Honouring a United Front

Vladimir Putin is one individual not out to win any popularity contests. Although he does, in fact, feel he should be an extremely popular leader. With those that count, in any event, and that, largely, is the Russian public who appear to hold him in great esteem. To that public anyone resembling a 'strongman' is due veneration. From Josef Stalin to Vladimir Putin. No, no real similarities, of course; one a brutal dictator, the other an assumptive 'authority' figure.

In his usual spirit of good fellowship Russia's Prime Minister sloughed off Russia's complicity with the Nazi regime, and the country's Axis persona during the Second World War. It was not Stalin's agreement with Hitler to conquer and divide that was deplorable, according to Mr. Putin but the "morally unacceptable" stance of the West in attempting to "appease" Hitler that should be deplored.

"All attempts to appease the Nazis between 1934 and 1939 through various agreements and pacts were morally unacceptable and politically senseless, harmful and dangerous", thundered Mr. Putin. Neville Chamberlain's ghost cringes. "We must admit these mistakes. Our country has done this. The Russian parliament has condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. We have a right to expect this from other countries that also agreed [to] deals with the Nazis." Wot'sat?

Seventy years is simply not enough to bury all those restively ghastly ghosts.

Even while German Chancellor Angela Merkel assumed full responsibility for her country's role causing the deaths of millions upon millions of people: "The German invasion of Poland opened up the most tragic chapter in European history. The war unleashed by Germany resulted in immeasurable sufferings to many peoples - years of deprivation of rights, of humiliation and destruction", Poland is faulted by Russia for not being sufficiently armed and assertive to meet the Nazi challenge.

"Jews died because they were Jews. Polish officers were killed because they were Polish officers", thundered President Lech Kaczynski right back, reminding Putin of Stalin's secret police undertaking the massacre of 22,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forest. And then, out comes the rest; Russia had no choice but to sign the pact with Germany, in fear that Poland would be there ahead of them, signing on to Germany's plan for the master race.

Uneasy neighbours; not much has changed in the space of a lifetime.