>The Soviet Union on the other hand bore the brunt of losses in WWII. It suffered massive deaths in the war, especially among its young men of working age. It was invaded by NAZI Germany, and some of its largest cities occupied or put under siege. Its agricultural and industrial lands were ravaged by war, its people by wartime famine.
"bore the brunt of losses"
"suffered massive deaths"
"invaded by NAZI Germany"
"ravaged by war"
"wartime famine"
I.e., "Soviet Union = victim", as opposed to "Soviet Union = one of two criminals that together committed a crime, was attacked by the other criminal, and barely survived and killed the attacker with the help of others"
Let me repeat:
>When two criminals fall out with each other after a joint robbery and murder, one ordinarily does not overly mourn the one whom the other killed in a dispute over the spoils.
So you can wave away massive death -- justified? And all conversation about the matter must be redirected to this allocation of blame. "Mommy, Johnny hit me first."
I think you need to give your head a shake. The way you're talking about war and death, it's like you don't really grasp the level of tragedy at all.
Those 26 million dead suffered because Stalin signed the pact with Hitler.
>So you can wave away massive death -- justified?
Not at all, and I have never given any indication that I think so.
Those 26 million dead also shouldn't ever be cited by Soviets, or apologists for same, as some sort of hard-earned virtue or proof of nobility, yet they have been used for precisely such purposes for 80 years and counting. To return to my earlier analogy, that'd be like the criminal who survives the attack by his coplotter now calling himself a hero for having killed the attacker.