Thanks for the correction regarding Mensheviks and the whites. I may have known this at some point, but has long since forgotten the details of the Russian civil war/revolution.

Thanks for your positive feedback though. Not being clearly in one camp, means people tend to always attack you for your views. I tried to join a forum once about communism but quickly got kicked out for having too liberal views. I don't believe in communism at all, but I thought it would be interesting to learn more about the views and perspectives of modernday communists.

Meanwhile I get accused of being an apologist for Stalin if I don't write 100% negative stories about the USSR.

Thankfully there are people such as yourself which appriciate some nuance.

To follow up on my remark on "cynical and paranoid Russia". My motivation for writing that was to get people in the West to understand that even if we over here are completely convinced that we have the best intention and this should be blindingly clear to Russia, that is not how Russia sees it.

I want to get across that a lot of Russian behavior stems from a deep distrust of the West. It is important to get across because I think many in the West are convinced Russia knows our best intentions and are simply trying to exploit our weakness to grab more power and influence.

Of course there are truths to both things. I think old superpowers or great nations all have some desire for power, influence and respect.

But I see the same error being made in analysis of Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany as well. There are many Americans who think that Imperial Germany was looking to kind of take over the world. Yet imperial Germany was also driven to a large extent by paranoia.

They made a pre-emptive strike on France as they feared a two-front war that would squeeze them. For Germany the memory of Napolean lingered in their collective psychy.

All nations I have come to learn have these stories of their past that influence the present. My native Norway is no different. 400 years of Danish rule and later Nazi occupation makes us extremely reluctant to join the European union. We were in a union with Sweden for almost 100 years which becamse deeply unpopular.

I think for any nation you look at and try to understand, you need to look at its history and how that shapes the mentality of people.

If I had lived through everything Russia has, then I think I would have been paranoid as well. It is one of the privileges we have in Scandianvia. We have a long history of relative stability and peace which makes it easier to have faith in humanity and the rule of law.

You cannot find anything in Norwegian history anything as bloody and traumatic as the Russian revolution e.g.

Nor has there ever been periods of massive state oppression. It makes it easier for people to have higher trust in each other.

I observed the same with a friend from the middle East and his Russian buddy. They got along so well because they both came from countries which had been through a lot. Us Norwegians come across as very naive to them, while they come across as cynical to me.

It is part of what I hope to get across in my writing. Know the struggles people, countries and different groups have been through and how it has shaped them. Know this before judging.

If somoebody is paranoid. Maybe they have reasons to be that. If you know somebody is paranoid, then don't feed that paranoia. Your first objective should be to build trust. Sadly we have utterly failed to build trust with Russia in the West.

It is not exactly like I cheer on Putin's Russia. It is not a democracy, but I think one has to also acknowledge that democracy is a long process. The USSR was a freer society than Imperial Russia and Putin's Russia is a freer society than the USSR, but there is still a way to go.

I think in the West we must also remember that it took many of our countries a long time to develop democracy as well. It did not happen in mere decades. It took more than a hundred years. Why should it take less time elsewhere?