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Stalin vs Hitler
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Who was the baddest?
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Depends of course on your definition of 'bad' or 'evil' and how you measure it. If you go by number of people slaughtered then you're into many millions for both. Hitler 'started' WW2, but by heck there was a lot of USSR connivance early on - until Hitler attacked them.
Try Alan Bullock's "Parallel Lives".
Also remember that in their day they were popular with many of their citizens. It took a lot more than a few high-ranking Nazis to kill 6 million Jews.
Also remember, for example, that Mrs Thatcher was the bees knees when she was in power. Now it's difficult to say anything too bad about her.
History is often an author's opinion, and is always contemporary with the author.
Writing about history isn't the same as history. Granted, many people determine their attitudes about historical events referencing only what they selectively read.
Many, many people are still alive today that lived through those terrible times with Stalin and Hitler and I'm sure they would greatly resent the equation, in any way, the actions of "The Iron Lady" with the genocide of both Stalin and Hitler. It's is moral equivalancy at its worst... There is pure evil in the world and these, along with Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and others cut from the same bolt of cloth, represent it extremely well...
Sorry Clanad if you felt I was equating MT with Hitler or Stalin - far from it, I was and remain a great admirer of MT. I was giving a response of some sort to Albert Park. I was nowhere near moral equivalency. I am curious however as to how someone so popular in her day (MT) can be so evil now. Politics is fickle and transient. You mention 'pure evil', but what is your yardstick ? I work with people who think George Bush and all USA are 'evil' (but they still manage to holiday in the USA). I maintain that modern history is contemporary opinion, particularly when it is politically or religiously sensitive.
I agree with you totally about Pol Pot, Sadam - but where is Mugabe in all this ? Why have the UN not gone in and removed him too ?
I'd go for Hitler as the worst, although I'm not a historian.
Incidentally, one of the reasons why the UN has made no attempt to remove Robert Mugabe is that the African Union have refused to condemn his actions. And since Zimbabwe is entirely surrounded by African countries (i.e. it doesn't have a coastline) it would be difficult to invade without going through- i.e.without the support of- a neighbouring country.
I would go for Stalin though they are equally as inhuman. It was Stalin's treatment of his own people I find the most chilling; the 25 millions over the course of 45 years, for instance, who were subjected to life in the gulag. The purge on the kulaks when Stalin systematically destroyed landowners and farmers by starvation and murder in his early years in power. The paranoia of living under the Soviet regime and threat of a life long trip to Siberia to work in mine. Stalin�s hatred of the Polish and leaving the Rising to perish under Nazi rule which could have been prevented by Soviet intervention. And finally the treatment of the soldiers of the Red Army, the effects of which can still be seen today. Such a question cannot be answered in a paragraph
Lets not forget the treatment of Red Army soldiers and Soviet civilians who were interogated and sent to the gulag because they had been captured or surrendered to/by the enemy,many of whom had just been liberated from German camps. Do not forget the treatment of women by Soviet troops as they rampaged throughout Eastern Europe and into Germany, be them German, Polish or even Soviets. And why not have a read of a few books of what happened after the war to East Germany and Eastern Europe after 1945 if you want to see who is the baddest. One of the great crimes of the 20th century was the fact that Stalin was one GB's allies
Stalin certainly murdered more poeple, but then Hitler was stopped. Had he lived and the Nazi's remained in power, it seems to me reasonably clear that he would have continued with his attempt to wipe out the Jews, not to mention homosexuals and gypsies, dissidents, someone who looked at him a bit funny, spilt his pint etc (I realise that's flippant, but on the other hand, it's probably not far off).
On the basis of 'achievement' (not exactly the most appropriate word, but hopefully you know what I mean) Stalin was worse.
If it is a simple matter of counting bodies, then yes Mao is worse than Stalin who is worse than Hitler. But I think that the measure of true "evil" is more than just statistics; it is a question of looking deep into a person's mind and trying to work out their intentions.
All three of them probably - according to their own logic - did what they thought was in the best long-term interests of their countries (and systems), but I think that "evil" or "worst" or "baddest" should be defined in terms of how much it deviates from the "norms" of what most people (and society in general) believe. I reckon Hitler was the worst, because he believed in the wholesale extermination of groups of people as an end in itself, whereas Stalin ande Mao both did so as a way to re-shape the economic structure of the country, and as a way of getting rid of those who got in the way. In other words, Mao and Stalin would have wanted to restructure society in a way which did not involve murdering millions of people if they had been able to find a way of doing so, but Hitler would have wanted to exterminate the Jews (and other groups) anyway, even to the detriment of the economy.
Both were evil tyrants, so its hard to judge, i'd plump for hitler because his ideology was based on a racial defination that was exclusively evil and he murdered thousands of jews, gypsies and disabled people for example because they did not fit his ideal of a pure healthy arian creed...disgusting, plus he started a war that resulted in the deaths of at least 60 millions, most of the people killed under stalin were worked to death brutally and cruelly partly in order to overhaul a third world economy into the 20th century with disastrous results in terms of loss of human life. and to suit stalins cruel and suspicious nature millions more perished..
On a personal level stalin was a worse person more cruel to family, servants,colleagues etc...
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