Talk:Joseph Stalin

"forced women to work in factories just like men" - Is the intent of this to say that women should not be working in factories and/or holding jobs that men hold? I would think that idea is somewhat passe now. The fragment should be removed from the article.--Dave3172 23:22, 7 March 2007 (EST)

The statement is factual and I see no reason to delete. The reader can decide for himself whether forcing women to work in factories just like men is a good thing. --Aschlafly 23:24, 7 March 2007 (EST)

I would think that anyone would agree that coercing anyone to work isn't a good thing. But the "just like men" part is opinion, not fact. That is what should be removed.--Dave3172 23:48, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Stalin's death

Following a stroke on 1 March 1953, Stalin died

Stalin may have actually been assassinated by other members of the Politburo who feared another 1938 style-purge growing out of the Doctor's Plot. RobS 17:49, 9 April 2007 (EDT)

Odd conclusion

The article says,

Most of this, however, was pure propaganda ... Soviet growth was impressive. Between 1929 and 1937, 8,000 factories were constructed, average GDP growth was around 10%

Which of those two statements is true? Was it "pure propaganda," or a successful campaign of industrial development? -Harmil 12:25, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Purges

I removed someone's addition of the subplot of Stalin's Okhranka file because it was tangential to the overview of the purges and too specific for this article. It should form its own entry if valid.

I would suggest, if you think it is important, not to remove accurate additional information added by RobS, a sysop, and instead perhaps give it a sub-head, instead of just dumping enlightening information, that goes to their state of mind. Do you have some suggestions for this, other than making an entirely new article on this deal? --₮K^/Talk 22:45, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Motives

Xgood, please work with me to develop your ideas on Stalin's motives. --Ed Poor ^Talk 16:31, 15 May 2008 (EDT)

Tsaritsyn spelled wrong in the introduction

It currently says Tsaritsen, while correctly the town is spelled Tsaritsyn or Tsaritsin (Царицин in Russian).SimonW 11:53, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

Lead

There should be an end parenthesis after his name in Cyrillic, and the Cyrillic name shouldn't be italicized (though I'm not entirely sure on the latter point). --sam(m)y 13:27, 14 December 2008 (EST)

Also, although it's more common to transliterate the Cyrillic letters de and zhe as two distinct letters, the name "Джугашвили" is more often rendered with a J in English (i.e., Jugashvili). --sam(m)y 13:56, 14 December 2008 (EST)

Additional Information

I'm studying the period in history at the moment-- most notably, the differences between Lenin and Stalin. Could I add, for example, that Stalin was a hardline believer in family values, as he altered the soviet school system to reflect this? Or could I add that he re-initiated the persecution of homosexuals?

I'm not trying to be contrary or anything, I'm honestly not sure whether to add these things-- they're facts, but they're elements of conservative ideology that you might not want associated with Stalin. -- Dollfuss.

• I would say you need to study at greater length, rather than post something so absurd. This is the danger of all students, reading something that might be factual, and accepting it as "truth" when in reading more, understanding more, one would realize that is isn't really the truth at all. Many things, in one context can be truthful, however taken in the greater, historical context, have entirely a different meaning or truth. "Persecution" of Homosexuals, given the times and overwhelming world view of the time, wasn't persecution as we know it today. You cannot judge historical events in today's accepted context. That is called revisionist history. --₮K_/Admin^/Talk 20:56, 4 April 2009 (EDT)

Simon Sebag Montefiore

I am really rather surprised that no one has used Simon Sebag Montefiore's recent bestseller "Young Stalin" as a source for this article. There are a large number of urban legends about Stalin's life prior to 1917. For more than a decade, Mr. Montefiore has been examining thousands of pages of formerly classified documents and memoirs from the former Soviet Union. He has also tracked down and interviewed the descendants of the many illegitimate children who Stalin fathered prior to the Revolution. It is all there in black and white, including how and why Stalin lost his faith in the Christian God, the Atheistic subculture which he encouraged in the seminary in Tbilisi, and the many criminal activities which he used to finance Lenin's Bolsheviks. It is a vital source which should be used extensively by conservative historians, as it reveals just how and why the Bolsheviks defeated both the Tsar's Secret Police and the Provisional Government of Aleksandr Kerensky. If we are to compete successfully with Wikipedia, we must not deal in urban legends. Unfortunately, the Stalin article here seems to have been doing exactly that. Kingstowngalway 17:59, 15 April 2009 (EDT)