Talk:Joseph Stalin/Archive 3

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Contents

Josif vs Iosif

Why is it I instead of J?

Because the name is not English. "Iosif" is the way it should be written and pronounced if we are aiming to be accurate. Think about the Arabic name "Yusuf".

It would be nice to add the original Georgian version of his name in Roman and Georgian script.

! At this rate, we'll need a separate 'Stalin's Name' section (which I'd advocate now, actually - the first sentence is dreadful and should be
Josif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin, was the second leader of the Soviet Union.
Morwen 23:32, Dec 23, 2003 (UTC)

I would not hold up this article for anything connected to spelling. The Soviet Union was a mixture of nationalities using different alphabets and transliterations. Even among Russians, for every Russian there are 1.7 opinions how to transliterate Russian. 200.87.6.6 16:24, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It would be interesting to know where the name Stalin came from, or what it means. It does not sound like Dshugashwili at all.

Note: The word "Stalin" seems to be a nickname of sorts meaning "Man of Steel". Therefore Joseph Stalin is akin to saying Joseph, Man of Steel.

Josif v. Joseph

The page should not have been moved without prior discussion. Joseph is many time more common than Josif: [1]. I will move it back. --Jiang 01:09, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Ok you are correct it should not have moved without prior discussion and I apologize. But just as an example let's say your Wiki username is Jiang, What if everyone started calling you Hiang instead because they thought it was the more commonly used name. The fact is that your name is Jiang not Hiang and in my opinion it would be a grave error to misspell a name of a historical figure. I seem to remember in high school history reading about the Soviet Union that his name was always spelled Josif, I believe the only reason it was spelled Joseph was so that westerners, Especially in the U.S.A. and U.K. could easily remember his name. Misterrick 01:37, 11 September, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is to use the version most commonly used in the English language. RickK 01:47, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Josif and Joseph are both not the real name. The real name is written in the cyrillic alphabet. If both are transliterations (derivations of the original), how can one be more preferable than the other? They sound the same! --Jiang 02:59, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I think I'm right in saying they're pronounced differently - Joseph has a hard "j" but as I recall, Josif or Iosif starts with more of a "y" sound. However, his name seems to have been anglicised to Joseph virtually from the start. -- ChrisO 11:15, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Stalin's Jewish ancestry

Stalin's Jewish ethnicity is extensively analyzed and documented in the article "Stalin's Ethnic Roots" by R. N. Terrall, which was published in the May/June 2003 issue of The Barnes Review magazine, pp. 71-73. (See www.barnesreview.org). Real name of "Stalin" was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzugashvili. All three of "Stalin's" wives were also Jewish. Stalin was fluent in Yiddish, according to Lenin, another Jew per Solzhenitsyn.

Man of Year

30 million is an estimate not many will agree upon. Probably not "widely regarded as a tyrant" either. He was, after all, Times man of the year twice. BL 05:01, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

TIME specifically says that it's Man of the Year designation is not intended as some honor or award. --Jiang 05:03, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Did they say that before or after they had already "designated" Josef Stalin for the "designation" twice? :) My point is that the description of him has varied a lot. Changed into to reflect that. BL 15:19, Jan 16, 2004 (UTC)

Hitler was time's man of the year, too. They have consistantly said it's a mention of the person who's had the most impact on the world, not the best person. RickK 01:50, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

1-26-2004

Highlighted words removed.

Under his leadership, the country was transformed from a backward peasant society to an advanced industralised state and was victorious in World War II.

to

Under his leadership, the country was transformed from a peasant society to an industralised state and was victorious in World War II. However, this came

The "advanced" is an easy one to go. It was advanced in a lopsided manner. Most of population barely felt this "advanceness". The word "backward" IMO is inapplicable. The country was crippled, destroyed, by revolution and civil war. You may call it "backward" if you like, but it is like calling a handicapped person "clumsy", if you get the idea. Mikkalai 04:51, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Mikkalai, good changes - didn't think about it, but the adjectives ("advanced" and "backwards") and the "but" load the whole sentence to make it seem as if Stalin's murders were justified. I only picked up on the but. Overall good job, though you might want to replace the hyperlink to shock brigades. godless 09:10, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

After making some corrections I thought I have already done, it came to my attention that this aricle in its large part is a cut'n'paste from "History of the Soviet Union" Part I Part II (or both are from the same barrel). How about compressing the "historical" part of this article? Mikkalai 05:09, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Intro paragraph

Please keep the commentary out of the intro sentence. Right now, it's simple and matter-of-fact. Each point raised in the intro sentence is addressed in the article. 172 08:11, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Right now it is almost as simple and even more matter of fact. Stalin did kill millions and he did earn some reputation. Mikkalai 08:51, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
172, the adjectives ("advanced" and "backwards") and the "but" load the whole sentence to make it seem as if Stalin's murders were justified. That is not NPOV. godless 09:11, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
For crying out loud, no it doesn't. These are just two matter-of-fact statements that introduce the article. We don't need commentary in the intro on whether something was justified or not. Let these matters resend into history. 172 09:35, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I think "but" certainly does load the sentence - it has the effect of minimising whatever comes before the "but". Consider the following: "Under Hitler's leadership, mass purges and repression occurred, but he transformed Germany from a nearly bankrupt state into a leading world power." Is that NPOV? I think not... -- ChrisO
We should be concerned with the Soviet historical record. Insisting on a congruence vis-à-vis the Hitler article is futile. I'd rather not get into it in great detail, but a basis for comparison is a bit trickier than the amateur reader of history may appreciate. We are dealing with regimes with significantly different institutional configurations. At the foundation, Germany and Russia stood at starkly different levels of economic and social development. The development of the Stalinist system of administrative command was a starkly different phenomenon from what was being seen in Germany, Italy, Japan, and even Spain and Portugal, where the fascist or fascist-like dicatorships arose within the framework of existing political structures.
Moreover, we need to shy away from using ambiguous and emotive terms like "murder" in historical writing, at least in the context of the edits in question here. At worst, debates on the numbers and statistics related to Stalinist causality figures often degenerate into games of semantics, all depending on what kind of criteria and definitions are being used. Please note the astronomical variations between many of the estimates commonly found. Usually, this is the result of different sources, combined with different formulae for compiling the figures.
BTW, when I was asking for sources, I was hoping that this would prompt the two new contributors to reengage themselves in the academic literature. I am familiar with each of Conquest's major works, and scores of other more recent accounts. In other words, I directed them to sources hoping that they would correct their use of sweeping generalizations on their own.
This is also an avoidable controversy. I'm begging other users to avoid opening up a can of worms by rehashing these controversies and debates solely as a reaction to a simple, straightforward intro sentence. Concrete overviews of the death tools resulting from collectivization and the Great Purges are given later in the article and in other pages on Soviet history linked to this article. 172 11:12, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I think we've got a bit sidetracked from the narrow question of what the intro paragraph should say. I think it needs to note four things as a precis of the overall article, namely: (1) Stalin transformed Russia into an industrialised state, (2) the USSR won WW2 under his leadership, (3) millions died as a result of his policies and (4) he is generally regarded as a very unpleasant dictator. The first three of these things are indisputable and the fourth is an accurate representation of the general modern view of Stalin.
I agree that the intro paragraph needs to be NPOV, but I also agree with Godlesscapitalist that your preferred version of it is unsatisfactory. It comes across as saying that "these bad things happened but lots of other good things happened which effectively justified it". The impression is reinforced by the fact that it disposes of all of the "bad things" - which is what people mostly remember about Stalin - in only five words. You say that your version is more "concise" and "succinct" but where is the value in deleting a one-sentence summary on the aspects of Stalin's rule for which he is most remembered? -- ChrisO 13:06, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
This is not "my version." It was written by someone else a while ago; I just keep restoring it since other versions have been emotive and/or wordy. The short version already accomplishes all four of your objectives (which are very well put and appropriate) without excessive verbiage. The issues of the purges, collectivization, and his legacy are dealt with later in the article; "mass purges and repression" says it all. BTW, I appreciate your constructive presence here. You obviously are interested in a quality article. Godlesscapitalist, however, solely appears interested in a flame war and controversy. Your additions on the deportations are mostly fine, but more linking them to Stalin's consolidation of power, administrative problems, and the implementation of the Five Year Plans would be helpful. 172 15:00, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Shock brigade

"In an attempt to overcome this resistance Stalin's regime used shock brigades to coerce reluctant peasants..."

The above sentence demonstrates the confusion in the usage of the term "shock brigade". In the context of Soviet Union the term "shock brigade" is used to translate the expression of Russian "udarnaja brigada". A correct meaning of the term would be something like "team of energetic, intensive labor".

It had nothing to do with coercion, or military conotation of the word "brigade".

It is known that often collectivisation was perfomed forcibly, under threats, but I suggest not to use the buzzword "shock brigade" in this context, to avoid confusion with the workers' "shock brigade". Or may be there is another term for translation of "udarnaja brigada", "udarnik"?

At the same time, during collectivisation there were indeed special brigades for coersion of peasants. They were called "twenty-five-thounders", after Stalin's call to send 25,000 of industrial worker bolsheviks to "help" collectivisation.

Mikkalai 15:55, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

    • Just a note: udarnaja brigada translated word-for-word is hitting brigade or attacking brigade (by the meaning of the word). Ilyanep 01:20, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Intro

I hope that no one I alarmed with my reversion of a good number of edits, as I open to discussing this. Anyway, the use of the bullets in an intro is an unorthodox way - to say the least - of introducing an encyclopedic entry on a historical figure. In its place, I restored the straightforward, conventional intro, which broadly introduces everything denoted in the bullets. The main body of the text clearly addresses all the points and hotly debated causality estimates. Although this article is going to attract a lot of passion and anger, we still need to stay focused on keeping this an orthodox encyclopedic entry. 172 14:46, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

IK I give up bullets. You hate Microsoft, aren't you :-)? Nevertheless your reversal killed two my proposals.
  • First, Stalin's dominance over the Eastern Europe is of importance and consequences for the whole world is not less than industrialization of Russia and hence deserves a word in the preamble.
  • Second, a succinct list of what made a man memorable must be somewhere. It must be handy. A reader must not do an additional research to fish this out of wordy and sometimes controversial articles.

What is your say on this? Mikkalai 19:51, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It's all really hard to say. We're dealing with perhaps the most influential figure of the 20th century, so an attempt to weigh the significance of all the points that could go in the summary would be an extremely difficult process. Furthermore, it might open up a lot of controversy, given that we're already dealing with the most provocative article of all. I doubt that any summary could satisfy all interested users. Perhaps other users would be more enthusiastic about this idea. However, more attention and conflict than with which I'd personally be unable to deal. 172 20:12, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
What about removing this phrase altogether, since it may leave an impression that it covers all? Also, I don't see a problem of collecting the list I said as a conclusion of the article, provided it will be (a) list of facts, not opinions, (b) facts of general nature, rather than kind of "Stalin killed Bukharin" (c) laconically and unemotionally worded. I don't see a problem of relative importance of the items in the list. I've already seen such lists for in Wikipedia (Khrushchev, Tito, Churchill...). Mikkalai 21:00, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Georgian name for Joseph Stalin

If anyone knows the Georgian name for Joseph Stalin in the Georgian alphabet, please add it to the article after "original name Ioseb Dzhugashvili (Georgian: add it here) - Texture 23:00, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC) -- edited by Cantus

This article is full of non NPOV, I don't even know where to begin. For one thing, anything done in the USSR is personalized to Stalin as if no one else in the Soviet government existed.

Then there is the POV. Here's an example:

"Following World War II Stalin's regime installed friendly Communist-led satellite governments in the countries that the Soviet army had occupied, including Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, the later 'Communist Bloc' allied from 1955 in the Warsaw Pact. Stalin saw this as a necessary step to protect the Soviet Union, and ensure that it was surrounded by countries with friendly 'puppet' governments, to act as a "buffer" against any future invaders, a reversal of inter-war western hopes for a sympathetic Eastern European cordon sanitaire against Communism."

OK let's see, the USSR becomes "Stalin's regime". The governments of eastern Europe are "installed friendly communist-led satellite governments in the countries that the Soviet army had occupied, including... Hungary". If this is what to call them, how come France, West Germany and Italy are not called "installed friendly capitalist-led satellite governments in the countries that the US army had occupied"? The POV language used is ridiculous. Why call these governments "installed" and the French, Italian and West German governments not installed? Why are the Eastern countries satellites and not the Western countries? From this paragraph, you'd never know that Hungary had had a communist revolution in 1919 without the help of any "occupying army". You'd also never know that in Western Europe, the communist party was France's largest political party in the years following WWII; that the communists in Italy were so popular (like Hungary, starting in the 1919 of il biennio rosso, communists seized power for a short time, in this case syndicalist control of many factories) that the US had to dismantle the government they set up after invading, throw elections in the years following WWII, and as late as 1976 the communists were getting over one third of the vote, less than 5% behind the center-right Christian Democrats; in West Germany, of course, the communist party was totally banned (unlike East Germany which allowed Christian Democratic political parties to run alongside the Communist party). You get quite a distorted picture of what's going on from the type of stuff written here.

Here's another one:

"His successors were not, on the other hand, able to wean themselves from the basic principles on which Stalin based his rule -- the political monopoly of the Communist Party presiding over a command economy, relying on force to maintain its position at home and abroad."

Let's just imagine changing this the USA entry "the political monopoly of the wealthy presiding over a command economy, relying on force to maintain its position at home and abroad." I mean the US spends more on it's army than the #2-#11 top military spenders combined. Or if you combine what the rest of the world spends, from the 12th top spender all the way on down. The US invaded Iraq, and yesterday it invaded Haiti. As far as using force at home, the US incarcerates a larger percentage of it's population than any other country on earth. One just has to take a look at police spending, prison spending, national guard spending and military spending. Who is being accused of relying on force to maintain its position at home and abroad? This article is a POV joke. -- Richardchilton 17:05, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

While you are generally right, sometimes you are off-mark.
  • Replacement of "Stalin's Regime" by USSR. Seemingly unPOV, you've lost the historical precision. It is customary to call historical periods by the name of the ruler in order to be precise. If you don't like regime, use a neutral word era. That's what it exactly was: Stalin's era in the history of the USSR. Not to say that the article is about STALIN, about his role in the history of the USSR, and not to say that major desicions were Stalin's not USSR's.
  • About Hungary and Italy, you have all rights to write all that it their histories. Europe is discussed here from the perspective of Stalin's interests.
  • In your quest you've lost some facts.
  • I bet in next 6 hours someone will revert you :-(, so that my coming minor edits will be lost, but I'll try anyway. Mikkalai 18:02, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The following piece is cut as irrevant to the main topic.

The Soviets bore the brunt of civilian and military losses in World War II. Between 21 and 28 million Soviets, most of them civilians, died in the "Great Patriotic War", as the Soviets called the German-Soviet conflict. Civilians were rounded up and burned or shot in many cities occupied by the Nazis. The Nazis considered Slavs to be "sub-human", ranking the killings in the eyes of many as ethnically targeted mass murder, or genocide. The conflict left a huge deficit of men of the wartime fighting-age generation in Russia. As a result, to this day, World War II is remembered very vividly in Russia, and May 9, Victory Day, is one of its biggest national holidays.

In must be incorporated into a history article instead. Mikkalai 18:22, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I disagree, Mikkalai. The article needs to address this. There is too often a tendency to lay the blame for massive Soviet losses at Stalin's doorstep, rather than emphasizing that the Germans were fighting the war as a war of extermination. It puts in context the most important event of Stalin's rule. Everyking 20:29, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Then it must be presented in the form you've just laid out here. You are right, but I didn't get this from the way it stood. Mikkalai 20:38, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Dear 194.117.201.100, While I share your point of view, nevertheless an Encyclopedia is not the place for emotional language. Please get yourself acquainted with the basic rules of cooperation in wikipedia, starting from the Community Portal. Mikkalai 17:52, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hey Mikkalai,
yes. But the opening paragraph is just too positive about that guy. So unless you come up with something better I prefer my version. 194.117.201.100, 21:55, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Note also that "purges" is just a nice way to say "deportation" and that Stalin really didnt care about millions of people to die from this agricultural reforms. Even if accepted by most landless peasants. He even killed his own wife. So I think opening the article with just his "sucesses" doesn't work out. 194.117.201.100, 21:59, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Obviously, you didn't take my advice. It is advised that before making any changes in an article that existed for quite a while, it is reasonable to assume that there is kind of consensus reached, kind of tradeoff. Especially painful talks are related to the introductory statements. Therefore changes near the top are better discussed at this talk page first. Let me do this for you, for starters, see below. Mikkalai 21:38, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)


Introductory phrase

The following change is suggested in the introductory sentence, because I think the opening paragraph sounds too positive for a person widely known of his atrocities.

Under his absolute leadership, mass purges and repression occurred, but the country was transformed from a peasant society to an industrialized union and was victorious in World War II. Between 1937 and 1939 due the "great terror period" he liquidated about 1,5 million people, including his wife.

What will be the opinion? 194.117.201.100

No, because nobody can agree on a figure, and accusing him of killing his wife is pure speculation. Everyking 21:46, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
First, I would like to apologize for rollbacks. Histories of many articles are full of edits that amount to random insertions of random thoughts by random people who never come back.
(1) "Purge" is not "deportation". May be in German language "purge" is a nice word, but I suggest you to look into Great Purge and Gulag articles.
(2) Stalin's atrocities are described (or may be described) in great detail in special articles and sections. You don't need to repeat details in the intro, even if these "details" are millions, especially if you don't know and cannot know actual numbers (discussed in the article).
(3) Killing of his wife is rumor.
Mikkalai 21:55, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Well the german and the french version of wikipedia have that inside so it must be diffrent history for them :)
Seriously its not just pure speculation but approved by highly reputated historians. See http://www.gendercide.org/case_stalin.html and http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/bios/conquest.html about the author of that article. Check the "How many died?" section especially.

So again, the opening is way too shiny. Compare it with the one of Hitler or other maniacs :) I want at least his death toll to be mentioned, m'kay? my name is Thomas by the way, maybe I should get a login, and sorry for being rude in doing a revert earlier 194.117.201.100, 22:56, 2 Mar, 2004 (UTC)

Purge really is good enough. What would bug me is the "but" there. It sounds like justificating the purges but thats just my 2 cents :-) How about just removing the "but" and everyone is happy? Engerim -- 23:22 UTC, Mar 02/2004
Please don't forget that at all times in all countries ordinary people were "expendable" for rulers. The difference only in the degree. Stalin is certainly tops them all. But he did this not because he was Jack the Ripper, for fun of killing. Directly executed were only immediately dangerous political opponents (sometimes "officially" by fire squad, sometimes via the euphemism 10 years of camps without rights for correspondence, which everyone knew was the same). The mentioned millions died for the three main reasons: famines, WWII, labor camps. A significant toll may be also attributed to forcible population transfers. With the exception of famines, all above served Stalin's goals, those after the "but". Of course, I know the say about means and goals, and for some time I was agains this "but", but historically, that's what happened: Russian people were expendable tools, nuts, bolts, cannon meat, horses, etc., for building the USSR in the way he could. This by no means justifies him, and the tally must be kept, but history is indifferent to how many slaves were killed in Great Rome, or how many serfs died during the construction of St.Petersburg, or how many native Americans were exterminated. We (at least some of us) pray for all these people. Russia's history is full of cruel tsars. Stalin was nothin new; he simply had more possibilities at hand and people had less possibilities to run away. Mikkalai 23:13, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Yes, unfortunately even today :( I would be happy with just the but removed like Engerim proposed. Can we do that? It makes a better general conclusion imho. 194.117.201.100, 00:31, 3 Mar, 2004 (UTC)
How about changing the "but" to "while" then. It sounds more historian like ;-) -- Engerim, 00:37, 3 Mar, 2004 (UTC)
"Whilst" sounds very clumsy to me. Everyking 00:54, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The whole intro sentence is bogus. For example it shouldn't be "country" but "soviet union" there, as some parts of the soviet union were much more self govern than some people would think. I propose to remove the entire paragraph since the article is so blown up already. 194.158.115.5 10:32, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Russification

The following guesswork removed from the article.

, although an ambition to ethnically cleanse regions in a process known as "Russificiation" may have also been a factor.
  • First, If one looks at all resettled nations (listed in Population transfer) and the histories of the respective territories, with the exception of Latvia, there was no significant compensating movement of Russian population.
  • Second, there is a confusion in terms. "Russification" primarily means suppression of national cultures in favor of "Great Russian" one, regardless where was this population, at home in Polesie swamps or resettled into Central Asia.
  • Third, the share of Russians in Gulag was "fair", to put it mildly, so one may very well speak about "derussification" of Russia.

Mikkalai 23:42, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Undid Robert

Robert turned out to be an attention-getting troll using anonymous proxies and mixed user accounts to try to incite fights, so after others had noticed that and blocked his proxy I undid what he'd done and merged in anything since he started which seemed to fit, reviewing every edit since he started. Mikkalai, I don't think I missed anything you did, please take care of anything I did miss. See here for details of what got Richard blocked by the IP he was using to hide, though the log Tim posted doesn't show the later developments in IRC. Jamesday 02:59, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

PMelvilleAustin

Your intentions are good and some your edits are valid, but many of them show that you are not familiar with history in sufficient detail. I am going to revert many of your changes, with explanations. I hope you will act similarly in the future, especially editing long and old articles. Mikkalai 03:17, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Comparing current and 03:31, 3 Mar 2004 revisions
  • Under his leadership, mass purges and repression occurred, but the country was transformed from a peasant society to an industrialized state with a command economy which was victorious in World War II.
    • A sentence of this construction gives three false impressions. First, command economy was Stalin's invention, while it is the core of Lenin's interpretation of Socialism. Second, the subordination introduced by the word "which" (formally, correctly) makes the sentence consist of two equally important items, rather than of three. Third, the "which" implicitely implies that command economy is crucial for victory.
  • Stalin's government financed industrialisation... etc.: Again, Stalin didn't start it. (The article is about Stalin, isnt' it?) So USSR was a correct usage.
  • Stalin's regime moved to force : Two encyclopedic flaws: "Regime" is a loaded word. Initially there was no force. It was introduced when the temp of collectivization turned out to be insufficient.
  • Stalin's government placed heavy emphasis on the provision of basic medical services : again, it is neither Stalin's original initiative, nor his "area of interest". Of course personality cult propaganda attributed everything to Stalin, including progress in Soviet linguistics.
  • Stalin is said to have personally signed 40,000 death warrants of suspected opponents of the regime.
    • What is the intent of this sentence to say besides what is already said?
      • First, The issue is not that he personally signed something. The issue was the whole system of repression.
      • Second. Imagine the picture. "Night. Kremlin is dark. Only one window is lighted. It is Stalin. He works around the clock. He thinks hard how to make your life better." Now replace the last sentence by "He signs these bloody death warrants all night long." (how else did he manage to do this humber?) Do you see the similarity? OF course Stalin personally responsible for millions of deaths, but NOT because he "personally" signed the warrants. Besides, who counted them into such a nice number?
  • , although an ambition to ethnically cleanse regions in a process known as "Russificiation" may have also been a factor.
    • Confusioon and guesswork. See the earlier comment of this phrase in this talk page.
  • , Stalin and his colleagues bad word choice.
  • In response on November 6, 1941, Stalin addressed the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule (the first time was earlier that year on July 2). He claimed that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers (a gross over-estimation) and that Soviet victory was near.
    • Dubious statement. What is the source? Besides, what is the reason for inclusion? That Stalin lied? Nasty boy, this Soso, indeed.
  • His immediate successors, though, continued to follow the basic principles on which Stalin based his rule -- the political monopoly of the Communist Party presiding over a command economy. : For the last time again: these are NOT Stalin's inventions, and the article is about Stalin.

Mikkalai 17:52, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Almost forgot: the above critique doesn't mean that I like the prevous version. IMO it is also lousy, and I perfectly understand your intentions. But the point is, unfortunately, it didn't become any better. Try again. But this time on this page. Mikkalai 18:02, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I got the feeling that a couple of Russian contributors supportive of Stalin are trying to force their opinions into the article. While Hitler is described as "dictator" and responsible for the deaths of million of people, they revert every attempt to change the title of Stalin from "leader" to "dictator", although there is no doubt that Stalin was the most brutal dictator ever in history, even worse than Hitler. And what is wrong with showing some respect for the 20 million people he killed by mentioning them, or are 20 million people not important enough for the introduction? Then why is the people Hitler killed mentioned? What was the primary thing Stalin did in his life? It was exactly being the worst mass murder (and war criminal) ever. Ertz 06:21, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I noticed that there's seems to be a general bias (not blatant, but there) in the articles on Cold War political leaders here. You look up US-friendly leaders like Pinochet, Castillo Armas, Diem, and you find words like corrupt, authoritarian, dictatorship easy (not that these terms aren't justified...) These words still have some presence in articles about Marxist leaders, but it just seems less pronounced, and sometimes followed by a "but X country has a great healthcare system and economy." Generally speaking here.

  • "He transformed the Soviet Union from a peasant society to an industrialized state that was victorious in World War II. "
    • And what is this supposed to mean? Being the worst war criminal in history is surely nothing to be proud of. The atrocities of Stalin's hordes, massacres and rapes of million of people, eventually ethnic cleansing of the whole of East Germany and occupation and brutal repression of most of Eastern Europe is a crime which the Russians will have to be ashamed of for generations. -- Ertz 06:37, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
      • "What supposed to mean?" : Exactly what was said: he built, he won. Are you claiming he didn't?
      • The emotional and biased languge is not the place for encyclopedia. You have all rights to describe crimes in terms of facts. This will speak much better that cliches like "dictator", etc. Mikkalai 08:05, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
      • Dictator is the term used at Wikipedia. As long as it is used in the Hitler article, it should be used here. And as long as all those favourable things Hitler did (Autobahn, full employment, social care, Volkswagen etc.) it not listed in defense of him, there should not be such a clear defense of Stalin here either. Ertz 08:25, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
        • Encyclopedia is not Nuremberg process. The facts are presented here not to "defende" or "condemn". If you think that some facts are missing from Hitler or Stalin article, please feel free to add them. The idea of "neutal point of view" in encyclopedia is to present facts, not to judge them. Mikkalai 16:08, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
        • I also suggest to remove "dictator" from Hitler's article. The word is not an official position today, it is an informal term, see article dictator. Therefore it should't be used in the introduction. It may be used later in the context of a sentence like "due to his unlimited power... he was considered dictator.etc..." Mikkalai 16:15, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
        • I agree with Mikkalai. Dictator is totally inappropriate for the leader of Russia no matter how tyrannical a leader he was. That can be discussed separately, but it must be discussed. Not thrown into a factual statement. - Texture 15:25, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Ertz:
Welcome to Wikipedia. As a new user, you are already taking strong stands on a controversial subject that often makes hardened longtime contributors uneasy about even touching. Your boldness is evident. It is a sign that you will likely emerge as a valuable and influential user quite rapidly. However, I think that you might benefit from some advice before becoming embroiled in a contentious dispute that you hadn't anticipated.
As a mostly passive observer for more than a year (I haven't contributed much content to this article since 12/02), I've noticed that the same disputes crop up over and over again. Almost every week there seems to be a different user who comes along and gets very upset about the intro sentence(s). Mikkalai and I have already addressed repeatedly the very same concerns that you're bringing up. So please, I beg you to refer to past debates on this issue of the introduction so that we don't have to rehash this argument once again. We understand that this subject induces intense passions and emotions. But we have to keep the article encyclopedic and pay attention to NPOV polices. So let's keep the intro succinct, non-emotive, and matter-of-fact. Let's refrain from making moral judgments in the article. Let the details presented later in the article speak for themselves. And believe me, if you go on to read the rest of the article, they do. 172 12:18, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am planning perestroika here

  • In many places the article looks like a piece of the history of the USSR. I am going to *slowly* move some pieces, not directly related to Stalin's persona, elsewhere, replacing them by summaries.
  • A huge section, directly related to the main topic of the area is underrepresented, namely Stalin's personality, including personality cult.(Here, all vigilantes will have their chance to use the words, such as "tyrant", "dictator", etc., at will.)

I am not going to do any rewriting yet, only moving the information around. Mikkalai 22:30, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

From the Hitler introduction:

  • "He was one of the principal instigators of the Holocaust and World War II"
  • "caused the deaths of millions and the displacement of millions more."

As Stalin killed and deported a lot more people than Hitler, it is biased not to include this in the Stalin introduction. I prososed to keep all such things out of the intro, but you insisted on keeping "He transformed the Soviet Union from a peasant society to an instustrialized state that was victorious in WWII". Thus, I do not understand why you object to mention that he killed million of people, as in the Hitler article.

Furthermore, I also think the last words are quite offensive. Stalin occupied most of Eastern Europe. And "Under his leadership, mass purges and repression occured" seems to be an attempt to minimize the horrors of his regime. "Characterized by" would do it better. Ertz 07:38, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

  • My primary objecion is to make changes in the most visible place of article without discussion. Clearly, it is difficult to put into two-three sentences what Stalin did. You are not the first one to jump for corrections. For some resons not one occasional Stalin-hater during last 3-4 months of my participation took pains to think the text over, word by word. I don'r like the text. You don't like it. Let's rewrite it *here*, without chaotic and often illiterate edits in the article.
  • Why the last revert: Hitler did't kill million by himself, i.e., poor phrasing. I am too tired with mechanical work over actual Stalin's killings right now, I (or someone else) will talk later. And I suggest you don't compare Stalin and Hitler's articles. Let them live their own lifes. For example, I think Napoleon was quite a butcher as well, but French take him for a hero, none of my business. Mikkalai 08:08, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Mikkalai 08:08, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Suvorov's theory is extremely controversial and speculative, if we mention it we should at least describe it as such. --Liss 23:48, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"Controversial": yes. "Speculative": every historical theory is speculative to a degree. People in the USA can be sent to an electric chair basing on indirect evidence. Suvorov presents quite a few facts and draws certain conclusions. These facts definitely contradict earlier theories of "some historians". So let's call the latter ones speculative as well. Or do not use the word at all.
I strongly suspect that many are familiar with his books in hearsay, so I am going to type a couple of "spoilers". Mikkalai 00:51, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

User:207.81.89.222 replaced the entire article with an essay "Totalitarian Paradigm of Stalinist Society." Of course, I reverted it right away. However, this user seems to be trying to make a point, so I won't write him off as a vandal right away. Instead, I'll place his text on the talk page, where he/she should've placed it in the first place. Here's an archive for it: Talk:Joseph Stalin/ User:207.81.89.222's 23:18, 3 Apr 2004 version of the article. 172 23:29, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

  • Would you like to arhive a couple more essays and monographs here as well? It was not a point, it was the surface of a whole desktop. Mikkalai 03:24, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  • As for person's intentions, I'd suggest to alway check the suspect's other contribution. In particular, this guy IMO was just having fun. Mikkalai 03:30, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  • I've read the first few chapters of the full essay [2]. It's not well sourced - for example, there is a discussion of Lysenko which fails to cite by far the most important non-Soviet commentator on the whole affair: Loren Graham. Graham's conclusions aren't all that different either, so it's not merely ideology at stake. (Graham says that Lysenkoism is bunk, but that the real issue was a political one within Soviet science, not a matter of "Marxist science" in any sense.) So far the only element that might prove useful to a discussion of Stalin is the prospect - admittedly worthy of some consideration - that just because he was a paranoid old coot doesn't mean that they weren't out to get him. He might not have been wrong to be terrified of Nazi and anti-communist infiltration since - according to the author - there is documented evidence that that was going on. It doesn't strike me as a terribly worthy claim, nor does the author adequately document his case, but that's the rationale in the essay - that seen from Stalin's point of view, instead of from an extenal preconception of what was going on, he was cruel but not wholly without cause. Diderot 00:34, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

I removed:

Looking back it can be said that the vast common effort against the aggressor Hitler united the Soviet Union and provided much needed legitimacy to Stalin's rule.

There is something true in this phrase, but as it is, the first half is Soviet propaganda (only partially true), the second half is good only for an american student essay. There was no need to prove Stalin's legitimacy within the Soviet Union, and from the outside: were there any questions and doubts but Trotskist efforts? Mikkalai 20:44, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I hope no one gets upset about my changes to the intro. Don't worry. I'm open to discussion, understanding how often even minor changes to the intro get people really worked up. 172 02:39, 8 May 2004 (UTC)


Recent changes by anon 131.247.157.166

The recent changes aren't that bad but don't add to the article and actually take away phrases that add to this article. Please discuss your changes here in talk. - Tεxτurε 15:57, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Reverting a large amount of correct edits is impolite, to put it mildly. Mikkalai 17:10, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
Enlighten me. Two phrases were deleted and one added. The reverted change was more a delete of existing text than added text so I don't see restoring it as impolite as the deletion of the original text, but I accept that you may think it is. Tell me why these phrases were removed:
mass purges and repression resulted in the death of millions of Soviet citizens. Victory in World War II (1945) and subsequent control over much of post-war Eastern Europe
-Tεxτurε 17:19, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
(Enlighen me:) With pleasure. Please look once more at what you have done. Besides restoring the intro you killed lots of minor typo fixes. It is not so often that someone reads carefully thru an article. Usually it is someone new, who was not bored of reading it over and over again. Obvously, the guy sweated a bit, and we have to respect this effort. Mikkalai 06:34, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Intro revisited

Guys, don't you think the intro gradually turns into an intro of the Soviet Union article. The article is about a person, hence the intro must be stated in terms of his personal achievements. The last sentence about the East Europe sucks most. Mikkalai 06:34, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Good point, Mikkalai. I reverted to the last edits by VeryVerily. You might want to keep on eye on the intro right now. People love stopping by this article just to make POV additions to the intro, it seems. 172 06:47, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
I agree, it is kinda heavy. And still is. I just like the word "propelled". --Humus sapiens|Talk 06:51, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

American vs. British English spellings

I noticed an interesting edit by anon changing the British English "industrialisation" to the American English spelling "industrialization." My impression was that more often than not, British English spellings were used over American English spellings in this article, but that the article wasn't sticking to either dialect exclusively. This is a problem, as we should stay consistent in each article, either using American English exclusively or British English exclusively. Since my impression was that the article leaned toward the latter, I changed the spellings of "labor," "collectivization," "industrialization," etc. to the British English spellings. I'm sure that I missed some, so I'll appreciate some help ensuring that the prose stays consistent throughout the article. 172 08:32, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

"Industrialization," "collectivization", etc. are compatable with British English. The 's' spelling is just established ignorance. Cambridge University Press has always retained the 'z' spelling and OED says the 'z' spelling isn't wrong. So only deal with the 'or' spellings...
Also note that in addition to Britain and America, there are many other English-speaking countries. Let's use Canadian English. --Jiang 03:13, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Antisemitic campaign of 1948-1953

Rootless cosmopolitan contains a link to a Russian transliteration and a quote from an article that appeared in Pravda on January 28, 1949, entitled About one antipatriotic group of theater critics. You've got to be fluent in Stalin-period Sovietese. --Humus sapiens|Talk 03:17, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

Census results

Current text: The census of 1926 shows the population of Soviet Union of 147 million while the census of 1939 shows the population of 162 million. Can someone provide a reputable source for it? Here's the text I am proposing based on Koba the Dread by Martin Amis, 2002:

The 1926 population of Soviet Union according to the census of that year was 147 million. The result of 1937 census was 163 million, in conflict with Stalin's announcement that he expects the number to be 170 million. By his orders, the result was concealed, the census commission was purged for being a "nest of spies and saboteurs" and another census was carried out in 1939. The new number was 167 million, rounded up by Stalin to 170 million. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 09:28, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Deleting reference to Suvorov

I don't want to make an edit war over Viktor Suvorov, but I really don't believe he has a place in an article about Stalin. As far as I can tell, all professional historians discount his theory. The theory only seems to have a following amongst those interested in the propoganda possibilities. Looking around on Google, I couldn't find a single counter-example. Furthermore, when Gabriel Gorodetsky raised academic refutation that thoroughly discredited Icebreaker, Suvorov by calling him "the enemy of the Russian people" and saying "The honor of our Motherland is at stake... Gorodetsky's wild fabrications were fully supported by Russia's ideological machine. And Gorodetsky, throwing aside all restraint, continues to speak about our cowardice, cowardice, cowardice and about our gross unpreparedness." [3] Such rhetoric makes it appear to me that Suvorov is more a nationalistic pseudo-historian, and his unsupported speculations shouldn't be a part of the article. (However, I haven't read the book, which is out-of-print in English, and which Amazon lists as selling for $250+).

Furthermore, while he gets publicity, I wouldn't at all call him a "publicist."

Will somebody please either modify/remove Suvorov from the entry, or put forward an argument why I shouldn't? If I was talking about the history of France, I wouldn't use points taken from Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

Some comments

all professional historians discount his theory.

This is not an argument or non-mentioning it, not to say that "all" is too bold a statement. They may discount it, but so far they cannot disprove it either. As of today "Icebreaker" had been foolowed by several other Suvorov's books. True, they contain a number of historical blunders, but they are also more documented than the first one and raise quite a few questions.

Such rhetoric makes it appear to me that Suvorov is more a nationalistic pseudo-historian, and his unsupported speculations shouldn't be a part of the article.

The quote of "such rhetoric" is taken out of context. Of course, his books are far from being dry academic discourse (to put it mildly), but they are not "unsupported" either.

Furthermore, while he gets publicity, I wouldn't at all call him a "publicist."

Agreed; in a sense that he is not a profesional publicist, but with these books he did act as such.

If I was talking about the history of France, I wouldn't use points taken from Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

Suvorov's POV is mentioned only briefly; it is not stated as a fact; it is stated in a NPOV manner; and no points are taken from it.

Concluding, that Stalin was ready to be an aggressor, Winter War shows it most definitely. Therefore Suvorov's "hypothesis" is worth mentioning. But let us not discuss its merits here: Talk:Viktor Suvorov and Talk:Icebreaker (book) are at your service. Mikkalai 23:29, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

P.S. Please sign you comments in talk pages. Typing four tildas (~~~~) will do it neatly. Mikkalai 23:33, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In Response

My point isn't that there's no possibility that he's speaking the truth. Rather, it's that the Stalin article shouldn't bother to include a conspiracy theory that apparently no professional Historian takes seriously (counter-examples are welcome), and comes across as propoganda serving as history. If there was a sub-section, "modern conspiracy theories about Stalin," Suvorov might deserve a place (or might not). Or, if the section on Stalin & WWII was extremely lengthy, perhaps minor tangents could be indulged. But with a mere four paragraphs about Stalin and WWII, why bother mentioning such minutia?

In an earlier edit, you removed references to Suvorov as an "amateur historian" and "largely discredited", when both statements are true. I wonder if you're a fan of Suvorov, and want to give him more of a place than he deserves.

Thanks for the information about signing Discussion Pages: Jeff Rutsch 10:38, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • I like your idea about a subsection, however titled not "conspiracies", but rather kind of "Research about Stalin", with brief summaries of author's positions. Amateur or not, deserving or undeserving, discredited or supported, Suvorov's books are highly visible and argued about. It is not like he is some random kook.
  • Next point: the main idea of wikipedia is that of "natural" growth. If a text about a subject exceeds a reasonable threshold, it is subsectioned or separated into an article, or in a series of articles. The other idea is that information is better be crosslinked. I'd really like to find in the article about Stalin summaries of opinions of Dmitri Volkogonov, Alan Bullock, et al or references to them.
  • Next: "amateur historian" is a useless, imprecise and loaded description. Suvorov is sometimes defined as "publicist", which is IMO more precise. For example, every journalist digs into history to some extent, but we don't call them amateur historians, are we? (Not to say that since he earned some bucks for his books, he is a professional :-)
  • "largely discredited" is an opinion. While I agree that many Suvorov's statements are biased away from truth, his writings stirred reconsideration of some issues, digging further into archives, and clarification of some opinions. Mikkalai 17:10, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"The Death of Millions is just a statistic" quote

The only time I ever heard this quote was from the fictional Stalin figure at the beginning of the PC computer game 'Red Alert'. Is this a real quote? One Salient Oversight 05:51, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, it's a real commonly attributed quote. Probably he never actually said it, but it's famous enough that maybe it deserves a mention in the article anyway. Everyking 10:13, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I sort of agree, although "Let them eat cake" is considered a Famous non-quotation in regards to Marie Antoinette. If there is no problem, I will make a little addition to the quote to ensure that people understand that it is a famous non-quotation. One Salient Oversight 23:29, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This quote has been the subject of discussion and debate at the Famous non-quotation article. Please go to that disussion page to find out why I have modified this part of the article. One Salient Oversight 23:12, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Copy Edit First Couple Sections?

I just finished reading this article and it seems to me the first couple sections are in need of some wordsmithing. At least for me they were difficult to read and confusing. The style does not seem to match the rest of the article either. One thing that sticks out in my mind is the Childhood section suddenly starts to calling Stalin SoSo. I guess this was a childhood nick name? Its not introduced and confused the heck out of me. MaxPower 13:40, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, childhood nickname. As to wordsmithing, please have at it, it can always be wordsmithed again if additional improvement is called for. Fred Bauder 15:38, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Badly slanted

This article reeks of POV and contains many errors of fact, such as Western distortions about millions upon millions of deaths. I shall have to clean it up when I find time. Shorne 07:52, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Shorne, I don't think people will long tolerate an intro that doesn't mention the millions of deaths in some form. Edit wars have been fought over intro revisions that weren't as radical as that. Everyking 13:28, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Where are the millions of deaths in which Churchill had a hand? Shorne 19:34, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Probably stabbed to death by the Consensus beast. Every world leader is bad - but Stalin is quantifiably worse than most. --Golbez 20:13, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)
Quantify it. Shorne 21:36, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
By the way, thank you for admitting to bias—"Consensus" instead of facts. Shorne 21:37, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
We are all biased. You are, and I am.
Quantify it... Now that's a tough one. And that's why, you might notice, I haven't reverted your change. I leave it for others to more eloquently merge into the article. But as far as which world leaders had the highest number of countrymen die during their reigns, yeah, Stalin ranks. Churchill doesn't, in that test; he could apply if you count the war he was a part of, but then you have difficulty separating him from Roosevelt, Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin himself. --Golbez 21:43, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

If you are interested in numbers, get ahold of The Black Book of Communism, ISBN 0674076087. Plenty of reliable information in the chapters on the Soviet Union to deal with Shorne's whitewashing attempts. This guy is a POV warrior who regularly violates Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not by using Wikipedia for advocacy and propaganda from his sectarian Marxist-Leninist point of view. No surprise that he is now focusing on the Stalin article after his activities have resulted in protection of many of the other articles which relate to Stalin. Fred Bauder 21:53, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

For a discussion of the tawdry propaganda job that is The Black Book of Communism, see the page The Black Book of Communism. Fred Bauder's lies about me do not deserve to be answered. Readers may judge for themselves by reviewing Talk:Communism, Talk:Collectivisation in the USSR, Talk:Great Purge, and numerous other pages. Shorne 22:01, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes, if you are interested in self-contradictory propaganda, please get a hold of that "Black Book"! Among other things, they can't even get their own number straight, since when you add up all the death tolls they cite (which are already inflated), the number of deaths falls 10 million short of what they claim it to be. Apparently, primary school mathemathics isn't exactly their strong point. But, on another note, I'd like to mention that if anyone is violating NPOV here, that is certainly Fred Bauder and a few others who will go unnamed for the time being. Shorne has consistently worked towards balancing articles, whereas his opponents have consistently demanded that the articles should present a negative or positive view of the subject in question. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 19:10, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Thank you for saying so. It's reassuring to see that someone recognises that.
There are plenty of other errors and absurdities in The Black Book of Communism, such as a decimal point that—oops!—somehow slipped out of place, magnifying a number by a factor of ten. Several people, especially Mihnea Tudoreanu and I, have explained at length (see the pages mentioned above) why The Black Book of Communism cannot be quoted as a serious source; yet Fred Bauder and a number of others, without addressing our arguments, insist on inserting this idiotic "100 million" nonsense on every page with any connexion to Marxism. Shorne 03:29, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The introductory paragraphs to an article are a brief summary of the content of the article, as the article includes Joseph_Stalin#Death_toll a brief mention of this aspect of Stalin's career is warranted, perhaps, "generally considered a mass murderer responsible for millions of deaths". Fred Bauder 11:52, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Let's look at this in a logical manner: No one disputes the fact that Stalin killed people (as it has been correctly pointed out before, many leaders killed people - and some who are usually considered "good guys", like Winston Churchill, are responsible for mass slaughters of their own, such as the utterly unnecessary firebombing of Dresden). The question is how many people Stalin killed. Therefore, I propose the following compromise: Mention the mass murder part, but don't venture any actual numbers. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 19:10, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, as I see it, "mass murder" is POV, but does anyone dispute that millions died, from combined executions and gulag conditions? Certainly more specific figures vary greatly. I'd like to see an intro that mentions a death toll in the millions, but doesn't call it murder outright. Everyking 20:31, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Mihnea Tudoreanu quite correctly points out that the article Winston Churchill gives a glowing impression and certainly does not call Churchill a murderer outright even though he is responsible for far more deaths than Stalin. Shorne 03:29, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well now that's quite rediculous. Surely a more sensible approach is to mention the different estimates of people killed and attribute them to their sources. And are you seriously comparing Winston Churchill's actions during a war (everyone does dodgy things in wartime even the "good guys" in case you hadn't realised). With the planned and deliberate extermination of hundreds of thousands potential political rivals, and the liquidation of entire classes of people by Stalin?. G-Man 19:44, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Weren't Stalin's actions taken during wartime? Churchill's spanned a period of fifty years. Was all of that war? I'm not trying to excuse what Stalin did; I'm just trying to provide some balance where it is sadly missing. Shorne 03:29, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Of course terming Stalin a mass murderer is point of view and ought to be attributed. What I object to is exclusion of that point of view. In response to G-Man, keep in mind we are talking about the introductory paragraph and need a brief sentence. As to Churchill, that issue needs to go to the Churchill article. I would back you up if you could convince me that approach is fact based. The wartime excesses aren't enough and in any event are balanced by Soviet excesses. Fred Bauder 11:57, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

You just don't get it, do you? I've tried a dozen times to tell you that NPOV is not about including points of view, but you refuse to listen. I give up. Shorne 11:38, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Cult of personality

Officially, the period of Stalin's personal rule was known as the Cult of personality period. We need to work this language in, probably in the introduction, but also elsewhere in the article in an appropriate place and briefly explain what was involved. Fred Bauder 10:52, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

"Officially" by whom? Shorne 11:28, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

By the government as expressed through official history, journalism, etc. Fred Bauder 14:38, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

Not by Stalin's government. Shorne 15:22, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Certainly by Khrushchev's and later though. But do you have any objection? Fred Bauder 21:50, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

The Kirov assassination

I note a recent edit by Ruy Lopez removes mention of the Kirov assassination. There is some doubt about the truth of the theory as explained on page 180 of The Black Book of Communism, Werth cites L'assassinat de Kirilov. Destin d'un stalinien 1888-1934 (1995) by Alla Karilina which he says casts doubt on the reliablility of the theory, but it probably ought to be mentioned. Fred Bauder 16:03, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC). At least as an event which Stalin exploited. The same reasoning would also apply the Great Purge article. Fred Bauder 16:06, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

The onus of the Great Purge is what the government did. There is evidence lacking linking Stalin to Kirov's assassination as you said. But even beyond this, it is only peripherally connected to the purge, which after all means expulsion from the CPSU, and the consequences of that. Ruy Lopez 17:40, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Stalin and purges

Four paragraphs are given on the purges, but the given reasons for them are never given, and in fact are removed when given. The US locked up its Japanese civilian population during World War II, and was under much less of a threat, I find it odd that the explanation for the motive of the purge was purged. Also, it's clear that the Politburo reigned in Yezhov and thought he was being excessive, I don't see why this has been removed either. I am re-inserting both points. Ruy Lopez 22:51, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ruy Lopez has made the following additions:

One of the motivations of the purge was the feel for needing a unified party in the face of a feared invasion by Nazi Germany.

There was a feeling by the Politburo that the CPSU needed to be unified in case the USSR was invaded by Nazi Germany, this was one of the motivations for the purge of the party.

The sentence which relates to Yezhov is unobjectionable. The other two which relate to politburo motivations for decisions made in 1937 are troublesome due to the time. First, no minutes are available (politburo minutes remain sealed) and while reasonable in the light of subsequent events I am aware of no evidence which is contemporary with the purge campaigns. I may have removed these myself, I don't remember, but I think what is lacking is any analysis which is not ex-post facto. Keep in mind that they made a treaty with the Nazi and actually dismantled the military fortifications on the western frontier in reliance on it. Fred Bauder 23:12, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Shorne insists on this in the purges section:

One of the motivations of the purge was the feel for needing a unified party in the face of a feared invasion by Nazi Germany. There was a feeling by the Politburo that the CPSU needed to be unified in case the USSR was invaded by Nazi Germany, this was one of the motivations for the purge of the party.

First of all, the two sentences are obviously redundant. Aside from that, there's the problem that many people don't believe this was a real motivation, and believe instead that it's merely a justification. And of course many people believe the purpose of the purges was simply to consolidate Stalin's power. I tried to write an inoffensive, neutral sentence including both points of view, and look where it gets me. Everyking 18:21, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, Stalin turned out to be right about the Nazi invasion, so you can hardly say that it was just a bogus excuse that he was making up. Your sentence said that some people believe that the sole motivation for the purge was to consolidate Stalin's power, which is just stupid. Consolidate his power to what end? Besides, you didn't give so much as a reference to this "belief", including reasons for dismissing Stalin's emphasis on the threat of a Nazi invasion. Far from being inoffensive or neutral, your change merely introduces a point of view where none is required. We might as well go to Arithmetic and write "Some people believe that 2 + 2 = 4. Others believe that 2 + 2 = 5." Shorne 19:23, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It seems like you are going beyond simply including your minority viewpoint, which I am all in favor of, to imposing that viewpoint on the article. Obviously you think it was a motivation, and it may have been, but we are still required to include the viewpoint of mainstream Western historians that the purges were essentially all about consolidating Stalin's personal power, no matter how wrong you think that viewpoint is. Everyking 20:32, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I said there wasn't an issue of a viewpoint: it's a question of fact. Unless you can show reasonable grounds for dismissing Stalin's own statements (which turned out to be right, please note: the USSR lost well over 20 million people and about a third of its wealth to Hitler's invasion), there can be no place for your claim in this article. A vague reference to "mainstream Western historians" doesn't cut it. Shorne 02:57, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Irresponsible reversions by Boraczek and Golbez

What exactly is the issue with the material that I and others have written? I expect an answer before either of you reverts the recent changes again. Shorne 00:08, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

First of all, the three revert rule applies to all. It can only be broken in cases of vandalism, and this is not vandalism. Second of all, you are putting something up diametrically opposed, with less information, to what was there previously. Please justify your edits, and please do not revert further. You can discuss here without having a pissing match in the article. For example, why do you feel the need to remove the fact that Soviet physicists won seven Nobels? --Golbez 00:27, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
As I have stated publicly, I will not respect the three-revert rule on articles edited by Boraczek and VeryVerily, who refuse to observe it. I shall be delighted to respect it as soon as they do. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration for more discussion.
Boraczek's reversions are indeed vandalism. He follows me around and reverts whole batches of changes if anything in them doesn't match his POV. He refuses to discuss anything. I shall not hesitate to revert his vandalism.
The material that I deleted was POV propaganda, like much of the rest of the article. It was not "information". I inserted in its place some factually correct and significant information about Soviet computer technology and aerospace technology as pioneered under Stalin, and Boraczek promptly deleted this. As for the article, more editing is coming. I have already mentioned that the section "Science" is still unacceptably one-sided. Shorne 02:46, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Your accusations are ridiculous, Shorne. It's you who delete information that doesn't match your POV without any discussion and insert pure propaganda. This article needs accurate information about achievements of the Soviet science under Stalin and not a sketchy eulogistic phrase + some facts which happened after Stalin's death. Boraczek 07:13, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
One more thing. Shorne, could you please read and try to understand Wikipedia:Neutral point of view? You still have or pretend to have an erroneus notion of neutrality in Wikipedia, saying things like But there's no room for "views". Boraczek 07:22, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
What "sketchy eulogistic phrase"? And "after Stalin's death"? BESM-1 was released in 1953, the year of Stalin's death, and Sputnik was launched four years later. The work that made these projects possible was started under Stalin. Shorne 18:45, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Science

The section on science is completely upside-down. Science in the Soviet Union advanced by leaps and bounds, yet all mention of progress is stuck at the end of the section, almost as an afterthought.

Some of the information is contradicted right in the article. If research on computers was "outlawed", how did the Soviet Union produce a computer in 1953? Other information needs to be backed with evidence. I want to see a reference to the claim that the theory of relativity was banned.

You got confused. Sepecifically, cybernetics was banned, which is "a science of control and management". Computers were strictly branch of mathematics and hence OK. Things like positive feedback were not OK. In general, all bans are explainable if you stand on two points of view: fist, "class approach" to everything: to literature, science, etc. The quiestion stood: qui prodest? In the interset of which class? This was an external, explictely declared position. The second, clandestine one was whether a particular science can bring harm by diminishing control of state over people. For example, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People and the accompanying sociology was banned in Soviet-U, but printed in small batches for you know who. Mikkalai 05:00, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, this section does not belong in an article on Stalin at all. It needs to be moved to Soviet Union or a similar article. Will people kindly break the very US-American habit of thinking of the entire Soviet Union as a man named Stalin? Shorne 18:39, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I also doubt if this section belongs here. But I don't know where to move it. I agree that there should be more detailed information on the achievements and that the section is not too consistent. Boraczek 18:31, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Maybe a separate article: Science in the Soviet Union. Shorne 19:30, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Let's start with a very short section in the article Soviet Union, followed by a slightly longer section in History of the Soviet Union, then longer sections for each period of Soviet history. It was Stalin's anti-intellectualism which drove repression of science and it does belong here, but handled in a sophisticated way. They didn't like psychoanalysis and in the 1970's repressed sociology. A number of the people killed in the Great Terror were scientists and other intellectuals with unpopular ideas. Thoughout the history of the Soviet Union the state controlled publishing and any article or book had to pass the censor. We do need a title for a major article, maybe knowledge in the Soviet Union because the problems probably involved history much more than science. I'm just glad we don't have to write about the [[Internet in the Soviet Union]]. Some work in the area can be done in the article culture of the Soviet Union. Fred Bauder 22:27, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

Science in the Soviet Union is a good, common term, see Science. There is no reason to stick to college classificstion of subjects. History is science as well, in a sense it is an accumulation of knowledge about events in time. If you really don't like the word "science", then Research in Soviet Union. Mikkalai 04:45, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
That’s obviously load of bull, because otherwise why would so many sociologists be Stalinists? TDC 22:29, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

I have references, but remember we are talking about the Soviet Union, not the US. Sociology, by its nature looks behind social conventions. Doing that in the US exposes some very strange things... Fred Bauder 22:55, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

Thats OK, I was just kidding. TDC 23:58, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

Ummm, Fred, before launching into another sermon on mean ol' Stalin, would you please check a few facts? Stalin wasn't around in the 1970s. Much as you'd like to, you can't blame him for disco music and hot pants. Shorne 00:31, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

By the way, psychoanalysis is also discredited in the West nowadays, so it's funny to see you beating up on Stalin for the "anti-intellectualism" of rejecting such pseudoscientific nonsense. As for genetics and linguistics, I won't defend everything that was done in the Soviet Union at the time, but it must be remembered that both sciences were being used in the service of fascism and its theories of "race". Linguistics had not yet fully emerged from the ugly era of "dolicocephalic languages", "Japhetic languages", the purported superiority of "Aryan languages" and their speakers, and a great deal of other horrors reminiscent of the KKK. It need hardly be mentioned that genetics was in bed with eugenics and other racialist programmes. Just a few things to keep in mind. Shorne 01:04, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Linguistics

Stalin's effect on linguistics was almost the opposite of what the article described, so I've changed it. He actually knew something about linguistics and the ideology he opposed was actually more "Stalinist" than Stalin's own beliefs. As for cybernetics, it rose pretty fast after he died. By the 1961 party congress, there was already talk of how cybernetics was going to make the Soviet economy managable.

Diderot 09:31, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your contribution on linguistics is excellent. I only don't understand why you claim that the description of Stalin's effect was the opposite before. Boraczek 10:21, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I see your point, the last sentence did make the point that he "rejected this approach in his own linguistic works and thus ended the period of strict dogmatism in Soviet linguistics." However, the preceding part implied that he played some real part in establishing the Marrist approach in the first place, or that Stalin's rule did major damage to Soviet linguistics. The damage that it did, as in many areas of science, was one of malign neglect. Stalin didn't care about linguistics or most academic subjects, and under his rule opportunists brandishing simplistic interpretations of Marx thrived, until one day Stalin did care. After that, his effect is moderately positive.
Actually, even when Marr ruled the roost in linguistics, quite a lot of useful work was done in the USSR, especially in field linguistics. The many smaller languages of the Soviet Union were often seriously studied for the first time during the early Stalin years. The literacy campaigns in particular help produced a lot of new work in dialectology and comparative linguistics. Certainly after the publication of "Marxism and the Problems of Linguistics" there was no general climate of ideological oppression in Soviet linguistics. (Beyond the general climate of oppression in the USSR that everyone had to live with.)
Diderot 10:54, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Airplane and discoveries

I don't know about the other items, but at least the airplane's invention is disputed.

Many inventions and discoveries have happened earlier than 'conventional wisdom' indicates, by other people. The quotes in "reclaimed"' should be reconsidered as should be the naming of creators in the list.

It's quite probable that most of those are not the work of russian people, but the binding of people and inventions should be more carefully done.

By the way, the airplane was not discovered since it didn't exist previously. It was invented.

I'd make the statement read

For instance, some inventions and scientific discoveries were reclaimed by ethnic Russian researchers. Examples include the boiler engine, reclaimed by father and son Cherepanovs; the electric bulb, by Yablochkov and Lodygin; the radio, by Popov; the airplane, by Mojaisky; etc.

It is unecessary to list the creator's names, since the reader can follow the links and that information adds nothing to Stalin's bio.

Ihsuss 02:53, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I changed it.

Ihsuss 23:15, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Liquidation of kulaks as a class

Ruy Lopez, I don't know what it will take to convince you that the information that BEING a kulak subjected a person to deportation, deserves mention in the article. They didn't have to do anything. All they needed was background as a kulak and they were designated an "enemy of the people". Furthermore they didn't have to kill poor peasants to be executed, expression of contempt for communism, "antisoviet agitation", was sufficient. Perhaps Article 58 did make these activities "unlawful" but your formulation results in conflation with Western notions of crime. Fred Bauder 10:57, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Wrong. Most of the kulaks were not relocated to distant parts of the country; they were moved to new land within their own administrative districts. Shorne 13:46, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Would you care to provide supporting evidence for your statement? You seem to be making claims which contradict the commonly accepted point of view. --Gene s 14:32, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

He can't do that. "In all, 1,803,392 people were officially deported as part of the dekulakization program in 1930 and 1931.", page 153, Black Book of Communism. Fred Bauder 14:38, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Out of some 10 million kulaks. Unless my knowledge of arithmetic is as deficient as your integrity, the majority were not "deported". Shorne 15:40, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

See also page 147 and 152, Black Book of Communism: "From a practical point of view, the last stage in the journey of kulaks of the second category (those who opposed the regime but were not active counterrevolutionaries) was often indistinguishable from the deportation of kulaks of the third category (loyal to the regime), who were being relocated to to lands requiring improvement in peripheral regions--regions that in Siberia or the Urals covered hundreds of thousands of square mile."

This is wrong. Those in the third category, which was the largest, were resettled locally. They didn't even lose all their property. Those in the second category were exiled to distant places; those in the first category (a limit of 63,000 was established) were executed or imprisoned, and their relatives were exiled. Indeed, the suggestion that "those who opposed the regime" and those who were "loyal to the regime" would be put into two categories but treated in the same way is rather hard to swallow in itself. (By the way, how did that sentence spread over pages 147 and 152?) Shorne 15:40, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
...and this is false. There was no "third category" in NKVD books. There were two categories. The "third" was the rest, i.e., who wasn't noticed by NKVD. The black book lies here (if you are referring to it). And I've never heard of local resettlement, which is nonsense. Indeed, there were some voluntary resettlements, but they were in no way related to punishment. Mikkalai 16:11, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The footnote to page 147 of the Black Book where the 3 classes of kulaks are defined is to "N.A. Ivnitskii, Kollectivizatsiya i raskulachivanie (Collectivization and dekulakization)(Moscow: Izd-vo Magistr, 1996), pp. 49-69. Fred Bauder 19:07, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

You say "(a limit of 63,000 was established)". What authority is there for that? Fred Bauder 18:09, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Internet search

Googling for "Joseph Stalin" and liquidation and kulaks and class:

  • [4], 'In the collectivization, industrialization and famines of 1929-33, it is estimated that 5 to 10 million Russians died and another 10 million were sent to forced labor under Stalin's slogan of "the liquidation of the kulaks as a class."', ANATOLE SHUB Managing Editor, The New Leader, introduction to the Russian publication of Khrushchev's "Secret Speech".
  • [5], "But the campaign against the "kulaks" was the greatest and most pervasive of Stalin's terrors during this era. In scope, ferocity, and cruelty, it warrants comparison to Hitler's Holocaust. The apparatus of death was cruder than the tightly regimented German system, but the toll was just as high, and the ideological fervor bore a striking resemblance to Nazism's strident anti-Semitism. The kulak, the "enemy of the people", was treated as subhuman and demonized just as thoroughly as Germany's Jews."
  • [6], '"During the forced transport, thousands died. By March, 1930, nearly 62,000 kulak households, or an estimate quarter million people, had been eliminated from Soviet Ukraine during the period known as dekulakization."' I note the number 62,000!
  • [7], "...the vast majority of Soviet citizens truly loved Stalin, as evidenced by the millions of thankful letters they personally wrote to him and other officials...."
Fred Bauder 19:07, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

"millions of deaths"

I find this sentence, "While the Soviet Union achieved immense economic growth under his tenure, his policies resulted in millions of deaths." a simple statement of fact without bringing in whether this or that was a "crime" or "justified". I think there is good reason for it to remain as this simple statement. It doesn't accuse and it doesn't try to cover up. Fred Bauder 00:35, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

It does accuse. First of all, the very structure of the sentence puts the emphasis on "millions of deaths" and tends to minimise the "immense economic growth". Second, what people conclude from your bald statement is "Stalin's policies caused millions of deaths". There is no context with which to assess this claim, which I and others dispute. There is substantial disagreement here over
  • the numbers of deaths
  • the reasons for them
  • the ascription of blame to Stalin
Until these matters have been addressed, I cannot see how any statement of "millions of deaths" could possibly belong in the introduction.
Furthermore, the contrast between this article on Stalin and the articles about many First World politicians (Nixon, Clinton, George W. Bush, just to name three from the US) also leads to a POV: while all of these people have put forward policies that have been accused of resulting in millions of deaths, only Stalin gets singled out for this accusation here.
Quite simply, there's no place for your POV insertion, and I do wish you'd stop trying to force it in by hook or by crook. Shorne 03:28, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have to think you're kidding if you can't see the difference in the U.S. Commander-in-Chief's policies resulting in deaths during a war and Stalin systematically terrorizing all political opposition and "exploiters" (ie, kulaks.) Or you're just horribly biased (yeah, that's probably it) Trey Stone 02:58, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that there is this big elephant in the room, or rather millions of corpses. You say there is no context, but the results of Stalin's actions can be evaluated in the context of the Soviet Union during the time he dominated its government. There is no substantial dispute here or elsewhere over the following facts: millions died; most as a result of orders made by Stalin or those under his control; and that he was aware of the consequences of his orders. That supporters of Stalin's ideology dispute well established information does not constitute a substantial dispute. These matters have been considered at length and substantial references have been provided here and elsewhere. As to Nixon, Clinton and George W. Bush, while they are not saints they just didn't engage in the systemic outrages Stalin did, but feel free to go to their articles and engage those who would apologize for the harm they did. This notion of yours that somehow the article regard Stalin must be "balanced" with the article on Bill Clinton is not in any way Wikipedia policy. It is not POV to note important, well-established facts. It is POV to try to suppress them. Fred Bauder 00:23, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Where are all these millions of deaths? I'm told of a famine which only Goebbels seems to have noticed and which the correspondent for the New York Times at the time said Goebbels was lying about. Then I'm told of executions during a Great Purge - yes, people were executed during the Great Purge, but certainly not millions. Ruy Lopez 05:19, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Someone's trying too hard. Trey Stone 05:51, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps you should refresh yourself with what happened at the Kolyma labor camp where over 1.5 million died. TDC 22:17, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)

Removal of two unsupported assertions

I have removed two assertions contained in the following sentence (the language removed in italicized): "A hard-won victory in World War II (1945), made possible in part through the discipline and capacity for production that were the outcome of the collectivization, industrialization, and purges, laid the groundwork for the formation of the Warsaw Pact and established the USSR as one of the two major world powers, a position it maintained for nearly four decades following Stalin's death in 1953." I have never seen any authority which maintains that collectivization or the purges strengthened the Soviet Union. I doubt one could be found. One can find only assertions of Stalin and his later-day supporters that something worthwhile was accomplished. Fred Bauder 00:08, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)


Removal of class enemy as one of two supposed Stalin contributions to theory

It was Trotsky who said in 1919: "We must apply ruthless measures not only to our class enemy but also among ourselves, against all those who obstruct the historical path of the working class."

Lenin also used the phrase "class enemy" of course and issued orders for their execution.

If Trotsky had seen this discussion, he would wonder why someone was flying the libertarian banner on his behalf. This is not how Stalin was unique.

Stalin's portrait

"Secret Agent Man" replaced Stalin's portrait. I reverted it, he restored. Here is the discussion.

You must understand the main picture for the acticle "Joseph Stalin" is NOT real. It is a propaganda PAINTING by Soviet artists. Despite how great the picture is, it is NOT a true picture of Stalin. I merely switch the propaganda painting with a REAL photo of him. This site must have a NPOV. --Secret Agent Man 23:13, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I see your point. But the idea is to put a standard, recognizable portrait of the person at the front, even if it looks better than life. By the way, your portrait is not real either. In real life the face of Stalin was ugly, ridden with chicken pox. This is also a propaganda work, this time of photography art. So I am going to restore the "parade" protrait, but I would like to hear other opinions.

Chicken pox? Are you sure? That's a disease that goes away after a week or two. (A hellish week or two, as I remember from childhood.) Shorne 05:47, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Forgive me my English. It was smallpox Mikkalai 07:12, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

By the way, what is the copyright status of the image? Please read the Wikipedia:Image use policy and provide copyright info about the images you uploaded. Otherwise they will be deleted after some time. Mikkalai 01:31, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have provided the Source for the Image:Stalin.jpg photograph.

--Secret Agent Man 20:48, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

My two cents aren't even worth a cent, but I think a photo is generally to be preferred to a portrait. The photo is also a bit more informative, because we see Stalin with his pipe writing at his desk, as opposed to just a glorified image of his face. So I'd say ideally use the picture at the top and the portrait further down in the article. Everyking 01:55, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Actually, "his pipe" and "writing at his desk" are also elements of cliche and propaganda. Mikkalai 02:32, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well, of course that's true, but they are still characteristic things associated with him, which is why I said the picture imparts a little more info than the portrait. Everyking 02:39, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Actually, it's worth noting that the portrait is also in another of the article's pictures, being raised into the air by the old woman protester. So perhaps it's redundant anyway. Everyking 01:57, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

changes

This article is just one long anti-Stalin screed. It is just paragraph after paragraph after paragraph. I don't even know where to begin. I just started and went somewhat down changing things. This is as bad a POV nightmare as Khmer Rouge.

The death toll is disputed. I made changes regarding that. This article is written as if Stalin was the only person in the USSR and there was no Politburo, Central Committee, CPSU, RSFSR, USSR, Warsaw Pact or Comintern. Some people seem to think one man could do so much - and not just anti-communists. It seems ridiculous to me to see everything in light of Stalin and deeming the Politburo, Central Committee etc. as unimportant. It's insane actually. I guess only FDR, Hitler, Stalin and so forth determined history, and everyone else is sheep, and if they hadn't been born history would be radically different. I don't think so.

Then there's effects of collectivization, purges...all of this has been discussed endlessly, perhaps not on this page though. It's unfortunate that this article is so POV that it needs so much changing. Ruy Lopez 03:41, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I totally agree that all Soviet history must be put to where it belong: to articles related to Soviet history. This article must cover only what is immediately related to Stalin and perhaps brie summaries of major processes under Stalin's influence. At the same time you probably simply cannot imagine the immense influence and power of Stalin. Ever heard the term "dictator"? You are spoiled by democracy, so to say. Mikkalai 03:48, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I agree that Stalin had a lot of influence but I think people forget how many people supported Stalin. Many people in Russia still yearn for the days of Stalin. Stalin had the support of the Politburo, the support of the Central Committee, the support the party and ultimately support of the RSFSR and USSR.
If Stalin had a lot of influence, Lenin had even more influence in many ways. Yet Lenin had to threaten resignation in order to get support for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Even a dictatorship can only exist if enough people feel they are better off under a dictatorship than not under one. Molotov had minor disagreements with Stalin, he was a bit to Stalin's left, but he felt his only other choice was the much further left Trotsky, so he stuck with Stalin (and of course, he would not go with the further right Bukharin later). Others made similar choices. If power was consolidated in Stalin's hands, he was carrying out the will of many CPSU members slightly to the left and right of his center. Ruy Lopez 04:09, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
the problem with dictators is after a certain period they no longer need anyone's support. I hardly can remember any modern dictatorship that was tumbled by purely internal means. Mikkalai 04:25, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I totally agree with you about putting all blame on Stalin alone, but there was a really huge blame. Your attempts to diminsih it will be resisted. Mikkalai 04:27, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I haven't seen that Ruy Lopez is trying to "diminish" anything. This article is terribly, terribly biased. Like Ruy Lopez, I didn't even know where to begin when I last edited it (which was some time ago), so I confined my changes at first to one section, "Science", which was particularly atrocious. Shorne 06:01, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Everyking's

to say they "uncovered" the deaths implies that they didn't already know about them, and it shouldn't say "unjust")

Yes the majority didn't. Purge was was 30 years ago. People knew peices. But the scale was unimaginable. And yes, they were unjust: justice was violated. Mikkalai 05:15, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

But Stalin's successors didn't know? That's what it said. Surely everyone in the so-called inner circle had a pretty good, if not complete picture of the scale of the purges. And I agree with you that there was injustice done, but to characterize the purges as unjust is bound to unnecessarily invite POV complaints. Everyking 05:33, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We shouldn't characterise them one way or the other. Saying "the purges were unjust" is just dumb: sure, there was unjustice in some cases, but not in every case. Shorne 05:55, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think it's pretty self-explanatory that shooting a million people to "preserve your authority" is "unjust." Trey Stone 02:53, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Russification

Ethnic cleansing/russification is speculation, removed:

although an ambition to ethnically cleanse regions in a process known as "Russification" may have also been a factor.

There was no a special "russification" process in this particular case. (See Russification for details of the term). These deportations were a continuation of systematic persecution of nations perceived to be hostile, started during the Great Purge, see National operations o the NKVD. In fact, the effected nations listed in the article actually suffered in two waves: during the purge an during the war. Mikkalai 20:05, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)