Hitler vs. Stalin

[stormbind]

I honestly don't know. But I do know there's an awful lot of anti-Communist propaganda.

5,000,000 people died prematurely in the Soviet Union under Stalin. But why?

Stalin believed that the Soviet Union was one hundred years behind the West and had to catch up as quickly as possible. To do this, he started Collective farms where peasants would pool their machinery and livestock.

5,000,000 richer peasants, Kulaks, were murdered or starved to death.

Something in that text is missing! How does pooling machinery and livestock translate into murder and starvation?

On the Collective farms, peasants were forced to hand over their produce to the government and were supposed to be compensated or live on the produce left for them.

The kulaks were against surrendering their wealth. They chose to burn their crops and kill their animals, rather than hand them over to the state! Agriculture fell by 15% and 5,000,000 people starved to death.

This suggests the Kulaks were responsible for the famine, not Stalin.

 

[stormbind]

Those who disobeyed the law were sent to labour camps called Gulags. These were often in Siberia or in Northern Russia, where the weather in winter was very cold. Here they worked with little food for ten years or more. Many died from exhaustion.

This is very harsh punishment, and the cause for a poor human rights record.

This punishment was for enemies of the state. Perhaps for people who burnt state property, like the kulaks had done?

 

[stormbind]

Many Soviet factories faked production figures, or disregarded the quality of goods produced. So long as the numbers were right, nothing else mattered.

The deciet was a big problem. Policing it was an even bigger problem.

Stalin did however perform many questionable things to retain power, especially towards the end of his carreer. He had his personal opposition assasinated and rewrote history to make himself appear as the wisest man alive.

The man was certainly power hungry and became increasingly paranoid. He was clearly prepared to do anything to protect national interests, but was he truly evil? Was he trying to persecute a group of people?

 

[MaDmAn_71]

I'm assuming when you say he had his 'personal opposition' assasinated, you are referring to Trotsky's assasination by a Bolshevik Agent in Mexico?

 

[stalin006]

no, hes refering to the "imaginary" enemys he had in the kremlin, military etc etc, killing and purging so much of the military left the USSR uprepared against the NAZI invaders

 

[stormbind]

Both. He would do anything to cling to power.

What I am saying is, he didn't persecute a race of people and he tried to improve the economy.

Many things backfired. He made many bad decisions that looked good on paper but were flawed by the greed of others. I don't see a lot of evidence to suggest he was truly evil.

So from what I know, I can only conclude that Hitler deserves that vote.

However, I'm not too hot on history so go ahead and correct me...

 

[MaDmAn_71]

Wasn't he also very paranoid of assasination himself? He had a lot of doubles. I'm wondering if the attempted assasination of Lenin made him so...

 

[stalin006]

he had doubles? i never heard of such, did he really? yes, he never slept twice in the same place worried about assasination

 

[MaDmAn_71]

I read it in the Guiness Book Of Records... forgotten which year, but its in there alright. I think he had something like 20-odd lookalikes which he sent to meetings and stuff.

 

[stalin006]

i say Hitler was worst, i measured "evilness" by teh fact that theres a huge difference between most dead casualtys by bad agricultural policies and selective govt. purges, to the concentration camps where u had to go no matter what, in the USSR, u had a chance to live by being a good communist i guess

 

[rilnator]

Hitler. He had dreams of enslaving or wiping out the entire slavic race (not to mention Jews, homosexuals etc, etc, etc) whereas as Stalin did what he did largley due to paranoia.
Had Hitler won in the East most of the inhabitants of eastern Europe and Russia would have enventually been starved and worked to death by their German masters. This seemed perfectly acceptable to Hitler and I doubt he gave these ideas a second thought.
Call it meglomania, madness or just plain lack of manners, Hitler was the evilest (is that a word???) bastard God ever gave breath to!

 

[Furry Spatula]

do motives realy matter. I mean both were fully aware of what they did. Both were insane. I don't think you can call somoene who had no problem trying to exterminate millions, and if he had it his way it would be closer to a billion or so, sane.

The same can be said about Stalin. I mean he saw killers everywhere.

The fact is neither of these people mass murders were "accidental" if its possible. THey were both fully aware of what they were doing. The motives behind their thoughts is irrelevant.

But just to be a pain in the ass. I'm going to play devil's advocate (no pun intended) to the people who think Hitler is worse due to his motives. Hitler did try to kill entire ethnic groups true, but he was doing what he thought was best for his people. Stalin on the other hand was just trying to kill people because he was paranoid.

Now i don't believe a word of what i just typed. But as you can see motive doesn't matter what so ever. And also, i guarantee you Hitler did what he did just to keep power. It is obvious as he too killed many close personal supporters. Durring the night of long knives, he killed one of his closest friends who was with him since his rise to power. And also, remember that Hitler wasn't Arian himself. He had to be exterminated himself according to his plan.

But look at Stalin. He wasn't just misguided. I mean look at the purges. And also, during some of Stalin's meatings people would be clapping for hours after his speeches. The first person or two to stop clapping would be killed because they were not loyal enough to Stalin.

That is why it is a tie.

 

[polymath]

I think Stalin. Under Stalin, it seems everybody in Russia was scared of everybody else.

 

[Kentonio]

I would go for that nasty bastard Ioseph, you notice that both although they are commonly described as mass murderers do not really fit that description as technically they did not kill their victims themselves usually, it is a clear sign of their madness that they became so able (and indeed willing) to order the deaths of so many however.

This is totally my own opinion and not backed up by any research but I just get the feeling that Stalin would have been quite happy to pull the trigger himself rather than have it done for him. Probably doesnt make him more evil but the idea of a man being able to look his victim in the eye and end their life coldly just makes one shudder.

 

[stormbind]

"They were both fully aware of what they were doing. The motives behind their thoughts is irrelevant."

Evidence suggests Stalin was not aware of what he was doing; he intentionally reformed agricultural policy, but the fact that those reforms failed was not forseable!

Stalin did have people sent to Gulags, but I have see no evidence that he visited such a place or was aware of the living conditions.

Stalin rewrote history to make himself look better than he was. Possibly the worst act for which there is significant evidence.

Stalin is suspected of having people assasinated. It's a bad thing, but we (as a civilization) glorify such behaviour when it's in our interest!

Stalin was a Communist and a Tyrant. By themselves, neither of those titles translate into evil.

We in the west went through a Cold War in which we were subjected to a lot of anti-Communist propaganda. As inteligent people, we should disregard biased Cold War stories and seek the truth.

 

[Kentonio]

I think the purges are pretty well established fact rather than progoganda dude.

Also if you believe the stories about Beria having murdered Stalin (and it does sound quite possible when you read the guards transcripts of that night) it is thought it could have been carried out because Stalin was planning yet another purge of the Soviet hiararchy (including Beria himself this time).

Stalin also almost cost Russia WW2 with his purge of the military, its frankly a damn miracle that Zhukov was still alive to save Russia as he did.

 

[Kalashnikov33]

stormbind, I might be wrong, but since I'm too lazy to parse and translate your signature, I'll say this: If you created that sentence yourself then I think you messed up your perscribam. I don't see an ut or ne indicating a subjunctive clause causing you to substitute the a for the usual i (in this case o) in a third conjugation verb .

 

[stormbind]

I made no mention of the purges because I don't know Stalin's personal involvement!

I've heard Russian veterans (sent to the front line for being non-Communist) explain some of the almost-suicide acts they had to perform but they didn't mention Stalin's role.

 

[Kentonio]

Dude, you cannot remove Stalin from responsibility for purging the Soviet hiarachy. he and only he could have given the orders for such things to occur, he had the Soviet powerbase so tightly sown up that noone else could have given orders like that.

 

[stormbind]

Don't put words into my mouth

Several have accused me of attempting to deny Stalin was responsible for the purgery. That's simply not true, I'm avoiding that issue and reading what others post on it!

I'm just saying that other evil things he is acredited with were perhaps not actually evil - specifically the agricultural policy.

A lot of people accuse Stalin of being evil for political mistakes, but the fact remains he appears to have had good intentions that, if they had gone as he planned, would not have physically harmed anybody.

On purgery, I don't know how the scenario evolved. I don't know what he was attempting to do. I don't know if something went wrong. I don't know if he made a tactical error. The fact that I do not know means I do not pass judgement. Abstaining is a far cry from saying he is innocent!