Why no accountability for Soviet war crimes

[ljadw]

Seems to be the same as what is happening in the Ukraine now and Putin has been declared a war criminal, so where to from here, probably nothing, and he knows it and continues the unlawful aggressive invasion and war where innocent civilians are killed or wounded daily.

Innocent civilians are killed in all wars .There are also no unlawful,bad wars : an unlawful war is a war that has been lost .
During the 2 Balkan wars before WWI between 20000 and 270000 civilians were murdered .When the Germans attacked in the West in August 1914, they burned several Belgian towns and murdered 5500 Belgian civilians and 1000 French civilians .1600 civilians were killed by the Russians when they invaded East Prussia in 1914 .
During the Korean War 1 million inhabitants of NK died by US air attacks .
During the third Balkan war (after the end of Yugoslavia ) 12000 civilians were killed, murdered .
Thousands of Kurdish civilians have been murdered by the Turkish army and by the PKK.
After 1965 more than 500000 civilians were murdered in Indonesia by the army that was helped by CIA, MI6 and the Australian security services .Between 60000 and 300000 people were massacred in East Timor, 500000 in Rwanda in 3 months .
And this list is not complete .

[wm]

Seems to be the same as what is happening in the Ukraine now and Putin has been declared a war criminal, so where to from here, probably nothing, and he knows it and continues the unlawful aggressive invasion and war where innocent civilians are killed or wounded daily.

International law has changed since ww2. Today people like Putin could be indicted (and he is) and could face trial.
But as the "big boys" (among others, China, Russia, the US, Israel) don't recognize the authority of The International Criminal Court, it's more like a nuisance for Putin - he merely has to avoid visiting state parties.

[wm]

Yes, we (the USA) should've and absolutely could've CRUSHED THE COMMIE SCUM.

That was impossible for the simple reason that neither the American people nor the British people would support such a war.
It was hard enough to convince them to support ww2, and both countries were actually attacked by Hitler (in the second case, the Anglo-French-Polish Alliance). Nobody would support a (massive) war of aggression against the Soviets.
Even Hitler had to resort to false flag operations to convince the Germans to support the war and that in a totalitarian country.

[Biber]

The Soviets were the winners and winners are not held responsible for their war crimes .

One could probably argue that there a degree of truth to that, but by correlation it would suggest that were the Germans to have won the war, the Holocaust would not have been prosecuted? I don't think anyone would go that far given that the Nazi persecution of the Jews was such an overt part of their political ideology and so systematic in its execution. I've always wondered what their end-game was should they have won the war. As for the Soviets and their own war crimes, I think they were just under the radar, eclipsed by what the Germans were doing and blurred by the fog of war (or in their case, revenge). In some instances, the Germans were simply their scapegoat - Katyn and the almost scorched earth drive to Berlin. My hunch is that the Soviets were always ahead of the west with regard to knowledge of the Holocaust and likely used it to their advantage. Surely, with all that came out after the war it served to divert attention. One certainly could argue the evidence of Soviet crimes being a result of policy, tacet or otherwise. My impression is that they were likely crimes of opportunity which, had the subsequent (post WWII) tensions with western powers, and the virtually complete closure of the Soviet-bloc countries not happened, might have been addressed, or at the very least made known. Had Stalin died in '45 or 46' (those more knowledgeable could offer better dates for the argument)? What if?

Just a few thoughts.

[ljadw]

The Soviets murdered and raped countless German civilians,til Stalin (for political reasons ) intervened and publicly condemned Ilia Ehrenburg . But no one in the West condemned these killings and rapes,as the general opinion was that the Germans deserved what they got and that it was a pity that not more Germans were killed .
Marxist lawyers will argue that Katyn (the existence of which was known and hided by the West till the outbreak of the Cold War ) was no war crime, as there was no war between the Soviets and Poland .
The Holodomor also can not be classified as a war crime ,neither were the post war persecutions in the satellite states .
Would the Holocaust been prosecuted if Germany won the war ?
That depends
on :if a German victory in 1941 would have followed or not by the Holocaust .
on : if Germany won :would the Holocaust be a public secret ?
on : who would have prosecuted the responsables of the Holocaust ?Politicians, lawyers ,..from defeated countries would not attack the winners .
And,let's not forget that anti-Semitism was not limited to Germany and its allies:there was ( is ? )also a strong anti-Semitism in the US and Britain .

[wm]

As for the Soviets and their own war crimes, I think they were just under the radar, eclipsed by what the Germans were doing and blurred by the fog of war (or in their case, revenge).

The Nazis and the communists were two sides of the same coin. And the coin was made from "the end justifies the means."

It could be argued that, from the ideological point of view, communism was worse - genocide of the enemy classes (the bourgeoisie, the elites, the clergy, the peasants) was part of its creed. And they did it from day one and by millions.

The Nazis merely wanted to make Germany Judenfrei and, till ww2, mainly in a comparatively peaceful manner - i.e., emigration.
Their leaders went off the rail when they saw the writing on the wall - i.e., that the war was unwinnable.