From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   In considering Stalin's atrocities, it is necessary to find out what was   
   Russia, what was Communism and what was Stalin.   
      
   Russia had a strong authoritarian streak both before and after Stalin. Stalin   
   was only the most extreme example of something that has always been there.   
      
   Communism advocated slaughters of propertied class, and there were atrocities   
   in all Communist countries.   
      
   And then there was the brutal, ruthless, paranoid Stalin.   
      
   Either one of these three would be bad enough; but being hit will all of the   
   above must have been horrible. The people who lived through Stalin must have   
   been extraordinarily strong. And even among those who did not survive, many   
   were strong enough.   
      
   My grandmother was one such person, and she was a very strong-minded woman.   
   Unfortunately she derived her strength from Communism, and she wasn't nice to   
   my mother, who also was a strong-minded woman and wanted to go to United   
   States. Her generation has    
   reputation for heavy-handedness, which cuts across countries. The same   
   character traits existed under a number of systems, and they clashed   
   especially with their children, whose own traits also found ways to exist   
   under a number of systems.   
      
   With Stalin, we see an extreme example of something that was a global trend at   
   the time. There were many authoritarian leaders in 1930s and 1940s, even in   
   America. It was worst in Soviet Union because they were hit with a triple   
   whammy of Stalin,    
   Communism and Russian authoritarianism. But many other people experienced   
   similar things at the time, and it shaped the way they approached life.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)