Okay. So. If you’re friends with me anywhere on Social Media or if you knew me in college you know that an era that has long piqued every curious and empathetic brain cell is Stalin’s USSR. Also a few years ago I got the idea to write a book about Stalin’s USSR. A fully researched book with scholarly sources, but written so that non-academics are able to understand and appreciate it. My initial goal had been to research it, write it, shop it for publication in time for the centennial of the Russian Revolution which enabled Stalin’s rise to dictatorship. Then my empathetic side ended up overwhelmed by the knowledge that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of, in the neighborhood, of twice as many people as Hitler. And nobody knows anything about him. It wasn’t until just a couple weeks ago that I found myself able to crack open one of my research books and take notes.
It wasn’t ironic that it happened on the heels of Trump’s election.
Hearing the rhetoric coming from not just Trump’s supporters and closest staff, but from the man himself , sounded just like where Hitler and the Nazis came from and where Stalin and his Yes Men came from and ended up. I read a piece on Facebook (now of course I can’t track it down again) that talked about how the conversations that are happening now need to evolve beyond giving someone time to fall into their role. The conversations that are happening aren’t just differences of opinion. They aren’t someone having a religious and moral opinion on marriage equality and reproductive rights that are different from mine. What a lot of the loudest people on the Right are talking about are the same sorts of things that happened as Hitler was running his world and Stalin his: “X person/nationality/religion needs to be expelled from this country by whatever source necessary.” For Hitler this lead to the deaths of around 13 million Jews, gays, and others. For Stalin it was, by some unconfirmed estimates (the Soviets weren’t renowned for their accurate record keeping) in the neighborhood of 35 to 40 million people of any nationality, background, or someone who just looked at Stalin funny.
If these were the sorts of numbers that could be put up in the mid-twentieth century they pale in light of the sorts of numbers that someone with his finger on the nuclear codes could put up. I’m trying to restrain myself from being too terrified, but I will say I find it interesting that I had more respect and was less terrified of George W Bush than I am of Donald Trump.
I just find what I will find and write about Stalin for Every(Wo)Man more important than ever before.
Just food for thought.