It also says something about Stalin's highest placed lackeys that he was still the best among them. Would I prefer having a sexual predator who raped women running a country or a bloodthirsty mass murderer who had people executed, sent dissidents to insane asylums, came close to starting a nuclear war and ruined the entire economy? I'll take the first. He's certainly the lesser of two evils. If he murdered a dozen of his victims or so he still stands out as the lesser evil. From the standpoint of the health of the hundreds of millions of people, is it an acceptable tradeoff to allow maybe 100 women to be raped and 20 to be killed if it means that hundreds of thousands or millions don't die of starvation, aren't shot summarily, aren't forced to live in abject poverty? Yes, sadly, that's an acceptable tradeoff. It's not an enviable decision to have to make in the first place, but if those are the choices, I think the overwhelming majority of people would have picked Beria.
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*
