A Celebration Is Haunted by the Ghost of Stalin

The passionate debate over Stalin, wartime hero or murderous tyrant, flared Friday when President Dmitri A. Medvedev lashed out against his legacy.

“Stalin committed massive crimes against his own people,” Mr. Medvedev said in remarks released Friday. “Despite how hard he worked and the successes achieved under his leadership, what he did to his own people cannot be forgiven.”

Mr. Medvedev was not the first to broach this subject. Plans to mark the anniversary with the display of wartime propaganda posters bearing Stalin’s image had already reopened this sore.

But the president’s comments on the subject were harsher than his previous ones as well as those voiced by his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s paramount leader.

Not many in Russia challenge the historical record of Stalin’s atrocities. Millions of people were killed in prisons, forced collectivization, party purges and deportations of whole ethnic groups.

Yet aging Communists, veterans and some politicians have asserted that Stalin played a decisive role in what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War. Stalin’s repressive domestic record is one thing, these people have said. But he defeated Hitler.

“The defeat of fascism was the summit of his life’s deeds,” Gennadi A. Zyuganov, the leader of the Russian Communist Party, said this week. “The memory of Stalin will remain for centuries.”

Raw Video: Russia Holds 65th Victory Day Parade

WWII Allies march in Moscow to mark 65 years since Nazi defeat

Western Troops Join Russia's Victory Day Parade

Regardless of how they feel about Stalin, many Russians who grew up in the Soviet era view it with nostalgia.Mr. Putin seemed to tap into this sentiment when he described the Soviet collapse as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. Putin implies that he was better off in his heyday as KGB Director. Well, it seems one man's catastrophe is history's cause for celebration, jubilation!

The Russians are overwhelmingly nostalgic in their fondness, admiration for Stalin for having engineered, spearheaded the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. What is never mentioned how it was Stalin's very own ruthlessness, utter blindness to the reality that nearly had the Soviets losing the war.

Here is a synopsis of events that led to the Soviet Union's woeful unpreparedness for the surprise attack unleashed by Hitler .

The Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1936–1938.[1][2] It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and Government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of unaffiliated persons, characterized by widespread police surveillance, widespread suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and executions.[1] In Russian historiography the period of the most intense purge, 1937–1938, is called Yezhovshchina after Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the Soviet secret police, NKVD.

Winter War
The Winter War (Finnish: talvisota, Swedish: vinterkriget, Russian: Зимняя война)[18] was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939—three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland—and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union on 14 December 1939.[19]

The Soviet forces had three times as many soldiers as the Finns, thirty times as many aircraft, and a hundred times as many tanks. The Red Army, however, had been crippled by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of 1937, reducing the army's morale and efficiency shortly before the outbreak of the fighting.[20] With over 30,000 of its army officers executed or imprisoned, including most of those of the highest ranks, the Red Army in 1939 had many inexperienced senior officers.[21][22]:56 Because of these factors, and high commitment and morale in the Finnish forces, Finland was able to resist the Soviet invasion for far longer than the Soviets expected.[22]:79-80

Hostilities ceased in March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. Finland ceded 11% of its pre-war territory and 30% of its economic assets to the Soviet Union.[1]:18 Soviet losses on the front were heavy, and the country's international reputation suffered.[1]:272-273 The Soviet forces did not accomplish their objective of the total conquest of Finland but did gain sufficient territory along Lake Ladoga to provide a buffer for Leningrad. The Finns, however, retained their sovereignty and improved their international reputation.

The peace treaty thwarted the Franco-British plan to send troops to Finland through northern Scandinavia. One of the Allied operation's major goals had been to take control of northern Sweden's iron ore and cut its deliveries to Germany.[3]:239

Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front

We knew Stalin had his head in the sand as the Nazi invasion approached in June 1941, but not how criminally deluded he was, despite intelligence reports and the urgings of his two top military leaders. We the almost incomprehensible losses suffered by the Soviet Union in the first weeks of the war, but not the scale of the chaos, incompetence, and lack of preparation. We knew that Stalin regarded the 1939 nonaggression pact as a frail reed, but could only argue over whether he meant to be the one to break it by attacking first. Pleshakov settles all of this in a spellbinding account of Stalin's deliberations with his terrorized
entourage; his enraged, baffled, then paralyzed reaction to events; and, eventually, his restored cruel poise. By then, three weeks into the war, the Soviet Union had lost 28 infantry divisions and 600,000 soldiers out of 3 million

Stalin's Indecision at the German Invasion in World War II
Germany invaded the Soviet Union with a surprise attack on 22 June 1941, in defiance of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Codenamed "Operation Barbarossa," Hitler massed the greatest army in the history of the world – more than 3 million men. It was a shock to Stalin, who refused to believe it could happen, despite repeated warnings. In part due to this disbelief and indecision, the Germans made impressive early gains. Despite those, Operation Barbarossa was a failure by the end of January 1942.

Stalin Ignores Warnings

Stalin was warned repeatedly about the upcoming German invasion. He refused to believe it. His intelligence services warned him, the British warned him, the Americans warned him, but he steadfastly refused to allow his commanders to prepare defences. He was convinced Germany would finish its war with Britain before opening another front. He also distrusted British sources, believing that they wanted to incite a war between Germany and the USSR. As a result, Soviet border troops were not put on alert and were simply unprepared for the German attack.

Red Army
The Red Army was already paralysed by Stalin's Great Purge. From 1936 to 1938, Stalin killed or jailed many competent military leaders. Around 30,000 Red Army members were executed, with even more sent to Siberia and replaced with politically reliable, though inexperienced soldiers. In 1941, 75% of the officers had held their positions for less than a year. They were ill-trained and reluctant to take initiative. They would not act without a direct order for fear of the firing squad. Stalin's officers were better politicians than tacticians.

Initial Defeats
As a result, the Red Army sustained heavy initial losses. They were slow to react to the German advance. Officers had to ask for permission to return fire. The Soviet Air Force was destroyed en masse. Stalin continued to waffle. He remained stunned by Hitler's violation of the nonaggression pact as well as by the heavy losses of early days and rapid German advance – as much as 20 miles a day. While the Red Army fought fiercely – many fearing the firing squad as much as a German occupation – units were ill-equipped and badly-deployed. Germans destroyed and rounded up vast numbers of prisoners.

Outcome
Though the Soviets recovered from near-disaster, Operation Barbarossa wounded both Germans and Soviets alike and itt mired the Germans in a war on the Eastern Front. Germany's inability to achieve its goals allowed the Soviets to counterattack, reclaiming lost lands but also pushing further into German territory. Operation Barbarossa laid the foundation for the Soviets to fight to Berlin itself, leading to the fall of Nazism and an end to the war. Though the Soviets were able to ultimately prevail, Stalin's early indecision cost millions of lives and untold destruction; a war which could have been over much more quickly dragged on and left Western Europe shattered and financially exhausted; this in turn led to Britain abandoning it's empire, which at it's height ruled a quarter of the population of the world.

From my Stalin files:

DontTreadOnMe2009
A rare boatload of bananas arrived in the Soviet Union.

Stalin’s son rushed to give some to his father.

Stalin peeled one. It was not yet ripe.

Stalin peeled another. It was not yet ripe.

Stalin peeled yet a third one. It was not yet ripe.

He began to shout.

Who did this?

Who is sabotaging the Soviet Union?

What is the name of the ship? Who is the captain?

Get me his name!!! Heads must roll! (over a few bananas)

And all the little flunkies began scurrying around the dacha looking for phones to call and investigate this wrecking of the Soviet Economy (from the book “Stalin”)

Well America,
this is what we now have.

BTW
did you know
that with the breakup of East Germany, there were people who for the first time in their lives could now see and eat a banana???

Reason?

The powers on top, the bureaucrats, had decided there was no need to import such a rarity. No need for the people down below to have them.
In the USA, today, they cost about a dime or twenty cents each don’t they?
We now all live under a system, if it continues, where a government flunky will now decide EVERYTHING.

And the Dems in Congress, not knowing or understanding any of this, will smile and look around for something else to wreck. Er, I mean, reform.
We want our reform now!!!!!!!

i.e. you got it/ we want it/ let’s go get it.

BTW, the great Alexandr Solzhenitsyn went to Siberia for 12 years for a joke he wrote about Stalin, in a private letter, during WW II, while an artillery captain. Stalin hated joke writers more than he wanted soldiers, while fighting for his country’s survival. Think about it.

Keep well, stay safe everyone.

May God bless all my fellow FReepers cuz it is sure as hell that the Democrats won’t.

“Life has become gayer, comrades.”

Life has become more joyous.”

Josef Stalin’s pronouncement at the height of the Great Terror, where millions were killed. (the purges).

Now can we finally ask why Obama gave his kids Russian names? (just like Ayers and other Marxists)

faraway on October 15, 2009 at 7:31 PM

Stalin started WW2. See “Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II” Viktor Suvorov

http://www.amazon.com/Chief-Culprit-Stalins-Design-Jacket/dp/1591148383

“A former Soviet army intelligence officer, the author explains that Stalin’s strategy leading up to World War II grew from Vladimir Lenin’s belief that if World War I did not ignite the worldwide Communist revolution, then a second world war would be needed to achieve it. Stalin saw Nazi Germany as the power that would fight and weaken capitalist countries so that Soviet armies could then sweep across Europe. Suvorov reveals how Stalin conspired with German leaders to bypass the Versailles Treaty, which forbade German rearmament, and secretly trained German engineers and officers and provided bases and factories for war. He also calls attention to the 1939 nonaggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany that allowed Hitler to proceed with his plans to invade Poland, fomenting war in Europe.

Suvorov debunks the theory that Stalin was duped by Hitler and that the Soviet Union was a victim of Nazi aggression. Instead, he makes the case that Stalin neither feared Hitler nor mistakenly trusted him. Suvorov maintains that after Germany occupied Poland, defeated France, and started to prepare for an invasion of Great Britain, Hitler’s intelligence services detected the Soviet Union’s preparations for a major war against Germany. This detection, he argues, led to Germany’s preemptive war plan and the launch of an invasion of the USSR. Stalin emerges from the pages of this book as a diabolical genius consumed by visions of a worldwide Communist revolution at any cost—a leader who wooed Hitler and Germany in his own effort to conquer the world. In contradicting traditional theories about Soviet planning, the book is certain to provoke debate among historians throughout the world.”

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