Zonie63
Posts: 2826
Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
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ORIGINAL: thompsonx
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
I disagree that it has to be an either/or. There can be different degrees of bad and good.
Could you be a bit more specific?
Not really. Good and bad are subjective judgments. I was just saying that what was written on paper seemed not so bad, but what was written on paper versus what was actually practiced by that government didn't match.
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What specifically did they do that you found objectionable?
Well, there's the forced closing of churches and synagogues, for one thing.
My understanding is that they closed because the state quit supporting them. Do you have some other data?
The state didn't just stop supporting them. They confiscated church property, harassed believers, executed clergy or sent them to labor camps. Don't you think that seems rather extreme for a state which claims to support freedom of religion?
Ironically, Stalin reopened a number of churches and encouraged religious worship during World War II, but he and his successor, Khrushchev, reversed that policy after the war and started persecuting religion again.
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Then there was the Collectivization
We call that agri-biz in this country. You know where the state supports economies of scale in farming. So if it is good here why is it bad there?
They forced peasants off their land, executed many without trial, and caused one of the most devastating famines of the 20th century. Google "Holodomor" for more information.
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and Industrialization period of the late 1920s/early 1930s.
If you were to check the statistical abstracts for that period you will find that the industrialization of the first two five year plans are what allowed the russians to defeat the germans in ww 2. Why is that a bad thing?
That's a distortion of the facts. The people paid a heavy price for that industrialization, but the Bolsheviks only continued the process that had already been set in motion by the Tsarist government.
As for defeating the Germans, the Soviets also had a lot of help from the Western Allies.
Besides, the Soviets could have defeated the Germans in 1939, if they hadn't signed a Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler. Further, they were caught with their pants down in 1941, even though their forces still outnumbered the Germans on the Eastern Front. Unfortunately, Stalin purged most of his officer corps and either had them shot or sent to Siberia. Once the war started, many of the officers were officially "rehabilitated" by the State and were sent back to command their units on the front, just in time for the Winter Counteroffensive of 1941-42. But by that time, the Germans had large sections of Russia under their control, not to mention the rich lands of the Ukraine, and millions of Soviet troops neutralized within the first six months.
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Then there were the purges and show trials of the 1930s.
Were not the pruge directed at the counterrevolutionaries?
What would you do with someone who was trying to overthrow your government?
Most counterrevolutionary activity had ceased in the 1920s. No one was left to overthrow the government, so the show trials were a complete fabrication and ruse. The purges were a ploy by Stalin to eliminate anyone who (he thought) might oppose him, but most of the people were completely innocent and unfairly charged with crimes. Worse still, the state would go after whole families, friends, associates, and anyone they felt like. Beria was especially brutal. Even Nikita Khrushchev acknowledged this in his harsh denunciation of Stalin.
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That should be enough for any civilized person to find objectionable.
So far you have only brought rhetoric to the table...facts would be a welcome change.
What table is that? I'm not even sure why you're questioning me on this. Do you just not know the facts, or are these questions being put forth disingenuously?
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How so?
Which parts are useless?
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Well, the parts that say there is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom of assembly - those parts are pretty much useless, since they didn't follow those principles.
Are you talking about the oakland pd or russia?
Well, let's just stick to Russia for now. If you want to say that the federal, state, and/or local governments aren't following the U.S. Constitution (as they've sworn to do), then I would heartily agree with you, although that may be best for another topic.
But if you want to compare the two governments in this way, just look at the body count. The Bolsheviki were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of their own people. They also share a large responsibility for the outbreak of World War II by their Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler, which gave him a free hand to carry his aggressive invasions throughout Europe, including the USSR. We didn't do that; they did, and that's a fact you can not deny.
< Message edited by Zonie63 -- 2/11/2012 11:09:40 AM >
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Scalia believes Former USSR better than USA - 
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