Thread by @SlavaMalamud

I know I have said this before, but I will repeat it again and again, because Russian propaganda is powerful and pervasive.
The word "Nazism" does not mean, when uttered by Russians, what you think it means. In fact, many or most Russian citizens DON'T KNOW ITS MEANING...

"But how can this be? Didn't they fight against Nazism?"
The fact is, Russians weren't taught this. They were taught they fought against Germany. And the word "Nazism" was not commonly used. Instead, the enemy was universally referred to as "German-fascist invaders."
This is key.

Generations of Russians have been taught that the Soviet Union won The Great Patriotic War, which it fought alone against the enemy whose only goal was enslaving the Russian people.
The larger "World War II" was rarely if ever mentioned. The West's role was minimized...

As for the Holocaust, it simply never happened. The mass extermination of Jews was never referred to. The very word "Jew" was taboo in schools and in the movies. The "fascist-German invaders" exterminated Russians. The death camps were for Russians.

In fact, Hitler's one and only crime, the entire definition of "fascism" was invading the USSR, killing Soviet people, wanting to enslave Soviet people and destroy Soviet socialism.
If you asked many Russians about what happened to Jews during the war, they'd shrug...

Many assumed Jews were traitors and collaborators, because this went well with the long-established Russian stereotype about weak, cowardly Jews who don't fight and avoid the military.
I remember many arguments in school about this thing. "Jews didn't fight. Jews were traitors"

The only change between then and now is that Russians currently use the word "Nazism" instead of "fascism" most times because they know it's a more powerful term in the West. But the meaning remains the same: "anyone who is an enemy of Russia" and thus is subject to extermination