Most Brutal Dictator/Communist Leader

[Max Sinister]

About the Guomindang in Taiwan: Taiwan was a dictatorship or at least an almost-one-party state for many decades, and they received massive amounts of money from the west (esp. the US), since they were an important ally. I don't know whether they'd done that good in a united China if the US hadn't found it that necessary to support them.

About Lopez: he came to power after his father had died (who seemed to be quite competent for a dictator). Lopez wanted to enlarge his empire, and when Brazil tried to install a pro-Brazil government in Uruguay, he attacked them. But the Brazilians managed to make Uruguay stay on their side, and Lopez himself angered off the Argentinians too (which was absolutely unnecessary).

The rest of information - I don't know how reliable it is, I only found one book where it's written in (and it's not a real history book either), but here it is:

- He let his soldiers train that hard for the war, that many died before the war because of this.
- He made one in three soldiers an "internal security" man. They were advised to shoot any of their men (including officers) who they thought might defect during a battle. The soldiers were more afraid of their fellows than of the enemy.
- He tortured his own mother
- He demanded from his cardinals that they'd make him a saint of the church, and when they didn't want, he shot them all.

Sounds unbelievable, but at least I'm sure about the numbers (five sixths of the pop!), and that won't come from nothing...

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

LOL.

Very funny, but I'M not saying it was acceptable, I'm saying it was VIEWED by STALIN as acceptable.

And Robert, the Genocide comment was more of a joke related to past debates about a different event that we will not mention here, but in any case, it is claimed in all the sources you guys have been mentioning as a genocide, so it is not a straw man.

Here is a SCHOLARLY article with ACTUAL DATA in it to support a viewpoint:

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/leninist-international/1999-April/003573.html

Rather than just taking what happened and assigning motives to people without any evidence, which passes for history these days.

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

Hmm, that’s a rather interessting homepage you found, Pasha. But the writer concludes that Stalin is responsible for the famine: “These findings do not, of course, free Stalin from responsibility for the famine.” So even those marxist* whose scolary abilities and virtues you so praise, Pasha, is aware that Uncle Joe is in the end the man to blame for the ukrainian famine.

Btw I find it highly suspect that you critise others for using dubious material and then yourself uncritically use a merry band of sworn communist as a reference!

Regards!

- Mr. Bluenote.

Honeste vivere, alterum non ladere, suum cuique tribuere!

*) And yes, they are marxist/leninist/what not, since it is clearly stated on their homepage: “This is an open, militant, non-sectarian mailing list initiated by Mark Jones (British) and currently moderated by Yoshie Furuhashi (from Japan) and Macdonald Stainsby (Canada). Its political orientation
is Marxist and its inspiration is the life, work and writings of V I Lenin.”

 

[zoomar]

This is starting to sound lke an argument over how many brutal dictators can stand on the head of a pin

BTW, the answer is 12

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

You are splitting hairs and misrepresenting me just to be contentious. Of course Stalin is responsible for the famine, nobody has ever argued otherwise, ever. The point is that it was the result of the failure of collectivization to increase agricultural productivity that caused the famine, not a deliberate attempt to starve the Ukrainians. This constant victim-centered b.s. that makes everything some vile conspiracy to oppress or kill huge populations just out of sheer evil is just plain tiresome. Somtimes tragedy is the result of miscalculation and government incompetence, not demonic malice.

That Stalin was a monstrous brute does not change the fact that he was also the ruler of the USSR and viewed it's well-being as his responsibility. He may have taken an "you have to break eggs to make an omlette" approach to rulership, but he was not a mindless sociopath interested only in oppression and murder, nor was Hitler.

He had to include in his calculations Polish designs on Soviet territory, the threat of the West, the recent Japanese occupation of Manchuria, and the need to maintain stores to support the military in case the USSR was attacked. It's easy to claim he ordered a genocide, or mass starvation, or whatever you want to call it, but there is no evidence of this. All I'm hearing are anecdotal stories about Ukrainian grandmothers who remember great hunger and baby-eating. Great, every society on the planet can do that, including the US in the Depression.

Governments, lacking the ability to foretell the future, don't always prepare for disasters, especially when they occur contrary to what the projections were showing. Yes, the Soviets exported enough grain to feed a lot of people that year, but the amount was less than a third of normal, and much of it was already in transit by the time the magnitude of the disaster was apparent, which BTW, local authorities were not anxious to publicize, given Stalin's patience for failure. You all seem to have this impression that Stalin was sitting in some huge computerized control room with instant accurate information and could just push a button marked "halt the massive machinery of agricultural production spanning 1/6th of the entire planet and reroute everything instantaneously in such a way as to deliberately starve Ukraine". This is all typical conspriacy thoery.

 

[Wiggy]

You are splitting hairs and misrepresenting me just to be contentious. Of course Stalin is responsible for the famine, nobody has ever argued otherwise, ever. The point is that it was the result of the failure of collectivization to increase agricultural productivity that caused the famine, not a deliberate attempt to starve the Ukrainians. This constant victim-centered b.s. that makes everything some vile conspiracy to oppress or kill huge populations just out of sheer evil is just plain tiresome. Somtimes tragedy is the result of miscalculation and government incompetence, not demonic malice.

I think you've side-stepped Stalin's motives. His object was political control. Power. Collectivization is a manifestation of that. To reduce Stalin's actions to a "miscalculation" is disingenious.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.
They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by
the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.
They have a world to win.

Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto

You think maybe Stalin skipped or misinterpreted this part of the book?

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

You are splitting hairs and misrepresenting me just to be contentious. Of course Stalin is responsible for the famine, nobody has ever argued otherwise, ever. The point is that it was the result of the failure of collectivization to increase agricultural productivity that caused the famine, not a deliberate attempt to starve the Ukrainians. This constant victim-centered b.s. that makes everything some vile conspiracy to oppress or kill huge populations just out of sheer evil is just plain tiresome. Somtimes tragedy is the result of miscalculation and government incompetence, not demonic malice.

I think you've side-stepped Stalin's motives. His object was political control. Power. Collectivization is a manifestation of that. To reduce Stalin's actions to a "miscalculation" is disingenious.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.
They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by
the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.
They have a world to win.

Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto

You think maybe Stalin skipped or misinterpreted this part of the book?

What does that have to do with anything? If anything that quote supports my argument. Ukrainian farmers were hardly a ruling class, and if the proletarians have nothing to lose, then surely their lives are safe.

The aim of collectivization was to increase productivity, which the Soviets assumed would happen because a collective would have the resources to obtain the latest machinery, whereas an individual farmer would not. increased productivity would provide a larger surplus which could be used to finance industrialization, and since fewer farmers would produce more crops, there would be more manpower available for the rapidly growing industrial sector. Greater industrial power and prosperity would make the USSR more powerful, and thus Stalin more powerful, and would make the USSR more formidable in world affairs, able to resist aggression, and able to launch aggression if desired.

Collectivization was a total disaster, because farmers were not as motivated to work for a state collective as they had been on their own property, since working hard provided no real additional compensation, and the disruptions caused by the process of collectivization and the different methods neccessary to farm a collective caused a drastic drop in productivity, which of course caused a drastic drop of agricultural output, causing a severe famine.

If Stalin was only interested in political control, a five year old child could have given him a more efficient way of obtaining it. Besides, he already had total political control; how much more can you have than total?

And don't you think it's a bit naive to assume that Stalin only had one motive in life, or that you have special insight into what that is?

 

[Wiggy]

Sorry. Can't accept that Stalin "accidently" killed millions in a botched attempt to make things better.

At the time his power was not absolute. Stalin had to outmaneuver a number of other possible successors to Lenin. He had to bring the Ukraine and other parts of the new country to heel. He purged the Communist Party in the mid-30's, purged the officer corps in the late 30's and was warming up to another set of purges when he died. He did whatever he needed to do to stay in power.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Sorry. Can't accept that Stalin "accidently" killed millions in a botched attempt to make things better.

At the time his power was not absolute. Stalin had to outmaneuver a number of other possible successors to Lenin. He had to bring the Ukraine and other parts of the new country to heel. He purged the Communist Party in the mid-30's, purged the officer corps in the late 30's and was warming up to another set of purges when he died. He did whatever he needed to do to stay in power.

Then try providing evidence instead of just "feeling" that everything Stalin did was deliberately evil. Or explain HOW starving people increased his power. Normally, famines are the best possible way to get kicked OUT of power, not the other way round.

And I'm curious who you think was a particular threat to Stalin in 1932. And as for "absolute", neither Stalin's power nor anyone else's in the entire history of the human race has ever been "absolute" or anything close to that.

 

[Namor]

Then try providing evidence instead of just "feeling" that everything Stalin did was deliberately evil. Or explain HOW starving people increased his power. Normally, famines are the best possible way to get kicked OUT of power, not the other way round.

Starving people increases your power if your government(USSR) fought those same people in a Civil War just a decade ago. Ukrainians were biggest minority in USSR. During Russian Civil War, Ukraine declared independance and many people supported it. There was considerable fighting in Ukraine and Southern Russia. Those regions were very warm towards White forces. Ukraine and Southern Russia have long Cossack tradition and although there weren't many Cossacks at that time, people had more free spirit. They were more likely to rise up in revolt if you mistreated them. Stalin wasn't stupid, he was from Georgia himself, so he knew that people from that whole Southern region of USSR are more rebellion prone. Now, when you collectivise many peasants into one tightly controlled Kolhoz, you reduce the risks of rebellion. If you starve them enough, you ELIMINATE all risk of rebellion. All of Soviet Union was collectivized but Southern part suffered the most. Coincidence or not? Knowing Stalin's maniacal desire for power and incredible paranoya putting 2 and 2 together is easy. Now that I explained to you how starving Ukraine and Southern Russia made Stalin more powerful, mind to explain why Stalin did following things in order to "increase food production"?
1. Sealing off Ukraine from the rest of the world.
2. Posting armed soldiers on the borders order to stop anybody going IN or out.
3. Confiscating, not collecting, PERSONAL grain of tghe peasants. How would that help collectivisation proces?

 

[Derek Jackson]

There is very little doubt that millions died as a result of Stalin's economic policies. However many states that were NOT dictatorships caused millions of deaths.

The poor handling to famines in British India and British Ireland in the 19th century come to mind, there was also a famine in Bengal in 1943 worsened by our (I am a Brit) administration.

It is, in my opinion, at least as reasonable to blame Hitler for ALL the deaths in WW2 in Europe.

Then there is this key difference. Stalin was willing to murder millions to achieve his politica objectives.


For Hitler murdering millions WAS his political objective.

Also there is very little doubt that Mao was responsible for more deaths than Stalin- but of course he held sway over more people

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

"All of Soviet Union was collectivized but Southern part suffered the most. Coincidence or not?"

Yes, coincidence. The Southernmost part, especially the Ukraine, was the most highly agricultural, therefore it suffered the most from collectivization. It's really very simple, I don't know why nobody can grasp this.

People were not free to move in and out of different parts of the Soviet Union, nor in and out of the Soviet Union, ever. It was not limited to the famine, and in any case, if people had been allowed to run around in large numbers looking for food, the samine would have become far worse.

Give me ONE other example of starving people as an effective tool to prevent rebellion. This is the OPPOSITE of what you should do. The revolutions that swept across Europe in 1848 were caused by famine; the French Revolution was sparked by famine. The triumph of Islam was caused by famine. Almost every rebellion that has ever occurred in the entire history of humanuty was caused by famine. To claim that Stalin would starve people to prevent famine is calling him an idiot. Stalin was not an idiot. The famine was not limited to the Ukraine, it struck the entire Soviet Union.

If he is to blame, it is for keeping it secret from the West, which could have sent aid; this is typical Soviet paranoia, not a conspiracy to destroy the Ukraine.

In case you are not familiar with Soviet history, the Civil War was not limited to the Ukraine, and every part of the USSR had declared independence at some point after the revolution. The strongest foes of the Reds were in Russia, not the Ukraine.

 

[MerryPrankster]

John,

Marshal Deniken, one of the White generals, recruited and allied with several powerful Cossack warlords in the Ukraine. The last anti-Communist gov'ts in the USSR to fall were the Trans-Caucasian ones--Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The famine occurred in the North Caucasus as well.

Actually, Stalin did seek aid from the West; an observer from the time reported ships from Germany carrying aid grain were landing in the USSR at the same time that ships carrying grain for sale elsewhere in Europe were leaving the USSR.

On the matter of rebellions, units of the Red Army in Ukraine DID rebel; they were apparently defeated quickly, b/c I've only heard a little bit about them (all I can remember is "21st"--unsure if it's 21st division or brigade or what).

 

[HelloLegend]

Mao coined the phrase in China...

"He isn't human. Do as you wish..."