Bruno what is the purpose of writing biting and hurtful comments
that you dont really mean?

is it to show your sensitivity
is it because you think these gentlemen arent
capable of reasoned debate?
is it to improve the situation by furthering dialogue
and understanding between opposing sides.

does it contribute to the solution
or the problem when people behave as you have
confessed to doing?
:|\\

The guy insulted a member of the Big Tree.
Tit for tat.

Winston Churchill in my view is the greatest leader of British people and the British Commonwealth in the XXth century.
A fighting man, a real hero. A man who would never surrender (well, once he was captured, BUT he escaped!!!)
I do respect him very very much.
Truly.

On that much we are agreed I am his biggest advocate as such
I will also go further and say he is the greatest english language
orator of the twentieth century as well.

but as you saw earlier I am not above acknowledging
his faults I believe also that the strategic bombing campaign
against germany was not acceptable in the light of its
cause the "immoral" bombing of rotterdam that started that
phase of the war off was of course an attack made in error
that had a damage effect far out of scale with the attacks
original damage potential.

I cant be hypocritical about his shortcomings
He got america into two world wars.

can you be unbiased about uncle joe?

He was a great statemen and the duty of every great statemen is to protect his people.

That was the war and his duty was to win that war with as little loss of British lives as possible. He did a great job. Less losses then in WWI.

Morality of killing German civil population or making others fight along with British (coup in Jugoslavia) - is possible to discuss nowadays.

But at the time his primary duty was to protect lives of British people - not Germans, Jugoslavians, Americans, or Russians.

I feel that Stalin did much harm to the Professional military
and much harm to the soviet peoples out of megalomaniacal
paranoia, for all that he was a great statesman and IIRC correctly
a great Georgian.

M

Nope. Repressions covered only 4% of officer cadre of the Red Army.

But you might argue because Stalin showed his generals who was the boss
Stalin did not have Colonel Stauffenberg.

Please Bruno I am not able actually to recall in reality
but was Stalin a Georgian by birth?
(sincere)

Yep, a Georgian (Mengrel ethnic group of Georgian people).
His real last name is typically Georgian - Dzhugashvili

But later on he went on records
'I am a man of Russian culture'.

Stalin is his 'party name' which he was using while fighting the last Romanov's Empire.
Stalin means 'a man of steel'. And he was truly up to his party name.

There's a lot of talk nowadays about Georgian city of Gori.
Gori is the birthplace of Iosif Stalin.
There is still a huge monument to him on the central square of the city.

Here you go:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Goristatue.JPG

Thanks I was trying to do it right in english lettering and was
having trouble well thats it I'm out. We have transitioned from
Punk assed provocation to exchanging cultural discussion.
Im finished now.
:|\\Mush.

Nice talking to you Mush :D

Cheers,
Bruno

http://www.stalin.website.pl/galerie/zdjeciaII/s001.jpg


http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...x/unclejoe.jpg

[edit] well ive done better.

Thank you Mush for the picture.

Here's Stalin writing something.
But he was also a great reader. His personal library which he would collect for his whole life included 20 th!!! books.
Each day he would try to read 300 pages of literature on various subjects - science, economics, history, and military affairs.

He was a heavy smoker. He used Caucasian tobacco 'Gertsegovina Flor' exclusively.
A pack of this cigarettes is in the picture. He would take a cigarette, break it and use tobacco for his famous black pipe.

http://www.zigsam.at/B_HerzegovinaFlor.htm

Maybe you can clone him? You think he would let Putin live, he is so soft?:hmm:

Tell that to these guys, lol:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...eńcy1.jpg

To be EXECUTED for:

Being alleged "saboteurs, lawyers, priests, landowners, factory owners, and spies".

Well, what was the end result?

The infamous event we know as the Katyn Massacre.

Just words.
I want to see a legal document where it would be spelled out that
someone is to be executed for being
alleged "saboteurs, lawyers, priests, landowners, factory owners, and spies".
not proved but alleged
If someone is proved to be a spy then what - America will give that person a credit card?
If someone is proved to be a saboteur - then what - that one may go home and continue?
Think what you are writing.

Katyn Massacre? Sure. Germans did it.

Burdenko commission came to this conclusion back in 1944
in presence of Americans amongst which was a daughter of US Ambassador to the USSR Mr. Garriman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_Massacre

:rotfl:

Seriously, are you drunk, crazy, or do you really believe what you're saying?

This will have to wait. I'm tired, and need to rest. I have a strong feeling I'll have plenty of laughs in this thread tomorrow.

They are starting to deny large parts of history officially in Russia, its not only Bruno the Ruskie.

It's all you've got?
Only wicki? Do you have idea how it's being created.
Find me there a reference to Ms.Garriman.
It's not there? Why? She was an one of US reps working with Burdenko commission
and signed results in early spring of 1944.
So, now it is not politically expedient to write about Ms.Garriman in English version of Vicky?
Right?

I must object. Stalin does not become "the second greatest leader of russia" just becasue the russian victory over Nazi Germany falls into the term of his reign. Tito said in a public speech that if Stalin deserves any honour, than that of being one of mankind's absolute top slaughterers of his own people, Chruchtchew in an internal speech distanced the later soviet regimes from Stalin, and there is a reason why throughout the Eastern bloc after stalin's detah a more or less obvious process of de-stalinisation set in.

I am aware that since several years there has a new Stalin cult emerging in russia, and that he gets transfigured into a national paternal holy figure, with serious distortions of history. That can be explained with the ignorrance of the young who did not live under his regime, and the forgiuveness of the old who suffered losses for the main after the fall of the USSR and the social internal decline. It is the hope for the savior, the call for the strong man, and sometimes it is straightout stupidity.

It is not hitler'S recommendable "merit" we must admire of having lauched a war and a regime that costed 6 million Germans their lives and caused the death of the better part of the 54+ million people dead after five years of Nazi-German glory (exclduing the scores in the Pacific theatre). for the same reason I am hesitent to see Stalin as his country's greatest leader. There were several fearsome slaughterers in russian history, but nobody acchieved such a high bodycount like comrade Stalin. And I do not mean the deaths caused by the Nazis - I am talking about the killing of Russians commited by Stalin himself, by order, by command, by state-terror, and by incompetence (in agriculture, for example). The estimations range between half a dozen of millions, and five dozen millions russian having come to death in and by Stalin'S regime.

Bruno, you may want to reconsider your statement of Stalin being the greatest leader of Russia. He ranks amongst the greatest criminals in human history, I'm sorry to clear that one up - but Stalin has to be seen not any different than Hitler, or Mao.

The following may be wikipedia, but it is a good summarizing overview. If you use Google, you can find much material about the deathscores achieved by Stalin.

Please Bruno, don't tell us that you were serious when saying Stalin was "the Russian leader who takes the second place in the roster of the greatest Russian men in the history of Russian 1000 year statehood." Tell me instead that you just were sarcastic and that I am just too dump to get it. Please. I stand ready to apologize, then.

Would somebody here understand it, would I be even tolerated in this forum anymore, if I would defend the holocaust and Hitler's crimes, and declare him Germany's second-greatest leader ever...? for the good reputation of this forum probably most of us would agree on that the answer would be: "hardly".

Please Bruno, don't tell us that you were serious when saying Stalin was "the Russian leader who takes the second place in the roster of the greatest Russian men in the history of Russian 1000 year statehood." Tell me instead that you just were sarcastic and that I am just too dump to get it. Please. I stand ready to apologize, then.

Yeah, I was wrong
At the moment Stalin is number one.
You can check it out here.
http://www.nameofrussia.ru/rating.html

It's how People of Russia voting (yes, those who have access to internet)