Hacker News Reader

Comment by shub | Hacker News Reader

I dunno how much Stalin did right, but he sure did a lot of stuff well. You don't obtain and maintain control over all of Russia by being an idiot.

View on HN

You can make the same point about germany's return to stability in the 30's (goodwin point yay), but I'm not sure you'd want to.

Careful what you wish for, in terms of government efficiency

I wouldn't say that, actually. Germany's recovery was primarily fueled by massive deficit spending on rearmament and social programs. Keep the people pacified, bootstrap from the tiny military allowed by Versailles up to something world-class, then take over Europe and Asia. Not sustainable at all, and I think it's really debatable whether Hitler deserves any of the credit anyway. His role was more or less to turn on the money tap and tell the Prussians to tool up, which they did very happily and effectively because they were Prussians.

> His role was more or less to turn on the money tap...

Which in a country with absolutely savage inflation isn't as easy as you make it sound. I suggest you educate yourself before being dismissive like this.

Except that Germany 1933-1939 didn't have significant inflation.

remind me what year he came to power?

1933. NSDAP was in the Reichstag for a while before that but not really involved in governing.

He was doing the right things to hold power, not the right things for society.

Well, yeah. Stalin was a monster. He was just good at being a monster.

That is way too simplistic, he did a lot of terrible stuff, but also some good, it is no question that he pulled Russia from 'backwardness' in terms of literacy for example.

You mean for those Soviets who survived him?

That's why I said that he did a lot of terrible stuff. I absolutely do not excuse the awful stuff he ordered. That does not mean we should now shut all sense of nuance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com