The Polish Communist and Stalin
anecdote · personal/autobiographical ·
retold in 3 talks
An old Polish Jew explains his support for Stalin: despite Stalin's purges, the Communist Party was the only group that shook hands with Jews in pre-war anti-Semitic Poland.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“The only non-Jewish people who always came to us Jews and shook hands and so on were the communists.”
“Stalin proved it can be both at the same time you know. It's not even the choice you know.”
“When Stalin could get a confession out of Kamenev... 'What is the weight of the Soviet Union...?' Was he unconsciously invoking the Big Other?”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
quantum superposition of socialism and barbarism
×1
the big Other
×1
my stalinism / benevolent stalinism
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Anthony Minghella1Vyacheslav Molotov1Cindy Crawford1Ted Hughes1Sylvia Plath1Janet Malcolm1Kuznetsov1Christina1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
An old Polish Jew explains his support for Stalin: despite Stalin's purges, the Communist Party was the only group that shook hands with Jews in pre-war anti-Semitic Poland., illustrating ideology,race-antisemitism
Luxemburg said the future is either socialism or barbarism; Stalin proved it can be both at the same time., illustrating quantum superposition of socialism and barbarism
Stalin extracts a confession from Kamenev and asks the NKVD interrogator, 'What is the weight of the Soviet Union...?' Žižek uses this to show Stalinism's reliance on the Big Other (History) as judge., illustrating Big Other,Stalinism