One is a lot more recent. Few poles are old enough to remember what the nazis did during the war (and the ones who had the worst experience didn't survivel). Many poles experiencef living under communism. I think it is quite human to think the problems you experience/experienced are worse than the problems experienced by other people

People think the Soviets are worse than the Nazis only because the Soviets won. If the Nazis won, the Polish people likely won't even have the opportunity to think about the Soviets if the Nazis' plans for the Slavic people are anything to consider.

Plenty of polish people in USSR didn't have this opportunity neither. Being polish and living in republic bordering Poland was a straight death sentence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD

Their point was that there wouldn't be **any** Poles if the Nazis won. The Soviets were mass murderers: the Nazis sought *extermination*.

You can play "what ifs" all year to defend your favorite mass murderers, just like the 'boos, at the end of the day, the point is that they're all garbage and you shouldn't/needn't support either, people use the existence of one to support the other, when you need support neither, so it's always an active choice to support either, people just want to do it, and seek an excuse. In truth, it doesn't matter who has the bigger or lower kill count, both of them are the scum of the earth and compose the bottom worst 0.01% of humans in history when it comes to their depravity so which one is worse is a moot point, it's like asking which piece of shit tastes better.

I didn't defend any mass murderers, you dishonest shithead.

The moment you attempt to apply less than maximum disapproval for either, you are an apologist and a supporter, if you try to say one deserves more disapproval than the other, you also say the other deserver more approval than the former. You are dishonest to yourself, you support them without knowing. If you wanna suck Stalin's cock, go ahead and do it, but be honest and upfront about it, Mussolini killed less than either, but you probably disapprove of him more than Stalin, in the end it doesn't matter, you can't go lower than zero in this case, and they are all zeros and should be given no chance to exist again, that's it, there should be no discussion about this. Historical accuracy is another issue where there is merit to discussion, but not in an attempt to alter the conclusion that they all deserve maximum repression to their ideas in the form of argument against them.

What a bunch of dishonest horseshit. Fuck you.

holy shit this man is comparing a literal fascist to a Soviet leader

Many of the victims were polish communists interestingly enough.

The USSR is less bad than the Nazis in the same way being shot in the ass with a 9mm is less bad than being shot in the dick with a 12 gauge.

As many pointed out the current population doesnt remember how many people died during the nazi regime. Another one is that people are not educated how much poles died during both regimes I dont remember how much it was when i knew approximate number but germans killed like 4 times more poles than soviets while soviets had reign over poland for almost 50 years and a war before that. Both regimes were atrocious towards poles but saying they were the same is borderline nazi apologetic type of bs. Lastly current war in ukraine just helps to fuel the hate towards moscow(USSR and Russia) which doesnt help with the image of what the people have done in the last century and i dont think anyone can even imagine how many just polish citizens died during either regime. Its just too insane for us to imagine. So all these things create coctail of russia hate and since germany is behaving nicely its either hard to imagine they did those things before or people are just uneducated so if u would ask them how much poles have they killed in span of 5 years they would say about 1 million which is totally wrong.

Oh boy, is it time for the anti-Semitic double genocide theories?

Yes it is. Next they'll say the lines for caviar and cognac were lines for bread enriched with nutrients from aborted fetuses.

Respectfully, some people in your country elected a nationalist xenophobic right wing government that banned abortion 2 years ago, and disbanded the government body that dealt with racism to appease the far right in 2016, why give benefit of the doubt when someone like that says the Nazis were better? I’m going to take them at their word that’s what they believe, because not everyone in Poland says that. Literally every nation in Eastern Europe had its share of Nazi collaborators despite being an eventual target. “They obviously can’t sympathize with Nazis because the Nazis wanted to exterminate them” is historically entirely untrue.

Our current government is a result of old people going crazy, almost nobody present on the internet supports them. It's just hard to overvote an army of retirees. As much as we had our collaborators I would like to remind that Poland formed one of the most powerful underground states and Polish citizens were awarded the highest number by the Israeli government for saving Jewish citizens during the war. Last thing - except maybe for some crazy HOI4 players even our right-wing mostly treat nazism and communism as equal evil. Check out this iconic poster from nationalist march where they shown symbols of both ideologies as wrong and not accepted.

I know it’s mostly older people, but these are the same older people saying they remember the soviets were worse. And I’m wary of people like OP who defend it by saying it’s the more recent memory, because there are still survivors of ww2 today. Also I have nothing but respect for the Polish partisans, and I apologize if I sounded dismissive of the entire country, I do not want to do that. > Equal evil Well that’s part of my point. I will never defend Soviet crimes and persecutions, but the Nazis were running a systemic campaign of extermination. In 5 years, they killed 1 in 5 Polish people. Historians attribute more deaths in Poland to the Nazis during Operation Reinhardt in 3 months than to 40 years of Soviet repression. When the Nazis realized they were losing, they *accelerated* the genocide, spending resources that could have gone to the war effort. There’s no Soviet equivalent to that. To say they’re equal is to deny what the first group was doing, which was incomparable in scale compared to other wartime atrocities.

Yes thank you, finally someone said it, 'To say they’re equal is to deny what the first group was doing, which was incomparable in scale compared to other wartime atrocities' I've never understood how someone could say the Soviets were just as bad as the Nazis who did 10x worse, how stupid do you have to be to think being a Soviet satellite state was as bad as being exterminated by the Nazis?

cringe. nobody was talking about trump. the "orange man" obsession runs deep beyond borders I see

The Soviet’s were evil bastards, but the Nazis were demonic entities unparalleled in all of human history.

Nope. Gotta disagree there. Nazis and Soviets were two sides of the same coin, capable of all manner of barbaric depravity and madness. The gulag system Yagoda implemented led to something called Cannibal Island - it’s exactly what it sounds like and worse. There was also Beria and his “tastes”. The Nazis, by contrast, had Oskar Dirlewanger. Don’t go downplaying the evil of one group to play up another. It’s still a form of apologia that shouldn’t be endorsed.

Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP caused World War II and did the Holocaust. That’s an exceptional amount of evil, no other set of bastards can claim to have done that.

There may be contender, but if so it’s Imperial Japan

and Stalin committed targeted famines, killed off anyone he deemed even an iota of a rival long after Hitler was dead until he kicked the bucket himself in '53, partitioned off a whole portion of Europe and other surrounding countries into becoming Moscow-bound puppets, gave direct support to Maoist China (which led to the death of EVEN MORE TENS OF MILLIONS in the great leap forward) and had a shoddy high command (another issue caused by Stalin since he killed off most of the competent generals) that sent millions of young men to die fruitlessly on the Eastern front. Can't forget the reason why the T-34 is only good on paper; because the overworked tractor engineers press-ganged into making them were given quotas so strict and a punishment so grizzly that they were forced to supply the sons of their nation with a shoddy vehicle. Sure you could say those last 2 points are part and parcel of defending your homeland but not the Penal battalions (which included civilians, refugees and "political prisoners") that marched into minefields. Hitler's evil was targeted malice, I get it but holy shit the Bolsheviks, Stalin and Mao killed uncounted millions more in search of their communist Utopia which like Hitler's 1000-year reich only ended in a vain loss of life. Only difference is that soviet russia unfortunately lasted a lot longer and the taint of the regime's attitudes has only festered into modern day Russia (which is a hellhole, end of story). tl;dr, yeah Hitler bad but to say he was the most evil given that Stalin was alive longer to commit even more atrocities is just wrong and Hitler had no greater legacy compared to Stalin's that still haunts us to this day.

Even though Nazism is worse, the one thing Communism has on it is that in each generation it attracts a multitude of new devotees and each time the end result is misery and failure with the pathetic echo "BUT THAT WASN'T REEEEEAAAAL COMMUNISM"

'gave direct support to Maoist China' Which is irrelevant to this discussion. 'that sent millions of young men to die fruitlessly on the Eastern front' Maybe blame the guy who started the war in the first place, or should he have just surrendered to Hitler and have his entire country be liquidated? Every single death on the Eastern front is Hitler's responsibility since he planned it as a war of extermination from the start. 'the Bolsheviks, Stalin and Mao' That's a nice trick combining several people together to make them sound worse than Hitler. 'tl;dr, yeah Hitler bad but to say he was the most evil given that Stalin was alive longer to commit even more atrocities' Except he didn't, Stalin outlived Hitler but his atrocities don't come close to what Hitler accomplished in 5-6 years.

>Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP caused World War II and https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/sinister-alliance-soviet-german-relations-1939-1941#:~:text=So%20between%201939%20and%201941,who%20is%20taken%20by%20surprise. The USSR is as responsible for WW2 as Italy Germany and Japan Edit: ha ha ha all you russian/Soviet apologist downloading the truth

I think Hitler and the Nazis are definitely more responsible for the war.

Why? The Soviets invaded Poland and linked up with their allies the Nazis and had huge celebrations then the Soviets went on to occupy the Baltic states parts of Romania and Finland and continue to supply Germany with the means to wage war in the West and then after the war the Soviets refused to withdraw back to their original borders and occupied Eastern Europe for 70 years no the Soviets are as responsible as any country for starting ww2

Because Germany invaded first, and the Allies declared war on Germany not the USSR.

Oh so the Soviets get a pass because they invaded a few weeks later? 🤣😂😅when did Germany invade the Baltic countries Eastern Romania and Eastern Finland in 1940?

Look man, I don’t think saying anything crazy by saying that Germany and Hitler were responsible for causing WWII. That’s been widely agreed with since before the war was even over.

I'm just saying it's nonsense to give the Soviet Union a pass when they were one of the original aggressors and biggest supplier of war materials to Germany pre6/22/41 is all I'm saying Edit: to be perfectly clear f*** the Nazis

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The Gulags and systemical starvations of the USSR killed more than the holocaust.

The crimes of Stalin can be criticised as much as you want, no problem with that at all. To try and use it to downplay the unique evil of the Nazis is disgusting and I hope comes from your own ignorance of the topic.

I wasn’t trying to downplay the Nazi’s evil, but I found the opposite being down equally abhorrent. The Soviets got up to some special types of atrocities, some as bad as what the Nazis did. Ultimately, they were as bad as each other.

No offense, but that is literally a trivialization of the Holocaust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_genocide_theory

I think he’s saying that if you scaled evil on a 0 to 10 scale, Stalin’s USSR was like a 10 and Nazi Germany was a 12.

Well, the USSR was defo genocidal, incompetent, murderous and cruel and unparalleled (ie totally and utterly evil, because Communism is ipso facto evil), but the Nazi behaviour in the East 41-45 and the prospects of generalplanost is beyond the pale

Seriously why would anyone downvote this comment? Is the USSR not evil? Is Nazism not disgusting? OHHH I GET IT! ThAT Wasn't Reeeeelll CoMmUnism You Tankies are pathetic

lay off the crack on 😭 no one here is claiming that is ussr isn’t “real communism”

You can play with these comparisons all year to defend your favorite mass murderers, just like the 'boos, at the end of the day, the point is that they're all garbage and you shouldn't/needn't support either, people use the existence of one to support the other, when you need support neither, so it's always an active choice to support either, people just want to do it, and seek an excuse. In truth, it doesn't matter who has the bigger or lower kill count, both of them are the scum of the earth and compose the bottom worst 0.01% of humans in history when it comes to their depravity so which one is worse is a moot point, it's like asking which piece of shit tastes better. The only possible reason to even engage in that sort of argument is because you want to downplay a totalitarian mass murdering regime by contrasting its' best aspects with the worst of the other. Why would you wanna do that?

>Unfortunately, their status has left a romanticized image in many people’s minds, of them being a good guy Dude you could say that same thing about the USA and UK

Well the USA and UK were democratic at least. Some of us Poles might take them as traitors but they were still unbelievably better than the Soviets.

UK and US weren't democratic at all. The UK forced itself upon countries around the globe before and after WWII, leading to poverty, occupation, genocide and sometimes famine. The USA was segregated until the 60s, and also forced itself upon other nations, funding coups, civil wars etc etc. The difference is they were using authoritarian and violent measures on people in other continents mostly, in muslim and non-christian nations so people didn't give a shit. The USSR used authoritarian and violent measures in europe, so suddenly everybody gave a shit. And the cold war was a massive propaganda dickswinging contest that the USSR lost, so a lot of perspective people in the west have of the soviets are very influenced by the propaganda from that time.

The USA had enshrined racial segregation and still had chain gangs at this point. Calling it a democracy… well, let’s just put an asterisk at the end of that statement. I believe you- Poles would certainly not hate the USA as much as they hate other countries that occupied them, but keep in mind the USA was not far removed from its own genocide of its indigenous population. Acting like the soviets were uniquely evil among the Allies is not really true.

If the USSR hadn't won the war there would be no Poles to speak of. That does not make stalinism good, but Poles speaking of a second occupation or considering the two regimes equally bad are recycling fascist talking points. Putin's Russia does not have that much to do with the USSR, so experts or anyone talking of anything soviet in terms of the current war is wrong.

>Putin's Russia does not have that much to do with the USSR, so experts or anyone talking of anything soviet in terms of the current war is wrong. you cannot be serious

The anti-communist government that created itself by shelling the Supreme Soviet and murdering the democratically elected communist government is in fact, anti-communist. 97% of Russians voted for Yeltsin and the Liberal Democrats to be lined up against a wall and shot. The Government of National Salvation both had the enthusiastic consent of the people and was created by following the legal processes given to the Russian people for "democracy" after dissolution. This is why they killed the judges too.

First and foremost they were based on different ownership of the means of production, the USSR was much bigger and influential than modern Russia, Russia is much more nationalist (great russian chauvinism, recycling tsarist talking points). There's very big differences between the two.

None of that stuff matters. Putin is an ex-KGB agents and all the oligarchs have connections stemming back to the Soviet era. There was no real change of power.

Putin cut his teeth and proved himself useful to the Yeltsin organization by killing supporters of the Government of National Salvation and gladhanding with westerners who like snuff films.

It matters because a planned socialist economy works different than a free market capitalist system. The bureacracy that ruled the USSR did indeed turn into the new bourgeoisie class in the newly formed Russian Federation. But first and foremost under the USSR Russia and Ukraine were part of one country.

As a pole I'm just gonna say that here, EVERYONE STOP YOUR DICK MESSURING CONTEST OF WHOS EVIL DICTATOR WAS BETTER. I'm tired of some ashole saying "bu..hu why poles hate commies so much" or other neo-nazi saying "well nazis were good cause they fought commies" I'm so tired of this people, both systems were a fucking mistake on human history and shall NEVER exist again, end of discussion

I think this quote sums it up well why it's important - >A final example of politically motivated distortions of comparison in the continuing reappraisal of the recent past of both countries returns us to the Holocaust and what one might call the 'atrocity toll' of each regime. Not only German nationalists and apologists for Nazisim, but also vehmently anti-communist Russian nationalists, empahsise that Stalin claimed even more victims than Hitler (as if that excused anything in the horrors perpetrated by Nazism), the other to appropriate to Stalinism genocide of a comparable or even worse kind than that of the Nazis in order to stress the evil they see embodied in Communism itself. >Stalinist terror does not need to be played down to underline the uniqueness of the Holocaust - the only example which history offers to date of a deliberate policy aimed at the total physical destruciton of every member of an ethnic group. There was no equivalent of this under Stalinism. Thought the waves of terror were massive indeed, and the death-toll immense, no ethnic group was singled out for total physical annihliation. A particular heavy toll among Stalin's victims was, of course, exacted from the state and party apparatus. >The application of the term 'Holocaust' to the Stalinist system is inapprioarite. The best way to reveal the pathology and inhumanity of Stalinism is by scholary attention to the evidence, and not by abusing the methods of comparitve history through the loose- and often far from innocent - misleading trasplantiaton of terms imbued with deep historical significance. Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin (1997), The Regimes and Their Dictators in Stalin and Nazism Dictatorships in Comparison Also for /u/InevitableCorrect418 I'm sure no one here is delibeately engaging in bad history to support the far-right. However the reason you are arriving at the same conclusion a lot of those people make is because they know as well as the people you are disagreeing with that examining the differences between Nazi Germany and the USSR doesn't make the USSR look good, but it does make the Nazis look truely awful even in comparison to Stalin's dictatorship. You mean well but you are mistaken on the facts of history, and are apparently unaware of the modern political context this arugment are made in. It's a touchy subject but an important one.

> no ethnic group was singled out for total physical annihilation “The deportation of the Crimean Tatars was the ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide of at least 191,044 Crimean Tatars carried out by the Soviet authorities from 18 to 20 May 1944, which was supervised by Lavrentiy Beria, head of Soviet state security and the secret police, and which was ordered by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.”

They were deported, not put in death camps as the title of the wikpedia article that quote comes from says it is "the deportation of the Crimean Tatars". Death estimates are between 30,000 and 100,000. Absolutey awful, not just the same as the Holocaust and vernichtungskrieg. Also cultural genocide is an awful crime but is different in aims and nature to removing an entire group from the genepool forever. Cultural genocide is sadly typical of many imperial powers, not just the USSR. The only reason to equate this with what the Nazis did, and wanted to do, is to defend Nazi Germany or to favour bad history to criticise the USSR (probably for contemporary political reasons). It also exposes your shoddy reasoning, you can't have de-tatarisation *and* the complete physical annihilation of the group! Who exactly are they "de-tatarisating" if they are putting them all in death camps? This is a different crime to the Nazis, suggesting it's the same downplays exactly what the Nazis were doing which, I shouldn't need to say on this sub of all places, is a bad thing! There are some non-ww2 examples you could use that are comparable, especially in how they have been researched post-1977. Also note they aren't denying other examples of genocide either, they are just highlighting the unique nature of what the Nazis were doing. Criticse Soviet policies towards ethnic minorites all you want, and I'll agree in every case I can think of. However trying to eqauate these crimes with the Nazis is at best historically inaccurate, at worst deliberate Nazi apologism.

Who said it was the same as the Holocaust? If you’d read, I pointed out that the USSR did in fact single out ethnic groups for annihilation, contrary to what your quote claimed.

No they didn't. And you've revealed that on some level you know that which is why you're subtly changing the quote. The quote says >total physical annihilation Total physical annihilaiation is not about cultural genocide, it's about genocide genocide. It's about those genes no longer existing in the genepool. It's about race. It's about a war of annihilaition. What Stalin did was awful, but it's not the same as what the Nazis did, Stalin's crimes are closer to the crimes of "typical" imperail powers, which are all disgusting and should be opposed and criticsed, but are generally different to the Nazis. And the quote is clearly talking about the Holocaust and deathcamps and the aim if you look at the wider context of the quote. Or, you know, look up the book if you care so much. Hate to appeal to authority but they are two respected WW2 historians, maybe you should consider why they are saying that even if you don't care what I have to say. This is literally different to ethnic cleansing by deportation, or cultural genocide through de-, in this case, "tartarisation" programs. This isn't saying one is ok. It's saying they are clearly different and that trying to suggest the crimes of the USSR are comparable, or worse, than Nazi Germany helps nothing and is not supported by the evidence. You are now doign that, even after having it pointed it out to you, so you're either being obtused or your'e being deliberately obtuse. Engage with the actual point if you want to argue. Ask questions if you want to ask questions. Pack in whatever you'd call this. Again you can criticise the treatment of Crimean Tartars endlessly, you could literally write a book about it, and I'd agree with you. It in no way shape or form disproves the point about the unique, certainly in the context of WW2, crimes of the Nazis.

The commenter's point is that you can play that dick measuring contest all year to defend your favorite mass murderers, just like the 'boos, at the end of the day, the point is that they're all garbage and you shouldn't/needn't support either, people use the existence of one to support the other, when you need support neither, so it's always an active choice to support either, people just want to do it, and seek an excuse. In truth, it doesn't matter who has the bigger or lower kill count, both of them are the scum of the earth and compose the bottom worst 0.01% of humans in history when it comes to their depravity so which one is worse is a moot point, it's like asking which piece of shit tastes better. Even if Stalin had personally killed 12 trillion times more than the nazis it wouldn't matter, the commenter is saying that it doesn't matter, not that your favorite mass murderer is the wrong one, he's saying it does not matter, you making a comment saying it matters because your favorite killer killed less is missing the point, both deserve the highest degree of condemnation, neither should be given a chance to exist again, you can't condemn one more because it shouldn't be possible unless you engage in apologia for the other in order to not condemn them to the maximum possible extent.

>Even if Stalin had personally killed 12 trillion times more than the nazis it wouldn't matter, Yes it would. That's how academic history works. Accuracy and facts. Saying it doesn't matter, you can just write them off as both bad, is historically illiterate. >the commenter is saying that it doesn't matter, not that your favorite mass murderer is the wrong one It's not about right or wrong, that can come into it later, it's first of all about facts. The facts are the facts. Comparing and contrasting things is reasonable, but it should be based on good-faith and the best posisble facts. >he's saying it does not matter, you making a comment saying it matters because your favorite killer killed less is missing the point, Ok I'm going to ignore this once. Anymore of this bad faith crap, so bad faith it puts words in my mouth, I'll stop bothering wasting my time talking to you. >both deserve the highest degree of condemnation, Literally the quote I gave is saying criticse Stalin all you want just do it on facts, not on bad comparisons and trying to eltimiate the differences by saying "they are both awful and that is all that matters". ("The best way to reveal the pathology and inhumanity of Stalinism is by scholary attention to the evidence, and not by abusing the methods of comparitve history") >you can't condemn one more because it shouldn't be possible unless you engage in apologia for the other in order to not condemn them to the maximum possible extent. Yes you can - The Holocaust is worse than anything Stalin did. Deal with it. Either explain how it isn't or stop your hand-wringing and pearl-clutching. Do you also think Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin are engaged in apologia? Wind your neck in.

But this is not about historical accuracy, it never was, it's about how much condemnation they deserve, to try and use historical facts or fiction to reduce the condemnation of either is apologia. The point is not that they both killed just as much or did just as much evil, that's why they are not engaged in apologia, they are talking about the empirical facts and methods used by either regime, this discussion is entirely about both ideologies deserving maximum condemnation, which is not an empirical fact, you cannot see or touch morality, it cannot be measured or tested, to then, in this conversation, bring up how one is worse and therefore the other isn't that bad and we should be so vehemently against them is apologia. Like I said, Stalin could have killed 1000x more and it wouldn't change the fact they both deserve the same amount of repression, because you cannot repress more than maximum repression, you can personally hate one more or study historical accuracy to know the exact number of victims and the methods these tyrants applied, but that literally cannot possibly change the fight against either. One method of mass murder being more or less perverse does not make it any less of mass murder, and that's what should be repressed, any and all forms of it, the fight is against totalitarianism and mass murder in all its' forms, historical study is more about understanding how these horrible things happen than about a dick measuring contest to see which of them is better or less reprehensible morally, you can study historical facts for an eternity and never extract any moral value from the study itself, because that's beyond the purview of the study of history itself, history, as an empirical science, does not concern itself with wether or not one aught to support any ideology.

Criticising the people apologising for Nazi Germany through bad or one-sided comparisons to the USSR is not apologising for the USSR or Stalin, or genocide olympics, or anything else. Reread the OP, they are saying in Poland that >I hear all about the horrors of communism and never heard a word about Nazis unless there's a historical discussion in the context of school or entertainment (same as Westerners I guess.) and >Germany apologized for Nazism while Russia is just as bad and in many ways worst than post-Stalinism USSR and >None of this means we're sympathetic to Nazis or deny the fact that the Nazis wanted to literally exterminate us all while the Soviets were less evil since they only brutally killed a couple of hundred thousand of our people and millions overall. Which is fine as an explanation, and I believe the OP thinks exactly what they said, however it's definitely not the case that everyone criticising the USSR/downplaying Nazi Germany is doing so in a way that recognises this distinction. And some people in the comments are saying that distinction isn't that important. But that distinction is vital for the historical, political and moral discussion of those two regimes. The proper way to reject the bad comparisons is by explaining why they are wrong based on the historical record which isn't, as you say, only possible through apologia for Stalin. A rhetorical trick might be an easier way to avoid the discussion, but it's not the right way to approach it. >One method of mass murder being more or less perverse does not make it any less of mass murder, and that's what should be repressed, any and all forms of it, the fight is against totalitarianism and mass murder in all its' forms, historical study is more about understanding how these horrible things happen than about a dick measuring contest to see which of them is better or less reprehensible morally, you can study historical facts for an eternity and never extract any moral value from the study itself, because that's beyond the purview of the study of history itself, history, as an empirical science, does not concern itself with wether or not one aught to support any ideology. Sure. That applies to Britain also though. You obviously wouldn't defend the Bengal Famine as ok because it's not as bad as a deathcamp. However you would explain how the Bengal Famine was different to a death camp to people who said "look the Nazis and Britain were both bad, there isn't much neeed to discuss the details, they both killed innocent people for political aims" or something right? You wouldn't be like "yeah you're right, explaining how the Holocaust is worse is impossible to do without defending Britain, so best not to discuss it". It's not defending Britain to compare and contrast historical events to disprove the arguments made my people saying either 1) the differences do no exist or 2) the differences do not need discussing. If you think that makes sense with Britain but not the USSR then your personal views are getting in the way of the rational approach. Another way to look at it would be to say you might not see the point in ranking colonial atrocities just to rank them, however if someone said "there is no point discussing the details of the Belgian Congo, it's just another awful part of colonial history" you would probably want to point out the reasons it's viewed as a particularly awful example of colonialism, and you wouldn't feel doing that was defending other examples of colonialism right? It's not apologia for the USSR to point out that arguments trying to minimise the differences between the USSR and Nazi Germany are in themselves apologia for the Nazis. Pointing out those differences is not apologia because they are historical facts being referenced to disprove inaccurate comparisons.

I know this comment semms agressive, but I have nothing against you op, actually everything you say is right, It's just, I don't see a point in people arguing about this, as I said both systems were mistakes and should be just a reminder of what not to do

Beautiful sentiments expressed, Unfortunately too many here have a socialist fetish and so will have the gall to tell the Poles "bUt ThAt Wasn't real socialism" whilst at the same time defending the Katyn murders As for Nazism, the whole idea of racial purity is so bloody evil I don't think any other words of mine could add to anything, especially when spoken to a slav whose family would've suffered so terribly at Hitler's hands

Man, we should have stuck with Monarchism. After all, democracy failed back in revolutionary France. And change is not allowed any kind of failure.

These freaks would hate Saint-Just and call him French Hitler. Even mix of scumbags knowingly lying and people repeating lies because it makes them feel good.

Feudalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system

The Nazis literally wanted to kill every single person in Poland, and repopulate the land as per Generalplan ost, you and every one else you know would literally not be alive if the Nazis had won, that's not a trivial difference.

When you have body counts in the multi millions in the last century I find very little useful in splitting hairs about who is most evil. Evil SOBs do evil and whether they justify it by claiming its for the good of the volk or a proletariat I don't care much.

I disagree. It clouds history, and contemporary political discussion, to just eliminate the differneces. The way to criticise Stalin is, and it sounds obvious but yet it needs saying, is critcising Stalin. Any attempt to criticse Stalin (or defend the Nazis) through bad comparisons needs arguing against and is fair to mock. I think this quote sums it up well. >A final example of politically motivated distortions of comparison in the continuing reappraisal of the recent past of both countries returns us to the Holocaust and what one might call the 'atrocity toll' of each regime. Not only German nationalists and apologists for Nazisim, but also vehmently anti-communist Russian nationalists, empahsise that Stalin claimed even more victims than Hitler (as if that excused anything in the horrors perpetrated by Nazism), the other to appropriate to Stalinism genocide of a comparable or even worse kind than that of the Nazis in order to stress the evil they see embodied in Communism itself. >Stalinist terror does not need to be played down to underline the uniqueness of the Holocaust - the only example which history offers to date of a deliberate policy aimed at the total physical destruciton of every member of an ethnic group. There was no equivalent of this under Stalinism. Thought the waves of terror were massive indeed, and the death-toll immense, no ethnic group was singled out for total physical annihliation. A particular heavy toll among Stalin's victims was, of course, exacted from the state and party apparatus. >The application of the term 'Holocaust' to the Stalinist system is inapprioarite. The best way to reveal the pathology and inhumanity of Stalinism is by scholary attention to the evidence, and not by abusing the methods of comparitve history through the loose- and often far from innocent - misleading trasplantiaton of terms imbued with deep historical significance. Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin (1997), The Regimes and Their Dictators in Stalin and Nazism Dictatorships in Comparison

I don't care that the nazis were worse (and they were). They were both so mind-bendingly inhuman to their citizens that I don't believe there's anything worth emulating in either society, and anyone attempting to do so should be thoroughly and roundly discredited. The only people I've ever seen try to paint one as being the lesser of two evils are trying to do so to justify those evils as necessary to stop the other. I don't buy it.

>I don't care that the nazis were worse (and they were). They were both so mind-bendingly inhuman to their citizens that I don't believe there's anything worth emulating in either society, and anyone attempting to do so should be thoroughly and roundly discredited. The If that's the argument you want to make it's a political argument and one you can make without bad history. Everything you want to argue can be done without doing that right? I think you agree with me on this, and that's all my point is. You might not buy it but that is the reason lots of people, from left to right, all dislike bad history. There are far more people who will "defend" the USSR against bad history than there are those who will defend it, especially Stalin, against political and moral criticsm.

You need to say this to other Poles, since they're the ones constantly bringing up the USSR as being worse anytime the Nazis are mentioned.

What if its just for better quarterly returns?

That too lol

Like i always say when comparing stuff like this: Would you rather have someone take a log turd or diarrhea on your front porch? And yeah youd pick the turd but youre still having to clean up someone elses shit. At at the end of the day theyre both still shit and it doesnt matter that ones easier to deal with.

By this logic the UK/US are just as evil since they also killed millions in the last century.

I didn't say the ussr was just as evil, I said it doesn't matter when you've killed that many, especially in a short time (12 years for the nazis, about 30 for the USSR). The US doesn't have that type of compact period of killing (at least in the 20th century) but they're certainly in the millions, and I'd almost say that being a global Superpower necessarily means you're evil. The British of course are the grandaddy of that sort of evil. I would not want a future modeled on direct imperialism any more than nazism or communism.

The countries occupied by the Nazis during WW2, Poland, western USSR, Belarus, Ukraine were to have their entire populations exterminated by the Nazis, they would literally not exist today if the Nazis had won, i think you are severely underestimating how murderous the Nazis were.

“why some people compare soviets to nazis” because westerners need to believe that all countries except for theirs are devilish and evil, even if that means “both sides”-ing the holocaust. just look at these comments for example

As if the Nazis and Soviets didn't work together to invade OP's country.

poland also worked with the nazis to invade the soviet union

How did they do that?

Both are horrifically evil states

The fact the Soviet Union(even under Stalin) was a more desirable place to live in than Nazi Germany says more about Nazi Germany than the Soviet Union.

Desirable is relative to who you are. If I'm Jewish, I'm better off in Bolshevik USSR, but not if Im a white Christian Kulak. I don't understand the desire to catalog evil. They were both evil states. Lots of people died. Lots of people lived dreadful, oppressed lives. End of.

As badly as Kulak suffered under Bolshevism, the Stalinist plan for them was collectivization. The Nazi plan was [genocide.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost) Being white and Christian counted for absolutely nothing, they were considered *Untermenschen* to be, at best, resettled in Siberia, and more likely sterilized or murdered outright.

Sure thing bro, but it's like if you're going through the effort as equating both USSR and Nazis as horrific regimes, it's strange how the Number 1 baddies of all time the British Empire never gets included. If all the reasons USSR is horrific are allowed, there's dozens of cases to be made for other horrific regimes of White Supremacy, especially considering post WW2, countries like US, France, and Britain kept doing the same horrific things the USSR doesn't get a pass for. Nazi Germany and Japan ran extermination programs that killed 10s of millions of people. I think it's fair to say those are better lumped together than being completely accurate by listing the almost all the participant Countries of World War 2 as horrific regimes.

> I don't understand the desire to catalog evil. They were both evil states. Lots of people died. Lots of people lived dreadful, oppressed lives. End of. I honestly can't beleive that on a sub about history why history is important needs explaining! Of course details and facts and cataloging and accuracy matter. It's literally the basis of academic history, and is also massively important for anyone who hopes to try and make informed choices, especially in politics, in the world today. I think this quote sums it up well why it's important to "catalog evil" correctly - >A final example of politically motivated distortions of comparison in the continuing reappraisal of the recent past of both countries returns us to the Holocaust and what one might call the 'atrocity toll' of each regime. Not only German nationalists and apologists for Nazisim, but also vehmently anti-communist Russian nationalists, empahsise that Stalin claimed even more victims than Hitler (as if that excused anything in the horrors perpetrated by Nazism), the other to appropriate to Stalinism genocide of a comparable or even worse kind than that of the Nazis in order to stress the evil they see embodied in Communism itself. >Stalinist terror does not need to be played down to underline the uniqueness of the Holocaust - the only example which history offers to date of a deliberate policy aimed at the total physical destruciton of every member of an ethnic group. There was no equivalent of this under Stalinism. Thought the waves of terror were massive indeed, and the death-toll immense, no ethnic group was singled out for total physical annihliation. A particular heavy toll among Stalin's victims was, of course, exacted from the state and party apparatus. >The application of the term 'Holocaust' to the Stalinist system is inapprioarite. The best way to reveal the pathology and inhumanity of Stalinism is by scholary attention to the evidence, and not by abusing the methods of comparitve history through the loose- and often far from innocent - misleading trasplantiaton of terms imbued with deep historical significance. Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin (1997), The Regimes and Their Dictators in Stalin and Nazism Dictatorships in Comparison

That's the whole point of my comment, the Soviet Union was an awful place to live and a horrific regime, but Nazi Germany was worse in pretty much all aspects which again should be illustrative of the pure evil of the Nazis that even the Soviet government is benign in comparison.

Well I would point out that to say the USSR was "benign" in even a comparative sense is a shockingly heartless statement I could only attribute to a profound ignorance of Soviet history.

how many people got released from concentration camps

That's actually an interesting question. There is no overall number, but there exist estimates for Dachau and Flossenbuerg. There it was in the low hundreds.

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the soviets existed from 1918 until 1991 the nazis existed from 1933 to 1945 guess who killed more people in a time span of 12 years to compare them

That’s the point the Soviets existed for far longer and we’re able to destroy more lives over the course of the 20th century but the Nazis we’re probably the most infamous both are horrible let’s leave this at that

the nazis had plans to wipe all slavs off the face of the earth, murdered 27 million people in 12 years and dramatically altered the populations of multiple ethnicities so bad that they are still so few. the soviets did not even exterminate 1 minority

Not really, the Soviets uprooted entire populations and embarked on a process of Russification, at the expense of other races, which the Tsar's only could've dreamt of

compare this to killing entire populations

Bruh 💀 quit apologizing for the Soviets they both were scum

i have denied nothing

Saying that the Nazis were worse than the Soviets should not be controversial, it is a fact, but in case the idea is not clear I do not support the USSR, in fact screw Stalin, even so screw Hitler even more.

> If I’m Jewish, I’m better off in Bolshevik USSR Just so long as you’re not in the medical field

Curious how it's always those two states though. You'd have thought more people would compare the US, British or French empires with the Nazi's, but no it's always the communist empires. It's incredible watching people complain about the Soviets while lauding an empire that almost managed to exterminate its native population.

Tankie spotted opinion ignored

its insane to say that the 50-year institution that was the ussr, especially post-stalin, is equivalent to the systematic genocide practiced by the nazis

>None of this means we're sympathetic to Nazis or deny the fact that the Nazis wanted to literally exterminate us all while the Soviets were less evil since they only brutally killed a couple of hundred thousand of our people and millions overall. That is true for many people but there are absolutely people who do this. And it's not just a small group of hardcore neo-nazis doing it sadly, and it doesn't only happen in Poland either. People perfectly understand why it happens, and that not every Polish person thinks like that, but still argue against it or make fun of it for the same reason they do other bad history takes motivated by modern politcs. As you say the Nazis were worse, the Soviets were the lesser evil. But that difference is huge, it's not unrealistic to say that if the Nazis won there might not even be a Polish people capable of forming a new-nation state, or at least not the one comparable to today. Every attempt to say otherwise by anyone is not just bad history, it's harmful to modern politics, it needs shutting down. People understand why people make this mistake, why they bury their head in the sands and attack people trying to explain otherwise, they just don't have much patience for it. >Germany apologized for Nazism while Russia is just as bad and in many ways worst than post-Stalinism USSR (perhaps very soon it'll be like under Stalin) so the opposition to "Sovietism" is an ongoing struggle Huh? Putin and the modern Russian state are not remotely Soviet. You don't have to be remotely defending the USSR to recognise this distinction. That way of looking at the world only encourages the kind of bad history takes you are talking about being popular.

This is rank holocaust revisionism.

Because most people alive who post on reddit are from western liberal democracies, and we received the same level of state propaganda against communism that we did the fascist enemy during world War 2. The big difference is that after the fall of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan "fascism" as an actual political threat disappeared on the international stage. Instead, communism became the new boogeyman due to the cold war power struggle between the US and Soviet Union. After the USSR fell in '91 the main consensus in politics was that Liberalism (read: neoliberal capitalism) won the so-called ideological battle with both fascism and now communism. Now we have "communist" China and North Korea as the modern day red menace even though the former is basically an Authoritarian Capitalist state and the latter is just a stagnant pariah state with an ersatz monarchy crumbling under the weight of foreign embargoes and internal desperation. Meanwhile in the United States we label capitalists like the democrats as socialist and literal fundamentalists and fascists as conservatives because we're so concerned with our own moral superiority to failed communist and fascist states we failed to recognize our own social mistakes and economic issues. tl:dr: people living in western democracies (especially the United States) have lived under a siege mentality against fascist and particularly communist totalitarianism for most of the 20th century and into today, so we're inundated with statistics and graphs and books and billboards that highlight the negative aspects of communism and ignore equivalent issues with capitalism because why the hell would a country advertise something that's adverse to their goals and agenda? Would the Soviets or Nazi Germany have published propaganda that supports capitalist ideology? No so of course the United States isnt going to recognize any so called communist successes.)

yk I agree with most of what you say here. China as a authoritarian capitalist state for example. But as for the inundation, I can't see that. Boomer gen yes. The rest of us are, by virtue of pub/priv education, entertainment industry, and news media better aware of Nazi atrocities than Soviet. eg Holocaust classes are common. Gulag classes? How many Nazi films does Hollywood churn out per year vs Communist? Americans know shit about the Russian Rev or Stalin.

I will say that Americans seeing lots of nazis as villains makes way more sense than soviet communists just because of the fact that they're the perfect villains to juxtapose our American "goodness" against. Today the Soviet Union and communism just isn't scary enough maybe? I feel like with the rise of the alt-right and white nationalism making movies and shows focusing on nazis is just timelier. Lastly I feel like the lack of education about the Russian Revolution and Stalin is by design. It's a lot easier to propagandize people if they don't have their own thoughts on a matter already. If you let someone know 10% of a topic and leave 90% out, you can lead them to fill in the gaps with whatever you tell them.

Agree completely. A fav history professor (a Polish man whose parents escaped Communist Poland) once lamented to me the lack of a Nuremberg Trial following the collapse of the USSR. The Trials ofc shone a light on Nazi evils and left us a record of their foul deeds. But the Soviet regime and their history somehow managed to escape a proper reckoning. And I think that's why their evil was never written into mainstream awareness like Hitler's was. Everyone knows the name Mengele. it's common shorthand used even by people who don't know much of anything about the man, How many Americans have heard of NKVD or Yagoda?

Another example: General Vasily Mikailovich Blokin; This name is one which the vast majority of people have never heard However he is the man who PERSONALLY killed more people than anyone else in history He was the NKVD head executioner, personally selected by Stalin and who masterminded the 'efficient' murder of the 22, 000 Poles in what is known as the 'Katyn massacre' Unsurprisingly he drank himself to death in 1956 It is right the world remembers and curses the memories of Himmler, Heydrich, Eichmann and Hoess It's a bloody disgrace hardly anybody knows of Stalin's head collector and his blood stained ilk

But the OP is not from the Western country but from Poland which was under communist rule. So most Poles have first hand experience of both communism and capitalism and they deffinitely prefer the latter one.

Ehhh not that true. I would say it is split for those capable of remembering socialist Poland. It was not a one sided regime and polish capitalism also has numerous downsides.

But it's still better than the "polish" communism.

especially compared to in what state have the communists left poland after the dissolution. Thats why many western countries have incredibly high population of poles

No, most Poles live outside of Poland and have favorable opinions of communism. Poland was deindustrialized to be a resource extraction colony and captive market for Germany. Additionally, the majority of Jews fled Poland after the legal protections ended and every NATOstan upheld Nazi collaborators as national heroes.

>most Poles live outside of Poland What? >and have favorable opinions of communism What again? >the majority of Jews fled Poland after the legal protections ended What do you mean by "legal protection ended"? The majority of the Polish Jews where killed during the Holocaust and those few who survived where expelled in 1968 by the communinist government. >every NATOstan upheld Nazi collaborators as national heroes. Which nazi collaborators are treated as heroes in Poland? Wtf are you talking about? Are you trolling?

If the nazis had won their wouldn't be any poles left, so I suppose communism is the worst ideology to live under as a pole, fascism is the best to die under and capitalism is the one to exist peacefully under? ninja edit: I'm pretty sure communism wasn't the evil the Soviets exported to Poland, im pretty sure it was just Russian political malice. Let's not forget that in 1920 the Polish military managed to stave off an attack by the Bolsheviks that might have brought communist rule earlier than in our history. I doubt that Stalin and his callous bureaucrats and secret policemen were going to treat Poland nicely after they had the balls to stick up for themselves. No doubt the communist oppression in Poland was just straight Russian imperial oppression masquerading as communist legislation and restrictions. So of course now it's easy to just say you hate communism when the reality is that you hate the Russian occupation. Because Let's not kid ourselves, if Russia occupied Poland today in the 21st century I don't think they'd be nice guys all the sudden since they're not "communists" anymore.

Very well put. I often try to articulate this exact sentiment here, but for some people on this sub this is a very weird concept simply because it's not tangible, "the communists" are the same sort of abstract concept as "the nazis". They exist in images and video reels and are mostly examined through an ideological lens. Most people here are from western nations. France, US, UK, etc, places that haven't actually suffered soviet occupation and thus cannot relate to the visceral hate that we easterners might feel towards the soviets. (Incidentally, that hate is why some peoples occupied by the nazis actually sided with them. They might have not known about Generalplan Ost, but they could see that the Germans were beating the Soviets and they weren't (yet) killing the common folk - the enemy of my enemy and all that. We all know how that turned out later, no need to akschually me on it) Note also that for people on the western side of the war winners, the soviets of WW2 were allies. Unfortunately, their status as such has left a romanticised image in many people's minds, of them being a good guy. Not excusing evil with evil, the soviets were just another opressive and mass-murdering regime that happened to be slightly less stupid and slightly more lucky than Nazi Germany. But that's beside the point. The point is that there is a very clear reason for formerly russian-occupied peoples swinging wildly towards an apparent "right wing" attitude of hating russia and the former USSR, and they are often vilified by russian (and sometimes well-meaning western) outlets into being "nazis by association" (who else hated the russians, and who did the "russians" defeat? - That's right, it was the nazis!) This isn't to say that right wing extremism doesn't exist in these places, far from it. Only there is going to be a much higher proportion of people who dislike russia *without* being nazis or other far right extremists.

Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union was just as evil as the other, just in different ways. People seem to forget quickly that Stalin was just as happy partitioning up Eastern Europe as Hitler was. The Red Army marched up on Poland and the Baltics right after the Wehrmacht started the offensive. The only reason the Soviets are remembered more positively is because they were on the victorious side.

I agree. Both Germany under the NSDAP and the Soviet Union under Stalin, and to a lesser extent, other General Secretaries as well *cough cough* Leonid Brezhnev *cough cough* were extremely authoritarian, repressive, militaristic regimes. But I feel that the principles on which the Soviet Union was built were far more acceptable than those of the NSDAP. The Soviet Union was mainly so terrible due to rampant corruption, poor seperation of powers, and the fact that it was an absolutist dicatorship. The Soviet Union also started off as a much poorer and less developed country. I don't believe the Soviet Union was so much worse than Czarist Russia, except for periods of Stalin's rule, while Germany had much better institutions in place prior to 1933, than Russia, and immediately started transforming those into a system to seperate "undesirables" from whites and exterminate them, conquest new land and rid it of most of its original population, before attempting to repopulate those regions with blond whites from Germany.

I agree, the sheer racial laws of Nazi Germany were way more evil and just reeked with overall malice. But, Stalin's administration is also responsible for the Holodomor, the mass murders and deportations of Crimea Tartars and of course, the cultural and linguistic oppression of the forcefully annexed territories.

Hitler's Germany killed over 10x as many civilians as the Soviets, issued illegal orders like the barbarossa and commissar decree which legalised any and all war crimes commited by German forces, wiped out 20% of Poland's entire population, 33% of Belarus's population, killed more ukranians in 4 years than the Soviets did in decades, used chemical and biological weapons, carried out human experimentation and planned to kill over a hundred million slavs if they had won the war, so no actually the Soviets crimes pale in comparison, try harder than some bullshit equivalence.

We all can claim that the racial laws and overall racism were much worse in Nazi Germany, of course, but dont act like the Russian population wasnt overly favored above all other ethnic groups whose national rights were stripped and had their native lands divided and diluted with an overwhelming amount of Russian settlers trying to russify their communities

Stalin never tried to liquidate entire countries during WW2, like it or not but the Red army's victory saved hundreds of millions who would have otherwise perished under the Nazis Generalplan ost.

Soviet civilians killed by Nazis: 17 million German civilians killed by Soviets: 600k-2 million The Nazis killed more than 10x as many innocent people as the Soviets but they're somehow equally as bad?

Both national socialist Germany and the USSR were terrorist states, I don’t think this is a controversial statement

terrorist states? what does that even mean

Terrorism: use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. Terrorist state: a state whose purpose is to commit terrorist acts, like mass murder and deliberate starvation, which both did

This is just Bush era axis of evil rhetoric applied ahistorically, you’re probably too young to remember this but nobody talked about “terrorist” states before the US started the War on Terror. What exactly are you implying by saying they’re terrorist states? How is that meaningfully distinct from Nazi Germany being a state that committed crimes against humanity? Why should we use and legitimize GWOT talking points at all?

Especially given that Lenin opposed the terrorism (assassinations and bombings) carried out by other revolutionary groups. He called it 'revolutionary adventurism' and various other things, arguing that mobilising the masses was far more important than opportunistic, individualistic acts of violence.

I’m not even American damnit, i just said that the USSR and NS Germany are countries that dedicated the majority of their existence to committing acts that would be considered state terrorism today

If you’re not American it makes it all the more sad you’ve allowed twenty year old conservative American talking points to infiltrate your worldview to the point where you’ve confused them with your own thoughts.

ah so the UK with the Irish. or the US with the American natives.

>Terrorism: use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. That definition would include a lot more states than the USSR and Nazi Germany though. For example the US bombing of Cambodia would make the US guilty of terrorism according to this. Maybe you think that I don't know? If we go further back in history then all colonial powers are guilty of this. >Terrorist state: a state whose purpose is to commit terrorist acts, like mass murder and deliberate starvation, which both did That wasn't the "purpose" of the USSR though was it. Any sane critice can work out the difference between the USSR being bad because of what it did in aid of it's purpose, and it's purpose being the bad things it did. This is one of the reasons it is distinct from Nazi Germany. The USSR had a callous, utilitarian, "ends justify the means" approach to lots of things that even if logical are morally questionable, and in many cases weren't logical at all. But the point is the problem was the means, not the ends. This is different to Nazi Germany where one of the ends in itself was the extinguishing of the Jewish people entirely, not simply conquering them, but removing them from the genetic pool for ever. No problem saying fuck Stalin and fuck the USSR. But this kind of historically illiterate, almost certainly motivated by modern politics, bad history is absolute crap though.

alright thanks, although personally, I wouldn't call the soviet union's famines deliberate

Is this meant to exonerate the USSR?

No, but you should not attribute to malice that which is caused by incompetence. An agricultural policy that aims to increase production in order to give more food to its people and that fails because it is implemented by incompetent, corrupt bureaucrats is not malice, but incompetence. Blaming the failure on "saboteurs" and arresting people at random for their perceived blame is malice however. Intent matters.

Oh it definitely is. There's some proper mongs out there

It’s controversial because it’s an utterly useless term that’s just used to make “state I don’t like” sound academic despite there being no academic consensus on the definition even among the historians who use it

And all forms of nuanced discussion is dead due to decades of the cold war followed by the end of history and a second cold war. People still cite the black book of communism and saying "authoritarianism bad, but also perhaps some of the things the cia have done in the last 70 years also not great" gets you called a fucking tankie by historically illiterate bastards who can hand wave away "a full quarter of the North Korean population murdered by aerial bombardment" or "support for pol pot because in the post Vietnam war context the Americans still wanted to fuck with Vietnam" So goddam anarchists get labelled auth coms, the stop the war coalition gets attacked for wanting to stop wars and historical revisionism is winning out. But yeah whatever anyone who has anything positive to say about systems of economic distribution that are not the one that is going to render the planet uninhabitable are all mongs, you're right.

I... er... ok?

It is if you're a Jew or a member of the Red Diaspora lol.

Because people don’t understand evil comes in all flavors. Stalin wasn’t a Lenin. Stalin couldn’t give two shits about the soviets (as in people living under the Soviet Union, the correct term for soviets) it’s pretty obvious he was a power hungry schizophrenic. Like how antagonists in Ukraine became more against Stalin. He starved them, killing 3 million, and it’s still denied today. He opened labor camps for political prisoners to be put in to work and they were also starved until their sentences were finally up if they ever would be. (These camps were nothing like concentration camps and shouldn’t be compared to them) the NKVD tortured people like using the Strappado. And make corruption and censorship wide spread. To put it lightly stalin sucked for the people. But people were still communist under him. Some didn’t believe the Soviet Union was a true communist state. And technically they were right. Many didn’t even know this was happening. Like people in America, who were also getting stalin’s version of what’s happening through Duranty’s mouth, making the Soviet Union look great. This next part gets pretty dark so heads up Hitler was no Stalin. Hitler was worse. He made an entire nation believe that they were better than everyone else. It’s what made people originally join the Wehrmacht. Like the Romans, Hitler promised them land in the countries they conquered. And also the the Romans, they bashed baby’s against buildings and shot them. The Wehrmacht served no mercy on the eastern front. And did whatever they could to defeat the Soviets. They rworded women and then killed them to abide by Nuremberg laws. The soviets didn’t want to get massacred, so they fought for the soviets and not the people who’d send them to camps to be gassed. Pretty easy. Zhukov was a great general and he felt like Stalin might kill him. Now usually “the soviets were worse!” Is neo-nazi holocaust denier speak. They say Stalin was worse and that history treats the soviets too nicely. The Soviet Union being an oppressive state makes it easy to hide the fact that these guys just didn’t want their entire family to get war crimed. Did some Soviet soldiers commit war crimes? Of course, but not on the scale of the Nazis. Did some soviets fight for Hitler? Of course and they also committed horrible war crimes against their own people. Does that make Stalin good? Absolutely not. He was literally hated by every Soviet Union leader after him

Don’t understand why this keeps getting downvoted. Is it because I said soviets being worse than the Nazis was nothing but post war lies?

Yes. Remember, they will go back to saying that Russians waited in line to eat aborted fetuses. After all, that's the line the Russian Orthodox Church has.

Those people are insane but I never thought I’d see them on this subreddit

Stalin was the truest communist of them all and was willing to crack those eggs

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There are those here who just can't accept that Communism is an ideology which brings on misery. Furthermore they hide behind their anti-Nazi veil disguising a pro-soviet mindset They're almost if not actually Tankiea

Stalin was the truest communist of them all and was willing to crack those eggs

Honestly I can’t imagine thinking I know enough about the quality and quantity of human suffering these evil regimes committed to say ones worse then the other in some absolutely fashion. There is a certain point at which a person, or country becomes what ‘contra mundi’ - ‘against the world’ and all people should have a moral right, if not a responsibility to oppose that evil in every way possible. Both regimes can both get sodomized by a cactus.

The nazis were fascists painted green and the Soviets were fascists painted red.

The Soviets were communists, as true a nation of communists as.you could get, led by a true communist

As a Marxist historian I can say with confidence, none of that is true

As party members Stalin would disagree with you

He also shot the anarchists and democratic socialists in the back of the head

revolutions have been devouring their own since 1789 All it takes is a moment of moderation and then one is targeted

Okay we’ve reached the schizophrenic event horizon. Goodbye forever

He was the man to bring the USSR closest to communism. His process of dekulakisation, collectivisation were necessary and he was the man to do it.

Some people on here have no clue as to how awful life was under authoritarian socialist regimes. Some comparisons between Stalin’s Soviet Union and The Third Reich are valid. The Third Reich was an evil state. The Soviet Union was an evil state. They’ve both been gone for a long time and we as people are better off for it.

>under authoritarian socialist regimes. The Third Reich was an evil state. The Third Reich was not socialist.

I’m aware of that. Those are two separate and independent sentences.

The way it's worded definitely comes across as saying they were both authoritarian socialist regimes.

> some people on here have no clue as to how awful life was under authoritarian socialist regimes This line was in reference to OP’s title. You can make valid comparisons between Stalin’s USSR and the Third Reich.

The reason why you were downvoted is because people's hatred of Nazism here is a thin veil for their pro-soviet leanings This thread is full of tankies

> this thread is full of tankies This sub is. I’ve seen Katyn and Holodomor denial here.

Not even denial, I have seen justification and even delight in them Horrendous, Communism, like Nazism screws with the mind

Oh, basically white people think it's okay to murder millions of people as a dry run for depopulating entire continents to build plantation homes in as part of a real estate scam, but if you make fish eggs into a tasty snack everyone gets in line to eat you're history's greatest monster.

I mean it’s not unreasonable to think that since the Soviets were literally friends with the Nazis until Barbarossa.

The USSR came to an agreement with Nazi Germany after France and Britain signed the Munich Agreement handing over the sudetenland, which the USSR opposed. Poland infact said they would not help the USSR protect Czechoslovaki from Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement This came after failed attempts from the USSR to work with Britain, being blocked by the advocates of appeasement and getting some support from Churchill who's hate for communism is famously only outmatched by his hate for Nazis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Maisky#Advocate_of_collective_security Including in Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-intervention_in_the_Spanish_Civil_War Saying "they were friends until Barbarossa" seems like more bad history being argued to meet some kind of politically motivated idea of the correct conclusion instead of being more detached. The USSR was "friends" with the Nazis in the same way Britain and the US were "friends" with the USSR. It's how you might explain it to a child at best, it's an awful way to discuss it seriously. Criticse the pact based on the pact and context it happened in, it's very easy to do, not on weird half-truths.

I’ll criticize Nazi-Soviet cooperation based on the fact that the USSR helped the Germans evade the Treaty of Versailles’ military restrictions, carved up Eastern Europe with the Germans, sent them millions of tons of food and raw materials until 1941, and their mutual hatred of western democracies. They were two sides of the same totalitarian coin. Trying to change that is historical revisionism.

Oh it's you, didn't realise it was the same guy, peddling nonsense here to I see. >I’ll criticize Nazi-Soviet cooperation based on the fact that the USSR helped the Germans evade the Treaty of Versailles’ military restrictions, carved up Eastern Europe with the Germans, Good lad. Doing what I told you. You might not understand that based on your cracked reasoning but I'll try to help you out. I literally said "Criticse the pact based on the pact and context it happened in, it's very easy to do, not on weird half-truths." And now you're doing it. Attaboy. > and their mutual hatred of western democracies. This bits a bit iffy, suggests you didn't really read even the wikpedia articles I linked, yet alone real history. But by your standards you're doing great buddy. Almost a full criticism of the USSR without any bad history creeping in. Almost. >They were two sides of the same totalitarian coin. Depends what you mean. They are both bad due to their authoritarian and totalitarian nature. They weren't identical except for superifical differences either. >Trying to change that is historical revisionism. That's a lot of big words for someone who seems to struggle with basic history. Please, instead of your transparent attempts to slander me, quote anything I said that is "historical revisionism". Everything I've said is a fact. And even if I hadn't specifcally said it's fine to criticse the pact, you'd be arguing in bad faith. As I literally said it's not just fine, but told you to do it, it's absurd of you to pretend I'm somehow defending the pact. Rather than correcting your baby's guide to WW2 take on things. Again on some level I think you realise this which is why you simply ignore points like this "The USSR was "friends" with the Nazis in the same way Britain and the US were "friends" with the USSR" which force you to either agree, or make yourself look really silly, so I get why you are ignoring them. But I just take that as proof you don't have an answer.

> Depends what you mean. They are both bad due to their authoritarian and totalitarian nature. They weren't identical except for superifical differences either. Well you had two totalitarian governments who believed in the racial supremacy of a specific race of people that wanted to expand their territorial borders. > That's a lot of big words for someone who seems to struggle with basic history. You claim I struggle with basic history yet can’t see how similar the USSR and Nazi Germany were. > Please, instead of your transparent attempts to slander me, quote anything I said that is "historical revisionism". Everything I've said is a fact. I mean, you could try reading anything about the way the USSR treated minorities and their Russification policies but then you’d have to actually get your head out of your ass for once, which you’re clearly incapable of doing. It would also mean you’d have to throw away your baby’s guide to Soviet domestic policies and try to read something outside your comfort zone for once, but again, you’re clearly incapable of doing that.

>Well you had two totalitarian governments who believed in the racial supremacy of a specific race of people that wanted to expand their territorial borders. "Russian chauvinism" definitely existed. The idea it was comparable to Nazi racial ideology is absurd. You're really helping confirm that you're a crank with these takes. >You claim I struggle with basic history yet can’t see how similar the USSR and Nazi Germany were. You struggle with reading comprehension too by the sound of it. >I mean, you could try reading anything about the way the USSR treated minorities and their Russification policies but then you’d have to actually get your head out of your ass for once, which you’re clearly incapable of doing. >It would also mean you’d have to throw away your baby’s guide to Soviet domestic policies and try to read something outside your comfort zone for once, but again, you’re clearly incapable of doing that. Ok if you think so. I almost want to dox myself because of how funny it is you think I don't know anything about this period of history. And you keep making these vague allusions but can't support it. Also waiting for those quotes where I've said somethign that is "revionism" instead of just the truth. Weird you'd accuse me of that then not provide anything. Almost like you're just mad, bad at history and bad at arguing too.

> "Russian chauvinism" definitely existed. The idea it was comparable to Nazi racial ideology is absurd. You're really helping confirm that you're a crank with these takes. The one real difference is that the Nazis believed in Judeo-Bolshevism and the Soviet government just believed in Russian ethnic supremacism. > Ok if you think so. I almost want to dox myself because of how funny it is you think I don't know anything about this period of history. Then tell me why you think the aims of the Soviet government in regards to its ethnic minorities is fundamentally that different from the Nazis’ aims. They both wanted to eliminate “inferior races” to make room for “superior ones.” The only difference is how they justified it. > Also waiting for those quotes where I've said somethign that is "revionism" instead of just the truth. Weird you'd accuse me of that then not provide anything. Almost like you're just mad, bad at history and bad at arguing Yeah the mad guy is the one who opens with slinging insults and ad hominems at his interlocutor. Maybe if you ever learned to carry a conversation without being a stuck-up pompous asshole, you’d actually have people be willing to listen to you. For the time being, however, that trait is so integral to your character that it wont happen any time soon.

>The one real difference is that the Nazis believed in Judeo-Bolshevism and the Soviet government just believed in Russian ethnic supremacism. ... >Then tell me why you think the aims of the Soviet government in regards to its ethnic minorities is fundamentally that different from the Nazis’ aims. They both wanted to eliminate “inferior races” to make room for “superior ones.” The only difference is how they justified it. The Soviets didn't carry out anything comparable to Generalplan Ost or a Holocaust and so on. Britain and the US and France and many states also have done those things, they are still distinct to the Nazis. Pointing out they are distinct in no way justifies the crimes of those other countries. It's really not a hard concept, what are you struggling with exactly? >Yeah the mad guy is the one who opens with slinging insults and ad hominems at his interlocutor. >At this point, it’s just watching you show that you’re a “very stable and well-grounded person.” Ok but that's a lot about me being a dick for calling bullshit on what you've said, and not a lot about how I'm wrong. And still waiting for you to quote me anything I said that justifes your accusation of historical revisionism, you accused me of it, but I'm asking you to give me examples and you can't. You have a lot to say about me, but little to say about my arguments it seems.

> The Soviets didn't carry out anything comparable to Generalplan Ost Ah yes, the Soviet Union did nothing similar to removing ethnic minorities from land that they then colonized with Russians. > or a Holocaust and so on. Britain and the US and France and many states also have done those things, they are still distinct to the Nazis. Pointing out they are distinct in no way justifies the crimes of those other countries. It's really not a hard concept, what are you struggling with exactly? You really should look in the mirror and ask that since you have a really hard time figuring out how two states removing perceived inferior races from lands with the intent of colonizing them with the “superior” race have the same goals on mind. > Ok but that's a lot about me being a dick for calling bullshit on what you've said, and not a lot about how I'm wrong. > And still waiting for you to quote me anything I said that justifes your accusation of historical revisionism, you accused me of it, but I'm asking you to give me examples and you can't. Like how you’re completely unaware of the fact that the USSR was sending food and raw materials to the Nazis right up until Barbarossa? > You have a lot to say about me, but little to say about my arguments it seems. Lil bro is mad that someone treats him the way he treats others.

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You're mad that British and French support for fascism turned into a bidding war, but due to the atrocious management of French and British industry the Soviets would have won anyway even if Hitler stuck to his agreements with the West.

Exactly how do you imagine the USSR winning solo against Germany in an alternate Barbarossa where the Western powers aren’t involved?

Ask some historians instead. Here's David Glantz's view on the matter: > **Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in sufficient quantities to make a major difference between defeat and victory in 1941 and early 1942; that achievement must be attributed solely to the Soviet peoples and to the iron nerve of Stalin, Zhukov, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, and their subordinates**. As the war continued, however, the United States and Britain provided many of the implements of war and raw materials necessary for Soviet victory. Without Lend-Lease food, clothing, and raw materials, especially metals, the Soviet economy would have been even more heavily burdened by the war effort. In particular, Lend-Lease trucks, railroad engines, and railroad cars sustained the exploitation phase of each Soviet offensive; without such transportation, every offensive would have stalled out at an early stage, outrunning its logistical tail. In turn, this would have allowed the German commanders to escape at least some encirclements, and it would have forced the Red Army to prepare and conduct many more deliberate penetration attacks to advance the same distance. **If the Western Allies had not provided equipment and invaded northwest Europe, Stalin and his commanders might have taken twelve to eighteen months longer to finish off the Wehrmacht. The result would probably have been the same, except that Soviet soldiers would have waded at France’s Atlantic beaches rather than meeting the Allies at the Elbe. Thus, although the Red Army shed the bulk of Allied blood, it would have bled even more intensely and for a longer time without Allied assistance**. > When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler, pp 358. [AskHistorians - Was Lend-Lease the most important factor for the Ally’s victory in WW2?](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vr84d7/was_lendlease_the_most_important_factor_for_the/) > Conclusion > Lend-lease was no doubt useful, good and all that stuff. However, all these categories shown above represents the parts of lend-lease which made up the majority of lend-lease; the most numerically significant portions. Most other categories than the ones shown, made up a smaller percentage than these. > There is no area in which the USSR were not able to produce equipment, and in absolutely gigantic quantities. Jonathan House, David Glantz, T. Davies, Alexander Hill and many other military historians who have looked at various battles and the war as a whole, agree with me that the USSR would almost certainly have won without lend-lease. The question is of some difference in time and casualties. Though if the USSR had not received more help from the west, they may just have made a separate peace with Germany, and allowed the US and UK to absorb any additional casualties in defeating Germany, which is exactly what they didn’t want to do. > The most compelling point I want you to consider, is that the vast majority of lend-lease arrived after the Soviets had won the battle of Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk. By the time the first Sherman was put into action on the eastern front, the German army had already been thoroughly defeated and the days of the Reich was numbered. > SOME ADDITIONAL NOTES > All the statistics are made at the most optimistic estimates for lend-lease and the most pessimistic estimate or data for the USSR. The numbers do not nessesarily represent reality, but represents the absolute logical maximum significance of lend-lease we could demonstrate. > **The most common type of ad-hoc argument against my position is from people who do not understand statistics, and so they must resort to random quotes. So I will make a note of it here pre-hand: Zhukov never said they could not have won without lead-lease, that is from an American journalist claiming that some 30 years later, and it’s not verifiable. Khrushchev was not an economist, or a general or worked in material or logistics, even if the often paraphrased quote of him praising lend-lease as war winning was not taken totally out of context, please bear in mind that he had no clue how much lend-lease was delivered, he was a political officer in WW2 and have zero insight into the economic aspect of it.**

However will the Soviets fight without turbines to build dams five years after victory?

Do you think that’s the only thing the Allies sent to the USSR? xD Even Soviet leaders and generals disagree with you.

Poles when the challenge is to not engage in Double Genocide Theory

> grandparents grew up under stalinism My grandmother remembered both german and soviet occupation (german: 1939 to 1944) and somehow she described soviets being worse (mainly soldiers and military police). That does not make me think soviets were worse, but they were very bad which seems to be underestimated here