News Uncle Joe gets Bronze

[Notebook]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7802485.stm

I would have placed in in the top ten, surprised he got that high.

N.

 

[SiberianTiger]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7802485.stm

I would have placed in in the top ten, surprised he got that high.

N.

Oh no, not this again. :compbash2:

 

[Notebook]

Its new to me, but I suppose its not in Russia?

N.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Its new to me, but I suppose its not in Russia?

N.

It's been a buzz word for months. The ads of this poll have been popping up everywhere: in blogs you read, in forums, on TV. And still I can't understand what's the point. Are we going to build another monument or pick a candidate person for resurrection? (This way, no one can beat Lenin, he is in the best condition...)

In addition, this poll is not a contest of the deeds of historical persons, really. Naturally, this is more like a test for public's knowledge of history and effectiveness of one or another stream of propaganda.

 

[Usquanigo]

He's not a Russian, he's a Soviet, a low down damn dirty commie bastard.

And he also has a bigger body count than Hitler, and unless we choose to pick "favorites" among human groups, then a body is a body and Stalin is more evil than Hitler (to say nothing of the other things he did), it's just that he was on the winning side, so he gets a pass in history.

Rather disturbing that he would get rated so highly actually.

 

[Notebook]

We can't compare in the UK, all our really bad ones popped off centuries ago, unless you count some of Churchill's actions in Ireland, and thats debatable.
Suppose you could hang most of the Empire on Queen Victoria, and descendants. that has a lot to answer for.
I don't think the English massacred their own much, I think we got it out of our system in the Civil War. We had much more fun in Euorope.

N.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Just for information, the poll's top dozen so far (the poll is still active till the New Year) is:

St. Alexander Nevsky        11.66%
Pyotr Stolypin              11.64%
Joseph Stalin               11.53%
Alexander Pushkin           11.48%
Peter I the Great            9.97%
Vladimir Lenin               9.43%
Fyodor Dostoevsky            7.75%
Alexander Suvorov            7.31%
Dmitry Mendeleev             6.81%
Ivan IV the Terrible         6.01%
Catherine II the Great       3.38%
Alexandre II the Liberator   2.99%

Total people voted over Internet, phone and SMS: 4 498 840
(so you see, Joe still holds a chance of winning...)

 

[Notebook]

I'm surprised Solzhenitsyn isn't in there, especially as he died this year. Is he out of favour at the moment?

N.

 

[Missioncmdr]

The problem with polls like this is that people seem to confuse greatest with famous.

 

[Notebook]

I knew most of them, except Alexandre II the Liberator , bit shaky on Alexander Suvorov, rings a bell, but not sure why.

N.

 

[Moonwalker]

I always have my problems with personality cult, no matter if it's about favourite or about much-hatet personalities.

It is not only dictators who enable mass murder. It's also people, folks, soldiers, who do not only participate but accomplish evil things at the end, based on personality cult and on following ideologies.

Adolf Hitler could have been brevented. His intentions, to "extinct" the jews, to "eliminate" the Marxism and so on, were known publicly from the beginning. Hitler is only one, out of thousands of potential and real killer.

 

[Jarvitä]

Funny, I thought this was a poll about greatest Russians...Stalin was a Georgian, and while it's arguable that he made great progress towards abolishing nationalism in the USSR and pretty much made it into a superpower, his methods alone are reason enough to not even consider him in such a "competition", which is nothing but a glorified test of the effectivity of the recent propaganda.

 

[SiberianTiger]

I'm surprised Solzhenitsyn isn't in there, especially as he died this year. Is he out of favour at the moment?

N.

He was in the initial selected persons list, but failed to enter top 50.


-----Post Added-----

Funny, I thought this was a poll about greatest Russians... Stalin was a Georgian,

Russians here are meant in more general sense: everyone who was a citizen of the country which was popularly considered "Russia" at a specific time point. Georgia hasn't been an independent country when Stalin was born.

his methods alone are reason enough to not even consider him in such a "competition", which is nothing but a glorified test of the effectivity of the recent propaganda.

His methods were not much different from Peter's.


-----Post Added-----

I knew most of them, except Alexandre II the Liberator , bit shaky on Alexander Suvorov, rings a bell, but not sure why.

N.

Alexandre II the Liberator

Alexander Suvorov

 

[Linguofreak]

And he also has a bigger body count than Hitler, and unless we choose to pick "favorites" among human groups, then a body is a body and Stalin is more evil than Hitler (to say nothing of the other things he did).

Once you get to a body count that high, I'd say you've run off the top of the scale for "evilness". What's the point in comparing the two by body count? In either case, the value the dictator in question put on the lives of others was so close to zero as to make no odds.

 

[Jarvitä]

And he also has a bigger body count than Hitler,

The body count doesn't matter. Both of them would kill a lot more people than they did if they had the chance.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Russians here are meant in more general sense: everyone who was a citizen of the country which was popularly considered "Russia" at a specific time point. Georgia hasn't been an independent country when Stalin was born.

Now I realized that I have to correct myself: the initial criterion the Institute of Historical Research of the Russian Academy of Science held for the selection of 500 first step poll candidates appears not be based on the place of birth of the person. He or she might be born outside of Russia altogether (like Catherine II, for instance), but had to contribute to Russian history a somewhat significant deal.


-----Post Added-----

The body count doesn't matter. Both of them would kill a lot more people than they did if they had the chance.

You are right, although killing people were more of kind of means rather than of a goal for both. However, in my understanding, people vote for Stalin because they believe that nobody else in his place would be able to get the positive impact his actions have. For instance, to win the war.

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

So, would it be the same if the Germans held a public poll, resulting Hitler to be the voted "best German of history"? My god, what happened there?

 

[Linguofreak]

Now I realized that I have to correct myself: the initial criterion the Institute of Historical Research of the Russian Academy of Science held for the selection of 500 first step poll candidates appears not be based on the place of birth of the person. He or she might be born outside of Russia altogether (like Catherine II, for instance), but had to contribute to Russian history a somewhat significant deal.

Now that "contribution to Russian history" bit could be complicating things to some degree, can the wording of the poll be interpreted as "did something big for Russia, whether good or bad," or only as "did something big and good for Russia"?

The first reading, if it can indeed be read that way, may explain why Stalin is so high, and possibly why Solzhenitsyn isn't. Stalin was a very historically influential Russian, though not a very nice one.

 

[SiberianTiger]

So, would it be the same if the Germans held a public poll, resulting Hitler to be the voted "best German of history"? My god, what happened there?

You know, had Hitler ever been nominated in this Russian poll, he would certainly get some votes too. Maybe even in order of 10,000...


-----Post Added-----

Now that "contribution to Russian history" bit could be complicating things to some degree, can the wording of the poll be interpreted as "did something big for Russia, whether good or bad," or only as "did something big and good for Russia"?

I'm not sure what the poll's initiators meant, but people voting understand the question quite simple: "who do you admire most among these persons?"

 

[Jarvitä]

So, would it be the same if the Germans held a public poll, resulting Hitler to be the voted "best German of history"? My god, what happened there?

While admittedly using somewhat similar means to reach them, Stalin's intentions were pretty much the polar opposite of Hitler's.