Originally posted by DrVonCool
The 'talented' Mr. Beevor -- in order that he NOT seem oustide mainstream opinion -- goes to great lengths to prove his Western bias. It seems that every two pages there is at least one sentence reiterating the clichés of:
"how megalomaniacal Stalin was....
I'm sorry, but are you implying that Stalin was
not megalomaniacal? I for one don't find it crazy to say that Stalin was worse than Hitler in this department. I'm more than ok with people making heroes of those brave Russians (and other Soviets) who died ridding the world of fascism. Defending Uncle Joe, however, goes a bit too far. There are some statistics that show Stalin killing more Soviets than Hitler did...
Either way, the Soviet/Russian tragedy is (arguably) the greatest of the 20th century. The US population multiplied 2.5 times over during the 20th century. The Soviet population actually declined. That many died from WWI, Civil War, Stalin, & WWII.
Originally posted by DrVonCool
"how the average Russian soldier is just a cog in the Great Communist bureaucracy"...
"how barbaric the Soviets were in Berlin, raping and pillaging their way to victory"....
....and the MOST important cliché, of course....
"how inherently EVIL the Communists are at all levels."
Contrast all this with these equally worn clichés about :
"the BRAVE German soldier"....
"the clearly superior (in intelligence, of course) German generals who, as luck would have it, would have fared much better against the Soviets if it weren't for a handful of maniacal Nazi leaders (Hitler, etc.)...."
Now I'm not one to criticize anyone for their political beliefs, but this kind of writing -- and I'm not singling out Mr. Beevor, either, as its reads and smells like most popularized historical accounts of the period -- reads just like the fabled political propaganda manuals the West accuses the Soviets of handing out to their unsuspecting populace.
Now, really, what is the point of all that mish-mash, and why do so many fear reality: that the Soviets did more to smash the most malevolent political and military force in the history of the world than any other ally during the war. Why should we be envious or have trouble admitting it?
Who cares as long as the Nazis and the Germans who avidly supported them -- the absolute WORST of the human race -- were soundly defeated?
Why should the evils of Nazism drown out the evils of Stalinism? The Soviets
did rape their way through Germany. They
did unleash a good deal of what the average person would label as "evil" on that part of Europe that was East of the Iron Curtain.
While I do agree that the sheer number of descriptions of the bravery of German soldiers and the lack of descriptions of brave Soviet troops is disturbing, this does not mean that I can ever label the Soviet Union as the "good guys". Stalin was not a "good guy". I'm frankly not surprised that the West doesn't like talking about our alliance with a paranoid murderous dictator who may indeed have more blood on his hands than anyone else in the history of our species. That this causes us to also have amnesia with regards to the Soviet soldier is regrettable but understandable.
A similar problem, IMHO, exists with regards to Soviet atrocities against the Germans. The Eastern front (Evil Dictator vs. Evil Dictator) is just an uncomfortable topic for those who want an easily digestable version of history.
