So, I'm curious.
In terms of general historiography, WW2 is pretty much mythologized as a "good vs. evil" conflict narrative in the popular imagination, of, well, most nations, a Holy War between the saintly western Allies and (rather less so) Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, the emissary of evil, emblematic of the most montrous acts of the 20th century, etc, etc, pretty much universally condemned (outside of a few crazies), as wicked and immoral. Democracy and decency supposedly won, though (from the American perspective) a Cold War with the other Great Ideological Evil, the Soviet Union, soon interrupted all that nice, civilizing progress. Fifty years later, the Berlin Wall fell, and freedom and demlcracy won over communist totalitarianism, or so some people would have you think, anyway.
That's a pithy and probably somewhat oversimplified depiction of historical narratives in the popular imagination, but it's probably fairly accurate enough for government work.
Personally, I somewhat agree with the assessment of WW2 as a "good vs. evil narrative", if mostly more due to the extreme evil of the Nazi regime rather than any belief in the saintliness of the Soviet Union or the Western Allies (The Soviet Union's evils are pretty well-established, but the western "democracies" weren't much better, either: nah, you can't really claim to be democratic, not when you had hundreds of millions still under extremely oppressive colonial rule, and especially not for the millions and millions that would die in ensuing decolonization struggles.) Lesser evil, basically.
I'm a little more torn on the Cold War, especially because it's rather more murkier: sure, U.S., and co., generally did have better living standards and economic conditions than the USSR, but if "awful standard of living" were the ultimate benchmark of Moral Wickedness, you'd have modern Chad or Somalia as the epitome of evil, not Nazi Germany. I'd argue the Soviets had a more decent "grand ideology" (in theory if not in practice), given their enthusiastic support Third World national liberation, especially contrasted to U.S. backing of various violent dictatorships and overthrowing of legitimate democracies. (That's not even to go to the almost SS-like brutality of war crimes in the Vietnam War) where the general motivating purpose was "bastards, yes, but our bastards".
For those reasons I find it hard to see the Soviets as the explicitly "worse" side, settled outright, even in spite of their internal ickiness. (See: the experience of most Eastern Europeans, and, especially, Central Asians in the Union. All Soviet socialists were equal, but Russian socialists were a little extra more equal in the Union. Not that the experience of most blacks under segregation, or Native Americans still suffering extensive programmes of cultural genocide, in approximately the same time frame, were much - if at all - better.)
But, what of, say, WW1, the other great "total war" conflict of the 20th century, where all the world's resources were mobilized to release unseen death and destruction? In the popular imagination, it's kind of taken an explicitly "war is pointless"-type message: it's in World War 1 where the ultimate futility and desolation of industrial conflict is rendered in it's most naked form. It's a bit hard, to, say, construct an anti-war image out of American soldiers storming Normandy (i.e., liberating Europe from the Nazis), but it's a little more natural in, say, Flanders Field, where for uears French/British and German troops would smash themselves up in pointless bayonet chargers, millions of bodies being thrown to the maw of the meatgrinder.
I sometimes wonder whether, besides just being relatively more ancient - even just two decades is a looong time - and thus somewhat farther removed from relevancy in modern days, etc., the lack of an exciting, grand moral narrative, in terms of a Great Crusade, is also why WW1 is generally somewhat forgotten in the popular imagination, at least compared to the, you know, other world war.
Of course, there are the obvious reasons: WW1 was indeed a lot less ideologically charged - it was mostly republics, constitutional and semi-constitutional monarchies, absolute monarchies, against one another. None of the "holy fire" of communism and fascism in diametrically opposed sides, not to mention liberal democracy. The two sides were relatively homogenous: the Allies did have liberal democratic France and Britain, but you also had very-autocratic Russia and not-so-democratic Italy. On the other, you had semi-constitutional-monarchy Germany, the federal ethnic goulash that was the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the arguably almost-fascist Ottoman empire (and it's genocides). And both sides had large colonial empires (moreso contiguously for the CP), ruling over hundreds and hundreds of different minorities. So, pretty much all-over-oppressive, basically. The Entente is perhaps a mite more liberal, though not monolithically so (see, Russia), though they did have large(r) Empires, where such treatment of the colonised... was predictably, shall we say, imperial.
But what do you folks think? Do you think there was a legitimate generalized moral difference between the two sides? Were the Entente the good guys, or perhaps would a kinder, saintlier world emerge in the ashes of an alternate victory of the Second Reich?
(I apologize if this is possibly political chat: was not really my intention. Surely there's some fair ground for moral debates in After 1900?)
In terms of general historiography, WW2 is pretty much mythologized as a "good vs. evil" conflict narrative in the popular imagination, of, well, most nations, a Holy War between the saintly western Allies and (rather less so) Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, the emissary of evil, emblematic of the most montrous acts of the 20th century, etc, etc, pretty much universally condemned (outside of a few crazies), as wicked and immoral. Democracy and decency supposedly won, though (from the American perspective) a Cold War with the other Great Ideological Evil, the Soviet Union, soon interrupted all that nice, civilizing progress. Fifty years later, the Berlin Wall fell, and freedom and demlcracy won over communist totalitarianism, or so some people would have you think, anyway.
That's a pithy and probably somewhat oversimplified depiction of historical narratives in the popular imagination, but it's probably fairly accurate enough for government work.
Personally, I somewhat agree with the assessment of WW2 as a "good vs. evil narrative", if mostly more due to the extreme evil of the Nazi regime rather than any belief in the saintliness of the Soviet Union or the Western Allies (The Soviet Union's evils are pretty well-established, but the western "democracies" weren't much better, either: nah, you can't really claim to be democratic, not when you had hundreds of millions still under extremely oppressive colonial rule, and especially not for the millions and millions that would die in ensuing decolonization struggles.) Lesser evil, basically.
I'm a little more torn on the Cold War, especially because it's rather more murkier: sure, U.S., and co., generally did have better living standards and economic conditions than the USSR, but if "awful standard of living" were the ultimate benchmark of Moral Wickedness, you'd have modern Chad or Somalia as the epitome of evil, not Nazi Germany. I'd argue the Soviets had a more decent "grand ideology" (in theory if not in practice), given their enthusiastic support Third World national liberation, especially contrasted to U.S. backing of various violent dictatorships and overthrowing of legitimate democracies. (That's not even to go to the almost SS-like brutality of war crimes in the Vietnam War) where the general motivating purpose was "bastards, yes, but our bastards".
For those reasons I find it hard to see the Soviets as the explicitly "worse" side, settled outright, even in spite of their internal ickiness. (See: the experience of most Eastern Europeans, and, especially, Central Asians in the Union. All Soviet socialists were equal, but Russian socialists were a little extra more equal in the Union. Not that the experience of most blacks under segregation, or Native Americans still suffering extensive programmes of cultural genocide, in approximately the same time frame, were much - if at all - better.)
But, what of, say, WW1, the other great "total war" conflict of the 20th century, where all the world's resources were mobilized to release unseen death and destruction? In the popular imagination, it's kind of taken an explicitly "war is pointless"-type message: it's in World War 1 where the ultimate futility and desolation of industrial conflict is rendered in it's most naked form. It's a bit hard, to, say, construct an anti-war image out of American soldiers storming Normandy (i.e., liberating Europe from the Nazis), but it's a little more natural in, say, Flanders Field, where for uears French/British and German troops would smash themselves up in pointless bayonet chargers, millions of bodies being thrown to the maw of the meatgrinder.
I sometimes wonder whether, besides just being relatively more ancient - even just two decades is a looong time - and thus somewhat farther removed from relevancy in modern days, etc., the lack of an exciting, grand moral narrative, in terms of a Great Crusade, is also why WW1 is generally somewhat forgotten in the popular imagination, at least compared to the, you know, other world war.
Of course, there are the obvious reasons: WW1 was indeed a lot less ideologically charged - it was mostly republics, constitutional and semi-constitutional monarchies, absolute monarchies, against one another. None of the "holy fire" of communism and fascism in diametrically opposed sides, not to mention liberal democracy. The two sides were relatively homogenous: the Allies did have liberal democratic France and Britain, but you also had very-autocratic Russia and not-so-democratic Italy. On the other, you had semi-constitutional-monarchy Germany, the federal ethnic goulash that was the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the arguably almost-fascist Ottoman empire (and it's genocides). And both sides had large colonial empires (moreso contiguously for the CP), ruling over hundreds and hundreds of different minorities. So, pretty much all-over-oppressive, basically. The Entente is perhaps a mite more liberal, though not monolithically so (see, Russia), though they did have large(r) Empires, where such treatment of the colonised... was predictably, shall we say, imperial.
But what do you folks think? Do you think there was a legitimate generalized moral difference between the two sides? Were the Entente the good guys, or perhaps would a kinder, saintlier world emerge in the ashes of an alternate victory of the Second Reich?
(I apologize if this is possibly political chat: was not really my intention. Surely there's some fair ground for moral debates in After 1900?)
