RES: Whence Stalin's popularity?

Alexandre Fenelon afenelon at zaz.com.br
Sat Mar 8 05:13:18 PST 2003


A final word on the subject:

Hitler was the consumate loser. He led Germany on a path of ruination. Stalin, on the other hand, was the builder par excellence. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union beat the most dangerous, most viscerally aggressive military machine in the world, achieved a 99.9% literacy rate and transformed from a backwards peasant society into an industrial powerhouse. That's nothing to sneeze at. Those are amazing accomplishments, and they are things people in the FSU do and should take pride in. And those things are forever linked with the name and face of Joseph Stalin. Of course he is looked upon differently than in the West.

-That is true

I think that, in another couple of hundred years or so, he will be looked upon in the popular mind similarly to the figure in Russian history who most resembles him: Peter the Great, another ruthless, brutal modernizer. In terms of percentage of the population, Peter the Great killed more people than Stalin did. I have little doubt that monuments to Stalin will be going up in Russia in another century or so, maybe sooner.

-The analogy is excellent, but where are your sources on percentage killed -(not that I agree or disagree with you. I´m just curious)?

Alexandre



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