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I bet that the trauma was even stronger in the USSR, which lost unfathomable numbers, and that maybe that generational trauma -- even moreso than communism -- r

I bet that the trauma was even stronger in the USSR, which lost unfathomable numbers, and that maybe that generational trauma -- even moreso than communism -- resulted in the hawkish, militaristic, paranoid, confrontational, guns-before-butter standoff across the iron curtain throughout the cold war and which I think even lingers today.

brabel 5y ago
I know people that come from the USSR... they universally fear war even today and think that's a realistic possibility in the near future. Most people living today have grandparents who can still recall the horrors of WWII... they lost a much larger share of their population to the war than all countries in the West (I think more USSR citizens died in the war than in all other countries combined). Nazis burning entire villages to kill off the local population (so the region could be settled by Germans later), they claim all villagers were locked up in the local church and then they set fire on it... people tried hiding in the forrests when they knew the army was coming and had to eat grass and leaves to survive. They became really harsh people, and the population of most of Russia and current-day Belarus, Poland, Ukraine etc have a very characteristic attitude towards other people and countries that's completely contaminated by those memories.
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  Yup, exactly that. Polish literary Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz was an immigrant to the US around 1946-1950 period, and he noted that what struck him in the US was that an average American is probably 10x kinder and nicer person than an average Pole. To him, the Americans were almost like children, happy and innocent, unaffected by the horrors of this world that the Polish people were subjected to. As Nietzche noted - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and Poles (and Russians, Ukrainians, Belorusians) that survived the war and communism are pretty tough as a result - but at the cost of having a crushed sprit and, quite often, losing hope in humanity.

brabel 5y ago

I know people that come from the USSR... they universally fear war even today and think that's a realistic possibility in the near future. Most people living today have grandparents who can still recall the horrors of WWII... they lost a much larger share of their population to the war than all countries in the West (I think more USSR citizens died in the war than in all other countries combined). Nazis burning entire villages to kill off the local population (so the region could be settled by Germans later), they claim all villagers were locked up in the local church and then they set fire on it... people tried hiding in the forrests when they knew the army was coming and had to eat grass and leaves to survive. They became really harsh people, and the population of most of Russia and current-day Belarus, Poland, Ukraine etc have a very characteristic attitude towards other people and countries that's completely contaminated by those memories.

burntoutfire 5y ago
Yup, exactly that. Polish literary Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz was an immigrant to the US around 1946-1950 period, and he noted that what struck him in the US was that an average American is probably 10x kinder and nicer person than an average Pole. To him, the Americans were almost like children, happy and innocent, unaffected by the horrors of this world that the Polish people were subjected to. As Nietzche noted - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and Poles (and Russians, Ukrainians, Belorusians) that survived the war and communism are pretty tough as a result - but at the cost of having a crushed sprit and, quite often, losing hope in humanity.