Current Affairs Ukraine

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PhilM said:
Stalin is upper there with some of the most macabre and ruthless rulers ever, so the comparisons of equivalence with him and Putin are daft, like you mentioned.

It'd be a more sensible discussion to question who was worse - him or Hitler.
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While it's might be difficult to draw direct comparisons between rulers in history it would be helpful in relation to the comment, a comment in a thread about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the war crimes that he is commanding and a remark that suggested similarities to Stalin to consider ‘intent, methods and results’.

While Putin and Stalin operated in different political contexts, examining their intentions, methods, and results separately would be useful in relation to attempts to unpick the statement being dismissed.

In terms of intentions and methods, there are certain similarities between Stalin and Putin. Both leaders have been associated with centralising power, political repression, and cultivating a strong image of leadership. Navalnyi’s murder yesterday being the latest in Putin’s assassination of opponents is straight from Stalin's Great Purge playbook. The intent to maintain control and authority over the state is a common thread, and the methods employed, while varying in degree, share authoritarian characteristics.

These characteristics of extreme brutality, purges, and human rights abuses, resulting in loss of life can be seen in Putin’s Russia, Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Ukraine etc. and as a feature of Stalin’s leadership, and follow a model of authoritarian rule under the flag of Russian nationalism.

Putin's leadership is rightfully criticised for his authoritarian rule, and even though it might not have reached the same level of severity as Stalin's regime the intent and the methods in many ways mirror one another.

It is fair to say that even if the results differ in magnitude, it does not diminish the importance of scrutinising the intent and methods. Viewing the similarities in these aspects allows for a nuanced understanding of the leadership styles and the potential consequences they entail. While Putin may not be equivalent to Stalin in terms of the severity of actions, the similarities of their authoritarian tendencies in any political context should be acknowledged.
 
Drico said:
I wouldn't draw much distinction between Stalin and Hitler. Hitler was simply more, er, efficient. The extreme right and the extreme left eventually meet in a circle of totalitarian dystopia. Both were delighted to carve up Poland between them. But if we're talking dead bodies, Stalin puts Hitler in the shade. Putin is small beer by comparison.
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Beer is beer no matter the measure.
 
From the New European

Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Putin: Two men with the same mindset​

The two men have such striking similarities that it's hard to decipher which rhetoric comes from which leader.

Two men, two centuries and two very similar ways of thinking, Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Putin are alike in both thought and phrase. There is no greater demonstration of this than when trying to determine which leader uttered which of the following lines:
  1. You must obey the law, always, not only when they grab you by your special place.

  2. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.

  3. The task of the government is not only to pour honey into a cup, but sometimes to give bitter medicine.

  4. Those who fight corruption should be clean themselves.

  5. If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.

  6. Sometimes it is necessary to be lonely in order to prove that you are right.

  7. Everybody has a right to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege.

  8. Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.

  9. The leaders come and go, but the people remain. Only the people are immortal.

  10. There are both things in international law: the principle of territorial integrity and right to self-determination.

  11. Words are one thing – deeds something entirely different. Fine words are a mask to cover shady deeds. A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.

  12. Those who are weak will get unambiguous advice from foreign visitors which way to go and what policy course to pursue.

  13. It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes.

  14. When you chop wood, splinters fly.

  15. This war is not as in the past: whoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system.

  16. The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres – economic, political and humanitarian – and has imposed itself on other states.

  17. The strengthening of our statehood is, at times, deliberately interpreted as authoritarianism.
 
Spadge Vernacular said:
Beer is beer no matter the measure.
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Yes, it is - and there is no doubt Putin is a ruthless brute who may very well be capable of what his predecessor was - but the evidence before us is he is operating on a smaller scale of evil as things stand - for reasons both within and outside his control. That can, of course, change, but comparing him to the likes of Hitler right now comes across as hysterical propaganda and suggests he is almost uniquely evil when, actually, there are other despots around today - who the West likes - in the same category. Putin is evil and dangerous enough to be compared to his actual deeds: he is a brutal, dangerous dictator - one of many the world has seen since Stalin and Hitler industrialised evil to a level never seen before.

Frankly, Putin has as much in common with Netanyahu - who has just massacred 30,000 peope - as he does the prodigious psychos of the past. But that kind of comparison makes many of us in the West "uncomfortable" so we prefer to dig up the bogey men of the past who we can all agree were pure evil.
 
Drico said:
Yes, it is - and there is no doubt Putin is a ruthless brute who may very well be capable of what his predecessor was - but the evidence before us is he is operating on a smaller scale of evil as things stand - for reasons both within and outside his control. That can, of course, change, but comparing him to the likes of Hitler right now comes across as hysterical propaganda and suggests he is almost uniquely evil when, actually, there are other despots around today - who the West likes - in the same category. Putin is evil and dangerous enough to be compared to his actual deeds: he is a brutal, dangerous dictator - one of many the world has seen since Stalin and Hitler industrialised evil to a level never seen before.

Frankly, Putin has as much in common with Netanyahu - who has just massacred 30,000 peope - as he does the prodigious psychos of the past. But that kind of comparison makes many of us in the West "uncomfortable" so we prefer to dig up the bogey men of the past who we can all agree were pure evil.
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Points covered in my earlier post in relation to the comment on here.
 
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