Was Stalin really that evil?

[Arrian]

Oh, no, not the pissing match over who won WWII, USA or USSR!

However, saying that STALIN, personally, played a major part in defeating the Nazis... the guy gutted the Soviet military officer corps prior to the war and went into seclusion (I'm being generous here) for a few days when Barbarossa commenced. That's not even discussing his specific command decisions once he re-emerged and took command (frankly, I'm not sure they were any better than his overall track record, but I cannot remember any blantant ****ups like Hitler had).

-Arrian

[zapnic]

okey i form finland and i say stalin was a fool .
he try conquer finland two times
but i think stalin was fool and that was finnish people's salvation
read finnish history if you what know more

[chequita guevara]

I think moron's a bit harsh. He certainly wasn't a brilliant light, but he was very good at small scale organizing. He was the leader of the Bolsheviks in Russia while most of the intellectual leadership was in exile. Stalin oversaw distribution of materials and funds, organization of comrades, and activities. He was the most important man in Russia up to 1917, when events surpassed him and a new generation of militants took control. He played a rather unimportant role in the Revolution itself.

Because of his organizational skills and the need to reward him for his decades of work, he was promoted to General Secretary of the Communist Party, which, at that time, was felt to be a buziwork position with no real power. Basically, the Communists thought they were promoting him out of the way.

In large organizations, however, Stalin's skills failed him. He tended towards a hamhanded approach. If a square peg wouldn't fit in a hole, he'd pound it till it went in.

Stalin was responsible for the failure of the counter-strike against Poland, disoberying orders and keeping his army seperated from the other Russian army, allowing the Poles to concetrate their forces and defeat one and then the other.

When Stalin was ordered to negotiate with the Transcaucasian Republic (it was led by the Mensheviks at the time), to try and get them to join Russia, Stalin instead took an army down and conquered it. (One wonders how he was allowed to do this, bad communications one supposes.)

As General-Secretary, however, Stalin was able to move his own people into important positions. Able and dedicated comrades were sent on "important" missions to places which put them out of the way. For example, while Trotsky was convelescing from illness, Lenin died. Trotsky was going to come back, but Stalin cabled him and ordered him to continue getting better. After all, it would not do for the revolution to lose both its greatest leaders.

At the same time, Stalin opened the party up to bureaucrats and former Tsarist officials with the so-called Leninist Levy. These people's loyalty was not to the revolution, but to Stalin, upon whom they depended for party memebership and for jobs. Stalin was able to move these people into central areas, like Moscow and the newly renamed Leningrad. Withthose who would oppose him out of the way, Stalin was able to outmanuver first Trotsky, on the left of the party, and then Bukharin, on the right of the party.

[chequita guevara]

Once in control, Stalin set about assuring that his control was safe. All challenges would be dealt with, in the most efficient way possible, extermination. By the time of WWII, almost every original Bolshevik leader was dead, with the exceptions of Stalin himself, and the feminist Alexandra Kollentai, who had stopped being political in the early 20s, and was no threat to his power.

The peasantry, having grown richer under the NEP system, chaffed under the controls of the socialist state. All foreign trade was conducted by the state, and there were few Soviet made goods to purchace. The richest peasants were growing restless and were becomming a threat to the state, thus they had to be liquidated as a class. Stalin engineered a famine which killed millions, even a close approximation of which will never be truely known (figures vary from three to twenty million). Legend has it that the famine was so extensive that census takers in 1937 were executed because the census showed evidence of a mass decline in the population of the USSR.

Once the peasants were dealt with, it was time to deal with the Trotskyists. After Trotsky's expulsion from the USSR, Stalin took Trotsky's plan for collectivization and industrialization and made it his own. While Trotsky's plan was gradual, Stalin decided to speed it up, implimenting the famous "Five Year Plans." Because of the similarity of the plans, many Trotskyists went over to Stalin, thinking that Stalin had come over to them. Stalin merely used them to break the peasant wing of the party. Now he meant to deal with them as well. Thus began the show trials and purges.

Because Trotsky had built the Red Army from scratch, many of the officers were personally loyal to him. Had Trotsky ever asked, they would have mounted a coup and overthrown Stalin. Trotsky, however, didn't believe that replacing a bureaucratic dictatorship with a military one was an answer, or that it would help the socialist cause (I would have to say he was wrong). This allowed Stalin time to purge the military of Trotskyist-loyalists. Tens of thousands of party members and officers were imprisoned, executed, and exiled. Trotsky himself was executed by a GPU agent in Mexico (in Diego Rivera's and Frieda Kahlo's house).

[Sava]

Hitler killed because he hated. Stalin killed because he was super-paranoid. He was just as evil, IMO.

[Az]

So, basically, you agree with Floyd that killing a thousand people and a single person, is equal, ethically?

[chequita guevara]

I disagree entirely. Most objectivists believe their morals are worth more than a single human life. A single human life is precious. The more you can spare, the better.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sava
Stalin killed because he was super-paranoid.

It's not paranoia when they are out to get you.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
It's not paranoia when they are out to get you.

What is it called when you gut your only means of defense against foreign threat?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Azazel
So, basically, you agree with Floyd that killing a thousand people and a single person, is equal, ethically?

Floyd's been driven mad by the purity and inflexibility of his own logic.

[David Floyd]

I would use the phrase "equal, morally". I'm not quite sure what you mean when you use the word "ethically" - I would think that morals are more important than ethics when it comes to the topic at hand.

Laz,

Well, at least you aren't denying my consistency

[OliverFA]

He didn't believe in God because he was the Devil and didn't wanted competence

[Az]

che: I was referring to sava.
Laz: I actually fail to see any logic, in that. Even based by his own ethics.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DinoDoc

What is it called when you gut your only means of defense against foreign threat?

Depends on what you consider the greater threat, Trotskyist coup or Nazi invasion. At the time of the purges, Hitler wasn't seen as that big a threat yet. In hindsight, it was a bad decision, but at the time I'm sure it seemed like the important thing to do.

Consider if there had been no purges and Stalin still went into hiding for three days. I could see the former officers ousting him then and there.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Azazel
che: I was referring to sava.

I know, I was just adding my two cents.