When a historical person is known to be an asshole, lets say Stalin or Hitler, we’ll interpret the things they do or say as evil and callous. Because it “fits the general theme” so well, we stick with it.
Joseph Stalin’s son was captured by the Nazis in WWII. The Nazis wanted to exchange his son for one of their generals. Stalin refused.
He asked why he would exchange a mere lieutenant for a general. One witness recalled Stalin exclaiming: “Just think how many sons ended in camps! Who would swap them for Paulus? Were they worse than Yakov?”
This is Yakov Dzhugashvili — he ended up killing himself in German custody, although some say he may have been shot trying to escape. What am I getting at here? Because it sure seems that Stalin was being rather callous towards his son, could have helped him and refused. And from a genocidal maniac, it isn’t hard to believe such cruelty.
However, the man above is an Indian military officer and diplomat named K. M. Cariappa who served as India’s commander-in-chief during the 1947 war with Pakistan. His son was captured in a later conflict. His father’s former colleague pre-Partition, Pakistani president Ayub Khan, offered to release Cariappa’s son, who refused, saying: “The POWs are all my sons, look after them well.”
And it’s interesting how the remarks of Cariappa are largely used as an example of honor and patriotism, whereas Stalin’s treatment of his son are used as yet another example of his inhumanity. We’re very afraid to ascribe honorable and even admirable qualities to evil men — the truth is that humanity is complex, but we often fail to mentally accept that no man is every purely evil and wicked, nor is any man every purely good and kind.
