Stalin statue removed in Georgian town of Gori

[demoleft]

Source: bbc

Authorities in Georgia have taken down a statue of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that stood in the central square of Gori, his home town.

The six metre (20ft) bronze statue was removed unexpectedly in the middle of the night, reports said.

The statue will be moved to a museum in Gori dedicated to Stalin, said the head of the city council, Zviad Khmaladze.
...
A journalist told Reuters news agency that police had tried to prevent reporters from filming the removal of the statue.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/10412097.stm

---

"police had tried to prevent reporters from filming the removal of the statue" - statues change but some habits don't.
anyway - high time. at last.

[proteus_lives]

1. I wonder....

How differently the world would have turned-out if Stalin hadn't been able to take power.

[demoleft]

2. it was a world of leaders who gave an imprint to history...

...be it for good or bad. more than today.
so the world would have turned out to be quite quite different from what it is, hadn't they been in power.

more than today, where i see leaders can be sometimes interchangeable, all in all - not world first rate figures, able to make a difference.

that's why i saw and still see obama as a great hope.
and i hope not to be wrong.

[Diclotican]

3. proteus_lives

proteus_lives

I don't know, what the world have been, if Stalin was not into power after Lenin died.. Maybe one of the others who was far better suited to the task of modernize Russia after the old regime had F*** it up for the last time would maybe have been doing it on a whole another level. But Im afraid that even the best of the revoluiaries was ruthless and would have making a mess of it all... Stalin was maybe the most ruthless, and was capable of doing everything to get what he wanted, and after he got what he wanted, he turned on his own, and killed or exiled everyone who could be a reseemble of capable of beeing in his way.. And it is good knowlegde that Lenin before he god sick for the last time warned his friends and others in the party that Stalin was a danger, and should not be given any powerbase.. As it was Stalin had allready his powerbase, and was building his powerbase on it, and in the end, was not as easy to push out as most peopole belived him to be.. In the end it was him who was the sole "hair" to the party, and who claimed also to be the sucessor of Vladimir Lenin.. Who he used as a propagnda tool for the most of his life...

Stalin vas a brutal man, who was not over killing even close friends if he belived them to be ploting against him.. And the great purge of the 1930s was mostly becose he was afraid, that others, who was smarter and far more educated than himself, should manage to get him de-trhoned and maybe even make him resposinble for some of his actions in the 1920s.. And many of the brightest, smartest, vice peopole who could have saved Russia in the 1940s when Hitler was rampanging and plyndring most of the european parts of russia, ws killed becouse stalin belived them to be an danger.. Most officers, over the rank of leutnant was either arrested and put in gulag, or killed by 1941.. And many who survived the start of the war, was more afriad of what Stalin and NKVD could do to them, than to what the germans should to do them if they got their hand on them.. And it destroyed a lot of the will to fight, and to make preparations who Stalin had not desided was ok.. The scare of NKVD and Stalin paralysed most of the general Stab far more than the overwelming force of the german Whermact... And it was by luck and the will of the people and off course the help from US and other nations who was fighting alongside Russia, that the war was won.. But more than 20 million russians, should die before Russia could selebrate their victory at thr Red Square in Moscow.. Many of them should die of hunger, of cold in the winter, and becouse of the horrible acts of war.. Leningrad (st petersburg) and Stalingrad (im not sure what the name is today) is just two of the citys who are most known, but many russians town, experienced the war firsthand Rostov exemple was taken, and then retaken 4 times in as little time frame as 4 weeks... Not mutch was there again of the old Rostov then.. And that is more or less the story of most russian city's in the european parts of russia between 1941-45...

But if we was to take out Stalin, and make him not as powerfull as he was.. We also had to take out another man, Hitler, who was as bad as Stalin, and who had the idea that it was ok to kill russians, becouse the germans needed the space.... That is an important point to make.. Stalin and Hitler was two, who posible would not exist withouth the other.. Hitler rise to power, becouse many was afraid of Stalin... Stalin raise to the power, becouse many russians was afraid of what germany should to to russia, in the early 1920s, when "freecorps" was active attacing red forces in Poland and suporting the tsar regimes armies who got a lot of suport from Germany before the sivil war was over in Russia...


Diclotican

[UpInArms]

6. thank you for your insight

DU is lucky to have you as a member.

[Diclotican]

9. UpInArms

UpInArms

Thanks Upinarms;). History have been one of my "big subjects" since I started to read.. Even tho I know I don't everything Im in the prosess of doing so I belive:P Just kidding.. But it is also good to could use thee stuff for time to time too..

Diclotican

[AlphaCentauri]

22. Freedom has a price

otherwise instead of Stalin statue they would be removing Hitler's

[Hardrada]

34. Not necessarily. The place would be full of Germans.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Hitler would have won World War II

The Red Army played a key role in defeating Nazi Germany.

[daylan b]

8. Agreed.

The things that made him so evil were also largely responsible for the huge role he played in helping the allies win the war.

[Diclotican]

10. IndianaGreen

IndianaGreen

True, the red army had at least one of the big roles in defeating the nazist, and when you think about the cost for the russians, that be sivilians or in arms... good know what had become, if the nazist had been little fanatical about the slaves, and their place in history.. If they had played their game little different, ten of thousands of russians, would have been fighting the red army and Stalin, not the opposite.. And many who maybe had a little more pragmatic wiew of the "race war" between germans and the slaves in the east, pointed this out many times between 1941 and 1945 that if they had cared a little more for the wel beeing of the russians, the russians would be little more friendly about it all.. In Ukraine the germans was shown as liberators from the dictatorship of Stalin... And in other parts of russia where Stalin had treated the locas really bad, you discovred the same story all over again.. The locals wanted to se germans as their liberators - and then the germans screw it all open, becouse they belived they to be less than human.. And in the end made more enemies than they managed to keep an check on...

But, when it come to the end of the war im an not that sure if the germans had managed to win the war. Between 1939 and mid 1941, as the red army was seening to breake ranks and crack, it might had von the war.. But after Hitler got into a shooting match with Stalin - and the US was into the fray with a total industry, not harmed by war, germany was toast.. If germany had made Britanin plea for a peace deal of sorts, and a more friendly regime had taken place in UK, then might Germany could have used all his forces to get to the East. As it was Germany had to divide her forces between East and West, and was also bugged down in a war where the Blitz krieg was not a optinon.. The failure to give the germans decent winter uniforms, and the equipment nessesary protection also did their share..

I am sure that after mid 1942 the war would have been lost for germany either that be the red army was alive or not.. But of course, if nazi germany had managed to crush the red army, and get a large area in the east (european russia) to conroll, the war would not end before long after it did.. With most of the industry in the east, the german could posible make the war a far longer than it managed to do.. And maybe even got into a stalemate with US/UK over the war..

Wel everything is posible I guess if we got the parameters different.. But thankfully the war ended as it id, even tho the cold war was a 45 year old waste of time and ressourses.. And we would pay the prize for that for many decadeds to came yet

Diclotican

[proteus_lives]

11. I don't know about that.

Stalin's fuck-ups are the reason the USSR almost lost the war in the first year of the invasion.

[Diclotican]

25. proteus_lives

proteus_lives

True, the Stalins Fuck ups, was great and harmfull to the USSR at all.. And it started long before the war, when he killed all the best officers, and denied the modernizering of the armed forces. Becouse he belived, as many other top leaders in russia that they could do everything. With just the will

And it took 20 million dead russians to stalin to understand what it was about, and that an professional army was very important for the future.. Stalin did a lot of horrible thing before he got the message. But in the end he learned a lesson.. And he never did what he did before the war..

Diclotican

[tabasco]

12. Hahahahahahahahaha!

Stalin is the reason the Germans almost conquered Russia.

[David__77]

16. Yeah, cause France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands...

...Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, Romania, Albania, and Yugoslavia were SOOOO competent in stopping the German Army. Yes, that was sarcasm. Historical revisionism knows no bounds. The Red Army, under the command of Stalin, defeated the Germans.

[Diclotican]

27. David__77

David__77

If you know your history you would know that all the country you is telling, and you see Germany, you might know that when the rest of the world was building down the military, the great depression was destroying more or less all the economy and wel, in Norway at least, the military got the less hand.. When Gernamy then got the army, the airforce and (more or less) the navy of a first rate nation, they more or less squeesed the rest of the world, The german Army was maybe the most advanced army in the world in 1939, and compared to the rest of the world, the germans had a really advanced army.. Communication and control was far better than in the rest of the world.. France, UK and most of the other country, had not the same tecnic as was common in germany in the late 1930s..

But in the end the allied forces learned what the germans had know for a long time.. And it was not before they got the upper hand, that they won the war...

Diclotican

[David__77]

29. Yes, I know "my history."

I know that the Soviets were hurriedly building their military preparing for the inevitable attack from the west. I know that the treaty with the Germans was a stalling tactic so they'd have more time to prepare. I know that Chamberlain hoped the Germans would strangle the Soviets on their behalf and was willing to sacrifice Czechoslovakia for it.

[proteus_lives]

32. Really?

"I know that the treaty with the Germans was a stalling tactic so they'd have more time to prepare."

No, the treaty was so they could rape Poland, Finland and the Baltic states.

[Diclotican]

35. David__77

David__77

The funny thing about the story you first are telling, is that is a, ehem a lie, comming from Hitler as an excuse to attack the USSR in 1941. If the USSR had been preparing for the attac from the west why had Stalin more or less killed or exiled or put in gulas all the smartest officers he had?. Or if he dosent had arrested them and put them to gulag in the north of Russia, or Sibiria he had killed them outright en mass.. Ten of thousands of good officerse, many with great eaducation from the old regime.. One of the best theoriticans when it came to modern warfare was killed, becouse one of Stalins Cronies, was jealus about his popularity, and was telling Stalin that the fellow wanted to get the office of Stalin for himself.. If Stalin was indeed preparing for the war with germany, he did a horrible job, when he killede most of them who would have managed to keep the germans out of russia... This is a type of historic rubbis that have survived both Stalin and Hitler for so many years.. But is not more true than it was, when Hitler told the world that he wanted to attack USSR, becouse that Stalin was planing to attack Nazi Germany... The evidences against that claim is overwelming, as the germans allmoust got to Moschow, and Leningrad and Stalingrad allmoust was qounquered by the germans...

The Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty of 1939, was a treaty more about Poland, than a great friendship between Stalin and Hitler. Hitler wanted Poland dead, and Stalin wanted parts of Polan for himself - and he also wanted the baltic states who had been lost since 1918 when they liberated themself, and trow out their russian overlords.. And Hitler, who was a screw politican (compared to many others) was just so happy to sell out the baltics, to get a more secure hold on their parts of Poland when the war started... And it was a treaty that would shock the rest of the world, or more to the point, shock the rest of Europe.. Hitler have not excactly been friendly with the russians, and now they was "friends"?...

Chamberlain had paid all prices nessesary to keep United Kindom out of the war..Czechoslovakia was just one country.. if Hitler had wanted, he could have been given most of central europe by CHamberlain.. And Czechoslovakia was also one of the few DEMOCRATIC country in central europe, and have been that since they got the independence from the rest of the Austrian Empire after word war one.. But Chamberlain was willing to sell that country out, to make "peace" with a man who wanted a war more than anymore.. And who in the days before world war two started was afraid if Chamberlain desided to do a Czechoslovakia again, and convince Poland to give up Danzig to the germans..

Diclotican

[proteus_lives]

31. "The Red Army, under the command of Stalin, defeated the Germans.

The Red Army defeated the Germans despite Stalin.

[demoleft]

21. not exactly. the eastern front was tragic (luckily) to hitler. n/t

[Posteritatis]

13. Stalin helped the Germans nearly beat the Soviets

The Red Army purge was not a minor matter, to put it lightly.

[citizen snips]

38. you do realize that Stalin and Hitler had an alliance together.

http://www.rferl.org/content/MolotovRibbentrop_In_Eastern_Europe_Pacts_Bitter_Legacy_Remains/1804556.html

[IndianaGreen]

39. You do realize that Stalin tried to make a pact with West prior to the Munich pact

After the West agreed to the Munich accord, Stalin had little choice but to make a deal to keep USSR out of any war on the Western front.

[citizen snips]

40. Really which pact was that?

The blame of the Munich agreement was all Neville Chamberlain's fault. BTW please up look the Katyn massacre and stop being a Stalin apologist.

[Odin2005]

41. That doesn't make Stalin any less an evil psychopathic monster

[Taverner]

18. Two possibilities

The Soviet Union could have fell to the White Russians, who at the time were trying to counter the revolution

Or, Trotsky takes over - and who knows if his plan for a "World Socialist Revolution" would have transpired

[Old Troop]

23. Well for one thing, he probably would have been the one to get an

ice pick in the head in Mexico City.

[SunnySong]

4. 1992 called they want their headline back.

I am honestly surprised they still had Stalin statues up. (and yes I know he was a Georgian homeboy)

[Ter]

15. Try 1962

No leader after Stalin had kind words to say about him.

[SunnySong]

19. I stand corrected. nt

[G_j]

7. In Joseph Stalin's birthplace, tyrant is finally toppled

Source: guardian.co.uk

In Joseph Stalin's birthplace, tyrant is finally toppled

Pro-western Georgian government tears down Gori statue of dictator and plans to replace it with monument to victims of war with Russia

guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 June 2010 13.19 BST

For over half a century a forbidding statue of Joseph Stalin loomed over Gori, the Georgian town where the Soviet Union's most notorious tyrant was born. Nearby is the modest one-storey hut where the young Stalin grew up. There is also a museum, complete with Stalin's personal railway carriage, portraits and letters.

But in a secret operation early today Georgia's pro-western government ripped the monument down. The six-metre high bronze statue of Stalin kitted out in a full-length general's overcoat is to be moved into the museum courtyard.

In its place president Mikheil Saakashvili plans to erect a monument to the victims of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war.

The operation is likely to offend many Georgians, especially older ones, for whom Stalin remains a source of pride – despite the gulags, purges and other crimes.

..more..

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/25/georgia-gori-topples-joseph-stalin-statue

[gratuitous]

14. So, one day, we may get to call it National Airport again?

Hope we don't have to wait nearly 60 years, though.

[David__77]

17. I'll bet the people would have voted to keep it.

There's a reason it was still standing, and it wasn't cause the government liked it.

[CJvR]

20. A bit late perhaps...

It is only what, half a century ago that the murderous regime under Stalin was exposed.

[davidinalameda]

24. am I reading the posts in this thread correctly

people are defending Stalin?

[demoleft]

26. no. just marking historical facts. understanding is not justifying, old dr. freud lesson. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

28. Putin calls for balanced assessment of Stalin

There is a push for a more balanced view of historical events, particularly in Russia. Here is one example:

Putin calls for balanced assessment of Stalin

* Putin lauds Stalin's industrialisation projects

* Praises his role in defeating Nazism

* Says achievements came at unacceptably high price

(Adds Putin's quotes, details, background)

By Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin weighed into a fierce national debate on the legacy of Soviet leader Josef Stalin on Thursday, calling for a balanced assessment and saying he was not all good or bad.

Russians historically yearn for strong rulers and many still feel deep sympathy for the Georgian-born iron-fisted leader. They like Stalin for turning an illiterate peasant nation into an industrialised nuclear superpower and for crushing Nazism.

The Communists, Russia's largest opposition party, plan lavish celebrations of Stalin's 130th birthday later this month and his grandson recently sued a newspaper for accusing Stalin of ordering mass murders.

"If you say you are positive (about Stalin's rule), some will be discontented. If you say you are negative, others will grumble," Putin said during an annual marathon question-and- answer session with the Russian people.

"It is impossible to make a general judgment. It is evident that, from 1924 to 1953, the country that Stalin ruled changed from an agrarian to an industrial society."

Echoing millions of Russians, Putin praised Stalin's leading role in winning World War Two.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSGEE5B21J6

[proteus_lives]

33. Putin: So forget the fact he killed millions of Russians!

:eyes:

[IndianaGreen]

36. Putin is killing Chechnyans by the tens of thousands

while we are killing even more people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[proteus_lives]

37. Still amateur hour compared to Uncle Joe.

His use of famine as a genocidal weapon alone separates him into a different rank.

[onager]

30. The Hungarian Solution was pretty cool.

After Communism fell in 1989, some of the humongous Commie statues in Budapest were hauled outside the city and displayed in a public park, called Memento Park. I visited it in the summer of 2008.

Hungarians joke that the park was created in case the Russians ever come back and need the statues again.

An artist re-created Stalin's boots, to commemorate the 1956 Hungarian Revolution when the citizens toppled a massive statue of Uncle Joe. The photo doesn't give much sense of scale, but them boots are HUGE:



More info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_Park

Travel Tip #2: when in Prague, don't miss the Museum of Communism. Located beside a gambling casino and above a McDonald's. Just in case you wondered how that whole "historical inevitability" thing worked out.

[Odin2005]

42. Ha! Even his fellow Georgians hate the fucker!

[raccoon]

43. It's about time! The creep died in 1953. nt