CrossTalk: In Stalin's Grip

In this edition of CrossTalk program, Peter Lavelle and his guests debate the meaning of one of the most complicated historical figures: Joseph Stalin.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• CrossTalk Lavelle
• Joseph Stalin
• Stalin legacy
• USSR
• Soviet Union Russia
• repressions
• camps
• WW2
• role
• communism
• RT
• Сталин
• наследие

[natlissits]

Great interview, RT ! People in the West, especially in Britain, have this huge determination to see Russian government as promoting stalinism. Hopefully some of them will get more in touch with the reality after hearing both Medvedev's and Putin's opinion of Stalin's rule.

[furiasha]

Robert Service is awfully judgemental and in fact, denies Russian people the freedom to discuss the matter that is painful to them freely. I would recommend him to lament over the state of British media that is plainly ignorant or misinforming about Russia.

[MarshallJukov]

@jamesgravil

P.S. When he died (killed) whole county GENUINELY CRIED - man cried just like woman, my grandfather almost died in crowding at his funeral! Because for every honest man Stalin was true father and symbol of Great victories and progress in every aspect country made in last 30 years!

[MarshallJukov]

@jamesgravil

I have other fact for you - remember this bastard Solgenitsin? Doctors found CANCER in his stomach in 1952 and removed it with surgery - this litteraly SAVED his life! And he died at age of 89 only in 2008!

Case it that those doctors and surgery happened to be in....GULAG

So much for "death camps" don`t you find?

I repeat - Stalin was just SLANDERED - he it MOST slandered person in history of mankind!

[MarshallJukov]

@jamesgravil

Civilians does not mean innocent. And he NEVER signed any death warrants. Except may be years of WW2.

Other than that - all death warrants where signed in COURTS according to Soviet laws - only.

In opposite if you look at history of relations between Stalin and Michail Sholokhov you will see that he at least TWICE saved him from prison and may be even exectution.

[jamesgravil]

@MarshallJukov I don't know if "nice guy" is the right way to describe a man who personally signed the death warrants of thousands of civilians, but he was certainly a complicated man, and by no means simply a "monster." You're right, history decides who is considered "good" and who is considered "bad" - Churchill for instance has been portrayed as an almost unilaterally "nice man", but there were a lot of things in his character (e.g. strong racism) which would be cause for dislike nowadays.

[MarshallJukov]

@jamesgravil

He WAS a nice guy. Best leader of Russia at least for last 700 years and plaised as HERO by at least 60% of Russians even now

He was just SLANDERED alot

stalinsociety. org. uk/lies. html

clogic. eserver. org/2005/furr. html

clogic. eserver. org/2005/furr2. html

chss. montclair. edu/english/furr/

chss. montclair. edu/english/furr/research/litr­ossiainterv0608_eng. html

[jamesgravil]

In which case probably no Third Reich, probably no Hitler, and probably no Second World War - at least the war we got - but the arrival of a Moscow-friendly government in Berlin, and the probable capitulation of countries in Eastern Europe (which Stalin was trying to bring into the fold in the late 1920s/early 30s), would have led to a "Cold-War" of sorts, centered on Europe and not on Russia.

[jamesgravil]

And this may seem silly now - people seem to assume that Communism was always destined to fail - but it actually held a lot of attraction for people in the West, even at the height of Stalin's purges. The reason: Russia was the only country unaffected by the Depression. And throughout the 30s it was the country with the highest rate of growth, even though it was "backward" to begin with. If some "nicer" guy had been in charge, it's all too likely that Europe would have followed his lead...

[jamesgravil]

All I can say is: Thank God the Soviet Union got Stalin, and not some more level-headed, competent ruler. This is not to denigrate Stalin's achievements (which were enormous, both positive and negative), but simply to observe that IF the USSR had become the "model" country Lenin intended it to be, we'd most likely all be Communist by now. For one thing, it's more than likely that Germany in the 1930s would have gone Red, because the Communist Party was already very influential there.

[tonyd7601]

Not the best show I got a little lost with it. But still a great show about an important leader in a focal point in history. The conspricist in me thinks its interesting that the events of WW2 legitimized Stalin and added 20 years its history