Vladimir Putin has recently spoken admiringly of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact, which, in the run-up to World War II, allowed Germany and the Soviet Union to divide up Poland, with Stalin getting the Baltic states as a bonus. In doing so, Putin violated a longstanding taboo in the country that, with the collapse of the pact two years later, would suffer an immense number of casualties in the subsequent battle to defeat the Nazis. But this rhetorical shift is of a piece with Russia’s own increasingly fascistic tendencies, argues Timothy Snyder:
Today, the positive emphasis on a war of aggression goes well with tendencies in the Russian media, where defiant declarations of Russian anti-fascism are increasingly submerged in rhetoric that may itself seem rather fascist. Jews are blamed for the Holocaust on national television; an intellectual close to the Kremlin praises Hitler as a statesman; Russian Nazis march on May Day; Nuremberg-style rallies where torches are carried in swastika formations are presented as anti-fascist; and a campaign against homosexuals is presented as a defense of true European civilization. In its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government has called upon the members of local and European far-right groups to support its actions and spread Moscow’s version of events.
Read more on New York Review of Books: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/nov/10/putin-nostalgia-stalin-hitler/?insrc=wbll