>> Stalin was a brutal thug, but he was a brutal thug who just happens
>> to have saved civilization. Churchill and Roosevelt didn't do
>> squat. Stalin is a demon-figure in the West, not in Russia...
> Well, both of these claims could be debated.
Not only could be, but have been here, by us.
See, e.g.:
<http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/0011/0349.html> <http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/0011/0534.html>
The work of leading experts John Erickson and Bryan Fugate are readily accessible in English, and they are still as against your Stalinophobically obsessed version as they were three years ago. But now you have added some truly ignorant nonsense, of which the most ignorant:
> his generalship in the early stages of the war was disasterous,
> nearly fatal, until he got Zukhov and some other folks who knew what
> they were doing into the military leadership.
Look Justin, Zhukov became Chief of the General Staff on January 31, 1941. _January 31, 1941_ Not 1943 or 2003. January 31, _1941_ Five months before the Nazi invasion.
And before trotting this stuff out again, at least read Fugate and read Erickson and above all...read Zhukov. Writing after Khruschev's "secret speech", when criticism of Stalin went from being dangerous to being encouraged (and if you read Zhukov you will see he made many criticisms of Stalin), this is his judgment on the claim that the 1939-1941 period was "wasted": "On the whole, the tremendous production capacities built ...especially in the three years preceding the war, provided a sound basis for the country's defence capability." G. Zhukov, _Reminiscences and Reflections_ [English ed.] (Progress : Moscow) Vol. 1, p. 230. I recommend, if you would like an informed account of the plusses and minusses of the USSR's (damn it, not "Stalin's") preparation that you read Zhukov's Chapter 9 "Eve of the War" (Vol 1, pp. 227-279).
And of course the USSR played the leading role in the defeat of Hitler. You know the disparity in casualties with the US & UK. And you know that the defeat of the Nazis before Moscow in the winter of 1941-2 happened before any US supplies had been received. And you know that the Nazis had been strategically defeated the east _before_ Normandy. Denying the primary role of the USSR in the defeat of Hitler is cold war drivel, and neither worthy of you nor probably intended by you. But, unfortunately, that's the impression this silly post left.
john mage