Should East Europe countries be thankful to Soviet Union?

[Propaganda]

I'm off to . Dosvedonya.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Propaganda


A zealot for the system, eh? Thanks for mis-understanding. I guess I typed all that out for nothing.

You miss the point. There is no cause, there are no problems, there are no excuses for the murder of millions of Soviet citizens by their own government. Notice I said Soviet citizens, and not Russian government.

Somewhere between 6 (low) and 50 (absurdly high) MILLION of his own people murdered. What? For widgets? Or steel? What price is too high?

I hope that the people who used to live under the Soviet system can understand some day. It's not OK. It never was OK. Whether you lived under it or not, no human being of good conscience should remain silent.

[Propaganda]

You also miss my point.

When I typed up that excerpt, I had the intention of explaining Stalin's reforms and why they worked . I wasn't advocating Stalin's blunders. Never would I do such a thing. Nor would any Russian people. It was all done to paint a picture for you; showing you that the system was good(in our eyes), but the way it was implemented was horrendous and cost millions of precious lives.

We never forgot this, and we'll never forgive it.

[notyoueither]

Sorry Prop, I do not intend to belabour this (OK, I do), but...

If the Stalinist system was so good in the eyes of the citizens of the Soviet Union, then why did the thing blow apart the first chance all the 'other' republics got to make a break for it?

Granted, it was no longer Stalinist by that time. It was better. So much more strange that they would all leave...

[TheStinger]

The way I see it the SU under Stalin was as bad as the Nazis the SU without Stalin wasn't however this does not mean EE should be grateful to the SU once Stalin died

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Propaganda

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/episodes/redflag/fedorovatranscript.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/episodes/redflag/chernitzkytranscript.html

For you.

I guess they weren't sent to the gulag. Good for them. They survived.

[Propaganda]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Sorry Serb, I do not intend to belabour this (OK, I do), but...

If the Stalinist system was so good in the eyes of the citizens of the Soviet Union, then why did the thing blow apart the first chance all the 'other' republics got to make a break for it?

Granted, it was no longer Stalinist by that time. It was better. So much more strange that they would all leave...

One last reply.

This is actually difficult to explain.

First, it has to do with what was going on in Russia itself. Russia was dismantled, and workers had to recommit again to build the Soviet Union. Western Russia(Belarus, Ukraine, Baltics) and parts of Eastern Europe were gone, thus supplies, food, goods and other necessities were impossible to find and get. Eastern Europeans saw it this way: "Why should we ask a broken-down Russia for help? when we can get aid from the West? Russia has no money, supplies, goods or anything now." This was a time of great difficulty because most of industrial sector of Russia had to be rebuilt, AGAIN. Everything had to be re-constructed. Because of this, EE had great difficulty with coping, because little assistance can be given to them, when the head is cut-off(that being Russia) and has to be regrown(and that took a lot of time.)

Secondly, Stalin was exposed. Many in Eastern Europe that Khruschev would reach out to them and do the same thing as Stalin did during the late 30s. So they asked sovereignty from Moscow. They did not necessarily want to leave the Communist system, but actually leave Moscow's sphere.

Of course, after the Warsaw-Pact treaty, the situation was somewhat rehabilitated, as some of the republics in EE had been given some sovereignty in decision-making, but not without civil strife.

Now, I am off to sleep. Goodnight.

[notyoueither]

Have a good night and then try to explain that bit again. I am quite confused in figuring out what you are trying to say.

[Serb]

Propaganda: Post zabral.

Serb: post snova prinal

The book not only give locations of exiles, of labor camps, of "special settlements," within the vast Soviet Empire, but also offers year by year accounts of the numbers of Soviet citizens sentenced to the Gulag, peaking in 1953 with over 5 millions, with near twenty per cent of that number executed.

and

Koreans, and Khemshils, many of whom were deported to regions where it was known a high percentage would perish. It was according to Pohl's figures, these minorities which bore much of the brunt of Stalin's repression, and, in some cases, as with the peoples of the North Caucasus, Crimean peninsula, and Kalmyk steppe, during WW11, their deportation, or as Pohl calls it, an "ethnic cleansing" amounted to "one of the greatest crimes against humanity in the 20th century."

Now, go peddle your apologia elsewhere. I'm not buying, and I'm not gonna let you sell unmolested.

Ok. Whas it somehow different from what "civilized and democratic" governments of West do during WW2?

Let's see,
Yes, during WW2 Stalin deported a lot of people of different nationalities who joined nazi in war vs. SU. Of course not all of them supported nazi, for example many Russian Germans remained loyal to Russia, the disaster for them was that Stalin let their fate to be decided by Lazar Koganovich, who was a Jew (I guess I don't have to explain his feelings toward Germans) and no less cruel men then Lavrenty Beria. As for Caucasus and Crimean Tatars they gladly supported nazi and very enthuasiticaly participated in holocoust. My grandfather fought in Crimea during WW2 vs. regiments of Crimean Tatars who fought on nazi side.
So, the Stalin ordered to deportate nationalities who backstabed SU and joined nazi in their war vs. SU.
Was it cruel? Yes. Are innocent people suffered because of this? Yes.
Let's see how "democratic" west acted.
In GB right after declaration of war was created a special tribunal which investigated cases of people who were Germans, had German blood or were refugies from Germany. Those people were deportated to Man island, and later to Quibeck (Canada).
Just notice, aside SU there was no land invasion of Germans in Britain. No single man who were deported, in GB never participated in millitary actions vs. GB or in mass murdering of British civilians (like it was in case of people deported by SU)
In 1941 the USA senate made a resolution which started deportation of Japanese lived in USA and Americans with Japanese roots. More then 400 000 people were deported and total about 1,5 were harmed in various means. For example nazi in Germany chased people who had 1/8 of Hebrew blood. USA come further and chased people who had only 1/16 of Japanese blood. They were thown to death in camps in the middle of dessert. And again there was no land invasion of Japanese in USA and no one of those people participated in millitary actions vs. USA or mass murdering of American civilians. Could you imagine how much more terrible and cruel reply of your society to those people could be, if some of those American Japanese actually participated in murder of hundreds of thousands of Americans?

So, I see no point in your charges NYE. I don't advocate that Stalin's actions were nice and humanistic. They weren't. But such cruel desicions were typical for that time, the time of most cruel war in human history. And "civilazed" and "democratic" GB and USA were the players of the same league.

And btw, why are you Westerners always think that you are holier then others?

[notyoueither]

Since we don't defend our governments who murdered 10 or 20 million of our own citizens. We condemn them. When are you lot gonna get with the program?

And was that different from what the West did during WWII? Are you nuts? We're not just talking the war, or would you like to read the links I posted?

FIRST comes the gnawing, twisting pain in the stomach. Then hallucinations which drive some mad. Then apathy, emaciation, swelling of the hands, feet and stomach. Then death. Starvation is grisly, and all the more so when it is en masse, the death from hunger of one-quarter of a nation. It is small wonder that few of the 100 or so survivors of the Ukrainian famine of 1932 and 1933 who live in Alberta today are willing to talk about the demise of almost seven million of their countrymen, their relatives and friends who died. "Survivor syndrome," says a sympathetic Bohdan Krawchenko, a University of Alberta professor who has been tracking down those who lived through the period, for this week's 50th anniversary famine commemoration. Survivors feel guilty that they lived while others didn't, and ashamed at the degradation of it all. Many fear reprisals against relatives still in the Ukraine. The Soviet Union has steadfastly denied the famine for 50 years, Ukrainian Canadians claim, for the simple reason that the Soviets themselves caused the atrocity by stealing the harvest and exporting it to Europe to pay for new industrial machinery.

[Serb]

Now, I am off to sleep. Goodnight.

Otdyhai tovarish, post pod nadezhnoi ohranoi.

Originally posted by notyoueither
Have a good night and then try to explain that bit again. I am quite confused in figuring out what you are trying to say.

Perhaps, I could do this?

Sorry Prop, I do not intend to belabour this (OK, I do), but...

If the Stalinist system was so good in the eyes of the citizens of the Soviet Union, then why did the thing blow apart the first chance all the 'other' republics got to make a break for it?

Granted, it was no longer Stalinist by that time. It was better. So much more strange that they would all leave...

All is simple, because it is not correct.
The people wanted changes, they wanted to be more rich, to be more independent, to change government, not to destroy country. Except Baltic states no one wanted to leave. In 1991 there was a referendum with one single question- do you want to live in united country? Absolute majority had answered yes. No one (except Baltic states) wanted collapse of country. Well to be honest, there was another exception. The heads of national republics wanted power, to remove Gorbachev Yeltsin had only one way- to remove SU as country. He and heads of other 3 national republics which were co-founders of SU, signed a declaration were they proclaimed that SU is no longer exist and that president of SU (Gorbachev) should leave Kremlin and give all power to Yelsin as president of Russia.
Gorbachev was overthrown.
You may ask if people wanted to live in united country and didn't want to destroy it, then why they weren't revolt?
Because they hate Gorbachev, whose reforms in economy brought country to deep economic crisis and at the same time absolute majority of population admired Yeltsin, because they thought he would feed them.

[Serb]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Since we don't defend our governments who murdered 10 or 20 million of our own citizens. We condemn them. When are you lot gonna get with the program?

I don't defend Stalin too. No single men in straight mind would defend Stalin. He was a bloody murder. I condemn him no less then you. Of course you couldn't know HOW MUCH HIS REGIME was condemned here since times of "perestroika". You have no idea about this. He was found guilty in all thinkable and unthinkable crimes, in all possible sins perhaps only with exception of vampirism. And not so long ago one of the local "writers" wrote the book about Stalin where he saying that Stalin was homosexualist. And this flow of spam keep going.

And was that different from what the West did during WWII? Are you nuts? We're not just talking the war, or would you like to read the links I posted?

I didn't read the links, I've answered your quote about "ethnic cleansing" in SU during WW2. And just said thats a bit unfair that deportations in SU during WW2 consider as the "one of the greatest crimes against humanity in the 20th century" while the same "ethnic cleansing" in USA and GB consider as Ok.
This quote:

It was according to Pohl's figures, these minorities which bore much of the brunt of Stalin's repression, and, in some cases, as with the peoples of the North Caucasus, Crimean peninsula, and Kalmyk steppe, during WW11, their deportation, or as Pohl calls it, an "ethnic cleansing" amounted to "one of the greatest crimes against humanity in the 20th century."

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by Propaganda


On the subject of Stalin, no, we do not want to 'claim' him, but we do respect him. Of course not because of his purges or pograms, but because of the same system you condemn, which he put in place. It might be hard to understand to someone who has lived comfortably in the West, but it is a much different case if you lived life within Russia in those years, and even now. To explain, the entire economic picture of the USSR during the 1920s needs to be visualized. This was the time when the NEP was in full bloom. During this time, a period of "capitalization" was in effect. Peasantry were comfortable in private kibutzes, while urban workers worked on state-owned factories, which were of small-industry type. We had little heavy industry projects, because we did not have the capital to fund these projects. Because of this, we had very little to offer in the area of trade. If we had no heavy industry, we could not sell products, and capitalute capital. Thusly, the economy was in a rut. Workers could not be paid their wages, and many were hungry, lacked medical care, had poor housing, etc.. So, after Lenin's death, Stalin decided on a system of beaurocratic collectivization, which would put all industrial and agricultural property into State hands, with which they could control the means of production, and eventually, produce the capital to fund different projects, in areas of agriculture, goods, health, education, etc. Also, by doing this, Stalin could guarantee wages, proper housing, education and medical care, and also, a cut in prices on various different things, which would make them affordable to the workers. This encouraged workers to work harder(which is why Stakhovites/shock workers were common those days) because with the more produced, the more the benefits. The system had a sort of an effect among the people; it united us in a way which we have never been. Many elders look back at those days as the best, eventhough those were times of hardship and war(which we won, because of [the system and of course, our will to fight and defend our country])

If you ask any Russian or Ukranian about Stalin's crimes, we immediately condemn them. We look at those as a dark spot in our history. But we also have a profound respect for Stalin because he had won the war, and united us, eventhough it was loss through the blood of many Russian and Ukranian people(which I am one of), may they rest in peace.

I hope you can understand, albeit I doubt you will.

So you think it would be perfectly ok to german people to say "On the subject of Hitler, no, we do not want to 'claim' him, but we do respect him", since he boosted up the economy quite a bit. I don't. Not even the germans don't. Respect is a big word, imho.

[tinyp3nis]

AH,

They should be thankful for that. If the Sovs had acted like the nazis they would have gone in and utterly destroyed every society in Eastern Europe that fought with the Germans during the war, which was most of them

No one should be thankful of something bad if there could have been something even worse, it's a very bad argument. If somebody kicks your ass, oh boy, atleast the someone didn't kill you, and you should be thankful for that!

Btw you have scary initials.

[DanS]

"They were thown to death in camps in the middle of dessert."

To be clear, the 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent who were interned at one time or another in the US did not live well, but also were not "thrown to death" in any way similar to what that phrase would denote in other places. For instance, outdoor plumbing (latrines) was the exception to the rule rather than the rule. The health impact was a lowering of life expectancy by about 1.6 years.

These people were interned at most for about 4 years. In 1948, only 2 years after the camps closed down, some measure of compensation ($28 million) was ordered and it was widely seen, even by those who ordered it, as a grave mistake.