Statue to Stalin

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Many Polish boys and girls became old men and women aching to find out what happened to their dads. Were they locked up in Siberia somewhere? Might they still be alive? Many of those fatherless children ultimately died of old age never knowing.

That brings me to that other news item from 2010, a bittersweet but somewhat redeeming one. The people of Poland got an early Christmas gift this year—and from an unlikely source: Moscow. There, the State Duma, Russia’s legislature, passed a statement conceding Soviet responsibility for the Katyn massacre.

It was news not only for Poles but for the history books. It was something many of us who have studied and written about this incident have long awaited.

Frustration is a persistent feeling for those of us who study and record the horrors of 20th century communism, as we see those horrors ignored repeatedly by our illustrious “scholars” in the academy—and by people who erect statues to Stalin on American soil. Joe Stalin and his cronies duped countless “progressive” Americans from the 1920s to the 1950s, from the likes of educator John Dewey, writers like H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw, ACLU founders like Roger Baldwin and Harry Ward, Vice President Henry Wallace, and even our four-term president, the iconic Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (Click here and here and here.) Can’t we learn anything from history?

If Russians today can deconstruct the legacy of lies erected by Stalin to build up himself, then we Americans today can cease to erect monuments to the man on our own soil.

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His books include“The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and the newly released “Dupes: How America’s Adversar.

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  • Chezwick_Mac

    I spent two decades studying Stalin and his henchmen. The two most authoritative sources for me were Robert Conquest and Roy Medvedev.

    Stalin was an intellectual mediocrity with a coarse personality, but he understood one thing in its essence…and that was power. He understood how to check his tongue, how to bide his time, how to hide his ambition…and he understood the concept of "dosage", the appropriate level of attack on a given opponent at a given time…when to press his advantage…and when to let up. And he understood in his marrow the mechanics of employing murder as a political weapon.

    Stalin was a monster…a serial killer without a trace of human compassion. He was responsible for the deaths of 20 million (conservative estimate). Bedford, Va ought to be engaged in some very real soul-searching right about now.

    • Maggie

      A STATUE TO STALIN IN VIRGINIA! It was only a few years ago that the LEFT HISTORY REVISIONISTS caused a photo of Gen. Robert E. Lee to be removed from a wall of some kind in Virginia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A man of Gen. Lee's sterling character is REMOVED and murderer Stalin is put up!!! This is just more of the perpetual VICTIMS mentality of a certain ethnic group who is always aggrieved.

      • scum

        Still flyin' the Confederate flag, are you?

        • Marcus

          You truly are scum. Better the Confederate flag than the hammer and sickle. So, do you support the mass murder of 200 million people by Communists in the 20th century? I thought so…

        • Claude

          Better than the Russian Flag in my thoughts, at least it did not stand for communism.

        • pianoforte54

          Robert E. Lee was well liked on both sides. Lincoln wanted him to be commander of the Northern Army. Lee would have taken it but he said he couldn't fight against Virginia so he declined. Had NOTHING to do with the confederate flag ding dong.

        • coyote3

          Which one? There were several, but if you are referring to the "Battle Flag" of the ANV, it was never a "national" flag, i.e., adopted by congress.

    • Gary from Jersey

      Read "The Doctor's Plot" (can't remember the author) to get a clear pictgure of Stalin's true talent: organizing complex pieces of a puzzle in his mind to create a conspiracy that led to the deaths of millions.

      That anyone would honor this monster makes me wonder how those who would honor him with this bust would like the hellish world he created.

  • DogWithoutSlippers

    Incredible – Americans with no compassion or knowledge of "Uncle Joe" mass murderer. If I'd survived the camps I'd throw red paint over this monster bust. Hell, if I had the opportunity I'd paint the idiots who put it up originally in red! Shame – it has to be the forces of evil.

  • tanstaafl

    Stalin was a sociopath. We would do well to portray him as such, rather than putting up statues.

  • jacob

    This matter sholdn't have been protested, as it was a wasting of time…

    What was becoming was to have chained the damned statue to a truck's bumper,
    dragging it all the way to the WHITE HOUSE, for its "socialist" tennant to see it,
    whether he had or had not any say so in the issue…..

  • Krystalbird

    What was the reason given for putting up that statue?

    • Gary from Jersey

      This is a D-Day memorial. The leftist buffoons who built it want to give Stalin credit for the invasion, evidently to maintain the illusion of communist heroism in the West.

      • scum

        Gary, when you've checked into the numbers of Russians who died for you in WWII, just let me know. You can probably find the figure on Wikipedia. Thanks.

        • Marcus

          What did Stalin and his murderous, raping Red Army have to do with D-Day…NOTHING!!! Left wing moron…

        • tony

          Scum, when you've checked into the numbers of Russians who died for Stalin's sake, just let me know. You can probably find the figure on Wikipedia. Thanks.

        • Gary from Jersey

          No Russians died for me or any other American. In fact, scum (which is apt) the Allies provided countless millions of dollars (in WWll money) in equipment, food and supplies to Stalin just to keep his incompetent and purged military afloat. Stalin's terrible command decisions and his general staff's complete disregard for life cost upward of 2 million lives, and not one died for me, you or anyone in this country. Moron.

  • Bea

    Friends,
    Remember Michelle said, "we will have to change history".

  • Ollie North Fan

    Should have left it standing.
    -
    -
    -
    -
    -
    I have a new 20lb sledge hammer just dying for some action…

    • Stephen_Brady

      Want some help?

      • Ollie North Fan

        Sure, the more the merrier!
        Perhaps we can form some sort of collective…?

  • sinanju

    Andrez Wadja's "Katyn" goes into further detail about the moral ambiguity surrounding the slaughter. The Germans ironically were the discoverers of the killing fields and conducted a formal investigation that they tried to play up in their own propaganda against the Soviets. Though it's a tossup as to which side killed more Poles.

  • PAthena

    Who authorized the statue to Stalin? They should be exposed and removed from office.

  • Spirit_Of_1683

    If Naziboy had his way, they'd be unveiling a statue of Hitler.

  • Don

    Not only did Soviet forces not take part in the Normandy invasion, but does nobody remember the 'Second Front Now!' campaign by Western communists to try to get the Western allies to invade Europe long before they were ready, in order to take pressure off Stalin's armies and save his miserable skin? Remember the Dieppe raid that was a major disaster? Also does nobody remember that Polish forces who escaped to England from the Stalin/Hitler invasion of Poland in 1939 took part in the Normandy invasion as part of the Canadian army. Will they be remembered as part of the memorial?

  • BLJ

    Let's see……one if the worst mass murderer's in world history gets a statue erected here in America? Hopefully the pigeons will have good aim on a daily basis.

  • UCSPanther

    Stalin and Hitler: They were like peas in a pod. Both were greedy, insane power-hungry tyrants, both waged wars of conquest and genocide, both were extremely antisemitic and both showed a horrifying disregard for human life.

    Stalin was just as guilty of mass murder as Hitler was.

  • Tony

    Poland hates this kind of Monster!

  • mengqin
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