Who was worse, Stalin or Hitler ?

CDfm

Reekwind wrote: »

I don't know where to start with that. Are you honestly suggesting that genocide is compatible with socialism? In which case its not a Labour resolution I should be pointing you to but any introductory work on socialist theory

It is a fair question, did contemporary communist and/or socialist leaders contemporaneously condemn the genocide of the Soviet regime or was it the case that they could not possibly comment.

Who were the leaders who criticised them.

The old saying "tell me who your friends are and I will tell you what you are".

Well yes, but you've so far shown a stubborn refusal to engage in any discussion of the latter. My whole point is that Stalin and Hitler must be judged on the basis of historical reality; not moral/ethical pronouncements about 'who got away with it'

It is a question of fact that the Soviet's leaders did not get prosecuted for the genocide of their own people.

You are aware that the exact same could be said for France and Britain, right?

Well it worked for France alright, they surrendered twice in WWII and were on the loosing side both times.

Britain stood alone.

In fairness, what exactly are we to work on here - a medical analysis of one of Stalin's doctors that the dictator was indeed mad? If only it was that easy

In history, in the absence of a fact you cannot really speculate and the doctors report is covered by MarchDub. You have to be cynical.

The other point is that its really rather silly to be talking exclusively of Stalin, as if he personally murdered millions. He was merely at the peak of a pyramid of bureaucrats who had no problem with putting his policies into action. Its really more appropriate to talk of the 'Stalinist system'

Exactly, it is rather silly and we should not be afraid to point it out that he was not alone.

Culturally, there were similarities with the nazi's and the numbers of victims staggeringly large.

Fratton Fred

Fuinseog wrote: »

the Führer wanted peace with England. The Germans had nothing but respect for the Empire. Chamberlin would probably have sought peace but Churchill loved nothing better than a good scrap.

Then why did the Germans invade Poland, after blatantly ignoring the Munich Agreement?

Chamberlain, by the way, declared war on Germany, not Churchill.

Mance Rayder

MarchDub wrote: »

The newspaper reports notwithstanding the issue can only be posed as a question, not a conclusion. Excerpts from Alexander Myasnikov’s private diary have only been published in May of this year. Here are some direct quotes:


This is the doctor’s opinion and historically any expressed opinion - not a documented fact - always must raise the issue of whether it is a bias for some reason? – AFAIK there is no other corroborating evidence for this that has been published?

A doctors opinion is not just any expressed opinion. Another name for a doctors opinion is a diagnosis. It is admissible in a court as evidence. It doesnt mean it's fact. It does however hold water, its not just an empty idea.

You can't say that its unlikely to be true because it was a soviet who diagnosed him. Stalin was hardly going to be examined by a Nazi doctor now was he?

Mance Rayder

Fuinseog wrote: »

this notion of a master race ruling 'subhumans' is today associated with the Nazis, yet they were only aping the thinking of the time. They modeled some racial policies on the much admired British Empire for example India. they may not have termed them untermenschen, yet any British book from the period makes reference to 'savages'
Shamefully thousand of Irish volunteered to help restore the British Empire in Asia.
I wonder aloud if Churchill should be added to the list of who is more evil Hitler or Stalin. After all he chose to fight Germany, when the latter wanted peace.

The topic is Who was worse, Stalin or Hitler?

I don't think Churchill has a place in this. I certainly don't sympatise with the British and their crimes against humanity but whether they were good or bad does not diminish or increase the crimes of Stalin or Hitler and therefore has no bearing on the result of this debate.

Reekwind

CDfm wrote: »

It is a fair question, did contemporary communist and/or socialist leaders contemporaneously condemn the genocide of the Soviet regime or was it the case that they could not possibly comment

There was no "genocide of the Soviet regime

As for condemnations of the Stalinist regime and its crimes, there are countless socialist groups have have condemned, and continue to so, the Soviet regime. Frankly the whole Trotskyist milieu remains rather obsessed for it. As for the more mainstream parties, I honestly don't know whether they've condemned Soviet economic policies of the 1930s. Then again, I don't think that Eamon Gilmore has ever condemned the mass killings of the Herero. Should we conclude that he is in fact a supporter of genocide and a German imperialist?

A far more productive approach - ie, more obvious than asking me to prove the absence of something - would be for yourself to find me examples of mainstream socialist politicians who have condoned the deaths of millions in the USSR

It is a question of fact that the Soviet's leaders did not get prosecuted for the genocide of their own people.

My patience is slipping here. I'll try one last time

1) No one has denied that "the Soviet's leaders did not get prosecuted for the genocide of their own people"
2) That is absolutely and entirely irrelevant when evaluating and comparing the crimes of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia
3) In this context, anyone who places real importance on "prosecution" of the crimes, as opposed to the actual events themselves, is arguing primarily from an ethical position and not a historical one

If you want to talk about "historical fact" then go ahead. Simply stating that there were no prosecutions of the Soviets (as if this somehow increases the number of Soviet murders or decreases those of the Nazis!) is not relevant to the conversation at hand

jonniebgood1

CDfm wrote: »

It is a fair question, did contemporary communist and/or socialist leaders contemporaneously condemn the genocide of the Soviet regime or was it the case that they could not possibly comment.

Who were the leaders who criticised them.

The old saying "tell me who your friends are and I will tell you what you are".

Kruschev gave a very famous speech about Stalin (and his personality) before he became leader of the USSR, in 1956. He did condemn stalin in a quite outspoken manner. It is noted that doing this also had benefit for Kruschev in that his rivals were associates of Stalin. Kruschev had been an allie of Stalin for much of his crimes but when he came to power he eased many restrictions, freed millions from Gulags, etc. His speech is known as the 'secret speech'. It was voted as one of the 20th centuries greatest orations a few years ago by the UK guardian newspaper. The full text of it is here if your interested http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/apr/26/greatspeeches1 . It is quite mouthful but their are interesting parts.

The power accumulated in the hands of one person, Stalin, led to serious consequences during the great patriotic war. When we look at many of our novels, films and historical-scientific studies, the role of Stalin in the patriotic war appears to be entirely improbable. Stalin had foreseen everything. The epic victory is ascribed as being completely due to the strategic genius of Stalin. What are the facts of this matter? Stalin advanced the thesis that our nation experienced an "unexpected" attack by the Germans. But, comrades, this is completely untrue. As soon as Hitler came to power he assigned to himself the task of liquidating communism. The fascists were saying this openly. They did not hide their plans.

Despite grave warnings, the necessary steps were not taken to prepare. We paid with great losses - until our generals succeeded in altering the situation.

Stalin originated the concept "enemy of the people". This term automatically made it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man be proven. It made possible the use of the cruellest repression, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations.

On the whole, the only proof of guilt actually used was the "confession" of the accused himself. "Confessions" were acquired through physical pressures. Innocent individuals - who in the past had defended the party line - became victims. Mass arrests and deportations of many thousands of people, execution without trial and without normal investigation created conditions of insecurity, fear and even desperation.

Vladimir Ilyich demanded uncompromising dealings with the enemies of the revolution. Lenin used such methods, however, only against actual class enemies and not against those who blunder. Stalin, on the other hand, used extreme methods and mass repressions at a time when the revolution was already victorious. During Lenin's life, party congresses were convened regularly. Lenin considered it absolutely necessary that the party discuss at length all questions bearing on the development of government. After Lenin's death, Stalin trampled on the principle of collective party leadership. Of the 139 members and candidates of the central committee who were elected at the 17th congress, 98 persons, 70%, were arrested and shot.

MarchDub

CiscoStudent wrote: »

A doctors opinion is not just any expressed opinion. Another name for a doctors opinion is a diagnosis. It is admissible in a court as evidence. It doesnt mean it's fact. It does however hold water, its not just an empty idea.

You can't say that its unlikely to be true because it was a soviet who diagnosed him. Stalin was hardly going to be examined by a Nazi doctor now was he?

It wasn't a diagnosis of a condition - the 'condition' was revealed by the postmortem. It was speculation on what the condition revealed by the autopsy results might mean and what the symptoms of that postmortem diagnosis could have led to.

By his own words the doctor said that "it should raise the question' and that Stalin 'may have lost his sense of good or bad' - this is not certainly being expressed here. The doctor's own words are expressing the uncertainty - he is speculating on the possible secondary effects of this condition.

AhSureTisGrand

Fuinseog wrote: »

the Führer wanted peace with England. The Germans had nothing but respect for the Empire. Chamberlin would probably have sought peace but Churchill loved nothing better than a good scrap.

Of course Hitler wanted peace with England. Of course the Germans respected the Empire. It was very much a force to be reckoned with. First of all, it was not worth the resources to conquer an island protected by the steongest navy in the world. Second of all, Hitler was much more concerned with the invasion of Russia.

To say Hitler wanted peace with England, while not untrue, is rather misleading. You could probably argue just as well that Genghis Khan wanted peace with the peoples he conquered. Who wouldn't prefer a peaceful, unconditional surrender over a long and costly war? To say only that Hitler wanted peace is to omit that he cared little for peace and was happy to wage war to achieve his goals

CDfm

CiscoStudent wrote: »

A doctors opinion is not just any expressed opinion. Another name for a doctors opinion is a diagnosis. It is admissible in a court as evidence. It doesnt mean it's fact. It does however hold water, its not just an empty idea.

You can't say that its unlikely to be true because it was a soviet who diagnosed him. Stalin was hardly going to be examined by a Nazi doctor now was he?

I think that as a source it should be treated with scepticism, not because the GP was soviet, but because it is from someone from Stalins inner circle and his appointment was in part political..

A doctor will run off a sick note or a complimentary medical report to suit a client.

It is very reasonable to think that the doctors motives went further than a simple report. Maybe his associate Lenny Breshnev wanted it for political purposes.


George V's death by lethal injection is an example of political doctoring.

Death of George V

King George V died on January 20, 1936. Although he was in cardiorespiratory failure, the actual cause of his death was a lethal overdose of morphine given by his physician, Lord Dawson of Penn. After Dawson's death, his diary revealed that the reason behind the intentional overdose was to time the death so that it could be reported immediately the following morning by a major newspaper.2


http://www.mahalo.com/george-v-of-england/

CorkMan

The poll is closed, but I would have voted for Stalin.

Fuinseog

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Then why did the Germans invade Poland, after blatantly ignoring the Munich Agreement?

Chamberlain, by the way, declared war on Germany, not Churchill.

Yes but Chamberlian would have entered peace talks at the first opportunity.

Germanys eastern expansion was none of Britains business. So Britain entered the war to free Poland? Given that this led to forty five years of communist enslavement you could say they did not do a great job at freeing the Poles.

Fratton Fred

Fuinseog wrote: »

Yes but Chamberlian would have entered peace talks at the first opportunity.

Germanys eastern expansion was none of Britains business. So Britain entered the war to free Poland? Given that this led to forty five years of communist enslavement you could say they did not do a great job at freeing the Poles.

The war in the east became Britain's business (and France's) when Hitler invaded an ally of their's. The purpose of the treaty was to try and prevent a war breaking out.

Chamberlain may have negotiated peace, but only after France and the Benelux countries had been steam rollered, hardly an indication of Germany's yearning for a peaceful resolution.

No, they didn't do a very good job of freeing Poland, but this was due mainly to being in no position to argue with Stalin. The US wanted to with draw from europe asap and Stalin wanted his buffer zone. The UK was in no position to do anything other than go along, short of declaring war on the USSR which wouldn't have ended particularly well.

MarchDub

Fuinseog wrote: »

Germanys eastern expansion was none of Britains business. So Britain entered the war to free Poland? Given that this led to forty five years of communist enslavement you could say they did not do a great job at freeing the Poles.

Many Polish historians agree with you and the most noted British historian on Poland, Norman Davies, makes the same point that Poland was forgotten at the end of the war. That very 'reason' for the war was not to be mentioned. Indeed, the Poles were barred from the Victory parade in London at the end of WWII because no one wanted to be reminded that Poland had in fact not been liberated at all.

Here is a quote from Norman Davies Rising 44: The Battle for Warsaw on the situation at the end of WWII and the neglect of Poland in Western European thought and historiography. I have typed it out. It's not available on a link -

In history writing, as in contemporary politics, countries which were once in the Allied camp but which later found themselves in different company have been obliged to wage an uphill battle.

Since the western powers enjoyed a clear cut victory over Germany in their part of Europe, Western readers invariably make a clear cut mental distinction between the war-time and the post-war years. In Russia too, where the victory of 1945 has remained a sacred memory the time before and after ‘Liberation’ is presented as the difference between night and day. But in many countries in central Europe where one totalitarian occupation was succeeded by another, the significance of VE-Day is greatly reduced. Indeed, the very idea of ‘Liberation’, and a clear break with conflict and suffering, was often considered a bad joke.

Fuinseog

Fratton Fred wrote: »

The war in the east became Britain's business (and France's) when Hitler invaded an ally of their's. The purpose of the treaty was to try and prevent a war breaking out.

Chamberlain may have negotiated peace, but only after France and the Benelux countries had been steam rollered, hardly an indication of Germany's yearning for a peaceful resolution.

No, they didn't do a very good job of freeing Poland, but this was due mainly to being in no position to argue with Stalin. The US wanted to with draw from europe asap and Stalin wanted his buffer zone. The UK was in no position to do anything other than go along, short of declaring war on the USSR which wouldn't have ended particularly well.

the odd thing is that Hitler wanted a united Europe against the reds, which is exactly what western Europe sought after the war.
peace with the west fighting against the communists.

people in the occupied countries sometimes had it better under the Nazi jackboot than during the liberation.
In France for example if the Germans destroyed crops they paid compensation. their liberators on the other hand took what they pleased and in the course of liberating Caen 20,000 French civilians were killed.

to support Hitler at this stage would have been to support frightful injustice against the Jews, though the blacks in America were second class citizens and and occasionally murdered and The British regarded the Indians as untermenschen.

today people who fought for the allies claim it was to liberate the camps, yet the gulags were ignored.

CDfm

I think it has gone a bit off topic here - a few years back Simon Sebag Montefiore published Stalin and amongst the topics he covered was the depravity of Stalins henchment and Stalins own anti-semitism.

Here is an extract from a book review from the Telegraph in 2003 one of many in the link

Sebag Montefiore has worked with amazing speed, emerging from the archives with a fascinating scoop of documents, including many personal diaries and letters that shed new light on the private lives of Stalin's inner circle. He has supplemented these with interviews with the relatives of the major political clans - the Mikoyans, the Malenkovs and Molotovs, the Berias, the Kaganoviches and the Khrushchevs.
One thing these new documents reveal is how loose the ruling Party was in the early 1930s, when Stalin was just one of many leading Bolsheviks. Indeed in many ways he was overshadowed by the Party boss of Leningrad, Sergei Kirov, who was genuinely popular, not just in the Party but in the country as a whole.
In 1934 Kirov was mysteriously murdered - probably on Stalin's orders (although I doubt we shall ever know for sure). Stalin took charge of the murder investigation and built it into the exposure of a major political conspiracy against the state. This was the origin of the mass terror which culminated in the huge show trials of 1936-38.
Sebag Montefiore portrays Stalin as "the chief organiser" of the Terror. I am sure that is right (we know from documents that Stalin signed the execution lists). But I am not so convinced by Sebag Montefiore's argument that the sources of the Terror are located in Stalin's personal life.
He starts his book with a riveting account of the suicide of Stalin's wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, in November 1932. According to Sebag Montefiore, it was this event that unhinged Stalin psychologically, and set him on a course to mass terror. But this could only have been the case in the absence of any effective check on Stalin's personal power within the political elite: at this stage, however, in the early 1930s, there still was such a check.
Gradually, in the course of that decade, Stalin eliminated all his main political rivals and surrounded himself with yes-men. To explain this process one needs to look at a different aspect of the new materials that Sebag Montefiore has revealed. For nearly all of Stalin's men were recently promoted to the Soviet elite. Apart from Stalin himself, Molotov and Kalinin were the only major leaders to have been members of Lenin's entourage. The rest all rose as a result of their participation in Stalin's war against the Old Bolsheviks between 1928 and 1938. And all of them depended on Stalin's patronage.
Stalin's court was not unlike that of Ivan the Terrible. Stalin was a voracious reader of history books and he consciously modelled himself on the 16th-century Tsar. He built up his own elite of henchmen - not unlike Ivan's oprichnina - to undermine the old political establishment. He gave them flats and dachas, cars and chauffeurs, to buy their gratitude. And every year he murdered some of them to keep the others on their toes.
Slavishly devoted to Stalin's will, and all too well aware that they could be destroyed by a single flick of his finger, these yes-men were ready to do almost anything to retain their position at his court. This is where the full horror of Sebag Montefiore's account is located. He portrays an extraordinary picture of moral degeneracy at the heart of the Stalinist regime.
The police chief Lavrenti Beria was a sex maniac: young girls were kidnapped from the street, raped by Beria, and sent home with a bouquet of flowers. Politburo meetings frequently descended into boorish drinking bouts, farting competitions, and surreal scenes of homosexual slow-dancing to the gramophone.
Stalin loved to engineer these scenes of ritual humiliation. Somehow he stayed sober while the others all got drunk. He fostered an atmosphere of fear and jealousy among his oligarchs - so much so that there were times when they rushed to denounce each other in a frenzy of terror.
To guarantee their submission, Stalin punished several of his entourage by having their wives arrested. Molotov, Poskrebyshev (Stalin's personal secretary), the Soviet President Mikhail Kalinin - they all suffered this indignity. Yet none of these Good Bolsheviks raised one word of protest: the Party was always right.
The moral degradation of the Stalinist elite was crucial to Stalin's power, especially in the post-war years (1945-53) when his own anti-Semitism was allowed free rein, leading to a wave of arrests and expulsions from the major cities, and when much of Soviet policy was resolved at drunken dinners in his private rooms.


http://www.arlindo-correia.com/140104.html

So how depraved did these guys get.

Stalin didnt actually do the killing others did so maybe rather than discussing the British we should be looking at their associates, friends , lovers and families.

Reekwind

CDfm wrote: »

I think it has gone a bit off topic here - a few years back Simon Sebag Montefiore published Stalin and amongst the topics he covered was the depravity of Stalins henchment and Stalins own anti-semitism

And no one is pretending that Stalin was a particularly nice guy. This thread however makes the explicit comparison between him and Hitler. Now how many Jews did Stalin have executed?

Fuinseog wrote:

people in the occupied countries sometimes had it better under the Nazi jackboot than during the liberation

What? Tell that to the people of Oradour. Or the Dutch famine deaths of '44. Or the hundreds of thousands of civilians conscripted to work in German factories. Or the average worker whose living standards collapsed as the economy was redirected to serve the German war machine. Occupation was desperately unpopular for a reason

And that is the most disturbing aspect to this thread. Overstating the crimes of Stalin is understandable (if out of synch with academic consensus) but numerous posters have set about playing down the crimes of the Nazis*. This is not just morally unacceptable. The mainstream rehabilitation of Hitler, no matter how partial, also also carries very politically dangerous undercurrents. What we are seeing, both in this thread and in real life, is a subtle shift towards the pro-fascist sentiment that was so popular in the 1930s. It's a short step from decrying Stalin as a greater threat/menace/evil than Hitler, to 'rather Berlin to Moscow' and other collaborationist slogans

*This is of course necessary to make the flawed comparison work in the first place. No one who is aware of the full extent of the Nazi crimes, even in a purely statistical context, can honestly maintain that they are overshadowed by those of the Soviets

CDfm

Reekwind wrote: »

And no one is pretending that Stalin was a particularly nice guy. This thread however makes the explicit comparison between him and Hitler. Now how many Jews did Stalin have executed?

I do not know if you are missing my point here.

Neither Hitler nor Stalin could have operated without others, its all very well to say Stalin was mentally ill as Krushkev did and try to distance himself.

The guy was not alone and it was not Stalin singular or Hitler singular who perpetrated the acts.

They were not lone gunmen and did not act alone.

Would James Connolly have approved, I think not.

Reekwind

CDfm wrote: »

Neither Hitler nor Stalin could have operated without others, its all very well to say Stalin was mentally ill as Krushkev did and try to distance himself

Well yes, this is a point that I've already made elsewhere in the thread. But in light of this objection I'll rephrase my question while forgoing the shorthand:

How many Jews were executed under the Stalinist regime?

[Edit: I might as well elaborate on this slightly. Usually I don't like this 'whataboutism' but that is the basis of the thread, so meh. It seems grotesque to hold someone's anti-Semitism up as a sign of their 'eviler' nature in a thread that compares them to Hitler. By all means condemn Stalin for being an anti-Semite but in the context of this thread that does not mean very much. In relation to Jews and anti-Semitism, there was nothing in the USSR that is even comparable to the Holocaust. I would go so far as to argue that even suggesting the opposite is nothing less than trivialising the Holocaust

Yet the prevailing attitude seems to be that if you throw enough one-sided slurs at a wall, then something will stick. Hence we get mention of Stalin's anti-Semitism without reference to the fact that his opposite number set out to eradicate the Jewish people in the entirety! Stalin was not a nice guy, no one has denied that, but this is one contest where he comes off the better]

CDfm

Reekwind wrote: »

Well yes, this is a point that I've already made elsewhere in the thread. But in light of this objection I'll rephrase my question while forgoing the shorthand:

How many Jews were executed under the Stalinist regime?

I dunno .

That was never my point. I am not denying the holocaust at all.

What I said originally was that the numbers on both sides are staggeringly large beyond comprehension in zero's -the nazi total of jews alone is around the population of the Island of Ireland.

Stalin's action against the Kulaks is real in my mind as they were people similar to my grandparents and great grandparents. People like my family.

Hitler wrote Mein Kampf - expressing his racist and political beliefs. A rant.

The Marxist beliefs of the Soviets going back to the writings of Marx, Engels and others like Hegel. The putting Marx into practice involved killing people.

This killing people thing started early in the Soviet Government by Stalin and his colleagues as an integral part of their regime.

Edit

Uncle Joe (Stalin) was not a nice guy ever but neither were Cousins Nicky or Lenny (Kruskev or Breshnev) his sidekicks.

So the time period differs .

Stalin's beef with the Kulaks was actually based on an economic model , collectivisation, which did not work. So these were not "counter revoloutionaries" , they were opponents of a model which did not work.

So really the killings are inexcusable and the political model which was supposed to protect the ordinary people did not when the economic model failed -did not.

Thats not mudslinging - its historical fact that this is how the model behaved and the price dissenters had was incarceration, exile or death.

It seems a bit premeditated to me.

Fuinseog

Reekwind wrote: »

And no one is pretending that Stalin was a particularly nice guy. This thread however makes the explicit comparison between him and Hitler. Now how many Jews did Stalin have executed?

What? Tell that to the people of Oradour. Or the Dutch famine deaths of '44. Or the hundreds of thousands of civilians conscripted to work in German factories. Or the average worker whose living standards collapsed as the economy was redirected to serve the German war machine. Occupation was desperately unpopular for a reason

And that is the most disturbing aspect to this thread. Overstating the crimes of Stalin is understandable (if out of synch with academic consensus) but numerous posters have set about playing down the crimes of the Nazis*. This is not just morally unacceptable. The mainstream rehabilitation of Hitler, no matter how partial, also also carries very politically dangerous undercurrents. What we are seeing, both in this thread and in real life, is a subtle shift towards the pro-fascist sentiment that was so popular in the 1930s. It's a short step from decrying Stalin as a greater threat/menace/evil than Hitler, to 'rather Berlin to Moscow' and other collaborationist slogans

*This is of course necessary to make the flawed comparison work in the first place. No one who is aware of the full extent of the Nazi crimes, even in a purely statistical context, can honestly maintain that they are overshadowed by those of the Soviets

Oradour was a response to terrorist attacks. Caen was also an atrocity, but one committed by the allies.
German Occupation was snot necessarily unpopular. that is allied propaganda and post war revisionistic thinking.

AhSureTisGrand

Fuinseog wrote: »

Oradour was a response to terrorist attacks

You say that as if it mitigates what they did

Ellian

Reekwind wrote: »

How many Jews were executed under the Stalinist regime?

Executed or killed? Are we making a distinction about attempts to murder a peoples on an industrial scale, or just killing them through various means from executions ( albeit not on an industrial scale), through to starvation and harsh prison conditions. Executed I don't know. But for Jews killed under Stalin, I have seen numbers that range from about 2.5 million to 13 million.

Reekwind wrote: »

I would go so far as to argue that even suggesting the opposite is nothing less than trivialising the Holocaust

I would like to hear that argument. I for one would not for one second deny there was a clearly evolved intention, going all the way back to Mein Kampf for the eradication of European Jewry. That cost the lives of 4.5 million people (I am using the number given by Yad Vashem the Holocaust Museum in Israel) But it is possible that Stalin killed just as many without the industrial set up. So in a numbers game it is up for debate? If it was about the eradication of peoples, there have been attempted genocides before or since. (for example, I generally feel a huge sympathy for Armenian historians who gamely fight on for an acknoelwdgement of the huge crimes perpetrated against their people by the Turks) But I fail to understand how if there is an acknowledgment that a person died at the ends of a murderous, brutal, regime that wanted him dead because he was a Jew (as indeed was the man to the left and the right of him) , it is trivial to say that there was another man who died at the hands of a murderious, brutal regime, who targetted him because he was a Jew (and to his left and right were a kulak and a Romanian) and then simply did not care whether he lived or died. Both men died because of brutality and bigotry at the hands of a totalitarian state, so I genuinely don't understand why to make such a comparison trivialises the Holocaust. But in a way this argument is ridiculous? You may as well ask "who were more dead, the victims of Hitler or the victims of Stalin?"

jonniebgood1

Ellian wrote: »

Executed or killed? Are we making a distinction about attempts to murder a peoples on an industrial scale, or just killing them through various means from executions ( albeit not on an industrial scale), through to starvation and harsh prison conditions. Executed I don't know. But for Jews killed under Stalin, I have seen numbers that range from about 2.5 million to 13 million.

Many numbers are vaguely attributed. Could you provide a source for what you feel is the figure (as you did below).

Ellian wrote: »

... 4.5 million people (I am using the number given by Yad Vashem the Holocaust Museum in Israel) But it is possible that Stalin killed just as many without the industrial set up.

Fuinseog

Ellian wrote: »

Executed or killed? Are we making a distinction about attempts to murder a peoples on an industrial scale, or just killing them through various means from executions ( albeit not on an industrial scale), through to starvation and harsh prison conditions. Executed I don't know. But for Jews killed under Stalin, I have seen numbers that range from about 2.5 million to 13 million.



I would like to hear that argument. I for one would not for one second deny there was a clearly evolved intention, going all the way back to Mein Kampf for the eradication of European Jewry. That cost the lives of 4.5 million people (I am using the number given by Yad Vashem the Holocaust Museum in Israel) But it is possible that Stalin killed just as many without the industrial set up. So in a numbers game it is up for debate? If it was about the eradication of peoples, there have been attempted genocides before or since. (for example, I generally feel a huge sympathy for Armenian historians who gamely fight on for an acknoelwdgement of the huge crimes perpetrated against their people by the Turks) But I fail to understand how if there is an acknowledgment that a person died at the ends of a murderous, brutal, regime that wanted him dead because he was a Jew (as indeed was the man to the left and the right of him) , it is trivial to say that there was another man who died at the hands of a murderious, brutal regime, who targetted him because he was a Jew (and to his left and right were a kulak and a Romanian) and then simply did not care whether he lived or died. Both men died because of brutality and bigotry at the hands of a totalitarian state, so I genuinely don't understand why to make such a comparison trivialises the Holocaust. But in a way this argument is ridiculous? You may as well ask "who were more dead, the victims of Hitler or the victims of Stalin?"

through appeasement, the allies helped create Hitler and Stalin. Hitler laid out his plans in Mein Kampf although racial ideas were common place in Europe at the the time and the Jews had few friends.

Had the Allies backed the Nazis Soviet Russia could have been crushed and Europe spared 45 years of misery. it is speculation whether or not the Nazis would have imposed a better system.

the soviets judging the Germans at Nuremberg made a farce of an already farcical show trial.

Hitler and Stalin have often been compared as monsters , but maybe we could throw in the Americans into the pot as well. after all they are the only nation to have ever used an atomic bomb against their fellow humans. they were prepared to liquidate their foe in a manner which Stalin and Hitler could not match.

Fuinseog

Ellian wrote: »

Executed or killed? Are we making a distinction about attempts to murder a peoples on an industrial scale, or just killing them through various means from executions ( albeit not on an industrial scale), through to starvation and harsh prison conditions. Executed I don't know. But for Jews killed under Stalin, I have seen numbers that range from about 2.5 million to 13 million.



I would like to hear that argument. I for one would not for one second deny there was a clearly evolved intention, going all the way back to Mein Kampf for the eradication of European Jewry. That cost the lives of 4.5 million people (I am using the number given by Yad Vashem the Holocaust Museum in Israel) But it is possible that Stalin killed just as many without the industrial set up. So in a numbers game it is up for debate? If it was about the eradication of peoples, there have been attempted genocides before or since. (for example, I generally feel a huge sympathy for Armenian historians who gamely fight on for an acknoelwdgement of the huge crimes perpetrated against their people by the Turks) But I fail to understand how if there is an acknowledgment that a person died at the ends of a murderous, brutal, regime that wanted him dead because he was a Jew (as indeed was the man to the left and the right of him) , it is trivial to say that there was another man who died at the hands of a murderious, brutal regime, who targetted him because he was a Jew (and to his left and right were a kulak and a Romanian) and then simply did not care whether he lived or died. Both men died because of brutality and bigotry at the hands of a totalitarian state, so I genuinely don't understand why to make such a comparison trivialises the Holocaust. But in a way this argument is ridiculous? You may as well ask "who were more dead, the victims of Hitler or the victims of Stalin?"

I thought six million was the made to measure number of Jews who perished and to mention a lesser figure was heresy?
although the number increases every few years. Holocaust victims are technically anyone who was in a camp and even if they died fifty years after the event they are listed as victims of Hitler.

DublinWriter

I think it's a mute argument, a bit like asking which is worse - bestiality or zoophilia?

Certainly Stalin had the higher body count, the majority of which were his own people.

Fuinseog

AhSureTisGrand wrote: »

You say that as if it mitigates what they did

what happened was not unusual in war. What about My Lai? terrible things happen in war but we have this notion of goodies and baddies. we have been fed the notion that the Germans and Russians were the baddies, yet some deeds the allies performed were less than admirable.

CDfm

Fuinseog wrote: »

through appeasement, the allies helped create Hitler and Stalin. Hitler laid out his plans in Mein Kampf although racial ideas were common place in Europe at the the time and the Jews had few friends.

Agreed

Had the Allies backed the Nazis Soviet Russia could have been crushed and Europe spared 45 years of misery. it is speculation whether or not the Nazis would have imposed a better system.

I do not think there was a possibility that could have happened did any one of the Allies political real leaders in power consider it. The likes of the Duke of Windsor was not a real leader. .

the soviets judging the Germans at Nuremberg made a farce of an already farcical show trial.

Anyone judging the Nazi's was a plus IMHO.

Hitler and Stalin have often been compared as monsters , but maybe we could throw in the Americans into the pot as well. after all they are the only nation to have ever used an atomic bomb against their fellow humans. they were prepared to liquidate their foe in a manner which Stalin and Hitler could not match.

A c'mon the Japenese attacked the US Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbour .

That caused the US to enter the war.

France and Britain had been amongst the WWI winners and it was their failure to maintain military strenght and contain the Nazi's.

Reekwind

CDfm wrote: »

I dunno

Do you think it was less than those killed by the Nazi state?

And frankly, that does not reflect well. You don't know how many Jews were killed by the Stalinist state? That's fair enough. But then why post about Stalin's anti-Semitism in a Hitler comparison thread?

Ellian wrote:

Executed or killed? Are we making a distinction about attempts to murder a peoples on an industrial scale, or just killing them through various means from executions ( albeit not on an industrial scale), through to starvation and harsh prison conditions

Of course there's a distinction. One I've made numerous times in this thread. Sentencing people to death (whether via bullet, gas chamber or Vernichtung durch Arbeit) is not the same as allowing them to die through criminal negligence (inadequate supplies, poor camp conditions, etc, etc). Both are reprehensible, and the state bears responsibility for both deaths, but there is a difference nonetheless: the difference between purposeful execution and criminal negligence

Executed I don't know. But for Jews killed under Stalin, I have seen numbers that range from about 2.5 million to 13 million.

Those figures are absolutely ridiculous. You are suggesting that the Stalinist regime killed, at a minimum, almost half the number of Jews as the Nazis did? I shudder to ask where exactly you saw those figures. Needless to say, they are completely out of whack with mainstream academia

The latter, as I've noted already, has gravitated around a figure of 3-4 million repression deaths and 3-7 million famine deaths for all victims across the entire Stalinist period. Yet you are suggesting that the Stalinist state killed more Jews alone than this total? I don't want to know how many kulaks you think were killed - 40 million? 60 million?

But I fail to understand how if there is an acknowledgment that a person died at the ends of a murderous, brutal, regime that wanted him dead because he was a Jew (as indeed was the man to the left and the right of him) , it is trivial to say that there was another man who died at the hands of a murderious, brutal regime, who targetted him because he was a Jew (and to his left and right were a kulak and a Romanian) and then simply did not care whether he lived or died

First of all, I object strongly to this. There is absolutely no evidence that there a 'Soviet Holocaust' in the USSR or some sort of concerted campaign to eradicate the Jews. Anti-Semitism did become increasingly common in the latter years of Stalin's reign but to describe this as anything resembling events in Germany/Poland is both inaccurate and trivialises the Nazi crimes

And this is my bugbear. By suggesting that the Soviet crimes were equal to or greater than those of the Nazis (FYI: not true) you automatically make the latter look better by comparison. If Stalin was the 'greater evil' then the Nazis automatically become the 'lesser evil'. And that's just a short hop from Goebbels' claims to be fighting a pan-European anti-Bolshevik crusade

I mean we honestly have people in this thread advocating a Nazi victory. As if the dismemberment of France and the genocidal annihilation of all of Eastern Europe somehow compares favourably to "45 years of misery". This is insane

Fuinseog wrote:

it is speculation whether or not the Nazis would have imposed a better system

No, it's not. The system that the "Nazis would have imposed" was in fact imposed on a limited scale. The brief glimpse that we got of this involved the systematic murder, within a few years, of millions of civilians as part of some racial master plan. I would say imagine that writ large, but it's hard to imagine a higher death toll than the 20+ million who died in reality

Oradour was a response to terrorist attacks

How many of those killed at Oradour were "terrorists"?

In fact, "a response to terrorist attacks" is a disgracefully sneaky and evasive response. It's one that glosses over the reality: it was a 'disproportionate collective punishment meted out to an innocent civilian population for so-called crimes that they did not commit'

DublinWriter wrote:

Certainly Stalin had the higher body count

No he did not. I really wish that people would acquaint themselves with the numbers before they start throwing accusations like that about

CDfm

Reekwind wrote: »

Well not really. If we're looking purely at numbers then Stalin's tally breaks down roughly as follows:

1+ million state executions
2-3 million deaths of prisoners in custody or during deportation
7-8 million deaths due to disastrous economic mismanagement (ie, famine)

This is over a quarter of a century. In contrast Hitler, in the space of a decade, can be accredited with:

6 million Jews
3+ million Soviet POWs
2 million Roma
2 million Poles
1+ million miscellaneous (communists, socialists, disabled persons, homosexuals, etc)
12+ million Soviet civilians
Plus tens of millions others through a war of aggression

There's also a qualitative difference between the two. If the Stalinist regime is guilty of the deaths of 10-12 million people (and there is a discussion as to whether deaths due to famine should be laid at the government's door; compare with the Great Famine here) then only a fraction of these can be said to be purposeful. That is, Stalinist Russia killed millions through criminal negligence or gross incompetence but actually set out to kill a 'mere' million or so citizens. In comparison, the vast majority of the Nazis' victims were targeted because of their ethnic or political convictions. Unlike the GULAG, people sent to Nazi concentration camps were not intended to come out alive

I know that this is splitting hairs and that both were obviously brutal dictatorships. It is however important from a historical point of view not to simply conflate the two or to pretend that they were as bad as each other. There were differences in both the numbers and the motives

I'll take the cynical opportunist over the crazed ideologue who genuinely believed in wiping out an entire people. Conviction can be overrated

What sources are you using Reekwind ?

There is some disagreement on sources.