Thread: Hitler vs. Stalin

Originally Posted by kamka

Originally Posted by chaika

Most probably cried because they were afraid the KGB would come after them if they didn't.

apparently, that's what happened in Poland, in a way, too. My grandparents told me plenty of people felt obliged to cry, or at least look as depressed as possible, for fear they might get in trouble.
And I bet the trouble in here would be nothing compared to the trouble back in the USSR.

either way, I agree it's pretty darn difficult to measure the evil. Especially since most of the people here, at the boards, is not old enough to remember the reign of Hitler and Stalin, hence it makes it harder to compare. Obviously, we could rely on the books - but they only give you some facts, not the insight into the situation.
Besides, it seems quite useless for me to choose. They both did some pretty messed up stuff - that's undisputable.

and having written all that, I sort of get the feeling I didn't make myself clear enough.

Things were different in Poland. This country has been torn out between those two and really the Poles shouldn't have any warm feelings about them both. The Red Army committed atrocities there too, many of them would have turned even an SS officer pale.

Originally Posted by Leof

I think the evil they have done can not be mesuared or counted, neither compared one with the other. Both them were just evil.


I think it is like to aks who is better Jesus or His Father.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Evil can't be measured or compared. Evil is just evil, like a switch yes/no. So it's really impossible to say who is more evil they both are integral parts of evil. They and the like comprise evil. They don't have ranks there in evil empire - they are just bricks. They accumulate and evil grows.

Ramil

Originally Posted by Leof

Originally Posted by Leof

I think the evil they have done can not be mesuared or counted, neither compared one with the other. Both them were just evil.


I think it is like to aks who is better Jesus or His Father.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Evil can't be measured or compared. Evil is just evil, like a switch yes/no. So it's really impossible to say who is more evil they both are integral parts of evil. They and the like comprise evil. They don't have ranks there in evil empire - they are just bricks. They accumulate and evil grows.

Ramil

What? Great minds think alike, or didn't you know about it?

:P

Ramil and Leof are the one and the same person, too!

Originally Posted by Ilkay

I just wanted to make a comparison between Hitler and Stalin

You try to compare between warm and soft stuff. What's better?

Originally Posted by Ramil

Things were different in Poland. This country has been torn out between those two and really the Poles shouldn't have any warm feelings about them both. The Red Army committed atrocities there too, many of them would have turned even an SS officer pale.

that's more or less what I had in mind; 'cause despite all these, people still cried when Stalin died. And there was no proper reason to do so, except for fear - and I dread to think what sort of fear it was that was able to drive them to crying over someone they most probably hated quite strongly.
anyway, it was just a digression over something that Chaika said, loosely related to the idea of who's been more evil.

Um, C- both of the above?

Some historians write that Stalin was responsible for more deaths than Stalin. Even if this is true, people find Hitler worse for a number of reaons: Stalin basically killed people, regardless of race, generally. Hitler went out to wipe entire races of people off the face of the Earth.

People argue Stalin was just as bad of Hitler, because even though Hitler had concentration camps, Stalin had the Gulags. Obviously both were bad, but there is something much more sinister and disgusting about the Nazi's camps. Also the Gulags were primarily populated with men. Hitler's sent people to death irrespective of sex and age.

Originally Posted by TATY

Some historians write that Stalin was responsible for more deaths than Stalin.

Ahem...

Originally Posted by TATY

Even if this is true, people find Hitler worse for a number of reaons: Stalin basically killed people, regardless of race, generally. Hitler went out to wipe entire races of people off the face of the Earth.

Not only that. Those in Stalin's prison camps were arrested, charged and sentensed (at least some visibility of law was maintained). You could be arrested by the false charge but there were trials and there were acquittals. Hitler outlawed the whole nations (incluting all of the Slavs, btw, along with the Jews, the Gypsies and many others).

People in Stalin's camps were sent there to work, Hitler's camps were for extermination. Stalin used terror for rule (he was paranoidal and saw a competitor and an enemy in anyone who raised above the general grey mass).
Hitler exterminated other nations just out of pure hatred.

Originally Posted by chaika

Maybe you could measure evil by the number of human beings killed by each of them?

In which case neither would win.

The difference between Hitler and most other evil dictators is the way the Nazi's committed their crimes. They took the idea of Gulags and other similar institutions and turned them a notch up to not only slaughter people en masse, but to also profit from these murders in an organised way never seen before.
Also, peoples perception of mankind slowly began to change after the war due to the increase in studying the 'Nazi phenomena' by psychologists, sociologists etc. For the first time in humankinds rather bloody history it became accepted that these evil people were actually no different from the rest of us and we all have the capacity to be evil given the right stimulus. Many people wanted to disagree as this didnt leave a good taste in the mouth of ordinary people and acedemics alike, but eventually these facts were accepted.
So Hitler will always be a name on the list of evil people and rightly so. But I dont think you can, or even should measure him, or anyone else, against each other.

трудный вопрос

А где пункт против всех?

Don't understand how anybody could even to compare... Looks like blasphemy.