I was arguing with someone in the V**shite subreddit because I’m a masochist. That was the first time I’d ever heard the term “little green men.” Apparently, not knowing who these guys are disqualifies me from having an opinion on Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, so I’m trying to learn. Who are these people? Did they do something awful and genocidal that I’m not aware of? Or is this person just talking out of their ass?

In my research, I encountered more of Stalin’s infamous deportations, namely that of the Crimean Tartars to the Central Asian SSRs. It seems downright ghoulish to me that he would do that, especially given the death and suffering it caused. Is anyone familiar with the rationale behind these deportations? Is it not as bad as it seems, or is this a black mark on his record? If it’s a black mark, how do we make sense of that while still upholding Stalin’s legacy?

And of course, whenever Russia comes up, the radlibs and the anarchists all flock together to insist that Russia is a colonizing, imperialist power. I’m aware that imperialism is something pretty specific, and not something that Russia can be rightfully accused of. Even so, I have to admit that I’m not fresh on what DOES count as imperialism. Will someone elucidate this for me?

Thanks in advance.

  • @cfgaussian
    16•11 months ago

    Because it was a meme that was plastered around every liberal western media publication at the time. It was very clear that there was a concerted and co-ordinated campaign to spread this myth in order to delegitimize the anti-Maidan rebellions. But it had just about as much credibility as the “ghost of Kiev” meme.

    I remember a number of other such stories from 2014 that were picked up by the media in the west - especially in Europe, you couldn’t escape this shit - it was everywhere, but they have since been sort of dropped or pushed out of the public consciousness because they turned out to not stand up to scrutiny.

    The only people still parroting these ridiculous things are people who have been extremely deeply immersed in pro-Maidan propaganda. That’s how you can tell someone is not just a person who jumped on a popular bandwagon last year, but a hardcore cultist with deep Russophobia and liberal brainworms.

    They are Europe’s equivalent to the kind of people who still to this day go on about Russiagate in the US.