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A thread to catalogue the eloquence, dignity, diplomacy and wisdom of Boris Johnson

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Is it not the case that Russia lost 25 million citizens fighting Hitler and the Nazi regime? Without such sacrifice, how do our historians think the Western front might have played out?

Hitler was doomed once he abandoned the treaty with the USSR and invaded fighting on two fronts. If he hadn’t done that he probably would have won the war. I’m not trying to downplay the role the USSR played in the war, but once Hitler invaded they didn’t have much choice.

Incidentally the estimate of the number of citizens killed by the Stalin regime is in the tens of millions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_deaths_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin

Between the Germans and Stalin the people had an appalling time.
 
My point was that, had the Russians not fought on the second front, you would most likely now be speaking German.

2560px-ElbeDay1945_%28NARA_ww2-121%29.jpg


Elbe Day 1945.
 
It's also the case that the Germans were at first regarded as liberators by the Ukrainians who suffered especially under Stalin, but who then found out that the Nazis were just as bad, if not worse. Then when the Russians re-invaded, there were lots of 'reprisal' killings of 'collaborators', who in many cases just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. To say nothing of Poland, invaded by both Russia and Germany in 1939, then 'liberated' by Russia in 1944, and occupied by them for another 45 years.

We in Britain were extremely lucky to escape occupation and its associated horrors.
 
You are generally polite yourself, Dec. Is that why you object -- because Boris is being rude? Or do you really not see any parallels between Putin and the Hitler of, say, the 1930s, prior to the start of World War II?
The language is inept.
 
My point was that, had the Russians not fought on the second front, you would most likely now be speaking German.

2560px-ElbeDay1945_%28NARA_ww2-121%29.jpg


Elbe Day 1945.

I don’t want to trivialise what was an appalling time, but I think this “you’d all be speaking German” idea is a myth. As far as I’m aware there was no compulsory change of the national language in any of the Western European countries the Nazis invaded.
 
That would be because we helped the Russians and Americans kick them out quickly ;)
 
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Tory PM with Adolf Hitler. Munich 1938. The Labour Party and British Left opposed this too.
 
It isn't about pseudo ideological labels. Dictators,bullies and the religiously deluded will resort to all.

Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, ISIS, and many others have decided they they have 'the answer', that it is so 'perfect' as to require its imposition on all others, and that they have a divine right to do so.

The beauty of democracy is that it ( mostly) prevents this.

Some good points made this evening on QT, distancing the 'Russian People', from the Russian Govt under Putin. At some point we will hopefully re-engage with the Russian people.
 
Trump is a bully. Democracy (or the manipulation of it) gave us that Mull.

Populism gave us saviors like Hitler and Trump. Pol Pot and Stalin were never seen in that light AFAIK. Stalin was only interested in Russia. Trotsky was convinced his ideas were so perfect that he wanted to impose them on all others.

I can't watch QT these days Mull. I just can't. The real questions never get asked or answered candidly.
 
Boris- a warning from history-

On being fired by Michael Howard: "My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters."

(Telegraph)
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Some good points made this evening on QT, distancing the 'Russian People', from the Russian Govt under Putin. At some point we will hopefully re-engage with the Russian people.

the vast majority of the russians i know/knew are and have been very open, friendly and warm. they tend to wear their hearts on their sleeves and though they suffer from just the same faults (eg flag waving) and have just the same worries (eg taxes and food on the table) as ourselves, they are lovely people, though maybe overly emotional at times.
 
Wasn't Stalin Ukrainian?

stalin was a monster, whichever flag he happened to be born under. they say that cometh the hour etc, and that russia needed such a 'man' to repel the germans. but other men could have done the job just as well, but without involving the slaughter of millions of their own people , and others....katyn for example. a psychopathic monster.
 
I don’t want to trivialise what was an appalling time, but I think this “you’d all be speaking German” idea is a myth. As far as I’m aware there was no compulsory change of the national language in any of the Western European countries the Nazis invaded.
And had the Prussians not turned up at Waterloo, we'd all be speaking French?
 
Trump is a bully. Democracy (or the manipulation of it) gave us that Mull.

True, but I have great hopes that Democracy will soon rid us of him.

Populism gave us saviors like Hitler and Trump.

True, and like Brexit here, all political abberations deriving from the cynical manipulation of a population 'in extremis'. Hitler was different though, in that he ignored democracy and physically crushed opposition. Neither Trump nor the present UK Govt. are (yet) seriously challenging the underlying democracy.


Pol Pot and Stalin were never seen in that light AFAIK. Stalin was only interested in Russia. Trotsky was convinced his ideas were so perfect that he wanted to impose them on all others.

I can't watch QT these days Mull. I just can't. The real questions never get asked or answered candidly.

I agree about QT. I don't watch it normally, but it was on in the background last night while I was on here and I just picked up on the point about Russian Govt. c.f. Russian People.

Mull
 
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