US college professor claims "Stalin did not kill millions of people"

[squealpiggy]

Watched the video, he's right in that the US has the lowest standard of living in the developed world, he's also right that there is some sort of universal healthcare program in every single other developed country and that this is a factor in standard of living.

It's frankly an amazing claim that he's made that he's yet to discover "one crime" committed by Stalin. I suppose Trotsky slipped and fell on that ice axe.

But he's still talking outside of his area of expertise and making an off the cuff comment to a frankly idiotic question in a loaded debate setting put on by a bunch of libertarians of all people.

[BetterCallSaul]

I guess starving half of Ukraine to death doesn't count as killing people.

[Drunken Cat]

Watched the video, he's right in that the US has the lowest standard of living in the developed world, he's also right that there is some sort of universal healthcare program in every single other developed country and that this is a factor in standard of living.

It's frankly an amazing claim that he's made that he's yet to discover "one crime" committed by Stalin. I suppose Trotsky slipped and fell on that ice axe.

But he's still talking outside of his area of expertise and making an off the cuff comment to a frankly idiotic question in a loaded debate setting put on by a bunch of libertarians of all people.

I basically agree with this. It is always interesting how people ignore the crimes of capitalist nations as well though. Germany was after all capitalistic. England has committed many crimes, from India to the Boar War (where they used concentration camps to imprison the family members of the fighters), to many instances in Ireland, and the list goes on. That's not intended to draw an equivalency, but the question is loaded from the start and an example of selective interpretations of history. I still agree with Piggy though basically wholesale.

[Drunken Cat]

I guess starving half of Ukraine to death doesn't count as killing people.

Yeah, Stalinists are not ones to be taken seriously. They remain numerous among communist circles in the West. There are good Marxist scholars who were fully and vocally against Stalinism. Ernest Mandel is one.

[squealpiggy]

The starving of Ukraine (holodomor I think) is controversial for a simple reason: It's not certain that it was a deliberate act on Stalin's part, or if it was the disastrous consequence of Lysenkoism being applied to agriculture coupled with strictly enforced laws prohibiting free movement.

To a starving victim I'm sure the distinction is academic but there is debate as to whether the famine was a deliberate act or just the atrocious consequence of an unreasonable and politically biased approach to naturalism.

[Jim Jeffries]

Actually it is. I oppose legislating against holocaust denial.

Doesn't change the fact that there is legislation against it, or that you have mercilessly attacked (and rightfully so) posters for even questioning the 6 million figure.

He was arguing against libertarians. I find their offence at his rewriting of history to fit the point he was debating to be laughably hypocritical.

Of course, all libertarians are chronic revisionists and as such are prohibited from arguing against vile revisionism of any sort.

I would expect a history teacher to be fired for promoting the notion that Stalin didn't kill anyone if this promotion was made in class to students. This was not a history teacher in a history class though. It was an English professor in a debate setting.

An English professor with a college website promoting this nonsense and more of the same.

I think the bigger issue for Americans is their continuing hang-up about Communism.

I believe it has something to do with 100+ million deaths, though I could be wrong.

I mean seriously, a professor at a State college who sympathises with the political Left?

I didn't have a professor outside of engineering, math or business who didn't sympathize with the political left, but I never heard anyone absolve Stalin of any and all crimes.

He could well be an outstanding English teacher. Denigrating his teaching ability in his area of expertise is like vilifying the teaching of an economics professor because he brews bad wine.

Only if he brought that bad wine in and got all of his students drunk.

Watched the video, he's right in that the US has the lowest standard of living in the developed world,

Perhaps you could provide me a list of countries in the "developed world" and the criterion for measuring standard of living. Because we certainly have droves of immigrants dying to emigrate here (poster Earl Hickey, for one) from developed countries like Great Britain.

he's also right that there is some sort of universal healthcare program in every single other developed country and that this is a factor in standard of living.

We have had universal healthcare for the poor and elderly for decades. And most jobs provided health insurance for most of the rest.

It's frankly an amazing claim that he's made that he's yet to discover "one crime" committed by Stalin. I suppose Trotsky slipped and fell on that ice axe.

Curious that the one crime you could find to hold Stalin accountable for was his assassination of one of his communist coconspirators.

But he's still talking outside of his area of expertise and making an off the cuff comment to a frankly idiotic question in a loaded debate setting put on by a bunch of libertarians of all people.

Damn libertarians, acting as if they're human beings and stuff.

The starving of Ukraine (holodomor I think) is controversial for a simple reason: It's not certain that it was a deliberate act on Stalin's part, or if it was the disastrous consequence of Lysenkoism being applied to agriculture coupled with strictly enforced laws prohibiting free movement.

Curious that you would put the blame on Lysenko and not Marx. While Lysenko's absurd views on genetics (disproved by the fact that foreskins were still there on peoples that had been chopping them off for thousands of years) and agriculture affected improvements in these areas, the ultimate blame was Stalin's unfortunate (as it always is) application of Marxism.

To a starving victim I'm sure the distinction is academic but there is debate as to whether the famine was a deliberate act or just the atrocious consequence of an unreasonable and politically biased approach to naturalism.

Sorry, but when you confiscate all of a farmer's grain and make it a crime punishable by death to hide food, it's deliberate murder.