Josef Stalin acted rationally in killing millions, claims Russian textbook

[Ptarmigan]

Josef Stalin acted rationally in killing millions, claims Russian textbook
By Chris Irvine
Last Updated: 8:39AM BST 03 Sep 2008
Telegraph

The book, A History of Russia, 1900-1945, will be used as a teaching guide in Russian schools, 55 years after Stalin died.

It is designed for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young, and seems to follow an attempt backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to re-evaluate Stalin's record in a more positive light.

Millions were shot, exiled to Siberia or died of starvation after their land and homes were taken to fulfil Stalin's vision of massive "factory farms" in the 1920s, while in the 1930s anyone who was a threat was executed or exiled to Gulag labour camps in Siberia.

Historians believe up to 20 million people died as a result of his actions, many times more than were killed under Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany.

Full Article

================================================== ==

Stalin may have thought that, but he is the personification of evil right there! I think Stalin killed 60 million. 20 million is too conservative of a number. Lavarentii Beria is evil. Thankfully he was executed on Christmas Day of 1953. A gift from God for humanity right there! I don’t know why Beria’s name is tossed around like Hitler. Frankly, I get sick hearing Hitler being tossed around all the time. It’s called Godwin’s Law. I mean seriously why Hitler. Why not Stalin or Pol Pot. I think Pol Pot is extremely evil and personifies evil of the worst kind. Joseph Stalin was Georgian, not Russian. That made him really bitter and self-hating. Stalin was also a sex pervert and a pedophile. You know who else admired Stalin, Saddam Hussein. He had a real sick obessession with Stalin and worshipped like he was God. Our soldiers were disturbed and appalled by it.

[candygirl]

That's disgusting how the Russian government is trying to promote Stalin in a more positive light.

[Fantasy Chaser]

Geez, "rational" if your name is Lucifer, I suppose. WTF?

[Rightwing Nutjob]

His actions were very rational if you start with the premise that the "needs" of the state or the many outweigh the needs and desires of the few or the one, when the state is more important than its people and when the state's rights trump individual rights. As some of us learned recently reading the Russian constitution in relation to another post, the needs of the Russian state and its people still outweigh the needs and desires of its individual people.

He was pure evil, and this news is disturbing.

[TheOperative]

Read the book, "We the living" by Ayn Rand you'll see what Russian life was all about back then.

[Rightwing Nutjob]

I concur 100 percent, although I believe it was set prior to Stalin was it not?

[samspade]

Originally Posted by Ptarmigan

Josef Stalin acted rationally in killing millions, claims Russian textbook
By Chris Irvine
Last Updated: 8:39AM BST 03 Sep 2008
Telegraph

The book, A History of Russia, 1900-1945, will be used as a teaching guide in Russian schools, 55 years after Stalin died.

It is designed for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young, and seems to follow an attempt backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to re-evaluate Stalin's record in a more positive light.

Millions were shot, exiled to Siberia or died of starvation after their land and homes were taken to fulfil Stalin's vision of massive "factory farms" in the 1920s, while in the 1930s anyone who was a threat was executed or exiled to Gulag labour camps in Siberia.

Historians believe up to 20 million people died as a result of his actions, many times more than were killed under Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany.

Full Article

================================================== ==

Stalin may have thought that, but he is the personification of evil right there! I think Stalin killed 60 million. 20 million is too conservative of a number. Lavarentii Beria is evil. Thankfully he was executed on Christmas Day of 1953. A gift from God for humanity right there! I don’t know why Beria’s name is tossed around like Hitler. Frankly, I get sick hearing Hitler being tossed around all the time. It’s called Godwin’s Law. I mean seriously why Hitler. Why not Stalin or Pol Pot. I think Pol Pot is extremely evil and personifies evil of the worst kind. Joseph Stalin was Georgian, not Russian. That made him really bitter and self-hating. Stalin was also a sex pervert and a pedophile. You know who else admired Stalin, Saddam Hussein. He had a real sick obessession with Stalin and worshipped like he was God. Our soldiers were disturbed and appalled by it.

I bet RD has this book in his library and uses it as his guidinglight.

[TheOperative]

Originally Posted by Rightwing Nutjob

I concur 100 percent, although I believe it was set prior to Stalin was it not?

Yes, I think it was set just as the Bolshevik revolution took hold. However, that book could have been about Cuba after Castro and little would have changed.

I'm going to do a write up on the comparisons of Obama's 'community organizers' and Cuba's CDR or Committee for the Defense of the Revolution.

Both those words, community and committee scare the hell out of me. Anyway, I'm just rambling now.

[Rightwing Nutjob]

Yeah, but you ramble in a way that I love lol

I hate the words "community" and "society," most especially. Sounds like an interesting writeup too.

[Susanna]

My sister was in Mozambique when the communists took over. The local people were elated that they were being released from the oppressive Portuguese rule, and they didn't understand why the missionaries were so concerned about the communist takeover. Some of the communist leaders came to their community to "organize" them. My sister went to the organization meeting in response to the pleadings of some of her local friends. One of the things they were required to do was to elect a community "political officer." They elected my sister! She declined, saying that the mission organization she was under did not permit the missionaries to become involved in local politics. When they kept insisting, that she was not even a citizen of the country. The official response was, "In the Frelimo, it is not permitted to refuse." I can't remember what "Frelimo" means, I think it's a contraction of 3 words, and I've heard it, but don't remember.

Well, within a day or two, she and the other missionaries still left there were evacuated from the country, so it became moot. One missionary family was out of the country at the time (having a baby), and they couldn't go back and retrieve their belongings.

[Susanna]

OK, here is the meaning of Frelimo: Frente de Libertação de Moçambique.
Translated, Liberation Front of Mozambique.

[TheOperative]

Originally Posted by Susanna

My sister was in Mozambique when the communists took over. The local people were elated that they were being released from the oppressive Portuguese rule, and they didn't understand why the missionaries were so concerned about the communist takeover. Some of the communist leaders came to their community to "organize" them. My sister went to the organization meeting in response to the pleadings of some of her local friends. One of the things they were required to do was to elect a community "political officer." They elected my sister! She declined, saying that the mission organization she was under did not permit the missionaries to become involved in local politics. When they kept insisting, that she was not even a citizen of the country. The official response was, "In the Frelimo, it is not permitted to refuse." I can't remember what "Frelimo" means, I think it's a contraction of 3 words, and I've heard it, but don't remember.

Well, within a day or two, she and the other missionaries still left there were evacuated from the country, so it became moot. One missionary family was out of the country at the time (having a baby), and they couldn't go back and retrieve their belongings.

The beauty of communists as my grandmother always tell me is that they cannot lose. Their language is of 'volunteering', 'proletariat causes', 'reform', 'cooperating', etc... so in effect the useful idiots of the world eat it up and even defend such humanitarian causes without so much as an iota of knowing what is really going on. The truth is much darker and usually amounts to forced labor or imprisonment and death for those who refuse.

[Susanna]

Originally Posted by TheOperative

The beauty of communists as my grandmother always tell me is that they cannot lose. Their language is of 'volunteering', 'proletariat causes', 'reform', 'cooperating', etc... so in effect the useful idiots of the world eat it up and even defend such humanitarian causes without so much as an iota of knowing what is really going on. The truth is much darker and usually amounts to forced labor or imprisonment and death for those who refuse.

Even before my sister left, the people were already starting to realize that the missionaries were right after all.

[Ptarmigan]

Originally Posted by candygirl

That's disgusting how the Russian government is trying to promote Stalin in a more positive light.

Yeah. Funny thing is, Stalin was not even Russian. How ironic!

[Ptarmigan]

Originally Posted by Susanna

My sister was in Mozambique when the communists took over. The local people were elated that they were being released from the oppressive Portuguese rule, and they didn't understand why the missionaries were so concerned about the communist takeover. Some of the communist leaders came to their community to "organize" them. My sister went to the organization meeting in response to the pleadings of some of her local friends. One of the things they were required to do was to elect a community "political officer." They elected my sister! She declined, saying that the mission organization she was under did not permit the missionaries to become involved in local politics. When they kept insisting, that she was not even a citizen of the country. The official response was, "In the Frelimo, it is not permitted to refuse." I can't remember what "Frelimo" means, I think it's a contraction of 3 words, and I've heard it, but don't remember.

Well, within a day or two, she and the other missionaries still left there were evacuated from the country, so it became moot. One missionary family was out of the country at the time (having a baby), and they couldn't go back and retrieve their belongings.

I have noticed that Communist dictatorships often end violently like in Soviet Union, Romania, and Chile. The exception might be Poland and East Germany.

[Mark F]

Stalin did act rationally if you consider what his goals were.
Which were to forge the Soviet Union as the fulfilment of the great Russian Empire and to claim for himself absolute power within that empire.
I doubt that Stalin believed in all that marxist guff anymore than you or I do. It was simply a vehicle which he used to meet his aims.

Putin is in the same mold, he is a Russian imperialist.
It is difficult to objectively assess ruthless political leadership if you are going to get all sentimental about individuals, human rights, freedom etc..

All the more reason that the world needs a strong and vibrant USA where freedom is not a sentimental concept but is written into the law (constitution) Come to think of it that is why we need judges who apply the law rather than try to interpret or create it but that is another story..

[Susanna]

Originally Posted by Mark F

Stalin did act rationally if you consider what his goals were.
Which were to forge the Soviet Union as the fulfilment of the great Russian Empire.
Putin is in the same mold, he is a Russian imperialist.
It is difficult to objectively assess ruthless political leadership if you are going to get all sentimental about individuals, human rights, freedom etc..

All the more reason that the world needs a strong and vibrant USA where freedom is not a sentimental concept but is written into the law (constitution) Come to think of it that is why we need judges who apply the law rather than try to interpret or create it but that is another story..

Yep, rational doesn't always mean right; and Putin is trying to renew the old Soviet Union. I had hopes for him in the beginning, but with reservations, because he was, after all KGB.

[candygirl]

Originally Posted by samspade

I bet RD has this book in his library and uses it as his guidinglight.

That's actually what the whole DNC uses.