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Comment by jrochkind1 | Hacker News Reader

The little preface says that Wells was critisized for being too 'deferential' toward Stalin (Wells was a socialist, of course).

It is actually striking to me... today, one can imagine NO journalist engaging in as _confrontational_ an interview with ANY politician or person in political power. Politicians today don't even expect to talk about ideas, certainly not with journalists for publication, let alone to be challenged on ideas in such conversations.

It's also interesting to be reminded that Stalin was indeed a guy who could talk about ideas.

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It's telling when some of the most challenging interviews are done by Jon Stewart, the host of a comedy show.

Sort of embarrassing: http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1761108

What does that link to? If I click that link I get redirected to a page about bunnies and a woman in a bikini.

Shit. I posted my comment from my phone, so it was a "mobile link" (what crap) to an article headlined Jon Stewart’s ‘Daily Show’ was President Obama’s toughest interview: Jay Carney

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/jon-stewart-daily-s...

I'm sorry about that.

Yet another newspaper that doesn't understand the Web. That first link still works if I try it from my phone browser, but on my desktop it redirects to the main page.

Who in the world decided this was a good idea?

>today, one can imagine NO journalist engaging in as _confrontational_ an interview with ANY politician or person in political power.

Just a guess, but are you saying this from an US POV? As an USian, I can't imagine seeing journalists confront or challenge a politician except by accident. Even when those accidents happen, the journalists and civility become the center of a follow-up media frenzy, rather than the subjects (the lives and deaths of millions.)

By contrast, I see confrontation in a lot of (less consolidated, less war-profiteering) non-US media constantly. Paxman would be hounded out of the industry within days here.

Came here and read your comment immediately after seeing the link I've left. A (perceived?) weak press in the US has a way to fall before it get to the level seen today in Russia. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/20/russian-politician-ord...

I prefer Stephen Sackur to Paxman. Sometimes with Paxman it seems a bit unnecessary. Stephen Sackur treats the whole thing very professionally, but will still ask the difficult questions.

You can be selectively confrontational. Even in a dishonest way. Just watch Bill O'Reilly sometimes.

> It's also interesting to be reminded that Stalin was indeed a guy who could talk about ideas.

He was an very intelligent man who genuinely believed in what he preached. Which is precisely why millions paid for his idealism with their lives.

And a reason why the west survived the onslaught of the Axis powers -the sheer grit, determination and bloody mindedness of the Russians. I recently discovered that the fall of Berlin cost more Soviet lives than the whole war cost the UK. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

> And a reason why the west survived the onslaught of the Axis powers

The reason the West survived the Axis onslaught is because Hitler and his cohorts, unlike Stalin, were morons. Only an imbecile would open a second front with a country with which you have a non-aggression pact [1].

This highlights the frailties of intelligence nicely. Stalin was so thoroughly convinced that this was such a profound stupidity, that he refused to believe it even after receiving intelligence reports confirming as much.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact

I am reminded of Churchill stopping the plan to kill Hitler after they had done pretty much all the hard work apart from killing him because he was afraid someone competent would rise to the top and (rather easily) fight the war to a standstill by letting the generals command their troops.

In general, people who bring themselves to power tend to be extremely competent. Traditional classical Greek "tyrants" had a deserved reputation for solid, effective rule, but things would quickly fall apart after they died.

So whatever else we can say about Stalin, there's every reason to expect that he'd be more than able to talk about ideas.

> In general, people who bring themselves to power tend to be extremely competent. Traditional classical Greek "tyrants" had a deserved reputation for solid, effective rule, but things would quickly fall apart after they died.

Millions of famine deaths under Stalin are attributed to some mix of malice and incompetence. I am not saying that he was totally incompetent. He helped usher in a ton of industrialization that helped the Soviet Union win WWII. He was also quite good at ruling through fear. But the utter incompetence of the agricultural collectivization makes me unable to label him competent on average.

This is a fairly general issue if you're looking at "competence". Without disagreeing with anything you said, let me ask the following:

Assume you're going to collectivize agriculture. How well do you think that will go? What's the best achievable outcome?

"Competence" might mean that you don't collectivize agriculture...

What? I guess George Bush was extremely competent? I have found people who bring themselves to power had a rich father. (This will get deleted. Whenever I talk about the lack of Horatio Alger's, especially in the last 30 years--moderators get angry.)

Bush was a very intelligent man contrary to what many believe. http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/

Your link has a certain amount of spin going on. Bush was a pretty intelligent man; his SAT scores are known. He got a 1206, the equivalent of a 1276 post-1995 but before the inclusion of the writing test. Certainly (well, I hope) not smarter than the average student at Stanford Business School, but, notably, smarter than Kerry was.

I think the more interesting questions here are, "how much power does the US president actually have?" and "how similar is becoming president to overthrowing the existing government and replacing it with yourself?"

Seeing what Obama is doing, it's pretty similar.

Thank you for highlighting a difficult point! The most instructive item for me was seeing a comparison of video of Bush in his run for the Texas governorship, showing his sharp mind. In such context though, the dissonance. erwee. his stated political objectives and his true violent objectives is disheartening.

Stalin was talking about ideas here, yes, but note that what he is doing in this interview is pretty much only regurgitating Leninist talking points the Bolsheviks had been repeating pretty much unchanged for a couple of decades.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/magazine/paul-kagame-rwand...

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