Was Comrade Stalin evil?

[Crimean]

This reminds me why I was against the Neocon belief that you can 'bring democracy' to the ME even though this is about Russia. There has to be a cultural foundation for individual rights and civil liberties that have been painfully earned over centuries through socio-ecomomic changes. It's not something you can force on people. You can't take people who will kill each other over religious differences or that are only 150 years removed from serfdom and expect them to disregard centuries of being ruled by heavy handed 'strongmen.' They will revert to what has been the norm for centuries under times of stress: a master.

Egghead, tell how the Japanese and South Koreans formed democratic institutions and a society of civil liberties for centuries.
And most importantly, where do these your "freedoms" lead society?
Why in those places where developed forms of capitalism and many civil "freedoms", then society is gradually replaced by "uncivilized" nations, and the indigenous population consists mostly of incels and whores? Why is the concept of unemployment present, and is it considered normal? Why are people afraid of being fired and not paying their bills? Why are they afraid of having children (more than one or at all)?
Why did all the same things happen in Russia when it became a “democratic” country, and before that everything was fine? Stalin knew all about your filthy "democracy" and gave his life, protecting our country from you.

[Colonel Frank Grimes]

Egghead, tell how the Japanese and South Koreans formed democratic institutions and a society of civil liberties for centuries.

South Korean and Japanese cultures are based around respect for others in their society. Respect for others is at the core of democratic institutions and civil liberties. Neither nation you referenced has a reputation for government corruption for that reason, unlike your own, which is not only a product of the Communist era but even before. They have cultural values that are well suited and allowed for an easy transition.

And most importantly, where do these your "freedoms" lead society?

To human prosperity. If you haven't noticed we're communicating in English, not Russian. Why is the average Russian's living standard a sad shadow of that of an American or a Brit or a Frenchmen whether it's 2019 or 1950 or 1920?

Why in those places where developed forms of capitalism and many civil "freedoms", then society is gradually replaced by "uncivilized" nations, and the indigenous population consists mostly of incels and whores?

People from less civilized nations naturally flee their crappy nations for better nations. What did you just prove other than people leave shitty places for places that aren't shitty? What a great argument you have: "Ha! People from crappy nations want to live in successful nations! Ha!" That's is basically your 'argument.'

As for so called whores and incels: I don't care what people decide to do with their lives as long as they don't step on the rights of others and by that I don't mean offend my sensibilities. I understand this is a foreign concept to someone like you. You want a master to force their will on others (with the assumption that your interests and that of your master will be the same). You also exaggerate because what you know revolves around the internet. Incel is internet culture and as for 'whores' where are they? This current generation coming of age (Generation Z) is far less likely to sleep around, take drugs, or be violent than the previous generation (in the US... your people very well may be a different story).

It's also a bit odd to place so called incels and whores in the same sentence. Which is the problem? Women sleeping around or men not getting laid?

Why is the concept of unemployment present, and is it considered normal? Why are people afraid of being fired and not paying their bills? Why are they afraid of having children (more than one or at all)?

Unemployment is a normal facet of life. I've been unemployed before. You know what happened? I got another job! The kind of world where there is complete job security is the type of world where the government rewards failure and success the same. That leads to crappy nations.

People are 'afraid' of having children because taxes are too high. If you knew anything besides your borderline 3rd World nation you would know that in the 1940s to mid 60s the birth rate in the US had risen. Taxes weren't devastating people's incomes in that era but that began to slowly change in the mid 60s onwards. These taxes are taken to pay for social programs that do not work and government jobs that are not necessary (but are voting blocks) that were began under the Johnson administration. The less money you retain, then naturally the less comfortable you are in having more children unless you care not for their standard of living.

Why did all the same things happen in Russia when it became a “democratic” country, and before that everything was fine? Stalin knew all about your filthy "democracy" and gave his life, protecting our country from you.

Your issues is part of your own cultural problems. Why aren't many nations that were once part of the Soviet Union or had been a satellite state having the same issues as your own in much of Eastern Europe? Poland is making great economic strides. Lithuanians are doing swell. The Hungarians are doing great. Latvians are doing just peachy. Why are Russians the ones with the serious problems? 150 years since serfom is not a long time. The Poles, Hungarians, etc. didn't have that in their recent history. They're - as I said - doing just fine. I don't hear of Polish or Hungarian strippers or hookers. Russian strippers and hookers is a different matter. You're basically just off the plantation and naturally like children who no longer have their parents watching over them constantly the moment they have a taste of freedom they run wild. The parents (an analogy for your your masters) didn't teach their children that with freedom comes responsibility. For others - like you - desire a master to return everyone back to the plantation to make yourself feel more comfortable.

[Colonel Frank Grimes]

The Russian people have made their choice. Only Stalin can save the Russian people from the vile Ronald McDonald.

[Sarmatian]

Too complicated for you to delve into?

Famines happened in Russia since late 19th century every 4-5 years. It was exactly the consequence of economic formation of the time, the issue that was only successfully resolved by Communist government. Why the famine of 1930's (the last one out of all that happened) is being specifically targeted? Because it happened under Communist government when they were trying to contain it. They failed, poor management decisions contributed to famine severity. But as it stands now it's almost impossible to tell how many victims were there.

The biggest complication of Holodomor is lack of credible sources. All the millions of starved to death are literally speculations, no researcher has ever found evidence for that.

Nor there was any evidence found to support claim it was intentionally orchestrated to target Ukrainians. Contrary, the most severe famine has happened on territory of Russia and Kazakhstan.

Even more fascinating fact is they have memorials of that very same famine in Western Ukraine. They had one too. Ironically they were part of Poland at the time and there was no way Soviet authorities could've had any effect on that one. Still they were hit pretty hard so they still remember. Must be because the main contributing factor was natural.

Dishonest. Everyone has prisons, but not everyone sends hundreds of thousands to millions of people to prison for thoughtcrime.

Before accusing anyone of dishonesty you have to support your claim of "hundreds of thousands to millions ... for thoughtcrime". Just to be clear on numbers: the number of people in prisons and camps of USSR was less than there is today in US prisons both absolute and percentage wise.

The Russian State Duma admitted culpability in 2010.

They have their political reasons for that. As I said before there is no uniform opinion about Soviet period in Russia, many still believe all the rubbish started from Khrushchev.

Still digging into investigation revealed some questions that have no answer. Some material evidence presented by Germans themselves suggest this could not have been done by Soviets. So to many investigators the topic remains open regardless of what politicians say.

you're so dishonest it's almost not funny.

Seriously that's first time I ever heard about these graves. But from what materials I can find the topic is controversial. Some investigations pointed on NKVD, others on Nazis. I have not enough material to make my own judgement. And I don't care enough to dig for more.

Enlighten us then, O Wise One - the Purge was 'very real' but it's also a 'lie' to say Stalin decimated his officer corps?

It was power struggle between few groups. In political sphere there was Stalin, Trotsky and Bukharin. Then there was growing influence of NKVD and army corps. Everyone had their own ideas of how new state should function.

In 1935 Stalin's team proposed new constitution according to which the Communist party should distance itself from economic sector and focus on education, culture and perform supervisory role. Kind of what it does in China now. Economy should be run by elected councils (soviet literally means elected council in Russian). Party's functioners hated the idea, by the time they had solid grip on economy and wouldn't want to let it go. So they (local Communist bosses) started mass repressions against population in attempt to exploit tensions remaining since Civil war with goal to shatter Stalin's popularity and destroy his power group. That peaked in 1936-37 and resulted in many innocent people being imprisoned and executed. At the same time NKVD leaders developing enormous influence.

In response to that in 1937 Stalin started repressions against NKVD first and replaced its entire top command with people loyal to himself. New NKVD leadership started reviews of all cases from two previous years. Over 800,000 cases were proven wrong, all accused were released, including those already imprisoned. That's how we got all the stories of prominent scientists and engineers sentenced first and released later. That struggle continued all the way until WWII.

As result party bosses who participated in fabrication of cases were prosecuted and many sentenced to death. It was literally civil war between power groups with many innocents caught in the middle.

Roughly at the same time military coup was conceived by group of top officers with Tukhachevsky in charge. There are many speculations around this one but there is evidence the coup development was real. The army officer corps was divided on new military doctrine. Some suggest Tukhachevsky was proposing immediate surrender shall war with Germany break out. I don't know how much of it is true but army needed new command anyway. Old officers with strategies of WWI and Civil war had proven to be worse than useless in WWII, they wasted a lot of time and resources.

That's very short summary. The whole story is big enough for a few books.

Absolutely genius. We can now confirm the British Empire invaded approximately no places, despite using soldiers to destroy armed enemy formations, because there were no formal states in the territories now known as Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and most of Africa.

Correct me if I'm wrong but from my understanding of English the terms invasion and colonial conquest aren't exactly same thing. I've never heard of colonial acquisitions being described as invasions.

For everyone else: Sarmatian's lies here may be based on the fact that the USSR did not declare war on Poland before invading it. However, this does not constitute a lack of recognition of the Polish state, which certainly existed as an independent entity for some weeks after the invasion. There have been many wars fought without a declaration of war by either side - for example, the Falklands War, but both sides there would contest there was at least one invasion in that conflict, and maybe two. Another war with no declaration of war was the Korean War, which claimed over 2 million lives. I don't think Sarmatian would pretend in either case that there was no invasion just to be able to use weasel words to deny blame for [x] because his precious USSR wasn't a [major] player in either (although they did lose some men in Korea).

I understand it's hard for some to comprehend these little legal nuances. It has nothing to do with declaration of war but with the fact the Polish state existed for just over two weeks after German invasion. After that it was no more so USSR didn't invaded Poland as state, it invaded some disputed territories formerly belonging to now non-existent Polish state.

If you can't understand it doesn't mean it's a lie. It's rather your lack of comprehension.

'Everyone who tried, failed.' Lulz @ you for describing anyone else as 'brainwashed.'

In Russia alone there were few real attempts to criminalize Stalin and his period. Teams of historians spent years working on it. None had gathered enough evidence to pass through proper legal trial. Thus so far all accusations against Stalin are no more than personal beliefs. That includes fiction books like "Gulag Archipelago".

[Longbowman]

Before accusing anyone of dishonesty you have to support your claim of "hundreds of thousands to millions ... for thoughtcrime". Just to be clear on numbers: the number of people in prisons and camps of USSR was less than there is today in US prisons both absolute and percentage wise.

I refuse to believe that anyone who is as well-read as you claim to be on this subject hasn't encountered the numbers I gave, and I refuse to humour your ridiculous insistence that I cite everything I say, when you won't cite your ridiculous minority opinion. The analogy to the US is extremely dishonest and a logical fallacy (tu quoque) because you both incorrectly assume I have no criticisms of the US prison system and that the two were comparable in terms of brutality, arbitrariness and fatality rates.

They have their political reasons for that. As I said before there is no uniform opinion about Soviet period in Russia, many still believe all the rubbish started from Khrushchev.

'Everyone else is wrong and I am right and no matter how many documents they release, they're all lies.' As someone once said, it's easier to fool a man than convince him he's been fooled. Be wary when you accuse people of being brainwashed.

Still digging into investigation revealed some questions that have no answer. Some material evidence presented by Germans themselves suggest this could not have been done by Soviets. So to many investigators the topic remains open regardless of what politicians say.

Again, feel free to provide sources for your vague and unsubstantiated critiques.

Seriously that's first time I ever heard about these graves. But from what materials I can find the topic is controversial. Some investigations pointed on NKVD, others on Nazis. I have not enough material to make my own judgement. And I don't care enough to dig for more.

A tellingly dishonest statement.

It was power struggle between few groups. In political sphere there was Stalin, Trotsky and Bukharin. Then there was growing influence of NKVD and army corps. Everyone had their own ideas of how new state should function.

Trotsky was exiled by the time purges. Bukharin caught a bullet during them on Stalin's orders. You really need to stop being this dishonest. It's unconvincing and it should be clear to you you're making no converts amongst the TA population.

In 1935 Stalin's team proposed new constitution according to which the Communist party should distance itself from economic sector and focus on education, culture and perform supervisory role. Kind of what it does in China now. Economy should be run by elected councils (soviet literally means elected council in Russian). Party's functioners hated the idea, by the time they had solid grip on economy and wouldn't want to let it go. So they (local Communist bosses) started mass repressions against population in attempt to exploit tensions remaining since Civil war with goal to shatter Stalin's popularity and destroy his power group. That peaked in 1936-37 and resulted in many innocent people being imprisoned and executed. At the same time NKVD leaders developing enormous influence.

In response to that in 1937 Stalin started repressions against NKVD first and replaced its entire top command with people loyal to himself. New NKVD leadership started reviews of all cases from two previous years. Over 800,000 cases were proven wrong, all accused were released, including those already imprisoned. That's how we got all the stories of prominent scientists and engineers sentenced first and released later. That struggle continued all the way until WWII.

^a mixture of admitting a huge number of innocents were killed but exculpating the authoritarian despot of the country in which it happened, and pretending that 'all innocents were released' when Stalin regained control (???). Effectively, you're a denialist - a joke.

You're manufacturing or propagating a conspiracy theory aimed at defending your idol because you're emotionally invested in him. Nothing more.

As result party bosses who participated in fabrication of cases were prosecuted and many sentenced to death. It was literally civil war between power groups with many innocents caught in the middle.

Roughly at the same time military coup was conceived by group of top officers with Tukhachevsky in charge. There are many speculations around this one but there is evidence the coup development was real. The army officer corps was divided on new military doctrine. Some suggest Tukhachevsky was proposing immediate surrender shall war with Germany break out. I don't know how much of it is true but army needed new command anyway. Old officers with strategies of WWI and Civil war had proven to be worse than useless in WWII, they wasted a lot of time and resources.

That's very short summary. The whole story is big enough for a few books.

I'm bored. You're boring, and I have fallen into a trap. I don't debate with holocaust denialists for the same reason - you have demonstrated an extreme lack of impartiality, overt emotional investment, and critically, a lack of reasoning abilities. There is no point in continuing with you. You come up with repeated nonsense, either specious or clearly ridiculous with the sole goal of defending Stalin and it's genuinely pathetic. I pity you.

Correct me if I'm wrong but from my understanding of English the terms invasion and colonial conquest aren't exactly same thing. I've never heard of colonial acquisitions being described as invasions.

You are 100% wrong and it's not even believable that you've never heard colonial invasions described as such. However, there is still a difference, because the colonial invasions usually weren't as direct as the Soviets sending troops to attack Polish troops in 1939. They mostly started as 'acquisitions' before military expansionism developed them further (for example on the Eastern Seaboard). However, in 2019, they are mostly described as invasions - particularly the ones that actually were. It is also dishonest to compare the fully-functioning Polish state to the unstructured pseudo-polities that western nations colonised. More lies from you.

I understand it's hard for some to comprehend these little legal nuances. It has nothing to do with declaration of war but with the fact the Polish state existed for just over two weeks after German invasion. After that it was no more so USSR didn't invaded Poland as state, it invaded some disputed territories formerly belonging to now non-existent Polish state.

This is a lie. And a distinction without a difference, particularly considering the inhabitants defended themselves with organised military resistance. You also ignore (deny?) the fact that this was all pre-ordained between the Soviets and Krauts.

If you can't understand it doesn't mean it's a lie. It's rather your lack of comprehension.

Don't insult me like this ever again, you lying little shit.

In Russia alone there were few real attempts to criminalize Stalin and his period. Teams of historians spent years working on it. None had gathered enough evidence to pass through proper legal trial. Thus so far all accusations against Stalin are no more than personal beliefs. That includes fiction books like "Gulag Archipelago".

I won't respond again seriously to your posts, except to mock you. You are undeserving of it. Perhaps it was foolish of me to respond to a post calling me a liar without any development of your argument, and therefore, I deserved to suffer through your muddled, denialist, boringly unintelligent horseshit, but the mistake is now made, and will not be repeated.

TL;DR: fuck off, retard, I'm not entertaining your apologist delusions anymore.

[Sarmatian]

TL;DR: You disgust me.

That was quite intense. Who is being emotionally invested here?

You asked a few very complicated questions each deserving a separate topic. I've given you answers as short as seems reasonable to me. If my answers don't match your personal ideas does that makes them lies?

Anyway since you refusing to respond I won't bother answering to your rant. Have a nice day.

[Longbowman]

That was quite intense. Who is being emotionally invested here?

Not really. There are many thousands of things you could say that would illicit disgust would me being emotionally invested, such as 'I think it's OK to rape babies' or 'I support Manchester City.' We could be discussing something none of us really care about, like the Rwandan Genocide, and, as some people on this forum doubtless would say, you might say 'such a good thing, 900,000 fewer blacks in the world.' Which would disgust me, but, I still wouldn't care hugely about the Rwandan Genocide, I would just find your mindset unappealing.

You asked a few very complicated questions each deserving a separate topic. I've given you answers as short as seems reasonable to me. If my answers don't match your personal ideas does that makes them lies?

More dishonesty (and an almost criminal lack of self-awareness, again, particularly considering your OP on this thread, but also your style of response throughough) from Sarmatian. This isn't even a convincingly specious spin on my response to your diatribes.

Anyway since you refusing to respond I won't bother answering to your rant.

Good.

Have a nice day.

You too

[The Lawspeaker]

Evil distilled to its purest essence. In most evil dictators there are still, at least some, mitigating circumstances (either in the outside situation or in some of the policies they enacted) but not so for Joseph Stalin.

Allow me to quote the man himself:

"One death is a tragedy, a million deaths - a mere statistic".

[Slavic Italian]

Interesting interview of Stalin's bodyguard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bcmGnygysU

[Chelubey]

Neither nation you referenced has a reputation for government corruption for that reason, unlike your own, which is not only a product of the Communist era but even before.

It's true. Tsarist Russia was a totalitarian police state, probably no less brutal than the communist government.
There are memoirs of German officers of ww1: they were shocked by the fact that the Russians do not keep statistics on military deaths.
Until now, the estimate of military losses ranges from 780 thousand soldiers to 1.3 million soldiers. Western estimates - 1.7 million soldiers.
This also applies to the ww2: the Stalinist estimate is 8 million people (civilians and soldiers). Khrushchev data - 20 million people. Modern data - 38 million people died because of the factors of war (more than 10 million - direct military losses).
Therefore, there is no official data on the number of people who died of starvation. These statistics just did not keep.
I consider the indirect maximum numbers are closest to the truth.
I think that even anti-communistic historians do not represent the scale of the famine.
For example, hunger in the Volga region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia...921%E2%80%9322
It is believed that the famine was in 1921-1922. Russian Wikipedia states that certain cases of deaths of starvation were recorded in the summer of 1923.
But my distant relative (being a small child) died of starvation in early 1925.