View Full Version : Order 270 U.S.S.R. - Family of Red Army Captives Killed
Feuer Frei!
06-21-11, 12:10 AM
We all know how much of a good guy Stalin was, right?
Wrong ofc:
Order 270 of the USSR killed the children of any Russian who surrendered to the Germans.
In August of 1941, so many Russians were defecting to the Axis nations Germany, Finland, Romania, Hungary, to escape the concentration camps of Communism that the USSR enacted the notorious "Order 270" which punished and killed the family, which included even children of every Russian who defected to the West.
Actual text of Order 270:
"To bind each soldier, independent of his official position, to rebuff the enemy to the death, rather than to be taken and held captive, the family of the captured Red Army men to be deprived of welfare payment and of aid."
Order 270 of the U.S.S.R.
August 16, 1941
1941, Source: [RGVA], f. 4, pub. 12, d. 98, l. 617-622. Certified copy. Published in Military History Periodical. 1988. ***8470; 9. s. 26-28. I
Orders of the People's Commissariat of the Defense of the USSR.
June 22, 1941. - 1942 g. - M.
Published: 1997. - Vol. 13 (2-2). - S. 58-60. - 448 s. - (Russian archive: Great Domestic).
ISBN 5-85255-708-0
When Order 270 states that all aid to the families of soliders who are captured alive will be cut off, it means all food, water, shelter during the -20 degree Russian winter, a death sentence. When people were denied housing, they became technically vagrants in the USSR, and by law all vagrants were rounded up and sent to die in the Gulags.
Which in a state system means the family freezes out in the cold and starves, until they are rounded up as a vagrants and sentenced to the Gulags for the rest of their lives, which in a Gulag was about 3 years. Being deprived to shelter from the winter, deprived of food and water, condemned to vagrancy and arrest to be sent to the Gulags which was a death sentence for 60 million people.
Source: Roberts, Geoffrey. Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939***8211;1953. New Heaven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0300112041), page 98
http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300112047
Who said he was a good guy? :shifty: Heck Churchill and FDr have come in for their share of criticism - putting aside communist or fellow travellers propaganda of the past the most I've heard he was a useful bas**** against another s.o.b. Hitler.
Interesting the book you linked in the intro it states:
While frankly exploring the full extent of Stalin’s brutalities and their impact on the Soviet people, Roberts also uncovers evidence leading to the stunning conclusion that Stalin was both the greatest military leader of the twentieth century and a remarkable politician who sought to avoid the Cold War and establish a long-term detente with the capitalist world.
and further...
Roberts depicts a despot who helped save the world for democracy, a personal charmer who disciplined mercilessly, a utopian ideologue who could be a practical realist, and a warlord who undertook the role of architect of post-war peace.
Have you actually read the book? It seems the author is a bit more balanced than what you seem to be portraying in your post. What page is the info on Order 270 actually taken from? does the author have hard numbers for the number of people affected?
kiwi_2005
06-21-11, 05:35 AM
Ive watched a few documentaries of Stalin sometimes I don't know who was more insane Hitler or Stalin.
BossMark
06-21-11, 05:54 AM
Ive watched a few documentaries of Stalin sometimes I don't know who was more insane Hitler or Stalin.
Yes it makes me wonder what could have happened if Hitler had never invaded Russia :hmmm:
Feuer Frei!
06-21-11, 06:37 AM
Who said he was a good guy?i was attempting to be sarcastic.
It didn't pay off.
Feuer Frei!
06-21-11, 07:18 AM
Have you actually read the book? It seems the author is a bit more balanced than what you seem to be portraying in your post. What page is the info on Order 270 actually taken from? does the author have hard numbers for the number of people affected?
Order 270 1941, published in the Military History Periodical 1988, and it was taken from pge 26-28.
Here's this, also from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_No._270
and: THIS (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://www.hrono.ru/dokum/194_dok/19410816.html&ei=_IoATpHyLpCMvQO8862aDg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB8Q7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%25D0%259F%25D0%25A0%25D0%2598%25D0%2 59A%25D0%2590%25D0%2597%2B270%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%2 6complete%3D0%26site%3Dwebhp%26prmd%3Divns)
i quote from link:
I hereby order: 1. Commanders and political workers during the battle with the obstructionists themselves, and insignia in the rear of defecting or surrendering to the enemy, is considered a malicious deserter, whose families are subject to arrest as a family have violated the oath and betrayed his homeland deserters.
Require all higher-level commanders and commissars shot on the spot like deserters from the command personnel.
2. Were encircled enemy units and subunits selflessly fight to the last, to preserve the material part, as the apple of your eye, make its way to the rear of his enemy, defeating the fascist dogs.
Oblige each soldier, regardless of his official position to demand from a superior, if part of it is surrounded, to fight until the last possible moment to get through to her, and if a head or part of the Red Army instead of the organization would prefer to repel the enemy to surrender - to destroy by all means, both ground and air, and families who have surrendered to the Red Army prisoners deprived of public assistance and care.
3. To require the division commanders and commissars immediately remove from their posts of commanders of battalions and regiments, hiding in crevices during the battle and fear lead the course of a fight on the battlefield, reducing them by post as impostors, in the rank and file transfer, and if necessary, shoot them on site, bringing to the their place of bold and courageous people of junior command personnel from the ranks of distinguished or Red.
Look I don't have time for detailed discussion right now-it does seems my point about Roberts was missed-I will try to do some futher inquiries on my own. It does seem astonishing that Russian soldiers fought as hard as they did if there was no sense of patriotism or hatred for the invader. Fear of one's own government will only go so far. I would like hard numbers at the very least.
Look I don't have time for detailed discussion right now-it does seems my point about Roberts was missed-I will try to do some futher inquiries on my own. It does seem astonishing that Russian soldiers fought as hard as they did if there was no sense of patriotism or hatred for the invader. Fear of one's own government will only go so far. I would like hard numbers at the very least.
Yes i agree that Russian sacrifice during WW2 is somewhat underestimated.
There was great sense of duty and patriotism but that wasn't very obvious from the start of campaign.
Ruthlessness and crude force was needed to overcome sense defeatism and to gain any results in slowing German forces.
Only the determination of Stalin and his generals saved Russia from similar fate to France.
Stealhead
06-21-11, 11:09 AM
I agree with MH Stalin was a very rotten person but it was his persona or the fear of it that helped them win the war.In the end it is the lesser of two
evils I suppose be under the control of your ruthless dictator or be enslaved by foreign dictator I think most peoples would not pick the last one.From a few books
I have read written by ex Red Army soldiers it seems that many Russians felt that after winning the war that things would become better at home of course that never came to
pass but it was better than the alternate by a long shot.
Hottentot
06-21-11, 11:54 AM
There was great sense of duty and patriotism but that wasn't very obvious from the start of campaign.
Patriotism wasn't born in 1941 and didn't end in 1945, it was a big thing already in 1930s. Stalin consciously wanted to invoke the victorious Russian past in the patriotic light to bolster the spirit of the people, who were living in turmoil after collectivization and forced industrialization. Separatism was a real threat in the borders of Soviet Union, which itself was governed from Moscow in very centralized manner.
As the threat from outside increased, it was simple enough to channel the patriotism for militaristic purposes. Films were especially important in this whole process, music too. By reading the lyrics of songs from 1935 onwards, you will inevitably notice that the omnipresent enemy is more and more outside of the borders instead of inside. This song (http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/sounds/lyrics/esli-zavtra.htm) (can be listened here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zzN1jcFwPg)) is a prime example and it was made for a film of the same name already in 1938. And as for films, another example is this well known allegory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nevsky_%28film%29).
How much the ordinary Red Army soldier believed in these is anyone's guess. But there hadn't been lack of effort already long before the war. And seeing how efficient the Soviet propaganda machine was, I'd estimate it did achieve some results as well.
Stalin was a manipulative bandit with absolutely no humanity.
Right from the very beginning he used those around him to further his goals, then disposed of them when he deemed their usefulness obsolete. Not to mention his characteristic vindictiveness, almost childlike in its application.
His only talent seemed to be having insight into others in order to use them.
Any freedom during ww2 that stalin used to resist hitler (through the army structure and initiative, and some of the civil side of things) was crushed after the end of the war. Having used them to win, they were no longer useful, but dangerous.
You can argue he was a great leader (and I'd doubt this myself*), but he never had anything but his own interests at heart.
Something the americans in ww2 completely miscalculated to start with. Churchill knew what he was about, but also knew that sometimes you have to deal with monsters in order to get rid of monsters.
I think it's an irony that goebles said that the tide of bolshevism would descend on europe like an 'iron curtain', long before that reality (and iconic phrase) came to pass. But I suppose it takes a monster to recognise another for what they are.
* the chaotic way he handled the nazi invasion, sticking to ruthless political and ideological thinking instead of practical military planning cost a lot of territory and russian lives. It was only when he relaxed his grip slightly on the military that things started to change.
But like hitler, his inexperienced meddling in matters he did not understand almost cost the war. However, stalin allied himself with britain and america and so did not fall entirely foul of his own megalomania as did hitler.
I actually have no sympathy for Stalin whatsoever and I don't think he needs to be defended.
My problem is that the war and its decisions weren't just Stalin (or just Hitler or just Churchill etc. etc.). You can't personalize history this way and you can't merely focus the characterization of a nation to one person, or even one quality, and then spread it to everyone else. The order aside, what troubles me about these discussions is "Stalin/communism was evil, therefore..." - wait, therefore what? What would you have liked to see? Denying assistance? "Hitler" beating the "Russians"?
Again, I have no issue with giving Stalin his due condemnation, and individual decisions like this - and many others - deserve criticism for their inhumanity. But to suggest that this requires a revision to what the Soviet effort in WWII really meant - and doing that on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the German invasion - is gross and frankly just a cover for Russophobia/McCarthyism/Orientalism. That's frankly my names for that.
Randomizer
06-21-11, 03:00 PM
Again, I have no issue with giving Stalin his due condemnation, and individual decisions like this - and many others - deserve criticism for their inhumanity. But to suggest that this requires a revision to what the Soviet effort in WWII really meant - and doing that on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the German invasion - is gross and frankly just a cover for Russophobia/McCarthyism/Orientalism. That's frankly my names for that.
This.
It is pretty obvious that the OP never bothered to actually read the book that he cherry picked a specific narrative from and just wanted to establish some anti-Soviet polemic merely for the sake of posting.
* the chaotic way he handled the nazi invasion, sticking to ruthless political and ideological thinking instead of practical military planning cost a lot of territory and russian lives. It was only when he relaxed his grip slightly on the military that things started to change.
But like hitler, his inexperienced meddling in matters he did not understand almost cost the war. However, stalin allied himself with britain and america and so did not fall entirely foul of his own megalomania as did hitler.
The state of soviet army was poor due to the purges done before invasion.
Putting competent and at the same time ruthless generals in charge of military who did not mind throwing hundreds of thousands of poorly trained and bad equipped solders into the grinder greatly slowed German army.
At the same time industrial and military reorganisation took place behind the lines.
Still the use of shear number along with basic military tactics by Russian generals can not be denied throughout the length of the war.
Its a doctrine that Soviet army inherited and believed in long after the end of ww2.
@CCCIP
I agree with you totally.
I still would prefer Soviet Union than nazi Germany.
Probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for russian sacrifice.
Feuer Frei!
06-22-11, 01:34 AM
It is pretty obvious that the OP never bothered to actually read the book that he cherry picked a specific narrative from and just wanted to establish some anti-Soviet polemic merely for the sake of posting.
Cherry-picked. :haha: Yea right, why would i need to cherry-pick this post and it's contents when there is a plethora of Stuff about our good ole friend Stalin?
Next, anti-soviet? :haha:
Another laughing smilie for you. You obviously have no clue what my motif is for posting the details, or rather snippets of the Order 270 do you?
If i wanted to post anti-soviet material and propaganda, then i can assure you i could do a much better job.
Next, can we start on the right foot next time?
I don't appreciate having words shoved down my internet mouth and made to look like some anti-soviet.
Thank you for your time and subjective reading of this post.
It's interesting to note when Stalin went missing in July 1941 in his Summer Home he got a visit from Molotov, Beria and others. Stalin believed they come to remove him from power but no they wanted him back, sort of shows the power Stalin had in his darkest hour. I will give credit to Stalin on one point, he never raised his voice or flew off the handle in a rage like Hitler would often do.
Another point when you ask who was the bigger monster Stalin or Hitler, nine times out of ten Hitler would be the answer and yet as we all know many millions more suffered and were killed under Stalin's rule.
The turning point between Stalin and Hitler took place after the dreadful defeat the Red Army suffered at the Battle of Kharkov 1942, Stalin knew he could not make all the military decisions and so listen to his Generals unlike Hitler who would go on to run the war his way.
At wars end Stalin did the dirty by re-writting history as to say it was him who saved Russia from the Germans.
Another point when you ask who was the bigger monster Stalin or Hitler, nine times out of ten Hitler would be the answer and yet as we all know many millions more suffered and were killed under Stalin's rule.
How many more?
Feuer Frei!
06-22-11, 10:27 AM
How many more?
If you're referring to how many more that Stalin killed, the general consensus seems to be 'a lot more'.
Figuratively-speaking, the much-bandied numbers are Hitler=approx 6 million, Stalin=20 million.
Not my words but, Stalin certainly had that in his favour, if i can put that nicely. No disrespect to anyone ofc.
How many more?
Well it's estimated that 20 million odd died under Stalin, I don't think we will ever know the real number.
Task Force
06-22-11, 10:28 AM
Yes it makes me wonder what could have happened if Hitler had never invaded Russia :hmmm:
Russia would have more than likely invaded Germany after the military reforms happend.
*In all actuality id say Stalin was abit more crazy, Paranoid man he was.
Raptor1
06-22-11, 10:30 AM
If you're referring to how many more that Stalin killed, the general consensus seems to be 'a lot more'.
Figuratively-speaking, the much-bandied numbers are Hitler=approx 6 million, Stalin=20 million.
Not my words but, Stalin certainly had that in his favour, if i can put that nicely. No disrespect to anyone ofc.
Actually, the usual numbers I hear come to around 20 million for Hitler and 40 million for Stalin, give or take. However, a lot more people on Hitler's count were actually directly murdered, while many people on Stalin's count died as a result of various economic policies and other indirect measures.
Feuer Frei!
06-22-11, 10:31 AM
Russia would have more than likely invaded Germany after the military reforms happend.
And that is why Hitler broke the 'pact of steel'.
He knew that Stalin would break the treaty.
It was either Hitler invade or Stalin invade.
Russia would have more than likely invaded Germany after the military reforms happend.
This is a myth, Stalin up the raw goods to Germany after the fall of France. Oil, wheat, iron and so on, so why attack Germany's eastern border when your on to a good thing.
Raptor1
06-22-11, 10:35 AM
And that is why Hitler broke the 'pact of steel'.
He knew that Stalin would break the treaty.
It was either Hitler invade or Stalin invade.
The Germans claimed this as justification for the invasion. There is a considerable debate whether the Soviets were actually planning to invade Germany.
Figuratively-speaking, the much-bandied numbers are Hitler=approx 6 million, Stalin=20 million.
6 million Jews. At the end of the day, the tens of millions dead in WWII are still "Hitler's" fault.
I think the other thing to consider is that as bad as Stalin was, he generally speaking wasn't genocidal (though in some instances it may be argued otherwise) but rather political in who he went after. Stalin's atrocities were also almost exclusively internal to the Soviet state system, and were carried out by millions of willing accomplices and informants within the society. They were not carried out (with some exceptions) by military invasion from the outside. Fundamentally, you can't separate what Stalin did with the politics and sociology of the Soviet system as a whole - terrible as it was, it was a civil affair (in the sense of being internal to civilian life in the USSR, not in the sense of being nice). Terrible as it is, I don't think it's appropriate to measure it by the same ruler as war crimes.
Hitler spelt it all out in his book well before he came to power and when he did, he put Germany on course with a war with Russia.
A what if situation is when Hitler was busy in the West could the Red Army had invaded Romania and held it? There by cutting Hitler's main oil supplies and could have stopped him in his tracks to invade Russia. Of course this is all speculation and maybe's.
Feuer Frei!
06-22-11, 10:51 AM
A what if situation is when Hitler was busy in the West could the Red Army had invaded Romania and held it? There by cutting Hitler's main oil supplies and could have stopped him in his tracks to invade Russia. Of course this is all speculation and maybe's.
Hitler never wanted war with the west. Infact he respected the British (early on, certainly).
Hitler's goal was always to the east, to his nemesis, well, actually 2: Bolshevism and Stalin.
I know Hitler was not keen on war with Britain but how could he avoid it when he hated the French? Maybe after the fall of France he could have tried to swing it his way with no BoB and release all the British POW's and told Mussolini to back off in the south, but once again another what if.
Hottentot
06-22-11, 10:59 AM
There is a considerable debate whether the Soviets were actually planning to invade Germany.
From what I've understood, Viktor Suvorov is the main proponent of this theory, whereas the majority of historians are content with the answer that the historians so often have to be content with: "We don't know one way or another."
What is known is that Stalin was afraid of an invasion from the foreign countries. It wasn't only Germany: in fact, for a long time Stalin considered France to be Soviet Union's most dangerous enemy. Japan was another. This was used in rhetorics. For example, a direct quote from David MacKenzie's and Michael Curran''s book "A History of Russia and the Soviet Union" (1982, page 519) states the following:
Stalin stated in February 1931: "We are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must cover this distance in ten years. Either we do this or they will crush us."
Not paying attention to the fact that ten years later Germany did indeed invade, this was his mentality and thus also affected the mentality of the whole country a lot (of course Soviet Union isn't Stalin alone). Also, after the war, Stalin wanted the satellite states that became the Eastern block in Cold War precisely because he wanted a barrier to soak any further attacks.
So with all that being said, I guess a pre-emptive strike kind of thinking was possible, at least to create the barrier but history never showed us that variant of the events, so we can't say. It could be argued that the Soviet Union already had a barrier by having annexed Eastern Poland and the Baltic countries, but who can say they wouldn't have wanted to expand it. Some could also make the ideological argument, with the idea of world revolution and all that, but personally I don't see Stalin starting wars for ideological purposes (rhetorics, of course, could have still used it to justify the war).
But all in all I agree with Steed and Raptor1. There is no hard evidence supporting the intentions and in history even a phenomenon like Soviet Union is still innocent until proven guilty.
The documentary series based on Laurence Rees book...World War Two Behind Closed Doors - Stalin, The Nazis And The West had a scene with Stalin and his two top Generals showing plans of a attack on the Germans and Stalin got angry at them and came close to saying one of his Generals would have been shot for that idea.
How serious the plans were are not very clear and Stalin had no intentions what so ever.
Hottentot
06-22-11, 11:26 AM
The documentary series based on Laurence Rees book...World War Two Behind Closed Doors - Stalin, The Nazis And The West had a scene with Stalin and his two top Generals showing plans of a attack on the Germans and Stalin got angry at them and came close to saying one of his Generals would have been shot for that idea.
How serious the plans were are not very clear and Stalin had no intentions what so ever.
Plans, generally speaking, are very frail evidence for or against anything. Let me give you a ridiculous example: Finland planned attacking Soviet Union before the Winter war, so actually the Soviet aggression in 1939 was justified.
Preposterous? Such argument has been made. And the proof was indeed found: the Finnish military did have an offensive plan directed into the Soviet territory.
Point being? The same that was made when countering this argument in historical discourse: that a military that doesn't make plans is a completely useless military. I bet even today, somewhere deep in the archives of our army, there is a strategic plan to invade Estonia, Sweden, Russia and heck, the Vatican for all I care. And also a defensive plan in case any of those happen to utilize their offensive plans against us (which, I'm sure, they too have). It's what militaries do.
We came up with a real gem for July 1945
Operation Unthinkable
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/operation_unthinkable.htm
Man that was nuts..
Randomizer
06-22-11, 11:57 AM
I think that the evidence indicates that there were no immediate intentions of the Soviet Union to invade Germany. Certainly the Red Army deployment on the eve of Barbarossa was consistent with a defensive stance according to Soviet military doctrine at that time.
Comparing Stalin to Hitler has always strikes as some sort of grotesque game show where the 'worst' dictator gets the chrome-plated steak knives or something equally silly. In short, an utter waist of time; something like debating how far is up. That said there is still much to be learned about both provided discussion does not descend into dogma and hyperbole.
I would suggest that they were more like syblings who are so much alike that they loathe each other and are indeed both loathesome to outsiders. Conventional wisdom places Hitler on the far right of the political spectrum and Stalin to the extreme left but is this really valid? The principle difference between National Socialism and Stalinism (as opposed to theoretical Marxist-Leninism) was that Hitler had successfully co-opted large segments of the German private industrial sector to buy into his version of the state controlled economy. Nazi control over the economy was every bit as real as in the Soviet Union, the principle difference is that Hitler let selected members of the business classes act as middle men and grow rich in the process. Stalin eliminated the middle men (often literally) and so the state had direct control over industry.
Rather than any definite Left-Right differences, both were entirely totalitarian and virtually identical in that they institutionalized the killing of their own citizens as a political tool. They were far more alike than different.
Stalin may have killed more people than Hitler but he had far longer to do so. Also the millions who slaved away and died in the Gulag frequently directly benefitted the Soviet state as many died building much needed infrastructure before the Great Patriotic War and to repair the ravages of that war after 1945. This excuses nothing of course but the fact that Stalin was more motivated to spend the lives of those perceived as enemies of the state in the service of the state stands in sharp relief to stated purpose behind Hitler's death camps. Also, as alluded to above, many of Stalin's excesses had definite political aims as opposed to Hitler's largely purely racial murders. The Soviet Union was a far more equal-opportunity tyranny than was Nazi Germany.
Krauter
06-22-11, 03:56 PM
A few points I want to address...
I will give credit to Stalin on one point, he never raised his voice or flew off the handle in a rage like Hitler would often do.
He didn't fly off the handle.. but he threatened their families and almost always followed through on the threat or remembered the situation to be paid for at a later date...
as bad as Stalin was, he generally speaking wasn't genocidal
I think that this point can, as you say, be debated. During the collectivization, Stalin envisioned starving off the entire Ukrainian population to provide Living room to the people of Russian stock (ironically similar to Hitlers aspirations of Lebensraum...)
itler never wanted war with the west. Infact he respected the British (early on, certainly).
If you read quotes from Hitler following the Vienna Treaty with Chamberlain he considered the Brits to be bumbling idiots who were weak willed and easily manipulated...
@ Hottentauts point, I forget where I read it, one of my history books I'd presume..., but whereas Lenin openly advertised overthrowing other governments in favour of communism, Stalins theories were more based on stabilizing the Soviet Union itself before any help could be sent to other revolutionaries.
Thus as you said, Stalin was more scared of outside invasions and internal rebellion then of invading other countries..
Anyways, just my three cents :D
I think that this point can, as you say, be debated. During the collectivization, Stalin envisioned starving off the entire Ukrainian population to provide Living room to the people of Russian stock (ironically similar to Hitlers aspirations of Lebensraum...)
Personally I always considered this theory pretty ludicrous - although there certainly was some very shady things going on with Ukraine being 'punished' for being a hotbed for resistance to Bolsheviks, this was mostly before Stalin. Stalin was a) hardly of Russian stock, upbringing or culture himself; b) deeply suspicious of any manner of nationalism, but above all Russian. While he targeted a number of ethnic groups specifically to put down resistance, no other population or national identity took as much damage from him as the Russians. Arguably he completely destroyed Russian nationalism, something he did not succeed at in the Ukraine or in many other places. So I've always considered the "Ukrainian genocide" to be tragic and indeed to SOME extent targeted, but hardly something that was envisioned to benefit the Russians or something that could be blamed on anything but calculated political repression. If Stalin was afraid of anything most, it was probably Russian nationalism above all, so the idea of him feeding it is rather absurd.
Krauter
06-22-11, 04:43 PM
Well, I don't think killing off the Ukrainians was a measure to literally provide living space for the Russians in the sense of "Hey I just got more space for you people, be happy your Russian, Byelorussian, etc"
I think it was, as you say more of a political goal and another simple goal. Less mouths to feed means more leftovers and less strain on the economic system.
Also, as far as I can tell Stalin never really advocated his Georgian stock. Indeed he even abandoned his Paternal name of Dugashvili (sp) in favour of his revolutionary noms de guerre.
Personally I always considered this theory pretty ludicrous - although there certainly was some very shady things going on with Ukraine being 'punished' for being a hotbed for resistance to Bolsheviks,
well, people were really cooking their leather belts, bags, boots and grass in order to survive. And these are facts.
Randomizer
06-22-11, 05:17 PM
See Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror Famine.
There is often a tendency when discussing horrific events, to wrap them up in a few simple aphorisms and apply a full stop to other interpretations. This is especially so when Westerners try to come to grips with a complex phenomenon like Stalin.
There may certainly have been a nationalist component to what happened in the Ukraine (as maintained by many of the Ukrainians who managed to flee the Soviet Union at the time) but there were also political, idealogical, economic and security considerations that played their parts in the Great Famine.
Stalin was nothing if not an entirely ruthless pragmatist. It's not unlikely that if he gave any thoughts to his victims at all, it would have been indifference rather than contempt.
Hottentot
06-23-11, 12:19 AM
@ Hottentauts point, I forget where I read it, one of my history books I'd presume..., but whereas Lenin openly advertised overthrowing other governments in favour of communism, Stalins theories were more based on stabilizing the Soviet Union itself before any help could be sent to other revolutionaries.
The whole "Socialism in one country" slogan was all about that and it's roots were indeed in the fact, that Stalin thought the Soviet Union was too backwards to survive the attack by foreigners. Foreigners in plural, as he saw enemies being in league everywhere, but name me one independent nation from 1930s that Stalin considered his friend. Not saying there aren't any: just that they are difficult to find.
Stalin, as whole, was ideologically very different from Marx and Lenin (who was also very different from Marx in many cases). Of course similarities can be found, but the term "Stalinism" isn't there just for show. One of the main differences was that while Lenin was a cosmopolitan, Stalin was a nationalist, who went directly against Marx's thesis "the proletar doesn't have a fatherland". Whereas Lenin too envisioned that a cultural revolution would happen, but it would happen peacefully, Stalin forced it to happen. And whereas Lenin (probably) thought it was part of ideological progress (socialism and later communism, after all, were in Marxist theory the inevitable future of the mankind with no alternatives), for Stalin it was politics.
Krauter
06-23-11, 12:45 AM
name me one independent nation from 1930s that Stalin considered his friend. Not saying there aren't any: just that they are difficult to find.
:haha: I think when you're talking about dictators such as Adolf Hitler or Ioseph Stalin and their "friends", that the word "friend" has an entirely different meaning.
Though you had the league of International Communists (Comintern) countries, Stalin did not consider countries like Mongolia or Mao's Communist Chinese Party to be "friends" rather he was fiercely distrustful of everyone including friends and family...
I think when talking about people such as these there are no friends and allies, just assets and liabilities. Sure the Brits and the US did Stalin a favour by the Lend-Lease Act, but did Stalin consider them friends and that he had a dept to repay them (that the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the Axis onslaught I believe is irrevelant in this context)? No, he considered them an asset at the time and when it became obvious he would win the war they became liabilities and threats to his power.
Cheers!
Krauter
Hottentot
06-23-11, 01:05 AM
No objections. Just adding that the phenomenon you just described can also be seen in smaller scale in the purges of the party. As you probably know, there were few of them in addition to the well known "great purge". And in the latter ones the accused (Zinoviev and Bukharin, for example, if memory serves) were exactly those who had been actively accusing the suspects in the earlier purges. As you said: assets once, liabilities later.
Krauter
06-23-11, 01:21 AM
I remember doing some reading on Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria, the three NKVD chiefs who committed most of the purges.
I found it so ironic that the way Yezhov executed and desecrated Yagoda before and after his execution, was very similar to what Beria did to him, as well as what Beria received during his downfall!
Madness, yet in a system like this it is impossible to draw the line between friend and foe.
But I apologize, this is a little bit off topic and, if I can say so myself, one of my main interests in history (The Soviet Union) so it's easy for me to get sidetracked.
Cheers!
Krauter
6 million Jews. At the end of the day, the tens of millions dead in WWII are still "Hitler's" fault.
I think the other thing to consider is that as bad as Stalin was, he generally speaking wasn't genocidal (though in some instances it may be argued otherwise) but rather political in who he went after. Stalin's atrocities were also almost exclusively internal to the Soviet state system, and were carried out by millions of willing accomplices and informants within the society. They were not carried out (with some exceptions) by military invasion from the outside. Fundamentally, you can't separate what Stalin did with the politics and sociology of the Soviet system as a whole - terrible as it was, it was a civil affair (in the sense of being internal to civilian life in the USSR, not in the sense of being nice). Terrible as it is, I don't think it's appropriate to measure it by the same ruler as war crimes.
Good post, recall there were 5 million others killled in the extermination and concentration camps.
http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/NonJewishVictims.html
Recall Hitler wanted to go East (and secure the West-as Feuer Frei pointed out he had no real quarrel with the Brits and hoped they would come to their senses after France was beaten in 1940) to deal with the Bolsheviks but also because it was the East that needed the most "cleansing" from Jews, Slavs and others...so the "Aryans" could have more land. :shifty:
The only thing I can say is that the Nazis were very consistent in their view towards Jews and Roma-they all had to go. Slavs were a bit different however, Croatia, Slovakia, and Bulgaria were all slavic allies (Bulgaria also protected "their" Jews at least) many Western Ukrainians and even Russians (with Vlasov's ROA) fought on the German side etc.
Stalin killed for politcal ends and stopped when no longer "necessary" not very nice but more conducive to a longer lasting poltical system.
One thing we forget in these discussions is how much "help" these leaders have in commiting their crimes-none of the millions were personally killed by these or other leaders (though I've read Idi Amin actually did some killing himself). Would be good to find out more.
"Kill one man and it's a tragedy. Kill one million men and it's a statistic" paraphrased joseph stalin.
All you really need to know about the man imo.
Recent bbc program for us englanders. WW2: 1941 & the man of steel
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011wh1g/World_War_Two_1941_and_the_Man_of_Steel/
To be honest I see no real difference between racial ideological extermination by the nazis and political ideological extermination by the soviets. But if we're going by pure body-count alone, stalin makes hitler look like a rank amateur for what he did to his own people before, during and after the war.
I think we can argue that hitler was undoubtedly insane, where stalin seems a whole lot more calculating in his logic right from the start. Both are evil, but the evil of rabid insanity, though terrible, has little to compare it with the evil of cold deliberation and the rationale implicit in what I paraphrased above. Which for me sets the bar for assessing the products on nazism and communism and the men (if you can call them that) who rose to pre-eminence by and through these totalitarian ideologies.
Nazism brutalised germany in purges lasting a decade or so, and europe in a terrible war. Communism brutalised europe for almost fifty years, and it's own country as far back as 1918.
Not much of a credit to humanity, either of them. But history is littered with such men, to whom other men are as less than chaff.
Personally I always considered this theory pretty ludicrous - although there certainly was some very shady things going on with Ukraine being 'punished' for being a hotbed for resistance to Bolsheviks, this was mostly before Stalin. Stalin was a) hardly of Russian stock, upbringing or culture himself; b) deeply suspicious of any manner of nationalism, but above all Russian. While he targeted a number of ethnic groups specifically to put down resistance, no other population or national identity took as much damage from him as the Russians. Arguably he completely destroyed Russian nationalism, something he did not succeed at in the Ukraine or in many other places. So I've always considered the "Ukrainian genocide" to be tragic and indeed to SOME extent targeted, but hardly something that was envisioned to benefit the Russians or something that could be blamed on anything but calculated political repression. If Stalin was afraid of anything most, it was probably Russian nationalism above all, so the idea of him feeding it is rather absurd.
This may be true.
Stalin was mostly indifferent to national flavors on racist base.
All he wanted is total submission to the soviet system.
Usually he eliminated anyone or anything that represented cultural individuality if it represented danger to the system.
Judging by the length of paranoia and number of victims its hard to call him 100% rational and calculating person though.
Its hard to blame west for stance toward Stalin since in many ways he was more Germans ally till Barbarossa than he was of western powers after German attack.
Its hard to blame west for stance toward Stalin since in many ways he was more Germans ally till Barbarossa than he was of western powers after German attack.
That's an interesting point - one that churchill seemed to be aware of and argued against trusting stalin too far - The soviet stance seemed placed to take advantage of seizing territory almost as a policy, choosing alliances to further that end, which it eventually gained at the end of ww2.
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