• HardNut@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      To invoke Bill Burr: why don’t Stalin’s kills count? He’d be sitting up at the top of the scoreboard with Mao if you counted them.

      Political murder isn’t inherently better than ethnic murder. Stalin and Hitler both murdered out of malice, the fact that you’re clearly more comfortable with political murder shows a dangerous bias

        • TheActualDevil@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          Killing “counter-revolutionaries” was just Stalin putting a different label on whatever enemies he wanted killed. It’s no different. Because the USSR was ostensibly a revolutionary and progressive government they just used more palatable phrasing and staged sham trials, but it amounts to the same.

            • HardNut@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              I would actually argue the opposite. Hitler and Stalin both clearly killed out of paranoia or something approximating it. Hitler didn’t just hate the jews, he thought they were involved in a collective conspiracy to take over the world. He had a hero complex, and he thought he was saving the world. Stalin was more worried about personal immediate danger, so you can see why he made those close to him out to be the “other” rather than some minority collective

                • HardNut@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  I don’t think that contradicts what I said. I also don’t think it’s a particularly hot take, Hitler was very open about his conspiratorial ideas about the Jews, it’s a huge aspect of what motivated his desire to take them out in favor of his people, his master race. The ideas don’t contradict, they go together like peanut butter and jelly