Honoring Stalin?

[I think not]

I found this rather err... 8O . interesting.

Russian Lawmakers Seek to Honor Stalin

By HENRY MEYER, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - Lawmakers in a western Russian city have called for authorities to rename streets after Josef Stalin and restore memorials to the Soviet dictator to honor his wartime leadership, officials said Thursday.

The move in the city of Oryol, timed to coincide with next month's celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Nazi defeat in World War II, reflects a growing trend glorifying Stalin's leadership during the war despite his role in the deaths of millions of people during his rule.

Olga Patenkova, a city hall spokeswoman in Oryol, about 220 miles southwest of Moscow, told The Associated Press by telephone that local lawmakers approved a motion March 31 urging Stalin's image be rehabilitated.

"The 60th anniversary of victory ... obliges us to support widespread calls ... to restore historical justice with respect to the historical role played by the commander-in-chief Josef Stalin," the resolution said, according to excerpts published Thursday in the daily Izvestia.

The municipal assembly called for restoring "the name of Stalin to the streets and squares of our cities and re-erect monuments to the supreme commander."

More than a decade after the fall of Soviet Union, Stalin is revered by much of the Russian population as a strong leader who drove the country through rapid industrialization that turned it into a superpower, and as a wartime commander who ensured victory against Nazi Germany.

Stalin came to power after the death of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin in 1924 and began a reign of terror that lasted nearly three decades, ending only with his death in 1953. An estimated 20 million people were executed, imprisoned or deported to other parts of the former Soviet Union. Altogether, 10 million are believed to have died.

Even a regional official in Oryol in charge of protecting the rights of victims of political repression, Nina Nesterina, was equivocal in her attitude to Stalin.

"It is not a simple issue. Stalin was not really responsible for the repressions. In all official documents the orders are from the NKVD (the forerunner of the KGB), military tribunals. A system of repression existed and functioned by itself," she told Izvestia.

Last month, the Russian city formerly known as Stalingrad decided to erect a monument to Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to honor the historic Yalta conference held by the three leaders in 1945. Volgograd Mayor Yevgeny Ishchenko said his city is also considering changing some street names in honor of the Battle of Stalingrad, a turning point in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War.

 

[I think not]

Idiocy prevails on this earth, this is like hailing hitler for being the best dressed dictator.

 

[mrmom2]

No freaking kidding 8O All hail the mass murderer F..king unbeleivable :x

 

[jimmoyer]

Perhaps the following editorial piece can explain the behavior of the Russians and help you understand once again that perception is reality.

Look particularly about people who grew up a long time with no free press and what happens to their perceptions and memory when suddenly they get a free press and get inundated with all what is bad now, and very little about was bad then.



A German Lesson for Remaking Iraq
By Anne Applebaum

Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A27
Yesterday Germans celebrated the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Or, to put it differently, yesterday Germans marked 15 years of what has been the most peaceful, most comfortable, most orderly transition from totalitarianism to democracy ever -- the polar opposite of the transition now taking place (if it is taking place) in Iraq. There was no violence, no unrest. There was no looting or pillaging.
There wasn't even much shouting. In fact, the odd thing about Berlin, 15 years ago this evening, was how quiet it was. When I arrived in the city, after driving all day and much of the night, the champagne corks had all been popped. There was a big, tipsy crowd of West Germans sitting on a small section of the Wall near the Brandenburg Gate, occasionally taunting the guards, but not doing much else. There were East Germans milling around McDonald's in West Berlin, looking scared. The eastern half of the city was eerily dark.
I was not the only one who found it odd. At a dinner given in her honor this week, Marianne Birthler, a former East German dissident who runs the archives of the Stasi, the East German secret police, agreed that, in retrospect, the peace that followed the fall of the Wall seems almost incomprehensible. By way of illustration, she told the story of a woman in Mecklenburg who learned, after the Wall fell, that the citizens of other East German towns had occupied their local Stasi headquarters. Since everyone else in Mecklenburg was otherwise occupied -- people still had to go to work, take care of children, clean the house -- the woman walked up to her local Stasi headquarters alone, knocked on the door, and said she would like to occupy the building. The guard solemnly handed over his pistol, gave her the keys and let her in.
In the years afterward, the West German government built on the peaceful revolution with an unprecedented transfer of wealth. The East Germans received roads, infrastructure, welfare benefits and investment. While the rest of Eastern Europe struggled with new constitutions, amateurish bureaucrats and fly-by-night political parties, East Germans were simply handed the West German legal system, the West German political system and the West German civil service on a plate.
And yet despite all of that, there are those who feel, more strongly than ever, that the transition has been disastrous. As Birthler put it, the "honeymoon" is long over -- if it ever started. Fifteen years later, not only do easterners feel disenfranchised, nearly one in five tells pollsters that they wish the Wall had never come down. East Germany remains poorer, unhealthier and unhappier than the western half of the country. East Germans remain more prone to political extremism. The neo-communist political party has recently made a stunning comeback in regional elections, and neo-Nazi parties do well in the East too.
The lesson of the East German transition after 15 years should, in other words, be phrased as a warning: Even if it is possible to get every political and economic element right, even if it is possible to avoid violence entirely, the psychological transition to liberal democracy from a regime ruled by fear is one that takes at least one generation, if not two. Few people are able to walk from a closed society into an open one without self-doubt and discomfort. Few people find it easy to readjust their thinking overnight, even if they want to. Few people are able to look at themselves in the mirror, tell themselves that the first few decades of their lives were all a bad mistake, and go out and start living new lives according to new rules. It was no accident, a wise teacher once told me, that God made the Israelites wander in the desert for 40 years before bringing them to the promised land: That was how long it would take them to unlearn the mental habits of Egyptian slavery.
In a week in which U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are fighting one of the bloodiest and most difficult battles of the whole Iraqi conflict, it doesn't sound terribly comforting to write that "these things take a long time." But they do, and for Americans accustomed to fast results, it can't be repeated often enough: East Germany is proof that it is possible to do everything right and still leave millions of people feeling cheated by liberation many years later. I don't know whether Iraq will ever be a "success," but even if it is, we may not know for several decades. If it was a grave misjudgment to ignore that fact before the Iraqi war began, it would be no less catastrophic to do so now.
applebaumanne@washpost.com

 

[mrmom2]

Kind of like here in the west not much free press around here anymore

 

[I think not]

Yes mrmom I certainly agree with that.
But I don't agree to the relationship of the 2 articles. I agree where perception is reality, I do not agree that it applies in both situations.
Perception of 20 million dead as opposed to a different type of form of government is much different.
I would agree if Stalin wasn't long gone over 50 years ago. A new generation has emerged, perhaps the problem lies in the education of the Russian people. Maybe nobody told them what was going on? It's possible isn't it? They don't tell us everything, do they?
I can say this though, the WWII powers were eager to divide Germany, but I didn't see them tripping over each other to help them when they reunited. Politicians, burn the bastards.

 

[Rick van Opbergen]

What I experienced when I visited Bulgaria two years ago (yes, Bulgaria is not Russia, but I'll explain this now), there were still a few Bulgarians who dreamt of the return of the communist (or as they say, state-socialist) regime. Why? It seemed there were several reasons. The arrival of capitalism had brought prosperity for some - but poverty to others. The people were free - but social services worsened. Life had gotten a bit more insecure, and for many of the generation who grew up under the state-socialist rule, moving to a democratic and capitalist society was considered necessary, yet scary. People now had to stand "on their own feet". The younger generation is much more adapted to this by now, but the older generation is not. The mother of a friend of mine, who is Bulgarian and with whom I visited the country, told me she could understand people who wanted the "old system" back. This being said by a woman who had fled this same "old system" in the 80s and who is a staunch conservative.

Not so long ago, I read an interesting article on the arrival of Eastern European Jews - mostly from the former Soviet-Union - in Germany. As you might know, the Jewish population has grown due to immigration from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union from 60,000 in 1990 to more than 200,000 in 2005, with that once again becoming one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe (only France - 600,000 - and the UK - 350,000 - have larger communities, if we neglect the Russian Federation as a European country - approximately 600,000 Jews live in the Russian Federation). Many of these Jewish immigrants are intellectuals and people with an academic background; doctors, musicians, engineers.

And most are unemployed.

One of the reasons, if not the most important reason, according to the article, for this high unemployment was the unability of these Jewish immigrants to adapt to a capitalist lifestyle. "Back in Russia", it wasn't encouraged to be independent, to show initiative. The Jewish children who do grow up in a free society like Germany tend to not attract their parents in the shift to a capitalist and democratic lifestyle, making the parents even feel more alone in their new environment.

Eventually, this can lead to disappointment.

I think that is also the case perhaps with some Russians. They "remember the days" when everything was so different - a sort of nostalgic feelings. That they "forget" that millions were killed by Stalin, and even more lives forever damaged by for example the enormous deportations of entire nations (Chechens, Volga Germans etc.) to Central Asia, is unforgivable. What said above should thus not be seen as a justification, but it may be an explanation nevertheless.

 

[I think not]

You make a very good point Rick. I would like to add that for the people that lived in Moscow under Stalins rule, it was totally different from those living in rural areas. Perhaps it is those voices being heard.

I think there is a large degree however of ignorance. I will speak of Greece (since I lived for there for a while). Greece was under a military dictatoship for 7 years (1967-1974). I often heard elders speaking of those times, curfues, couldn't say anything against the government, during elections they were given a sealed envelope before they walked into the polls to cast their vote and they had better well used it. (approximate deaths totaled 25,000 during his reign)

My point being, even today not nearly a generation has gone by and there are voices that would like to see him rule again.

 

[Rick van Opbergen]

I think too there is a large degree of ignorance. Point is, can we "blame" them for that? To a certain extent, I think we certainly can, especially government officials who have a far easier opportunity to inform themselves about the happenings under Stalinist rule - compared to most poor Russians who do not, or do not care to inform themselves (why spend your time on informing yourself about history while you are going to bed hungry? I guess you have other priorities by then).

 

[I think not]

Agreed

 

[uban001]

I don't think that "ignorance" is right answer. Actually, it would sound ridiculous if we thought we have more knowledge about Russian history than people in that country.

Let's get down to fundamentals and agree that Stalin was after all a human being-person just like you and me, then you can easily understand that he had to make mistake.

In his dynasty, many innocent people got killed, but he did play an important role in the battle against Nazi, and saved the whole Europe in some degree. It is hard to say that his fault overweigh the contribution he made, isn't?

Russians hated him to death, because he deprived so many things from them. However, time is the best medicine, and now they become to realize the other part of the story - that Stalin was the one who ever made Russia a power in the world, which makes a violent contrast with today's Russia. As a consequence, some of them intend to forgive the misfortune he brought to Russia, and wish that there would be another leader who can restore the glory of yesterday.

I will be glad to hear you guys' voice, please go on.

 

[I think not]

Re: RE: Honoring Stalin?

I don't think that "ignorance" is right answer. Actually, it would sound ridiculous if we thought we have more knowledge about Russian history than people in that country.

Let's get down to fundamentals and agree that Stalin was after all a human being-person just like you and me, then you can easily understand that he had to make mistake.

In his dynasty, many innocent people got killed, but he did play an important role in the battle against Nazi, and saved the whole Europe in some degree. It is hard to say that his fault overweigh the contribution he made, isn't?

Russians hated him to death, because he deprived so many things from them. However, time is the best medicine, and now they become to realize the other part of the story - that Stalin was the one who ever made Russia a power in the world, which makes a violent contrast with today's Russia. As a consequence, some of them intend to forgive the misfortune he brought to Russia, and wish that there would be another leader who can restore the glory of yesterday.

I will be glad to hear you guys' voice, please go on.

With the same logic, I can say the same for Hitler. He made a mistake by trying to take over the world and kill millions in the process. He took Germany from shambles into a power, should the Germans build statues and place them all over Germany?

 

[mrmom2]

85 million people killed and he made a mistake Pleaseeeeee give me a break 8O " Thoughs who forget history are doomed to repeat it".I think the problem lies in the fact the Russian people had no idea of the scale of murder that was going on back then .I have a hard enough time trying to get my head around the idea of 85 million peolpe were murdered bewteen the WWII and Russian revolution .Thats an awful lot of people

 

[Rick van Opbergen]

Re: RE: Honoring Stalin?

I don't think that "ignorance" is right answer. Actually, it would sound ridiculous if we thought we have more knowledge about Russian history than people in that country.

Let's get down to fundamentals and agree that Stalin was after all a human being-person just like you and me, then you can easily understand that he had to make mistake. Mistake? Tell that to all those who were killed, slaughtered, deported and scarved for life on the hands of this cruel dictator. Mistake? :roll:

In his dynasty, many innocent people got killed, but he did play an important role in the battle against Nazi, and saved the whole Europe in some degree. It is hard to say that his fault overweigh the contribution he made, isn't? He "saved" Europe? Yes, he stopped Hitler in the East, just so he could kill and deport millions in the countries the Soviet Union occupied: the Baltic countries, parts of Poland, not to forget the Eastern European regimes where Communist rule was reinstated. The one dictator and cruel murderer - Hitler - was replaced by the other - Stalin.

Russians hated him to death, because he deprived so many things from them. However, time is the best medicine, and now they become to realize the other part of the story - that Stalin was the one who ever made Russia a power in the world, which makes a violent contrast with today's Russia. As a consequence, some of them intend to forgive the misfortune he brought to Russia, and wish that there would be another leader who can restore the glory of yesterday. Forgiving Stalin is not possible. For what he did, no argument can be used to even consider forgiving him.

I will be glad to hear you guys' voice, please go on.