Quote Originally Posted by bad manners
You make way too many assumptions. Then you take them for granted. That's called jumping to conclusions, and it is again characteristic of your attitude towards the Russian history: your perception of it rests on a few claims that you never actually verified.
They were verified by many historians. You say they base their claims on nothing, I say it's based on real sources. We dance around in circles.

Oh, the assumption that you made about me (I guess) is incorrect: I grew up in a "democracy" (in constitutional monarchy in fact, just like you, if you're really Dutch), but I have mostly had access to one side of the story, the "democratic" side shall we call it, it is only during the last ten years or so when the genuine documents have been available, along with the sensible works based on those documents. The "democratic" side is mostly science fiction, even though it does correlate with the reality fairly often, but that is a feature of science fiction in general.
Those documents also have been made available to Western historians. Still haven't heard of Stalin being a goody. The first Russian historian who got access to secret archives, Volkogonov, was very critical of Stalin. It's part of national Russian pride to say Stalin was a good, strong leader. The bad things done, were done by Ezhov and Beria, not the Great Stalin. Let me ask you then: how good a leader was he then? The USSR was a dictatorship, ruled with an iron fist by one man. Do you really believe the Ukraine famine or the transportation of people to the GULAG in large numbers could have occured without Stalin knowing about it and agreeing to it?

And you have failed to provide verifiable arguments anyway.
Right back at ya! (Dancing around in circles...)

I realize perfectly well that even if intelligentsia is bad Stalin can still be bad. What you do not seem to realize is that when _anybody_ says that _somebody_ is bad, that anybody must be able to prove it. That means when the Russian intelligentsia or Gollandski Yozh or whoever else says that Stalin is bad, _they_have to prove it. Documentarily. I don't.
It has been proven. You just don't want to believe it. Say Stalin is a mass murderer and you're just spreading propaganda...

On the other hand, my claim that the intelligentsia is bad can be trivially proved. For example, Lenin was that intelligentsia. He ended up overthrowing a legitimate Russian government and becoming a dictator, which set the fate of Russia for many years and ultimately resulted in WWII, and the nonsense that followed.
So this is what you call prove? The intelligentsia was bad, because one of it's members, Vladimir Ilich, was bad? If that's the proof that's enough to satisfy you, I think I have provided plenty, but I guess such proof will only do if it's your argument that needs support.

I've dedicated two messages to this subject. I do not have much to add.
You're right.

Overall though, I have to thank you. Unlike the others, you at least try to argue rationally.
Yeah, I try. Sorry for failing miserably...