# Sad and pathetic, Russian lawmakers want more honor of Stalin **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 14, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333 "2005-04-14T19:44:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/21 "2005-04-15T00:22:44Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > During the Soviet Union’s existence, [according to Cecil](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/021018.html), 62 million died through genocide. Stalin came in as history’s number 1, with 43 million to his credit. I just thought romanticized notions about dreams of the future by Soviet citizens seemed a bit ironic. I thought survivors would be a better word. Fair enough, it is closer to 51 million murdered, with 20 million dead in WW2 (his ineptitude at military leadership and liquidation of military leaders helped create such a huge number of dead). That was out of a population of 140-170 million when Stalin came to power. Plus he was supposedly considering another multi-million holocaust and an all out war with the allies, so within 30 years of leadership half the original population was dead, and arguably another 30-40 million would’ve died in the next 10 years had he stayed in power. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/22 "2005-04-15T01:24:42Z")
Read the book [_Stalin’s Last Crime_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006019524X/qid=1113528127/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-4681291-3631223?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov. It’s a look at the Doctor’s Plot in which Jewish doctors were arrested and charged, but subsequently released after Papa Joe’s death. Enlightening reading. And if you want to hate Lenin, read _[And Now My Soul Is Hardened](http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft700007p9/)_ by Alan M. Ball. (Note, the whole text is available online through that link.) It’s a monograph about the problem of homeless children living in post WWI Soviet Russia. It also discusses the famine of 1919-1921 and War Communism. It’s not difficult to read and understand, but it is depressing as hell to read. Robin ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/23 "2005-04-15T12:20:40Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > No they didn’t-he’s buried in the Kremlin. > > As one of my professors put it, as hated as Stalin was by the people, they were upset when he passed because at least the rest of the world was AFRAID of him. That way, Russia was safe. Without Stalin, they weren’t. No. That’s Lenin. **I** say his burial is secret. **You** say public. If it is public, it is a matter of public record. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/24 "2005-04-15T12:30:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Stalin collapsed, having probably suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body. He died four days later, on March 5, 1953, at the age of 73, and was buried on March 9. Officially, the cause of death was listed as a cerebral hemorrhage. His body was preserved in Lenin’s Mausoleum until October 31, 1961, when de-Stalinisation was taking place in the Soviet Union. Stalin’s body was then buried by the Kremlin walls. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef\_Stalin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Stalin) ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/25 "2005-04-15T12:46:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, a couple thousand more letters lke that and maybe he could be Stalin’s cabana boy. Not even old Josef used [biowarfare](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#The_Americas) to kill millions. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/26 "2005-04-15T13:10:55Z")
> [@yojimbo](#): > > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef\_Stalin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Stalin) OK, I fell for an Urban Legend. But I’m right about _one thing_: Joseph Stalin’s grave **was** a Communist Plot. 😉😃 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/27 "2005-04-15T14:52:05Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > During the Soviet Union’s existence, [according to Cecil](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/021018.html), 62 million died through genocide. Stalin came in as history’s number 1, with 43 million to his credit. I just thought romanticized notions about dreams of the future by Soviet citizens seemed a bit ironic. I thought survivors would be a better word. Well, yeah, it’s ironic as hell. But it’s something you see a lot in history. People are willing, and even eager to let their rights be trampled if they have faith in some positive future. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/28 "2005-04-15T15:12:07Z")
There certainly was a distinction between Columbuas and Vespucci on one hand and Stalin on the other. Columbus and Vespucci lived in a time and place where making war on people (including such oddities as raids and mass arson) was accepted and not considered particularly out of the ordinary. Stalin was considered a mortal fiend in his own day and would easily qualify in any place and time. > [@](#): > > Not even old Josef used biowarfare to kill millions. Please show me where that link indicates deliberate use of biowarfare. I’ve yet to see any confirmed case of it; all records to the contrary are based on ignorance rather than malice. People simply didn’t know what disease was, so using it deliberately was confined to things like tossing ead bodies into fortifications with catapults. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/29 "2005-04-15T15:34:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Please show me where that link indicates deliberate use of biowarfare. I’ve yet to see any confirmed case of it; all records to the contrary are based on ignorance rather than malice. [Malice afore_thought_](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_066.html), if not evident _deed_. In any case, I myself did not specify deliberate use. That millions died so is atrocity enough, as was the celebration of those deaths as “God smiting the heathens”. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/30 "2005-04-15T16:36:03Z")
Well, that millions died from disease was certainly tragic, but I wouldn’t call it an atrocity comparable to Stalin, because, with a few notable exceptions, like that or Lord Amherst, it wasn’t deliberate. The Black Death in Europe was also horrible, but I’m not going to say that the captain of the Genoese merchantman who brought the disease to Europe was as bad as Stalin either. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/31 "2005-04-15T21:30:47Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Not even old Josef used [biowarfare](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#The_Americas) to kill millions. I suppose not, but Vespucci’s name is oddly absent from that account, and I don’t see any indication that the “biowarfare” effect is due to anything more than evolution at work, with the natives lacking the necessary resistance. > [@](#): > > In any case, I myself did not specify deliberate use. So, it’s one of those cases of _accidental_ (bio)warfare? Why do _you_ hate Amerigo? (I just like saying that) ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333/32 "2005-04-15T21:40:20Z")
Listen to this… [http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03}/WP03.MP3](http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/WP03.MP3) > [@](#): > > First reported in Dana Milbank’s column last Sunday, here’s the audio of laywer and author Edwin Vieira explaining how he would deal with the U.S. Supreme Court. > > Vieira’s words came at the “Confronting the Judicial War on Faith” conference last week. The conference hosted several GOP congressmen and was scheduled to include a speech by Tom DeLay (DeLay had to phone in comments because he was in Rome for the pope’s death). > > In case you’re wondering, Vieira left off the first part of the useful “slogan,” which goes like this: “Death solves all problems: no man, no problem.” [http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=652](http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=652) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-and-pathetic-russian-lawmakers-want-more-honor-of-stalin/299333.md?page=1)