Why is public opinion kinder to Stalin than to Hitler?

[Cubus]

Hitler is always brought up as "the bad one" while the Stalin is very often forgotten, even if he was as bad or worse dictator than Hitler. Why?

[Apulu_Imback]

In our civics book, we have a long 20 pages chapter for Hitler but a subtopic of 2 pages about Stalin. I guess because German dictatorship is more popular than Russian. Popularity and awareness depends on the end.

[Lucy68]

Cause the education system focuses on teaching about Hitler and not much on Stalin. We learned about Stalin but no one goes into full depth with him like they do fot Hitler

[Cubus]

Well, I was taught about Holodomor.

[Lucy68]

We were taught about them all, but were focused more on Hitler

[Cubus]

Because Stalin was your mate during the war?

[Lucy68]

Now we didn't get taught that, I learned that interesting fact from you

[007kingifrit]

i was not taught much about the evils of stalin in school. but entire semesters built around the holocaust. it gets way too much emphasis

[Lucy68]

Thank you for the MHO

[Cubus]

You're welcome

[OlderAndWiser]

Perhaps it is easier to hate Hitler because he particularly targeted one group for extinction, and his obsession caused severe destruction of the German empire while Stalin turn Russia into a superpower.

[NamerOfStars]

A combination of justification (Stalin slaughtered his own people, mostly), historical revisionism (Nazi atrocities were what World War 2 was about- except they weren't; it's only an after-the-fact theory to prop up local jingoism), and oikophobic overcompensation- the capitalist side of the Cold War did lots of evil things too (which is true), so it means the Commies weren't actually that bad (which is nonsense).

[Cubus]

Red army was killing and raping a lot of people during the war. And not only he used to kill his people.

[NamerOfStars]

Pretty much EVERY army was- I'm by no means defending the man. But WHO, among the powers of that war, DIDN'T have an atrocity or two to their name? The nation that forcibly imprisoned its own citizens because of their ethnic origin? The one that explicitly ordered its submarine crews to kill shipwrecked sailors (a violating of the 1907 Geneva conventions)? Or the one that blew up its OWN vital economic infrastructure, killing hundreds of thousands of its own citizens?

It was only when we were down to a handful of surviving WW1 soldiers that the pointless worship of THEM was replaced by a more realistic look at that war; we'll probably go through the same thing with WW2 in the next five-ten years.

[RolandCuthbert]

Because the world had to tolerate Stalin to get rid of Hitler. Hitler was on the verge of plunging the world into darkness. We were lucky that Hitler reneged on his agreement with Stalin and attacked Russia. He always thought the Russians were a paper tiger.

https://www.britannica.com/event/German-Soviet-Nonaggression-Pact

[NaultD]

The red army overtook Berlin. Hitler killed himself. Stalin was an allied force that helped win the war. As they say history is written by the Victors.

I get that he's a cock sucker but compared to Hitler being alive Hitler is still worse. Then everything after ww2 is ultimately overshadowed as not interesting or relevant.

[Rockstarrrrr]

Because Hitler was big on racial superiority and ethnic cleansing... experiments on humans... he dreamed of conquering the world and wouldn't stop... Stalin may have higher numbers but he was pretty much a classic dictator... Hitler did evil stuff

[Cubus]

Stalin was also experimenting on humans

[Rockstarrrrr]

Hitler did it on a bigger scale

[qwert1234]

Because Stalin fought Hitler, and won.

And because USA fought Germany in WW2 and won, and we had non stop media/history frenzy about how much of an ass Nazi Germany is back then.

[Cubus]

Stalin was in alliance with Hitler, until he betrayed him.

[qwert1234]

Yeah. But the victory has a "heavier" weight than that.
Hitler also uplifted Germany from poverty but hey...

[Avicenna]

That's a good question. There were fewer survivors of Stalin's mass murder and not as many of them ever made it to the West. Hardcore leftists actually like Stalin and his methods.

[OddBeMe]

Well…yeah. Stalin killed his own countrymen…which I guess looks better than invading other countries. And “Hitler started it” could be argued. Though communists and their mass famine shit isn't as called out as much as it should be.

[Cubus]

If by "it" you mean "World War 2" then they both started it

[OddBeMe]

Ehh, Allies kinda looked past Stalin invading Poland, too… true. But 70% of the war was in the east where 25 million slavs and jews died. Dont befriending soviets but they did beat nazi germany.

[jennifer_bloom]

Stalin killed people for political reasons while Hitler killed people for no reason at all - both are bad but Hitler was worse

[goaded]

Probably because people tend not to defend or deny Stalin's actions as much as they do Hitler's. Putin's Russia being an exception, of course.

[Cubus]

Most Russians tend to defend Stalin's actions.

[goaded]

That's why I listed them as an exception. For 70 years, around the world, as anticipated by Eisenhower, certain people have been trying to deny the Holocaust so they can have another go. That's why there were so many films made of what was found at the concentration camps.

[Anonymous]

Mao Tse Tung as well. I think with Hitler, the full extent of his crimes were revealed whereas Stalin was able to conceal what he was doing from the world for a long time. It skews perception.

[CALIGVLA]

Winston Churchill was a lot worse than Stalin, yet you'd suck him dry if you had opportunity. Care to explain why?

[Sargentcaptain]

In what universe was Churchill worse than a fucker who killed 6 million people (a very conservative estimate)?

[007kingifrit]

here is a video on that exact subject

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nUGkKKAogDs

[Nazgol]

Maybe they think it's not as significant & Hitlers regime had a greater effect

[Cubus]

Depends on who. Stalin's action caused the death to up to 6 million Ukrainians.

[Nazgol]

Yeah... there was a lot of evil. Even Japan did a lot of pretty bad stuff

[userxvi]

the public education system at least in USA does not really go over what stalin or the soviet army did but focusses on hitler and his extermination of the jews

[KostasKouvalis]

Strange indeed especially considering how much the Leftists love Jews

[Anonymous]

Probably because our educational system has been co-opted by a small minority of people who are sympathetic to the Communist cause.

[Anonymous]

Media prefers to portray leftists as better than right leaning

[Anonymous]

They're probably commies and Stalin makes communism look bad.

[JustiReno]

Cuz he invaded Belgium … and Russia

[FilmGuy93]

Stalin was on the right side of history.