Friend Austin writes,
“This video tries valiantly to shine some light into an obscure corner of the history behind the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine over Crimea, has much worth viewing, which I recommend that you do.
It includes some apparently accurate maps of various key times in snapshots that appear on the screen all too briefly, and it would be productive to plan to stop, rewind, and then view each of those snapshots.
The thesis here revolves around Ukrainian Premier Khrushchev’s “gift” of Crimea away from the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. Note especially minute ~2:50 ff.: Pravda (“Truth”), one of the two leading official Soviet information/propaganda organs reports “Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. Pravda goes on to claim that the presidium of the Ukraine Supreme Soviet had ratified the accord.
At this point, the video raises some speculative questions and criticisms of the purported rationale for this transfer, rationale commonly bandied about in the (mostly ignorant) West as received truth, heaping obscurity and confusion on what was murkey from the very beginning.
Holodomor, a mass starvation claiming between 3,500,000 and 5,000,000 Ukrainians, is once again here portrayed as a purposeful pogrom against Ukrainians. While it is impossible for this observer to ferret-out every motivation, and although more than a dozen countries have decried it as genocide, and of course, Marshal Josef Stalin was a genuine villain, and a target for blame larger than life. We would be wise not to count majority votes on any particular topic as the warrant of truth.
And this is especially the case with Holodomor, correctly stated to have been the result of Stalin’s agricultural policies. But actually, “policies” seems an inaccurate characterization for schemes that sprang like Nike Athena full-grown out of the forehead of Zeus, but in this case not from Zeus, but from the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist fantasy land of a dictator against whom there was no veto. If this famine had been limited to only the Ukraine, the allegation might hold water. But Stalin’s insanity pervaded all of the agriculture of the entire USSR. The effects were horrific everywhere, and for instance, in Kazakhstan, half the population starved to death. Khrushchev tendering Crimea as an apology-gift could have been the case, but some special status for the Ukraine must also have been a prior condition.
The point is well-taken that enough of the USSR’s ruling stratum fell right in step with this to cement its cast of official righteousness. And to their credit, the Producers admit that the murk and veils remain impenetrable. The point that Moscow might have wanted the overwhelming majority Russian population of Crimea to provide leverage over Kiev. Very well, but only so far as that goes. In history, context is vital, and among the major contextual realities omitted is that, at some point, Stalin picked up 3,000,000 ethnic Russians (from where, I do not know) and planted them in the Ukraine, presumably in Donbass, being thus the origin of the overwhelming majority of ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers there.
Nor should we neglect some possible military strategery, given Moscow’s conviction that NATO represented a serious threat, and that Europe, brimming with anti-Communist, anti-Warsaw pact animus, would likely seek to enter through the Ukraine just as the Waffen SS had done in WW II. For this reason, staggeringly disproportionate stockpiles of weaponry and ammunition had been cached all over the Ukraine, in depots, fortified towns and cities, and underground mines. As Nikolaiev was the premier yard for building competitive blue water navy capital ships, so Sevastopol was just the port that could accommodate however much surface navy Moscow wanted to float.
But notwithstanding my own inability to read Russian, a bit more digging, a lot of good fortune, and a willingness to keep an open mind have brought other matters to light, some of which seem likely to be facts.
Thus, it has come to my attention that some persistent researchers have turned up odoriferous bugs in all of this nice smooth ointment. Careful research has been unable to uncover any record in the agenda and proceedings of the USSR’s Executive Presidium of the Supreme Soviet any record that devolution of Crimea from the Russian Republic to the Ukrainian Republic was ever to be or ever had been discussed. Much less was there any record in meeting minutes, proceedings, or a stand-alone document verifying any such decision.
We in the Communism-hating West tend to disparage Russia’s Soviet-Era officialdom and leadership as something like sinister gray Keystone Cops. But their ossified bureaucracies were excruciatingly detailed and mechanistically thorough.
Had some rogue U.S. President just decided to give Louisiana to Quebec–because, “French,” you see–must something else have had to take place? For instance, at the very least, Louisiana’s Legislature (and maybe its populace), the U.S. Congress (and maybe the legislatures or peoples of the other 49 states), and the Parliament (and perhaps people) of Quebec along with the Parliament (and perhaps people?) of Canada would have had to vote for the swap. Yet we seem to think that dictatorial old Soviets just blundered along, willi-nilli.
In fact, either the Duma or Supreme Soviet Presidium of the Russian Republic and the Supreme Soviet Presidium (or Duma, or Verkhovna Rada?) of the Ukrainian Republic would also have been required to vote on this. And yet there is no record of the matter ever having appeared on their agendas, much less having been voted on.
Returning to my own extensive limitations, my interest in Russian history has been rather rusty and focused on Medieval, for the most part winding up with Tsar Peter the Great. The latter does come into our consideration of the Ukraine, as Poland ceded it to Tsar Peter (I though in 1696, but President Putin says 1656, so shows ya what I know) in valuable consideration for him going into Crimea and quelling the Tatarian Khanate, which had for centuries been a genocidal menace to all peoples within swatting distance. Incorporating the Ukraine into Russia and setting the western border at the River Dnipr in 1717, it was not until something like 1720-1730 that Peter had been able to conquer the Tatars and fold Crimea into Russia. Alas, it could not endure, because the Ottoman Empire which had been a voracious consumer of slaves the Crimean Khans had regularly harvested from the Ukraine decided that it wanted Crimea for itself, so took it. Candidly, for the most of mankind’s earthly pilgrimage, that is just how things worked.
Eventually, Empress Catherine II, The Great’s notorious boyfriend, Count Grigory Potemkin, proved his material worth to the Empire by ejecting the Ottomans and reclaiming Crimea for his Empress. Catherine proclaimed it part of the Russian Empire ca. 1783. Moreover, she ordered Count Grigory to hustle himself to spruce it up, and to launch off and build Odessa as a resplendent jewel of Imperial classical architecture, which is prized as such today by peoples around the world. Whereas Crimea was indeed Russian by population, Odessa was more like Imperial Rome or modern New York City, a gaggle of traders, merchants, artisans, and venturers from around the globe.
So with neither you nor I being able to read Russian, you can say if you wish that what I am relating is a “take it, or leave it” proposition, and that you are going to leave it. Very well. I take it, because it coheres into a sensible, logical, probable narrative, and such are few and far between, especially on any topic on which the West’s Mockingbird Media pounces to bludgeon us into submission through its flagrant and uniform propagandizing.
I leave out the terrible roiling genocidal violence that plagued the Ukraine (as elsewhere in the disintegrated Empire of Tsar Nicholas II) from WW I until its most recent independence from the by-then also disintegrated Soviet Union. It is granular enough and important enough to constitute a big chunk of an undergraduate history degree to seriously study it. Yet this time must not go without mentioning its legacy of True Believer Nazi infestations, SS enlistments, service in the Waffen SS, and “nationalism” covering a spectrum ranging from pro-independence patriotism to rabid satanic Banderite, Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler, Himleresque Fake Norse Religion, Nazism. Alas, those wishing to perpetuate the obfuscation can say “nationalistic” and make it mean anything they want it to. And why had Ukrainians, especially in the western part of the country, so eagerly welcomed the Waffen SS if not for the jack-booted violence they had suffered from the tender mercies of Moscow.
It is also beyond the scope of this already tedious critique of a pretty good little video to note that the Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the just-forming Russian Federation was a rogue act, and not at all in conformity with applicable and in-force law: The declaration was illegal, though polished up to the satisfaction of those with only two fingers of forehead through a subsequent referendum. We in the West continue to look to the Ukraine as some kind of fountainhead of virtue and innocence, whereas all along it has been and continues to be a festering cesspool of obscene corruption, grift, graft, and mafioso doings obscured by only the thinnest veneers of probity. Yet this is what our nation and all of the West have decided to make into our pet underdog.
There’s only so much history that can be stuffed into a 12:41 minute video. But it behooves us to try and dig deeper, while at least trying to keep an open mind. The absurd fantasy Americans have made out of Russian history, culture, economy, geopolitical means and ends, the concepts of nationhood and national sovereignty puts to shame Uncle Joe Stalin’s self-crazed fantasies about how Soviet agriculture would simply conform to his personal dogmas just because he wrote them down.”
“