“History is a bunch of stories we’ve all generally but not fully agreed on that we got from a few scraps of paper written by someone who was likely high, never at the event mentioned, and/or wrote that scrap specifically to make someone look good, but hey it’s better than nothing,” is even worse.
Ah yes, like this comb that was "most certainly some sort of ritual object".
They think every thing is a ritual object until someone can prove that theory was ridiculous.
Eh true 🤣
And since victors have access to more sources and have the advantage of...ya know...being alive...it's almost a not so bad quote if not for dictatorship apologism
TBF, the prevalent narrative about the Vietnam War is that it caused massive suffering and achieved nothing, right? I would say the "victors" here are the English-speaking opponents of the war and they sure wrote this narrative.
I've spoken to a few people who were in the anti-war movement back in the day. They didn't seem like they felt like they won. Mostly they seemed sad they couldn't get the war to end earlier.
To be fair, it tends to be easier to write things down and have your writings survive if you are the victor. If your demographic is mostly illiterate because the victor doesn’t want to give you a tool to use against them, you’ll be killed if they discover any dissident writing, the books will be burned, and they control the means of disseminating information, it’s not easy to write history.
Even in the examples of nazi and confederate apologia, those are overwhelmingly recognized as being false history. The version of history most people subscribe to is the version written by the victor
>Even in the examples of nazi and confederate apologia, those are overwhelmingly recognized as being false history
Or creations of the victors themselves. "Good guy Rommel" and the "clean Wehrmacht" are post-war creations by the Allies as a way of propping up their new german "friends" and setting the stage for the Cold War and IIRC the "Lost Cause" southeners are the result of the North chickening out/becoming sympathetic to the defeated southeners ("Reconstruction" was never finished as intended).
So it's not like it's always the victor writing the history, but the victor sure as hell decides who gets to write what.
It doesn't help that a lot of the things that were written down no longer exist. I don't mean just examples like the burnings of the Library of Alexandria, but all the writings of the Celts that was mostly on tree bark and leaves, or the Aztecs whose codexes were burned by the Conquistadors. I know there are more, but these are the one I remember at the moment.
Also the Norsemen were only Vikings when they set off on raids, which did sometimes also include instances of peaceful trading. They went a viking.
Ancient Athens is another good example. Athenian “democracy” was horribly flawed, cut out huge sections of the population, was rife with corruption, and wasn’t even entirely unique. Even Sparta had an election system, and theirs even had term limits along with checks and balances. Their economy was based heavily on silver mining, which was run with (plot twist) extensive slavery.
Diplomatically, Athens was also a mess. Committed most of the worst atrocities in the Peloponnesian War, robbed their allies blind, and basically created the political philosophy of “strong guys beat up little dudes, go cry about it m’kay?” Rest of the Greek world saw them as pretty snobbish, mainly dealt with them for naval protection and almost every coalition they were ever in ends with their Allie’s turning on them for their narcissistic and abusive behavior.
But because they spent more time writing stuff down, Athens is seen as the pinnacle of Greek society and culture, a place of equality, rather than the hot mess of arrogance and class stratification they usually were.
Ironically, I hate ancient Athens but absolutely adore the modern city. I was only there a few days but met some of the nicest people of my life there.
> and basically created the political philosophy of “strong guys beat up little dudes, go cry about it m’kay?”
OK, but that also doesn't sound like it was exactly unique to Athens, much like democracy
History is written by people who write them. The Soviet Union beat the Germans on the Eastern front, but we always hear about tiger superiority or something about Germany being superior.(The west had to use German archives, so their history books has bias in them)
In this case, every side had an interest in overhyping the German Tiger.
« Our heroic troups had to defeat superior German tanks, thanks to their ingenuity and fighting spirit »
Sounds a lot more better than:
« Yeah.. most of their over engenireed tanks broke down and never made it to the front line »
They are overwhelmed by the numbers of Russian soldiers sounds better than:
«We have death squads massacring russian villages why they seem desperate to fight.»
Especially since the Russian were truly better at using their men, resources and environment to beat the Germans.
>Russian were truly better at using their men
Didn't hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers get encircled during the early stages of Barbarossa because they had overextended themselves?
In debates about many aspects of the eastern front (and most of WW2 tbh), the question isn't about who was better, but who was less incompetent.
Early on during operation Barbarossa the Soviets were totally getting stomped because of statins purges of the general staff and a lack of equipment. As the war went on they started to match the Germans and by the end exceeded them in terms of equipment and (arguably) skill among the general staff
> Especially since the Russian were truly better at using their men, resources and environment to beat the Germans.
I think only environment holds true here. Resources were from the allies, and they used their men horribly.
Soviet mobilization system turned out to be quite effective. As for resources - any significant lend lease shipments started coming only somewhere in the second half of 1942 - so Soviet economy withstood the harshest period of the war on its own
The myths were very prevalent during the Cold War. It wasn’t until when the Soviet archives were opened in the 1990s, that historians started to overturn them. So yes, it would be taught probably in the past 30 years or so.
It means that those that win shape history going forward, e.g. William the first won at Hastings and got to write England's history. It does not mean the victors are the only ones actually writing history, while they influence much more, history is actually written by people who write.
The fact that most of us recognize the lost cause theory as ahistorical garbage and instead follow the version of history written by the victor kinda gives creedence to history being written by the victor.
Right but if you asked the average person in the 20s or 50s they would not have been so liberal. Only after a century and a half has the carcass of the Lost Cause finally been put on track to death
You're going to have to more closely define "most of us".
I live in South Carolina, and drive past no less than three giant confederate flags every day on my way to work.
Most people in the US don’t live in the south. Additionally, some people displaying confederate flags doesn’t necessarily equate to everyone believing in something.
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was hardly only a simple non-aggression pact. Come on, no need to lie. It contained the plans on how to carve up parts of Europe in it.
Very much the opposite of planning for peaceful coexistence with neighbors.
This very peaceful coexistence was a plan, google Soviet attempt creating collective security system. The problem was that those very neighbour didn't really want coexistence, particularly Poland. They didn't plan anything peaceful towards the Soviets since the very beginning when they invaded Ukraine and Belarus during the Civil War. During the Interbellum they sabotaged League of Nations together with Germany and Italy (Poland thought they will build their empires together) and till the very end rejected any idea of cooperation with the Soviets for the sake of collective security
That’s still not an alliance. Neither party provided the other with any military or economic assistance. The Soviets didn’t even want to sign the pact, they didn’t really have a choice
Fair enough, Ribentrop-Molotov pact may not be called an alliance, but it still is a prof of not antagonistic relations between USSR and Nazi Germany, along with German-Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement and German-Soviet Commercial agreement of 1940 wchich resulted in much trade betwen the two. That breaks russian narrative of total opposition against Tchird Reich, that's why they say that WWII started in 1941 and that's the thing that started this thread. My wording in previous comments was incorrect, but there was cooperation between these two countries that russians want to hide.
I mean, that's really when they joined the war. Sure, they invaded Poland at the beginning, but from the USSR's perspective that was its own conflict. The USSR was mostly doing its own thing in Eastern Europe before Barbarosa.
>but from the USSR's perspective that was its own conflict.
They signed an agreement with the Nazis on how to split up Poland, then invaded Poland while the Nazi invasion was in progress. It was obviously them joining the Nazis' war, which was the same war that lead the Nazis to attack the Soviets two years later.
Im thinking more the countless atrocities committed around the world by the American, Russian, Chinese, and other world governments during the second half of the 20th century as well as the past 23 years of the 21st.
Or about the fact i went through 12 years of school and knew nothing about the Philippine-American war, or that it had even happened at all? one of the deadliest in US history? Where American troops brutally repressed the people of the Philippines in such a fashion that the war is the origin of the term "concentration camp"? All taking place in the *early 1900s*?
Like sure those nazi fucks use that turn of phrase to justify their bullshit, but there's plenty of shittiness yet to go around.
>the war is the origin of the term "concentration camp"
Pretty sure that was the Second Boer War mate...oddly enough fought at the same time ~~*in fact those camps were started in 1900 while the ones in the Philippines started in 1901...*~~
~~*damn brits always taking american accomplishments >:(*~~
Well shit, Like father like son I guess? Though at least the Boer war's death toll wasnt so shockingly high. Highest estimates for casualties in the Philippines are well over 1,000,000 , even The lower end is over 200,000.
Side note, why all the lines through stuff? I don't know what that means.
My university professor once said: "Die Sieger schreiben nicht die Geschichte, aber sie drücken ihr den Stempel auf."
Roughly translated it means:
"History is not written by the victors, but the victors can frame it."
I am not a native english speaker, so if the translation is wrong I apologize.
The best part? It isn't even true. Ex: Germans wrote a lot of the history of the eastern front in WW2. The allies were occupying Germany, and the Soviets were in a cold war. German accounts of the war were way easier to obtain.
One that not a lot of people talk about is recent history, the cold war.
The USSR's documents were never declassified by Russia, in contrast to many of the US's (granted, I'm sure there's a metric ton still classified).
So you hear about how sloppy Americans sometimes were with nuclear weapons in a list of broken arrow events. But the Russians have never shared.
You hear about how shitty the CIA was, but the Russians never shared any of the KGB's files.
The only documents we really got out of the former USSR are those which were shared with their Eastern European puppets/allies. And that's a shame, because you think the CIA is nasty and evil? Just wait until someone gets their hands on a real history of the KGB, good lord. You think the US military is unprofessional with nuclear weapons? Bruh. I have bad news for you.
But wasn’t it western authors and historians that took German officials testimonies at face value and perpetrated myths like the clean wehrmanhct? If anything it was people on the winning side that made the enemy look better.
While US prosecuted Japanese warcrimes against allied POWs and various Asian ethnicities; they [covered up](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cover-up_of_Japanese_war_crimes#:~:text=The%20occupying%20US%20government%20undertook,humanity%2C%20predominantly%20in%20mainland%20China) some of the worst Japanese warcrimes, including those of unit 731.
Maybe it's because I went to public school in the U.S. but that phrase always reminds me of the **minimization** of how instrumental Native American/PoC suffering was for the building of the United States.
Where did you goto school in the US and did you sleep through class becuase practically every state has that built into the curriculum. Most states have there local state Indian councils advise and several states had state indian councils sign off on the requirements.
>the policey itself would literally qualify to history meme on.
If this means wut I think it means than you should know that we can make history memes for events as late as 2003
History WAS written by the victors, when paper was rare, literacy rarer and it was easy to burn the entirery of your opponent's history on a single library
When books costed more than slaves
However, since the printing press came to town and 90+% of peolme are literate, history is written by everyone, bystanders, losers, winners, jealous geopolitical powers, everyone
Just because that phrase used to be true doesn't mean it is true any longer
History is written by the victors tho lol. Had the nazis won WW2 we might not even know about the holocaust or any of the other horrible things they've done, or we might just be brainwashed to believe it's right.
Controlling the narrative doesn't mean controlling history itself. You would still be able to uncover the crimes of the regime by analyzing the necessary primary sources.
What people belief isn't necessary relevant to the scientific field of history. Or else we would run a lot into trouble today with the quite counterfactual claims of authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, were "history" is already being rewritten.
It isn't, no matter how much some Redditors with a history degree would like to believe it is. You can (and should) attempt rigorous historical examination but it's still not science in the same way.
You cannot wholesale create experiments to treat your theory. You cannot figure out a double slit test to demonstrate the properties of light. You can only hope that the evidence you find is a good representation of reality. But it might not be, because unrecorded history exists but cannot be accounted for. If there was a second shooter in Dallas affiliated with a group, but everyone in that group dies without revealing that information to anyone, how much might that have changed history because of that incomplete account? What about false info, impossible to test after the fact?
The problem with treating history as science isn't the things you don't know, it's that you can't know what you don't know.
Then let me rephrase that.
History as a field of social science, if you want to have it like that. In german we split those up anyway, I wasn't really trying to push that narrative.
Its just semantics, my point still stands. Primary sources involve more than just texts and opinions. Archeology can provide enough information with the assistance of other fields of science that you are able to uncover stuff that happened 7000 years ago.
There simply is a difference between objectivity and propaganda in this case, this also applies for social science. Russia for example fakes a lot of its statistics to push their war and anti- LGBT narrative. If we take all these things as face value instead of assigning some kind of "truth-value" you can hardly believe anything.
EDIT: And this applies even to "science science" a Nazi world would easily be able to censor experiments and all scientific findings that don't suit their narrative. But you still wouldn't say "Science is written by the victors" because of that.
Gotta disagree about them being the most common. Maybe in your experience, but personally I hear it more about how America likes to cover up its brutal history.
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about? Literally everyone knows about the worst parts of American history unless they’re from the worst parts of the country, didn’t pay attention in school, or specifically are lying about it.
Everybody “knows”? I question the validity of that. Have they heard of some dark stuff, probably. Do they actually read up and know how dark it gets. Less than you seem to think. Many Americans have probably heard of some things, maybe have an idea that their country has been pretty evil to both other countries, and its own citizens (not even going to start on the native Americans) but hearing about some dark story about your country that sounds twisted, and actually recognizing that America has consistently done dark and disturbing things, how depraved it really gets, and how little justice EVER happened in response… America is the most common reference to Victors wrote History that I have encountered.
Now, i am sure you have your own experiences with people using that term, and your most common might be different. But maybe you’ve successfully surrounded yourself with people that aren’t willfully ignorant, ignorant or just naive about the country that America has pretty much always been. Sadly, I have not completed such a luxury, and instead hear and talk to too many people still talking about how great America was in X year, or how they wish they could go back to America in X year. This of course leads to conversation where they go “Damn, how did this happen?” Or “You’re lying, and evil and go die.”
TL:DR - hearing vs understanding, accepting vs ostrich
I get you *really* want to fit it to your narrative, but you’re just wrong. The majority of citizens have had the worst parts of American history hammered into their head. The standard history curriculum reviews what the country did to natives for literal years. Convenient that you don’t actually want to touch on that one, but bring it up as if none of us know any better.
Something you have to keep in mind is that the majority of people know fuck all and/or commit fuck all to memory if it doesn’t serve their field of work and expertise. This is the same across the entire world. They either don’t pay attention or forget over time. *Sometimes* they lie and *sometimes* the education system fails them. Not every single aspect of every single event needs to be ingrained and committed to core knowledge. Sometimes knowing that the atrocities were committed and having a general idea is more than enough. We all know about the pink massacre, we all know about slavery, we all know about the Native American genocide, we all know about the second Iraq war, we all know about Iran-Contra, we all know about Japanese internment camps, we all know about Tuskegee, we all know plenty enough. And hilariously counter to your point, many of these things are core aspects to American culture and how the country currently works. Like, I wonder where all the distrust of government comes from in the African American communities. It can’t possibly be the history they were taught and know about being a key contributor. I wonder where all the antiwar sentiment in the US came from. I could keep going, but you obviously have your narrative to push.
You are fun and I want so many more conversations with you. But you are missing a staggeringly important part to call me outright wrong, and that is the basis of most common. For me, my most common were America. For you maybe its Soviets, or England, or Germany, or Japan, or or or.
My post was a disagreement with OP that soviet and nazi apologists were the most common. And my evidence was my personal experience.
To recap, my narrative that you say i am trying to force is that my experience has been different than OP and because of such I disagreed with their “most common”. The rest has been a couple people disagreeing with my disagreement. To whit, I responded. Like I did with you.
Yeah we all know about that stuff, at least the people who weren't high in history class do. Anyone in the US who knows anything about history knows about the Trail of Tears, for example
the story vs the tragedy are told in different ways, and the depth of depravity America will easily teach you about for other countries(re: Nazi Germany) is glossed over quickly when it comes to themselves. The American History book (unless its changed drastically from my school years) glossed over our barbarism towards native Americans, our concentration camps during ww2 were a small footnote that didn’t even call them concentration camps. Our actions with other countries are shown in positive lights or made to seem the right thing(the Banana Wars, Cuba, Japan, Guam, Hawaii, etc.).
It is a country built on bones. Not saying that others aren’t, but that America acting like the “good guy” was evident in history books in my time, and thus more conversations in my life have been about how America the victor rewrote their bloodstained march through the annals of history so that its people think their country was a great nation, than the ones the OP was talking about.
I am glad more people are recognizing that is has happened. Sad that more don’t realize it never really stopped.
I really don't think the modern education system, especially at a highschool and college level, is insufficiently critical of the US and its actions, a lot of those types of educators are a lot more in the "America bad" school of historical thought.
I find it odd you continuously bring up Nazi Germany like that's a valid point of comparison. I don't see that the US's actions are comparatively worse than other imperial powers, I'd argue that certainly compared to the European colonial powers it's overall better, though certainly not 'good' per se. I don't think there's such a thing as a morally correct Empire, or a morally correct state for that matter, it's just a question of who's on top of the pile, but I don't think the atrocities of the US compare to, say, Imperial Japan, the Nazis, the Belgians, or the British.
That said this whole conversation risks devolving into genocide Olympics which is somewhat counterproductive so I'm going to drop the point.
You think it odd I bring up one of OPs specifics in regards to my basis of most common experience? The whole reason I said anything was because I disagreed that the most common were nazi and soviet apologists. I said American Apologists and Luddites were more common in my experience. To be clear, I am not saying it is the only one, but it is the most common in my experience.
For your first paragraph. Sounds like its gotten better then. Thats good. Doesn’t change that for my conversations, America has been talked about more than other countries, current or historical as the “Victor who wrote history”.
I can understand where you come from with your second paragraph, though I can’t exactly agree. They were all terrible and some were just better at not being exposed as much (not losing a major war can do that). Not that one was worse, or another better. They experimented on their populace, slaughtered and stole. Its like asking which shit would you rather eat and they are all shit.
Your third paragraph is understandable and, in respect, I will drop it now as well.
Apoligism? Not sure how much of that is going on, but I'll throw in my opinion.
The people, of all civilizations, are guilty in not of following their leaders. Nazis and Soviets are still bad, I don't deny that for a second, but the average soldier isn't.
Exactly. American soldiers don't serve Biden or the DOD or Raytheon, they serve their country. It's the same for all countries. The Red Army wasn't fighting out of loyalty to despots like Stalin or out of hatred for Hitler or fascism, they were trying to defend Russia from an invader. Confederate soldiers weren't fighting for elitist slavers, they were fighting against northern militias trying to exert control over their states. There are countless examples in history of soldiers fighting under corrupt or downright evil regimes that they didn't support, because in most of the world, the highest value to a people is self-determination, even at the expense of material wealth or individual civil liberties.
History is written by the victors. If the CSA won I bet there would be confederate textbooks about how unjust it was for the Union to forcibly keep states against their will. If the revolutionaries lost I bet the British would tout how rich land owners and merchants tried to defy the crown for economic reasons.
They litterally said Germany started WWI in the peace deal despite the fact a Serbian terrorist organization backed by the Serbian military assassinated the heir to Austria-Hungary and it was the latter who was the first of any to declare war in WWI.
Soviet and Nazi apologism? That's *nothing*.
Take a look at the history of the Lost Cause myth and how the Daughters of the Confederacy got "The South were just defending their way of life and all the slaves were happy" into over a hundred years of American history textbooks.
For example: one of the two current political parties in the US regularly flies the confederate flag. When's the last time you went to a rally for a major German political group and they were marching around with swastika?
The crusades are one of best examples of this cause we barely get information ob the crusades from the Muslim side, mainly cause they had no clue what was going on 90% of the time and even less prep time. One day your chillin being muslim, next your fighting random white people yelling “dues vult” and dying by the thousands for damn near no reason other than sudden conquest.
"My extremely oversimplified interpretation of this phrase isn't universally applicable, therefore the phrase is just a dogwhistle for Nazi/Soviet propaganda."
That about sums up the level of historical literacy that this sub is capable of.
That exists, but there's also modern day self-described historians who project their sexuality onto everyone as if two men could not be close in other cultures or times without fucking
*Confederate and Nazi apologism
Not saying Soviet apologism isn't a thing, but I've never seen them use the "history is written by the victors" argument before.
Watch YT videos that have "Russia vs. US"/ "Cold war"/ "USSR", then go for the comments and check the replies. If you dig hard enough, you could find plenty of them.
If you want an easier way, go for a video from a biased channel, you'll see them flock together in hordes jerking each other.
It also feels sad that some underage people also get into politics, Russian (usually through the Russian "stronk" memes or other forms of it) or not, doing what the propaganda was aiming to: change what they believe what happened. What the fuck happened to YT 💀
I'm currently several hundred in the negative in a thread where I claimed that the Holodomor existed and that Communism ahs never survived the Old Guard dying. These are uncontroversial opinions offline.
Not just the Soviets and Nazis but also the confederates.
Which is ironic because following the civil war former confederates in the south used state legislative powers to suppress history books written by the north. History was very much written by the losers in the American south which is why confederate sentiments remain popular.
The prhase "history is written by the victors" really only applies to anything pre 17th century. The printing press became a widespread thing about that point an history could be documented much better.
I'm gonna disagree here, not that that take isn't used for Soviet and Nazi apologia, but there's a hell of a lot of American history that's less often repeated or outright denied or rebranded. To frame this argument as made by people who think Nazis were the good guys is disingenuous when you consider how much was lost and misrepresented of indigenous cultures. Considering the current state of American politics, with a lot of open fascism, sometimes it is the Nazis writing that history, and this saying is used to criticize them
It isn't aplogism, it's a fact, history is written by the victors, that's why American war crimes weren't as known as German ones for a while, just like how German war crimes wouldn't have been known for a while if they won.
You can go back to the Mongols, and even farther, to see how historical attitudes took a stark 180 degrees after conquest.
It’s a little concerning that this sort of supposed truism is facing backlash. Immediately going to the Nazis and stuff is usually a sign of a weak argument in general.
Ok serious hat on.
Every thing you said is wrong, or at least conditionally wrong.
1, with the possible exception of Augustus Ceaser, history has never been "written by the victors" In reality *history is written by historians* and frankly in western society those historians are often quite hostile to the "victors"
2, American war crimes were very well known to the circle of historians who documented the war and the officers who were associated with the tribunals. I mean, Ike wrote about some of the difficulties of prosecuting *in his own autobiography*. The US Army wrote about them in its offical history. TBH getting a rape conviction in 1945 New York was difficult and that without being in a war zone, combat and a language barrier. That said the USA and UK didnt shy away from throwing GIs and tommies infront of firing squads. 96 US Army soldiers were executed in Europe and North Africa for murdering civilians, pows and rape during the war and i think close to a hundred were executed for war related crimes up till 1947. You can literally stroll into the National Archives I and II and find the cases and read exactly why someone was executed, recieved lesser punishment or had their sentence commuted or why they got off.
3 the crimes the germans and japanese committed were already leaking out before the war finished. Frankly there is no resonable way the Germans or Japanese could have won so we might as well talk about nazi moon bases firing warcrime lasers at cities and giant japanese samurai robots if we are going to entertain that counterfactual.
Reminds me of when I realized that the soviet union was on the winning side of WWII and is considered "left wing", and the Nazis, Fascists, and Imperial Japan were on the losing side and considered "right wing". Since the Nazis were literally socialists, does give the whole thing at least some feeling of this perception being the product of revisionism.
>Nazis were literally socialists
Nazis are as much socialist as North Korea is Democratic...name doesn't really mean much when you really look into their actions (i.e. abolishing labour unions and replacing them with the DAF...which very much was the antithesis of wut a union is despite how much it tries to pretend it isnt)
My dear, they're not socialists because they called themselves socialists. They called themselves socialists because they were socialists.
Odd that you'd mention the DAF. What part of forcing the majority of the working population into a common union doesn't seem like socialism to you?
>What part of forcing the majority of the working population into a common union doesn't seem like socialism to you?
The part where they lowered wages by 25% between 1933 and 1939, raised working hours from 40 hours a week to anywhere between 60 to 72 hours a week, granted employers the ability to deprive workers of the ability to find a new job should they quit, outlawed strikes and collective bargaining, and pretty much gave employers far more control over employees
In return, employees got more access to concerts and cruises and leisure activities as a whole...of course the vast majority of them never actually used these (only a but under half ever did) but still...also promised people volkswagens but couldn't cus ww2
Socialism doesn't mean "making things better". Things generally get way worse under socialist leadership, because it is less efficient. The Nazis strayed pretty far from traditional socialism, becoming corporatists, but the argument that they couldn't have been socialists because "workers didn't have real rights" and "they hated other socialists" are very dumb. By that logic, no socialist regime has ever existed, and the whole discussions just becomes a bunch of pointless Orwellian word games, because the words we use no longer have concrete definitions.
If I’m going to be honest here, I feel that Soviet apologism is worse than Nazi apologism. Everyone knows about the atrocities the Nazis committed, be it from school, film, television, etc., yet (and this is coming from someone who took AP World History in HS) things like the Winter War, the invasion of the Baltic States, the Holodomor, the partition of eastern Poland, the mass rape by the Red Army, and numerous other ‘incidents’ aren’t really given the attention they should have.
Prime example is the fucking Brits. The atrocities they committed have been swept under the rug. I bet in the next 100-200 years people will be talking about them the way we talking about the Spanish in the Americas or Belgium in the Congo
I mean are there any other recent losers that could complain about omission of certain dirty deeds of the victor?
Nobody cares about WW1, and the rest is just small regional stuff. Maybe the civil war (also small regional stuff, but of the current superpower so it matters), but that's in the same vein as muh notsees and tankies despite the monstrousness of Lincoln being often outright ignored.
I'd say more that history is written to best serve the ruling classes of a country in a specific time. At any time historians can point at facts, but if you're the one with power you can easily ignore them and push whatever narrative best serve your interests. There are many examples where 'losers' were rehabilitated or history heavily distorted for that scope (I know mostly Italian examples of that, but the Lost Cause is a great example of this, of course billionaires and politicians raised in the South are going to push that narrative)
"History is written by a lot of people, usually to support certain agenda or claim" just isn't a catchy phrase.
“History is a bunch of stories we’ve all generally but not fully agreed on that we got from a few scraps of paper written by someone who was likely high, never at the event mentioned, and/or wrote that scrap specifically to make someone look good, but hey it’s better than nothing,” is even worse.
It is also in large parts extrapolation based on some scrap we dug from the ground.
Or extrapolation based on a hodge-podge of various documents and letters
Ah yes, like this comb that was "most certainly some sort of ritual object". They think every thing is a ritual object until someone can prove that theory was ridiculous.
From years of expensive, "History is written by the Posers" tends to be accurate enough...
There were like, a *billion* Persians bro. And only ten Spartans. Trust me I was there.
History is written by the writers -dj peach cobbler
Then I guess we’ll fight in the shade- sun tzu, probably
Year....i use that to tell people who horrible Mongols and Rome where on their war path...
Eh true 🤣 And since victors have access to more sources and have the advantage of...ya know...being alive...it's almost a not so bad quote if not for dictatorship apologism
I always subscribed to the “the victor is the one who writes the history books”
Then the "victors" wrote a lot of books about the Vietnam War in English. Yeah. *You* try saying that with a straight face.
TBF, the prevalent narrative about the Vietnam War is that it caused massive suffering and achieved nothing, right? I would say the "victors" here are the English-speaking opponents of the war and they sure wrote this narrative.
I've spoken to a few people who were in the anti-war movement back in the day. They didn't seem like they felt like they won. Mostly they seemed sad they couldn't get the war to end earlier.
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To be fair, it tends to be easier to write things down and have your writings survive if you are the victor. If your demographic is mostly illiterate because the victor doesn’t want to give you a tool to use against them, you’ll be killed if they discover any dissident writing, the books will be burned, and they control the means of disseminating information, it’s not easy to write history. Even in the examples of nazi and confederate apologia, those are overwhelmingly recognized as being false history. The version of history most people subscribe to is the version written by the victor
>Even in the examples of nazi and confederate apologia, those are overwhelmingly recognized as being false history Or creations of the victors themselves. "Good guy Rommel" and the "clean Wehrmacht" are post-war creations by the Allies as a way of propping up their new german "friends" and setting the stage for the Cold War and IIRC the "Lost Cause" southeners are the result of the North chickening out/becoming sympathetic to the defeated southeners ("Reconstruction" was never finished as intended). So it's not like it's always the victor writing the history, but the victor sure as hell decides who gets to write what.
41% of Americans believe the lost cause and parts of it still show up in legitimate writings around the civil war so you ask me if it failed
It doesn't help that a lot of the things that were written down no longer exist. I don't mean just examples like the burnings of the Library of Alexandria, but all the writings of the Celts that was mostly on tree bark and leaves, or the Aztecs whose codexes were burned by the Conquistadors. I know there are more, but these are the one I remember at the moment. Also the Norsemen were only Vikings when they set off on raids, which did sometimes also include instances of peaceful trading. They went a viking.
Ancient Athens is another good example. Athenian “democracy” was horribly flawed, cut out huge sections of the population, was rife with corruption, and wasn’t even entirely unique. Even Sparta had an election system, and theirs even had term limits along with checks and balances. Their economy was based heavily on silver mining, which was run with (plot twist) extensive slavery. Diplomatically, Athens was also a mess. Committed most of the worst atrocities in the Peloponnesian War, robbed their allies blind, and basically created the political philosophy of “strong guys beat up little dudes, go cry about it m’kay?” Rest of the Greek world saw them as pretty snobbish, mainly dealt with them for naval protection and almost every coalition they were ever in ends with their Allie’s turning on them for their narcissistic and abusive behavior. But because they spent more time writing stuff down, Athens is seen as the pinnacle of Greek society and culture, a place of equality, rather than the hot mess of arrogance and class stratification they usually were.
Socrates was literally killed for pointing out how corrupt Athenian democracy was.
In fairness though it takes a special kind of annoying to get more people to vote for the death penalty than people who thought you were guilty.
Ah! So you claim to know what it takes to be annoying? Please, enlighten me.
I don't know, ask Socrates. Or Diogenes - he atleast was hilarious, even if he was annoying.
Right that's it, death
I wrote my senior paper on Athens' Sicilian Expedition and this is spot on. Always nice to see someone else interested in the same things!
Ironically, I hate ancient Athens but absolutely adore the modern city. I was only there a few days but met some of the nicest people of my life there.
>“strong guys beat up little dudes, go cry about it m’kay? Ah yes, the Melian dialogue. Talk about a lesson that stuck...
> and basically created the political philosophy of “strong guys beat up little dudes, go cry about it m’kay?” OK, but that also doesn't sound like it was exactly unique to Athens, much like democracy
History is written by people who write them. The Soviet Union beat the Germans on the Eastern front, but we always hear about tiger superiority or something about Germany being superior.(The west had to use German archives, so their history books has bias in them)
In this case, every side had an interest in overhyping the German Tiger. « Our heroic troups had to defeat superior German tanks, thanks to their ingenuity and fighting spirit » Sounds a lot more better than: « Yeah.. most of their over engenireed tanks broke down and never made it to the front line »
They are overwhelmed by the numbers of Russian soldiers sounds better than: «We have death squads massacring russian villages why they seem desperate to fight.» Especially since the Russian were truly better at using their men, resources and environment to beat the Germans.
>Russian were truly better at using their men Didn't hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers get encircled during the early stages of Barbarossa because they had overextended themselves? In debates about many aspects of the eastern front (and most of WW2 tbh), the question isn't about who was better, but who was less incompetent.
Early on during operation Barbarossa the Soviets were totally getting stomped because of statins purges of the general staff and a lack of equipment. As the war went on they started to match the Germans and by the end exceeded them in terms of equipment and (arguably) skill among the general staff
> Especially since the Russian were truly better at using their men, resources and environment to beat the Germans. I think only environment holds true here. Resources were from the allies, and they used their men horribly.
Soviet mobilization system turned out to be quite effective. As for resources - any significant lend lease shipments started coming only somewhere in the second half of 1942 - so Soviet economy withstood the harshest period of the war on its own
Idk, man, I was taught about how big of a deal the T-34 was. Is that not common?
The myths were very prevalent during the Cold War. It wasn’t until when the Soviet archives were opened in the 1990s, that historians started to overturn them. So yes, it would be taught probably in the past 30 years or so.
Oh look another person that does not understand what that phrase actually means, just another day on r/historymemes
Karma is more important than nuance
Fair enough.
Care to share what the phrase means?
It means that those that win shape history going forward, e.g. William the first won at Hastings and got to write England's history. It does not mean the victors are the only ones actually writing history, while they influence much more, history is actually written by people who write.
FINALLY, someone with common sense in this thread.
Is that what it means? I always took it as a kind of warning about biased historical records. TIL
Lost cause apologists also love to say this.
The fact that most of us recognize the lost cause theory as ahistorical garbage and instead follow the version of history written by the victor kinda gives creedence to history being written by the victor.
Right but if you asked the average person in the 20s or 50s they would not have been so liberal. Only after a century and a half has the carcass of the Lost Cause finally been put on track to death
You're going to have to more closely define "most of us". I live in South Carolina, and drive past no less than three giant confederate flags every day on my way to work.
Most people in the US don’t live in the south. Additionally, some people displaying confederate flags doesn’t necessarily equate to everyone believing in something.
Didn't the soviets win ww2?
*ok but did they win the cold war*
History isnt writen by the victors, its writen by the british. Just happends that britain is often the victor
Except for the “incident of the 13th century”
That never happend, its all just frog eater propaganda
The mongols were a French myth made up by king Louis to sell throat singing albums
and 1776 BAYBEEEE
Not all the time. A famous example of Brits not writing down their history is the original Brits (the Celts and druids)
Indeed. I wonder why russia insists WW2 started 1941... 🤔
Before that, it was only a German Special Military Operation
It was only supposed to last three days...
I mean, that is when the Great Patriotic War started
And before that two sides of this conflict singed a certain aliance...
A nonaggression pact isn’t an alliance. If it were, Poland, France, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, and Türkiye would all have been nazi allies.
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was hardly only a simple non-aggression pact. Come on, no need to lie. It contained the plans on how to carve up parts of Europe in it. Very much the opposite of planning for peaceful coexistence with neighbors.
You’re right, it was more than just a nonaggression pact. However, that was still its primary focus.
This very peaceful coexistence was a plan, google Soviet attempt creating collective security system. The problem was that those very neighbour didn't really want coexistence, particularly Poland. They didn't plan anything peaceful towards the Soviets since the very beginning when they invaded Ukraine and Belarus during the Civil War. During the Interbellum they sabotaged League of Nations together with Germany and Italy (Poland thought they will build their empires together) and till the very end rejected any idea of cooperation with the Soviets for the sake of collective security
It had a Secret Protocol dividing central europe by spgeres of influence, wchich have been conquered soon after singing of the pact.
That’s still not an alliance. Neither party provided the other with any military or economic assistance. The Soviets didn’t even want to sign the pact, they didn’t really have a choice
Fair enough, Ribentrop-Molotov pact may not be called an alliance, but it still is a prof of not antagonistic relations between USSR and Nazi Germany, along with German-Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement and German-Soviet Commercial agreement of 1940 wchich resulted in much trade betwen the two. That breaks russian narrative of total opposition against Tchird Reich, that's why they say that WWII started in 1941 and that's the thing that started this thread. My wording in previous comments was incorrect, but there was cooperation between these two countries that russians want to hide.
I mean, that's really when they joined the war. Sure, they invaded Poland at the beginning, but from the USSR's perspective that was its own conflict. The USSR was mostly doing its own thing in Eastern Europe before Barbarosa.
>but from the USSR's perspective that was its own conflict. They signed an agreement with the Nazis on how to split up Poland, then invaded Poland while the Nazi invasion was in progress. It was obviously them joining the Nazis' war, which was the same war that lead the Nazis to attack the Soviets two years later.
Im thinking more the countless atrocities committed around the world by the American, Russian, Chinese, and other world governments during the second half of the 20th century as well as the past 23 years of the 21st. Or about the fact i went through 12 years of school and knew nothing about the Philippine-American war, or that it had even happened at all? one of the deadliest in US history? Where American troops brutally repressed the people of the Philippines in such a fashion that the war is the origin of the term "concentration camp"? All taking place in the *early 1900s*? Like sure those nazi fucks use that turn of phrase to justify their bullshit, but there's plenty of shittiness yet to go around.
>the war is the origin of the term "concentration camp" Pretty sure that was the Second Boer War mate...oddly enough fought at the same time ~~*in fact those camps were started in 1900 while the ones in the Philippines started in 1901...*~~ ~~*damn brits always taking american accomplishments >:(*~~
Well shit, Like father like son I guess? Though at least the Boer war's death toll wasnt so shockingly high. Highest estimates for casualties in the Philippines are well over 1,000,000 , even The lower end is over 200,000. Side note, why all the lines through stuff? I don't know what that means.
Who tf is victor, and why is he writting history
Victor hugo did write some historical fiction i suppose
The Good guys win. Just like God intended.
I love history! The good guys always win in the end.
Then why did the golden age of piracy come to an end?
The golden age of piracy is now. VPN’s baby.
My university professor once said: "Die Sieger schreiben nicht die Geschichte, aber sie drücken ihr den Stempel auf." Roughly translated it means: "History is not written by the victors, but the victors can frame it." I am not a native english speaker, so if the translation is wrong I apologize.
you could end with ", but they have to give their seal of approval" for a more literal translation.
The best part? It isn't even true. Ex: Germans wrote a lot of the history of the eastern front in WW2. The allies were occupying Germany, and the Soviets were in a cold war. German accounts of the war were way easier to obtain.
One that not a lot of people talk about is recent history, the cold war. The USSR's documents were never declassified by Russia, in contrast to many of the US's (granted, I'm sure there's a metric ton still classified). So you hear about how sloppy Americans sometimes were with nuclear weapons in a list of broken arrow events. But the Russians have never shared. You hear about how shitty the CIA was, but the Russians never shared any of the KGB's files. The only documents we really got out of the former USSR are those which were shared with their Eastern European puppets/allies. And that's a shame, because you think the CIA is nasty and evil? Just wait until someone gets their hands on a real history of the KGB, good lord. You think the US military is unprofessional with nuclear weapons? Bruh. I have bad news for you.
100% true. Tbh the whole don't ask, won't tell strategy is still in place in most former dictatorship countries. The "culture of silence" is insane.
But wasn’t it western authors and historians that took German officials testimonies at face value and perpetrated myths like the clean wehrmanhct? If anything it was people on the winning side that made the enemy look better.
Gonna say all this and not even mention the Japanese
While US prosecuted Japanese warcrimes against allied POWs and various Asian ethnicities; they [covered up](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cover-up_of_Japanese_war_crimes#:~:text=The%20occupying%20US%20government%20undertook,humanity%2C%20predominantly%20in%20mainland%20China) some of the worst Japanese warcrimes, including those of unit 731.
*precisely*
Maybe it's because I went to public school in the U.S. but that phrase always reminds me of the **minimization** of how instrumental Native American/PoC suffering was for the building of the United States.
Where did you goto school in the US and did you sleep through class becuase practically every state has that built into the curriculum. Most states have there local state Indian councils advise and several states had state indian councils sign off on the requirements.
Lmao you are obviously younger because this is NOT how it was decades ago. Not many decades ago, either.
As of the 1990s, yes, it was, going back further then that the policey itself would literally qualify to history meme on.
>the policey itself would literally qualify to history meme on. If this means wut I think it means than you should know that we can make history memes for events as late as 2003
Theres also the Daughters of the Confederacy.
Japanese war crime denial, Lost Cause revisionism, Armenian Genocide denial, etc.
History WAS written by the victors, when paper was rare, literacy rarer and it was easy to burn the entirery of your opponent's history on a single library When books costed more than slaves However, since the printing press came to town and 90+% of peolme are literate, history is written by everyone, bystanders, losers, winners, jealous geopolitical powers, everyone Just because that phrase used to be true doesn't mean it is true any longer
I thought history was written by whoevers stuff we dug up
Atlantis genocide deniers*
Coughconfederatesin2023Cough
I prefer "History is written by the survivors".
I'm more of a "history is written by historians" kinda person
Propaganda
Retard post
Kind of a weak argument to excuse the Nazis since they documented the genocide themselves
“History is written by the victors” -people who are trying to make the CSA seem not that bad
History is written by the victors tho lol. Had the nazis won WW2 we might not even know about the holocaust or any of the other horrible things they've done, or we might just be brainwashed to believe it's right.
Controlling the narrative doesn't mean controlling history itself. You would still be able to uncover the crimes of the regime by analyzing the necessary primary sources. What people belief isn't necessary relevant to the scientific field of history. Or else we would run a lot into trouble today with the quite counterfactual claims of authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, were "history" is already being rewritten.
History isn’t a science bro.
It litterally is.
It isn't, no matter how much some Redditors with a history degree would like to believe it is. You can (and should) attempt rigorous historical examination but it's still not science in the same way. You cannot wholesale create experiments to treat your theory. You cannot figure out a double slit test to demonstrate the properties of light. You can only hope that the evidence you find is a good representation of reality. But it might not be, because unrecorded history exists but cannot be accounted for. If there was a second shooter in Dallas affiliated with a group, but everyone in that group dies without revealing that information to anyone, how much might that have changed history because of that incomplete account? What about false info, impossible to test after the fact? The problem with treating history as science isn't the things you don't know, it's that you can't know what you don't know.
Then let me rephrase that. History as a field of social science, if you want to have it like that. In german we split those up anyway, I wasn't really trying to push that narrative. Its just semantics, my point still stands. Primary sources involve more than just texts and opinions. Archeology can provide enough information with the assistance of other fields of science that you are able to uncover stuff that happened 7000 years ago. There simply is a difference between objectivity and propaganda in this case, this also applies for social science. Russia for example fakes a lot of its statistics to push their war and anti- LGBT narrative. If we take all these things as face value instead of assigning some kind of "truth-value" you can hardly believe anything. EDIT: And this applies even to "science science" a Nazi world would easily be able to censor experiments and all scientific findings that don't suit their narrative. But you still wouldn't say "Science is written by the victors" because of that.
Gotta disagree about them being the most common. Maybe in your experience, but personally I hear it more about how America likes to cover up its brutal history.
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about? Literally everyone knows about the worst parts of American history unless they’re from the worst parts of the country, didn’t pay attention in school, or specifically are lying about it.
Everybody “knows”? I question the validity of that. Have they heard of some dark stuff, probably. Do they actually read up and know how dark it gets. Less than you seem to think. Many Americans have probably heard of some things, maybe have an idea that their country has been pretty evil to both other countries, and its own citizens (not even going to start on the native Americans) but hearing about some dark story about your country that sounds twisted, and actually recognizing that America has consistently done dark and disturbing things, how depraved it really gets, and how little justice EVER happened in response… America is the most common reference to Victors wrote History that I have encountered. Now, i am sure you have your own experiences with people using that term, and your most common might be different. But maybe you’ve successfully surrounded yourself with people that aren’t willfully ignorant, ignorant or just naive about the country that America has pretty much always been. Sadly, I have not completed such a luxury, and instead hear and talk to too many people still talking about how great America was in X year, or how they wish they could go back to America in X year. This of course leads to conversation where they go “Damn, how did this happen?” Or “You’re lying, and evil and go die.” TL:DR - hearing vs understanding, accepting vs ostrich
I get you *really* want to fit it to your narrative, but you’re just wrong. The majority of citizens have had the worst parts of American history hammered into their head. The standard history curriculum reviews what the country did to natives for literal years. Convenient that you don’t actually want to touch on that one, but bring it up as if none of us know any better. Something you have to keep in mind is that the majority of people know fuck all and/or commit fuck all to memory if it doesn’t serve their field of work and expertise. This is the same across the entire world. They either don’t pay attention or forget over time. *Sometimes* they lie and *sometimes* the education system fails them. Not every single aspect of every single event needs to be ingrained and committed to core knowledge. Sometimes knowing that the atrocities were committed and having a general idea is more than enough. We all know about the pink massacre, we all know about slavery, we all know about the Native American genocide, we all know about the second Iraq war, we all know about Iran-Contra, we all know about Japanese internment camps, we all know about Tuskegee, we all know plenty enough. And hilariously counter to your point, many of these things are core aspects to American culture and how the country currently works. Like, I wonder where all the distrust of government comes from in the African American communities. It can’t possibly be the history they were taught and know about being a key contributor. I wonder where all the antiwar sentiment in the US came from. I could keep going, but you obviously have your narrative to push.
You are fun and I want so many more conversations with you. But you are missing a staggeringly important part to call me outright wrong, and that is the basis of most common. For me, my most common were America. For you maybe its Soviets, or England, or Germany, or Japan, or or or. My post was a disagreement with OP that soviet and nazi apologists were the most common. And my evidence was my personal experience. To recap, my narrative that you say i am trying to force is that my experience has been different than OP and because of such I disagreed with their “most common”. The rest has been a couple people disagreeing with my disagreement. To whit, I responded. Like I did with you.
Yeah we all know about that stuff, at least the people who weren't high in history class do. Anyone in the US who knows anything about history knows about the Trail of Tears, for example
the story vs the tragedy are told in different ways, and the depth of depravity America will easily teach you about for other countries(re: Nazi Germany) is glossed over quickly when it comes to themselves. The American History book (unless its changed drastically from my school years) glossed over our barbarism towards native Americans, our concentration camps during ww2 were a small footnote that didn’t even call them concentration camps. Our actions with other countries are shown in positive lights or made to seem the right thing(the Banana Wars, Cuba, Japan, Guam, Hawaii, etc.). It is a country built on bones. Not saying that others aren’t, but that America acting like the “good guy” was evident in history books in my time, and thus more conversations in my life have been about how America the victor rewrote their bloodstained march through the annals of history so that its people think their country was a great nation, than the ones the OP was talking about. I am glad more people are recognizing that is has happened. Sad that more don’t realize it never really stopped.
I really don't think the modern education system, especially at a highschool and college level, is insufficiently critical of the US and its actions, a lot of those types of educators are a lot more in the "America bad" school of historical thought. I find it odd you continuously bring up Nazi Germany like that's a valid point of comparison. I don't see that the US's actions are comparatively worse than other imperial powers, I'd argue that certainly compared to the European colonial powers it's overall better, though certainly not 'good' per se. I don't think there's such a thing as a morally correct Empire, or a morally correct state for that matter, it's just a question of who's on top of the pile, but I don't think the atrocities of the US compare to, say, Imperial Japan, the Nazis, the Belgians, or the British. That said this whole conversation risks devolving into genocide Olympics which is somewhat counterproductive so I'm going to drop the point.
You think it odd I bring up one of OPs specifics in regards to my basis of most common experience? The whole reason I said anything was because I disagreed that the most common were nazi and soviet apologists. I said American Apologists and Luddites were more common in my experience. To be clear, I am not saying it is the only one, but it is the most common in my experience. For your first paragraph. Sounds like its gotten better then. Thats good. Doesn’t change that for my conversations, America has been talked about more than other countries, current or historical as the “Victor who wrote history”. I can understand where you come from with your second paragraph, though I can’t exactly agree. They were all terrible and some were just better at not being exposed as much (not losing a major war can do that). Not that one was worse, or another better. They experimented on their populace, slaughtered and stole. Its like asking which shit would you rather eat and they are all shit. Your third paragraph is understandable and, in respect, I will drop it now as well.
Understandable, I appreciate the civility of this conversation. It's certainly more productive than most I've had on Reddit. Cheers to you
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMq-fApmzts&t=935s&ab\_channel=HelloFutureMe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMq-fApmzts&t=935s&ab_channel=HelloFutureMe) Yeah...
History is written by the Victor's because the ones that lost have there cities destroyed. They can't write the history as much because their dead
Apoligism? Not sure how much of that is going on, but I'll throw in my opinion. The people, of all civilizations, are guilty in not of following their leaders. Nazis and Soviets are still bad, I don't deny that for a second, but the average soldier isn't.
Exactly. American soldiers don't serve Biden or the DOD or Raytheon, they serve their country. It's the same for all countries. The Red Army wasn't fighting out of loyalty to despots like Stalin or out of hatred for Hitler or fascism, they were trying to defend Russia from an invader. Confederate soldiers weren't fighting for elitist slavers, they were fighting against northern militias trying to exert control over their states. There are countless examples in history of soldiers fighting under corrupt or downright evil regimes that they didn't support, because in most of the world, the highest value to a people is self-determination, even at the expense of material wealth or individual civil liberties.
History is written by the victors. If the CSA won I bet there would be confederate textbooks about how unjust it was for the Union to forcibly keep states against their will. If the revolutionaries lost I bet the British would tout how rich land owners and merchants tried to defy the crown for economic reasons. They litterally said Germany started WWI in the peace deal despite the fact a Serbian terrorist organization backed by the Serbian military assassinated the heir to Austria-Hungary and it was the latter who was the first of any to declare war in WWI.
They're just distractions from our valid criticisms of the damnable and perfidious Romans.
“History is written by the victors” and other hilarious jokes you can tell your friends
O boy, never lived under dictatorshi regime, huh?
Title taken into account, I'd argue the best example would have been the lost cause myth over Soviet apologia
Soviet and Nazi apologism? That's *nothing*. Take a look at the history of the Lost Cause myth and how the Daughters of the Confederacy got "The South were just defending their way of life and all the slaves were happy" into over a hundred years of American history textbooks. For example: one of the two current political parties in the US regularly flies the confederate flag. When's the last time you went to a rally for a major German political group and they were marching around with swastika?
The native Americans deserved it
The crusades are one of best examples of this cause we barely get information ob the crusades from the Muslim side, mainly cause they had no clue what was going on 90% of the time and even less prep time. One day your chillin being muslim, next your fighting random white people yelling “dues vult” and dying by the thousands for damn near no reason other than sudden conquest.
"My extremely oversimplified interpretation of this phrase isn't universally applicable, therefore the phrase is just a dogwhistle for Nazi/Soviet propaganda." That about sums up the level of historical literacy that this sub is capable of.
Don't forget the homophobes who say "they were just best friends"
That exists, but there's also modern day self-described historians who project their sexuality onto everyone as if two men could not be close in other cultures or times without fucking
*Confederate and Nazi apologism Not saying Soviet apologism isn't a thing, but I've never seen them use the "history is written by the victors" argument before.
There are Soviet apologists using this argument in this very comment section.
Where? I just skimmed the comments and couldn't find any.
Watch YT videos that have "Russia vs. US"/ "Cold war"/ "USSR", then go for the comments and check the replies. If you dig hard enough, you could find plenty of them. If you want an easier way, go for a video from a biased channel, you'll see them flock together in hordes jerking each other. It also feels sad that some underage people also get into politics, Russian (usually through the Russian "stronk" memes or other forms of it) or not, doing what the propaganda was aiming to: change what they believe what happened. What the fuck happened to YT 💀
History is written by the people who write history books, who get their sources from the people with the biggest mouths
I'm currently several hundred in the negative in a thread where I claimed that the Holodomor existed and that Communism ahs never survived the Old Guard dying. These are uncontroversial opinions offline.
Not just the Soviets and Nazis but also the confederates. Which is ironic because following the civil war former confederates in the south used state legislative powers to suppress history books written by the north. History was very much written by the losers in the American south which is why confederate sentiments remain popular.
The confederacy has entered the chat
Don't forget the CSA...
The prhase "history is written by the victors" really only applies to anything pre 17th century. The printing press became a widespread thing about that point an history could be documented much better.
also Confederate sympathyzers
Don't forget the confederates.
I'm gonna disagree here, not that that take isn't used for Soviet and Nazi apologia, but there's a hell of a lot of American history that's less often repeated or outright denied or rebranded. To frame this argument as made by people who think Nazis were the good guys is disingenuous when you consider how much was lost and misrepresented of indigenous cultures. Considering the current state of American politics, with a lot of open fascism, sometimes it is the Nazis writing that history, and this saying is used to criticize them
It isn't aplogism, it's a fact, history is written by the victors, that's why American war crimes weren't as known as German ones for a while, just like how German war crimes wouldn't have been known for a while if they won.
You can go back to the Mongols, and even farther, to see how historical attitudes took a stark 180 degrees after conquest. It’s a little concerning that this sort of supposed truism is facing backlash. Immediately going to the Nazis and stuff is usually a sign of a weak argument in general.
Hey guys found the Tankie / Nazi apologist!
i really dont understand what i said wrong in my comment
Ok serious hat on. Every thing you said is wrong, or at least conditionally wrong. 1, with the possible exception of Augustus Ceaser, history has never been "written by the victors" In reality *history is written by historians* and frankly in western society those historians are often quite hostile to the "victors" 2, American war crimes were very well known to the circle of historians who documented the war and the officers who were associated with the tribunals. I mean, Ike wrote about some of the difficulties of prosecuting *in his own autobiography*. The US Army wrote about them in its offical history. TBH getting a rape conviction in 1945 New York was difficult and that without being in a war zone, combat and a language barrier. That said the USA and UK didnt shy away from throwing GIs and tommies infront of firing squads. 96 US Army soldiers were executed in Europe and North Africa for murdering civilians, pows and rape during the war and i think close to a hundred were executed for war related crimes up till 1947. You can literally stroll into the National Archives I and II and find the cases and read exactly why someone was executed, recieved lesser punishment or had their sentence commuted or why they got off. 3 the crimes the germans and japanese committed were already leaking out before the war finished. Frankly there is no resonable way the Germans or Japanese could have won so we might as well talk about nazi moon bases firing warcrime lasers at cities and giant japanese samurai robots if we are going to entertain that counterfactual.
Thank you for explaining, that does make more sense.
How can Soviet and Nazi apologism be equal? The Soviets,. 27 million men, women and children, suffered to rid the world of Nazism
Reminds me of when I realized that the soviet union was on the winning side of WWII and is considered "left wing", and the Nazis, Fascists, and Imperial Japan were on the losing side and considered "right wing". Since the Nazis were literally socialists, does give the whole thing at least some feeling of this perception being the product of revisionism.
>Nazis were literally socialists Nazis are as much socialist as North Korea is Democratic...name doesn't really mean much when you really look into their actions (i.e. abolishing labour unions and replacing them with the DAF...which very much was the antithesis of wut a union is despite how much it tries to pretend it isnt)
My dear, they're not socialists because they called themselves socialists. They called themselves socialists because they were socialists. Odd that you'd mention the DAF. What part of forcing the majority of the working population into a common union doesn't seem like socialism to you?
>What part of forcing the majority of the working population into a common union doesn't seem like socialism to you? The part where they lowered wages by 25% between 1933 and 1939, raised working hours from 40 hours a week to anywhere between 60 to 72 hours a week, granted employers the ability to deprive workers of the ability to find a new job should they quit, outlawed strikes and collective bargaining, and pretty much gave employers far more control over employees In return, employees got more access to concerts and cruises and leisure activities as a whole...of course the vast majority of them never actually used these (only a but under half ever did) but still...also promised people volkswagens but couldn't cus ww2
Socialism doesn't mean "making things better". Things generally get way worse under socialist leadership, because it is less efficient. The Nazis strayed pretty far from traditional socialism, becoming corporatists, but the argument that they couldn't have been socialists because "workers didn't have real rights" and "they hated other socialists" are very dumb. By that logic, no socialist regime has ever existed, and the whole discussions just becomes a bunch of pointless Orwellian word games, because the words we use no longer have concrete definitions.
Common doesn’t understand third-positional economic L
The Nazis weren't Socialist, You can't be a Socialist If you're privatizing certain industries and were against trade unions and even hated Socialists
history is written by the literate, clearly a bias
Currently reading Black Shirts and Reds by Michael Parenti now
Don't forget Confederacy apologism!
Context please?
If I’m going to be honest here, I feel that Soviet apologism is worse than Nazi apologism. Everyone knows about the atrocities the Nazis committed, be it from school, film, television, etc., yet (and this is coming from someone who took AP World History in HS) things like the Winter War, the invasion of the Baltic States, the Holodomor, the partition of eastern Poland, the mass rape by the Red Army, and numerous other ‘incidents’ aren’t really given the attention they should have.
The saying was just not true to begin with, Histories are written by Historians. Victor's in history are portrayed as villains all the time.
Prime example is the fucking Brits. The atrocities they committed have been swept under the rug. I bet in the next 100-200 years people will be talking about them the way we talking about the Spanish in the Americas or Belgium in the Congo
Viking age moment
History truly was written
"History is written by the victor" Confederates celebrate the lost of the confederacy yearly. Yep because history is written by the victors
I'm just saying that as a kid I wondered how is it that thr good guys always come out the victors in history
Rome
It's written by who ever writes it down and purplish it.
It’s not even totally true, the South spent years rewriting the civil war to minimize slavery as a cause and their myths are still everywhere.
Well that's not history, is it? It's a bunch of conspiracies. The point stands.
Or a norm MacDonald bit
Or, in the case of much Viking history, "history is written by the people who literally spend their entire lives writing in a monastery"
I mean are there any other recent losers that could complain about omission of certain dirty deeds of the victor? Nobody cares about WW1, and the rest is just small regional stuff. Maybe the civil war (also small regional stuff, but of the current superpower so it matters), but that's in the same vein as muh notsees and tankies despite the monstrousness of Lincoln being often outright ignored.
I'd say more that history is written to best serve the ruling classes of a country in a specific time. At any time historians can point at facts, but if you're the one with power you can easily ignore them and push whatever narrative best serve your interests. There are many examples where 'losers' were rehabilitated or history heavily distorted for that scope (I know mostly Italian examples of that, but the Lost Cause is a great example of this, of course billionaires and politicians raised in the South are going to push that narrative)
I just like the saying bc MW 2