would we be better off had Khrushchev not acknowledged Stalin's crimes?

[Pingvin]

Tweed, are you seriously arguing that the continuing cover-up of mass murder and slave labour was a good thing?

could have been, sure.  the great industrial unions of this country That Built the American Middle Class™ were in large part organized by loyal Stalinists in the 1930s and 1940s.  if a full light were shone on Stalin by the time of the Moscow Trials the organizers would have been put in jail or blacklisted or lynched.  we may not have had a UAW, United Steelworkers, etc. to speak of.  would that have been good?  no.  life is a complicated, counter-intuitive thing.

BA-TUM-TSS!
You're on my ignore list now.

[opebo]

On a more serious note: the entire thread goes far beyond ridiculous and well into the confines of higlhy immoral. Discussing this seriously is demeaning to the memory of those killed.  Mercifully, I do believe the original poster is merely clueless, not outright evil.

On a more serious note, ag, you fail to understand people.  Given the complete lack of hope which faces people today, you can hardly blame them for objecting or at least disliking the system which has placed them in this condition, much less label them evil.  Instead you should marvel at, and revel in your good fortune that the vast majority of them accept the yoke quite willingly - even enthusiastically - against all sense and reason.

[ag]

On a more serious note, ag, you fail to understand people.  Given the complete lack of hope which faces people today, you can hardly blame them for objecting or at least disliking the system which has placed them in this condition, much less label them evil.  Instead you should marvel at, and revel in your good fortune that the vast majority of them accept the yoke quite willingly - even enthusiastically - against all sense and reason.

So, are you suggesting replacing this with something that would give people a chance to hope: hope that, perhaps, if they live long enough, they might get back to a situation that would involve a standard of living only an order of magnitude worse than that of 2012, while having, perhaps, 1/100 of the liberties they take for granted today?

[opebo]

So, are you suggesting replacing this with something that would give people a chance to hope: hope that, perhaps, if they live long enough, they might get back to a situation that would involve a standard of living only an order of magnitude worse than that of 2012, while having, perhaps, 1/100 of the liberties they take for granted today?

Awful lot of unfounded speculation in there, ag.  My point is, you can't expect your slave to love you just because you say - "well look at Master Johnson down the river!  He's worse than me."  (in fact most of them will love you, but you can't really expect every single one of them to fall for it)