Author Topic: No Stalin, no Hitler?  (Read 104487 times)

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Offline LisaDavidson

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Re: No Stalin, no Hitler?
« Reply #375 on: May 03, 2009, 09:43:48 AM »
Elisabeth, your posts have been very much on topic for the most part.

I happen to agree with you that National Socialism and the USSR were regretfully similar in the way they trampled over the individual.

JStorey

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Re: No Stalin, no Hitler?
« Reply #376 on: May 03, 2009, 12:25:55 PM »
Can we go back to discussing Chernyshevsky?  That was more fun.  We could rename the post:  "No Chernyshevsky, No Lenin, No Stalin, No Hitler"

Elisabeth

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Re: No Stalin, no Hitler?
« Reply #377 on: May 03, 2009, 03:40:04 PM »
Can we go back to discussing Chernyshevsky?  That was more fun.  We could rename the post:  "No Chernyshevsky, No Lenin, No Stalin, No Hitler"

Hi, J, good to see you back! But let me assure you, I don't for a minute equate Chernyshevsky with Lenin, Stalin, or Hitler. As evidenced by his famous novel, Chernyshevsky was a man brimming with good intentions and love for humanity. To put it mildly, I don't think that description quite fits the above-mentioned major tyrants of the twentieth century. Lenin might have been inspired by What Is to Be Done? but he obviously interpreted it in his own unique way, i.e., no doubt not in the way Chernyshevsky had intended. I don't think we should blame writers and artists for the bad deeds their work might seem to inspire in some very mentally unstable or just plain evil people.

On the subject of Russian or even Soviet literature: I do love Mayakovsky. He's so masculine, so strong in a very male way and yet vulnerable at the same time. (What could be more touching to a female reader than a title like A Cloud in Trousers?) Mayakovsky always tried to project this very macho, revolutionary, super-Communist image, and of course a large part of that image was true to life, but it wasn't sufficient to mask the individualist and human being underneath. I'd like to think that no one who really believed as he said he did in shooting counterrevolutionaries in the back could write a poem like his last one, "Past One O'Clock..."  But then of course I must be right because there's no evidence whatsoever of Mayakovsky ever shooting anyone, and no doubt he had plenty of opportunities. In the end he only shot himself.
« Last Edit: May 03, 2009, 03:52:09 PM by Elisabeth »

JStorey

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Re: No Stalin, no Hitler?
« Reply #378 on: May 03, 2009, 04:04:27 PM »
Sorry, I have a bit of a dry sense of humor.  I was joking.  I find the topic a little absurd.

Chernyshevsky I could discuss forever.  I was and am highly influenced by what he had to say; his novel helped shape my world view.

Elisabeth

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Re: No Stalin, no Hitler?
« Reply #379 on: May 03, 2009, 04:18:22 PM »
Sorry, I have a bit of a dry sense of humor.  I was joking.  I find the topic a little absurd.

Chernyshevsky I could discuss forever.  I was and am highly influenced by what he had to say; his novel helped shape my world view.

Never fear, I got the joke, J, but I also got the fact that you could indeed discuss Chernyshevsky "forever"!

Perhaps a more interesting and serious topic would be, to expand on the title of a famous book by the historian Theodore H. Von Laue, "Why Lenin? Why Stalin?" and indeed, "Why Hitler?" Would anyone else be interested if I started a new thread?

JStorey

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Re: No Stalin, no Hitler?
« Reply #380 on: May 03, 2009, 05:37:55 PM »
Replacing "No" with "Why" would, in my mind, bring this particular thread to a satisfactory end.

Offline LisaDavidson

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Re: No Stalin, no Hitler?
« Reply #381 on: May 10, 2009, 09:45:31 PM »
Sorry, I have a bit of a dry sense of humor.  I was joking.  I find the topic a little absurd.

Chernyshevsky I could discuss forever.  I was and am highly influenced by what he had to say; his novel helped shape my world view.

Never fear, I got the joke, J, but I also got the fact that you could indeed discuss Chernyshevsky "forever"!

Perhaps a more interesting and serious topic would be, to expand on the title of a famous book by the historian Theodore H. Von Laue, "Why Lenin? Why Stalin?" and indeed, "Why Hitler?" Would anyone else be interested if I started a new thread?

Yes.

Colm

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Re: No Stalin, no Hitler?
« Reply #382 on: July 03, 2009, 05:34:30 PM »
Hi  Colm,
Thank you for your reply!
Since we all weren't there!
I thought it might be fair to invite a Polish opinion and asked a friend to give us his take/opinion on
this, because all WE can do is assume - what they went through and or feel!
He strongly suggests to read this book http://www.sprawahonoru.com/SwiatoweWydania.htm
he says it explains the events to those who are interested in it!
Title
"A QUESTION OF HONOR"
By
LYNNE OLSON & STANLEY CLOUD 2003

Maybe somebody would be so kind and translate his comments,
since I can't read Polish!

Nie trzeba byc wykwalifikowanym historykiem zeby rozumiec sprawy takimi jakie sa na prawde . Tego co wielu ludzi dowiedzialo sie z zaklamanych ksiazek do historii lub komercyjnych programow TV nie mozna nazwac lekcja historii,ale wypadalo by posluchac ludzi ktorzy poniekad byli w to zaangazowani. Historie Polski i jej stosunki z Rosja rozumieja sami Polacy ( w tym Ja) i potrafia ocenic ja prawdziwie gdyz to nas polakow dotyczyla ta nie ciekawa historia. rosja nigdy nie wyzwolila Polski spod niemieckiej niewoli , to czynny opor min. polakow i globalnych rozmiarow wojna doprowadzila do upadku nazistowskich Niemiec. Rosja wykorzystala sutuacje w ktorej znalazla sie na w pol "zywa"   Polska i nie "pomogla " Polsce wyzwolic sie z pod okupacji niemieckiej ale, zagarnela Polske pod takim haslem na 60 lat wprowadzajac ustroj koministyczny z marionetkowym rzadem slurzacym Rosji. Zrobila tak tez z innymi panstwami  nazywanymi pozniej republikami. Tak wyglada prawda a nie telewizyjne lub ksiazkowe ukladanie histori . Jak wiemy :" historie pisza zwyciescy". Sprawa Angli to drugi temat jednak bardzo spojny, odwoluje wszystkich to lektury  http://www.sprawahonoru.com/  opisujaca historie polski i polskich pilotow bioracych udzial w bitwie o Anglie. Ksiazka napisana zostala przez dwoch amerykanskich pisarzy. Orginal dostepny w jezyku angielski. Kawal dobrej prawdziwej histori.

  
I eventually got around to having this translated, well at least the important points,included  in the post, it says history is written by the winners,, it also mentions that Russia ruled Poland for 60 years, through puppet governments and communism,post WW2, it also mentions the brave Polish fighter pilots of the R.A.F.
It goes off topic, what has that got to do with the thread, discussion on, no Stalin no Hitler,  a direct contradiction of what made them both merge, the answer is imperialism,
and royalty.
  
« Last Edit: July 03, 2009, 05:38:50 PM by Colm »

bkohatl

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Re: No Stalin, no Hitler?
« Reply #383 on: July 04, 2009, 07:52:47 PM »
Oliver Cromwell "invaded" Ireland and created a great swath of death and destruction, purely out of religious hatred. And make no mistake about it, Oliver Cromwell was a VICIOUS CHRISTIAN.  He would murder men, women, children, babies, so he could steal their land and give it to his Puritan supporters. Many people forget that the Puritans fled persecution in England, because they had been persecutors themselves: after the fall of Cromwell, it was payback time.
As to Stalin and Hitler, if World War I could have been avoided, I'm convinced that there would have been no Lenin, Stalin or Hitler, because Stolypin's reforms would have worked given enough time.

Lyss

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Re: No Stalin, no Hitler?
« Reply #384 on: July 21, 2009, 11:05:36 AM »
Stolypin was killed in 1911, 3 years before WWI. So maybe if he wouldn't have been killed... But you know, we can go on forever with the "what and ifs".
I haven't studied Stolypin thoroughly, but I don't think that Stolypin's reforms would have worked. He was not a democrat, he wanted to strengthen the tsarist state by undermining the autocracy (shifting power from the court to the national institutions) which created enemies from above (the court). Second, he ordered lots of deportations, executions and abolishments of any critics which created enemies amongst the educated classes. Third, he was so occupied by changing the system and wanting to transform the lower classes into the new system which he had in mind, that to my opinion, if he had lived, he would have gotten the same problem as communism: forcing a system from above without talking to the people and considering what they want or need or even how they live is not gonna work. Except for one point: communism had more adherents, Stolypin was alone. When he died, all his reforms died with him.
I think he started well but after a while just got buried in his own ideas that he forgot to communicate, look for compromise. You can not force something from above without first connecting with the people you want to reform.

This way you can compare Stolypin and even communism with today's failing development aid. I'll give a short recent example from Liberia: western developmentworkers were trying to introduce a new, more resistant rice variety to better the farmer's situation. So they gathered the men together, held a long speech about why this ricevariety was better and should be planted, afterwards they send the men home. After the harvesting season was over, they came back and realized that none of the rice they introduced had been sown.
What was the problem. Well, the growing of rice is a women's business in Liberia. Men have nothing to do with it.The women can recognise 30 different kinds of rice by eye. Since the developmentworkers assumed the men were in charge, the women never heard the explanation and when the men came home with the new rice, the women cooked it.

What I'm trying to explain with this little anecdote is that if you try to force something on people (even when you have good intentions) it doesn't work unless you first connect with them (the importance of anthropology). First you have to understand, then teach and the suggest

I think that even if Stalin wouldn't' have existed, there were plenty others (Trotsky?) to take his place and act "from above", maybe not so many would have been killed, who knowes. I don't.

klava1985

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Re: No Stalin, no Hitler?
« Reply #385 on: November 22, 2009, 06:36:03 PM »
To Elisabeth's point about whether the new Russia is a Stalin or a Hitler, I too am creeped out by what I see. However, I don't think Putin and his minions will engage in mass murder on anywhere near the scale we have seen in the past. Why? Because they don't need to. They are secure in their power *and in the direction of the flow of wealth*. They'll kill off an occasional journalist, including my good friend Paul Klebnikov (who wrote a lot about the gangster structure in Russia and how the whole Chechen conflict was really a turf war between the Chechen and Moscow-based (topped by Yelstin) mobs. I don't doubt they would roll into a province and subdue it, but I don't think you'll see the kind of democide (nice term) you saw in the past.

China on the other hand...there's something to really worry about.