According to the Russian Rossiya television channel, Josef Stalin – that murdering madman – has been voted Russia's third-greatest historical figure.
Stalin did not come in number #1 of course, but his inclusion in the list of top "greats" demonstrates serious admiration by the Russian people. In fact, Stalin was at the top of the list at one point, until the producer asked people to please vote for somebody else, according to the BBC. More than fifty million people across Russia voted by phone, Internet, or text message over a period of six months. The survey’s first-place winner was 13th century leader Alexander Nevsky who protected medieval Russia from invaders. Pyotr Stolypin won the 2nd place slot. Stolypin was the prime minister who made agricultural reforms and fought leftist revolutionaries under the last czar Nicholas II.
"We now have to think very seriously, why the nation chooses to put [Joseph] Stalin in third place," said one of the judges, actor and film director Nikita Mikhalkov.
"[T]here is a much broader campaign to rehabilitate Stalin and it seems to be coming from the highest levels of government," notes the BBC correspondent.
Russians certainly admire Stalin for his part in beating the Nazis, but it's a short time to have forgotten how many of his own people Stalin murdered.
Maybe those Russians haven't fully escaped their pro-Marxist upbringing. Of all the truly wretched ideas promulgated during the 20th century, Marxism is one of the very worst. On the front, Communism is one of those ideas that sounds utopian, but ends up being the tool for godless tyrants and despots.
In his expose, 10 Books That Screwed Up The World, Benjamin Wiker writes, "The Communist Manifesto could win the award for the most malicious book ever written. Now that we have more accurate calculations of corpses – perhaps upwards of 100,000,000 – even the tenured Marxists are a bit squeamish about tooting the Manifesto as a horn of plenty."
Wiker has a sense of humor. "Tenured Marxists" refers of course to those Western university professors who still promote Communist ideals in their classes, despite the utter failure of the Marxist dream.
What is the matter with Marxism anyway? It sounds wonderful – everybody owning the world in common, sharing the products of their labor with no class struggle and equality for all. Either Lenin and Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and their fellows got it all wrong…or… something is inherently wrong with Marx's philosophy.
The fundamental problem with Marxism is that it is based in materialistic atheism and attempts to build a utopia without God. It's the Tower of Babel, an effort to reach Heaven by the power of man and not by the grace of the Creator. Such efforts will always fail, because they reject basic biblical spiritual principles. If engineers reject the laws of physics when building a bridge, it will collapse, and when men try to build societies while rejecting the laws of God, those societies will also self-destruct.
Marx v. the Bible:
Marx says we must reject the idea of private property.
The Bible says, "Thou shalt not covet ... any thing that is thy neighbor's."
Marx says we must condemn the bourgeois and through violent revolution snatch their property for the common man.
The Bible says, "Thou shalt not steal." The Bible also has a great deal to say about being servant-hearted and laying down your life for your neighbor.
Marx says that there is no God.
God says, "I AM." And "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Marx says that religion is a construct to keep the masses under the thumb of the ruling classes. [Stalin, Mao et al did not seem to have a problem keeping the masses under their thumbs.]
The Bible says "For the LORD is great, and greatly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens." (Psalm 96:4-5 )
Marx says that the material world is all that matters. Humans are merely material, not spiritual, animals. They have only as much value as their ability to produce for the Community.
The Bible says that while the material is important, the spiritual is what matters most. Humans are precious creatures, created in God's image, and have such great value that He was willing to pay the price of His Son's blood to buy them back from death.
Stalin's purges, his horrendous disregard for human life, his tyranny are all a direct result of his Marxist philosophical views. If only the Community matters, and if human beings have no intrinsic value, then it is logically defensible to slaughter those millions who threaten the Community and the utopian ideal. If there is no God, then human reason is the only yardstick for morality, and that yardstick can be used to beat others into submission to a dictator's insane will.
If Russians consider Stalin Russia’s third greatest historical figure, then perhaps the heart of Marxism is still alive in the Russian government. The fire’s gone out, but the cinders are still smoldering…
