Did the Soviet Army Kill Their Own Civilians in WWII?
Kevin Price, Editor at Large for USA Business Radio and Host of the Price of Business Show, has recently become hooked on Quora. In addition to daily hosting the Price of Business, Kevin has numerous writing obligations on this and other sites for which he serves as an editor and with his syndicated column, so we decided that if he’s going to write at Quora, he is going to share that content on this website. If you are on Quora, make sure to follow Kevin. You can check out his page here.
Kevin’s hot topics on Quora are history, free market economics, philosophy, and Myers Briggs typology, and many others. The following is one of his recent answers to the question in the title.
Stalin was a beast, he killed multiples more than Hitler. He was highly hostile to specific ethnic groups and systematic in his killing like Hitler (such as the Jews). We are not aware of this as Americans as much because the Russians were our allies. It would be “awkward” to leap our allies in the same camp as our enemies. That would be very inconvenient.
Not only did he kill civilians on a large scale, but he also killed his troops. Russia was utterly unprepared for WWII because for the years leading up to it he killed many of his most gifted and highest ranked leaders because he saw them as potential threats. He believed in killing them before they could overthrow him. Most of his highest ranked leaders during WWII were low ranking officers just a couple of years before. He had the least experience officers of any military among major countries at the time.
In addition, Stalin had military unit’s that had the job of making sure troops didn’t retreat or escape. While regular units were lined up against their enemies, there were units parallel to the Russian troops, aiming at them in case any independently retreated. The Russians were known for being unusually resilient in their attacks. You would be too if you were getting killed either way.
Stalin’s inclination towards violence is summed up well in some interesting quotes.
He said once that “When one person dies, that is a tragedy. When thousands die, that is a statistic.” I think this led to his tendency to “kill big.”
After the war he was asked how the allies won, he said “US material, British intelligence, and Russian Bodies.”
The name “Stalin” translated to… (read more, while there FOLLOW Kevin and check out more of his work).
