Posted on 09/27/2007 8:54:04 AM PDT by vahet pole
MOSCOW, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warned Russians on Wednesday of the risk of a rebirth of Stalinism, saying their country was in danger of forgetting its tragic past.
"We should remember those who suffered, because this a lesson for all of us," Gorbachev told a conference marking 70 years since the start of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's Great Terror.
"We must squeeze Stalinism out of ourselves, not in single drops but by the glass or bucket," Gorbachev added. "There are those saying Stalin's rule was the Golden Age, while (Nikita) Khrushchev's thaw was sheer utopia and (Leonid) Brezhnev's neo-Stalinism was the continuation of the Golden Age."
During the Great Terror, 1.7 million Soviet citizens were arrested between August 1937 and November 1938, of whom 818,000 were executed, the human rights group Memorial said.
Historians estimate that up to 13 million people were killed or sent to labour camps in the former Soviet Union between 1921 and 1953, the year Stalin died.
Despite Stalin's record, recent polls have shown many young Russians have a positive view of the former Soviet leader and there have been attempts this year to play down his excesses, which have found an echo among the country's youth.
Fifty-four percent of Russian youth believe that Stalin did more good than bad and half said he was a wise leader, according to a poll conducted in July by the Yuri Levada Centre.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Pot, meet kettle.
Fifty-four percent of Russian youth believe that Stalin did more good than bad and half said he was a wise leader....
is the NEA teaching the yoots of Russia, too?
bump
Is there a link that would provide info on the New York Times reporting on Stalin? Apparently the white washed (then as now) what the communists were doing.
It is kind of amazing, though, that Gorby can actually see Stalin for what he was.
Get a clue, tovarisch. What part of gulag and dead do you not understand?
“Fifty-four percent of Russian youth believe that Stalin did more good than bad and half said he was a wise leader, according to a poll conducted in July by the Yuri Levada Centre.”
What is the matter with Russians?
Maybe that's because Stalin killed even more Ukrainians.
I imagine that the descendants of the starved Ukrainians have a less-positive view of Stalin.
“What is the matter with Russians?”
They are living better now with Putin’s socialist government/communist intelligence agency & press then they did under Boris Yeltin’s democracy where the oligarchs stole billions for themselves. Putin is a very shrewd leader I have to give him that. Putin has taken them a hair away from being the evil empire again but the population thinks he’s great.
Now we just need someone in America to warn the “Dumb Masses” the same thing.
Heil Hillary!
Moscow’s supposed to be half Islamic by 2050.
“They are living better now with Putin’s socialist government/communist intelligence agency ..”
Putin and his cronies are, but the rest of the country, only marginally, if any.
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