It's easy to make glib jokes about it, but the famine in the Ukraine that he and his cronies helped engineer and manipulate, the whole nationalities loaded onto cattle cars and shipped halfway across Eurasia, the brutal and inhuman use of slave labour........how can anyone who claims to want a better world really be in favour of these things?
http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/cuba/2007-09-19/deliberate-lies-strange-deaths-and-aggression-against-the-world-economy/
Ironicwarcriminal posted:I'm fascinated by him, and respect his use of power in some areas, but how can a humanitarian-minded person really excuse him for what he did, like any tyrant?
It's easy to make glib jokes about it, but the famine in the Ukraine that he and his cronies helped engineer and manipulate, the whole nationalities loaded onto cattle cars and shipped halfway across Eurasia, the brutal and inhuman use of slave labour........how can anyone who claims to want a better world really be in favour of these things?
Crow, i saw you downvoted this, and i'm wondering why. I've (i'm being sincere here) struggled with it again and again and i cannot find a way to excuse such monstrous actions. You perhaps think this argument is some liberal nonsense and you are past discussing it but no matter how open minded I force myself to be i cannot get past it
Ironicwarcriminal posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:I'm fascinated by him, and respect his use of power in some areas, but how can a humanitarian-minded person really excuse him for what he did, like any tyrant?
It's easy to make glib jokes about it, but the famine in the Ukraine that he and his cronies helped engineer and manipulate, the whole nationalities loaded onto cattle cars and shipped halfway across Eurasia, the brutal and inhuman use of slave labour........how can anyone who claims to want a better world really be in favour of these things?Crow, i saw you downvoted this, and i'm wondering why. I've (i'm being sincere here) struggled with it again and again and i cannot find a way to excuse such monstrous actions. You perhaps think this argument is some liberal nonsense and you are past discussing it but no matter how open minded I force myself to be i cannot get past it
i'm beyond caring how desperately people in the west cling to orientalist garbage historiography. Believe what youd Like
Crow posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
I'm fascinated by him, and respect his use of power in some areas, but how can a humanitarian-minded person really excuse him for what he did, like any tyrant?
It's easy to make glib jokes about it, but the famine in the Ukraine that he and his cronies helped engineer and manipulate, the whole nationalities loaded onto cattle cars and shipped halfway across Eurasia, the brutal and inhuman use of slave labour........how can anyone who claims to want a better world really be in favour of these things?
Crow, i saw you downvoted this, and i'm wondering why. I've (i'm being sincere here) struggled with it again and again and i cannot find a way to excuse such monstrous actions. You perhaps think this argument is some liberal nonsense and you are past discussing it but no matter how open minded I force myself to be i cannot get past it
i'm beyond caring how desperately people in the west cling to orientalist garbage historiography. Believe what youd Like
To put it a more constructive and less combative way then, and i'll receive your answer with an open mind: How did you personally...let's say, overcome such a historiography, and how do you rationalize (defend, synthesize, contextualize, whatever) such things as the famines in the Ukraine, the population transfers, the Gulag, the extraction economies set up in the Soviet periphery?
Ironicwarcriminal posted:Crow posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
I'm fascinated by him, and respect his use of power in some areas, but how can a humanitarian-minded person really excuse him for what he did, like any tyrant?
It's easy to make glib jokes about it, but the famine in the Ukraine that he and his cronies helped engineer and manipulate, the whole nationalities loaded onto cattle cars and shipped halfway across Eurasia, the brutal and inhuman use of slave labour........how can anyone who claims to want a better world really be in favour of these things?
Crow, i saw you downvoted this, and i'm wondering why. I've (i'm being sincere here) struggled with it again and again and i cannot find a way to excuse such monstrous actions. You perhaps think this argument is some liberal nonsense and you are past discussing it but no matter how open minded I force myself to be i cannot get past it
i'm beyond caring how desperately people in the west cling to orientalist garbage historiography. Believe what youd LikeTo put it a more constructive and less combative way then, and i'll receive your answer with an open mind: How did you personally...let's say, overcome such a historiography, and how do you rationalize (defend, synthesize, contextualize, whatever) such things as the famines in the Ukraine, the population transfers, the Gulag, the extraction economies set up in the Soviet periphery?
well i take a more critical look at retarded books and courses taught by racist ass dweebs, and try to apply the little knowledge i have about the world, especially systemic understandings, in a more forgiving manner to people i have never met, parts of the world i never seen, and eras i havent lived in. narratives about evil tyrants in hellish faraway lands are silly and cowardly. it's like applying your own neuroses to strangers, all you are working is with yourself. so how about giving people a break you Wanker
tpaine posted:he's Russian so he's probably just like "Famines never happen. Camps never happen. Everyone treated well. Vodka is colored orange. *drinks patently clear vodka* Is orange."
and my father's georgian, from an aristocrat family of a land colonized by Russia, a family who lost their fortune and standing in the revolution. so i can always play that card for sympathy with yanks. Yanks like a particular fucker didnt ever taste colours.
Crow posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Crow posted:
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
I'm fascinated by him, and respect his use of power in some areas, but how can a humanitarian-minded person really excuse him for what he did, like any tyrant?
It's easy to make glib jokes about it, but the famine in the Ukraine that he and his cronies helped engineer and manipulate, the whole nationalities loaded onto cattle cars and shipped halfway across Eurasia, the brutal and inhuman use of slave labour........how can anyone who claims to want a better world really be in favour of these things?
Crow, i saw you downvoted this, and i'm wondering why. I've (i'm being sincere here) struggled with it again and again and i cannot find a way to excuse such monstrous actions. You perhaps think this argument is some liberal nonsense and you are past discussing it but no matter how open minded I force myself to be i cannot get past it
i'm beyond caring how desperately people in the west cling to orientalist garbage historiography. Believe what youd Like
To put it a more constructive and less combative way then, and i'll receive your answer with an open mind: How did you personally...let's say, overcome such a historiography, and how do you rationalize (defend, synthesize, contextualize, whatever) such things as the famines in the Ukraine, the population transfers, the Gulag, the extraction economies set up in the Soviet periphery?
well i take a more critical look at retarded books and courses taught by racist ass dweebs, and try to apply the little knowledge i have about the world, especially systemic understandings, in a more forgiving manner to people i have never met, parts of the world i never seen, and eras i havent lived in. narratives about evil tyrants in hellish faraway lands are silly and cowardly. it's like applying your own neuroses to strangers, all you are working is with yourself. so how about giving people a break you Wanker
that's not what i asked, and seems to be evading the question
i'm not calling you evil, and i didn't call Stalin "evil" either, nor am i positioning Savage Oriental Despotism against Enlightened Anglo Liberalism, you seem to be misrepresenting me.
Ironicwarcriminal posted:Crow posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Crow posted:
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
I'm fascinated by him, and respect his use of power in some areas, but how can a humanitarian-minded person really excuse him for what he did, like any tyrant?
It's easy to make glib jokes about it, but the famine in the Ukraine that he and his cronies helped engineer and manipulate, the whole nationalities loaded onto cattle cars and shipped halfway across Eurasia, the brutal and inhuman use of slave labour........how can anyone who claims to want a better world really be in favour of these things?
Crow, i saw you downvoted this, and i'm wondering why. I've (i'm being sincere here) struggled with it again and again and i cannot find a way to excuse such monstrous actions. You perhaps think this argument is some liberal nonsense and you are past discussing it but no matter how open minded I force myself to be i cannot get past it
i'm beyond caring how desperately people in the west cling to orientalist garbage historiography. Believe what youd Like
To put it a more constructive and less combative way then, and i'll receive your answer with an open mind: How did you personally...let's say, overcome such a historiography, and how do you rationalize (defend, synthesize, contextualize, whatever) such things as the famines in the Ukraine, the population transfers, the Gulag, the extraction economies set up in the Soviet periphery?
well i take a more critical look at retarded books and courses taught by racist ass dweebs, and try to apply the little knowledge i have about the world, especially systemic understandings, in a more forgiving manner to people i have never met, parts of the world i never seen, and eras i havent lived in. narratives about evil tyrants in hellish faraway lands are silly and cowardly. it's like applying your own neuroses to strangers, all you are working is with yourself. so how about giving people a break you Wankerthat's not what i asked, and seems to be evading the question
i'm not calling you evil, and i didn't call Stalin "evil" either, nor am i positioning Savage Oriental Despotism against Enlightened Anglo Liberalism, you seem to be misrepresenting me.
basically what i'm telling you, is that even when i read the same stupid shit as you, i do not read it like you. i also have a wealth of experience, where i can taste orange vodka fuck ass, so fuck along to the brisbane and wallop off the dingy ya CUNT!!! FOKIN CROC FOCK
Crow posted:basically what i'm telling you, is that even when i read the same stupid shit as you, i do not read it like you. i also have a wealth of experience, where i can taste orange vodka fuck ass, so fuck along to the brisbane and wallop off the dingy ya CUNT!!! FOKIN CROC FOCK
What stupid shit? I've been reading Moshe Lewin's the Soviet Century recently, it seems pretty legit.
getfiscal posted:stalin was probably acting rationally and in a manner consistent with good intentions but that's exactly why stalinism is terrifying.
There is nothing rational about Stalinist show trials.
wasted posted:getfiscal posted:
stalin was probably acting rationally and in a manner consistent with good intentions but that's exactly why stalinism is terrifying.
There is nothing rational about Stalinist show trials.
lol, why not? Discrediting and liquidating people who
a) are your political rivals
b) are links to a historical record which differs from that which you are trying to project
in order to secure and strengthen your hold on power seems entirely rational
tpaine posted:hmm, coldly efficient and unfeelingly brazen siberian cutthroatedness versus hillbilly-like wildness with an army of lethal fauna at your beck and call...not sure who to root for here really. iwc would be disappeared but while they're holding in some cell that hasn't been maintained since 1968 he would call on some kind of atmospheric flying squirrel to come chew through the bars or something. what i'm saying is i think of you all like cartoons and i'm sorry if that offends you
getting offended by global caricatures of australians is the height of dumbness. We're not actually persecuted or oppressed by the stereotypes and we're a small country in the middle of nowhere that doesn't really Make History so i understand it. They're pretty funny too
Ironicwarcriminal posted:wasted posted:getfiscal posted:
stalin was probably acting rationally and in a manner consistent with good intentions but that's exactly why stalinism is terrifying.
There is nothing rational about Stalinist show trials.lol, why not? Discrediting and liquidating people who
a) are your political rivals
b) are links to a historical record which differs from that which you are trying to project
in order to secure and strengthen your hold on power seems entirely rational
I mean more in the sense that they had to confess.
wasted posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
wasted posted:
getfiscal posted:
stalin was probably acting rationally and in a manner consistent with good intentions but that's exactly why stalinism is terrifying.
There is nothing rational about Stalinist show trials.
lol, why not? Discrediting and liquidating people who
a) are your political rivals
b) are links to a historical record which differs from that which you are trying to project
in order to secure and strengthen your hold on power seems entirely rational
I mean more in the sense that they had to confess.
Because it invalidates them as martyrs and re-subscribes them to the party (Stalin) line and the party (Stalin) version of history.
From THEIR point of view: It's rational because the party and the cause is what matters above all and it would be shameful if not traitorous to put their own personal notions of "guilt" or "truth" above it.
