Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt are great men who are honored with busts at the D-Day Memorial in Virginia. But guess who else just got a bust? Josef Freakin Stalin.
Sheesh. How many people do you have to murder before not being honored? Seriously.
The leader of the former Soviet Union arguably made a run at being the worst person in the history of mankind. If he didn’t win he at least placed.
The artist, a college professor (shock!) seems like he’s attempting to argue that while he’s personally opposed to Stalin, leaving him out of a D-Day memorial wouldn’t be right.
“He was just a terrible person,” said Pumphrey. “So the challenge is to embody the terror he instilled.”…
He compared leaving Stalin out of the lineup of Allied leaders with not including Judas, the betrayer of Jesus Christ, in “The Last Supper” — a famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci.
“He’s part of the narrative,” said Pumphrey. “We may not like Stalin, but if he had not challenged Hitler on the Eastern Front, then victories on the Western Front may not have been possible.”
This seems like a bit of a tenuous connection to D-Day itself, doesn’t it?
You can tell a lot about a people by the history they choose to ignore. They say those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Well it’s those who change history who are actively engaged in the dooming.
But this is what you get with the absence of values in our culture. Stalin right next to FDR. How do these people not understand that a National D-Day Memorial is about honoring the memory of men who put their lives on the line for a good cause.
William McIntosh, the memorial foundation’s president, would not name the donor for the Stalin bust but he admitted it was an individual. All he said in news reports was: “We don’t do anything until we have the money in hand,” he said. “It’s money that came from a designated place that has a certain purpose.”
Why not a bust of Hitler considering he also played a role in D-Day. That would be crazy though, right? Why you might ask. BECAUSE HITLER IS A BAD GUY. JUST LIKE STALIN!!!!
Our country’s heading down a weird road when twenty years after the cold war a bust of Churchill gets shipped back to England and Stalin gets a bust.
June 9, 2010 at 12:59 pm
So? Just make the bust mysteriously "disappear," and if you get caught, call it an act of art or free speech. 😉
June 9, 2010 at 2:56 pm
In Belgium there is a famous fountain/statue of the "piss boy." We could have four copies of the "piss boy" focussing their aim on the center of a pool and place Stallin's bust in the middle of that.
June 9, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Exactly — Hitler is "part of the narrative, too." Local veterans and their families must be apoplectic.
June 9, 2010 at 4:18 pm
if he had not challenged Hitler on the Eastern Front, then victories on the Western Front may not have been possible.”
Hey, Pumphrey — If Stalin hadn't allied himself with Hitler for the dismembering of Poland in 1939, there mightn't have been a war at all. Idiot.
Romulus
June 9, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Yeah, I totally agree that "Stalin is part of the narrative"; just like John Hinckly Jr is part of the narrative in the Reagan presidency…but that doesn't mean he gets a bust. If there is a written narrative on a plaque somewhere there, they can absolutely name him. Yeah, this bust is morally a bust.
Maybe this artist can focus on a line of Stalin action-figures, complete with a Malibu Gulag-house for the kiddies to play with.
June 9, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Lord in Heaven–a bust for that monster?!
Look, there's no doubt the Soviets were responsible for most of the ground fighting with the Wehrmacht, and the resources the Nazis (somewhere between 60-70 percent of their armies) had to devote to the East did make D-Day possible. The Red Army deserves great acknowledgment for its achievements in the War.
But a better bust would have been for Zhukov, the greatest soldier the Soviets produced during the war. Who, it must be added, was not remotely a genocide-stained ghoul like his boss.
–Dale Price
June 9, 2010 at 5:05 pm
why not satan statues on the altar? he is a part of the 'story' too….. idiots…….
June 9, 2010 at 5:16 pm
FDR gave away 11+ Billion dollars of Lend-Lease War Material to 'Uncle Joe', from the U.S., propped up the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. It is quite possible that the Soviet Union wouldn't have survived WWII without that infusion of supplies from the U.S./FDR. FDR aided and abetted one of the top mass murderers of history.
International Socialists = good
National Socialists = bad
June 9, 2010 at 6:48 pm
That bust is in the wrong state. It won't last. Just guessin'
June 9, 2010 at 6:50 pm
I wonder if there were busts of Churchill and Roosevelt in the Russian version of this celebration.
June 9, 2010 at 8:02 pm
I despise Stalin and all he stood for, but to hear a very even-tempered and fair-minded Russian colleague scoff at the idea of Canada having had a stake in WWII with words to the effect of, "What, all 10 of them? Give me a break. We learned about this. We learned how they opened a second front, in 1944 when the we had already recaptured Romania. We had 27 million people dead," has made me think. They had a film recently, even, that was just of actors reading recollections of the siege of Leningrad.
If the intent is simply to honor D-Day, then Russia, although a fervent and long-waiting supporter of it, doesn't belong there. But if it's about WWII, well, even an evil man can do great things, or even still things worthy of remembrance. I really hate him, but really, who in the US knows the sacrifices of the brave peoples of the Soviet Union? Of those 27 million dead, who knows that it was only 7 million soldiers? To hear most of my fellow countrymen speak of it, we alone won the battle – even brave Britain is given a rather small role.
I wouldn't ever choose Stalin for myself, but the Kremlin honored us and all allies this year by inviting our troops to march in the Red Square Victory Day Parade – the biggest holiday by far – then we can and should honor the nation that really did win that war. The after effects were horrific for liberties, but our own would have suffered a lot more without their sacrifices.
June 9, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Rosy Gardener, the first front was along the Belgian and French borders while Stalin was cozy with Hitler.
June 9, 2010 at 10:28 pm
I agree that Stalin was a monster who should not be honored, but to call Truman a "great man" is to stretch words to their breaking point. I recommend Elizabeth Anscombe's essay "Mr. Truman's Degree":
http://www.anthonyflood.com/anscombetrumansdegree.htm
Anscombe was no pacifist and a staunch opponent of abortion – in fact, she was arrested late in life at a protest at an abortion clinic.