Is this Hanover, Germany or Hanover, NH? I am stunned. Is Walter Duranty still alive? And where is Lady Astor when we need her?

They should try the exercise of finding positive aspects of Naziism and Ku Klux Klannery while they're at it.



Actually, this exercise could do a good job of making the point that Stalinism, Naziism, etc. had no redeeming qualities.

1. He didn't kill all
of his people.



2. He didn't blow up the planet.



3. He didn't destroy the space-time continuum.

4. He helped discredit Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe.

5. He gave an unprecedented boost to the Russian undertaker's industry.



6. Watching fellow travellers squirm when he signed the non-aggression pact with Hitler was so entertaining.



7. Successfully maintained Russia's tradition of barbaric rule over its' people and subjects.

The exercise is appalling, but now we're at it, he did one positive thing for Russia, its people, its values and traditions. He beat the Germans. While Stalin has murdered many millions of his countrymen, Hitler would have killed them all, as they were subhuman beasts according to his racist theory.

The exercise is appalling, but now we're at it, he did one positive thing for Russia, its people, its values and traditions. He beat the Germans. While Stalin has murdered many millions of his countrymen, Hitler would have killed them all, as they were subhuman beasts according to his racist theory.

1. As world's first Green he made sure that people didn't consume to much energy for frivolous things like heating homes, driving cars or cooking food.

2. No obesity epidemic in USSR!

3. Media was not the biased, corporate controlled, profit pursuing greed heads we have. Made sure only the truth was printed.

4. Was onto the whole world globilization of greedy multi-national, corrupt corporate greed heads. The kids in Seattle had nothing on Stalin.

5. Gave Hollywood the cross to bear of McCarthyism that they could bravely go on about in the face of withering dissent over the years, ad nauseum. Those people in the Gulag want to talk suffering, just ask some of the black listed what suffering is!

6. Picked a simple and flattering color scheme that millions of demonstrators can take advantage of even today. I, mean, red white and blue is sooo busy and thank Gaia he didn't choose green, it does nothing for me and with soooo much to demonstrate about, the war, the WTO, McDonalds, Kyoto, Starbucks, etc. I don't know what I'd do.

7. Good architect. Look what he did for Berlin. The machine gun turrets added just the right touch of kitsch.

8. Cool nickname. Do you know of any other dictator willing to go by a folksy and self deprecating nickname? Can't think of any, can you?

9. Said "You can fool some of the people all the time or just kill 'em."

10. Helped provide the plots for Bond films and Clancy novels.

11. Also for Robin Williams's Moscow on the Hudson. Oh, wait, you said something seen as positive? Well, never mind this one.

12. Ditto Yaclav Havel or what ever his name was.

13. KGB way cooler than CIA. I mean, the KGB weren't flying around in black helicopters and flooding the inner city with crack, were they?

14. Got a head start on the whole Kyoto thing since the purges prevented hordes of consumerist consumption by untold millions. Just think of the damage to the world's, I mean Gaia's, delicate balance that was avoided because of Uncle Joe.



Those students may feel free to use any of the above!

Peter:



It is true the Red Army played THE central role in destroying the Third Reich but even so Stalin made major mistakes (ordering foolishly wasteful offensives, being more concerned with hunting down Trotsky when Hitler was about to attack, subjecting army officers to regular purges and keeping the army out-of-date and poorly equipped) which needlessly cost millions of Russian lives.

That's a question that actually is legitimate, though not for schoolchildren. Not even many professors could handle it. Nevertheless, was there something in Stalinism that gave it a certain popular credence, or was it pure terror?



Alexander Werth, in "Russia at War," comments that many ordinary Russians were grateful to Stalin for educating their children, something they could never have hoped for.



Similarly, many Micronesians, despite a raw deal from the Japanese, were grateful to the Japanese for education their children, something the Spaniards or Germans never got around to. (Both extremely conservative regimes, Orrin.)



I have to side with everybody else, the assignment is monstrous. The idea is not.

It appalling that someone intelligent enough to type on a computer would be naive enough to give Stalin credit for defeating Hitler. After Stalin wrecked the Russian armed forces to the extent that they were matched by Finland, Hitler was enabled to dream of world conquest. Don't mention the Ribbentrop pact. Next we'll hear Stalin was a great man because is all the Hydoelectric plants he built. Solzhenitsin has is right: Communism, Lenin and Stlain and their successors, retarded Russia's development.

It appalling that someone intelligent enough to type on a computer would be naive enough to give Stalin credit for defeating Hitler. After Stalin wrecked the Russian armed forces to the extent that they were matched by Finland, Hitler was enabled to dream of world conquest. Don't mention the Ribbentrop pact. Next we'll hear Stalin was a great man because is all the Hydoelectric plants he built. Solzhenitsin has is right: Communism, Lenin and Stlain and their successors, retarded Russia's development.

Blah, you all had to go serious on me. Yes, a valid question would be what appeal did Stalin have to people, considering that these tyrants have a habit of resurfacing every now and again. But, given that the negatives so outweigh the positives makes the question, as worded, outrageous. Substitute slavery or Hitler for Stalin to see what I mean. And didn't the old joke always go about Mussolini that at least he made the trains run on time?

Mr Gots:



Sure Stalin's culpable for what he did but the Western powers were guilty of not nipping Germany's territorial ambitions in the bud in the first place.



In any case the Red Army was responsible for 80% of Wehrmacht casualties and their battles at Kursk and Stalingrad made Normandy and Italy look like skirmishes in comparison.

Ali:



None of which could the Red Army have achieved without our armimng them and tying the German Army down elsewhere.

harry:



Would you rather live in Russia or Spain?

oj:



The Reds engaged about 146 divisions in the East while there were only about 30 divisions in Europe.



By the time the Allies got to Normandy, the decisive battle of the war had already been won at Kursk and Hitler was on his way out whatever happened in the West. If anything, the Russian offensives in 1944 helped Normandy succeed by preventing Hitler from transferring his forces.



But as you say they couldn't have done it without American supplies and British convoys.

Ali:



Suppose the Germans had not had to fight in N. Africa, Sicily, etc.



Further, though I don't think the Soviets were a credible threat at the end of WWII, those of you who do need to contemplate a Europe where the Soviets controlled Spain as well as the East, creating a pincer effect on the continent.

oj, outnumbering the western armies by 10 to 1 made the Russians a completely credible threat.



Stalin fielded around 330 (at least) divisions. The U.S. (according to I.B. Dear) 90. U.S. divisions were roughly twice as big. Do the math.



But around a third of U.S. divisions were not in Europe. The 12 to 15 divisions in the Pacific never engaged more than about 10% of the Japanese army.



Would I rather live in Russia or Spain? I would have been killed in either one, so the answer is no.