He is also quoted as saying
Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.
True, Stalin was a more nuanced character that he is usually given credit for but he was still a paranoid and brutal man who was responsible for the deaths of a lot of innocent people.
Let’s not fall into the trap of either lionizing or demonizing historical figures.
He is also quoted as saying [blahblahblahbollocksbollocksbollocks]
No he isn’t. Maybe you should actually verify instead of spreading complete and utter bullshit with such confidence?
Let’s not fall into the trap of either lionizing or demonizing historical figures.
Yet here we are, with you attempting to demonise a historic figure by spreading bullshit.
responsible for the deaths of a lot of innocent people.
Every single US president in world history is too. Every single supporter of capitalism is responsible for 100million deaths every 5 years, what’s your point? You’re making an emotional attempt to demonise in one breath while pretending otherwise in the next.
You’re full of shit mate.
If you read my comment properly, I specifically said “he is quoted as saying …”, which is undeniably true.
Yet here we are, with you attempting to demonise a historic figure by spreading bullshit.
Saying that that Stalin was a brutal and paranoid man, amongst other things is a historically accurate statement.
If you think I’m promoting the standard, one dimensionals view that Stalin was evil incarnate, then you have completely failed to understand my point.
If you read my comment properly, I specifically said “he is quoted as saying …”, which is undeniably true.
Oh fuck off. Weasel words. How fucking slimey are you?
Saying that that Stalin was a brutal and paranoid man, amongst other things is a historically accurate statement.
Stalin was a soft kind grandpa compared to Lenin.
@aleph@lemm.ee once said “I kick puppies for fun”.
Now, I’m clearly lying, but it would be hard to be argue that anyone claiming you’ve been quoted as being pro-puppy-kicking is anything but “undeniably true”, as you say.
You’d think anyone disputing that quote would clearly be disputing the accuracy of the quote itself rather than the fact that it was, indeed, quoted somewhere. But I guess not.
he never did, it’s from a novel
This one
it predates every non-fiction instance of the phrase being used to my knowledge
This phrase is from the novel “Children of the Arbat” (1987) by Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov (1911 - 1998). This is how J.V. Stalin speaks about the execution of military experts in Tsaritsyn in 1918: “Death solves all problems. There is no person, and there is no problem. Later, in his “Novel-Memoir” (1997), A. Rybakov himself wrote that he “may have heard this phrase from someone, perhaps he came up with it himself.” That was the Stalinist principle. I just, briefly formulated it.
from here
Many biographers have cited it, including Simon Montefiore is his book The Red Tsar, which was very well researched and shows Stalin as multi-faceted and charismatic, albeit deeply flawed.
The idea that Stalin was brutal is ridiculous.
Um, have you ever read a book about the man? The Great Purges between 1936-1938 and his policies towards the Soviet peasantry are just two examples of his ruthlessness.
I’m probably less enthused about Stalin than your average Hexbear user. While I’ll fully recognize Stalin’s faults and harmful actions, what bugs me about liberal “Stalin bad” takes is a refusal to acknowledge the objectively impossible problems the USSR had to address in the 20s and 30s. With the peasants, for example, you can’t just let them continue on with small plots and wooden tools. You do that and eventually the cities starve, industrialization never happens, and the Nazis steamroll them back past the Urals (killing tens of millions in the process). The rollout of collectivization was a shit show but it’s not unreasonable for a socialist country to push for collective ownership of land.
Kotkin’s first volume on Stalin is a far better work that I’d recommend as far as biographies go. Kotkin is very obviously an anti-communist, but even a turbo Stalinite like Grover Furr finds few academic faults with that particular work. The other volumes are less stellar though.
There’s also the recently authorized re-translation of Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Demenico Losurdo which has a free PDF available. It offers insight on a perspective of Stalin that seeks to de-mythologize the “monster.”
As for Montefiore and authors of his ilk, I wouldn’t rely too much on narratives spun by pop history writers and journalists.
Don’t you find it a little strange that this short bit of quote is so often repeated but we never hear the context for it?
When you hear it out of context it sounds callous and cruel, but it would be a very different statement if (for example) he said it in response to finding out Hitler killed himself or that some enemy had died of cancer or something.
And that’s not even taking into account the fact that it’s inherently very suspicious that nobody seems to be able to produce a source for the original context and attribution of the quote.
Whether the quote is aprocyphal or not, it seems fitting because of the way Stalin dealt with political opponents. The list of early Bolsheviks were rounded up and shot during Stalin’s purges is quite lengthy.
Let me just pop on my They Live sunglasses and give this post a reread
whether it’s true doesn’t matter because it fits my opinion of him
Whether the quote is aprocyphal or not, it seems fitting
holy shit I love liberals
