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Sunday, December 28, 2008

Stalin?

Posted by: Jonathan Garthwaite at 5:53 PM

Television viewers have voted Soviet dictator Josef Stalin _ who sent millions to their deaths in the Great Purge of the 1930s _ Russia's third-greatest historical figure.
Rights activists have blasted Stalin's inclusion in the 90-day, nationwide project by the state-run Rossiya channel. They say authorities are trying to gloss over Stalin's atrocities and glorify his tyranny.
The project, called "The Name of Russia," culminated with the announcement Sunday night that Russian medieval leader Alexander Nevsky had been voted the greatest Russian, with more than 524,000 Internet and SMS votes. Stalin garnered more than 519,000 votes, and even led in early voting.

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foxmustang writes:	Monday, December, 29, 2008 12:16 AM
So what??????
a majority of Americans believe Obama is "great"..... This is a man who has accomplished basically nothing EXCEPT becoming a successful member of the corrupt "Chicago political machine".....
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Apollo writes:	Monday, December, 29, 2008 1:04 AM
Dictators Exist Because People Want Them
Putin, a murderous dictator, is the single most popular political figure in Russia. Is it any surprise that the Russians would admire Stalin, one of history's greatest mass murderers. There is a myth that the people in a dictatorship are basically good, only their leaders are bad. A recent Reader's Digest survey of foreign attitudes towards the US showed Russia as the country that most hated the US. Hitler didn't force the Germans to hate the Jews, he merely used that hatred to his advantage. Neither did Putin make the Russians hate America, he just uses that fact to control the country. This makes it clear that when a dictator exists it is because the people want a dictator. The moral of the story is that if you go to war with a country it is their people that must be destroyed along with the leaders. Had we declared war on the Afghans and then destroyed their cities, farms, railroads, air fields and roads (with the resulting hundreds of thousands of deaths) there would be no terrorist movements in the world today. Japan and Germany suffered millions of dead and they are now peaceful, productive nations with whom we trade for mutual benefit. The clean "surgical strike" type war is nonsense. All it can accomplish is a change of dictators. It cannot change the attitudes of the people who wanted a dictator in the first place. Lasting peace can only be purchased with the blood of your enemies.
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Royinoslo writes:	Monday, December, 29, 2008 3:22 AM
Memorials might help
It's dismaying that Stalin should retain such popularity. I'd attribute it to the memory of defeating Nazi Germany more than anything. The mass amnesia of his crimes against the population might have been minimized by the creation of memorials to his victims. But people forgive a great deal when they believe you did it to save the country, just ask Prez Bush.
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