Posted on 09/02/2008 10:22:27 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Stalin's mass murders were 'entirely rational' says new Russian textbook praising tyrant
By Will Stewart
Last updated at 1:10 AM on 03rd September 2008
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Ruthless: 20 million died as a result of Stalin's actions
Stalin acted ‘entirely rationally’ in executing and imprisoning millions of people in the Gulags, a controversial new Russian teaching manual claims.
Fifty-five years after the Soviet dictator died, the latest guide for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young said he did what he did to ensure the country’s modernisation.
The manual, titled A History of Russia, 1900-1945, will form the basis of a new state-approved text book for use in schools next year.
It seems to follow an attempt backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to re-evaluate Stalin’s record in a more positive light.
Critics have taken exception, however, to numerous excerpts, which they say are essentially attempts to whitewash Stalin’s crimes.
In the West, it has been widely accepted that in the 1920s millions were shot, exiled to Siberia, or died of starvation after their land, homes and meagre possessions, were taken to fulfil Stalin’s vision of massive ‘factory farms.’
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Ping!
the infowarrior
The Poles will be happy to hear this. So will the Ukrainians.
Ho-ly cow!
Praising a ghoul like Stalin; sick.
Oh, my. We must not provoke the Russian bear. /paleo wimp
I advise Russian students to use this textbook for bathroom purposes.
You have to feel sorry for the Russians. They are always exploited by a ruling class and fed a lot of BS by said ruling class.
Medvedev/Putin bring Re-Stalinisation.
The author of that manual should go read David Hume or F.A. Hayek to understand why being “rational” might not be a good thing.
Why cannot someone be rational and evil? Behavior is rational if it is the most effective way to meet one's objectives. If the most effective way to meet one's objectives is to kill 50 million people, then the killing may be entirely rational.
To be sure, most people who are not evil would have the avoidance of bloodshed as one of their objectives. For such people, killing 50 million people would be sufficiently contrary to their objectives as to be irrational. For evil people who don't mind bloodshed, however, mass killing is entirely rational if it helps to achieve other objectives. Call such people evil all you like, but that doesn't make them irrational.
*This* is why utopias never work. They all begin on this faulty premise, then proceed to use the blood and bones of those who disagree as the foundation of the utopia. Which, in turn devolves the utopia into a dystopia...
the infowarrior
The problem is, if you’ve read Conquest’s The Great Terror, there were millions of killings and imprisonments that were entirely IRRATIONAL. Now, of course, this atomizes civil society, thus ushering in the permanent state of terror (but reducing the use of resources as more surrender to the tyranny) but there were specific cases that did not help Stalin’s overall goals.
More importantly, Stalin easily could have achieved many of those goals, obtained absolute power and still done things in a less bloodthirsty fashion.
One thing that jumps WAY out is that he ACTUALLY took Hitler at his word AND purged the Red Army, depriving it of its best leadership-—FOR NO PURPOSE WHATSOEVER, other than extending terror. It cost lives and progress in WW II and damaged the military of the State he led. These are not rational, even if the extension of a terror-state across that landmass was an objective of his (along with consolidation of his power.)
Stalin was Insane, and a Paranoid Lunatic.
He Murdered Millions.
and He is Idolized By The American Commie Leftists in Hollywood, and the Media, and the College Elitists.
They are the “usefull idiots” of Stalin and His Satanic offspring.
Robert Scheere,Ayers and Dorn,Code Pinkos...they are all the same.
Pace Chesterton: the madman is not one who has lost reason, it is one who has lost everything but reason.
You’re exactly right. And likewise Hitler’s attempt to exterminate millions is entirely rational as well - if you accept his underlying assumptions and values.
Sadly, right after Khruschev (who was himself a Stalinist creature, whose rise was owed to his participation in the Terror) made those small steps, they began to reverse themselves.
This has been coming a long time. The problem is, Stalin killed of even his own allies, simply because they were a threat to a state subsumed totally to his whim and his particular vision for Marxist-Leninist ideology.
No doubt. Putin & Company are likewise insane, as they try to "rationalize" those murders as necessary. My point stands. Anyone who tries to rationalize mass-murder is prima facie, irrational...
the infowarrior
As pointed out (again, I must give credit to Conquest’s books on the matter) Stalin actually IMPEDED the work on progress towards modernization.
The ‘rightists’ of the Communist Party wanted them to take an incremental and gradual approach to collectivization. Stalin would have none of it and it led to the deliberate starvation of millions (and the more violent murders of same) of Ukrainians and other ‘kulaks.’ Stalin’s brutal industrialization was similarly counterproductive compared to the groundwork that Lenin had laid.
The ridiculous quotas that were set ended up promoting the black-market, statistic-distorting, inefficient and destructive (environmentally too) institutional practices that would soon become synonymous with the “great hope for humanity” that was the Soviet Union.
The mass murder that went on throughout the time of Stalin was basically an extension and expansion of the Red Terror that began with Lenin. The grip Lenin and the communists had on Russia was tenuous in the early years and the assassination attempt on Lenin obviously shook him up and he decided to crush any opposition through the means of mass murder. Wiki link to the period known as the Red Terror http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror
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