Two questions: Why do the Russian people love Stalin? Of co

>>277076
People in Russia admire Stalin because he saved the USSR from the nazis who planned on enslaving half the slavs and starving to death the other half, this was after the butchery they inflicted in the territories they overran.

Only poor russians love Stalin. Rest know that he was a murdering psychopath.

>>277076
You're right, it's very complex. I think the main reasons they love him are that he won the war and that he was able to bring the Soviet Union onto the world stage as a major player. I also kind of think that as people who actually remember how shitty he was die off, more people will just remember what they are told. Stalin is a symbolic figure in their history and was in charge during one of the most tumultuous events in Russian history.

As for the moral character of dictators, it's hard to tell. If you look at some dictator in South America or the Middle East, I think a lot of them are pretty much mob bosses who are extremely corrupt.

If we're looking at World War Two dictators, it's a bit different. It's hard to say hat any one person is just plain evil. These people did not live their lives in a vacuum. At the same time, just because you can understand the reasoning behind why they did what they did, it doesn't make it right.

>>277076

His own people were the Georgians.

And a certain rump of Russians love him because:
>industrialisation
>strong leader
>war leader during existential battle against Germanskis
>muh savietsy sayuz

Tl;dr russkies love stalin for the same reasons, more or less, that brits love Churchill.

Like the brits, nostalgia helps them overlook the less pleasant aspects of "uncle joe".

Stalin wasent a dictator, just leninist. Read some not 'murica book

It reminds them of a time when Russia was relevant.

Funny, all the Russian students at my uni I've had political conversations with say Stalin was a tyrannical lunatic. Just as bad, if not worse than Hitler.

>>277137

Russians who study abroad aren't telesales operatives from bumfuck nowhere in a windswept steppe or creepy forest who have nothing going on in their lives and whose only sense of worth and belonging is found in associating themselves the greatness of Russia.

Russia is basically slavic America. They love God and guns just as much, and they cling to their nationalist myths just as strongly.

And, like Americans, the Russians who study abroad tend to be well off, middle class or upper class liberal paternalists who think they know what's best for everyone else.

>>277116
I like that Churchill is venerated over Chamberlain despite supporting cuts to the armed forces as chancellor of the exchequer and pushing for spamming bombers rather than fighters, something which Chamberlain heavily disagreed with and this arguably saved Britain.

Go Churchill

>>277121

Stalin was definitely a dictator, what da fuck?

>>277137

I think almost all of the "more educated" Russians think that way, at least the ones I met did.

>>277114
Uhm

Wasn't Stalin a mob boss originally?

>>277273

Again, similar to America. How many FREEDOM FRIES guys do you meet in the rarified circles of European academia or academia in general?

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>>277121
>Stalin
>Leninist
>Mfw
Nice try Beria.

>>277076

Stalin is and was popular because he was really succesful in building his own personnality cult. He was a former gangster and Blochevik war vet, and his family was dirt poor. He basically was the charismatic working class bad boy with a golden heart hanging around those nice but cold and nerdy upper class Bolsheviks.
With the skills and will to advert public attention from his true plans (mainly through the uber shady "soviet" state hierarchy and heavy use of scapegoats), he quickly rose as a hero in the eyes of the people. And thus, even when they knew they were being screwed arond, they would rather blame the executives than him.

Of course it didn't hurt that the few dirigeants that later tried to expose his true nature and cast light on USSR's shady past just plain disgraced themselves by tearing down the Union, basically shitting on every effort and sacrifice the common soviet man had to put up with during all those years. Your job? Gone. House? Gone. Money? That uselesst stack of paper? Your retirement? Lol, try again.


And as for the rest, "evil" is not a personnality trait. It's an adjective you get when you deliberately cross the moral boudaries of your fellow man. And those might change.
In the end, it all boils down to : does what you meant to achieve justifies what you've done ? If it doesn't, you're evil. If it's unclear, well that just mean your morality is, too. Sometime time and research will clarify this. Sometimes there are just no truth to be found in history.
Stalin himself said that "the wind of history would brush away from his tumb the dead leaves of calomny"... takes some balls. And a good grip on his own country's history.

>TL;DR : Stalin was just too motherfucking Gangsta for history to handle.

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>>277432
pic related, the Brosef himself dispalying his swagg like a dashing felon.

>>277076
Because most people who remember living under him are dead today, hence all they know about him was positive propaganda they were forcefed when in school.

People who actually lived under Stalin absolutely loathed him.

t. grandpappy

>>277432
I have heard people argue that Soviet Russia was the greatest time for the working class/middle class in Russia, so long as you went along with the system. Is there any truth to this?

>>277452
Not remotely true. The working class was as vulnerable as the upper classes to Stalin's paranoia. Plenty of working class people were executed/deported to the gulag for no reason whatsoever.

Likewise, living conditions under the USSR were abysmal. The average worker had a higher standard of living in the early 1900s under the Tsar than he did under Stalin in the 1930s, and life under the Tsar was not exactly peachy.

>>277457
One last question. How does Russia fair today? We all get the image that Russia is this powerhouse, and that Putin is this asskicking leader who can't do anything wrong on the international stage. Yet, I have been hearing news on Russia's economy on the decline, or that Russia will suffer because they got themselves into shit with ISIS.

Now we see that Russian youths are longing for the days of Stalin and communism. Yet, I hear how Russia is basically a communist state right now. Where exactly is Russia today and how do they stand compared to where they were?

>>277483
>One last question. How does Russia fair today?
It's rather decent. For one, people don't have to queue 6 hours for a loaf a bread.

> Yet, I have been hearing news on Russia's economy on the decline, or that Russia will suffer because they got themselves into shit with ISIS.
This is true, although it has more to do with the USA's intentional lowering of gas prices as punishment for Russian involvement in eastern ukraine.

>Now we see that Russian youths are longing for the days of Stalin and communism.
They're underage idiots who were born after the fall of the USSR.

>Yet, I hear how Russia is basically a communist state right now.
No, Russia is almost as free as the west. Only open political dissidents are under any threat. For instance, Russia doesn't ban any websites.

>Where exactly is Russia today and how do they stand compared to where they were?
It's a normal dictatorship.

>>277500
Thank you for your insight. It's hard learning about Russia as an American because of the inherent bias we have.

>>277163
>And, like Americans, the Russians who study abroad tend to be well off, middle class or upper class liberal paternalists who think they know what's best for everyone else.

Educated upper class people have a better idea than anyone else to be honest. I say this as a poorfag uni dropout. It's not the elites ruining society, it's the masses.

>>277457
>The working class was as vulnerable as the upper classes to Stalin's paranoia.

Some former high-ranking NKVD operatives, such as Soudoplatov, pointed out that Stalin actually went from short tempered and paranoid to cold blooded and calculating with the time and experience. They even declare he deliberately appointed brutal, incompetent people (such as Iejov) at the head of state security so his own opponents would appear to be a minority among all the other innocent victims, and would later "expose" his strawmen as traitors and bullies acting without his knowledge or consent.
What's your take on this? Psychosis or professionalism ?

>The average worker had a higher standard of living in the early 1900s under the Tsar than he did under Stalin in the 1930s, and life under the Tsar was not exactly peachy.

Really ? I mean the Russian 1900's were really, really shitty...

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>>277121
>stalin
>leninist
wat

>>277076

Russia is such a shit hole they realize this is the best they are going to get.

The Soviet Union was dissolved 22 years ago, on December 26, 1991. It’s widely believed outside the former republics of the USSR that Soviet citizens fervently wished for this; that Stalin was hated as a vile despot; that the USSR’s socialist economy never worked; and that the citizens of the former Soviet Union prefer the life they have today under capitalist democracy to, what, in the fevered parlance of Western journalists, politicians and historians, was the repressive, dictatorial rule of a one-party state which presided over a sclerotic, creaky and unworkable socialist economy.

None of these beliefs is true.

Myth #1. The Soviet Union had no popular support. On March 17, 1991, nine months before the Soviet Union’s demise, Soviet citizens went to the polls to vote on a referendum which asked whether they were in favor of preserving the USSR. Over three-quarters voted yes. Far from favoring the breakup of the union, most Soviet citizens wanted to preserve it. [1]

1.”Referendum on the preservation of the USSR,” RIA Novosti, 2001, http://en.ria.ru/infographics/20110313/162959645.html

Russians are just extremely stupid and servile people, they literally crave a cruel master. Other Slavs are nothing like that so I attribute this sort of behavior to Mongol cultural heritage.

Take Putin for example, he's not ACTUALLY that cruel, hardcore or badass, but he needs to maintain that image to keep those retarded Russians voting for him.

>>278310
Myth #2. Russians hate Stalin. In 2009, Rossiya, a Russian TV channel, spent three months polling over 50 million Russians to find out who, in their view, were the greatest Russians of all time. Prince Alexander Nevsky, who successfully repelled an attempted Western invasion of Russia in the 13th century, came first. Second place went to Pyotr Stolypin, who served as prime minister to Tsar Nicholas II, and enacted agrarian reforms. In third place, behind Stolypin by only 5,500 votes, was Joseph Stalin, a man that Western opinion leaders routinely describe as a ruthless dictator with the blood of tens of millions on his hands. [2] He may be reviled in the West, not surprisingly, since he was never one after the hearts of the corporate grandees who dominate the West’s ideological apparatus, but, it seems, Russians have a different view?one that fails to comport with the notion that Russians were victimized, rather than elevated, by Stalin’s leadership.

In a May/June 2004 Foreign Affairs article, (Flight from Freedom: What Russians Think and Want), anti-communist Harvard historian Richard Pipes cited a poll in which Russians were asked to list the 10 greatest men and women of all time. The poll-takers were looking for significant figures of any country, not just Russians. Stalin came fourth, behind Peter the Great, Lenin, and Pushkin…much to Pipes’ irritation. [3]

2. Guy Gavriel Kay, “The greatest Russians of all time?” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), January 10, 2009.
3. Richard Pipes, “Flight from Freedom: What Russians Think and Want,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004.

>>278316
Myth #3. Soviet socialism didn’t work. If this is true, then capitalism, by any equal measure, is an indisputable failure. From its inception in 1928, to the point at which it was dismantled in 1989, Soviet socialism never once, except during the extraordinary years of World War II, stumbled into recession, nor failed to provide full employment. [4] What capitalist economy has ever grown unremittingly, without recession, and providing jobs for all, over a 56 year span (the period during which the Soviet economy was socialist and the country was not at war, 1928-1941 and 1946-1989)? Moreover, the Soviet economy grew faster than capitalist economies that were at an equal level of economic development when Stalin launched the first five year plan in 1928 -- and faster than the US economy through much of the socialist system’s existence. [5]

4. Robert C. Allen. Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution, Princeton University Press, 2003. David Kotz and Fred Weir. Revolution From Above: The Demise of the Soviet System, Routledge, 1997.
5. Allen; Kotz and Weir.

>>278323
To be sure, the Soviet economy never caught up to or surpassed the advanced industrial economies of the capitalist core, but it started the race further back; was not aided, as Western countries were, by histories of slavery, colonial plunder, and economic imperialism; and was unremittingly the object of Western, and especially US, attempts to sabotage it. Particularly deleterious to Soviet economic development was the necessity of diverting material and human resources from the civilian to the military economy, to meet the challenge of Western military pressure. The Cold War and arms race, which entangled the Soviet Union in battles against a stronger foe, not state ownership and planning, kept the socialist economy from overtaking the advanced industrial economies of the capitalist West. [6] And yet, despite the West’s unflagging efforts to cripple it, the Soviet socialist economy produced positive growth in each and every non-war year of its existence, providing a materially secure existence for all. Which capitalist economy can claim equal success?

6. Stephen Gowans, “Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work?” what’s left, December 21, 2012.

>>278329
Myth #4. Now that they’ve experienced it, citizens of the former Soviet Union prefer capitalism. On the contrary, they prefer the Soviet system’s state planning, that is, socialism. Asked in a recent poll what socio-economic system they favor, Russians answered [7]:

- State planning and distribution, 58%
- Private property and distribution, 28%
- Hard to say, 14%
- Total, 100%

Pipes cites a poll in which 72 percent of Russians “said they wanted to restrict private economic initiative.” [8]

Myth #5. Twenty-two years later, citizens of the former Soviet Union see the USSR’s demise as more beneficial than harmful. Wrong again. According to a just-released Gallup poll, for every citizen of 11 former Soviet republics, including Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, who thinks the breakup of the Soviet Union benefited their country, two think it did harm. And the results are more strongly skewed toward the view that the breakup was harmful among those aged 45 years and over, namely, the people who knew the Soviet system best. [9]

According to another poll cited by Pipes, three-quarters of Russians regret the Soviet Union’s demise [10] -- hardly what you would think of people who were reportedly delivered from a supposedly repressive state and allegedly arthritic, ponderous economy.

7. “Russia Nw”, in The Washington Post, March 25, 2009.
8. Pipes.
9. Neli Espova and Julie Ray, “Former Soviet countries see more harm from breakup,” Gallup, December 19, 2013, http://www.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx
10. Pipes.

>>278323
This is not a myth, it's more or less a strawman. Everyone knows Russians wanted to keep it around, it was all the other Eastern Euros who did not because the USSR was sucking them dry.

>>278335
Myth #6. Citizens of the former Soviet Union are better off today. To be sure, some are. But are most? Given that more prefer the former socialist system to the current capitalist one, and think that the USSR’s breakup has done more harm than good, we might infer that most aren’t better off?or at least, that they don’t see themselves as such. This view is confirmed, at least as regards life expectancy. In a paper in the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet, sociologist David Stuckler and medical researcher Martin McKee, show that the transition to capitalism in the former USSR precipitated a sharp drop in life-expectancy, and that “only a little over half of the ex-Communist countries have regained their pre-transition life-expectancy levels.” Male life expectancy in Russia, for example, was 67 years in 1985, under communism. In 2007, it was less than 60 years. Life expectancy plunged five years between 1991 and 1994. [11] The transition to capitalism, then, produced countless pre-mature deaths?and continues to produce a higher mortality rate than likely would have prevailed under the (more humane) socialist system. (A 1986 study by Shirley Ciresto and Howard Waitzkin, based on World Bank data, found that the socialist economies of the Soviet bloc produced more favorable outcomes on measures of physical quality of life, including life expectancy, infant mortality, and caloric intake, than did capitalist economies at the same level of economic development, and as good as capitalist economies at a higher level of development. [12])

11. Judy Dempsey, “Study looks at mortality in post-Soviet era,” The New York Times, January 16, 2009.
12. Shirley Ceresto and Howard Waitzkin, “Economic development, political-economic system, and the physical quality of life”, American Journal of Public Health, June 1986, Vol. 76, No. 6.

It's because of political paternalism.

Russians have a long history of religious and statist paternalism, and it gets embedded in the culture that the natural order of things is to have a strong and cruel leader that will take care of you.

It's really an expression of the worst qualities in the human spirit.

>>278329
>the Soviet socialist economy produced positive growth in each and every non-war year of its existence, providing a materially secure existence for all
>materially secure existence for all

>>278345
As regards the transition from a one-party state to a multi-party democracy, Pipes points to a poll that shows that Russians view democracy as a fraud. Over three-quarters believe “democracy is a facade for a government controlled by rich and powerful cliques.” [13] Who says Russians aren’t perspicacious?

Myth #7. If citizens of the former Soviet Union really wanted a return to socialism, they would just vote it in. If only it were so simple. Capitalist systems are structured to deliver public policy that suits capitalists, and not what’s popular, if what’s popular is against capitalist interests. Obamacare aside, the United States doesn’t have full public health insurance. Why not? According to the polls, most Americans want it. So, why don’t they just vote it in? The answer, of course, is that there are powerful capitalist interests, principally private insurance companies, that have used their wealth and connections to block a public policy that would attenuate their profits. What’s popular doesn’t always, or even often, prevail in societies where those who own and control the economy can use their wealth and connections to dominate the political system to win in contests that pit their elite interests against mass interests. As Michael Parenti writes,

"Capitalism is not just an economic system, but an entire social order. Once it takes hold, it is not voted out of existence by electing socialists or communists. They may occupy office but the wealth of the nation, the basic property relations, organic law, financial system, and debt structure, along with the national media, police power, and state institutions have all been fundamentally restructured." [14]

13. Pipes.
14. Michael Parenti, Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, City Light Books, 1997, p. 119.

>>278349
A Russian return to socialism is far more likely to come about the way it did the first time, through revolution, not elections --and revolutions don’t happen simply because people prefer a better system to the one they currently have. Revolutions happen when life can no longer be lived in the old way --and Russians haven’t reached the point where life as it’s lived today is no longer tolerable.

Interestingly, a 2003 poll asked Russians how they would react if the Communists seized power. Almost one-quarter would support the new government, one in five would collaborate, 27 percent would accept it, 16 percent would emigrate, and only 10 percent would actively resist it. In other words, for every Russian who would actively oppose a Communist take-over, four would support it or collaborate with it, and three would accept it -- not what you would expect if you think Russians are glad to get out from underneath what we’re told was the burden of communist rule.

So, the Soviet Union’s passing is regretted by the people who knew the USSR firsthand (but not by Western journalists, politicians and historians who knew Soviet socialism only through the prism of their capitalist ideology.) Now that they’ve had over two decades of multi-party democracy, private enterprise and a market economy, Russians don’t think these institutions are the wonders Western politicians and mass media make them out to be. Most Russians would prefer a return to the Soviet system of state planning, that is, to socialism.

>>278340
>Everyone knows Russians wanted to keep it around
You're overestimating the knowledge and honesty of the average political commenter, let alone the average American.

>>278348
Yes.

>>278354
Russians hate market economy because during the 1990s Russian Jews colluded with American Jews from Harvard to loot the Russian economy. And they miss Soviet Union because from 1956 onwards it was just a normal country that didn't even attempt to build communism anymore.

Using this as a justification for another communist revolution is stupid, though. It took 30 years for the Soviet system to "normalize".

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>>278340

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>>277121
>Stalin wasn't a dictator
>the big bad american capitalists just made it all up to slander him

MRW

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>>278373
>Russians hate market economy because during the 1990s Russian Jews colluded with American Jews from Harvard to loot the Russian economy
That's an extremely myopic analysis of the Yeltsin era.
It's also ridiculous to lay all the blame on Chubai and co for the fact that Russia is almost as bad as India nowadays.

>from 1956 onwards it was just a normal country
It was never a "normal country".

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>>278398
India for comparison.

>>278398
It's not myopic, it's just inconvenient for your political agenda.

>>278363
>Yes.
Holodomor, no?

>>278414
>Holodomor

Oh boy, here we go

>>278419
What, is Holodomor denial a thing? Or is it just a touchy subject?

>>278419
Oh come on. Pro-soviet revisionists are all huge faggots, but are you a big enough faggot to deny what 26 countries call genocide? Come on, give us your twisted, sourceless justification of why the Holodomor is just a lie made up to discredit the glorious strong soviet union.

>>278430
It's very much a thing amongst the most rabid defenders of the USSR. They also hate it when you mention Katyn, the eastern operations of the NKVD, and Molotov-Ribbentrop.

>>278430
It is a thing. The average Russian in the 80s thought that the WW2 began with Hitler attacking the USSR (not even joking), had no knowledge about Stalin and Hitler jointly attacking Poland, USSR attacking Finland, Katyn massacre etc.

ITT

Soviet Union waz good boys dey dindu nuffin!

>>278430
>is Holodomor denial a thing?
Holodomor itself wasn't "a thing" until the 80s.

>what 26 countries call genocide
>26 countries
Please, half of those are the US and US puppets, the others are anti-Russian Eastern Europeans.

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>>278464

>>278464
Here we go! No sources, blatant lies, and a side of 'anyone who disagrees with me must be brainwashed because I can't possibly be wrong!' Is that all you got?

>>278464
How does it feel to know that you're on the same level as Holocaust deniers?

>>278464
>Holodomor itself wasn't "a thing" until the 80s.
It definitely was a thing, those people objectively died. I thought you Soviet revisionists only argue whether it was a deliberate genocide or if Stalin was just incompetent.

>>278496
>It definitely was a thing, those people objectively died.
That's not the same as Holodomor existing a popular concept.

>>278487
>No sources, blatant lies
Why am I under greater scrutiny than other posters in this thread?

>and a side of 'anyone who disagrees with me must be brainwashed because I can't possibly be wrong!'
Why, because I pointed out that the 26 countries that recognized Holodomor as a genocide had strong (geo-)political motivations to do so?

>>277195
Churchill had those 50 thousand killed for no reason in ww1, that's all.

>>278487
This. Even Russia admits it actually happened, they only contest whether it was a genocide against Ukrainians, since the famine hit even non-Ukrainians.

I think that makes it even worse since commies starved more than one nation to death.

Why do people like [insert here] element from their Grandfathers generation?

>>278515
>why am I under greater scrutiny

You aren't, but (>>278433)
fucking called that you wouldn't give sources. I was confident in making that call because there is no reputable source on this earth which agrees with you.

>>278464
>In November 2010 a leaked confidential U.S. diplomatic cable revealed that Russia had allegedly pressured its neighbors not to support the designation of Holodomor as a genocide at the United Nations.

You're the one to talk about puppets

>>277076

Just like Putin.

>gets shit done
>removes kebab and mudslimes
>is actually a real human bean

Lefties are just mad cause muh LGBT.

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>>278611
>removes kebab and mudslimes

Can this meme finally end? Russia is 15% muslim which is more than Britain, Sweden, France or anyone in the west pretty much. The only European countries with a higher muslim percentage are Bosnia and Albania.

Putin also pretty much appointed a jihadist thug Ramzan "I killed my first Russian when I was 13" Kadyrov, funded one of the largest mosques in Europe (Kadyrov Mosque in Grozny) with federal budget while the average Russian lives in shit, pours loads of cash into majority muslim places like Dagestan and Tatarstan and generally surrounds himself with influential muslims. Large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg are also being flooded by Azeris, Chechens, central Asian muslims and fuck knows what, picrelated is in Moscow.

Only a retard memelord could believe Putin is somehow "anti-kebab".

>>278666
Let's not forget that he is BFF with Iran and other muslim countries, and that Assad is only secular by Jihadist standards.

>>278774
>iran actively spreads shia islam
>saudi arabia dindu nuffin

>>278582

May I suggest the works of Stephan G. Wheatcroft as a source for a more nuanced view on the topic?

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>>278582
>I was confident in making that call because there is no reputable source on this earth which agrees with you.

There's Bloodlands by Timothy D. Snyder, but the main problem with "Soviet Bodycounts" is that it's so deeply tied with American conservatives, Naziism and Holocaust denial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodlands

>>277076

>People in Russia admire Stalin because he saved the USSR from the nazis

He did alot more harm then good. Before the war he killed all their generals. Also he refused to move critical supplies or build entrenchments on the new border after Poland was gobbled up and he continued to supply the Nazis with huge amounts of raw materials right up before the war began. He basically did everything he could to destroy their army its no wonder that for every 1 german soldier killed the soviets lost 4.

>>277483
>Russia is basically a communist state right now.
Russia is an ultraorthodox christian capitalist oligarchy with a very strong state presence.

>>277076
>http://carnegieendowment.org/files/stalin_puzzle.pdf

Reading through this pdf I've come across a very interesting paragraph p. 37

>This ambiguity appears to be lacking in logic, but it is rooted in reality. Analysis of the data shows that the very same people say that “Stalin was a cruel, inhuman tyrant who is responsible for the extermination of millions of innocent people” and also that “Stalin was a wise leader who brought the Soviet Union to might and prosperity.” The same people say that “Stalin’s policies . . . meant the country was unprepared for war” and also that “under his leadership the Soviet people won the Great Patriotic War” (see table 5). The characteristic duality of attitudes observed in other countries (Stalin was both a “wise leader” and a “cruel, inhuman tyrant”) is also noticeable in Georgia.

>The same people say that “Stalin’s policies . . . meant the country was unprepared for war” and also that “under his leadership the Soviet people won the Great Patriotic War”

These two statements are not mutually exclusive, even simply on the facts of the matter yet the writer follows on to state

>A similar combination of not merely different but “incompatible” opinions recurs frequently in sociological surveys. This is not just a sociological construction or a methodological mistake in the polls, nor is it “the schizophrenia of mass consciousness” many observers are inclined to discern. Rather, it is the product of the mechanism of “doublethink” that defines totalitarian—and to a lesser extent post-totalitarian—thinking.

It's very interesting

>>281947
>>A similar combination of not merely different but “incompatible” opinions recurs frequently in sociological surveys. This is not just a sociological construction or a methodological mistake in the polls, nor is it “the schizophrenia of mass consciousness” many observers are inclined to discern. Rather, it is the product of the mechanism of “doublethink” that defines totalitarian—and to a lesser extent post-totalitarian—thinking.

Wat

>Nuances in the public opinion ? I'm utterly flabbergasted !
>How would the ignorant pleb be able to mitigate his own opinion by confronting two seemingly conflictual realities ?!
>Hints of complex thinking and understanding among the filthy philistins crowd is obviously minilove doublethink!
>Look I read Orwell, I even saw the movies, how clever I am right guys?

Reeks of classism, topical lack of epistemologic insight. Typical sociology, desu senpai.

>It's very interesting
I agree with you. Makes you wonder what the author's views on politics and morals actually was with such blatant contempt for his fellow man.

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>>282968
>desu sempai
>mfw

Damn those filters.

>>277457
>The average worker had a higher standard of living in the early 1900s under the Tsar than he did under Stalin in the 1930
Literally proofs?

>>277076
Stalin was manly and made Russia, as a state, stronger than it had been.

Plebs love strong, manly leaders. It doesn't matter if they're from the right or the left.

He was pretty based and was a robot desu

>>278430
The holodomor was a result of central planning incompetence, the view that it was a deliberate attempt to exterminate the Ukrainians is silly cold war propaganda, specially considering the famine also hurt large sections of Southern Russia. The affected areas were the Soviet agricultural heartland, which is why it was centered in Ukraine.

>>280052
At least he learned to eventually just let the generals manage the war, Hitler wanted to show off his pro micro skills and fucked everything up for Germany.

>>277457
>The average worker had a higher standard of living in the early 1900s under the Tsar than he did under Stalin in the 1930s
Well, the 1930s were a time of bloody, extreme economic transformation. The success of Stalin's brutal economic policy was the in the long term.

>>283114
>>285623
http://acienciala.faculty.ku.edu/communistnationssince1917/ch3.html

>The standard of living in the cities was definitely higher in 1930 than it was in 1913. However, there was a 40% drop in workers' buying power between 1927/28 and 1930/31, while at the same time the cost of living went up by 150-200%. This was pulling the country up by its bootstraps. It meant that industrialization was achieved by exploiting the workers and peasants. After World War II and the imposition of communism on most of Eastern Europe, a joke originating in one of these countries stated: "What is the difference between capitalism and socialism?" The answer was: "Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, while socialism is the exact opposite." A 1988 Hungarian joke asked: "What is socialism?" Answer: "It is the longest and rockiest road from capitalism back to capitalism."