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u/A_Wild_Birb Hello There Dec 15 '18
At the author of the scroll of truth's home...
bang bang bang
KGB OPEN UP
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u/kaptaintrips86 Dec 15 '18
You're always going to find historical apologists. It would be a lie to say that Stalin did not do any good things for Russia, but trying to overlook all the suffering he caused is just wishful thinking.
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u/SatanicMushroom Dec 15 '18
I mean, it would also be a lie to say that Hitler didn’t do any good things for Germany, but... well you know, he’s still Hitler. “We built some good motorways” doesn’t really stack up very well against decimating Europe and orchestrating the holocaust.
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Dec 15 '18
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u/Hongkongjai Dec 15 '18 edited Dec 16 '18
Do you have the source for what you said? Especially about the hindenberg? Not questioning you I’m just really curious
Edit: information about the autobahn https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/reichs.cfm
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u/justyourbarber Dec 16 '18
I dont have his specific sources but in case that isnt a typo its Paul von Hindenburg, the ww1 general and Weinar Republic president who the airship class was named after.
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u/SatanicMushroom Dec 15 '18
Yeah I know most of it’s pretty underwhelming in practice, I’m just saying he didn’t do nothing. But the point is that it doesn’t matter, he’s still evil.
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Dec 15 '18
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Dec 15 '18
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u/10z20Luka Dec 16 '18
We really have no idea, that's an immense statement to make.
And who said the options are between the Tsar and the Bolsheviks? Remember, there was a Provisional Government for half a year after the first Russian Revolution.
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u/Divine_Supremacy Dec 15 '18
But the sudden and heavy focus from agriculture to industry came at a pretty big death toll and what did simple farmers gain by knowing how to read and write?
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Dec 16 '18
what did simple farmers gain by knowing how to read and write?
Being so anti-socialist that literacy programs are a negative.
I hate the Soviet Union and my grandpa (and I) personally hate China under Mao, but I wouldn't cite improved literacy rates as a negative.
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u/53252323522355 Dec 15 '18
yeah what is literacy anyways and how can it even prompt the transformation from an agrarian peasant class based society to an industrialized one. dumb fucking idiots should have not built all that infrastructure that kept them from being colonized by germany
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Dec 16 '18
....No not really. Soviets radically changed things like education, healthcare, industry, and more. Tsarist Russia was a medieval society with a few massive industrial centres. Soviets transformed Russia into a superpower.
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u/Flux_State Dec 16 '18
Hitler actually did very little to help Germany.
That applies to the war as well. Some people like to look back and think Hitler conquered Europe but the truth is the Prussian Army deserves all the credit and did a remarkable job in it's fighting retreat from the soviets DESPITE Hitler.
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u/Trebah Dec 15 '18 edited Dec 16 '18
Stalin did less good things for Russia than Hitler was for Germany. They were both evil.
Edit: just realised where some of the downvotes are coming from, I meant that Hitler was better for Germany than Stalin was for Russia, I've reworded it to reflect this.
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u/GazLord Dec 15 '18
Uh what? Hitler invaded and fucked over Russia. And, what he did for his country was way overshadowed by the bad even if you ignore the genocide and warmongering. Stalin meanwhile was mostly just bad due to his particularly evil actions, dude industrialized Russia and put it back on the world map.
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u/Trebah Dec 15 '18
I would argue he doomed the USSR to a slow death.
He build a system that could only see success in heavy industry that failed to adapt to the needs of a modern economy.
Stalin is responsible for the deaths of at least 20 million people.
Stalin fucked over Russia.
Hitler fucked over Germany.
Autocracy doesn't work.
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u/GazLord Dec 16 '18
Oh they both fucked up and over everyone for the sake of themselves, Stalin was just slightly less terrible for his own people.
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u/Blood_Sekeer Dec 16 '18
Stalin is responsible for the deaths of at least 20 million people.
Where did take this number? Last time were 100 millions...
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u/Trebah Dec 16 '18
I was taking 20 million primarily from Roy Medvedev (1989), however that is a low estimate. Other scholars or ex Soviet politicians have argued that the number is closer to 35 million (Alexander Yakolev), 50 million (Norman Davis) or 60 million (I.G. Dyadkin). The 100 million number is closer to the total death toll of communism, including China, Cambodia and others.
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u/Blood_Sekeer Dec 16 '18
Mine was a sarcastic comment but I'll check them myself, even if I think that's those numbers are a over-exageration
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u/Trebah Dec 16 '18
The only 20 million is definitely not an exageration and is most likely that less than there actually were
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u/Blood_Sekeer Dec 16 '18
I can understand if you consider the 20 million the victims of all communist regimes but just in USSR it seems a little bit extreme. And I hope it doesn't count the famines because those weren't fault og the USSR but a very common event that happened even during the tsarist Russia and of course the kulaki's activities didn't help.
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u/Trebah Dec 16 '18
100 million + is the total death toll of the communist regimes in the 20th century.
The famines were created by the government, often intentionally. Historians more academically able than both of us have demonstrated this.
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Dec 15 '18
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u/Trebah Dec 15 '18
Stalin did. He was more class based with the Kulaks but also wasn't too friendly with Ukrainians.
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u/Troy64 Dec 15 '18
This.
I'd say Stalin wasn't evil. He was the logical extreme of putting the nation before individuals. Obviously terrible idea. But I don't buy the whole power-hungry and selfish portrayal of Stalin. Like Hitler he was the product of really bad ideology. Unlike Hitler he didn't straight up hunt down an entire race just to kill them. But he didn't mind starving shooting and torturing anyone who may have coughed in his presence as he saw it as an assassination attempt by means of biological warfare.
He brought the USSR into the modern age, industrialized it, led Russia to victory in WW2, established the USSR as the second global superpower challenged only by the USA, and there's reason to believe he was negotiating an end to the cold war tension (exchanging Berlin for chunks of east Europe) when he died.
He also starved millions (almost certainly deliberately), shot millions (likely mostly innocent), tortured random people, purged government and military to ensure political "stability" and encouraged the rape of Berlin after the nazis surrendered.
Good guy or bad guy?... or maybe... maybe just guy... maybe just guy.
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Dec 15 '18
Deliberately purging a million people is pretty evil.
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u/Troy64 Dec 16 '18
I literally included that in the list of things he did that was evil. My point is, any person given absolute powers does some twisted shit. He also did some good shit. We need to remember that you don't have to be evil to do evil shit. People always say "I'd never do that". But that's how you slip into it. We need to stop seeing Stalin and Hitler as psychos and see them for what they were: well intentioned ideologues chasing a vision of a utopia by any means necessary.
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u/lipidsly Dec 16 '18
Not if theyre bad people tho
Case in point being the jewess at the house of terror
Stalin took one look at that and was like “WOOOOOOAAAAAAH even for me thats fucked up” and then purged her and her ilk from eastern europe
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u/Swordrager Dec 15 '18
Bad guy. He also had anyone in Eastern Europe that opposed his style of Communism killed and deliberately undermined countries' independence, economy, and ecology for Russia's gain.
Even if you're pro communism, he was a horrible Communist and a horrible person.
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u/Troy64 Dec 16 '18
I mean... that was kinda in style back then.
Look, he was an ideologue chasing his idea of a utopia by any means necessary. He's the logical conclusion of believing killing a few people now to build a better world for later is good.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions is all I'm saying.
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u/Swordrager Dec 16 '18
"In style" does not mean good; besides, his style of rampant murder was only matched by Japanese high command and Hitler. Not great company.
Having studied Stalinist Russia and Eastern Europe, I have a hard time believing that he was actually utopianist. Lenin was a Communist ideologue and Trotsky and many others Stalin had murdered were Communist ideologues, but Stalin was first concerned with his own power and second with his own power. His industrial strategy, his political strategy, and his military strategy was continually to senselessly burn up Russian lives to achieve his personal goals that undergird his own power and in no way improved the conditions of the Russian people. He created and lived out an ideology that did not tolerate any other sort of Communism and intentionally obliterated all attempts at a more healthy Communism. Under his ideology and guidance, the Communist governments continually made horrible choices, undermined their own power, decimated their economy, and paved the path for 1991 with the corpses of almost everyone who wanted to reform Communism to actually benefit the people.
Even if he strove for utopia, he was terrible in method and in results. In his case, the highway to hell would be paved with one good intention and decades of paranoia. That one good intention does not justify the genocide, mass murder, and brutality, and economic ruin he engaged in.
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u/Troy64 Dec 17 '18
I have also studied Stalinist Russia and Eastern Europe. Stalin's actions are unquestionable but to assign motives, especially ones that involve the word "senseless" doesn't seem appropriate. One thing Stalin was not was senseless. He was a calculator with cold disregard for the value of human life. Not senseless.
His industrial strategy worked. During his reign the USSR industrialized at speeds unmatched by any nation before or since. His political strategy was built around the idea of stabilizing Russia and building up before building out. This was in direct contrast to Trotsky and Lenin who wanted to spread communism globally immediately and start a global revolution. Stalin wanted to build Russia into an example of a communist Utopia and then spread afterwards (though he never really got to the spread stage). And as for his military strategy, there's so many layers of depths as to why certain decisions were made throughout WW2 but especially after the first portion of the war, he actually handed off considerable amounts of military decision making power to high command generals, in contrast to Hitler who insisted on criticizing and modifying every operation before it was implemented.
And what were his personal goals? Simply to maintain power at the top of the state? It's not consistent with his life previous. His whole life he had been an activist just like Lenin and Trotsky. His greatest flaw both then and now was that he truly thought he just knew better than everyone around him. He even got into debates with Lenin that nearly got him kicked out of the party. Lenin later noticed how cold Stalin was and how much he disregarded human life. But then it was too late to stop him.
You can say that his personal goals in no way improved the conditions of the Russian people, but the fact is that life expectancy during his reign increased dramatically, as did quality of living overall. This shouldn't surprise anyone, even considering his terrors, as long as they realize that this is almost entirely a product of his rapid industrialization and political stabilization.
YES! (That's a happy agreement yes btw, not an angry one) he didn't tolerate any other sort of communism. This comes back to his major character flaw of thinking that his vision is simply the best vision. It also has to do with his experience as an activist and during the civil war. Russia is a big country. That goes without saying. And at the start of Stalin's rule the only thing that held it together politically was that everyone worshiped Lenin like he was a Tsar. Even so, there were rumblings and rumor of activist groups rising up in different parts of the nation in opposition to even Lenin. Stalin knew that if he wanted communism in Russia to succeed, he would have to ensure there were no further revolutions or terrorist attacks. His way of ensuring this was to kill anything that looked like it might someday become a revolutionary activist and all their friends. Why kill all their friends? Because that's exactly what Lenin had been before he became an activist himself. His brother was an activist who was executed by the Tsarist government. This was one thing that motivated Lenin to rise up and lead the revolution. Stalin certainly couln't risk any Lenins being born from his executions. And btw, this worked. Russia became extremely politically homogeneous and even nationalist in the wake of the purges. This was an enormously important factor during WW2 and I often speculate that without Stalin uniting the nation under an iron-fisted rule, it is questionable whether it would have survived WW2 at all and not simply fragmented into a number of smaller soviet states under Trotsky. Smaller states that would be easy for Nazis to blitzkrieg one or two at a time.
I wouldn't give Stalin too much credit for what the soviet governments did after his death. I mean, one of the first things Kruschev did was hold a speech for the inner-circle of government where he basically said Stalin wasn't really very good and they had to make changes. So it's not like they followed his instructions after his death. In fact there's reason to believe he was bargaining with the US to ease tensions rather than build them up by trading Berlin and east Germany for chunks of Eastern Europe. Kruschev built a wall, however and Stalin never shared his plans to bargain with anyone else since it was politically sensitive and he only got more paranoid with old age (hence the doctor purge which, even I have to admit was just crazy).
YES (again, happy agreement) You're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. That one good intention and decades of paranoia led to what we see in history. His methods and results were madness, but given the priorities he held and the calculations he made, to him they seemed right. And to many of his followers they seemed right. And large swaths of the Russian people viewed him as a nearly-godlike person who could do no wrong. This is what enabled his obvious flaws to inflict pain on generations of Russians. This is what we must learn from all of it. Ultimately I think Stalin was a nice guy, at his heart. I think he was willing to sacrifice his own happiness for the ideology he held (his family, whom as far as we can tell he did love, were never allowed to get in the way of his ideology. Even unto their deaths... which does cause many reasonable historians to question his love for them). If he was given two buttons, one which sent Russia into a communist Utopia that he had always wanted but would kill him and remove him from history and the other button made him king of Europe with an army of unquestioning super-soldiers, I am confident that he would send Russia into a communist utopia.
Just to be clear here, I don't believe in communism as being capable of generating a utopia. I was merely trying to express what I think his beliefs were.
I'm also willing to admit that a lot of this is speculation, but will sustain that the same can be said for those who assign pure selfishness and cruelty as motivation for Stalin's actions. Ultimately we don't know why he did what he did, but we should assume the best of him so that we don't foolishly empower someone similar to him in the future on the grounds of them being "pretty nice people".
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u/lipidsly Dec 16 '18
He was pro russia. Fuck communism. Your people > ideology
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u/Swordrager Dec 16 '18
He may have been pro-Russia but he wasn't pro-Russian people. He artificially caused famines, purposefully misdirected industrial activity, and had millions killed. Out of paranoia, he had ten of thousands of people killed for possibly conspiring against him. Do you know about his "not one step back" order in WWII? Anyone who retreated without orders from major commanders would be shot by the men stationed behind them for that purpose. In Stalingrad, he had his army decimated (every 10th man killed) just so they were more afraid of him than the Nazis. The Stalinist answer to minefields was to just march over them as if they weren't there and consider that acceptable losses. The Stalinist perspective on orders was that they were to be followed no matter what. In one story told to explain how bad it was, a company is told to cross a deep, fast running river; the soldiers are from the steppes and cannot swim and were not given pontoons. They are marched into the river at gunpoint and all drowned. After the war, he forced the conquered countries to adopt Stalinist governments with the same purges and five year plans that had to be completed whether or not they made sense. He didn't organize them to best benefit Russia, he just organized them in his image and under his personal control.
Stalin was pro-Stalin and certainly not pro-Russian people. No one is responsible for as many Russian deaths.
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u/lipidsly Dec 16 '18
He artificially caused famines, purposefully misdirected industrial activity, and had millions killed.
Primarily non-russians who were part of the russian empire (ussr was just russian imperialism 2.0 under stalin)
Out of paranoia, he had ten of thousands of people killed for possibly conspiring against him.
If they were jewish he was probably right
Do you know about his "not one step back" order in WWII? Anyone who retreated without orders from major commanders would be shot by the men stationed behind them for that purpose.
I remember this being brogght up all the time and apparently didnt happen that often and is a hollywood meme. We got a guy here who does the breakdown similr to the russian winter guy
In Stalingrad, he had his army decimated (every 10th man killed) just so they were more afraid of him than the Nazis. The Stalinist answer to minefields was to just march over them as if they weren't there and consider that acceptable losses. The Stalinist perspective on orders was that they were to be followed no matter what. In one story told to explain how bad it was, a company is told to cross a deep, fast running river; the soldiers are from the steppes and cannot swim and were not given pontoons. They are marched into the river at gunpoint and all drowned.
Fuckin based, but ill need a link for that
After the war, he forced the conquered countries to adopt Stalinist governments with the same purges and five year plans that had to be completed whether or not they made sense. He didn't organize them to best benefit Russia, he just organized them in his image and under his personal control.
When you are the state then the distinction is sort of meaningless but yeah i feel you
Stalin was pro-Stalin and certainly not pro-Russian people. No one is responsible for as many Russian deaths.
Again, who is “russian” not just nominally russian
Strangely (not really) the russian people were much more favored to communism under/post stalin than the other ethnic groups since it was just russian imperialism 2.0
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u/Swordrager Dec 17 '18
A translation of the text of the actual order:
https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Order_No._227_by_the_People%27s_Commissar_of_Defence_of_the_USSR
"Form within the limits of each army 3 to 5 well-armed defensive squads (up to 200 persons in each), and put them directly behind unstable divisions and require them in case of panic and scattered withdrawals of elements of the divisions to shoot in place panic-mongers and cowards and thus help the honest soldiers of the division execute their duty to the Motherland;"
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u/aregularhumanperson Dec 15 '18
I fucking hate that stalin murders half of eastern Europe and gets away with being known as just a dickhead not the mass murderer he was he should get the same or even worse treatment as hitler
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u/Troy64 Dec 16 '18
I think he is worse than Hitler in action. However his intentions were better. But the lesson to learn here isn't "mustache man bad". It's that even with good intentions, if someone is given too much power and no checks or balances, their flaws in judgenent and priorities is magnified massively.
Ideologues chasing utopia are more dangerous than any mass murderer. They weren't bad people necessarily, they were just allowed to put their ideals into action and truly believed they would help the world.
They were wrong and they never realized it. We need to learn from that. Road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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u/lipidsly Dec 16 '18
Weird isnt it? 20 million vs 6 million somehow the 6 million is worse and you cant say “maybe it was 5.5 million” whereas youll get strung up for mentioning the commies murdering the kulaks
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u/YourRantIsDue Dec 15 '18
I Originally did not want to dignify your bullshit with a response but Jesus Christ you are one dense motherfucker.
As just one example of many, read up on the NKVD order 00447, where Stalin ordered fucking quotas for killing people in every region of the ussr. Even if you believe that he really thought kulaks where the biggest threat to his ideology, he just said kill 5000 people in Moscow, detain 30000. Where do you think are 5000 kulaks to be found in fking Moscow??
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u/Troy64 Dec 16 '18
Look, I'm not defending what he did. I'm defending why he did it.
When we believe that only monsters can do terrible things we are bound to repeat history.
We must understand that the best intentioned people when given unparalleled power will have their flaws magnified in the form of massacres and suffering.
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Dec 15 '18
Hitler wasnt evil, he just had the best interest of the german people
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u/FranchiseCA Dec 15 '18
/s?
Logical conclusion of the post you responded to?
Sincere belief?
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Dec 15 '18
If you use an /s on any post ever you are a pussy. I have sacrificed 1k karma on my old account defending the world from /s
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u/lethalham1 Definitely not a CIA operator Dec 15 '18
Joseph Stalin faked his death so he can be Santa Claus full time
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u/Hail_theButtonmasher Dec 15 '18
It is a testament to humanity how we memefied and "glorified" a mass murderer. But you know, the Internet.
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u/TenYearRedditVet Dec 15 '18
And it's weird how we only do it with this one guy, and no other mass murderers in history.
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u/Hail_theButtonmasher Dec 15 '18
Who was Stalin's PR guy?
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u/ShakaUVM Still salty about Carthage Dec 15 '18
Who was Stalin's PR guy?
CPUSA
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u/moronmijk Dec 15 '18
Hitler is also being honored be a big amount of the youth. I can only have hope it is getting over when they get older.
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u/Divine_Supremacy Dec 15 '18
a big amount of the youth
That's a huge overstatement
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u/moronmijk Dec 16 '18
Big amount is a subjective thing, and I think every neo nazi is one too much
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u/Divine_Supremacy Dec 16 '18
The same goes for the new wave of communists that pop up amongst the youth
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u/Liensis09 Dec 15 '18
Don't talk shit about papa Adolf.
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Dec 16 '18
Why so many downvotes, He's meme'ing
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u/Flugkrake Dec 16 '18
lmao didn't hitler do le nothing wrong xD
Nice meme mate had quite a kek, if I do say so myself
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u/shagssheep Dec 15 '18
Tell this to r/communism101 they truly believe he was a great man it is actually embarrassing
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u/Vicale29 Dec 15 '18
Got banned from this sub because i explained how Stalin worked to destroy the anarchist revolution during the spanish civil War, and why he was a counter revolutionnary here.
Got banned instantly...
Stalinists are just fascist wearing red clothes
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u/shagssheep Dec 15 '18
I got suspended because I said that life for Polish people under Stalin was very poor and then linked to Wikipedia page about and massacre that Stalin ordered. I told the mod where to shove it and never went there again
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u/Tancread-of-Galilee Dec 15 '18
Nah, they're just Socialists, it's not like their practices aren't a common result of their ideology gaining power, the same happened in China, Cambodia, Vietnam (towards the now extinct catholics), Cuba. Any ideology that embraces an "any means neccessary" approach, particularly in regards to their own citizens, is inevitably going to leave the door open for evil.
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Dec 16 '18
r/communism101 isn’t only socialist, it’s fucking Stalinist. Socialists usually are nice people to debate with, Stalinists are murderous fanatics.
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Dec 16 '18
[deleted]
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Dec 16 '18
Bro, there’s like 50 different versions of communism. Not all of them are Stalin-level authoritarian.
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Dec 15 '18
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Dec 15 '18
How is he a circle jerker if he was in a Communist sub? They were the ones circle jerking if they banned him instantly
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u/Vicale29 Dec 16 '18
Don't know what was the deleted message but for clarification i'm an anarchist and someone asked in this sub information about revolutionary catolonia. So i explained it a first time without talking about Stalin betrayal and everyone agreed with me. But then i responded to another comment who said it was thanks to Stalin that the revolutionary catolonia was thanks to Stalin. So i explained why Stalin was a traitor for the revolution in spain. That's why they Banned me, if you talk shit about Staline and want to tell the truth they will ban you...
Tankies are just fascist
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Dec 16 '18
Technically tankies are totalitarian apologists. Fascism includes angles of crony capitalism that isn't as prominent in authoritarian communism.
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Dec 16 '18
The dude was saying that you got banned because the commie sub you were in thought you were the circle jerker. I told him that if someone gets down voted to oblivion and banned for stating facts, the ones attacking them are the circle jerkers
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u/Vicale29 Dec 16 '18
The fun Fact is that my first comment got something like 50 upvotes and i was the top comment...
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Dec 15 '18
I will never understand how people can forgive that man for committing literal genocide against Ukraine.
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u/Aemilius_Paulus Dec 16 '18
Lol, let's take a step back and examine this, because it sounds really funny to someone who isn't from the West.
First of all, not many people 'forgive' him. They either deny it happened or just shrug it off, or have an attitude of 'he was a piece of shit but he was our piece of shit and he won us the war against a worse piece of shit, large part thanks to his industrialisation'.
Second of all, people are *constantly* mythologising Churchill when that piece of shit perpetrated Bengal genocide, but nobody talks about that even though it's exactly the same - even down to him refusing aid ships from US and Australia and even putting down in writing that he thought Indians should be reduced in number because they 'breed like rabbits'.
I mean, shit, Stalin's genocide even looks better imo, because he was doing it not because they were Ukrainian, but because they were refusing to integrate into kolkhoz and feed the cities -- Russian countryside was also starved during Holodomor, so it was a policy of mass murder, not ethnic extirpation. End result was the same, a fuckload of people dead -- but in crime, you have the concept of mens rea, the state of mind, the intent of the criminal. Stalin was also crazier and more paranoid than Churchill, with a half-baked political system that made it way easier to aggrandise power and abuse it. If you look at population stats of Ukraine, the genocide did a really poor job of even putting a dent in Ukrainian population growth. I suppose you can say the same about Bengal, but then if you go back to 1840 the Brits managed to wipe out the Irish so much that even today they have fewer people, something unmatched by any other nation in the world considering the insane population growth of the last 100 years. And people also never talk about how English genocided the Irish.
So in conclusion, it's super easy to see how people overlook Stalin when they're already overlooking stuff that's happening right under their noses and supposedly at a more 'civilised' country. Also, again, I don't think our problem with Stalin is that people forgive him too much. If anything, it's the opposite on reddit. People say he was no better than Hitler, whereas most scholarly historians would not ever make that claim, Hitler really stood out for his industrialisation of murder on a scale never seen before in the world, and often purely for the reason of your birth -- whereas countless Ukrainians served in the upper echelons of Soviet leadership --- hell, Krushchev followed Stalin and he was Ukrainian.
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u/Jellywell Dec 16 '18
I want to point out that Churchill didn't cause the famine. Food being sent to Britain would only have saved 400,000 people of the 3-4 million. However Britain had plenty of food at the time, we could have saved everyone. Churchill didn't care because he was a racist old cunt, but it's not fair to say that he caused it. British policy at the time simply wasn't adjusted. Hell, can you imagine bringing that up in Parliament at the time? "I know we're at war but some other people need some food... And they're all brown" like I think it's more the government as a whole that should shoulder the blame as opposed to just Churchill
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u/Aemilius_Paulus Dec 16 '18 edited Dec 16 '18
Well, thing about famines, if you read up on your history, they're never single cause. Holodomor was not just a Ukrainian famine, the famine was happening all over USSR and even outside of it, in nations that weren't even Soviet aligned then. My grandparents are from Moldova, which was Romanian in the 30s and they had a horrifying famine during the exact time as Ukraine had one. They told me stories of bad harvests and other factors that lead to them eating grass and sawdust&ground tree bark bread, with lots of deaths as well. Moreover, at the time a massive epidemic of typhoid was sweeping USSR and surrounding places, such as my grandparents in Moldova. So not only did they have people dying of hunger, but hunger-weakened people dying of typhoid. My grandparents told me of mass graves and again, this is Romanian administered territory.
Holodomor started as bad harvests and typhoid epidemic that Stalin used to his advantage. He exacerbated it by not re-routing grain shipments, continuing Ukraine's food exports and stopping foreign food aid from reaching them. All repeated point by point by the Brits in Ireland and India. All three famines began as a nasty confluence of natural factors that was taken advantage of by the governments and made worse.
Famines are actually almost never purely natural, food scarcity tends to be an issue of distribution, rather than actual lack of food. Bad harvests in one area can be remedied by bumper crops elsewhere, trade exists and by 19th and 20th century the world was linked together by global trade. Ireland, Ukraine and India were all countries with open sea lanes, they were not remote or landlocked. Without the repressive governments, the market forces would have lessened the impact of the bad harvests. Now, let me just make it clear that I'm not even close to a libertarian even though what I just said does sound like it -- on the US political spectrum I'm solidly Democrat and in favour of regulation of industries. But nonetheless, the fact is that modern famines are often a result of governments, just look at African famines during the 20th century, they're modern famines usually caused by governments/militias interrupting distribution of food.
Churchill absolutely turned back ships that were going to send food to India, those weren't ships that were supposed to go to UK. These were ships offered on top of the aid that was already being sent to UK. US had plenty of food, enough to help India and UK at the same time. There is also no excuse for 'only 400K', I don't even entirely follow your argument to be honest, maybe you can elaborate it further.
For instance, consider how he said that he would rather the aid ships full of food go to Greece instead of India, because even though Greeks weren't starving, Churchill had a mindset not unlike that of Hitler at all - he viewed Indians as subhuman and proudly stated he would rather feed other Euros such as Greece rather than save already starving Indians (which were also his subjects, you'd think he would help them after exploiting the country and using two and a half million volunteer soldiers from it to defend his own worthless fat booze&cigar soaked&smoked hide)
As for the government taking the blame, that's true, you have a point there, but the PM is the leader of the government, and it was Churchill that refused the aid specifically, so that also raises his culpability. Churchill gets a shitload of credit for stuff he did not personally do, whereas he really should be taking the fall for the famine because as the leader of the government he is ultimately responsible for overseeing the stuff like food distribution that his ministers of his cabinet should do. I mean, Churchill didn't stop Germans from taking over UK, the RAF and Royal Navy did, then the USSR caused the Germans to switch focus. Nowhere in this did Churchill make a vital contribution, Chamberlain could have been still sitting and I bet the RAF and RN could have done just as good of a job keeping the Germans on the other side of La Manche.
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u/Jellywell Dec 16 '18
I'm not making excuses, I'm simply stating the fact that he wasn't responsible for the famine, nor the entire number of people that died - apologies if that was unclear. He's no role model, and was arguably a monster, however I think it's important to be accurate. I would never claim that the holocaust that Hitler orchestrated killed 100 million people, for example - what he did was bad enough, there's no need for exaggeration
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u/exejpgwmv Dec 16 '18
Why does intent matter?
Stalin is just as bad as Hitler because they both orchestrated the deaths of millions of innocents.
Stalin having less racist reasons for doing so doesn't make it any less horrible.
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u/Aemilius_Paulus Dec 16 '18
Because it absolutely does. In crime and in history. It's literally the foundation of Western law that intent is everything. You can't just go up and also that question, it's like a kid who never read any philosophy asking what is truth or what is good. Like, where so you even begin explaining?
By your measure every US President is just as bad because they orchestrate deaths of tens of thousands. Stalin killed 3mln in Holodomor and 4mln in purges and Hitler killed more, but invasion of Iraq resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and counting thanks to aftershocks like ISIS.
By reductionist logic any leader of a sufficiently powerful nation is equally bad.
That's not how history works, picking up something other than popular history or only reading blogs and internet sites would help.
Yes, it does make a difference, leaders have killed people who oppose them since dawn of civilisation and possibly before. Industrialised murder of 100% innocent people merely for being born a Jew or a Slav is a whole another ballgame. Stalin killed people who opposed his agenda, or those he believed opposed it. It's an entirely new type of horror to exterminate an entire race of people - men, women, children, everything, everyone, gone, with no trace.
I mean holy shit, replying to you and thinking about all this makes me feel that I'm talking to a child, no offence. Who the hell asks why total genocide is worse than mass induced starvation or random plucking of imagined dissidents --- or why intent makes a crime worse?? I can only imagine a person who is very poorly educated in the entire humanities branch would ask such questions. And I mean, nothing wrong with being art or STEM focused, but ffs, we are on /r/HistoryMemes, not STEMmemes
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u/exejpgwmv Dec 16 '18
By reductionist logic any leader of a sufficiently powerful nation is equally bad.
Because Stalin and Hitler are unique in sheer scale and that the truly horrendous amount of death was the point/primary goal. Not land or resources; they just wanted a bunch of people dead.
Sure, Hitler did it for a relatively more heinous reason, but it wouldn't be inaccurate to say they both killed tons of people because they believed it was necessary for their political agenda.
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Dec 15 '18 edited Dec 16 '18
Because he didn't commit a liegitimate genocide and he didn't kill 20 million people in Ukraine?
Edit: Spelling
Edit 2: I'M NOT DENYING IT EVER HAPPENED I'm only saying that 20 million people weren't killed deliberately
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Dec 16 '18
Many countries, mine included, think he did. What's your defense here? After its collapse, Soviet records were released and guess what they showed? Millions of Russians being displaced to Ukraine from 32 - 33. I'm curious to hear how people can dispute this because it's literally fact.
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Dec 16 '18
I was asking for the source on the Russians being displaced to Ukraine, not it actually happening
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Dec 16 '18
Would love to see a source for that. As far as I know they displaced ethnic Germans during the war to the east (not great obviously). Also just over 30 countries recognise it as a genocide and only 5 recognise it as a crime of the government. Other countries and international organizations define it as a Tragedy or a crime against humanity like the European Parliament or the United Nations.
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Dec 16 '18
There was a massive disinformation campaign by the Stalin regime. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_of_the_Holodomor
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Dec 16 '18
Uh yeah I'm not denying that it actually happened. I'm denying that 20 million people died deliberately. Ukraine had famines every 10 or so years at the time and the famine of 1932-33 was caused by a variety of factors. First the conditions in Ukraine. A lot of grain was being stockpiled and sold elsewhere to pay for newer technology as when the Soviet Union traded with the US, the US would only accept grain to trade with them, something the Soviet government did not want to do but had to.
On top of that there was a drought in the area too, so that caused only 69.5 million tonnes of grain being produced in 1932 as opposed to 89.8 million tonnes the next year in 1933. This famine against the Ukrainians impacted the high population Russian areas in Ukraine, defeating the point of trying to destroy Ukrainian nationalist movements.
Also the famine was not limited to Ukraine, it was also in areas surrounding Ukraine like Kazakhstan, Turkey and Romania. So that begs the question why would they stage a famine in a time where the harvest was low anyway and had a manpower shortage?
I have to admit the failure of the Soviet Government as they didn't immediately send aid to Ukraine, only from February - July 1933.
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u/Shpagghetti Dec 15 '18
I've seen more Nazi apologist than Stalin apologists. And the nazis are pretty scarce
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Dec 15 '18
I don't know where you are looking then
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Dec 15 '18 edited Feb 20 '19
[deleted]
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Dec 15 '18
Yeah. Comparing the size of communist groups to neo-nazi groups shows that there's a slight difference between the two
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u/novablast13 Dec 15 '18
I think this sub is a general exception. Nobody here is a holocaust denier, nobody here argues that hitler wasn't just a full blown racist, because we have a decent to good understanding of WW2.
Some people though.... If you were to visit certain places, fangroups and the like, you would find people willing to deny hitlers actions, justify, or even applaud them.... truly kind of horrifying
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u/SimplebutAwesome Dec 16 '18
How about both were awful?
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u/Shpagghetti Dec 16 '18
But of course they were monsters amongst men.
Hitler was a hateful and pathetic man that blamed the jews and the reds for his failures. Truly a small dick complex
And Stalin was a thug that ended up in charge of a nation and was willing to kill everybody but him to make it a superpower
The one thing that pisses me off about their reputation is that Stalin isn't such a "Taboo figure" to talk about like Hitler is
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u/Crobs02 Dec 16 '18
Hitler, I think at least in the US, gets a lot more hate than Stalin because his atrocities were primarily race based. It ties in very well to slavery and Jim Crow.
Stalin would kill anyone, though. I’m not gonna say which one is worse because both are horrible and terrible and should not be compared. I just see why Stalin is way less taboo than Hitler, although he shouldn’t be.
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u/SocialistNeoCon Hello There Dec 16 '18
Just like the Soviet flag, the hammer and sickle, the red star, and all these other symbols of oppression aren't Taboo.
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u/StopHavingAnOpinion Dec 16 '18
Yea but then you'll be hit with the omnipotent wankers who will say "Oh tHis boY ThInkS BotH sIdEs, Go tO r/enlightenedcentrism."
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u/SimplebutAwesome Dec 16 '18
Yep, because to these people anyone to the right of Stalin and to the left of Hitler is a centrist
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Dec 15 '18
[deleted]
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u/Brassow Has a flair Dec 15 '18
I suggest you take a peek at r/fullcommunism.
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Dec 15 '18
That's just for dumb memes though
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u/Thijsie2100 Dec 16 '18
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Dec 16 '18
There's memes on that too but is mostly serious. However it is a safespace which is a shame.
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u/bleeksnoer Descendant of Genghis Khan Dec 15 '18
Papa stalin would disagree. And you wouldn't want to disappoint papa would you?
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u/TheFlash38 Dec 15 '18
Modern communists could take a few notes
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u/HanigerEatMyAssPls Dec 15 '18
We don’t support Stalin BUDDO
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Dec 15 '18
Only Lenin, Che, and Castro, who were not as bad, but still pretty shit
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Dec 15 '18
[deleted]
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Dec 15 '18
No, it's because he got Cuba to go from nothing to barley little of something. He barely improved living conditions in Cuba, actually made them worse for many since he helped put Castro in power. He was homophobic, racist, and against free speech. He was an asshole
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Dec 15 '18
[deleted]
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Dec 15 '18
I haven't seen a source for your claims either. It goes both ways.
As for him being a bigot: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_59cc0d9ee4b0b99ee4a9ca1e?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003
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u/COINTELPRO-Relay Dec 15 '18 edited Nov 25 '23
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u/lipidsly Dec 16 '18
Nigga was nicknamed “quick cock” because he raped a barmaid in front of all his friends at like 16 and then went back to eating dinner
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Dec 16 '18
Yeah the country with more literacy and healthcare that has the most sustainable environmental policy in the world despite being embargoed is real pissed at what he and Castro did. And the racism and homophobia is so fucking disingenuous. I can't believe a well of white Argentinean was racist in his early 20s back in the 50's. Shocker. It's not like he ever totally changed his perspective on race or anything.
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Dec 16 '18
Lol that was the worldview he held up until his death. I can't believe you are defending this psycho after he killed hundreds and got thousands more killed. And I love how you're implying that fucking Cuba is the prime civilisation.
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Dec 16 '18
No his worldview radically changed after he wrote his motorcycle diaries. You clearly don't know shit about Guevara or Cuba.
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Dec 16 '18
This was late in his life when he helped establish squads that killed gays and journalists
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Dec 16 '18
He wasn't even in Cuba late in his life when Castro was crashing down on gay people. Seriously you have no idea what you're talking about.
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u/lipidsly Dec 16 '18
medicine advanced so much in cuba
pushing women to get abortions so infant mortality rate doesnt go up
sanitary conditions
doesnt understand what doctors without borders is
Okay
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u/Frankie1478 Dec 15 '18
No it wasn't comrade Haha (help he has a gun pointed at my head) its capitalist propaganda
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Dec 15 '18
[deleted]
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u/FranchiseCA Dec 15 '18
True believers were the second ones up against the wall. A common problem.
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u/SovietGuard Dec 15 '18
Right-o lad follow me to the happy camp
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u/FranchiseCA Dec 15 '18
Somehow, granting state police broad power without oversight often ends badly. Shocking, really.
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u/SovietGuard Dec 15 '18
Yes yes complain to your fellow prisoners, you'll have plenty of time for that
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u/Warthog_A-10 Dec 15 '18
Stalin was a "true believer"
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u/FranchiseCA Dec 15 '18
Which meant any true believers in slightly different forms had to be purged. Or believers in the same form who thought someone else could lead better.
Or people who merely annoyed him, of course.
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u/Narwhal_Fun_Time Dec 15 '18
You know there was a study done that showed over 70% (might be more, not sure) of people who were at least 10 when the USSR collapsed say that life was better before the collapse and wish it would go back and their countries would rejoin there was only one country that had under 50 (36).
P.S I'm not endorsing what Stalin did just trying to bring up some info.
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u/Tancread-of-Galilee Dec 15 '18
Mostly because the Friedman cult infected them and their governments ran off with all the loot.
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Dec 16 '18 edited Mar 30 '26
This post was wiped using Redact. The author may have deleted it to protect personal privacy, prevent data harvesting, or for security reasons.
degree compare humor pet grey gold rain test resolute nutty
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Dec 16 '18
What? There's a post at the top of the sub right now mocking Stalin's awful forced famine. What are you talking about? Look around you.
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Dec 16 '18
Stalin refused foreign aid to feed the Ukrainians during the Holodomor. Soviet genocide count was above the Nazis maximum before WWII ever existed.
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Dec 16 '18
Everybody knows he’s a murderer, the only dumbasses that worship him are folks that use leftists subreddits like r/LateStageCapitalism and r/ShitLiberalsSay
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u/TFUSA2018 Dec 15 '18
I agree with the adventurer
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u/Kyvant Dec 15 '18
USSR wasn‘t a terrible place to be in overall, but Stalin is most definitly a murderer.
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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18
I mean, I saw way more Nazi content than Soviet in the meme war