Stalin's grandson sues newspaper over defamation

[Tiriol]

Meanwhile, in Russia, Stalin still raises quite a stir. As reported by BBC News.

Stalin's grandson sues newspaper

Joseph Stalin's grandson has launched a court action claiming a liberal Russian newspaper has defamed the former Soviet dictator.

Yevgeny Dzhugashvili says an article claiming Stalin personally ordered the deaths of Soviet citizens is a lie.

A Moscow court has agreed to hear the case against the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

The paper published a piece referring to declassified death warrants which it says bore Stalin's personal signature.

Mr Dzhugashvili - who was not at the court as the case was brought on Thursday - says that is a lie, and that Stalin was never directly ordered the deaths of anyone.

It is the latest bizarre twist in what many see as a Kremlin-backed campaign to rehabilitate Stalin's reputation, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Moscow.


Respected and feared

A small crowd of Stalin supporters gathered outside Moscow's Basmmani courthouse, where lawyers for Mr Dzhugashvili presented the case.

"Under Stalin our country was respected," said one elderly supporter.

"Now we are beggars. In those days we were respected and feared by others."

Such views are far from unusual in Russia, which is why this case is so important, says our correspondent.

Genry Reznik, for the defence, said: "If the court finds for plaintiff, it will be a massive bomb. We should put an end to these discussions about the murderous dictator - he should be condemned.

"We should have our own Nuremberg, and not only for Stalin - for his whole regime."

The Kremlin has professed no opinion about the case. But in other ways Russia's leadership has been quietly moving to rehabilitate the great dictator, adds our correspondent.

Last month a brass plaque praising Stalin suddenly reappeared in a Moscow metro station.

And last year a history textbook for Russian schoolchildren was published which referred to Stalin as an "effective manager" who led Russia to victory in World War II - not, as has been widely claimed, a brutal dictator responsible for sending millions to their deaths.

Last year in an online competition to find the greatest Russian ever, Stalin came third - even though he was not actually Russian, but Georgian.

Stalin was born Joseph Dzhugashvili in the Georgian town of Gori in 1878 or 1879. He adopted his nickname - which in Russian means "steel" - after joining the Bolsheviks.

Personally, despite aknowledging Stalin as a capable leader, I also have no difficulty in calling him a brutal and murderous dictator. I can understand why some Russian elements might have trouble with this, but this court case is just hilarious and morbid at the same time - especially if the newspaper is found guilty.

[SCRawl]

And last year a history textbook for Russian schoolchildren was published which referred to Stalin as an "effective manager" who led Russia to victory in World War II - not, as has been widely claimed, a brutal dictator responsible for sending millions to their deaths.

Um, wasn't he both?

[CJvR]

Heh, defamation of Stalin.
That must be a tough one, he is guilty of some of the worst crimes in human history.

As for being effective...
I for one do not think wasting millions of lives in Gulag and in sadistic social experiments is particulary effective. Particulary the Soviet scientific mechanized agriculture is a sad joke, before it Russa was a big food exporter but then Lenin and Stalin pulled a Mugabe and wrecked it and killed millions in the process.

[Anguirus]

Stalin also horribly bungled his foreign policy with regards to Hitler, simply refusing to believe a mountain of intel that had so much as supplied him with the hour in which the attack was to start.

He also gutted his own military in years before thanks to sheer paranoia.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I'm more surprised any of the grandsons even regard Stalin fondly, considering how Stalin treated his sons.

[Tanasinn]

"Under Stalin our country was respected," said one elderly supporter.

"Now we are beggars. In those days we were respected and feared by others."

You weren't respected, you were loathed. This is at least part of why the world happily shit all over Russia after the USSR's fall and no one cared to stop it. You don't build respect through brutality, you build a bunch of enemies that will immediately sweep in when you're weak to make your pain go from bad to excrutiating.

[ray245]

Heh, defamation of Stalin.
That must be a tough one, he is guilty of some of the worst crimes in human history.

As for being effective...
I for one do not think wasting millions of lives in Gulag and in sadistic social experiments is particulary effective. Particulary the Soviet scientific mechanized agriculture is a sad joke, before it Russa was a big food exporter but then Lenin and Stalin pulled a Mugabe and wrecked it and killed millions in the process.

Then again, Stalin did manage to industrialise his nation in time to be able to fend off Nazi Germany.

[K. A. Pital]

Yevgeny Dzhugashvili says an article claiming Stalin personally ordered the deaths of Soviet citizens is a lie.

He certainly did sign the documents ordering executions. As to if this can be considered "personally ordering" their deaths, I'm not a legal expert. This seems a bullshit case to me anyhow. I mean, what's the difference between ordering and signing a document ordering something? There is none for a legal purpose at least.

Particulary the Soviet scientific mechanized agriculture is a sad joke, before it Russa was a big food exporter but then Lenin and Stalin pulled a Mugabe and wrecked it and killed millions in the process.

The Stalinist approach to agriculture was certainly a colossal damage (I don't understand how can you blame Lenin though?). But being a net exporter of grain during a famine or drought is not particularly effective either (see 1873-74, 1891-92, 1911). Calorie availability downward spikes are clearly indicating that Russia the "big food exporter" was exporting at a tremendous health cost to it's own people. Shouldn't be all that surprising that the life expenctancy in Stalin's Russia, despite the millions of excess deaths, was rising to 50 years when the average life expectancy in the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire was around 30 years.

Stalin also horribly bungled his foreign policy with regards to Hitler

The same could be spoken of Pilsudski, Chamberlain and Daladier. Or, in other words, just about every European leader.

...simply refusing to believe a mountain of intel that had so much as supplied him with the hour in which the attack was to start

A mountain of intelligence - which contained 90% disinformation, false attack dates and false claims of Japan attacking Russia - and 10% true facts? Because that was the situation (as it is with most intelligence anyways, and the Soviet intelligence wasn't exactly top of the line during early WWII). Stalin can be blamed for colluding with Hitler in the first place, but hardly for taking no measures to defend the nation. The prevailing opinion among the entire Soviet generalitee was that Hitler would not dare to start a bold sudden attack against Russia, Stalin was but one of the supporters of this idea. The sudden German attack on Poland disturbed the generals and Stalin alike, but they reasoned that a similar attack could not be applied to Russia for the difference of scale. They were wrong of course.

He also gutted his own military in years before thanks to sheer paranoia.

The repression could not have avoided the military anyhow. The military was more damaged by the rapid expansion which had so many enlisted newbie officers than by the fact of repression itself. The repression effectively destroyed the older generalitee that had World War I experience, but on the other hand spared and promoted quite a few commanders who were accustomed to more modern, 1930s conflicts (e.g. Zhukov). Which World War I generals and their experiences were decisive in World War II? I'd love to hear a few names.

I'm more surprised any of the grandsons even regard Stalin fondly, considering how Stalin treated his sons.

Stalin didn't give a crap about relatives, that's for sure. The opposite however is not true. The relatives of Stalin did care for their blood ties, either by denouncing or accepting Stalin and his legacy, and in rather extreme forms.

You don't build respect through brutality

That is just wrong. Raining bombs and powerful weapons on other nations builds fear, and is the modus operandi of all great powers regardless of whether you like it or not. Fear is the ground of all international respect among larger powers. The smaller powers are "respected" only insofar as it fits the greater powers to "respect" them. If the greater powers wish, they may at whim invade, occupy, destroy, break the territorial integrity of smaller nations and suffer no penalties for such behaviour. This has been proven time and again by the actions of USA, France, British Empire, USSR, Russia and many other great powers which hardly gave a crap about small nations at all. As for the respect of smaller powers, no one ever gave a damn about that. The smaller powers flock to the one that feeds them, a larger entity that financially supports and often takes over their monetary system, without any ability for independent foreign policy deviating from the will of the larger body that they are a satellite of. There are weaker and stronger forms of satellite state control, from direct, outspoken colonialism to covert control through extreme financial leverage or political party bribing, but they share a similar nature in the goals of such leverage anyway.

This is a hefty dose of cynism, I agree, but I have never seen anything that would indicate the contrary in human history. I'd agree with Thanas. Being effective and ruthless are never exclusive things. Stalin was one and the same.

[Vympel]

Which World War I generals and their experiences were decisive in World War II? I'd love to hear a few names.

Well, Marshal Tukhachevsky springs immediately to mind as a reformer and innovator who the Red Army could've used in 1940 and 1941.

[K. A. Pital]

Well, Marshal Tukhachevsky springs immediately to mind as a reformer and innovator who the Red Army could've used in 1940 and 1941.

The potential of Tukhachevsky's ideas certainly existed. Other than that it's hard to say how he would perform in actual combat as a general. His ideas were not a direct copy of the German concept of fast offensive warfare (or blitzkrieg, damn be the fanboys who overused the word without understanding it's meaning), but something else instead. Some of them were sound, others just borderline crazy from both a political and military industrial point of view (holding 100 thousand tanks at bay with complete neglect of support equipment or massively using chemical weapons without warning from day one of any war).

Not to mention the fact that Tukhachevsky's ideas were accumulated in the Soviet HQ despite their originator perishing in the repression. In an ironic twist of fate, Stalin later in the war games and mobilization councils used Tukhachevsky's criticue of Voroshilov to basically promote the very same ideas in the HQ (fast tank operations, enormous numbers of tanks at bay), minus the mass use of chemical weapons of course.

Though I agree that the repression of particulary talented theoreticians like Tukhachevsky and Svechin as individuals was certainly a great and extremely damaging loss of high command staff. Can't say the same of others, but those two did have groundbreaking ideas. The high command was the most suffering element of all in the repression undeniably.

[Simon_Jester]

Could you expand slightly on what you mean by "at bay"? Do you mean something comparable to "in reserve?"

[K. A. Pital]

Could you expand slightly on what you mean by "at bay"?

He was confident that an industrialized power could produce 100 000 tanks and keep them in combat ready condition during a one full year of modern war, and pushed for such plans of production to be accepted by the command. He put these ideas forward in a RKKA reogranization report in 1931 which was initially rejected by Stalin and Voroshilov (but just a little later accepted by the same).

His other ideas which were mostly harmful than useful were, for example, the planning of mass training of around 2,000,000 paratroopers without the material-technical base to even use them. Most of them were of course put in reserve, thereby signifying the failure of Tukhachevsky's ideas of such enormously massive deployment of paratroopers. Tukhachevsky was also the proponent of producing a large number of light tanks (as opposed to heavy tanks, in the production of which the RKKA was not that adept until the very late pre-war years, when the KV and T-34 programs bore fruit). These light tanks often were obsolete due to mass production of them in the mid-1930s and were inadequate for the 1940s fights, but they were still counted in the mobilizational capacity of the forces, and industrial plans. This led to considerable stolling of the 1940s rearmament with new tank types, and made the Red Army's tank park a mishmasch of very different machines. Tukhachevsky also absolutely avoided the question of automotive and other support means for his deep tank operations (which made his ideas dangerously lacking vs. the tactics of the Germans of the same era, but being confusingly close). This led to a lopsided tank-to-artillery and tank-to-support ratio in mechanized units, which performed poorly compared to German counterparts despite having superior tanks.

[CJvR]

Then again, Stalin did manage to industrialise his nation in time to be able to fend off Nazi Germany.

You say that as if couldn't possibly have happened without the psycotic genocidal maniacs in communist party.
You dont think having the horrendous tripple civil war, several rounds of mass famine, being an international pariah and placing political incompetents to run industry and agriculture; not to mention butchering the educated elite; had any impact on Russia?
Personally I think Russia would have been far better of in terms of industrial preparedness in 1941 without the second revolution and the commies. If WWII even get started without the reds that is...

[CJvR]

The Stalinist approach to agriculture was certainly a colossal damage (I don't understand how can you blame Lenin though?).

Well he started it. The popular resistance was to hard and the entire country was heading for the abyss. That was a big reason for Lenin, reluctantly, going with the NEP. Stalin just carried on where Lenin was forced to back down once the communists had the power to wage a second round of war on the people, this time the commies "won".

[Samuel]

Then again, Stalin did manage to industrialise his nation in time to be able to fend off Nazi Germany.

You say that as if couldn't possibly have happened without the psycotic genocidal maniacs in communist party.
You dont think having the horrendous tripple civil war, several rounds of mass famine, being an international pariah and placing political incompetents to run industry and agriculture; not to mention butchering the educated elite; had any impact on Russia?
Personally I think Russia would have been far better of in terms of industrial preparedness in 1941 without the second revolution and the commies. If WWII even get started without the reds that is...

Well, if world war one didn't happen... and if wishes were horses beggers would ride. Honestly, if you could go back in time that would be the thing to stop, but I don't see how you could do so.

[TC Pilot]

Personally I think Russia would have been far better of in terms of industrial preparedness in 1941 without the second revolution and the commies. If WWII even get started without the reds that is...

Maybe, though we've seen in Germany how well an unstable parliamentary system in a society with little to no experience with democratic principles and damaged by war works out in the interbellum era. And Russia had a far worse time of things than Germany.

Regardless, under Stalin's leadership the Soviet Union did industrialize with practically no external support and did succesfully defeat the Nazis.

As for this case, it seems rather frivolous, and barring some blatant revisionism or state intervention, I don't see how this'll go well for Stalin's grandson. I had heard, though, that Stalin's image has undergone a certain rehabilitation in Russia recently, but I don't know how accurate that is, or if it'll have any impact on this case.

[ray245]

Then again, Stalin did manage to industrialise his nation in time to be able to fend off Nazi Germany.

You say that as if couldn't possibly have happened without the psycotic genocidal maniacs in communist party.
You dont think having the horrendous tripple civil war, several rounds of mass famine, being an international pariah and placing political incompetents to run industry and agriculture; not to mention butchering the educated elite; had any impact on Russia?
Personally I think Russia would have been far better of in terms of industrial preparedness in 1941 without the second revolution and the commies. If WWII even get started without the reds that is...

Yeah, the only way you can even defend yourself is by creating some sort of alternate history scenario which might not even be realistic.

Please justify your views that Russia would be in a better position without Stalin.

[K. A. Pital]

You dont think having the horrendous tripple civil war, several rounds of mass famine, being an international pariah and placing political incompetents to run industry and agriculture; not to mention butchering the educated elite; had any impact on Russia?

Triple civil war? There was only one civil war as it was. As for "being an international pariah", I doubt this can be applied to the USSR in the 1930s. America heavily invested in the USSR and it's industrialization, and the USA was the first and foremost industrial power on Earth. As for "placing political incompetents to run industry and agriculture" - at least there was an industry to lead. Pre-revolutionary Russia was barely industrialized when compared to the industrial nations.

Stalin just carried on where Lenin was forced to back down once the communists had the power to wage a second round of war on the people, this time the commies "won".

Stalin's policies considerably differed from both Lenin's NEP and War Communism. The "Great Breakdown" was not a continuation of War Communism no matter how you put it. The Great Breakdown was a complete nationwide industrialization policy coupled with collectivization. Stalin's collectivization was nothing remotely similar to the policies installed by Lenin. Collectivized agriculture in the form that it took (the 1930's kolhoz) was the idea built by the Stalin government in entirety. The agricultural policies of Lenin's War Communism were not collectivization but instead a monopsony (one buyer) from private farms, a policy which was already installed by the Provisional government (the Bolsheviks merely continued it). Lenin did not collectivize agriculture at all, and only 6,2% of lands were collectivized by 1929.

not to mention butchering the educated elite;

Which "educated elite"? Tsarist Russia produced around a few thousand engineers per year. The 1930s USSR produced hundreds of thousands of engineers per year and had universal general education. I think there can be no question at all which nation was the more educated.

Personally I think Russia would have been far better of in terms of industrial preparedness in 1941 without the second revolution and the commies. If WWII even get started without the reds that is...

Well, then it's up to you to prove this alternative historical scenario. Not to mention the fact that the critical causes of World War II in either the East or the West would not be removed regardless of who won the Civil War, and the fact that the Entente's reluctance to start a war would still be enormous. A large war in Europe could still erupt regardless. It could actually be started by, for example, the dispute over Poland. If the Russian Empire never collapsed, there would not exist any independent Polish state in any form, as it would be with many other national states that were former parts of the Russian Empire. Those nations would still linger for independence and may very well collide with a re-arming Germany.

I don't understand how that scenario is even remotely relevant to the thread, anyway.

[Samuel]

Which "educated elite"? Tsarist Russia produced around a few thousand engineers per year. The 1930s USSR produced hundreds of thousands of engineers per year and had universal general education. I think there can be no question at all which nation was the more educated.

Well, the scientists who weren't Lamarkian comes to mind. How many fields of science did the Soviet communist party take the wrong track and purge those who didn't agree with official doctrine?

[K. A. Pital]

Well, the scientists who weren't Lamarkian comes to mind. How many fields of science did the Soviet communist party take the wrong track and purge those who didn't agree with official doctrine?

Oh, quite a lot. In the Stalin times a political victory of a scientific school automatically meant physical destruction of it's opponents (a-la "100 flowers"). Most notable damage done to science was Lysenkoism of course.

What I was talking about, is that it's not fair to speak of having an educated elite in the first place which the "commies" purged. It was the USSR (i.e. the commies) which educated enormous numbers of scientists, purging some of them in the Stalin era.

Tsarist Russia did not purge scientists and engineers, but it's education level was pathetically low compared to the Soviet one, so you can speak about the USSR dealing damage to itself by purging some of it's scientists, but clearly not of destroying some sort of nonexistent "educated elite". Frankly, the share of educated people purged in the USSR was more or less in the same proportion to the general share of educated people in the population. The purges were a tragedy and a great evil, but they were not specifically targeted at intellectuals more than at the general peon. They were all-encompassing. The elite gets prominent cases due to being, well, prominent...

[Thanas]

...simply refusing to believe a mountain of intel that had so much as supplied him with the hour in which the attack was to start

A mountain of intelligence - which contained 90% disinformation, false attack dates and false claims of Japan attacking Russia - and 10% true facts? Because that was the situation (as it is with most intelligence anyways, and the Soviet intelligence wasn't exactly top of the line during early WWII). Stalin can be blamed for colluding with Hitler in the first place, but hardly for taking no measures to defend the nation. The prevailing opinion among the entire Soviet generalitee was that Hitler would not dare to start a bold sudden attack against Russia, Stalin was but one of the supporters of this idea. The sudden German attack on Poland disturbed the generals and Stalin alike, but they reasoned that a similar attack could not be applied to Russia for the difference of scale. They were wrong of course.

Actually, Stas, I do not know if you have heard about this but according to a recent article, the Soviets had a top men in the Gestapo, who did reveal the entire plan, even the attack date. And he had been a trusted agent before. Stalin, however, refused to believe this as well, despite it coming from the Gestapo/SS themselves.

[CJvR]

Please justify your views that Russia would be in a better position without Stalin.

Well if we limit ourselves to Stalin, excluding the disasters of Lenins reign, Russia could have done without the famine, the great terror, the wasteful Gulag system, disasterous agricultural policy, even more disasterous foreign policy, purging of the military on the eve of war and getting caught with his pants down by his good friend Adolf.

Sure Russia was industrialized at a horrible cost but then that process was well underway before the red coup.

[CJvR]

Stalin's policies considerably differed from both Lenin's NEP and War Communism.

Yes but the basic thought behind it was the same. Lenin didn't go NEP willingly under him the reds simply wasn't strong enough to break the people - under Stalin they were.

[K. A. Pital]

Actually, Stas, I do not know if you have heard about this but according to a recent article, the Soviets had a top men in the Gestapo, who did reveal the entire plan, even the attack date. And he had been a trusted agent before. Stalin, however, refused to believe this as well, despite it coming from the Gestapo/SS themselves.

The problem was that the USSR had more trusted agents than actual reliable information. Ramzan (Sorge) and many others reported various dates prior to actually reporting the correct attack date. Stalin had reports laid from not just one agent but several, and most of them repeatedly reported wrong dates (march, april) that by June, he lost all trust in them alltogether. He even wrote to the chief of intel, IIRC, just after getting the reports claiming the attack would be "in summer" - "I'm tired of that bullshit source" or something like that. It seems he and the intel chief truly believed in massive disinformation, despite both of them being fairly sure Germany would attack sooner or later...

Moreover, the date could have not been revealed prior to 10th June which was the date the Germans actually decided on the 22 June date... that's the problem. Germany finished up-mobilizing it's forces in less than 1,5 weeks after finally slating the Barbarossa for a 22 June date.

Well if we limit ourselves to Stalin, excluding the disasters of Lenins reign, Russia could have done without the famine, the great terror, the wasteful Gulag system, disasterous agricultural policy, even more disasterous foreign policy, purging of the military on the eve of war and getting caught with his pants down by his good friend Adolf.

Adolf caught everyone "pants down". I'm not sure Stalin was particulary different from the rest of European leaders here. A desire to avoid the war is instrumentally a path to defeat when we're talking about negotiating with Hitler. I'm sure that the USSR could've done entirely without Stalin's collectivization policy and the Great Terror, but neither of the two events actually had a significant impact on the Soviet industrialization in it's heavy sector par se. Collectivization was an unmitigated disaster for light industry, other than that, what else?

Sure Russia was industrialized at a horrible cost but then that process was well underway before the red coup.

Are you sure of that? I mean, what process was "underway"?

Even if Tsarist Russia continued industrializing with 1913 tempoes, that rate would be far from sufficient to reach the level of industrialization the USSR had in the 1940s-1950s. These Imperial industrialization tempoes, meaning the 1870-1913 tempoes, clearly mirror (almost exactly in both absolute and relative scale) Latin America much more so than any other state or region. That is not even remotely similar to the industrial superpower that USSR was made into.

Yes but the basic thought behind it was the same. Lenin didn't go NEP willingly under him the reds simply wasn't strong enough to break the people - under Stalin they were.

How was it "the same"? Stalin basically took the land back from the peasants. How can that be "the same"? He collectivized the land into the hands of kolkhoz administrators, Lenin did not collectivize the Russian lands, never included it in his program and did not attempt collectivization even under War Communism. Do you understand why collectivization dealt so much damage, and what was the essence of this policy?

[TC Pilot]

I think he's claiming that it was Lenin's intent to collectivize, but that he didn't get the oppurtunity and Stalin was the one to actually make it happen.