Quote:
Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
On the same theory that you use with Hitler, how can you say that Stalin truly believed that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few?
He murdered millions upon millions, as you note, deported and enslaved millions more, all in the service of consolidating and preserving the power which flowed to: (A) himself; and (B) a relatively tiny elite within the Communist Party (which itself was a minority in the Soviet Union).
Those are not the actions of a man who believes that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Those are the actions of a man who believes that individuals, their lives, self-determination, etc. have no value -- which may be what you were getting at -- but it is not the same thing.
"The State" does not equal "the many" -- especially in the old Soviet Union -- as I'd think a small government conservative should appreciate.
S_A_M
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You are talking like you are part of the deluded left that at first embraced Stalin and then when they realized how horrible things went you tried to argue that what happaned was because Stalin was insane and deluded and what happened was not the logical extension of the communist philosophy.
Someone like Stalin does not stay in power for as long as he did without a signficant portion of the people underneath him believing in the philosophy of what he is doing. Everything he did could be justified as part of his communist philosophy.
Stalin took a backward rural national and turned it into an industrial power house. His country was wiped out during WWII and yet he turned it into one the most advanced and industrialized economies in the world.
He just had to slaughter twenty percent of the population to do it. But the other eighty percent ended up with a much higher standard of living.
The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few.
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