Litwin
Platinum Member
Great article, unfortunately even here its legal to whitewash stalinism and koba himself, but soon it will be over
European Parliament resolution
www.europarl.europa.eu › doceo › B-9-2019-0098_EN
Sep 18, 2019 — ... 23 August as European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism ... distort historical facts and whitewash crimes committed by the Soviet ...
"Koba had the blood of millions on his hands, yet Stalin has escaped Hitler-style demonisation, and even become a trendy pin-up. Why has history been so kind to this murderous leader, asks Laurence Rees.
A few months ago, when I was visiting one of our leading universities, I happened to see a poster prominently displayed in one of the students' halls of residence. It was of Joseph Stalin.
Perhaps it was meant as a kind of ironic reference to something. Perhaps it was simply covering a damp patch on the wall. But, in any event, no one seemed to take much notice of it.
But imagine if instead of a picture of Stalin, there had been a picture of that other horrendous tyrant of the 20th Century, Adolf Hitler, hanging there? Think of the outcry. ....
Stalin is portrayed as the father figure of the Soviet Union - a giant of a man responsible for massive projects of industrialisation. And the Stalinist purges, when tens of thousands of innocent people suffered, are glossed over as implicitly necessary for the security of the state.
Robert Buckner, the producer of Mission to Moscow, later described the film as an "expedient lie for political purposes"....
Not only did they learn how brutally Stalin's forces were behaving in occupied territory as early as 1940, but the US president at the time, Franklin Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, even went so far as to suppress information which pointed to the fact that Stalin and his secret police had orchestrated a mass murder - the killing of thousands of Polish officers in the forest of Katyn.
But, of course, it's not hard to understand why the political leaders in Britain and the US felt they had to paint a positive picture of Stalin and the Soviet Union. The reality was that the Soviet Union was a vital ally and the West needed to keep the Red Army fighting the Germans.
The trouble is that the legacy of these "expedient lies" has still not entirely left us. Which is why I hope people will come to realise just how appalling Stalin was, and students might think twice before hanging pictures of Stalin on their walls.
"
UK | Magazine | The whitewashing of Stalin - BBC NEWS
European Parliament resolution
www.europarl.europa.eu › doceo › B-9-2019-0098_EN
Sep 18, 2019 — ... 23 August as European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism ... distort historical facts and whitewash crimes committed by the Soviet ...
"Koba had the blood of millions on his hands, yet Stalin has escaped Hitler-style demonisation, and even become a trendy pin-up. Why has history been so kind to this murderous leader, asks Laurence Rees.
A few months ago, when I was visiting one of our leading universities, I happened to see a poster prominently displayed in one of the students' halls of residence. It was of Joseph Stalin.
Perhaps it was meant as a kind of ironic reference to something. Perhaps it was simply covering a damp patch on the wall. But, in any event, no one seemed to take much notice of it.
But imagine if instead of a picture of Stalin, there had been a picture of that other horrendous tyrant of the 20th Century, Adolf Hitler, hanging there? Think of the outcry. ....
Stalin is portrayed as the father figure of the Soviet Union - a giant of a man responsible for massive projects of industrialisation. And the Stalinist purges, when tens of thousands of innocent people suffered, are glossed over as implicitly necessary for the security of the state.
Robert Buckner, the producer of Mission to Moscow, later described the film as an "expedient lie for political purposes"....
Not only did they learn how brutally Stalin's forces were behaving in occupied territory as early as 1940, but the US president at the time, Franklin Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, even went so far as to suppress information which pointed to the fact that Stalin and his secret police had orchestrated a mass murder - the killing of thousands of Polish officers in the forest of Katyn.
But, of course, it's not hard to understand why the political leaders in Britain and the US felt they had to paint a positive picture of Stalin and the Soviet Union. The reality was that the Soviet Union was a vital ally and the West needed to keep the Red Army fighting the Germans.
The trouble is that the legacy of these "expedient lies" has still not entirely left us. Which is why I hope people will come to realise just how appalling Stalin was, and students might think twice before hanging pictures of Stalin on their walls.
"
UK | Magazine | The whitewashing of Stalin - BBC NEWS
