Was Stalin evil?

[AustriaHungaryBohemia]

He wasn't evil.
He was just a vicious, murderous, psychotic, hypocrit, double-faced, freedom-hating, abussive dictator.
No one is evil.

From a purely philosophical standpoint, I actually agree. "evil" is an adjective of actions, not people. However, I think "evil person" is a good shorthand for "person whose overwhelming majority of actions were evil".

[Nightkill the Emperor]

Yes.

[America 51]

I don't think that Stalin was evil. He was too strict and tyrannic in much of his doings and grabbed too much power for himself, but he was also a strong leader. He managed to take Russia out of its dark ages, create one of the world's best industrialized countries, and expand its borders. The people he sent to the gulags were rebels, criminals, and people who refused to work. In other words, those who did not contribute to society and did nothing but get in the way. While his actions were over the top, the idea that people who do not contribute to society should not be part of it was correct.

If you want to say that the "Rape and pillaging" was ignored "because they are the good guys", then need I remind you that no one in the middle east or Vietnam (or anywhere else) asked to be invaded by the US? Ever heard of My Lai in Vietnam? Don't use the killing of civilians during wartime as an excuse to bash Stalin. The US is no better. They just have a propaganda curtain which seems to turn dark into light. Because you see... if you invade a country, take a bunch of resources, establish a puppet government, give funding to dictators, and kill civilians in the name of "democracy", which the citizens won't even have, it is "ok". Yet when another country does more or less the same thing, it's a horrible violation?

Until you have accomplished even nearly as much as Stalin, I wouldn't start bashing him. He may have been a tyrant, but his methods were effective. I can't say the same for any of you, or me.

And where the hell are people getting 20 million from? Check your sources.

[AustriaHungaryBohemia]

I don't think that Stalin was evil. He was too strict and tyrannic in much of his doings and grabbed too much power for himself, but he was also a strong leader. He managed to take Russia out of its dark ages, create one of the world's best industrialized countries, and expand its borders. The people he sent to the gulags were rebels, criminals, and people who refused to work. In other words, those who did not contribute to society and did nothing but get in the way. While his actions were over the top, the idea that people who do not contribute to society should not be part of it was correct.

If you want to say that the "Rape and pillaging" was ignored "because they are the good guys", then need I remind you that no one in the middle east or Vietnam (or anywhere else) asked to be invaded by the US? Ever heard of Mai Lai in Vietnam? Don't use the killing of civilians during wartime as an excuse to bash Stalin. The US is no better. They just have a propaganda curtain which seems to turn dark into light. Because you see... if you invade a country, take a bunch of resources, establish a puppet government, give funding to dictators, and kill civilians in the name of "democracy", which the citizens won't even have, it is "ok". Yet when another country does more or less the same thing, it's a horrible violation?

Until you have accomplished even nearly as much as Stalin, I wouldn't start bashing him. He may have been a tyrant, but his methods were effective. I can't say the same for any of you, or me.

And where the hell are people getting 20 million from? Check your sources.

It's My Lai. And how about killing civilians in peacetime? Which he did. In spades. Hundreds of thousands of Kulaks. Millions of Ukrainians.

[America 51]

I don't think that Stalin was evil. He was too strict and tyrannic in much of his doings and grabbed too much power for himself, but he was also a strong leader. He managed to take Russia out of its dark ages, create one of the world's best industrialized countries, and expand its borders. The people he sent to the gulags were rebels, criminals, and people who refused to work. In other words, those who did not contribute to society and did nothing but get in the way. While his actions were over the top, the idea that people who do not contribute to society should not be part of it was correct.

If you want to say that the "Rape and pillaging" was ignored "because they are the good guys", then need I remind you that no one in the middle east or Vietnam (or anywhere else) asked to be invaded by the US? Ever heard of Mai Lai in Vietnam? Don't use the killing of civilians during wartime as an excuse to bash Stalin. The US is no better. They just have a propaganda curtain which seems to turn dark into light. Because you see... if you invade a country, take a bunch of resources, establish a puppet government, give funding to dictators, and kill civilians in the name of "democracy", which the citizens won't even have, it is "ok". Yet when another country does more or less the same thing, it's a horrible violation?

Until you have accomplished even nearly as much as Stalin, I wouldn't start bashing him. He may have been a tyrant, but his methods were effective. I can't say the same for any of you, or me.

And where the hell are people getting 20 million from? Check your sources.

It's My Lai. And how about killing civilians in peacetime? Which he did. In spades. Hundreds of thousands of Kulaks. Millions of Ukrainians.

Like I said, I disagree with some of those methods, such as the killing of civilians like that, but those methods were, nonetheless, effective.

Also, (because people started talking about backstabbing in WW2) backstabbing is a natural part of politics. Stalin and Hitler were never friends. In fact, they hated each other. They simply made a pact because they thought that it help both countries. Ever heard of National interests? They were both preparing for war with each other, but Hitler decided to initiate it.

[AustriaHungaryBohemia]

Like I said, I disagree with some of those methods, such as the killing of civilians like that, but those methods were, nonetheless, effective.

Also, (because people started talking about backstabbing in WW2) backstabbing is a natural part of politics. Stalin and Hitler were never friends. In fact, they hated each other. They simply made a pact because they thought that it help both countries. Ever heard of National interests? They were both preparing for war with each other, but Hitler decided to initiate it.

Fortunately, "effective" is not the only scale actions are measured by. If I stab you and take your wallet, that's a very effective way of increasing my wealth.

[Ootbrrfry]

And where the hell are people getting 20 million from? Check your sources.

Yeah, I've been curious about this - it seems like a horribly misrepresentative "compromise option."

I think it's important to draw the distinction that Stalin could be considered to have killed approximately forty million people: that is, he took conscious action that led directly to them being dead. This would include gutting Soviet agriculture through incompetently-applied collectivization (management of the collective farms was generally placed in the hands of the poorest peasant in the area, who had often drank himself into his relative misfortune) and deKulakification (as most of the "average" peasants were still subsistence farmers, and the actual agricultural surplus was largely produced by the peasants wealthy enough to afford chemical fertilizers and advanced machinery), the result of which was the infamous famines in Kazakhstan and to a lesser extent the Ukraine and the rest of the USSR, the sum of which killed somewhere around six million.
This would arguably also include (and which I will include) Stalin's gross mismanagement of the German invasion - from gutting almost the entirety of the competent Soviet military leadership (including one of the world's foremost combined-arms theorists) to dismissing the massive amount of intelligence that pointed to an imminent invasion (ignoring not only everyone from Sorge to Churchill but also the German planes conducting regular recon flights over the border) to hiding in his dacha for months after the invasion had started and consequently leaving the Red Army disorganized and vulnerable, there is not an action Stalin took that in any way made the Germans less effective. This entirely preventable invasion cost upwards of thirty million Soviet lives.

But if we just look at the number of people Stalin murdered - that is, he took deliberate conscious action exclusively to cause their deaths - then even if you were to attribute to him full responsibility to him for the Great Purge and all wartime and postwar military atrocities (s/a Katyn and the reprisals against German civilians) I think an estimate of three million people is very much pushing it.

There's not really a method I can see where you actually hit a total of twenty million unless you split the difference.

[SD_Film Artists]

Big difference. Those were many different people, over centuries. And yes, people such as Cecil Rhodes are considered evil or at least morally questionable by many today. Not to mention Leopold II., who was a complete monster.

Centuries?

The Scramble for Africa, also known as the Race for Africa or Partition of Africa was a process of invasion, occupation, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers during the New Imperialism period, between 1881 and World War I in 1914.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_f ... onclusions

Europe killed millions of people in just 30 years.

*cough*

Being evil depends about what history books you’re reading.
Colonizing Europe killed probably more people as Stalin in Africa, Asia and America

Do you hear people talking about those ‘evil’ countries?

No, because the people those countries killed were armed.

.. for the most part at least. In the 1700-early 1900s there were bound to be some unlawful killings with the international mindset of the era.

[Trotskylvania]

I can't believe this is seriously up for debate...

[Wikkiwallana]

I can't believe this is seriously up for debate...

Hi there, welcome to NSG.

[Herskerstad]

He was more heartless than evil in my book. There is a big difference.

[Naurobia]

While it is true that he helped industrialize the Soviet Union and he helped the allies fight Nazi Germany in WW2 he was still a dictator whose regime killed 24-26 million people. He killed way more than 11 million.

[Frisivisia]

While it is true that he helped industrialize the Soviet Union and he helped the allies fight Nazi Germany in WW2 he was still a dictator whose regime killed 24-26 million people. He killed way more than 11 million.

Although, unlike the Nazis, he killed those who he did with no or little prejudice, equality in death.

[Gothinia]

he had a good goal set, but the part that fucked it up was that he was completely insane.

[Bergrisiheim]

Here is my reasoning:

Most define Hitler as evil.

When Stalin invaded Latvia, my grand-mother's family fled to Nazi Germany because political conditions were better there. Her family was detained in a work-camp next to Auschwitz until they bribed their way out.

My grand-mother's family chose Nazi Work-Camp over living in the USSR, thus, I believe that the USSR was a worse environment to live in.

Thus, Stalin was in my opinion probably more evil than Hitler.

[The Nuclear Fist]

Stalin was more eviler than Skeletor.


But in all seriousness, it depends on what you view as evil. On one hand, he killed off millions of people. On the other hand, he brought down the Nazi war machine. Which would have wiped out many, many more people if given the chance.


All in all, he was evil that became useful.

[Newderby]

No he wasn't.

Just very insecure and severely paranoid. Obsessed with his limitations as a person and power.

[Coccygia]

May I just say to this topic: .