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Comment by grive | Hacker News Reader

"The point is -- Eastern Europe was in practice left under occupation"

No one "left" anyone. Eastern Europe had a right to self determination, which was infriged upon by the soviet block. Blame the soviet block. Western Europe coming in and "spreading democracy" would have been a disaster.

It's easy for you to say, now that the west has won the cold war. At the time, Western Europe was simply either with the US or trying to find a third path, neutral and not involved in the cold war.

It is the responsibility of Eastern European to revolt and make a country for themselves, not anyone else's.

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I agree in the main lines but this has limits. I like to take an example with a family living nearby: you hear that the father is spanking his kids, ok, that's none of your business. But if you hear that said father is abusing his kids, you call the cops, and if no cops are available you may group with other peoples to get the kids to safety.

I think Eastern Europe countries were in the "spanking" case, but WW2 Germany and possibly today's North Korea are in the "abuse" case.

I thought so too, until I saw things like these about one of the "nicer" occupations. They broke the resistance with brutality -- then the population suffered silently until it was clear no Soviet tanks would roll in if they threw the yoke off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1946%E2%80%93...

A few percent of the population was in prison for political errors (like not writing over your farm to the party):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reeducation_in_Communist_Roman...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_of_Hungarians_in_...

Sending most grown ups from Transylvania with German ancestry (they generally moved there during the middle ages) to Siberia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_settlements_in_the_Sovi...

It is hard to draw the line, because you need first to build the concept of a "people" (or nation?) then try to find out what's the collective will. But you can't either dismiss this, as people right of self-determination is a core principle.

If a nation somewhere collectively decide they do not want, say, modern medicine, or access to Internet, I will think it is stupid but cannot come there and tell them that I know better.

How many percent of the population forced out and/or sent to prison camps do you think is a serious limit? Lithuania was at ~ 15% after WWII.

Or does it have to be mass murders of a large fraction of the population?

(And yes, 'grive' do have a point -- at the time, there were other problems. It was just not an alternative to continue WWII. After that, a new war would be nuclear. No way to win those.)

It's not a matter of percent. If a very corrupted country decided to get rid of all mafia at once, it could mean a high percentage of the countrymen tried. However getting rid of an ethnic minority, or of the homosexuals, is not ok. The limit is very hard to draw precisely。

Uh, in which country have the organized criminality ever been over 1%? 3%? :D

Regarding Lithuania we talk about getting rid of 15% not of the "ethnic minority" but of the "ethnic majority", then replacing them with a more "dependable" population.

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