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The dark story behind Stalin’s popular photo with a Soviet girl

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Re: The dark story behind Stalin’s popular photo with a Soviet girl

#31

Post by Pica_soO »

tluyben2 wrote: post #18
sverige wrote: post #2

Stalin's propaganda was even effective in the U.S. He really deserves to be at the top of the list when evil leaders are discussed. Yes, Hitler was awful, but Stalin was far worse. But saying so often draws only criticism. That's how good his propaganda was.

I would leave out the comparison of the evils, but it is true that many forget Stalin (and others by the way; Pol Pot for instance) while Hilter is known by all as ‘most evil human’.

I think its also that with Hitler is was part of the publicized plan- while Stalin, Mao and pot just had utopian dictator work accidents by reality induced paranoia.

Re: The dark story behind Stalin’s popular photo with a Soviet girl

#32

Post by ropeadopepope »

tptacek wrote: post #25
ropeadopepope wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hollywood Party by Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley should be required reading for all social studies classes in the US. It's staggering to consider how much of hollywood was funded by the USSR. They stopped in 1991.

That book does not appear to be well-regarded.

By whom?

Re: The dark story behind Stalin’s popular photo with a Soviet girl

#33

Post by sorokod »

jarfil wrote: post #11
sverige wrote: post #2

Stalin's propaganda was even effective in the U.S. He really deserves to be at the top of the list when evil leaders are discussed. Yes, Hitler was awful, but Stalin was far worse. But saying so often draws only criticism. That's how good his propaganda was.

Genghis Khan killed more, and yet he's considered a national hero.

In China?

Re: The dark story behind Stalin’s popular photo with a Soviet girl

#34

Post by pvg »

mrobot wrote: post #28

I was interested in knowing more and tried to find what her father was charged with. The best i could come up with was this from a badly translated article: "Under the leadership of Markizova big sabotage was conducted in the livestock building, in which the cattle were exposed to cold-related diseases and deaths. The waste of young animals amounted to 40 000 heads…" http://z-news.xyz/get-that-lousy-said-stalin-the-s…

They just made up charges from a more or less standard set, as Stalin purged people across the entire depth and breadth of the leadership. Her father, a high-level regional functionary, has a Russian wikipedia page - it seems seems it's not entirely clear what he was charged with although the two possible stories outlined are among the staples of the time - espionage/plotting against Stalin/ counterrevolution or some subset of the former but more about 'wrecking', deliberate economic sabotage.

Re: The dark story behind Stalin’s popular photo with a Soviet girl

#36

Post by pvg »

tptacek wrote: post #26
sverige wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is really that no one calls their opponents 'Stalin' or 'Commies' the same way people in America tend to call others 'Hitler' or 'Nazis,' which is surprising, given the enormity of the crimes against humanity committed by Stalin and the Russian Communists during roughly the same time. I posit that the root cause is due to the effects of propaganda. No one has really addressed that.

An obvious problem here is that all for all practical purposes, all Nazis are "Hitlerists", but most modern Communists aren't Stalinists.

It's not really a naming problem.

Re: The dark story behind Stalin’s popular photo with a Soviet girl

#37

Post by 8bitsrule »

sverige wrote: post #10
aeontech wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure any kind of “x was worse than y” makes sense on that scale of evils. How can one possibly weigh the countless lives lost due to decisions made by both? I think the only thing one can truly say is, both were terrible human beings, and hope we can detect and stop someone in the future from becoming such. Yet, I am not sure it is possible, the banality of evil is slow and unnoticeable until it is too late.

My point is really that no one calls their opponents 'Stalin' or 'Commies' the same way people in America tend to call others 'Hitler' or 'Nazis,' which is surprising, given the enormity of the crimes against humanity committed by Stalin and the Russian Communists during roughly the same time. I posit that the root cause is due to the effects of propaganda. No one has really addressed that.

The (known) body count under Stalin by far outstrips Germany. But look at the history of rarely-mentioned Belarus during that era (I only recently did) ... a people caught between these two monsters ... and at Germany's 'Generalplan Ost'.

WP says: "During that time, Germany destroyed 209 out of 290 cities in the republic, 85% of the republic's industry, and more than one million buildings.... The population of Belarus did not regain its pre-war level until 1971.... "

A pox on both their houses. If Stalin is mentioned as a monster less often, it's probably because Russia was an ally ...

Re: The dark story behind Stalin’s popular photo with a Soviet girl

#38

Post by 8bitsrule »

Pica_soO wrote: post #30
sverige wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, none of us have any family members who can tell stories of the people he killed.

This is the final insult- if every murdered soul got a software agent, who posted under any praise/propaganda the one line. "He murdered me- name - at the age of .. age.. . Let me and what came not to be not be forgotten." that would silence this.

That, sir or madam, is an utterly fantastic idea.

Re: The dark story behind Stalin’s popular photo with a Soviet girl

#39

Post by EliRivers »

mrobot wrote: post #28

I was interested in knowing more and tried to find what her father was charged with. The best i could come up with was this from a badly translated article: "Under the leadership of Markizova big sabotage was conducted in the livestock building, in which the cattle were exposed to cold-related diseases and deaths. The waste of young animals amounted to 40 000 heads…" http://z-news.xyz/get-that-lousy-said-stalin-the-s…

Just as an item of general interest, "sabotage" was (I understand; I'm no historian!) a common charge when targets weren't met.

I've just finished reading Anne Applebaum's book on the famine in Ukraine; if impossible targets aren't met, pick some people and say they sabotaged production. The problem isn't the system, and the problem certainly isn't the impossible demands and the purges and the terrified lies from the cadres and the disasters of collectivisation and the self-defeating elimination of the best workers (in Ukraine, owning a few cows and being good at farming could qualify you as a 'kulak' and an enemy of the people, ready for execution or the gulag, so of course the most competent farmers were eliminated early). None of that; the problem is saboteurs. Pick someone, charge him and execute him (or send him to a gulag).

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