Re: Ukip
 

Don't be daft John, you need more than one o level to get to UNI...he took a part time course at Night school.

Re: Ukip
 

What type of ideology, other than crackpot, can one expect from a maniac? Anyway the debate was settled in the fall of 1940.

Re: Ukip
 

I'm no apologist for Stalinism ... not an easy task for anyone, however, commited he is to socialism ... but in terms of degree, I do believe the Nazis were worse. Ok millions starved in the Ukraine during the soviet version of the agricultural revolution ... revisionist history, the mock trials, the Gulags etc etc. But after the war the Soviets did what the French would have liked to do in 1919, only to a greater degree. And Hungary? German allies and mass murderers of jews. Romania? German allies and mass murderers of jews. East Germans? Nazis, and murderers of anyone they could lay their hands on.

Many lay some of the blame for WWll on the 1939 non-aggression pact. But a reading of the history of the time reveals that if the Franco-British alliance had not been so anti-soviet, they could possibly have had the same alliance with Russia. However, the Russians did not start the war, and after they were invaded by the Germans, their commitment to victory over the Nazis was unreserved.

Re: Ukip
 

What's this nonsense '..the fall of 1940'? You are not a Yank - you are a loyal subject of HM the Queen so be so good as to use her language. I assume you are referring to Autumn 1940. However, Trotsky got the ice pick in his head in august of that year and the last time I looked august was a summer month...unless, of course, it's different in Canada.

Re: Ukip
 

I've seen snow in August in Canada:D

Re: Ukip
 

How could the Nazis be worse "in terms of degree"? I admit I don't have the figures to hand and figures can be manipulated, but I've read somewhere that the Soviet system was responsible for more deaths than the Nazis. Even if not true, I don't see how the Nazis were worse than the Soviets. As for the enslavement of Eastern Europe after the war, was Poland a German ally? I thought that's how we got involved because the Nazis invaded them? As for countries like Hungary being German allies, is the replacement of one evil, repressive system with another evil, repressive system progress? The Soviet Union was a brutal, murderous regime which unfortunately in the past has been romanticized by woolly-minded socialists in this country.

Re: Ukip
 

Aye, and don't forget China under yon mon Mao. Thirty million popped it simply because they'd nowt to put in the wok, thanks to his 'Great Leap Forward'. These days of course, the Chinese are more capitalist than the capitalists yet they still queue up to pay homage to his rotten corpse.

Re: Ukip
 

Let us not forget what a workers paradise the USSR was..
A place were everyone was equal, but some where more equal than others.

The only decent export they ever had was Vodka. Heck even today that's all there is.
One of the advantages of my job is the fact it allows me to visit places off the tourist route, Kazakstan, interesting parts of Ukraine and places Far East of Moscow.
It may be over 20 years since the wall came down, but hese people still live in communist built housing, drive communist built cars on roads built by the communists. Things we take for granted like central heating, these tower blocks have central heating plumbed in from one plant in the centre of town, so everyone is either hot or if it is broken, more often than not, they are cold.
Seeing how poor te communist system was makes me glad I am a capitalist and I live in the UK.

Re: Ukip
 

I well remember plenty of half-wits walking around carrying The Thoughts of Chairman Mao in the late 60's...these were supposed to be intelligent, liberal-minded students. Sure. :rolleyes:

Re: Ukip
 

Poland's been the doormat of Eastern Europe for centuries ... and if you wish to mention figures (even manipulated ones;)) don't forget the millions of Nazi soldiers that the Soviets killed, one's that would have shown up for a day at the beach in '44 if they hadn't been too busy getting the you-know-what kicked out of them on the Eastern Front. (Might also be worthwhile to go deeper into ancient history and look at the provisions of Brest-Litovsk ... and those were imposed by the kinder, gentler, warm fuzzy Germans of the Kaiser's Reich.:rolleyes:) One doesn't have to like what the Russians did in Eastern Europe after the war, but it isn't hard to understand why they did it. After all, 30+ million dead and a devastated country would tend to pee off even the nicest guys, let alone Stalin, Beria and other associated genocidal maniacs.

Re: Ukip
 

So you're telling me that the Soviet empire somehow wasn't as evil as the Nazi regime? Well, sorry, Eric, can't accept that. They both killed millions of ordinary citizens indiscriminately and trampled over human rights. There have been quite a few Labour party members and trade unionists who have been apologists for the Soviet system in the past; to me they're no better than those who support the Nazis.

Re: Ukip
 

Well if you can't accept it, that's fine. If I were looking for coverts to my opinions, even tho' I've given them lots of thought, I would probably look somewhere else:D But it's always fun to argue in a sane, civilized manner. I'm not giving up by the way. Feel free to continue;):D

Re: Ukip
 

'Owd on Eric....The Poles were not exactly little innocent bunnies back in '38, were they? After Hitler grabbed his chunk of Czechoslovakia they had no hesitation in storming Gorma Orawa, Jaworzna and other bits of their southerly neighbour . And I won't even bother talking about Polish antisemitism in '39 and '45.

Re: Ukip
 

Interesting article here, Eric. Seems the Soviet death count wasn't as high as first thought but a lot of their death toll was due to a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing as a result of their own evil ideology, not some kind of noble failed experiment or act of self-defence.

Seems to me there's not much to choose between 'em - death counts in the millions, many of them quite deliberate. A legacy of mass misery from both of these vile regimes!

Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Killed More? by Timothy Snyder | The New York Review of Books

Re: Ukip
 

Still counting, eh. Doesn't make any difference ... crunch numbers till all atomic motion ceases in Hades ... you can't change the fact that popular historical memory has voted. And the winner is :theband: Adolph and the Nazis. Uncle Joe, Beria etc. are fading into history, along with other ethnic cleansers such as the Turks and General Philip Sheridan. Hitler isn't.

And the point you seem to be trying to make ... let me see ... is is that some democratic socialists, or many of them, cozied up to Stalin:confused: ... isn't really all that important in terms of the British political scene in the 20th century. British democratic socialism has, in the main, always been more democratic than it has socialist. And no matter how much you try to argue that left-wing genocidal maniacs are as bad as, or worse than the nazis, you can't alter that fact.