The Tragedy of Mathematics In Russia
math.nsc.ru
math.nsc.ru
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
They would take random people make up absolutely ludicrous accusations, hand out heavy sentences and send them to labor camps. Just for giggles and shit, basically. That was a dark, rotten time. They fostered the norm of everyone ratting on everyone and, disgustingly, to a degree it worked. The running joke was that after a neighbor dinner party NKVD (KGB's predecessor) always received comprehensive reports on what was discussed, from every guest.
So it wasn't just the mathematics. If someone had an inclination towards unethical and predatory behavior, that was the most fertile time to act on it and a bit too many people actually did. Those were the dark times really.
2. Kanaris (nazi intelligence director) said after 37 their spy network didn't exist any more in Russia.
While you can't deny that there were innocent cases, one can't deny that many people were sued for a reason, as Stalin knew the war was inevitable and was doing anything to support the state.
Another interesting story is that as a spy you could get a smaller term than for some other crimes, so criminals happily became spies and local authorities happily reported their success to Moscow.
As for "dark rotten times", in the 20's Stalin was talking to English ambassador who asked Stalin if there would be a world war and Stalin replied that there would be a war and it would be much worse as with Germany, Japan would also attack from the east.
All actions of 20-30s and Stalin's decisions should be estimated from the war preparations that started in the early 20s. Young Soviet country didn't have friends and did everything it could to survive. Were Stalin's methods brutal and inhuman? Probably. Would civilization as we know it exist now if Hitler managed to get rich Russian resources? No. So sometimes ends justify means.
Just my point of view based on numerous historical books I read.
This is what propaganda is about - hiding facts, twisting truth, taking things out of context or just pure lie. We all live under propaganda. Tell me when you read anything good about Asad in Syria, or good about Putin or even Iran for that matter? This is propaganda.
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” ― Joseph Goebbels
"Knight’s innuendo prefigured a purported report on Ukraine by Yale professor Timothy Snyder in the February 20 issue. Omissions of facts, by journalists or scholars, are no less an untruth than misstatements of fact. Snyder’s article was full of both, which are widespread in the popular media, but these are in the esteemed NYRB and by an acclaimed academic. Consider a few of Snyder’s assertions..." http://www.thenation.com/article/178344/distorting-russia#
Liar liar liar
Debating whether Stalin really helped Russia by killing some generals and starving ukrainian farmers to death is pointless. Several high-rank psychopaths in Europe were manipulating people left and right with carrots and sticks. That's the main concern, not any particular tactic used by any one of them to achieve their own goals.
> starving ukrainian farmers
There is a propaganda soundbite going around that Soviet famine of 1932-33 was created artificially to target Ukrainians (Holodomor). Let's not repeat it here. All people of USSR were victims.
That's an awfully cavalier way to dismiss what appears to be the general historical consensus on a genocide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...
What? Lets not forget Hitler was very popular in Nazi Germany. A cult figure on a national level. Citizens of a democracy always share responsibility in such tragedies.
In particular, looking at what was going on in European society in the 20s and 30s might lead one to worry where the current anti-Russian rhetoric would lead. It has already resulted in a ridiculous situation in Ukraine where hard core protesters seem to have lost all touch with sanity and the norms of civil society. Sure the leaders of Ukraine are robbing the people left and right but few of the protesters seem to care about solving that problem. Instead they all try to advance their own conflicting agendas and have failed to find consensus or to create a leadership that could attack the robber barons where it hurts.
Your arguing the 'purge' was prescient foresight on the part of stalin who ignored warnings that Hitler was going to attack and kept troops that could have been used against the Germans stationed in Siberia against the Japanese? Stalin didn't know war was coming and said so. The purges led to massive early losses by the Red Army at the hands of incompetent generals.
As a result of Khalkhin Gol, Japanese were afraid to attack USSR again and attacked USA instead.
As for the rest of your argument: With the same logic you can justify Nazi Germany's war preparations and concentration camps in the 30s. Stalin was right that the post-WWI architecture of the world and Europe in particular was unsustainable and might well lead to war. That doesn't justify arbitrary executions and mass murder. It also smells like justifications from hindsight.
I think the general consensus among historians is in total opposition to what you write. The the old generals were more competent than the new young communists that replaced them.
People like Zhukov turned out to be quite competent.
"Probably"? So there's a chance that they were NOT brutal and humane? Jesus f#cking Christ.
Really?
Edit: In case what I said is perceived as anti-Russian, I'm really am not - I've read a lot of Russian/Soviet history and I am acutely aware of the debt we in the West owe the Soviet people.
However, Stalin - he was a murderous paranoid lunatic.
It is really a stupid move to equate a people with the person who happens to be holding the current position of power. Do you equate Ukraine with Yanukovitch? Probably not. Then why would you equate the Soviet Union with Stalin or equate Russia with Putin or the USA with Obama. In all these countries there are many, many actors. Yes Stalin did pull many of the strings in the Soviet Union, to the extent that any person in power can pull strings.
But remember that old Chinese saying that the mountains are high and the emperor is far away? That applies to any large country, and it means that Stalin controlled far less than people attribute to him.
Of course, in modern times it means that Obama, Yanukovich and Putin also control a lot less than most commentators would claim. For instance I recently read a news piece in which it claimed that Putin ordered Russian troops into Georgia. In fact, the president of Russia at the time, Dmitri Medvedev ordered the troops in. And someone claimed that Putin is responsible for killing stray dogs in Sochi. In fact it is the town mayor and city council that is responsible. Many Russians are aghast and have mounted a campaign to move dogs around so that the killers can't find them, and have also set up several dog shelters to feed (and neuter) the dogs. Putin has nothing to do with any of this. It is part of the swirling of events in a complex society.
All world events like WWII are the same and anyone who digs in the details learns that the notable figures (generals, presidents, etc) are really just politicians who claim responsibility for the work of other people. These so-called great leaders alternate between urging their henchmen to carry out some action, and running to the front of the parade over which they have no control. They are less powerful than they seem.
Name three.
Fun fact - according to "The Better Angels of Our Nature" more people died in the Soviet gulags than in the rest of the war combined, Nazi concentration camps included.
So "we killed all these people to stop the Nazis from killing a substantially smaller number of people" doesn't really fly.
Given that the Soviet Union far outstripped Nazi Germany in terms of systematic murder during WW2, it would take a stronger argument to convince me that Nazi Germany + Soviet resources would have been any worse than the Soviet Union + Soviet resources.
If you look at gulag and purge deaths for all of Stalin's reign, then, yes, that is a big number which could go as high as 30 million over 38 years that included an extended period of civil war.
But that was then and the world has changed a lot since then. Especially in the Soviet Union after Stalin and in the former Soviet Republics. It would really take another world war to get back to that level of slaughter. Or global warming and famine.
In his case, the opening and then crumbling of the Soviet Union got him out, but the book itself is worth reading.
(I wrote a little about it here: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/love-and-math-the-h...).