Who Was Worse-Hitler or Stalin? (war, general, German, Germany)

[annika08]

Another thread prompted me to start this one.

I think they were both pretty nasty, but I do think that Stalin's atrocities often get overlooked because of Hitler. I think Stalin was every bit as evil as Hitler.

No one is quite sure how many died under Stalin's watch , though it's been suggested that he killed more than Hitler did. Stalin destroyed records, especially of those committed during the Purges. Not only were archives closed, but camp sites were forbidden and no television crews filmed Soviet camps or their victims as they had done in Germany at the end of the Second World War (Gulag by Anne Applebaum). It has been estimated that 7 million or so died under Stalin (I've seen even higher estimates).

The Social Affairs Unit - Web Review: Stalin the Mass Murderer: How many victims?

Stalin put people into labor camps for 25 years if they told a joke that was 'against the regime'. They were put into camps even if a neighbor said they overheard them telling a joke. Educators, engineers, priests, philosophers were put in camps (or executed) because of 'who they were'. The persons entire family, extended family as well, could also be imprisoned or exiled-including children. More often than not people would die in these labor camps. People didn't die by a gas chamber but they did die slowly by starvation, exhaustion, exposure, dysentery, typhus, murder at the hands of guards and other prisoners... I really don't think Stalin's Soviet Union was any better than Hitler's Germany.

I urge people, if interested at all in history, to educate themselves in Stalins purges, collectivization, and the Gulags (forced labor camps). That dark part of Soviet history is every bit as horrifying as the Holocaust and sadly, not taught in schools.

Your thoughts?

[Fred314X]

I don't understand why it's even necessary to assign "worse" status to either of them.

[WIHS2006]

Hasent it been proven beyond a doubt that Stalin killed far more people the Hitler? Hitler was an amateur compared to Stalin if you ask me. Stalin killed more people then in the entire Holocaust alone between 1932 and 1933 during the Ukranian Holodomor - not even including the rest of his rule (the gulags, the purges, etc).

[annika08]

Originally Posted by Fred314X

I don't understand why it's even necessary to assign "worse" status to either of them.

It's not and I had tried to edit the title and word it better but I can't. I think they were both equally evil, though history and society generally tells us that Hitler was the only 'bad guy' of the lot and Stalin's genocide seems to be swept under the rug in lieu of the Holocaust.

[annika08]

Originally Posted by WIHS2006

Hasent it been proven beyond a doubt that Stalin killed far more people the Hitler? Hitler was an amateur compared to Stalin if you ask me. Stalin killed more people then in the entire Holocaust alone between 1932 and 1933 during the Ukranian Holodomor - not even including the rest of his rule (the gulags, the purges, etc).

I'd forgotten about that.

It's hard to find actual numbers but the ones I found say over 10 million.

Holodomor: The Secret Holocaust in Ukraine

[jtur88]

Why does it matter?

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by WIHS2006

Hasent it been proven beyond a doubt that Stalin killed far more people the Hitler?

Has it? The numbers of people Stalin supposedly killed keep getting larger and larger, I look askance at the claims, many of which seem to be driven by revisionist right wing propoganda and Nazi apologism.

[*~Eva~*]

Originally Posted by WIHS2006

Hasent it been proven beyond a doubt that Stalin killed far more people the Hitler? Hitler was an amateur compared to Stalin if you ask me. (the gulags, the purges, etc).

well??!! if he was an amateur or not... he had done something soo awful!! i can't say many about the things stalin did but i can tell you what hitler done was very well thought-out... he made so many concentration camps and i have seen some of them! it's sooo ill what he'd done! and the reason WHY he did that!

thanks to god that this is over

[Grandstander]

What would be the purpose of trying to make such a determination as which was worse? Even if we could definitely identify the lesser of the two evils, would it be so that we could then say "Oh, sure, Stalin killed millions, but at least he was no Hitler?" Or the reverse?

[jtur88]

Does anybody think there is a difference between imposing or allowing conditions in a nation under which an unpredictable number of random people are likely to succumb to those conditions, and hand-picking specific individuals and marking them and designating them to be executed?