DISINFO: European Parliament resolution distorts the history of World War II
SUMMARY
Not only Nazi collaborators but also respectable international institutions like the European Parliament continue to distort the history of World War II. The recent European Parliament resolution that equates Nazi Germany with the Soviet Union is an example of a blatant lie about World War II. The resolution almost accuses the Soviet Union of being responsible, along with Nazi Germany, for the outbreak of World War II, apparently forgetting that the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1st 1939 and attacked the Soviet Union on June 22nd 1941. Those who question this brazen lie are even accused of conducting information warfare against Democratic Europe.
RESPONSE
Recurring disinformation narratives attempting to portray Russia's role in World War II as non-aggressive, to revise the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, reflecting the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism and claiming that the recognition and denunciation of Stalinist crimes against humanity are Western anti-Russian propaganda. The European Parliament is not distorting the history of World War II.The European Parliament resolution on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe correctly states that “the Second World War, the most devastating war in Europe’s history, was started as an immediate result of the notorious Nazi-Soviet Treaty on Non-Aggression of 23 August 1939, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and its secret protocols, whereby two totalitarian regimes that shared the goal of world conquest divided Europe into two zones of influence”. In fact, the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact enabled the German and Soviet military aggression against Poland in September 1939, which resulted in complete occupation of the country by Germany and the USSR. The Treaty enabled the USSR to invade and annex the Baltic States. The Soviets also annexed Romania's provinces of Bessarabia (today's Moldova) and northern Bukovina (now in Ukraine) and the Czechoslovakian territory of Carpathian Ruthenia (now also part of Ukraine). Throughout the territories it occupied, the Soviet Union carried out harsh political reprisals, including mass executions and deportations The resolution correctly argues that both Nazism and Stalinism were totalitarian regimes that carried out mass murder, genocide and deportation and caused the loss of life and freedoms in the 20th century on a scale unseen in human history, and recalls the horrific crime of the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime. The resolution stresses that Russia remains the greatest victim of communist totalitarianism. The concept of totalitarianism, which highlights the profound similarities between Nazism and Communism, is very widely accepted among contemporary political scientists and historians, including Russian scholars. Read similar disinformation cases claiming that the European Parliament resolution is an ideological weapon against Russia that the European Parliament resolution’s statement about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact has “nothing to do with history” and that is not true that communist regimes killed 100 million persons.