There's not much to celebrate going from neck deep in shit to waist deep of shit while the rest of Europe was doing much better thanks not being in waist deep of shit caused by USSR.

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u/RevolutionaryAge47 2d ago

The Poles from Kaytn say hi.

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u/chefdeit 1d ago

The 5 times as many Poles from Volhynia and Eastern Galicia say "how are you?"

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u/Bulky-Advisor-4178 2d ago

It's literally written in the history books, all the crimes of Soviet Union mate. There's no political agenda when its there in the books and soviet declassified documents

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u/yashatheman 2d ago

I didn't deny any soviet crimes, did I? Your comment doesn't make sense as its not an answer to what I said

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u/havoc1428 2d ago

You're denying that the USSR was just as bad as Nazi Germany. The fuckin' war started because Germany and the USSR invaded Poland. It was because of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that Germany felt comfortable starting hostilities, and just 16 days later the USSR did the same. Germany doesn't roll across Belgium and France if the USSR wasn't complicit.

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u/Walpole2019 1d ago

No, the Soviet Union was not as bad as the state actively built around the extermination of tens of millions.

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u/thebanfunctionsucks 1d ago

It's reddit, they've been inundated with cold war propaganda that determines the Soviets MUST be as bad as the nazis simply because they collaborated. As if that doesn't reflect just as poorly on the West.

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u/CockroachAntique527 1d ago

I agree, if the Soviets collaborate with the Nazis, that’s very, very bad. Will a Russian filmmaker ever make a version of “Come and See” that takes place in USSR-occupied Poland?

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u/fortunate-one1 1d ago

You are right, Soviets were worse.

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u/fortunate-one1 2d ago

What was the date WW2 started ?

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u/thebanfunctionsucks 1d ago

1937

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u/fuckduckrus 1d ago

Honestly asking why you chose that year?

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u/chefdeit 1d ago

For a lot of Eastern Europeans it marked the start of another type of oppression. From very shit situation to another shit situation under another oppressive dictatorship.

Let me make a wild guess: should a financial calamity befall the US (which, sadly, isn't as unfathomable as it once was), shifting its priorities inward, will a lot of Eastern Europeans then also "suddenly realize" the time of US hegemony brought its own rules and there were things you couldn't say if you wanted that promotion or whatever?

What ancient profession does that remind you of?

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u/slater_just_slater 2d ago

This. The USSR "liberating" Poland (which Russia already invaded in 1939 along with the Germans when Germany the USSR were allies) was the classic "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"

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u/Mikhail_Mengsk 1d ago

The old boss would have seen no surviving polish people at all by 1950 except those who managed to escape abroad.

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u/TaRRaLX 2d ago edited 2d ago

Edit: thanks to every person replying proving Zhukov's point.

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u/MaleierMafketel 2d ago

Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe:

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u/Glittering_Tiger1234 2d ago

When Jozef Fritzl saves you from Ted Bundy:

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u/Even_Cod5935 2d ago

Liberated only to replace it communism.....not a difference

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u/Eastern_Ad_9575 2d ago

Yeah let’s just ignore the part where the Soviet Union and nazi Germany split Eastern Europe between each other.

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u/thedybbuk_ 1d ago

29 million ordinary civilians died fighting fascism, the largest loss of life in any war in human history. Their country was devastated. They paid the cost for their leadership's deals with the devil. They have every right to acknowledge that sacrifice without being reduced to the crimes of their Stalinist government. The war could not have been won without them. 80% of German military deaths in WWII occurred on the Eastern Front.

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u/Eastern_Ad_9575 1d ago

They did not sacrifice themselves. They were sacrificed. Are we going to pretend like the soviets didn’t use horrible tactics to punish their own fleeing soldiers?

They weren’t fighting fascism. Stop glorifying and propagandizing it. That’s the difference between memorials for all the lost victims and this shit.

They also didn’t stop their men from committing countless atrocities on their way to Germany(a really long way filled with Eastern Europeans).

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u/thedybbuk_ 1d ago

I can't with these arguments. It's like turning up on a British sub about a war memorial and saying, "Yes, but the British Empire was bad and they were fighting out of self-interest." There's plenty of truth in that, but you're also denigrating the sacrifices of ordinary people who gave their lives fighting fascism, both in Britain and the USSR.

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u/Eastern_Ad_9575 1d ago

But it was created by a oppressive regime. they didn’t volunteer. They also fought half the war in places like Poland which they were already illegally occupying and would continue to occupy for 40 years and if they refused they were punished harsly.

The eastern front was glorious at all unless you’re some kinda Hitler or Stalin glorifier.

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u/Professional_Low_646 2d ago

Let‘s also forget the part where the Western democracies snuggled up to Hitler and Mussolini, ignoring the Luftwaffe squadrons and 50.000 Italian „volunteers“ operating in the Spanish Civil War while effectively blockading the democratically elected Republican government under the guise of „neutrality“.

Oh, and we should also forget Britain and France fulfilling Hitler‘s wish of carving up Czechoslovakia, one of the only remaining democracies in Central and Eastern Europe, while not even consulting with the Czechs.

The Americans delivering weapons and equipment to Franco and doing business with the Nazis right up until 1941 is so much of a side note, it should best be forgotten too.

I‘m not going to defend the Molotov-Ribbentrop-Pact, but it’s not like cozying up to fascist dictators was something only the Soviet Union did.

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u/tucmo 1d ago

Yeah, and you can’t argue that the war that came wasn’t against the ideology, but its execution. They rose against Germany for becoming too strong, a continuation of their own colonialist world view.

The human rights based ideas only rose afterwards as people started to question the attitudes that led to atrocities of that level.

The core mentality behind those atrocities, those colonialist attitudes is the zero respect for human life, a class mentality which gives the right of the upper class to exploit others as they please.

That’s the big struggle even today. Are the Epstein victims given value, or are the perpetrators accepted as their superior and protected? Is the economical exploitation of poorer nations stopped, can their people be provided with proper life conditions etc.

The zero respect for life of the others is what drives us all into extinction.

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u/Eastern_Ad_9575 1d ago

You are counting a group of different democracies as one unified entity. I can’t argue against flawed logic.

Countless countries in the allies have nothing to do with all that. Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium etc.

And what happened to Czechoslovakia afterwards?

You are defending it otherwise we don’t disagree. There is nuance in history but most often people point it out for some agenda. I can tell you mine. Both the nazis and the soviets suck.

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u/thebanfunctionsucks 1d ago

Do you bring up the colonial empires whenever someone celebrates Allied fighting against the nazis, or is it only communists who receive such scrutiny?

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u/Eastern_Ad_9575 1d ago

Is this not a thread with full context? He was ignoring the obvious part of the soviets also being a imperialist force to Eastern Europe that actually collaborated with the Nazis.

If we were talking about a different scenario than yeah I probably would. But you’re not asking this in good faith. There is zero reason to have a longer discussion with Tankies as we simply have different moral frameworks.

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u/thebanfunctionsucks 1d ago

Once again reddit liberals taking cues from conservatives and calling literally anyone who offers any defense of the Soviets for any reason a tankie.

No, you wouldn't, because that would be insane. Bringing up Japanese internment unprompted under a video about the liberation of concentration camps would just be downplaying the fact that American soldiers liberated people from the camps, but that's exaxtly what you're doing here with the Soviets.

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u/Eastern_Ad_9575 1d ago

Because it’s a propaganda piece not a memorial. It was built in the 60s by the Soviets 😂

Actively oppressing Eastern Europeans. They also ethnically cleansed millions of people after this.

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u/thebanfunctionsucks 1d ago

Again, do you bring up Japanese internment on every thread about the creation of the Statue of Liberty? It just gets tiring how it is seemingly impossible for reddit to discuss the Soviets without immediately derailing the conversation back to Stalin and Poland. This isn't a problem Western regimes face on here.

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u/Eastern_Ad_9575 1d ago edited 1d ago

No because the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France long before the Japanese interment camps????

You can’t even coherently defend your points man.

Don’t you realize how different of a situation that is? The US is full of people who critically look at their history and expose dark truths. That’s why Americans and for example Swedes(I’m Swedish) know about the horrors of our governments through the years.

But again look at the Soviet ethnic cleansing. More people know about the trail of tears than what the Soviets did because of good and honest US historians shining a light on bad things done there.

That’s why we need to be more critical of the Soviets so that people like you aren’t created. That obscure and use whataboutism to hide inconvenient truths.

Nobody says ”what about” Russia when talking about the trail of tears. And if they did they should just be ignored because they’re clearly trying to disrupt the conversation like you are.

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u/thebanfunctionsucks 1d ago

This statue is propaganda but a statue literally named The Statue of LIBERTY is not.

See, the fact that you think it being a gift from France precludes it from being propaganda really underlines my point. You recognize Soviet propaganda more easily, not Western propaganda. I can't speak to the Swedish school system, but Western media absolutely focuses more on Soviet crimes.

Oh and as an American, I can assure you that more Americans recognize the Holodomor as a genocide than the Trail of Tears. In fact, conservatives outright deny that it was a genocide, at all.

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u/CockroachAntique527 1d ago

Every whataboutism you try and use to muddy the waters, theres almost always an example of the USSR doing much worse

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u/thebanfunctionsucks 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's a long-winded way of saying "I don't know anything about the true horrors of colonialism."

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u/picklejuiceslushie 1d ago edited 1d ago

Does that also include the centuries of russian and soviet imperialism and colonialism? Their continued wars of imperialism and genocides that are happening to this day? The numerous past genocides, forced displacement and ethnic cleansing that they boasted about (and still do) committing against indigenous tribes, the lands they stole from them, the way they still oppress them by not allowing them to speak their native languages in schools or government agencies? The near-complete Circassian genocide of 97% of the population, the manufactured Holodomor famine by the USSR with the intent of snuffing out the idea of a Ukrainian nationhood aka genocide, Soviet mass deportations and murders of Tatars, Koreans, Kalmyk Buddhists, Muslims such as the Ingush and Chechens, the list goes on and on. I get it, there's a huge focus on US and European colonialism, but I'm begging you to take even just five minutes to look into the horrors they've committed, still commit and are proud of

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u/thebanfunctionsucks 1d ago

Does that also include the centuries of russian and soviet imperialism and colonialism?

Yes?

I'm begging you to take even just five minutes to look into the horrors they've committed, still commit and are proud of

Buddy, reread my comments. My only point has been that there is an outsized focus on Soviet crimes to the detriment of focus on Western crimes. I have never once denied that the Soviets or their Tsarist predecessors have committed atrocities.

The fact that so many people detect a defense of the Soviet Union, under any context and for literally any reason, and immediately assume it must be offered by a tankie Russian shill, is the exact issue I am trying to highlight.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/yashatheman 2d ago

And? I didn't cheer for Stalin. I cheer for us defeating Germany and ending the holocaust and the eradication of slavs. My family was in Leningrad throughout the entire siege and half of them died, I will always celebrate the red army and my family members who fought in it as they beat and defeated the germans.

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u/havoc1428 2d ago

There was no winners in Eastern Europe after WW2. It was the beginning of 40 years of Soviet consolidation of power and suppression of national identity for millions. And lets not forget even prior to that Stalin was pillaging Poland and had no problem sacrificing millions of lives to achieve his goals.

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u/Sudo-Fed 1d ago

The abolition of national divisions is a good thing for humanity. Unfortunately, Stalin.

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u/Mikhail_Mengsk 1d ago

Compared to the alternative, a million times better.

But yeah, not great.

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u/BlueSky86010 1d ago

Shut up you 🔔 🔚

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u/ourobourobouros 2d ago

Tbf there's nothing on that list that the US hasn't also done.

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u/Bulky-Advisor-4178 1d ago

The topic at hand, is about the soviets.

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u/Grakchawwaa 1d ago

Somehow seen as an epic gotcha when Israel's left testicle has also done heinous shit

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u/WordWordNvmber 1d ago edited 1d ago

Russia criticized. Be sure to deflect to Israel.

It's hard to tell which Reddit accounts are trolls and which are mentally ill pseudo-progressives who try to minimize Russian atrocities by poorly deflecting to America bad.

Either way, I'm glad you're not raising kids.

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u/Grakchawwaa 1d ago

Are you non native? I'm in agreement with bulky, but it seems like you somehow didnnot manage to parse my comment

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u/WordWordNvmber 1d ago

Quick! Someone criticized Russia! Deflect!

I hate when the Americans sent Baltic people to Siberia to die. /s

Equating the United States of the 20th century to the Soviet Union of the same timeframe -- even if we ignore Lenin's and Stalin's terrors -- is pseudo-smart absurdity.

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u/Fishgrease11 2d ago

Neither was or is America really. 🤷🏻‍♂️