hello and welcome to cross town where all things are considered peter lavelle 75 years ago there was a global solidarity to annihilate the scourge of bashes them from europe the soviet union and its western allies prevailed against nazi germany today such global solidarity is sadly missing in the face of the current pandemic who in what blocks is very necessary solidarity. to stop this and more i'm joined by my guest to me bob it's in moscow he is a political analyst and editor of you know just me internet project and in court we have geoffrey robertson he is america's 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 cross-talk roles in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want the house appreciate it or i let me 1st go to demon here in moscow you know d.m.a. 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 we're sitting down doing our chat right now is that facebook has banned a colorized version of the of the soviet banner over europe on the very very iconic one of showing victory in europe and you know i've searched around it's a true story i mean what in the world is going on here the black and white version seems to be except for the color one. not are there different meanings or is this

a revision and sell and why in the world would anyone want to deny that iconic photographs it's like the sailor kissing the young lady on times square in victory over japan i mean what is going on here. well i don't know which exactly of which we're acting exactly. we mean here more likely it's their image or west soviet soldier which are not their advantage or rights which was basically the central power of that issue of central power in the nazi germany so for decades there was no problem with this let you know it for auctions it's a familiar image it's like that you might or american soldiers would you not a flag. in the pacific during the war with japan you were going to going to cause a scandal here well basically a lot of russians are now thinking i want to play norm why that discrepancy and you

have all 3 i mean the geoffrey robertson had just you know everybody here this is exactly the photograph or top. of my goodness and here he has the props even for the program he had no idea it was going to pass there's going to be that's exactly my office at the university so i'm going to get in there to 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 educator history you know right now in russia you can hear and you can read any kind of stuff about their war what you from and apple do you know what stalinist revisionist you can get everything at and that makes us different from the west now where just the modern narrative seems to be remade in the us. and my

explanation is that they are the program is with a new western i go with you because it's impossible that the same sad story would suddenly crap and even separate independent compas let you look around their statue or for marshall corner removed from prop and a check say it was just the local authority who decided to do it you know then you have r r r you know facebook remove the beast for doing the cover right version of the sport facebook is based in the united states that it's not only against russia the name of franklin delano roosevelt was removed from everywhere in port unless people could about. and there are every year rules about is still a national hero in the night you know and that's the medicine just you know did the thing it says here i do it seems to me and i think jim is on to something it is an ideological approach to all this but we can't deny it's simply ludicrous to

didn't 9 the existence of historical figures now the difference is that glorify them ok i get that all right but you know it's almost like the the iconic picture of yalta 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 you're putting stalin on stage here and i'm 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 it's just not a moral play in the president's go ahead. first announcement there's nothing to this historic revisionist because a long way back i mean almost as soon as the war has ended it's history has been revised it's going to launch you look for a reason so it's not a new post knows it the present time it's we're in the face period of historic revisionism as you call it see connect it with the current russia's relations with

the west and look at all of that current. group one point that might look very much greater russia these days you can say anything you like about google you can actually pull any kind of extreme revisionist views anything it's all she's actually much more serious he bites her wool in russia than death there at the recent west but having said that you know it does more than one narrative in the west not. exaggerated. account influence of the western liberal me here and western liberal elites such we shouldn't underestimate to to the extent to which among popular conscious is quite a reasonable degree of awareness of the true facts of the will or won't watch and in particular. you know you have to throw somebody like going to read homey. ok well but we didn't 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 you're saying that among the population there's a level of awareness i think that's true but i think it's getting smaller and smaller i used to teach at the university of california and you know young they're supposed to be the cream of the crop in their knowledge was very scant and i have to worry that it's 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 in one has to question is that intentional or is it just lack of knowledge finish up on that point. but if there are some countries country nothing united states it's probably a straight bat case of. expected oh no not only history will be starker or vicious narratives i mean arrows originally to discredit comedy is just such

a congressman not is a totalitarian well it's con kind of saying nowadays of course it's political function is to discredit russia that is good just ready to see an end to create a contrast between the west and you marx in russian authoritarianism through a so you know deal bus o'shea sion of russia with the soviet union with date don't it's a totalitarian pasta so that's what's going to kind of question this. hour to this continent fish but it's any right now it's in poland says. let's actually be part of the contest yes about the slums and who well i mean de mint i mean you've known me for a very very long time and that's always been my gripe is that it's very difficult to talk about anything related to russia because it's always about context and if you don't have basic facts then you don't have any context ok and that's the. difficulty and discussing all this i mean you know there are the different narratives about the the war ended 3 as

a result of that war i mean i've always taken the position is that most of the soldiers that died didn't die for communism they died for mother russia they died to protect their families their tradition their language their sublists ation the eye of the ideological spine you can put it's been there if you can put it there but i don't think that's the majority of the pit 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 defend them russia and defend in the soviet union not only russians but i think the main reason what so why well you know the people realize that you know hitler wins but i'm 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 as starring remove 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 there's 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 shopman bradner ford stallions was honest you know i was born in 1970 i remember that i store thought study and

picture 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 repeat eat the same thing you know to demonize the earth and there i'm returning to this i don't want to call the nyquil the more that i've always told the west i point out to liberals i wouldn't even call it our western i you would you why because it's not in the western tradition it's 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 there it's. never again not in the same time if data that's true . and there were leaked in this war it was he has a nerve it was he has the willpower it was he hasn't made it to well into the year

we go down there 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 you're saying not look at it equal i think i just went wrong she was trying to change michael stipe last year which ah yes sally 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 you're not a productive statements in that book ok well i mean in the well kate we're 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 it's

a way to contest it with the start of truth and we get to start a true future context contradiction kinds of stuff going on we might not might not much so yeah we have to sort of picture inside but we also have to focus on the nazi package and we're going to do after the break we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on remembering victory in europe i mean 5 years ago today. but divided the in 18 will. that were operation

in dying one some of the wealthier neighborhoods it's been far more contained in the numbers are much lower than some of the for a neighborhood to start to see if anything we're working with can source outside state is there just so it is here so i think that it was. during the vietnam war u.s. forces also bomb to neighboring laos it was a secret war. and for years the american people did not know. how so my skin is officially carry back country per capita all human history millions of unexploded bombs still in danger lives in this small agricultural country jordyn wieber. even today kids in laos full victim to bombs dropped decades

ago is the us making amends for that tragedy in laos what helped to the people need in that little land on. the cross where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle remind you we're talking about victory over passions in europe 75 years ago. ok let's go back to damon 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 to jeff was getting to be born into that you know given 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 it's being framed right now is that there's something the soviet union is culpable in any unique way because of that agreement but that isn't 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 i'm going with this go ahead jim well you are absolutely right now on the ground that actually our well the russian orthodox church recently a save said that these who or what the punishment was seems to want people who are angry and you may sad how calm you know you know all these millions of people who are sinful well no but diplomats diplomats representing these countries yes because basically every county in europe with the exception may go through life in some way and look what happened in czechoslovakia yeah ok in some way cooperate with.

between 1033 and then make you what you want so it's if you want more also if you want how you don't create evil without huge wants it wants us we have. a good thing you know this nature like you we don't have it you're all study and you're shaped in france you know we can't study in a new drop and that is reduced now in the billions and billions of corpus but we have this nature or. churchill roosevelt unstarted you mentioned it well i'm very concerned about the speech because the west and i you all idjit well even that resent don't ask graham evidence because you know here is roosevelt and churchill city and next to that mill and you know or they will simply proceed with that because that will not suit their narrative you know the problem with regular ideologists in the west now as a regular. is there they twist the past what the political interest will be

they removed i don't let it evidence i thought it to be explained in terms i thought of that's what the soviet state with history the future is certain but the past is not exactly a lot of things that we are now saying enough thought crimes in the west now there is no sexier subsonic right now in russia but there are more and more kinds of thought crimes in the west and the problem is that this new western i go if you're 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 megalomaniacs i have been reading it in dolan's own books now m.p.p. most 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

lend just to make a many x. well this is the way more than western aid or you removed its amos they always find a leader whom they demonize you know us are or saddam hussein you know. they say you don't we murdered him basically ok they don't say mother will remove him and then everything will be fine so they may try to apply the same kind to all narrative the world war 2 which was a very complicated story and very promptly. well but that's why are you concerned about this it's your study and i'm sure joe it shows that basically people already different beliefs would come to an agreement and fight on be evil and whatnot and i think that's what i mentioned that's what i meant and what i do production we have a pandemic we have different good leaders and different political systems different

worldviews but this pandemic doesn't care what your politics are but we can't have global solidarity and i'm not that many people would like this quest to work internationalism because globalism is it that it doesn't go far i mean you. have been go ahead yes our it will actually fucking my own this ownership but you know my very 1st book which of course of the 30 years ago was called young honey a lot still has it's about a nazi sort of action out you know right where you say everyone business with the nazis in the line see it through some very light soul sort it business such as you know. dismemberment checks not neverless there is something that this kind of unique about the nazi thought that is no equivalent to that fact any secret project did have some rather radical consequences not get getting away from it you know including red occupation opponent east. september 9th ok you can say that

the territories that were taken but red army won't really post-surgery as they watch them better russia ukraine a united europe 2 republics you know to this certainly a case to be made $0.80 of the nazis in the nazis were attacked and it's a very complicated set of historical events which unfolds as a result of the leading into the us and jeffrey jamie you know here i don't think you need to defend i say i wouldn't i wouldn't phrase it that way a defense of it when i'm i would say is if there is a. a reasonable explanation to understand why a bad thing happened because if you 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

a precedent is set for me it's the same price and it may be if you just have to agree i mean that's 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 isn't the way back you know and then again i want to make sure i i don't think you'd have to defend it you have to understand it go ahead offense at this very like yeah that's a very reasonable and actually cause simple explanation for the nazis when he says he's a threat and actually 1st introduced ali so to create some kind of you know. grand alliance i found. peace and the spice of that style in turn 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. he's not fully did. it well there is

a kind of action which he became pretty the point is you can't the west can't 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 isn't it hilary was i'll basically shocked that chamberlain well would agree to breaking up you know breaking up parts of texas a heaviness of these people get there they're really going to sell them out i mean and then months later the entire country. was about an audience kind of more i mean if you want to use the moral dimension well this is the moral character you're dealing on and stuck in style he believes that to try to please the british and french and do the same to our own country crock which is like well maybe he'd like to keep some yeah yeah ok ok so the nazis are active there. as a people more people actually and he is circumstance was the grand alliance yeah

the you just will want to grow plants you know the big tree bristle at church in a sense and you know you know the meaning works and it worked go ahead and look it's the most successful exactly the arts of the history of sheer commerce it's the image and then well for us since you are like in paradoxes here and now jeffrey has just said that you know we didn't think through our study and see western democracies in the same way this fact trust without it i don't think that there is no absolute necessary union in 1000 when you want would be possible because because of the pact the soviet union has what states and western ukraine inside itself these very hostile ended yes you know which remain out on the world much more recently in the late eighty's as soon as they tried and at that unit you can express this themselves be needed it turned against more school then you fire the

west doesn't like that back so lights they should return the owners to point. and and live their lives through reading out how he's doing it with you without you but our let me take a very provocative look at you know you can make parallels with that there in a lot of ways you know you can say that now russia and the united states and the west and you know cannot agree on fighting coronavirus in the same way they couldn't it green in 1839 when fighting hitler despite his a cure patient of or stricture so i think he's or he has sent a semi but why did that happen well because. the united states and the u.k. the view would. rush out of the soviet union reading that if you would well now the united states and the u.k. are viewing russia china very next they don't want aid from china from china makes them angry you know it's you know they're talking about propaganda well

a guy named lenin to protect themselves keep going let me think maybe i could just be happy till i had get them. ok you get from starting to get a move later churches stumpy get together not what contemporary politicians can actually confront this request we're facing now you know they can if they want this matter of political choice you compare a man and see. what you need. now you can mean the difference kevin is the difference between then and now is it then you had people that had courage you had people that had some for and you know it even stalin i would say ok i mean if you look at the soviet ideology dealing with the bush wild west and you know because it the world was absolutely shots when the the announcement of the nazi so be agreement was made public i mean because after decades of demonizing capitalism and all that someone had to flip on

a dime and say for our survival we're going to have to work with these 2 characters you know roosevelt and result and churchill here i mean the point is is that there's a big ship ok there's no bishan today these people are walking around like blind cats go ahead the last 20 seconds go to you well i think there really isn't or why we cannot agree now with the west is precisely the same i do what would let me make up for what with your statement you 939 and conclude you're right before that it was an invasion of the soviet union what the receiver at the top talk about national socialism you're going negative sense we didn't talk naziism s. and i deal with it and that made rational was defense. and said to me that in the same way now we don't want to believe in an un aggressor western microchip that some use it would be nice if we present in there but it is there a very good point gentlemen we have run out of time i want to thank my guests most here in moscow and in cork and i think i want to thank our viewers for watching us

here at r.t.c. a next time remember. yeah but. if. you knew you could if you could only. do it if you could get. it to call someone that jealous and that does not choose one of. the cures and.

distribute. the. money and come begging for money my. place. during the vietnam war u.s. forces also bombs in neighboring laos there was a secret war. and for years the american people did not know. about our cell my skin is officially miles heavily banta country per capita all human history millions of unexploded bombs still in danger lives in this small agricultural country jordyn wieber. even today kids in laos fall victim to bombs dropped decades ago is the us making amends for their tragedy and laos what help do the people need in that little land on my nerves.

live from the world headquarters of the r.t. america in our nation's capital this is the news with rick sanchez pedalo going to her buddy i'm rick sanchez to all of you who are watching us from all over the world either on regular t.v. you're on portable t.v. we're so glad that you are there tonight china continues to take a position front and center in u.s. and global politics so here's where we begin for its part the white house continues to suggest without any verifiable evidence by the way by the way that's important that china either through carelessness or through intent is responsible for the outbreak of the corona virus in the united states.