Joseph Stalin

[WriterDom]

Great Leader?
Prolific murderer?

 

[Mistress]

I would not call him a great leader.........

 

[Pokerman]

This isn't the anniversary of his birth, or his death....so whats the point behind this poll/thread?

 

[bluntforcemama]

Stalin was a very sucessful leader. He was able to avoid being defeated by the Nazis, which would have lead to Hitler's complete empowerment over Europe. His will to resist capture of his country was legendary.

The reason that we may see him in a different light is because we look through the eyes of democracy. Was socialism really that bad? People can argue for or against, but the fact that Russia withstood and defeated a German invasion is a legacy not to be forgotten.

 

[shadowsource]

Psycho

Stalin was a very illin' man. He killed most of his early revolutionary colleagues, exhibited great paranoia throughout his leadership, purged the Red Army of many of its best officers, betrayed the German communist leadership to the nazis in exchange for certain considerations, angrily ignored warnings that the Germans were about to invade the USSR, reestablished anti-Semitism as state policy in keeping with czarist tradition, terrorized everyone in sight, purged many war heroes (especially the heroic partisans) because he didn't trust them.

He also managed to save the USSR from Hitler and his own mistakes, mainly by retreating to nationalist principles and using (yes) more terror. Soviet troops had squads of armed prisoners behind them in battle, with orders to shoot anyone who retreated (let alone ran). I definitely think Hitler was much worse, but Stalin was worse than most other histrorical leaders, an odious human being by any standard.

It is arguable that Soviet communism would have taken a far different course had he not seized power, but the system Lenin created under the exigencies of being invaded by the likes of the US and the UK during a terrible civil war was clearly "flawed," no?

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Stalin was a very sucessful leader. He was able to avoid being defeated by the Nazis, which would have lead to Hitler's complete empowerment over Europe. His will to resist capture of his country was legendary.

The reason that we may see him in a different light is because we look through the eyes of democracy. Was socialism really that bad? People can argue for or against, but the fact that Russia withstood and defeated a German invasion is a legacy not to be forgotten.

Stalin was the worst megamurderer this century, maybe in all history (I would need to do more research to be sure):


Dictator..........................Years .............. Murdered (millions)

Stalin ............................ 1929-53 ............ 42.6
Mao Tse-tung ............... 1923-76 ............ 37.8
Adolf Hitler.................... 1933-45 ............. 20.9
Chiang Kai-shek........... 1921-48 .............. 10.2
Vladimir Illich Lenin....... 1917-24 .............. 4.01
Tojo Hideki.................... 1941-45 .............. 3.9
(Japanese prime minister)
Pol Pot........................... 1968-87............... 2.3
Yahya Kahn ................... 1971 .................. 1.5
Josip Broz Tito ............... 1941-87 ............. 1.17
(sorry for the poor formatting)

Rummel (author of "Death by government") states: "Stalin, by far, leads the list. He ordered the death of millions, knowingly set in train events leading to the death of millions of others, and as the ultimate dictator, was responsible for the death of still millions more killed by his henchman."

However you look at him, through the eyes of "democracy" or through socialism - this is not a legacy I would hold up as an example of anything except genocide and repressive totalitarianism.

STG

 

[shadowsource]

The question:

is whether or not another Soviet leader could have rallied the USSR and defeated the Germans. Czar Alexander did it in 1812, and he was no genius. The last successful invasion of Russia was by the tatars (against whom Stalin exacted a terrible revenge) back in, I think, the 13th Century. Stalin was clearly a very capable man, and he had moments of genius. Drawing the line at Stalingrad was very risky, but letting the nazis through was also extremely dangerous. The Soviet victory was the beginning of the end for the Wermacht. But did he draw the line because the city was named after HIM? That's the kind of leader he was. No one really knows.

 

[Thumper]

To win, a defender needs only to survive.

Hitler's megalomania and his insanity led to Germany's thrashing in Russia. The Soviet army merely had to resist enough to let the brutal winter do it's worst.

Hitler reached too far..he didn't have the logistical support to fight a two front war.

Stalin was not a socialist...he was a dictator. A ruthless one.

Nothing good can ever be said about him.

Sort of like Marge Schott saying Hitler started out good.

 

[shadowsource]

But STG -

Rummel (author of "Death by government") states: "Stalin, by far, leads the list. He ordered the deat of millions, knowingly set in train evens leading to the death of millions of others, and as the ultimate dictator, was responsible for the death of still millions more killed by his henchman."

By that standard, Nixon & Johnson should be on the list (setting in motion countless deaths in SE Asia, many still occurring via Chemical Warfare). When we look back at colonialism, we can find some real numbers, too (Queen Victoria and her ministers?). And where do they get the stats on Tito? He wasn't a mass murderer, so far as I've heard. A smart prick with 27 palaces, and a system that didn't fare so well after he died, sure.

 

[lavender]

 

[Mischka]

Shadowsource

Wrong analogy, shadowsource. These leaders killed their own people. Nixon & Johnson don't fit. If the list included leaders that killed others, then every leader of every country would be named.

 

[Siren]

Wow, Stalin a great leader? Defeated Hitler? So WRONG

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Re: But STG -

By that standard, Nixon & Johnson should be on the list (setting in motion countless deaths in SE Asia, many still occurring via Chemical Warfare). When we look back at colonialism, we can find some real numbers, too (Queen Victoria and her ministers?).

The standard did not include people killed during military actions, but rather what was defined as murder in the book. Which included taking people and putting them into the Soviet Gulag system. By putting into motion, I believe Rummel was referring to actions that resulted (intentionally) in the starvation and death by exposure of millions of people.

And where do they get the stats on Tito? He wasn't a mass murderer, so far as I've heard. A smart prick with 27 palaces, and a system that didn't fare so well after he died, sure.

Do the research - - much of this info is out there on the web. Tito, with the support of the British and the US who helped put him in power, murdered anybody he suspected to be to be an enemy or who would cause a problem or whom he had a grudge against. At Bleiburg alone he killed hundreds of thousands.

As for the stats - read the book; it is well documented and researched. Nor does it pretend to say that other's hands are clean, the list was just of the top MegaMurderers of this century - and my point was that Stalin was at the top of the list - not to say that our hands are clean.

I can understand people questioning this, as the western education system has done little to educate them as to the facts - but the numbers and research are fairly well documented. In the case of regimes the western governments supported, these facts were supressed because it was politically embarassing and would cost them support.

In the case of socialism vs. facism, we have heard a lot about facists, but little about totalitarian socialists regimes; how many people knew that Stalin murdered twice as many people as Hitler? Or until relatively recently (last few decades) that Stalin murdered anybody at all?

Why the supression of the facts? Could it be that it was embarassing to some in the education and political system who leaned towards socialism themselves? Or because they turned a blind eye/deaf ear?

STG

 

[shadowsource]

hey!

If you look at my posts, I said Stalin was a phenomenal scumbag, didn't I? I hadn't seen any such numbers on Tito - they're very impressive. Stealthy little creep, wasn't he? I still contend that Johnson & Nixon racked up big numbers, but I can see that the list isn't mindlessly ideological or anything - our old friend Chiang is right up there. Nice century we just left.

I don't know about others, but it's been clear since the 60s that vast numbers died in Stalinist USSR and in Mao's China. I have a broadly circulated college history textbook from the '60s that broadly covers Stalin's oppression of the landed peasantry. People in the West tend to care more - and know more - about Hitler's activities because it impacted them rather directly.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Re: hey!

I can see that the list isn't mindlessly ideological or anything - our old friend Chiang is right up there.

The book does cover Native American massacres and others by western governments, but the conclusion of the book is that liberty equates to less violence while absolute power equates to more violence.

The book is quite scholarly with a lot of references and good research. It is one in a series of books on the subject by the author, including "China's Bloody Century", "Democide, Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder", and "Lethal Politics, Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917".

STG

 

[christo]

The comedian Eddie Izzard has a good line about Stalin. It goes something like, Hitler killed other people, so he's a monster. Stalin killed his own people, and, well, we're sort of FINE with that. Kill your own people (who, after all, we've been trying to kill ourselves) and it's kinda OK.

Stalin was a monster. He killed his enemies, his closest friends, his own family. He used starvation to kill millions in the Ukraine, set up a police state that turned the citzenry into a rabble that fought to inform on each other, and established the gulag, into which millions disappeared, never to be seen again.

He was also a genius, at manipulating people, at exploiting weakness, at knowing when to destroy people who should have known to fear him.

If you think Stalin was a nice socialist who got a bad rap, read Edvard Radzinski's biography of him, which is outstanding and interesting to read. Or Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". Heartbreaking stuff.

 

[Laurel]

The comedian Eddie Izzard has a good line about Stalin. It goes something like, Hitler killed other people, so he's a monster. Stalin killed his own people, and, well, we're sort of FINE with that. Kill your own people (who, after all, we've been trying to kill ourselves) and it's kinda OK.

I love Eddie Izzard. That guy's so damn funny.

I love Solzhenitsyn too. My favorite book of his is one of his less political (though it has political themes) - "Cancer Ward". An engrossing read, and still valid today!

What was the question again?

 

[Laurel]

How about Great Leader in Genocide?

 

[Siren]

How about calling him the Gulag King?

 

[Unclebill]

Re: Wow, Stalin a great leader? Defeated Hitler? So WRONG

Originally posted by Siren
...Stalin was behind the murder of Lenin, so that he could take over and then bastardize Communism into his own political mechanism for absolute power...

But that's the entire point of Communism (or any variant of collectivism); the absolute power of the state. Why quibble over the petty issue of who wields the power of life and death over the others, it's the principles on which the whole political system is devised: the absolute authority of government to dispose of the lives and property of its citizens.

Stalin (and the others noted) merely exercised one of the fundamental collectivist tenets, the end justifies the means. That it costs a few thousand or a few million human lives is a small price to pay for Utopia, don't you think? And what does it matter that this Utopia means the people have to live in terror and constant fear for their lives? A small price, don't you agree?

 

[Juspar Emvan]

Does on proclude the other? Is that 'good' as in benign, or as in succesful? You can hardly deny he was succesful?

 

[Siren]

Uncle Billy.................

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Re: Uncle Billy.................

Oh pluh leassssssssssssse.......


I cant even respond to that.

hahaha...

But thanks for the laugh.

Why not try? I would be interested in hearing just what you found so comedic in his post.

Saying, "ha ha, it is to laugh" is hardly a retort worthy of intelligent debate.

STG

 

[Siren]

For you STG, I will respond-even tho I stopped long ago with UB

 

[Unclebill]

Re: For you STG, I will respond-even tho I stopped long ago with UB

Originally posted by Siren
First paragraph....communism is not about power over the peoples lives and disposing of property. It is about carrying for your fellow man, in the theory of communism. A collective unit, where no one is without because everyone has an equal share.

Everyone has an "equal" share because those who produce more have their livelihood confiscated for the benefit of those who produce less. The implicit declaration is that no one has a right to the product of their efforts, i. e., the product of their life. The logical implication of this is that no one is the owner of his own life, rather that his life is the legitimate property of the collective. Thus the life of anyone in the collective is then to be legitimately disposed of as seen fit by the collective.

Since the collective is an abstract entity and consequently cannot think, decide or act, it then falls to the individual or committee that makes decisions for the collective to choose the actions proper to the establishment and survival of the collective.

Originally posted by Siren
Second paragraph...... The loss of lives were not under communism but were under Stalin and his paranoid, psychotic dictatorship.

Au contraire, Stalin was the individual who made the decisions for the collective. Thus his power to do as he deemed appropriate for whatever his reasons was legitimate in terms of the collectivist ideology.

Originally posted by Siren
Communism was not meant to be a Utopia, but a theory wherein the Motherland, the whole takes care of all. And the millions lost were when Communism was bastardized into a police state of terrorism that squashed the very spirit of its people.

I won't argue that but when I went to school, it was addressed as a Utopian ideology, the ultimate in equality where everyone shared equally in the products of society, the adage was: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. So we have a difference of opinion here based in teaching and experience.

However, I do clearly understand that it is hardly Utopian because of the nature of the atrocities it embraces as permissible under the premise of the superiority of the value of the collective over the value of any individual human being.

The difference between the government founded by the first Americans as stipulated in the Constitution was different from any variant of collectivism because it acknowledged the innate rights of the human being as an individual.

Originally posted by Siren
The Russians did live in fear and terror, and they were unhappy and miserable. Not from Communism, but from Stalin and the other Dictators that replaced Stalin.

But Communism (collectivism) legitimized Stalin's (and his successors') actions as the leader of the collective.

Originally posted by Siren
A small price? No it was a huge price. It costs the Russians, family lives, freedoms, culture, religious freedom and art..... It cost the Russians their spirit.

Ah, but you see it is a small price in the collectivist terms because the collective is the superior value. There is no recognition of the rights of an individual, hence no acknowledgement of that value of the individual human beyond his value to the collective.

That's the price of collectivism; the disposability of human life and human achievement if it portends a potential threat to the collective. Remember, the collective is the prime value. Individual men are merely the fuel (means) to perpetuate it. They have no rights. They have no entitlement to what they earn or produce. They have no right to their lives nor to exist for the purpose of their own achievement or enjoyment. Their purpose is to perpetuate and enhance the collective. There is no other purpose they serve.

The ultimate end is survival and advancement of the collective and the end justifies the means. Therefore, Stalin's actions were completely justified under the collectivist premise.

Originally posted by Siren
Stalin was a monster. It was Stalin that did this. NOT Communism ......communism was the tool.

Agreed. But the tool legitimized his actions because of the tenets it embraces.

Originally posted by Siren
Communism is a political system like any other. But it is a failed system.....it is not the enemy....the ones that use it and control it to stay in power are the enemy.

Not like any other. Like every other in history except that of the United States of America. No other government in history has acknowledged the innate rights of the individual and defined the idea that government was the protector of those rights. And collectivism is the enemy if you value freedom. But if you advocate and endorse collectivism, you can't value freedom since they are diametrically opposed value systems.

The truth as evidenced by the historical success of America is the collectivism is a system of society which demoralizes and demotivates men. It dissuades superlative achievement by punishing it. This is the purpose of the graduated income tax system and the inheritance tax which is a common tenet of collectivist ideologies.

Why do you think it is that virtually every great technological advance has come from America? Is it that there are no geniuses anywhere else in the world? That would be an extremely arrogant presumption. If that's not the case, then what is? What is the difference between America and other nations as far as societal organization and government?

No other society in history has succeeded in the manner of America. The reason is that this is the one place where individual rights and freedoms were acknowledged and championed. The Constitution was constructed very carefully to limit the power of government by men who understood that a government with excessive power would become abusive and more detrimental to society that any criminal could ever dream.

And it is because of what I stated above that those who wish to be the ones who make the decision for the collectives they wish to establish can and will NEVER tell the truth about what they offer which is slavery. If they truthfully stated what their goals are, they would be run out of town on a rail in most places.

Thus they must couch their goals in noble-sounding lies in order to get the gullible or lazy to join their gang and assist them in plundering the wealth of those who produce the greatest wealth in society. And the Democratic Party leadership is growing very adept at the systematic lying and propaganda which is blatantly obvious to anyone who is willing to objectively assess what they offer in terms of the principles involved to implement their goals.

And trust me, those who wish to institute collectivism are only interested in doing so because they picture themselves as those to make the decisions. They are to be in charge. And once they are, they no longer need your support. If you become a threat to the collective, you are expendable as demonstrated by Stalin and numerous others.

And this is fundamentally the difference between the philosophy of a free society and a collectivist society.

And, if as you offer, collectivism is a failed system, why do you and so many others advocate trying it yet once more and this time on the only nation on earth where freedom has some meaning other than rhetoric? If you have a failed light bulb, do you continually try to turn it on and get light from it? The intellect of either pursuit is equally valid.