Comment by rabite | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rabite | Hacker News Reader

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> Bandera and his nazis

Bandera was fighting against the Nazis by the end of the war. At any given time, he was doing what was prudent for his country and getting resources to fight the Cheka, because the Soviets were disappearing Ukrainians in the middle of the night and sending them to gulags.

Appreciating Ukrainian cultural traditions is not political. "Slava Ukraini" should not be a political or offensive phrase, unless you are a genocidal maniac supporting Putin's mass murder.

> a liberal attitude like yours.

Lemkos then and now generally had a pretty high opinion of Bandera (they were forcibly resettled by the Soviets). Doing ether is not a particular indicator of a liberal attitude -- it is a traditional practice in Lemko society, and it was so during the time Bandera was alive. Ether is fun and enjoyable, and I like it better than alcohol. I don't think it changes your political designation. It is maybe a Calvinist/Puritan attitude to see the consumption of ether or alcohol as associated with political liberalism, are you perchance of American Protestant stock? This attitude is extremely alien to me.

> "Slava Ukraini" should not be a political or offensive phrase, unless you are a genocidal maniac supporting Putin's mass murder.

Ask the poles what do they think of it. Are they all "genocidal maniacs supporting Putin's mass murder"?

Bandera and his OUN carried out massacres and ethnic cleansing of a hundred thousand Poles, plus we don't know how many Jews. It was the slogan of the OUN so yes it is a highly offensive phrase especially if you are Pole or Jew.

I couldn't care less if modern Ukraine adopted it as a national slogan. If Germany decided to adopt "Sieg Heil" as a national slogan, that would still make think of Hitler every time I hear it even though Germany is now a democracy.

> Lemkos then and now generally had a pretty high opinion of Bandera

Some Germans still have a pretty high opinion of Hitler, some Italians of Mussolini. That doesn't make up for their crimes.

> > a liberal attitude like yours.

You happily partake in Xenon, ether and what not, I generally call this behavior that of a junkie, liberal was my way of being polite.

The phrase "Slava Ukraini" predates the OUN by actual decades. There are plenty of people in Ukraine, particularly East Ukraine, that have personal objections to the mythos of Bandera as a national hero that still use the phrase, as it was coined in the Ukrainian War of Independence. Comparing it to "Sieg Heil" is utterly disingenuous. Regardless, your summary of Bandera and the OUN is delusionally ethnocentric and clearly biased against Ukraine.

> I generally call this behavior that of a junkie

and most people that voted in favor of prohibition would say that everyone that drinks alcohol must be a public drunkard, I guess. Usage of ether is a tradition on par with drinking in at least one part of the world. It is a little more dangerous, given ether's excessive flammability and low flash point, but inhaling some ether does not make anyone a junkie. America doesn't have a tradition of ether at all, and it is the only country where there are shambling masses of xylazine/fentanyl zombies defecating in the streets. Maybe you could all use a little more traditional ether consumption.

> The phrase "Slava Ukraini" predates the OUN by actual decades

> Comparing it to "Sieg Heil" is utterly disingenuous.

LOL I'll introduce you to the fact that Sieg Heil originated in Germany around the 1900, way before the nazis got the power. The roman salute was used by the Roman empire, the earliest known use of the swastika dates the 4th centure BCE. Yet none of this symbols/gestures are accepted today, because the nazis spoiled them for everyone.

> Regardless, your summary of Bandera and the OUN is selfish and ethnocentric.

Nice hand-wavy way to dismiss hundreds of thousands of murders.

Sieg Heil originated in Germany around the 1900, etc

A broken analogy. The difference lies in the fact that these symbols were utterly obscure to German public before the Nazis introduced them in the early 1920s; though they had previous incarnations, in essence the Nazis reinvented them. In fact, they were so successful at it that most people are surprised to learn that these symbols had prior origins.

The situation with "Slava Ukraini" is entirely different. It first appeared in a poem of Shevchenko in 1840, and gained widespread traction during the War of Independence. It was then co-opted by the OUN, but the point is, by that time it had its own "legs" as a slogan rooted in Ukrainian national consciousness, completely independent of Bandera and his program.

And used today, it has no fascist connotations, and does not indicate support for Bandera or the OUN. That's just a simple fact. You obviously want the slogan to mean something different in the current context -- but we're talking about a country of 44 million people here, and if you have any interaction at all with this society, it's perfectly obvious and clear what they mean by it. I take their word over yours.

The Poles have long gotten over all this history too, of course. They know what happened in those years, but they know that what's happening in the current day is infinitely more important. They know there's a fascist aggressor to the East which threatens their survival as a people, and it isn't Ukraine.

Your attempts to conflate the slogan with a meaning it simply doesn't have are disingenuous. You're clearly not interested in what's historically accurate, or what describes the feelings and intents of people who use slogans like "Slava Ukraini" today.

You're only interested in this stuff as scare imagery -- as a way to push people's buttons.

> And used today, it has no fascist connotations, and does not indicate support for Bandera or the OUN. That's just a simple fact. You obviously want the slogan to mean something different in the current context -- but we're talking about a country of 44 million people here, and if you have any interaction at all with this society, it's perfectly obvious and clear what they mean by it. I take their word over yours.

That's BS. Do some research, check how many marches like this one[0] (clearly mimicking nazis and glorifying Bandera) there are in Ukraine. Check the countless pictures and videos showing elements of the AFU wearing nazi symbology. Check what is the role of fascist militias like Azov and neo-nazi parties like Svoboda in the 2014's Maidan.

What evidence do you have to support that symbology taken straight from Bandera period has no relationship with him?

> The Poles have long gotten over all this history too, of course. They know what happened in those years, but they know that what's happening in the current day is infinitely more important. They know there's a fascist aggressor to the East which threatens their survival as a people, and it isn't Ukraine.

That's bullshit as well, and you know it. To this day Poland comdemns Ukraine's commeration of Bandera & co.[1] That's a constant source of friction between the two countries, which are only united at the moment because of Russia.

The real problem with Ukraine as a nation is that the only national cultural identity they could find is rooted in collaborationism with the nazis, ethnical extermination and hatred for the URSS. Not a great base to start from.

> You're only interested in this stuff as scare imagery -- as a way to push people's buttons.

All I'm interested in is to see an end to the constant glorification of nazism.

- [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHhGEiwCHZE

- [1]: https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/01/02/poland-condemns-ukrai...

> And used today

In the mainstream, I obviously meant.

Check in on any American Nazi rally from the 1930s to the present day (the photos are all over the place); you'll see the Stars and Stripes displayed very prominently right along Swastika flags. Does that mean the former is, therefore, a fascist symbol?

Check what is the role of fascist militias like Azov in the 2014's Maidan.

Azov did not exist at the time of Maidan.

This is the kind of nonsense world you create for yourself by obsessively reading polemics, and pulling "research" from echo-chamber news sources. Rather than bothering to find out what Ukrainians are actually like, as a people.

The real problem with Ukraine as a nation is ...

The irony here is that you claim to be concerned about the dangers of Nazism. But then almost in the same breath, you dive head-first into weird tribalist diatribes like this.

> Azov did not exist at the time of Maidan.

Yes Azov was founded right after, which tells you already there is some correlation with the Maidan. But do you think Azov was founded by a bunch of newborns, or maybe by the same militarly trained people who participated in the Maidan?

> The irony here is that you claim to be concerned about the dangers of Nazism. But then almost in the same breath, you dive head-first into weird tribalist diatribes like this.

So since you have nothing to deny the fact that Ukraine's identity is deeply rooted in nazism and violence, you resort to defining what I say as "weird tribalist diatribes", which is nonsense.

The point is that with all of your concern about these momentous events, and all your "research" -- you're clearly hallucinating about the key players involved.

Does this fact not bother you?

It doesn't as I think I'm right.

Who do you think are the key players involved?

It doesn't matter what I think.

I'm not the one trying to scare everyone about Azov's "role in Maidan" when in fact it did not exist at the time.

At any given time, he was doing what was prudent for his country

By which you must mean his issuing the Act of Restoration of the Ukrainian State, which famously states:

  3. The newly formed Ukrainian state will work closely with the National-Socialist Greater Germany, under the leadership of its leader Adolf Hitler which is forming a new order in Europe and the world and is helping the Ukrainian People to free itself from Moscovite occupation.

Yes, absolutely, the Soviet Union and its Secret Police were an active threat to Ukrainians every day. Adolf Hitler was not.

Though Bandera did work with the Nazis, he later worked against them. They weren't ideologically into Nazism.

Even Karaite Jews in Ukraine joined SS regiments at some points. They didn't love Hitler, everyone knew Hitler was a stinker. They were just more immediately concerned with the immediate threat of forced starvation or torture in a gulag.

They weren't ideologically into Nazism.

The point is -- he was a willing collaborator. And you went out of your way to describe his actions as "at any given time, prudent for his country".

Yes. It was prudent to do anything to save Ukraine. Absolutely. If you love your country you'd deal with the devil himself to save it from what Russia was doing.

10 million people died in Genrikh Yagoda's torture chambers. Another 5 million starved to death in the holodomor.

Hitler was bad, sure, but only a third as bad as the Bolsheviks. And about half of those 15 million deaths happened in Ukraine, and Bandera's fiduciary duty was to fellow Ukrainians, not to some foreign nation. If you had to pick a side (and Bandera did) it was best to go with Hitler.

It was prudent to do anything to save Ukraine.

Including allowing the Germans to run the Final Solution on your territory.

And please, don't tell us he didn't know what was in store for Ukraine's Jewish population. By the late 1930s, everyone knew what was up.

You're really very naive with these justifications you're making here. Like Bandera himself.

10 million people died in Genrikh Yagoda's torture chambers.

These are some wildly inflated numbers you're posting here. Total estimates for the number of persons killed in pre-war political repressions in the USSR top out at 1 million or so. I'm not sure what Ukraine's exact number is, but (in asserting that it was "about half" of 10M) you're easily inflating the true number by a factor of at least 10x here. Likely closer to 20x.

Why are you doing this?

Wikipedia cites the Holodomor as 5 million. That was mostly in East Ukraine. That's most of the half. The other 2.5 million were from gulags.

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

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

There were 20 million+ excess deaths, of which 10 million are commonly attributed to Yagoda:

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3342999,00.html

Maybe you disagree with these numbers, but they're the ones I know of.

Wikipedia cites the Holodomor

You cited, as an encyclopedic fact, 10M as having perished specifically "Yagoda's torture chambers" per your words, which can only refer to NKVD (or otherwise "political") persecutions -- not the various deportations en masse or the Holodomor. The WP page you cited confirms upper bound for the former set of excess fatalaties (i.e. the one that you were explicitly referencing) at 770k -- which we shall charitably round up to 1M for the sake of "civility" here -- for the entire USSR during the pre-war era.

Far short of the 10M figure you are introducing for whatever imaginitive and creative purposes.

Again: 10M in this category -- the number who perished "Yagoda's torture chambers" throughout the USSR before the start of the war; and "about half" being in Ukraine; or around 5M, is the number you put forth -- apparently for the nifty rhetorical effect you thought it might bring.

Whereas the historical consensus for this category is <400k.

> Far short of the 10M figure you are introducing for whatever imaginitive and creative purposes.

I didn't introduce the 10M figure, I linked an example article where it was used (the Ynetnews one) -- it is a common number I have seen of those who died in Soviet prisons. Maybe not specifically those who were captured by the NKVD -- but I think a lot of people were dropping dead who were also not political prisoners.

> 10M in this category -- the number who perished "Yagoda's torture chambers" throughout the USSR before the start of the war; and "about half" being in Ukraine;

No -- I said about half of these excess deaths were in Ukraine, most of that half being made up of the 5 million people killed in the Holodomor.

I'm sorry I don't have perfectly legible accounting of the millions of people Stalin killed in Ukraine, but with the lower bound being in the millions I don't think saying 7.5 million people killed in Ukraine is unreasonable. The Holodomor killed 5 million and then there's assuredly another 2.5 million made up in further excess deaths there somewhere. I don't know if it is perfectly accurate and I don't care. These were the people who Bandera had a fiduciary duty to protect, as a leader of Ukrainians. I don't support the evil things that happened in Volhyn and Galicia, but those things had a historical context where there was a credible threat of millions more lives of his countrymen on the line. Tough choices had to be made and he made them.

> I didn't introduce the 10M figure, I linked an example article where it was used (the Ynetnews one) -- it is a common number I have seen of those who died in Soviet prisons.

That's not how it works champ, we need sources. An article from a random "journalist" (Sever Plocker?? who is that? he has no history on the web, very suspicious) does not count as a source. Anyone can go to the web and write random numbers in a post, that doesn't make it true. Don't believe everything you read blindly, always look for a source first.

Okay. Let's pretend the Soviets killed nobody in Ukraine other than the Holodomor. That's 5 million people. The credible threat of millions more being butchered by the Soviets was real. At this point, we are disputing small fractions of the total deaths. I don't care if it was only 5 million, though it was millions more.

There is no Ukrainian/Soviet distinction. Ukrainians were Soviet at the time. Ukraine was historically part of the Russian empire and only split very briefly after the revolution. You are trying to promote the idea of a split between Russia and Ukraine that didn't certainly exist at the time.

Putting that aside, nobody "killed" 5 million people. Killed certainly isn't the correct term, as the Holodomor was about deaths by starving and not by shooting. We're talking about mismanagement, not murders. Otherwise we'd have to consider every death caused by government mismanagement as murder.

When a homeless dies for the cold do you consider him to have been killed by his country?

When someone dies because they couldn't afford insuline, is it a murder by the government?

When a worker dies in a factory accident, was he killed by an unequal economic system?

Between 17500 and 46500 homeless died in the USA in 2018 alone[0], was that mass murder by the government? No? Then the Holodomor wasn't a genocide.

By the way, get your numbers straight again, it's 3.9 millions[1], not 5.

- [0]: https://nhchc.org/homeless-mortality/

- [1]: https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resour....

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