BS: Stalin

Subject: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 09:19 AM

Here you are, off you go.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 09:35 AM

It's an anagram of St Nail.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 10:35 AM

Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin, within the same hour. This overshadowed the composer's death, just as Stalin had overshadowed and persecuted him in life.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 10:40 AM

Also instal and in last.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 12:27 PM

Worse than Hitler.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 02:53 PM

"STALIN" is the acronym for the Society to Annihilate Leopards in Nebraska. It is not a very popular organization because (A) there are no leopards in Nebraska other than those in zoos,(B) its acronym is the name of one of history's most notorious despots, a fact which makes attracting new members a bit problematic, and (C) it is the totally fictitious creation of some guy with too much time on his hands.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 04:45 PM

Brought my cholesterol down.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 09:32 PM

This is or was a society for clothing nude animals.... I'll let you search for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 10:48 PM

♪ ♪ ♪

Stalin, Stalin, pretty momma dontcha tell on me
'Cause I'm Stalin back to my same old used to be

♪ ♪ ♪

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: LadyJean
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 12:13 AM

It is a long and complicated story as to why my father wound up spending time with the Russian Army in 1945. The fact is he did. He was impressed with their capacity for booze, and their willingness to drink anything alcoholic. He was amused that they took a sink from a house on the theory that it would supply them with clean water. He also referred to the man in question, always, as "Old Joe Stalin". Though I don't think they ever met.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 12:27 AM

Survey Theodolite And Laser for Integrated Navigation

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 02:07 AM

I know they say that Stalin murdered more people than Hitler. However, he also had more years in which to do so. And he didn't set out to rid the earth of 'undesirables'.

That's worse.

Discuss?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Fossil
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 03:02 AM

"didn't set out to rid the earth of 'undesirables'." Oh yes, he damn well did. Define undesirables? Anyone, anyone at all, who threatened him in any way whatsoever.

Starting with the usual trilogy, (just like Hitler) gypsies. Jews and homosexuals, expanding to political enemies, army generals, army people generally, intelligence services, bureaucrats, whole states full of people who were being a bit inconvenient, officials, university professors, you name it, he topped them. Or shuffled them off to the the gulags.

Worse, (than Hitler?) or better. Who could possibly say. Except God, and he's being a bit quiet on the subject of tyrants, lately...

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 03:47 AM

Nice to see a thread where Thatcher could be compared in a favourable light.


Just.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 06:26 AM

You mean Thatcher, friend and defender of mass-murderer Pinochet? That Thatcher?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 08:22 AM

Moral equivalence is a form of equivocation and a fallacy of relevance often used in political debates. It seeks to draw comparisons between different, often unrelated things, to make a point that one is just as bad as the other or just as good as the other. It may be used to draw attention to an unrelated issue by comparing it to a well-known bad event, in an attempt to say one is as bad as the other. Or, it may be used in an attempt to claim one isn't as bad as the other by comparison. Drawing a moral equivalence in this way is a logical fallacy.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 08:41 AM

"Drawing a moral equivalence in this way is a logical fallacy."
Weeeell...!!!
Here you have two political leaders with a contempt for democracy and prepared to bypass that democracy to obtain objectives, the basic different being that Thatcher was shackled with existing (nods toward) democracy, while Russia was still a melting pot with an great objective - one was seeking to bring changes to a politically primitive country, while the other was fighting to keep things as they were by over-riding hard won rights.
I believe it is possible to compare them, but only by putting them in their individual contexts.
Stalin was a complex character - a failed seminary who served as a minor minister in the early Bolshevik Government and, somewhat unaccountably, was placed at the head of the Soviet Union at Lenin's death, when it was apparent that there were others far more qualified than him to hold the job.
There are several conspiracy theories regarding Lenin's death and Stalin's appointment - little wonder!
It's a little facile to just write off Stalin as a despotic monster - the period is a fascinating one and well worthy of examination and plenty of literature to draw on.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 08:52 AM

I do not "write him off," but he was "a despotic monster."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 10:25 AM

"I do not "write him off," but he was "a despotic monster.""
Wasn't responding to you Keith - you haven't said anything
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 10:50 AM

I was responding to your assertion that Stalin was not a despotic monster.

You people are very good at making assertions, but you can not support them.
They are just opinions based on nothing.
Whims from empty heads.

Stalin WAS a despotic monster, and I have provided ample evidence for that assertion on the other thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 10:59 AM

These are the kind of people idolized by today's new "leftists" Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 11:01 AM

"I was responding to your assertion that Stalin was not a despotic monster"
I wasn't - I said it was facile to write him off as one - it's far more complicated than that
Of course he was a depot, but people like you use that fact to write off everything that was achieved at that time and why he was what he was and why he was where he was - unfortunately, to understand and discuss that you need to read something rather than scoop up something from the net to win prizes.
It really is pointless to try and carry on a discussion with people who do not have the interest to do that, as you have shown yourself to be often enough.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 11:02 AM

I ask, for the umpteenth time, who are 'you people'? Not that I expect a straight answer but everything I have said about Stalin on this thread is true.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 11:31 AM

Wsating your time Dave - likke trying to reda a story from an exercise book - there's nothing there.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 11:51 AM

"Of course he was a depot"

Stalin was at Home Depot?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 12:01 PM

"people like you use that fact to write off everything that was achieved at that time and why he was what he was and why he was where he was "

Ah Jim if only you actually practiced what you preach and applied the same yardstick to those you disapprove of, instead of only applying it to those you seek to defend.

But pray tell what did he achieve? Please don't say the defeat of Fascism, he only the Communists in the USSR only managed to do that by appealing to the Russian people to save and defend Mother Russia not save and defend what they had up to that point "achieved".

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 12:21 PM

"Ah Jim if only you actually practiced what you preach and applied the same yardstick to those you disapprove of, instead of only applying it to those you seek to defend."
Where have I ever "defended" anybody and how?
Nor have I ever claimed he "achieved anything" - in fact, the opposiet, if you get somebody to read what I have written - Keith maybe- on second thoughts..., maybe not!
Don't really expect and answer to this
Do you still believe that your smarmy superciliousness persuades people to take any notice of what you say - seems to be an inbuilt trait
Try putting up facts instead of making pronouncements.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Raedwulf
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 12:28 PM

Teribus - when will you learn (never probably, I accept this) that sneering at people does not get your point across (mea culpa, I've been known to do it too, but only in extreme cases such as Gibbering Martian & Muppet, or so I plead)?

I have been here... long enough. I often don't agree with you. Generally, though, your arguments do have a better basis than most, even when I disagree. And then you start sneering & I think...

Cut out the sneering. Anyone that wants to be Cassandra is not worth listening to. You can, and often do, present information well worth thinking about. But if all people see is "Oh, it's that twat again..." you achieve nothing. There's no point in being right (even if you are right) if, like Cassandra, no-one listens to you...

You're perfectly capable of making a good argument. There are many who will disagree simply because your name is on it (more fool them). You have no need to hand them superfluous ammunition. Think on that.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 02:34 PM

Dave,
I ask, for the umpteenth time, who are 'you people'?

As you said on 11 Jul 15 - 06:28 AM "Naming names would only cause personal disagreements, Keith."

Jim,
Of course he was a depot,

A despot and a monster, directly responsible for the deaths of millions.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 02:47 PM

"A despot and a monster, directly responsible for the deaths of millions."
Is there much point in repeating what we've already said?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 02:57 PM

how the fall of communism impacted on my life

https://soundcloud.com/denise_whittle/trish

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 04:18 PM

Why was he not a monster Jim?
How do you defend genocide?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 04:24 PM

UKRAINIAN FAMINE

The dreadful famine that engulfed Ukraine, the northern Caucasus, and the lower Volga River area in 1932-1933 was the result of Joseph Stalin's policy of forced collectivization. The heaviest losses occurred in Ukraine, which had been the most productive agricultural area of the Soviet Union. Stalin was determined to crush all vestiges of Ukrainian nationalism. Thus, the famine was accompanied by a devastating purge of the Ukrainian intelligentsia and the Ukrainian Communist party itself. The famine broke the peasants' will to resist collectivization and left Ukraine politically, socially, and psychologically traumatized.

The policy of all-out collectivization instituted by Stalin in 1929 to finance industrialization had a disastrous effect on agricultural productivity. Nevertheless, in 1932 Stalin raised Ukraine's grain procurement quotas by forty-four percent. This meant that there would not be enough grain to feed the peasants, since Soviet law required that no grain from a collective farm could be given to the members of the farm until the government's quota was met. Stalin's decision and the methods used to implement it condemned millions of peasants to death by starvation. Party officials, with the aid of regular troops and secret police units, waged a merciless war of attrition against peasants who refused to give up their grain. Even indispensable seed grain was forcibly confiscated from peasant households. Any man, woman, or child caught taking even a handful of grain from a collective farm could be, and often was, executed or deported. Those who did not appear to be starving were often suspected of hoarding grain. Peasants were prevented from leaving their villages by the NKVD and a system of internal passports.

The death toll from the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine has been estimated between six million and seven million. According to a Soviet author, "Before they died, people often lost their senses and ceased to be human beings." Yet one of Stalin's lieutenants in Ukraine stated in 1933 that the famine was a great success. It showed the peasants "who is the master here. It cost millions of lives, but the collective farm system is here to stay."..

LOC

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 04:26 PM

Welcome back Al.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 06:28 PM

Glad to see you here Al. Don't ever let the Nasir's win!

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 06:34 PM

The above should read , don't ever let the nasties get you down.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 06:40 PM

Nest of Jails.

Elf ass joint.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 07:00 PM

Raedwulf, I have only posted once to this thread - I have gone over what I said in that one post, the last paragraph by the way should have read:

"But pray tell what did he achieve? Please don't say the defeat of Fascism, the Communists in the USSR only managed to do that by appealing to the Russian people to save and defend Mother Russia not save and defend what they had up to that point "achieved".

Care to point out where I was "SNEERING" at anybody or anything?

Now reading your submission however..... If I want lessons in sneering and condescension I now at least know who to contact.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 07:25 PM

Stalin was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sokolnikov and Bubnov.[2] Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917, Stalin was appointed General Secretary of the party's Central Committee in 1922. He subsequently managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin through suppressing Lenin's criticisms (in the postscript of his testament) and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained general secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, concurrently serving as the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1941 onward.

"Under Stalin's rule, the concept of "Socialism in One Country" became a central tenet of Soviet society, contrary to Leon Trotsky's view that socialism must be spread through continuous international revolutions. He replaced the New Economic Policy introduced by Lenin in the early 1920s with a highly centralised command economy, launching a period of industrialization and collectivization that resulted in the rapid transformation of the USSR from an agrarian society into an industrial power.[3] However, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps.[4] The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, known as the Holodomor in Ukraine. Between 1934 and 1939 he organized and led a massive purge (known as "Great Purge") of the party, government, armed forces and intelligentsia, in which millions of so-called "enemies of the Soviet people" were imprisoned, exiled or executed..."

Don't you just LOVE socialism??...as in Union of Soviet SOCIALIST 'Republic'.....

....(and then the 'left wingers' will matter of factly, disavow themselves, of ANY such similarity, to their 'holier than thou' policies OR mindsets.....only because of hindsight....not forethought!!!)

Gosh, is America moving closer to resembling 1956 USSR???...or does it just 'feel' that way??

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 09:01 PM

If your posts are anything to go by, America is moving closer to resembling Bedlam. Give my love to Peter the Porter. Alternatively, say goodnight to the folks, Gracie.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 09:13 PM

"I was responding to your assertion that Stalin was not a despotic monster." Keith of H

Keith, this baseless remark and the next one you made certainly sound like you are picking a fight. Hope you don't succeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 09:15 PM

Very few on the left would defend Stalin. And the anarchists have always been right about him.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 09:25 PM

Agreed. In the somewhat lively trade union movement in early 70s inner London, calling someone a Stalinist was just about the worst form of verbal abuse you could mete out, bar calling someone (heaven forfend) a Tory.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 10:23 PM

his brother was hanged...bad start ife.

you can't really blame him, for being a bad lot.

its like Dale Canegiesaid about the boil on a guys neck being of more concern than the next nuclear war.

i bet none of the two million kulaks murdered mattered as much to him as his brother's death.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 03:54 AM

"Why was he not a monster Jim?
How do you defend genocide?"
Why do you deliberately distort what I've said?
I did not say he wasn't a monster, nor do I defend genocide - how ****** dare you suggest I do?
Show me where I have.
What I said, in words as simple as possible, so that even you can understand, is that there-is-not-enough-evidence-to-prove-that-the-Ukranian-famine-was deliberately-imposed-to-wipe-out-the-people.
If you have any evidence to show that there was, please present it instead of scrabbling round
Why do you resort to these tactics in open debate Keith - do you not care what people think about you? - Obviously not.
It appears to me that Stalin's ruthless policy of enforced collectivisation caused the famine and resulted in so many deaths - it has not been shown, as you have claimed in your cut-'n-pastes, that it was as plot to get rid of his political opponents.
If you read the posting from 'Guest' directly below your own pack of distortions, that sums up what I feel to have been proved about the famine - that is what I have been arguing, and that is what I have always understood to have been the case.
I don't expect an apology or a withdrawal on your part - such behaviour appears to be beyond you.
Stalin's policy in the Ukraine was little different than that adopted in Ireland in the 1840s and it produced similar results - one million deaths and mass emigration, lasting into the 20th century.
The difference was that the implementer of the policy here, Sir Charles Trevelyan. on behalf of the British Government, openly declared his hatred of the Irish and suggested that the famine might be used as a means of solving "The Irish Question" (all now publicly accessible) - that was "deliberate genocide".
A Scots friend living in Newfoundland told me last year that there is evidence that Trevelyan adopted exactly the same attitude towards the Scots during their famine - he hated the Celts and openly said so.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 04:07 AM

Not asking for names, Keith. Just pointing out the stupidity of the phrase and correctly predicting that you would be unable to provide a straight answer.

Jim, Keith does not twist words. He just uses them to mean something different :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 04:58 AM

Ebbie, Jim stated, "It's a little facile to just write off Stalin as a despotic monster ."

I took that to mean he did not accept that description of Stalin.

He next said, "Of course he was a depot, but"

Note how he dropped the word "monster."

I took that to mean he did not accept that description of Stalin.

My case is that someone directly responsible for the the genocide of millions of ordinary people is indeed a despicable monster.

The historians are quite clear that he WAS responsible, and Jim's denial of that fact is tantamount to defending the man and the crime.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 05:17 AM

Dave,
you would be unable to provide a straight answer.

You mean name the people.
Both you and a moderator said it is best to be vague about exactly who you are criticising.

You said, "Naming names would only cause personal disagreements, Keith."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 05:42 AM

"To most of the world, Joseph Stalin, who died 60 years ago today, is a monster — the architect of violent purges and labor camps that killed millions of Russians during his reign over the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953. So why is Stalin actually more popular in Russia today than he was during the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991?" The news article below provides some answers:




Why many Russians like Stalin 

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 05:43 AM

It seems a little odd, Jim, that you accept a parallel between the results of policies in the Ukraine and of those that occurred in mid-C19 Ireland; yet insist that, although the Irish misfortunes were deliberately engineered on the word of Sir Charles Trevelyan, those of Stalin's making in Ukraine were merely the results of well-intentioned but mistaken policy on his part. Why are you so certain that his motivations could not have been similar to those of Sir Charles, operating in (what you admit to be) comparable circumstances? After all, the Moscow Trials surely provide proof that Uncle Joe was not above finding means to liquidate inconvenient opponents.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 06:35 AM

May as well be speaking Klingon. Come to think of it, trying to communicate with "you people" is like some sort of fantasy role playing game where no-one knows the rules :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 06:57 AM

"Why are you so certain that his motivations could not have been similar to those of Sir Charles, operating in (what you admit to be) comparable circumstances?"
Trevelyan's motives were clearly stated - he hated the Irish, he claimed that the Famine was "God's punishment for their sinful ways" and he suggested to the Government that it was an opportunity to solve the 'Irish Question'.
In the early days in Russia, I believe that Stalin believed that his policies were for the good of the Soviet Union as a whole, as harsh and brutal as they were.
This is very different from the claim that he did what he did deliberately - there is no evidence for this and there doesn't seen to be the desire to root out such evidence, so far anyway
I've read three biographies of Stalin; Trotsky's Izaac Deuscher's and Volkogonov's - all were all sharply opposed to Stalin and the latter had full access to State documents on his policies - my opinions are based on these rather than the Cold War position defending from both sides.
Of course we knew Stalin was capable of liquidating his political opponents - my lifelong reading includes 'Darkness at Noon' and the much superior, in my opinion ''The Case of Comrade Tulayev' by Victor Serge.
I probably have more reason to hate Stalin than anybody arguing against me here.
On a personal level, he starved the Spanish Civil War of any decent support by sending obsolete and virtually unusable weapons.
More important, he destroyed the dream of making the world a better place by turning the first workers' state into an undemocratic dictatorship.
Stalin destroyed the Socialist dream in the same way as various Israeli administrations have destroyed the original dream of a Jewish State.
I have no argument with honest and informed criticism of Stalin and analysis of the evils of his leadership - I'd be first in line to join such criticism.
I do object when it is used by people who use that criticism to show that Socialism is evil and murderous and can't work, especially when some of those leap to the defence of acts of despotism and mass-murder when it is committed by 'Stalins' elsewhere.
"I took that to mean he did not accept that description of Stalin."
Then you don't understand the meaning of the word 'facile' - can't help you there.
Didn't for a moment think you would apoligise or withdraw your accusations - which, as far as I'm concerned, make them a deliberate and ongoing lie.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 08:08 AM

tricky one really...

hitler probably thought his actions were for the general good od europe.
stalin, as you say, for the good of the soviet union.
this sir charles trevelyan character probably thought a chastened Irish povince was for the good of something or other....

people have strange perspectives on good

basically if you justify yourself acting like an arsehole on a regular basis. you degenerate into one.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 08:41 AM

Comparing Hitler, Stalin and Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan is a bit like comparing an orange to an orange to an apple. The first two were Heads of State and totalitarian dictators who made the policies that those serving under them had to follow on pain of death if they did not, or if they failed. Trevelyan when all said and done was a civil servant who had to play the cards he was dealt as best as he was able - he did not formulate policy that was done by the Government of the day.

Tell me what "aid" was arranged for the Jews by Adolf Hitler?
Tell me what "aid" was organised for the Ukrainians by Stalin?
It is a recorded fact that over £10 million in "aid" was given by the British Government to help alleviate the suffering in Ireland during the "Famine" years.

In Hitler's concentration camps the inmates were deliberately and systematically murdered, starved to death or died from disease.

In Stalin's purges people designated by Stalin were murdered or sent to camps where they were worked to death, starved or died of disease. In addition to that because of the group targeted by Stalin millions died from starvation.

In Ireland millions did not die from starvation, records show that that the greatest killer was not starvation but disease - and those diseases at that time could neither be treated or cured (It would be another 30 years before cures and treatments were identified). The bulk of the fall in population over the famine years was due to emigration.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 09:15 AM

"Trevelyan when all said and done was a civil servant "
Trevelyan was Britain's advisor to Ireland - they relied totally on his information for advice and they carried out that advise to the letter.
Wheter it was hunger or disease that wiped out the population is immat
immaterial - one was the result of the other and both were down to British policy.
Emigration was forced on the Irish people - starve or emigrate were the alternatives; the effects of that policy carried through into the 20th century and are still to be felt today.
His was the policy that was adopted without question.
Both Trevelyan and the British Government of the day were equally responsible for the Irish holocaust - one for proposing the solution, the other for putting it into law.
Comparing Stalin and Hitler, on the other hand, was "apples and oranges"
Hitler set out to create a racially pure German Empire and deliberately wiped out many millions who did not fit into the Grand Objective.
Stalin's policies, as crudely brutal as they were, were aimed at creating a fairer and more equal society - "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs", was very much the line he adopted.
In many ways, this was the philosophy of leaders who sent millions of young people to die in conflicts such as World War One
What you need to decide in such cases is whether the game is worth the candle and whether it is carried out efficiently and fairly, and, of course, whether there are other alternatives   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 10:03 AM

the thing you don't seem to grasp Teribus is that one probably doesn't give shit whether you're being murdered by an orange or an apple.

it probably feels very much the same.

i don't know if you've come across E.L. Doctorrow's Book of Daniel   - basically its a re-telling of the Rosenberg spy couple from the point of view of the their son. I'm sure you will have seen footage of the little chaps running joyously out of Sing Sing - obviously blithely unaware that their parents are about to be executed.

Doctorrow is such agreat writer. that he doesn't reallly need to expound his ideas and shove them up your nose. The description on the execution is so intense - that the reader is made to understand, whatever the justification - defending democracy, fighting Stalin etc. that level of vile behaviour is wrong.

the simple device he uses is that he explains clinically from a text book almost how an electrocution is accomplished. but instead of saying the criminal - or the subject ....he says my mother.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 02:52 PM

Big Al Whittle: "the thing you don't seem to grasp Teribus is that one probably doesn't give shit whether you're being murdered by an orange or an apple.
it probably feels very much the same."

Good point!....what a lot of political hacks don't see as easily, is that one probably doesn't give shit whether you're being lied to by a Republican or a Democrat, liberal or conservative....but if YOUR party does it, then it's OK!

Gosh, wouldn't it be refreshingly amazing if the wannabe hack 'activists' would be equally indignant at ALL political liars????

...at least when you play music, the truth comes out, right now...you're either hot, or ya' suck!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 04:19 PM

Gosh, wouldn't it be refreshingly amazing if the wannabe hack 'activists' would be equally indignant at ALL political liars????

no ones got that much energy..

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 04:56 AM

"the thing you don't seem to grasp Teribus is that one probably doesn't give shit whether you're being murdered by an orange or an apple."

Fair enough point Big Al - now all you have to do is find any instance of Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan ever having murdered anyone, or of him ever having ordered that anyone to be murdered. I can give you millions of examples of Messrs Hilter and Stalin having issued such orders.

"Stalin's policies, as crudely brutal as they were, were aimed at creating a fairer and more equal society"

Thanks Jim that provided me with the best laugh I have had all week. Unless you hadn't managed to take it in, in all those books you have read on Stalin and the former USSR - the message that shines through as clear as crystal is that under that system the people were subservient to the STATE and the state was the Communist Party that you could only be part of by invitation - "fairer and more equal society" my arse - worked out well for them didn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 05:22 AM

"Thanks Jim that provided me with the best laugh I have had all week"
Thanks for providing me with the old usual from somebody who offers as an alternative society where workers who are unable to find work should take to their bicycles, presumably along with their families - and from somebody who spent a great deal of time supporting the Irish holocaust (and is still happy to do so, judging from more recent postings) Will go off smiling broadly this morning
Jim Carroll
.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 05:24 AM

There's o evidence of Stalin personally murdering anybody BTW - facilitating murders, certainly -as did Trevelyan and Prime Minister Russell
Whence the difference?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 06:12 AM

Jim, there was no blight or food shortage in Ukraine.
They people starved in their millions because Stalin ordered it.
It was a deliberate genocide by his decree.
Your defence of that atrocity and of Stalin is nauseating.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 06:18 AM

Teribus,

As has already been stated you cannot compare oranges and apples. During what we in England know as the famine years 1845-51 (there were many other famine years) Ireland was a mass exporter of produce. The famine wasn't a countrywide affair. Some 4,000 shiploads of food left Ireland in 1847 alone.
In the more industrialised areas deaths were relatively uncommon, in the mainly poor agricultural lands of the west and south west famine was much more widespread. The poor isolated population had become over dependant on a single crop, i.e. the potato. There were ever decreasing plots of land to each family. (Dad had 10 acres, the two sons inherited 5 each etc.In 1843 a Government commission found that 326,000 people were occupying land that was insufficient to support a family of more than five.
The Irish population between 1821 and 1841 had risen by a quarter. The British Government had been warned of an impending disaster in 1826 Dominic Corrigan a Dublin doctor told the government that "A pestilence and disease of unprecedented magnitude will befall us" unless the Irish people were provided with a new source of food. The government did little to provide aid. Robert Peel bought £100,000 worth of American Indian Meal and set up a commission to investigate the cause of the potato blight.
Now I realise that you like winding Jim up and are probably being deliberately obtuse, however there is a very serious aspect to this part of the discussion. Your (and my) national government allowed the famine to rage throughout Ireland and did next to bugger all to help.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 06:18 AM

No defene Keith - and no evidence of intent
Your continued attempts to smear are nauseating
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 06:21 AM

As is your defence of the WW1 bloodbath and the Irish holocaust
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 07:18 AM

god knows i don't agree with Jim Carroll on much, but whoever was administering Ireland through the years of the great famine didn't have much to learn from Stalin or Hitler, about mass murder.

why squabble about who was the biggest arsehole?

how come i can't get anyone to talk about Josh White - everybody's too busy talking about arseholes.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 08:03 AM

Why, Al, the usual perversity of bad news and good news. As they say, bad news runs from end to end of town while good news is still getting its shoes on. Josh White was good news; Stalin & Hitler & the other arseholes were bad news. So there you are.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 09:02 AM

Rather over simplified thumbnail sketch of the period Raggy -let's put a little flesh on it shall we - maybe you could provide some of the answers as to what the "British Government" could have done about it - It is all old ground that has been gone over time and time again in the past - but here we go:

"During what we in England know as the famine years 1845-51 (there were many other famine years) Ireland was a mass exporter of produce."

Easily disproven MYTH more food was sent to Ireland during the "Famine Years" THAN WAS EVER EXPORTED - simple well recorded fact that you can check up on. Yes food was exported from Ireland during that period, it had to be or otherwise the "famine" would have been nationwide, that food could not be transported and distributed to the areas where it was needed because the infrastructure and means of transport to do so just simply did not exist. The food exported from Ireland during the period was exported so that the money could be earned and taxes collected.



"The famine wasn't a countrywide affair. Some 4,000 shiploads of food left Ireland in 1847 alone."

So glad you mentioned that year, supposedly the worst year of the "Famine", the one with the highest death toll - want to know how many people in Ireland starved to death that year Raggy? - Might surprise you to know it was 6,000. IIRC that was the year the blight took a breather but they ate the seed potatoes instead of planting them.


"In the more industrialised areas deaths were relatively uncommon, in the mainly poor agricultural lands of the west and south west famine was much more widespread."

OK then Raggy give me the names of the ports in the west and south west of Ireland in the 1840s that had any sort of real capacity to handle large quantities of perishable goods and store them - Save you the trouble though - there simply weren't any. The British Government couldn't magic them up over night, what the Government did do however was to put at Trevelyan's disposal the Royal Navy's latest and fastest steam ships with shallow enough draught so that they could get into what ports that did exist without having to depend on favourable winds. To get the food distributed to those who needed it how could the British Government arrange that? Wagons? any idea how many wagons and horses you would need to shift just one fully loaded wagon of relief supplies a distance of say 20 miles? Give you an idea a battery of six guns just 30 years earlier required 180 to 200 horses and 20 wagons to move it and keep it operational. What would the horses eat - please do not say grass, horses are incapable of working if they simply eat grass, they need corn or oats (rather large quantities of it)


"The poor isolated population had become over dependant on a single crop, i.e. the potato. There were ever decreasing plots of land to each family. (Dad had 10 acres, the two sons inherited 5 each etc.In 1843 a Government commission found that 326,000 people were occupying land that was insufficient to support a family of more than five.
The Irish population between 1821 and 1841 had risen by a quarter. The British Government had been warned of an impending disaster in 1826 Dominic Corrigan a Dublin doctor told the government that "A pestilence and disease of unprecedented magnitude will befall us" unless the Irish people were provided with a new source of food. The government did little to provide aid."

Who was it that forced the Irish to grow potatoes? Certainly not by diktat of the British Government. How land is divided on the death of the Dad does not in any way dictate how that land is farmed by his descendants - there are still 10 acres of land that could be farmed. The landowners and farmers in Ireland were told time and time again that there were far too many on the land and that urgent reform and improvement in agriculture in Ireland was necessary - that advice and those pleadings were ignored - and no not all land in Ireland was owned by absentee Englishmen. Care to tell us all what made up the Civil Service in Great Britain in the 1840s Raggy, can you name the different Ministries - No Welfare or Benefits; No Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries; No Ministry of Health; No Ministry of Transport - so would you care to enlighten us as to what Government Department could have been used to provide this aid? What British Government aid had been handed out to others in the United Kingdom prior to the Potato Famine in Ireland that wasn't given to the Irish? Rhetorical question Raggy the answer is none. The British Government gave over £10 million pounds in aid, the next in terms of amounts given was £2 million by British Society of Friends (The Quakers) The Potato blight did not just hit Ireland it manifested itself throughout Europe - not one single country in Europe gave aid to their populations in anything like the amount given by the British Government to Ireland, elsewhere the peasant farmers were not foolish enough to rely on a single crop their farming was more varied but the food shortage across Europe did put pressure on the price and amount of cereal crops that could be bought - hence the purchase of the Indian Corn you mentioned - it was the only thing left to buy in any large quantity.

"I realise that you like winding Jim up and are probably being deliberately obtuse, however there is a very serious aspect to this part of the discussion. Your (and my) national government allowed the famine to rage throughout Ireland and did next to bugger all to help."

On the contrary the British Government did a damn sight more than anybody else to help but they were bound by very real practical difficulties that had no easy fixes. The "famine" did not rage throughout Ireland (You draw attention to that yourself) The drop in the population in Ireland over this period was due in descending order of magnitude to:
- Emigration: Getting people off the land that could not sustain them
- Disease: epidemics for which at the time there was no treatment and no cures
- Starvation.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 09:10 AM

Jim,
No defene Keith - and no evidence of intent

The historians disagree with you Jim.
They are clear that it was deliberate.
He obviously knew that if he stole all the food and seedcorn, and prevented them getting more, they would die, which was his intent.

You have double standards Jim.
You try to make excuses for Stalin that you would not make for Hitler just because he was a communist monster and not a fascist one.

And, I have never defended the "Irish holocaust."
I merely showed that the majority of historians do not find Britain culpable.

Nor have I defended any "bloodbath."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 09:19 AM

yes Hitler had something to learn from Sir Charles.

i think theres only David Irving who was in any doubt as to whether Hitler was a shit.

whereas Sir Charles...seems like he left the statistics to prove he was blameless.
we all tried our hardest but those darned Irish kept dying on us. we could get the sandwich van round their street.

fer fucks sake, don't argue jim...that way lies madness.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 09:40 AM

Of course it was a simplification, there are hundreds of entire books written about the period of history surrounding the "Irish Famine" I have no intention of trying to emulate the people who wrote those books. However I would suggest your "facts" are somewhat weighed in favour of the British perspective of events.

Just one thing that stuck in my craw "but they ate the seed potatoes instead of planting them" If you're bloody starving what the hell would you do.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 01:44 PM

Has anyone noticed why this thread started to go astray?

One person, who shall remain nameless, stated

It's a little facile to just write off Stalin as a despotic monster

Let us look at this statement. Facile: ignoring the true complexities of an issue; superficial. A little facile to write someone off as a despotic monster does seem to be the case here. The actions of the Stalin regime were indeed monstrous to many people. But, as was quite clearly said, there was a lot more going on and to simply put it down to one person being a monster is very much an over simplification.

The response, by another nameless person, was

I was responding to your assertion that Stalin was not a despotic monster.

Where, may I ask, did person A assert that Stalin was not a despotic monster?

Is there any doubt that the argument was fomented on the basis of an obvious disparity of language? And have I not been saying that for years?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 02:38 PM

Sadly Dave the person you refer to has complete lack of understanding. He reads what he expects to see and not what is written, That is why he' such an irritating little **** and that's a word I rarely use.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 02:58 PM

Jim stated, "It's a little facile to just write off Stalin as a despotic monster ."

I took that to mean he did not accept that description of Stalin.

He next said, "Of course he was a depot, but...."

Note how he dropped the word "monster."

I took that to mean he did not accept that description of Stalin.

My case is that someone directly responsible for the the genocide of millions of ordinary people is indeed a despicable monster.

The historians are quite clear that he WAS responsible, and Jim's denial of that fact is tantamount to defending the man and the crime.

Do you think the historians wrong about it being deliberate Dave?
Jim does.
Do you deny that Stalin was a monster Dave?
Jim will not call him that.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 03:07 PM

I think it is facile to write him off as a despotic monster. There is lot more too it than that. Which is exactly what was said.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 03:38 PM

Anyone else notice that when it comes to diabolic despots and terror groups the "leftists" tend to employ weasel words and concepts like "facile" and "there is lot more too it than that" but when talking about a democratic and liberal country like Israel they don't mince their words......funny that. Like I said before I used to be a socialist but there was a time when I realized that "The Left" as it used to be, was long dead. These are a different species of nouveau fascists.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 03:55 PM

Just possibly, ake, "leftists" are capable of using more nuanced words to convey meanings. In this country, too, 'rightists' tend to be more blunt, more vulgar, perhaps, than the more subtle words and phrases our 'leftists' employ. More use of the stiletto, perhaps, than of the club.

In America, just contrast Donald Trump with President Barack Obama.

Make of that what thou wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 04:06 PM

I don't think that is ake, Ebbie. More likely to be BB or some other plonker who hides behind a mask.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 04:15 PM

i don't care who started it.

its a bit like that chart on th door of hospital toilets - it just different sorts of turd.

unless you're a connosieur of turds, its a blooody pointless argument. in which case convene a turd tutorial - great turds and tossers of history A101.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 04:50 PM

i think maybe i should refer you to Anthony Trollop's observstion on the famine. he was working for the post office, riding through Ireland, and bore witness to the conditions - he called 'a charnel house'.

remember this was the England that was [planning the Great Exhibition. bigging ourselves up as the greatest power on earth. in stead of tending to the poor, we let them die. we had the money for all other sorts of shit

and yet we didn't do enough for people on our doorstep - fellow subjects of The Queen.
isn't this essentially what hitler and Stalin did. they said, my vision for the world is more important than the lives of these people.

call it a sin of ommission - if it makes you feel better. but it was murder. perhaps if zyklon b had been available....or we had a handy gulag...

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 05:12 PM

I merely showed that the majority of historians...

Keith, are those historians living or dead? Are you sure you didn't mean to say ALL historians? Do they write for the tabloid press? Are their works available in book shops? Do they all agree with you? What are their hat sizes? What sort of autos do they drive?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 05:37 PM

some other plonker who hides behind a mask.

Like Dave the Gnome, eh?......Hypocrite!

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 06:57 PM

Like Dave the Gnome, eh?

No, not at all. I am called Dave and anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see who I am in real life from my postings. Unlike you, Gusset, I have enough courage in my convictions to not hide in anonymity and snipe at people from the sidelines while being afraid to give their own name. Why do that? Frightened that the big boys in the playground will make you cry or something?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 07:00 PM

the big boys

Yup, that says it all.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 08:04 PM

Dave not all guest posts are the same person. Myself if I get into anything interesting I'll stick an identifiable tag for the thread. If your gusset/sniping was at me because of the joke thread you need to lighten up.It was a bit of light hearted banter as I'm sure was understood.The guest above (who I agree with) isn't me.
      I don't post much but when I do it's casual and light hearted, far too many on here don't have the emotional intelligence to debate anything anyway.The few who could are deterred by the atmosphere of sheer anger,fear,stupidity and angst.Not because you are big boys..seriously.With your current craic you are in a cycle of making each other feel shit, people are not going to want to play.
       As for Stalin yes another diseased man.
Me done as I'm off to bed.
    Regards Dr Orgasm Gussetwaver the Mufc fan.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 03:15 AM

"this was the England that was [planning the Great Exhibition. bigging ourselves up as the greatest power on earth. in stead of tending to the poor, we let them die. we had the money for all other sorts of shit

and yet we didn't do enough for people on our doorstep - fellow subjects of The Queen.
isn't this essentially what hitler and Stalin did. they said, my vision for the world is more important than the lives of these people.

call it a sin of ommission - if it makes you feel better. but it was murder. perhaps if zyklon b had been available....or we had a handy gulag..."

Big Al to try and attempt to say that an assistant Secretary in the Civil Service has the same power as a Head of a totalitarian state is patently ridiculous.

It was also the England in the middle of one of the greatest financial crashes it had ever experienced.

The views of the likes of yourself, Raggy and Jim Carroll are those of people looking at a problem that arose in the 1840s then condemning the British Government for not reacting then in a way they could now, i.e. looking at the 1840s with 2015 eyes. You all say that the British Governments of Peel and Russell should have done more but when asked what you are unable to give any practicable answers or solutions. Please don't say they should have stopped the exporting of food because that would have solved nothing it would have just rotted in warehouses due to the total lack of means of distribution.

You were asked to give an example of Trevelyan ever ordering the murder of anyone in Ireland during the "Famine" period - I note that you have ducked that one. As I said before I can give you millions of examples of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin doing just that. Now that being the case Big Al I think your crack in your last paragraph about zyklon b and gulags way out of line and reduces your argument to baseless, empty, meaningless, emotive froth.

If you are going to discuss something then read up on it from all points of view.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 03:27 AM

No, MUFC fan, it wasn't aimed at you but maybe you can explain why posting anonymously does anything to help or alter the situation you describe. If you don't want to play, fine, don't play. But for heavens sake why pretend to join in while staying hidden?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 04:16 AM

Can't help but wonder why food could be got to ports for export, when Teribus also tells us the infrastructure didn't exist to transport food around the country. Curious.

He told us that ports like Wexford, Waterford, Cobh, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Londonderry, Belfast and Dublin could not handle large volumes of cargo. Very curious.

And there was Robert Peel ordering £100,000 worth of American Indian Meal just for it to sit on a dockside somewhere for lack of the means to deliver it. Extremely curious.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 04:39 AM

Dave,
I think it is facile to write him off as a despotic monster. There is lot more too it than that. Which is exactly what was said.

I agree that there is more to it than that, but I am prepared to say that he was a despotic monster as well.

None of you people have yet been prepared to denounce him as a monster or hold him responsible for the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, besides the millions of other deaths he is responsible for.

Why will you not do that?
I am sure you would not hesitate to join me in denouncing Hitler as such.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 04:55 AM

Jim has agreed that he was a despot

Definition of despot in English:
noun

A ruler or other person who holds absolute power, typically one who exercises it in a cruel or oppressive way.

what are you arguing about. no he wasn't a monster. it would be nice if we could write off everyone who was a shit as being intrisically different to us - they had three cocks or something. sadly they are just like us.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 05:32 AM

The perception of what both Stalin and Hitler were is pretty obvious, Keith, and doesn't need saying. Everyone is well aware of what they were and saying it is facile to write them off as such does not detract from what they were in any way, shape or form. I do entirely agree with Al's sentiment above, though, and to say they did these things because they were despotic monsters is an invalid over-simplification which will only result in us enabling more despotic monsters in the future. We need to concentrate on what led to their actions rather than simply demonising them.

I am more than happy to say they were despotic monsters, along with Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe and a host of others. Are you now going to provide a straight answer and tell us why they did these things? I suspect not.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 06:14 AM

After his statement about not writing off Stalin as a despotic monster, he refined his statement by saying he was a despot, but signally refused to say he was a monster, and has refused to acknowledge that there is clear evidence that the Ukrainian starvation was deliberately instigated.

And all you people have followed suit.

Jim said, "Of course he was a despot, but....."
Why not, "Of course he was a despotic monster, but.....?"

Will none of you denounce him as such?
Why not?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: akenaton
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 06:15 AM

Pol Pot is an interesting inclusion, in my view the planet is being slowly destroyed by technological "progress".

Pol Pot, no doubt a despot, had the mad idea of changing the world overnight into an agrarian paradise. Millions of city dwellers died in the process

But the big questions of overpopulation, lack of renewable resources and reliance on technology still remain.
The world is becoming more polluted daily, and only the dimmest of us believe that this can go on for ever?
Are we who shut our eyes to what we bequeath our children and grandchildren any less...monsters?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 06:37 AM

To many of us monsters are things like dinosaurs or the creations of science fiction and things that lurk under childrens beds.

To describe a brutal tyrant as a monster seems to make him a bit cuddly really.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 06:39 AM

"My conscience is clear."

"We will burn the old grass and the new will grow."

"He who protests is an enemy; he who opposes is a corpse."

"Everything I did, I did for my country."

Pol Pot

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 06:54 AM

From: Dave the Gnome - PM
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 05:32 AM

...

I am more than happy to say they were despotic monsters

From: Keith A of Hertford - PM
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 06:14 AM

...

Will none of you denounce him as such?

Do you purposely ignore what I wrote less than an hour before because you cannot understand plain English or do you just do it to cause arguments? Now, how about that straight answer from you. Did Stalin commit those crimes against humanity simply because he was a despotic monster, or were there other reasons?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 07:13 AM

Free the Gnomes 

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 07:18 AM

Sorry Dave, I missed that second paragraph.
You have gone further than Jim is prepared to go.

Jim also claims that there is no evidence that Stalin's starvation of the Ukrainian peasant farmers was deliberate.
Do you have a view on that?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 07:20 AM

Hey Keith- read Leonard Cohen's poem about Eichmann some time - if you can force yourself to pick up a book, that is.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 07:37 AM

Do you have a view on that?

Only from what I have read in Marina Lewycka's excellent book "A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian". Oh, and what I learned from people who had escaped the Russian oppression in both the Ukrainian and Byelorussian clubs I went to on a regular basis in my youth. They believed that Stalin was a despotic monster. They believed that the USSR was an oppressive state. They believed that they could take back their homeland with a cavalry charge like in the old days. People believe lots of things and the reasons are never clear cut. Jim's original statement is perfectly valid. I suggest you take anything else up with him rather than 'you people'.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 07:41 AM

Fairs, Fair Kieth. You asked Dave to do something which he did. He asked you a question which you have avoided again (bit of a pattern really) "Did Stalin commit those crimes against humanity simply because he was a despotic monster, or were there other reasons?"

You have now asked him another question without responding to his.

Do you have an answer for him.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 07:43 AM

I did try to take it up with him Dave, but then you posted yesterday accusing me of sending the thread "astray."

That was when I asked for you view, and you did not express it until this morning.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 07:48 AM

"Did Stalin commit those crimes against humanity simply because he was a despotic monster, or were there other reasons?"

I believe he committed them for political expediency and to bolster his own position.
To me, that makes him a monster.
Right Jim?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 07:58 AM

"In May 1942 a British-Soviet accord was agreed upon, thereby fulfulling British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's wish for a "grand alliance" between his country, the Soviet Union, and the United States. For the second time in four years,Time Magazine named Stalin its "Man of the Year" – this time for stopping the German army in its tracks and, by joining forces with the U.S. and Britain, increasing the chances for an Allied victory in Europe."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 08:01 AM

So you say there is much more motivation for those crimes than him being a despotic monster. Yes? In other words, it's a little facile to just write off Stalin as a despotic monster. There is a lot more to it than that. Which is what was said.

Glad we are agreed on that.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 08:22 AM

Raggy you must be a very simple sort of soul totally bereft of any commonsense or understanding - why do I say that? Because of this:

GUEST,Raggytash - PM
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 04:16 AM

1: "Can't help but wonder why food could be got to ports for export, when Teribus also tells us the infrastructure didn't exist to transport food around the country. Curious."

Now then Raggy it was you in your brief thumbnail sketch of the Famine who came out with the following:

" GUEST,Raggytash - PM
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 06:18 AM

The famine wasn't a countrywide affair. Some 4,000 shiploads of food left Ireland in 1847 alone.

In the more industrialised areas deaths were relatively uncommon, in the mainly poor agricultural lands of the west and south west famine was much more widespread. The poor isolated population had become over dependant on a single crop, i.e. the potato.

Raggy take a look at your list of ports and take the trouble to research what those ports were like in 1845. Ireland's trade was almost entirely with England so rationally could you please provide a sensible explanation of why large ports would be developed on the west coast of the island? Ireland's main cities at the time were in the east and whatever infrastructure THEY required did exist That Raggy is how food could be exported and that is how money could be made and taxes collected to aid the not inconsiderable effort being made to alleviate the suffering. As food could not be got to the people where they lived (According to you in isolated communities in the South-West and West of Ireland) then the people had to move to where the food could be distributed to and stored.

2: Take a look at a map of Ireland and tell us where the following ports are located:

Cobh/Cork/Wexford/Waterford/Dublin/Belfast are all on the east coast of Ireland.

Limerick/Galway/Sligo are on the west coast but none were major developed ports then - they barely are now.

Londonderry is located in the North of the island and in the 1840s had very poor road access to Donegal

So of the 10 ports you mentioned 7 are in entirely the wrong location and could not be used for distributing food to the famine striken areas any more than they actually were (i.e. nothing more could have been done) and the 3 remaining ports located on the west coast were not major ports by any meaning of the term. Sorry Raggy bit you cannot just magic up solutions and say the British Government should have done more - the aid that was given at the time was unprecedented.

1983 - 1985 the famine in Ethiopia with all the advantages of modern technology, communication, means and modes of transportation and the speed of reaction at the world's disposal people still died in their hundreds of thousands. Now consider what the death toll would have been if the only resources available were those available to Trevelyan and the British Government in 1845.

3: "And there was Robert Peel ordering £100,000 worth of American Indian Meal just for it to sit on a dockside somewhere for lack of the means to deliver it. Extremely curious."

Not curious at all Raggy - they got the people to move to where the food could be transported to - not even sheep or deer are stupid enough to remain on hills with no grazing.

Once again I will say for the umpteenth time death by starvation (i.e. lack of food) was NOT the major factor in the drop in the population. The greatest contributor was emigration people left Ireland as the land could not support the population without major farming reforms being implemented. The second biggest factor in the drop in the population and the greatest cause of death was NOT hunger but diseases for which at the time there were no known cures - so once again the Government cannot be blamed for not being able to "magic up" cures and treatments for diseases that were barely understood at the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 08:32 AM

I never wrote him off as anything.
I said that in my first post to Jim after Jim used that phrase.

I do say that what Stalin did makes him a despotic monster, and you say you agree.
How then is it facile to describe him as such?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 08:34 AM

Jim Carroll - PM
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 08:41 AM

.......It's a little facile to just write off Stalin as a despotic monster -.....
Jim Carroll

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Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford - PM
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 08:52 AM

I do not "write him off," but he was "a despotic monster."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 08:35 AM

How then is it facile to describe him as such?

It isn't. No-one has said it was facile to describe him as such. It was stated it was facile to write him off as such and you agreed. What are you arguing about?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 08:38 AM

Have mercy, Dave - Keith has serious reading comprehension difficulties.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 08:39 AM

We are in complete agreement Dave, so why so belligerent and why accuse me of sending the thread astray?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 08:48 AM

so why so belligerent and why accuse me of sending the thread astray?

Belligerence is purely down to knowing that you will manipulate whatever is said. Call it a preemptive strike. I accuse you of sending the thread astray because you took a perfectly harmless statement, which you now agree with, and turned it into an argument. It was going fine until you said "I was responding to your assertion that Stalin was not a despotic monster." which is nothing like what was said.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 08:51 AM

Even this "simple sort of soul totally bereft of any common sense or understanding" knows that Waterford and Cobh are on the southern coast of Ireland.

This simple sort of soul also knows that Limerick, Galway and Sligo were ports that could transport thousands of people to America and Canada.

This simple soul also knows that even small towns like Baltimore, Dingle and Clifden had working ports.

Are you suggesting that Britain, that proud sea faring nation, could not transport good there. Balderdash.

And finally although I do not wish to write a treatise on the matter,
I think we all know that starvation was not the ONLY cause of the drop in population during the "Great Famine" but it was a very significant one.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 08:57 AM

"It's a little facile to just write off Stalin as a despotic monster."

I took that to mean he disagreed with the description, and that is a reasonable assumption which he could easily have corrected.

Instead he just said, "Of course he was a despot, but..."

I took that to mean he agreed with despot but disagreed monster.
Again, a reasonable assumption which he could easily have corrected, but chose not to.

That could not be described as sending the thread astray.
It was establishing our views of Stalin.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 09:02 AM

"Gotta love the British.
Few can do a pissed-off disdain act like these folks."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 09:16 AM

So, in your opinion, It's a little facile to just write off Stalin as a despotic monster means the same as "Stalin was not a despotic monster"? I believe your interpretation was wrong but it was your opinion which you are entitled to hold. However, to then state that Jim asserted that Stalin was not a despotic monster is beyond an opinion. It is an outright misinterpretation, which is the point that you turned the thread from a discussion into an argument. Whether it was from lack of comprehension or pure maliciousness I do not know but it is the point at which the thread took a nosedive.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 09:18 AM

Sorry, imagine an 'end italics' after the first instance of despotic monster.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 10:42 AM

I believe your interpretation was wrong but it was your opinion which you are entitled to hold.

Thank you.
That is what I believed him to mean.

However, to then state that Jim asserted that Stalin was not a despotic monster is beyond an opinion.

No! It was my opinion that he meant just that, and as you said, I am entitled to.
If it was a misinterpretation then I am sorry, but all these days later Jim will not say if he rejected the description monster or not.
I may yet be proved correct Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 11:05 AM

No, Keith, your opinion was about what he meant. The fact remains that you said you were answering an assertion that Jim never made. If left uncommented you would have eventually claimed that it was a fact that Jim believes that Stalin was a good man. You do it all the time and it is that that gets up my nose. Stick to what people actualy say rather than claiming they said something else. If you do misinterpret something just say that you did rather than make out it is someone else's fault and I think you will find not as many people will seem belligerent.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 12:25 PM

I said,
"I was responding to your assertion that Stalin was not a despotic monster."

I took his statement to be such an assertion.
He quickly acknowledged the despot bit, but still has not agreed monster.

He has avoided the question a number of times.
He said "Of course he was a despot, but.."
No mention of the other description.

He said, "Is there much point in repeating what we've already said?"
He had never said any such thing.

He said, "I did not say he wasn't a monster,"
True, but he never said he was either.

Over and again he has avoided the question.
My understanding of his statement may still prove correct.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 12:36 PM

"You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into." 
― Ben Goldacre, Bad Science

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 12:50 PM

Take it up with 'you people', Keith. It has become a pointless exercise now.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 01:09 PM

"GUEST,Raggytash - PM
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 08:51 AM

Even this "simple sort of soul totally bereft of any common sense or understanding" knows that Waterford and Cobh are on the southern coast of Ireland.

Ehmmm NO Raggy they are NOT on the south coast of Ireland they are very much on the eastern coast of Ireland - take a good look at a map FFS.

1: "This simple sort of soul also knows that Limerick, Galway and Sligo were ports that could transport thousands of people to America and Canada."

Really?? And that proves what Raggy?? You really do not have the foggiest notion of what is involved regarding people verses cargo do you? Now just think what you need to accommodate those two vastly different "cargoes". Bringing food in the 1840s you would require what? People to unload the ship, wagons to transport what was being unloaded to warehouses, people to unload the goods from the wagons or transfer to other wagons for onward transport or onto whatever method of transport that was suitable for the existing infrastucture. Transporting people on the other hand requires only that people turn up and the dunage is available for them, in the 1840s, to "build" their own "cabins" - no people required to load, very unintensive when it comes to "labour" if you are only transporting people.

Now tell me how the British Government of the day could have purely by magic instantly provided the harbours, the warehouse capacity, the labour and transport to land and distribute the food to where it was needed. Care to tell me for how long this should have been done?

2: "This simple soul also knows that even small towns like Baltimore, Dingle and Clifden had working ports."

Of course you do dear heart but your 20th/21st Century conceptions of what constitutes a "working port" do not relate in any way, shape, or form to what was practicable in 1845 on the west coast of Ireland.

3: "Are you suggesting that Britain, that proud sea faring nation, could not transport good there. Balderdash."

It WAS transported there by sea, and the people had to move to where the food was delivered because there was not means of transporting it to them (To move one full wagon of relief supplies would require another five wagons of food for the horses pulling the fucking carts you idiot) - haven't you got your thick head round that yet??

4: "And finally although I do not wish to write a treatise on the matter, I think we all know that starvation was not the ONLY cause of the drop in population during the "Great Famine" but it was a very significant one"

Ehmmm NO IT WASN'T

"In 1851, the census commissioners collected information on the number who died in each family since 1841, the cause, season and year of death. They recorded 21,770 total deaths from starvation in the previous decade, and 400,720 deaths from disease. Listed diseases were fever, dysentery, cholera, smallpox and influenza; the first two being the main killers (222,021 and 93,232). The commissioners acknowledged that their figures were incomplete and that the true number of deaths was probably higher" But the proportions were roughly correct.

Ireland lost approximately 2.5 million people - 1.5 million emigrated, 1 million died, 90% of those died from disease NOT HUNGER - Do you still want to contend that the majority died of starvation? If so then give me your figures.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 02:00 PM

"This simple sort of soul also knows that Limerick, Galway and Sligo were ports that could transport thousands of people to America and Canada."

Let us go a bit further with this one, this time applying a bit of historical accuracy to the argument.

Hate to disillusion you but the principal point of departure for Irish emigrants leaving for the New World was NOT Limerick, Sligo and Galway - it was LIVERPOOL.

The primary destination was NOT the USA but CANADA and the reason for that was quite simple it was cheaper (Often completely free of charge) as opposed to a passage direct to the USA where you had to pay your fare but also prove yourself to be in good health and have at least £10 in cash, wares, or means of trade to get aboard a ship bound for a US Port. Any ship arriving off a US port with sickness aboard was held off the coast until the contagion had abated. Doubt any of this then please consult Cecil Woodham-Smith's Book "The Great Hunger" - she goes into this in great detail. The principal point of entry into the USA for Irish Emigrants was not New York, Boston or Baltimore but Chicago, those emigrants having traveled to Canada, gone up the St,Lawrence and across the Great Lakes.

So please Raggytash stop wittering on about ports on the west coast of Ireland - In fairly recent times I have been involved with the operations involving potential exploration for oil & gas off the West Coast of Ireland - our bases have always been on Eastern harbours because those on the West Coast do not have quays that can support the loads required - they were even worse and less developed in 1845.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 02:24 PM

Hmmm. I spent 4 years on and off working on a tall ship. A tall ship the design of which predated the famine in the 1840's by a hundred years or so. As you can imagine, with your considerable knowledge, it was quite a difficult ship to sail, especially when you consider that the crew where simple souls such as I.

Ships such as this sailed in and out of dozens of ports all over the world and you are basing your argument on your limited knowledge on what is permissible today with current health and safety regulations.

Finally if you would care to look at a map (presuming you can use a compass) come back and tell me where the ports of Waterford and Cobh are (to say nothing of Bantry, Castletownberehaven and Tralee)

Basically my friend you are talking through your anal orifice.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 02:25 PM

Map of Ireland

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Modette
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 02:53 PM

'Hate to disillusion you but the principal point of departure for Irish emigrants leaving for the New World was NOT Limerick, Sligo and Galway - it was LIVERPOOL.'

No, it certainly wasn't for those who emigrated from the NW of Ireland. The main points of departure were Derry and Moville, and plenty also took the long overland trip to Belfast. The Derry and Belfast ships sailed, for the most part, to New York or Boston.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 03:01 PM

Take it up with 'you people',

You people took it up with me, remember?

Keith. It has become a pointless exercise now.

It was pointless from the start Dave.
I answered that exact point from Jim himself days before.
Why did you think it worth raising again?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 03:27 PM

It was pointless from the start Dave.

Spot on, Keith! any attempt to have an intelligent conversation with you is indeed pointless.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 03:33 PM

Guest Modette did the vast bulk of Irish emigrants sail from Northern Ireland? Somehow don't think so. Give you a tip look up the sailings from Liverpool and the passenger manifests - they tend to back up what Cecil Woodham-Smith stated in her book and please forgive me but I will take her well and thoroughly researched work over your word any day of the week.

"I spent 4 years on and off working on a tall ship. A tall ship the design of which predated the famine in the 1840's by a hundred years or so. As you can imagine, with your considerable knowledge, it was quite a difficult ship to sail, especially when you consider that the crew where simple souls such as I.

Ships such as this sailed in and out of dozens of ports all over the world and you are basing your argument on your limited knowledge on what is permissible today with current health and safety regulations.

Finally if you would care to look at a map (presuming you can use a compass) come back and tell me where the ports of Waterford and Cobh are (to say nothing of Bantry, Castletownberehaven and Tralee)

4 years on and off eh? So my working at sea for the best part of 35 years couldn't possibly be of any relevance then.

A Tall Ship based on a 1740 design? Which one would that be then Raggy? I did two Tall Ships races and sailed on Christian Radich, the Sørland and the Statsraad Lehmkuhl.

Well at least you finally did look at a map and added three other "ports" to your little list, none of which alters the points that I have drawn your attention to. By the way looking at a chart and knowing from the compass rose printed thereon the ports of Cobh and Waterford, as well as those of Wexford, Dublin and Belfast are most definitely located on the eastern seaboard of the island of Ireland - if you think otherwise I certainly hope that during your 4 years "on and off" that you were neither watch-keeper or navigator of your 1740s designed tall ship.

I note that you have not responded to the question I asked about Irish trade in the 19th century and why anyone in their right mind would develop a major port on the west coast when all their trade was with England - bit of a challenge for you was it? Or is your reasoning incapable of coming to any sort of answer?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 05:22 PM

Keep digging Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 06:51 PM

Teribus - if i produce emotional froth,
then you are in charge of expresso total choco bollocks latte machine with whipped cream and marshmallow bits on top!!!

the fact is they could have fed the hungry. they didn;t. the hungry people died. Trevelyan talked a load of moralising tripe about it. he would have loved to chasten the flesh of the Irish with Zyklon B, momosodium glutamate and the cat o nine tails.

And the reason for this is an indisputable fact of history. Namely that the english upper classes are a shower of shit.

If that had been fat arsed Queen Victoria or her porky consort wanting extra grub, they would have got Isambard Kingdom Brunel to create a steam engine pumping extra lunch into their fat guts.

So lets talk real facts, not what some dimbo historian thinks might just have possibly occurred.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 07:08 PM

Espresso!

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 07:54 PM

Do people of India subjected to famine count less then others, such as Ireland (which we hear a lot about). Mike Davis wrote about famine in Ibdia, under British colonial watch.

Famine in India 

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 09:00 PM

Facts? Teribus? Surely you jest.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 09:30 PM

Teribus is the one poster who most backs up his posts with facts. Those who disparage him are, for the most part, ideologues who find his factual posts inconvenient to their own ideologically held positions so they resort to ad hominems. SSDD.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 09:30 PM

Teribus is the one poster who most backs up his posts with facts. Those who disparage him are, for the most part, ideologues who find his factual posts inconvenient to their own ideologically held positions so they resort to ad hominems. SSDD.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 01:12 AM

ideologue
1.
a person who zealously advocates an ideology.

well guest you are right. being English of a certain generation gives you a fair udea of what's what.

pi don't have to be told Teribus's historians facts are fucking shit. i know they are, because both sets of my parents starved in the 1920's and thirties. we know about the indifference to suffering of the working classes. its our racial memory. our grandparents fought in the wars -that he's such an expert about. they were the cannon fodder. they were the ones unfairly court martialled. shoved in the firing lines.

if he was American would be telling the black Americans that being a slave was a doddle. if he was German, he'd know that Belsen was a holiday camp. there are historians who can be found to back up all these propositions.

And they all have the misfortune of being complete wankers. why Teribus has such wide eyed respect for these twerps is his business.

what Stalin achieved - well he was an ally, when they were bloody thin on the ground. as thank god our country survived that conflict - that alone should give him a measure of respect. after years of being grateful to our ally Uncle Joe Stalin - that iron curtain came down a bit too bloody quick for many of the troops on the ground ...still if you're not an ideologue - you are fact a moral vacuum, and such volte faces, and amusing paradoxes thought up by smart historians with all their 'facts' is all you have.

give me a prejudiced Englishman every time. or Irish.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 04:12 AM

Facts GregF - care to challenge anything that I have said? I won't hold my breath because I know full well that you won't because you can't.

Uncle Joseph Stalin only became and ally Big Al because his former partner in crime (The invasion and dismemberment of Poland) attacked him - little adventure known as Operation Barbarossa in 1941 - and Big Al it was us who came Russia's aid at that time you ignorant twerp - it was us who kept Stalin supplied and the Russian people fed.

Otherwise more emotive froth from a clown with a chip the size of Blackpool Tower carefully balanced on each shoulder - others have something let's take it away from them - classic envy of the true "socialist". Prejudiced Englishman you are most certainly that as well as being as thick as the proverbial plank and proud of it if your last posts are anything to go by.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Teribus
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 04:36 AM

Too good an opportunity to pass up:

1: Big Al Whittle - 27 Jul 15 - 06:51 PM

the fact is they could have fed the hungry. they didn;t.

OK then Big Al tell us how they "could have fed the hungry":
- What with?
- Where could they have bought it?
- How could they have got it to where it was needed?
- Where would all this food have been stored?
- How and on what basis would it have been distributed?

And remember Big Al you are doing this in remote parts of Ireland in 1845.

"Trevelyan talked a load of moralising tripe about it. he would have loved to chasten the flesh of the Irish with Zyklon B, momosodium glutamate and the cat o nine tails."

If that demonstrates your grasp of factual detail then all I can say is that it is you and not some dimbo historian who spouts what they imagined what might have happened. YOU OLD CHAP WOULDN'T KNOW A FACT IF IT JUMPED UP AND BIT YOU.

2: Big Al Whittle - 28 Jul 15 - 01:12 AM

"i don't have to be told Teribus's historians facts are fucking shit. i know they are, because both sets of my parents starved in the 1920's and thirties.

Fuckin' hell Big Al that must have taken some doing - you mean they died twice?? Once in the 1920s and again in the 1930s - impressive, especially as most human beings normally only have one set of biological parents.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 04:51 AM

Further to what Teribus said, Stalin was an ally of Hitler for the first two years of the war, and it was Hitler not Stalin who ended that cosy arrangement.

While an ally of Hitler he was responsible for the mass murder of Polish prisoners taken in Stalin's invasion of Poland.
Twenty thousand murdered in the Katyn massacre alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 05:02 AM

Now then Teriblunder. I've checked the map and Waterford and Cobh are still on the south coast Map to help you

I haven't mentioned the other ports so I didn't confuse you.

Now lets have a look at "your" ships firstly when you said Sorland I presume you meant Sorlandet, fancy not even remembering the name of your ship, that's not much use when your pissed in a foreign port, Length 210 feet 891 tonnes a pretty big ship for the time had it been around. Christian Radich 205 feet 1050 tonnes. Stratsraad Lekhkuhl 321 feet 1516 tonnes. Now shall we compare this with ship like the Jeannie Johnson 154 feet 518 tonnes, considerably smaller.

Now you may recall that some 60 years earlier the First Fleet had sailed all the way to Australia and guess what there weren't even any ports for them to land at.

And you are suggesting the British Fleet could have managed to land supplies on the southern and western coats of Ireland. I'll leave it to the good people to make their own minds up about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 05:06 AM

"And you are suggesting the British Fleet could have managed to land supplies on the southern and western coats of Ireland"

Damn the cat that should have read

"and you are suggesting the British Fleet COULDN'T have manage to land supplies on the southern and westerns COASTS of Ireland".

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 05:58 AM

no my parents didn't die. but they and millions of others were treated like shit by a country that their parents and many members of the family had fought and worked hard for.

yes Stalin did bad things - but my enemy's enemy - however tortuously arrived at - is my friend. pity we didn't remember that lesson with Saddam Hussein.

conditions were very bad for working people in northern towns like St Helens in the 1920's and through to the 1930's. they weren't actually a barrel of laughs for pregnant mother with your husband away fighting, living on rations in the war, with bombs falling every night. how strange that none of your clever historian mates exposed you to these hardly obscure facts....

through these experiences though one does tend to learn about the attitudes of the ruling classes. and you can bet they were times ten that in the Irish famine years. there is only one guiding prniciple - they were as malicious as theycould get away with.

your indifference to the collective consciousness of the English working classes and the overwhelming population of Ireland does you no favours. You just end up sounding thick and callous.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 06:06 AM

ideologue
noun ideo·logue \ˈī-dē-ə-ˌlȯg, -ˌläg\

: someone who very strongly supports and is guided by the ideology of a particular group

Full Definition of IDEOLOGUE
1
: an impractical idealist : theorist
2
: an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology

Merriam-Webster

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 06:20 AM

still! none so blind as them that won't see!

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 06:32 AM

yep, that's a good corollary to the definition.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 07:32 AM

Facts GregF - care to challenge anything that I have said?

Well, T-Bird, others are doing quite well indeed at exposing your nonsense. They need no help from me.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 08:26 AM

has it never ever occurred to you two - just why Ireland wanted shut of us. why they were not grateful for our caring stewardship of their province.

which part of fuck off don't you understand?

similarly - the attitude of British unions and British management?

have you never sensed a degree of disillusionment in the relationship.
have you never connected ut with the areas like heavitree in Exeter were they hanged peasant rebels, the resplendent palaces in our capital, the nasty fuckers who own all this money and choose to invest in sweatshops in the third world.
a certain ying and yang.
the class system whacks every visitor to England right in the cakehole. and yet these historians....they think hmmmmm...can't be the problem. too obvious.

when is the evidence of your eyes and your native intelligence going to weigh with you?

come on with the abuse, its only weapon in your armoury in trying to convince us that black is white, cos a few academics say so.

your in motley
a clown with a chip and a penn'orth of cod on his shoulder - sorry both shoulders. oh yeh and a racist... i haven't forgotten!

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 09:14 AM

I think that the historians' version of history is more reliable than emotive anecdotes and class war agendas.
It is evidence based, not just ideology affirming.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 10:06 AM

which part of fuck off don't you understand?

The part where Dubliners spat on the rebels in 1916.
The part where hundreds of thousands of young Irishmen volunteered to fight to save Britain in two world wars.
The part where millions are still passionate about wanting to remain part of UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 10:14 AM

but what if its telling you something which is demonstrably wrong.

if we had done what we could to help the Irish during the famine - don't you think people would have a racial memory.   if you talk to any older people from Holland - they are grateful that we liberated their country. peole remember. take a look at the Clancy Bros songbook - theres a phrase that sticks in my head from it - a phrase remembering an evening where the famine was brought up because the Irish were helping us out with cattle production - someone proposed every cow sent over should have 1847 with love written on it - and it says there was 'dark laughter and darker songs'.

When the country in question is writing a song like Athenry and a lot of them want it for their national anthem. A song that specifically mentions Trevelyan. Get real - we fucked up big time. and clinging to the mealy mouthed historians who probably never missed a sausage roll in his life - naturally it pisses people off.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 10:14 AM

Odds on you wouldn't dare say that in Dublin, Cork, Limerick etc

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 10:21 AM

Al, if an historian says something demonstrably wrong, their peers descend on them and rip their folly to shreds.

Rag, what is wrong with speaking true?
Do you deny anything I just wrote?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 10:28 AM

I think that the historians' version of history ...

WHICH historians, Keith? All historians worldwide, or just English ones?
Live ones, dead ones, or both? The ones who write for the tabloid press?
The ones whose works are available in bookshops? Or just the ones who agree with you? The ones whose hat size is larger than seven and five-eights?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 10:28 AM

I'm not denying anything but I would put money on it you wouldn't say that in Dublin, Galway, Ennis. Now ask yourself WHY you wouldn't say it.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 11:00 AM

Very interesting piece in the spectator about history and historians. For those disinclined to follow the link, I paste the first paragraph and the closing statement.

No one alive now has any adult experience of the first world war, but still it shows no sign of respectable ossification; no armistice of opposing historians seems in prospect. It maintains a terrible, vivid, constantly mutable life. Like the French Revolution, its meaning shifts from generation to generation and according to which politician happens to be speaking at the moment.

...

Historical events are slippery and unpredictable facts in our lives, and don't tend to stay still. I mean, we haven't made up our minds about the Emperor Claudius yet, so it's very early for this book even to be contemplated.

Both comments significant to the discussion I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 11:32 AM

"History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?" 
― Dan Brown, 


"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." 
― Winston S. Churchill


"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." 
― Mark Twain

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 11:36 AM

History is always written by the winners.

Puerile nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 11:50 AM

Now ask yourself WHY you wouldn't say it.

As we see here often enough, some people get irrational and angry when confronted with certain truths.
Was it true or not Rag?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 11:55 AM

"A little nonsense now and then, 
Is cherished by the wisest men." 
― John August, 3 Engel für Charlie


"Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense." 
― Ludwig Wittgenstein


"In the land of Gibberish, the man who makes sense, the man who speaks clearly, clearly speaks nonsense." 
― Jarod Kintz, This Book Has No Title

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 12:10 PM

Look in the mirror and say those same words to yourself

I know you have a vision of history as YOU percive it, that is not necessarily the truth or even a partial truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 01:30 PM

I know you have a vision of history as YOU percive it, that is not necessarily the truth or even a partial truth.

Hell, its not even reality.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 01:51 PM

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." 
― Robertson Davies

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 02:15 PM

Good one Ed.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 02:34 PM

Rag,
I know you have a vision of history as YOU percive it, that is not necessarily the truth or even a partial truth.

"Dubliners spat on the rebels in 1916."

That happened.
That is the truth.

"Hundreds of thousands of young Irishmen volunteered to fight to save Britain in two world wars."

That happened.
That is the truth.

"Millions are still passionate about wanting to remain part of UK."

That is still true.
That is the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 02:37 PM

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!"
William Shakespeare 

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 03:15 PM

i'm not going to write an essay on each of those three apparent anomalies. mainly because i know you're smart enough to explain them yourself Keith. take that as a compliment.

as for historians metaphorically tearing each other to shreds.. you know and i know that doesn't mean bollocks outside page three of the TLS.

the only historian i've seen awarded his own section in WHSmiths is David Irving and readable though he is, the main propositions are tripe. if historical accuracy had meant shit - Jesus would have cheered up sick people with conjuring trcks - never mind raise the dead. just because some people believe it doesn't mean you have to.

the bad feeling between the countries is the stuff of song and legend - take theverse about the queen visiting Ireland in Mountains of Mourne, the last verse of the Rocky Road to Dublin....the hundreds of ballads about the croppies, 1916...they're still being written.

does none of this resonate with you - how far have i got to shove this gear lever till common sense kicks in.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 03:42 PM

i know you're smart enough to explain them yourself Keith

Evidence?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 04:16 PM

No fairs fair. Keith (for once) is accurate in the very narrow things he has said. Many Dubliners in 1916 did not support the rising, many Irishmen fought for Britain in both wars and many people (especially in Ulster) want Ulster to remain part of the UK.

However in Keith world that means that the previous 750 years of relentless subjugation count for nought.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 06:36 PM

the bad feeling between the countries is the stuff of song and legend -

Very few from before 1916, and few of those actually from Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 06:40 PM

Very few from before 1916, and few of those actually from Ireland.

Well, Raggy, Keith has just re-established himself - he's back to his old obnoxious blend of ignorance and idiocy.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Jul 15 - 06:46 PM

Didn't think it would take very long

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 01:34 AM

take a look at that same Clancy bros songbook - i think you'll find you're wrong.

but if you think for a minute - you'll find you know hundreds of songs about the '98 rebellion, about Parnell, O'Connel, Nell flaherty's Goose, etc - the list is endless and i'm not an expert like Jim.

its not a case of anyone being obnoxious. its just a case of people giving credence to guys who have a living to make. so they say something outrageous.

The English government did all that could be expected of decent Christian folk to help the victims of the Irish famine. The first world war Generals made a fine job of organising their campaigns.

i got nothing against people talking bollocks for a living. it just amazes me that sensible people swallow the shit - when a few conversations with their grandparents would have told them about the 1st world war . and the smouldering resentment at the heart of all Irish culture might offer up a clue to all but the purblind.

of course if you never bothered listening to your grandparents - thought they had nowt to tell you cos you were young and you knew everything - you will have to rely on these poncy historians with their endess pursuit of a controversial angle to sell their latest book.

similarly if you don't read Joyce, Yeats, O'Casey, Behan - or listen to folk ballads. theres this newspaper that might suit you called the Daily Sport - it features stories about Elvis being on the moon. very well researched i'm sure.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 04:30 AM

Anti-British sentiment in song is rare before 20th Century.
We discussed it eight years ago here,
thread.cfm?threadid=104914

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 05:02 AM

And this thread,
t: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: MartinRyan - PM
Date: 08 Aug 13 - 08:18 AM

Political songs about Irish struggle date back centuries, many of them never moving further than the towns and villages were the incidents took place

I know of no evidence for this, pre-20th century. Broadsheet ballads and songs/poems-set-to-music published by those associated with various political movements (Young Ireland, Fenianism etc.) - certainly; songs written in exile, yes. The tradition of local accounts of local events I associate with the War of Independence, Civil War and subsequent events.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 05:10 AM

Does it really matter when songs were written. Songs from the 16th/17th/18th/19th century were far less likely to have been written down much less printed on broadsheet. Remember the majority, native, Catholic Irish were repressed. Most did not have access to print, most were poorly educated having been denied an education. It is no surprise that few songs have stood the test of time.

And I know were you are going with this one Keith. Something like, they didn't write songs therefore nothing was wrong.

You really don't have a clue about history do you, you just like stirring things up so you can be the centre of attention.

Tell you what I go to Ireland at least once a year. How about we meet up in a bar in the west. I'll pay for all the food and drink and you carry on this conversation there.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 06:37 AM

I know of no evidence for this, pre-20th century.

Of course you don't. But just because you're ignorant don't make it so.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 06:46 AM

Wasn't the song "Roddy McCorley" about events in the 18th century? Just going off memory it is about the uprising in the late 1700s and the bridge on which he was hanged had been destroyed by anti-English rebels. If there was no anti-English feeling before the 20th century why were there rebels in the 18th?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 06:48 AM

Irish Ballads

Not all are rebel songs, not all were written pre 20th century. Have a look and see what you can find.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 06:56 AM

Not quite what the Professor said Dave, he said that anti British sentiment is rare pre 20th century song. I think he will then claim that anti British sentiment did not exist "per se"

As I have said he wants to be the centre of attention, if so, my offer to buying him a meal and pay for all his beer in a pub on the west coast of Ireland still stands. I am quite sure he will be the centre of so much attention.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 07:33 AM

That is what I am puzzled by. If there was no anti-English feeling, why was there a rebellion?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 07:43 AM

Dave, Roddy was written around 1902.

Greg, that was not me but Martin Ryan, surely with Jim our most knowledgeable authority on Irish song.

Al, Rising of the Moon is about the 1798 rising, but contains no anti British sentiments or anything for or against British rule, even though by the time it was written the famine had happened as well!

Rag, I think you are agreeing with me, and contradicting Al, that there are few anti-British songs pre 20th Century.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 08:17 AM

So what you are trying to say Professor is that because the lyrics of the Rising of the Moon don't actually say we hate the f******g English it is because the Irish didn't actually hate the English
.Rising of the Moon explanation

What planet are you on.

And no I am not agreeing with you at all. You have been circumspect in all you have typed, read the list I posted.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 08:58 AM

I am not asking about anti-English songs, I am asking about anti-English feelings. If there was no anti-English feeling before the 20th century, what were rebellions about in this list?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 10:12 AM

Greg, that was not me but Martin Ryan

Sorry, Professor, but it WAS you: no quotation marks, no attribution & even if there were, YOU posted it.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 11:48 AM

Did not have time to respond properly before we went away
Definition of 'facile' = easily achieved but of little value - glib.
Keith:
You have had EXACTLY my feelings on Stalin
There is as little chance that I have ever supported him or his actions than there is of you having read Isaac Deutscher, as you claim.
If I eved did support him I would not feel the need to lie about it, unlike you on your claimed reading.
If you have one shred of evidence that I ever have - once again, feel free to point it out.
Will catch up on some of this garbage later
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 12:34 PM

Jim, I have the 3 books to hand now.
You were right about the spelling of Deutscher. Sorry.

The only book you specifically gave as having informed your views was Conquest's.
You said that there was not enough evidence to show Stalin guilty of deliberately starving the peasants in Ukraine and elsewhere.

On page 20 Conquest writes,
"As recent Soviet accounts put it, "this famine was organised by Stalin quite consciously and according to plan." "

So Jim, how do you support your claim, or is it just one of Jim's whims?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 12:47 PM

You people put one thing to me, and then berate me for not responding to something else.

I did want to discuss the famine.
I know little about it and am not read on it.
I do know that Britain's culpability is disputed by the historians.

It was suggested that I we should know because what bit of "F off" did I not understand.

I pointed out Dubliners spat on the rebels in 1916, hundreds of thousands of young Irishmen volunteered to fight to save Britain in two world wars and millions are still passionate about wanting to remain part of UK.

Someone said what about all the anti-British songs, so I pointed out that there were rather few before 1916 and fewer before 20th century.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 12:56 PM

Greg,
Sorry, Professor, but it WAS you: no quotation marks, no attribution & even if there were, YOU posted it.

I pasted in Martin's post.
Nothing of mine there.
The thread name was given for reference.
You were calling him ignorant (!) not me.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 01:21 PM

Whatever you say,Professor. But do work on improving reading comprehension & logic, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 01:40 PM

"Jim, I have the 3 books to hand now."
I don't give a toss how many you have - if you had read Deutscher you would not have made some of the stupid statements you have made about historians
Simply not your sort of book - a - 600 page tome, masses of footnotes, and requiring some foreknowledge of the topic - part of a series of three on Soviet leaders
Knowing your preference for basing your knowledge on cut-'n-pastes - I simply don't believe you, and as you have no compunction about calling others liars and distorting their position - as you have mine, I have no compunction in saying so.
Conquest was very much a cold war historian who rewrote The Great Terror as ''The Great Purge' when he acquired access to Soviet archives - so cut''n-pastes don't do it, I'm afraid.
You have deliberately distorted my position on Stalin from the beginning -
I claimed, and still claim that there is no evidence that Stalin did what he did in order to remove his political enemies - he did no more than Britain did in Ireland - pushed though a policy of collectivization with disregard of the consequences - there has been no research into the Ukrainian famine to suggest otherwise and if you had read Deutscher, with all his footnotes and references, as you dishonestly claim to have done, you would know that this was the generally accepted line.

I too have Deutsher's book on hand - perhaps you'd like to tell me exactly what your copy says about the famine.
"I pointed out Dubliners spat on the rebels in 1916, "
I pointed this out to you two years ago - I also pointed out that this changed within months when the British brutishly shot the rebel leaders - making them martyrs and turning a small demonstration into a war of independence.
The idea that there were no anti British songs before the 20th century is utterly ludicrous - Anti British feeling goes back befoore the Flight of the Earls - The 1798 Rebellin, the Famine, The Fenian uprising, THE evictions,Land Wars ....
- are you mad?
your behavior toward other members contributions - your distortions and deliberate lying, has now got beyond a joke
JIm Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 01:43 PM

So, basically, another pointless argument, Keith. There were anti British feelings before the 20th century. Some historians dispute that Britain was culpable. So what's new? As my link pointed out earlier, they are not yet agreed about the emperor Claudius! As to the songs, well, old Cecil himself did not start collecting English folk songs until the 20th century. That does not mean they did not exist before.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 01:52 PM

So professor, are you going to take me up on my offer to buy you a meal and pay for all your drinks in a bar on the West coast of Ireland?

At your convenience of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 02:06 PM

Rag, are you suggesting that your friends would do me violence for saying things that even you concede are true?
Why would they?

Jim, it is years since I read those two biographies and they were good in their time but long out of date (1967 and 1966)and superseded by information uncovered since then.
Deutscher dedicates his book thus, "I dedicate this book a link in our friendship to TAMARA.
Do you still doubt I have it?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 02:18 PM

I too have Deutsher's book on hand - perhaps you'd like to tell me exactly what your copy says about the famine.

"famine" is not in the index.
under "Ukraine collectivisation" p333 is referenced.
"Nadia Alliluyeva (his wife) spoke about the famine and discontent in the country and about the moral ravages which the terror had wrought on the party........
The same evening she committed suicide."

My copy was originally prices 63s.net.
Yours the same?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 02:22 PM

Do you still doubt I have it?

No, we doubt that you've read it and understood it.

But it doesn't matter either way - he's dead, so by your own reckoning, he doesn't count.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Modette
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 02:28 PM

'No fairs fair. Keith (for once) is accurate in the very narrow things he has said. Many Dubliners in 1916 did not support the rising, many Irishmen fought for Britain in both wars and many people (especially in Ulster) want Ulster to remain part of the UK.'

Raggy, I don't think you're qualified to talk about Ireland if you think that the inhabitants of Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan want to stay in the UK.

Please use the term 'Ulster' correctly.

Modette

(Born in Donegal and proud of it)

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 02:50 PM

"Correctly"?, Modette.

But unfortunately the name has two usages, both 'correct' within their context --

i -- One of the ancient Four Kingdoms of Ireland, Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connacht (anglice Connaught) --

within which meaning Donegal would have been subsumed;

ii -- An alternative name for the State of Northern Ireland created by the Partition of 1921 —

within which Donegal [some might think anomalously] was not included.

So it was not being used 'incorrectly' above, so much as in the other sense from that which you, as a Donegal native, would naturally prefer.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 03:02 PM

have you ever spent an evening with someone who keeps saying - i don't know, i never seem to get a chance to buy a round - you blokes keep buying 'em.....

it doesn;t fool anyone in the pub.
and all this bollocks about the rich fuckers, many of them with huge Irish estates, not being able to help the starving folk of Ireland.

you're not that naive. or are you the one that never seems to get the chance to a round? maybe you identify with them emotionally.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 03:10 PM

Modette,

Please be assured that no offense was intended. My only defence is that like most people in England I have never been taught Irish history. My knowledge, limited as it is, has been gained from numerous visits to a wonderful country and gleaned in some part from the generous people I have had the good fortune to meet. My use of Ulster relates to the six counties we in England are told constitute that province. I would have thought if you went back far enough that Caven and Monaghan might have be been part of the ancient province of Meath, but as always am prepared to be corrected on this.

Raggytash

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 03:11 PM

"Donegal was to the fore in the original campaign of resistance to the proposed imposition of Home Rule upon the people of Ulster."
http://www.reform.org/site/2002/12/31/unionists-county-donegal/

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 03:14 PM

Keith

You pick the town, you pick the restaurant, you pick the bar. The people I have meet in Ireland are keenly aware of their own history.

Unlike some people on this side on the water.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 03:18 PM

Modette

I've just checked on a website and I withdraw Monaghan from my previous post !!

Cheers

Raggytash

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 03:22 PM

"Jim, it is years since I read those two biographies "
What two biographies - I asked what stance Deutscher took on the Ukraine - not who he dedicated the book to - reply came there none.
"Do you still doubt I have it?"
Didn't claim you didn't have it, just that you hadn't read it.
We all have books on our shelves we have never got round to reading - you have just shown which one you haven't read.
Your attir#tude to this whole question is incredibly out-of-context and based entirely on Cold War propaganda
Basically the Russian Revolution arose from the War - Russia, having lost nearly 3 million people (over one and a half percent of their population) walked away from the war
The political parties used this as an opportunity for gaining support.
The Mensheviks demanded that the men go bacvk and finish the war - out of the question.
The Bolsheviks opposed the war and adopted a policy of "Peace, Bread and Land - No war, feed whole of the Russias (not just Russla) starving because of the war, and re-distribute the land, in essence, ending feudalism in the rural areas.
In order to carry out the second, they adopted a policy of collectivization - an incredibly difficult task because of the size of the Russian Empire - from primitive peasantry and nomaadism in the East to underdeveloped industry in the west .
Lenin was prepared to negotiate with the various opponents, even re-introducing private enterprise after a time.
The Civil war brought on to re-introduce the old order - 1917-1922 brought about another million or more casualties and left the country devastated and it was this that formed the backdrop to the later famine in the Ukraine - it was never just a question of Stalin getting rid of his enemies butt the uncompromising stance he took towards collectivization and industrialisation
By the way - nce again you ignore the evidence - Russia was never at any time an ally of Nazi Germany - from 1932 it adopted an anti Nazi policy, they took opposite sides in the Spanish Civil War - Reussia promoted the idea of international Brigades while Hitler supported Franco and supplied planes to bomb the Republicans
They were unprepared for a war with Germany, so they signed a non-aggression treaty - at no time did they fight on the same side, as you claim.
If you own any books, for Christ's sake, read them.
Few Dubliners on the scene supported the rising - the men who surrendered at the end of Easter Week had to be protected from the women gathering outside.
On the other hand, there was support throughout the week for the men elsewhere, from Bolands Mill to St Stephen's Green.
Irishmen had joined the war as British men had, (all argued out on other threads) but there was general opposition to the proposed imposition of conscription - anti conscription was one of the main motivating forces in the rise of anti British feeling.
As I say, that all changed from the days when they had to tie Connolly into a chair to shoot him because he was so badly wounded.
This was compounded of course when Britain sent in veterans from WW1 who had been unable to settle into peacetime Britain - they were given arms and uniforms and became known as The Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries.   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 03:30 PM

I'm sure there can't be enough nits left to pick...

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 03:32 PM

" Many would also be surprised to know that there are, in fact, some 44 Orange Lodges in Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan, Donegal and Wicklow. "

"Indeed, of the twenty-six counties that formed the Saorstát, Donegal had the third largest non-Catholic minority, edged out only by County Dublin (excluding the city) and Monaghan.[2] Even today there are a number of Orange lodges in the county, "

"While the Orange Order managed to maintain its structures reasonably well in the border counties of Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, "
https://thedustbinofhistory.wordpress.com/tag/irish-protestants/

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 03:40 PM

Jim,
- I asked what stance Deutscher took on the Ukraine - not who he dedicated the book to - reply came there none.

You have had that question answered, and you owe apologies.

I claimed, and still claim that there is no evidence that Stalin did what he did in order to remove his political enemies

No.
You claimed that the starvation of millions of Ukrainian peasant farmers and their children was not deliberate.
Conquest contradicts that, and you claimed him as a source for your view.
Find any post cold war historian who does not contradict your view.
You can not, because his guilt is established.
Your denial is support for him and his crimes.
Dave and I call him monster.
Will you?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 03:43 PM

I do, Keith, but I also call some people wankers...

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 03:45 PM

Can we all agree, then, to call Stalin a wanker and Keith a monster?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 04:06 PM

Dave,
So, basically, another pointless argument, Keith.

Yes Dave, thanks to you people.
The history of the famine is not an interest of mine.
All the Irish stuff came from you people.
I only responded to the points you people raised and put to me.
I am so sorry you did not like the facts I put before you.

And now you revert to infantile name calling.
"Wanker" !

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 04:27 PM

Once again I will ask who are "you people"

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 05:13 PM

I presume by saying "Yes, Dave, thanks to you people" you are implying you were just responding to me? I would point out that I did not mention anything about Ireland until well after you started so don't go saying you were only responding to me! And I have not reverted to infantile name calling. Just pointing out that I call Stalin a monster and call some people wankers. I have not specified anyone apart from Stalin and you call him a monster as well.

Do you really think that no-one will see through your use of deceit and manipulation of what actually happened? You may have tried to fool the kids you taught but no-one on here would trust you as far as we could throw you.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 05:26 PM

The history of the famine is not an interest of mine.

Nor is history, period. Fairytales, myth and nonsense apparently are.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jul 15 - 08:33 PM

"You have had that question answered, and you owe apologies."
No I have not - you haven't read beyond the index wich you have hastily selected a quote from, as is your wont - Deutscher devoted a great deal of coverage to the Ukraine - there are at least a dozen references to the subject - you have not read the book and you make it obvious that you don't intend to bother reading even the section on the Ukraine - I very much doubt if you have ever read any book.
It really isn't your sort of book (it doesn't have enough pictures) - you lied and now you are bluffing - I ask again WHAT WAS DEUTSCHER'S LINE ON THE FAMINE - not his wife's ort his brother' in laws, or the feller down the pub?
"Conquest contradicts that, and you claimed him as a source for your view."
No I do not - will you stop attributing statements to me that I have not made - I said I had read Conquest and two others biographies I did not cite any of them as a source for any of my views - I have drawn my conclusions from everything I have read - including those three biographies - there is a host of other material on the period.
If anything, Trotsky's 2 volume biography is probably the most factually reliable as he was a contemporary of Stalin when he first appeared on the scene as a minor minister of Nationalities and Deutscher's is the most dispassionate and carefully researched.
How the **** can it be out of date as the topic of the Ukraine has not been examined by anybody fully since - and how the **** would you know anyway as you haven't read and don't read such material? - your breathtaking ignorance proves that..
There is no evidence whatever that Stalin deliberately caused the death of the Ukrainian people who died other than as a result of his efforts to push through collectivisation to the extent he did. He behaved as any other ruthless and incompetent leader has done in pursuit of an objective - (W.W.!" revisited again) unlike the deliberate starvation of the Irish Famine victims - which was clearly proposed as an aim by Trevelyan.
"Conquest contradicts that,"
Conquest claimed that in the first version of his book - he produced no evidence in either version - as one of your references points out - the whole subject has not been researched and what we have are Cold War claims, which may well be true, but to date, are no more than claims.
You are throwing your "out of date" claims around once again as if you have actually read any of these books.
"which Donegal [some might think anomalously] was not included."
The original proposal was to inlude the entire province of Ulster - nine counties - in the partitioned section, but when the calculations were were done, it was realised that this would create a Catholic majority, so they hastily dropped three of them
"I am so sorry you did not like the facts - the stated aim was to create a Protestant State "
You have yet to produce "facts" only claims based on cut-'n-pastes which have been blown clear out of the water, most spectacularly by one of your own historians, Christine Kenneally, who you claimed "knows more than all of us" but who confirmed her belief in the "deliberate Irish holocaust" school of thought.
Please stop pretending you know anything about the things you claim.   
"Wanker"
You still are not reading what people write - he called Stalin a "Wanker" and you a "monster" - read what people write, won't you.
I too would like to know who you are referring to as "you people - as you are again on your own, I presume you mean everybody else?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:24 AM

Jim,
You still are not reading what people write - he called Stalin a "Wanker" and you a "monster"

It is YOU who does not read.
Dave called Stalin a monster and challenged me when I missed it and said he had not.

Stalin's guilt over the starvation of the peasants IS established and acknowledged and accepted by historians.
I have quoted several.
If you deny it, show it is not just a Jim whim.

Re Deutscher, you asked for stuff about the famine, and I gave you a quote.
Stalin's young wife killed herself because she could not live with the guilt and horror of what he was doing.
you don't intend to bother reading even the section on the Ukraine
There is no such section.
Have YOU read the book?

The man was a monster as Dave agrees.
Your denial is support for him and his crimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:25 AM

there is a certain similarity in the approach of both of you Jim and Keith. you both enjoy doing Fred Astaire on thin ice.

Keith - he just has this demonic pleasure in saying stuff which is really offensivve. you see people are really close to this stuff - my grandfather was Irish and a an English soldier in the period you talk about. you are actually talking bollocks about MY nearest and dearest. just brcause some historian opines this or that - well that's interesting, but it doesn't make it incontrovertible fact.

similarly Jim this statement:-

'There is no evidence whatever that Stalin deliberately caused the death of the Ukrainian people who died other than as a result of his efforts to push through collectivisation to the extent he did.'

i've got a shrewd feeling that the evidence would not be too hard to lay your hands on. When I was at teacher training college in the late 1960's - the poor devils who took care of us young men, sort of college servants were a colony of East Europeans, men who had families and friends back in Estonia and the Ukraine, etc - but the soviet regime, nasty bastards wouldn't let them reunite with their families. but they had got stuck here - or escaped to this side after world war 2. thir predicament was quite pathetic, they had thir rooms with their framed photographs of families they would never see again. terrible malice and cruelty to old men.

Stalin, and his inheritors - not nice people. i bet they knew about every hurt they inflicted. Solzhenitsyn's stuff sort of confirms it. you really are talking about shit in human form. don't bother sticking up for them.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:36 AM

Conquest's book,
"this famine was organised by Stalin quite consciously and according to plan."

Al, I do not set out to offend.
My views are formed from reading history.
If the history does not f

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:38 AM

Jim was obviously referring to Greg's post 29 July 03.45 when he typed

" Can we all agree, then, to call Stalin a wanker and Keith a monster?"

So Jim wasn't incorrect at all and once again you are trying to fudge the issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:39 AM

Conquest's book,
"this famine was organised by Stalin quite consciously and according to plan."

Al, I do not set out to offend.
My views are formed from reading history.
If the history does not fit your experience, I am sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:41 AM

Rag, Dave yesterday,
"Just pointing out that I call Stalin a monster "

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:47 AM

Sod all to do with Dave, Jim was quoting Greg's post 29th July 03.45pm when Greg typed:

" Can we all agree, then, to call Stalin a wanker and Keith a monster?"

Nothing more, nothing less and once again you cannot accept you were mistaken. However there's nothing new in that.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 05:26 AM

Rag, Jim said,
"You still are not reading what people write - he (Dave)called Stalin a "Wanker" and you a "monster" - read what people write, won't you."

He and Greg BOTH were wrong about Dave.
Dave calls Stalin a monster, and said so in two separate posts which they somehow missed.
What about you Rag?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 05:51 AM

Greg posted: "Can we all agree, then, to call Stalin a wanker and Keith a monster"

Jim posted: "Wanker" "You still are not reading what people write - he called Stalin a "Wanker" and you a "monster" - read what people write, won't you"

No mention of Dave at all. You are putting(Dave)into Jim's post, no on else. Even when confronted with incontrovertible evidence you still argue that black is white.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 05:53 AM

Nitpicking at its finest. All this who said what and who called who what is ignoring the elephant in the room. It is what Keith does best.

During the Irish famine a million or so died. That doesn't matter because he can prove there were not many anti-British songs before the 20th century.

37 million people died in the first world war. That doesn't matter because he can prove they are well led. You lose.

We will probably know how many Stalin killed. That doesn't matter because I agree he is a monster. You lose.

Hundreds of millions of people lose their lives to violence and starvation. Keith always wins. Sickening.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 05:55 AM

""this famine was organised by Stalin quite consciously and according to plan.""
Conquest had no basis for saying this - he was drawing on Cold war rhetoric for his information as (as your own link said) the subject has for some unknown reason, been neglected - it would be interesting to know why that is the case.
The numbers calculated of the death toll of the Ukrainian famine range between 4 to 10 million - can you imagine the reaction if the Nazi holocaust with just a mere!!" six million deaths had received so little attention.
Nowhere has it been shown that Stalin's "plan" was to wipe out so many people - the plan was to enforce collectivisation on The Ukraine.
The casualties for World War One were 37 million: over 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded, It was not the "plan" to produce such horrific figures - that was the end result of actions taken.
You have defended that conflict as being just and even (unbelievably), voluntarily sacrifices - because you supported the war, Imperialist as it was - never a word on the number of casualties from you.
I have no doubt of Stalin's role in the Ukrainian famine, I take Deuscher's and other historians' point that there was an alternative way to handle the collectivisation crisis being dealt with - that is my feeling on that particular event.
My d#condemnation of Stalin goes far wider than that and deals with the betrayal of the Soviet people - I've already said this several times yet you, with your twisted logic, have claimed I support him.
You choose to use historical soundbites in your virtually non-existent historical analysis - I prefer to take attempt to understand the context and make my mind up on the whole picture.
Your views are not formed on reading history - you appear to have come to all of these subjects, Ireland, World War One, now this, with pre-conceived notions based on toyr extreme right-wing view of life and your fanatical nationalism, and then scrabbled around to fund quotes to back up your ignorance.
When I mentioned the situation in Germany following World War One, you dismissed it out of hand as a pack of lies - your really do not have a clue, neither do you have enough nouse to read up on these subjects - arguing with you is, I should imagine, like trying to give evidence at a McCarthy trial - you neither understand, nor car what the facts of these matters are as long as Britannia comes out with a clean bottom and the 'baddies' get theirs.
Read a book Keith, even something as incomplete as Conquest's cold war epic, and come back with some real arguments - I really have got very bored with your soundbites.
Still no indication that you have the slightest clue on what Deutscher had to say on the events in The Ukraine - surely you can get your wife to read it to you if you can't manage it yourself - or maybe wait for the film.....!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 06:03 AM

"You still are not reading what people write"
You're wasting tor time Guest - dyslexia rules in Hertford, it would appear.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 07:22 AM

Are you always winning things Keith.....raffles, premium bonds, the lottery, dog races.....

Its a bit irritating for us poor luckless bastards....

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 07:32 AM

Dave, you lie about me.

I see the famine as a human catastrophe on an appalling scale, and would never, ever say it "doesn't matter."

I see the war, and WW1 in particular, as a human catastrophe on an appalling scale, and would never, ever say it "doesn't matter."

I see the Stalin's terror as a human catastrophe on an appalling scale, and would never, ever say it "doesn't matter."

Can you challenge any single thing that I have actually said Dave?
No.
Just made up shit and name calling.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 07:45 AM

"I see the famine as a human catastrophe on an appalling scale, and would never, ever say it "doesn't matter.""
You justified it and attempted to exonerate those who used it to 'solve the Irish question"
You still have not acknowledged that facts of the Irish famine, despite the evidence you have been given and despite the fact that your star witness contradicts eveything you have claimed - neither has your friendly neighbourhood holocaust denier Torytune.
The same with World War One - denials of facts and exoneration of the bastards who caused it in order to protect their empires.
As far as Stalin's terror is concerned - you ignore the context of the events. you claim to have studies them, which you obviously have not, and you deliberately lie about the positions of those who disagree with you - you have never once withdrawn your sich accuastions.
Virtually everything you have said has been challenged and you ignore it, ans you ignore the alternative arguments.
It really is a bit rich for you - of all people - to accuse anybody of lying about to - you have made it your stock-in-trade.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 07:46 AM

Jim,
Conquest had no basis for saying this -

Of course he had, and if you look references are given.

Nowhere has it been shown that Stalin's "plan" was to wipe out so many people - the plan was to enforce collectivisation on The Ukraine.

There is your totally unsupported assertion again.
Find a single historian who believes it.
I have quoted several who acknowledge and accept that the famine was deliberate, and created to rid Stalin of a people, the Ukrainian (and other) peasant farmers.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 07:46 AM

You lie constantly professor. Even when it is clearly illustrated as I did this morning you either ignore the post or twist the words to "fit" your interpretation.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 07:55 AM

You justified it and attempted to exonerate those who used it to 'solve the Irish question"

A blatant lie jim.
There is no basis for that slanderous statement whatsoever!

You still have not acknowledged that facts of the Irish famine,

I know nothing about it and always acknowledged that.
I only pointed out that historians dispute culpability, which is the truth.

As far as Stalin's terror is concerned - you ignore the context of the events.

I just report the findings of the historians.
I can do that and you can not because they contradict your discredited view of the monster.

Virtually everything you have said has been challenged

Not one single thing I have said has been challenged, except by your unsupported and unsupportable assertions.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 08:24 AM

Can you challenge any single thing that I have actually said Dave?

What, sort of in the same way that you challenge people for what they have NOT said? Like, you have never said he was a monster, therefore you must believe he is not?

I now know it is not just me either. Other people have started to comment about how you distort what other people have said and, even worse, change what you have said yourself when you are caught out. The main reason I cannot challenge what you say is that you keep changing what you say you meant.

I may not go as far as saying you lie, but you certainly cheat.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 08:27 AM

"A blatant lie jim."
WHAT......????
You denied Trevelyan';s statement and insisted it was a natural disaster
You used Kenneally as proof that no such intention existed and when she blew up in your face, you just went on with your claims.
You described the depictions of the Irish people as club-wielding apes as harmless run-of-the-mill cartoons.
You denied the existence of the 'No Irish Need Apply Signs'
Your attitude to Ireland has been that of a bigoted Brit from day one, on every aspect of Irish history   
"I know nothing about it and always acknowledged that."
But that did not stop you making your claims, nor did it stop you from claiming you had produced a horde of phantom historians to back them up - you did this over three treads.
You have yet to even acknowledge the facts you have been given about Ireland, let alone disprove them - nor has your mate, Torytune
"I just report the findings of the historians."
'As you always argue - you haven't read these historians - all you have done is taken out-of-context quotes to back preformed impressions.
Again, you claim to have read one of the great works on the subject, yet you are totally unable to quote from it - give us a break!!
"discredited view of the monster."
Once again - you are lying about our position -nobody is saying anything in hneed of discrediting - Stalin was what he was and we all acknowledge that.
Yoe haven't even attempted to show deliberate intent - not once - out of context claims don't hack it.
As for being insulted -= how many times have you referred to those who disagree with you as "lefties" or "liars" or "naive" o "muppets" or "sad, sad people"
How dare you complain of being insulted when you do so as often as you do - and insult our intelligence with your transparent and uninformed bigotry?
"Find a single historian who believes it."
Find one historian who provides proof that he did - your admits that the subject has not been researched.
You have been given the context of Stalin's behaviour - you have been given our attitude towards it - have the good grace to at least admit that nobody here as ever condoned his behaviour - an admission that you have never read a history book in your life is out of the question, I suppose!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 08:55 AM

You denied Trevelyan';s statement and insisted it was a natural disaster LIE.

You used Kenneally as proof that no such intention existed and when she blew up in your face, you just went on with your claims. LIE.

You described the depictions of the Irish people as club-wielding apes as harmless run-of-the-mill cartoons.
I pointed out that British people especially the poor were similarly portrayed.

You denied the existence of the 'No Irish Need Apply Signs' LIE.

Not one of those accusations has any truth in them whatsoever.
All made up Jim.

All I ever argued was that historians dispute culpability, and quoted Kinealy that those who accuse Britain are the minority and had been for about eighty years.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 09:11 AM

RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford - PM
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 03:21 AM

Jim, I am not debating the famine.
I am looking forward to following such a debate.

It is a pity you still deny that historians are split over the question of blame.
Why is blame so important to you?
It is the events of the famine and its impact on the people that is of most interest.

Al I had and have to say about blame is that most historians, especially the professional, academic ones, challenge it.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 09:15 AM

I may not go as far as saying you lie

Oh, go ahead, Dave. Its not that far at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 09:18 AM

BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford - PM
Date: 11 Apr 14 - 11:58 AM

There really is no question regarding Britain's culpability

I know nothing about the famine, but I know that is bollocks.
I know that because Jim pasted in an essay by a historian who DOES think Britain culpable, who states unequivocally that the dominant view among historians is that Britain was not!

Also I have quoted historians disputing culpability, so when Jim says there is no question of it, he is talking bollocks.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 09:30 AM

Also I have quoted historians disputing culpability

But are they alive or dead? Do they wear pleated or un-pleated trousers?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 10:24 AM

I mentioned this early. It is a comment by Philip Hensher in The Spectator. He is a professional book reviewer and understands that books and authors are often contradictory. The particular comment is about a work on WW1 but is equally applicable to any major historic event.

...but still it shows no sign of respectable ossification; no armistice of opposing historians seems in prospect. It maintains a terrible, vivid, constantly mutable life. Like the French Revolution, its meaning shifts from generation to generation and according to which politician happens to be speaking at the moment.

This is what Keith cannot seem to grasp. His current 'truth' can never be the whole picture. No interpretation of past events ever will be as the "meaning shifts" depending on the current political climate, what will sell books and a host of other factors. To paraphrase someone's comment on fashion, "History is a thing so awful they have to change it twice a year".

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 10:52 AM

Thank you for confirming your ignorance on Ireland and your position based on that ignorance You have Kenneally's statement that it was deliberate genocide - you swore the one who produced her in the first place and who described her as "knowing more than the rest of us put together) yet she agreed with Coogan's conclusion that the results of the famine were deliberate.
You have also been given the full facts of the warehoused bursting to the seams, yet locked wile Ireland starved (exactly as happened in The Ukraine).
You have been linked to Trevelyan's statement that the Famine was God's punishment on the Irish people for their indolent ways.
All this, and your argument remains unchandes.
what exactly are you arguing here Keith?
Didn't Trevelyan make his statements (about both the Irish and the Scots?
Wasn't he the British appointed as advisor on the Famine?
Didn't the Government lock full warehouses and put armed guards on them?
Didn't the Russell's Tory Government dismantle all the relief measures put into place by Peel's administration
Didn't they adopt a laisse faire policy of selling famine relief to impoverished Irish peasants at market prices?
Wasn't the sugestion made by Trevelyan that the Famine was a possible solution to the Irish Question?
Weeren't the Irish people geiven the alternatives, emigrate or starve?
Which of these statements do you actually dispute?
Which of them make my arguments bollocks
This is exactly what I mean about taking quotes out of context and ignroing facts
You have taken two of your own quotes totally out of context to prove that you didn't say what yo have said
Couldn't have select a better example of your dishonesty myself.
It is little wonder that people lose their patience with your obsessive dishonesty and start to call you names
The pair of you were tottally hammered into the ground n this question and you still refuse to budge - and you still are unable to quote a book you have read on the subject, just as you are unable to quote from a book on the Unkraine that you claim to have read
You really are something else!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 11:14 AM

Kenneally's statement Jim?
Christine Kinealy acknowledges that most historians do not find Britain culpable.
All I have ever claimed is that it is disputed.

I am surprised that you rate Tim Pat Coogan. You denigrated Max Hastings as a hack because of his background in journalism.
Apart from writing a few books, Coogan has no credentials as an historian.

Here historian Liam Kennedy rips him to shreds over the idea that it was deliberate.
http://www.drb.ie/blog/writers-and-artists/2013/02/25/was-the-famine-a-genocide-

Here he says, "n the case of the Great Famine no reputable historian believes that the British state intended the destruction of the Irish people, "
http://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/irishhistorylive/IrishHistoryResources/Articlesandlecturesbyourteachingstaff/TheGreatIrishFamineandth

I have no opinion, except that the issue is still disputed.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 11:17 AM

Second link no good.
Use this.
http://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/irishhistorylive/IrishHistoryResources/Articlesandlecturesbyourteachingstaff/TheGreatIrishFamineandtheHolocaust/

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 12:10 PM

Here we go again - same old links, same old evasion of facts.
I have carefully set out the proof of Britain's culpability in the outcome of the famine.
Rather than throw abot historians you have not read, please adress the issues I have raised - I really can't be more specific than that
Three postings up.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 02:04 PM

No Jim.
I have no opinion on the famine, but I have showed you that historians dispute that Britain can be blamed at all, never mind that it was deliberate!

You are entitled to your opinion, but do not kid yourself that the truth has been established.

Rather than throw abot historians you have not read, please adress the issues I have raised

No.
This thread is about Stalin, and I have little knowledge or interest in Irish history.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 03:13 PM

Once again Professor you are attempting to bypass something because it illustrates the degree of your duplicity. To put it in words you possibly understand your LIES.

This morning I posted :Date: 30 Jul 15 - 05:51 AM

Greg posted: "Can we all agree, then, to call Stalin a wanker and Keith a monster"

Jim posted: "Wanker" "You still are not reading what people write - he called Stalin a "Wanker" and you a "monster" - read what people write, won't you"

No mention of Dave at all. You are putting(Dave)into Jim's post, no on else. Even when confronted with incontrovertible evidence you still argue that black is white.

Once again you have totally ignored this comment because once again it shows what a lying deceitful little (s**t) individual you are.

Respond to the accusation you are a LIAR or refrain from commenting.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 03:26 PM

"I have no opinion on the famine,"
Yes you do - you have just stated that Britain was not culpable for the death toll - what is that if it is not an opinion?
"You are entitled to your opinion,"
And you are obliged to provide proof if you disagree with that opinion - I have specified exactly why I believe that Britain was dirctly responsible for the outcome of the famine and why it was adopted as a deliberate policy to depopulate Ireland and remove the political pressure for independence.
If you refuse to respond to those reasons - either to explain them or to deny them, then you have no grounds for denial.
"This thread is about Stalin,"
Oh dear, the dreaded thread drift again - a sure sig that you no longer have ay more phantom historians lurking in the cupboard!!!
This ir relevant to what happened in The Ukraine because of the parallels of what happened in Ireland - more or less identical, except that there is no proof of intent in the former as there is in the latter.
"I do not dismiss or endorse any of the historians' views on this."
Not true - you have dismissed Coogan on the basis that he is (a) a Republican (as if Republicans have no knowledge of the country they are championing and Engish right wingers do!!), and (b) Because he is not a qualified historian.
Tell the truth now - you'll feel much better for it!
How come you were knowledgeable when you gave those reasons, but are not now.
Please say you never said those things - as a personal favour to me!
You have the reasons I have given as to why Britain was culpable in Ireland
In case you missed them - I've repeated them blow.
I will add the additional reason that, throughout the famine, English landlords were evicting Irish tenants who were unable to pay their rent due to the failure of the potato crop.
One of the first actions of Lord Russell's new administration was to close the workhouses that has been set up in Peel's time.
Many thousands died on the roadside or in holes the lucky ones ahd manage to dig for themselves in the earth - if they did this on property that was owned, they were moved on, so they die3d where they fell.
They were buried in mass, unmarked graves, "coffinless graves", many of which are kept alive in the memories of the people in the areas worst effects, such as here in West Clare - they are called "The Hungry Grass".
Jim Carroll   
One more time:
what exactly are you arguing here Keith?
Didn't Trevelyan make his statements (about both the Irish and the Scots?
Wasn't he the British appointed as advisor on the Famine?
Didn't the Government lock full warehouses and put armed guards on them?
Didn't the Russell's Tory Government dismantle all the relief measures put into place by Peel's administration
Didn't they adopt a laisse faire policy of selling famine relief to impoverished Irish peasants at market prices?
Wasn't the sugestion made by Trevelyan that the Famine was a possible solution to the Irish Question?
Weeren't the Irish people geiven the alternatives, emigrate or starve?
Which of these statements do you actually dispute?
Which of them make my arguments bollocks

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 03:30 PM

Missed a bit
"This thread is about Stalin, and I have little knowledge or interest in Irish history."
You have absolutely none about the situation in The Ukraine, yet that hasn't stopped you pontificating
Still waiting for that Deutscher quote from the book wot you 'ave red!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Raedwulf
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 03:35 PM

Teribus - there is nothing I can teach you about sneering or condescension. I didn't even mention the latter. It's a shame you won't consider what's been said, because you do talk a lot of good sense. You always have done, whether I've agreed with you or not. But if you prefer to play Cassandra, who am I to argue?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 03:43 PM

Jim, I have given you a quote.
It is thirty or forty years since I read the book and I am not going to read it again because it is out of date.
Much new knowledge has emerged in the fifty years since it was written!

Yes you do - you have just stated that Britain was not culpable for the death toll - what is that if it is not an opinion?

It is an opinion but I never expressed it Jim.

Rag, have you noticed that I am the only person who ever responds to your posts?
I must stop encouraging you.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:15 PM

Yet another cop -out from the most deceitful, lying individual on this forum.


A most cowardly man.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:16 PM

I respond to them regularly. Raggytash talks a lot of sense and I am not just saying that because I know him. Lots of people I do not know talk a lot of sense too. Another distortion of the truth? Maybe I should take a leaf out of Raggytash's book and call a spade a spade...

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:18 PM

Oh, and if you had not noticed, there were 15 or so responses to Raggy's opening post before you even decided to stick your oar in.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 08:23 PM

"Jim, I have given you a quote."
No you haven't - Deutscher wrote in the region of 30 pages on Ukraine - you have given a quote from his wife - confirms it for me - you have not read the book.
Who says it is out-of-date - you haven't read it, nor have you read anything that has superceded it.
That on'e's sorted.
"Much new knowledge has emerged in the fifty years since it was written!"
No it hasn't - if so, what has?
You have given nothing and Conquest pointed out that the subject has been unresearched and neglected - s what exactly has been "found out"/
Can you really do no better than that?
You refuse to respond to the points on Ireland - you claim to have no knowledge yet you dragged us through two huge threads on the basis of your ignorance.
Think that one's sorted too - don't you?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 08:23 AM

Jim, I can not prove to you that I read Deutcsher 30 years ago.
Did you think I could quote passages from memory?
What is the point of me laboriously transposing chunks of text from an out of date book?
If you have something specific, I will type out any short piece you request.

"Much new knowledge has emerged in the fifty years since it was written!"
No it hasn't - if so, what has?

From the fly leaf of Conquest's later book,
"Now in this revised and updated edition, Robert Conquest uses fresh and dramatic material which has recently become available to give........"

From the preface,
"First, we now have enough information to establish almost everything past dispute."

"The brief period of Khrushchevite revelation had provided enough new evidence, in conjunction with the mass of earlier unofficial reports (still later than Deutcher) to give the history of the period in considerable and mutually confirmatory detail."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 08:27 AM

You refuse to respond to the points on Ireland - you claim to have no knowledge yet you dragged us through two huge threads on the basis of your ignorance.

Yes Jim.
All I kept saying was that I have no opinion but historians dispute culpability.
Your outrage and furious denial of that simple truth was what kept those threads going, not me.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 10:12 AM

"All I kept saying was that I have no opinion but historians dispute culpability."
You - in your admitted ignorance, referred to my analysis of the situation as "rubbish" - bloody arrogance from a self-confessed ignoramous.
Had you read the historians you claim support your case, you might have a point - as you haven't, and have only selected the bits that you think do (and made a magnificent balls of that with Kennealy) your behaviour just serves to clutter up decent discussions by those who may have some knowledge and who at least have interest enough to read up on these subjects.
Were you to learn from this, you might not have the reputation you have.
"Jim, I can not prove to you that I read Deutcsher 30 years ago."
You most certainly can't, and every indication points to the probability that you haven't
"Did you think I could quote passages from memory?"
What passages - if you have a copy, as you probably have, there's nothing to stop you thumbing through and selecting a bit that might serve, without actually bothering to read what he wrote about the Ukraine - you can't even be bothered to read that.
How the **** do you know it is out-of-date?
It remains one of the most carefully researched books on Stalin ever written and read in conjunction with the Trotsky biographies and the one on Lenin, it paints a brilliant picture of the Soviet Union from pre-revolutionary days to the death of Stalin.
Do you not realise of exactly how arrogant it is to dismiss books you have not read in the way you constantly do on the basis of carefully searched-out cut-'n-pastes - this goes for Ireland as well as here.
You haven't given us anything on Deutscher's position on The Ukraine, yet bizarrely, you appear to be claiming you have - the man covers the entire situation - not the cold-war name-calling that appears to be your stock-in-trade.
Can you show us which of your "real" or "qualified historians who sell their books in real bookshops" have described Deutscher's work as "out of date", or is this your conclusion based on a "lifetime's study of the subject" as was World War One?
You appear never to have got over the urge to win prizes, rather than try and understand these subjects, and until you do, you will simply continue to get in the way of those who are interested in learning and passing on what we think we know.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 12:18 PM

You - in your admitted ignorance, referred to my analysis of the situation as "rubbish" - bloody arrogance from a self-confessed ignoramous.

It would be if it was true, but it is not.

Had you read the historians you claim support your case, you might have a point - as you haven't, and have only selected the bits that you think do

You can hardly deny that historians dispute culpability.
Kennedy demonstrably does in both linked items, and he is just an example.
Kinealy STATED that his revisionist view is "dominant" among historians and has been for about eighty years.
Believe her if not me.

It remains one of the most carefully researched books on Stalin ever written

You are being silly Jim.
First published in 1949 and revised in 1967, and you do not think much new information about him has come out of Russia since then?!

Do you not realise of exactly how arrogant it is to dismiss books you have not read

I have read it. Can you prove you have?

You haven't given us anything on Deutscher's position on The Ukraine,

I gave you a quote, and will copy anything (short) you want, but I am not going to reread an old tome like that, and if I did what would it prove?

Can you show us which of your "real" or "qualified historians who sell their books in real bookshops" have described Deutscher's work as "out of date"
The most recent book I have read is Conquest's, and he does.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 12:32 PM

Deutscher p336.
"Amid the famine and misery of the early thirties the provisions for their protection were completely disregarded. 'Re-education' degenerated into slave labour, terribly wasteful of human life, a vast black spot on the picture of the second revolution."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 12:51 PM

Keith
You have my responses - none from you except yet another meaningless cut'-'n-paste, that proves you are capable of taking an unread book from the shelf and flicking through it until you find something vaguely interesting.
You obviously haven't the self respect to recognise what a image you paint of yourself
Carrying on a discussion in your presence is like trying to hold an adult conversation in the presence of a fractious, attention-seeking child   
Unless you have anything that vaguely hints that you are even interested in this subject beyond your pre-decided sloganising, I'm going to leave you to it and see if anybody can get anything honest, or even vaguely entertaining from you
What's the phrase you use for those who disagree with you- you really are a sad, sad, Muppet
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 02:41 PM

yet another meaningless cut'-'n-paste, that proves you are capable of taking an unread book from the shelf and flicking through it until you find something vaguely interesting.

You asked for another quote, and I provided one.
Transposed, not cut and paste.
What do I have to do Jim?
Neither of us can prove we have read that book from half a century ago, but at least I can prove I still have it.

You have failed to challenge anything I have said.
You have refused to condemn an inhuman monster just because he was a communist monster.
You angrily demanded us to believe you that nothing more is known about Stalin now than fifty years ago.

Malcolm Muggeridge visited Ukraine during the famine and wrote about what he saw in the Guardian (Manchester Guardian then).

He says this about Conquest's book that you dismissed as "something as incomplete as Conquest's cold war epic"

"One of those definitive works which crystallises a piece of history forever. It is not so much a book, as history itself."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 05:02 PM

Jim,
I too have Deutsher's book on hand - perhaps you'd like to tell me exactly what your copy says about the famine.

I have given you quotes.
If you REALLY have the book, how about a quote from you now Jim?!
One that would show us all what you expected me to produce from it.

You do really have it to hand, right Jim?

You lied about me and the Irish discussions.
You denied Trevelyan';s statement and insisted it was a natural disaster LIE.

You used Kenneally as proof that no such intention existed and when she blew up in your face, you just went on with your claims. LIE.


You denied the existence of the 'No Irish Need Apply Signs' LIE.

referred to my analysis of the situation as "rubbish" LIE.

So Jim, is it true you have the book, or ever read it?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 01:55 AM

"Winning" was so important to you that you resorted to lying.
Well, you made a liar of yourself Jim, and still lost.

Stalin was a monster. Even Dave agrees with me on that.

You do not have Deutscher's book, and probably never read it.
Likewise Conquest's.

Stalin deliberately starved those millions of peasants, and their children, as an act of genocide.

Only a minority of historians think Britain can be blamed for Ireland's famine, and that is all I have ever said about it.

Liam Kennedy, Professor Emeritus of Economic & Social History, Queens University Belfast, said "In the case of the Great Famine no reputable historian believes that the British state intended the destruction of the Irish people, "
http://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/irishhistorylive/IrishHistoryResources/Articlesandlecturesbyourteachingstaff/TheGreatIrishFamineandth

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 09:01 AM

This is priceless!!

GUEST,Raggytash - PM
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 08:50 AM

A bit rich Akenaton. Someone posts a thread, doesn't give his opinion (that will be in Sundays Mail or Express) demands that someone else, in this case Jim, gives chapter and verse and you think that that is OK. Why not go back to the original poster and ask them for the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 10:11 AM

not sure we're actually getting anywhere - lets try a summation

1 we all agree Stalin was a no good fucker, but Jim thinks he had a historical context which explains why he was a no good fucker.

2 we all agree the 19th century famine in Ireland was 'a bad thing'.

3 Keith the famine wasn't really England's fault, and anyway in the words of great one who has passed on before - there was no alternative - we couldn't have done anything to help. And moreover there are some historians who agree with Keith, although none of them are on mudcat.

most people disagree with that last point.

what do you reckon - call it a day?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 10:28 AM

. And moreover there are some historians who agree with Keith,

That would be silly.
I am no historian.
I learned such history as I know from them. How else?
On Irish history I have neither knowledge nor interest anyway. Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 10:49 AM

"there was no alternative - we couldn't have done anything to help."
Read the threads Al - particularly the "God's punishment" and "solution to the Irish question" and the "laissez faire" bits and then come back and say it again.
" there are some historians who agree with Keith,"
Then they must have read his writings - he certainly hasn't read theirs
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 10:53 AM

. And moreover there are some historians who agree with Keith,

That would be silly........... Nuff said

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 11:09 AM

Jolly fun, but will any of you identify something I have said that can be shown to be wrong?
No.
All you can do is make silly comments.

Can anything Jim said be shown to be wrong?
Yes, and I have identified several.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Wolfgang
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 01:27 PM

Ewen MacColl's The Ballad of Stalin (in the DT) comes to my mind.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 02:00 PM

"Ewen MacColl's The Ballad of Stalin (in the DT) comes to my mind."
Only in the sense that MacColl's song reflected the attitude of the left, and many middle-of-the-roaders, who still admired the sacrifices The Soviet Union made in the fight against fascism.
The song was written in the Forties - the full truth about Stalin didn't emerge till 1956.
We were still singing hymns in school about how being foreign was to be "In error's chain", and being taught how the Empire was bringing civilisation to the savages, right into the mid-fifties.
Hindsight's a wonderful thing
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 05:52 PM

....The Soviet Union made in the fight against fascism.

Fascism, communism not much difference between them really.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 08:18 PM

"Fascism, communism not much difference between them really."
Superficial nonsense
Between 15 and 20 million people perished in Nazi death camps, under German capitalism.
During the Irish famine, under British industrial capitalism, one million people died and one million were forced to emigrate because the British Government decided that the Famine was God's punishment on the Irish for their sinful ways, locked warehouses containing enough food to feed four times the amount needed to feed the entire population, closed the workhouses, and adopted a policy of Laissez-faire (selling famine relief to the impoverished Irish at market prices)
In the worst year of the famine, 'Black '47, boats loaded with relief travelled to and fro between Britain and Ireland without being unloaded in order to push up market priced caused by delaying the supplies.
Fascism, capitalism, not much difference between them really.
As I said, superficial nonsense.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 08:28 PM

allright Keith and Jim. you do better. i was just trying to isolate the fundamental points you didn't agree with'

i didn't say there was no alternaive, Jim - i said that was the classic tory laissez faire line.

and Keith i don't think its a stupid remark to say that you need sort out what you disagree about - not just bitch endlessy. its frustrating listening to a conversation that just never seems to reach a denouement.

Keith believes the historians back up his viewpoint. what is silly about saying that is your earnest belief.

it very obviously a case of you think this, i think that.

keith you could be this.
jim could be that.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 08:52 PM

"Keith believes the historians back up his viewpoint. what is silly about saying that is your earnest belief."
Because he has never read a book on the Irish famine, he admits he is neither interested and has no knowledge of the subject
If he is speaking the truth -
"On Irish history I have neither knowledge nor interest anyway. Sorry." (see above)
- how can he possibly know whether historians back him or not?
I have carefully listed exactly why I believe what I believe -

"what exactly are you arguing here Keith?
Didn't Trevelyan make his statements (about both the Irish and the Scots?
Wasn't he the British appointed as advisor on the Famine?
Didn't the Government lock full warehouses and put armed guards on them?
Didn't the Russell's Tory Government dismantle all the relief measures put into place by Peel's administration
Didn't they adopt a laisse faire policy of selling famine relief to impoverished Irish peasants at market prices?
Wasn't the sugestion made by Trevelyan that the Famine was a possible solution to the Irish Question?
Weren't the Irish people given the alternatives, emigrate or starve?
Which of these statements do you actually dispute?
Which of them make my arguments bollocks"

I have received no response to on single statement from either Keith or his mate, Torytune
You work it out for yourself Al - it really isn't rocket science.
Jim Carroll.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 04:31 AM

Keith believes the historians back up his viewpoint. what is silly about saying that is your earnest belief.

It is silly because it is the wrong way round.
My viewpoint is formed by reading the historians.
I agree with them on history(obviously), not the other way round.

Jim, I have no view on the famine and always acknowledged that I am not read on Irish history.
I merely point out that culpability is disputed by historians.
Do you deny that culpability is disputed by historians?
How can you? It is an easily demonstrated fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 04:41 AM

Culpability is also disputed about WW1 but that doesn't stop you pontificating.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 05:53 AM

'It is silly because it is the wrong way round.
My viewpoint is formed by reading the historians.
I agree with them on history(obviously), not the other way round.'

bit nit picking. you come up with a statement. historians know more than you so you enlist them on your side. chicken and the egg - i don't think its that you and jim are arguing about.

i would say this. if you know nowt about the Irish famine, you're not really in a position to assess whether the historian is talking bollocks. unless you've actually seen them fighting in the pub.

you really are baiting someone who obviously feels passionately about the subject. wouldn't you agree.

do you two think i got the Stalin bit right?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 08:38 AM

you really are baiting someone who obviously feels passionately about the subject. wouldn't you agree.

No.
I merely point out that his view is not accepted by many historians.
I am sorry that makes him cross, but the fact needd not be suppressed just because of that.

You yourself have been known to say things that contradict others.

Guest,
Culpability is also disputed about WW1

The points I argued were not disputed by historians.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Puzzled
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 09:02 AM

Statement 1. "I have no view on the famine and always acknowledged that I am not read on Irish history"

Statement 2. " I merely point out that his view is not accepted by many historians"

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 09:26 AM

Oh fuck me gently.

We are getting the benefit of the opinion of the fictitious "historians" on this one too.

Your alter ego Keith. Not enough for it to be one person, it has to be a whole "consensus" of "eminent" make believe characters.

Says a hell of a lot about your personality trait.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 10:09 AM

Says a hell of a lot about your personality trait.

As do your ad hominems about yours.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 10:16 AM

Can I just point out that Keith has claimed (quite rightly) that he has no knowledge and no interest in Irish history or the Famine, yet on two previous threads he made respectively 214 postings on one and 322 on the other.
On both threads he became contemptuous of those who disagreed with him and it was only towards the end, when he found himself unable to defend his arguments that he fell back on claims of ignorance
At no time did he ever claim to have read anything on the subject in hand - his sole purpose being to exonerate Britain from any blame.
He (of course) put up his usual argument about "real historians" - dismissing those who didn't back his arguments
When Tim Pat Coogan's research on Trevelyan's letter was raised, rasther than discuss it, Coogan was dismissed as an extreme republican (which he is not)
It seems to me that posting 536 times on a subject somebody has "no interest in or knowledge of" is a grotesque case of extreme trolling and can only be regarded as an attempt to suppress discussion on an uncomfortable topic.
This is by means the first time this has happened with Keith in exactly the same manner, and I doubt if it will be the last.
If the overseers of this forum are unable or unprepared to deal with this behaviour, I really think it needs to be borne in mind for future reference - now we have had the example of somebody who has show
n he is prepared to filibust a topic to destruction.
Jim Carroll