H. G. Wells' 1934 interview with Stalin (2014)

It’s well worth reading the books on him by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Stalin was incredibly well read, sleeping little and devouring books at the seminary where he studied, and he carried this on through this life. It’s chilling the way he behaved to relatives of those he killed. Stalin had a creepy way of referring to their deaths as though they were unfortunate events that weren’t arranged by him.

How would you propose having a communist nation without a dictatorial and authoritarian government? What do you do with people that do not want to work their offered tasks? What of people that feel that they do more and thus deserve more? The solutions here in capitalism are perhaps not ideal, in the sense of utopia, but they enable society to continue functioning with a relatively small restriction on liberties.

It's interesting talking to individuals who lived through the USSR. Many of the things we take for granted simply did not exist. Hearing a 40 year old man speak so fondly of silly things such as Donald Duck and Disney - not in and of themselves but of the advent of freedom and open culture they represented, is something that's really eye opening. And while you might argue that that's because it was not a real, or a good, communist nation, at some point I think you have to consider that this might be a case of the no true scotsman fallacy. Ultimately, I don't see how you so severely restrict the liberties of the people without having a government that is extremely oppressive.

Good point. Stalin was a anti revolutionary. He knew better than anyone.

That's an unfair and inaccurate characterization of Grant. There were lots of major battles with high casualties when Grant wasn't around. Grant's genius was to maneuver his army after the battle as if it had won. This freaked-out the Confederates, who had gotten used to score keeping by casualties, which never made any sense. In reality some of the battles in which the Union lost on the score were not really even tactical defeats. (Acting as if the battle was a defeat turned it into one.) Grant recognized he had the more powerful army, regardless of the score.

> if the reign of Stalin was ... a peculiarity of a dire military circumstance

He assumed power in 1924, long before Germany was a military threat.

> few union generals were up for kamikazeing their men against heavily fortified confederate positions. In Grant, we found a man unconcerned enough to pull that trigger.

Stalin didn't kill off his subjects because of sudden military necessity. He starved to death tens of millions of Ukrainians simply to implement his agricultural policies. He'd force whole communities to relocate across the USSR. Again and again, he murdered large numbers in his purges, and sent more to Siberian labor camps, out of political paranoia or to implement repression. He was merely a person with no morality and no objection to mass murder. I think that in world history only Mao murdered more (and Mao had a larger population to work with - it's not a fair to Stalin to compare them!).

I read in one history that he kept villages in line by reducing their food supplies to the edge of starvation. Constant hunger was a good reminder to the villagers of being a good Communist: One slip, one act of apparent political disloyalty, and people start dying.

He also encouraged people to turn in family members to the secret police, including children turning in parents. That creates very healthy homes to grow up in. At one point, he wanted a Politburo member 'purged' (murdered or sent to a Siberian labor camp); nobody on the Politburo dared opposed him; they all knew that every one of them had helped to condemn their own family members.

I read an account of his program to build an atomic bomb. The scientists were given the American plans but thought they could improve on them. They were told that if the bomb didn't succeed on its first test, they would all be killed. They went with the proven plans and the test was conducted with an officer of the secret police in the room with them (the test succeeded). They all wrote a thank you letter to Uncle Joe for his great leadership and vision; one didn't sign the letter and he disappeared or died (or both).

There are so many great stories about good old Uncle Joe!

> Have to wonder if the reign of Stalin was a consequence of communism, a peculiarity of a dire military circumstance, or maybe a little of both...

The reign of Stalin was a consequence of Stalin, a psychopath and mass murderer. The political structure put in place by the Bolsheviks enabled him.

Does any horrible person appear on HN these days without someone saying, 'others did the same thing'. Stalin's not so bad - look at Mao!