
H. G. Wells' 1934 interview with Stalin (2014) - coldtea
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/h-g-wells-it-seems-me-i-am-more-left-you-mr-stalin
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briga
Previous discussion on this topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7616566](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7616566)

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ohthehugemanate
When you read this fascinating article from two well spoken, educated,
convincing people, you should try and keep in mind the context of 1934. Stalin
had only ordered the execution of a few million people, and the system
probably had barely killed 10 million or so through starvation, gulags, and
routine police brutality.

You could be absent from work for a whole day before automatically losing your
job, apartment, commodity tickets, and meal tickets, and facing starvation. It
wasn't until 1938 that being 20 minutes late became an automatic firing event,
too. Of course, missing your quota could already bring a treason charge.

This is an intelligent, well meaning man - a tremendously well read scholar of
economics and political theory - who honestly understood that the only way to
achieve real Communism involved the deaths of millions and millions of
people... And considered this a reasonable sacrifice.

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pmoriarty
Also see Will Rogers' interview with Mussolini:

[http://www.historynet.com/will-rogers-benito-
mussolini.htm](http://www.historynet.com/will-rogers-benito-mussolini.htm)

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IanDrake
It’s chilling reading the words of a well spoken mass murderer.

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lostlogin
It’s well worth reading the books on him by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Stalin was
incredibly well read, sleeping little and devouring books at the seminary
where he studied, and he carried this on through this life. It’s chilling the
way he behaved to relatives of those he killed. Stalin had a creepy way of
referring to their deaths as though they were unfortunate events that weren’t
arranged by him.

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duxup
Well, I wonder if he did actually think about it as unfortunate that they
weren't around, but also that he did what he thought must be done....

I always got the impression (not sure why) that some of those around him
during the revolution thought Stalin was not the brightest.... but apparently
that was wrong.

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lostlogin
I dont know, but he had a weird tendency to talk of Stalin in the 3rd person.
It makes a little more sense given that ‘Stalin’ was an assumed name but it
makes quotes attributes to him extra disturbing when you notice it.

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ianai
It’s not like believing in peoples’ liberties makes you a communist. And
Stalin wasn’t a communist. Dictatorial regimes are dictatorial regimes
regardless of propaganda. Further, afaik, the worlds never known a good
example of a communist government. But the democratic republican model has had
some decent examples - though not perfect.

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TangoTrotFox
How would you propose having a communist nation without a dictatorial and
authoritarian government? What do you do with people that do not want to work
their offered tasks? What of people that feel that they do more and thus
deserve more? The solutions here in capitalism are perhaps not ideal, in the
sense of utopia, but they enable society to continue functioning with a
relatively small restriction on liberties.

It's interesting talking to individuals who lived through the USSR. Many of
the things we take for granted simply did not exist. Hearing a 40 year old man
speak so fondly of silly things such as Donald Duck and Disney - not in and of
themselves but of the advent of freedom and open culture they represented, is
something that's really eye opening. And while you might argue that that's
because it was not a real, or a good, communist nation, at some point I think
you have to consider that this might be a case of the no true scotsman
fallacy. Ultimately, I don't see how you so severely restrict the liberties of
the people without having a government that is extremely oppressive.

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throwaway84742
That’s what scares me. As the generations who experienced the “utopia” first
hand die off, new generations are born who think “it’ll work this time”.
Nothing that goes so fundamentally against human nature will ever work.

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pault
I've been thinking about this recently; we're about to lose the last of the
people that lived through WWII. I wonder how the generations 40 years from now
will interpret those events. I think we're already starting to see it with the
rehabilitation of nazi germany in alt-right circles.

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flyinghamster
> we're about to lose the last of the people that lived through WWII.

And for a long time, I've felt that the lessons learned from WWII would be
promptly forgotten once the vets died off. It's damn infuriating to see it
actually happen, though.

Sadly, the rise of despots like Putin, Trump, Duterte, Xi, Orban, etc. (not to
mention the Brexit fiasco) is not a surprise to me. I figured this would
happen once enough of the vets died off. [Lack of faith in humanity? Me? Yeah,
exactly.]

(US-centric) Frank Zappa's later albums carried the motto, "Register to vote
before it's too late." Too bad that there were so many people back then who
were either too cool to show up at the ballot box when they were needed most
(think 1980), or decided that outright fascism served their interests best.

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throwaway84742
How is Trump a “despot”? Please explain.

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jstewartmobile
At the time, Russia was far far behind industrially, even under the Romanovs,
and a highly industrialized Germany was rumbling next door.

Kind of like in the early days of the civil war, few union generals were up
for kamikazeing their men against heavily fortified confederate positions. In
Grant, we found a man unconcerned enough to pull that trigger.

Have to wonder if the reign of Stalin was a consequence of communism, a
peculiarity of a dire military circumstance, or maybe a little of both...

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jackfoxy
That's an unfair and inaccurate characterization of Grant. There were lots of
major battles with high casualties when Grant wasn't around. Grant's genius
was to maneuver his army after the battle _as if it had won_. This freaked-out
the Confederates, who had gotten used to score keeping by casualties, which
never made any sense. In reality some of the battles in which the Union lost
on the score were not really even tactical defeats. (Acting as if the battle
was a defeat turned it into one.) Grant recognized he had the more powerful
army, regardless of the score.

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jstewartmobile
Keeping score by casualties... regardless of the score... Stalin didn't care
too much about the score either.

Grant is just an aside anyway. Primary point is that there were many variables
in play, and pinning it all on economics isn't going to explain much.

