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Comment by dgut | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't talk about the evidently poor quality of this article. What I truly don't understand is how repulsive and intellectually poor topics like Stalin get to be #1 on the front-page. Surely people wouldn't have upvoted this if the name happened to be Hitler. Surely we have plenty of Western literature on negotiation that doesn't involve a turd and pagan mass murder like Stalin whose negotiation skills are at best a result of accidents and lucky coincidences. Why is Stalin less repulsive for the HN crowd? What exactly makes Stalin intellectually interesting?

Are Americans so poorly knowledgeable of Western literature they find this well versed but empty writing interesting?

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It is an interesting thing through in your comment. Once historical person is morally bad, the person just can't be skilled or good at something - success must be coincidence and luck. ThE same way as people get angry if you say that Hitler was not all that bad painter.

That is just not how it is. Murderous psychopath can achieve success due to talents and hard work etc - neither makes him less guilty.

What makes Stalin or Hitler intellectually interesting are their tactics and abilities. The next succesfully murderous dictator will have them too. Else he would just stayed violent young man.

I get your point but Stalin was not an intellectual and has never been considered one, not even by the Intelligentsia and much less by western intellectuals. It's not a case of good or bad, the man simply wasn't very bright. I welcome you to read any of his writings, he was a historicist and a refuter of science (Lysenkoism) much like his peers.

To understand Stalin's "success", you must first understand Russia and its history.

The idea that we can just profile Stalin/Hitler and what not, then try to find people that fit that profile to keep them away from power is at best naive and at worst dangerous.

Intellectuals rarely raise to power. So, I dunno why I should expect Stalin to be intellectual. It is almost by definition. In order to raise to power you have to seek it or at least to embrace it and bw able to keep it in dirty competition. Intellectuals are concerned with something else.

And no, neither Stalin nor Hitler were merely passive victims of unchangeable history flow. Both made conscious decisions that made them who they were and how much power they gained.

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