Adolf Hitler

[DRJ]

The right to privacy > Free Speech.
Sure it could. I'll call it "Mongol-ism", create a new symbol, and be on my way. Banning a name can't stop me.

It's the content, not the name, which the "Incitement of a people" law relates to.

Heck, Incitement of a people is a good thing. I suppose Europeans wouldn't understand, never having to throw off colonial bonds.

It's no good thing if more and more people listen to someone who heats up the masses towards skapegoats!

Incitement of a people has a negative connoniation in german, called Volksverhetzung. Stating that chevy can make people burn their neighbours (see KKK in US of A) and outlaw it is a good thing. Agitating the masses for something progressive isn't forbidden, hatred-soaken chevy is! You know hate crimes in USA, don't you? So if you can get to the root of the hate the hate crimes will be more easily prevented, seen?

We have a constitution that would forbid the people from making a President into a true tyrant.

What about the vice president? ;-)

In a Democracy, even the insane have a vote.
Luckily, there vote counts just as much as the environmentalists, hippies, execs, union thugs, etc...
So? I'd rather have the moral high ground. Plus, if you strip someone else's rights away, you've become no better than they. Nay, worse, because they never stripped your rights away, but you did it to them.

No, you just protect yourself instead of letting them hurt you needlessly - who would get his other cheek slapped, too, rather than Jesus? And after the Holocaust, he as a jew would overthink that, maybe as well - there aren't left that much for a secound hit.

It may be a crime, but it's so hard to punish, that it rarely is. It's very hard to objectify the cost of libel, and often, the victim will not prosecute.

Its different here, I guess the societies have different ethical legal standards.

Regardless, there is a difference between having an opinion and sharing it and slandering. With an opinion, you only think something is true. With slander, you try and convince others that it IS true.You seem incredibly worried that you will have another Hitler. Just stopping people from knowing or speaking freely about Hitler won't stop the next insane tyrant. Tyrants don't build off one another. They reinvent a new brand of evil each time.

I disagree, as they tend to copy methods from each other. The populists may not be excactly the same but they are close. I am glad when they miss some pieces as they are outlawed because of chevy.

I would never want anyone stop speaking of hitler as long as its in a sensible and educational way but I want it to be stopped to use him as "just another funny guy", "a neat must-to-have leader". I couldn't eat that much I wanted to puke.
I am happy for you your families relatives were not young guys like you today, sent to die in 45 for nothing, sent by Hitler- mine were. My grandmothers brothers died both 45, my one grandfather came back traumatized, beating around him at night, my other grandpa was missed and reported as dead, came back from war captivity '54, finding my grandma had married again, shortly before. My dad, born '41 was raised without the presence of his dad, thus missed being an good dad to me, and I am sure you don't want to know what my problems are now. Thx war. Thx Hitler.

I know. Tragedies.

Thx.

Lets. This is a fairly isolated sub-forum. It's nice to have such activity. Also, this topic seems to be creating new users. That's always a good thing.

Yay, thx Adolf.

Nationalizing Medicine is merely the first among many steps to Tyranny. Many Democrats use the excuse that the government already pays for a large chunk of medical care, and that this change wouldn't bring any real significant change to the medical industry. Most of the poor and elderly already get their health care from the Government anyway.

Tyranny? It can't be that people get treated according to their wealth, or, as Marx said: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
Some time ago, I read about an american (lumberjack?) who wasn't able to get his two fingers fixed back on when he had an chainsaw accident, as he could only pay for one to be fixed... That's just crazy! Universal healthcare is a must. Not to worry about money if you get ill is the best way to get cured fast.
Nevertheless, even in germany there is a two-class-healthcare-system, the rich get better treatment as they still have private policies, but at the end what counts is all poor have a fundamental, nationalized security in health matters since Bismarck.
It would be absolutely cynical and even tyrannical (as a matter of life or death) not to grant that. How shall you be free if you are not, due to death?

If anyone wants to know what government medicine will be like just look at the Swine flu vaccine delay. If it was deadly a lot of us would all be dead by now. You can also look at Cuba.

It's been delayed for several reasons: the vaccine has a booster in it that causes side effects, especially to pregnant women and weak people.

We in germany have 50 million doses ready (we are 80 million at all) but most people don't want it, although its free. The politicians get a vaccine version without a booster...

Fascism it self is not evil in itself, it all depends on the leader.

I quote wiki: Fascism is a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism with a corporatist economic system,(...)

So thats not evil?
They walk over dead bodies, period.

 

[CivEikka]

Every leader, which have leaded military has decided horrible things.
Every leader, which have been in goverment, has decided horrible things.

If we say that hitler is bad, he cant be in the game, but what about Stalin? I think it offens all the eastern countries, finland, germany etc. Same way as hitler, he murdered lot's of people, I mean more people than hitler, but does it matter? No, I think that the only thing that matters is that HE DID SAME THINGS AS HITLER, ONLY WORSE. You can read why the russians lost winter war, because of the summer clothes wearing ukraineas, ok, after winter war was lost for russia (lost for the reason he didn't capture Finland.) He murdered his generals and so forth. Wasn't communist ideology a peace ideology?, meh red fascism I think.. And that was only small part of the story, he starved his own people and so forth.

And don't even talk about Mao..

I was tired, and at school when I wrote this, so don't say that there are spelling errors, I say it. There are spelling errors.

 

[Darken24]

DRJ summed it up quite nicely but i have to make just a few more points

1. Trying to use the ME-262 as a fast strike bomber instead of an interceptor.

the me262 was a jet plane which was very new technology therefore they didn't quite know what to do with it at the time

4. Since he DID #3, and he was willing to gas Jews, he should have loaded the V2s with chemical warheads. Chemical weapons are absolutely terrifying.

same as with the me262 it was new at the time so yet again they were just making it up as they went along

9. Concentrate on E=mc2. Einstein gave his paper to the world. There had to be German physicists who knew the significance. A nuke offshore of London and the war is over because Britain would likely have surrendered immediately.

as for the atomic bombs not only did he have the heavy water problem but also imagine being back then and being told by someone "if you give me a couple billion dollars i will eventually make you a bomb that will blow up an entire city" what would you think

10. Too many obtuse weapon systems. The King Tiger, for example. The Tiger tank, while overly complicated, was an awesome weapon. The King Tiger was a waste of resources and turned out to be a very limited tank because it was too heavy for almost all terrain in the areas of deployment.

with all of his succesful inventions (jets, rockets, first stealth plane, and more) its not surprising there were some bad ones

 

[cr0ws]

Agree, both world wars were so unnecessary.

@DRJ Any one who has the audacity deny the Holocaust is crazy, like that manic in Iran.

I've far more respect for Mr Ahmadinejad than any so called "first world", corrupt, mafia, swinebag politician. What he did at the UN, not too many gentile puppet "politicians" would even have the nutsacks to do (for fear of their careers, reputations and lives). He speaks the voice and will of the majority of his people, he is not a payed off schill on the UN/World bank payroll selling their heritage off to the globalist fascists.

Oh and einstein is over rated. Kind of like the "nobel peace prize". But I guess all the comic book boys need some kind of superhero to look up to. hehe!

 

[crossclayton]

Okay, lets get real here, Civ is a game. It contains leaders from history. Like it or not Hitler is part of History and was also a leader of a Civilisation. Any way, its just a leader head. I could choose Hitler but play him as a peaceful Democratic Prime Minister if i want. I could Make Abe Lincoln a genocidal maniac if i want. Having one of histories dictators included in a game does not have any impact on it what so ever. If you let it then your just being silly and looking to start an argument over something so petty.

 

[Talin2009]

Funny topic.

Stalin is mentioned here many times as mass murderer.

You might want to know that official numbers of people sentenced to death during his rule roughly equals 4 millions around 20 years span (1930-1953), that including regular criminals/murderers and collaboracionists to nazis. That numbers of people imprisoned in dreaded gulag in percentage to total population are less than we have in US today and those, again, included regular criminals.

Those statistics were published in 1991 by official statistical bureau and is based on archive data rather than newspaper speculations with data sorted by years etc. The peak of repressions was in 1937-38 when around 900000 death sentences were made. But you know what? Stalin was in fact one who stopped them, there was struggle inside communist party between his group and trozkist "old-school communists", ones who were responsible for terror during civil war 1917-1921 and who tried to seize power. Yegoda and Ezhov (NKVD comissars during that period, ones who mostly carried out repressions) were repressed by Stalin. Trozky and his group were looking at Soviet Union as a mere stage before going to world-wide revolution regardless of victims, whereas Stalin and his group dropped that idea altogether and were dedicated to building socialism in single country. Do you know that Stalin before his death planned to remove communist party from ruling position and to pass power to government and parlament (deputies council which was elected just as in western countries) and that's why he put Beria as prime-minister in 1952? Some wild conspirology theories even say he was killed because of that, it would probably remain mystery but after Stalin death Beria was kidnapped from Kremlin by Zhukov and some high-ranking officers in Zhukov's car and swiftly executed as spy and enemy of the state.

Also, there in fact WERE large numbers of spies and saboteurs of all kinds in country. Because 1) Russia had a civil war few years ago which splitted society in many places and many people hated state 2) Russia at that time was surrounded by hostile states.

I do not dare say no innocent people were repressed, it was happening alot. But rather to blaming it all on Stalin please try to understand circumstances and historical conditions it was happening under. Stalin had made alot of mistakes but he wasnt mass murderer and all those "dozens of millions" killed are blatant lies.

p.s. on subject of topic - imho, hitler was historical person, and as such has every right to be presented in Civ IV. It has nothing to do with propaganding ideas of nazism.

 

[zappara]

I think we can stop this discussion - I've said I won't add him to my mod because that would make my mod illegal in Germany (at one point I removed nazi swastikas from couple units as well). Hitler is already available in the Unofficial leaderpack if you want to use that LH.

I'm sure you can debate this topic elsewhere.

 

[Talin2009]

Zap, i got your point about legality in Germany. (Btw, here in Russia wearing and propaganding swastika and wearing nazi symbols in public is also illegal).

I got question however, just curious - are all video games regarding WWII which include Nazi Germany illegal as well? Are movies representing WWII filming german troops also illegal?

I am pretty sure the whole issue about legality of this mod due to Hitler being in it is made out of thin air.

Of course this is your mod, just my $0.02 ...

p.s. offtopic here - were Holy wars (Templars, Teutons etc.) removed altogether from 2.8? I carefully read patch notes twice but didnt find anything regarding them, and there were in place in 2.8 beta ...

 

[zappara]

Holy Wars module is in the Unloaded Modules -folder ie. it's off by default in v2.8

 

[DRJ]

I got question however, just curious - are all video games regarding WWII which include Nazi Germany illegal as well? Are movies representing WWII filming german troops also illegal?

No. Educational/satirical purposes are allowed.

I am pretty sure the whole issue about legality of this mod due to Hitler being in it is made out of thin air.

No, depicting him (and thus the crimes attached to him) in a certain, unreflected, unsensible way - using nazi-related content "for recreational purposes" - is not allowed, as it is dishonorable to the victims of the crimes and not beneficial towards raising awareness and holding up to the responsibility this sigularity in our history represents as well.

p.s. offtopic here - were Holy wars (Templars, Teutons etc.) removed altogether from 2.8? I carefully read patch notes twice but didnt find anything regarding them, and there were in place in 2.8 beta ...

Yeah missed them too in my current game... I searched and searched for the chapter houses.... - but the crusaders now have a great general promotion when given every few turns....

Holy Wars module is in the Unloaded Modules -folder ie. it's off by default in v2.8

Does it break saves when enabling it?

 

[Talin2009]

No. Educational/satirical purposes are allowed.

Yeah missed them too in my current game... I searched and searched for the chapter houses.... - but the crusaders now have a great general promotion when given every few turns....

Does it break saves when enabling it?

I'm fairly sure this would fall into educational purpose but honestly don't want to continue this debate. I got your point.

Btw, about satyrical http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlen_sD6gq8 - there was legendary black-white soviet movie in 1970's about soviet spy in germany in 1945. Last year some studio decided to "colorize" it and central TV channel showed colored version. This satyrical youtube movie is about quality of their work Sorry it is without translation, but picture itself too funny )

About holy wars yeah i kind missed them too but then again, they were WAY overpowering and if you managed to keep this chunk of knights/sergeants to vertical flight/mechanized infantry era and upgrade them they became game breaking - able to capture regions of 10-15 cities in single turn leaving no chance to defend. I think it broke whole game balance.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Yegoda and Ezhov (NKVD comissars during that period, ones who mostly carried out repressions) were repressed by Stalin.

And innocent Stalin didn't have a clue about what Ezhov was doing before he was arrested, right?

Do you know that Stalin before his death planned to remove communist party from ruling position and to pass power to government and parlament (deputies council which was elected just as in western countries) and that's why he put Beria as prime-minister in 1952?

whut?

I don't believe obviously extragerrated numbers about the Gulag system, yet I take official stats with a grain of salt, too. See the census of 1937.

 

[Lord Brooks]

Gee, you're gone for a few days and you miss a good Hitler debate.

Hitler certainly shouldn't be left out for moral reasons, but for legal reasons as Zappara said. Germany is the only home country of the three leading murderers of the 20th century that had the decency to take a stand against the glorification of that murderer.

Both Stalin and Mao killed more people than Hitler. I'm not belittling the evil of Hitler, I'm saying that he wasn't alone in that evil. If you step back into History, there are dozens of men who are no different than Hitler. How many cities in history have been sacked and every man woman and child killed? In East Germany after WWII every woman was raped repeatedly by the occupying Red Army. The Japanese massacred millions of Koreans and Chinese, and set up rape houses for their soldiers. They ate the livers of their conquered foes.

Barbarism isn't limited to Hitler, it's just that Hitler was a Western leader from a civilized nation therefore had a much larger impact on the psyche of the Western world. We expected the communists to act like animals. After all, they're just communists. We expected the Japanese to act like animals, after all just 100 years prior they were beheading people with swords and tearing their own guts out. But the Germans? We live NEXT to GERMANS! Surely they can't be baking Jews. Noooooo, let's put our heads in some sand.

Hitler hit us harder because he was closer to what we thought we were. But he was no more of a monster than thousands of characters from history. Vlad the Impaler? That countess from Transylvania who bathed in the blood of 600+ young maidens as a youth elixir? Genghis Khan? The Romans crucifying thousands on the road out of Rome? Nero killing Christians? Osama bin Laden? Saddam?

Hitler is dime a dozen. Some of you given absolute power would turn into monsters. Some would become benevolent despots.

Someone asked the question "what does it simulate in Civ when your armies conquer a city?". If you were the aggressor, it simulates the German expansion into France, the Japanese conquest of Manchuria, the Chinese conquest of Tibet, or the Russian annexation of Eastern Europe.

Just my point(s) of view, really. But Hitler was nothing special in his evil, but he was absolute evil like so many others. To accord him special status as an anti-christ gives him status he is not worthy of.

Agree totally with this.

I also understand why Hitler is not in the game if it is indeed illegal in Germany, how they would police a mod for an existing game is beyond me though and that just sounds like an excuse not to include him in the game, since there are other Mods where he features.

I never quite understand how Hitler somehow becomes a taboo subject when almost every leader in the game has some kind of atrocity to his/her name. As an example Jewish persecution has been rife in England for quite some time, other than the scale of the atrocity and the media coverage of it how is the following any different?


History of the persecution of English Jews 1290 - 1655.
The persecution of English Jews dated back to the Medieval era of King Edward I. In 1255 a number of Jews were imprisoned in the Tower of London awaiting execution for the alleged murder of Hugh of Lincoln. Eighteen Jews were hanged. In 1270 anti-semitic feeling grew, until King Edward I decreed that the Jews were a threat to the country, decreed that all Jews must wear a yellow star to identify them in public. All the heads of Jewish households were arrested, many taken to the Tower and executed. Finally, in 1290 King Edward banished all Jews from England. The exile of Jews lasted until 1655, when Jewish scholar Manasseh ben Israel obtained Oliver Cromwell’s assent for Jews to return to London.

The reputation of the Jews in Elizabethan England.
Jews had come to England following the Battle of Hastings and the Norman conquest of 1066. The expulsion of Jews from England by Edward I initiated a further decline in the reputation of the Jews. Jews were looked upon as heretics. In Europe the Catholics treated both Protestants and Jews as heretics. The Spanish inquisition set days for interrogating heretics and those who not acquitted were burnt at the stake. The reason for this method of execution for Jewish and Protestant heretics was because the Church was “forbidden to shed blood". The reputation of the Jews suffered badly during the Medieval era. Jews were considered to be responsible for spreading the Bubonic Plague or Black Death amongst Christians. There was no cure for this terrible disease and angry and frightened people always look for someone to blame - it did not matter that Jewish people were also struck down by the illness.

The Demonising of the Jews.
Christians believed that Jews possessed magical powers which they had obtained by making a pact with the Devil. Jews were therefore associated with Elizabethan witches. The stereotypical Jewish features consisted of a long, hooked nose and a swarthy complexion and the Jews were believed to worship the devil. Witches were also believed to worship the devil and were also stereotyped as having long, hooked noses, warts and wrinkles. Jews celebrated the Sabbath, witches celebrated at their Sabbat.

Queen Elizabeth I and the Jews.
There were a small number Jews in Elizabethan England. Jews had long been restricted to only two occupations - money lending and as peddlars. Elizabethan Jews would have had to outwardly conform to the Christian Protestant religion. Any adherence to the Jewish religion would have been undertaken in utmost secrecy, just as with the Catholics.

Prejudice against Elizabethan Jews.
There were few Jews in England. Most Elizabethans would never had even met one Jew. All that was known about Jews and their religion and customs were from vague rumour and reputation mixed with horrifying wives tales about the Jews being responsible for spreading the Bubonic Plague.

How Jews were portrayed in Elizabethan Plays and Literature.
Anti-Semitism was rife in Elizabethan England. Theatre audiences expected Jews to be portrayed according to the Jewish stereotype. The dramatists of the Elizabethan era gave their audiences what they expected to see. William Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice in which a Jewish character called Shylock was depicted as the stereotype Jew who was also a money lender. Jews were known to circumcise the men of their race. In the plot Shylock agrees to lend the hero 3,000 ducats, and as forfeit would have to return a pound of flesh if the debt was not repaid. Elizabethan men would have been horrified to see this as a connection to the Jewish ritual of circumcision. Christopher Marlowe wrote the play entitled the Jew of Malta. His Jew is also depicted as a cruel, egotistic, and greedy man.

Queen Elizabeth I - Jews and Catholics.
The Elizabethan era saw great forms of prejudice against people who did not adhere to the Protestant religion. But the prejudice against Catholics related to their faith whilst the Anti-Semitism extended to the whole of the Jewish race as well as their religion.

Yet Elizabeth I remains in the game.

Don't even get me started on Nebuchadnezzar II and his treatment of the Jews.

In short almost every leader in the game has some history of persecution (usually Jewish) yet they are still in the game.

Strangely enough there is no Jewish civ in RoM either, is this to stop people persecuting them in the game?

 

[Talin2009]

And innocent Stalin didn't have a clue about what Ezhov was doing before he was arrested, right?

whut?

I don't believe obviously extragerrated numbers about the Gulag system, yet I take official stats with a grain of salt, too. See the census of 1937.

That's why (well, one of reasons) Ezhov and his team got removed. Repressions stopped shortly after that, it's a fact.

Official stats here are inner archives, which were published in 1991 when there was no reason to hide numbers. Gulag and NKVD were huge bureaucratic machine and every death sentence or case of prisoner death due to hunger or decease were all documented. Most of those numbers were kept secret due USSR but still they were archived. You cannot falsify country-wide statistics for several decades of years, it isnt single paper.

 

[cr0ws]

Funny topic.

Stalin is mentioned here many times as mass murderer.

You might want to know that official numbers of people sentenced to death during his rule roughly equals 4 millions around 20 years span (1930-1953), that including regular criminals/murderers and collaboracionists to nazis. That numbers of people imprisoned in dreaded gulag in percentage to total population are less than we have in US today and those, again, included regular criminals.

Those statistics were published in 1991 by official statistical bureau and is based on archive data rather than newspaper speculations with data sorted by years etc. The peak of repressions was in 1937-38 when around 900000 death sentences were made. But you know what? Stalin was in fact one who stopped them, there was struggle inside communist party between his group and trozkist "old-school communists", ones who were responsible for terror during civil war 1917-1921 and who tried to seize power. Yegoda and Ezhov (NKVD comissars during that period, ones who mostly carried out repressions) were repressed by Stalin. Trozky and his group were looking at Soviet Union as a mere stage before going to world-wide revolution regardless of victims, whereas Stalin and his group dropped that idea altogether and were dedicated to building socialism in single country. Do you know that Stalin before his death planned to remove communist party from ruling position and to pass power to government and parlament (deputies council which was elected just as in western countries) and that's why he put Beria as prime-minister in 1952? Some wild conspirology theories even say he was killed because of that, it would probably remain mystery but after Stalin death Beria was kidnapped from Kremlin by Zhukov and some high-ranking officers in Zhukov's car and swiftly executed as spy and enemy of the state.

Also, there in fact WERE large numbers of spies and saboteurs of all kinds in country. Because 1) Russia had a civil war few years ago which splitted society in many places and many people hated state 2) Russia at that time was surrounded by hostile states.

I do not dare say no innocent people were repressed, it was happening alot. But rather to blaming it all on Stalin please try to understand circumstances and historical conditions it was happening under. Stalin had made alot of mistakes but he wasnt mass murderer and all those "dozens of millions" killed are blatant lies.

p.s. on subject of topic - imho, hitler was historical person, and as such has every right to be presented in Civ IV. It has nothing to do with propaganding ideas of nazism.

This is amusing and very insulting, You have got to be kidding my friend, surely you did not pick up a "official brochure" at the kremlin in red square regarding the official count of deaths resulting from communist oppression?

The Gulag was the government agency that administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet Union. The term is infamous for its association with remote places where prisoners were kept and whom many disappeared. The camps housed all types of criminals, but are well known as mechanisms for repressing political opposition and for holding political prisoners. And everyone knows well how largely popular communist purges were during that time.

There were at least 476 separate camps, some of them comprising hundreds, even thousands of camp units.The most infamous complexes were those at arctic or subarctic regions. Today's major industrial cities of the Russian Arctic such as Norilsk, Vorkuta, Kolyma and Magadan, were camps originally built by prisoners and run by ex-prisoners. It was the branch of the State Security that operated the penal system of forced labour camps and associated detention and transit camps and prisons. This makes the numbers of slaves US exploited pre-civil war insignificant compared to what was going on in the USSR, yet the slave era in USA somehow overshadows that in our "history" books.

61,911,000 democides in the USSR 1917-87, of which 51,755,000 occurred during the Stalin years. This divides up into:

* 1923-29: 2,200,000 (plus 1M non-democidal famine deaths)
* 1929-39: 15,785,000 (plus 2M non-democidal famine)
* 1939-45: 18,157,000
* 1946-54: 15,613,000 (plus 333,000 non-democidal famine)
* TOTAL: 51,755,000 democides and 3,333,000 non-demo. famine



I can clearly understand why in russia today there is no respect for authority and law and why human life has such a low price. Maybe if USA decided to starve to death all their african slaves like russians did with theirs they wouldn't have the problem of compensating their families these days.

"The death of a single person is a tragedy, the deaths of a million is just a statistic." J. Stalin AKA Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili

 

[Lone Wolf]

That's why (well, one of reasons) Ezhov and his team got removed.

So you think that Stalin really had no clue? Aw, poor Stalin...

Repressions stopped shortly after that, it's a fact.

So? What does it prove besides Stalin deciding that he had enough and making Ezhov a scapegoat?

61,911,000 democides in the USSR 1917-87

What? That's exactly the kind of exaggerated statistics I was speaking about.

 

[NBAfan]

I've far more respect for Mr Ahmadinejad than any so called "first world", corrupt, mafia, swinebag politician. What he did at the UN, not too many gentile puppet "politicians" would even have the nutsacks to do (for fear of their careers, reputations and lives). He speaks the voice and will of the majority of his people, he is not a payed off schill on the UN/World bank payroll selling their heritage off to the globalist fascists.

How do you respect this guy? He denies holocost and says it NEVER happend, in front of the UN and no one says he an idiot for dening such obvious truth. He has also said that if a gets a nuke, he will use it to wipe Israel of the map.

The nobel peace prize is meaningless.

 

[Talin2009]

This is amusing and very insulting, You have got to be kidding my friend, surely you did not pick up a "official brochure" at the kremlin in red square regarding the official count of deaths resulting from communist oppression?

The Gulag was the government agency that administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet Union. The term is infamous for its association with remote places where prisoners were kept and whom many disappeared. The camps housed all types of criminals, but are well known as mechanisms for repressing political opposition and for holding political prisoners. And everyone knows well how largely popular communist purges were during that time.

There were at least 476 separate camps, some of them comprising hundreds, even thousands of camp units.The most infamous complexes were those at arctic or subarctic regions. Today's major industrial cities of the Russian Arctic such as Norilsk, Vorkuta, Kolyma and Magadan, were camps originally built by prisoners and run by ex-prisoners. It was the branch of the State Security that operated the penal system of forced labour camps and associated detention and transit camps and prisons. This makes the numbers of slaves US exploited pre-civil war insignificant compared to what was going on in the USSR, yet the slave era in USA somehow overshadows that in our "history" books.

61,911,000 democides in the USSR 1917-87, of which 51,755,000 occurred during the Stalin years. This divides up into:

* 1923-29: 2,200,000 (plus 1M non-democidal famine deaths)
* 1929-39: 15,785,000 (plus 2M non-democidal famine)
* 1939-45: 18,157,000
* 1946-54: 15,613,000 (plus 333,000 non-democidal famine)
* TOTAL: 51,755,000 democides and 3,333,000 non-demo. famine



I can clearly understand why in russia today there is no respect for authority and law and why human life has such a low price. Maybe if USA decided to starve to death all their african slaves like russians did with theirs they wouldn't have the problem of compensating their families these days.

"The death of a single person is a tragedy, the deaths of a million is just a statistic." J. Stalin AKA Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili

First, may i ask you what source are those numbers taken from? Do you realize those numbers yourself ? This is population of big European country, if anything remotely close to this happened, country would be littered with mass burials and cemeteries (none of which were found). NKVD and troops would have to do nothing but shoot people non-stop. During WWII Soviet Union lost approx. 20-27 million lives, and whole regions were half-deserted etc.

Numbers i put were published in "Arguments and Facts" in 1991, Yeltzin time btw. 6.000.000 copies weekly newspaper, it was and still is publishing many points of views, mostly liberal btw. Numbers were from government statistics.

If you call official statisics kremlin propaganda then where YOUR number come from? Did somebody count 51 million people by hand? Seriously ...

Also, i didnt say it wasn't tragedy. 1937-38 years were tragedy. My statement was to stick to historical facts rather than BBC/CNN propaganda.

And about value of human life maybe you would explain how democide of 2.000.000 vietnamese, 1.000.000 iraqis fit into this picture? And where are all those indian tribes who lived on territory of current US?

Please let's not start this "holier than thou" debate.

p.s. oh, and btw, there never were any slaves in russia, neither african nor other countries. There were serf peasants but those were in many European countries.

 

[Talin2009]

So you think that Stalin really had no clue? Aw, poor Stalin...

My point originally was that blaming Stalin alone personally for everything that happened isn't correct. I was just trying to give more broad perspective on things.

How do you respect this guy? He denies holocost and says it NEVER happend, in front of the UN and no one says he an idiot for dening such obvious truth. He has also said that if a gets a nuke, he will use it to wipe Israel of the map.

The nobel peace prize is meaningless.

Actually, he said differently. He asked why palestinians must suffer when it was Europe who committed holocaust thus Europe should give land to them not palestine. Something like that.

 

[cr0ws]

So you think that Stalin really had no clue? Aw, poor Stalin...



So? What does it prove besides Stalin deciding that he had enough and making Ezhov a scapegoat?



What? That's exactly the kind of exaggerated statistics I was speaking about.

How does it feel to live in the least liked and trusted country on earth? Even communist China and Chechnya have more respect.