This and more im joined by my guest to me bob its in moscow he is a political analyst and editor of you know just me internet project and in court we have Jeffrey Roberts he is americas professor of history at University College cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy his latest book is churchill and stalin comrades in arms during the 2nd world war right gentlemen crosstalk roles in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want the house appreciate it or i let me 1st go to a demon here in moscow you know dma here we go again this is almost like our tradition with our calling jeffrey we do this every single year commemorating victory in europe over fascism and for every single year that we do it we find ourselves in more and more in a revisionist mode here i mean as i understand as were sitting down doing our chat right now is it facebook has banned a colorize. Version of the of the soviet banner over europe the very very iconic one of showing victory in europe and you know ive searched around its a true story meaning what in the world is going on here the black and white version seems to be acceptable the color when not are there different meanings or is this a revision and sell and why in the world would anyone want to deny that iconic photograph its like the sailor kissing the young lady on times square in victory over japan i mean what is going on here go ahead well i dont know which exactly of which were acting exactly. We mean here more likely its their image or west soviet soldier which are not their advantage or rights which was basically the central issue of Central Power in the nazi germany so for decades there was no problem with a slat you know. Its a familiar image its like that you might or american soldiers would you not a flag. In the pacific during the war with japan you were going to cause a scandal here well basically a lot of russians on all thinking whats going on why that discrepancy and you had all 3 i mean jeffrey Jeffrey Roberts go ahead jeff show everybody here this is exactly the photograph were talking about. My goodness and here he has the props even for the program he had no idea it was going to ask is going to thats exactly it just to tell my office at the University Im going to get must mean that its a matter. Yeah so are we russians who are thinking why you describe in russia now is certainly. That the country or the west then the soviet union i will war well of course style we have a pluralistic edge if you through history you know right now. In russia you can hear and you can read any kind of stuff about the war but to from an apple down to you know stalinist revisionist you can get everything that makes us different from the west now well just one narrative seems to be related in the last year and my explanation is that the problem is with the new west and i go with you because its impossible that the same sad story would suddenly happen in separate independent countries that you would count that sexual for Marshall Corner removed from prague and the czechs say it was just the local authorities who decided to do it you know then you have. You know facebook removed the scrawled on the cow right version of this for the facebook is based in the United States then its not only against russia at the name of Franklin Delano roosevelt was removed from everywhere in poor unless people heard about. And there are every year rules about is still a National Hero in the night you know and thats the medicine just you know did the thing it says here i do it seems to me and i think tim is on to something it is an ideological approach to all this but we cant deny its simply ludicrous to didnt 9 the existence of historical figures now the differences that glorify them ok i get that all right but you know its almost like the the iconic picture of yeltsin where you have you know Stalin Churchill and roosevelt and you know in our early in the in this post cold war environment you know somehow that is sacrilegious because youre putting stalin on stage here and im here to let me go to jeff i want you to can only get going on the point is here is that history is something we should learn from it i mean its just not a moral play in the president s go ahead joe you know what the 1st announcement is not going to this historical revisionism because a long way back i mean almost as soon as the war has ended its history has been revised its going to launch you look for reasons so its not a new post knows it the present time its were in the to keep it faced period of historic revisionism as you call it. Connect it with the currents or russias relations with the west and will get all of that content so you. Agree with one point that david might look very much greater russia these days you can say anything you like about google that you could actually pull any kind of extreme revisionist views anything at all shes actually much more serious bites for wool in russia than death there at the recent west but having said that you know theres more than one narrative in the west not treat we shouldnt exaggerate. Account influence of the western liberal me here in western liberal or at least we shouldnt underestimate to the extent to which among popular consciousness is quite a reasonable secret when the true facts of the wolf what was in particular was. To throw somebody play going to read home. Defeat it. Ok well but we didnt hear that jeff and then why are these it seems to me that their heat for the for the the majority of people the majority of media there is a new revision is a narrative being pushed here but at the same time youre saying that among the population theres a level of awareness i think thats true but i think its getting smaller and smaller i used to teach at the university of california and you know young theyre supposed to be the cream of the crop in their knowledge was very scant and i have to worry that its even worse now because we have saving private ryan and you know we had i think yesterday the white house really giving credit to the United States you came for a victory over the nazis not obviously not mentioning a soviet union and one has to question is that intentional or is it just lack of knowledge finish up on that point jeff. If there are some countries countries now feel United States its probably a straight bat case of our expected oh no not only history will be starker or vicious narratives i mean arrows originally to discredit kamel is just such a congressman not is a totalitarian well its concomitant state nowadays of course its political function is to discredit russia that is good just ready to shoot and to create a contrast between the west need marks in russian authoritarianism fruit you know deal bus so she shouldnt rush up with the soviet union with day to totalitarian pasta so thats whats going to kind of question this. Hour to this continent fish but exactly right nice in poland says. Lets actually be part of the contest yes about the slums and well i mean i mean youve known me for a very very long time and thats always been my gripe is that its very difficult to talk about anything related to russia because its always about context and if you dont have basic facts then you dont have any context ok and thats the. Difficulty and discussing all this i mean you know there are different narratives about the war ended 3 as a result of that war i mean ive always taken the position is that most of the soldiers that died didnt die for communism they died for mother russia they died to protect their families their tradition their language system bliz ation the eye of the ideological spine you can put a spin there if you can put it there but i dont think thats the majority of the pitch opinion of the people that are there my opinion go ahead well i think there are people tonight for who write your reasons you know and defend your russia and defend the soviet union but not on the russians but i think the main reason was so why well you know the people realize that you know hitler wins but im not going to survive and. What happened later was that. Well crude shocking to power hugh ford style in years and by stunning it means i mean the problem of the character of star is the fall in basically our crew shot removed style and from all their narrative about the war in the same way it started removing hyun or trotsky from the narrative about the 1970 revolution so what happened on the wooden was now freedom team now you can be astonished you can say that you think stalin you know was very important that he won that war you can be and i study and the majority or if you want russian dead and theres a lot of movies about the war you may know and each of them mentions repression so well in the west they say or study has been. What is being started back that is such a big lie. Because you know the way he grew shopfront revenue for it started is worse than it is you know i was born in 1970 i remember that i forced saw study and peter when i was 13 in 1903 on the windshield of a car you know that was wrong you know whatever we think about stalin as a figure it was wrong to remove his image to remove all memory about him and now the west wants us to eat eat the same thing you know to demonize the earth and there im returning to this i got what you call the night well theres no more that ive always told the west i point out to liberals i wouldnt call it our western i you would you why because its not in the western tradition its very if you want and they should experience you know shakespeare has dimensional characters and the problem with them or the western narrative is that it does not allow them mention of characters and their its. Narrative not in the same time if data thats true. And theyre weak to induce the war it was he has nerve it was he has the willpower it was he hasnt made it to well its the year we go the beer there is the debate there i would say they deserve a union on the war in spite of stalin ok but if he were just demonstrating to our viewers that there is a debate here i see jeff flock being in the in his Little Corner their heads every very good operate of everything afraid not look at it equal i dont know i dont know i just. Used to change Michael Stipe last year which ah yes ali was a brutal dictator but it was also good to see you must equal posted something. Like well if you use some insight or well the west the west western democracy well hitler that suburban Huggins Damon right there if youre not a productive statements in that book ok well i mean in the well kate were just printed on it is that you made a very important part the whitish contest is historical revisionism she is swish it not by producing a composer or as political or large 2 times its a way to contest it with which you start the troops and we get a stark a true future context contradiction kinds of stuff going on we might not mind not much so yeah we have to talk down to sort of victory and such but we also have to focus to not see some sorts of attacks and were going to do after the break were going to go to a short break and after that short break well continue our discussion on remembering victory in europe i mean 5 years ago today. The bard is the. Police do you think this is. More of an operation in. Some of the wealthier neighborhoods its been far more contained in the numbers are much lower than some of the more of neighborhoods in star city. Were working with can source outside of the state is there just so it is here so i think that it was. The. Truth. Well that across town where all things are considered im Peter Lavelle remind you were talking about victory over passions in europe 75 years ago. Ok lets go back to the im here in moscow here right before we went to the break jeffrey brought up the nazi soviet pact of course this is a hotly debated today and with good reason i would say because it kind of flushes out the historical facts it just was getting into that you know you mean you and i have talked about this so many times here and and as you pointed out to me very eloquently yes that pact that exists and there were secret protocols you know that is part of the historical record but the way its being framed right now is that theres something the soviet union is culpable in a unique way because of that agreement but that isnt so. So most countries in the end europe had some kind of Security Agreement treaty with nazi germany before hostilities broke out in september 1039 you know where im going with this go ahead jim well you are absolutely right now and when that actually are well the Russian Orthodox church recently a save said that this war what the punishment was seems and what of people who are angry and you may sad how come you know all or all of these millions of people who are simple well no but diplomats diplomats representing these countries yes because basically every county in europe with the exception may go through life yet in some way its not what happened in czechoslovakia yeah but actually in some way cooperate with. Between 1033 and then making 41 so its if huge moral if you want how you dont create is with evil without huge wants it wants us we have. A good thing you know this nature like you we dont have it youre off our study and your shape in france you know we cant study and weve been dropped and that is reduced now in billions and billions of corpus but we have this nature or churchill rules about them started you mentioned that well im very concerned about the speech because the west and i you all are just well even that resent dont ask prime evidence because you know here is roosevelt and churchill cd and next to that mill and you know or they will simply proceed with that because a lot suit their narrative you know the problem with regular ideologist and the last now as a regular. Is that they twist the past what the political interest will be they removed i dont know what. I thought the of e. S. P. N. In terms i thought of thats what the soviet stand with history the future is certain but the past is not exactly. A lot of things that were now saying of thought crimes in the west now there is no sex the other subsonic right now in russia but there are more and more kinds of soft crimes in the west and the problem is that these new western i go if youre this are to liberalism or no member is what we call it it or parades by images by hollywood year image you know stalin is the will and so that means that he is doing what the war started and he too are to blame for the war to now go maniacs i have been reading it in dollars so books now m. P. P. More seem to disregard the war would not have been possible without needy and so people preparing for the william lee so the problem is much bigger they are just too many other many acts but this is the way more than a westerner you ordinary moves its amos they always find a leader who they demonize you know us are or Saddam Hussein you know. They say you know we murdered him basically they dont say much we remove him and then everything will be fine so they they try to apply the same kind to ordinary the world war 2 which was a very complicated story a very complicated. But thats why are you concerned about this picture or study and rules or come true to each show was that basically people very different beliefs would come to an agreement and fight on be evil and one thing that i mentioned thats what i meant and i need protection we have a pandemic we have different good leaders and different political systems different worldviews but this pandemic doesnt care what your politics are we cant have Global Solidarity and im not done and what do you think is quest at work internationalism because globalism is that it doesnt go far i mean you. Have been go ahead yes are some. Well actually fucking michael on this on the show but you know my very 1st book which of course of the 30 years ago was called young honey a lot still has its about a nazi. Know right he was right when you cite everyone business with the nazis in the line see it through some very light soul so what if we see such as your. Dismemberment checks next neverless there is something to discuss unique about the nazi thought that is no equivalents to that activity so secret protests did have some rather radical consequences not get getting away from it you know excluding red occupation opponents. September 9th not. The territories that were taken but read on me what really poster a terrorist a westerner Russia Ukraine a united to retrieve. This certainly a case to be made 0. 80 of the nazis in the nazis were attacked and its a very complicated set of historical events which unfolds as a result of the leading into the us and jeffrey. Youre not here and i dont think you need to defend i say i wouldnt i wouldnt phrase it that way a defense of it when i am i would say is if there is a reasonable explanation to understand why a bad thing happened we had to look at munich you have the western powers basically destroying the post world war one International System unilaterally destroying a sovereign state which they had implicitly and explicitly said that they would defend and then you go all the way up to august 39th and you get a more under regis form of it but it is precedent is set for me its the same price and maybe you just have to agree i mean thats why i really get too sick and tired of people moralizing about an International System that the western powers had corrupted before but to outsiders nazi germany. And the soviet union were involved in it ok this isnt the way back you know and then again i want to make sure i think i dont think youd have to defend it you have to understand it go ahead offense at this very like yeah thats a very reasonable and actually cause simple explanation for the nazis when he says hes a threat and actually 1st he says he included start so to create some kind of you know. Grand alliance i found myself because it was peaceful and the spice of that styling turned to this very dirty to do with this real politic you know deceit you can describe as me and i. Saw it playing so i thought it was the only chance you know hes not what he did. Various kinds of actions which he became the point is you cant the west cant moralize over that when itself was it culpable for the destruction and i would say the precursor to what would then become an inevitable war i mean they were the remarkable thing if you look at the historical record isnt it hilary was well basically shocked that chamberlain wel