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From: orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: "We will bury you." -Khruschev
Message-ID: <434@whuts.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Dec-85 09:49:27 EST
Article-I.D.: whuts.434
Posted: Thu Dec 12 09:49:27 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Dec-85 06:40:30 EST
References: <252@gargoyle.UUCP> <1951@akgua.UUCP> <1272@ames.UUCP> <13734@rochester.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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> Khruschev revealed Stalin's crimes to whom?  The Russian government?  The
> Russian people?  Do you for a moment believe either the people or the 
> government were unaware of what was going on under Stalin (communism)?
> Can 30 million people just die or vanish mysteriously and not raise questions?
> The communist government knew all along what was going on, and so did the
> people.  The difference between their system and our system, is that they
> could do nothing to stop the slaughter.  How many people did Khruschev assist
> in their death under Stalin?   Remember, the same government and mentallity is
> in power now as then under Stalin.
> ray

Khruschev made public what people were afraid to admit to themselves:
namely the awful crimes which Stalin committed in sentencing millions
to labor camps and prisons.  Indeed Khruschev turned Soviet policy
around to such an extent that Solzhenitsyn was granted the Lenin Prize
for Literature (the highest literary prize in the USSR) for
"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch" which depicts life in a
labor camp  for a normal innocent but totally naive Soviet citizen.
(If you haven't read it, I would recommend it)
 
Some of the people in the government now were those sent to Labor camps
under Stalin.  Those people do not wish to return to such a system.
After Khruschev was deposed however new less brutal methods of
repression were put into place: the use of psychiatric hospitals
to deal with dissent, exile and isolation, demotions from prestigious
posts.  That the USSR is different now than in Stalin's time is
shown by the treatment accorded Khruschev himself: although he
was ousted from power, he was allowed to continue living in his
dacha.  Stalin, on the other hand, sent assassins halfway around the
world to kill his old rival, Trotsky.
 
I am not about to condone actions such as breaking up the recent
vigil in Moscow commemorating the anniversary of the UN's Human
Rights declaration.  But it is totally inaccurate to say that
nothing has changed in the Soviet Union since Stalin's time.
 
         tim sevener   whuxn!orb