Stalin the murderous dictator? He's history (BARF ALERT!)

National Post ^ | Saturday, September 05, 2009 | Peter Goodspeed

[greatdefender]

On Sept. 1, while the international media focused on commemorations marking the 70th anniversary of the start of the Second World War in Poland, Russian children returned to their classrooms to begin a new school year.

They found the world transformed. New state-approved textbooks have recast Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin into "one of the most successful leaders of the U.S.S.R."

No longer is he regarded as a paranoid mass-murderer responsible for the deaths of nearly 20 million people. He has become a great, if flawed, national leader -- an "efficient manager" who defeated the Nazis, saved Europe and industrialized a backward Soviet Union. The new history textbooks aim to instill patriotism in Russian youth. In the process, they dismiss Stalin's prison labour camps, mass purges and all-pervasive terror as necessary parts of the drive to make Russia great.

One textbook, History of Russia from 1945 to 2008 for 11th Graders, justifies Stalin's non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler, the brutal occupation of eastern Poland, the seizure of the Baltic States and parts of Romania, and Russia's invasion of Finland as "entirely rational" responses to a complicated security situation. It vehemently rejects calling the Soviet Union a totalitarian state, insisting the phrase was part of an "ideological war" against Russia.

"The Soviet Union was not a democracy," the history book admits, "but in terms of social policy and programs, it was the best model of a fair and just society for millions of people around the world."

[upstanding]

The world has gone completely mad.

[Clintonfatigued]

Joseph Stalin had at least 12 million people murdered, which is twice as many as Hitler. Calling him an efficient manager is like calling Mao Tse Tung a human resources expert.

[Clintonfatigued]

If some on The Left here had their way, those same passages would be listed in American history books.

[Canedawg]

Madness.

And when Kruschev took over, he announced an end to the Cult of Personality. He knew how many millions died in stalin’s purges.

I suspect that if Americans ever regain their footing and take back the country, and the treasonous MSM regains some semblance of integrity, the same denouncement of personality of cult and worshiping idols with clay feet will be repeated.

But you know what they say, those who don’t learn from history will be condemned to repeat it.

[nkycincinnatikid]

Well say wha ya’ll wan. Uncle Joe was’n OUR Uncle Joe. He done sure did saved Americas ol’ ass from those mean ol’ Nazis what done bombed Purl Arbour anyways. fo sure. Ya’sir, raht Mr Benny!

[ETL]

"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...
"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'
http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html

______________________________________

"'The Black Book of Communism,'; a scholarly accounting of communism’s crimes, counts about 94 million murdered by the supposed champions of the common man (20 million for the Soviets alone), and some say that number is too low."

Forgetting the Evils of Communism: The amnesia bites a little deeper
By Jonah Goldberg, August 2008:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmY0MjI1MDgyYjg1M2UwNDMzMTk2Mjk5YTk0ZTdlMWE=
______________________________________

[metmom]

They found the world transformed. New state-approved textbooks have recast Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin into "one of the most successful leaders of the U.S.S.R."

Hmm, they're taking lessons from American textbook publishers, I see.

[piytar]

People often forget the corollary to “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it,” namely “those who want to repeat history first rewrite it.”

[17th Miss Regt]

No. 12,000,000 is about the number Hitler slaughtered. The 6,000,000 figure is for Jews only. There were an additional 5,000,000 or so killed that were not Jews. Robert Conquest has concluded that Stalin orchestrated between 15 and 20 million killings in his slave labor and extermination camps. Those numbers seem to be about the best fit to the best estimates of the population of the Soviet Union.

[ETL]

From Accuracy In Media | AIM.ORG

Obama’s Red Mentor Praised Red Army
AIM Report | By Cliff Kincaid | April 30, 2008

Frank Marshall Davis

Barack Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA (CPUSA), wrote a poem dedicated to the Soviet Red Army. “Smash on, victory-eating Red Army,” he declared. He also wrote poems attacking traditional Christianity and the work of Christian missionaries.

The “Red Army” poem goes beyond hoping for the communists to beat the Nazis in World War II and hails the Soviet revolution. It says:

Show the marveling multitudes
Americans, British, all your allied brothers
How strong you are
How great you are
How your young tree of new unity
Planted twenty-five years ago
Bears today the golden fruit of victory!

http://www.aim.org/aim-report/obamas-red-mentor-praised-red-army/
_______________________________________________

Barack Obama, from Dreams from My Father, Three Rivers Press, New York, Revised Edition, 2004, ISBN 1-4000-8277-3, p. 76-7:
"But by the time I met Frank [Frank Marshall Davis] he must have been pushing eighty, with a big, dewlapped face and an ill-kempt gray Afro that made him look like an old, shaggy-maned lion. He would read us his poetry whenever we stopped by his house, sharing whiskey with Gramps out of an emptied jelly jar."

[ETL]

Russia's Medvedev hails "comrade" Obama

Associated Foreign Press (AFP) ^ | April 2, 2009 | Anna Smolchenko

"Russia's Dmitry Medvedev hailed Barack Obama as "my new comrade" Thursday after their first face-to-face talks"

http://www.france24.com/en/20090402-russias-medvedev-hails-comrade-obama

April 1, 2009:
"Obama, Medvedev pledge new era of relations":
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090401/wl_afp/usrussiadiplomacynuclear_20090401152002

[DaveTesla]

More Communist Historical Revisionism

(They will just negate all that murder)

"Those Who Control the Past Control the Future"
~George Orwell~

[Radl]

Who were the 5 million? You never hear about them.

[nkycincinnatikid]

I am truly intrigued by your figures. I assume that the 12 million people murdered by the Nazi regime were not war casualties? Can you please provide additional documentation, Very intresting figures.

[17th Miss Regt]

About 3,000,000 were Poles. The other 2,000,000 were Slavs in various countries, and various ‘anti-social and criminal’ elements. Most of these killings did not occur in the death camps per se, but were done in areas where the occupation rule was particularly brutal (Poland, the Balkans, Russia, etc.).

[17th Miss Regt]

See post 14 for more data. Pretty grim subject.

[nkycincinnatikid]

Oh, you are including those deaths like at Katyn. Thanks for that great twenty year old data.

[17th Miss Regt]

Katyn would not be included, that was a Soviet action. The killings I am referring to are those that took place as a byproduct of German administration of the mentioned areas.

[wintertime]

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin into “one of the most successful leaders of the U.S.S.R.”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Coming soon to a government K-12 school near you.

Gee! Can you see it now,...a biography on Stalin for 1st to 3rd graders: “Stalin: Communism's Hope and Change”.