Vladmir Putin rewriting Russian History

[Happyhabits]

How un-sovietlike of him to do that....To start off, this is old news that i had just learned of(17 years old in high school) that i’d really like to discuss.

So I’ll make this short and simple.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... -462295.ht

Thats the article of information explaining all about Putin’s brilliant idea of rewriting history.

The part that struck me the most was, "Learning history should make people feel part of the nation, but it depends on how it’s done," said one history teacher from Moscow. "If the idea is to hide everything that was bad and only speak of strength and military victories, I’m not sure that this is the best way to create that kind of feeling. "

No. He is right. History is events passed and documented, and i do believe it isn’t fair nor is it ethical in any way to erase bad history, and it isn’t the right approach to patriotism and strong nationalism. By hiding that, it shows how much he is *ashamed* of it. If he simply stated he looked down on Stalin, it would be more acceptable and make him seem a more honorable man, but to erase him from Russian history? Thats almost like us erasing our history of how we pushed the indians out of our land. We did it and it wasn’t the greatest thing, but we did it.

Okay, my next issue with his declaration to change history, is this...

You cannot lessen your crime by comparing it comparing it to a crime of someone else. almost exactly what he did here, and who did he choose to blame? us. he may not say it firmly and offensively, but he did say it.

http://www.theworld.org/node/11906

Excerpt from link above: "He gave the academics a lecture on patriotism, insisting that the history of the former Soviet Union “has fewer dark pages than that of the United States,” and that Stalin’s repressions were “less terrible” than America’s war in Vietnam or Hitler’s Nazism. Russia did not use chemical agents to defoliate thousands of square miles, as America did in Vietnam, nor did it “use nuclear weapons against civilian populations” as the United States did in Japan at the end of World War II. The “dark pages of our own history,” he concluded, “were not so terrible.”

Okay, stop. First things first... The biggest thing is this...when he says "...nor did it "use nuclear weapons against civilian populations," No, of course they didn’t. The russians of the Soviet Union were too poor and far too stupid to. Here are some statistics, and a little thing called "proof" Putin obviously hasn’t heard of.

http://www.world-war-2.info/atomic-bomb/
"70,000 people lost their lives in Nagasaki by the end of 1945 due to the bombing. A total of 140,00 died within the next five years."
quoted from the link. 210,000 people estimated lost their lives in our nuclear weapon strikes on Japan. Thats it. And how many did stalin kill? about 1 million people? Not only that, but Stalin’s leadership was mediocre at best. You may say his leadership was good with the war, but here in america, we care for troops. AND, we hadn’t ever executed innocent people we simply didn’t like. In fact, america has never purged anyone and straight out killed them. His "dark pages" are really darker than he thinks, because if he is going to start throwing comparisons with us, we can throw them right the hell back, and ours are true


http://www.world-war-2.info/statistics/
You can clearly see there, with Russia losing a massive 29 million people total, and america losing not even half a million, soldiers and civilians added in, he clearly didn’t care anything for the welfare of his people or his troops. We knew that when he had his great purge and killed people he simply didn’t like.

And remember now, this is their country’s history they’re trying to erase. Would you really want to erase that? Its one thing to be ashamed, but to be ashamed, and try to deny it ever even happened? thats just raw stupidity, you can only expect from Russia of course.
For him to claim his own stupidity and try to erase Russian history is one thing, but to drag us down and make US seem like the criminals, especially in WW2? Thats just stupid.

[mongoman]

I love the subtle undertones of racism you put in this post. Really nice of you =/

Also, no nation's actions can be glorified in WW2 by any account.

[Dirk]

I would say encouraging "patriotism" and "nationalism" is an idea in any case. People will end up starting to feel superior to everyone else. For citation, perhaps the "aryan race" or the white supremacists. But the Soviet Union was incredibly nationalistic, especially when Stalin brought in the pseudo-religious intonations of "mother Russia", the "rodina", and such-like.

Even Kruschev, Stalin's successor, condemned the latter's actions. Putin should not change that. It lowers his international authority, as well.

I'm going to take the typical socialist view and say that history should be an unbiased account of what happened. We should preserve the "dark pages" in our history as a reminder of our more regrettable moments and so that we can learn from the past and past mistakes and do it right in the future.

Whether it is Russia's "purges", Germany's "final solution", Britain's sinking of the French fleet, America's wholesale slaughter of Native Americans, Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbour, Germany's "Blitzkrieg" on British civilians, Britain's use of chemical weapons in WW1, America's slavery of coloured people or, indeed, America's nuclear fuelled massacre of Japanese civilians, we need to recognise it was wrong and we need it as a reminder of past mistakes. Society needs that.

[Machiavelli]

I agree with you 100% man!

[Dirk]

[quote=Machiavelli]
I agree with you 100% man!
[/quote]

Thanks.

It's also nice to see someone new here. It's pretty quiet.

[code1]

i do not agree with you on all counts your article seems like it was written without thought and information

[Dirk]

[quote=code1]
i do not agree with you on all counts your article seems like it was written without thought and information
[/quote]

Why do you say that? He has quoted several sources of information.

[code1]

[quote=Machiavelli]
I agree with you 100% man!
[/quote]have you studied his findings completely to insist that he is 100%,i have thoroughly studied these points and found that they are filled with innuendos and hear say

[Dirk]

[quote=code1] i have thoroughly studied these points and found that they are filled with innuendos and hearsay
[/quote]

Would you please be so kind as to provide examples of the innuendo and unsubstantiated information that us lesser-mortals have not discovered?

[code1]

[quote=Dirk]
[quote=code1] i have thoroughly studied these points and found that they are filled with innuendos and hearsay
[/quote]

Would you please be so kind as to provide examples of the innuendo and unsubstantiated information that us lesser-mortals have not discovered?
[/quote]at this particular time i find no reason to submit any of my findings,