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Comment by huhtenberg | Hacker News Reader

Don't forget that the context was that of the Great Purge of '37.

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.

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1. Hitler said that Stalin would never be able to stop Nazi if he still had his "tzar generals" - nickname for those military highranks executed in 37.

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.

Yeah, millions of people that died in Siberia were there for a reason. They must have been criminals, otherwise good father Stalin wouldn't imprison them. Yeah, of course. But I'm pretty sure Hitler's victory would be a lesser evil for USSR and neighboring countries.

In the grand Nazi vision they would all have been killed.

So if you are to be killed by Hitler, it's okay if Stalin kills you to prevent that? What happened with "initiation of force is bad, period"? If there's no moral absolute, then there's no point in debating what's better and what's worse. It's just some atoms wobbling in the spacetime.

Explain why someone should spend time debating with you?

If Stalin was able to save the lives of 50 million people who would otherwise have died by killing 10 million of them (which I don't necessarily think is actually the case, but supposing it was), I call that a good act. "initiation of force is bad, period" is not a good moral philosophy.

Yeah, Stalin is a great savior of humanity. Let's give him a Nobel prize for killing only 10 million while he could easily kill everybody. Thank you for showing me the path of enlightened.

That was not what I said, I said that Hitler was not a lesser evil than Stalin.

You can't judge events of the past from todays norms of morale. And if you think you can - give me a name of a leader during first half of last century that was absolutely clean and innocent and whose decisions did not kill anyone.

All political leaders are psychopathic manipulators and sadists. Normal, sane person would strive to avoid ordering one group of people to point guns at another group of people as a part of a Grand Plan. Normal person would use weapons and violence only as a last measure when all else didn't prevent getting him/her in that awful situation.

Lesser evil for us? Not funny by any means.

Who said they were criminals. They were elves who Stalin the Terrible sent there so that noone could stop him eating even more babies.

This is not funny. In my country Belarus every fourth person was killed by Germans and collaborators, mostly civilians. Every family lost someone. Many lost everyone. Many cities and villages vanished. If you happen to be in Belarus visit Khatyn memorial or just watch "Come and see" movie. This is something you will never forget.

http://khatyn.by/en/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091251/

There's also an ugly angle to the 'Khatyn' story. http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1288564.ece I'm serious and not making fun of it.

This story is a vomit full of lies. TIMOTHY SNYDER is a disgrace to Yale. Even the beginning of the article where he says "Soviets and Germans" were allies - he probably means "Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact". And then "Munich agreement" puts France and UK to the list of German allies too. Was it his intention? No. This is one big disgusting piece of propaganda that is probably ok for a CNN internetf-fact journalist (no one expects much from her), but not ok for a "professor of history".

Well, Ribbentrop-Molotov pact is not a lie, and Stalin's regime isn't a lie as well. 'Katyn' has been confirmed too, even by Russians (very reluctantly, however). I'm pretty sure you don't know what you are talking about, or you have been living under Soviet propaganda all your childhood.

Funny you didn't mention Munich agreement as well as the "professor" when this treaty casts shadow on UK and France. And then Molotov pacts is not a lie but a very smart move to try to gain time for the USSR after Europe was getting under Fascists with cheering . Stalin knew that Hitler is being pushed to the west, and the next Munich agreement would not be far. Stalin believed in non-aggression pact? No. But there was no other way to act in the circumstances. I would like to tell more i don't believe you are after the truth.

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

Haha, our friend professor is mentioned in todays "the nation". Good lord.

"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

Lets not forget that while Hitler and Stalin were playing their games, ordinary citizens of Germany and Russia did not vote for any war, hyperinflation, police state (neither imperial, nor soviet), collectivization etc. One regime was pushing people in the poverty, another one was using the faults of the predecessor to justify its own evildoing.

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

Stalin starved as many Russians as Ukrainians (if not more) in the process of forced collectivization and bread expropriation. This crime/tragedy happened throughout Soviet Union in 1932-33. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%931...

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.

>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.

That's an awfully cavalier way to dismiss what appears to be the general historical consensus on a genocide.

General consensus as in Goebels was right?

Just for reference: Encyclopædia Britannica estimates that 6 to 8 million people died from hunger in the Soviet Union during this period, of whom 4 to 5 million were Ukrainians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...

>Lets not forget that while Hitler and Stalin were playing their games, ordinary citizens of Germany and Russia did not vote for any war, hyperinflation, police state (neither imperial, nor soviet), collectivization etc. One regime was pushing people in the poverty, another one was using the faults of the predecessor to justify its own evildoing.

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.

Actually, I think that studying their tactics is worthwhile because it helps us to recognize when our own governments and media are walking down that same trail.

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.

>>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.

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.

Still, while there _might be_ a war with Germany, there _was_ a war with Japan in Manchuria in 1939.

As a result of Khalkhin Gol, Japanese were afraid to attack USSR again and attacked USA instead.

1. Hitler has said a lot of things regarding military matters and they weren't always very smart. The opposite argument has also been made by many historians: That removing a lot of the military leadership pre-war weakened the initial Soviet response significantly.

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.

> Hitler said that Stalin would never be able to stop Nazi if he still had his "tzar generals"

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.

There were two camps in Russia before WW2 - Trotskyist and Stalinist. As a leader of one camp, he needed to get rid of the other camp, if he wanted to live.

People like Zhukov turned out to be quite competent.

You're really going to justify shooting Tukhachevskiy?

I'm not doing any justification, value judgement or taking sides, just stating facts. There were two factions fighting for power, one of them lost, people loyal to it were removed. It didn't happen neither for first time, nor for last time in human history.

Why not? He was a mass murderer and he did support germans and probably was draining info to them. It was an open hearing with local and foreign journalists, what are your doubts?

> Were Stalin's methods brutal and inhuman? Probably.

"Probably"? So there's a chance that they were NOT brutal and humane? Jesus f#cking Christ.

So basically your argument is that because Stalin defeated Hitler then all the horrors of the Stalinist regime were absolved? All the tortures and murders, the camps of the Gulag and the slaves forced to work on pointless projects like the Baltic-White Sea canal - all of that was justified as part of some decade long anti Nazi master plan?

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.

Stalin did not defeat Hitler. The Soviet people did this in spite of Stalin's incompetence and some stupid strategic moves that he made.

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.

> Just my point of view based on numerous historical books I read.

Name three.

> So sometimes ends justify means.

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.

How many would the Nazis have killed if they conquered the Soviet Union and won WW2? That's the estimate you'd have to compare against.

Sure. I'm just saying that you actually have to make that comparison. The Nazis were not so amazingly evil that any conceivable means justifies the end. You actually have to weigh it up.

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.

Want to elaborate on systematic murder? I don't have any idea what you are talking about.

If you just look at the war years, then there were 600,000 deaths in the gulags versus 20 million in the war, roughly half of which were civilians.

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.

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