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[Wilsonthefarmer]

"Djugashvili (later Stalin) was a ruthless person, and a serious editor. The Soviet historian Mikhail Gefter has written about coming across a manuscript on the German statesman Otto von Bismarck edited by Stalin's own hand. The marked-up copy dated from 1940, when the Soviet Union was allied with Nazi Germany. Knowing that Stalin had been responsible for so much death and suffering, Gefter searched "for traces of those horrible things in the book." He found none. What he saw instead was "reasonable editing, pointing to quite a good taste and an understanding of history."

Stalin had also made a surprising change in the manuscript. In the conclusion, the author closed with a warning to the Germans lest they renege on the alliance and attack Russia. Stalin cut it. When the author objected, pleading that the warning was the whole point of the book, Stalin replied, "But why are you scaring them? Let them try. ..." And indeed they did, costing more than 30 million lives—most of them Soviet. But the glory was Stalin's in the end.

Stalin always seemed to have a blue pencil on hand, and many of the ways he used it stand in direct contrast to common assumptions about his person and thoughts. He edited ideology out or played it down, cut references to himself and his achievements, and even exhibited flexibility of mind, reversing some of his own prior edits.

Even when not wielding his blue pencil, Stalin's editorial zeal was all-consuming. He excised people—indeed whole peoples—out of the manuscript of worldly existence, had them vanished from photographs and lexicons, changed their words and the meanings of their words, edited conversations as they happened, backing his interlocutors into more desirable (to him) formulations. "The Poles have been visiting here," he told the former Comintern chief Georgi Dimitrov in 1948. "I ask them: What do you think of Dimitrov's statement? They say: A good thing. And I tell them that it isn't a good thing. Then they reply that they, too, think it isn't a good thing."
More about the topic see this link ....
http://chronicle.com/article/Stalins-Blue-Pencil/142109?cid=megamenu

He who lives by the blue pencil must know that history is subject to revision.
Holly Case is an associate professor of history at Cornell University.

Indeed Holly Case, history of the Soviet Union under Stalin must be subject to revision!

Any thought on the above topic, Comrade Sasha?

[Sashadroogie]

My thoughts? Said article is nothing more than counter-revolutionary propaganda. Circulated by kulaks, anti-social elements, and other undesirables. Back to the kolkhoz with you all. Eternal glory to the Motherland!

[Wilsonthefarmer]

[Sashadroogie]

I don't think you got the bit about counter-revolutionary propaganda, did you? Black Book? Ah, that's almost funny. Even as funny as believing in money and capitalism in the 21st century. At least this vrag naroda has a sense of humour.

[scot47]

Payt no attention to Wilson who is a devotee of Hassan Al Banna.