For decades, and even today, this confidence about the difference between the two regimes-quality versus quantity-has set the ground rules for the politics of memory. Yet Stalin was also worse, because his regime killed far, far more people-tens of millions, it was often claimed-in the endless wastes of the Gulag. Were these people victims of Stalin or of Hitler? Or both? … Hitler was worse, because his regime propagated the unprecedented horror of the Holocaust, the attempt to eradicate an entire people on racial grounds. “ In Stalin’s Gulag some 516,543 people died between 19, sentenced by the Soviets to labor, but deprived of food by way of German invasion. that Stalin steered away from crimes during the war). Essentially, one could say that Stalin was the front man for the Jews and Hitler was the enemy of the Jews.įurthermore, the truth of history when it comes to Stalin is not as Slavko Goldstein says (i.e. The two subsequently collided with vicious and atrocious force. Hence, the very appropriate date chosen by the EU to remember victims of totalitarian regimes. Both of these countries at the time had the worst forms of totalitarian regimes in the history of humanity. Nazi-Soviet Pact, non-aggression pact), in which the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany agreed to divide Eastern Europe between themselves. Does it really matter whether the majority of Stalin’s victims fell in brutal and atrocious sweeps by the totalitarian regime before and after, but not during WWII? No, it does not!Ģ3 August was chosen to coincide with the date of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (23.08. To me, Goldstein’s conviction is nothing more than blatant discrimination between victims. Slavko Goldstein nevertheless admits that communism perpetrated crimes but he continues defending the role of Stalin and Soviet Union. In a commentary to this interview given by Goldstein, R.Horvat of HRSvijet portal writes: “ And despite the estimates by which modern European historical account considers that communism is responsible for the death of more than 100 million people, of which 50 million victims are attributed to Mao Tze-Tung, 40 million to Stalin, 4 million to Lenin, 2 million to Pol Pot and 1 million to Tito, while 20 million deaths are attributed to Hitler, Slavko Glodstein wants to convince the Croatian public that it’s out of order to equate Hitler’s national-socialism with communism”. Stalin commenced his criminal politics during 1920’s, which culminated during 1930’s with the massive purges, but from 1941 to 1945 he was the main carrier of battles against Hitler… unfortunately he resumed his purges after the war ended…” Goldstein goes on to say that both Hitler and Stalin were criminals, but not of the same kind! “ Hitler,” he says, “ f rom beginning to end pursued his criminal politics. After all, Stalin and Europe’s communists (including Yugoslavia’s Tito) were aligned with the Allies and they wrote the history to which Goldstein refers, leaving out of the historical spotlight the equally atrocious crimes perpetrated by communists as were those perpetrated by the Nazis. Given that Goldstein was a Partisan in the communist led Yugoslav troops of WWII one is not surprised at such views of his. In very recent days Slavko Goldstein, founder in 1989 of Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS) and writer, has given an interview to Croatia’s Novi List in which he states in no uncertain words that EU remembrance day of victims of totalitarian regimes should not be held on the same day (23 August) for victims of Nazi regime (Hitler) and victims of Communist crimes (Stalin) because it equates the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and that, he said, is “in contradiction with the entirety of historical truth”. “Jasenovac and Bleiburg are not the same” –
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