Hitler VS Stalin

[The Stranger]

shut up... Everybody knows I meant Craterus.. and He is a lot less to type than Craterus...

[Vuk]

Hitler intended to kill people. Stalin just didn't care if a few million died while reforming the industries.

What!! What about Ukraine?! He delibrately killed more people in Ukraine than Hitler in the ENTIRE WAR!! And that was just the beginning! Hitler went after the Jews, and Stalin went after the protestants!! They both had a religious/ethic group they disliked and killed everyone of them that they could! Stalin imho was worse simply because he killed more, and in just as gruesome a way. While Hitler, no doubt, would have killed as many or more as Stalin if he could, he didn't. Stalin took more human lives in worse ways and caused mass human suffering. By that measurement, I'd say Stalin (For the ugliest, shortest dictator of WWII, though, it would be Hitler ;)).

[Conqueror]

While Hitler, no doubt, would have killed as many or more as Stalin if he could, he didn't.

For many, that is a reason to consider Hitler the worse one. A man is no worse just because he has the better/more opportunities to do bad things.

Consider this: What if Stalin slips on a soap and dies before rising to power? Would you say that he (in that hypothetical scenario) isn't as bad a person just because he never gets the opportunity to kill millions?

[Vuk]

For many, that is a reason to consider Hitler the worse one. A man is no worse just because he has the better/more opportunities to do bad things.

Consider this: What if Stalin slips on a soap and dies before rising to power? Would you say that he (in that hypothetical scenario) isn't as bad a person just because he never gets the opportunity to kill millions?

You have to remember though, if Stalin had been able to, he would have killed more people also. No one can know their hearts (which is the true measure of good or evil), so the only way we can compare their evil is by the numbers of people they killed. Niether had quams about torture, rape, murder (obviously), etc. and we will never know who the "worst" was, we can however know who did the worst to humanity, and it was Stalin. People can guess as to who was worse, (I for one could not even begin) but we will never know for sure.

[Vuk]

If Stalin was such a threat, soooo evil, then why didn't we nuke him to the stone age? He had nuclear weapons as well, but if he again was soooo evil, then I think we would have found a way to destroy Russia.

The reason we dropped two nukes on Japan was to scare the Russians. We tried to do everything we could to avoid a war with Russia. If a war did start, the result would not be pretty, with only two countries emerging from WWII with any sort of power, and both of them in serious economic trouble. There would be all kinds of alliances made again, as countries took sides (though the U.S. would probably have the easiest time with that). When we (America) did win (which I'm sure we would), we would have been no better of than any of those other ruined countries. It would have been a disaster. Not to mention that if we won the war, we could not start an all out conquest of Russia, as we would not have the resources, and the Russians, with their enormous population and in their impenitrable fortress of snowy waste land, that since the time of the Mongols has never been successfully invaded, would have been safe and soon recovered. Any chance of "good relations" with them would be over forever.

I am wondering though Murat: you say: "if he again was soooo evil". Do you find the killing of billions (tens of millions directly) evil? I do.

[Watchman]

You have to remember though, if Stalin had been able to, he would have killed more people also.

...based on what ? Having people killed was of purely instrumental value to him; it was how he secured his continued power. The second he realized his purges were about to start seriously undermining that power, he put the stops on the worst of them.

Hitler put the Final Solution to work smack in the middle of a total war against an industrially superior enemy, and basically shot his own military-industrial complex in the leg in the process. All because he was obsessed with not having filthy Jews and Gypsies and whatever anywhere near his oh-so-pure Aryans.

That's the difference between the two tyrants. Stalin had a measure of rationality in his policies - albeit of a decidedly callous and brutal sort, and not rarely quite contrafinal - while Hitler was guided purely by his crackpot (and murderous) ideology and delusions.

[Vuk]

...based on what ? Having people killed was of purely instrumental value to him; it was how he secured his continued power. The second he realized his purges were about to start seriously undermining that power, he put the stops on the worst of them.

Hitler put the Final Solution to work smack in the middle of a total war against an industrially superior enemy, and basically shot his own military-industrial complex in the leg in the process. All because he was obsessed with not having filthy Jews and Gypsies and whatever anywhere near his oh-so-pure Aryans.

That's the difference between the two tyrants. Stalin had a measure of rationality in his policies - albeit of a decidedly callous and brutal sort, and not rarely quite contrafinal - while Hitler was guided purely by his crackpot (and murderous) ideology and delusions.

Having people killed was of purely instrumental value to him; it was how he secured his continued power.

Not so. He launched a war against Protestants and killed them wherever he could.

The second he realized his purges were about to start seriously undermining that power, he put the stops on the worst of them.

That is why he was unable to kill more. Because if he did, he would lose power, get attacked by western powers, and be destroyed like Hitler. You seriously think that if he had the power that there would be a Protestant alive in the world? He was a maniac with a vendetta, just like Hitler; he was simply more sucessfull than Hitler was.

[Watchman]

You know, this whole Protestant thing is entirely new to me. I've heard and seen Stalin accused of all kinds of antipathies, mainly involving Jews, different East/Central European nationalities and/or assorted minority populaces withing Russia proper, but never before of him actually giving a hoot about religion...?

'Sides, I haven't heard of him having any noticeable issues with us Hundred Proof Protestant Finns because of that.

Why am I being referred to as "he"? Since when did I become male?

What, you're not ? That'd be news to me. Not that it would be of major consequence anyway AFAIK - isn't the male pronoun the standard for passive/generic use in English ? Damn your gender-differential Indo-European languages anyway, they make things so complicated...

[Vuk]

You know, this whole Protestant thing is entirely new to me. I've heard and seen Stalin accused of all kinds of antipathies, mainly involving Jews, different East/Central European nationalities and/or assorted minority populaces withing Russia proper, but never before of him actually giving a hoot about religion...?

'Sides, I haven't heard of him having any noticeable issues with us Hundred Proof Protestant Finns because of that.

What, you're not ? That'd be news to me. Not that it would be of major consequence anyway AFAIK - isn't the male pronoun the standard for passive/generic use in English ? Damn your gender-differential Indo-European languages anyway, they make things so complicated...

Actually, He, and Man can be gender neutral. There are, after all, two types of men: Women, and men. That's why in the Lord of the Rings, people were called the race of men. Men refers to our species. It also, of course, can be used to refer to the male sex, but when you don't know if a person is male or female, you say he, refering to someone of the human race (unless you are talking to a dog ;)).
It is not 'politically correct' to do this any more, but it is still gramatically correct.

[Watchman]

Tells you something of the priorities of the people who developed the root language...
Anyway, yeah, that's pretty much what I was referring to.

[Vuk]

Tells you something of the priorities of the people who developed the root language...
Anyway, yeah, that's pretty much what I was referring to.

I know, pretty degrading to men, huh? Women are their own special category, and men are just generic, the grunts so to speak.

[Watchman]

I'd say it makes them the norm from which everything else (say, round half the humans on the planet...) is the expection.

I can kind of see why some people might find that annoying.

[Vuk]

I'd say it makes them the norm from which everything else (say, round half the humans on the planet...) is the expection.

I can kind of see why some people might find that annoying.

lol, I was making a joke Watchman. Actually, it makes the race of Men the NORM. It is he, or she, either way you could get people offended, and since in old English, man (not spelled like that), at first was NOT use to refer to the male sex, I guess it is something that carried over. I think it is kind of ridiculous to change it, as it neither exalts nor lowers men or women. Next thing I know you'll be saying that men walking behind women, opening doors for them, walking on the road side of the sidewalk, and other forms of respect are sexist ;).