Finnish textbooks: cautious over Soviet Union, critical of United States
Textbooks can really shape a child’s mind at an early age. No doubt all the anti-communism textbooks we Americans were required to read has something to do with the anti-communist sentiment in the U.S. If Finnish & American schools were more privatized and teachers had more choice over textbooks, could there have been a more critical (or more positive) view of the U.S. and the Soviet Union?
Finnish school textbooks handled the Soviet Union in a very cautious manner in Finland in the 1970s. At the same time the United States was openly criticised over its policy in Vietnam, for instance.
The approach changed in the 1980s, when both great powers were portrayed with equal neutrality. As it was not considered prudent to write in a very critical manner about the Soviet Union, criticism of the United States was also avoided.
[...]Holmén detects a pro-EU slant in today’s schoolbooks. Finnish writers are clearly more upbeat about the ability of the European Union to function than the authors of books used in Swedish and Norwegian schools.
Thinking how big Finnish companies really bowed to the Soviet Union in the 1970s, it’s doubtful whether the private sector would have produced any more criticism about the Soviet Union in “their” textbooks. Let’s imagine, if private companies like Nokia were today to finance school books, how critical do you think they would be of China..?
Holmen’s finding about the EU is very important and disgusting, yet expected.
MM
Comment by Moral minority? — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 5:06 pm
Let’s imagine, if private companies like Nokia were today to finance school books, how critical do you think they would be of China..?
Nokia doesn’t make textbooks. And I doubt too many textbook publishers in Finland would also sell their products in China. There’s plenty of books out there who are critical of China.
Comment by Phil — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 5:17 pm
Is “Pirkkalan Moniste” included in his study material. It was some experimental study material for the “progressive history” in the 70’s, based directly on some Soviet-Karelian textbook of the finnish history. It would probably have turned Säkkijärvi polka to Kondratjevo polka, which is an old russian folk dance.
Luckily, it wasn’t a great success.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 5:59 pm
WW2 is a very touchy subject for Finns. Most of the Finns I’ve ever met deny that Finland fought shoulder to shoulder with the Nazi’s against the Russians and that the “War of Collaboration”, WAS IN FACT A WAR OF AGGRESSION!
Again, most of the Finns I’ve met are surprisingly ignorant of WW2 (outside of Finnish-Russian conflict)and the holocaust. In the last 60 years there has been a far degree of soul searching in Germany. Issues concerning the Nazi’s have been brought out in the open. In my opinion this explains why most of the German’s I’ve met have been quite liberal and tolerant.
My point is that Finns need to be more honest about their role in supporting the Nazis during WW2. The Nazi period needs to be studied by the young, so that the same mistakes are not made again in the future. The newspaper space given over to Tony Halme, Suomen Sisu et al is quite worrying.
Comment by Finnish honesty — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 6:27 pm
The textbooks were privately made and published, schools decide individually what books they want to use.
Apparently all the options had anti-American propaganda in them.
Comment by Justen — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 6:29 pm
“My point is that Finns need to be more honest about their role in supporting the Nazis during WW2.”
Obviously you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Read
your history more carefully, and maybe you’ll discover the reason
for that “supporting”.
Comment by Anonymous — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 7:15 pm
And Holmén is European champion in Marathon!
ok, that meant nothing…
Comment by JJ — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 7:33 pm
Finnish “honesty”:
WW2 is a very touchy subject for Finns.
Yeah, we take great pains in avoiding to talk about it. (Tulta munille!)
Most of the Finns I’ve ever met deny that Finland fought shoulder to shoulder with the Nazi’s against the Russians
Are most of the Finns you’ve ever met perhaps 10 years old?
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 8:06 pm
Phil, I didn’t mean Nokia is publishing or should publish textbooks, what I mean is that something being privately done is no indication of it being pro-freedom of speech or any other values you claim to be dear to you.
As ugly as it is, even Halonen who I don’t like at all has been more critical of China than your great leader Ollila ever will be.
MM
Comment by Moral minority? — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 8:17 pm
Apparently all the options had anti-American propaganda in them.
This, again, puts the capacity of Finns to be objective in their analysis seriously in doubt.
Comment by Finnpundit — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 8:28 pm
No news here. Some of it was actually necessary, but quite ugly nevertheless.
Finnish (dis)honesty is getting quite annoying – in November 1940 Hitler’s good pal Molotov asked in Berlin for free hands in Finland. Hitler refused, not out of the kindness of his heart, but beggars (read small democratic nations between gigantic terror states) cannot be choosers. It was distasteful but we really don’t have much anything to apologize for about our alliance with Nazi-Germany. The Royal Navy wasn’t an option in the Baltic.
Comment by mjr — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 9:06 pm
As 1970s schoolchildren I can say that the real effect was just opposite. My generation grew up to be pro American and anti Sovjet.
I became somewhat critical to the USA, only after YLE and HeSa started to be so American friendly in late 1990s. I could not accept cowardice bombing of Serbia.
Also nearly rasist attitude toward ordinary Russian people in Finnish media made me sick. “Good old 30s” came back in 90s.
Comment by jtp — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 9:32 pm
Btw, Phil obviously does not know that Holmen is muslim.
Comment by jtp — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 9:37 pm
Btw, Phil obviously does not know that Holmen is muslim
You’re kidding right?
But if you don’t, then I just don’t see what the big difference is. (and what has it got to do with Phil?)
Comment by Anonymous — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 10:08 pm
Okay Okay – a little Googling and I noticed that jtp was 100% right… but what’s the big deal and what has it got to do with Phil?
Comment by Mikael — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 10:11 pm
I would add to #12 that it was not just the books, but it was also depending a lot on teacher, what kind of worldview was passed in the education. I was also a 70’s schoolkid, but there in the countryside, it could have been the 50’s or even 30’s as well. Sure we had these great Kouluhallitus dictated “Yay YYA” groupworks around 1978, when the agreement turned 30 years etc, but the teachers told their version, if something in the books didn’t please them and made damn sure we knew the incidents of the small and great wrath and the good old blood-spilling verses by Runeberg, which would probably be an outrage even and especially today. Not to talk about singing the “Finnish guard march”.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 11:02 pm
As ugly as it is, even Halonen who I don’t like at all has been more critical of China than your great leader Ollila ever will be.
I’m not sure it’s a CEO’s job to be critical of some country thousands of kilometers away.
Comment by Phil — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 11:16 pm
Btw, Phil obviously does not know that Holmen is muslim.
I know he’s balding.
Comment by Phil — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 11:17 pm
Finnish (dis)honesty wrote:
“Finns need to be more honest about their role in supporting the Nazis during WW2.”
We didn’t support the nazis. They supported us. They were the only ones who helped us against the Russian invaders, although even they sold us out in the end.
Perhaps you foster some sympathies for Stalin? You would do well then to remember that he had plans for relocating all the finns to Siberia (that’s where some finns and a lot more estonians, latvians and lithuenians actually ended up, by the way) and repopulating Finland with russians.
Comment by Åboy — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 11:39 pm
FYI, Finnish dishonesty, Mannerheim wasn’t pleased at all (to say the least) when Hitler made a surprise visit to Finland for his birthday. He really didn’t feel honored by Hitler’s presence, quite contrary. Also finns didn’t give in to Nazi-Germany’s demands to send the finnish jews to them and turned the demands down repeatedly.
One more thing, Finland was never the aggressor when it comes to war with russians. In the continuation war we just went to get back the land that was stolen from us in the last war. Hitler would’ve wanted Finland to attack Leningrad but Finland refused.
Comment by Åboy — Mon, May 8th, 2006 @ 11:49 pm
Ok. Checked the history and it turns out that eight jews were actually sent to Germany. The germans would’ve wanted all 500 or so though, but only eight of them were sent in the end. At the time finns didn’t know anything about the extermination camps though. Jews were never persecuted in Finland.
Link to a Wikipedia article on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Finland_during_World_War_II
Comment by Åboy — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 12:12 am
a little Googling and I noticed that jtp was 100% right…
Hmmm. Interesting. The wikipedia entry for Holmen (where it’s mentioned that he’s a muslim convert, by marriage), is only three days old, if we go by the publication date of his dissertation, on May 5th.
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janne_Holmén
Someone is angling for some state academic funding, now, aren’t they? It just seems a bit early to get wikipedic recognition, distance runner or not.
Still, I can’t say I can fault the study; by the sounds of it, it seems pretty much on target. It does seem interesting, though, that it takes a Finnish Muslim convert, working in a Swedish university, to gain enough distance away from Finland to observe things objectively enough.
Such is the power of the indoctrination process in Finnish academia. You only appreciate its true power in all its insidiousness if you keep yourself far, far away.
Comment by Finnpundit — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 6:08 am
The War of Collaboration WAS a war of aggression. Finland chose to work with the Nazis to recapture what was lost from the first war plus additional land. The Finns made a pact with a state that mass murdered 3m Jews.
In 1941 Finland should NOT have chose to
Re-start their war with Russia by electing to fight with the Nazis
The moral solution would have been to fight with Russia, USA and Britain against the Nazis.
Comment by Finnish honesty — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 8:07 am
Dear me. Estonia lost 25% of its population in the WW2 with the cultural, political and economical elites destroyed by Stalin. Followed by the bloody forced collectivization of the countryside. Now there are 1 million descendants of the pre 1939 population in Estonia. In 1939 there were 1 million inhabitants in Estonia. And 3,5 million in Finland. Had we been occupied we would be missing at least 1,5 million Finns here, probably more as the escape route to Sweden was easier. So this is the “moral” ally that we should have fought with. The only difference to Finland between Hitler and Stalin is that Stalin attacked us first. And continued his aggression until we were forced to tie ourselves to Barbarossa – as a fundamentally defensive measure. The Finnish elites were very Western oriented. Ryti was an Anglophile and Mannerheim called Nazis privately gangsters and cut throats. But our location did not afford us the luxury of allying ourselves with the West. For my take on the very honourable Finnish role in the grim circumstances of WW2 see below (it is bit heavy going unless you are familiar with Finnish history):
http://stockholmslender.blogspot.com/2006/01/finlands-war-1939-45.html
Comment by mjr — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 8:28 am
I’m definetly not defending the Nazis in any way but Russia had plenty of innocent blood on it’s hands as well. USA and Britain made a pact with Stalin’s Russia, a state that murdered over three times more people than Hitler’s Nazi-Germany.
Comment by Åboy — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 8:30 am
Finnish dishonesty, the nazis actually murdered approximately six million jews (not three) plus hundreds of thousands of gypsies, slavic people, homosexuals and the disabled.
Comment by Åboy — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 8:43 am
This seems like a needle stuck on vinyl record, but if Finland fought WITH Russia, where would we be right now? I accompany Åboy here.
I wouldn’t have started to make the “Suur Suomi” or pushing the border further either.
And what comes to soviet propaganda in education at 70’s, it never occurred where I was at school (countryside). And I, son of karelian war refugees would have noticed.
No, it was all jeans and Jenkki chewing gum. The guy who had US dollar bill in school was a king for whole semester. Never heard anyone having a rouble.
Antti, our teacher used to play the russians attacing an ambulance part from Tuntematon Sotilas radio play at indepence day…
Comment by issi — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 8:50 am
Well, I think the West did what Finland did: allied in order to survive. Of course, some small sections of the society and media fell in love with that awfully nice Uncle Joe, but that was predictable in the circumstances. Similarily there was a minority in Finland that saw Hitler as something else as insane butcher that he was (along with his Moscow colleague). But Ryti and Mannerheim kept fervently hoping for Western victory and German and Russian collapse as happened in WW1. Miraculously we survived even without the latter, but the Western victory in the war was an absolute precondition for the civilization to continue. And in that vital fight America was the arsenal of democracy and freedom – something that our reflexive anti-Americans always want to forget…
Comment by mjr — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 8:51 am
Oh yes, the stereotype 1970’s education did not really happen in many parts of the country. In our Southern Ostrobothnian primary school we gathered to the yard to sing “Lippuvala” to commemorate the 40 year anniversary of the Winter War. Not much Finladization there.
Comment by mjr — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 8:54 am
“Finnish Honesty” is way off the mark. The Continuation War was fought to stave off the inevitable, a Soviet jauggernaut to do to Finland what it accomplished in Estonia,Latvia and Lithuania. Co-belligerance is not the same as being alliigned, the Finns were never politically supportive of any of the Nazis racial policies.
The arms shipment delivered to Finland just prior to the Russian offensive in the Isthmus (Karjalan Kannus) towards the end of the war, was crucial in keeping Finland from being completely over run). President Rytti signed a political alliance for those weapons, *not* in the name of the government of Finland, but in his own.
As for the 8 Jews handed over to the Nazis, they were delivered due to their being non-Finnish Jews. It was a crime nonetheless, and something Paavo Lipponen apologized for some years ago, in the name of the Finnish state.
However, there was certain individuals within the state police who were in league with the Nazis, and desperately tried to deport 500 more Jews to Estonia. During Himmler’s visit to Helsinki, his briefcase was secretly opened in his hotel room, and found to contain all the names and home addresses of Finnish Jews residing in Finland. Only throughb the SUPO could that information have been acertained.
By no means was the Jewish Community in Finland secure in the belief that they wouldn’t be transported, I suggest you buy Rony Smolar’s educational book “Stiller”, to learn more. If the Jews in Finland knew that Jews were being burnt in Hitler’s ovens….so did the Finnish gov’t. It was a strange set of events, even with the only known Jewish field synagogue being in operation very near German troops, who were fighting alongside the Finns in Karjala.
Comment by KGS59 — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 10:07 am
Guys, leave this Finnish dishonesty alone. He’s a deliberate provocateur who’s not worth the attention you’re giving to him. He’s laughing all his way not to the bank but to another blog reading the correct information you’re giving him.
Phil, OK, it’s not a CEO’s job to criticize events thousands of kilometres away, right? What kind of a world would we then live in if all responsibility would rest in the hands of the private sector? That would mean not ever criticizing any human rights problems or something similar ever. It would be like the Danish Arla caving in to Muslim demands which the Danish government didn’t and so on. And believe me, in Kekkoslovakia it was very much the companies that caved in to the Soviets, not only the educational and cultural elite.
For all those who can read Finnish here, Markku Jokisipilä has an interesting entry in his blog on Holmén’s dissertation: http://www.jokisipila.blogspot.com/. Jokisipilä’s blog is one of the best Finnish blogs anyway and would deserve much more attention that it currently does.
In addition to the Soviet bias, we can for example find out that in the 1930s Swedish-language school books in Finland showed interest in racial theories far more than those which were written in Finnish.
And I think that instead of talking about the past, we should now concentrate on the present which is the rosy presentation of the current Soviet Union, read: EU, in our school books as Holmén has examined. With the past there’s nothing we can do anymore, this is something something could theoretically be done about.
MM
Comment by Moral minority? — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 10:08 am
I have been fascinated by that field synagogue just a few kilometres away from the Wehrmacht positions. It is likely that Germans actually passed it by – surely one of the strangest scenes of the WW2… Some Finnish Jewish soldiers even received Iron Crosses for their actions in the field though I gather most refused. Must have been incredibly heartbreaking to fight alongside the Germans. Still that is the measure of Finnish civilization in the worst of conditions: Mannerheim was justly received as a guest of honour in a service at Helsinki Synagogue in 1944 – his sympathies were well known in the Jewish community.
Comment by mjr — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 10:46 am
Finland fought shoulder to shoulder with the Nazi’s against the Russians and that the “War of Collaborationâ€Â, WAS IN FACT A WAR OF AGGRESSION!
Not to mention the WAR OF AGGRESSION THE ALLIES WAGED AGAINST THE OTHER DICTATOR, HITLER, who, by the way, was not a known mass-murderer by 1941, unlike the ally of the “Western” Allies.
As for the Jews, Finland’s record is not clean. Eight Jews were “sent back” to Germany. Of course these people didn’t have citizenship, and the moment the government heard about the deportations, it prohibited them. But still it’s a shame.
Furthermore we now know, thaks to Elina Sana in particular, that thousands of Russian POWs were sent to Nazi Germany to an almost certain death, among them Jews.
Did the resposible army officials know about the deathly circumstances in the concentration camps? Propably not. The Nazi killing machine was, of course, a secret … and Germany a civilized country (sic). Furthermore there was generally no anti-Semitism among the Finns. (The number of anti-Semites was surprisingly small; a recent doctoral study managed to find just 50 Finns clearly advocating anti-Semitism in the media before the war).
For Finland-bashing purposes one should look into the East-Karelian conentration camps … although even there one can’t easily find any genocidal motives.
Comment by tony bee — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 11:38 am
Exactly MJR,
The field Synagogue was ”one of kind”. Retired foreign news correspondent Rony Smolar’s dad helped build the field synagogue, and did not record at any one time hostility from the German forces nearby, with many coming out of curosity for a peek.
Some of the Jewish Finnish soldiers could use whatever Yiddish they knew to talk with the Germans. You are also right about Finns earning the German Iron Cross, but not one ever accepted it. One Finnish nurse who was a Jew earned a German medal, went to the ceremony, went up to the officer handing out the medals, looked him in the eye, turned around and walked out without a word being spoken and without the German medal. I don’t recall her name, but as a nurse, she saved a number of German soldiers who were hit in the Helsinki harbor.
Comment by KGS59 — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 11:42 am
34: I meant to write that “no Finnish Jew ever accepted an Iron Cross medal.”
Comment by KGS59 — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 11:44 am
What kind of a world would we then live in if all responsibility would rest in the hands of the private sector?
Private sector doesn’t start wars, only governments.
That would mean not ever criticizing any human rights problems or something similar ever.
What about all those NGOs? And I don’t have a problem with foreign ministers criticizing human rights problems, I just don’t think it’s Ollila’s job to do that.
Comment by Phil — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 12:14 pm
Private sector doesn’t start wars, only governments.
The only reason why the “private sector” doesn’t start wars in certain countries like Finland is that it knows that the state will not tolerate it. History is full of individuals and companies starting wars or using violence in order to gain the upper hand in the markets. Heck, the Roman expansion was only partly financed by the state; the idividual senators just got carried away by the fact that they had this invincible army at their hands.
Well, if that’s too far fetched (jo muinaiset roomalaiset …) what about the British (or Swedish or whatever) Indian Company? Or the wars between the different entrepreneurs (sheeps vs cattle, for example) in the Wild West. Not to mention the current instances of individual greed resulting into violence in places like Somalia.
I sometimes wonder if the popularity of Libertarianism and Conservatism in the USA correlates with the poor standard of education. Young boys (and girls sometimes) just have never been taught, or engouraged to learn what civilization means. Instead they imagine that the world they experience in the schoolyard must, somehow, represent what it is human in general. Heh …
Comment by tony bee — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 1:00 pm
If only I could share your faith in the educational system.
A realistic test of the effect textbooks have on people would
be a surprize testing of a largish sample of people who finished school years ago and had no reason to ever crack another book on the subject. But the results might be too depressing.
Anyway, textbook publishers are the most cowardly of all publishers,
they never take any risks with sensitive subjects.
Which is fair enough, they are not in business for their health.
That’s why there was no criticism of Soviet Union in Finnish textbooks, and why Godless Evolution used to have no place in the American classroom.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 1:27 pm
@Moral minority, post 31:
I was taught the racial theories of Hans Günther, Hitler’s favourite race scientist, in geography class. Finns belong to the East Baltic race and all that. That was in the 70’s, in Helsinki.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 1:29 pm
Phil: the private sector can at least potentially be capable of lobbying their government to overthrow the government of another country. At least there was for a long time a commonly held belief that United Fruit Company both financed and organized the coup in Guatemala in 1954. The wikipedia article on that coup, however, gives the impression that it was indeed a CIA operation and not so much a private sector coup:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_PBSUCCESS
“Contrary to popular belief, though, the responsibility of United Fruit Company in instigating the coup d’etat was relatively small.”
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 1:30 pm
Much of the debate above about Finland’s role in the World War Two cannot truly reflect the pressures that all countries – both large and small – felt in trying to preserve their national identities from being crushed by another country.
With respect to Finland’s alliance with Germany, it was a marriage of convenience. Finland’s only counterweight to Soviet pressure was Germany. And Operation Barbarossa was an opportuntity for Finland to reclaim its territory lost in the Winter War.
With that being said, Finland’s treatment of its Jews were favourable, if only because Finland benefited from a number of factors that some of the other countries either allied with or overrun by Germany did not enjoy.
For one, Finland was never occupied by Germany. In June 1941, it was an important ally of Germany, and Germany did not wish to alienate Finland in trying to deport a relatively handful of Jews living in Finland – some 2000, I believe.
Unlike some of its other erstwhile allies that switched sides, Germany – in August 1944 – was militarily incapable of installing a puppet regime in Finland to replace the elected government that wished to break off its alliance with Germany.
So, the Finnish Jews survived from the German final solution through a combination of Finnish resistance and favourable geo-political circumstances.
However, other groups in Finland did not fare so well.
Some 55,000 Ingrians were deported back to Russia to face an uncertain future. Even some years after the war, regretably those children of Ingrian descent that had been adopted by Finnish families during the war were reclaimed by the Soviet Union.
This history of mass deportation has been conveniently forgotten for many years, although the story that only 8 Jews (out of over 2000) were deported to Germany was remembered.
Frankly, it is hard to pass very critical value judgments on countries trying to survive the turmoil of the 1930’s, 1940’s and the Cold War time.
Many countries did things which in retrospect were immoral, but at the time these actions were done, they were done for the national survival of the vast majority of the population to exist as an independent nation.
Some of the Western (mainly US) support of rightist and anti-communist dictators during the Cold War fell into the same category of regretable, and condemnable, but comprehensible behavior of those times.
Comment by Peter — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 1:31 pm
I absolutely agree that a German victory would have been disastrous for Finland. We were independent in our fight but with Germany able to dictate terms while supported by a very vocal internal minority we probably would not have been able to hold on to our Nordic civility and respect of law. As with other democratic nations we had our blemishes during the fighting (the worst were the “concentration” camps – not meant for extermination – for ethnic Russians in the occupied Karelia) but the fundamentals were always respected. In this Finland was a unique honourable exception on the Eastern Front.
Comment by mjr — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 2:04 pm
First an apology, of course 6m Jews died not 3m. I don’t know what happened when I wrote the original post.
In my humble opinion Post 40 has it about right.
Finland’s decision to fight shoulder to shoulder was a marrage of convienience. So, indirectly the Finnish State was responsible for supporting the Nazis and the holocaust that they created.
Yes, Stalin did murder a sizable number of his own citizens, and I am certainly not a supporter of Stalin! However, it must be said that Stalin did not murder people because of some perverted racial theory, unlike Hitler. The Finnish state supported this terrible man.
Secondly, I dispute what some people have written about Britain’s and America’s role during WW2. Both countries had little to gain from fighting the Nazis. Both countries would have gained from staying out of the conflict. Hitler did not want to fight the British. Britain and the USA could have allowed Hitler to invade and occupy Poland. Britain and the USA stood up to the Nazis out of principle. Not for them a pragmatic pact with the Devil. The facts are that Finland siezed additional land during their act of aggression (The 1941-1944 War of Collaboration)
Post 38 is also pretty interesting too. Nazi racial theories taught in Finnish schools in the 1970’s. It gets worse! This is truely shameful.
I repeat, there needs to be an honest re-appraisal of Finland’s role during WW2. Kids need to be taught HONESTLY about what happened so that the same mistakes do not happen again. In Germany this re-appraisal happened decades ago. German society has moved on. The same needs to happen in Finland. Perhaps once this has happened Finns will become less xenophobic and racist towards foreigners who have the nerve to live in “their” blond Arian country.
Comment by Finnish honesty — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 3:04 pm
Finnish (dis)honesty: your last post convinced me of you being a troll. No engagement whatsoever with counter arguments, no moral seriousness, no actual points at all. Sorry about bothering with you at all: I mistook you for a person interested in these matters. Now, please go away, would you.
Comment by mjr — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 3:13 pm
Sigh. If ‘never again’ is really, really the aim, two things might help: 1) tell people of stuff happening right now, plus stuff that is likely to happen soon. We can help the living. We can’t help people murdered 50 years ago.
2) Focus on the things that went right and the things that might’ve gone right, with a bit more effort. Some people did do the right thing. Analyze and emulate them. Focusing on the killers is not really good for your mental health.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 3:21 pm
MJR
Read your own post. So what’s your views. Save me the insults thought
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Comment by Finnish honesty — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 3:32 pm
Finnish Honesty, If you’re not a troll you’re simply a very, very stupid person. I’d personally choose the troll option.
Comment by tony bee — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 4:53 pm
“Mannerheim called Nazis privately gangsters and cut throats. ”
Heh, one funny demonstration of Mannerheim’s attitude was explained by his adjutant. Mannerheim and Hitler met in a railway carriage in secret place. They had lunch after the discussions. Mannerheim had been briefed beforehand, that Hitler was a non-smokers and couldn’t stand smokers, so “Marshall should refrain from smoking during the visit”. After the lunch however, Mannerheim took a big cigar and started smoking. After a bit of hesitation, some german generals joined him. Soon they were continuing the discussions in a big cloud of smoke.
It goes well with Mannerheim’s personality. It is said that he was a master of such subtle sarcastic gestures and remarks.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 7:02 pm
Tony Bee
What’s your point?
Please write something relevant and interesting. Petty immature insults say a million times more about you than they do about your target. They are also boring.
Comment by Finnish honesty — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 8:43 pm
Finnish Honesty, you seem to know your histroy so well and you seem to be very good at knowing what Finland should have and should not have done, but has it ever passed your mind that with the same theories, that you’re holding, the US and Britain shouldn’t ever have fought on the same side as the Communist Soviet Union and their perverted slaughtering machine? No, they should instead have tried to fight both Hitler and Stalin – gee, I guess that we could really have seen a different end of the war if that would have been the case.
And if Finland would have signed up to fight with the Allies, what do you think would have happened next? Take a look at Balticum for example, I think that’s quite close to the real answer. Decades of Communist rule, deportations and slaughtering of dissidents…
And who knows how many Finns would have survived?
Comment by Mikael — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 8:52 pm
About the meeting between Hitler and Mannerheim mentioned in number 47 above, it is interesting to note that a part of the meeting was recorded. This recording is probably the only surviving one of Hitler in private conversation.
The transcript and a description of the background of the meeting can be found at http://www.wargamer.com/articles/bdvisit2.asp
Quite intersting stuff if you like history.
Comment by Peter — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 9:19 pm
>And if Finland would have signed up to fight with the Allies, what do
>you think would have happened next?
Hmmm… if the Finns had succeeded in getting guarantees from Churchill and Roosevelt during Välirauha of 1) Lend-Lease being terminated the instant Stalin got aggressive / expansionist with Finland again and 2) getting lost Finnish territory back after the victory, well, who knows what would’ve happened?
Not you, and me neither. THAT much is certain anyway
)
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 9:30 pm
Post 50: fascinating link.
The Nazis were infinitely worse than Stalin. Stalin did not murder people because he believed in a racist theory
Comment by Finnish honesty — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 9:39 pm
The Nazis were infinitely worse than Stalin. Stalin did not murder people because he believed in a racist theory
So, ethnically cleansing millions is just fine, as long as it’s not based on pseudoscience. Wow. Finnish dishonesty just hit the jackpot.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 10:00 pm
No, he just seem to have murdered them pretty just because he was afraid of that they were dissidents. And Hitler murdered trade unionists and communists for the very same reason.
Just face it, National Socialism – Communism, Far-right – Far-left; they all suck and in time of war and for a small country like Finland it sure as hell was not easy to determine which one was the worse, and we did chose hell but we saved our freedom and didn’t have to suffer under Communist rule although all the years after the war have been hard for Finland to keep a “balanced” foreign policy.
Comment by Mikael — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 10:02 pm
Who ethnically cleansed millions?
Stalin got rid of people he was scared of, potential threats to his power. End of story.
Stalin did not believe that the Russians were a blond master race, and that others should be liquidated to make room for the superior Russian race.
Comment by Finnish honesty — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 10:11 pm
Stalin got rid of people he was scared of, potential threats to his power. End of story.
Yes, and those who were murdered during his rule can be counted in millions – yes, he was a fairly nice guy, we all know.
And as I said – with the same philosophy, that you’ve got about Finland, Britain and the US should never have signed up with BadGuy-Stalin. After all, he was a mass murderer too.
None of us are proud of the fact that Finland fought on the same side as the Nazis, but for some reason none of those who belonged to the Allied side has ever said that it was wrong to fight on the same side as the Communists. (After all they won the war.)
And the answer to that is simple; the Allied Nations did what they considered that was best for them and their interests, and so did Finland too.
Comment by Mikael — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 10:23 pm
No!
The Communists did not industrially slaughter millions because they believed in a stupid racial theory.
The USA and Britain fought agianst the Nazis because they invaded Poland after previously invading the Czechs
The Finns fought with the Nazis to recover land and some extra
The USA and Britain did not have selfish motives. They fought the Nazis because they were an evil state
Comment by Finnish honesty — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 10:38 pm
Let me remind you of that the US didn’t enter the war until Pearl Harbor was attacked.
And it sure is a lot easier to be a major military power, than being a small country in between them.
Finland did also fear that Germany would attack the Soviet Union through Finland or that the Soviet Union would conquer Finland so that they would get a more tactical position in the war against Nazi-Germany.
And Finland had to choose between these two, and we chose the one that we thought would preserve our freedom.
It’s ridiculous to even think that Finland would have been able to stay neutral throughout the war. Just the fact the Finland lied so close to St. Petersburg was something that sooner or later would have forced Finland into war, wether we wanted to or not.
Comment by Mikael — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 11:02 pm
Höh, Stalin did not only cleaned up his prospective rivals. It was all the way in the society from down to top. The secret police had even quotas for the arrests and executions and some people tried to survive by giving in as many neighbors and colleagues as they could. There is not much of a difference, what kind of crazy ideology one adopts to justify the massacre. You can be a commie mulquist or a nazi mulquist, you are still a mulquist.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 11:27 pm
Maybe what Finnish honesty is trying to say is that siding with Hitler was worse because the mass murdering by the Nazis was build on an ideology rather than one man’s power high. Ideas live longer than men.
Would we have as many neonazis as we have now in Finland if we hadn’t support the Nazis in WW2? Not that I care about them wannabe badasses.
Comment by Pave — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 11:32 pm
Antti, but commie ideology does not include wiping out people you don’t like. Nazi ideology was pretty much an ideology of being a mulquist.
Comment by Pave — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 11:36 pm
Hmm. Why did I use past tense when referring to the Nazis and present with the commies. Freudian slip?
Comment by Pave — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 11:37 pm
Ahem…commie ideology according to Lenin was pretty much about wiping out people, called the capitalists and the bourgeoise. Labeling them all evil is not too far away from labeling all the jews evil.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Tue, May 9th, 2006 @ 11:51 pm
Excuse me, Finnish dishonesty, but Stalin did try to wipe out many of the minority ethnicities living in Russia and in the countries Russia invaded. Think what happened to the peoples of the Baltic states, for example.
Comment by Åboy — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 12:02 am
Strangely enough Finland did not choose allies based on ideology: Ryti was an Anglophile liberal, Mannerheim a monarchical conservative that hated Nazi ideology, Tanner a Social Democrat. The reason for alliance with Germany was the fact that the West was shut out from the Baltic and Stalin impatiently wanted to implement the last remaining open “issue” (Molotov’s words in November 1940 in Berlin) from the German-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939). Germany was the only great power able to help Finland in this terrible predicament. As odd as it is the Finnish government did not calculate which terror state had murdered more people (I suppose Stalin would have handily won in numbers).
Comment by mjr — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 8:14 am
According to most of the sources I’ve looked at, including Wikipedia, Stalin’s purges accounted for less than 1m. This compares against the 6m that Hitler killed for racist reasons in his concentration camps.
I find it very disturbing that so many Finns excuse their collaboration with Nazi Germany by trying to claim that Stalin was just as bad as Hitler. This is ridiculous
1. Hitler started WW2. He was responsible for tens of millions of deaths because of this war. The same cannot be said for Stalin. The so-called Winter “War” is not worthy of the term “war” given the relatively tiny number of casualties.
2. Stalin defeated Nazi Germany. Without Russia, the Nazi’s may well have won the war in Germany condeming God knows how many more millions “subhumans” to death in the concentration camps. Instead of criticising Russia and Stalin phrase is due instead. They stopped the Nazis and their racist killing machine. They hate war. However, I think fighting the Nazis was a worthy thing to do.
3. Hitlers murders were prompted by his racism. This was not the case for Stalin
Comment by Finnish honesty — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 8:39 am
>I suppose Stalin would have handily won in numbers.
Not necessarily. I don’t have USSR stats at hand right now, but according to Antony Beevor Germany killed more than 26 million Russian soldiers and civilians during Operation Barbarossa alone. And Ostfront, as we know, was just one part of their war / terror machine (albeit the bloodiest and most barbaric by far).
And does it really matter which side killed more humans during WWII anyway? The ultimate culprit will still forever be Hitler, because HE STARTED THE WHOLE THING. And we _DID_ fight on his side, regardless of whether we had any real choice about the matter at the time! And this, my fellow Finns, is something we should always remember…
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 8:59 am
>Stalin defeated Nazi Germany.
That’s too one-sided IMHO. The _Allies_ defeated Germany, and every member of the pact was important. And moreover, who knows what would’ve happened to Russia without Lend-Lease?
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 9:05 am
This is getting now to well charted waters: forced collectivization, ethnic purges (among others the Finnish Communist refugees were quite wiped out by Stalin) and in addition to the inter-party slaughters amount to more civilian murders than what the Nazis committed. As if it really would matter – in this bizarre competition I gladly hand the Nazis the first place as their crimes were more horrendous in method, but as we are talking about millions of innocent people murdered by both systems I would not really get into point contest. In any case the practical matter for Finland was that the other terror system attacked us first and wanted to annihilate our independence alltogether while the other gangsters changed their minds and started to support Finland out of their own selfish interests. Not much of a contest really. Finnish (dis)honesty is a pure troll in this thread using quite obscenely moral issues for his strange gratification. Happily dancing on millions and millions of nameless graves.
Comment by mjr — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 10:11 am
@antti the redneck one, post 60:
Jan Guillou, in ‘Noitien asianajaja’ makes the point that legal technicalities count for a lot in times of hysteria.
The Spanish Inquisition burned a lot of Jews and heretics because they really were guilty as charged; it did not burn a lot of witches because it had trouble finding anyone who had actually made a deal with the Evil One. They used the same rules of evidence for all crimes; in Protestant countries the authorities relaxed considerably most legal protections and restrictions on kinds of evidence allowed.
So if you want a Great Terror, throw away the presumption of innocence, allow torture and encourage people to name as many names as possible. That’ll get you started.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 10:20 am
53#
In comparison to Stalin, Hitler was a school boy. Between 1929-1935, Stalin deported to labor camps or resettlements that ended up murdering close to 15,000,000, “kulaks” and their families in what amounted to a slow death. In 1932 ’smokin Joe’ murdered over 5 000 000 Ukranians through a state imposed quota system of Ukranian grain that lead to a famine due to Stalin’s confiscating it. Another 2 000 000 probably starved to death elsewhere, such as 1 000 000 in the North Caucasus alone. Ukraine and Byelorussia were hit again in 1946 to 1947, this time Stalin’s directed famine only managed to claim 500 000 – 1 000 000.
Socialist Stain was as murderous as socialist Hitler.
Comment by KGS59 — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 11:57 am
As odd as it is the Finnish government did not calculate which terror state had murdered more people (I suppose Stalin would have handily won in numbers).
By 1941, when Finland made the pact with Germany, Hitler hadn’t really started yet. The number of massacred must have been rather in tens of thousands than in hundreds, and even those killing were mostly done in secracy. It’s far from clear that the Finnish government could have known about them. Stalin on the other hand was known to have killed millions (“killed” is perhaps a bit mieleading, most people died because of the poor contitions in the concentration and work camps or even in certain parts of the country).
Now, we know of course that in a situation like this Hitler was the bad guy, not Stalin, simply because Stalin could help the Western allies.
By the way, it was Germany which declared war on the USA, not vice versa. It’s not altogether certain that the USA would ever started a war aginst Germany without the declaration. It could have continued helping Great Britain “secrectly”.
Comment by tony bee — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 12:41 pm
I disagree Tony Bee. Those who died in work camps/concentration camps, did so with the full knowledge of Stalin. State murder(democide) has accounted for more deaths than any of the world wars combined. Stalin however, must bow to the likes of Mao Tse Tung, who holds the record of numbers murdered by state decrees, which is around 73 000 000.
Comment by KGS59 — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 1:49 pm
Finnish Honesty, I can uderstand totally why you want to forget you were an ally of Stalin, WHO STARTED THE WAR by INVADING POLAND along with uncle Adi…
You communist idolators don’t mention the 20 odd people, some Finnish citizens, who were given to the “Allied Control Commission” to be tried in Moscow and the 56 000 Ingrian refugees that were put into cattle trains and “repatriated home” to Siberia to the USSR gulags.
And what you say about the Winter War – I hope someone kicks your head in on the pavement on veteran’s day.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 2:17 pm
Ever heard of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact? Uncle Joe and Uncle Adi were the benevolent men with moustaches who divided Eastern Europe between themselves in 1938. Wankers like Chamberlain and Daladier had given in with Checkoslovakia and Austria. The partition of Poland was done *jointly* by USSR and Germany.
Saying that Hitler started the war shows a true lack of a grasp of history. Just because Hitler lost and Stalin won, doesn’t make Uncle Joe any more benevolent and Chamberlain and Daladier any less wankers.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 2:21 pm
As you dildobrains show such a lack of grasp of history, read 19th Century history of the Russian Empire. See as a rule waves of “russification” policies, like the ones Bobrikoff was murdered implementing them in Finland. As Russia was a multinational conglomerate “ethnic nationalism” was seen as a bad thing. And one should not forget the jewish progoms of Russia either. Lenin nor Stalin didn’t abandon the “russification” policy. And if some lackwitted individual still does claim that Stalin did not have pseudosciences to back up his ethnical cleansings, I’d suggest reading a few theory books made in the 1920’s and then coming to flaunt your ignorance.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 2:29 pm
>Saying that Hitler started the war shows a true lack of a grasp of
>history.
Saying that Hitler didn’t start WWII shows a true lack of brains.
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 2:34 pm
A good reference also on the Russian events is “From Alexandria to Auschwitz, the story of the persecution of Jews”. It should IMHO be required reading in schools.
And while you are bringing up the 8 jews deported from Finland, how about the 80 000 or so Jews denied entry to Palestine during the war. Surely the British should have done the “moral thing” and let them immigrate, eh?
And saying thet the USA and Britain fought Nazi Germany just because they “were bad” shows you have no grasp of geopolitics – read the history of UK for example in the 1918-1938 era. How about Irish Independence – what about some “moral choices” there?
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 2:37 pm
> > Saying that Hitler started the war shows a true lack of a grasp of
> > history.
> Saying that Hitler didn’t start WWII shows a true lack of brains.
And he did it all by himself, alone, by a snap of a finger?
Besides which what “started” WWII? It is quite an Eurocentric view to claim it was in 1939, as Japan had started an aggressive expansion in China already in 1936-38. And, the war was raging mainly in Europe before 1941, so shouldn’t it be called a “world” war only after Pearl Harbour?
You may have brains, but you not using them is evident.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 2:41 pm
From Wikipedia:
The Soviet government insisted on retaining the territories captured in the course of the Nazi-Soviet pact (now western Ukraine and western Belarus), compensating Poland with one fifth of Germany in its extension of 1937 (“Regained Territories”). About 8 million Germans were expelled or fled. As a consequence, more than 0.5 million Germans died or were killed, many of them in 1.255 Communist labor camps (Lambinowice).
Where’s this “moral superiority”?
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 2:45 pm
According to generally accepted historical view Hitler started WWII by invading Poland, an event which caused Britain and France to declare war against Germany. That’s how it started.
But of course you know all that already, don’t you? So hey, better button up, liebling, because dein trü polizical leanink is showink
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 2:49 pm
One thing interesting about Holmen’s thesis is that he finds that today’s textbook bias is in favour of the EU.
I imagine that one main reason that Finland joined the EU was to protect itself against Russia since it could not bring itself to join NATO, perhaps partly due to being collectively brainwashed by earlier versions of its textbooks.
Today, I find that Finland is subject to finlandization from two directions, one from the East and the old fear of the Big Neighbour, and the second from Brussels, where the EU is more often than not idealized when its actions often should be criticized.
If you want to draw a parallel to the early 1940’s, the EU is the counterweight today as Germany was the counterweight in the earlier period to the eastern neighbour.
Comment by Peter — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 2:51 pm
And nope, I’m not defending Uncle Joe here at all, BTW. He was as big a criminal as Hitler, but that STILL doesn’t take away from the fact of Hitler being the main culprit / criminal of WWII, no?
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 2:52 pm
“Generally accepted history” was also written in the Finnish text books handling the Soviet Union in a very cautious manner in the 1970s. At the same time the United States was openly criticised over its policy in Vietnam, for instance…
The thing is, “generally accepted history” is propaganda written by the winners trying to excuse themselves of their own misgivings.
To say one event in Hitler’s expansion policy “triggered” the second world war is correct. But I’d say it all started brewing in the aftermath of the 1st world war, which then again brewed over the Imperialism of the 18th century.
However the “generally accepted history” omits the expansion of Japan that was modelled after the British Empire, and you can say that was triggered by the Tshushima naval battle of 1905… Starting point was probably Perry opening japan and The Meiji revolution.
What comes to Vietnam, and the US involvement, we can go to the French colonial empire, Japanese occupation, and the shortcomings in 1945-1953 to explain the beginnings of the Vietnam Conflict. But who “started” the Vietnam War? Lyndon B. Johnson or Ho Chi Minh? See now as there is no “winner” in that war there is no “generally accepted history”.
“Generally accepted history” is a very dangerous thing. In Turkey for example the “generally accepted history” is that nothing happened to the Armenians…
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 3:06 pm
Hitler being the main culprit / criminal of WWII, no?
Main scapegoat/demon more aptly. main criminal perhaps yes, but the biggest culprits were those that let him rise to power, and I’d blame Chamberlain and Daladier for not letting the TIME magazine man of the year to have his way.. if the French had rattled sabres after the occupation of Rheinland the Germans would probably split back up to small states… They did not nip Hitler in the bud, but let him bloom to a big flower. And then complain of the rotting smell in the jungle…
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 3:10 pm
@KGS59
as I’ve pointed out before, Hitler was interrupted. There would be no Slavs in Eastern Europe if he had won the war. That’s more than a hundred million people for a start.
A lot of the worst things Stalin did were a case of not caring if people lived or died. Hitler cared very much about the Jews.
Leopold of Belgium and his Congo Free State are a good parallel: Leopold did not set out to kill off half the population of Congo, he just set quotas for rubber production and did not care what happened in the jungle.
Same thing with Stalin and the Ukraine Famine. Not that it makes him a better human being, as a troll seems to argue above. A hitman (who doesn’t have to hate the people he kills) is not generally regarded as morally superior to a murderer motivated by hatred.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 3:15 pm
Stalin was interrupted as well, by his own death. Given the megalomania of the man, left to live into his nineties, he would have surpassed Mao, or at least rivaled him.
Comment by KGS59 — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 3:25 pm
Hank seems to be one of the few people here who actually knows something about history. A sincere thanks for that.
Finnish dishonesty is a troll as his comments are so ridiculous that only a complete and utter moron (a troll) would write such things.
Winter War not a proper war for you? Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, both russian and finnish, and to their relatives and loved-ones. What an utter snotty prick you are. I hope you at least have the decency to be ashamed of what you’re blabbering.
Comment by Åboy — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 3:28 pm
@Hank W.,
please don’t let the troll overload your brain.
Stalin did not start the war. The bastard was a lot of things, but a gambler he was not. He always had a healthy respect for people outside his control and capable of causing him serious grief. Hence the decision to end Winter War when it seemed like other major powers were about to intervene.
Chamberlain and Daladier would have had a hard time resisting the Anschluss, given that most Austrians (including the military) wanted it. I mean, a war against democracy and national self-determination, to prop up a state that very few of its own citizens were ready to defend. The Czechs are another thing, that was just stupid. OTOH the Czech losses in WWII were pretty marginal compared to what happened to the Poles (who were not abandoned). Freeriding pays, provided someone else does the heavy lifting. If Hitler had won, the Czechs would have been goners too.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 3:29 pm
>To say one event in Hitler’s expansion policy “triggered†the second >world war is correct. But I’d say it all started brewing in the >aftermath of the 1st world war, which then again brewed over the >Imperialism of the 18th century.
Of course it all started brewing after WWI, because many Germans viewed Germany’s capitulation as a political stab-in-the-back, and also because of those enormous war reparations imposed on Germany in the Versailles Treaty. All this, and the economic freefall hitting Germany a bit later, of course had their influence in NSDAP’s ascension to power in 1933.
And of course there’re always causes and consequences to whatever social phenomena, be it warfare or whatever, because nothing exists in a vacuum. But I’d STILL say Hitler is the main criminal of WWII, because as you yourself said an event in Hitler’s expansion policy triggered the whole thing. No?
And this opinion of mine has nothing to do with my personal viewpoint of Uncle Joe, BTW. *
* Ah? Oh, I think he was one of the bloodiest dictators ever, now that you’re asking…
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 3:30 pm
@Hank W., post 77
Actually Lenin did abandon Russification. Not because he was such a sweet guy but because it made a lot of good political sense.
His main opponents in the Russian Civil War were White generals, whose political thought ran the gamut from ‘Kill the Jews, save Holy Russia’ to ‘Against the Bolsheviks, without politics.’
Their nationality policy made any co-operation with Finland or Poland impossible. The Estonians, who had to work with Yudenich, expected to have to fight him as soon as he had taken St.Petersburg.
So cultural autonomy and a lot of paper republics, autonomous republics etc. were given to the minorities. That ended in a big massacre in 1937-38, with most of the national intelligentsias shot.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 3:31 pm
@86: Yes, the appeasers surely made a BIG mistake with Hitler, that’s true…
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 3:35 pm
prince of dorkness: How do you explain what happened in Georgia in February 1921 (Russian invasion) and the 50,000 people that were killed there between 1921 and 1924 (Stalin’s home country, Stalin was murdering Georgian people to satisfy his boss, Lenin)? 50,000 is a figure in the Wikipedia article for the history of Georgia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Georgia(country)
Isn’t this what happened to Georgia pretty much the same the Estonians were afraid that might happen to them in case Judenich would get in charge of Russia?
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 4:30 pm
prince of dorkness: I understand your main point about cultural autonomy but invasion of a neighboring country and mass murder there happened even during Lenin’s time. There most certainly was a difference between Lenin and Stalin when it comes to Russian nationalism but the internationalism that Lenin practiced had pretty much similar consequences as extreme nationalism anyway (one country invading neighbors).
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 4:38 pm
> Stalin did not start the war. The bastard was a lot of things, but a > gambler he was not.
How about German Rearmament?
Hint: Luftwaffe.
In order to train its pilots on the latest combat aircraft, Germany ironically solicited the help of its future enemy, the USSR. A secret training airfield was established at Lipetsk in 1924 and operated for approximately nine years using mostly Dutch and Russian, but also some German, training aircraft before being closed in 1933.
If I would want to be nasty, I’d say Staling got exactly what he was asking for making the rise of German military machine possible. And he *was* playing. The USSR was supporting Hitler in Europe to keep UK and France occupied…
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 7:03 pm
Ment to say “was supporting Germany”, my bad. 1924-1933 the Weimar Republic was slowly rearming itself, and there was probably an idea of progressing the cause of the komintern. However in 1933 after the rise of Hitler the scales were turned a bit, as Hitler effectively purged all opposition, especially communists. However I do not think that the idea of keeping UK and France in check with Germany was abandoned, as can be seen from the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 7:09 pm
And it was Hitler who started the 2nd World War….
On Thursday, April 15, 1920, Victor Kopp, Soviet Russia’s special representative sent by Lenin to Berlin, asked at the German Foreign Office whether “there was any possibility of combining the German and the Red Army for a joint war on Poland”.
As I say – scapegoat.
On August 23, 1939, Germany and Russia signed the Ribbentrop-Molotov non-aggression pact containing a secret protocol dividing up Eastern Europe. Poland was then indeed divided along the line suggested by Russia nineteen years earlier. Bialystok itself went to the
While Britain blockaded Germany at sea to prevent her importing war materials from overseas, all the supplies which the Reich needed for the war were sent direct from the Soviet Union by rail. Stalin promised that what the Soviets could not supply from her own resources, they would buy up on the world’s markets and pass on to Germany. Three-eighths of the oil used by Germany in 1940 came from the Soviet Union, including high-octane spirit for the Luftwaffe to fight the Battle of Britain.
From the start of the war until Germany invaded the Soviet Union less than two years later, Stalin had supplied Hitler with 1.5 million tons of oil, the same quantity of grain, and many thousands of tons of rubber, timber, phosphates (for making explosives), iron and many valuable metal ores, particularly chromium, manganese and platinum. At the time of the invasion, Germany was heavily in debt to the Soviet Union.
So who is the bigger criminal, the guy who carjackings or the guy who supports him with guns and buys the highjacked cars?
Just because the carjacker turns on his banker doesn’t make the criminality of the fence is any less. In this case, the carjacker gets all the blame and the fence ggot into a witness protection programme – by “generally accepted history”.
So Hitler started the 2nd world war? Yeah, but *who made it all possible*???
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 7:26 pm
Hmmm. Interesting. The wikipedia entry for Holmen (where it’s mentioned that he’s a muslim convert, by marriage), is only three days old, if we go by the publication date of his dissertation, on May 5th.
Do you ever get anything right? The article was created on April 22, 2005 and his being a muslim convert is first mentioned in the June 14, 2005 version.
Seriously, were you born that stupid or did it take years of practice?
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 7:28 pm
Ok, back to Finland. We could ask then howcome the Norwegians don’t bend over backwards all the time. After all Finns gave the English language the word “sauna” and Norwegians “quisling”.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 7:29 pm
Very interesting discussion though maybe bit derailed at times. The immediate reason for the beginning of the war was really the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 which freed Hitler to invade Poland and Stalin to come to the spoils, but that’s just one phase of very complicated process. Hitler naturally was the main culprit but Stalin is a clear second. France and the UK contributed to the catastrophy as did the US with its isolationist politics weakening the West significantly. For Finland the question is very simple: Stalin attacked us first and the West was powerless to help significantly. One thing often overlooked is the Stalinist Comintern policy of seeing the Social Democrats (“Social Fascists”) as the main enemy which hugely helped the Nazis in their power grab in Germany. I don’t see any big moral difference between Stalin and Hitler – maybe the latter’s ideology was more crude and killing methods more effective, but Stalin on the other hand was more skillfull which enabled him to wreak bloody havoc for a much longer time. On purely moral terms these comparisons are beside the point of course: millions of innocent people were murdered by both terror systems.
Comment by mjr — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 8:06 pm
>On Thursday, April 15, 1920, Victor Kopp, Soviet Russia’s special
>representative sent by Lenin to Berlin, asked at the German Foreign
>Office whether “there was any possibility of combining the German
>and the Red Army for a joint war on Polandâ€Â.
“This article may not conform to the neutral point of view policy.” – A Wikipedia disclaimer accompanying the article containing this snippet.
That said, Soviet-German military collaboration actually went both ways before the war. Evidence in the form of correspondence between leading Bolsheviks and aforementioned Mr. Kopp exists where said representative discusses of possibilities of procuring small arms, field telephones, etc. from Germany. And as we know, Stalin gave raw materials to Germany in exchange of ships, machinery, etc. (i.e. finished products) later on, when the Ribbentrop Agreement went into effect.
So what exactly is your agenda there? No-one in their right mind is trying to say Stalin was a _good_ guy, but merely hammer in the fact that Hitler and Stalin BOTH were very, very ruthless dictators. Whereas _you_ seem to have an apologist standpoint as regards Hitler and/or Nazis, and I just wonder why… iz it dein politikal trü kolors showink, liebling, oder was???
PS. USSR _did_ help in Germany’s rearmament greatly, that’s true. So in that sense you’re absolutely correct.
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 8:56 pm
And does it say in the US textbooks that USA benefitted from the 2nd world war…
Between 1939 and 1944 (the peak of wartime production), the nation’s output almost doubled. Consequently, unemployment plummeted–from 14 % in 1940 to less than 2 % in 1943, as the labor force grew by ten million. The war economy was not so much a triumph of free enterprise as the result of government bankrolling business. While unemployment remained high throughout the New Deal years; consumption, investment, and net exports–the pillars of economic growth–remained low. It was World War II, not the New Deal, which finally ended the crisis.
And of course, *some* benefitted more than the others…
A Detroit News columnist interviewed Hitler in 1931 (two years before he took power) and asked about the portrait of Ford above his desk; Hitler told her, “I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration.”
Well, inspiration or not…
In July 1938, four months after the German annexation of Austria, he accepted the highest medal that Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle. The following month, a senior executive for General Motors, James Mooney, received a similar medal for his “distinguished service to the Reich.”
oh, and what about moral?
Documents show that the parent companies followed a conscious strategy of continuing to do business with the Nazi regime, rather than divest themselves of their German assets. Less than three weeks after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, GM Chairman Alfred P. Sloan defended this strategy as sound business practice, given the fact that the company’s German operations were “highly profitable.”
Oh, its because of the winning side writes the “generally accepted history” ?
American Ford received dividends from its German subsidiary worth approximately $60,000 for the years 1940-43.
And makes a nice proft on the side?
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 8:57 pm
You forgot the Big Bad Blue there, Hank. IBM, that is. Hey, everyone with an inkling of history knows that Hitler wasn’t the only bad guy there – the multinationals of the time helped him greatly, too, and yes, they made a huge profit out of that.
But you still didn’t answer my question there: why the apologist standpoint as regards Nazis, pray tell?
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 9:09 pm
Oh, and the knowledge of big Anglo-American business helping Hitler IS generally accepted history as well…
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 9:12 pm
No-one in their right mind is trying to say Stalin was a _good_ guy
Well then why do you villify Finland siding with Hitler as an “exceptionally bad” thing? Finland has nothing to look back and apologise for what had to be done. It was a decision of national survivial, and the only viable option at the time. Finland sided with Nazi Germany *out of necessity*. USSR rearmed Germany, USSR supplied Nazi Germany in their campaign after 1939, whch they stated as a “joint effort” – probably dating to the Weimar days of rearmament, and US businesses *benefitted* from Nazi Germany. The UK and France “sided with Stalin”. So unless the UK, USA and France apologize for siding with Stalin’s USSR -who had supplied munitions, materials and fuel to (in case of France)defeat them, Finland really hasn’t that much to ‘reflect’ upon. I think the “generally accepted history” needs a bit of analysis to show that there was more opportunism, greed, double-dealing and financial gain involved than any kind of moral superiority complex. Germany, Nazi or not, was on the verge of bankruptcy and the Nazis basically ‘nationalised’ and ’socialised’ any assets they could reach. If one reads the history of the 3rd reich, Hitler financed his war on plundering.
So before starting to yap about Finland needing to reflect, why don’t you go reflect a bit yourselves first and then come in and say what Finland should “morally” have done. It was an option between the two evils, and Finland atleast kept its national integrity even in 1941-44, managed to keep unoccupied 1944-45 and avoided to become a “peoples’ democracy” even the 1945-1947 era was difficult. Yes, indeed most of the 1950’s and 1970’s era was asskissing to the USSR. So we have nothing to apologize for the era of ‘Kekkoslovakia’ and the schoolbooks either, there was no real option, but to accept the realities.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 9:15 pm
So why don’t they bend over backwards and reflect then. Oh sorry, they sold arms to everyone and won the war.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
But you still didn’t answer my question there: why the apologist standpoint as regards Nazis, pray tell?
To counterbalance the apologist standpoint as regads to USSR.
Villifying Hitler makes Stalin stand out as the “hero liberator of Europe”. I’m just trying to put everyone in their deserved slot, I happen to think the bigger criminal was Stalin.
Lets take an example. We have two nasty old farmers. One has a huge industrial dairy farm and the other one grows minks. The guy who has a herd of cattle lets it die of starvation, and doesn’t do anything to maintain the farm and next door we have a mink farmer who electrocutes his minks and skins them alive. Now why do we have the fox girls go free the minks, why don’t they go feed the starving cows? I am not being apologetic for the mink farmer if I am proving that the dairy farmer is as bad, if not worse an animal abuser, I am just annoyed the fox girls concentrationg on villifying the mink farmer, while there are still today hundreds of dairy farmers letting their cows suffocate in manure.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 9:32 pm
Oh, and why was Stalin the bigger criminal? I wouldn’t say him especially – the “human experiment” that was USSR and the Komintern offsprings. Pol Pot in Cambodia for example, Kims of North Korea… you can count murderous dictators of course without much political agenda rather than the looting and pilfering, His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. pops in mind…. in particular.
And apologising for past ‘misalignments’ – where is Donald Rumsfeld apologising for supporting Saddam’s reign in the 1980’s, eh? I could do a similar diatribe showing USA & allies (business) involvement in Iraq before the gulf war(s), and some dildobrain would probably call me a Saddam apologetic?
Well, a little Idi Amin apologetics; he was, after all “a splendid type and a good football player” – I think they had misinterpreted the middle foot & balls from reading the reports of Idi chopping off nads while serving in the King’s African Rifles in Kenya in the 1960’s…
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 9:53 pm
Oh, “Anonymous” -what irks me that “Finnish honesty” goes The facts are that Finland siezed additional land during their act of aggression (The 1941-1944 War of Collaboration)
He omits that USSR seized and Russia still holds a part of the lands seized in their 1939 ‘act of aggression’.
So if the USSR was “allied with Hitler”, what makes Finland so special? USSR/Russia were very quiet of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact’s secret protocol and I somehow lac the higher “moral concept” that allows USSR /Russia to occupy areas that they ‘dealt’ with an other dictator in the 1930’s. It seems to me that winners make up the rules, and “generally accepted history”. So, just out of principle, I oppose that kind of “truths” – winners dictate their truths, but one needs to have an objective view of geopolitical history and not jump on the bandwagon. If we jump on the bandwagon, nobody will remember the Armenians… nobody seems to have learned anything though. Look at Ruanda and Yugoslavia. Wonder what the “generally accepted history” will be in a few years’ time…
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 10th, 2006 @ 10:08 pm
@Hank: Ah, it’s the good old right-wing chagrin against everything Leftist, then. Fair enough.
Consider this, however: Hitler and his cronies developed a mass-murder machinery which was used for the sole purpose of wiping out complete races just because of what they WERE, not because of what they had allegedly DONE.
Stalin, on the other hand, never used pure genocide when eliminating people he suspected as enemies. He deported or killed everyone he regarded as an enemy to the Soviet system and himself, yes, and he did implement a policy of Russification, yes again, but he never tried to exterminate whole nationalities just because they were non-Russian. Even the Ukrainian famine of 1933, horrible as it was, doesn’t fulfill that criterion, because the main motive behind it was to speed up forced collectivisation of agriculture, NOT exterminating Ukrainians as a race.
That’s one thing. Another is that while Stalin is ultimately responsible for millions of people losing their lives prematurely, a great majority of those deaths didn’t occur because of direct murder. No, they occurred because of two things, first of which was the Stalinist viewpoint of humans as expendable and/or perishable raw material, and the other one was just plain bureucratical incompetence and/or indifference combined with lousy economy. Thus, most of Stalin’s victims died of malnourishment, mistreatment, diseases etc., but _not_ explicit murder.
So as can be seen, there are some crucial differences between these two totalitarian systems, as horrible as they both were. Neither of them was “better” by any means, but the Third Reich was still _worse_ in its explicit policy of direct racial extermination – a process having no logical basis whatsoever. Stalin, on the other hand, always had a logical reason for his repressional policies, regardless of whether any of those reasons were in fact justifiable.
So in conclusion: was the Soviet system better than the Third Reich? No. But was the Nazi system _worse_ than the USSR? Yes, because of the reasons outlined above. And does saying this make me a Stalin apologist: no fucking way, and anyone claiming so can just stick their heads up their whatsit.
PS. All of the above are my opinions only, but that still doesn’t make them unfounded. Anyone interested in the Soviet vs. Nazi repression is invited to read, amongst other books, Anne Applebaum’s excellent “GULAG – a history of the Soviet camps”. Even she – and the lady is as right-wing as they come – readily points out that the Nazi system was indeed worse of the two…
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 12:00 am
One really can’t say the Germans didn’t have ‘logical’ reason for their extermination of races. You read Hitler’s battle, and you find a very ‘logical’ (to him) explanation. It is as logical to me as is the reason behind farm collectivizations or shooting the intellectuals or other ‘logical’ aspects in the USSR. It is like crazy people, their ‘logic’ is different than yours or mine, however it is quite logical to them. One must understand that in this kind of regimes the ‘logic’ is dictated from above, as like during the Inquisition if they said your neigbor was a witch she was, and if you protested you were too. Questioning ‘logic’ of the rulers is quite a privilege, that we fortunately have. Not everybody in the modern world has it.
Comment by Hank W. — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 1:59 am
I do wonder about this badness competition – I think it is completely beside the point, but I can actually see a good case for Stalin and the USSR actually. You don’t see many swastikas on the t-shirts of young, idealistic people these days. You can’t say that the victims of the Holocaust would have been forgotten. Unlike some millions of nameless graves in Siberia. Hitler was crude, incompetent, very easy to condemn, but the Soviet Union actually survived for 70 years and still retains some inexplicable mystique. Now which system is then more dangerous and thus worse? It seems that few englightenment dregs really are an effective disguise. Communism surely is more dangerously tempting than crude fascism. Now, my own opinion is different, but I award the “victory” to Nazi-Germany only on points: the difference is not significant.
Comment by mjr — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 8:35 am
@Helsinkian,
I was not trying to present Lenin as a nice, humane guy who gave Finland its independence (a real 70’s cliche, that), just noting there was a major policy change under Stalin. Of course Stalin had been in charge of the nationalities question under Lenin so he was really undoing his earlier work. He (or somebody under him) even invented some nations (e.g. the Uzbeks).
The Soviet Republics did have some reality. Not too much; the USSR had two parallel administrations, the state and the Party, and the party always came first. However, imagine collapse of the Soviet Union without the Republics. Do you think Estonia would be independent then?
Comment by prince of dorkness — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 9:13 am
Considering idealism, I think the Soviet Union of the early 20’s would have been excellent playground even for the modern young idealists. You know, avantgardistic arts, Lev Theremin, and his wild experiments in electronic music, experiments of absolutely free sex (the water glass theory) or enthusiasts not knowing a bloody thing about construction or civil engineering building hydroelectric power plants. Heck, Stalin was a major party pooper. Even Brezhnev tried to revive the old spirit with his BAM railway construction out of nowhere to nowhere. If I’m not wrong, even some finnish idealists took a stint there in the 70’s.
Now what did Aatu Hiltunen (Some old geezers in North-Karelia still use that name for Hitler, you guess, who Pentti Mustonen was.) offer? Easy ride on autobahn with Volkswagen, daily Göbbels real right-wing radio by everyman’s receiver (Volksempfanger), working for the reich and taking vacation in that long house by the Baltic sea, straight rows, closed ranks and youth camps, where intellectually oriented skinny geeks got broken glasses and punched into nose. It is not hard to see, which one is your favourite totalitarian system, in case you are an intellectually oriented, skinny etc. idealist. (Unless you are inconvenient about your rationalism, which is not impressing the girls and turn into wannabe lederhosen-Heidegger.)
Comment by antti (the redneck one) — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 9:13 am
@Hank W.,
I think you are seriously overestimating the ability of other nations to stop a major power from going batshit crazy.
Chamberlain, Daladier et.al. did not haver the benefit of perfect 20/20 hindsight. They operated on the information available then. Sane people do not start wars of choice without a pressing reason. Getting a coalition of sane people to do the same is even harder. (Fascists were different; they really, really liked to fight.)
BTW, why doesn’t anyone blame FDR for not starting a preventive war against Germany, Japan AND the USSR? Politically impossible, yes, but so was a preventive war against Hitler.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 9:14 am
There are at least two reasons Hitler gets such bad press: he fought against the US (leader of the Free World and its mass media, who just love the WWII as a subject), and he lost out totally.
Fascism is dead as an ideology, and most people do not even take it seriously. Like the Anonymous who insists that Nazi exterminations had no logical basis whatsoever (post 110).
It’s one thing to say you don’t agree with Nazi premises (which were crap) and another to fail to see the logic. If the Untermenschen are subhuman, the rest does follow quite logically.
The funny thing is that at the time Facist was the thing to be, it was the wave of the future, with big appeal for intellectuals and such.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 9:25 am
I think the temptation with totalitarianism is that it so handily offers justifications for our base, aggressive instincts. I can’t view Stalin’s time as anything else as an bloody, hysterical orgy, but the justifications were oh so abstract and fancy. Heidegger was a profound philosopher, but what on earth are Blut und Boden in actual human experience? Other than blind prejudice and fear. In other words, what the hell was he blathering about in fancy, nuanced language? The danger is that we view the murderous actions as dictated by some abstract rationalization when fundamentally the situation is the opposite: at most these rationalizations simply release our destructive natures from the bounds of civilization. From this point of view I am hard pressed at seeing any meaningful distinctions between Hitler and Stalin.
Comment by mjr — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 9:39 am
@ prince of dorkness:
“Chamberlain, Daladier et.al. did not haver the benefit of perfect 20/20 hindsight. They operated on the information available then. Sane people do not start wars of choice without a pressing reason.”
Exactly, that is what I am saying to “Finnish consciense” – “Ryti, Mannerheim et.al. did not haver the benefit of perfect 20/20 hindsight. They operated on the information available then. Sane people do not start wars of choice without a pressing reason.”
A pressing reason was what very evidently had happened to the Baltic States under the USSR occupation in 1940-41. Onkel Adi’s final solution was still coming on, there can be no “hindsight” of the future – but the Baltics were happening *there and then*. Moral choice = save the nation!
I think you can see my point why i bring this up
Comment by Hank W. — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 9:52 am
Well, I think the bad press is also because it was a short, brutal and very visual era.
Say there are two bank robbers. The other one is the clerk who siphons the ends of the rounded-up fractions into his account, and the other one is a guy who runs in with a mask and holds the place up. Of course the guy in the mask gets huge publicity, while the ‘mouse’ can be caught and nobody pays any real attention.
Comment by Hank W. — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 9:55 am
Stalin, on the other hand, always had a logical reason for his repressional policies, regardless of whether any of those reasons were in fact justifiable.
It’s argued that the persecutions got actually a bit out of hand. Anyway, in the end Stalin had very little control over it, the killing machine worked according to its own logic – although Stalin was naturally able to stop the machine when he saw it appropriate. Furthermore many mass deportations based on nationality (and the esuing deaths) were as logical as Hitler’s purges. I really don’t see that big difference; in both cases it was a question of destroying an (alledged) enemy. And what about the “plot against the Jewish doctors” in the 1940s and 50s? Apparently Stalin wasn’t all that picky himself when it came to the finer differences between concepts like “race”, “nationality”, “class” or even profession.
Lenin is a far simplier case. My 11-year-old kid’s teacher just taught him that Lenin was along with Gandhi and King Jr among the greatest non-violent activists of all times … overthrowing the evil czar (sic) and all that. And who do you believe if not a Finnish teacher!
Comment by tony bee — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 9:56 am
>It’s one thing to say you don’t agree with Nazi premises (which were
>crap) and another to fail to see the logic. If the Untermenschen are
>subhuman, the rest does follow quite logically.
OK, used the term a bit hastily there. My bad. How about saying that Hitler’s genocide had no logical basis, because his claim of “Untermenschen = subhumans” – a construct you just used yourself – actually translates into “subhumans = subhumans”, i.e. subhumans are subhumans because they are subhumans?
Jeez, maybe I’m just thick, but I most certainly see some serious logical flaws in that line of reasoning! Not to mention that neither the Nazis, nor anyone else, has ever come up with any scientifically sound evidence of sub-humanity actually existing… Which, actually, gives ol’ Uncle Joe one tiny plus point more – the man was definitely a paranoid murderer and exploiter, but even _he_ never descended to such sordid levels of non-science and illogic as did Old Adi, in that he never believed in Untermenschaft per se!
Which actually concludes this debate pretty nicely: where Stalin was a “manslaughterer”, Hitler was a “murderer”. And please note the quotation marks there – the terms are descriptive, not literal. But the difference still exists, however small it may be – why, just think in lines of implicity vs. explicity if this claim seems a bit hard to grasp!
Ergo: both men were ruthless dictators, who perpetrated crimes against humanity. But however you twist things, Hitler was _still_ a tiny bit worse. The difference is broadly analoguous to that of a manslauhgterer and a murderer – a difference, albeit tiny, but a difference nevertheless!
And that’s that from my part as far as this discussion goes. If after all this you _still_ fail to grasp the difference, well, your loss
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 10:15 am
@Hank W.
well yes, I can’t see any better alternative to our 1939-1945 foreign policy.
Scandinavian co-operation might’ve been a nice option, but one that would have had to start a lot earlier and I’m not at all sure the Swedes would have been too keen to tie themselves to a possible war with Russia.
Somebody upthread suggested that the UK and the US might’ve made Finnish independence the condition of continued Lend-Lease to Stalin if only we had sided with the Allies in 1941. That’s too naive for words.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 10:17 am
“Well, I think the bad press is also because it was a short, brutal and very visual era.” (Hank W.)
And it has a great plot, the bad guys lost. While Stalin and Mao died of natural causes, undefeated. That’s too depressing to make into a major motion picture or TV series.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 10:34 am
>I really don’t see that big difference; in both cases it was a
>question of destroying an (alledged) enemy. And what about the “plot
>against the Jewish doctors†in the 1940s and 50s?
OK, I’ll bite. Too interesting a topic.
The destruction of an alleged enemy, yes, but NOT on a scale of wiping out the whole race / nationality in question. Stalin based his policies mostly on the hope of gaining some concrete assets – political, economical, psycological, whatever – and on paranoia, but Hitler, on top of doing all that AS WELL, also had a pseudo-scientifical extermination policy mandating the killing of _all_ “subhumans”, and that regardless of anything but their race! So pure suspicions alone – however incorrect and/or abstract – were never a pre-requirement for execution in the Third Reich, whereas even the “Jewish Doctors” case in the USSR was based on false suspicions of said doctors attempting to poison Stalin (IIRC). Genocidical action cloaked in justice that might’ve been, yes, but even then Stalin and his henchmen never intended to exterminate _all_ of the Russian Jewry!
So you see the difference now? Where Stalin was n, Hitler was n+1. The difference is small, but it’s there nevertheless…
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 11:10 am
prince of dorkness post 113: You’re absolutely right about the republics and that being Lenin’s legacy and the reason why certain republics were granted independence in 1991 but others weren’t.
An interesting trivia detail about the republics is that Stalin created another republic that didn’t exist during Lenin’s time: the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic. If Khrushchev hadn’t taken the SSR status away from the Karelian Republic and demoting them to ASSR, as a result of Stalin’s legacy there might be one more independent state today. Of course, Stalin’s original idea had been to annex Finland to the Karelo-Finnish republic and when this idea had been given up, the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic lost its status (but only after Stalin’s death).
Of course, had Estonia been an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (like Karelia and Checheno-Ingushia) rather than Soviet Socialist Republic, their independence would not have happened as easily as it happened in 1991.
As the Caucasian he was, Stalin also created the soviet socialist republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1936. Before that time, thanks to his own work during Lenin’s time, these had been between 1921 and 1936 one single republic called Transcaucasian Federative Soviet Socialist Republic. Consider the hypothetical situation at USSR’s breakup had Lenin’s legacy been fully respected and Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia still would have been one republic.
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 11:29 am
I can put an end to this debate.
The biggest killer in the world is without any shadow of a doubt the catholic church and the pope. Think how many people during it’s existence have perished under it’s cruel dictatorship, how many cultures exterminated and how many people persecuted. Even until recently the pope was vehemently against condoms and so the HIV/AIDS was allowed to spread for years and years, infecting and killing millions of people around the globe.
The pope has got a lot to answer for. He’s the true number one massmurderer.
Comment by Åboy — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 11:41 am
ROTFLMAO! And a senile old man on top of everything…
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 11:44 am
Yes. And the really sad thing is, it’s all actually true.
Comment by Åboy — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 11:50 am
Hmmm, a little bit more jesusing around about who was aside with who. Remember, we had a surviving fascist dictatorship in Europe up to the 70’s, namely Franco’s Spain. His anti-communism was so convenient for certain western powers on the winning side of WWII that they turned a blind eye to the evil ideology…
Comment by antti (the redneck one) — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 12:08 pm
Anonymous: isn’t the opposing point exactly that Stalin was worse because there was a seeming logic behind the killings? Just like you are saying in this thread proving the point. I think Hitler was marginally worse killer (though morally this sort of debate is quite meaningless), but he clearly doesn’t have similar credibility that Stalin’s system still seems to enjoy. Not to talk about those millions of victims of the Soviet Union that basically are now forgotten as the whole system is viewed through hazy, ignorant nostalgia by the younger generations. In that light communism definitely seems more dangerous than nazism.
Comment by mjr — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 12:10 pm
@127: Hmmm… should check some stats myself, I think, because there might be some truth in that claim!
There’re a couple of factors at work here, however. The Catholic Church didn’t have the technology for mass extermination at the time they were into big-time slaughtering of punters, but then again the extermination timespan was indeed quite long. Not to mention that their long-standing resistance to condoms adds to the totals a lot as well…
Hard to say, actually. But whaddaya think – are there any reliable and comprehensive stats about this anywhere, or just “generally accepted history”?
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 12:11 pm
@Anonymous:
‘neither the Nazis, nor anyone else, has ever come up with any scientifically sound evidence of sub-humanity actually existing’
For politics, you don’t need scientific soundness, minimal plausibility is enough. (And obviously you’ve forgotten the brilliant work of our own Tatu Vanhanen…)
‘The destruction of an alleged enemy, yes, but NOT on a scale of wiping out the whole race / nationality in question.’
A person murdered as a wrecker, a Kulak or American spy is no less dead or less of a victim than the same person murdered as a Slav or a Jew. Of course, in the former case he’d probably be innocent, in the latter guilty as charged. So it goes. Boris Grünstein wrote in his wartime memoirs about trying to convince a Soviet Jewish POW not to volunteer for the Vlasov Army. (Grünstein was recruiting volunteers from Finnish POW camps.) The poor bugger refused to belive that the Germans could be that crazy…
‘Stalin based his policies mostly on the hope of gaining some concrete assets – political, economical, psycological, whatever – and on paranoia, but Hitler, on top of doing all that AS WELL, also had a pseudo-scientifical extermination policy mandating the killing of _all_ “subhumansâ€Â, and that regardless of anything but their race!’
Their race did make them objects of paranoia. There was an International Judeo-Bolshevik plot, plus the mere existence of the lower races meant there was a chance of race-mixing, eventually causing the downfall of civilization. No, really. And now I’ve written some of their thinking down I’ll have take a shower…
Comment by prince of dorkness — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 12:21 pm
Some debate about this question below. I must say I find our present “taistolais” nostalgia almost scary…
http://stockholmslender.blogspot.com/2006/03/good-old-times-when-we-sang-horst.html
Comment by mjr — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 12:30 pm
>Anonymous: isn’t the opposing point exactly that Stalin was worse
>because there was a seeming logic behind the killings?
Yep, could be, but Hitler had all that as well, PLUS the pseudo-scientifical total extermination policy of “inferiors”. Ergo: Hitler was worse, but only marginally.
That said, I totally share your concerns of overt and/or uncritical Communist nostalgia. Also, to idolize Soviet bric-a-brac – red stars, flags, you name it – because of the campness / chic value of it, is indeed insulting to those millions of unnamed dead that communism left in its wake! So in that sense, yes, communism is still a worrying phenomenon…
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 12:32 pm
An alternative to this Catholic-bashing is to consider their role in the creation of the western civilization. Notably, the Church, as the biggest single landlord in Europe (peaked at around third of all landholdings), had a serious interest in controlling government’s ability to tax them. And the entire educated class of the time were some kind of clerics. Hence the popularization of such bits of canon law as ‘no taxation without representation’ and ‘what affects all must be approved by all’, and the beginning of politics as we know it.
No Catholic Church = no Western civilization, no Internet, no Finland for Thought.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 12:33 pm
Yep, I agree with you about the order of darkness here: reread a biography of Himmler recently, at times the images were so painful that I had to stop reading. The things we are capable of…
Comment by mjr — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 12:40 pm
Just a few more words. I’m not particualry interested in ranking these two monsters, but you do have a point, actually the one that most people would give if asked – me too, if I wasn’t for some reason tempted to ponder the guestion a bit deeper, let’s say, as an intellectual excercise.
So here are a few more points: The way I’ve understood Hitler’s views on Jews, they weren’t actually subhuman, if that is supposed to mean a person somehow below the rest of humanity or the “Aryans”. On the contrary, Hitler thought about them as dangerous competitors for the Germans and the world dominace.
There were most certainly certain mythical or irrational reasons for that belief, but the German anti-Semites could also give rational explanations for their ideology. Some of them had to do with the racial theories well established among most scientist of the “Western Indo-European” countries (Finnish scientist, for example, never really could adopt these ideas, particualrly the “Baltic-Finnish” ones speaking Finnish). Some had to do with (ill-founded) history writing. But perhaps the easiest explanation to understand had to do with the fact that the Jews were indeed “over-represented” in many important fields, banking and commerce in particular, but also in other “internationalist”, modern activities.
Hitler thought that he could not trust their loyalty in his national project, which is not all that far-fetched idea if you think about it, knowing about the tensions between the two groups, sionism, history of such families as the Rothschilds – not to mention the clear anti-semite attitudes of the Nazis. One has to also rember the fact that without from the Jews stolen property and the cheap labor they provided the Nazis could not have started or carried on with the war. That was very rational indeed!
Now, Stalin on the other hand, relied on another “rational” ideology, Marxism-Leninism. In his – dare I say – legitimate, “scientific” view it was not the Jews in the first hand who were the dangerous competitors or a threat for the Soviet state, but “classes” and nationalists. For him it was those people he had to get rid of in the name of his “scientific” ideology.
There is this difference between the two gentlemen, which you mentioned too, that for a Jew (or Roma) there was no way of escaping by promsing to change. On the other hand on principle a nationalist or capitalist could regret his or her errors and thus escape death – particularly after the firts big wave of purges.
But perhaps the bottom line is that in both cases millions of innocent people died prematurely, “innocent” in the sense of the very basic human rights. What particular pseudoscience or ideology was behind these deeds must have been pretty trivial for the victims. I certainly can’t put a price on their lives on these rational/irrational or pragmatic/mythical grounds.
Comment by tony bee — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 12:46 pm
tony bee: I think that’s a good point and would explain why the Soviet terror was less personal and more “random”. Economic classes were eliminated instead of (crudely perceived) genetic groups. And like you said not a very meaningful distinction for the millions of victims.
Comment by mjr — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 1:04 pm
>A person murdered as a wrecker, a Kulak or American spy is no less
>dead or less of a victim than the same person murdered as a Slav or
>a Jew.
Of course not, but in the USSR a suspicion of guilt, however misplaced, usually preceded those murders. A wrecker, a Kulak, or an American spy were murdered under a presumption of being _guilty_ of something tangible, regardless of whether those suspicions were legitimate in any way (they weren’t of course). In Nazi Germany, however, people were murdered not because of what they had allegedly done, but because of what they were by _birth_ – and that’s something no-one can influence in any way!
That’s the main difference. You were _born_ a criminal deserving capital punishment in the Third Reich, whereas in Soviet Union this – at least usually – wasn’t the case. The difference is admittedly vague, what with all those deportations and everything, but it’s there nevertheless.
This distinction – with my notion of Hitler being all that Stalin was on top of that distinction, too – is what I’ve tried to point out in this discussion. You might oppose, but hey, so it goes. So maybe, ladies and gentleman of the opposition, we just have to agree to disagree here?
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 1:15 pm
tony bee: I don’t completely buy your argument. Lenin was the guy who was most interested in the extermination of certain classes. He in fact resembled Hitler in this that he hated certain people who knew they were the targets of the government. Sure, Stalin carried this to the extremes but he also killed many other kinds of people.
It’s also an oversimplification to say that Stalin killed economic classes and Hitler genetic groups. Both Stalin and Hitler wanted everybody to fear them. Stalin killed ideologically pure communists (not many right-wing dictators, if any, have killed so many people like that) in great numbers. Hitler also killed people who were loyal to the Nazi ideology but who he couldn’t trust to be personally loyal to him (Hitler killed a lot less Nazis than Stalin killed Communists but ideology was more important for Hitler than it was for Stalin).
I think the guiding principle of Hitler’s terror was that the average joe could identify those who get exterminated (Jews, gays, the Roma, the handicapped, communists etc. etc.) and think, I’m safe if I’m Aryan, I support Hitler and I’m a Nazi. For Stalin it was more important that nobody was safe. It didn’t matter if you were a communist, it didn’t matter whether you had done great services to Stalin by participating in his orgy of mass murder, these things made you perhaps even more likely to be next. Stalin was much more of a loner and more paranoid than Hitler.
In Stalin’s USSR, the idea was that anyone could be killed tomorrow. So it was important to be happy today, celebrate that you were alive while fearfully distancing yourself from your family member or best friend of yesterday who had disappeared during the night.
I don’t think any ideology or the difference between Communism and Nazism can explain why Stalin’s terror was more random. It was Stalin’s paranoia that made it so random; people who had felt safe during Lenin’s time knowing that they were on the side of the government and had some idea of who their enemy was, suddenly found themselves accused of treason after having done everything the system expected of them.
My theory is that those Communists who were killed by Stalin were far more loyal to their leader than those Nazis who were killed by Hitler. Stalin’s goal in exterminating people was based on percentages and calculus, if you kill a certain percentage of each population you can count that everyone will be scared shitless of Stalin, whereas Hitler’s goal was to eliminate everyone who looked deviant from his perspective. Hitler was blinded by the racist ideology he represented, whereas Stalin was a lot less interested in ideological purity. Both were in the business of mass murder and purely evil.
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 1:32 pm
The catholic church has never been interested in anything else except in power. All that it’s done during it’s existence has aimed to further it’s influence around the globe and to hoard more and more treasures for the Vatican and it’s clergy.
The catholic church has also always furiously opposed anykind of scientific and/or social development. Whenever people have tried to think independently the catholic church has always been there to condemn them and to burn them at the stake. As for what comes to christianity, it wasn’t actually until the protestant movement that real progress started to happen.
Even today it’s plain for everyone to see that the countries with protestant belief do way better in most aspects than the countries with catholicism. The GNP comparisons between these countries speak volumes about the societal effects of the two belief systems. I’m actually an atheist myself but I have to say that if I’d have to choose between protestants and catholics I’d choose protestants any day.
Catholicism is a totalitarian way of life and the pope is just another despot.
Comment by Åboy — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 1:35 pm
Åboy: no way you can use these “always” words about the Catholic Church. Didn’t you just yourself admit that the current pope is changing his position on condoms from the strict no-no of the previous one?
I’d suggest you’d read some more books on Catholic history and anti-Catholic rants by Lutherans and other Protestants. You can start by checking out the website of the bigoted Reverend Ian Paisley, MP of the Democratic Unionist Party and gasp at the thought that your rant might just as well have been written by him.
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 1:41 pm
helsinkian: That was really interesting analysis – I have not really thought about it that way before. I suppose the mentality of fear was more wide spread in the Soviet Union, but I have been thinking that this was because Hitler was in that sense more conservative that he did not go for the destruction of the existing structures if they did not present an active threat to him – the Soviet Union had to be more radical as it was created by a social revolution. The timing of the worst crimes is significant as well: during 1933-41 the Nazi crimes were child’s play compared with Stalin, but then they rose to that fearful crescendo during the Holocaust. Hmm, I had not thought that there would be so much room for fruitful analysis of these two murder systems…
Comment by mjr — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 1:41 pm
I didn’t put any link to Paisley’s website because I have no interest in generating more traffic for him, he has enough fans and supporters as it is but it was just meant as a hint for Åboy.
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 1:44 pm
@ Helsinkian:
You have to keep in mind that even now the catholic church and the pope are finally changing their mind on contraception just because they have come under such a heavy criticism from international health authorities and human rights groups. The pope can’t just sit in his ivory tower anymore and close his eyes from the reality which people live in. If it hadn’t been for the outside pressure the catholic church still wouldn’t think any different about contraception.
Comment by Åboy — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 1:48 pm
There are crackpots in every group of people. I don’t think however that this Paisley represents the majority of protestans or the protestant belief in general.
That said I have to add that personally as an atheist I do not really understand either catholicism or protestantism, but out of the two protestantism is probably the lesser evil.
Comment by Åboy — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 1:55 pm
mjr: Stalin committed his worst crimes during peacetime. Murder was a part of everyday life for him.
Hitler did indeed commit his worst crimes during wartime. That is very similar to the Armenian genocide during World War I and later Saddam’s gassing of the Kurds during the war against Iran. Some murderers think they can do whatever they want if it’s done during wartime and get away with it. Hitler took heart in the thought that the Armenian genocide had already been forgotten by then. Of course, Stalin also committed crimes during wartime, such as the murder of the Polish officers at Katyn forest, which he blamed on Hitler.
Åboy: many Catholic priests and bishops have wanted to change their minds on contraception for a long time but they’ve had to wait for the word from the Vatican. The Pope is not the same as the Catholic church or all Catholic societies, always. I still think the previous time I heard this senseless “Protestants are so much better than Catholics” hate propaganda was when I was browsing the Reverend Ian Paisley’s website. As if Protestants never killed anyone because of religion. You also totally forget that there are plenty of Protestants in Bible Belt states of the US who do not approve of contraception. But since Protestants are always better than Catholics for you, you might rather want to live in a conservative village in Alabama than in, say, Rome.
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:03 pm
@anonymous,
I’m not sure I disagree, but I’ll keep nitpicking and being deliberately obtuse anyway. E.g. lots of family members of Enemies of the People got whacked precisely for what they were by birth.
But, yes Stalin was sort of sane and rational by comparison. Even his paranoia wasn’t completely irrational: there really were anti-Soviet plots. The Jewish conspiracies of the Nazi imagination were completely unreal.
Moreover, had the Soviet Union lived up to its premises/promises/principles, I could have lived with it. I can’t say the same about the Nazis. Genocide was not against their principles, it was part of them.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:06 pm
>Hmm, I had not thought that there would be so much room for fruitful
>analysis of these two murder systems…
Indeed. One of the clearly better discussions I’ve personally partaken in lately, this here…
OK, registering now, BTW. This “anonymous” business is somewhat lame, isn’t it?
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:10 pm
Ah, I see. One doesn’t register around here, does one? So what if someone hijacks my handle after I start using it?
PS. Sorry ’bout the spam, but how DO you protect your pseydonym around here?
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:13 pm
“As if Protestants never killed anyone because of religion.”
Sure they have, and still do, in the Bible Belt in the States for example, just like you mentioned.
I’m not saying that there’s nothing wrong with the protestans but I think that they have done much less damage to the world over the years than the catholics.
Comment by Åboy — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:15 pm
Prince of dorkness: my words exactly.
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:16 pm
Åboy: atheists also have killed plenty of people because of religion. These comparisons are not black and white.
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:21 pm
Sorry ’bout the spam, but how DO you protect your pseydonym around here?
IN a Libertarian blog you don’t, because you don’t have to, because we all trust and love each other. Peace, man.
Comment by tony bee — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:21 pm
Yeah Tony, that’s what I thought
So I’ll just stay anonymous then, huh?
OK, spam OFF.
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:26 pm
@Åboy, post 140:
“All that it’s done during it’s existence has aimed to further it’s influence around the globe”
I think that’s because Jesus told his followers to go and convert people so they wouldn’t go to Hell. The rest follows. Yes, you can be successful and rich while promoting something you believe in.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:26 pm
You can’t really argue that atheists, as some homogenic group, have systematically killed or subjugated other people based on somekind of ideology (like the catholics have). If you’re referring to the communists then your reference doesn’t really hold water. Communism isn’t exactly the same thing as true atheism and free thinking. In a way communism is just another religion. This manifests itself in the fact that in most communist regimes there has been a powerful personal cult, idolizing the “Great Leader” of that particular communist regime. A bit like the pope for the catholics, actually.
Comment by Åboy — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:29 pm
(Errata: “…as some homogenous group…”)
Comment by Åboy — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 2:39 pm
Åboy: what about the atheists who guillotined priests during the French Revolution? Wasn’t there a certain homogeneity and anti-Catholic atheist ideology there that can’t be explained away by “Communism” or “personal cult”? Isn’t your own anti-Catholic ideology partly descending from 18th Century French Enlightenment Rationalism? Wasn’t the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution partly attributable to these ideas that you represent (let it be 200 years before your time)? Of course it was also a case of Catholic laymen executing other Catholics but don’t you think atheism and rationalism sparked some of the strongest and most violent reactions in that important episode of history?
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 4:29 pm
>don’t you think atheism and rationalism sparked some of the strongest
>and most violent reactions in that important episode of history?
I agree. But is that any wonder, really? People are pack animals, and revolutions more often than not bloody, so isn’t such an outcome more a rule than an exception?
PS. A punter formerly known as “Anonymous” salutes you all.
Comment by AnonyMeaCulpa — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 4:38 pm
@antti the redneck we had a surviving fascist dictatorship in Europe up to the 70’s, namely Franco’s Spain.
I’d team Salazar’s Portugal with that as well. Don’t know if the Greek Junta could be said to be fascist… And then of course a number of South American states who showed certain… symptoms.
Comment by Hank W. — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 5:06 pm
BTW if someone claims that the USSR didn’t have racial theories – try reading Lev Gumljov… as for what comes to whacky pseudo science, I’d suggest reading 1930’s USSR philosophers… or some USA ones as well (i don’t know if Henry Ford’s newspaper counts as philosophy, but racial theories were quite popular in the 1930’s…)
Comment by Hank W. — Thu, May 11th, 2006 @ 5:10 pm
Helsinkian wrote:
“what about the atheists who guillotined priests during the French Revolution?”
Hardly relevant. During the French Revolution they were getting rid of the aristocracy and the monarchs so it was a class war. Nothing particular to do with believing in God or not.
Helsinkain wrote:
“Isn’t your own anti-Catholic ideology partly descending from 18th Century French Enlightenment Rationalism?”
You’ve misunderstood me. I’m not as much as “anti-Catholic” as I am anti-religion. Religions, in my opinion, are a cruch for the weak mind to hold on to. Catholicism just usurps and enslaves these weak minds a bit more efficiently than some other forms of religion, say Protestantism.
Helsinkian wrote:
“don’t you think atheism and rationalism sparked some of the strongest and most violent reactions in that important episode of history?
I think that the only reason for something like this to have happened has had to have been that the different religious systems have been so efficient and ruhtless in exerting power that the only way for people to free themselves has had to have been, unfortunately, using violence.
Comment by Åboy — Sat, May 13th, 2006 @ 12:04 pm
It’s an easy observation to make even these days that the countries which are most secularized also enjoy a higher level of freedom of the individual and a better implementation of human rights.
All the countries that have a strong religious belief system in power have numerous problems concerning human rights.
Comment by Åboy — Sat, May 13th, 2006 @ 12:10 pm
This is interesting and a bit off topic.
‘The 14 Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
by Dr. Lawrence Britt
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14-defining characteristics common to each:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism –
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for
the Recognition of Human Rights –
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats
as a Unifying Cause –
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military –
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism –
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media –
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security –
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined –
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected –
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed –
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts –
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment –
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption –
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections –
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.’
Remember not all fascism looks like a. hitler. the usa for example fills quite many of these requirements.
Comment by p — Sat, May 13th, 2006 @ 4:13 pm
It’s an easy observation to make even these days that the countries which are most secularized also enjoy a higher level of freedom of the individual and a better implementation of human rights.
Does this apply to North Korea, Cuba and China?
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Sat, May 13th, 2006 @ 5:27 pm
As I already mentioned earlier, the so called “communist” states can’t really be considered atheistic since communism (as it has been realized) is, in a sense, a form of religion. Their God just is the head of their communist party and not some otherwordly entity in heaven or in some other dimension.
Besides, real communism has actually never been realized on earth. The so called “communist” states have always quickly devolved into totalitarianism and the people in those countries have become personal cultists, worshipping the despot of their state (aka. “The Great Leader”).
Comment by Åboy — Sat, May 13th, 2006 @ 7:25 pm
phil check your spam-guard or are you just censoring me
Comment by p — Sun, May 14th, 2006 @ 11:14 am
sorry, forget the above
Comment by p — Sun, May 14th, 2006 @ 3:02 pm
Besides, real communism has actually never been realized on earth.
Yeah, “communist” states tend to get stuck in the “dictatorship of the proletariat” stage without exception. Perhaps the “proletariat” just dig the power enough not to hurry to the next stage…until the, ahem, common proletariat eventually have enough.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Sun, May 14th, 2006 @ 7:29 pm
I love Hitler. Im from Pori.
I think you guys should look into modern national socialism.
Comment by Johanna — Sun, Sep 9th, 2007 @ 6:58 pm