Firstly, of course victims of Stalinism and other totalitarian regimes deserve a day of commemoration. No one is saying they don’t. (This tweet is for the benefit of the nationalist trolls.) /2
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The problem is the conflation of Nazism and Stalinism. They were very different things. Lumping them together is what is called the double genocide narrative. It basically says “Look, lots of bad stuff happened between 1939-1989… let’s not nitpick over who did what to whom!” /3
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But it does matter. Jews were not only murdered by Nazis but by sympathisers & collaborators. In Soviet-occupied lands, these collaborators were often motivated by opposition to the USSR. Meanwhile, who was it that they suspected of being in cahoots with the Soviets? /4
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The Jews, of course. Why? Because Nazi propaganda promoted that fallacy. Some Jews were communists, some weren’t. Just like non-Jews. So valiantly fighting against communism often meant the outright murder of Jews. /5
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The legacy of this persists today where there are countless examples in former communist countries where Nazi collaborators are being rehabilitated and celebrated as nationalist heroes. Honoured in monuments and glorified in textbooks. /6
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Choosing the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to mark victims of totalitarians regimes is not an ideologically neutral statement. Choose literally any other day of the year to remember the victims of Stalinism and everything that stemmed from it. /7
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Victims of Nazism already have a day (or a few days, really) of commemoration. Leave them out of this. /8
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End of conversation
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