by Otohiko » Thu May 27, 2010 9:01 am
What I like to remind people though is that there is a crucial difference between Hitler and Stalin: Stalin was an equal-opportunity killer, and just as most of the population under his control was Russian, so did Russians bear the brunt of his repressions. His own compatriot Georgians likewise got no little measure of it. Party members and political allies got disproportionate attention, as did anyone who was good at attracting attention generally. It's also worth noting that by the time WWII was over and occupation of Eastern Europe began, by far the worst and most fatal of Stalin's repressions were long over (having happened in the mid-30s, well within Soviet borders). His goals were never genocidal, and the repressions, while brutal, were of a political character and aimed at keeping in line, not destroying populations in favour of other populations. He did aim actions at ethnic groups (see relocation of Chechens and several other nationalities), but those were again mostly to keep them in line, to destroy identity rather than actually destroy the populations. And he wasn't terribly successful at it, probably kept back by more 'real' political needs. Arguably the only national identity he'd actually succeeded at destroying was Russian. Otherwise everyone got fucked, sure. And as bad as this was, if you were a Slav (let alone Jew), you had a far better chance of surviving and even having a normal life under even the worst period of Soviet history than you did under German occupation. Sure Eastern Europe was fucked for the next 50 years, but look at them today. People are able to identify themselves as Poles, Czechs, even Ukrainians. The cultures took a bit of a beating but in all fairness, have survived relatively intact. I think we all know what would have happened if Hitler had actually succeeded in his plans.
That's not to defend Stalin, but I think seeing him as the greater, not lesser of two evils is pretty preposterous. Poland and others got a terrible deal from the end of WWII, sure, but incomparably more acceptable than Hitler's eventual plans for them. The actual histories of German and Soviet occupation of the same territories are absolutely incomparable. Last I checked, for example, Stalin did not get anywhere near feats like destroying a quarter of the population of Belarus in just 3 years of occupation (which the Germans did, while also busy fighting a war elsewhere - and that's a figure well short of the actual goals of Nazi policy there). And blaming "Russia" for the party's wrongs is even more preposterous - Russians as such bore the brunt of it and, compared to many other nations had suffered much more significant cultural damage from Stalin's repressions than anyone.