Should Stalin apologists be treated in the same way as Nazi sympathisers

[Az]

L'Omnivore

[TheStinger]

The goal of Stalins ideology was to increase his power.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I don't think so, because Stalin's sympathies are ot motivated the same way as nazi sympathies.

Most Stalin's sympathizers are people who were indoctrinated when Stalin was alive, or people who feel things were better under the rule of Stalin than later. I certainly don't agree with them, and I even don't understand such a sympathy can exist, but these motivations look quite harmless.

Nazi sympatists, on the other hand, advocate racial/religious/sexual/whatever hatred. They hate their fellow humans, which is a destructive behaviour, and that's why they went to nazism in the first place. OR, they can be clueless rebeles who just want to break the ultimate taboo.

Both sympathies are very different things.

Good intents resulting in evil are as dangerous as evil intents shamelesly acknowledged. This is really a poor excuse for the commies to say that they have been mislead, and are not responsible for the harm done by their tyran. It is exactly on the same ground that the leftist were charmed by Pol Pot, until the whole world knew that he had physically liquidated millions of cambodgians.

[Spiffor]

Davout :

If you consider that communism (not stalinism) can only lead to Stalin-like catastrophes, then go ahead and treat nazis and communists the same way, because your consider both ideologies to be as dangerous.

BUT, I think most stalinists, if not all, are mostly nostalgic from the Salin's era. I have never encountered yet someone who was stalinist by ideology (granted, I have met very few stalinists in my life)

[DAVOUT]

I may be wrong, but I do not know that stalinism is an ideology: I see it rather as a method of governement applying in its own way the communist ideology.

BTW, does Pol Pot qualify as a communist or as a stalinist ?

[TheStinger]

I'd jsut call him a mass murdering bastard like Stalin and Hitler

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
BTW, does Pol Pot qualify as a communist or as a stalinist ?

PolPotist

Or rather, as an illuminated who was such full of hismelf and of his communitarian/rural/marxist ideology that he had completely lost touch with reality, and plunged Cambodia into hell.

A good example of stalinism can be found in current North Korea. I'd say that Ceaucescu and Hokja (Albanian dictator) fit my understanding of Stalinism well too

Edit Put an "s" to dictator, and you seem to be an ignorant who doesn't know Ceausescu wasn't Albanian

[Illyrien]

People who deny the horrors of Nazism should be treated equally to those that deny the horrors of Socialism.

Nazism isnt more inhuman or evil then Socialism, they just have slightly different goals. The root of both Socialism and Nazism is the belief in "The Strong Man" or "The Enlightened State" eg. the belief that all power should be given to someone wise who will use this power for the cause of good.

Nazies arent inherently evil people, they really believed that they did the right thing.


Anyway I dont see apologists as the same as sympathisers. It is okay, to hold different views, that is what freedom of speach and tought are force, so that these people can be argued with.
It is quite another to try to cover the ill deeds of the past.

[gunkulator]

I think Sara's answer sums it all up.

Serb, if you can convince him that Stalin was really a misunderstood nice guy, I, for one will have to concede.

[Az]

Ceaucescu was not albanian. Better edit it, quickly, before the USians could point at you as an ignoramus.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Spiffor
ThStinger :

No. But I don't think Stalinists agree with Stalin's crimes, they mostly prefer to overlook them. OTOH, nazis are such because they wholeheartedly agree with the extermination of Jews and gypsies, and sometimes take part to the hatemongering of anything which is not nazily kosher.

This is actually not always true, believe it or not. Many modern "Nazi" movements severely downplay the racism angle of it, some even going so far as to actually repudiate the crimes of German Nazism. The American Nazi Green Party is one such organization, I believe.

Now, it seems rather baffling to me as to why people who aren't racist (purportedly) would adopt the emblems of Nazism, which was founded on racist principles, but that me be the answer itself--these are folks caught up in the emblems and imagery of Nazism, not it's most repugnant ideology.

To answer the question, I don't see much difference between those who idolize Nazism (racist genocide and all) and those who would idolize the same aspects of Stalinism. But when you say "treat them the same," what kind of treatment do you mean? Since, at least here, freedom of speech and thought is allowed, the only "treatment" I can prescribe for them is ignoring their lunacy and/or speaking out against their misrepresentation of history.

[GePap]

NO, but its mute since in most places of the world Nazi sympathisers are not treated that badly.

[TheStinger]

well obviuosly I mean treated as if they were stupid idiots whos views should be ignored or ridiculed at every opportunity. that is how Nazi sympathisers should be teated.

[Sirotnikov]

Look, when judging morality you have 3 different things to consider:

Intention (goals)
Methods (ways used to achieve them)
Results (what eventually happenned).

Hilter no doubt had the most sinister goals and methods.

Stalin had very similar methods, and caused the same results (world war, extermination of millions) but his intentions are debateable.

I personally think he was just as evil as hitler (though not as racist) and much more coniving, but I can't prove it as easily as I can prove hitler's intentions. Thus I'll call it debatable.

But while maybe communism, has just intentions, I think that Stalinizim does not represent it.

I think that people who appoligize Stalin and his actions are just as bad as people who appoligze Hitler, saying he wanted a more just society.

One believed in exterminating races, the other believed in exterminating non-proletariat professions and ethnical differences. Why is one thing acceptable to some I don't know.

[GePap]

As DAVOUT stated, there is no 'ideology' of Stalinism, as much as we keep calling states Stalinist: it is more a style of leadership. As such, Stalin admirers differ from Nazi sympathisers, who are backing a party and political ideology.