Spiegel Online notices the “Stalin issue”

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Source: Spiegel website

Hello everyone,

those of FTR readers, who hail from Germany will definitely know Der Spiegel – one of the major German newspapers/magazines. Well, it looks like this magazine noticed the Stalin issue on the forums. It’s take on the whole matter is a bit different. For those, who don’t speak German, the articles says (not a totally correct translation, Im bit in a hurry atm, feel free to correct me):

30 million registered players, earnings counting in millions, branches all over the world: the online-shooter “World of Tanks” is one of the most successful free-to-play games. But now it is divided by a dispute over stalinist logos.

On the World of Tanks forums, a thousand-post long discussion happened over the implementation of historically correct stalinist logos, with a few good and a lot of bad arguments on both sides. The point is: World of Tanks is an online shooting gallery, where human players in tanks hunt each other. The individual tanks can be decorated with symbols and inscriptions – soon also stalinist ones: “Stalinist, For Stalin, For the Motherland”

These inscriptions were already before available on Russian server, where the game is played. Now, they are to be unlocked also on other, worldwide servers. In order not to break national law, the symbols of the Axis powers will however not be unlocked, as stated on the webpages of the game developer Wargaming.net. The reason for the decision:

While Josef Stalin is not an uncontroversial personality of history, and to many his conduct is seen with strong feelings and severity, his contributions to overcoming the forces of fascism threatening Europe and the world during the middle of the 20th century as well as his role as a leader in the anti-Hitler coalition is not disputed by Wargaming. As such we are sympathetic and understanding to the possibility that some members of our global gaming community might feel offended by the name Josef Stalin, yet we stand committed to the authentic depiction of that era. As such, we will not remove from our games any historically accurate content that is not prohibited by international or national law.

On the forums and game blogs, a conflict over this decision started burning, that counts the weight of the crimes of European fascism and the historical dimensions of of Stalinism: who was worse, Hitler or Stalin? What is forgotten: in Russia, stalinism experiences renaissance for years: it’s historical role is partially disputed, even Vladimir Putin points out the “historical necessity” of stalinism.

On historical computergames and their forums, memory cultures collide. Especially in the Polish World of Tanks community is the new “stalinism” fiercely debated, the supposedly neutral design decision is considered “hurtful”.

It goes the other way around too: this is how the representation of Soviet soldiers in the US computergame “Company of Heroes 2″ was disputed – they were considered as clichés and parody. The relationship between the two disputes in both computergames is described by karasugames.de portal.

The conflict is long overdue. The representation of history in computer games was until now too naive. The new fight for interpretation of history, neutrality claims and memory culture could move the computer game medium forward – if everyone takes part in the discussion about the role of (in this case historical) games as tools and thought patterns for the understanding of the world.

184 thoughts on “Spiegel Online notices the “Stalin issue””

  1. Surely, in the interest of historical plausibility and neutrality; Wargaming should introduce inscriptions like ‘Fuck Stalin’, ‘Stalin eats my balls’ and ‘Stalin had no friends’.

    • And who do you suppose had those inscriptions wrote on their tanks?

      The “For Stalin” etc inscriptions were, in fact, scrawled on the side of KV and IS tanks all the way up to the war’s end.

      • Well nazi inscriptions were as well on AXIS tanks … so …Red go back to siberia with ur propaganda

        • Can you actually prove that? AFAIK the Wehrmacht wasn’t big on that kind of “political” junk.

          There’s also the wee little detail actual Nazi stuff is flat out illegal in a fair few places, most relevantly Germany itself…

          • if we germans live the nationalism like the russians do we will be call nazis and rassists. truth is that russians are the real rassists here. stalin had the luck, that everyone watched hitler and so his shameful doing in poland and in russia too were out of view of the press. but if you have nothing else to think, you follow the stalin history hype. brave sheeps

            • Oh, Stalini’s terror in Poland (for example) was fairly well known at the time, even given the obvious problems with getting reliable information. Churchill’s noted sympathy for the nation didn’t hurt ofc, and neither did the fact that with the Nazis dealt with the Democracies had no longer any reason to sugar-coat Moscow’s doings – quite the contrary. The sudden about-face in tone was a bit awkward to explain to the general public though, although it helped the moderate Left already had always had strong reservations about the USSR.

              Thing is it was chump change compared to what the Nazis had already done nevermind now planned on doing later. The Polish death toll from Stalin’s repressions adds up to like a million; estimates for Nazi victims start at about five…

    • remove the dammed comie symbols stalin should have died when hitler died then we would had free europe then.
      if i could i would pant my tank Stalin is dog, ect.

      • Boo hoo. Also, no it wouldn’t. The Soviets had only recently had a very harsh object lesson in the importance of “startegic depth” and were pretty much for the rest of the state’s existence obsessed with having enough thereof that a repeat of ’41 most definitely couldn’t happen.

        Didja know that after Stalin’s death Beria actually seriously suggested selling off East Germany to the West for piles of cash and other stuff direly needed to rebuild the USSR? The idea apparently didn’t draw much support among his peers…

  2. Good, the more this WG’s mistake gets noted and talked about in the press the higher probability those inscriptions stay removed from EU and NA servers.

        • I was pointing more to the news part that said he would remove the US line because the US’s mass murders.
          like:
          the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I guess he wanted the US to invade Japan and have a battle that would make the battle of Stalingrad look like child’s play in terms of death count.

          Or the part that said he would remove the German line because of the Swastikas that were almost never on any German tanks (other then maybe the Waffen SS vehicles), and are already banned from the game.

          • Actually, the projected losses from invading Japan was 20’000 and the losses from bombing raids were couple of millions, so it was not to save lives that they used the bombs. The diffrence was that the 20’000 was american soldiers and that was a PR problem in the US, but they could kill any number of japanese civilians without anyone cared.

            • Im counting both Japanese and US loses in that invasion, also, (from what Ive seen (please prove me wrong, Id love to be wrong here)) Japanese civilians, if they were able to, were to fight the invading US forces, die trying, or just kill themselves. You have to remember that all Japanese citizens before the war really saw the US were our movies, and most were gangster movies, so the Japanese citizenry thought we were going to do to them what the Germans did to the Russians.

            • There was never a “couple of millions”, the air raids took at most 900.000 lives, and the nukes took another 250.000 at most.
              I also doubt those projected losses are accurate. The Japanese were incredibly fanatic, more so than the Soviets, and the war would have dragged on and on, no doubt claiming more lives than Fat Man and Little Boy would have.

            • WOULD it be too much to ask for that you don’t disingeniously confuse the casualties of the long-running strategic bombing campaign with those of the two nukes (highest total estimate around quarter million, going by the Wiki)…?

              It should also be noted that the nukes indeed fulfilled their purpose of scaring the Japanese leadership witless and greatly hastening the end of the war… which kind of beats the *alternative*. Suggested reading:
              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Estimated_casualties
              Those were probably excessive – personally I suspect the Japanese civilian population wouldn’t have been very keen on dying for the AFAIK widely if quietly disliked military regime which was morbidly afraid of popular discontent flaring into open revolts – but they were the ones the US planners made their decisions by.

            • The relevance of the nukes for actually ending the war is quite arguable. As mentioned so were the losses from the nukes not as great as from the regular fire bombs. It should also be noted that the main reason the Japanese were holding out were because they, rightly thought that the US would be reluctant to suffer the losses needed to invade. But by coincidence so did Russia declare war on Japan right before they surredered and Japanese sources do site that as a main reason for their surrender. I think none will argue that Russia would be reluctant to take the losses needed to invade Japan.

            • ONE air raid took at most 900’000 losses, but there were more then one. There were also the nukes, while not as bad as the worst fire bombings.

            • You have no idea, Anon. The nukes were a far bigger psychological shock to the ultra-militants running the show than the conventional USAAF bombing campaign had ever managed, and made mockery of their creed of “honourable death fighting to the last”.
              These were the guys who had instituted the whole “deatn before surrender” lunacy in the Japanese military, tried to convince the Okinawan civilian population to commit mass suicide, and seriously intented to try mobilising the Japanese Home Isles civilian populace to fight against the expected Allied invasion with bamboo spears and suicide bombs.
              Rabid ultranationalists with a death fetish.
              The nukes seriously took the wind from their sails by promising near-total annihilation from the air at seemingly minimal effort (the guys in Tokyo could ofc not know what the ETA for the next working set of bombs was…) which made mockery of both their central credo as well as their main deterrent against an invasion. This gave the moderates the window to elbow them aside and make peace, though Hirohito had to dodge at least one coup attempt by diehards anyway…

            • “and the nukes took another 250.000 at most”
              Pretty sure the deaths from radiation added more.

    • WG can’t go back without loosing face шт front of Russian players. So no way they will remove it.

  3. Well, “der Spiegel” is known for a certain poltical orientation….

    This as a side note, the article fails to understand that this decission ws not a neutral one…WG made its opinion clear by saying “We are proud of it”

  4. I don’t get it. The same situation was happening in War Thunder, where some player had problems with historical symbols on Italian planes and he wanted them to be removed. But in my opinion, the case was more serious, since those symbols were on every Italian plane, not only on the planes of people who want them. Even so it was funny for me to fight with historical symbols, it feels like trying to “erase” the history.
    I know that WG is soviet-biased (I don’t mean the tank statistics) since there are two statues of Lenin on their maps etc, but you’re still playing this game, aren’t you? If someone’s really that angry on WG because of that, there’s a worthy competition coming in soon (tanks should come this year to WT) and you can leave those “soviet scums”

  5. I’m the only one who believes that WG will give up and only RU server will get the stalin things?

    I couldn’t care any less about what you have written on your tank, i don’t even undestand russian so meh. Oh, and i look for weakspots not for what’s written on some tank.

    • Thats what I hope will happen, however, im afraid WG’s pride will get the better of them

    • pretty much yeah
      it goes to show that WG will not back down since the issue is one week old and WG haven’t made any official statements

      so, yeah .. stalinists inscriptions will be forcebly reintroduced

      • I know they will be introduced on my soviet tanks. I’ll gladly report any close-minded westerner that shoots me.

      • “forcibly reintroduced”

        Because having them available totally coerces people into actually buying them amirite?

        • buying them no
          forcing me and others to see them on all russian player’s tanks .. yes

          wasn’t this all about since the very beginning, the russians moaned they can’t rub it into our
          “fascist” european faces .. so WG obliged

          • And you or me should give a flying fuck about what some players have scribbled on their tanks with their own money… why? I tend to have better things to do in a battle than ogling others’ paint jobs…

  7. I could paint a grafitti “For Stalin” in my city… that would be hilarious, imagine reaction… LOL

    • Around here? The only people who’d notice would be the cleaners eventually sent to scrub the tag off the wall.
      Hell.
      Most passerbys who noticed it would likely assume it’s some kind of obscure joke – the few kitschy statues Moscow hoisted on us during our Cold War “special relationship” certainly tend to get viewed as a combination of public eyecancer and corny Socialist Realism gag.

    • No it’s pretty much

      “Fuck you Right Wing delusional brainwashed western maniacs”

      Cause the west is infamous for brainwashing it’s own citizens for centuries.
      Even little Norway likes to brainwash it’s own citizens.
      The Stalin killed millions didn’t pop into our history books until the 1980s when America started stealing our oil, coincidence? I don’t think so.

        • Yes it’s all a Yankee conspiracy. Obama and the Illuminati AGAIN just leave us non-westerners alone! :P

            • “delusional brainwashed western maniacs”

              Kinda ironic from a person with communist views!

              I don’t give a shit about this matter! You can write “I give hand-jobs to *insert leader*” on your tanks for what I care. But this dispute over who has the better propaganda is kinda funny! You forget that some EU country’s were under the “soviet well-care program” and it wasn’t so nice! At least in the west you can say fuck the president and not get tortured/shot in 5 minutes!

              And no, i’m not from a west EU country or NA! I’m from an ex-communist country were people were jailed just ’cause they had a mind of they’re own… you know, we don’t forget our history and that shit!!

              You should talk to N Koreans than managed to escape the country how it is to live under a stalinist style government!

              Stalin was a mass-murderer, same like Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and Kim Il-sung, if he was on the winning side doesn’t make him better. Other country’s (western) had they’re idiot and racist leaders to, but those guys took it to next level.

      • You are joking, right? Yes sure blame america for every crap which has happened to russia or if you prefer soviet union. I am sorry but the thing which stalin did is a fact and it did happened. Or do you prefer to meet the people whose parents or who were deproted into siberia and killed and to say them it didnt happned it was made up by america just to destabilize soviet union.

    • You should read it again if that is your conclusion. o0

      Overall the article mostly neutral – at the end he hopes that a games with that public notification will not influence the historical awareness and correctness through false propaganda and available content.
      In my education Hitler and Stalin are known as bad people – there is no reason to glorify anyone because he fight against the other bad guy. And thats the thing the russian do wrong…

      • I just read the letter from WG o.O.

        I’ve read the whole article now.

        But still, what I think about this, is that if you don’t like the Stalin logo, then don’t play the game.

        What would you expect if you played a game WITH Soviet vehicles?

          • IDK, considering there’s a whole family of tanks directly named after the man in the game…

            • It’s one thing to name a tank after a Leader at the time (it was commissioned for him), but it’s another to write an inscription praising said leader. Difference-one doesn’t directly promote Communism and thus the killing of innocence, the other does.

              Josef Stalin=For Stalin!

            • * I meant to write “!=” instead of “=” otherwise that doesn’t make much sense.

            • It doesn’t make sense either way, since it can be quite safely assumed the tankers who scribbled such slogans on their rides weren’t thinking of the Holodomor or the Great Purge or whatever.

              You’re free to think whatever the fuck you want about Stalin, but if you can’t disentangle *that* from the real enough popularity his wartime leadership came to enjoy and his status as a symbol of resistance to the murderous “Hitlerite” invader among the rank and file (if now due to the tireless labours of the propaganda departements) the problem is at your end.

    • Naja
      ” “World of Tanks” ist eine Online-Ballerspiel ”
      Wie ich das Wort Ballerspiel inzwischen hasse.
      (Nicht die Spiele selbst sondern den Tumult darum)

      P.S.: Correct German would be “ein” not “eine”

  10. What I think about this, is that if you don’t like the Stalin logo, then don’t fucking play the game.

    What would you expect if you played a game WITH Soviet vehicles? Oh, well, you will not get anything like pro-polish, anti-soviet stuff.

    • That is not the point.
      You can not punish the murderers of one country while being proud of the murderers of the own country.
      Punish both and you’re okay but celebrating stalin like a hero…

      • Well, in practical terms the other murderers wanted to kill EVERYBODY between the Oder and the Urals. Preventing that and kicking the crap out of the lot ought to make something of a hero out of most any blackguard for the populace concerned. (The Russians seem rather indifferent to their own sufferings under Stalin; while somewhat bizarre it’s difficult to claim they’re not allowed to.)

    • You do know that the reason nazi symbols are not in the game is because that would ban the game in Germany? It’s not like it’s by choise of the game publisher.

      • They could allow those inscription on the SEA server. For, you know, “historical accuracy”. ;)

  12. Right Wingers and Conservatives probably love having Nazi pro inscription on their tanks.

    What’s hilarious is how everyone still believe that Nazi propaganda sprouting shit about Stalin causing the Ukrainian famine.
    The Ukrainian Famine was more complex then just “Caused by Stalin” He wouldn’t gain anything from it except a hill of dead bodies which seems to only profit Nazis.

    http://maoistrebelnews.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/the-black-book-of-communism-debunked/

    There is like a million more evidence and sources in this article then there is in Western propaganda which doesn’t provide any proof whatsoever about Stalin causing “Billions/Quadrillions of death’s”

    • What exactly disproves the videos of Soviet soldiers taking grains away from Ukranian farmers? Or shooting them in mass pits?

      Some people just can’t accept that both the Nazi Reich and SSSR were brutal leaderships that led to deaths of millions of people, and so did the US and still does today.

      Pont: don’t trust goverments, and don’t defend the ones you lean towards because they are all led by assholes (well the ones in war at least)

      • I actually never seen video’s of Soviet soldiers taking grain from Ukrainian farmers, you have such evidence? (PS It has to be pretty clear and showing actual Red Army taking grain from Ukrainians or shooting them)

        If it’s propaganda or edited in anyway it’s not fit for evidence, so come on. Hand them out and I’ll gladly change my opinion.

        • your come over as about 16yo, acting all against “the evul western man”, man!
          brainwashing goes both ways for sure.

          little cunt

          • @John
            Try watching “the soviet story”, great documentary (well, unless you’re a Commie in that case it will pretty much suck)

            *waiting for change of opinion*

            @Anon
            I hope that was directed to John as I’m 17 and would find that very offensive :D

    • It should be noted that Russia was not the only country having trouble with starvations due to miss management during WW2. UK managed to get 1.5-4 million Bengali killed as well, wich is about on scale with the ones dead in Ukraine. The British also had troubles with uprisings and that Gandhi fellow.

      The only diffrence between those events really is that one is western and the other is russian, thus one was an evil mass murder and the other an accident not really worth mentioning.

      • Errrrrrrr… you *do* realise the nasty Soviet famines predate WW2 by like half a decade and, Hell, even the Great Purge by a few years?

        • What he was saying that due to poor administration at the time, people starve to death. The only real difference between the British famine in Bengal and Ukraine is that one is caused by Russian poor administration and the other caused by British. One would be a mass murderer while the other is just an accident.

          • Please re-read his first sentence to see why I corrected him. Also I’d remind you that the Soviet famine of the Thirties was a byproduct of the forced collectivisation of agriculture, ie. of a wholly deliberate adminstrative decision. (That they IIRC didn’t really have better choices is a different topic and doesn’t alter the fundamentals.)

  13. Anyone wanna take a guess at what WG’s “poke” is gonna be this week? I hear they are going to make a similar statement.

    • Hypothetical question:
      If someone was denying Holocaust as Zionist propaganda… would you ban him?

    • You sure have some nice double standards about “oblivious bullshits” and people being rude to each other.

      • Does he? He just banned a crazy nazi lover from the Henschel article who was making similar posts about Hitler. Now he’s giving the same treatment to a Stalinist, seems fair to me.

        • Saying that the famine in Ukraine is a little more complex than a half attempt at genocide doesn’t make anyone a Stalinist. Nor John was being overly rude or unreasonable, but freedom of speech doesn’t apply to everyone in this place, just like it does in some countries in eastern Europe.

          • constantly referring to everyone with a different opinion as “brainwashed westerners” didn’t help his case.

  15. and no one at Gaijin gives a shit abut there Stalin inscriptions you can put in the Airplane (and soon tanks)

    • most people outside of former Eastern Bloc countries really care if there is or isnt a Stalinist inscriptions in WoT either, the issue here is WG’s reasoning.

  16. Well that’s really interesting. The “Der Spiegel Online” writes about it. To understand it maybe better in germany:

    It gives 2 big magazines. One is “Der Spiegel” the other “Der Stern”. The difference is the point of view. While the “Spiegel” is political left (social, in the direction to socialism but still far away) oriented is the “Stern” more conservative. I write conservative cause “right” could be understand wrong.

    So the left Spiegel publish a article like that, that many people read, cause in this times the online publications are nearly more interesting then the magazine.

    –
    I in my opinion hope that this inscription dont come live. Maybe there is a change over the german USK or hopefully the polish ppl find a way to ban them. But anyway, I find it bad, that a company position themselves political in any case.

      • Yeah, well, they purged most of the “Red Nazis” who took the ‘Socialist’ in the Party name too seriously pretty fast after taking power; the leftovers like Göbbels were firmly kept away from anything dealing with economic policy and similar matters.

        Your argument is untenable and disingenious; here’s why.
        Political programs aiming to resolve the problems of industrialised “mass society” and the Depression tended to be pretty similar across the board, from New Deal to Swedish Social Democrats to the firmly Leftist city fathers of “Red Vienna” to the populist totalitarian dictatorships of Italian Fascist, German Nazis and Soviet Communists – and the firmly conservative right-wing “paternal autocrats” of Iberia and Central Europe tended to end up with much the same attempted solutions, IIRC.

        The difference is from where they arrived at those similar programs, what they considered the meaning and coverage to be, and a whole lot of OTHER political ideology. Have fun finding Fascist- and Nazi-style militant ultranationalism, reactionarism and national if not outright racial particularism in the Soviet, Swedish or American playbook of the era…

        • None of the things you mention have anything to do with right wing policies. The only thing your post proves is your total ignorance. Educate yourself before making a fool of yourself again, comrade.

    • ‘Spiegel’ is center-left, ‘Stern’ is “left with lots of pictures of naked women”, ‘Spiegel online’ is “far-left-with-green dumbed down”.

      If Stern journalists would hear themselves described as conservative they would probably throw up.

  17. judging by previous retarded actions by german people, i wouldnt be surprised to call Stalin their beloved liberator from nazis lol! shit country denying its history….

    • You can’t really blame them though: almost 70 years of “re-education” and counting.

      But they won’t call Stalin their liberator. The US of A beat the USSR in the reeducation race.

  18. WG supporting communism since 1998. All hail the hammer and sickle. For WG, Communism won WWII single handedly without any help whatsoever from the allies.

    With WG’s statement, it is as if they wanna say: “All hail the great lord and god Stalin, the supreme benevolent”. =o=)

  19. i like this sentence (with my translation)

    “What is forgotten: in Russia, stalinism experiences renaissance since years”

    - dumb russians

    • Also a poor translation (or even original wording), since the doctrine pretty obviously has jack all political relevance in People’s Kleptocracy of Putinistan. *Historical perception* thereof is another thing entirely.

    • Russians got told that Stalin was bad by Khrushchev and his circle without any real public debate about it, with the the fall of the Soviet Union the taboo about Stalin fell apart.

      • Interesting, seems like the counterpart to what’s happening to Hitler in the West at the moment, where you’re seeing a rise in Nazi apologism as a backlash to decades of portraying them as pure undeniable evil.

        • Doing things your parents find shocking, or at least disagreeable, has ALWAYS been very popular among young folks.

      • Now Russian nationalists are free to see and discuss Russian history through rose-coloured glasses,by portraying Stalin as a saint who took on the evil Western enemies of the Russian people.

  21. god fuggin damnit… for how long can we discuss the Stalin theme.

    It is political because YOU made it political.

    The way i see it, WG attempts to uphold historicity of events. There were tanks with Stalin inscriptions, amongst others, during WW2. As such they SHOULD appear in game. If we turn full political, lets remove M3Lee (Rob Lee, you know, owned slaves. certainly sensitive subject to black population), and ever remove Churchill, coz he also had some political opposition… Lets just just play the game and not find reasons to pick on each others beliefs, however right or wrong they may be

    • Errr, who made it political? Who’s “proud of their history”, as it was written in the news on those inscriptions being brought back?

      Is it a tank at fault, that it was named after someone who was not a saint (at best)? It’s just a machine ffs, it can’t choose it’s name or it’s purpose (“tiger was used to killed my grandfather – NERF!!!1″).

    • Also what about the “God with us” quote on German tanks that WG will not implement although there it is historical?

      WG is just doing “Stalin-lovin’-propanganda” hiding it behind statements of supposed “historical accuracy”. I am *not* saying, they all love Stalin, mind you, but Russia is their biggest market and those guys love their great leader. WG figures they will loose more in their home market without Stalin then in foreign markets with him.

      So in short: Stalin is good for bussiness.

      • “Gott mit Uns” inscription was on belt buckles worn by Wehrmacht soldiers, not on tanks.

        • i do believe that your perception of reality that is Russia is skewed by pro-western propaganda. There is no much love for Stalin in Russia and eastern block. I lived in Russia for 17 years. There is, however, extremely strong anti-theist mentality, which i am a part of. perhaps that would be the reason God With Us is not an emblem. Or perhaps the fact that poster pointed out that it wasn’t on tanks, but on belt buckles.

          At this point, I would agree with a poster several post below me. I would put on Stalinist decal just to aggravate those sissypants who turn something as petty as this into an issue.

          • I was under the impression the Church is kind of a big deal in Russia at least? ‘Course that probably doesn’t make the atheists or mere anticlericalists any happier…

  22. Maybe I want to put Stalin across the turret of my…. fucking JOSEPH STALIN TANK 1-7

  23. GEEEZ inscription IS NOT a problem. Problem IS in WG statements like “Stalin was’t that bad, he was only controversial”

    • Considering the other guy wanted to pretty much kill *every* Slav, Jew and suchlike between the Atlantic and the Urals… yeah, Stalin indeed “Stalin was’t that bad, he was only controversial”.
      Particularly, I’d imagine, if you happen to belong to a group high on the Nazis’ To Do Away With list.

      • Well stalin was famous eliminating his own political friends and russian elite. And to be honest he killed more russians than germans killed russians during the war. It can happen if your country leader is too paranoid.

        • I don’t think Stalin HAD friends. Except maybe after a fashion that toad Voroshilov, who managed to die peacefully of old age long after “Uncle Joe” was worm food.

          Anyways, however many Russians he killed is still considerably less than “all of them”, which was the Nazis’ entirely serious intent. So in that context I can kind of see why the Russians seem fairly willing to overlook his sins.

    • “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic” and “how many divisions does the Pope command?” are also pretty well-known quips attributed to him.

  25. I cant wait for Stalin inscriptions, i will put them on my tanks just to piss off people

      • nah…

        people should really stop with this crap, its history… I dont see anyone crying about american, british, french (or any other colonial nation) for their killings, slavery, exploitation and other shit

    • Oh, excuse me, but my relatives was murdered by soviets after WW2. Deported and put in the torture chambers. I don’t glorify the “Great Soviet Union and it’s leader….”

      • so, how much time must pass so we can “ignore” it like we ignore killings of indians, or brtish colonial crimes, or spanish colonial crimes… im quite sure people from Singapore are not happy with “god save the queen” and such…

    • Actually I find it quite discusting, I can imagine if this is PR-stuff so Russians buy and spend more money on insignias, becouse “piss of the westerners”….

  26. “his contributions to overcoming the forces of fascism threatening Europe and the world during the middle of the 20th century as well as his role as a leader in the anti-Hitler coalition”

    it’s true that he was important for those reasons but it is also true that their history became like that because Hitler “betrayed” him by attacking russia because before the war they had a good relationship, examples of that is allowing the germans to conduct some tests on secret tank projects (leichttraktor) and having german engineers draw some tanks for russia

    just one more case where allies became enemies

    • Er, the Kama joint research was *before* the Nazis came to power. The obvious ideological hostility between the two unsurprisingly spelled an end to that joint venture, which did the Germans’ intel about the USSR no favours.

      • “Two prototypes were built in 1928 and 1929 – one of them was sent in 1933, along with the Krupp vehicles, in secret to the Soviet Kama base near Kazan (the name “Kama” comes from the word Kazan and Marlbrandt, the commander of the base) – after all, back then, Germany and Soviet Union were close allies”

        this is from the newest article on this forum and I tried to check when did Hitler rise to power
        to be faster I searched on wikipedia (most of the times it isn’t the best source of information) and it said the “rise” could be considered to be on march 1933 and officially on june 1933, as you can see the prototypes were sent to russia in 1933 and I don’t think Hitler and Stalin would get into a bad relationship as soon as Hitler gained his power

        • Which proves what exactly? That the military didn’t axe a very productive (and kind of secret and illegal) joint-research operation the second a party with strong antipathy towards Communism did well in the elections?
          You don’t say.

  27. Spiegel online is far left magazin, so when they write:

    “The conflict is long overdue. The representation of history in computer games was until now too naive. The new fight for interpretation of history, neutrality claims and memory culture could move the computer game medium forward – if everyone takes part in the discussion about the role of (in this case historical) games as tools and thought patterns for the understanding of the world.”

    What they mean is: The content of computer games should be subject to political and state control so that no content will be available that is not in sync with the mainstream.

    • Sure thing massa, mesa believe you.

      Now did you actually have something to back your claims up with, or are you merely engaging in a bit of rhetorical slander?

  28. I remember reading how Viktor (?) saying how he wanted this game to be a love note to soviet tanks, and he succeeded. Its clear this game is some sort of soviet/Stalin propaganda due to their statements and in game performance of vehicles. When your lead devs said “fuck Germans, they’ll never have my respect” and “the Germans are nothing but cheats and liars” their intentions are clear.

    Gaijin has similar inscriptions and such but they haven’t carried a soviet banner into public eyes like WG.

    I went out and bought CoH2 and was happy to see a real depiction of what happened there according to personal interviews. We need more games like that calling out the bullshit and propaganda, especially Russia’s.

    • That must be why I have more German than Soviet “keepers” in my garage, and am having a jolly good time grinding towards the Leopard.

      Seriously RUZN BIAZ OMG is *such* an old meme…

        • Because “statements” > “empirical evidence” right?
          At least when they happen to fit your preconceptions.

          • Pushing stalin stuff + saying anti-german stuff = ?

            Once again, deal with it troll.

            • How terrible…
              *eyeroll*
              So did you have something else to tell us beyond teh evul devz having said stuff that makes you a sad Mr Anderson, and that you have no fucking idea of history on the side?

            • I know enough of history from college and self-inspired curiousities to research after college. You won’t succeed in belittling me like you try to others here to either push your propaganda agenda or to just “feel good about yourself”.

              I’m just glad some devs aren’t afraid to tell it like it was in say coh2.

            • Hook, line, sinker; and preconceptions if not outright biases *naturally* weren’t involved at all hmm?

              Also I seem to recall “Enemy At The Gates” having gone through the same moves years ago. As arguably did those jolly penal-battalion parts in MoW…

  29. I have not a single tank with inscription in my garage, but all that retarded rage against something so UNIMPORTNANT like some fcking INSCRIPTIONS of some fcking pixels (pardon, tanks) in a fcking GAME, will force me to buy some.

    So, my T-62A will get a “for Stalin” inscription for sure, just to troll all those retards who cant understand this is just a fckin GAME.

    And if there is too much rage about this in the randoms, I’ll buy “for Stalin” inscriptions for ALL my SOVIET Tanks.

  30. Most people with butthurt about this inscription has no idea about history. Some of them heard a little bit maybe but are pretty concentrated on Europe only.

    Nazi symbols are prohibited in many countries so swastikas and certain inscriptions, even historical, are banned. Wargaming will not add them because they want WoT to be played by broad audience. In the same time communist symbols are prohibited in just few countries and in few more (including Poland) are allowed but it’s prohibited to “advertise” communist ideology. It means that “For Stalin” inscription is allowed for historical reasons but the same inscription used for promotion of communist ideology will not be allowed.

    Wargaming approach – “we don’t listed our players, we’ll remove only symbols prohibited by law” – while unpopular, is the only one acceptable from business point of view. Not because Russian players will en masse go buy “For Stalin” inscription, don’t be silly. Issue with banning symbols is much more dangerous for company.

    Dear Polish players, imagine Polish tree with such names as Wilno (Vilnius), Grodno, Lwów (Lviv) and Zaolzie (“trans-Olza Silesia”). Would you like to have such tanks with these inscriptions? I’m sure you would, these three cities were Polish as well as part of Czech territory too. Damn historical, isn’t it?
    But Lithuanian, Belarussian, Ukrainian and Czech players could be pissed off and could demand to remove such inscriptions. Historically correct and allowed by law but generating their own local butthurt. I’m pretty sure that the same Polish players naming Wargaming stalinists would be surprised with Lithuanian, Belarussian, Ukrainian and Czech demands and we all could hear “sod off foreign morons, it’s historical”.

    Convinced? No? So stop being so Eurocentric and look on Far East. This year first Japanese tanks arrive and we’ll get Japanese tree in 2014. Korean and Chinese players can demand removing Rising Sun flag, can demand removing several inscriptions etc. Vietnamese or Taiwanese players can demand removing some Chinese inscriptions. I’m not sure what Japanese players could demand but I can imagine they could be pissed off by some Soviet or American inscriptions.

    From business point of view this is road to nowhere. If you remove one inscription, you’ll have to hear all demands and start neverending path of removing insignias, symbols, flags, inscriptions etc. You can’t build reliable business if you have to hear even most stupid demands.

  31. Can never understand the thought process of people who gets offended by inscriptions.
    If you don’t like it, and you see it on an tank(if its an ally, then enjoy your ban), shoot it, it’s not like you’re a civilian character in WoT or anything.

  32. Problem for me is that if you’re going to allow one mass-murderers name on the side of his tanks, then why shouldn’t we have the other guys name on German tanks as well. Seems kind of double standards to me.

    • Its called the law, nazi symbols are banned, as in, they are punishable by jail time and or fine for displaying them. There are no double standards, there is only one standard and thats: legal = ok, not legal =/= not ok.

      I bet there isnt even 1% protesters as with this stalin farse when NA is celebrating genocide over indians aka Thanksgiving day

      • One of my favourite statements that…

        Don’t forget the US Government issued blankets impregnated with influenza.. (which Native Americans have no natural immunity to…)

        • Eh, that was the local “Indian agents” – the guys who ran the trading posts in the reservations – cutting corners IIRC. I also seem to recall that the Army really disliked those guys, since besides constantly smuggling guns and booze to the Injuns they provoked any amount of trouble with such shady antics.

        • On another note by the 1800s all Native Americans still alive had for obvious reasons long since developed a resistance to the formidable Eurasian pathogen battery – those who didn’t were long since plain dead.
          You also don’t develop “natural immunity” to influenza; it’s one of Eurasia’s historic “big killers” and merely the three major pandemics in the 20th century killed millions worldwide – current estimates for the 1918 “Spanish flu” alone run up to a *hundred million*.

  33. There is something im kinda proud of as a german…and that is that germany admits and works with the mistakes and crimes it has done in the past. they way i see it, there are alot of conflicts and problemsthat simply have slept over the years since ww2 or earlier.

    i ofter read about peopleblaming the “other” side whilenot admitting any mistakes fromthe own… well at least there is slowly some progress to be noticed :)

    my2 cents about it? add all mass murder inscriptions or none… everything else just promotes further problems.

    • And besides, someone above was right. Stop turning just an a game into political anal-carnival.