History Repeats Itself...

Especially if you put people in jail for telling the truth about history.

Don't get me wrong. For centuries the Russian people have done great things. It cannot be denied that they defeated the Nazis and made them eat dirt. It cannot be denied that 25% of the Russian population died in World War II. And for people to want to take down Soviet World War II memorials, well...they should remember that they, their children, and their grandchildren wouldn't be here if it weren't for those Soviet soldiers who fought the Germans and often died terrible deaths as prisoners of war.

At the same time, Stalin killed far too many of his own people before, during, and after World War II. Not only were mass graves of Jews filled by Ukrainian Nazi wanna-bes, but also by Russian soldiers. Stalin also had a lot of Russians, Ukrainians, and other folks killed too during that time. 8 million orphans roamed across the Soviet Union in search of peace, land, and bread.

There were a lot of non-Russian folks living under Soviet control who thought the Nazis would rescue them from oppression. If you want to pretend like that never happened, and put people in jail for saying it did, then history is just going to repeat itself over and over again. It doesn't make things better when you shut your gas off so the Ukraine doesn't get any, and so forth and so on. This is not justice, and certainly not a strength to crow about.