Death Of "uncle Joe".

[icecreamicecream]

I see from the papers one of the greatest statesmen and politicians of the 20th century died exactly 62 yeas ago today.

[icecreamicecream]

But , Ichkeria Churchill liked Stalin,it doesn't follow that he liked Hitler also.Anyway I didn't say I liked Joe , I just stated that he was one of the enduring characters of the twentieth century.

[Jackdaw33]

In a way Stalin reminds me of Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell annotated a document, "The abbot of Reading to be tried there and hanged."

Stalin wrote, " A, B, C, &c, to be tried and shot."

[Peter Pedant]

Churchill did NOT like Stalin
and was dismayed when Roosevelt met him privately ( Tehran I think )
and was more dismayed when R said of S - this a man I can do business with
Churchill allso felt R was aware of his own imminent demise and bargained away a lot more than he need ( cos he would be in heaven )

There is also the shooting 100 000 officers Oh not R says 50 000 !
Churchill walks out and R says - I thought it was a joke for chrissakes

[icecreamicecream]

From what ive read in history books the 1920s and 1930s were a disaster all over the world.Stalin inherited a basket case of a country and try to turn it from a seventeenth century peasant state into a modern(for that times) self-reliant state.

[Jackdaw33]

Yet Churchill was a pragmatist. "My enemy's enemy is my friend."

[Jackdaw33]

Lenin warned shortly before he died against trusting Stalin.

[ichkeria]

Indeed he did. And given what sort of a person Lenin was - in a lot of ways worse than Stalin - that is quite something :-)

[anotheoldgit]

I don't believe we are discussing this but here are further facts about that monster Stalin.

/// Kill tally: Approximately 20 million, including up to 14.5 million needlessly starved to death. At least one million executed for political "offences". At least 9.5 million more deported, exiled or imprisoned in work camps, with many of the estimated five million sent to the 'Gulag Archipelago' never returning alive. Other estimates place the number of deported at 28 million, including 18 million sent to the 'Gulag'. ///

http://www.moreorless.net.au/killers/stalin.html

[icecreamicecream]

After Lenin died it was between Trotsky and Stalin who would takeover.Stalin wanted to restrict communism to Russia,Trotsy wanted to create worldwide revolution.I reckon we got off lightly with Joe.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Do you read the papers, Cornetto?

[icecreamicecream]

Eh!.."cornetto"????