Stalin and Us | Nina Khrushcheva

While not exactly breaking news, it was news to me that a Russian Orthodox Church-affiliated publishing house has published a biographical calendar of Stalin’s pictures.

I happened upon this while on Nina Kruscheva’s site, which I ended up on after seeing her webcast presentation at the Library of Congress National Book Fair, and then … That’s one of the reasons it’s known as the web.

At any rate, I was shocked that anyone, especially a church, would publish such a calendar. What’s next – a Hitler calendar? (He was a sensitive artist, after all.  And according to many, the Holocaust never happened … It’s Israel that’s the bad guy on the world stage …)  Of course, I should not be surprised that this is happening in Putin’s Russia, and the Russian Orthodox Church has a long history of cozying up to the state, as Nina Krusscheva put it,

In the USSR church was in bed with the KGB (arguably for survival), today KGB, Kremlin and communism have expended their bed size — California King perhaps or just the new (un)holy trinity — to make a perfect blend of despotism and domination.

The comparison between Hitler and Stalin is not in the least extreme – however short-sighted and short-memoried people are these days. In fact, Stalin was responsible for genocide on a scale exceeding Hitler’s. While he might not have used ovens or gas chambers, he was responsible for the Kholodomor and collectivization. Tens of millions died due to relocation, starvation in the artificial famine intentionally created by Stalin, and in the gulags – Russia’s concentration camps.  The ignorance of people in the US is understandable to some degree because of the efforts made by FDR and others on the left to paint Stalin as good ole Uncle Joe.  These efforts continue today in the left’s assiduous efforts to remove the deserved-stigma from words like communism and socialism.  Never mind the facts or the fatal consequences.

On some level, it’s not a lot different than the ignorant dupes who walk around sporting Che’ on their t-shirts.

via Stalin and Us | Nina Khrushcheva.