Perhaps the ISD should pay a little more attention to teaching history instead of band. The school board should have been shocked by the lack of knowledge displayed by the students and either the lack of knowledge or the misrepresentation by a teacher. And I am shocked by the lack of knowledge by the School Board.

To glorify Stalin, a man responsible for more murders than Hitler, is only undertaken by the most ardent of Communist supporters today. Even, the Soviet Union before it’s breakup tried to distance itself from Stalin and moved to rid the public of the many memorials erected to Stalin. The German attack on Moscow in 1941 was a fight between two nations that had signed a non-aggression pact with each other and had agreed to split up Europe between the two of them, the Soviet troops were busy securing the Balkan Countries and could not defend their home base from their aggressive partner when Hitler decided to end the pact.

The statement that “neither side is wrong” show that the history of the situation was not understood, we had two belligerent forces striving to divide Europe, and because of their actions and the worlds inactions, the world is plunged into a World War, both sides were wrong.

Like the Swastika the “Hammer & Sickle” have always been symbols of the harshest form of governments know to man, Socialism and Communism, the Marxist-Leninist version of a classless society, in which capitalism is overthrown by a working-class revolution that gives ownership and control of wealth and property to the state. The symbol was first used to unite the workers and peasants to support the Revolution, only to become a sign of oppression after the Revolution was successful. It is estimated that under the Hammer and Sickle that over 10 million people were killed that would be classified as genocide and an additional 54 million ordinary Soviet citizens were killed for opposition to the government.

“The hammer & sickle was a symbol of the socialist movement signifying the alliance of workers and peasants. Placing the tools together symbolised unity between agricultural and industrial workers. It also glorified harsh manual labor dictated by the socialist government. http://rexcurry.net/ussr-socialist-swastika-cccp-sssr.html

The swastika was a symbol of the socialist movement signifying the alliance of socialists within the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. In 1919, Adolf Hitler joined the German Workers’ Party, a socialist group. The group sought a new name that would attract socialists in other groups. Other German socialist groups used terms like “National” and “Socialist” in their titles, and the German Workers’ Party adopted “National Socialist German Workers’ Party.” http://rexcurry.net/swastika-union.html";

Richard E Beason