From Canada: a new low in mindless, destructive Russophobia…

…”a positive thought” about WWI and Bolshevism…and US, Canada, Ukraine votes against condemnation of Nazism

Disregarding the rest of Conrad Black’s pseudo-strategic babble [see
National Post: Vladimir Putin’s Mindless Cynicism], this stands out:

A positive thought: It emerges from the newly produced research on the origins of the First World War a century ago that the British, French, Germans and Austro-Hungarians were all convinced in 1914 that Russia was the rising power in Europe and Asia and was putting up such economic growth rates and technological advances that it was thought to be rivalled only by the United States as the land of the future. That is why several of those countries thought a war might not be a bad idea, before the Russians became impossible to contain. So it may not be entirely true that, horrible though it was, the First World War had no purpose, and that the communist victory in Russia was one of its most baleful consequences. The triumph of the Bolsheviks may have spared the West a greater, if somewhat less barbarous Russian challenge. Communism liquidated 20 million Soviet civilians, enabled the Second World War with the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and then took over 90% of the casualties in subduing Nazi Germany, while Germany, France, Italy and Japan became prosperous democratic allies of the English-speaking countries. And then the U.S.S.R. fragmented, almost bloodlessly.

In other words, communism-shmommunism: Russia is the enemy and always has been.  The tens of millions of deaths from World War I (and its products, communism, WWII – and Herr Black neglects to mention — Nazism) were all worth it, don’t you see, since it kept those “barbarous” Russians from getting too strong.   In this view, the horrendous internal death toll of communism and the carnage of World War II were good, because the victims were overwhelmingly Russian.

No wonder the U.S., Canada, and Ukraine were the only three countries to vote against a Moscow-sponsored UN resolution against neo-Nazism: http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/761146 (Israel voted with the Russians.)

Resolution text: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/C.3/69/L.56/Rev..1

Vote tally: http://www.un.org/en/ga/third/69/docs/voting_sheets/L56.Rev1.pdf