A monument to Joseph Stalin is unveiled in Yakutsk before Victory Day. (RIA Novosti / Bolot Botchkarev) / RIA Novosti
USA Today: As Confederate statues fall in U.S., Russians are erecting statues for dictator Stalin
MOSCOW — While controversial statues of Confederate icons who fought for slavery come down in the United States, Russia is erecting new monuments to a once-disgraced Soviet Union dictator who killed millions: Josef Stalin.
This summer marked the 80th anniversary of the "Great Terror," a massive purge Stalin ordered against political opponents. Yet the milestone was barely noticed by Russians, who increasingly see Stalin as a national hero who defeated the Nazis in World War II as a valued U.S. ally rather than the brutal mass murderer reviled by historians.
Many here apparently don't know that on July 30, 1937, Stalin’s secret police launched a campaign that would see more than 1.5 million "anti-Soviet elements" arrested and nearly 700,000 of them killed, according to Soviet archives. Historians say that during Stalin’s three decades of rule, which ended with his death in 1953, an estimated 15 million to 30 million people were executed or died in labor camps or starved to death.
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WNU Editor: Ignore the past. Doom to repeat it. Robert E. Lee and the KKK are pikers when compared to what Stalin and his KGB thugs did.
Hat tip to Fred for this very timely link. (Even though it gets my blood boiling).
7 comments:
Well look man kind it's all about dissisgen you r famed if you do damed if you don't
Or rather eney way you like it sucker
Madness::: we r on the road
Historically I've gon dementional time :::::wow gland I am here.
Wow we r conshes with static
The World is losing its value everywhere, that's not a good sign for the future.
One thing that has to be said. Much of the Stalin hate club in Russia (and beyond, really) consists of 1) Gaidar-ish Social Darwinist "liberals" and 2) alternative communists who want to pin everything on Stalin while protecting Lenin, Trotsky and any number of other idols. When people like that hate someone so strongly and publicly, exaggerating his atrocities (which hardly need any exaggerating), the average man on the street is bound to start thinking that maybe that guy wasn't all bad. Coupled with historical ignorance and ethical muddle-headedness that is so widespread in modern Russia (and not just there of course), this thing is both wholly predictable and probably not very consequential (while we historians would like you to believe that learning history is a way to avoid repeating it, I am yet to see any real evidence that this works; also, Stalin was brought to power by fairly unique historical circumstances that will not be repeated in Russia, if only because we simply do not have enough people for a revolution).
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