First off, Shane Mage rather obnoxiously accuses me of being an "apologist for Stalin." Second, he points out that when the Chechens, Cherkess and Ingush were deported, the German Army was in retreat.
Second point first: So what? Partisan warfare somehow magically ended when the Germans left? There were Ukrainian and Balt partisans fighting for years after the Nazis left. Some of them are still alive.
First point second: This is really tedious. I am not interested in apologizing for anything. I am interested in understanding _what_ happened and, more importantly, _why_ it happened. Why is it that the majority of people in the former Soviet Union are "apologists" for Stalin, according to Shane? Are they all nuts? Or maybe they know something he doesn't.
The majority of Russian citizens will not say that Stalin was "good"; they will say he was "not that bad." And they will be right. As a matter of fact not even people with relatives who were in the Gulag (like my roommate's father, who was in prison camps off and on starting from the late '30s) subscribe to this Stalin-of-the-mind, Demon-from-Hell sitting on a mountain of skulls like something out of Le chants de Maldoror image of the Vozhd' that seems to have become very important for the _Western self-image_.
Anyway I know from experience that this discussion is pointless. But as an aside I don't know any Westerners who have been in Russia for more than a couple of years who don't have a much different vision of the Stalin era than they had when they arrived. I know I do.
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