NationStates Jolt Archive

I think stalin was the worst person to ever live. Any opposing options?

Worst person to live was Hitler....ruler, I couldn't say who.

I think I agree, Stalin killed more people but he also did wonders for the Russian economy, TransSiberian railway to name one of them

As for all around worst human being, Hitler. Stalin indirectly killed more, though. And he practically ruined his country.

But I would like to note that the Germans actually liked Hitler after he became Chancellor (even before Goebbels started his propaganda). Nationalism is weird.

I don't know...the person who came to mind was Emperor Nero. Hitler improved the German economy before he ran them into the ground with poor military strategy, and Stalin's best achievement was the fact that he wasn't assassinated and didn't commit suicide. Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome was in ruins.

Sure stalin did wonders for the russian economy, but he did it by killing 25 million russians!!!!!

Obviously, Ivan the Terrible.

Sure stalin did wonders for the russian economy, but he did it by killing 25 million russians!!!!!

Well, Hitler indirectly and directly killed ~55 million people.

he sure did yes, but it benefitted him and thats all that matters. At least from his point of view.

Hitler actually made the decision to invade Russia. In the winter. "Well, it worked so well for Napoleon!" Hence, until the leadership of Nepal or Monaco tries the same thing, Hitler automatically gets the Janeway award for horrible leadership.

ivan the terrible doesn't even come close.

Hitler actually made the decision to invade Russia. In the winter. "Well, it worked so well for Napoleon!" Hence, until the leadership of Nepal or Monaco tries the same thing, Hitler automatically gets the Janeway award for horrible leadership.

Why Nepal or Monaco?!

see, hitler did his bidding through warfare and genocide, but Stalin just outright killed his own people through his ridiculous policies to improve the economy.

Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome was in ruins.

Neat trick seeing as how the violin was invented sometime in the sixteenth century and Nero reigned during the first.

yeah maybe but Hitlers father germany lasted how many years? I dont even know but not many, look how long Stalins Russia lasted

nero screwed his mother. I don't think that constitutes evil ruler. more like most incestive ruler.

Hmmm...it's difficult to measure how many people Hitler murdered. 6 million Jews, but add up all of his genocide, and I think it's more 10 million. If you would like to add on the casualties in World War 2, starting with 20 million or so Soviets...that's one evil man.

in the long run stalin killed more people and touched more people's lives than anyone else ever.

nero screwed his mother.

??? Any chance of a reference for this one - you may be right, but I am unfamiliar with this claim.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1854794884/qid=1090425897/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-8586454-6701527?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

this is the link to a book I read stating that nero had incestous relationships with his family members including his mother, stepsister, etc.

sorry for the misspelling of incestuous :headbang: :headbang:

ivan the terrible doesn't even come close.

No, but I thought it was funny. Oh well...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1854794884/qid=1090425897/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-8586454-6701527?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

this is the link to a book I read stating that nero had incestous relationships with his family members including his mother, stepsister, etc.

Thanks. I was aware of the incestuous relationship with his brother.

Thanks. I was aware of the incestuous relationship with his brother.

i didn't realize nero was a fag :mad:

Fags are not the same as incestuous, you idiot.

Nero was an impressive character. He even had jews covered in tar and lit. Simply using them for lighting at his garden parties.

yeah, but Nero = guy and brother = guy, ergo 'fag'

Hands down: Pol Pot

I think I agree, Stalin killed more people but he also did wonders for the Russian economy, TransSiberian railway to name one of them

Not quite. U.S. aid did wonders for the Russian economy. Stalin's policies resulted in millions of deaths by starvation (although, in some instances this was intentional, such as in the Ukraine).

I'll name who I think are the most evil rulers (they're in no particular order):

1)Stalin
2)Mao
3)Hitler
4)Pol Pot
5)Ho Chi Minh
6)Lenin
7)Idi Amin
8)Georges Clemenceu (did I spell that right?)
9)Khrushchev
10)Brezhnev
11)Papa Doc Duvalier
12)Baby Doc Duvalier
13)Gorbachev
14)Yeltsin
15)Putin
16)Deng Xiaoping
17)Mandela
18)Ngo Dinh Diem
19)Souphanouvang
20)Sukarno
21)Salvador Allende
22)Castro
23)Saddam Hussein
24)The Ayatollah Khomeini
25)Robert Mugabe
26)Genghis Khan
27)Hideki Tojo (why didn't I think of him sooner?)
28)Mussolini
29)Daniel Ortega
30)Ahmed Ben Bella (was he a ruler?)

There are many, many more I know of, but their names escape me at the moment...

are we forgetting the many rulers of the minor african states who sanction murders of political oponents genocide of tribes/religions and the raping of thousands of women... hitler was bad ill admit but even the nazis disproved of rape (i think at least)

are we forgetting the many rulers of the minor african states who sanction murders of political oponents genocide of tribes/religions and the raping of thousands of women... hitler was bad ill admit but even the nazis disproved of rape (i think at least)

That's what I was thinking...but many of these rulers of minor African states I forget the names of...if you, I, or anyone else thinks of any, I'll add them to my list.

Not quite. U.S. aid did wonders for the Russian economy. Stalin's policies resulted in millions of deaths by starvation (although, in some instances this was intentional, such as in the Ukraine).

I'll name who I think are the most evil rulers (they're in no particular order):

1)Stalin
2)Mao
3)Hitler
4)Pol Pot
5)Ho Chi Minh
6)Lenin
7)Idi Amin
8)Georges Clemenceu (did I spell that right?)
9)Khrushchev
10)Brezhnev
11)Papa Doc Duvalier
12)Baby Doc Duvalier
13)Gorbachev
14)Yeltsin
15)Putin
16)Deng Xiaoping
17)Mandela
18)Ngo Dinh Diem
19)Souphanouvang
20)Sukarno
21)Salvador Allende
22)Castro
23)Saddam Hussein
24)The Ayatollah Khomeini
25)Robert Mugabe
26)Genghis Khan
27)Hideki Tojo (why didn't I think of him sooner?)
28)Mussolini
29)Daniel Ortega
30)Ahmed Ben Bella (was he a ruler?)

There are many, many more I know of, but their names escape me at the moment...

31)Nero
32)Woodrow Wilson
33)Franklin Roosevelt

alas i can only think of the obviouse name being mugabe but tragically he is not alone in his brutality

For anyone preparing to flame me for despising FDR, I'll provide a good bibliography:

Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath by John Toland (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1982; Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace, Harry Elmer Barnes, ed.
(Caldwell, ID: Caxton, 1953); Back Door to War, The Roosevelt Foreign Policy, 1933-1941 by Charles Callan; Wall Street and F.D.R. by Antony C. Sutton (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1975); "Hearings, House of Representatives, Select Committee to Investigate Certain Statements of Dr. William Wirt," 73rd Congress, 2nd Session, April 10 and 17, 1934 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1934); The Web of Subversion by James Burnham (Boston: Western Islands, 1965); Red Scare or Red Menace? American Communism and Anticommunism in the Cold War Era by John E. Haynes (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996); A Man Called Intrepid by William Stevenson; Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor by World War II Navy veteran Robert B. Stinnett; The Roosevelt Myth by John T. Flynn; The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor by Rear Admiral Robert O. Theobald (Old Greenwich, Connecticut: Devin-Adair, 1954); FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression by Jim Powell; and The New Dealer's War by Thomas Fleming

Why Nelson Mandela and Gorbachev? And, to a lesser extent, why Castro and Lenin?

Adolf Hilter -- His actions led to the deaths of 60+ million plus people in World War II....that does not include the 10-13 million he killed in the concentration camps...

Josef Stalin -- Around 20 million people, mostly his own....

Mao Zedong -- 15-20 million....

Pol Pot -- 2-3 million....

Saddam Hussein -- Around 2 million....

Abraham Lincoln -- 625,000 Americans killed in the War Between the States; his violations of the US Constitution resulting in over 14,000 people unlawfully arrested, the arrest and deportation of a US Senator, waging an illegal war and illegal invasion of a soviergn nation....

Among scores of others....

i actually think it was probably general surharto of indonesia - he killed loads of people in getting into power, and countless millions afterwards ( I dont have exact figures). Also he plunged the idonesian economy into ruins by accepting billions of dollars of world bank loans, whereas the democraticaly elected government refused loans.

hitler and stalin were evil, but actually they had a clear and precise view of where the econemy was going, and helped it

i actually think it was probably general surharto of indonesia - he killed loads of people in getting into power, and countless millions afterwards ( I dont have exact figures). Also he plunged the idonesian economy into ruins by accepting billions of dollars of world bank loans, whereas the democraticaly elected government refused loans.

hitler and stalin were evil, but actually they had a clear and precise view of where the econemy was going, and helped it

I forgot about Suharto....he killed around two million people. http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/suharto.htm

You've got some pretty bad guys on the list, but some managed to redeem themselves. Your are unfair to Gorbachev and Yeltsin [yes their reforms were flawed, and they were corrupt, but it was better than nothing]. Mandela can also be discounted following his renounciation of terrorism. Putin's pretty unpleasant, but he's neither evil nor incompetent; and Salvatore Allende didn't have time to prove whether he was either [but in most accounts comes across as ok].

And what's your problem with Wilson? Yes he made mistakes and was eventually forced to dirty his idealism with the practicalities of politics [eg the Kurds] but he is probably one of the good guys of history. Clemenceu equally messed up over the peace resolution, but wasn't malevolent. As for FDR - I believe that a good man was forced to do some evil things by circumstances that ultimately worked for the greater good.

Colerica: Mao killed more people than Stalin and Stalin killed more people than Hitler.

But real evil isnt necessarily about figures. Nero and Caligula usually head the list of evil Roman Emperors, with incest, pederasty, torture and mutilation. Commodus was even more depraved, bloodthirsty and meglomaniacle; whilst the grotesque Caracalla massacred tens of thousands [including his family] to secure his succession, and in subsequent years for entertainment.
Elagabus, meanwhile, a religious zealot, a sexual deviant, and a murderer was the most insane and incompetent of all, if not the most nasty.

Not quite. U.S. aid did wonders for the Russian economy. Stalin's policies resulted in millions of deaths by starvation (although, in some instances this was intentional, such as in the Ukraine).

I'll name who I think are the most evil rulers (they're in no particular order):

1)Stalin
2)Mao
3)Hitler
4)Pol Pot
5)Ho Chi Minh
6)Lenin
7)Idi Amin
8)Georges Clemenceu (did I spell that right?)
9)Khrushchev
10)Brezhnev
11)Papa Doc Duvalier
12)Baby Doc Duvalier
13)Gorbachev
14)Yeltsin
15)Putin
16)Deng Xiaoping
17)Mandela
18)Ngo Dinh Diem
19)Souphanouvang
20)Sukarno
21)Salvador Allende
22)Castro
23)Saddam Hussein
24)The Ayatollah Khomeini
25)Robert Mugabe
26)Genghis Khan
27)Hideki Tojo (why didn't I think of him sooner?)
28)Mussolini
29)Daniel Ortega
30)Ahmed Ben Bella (was he a ruler?)
31)Nero
32)Woodrow Wilson
33)Franklin Roosevelt
Winston Churchill
Gerhard Schröder
Helmut Kohl

Hitler actually made the decision to invade Russia. In the winter. "Well, it worked so well for Napoleon!" Hence, until the leadership of Nepal or Monaco tries the same thing, Hitler automatically gets the Janeway award for horrible leadership.
No he didn't. The invasion started on June 22.

Colerica: Mao killed more people than Stalin and Stalin killed more people than Hitler.


Adolf Hitler
Kill tally: Directly responsible for the deaths of over 60 million worldwide as a result of the Second World War.

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/hitler.htm

Joseph Stalin
Kill tally: Approximately 20 million, including up to 14.5 million needlessly starved to death. At least one million executed for political "offences". At least 9.5 million more deported, exiled or imprisoned in work camps, with many of the estimated five million sent to the 'Gulag Archipelago' never returning alive. Other estimates place the number of deported at 28 million, including 18 million sent to the 'Gulag'.

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/stalin.htm

Mao Zedong
Kill tally: 14 to 20 million deaths from starvation during the 'Great Leap Forward'. Tens of thousands killed and millions of lives ruined during the 'Cultural Revolution'.

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/mao.htm

Well, first off, I'd like to defend Stalin. Or his economy. Or something.

No getting around the gulags though, killing 20 some million people definetly makes you a bad ruler.

On the one hand, he did do wonders for the Russian Economy. Captitalized, must be important. Such things as the Magnitorosk Ironworks, the movement of factories away from occupied territory, the survival of the Soviet Union at all in World War II. And the people loved him. It's quite possible that his charisma (or propaganda, however you want to say it) was also essential to surviving, in World War II. The people in the Gulag, people who had Stalin's signiature on the orders placing them there, would write to Stalin, and ask that he rectify the terrible mistake.

Don't believe it was the American Army that saved their asses from the germans; if the Soviet Union wasn't in the war, Hitler would have won it hands down. Sure, we might have, and Normandy took a hell of a lot of pressure off of them, but cans of Spam arent exactly second fronts. (That's a joke, you see. The Russian soldiers nicknamed the ubiquitous cans of spam Second Fronts because that was all the aid that was apparent. You're not laughing. Nevermind).

Stalin was one heckuva evil guy, but he did have his high points. So did Hitler in fact, but I'm not about to elucidate on them here. Oh, and if you're going to blame Hitler for all the deaths in the WWII, you might as well blame all the participants, for not defending themselves, or the allies, for not accepting conditional surrender. Basically, I blame Hitler for the Holocaust, but not for every soldier killed in the war. Just most of them.

And before you criticize Lenin, you might want to add on Czar Nicholas; or his whole family. Read about the Russian Revolution. Things were pretty darn crappy in Russia when the Soviets took over.

And i'm not a socialist or anything, I'm as captialist as they come, but you really can't generalize "Stalin is Evil" without looking into it. Probably not "Nero is Evil" either, but I havn't looked into it either.

Fags are not the same as incestuous, you idiot.

Nero was an impressive character. He even had jews covered in tar and lit. Simply using them for lighting at his garden parties.

I believe it was Christians. And he did more than that...yeah, his mum slept with him to try and keep control over him-so he killed her. Then he came home one evening really late, his pregnant wife yelled at him, so he beat her to death. Then, he found some guy who looked like her, castrated him, made him dress like a woman and married him.

But anyway-this is the WORST ruler-not the most evil.

Adolf Hitler
Kill tally: Directly responsible for the deaths of over 60 million worldwide as a result of the Second World War.

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/hitler.htm

LOL Now Hitler is responsible for what the Japanese did with the Chinese as well? And the Filipinos? Or the Japanese who were nuked by the US?

LOL Now Hitler is responsible for what the Japanese did with the Chinese as well? And the Filipinos? Or the Japanese who were nuked by the US?

His actions, (the illegal arming of Germany, the Rhineland, the taking of the Sudetanland, invasion of Poland, et al), led to the deaths of sixty million plus. Without him, do you really think World War II would have happened?

gee colerica you really love my issues

His actions, (the illegal arming of Germany, the Rhineland, the taking of the Sudetanland, invasion of Poland, et al), led to the deaths of sixty million plus. Without him, do you really think World War II would have happened?
WWII only happened when the 2 biggests empires of that time, France and Britain, declared war on Germany. They were also the ones that gave him Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslowakia. If they had stuck to their promises to the Czechs the Generals would have overthrown Hitler. Japan was at war with China since the 1930's. Nobody thought they should come to their aid. And the illegal re-arming of Germany? If there was something illegal it was the Versailles treaty. The Rhineland was demilitarised. But that was only a one way street and didn't stop the French and Belgians of invading it and causing turmoil in an already instabile republic.

WWII only happened when the 2 biggests empires of that time, France and Britain, declared war on Germany. They were also the ones that gave him Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslowakia. If they had stuck to their promises to the Czechs the Generals would have overthrown Hitler. Japan was at war with China since the 1930's. Nobody thought they should come to their aid. And the illegal re-arming of Germany? If there was something illegal it was the Versailles treaty. The Rhineland was demilitarised. But that was only a one way street and didn't stop the French and Belgians of invading it and causing turmoil in an already instabile republic.

so the treaty fucked over germany after germany fucked over the world? im just making sure ive got the correct meaning out of that. i think the worst ruler ever was lange. ever heard of him?

-kooterade

WWII only happened when the 2 biggests empires of that time, France and Britain, declared war on Germany.

It had nothing to do with the Germans invading Poland?

They were also the ones that gave him Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslowakia. If they had stuck to their promises to the Czechs the Generals would have overthrown Hitler.

They did not give him the rest of Czechoslovakia, he took it after promising not too, the Allies just didn't do anything serious about it. Nothing like the outright selling out of the only democracy in Central Europe that Munich was. Somewhat like the generals overthrowing Hitler in July 1944? I'm familar with htis theory and it is plausible that it may have happened, but the Allies had no idea of this, and there is no gaurantee it would have succeeded.

Japan was at war with China since the 1930's. Nobody thought they should come to their aid.

1937 to be exact, and actually the United States cared very deeply about China, the two had a close relationship prior to 1947. But public opinion did not want US troops dying in foreign lands when it was only an ally who was in trouble.

And the illegal re-arming of Germany? If there was something illegal it was the Versailles treaty. The Rhineland was demilitarised. But that was only a one way street and didn't stop the French and Belgians of invading it and causing turmoil in an already instabile republic.

Well, yeah. The French reserved the right to occupy the Rhineland if Germany failed to pay it's war debts, which it did. Was it a good decision, absolutely not, but it wasn't illegal.

so the treaty fucked over germany after germany fucked over the world? im just making sure ive got the correct meaning out of that.


If you don't know anything about it don't try to comment untill you do.


i think the worst ruler ever was lange. ever heard of him?

-kooterade
Nope.

the 2 biggests empires of that time, France and Britain
?
declared war on Germany.
they did, but there was a very distinct reason that they did. i feel like im in high school again.

-kooterade

Nope.

If you don't know anything about it don't try to comment untill you do..

-kooterade

Tony Blair.

It had nothing to do with the Germans invading Poland?
They promised the same to Czechoslowakia and didn't keep their promises. So naturally Hitler assumed they would do the same with Poland.


They did not give him the rest of Czechoslovakia, he took it after promising not too, the Allies just didn't do anything serious about it.
And were is the difference?

Nothing like the outright selling out of the only democracy in Central Europe that Munich was.
Munich? Don't you mean Weimar?

Somewhat like the generals overthrowing Hitler in July 1944? I'm familar with htis theory and it is plausible that it may have happened,
It's not plausible that it may have happened. It did happen on July 20th 1944. And it was an assasination attempt which went badly. But thats not what I meant. The Generals wanted to overthrow him in 1938 if he declared war on Czechoslowakia. But then the Brits decided to give it to him. That way the generals couldnt do anything without risking a civilwar. Try and explain to the people why you want to overthrow a man that managed to get German territory, Sudeten land, without war.

but the Allies had no idea of this, and there is no gaurantee it would have succeeded.[/quote]



1937 to be exact, and actually the United States cared very deeply about China, the two had a close relationship prior to 1947. But public opinion did not want US troops dying in foreign lands when it was only an ally who was in trouble.
You see my point?



Well, yeah. The French reserved the right to occupy the Rhineland if Germany failed to pay it's war debts, which it did. Was it a good decision, absolutely not, but it wasn't illegal.
Neither was the reoccupation of it.

If you don't know anything about it don't try to comment untill you do..

-kooterade
I didn't.

?[quote]
What?
[quote]
they did, but there was a very distinct reason that they did. i feel like im in high school again.

-kooterade
Maybe this time you manage to stay awake.

They promised the same to Czechoslowakia and didn't keep their promises. So naturally Hitler assumed they would do the same with Poland.

So if the good guys do nothin that makes it right?


And were is the difference?

The Allies never sat down and agreed to give up land of a country they didn't control. Albeit, it wasn't much better, but it was not quite as bad.

Munich? Don't you mean Weimar?

I was referring to the treaty of Munich, the one that ceded the Sudetenland to Germany.

It's not plausible that it may have happened. It did happen on July 20th 1944. And it was an assasination attempt which went badly. But thats not what I meant. The Generals wanted to overthrow him in 1938 if he declared war on Czechoslowakia. But then the Brits decided to give it to him. That way the generals couldnt do anything without risking a civilwar. Try and explain to the people why you want to overthrow a man that managed to get German territory, Sudeten land, without war.

I'm afraid you missed my point, I was saying that just becuase it was planned doesn't mean it would succeed, by comparing it to the assasination attempt of 1944. And it wasn't if he declared war on Czechoslovakia, it was if the Western Allies backed up the Czechs and declared war on Germany.

[/quote]


Neither was the reoccupation of it.

I was referring to the reoccupation of it

I think stalin was the worst person to ever live. Any opposing options?

Ever? I don't know, there have been plenty of bad guys. True, Stalin and Hitler have killed a lot more people than almost any, but that's because it's easier to do so now; there are machines to help with the killing and there are also more people to kill.

What about Genghis Khan? He killed with his own hands.

Now, for true evil, the one that is conciously directed towards causing pain and suffering for generations to come, I would have to say is... the International Monetary Fund!

So if the good guys do nothin that makes it right?
No. But they are also responsible for it happening.




The Allies never sat down and agreed to give up land of a country they didn't control. Albeit, it wasn't much better, but it was not quite as bad.
Not giving it away like they owned it. But giving Hitler a card blanche when he took it.



I'm afraid you missed my point, I was saying that just becuase it was planned doesn't mean it would succeed, by comparing it to the assasination attempt of 1944. And it wasn't if he declared war on Czechoslovakia, it was if the Western Allies backed up the Czechs and declared war on Germany.

Yes it was when he declared war on Czechoslovakia. Since Britain and France already said they would back them up. But with the Munich treaty there never was a DOW. Making Hitler more popular then ever.




I was referring to the reoccupation of it
So was I.

No. But they are also responsible for it happening.

They finally fulfilled their obligations as an ally to stop German aggression, the blame rests solely with Germany.


Not giving it away like they owned it. But giving Hitler a card blanche when he took it.

Agreed


Yes it was when he declared war on Czechoslovakia. Since Britain and France already said they would back them up. But with the Munich treaty there never was a DOW. Making Hitler more popular then ever.

Could you quote me your source for this, I'm going off of What If: Strategic Alternatives of World War II. And it is clearly stated that it was only if France and Great Britain declared war, which was not gauranteed, since they didn't when the Germans took over the rest of Bohemia and Moravia, or when Germany annexed Austria, despite backing up said nation, there is not much evidence that they would've DOW'ed Germany.

I see much of this debate circling around Hitler and Stalin. In terms of humanitarian rulers they would sink like bricks to the bottom. But if you wish to look at how that went about at politicians, then they excell in that regard.

:mp5:
Hitler and his Nazi party came to power when Germany was in the throes of a horrible depression. He was able to utilize the Jews as a scapegoat to make people forget their own problems and unite as one Germany. His Nazi system took the weakest poorest country at the time and turned it into the most powerful military machine the world had ever seen. Not only did he boost the military, but also the ecomony by creating jobs in the factories. This is the work of a true genius.

:sniper:
Stalin came to power as the Soviet Union was still getting organized. Lenin had wanted someone else to succeed him because Stalin was too ruthless. Stalin then assassinates or banishes all other potential candidates for the succession of Lenin. Thus securing him the position of dictator for life over the USSR. During his rule, Stalin used fear to keep the local peoples in check. He had anyone who would remotely come close to challenging his power or autority executed. He was therefore able to ensure that he would stay in power untill his death in 1953.

In all Stalin and Hitler were good politicians(body count not withstanding). They weren't "good" people in the least but they knew how to run their countries. They both succeeded greatly because both also used the media and other means to portray themselves as sort of gods to their people, and the people bought it. Don't go criticizing the people saying they were stupid, far from it, Hitler and Stalin just knew how to manipulate the masses.

Whether they be rembered for good or ill, they both will be remembered as two of the most efficient politicians to ever have lived.

Well, Hitler indirectly and directly killed ~55 million

37 million. The 18 million deads of the war in the pacific due to the Japanese agression can´t be blamed on him actually. Japan began its imperialists policy already at the begining of the 20 th century with the occupation and repression of Korea from 1910 to 1945 and of China (1937-45) before they turned against the US as well (1941-45).

I see much of this debate circling around Hitler and Stalin. In terms of humanitarian rulers they would sink like bricks to the bottom. But if you wish to look at how that went about at politicians, then they excell in that regard.


Hitler and his Nazi party came to power when Germany was in the throes of a horrible depression. He was able to utilize the Jews as a scapegoat to make people forget their own problems and unite as one Germany. His Nazi system took the weakest poorest country at the time and turned it into the most powerful military machine the world had ever seen. Not only did he boost the military, but also the ecomony by creating jobs in the factories. This is the work of a true genius.


Stalin came to power as the Soviet Union was still getting organized. Lenin had wanted someone else to succeed him because Stalin was too ruthless. Stalin then assassinates or banishes all other potential candidates for the succession of Lenin. Thus securing him the position of dictator for life over the USSR. During his rule, Stalin used fear to keep the local peoples in check. He had anyone who would remotely come close to challenging his power or autority executed. He was therefore able to ensure that he would stay in power untill his death in 1953.

In all Stalin and Hitler were good politicians(body count not withstanding). They weren't "good" people in the least but they knew how to run their countries. They both succeeded greatly because both also used the media and other means to portray themselves as sort of gods to their people, and the people bought it. Don't go criticizing the people saying they were stupid, far from it, Hitler and Stalin just knew how to manipulate the masses.

Whether they be rembered for good or ill, they both will be remembered as two of the most efficient politicians to ever have lived.



The were both mad people: Hitler thought he could rule the entire world, Stalin had no idea how to organize the defense and almost caused the complete collapse of the Red Army when the Germans invaded due to his bad planning and his non action - The Soviets were pre-warned of the attac by several of their spies. But Stalin chose to ignore it and prevented any preparation for defense or for a preventive strike.
Both are responsible for the death of tens of millions of people.
Well: Mao is also going into that number. However: he was not only destructive like them. He was able to destroy many problems of the "old" China and created many, many new problems.

I'd have to say General Suharto (Indonesia). Not only did he oprress and kill his people, he stole money from the government and squandered it, and ran the economy into the ground. He did nothing for the poverty, famine, and the disease of the country. Worst ruler ever, yet the U.S. supported him and gave him money since he was killing commies.

They finally fulfilled their obligations as an ally to stop German aggression, the blame rests solely with Germany.
Since they decided to do nothing at first they are to blame for it as well.

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/canaris.html)



Black Orchestra (http://www.angelfire.com/dc/1spy/Black_Orchestra.html#Canaris)

see, hitler did his bidding through warfare and genocide, but Stalin just outright killed his own people through his ridiculous policies to improve the economy.

Not to defend Stalin, but the majority of people who died under his rule died during the war, not as a result of Stalin's economics.

Vas.

I still stand by Pol Pot ... Hitler and Stalin killed for political and socio-economic reasons ... Pol Pot tortured and killed Cambodians for shits and giggles.

Your a star-belly sneech you suck like a leech
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch so you can get rich
But your boss gets richer on you
Well you'll work harder with a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers til you starve
Then your head skewered on a stake
Now you can go where people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need my son

I'd say Stalin was the worst, at least by a few million deaths. I don't blame all the deaths of WW2 on Hitler alone. It was a collective decision by Germany, Poland, Britain, and France to set Europe on fire for the second time in 25 years.

I'll go into more depth on why I come to this conclusion:

Firstly, to blame Chinese deaths at the hands of the Japanese on Hitler is taking it a little too far. Even blaming every military and civilian death in World War 2 (in Europe) on Hitler (for "starting" the war).

The war started because Hitler demanded the city of Danzig and the Corridor from Poland - ethnically about 85% German and German owned prior to WW1. Pro-German terrorists and the brutal Polish repressions didn't help improve the two countries relations - Poland was given a total guarantee, so it decided to refuse Germany's demands. "Come if you dare" was the word's used, if I remember correctly.

Britain and France were sporting for war with Germany. If they did what they did to protect Poland, then why didn't they declare war on the USSR when they invaded on September 17th? Also you're all talking like Poland was an innocent and Germany was the bully taking country after country. Poland got it's fair share of Czechoslovakia (Cieszyn area) when the Slovakians declared independance under Tiso and Hungary took Ruthenia (today in Western Ukraine). Bohemia-Moravia became a German protectorate, as it could hardly stand up and fight. Pre-Munich, the Sudetenland was heavily fortified mountains surrounding Bohemia-Moravia - but the allies weren't prepared for war so they told Hitler it was OK by them if he wanted it - leaving Czechoslovakia up shit-creek without a paddle.

The decision to invade Russia was strategically sound - but it hadn't been researched enough and Hitler couldn't exactly let Italy whither on the vine when Yugoslavia and Greece was giving them trouble. 6, or even 4 weeks earlier would have seen Hitler spend Christmas '41 in the Kremlin and the Soviet Union sue for peace, with Stalin probably deposed. Pre-released Soviet Era material suggests they were planning to invade Germany in the spring of 1942 after they had built up new tanks and aircraft - their troops were in forward, offensive positions which is one reason why their defense was so poor at the start.

Now, onto the concentration camps/Ukraine debate. Hitler killed 6ish million Jews/gypsies/slavs because he was racist. Stalin killed 12-15 million Ukrainians because he wanted them dead. Sure, Hitler's motive is more 'evil' but I rate 12-15 million Ukrainians over 6 million Jews/gypsies. Oh yeah and Stalin had another 10ish million in Siberia in 'forced labour' camps, which in practical terms meant death. And when Germany was beaten, they found British and French PoWs in a better state than most German citizens, as Germany respected (well, mostly) the Western Civilised world. Most German PoWs were never released by the Soviet Union. To give an example, 92,000 surrendered at Stalingrad. ~40,000 made it to the camps, 5,200 made it back to Germany in the fifties.

London blitz/Dresden

The allies killed more people in Dresden in one night of bombing than the whole of the German Blitz on London. The same occured in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Koln, pretty much everywhere all over Germany. On orders from the top - Churchill. He was pretty evil to you know:

"I am in favour of using gas on uncivilised tribes - it inspires a lively terror" - Churchill - 1919

All those that think Hitler was evil - you are right, but you are misled. Stalin was worse, Churchill wasn't far behind Adolf.

Hey, at least Hitler was a tee-total vegetarian who detested smoking. German law in 1934 banned vivisection (like disection but when they are still alive) of animals - first country in the world to do so. Ok, so it doesn't make up for killing millions of Jews, but can anyone think of any good thing Stalin did, besides bringing the Russian economy up?

Sorry for the length of this post - feedback is most welcome.

21)Salvador Allende


There are many, many more I know of, but their names escape me at the moment...


SALVADOR ALLENDE???? Are you fucking sick or what?
And where is Augusto Pinochet? Where is Ronald Reagan, of the most infamous hangmans of mankind and its minorities? Where is Silvio Berlusconi, a dreadful example about how mafia and private interests are able to control an entire nation under almost total silence?

Not to defend Stalin, but the majority of people who died under his rule died during the war, not as a result of Stalin's economics.

Vas.

He needlessly starved fourteen million people...I wouldn't call those deaths, the majority of his kill tally, "war casualities...."

William II was a pretty crap ruler. As was Edward II. And Richard II. And James II. In fact, I think there may be a pattern there.

You are right, Discordiac. The majority of deaths in the USSR under Stalin were war casulties. That doesn't make it OK to starve 14 million Ukrainians though.

Why Nelson Mandela and Gorbachev? And, to a lesser extent, why Castro and Lenin?

Mandela's African National Congress slaughtered many blacks during apartheid. They used to a do thing called 'neck-lacing' against anticommunist blacks. They'd tie the victim's hands with barbed wire, put a gasoline-soaked tire around the victim's neck, make the victim drink gasoline, set the victim on fire, and then taunt the victim as he slowly and excruciatingly painfully died. Gorbachev's regime committed genocide against Afghanistan (500,000+ Afghanis), he still had secret police, he still had tens of thousands of prisoners in the gulag, he still supported terrorism; in spite of his friendly smile and phony 'perestroika' and 'glasnost' he differed little from his predecessors (read 'New Lies For Old' and 'The Perestroika Deception' by Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn). Castro's regime brutally persecutes religious people, especially Christians, has secret police, no elections, no freedom of speech, and has killed between 30,000-50,000 Cubans, in addition to supporting terrorism and helping enslave other countries (especially in Africa). Lenin was one of the most sadistic, heinous, and brutal totalitarian dictators of all time. He eliminated freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, etc., 'invented' modern terrorism, ruthlessly massacred innumerable Russians- especially educated people, religious people, and those who owned property- plotted world domination ("First who will take Eastern Europe; then the masses of Asia..." etc., etc., I don't remember the rest of the quote, but it ends with saying they won't have to attack the United States because "it will fall like an overripe fruit into our hands"), and even said himself, "We must hate. Hatred is the essence of communism."

Adolf Hilter -- His actions led to the deaths of 60+ million plus people in World War II....that does not include the 10-13 million he killed in the concentration camps...

Josef Stalin -- Around 20 million people, mostly his own....

Mao Zedong -- 15-20 million....

Pol Pot -- 2-3 million....

Saddam Hussein -- Around 2 million....

Abraham Lincoln -- 625,000 Americans killed in the War Between the States; his violations of the US Constitution resulting in over 14,000 people unlawfully arrested, the arrest and deportation of a US Senator, waging an illegal war and illegal invasion of a soviergn nation....

Among scores of others....

Mao and Stalin killed WAY MORE than that. And Hitler's regime killed around 20,000,000 people (over 6 million Jews, 5 million Poles, millions of Russians and other people, etc.)/

Salvador Allende has been killed by your sick and pseudofascist government, represented by that obsessed and hysterical puppet who is remembered with the name of HENRY KISSINGER, another sickening example of slaughterer dressed in a tuxedo.
He died for his own people, for the welfare of his pacific country, ruled with justice, equality and passion: he was not a dictator, he was REGULARLY and DEMOCRATICALLY elected with REGULAR elections, faced by his nation with enthusiasm.
He has been killed during a military coup d'état, organized by THAT infamous tyrant named AUGUSTO PINOCHET and by your unforgivable shellings over La Moneda, in Santiago.
Please, try to inquire into the facts you're going to talk about, before talking shit.
Did you know, before, who Salvador Allende was? Or simply because he didn't look with sympathy at the capitalistic system and because he was a freely elected socialist leader, you narrowminded yankees will always judge him as a EVIL POLITICIAN?!?

i actually think it was probably general surharto of indonesia - he killed loads of people in getting into power, and countless millions afterwards ( I dont have exact figures). Also he plunged the idonesian economy into ruins by accepting billions of dollars of world bank loans, whereas the democraticaly elected government refused loans.

hitler and stalin were evil, but actually they had a clear and precise view of where the econemy was going, and helped it

Hitler never would have pulled off the economic miracle he did without Western aid. Read 'Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler' by Antony Sutton for more details. The only reason the Soviet Union lasted so many decades, rather than collapse under its own weight, was because of enormous amounts of U.S. aid every year. Read 'Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution,' 'Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development,' 'National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union,' and 'The Best Enemy Money Can Buy,' also written by Sutton.

I forgot about Suharto....he killed around two million people. http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/suharto.htm

I wouldn't trust that website...it white-washes murderers like Ho Chi Minh (who, along with his successors, killed far more than Suharto allegedly killed) and Nelson Mandela.

Mandela's African National Congress slaughtered many blacks during apartheid. They used to a do thing called 'neck-lacing' against anticommunist blacks. They'd tie the victim's hands with barbed wire, put a gasoline-soaked tire around the victim's neck, make the victim drink gasoline, set the victim on fire, and then taunt the victim as he slowly and excruciatingly painfully died. If that is true [which I don't know] did Mandela order them to do it? Hmmm? That story lacks the evidence to blame Mandela.

You are right, Discordiac. The majority of deaths in the USSR under Stalin were war casulties. That doesn't make it OK to starve 14 million Ukrainians though.

Definitely not, as I said, I have no interest in defending Stalin. The Soviet crimes against the Ukraine started before that with Trotsky's betrayal of Makhno.

Vas.

You've got some pretty bad guys on the list, but some managed to redeem themselves. Your are unfair to Gorbachev and Yeltsin [yes their reforms were flawed, and they were corrupt, but it was better than nothing]. Mandela can also be discounted following his renounciation of terrorism. Putin's pretty unpleasant, but he's neither evil nor incompetent; and Salvatore Allende didn't have time to prove whether he was either [but in most accounts comes across as ok].

And what's your problem with Wilson? Yes he made mistakes and was eventually forced to dirty his idealism with the practicalities of politics [eg the Kurds] but he is probably one of the good guys of history. Clemenceu equally messed up over the peace resolution, but wasn't malevolent. As for FDR - I believe that a good man was forced to do some evil things by circumstances that ultimately worked for the greater good.

Tell that to the Germans, in Wilson's case. And Clemenceu even said flat-out he wanted to commit genocide: "There are 20 million Germans too many." Were it not for FDR, the Soviet Union would have collapsed long ago, Eastern Europe, Indochina, and China would have never been communized, we would still be a constitutional republic based on limited government and ruled by law (rather than a socialist 'democracy' based on limitless government and ruled by men). FDR's treatment of Japanese-Americans was alarmingly similar to the actions of the fascists he allegedly despised.

Winston Churchill
Gerhard Schröder
Helmut Kohl

I whole-heartedly agree with Churchill...dunno much about Schroder or Kohl, though.

Stalin
Hitler
Genghis Khan

It's a little known fact that the second most costly war in human history (after World War 2) was actually the 13th century Mongol invasion of China. 30 million people died there.


Hitler actually made the decision to invade Russia. In the winter. "Well, it worked so well for Napoleon!"
Actually, it worked out shit for Napoleon. He lost 400,000 of his soldiers.

Diem of South Vietnam was pretty crap. not only was he a brutal dictator, he was also unbelievably incompetent in almost any way you can think of. and Ceausescue (spelling?) of Romania.

just to be sure....... have you "heard" what I "said"?

Oh, let's not forget!:

Charles DeGaulle (War of Algeria, 1954-62) : a million people
Benito Mussolini (Second World War) : three hundred thousand people
Mobutu Sese Seko (Dictator of Zaire) : it's impossibile to count them
Jean-Bedel Bokassa (Dictator of Centrafica) : it's impossible, too
Lyndon Johnson & Richard Nixon (Vietnam, Southamerican coups d'ètat): more than 150,000
Francisco Franco (Dictator of Spain): 30,000 dissidents, after the civil war
Idi Amin Dada (anthropophagous Dictator of Uganda): it's impossibile, too

Worst person to live was Hitler....ruler, I couldn't say who.

True, Hitler was the worst. He did, however, do wonders for the German economy. After WWI, he made a plan to increase the German population because the male population was at an all time low.
In this plan, women were encouraged to bear children. They would receive cash for each child. They were also eligible to get the "Mother's Pin" award. This was a cross with a nazi symbol in a circle. the circle is made of bronze, silver, or gold. Bronze awards show that a woman bore 4-5 children. Silver was 6-7 children. Gold was 8 or more children. On the back was Hitler's signiture. These awards were only issued on Mother's Day.

Is it just me or is George Wanker Bush missing in this thread?
Well, he's in it now.

Actually, it worked out shit for Napoleon. He lost 400,000 of his soldiers.
He knew that. It was sarcasm. And I know I'm repeating myself. But Hitler invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941. That would be summer.

SALVADOR ALLENDE???? Are you fucking sick or what?
And where is Augusto Pinochet? Where is Ronald Reagan, of the most infamous hangmans of mankind and its minorities? Where is Silvio Berlusconi, a dreadful example about how mafia and private interests are able to control an entire nation under almost total silence?


First of all, quit the flaming. In addition to being a brutal dictator, Allende completely screwed up Chile's economy. The inflation rate was insanely high (I've heard estimates ranging from 300% to 1,000%), there were major food shortages around the country, etc. Gee, where did you hear about Pinochet, the media? They're just doing what they've done to every other anticommunist; launching an enormous smearathon, grossly exaggerating and even fabricating details, and doing everything possible to portray him as evil incarnate. Pinochet saved Chile from the brink of civil war; turned Chile into the wealthiest country in Latin America; overthrew a totalitarian government; wrote up a new constitution that the Chilean people overwhelmingly approved; and voluntarily stepped down, just as he said he would, in 1990. Every living ex-president of Chile agrees unanimously that he saved the country. I should add that the vast majority of Chileans begged the military to do something about Allende, and they finally complied. Only a few hundred people were killed during the fighting; Allende was not assassinated, he committed suicide; most of the 'victims' of Pinochet were armed terrorists (and far fewer people were killed than the media claims); I don't remember how many people the media says he arrested, but it was less than a third than that number (and of that number, most were quickly released); and most of those arrested were treated leniently. I'd recommend the following article by James Whelen, an expert on Chile: 'Persistent Persecution of Pinochet.' I'll even be nice enough to throw in a link:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2000/04-10-2000/vo16no08_pinochet.htm

Read it, and you'll see what a big, bad, nasty guy Pinochet was (commence eye-rolling now).

If that is true [which I don't know] did Mandela order them to do it? Hmmm? That story lacks the evidence to blame Mandela.

Yes, he did. He was the leader of the ANC.

Salvador Allende has been killed by your sick and pseudofascist government, represented by that obsessed and hysterical puppet who is remembered with the name of HENRY KISSINGER, another sickening example of slaughterer dressed in a tuxedo.
He died for his own people, for the welfare of his pacific country, ruled with justice, equality and passion: he was not a dictator, he was REGULARLY and DEMOCRATICALLY elected with REGULAR elections, faced by his nation with enthusiasm.
He has been killed during a military coup d'état, organized by THAT infamous tyrant named AUGUSTO PINOCHET and by your unforgivable shellings over La Moneda, in Santiago.
Please, try to inquire into the facts you're going to talk about, before talking shit.
Did you know, before, who Salvador Allende was? Or simply because he didn't look with sympathy at the capitalistic system and because he was a freely elected socialist leader, you narrowminded yankees will always judge him as a EVIL POLITICIAN?!?

First of all, cut the flaming. NOW. Allende's victory in the 1970 election was marked by widescale fraud. He was far from popular; more than one third of the workers in the country protested against his government; what about the 300-1000% inflation?; what about all the people who starved to death under his regime? Answer me those questions. And Allende was not assassinated, he committed suicide. I agree with your description of Kissinger, though, but he had nothing to do with the coup d'etat; the Chilean military acted on its own (with the blessing of the vast majority of Chileans).

Worst in numbers...is...a tie between Hitler and Stalin. But the one that really gets me id Pol Pot. After all, we helped him get into office (by 'we' I mean the US) and we didn't declare war on him when he started killing millions of Cambodians.

just to be sure....... have you "heard" what I "said"?

Oh, let's not forget!:

Charles DeGaulle (War of Algeria, 1954-62) : a million people
Benito Mussolini (Second World War) : three hundred thousand people
Mobutu Sese Seko (Dictator of Zaire) : it's impossibile to count them
Jean-Bedel Bokassa (Dictator of Centrafica) : it's impossible, too
Lyndon Johnson & Richard Nixon (Vietnam, Southamerican coups d'ètat): more than 150,000
Francisco Franco (Dictator of Spain): 30,000 dissidents, after the civil war
Idi Amin Dada (anthropophagous Dictator of Uganda): it's impossibile, too

Thanks, Proctoscopia! I forgot about DeGaulle and Sese Seko. Never heard of Bokassa. Well, ya learn somethin' new every day... Why isn't Ho Chi Minh on your list? He slaughtered over a million Vietnamese.

Worst in numbers...is...a tie between Hitler and Stalin. But the one that really gets me id Pol Pot. After all, we helped him get into office (by 'we' I mean the US) and we didn't declare war on him when he started killing millions of Cambodians.

It was the treacherous, pro-communist actions of the U.S. government that helped Pol Pot achieve power.

Is it just me or is George Wanker Bush missing in this thread?
Well, he's in it now.

Actually, it's "Walker." Consider him, along with all post-Hoover Presidents, added to my list...along with a few people I'm forgetting: Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Muammar al-Quaddafi.

That's dangerous disinformation, Roach, that's ignorance and a pathetic endavour of transforming mankind's history into clay, for the benefit of every sinner and culprit: try to watch some objective and coherent documentaries, Roach, try to ask around about a man called VICTOR JARA, torturated until death, deprived of his own hands by his executioners. Try to listen to who really lived that plague: economy? don't you remember that Allende nationalized the primary resource of Chile, COPPER?

Allende declared that in two years the lines of credits guaranteed by Chile by private banks were REDUCED of ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY MILLION DOLLARS and he described the International Corporation of Telephones and Telegraphs (the ITT) as a firm whose capital EXCEEDED the national profit of many southamericans nations, and even the profits of some industrialized nations!

This is confirmed, it is certified!

Of course chilean economy went down, in 1972!
United States made the price of copper crash down with the only purpose of damage chilean exportations!
Please, I REPEAT, try to inform yourselves, before talking. And try to face the facts, narrated, maybe, by some witnesses of what happened, not just by biased, unreliable external (and conservative & republican yankee, I guess) historian.

The coup d'état's witnesses said so. So, you really think that Allende wasn't killed? It's like to believe that desaparecidos just went away from their country because they were sick of it!
Reality is just one: Allende would have never killed himself.
He was surrounded by militar helicopters, bombs, fire and "guerrilla fascist partisans" in his own political building.
I've never heard about political fraud during 1970's elections...and just because this never happened! Listened, I read books, I watched documentaries, and noone, and I say noone of these documents describes corruption at elections. No one, obviously, except for that erroneus and revanchist opinion totally made up by that historian you signaled me. There's no trace of what you said in any document and in collective memory.
Inflation broke up in 1972, when, as I said before, the United States managed to ruin chilean economy blocking their copper exportation, the base of their good economy. People starving was just a consequence of this block.

Do you know what Kissinger said before he made his army attack Chile?
"We simply can't permit that a country turns communist because of its people's irresponsibility". Textual words. You can check them everywhere.
Chilean people is still crying for what USA and the right-wing military chilean forces did to their country and are still traumathized by the thousand victims provoked by Pinochet: does the "Santiago Stadium" make you ring a bell? It was a freakin' concentration camp, did you forget?

Take a look at this, about your southamerican hero.
http://www.trentu.ca/~mneumann/pinochet.html

Now, I need to sleep: it's 2:40 AM, here... let's continue this discussion tomorrow. Meanwhile, try to argue.

The coup d'état's witnesses said so. So, you really think that Allende wasn't killed? It's like to believe that desaparecidos just went away from their country because they were sick of it!
Reality is just one: Allende would have never killed himself.
He was surrounded by militar helicopters, bombs, fire and "guerrilla fascist partisans" in his own political building.
I've never heard about political fraud during 1970's elections...and just because this never happened! Listened, I read books, I watched documentaries, and noone, and I say noone of these documents describes corruption at elections. No one, obviously, except for that erroneus and revanchist opinion totally made up by that historian you signaled me. There's no trace of what you said in any document and in collective memory.
Inflation broke up in 1972, when, as I said before, the United States managed to ruin chilean economy blocking their copper exportation, the base of their good economy. People starving was just a consequence of this block.

Do you know what Kissinger said before he made his army attack Chile?
"We simply can't permit that a country turns communist because of its people's irresponsibility". Textual words. You can check them everywhere.
Chilean people is still crying for what USA and the right-wing military chilean forces did to their country and are still traumathized by the thousand victims provoked by Pinochet: does the "Santiago Stadium" make you ring a bell? It was a freakin' concentration camp, did you forget?

Take a look at this, about your southamerican hero.
http://www.trentu.ca/~mneumann/pinochet.html

Now, I need to sleep: it's 2:40 AM, here... let's continue this discussion tomorrow. Meanwhile, try to argue.

I checked your source. It was very biased. So, don't criticize my source for being 'biased.' Please lose the sarcasm. I have my doubts about that Kissinger quote. Kissinger was certainly no anticommunist. (Read Henry Kissinger: Soviet Agent; Kissinger on the Couch; No Peace, No Honor: The Paris Peace Talks That Sold Out South Vietnam [I think that was the title]) I have no objection whatsoever to anyone disagreeing with me, so long as they do it respectfully. And yes, Allende did commit suicide. He was offered a chance to surrender, but he refused it. Give me the names of some of these books and documentaries. Chances are, they're extremely biased (as most documentaries are). Let's just drop everything right here. I highly doubt you even looked at that link or read the author of that article's resume' at the top. And it's clear that if this goes any further, it's going to get ugly and there'll be lots of flaming. Obviously, you're always going to hate Pinochet and I'll always feel otherwise. Nothing either of us does can change the way the other thinks. I don't want to start a flame war, so we'll just stop here, okay?

Depends if you mean worst in terms of the person's evil and general disagreeableness, or worst leadership and competance overall. Hitler trumps Stalin in general for systematic murder and waging war on the entire world, while Stalin leaps ahead in sheer stupidity in paranoia. It could be argued that Stalin "killed" more people, but in all likelihood he intentionally (that is, he knowingly signed off on the murder or imprisonment of) 2 million people, half of them German POWs. The 20 million figure often cited includes people who starved to death as a direct result of his actions but not as a desired or intended result; more likely, as a result of his massive purges of the Communist Party, leaving him with a bunch of loyalist dupes who had no chance of pulling off this collective farming business without a hitch.

hmmm...you guys forget calligula...he was roumered to have : killed his father, slept with his sisters, ruined the roman economy after agustus's/tiberiosus reign, murdered tiberius, made his sistesr whroes..been a pedophile...and murdered a lot of poel

Has the name of Caligula been erased from the pages of history? Perhaps he did not kill anywhere near the numbers any of these aforementioned rulers, but his complete insanity otherwise places him well above any other ruler I can imagine.

George W. Bush

Depends if you mean worst in terms of the person's evil and general disagreeableness, or worst leadership and competance overall. Hitler trumps Stalin in general for systematic murder and waging war on the entire world, while Stalin leaps ahead in sheer stupidity in paranoia. It could be argued that Stalin "killed" more people, but in all likelihood he intentionally (that is, he knowingly signed off on the murder or imprisonment of) 2 million people, half of them German POWs. The 20 million figure often cited includes people who starved to death as a direct result of his actions but not as a desired or intended result; more likely, as a result of his massive purges of the Communist Party, leaving him with a bunch of loyalist dupes who had no chance of pulling off this collective farming business without a hitch.

Well, you have a valid point. Stalin didn't sign the death warrants for all those 20 million people, he just let it happen. He knew Ukraine was starving and refused to help, but it is debateable whether the actions were primarily to starve the Ukrainians or to collectivise the farming industry with the knowledge in mind that the Ukrainians would starve as a result.

Then again, Hitler didn't ask the Nazis to build gas chambers. He just wanted all the Jews and un-desirables out of "Greater Germany", regardless if it was deportion, shootings or whatever. Remember, he wasn't at the Wansee Conference where the Nazis decided what to do with the Jews. Some of his under staff made the decision to use gas and he just went along with it. It doesn't make him any less responsible, that is not the point I am trying to make. But it does make Stalin as responsible for the 14 million dead in the Ukraine, however many cossacks in Belarus, however many people worked to death in the Gulags as Hitler is responsible for the 6+ million Jews, gypsies & communists killed in the concentration camps.

Now, for true evil, the one that is conciously directed towards causing pain and suffering for generations to come, I would have to say is... the International Monetary Fund![/QUOTE]

very true - also the world bank

It strikes me, and I think Land of the Enemy raised the same point, that you guys aren't really arguing who was the worst ruler ever, but the worst person that has ever ruled. While Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were all reprehensible people, they did lead their nations to prosperity. They may have done it through horrifying means, but they did accomplish alot as leaders. Someone who would be considered the worst ruler ever would be somebody who completely ruined his or her country through their own actions, like Pol Pot or Idi Amin or Mobuto Sese Seko.

Just my two cents.

true - and also general suharto

First of all, quit the flaming. In addition to being a brutal dictator, Allende completely screwed up Chile's economy. The inflation rate was insanely high (I've heard estimates ranging from 300% to 1,000%), there were major food shortages around the country, etc. Gee, where did you hear about Pinochet, the media? They're just doing what they've done to every other anticommunist; launching an enormous smearathon, grossly exaggerating and even fabricating details, and doing everything possible to portray him as evil incarnate. Pinochet saved Chile from the brink of civil war; turned Chile into the wealthiest country in Latin America; overthrew a totalitarian government; wrote up a new constitution that the Chilean people overwhelmingly approved; and voluntarily stepped down, just as he said he would, in 1990. Every living ex-president of Chile agrees unanimously that he saved the country. I should add that the vast majority of Chileans begged the military to do something about Allende, and they finally complied. Only a few hundred people were killed during the fighting; Allende was not assassinated, he committed suicide; most of the 'victims' of Pinochet were armed terrorists (and far fewer people were killed than the media claims); I don't remember how many people the media says he arrested, but it was less than a third than that number (and of that number, most were quickly released); and most of those arrested were treated leniently. I'd recommend the following article by James Whelen, an expert on Chile: 'Persistent Persecution of Pinochet.' I'll even be nice enough to throw in a link:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2000/04-10-2000/vo16no08_pinochet.htm

Read it, and you'll see what a big, bad, nasty guy Pinochet was (commence eye-rolling now).

A far more reliable site:

[urlhttp://www.remember-chile.org.uk/[/url]

George W. Bush

He may not be fully recognized as the worst yet, but in time I'm sure people will see him for his true incompetance...

It's gotta be king George...

Neat trick seeing as how the violin was invented sometime in the sixteenth century and Nero reigned during the first.


I think that makes him a lyre.
:D

I have to say Mao Zedong, just on sheer numbers and the way he screwed up China with the Cultural Revolution.

As far as the percentage of his own population killed, whilst doing absolutely nothing positive for his country, I would say Pol Pot.

He may not be fully recognized as the worst yet, but in time I'm sure people will see him for his true incompetance...
If any future American president ever decides to use mini-nukes we know whom we have to thank for that.

I don't think he was an evil man, but England's King John was a horrible ruler. He managed to pretty much singlehandedly lose all of northern France just 'cause he was in a pissing match with the French dukes. He just really, really blew.

George W. Bush

Please knock off this utter nonsense. The idea of placing Bush among those being discussed here is absurd.

It's people like you that have made the word "liberal" an insult.

Brian Mulroney, period, crappiest Canadian Prime Minster ever.

The worse ruler was Emperor Qin Shi Huangdai. As a percentage of the population he massacred, it pales in comparrison to Hitler and Stalin. Besides, from the sound of it, Emperor Qin was very self-centered and erratic.
He built the Great Wall, but if a slave made a mistake, the wall was built over him. He burned books, and had their authors buried alive. And of course, he supported a small economy with the construction of his tomb. All of this was paid for by the extremely generous contributions of the war-torn peasantry. It was no wonder that his dynasty was overthrown as soon as he died.

Hence, until the leadership of Nepal or Monaco tries the same thing, Hitler automatically gets the Janeway award for horrible leadership.

Not a fan of Voyager, I take it. I'd say Stalin, though.

It strikes me, and I think Land of the Enemy raised the same point, that you guys aren't really arguing who was the worst ruler ever, but the worst person that has ever ruled. While Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were all reprehensible people, they did lead their nations to prosperity. They may have done it through horrifying means, but they did accomplish alot as leaders. Someone who would be considered the worst ruler ever would be somebody who completely ruined his or her country through their own actions, like Pol Pot or Idi Amin or Mobuto Sese Seko.

Just my two cents.

Mao's policies completely destroyed the economy, plunged the country into the Stone Age, and caused millions of people to starve to death. I don't see how that could be construed as 'prosperity.'

Ho Chi Minh, hands down.

Hmn... toss up between Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and George W Bush...

Mandela's African National Congress slaughtered many blacks during apartheid. They used to a do thing called 'neck-lacing' against anticommunist blacks. They'd tie the victim's hands with barbed wire, put a gasoline-soaked tire around the victim's neck, make the victim drink gasoline, set the victim on fire, and then taunt the victim as he slowly and excruciatingly painfully died. Gorbachev's regime committed genocide against Afghanistan (500,000+ Afghanis), he still had secret police, he still had tens of thousands of prisoners in the gulag, he still supported terrorism; in spite of his friendly smile and phony 'perestroika' and 'glasnost' he differed little from his predecessors (read 'New Lies For Old' and 'The Perestroika Deception' by Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn). Castro's regime brutally persecutes religious people, especially Christians, has secret police, no elections, no freedom of speech, and has killed between 30,000-50,000 Cubans, in addition to supporting terrorism and helping enslave other countries (especially in Africa). Lenin was one of the most sadistic, heinous, and brutal totalitarian dictators of all time. He eliminated freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, etc., 'invented' modern terrorism, ruthlessly massacred innumerable Russians- especially educated people, religious people, and those who owned property- plotted world domination ("First who will take Eastern Europe; then the masses of Asia..." etc., etc., I don't remember the rest of the quote, but it ends with saying they won't have to attack the United States because "it will fall like an overripe fruit into our hands"), and even said himself, "We must hate. Hatred is the essence of communism."

Hope you don't mind Roach-Busters but I'd like to add the following in regards to Mandela and Lenin.

During Mandela's term in office, Mandela sold aluminium shell casings that are used in the construction of nuclear weapons to Saddam Hussein. He left the country's crime rate and economy in a worse state than when he came in.

Lenin's secret police, the Cheka, pioneered the development of concentration camps, which held 70,000 people at around the time of Lenin's death. The Cheka also carried out executions gainst "class enemies". It is estimated that the Cheka killed between 100,000 and 500,000 people.

Lenin also created a man-made famine. To feed troops fighting in the nation's civil war, Lenin demanded that the peasantry deliver large sums of food in exchange for little or nothing at all. The pesantry rebelled by drastically reducing their crop production. In retaliation, Lenin ordered the peasantry to hand over the food grown for their own subsistence. Eventually, a second civil war was waged against the peasantry. The famine is estimated to have killed 3 to 10 million people.

Personally, I think that Pol Pot was the worst ruler. He forced the entire population of Cambodia to move to the countryside and work on farms. Anyone who had previously been an intellectual, ie had a job which required college education, was executed. Even university students and people who wore glasses were regarded as intellectuals and were executed. Every basic human freedom was nonexistant. You couldn't even have sex without the permission the Khmer Rouge, who had to watch you perform the act once granted permission. In the space of four years, 2 million people, or 28% of the country's population, were killed.

Hope you don't mind Roach-Busters but I'd like to add the following in regards to Mandela and Lenin.

During Mandela's term in office, Mandela sold aluminium shell casings that are used in the construction of nuclear weapons to Saddam Hussein. He left the country's crime rate and economy in a worse state than when he came in.

Lenin's secret police, the Cheka, pioneered the development of concentration camps, which held 70,000 people at around the time of Lenin's death. The Cheka also carried out executions gainst "class enemies". It is estimated that the Cheka killed between 100,000 and 500,000 people.

Lenin also created a man-made famine. To feed troops fighting in the nation's civil war, Lenin demanded that the peasantry deliver large sums of food in exchange for little or nothing at all. The pesantry rebelled by drastically reducing their crop production. In retaliation, Lenin ordered the peasantry to hand over the food grown for their own subsistence. Eventually, a second civil war was waged against the peasantry. The famine is estimated to have killed 3 to 10 million people.

Personally, I think that Pol Pot was the worst ruler. He forced the entire population of Cambodia to move to the countryside and work on farms. Anyone who had previously been an intellectual, ie had a job which required college education, was executed. Even university students and people who wore glasses were regarded as intellectuals and were executed. Every basic human freedom was nonexistant. You couldn't even have sex without the permission the Khmer Rouge, who had to watch you perform the act once granted permission. In the space of four years, 2 million people, or 28% of the country's population, were killed.

One book I would recommend is Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields.

Hitler actually made the decision to invade Russia. In the winter. "Well, it worked so well for Napoleon!" Hence, until the leadership of Nepal or Monaco tries the same thing, Hitler automatically gets the Janeway award for horrible leadership.
this is funny. thankyou

Who Was The Worst Ruler Ever?
That would tie ,between King richard the lion heart,and king john lackland,
the question was worst ruler not worst mass murderer,
and these two are right at the top for worst.
other winners would have been caligula,and george III.

Hitler's national socailist Germany lasted about 12yrs (33-45), and just for your information, not all of germany liked hitler, infact, all of the high ranking officails that were eliminated from Germany knew that it could not win a world war! However, Hitler, brought Germany out of disaster, he assumed power of country that was so inflated that it costed nearley 3billion mark for a frkn egg! he brought Germany out of the disaster, and ended the depression of course. Stalin in these terms, took over from Lenin, he wasnt even elected! In 1938 Stalin perged the red army of any even suspected opposition form the most insignificant person, which meant death for that person. After perging the army, he sent it to Findalnd shortly thereafter, and the red army was only able to barely scratch the surface of findland. The soldier ratio was literally 2000 russian soldiers to 1 finn soldier, and finland still won! Now true, Stalin did help the economy, but so did Hitler in a nearley Equal amount. And lest we forget, Stalin brought on the whole cold war by not accepting the plan to transform Germany into an agrarian country, no, he kept half, wiht the intentions of expanding his borders.

Anther thing is the deathtoll. Hitler killed a mixture of opposing officails, suspected officers and men, and of course the Jewish, which all totall upto roughly 6-8 million. Stalin on the other hand killed over 50 million, thats right 50 million, and dont thinki this isnt true, it is, he killed 50 milion innocent russian citizens simply for the fact to create fear, that was it. There was one day were he just ordered the death of any 25000 russian in moscow to ensure no opposition. so, Hitler had 8 million, Stalin had 50 million, you make up your mind on that. Also there s rights to the citizen. In russia, put simply, there are none, and everyeon was condemned to live in the communist way, where as in Hitler's Germany, people had some freedoms and the also oppurtunities for careers. Lastly, Id like to add to the fact that when Stalin was buried, the had to be 2-4 s-squads guarding the body because citizens wanted to throw is body into the garbage. So essentially, Stalin was a screw up and a monster, and personally, if I had to choose, Id pick Hitler, cause at least he had a nation , whihc, not including hitler, would be worth fighting for. All these facts are true, trust me, I have a degree in history which incldues war history, and past and present historical politics and foreign affairs.

Later all

Hitler's national socailist Germany lasted about 12yrs (33-45), and just for your information, not all of germany liked hitler, infact, all of the high ranking officails that were eliminated from Germany knew that it could not win a world war! However, Hitler, brought Germany out of disaster, he assumed power of country that was so inflated that it costed nearley 3billion mark for a frkn egg! he brought Germany out of the disaster, and ended the depression of course. Stalin in these terms, took over from Lenin, he wasnt even elected! In 1938 Stalin perged the red army of any even suspected opposition form the most insignificant person, which meant death for that person. After perging the army, he sent it to Findalnd shortly thereafter, and the red army was only able to barely scratch the surface of findland. The soldier ratio was literally 2000 russian soldiers to 1 finn soldier, and finland still won! Now true, Stalin did help the economy, but so did Hitler in a nearley Equal amount. And lest we forget, Stalin brought on the whole cold war by not accepting the plan to transform Germany into an agrarian country, no, he kept half, wiht the intentions of expanding his borders.

Anther thing is the deathtoll. Hitler killed a mixture of opposing officails, suspected officers and men, and of course the Jewish, which all totall upto roughly 6-8 million. Stalin on the other hand killed over 50 million, thats right 50 million, and dont thinki this isnt true, it is, he killed 50 milion innocent russian citizens simply for the fact to create fear, that was it. There was one day were he just ordered the death of any 25000 russian in moscow to ensure no opposition. so, Hitler had 8 million, Stalin had 50 million, you make up your mind on that. Also there s rights to the citizen. In russia, put simply, there are none, and everyeon was condemned to live in the communist way, where as in Hitler's Germany, people had some freedoms and the also oppurtunities for careers. Lastly, Id like to add to the fact that when Stalin was buried, the had to be 2-4 s-squads guarding the body because citizens wanted to throw is body into the garbage. So essentially, Stalin was a screw up and a monster, and personally, if I had to choose, Id pick Hitler, cause at least he had a nation , whihc, not including hitler, would be worth fighting for. All these facts are true, trust me, I have a degree in history which incldues war history, and past and present historical politics and foreign affairs.

Later all

Stalin did not help the economy. Massive U.S. aid did.

YES! THAT ONE! THE CHEAPY, CHINESE-MADE, PLASTIC, RED ONE! I bought it for two dollars and the colour faded in less than a week and snapped the day after!!!

During Mandela's term in office, Mandela sold aluminium shell casings that are used in the construction of nuclear weapons to Saddam Hussein.
Funny, considering the fact that THE UNITED STATES GAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN READY-MADE CHEMICAL WEAPONS.

Oh, and in case you've been living under a rock for the past 2 years, Saddam never had any nukes.

He left the country's crime rate and economy in a worse state than when he came in.
Riiiiiight... so that whole Apertheid thing was nothing important, was it? The fact that Mandela won freedom for the blacks and ended a brutal, murderous racist regime doesn't really matter, does it?
I suspect the reason for the higher crime rate is that before Mandela came in, crimes against blacks were almost always ignored. If you don't count beating up blacks as a crime, of course your official "crime rate" will be lower. As for the economy, I've never heard your claim before. The people of South Africa, particularly blacks, are much better off today than before Mandela.

Lenin's secret police, the Cheka, pioneered the development of concentration camps...
Wrong. The vast majority of the "concentration camps" used by Lenin had been built many decades before, and were in fact Czarist camps, used to imprison the enemies of the Czar and the Imperial Russian aristocracy.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, when the camps fell into the people's hands, Lenin decided to give the old aristocrats and oppressors a taste of their own medicine. It was an act of exquisite irony, IMO.

The Cheka also carried out executions gainst "class enemies".
Yes, terrorists and spies. There was a war going on, after all. And it's funny how you don't mention the Czarist secret police, the Ohrana. The Ohrana had been operating for decades in Imperial Russia. And after the Revolution, the Ohrana continued to operate in the areas controlled by the royalists and the White Army. It also sent operatives into the parts of Russia controlled by the revolutionary forces, with various missions of sabotage and assasination. It was only logical that the Bolsheviks needed to create their own secret service to counter the Ohrana.

Lenin also created a man-made famine. To feed troops fighting in the nation's civil war, Lenin demanded that the peasantry deliver large sums of food in exchange for little or nothing at all. The pesantry rebelled by drastically reducing their crop production. In retaliation, Lenin ordered the peasantry to hand over the food grown for their own subsistence. Eventually, a second civil war was waged against the peasantry. The famine is estimated to have killed 3 to 10 million people.
You're putting Lenin in a catch-22 situation. Due to the ravages of the war, there was not enough food to go around. Lenin gave priority to the army, so you accuse him of starving the peasantry. If Lenin had given priority to the peasantry, you would have accused him of starving the soldiers of the army. So what exactly was Lenin supposed to do, in your oh-so-enlightened opinion?

Furthermore, if Lenin had waged a "civil war against the peasantry", as you claim, then it would have been impossible for him to win the real civil war, because the royalist White Army had the support of foreign powers. In fact, France and Britain sent invasion troops to Russia in order to fight the Bolsheviks. The only way Lenin was able to win that war was by having the support of the people - especially the peasantry.

The Red Army was outnumbered and outgunned. The White Army had foreign support, and foreign reinforcements. Without the support of the Russian people, it would have been utterly impossible for the Red Army to win.

Stalin drove the russians to insanity. I saw on a documentary that a russian family was so hungry, they killed their child, chopped him up, and pickled him in buckets. Then they ate him.

Hrm, I'd have to say, in the 20th Century the worst leaders were/are:
Any communist leader, except possibly the ones in modern China and maybe Vietnam (that still needs to be seen). Without fail all self-professed communisms have been total failures (with the exception of China, which is now very market socialist), and so we can blame those leaders who created and perpetuated them.

Hitler, mostly because he led his country into an unwinnable war and as a result ruined it.

Kaiser Wilhelm II, for much the same reason that Hitler was the worst ruler. He really should have listened to Bismarck more and stopped worrying about the size of his penis.

Probably Churchill and Chamberlain, they both happily destroyed their country.

Those French leaders in the 1930's who decided to end the Maginot line because it was too provocative.

Hrm, I guess I could go on, but I'm too lazy...

Funny, considering the fact that THE UNITED STATES GAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN READY-MADE CHEMICAL WEAPONS.

Really? Care to post the proof?

Here's Germany's assistance:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/az120103.html

The Netherlands:
"For instance, the Dutch firm KBS sold Iraq large quantities of Thiodilyco (name as transliterated), a material that is essential in the production of mustard gas, at a cost of 1.5 million Marks."

Italy:
"Multinational Italian firms also supplied Iraq with 60 tons of Oxycklorure (name as transliterated), a phosphoric material that is also used in chemical industries that can be put to dual-use."

France:
"As for the French companies, they exported to Iraq large quantities of a gas (not further identified) that can be used in warfare. This gas was exported across the borders from Italy and Turkey. This transaction was concluded through the mediation of the German Company Karl Kolb."

This shows Iraq's chemical program, no mention of the US giving Saddam anything:
http://www.iraqwatch.org/profiles/chemical.html

Stalin drove the russians to insanity. I saw on a documentary that a russian family was so hungry, they killed their child, chopped him up, and pickled him in buckets. Then they ate him.
Well, Stalin was a mass murdering bastard and a brutal dictator... but nevertheless, I think that story is exaggerated. With the exception of the 1929-1932 period of Stalin's rule (and with the exception of WW2, of course), everyone in Russia had enough to eat.

Stalin did not help the economy. Massive U.S. aid did.
Funny, I wasn't aware that the Soviet Union was receiving massive US aid in the 1930's.

Really? Care to post the proof?
I guess you never heard of that little thing called the Iran-Iraq war, in which the US supported Iraq?

Oh, and by the way, thank you for posting proof that multinational corporations supported Saddam Hussein.

Funny, I wasn't aware that the Soviet Union was receiving massive US aid in the 1930's.

Hmm - I can't speak for the US, but several human rights groups in the UK and Australia were sending both monetary aid and care packages to the USSR from the early thirties up to the late 50's - some groups even longer.

With that said, Stalin did do wonders for Soviet industry - probably because he successfully managed to compress the ruthless efficiency and brutality of 100 years of industrial revolution in Western Europe into just 10 in the USSR.

A firm believer in the "no pain, no gain" philosophy.

Kaiser Wilhelm II, for much the same reason that Hitler was the worst ruler. He really should have listened to Bismarck more and stopped worrying about the size of his penis.

No, he should have shown more balls and actually followed the original Schlieffen plan instead of worrying about a highly organised and well equipped Russian Army (har har) coming over the eastern border and diverting half his troops there to stop them.

Brilliant point about Churchill too by the way ... yes, the world would have been a much better place if dear ol' Neville had stayed in charge.

... Oh yes, the above paragraph was sarcasm. Sadly some "disadvantaged" denizens of the net are not always able to grasp this concept, so it has to be spelled out using as few syllables as possible.

No, he should have shown more balls and actually followed the original Schlieffen plan instead of worrying about a highly organised and well equipped Russian Army (har har) coming over the eastern border and diverting half his troops there to stop them.

The Schlieffen plan wouldn't have worked anyway. There wasn't enough railway lines to transport the required number of troops to crush France. In later versions of the plan, Schlieffen had some divisions simply appearing from nowhere, to win battles and take key fortresses.

There was the fact that the Russian army was bloody huge-even disorganised, they could have done some real damage.

Oh yeah, and the British came into the war and the Belgians fought back; two more nails in the coffin of the Schlieffen plan.

Funny, considering the fact that THE UNITED STATES GAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN READY-MADE CHEMICAL WEAPONS.

Oh, and in case you've been living under a rock for the past 2 years, Saddam never had any nukes.


Riiiiiight... so that whole Apertheid thing was nothing important, was it? The fact that Mandela won freedom for the blacks and ended a brutal, murderous racist regime doesn't really matter, does it?
I suspect the reason for the higher crime rate is that before Mandela came in, crimes against blacks were almost always ignored. If you don't count beating up blacks as a crime, of course your official "crime rate" will be lower. As for the economy, I've never heard your claim before. The people of South Africa, particularly blacks, are much better off today than before Mandela.


Wrong. The vast majority of the "concentration camps" used by Lenin had been built many decades before, and were in fact Czarist camps, used to imprison the enemies of the Czar and the Imperial Russian aristocracy.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, when the camps fell into the people's hands, Lenin decided to give the old aristocrats and oppressors a taste of their own medicine. It was an act of exquisite irony, IMO.


Yes, terrorists and spies. There was a war going on, after all. And it's funny how you don't mention the Czarist secret police, the Ohrana. The Ohrana had been operating for decades in Imperial Russia. And after the Revolution, the Ohrana continued to operate in the areas controlled by the royalists and the White Army. It also sent operatives into the parts of Russia controlled by the revolutionary forces, with various missions of sabotage and assasination. It was only logical that the Bolsheviks needed to create their own secret service to counter the Ohrana.


You're putting Lenin in a catch-22 situation. Due to the ravages of the war, there was not enough food to go around. Lenin gave priority to the army, so you accuse him of starving the peasantry. If Lenin had given priority to the peasantry, you would have accused him of starving the soldiers of the army. So what exactly was Lenin supposed to do, in your oh-so-enlightened opinion?

Furthermore, if Lenin had waged a "civil war against the peasantry", as you claim, then it would have been impossible for him to win the real civil war, because the royalist White Army had the support of foreign powers. In fact, France and Britain sent invasion troops to Russia in order to fight the Bolsheviks. The only way Lenin was able to win that war was by having the support of the people - especially the peasantry.

The Red Army was outnumbered and outgunned. The White Army had foreign support, and foreign reinforcements. Without the support of the Russian people, it would have been utterly impossible for the Red Army to win.

As bad as apartheid was, Mandela was no saint, either. He and his ANC thugs killed thousands of anticommunist blacks, intentionally instigated riots which killed hundreds more, and used terrorism to try and overthrow the South African government.

Correct. The secret police were not knew to Russia, nor were the concentration camps. However, Lenin imprisoned and executed far more people than any czar (or is it tsar?) had ever done. His thugs did kill hundreds of thousands of 'enemies of the state,' not to mention stamped out virtually every kind of individual freedom.

Funny, I wasn't aware that the Soviet Union was receiving massive US aid in the 1930's.

Indeed they did. The only reason the Soviet Union lasted so many decades and did not simply crumble under its own weight is because of enormous, continuous U.S. aid. Without that aid, the Soviet Union would have never been able to support revolutions throughout the rest of the world or keep other communists in power. I'd recommend the following:

Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution
Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development
National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union
The Best Enemy Money Can Buy (all by Antony Sutton)
George Katkov's study "German Foreign Office Documents on Financial Support to the Bolsheviks in 1917" in International Affairs, vol. 32, no. 2 (April 1956)

In addition, the following three sources are helpful in exposing the phoniness of the 'collapse' of the Soviet Union

New Lies For Old
The Perestroika Deception (both written by Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn)
Soviet Analysis, a journal by British journalist Christopher Story

Could someone please explain to me why Castro was in the previous list?

On my list I'd add LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush Jr....and the Saudi Royal family, even if I am a Muslim.

Could someone please explain to me why Castro was in the previous list?

On my list I'd add LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush Jr....and the Saudi Royal family, even if I am a Muslim.

Well, since you asked so politely, I'll tell you. His regime has killed between 30,000-50,000 people, arrested hundreds of thousands more, has tens of thousands of people rotting in prison cells undergoing abominable torture, and he persecutes Christians and permits virtually no personal freedoms.

Why Reagan, though, out of curiosity?

The Schlieffen plan wouldn't have worked anyway. There wasn't enough railway lines to transport the required number of troops to crush France. In later versions of the plan, Schlieffen had some divisions simply appearing from nowhere, to win battles and take key fortresses.

There was the fact that the Russian army was bloody huge-even disorganised, they could have done some real damage.

Oh yeah, and the British came into the war and the Belgians fought back; two more nails in the coffin of the Schlieffen plan.

The Germans were the only group that considered rail at all - if they'd devoted their resources towards moving men against the Belgian/French front they could have had a much larger army moving against Paris - considering how close they came to taking it with the reduced army, a few hundred more men might have made the difference.

The British were expected, and the Belgians could have been overrun quickly with greater numbers - forts or no forts. The only element the Germans couldn't have expected was the effectiveness of the Expeditionary Force, and even with it's exceptional performance it was still driven back by half the German Army.

If the Germans had left a small force to hold off the Russian army (which had leaders who made Haig look like a tactical visionary) and sent the main army against France, they could have taken Paris, forced a French surrender, and moved men back to reinforce the Russian Front.

... possibly. It is, admitedly, a little hard to prove either way.

my 1st candidate is george w. bush snr.?

in the 1st gulf war he used unsealed uranium in southern iraq (some of it actually was mixed with plutonium). millions of tons was dropped onto southern iraq, and now, recent tests in Basra show that 40-48 percent of the population will contract cancer in there lives. Also further proof of this is that in south iraq, mushrooms grow huge and fish become inedible, as do bost of the fruit and vegitables.

To add insult to injury, most of the people in iraq who contract cancer and other radiation-caused diseases could be cured with the corect drugs - but guess what, those drugs were put on hold by the bush snr. administation. All of the drugs needed are commen in US and British hospitals, and they are stopped because they could be used to build chemical bombs! Ignoring the fact that if all the drugs were pooled together, hardly any of the weapon could be created, if the US was so woried about iraq having chemical weapons, why did they sell them to him.

My 2nd candidate is George Bush Jnr.

Apart from being a complete moron, he sent troops to iraq for what? It cant have been chemical weapons (see above), nor to topple an evil regeme (although it souned good, so they did it anyway cause it sounded good!) I say this because american soldiers actually stoped revolutionaries from getting to an armoury! Also it cant have been to stop the gassing of the kurds - american and british fighter jets and bombers are called back to base and told to turn off their radars, to allow "tsm's" (turkish special missions) to bomb the kurds - the very poeple they are supposed to have protected! Well the only option has to be oil. oil oil oil!(well he did enter negotiations with the taliban of all people for an oil pipeline through afganistan

40-48 percent of the population will contract cancer in there lives

Are you serious? I feel very sad for them.

Well, since you asked so politely, I'll tell you. His regime has killed between 30,000-50,000 people...
Most historians and Cuba analysts put the figure between 4000 and 6000. I have no idea where you got your absurdely inflated numbers from.

But even if we do accept your numbers, Castro doesn't even make it into the top 50 dictators of the 20th century - in fact, a great number of democratic leaders and even U.S. Presidents killed more people in the space of 4-8 years than Castro killed in 45 years.

Hell, even Castro's predecessor, the U.S.-sponsored capitalist dictator Batista, managed to kill more people in his short-lived reign than Castro killed in his very long reign.

Therefore, all things considered, putting Castro on a list of "worst leaders" is completely absurd - unless you put him around no. 80 on that list. By all standards, he counts as a benevolent dictator.

...arrested hundreds of thousands more, has tens of thousands of people rotting in prison cells undergoing abominable torture, and he persecutes Christians and permits virtually no personal freedoms.
Excuse me?? That's even MORE absurd than your "kill count". Fidel Castro has about the same number of political prisoners as George W. Bush, which is a few hundred.
But of course there are "thousands of people" in jail in Cuba, for the same reasons why there are millions of people in jail in the United States: murder, theft, rape, and various other crimes.

As for the "persecution of Christians", perhaps you weren't aware of this, but the majority of Cubans are devout Catholics and go to church every day. They are not hindered or persecuted in any way; as a matter of fact, just a few years ago, Pope John Paul II made a visit to Cuba, on Castro's invitation.

And regarding personal freedoms, I suggest you go to Cuba and see for yourself. If there's one thing that makes Castro a benevolent dictator, it's his respect for the civil liberties and personal freedoms of the Cuban people. In their daily lives, Cubans are not oppressed in any way. The only thing that separates them from Americans is the fact that they don't have political freedoms and elections.

By NS standards, Cuba would register as:

Civil Rights: Superb
Political Freedoms: Unheard Of

Why Reagan, though, out of curiosity?
Two words: Death Squads

Remember when I told you that several U.S. Presidents killed more people than Castro? Reagan is one of them. Just talk to the families of victims of the Death Squads he trained and supported in Honduras and El Salvador, or talk to the families of the people killed by Reagan's pet terrorists in Nicaragua, the Contras.

Indeed they did. The only reason the Soviet Union lasted so many decades and did not simply crumble under its own weight is because of enormous, continuous U.S. aid.
Sorry, but I don't take kindly to conspiracy theories. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and you've just claimed that the Cold War was all a big fat lie (which makes it the greatest conspiracy of all time), and that, for some reason, the capitalists were supporting the communists. I'm afraid I can't just "take your word for it".

And the Soviet Union was far from "collapsing under its own weight". In fact, the Soviet economy grew faster than the US economy until the late 60's. It took hard work by Brezhnev and Gorbachev to run it into the ground.

Without that aid, the Soviet Union would have never been able to support revolutions throughout the rest of the world or keep other communists in power.
Oh, so everything we know about the Soviet Union (hard economic statistics, industrial capacity, infrastructure, GDP, etc.) was all just a big cover-up?

I'd recommend the following:

[books follow]
Thank you, but I could just as easily find you even more books claiming that the US government is run by aliens. As I said, I don't take kindly to conspiracy theories.

George W. Bush.

Sorry, but I don't take kindly to conspiracy theories. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and you've just claimed that the Cold War was all a big fat lie (which makes it the greatest conspiracy of all time), and that, for some reason, the capitalists were supporting the communists. I'm afraid I can't just "take your word for it".

And the Soviet Union was far from "collapsing under its own weight". In fact, the Soviet economy grew faster than the US economy until the late 60's. It took hard work by Brezhnev and Gorbachev to run it into the ground.


Oh, so everything we know about the Soviet Union (hard economic statistics, industrial capacity, infrastructure, GDP, etc.) was all just a big cover-up?


Thank you, but I could just as easily find you even more books claiming that the US government is run by aliens. As I said, I don't take kindly to conspiracy theories.

The least you could do is read the books before you call them 'conspiracy theories.'

And the Soviet Union was far from "collapsing under its own weight". In fact, the Soviet economy grew faster than the US economy until the late 60's. It took hard work by Brezhnev and Gorbachev to run it into the ground.

Really? Is that why we had to send so many tons of grain to them annually so their people wouldn't starve to death?

But even if we do accept your numbers, Castro doesn't even make it into the top 50 dictators of the 20th century - in fact, a great number of democratic leaders and even U.S. Presidents killed more people in the space of 4-8 years than Castro killed in 45 years.

True enough, but that doesn't change the fact that Castro is a totalitarian murderer. I don't see how someone who persecutes religious people could have 'superb' civil rights.

Really? Is that why we had to send so many tons of grain to them annually so their people wouldn't starve to death?

But that didn't start till the SU had collapsed, early 90's.

But that didn't start till the SU had collapsed, early 90's.

Wrong. We sent them grain many decades before that, since at least the Truman or Eisenhower Administration.

Without Stalin's influence on the Russians, the Nazis would have taken over Europe, and possibly the world.

The least you could do is read the books before you call them 'conspiracy theories.'
Usually, books that claim the last 50 years of history were a government cover-up are called "conspiracy theories".

And I do intend to read them, as a matter of fact, but I'm afraid I didn't have the time to do so in the 10 minutes between reading your message and posting my reply.

Really? Is that why we had to send so many tons of grain to them annually so their people wouldn't starve to death?
Uh, right, the U.S. sent many tons of grain anually to its biggest enemy. For free. Sure. That makes perfect sense.

Go look up some hard economic data.

Wrong. We sent them grain many decades before that, since at least the Truman or Eisenhower Administration.

Care to back that up?

Uh, right, the U.S. sent many tons of grain anually to its biggest enemy. For free. Sure. That makes perfect sense.

Go look up some hard economic data.

I did. And I highly doubt you'll read the books. Liberals are all the same. They're supremely arrogant, refuse to look at the evidence, and even when they do see the evidence, they pompously denounce it as 'conspiracy theories.'

Care to back that up?

Since you asked in a civil manner, I will be happy to back it up. Read the above-mentioned books by Antony Sutton. And be sure you actually read them before you slam them.

Usually, books that claim the last 50 years of history were a government cover-up are called "conspiracy theories".

And I do intend to read them, as a matter of fact, but I'm afraid I didn't have the time to do so in the 10 minutes between reading your message and posting my reply.


Uh, right, the U.S. sent many tons of grain anually to its biggest enemy. For free. Sure. That makes perfect sense.

Go look up some hard economic data.

I never said anything about a cover-up. Please stop misquoting me. All I said was that the U.S. has given the Soviet Union enormous aid ever since its inception, and without that aid, there is no way the USSR could have sustained itself for no many decades. The books I mentioned should contain plenty of 'hard economic data' for you.

I did. And I highly doubt you'll read the books. Liberals are all the same. They're supremely arrogant, refuse to look at the evidence, and even when they do see the evidence, they pompously denounce it as 'conspiracy theories.'

Sorry to flame, but I just get really impatient with people telling me to show them proof and, when I do give them a list of sources, having them denounce me for 'not backing up' what I saw and accusing me of 'conspiracy theories.'

I think that the worst ruler ever had to be Saddam Hussein. Hitler murdered a minority, the Jews, (still awful, though), and Saddam persucuted one half of the Muslim religion.

the most evil guy in the world is without a doubt the michelin man. HE'S MADE OF TYRES.

Since you asked in a civil manner, I will be happy to back it up. Read the above-mentioned books by Antony Sutton. And be sure you actually read them before you slam them.

Is there info available on the net concerning this food supply by the US? I doubt I have the time to read those books anytime soon and I am fascinated by this claim that during the Cold War the US was actually helping its biggest and most powerful enemy.

I think that the worst ruler ever had to be Saddam Hussein. Hitler murdered a minority, the Jews, (still awful, though), and Saddam persucuted one half of the Muslim religion.

When and how did he do that?

no ones mentioned any of the african leaders that borrowed money from the west to line their own pockets and leave thousands to die of starvation at least other leaders had goals and beliefs

Worst Ruler?
Hitler, Not only because he killed alot of people but he also lost the war.

Is there info available on the net concerning this food supply by the US? I doubt I have the time to read those books anytime soon and I am fascinated by this claim that during the Cold War the US was actually helping its biggest and most powerful enemy.

Again, since you asked so nicely, I'll be glad to look for information on the net. I do have something far more interesting, however: a source of all the powerful technology and equipment the U.S. was trading with the Soviets during the Vietnam War. A large percentage of this equipment, in turn, was used to kill our boys there. Here you go: Congressional Record, March 10, 1967, pp. S3543-S3547

no ones mentioned any of the african leaders that borrowed money from the west to line their own pockets and leave thousands to die of starvation at least other leaders had goals and beliefs

I would have, but many of their names escape me. Can you please name a few?

it's rather unfair to say all the victims of WWII were because of Hitler

nope, but theres loads, their only a few clicks of the mouse away

Not quite. U.S. aid did wonders for the Russian economy. Stalin's policies resulted in millions of deaths by starvation (although, in some instances this was intentional, such as in the Ukraine). You are clueless.

Stalin killed alot of people but he also turned the USSR into a economic and military giant after WW2. The USSR relied on U.S. aid during World War II to prevent Hitler from winning but after Hitler was defeated, US aid stopped as the Soviet Union emerged as a rival superpower. Learn your history.


5)Ho Chi Minh
9)Khrushchev
10)Brezhnev
13)Gorbachev
14)Yeltsin
15)Putin
21)Salvador Allende
22)Castro
:rolleyes:

Those people listed are far from evil. Gorbachev, for example, was the man who ended the Cold War.

Why don't you mention US-supported tyrants like Pinochet, Suharto, Mobuto Sese Seko, Ferdinand Marcos, Islam Karimov, Rios Montt, Somoza or the Saudi royal family?

Not quite. U.S. aid did wonders for the Russian economy. Stalin's policies resulted in millions of deaths by starvation (although, in some instances this was intentional, such as in the Ukraine).

I'll name who I think are the most evil rulers (they're in no particular order):

1)Stalin
2)Mao
3)Hitler
4)Pol Pot
5)Ho Chi Minh
6)Lenin
7)Idi Amin
8)Georges Clemenceu (did I spell that right?)
9)Khrushchev
10)Brezhnev
11)Papa Doc Duvalier
12)Baby Doc Duvalier
13)Gorbachev
14)Yeltsin
15)Putin
16)Deng Xiaoping
17)Mandela
18)Ngo Dinh Diem
19)Souphanouvang
20)Sukarno
21)Salvador Allende
22)Castro
23)Saddam Hussein
24)The Ayatollah Khomeini
25)Robert Mugabe
26)Genghis Khan
27)Hideki Tojo (why didn't I think of him sooner?)
28)Mussolini
29)Daniel Ortega
30)Ahmed Ben Bella (was he a ruler?)

There are many, many more I know of, but their names escape me at the moment...

I'm curious how you justify Gorby, Yeltsin and Putin as 13-15 on your list.

Here´s my favorites.

They are not judged by the number killed, but by the weird actions they did because they could.

Ceausescu: When he finally got killed he was in the middle of writing his own name with apartment blocks outside Bukarest. I kinda understand this because I do it all the time in SimCity, and if I got unlimited power, I will not promise I wouldn´t follow in his footsteps.

Caligula: Apart from the mandatory orgies, one of the senators he appointed was his horse. hmmm. Try imagine the debates in the senate: "10 yays and 20 nays.... and 1 "prrrr" of course" My dog would make and excellent foreign minister when I assume power.

Trujillo: Didn´t like his nickname "chapita" (bottlecap) so he outlawed the use of that word.

and seeing as you have put sukarno - why not suharto?

He said no particular order.

You are clueless.

Stalin killed alot of people but he also turned the USSR into a economic and military giant after WW2. The USSR relied on U.S. aid during World War II to prevent Hitler from winning but after Hitler was defeated, US aid stopped as the Soviet Union emerged as a rival superpower. Learn your history.

:rolleyes:

Those people listed are far from evil. Gorbachev, for example, was the man who ended the Cold War.

Why don't you mention US-supported tyrants like Pinochet, Suharto, Mobuto Sese Seko, Ferdinand Marcos, Islam Karimov, Rios Montt, Somoza or the Saudi royal family?

First of all, cut the flaming, please. NOW. Learn some history yourself. Read the books I mentioned on the previous page. U.S. aid to the Soviet Union never ended.

Ho Chi Minh- In the late 1940's, he had thousands of political rivals buried alive so only their heads were sticking out of the ground. Then, he had harrows driven across the field which tore their heads apart. In the 1950's, he slaughtered tens or even hundreds of thousands of educated people, property-owners, Christians, etc. And the Vietcong he supported committed atrocities unparalleled in history. Read 'Death by Government' (a wonderful book that examines all of the 20th century's mass murderers, both on the left and right) and 'Deliver Us From Evil,' by Thomas Dooley, who witnessed firsthand the brutality of the North Vietnamese.

Khrushchev- Remember when he crushed the Hungarian Freedom Fighters?

Brezhnev- Czechoslovakia? Invasion of Afghanistan?


Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin- Read 'New Lies For Old' and 'The Perestroika Deception' by Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn

Allende- Okay, maybe he wasn't evil, but he did seriously screw up Chile's economy, as even most radical liberals admit today.

Castro- Whatever the death toll, he slaughtered many of his own people, imprisoned and tortured many thousands more, and is a persecutor of Christians.

and seeing as you have put sukarno - why not suharto?

Consider him added to the list, too.

You are clueless.

Stalin killed alot of people but he also turned the USSR into a economic and military giant after WW2. The USSR relied on U.S. aid during World War II to prevent Hitler from winning but after Hitler was defeated, US aid stopped as the Soviet Union emerged as a rival superpower. Learn your history.

:rolleyes:

Those people listed are far from evil. Gorbachev, for example, was the man who ended the Cold War.

Islam Karimov, Rios Montt

Who?

A. There are multiple areas to judge when considering the influence and good/bad qualities of a ruler. Since these areas are related but not dependent on another, a ruler may be excellent in one and horrid in another. ex: Julius Caesar. His foreign policy was beneficial to Roman culture but served to destroy large amounts of Celtic/Gallic culture.

B. Saddam Hussein is undisputably a bastard, but many Iraqis preferred him over the US governing. Granted, most of them were misled regarding their former leader's true colors, but they're right in feeling that the part of America that elected King George are as bad as what they were dealing with.

C. I'd like to submit the first woman to this list (ithink at least): Queen Elizabeth (of Shakespeare and the 16/17th century), not to mention King Henry (the one with the many wives)

If Castros government is so free and happy then why do cubans keep immigrating to Miami, Florida. I'm sure Castro loves that. Maybe you don't remember a couple of years back elain gonzalez floated here and Castro demanded him to come back to cuba.

Who? Islam Karimov is currently the ruling dictator in Uzbekistan. His brutal government enjoys support and aid from the US.

Ríos Montt was the military dictator of Guatemala. Responsible for genocide and deaths of hundreds of thousands. Close ally of the Reagan administration.

If Castros government is so free and happy then why do cubans keep immigrating to Miami, Florida. I'm sure Castro loves that. Maybe you don't remember a couple of years back elain gonzalez floated here and Castro demanded him to come back to cuba. I'm not saying that Cuba is exactly free but the US has supported and installed much more brutal regimes around the world.

Cuba's economy has been in deep trouble since the Soviet aid stopped pouring in. The US embargo hasn't made the situation any better. Maybe that's why Cubans are immigrating to the US.

Islam Karimov is currently the ruling dictator in Uzbekistan. His brutal government enjoys support and aid from the US.

Ríos Montt was the military dictator of Guatemala. Responsible for genocide and deaths of hundreds of thousands. Close ally of the Reagan administration.

Thank you!

Read the books I mentioned on the previous page. U.S. aid to the Soviet Union never ended. Sorry but that is simply not true. Why would the US support a rival superpower that threatened US interests worldwide? Why did the US spend hundreds of billions in an attempt to undermine the USSR and its communist allies if it was still sending aid? It would be simply stupid to aid a rival power and threat.

Brezhnev- Czechoslovakia? Invasion of Afghanistan? In that case, should I mention Nixon and other US presidents for their role in killing millions of Vietnamese civilians? What about the illegal bombings of Laos and Cambodia?


Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin- Read 'New Lies For Old' and 'The Perestroika Deception' by Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn A book by a miserable and bitter defector is not really worth much attention. Remember all those claims by Iraqi defectors about Saddam's alleged WMD arsenal? :rolleyes:

Gorbachev introduced reforms such as "perestroika" and "glasnost" which forever changed Soviet society. He was also the one who proposed arms reduction treaties and withdrew Soviet forces from Afghanistan and Eastern Europe. Even when the Soviet republics began to revolt against the central government, Gorbachev refused to use military force. These are historical facts, not the opinion of a defector.

Yeltsin was responsible for crimes in Chechnya no doubt but he's still by no means 'evil'. Putin even less so.

Allende- Okay, maybe he wasn't evil Now you're starting to make more sense...

Castro- Whatever the death toll, he slaughtered many of his own people, imprisoned and tortured many thousands more, and is a persecutor of Christians. Again, Castro's human rights record is not good but is still better than the previous regime that ruled Cuba. Many brutal right-wing regimes which were far worse than Castro enjoyed US support. Even Saddam Hussein himself was a US ally for a time.

Sorry but that is simply not true. Why would the US support a rival superpower that threatened US interests worldwide? Why did the US spend hundreds of billions in an attempt to undermine the USSR and its communist allies if it was still sending aid? It would be simply stupid to aid a rival power and threat.

In that case, should I mention Nixon and other US presidents for their role in killing millions of Vietnamese civilians? What about the illegal bombings of Laos and Cambodia?


A book by a miserable and bitter defector is not really worth much attention. Remember all those claims by Iraqi defectors about Saddam's alleged WMD arsenal? :rolleyes:

Gorbachev introduced reforms such as "perestroika" and "glasnost" which forever changed Soviet society. He was also the one who proposed arms reduction treaties and withdrew Soviet forces from Afghanistan and Eastern Europe. Even when the Soviet republics began to revolt against the central government, Gorbachev refused to use military force. These are historical facts, not the opinion of a defector.

Yeltsin was responsible for crimes in Chechnya no doubt but he's still by no means 'evil'. Putin even less so.

Now you're starting to make more sense...

Again, Castro's human rights record is not good but is still better than the previous regime that ruled Cuba. Many brutal right-wing regimes which were far worse than Castro enjoyed US support. Even Saddam Hussein himself was a US ally for a time.

Please read the books before you judge. They provide lots of unbiased evidence, mostly drawn from government sources, showing U.S. aid and trade with the communists. Agreed, Nixon, LBJ, etc. should be added to the list (I would add Kissinger, but he isn't a ruler). Please read Golitsyn's books, too, before you judge. Anyway, thanks for telling me about those Uzbekistan and Guatemala dictators, I like to learn new things. Thanks also for not flaming. You seem like a very nice and intelligent person.

Robert Mugabe.

He ran a beautiful country into the ground, divided it internally, shattered international relations, and violated human rights.

He reminds me of someone else, come to think of it.

here's Wikipedia:

Controversial 2002 election victory
Mugabe faced Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in presidential elections in March 2002 and won a substantial and controversial victory with accusations of violence and an unprecedented turnout in Mugabe's rural stronghold of Mashonaland of around 90% (55% of the population voted overall), amid allegations that opponents in anti-Mugabe strongholds were prevented from voting.

On July 3rd, 2004, a report [1] (http://www.theindependent.co.zw/news/2004/July/Friday16/1003.html) adopted by the African Union executive council, which comprises foreign ministers of the 53 member states, criticised the government for the arrests and torture of opposition members of parliament and human rights lawyers, the arrests of journalists, the stifling of freedom of expression and clampdowns on other civil liberties.

It was compiled by the AU's African Commission on Human and People's Rights, which sent a mission to Zimbabwe from June 24th to 28th 2002, shortly after the presidential elections.

The report was apparently not submitted to the AU's 2003 summit because it had not been translated into French.

[edit]
2005 Election
There are parliamentary elections scheduled for early 2005. These do not include presidential elections, next scheduled for 2008.

[edit]
Opposition to Mugabe
Since Mugabe began to redistribute white-owned landholdings, he has faced harsh attacks, externally from mostly white former colonial powers and white former settler-colonies such as Australia, and internally from trade-unions and urban Zimbabwean, who overwhelmingly support the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. In addition, some African figures have condemned Mugabe, such as South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who called Mugabe a "caricature of an African dictator", Zambia's long-time leader Kenneth Kaunda, who asked Mugabe to "bury the hatchet and get on with economic development instead of fighting 'colonialist ghosts'", while Botswana President Festus Mogae distanced himself from the SADC statement opposing the Commonwealth suspension. Mugabe has been condemned by Western non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International, charging that he has committed human rights abuses against minority Ndebeles, the opposition MDC, white landowners, and homosexuals. Mugabe and a list of members of his government are now banned from entering the European Union.

However, Zimbabwe's economy is currently tied to the land, and thus economic development cannot boost the living standards of black Zimbabweans without tackling the extreme problems of land distribution. Many of the victims of the current upheaval are farm workers, with no replacements while the land is standing idle.


Mugabe with ZANU-PF supportersOn March 9, 2003, US President George W. Bush approved measures for economic sanctions to be leveled against Mugabe and numerous other high-ranking Zimbabwe politicians, freezing their assets and barring Americans from engaging in any transactions or dealings with them. Justifying the move, Bush's spokesman stated the President and Congress believe that "the situation in Zimbabwe endangers the southern African region and threatens to undermine efforts to foster good governance and respect for the rule of law throughout the continent". The bill was known as the "Zimbabwe Democracy Act" and was deemed "racist" by Mugabe.

On December 8, 2003, in protest against a further 18 months of suspension from the Commonwealth of Nations (thereby cutting foreign aide to Zimbabwe), Mugabe withdrew his country from the Commonwealth. According to reports, Robert Mugabe informed the leaders of Jamaica, Nigeria and South Africa of his decision when they telephoned him to discuss the situation. Zimbabwe's government said the President did not accept the Commonwealth's position, and was leaving the group.

Hitler automatically gets the Janeway award for horrible leadership.

Lol...the Janeway award

Putin? LMAO....

Putin doesn't have the balls to be evil. I was born in Russia during the last few years of the cold war. (My family immigrated in 1990.) I've never read that book, but I doubt it makes much sense.

george bush is the worst ruler ever he is a Nazi he will thke the us into another oil war :upyours::upyours::upyours::upyours::upyours::upyours:

Worst person- Hitler
Worst Leader- George W. Bush

Putin? LMAO....

Putin doesn't have the balls to be evil. I was born in Russia during the last few years of the cold war. (My family immigrated in 1990.) I've never read that book, but I doubt it makes much sense.

I'd recommend reading it. Golitsyn's predictions are so scarily accurate that when I read his books I thought he was a prophet.

Anyway, thanks for telling me about those Uzbekistan and Guatemala dictators, I like to learn new things. Thanks also for not flaming. You seem like a very nice and intelligent person. Thank you for engaging in an intelligent debate with me and preventing it from turning into a flaming match. :)

Worst person- Hitler
Worst Leader- George W. Bush


but bush is better than John kerry and i relly hate bush

but bush is better than John kerry and i relly hate bush

Agreed.

Thank you for engaging in an intelligent debate with me and preventing it from turning into a flaming match. :)

You're very welcome. You are a very friendly person! :)

Putin? LMAO....

Putin doesn't have the balls to be evil. I was born in Russia during the last few years of the cold war. (My family immigrated in 1990.) I've never read that book, but I doubt it makes much sense. Putin is very shrewd and cunning in my opinion. Remember, he is a former KGB officer. I think Russia's current foreign policy is aimed at re-establishing Russia as a major power (Russia is already strengthening its control over the other former Soviet republics) although Putin knows he can't defy or threaten the West due to economic reasons.

but bush is better than John kerry and i relly hate bush I don't agree at all. Cheney is the man running that administration and he is an absolute snake.

I don't agree at all. Cheney is the man running that administration and he is an absolute snake.

I agree about the snake part! :)

a small defense of Hitler- from the point of view of a student of history, not as a Jew.

in the 1930s, Hitler was actually a very positive force in Germany, in terms of the economy. Though his domestic policies (anti-semitism and requirements of all associations to become Nazi associations e.g. The Nazi West Bumfuck Lawn Bowling League) were harsh and clearly led to later problems, he did much to drag Germany out of the Depression.

Don't forget the Autobahn, either. Not too shabby.

Also, Hitler didn't start WWII. Japan did, in 1933, when they invaded Manchuria. Hitler and Czechoslovakia were pretty small-scale, by comparison.

a small defense of Hitler- from the point of view of a student of history, not as a Jew.

in the 1930s, Hitler was actually a very positive force in Germany, in terms of the economy. Though his domestic policies (anti-semitism and requirements of all associations to become Nazi associations e.g. The Nazi West Bumfuck Lawn Bowling League) were harsh and clearly led to later problems, he did much to drag Germany out of the Depression.

Don't forget the Autobahn, either. Not too shabby.

Also, Hitler didn't start WWII. Japan did, in 1933, when they invaded Manchuria. Hitler and Czechoslovakia were pretty small-scale, by comparison.

Sorry, but Autobahn doesn't ring a bell. Please enlighten me.

Worst ever? Hitler (i'll grant he did some good I have know quite a bit about him, but he was the most evil human being in the modern history of our world), by far. Stalin was bad but he did some good too.

Currently: The Government of Sudan. Can you say genocide?

Other front runners: The governments of guatemala, el salvadore, chile, columbia, israel, palestine and the former "president" of Serbia, Solvedon Melocivich (sorry about the spelling).

Bush and Cheney aren't that bad, they aren't executing political prisoners and murdering protestors. Though they are pumping us full of nationistic propaghanda and john ashcroft is trying his damndest to turn this place into a police state, they don't even rank in the top 50 of worst leaders.

I guess you never heard of that little thing called the Iran-Iraq war, in which the US supported Iraq?

Well, since Iraq used T-72s, Mirages, Migs, AK-47s....I don't believe we were their main supplier.

The United States supplied the Iraqis with intelligence, and committed the US Navy to safeguarding the flow of oil out of (and the flow of money and arms into) Iraq, but secretly sold arms to Iran in order to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua, and gain influence with hostage-holding Muslim militias in Lebanon.

Nice website, check it out...
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/iraniraq.htm


BUT, this wasn't what you said. You said:
The US gave Saddam READY MADE CHEMICAL WEAPONS

I found ZERO evidence to support that theory.


Oh, and by the way, thank you for posting proof that multinational corporations supported Saddam Hussein.

No problem.

Again, since you asked so nicely, I'll be glad to look for information on the net. I do have something far more interesting, however: a source of all the powerful technology and equipment the U.S. was trading with the Soviets during the Vietnam War. A large percentage of this equipment, in turn, was used to kill our boys there. Here you go: Congressional Record, March 10, 1967, pp. S3543-S3547

Thank you. :)

Thank you. :)

You're welcome. :)

I have several:
The Popes (all of them); sanctioned the Inquisition and that have suppressed knowledge both physical and spirtual and people in general for hundreds of years.
Stalin; forever has stained the name of Communism despite not being a Communist as well as killing millions of people.
Hitler; just plain evil.
The dozens of governments that commited genocide and ethnic cleansing.

There are a couple of main factors to make the worst ruler list.
They are
a) how evil the guy was
b) how incompetent he was

Now, Stalin and Hitler top the evil scale, but they were not incompetent. They did wonders for their economies and infrastructures, from Stalin's railways to Hitler's autobahns.

Now, I think there are just too many contenders for the incompetent list to decide. Most of these guys are incompetent but not evil.

One ruler I think who was both extremely incompetent and extremely evil was Caligula of Ancient Rome.

Then there were all the rulers of the old Ottoman Empire. They were really messed-up fuckers. They were sadistic torturers, committed genocide and drove their empire into the ground.

Sorry, but Autobahn doesn't ring a bell. Please enlighten me.

Big motorway construction in Germany. Helped the economy enormously, although I believe its been argued that they were really built to move the German Army around Germany fast. But they still improved the country.

They still exist. The best part of them is that they don't have a speed limit :-)

Not quite. U.S. aid did wonders for the Russian economy. Stalin's policies resulted in millions of deaths by starvation (although, in some instances this was intentional, such as in the Ukraine).

I'll name who I think are the most evil rulers (they're in no particular order):

26)Genghis Khan


Ghengis Khan wasn't that evil, he did destroy entire cities that resisted him but if they surrendered they were totally spared.
Also, he must have been a pretty good leader to have the largest empire in the world ever (or so this website claims)
http://www.greenkiwi.co.nz/footprints/mongolia/ghengis_history.htm

Big motorway construction in Germany. Helped the economy enormously, although I believe its been argued that they were really built to move the German Army around Germany fast. But they still improved the country.

They still exist. The best part of them is that they don't have a speed limit :-)

True, but i heard they're considering a speed limit :(

Hoover (US pres. in the 20s) was fairly incompetent, doing nowhere near enough to stop the Depression, masive levels of poverty etc

Big motorway construction in Germany. Helped the economy enormously, although I believe its been argued that they were really built to move the German Army around Germany fast. But they still improved the country.

They still exist. The best part of them is that they don't have a speed limit :-)

Thanks!

Big motorway construction in Germany. Helped the economy enormously, although I believe its been argued that they were really built to move the German Army around Germany fast. But they still improved the country.

They still exist. The best part of them is that they don't have a speed limit :-)

It isn't argued, that is why it was built, during the opening stages of the war only military vehicles could use it, and after the fall of Poland and the West civilian use was allowed as long as it didn't interfere. Of course, the great problem was it was never used for military use except in the transfer of the Whermacht from Poland to France in 1940, after the Fall of France the civilians had no use for it, since most didn't have cars (they had been gauranteed cars by the Government, a large portion of them anyway, but when war came upon Germany the Whermacht used these cars being built to motorize an amount of the Whermacht.
After 1940 there was no great movement of troops on the Autobahn becuase transfers from East to West were usually along rail lines, and when the Autobahn saw military use again it was as a supply and offensive line for Allied troops, while German POW's were frequently marched down the median for internment, the highway greatly helped the Allied Offensive.
Afaik, not all the Autobahn is currently active, large parts were closed or fell in disrepair (such as the Autobahn extension in East Prussia, which Poland never kept in good condition). The extensions that exist today are not exactly on the standards of the original (they are far beyond it), and the current highway is far removed from it's original intent.

if we're talking evil, what about Attilla the Hun? I dunno much/anything about him, but his name sounds evil... lol

True, but i heard they're considering a speed limit :(

Actually they do have a speed limit, only the areas of the Autobahn which are far removed from cities (which is becoming increasingly uncommon, except in open areas in Bavaria and such) have the no speed limit sign. These areas can also have a posted speed limit in the event of a natural disaster or accident, and sections of the road can be closed. With traffic increasing and urbanization increasing likewise there is a fear that the entire highway system will have to have a speed limit.

secretly sold arms to Iran in order to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua The Contras were mass murdering terrorists, not simply 'anti-Communist rebels'. The government they were fighting wasn't even communist.

The Contras were mass murdering terrorists, not simply 'anti-Communist rebels'. The government they were fighting wasn't even communist.

Yes, it was. And Ortega was a mass murdering terrorist himself. His regime stamped out civil and political rights, routinely used torture against critics of his regime, supported other despots, terrorists, and Third World Thugs, and committed genocide against the Miskito Indians.