One, for Stalin was actually a great guy with possibly a few minor blemishes.
or
Two, Stalin was seriously flawed but did what was necessary for the time and place.
or
Three, Stalin was a major league meany but he was good with dogs and killing Nazis.
or
Four, Stalin was a true human monster who did irreparable harm to mother Russia and the reputation of communism worldwide.

Only one vote per member allowed and no votes counted from anyone joining after this point. (to spare us the albiet slim possibility of being freaped...again) (and please remember this about Stalin only, not the Soviet Union, jes to keep it simpler)

I'll start it off by going against my usual middle leanings instincts for a change and say four; he was a history sized disaster, somewhat better than Hitler and somewhat worse than Bush.

[ 21 August 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]

Imagine that 25 international armies and mercenaries invaded North America during the U.S. civil war or 1812.

Imagine that it was the Russians had propped up a madman to wage war of annihilation against capitalism. Imagine 30 million Americans and Canadians dead after WWII and a severe manpower shortage leading up to cold war.

[ 21 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

[ 21 August 2007: Message edited by: Slider ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Just change a few words and the same could be said to minimize Hitler's crimes against humanity.

---

quote:

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Yes, had Stalin ordered the Red Army to march into Germany and declare Europe the new living space for Russians, I could definitely see it from that point of view.

---

Because I think you're talking about the period after the war of annihilation against Soviet communism, aided and abetted by European and American industrialists and Prescott Bush's banking cabal. IOW's, you mean the post-war period when the line of defence was moved west by the same layer of E. European countries previously occupied by the Nazis, and after 27 to 40 million Russians lay dead, and an estimated 50, 000, 000 to 83, 000, 000 people were dead or missing across Europe and Asia. And it was all due to yet another crisis of capitalism.

Socialism or barbarism. And it seems Prescott Bush's grandson has already chosen.

[ 21 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

He gathered a bunch of Finnish communists and set up a Finnish state in exile, after the winter war begun.
The puppet republic was started in Soviet Karelia, on the border. Then it was scrapped when the peace was signed.

At any rate, most people dont know,that in June 1941, Finland allied with Hitler and invaded USSR.
Finnish airbases and troop movemnts made the brutal German blockade of Leningrad much easier to launch and maintain.
By August 1941, Germans and the Finns were already on the outskirts of the city.

Finland has signed an armistice with Russia in Sept.1944. The relations between the two states, even under Stalins' rule, were surprisingly warm since then.

quote:

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I won't be passing the data onto CSIS till late in the week anyhow.

---

quote:

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At any rate, most people dont know,that in June 1941, Finland allied with Hitler and invaded USSR.
Finnish airbases and troop movemnts made the brutal German blockade of Leningrad much easier to launch and maintain.
By August 1941, Germans and the Finns were already on the outskirts of the city.

---

Stalin's atrocities simply can not be overlooked. The purges, the Holodomer, ethnic displacements, agressive imperialist expansionism, reliance on the military industrial complex. Its simply way, way, WAYYY too much to be justified by economic or scientific advances or even by defeating the Nazis in WWII.

I wouldn't even classify him as an anti-Nazi hero. Stalin conspired with the Nazis to divide eastern Europe under the Molotov-Ribbentrop act. He didn't attack Nazi Germany, he didn't even prepare his army against Nazi Germany, until Hitler broke the pact in 1942.

quote:

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Four, Stalin was a true human monster who did irreparable harm to mother Russia and the reputation of communism* worldwide.

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I should note that I never try to defend communism. I'm not a communist... or socialist. I actually should be alot more pissed off at anyone who answered 1 or 2.

[ 21 August 2007: Message edited by: West Coast Greeny ]

quote:

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Originally posted by West Coast Greeny:
Its simply way, way, WAYYY too much to be justified by economic or scientific advances or even by defeating the Nazis in WWII.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by EriKtheHalfaRed:
Three, Stalin was a major league meany but he was good with dogs and killing Nazis.

[ 21 August 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
In 1939, Soviet troops invaded poor little neutral Finland and bombed Helsinki.

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Okay, Stalin didn't bomb Guernica, Spain, either. That was the luftwaffe.

Stalin sent trucks, a few tanks and military advisors to aid the fight against Franco. This was in spite of Stalin's paranoia about war in Europe and probable attack on Russia(the sequel).

General Motors Corporation, Edsel, and Ford sent 12, 000 vehicles to Franco's soldiers, whom of which were losing the battle against the Republican freedom fighters up to that point. Hitler and Mussolini donated several thousand vehicles to General Franco's fascist cause as well.

Chamberlain and Mackenzie King made it illegal for Brits and Canadians to travel to Spain and fight fascism.

And African-Americans gained notoriety as military leaders for the first time fighting fascism in Spain.

Stalin didn't give squawking oratories about how Jews and Bolsheviks were ruining his beloved homeland.

Stalin didn't send V2 rockets to rain down on London. Stalin didn't wage blitzkrieg on Britain for a year.

Tens of thousands of ordinary people in the west chose to join the socialists in Spain and Eastern Europe and Balkans in their fight against fascism and not sit around apologizing for Hitler and fascist axis powers. My father and uncles jumped at the chance to fight fascism and regretted it later. But the choice to go overseas and see the world was easy at a time when capitalism was flat on its ass at home, and a time when young Canadians couldn't get a job or even a drink anywhere.

And Stalin finally got his second front after western leaders realized the Russians could liberate Europe by themselves. The line of defence might not have crept so far west if the western armies had been there to help liberate Kracow and Warsaw and Vilnius and Belgrade and Kiev and Kursk and the final offensive at Berlin.

[ 21 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

[ 21 August 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Stalin was weird.

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More than likely.

quote:

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Originally posted by RosaL:

From what I have read about Stalin, he wasn't good with dogs.

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You're probably right.

quote:

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In retrospect, should the U.K., Canada and the U.S. not have joined with the Soviets in an Alliance against Hitler?

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I'd still say yes they should've joined. But you don't need to know that.

After all this thread is so serious, and not at all hyperbolic, and surely Stockholm and Fidel are real people and not at all characters, let's use a scale of evil to answer that question. The good old baby-eating scale.

Hitler ate babies, while they were still alive. Keep in mind his eating the babies killed them. Stalin had the babies worked to death on a collective farm, he then ate them, once they were dead. Which is worse? (Subjective - argue to your hearts content.) Does it matter which is worse? (Subjective - again argue to your hearts content.) Do either examples excuse the other? (The answer to that one is nooooo.)

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Vansterdam Kid ]

quote:

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Originally posted by BetterRed:
At any rate, most people dont know,that in June 1941, Finland allied with Hitler and invaded USSR.

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quote:

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Originally posted by marzo:

Why would anybody defend Stalin? In this part of the world, such people are rare.
I think that for these old-school Bolshevik types, the admiration for Stalin has something to do with an infatuation with 'tough guys', bullies, an infatuation with omnipotent 'father figures' and a toxic machismo dressed in political ideology.

---

I suppose you'd call me an old-school Bolshevik type. I don't admire Stalin and I don't know anyone else who admires Stalin. Us old-school Bolsheviks are acutely aware of the atrocities committed by Stalin. But we'd like some historical accuracy and balance in the portrayal nonetheless, not only in talking about Stalin but in discussing other atrocities in history. And we get tired of being told that we admire Stalin, would do what Stalin did, are Stalinists, by people who never listen to what we say in reply.

If I thought you were sincere, I'd answer sincerely. I'd tell you how I think about Stalin, how I think about - and deal emotionally and morally - with the presence of atrocities in my tradition. But I'm not going to expose myself in that way to you.

quote:

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:

Wasn't there some Molotov guy who hung around with some Germans at the time and totally signed some sort of Ribbentrop pact with those dastardly NAZIs?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

There have been chapters of books dedicated to this topic alone.

---

Tell us again about the ear lobes, Fidel.

Seriously, Stalin allied with the NAZIs. If he actually had a care in the world (other than total domination of his people and those he assumed he could terrorize into being his people) then he would've struck out against the NAZIs in the face of adversity or at least maybe...I don't know...something to help the Jewish people from the pogroms that his own people were always on the verge of committing. He is nothing but an opportunist in the historical retrospect. Only an arch-conservative (that is a reactionary Stalinist, and Stalin was nothing but conservative and regressive) could ever even muster the ideological naivette to defend Stalin or his historical character. And those that defend Stalin are the same sort of intellectual fools that would defend Hitler, or Pol Pot, or Metaxas, or Salazar, or Pinochet, or any other number of historical aberrations against humanity.

edit:: oh, and let's not forget his rather imperialistic movements against Poland and other states that he had no business taking over and forcefully dominating. Didn't Hitler do that, too?

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:

Tell us again about the ear lobes, Fidel.

---

Hitler requested that a cameraman be sent to photograph Stalin. Hitler wanted to know if Stalin had Jewish or Aryan earlobes.

Stalin told Molotov to find out whether and how many German divisions were in Switzerland and Romania. This was Molotov-Ribbentrop II, in case you were curious about real history.

Stalin had two choices.

quote:

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:
So, Stalin could've allied with Britain and began a policy of forced containment against the NAZIs?.

---

You forget that it was the Nazis who drove Ford and GM trucks all over Europe, and so did Franco's fascists drive Ford and Edsels all over Spain in years prior.

Why didn't Stalin go into Ukraine and say 'Hey, bros, this whole Jew killing thing. Not cool. Goes against this whole Soviet thing, you know'. Why didn't he stop them, Fidel? Seems reasonable to assume that he didn't have too much of a problem with this. His army was strong enough to go in and starve millions in the course of a year in Ukraine and other regions...it couldn't go in and SAVE people? Sounds a lot like NAZI Germany's policies towards riots when a state enemy was the target.

edit:: the Edsel came out in the 50s.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

Leftist government in Russia then send in the troops to restore the proper class into power. that was the Western response.

Anarchist rule in Ukraine then destroy villages and worker co-ops and assassinate the leadership during a "truce" negotiations. That was the Leninist response.

quote:

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:

Why didn't Stalin go into Ukraine and say 'Hey, bros, this whole Jew killing thing. Not cool. Goes against this whole Soviet thing, you know'. Why didn't he stop them, Fidel? Seems reasonable to assume that he didn't have too much of a problem with this.

---

War historians will tell you that moving a line of defence, as you assume might have been feasible during that period in time, would have been a lesson in weakening Russia's defences during mobilization. It takes manpower and resources - resources the Russians felt they didn't have at the time, hence the Molotov-Ribbetrop pact.

By the same token, Conservative British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and France's Daladier gave Hitler Czechoslovakia with the Munich appeasment. Appeasement was viewed as a valid way of avoiding war with Nazi Germany by all sides involved. In fact, none of the Brits or Americans believed an alliance with Russia against Germany was worthwhile since the widespread devastation of Russia during WWI and civil war in the previous decade.

Churchill and Roosevelt fully expected the Nazis to occupy the Kremlin in about six weeks time after the start of Hitler's operation barbarossa.

quote:

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edit:: the Edsel came out in the 50s.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

---

Edsel Ford was president of Ford Motor Company from 1919 to 1943. Hitler and Mussolini sent about 6, 000 military vehicles to Franco. Edsel Ford and General Motors sent about 12, 000 trucks and jeeps of all shapes and forms to aid the new Generalissimo of Spain. Meanwhile, Liberals in Canada and conservatives in Britain made it illegal for our citizens to travel to Spain and fight fascism.

Corporate America and Hitler

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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You forget that it was the Nazis who drove Ford and GM trucks all over Europe, and so did Franco's fascists drive Ford and Edsels all over Spain in years prior.

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Relevance?

quote:

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And there were pro-Nazi groups in several Eastern European and Balkan countries which rounded up Jews before the Nazis even arrived before marching into Russia. An entire Ukrainian waffen SS division found refuge in Canada after the war.

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Yeah, I can't imagine why anyone from Ukraine would want to fight against Stalin. No idea.

quote:

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:
You said that they were driving 'Edsels'. That was a brand of car released in the 50s.

---

So when do you believe Ford and GM stopped doing business with fascist dictatorships ?. The reason Prescott Bush and his Nazi front bank had their assets seized was because the U.S. finally sent enthusiastic volunteers to fight against Hitler in late 1942. By what I understand, the Wall Street cabal never really respected FDR's demands. Prescott Bush and the Ford's were ardent pro-Nazis and proponents of eugenics for many years afterward.

quote:

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Chamberlain was a fool, as we have seen by the historical record. However,

---

Chamberlain is suspected to have been more than just a fool. He refused to deal with German ambassadors calling for a coup against Hitler while there was still time, while the German military wasn't quite large enough to takeover Europe. Chamberlain referred to the Oster conspirators as "anti-Nazis who aren't to be trusted." Mackenzie King was impressed with Hitler and the Nazis after their meeting. Meanwhile, Tommy Douglas of the CCF came away from Berlin with very different impression of the Nazis.

quote:

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The Soviets weren't active enough in pursuing an anti-NAZI course of action (like, you know, actively fighting the NAZIs)

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And neither were the Ukrainians who voluntarily joined the Ukrainian waffen SS and helped to round up and murder Jews. The Russians lost 27 million soldiers and 19 million civilians fighting the Nazis, more than any other country.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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The Russians lost 27 million soldiers and 19 million civilians fighting the Nazis, more than any other country.

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from Canada admits letting in 2,000 Ukrainian SS troopers

quote:

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One way of getting into postwar Canada "was by showing the SS tattoo," Canadian historian Irving Abella told "60 Minutes" interviewer Mike Wallace. "This proved that you were an anti-Communist."

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An estimated 5, 000, 000 Ukrainians and Jews were unaccounted for and missing in Ukraine between the start of Nazi occupation and liberation by the Soviets. Very many of them were shot or worked to death in slave labour camps.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:
Lets see some numbers on how many languished in the Gulags. We've already seen that millions of Ukrainians starving didn't seem to bother ol' Uncle Joe.

---

It didn't seem to bother Kulaks either who sabotaged what scarce farm tractors were sent from Russia. Kulaks were more than happy to use young children of peasants to labour in their fields. The Kulaks were becoming wealthy while Ukrainian peasants subsisted on a steady diet of potatoes.

quote:

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Littman, who has been researching Nazis in Canada since 1980, said the 14th Volunteer Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, aka the Galicia Division, largely comprised Ukrainians who served with Nazi police battalions and death squads.

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Did they have to murder Jews to get back at Stalin ?

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:
Lets see some numbers on how many languished in the Gulags. We've already seen that millions of Ukrainians starving didn't seem to bother ol' Uncle Joe.

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Since the Soviets destroyed many of the records at the collapse of the empire the true numbers will never be known. Academic estimates put the numbers between 20 to 35 million people with 30 million being the probable number. 8-10 million people died in the system.

quote:

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Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:
In one of the more impressive moves, over a quarter of the population of Leningrad was shipped into the system between 1930 and 1939.

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from wiki:

quote:

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During World War II, Leningrad was surrounded and besieged by the German Wehrmacht from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944, a total of 29 months. By Hitler's order the Wehrmacht constantly shelled and bombed the city and systematically isolated it from any supplies, causing death of more than 1 million civilians in 3 years; 650 thousand died in 1942 alone. The secret instruction from 23 September 1941 said: "the Führer is determined to eliminate the city of Petersburg from the face of earth. There is no reason whatsoever for subsequent existence of this large-scale city after the neutralization of the Soviet Russia."

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Did they have to murder Jews to get back at Stalin ?

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Do you have to defend Stalin to hide your own insecurities with the failure of Communism and the Soviet system?

Of course they didn't. Antisemitism in Ukraine is a long and terrible blight on that land. Your minimization of the terrors that Stalin unleashed on Ukraine are no different than Holocaust denial.

eta:: 'with the failures of Communism and the Soviet system'

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
During World War II, Leningrad was surrounded and besieged by the German Wehrmacht from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944, a total of 29 months. By Hitler's order the Wehrmacht constantly shelled and bombed the city and systematically isolated it from any supplies, causing death of more than 1 million civilians in 3 years; 650 thousand died in 1942 alone. The secret instruction from 23 September 1941 said: "the Führer is determined to eliminate the city of Petersburg from the face of earth. There is no reason whatsoever for subsequent existence of this large-scale city after the neutralization of the Soviet Russia."

---

Why is that relevant to the prewar mass deportations to the gulag?

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: HeywoodFloyd ]

quote:

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Most academics and historians agree with the figures. They estimate the total number killed in WWII at anywhere from 50, 000, 000 to 83, 000, 000. Adent pro-Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers in general tend to dispute the numbers at length.

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I wasn't disputing the figures. I was asking if that was a total, or just those killed by the Nazis versus their own government.

Interesting too that you mention "Holocaust deniers" since you're edging into the same territory with regard to the Ukrainian holomodor.

quote:

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It didn't seem to bother Kulaks either who sabotaged what scarce farm tractors were sent from Russia. Kulaks were more than happy to use young children of peasants to labour in their fields. The Kulaks were becoming wealthy while Ukrainian peasants subsisted on a steady diet of potatoes.

---

Under Stalin, they had less than that.

quote:

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Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:

Why is that relevant to the prewar mass deportations to the gulag?

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: HeywoodFloyd ]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:

Before you interrupted us and attempted to lay siege to our conversation, we were discussing who fought harder against the Nazis, the Red Army or collaborationist Ukrainians and other Eastern European groups who rounded up Jews for extermination before the Nazis even arrived. But you've been very rude before, so it's no surprise.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:

We were? Who is 'we'?

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Well it seems you make a habit of starting conversations you can't finish.

quote:

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The Soviets weren't active enough in pursuing an anti-NAZI course of action (like, you know, actively fighting the NAZIs) and instead attempted to do what the Brits did and appease and satiate Adolf's thirst for conquest

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:

Before you interrupted us and attempted to lay siege to our conversation, we were discussing who fought harder against the Nazis, the Red Army or collaborationist Ukrainians and other Eastern European groups who rounded up Jews for extermination before the Nazis even arrived. But you've been very rude before, so it's no surprise.

---

I was responding to a question that Papal Bull posed.

And you are seriously the last guy in the world who gets to complain about thread derailing. Ever. Even excluding the attempted diversions in this thread.

There's this thread, which is about polls until you poke your head in to blather about something non-related.
http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=9&t=001835

How about the SPP thread. Trundling along nicely until you interject Cuba.
http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=002358

quote:

---

Before you interrupted us and attempted to lay siege to our conversation, we were discussing who fought harder against the Nazis, the Red Army or collaborationist Ukrainians and other Eastern European groups who rounded up Jews for extermination before the Nazis even arrived. But you've been very rude before, so it's no surprise.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:

Why is that relevant to the prewar mass deportations to the gulag?

---

quote:

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And if everyone was in the gulags and work camps making armaments, munitions and feeding supplies to the resistance, then who beat the crap out of the Nazis at Stalingrad, Leningrad and chased them out of Auschwitz and Birkenau ?.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Black Dog:

Ah, I see: sometimes, deathcamps are a-ok.

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quote:

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The Nazis worked people to death at concentration camps all over Europe and Peenemunde. They weren't feeding the help, and it's one of the reasons they lost the war of annihilation against Soviet communism. Check your history.

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I know my history. What I don't know is how the fact that the Soviets were more efficient at exploiting their slave labour than the Nazis is a good thing.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Black Dog ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

And if everyone was in the gulags and work camps making armaments, munitions and feeding supplies to the resistance, then who beat the crap out of the Nazis at Stalingrad, Leningrad and chased them out of Auschwitz and Birkenau ?. It wasn't the allies and sure as hell wasn't a Ukrainian waffen SS unit fleeing the Red Army advance to liberate Eastern Europe.

---

The poor schmucks who hadn't been denounced yet or the ones who had denounced so many people to curry some favour that there weren't any left other than them.

eta

The study to back up my post on the Leningrad population http://tinyurl.com/ynl9yv

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: HeywoodFloyd ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Black Dog:

I know my history. What I don't know is how the fact that the Soviets were more efficient at exploiting their slave labour tahn the Nazis is a good thing.

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So you're saying that the Russians were playing dirty by using forced labour to counter the Nazi's slave labour ?. And the idea that the Russians were more efficient with slave labour is ludicrous. Russia was one of the occupied countries, albeit for a fewer number of years than were Eastern European countries, all of them a general source of slave labour for the corporate-sponsored war machine.

Slave labour was accounted for separately from regular private enterprise in Nazi occupied Europe. Jewish, Bolshevik and other labour was represented by single digit numbers encoded by a key punch card accounting system. Efficiency?. IBM and the Holocaust

The Holocaust and the Bush family fortune

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Eastern European countries, all of them a general source of slave labour for the corporate-sponsored war machine.

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Yeah, the state-sponsored genocide machine just starved them when it was when it was 1932. It doesn't really matter, though. The regime of Stalin was hardly any better than the NAZIs for the people of E. Europe.

He liberated them all the way to serfdom.

eta:: for the sake of comparison.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

So you're saying that the Russians were playing dirty by using forced labour to counter the Nazi's slave labour ?. And the idea that the Russians were more efficient with slave labour is ludicrous. Russia was one of the occupied countries, albeit for a fewer number of years than were Eastern European countries, all of them a general source of slave labour for the corporate-sponsored war machine.

---

The USSR used slave labour and forced labour from it's founding until 1991. I'm pretty sure they weren't at war with the Nazi's the whole time. Of course they had an excuse, which I'm sure you will furnish us with in due time.

Oh. And look at that fidel-esque attemped diversion with the Bush reference. So cute.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: HeywoodFloyd ]

quote:

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So you're saying that the Russians were playing dirty by using forced labour to counter the Nazi's slave labour ?.

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No. I'm saying the Soviet regime was just as monstrous as the Nazis because of its use of slave labour, among other crimes.

quote:

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And the idea that the Russians were more efficient with slave labour is ludicrous

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You just said they were:

quote:

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And if everyone was in the gulags and work camps making armaments, munitions and feeding supplies to the resistance, then who beat the crap out of the Nazis at Stalingrad, Leningrad and chased them out of Auschwitz and Birkenau ?.

---

quote:

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Russia was one of the occupied countries, albeit for a fewer number of years than were Eastern European countries, all of them a general source of slave labour for the corporate-sponsored war machine.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:

Yeah, the state-sponsored genocide machine just starved them.

eta:: for the sake of comparison.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

---

So if the Russians deliberately starved more of the free help than did the Nazis, then why didn't it undermine the war effort to at least the same degree it did for the Nazis who starved and worked millions to death ?.

quote:

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Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:

The USSR used slave labour and forced labour from it's founding until 1991. I'm pretty sure they weren't at war with the Nazi's the whole time

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:
Because the NAZIs weren't starving people who were ideologically driven to support them.

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The Nazis deliberately starved and worked millions to death, and it didn't matter who they were or what they believed in. They were obligated to feed Canadian, British and American POW's. Russian POW's were starved or worked to death, and many Russian civilians were simply extinguished by flamethrowers and bullets.

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

The Nazis deliberately starved and worked millions to death, and it didn't matter who they were or what they believed in.

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Gee. Sounds like the USSR. 1918 - 1960 (officially). 30 million Zeks.

quote:

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Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:
Slave labour and forced labour was an integral part of the GULAG system, which existed until the collapse of the empire in 1991.

---

Yes, and hundreds of thousands of well-educated criminals were released from the gulags in the 90's, as well as American U2 and other pilots shot down over Russia, Korea and Vietnam over the years. The FBI said they'd never dealt with such complex crimes of theft and extortion since Russian mafia began operating in North America and Europe.

American Gulags see "UNICOR"

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Also, had Stalin not sabotauged the antifascist fight in Spain, the Great Patriotic War might well not even have happened. Hitler would likely have fallen if fascism could have been shown to be easily defeatable in battle. 20 million Soviet people and all the victims of the Holocaust would have lived and breathed for decades longer.

But no, couldn't let non-Stalinists beat Franco. Had to be those who followed the Line and nothing else.

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Yes, and millions of well-educated criminals were released from the gulags in the 90's, as well as American U2 and other pilots shot down over Russia, Korea and Vietnam over the years. The FBI said they'd never dealt with such complex crimes of theft and extortion since Russian mafia began operating in North America and Europe.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:

Also, had Stalin not sabotauged the antifascist fight in Spain, the Great Patriotic War might well not even have happened.

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Stalin didn't order Spain off limits to socialists in Canada and Britain wanting to go there and fight fascism.

quote:

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Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:
So everything Stalin did is ok because Ford and GM sold vehicles to the legitimate government of Germany.

Ok.

---

Yes, they were doing business with fascists in Germany who seized power in 1933 with a minority of German voter support, and who then rigged German elections of 1936.

And America's captains of industry sent military vehicles to aid fascists who were in the process of waging war on a legitimate Republican government in Spain at a time when U.S. and Canadian economies were still in recovery mode from the collapse of laissez-faire capitalism in 1929. You lead us into the most interesting sub-thread topics on fascism, Heywood. I don't think you do it on purpose, however.

ETA: Germany has mixed member proportional voting today.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Well someone has to hold the line with an unbiased point of view. The difference is that I can recognize when someone is pushing pro-Hitler or pro-Stalin rhetoric. I think some people in this thread wouldn't recognize the difference.

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Uh...how is the unapologeticaly pro-Stalin position you've adopted in any way "unbiased?"

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Black Dog ]

In both cases, the obvious answer is "evil".

quote:

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It's difficult to carry on an intelligent and unbiased debate about history when threads are strewn with emotionally-charged rhetoric and pro-Nazi points of view. It's embarrassing the amount of pro-Hitler, and pro-fascist nonsense in general still around after all this time has passed.

---

It's funny that you'd say that, given your extensive apologies for slave labour and genocide on this thread would put you right in the company of any fascist sympathizers out there. Yet I challenge you to produce one single example of pro-Nazi rhetoric from this thread. Just one.

You should be deeply embarrassed for acting as an apologist for one of the most vile, murderous tyrants ever to darken the earth. Your views are an insult to the endless millions of Stalin's innocent victims. Shame on you.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Black Dog ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
[QB]
Russian POW's were starved or worked to death

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German POWs on the Russian front were similarly mistreated or just shot.

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Had the Nazis won the war, there is documented evidence from Hitler's diaries and Nurembourg trials that tens of millions of "useless eaters" from Estonia and Lithuania to Serbia and Montenegro would have lost their basic human rights to food and shelter under Nazi rule

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So did useless (to Stalin) eaters in Ukraine. As far as I can tell, each is as bad as the other...except that Stalin's life and legacy went on longer.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Doug ]

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Originally posted by Doug:
German POWs on the Russian front were similarly mistreated or just shot

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And which country did you say German soldiers were situated in when this happened ?. Check your geography for who had marched across which border and were being treated badly as a result. Because I think this could be a large part of the reason the Nazis chose to surrender to the Americans rather than the Red Army.

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So did useless (to Stalin) eaters in Ukraine. As far as I can tell, each is as bad as the other...except that Stalin's life and legacy went on longer

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Stalin died, or was murdered take your pick, in 1953. Nobody knows for sure how many "useless eaters" of a possible Nazi-controlled Europe might have been exterminated. We can be pretty sure that none of European Jewry would have survived. 27 million Red Army soldiers and 19 million civilians were already on the tally sheet by the end of barbarossa.

I'm trying to create a general sense of empathy in this thread for the tens of millions who were victims of fascism, but it doesn't seem to be working. I'll leave you good and decent people to focus on roasting Stalin and historical facts. I shudder to think of the liberties taken so far.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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And which country did you say German soldiers were situated in when this happened ?. Check your geography for who had marched across which border and were being treated badly as a result. Because I think this could be a large part of the reason the Nazis chose to surrender to the Americans rather than the Red Army.

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Nevermind that: look at how the Soviets treated their own people: shipped to the gulags and slave labour camps, forced into "penal battalions" (essentially a death sentence) or murdered outright. Consider the tens of thousands of Russian prisoners "liberated" from the clutches of the Nazis and ask yourself what kind of welcome awaited them when they were returned to the Motherland.

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Stalin died, or was murdered take your pick, in 1953. Nobody knows for sure how many "useless eaters" of a possible Nazi-controlled Europe might have been exterminated. We can be pretty sure that none of European Jewry would have survived. 27 million Red Army soldiers and 19 million civilians were already on the tally sheet by the end of barbarossa.

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But we do know (or at least have a rough idea) how many perished under Stalin's tender mercies in the decades before Barbarossa. It's a tally that gives Hitler a run for his money.

Your creative attempts to bend the space/time continuum in order to tie everything back to the Nazis and thus justify the well-documented record of atrocities comitted by your Uncle Joe would be somewhat amusing if the subject were not so deadly serious.

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I'm trying to create a general sense of empathy in this thread for the tens of millions who were victims of fascism, but it doesn't seem to be working.

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Like fuck you are. You're trying to minimize the crimes of your idol Stalin, crimes that are without a doubt on par with those committed in the name of fascism. That's no different in my book from denying the Holocaust.

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I'll leave you good and decent people to focus on roasting Stalin and historical facts. I shudder to think of the liberties taken so far.

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Originally posted by Black Dog:
Nevermind that: ... Consider the tens of thousands of Russian prisoners "liberated" from the clutches of the Nazis and ask yourself what kind of welcome awaited them when they were returned to the Motherland.

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But I choose not to never mind. What the Nazis did was invade several European countries before marching into Russia and declaring local people the enemy and deliberately murdering tens of millions in a record amount of time.

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And I shudder at the kind of diseased brain that would defend a creature like Stalin for the sake of proppping up his discredited ideology. Slink away.

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Yes, they were doing business with fascists in Germany who seized power in 1933 with a minority of German voter support, and who then rigged German elections of 1936.

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Originally posted by Black Dog:

It's funny that you'd say that, given your extensive apologies for slave labour and genocide on this thread would put you right in the company of any fascist sympathizers out there. Yet I challenge you to produce one single example of pro-Nazi rhetoric from this thread. Just one.

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Originally posted by Vansterdam Kid:
Except you're doing it with HITLER when everyone else is talking about STALIN.

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The second world war was such a large part of Stalin's resume that few serious commentators on Stalin have managed to avoid talking about it. I didn't realize that people here were so sensitive to issues surrounding the Holocaust and Hitler's plans for lebensraum in Russia. It was a very real part of history and filled many biographies of Stalin you understand.

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Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:

I second this motion. I'd like to see you produce one example of pro-Nazi rhetoric in this thread.

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And the neocon hordes love to hang out and egg us on. Don't you, Heywood?

There's no sense being made here nor any reason to continue this.

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Lard Tunderin' Jeezus ]

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:
I think much sense is being made here. Our 'own' aren't Stalinists who seem to revel in the destruction of millions upon millions of people. But, I guess I'm just a neocon or something - not a person who sees the extermination of their people as the act of a genocidal madman being defended.

dear babble, bye.

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The second world war was such a large part of Stalin's resume that few serious commentators on Stalin have managed to avoid talking about it. I didn't realize that people here were so sensitive to issues surrounding the Holocaust and Hitler's plans for lebensraum in Russia. It was a very real part of history and filled many biographies of Stalin you understand.

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A few other noteworthy parts of Stalin's blood soaked C.V. include the holodomor, the purges, the anti-semitic "Doctor's Plot", the gulags etc., most of which have sweet F.A. to do with Nazism, fascism or Prescott fucking Bush. Yet you can't seem to bring yourself to say boo about Stalin's crimes without tacking on some equivocation. No wonder you're an object of scorn.

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But I choose not to never mind. What the Nazis did was invade several European countries before marching into Russia and declaring local people the enemy and deliberately murdering tens of millions in a record amount of time.

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Yet you defend the Soviets who did the exact fucking thing, first in collusion with the fascists and later under the guise of fighting fascism. You're a real piece of ...work.

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We love to eat our own, don't we?

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Originally posted by Lard Tunderin' Jeezus:
Wow.
We love to eat our own, don't we?

And the neocon hordes love to hang out and egg us on. Don't you, Heywood?

There's no sense being made here nor any reason to continue this.

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You've got to be kidding me. This is why babble is so ridiculous half the time, fuck reality if it isn't 'one of our own'. I don't want to consider Fidel "one of our own", I'd much rather cross the floor and agree with Heywood if Heywood is making sense, and Fidel is being embarrassing.

Read this thread on North Korean 'democracy'. He isn't even kidding. It's hilarious.

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Originally posted by Fidel: Hmm, sounds like Homeland Security KGB in the U.S.S.A. I hear they can't even travel to Guantanamo looking for taxpayer funded health care.

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Why?!? [Is that relevant?]

[ 23 August 2007: Message edited by: Vansterdam Kid ]

[ 22 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Stalin was a monster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ47qMosKV4

[ 23 August 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Please stay on topic. I don't hurl insults and personal attack at you, and I would appreciate it if you didn't either.

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Oh, don't take what I said as an insult, because it wasn't an insult. I just think that your views aren't something the left should showcase, and there's a lot of that on this website. It's perfectly fair for me to say that, regardless of whether you like it or not, without having to see it as a personal attack.

But don't worry, I think you're spectacular, and when the Babble v. Free Dominion war comes you'd be Babble's top artful dodger, a solid ideologue and a good tireless rebutter. Good show, and thank you for the hours of entertainment on this and every Cuba (or not even) related thread.

[ 23 August 2007: Message edited by: Vansterdam Kid ]

Nowhere did he claim to be a 'Stalinist', as some have made him out to be. If anyone read his initial response, it might have been taken as "closer to 3 than 4" - and while others stated 3 would be an acceptable answer, it was not to be accepted from Fidel.

Stockholm in particular insisted on repeatedly drawing bad/historically inaccurate parallels with Hitler - which Fidel corrected - which seemed to only draw a greater feeding frenzy. Fidel was clearly forced and goaded into the position of defending Stalin. And he did it admirably, from my POV being both polite and generous, and providing a great deal of historical detail to people would obviously were unlikely to appreciate it.

Fidel might be further 'left' than I, but I for one very much appreciate the viewpoint that he brings here, and his factual honesty and attention to detail. This place would be much the poorer without him.

[ 23 August 2007: Message edited by: Lard Tunderin' Jeezus ]

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Originally posted by Lard Tunderin' Jeezus:

Fidel might be further 'left' than I, but I for one very much appreciate the viewpoint that he brings here, and his factual honesty and attention to detail. This place would be much the poorer without him.

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I fully agree. Furthermore, notwithstanding my respect for Erik, I have no clue why he opened this thread. Prove how politically correct you are by hurling invective at Stalin! Why not a thread on how evil Hitler was and how the Holocaust was a really bad idea - and dumping on anyone who isn't sufficiently passionate about the subject?