20 million russians killed in WW2?

[peedee]

i heard that during or after WW2, Stalin killed off like 20 million russians or something. is that true? if so, why isnt that taught at school?

[Madspeed]

At 4/12/04 11:16 PM, peedee wrote: i heard that during or after WW2, Stalin killed off like 20 million russians or something. is that true? if so, why isnt that taught at school?

It was a good amount, alright.
And it was practically shoved down my face in school, along with the Holocaust.
I remember watching a movie called simply 'Stalin,' during 8th grade. It was pretty scary stuff for middle school.

[FatherVenom]

I learned that in school. Details are hazy though. Should have paid more attention.

[Thanatopsis]

well if by kill you mean that 20+ million russin soldgers were killed due to bad stratagy and poor preperation then yes. the reason it isnt taught in your class could be that you are learning about western or american history when it comes to WWII.

[peedee]

At 4/12/04 11:23 PM, _Thanatopsis_ wrote: well if by kill you mean that 20+ million russin soldgers were killed due to bad stratagy and poor preperation then yes.

no, im talknig about stalin had a sort of ethnic cleansing of his own. he apparently killed off 20 million russian civillions. sorry, shoulda been more specific...

[mrpopenfresh]

At 4/12/04 11:16 PM, peedee wrote: i heard that during or after WW2, Stalin killed off like 20 million russians or something. is that true? if so, why isnt that taught at school?

Its true. I remember learning it in some history calss a while back. We were even discussing it last week. Though the military losses were under 10 million, if you add all the Russian peasants who died of famine or by the German attacks, it goes up to a little less than 20 million.

[peedee]

At 4/12/04 11:26 PM, mrpopenfresh wrote: Its true. I remember learning it in some history calss a while back. We were even discussing it last week. Though the military losses were under 10 million, if you add all the Russian peasants who died of famine or by the German attacks, it goes up to a little less than 20 million.

ah, i see. that explains it.....

[Madspeed]

At 4/12/04 11:25 PM, peedee wrote: no, im talknig about stalin had a sort of ethnic cleansing of his own. he apparently killed off 20 million russian civillions. sorry, shoulda been more specific...

I don't know if it was really ethnic cleansing, I know he had a lot of "purges."
He would go around and basically force officers into confessing to stuff they didn't do and then he would have these massive killings. You didn't want the job of being on Stalin's military staff, because chances are someone would be in your shoes in 2 weeks.

[BeFell]

Was it just during WWII or throughout all of Stalin's time as the ruler of Russia? In a biography I read on Stalin it said that some of the villiages were so famine stricken that it was not unusual for small children to disapear. Children are more tender than adults and put up less of a fight too.

[Jlop985]

The figure for 20 million comes from two Soviet censa, taken before Stalin's reign of terror and after the war, in which the population is shown to have dropped 20 million. This includes Stalin's purges, collectivization of farms, forced industrialization, famine, and the "Great Patriotic War".

Stalin, unlike Hitler, was an equal-opportunity killer. He killed anybody he didn't like, regardless of race. Quite the egalitarian fellow.

[peedee]

so why was i not taught this, and why is it not such a big thing as the holocaust? its horrible. 20 million? thats steep.

[mrpopenfresh]

At 4/12/04 11:38 PM, BeFell wrote: Was it just during WWII or throughout all of Stalin's time as the ruler of Russia? In a biography I read on Stalin it said that some of the villiages were so famine stricken that it was not unusual for small children to disapear. Children are more tender than adults and put up less of a fight too.

Yeah, things got pretty bad over there. There was pretty horrible cases of cannibalism going on in Russia. You still hear about people who acquired a taste for human flesh killing in the ex-USSR. And here's an interesting tidbit of info I remember readong in some old book about really weird things; some russian peasant were said to have been so used to famine and spoiled food that they preferred the taste of a rotten egg than a fresh one. I hope I never get that desperate, and by the looks of how they supported it, for so long.

[RedSkunk]

At 4/12/04 11:40 PM, peedee wrote: so why was i not taught this, and why is it not such a big thing as the holocaust? its horrible. 20 million? thats steep.

I was taught about it.

[Jlop985]

At 4/13/04 12:39 AM, RotesStinktier wrote: I was taught about it.

They don't make as big a deal about it as they do the Holocaust.

[TheShrike]

For anyone who doesn't remember learning about it in school, there's a movie that kind of helps put it into perspective: Enemy at the Gates.

Of course, it's a dramatized hollywood production, but they show in vivid detail some of the things you'll never see or hear about the battle of Stalingrad, perhaps only read about. The reality and horror of war as seen from the perspective of a couple thousand unarmed/poorly armed Russian foot soldiers trying to push the well armed and trained Germans back. The movie's plot is centered on two snipers, a German and a Russian, but doesn't tip-toe around the real story. sort of.

As far as that one single battle goes, more than 1 million Russian soldiers died, and out of a city of half a million, less than a thousand citizens remained afterward.

The Russians bore most of the real warfare Germany had to offer. That's a million and a half. For one battle.

And then there's the fact that Stalin starved millions in the Ukraine, and executed millions more before WW2 even happened.

Stalin was much worse than Hitler in my opinion.

[TuRbanNatoR]

wasnt 20 million He was like saddam tho any one that moved a finger would get there head blown off he also kill all the genrels after WWII for fear that they might over power him and the fact that he killed all his genrels befor WWII

[lapslf]

Well, the fun thing is, everyone thinks Stalin is the only Sovjet leader that killed people. However, Lenin wasn't such an angel either. Lenin is the proud founder of the KGB, who made people disappear and never to be seen again. Lenin had his share in a lot of executions.

People just prefer to connect Stalin with all the killings, since he was the leader of the big bad Sovjet Union during most of the cold war. It's true Stalin killed a lot more people than Lenin did, but then again, Stalin ruled much longer.

Also, a lot of Russian soldiers died needlessly, since the British, American, Canadian etc. troops refused to hurry the fuck up with their invasion in Normandy.

[bumcheekcity]

At 4/12/04 11:16 PM, peedee wrote: i heard that during or after WW2, Stalin killed off like 20 million russians or something. is that true? if so, why isnt that taught at school?

It's taught in my school.

[afijsohfan]

At 4/12/04 11:16 PM, peedee wrote: i heard that during or after WW2, Stalin killed off like 20 million russians or something. is that true? if so, why isnt that taught at school?

Maybe your school is communist.

[EvilGovernmentAgents]

You had 20 million dead during Stalin's great purges, collectivization, and all the stuff around. You had something like 20 million dead because of WW2. You had also the figures from WW1, the Civil War, famine, ect ect.

Russia is terribly underpopulated even today.

The big kicker with world war two, was the fact that during the early years in 1941 and 42, the only real weapon that the Soviets had was sending masses of lightly armed men against mechanized armies. Those years were when the most casualties occured. In 1943, during operation Citadel, the casualty figures for German and Russian forces was more or less equal.

[RedSkunk]

At 4/13/04 01:29 AM, Jlop985 wrote: They don't make as big a deal about it as they do the Holocaust.

No, they did.

[Jlop985]

At 4/13/04 12:01 PM, RotesStinktier wrote:

At 4/13/04 01:29 AM, Jlop985 wrote: They don't make as big a deal about it as they do the Holocaust.

No, they did.

Not in the schools I went to.

[ReddSky]

Never even heard of it in school, 12 million were smoked in the holocaust. Maybe because Im in canada and we supposedly have better relations with russia. Today russia has like 150 million people, id bet it was less back then (baby boom, maybe?) and killing 1 or 2 out of every 10 people would be noticed more. Im pretty sure that a 20 million body count includes the soldiers who died, because the germans had entire death factories set up with maximim efficiency and they could only get 12 million. I doubt the ussr had enough ammo to shoot all 20 million people, germany couldent do that with 12.

Stalin was the guy who said "Death of a few is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic" or something like that.

[CommunistLock]

At 4/13/04 12:23 PM, Adun wrote:
Stalin was the guy who said "Death of a few is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic" or something like that.

No, it was "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic"

[RedSkunk]

At 4/13/04 12:53 PM, -CommunistLock- wrote:

At 4/13/04 12:23 PM, Adun wrote:
Stalin was the guy who said "Death of a few is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic" or something like that.

No, it was "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic"

No, actually he probably said it in Russian, and it sounded completely different.

[GooieGreen]

At 4/13/04 01:45 PM, RotesStinktier wrote:

At 4/13/04 12:53 PM, -CommunistLock- wrote:

At 4/13/04 12:23 PM, Adun wrote:
Stalin was the guy who said "Death of a few is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic" or something like that.

No, it was "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic"

No, actually he probably said it in Russian, and it sounded completely different.

That, and he wasn't a dirty lil commy lock. I bet that makes all the difference in the world, now didn't it?

[Operation-Ska]

The reason why 20 million russians killed in WW2 was because of their leader, Stalin. Germany was trying to take over alot of Europe and Russia was out Ally. Stalin told the people of Russia not to let Germany take over their country. Citizens loved their country alot. Plus they were communist at the time, if you didn't support Mother Russia you were simpy shot by the KGB. I don't think that many Russians were Jewish so the Holocaust couldn't of done that. It was Stalin, or that's what I say...

[CO4413]

I was taught that ~10 million Russians were killed fighting Germany, and ~20 million more were killed by Stalin. It was a conceptual unit, so the actual numbers weren't seen as important.

And the reason that we're taught the Holocaust more than Stalkins purges is because of three factors.

1. Stalin didn't purge populations of countries that weren't in the Soviet Empire. Germany, on the other hand...

2. Jewish influence in the U.S. I'm not a racist; and I live in Brookline, MA (You'd have to live here or in Boston to know what I mean...). It's true, and please don't blame me.

3. Propaganda. The U. S. government always uses whatever it can to justify our wars. We never went to war with the Soviets (well, never officially... anti-revolutionary conflicts don't count), so such propaganda would not be needed.

Also, the population of Russia is higher than that of the U.S. However, Russia's population is decreasing by 12/1000 / year.

[RedSkunk]

At 4/13/04 09:48 PM, CrystalOmega wrote: We never went to war with the Soviets (well, never officially... anti-revolutionary conflicts don't count), so such propaganda would not be needed.

We invaded the Soviet Union once... It was before WW2 though.

[CO4413]

At 4/13/04 09:57 PM, RedSkunk wrote:

At 4/13/04 09:48 PM, CrystalOmega wrote: We never went to war with the Soviets (well, never officially... anti-revolutionary conflicts don't count), so such propaganda would not be needed.

We invaded the Soviet Union once... It was before WW2 though.

I know... that why I said "anti-revolutionary conflicts don't count".