"We Should Say It. Russia Is Fascist."

The invaluable Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor whose books have chronicled Eastern Europe's bloody past, says it in today's New York Times: 

"Fascism was never defeated as an idea.

"As a cult of irrationality and violence, it could not be vanquished as an argument: So long as Nazi Germany seemed strong, Europeans and others were tempted. It was only on the battlefields of World War II that fascism was defeated. Now it’s back — and this time, the country fighting a fascist war of destruction is Russia. Should Russia win, fascists around the world will be comforted.

"We err in limiting our fears of fascism to a certain image of Hitler and the Holocaust. Fascism was Italian in origin, popular in Romania — where fascists were Orthodox Christians who dreamed of cleansing violence — and had adherents throughout Europe (and America). In all its varieties, it was about the triumph of will over reason."

Mr Snyder emphasizes what Russia's dictators from Stalin to Putin have tried to erase from history -- that in August 1939 Hitler and Stalin agreed to divide Europe between them on a line that put Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, half of Poland, and miscellaneous lands to the south under Moscow's dominion, thus freeing Hitler to invade western Poland and eventually France, the Low Countries, Denmark, and Norway. (Finland proved too tough a nut for Russia to crack, though it did occupy large swath of Finnish territory and impose a neutrality that only now is ending.)

His conclusion is bleak:

"As in the 1930s, democracy is in retreat around the world and fascists have moved to make war on their neighbors. If Russia wins in Ukraine, it won’t be just the destruction of a democracy by force, though that is bad enough. It will be a demoralization for democracies everywhere....

"Had Ukraine not resisted, this would have been a dark spring for democrats around the world. If Ukraine does not win, we can expect decades of darkness."