Quote:
Originally posted by newquantum
The two biggest rogues ever since Human's history began controlled two strongest countries in the world except US at that time to slaughter and ruin each other using all the wealth power, man power and intelligence power.
The above is the sentence I wrote in a Chinese civil cccpist forum. It was deleted nearly at once by the administrator who is extremely leftsided I think. In my opinion, if we throw away all the factors such as ideology, the eternal standard of distinguishing right and wrong can be left very simple and clear: whether you are friendly with others.
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Stalin was a rogue dictator by most accounts (at least as bad as Hitler in my view), and in his time, he exacted a heavy price on the world, but I doubt that WWII could be described simply as a battle between the two biggest rogue leaders in human history.
First, considering the popluation of the world, and the distribution of that population at the time, there were other wars and killing sprees that had at least as profound an effect on the growth of civilization as did WWII. To compare in terms of body count alone has little to do with the total effect of the war, as there were far more (connected) people available to fight in WWI than there were in some of the major battles of the past.
That's similar to claiming that the defecit of the US is at an all time high. In total Dollars, that is quite true, but as a percentage of either total Dollars in circulation, or compared to the total number of Dollars that are active in the US economy from year to year, the effect of the large defecit is diminished.
The same with WWII. There were other wars in history that spilled far less blood, yet caused greater damage to the growth of civilization. The sacrifice made by millions of people during WWII ended up producing a bipolar world, but also made the globe so much smaller in an information sense, that the following cold war can be looked at as a relatively peacefull time in human history.
Second, even though I view Stalin as one of the worst human influences in history, I beg to differ about your idea that WWII was all about the will of two "rogue leaders". Hitler was all about expanding the German border well into the Soviet Union from the outset of the war. He used his hatred for communism as a tool to gain domestic and world support for his plans, but it seems to me that the real issue in play was that in Hitler's view, Russians (Slavs in general) were just not worthy of being in command of so much real estate, while the "pure race" centered in Germany was so humiliated at the end of WWI, and apparently limited in it's possibilities for geographic expansion for all time, that something drastic had to be done.
Stalin or no Stalin, the German beast with the funky haircut was determined to one day call central Russia his own property in the name of the Fatherland. Stalin or no Stalin, it was Russia, it's sons, and it's daughters that got their act together for the sake of survival as a people, and beat the beast back first to Berlin, and then to suicide.
Others here will argue that Stalin was as wonderful a leader as I decry him as having been a despot, but I think we can all agree that Hitler invaded Russia, and that in the end, Russians beat the hell out of Hitler. Stalin was still getting the ball rolling on his own version of hell on Earth while Hitler was getting his nuts roasted by the very people he thought to be backward and good for nothing in civil society. No offense, but in my view, neither the price paid, nor the immortal statement made by the defenders of Russia against Germany during WWII can ever be expressed in one sentence. Nor should the feat be attempted, as to do so can only result in offering to forget more than needs to be remembered.
Counting the numbers of nations that you are freindly with is no justification of self. Freinds are important in all levels of life, but freindships can suffer through a few years of of political ice age without one deciding to kill the other just because it would be nice to have a larger back yard.
Voyager