http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WW2_Revisionist_History/message/73
Re: Revisiting US involvement in World War II
Fascinating Response David. This is getting interesting. We're really exploring the nature of evil here, something I'm rather obsessed with,personally.
You argue that Stalin was insane because he enjoyed killing people. I would argue that this is a rather common and natural human tendency, that most of us are compelled to suppress in order to function incivilized society! The Russians WANTED Stalin to kill them! There is a level of masochism present in traditional Russian culture that we have difficultyunderstanding in the West. Perhaps it stems fromtheir partial conquest by Genghis Khan, or maybe itsthe cold, I'm not really sure, but it is a brutalculture. Do you know what Moscow Radio says about Stalin NOW? That he had no choice but to kill allthose millions. That's what Russian GovernmentSpokesmen say NOW! And many people in Russia believe that NOW, despite their exposure to western media sources.
You have to understand cultural differences. The fact that Stalin killed people in large numbers did not mean he wanted to kill everyone. Effectively, in over25 years of almost absolute power, he may have killed about 10 millions, with Hitler helping to kill offanother 10 millions. Effectively, only 5% of his "human resources" were lost. Not bad economics! The odds were, you would not be killed by Stalin, and that the deaths of others would actually help to increase your standard of living through their slave labor. I realize this is very alien to our Western, particularly American way of looking at things, but there is a kind of logic to it that is comprehensible.
In contrast, Hitler chose to kill groups that were harmless, for no practical reason. You argue that he ONLY wanted to kill these groups. I disagree. Here'swhy:
1. Hitler's annihilation of "weak" groups like gypsies, Jews, the mentally ill, the mentally retarded was pursued right to the end, systematically, with no practical end in view other than destruction.
2. Hitler had planned massive rocket attacks on London, again with destruction as the end, and no other practical purpose. The destruction of the V2 factories at Penamunda prevented this.
3. Hitler appears to have planned the extermination ofthe Slavs occupying the conquered territories, after a period of time. How else could they be fully colonized? He was never explicit about this, but his extermination of the Jews was not really made explicit until he actually did it, either!
4. If Hitler was going to kill Jews, Slavs, Gypsies en masse, as an end in itself, where would it end? What I'm describing here is the difference between rational and irrantional genocide. When Ataturk exterminated the Armenian Christians, he did it to maintain the stability and integrity of Turkey. He killed millions, but it was a rational act, and he was happy to leave it at that. And the current governmentof Turkey is his creation!
In contrast, irrational genocide has no end, because it has no rational purpose. Hitler would never havestopped. What would have stopped him? Hitler and PolPot are unique.
Jerry Krausjkraus_1999@...------------------------------------------------------Thanks for your response to my article. My comments follow.
“1. The Nazis were not just brutal and incompetent.They were insane and self-destructive. There's a level of pure irrationality in "Mein Kampf" that is entirely lacking in even the Stalinist mentality. Hitler's extermination of the Jews and and the Gypsies was something even a thug like Stalin could recognize as madness. Pol Pot's extermination of, if he'd had his way, the entire Cambodian people, including himself likely, is the only historical eventcomparable to it.”
I really do not see the moral, let alone mental difference, between Hitler’s genocide of 5-6 million Jews and Stalin’s mass murder of 30 million Russians,Ukrainians, Germans, Poles, Ruthenians, Tatars, Cossacks, Balts, Finns, Lapps, etc. The only difference I see is one of quantity and outright ruthlessness. The main difference between Stalin and Hitler was that while Hitler killed for some admittedly demented perceived political purpose, Stalin killed everyone and derived personal pleasure from doing so ruling with a terror so ruthless that itclaimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of his own loyal Communist allies never seen before or since on such a scale with the exception of agrarian reformer, Mao Tse Tung. Stalin’s favorite daily habit was to take a fairly random list with thousands of names and cross out the names of the few thousand he wanted executed on any given day. Sometimes, he would cross a name out and then cancel out it out thus claiming tha the saved the life of any given person. Thus, he envisioned himself as equal to God with the power of life and death over 200 million Soviet citizens and at one point another 200 million occupied peoples in several other countries. What could be more demented than that? Unlike Stalin, Hitler did not involve himself in killing his own people (other than German Jews) and thus non-Jews who did not conspire to remove him from power had little or nothing to fear during his reign, whereas Stalin killed a great many more Russians than Hitler did during the entire Second World War causing even his bravest generals and closest political allies to tremble in absolute fear of their lives whenever they entered his presence. Again, I think one can argue that it is a fairly demented thing to do to kill your own people, let alone your most loyal followers and supporters as did Stalin.
Furthermore, while Hitler’s anti-Semitism was indeed irrational he viewed himself as the savior of Germanyand the defender of Europe against the Bolshevik menace and thus had a comparatively rational plan toreunite the German nation, invade the Soviet Union and carve out an eastern empire for Germany. Stalin of course also had a rational plan to incite a war between his capitalist enemies both in Europe and thePacific and he brilliantly exploited the opportunitieswhich Hitler, FDR and Japan availed themselves of to execute that plan thus ensuring that ultimate victoryin WW2 would be his and his alone. But he was paranoid to an extreme, killing both friends and enemies including the most skilled Red Army commanders. Hitler on the other hand largely gave the Army a free handfrom political persecution and killings which provided the Army with an opportunity to plan 17 different coupand assassination attempts against him from 1938-1944 something that Stalin’s blind and ruthless killings would have made impossible in the USSR. Hitler’s rabid anti-Semitism may well have cost him the war as otherwise the world’s best atomic scientists would have remained in Germany and Hungary and would have enabled Germany to be the first todevelop the atomic bomb by 1945.
My point is that Stalin was no less demented or irrational than was Hitler certainly when it came to mass murdering tensof millions of innocents.
“2. Stalin killed millions, as did Mao, with thecooperation of the nation's people, and for genuinepractical purposes. Stalin was a vicious thug, but a practical one, rather like Mussolini and Franco. He was just operating on a bigger tableau. Stalin might be compared to Genghis Kahn, a murderous conqueror, rather than a madman.”
I do not agree that Stalin killed millions as did Mao“for genuine practical purposes.” Stalin was certainly a madman though you can argue that Hitler was even more of one.
“3. The reason Hitler was ultimately more dangerous than Stalin is that Stalin did not aspire, until the last year of his life, to kill EVERYONE. Hitler certainly seemed to. For its own sake. A madman with great power is more dangerous than an ambitious thug. Ultimately, despite the numbers, Stalin was the lesser of evils here. He wanted power, not universaldestruction.”
Actually Stalin did aspire to kill everyone regardless of race or religion. He was what I call an equal opportunity mass murderer free of discrimination killing friend and foe alike. I do not believe that Hitler wanted to kill everyone, but if you have a cite to support that viewpoint, I would be interested to read it. Furthermore, while Hitler had no designs on the West (even signing a pact with France during the1930s renouncing all claims to Alsace-Lorraine), or indeed anything outside of Europe, Stalin dreamed of world concept and exporting Communism to every continent in the world which of course is why he posed a threat to the US and the British Empire that Hitler never did. Hitler ultimately proved our greatest ally in the sense that his foolish actions (most notably declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbor) ensured our ultimate victory and Germany’s ultimate defeat. Sadly, he also enabled our immoral leaders—FDR,Truman, Churchill, Ike and Stalin with a useful pretext to engage in the destruction not merely of Nazism, but of Germany herself at the cost of severa lmillion innocent lives. Had Chamberlain not declared war on Germany, he would have likely been re-elected Prime Minister in 1940 andthe war between the Western Allies and Germany would have likely been entirely averted and Churchill would have never come to power.
Regards, David
Re: Revisiting US involvement in World War II
Fascinating Response David. This is getting interesting. We're really exploring the nature of evil here, something I'm rather obsessed with,personally.
You argue that Stalin was insane because he enjoyed killing people. I would argue that this is a rather common and natural human tendency, that most of us are compelled to suppress in order to function incivilized society! The Russians WANTED Stalin to kill them! There is a level of masochism present in traditional Russian culture that we have difficultyunderstanding in the West. Perhaps it stems fromtheir partial conquest by Genghis Khan, or maybe itsthe cold, I'm not really sure, but it is a brutalculture. Do you know what Moscow Radio says about Stalin NOW? That he had no choice but to kill allthose millions. That's what Russian GovernmentSpokesmen say NOW! And many people in Russia believe that NOW, despite their exposure to western media sources.
You have to understand cultural differences. The fact that Stalin killed people in large numbers did not mean he wanted to kill everyone. Effectively, in over25 years of almost absolute power, he may have killed about 10 millions, with Hitler helping to kill offanother 10 millions. Effectively, only 5% of his "human resources" were lost. Not bad economics! The odds were, you would not be killed by Stalin, and that the deaths of others would actually help to increase your standard of living through their slave labor. I realize this is very alien to our Western, particularly American way of looking at things, but there is a kind of logic to it that is comprehensible.
In contrast, Hitler chose to kill groups that were harmless, for no practical reason. You argue that he ONLY wanted to kill these groups. I disagree. Here'swhy:
1. Hitler's annihilation of "weak" groups like gypsies, Jews, the mentally ill, the mentally retarded was pursued right to the end, systematically, with no practical end in view other than destruction.
2. Hitler had planned massive rocket attacks on London, again with destruction as the end, and no other practical purpose. The destruction of the V2 factories at Penamunda prevented this.
3. Hitler appears to have planned the extermination ofthe Slavs occupying the conquered territories, after a period of time. How else could they be fully colonized? He was never explicit about this, but his extermination of the Jews was not really made explicit until he actually did it, either!
4. If Hitler was going to kill Jews, Slavs, Gypsies en masse, as an end in itself, where would it end? What I'm describing here is the difference between rational and irrantional genocide. When Ataturk exterminated the Armenian Christians, he did it to maintain the stability and integrity of Turkey. He killed millions, but it was a rational act, and he was happy to leave it at that. And the current governmentof Turkey is his creation!
In contrast, irrational genocide has no end, because it has no rational purpose. Hitler would never havestopped. What would have stopped him? Hitler and PolPot are unique.
Jerry Krausjkraus_1999@...------------------------------------------------------Thanks for your response to my article. My comments follow.
“1. The Nazis were not just brutal and incompetent.They were insane and self-destructive. There's a level of pure irrationality in "Mein Kampf" that is entirely lacking in even the Stalinist mentality. Hitler's extermination of the Jews and and the Gypsies was something even a thug like Stalin could recognize as madness. Pol Pot's extermination of, if he'd had his way, the entire Cambodian people, including himself likely, is the only historical eventcomparable to it.”
I really do not see the moral, let alone mental difference, between Hitler’s genocide of 5-6 million Jews and Stalin’s mass murder of 30 million Russians,Ukrainians, Germans, Poles, Ruthenians, Tatars, Cossacks, Balts, Finns, Lapps, etc. The only difference I see is one of quantity and outright ruthlessness. The main difference between Stalin and Hitler was that while Hitler killed for some admittedly demented perceived political purpose, Stalin killed everyone and derived personal pleasure from doing so ruling with a terror so ruthless that itclaimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of his own loyal Communist allies never seen before or since on such a scale with the exception of agrarian reformer, Mao Tse Tung. Stalin’s favorite daily habit was to take a fairly random list with thousands of names and cross out the names of the few thousand he wanted executed on any given day. Sometimes, he would cross a name out and then cancel out it out thus claiming tha the saved the life of any given person. Thus, he envisioned himself as equal to God with the power of life and death over 200 million Soviet citizens and at one point another 200 million occupied peoples in several other countries. What could be more demented than that? Unlike Stalin, Hitler did not involve himself in killing his own people (other than German Jews) and thus non-Jews who did not conspire to remove him from power had little or nothing to fear during his reign, whereas Stalin killed a great many more Russians than Hitler did during the entire Second World War causing even his bravest generals and closest political allies to tremble in absolute fear of their lives whenever they entered his presence. Again, I think one can argue that it is a fairly demented thing to do to kill your own people, let alone your most loyal followers and supporters as did Stalin.
Furthermore, while Hitler’s anti-Semitism was indeed irrational he viewed himself as the savior of Germanyand the defender of Europe against the Bolshevik menace and thus had a comparatively rational plan toreunite the German nation, invade the Soviet Union and carve out an eastern empire for Germany. Stalin of course also had a rational plan to incite a war between his capitalist enemies both in Europe and thePacific and he brilliantly exploited the opportunitieswhich Hitler, FDR and Japan availed themselves of to execute that plan thus ensuring that ultimate victoryin WW2 would be his and his alone. But he was paranoid to an extreme, killing both friends and enemies including the most skilled Red Army commanders. Hitler on the other hand largely gave the Army a free handfrom political persecution and killings which provided the Army with an opportunity to plan 17 different coupand assassination attempts against him from 1938-1944 something that Stalin’s blind and ruthless killings would have made impossible in the USSR. Hitler’s rabid anti-Semitism may well have cost him the war as otherwise the world’s best atomic scientists would have remained in Germany and Hungary and would have enabled Germany to be the first todevelop the atomic bomb by 1945.
My point is that Stalin was no less demented or irrational than was Hitler certainly when it came to mass murdering tensof millions of innocents.
“2. Stalin killed millions, as did Mao, with thecooperation of the nation's people, and for genuinepractical purposes. Stalin was a vicious thug, but a practical one, rather like Mussolini and Franco. He was just operating on a bigger tableau. Stalin might be compared to Genghis Kahn, a murderous conqueror, rather than a madman.”
I do not agree that Stalin killed millions as did Mao“for genuine practical purposes.” Stalin was certainly a madman though you can argue that Hitler was even more of one.
“3. The reason Hitler was ultimately more dangerous than Stalin is that Stalin did not aspire, until the last year of his life, to kill EVERYONE. Hitler certainly seemed to. For its own sake. A madman with great power is more dangerous than an ambitious thug. Ultimately, despite the numbers, Stalin was the lesser of evils here. He wanted power, not universaldestruction.”
Actually Stalin did aspire to kill everyone regardless of race or religion. He was what I call an equal opportunity mass murderer free of discrimination killing friend and foe alike. I do not believe that Hitler wanted to kill everyone, but if you have a cite to support that viewpoint, I would be interested to read it. Furthermore, while Hitler had no designs on the West (even signing a pact with France during the1930s renouncing all claims to Alsace-Lorraine), or indeed anything outside of Europe, Stalin dreamed of world concept and exporting Communism to every continent in the world which of course is why he posed a threat to the US and the British Empire that Hitler never did. Hitler ultimately proved our greatest ally in the sense that his foolish actions (most notably declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbor) ensured our ultimate victory and Germany’s ultimate defeat. Sadly, he also enabled our immoral leaders—FDR,Truman, Churchill, Ike and Stalin with a useful pretext to engage in the destruction not merely of Nazism, but of Germany herself at the cost of severa lmillion innocent lives. Had Chamberlain not declared war on Germany, he would have likely been re-elected Prime Minister in 1940 andthe war between the Western Allies and Germany would have likely been entirely averted and Churchill would have never come to power.
Regards, David
posted by Jerry Kraus at 7:44 AM
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