UNCA: The USA did not “invade” Russia. They were there to assist the then legal gov’t aginst an armed insurrection, by invitation. Of, course, the “winners” ie Reds, got to write the History books, one of which you apparently read.
My understanding is that the Holocaust Museum in DC has always been very clear about exactly who died, Jews “and others.” I haven’t been yet - is this true? If so, at least they got it right.
Esprix
Ah, then I guess we didn’t “invade” France, either, in June 1944; it should have been called the “Normandy Invitation.” Apparently you have overlaid your personal definition to decide I am an apologist for the Soviet regime?
At that point in time, Vichy France was a separated legal govt, a Nazi puppet, true, but still a country. 1/3 of france was occupied by Germany, and so we were “invading”. Note that my dad had a “Phillipine LIBERATION” Medal, for taking part in the "landings’ in the Phillipines. I was not saying or intimating you were a soviet apologist, I have read enuf of your posts to know better. But “invasion” is a loaded word, full of conotations. The American School & University system has been called the “last non-chinese communist gov’t”, not correctly, but with a small amount of justification. You might well have (as you appear to be well educated) read one of their rather left-leaning textbooks. “Invasion” is the wrong word in this context.
Daniel, I’d be really curious to know your version of the events that took place in Russia between the abdication of the czar and the invasion by the western republics. When Nicholas abdicated, he did not pass the baton to a commission selected by referendum or plebiscite. He stepped down in the face of pressures from one of several groups contesting for power.
After a lot of jockeying for power, the Bolsheviks had taken control of the Central Executive Committe by November of 1917, without waging any battles. The coup they staged was a defensive one that occurred when Kornilov attempted to wipe them out and Kerensky agreed to arm them. Kerensky, himself, had only the authority of having been in the party that demanded the abdication of the czar. He had not been elected by a national vote, either. The Bolsheviks simply out-maneuvered the Mensheviks and their allies. It was the Bolsheviks who were recognized as the majority/governing party when the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in February, 1918 under a coalition government. After the treaty was negotiated, the former Mensheviks and their socialist allies resigned from most of the political bodies, leaving the Bolsheviks in charge.
Now, I am not nearly foolish enough to claim that the Bolsheviks came to power through free and open elections in the best example of democracy. However, with all the fighting and power struggles that went on, they happened to be the winners. There was no other “legitimate” government that they had overthrown or revolted against. Even granting that the Mensheviks and the agrarian socialists outnumbered the Bolsheviks, those groups had not established a clearly sovereign government. When the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was engineered and signed by the Bolsheviks, Britain, France, and the U.S. were quite willing to accept the Bolsheviks as the legitimate government. Only after they had overcome the Germans and Austrians did they suddenly “discover” that the Bolsheviks had usurped the power from some not-quite-definable legitimate government. Kerensky lost power in political maneuvering. He was not stripped of power by force in the fighting that started after the Socialists and Mensheviks decided to contest the Bolshevik authority.
Again, I am not claiming that the people got a genuine vote or that the Bolsheviks had been granted power through legitimate actions. However, the Bolsheviks were in control of the officially recognized government for almost a year before the west decided that they were not legitimate.
Yes, Esprix, many other persecuted groups are represented in the Holocaust Museum, although the bulk of the museum does concern Jewish persecution in specific. On the entry floor, in fact, there’s a section devoted to the Roma (gypsies), including a gypsy cart. There are special sections devoted to the holocaust in Greece and the like.
But if you go, you really have to be emotionally prepared for what you might see. One of the most terrible exhibits to me was a brief video clip (stored behind a small wall; you don’t see it unless you want to) of a place in Russia called Babi Yar (I’d never heard of it either). The Nazis posted a notice that all Jewish residents of Kiev were to assemble. They were then herded to a nearby ravine. When they had all gathered, the Nazis mowed them down. In the two days they were there, the Nazis killed around 33,000 people. The same site was used over the next two years to exterminate thousands of gypsies and Soviet POWs. The Nazis later returned to the site, forcing POWs to exhume and burn the bodies in an attempt to destroy evidence of the massacre.
Anyway, if you go, be prepared to see some ugliness.
Although I wish they allowed photographs in some areas. The one item I wanted to photograph was a badly-rusted and corroded milk can. While Jews and others were living in ghettos, some managed to smuggle in cameras, paper, and the like. They recorded ghetto conditions as best they could on paper and in film and stored the documents in that milk can (two others cans were used in other ghettos). They stored pictures, sketches, diaries, statistics, stolen Nazi papers, and even the ghetto money and stamps they used. Then, they buried the cans. When the Allies finally retook Europe, they returned and dug up two of the three cans (one is apparently lost forever). Most of what we now know about the Holocaust and life in the ghettos came out of those cans.
The museum has a web page, by the way: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Lots of photographs and other information are available online. Here’s the very first question on one of their education pages:
So they do strive to maintain balance, but in light of the direction in which Nazis sent their hatred, there is naturally some imbalance.
MAX: Great post.
They didn’t word it quite as I would have, but it is better than the “and others” or no mention at all.
TOM & UNCA: Wanna take the Russian revolution & US intervention thing over to Great Debates? 
Threemae, I have to hand it to you , you are quite alert and have gray matter firing between your ears to actual sit up and take notice of something like that. Are other students paying attention or in coma’s, as history teachers tend to put most of their students in?
I remember my history class teaching me that slavery was the cause of the war between the states. Now it’s *economic factors *. I wonder what it will be in another twenty years?