Maxim Shevchenko: Linking Communism With Nazism
[Maxim Shevchenko hosts the political talk show "Sudite Sami" on Channel One.]
Lithuania is the latest country to conduct a hysterical campaign that equates Soviet symbols with Nazism. The bill, approved by the Lithuanian parliament last month, would prohibit public displays of Soviet symbols, including the Soviet flag, hammer and sickle, military uniforms and the five-pointed star -- in the same spirit that the country prohibits the Nazi swastika. Lithuanian politicians are attempting to package this law as a noble stance against Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism. But this anti-Russian initiative -- officially packaged as anti-Soviet -- is both hypocritical and blasphemous.
This is not the early 1990s, when the Russian Communist Party, one could argue, posed a threat to the anti-Communist Lithuanian establishment.
Moreover, Lithuania is the last country that should be leading this self-righteous campaign. Lithuania was the only nation to be singled out in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as a beneficiary after the division of Poland. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to hand the Vilnius region -- formerly Polish territory -- to Lithuania, which gained nearly 7,000 square kilometers, including its current capital, from the pact and subsequent agreements. The Lithuanian authorities rarely acknowledge this "small detail." Therefore, if we are going to start re-examining the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, perhaps Vilnius and its surrounding areas should be returned to Poland.
Something is definitely wrong with the Lithuanian initiative. These provocateurs in top government positions hop from summit to summit, telling European Union that they are engaged in a fight against communism. But what is really at stake here behind all of this heightened demagoguery?..
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Lithuania is the latest country to conduct a hysterical campaign that equates Soviet symbols with Nazism. The bill, approved by the Lithuanian parliament last month, would prohibit public displays of Soviet symbols, including the Soviet flag, hammer and sickle, military uniforms and the five-pointed star -- in the same spirit that the country prohibits the Nazi swastika. Lithuanian politicians are attempting to package this law as a noble stance against Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism. But this anti-Russian initiative -- officially packaged as anti-Soviet -- is both hypocritical and blasphemous.
This is not the early 1990s, when the Russian Communist Party, one could argue, posed a threat to the anti-Communist Lithuanian establishment.
Moreover, Lithuania is the last country that should be leading this self-righteous campaign. Lithuania was the only nation to be singled out in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as a beneficiary after the division of Poland. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to hand the Vilnius region -- formerly Polish territory -- to Lithuania, which gained nearly 7,000 square kilometers, including its current capital, from the pact and subsequent agreements. The Lithuanian authorities rarely acknowledge this "small detail." Therefore, if we are going to start re-examining the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, perhaps Vilnius and its surrounding areas should be returned to Poland.
Something is definitely wrong with the Lithuanian initiative. These provocateurs in top government positions hop from summit to summit, telling European Union that they are engaged in a fight against communism. But what is really at stake here behind all of this heightened demagoguery?..