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Josef Stalin acted rationally in killing millions, claims Russian textbook
Telegraph ^ | 03 Sep 2008 | Chris Irvine

Posted on 09/05/2008 10:16:18 AM PDT by george76

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin claims he acted "rationally" in executing and imprisoning millions of people in the Gulags, a Russian school book claims.

The book, A History of Russia, 1900-1945, will be used as a teaching guide in Russian schools, 55 years after Stalin died.

It is designed for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young, and seems to follow an attempt backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to re-evaluate Stalin's record in a more positive light.

Historians believe up to 20 million people died as a result of his actions, many times more than were killed under Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany.

It is produced by the country's leading school book publishers Prosveshenije, a state-supported company that used to have a monopoly on the supply of classroom texts in the Soviet era.

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; Russia
KEYWORDS: communism; education; godsgravesglyphs; indoctrination; josephstalin; putin; russia; sovietunion; stalin; ussr; utilitarianism; vladimirputin
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To: george76

” Historians believe up to 20 million people died as a result of his actions, many times more than were killed under Hitler’s...”

The author clearly failed general math. Hitler IIRC killed ~12million civilians. 20M is not ‘many times’ 12M.


21 posted on 09/05/2008 11:18:08 AM PDT by WoofDog123
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To: george76

Stalin may have thought that, but he is the personification of evil right there! I think Stalin killed 60 million. 20 million is too conservative of a number.


22 posted on 09/05/2008 11:26:37 AM PDT by Ptarmigan (Bunnies=Sodomites)
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To: DBrow

Lavarentii Beria is evil. Thankfully he was executed on Christmas Day of 1953. A gift from God for humanity right there! I don’t know why Beria’s name is tossed around like Hitler. Frankly, I get sick hearing Hitler being tossed around all the time. It’s called Godwin’s Law. I mean seriously why Hitler. Why not Stalin or Pol Pot. I think Pol Pot is extremely evil and personifies evil of the worst kind.


23 posted on 09/05/2008 11:28:49 AM PDT by Ptarmigan (Bunnies=Sodomites)
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To: Inyo-Mono
He wants history's worse mass murderer seen in a more positve light

I think MAO has that title
24 posted on 09/05/2008 11:29:02 AM PDT by uncbob
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To: george76

Joseph Stalin was Georgian, not Russian. That made him really bitter and self-hating. Stalin was also a sex pervert and a pedophile.


25 posted on 09/05/2008 11:29:54 AM PDT by Ptarmigan (Bunnies=Sodomites)
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To: uncbob

True. If you talk about from a percentage standpoint, Pol Pot is the worst. He killed a third of his own people and mostly it was by torture and harsh labor.


26 posted on 09/05/2008 11:35:45 AM PDT by Ptarmigan (Bunnies=Sodomites)
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To: Carl LaFong

You know who else admired Stalin, Saddam Hussein. He had a real sick obessession with Stalin and worshipped like he was God. Our soldiers were disturbed and appalled by it.


27 posted on 09/05/2008 11:42:01 AM PDT by Ptarmigan (Bunnies=Sodomites)
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To: elk

I have read parts of the Black Book of Communism. Great book, but too long. It should also added Jim Jones and People’s Temple. He is behind the mass suicide of Jonestown. He was also a Stalinist and once Commies denounced him, he left because of it. Jim Jones is the personification of evil right there!


28 posted on 09/05/2008 11:49:13 AM PDT by Ptarmigan (Bunnies=Sodomites)
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To: Big Horn
Actually a good number of killins in the Holocaust were out in the field. It was called Einsatzgruppen.

An Introduction to the Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen
29 posted on 09/05/2008 11:53:22 AM PDT by Ptarmigan (Bunnies=Sodomites)
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To: WoofDog123

See my #6, there has been some work indicating that the number may be 40 million.


30 posted on 09/05/2008 11:56:09 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: george76
It is designed for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young, and seems to follow an attempt backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to re-evaluate Stalin's record in a more positive light.

Stalin was not Russian. He was born in Georgia. If we are promoting Russian patriotism -- which is a fine thing -- why not just blame most of the excesses of the Soviet period on a foreigner? That's what he was.

31 posted on 09/05/2008 12:51:22 PM PDT by Tallguy ("The sh- t's chess, it ain't checkers!" -- Alonzo (Denzel Washington) in "Training Day")
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To: Ptarmigan
I mean seriously why Hitler. Why not Stalin or Pol Pot.

My theory is that it is because there are practically no instances of National Socialism in the world today. When Hitler died & Nazi Germany was defeated that was pretty much it. Spain & a few Latin American countries excepted.

International Socialism -- or Communism -- survives to this day. You can't pick a fight with a communist in another country without drawing fire from 1 in your own country.

32 posted on 09/05/2008 12:56:06 PM PDT by Tallguy ("The sh- t's chess, it ain't checkers!" -- Alonzo (Denzel Washington) in "Training Day")
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To: george76

“It is designed for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young”

Sounds more like, “This could be you if you don’t follow the rules”.


33 posted on 09/05/2008 1:45:16 PM PDT by wolfcreek (I see miles and miles of Texas....let's keep it that way.)
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To: SunkenCiv

If nobody except Amy Knight is writing about Beria, that would be one reason he’s not much heard of. She is the *dullest* writer since William C. Davis. Takes a story full of incredible characters and dramatic incidents and turns it into an algebra textbook.


34 posted on 09/05/2008 2:16:28 PM PDT by Tax-chick (Sarah Palin: Mrs. Smith & Wesson goes to Washington.)
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To: Ptarmigan

Thanks for the link and reading.


35 posted on 09/05/2008 2:50:14 PM PDT by MarMema ("..this isn't about the U.S. and Russia, It's about everyone and Russia.")
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To: Tallguy

Because Putin is no more a Russian Nationalist than Stalin was a Russian Nationalist or later a Slavophile. (Stalin resurrected Czarist propoganda to justify the Soviet occupation of eastern Europe.) Stalin is KGB and his father was NKVD. His paternal grandfather, was such a trusted communist that he was a cook for Lennin and Stalin.


36 posted on 09/05/2008 3:10:20 PM PDT by rmlew (NYARLATHOTEP / BIDEN'08 . If you don't believe me check out the first's wikipedia page.)
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To: rmlew
Because Putin is no more a Russian Nationalist than Stalin was a Russian Nationalist or later a Slavophile.

Putin's actions prove this more each day. He's Russian, but that's way down the list. He's really just a ganster/dictator sucking his countries wealth through control of it's major export: oil & natural gas. I'd like to see the balance of his Swiss Banc account. He's probably the richest man in the world.

37 posted on 09/05/2008 3:27:41 PM PDT by Tallguy ("The sh- t's chess, it ain't checkers!" -- Alonzo (Denzel Washington) in "Training Day")
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To: george76
The Russian textbook glorification of Stalin's mass murders represents the Putin régime's current evil plans for former Russian enslaved captive nations.

The West better wake up, do it very quickly and confront the Kremlin armed & supported Axis of Evil, at its source --- Moscow!

38 posted on 09/05/2008 3:39:43 PM PDT by M. Espinola (Freedom is not 'free'.)
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To: Tallguy

Stalin was ethnically Russian, and came from a then Russian controlled territory.


39 posted on 09/05/2008 4:28:20 PM PDT by Thunder90
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To: george76
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin claims he acted "rationally"
in executing and imprisoning millions of people in the Gulags,
a Russian school book claims.


It could be that the writers believe it.
Or Putin has told them to write history that way.

But, AFAIK, one USSR doctor/shrink did write that after having
been around Stalin, the diagnosis was that Stalin was sane, but
hyper-sensitive about any sort of threat. Perceived or imagined.
(I think that doctor was killed/executed not long after he penned
the report.)

But anyway, it sounds like Russia has slipped into the same old rut.
As said by Dostoevsky...
"if God doesn't exist (or is not recognized) then anything is permissible"
Even if there's a public resurgence of the Orthodox church
since Stalin.
40 posted on 09/05/2008 4:36:57 PM PDT by VOA
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