[Agamemnon]

Originally posted by CaptainCrunch+May 2 2005, 03:18 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (CaptainCrunch @ May 2 2005, 03:18 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

I've always wondered who was worse, Hitler or Stalin.

Both were directly responsible for the deaths of millions, but for seemingly wildly different reasons.

Is it worse to kill millions of Jews for no apparent reason (hatred?)?; or is it worse to kill millions to generate a few extra bucks (exporting of Ukrainian wheat while they starve)?

I'm sure most would say Hitler, but after reading about Stalin, they're definitely close.

Interesting

And I could say that they're both equally bad, but . . . and this is a long shot but, thier motivations really seperate things.

Hitler did his killing out of hate, and went to war out of greed and a misplaced sense of vengence

Stalin - did his killing out of a misplaced sense of revolution and responsibility, and went about expanding the Soviet empire out of a need for security, and a misplaced revolution.

Thier both bad, but when you look at Stalin you can definately see signs of mental illness, and while Stalin was bad early in his career, his real excesses came after his second wife died.

Its interesting if you look at the pre-cursors as well. both had fathers that were abusive and very strict, and both had mothers who doted on them. both had a christian education, and a poor upbringing, and both were raised in countries that were in turmoil.

One big difference to me though is while Hitler allowed himself to be carried by circumstance, Stalin pretty much drove the circumstances.

Stalin was evil because he didn't see the peasants and his people as anything but an equation to drive the Soviet Union and Communism into a position of dominance.

Hitler was evil because he saw the Jews and his enemies as somewhat lesser then him but still understood that they were in fact living breathing things. Vermin no less.

I don't think you can base the who was eviler argument around numbers, because as Stalin said 1 death is a tragedy, but a million is a statistic.

In my mind, Hitler was the more evil of the two. Stalin was evil, but he was also disconnected.[/b][/quote]
I hear ya.

I usually tended to side against Stalin (with Hitler )

Clearly any mass-mass-murderer is evil, so its not like either of them get off.

I thought Stalin was potentially worse because of the rationality of the killing. Hitler seemed to have an irrational hatred of Jews, blaming them for things they truly weren't responsible. I'd consider Hitler's obsession with the "final solution" to be evidence of 'mental illness' (or whatever you'd like to call it) at least as much as Stalin was showing signs of mentally breaking down.

My biggest problem w/ Stalin was that he did the murdering for economic and political reasons, 'real' reasons, as opposed to Hitler's 'insanity'. Stalin would sell wheat when it was needed by the locals, for a couple of dollars hard currency. In Ukraine especially, Stalin exported every inch of food while millions perished due to starvation. Stalin believed he needed the hard currency that wheat brought to buy heavy machinery to industrialize. At the time of the Ukraine famines, I believe wheat was at something like an all-time low on the market, which meant he exported even more to get his cash, which drove the price down further, etc.

So, it comes down to the same question. Is Hitler the worst murderer because he did it out of hatred/fear, or Stalin, who did it 'rationally', more or less being perfectly aware of the logical consequences of his rational actions?

Go Hitler! (yeah yeah, poor taste).