You'd have to compare death tolls as a percentage of the population. The 19th Century didn't do too bad: US Civil War; genocides of Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, Maoris; famine in Ireland; deaths brought about by industrialisation in various countries: disease, malnutrition, workplace accidents. Just off the top of my head that. Human beings have always been a lot better at killing each other than they are at looking after each other.
― The Man in the Iron-On Mask (noodle vague), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 00:00 (eighteen years ago) link
extrapolation...tomorrow
― terry lennox. (gareth), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 00:01 (eighteen years ago) link
bringing about the workers' revolution by cratering the value of their houses!
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 00:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 00:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man in the Iron-On Mask (noodle vague), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 00:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― truck-patch pixel farmer (my crop froze in the field) (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 00:23 (eighteen years ago) link
Dude did have some good soundbites.He also gave us a lot of stats to think about.
― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 00:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 00:42 (eighteen years ago) link
(didn't stop him from trying, unfortunately) :-(
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 01:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 01:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 09:25 (eighteen years ago) link
'tmoftewc' was by the anti-stalinist e.p. thompson, you fucking poindexter.
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 09:28 (eighteen years ago) link
-- Cathy (cathyleec...), January 30th, 2006.
... el hobsbo meantime very much IS a stalinist; he remained in the party after 1956. qed.
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 09:30 (eighteen years ago) link
no wai; the whole thing is that there wasn't much to stalin -- no hitler, he. the russian revolution -- never a runaway success -- went bureaucratic and stalin was the helmsman. it's not down to his personality though.
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 09:43 (eighteen years ago) link
I have often heard this comment attributed to Stalin, but always detached from any context or publication... does anyone have a reliable source for it?
― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:00 (eighteen years ago) link
http://images.art.com/images/products/regular/10126000/10126167.jpg
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― Venga (Venga), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― beanz (beanz), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:44 (eighteen years ago) link
Indeed. He even signed for a billionaire Russian capitalist.
― Onimo (GerryNemo), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 12:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 12:32 (eighteen years ago) link
He remained in the party, to much criticism, because he continued to believe in its ideals. That doesn't make him a Stalinist. Is every member of the Labour Party a Blairite?
There's a nice interesting Guardian article about Hobsbawm here, which explains his position quite well:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/artsandhumanities/story/0,12241,791760,00.html
― Cathy (Cathy), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 12:37 (eighteen years ago) link
well, yes they are, in the sense i'm using (see other post about the meaning of 'stalinist'). if you remained in the party you tacitly supported the party's attempts to stifle debate (eg in the 'reasoner' which ep thompson co-edited) -- which makes you a stalinist. or a supporter of the SU, whatever.
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 12:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 12:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 12:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 12:50 (eighteen years ago) link
I suspect that for all his intellectual window-dressing the real reasons why he stayed in the party are sociological and psychological - the difficulty of leaving something in which you have invested a lot of emotional capital.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 13:07 (eighteen years ago) link
The whole Militant debacle springs to mind. Which said, Derek Hatton deserves to be thrown out of anything and everything (including - but not limited to - shops, public parks, windows).
― Nicholas Passant (Nicholas Passant), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 13:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 13:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 14:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 14:22 (eighteen years ago) link
O RLY?
http://www.beheard.com/beheard/images/items/1842120069.jpghttp://www.humanities.uci.edu/users/vfolkenflik/VRF%20Sources/george-orwell.jpg
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 14:24 (eighteen years ago) link
Why are we so hung up on Hobsbawm? This thread is meant to be about Stalin, FATHER OF THE WORKERS!
― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 14:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 14:27 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.thebricktestament.com/judges/index.html
― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 31 January 2006 14:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― AleXTC (AleXTC), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 14:30 (eighteen years ago) link
Ignatieff: “In 1934, millions of people are dying in the Soviet experiment. If you had known that, would it have made a difference to you at that time? To your commitment? To being a Communist?”
Hobsbawm: “This is the sort of academic question to which an answer is simply not possible. . . . If I were to give you a retrospective answer which is not the answer of a historian, I would have said, ‘probably not.’”
Ignatieff: “Why?”
Hobsbawm: “Because in a period in which, as you might imagine, mass murder and mass suffering are absolutely universal, the chance of a new world being born in great suffering would still have been worth backing. Now the point is, looking back as an historian, I would say that the sacrifices made by the Russian people were probably only marginally worthwhile. The sacrifices were enormous; they were excessive by almost any standard and excessively great. But I’m looking back at it now, and I’m saying that because it turns out that the Soviet Union was not the beginning of the world revolution. Had it been, I’m not sure.”
Ignatieff: “What that comes down to is saying that had the radiant tomorrow actually been created, the loss of fifteen, twenty million people might have been justified?”
Hobsbawm: “Yes.”
― Nemo (JND), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 14:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― bethune, Tuesday, 31 January 2006 14:44 (eighteen years ago) link