Stalin’s great purge always amazed me. Whereas Hitlers action were “positive” as in, “destroy the enemies, clean the race, be a better country” Stalin’s Great Selfish Purge is almost inconceivable. You have a leader, who knew Lenin, okay, fine. He’s getting really out of hand with his power and will for authority, he starts to issue orders against his OWN men, high ranking generals, party members. He starts issuing orders against “normal” people, for crimes the didn’t commit. All because he wants to be the sole and only leader, with no rivals. Not because of some ideology, just because he’s so fucking selfish and full of himself. How do people, those people who wrote these orders, who issue them to lower ranks, who execute them do not question his authority. Yes, fear is a great tool, but if he kills everyone, no exceptions, doesn’t that cancel that out? If no one is safe from his fierce hand of judgement wouldn’t that create a quick and easy assassination? How do these types of situations work? Why do people follow such selfish, idiotic bullshit?
I just want to take a shit on his grave to be honest.
Yeah, the atrocities commited by Stalin haven’t seeped into the consciousness of Westerners to the exent that Hitler’s has done. The reason for this can be placed at the writers of history. The leftist intelligentsia in the Western countries post WW II saw to it that Hitler’s actions were demonised to the utmost but brushed over or fobbed off any stringent criticisms of Russia. Why? Because the leftist intelligentsia in the West have similar political aspirations to Stalin. They wanted, and still want, government control over all industry, extremely high taxation, in short, the destruction of capitalist economies.
Books on the atrocities of Hitler are a dime a dozen; not only that, Germany’s part in WW II is compulsory learning in secondary school history courses, and is re-emphasized ad nauseam in the academe. But you won’t learn about what Stalin did to his own people in secondary school or at the university level. Why? Because those writing the curriculum don’t want people to know about it. If the millions of people killed by Stalin became common knowledge, would those supportive academics still have a job?
It is a mix of fear, a desire to get ahead and bureaucratic alienation. Fear, because if they don’t follow these orders they might be next on the chopping block. A desire to get ahead because if they are dutiful they might get noticed in a good way and advance (plus, rolling heads creates a lot of space for quick advancement – also, dictators tend to love flatterers). In between you have bureaucratic alienation where for so many people it is just paperwork. Lethal paperwork but it is just passing a message along and filing a report. By the time it gets to the person doing the execution, it doesn’t really matter. Their job is to shoot criminals, that is what they do. So they can’t really question it. But a bureaucrat’s job is to push papers on down the line, so why would they question it? That sort of situation leads to the creation of thousands of “little Eichmanns” people just doing their jobs not realizing the sort of horror they are perpetuating.
It isn’t confined to dictatorships either. We take part in the same sort of practice everyday. When you buy a pack of socks for $2 or a tomato in winter, do you think about the slaves that made them? Or do you just see a product that you buy without thinking (or maybe while thinking you are saving a few bucks). It is easy to have blood on your hands and not think about it or in many cases even realize it.
I think the insensitivity (blindness) is probably and mainly caused by “victim mentality” in many cases including Nazi, communists, Zionists, many cults, etc.
When someone identifies oneself as a victim and use this as basis for (re)constructing self-esteem, moral, thinking patterns, etc, s/he becomes trapped in and (all) others appear as potential enemy.
And if s/he senses suffering in others, s/he cannot be a victim of them (emotionally speaking)/ So, s/he tends to shut out the empathic channel and become very insensitive person toward suffering of others.
One conclusion drawn by some historians is that the communist premises did not permit any less violent, coercive means to implement the doctrine as a sustainable political reality.
Private initiative was completely abolished, but people still had to be brought to make an effort. Stalin found the only way to deal with this hellish contradiction.
Some of early Stalins contemporaries, notably Trotsky, were trying to conceive of more humane means of coercion, but Stalin realized that if people are not allowed a will, there is nothing that can bring them to action except fear and, and the lust of power of over fellow citizens.
The only good modern example that comes to mind is the Norwegian slaughter. There he was, this one guy killing everyone in his sight, no mercy. About a hundred of young, ambitious, strong adolescents hiding and watching this horrifying procedure. The only thing that comes to mind is to organize and defeat this terrible monster, but everyone is afraid, no one wants to be the first to sneak behind his back and knock him out with a log. Yes, they were disorganized, hiding in groups of three to five, hell, I probably wouldn’t be so “brave” in that situation either. But this is what instantly comes to mind, the right thing to do, to stop the murderer. Same thing with plane hijackings, a couple of guys with knifes take over a whole plane and fly it into a skyscraper. Again, the first thing that comes to mind is to organize against the villains and defeat them, and sometimes it works, flight 93 is a great example. Does it all depend unto someone who has the courage, who has the risk and will to die for a chance to survive?
When it comes too the high jackings the people on the first few planes probably just thought they were going to be hostages. As for the massacre in Norway, from what i’ve heard nobody there had any firearms though im not sure if that is correct or not.