The Stalin issue: how does RU community see it?

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How does the Russian community view the whole Stalin issue? Well, you can see for yourself. I will this time offer no personal opinion on this, so noone accuses me of anything, but I think it’s important to see the issue from both sides.

stal1

Above is the main post (notice the reputation). The thread is currently locked, with 275 pages of comments.

stal2

“Well done!”

stal3

“Well done! That’s how you must deal with the European bourgeois! They beg too much.”

stal4

“Nice, you showed who’s in charge here! I am not a stalinist but IMHO to remove Stalin’s name is stupid. PS: when I bought KV-2, I did put “For Stalin!” on it.”

stal5

This one is from the chief of RU community: “Everyone sees the history as he sees fit, but we will always be able to be proud of something. Remember that.”

stal6

“I don’t respect Stalin. But I support following the history.”

….and this one is from a “developer” (community organizer), who closed the thread (last post):

stal7

“Thank you for for the discussion. Don’t forget your history!”

112 thoughts on “The Stalin issue: how does RU community see it?”

  2. please create some mod to hide Stallinn inscriptions and hide such players in chat, i will be pleased to install it

  3. SS, you make it look like all 275 pages are agreeing completely with WG. Open a random page and see the same shitstorm as on your own FTR comments. The reputation too could mean 21572 for and 20000 against.

    • I never claimed the whole thread to be completely pro-Stalin, but the the fact most RU players support that decision is obvious. That’s why I added the one comment that is not “in favour” (well, sort of). I picked the comments with most reputation as representatives.

      If I wanted to claim “Russian = Stalinist”, I’d have picked some of the world-of-ru and kwg blog comments, some are pretty vile.

  4. I watched a documentary about stalin’s plans to rebuild Moscow just yesterday, about foreced labour and arresting people from the communist party… I’m glad russians are proud of that. I dont really care anymore, I’ll spend all my gold and then quit the game. BUT.. I really enjoy reading the discussions :D

  5. Well, I dread to think what will happen when roaming is implemented and there is an exodus of RU players to the EU sever.

    So much for the impartial position of the developers. They could have thought things out before they put controversial inscriptions in game.

  7. The Stalin-Thing aside, are the Russians really THAT megalomaniac? What do they see Europe as? Sounds to me like they seriously believe that we are some sort of lesser race of humans… “We beg too much…” “european bourgeois…” “You showed who’s in charge here…”

    kinda remember it from somewhere, had to do with Hitler.

    • Russians are butthurt because their great soviet empire collapsed on their own fault.

      German Reich was destroyed by allies and punished one way or another for their crimes, this taught them a lesson. On the other hand, germans could blame the fact that they undertook a challenge too great for anyone to handle like World Conquest. The germans were immediately after the war informed what atrocities the Nazis did, they could also blame Hitler who has also committed suicide somewhere in a rat-hole bunker.

      Russians did same horrible things and even more but they never lost, no one has defeated them. It was them who emerged Victorious, Stalin was a hero and their Army was the strongest on Earth.
      Generations of Russians lived in that grayish dream of Victorious Soviet Union propaganda that fought for equality and prosperity on earth against rotten capitalist pigs.

      Now you get Perestroika, Glasnost, Chernobyl and collapse of this “empire”, everywhere everyone is speaking about atrocities that soviets did, many countries happily escape soviet rule and even parts of USSR enthusiastically eject from this sinking ship as independent countries. You also get brutal shift to hated-for-generations capitalism. Lots of people don’t know what to do in new economic system, they all become poor because the state provided them with so many free amenities and now everything must be payed for . Russia is now a shithole. Everyone suddenly realize that it was all just propaganda , all this time the empire was rotting form inside. It was Russia itself that defeated them.

      And now we’re roughly 20 years after that, a new generations of Russians growed up in this shithole , they want to be prud of their country but what they got left ? A bunch of Nukes, a Putin attitude, and former glory of Stalin who defeated the Nazis.

      And as far as my opinion goes, besides some exceptions,most of Russians are just xenophobic and butthurt Snow Niggers, end of story.

      • They have a lot of history through which they think of Europe as their colony, which should righteously belong to them. At least eastern part, but why restrain yourself if you can grab and claim everything…?

  8. While Stalin is one of the biggest murderers in history he is also the person who led USSR to victory in a war which seemed lost,so nu surprise it`s a beloved character in Russia.

    From my point of view history should be presented as it was and I don`t think that in any conflict there are “good” guys and “bad” guys.
    You either make all symbols related to WWII legal or you make all of them illegal,you can`t say Swastika is wrong but “Stalin” inscription is right.
    On the other hand Russia and USA won the war and if they consider that some symbols are wrong and some are right we can`t do anything but follow them,it`s simple propaganda and we can`t do anything about it.

  9. Question is, how many tanks had the Stalin inscription in the war? As I see it not many “liked” stalin back then they supported him from being afraid to get deported or shot. Stalin ruled very much by fear. I read an excellent book about the russian soldiers in ww2 and its far from pro communist. Book us called “Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945″ written by historian Catherine Merridale.

    • Many, including western LL ones, straight from the factory. The soldiers and workers then didn’t know what we know now. But people didn’t know many things back them – the truth about concentration camps also came out only after the nazis were defeated.

    • A good book indeed. especially the part where the russians wonder why the germans attacked them, since they had it all(wine and margarine @front)

  10. Я русский и тоже ненавижу Сталина за его репрессии но я думаю,что оcкорблять русский народ который тут не причём нехорошо и у каждого народа есть свой менталитет(каким бы плохим Сталин не был его в России будут уважать (хоть и не все) за то что он не дал захватить фашистам ссср и смог восстановить страну которая была в руинах)

  11. Personally I don’t care what either community thinks, at the end of the day no one is forcing you to put these inscriptions on your tank.

    • I dont even no anyone, who reads inscriptions, etc. ingame, cause no one has time for dat.

      But still, I am a little upset after reading the posts, that ru-comm. is allowed to decide over EU/NA and act like they are something better…

      • It’s not like RU community decided over EU/NA, community doesn’t have that kind of power. Minsk WG office decided over EU/NA community+office opinion and yes, I’m fine with that – their game, their rules. Bloody Kapitalism, comrade!

  12. Sorry in advance, SS, just some, well, flaws in translation. From my POV, ofc.

    >Well done! That’s how you must deal with the European bourgeois! They beg too much.”
    “They ask too much” would be more fit, imho. “Beg” corresponds more to “умолять”.

    >but we will always be able to be proud of something
    “but there always will be a matter for us to be proud of.” Indirectly pointing russian participation in WWII.

    Regarding topic – really. There’s enough patriotic, but severely mentally challenged people who may occasionally find themselves defending Chikatilo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikatilo) against some non-russian party just because he’s russian. And that matter multiplies if WWII is somehow related. Since we are raised with constant remindings of what we did, how, with what tools and what it cost us. And Stalin topic is _Strongly_ related, since victory in that war is just about first association with his person. Detention camps, collectivization and all the other sweet stuff comes after. Sometimes way after, in the case of abovementioned species. And WoT got these guys in numbers, guess why. So try not to take this reaction to your heart (and, sorry, but dont try to find reaction on recent Katyn accident, just dont).

    I understand, that your feelings are hurt, but please, stop stressing that out, and then it might go away. Continue pointing at it – and this shitstorm will go on, and on, and on, with none the winner.

    • I think it’s balanced. After all, we both know that the word “bourgeois”, that was used, has a definitely negative undertone and in Russian context can be considered an insult, yet I didn’t emphasize that.

  13. Well you should see russian ppl in Warsaw when we had Euro 2012. They organized some kind of parade before match and didn’t act friendly. You can watch it on youtube.

    • Polish nationalistic retards were not friendly too. Reacted like brainless idiots and did exactly what Russian nationalists wanted. Attacked.

      And in Stalins case. Well, chances that I will play in any other WG game are know very low. And surely will not pay them any money.

  15. Maybe they should change the name of the Stalin tanks the IS´s too cant feel great being from poland and driving around in a tank named after mankinds biggest mass murderer. They could change the IS tanks to their project names instead.

    • Well, you do not understand main problem here.

      WG gave free hand on local servers to block some inscriptions. When local offices blocked those with Stalin, WG demanded them to be everywhere. Classical bolshevik way of thinking “we give you freedom, but do not dare to use it”. So some of us are now showing WG our middle fingers. These is how people in democacy treat such behaviour.

  16. Am I the only one who doesn’t give a crap about all this? As long as the inscriptions are historical, who cares.

      • A few patches ago i would have paid lots of gold for having a huge “fuck arty” on top of the turret :P.

        • THAT WAS EXACTLY MY IDEA :D i would pay at least the double amount of gold i I could make custom inscriptions on Custom places :D

  17. I would like to add that this russian mentality/opinion about Stalin must stem from the education they receive.
    If they portrait him in such a favourable way and all the information you have is fake or tailored then it is rathers difficult to form any other opinion then what they have.
    Just read up stories from defected North Korean soldiers who firmly beleived the world outside their country is a bad bad place…

    petya75

    • Well it doesn’t. Even in Soviet (Brezhnev) times, Stalin was presented as controversial politician, we were told about repressions and purges in school.

  18. Just so you know, guys: for this once I am making an exception and I am moderating the discussion. I won’t be heavy handed, but I will delete ugly stuff. Let’s keep it civil, shall we? Thanks! (this is not to repeat the what happened under the last “Stalin” article).

  19. WG does not want to hide Stallin emblems on Russian tanks, when roaming will be available. For
    Russian players Stallin is the one, who won against Hitler, so they want to pay for such inscriptions. Customers pays, customer gets. Maybe they have investigated the law in EU, and came to conclusion that such emblems are not forbidden in Germany and Holland, where European servers are located. If the opposite turns true, than they will remove Stallinistic inscriptions.
    So if you want to remove such texts from tanks, you have to put stress on your national politicians, to prohibit it in EU and case will be solved. WG is not going to chage its mind, Minsk has spoken, case is solved for them.

  20. You’ll never see this the way russians do, and other way around. If you think bitching about actions of soviet leaders during the most absurd and brutal period of history will get them anything but defensive, you’re deluded. Especially since the waning importance of superpowers of old in global scale.

    And if you get worked up over something like this, all you’re doing is inviting trolls to fuel your fire.

    Concentrate on more important and less emotional stuff, like car horns for tanks or something.

  21. I love the way both sides are perpetuating racism and bigotry – gj community, you really know how to act like mature, responsible adults.

  22. I find it funny and wrong how SS places this screens to picture the whole nation attitude towards Stalin.

    Don’t forget that like 50% of RU cluster players are school-kids, who might even not yet reached the Stalins theme in their History classes. So for them it’s more about “no, we won’t let europeans dictate the way the game should be!!!111emorage”.

    • On the other hand – don’t forget that Stalin is the first symbol of our victory in Great Patriotic War.
      Lots of ppl still think that his dictator-style rule is what made USSR win the war.

      • I think Russia could have come away with far less lost soldiers if they had a leader who wouldnt kill off all high commanders who had anything against him, experienced commanders was killed or deported. Against all odds Russia managed to hold off against Germany. Early in the war Russia seem to have no chance at all.

      • Actually it’s true for the forum RU community, half of them really ARE schoolkids, especially in summer.
        That’s why game chat on RU servers is VERY uncivilized. On the other hand, those same schoolkids are better at tanks than avg european player.

        • It doesn’t matter. Moderators left in those posts while on the EU, cenzorship is strong. It shows WG’s stance in this matter. This is not just the opinion of RU playerbase, but also WG’s.

  23. to be honest im completely fine with having nationalistic inscriptions or symbols on tanks as long as they are historically accurate.
    but im not fine with it if you include some but ignore others especially as they include stalin inscriptions while at the same time condemming anything that has to do with hitler.

    and seeing how WG is a russian company i can see that they are not completely agenda free.
    then again if stalin inscriptions bring more money that speaks louder than players opinions.

    • The thing with opinions judging from forums is hard as I feel those who are for a thing and those who are against a thing tend to voice their opinion while the people who dont care stay mute. Question is how many in the ru community have voiced an opinion? Do we know how many russians play?

      Either way I think they should remove the inscriptions so everyone will be happy or else it can end up with 50+% stop playing WoT in EU.

  24. I would like to ask you SS to share with us your opinion, what impact it will have when Russian players will be allowed to use European servers. Note that there are 2 european servers , but also 2 russian servers in EU ! Will russian be the most important language in chat on european server ? Will russians cooperate better due to common language and kick ass of german / polish / czech players ? Will there be 50% russian players on european server ?

  25. Lets remove all IS tanks from the game, because they are ‘Ioseph Stalin’tanks after all. These decays are historicaly accurate too, so for me, its not an issue. Unfortunaly a lot of idiot nianalists have been atracted by this case, and now its a giant mess

    • And yet another, who do not understand main problem here…

      Once again. WG allowed local offices to block some inscriptions, they blocked Stalin ones, WG said, no you can’t, cause he was good and we like him.

      So go WG to hell, there are dozens game publishers who wants out money.

  26. Why are we using different languages here? English is the language in which SS communicates with us, so let’s use only English.

    These proverbs are retarded and have nothing to do with subject, but I’m typing them just to show the retardness of both my Klingon language and the use of other languages than English here!

    Ko prvi devojci, sam u nju upada!
    Jedna lasta sama u rupu pada.
    Jutro je pametnije od samoupada u rupu.

  27. really this is just a sign in wot during battles i don’t care i just kill the tank i don’t read stuff on it . I see allot of guys in Ex-USSR country’s and Russia have no idea bout History :) , Stalin did not killed only polish and german people , he killed all that have see thins hes way (this almost cost him the war he killed allot of hes generals that warn him about Hitlers real intentions of invading USSR ) or we just forget about prison’s in Siberia . So he was needed in 40-45 if not for him we all speak German right now but this don’t make him a saint. Still History is made by the Victors so let the sign stay , remove it still the same but don’t forget history and lets try not to repeat the mistakes of the past

    • Stalin barely killed any Polish people. Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), Belarus and Ukraine were the nations that suffer the most from his terror.

      • Yet poles have the biggest butthurt. Are we the only ones that respect history? I haven’t seen such fierce reaction from any of the nations you named in your post.

        • Not many people play WoT in my country and I personally don’t care, because it’s history, nevertheless that my family suffered from Stalin’s politics. Nobody was whining when Call of Duty series games had nazi symbols and to this day has soviet symbols.

          Polish people just think that they’re very import in Europe. Well they aren’t. Nobody cares what they say.

          • I didn’t say that complaints made by Poles are logical. It’s the other way around. They cry when compared to other countries they didn’t really suffer that much. Polacks just think they’re as I said earlier – important. However, they aren’t at all.

            And I’m not Polish if that’s what you want to know.

  28. As someone who can’t read Russian languages at all, this whole shitstorm won’t effect anything at all since in game I can only see that as random scribbles. Even if I can read, well… The whole IS series has a name propaganda on it. No biggie.

  29. “Man killed a man” is not same in cases of accident. self-defense or murder. Stop disputing Soviet right to be proud of their glorious victory over Nazism. Stalin lived till 1953 and his image is mainly connected with WWII and heroic resistance of Soviet people which lead to freedom from Hitler, for the whole Europe.

    Stalin did kill people, of course, but numbers are vaguely estimated (apparently everything is “his fault”, those killed fighting Nazis, from hunger, cold, etc). Stalin is noway close to Hitler, for nothing else, than because he killed mainly “his” people and most of those he killed before WWII.

    This however cannot place in same plane, same dimension, same reality Communism and Nazism, which is EVIL ideology in it’s essence.

    Sorry if your grandad was killed while trying to establish 3rd Reich on other people’s land – fact that he was killed by Stalin led coalition does not make him a saint. Nazis lost the war, Stalin was on the right side, history cannot be changed in reverse – deal with it.

  30. Eh I say let them have the inscription, as long as some of the other equally other offensive inscriptions from other countries are added, not saying pro nazi but if you going to offend a portion of your player base might as well offend all of it. cause I know there are some Japanese inscriptions that could be added that would send the Chinese in a uproar once the Japanese line is added. (chances are those inscriptions will carefully be omitted along with the rising sun.))

  31. People need to learn from, understand and accept History as it is not discard and forget it otherwise history is just going to repeat itself.

  32. Sad to see, evolution is moving backwards!
    Hopefully not all ppl are like this….
    mfg

  33. I just cant believe ppl are having problems with those inscriptions… All the leaders were part of ww2 whitch this game is based on… Why forbidding Hitler or Stallin inscriptions? Who cares if you hate them, they were worshiped by their soldiers at that time and those words on tanks should be the part of the game just as they were part of reality.

    • Its not just that. Its also the attitude the RU developers have towards everyone not on the RU server.. They are basically sayin to everyone else:”Fuck you, we are the bosses, we can do what we want”

      • Well, they are the bosses, and because Wargaming is a private company, they CAN do what they want.

  34. Yeah I don’t mind, but if swastikas are banned, then those Stalin inscriptions should too.

  35. I get it, The russians want it, they were indoctrinated by Stalin and the commies after all for nearly 50 years. But why force it on EU, NA, and Asian servers even if they know it will cause shitstorm?

  36. Stalin is the savior and the murderer of the soviet people at the same time ! The strange (or not so strange) thing is that as we get farther on the Khrushchev-era’s destalinisation more and more russian tries to remember the “Savoir” rather than the “Murderer”. Why? Less and less people around in Russia, who survived the terror and willing to speak about it. In Eastern Eu. the scar and wounds of the stalinic terror is more a living thing

  37. Let me just point out that the removal of these phrases is Stalinist in itself.

    “Words that don’t agree with me even though I live in the free world? GET RID OF THEM.”

    Who else silenced people’s freedom of expression? Stalin.

    I’m Chinese, and for anyone who doesn’t know, the Chinese have some major beef with Japan. In War Thunder, I don’t play Japanese planes, in fact I go out of my way to hunt them down specifically. In WoT, I don’t plan on using Japanese tanks any time soon (Probably will be the last line I go down). But I especially don’t plan on raging to the devs to remove everything Japanese just because I don’t like them. That’s stupid.

  38. Wow. Just… wow.

    Reading those comments makes it all of a sudden much easier to understand why so many actually adhered to Hitler’s bias against Russians.

    Apparently, judging solely from those type of comments, Russians have absolutely no desire to be truly democrat, to actually taste freedom of speech and thought. They’re apparently not only contempt, but actually GLAD to live under an iron heel.

    Well, what can I say… freedom also takes much responsibility to function properly in a society. And it is rather clear that the Russians do NOT have the required maturity to accept freedom.

    • So you’re saying that by taking away their right to express themselves, they will then be “mature” enough to “accept freedom?”

      My post is right above yours, and it directly combats what you’re saying (assuming you don’t want the inscriptions in the game). By disallowing players from expressing themselves, you are imposing a Stalinist view.

      • Let me put it this way: nobody is taking nobody’s right to be a chauvinist douchebag.

        That doesn’t make you any less of a chauvinist douchebag, however

        When I’m mentioning “freedom”, I’m referring to the age-old saying “your freedom ends where my freedom begins”.
        This is basically translated to the required level of maturity to respect others (from private property to freedom of thought) so that you may benefit from the same kind of respect.

        • While I see what you’re saying, people should have the right to recreate the historic authenticity of their tank. Bottom line is that freedom of speech/expression means you get to say whatever the hell you want, while respecting legal boundaries.

          On a practical sense, are your Jimmies REALLY going to be that flustered when you see “Stalin” on the side of a tank in WoT? Even if they are, what are you going to do, complain to customer support?

          On a business sense, I’d say it shows maturity in the sense that WG is tailoring their decision toward their largest market (Russia).

  39. I support historical accuracy and if these insignia and inscriptions existed they should be allowed as long as it isn’t something actively obscene. This includes the swastika and SS symbol. Yes the Nazis were horrible but we should pretend they didn’t exist just because this happens to be a game and not a documentary film.

    So I support WG’s decision.

  40. When you see the answers(posts) from actual developers and community chiefs then you can’t be surprised why the players are like that….they are braindead nation…soviet bias at its finest…

  41. Sigh. Let them have their precious Stalin. Let them pretend we are care enough about this for it to be a “victory for Mother Russia”.

    Seriously, shouldn’t we have better things to worry about? Like….say….the weather? What to wear tomorrow? You know……better things.

  42. I bet this just an EU and RU community shithole. No one gives crap about this shit in the ASIA server. As long the inscription is historical. Who the Fuck cares. Besides arent the inscription are in the incryllic? Which EU community members understand that? I always puts incription on my tanks just for decoration

  43. The only thing I don’t understand is how can they let the Russian community decide what EU and NA wants?

    • Ironic even, considering WG’s first and foremost response is “If you don’t like it, don’t play it”. Or “How terrible”.

  44. Frank, i feel that history is not enough in this argument and it starts to get boring and repetitive. We should resort to art. Here’s sth. about Russian mentality, still driven by years of lies and held on short leash (it was originally about Soviet but is still applicable as we are seeing now):
    Владимир Высоцкий – Охота на волков
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JybayZi1O9k

  45. Stalin and Adolf are butt mates on a particularly hot roasting spit in Hell.

    The issue however on criminalizing symbols, names, and particularly thought, is a totalitarian backdoor. Law should sanction (deal with) action, threats of action, and slander that can be proved, i.e. good old roman law, and not subjective, ever changing hippie bullshit that ends up with random oppression, i.e. repressive political correctness in the hands of the “do’gooders” of the day.

    Society, social norms, and consumer behavior is adequate to sanction (deal with) weirdness such as svastikas or the glorification of a mass murdering train robber.

    WG is in a peculiar position; trying to satisfy legislation, political correctness, and divided consumer expectations, at the same time. Good luck with that ;)

  46. without stalin help, hitler wouldnt have tanks to start ww2, and since every normal person know that stalin was attacking other countries along with hitler, russian people shows how little they know about their own history and genocide done by their parents or grandpas

  47. I don’t have problems with the ‘Inscription itself’, but They could have made the annoucement of the Inscription like any other normal inscription on the 8.8 Patch notes, but instead they make this ridiculous Political statement.

  48. There is one way how to pay back to them: Go to russian server, pick tank such as KV or IS use mod that makes your inscription look like Heil Hitler or Sieg Heil! Make a best game ever where you pawn most enemy team (read enemy russian players) and post that replay to YouTube or somewhere where people would see it.

  49. We Asians couldn’t be more indifferent about this issue…
    As a bystander in your years of mistrust and hatred, I’d side with the Russians on this one

    GROW UP