Stalin's death - 50 years

[Tal Inbar]

The excact day is March 5, but I won't be here to post those pictures...

[Tal Inbar]

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[redstar_co]

Thank you for that

[kabanchik]

Fifty years!.....can you imagine that? I was reading this morning about the observances in Moscow, as well as Gori, his birthplace. Still, after all these years, to those to whom democracy and progress have been the cruellest, such a man as he is remembered fondly, and perhaps understandably so, for at least under his rule, there was a kind of order and some degree of social stability. Did any of you ever see the HBO film "STALIN", with Robert Duvall?. There was a scene, as Stalin lay prostrate and dying, Molotov took Khruschev aside, where an awkward exchange took place, and finally said to him, "our history REQUIRED Stalin". I think that says it all. Having travelled to Russia during both the Soviet era and later times, I have come to sincerely believe that these people will NEVER embrace democracy as we know it. The character of the diverse peoples of Russia, as well as the national weltanschaung (world view) cries out for a strong ruler. I think that, sooner otr later, for better or for worse, such a man as he will emerge from the current chaos. Whether he will be benevolent, or a despot, God only knows. One can only hope for the former. As to Stalin, may God have mercy upon him, and his terrible crimes.

[yolkin]

Well put!!!

[Chris]

The Germans where winning and the Russian where retreating rapidly in the early phases the war.

Only a ruthless bastard like Stalin could have achieved the impossible and made his men stand and fight.

Also unlike Hitler he allowed his generals latitude in their expertise, but like Hitler played them off against each other.

Not an apology for him, just a fact.

It's a shame that his type of character, which could have been so good, also brought out such paranoid destructive behaviour

Interestingly Churchill was also a man for this time, that was not wanted in peace, but was of the ideal character for wartime leadership.

It’s almost as if the conflict was designed by higher beings like a game of chess.

Hitler, Stalin and Churchill …………………..So out of sync in normal times

Just a little ramble


Chris

[Esteban_cool]

Stalin has been the meaning of soviet glory. If it wasn´t thatnks to him, what could Russia be nowadays? Would Kruschev, or the inept "sack of balls"(a common chilean expression) of Brezhnev being able to bring that glory and inequalable power that someday had? Could The Communist Party on its own with all the bureaucrats in it, being able to take out soviet people from the czarist misery in which they were buried? No. Stalin, in spite of being a criminal and using those horrible methods to accomplish his quinquenial plans, he put in our beloved Soviet Union all that glory and magnificence that it had and deserved after all the sufferings that russian people had to bear. So, we shall look at Stalin´s good deeds. Few, but what it matters is not quantity-It´s QUALITY.

Esteban

[charlet]

wow! comrade, you can breathe! the train to Vorkuta is cancelled! the generalissimus can't hear you , coz he has just been achieved by Beria! (doctors 're all absent, curious isn't it?!!).
more seriously, one of my old teacher taught me one must not make history with "if"s...we cannot know what would have been Russia with october, Lenin then Stalin...a great amount of historical circumstances, long-term process and short-term events made the history as it was.
The great historic and political problem for our russian friends is that sovietism brought Russia into industrial modernity by mean of an out-of scale trauma. Then add the war, a blood bath to make forget (for a least a part of the population) the purges and deportations. Saying Stalin was inescapable in russian history...that's pure speculation. Stalin was a pragmatic, he put apart or killed all the possible actors to another path for Russia, the diverses wings of the party, and as did Brejnev to preserve the system and the casts. Yes, Stalin won the war...with a little US industrial help (10-15% I don't remember, but that's highly noticiable), by deversing millions of men...total: 27 millions dead.
yes he did too great things, with brutality and terror, ideology and propaganda.

[Kjetil Kvist]

One of my favourite soviet jokes is about Stalin - his dead body that is. After 1956 the soviet leadership wanted to get rid of the mummyfied body of Stalin and sent a telegram to several other countries in hope that they could send him in a little deleyed exile. Negative response was soon in from Great Britain. They stated that they already had one communist buried in London; Karl Marx. Germany was also negative. They had a dictator buried in Berlin; Adolf Hitler. Suprisingly positive response was received from Israel: They said that Stalin supported the founding of the state of Israel and that they would allow Stalin to be buried in their soil. The soviet leadership turned the Israel offer down; they said: "Down there they have had one who has risen from the dead before!"