Thread: Pro or Anti Stalin

I feel bad for alot of Ruskies

I think I am beginning to understand.

You're some sort of hilarious agent provocateur, aren't you? A Butlerian construct. A flash-mad composite of hickish atavism and blind folly. No single human person could be quite so intellectually subnormal in quite so many ways. Could they? Do share.

Originally Posted by smithnweson

I feel bad for alot of Ruskies because there was some poll done recently and huge number of people thought Stalin would be a great leader even today, and that they would elect him.

Isn't it amazing after 50 years of an Anti-Stalin brainwashing campaign started by Nikita Khrushev? Don't you think that people that lived through that era or those who have relatives had this experience know something you don't know since you are foreigner.

Originally Posted by smithnweson

The Soviet state of mind is realy an amazing bit of psychology/scoiology, talk about pulling the wool over the sheeps eyes.

Our state of mind is fine, thank you. Why are you so sure that your information about subject is something inarguable? Russian historians themselves have different opinions on this one. Soviet archives are just started to be explored and the truth is comming.

Originally Posted by smithnweson

Stalin was horrible and yet even here people defend him, tell that to all your dead comrades and familys that no longer exist because of him, he must have killed most of the intelligent people off.

Sadly I have a relative dissapered in the horrible 1937. And believe me I want to know the full truth of that time. Being a kid the simple explanations like Stalin was evil, paranoiac etc suited me but not for a long time because I'm rather investigative. And the more I read serious history researchers and eyewitness' memories the more I understand the time and what really happened.

Originally Posted by smithnweson

Russian rational=out of sight, out of mind!

First, let me say how unexpectedly and happily surprised I was when I stumbled across this site a few days ago. I thought I would find some Russian Language exercises that might be of some help to me. I found those, yes, but also message boards addressed to several subjects of intense personal curiosity. One of these is Stalin. As a student of Russian History, I find him to be one of the most interesting Russian leaders. I also believe that he was an evil man, indeed I do.
I've read all the posts on this 'Stalin' board and was greatly interested in all of them. Especially yours, Bad Manners. You surprise me with your seeming defense of Stalin. Correct me if I am wrong, please. I noted in your posts that you are so shyly hesitant when it comes to defending yourself.
Of the many books I've read about him and his time, one fact has always stood out very strongly for me: the Nazi invasion begun in Summer of 1941 was undoubtedly helped along by Stalin's apparent nervous collapse for some days after the initial invasion.
Agreement among historians who have written about this is nearly unanimous. Only Radzinsky, whom I have read more for the entertainment factor, rather than for any qualities that might qualify his writings as anything resembling 'serious history', has surmised that Stalin might have feigned 'nervous trouble' in some sort of attempt to gain stronger support among the lesser leaders of the Soviet Government.
Radzinsky's minor fictions aside, Stalin really was shocked into near catatonia by the invasion. In fact, you may remember reading that Stalin expected to be arrested himself when several Soviet leaders visited him at his dacha to ask if he please, pretty please with cherries on top, could find it in his heart of hearts to come back to the office so that Russia could defend herself? Stalin surely expected a German attack, he was no fool after all, he just didn't think Hitler would attack when he did. Historians who repeat the laughable story about Stalin trusting no one except Hitler miss a lot of Stalin's reasoning concerning Hitler's motives.
Anyway, Stalin reacted to the attack by becoming paralyzed with fear which helped the German Army considerably in the war's inchoate stages. As to Stalin's rather inordinate incompetence as Generalissimo of all Soviet Military Forces, he may as well have given command to his daughter, Svetlana. Or perhaps you will offer some defense of Stalin's military aptitude?
In your posts, which I read-perhaps proving some ignorance on my part- as being a kind of apologetic for Stalin's rule, you show an advanced talent for invective and admirable ability for ad hominem argument. Here are some examples:

"I see now. Stalin was so bad for your soviet state of mind that he should be accounted for your being a moron. Was it because he killed the "most of the intelligent people" in your family?"
--(Talk about intelligent argument. You must have thought for some minutes to come up with the tactic of calling your target a 'moron'. This retort must have devastated him.)--

“You're reluctant to quote anything supporting the "badness" of Stalin, you just keep on saying "it exists". All you say is that I have to prove those "works" wrong. That's ridiculous. You're calling a person mass murderer and so on, yet I have to prove that he is not. Is that the way of "democracy" now?”
--(My mind says you had at least a partial point here. My heart tells me no, you didn't. For some years, I believed that Stalin had been, on balance, more good than bad. I have read books defending Stalin. I came to see these books as absurdly concocted fairy tales: realistically, more a defense of the author than of Stalin himself.
And, yes, it has always been the way of democracy to believe self-evident facts. Sorry, you are defending a mass murderer. Sorry again, he DID kill more people than Hitler. In my estimation, that makes him worse. That sounds strange as I write it. Stalin famously said, “The death of one is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” It does sound strange to compare Hitler and Stalin (title of an excellent book, by the by) and to finally conclude that Stalin was probably worse because his body count was higher. No, it isn’t strange, it’s absurd. Who was worse, Jeffrey Dahmer or J.W. Gacy? My thoughts are becoming messy from tiredness brought on by my desire to be as complete here as possible. Democracy is messy also, we are allowed to say almost anything and get away with it. Even us morons.)--

"I'd very much like to see any evidence that supports that figure."
--(You have employed this tactic often. PROVE IT! PROVE IT! PROVE IT! Your written words scream, again and again. When facts or books have been offered to you, you generally use the 'That's not real history' or some variation of that time-honored technique. Some of them HAVE been bad history, but not ALL. Solzhenitsyn, for example, is obviously guilty of statistical over-estimation. But, much of really, really 'REAL' history is based on eyewitness accounts. So, his numbers might be off. His experience was real. He WAS arrested for criticizing Stalin in letters he had written; He WAS (really, really, factual truth) a prisoner for years under the harshest conditions imaginable. When he wrote about things he had actually seen and experienced, he is an excellent historian. When it comes to statistics, which he himself freely admits are his best guesses, he is off. Sometimes he is far off. Tell me, do you discount his believability as an eyewitness? Also, what proof WOULD
be acceptable to you?)--
"I cannot judge Stalin by the claims of the historians now. So many lies have been piled on top of his deeds (which he predicted). But the majority of the Russian people value Stalin very highly. Those who dislike him are few and far between, but they happen to be the Russian интеллигенция, and their voice is louder than that of the rest of Russia. You should remember that the Russian интеллигенция has always disliked the Russian rulers and the Russian state. It is just its natureThat may be nice reading, but it is quite far from being an authoritative source."
-- (Now, Mr. Manners, did you really take your own words seriously when you write, “...the majority of Russian people value Stalin very highly.”? I have spoken to hundreds of Russians about Stalin, few of whom could be described as being members of the intelligentsia, which you hold in such low regard (Perhaps you even misunderstand the meaning of the word in Russian. Or, maybe you trust that those who do not know Russian have a dislike for those whom English speakers call 'intellectuals') A few, a slight handful of these Russians spoke well of him. Many more used strong obscenities to describe him. I still have notebooks full of these conversations that I had with people in different parts of Russia. Generally, I found the oldest people to be most likely to admire him. Understandably, they were also the most likely group to express genuine disgust at the mention of his name. I found older women to be most likely to show the strongest emotions. Some old women, in the midst of our conversations, began to cry as if they were small girls again, returned by memory to the exact moment their father or mother or brother was taken away by unsmiling men at three in the morning. I promise you, Mr. Manners, I talked with many more who hate Stalin than admire him. If I had been eating while reading your words: “Those who dislike him are few and far between,” I may have choked. Aside from my conversations with Russian people, contemporary opinion polls lend evidence to my opinion . In October of 2003, only 8% of Russians rated Stalin as their greatest leader.

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7349-7.cfm

In another poll, 61% of respondents said that Stalin had committing genocide upon his own people. No, my friend, Stalin is not a beloved uncle figure for the vast majority of Russian people.)--
“Look, this topic is too difficult for teenagers and clowns. I suggest that you concentrate on just learning the Russian language (and I'll be delighted to help you with that), then study the Russian history, then (in 10-15 years from now) you're welcome moralizing here. Please do not be offended, but it is just ridiculous to hear speculations on Stalin and Hitler from a 16 years old.
--(How could you have thought he could have been offended? You are saying that a 16 year old’s speculations are not to be taken seriously. You also seem to cast ‘teenager’ and ‘clown’ as being equivalent. You must not have been thinking of Anne Frank or Mozart when you wrote these words. These and countless others have moved history with their talents at younger ages than 16. {There are literally thousands of them in the history books of all nations} Persons of sixteen, along with Solzhenitsyn, and the entire Intelligentsia of Russia, in your opinion, are clowns. They are incapable of having valid opinions, obviously incapable of understanding the ‘too difficult’ nature of highly intricate arguments regarding such subjects as Joseph Stalin.)--
In a later post, you stepped back from the ‘clown’ statement. But, you still questioned the ability of a 16-year old to have valid opinions:
“That requires certain perspective that he simply cannot have.”
--(An unsupported statement worthy of Radzinsky himself. How do you know he lacks a ‘certain perspective”? Ah, yes! It is because he is ONLY 16 and therefore cannot have the necessary perspective with which to stand toe-to-toe with one such as yourself who owns such obviously wide and deep perspective.
I am certain that I also lack the necessary perspective I would need to have the slightest hope of holding my own in any intellectual dust-up with you.
Here are more of your comments from these posts:

"Stop smoking that shit and start reading books. Practice your grammar, too."
--(Translation: If you smoke shit you do not read books. If you read, your grammar necessarily gets better. Anyone who has bad written grammar cannot also be a reader.)--

“I wish you could be so generous as to allow yourself the freedom of thought”
--(Translation: You do not agree with me so you are both narrow AND small minded. You aren’t even worth the calories of discourse)--

“You're pathetic. I am not even asking you to prove that”
--(The woman, Natasha, who posted what you were here replying to was asking you why you would believe the archives of the Russian Government. It seems, to a degree at least, that to believe their documents you would have to believe that the government that produced those documents was being honest about what was written on their forms. This Natasha made the same point. You weren’t asking her to prove anything. She was asking you why you would believe that the government of Soviets ever gave anyone reason to believe they could be trusted about anything including their own statistics registries. That did not seem particularly pathetic to me. Or did you write ‘pathetic’ because you know it is one of the best, worst words of insult without resorting to obscenity? Come to think of it, it IS more insulting than obscenity.

“Why would anyone want to refute your nonsense“?
--(You, yourself would like to refute it. You would like to refute it for all people in all history. But, you know that refuting the argument that Stalin was a bad guy is exceedingly difficult to the point of impossibility. What you asked that writer, Ronnoc, to prove is pretty commonly accepted historical fact. That nonsense, as you called it, is pretty hard to prove, however, if you are trying to prove it to one who refuses to accept any evidence whatsoever. I cannot ‘prove’ Stalin’ was bad anymore than I have the immediate capacity at hand to prove that Hitler was ever responsible for even the death of one person in the SS camps. The proof DOES exist however, just as the proof about Stalin exists, also.

I want to ask you, since you dismissed Solzhenitsyn so easily, and I guess (don’t forget to correct me now, if I happen to be wrong) you also dismiss the poets Ahkmatova and Tsvetaeva in regard to their opinions about Stalin. Have you read GULAG by Anne Applebaum? In an appendix titled, ‘How Many’, she very scholarly analyzes various statistics she used as a help in writing her book. These are from Soviet KGB records. They are not the numbers of Solzhenitsyn, but it becomes much more difficult to see Stalin as a positive force after digesting them.
I do not know if Stalin was evil. God decided that question in early March of 1953.
But he surely did evil things. Millions were made prisoner for little real reason, often for no real reason at all excepting Stalin fervently believed in the necessity of slave labour. He believed in it even after many thousands died building worthless canals with no machinery, many having only their hands to use as tools.
I do not think Stalin did worse than any other man who might have taken control instead of him. Who knows, maybe if Lenin had lived for another healthy 20 years or so. Many believe Lenin would have been the same as Stalin. I believe that Lenin would have been far better for Russia had he managed to live another 20 or so years.
Too, many, believe that Trotsky would have built a Great Russia, even greater than Stalin managed. A writer named Czar Nicholas wrote a post concerning this belief that Trotsky would have been better. I thought his analysis was very perceptive. He ended it with: So given a choice between either Stalin or Trotsky, I'd choose Stalin. But as I said, overall I despise what Stalin did.
Mister Nicholas, your analysis of this 'what if' question was very good. It caused me to think the whole thing over again. I want to thank you for that.
Back to Mr. Manners. Here, you are writing a post in response to a woman whom I took to be a Russian:
“If you find any posts defending Stalin in this thread, then you should take a few lessons in English. Half the posts in this thread accuse Stalin in all kinds of nonsense (refer to your post for an example), and another half merely requests any evidence to support these accusation. None has been provided so far. Would you be willing to correct this unhappy discrepancy?”
--(It seems to me that you and some others HAVE defended Stalin here. Your posts make up a large part of the half that you say ask for evidence. Natasha's English skills seemed quite good to me but I'm sure I'm not the sharp eyed critic you are...)--

Have you read any Gulag survivor books such as: NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH by Joseph Burger; JOURNEY INTO THE WHIRLWIND, by Yevgenia Ginzburg; KOLYMA TALES by Shalamov; or GDE MOI VETER? by Leonid Sitko. If you have read any one of them, how can you now say Stalin was not a monster? What about the poetry of Anna Akhmatova, of MarinaTsvetaeva? These two women were among the greatest of poets who ever wrote in any language. Can you deny that these two women suffered because of Stalin? That Tsetaeva committed suicide was her own fault, I suppose. Stalin’s beastliness had nothing whatsoever to do with that.

Having no choice, history being is what it is, I must agree that there is no doubt that Stalin did industrialize the Soviet Union. I will argue that it could have been done in a better (meaning kinder and gentler) way. I do not believe anyone else was around, at the time of Lenin’s death, who could have both taken power AND built Russia into the giant that destroyed Hitler. I strongly believe someone could have done it and done it much better than Stalin. I anticipate the criticism that this is only conjecture on my part, meaningless fantasy. I agree. As to whether ends justify means, I would say that it depends on what means and whose ends. The destruction of Hitler could have been accomplished with better means. If he had confined his military expertise to the chessboard, and allowed Zhukov to run the whole war, many deaths would have been avoided. Another way could have been found to industrialize Russia rapidly without creating millions of slaves. But, history is what she is-a bitch. She has only a theoretical, detached interest in means. Her passion is ends.
Finally, I believe Stalin was a weak and frightened man. Nothing else makes any sense in my effort to explain to myself ‘ol uncle Iosef. It is one of the darkest nightmares of history that he was the one who managed to hold the history of the great country of Russia in his hands. I have thought for some time that Stalin hated Russia and the Russian people. He laughed at his own little jokes he often made about the suffering he caused. I will never have an opinion that will satisfy me as an answer for why he hated Russia.

Janice! You are amazing.
Welcome!

I agree! I hope you stay around.

heh, I'm anti-Stalin but do recognize that he was instrumental in helping us defeat fascism in WWII and that there were some positive in the USSR and not only negatives.

Originally Posted by Светлана Ежова

heh, I'm anti-Stalin but do recognize that he was instrumental in helping us defeat fascism in WWII and that there were some positive in the USSR and not only negatives.

Of course you are right about this.
But, many people, when this is said about Stalin, go no further. Do you know how some react when told this about Hitler? He rebuilt Germany's economy, gave it back its self-respect after a disastrous war and an even more disastrous peace treaty, and he also liked dogs. But, did he need to kill millions to do it? The question is the same regarding Stalin. As I have already said, it is only a matter of fantasy and conjecture to imagine how some different (I have played with the idea that maybe Kirov could have done this) person could have accomplished the same miracles (and they were miracles-building Russia into a giant, militarily and economically; that country being the same one mainly responsible for destroying Nazism)as Stalin, with better and more humane methods.
You are also correct in saying that there were many positives in the Soviet Union. Among the best of these were the many martyred people who challenged Stalin's savage regime by writing and speaking the truth; many suffered and died for that truth.

Calm down, Jan. As we all know, Stalin was the father of the American neoclassicist movment.

I forgot about that. I also forgot that Stalin is still alive and lives on an uncharted island. His islemates are Hitler, FDR, Truman, JFK and Richard Nixon. There is a rumor that Khrushchev also lives there, but I am almost sure that is not true.

Your lack of knowledge in this subject is appaling. Stalin is still alive and lives in a remote fishing village in Greenland. He shared a cabin with FDR for several years; however, FDR got fed up with the arrangements and set off on his own for Kerguelen island.

http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:aV ... elen&hl=en

I have also heard that, but I doubt the validity. Most evidence for your side was presented in Ivan Tokallot's book: TRUTH REVEALED: THE THREE-WAY LOVE AFFAIR BETWEEN STALIN, FDR AND TROTSKY. Certainly, a person of your obvious intelligence cannot believe such tripe. Everyone knows it wasn't a love affair at all, but merely a best forgotten episode of history when the three got together (of course, this was BEFORE FDR became President of the USA) in a Motel 6 in Cypress, drank a bit too much and had a one-night-stand. That's all it amounted to, just one night of drunken, crazed passion.
Somehow, as I'm sure you know, when not in a mood to defend one of your nutty pet theories, Hitler got word of this incident and, in a Herculean effort to satisfy his terrible anger over beimg betrayed by his one, true love, Uncle Iosef, plotted to gain power and eventually was able to invade Russia in retribution.
Next time, please get your facts straight (an action Hitler and Stalin were incapable of doing) before bothering to post here. This forum is only for the most SERIOUS postings. If you continue on in this manner, no one will take you seriously anymore!

Most evidence for your side was presented in Ivan Tokallot's book: TRUTH REVEALED: THE THREE-WAY LOVE AFFAIR BETWEEN STALIN, FDR AND TROTSKY.

Ridiculous. My source is a world famous professor who is well-known for his works on the American neoclassicist movement and Stalin's secret love affairs with FDR. Also, he met with Stalin and Trotsky in person and was known to be an ever-present guest at Stalin's dinner table.

Everyone knows it wasn't a love affair at all, but merely a best forgotten episode of history when the three got together (of course, this was BEFORE FDR became President of the USA) in a Motel 6 in Cypress, drank a bit too much and had a one-night-stand. That's all it amounted to, just one night of drunken, crazed passion.

Rewriting the past, are you? Certainly, a person of your obvious academic merit would know about the Boy George - Hitler connection.

Actually, it only applied to those citizens with passports (about 10%)

You want to say 10% without passport?

City population in the USSR by 1930s was the same as country population, and all of city dwellers were with passports.

Lampada, I am completely overtaken by the songs and it raises my patriotic fervour. Given that I a lived in Alma Ata, Kazhakhistan for 8 years, I feel like saying, HAIL STALIN! STALIN! STALIN!!

Long live Joe

An army expert once argued that the Red Army officer corps, whose origins came with Lenin’s benediction and Lev Trotsky’s methodological manner of thinking and management, was, for the most part, unprofessional throughout its existence and that this deficit of professional ability left it unable to defend itself during Stalin’s terror purge, caused the failure to conquer Finland, had disastrous consequences in the first year of the German invasion of the USSR in 1941-42, and contributed to the large number of casualties throughout the war. Its unprofessional nature compounded the debacle of Afghanistan and was the most significant cause of the public’s loss of faith when the military came under scrutiny during Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform era in the mid-1980s.

The question that concerns me is, would Lev Trotsky have made it a professional army if he had been in power? When the military situation deteriorated, Stalin effectively took control of the army. This was the sort of power of leadership the revolution required to survive, but it was a challenge to Trotsky, who had created the Red Army with the help of so-called ‘military experts’ - ex-tsarist officers. Stalin distrusted these ‘useful’ renegades and shot them whenever possible.

Always take note that Lev Trotsky had all the chances to stand up for Stalin, but instead turned him into a foe. Given the foreboding of a counterrevolutionary coup d’etat approaching and carried out by former tsarist officers, one cannot blame Joseph Stalin for arranging a massive purge that overwrought the whole chain of command, from top to bottom.

He opposed Stalin impertinently on all issues. The former tsarist officers were a real menace, but still Lev mollycoddled them under the expedient that an army is in need of military specialists in order to make it professional. Brushing off Stalin’s argument of political or ideological purity in the army, he insisted on contradicting him in all matters.

It might also be surmised that Trotsky had not anticipated a power struggle once Lenin died, despite Stalin’s malicious moves to shuffle or remove his appointed generals and commissars. Lev did not take the necessary precautions. He was good in political posturing and manoeuvres. But he did not expect a bloodbath, with Stalin as the executor.

Stalin, then, knew better. Trotsky was turned into a political mediocrity who should have known what to do, given his Machiavellian instincts in the realm of Soviet politics and totalitarianism. He was not in touch with reality.

Despite heavy losses during the war against Finland and the German invasion, the Soviet army was indeed a professional army. It was able to defy all the odds and it came to equal the United States of America in the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles, etc. The Soviet army was the most feared among democratic-capitalist states. The invasion of Yemen, the arming of North Vietnam, etc, proved not only its military stamina, but also its capability to subvert any country it chose.

Today we have Trotskyites and Stalinists in our midst. They come from all walks of life. The only difference between the two contending factions is that the latter always succeed in dominating the leadership of all recognised communist parties of the world and their central organs. The Trotskyites are justifiably condemned and persecuted because they denied Joseph Stalin the chance to explain himself or rebut their allegations. Without Koba, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would not have been a superpower. Long live Joseph Stalin!

Originally Posted by apparatchik

Long live Joe ... Long live Joseph Stalin!

...
Has anyone who actually IS Russian heard of Wallenberg? I would have thought nobody knew or cared about him other than Jews who were saved by him, and Swedes.

I think all officials in the USSR and modern Russia have consistently stuck to the original story that he was shot in Moscow soon after the war, and everything else is just conspiracy theories.

Originally Posted by Hanna

He was taken to a prison in Moscow, called Ljublanka.

Lubyanka Лубянка

Originally Posted by Hanna

I still can't imagine why the USSR shot an innocent citizen of a neutral country two years after the war ended!

that was the nature of Stalin's regime, he killed millions of soviet people or made them rot in labor camps, if you can kill your own people all the more you can kill suspicious foreigners
thousands of Polish officers were executed near Katyn by NKVD, the scene of the massacre was found by the Nazis, but it's them who soviet authorities then blamed this atrocity on.

Originally Posted by Hanna

And it doesn't make any logical sense that the USSR should lie to say someone is dead and keep them inprisoned instead. Particularly not since the relationship between the USSR and Sweden was quite good for the majority of the Cold War.

true, therefore i think had he been alive after Stalin's death, he'd be released

Originally Posted by LXNDR

he killed millions of soviet people or made them rot in labor camps

сто тыщь миллионов?

Originally Posted by BappaBa

сто тыщь миллионов?

He personally ate a billion of soviet children. A known fact!