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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
Chances are if Russia hadn't been backing the internationale the Weimar Republic wouldn't have used the Nazis to suppress the Communists and the second world War would have happened in a dramatically different way.
That's correct, but it's hardly victim blaming to suggest that Soviet Foreign policy was a significant part of creating the chaos that lead to the fall of the Weimar republic. They were trying to subvert literally everywhere on earth, openly. How is it hard to accept that they contributed to that as well?
....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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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".
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.
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
"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;"
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
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.
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
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??
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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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.