I support Ukraine and oppose Putin - but Putin isn’t a Nazi. His ideology, in its details, is quite different from that of Nazism.

Russian propaganda that “Ukraine is a Nazi state” is stupid, but you have to understand that “Nazism” means something quite different to Russians than to most Westerners. Most Westerners focus on the Nazis’ genocidal Antisemitism; in Russia, the focus is more on the Nazis’ genocidal Russophobia. That different focus makes the propaganda seem not quite as ludicrous as it does in the West, especially when one considers the language policy issue (encouraging the use of Ukrainian language over Russian), which the Russian government paints as Russophobic discrimination.

>Putin isn’t a Nazi. His ideology, in its details, is quite different from that of Nazism.

no. Just read his war declaration speech. Classic Nazism. They had "master race" and inferior "races" of Jews and Slavics. Putin has master nation of Russians and inferior Ukrainians. And he is using that the same was as Hitler as a reason to claim the master race's/nation's right to the territory and to conduct ethnical cleansing and genocide there.

>especially when one considers the language policy issue (encouraging the use of Ukrainian language over Russian)

The "War and Peace" opens with the scene of an aristocratic party in St.Peterburg where French language - de-facto language of Russian nobility in the years before - is totally banned because of Napoleon invasion.

To Putin, Ukrainians are Russians who have been corrupted by anti-Russian influences into believing themselves to be a different people, and the Ukrainian language is a corrupted form of Russian (Russian with some Polish mixed in)

Hitler didn’t see Jews as Germans who had been corrupted into viewing themselves as non-Germans. On the contrary, he insisted full-blooded Jews could never be Germans, no matter how much they wanted to be-even if they completely rejected their Jewish identity. There was a tiny minority of Jews (the Association of German National Jews) who supported Hitler - how did he repay them for their support? He sent them to the camps.

I don't know why this is down voted. Imo, it is accurate.

Hitler is not the only bad genocidal man in world history. It is super possible for Russia to be fascist, genocidal while also having important differences against Hitlers ideology. Being different then Hitler does not make one good or defensible.

>To Putin, Ukrainians are Russians who have been corrupted by anti-Russian influences into believing themselves to be a different people, and the Ukrainian language is a corrupted form of Russian (Russian with some Polish mixed in)

That sounds almost benign, like just a minor difference of opinions, when taken that way out of the context. The context though is the declaration that anybody resisting that conversion back to Russian and insisting on being Ukrainian is to be killed. Another, wider context, is the deep contempt (which Russians in theie Great Russia chauvinism fail to notice as well as to acknowledge when pointed out to) Russians have for Ukrainians in general which is well illustrated by usage of "hohly" with various level of offensiveness for example, as well as pretty deep mutual anymosity between Russians and Western Ukrainians. (Note: i grew up in USSR as a Russian by mentality, and i'm half-Ukrainian by blood, so i have some idea what i'm talking about here)

Anyway, Nazism isn't about why some are deemed inferior. Nazism is about deeming some inferior and acting violently upon that belief.

People have been doing that for many centuries, even millennia. “Nazism” is a specific ideology which arose in 20th century Germany, not a generic term for violent xenophobia, which is far older than Nazism is.

> not a generic term for violent xenophobia

Nazism is when violent xenophobia becomes state ideology. That is invention of the 20th century.

> There, as you know, there were Macedonians and Thracians and Illyrians, all most warlike nations, here Syrians and Asiatic Greeks, the most worthless peoples among mankind and born for slavery.

That’s a quote from the Roman general and consul (joint head of state) Manius Acilius Glabrio, in the early 2nd century BCE. The quote is given by the ancient Roman historian Livy - ancient historians often invented speeches for their subjects, so Manius Acilius probably never spoke those exact words, but Livy believed they were an accurate representation of his beliefs. So, rather than being a 20th century Nazi invention, violent xenophobia was the state ideology of the ancient Roman Republic.

Roman Empire has a lot of similar aspects - there is a reason why Hitler took so much from the Roman Empire - yet it had imperial ideology, not nazist. To illustrate the difference - if Russia went in Ukraine to get those good agricultural lands or to just expand because supposedly being bigger is better that would be the imperial motive. Tsarist Russia was imperial. USSR is bit more complicated - while it looks to many like imperial, it was an ideology driven totalitarian state like Nazi Germany, just instead of Nazist ideology it had class-based/socialist/communism ideology. And now we come to Putin's Russia - it is a totalitarian state driven by a nazist ideology of Russian "master nation".

Unfortunately, even say just a year ago i, like many, wasn't able to recognize Russian Nazism even though it was right into our faces - it looked to me just like strong authoritarianism with imperial ideology colored by Great Russia chauvinism. Today it is pretty clear to me that all the last 22 years, right from the apartment building bombings by FSB in 1999, we had the Russian Nazism rising. It finally dawns on more and more people - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashism

> Roman Empire has a lot of similar aspects - there is a reason why Hitler took so much from the Roman Empire - yet it had imperial ideology, not nazist.

I shared a quote by an ancient Roman general and politician saying the peoples of the Balkans, Asia Minor and the Levant were “the most worthless peoples among mankind and born for slavery”-how is that different from Hitler’s view that Slavs were an inferior race who ought to be enslaved? If there is a difference I don’t see it. But if the Roman Empire was practising “Nazism” 2000 years before Hitler was even born, maybe “Nazism” is somewhat of a misnomer for the generic phenomena (as opposed to the specific instantiation of it in 20th century Germany)

> But if the Roman Empire was practising “Nazism” 2000 years before Hitler was even born, maybe “Nazism” is somewhat of a misnomer for the generic phenomena (as opposed to the specific instantiation of it in 20th century Germany)

Nazism is fascism plus violent xenophobia of specific, ie. of "superiority", kind, like "master race" in case of Hitler or "master nation" in case of Russia. In my original comment i specifically mentioned practically the same definition given by Russian propagandists - "totalitarism plus political nationalism" (fascism is a totalitarism). For example Italy was fascist, yet it wasn't really nazist. Roman Empire wasn't a fascist state, thus it was also not a nazist state. USSR had totalitarism, yet it wasn't a fascism, and USSR also didn't had a nationalism ideology. Putin's Russia has both - fascism and "master nation" ideology, and thus Putin's Russia is a nazist state.

> Nazism is fascism plus violent xenophobia of specific, ie. of "superiority", kind, like "master race" in case of Hitler or "master nation" in case of Russia.

Ancient Romans believed they were a “master race/nation”. As the quote I provided demonstrates, they believed that “inferior” foreign nations - such as Thracians, Illyrians, Macedonians, Syrians - were “born for slavery”. That is exactly the same as what the Nazis believed, there is no significant difference between ancient Roman and Nazi beliefs on this topic, except for the identity of the “superior race”.

> Roman Empire wasn't a fascist state, thus it was also not a nazist state.

You realise what the etymology of “fascist” is? It comes from Latin “fasces”, which is a special type of axe which was used in the Roman Republic and Empire as a symbol of state power. The Italian fascists adopted the same symbol, and the word, because they saw what they were doing as taking Italy back to the past glory of the Roman Empire. So ancient Rome was the original fascist state which 20th century fascists adopted as their model.

Roman Empire wasn't a fascist state, and in particular it wasn't even a totalitarian state. As long as you acknowledged imperial power and paid taxes you could go your way about things. For example for the most part there were multiple religions allowed. Religion was much bigger deal back then than today. Allowing multiple religions back then was like if USSR allowed multiple ideologies and political parties. Of course USSR wouldn't do such thing because it was a totalitarian state while Roman Empire wasn't.

> For example for the most part there were multiple religions allowed.

Mussolini didn't really care about religion. He only made Catholicism the state religion because he thought that by doing so he could buy the Catholic Church's support; which only partially worked, it continued to be somewhat of a thorn in his side for the remainder of his rule. In seeing religion primarily as a tool to be manipulated to political ends, as opposed to being driven by personal religious belief, Mussolini actually has a lot in common with ancient Roman politicians, many of whom had a very similar attitude towards religion. If the end policy result seems quite different, that is more due to differences in historical circumstance than a fundamentally different ideological starting point.

And just like fascist Italy, ancient Rome had a state religion, and everyone had to pay lip service to it – the state didn't care if you believed in it in your heart, but criticising it publicly could get you killed. Much of the ancient Roman persecution of Jews and Christians was because they refused to pay lip service to the state religion, and dared to express their disbelief in the state's Gods publicly rather than privately. Likewise, Fascist Italy didn't care if you sincerely believed in Catholicism – Il Duce himself didn't – so long as you publicly pretended to believe in it. The primary difference is that the Roman state religion, being polytheistic, was often willing to import foreign gods - although the government reserved the right to decide in each individual case whether a given importation was to be permitted or prohibited, and a number of foreign cults were indeed banned – while Catholicism as (a branch of) an exclusively monotheistic religion generally isn't willing to do that (although it has some history of importing figures from other religions as Saints – the Gautama Buddha was accepted into Catholicism as Saint Josaphat, but he was later dropped as a Saint once his non-Christian origin became clear–although some of the Eastern Orthodox churches still have him as one; many argue that the Irish Saint Brigid is a Christianisation of the Irish Goddess Brigid; others argue that Our Lady of Guadalupe is a Christianisation of the Aztec Goddess Tonantzin, although that is somewhat more disputed.)

Was fascist Italy a totalitarian state? It officially claimed to be one – when the liberal opposition used "totalitarian" as a pejorative, Mussolini decided to reclaim the epithet and wear it proudly ("yes, we are totalitarian, totalitarianism is great!") – but Mussolini never gained absolute power: the King and the Church acted as independent spheres of power, and Mussolini never managed to gain as much control over either as he wished – when Hitler asked Mussolini to join World War II on the Axis side, Mussolini had to ask the King for permission, and was told "No" several times before Victor Emmanuel eventually said "Yes". Mussolini's position in Italy was always much weaker than Hitler's in Germany or Stalin's in Russia (or even Franco's in Spain), and while fascist Italy did persecute political dissidents, the persecution was far milder than that of the Nazis or Stalinists. (I'm not defending Mussolini here, who undoubtedly was a bad person who did numerous evil things and brought his country to near-ruin – but in many ways a lesser evil than Hitler or Stalin.)

>Mussolini never gained absolute power

i think you're conflating absolute power and totalitarianism. Though they may co-exist occasionally, those are 2 different things. Absolutism is about unchecked power of the ruler over state, while totalitarianism is about control of the state over all aspects of the citizens' lives. Roman Empire like say France of 17th century or like most of the kingdoms/empires in the history was absolutist (Magna Carta in 1215 started that slow process of non-absolutist kingdoms appearance in history). In absolutist state the will of the rule is the primary source of the things, and may be codified in the laws or may be applied just at whim. A totalitarian state isn't necessarily absolutist. It may be absolutist like the USSR during Stalin while it may be not absolutist like the same USSR during Brezhnev. In totalitarian state people are typically oppressed based on the laws of the state driven by ideology, not because of the whims of the ruler. The whims of the ruler if happen, like in case of Stalin, come in addition to the totalitarian state oppression and don't change the nature of the state, and may naturally disappear with the death of the ruler while the totalitarian state would continue its existence.

Looking at pre-20th century history the closest to totalitarianism would be the Church's tight control over all aspects of the people lives in the Middle Ages. That Church's power wasn't absolutist - it wasn't performed purely according to the whims of the current Pope, instead it was mainly driven by the Church's ideology, and while Popes changed the state of total control of the Church over people would go unchanged for centuries. Compare that Church's power with the power of the kings at the same time - the kings could do whatever they want, kill/punish whoever they wanted, yet they didn't maintain such control as the Church.

> totalitarianism is about control of the state over all aspects of the citizens' lives

The Roman Empire had no compunction about interfering in any aspect of citizens' lives. If it engaged in less interference in practice than many modern regimes, that was simply because there was far less for it to interfere with. Consider the education system – in modern times, education is near-universal, and so regimes seek to control the education system in order to influence the thoughts of the mass of the population. If the Roman Empire had universal schooling, it is near-certain that the imperial government would have done the very same. But, it didn't – the bulk of the population was illiterate and uneducated, while fee-paying private schools served the children of the affluent. The government never sought to regulate those schools, simply because it did not see any point in doing so. Why should the state care about the school curriculum when 95% of children never went to school, and the most of the 5% who did would have been children of regime insiders anyway?

Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both subordinated all civil society organisations to state control. What did the Roman Empire do? Well, civil society – as understood today – largely didn't exist in ancient times. There were few formal civil society institutions, and those few which did exist were generally religious in character, attached to Temples/Churches/etc. And the Roman state heavily interfered with religious institutions – in the pre-Christian period, major Pagan temples were generally government-owned and with state-appointed clergy. If anything, the adoption of Christianity as a state religion saw a modest decline in government control of religion, simply because Christianity had an organised clergy not under direct state control, whereas the Pagan clergy were far less organised and hence far more amenable to direct state interference.

Fascist Italy was a different situation again – Mussolini sought to subordinate all civil society to the state just as the Nazis and Soviets had done, but was forced to compromise with the Catholic Church and permit it to retain its own independent Church-sponsored civil society organisations, which functioned as alternatives and competitors to the state-sponsored ones. Italian citizens had a freedom to choose between two competing ideologies (Fascism and Catholicism) – a relatively narrow freedom, but nonetheless one which was denied to those ruled by the Nazis or Soviets. The military was another area in which Mussolini failed to implement totalitarianism – Nazi soldiers swore allegiance to Hitler, Soviet soldiers swore allegiance to the Soviet State, but Italian soldiers swore allegiance, not to Mussolini, but rather to King Victor Emmanuel III. As a result, many royalist/monarchist opponents of Fascism found a refuge and power base within the Italian military – nothing parallel could be said about the Wehrmacht or Red Army.

Comparing Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, I think it can be argued that only the last was complete totalitarianism, whereas the former were less than fully "total". In the Soviet Union, the economic sphere was fully subordinated to the state; with private enterprise, private property and private wealth severely restricted (if not abolished entirely). By contrast, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany allowed private enterprise and property to continue to exist, and both regimes permitted the wealthy to keep the bulk of their private wealth, provided they did not politically oppose the regime, and were not members of persecuted minorities. While both regimes did interfere with the operation of private businesses to a degree, they never sought the complete state control of business decision-making which existed in the Soviet Union.

> In totalitarian state people are typically oppressed based on the laws of the state driven by ideology, not because of the whims of the ruler. The whims of the ruler if happen, like in case of Stalin, come in addition to the totalitarian state oppression and don't change the nature of the state,

Why does it matter whether one's oppression is driven by "ideology" or "whim"? I can't see why this is an important distinction. And it seems rather orthogonal to the question of whether the state has "total" control over society. One regime might be highly ideological yet with significant spheres of society maintaining independence from state control; another regime might be founded on personal whim and the ruler's megalomania rather than any coherent ideology, and yet subject every aspect of life to those whims.

> and may naturally disappear with the death of the ruler while the totalitarian state would continue its existence.

Historically, many absolute monarchies have had no particular ideology, yet saw a succession of absolute rulers lasting centuries, as the role of absolute ruler is successively passed from father to son. The particularities of whim may change with each generation, but it is still whim; and sons likely inherit much of their whims from their fathers.

> Looking at pre-20th century history the closest to totalitarianism would be the Church's tight control over all aspects of the people lives in the Middle Ages

I think the mediaeval Catholic Church was actually far weaker than many people today think it was. It did not exert much control over the average person's life at all; many mediaeval clerics bemoaned that the majority of the population rarely went to church, and often acted quite disrespectfully on the occasions they did, indulged in widespread drunkenness, promiscuity, unmarried cohabitation, adultery, prostitution, etc, and that the government mostly didn't care. Even within the Catholic Church itself–very many "celibate" clergy had mistresses and illegitimate children (including bishops, cardinals, even Popes); homosexual activity was widespread in many monasteries (which while a capital offence, few were actually prosecuted–generally only the indiscreet, unlucky, or those who had made powerful enemies.) Many viewed religion as a fitting subject for mockery, and got away with it far more often than most today would think they did. Those who sought to establish a competing religious ideology to the Church's frequently faced execution, but those who decided to just ignore it all and quietly live their lives as they saw fit were largely free to do so.

The only difference is that German Nazis believed Jews were themselves evil, and Russian Nazis believe Ukrainians are irreversibly corrupted by evil West. The exact flavors of their victim complex and exceptionalism are irrelevant.

There are more differences tho. Nazism was not just about Jews. There was a lot more to the ideology: race hierarchy, need for living space, survival of the fittest ideology and so on.

Russia now resembles more Tsarists imperial wars mixed with communist practices.

if you understand Russian - on the "new people, new Russia" https://rutube.ru/video/6a82ce7cc138125d6c9d0f3a47c5e74e/ (by one of the main Russian propagandist who is every day on the state TV) where they also talk about "new blood" being not IT/programmers/entrepreneurs/artists/etc., instead it is those "heroes" of the war "who will break that needs to be broken and will build what needs to be built" . If you ever watched "Man in the High Castle" - that has significant overlap with "The Year 0".

The Nazis practiced social darwinism which goes way beyond hating and killing jews. If you were to simplify it, it would be nationalism on steroids with a deep hate for all other nations and the desire to conquer all of them.

> If you were to simplify it, it would be nationalism on steroids with a deep hate for all other nations

That is a huge oversimplification. Nazis viewed Slavs as inferiors to be enslaved, but they saw Scandinavians much more positively. Hitler admired the British Empire, and prior to the outbreak of WW2, Nazi propaganda was pro-British - Hitler had hoped to recruit Britain as an ally, and was disappointed when it became an enemy instead. Nazi policy towards conquered nations was complex, ranging from genocidal extermination at one extreme, to promoting enhanced minority rights at the other (which they did for the Frisians in the Netherlands and the Bretons in France). Even for Slavs the policy wasn’t purely enslavement - some were to be forcibly assimilated as Germans instead (the Sorbs), and the Nazis were keen to play different Slavic groups off against each other (which is how some Ukrainian nationalists ended up volunteering to fight for the Nazis)

If you hate something about yourself, maybe it affords some reassurance to see that thing in someone else and then try and destroy them. I wonder if thats what's going on with some of these Russians.