Stalin Re-Emerges in Public Eye

[Euphen]

Stalin Re-Emerges in Public Eye
By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press Writer

12 minutes ago

MOSCOW - One poster stands out among the billboards splashed across Moscow for celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany: Josef Stalin against the backdrop of a Red Army soldier raising the Soviet hammer-and-sickle over the Reichstag in Berlin.

Stalin always has been a contradictory figure in Russia, seen as either the powerful boss who led the country to victory over the Nazis and made it a 20th century industrial giant or the tyrant responsible for killing millions of his own people.

Under President Vladimir Putin, he appears to be making a comeback, with monuments in the works and criticism muted.

After waves of denouncements following Stalin's death in 1953 and as Soviets learned in the 1980s the full extent of his crimes, the Kremlin has been quiet about Stalin in recent years.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050508/ap_on_re_eu/stalin_s_comeback

[UpInArms]

1. he was not a very good Joe

"It's not he who casts the votes that matters--but he who counts the votes."
--Josef Stalin

[minnesotaDFLer]

2. he was

bad in general, not a good general or leader. Just plain bad.

[AuntiBush]

3. Putin, (not Stalin) looks pretty damn good in contrast to the Chimp

Paraphrasing Putin's anger over Bush's remarks on democracy in Putin's country, Putin bascially stated Bush had a lot of nerve, citing he should look at his own country (America) first before pointing any fingers.

And you know, I couldn't agree w/Putin more. I actully admired Putin for standing-up against Bush and telling him "like it is." And I never thought I'd say that one.

Now Stalin on the other hand, well... again mind strays to Bush.

[bennywhale]

5. Putin is a fucking psychopath

Since the war in Chechnya a 1/3 of all men of fighting age are dead. And almost a quater of the population are dead.

He's a mass murderer.

Stalin on the other hand only exiled the entire population of the country to Siberia.

Good old Joe

[NorthernSpy]

4. Joseph Stalin had a psychopathic personality

It's kind of sobering to think how many people who wind up in leadership roles really are psychopaths.

:scared:

[KissMyAsscroft]

6. That's the frightening thing about power...

It is taken, not given.

[Zorra]

7. Stalin was a psychopathic freak. Possibly the most prolific mass

murderer in the history of humankind.

Authoritarian conservatives should never be allowed to have political power.

[IndianaGreen]

16. Except that the 20 million figure of Stalin's victims was a fabrication

Local leader Anatoly Popov praised Stalin as "a great son of Russia who gave the people everything he had ... and took nothing in return," Ekho Moskvy radio reported.

of William Randolph Hearst. It has been repeated so many times that we now accept that number, or an even higher number, without question. The Soviets kept meticulous records about everything, yet after the fall of the USSR, no evidence was unearthed that gave credence that Stalin killed 20 or 10 or even a million people. While it is true that most of Lenin's supporters met their demise at Stalin's orders, and that Stalin ordered the NKVD to shoot nationalists of all stripes, even Spanish Communists, Stalin was no more brutal than the Tsars.

One undisputed fact is that Stalin did not profit during his rule. He didn't have a Swiss bank account as so many despots in other countries, or as some of his successors have done.

The reality is that a majority of Russians have had it with their grand experiment in American style democracy. Who cares that they can vote for more than one party when they go hungry at night, their pensions are gone, their free health care is no longer free, and the only freedom they have is to be miserable and hopeless while a small elite lives in a luxury fitting to a Romanoff.

[bennywhale]

17. You've got it completely wrong

there. Stalin was a brutal murderer and the figures of 10 or 20 million refer to those who were not only murdered in the purges which were similar in scale to 'le terruer' after the French revolution, but also refer to the millions who died in the Gulags enduring slave labour in freezing temperatures. For example he exiled the entire population of Chechnya to Siberia. A 1/4 died there (not from old age either).

Stalin was a power ccrazy tyrant who would have followed any ideology. He wasn't some great prophet of social justice like some of the earlier revolutionaries he was a murdering dictator

[Lizzie Borden]

19. And just think...

he studied to be a priest.

[Democrats_win]

8. The Czars weren't that great. GOP's Central America is a crime too.

[David__77]

9. Stalin helped liberate Europe.

He led the Soviet army in liberating Europe. Yes, innocent people were killed when everyone was on the watch for fascists and the Fifth Column, but only one country successfully turned back the German horde--the Soviet Union. Stalin can be criticized, but there is absolutely NO comparison between Stalin and Hitler. Stalin stood on the correct side of history with regard to fighting fascism, and that's why so many Russians still appreciate his leading role of the time.

[bumblebee1]

11. Stalin also had a great general named

Marshal Georgi Zhukov leading the Soviet charge to Berlin. It's too bad Stalin's jealousy of Zhukov gave him the excuse to treat Zhukov like crap. I saw a documentary on the "Conquerors" series on the History Channel. The tide in WWII turned for the Soviet Union when Stalin got out of his own way and turned over battlefield decisions to his generals.

[burrowowl]

14. Yes, the generals

won Stalingrad inspite of Stalin.
He should not have ousted Troksky who was also a great stratigist.

[kwassa]

18. Stalin and Hitler are easy to compare: the greatest mass murderers of all

time, of course.

He murdered many millions of his own people, starved about 6 million Ukrainians to death duting the collectivization of the farms in the 1930s, killed every officer above the rank of major in the army ...

the list goes on and on and on.

Many millions of Soviets also died due to his failure to correctly assess the German threat and act quickly when the Nazis invaded.

[durutti]

21. Absolutely right.

http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050418/007878.html

[FDR33]

10. Stalin should not be 're-habed'

no matter how instrumental the Soviets were in ending the war, Stalin was a mass-murderer of his own people, before, during and after the war. People in Russia are frustrated, and it is mostly the young people who are 'warming' up to Stalin because they know that the USSR was more powerful than Russia is now, but they don't know what it was like to live under his rule, followed by Khrushchev, etc.

My dad was born in Berlin 6 months after the war, thank God he was on the Allied side and not on the Russian side.

[gavodotcom]

12. If we do it for Reagan, I say let them do it for Stalin.

I mean, it's only fair.

[IndianaGreen]

13. The one redeeming quality about Josef Stalin is that he didn't have

a Religious Right trying to impose their snake oil of a religion on the country.

[burrowowl]

15. LOL

:rofl:

I love dark humor!

[bpilgrim]

20. even after Regan 'WON' the cold war the neoCONs have gone and LOST IT!

the Kristof's - and the rest of the M$MW - MUST be pi$$ed, wonder how many thoughtful rants they'll ink-up on this DISASTER of U.S. foreign policy :evilgrin:


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peace