August 23, the anniversary of the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, which divided Eastern Europe into the two spheres of influence and agreed the double invasion of Poland, has been designated by the European Parliament as one on which the EU and its member states "formally remember the victims of mass deportations and exterminations".
Admittedly, "deportations and exterminations" is an odd way of putting it but, presumably, they needed a short and all-encompassing phrase.
This action on the part of the European Parliament, made entirely under pressure from the East European members in 2008, is a small step in the right direction.
There are a couple of problems with it: one is that nobody really knows about this day, which, like so many big historic events, occurs when most people are on holiday. Nor is it officially announced so it is not entirely correct to say that European Union member states are marking the day.
An even bigger problem, is that Nazism is equated with Stalinism, rather than Communism as a whole. That ignores the crimes committed under Lenin, after Stalin's death, in other Communist countries and, most importantly, lets the existing Communist parties off the hook who never have to justify their continuing support for a murderous system. After all, they can say, Stalinism is a thing of the past just as Nazism is, except that, according to the EU propaganda machine and various left-wing sock puppets we need to be constantly vigilant against neo-Nazism but not against neo-Stalinism or real-time Communism.
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