How Stalin Fooled the World and Why It Matters Today

[American_Jihad]

Comrade Stalin holding little mememe

How Stalin Fooled the World and Why It Matters Today​

March 20, 2013
By Daniel Greenfield

There are two ways that liberal historians usually look at Stalin. The most leftward of these is to see Stalin as a victim of German and American imperialism who struggled to maintain the peace in the face of aggressive expansionistic efforts by Nazi Germany and the United States.

Such a revisionist history would seem to have been thoroughly discredited in this day and age, despite its persistence in the early days of the Cold War, but it continues resurfacing, most recently in an Oliver Stone documentary series.

But for the most part, Khrushchev’s disavowal of Stalin completed a process that began once the Soviet dictator cut a deal with Hitler, triggering a growing Destalinization cascade on the left. Stalinists still persisted in the West, but their influence on the authoring of history steadily diminished. Instead they embraced a different version of history that would salvage the ideological integrity of the left.

In this more conventional version of history, Stalin was not truly a Communist, but a non-ideological dictator who had seized control of the Soviet ship of state and transformed a promisingly progressive revolution into a backward feudal tyranny.

...

This question, like so many of the others in Stalin’s Curse, remains applicable today. While Stalin is dead, there are many lesser Stalins like Morsi, small vicious men with an unlimited capacity for bloodshed and an even more unlimited ability to fool Western leaders into believing in their sincerity and goodness.

The negotiations that allowed Stalin to gobble up so many countries have been repeated again and again. And every time that diplomats call for a diplomatic solution in North Korea and Iran, we find ourselves back sitting across the table from Uncle Joe.

And that may be Stalin’s true curse.

How Stalin Fooled the World and Why It Matters Today

 

[Saigon]

The most leftward of these is to see Stalin as a victim of German and American imperialism who struggled to maintain the peace in the face of aggressive expansionistic efforts by Nazi Germany and the United States.

Nonsense.

By all means back up this claim with some links or examples - but you won't find much.

Stalin is almost universally regarded by left and right as a dictator, a tryant and a mad man. The fact that he worked with the Alies to defeat Hitler does not change that.

 

[there4eyeM]

Stalin and all other authoritarians who want to make the state a quasi religion are enemies to the human spirit. Systems exist for people, not the other was around. This is how all such 'leaders' can be grouped together, no matter how different their political labels.

There are, nonetheless, huge differences in approach to making life the best it can be for the most of humanity's members. We need adaptability, not inflexible ideology.

 

[editec]

There are two ways that liberal historians usually look at Stalin.

Bullshit.

Site your sources of "liberal historians"

I'm guessing you don't read much history.

CLEARLY you don't understand what history really is.

 

[Emir]

The most leftward of these is to see Stalin as a victim of German and American imperialism who struggled to maintain the peace in the face of aggressive expansionistic efforts by Nazi Germany and the United States.

Nonsense.

By all means back up this claim with some links or examples - but you won't find much.

Stalin is almost universally regarded by left and right as a dictator, a tryant and a mad man. The fact that he worked with the Alies to defeat Hitler does not change that.

Indeed. Socialists in the west have spent the past 90 years trying to explain that you can have socialism without Marxist-Leninism (and especially the horrors of Stalinism, though one might argue that Stalinism is the logical extension of Marxist-Leninism).

 

[rdean]

Bush fooled the world.

 

[Unkotare]

mememe likes to be dominated by a 'strong' figure. She gets all worked up at being forced to submit. She's got issues.

 

[Emir]

horrors of Stalinism, though one might argue that Stalinism is the logical extension of Marxist-Leninism).

Yet another idiocy of an American brain.

1. "Horrors" of "Stalinism" exist only in the heads of Westerners poisoned by US post-WW2 propaganda machine they borrowed off Nazi Germany.

Then what was the Holodomor?

2. You already live in a society governed by IDEOLOGY of liberal Marxist-TROTSKIST postulates.

Oh lord, you're a Trotskyist?

3. Socialism is NOT an ideology; it is an ECONOMIC SYSTEM that puts a stop to dictatorship of corporate financial and industrial elite. That's why socialism is so enthusiastically discredited in the West via corporate media and other propaganda tools.

Socialism is most certainly an ideology, or perhaps an umbrella term for a number of anti-capitalist ideologies. Unless you really think Marx and Proudhon envisioned the same economic system.

 

[Vandalshandle]

Stalin did not fool anybody. We probably could not have defeated Germany without him. We also knew that if we went to war with the Soviet union in 1945, we would not have won. Thier dead in WW2 was almost equal to 100% of our men in uniform. Containment was the best that we could hope to achieve.

 

[Saigon]

Stalin did not fool anybody. We probably could not have defeated Germany without him. We also knew that if we went to war with the Soviet union in 1945, we would not have won. Thier dead in WW2 was almost equal to 100% of our men in uniform. Containment was the best that we could hope to achieve.

Exactly.

And Stalin likely could not have defended Moscow without American help. At the time the US began to supply trucks Stalin was on the point of being overthrown by his own people, and the Soviets were facing the potential loss of Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad. More importantly, they were facing the loss of Baku's oil fields, which were only saved as it was by a strategic error on Hitler's part.

 

[t_polkow]

horrors of Stalinism, though one might argue that Stalinism is the logical extension of Marxist-Leninism).

Yet another idiocy of an American brain.

1. "Horrors" of "Stalinism" exist only in the heads of Westerners poisoned by US post-WW2 propaganda machine they borrowed off Nazi Germany.

2. You already live in a society governed by IDEOLOGY of liberal Marxist-TROTSKIST postulates.

3. Socialism is NOT an ideology; it is an ECONOMIC SYSTEM that puts a stop to dictatorship of corporate financial and industrial elite. That's why socialism is so enthusiastically discredited in the West via corporate media and other propaganda tools.

So many Trotskyites , not enough ice picks!

Trotsky, Strauss, and the Neocons, by Justin Raimondo

 

[t_polkow]

Stalin did not fool anybody. We probably could not have defeated Germany without him. We also knew that if we went to war with the Soviet union in 1945, we would not have won. Thier dead in WW2 was almost equal to 100% of our men in uniform. Containment was the best that we could hope to achieve.

Exactly.

And Stalin likely could not have defended Moscow without American help. At the time the US began to supply trucks Stalin was on the point of being overthrown by his own people, and the Soviets were facing the potential loss of Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad. More importantly, they were facing the loss of Baku's oil fields, which were only saved as it was by a strategic error on Hitler's part.

"Stalin was on the point of being overthrown by his own people,"

Pulling stuff out of your ass with no basis in fact

 

[Saigon]

"Stalin was on the point of being overthrown by his own people,"

Pulling stuff out of your ass with no basis in fact

Actually, I pulled it out of Montiefiore's 'In the Court of The Red Tsar'. Do you need a page number?

 

[Oddball]

Stalin did not fool anybody. We probably could not have defeated Germany without him. We also knew that if we went to war with the Soviet union in 1945, we would not have won. Thier dead in WW2 was almost equal to 100% of our men in uniform. Containment was the best that we could hope to achieve.

What a bunch of crap.

Hitler couldn't even cross the English Channel....The reds would've eventually defeated Germany.

And America could've beat the living hell out of Stalin in a few months...We had the bomb.

 

[MHunterB]

American Jihad just can't stop posting proofs of American stupidity and ignorance!

LOL!

You misspelled 'Stalinist', Mimi........

 

[High_Gravity]

American Jihad just can't stop posting proofs of American stupidity and ignorance!

LOL!

mememe is such a dumb whore.

 

[editec]

Stalin did not fool anybody.

Well, not for long at any rate.

We probably could not have defeated Germany without him.

I'd say that's very likely true. Without Stalin's Eastern Front, England would have fallen.
Without a place to prepare to invade (England) we could not have taken back Europe in time and in all likeihood Germany's nuclear bombs would have started dropping on US soil by the late 40s or early 50s.

We also knew that if we went to war with the Soviet union in 1945, we would not have won.

Not without nuking most of Europe, no.

Thier dead in WW2 was almost equal to 100% of our men in uniform. Containment was the best that we could hope to achieve.

Yes. I think I read somewhere that the Russians lost more troops at the defence of Stalingrad that we lost in the entire war of Europe AND the Pacific.

The Russian people's contribution to the defeat of NAZI Germany was AMAZING.

But, and this is about the OINLY good thing I can say about Papa Joe, without him behind them (scaring the shit of them) I doubt they'd have beaten Germany back.

 

[Flopper]

Stalin did not fool anybody. We probably could not have defeated Germany without him. We also knew that if we went to war with the Soviet union in 1945, we would not have won. Thier dead in WW2 was almost equal to 100% of our men in uniform. Containment was the best that we could hope to achieve.

Exactly.

And Stalin likely could not have defended Moscow without American help. At the time the US began to supply trucks Stalin was on the point of being overthrown by his own people, and the Soviets were facing the potential loss of Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad. More importantly, they were facing the loss of Baku's oil fields, which were only saved as it was by a strategic error on Hitler's part.

No doubt supplies from the US were vital in the Russian defense. However, Russia prevailed more because of the German arrogance and stupidity. The needless slaughter of civilians had the opposite effect the Germans had intended. German supply lines were far longer than their effective limit. German troops were short just about everything. Stalin kept digging up more and more untrained troops to throw at the Germans. Eventually, the Russians just wore the Germans out. Historians see this as the point in which the key German generals became convinced that Germany would not win the war.

Stalin was a ruthless dictator but his decision to sacrifice over 10,000,000 of his own people to stop Hitler saved the nation and probably won the war. By the end WWII, Russian losses accounted for 70% of the dead and missing.

 

[Ringel05]

Stalin did not fool anybody. We probably could not have defeated Germany without him. We also knew that if we went to war with the Soviet union in 1945, we would not have won. Thier dead in WW2 was almost equal to 100% of our men in uniform. Containment was the best that we could hope to achieve.

Exactly.

And Stalin likely could not have defended Moscow without American help. At the time the US began to supply trucks Stalin was on the point of being overthrown by his own people, and the Soviets were facing the potential loss of Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad. More importantly, they were facing the loss of Baku's oil fields, which were only saved as it was by a strategic error on Hitler's part.

No doubt supplies from the US were vital in the Russian defense. However, Russia prevailed more because of the German arrogance and stupidity. The needless slaughter of civilians had the opposite effect the Germans had intended. German supply lines were far longer than their effective limit. German troops were short just about everything. Stalin kept digging up more and more untrained troops to throw at the Germans. Eventually, the Russians just wore the Germans out. Historians see this as the point in which the key German generals became convinced that Germany would not win the war.

Also Stalin had troops sitting on their hands in Siberia facing of against a potential Japanese attack. When Soviet spies found out the Japs had no intention of attacking Stalin moved most of those troops to Stalingrad for the encirclement, sealing the Germans fate.

 

[Unkotare]

We also knew that if we went to war with the Soviet union in 1945, we would not have won.

In 1945? Of course we would have won.