| Raf 14.03.2009 16:32 |
Has anybody else here watched it? And has any of you actually felt worried to know that leaders responsible for some of those crimes are still alive, haven't been judged yet, deny crimes commited by both the USSR and Nazi Germany and blame it on Jews? |
| Yara 14.03.2009 20:05 |
I sat through the whole thing. As far as I remember, you're from Brazil too, aren't you? So it comes as no surprise to you, absolutely, that for most of the left-wing parties here this documentary would sound either as fiction or as a portrait of the unfortunate wrongdoings committed in the holy process of bringing about a socialist regime. Our Minister of Justice, who's not much different from any of those figures who show up in the documentary, for instance, has literally delivered Cuban athletes to Castro's regime in the wake of the last Pan games, and did so in a plane offered by Hugo Chávez. Now, more recently, he has decided to overrule, alone, the decision of the European Court of Human Rights and the rulings of the Italian Justice by harboring, against the advice of our own Advisory Commitee for Refugees. His explanation was quite good: the guy, Cesare Battisti, who had murdered four people in the 70's and been condemned on all accounts, during absolutely legitimate procedures which he himself tried to evade, was under the risk of being persecuted by the...Italian authorities and had not been given a chance to make his defense since back in the 70's Italy lived a time of political persecutions. Our Minister probably forgot that, differently from Brazil, Italy was a democracy during the so-called Anni de Piombo back in the 70's, not a military dictatorship - it was a fully democratic state based on the rule of law, despite all the flaws which are present in the most advanced democratic societies. The guy was not a political target - on the contrary, he was a quite outspoken terrorist who killed four innocent people and sought to gain favour in France under the Mitterrand doctrine, which Chiraq maintained up to a point. It's caused a lot of angry among the Italian politics from all sides of the political spectrum - even the Italian LEFT WING parties condemned harshly our Minister's attitude, emphasizing that Italy, despite all the problems, tried to deal with terrorism within the scope of the rule and the due process of law. He was part of a violence-based left wing revolutionary group, pretty much like the one which ended up killing Aldo Moro. Here in Brazil, unfortunately, this kind of material is considered irrelevant: it doesn't matter and it'll never matter because the left-wing here never really repudiated its authoritarian and, at times, criminal ideals. So then an interesting thing happens: the Nazis get their due share of comndenation, which is absolutely correct. I think they should all have rotten in hell, yes, and being myself Jewish it doesn't come up as a good sign the fact that Brazil has harbored Nazis in the past and that, now, our Minister of Justice wants to harbor a right-wing fascist scum just to show that he's not...biased in his policy!!!! The Nazis, rightly so, are bitterly condemned, and I have nothing to say to people who undermine or deny the extent of their crimes - these people are as disgusting as their mentors. But I have to be honest: the Soviet Regime or the "Socialist Experience" in general, as it's wonderfully called here in Brazil, has been responsible - think about Mao, Lenin, Stalin, the Khmer Rouge or, more recently, Mugabe and other African dictators - for the death of dozens of milllions of people. When the subject comes to discussion, however, it's called the "socialist experience which went wrong", as if they wanted to try it again, or "the effects of the Cold War", even though our Government strongly supports, up until today, Cuba's hedious dictatorship and other dictatorships in South America, mainly Venezuela, which has by now clearly given up on the task of at least according the regime a democratic facade. How ridiculous can it get? Best Regards. |
| Winter Land Man 15.03.2009 17:12 |
Why would I be worried about a bunch of old men? Of course idiots like that deserve suffering, but I don't think they are capable of harming me. |
| thomasquinn 32989 16.03.2009 05:53 |
Mugabe isn't a socialist. |
| thomasquinn 32989 16.03.2009 05:55 |
Nor, might I add, were Stalin (who referred to his system as "state capitalism", and claiming it was Lenin's idea) or the Khmer Rouge (who were just nationalist and deranged, without any further ideology other than killing everyone who didn't agree, and most of those who did). |
| Yara 16.03.2009 09:30 |
There I agree. Completely. I don't deny for a second that they were, and are, flawed disciples who, as simple human beings tempted by the world's circumstances or state of things, didn't live up to the purity of the ideals. It's understandable. Though, before being fully converted to another sect, and writing in a paper in the early sweet months of 1917, Gorki made a remark which does apply to them all: he bitterly condemned Trotsky and Lenin for despising democracy, human rights and freedom, and for not even knowing what these concepts were about. He was shocked, at the time, by the violence on the field and of the ideas - he got accostumed to it, though, in his way, as most of us flawed, imperfect human beings. They all deviate, in different degrees, from the marxist scripture on their way to make the world better - heretics have always existed. But it's important, as Castro, Chavez and Kim Jong-il have shown, to keep trying make our society a reflex, even if a pale one, of those ideals. Poor Kim Jong-il does what he can to honor the socialism he believes in, but the world just won't let him make it happen - so he ran amok, just like comrade Stalin, who did have good intentions and strong beliefs in the scriptures, even if in a more rudimental version as fit for countries in a more backward situation. You know, the guy begins to read the scriptures without proper guidance and ends up like that. There are all these sects and stuff, but from Cuba to China, there's one thing that has been strangely missing, for those who do miss this kind of things: basic civil liberties, rule of law, democracy and respect for human rights. Once one gets things wrong, and starts eagerly embracing communism instead of socialism, not respecting the time frame defined by the scriptures, it's, yes, possible that the number of people killed end up being twice or more as the Nazi Holocaust. But I wouldn't, for a minute, deny Lenin, Stalin or Mao's intentions of building a better world based on those principles. It's just that, for doing that, one has to murder a lot, supress freedoms and so on, but it's part of the whole struggle. Not everyone has the patience to follow the shrewd guidelines of St. Gramsci. It's too subtle, takes too much time and requires even more thinking than the original texts, which were written back in the XIX Century, when some people tended to express things more bluntly and without regard for the so-called public opinion. But Gramsci's way, even if much more sinuous and hard, has been proved more rewarding to its followers, financially speaking, though for those who aim at the higher goals there always comes the moment when freedom of expression, never completely subverted, gets in the way of the making of the hegemony. Oh, and then the scandals, and denounces, the loss of the follower's credibility or even his public office. So the guy can't surveil the citizens anymore, for instance, because society thinks he's gone too far in meddling in people's lives, or is checked by traitors in the media who reveal his efforts to buy votes on the Congress. That happens in all democracies - in some, this is done solely for one's own private purposes; in others, such as Brazil, there are people who do it because they do believe that the burgeois democratic model has to be constantly undermined in order to get the control of the state. I respect those who still pray. Moments of financial crises make them stronger, and that's good. I worry about the souls of my brethren. |
| Poo, again 17.03.2009 10:45 |
Stalin's intentions were good. He was a bit of a psychopath though. |
| Sergei. 17.03.2009 15:11 |
Poo, again wrote: Stalin's intentions were good. He was a bit of a psychopath though. link link Good intentions? |
| thomasquinn 32989 21.03.2009 08:59 |
The problem with fundamentalists of all denominations, be they religious, Marxist, classical liberal or anything, is that they lose sight of the human measure. They get to the point where they start living by theories and statistics, not real life. That happened in the USSR, in Cuba, in China, but also in Holland, in Britain, in Germany, in France, the US, Canada, etc. Everyone believes 'their' system is the best, and they lose sight of the inherent imperfections: those who defend democracy lose sight of the fact that it too is a flawed system (populism, demagogues,etc.), just as the N. Koreans fail to see that their system is flawed (apathy, bureaucratization, etc.). |
| Poo, again 21.03.2009 09:45 |
Sergei. wrote:Poo, again wrote: Stalin's intentions were good. He was a bit of a psychopath though.link link Good intentions? Yes, indeed. Some of the things he did were rather stupid, but after all, he was a communist - making him a good guy. His way of achieving communism, I'm not really a fan of though. |
| Ms. Rebel 21.03.2009 09:54 |
Poo, again wrote: Stalin's intentions were good. . Oh, so were Hitler's. :) |
| April 21.03.2009 14:03 |
Stalin was a bad guy. But he did win the war over the nazis. If not for the Soviet victory, who gave up their lives in that war, about 20 million people died, nazis might have won it. Americans joined the war when they saw that the USSR was winning, at the very end of the war, and hurried to share the victory. But they did let nazis kill first. |
| Poo, again 21.03.2009 14:54 |
Ms. Rebel wrote:Poo, again wrote: Stalin's intentions were good. .Oh, so were Hitler's. :) Really? You decide for yourself: link link |
| Ms. Rebel 21.03.2009 15:59 |
Hitler killed 6 million people, Stalin over 20 million. They' were both massive assholes and they both made awful crimes. It's not sane when someone says that one of those two had good intentions. |
| Winter Land Man 21.03.2009 16:19 |
Hitler has something to do with Volkswagen, doesn't he? [img=/images/smiley/msn/angry_smile.gif][/img] Get rid of those Nazi cars! |
| April 23.03.2009 19:12 |
Ms. Rebel wrote: Hitler killed 6 million people, Stalin over 20 million. They' were both massive assholes and they both made awful crimes. It's not sane when someone says that one of those two had good intentions. Stalin was a very bad guy, sure. But your statistics is wrong: Hitler killed 20 million Russian people, including Ukranian and Belarus. It's much more that 6 million, where did you get it, I wonder? Maybe you mean people from other countries? |
| Sergei. 24.03.2009 15:41 |
April wrote:Ms. Rebel likely got six-million because it is widely believed to be approximately the amount of people who died in the Holocaust. This is actually incorrect since it's only the amount of Jews who were killed, excluding all the other groups who were persecuted. And I think that this number of Jews is somewhat close, but probably isn't very reliable since it came from a Schutzstaffel officer and not an official count taken.Ms. Rebel wrote: Hitler killed 6 million people, Stalin over 20 million. They' were both massive assholes and they both made awful crimes. It's not sane when someone says that one of those two had good intentions.Stalin was a very bad guy, sure. But your statistics is wrong: Hitler killed 20 million Russian people, including Ukranian and Belarus. It's much more that 6 million, where did you get it, I wonder? Maybe you mean people from other countries? While the number of people killed in the Holocaust was in reality I think somewhere around 12 or 13 million, I'm pretty sure it was nowhere near 20 million, let alone a 20 million made up only of Russians, Belarusians/Byelorussians and Ukrainians. I do know that the Soviet Union is said to have lost the most people out of any country during World War II, but wouldn't necessarily consider them to have been "killed by Hitler," that is, unless you're referring to the amount of people in general who were killed and not the Holocaust. Let's not forget that Stalin still managed to be sending folks to the Gulag despite the war. :O |
| April 25.03.2009 17:45 |
20 million people died because of the war only, and another 6m might have died for other reasons. |
| thomasquinn 32989 26.03.2009 07:50 |
Ms. Rebel wrote: Hitler killed 6 million people, Stalin over 20 million. They' were both massive assholes and they both made awful crimes. It's not sane when someone says that one of those two had good intentions. This is exactly the black-and-white thinking that got us totalitarianism in the first place. |
| Bob The Shrek 27.03.2009 01:12 |
April wrote: 20 million people died because of the war only, and another 6m might have died for other reasons. 52 million people died as a result of WW2 |
| YourValentine 27.03.2009 04:39 |
April wrote: Stalin was a bad guy. But he did win the war over the nazis. If not for the Soviet victory, who gave up their lives in that war, about 20 million people died, nazis might have won it. Americans joined the war when they saw that the USSR was winning, at the very end of the war, and hurried to share the victory. But they did let nazis kill first. Maybe you should read a history book. Read about the Hitler-Stalin pact that allowed Germany to invade Poland. Stalin fought the Nazis when they attacked the Soviet Union and not because he thought the world needed to be rid of the Nazis. The USA entered the war after Pearl Harbour - when their own people were attacked and not any earlier. France and England did not declare war when Hitler invaded the Czechoslovakia in clear violation of the Munich agreement - the list goes on and on. The millions of people who died in the war were often innocent helpless civilians - for example almost the complete population of Nagasaki and Hiroshima where 100 000s of helpless men, women and children people were wiped out in seconds - an achievement that Hitler and Stalin as model mass murderers could only dream of! Imo it's totally useless to compare these body counts - who killed more people. In fact ideology is only the excuse for power hungry regimes - it's just the flag under which the brainwashed population is gathered. It does not make a difference under which name people are suppressed, deprived of their human rights and killed. |
| Ms. Rebel 27.03.2009 07:18 |
Sergei. wrote:April wrote:Ms. Rebel likely got six-million because it is widely believed to be approximately the amount of people who died in the Holocaust. This is actually incorrect since it's only the amount of Jews who were killed, excluding all the other groups who were persecuted. And I think that this number of Jews is somewhat close, but probably isn't very reliable since it came from a Schutzstaffel officer and not an official count taken. While the number of people killed in the Holocaust was in reality I think somewhere around 12 or 13 million, I'm pretty sure it was nowhere near 20 million, let alone a 20 million made up only of Russians, Belarusians/Byelorussians and Ukrainians. I do know that the Soviet Union is said to have lost the most people out of any country during World War II, but wouldn't necessarily consider them to have been "killed by Hitler," that is, unless you're referring to the amount of people in general who were killed and not the Holocaust. Let's not forget that Stalin still managed to be sending folks to the Gulag despite the war. :OMs. Rebel wrote: Hitler killed 6 million people, Stalin over 20 million. They' were both massive assholes and they both made awful crimes. It's not sane when someone says that one of those two had good intentions.Stalin was a very bad guy, sure. But your statistics is wrong: Hitler killed 20 million Russian people, including Ukranian and Belarus. It's much more that 6 million, where did you get it, I wonder? Maybe you mean people from other countries? Please, if you haven't watched "Schindler's List", please watch it. It was made by a Jew. Hitler killed about 5,5 million Jews and 0,5 milion were gypsies, mentally ill people, homosexuals etc. I don't do body count of soldiers which were killed by the German troops in a fight against them, just as I don't count the number of people killed by the Russian soldiers. 6 million people killed by Hitler were not soldiers, they were innocent civilians and same goes for 20 million people killed by Stalin. Here's some wiki info about Stalin's victims: "Accordingly, if famine victims are included, a minimum of around 10 million deaths — 6 million minimum from famine and 4 million minimum from other causes — are attributable to the regime[82], with a number of recent historians suggesting a likely total of around 20 million, citing much higher victim totals from executions, gulags, deportations and other causes.[83] Adding 6–8 million famine victims to Erlikman's estimates above, for example, would yield a total of between 15 and 17 million victims. Researcher Robert Conquest, meanwhile, has revised his original estimate of up to 30 million victims down to 20 million.[84] Others maintain that their earlier higher victim total estimates are correct" |
| Ms. Rebel 27.03.2009 07:26 |
ThomasQuinn wrote:Ms. Rebel wrote: Hitler killed 6 million people, Stalin over 20 million. They' were both massive assholes and they both made awful crimes. It's not sane when someone says that one of those two had good intentions.This is exactly the black-and-white thinking that got us totalitarianism in the first place. This is exactly the brain-washed thinking that got us shitism of any kind in the first place. |
| Ms. Rebel 27.03.2009 07:33 |
YourValentine wrote:April wrote: Stalin was a bad guy. But he did win the war over the nazis. If not for the Soviet victory, who gave up their lives in that war, about 20 million people died, nazis might have won it. Americans joined the war when they saw that the USSR was winning, at the very end of the war, and hurried to share the victory. But they did let nazis kill first.Maybe you should read a history book. Read about the Hitler-Stalin pact that allowed Germany to invade Poland. Stalin fought the Nazis when they attacked the Soviet Union and not because he thought the world needed to be rid of the Nazis. The USA entered the war after Pearl Harbour - when their own people were attacked and not any earlier. France and England did not declare war when Hitler invaded the Czechoslovakia in clear violation of the Munich agreement - the list goes on and on. The millions of people who died in the war were often innocent helpless civilians - for example almost the complete population of Nagasaki and Hiroshima where 100 000s of helpless men, women and children people were wiped out in seconds - an achievement that Hitler and Stalin as model mass murderers could only dream of! Imo it's totally useless to compare these body counts - who killed more people. In fact ideology is only the excuse for power hungry regimes - it's just the flag under which the brainwashed population is gathered. It does not make a difference under which name people are suppressed, deprived of their human rights and killed. Brilliant post. The reason why I'm doing these body counts is to open some people's eyes who apparently see things in black and white so they come to some bizarre conclusion in which Hitler is the devil and Stalin just some bad guy who in general had good intentions but made a "couple" of mistakes. |
| thomasquinn 32989 27.03.2009 08:09 |
YourValentine wrote:This is true. Russia and Germany have historically been eager to annex as much of Poland as possible (which, it must be said, was originally a grand duchy, client to the Moscow regimeApril wrote: Stalin was a bad guy. But he did win the war over the nazis. If not for the Soviet victory, who gave up their lives in that war, about 20 million people died, nazis might have won it. Americans joined the war when they saw that the USSR was winning, at the very end of the war, and hurried to share the victory. But they did let nazis kill first.Maybe you should read a history book. Read about the Hitler-Stalin pact that allowed Germany to invade Poland. Stalin fought the Nazis when they attacked the Soviet Union and not because he thought the world needed to be rid of the Nazis.This is not true. Stalin was waiting for an opportune moment to fight the Nazis, whom he regarded as ultra-capitalists. However, his army, which at his ascent to Russian leadership was not loyal to him, and had an officer-class still largely Romanov-oriented despite Trotsky's earlier reforms, needed to be reformed (meaning the elimination of nearly all officers above the rank of Major) for him to be able to control it. Therefore, he spent time getting his army into a shape ready for war. Historians suppose that this was also the reason for the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact, which seems to have served to buy time, but, it turned out, not enough time: Hitler invaded before Stalin was ready, which explains the chaotic state of the Russian army during the original German offensive. Stalin hated the Nazis, but he was not stupid enough to attack them with an army he knew would lose. The USA entered the war after Pearl Harbour - when their own people were attacked and not any earlier. France and England did not declare war when Hitler invaded the Czechoslovakia in clear violation of the Munich agreement - the list goes on and on.True. It might be worth mentioning the Lend-Lease agreement, which is regarded as an overt American act of war by most historians. Roosevelt wanted to enter the war, but Congress was in majority isolationist, and thus wouldn't allow him until the Pearl Harbour attacks (Japan's worst strategic mistake, ahead of Yamamoto's concentration of the fleet which led to the crippling of Japanese naval power as early as 1942). The millions of people who died in the war were often innocent helpless civilians - for example almost the complete population of Nagasaki and Hiroshima where 100 000s of helpless men, women and children people were wiped out in seconds - an achievement that Hitler and Stalin as model mass murderers could only dream of!Completely true. It has often been remarked that the allies were guilty of war crimes to almost the same extent as the axis. Truth is, in all wars, all sides commit war crimes. Imo it's totally useless to compare these body counts - who killed more people. In fact ideology is only the excuse for power hungry regimes - it's just the flag under which the brainwashed population is gathered. It does not make a difference under which name people are suppressed, deprived of their human rights and killedAgreed, providing you also consider "democracy" and "liberalism" as ideologies wielded by nations as instruments of power. |
| thomasquinn 32989 27.03.2009 08:11 |
Ms. Rebel wrote:ThomasQuinn wrote:This is exactly the brain-washed thinking that got us shitism of any kind in the first place.Ms. Rebel wrote: Hitler killed 6 million people, Stalin over 20 million. They' were both massive assholes and they both made awful crimes. It's not sane when someone says that one of those two had good intentions.This is exactly the black-and-white thinking that got us totalitarianism in the first place. A useless response devoid of all content. Yes, Hitler was a huge criminal. Yes, Stalin was, too. But denying that either of them had at least *some* good intentions is silly and a-historical. |
| Poo, again 27.03.2009 10:22 |
How can a communist have anything but good intentions? |
| Ms. Rebel 27.03.2009 12:31 |
ThomasQuinn wrote:Ms. Rebel wrote:A useless response devoid of all content. Yes, Hitler was a huge criminal. Yes, Stalin was, too. But denying that either of them had at least *some* good intentions is silly and a-historical.ThomasQuinn wrote:This is exactly the brain-washed thinking that got us shitism of any kind in the first place.Ms. Rebel wrote: Hitler killed 6 million people, Stalin over 20 million. They' were both massive assholes and they both made awful crimes. It's not sane when someone says that one of those two had good intentions.This is exactly the black-and-white thinking that got us totalitarianism in the first place. Alrighty then, I will slaughter your whole family and record it with a camera. Then I'll sell my video for whole lot of money to some journalist so that he can broadcast it on TV. I will send money that I earned to some starving children in Africa. And then I'll send someone to tell you about me that, how even though I'm a bad girl, I also had some good intentions. Please, don't take this serious, I don't personally mean about your family, I'm just trying to picturise you your point of view. |
| Sergei. 27.03.2009 15:08 |
Ms. Rebel wrote:Sergei. wrote:Please, if you haven't watched "Schindler's List", please watch it. It was made by a Jew. Hitler killed about 5,5 million Jews and 0,5 milion were gypsies, mentally ill people, homosexuals etc. I don't do body count of soldiers which were killed by the German troops in a fight against them, just as I don't count the number of people killed by the Russian soldiers. 6 million people killed by Hitler were not soldiers, they were innocent civilians and same goes for 20 million people killed by Stalin. Here's some wiki info about Stalin's victims: "Accordingly, if famine victims are included, a minimum of around 10 million deaths — 6 million minimum from famine and 4 million minimum from other causes — are attributable to the regime[82], with a number of recent historians suggesting a likely total of around 20 million, citing much higher victim totals from executions, gulags, deportations and other causes.[83] Adding 6–8 million famine victims to Erlikman's estimates above, for example, would yield a total of between 15 and 17 million victims. Researcher Robert Conquest, meanwhile, has revised his original estimate of up to 30 million victims down to 20 million.[84] Others maintain that their earlier higher victim total estimates are correct"April wrote:Ms. Rebel likely got six-million because it is widely believed to be approximately the amount of people who died in the Holocaust. This is actually incorrect since it's only the amount of Jews who were killed, excluding all the other groups who were persecuted. And I think that this number of Jews is somewhat close, but probably isn't very reliable since it came from a Schutzstaffel officer and not an official count taken. While the number of people killed in the Holocaust was in reality I think somewhere around 12 or 13 million, I'm pretty sure it was nowhere near 20 million, let alone a 20 million made up only of Russians, Belarusians/Byelorussians and Ukrainians. I do know that the Soviet Union is said to have lost the most people out of any country during World War II, but wouldn't necessarily consider them to have been "killed by Hitler," that is, unless you're referring to the amount of people in general who were killed and not the Holocaust. Let's not forget that Stalin still managed to be sending folks to the Gulag despite the war. :OMs. Rebel wrote: Hitler killed 6 million people, Stalin over 20 million. They' were both massive assholes and they both made awful crimes. It's not sane when someone says that one of those two had good intentionStalin was a very bad guy, sure. But your statistics is wrong: Hitler killed 20 million Russian people, including Ukranian and Belarus. It's much more that 6 million, where did you get it, I wonder? Maybe you mean people from other countries? I have seen Schindler's List. I was actually making that post somewhat in your defence, lulz. He/she asked where you had gotten the count of "6 million" from and I was saying that it's widely believed to be the amount of Jews who died. |
| thomasquinn 32989 27.03.2009 16:51 |
Ms. Rebel wrote:ThomasQuinn wrote:Alrighty then, I will slaughter your whole family and record it with a camera. Then I'll sell my video for whole lot of money to some journalist so that he can broadcast it on TV. I will send money that I earned to some starving children in Africa. And then I'll send someone to tell you about me that, how even though I'm a bad girl, I also had some good intentions. Please, don't take this serious, I don't personally mean about your family, I'm just trying to picturise you your point of view.Ms. Rebel wrote:A useless response devoid of all content. Yes, Hitler was a huge criminal. Yes, Stalin was, too. But denying that either of them had at least *some* good intentions is silly and a-historical.ThomasQuinn wrote:This is exactly the brain-washed thinking that got us shitism of any kind in the first place.Ms. Rebel wrote: Hitler killed 6 million people, Stalin over 20 million. They' were both massive assholes and they both made awful crimes. It's not sane when someone says that one of those two had good intentions.This is exactly the black-and-white thinking that got us totalitarianism in the first place. Intentions and acts are two entirely separate things. One can do sheer evil for good motives, and one can do good out of wicked motives. Hitler and Stalin did not spend their entire working-days devising plots to torture, kill, conquer and oppress. They believed that they were acting for the common good (at least they probably started out thinking that way), and they occasionally did something good. For instance, Hitler passed some of the first legislation for environmental preservation (and, ironically, gave Germany masses of roads and made the car available to the common man for the first time), and Stalin came a long way to women's emancipation, opening a large number of jobs to them that would be out of bounds to women in Europe and the US for a long time. No one is all evil all of the time. Not even Dick Cheney. He's nice to small children every 28th of August from 12:30 to 14:15, if it's a leap-year. |
| Ms. Rebel 27.03.2009 17:32 |
Sergei. wrote:Ms. Rebel wrote:I have seen Schindler's List. I was actually making that post somewhat in your defence, lulz. He/she asked where you had gotten the count of "6 million" from and I was saying that it's widely believed to be the amount of Jews who died.Sergei. wrote:Please, if you haven't watched "Schindler's List", please watch it. It was made by a Jew. Hitler killed about 5,5 million Jews and 0,5 milion were gypsies, mentally ill people, homosexuals etc. I don't do body count of soldiers which were killed by the German troops in a fight against them, just as I don't count the number of people killed by the Russian soldiers. 6 million people killed by Hitler were not soldiers, they were innocent civilians and same goes for 20 million people killed by Stalin. Here's some wiki info about Stalin's victims: "Accordingly, if famine victims are included, a minimum of around 10 million deaths — 6 million minimum from famine and 4 million minimum from other causes — are attributable to the regime[82], with a number of recent historians suggesting a likely total of around 20 million, citing much higher victim totals from executions, gulags, deportations and other causes.[83] Adding 6–8 million famine victims to Erlikman's estimates above, for example, would yield a total of between 15 and 17 million victims. Researcher Robert Conquest, meanwhile, has revised his original estimate of up to 30 million victims down to 20 million.[84] Others maintain that their earlier higher victim total estimates are correct"April wrote:Ms. Rebel likely got six-million because it is widely believed to be approximately the amount of people who died in the Holocaust. This is actually incorrect since it's only the amount of Jews who were killed, excluding all the other groups who were persecuted. And I think that this number of Jews is somewhat close, but probably isn't very reliable since it came from a Schutzstaffel officer and not an official count taken. While the number of people killed in the Holocaust was in reality I think somewhere around 12 or 13 million, I'm pretty sure it was nowhere near 20 million, let alone a 20 million made up only of Russians, Belarusians/Byelorussians and Ukrainians. I do know that the Soviet Union is said to have lost the most people out of any country during World War II, but wouldn't necessarily consider them to have been "killed by Hitler," that is, unless you're referring to the amount of people in general who were killed and not the Holocaust. Let's not forget that Stalin still managed to be sending folks to the Gulag despite the war. :OMs. Rebel wrote: Hitler killed 6 million people, Stalin over 20 million. They' were both massive assholes and they both made awful crimes. It's not sane when someone says that one of those two had good intentionStalin was a very bad guy, sure. But your statistics is wrong: Hitler killed 20 million Russian people, including Ukranian and Belarus. It's much more that 6 million, where did you get it, I wonder? Maybe you mean people from other countries? I know that you were, I appreciate that. He/she is wrong. xD |
| Legy 27.03.2009 17:50 |
YourValentine wrote:April wrote: Stalin was a bad guy. But he did win the war over the nazis. If not for the Soviet victory, who gave up their lives in that war, about 20 million people died, nazis might have won it. Americans joined the war when they saw that the USSR was winning, at the very end of the war, and hurried to share the victory. But they did let nazis kill first.Maybe you should read a history book. Read about the Hitler-Stalin pact that allowed Germany to invade Poland. Stalin fought the Nazis when they attacked the Soviet Union and not because he thought the world needed to be rid of the Nazis. The USA entered the war after Pearl Harbour - when their own people were attacked and not any earlier. France and England did not declare war when Hitler invaded the Czechoslovakia in clear violation of the Munich agreement - the list goes on and on. The millions of people who died in the war were often innocent helpless civilians - for example almost the complete population of Nagasaki and Hiroshima where 100 000s of helpless men, women and children people were wiped out in seconds - an achievement that Hitler and Stalin as model mass murderers could only dream of! Imo it's totally useless to compare these body counts - who killed more people. In fact ideology is only the excuse for power hungry regimes - it's just the flag under which the brainwashed population is gathered. It does not make a difference under which name people are suppressed, deprived of their human rights and killed. EXAAAACTLY! About the US and WWII, FDR was very reluctant to enter the war. Japan and the US were involved in peace talks then Pearl Harbor happened. Pearl Harbor changed everything. |
| April 27.03.2009 18:03 |
Certainly it wasn't 20 million people that Stalin killed, maybe 6m. He was a bad guy, but not a single one of you knows what it was like to live in those times in the Soviet Union. And you can't judge fairly. While my grandmothers and friends do know. It wasn't all that bad, and he didn't do only bad things. Surely he can't be compared to Hitler, but to some other totalitarian-authoritarian dictator. And how many indians and black slaves were slaughtered in Americas? 20 million? I think practically all in North America. According to your logic then those American presidents of the times can be called Hitlers. |
| Legy 27.03.2009 18:31 |
20 million Blacks and Native Americans were slaughter by the white man in the US? Okay... |
| Ms. Rebel 27.03.2009 21:08 |
Ummm.... I think that I'm going to bed now. |
| Raf 27.03.2009 22:40 |
April wrote: Certainly it wasn't 20 million people that Stalin killed, maybe 6m. He was a bad guy, but not a single one of you knows what it was like to live in those times in the Soviet Union. And you can't judge fairly. While my grandmothers and friends do know. It wasn't all that bad, and he didn't do only bad things. Surely he can't be compared to Hitler, but to some other totalitarian-authoritarian dictator. And how many indians and black slaves were slaughtered in Americas? 20 million? I think practically all in North America. According to your logic then those American presidents of the times can be called Hitlers.Have you watched the documentary yet? The survivors from Stalin's mass murder events and the children of people who died over there don't seem to agree that living in the Soviet Union was a good thing. The pics of dead children looking like those poor starving Africans wouldn't work as pro-USSR arguments either. I do agree about the American genocide, though. "I think practically all in North America" - this bit is wrong. Spanish and Portuguese people killed several million natives, and besides that, we (Brazilian) people imported slaves from Africa until 1850 - then we stopped because England threatened us. But still, slaves kept having children, and slavery went on until 1889. I descend directly from Portuguese people and I know I'm living on a country that has been stolen by my people a few centuries ago - and so what? That doesn't make me evil, I was born here, those natives have been dead for centuries... And I acknowledge terrible things happened here. What I wanted to point out when I started the thread is: In this particular case (the Soviet Union and all the genocides), the criminals are still alive. They are still alive - just like some poor victims who have survived those terrible times, they still have some power, there are people who support them, they haven't (and probably won't) be judged for what they've done, they're still spreading their ideas, they are trying to make it look like people who point out what they've done in the past are liars... And the worst thing: What if they do come back? As other people have pointed out on other threads here on Queenzone, the current scenario is more suitable for their comeback than the 90s and early 2000's were. |
| YourValentine 28.03.2009 04:55 |
I have not seen the documentary but the reason why these people were never charged and tried for their crimes is: the system change was peaceful, there was no war and no revolution to topple the regime. You can see this phenomenon in many other countries, for example Spain where King Juan Carlos was Franco's "heir" but introduced the democracy against all expectations. Or countries like Argentina and Chile where the protagonists of the old regime were not tried, either. Of course the situation is very unsatisfactory for the victims of the old regime but it's very debatable if a civil war or a revolution would have been the better alternative. I really do not know enough about the complex political and social post-communist structure in the previous Soviet states to have a valid opinion but I think that the new government is simply not powerful enough to prosecute these people and probably not willing , either. As far as I remember Putin himself was the leader of the KGB in the old regime. When you look at the former Yugoslavia and look at the hatred, atrocities and mass killings that went along with the system change I think it's maybe better to let the murderers go unpunished than to have a civil war with perhaps 100 000s of innocent victims.This is probably a very academic position and sounds unsympathetic and very frustrating for the victims but I do not believe that there is a possibility to charge these people without risking a civil war and social unrest. I do not believe that you can turn the clock back and return to the Communist system but it's up to the global community to help the democratic forces in Russia and not fuel the fire by threatening them with new "missile shields" and other cold war rhethoric and activities. |
| April 28.03.2009 17:49 |
Dear Your Valentine! What you have written is very true. You are a very wise person. Thank you for your ideas! I would only want to point out that not everything in the USSR was as bad as your propaganda tries to impress on you. Many sides of life were really nice, like people helping each other, caring about each other, spending a lot of time together, enjoying equal right to work (no unemployment absolutely), to medical care (all free), to education (all free), very low prices (especially bread, meat, milk, cream and so on), the right to leasure and equal possibilities for people to go to the South and rest by the sea in sanatoriums which were very cheap and many other things. And feeling secure about tomorrow. Everything guaranteed. But... Later the economy didn't sustain that, the 5-year planning was all wrong, and ideology failed a lot. Heavy industry was prospering but light industry was stalled. The whole system collapsed. I wouldn't like any kind of return, by no means. This was kind of an extreme well-fare state system. No fresh air. No freedom of thought, of expression. Now it's absolutely different in Russia. At first it was very hard for people to accept the new way of life, but younger generation embarked on it easily, they=we are the champions. And Putin has never been any chief of the KGB, he was just a junior officer working in the GDR (German Democratic Republic) and then joined Sobchak, one of the new democratic leaders of the perestroika. Stalin was bad, a tyrant, and really if we take the whole period after the revolution to his death, including the collectivization, the revival of the economy and resettlements of the whole ethnic groups then the number would be great. You are right. But all those people responsible for the tragedy are already dead. There's noone to punish. The greatest culprits of the whole thing, however, were the revolutionaries-terrorists like Trotsky and his company, in the first place. |
| Sergei. 28.03.2009 23:00 |
Slaves? How did slaves suddenly get mentioned? If we want to discuss the atrocities committed by United States, look no further back than forty years -- Just Google Image search "Agent Orange." |
| YourValentine 29.03.2009 06:54 |
@ April, you wrote: "I would only want to point out that not everything in the USSR was as bad as your propaganda tries to impress on you. Many sides of life were really nice, like people helping each other, caring about each other, spending a lot of time together, enjoying equal right to work (no unemployment absolutely), to medical care (all free), to education (all free), very low prices (especially bread, meat, milk, cream and so on), the right to leasure and equal possibilities for people to go to the South and rest by the sea in sanatoriums which were very cheap and many other things." Believe me, I am not impressed by cold war propaganda very easily :) But I have heard the same in Germany many times: "Under the nazis there was no unemployment and the women could go out at night without fearing to be raped, there was "Kraft durch Freude" , the Autobahn was built etc etc - not everything was all that bad." The regime was still a regime of ruthless killers even though many German people had a good life until the war returned to Germany. Jews, communists, socialists, any kind of opponents against the regime, even so called "worthless life", i.e. handicapped people were killed with no mercy. There are always some good things in each society and it's useless to list them against other societies. Just now we witness what happens if capitalism runs wild with no social control and regulation. I still believe that democracy offers the best chances to ensure, freedom, security and the guarantee of the human rights for people but the system is far from perfect and must be continuously improved. I also believe that each individual person should always think for themselves and not follow "our flag". Politicians usually lie and cheat, are corrupt and do not have your well being in mind - no matter which system. It's the people who have to fight for their rights all the time, it's a never ending process. |
| April 29.03.2009 16:00 |
Yes, Germany has suffered a lot at the hands of its leaders. It's hard for German people to deal with their past, I guess. I hear the German government still has to pay money to Jewish families in Israel whose relatives were killed by the nazis. |
| Poo, again 30.03.2009 08:23 |
April wrote: Yes, Germany has suffered a lot at the hands of its leaders. It's hard for German people to deal with their past, I guess. I hear the German government still has to pay money to Jewish families in Israel whose relatives were killed by the nazis. The German government = elected representatives of the people. So, that means that the German people are still paying for atrocities commited before most of them were even born. You'd expect the Anglo-Saxons/other prominent ethnic groups of the USA to pay African-Americans, Native Americans, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on... |