Talk:Stalin apologetics
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[edit] Jesus Christ.
I've never heard of "tankies" until just now. Thanks, Internet. But I remember my partner telling me about being on a trip to one of the Stans and seeing taxi drivers with Stalin iconography in their hacks. I kind of got that; not that I sympathized with it, but I can understand yearning for the old days, some sort of nostalgic nationalism for a system you grew up in, for a world that made sense before the 90s came along and changed everything. But the idea that a bunch of decades later, people are willing embrace this nonsense and even sign their names to books about it blows my mind. I would love to be a fly on the wall in the coffee room of the English department where Grover Furr teaches and listen to what his colleagues say about him. "Furr? He's really good on Chaucer. Just don't get him started on Stalin." (Also, dude got his BA at McGill, so I feel a touch of WTF about that....) Father Vivian O'Blivion talk
23:01, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
- This page is courtesy the Facebook group, where tankies appear to be this season's libertarian-of-the-day. Never let it be said the FB doesn't help the wiki! Much of it is User:(S L) ranting on the FB at the tankies who showed up - David Gerard (talk) 23:21, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
[edit] Encyclopedia of Russian Civilisation
Heads-up and translation courtesy Amir Aharoni from Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 11:49, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
[edit] Stalin Society
http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/ Basically, everything they say needs to be refuted here - David Gerard (talk) 15:10, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
- I can go through the free stuff over a long period of time (so I don't burn out) but I'm not touching the shit you have to buy from them.
17:54, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
- Oh fuck no! The free stuff is ideal for the task anyway - David Gerard (talk) 00:36, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
[edit] NKVD National operations
This section is a little confusing and needs some background. First question: what happened, exactly, besides a bunch of people dying? What was the "The Polish Operation," where did it happen and when? Second question: what is the difference between "111,901 Poles" and "85,000 ... ethnically Polish." Who were the other 26k people? Father Vivian O'Blivion talk
20:34, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
- According to Snyder's book, the rest were just suspected Polish.
23:29, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
- Onto your first question, it happened throughout all of Russia (hence the national operations). And it wasn't just "a bunch of people dying", it was deliberate executions of ethnic Poles. The original order (NKVD Order 00485) was explicitly targeting Polish spies, but was interperated by the NKVD as all Polish individuals. http://www.memo.ru/history/POLAcy/00485ART.htm
23:32, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
- Onto your first question, it happened throughout all of Russia (hence the national operations). And it wasn't just "a bunch of people dying", it was deliberate executions of ethnic Poles. The original order (NKVD Order 00485) was explicitly targeting Polish spies, but was interperated by the NKVD as all Polish individuals. http://www.memo.ru/history/POLAcy/00485ART.htm
- Is this a bit clearer? It was a straight-up ethnic cleansing in practice - David Gerard (talk) 11:10, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
[edit] Russian levels of support for Stalin
Ripped this source from the Crazification factor article. Long live Joe? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 23:34, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
- The funniest part of that poll is most individuals said they wouldn't want to live in a country run by Stalin :v http://carnegieendowment.org/files/stalin_puzzle.pdf
23:37, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
- The undisputable fact that most Russians see nothing in Stalin resembling the oger the West wants him to be, especially the older generation, exposes the Western narrative as the umpteen US propaganda stunt for internal consumption of its post-WW2 political block.82.161.30.183 (talk) 18:43, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
[edit] Holodomor denial
TOW has a page on it, BTW. I think my favorite one is "Nazis dunnit!" Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 02:01, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
[edit] E. H. Carr
this fucking guy defends Stalin and Hitler? I think we hit the motherload on cog diss
20:12, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
[edit] Category:Pissed at us
Relevant for addition? [1] --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 16:53, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- If we had a piece just on tankies ... - David Gerard (talk) 18:48, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
[edit] Try this
Keep a barf bag near by and Google the Rural Peoples Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist). — Unsigned, by: 190.10.8.69 / talk / contribs 00:40, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
[edit] "Stalin" or "Stalinism"?
Better title/focus of the article?--ZooGuard (talk) 08:58, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
- It's apologetics for everything Stalin actually did, not just "Stalinism" itself, a rather more nebulous thing. The apologetics are very focused on the man and his actions - David Gerard (talk) 09:41, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think there is any strong reason to retitle the article - but that's mainly because I prefer the aesthetics of "Stalin apologetics" over "Stalinism apologetics" (the former sounds better to me). That doesn't mean, though, that the article can't have a focus on people who may agree that Stalin was a horrible dictator, but... [insert apologetics, possibly involving the defeat of Hitler].
- Appealing to the defeat of Nazi Germany is of course a form of post hoc apologetics, because Stalin certainly didn't do all his horrible shit to be able to face Hitler (mainly because Stalin had already begun his murderous antics way before anyone had ever heard of Herr Hitler, and when Hitler came to power in 1933, Stalinism was already well-established, as was its terrible human rights record [yes, I know this is a somewhat anachronistic concept, but still]).
- I've actually heard Niall Ferguson using a similar argument in his apologetics for the British Empire, arguing that the British Empire heroically spent itself to keep the world free from authoritarianism/totalitarianism in two world wars - completely ignoring that:
- A) This was not the reason the British Empire was created.
- B) The intention behind British intervention was not to run down the Empire, but to defend it.
- C) The British were not always "gracious in retreat" from empire (the Mau Mau rebellion, the reluctance to give up India, the Suez War to name but a few examples), and were forced to give up their empire.
- ScepticWombat (talk) 09:55, 21 January 2015 (UTC)