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In reply to the discussion: Kerry privately urges Poroshenko to provide evidence of Kremlin involvement with separatists in Ukra [View all]JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)No one thinks anything of it. Same song, different lyrics (actually the same lyrics but with the most offending stanza omitted). Just like the Russians did with the Soviet anthem (except they use different lyrics). Your comparison is telling because of the resort instead to the Horst Wessel Lied. Why not compare to the Deutschlandlied, since that's the obvious analogue? Both countries still have the same anthem as in the 1930s! I suppose you want to equate the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany, but imply Russia is continuous with the USSR but Germany is not continuous with the Nazi Reich, and also not equate present-day Russia with present-day Germany. Pretzels! How about you just give up trying to use the anthem as evidence of something so horrible? People grew up with the song and they like it. New lyrics. (As far as I'm concerned: all anthems, all flags = nationalist bullshit.)
And since people are generally prone to false dichotomies (you have shown this a few times with your knee jerk anti-communism among other things), they saw the sorry shape of Russian life in the 1990s under the Western-oriented plunder oligarchs around Yeltsin, with constant crises and impoverishment and lifespans literally shrinking, and they got nostalgic for a strong man and at least some aspects of the Soviet days. Sucks. You'd wish the West had learned the lesson of what happens when you apply extreme capitalism and punitive debt/austerity regimes on subjugated territories, but they're hot to repeat it in Ukraine.