Stalin in Civ?

[Provost Harrison]

This argument could apply to so many leaders...look at Genghis Khan...he killed hundreds of thousands of people in China and Persia but we don't get pissy about his presence do we? The casualties of Mao's time were in the many millions. Again, no arguments there. Look at the mass sacrifices under the rule of Montezuma. So by this token I have no problem with either Stalin or Hitler being leaders in the game...

[Tattila the Hun]

Stalin killed plenty of jews too.

(That smiley seems inapropriate... )

The civilopedia summarizes Mao's achievements rather well... And would be quite fitting for good ol' Adolf, aswell.

[Dis]

I can buy that Hitler didn't do much for Germany.

But did Ghenghis Khan do much? Where is his civilization today. The only difference is it lasted a lot longer than the third Reich. You can say the mongols impacted other civilizations the most. Which is true. By the same token, germany impacted other civilizations the most as well. But neither empire means **** today.

So what I think it all comes down to, is how many years did these leaders have an impact. And 12 years for Hitler is just not enough. Bismark and Frederick are more important leaders. But if germany should get a third leader, it should be Hitler. But we know that will never happen.

[Thedrin]

A third leader for Germany? I would have said Barbarossa.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Zoid
Ok, here´s the deal. (For those of you who doesn´t already know it). Sorry for the following rant of RL realpolitik.

Hitler is bad because he threatened the superiority of the ruling powers (i.e Great Britain and the USA) and since this hasn´t really changed in the last 50 years - he´s still bad. And Hitler killed a lot of jews. This is a lot worse than what either Stalin or Mao did. They only killed their own kind. Not to mention that Stalin was a valued ally against the nazis. Mao was a bastard, but at least he was a backwards bastard who only killed his own kind and he was a great general and had the wests admiration.

And in the last 15 or so years both Stalin and Mao has become icons of the western and eastern culture. I saw a guy just the other day in a T-shirt with Mao on. Now, I ask you how many T-shirts with Hitler have you seen recently?

The bottom line is that is has nothing to do with how bad a man you were or how many you killed while you were dictator. It has only to do with how you are percieved by the capitalist culture.

Well said Zoid!

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Zoid
Ok, here´s the deal. (For those of you who doesn´t already know it). Sorry for the following rant of RL realpolitik.

Hitler is bad because he threatened the superiority of the ruling powers (i.e Great Britain and the USA) and since this hasn´t really changed in the last 50 years - he´s still bad. And Hitler killed a lot of jews. This is a lot worse than what either Stalin or Mao did. They only killed their own kind. Not to mention that Stalin was a valued ally against the nazis. Mao was a bastard, but at least he was a backwards bastard who only killed his own kind and he was a great general and had the wests admiration.

And in the last 15 or so years both Stalin and Mao has become icons of the western and eastern culture. I saw a guy just the other day in a T-shirt with Mao on. Now, I ask you how many T-shirts with Hitler have you seen recently?

The bottom line is that is has nothing to do with how bad a man you were or how many you killed while you were dictator. It has only to do with how you are percieved by the capitalist culture.

QFFalseness. Stalin and Mao as posterboys of capitalist culture???

It has nothing to do with capitalism, and much to do with race.

[Zoid]

Thanks, Nugog

LS, not posterboys of the capitalist culture. But icons, resolved of all wrongdoings and past actions. Stalin to a lesser degree than Mao and Che Guevara. They´ve become pop culture in a way.

What do you mean by race?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Zoid
What do you mean by race?

Stalin killed a bunch of Russians and central Asians, nobody cares about them. Mao killed a bunch of Chinese people, people care even less about them.

Hitler killed Europeans.

[Zoid]

But if it´s only a matter of race, how come Franco could sit as a dictator in Spain for 40 years without the western powers lifting a finger against him? Or Salazar in Portugal, or the fascist junta in Greece? They all killed a lot of europeans, mostly commies of course - but still europeans...

[Nikolai]

LS, while you do have a point, things isn't as easy as that. It also has to do with things like no direct wars with Mao and Stalin and that Hitler killed Jews, a people who 1) were the West's bad concience(and rightly so) and 2) is very deeply connected with Christianity, which as we all know is the dominant religion of both the world and especially the West. And remember, Stalin also killed Europeans.

[LordShiva]

Re: Spain, Portugal and Greece, they were the "3rd world" of Europe at the time ("Africa starts at the Pyrennes," etc.), so their citizens were considered correspondingly less important. Same with Stalin's Europeans.

[Zoid]

Could be, but I think it was because neither Franco, nor Salazar or the greek junta showed any interest of expanding their territory and thus threatening the western powers. Remember that supporting fascist juntas has been a long standing tradition in american and british foreign policy...

[LordShiva]

I think the fact that Mao and Stalin are "capitalist icons" and can sell t-shirts is precisely because their misdeeds have been ignored/forgiven by Western consumers, and not vice-versa.

[Zoid]

Yes, we agree to that. But we disagree on why they´ve been forgiven/ignored...

[Nikolai]

/me awaits this thread's coming enrichment of the history forum.