Most Evil men of WW2

I recently heard a radio programme arguing the Stalin vs Hitler question.
The conclusion was that, although Stalin killed more, his were mostly motivated by the desire to stay in power, whereas Hitler believed that his victims were sub-human and deserved to be killed, and that he was performing a good service. Stalin was 'just' another butchering murderous dictator, albiet on a larger scale.
The biggest butcher in terms of population percentage killed is undoubtedly Pol Pot, but he ain't WW2.

 

Ricky, you are missing the point (and don't think am trying to beat you over the head with this ): once you reduce your enemy to the level of a sub-human, whether you call him a sub-human, a counter-revolutionary, an enemy of the state, a lackey of the capitalist, or a kulak-and you convinced the masses through the state-controlled media, then any atrocity you inflict on him is sanctified and sanctioned...Hilter on the Jews , Gypsies ans Slavs, Stalin simply on everybody and his brother...In Nazi Germany, if you wren't a Jew or a commuinist and didn't criticize the regime, they simply left you alone...Mind you this is not an apology or in any way shape or form a defense of the Nazis; but a statement of fact based upon testimony of witnesses hat lived in Germany and Austria in those days.including a very interesting frend, an Austrian Jew that managed to obtain false papers and worked as a contractor in th "Atlantic Wal""...only to be arrested by the Allies as a collaborator.... In Stalin's Russia, nobody, absolutely nobody was safe from Stalin; , even his most intimate friends and collaborators, includinh segei Orshenekisdti, his own father in law..whom he gave a choice: commit suicide or be arrested by the NKVD and liquidated....One example; The III reich had one one Himmler-Stalin went through three NKVD chiefs in the 1839s, Yagoda (executyed by Stali's orders ans substitted by Yeshov his aspiring asistant, who plotted with Stalin against his former boss) Yeshov himself, after carrying the most infamous purges( which were known by those of the "Inner Circle: as the "Yeschovichina" was personally accused by Stalin of executing innocent people" and shot. He was replaced by the even more infamous Laurenti Beria.... Can you imagine what kind of terror people faced everday in a state where even the head of the Secret Police were not even safe from the whimsical Stalin?

 

Not me - the radio presenter! I just threw in their conclusion.

Or a homosexual, or a gypsy, or a strict Catholic, or a Jehovah's Witness, or a hardened crminal/black marketeer, or black, or asian, or simply a guy with a big nose and a granny called Ruth, or someone who looked at a Gestapo man funny, or someone who listened to the wrong radio station, or...

I do take your point about the all-pervasive fear in Stalinist CCCP, but a similar condition occured in Nazi Germany, where (for example) children were trained to spy on their parents and denounce them for any possible 'crime'.

This is not to say that either system was better or worse. They were not the same, but were both abominable.

 

Hey scaramouche, wasn't the purge that followed the failed assassination attempt of July 30th a clear sign that the arbitrary killing of Stalin certainly also appeared in Nazi Germany?

While Stalin undoubtedly killed a gruesome amount of his own people, there were still Russians around when he left, so obviously for some the world must still have felt a little safe. I highly doubt the control of minds of their subjects was much different with these two dictators.

 

I do take your point about the all-pervasive fear in Stalinist CCCP, but a similar condition occured in Nazi Germany, where (for example) children were trained to spy on their parents and denounce them for any possible 'crime'.
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Absolutely you hit the right term: "ALL -PERVASIVE"-of course, children on the USSR were similary taught to inform on their parents and spy on their neiighbors...but, from all available souces (printed as well as interviews with eyewitnesses) l get a feeling that there was perhaps a chance, a small chance, if you wish to enjoy the the small diversions of life under the Nazis without any repercussions...provifing you were not one of teh undesirables, and you did break any of their taboos. But that the terror in the USSR was so widespread that not even the top ofifcials and Stalin's intimates were safe. .
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This is not to say that either system was better or worse. They were not the same, but were both abominable

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I prefaced the comment but stating that this was not intnded to b a defense of the Nazis in any way, shape of form..OfF course they were equally abominable-but l also think the level of control the Reds had over the Russian population exceeded that held by the Nazis over the German people..that's what l was driving at..

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You mean July 20th... I seem to remember that the number of people executed could be counted in the thousands -perhap less than 10,000-and their graves would probably fill the cemetery of a small town or village . But there's a difference here: -There was a real attempt on the life of Hitler,(which unfortunately failed by a quirk of fate!!) but the graves of the victims of the purges ordered by Stalin on IMAGINARY pretexts, on imaginary conspiracies, or imaginary plots, would require the combined areas of hte cemeteries of cities like London, New York and Los Angeles

The purges might have subsided after Stalin's death, but the Gulag continued to operate-and the Hungarian Freedom Fighters of 1956 were massacred, tortured and shot under Krushev...who at one time in the early 1960s sent tanks to crush a rebellion in one of the camps. Nor were the Czech revolutionaries of 1968 better treated by Krushev's succesor..Their show trials , torture sessions to extort false confessions and their executions were in the best of Stalinists traditions...

 

scaramouche, I think we do agree on this.
At least, I find nothing that I think wrong in your last post!

One little addition...

Arguably Nazi Germany would have been just as bad after Hitler died (if it survived long enough!), especially if somebody like Himmler took over. Or, worse, if one of the indoctrinated youngsters rose to power.
Obviously, they lacked the sheer population size to commit the scale of atrocities that Stalin did, and after they run out of home-grown Jews & gypsies it would *probably* settle down a little...

 

Remember what l said about reducing the enemy to the elevel of a sub-human, then all the atrocitiies you visit upon him are sanctified; and sanctioned? Hitler 's victims included the Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals,etc. but Stalin simply had him beat...his selection was universal; anyone could become an "enemy of the state", anybody could be accused of "Anti-Soviet propaganda" at anytime, anywhere by anybody..In the 1950s there was a well known case of a factory manager; when the obligatory speeches raising the glories of Comrade Stalin was read, everybody applauded.. The applause went on for 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes..everybody was getting tired and all looked around trying to see who would dare stop. This manager took the bulll by the horns: He sat down, and so did everybody else , gratefully. Not long after that, he was accused of some B.S. infractiion and given a 10 year sentence to teh Gulag. After the judge handed him his sentence, he told the accused:" Next time, dont be in siuch a hurry to sit down!"... It is not a question of demographis-but rather of how the regimes fucntioned. To carry out the Pharaonic projects Stalin envisaged, the state machinery required huge numbers of laborers, and the "Gulag Archipelago" was designed to fullfill such requirements- One such project comes to mind: Stalin ordered a shipping canal constructed linking Moscow with the Baltic( not sure about the location-am working from memory) With few tools except crude improvisations,made from local materials and literally using their hands, hundreds of thousands of political prisonners were forced to dig it. An estimated 200-300,000 perished completing it. It was completed, but somehow the engineers responsible made a calcuatiion error, and the canal proved to be too shallow except for barges..and has seldom been used. The "courts" simply existed to meet out sentences on the slightest pretext ("kulaks", "Enemies of the state:, " Followers" of Kaustky", "Troskytes" "British spies" all got 10 and 20 years sentences...Take the Soviet Advisors sent to Spain during the Civil War-most , probably all were "liquidated upon returning to the USSR...One that comes to mind, an very able aviation specialist, gral Schumskevich, who in Spain went under the monicher of "General Douglas"..he same thing happened to Soviet Officers which had been working with the Germans in the 1920s in weapons forbidden to Germany under the Versailes treaty-aircraft, tanks..so were many that had contact, however brief with American or British personnel during WW2. Old Joseph Visiarianoivich was about to order a purge of Jewish doctors in 1953 when mercifully for humanity he croaked..and his own ministers and advisors were so terrified of him that when he failed to come out of his room, they wrung their hands in anguish not daring even to go in and check....Until Beria, who was gutsier than the other wimps broke in and found his beloved comrade Stalin laying on the floor. .


Anyhow, l think you and l have just about exhausted the subject..If you are interested, l can provide bibliography, including British authorship of the 1990s, which is not only most readable, but had one distinct advantage over previous works: access to recently declassified KGB documents...

Best Regards! :smok:

 

An interesting question would be:

Had Stalin not so ruthlessly industrialized Russia(willingly sacrifying millions), had Russia still had a chance to win WW2?

Or would they have known the same fate as in WW1?

One could argue that the terrible price of Stalin's reorganisation and industrialisation of the country was the price for survival of Russia herself.
Otherwise maybe their country would now be settled by germans, and the remaining russians would be nothing more but their slaves, until the whols slavic race is biologically extinct(as planned by Hitler).

Stalin knew that Russia in the 1920's was some 50 years of developement behind the western nations, and he tought(rightfully)that this gap had to be filled in 10 years should the country be able to win a war against a major western army.

 

One interesting point: Russia was industrialized before the Communists seized power..furthermore, the Tsarist t regime was able to design and build its own warships, inclding dreadnoughts, including their machinery and main armament. One naval historian contrasts this with the failure of teh soiviets to design adequate capital ships in teh 1930s, without having to rsort to foreign assistance-(Italian)- The giant Putilov artillery woks at Leningrad were simply redesignated as the "Kirov Works" What industrialziation the soviets did carry out was at a huge cost in human lives and inmense suffering. One shoud ask whether a more efficient Russian regime might not have utilized its resourdes more wisely..In a conference held in Queens ollege (CCNY) in 1965, aleander Kerensky related how many of the so called "industrlization miracles; claimed by Soviet propganda were actually began under the Tsar..The accomplishments of the Soviet regime the giant Dniepper Dam was designed by american engineers and utilized American turbines. THe industrial and production levels of 1913 were not again reached until 1929..and with considerable aid from the Western Nations..As Lenin once observed:" The Western Capitalists will sell us the very rope with which will han them! England granted the Soviets a loan of 200 million pound-loan in the early 1920s, the Germans were too glad to build an plant fior the Russians to manufacture all metal Junkers aircraft; the Italians sold them aircraft an, aircraft emgines andgranted licenses to buld these aircraft in Russia; motor vehicles in some numbers were not built until the Russians bought the old Ford plant in Belin, whuch enabled them to build that exact copy of the Ford model A truck we often see in Soviet WW2 films..American tecnicians and workers were enlisted to help them run it...One should perhaps ponder on a differen question: whether a Democratic Russian regime would have collaborated so closely with the Nazis or sign a Pact with them which was a virtual alliance; as the Soviets did in 1939..

 

Of course there were considerable industries in tsarist Russia, I don't doubt it.(Altough much of this was destroyed during the civil war)
But it was no comparison to Germany for example.
Russian artillery troughout WW1 lacked ammunition.Even at oppening of offensives they were only permitted 5 shots per gun per day.
Russia lacked everything in WW1, and altough their soldiers fought as bravely as in WW2 they were absolutely no match for the german army.
The only major russian sucesses in WW1 were obtained against Austria Hungary, or against small amounts of german troops.

I do not think another regime than a totalitarian dictatorship could industrialize Russia as quickly as Stalin did.
Of course he heavily relied upon foreign aid, but his result was that from 1928 to 1938 he had transformed a largely peasant society, into the second most powerfull industrial power on earth.
OI doubt another governement would have performed this.

Other eastern european powers seeked for industrialization between the wars but without any big results.( mainlyPoland, Hungary;Romania)

As for the question if a democratic governement would have allied with Germany or not, I think that there was no chance for a democratic governement in Russia in those days.
I mean how many democracies were there in eastern europe in the 1930?
One only, Czekoslovakia.
Russians always had problems with democratic governement, the only they ever had was probably Jelzin.

 

Few countries were as industrialized as Germany at the outbreak of WW1-and most Russian armament plants and shipyards survived the Civil War intact...But the industrialization which took place prior to 1914 was impressive". Iin 1880 they produced 18,6 million tons of coal in 1904 (versus 3,2 million in 1880), and 2,2 million tons of wrought iron and stel to meet the growing emand of their railways, shipyards .. In WW1, the Russians had a large number of heavy guns, but rather than deploy them in the field, they were mounted on various fortresses. In 1914, fortresses had 2813 modern guns..This strategy did noy pay of, for the Germans captured a number of these forts in days along with thousands of guns and millions of shells. At the start of the war, the Russians had a reserve of 1000 rounds per gun (The French Army had 2000 and the Germans 3000 per gun)- By 1914, the Russian General Staff figured they required 1,5 million shels per month, a figure which later increased to 2,5 and later to 3,5 million.. Despite shortages of machine tools (chiefly imported from Germany) and the conscrition of labor , production rose from 450,000 rounds a month early in 1915 to almost 900,000 in July and more than million in September.To meet the demand, 1,2 million rounds were imported from England,and 950,000 from the US, for a gran total of 15 million during 1915. Nobody had forseen a long war, and no preparations were undertaken.. This applied to rifles as well They began the war with 4,5 million rifles. and were producing about 50,000 per month So, 3,6 million rifles were ordered from US manufacturing plants; Remington, Westinghouse and Winchester i( a personal note if l may: a friend in Spain has a Moisin Nagat mod. 1891 made by Remington, one of a large quantity sent by the USSR to the Spanish Republic, during the Civil War..)

The German numerical superiority in artillery in the Eastern n Front during WW1 was only marginal, far less than the Allied snumerical superirity inartillery over the Germans on the Western Front..The Germans had a decided advantage when it came to tactics , organizational skills and and training ...while Russia began to disentegrate from inside thanks to Bolshevik agitation and the inability of the transportation system to cope with increasing demands from the front.. .Machinery was imported from England and the US, but Russian machine production rose as well in response to war needs, and the high prices of imported machines; which declined from 156 million rules in 1913 to 108 by 1916.RUssian machinery production grew from 302 million rules in 1913 to 757 million in 1915, and 982 millon in 1916. A similar growth took place in the chemical indutry-
This alone would refute Bolshevik claims-for surely they served to prove that Russian industial backwardness was a thing of the past .tBy this time, the expansion of the engineering and chemical sectors permitte allowe Russian production to grow : 2,000 per cent in shell production, 1000 perent in artillery and 1100 per cent in rifles Aircraft production grew, though was still small by Western European stanndards: 222 aircraft per month By 1916 Russian shell output reached 28,3 million units (the Bolsheviks inherited a reserve of 18 million artillery shells)- In fact, by September 1916, thanks to a gigantic industrial effort the Russian Army enjoyed numerical superiority not only in men, but in guns as well..The Russian Army had over 25,000 guns by this time: 20,000 of these were were Rssian made; 5,065 imported. Of course, the indusstrial effort came at a price: it produced overcrowding and food shortages in the cities, as men were drafted for the front-and provided a fertile ground fo the bolsheviks to carry out their nefarious actiities..However, the figures quoted-and a simple look at naval annuals up to 1914 woulkd serve to refute the Bolshevik claim that it was they who industrialized Russia.....

The examples of Hungary, Poland and Rumania are not really valid in the context of this discussion-these were small nations with underdeveloped economies, suffering from perpetual financial stringency and with limited industrial resources . Although, it should be noted that despite their lack of financial resources, the Poles became surprisingly self sufficient in weaponry - the fact remains that their traiditional enemies (Germany and Russia) were simply too powerful...


The Kerensky govrnment was the only democratic government Rusia ever knew.. Kerensky was advised byBritish and french diplomats to throw the Bolsheviks it jail and silence their newspapers-his reply? " We are a young democracy, and we are not going to employ methods which are proper of a dictatorship".......Had it not been for the Bolshevik Revolution, this government would have transformed Russia into a democratic state..

 

Russian industrial development from the late 20's till the late 30's was incredibly huge.
One cannot possibly deny that.

If you compare Russia before WW1 to the Soviet Union before WW2, this becomes clear.

In 1914, 80% of the russian population were peasants, or worked in another part of the agricultural sector.
Literacy rate(important indicator for a country's development) was only 30%.(This is a rate western european countries had already reached in the middle of 18th century).
Tough it's true that important industrial development had taken place, this was largely due to foreign aid.So, for example, 90% of mining, 100% of oli extraction, 50% of chemical industry....was foreign owned and totally dependent on foreign investment.

More than any country, Russia saw it's power terribly reduced by WW1, and the following civil war.
Population fell from 171 to 132 millions.
The loss of Poland, Finland and the baltic countries meaned the loss of some of the countries most important industries.
By 1921, manufacturing output was only 13% of the one it was in 1914.
Only by 1928 Russia had reached the output of 1914 again.
In 1928, still 78% of the population worked in the agricultural sector.
Till 1938, this percentage will fall to 51%, definately an indicator of industrial development.

The number of students rises continously.Illiteracy is nearly extinct in the mid thirties.
Thew number ofd ingeneers rises from 47.000 in 1928 to nearly 300.000 by 1940.
The resulting upturn in manufacturing output and national income-even if one accepts the most cautious estimates-was something unprecedented in the history of industrialization.(Paul Kennedy)

From 1928 to 1937, coal production rises from 35,4 to 128 million tons, steel production rises from 4 to 17,7million tons, production of electricity is multiplicated by 7, machine tools by 20 and tractors by 40.

So while in tsarist Russia, steal production from 1900 to 1914 rose from 3,5 to 4,8 million tons in 14 years, it rose from 4 to 17,7 million tons in 9 years in the Soviet Union.
Energy consumption in Russia from 1900 to 1914 went from 41 to 54 million tons of coal, while in the Soviet Union in 1930-1938 it went from 65 to 178 million tons.
Per capita industrialization rose from 15 to 20 in 1900-1914 while it rose from 20 to 38 in 1930-1938.

All this numbers and statistics are from the book"Rise and Fall of the great Powers 1500-2000" by english historian Paul Kennedy.

So Stalins industrialization of Russia is an undeniable historical fact.

Even if one does not like a certain political system, there is no reason not to see it's achievements.
I very well know that Stalin was a terrible dictator who didn't care for his citizen, and I very well know what terrible human price this industrialization cost Russia, but it remains a historical fact nevertheless.

And I still wonder if Russia could have won WW2 without this forced industrialization.

 

The point remains that industialization was not began by the Soviets but rather expanded on the basis of what had already been established by the Tsarist regime..and could not have ocurred without this precedent. ..Other major powers similarly increased their industrial production-most notably the US, but they did so in a more logical and efficient fashion and without the tremendous social cost and the enormous human suffering and misery which this forced process of industrialization brought upon the Russian people..

While the statistics you on literacy and to others you cite may be accurate, one could argue that under different type of government, such as Kerensky's a similar prodess might have taken place...Similarly, the shift in employement patterns, from agriculture into industry were sympthomatic of the 20th Century and actually increased world -wide a sth century progressed..it also ocurred in other nations-though less dramatically due to their more orderly societies..Intesritingly enough Kennedy's figures stop at 1914-and do not take into account the great strides made between 1914 and 1917.... would not harp on the importance of foreign aid to the process of industrialization under the Tsar if l were you..for, as l've indicated; without foreign loans , foreign technicians, foreign machine tools, and foreign technology Soviet's efforts would have stalled..

 

But the fact is, scaramouche, that this industrialization and this shift to industry took place under communism. Whether any other government could have achieved the same thing, though it probably could, is a different matter. You can't systematically deny every achievement of this regime by saying it could have happened under another regime, or it happened earlier, and it also happened elsewhere; it is a simple fact. If you wish to judge the way in which it happened, please consider the facts of how the previous wave of modernization of Russia took place under Peter the Great in the early 18th Century - out of the initiative of one totalitarian ruler, reforms were forced upon the country. It worked; Russia opened its eyes to the west. This appears to be the way of Russian reform... As a historian you should know that we are not to judge this by our own moral standards.

 

The fact remains that industrialzation in the modern sense of the word began under the Tsars- as my earlier post citing facts and figures of artillery, artillery shells, rifles, aircraft shells etc, and my references to naval constructions of scores of battleships and several dreadnoughts have made or shoudl have made abudantly clear.. About the subject, one of the leading Historians that specalize in Russian history-l refer to the noted British academic Robert Conquest-a most meticulous researcher and quite a prolific writer notes:
:
"But the Old Russia had not been all hat backward. It had been already the fourth industrial power before the revolution. In the reign of Nicholas II, ithe reailwat network had doubles in length and there had been a great upsurge onn the mining and metal industries, As Lenin said:
"
The progress in the mining industry is more rapid in Russia than in Western Europe and even in North America..In the last few years (1776-1896) the production of cast metal has tripled. "
ref.:" Conquest, Robert "The Great Terror: A Reassesstment" (Oxford University Press, , Oxford, New York, Toronto, 1991) pg. 460..

In his "Stalin, Breaker of Nations (Viking Press, New York, 1986)pp-189-190 the same author states : "Gorki's ewe-lamb, the White Sea Canal illustrate some of the fallacies of Stalin's industialization. He was primaily concerned with vast projects. not economically better than a number of smaller ones, but far more usable in propaganda"

Dmitri Volkogoniv in "Stalin" Triumph and Tragedy"(Grove Widenfeld, New York, 1989" pp.262-263 states:"

The statistics, though exagerated indicate that Lenin's electrification plan for industy was fulfilled. By 1935 the gross output of heavy iundustry exceeded the pre-war evel by 5.6 times"- but he also goes on to say:

Things were substantially worse in the countryside where the criminal acts of dekulakization damaged the agrarian sector for decades. If before collectiviation heree were 25 million small households of which 35 were poor peasants,60 per cent were middle peasants and 5 [er ent were kul;aks, then by the midd;e of the 1930s, 90m percent of teh hosueholds had been collectivized."
This is what Bukharin protested: hw felt that the "cities should not rob the agrarian sector"

Whta you fail to realize is that industry grows by stages:and although there was a great deal of progress under Peter the Great this was the pre-industial period of Russian industry, characterized, as in most other European countries by cottage industries, artisan crafts, and some large scale enterprises (arsenals, shipyards) which were actuakly owned by the state. The next period, that of "industial awakening" in Russia comes much later, somewhere in the 1860s-70s, when steam engines and machine tools are incorporated-albeit on a small scale-and then into what we migh term " The modern industrial phase", which begins in the 1880s-and is marked, as l have noted in earlier posts, by the establishment of growth of the steel, shipbuilding and chemical sectors. Between 1890-1914 we have the period of "Industrial Consolidation"-for Russia is able to produce the railway equipment she requires, much of her machine tools, and the weapons of war required by her armed forces on a large scale. There is a definetly well established heavy industrial sector, and there are millions of workers-for if these workers and faytories had not existed, where woukld the weapns and shells that l detailed earlier have come from, and where would the factories and the workers which they employed, and which were so instumental in the 1917 according to the Reds themselves originated from?

Myth:" Russia was an industrially backward nation until the Communist revolution"

Reality:' The Reds inherited the industrial infrastructure developed under the Tsars, Ryussia was the fourth largest industrial economy in the world in 1914 Stalin did expand xistant facilities and added new ones by a massive program of terror and by exterminatting his oponents did manage to increase production, but in the process claimed millions of lives and brought misery to the entire Russian people.

Myth:

" The Russian Revolution followed its own path towards industrialization"

Reality:

The 5-year plans could not have been implemented without foreign asistance. :" In 1928 a group of Soviet engineers arrived in Detroit and requested that Albert Khan and Co, an eminent firm of industrial architects in the US dsighn plans for industrial bulings worth US $1 billion. Close to a dozen deigns were made in Detroit, the rest in the soviet Union. An Ameridan firm agreed to design all aspects of Soviet industry, heavy and light. Foreign designers, technicians. engineers and skilled workers built the industrial units of the first five year plan Primarily they were Americams, who pushed the Germans out of first place after 028, after them came the Germans, British , Italians and French. The dam onte Dinieper was built by the form of Col. Hugh Cooper.a prominent American hydraulic engineer. the majority of the largest Soviet power plants were equipped by the British firm Metropolitan Vickers. Western companies designe, built and equipped Magnitogorsk and Kutznestk, the Urals Machinery Works, the Kaganovich Ball Bearing plant in Moscow, an automobile plant in Nizhy Novgrod, amd a truck plant in Yaroslav, among others It is impossible to sum up the results of the first five year plan(strictly in term of industrial successes (oe failures)- Fom 1928 to1932 significant strides were made in teh industrialization of the country But the main arena of the "Great Rupture", or the "great backbreaking: as Soshenitzyn called it, was agroiculture. The main object of this alll-out offensive-and its main ifctim-was thep easantry, that is , the overwhelming majority of the population ref: Mikhail Heller and Akesandr Nerkrich, "Utopia in Power : The History of the Soviet t Union from 1917 to the Present" (Summit Books, New York, 1986) pp228-230

In short, this should suffice to confirm that Russia was industrialized before the Red Revolution..l will not belabor the crimes committed by Stalin and his henchmen in the process, for they wuld probably fill an entire encyclopedia..Roel, what makes you think l am a historian? l do not pre judge earlier periods of history with 21st century eyes, nor do l moralize, as you do or wax lyrically as you seem to do whenever l attack tyrany, Soviet tyrany that is...As for me, tyrany in its Soviet form was the most hideous known to man...bar none...Any pretense to thecontrary would tax the imagination. It would be tartamount to arguing that without Wold War Two we would not have DDT or jet aircaft..praising g these developments, which are indeed worthwhile and valuable; but disregarding the enormous cost in luves and suffering the war brought...To be sure, industry grew under Stalin, not faster (and far less efficiently) than in other places (the US, Canada, Argentina, to name a few-here industry grew at an average 7,8% per years in the 1920-29 period, and again in the 1933-39 period , without the enormous bloodbath, the slave camps and the mindless butchery which Stalin unleashed upon the USSR...

 

Scaramouche, no one denies that Russia already was industrialized in 1914, and that the communists inheridated many of these industries.

And also no one denies that they used foreign help to industrialize further in 1928-39.

But the level of industrialization in 1914 , or later in 1928 is of no comparison with the one of 1938.
Not at any time anywhere on earth had such rapid industrial expansion taken place.
While the western economies saw their size terribly reduced by the great depression, Russia had against all odds achieved to take up it's industrial backwardness in less than 10 years.
In 1938 Russia's industrial strength was around 5 times stronger than in 1928, had overtaken France and Britain, and had come very close to Germany(which would have been overtaken in the mid 40's, had war not ocured.)

To achieve such results in such a short time, it probably needed a regime like Stalin's.
For example, by totally ignoring the basic needs of the people(which died of starvation by millions), Stalin was able to reduce the share of GNP devoted to private consumption to 51%.(Western countries, it's around 90%).
So, the soviets were able to deploy the fantastic proportion of 25% of GNP for industrial investment, and still posess considerable sums for education, science and the armed services.(No country in the world had anything comparable, the closest being Japan, but very far behind.)

I do not doubt that under another regime, Russia would also have continued it's industrialization in the 20's and 30's.
It would probably have done so much faster than the western countries, but it would not have been comparable to the incredible pace of communist industrialization.

 

What I am trying to tell you is that we should not judge the past too much by our own morals, and with the power of hindsight. Surely you do realize that the idea of communism would have appealed to many people, especially the working classes and the many other people in Russia who were so terribly poor while the nobility and the Tsar were so terribly rich. They didn't know what would become of the new Russian state under communism, so they supported the new system that guaranteed them a more equal distribution of wealth. Few things are only evil or only good; what you are doing here is trying to prove that communism was only bad, whereas it really wasn't, and anyone with a serious interest in history will soon realize that such is a Hollywoodian impossibility.

I do not wax lyrically whenever you attack tiranny, I merely wish you would see it in a more nuanced perspective. Naturally it was a murderous regime, it was a terrible thing to happen to Russia, it would almost have been better if Germany had conquered it... Huh? Yes, that's where such an attitude might lead you.

Strictly objectively speaking, much as what Castelot is doing, the regime of communism in Russia caused millions to perish, it brought suffering to the people and it showed how the ideals of communism itself cannot be applied to countries that take part in the world's economy and diplomacy. However, stricly objectively speaking you can't deny that under the reign of communism Russia became a highly indstrialized and militarily powerful state that defeated the land forces of a nation as industrialized and modern as Germany.

Think of communism what you will but don't confuse it with historical facts.

 

Scaramouche, no one denies that Russia already was industrialized in 1914, and that the communists inheridated many of these industries.

And also no one denies that they used foreign help to industrialize further in 1928-39.
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Castelot, as Jack the Riper would say: let us disect tris and take it apart.
But the level of industrialization in 1914 , or later in 1928 is of no comparison with the one of 1938.
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I would suggest reviewing eariler posts, because you and others maintained that Tsarist t Russia was not all that industrialized, which is why l quoted references to proper bibloography. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not at any time anywhere on earth had such rapid industrial expansion taken place.
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What you quoted was the statistics cited by Lennedy, which somehow doi not ring g true-for serious historians of Russian history noted that despite red propaganda, real growtth averaged 5,6% yearly...Furthermore, how was industrial production increased other than in steel and iron, which ws indeed a sucess story, but which simply involved forcibly transfering assets from one sector of the economy to the other..Was it perhaps in the automotive sector? No, because production barely reached 100,000 units, when in the US produced over 4,2 million units per year and Western European motor industries reached levels in the 1930s which exceeded their own pre WW1 levels by more than 300 Did Soviet industrialization produce an abundance of consumer products, such as radios and other electrical appliances.that were becoming available to the average worker in the West, or cosmetics or was it perhaps food products..And the answer is no...because even common day items such as bread and sausage , tilet paper and canning jars were rationed , and the few ill-equipped store that stocked them were jammed with long lines of witing suplicants..A scene, by the way which l witnessed personally when l ravelled through the old unlamented USSR in the late 1970s..Plus ca change, plus qu'il reste la même chose
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While the western economies saw their size terribly reduced by the great depression, Russia had against all odds achieved to take up it's industrial backwardness in less than 10 years
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This simply is not true, countries like Franc and Sweden were indeed affected, but in the US industrial production in 1937-38 was 164% above that of 1913,(and only 8% below that of 1929-but that was due to the inability of the rest of the world, which was still under a severe state of financial stringency) to import US goods. One thing l learned from omy undergraduate professor in Soviet histiry (he was one of the leaing Kremlinologists at that time) was that Soviet statistics coud not be tursted-and he cited very specific examples. production quotas of certain items (locomotives, railway wagons, machine tools, furniture) were established by weight, not by units. Thus, the manager of a certain state run enterprise had to deliver 500 tons of furniture, and to meet his quota, the furnitiure produed was unnecessarily heavy and clumsy something l experienced when l tried to move a desk in a rather gawdy hotel in Moscow..l cracked the tiles and had to pay for them..."in dollars"-
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n 1938 Russia's industrial strength was around 5 times stronger than in 1928, had overtaken France and Britain, and had come very close to Germany(which would have been overtaken in the mid 40's, had war not ocured.)
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Kenendy's statistics are to be taken "cum granum salis", as they are rather misleading..he claims that 80& of the Russian population depended on agriculture- A more nuanced history of industrial development shows that the percentages of the poulatin engaged in agricuture in 1896 were as folows:
Russia-70
Austria-62
Italy-52
France-42
Germany-39
US-35

(ref) David Landes."The Unbound Prometheus:Technologocal Change and Indutial Development if Western Europ from 1750 to the present" (Cambridge University Press, 1969) pag.340

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To achieve such results in such a short time, it probably needed a regime like Stalin's. By totally ignoring the basic needs of the people(which died of starvation by millions), Stalin was able to reduce the share of GNP devoted to private consumption to 51%.(Western countries, it's around 90%).
So, the soviets were able to deploy the fantastic proportion of 25% of GNP for industrial investment, and still posess considerable sums for education, science and the armed services.(No country in the world had anything comparable, the closest being Japan, but very far behind.)
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On the injudicious use of Statistics : Unless we are dealing with statistics which compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, no proper comparison can be made: I could tell you that 50% of the people in a given room wear glasses-the statistic is meaningless unless l cite the number of people in that room, which for all we know might be ionly four-and if a a 5th person who wears glasses enters the room, the proportional increase seems very heavy; but the actua figure is small and meaningles.
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We have established that Soviet industry did not produce significant amounts of consumer goods of even the most basic nature, let alone motor vehicles and common household elctricl appliances-where did this fabled Soviet expansion of industry ake place then?

In order to liquidate his enemies the Soviet govt (in other words; Stalin)
presented a series of events as part of a single plot-an inmiment attack upn the USSR by the combined forces of imperialism...In Russian History this is is known as "The War Scare of 1927"-which gave him the excuse to divert further sums to national defense , at the epense of everythung else, And while Western countries were reducing their budgets in response first to the peace movements that surged after WW1, and then even further, r, as a result of the World Economic Depression fo 1828, Stalin was able to push ahead with his plans, after all, who who dare complain in the good
old USSR? and the Soviet forces received thousands tanks and aircraft; which were publicly demonstrated in the tradidional 1 May parades. Military Expenses, which already comprised 5,4 % o the National Product of the GNP, rose to 43,4 by 1941..this indicates where the main effort was concentrated . Once Stalin liquidated his "opposition: In the USSR (Trotsky, MKamenev, Zinoviev, Kirov, Bukharin) -and had his way..But one could make the same clain about Nazi Germany, where military expemditure rose fro, 6,7& of national income in 1935 to 32% by 1938
Landes, op cit, p.400
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I do not doubt that under another regime, Russia would also have continued it's industrialization in the 20's and 30's.
It would probably have done so much faster than the western countries, but it would not have been comparable to the incredible pace of communist industrialization.

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On should never assume anything, and since the Communists overtthrew the Kerensy govt in 1917 we will never know-But what we do know now, that the records of the defunct USSR are now available to researchers is that tethe Soviets juggled statistic to support thee claim that the main indices of their Five-year Plans had been achieved..A great deal was accomplished, but not as much as Soviet historians would have us believe-

 

What I am trying to tell you is that we should not judge the past too much by our own morals, and with the power of hindsight
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I would not be so quick to point a finger if l were you, for you seem to judge everything by your own morals, whether it is history, animal predators or even the nickname we used to refer to by newborn baby..
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Surely you do realize that the idea of communism would have appealed to many people, especially the working classes and the many other people in Russiian people who were so terribly poor while the nobility and the Tsar were so terribly rich. They didn't know what would become of the new Russian state under communism, so they supported the new system that guaranteed them a more equal distribution of wealth.
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You seem to ignore( or forget) that under the last Tsar wealth distrbution was already taking place and in a massive scale, for no less than 25 million peasants became land-owners- just before WW1, -merely to have that land taken away and to be murdered by Stalin in his "collectivisation" program of the 1930s. It seems apparent from your statements that you are the one with the Hollywoodean idealsi; not l ; for l quote solid refereneces,and solid data-and no, they were not that many people that believed in Communism-the very name the Bolsheviks assumed ; "the majority" was a lie, because they were not the Majority, they were the minority, while the Mensheviks ('the minority") and other socialist groups constituted the true majority. You cling to the notions that communism was a good system,"in theory", but in practice (and this is all l am concerned with-practice-not theory for as they say "The roads to Hell are paved with Good intentions)- you do not consider reality-The full story of the Soviet genocide is only now beginning to emerge beginning with the massacres of the Don Cossacks by the Reds during the civil war. As a Russian historian points out:" There is no question that the Soviet City people knew about the massacres in the countryside. In fact, no one tried to concel it. Stalin spoke openly about the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" and all his lieutenants echoed him. At the railway stations city dwellers could see he thousands of women and children who had fled and were dyng of huner. Kulaks, "dekulakized persons" and "kulak henchmen" die alike. they were not consiudered humans. Society spat them out, just as the "disenfranchised persons" and :has beens" were afer ocotber 1917, just as the Jews were in Nazi germany. The great proletariat humanist (sic) Maxim Gorky invented a formula to justify this genocide" If the enemy does not surrender, he must be destroyed".

Heller and Nekrich,op cit, pag.236


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I do not wax lyrically whenever you attack tiranny, I merely wish you would see it in a more nuanced perspective. Naturally it was a murderous regime, it was a terrible thing to happen to Russia,
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It is interesting that since you cannot refute my asertions you try to disqualify them-asking for more "nuanced" interpretations, calling my approach "Hollywodean", claiming that l confuse facts. There are ill-diguised attacks-and your posts lack the friendliness of let us say; those of Castelot and Ricky-and their humor. In your answers there is something that seems rather more personal... ..l noticed this from the start...so be it...
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it would almost have been better if Germany had conquered it... Huh? Yes, that's where such an attitude might lead you.
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You might reach such a conclussion, l never could-for l've studied history from books, a not in the INTERNET, l also had the rare privilege to meet many participants of the Ciivl War in Russia-and traveled accross the USSR while communism still reigned. supreme...but it does raise one important question..l wonder if you (for essentially it is you and you alone alone that has attempted to answer my statements the one that consistently has made a defense of communism and the communists ) -Suppose my attacks would have been concentrated in Nazi Germany and Nazi Germany alone, would your protestations have been so many and so dogmatic? For what you are really saying, is that by attacking the Soviet regime, l would have prefered a Nazi victory-that would have been an obscenity of a different kind, for the Nazis in their own way were as obcsecenely murderous as the Soviets, and conversely the Soviets were as obscenely muderous and despicable as the Nazis... The Nazis ( fortunately!) were only in power for 12 years, the Soviets for more than 70, and their crimes against humanity are simply monstruous in their scale, in comparison to which everything else pales...

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Strictly objectively speaking, much as what Castelot is doing, the regime of communism in Russia caused millions to perish, it brought suffering to the people and it showed how the ideals of communism itself cannot be applied to countries that take part in the world's economy and diplomacy. However, stricly objectively speaking you can't deny that under the reign of communism Russia became a highly indstrialized and militarily powerful state that defeated the land forces of a nation as industrialized and modern as Germany.

Think of communism what you will but don't confuse it with historical facts

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It is highly unlikely, in fact highly improbable that without the interventon of the Western Allies and the massive assistance (primarily from the US, but also fom Britain and Canada) that was provided that the USSR could have won the war..and the war was not so much won by Stalin as it was lost by Hitler and his idiotic decisions...Roel...l never confuse facts with fiction and history with facts., or therory with practice and practice with theory.. that should become abundantly clear, for l am continuously quoting sources, reputable sources for my assertions I do not talk through my hat...