Achieving political aims “by any means necessary” is a-okay so long as the West likes you enough (bonus if you’re white but not needed. See lib apologia for South Korea and Taiwan before “democratization”).
The fact that this conversation came from trying to smear Palestinians because of some Nazi sympathetic figure (who had little legitimacy and was only there because the limeys kept him in power) is more than a bit ironic. More so with the double genocide theory in action meant to justify Nazi collaborators.
https://Twitter.com/daliborand/status/1728576344663957548?s=46
In my experience, the vast majority of libs don’t make any distinction. The Russian Empire == the Soviet Union == the modern day Russian Federation. The crimes of one are the crimes of all.
The only exception is when talking about the Romanovs. The Romanovs were perfect little beans who were unjustly slaughtered by the evil rampaging Soviets, even if that person would hate the Empire for the pogroms (though to be fair, most people think Stalin did that)
