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Neil · Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 3:23 pm Post subject:

It is probably not true that Stalin killed more Soviets than Hitler. The generally accepted figure for Soviets killed in the war is between 24 & 30 million not the 6 million quoted. Those assesments of Stalin's killings which make any use of records are lower, sometimes much lower, than that.

The most Nazi country in Europe is certainly Croatia, a country whose territoryial integirty depends on the NATO supported genocide & ethnic cleansing of 600,000 Yugoslavs. The also did much more destruction of war memorials & such than Estonia has ever been accused of. Bosnia & Hercegovina Moslem area & Kosovo could also count but they aren't really states. One could make a case for Germany & Austria too because of their fulsome support of Nazi genocide in Yugoslavia.

_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Rinty · Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 12:55 pm Post subject:

Whether Stalin killed more or not is irrelevant really. We often see figures attributed to Stalin that include everybody killed in every war while he was leader.

The fact is that Stalin had millions of people killed, imprisoned tortured or exiled.

I have been rereading a lot of russian novels recently. Most recently I read solzhenistyens "The First Circle" which includes chapters with Stalin locked in his office with his thoughts.

We can never know whether these are accurate accounts of Stalin as such, but they do accurately reflect, in my opinion, the level of denial from those on the left who refused to believe these things were any more than western propaganda, or that they were justified for the greater good.

In one chapter a prisoner who is still pro-soviet writes a poem about Moses leading the israelites to the pomised land. He attempts to link this to stalin saying that his people moaned and complained but that eventually after 40 years Moses was proved right and that the hardship was worth it.

Another prisoner points out to him that you could walk from Egypt to Canaan in 3 weeks so Moses must have severely misled his people as it took them 40 years to get there!

Neil · Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 3:10 pm Post subject:

Genesis says that when Moses came down from the mountainn with the commandments he found the Israelites worshipping a golden calfso he got his friends & organised ,wiping out 10% of the people. After that they did as he said. Having studied for the priesthood Stain would haveunderstood what a tradition he was following. Clearly shalt not killing doesn't apply to God's anointed.
_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

RFM · Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 11:09 pm Post subject:

To Cicero;
So you say Estonia has never used the death penalty; look up Rein Oruste, executed September 1991. Source Amnesty International. Want more?

So you say Berisovsky lives within the law? Pray tell us all why Russia seeks an extradition order to answer for certain crimes committed in Russia? I guess you and your paymasters would say that is all political propaganda, while anything you say is the pure unvarnished truth. I note that Mr. Lgovoi also accuses Berisovsky, and British Intelligence for complicity in the death of Litvenenko. Ah Yes! More rubbish I assume?

But for anyone who takes the American shilling, objectivity is hardly to be expected.

Cicero · Finding Ma' Way Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 14

RFM- Why don't you grow up?

Estonia could not assert its declared independence until after the August coup. Rein Oruste (Estonian name, BTW not Russian) was killed at a time when the Estonian authorities did not have full control over the country, and certainly not the prison system.

The Restored Estonian Republic does not have the death penalty, has never used the death penalty and has no intention of restoring the death penalty. The fact that Russia chooses to beleive it own delusions is just one of the things that makes the Putinist state dangerous.

As to the American shilling- well no, not really, but if the choice has to be made than yes I am on the side of democracy -and not tyranny- of freedom -and not oppression- and fairness -and not injustice. The West, God knows is not perfect, but the rights and freedoms of liberal democracy far outstrip any other system.

BTW, the 6 million I quoted was the standard estimate of the Jews murdered by the Nazis. The number of people murdered under Stalinism is not exactly known, but it is a multiple of the Nazi death toll (albeit that it lags behind Mao). A scholarly appraisal is in Anne Applebaum's book "Gulag", which should certainly be read by anyone wishing to make an informed contribution to the debate, especially since Putin closed the archives after Anne completed the book. Her view is that the numbers can not be less than about 18 million people. The blank number, however is not as importnat as the extraordinary testimony that the book gives as to what actually happened.

RFM · Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 7:59 pm Post subject:

Now now Cicero, temper ill becomes you, it interferes with your ability to think, I see.

So, the "Singing Revolution" of Estonia, for independence is in 1989; the Estonians declare their "Required Independence" in August 1991, in September, 1991, less than one month later they execute Rein Oruste, and you dance around about how they have never had the death penalty, never executed anyone, etc, etc,. Come on Jack, who do you think you are fooling.

Of course, it becomes clearer when you say you believe that taking the American shilling puts you on the side of democracy and freedom. I guess you, like George W. Bush believe the invasion of Iraq was really to bring the poor devils freedom. But they are too busy counting their dead to buy into that nonsense; I think they know better. Or the innocents out at Guantanamo Bay prison, unless you think one of the attributes of democracy and freedom is guilt until proven innocent, if you can ever get a trial that is. It currently looks like most of them never ever will, but you probably agree with Condoleeza Rice, it is only the birth pangs of democracy. Frightening conception of democracy by any measure. Or if you think democracy has to do with the majority of voters choosing their government, how come George W. is called president when Al Gore got more votes than he did?

Spare us the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth about the dark deeds of Adolph Hitler and Joe Stalin; that was over 50 years ago. Ask the Palestinians about the form of democracy they enjoy in their home country, consider the people who have disappeared in "renditions", ( it seems some of them are not accounted for) or the beneficiaries of western style democracy in Columbia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti, etc.

And BTW, the term "gulag" is an invention of the west, Alexander Solzenitisin being the one who coined it originally; it was never a word in the old USSR. But what's a little mythology when you have a good story to tell and a little mud to throw?

Cicero · Finding Ma' Way Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 14

RFM- GULAG is a Russian Acronym for Central (or Main) Camp Administration.

If you deny it existed or that millions of people died or that millions more were tortured then you are in the same league as a holocaust denier and we have not to much to say to each other.

RFM · Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 4:49 pm Post subject:

To Cicero;
Well whatever your undergraduate and graduate work was, Russian history or languages was not a part of it.

Solzenitsin coined the expression by creating the acronym, Glavnie Upravlenie Lagerie as he admits in his book, The Cancer Ward. Maybe you ought to read it. Prisons were under the jurisdiction of the Ministersvo Vytrenie Del (Ministry of the Interior); the KGB (Kommitet Gosydarsvennie Besopastnosti) had its own system of courts, judges and prisons somewhat along the lines of Hitlers SA and SS, but there was never any central prison administration as Solzenitzen admits. Maybe you ought to try talking to somebody who has actually lived in the old USSR rather than reading fanciful horror stories calculated to titillate and thrill?

Before you run about trying to wrap yourself in the mantle of the Jewish persecution under the National Socialist government of Germany, you ought to reflect that it is people like you who cheapen that very human tragedy trying to equate it to nonsense.

RFM · Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 9:27 pm Post subject:

To Cicero;
I stand corrected, the title of Solzenitsin's book was "The Gulag Archipelago", not the Cancer Ward. However you will note that from his first literary effort, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" which was published in Liternaya Gazetta, no mention anywhere of Gulags. In fact my memory of "Archipelago" still is that Solzenitsin says that it is a term of invention, a fact that to my amazement is utterly ignored. There are certainly enough people still around today who lived in the old USSR who can tell you that the word Gulag was utterly unknown anywhere in the USSR and the first time it was ever heard was when they came west and heard it being used here.

Cicero · Finding Ma' Way Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 14

RFM

So what?

Whatever you call it: Stalinshchina, Gulag, Red Terror: it amounts to the same thing: tens of millions of dead and maimed and tortured.

The Germans apologised- indeed they never seem to stop. The Russians have not even begun to deal with the elephant in their living room- indeed Putin glorifies the carnage- which is why their neighbours and primary victims do not trust them one inch.

Neil · Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:59 pm Post subject:

Firstly to compare Stalin's killings with Hitler's killings of the Jews is obviously not comparing like with like. The correct comparison is all of Hitler's killings (probably up to 40 million) with all of Stalin's. The latter's killings are very much a matter of opinion - the lowest (which includes only deliberate lillings not the famine) is about 2 million. Of course if you include famine deaths you probably have to includefamine deaths in India, malaria deaths after the banning of DDT, pensioner deaths from hypothermia after we stopped building nuclear reactors & any other deaths that can be laid at the door of political incompetence.

By comparing either of the Stalin figures with comparable western figures (including Vietnam) he comes out lookingh not to bad & hitler, of course, looks like what we always thought of him. This has not prevented "de-natzified" Germany deliberately supporting ex-Nazis for the purpose of engaging in genocide against yugoslavia. I don't think Putiin can be accused of anything remotely as fascist, or indeed Nazi, as that.
_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

RFM · Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 5:38 pm Post subject:

To Cicero,

So what you say? For a Ph.D you seem to be a bit dense. In case you missed it let me try again. GULAG is a western word, used by people who have never read Solzenitzen's book. I won't get into the world wide literary reviews his book received; I am getting the solid impression you don't read. The Russian title was Arxipelog Gulag, which means something quite different from what you are arguing.

Nobody is interested in who killed more than someone else, as Rinty tried to tell you that sort of calculus is misplaced and simple minded. If you think someone is going to stand up and applaude your attempts to draw comparisons with the old USSR of the 1920's under Joe Stalin with the present Russian government, I am afraid you have sadly underestimated the people in this forum.

Cicero · Finding Ma' Way Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 14

RFM- None of your increasingly patronising comments alters the truth about what happened under the Soviet Union.

It is entirely possible to trace the problems of modern Russia to the inability to find any kind of closure on what was one of the darkest passages of human history. Almost everyone who lived under Communism has someone close in their family who was taken to the camps. Apart from Auschwitz, the most shocking place in the world of mass murder is probably Magadan, where skulls are washed out of the ground everytime it rains. If you still want to indulge a taste for the tourism of terror, then Vorkuta or Perm-35 may be more to your liking. These places are medium sized cities, but the living are outnumbered 50-1 by the dead from the Red Terror. No one knows for certain exactly how many people were killed, imprisoned, tortured but the lowest numbers are in the tens of millions.
Stalin ruled for longer than Hitler and the scale of his crimes is correspondngly larger.

So put aside your infantile and patronising tone for a moment and consider the reality- it is an insult to the dead to be so flippant.

In fact RFM, You have totally missed the point- Of course I have read Solzhenitsyn (which by the way is the standard transliteration for your future reference) and I do not confuse Gulag Archipelago (all three volumes) with The First Circle, Cancer Ward or One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The word Gulag is barely relevent- it is simply shorthand anyway. What actually happened, and to which Solzhenitsyn was a witness, is central. Indeed it is impossible to construct any idea about modern Russia without trying to get to grips with the apalling crimes of Stalin.

Neil · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:14 pm Post subject:

Russia's problems are that they are still poorer than western Europe, though catching up faxt, that they have war criminals with nukes 7 an aggressive attitude on their western border & that their Moslem population is rising fast. None of these have anything to do with Stalin.

In the same way the fact that Britain has not apologised for supporting genocide in Biafra, the US for killing millions in Vietnam & the entire western world for killing 50 million in the 3rd world through the DDT ban, is not the primary cause of our problems.
_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

RFM · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 7:38 pm Post subject:

To Cicero,
I guess it is somewhat ironic that you adopt the user name of Marcus Tullius Cicero and spout pop pyschology about "closure" and banalities like "constructing any idea about modern Russia without coming to grips with the appalling crimes of Stalin".
Is your knowledge of modern history also obstructed or prevented in some way by the appalling crimes of the leaders of other countries? I have in mind America, England, France, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Africa, etc.
This may come as one hell of a big surprise to you, but a large number of rather eminent scholars have been looking in great detail at the history of Russia in that period 1922-1953, for many years, probably long before you were even born. None, to my knowledge has ever remotely suggested there was any need for "closure" whatever that is supposed to mean, or that any rational connection between Stalin and subsequent events necessarily existed. Before or after his regime.

"Not to know of history before one was born is to remain forever a child".-MTC

Cicero · Finding Ma' Way Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 14

RFM- Your quite exceptional arrogance blinds you to some exceptionally important fundamental truths.

My suggestion is that you actully spend a few decades of your life being involved in the region, as I have, before you presume to lecture others.

In the Meantime, quite frankly (and with apologies to moderators): Jop twoja Mac' .

RFM · Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 2:14 pm Post subject:

To Cicero,

I have. And I did not spend my time learning child's swear words.
Whatever these fundamental "truths" are you speak of, I think it is comical that you can not even get the swear words right.

Cicero · Finding Ma' Way Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 14

Since it was in Polish you would not get it then.

You can take your parthetic school boy antics and get lost. You are a "useful idiot" and nothing more. This conversation is terminated.