Historical Revisionism Erasing Russia’s Lead Role in WWII Akin to Holocaust Denial

The push by the West to minimize and erase the contributions of Soviet Russia in defeating Nazism and fascism in WWII is a deplorable act of historical revisionism that should be condemned, just as Holocaust denial is condemned by most of society.

In recent years, there has been an attempt to minimize Russia’s contributions to the war effort against the Nazis, despite the long historical consensus that they did more to defeat the German army than any other country and sacrificed more to accomplish that, some 25 to 27 million Russians, than any other country.

Worse yet, some have even gone as far as to equate the Soviets with the Nazis or even paint Nazism as an unfortunate response to the true danger: communism.

“There has also been a decades-long push to equate communism in the USSR with Nazism in Germany,” writes Conor Gallagher in Naked Capitalism. “While originally more of a fringe view, it started to go mainstream back in 2008 when the European Parliament adopted a resolution establishing August 23 as the ‘European Day of Remembrance for the victims of Stalinism and Nazism.’ Also called Black Ribbon Day, the US in 2019 also adopted a resolution to observe the date.”

Also in 2019, Gallagher points out, the European Parliament adopted a resolution blaming the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact for the Second World War, implying that the Soviets were as responsible as the Nazis for the war.

“What the Soviet Union did was astronomical, and they paid a very tremendous cost. 27 million lives lost. And, the fact that there is an attempt to tamper with that narrative by Western leaders is really outrageous,” analyst and journalist Caleb Maupin told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour.“

All around the world, people understand that what they call Holocaust revisionism is unacceptable… There are European countries that have laws against that, will put people in jail for doing that. Well, if you try to denigrate the heroic efforts of the Soviet people or the great sacrifices they made with 27 million of their people dying in that war, how is that any different?”

In February, former US President Donald Trump reminded Americans that it was the Russians who were primarily responsible for Adolf Hitler’s defeat.

“You’re really up against a war machine in Russia. Russia, what [did] they do? They defeated Hitler, they defeated Napoleon. They are a war machine,” Trump said, leading CNN commentator Jim Sciutto to call those historically factual remarks “a favorite Putin talking point.”

Considering that Russian President Vladimir Putin is famously known for his ability to quickly recall historical facts, Sciutto might be right, but not in the way he is portraying. Those with the truth on their side often use historical facts as talking points.

“World War II was one of the most devastating wars in history, and the fact that America stood with Britain and France and the Soviet people and the Chinese people to defeat the menace of fascism, that is a very, very important moment in world history, and, seeing that narrative denigrated is outrageous,” Maupin argued.