"...an armed society is a polite society..."

[RZM]

83. Agree about the Hitler. But with Stalin it's more complicated

Hitler had a fairly receptive population to work with. Germans had given Hitler many votes for president and had made the Nazis the largest party in parliament even before he was in power. Terror and violence were there in the 1930s, but I would argue Hitler's domestic position rested relatively little on them (which is kind of more disturbing, if you think about it). The 'more guns' argument doesn't really work here.

But the Soviet Union is a different story. The Bolsheviks overthrew the sitting government and had to fight a bloody civil war to stay in power. This coincided with war in the countryside against the peasants who wanted to be left alone (and didn't want to surrender the food they grew to the cities). There were large peasant revolts during this time precisely because the peasants were able to get their hands on guns, since all of this occurred in a wartime environment.

By the time collectivization and the Ukrainian famine came, there weren't as many guns lying around and the state was able to impose its will without facing the prospect of major peasant revolt. Since other forms of resistance were common during collectivization, it stands to reason that more guns would have meant much more resistance - possibly enough to make Stalin change course.