Stalin voted third-best Russian

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I’m a little confused wasn’t he from Georgia? I suppose he became a naturalized Russian citizen. Oh, and there’s the fact that he was an evil mass murderer.

Stalin voted third-best Russian
Former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was beaten by medieval prince Alexander Nevsky in a poll held by a TV station to find the greatest Russian.

Stalin came third, despite being responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviets in labour camps and purges.

Alexander Nevsky fought off European invaders in the 13th century to preserve a united Russia.

In second place was reformist Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin, who was assassinated in 1911.

[edited by mod to fit into forum rules on quoting copyright material]

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Story from BBC NEWS:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7802485.stm

Published: 2008/12/28 22:50:36 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

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Possibly because he was the leader during the ‘Great Patriotic War’ (World War II)?
 
Yes , the Stalin ( his real name is Jewgashvili. ) was an evil mass murderer
It just shocks me , that he is called the third best Russian.
 
Kaninchen said:
Possibly because he was the leader during the ‘Great Patriotic War’ (World War II)?
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Makes sense. I know that many Romanians believe Vlad the Impaler was a great Romanian for holding off the Turks/Ottoman Empire.
 
RobertLGarrett said:
Makes sense. I know that many Romanians believe Vlad the Impaler was a great Romanian for holding off the Turks/Ottoman Empire.
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I’m sure there are still quite a few ‘Stalin knew how to put criminals (or whoever) in their place’ people around but the ‘Great Patriotic War’ leader thing probably has quite a bit of resonance.
 
Athanasiy said:
Yes , the Stalin ( his real name is Jewgashvili. ) was an evil mass murderer
It just shocks me , that he is called the third best Russian.
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I know that I may be being a bit sensitive here but ‘Jewgashvili’ may be how it’s pronounced but it isn’t how it’s spelled and rather hints at the idea that he was Jewish!
 
Kaninchen said:
I know that I may be being a bit sensitive here but ‘Jewgashvili’ may be how it’s pronounced but it isn’t how it’s spelled and rather hints at the idea that he was Jewish!
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It’s just a phonetic spelling- and they can be made in different ways, since Russia uses a different alphabet anyway.
 
Kaninchen said:
I know that I may be being a bit sensitive here but ‘Jewgashvili’ may be how it’s pronounced but it isn’t how it’s spelled and rather hints at the idea that he was Jewish!
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Kaninchen , there is a theory that he was a Georgian Jew .
Because the Russians and Georgians usually do not change their names.
But , I do not know exactly if he was a Georgian Jew.
I looked at wikipedia its a - Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvil

Here there is interesting article.
jrtelegraph.com/2007/09/jewish-love-of-.html

I know also that Saint Paul and many other great Christians were the Jews !
 
Kaninchen said:
Particularly popular theory with certain Ukrainians, I expect, could have a whole new pogrom about it.
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God forbid !
:signofcross:

Thanks be to God , the racial hatred , xenophobia and anti-semitism is against the law.
 
Bendecida said:
I’m a little confused wasn’t he from Georgia? I suppose he became a naturalized Russian citizen. Oh, and there’s the fact that he was an evil mass murderer.

Stalin voted third-best Russian
Former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was beaten by medieval prince Alexander Nevsky in a poll held by a TV station to find the greatest Russian.

Stalin came third, despite being responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviets in labour camps and purges.

Alexander Nevsky fought off European invaders in the 13th century to preserve a united Russia.

In second place was reformist Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin, who was assassinated in 1911.

[edited by mod to fit into forum rules on quoting copyright material]

read the rest:

Story from BBC NEWS:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7802485.stm

Published: 2008/12/28 22:50:36 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Print Sponsor
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This only highlights the dismal state of Russian social thought.
 
Bendecida said:
I’m a little confused wasn’t he from Georgia? I suppose he became a naturalized Russian citizen. Oh, and there’s the fact that he was an evil mass murderer.

Stalin voted third-best Russian
Former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was beaten by medieval prince Alexander Nevsky in a poll held by a TV station to find the greatest Russian.

Stalin came third, despite being responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviets in labour camps and purges.

Alexander Nevsky fought off European invaders in the 13th century to preserve a united Russia.

In second place was reformist Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin, who was assassinated in 1911.

[edited by mod to fit into forum rules on quoting copyright material]

read the rest:

Story from BBC NEWS:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7802485.stm

Published: 2008/12/28 22:50:36 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Print Sponsor
Click to expand...
I understand ethnic Georgians claim Stalin was an Ossete. Who knows?

I find Stolypin taking second place extremely interesting. Stolypin was a “westernizer” and a “market economy” guy, who believed Russia’s best bet would be to increase peasant prosperity so they would generate sufficient capital surplus to fuel industrialization; taking the U.S. experience as his model. He had no problem with foreign investment either; massive amounts of which helped fuel U.S. industrial and resource development. Had Stolylpin lived and maintained influence, it is very possible Russia would be a prosperous nation today, with a well-established rule of law.

It suggests to me that far fewer Russians are the drunks, Robber Barons and FSB/KGB agents they are often made out to be. Unfortunately, Putin and his agents are as far from Stolypin-mindedness as one could ask for.

Solzhenitsyn maintained, before the Soviet Union even dissolved, that Russia could never fully rid itself of the institutions and mentality of the Soviet years without Nuremberg-style trials of the state criminals. One is inclined to credit him with prescience.
 
Bendecida said:
Alexander Nevsky fought off European invaders in the 13th century to preserve a united Russia.
A fascinating poll!

This may not be interesting to anyone, and I guess it’s several degrees off topic, but I recall speculating, in a Chaucer course in college, whether there is an indirect reference to Alexander Nevsky in the “Knight’s Prologue”. Nevsky’s big victory against the Teutonic Knights was fought on the ice of Lake Peipus and is referred to as the “Battle On the Ice”. In the Knight’s Prologue it is mentioned that the Knight was welcomed in Prussia and had campaigned in Lithuania and Russia. The timing would have been right. It is speculated that, being a “free knight” (semi-mercenary) as he was, the reference is to fighting alongside the Teutonic Knights in that battle.

52: Ful ofte tyme he hadde the bord bigonne
He was put in a place of honor often.
53: Aboven alle nacions in pruce;
Above all nations’ knights in Prussia.
54: In lettow hadde he reysed and in ruce,
He campaigned in Lithuania and Russia.

It is interesting to realize that battle was instrumental in establishing the northernmost part of the “Latin/Orthodox Line”, which divides the indisputable (and indisputably “Roman”) “West” from the half-Oriental Orthodox world to this day. Some would say that division line can never be fully breached, psychologically, notwithstanding the Stolypins that pop up from time to time. There is still, always, Alexander Nevsky, fending off the West, and there is still the image of the Oriental Despot, Stalin.
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What about millions of people who died from that regime ?
What about Gulag ?
mass deportations ? mass murders ?
more than million of people , were called kulaks and were deported or send to Siberia
just because their guilt was - diligent and industrious work…

Yes , there is a position that there is no right to critisize Stalin just because of the victory.
Some thing like , -the victory cancells all that bad what the regime has done…
But , his regime killed 62 million
Hitler killed 21 million
You know , I reminded the words of one Ukrainian nationalist , the hero of Ukraine , Yuriy Shuchevich ; once he said ( may be it sounds very emotionally from his mouth )
  • ‘’ Hang us , kill us , but for God sake , do not liberate us . Because your liberation is worst than death ! ‘’
 
Killing all your enemies has a way of making sure that the only ones who remain are the ones who actually like you.

It took 62 million deaths for him to boost his numbers to where he was even third best.

Knock off sixty million Democratic boo-birds and even Bush’s popularity numbers would go way up.
Know what I’m saying?😃
 
Hitler killed 21 million
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But he lost the Great Patriotic War.

Losers do not get to write their place in the history books.

so even if killing all your enemies is a good way to boost your popularity, in the end having a good biographer is even better in the long run.

The Left has learned that lesson very well indeed.
 
Darryl1958 said:
The Left has learned that lesson very well indeed.
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And in the US, so has the Right.

Consider the hagiography of Ronald Reagan. He was elected on promises of reducing government, and members of Congress rolled over on their backs to meet his agenda… of doubling the US national debt. During his second term, he increased the national debt by an equal amount…and yet Republicans hold him out as an example of fiscal prudence.

Reagans example paved the way for the Voodoo Economics of the Bush Administration - cut taxes and hike government spending through the roof.

Of course, the Obama administration is no better and perhaps even worse. But the abdication of fiscal prudence by the Republican party has paved the way for Obama’s approach.

As for Stalin, the conventional wisdom is that the Russians value a strong leader over individual freedom. It may well be why Putin is having such success in restricting freedoms in Russia.
 
My wife (may G_D keep her close) was Russian, who had family members in the Gulag, so I have some thoughts on this. (Of course, saying that you’re Russian with some family in the Gulag is like saying you’re a fish who has fins – it kinda goes with the territory.)

Stalin may or may not have had Jewish ancestry; however, at one point he was in the seminary to become a Russian Orthodox priest.

Anyone who has had to live with someone with paranoia will understand life in the Soviet Union under Stalin. He managed to rig things so that he became the leader after the death of Lenin (which he may or may not have arranged). He perfected the art of saying the exact opposite of what he meant: if he said that the family of Comrade Proklov would be cared for, it was understood that the family of Comrade Proklov would be sent to the Gulags and/or executed.

There was no way for anyone to know if or when they would be arrested. Under Stalin, it became a crime (punishable by 10 to 15 years in the work camps) to be SUSPECTED of crimes against the state, or to be a family member of such a person. In other words, if you were arrested (conviction is guaranteed) on suspicion of being an enemy of the state, your brothers, your sisters, your children could also all be sent to prison for 10-15 years for being related to you. MAYBE if they were convincing enough in denouncing you, they might get off with a lighter sentence. They might even be set free, for a time, until one of your neighbors denounced them.

The point of this was not to find traitors; it was to provide slaves for the work camps. Canals were dug and forests leveled entirely by slave labor with the work camps. One effect this had was give the entire population a prison mentality. Thieves, rapists, and murderers were all mixed in with the politicals in the prison camps, and were all treated the same. When these politicals were released after 10 years or so, they had adopted the mindset of these other prisoners. Imagine how much respect for law there would be in a society where literally 90% of the families have had one or more members imprisoned on a whim? You don’t come to respect the law, you come to respect the strength. And Stalin was strong.

Stalin was literally everywhere: films, billboards, songs – everywhere. Children grew up singing songs to Uncle Stalin. People who have grown up in abusive families will recognize the process: It’s your fault that you got sent to prison; it’s your fault that your group didn’t make their quota; it’s your fault for everything wrong. If only you followed Comrade Stalin’s directions, we would not have the problems we have. If you didn’t have Comrade Stalin, we would all be slaves now. Comrade Stalin has the answers – you need only follow him without question.

There was a saying, still popular in some quarters. We Catholics may recognize it, as it’s very similar to something we say at every Mass:

Stalin zhil.
Stalin zhivut
Stalin budet zivut.

Stalin lived.
Stalin lives.
Stalin will live.

When Stalin died, people waiting in line to see his body fainted, because without Stalin there to guide us, what will we do? Who will protect us? Stalin died in 1953. There are still many people alive today who lived under Stalin, who grew up with this attitude, and who passed this attitude on to their children. It’s no wonder that Stalin ranked #3 in that survey.
 
Darryl1958 said:
Killing all your enemies has a way of making sure that the only ones who remain are the ones who actually like you.

It took 62 million deaths for him to boost his numbers to where he was even third best.
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Even at the height of the terror and the famines people did not blame Stalin personally. I saw a documentary about a goldmine where political prisoners were sent as slave laborers and they wrote letters to Stalin about their plight.

“If the Czar only knew how his people suffered.”
 
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