Recently it was widely reported that the – to use its lengthy official name - Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders was destroyed by local authorities in the Latvian capital. This is certainly not without precedent, as numerous Red Army monuments have been removed in the Baltic states and also in Poland, Czechia and other nations formerly in the Warsaw Pact, many of these decisions being clearly driven by events in the Ukraine since 2004. I think we on this forum are mostly aware of the talking points used to justify their removal so I won’t bother to repeat those here. Instead I’d make the simple assumption in this particular case that those Latvians who support this decision are clearly unhappy with the direction their national history took in the past, and ask the question what sort of past they’d have preferred to have. I suppose this is a relevant Culture War question in Eastern Europe.
Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that Operation Barbarossa begins as it did, and then history develops differently. From then on, I think Latvia had the following options:
A – Germany wins decisive victory in the East and incorporates Latvia directly into the Reich; it only remains as an administrative area, if that; presumably, local Jews and Russians are either deported/killed or used as slave labor, and German settlers move in
B – same as A, but Latvia is allowed to retain limited autonomy as a vassal state / protectorate
C – the war in the East concludes with a separate negotiated peace in 1941 or 1942, and Latvia remains an independent nation as part of some demilitarized neutral zone between Germany and the USSR
D – same as C, but Latvia remains under German influence and its autonomy remains limited in the practical sense, maybe the Germans even retain military bases in Latvian territory
E – the war concludes with decisive Allied victory, but Stalin recognizes the independence of the Baltic states and withdraws his troops from there; still, Soviet influence remains palpable
F – same as E, but the USSR incorporates Latvia into a new military and economic system of cooperation under Soviet hegemony, and maintains military bases on Latvian soil; also, the Soviets have enough influence, soft power and political mechanisms to ensure that Latvia cannot leave this sphere of influence
G – everything happens as it actually did, but the Baltic states get nominal independence after 1945 instead of getting turned back into Soviet republics. Basically, the Warsaw Pact and COMECON have 3 more members.
I assume hardliner Latvian nationalists would prefer B (even for them, A is too extreme), and more moderate nationalists would prefer C or D. For obvious reasons however, even in the current climate of general anti-Russian/Soviet sentiment, I very much doubt they’d be willing to say this out loud. After all, A, B, C and D all mean that Nazi Germany remains undefeated, and Latvian Jews get genocided and pogromed. For the same reason, I believe these 4 options are unacceptable for the Russian and Jewish minorities in Latvia. After all, even C entails the strong possibility that they get oppressed and ethnically cleansed.
Also, I cannot help but notice that the same very obviously applies to Ukrainian nationalists in general, no matter how much leeway they currently get in Western media.
I’ll make the guess that E is the most ideal option in the eyes of Latvian centrists/normies at first sight; however, it still means that, realistically speaking, Latvia never gets to join either NATO or the EU. It’s the same as Finland’s fate but worse, as the border region between Russia and Finland at least consists of dense forests and numerous lakes, practically impassable ground for Russians if they invade (again). Also, I think it’s clear that the Soviets would agree to something (in their eyes) so unrealistic only if the US agrees to the same in Western Europe. In short, this means that even if NATO is formed, it remains limited in its geographical scope i.e. West Germany never gets incorporated into it, in other words, either the two German states remain neutral or the German state never gets divided and remains neutral.
G is very obviously unacceptable for most Latvians, as the difference from what actually happened is negligible.
F is, I think, also something most of them would only begrudgingly accept. However, the issue with this is that it’s basically merely the local version of NATO, but overseen by Russians. If our position today is that this would be unacceptable and violates our political norms, we’d also have to say that it was not acceptable for the Americans to maintain hegemony over Western European states and station their military units and nuclear weapons on their soil. (I’ll make an expectation for West Germany, as it was a defeated enemy and no peace treaty was signed.) Alternatively, one can make an argument that “but it’s different when the Americans do it, the Russians have always been Mongoloid Ugric-Turkic savages”, but I don’t know how many normies would be willing to say this unironically.
Also, both F and G entail the very real likelihood that the Soviets still get to erect a huge monument in Riga. Even in the case of E it’s relatively likely.
So where does that leave us?
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Notes -
I think a minimal level of nuance is warranted here. Let's look at the following statements:
A. Ukrainian national identity and culture are real, distinct and legitimate i.e. those who belong to it have the right to maintain and defend it.
B. Ukraine is a real nation, and has a right to its own state.
C. Ukraine is a real nation, and has a right to exist as an ethnostate within the post-1954 borders of the former Ukrainian SSR.
D. This ethnostate should be a NATO member, permit American bases and weapon systems on its soil if it sees fit, and take Sevastopol away from the Russian Navy if it sees fit.
Based on past Ukrainian events and their timeline, it seems clear to me that Russian government, and the majority or Russians, object to C and D, not A and B, and even C would not have warranted military action in their eyes.
Russia is objectively a multicultural state, and ethnonationalism was never practiced there by the state. To accuse them of "embracing full-fledged cultural genocide of neighboring nations, intending to wipe any non-Russian identities that might exist there" is laughable.
When one lives in a Finno-Ugric nation and has even a cursory understanding of history, it becomes evident that the fundamental difference in whether a Finno-Ugric nation thrives or faces a slow disappearance from existence is whether it has been able to detach itself from the Russian/Soviet state or not.
It doesn't matter if ethnonationalism is practiced in Russia or not, the practice still is that being a part of the Russian/Soviet state has meant a slow, ongoing process amalgamation and disappearance to the general Russian culture for all nationalities within, expect perhaps those that don't have the clear separator of religion.
Wasn't the Finnish homeland incorporated into the Czarist state for more than a century? That should have been ample time for it to disappear. No?
With respect to Siberian Finno-Ugric peoples, I'd say that whatever misfortune has befallen them is due to them being hunter-gatherers and also being few in numbers, not due to living within Russian borders. Hunter-gatherers are in a similar situation all around the world, I imagine.
Finland had a specific form of autonomy that guaranteed completely separate institutions from Russian ones, which helped in preserving Finnish culture.
More to the point, though, I'm not talking about some sudden disappearance - I'm talking about a slow but inevitable-seeming process. Finnic tribes of Merya and Murom, and some others, have already disappeared. Numerous other Finnic nations are doing the same, even the ones that have titular republics, like Mari, Udmurts and Mordvins - if I remember correctly, all are already minorities within their republics - none of them in Siberia, incidentally, or hunter-gatherers. If Soviet Union had not fallen, Estonians (along with Latvians, at least) might be facing the same fate.
Could I ask your view on late Russian Empire? Although lagging behind, it seemed to be more in touch with European states (than its own people, ironically), industrialized at impressive rates, and eventually yielded to some democratic changes. If Russian whites were as successful as Finnish ones during their civil war, I believe - in the hindsight - they could steer toward better trajectory, than the Soviet one.
It's an interesting question, but I think that fundamentally the sheer ease at which the Russian empire (and then the white rule) fell also belie internal weakness that might have doomed it anyway.
Of course, if Russian Whites had won, it might have been very bad for Finland, since it is not all that probable they would have accepted any former subject nations as independent even temporarily, and would have also been intent in crushing national movements (alongside socialist ones, so all political forces in Finland). This was actually acknowledged by many Finnish Whites, which is why they said no when Mannerheim wanted to help his White former Russian army comrades to take back Petrograd from the Soviets.
Imperial regime as a whole survived defeats in two consecutive wars (Japan, WWI), two revolutions (1905/17) and had adapted to incessant domestic unrest -- all within 20 years. And was definitely defeated only after few more years of civil strife. World war pushed many states down the similar roads, so I don't see relative to whom Russia was an easy case. What indications of ease do you mean?
Even Ru Provisional government inherited that stance, sadly. Historical irony though, is that much of early Bolshevik maneuvering was a pure opportunism - including acceptance of Finnish independence (if that acceptance is to be considered legitimate at all), Brest-Litovsk treaty, etc. When they secured power, the game had changed. Eh, Mannerheim.
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I'm not sure how you make conclusions about "majority of Russians", given they are a totalitarian society where dissent is being violently suppressed. But the official propaganda is constantly questioning A and B, with some saying and others heavily implying that Ukraine's culture is nothing but a corrupt dregs of Russian one, worth at best to be laughed at, and Ukraine's nationhood is an unfortunate historical accident that needs to be corrected, and the Ukrainians themselves are just Russians who were misled by ruling Nazi clique into forgetting their true roots, and need to be liberated and deprogrammed. I have no means to know if "majority of Russians" agree or not - but I know for a fact that's exactly what Russian semi-official propaganda (i.e. propagandists not officially holding the government post but are allowed to exist - including on state-run TV - while all other voices are suppressed) and many Russians in private conversations wholeheartedly support. I have heard and read many people expressing these exact statements. And remember, if you express sentiments that are officially disapproved, you get heavy fine in best case, jail in worst. These people never been prosecuted, and are allowed to speak freely on the government-sponsored forums. You can make conclusions from there.
But denying B is the official position of Russia right now, and denying C has been since forever, and it has been occupying part of Ukrainian territory - by military action which you have managed to ignore somehow - since 2014. A is not officially denied, but denied both in propaganda and in action.
Ukraine is not an ethnostate and never has been, and never wanted to be. It's a nation-state, as most of currently existing states are.
Sevastopol is not a property of Russian Navy.
It's not as multicultural as you think., certainly not in the Western sense of it. Surely, "colorful national traditions" are allowed, but only within the framework of the imperial culture. The exception now is Chechens, which have a peculiar arrangement where they have de-facto self-rule within Chechnya, as long as a) 99% of them "vote" as prescribed (of course, nobody cares how or whether they actually vote), b) the ruler is approved by Moscow and c) what they do outside Chechnya is subject to Moscow's approval. But not many others would enjoy such arrangements and certainly that's not what was planned for Ukraine. It's not exactly "ethno" nationalism - your ethnicity doesn't matter much, as long as you politically and culturally loyal to the Empire. They are not primitive genetics-based racists, that's not what it is about. It's about having one imperial culture and one single cohesive political movement leading it, obviously based on the Russian culture, but not emphasizing primitive genetic basis, but rather the cultural basis. Shoigu is Tuvan, but as long as he leads the Victorious Russian Army to glorious victories (ha!) nobody cares. Once he has thoroughly failed, of course, some would not mind reminding that he's not "real Russian" and that's why...
You may laugh as much as you want, yet this is exactly what the plan was - and still is. You can witness it by reading the February-time propaganda, when they thought they have already won. You can witness it by looking at their actions on the occupied territories, where the first thing they do is to convert everything into Russian, institute Russian-language schools teaching Russian curriculum, have cultural celebrities from Russia come to "support" the new order, etc. - and, in parallel, ship thousands of "refugees" from Ukraine to remote areas of Russia.
You're talking about Russians not upholding peaceful goals when they're not at peace. That makes no sense.
For example, imagine that I'm a Roman general and I'm talking to a barbarian tribe that I want to assimilate into Rome. I make them a promise like "If you accept our terms, not only will your current leadership be allowed to remain in power, but we promise that your tribe will maintain its freedom and we promise not to enslave any of you." The leader's response is to tell me to go screw myself. So I send in the legions, execute the barbarian leadership, and start taking lots of slaves to send back to Rome.
Now the barbarians start complaining "You promised that you would allow our existing leadership to remain in power, and that you wouldn't take any slaves!" Are the barbarians being reasonable here? My promise was entirely contingent on them accepting my terms. They didn't do that; instead they chose to fuck around and find out. So I have zero obligations towards them, and in fact from the perspective of Rome it's good that I'm making a horrible example of them because it'll teach other barbarian tribes what happens when they choose to cross Rome instead of playing nice. I think that in this example, the barbarians are out of line to complain about me failing to uphold a promise of fair treatment when that promise was entirely contingent on them playing nice and helping me to accomplish Rome's goals.
This is how I feel we're holding Russia to unfair standards. For better or worse, Russia and Ukraine are enemies now, which means we can't expect Russia to respect Ukrainian national identity. The Ukrainians chose to fuck around and find out, so now Russia's goals changed from cooperative to punitive, which is basically the entire point of a war - to punish the other side for refusing to accept your diplomatic terms. Do I think Ukraine deserves to be taken over? No, of course not. But I can't condemn Russia for trying to dissolve Ukrainian ethnonationalist identity when that ethnonationalist identity is part of what made Ukraine oppose Russian goals in the first place. They're at war and in war you have no obligation to play nice with your opponent.
No, I am claiming they never had peaceful goals and that's why they're not at peace now - because their un-peaceful goals has driven them to aggression.
That is true, but this is in no way supports the idea that your promises were genuine to begin with. It's more likely, you wanted to cheat them and take them other the easy way, but they saw through your deceit and you chose to do it the hard way.
From the perspective of Rome it's also good to kill all the barbarians or enslave all of them. Screw the perspective of Rome, then. Why should I care what is their perspective if they want to enslave me? Ultimately, it gains me nothing - if they have enough power, they will enslave me, if they don't, I'll kill them and bury them and be free. How any "perspective" helps me here? There's no possibility of peace with them where I end up not enslaved - so why would I care about any "perspective" on their side?
No, the standards are entirely fair. Russians want to control and conquer their neighbors - either peacefully or militarily. They failed to do it peacefully, then they failed to do it by covert (very badly disguised, but at least they pretended it is covert) limited force operation, and now they are failing to do it by open military operation. Their perspective - that of trying to enslave and control their neighbors - remain unchanged. And recognizing and openly talking about it, ripping off the veil of deceit they try to present - is not "unfair" to them. It may be unpleasant to them - as they would much prefer for us to be deceived - but it's not unfair.
They never ever been cooperative. They just tried to take over Ukraine by lesser means - first by installing a puppet ruler, then by instigating insurrections and grabbing territories when opportunity presented itself, and now by open warfare. It's no more "cooperation" than a robbery is a cooperation - what you are arguing is if you didn't promptly give the robber your wallet, it's "unfair" to fault him for trying to murder you, since you behaved "incooperatively", so he was "forced" to move to "punitive" means. That's bullshit, I do not owe a robber my "cooperation", and neither Ukraine owes Russia "cooperation" in its own destruction. It is entirely within Ukraine's rights to tell Russia to fuck off to any proposal or any attempt to intervene into their internal business, and any conquest action by Russia would be an aggression, and it's not "unfair" to say so. Russian is not entitled to anything at all with regard to Ukraine besides fucking off.
Fuck Russian goals. Nobody in Ukraine owes Russians anything with regard to their goals, and they are entirely right and proper to reject any of their goals and pay to them no attention at all, and the only legitimate thing Russia can do is to shove their goals and shut up. Anything else is aggressive behavior, and it is entirely fair to point it out and call Russia what it is - an aggressor.
Additionally, Ukraine is not "ethnonationalist" - at least not any more than any other national state, from France to Japan to Israel to Malaysia to Germany to Thailand to Iceland - are. Ukrainians have their own national state and want to carry out their business without any other state interfering. It is totally right and proper for them to do so.
The fact that they are at war is their crime. The fact that they are also perpetrating this war in a genocidal and war criminal manner just multiplies their criminality.
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I think it's a very fair standard that you can't blame your opponent for becoming your enemy when you fucking started the war.
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Taking the political standards that Atlanticists normally apply to Western political movements, and applying them to the Ukrainian system, yes, we can objectively conclude that it's an ethnostate. If and when those standards are dropped, we'll have something real to discuss. When they start speaking of Third World refugees in Western Europe as "refugees", we'll have something to discuss.
And of course Russia is not multicultural "in the Western sense of it". That's the reason I used the word "objectively".
Which standards are you talking about? Ukraine has huge (comparatively) ethnically Russian population and also significant number of other ethnicities. Which criteria do you employ to conclude it's an "ethnostate"?
incorporating right-wing extremist armed groups into the nation's armed forces and permitting their members to display Nazi iconography
officially recognizing Nazi collaborators, perpetrators of ethnic cleansing, as national heroes
mainstreaming the narrative of national purity as a virtue (i.e we're the only true descendants of the glorious Kievan Rus, the Muskal are mere Finno-Ugric Mongoloid mongrels)
Yes, I maintain the position that Atlanticist normies would condemn any other regime as an ethnostate or a rouge Nazi-adjacent system if it showed the same behavior, unless it is one of their client states.
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Putin and Russian government denies existence of Ukrainians as nation or ethnicity and spend this year a massive effort to destroy Ukraine as an independent state.
They are making an effort to prevent the D scenario. That's a big difference.
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To extend a tiny amount of charity to the Russians, they may be willing to walk back that part at least a little.
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