Worth to wach

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IGbjPqFFvA&feature=related

When I was in university, we had a module on "communication". One of the tasks we were given was: "Explain a Walkman casette player to a medieval man". Where do you start? It is harder than you imagine. We have a tendency to take a lot of things for granted.

Let's get back to "a russian soldier said he fought for Stalin and Motherland".
We know NOW that Stalin was a bad man, but few people actually knew that during the war. Few knew that Stalin was a bad man even after the war because he and his machine controlled the means of information. People began to get a glimpse during Nikita Khruschev's reign when the information began to surface (and even then, many Russians refused to accept it). To millions of Russians, he still is a great man and he killed only those "who deserved it".

Radu

Yes,
All dictators are good at speeches. They seem to be credible, mobilise people, speak about patriotism, but they are ... just dictators! Stalin wasn't a good speaker but the soviets liked him than... and some of them even now!

@radu
Without begining a debate I say that any generalization is damaging and far from reality. Thus, from the source of departure the book STALINGRAD written by Antony Beevor I had for the first time an image of the war through the eyes of the Russians, civilians and soldiers. Can't say how real it is or just a good written book, but for me, it was interesting. If we take this book as a pseudo historic document, then the image of Stalin's popularity in the Red Army should change. Ok, late in the war the germans were much to hate, following the massive distructions taken from 1942 onwards, and later those made during the slow withdrawal of Russia. This was part of my reason when I was surprised by the fanatism of that ex soviet tanker. I can bet that this "I fought primarily for Stalin" was not real (deep inside their beliefs) in the mass of the soviet forces. Remember Vlasov!

Yeah, remember Vlasov! How many followers did he have (as a percent from the entire Red Army figting on the West Front, that is...)? And not only because of the German behaviour, but because they really hated the idea of Motherland being conquered! IMO, at least...

But this man, in as far as I undertand, spoke about humself and what he believed. He did not speak for the entire Russian Army.
Fanatism is not necessarily a bad thing. Soldiers need to believe strongly in something to keep them going through the grime and devastation of the war. Fanatism is a good motivator.
Yes, many Russians hated Stalin's guts. No leader is popular with everyone.
Radu

I did one of my worst mistakes in the last few weeks...
While trying to download the movie kindly offered by C-2, I got the message to upgrade my RealPlayer software. Beware! It is an official hoax from the company creating the RealPlayer.

The latest version of Real Player is a software made to be very sluggish by purpose, but meanwhile you will get the prompt to "upgrade" to RealPlayer Plus for faster downloads, for only $39.99 !
This confirm my previous experience with new software versions: new is worse!
I regret my old RealPlayer software, and now it is too late.

And yes, this movie about Soviet Union's history is really interesting - that is why I still want to download it.

This post has been edited by Florin on January 21, 2011 10:39 pm

The movie at the center of this topic, lasting 85 minutes, has 789 Mb.

Real Player software interrupts the download when the data transfer reaches 400 Mb. These first 400 Mb are of course lost. It happened to me twice, so it is no accident.
Any ideas about other ways to download this interesting documentary about Communism and National Socialism?
Thank you.

This post has been edited by Florin on January 22, 2011 06:07 am

IDM: Internet Download Manager.
Annoying, trial version, but... it works! After you finish your "job", uninstall it without thinking again!
Later edit: same crappy thing happened to my Real Player, as well! Uninstall, reinstall the free, "good" version!

This post has been edited by MMM on January 27, 2011 07:36 pm