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View Poll Results: What Do You Believe Are the World's Most Negative Events?
The Russian Revolution of 1917 and in Particular the October Revolution 27 42.86%
The French Revolution 3 4.76%
Hitler's Accession to Power in 1933 30 47.62%
The American Revolution 1 1.59%
England's Glorious Revolution of 1689 0 0%
September 11, 2001 9 14.29%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 63. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 08-27-2019, 05:29 PM
 
Location: London
4,709 posts, read 5,025,880 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kanonka View Post
I suggest you first read books on Russia history; what led to revolution; what revolution govt wanted and planned; i.e. what were the circumstances in general. Then you'd probably realize that Stalin was quite possibly the best option for Russia in those years and that circumstances.

Just to give a head start:
1) Prior to revolution, Russian economy was deep in the hole. Most concessions were outsourced to foreign banks (think France); they were not bringing a dime to Russia.
2) Poverty was beyond any measures. As for health care: only one of five children survived past 5 years old. Yeah, you read that right.
3) Religion was overwhelming. Church owned about 20% of land. Citizens were required to go to service at least once a week.
4) Catastrophic lack of any rights for most of the population. It was a law prohibiting non-aristocrats to go to colleges and universities.
5) Working conditions were just outrageous - minimum 12 hours a day (but most places 14 hours) with just Sunday off; child labor; workers were not paid actual money, but instead were paid "company certs" that they could use only in "company store" with artificially inflated prices. 4 families living in one room were a norm.
6) Army conditions were not any better. Too many items to list here.
7) Due to bad (none) education of farmers and lack of any machinery there was never enough food reserves, and global hunger stroked Russia every 3-4 years.
Only 10% could read and write. In around 20 years, the Soviets were building advanced aircraft, military vehicles, armaments and massive factories. New towns and cities were being constructed with massive ship canal waterways. And after around 30 years, even an A-Bomb. In under 40 years putting rockets and men into space. The achievements of the USSR must never be overlooked or downgraded.
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Old 08-27-2019, 05:36 PM
 
1,503 posts, read 599,966 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbgusa View Post
I wouldn't say 25 vs. 20 is "lopsided." There are good arguments for both; Hitler was responsible for more deaths over a shorter period and Stalin was responsible indirectly for a greater number of deaths over a longer period. Think the Korean and Vietnam wars, in which Russia was not directly involved.
Wow. Just wow. Did you ever read anything on history, or just propaganda texts?
For Korean war: you may argue that North started that war, but one small thing is usually kept out: in 1949 alone South committed 2617 armed invasions to North. Does it still seems North overreacted?
As for "greater number of deaths": in case nobody told you before, it was USA that committed numerous war crimes in Korea (and later in Vietnam), very on par with what Hitler did. For example, May and June 1953 - USAF purposefully destroyed 3 large hydro-stations, that caused epic flooding and mass starvation. 1950 - from Oct 17 to Dec 7 USA forces murdered 35800 civilians in just one county. And on, and on, and on.
South was no better than USA. Bodo massacre: between 200,000 to 1.2mln civilians were murdered. Here is the quote: "For four decades the South Korean government concealed this massacre. Survivors were forbidden by the government from revealing it, under suspicion of being communist sympathizers. Public revelation carried with it the threat of torture and death.":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre

Yeah, they don't tell you that in school - it kind of destroys pretty picture.

You can try the exercise of reading on Vietnam war. Just read non-US sources. "Agent Orange", My Lai Massacre, Thuy Bo "incident", Son Thang massacre - just countless war crimes. But you can pretend it was Stalin who told US army to do all of that.

Last edited by kanonka; 08-27-2019 at 06:00 PM..
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Old 08-27-2019, 09:13 PM
Status: "A solution in search of a problem" (set 15 days ago)
 
Location: New York Area
34,470 posts, read 16,559,118 times
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^^^^
That post is best summed up in Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad by Jon Hein. Very hard to take seriously.
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Old 08-27-2019, 11:49 PM
 
1,503 posts, read 599,966 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbgusa View Post
^^^^
That post is best summed up in Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad by Jon Hein. Very hard to take seriously.
Since it's a history forum, I'd expect you to say "thank you for the info" and start digging facts that are conveniently skipped in US history lessons. But if you have an agenda instead of interest, then yeah, carry on.
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Old 08-28-2019, 07:41 AM
Status: "A solution in search of a problem" (set 15 days ago)
 
Location: New York Area
34,470 posts, read 16,559,118 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kanonka View Post
Since it's a history forum, I'd expect you to say "thank you for the info" and start digging facts that are conveniently skipped in US history lessons. But if you have an agenda instead of interest, then yeah, carry on.
No. That's not the case at all. I checked the New York Times service, timesmachine.nytimes.com for news articles surrounding critical dates. The Times, even then, bent over backwards to find favorable news from the USSR. But most of that news was horrific. In your defense, Hitler did order the building of the Autobahns. As far as the "invasions" from South Korea to the north are you quite sure those weren't self-defense?

And the "Bodo League Massacre" is the only one for which you supply links. Syngman Rhee was widely known as an animal and I do not carry his flag. The remaining allegations are unsourced. Atrocities are common in all wars; many of Stalin's were against his own people in times of peace.

That's why I find it hard to take that post seriously.

Last edited by jbgusa; 08-28-2019 at 08:03 AM..
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Old 08-28-2019, 09:37 AM
 
1,503 posts, read 599,966 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbgusa View Post
No. That's not the case at all. I checked the New York Times service, timesmachine.nytimes.com for news articles surrounding critical dates. The Times, even then, bent over backwards to find favorable news from the USSR. But most of that news was horrific. In your defense, Hitler did order the building of the Autobahns. As far as the "invasions" from South Korea to the north are you quite sure those weren't self-defense?

And the "Bodo League Massacre" is the only one for which you supply links. Syngman Rhee was widely known as an animal and I do not carry his flag. The remaining allegations are unsourced. Atrocities are common in all wars; many of Stalin's were against his own people in times of peace.

That's why I find it hard to take that post seriously.
You want links? I have them.
Let's start with your latest "many of Stalin's were against his own people in times of peace".
Here is nice link of what US govt did to US citizens (just a very, very small part of all US govt crimes):

https://allthatsinteresting.com/human-experiments

Of course, some of those from the link above were carried on Guatemalans, but since they are not "US own people", I guess, we can excuse those wrongdoings, right? After all, Nazis also experimented on "lesser humans", nothing is bad about that, correct?

Now back to Korean war. Here we go:

1) No Gun Ri massacre:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Gun_Ri_massacre
BBC - History - World Wars: Kill 'em All': The American Military in Korea

2) Sinchon Massacre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinchon_Massacre

3) "It wasn’t until 1999 that the United States acknowledged—after a lengthy investigation by the Associated Press—that a 1950 letter from U.S. Ambassador John J. Muccio authorized commanders in the field to adopt a policy of openly massacring civilians.":

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...soldiers-52237

4) Overall, and I quote US General Curtis E. LeMay: "Over a period of three years or so, we killed off-what twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure? Over a period of three years, this seemed to be acceptable to everybody" (page 88):
https://www.thenation.com/wp-content...ir_warfare.pdf

I can continue, but you got the picture, right?

If you want Vietnam war crimes committed by US - there is plenty of those links too.

Now back to your statement "Atrocities are common in all wars". In case you didn't know, Nazis in Nuremberg were sued for exactly that: "atrocities in war". You see, deliberately killing civilians during the war is a war crime by all international laws and treaties. The only difference between US and Nazi war crimes is that nobody sued US army officials since nobody conquered US; other than that there is zero difference.

And now back to Stalin. Do you know the exact number of total death penalties during Stalin times, and total number of prisoners for those years? Hint: I can provide the exact number from archives, and it's a very, very far cry from propaganda numbers. Another hint: total number of prisoners in SU between 1927 and 1953 was about the same as in USA today. Eyes opening, isn't it?

Last edited by kanonka; 08-28-2019 at 09:46 AM..
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Old 08-28-2019, 09:51 PM
Status: "A solution in search of a problem" (set 15 days ago)
 
Location: New York Area
34,470 posts, read 16,559,118 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kanonka View Post
And now back to Stalin. Do you know the exact number of total death penalties during Stalin times, and total number of prisoners for those years? Hint: I can provide the exact number from archives, and it's a very, very far cry from propaganda numbers. Another hint: total number of prisoners in SU between 1927 and 1953 was about the same as in USA today. Eyes opening, isn't it?
Death usually occurred through overwork, forced moves and starvation. I bet you there were not many death penalties.
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Old 08-28-2019, 11:18 PM
 
1,503 posts, read 599,966 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbgusa View Post
Death usually occurred through overwork, forced moves and starvation. I bet you there were not many death penalties.
Well, to be fair, famine of 1932-33 is actually the only thing that we can say for sure was Stalin's fault (although, he was not the only one making that decision). This is the case when ideology tramped common sense.
Here is the short overview:

in 1928 govt was preparing for farms "collectivization". The underlying reasons were:
1) SU was in dare need of industrialization - very, very fast one, ultra-fast one. In just 3 years cities population (new workers) grew by over 12 mln.
2) Stats report of 1928 revealed that while 95% of pre-WWI land is farmed, the output is only 50% of the previous crop. Remember what I said about "whole country of downshifters"? That's exactly the picture - why to bother to harvest the crop, if you don't have a need to buy stuff from the city.
3) For that ultra-fast industrialization govt needed to buy machinery from foreign countries. Unfortunately, at that time the only way for SU to get needed foreign currency was to sell gold and crop.

So, SU govt decided that by collectivization farms productivity will significantly grow. I don't know what they smoked to think that this would work, but that was the decision made at that time. And that was the biggest mistake ever made by SU leadership. Add to that the fact that collectivization was carried out by the very same people who just 7 years ago fought in a civil war, and rarely saw support from farmers, plus they didn't know anything about farming, but were highly ideologically agitated - and you've got quite a cruel outcome.

Here is more detailed and just slightly anti-SU biased coverage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collec...e_Soviet_Union

To be exact, I don't know how the problem could have been solved fair and fast, but for sure not the way it was done. SU has never recovered from that error.

But to say this outcome was Stalin's intent is quite a stupid thing.

Also, on another hand, in USA in about same years about same number of people (~7mln; number is calculated exactly same way as SU losses) died from starvation during Great Depression. Are we going to blame FDR for that? It's so ironic that completely different systems in two differently developed countries by different reason caused almost identical outcome in lives lost.

Last edited by kanonka; 08-29-2019 at 12:17 AM..
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Old 08-29-2019, 11:25 AM
 
14,316 posts, read 14,114,131 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kanonka View Post
Well, to be fair, famine of 1932-33 is actually the only thing that we can say for sure was Stalin's fault (although, he was not the only one making that decision). This is the case when ideology tramped common sense.
Here is the short overview:

in 1928 govt was preparing for farms "collectivization". The underlying reasons were:
1) SU was in dare need of industrialization - very, very fast one, ultra-fast one. In just 3 years cities population (new workers) grew by over 12 mln.
2) Stats report of 1928 revealed that while 95% of pre-WWI land is farmed, the output is only 50% of the previous crop. Remember what I said about "whole country of downshifters"? That's exactly the picture - why to bother to harvest the crop, if you don't have a need to buy stuff from the city.
3) For that ultra-fast industrialization govt needed to buy machinery from foreign countries. Unfortunately, at that time the only way for SU to get needed foreign currency was to sell gold and crop.

So, SU govt decided that by collectivization farms productivity will significantly grow. I don't know what they smoked to think that this would work, but that was the decision made at that time. And that was the biggest mistake ever made by SU leadership. Add to that the fact that collectivization was carried out by the very same people who just 7 years ago fought in a civil war, and rarely saw support from farmers, plus they didn't know anything about farming, but were highly ideologically agitated - and you've got quite a cruel outcome.

Here is more detailed and just slightly anti-SU biased coverage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collec...e_Soviet_Union

To be exact, I don't know how the problem could have been solved fair and fast, but for sure not the way it was done. SU has never recovered from that error.

But to say this outcome was Stalin's intent is quite a stupid thing.

Also, on another hand, in USA in about same years about same number of people (~7mln; number is calculated exactly same way as SU losses) died from starvation during Great Depression. Are we going to blame FDR for that? It's so ironic that completely different systems in two differently developed countries by different reason caused almost identical outcome in lives lost.
I find your defense of Stalin, curious indeed.

Stalin (along with Lenin and Trotsky) was one of the architects of the "Red Terror" which followed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. From the beginning, the Bolsheviks were killing anyone they deemed a threat. To be fair, White Russians were doing their share of killing too. However, the Bolsheviks won and in consolidating power over the new USSR, they kept killing. They murdered many of their own people during the Kronstadt Rebellion.

You mention the Holdomar in the Ukraine where Stalin essentially turned an entire section of Russia into a concentration camp and allowed hundreds of thousands to starve by denying them food. You leave out the Purge of 1937, where Stalin had thousands and thousands of people arrested, shot, or marched off to concentration camps. One reason for Russia's weak performance at the start of World War II is that Stalin purged virtually every single of the commanders of the divisions in his army. The Soviets were a long time recovering from the leadership vacuum that was created. In 1945 after the war ended, Stalin conducted another Purge. He slaughtered or placed in work camps in desolate regions of Siberia any group of Russians who seemed less than 100% gung ho during the war. Did you ever read about Operation Keelhaul following the war where Stalin had many Russians who had gone west during the war returned to his country so that he could deal with them?

Millions of Americans did not die of starvation during the Great Depression. You know, this is where people ought to stop reading your nonsense. Honestly, before you post such gibberish doesn't it even occur to try to link to some sort reliable source?

I personally think Hitler was worse. However, Stalin was truly one of the greatest monsters of the Twentieth Century. Unintentionally, he aided the USA by fighting on our side in World War II. It doesn't change the fact he was a horrible man.
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Old 08-29-2019, 12:37 PM
 
1,400 posts, read 552,244 times
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Such a litany of excuses and rationalizations regarding perhaps the worst series of events in the 20th century, and the odious perpetrators of such, the truly evil Lenin & Stalin.
Apologia of the worst sort; just despicable.
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