Since the site has been overrun by historical debates and I am headed off to Drink Liberally, I thought I’d pose the age-old question, “who was worse? Hitler or Stalin?”
As an addendum, who makes worse pastries? The Russians or the Germans?
I’ll grade your answers later.
They both were monsters responsible for the deaths of millions.
I personally despise Stalin more because he robbed me of a family in totality, and my grandmother still cries for her 4 year old sister, brothers, mother and father who were starved to death, pitchforked to death, or killed fighting off the Germans, but Hitler could have done the same had my family lived elsewhere.
I had always heard that in terms of deaths, Stalin was the “winner.” But a quick check of the web suggests there are people out there who, for various reasons, contest that. They all seemed to have an agenda, so I don’t know what to think.
Just in terms of 1932-33 alone and the collectivization of the Ukraine, 7 million people were starved to death, which is a conservative number, it is obviously hard to get a true picture since most of the deaths occurred on farms and villages to peasants and the bodies buried by their families.
But Stalin, when talking to Churchill at Yalta, admitted it was millions of Ukrainians. Unfortunately the west didn’t care about that little problem. Reminds me of Chechnya today on a lesser scale. “Internal politics” and all.
Here’s a quick link, haven’t read it all yet so I’m not sure if it’s entirely accurate, but it appears pretty well balanced at first glance.
http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin.htm
I read that as “worse PANTIES”. Cripes! 😀
You’re not the only one.
I was wondering if there was some historical fact about underwear that I was missing.
My myopic speed reading, and the wonders I find.
Which is worse:
Reading “worse panties” or “worse pasties” ;^)
Hmmm…that’s a tough question. Hitler’s crimes always seemed more sinister because they were so scientific. The Teutonic gift for organization and efficiency was put to work to exterminate a whole people. Stalin’s crimes seem so much more haphazard, sort of like the way the British allowed so many Irish to starve in the potato famine. Sure it was evil, but there’s something more chaotic and unpredicatable about it.
It wasn’t haphazard actually.
Stalin put a plan into action to feed the Russian people and the army. He bought tractors from Henry Ford, he had ministers in each village and town to ensure the collectivization went according to plan and he took every last bit of food off the land in Ukraine. He knew what that meant for the peasants and farmers. He made them work the land and give up their food. And they starved to death because of it.
Not as efficient or diabolical as Hitler, but don’t mistake that there was a plan to it.
Can you recommend any good books/articles on the subject? I have a fairly limited understanding of pre-war Soviet history, unfortunately. I had just heard that the Ukrainian famine was as much about the Russian authorities stupidity and poor planning as anything else, but a more organized malevolence wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Here are a couple, the ones my family has were written in Ukrainian and I can’t find an English translation, but these should be a good start. The books touch on the greater plans of Stalin, including breaking the Ukrainian resistance movement and the involvement in the coverup to the West of, yes, the NYTimes.
Not really light reading, but I appreciate your interest… it’s close to my heart.
Famine in Ukraine
Famine in the Soviet Ukraine
Population history of American indigenous peoples
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Historian David Stannard, for example, has argued that “The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world.”
Stannard believes that the natives of the Americas were deliberately and systematically exterminated over the course of several centuries, and that the process continues to the present day.
Stannard estimates that almost 100 million American indigenous people have been killed what he calls the American Holocaust.
Stannard’s claim of 100 million deaths has been disputed because he does not cite any demographic data to support this number, and because he makes no distinction between death from violence and death from disease.
Noble David Cook considers books such as Stannard’s–a number of which were released around the year 1992 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the Columbus voyage–to be an unproductive return to Black Legend-type explanations for depopulation.
In response to Stannard’s figure, political scientist R. J. Rummel has instead estimated that over the centuries of European colonization about 2 million to 15 million American indigenous people were the victims of what he calls democide.
“Even if these figures are remotely true,” writes Rummel, “then this still make this subjugation of the Americas one of the bloodier, centuries long, democides in world history.”
Bush is worse.
I don’t know, I understand the sentiment but I think my great uncle who survived the Holocaust would probably foam at the mouth to hear you say that. Bush is a big bastard, but to compare him to Hitler or Stalin is not even close.
Evil is evil whether it is inept and bumbling or truly powerful. I agree that Stalin and Hitler were stronger men and did, so far, greater harm. Yet I would submit that Bush has done something they could not.
He has destroyed our nation’s reputation.
This is no small matter. Ben Franklin and George Washington would be truly horrified at what President Death hiding behind the Face of Evil has done.
And he’s not finished yet. It’s too early to say what his destruction of the outlines of an international rule of law painfully built up in the last century will result in.
I am not sanguine about it.
Hitler was pretty freakin’ evil, but Stalin is still admired in parts of Russia to this day. So, uh, Hitler was worse at maintaining his popularity. So far as attrocities go, they both safely cross the threshhold of “it doesn’t fucking matter who was worse”.
Pastries-wise, Germans make the worse pastries, hands-down. In fact, I include them in “attrocities” department. Russian pastries, esp. the savory ones, can really hit the spot. Pirozhki… Mmm…. And I don’t know if ponchiki count, but they are also sinfully de-lish. Krispy-Kreme, eat your heart out.
I would state that Stalin was worse than Hitler. Based on the overall effect he had on the country, people and history, I see Stalin as a truly evil ruler whose ability to turn against his enemies and people has no equal.
On the question of pastry, I would have to state that German pastry is better. My wife is German and the pastry she prepares is sinfully wonderful. To say otherwise, could impact my present and future, at the same time! LOL!
Uh, you don’t see Hitler as a truly evil ruler?
I won’t question you on your assertion about German pastries, for your own welfare. 🙂
I believe Hitler was evil, but I saw Stalin as a person who trusted no one. Stalin was able to bring people close to him and then kill them with no thought of the consequences. That trait pushes Stalin, in my mind, beyond Hitler. Hitler was not as smart as Stalin. Stalin understood what he was doing and did not seem to mind eliminating anyone who crossed him.
That is my opinion, but I could be wrong!
I’m not sure it matters, but Hitler admired Stalin’s way of doing things, a little like the way Bush once said he would prefer to run the country as a dictatorship.
On the merits: I swing back and forth. Currently I think Hitler was worse, but it may be just that he was mad. Stalin was not a mad man.
We don’t get graded by you, Booman. We grade you! For example, we grade your love song to American exceptionalism of a few days ago, even if we don’t post about it, out of respect. I, personally, give that a D. I give it a D because I think it sounds like crap I wrote when I was about 30, which I have moved far beyond. I sympathize, but I damn sure don’t agree.
Stalin or Hitler? There are about 10 logical fallacies all loaded in the unanswerable question. I decline the poison bait.
However, the pastry question is legitimate. Russians have crummy pastries (even the best “zakuskies”). The Germans kill them on that. And, of course, that’s what Germans are really good at.
I agree about zakuski being bad pastries, esp. since zakuski are appetizers, usually pickles, black bread and smoked fish… 😉
I think the best use of german pastries is as a paperweight. But that is just me.
Well, it must be what is foisted on Americans as “German”, i guess. Living in Germany, a trip to the bakery is always a delight. Less sugar, and a lot lighter than the US versions.
Sure the Bamberger Hörnchen may be larger than the Parisian croissant, and bagels are considered a US import here, but on the whole I find German and Austrian pastries to be quite delicious. Italians are also quite good, as well as the French. British pastries are good in that they are mostly French recipes.
I’ve tried Russian pastries baked by Russians, but they all taste like something went horribly wrong in the process.
Plugging my podcast
Waiting for the World to Change….NOT ME
Both Stalin & Hitler will share a special spot in hell if there is one. I can never decide which is more evil than the other.
The Hitler vs. Stalin this is uncommentable.
No one should go there.
On the other hand, the bakery/pastry thing is entirely fair game, and it’s a complete, utter and total victory for the Germans.
In a competion among top bakers/chefs from Germany and Russia, no one could possibly hold that the Russians should even be allowed to show up.
While living/travelling in Germany, one of the best memories I have is of going to local German bakeries in the morning: 50+ different kinds of WONDERFUL breads fresh every morning, pastries which would be worthy for display in the windows of Parisian specialty shops, etc…
Needless to say on the Russian side, there is nothing.
Zero. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis.
It’s a complete no-brainer.
Sorry, forgot another little item:
“It is said that ‘evil men have no songs.’ How is it then that the Russians have songs?” — Nietsche
Ok, the parties thing I can tolerate. If I’d lived in Germany and you’d lived in Russia, we may have different ideas. But wtf is this about Russians being evil? I just don’t think there is any justification for that.
poemless:
Sorry, I should have added a comment or emoticon to this one. Like many of Nietsche’s aphorisms, it’s unclear whether he was really ‘serious’ about the commentary made, or whether it was made to further a particular argumentative point, or whether (as is the accepted explanation now for many of them) he simply couldn’t resist a good skewering of someone or some idea, and enjoyed the provocation.
That said, however, one could make a pretty good case that with the continued arms sales all over the world to any regime with the money to pay (regardless of how oppressive), their appalling pollution of their own homeland, the rusting and rotting of hundreds of nuclear power submarines (which the US taxpayer will largely be paying for ‘cleaning up’), the continued and constantly accelerated regression into a repressive police state largely ‘overseen’ by the FSB, etc., the Russians today are indeed some of the biggest SOB’s around.
the Russians today are indeed some of the biggest SOB’s around.
You’re a real classy fellow, aren’t you? And I though DTF was the master of vast generalizations around here. I hand you his crown.
Please reply or comment on the specific assertions made above, concerning their apalling pollution of their own country, their continued arms sales, their complete indifference to nuclear pollution of the seas adjoining their neighbors, their continuing slide into a ‘controlled state’ not dissimilar to the previous Communist regime, etc., or is all you’re bringing to the table just insults?
All of these are evident, amply documented in the public press, and you can certainly go look them up yourself.
I won’t debate the incompetent management of the nuclear industry. But lack of resources and oversight isn’t exctly the same as evil. The continued environmental damage done by the Soviets is an attrocity and will take centuries to undo, if we ever can. (Btw, I lived in Moscow and breathed the air and had to burn or throw away all my clothes when I returned. I don’t need to be informed about the pollution…)
I have little problem with them arming places like Venezuela (well, little problem compared to whom WE arm. I mean, I think it is a double standard that it is good for us to arm Israel but bad for them to arm Iran. I thinks arms are bad in general, but hypocracy is bad in general too.)
And while they have some issues to iron out, they are not returning to a repressive Communist State. The State has taken over much of the major media, but it is perfectly legal to publish whatever you want. In fact, there is more dissident independent media than ever before. Putin has been given wide ranging powers by the Duma, but remians extremely popular and a voice of reason in geopolitical affairs, esp. regarding Iraq, Iran & N. Korea. There is no end to the sources I can give you supporting these last assertions, but will start here:
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0707nj1.htm
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060710/cohen
http://www.exile.ru/2006-May-19/the_cold_war_timeline.html
http://english.intelligent.ru/
I’d start with the Cohen piece. You can also find a treasure trove of stories on the current Russian political scene at European Tribune. I’ve written a lot. So have people like Jerome a Paris & Blackhawk. If you are truly interested, I’d recommend them.
As far as insults go, you called an entire country “evil” and “sob’s”. Those are insults. And very few Russians have done anything to deserve them.
My apologies, sincerely. I must be having a truly cranky day. 🙁
I had — and have — no intension of labelling an entire ‘people’ (the Russians) as ‘evil’ or anything else: careless and unthoughtful words, and I do apologize again. And thank you for the links, some of which I have read, and will check the others: thanks again.
The ‘Russian situation’ is indeed complicated, and I wish its longer-term outlook was more clear…although I am likely by temperament, more pessimistic than others.
Btw, I’m sorry if I come across as overly sensitive and pedantic. Well, I am. But you know, there is just so much mud unnecessarily being flung at Russia right now, it’s exhausting.
No apologies necessary, you were and are entirely correct.
However, I would like to point out that I have no intention of backing down from my initial point that German bakery goods (expanding on the ‘pastry’ definition) both in variety and quality far surpass those from Russia.
(hehe, we’ll see where this goes… 🙂 )
Trick question, both are equally reprehensible people who are responsible for the intentional killing of millions of human beings.
Why I am the last Stalinist in America:
Colleges & universites still sell Rockefeller’s Ludlow dream retail.
Part of a poem I wrote long ago.
Well, it is an open thread. I really can’t pick between Stalin and Hitler – to me they are two faces of the same coin.
But I want to know about the Pie War! That was way before my time, evidently. I have online and offline periods, and all the brouhaha just passed me by.
Will someone pleeeeeease give me a summary? I feel so out of it!!
Many thanks and a big hug to whoever will indulge me. Thanks!
Here you go… a dkospedia entry on the pie wars 😉
Thanks for that!
Past a certain point comparisons don’t matter. In practical terms Hitler was as bad as Stalin was as bad as Hitler.
As for pastries, I like a good strudel or a good Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, and I like a good piroshki. There’s a place in the Pike Place Market that sells piroshkies, and now that I think about it it’s been far too long since i’ve had one of their mushroom, onion and potato creations. But the question of whose pastry is the worst can only be settled by whose tastes the best, because that’s the one I’ll be tempted to eat the most and therefore do me the most dietary damage.
Robert Novak..portrait of an American traitor
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060712/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_leak_novak
And yet the truly important question goes unasked. Which is cuter? Baby pandas or kittens?
but would Hitler have been defeated in WW2 without the USSR? Probably not, which would have given us a very different recent history.
I’m more bummed about the loss of Syd Barrett.
Stalin, Hitler, Bush…they all killed more people than acceptable.
both left not only a trail of death but left legacies which still affect us today. Hitler left a philosophy which we have adapted much of, (as ironically has Israel) and, Stalin, while defeating Hitler and saving the USSR created the contradictions that led to its destruction and to the mistaken image of socialism as dictatorial. We who work for a socialist society are forced to carry his ghost even though Stalinism is not what we want.
On another level, comparisons ususally stop at body counts but there are philosophical questions. If one reads the writing of both Hitler and Stalin and if one examines their programs then the question of intent must arise. If millions are die because of bad judgement while attempting someting with good intent, is it the same as purposeful industrialiszed slaughter based on hatred? I don’t know the answer but I know that we must always fight against dictatorships and for working class democracy.