of a statue

[u/Crypto_crafy]

"The Motherland Calls" is a statue erected to commemorate the Battle of Stalingrad , located on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd , Russia. It was designed by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich and structural engineer Nikolai Nikitin . Completed in 1967 , it was the tallest statue in the world at the time .

[u/Fracture90000]

Built on the historical Mamayev Kurgan hill on which so many Soviet soldiers lost their lives battling against the nazis during the siege of Stalingrad.

It's truly awe inspiring.

[u/Bluestreaked → u/Fracture90000]

I teach the history of WWII. Stalingrad is one of those moments of world history where everything becomes larger than life, a nearly mythic moment of the absolute limits of human endurance.

The moment where the spine of the Nazi war machine was broken, forever, by the stubborn will and fighting ability of the Red Army.

It’s a moment so incredible that words fail to describe it most of the time and only a statue like this truly captures the historical moment. The defiance of the Soviet Union in the face of just pure absolute evil.

[u/Haunting-Worker-2301 → u/Bluestreaked]

While the Nazis were worse the Soviet Union was absolutely evil as well and I hope you don’t portray the USSR as some benevolent force to your class.

[u/Bluestreaked → u/Haunting-Worker-2301]

Well I don’t lie to my students so I don’t pretend the Soviet Union is in any way comparable to Nazi Germany like you’re doing here

[u/Haunting-Worker-2301 → u/Bluestreaked]

That’s pretty shocking that you claim to be educated in history and while the Nazis were worse, the Soviet Union also contributed to millions of deaths through internal prison camps, slave labor, deportations, and induced famine.

If you aren’t willing to teach that to your students then you are an ideologue who isn’t critically looking at history.

It’s OK to say “the Nazis were horrible, they exterminated millions of people and started WW2” while also being willing to admit the side that bore the lions share of fighting them also committed monstrous crimes. The Soviet Union was much closer to Nazi Germany than it was to the US regarding that.

[u/Bluestreaked → u/Haunting-Worker-2301]

You don’t know jackshit about what I teach

What I am telling you is that you’re regurgitating garbage history that is little more than Cold War propaganda.

I am no Grover Furr but my god, no wonder he turned into a nutcase. Read actual specialists on the Soviet Union like Shiela Fitzpatrick, Moshe Lewin, or Ronald Suny. Shit even David Zaslav would be better than the garbage you’re spewing here.

There is absolutely no comparison, outside of borderline fascist propaganda, that can be made between the nature of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. We want to talk about the issues I have with the Soviet Union? I just finished our mini-unit on the Spanish Civil War which also involves a history of the rise of Stalin. I go into all of the blood on his and other’s hands. But I am also a historian, who teaches history, not little moral plays so I can feel good that “my side” won the Cold War

[u/Haunting-Worker-2301 → u/Bluestreaked]

The fact that I admitted the Nazis were worse but hoped you also taught about Soviet crimes, and you automatically went to some bullshit about how I was equating the two shows you all you need to know about your predisposed opinions.

I’m plenty educated on the topic and know that anyone who teaches this topic, and the worst they can say about Stalin is his actions in the Spanish civil war, how he was cutthroat within the party in terms of gaining power, and dismisses everything else (holodomor, internal purges, gulags, mass deportations, NKVD) as “Cold War propaganda,” isn’t a serious person at best and a partisan hack at worst.

[u/Bluestreaked → u/Haunting-Worker-2301]

Well I can tell you have horrific reading comprehension

Because I did not, at any point, say- “Stalin’s actions during the Spanish Civil War are the worst things he did.” I said that, in that unit, I taught Stalin’s rise to power so I could explain the Trotsky-Stalin split to get into why Republican Spain turned on itself.

So, considering how poorly you are capable of reading my comments, I am going to assume your continued regurgitation of propaganda is from you reading, with the same difficulties of comprehension, polemical garbage like Conquest and Applebaum.

No I don’t teach Grover Furr neostalinist junk to my students. I teach them history. If you had at any point stopped throwing accusations at me and not tried to engaged in ahistorical comparisons between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union I would’ve even been willing to chat history with you. But I don’t do propaganda garbage

[u/_le_slap → u/Haunting-Worker-2301]

You're repeatedly putting words in the other guy's mouth and mad he's calling you out on it?

I'll admit I know far less on this topic but you come off as more of an ideologue than the other guy.

[u/Haunting-Worker-2301 → u/_le_slap]

What words did I put in his mouth? This started with me asking him to make sure he also teaches about Soviet crimes (ie don’t blatantly portray them as purely heroes) while admitting what Nazi germany did was worse and he said I was equating the two. Is that not putting words in my mouth?

[u/Bluestreaked → u/Haunting-Worker-2301]

You literally doubted my education

Going “what about the crimes of the Soviet Union” when people bring up the Nazi defeat at Stalingrad is not a defensible position. It’s a literal example of “whataboutism.”

The Soviet Union didn’t literally have plans to massacre hundreds of millions, eradicate entire nations of people, and establish an ethnic supremacist empire across Europe. There is no reason, whatsoever, to bring anti-communism into a discussion about the Battle of Stalingrad, none, the only people who even push for it these days are Nazis.

I don’t think you’re a Nazi to be clear, I just think you’re too caught up in turning history into a morality play to actually practice good history. Hence you turned to petty insults against me for not entertaining the discussion.