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This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.No, it's probably the largest certified fake news in human history.By communism I allow myself to understand Marxism Leninism.Marxism-Leninism is the practical application of Marxism to the modern world. It’s the adaptation of Marxism by the writings and theories of Vladimir Lenin. It’s a universally applicable ideology and is by far the most widespread and historically significant version of Marxism. It involves:VanguardismOne-party stateCritique of ImperialismDemocratic CentralismAbolition of private propertyDictatorship of the proletariatBut where does this meaningless number come from?From the black book of communism, which attributes these deaths to communism:65 million” in the People's Republic of China“20 million” in the Soviet Union“2 million” in Cambodia“2 million” in North Korea“1.7 million” in Ethiopia“1.5 million” in Afghanistan“1 million” in the Eastern Bloc“1 million” in Vietnam“150,000” in Latin America“10,000 deaths "resulting from actions of the international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power"What's the problem?The problem is that the book, in addition to contradicting itself, also considers deaths in the war.The author had this huge obsession with reaching 100 million, so after shooting completely random numbers, he added 5 million deaths to reach 100 million.Moreover, the Black Book of Communism is considered by many historical propaganda.Whereas chapters of the book, where it describes the events in separate Communist states, were highly praised, some generalizations made by Courtois in the introduction to the book became a subject of criticism both on scholarly and political grounds. Moreover, two of the book's main contributors—Nicolas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin—as well as Karel Bartosek publicly disassociated themselves from Courtois' statements in the introduction and criticized his editorial conduct. Werth and Margolin felt Courtois was "obsessed" with arriving at a total of 100 million killed which resulted in "sloppy and biased scholarship"and faulted him for exaggerating death tolls in specific countries. They also argued that based on the results of their studies, one can tentatively estimate the total number of the victims at between 65 and 93 million. In particular, Margolin, who authored the Black Book's chapter on Vietnam, clarified "that he has never mentioned a million deaths in Vietnam.” Historians Jean-Jacques Becker and J. Arch Getty have criticized Courtois for failing to draw a distinction between victims of neglect and famine and victims of "intentional murder". Economic historian Michael Ellman has argued that the book's estimate of "at least 500,000" deaths during the Soviet famine of 1946–1947 "is formulated in an extremely conservative way, since the actual number of victims was much larger", with 1,000,000–1,500,000 excess deaths. Regarding these questions, historian Alexander Dallin has argued that moral, legal, or political judgments hardly depend on the number of victims. Many observers have rejected Courtois's numerical and moral comparison of Communism to Nazism in the introduction. According to Werth, there was still a qualitative difference between Nazism and Communism, saying: "Death camps did not exist in the Soviet Union". He further told Le Monde: "The more you compare Communism and Nazism, the more the differences are obvious". In a critical review, historian Amir Weiner wrote: "When Stalin's successors opened the gates of the Gulag, they allowed 3 million inmates to return home. When the Allies liberated the Nazi death camps, they found thousands of human skeletons barely alive awaiting what they knew to be inevitable execution". Historian Ronald Suny remarked that Courtois' comparison of 100 million victims of Communism to 25 million victims of Nazism "[leaves out] out most of the 40-60,000,000 lives lost in the Second World War, for which arguably Hitler and not Stalin was principally responsible". A report by the Wiesel Commission criticized the comparison of Gulag victims with Jewish Holocaust victims as an attempt to trivialize the Holocaust. Historian Peter Kenez criticized the chapter written by Nicolas Werth: "Werth can also be an extremely careless historian. He gives the number of Bolsheviks in October 1917 as 2,000, which is a ridiculous underestimate. He quotes from a letter of Lenin to Alexander Shliapnikov and gives the date as 17 October 1917; the letter could hardly have originated at that time, since in it Lenin talks about the need to defeat the Tsarist government, and turn the war into a civil conflict. He gives credit to the Austro-Hungarian rather than the German army for the conquest of Poland in 1915. He describes the Provisional Government as 'elected'. He incorrectly writes that the peasant rebels during the civil war did more harm to the Reds than to the Whites, and so on". Historian Mark Tauger challenged the authors' thesis that the famine of 1933 was largely artificial and genocidal. According to journalist Gilles Perrault, the books ignores the effect of international factors, including military interventions, on the communist experience. Social critic Noam Chomsky has criticized the book and its reception as one-sided by outlining economist Amartya Sen's research on hunger. While India's democratic institutions prevented famines, its excess of mortality over China—potentially attributable to the latter's more equal distribution of medical and other resources—was nonetheless close to 4 million per year for non-famine years. Chomsky argued that "supposing we now apply the methodology of the Black Book" to India, "the democratic capitalist 'experiment' has caused more deaths than in the entire history of [...] Communism everywhere since 1917: over 100 million deaths by 1979, and tens of millions more since, in India alone". Le Siècle des Communismes, a collective work of twenty academics, was a response to both François Furet's Le passé d'une Illusion and Courtois's The Black Book of Communism. It broke Communism down into series of discrete movements, with mixed positive and negative results. The Black Book of Communism prompted the publication of several other "black books" which argued that similar chronicles of violence and death tolls can be constructed from an examination of colonialism and capitalismDebunking: “Communism killed more people than naziism!”USSRStalin was hit hard by anti-communist propaganda, especially by Robert Conquest, a British "historian" who was paid by the British Information Research Department (IRD) to create false propaganda.Robert Conquest dies – but his lies live on!But how many people really killed Stalin?About 1 million.death toll 2.pdfIt seems like a lot if we don't consider the fact that most of these people weren't innocent.HolodomorThe Holodomor was not caused by Stalin, that is a lie created by Joseph Goebbels, Third Reich propaganda minister.“It is a matter of some significance that Cardinal Innitzer’s allegations of famine-genocide were widely promoted throughout the 1930s, not only by Hitler’s chief propagandist Goebbels, but also by American Fascists as well.It will be recalled that Hearst kicked off his famine campaign with a radio broadcast based mainly on material from Cardinal Innitzer’s “aid committee.” In Organized Anti-Semitism in America, the 1941 book exposing Nazi groups and activities in the pre-war United States, Donald Strong notes that American fascist leader Father Coughlin used Nazi propaganda material extensively. This included Nazi charges of “atrocities by Jew Communists” and verbatim portions of a Goebbels speech referring to Innitzer’s “appeal of July 1934, that millions of people were dying of hunger throughout the Soviet Union.”-Tottle, Douglas -Fraud, Famine, and Fascism. Toronto: Progress Books,1987, p. 49-51Stop Spreading Nazi Propaganda: on HolodomorHolodomor was caused by the Kulakis, the climate, the Golden Blockade (western economic block) and various diseases.“During the 1932 harvest season Soviet agriculture experienced a crisis. Natural disasters, especially plant diseases spread and intensified by wet weather in mid-1932, drastically reduced crop yields. OGPU reports, anecdotal as they are, indicate widespread peasant opposition to the kolkhoz system.These documents contain numerous reports of kolkhozniki, faced with starvation, mismanagement and abuse by kolkhoz officials and others, and desperate conditions: dying horses, idle tractors, infested crops, and incitement by itinerant people. Peasants’ responses varied: some applied to withdraw from their farms, some left for paid work outside, some worked sloppily, intentionally leaving grain on the fields while harvesting to glean later for themselves.”-Tauger, Mark. “Soviet Peasants and Collectivization, 1930-39: Resistance and Adaptation.” In Rural Adaptation in Russia by Stephen Wegren, Routledge, New York, NY, 2005, Chapter 3, p. 81.Stalin needed to industrialize the USSR as fast as possible to be ready for a potential war, but had to import the necessary materials from the west. (WWII) The west imposed a "golden blockade" on the USSR, whereby the Western powers refused to accept gold as payment for industrial equipment they delivered to Russia. They demanded that the Soviet government pay for the equipment in timber, oil and grain. These sanctions were not removed the following years, and was a major reason as to the extremity of the Famine. The leadership of the USSR was forced to play by the wests rules.In April 17, 1933, the British government declared an embargo on up to 80% of USSR’s exports.During this time, the Great Depression began. In the US ,in response to the overproduction of grain, in particular, the government destroyed grain in large quantities, and immediately took grain from the USSR in payment for its machines instead of gold, oil and other much more necessary raw materials. Roosevelt, continued the policy of destroying agricultural products and reducing crop areas in order to raise prices to lower the severity of the depression:“Probably most deaths in 1933 were due to epidemics of typhus, typhoid fever, and dysentery. Waterborne diseases were frequent in Makeyevka; I narrowly survived an attack of typhus fever. “- Blumenfeld, Hans. Life Begins at 65. Montreal, Canada: Harvest House, c1987, p. 153“Their (kulak) opposition took the initial form of slaughtering their cattle and horses in preference to having them collectivized. The result was a grievous blow to Soviet agriculture, for most of the cattle and horses were owned by the kulaks. Between 1928 and 1933 the number of horses in the USSR declined from almost 30,000,000 to less than 15,000,000; of horned cattle from 70,000,000 (including 31,000,0000 cows) to 38,000,000 (including 20,000,000 cows); of sheep and goats from 147,000,000 to 50,000,000; and of hogs from 20,000,000 to 12,000,000.Soviet rural economy had not recovered from this staggering loss by 1941. […] Some [kulaks] murdered officials, set the torch to the property of the collectives, and even burned their own crops and seed grain. More refused to sow or reap, perhaps on the assumption that the authorities would make concessions and would in any case feed them.”- Russia Since 1917, Four Decades Of Soviet Politics by Frederick L. SchumanHere you can see Russian peasants who find wheat stolen from kulaki.But who were the Kulakis?The Kulaki were a peasant class born in 1906 due to the agrarian reform of Petr Stolypin.A horrendous reform, which did nothing but increase the gap between rich and poor.The Kulaks rebelled against collectivization with violence, the same collectivization that brought Russia out of thisto this.AMERICAN AND SOVIET CITIZENS EAT ABOUT THE SAME AMOUNT OF FOOD EACH DAY BUTFor more information, I recommend reading the books of Mark B Tauger, a historian specializing in famine.https://newcoldwar.org/wp-conten...https://www.newcoldwar.org/wp-co...The Great Famine-Genocide in Soviet Ukraine (Holodomor)I would also recommend Dougles Tottle's book Fraud, Famine, and Fascism which also exposes the origins of the famine-genocide myth that is now propogated by many Nazis.Stalin, due to the Western economic blockade, had to remove Ukraine from large amounts to help the worst affected territories.Agricultural Adjustment Act - WikipediaHowever Stalin helped Ukraine.№ 144. Decree of Politburo of the CC VCP(b) [Central Committee of the All‐Russian Communist Party] concerning foodstuff aid to the Ukrainian S.S.R. of June 16, 1932:a) To release to the Ukraine 2,000 tons of oats for food needs from the unused seed reserves;b) to release to the Ukraine ∼3,600,000 ℔ of corn for food of that released for sowing for the Odessa oblast' but not used for that purpose;c) to release ∼2,520,000 ℔ of grain for collective farms in the sugar‐beet regions of the Ukrainian S.S.R. for food needs;d) to release ∼8,280,000 ℔ of grain for collective farms in the sugar‐beet regions of the Ukrainian S.S.R. for food needs;e) to require comrade Chubar' to personally verify the fulfilling of the released grain for the sugar‐beet Soviet and collective farms, that it be used strictly for this purpose;f) to release ∼900,000 ℔ of grain for the sugar‐beet Soviet farms of the Central Black Earth Region for food needs in connection with the gathering of the harvest, first requiring comrade Vareikis to personally verify that the grain released is used for the assigned purpose;g) by the present decision to consider the question of food aid to sugar‐beet producing Soviet and collective farms closed.-Голод в СССР: 1929-июль 1932Голод в СССР: 1929-июль 1932“The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.”-Joseph Stalin - From the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.“In view of the importance of grain stocks to understanding the famine, we have searched Russian archives for evidence of Soviet planned and actual grain stocks in the early 1930s. Our main sources were the Politburo protocols, including the (“special files,” the highest secrecy level), and the papers of the agricultural collections committee Komzag, of the committee on commodity funds, and of Sovnarkom. The Sovnarkom records include telegrams and correspondence of Kuibyshev, who was head of Gosplan, head of Komzag and the committee on reserves, and one of the deputy chairs of Komzag at that time.We have not obtained access to the Politburo working papers in the Presidential Archive, to the files of the committee on reserves or to the relevant files in military archives. But we have found enough information to be confident that this very a high figure for grain stocks is wrong and that Stalin did not have under his control huge amounts of grain, which could easily have been used to eliminate the famine.”-Grain Stocks and the Famine of 1932-1933 by R. W. Davies, M. B. Tauger, S.G. Wheatcroft.Slavic Review, Volume 54, Issue 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 642-657.Soviet archives also show that Holodomor was natural.“Recent evidence has indicated that part of the cause of the famine was an exceptionally low harvest in 1932, much lower than incorrect Soviet methods of calculation had suggested. The documents included here or published elsewhere do not yet support the claim that the famine was deliberately produced by confiscating the harvest, or that it was directed especially against the peasants of the Ukraine.-Koenker and Bachman, Eds. Revelations from the Russian Archives. Washington: Library of Congress, 1997, p. 401Here is a quote from the preface of R. W. Davies and Stephen G. Wheatcroft's collaborative work The Years of Hunger Soviet Agriculture 1931-1933"In our own work we, like V. P. Kozlov, have found no evidence that the Soviet authorities undertook a programme of genocide against Ukraine.It is also certain that the statements by Ukrainian politicians and publicists about the deaths from famine in Ukraine aregreatly exaggerated. A prominent Ukrainian historian, Stanislas Kul’chitskii, estimated deaths from famine in Ukraine at 3–3.5 million and Ukrainian demographers estimate that excess deaths in Ukraine in the whole period 1926–39 (most of them during the famine) amounted to 3 1⁄2million."Thesis also confirmed by the journalist Anna Louise Strong, who worked in Russia and China.Q: “Is it true that during 1932-33 several million people were allowed to starve to death in the Ukraine and North Caucasus because they were politically hostile to the Soviets?”A: “Not true. I visited several places in those regions during that period. There was a serious grain shortage in the 1932 harvest due chiefly to inefficiencies of the organizational period of the new large-scale mechanized farming among peasants unaccustomed to machines. To this was added sabotage by dispossessed kulaks, the leaving of the farms by 11 million workers who went to new industries, the cumulative effect of the world crisis in depressing the value of Soviet farm exports, and a drought in five basic grain regions in 1931.The harvest of 1932 was better than that of 1931 but was not all gathered; on account of overoptimistic promises from rural districts, Moscow discovered the actual situation only in December when a considerable amount of grain was under snow.”-Anna Louise Strong - Searching Out the Soviets. New Republic: August 7, 1935, p. 356Anna about the harvest of 1933.“The conquest of bread was achieved that summer, a victory snatched from a great disaster. The 1933 harvest surpassed that of 1930, which till then had held the record. This time, the new record was made not by a burst of half-organized enthusiasm, but by growing efficiency and permanent organization … This nationwide cooperation beat the 1934 drought, securing a total crop for the USSR equal to the all-time high of 1933.”-Anna Louise Strong- The Stalin Era. New York: Mainstream, 1956, p. 44-45That's why the victims of Holodomor should not be counted.And the Soviets managed to put things right a year later, this to give you an idea of the strength of the USSR.This newspaper was published by Hearst as part of his deal with Goebbels to promote the Nazis. Hearst was also a Nazi supporter. The photos were found to be from other famines, one of them 10 years earlier. The “reporting” was fabrication. Other reporters that actually looked into it report that while there was a famine it was not intentional.“The CIA believed that Ukrainian nationalism could be used as an efficient cold war weapon.While the Ukrainian nationalists provided Washington with valuable information about its Cold War rivals, the CIA in return was placing the nationalist veterans into positions of influence and authority, helping them to create semi-academic institutions or academic positions in existing universities.By using these formal and informal academic networks, the Ukrainian nationalists had been disseminating anti-Russian propaganda, creating myths and re-writing history at the same time whitewashing the wartime crimes of OUN-UPA.“In 1987 the film “Harvest of Despair” was made. It was the beginning of the ‘Holodomor’ movement. The film was entirely funded by Ukrainian nationalists, mainly in Canada. A Canadian scholar, Douglas Tottle, exposed the fact that the film took photographs from the 1921-22 ‘Volga famine’ and used them to illustrate the 1932-33 famine. Tottle later wrote a book, ‘Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard,‘ about the phony ‘Holodomor’ issue,”Professor Furr elaborated. “https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/khrushchev-lied.pdf“In the last 15 years or so an enormous amount of new material on Stalin … has become available from Russian archives. I should make clear that as a historian I have a strong orientation to telling the truth about the past, no matter how uncomfortable or unpalatable the conclusions may be. … I don’t think there is a dilemma: you just tell the truth as you see it.(“Stalin’s Wars”, FPM February 12, 2007. At http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/35... )The Soviets managed to put things right a year later, this to give you an idea of the strength of the USSR.Maybe many of you want to attack me by saying that other historians say otherwise, well they are wrong.Apart from the fact that many of those who say that the Holodomor was a famine are not even historians but professors of economics, so I wouldn't trust that much.Many others, however, were bribed, one of them being Robert Conquest, who was paid by the British Informatio Research Department (IRD) to create anti-communist propaganda.Many others, however, are contradictory, like Stephen Koktin, who said that the famine was caused by Stalin but the deaths were not intentional.As anyone can understand this sentence it doesn't make much sense.He then says he has the documents confirming Stalin's involvement in the famine, which is absolutely false as I have already shown.The only thing Stalin did was to remove some wheat from Ukraine, that's true, I don't deny it, there are many people who say they saw the men of the NKVD take away some wheat.Too bad they didn't do it to eliminate 7 million people, but to save Russia from the Golden Blockade.As I have already explained, the USSR suffered a huge economic blockade, and if it had not paid a much greater famine would have erupted.And as I have already shown Stalin ordered to help Ukraine, those are his words, not those of a historian.When there are the archives themselves that confirm the theses there is no more to discuss, period.GulagStalin did not create the Gulag, they also existed during the Russian Empire under the name of Katorga.Katorga - WikipediaThey were created by Tsar Alessio.I'll tell you one thing right away, don't take Gulag Archipelago seriously, that book is simply propaganda.The Gulag Archipelago shouldn’t be taken seriouslyAccording to Solzhenitsyn's wife, the book was simple folklore.“In her 1974 memoir, Sanya: My Life with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn”…, she wrote that she was ”perplexed” that the West had accepted ”The Gulag Archipelago” as ”the solemn, ultimate truth,” saying its significance had been ”overestimated and wrongly appraised.”Pointing out that the book’s subtitle is ”An Experiment in Literary Investigation,” she said that her husband did not regard the work as ”historical research, or scientific research.”She contended that it was, rather, a collection of ”camp folklore,” containing ”raw material” which her husband was planning to use in his future productions.”Natalya Reshetovskaya, 84, Is Dead; Solzhenitsyn's Wife Questioned 'Gulag'The Truth about the Soviet Gulag – Surprisingly Revealed by the CIAAccording to historians J. Arch Getty, Gabor T Rittersporn and Viktor Zemskov the victims of the gulags were around 1,053,829.http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY...number of gulag.pdfHowever, this number also takes into account the sentences not carried out and, according to the historian Austin Murphy, the victims were about 160,000.“Like the myths of millions of executions, the fairy tales that Stalin had tens of millions of people arrested and permanently thrown into prison or labor camps to die in the 1930-1953 interval (Conquest, 1990) appear to be untrue.In particular, the Soviet archives indicate that the number of people in Soviet prisons, gulags, and labor camps in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s averaged about 2 million, of whom 20-40% were released each year, (Getty, Rittersporn, and Zemskov, 1993). This average, which includes desperate World War II years, is similar to the number imprisoned in the USA in the 1990s (Catalinotto, 1998a) and is only slightly higher as a percentage of the population.It should also be noted that the annual death rate for the Soviet interned population was about 4%, which incorporates the effect of prisoner executions. Excluding the desperate World War II years, the death rate in the Soviet prisons, gulags, and labor camps was only 2.5%, which is even below that of the average "free" citizen in capitalist Russia under the czar in peacetime in 1913 (Wheatcroft, 1993).This finding is not very surprising, given that about 1/3 of the confined people were not even required to work (Bacon, 1994), and given that the maximum work week was 84 hours in even the harshest Soviet labor camps during the most desperate wartime years (Rummel, 1990). The latter maximum (and unusual) work week actually compares favorably to the 100-hour work weeks that existed even for "free" 6-year old children during peacetime in the capitalist industrial revolution (Marx and Engels, 1988b), although it may seem high compared to the 7-hour day worked by the typical Soviet citizen under Stalin (Davies, 1997).In addition, it should also be mentioned that most of the arrests under Stalin were motivated by an attempt to stamp out civil crimes such as banditry, theft, misuse of public office for personal gain, smuggling, and swindles, with less than 10% of the arrests during Stalin's rule being for political reasons or secret police matters (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993). The Soviet archives reveal a great deal more political dissent permitted in Stalin's Soviet Union (including a widespread amount of criticism of individual government policies and local leaders) than is normally perceived in the West (Davies, 1997). Given that the regular police, the political or secret police, prison guards, some national guard troops, and firefighters (who were in the same ministry as the police) comprised scarcely 0.2% of the Soviet population under Stalin (Thurston, 1996), severe repression would have been impossible even if the Soviet Union had wanted to exercise it. In comparison, the USA today has many times more police as a percentage of the population (about 1%, not to mention prison guards, national guard troops, and firefighters included in the numbers used to compute the far smaller 0.2% ratio for the Soviet Union)."-Austin Murphy: ‘The Triumph of Evil. Chapter 1, pg 78–79In the gulags most of the criminals were not political opponents, but very normal criminals.Source: CIA “Forced Labor Camps in the USSR: Transfer of Prisoners between Camps”Here you can read American propaganda about gulags.http://gulaghistory.org/nps/down...Among other things, the Gulag were not extermination camps, but prison camps.The penal system administered by the NKVD (Peoples' Commissariat of Internal Affairs) in the 1930s had several components: prisons, labor camps, and labor colonies, as well as "special settlements" and various types of non-custodial supervision. Generally speaking, the first stop for an arrested person was a prison, where an investigation and interrogation led to conviction or, more rarely, release. After sentencing, most victims were sent to: one of the labor camps or colonies to serve their terms. In December 1940, the jails of the USSR had a theoretical prescribed capacity of 234,000, although they then held twice that number. Considering this-and comparing the levels of prison populations given in the Appendixes for the 1930s and 1940s one can assume that the size of the prison system was probably not much different in the 1930s.Second, we find a system of labor camps. These were the terrible “hard regime” camps populated by dangerous common criminals, those important politicals the regime consigned to severe punishment, and, as a rule, by other people sentenced to more than three years of detention. On March 1, 1940, at the end of the Great Purges, there were 53 corrective labor camps (ispravitel’no-trudovye lageri: ITL) of the GULAG system holding some 1.3 million inmates. Most of the data cited in this article bear on the GULAG camps, some of which had a multitude of subdivisions spreading over vast territories and holding large numbers of people. BAMLAG, the largest camp in the period under review, held more than 260,000 inmates at the beginning of 1939, and SEVVOSTLAG (the notorious Kolyma complex) some 138,000.Third came a network of 425 “corrective labor colonies” of varying types. These colonies were meant to confine prisoners serving short sentences, but this rule varied with time. The majority of these colonies were organized to produce for the economy and housed some 315,000 persons in 1940. They were nevertheless under the control of the NKVD and were managed-like the rest of the colony network-by its regional administrations. Additionally, there were 90 children’s homes under the auspices of the NKVD.Fourth, there was the network of “special resettlements.” In the 1930s, these areas were populated largely by peasant families deported from the central districts as “kulaks” (well-to-do peasants) during the forced collectivization of the early 1930s. Few victims of the Great Purges of 1936-1939 were so exiled or put under other forms of non-custodial supervision: in 1937-1938, only 2.1 percent of all those sentenced on charges investigated by the political police fell into this category. This is why we will not treat exile extensively below.Finally, there was a system of non-custodial “corrective work” (ispravitel’no-trudovye raboty), which included various penalties and fines. These were quite common throughout the 1930s-they constituted 48 percent of all court sentences in 1935-and the numbers of such convictions grew under the several laws on labor discipline passed on the eve of the war. Typically, such offenders were condemned to up to one year at “corrective labor,” the penalty consisting of work at the usual place of one’s employment, with up to 25 percent reduction of wage and loss of credit for this work toward the length of service that gave the right to social benefits (specific allocations, vacation, pension). More than 1.7 million persons received such a sentence in the course of 1940 and almost all of them worked in their usual jobs without deprivation of freedom. As with resettlements, this correctional system largely falls outside the scope of the Great Terror.Taken from this article which everyone should read if they want to know more about the Soviet Penal system.Great PurgesThe purges were not made to eliminate dissidents, but to save Russia from sexists, tsarists, Nazis etc.The workers themselves voted to condemn people, not the government.Stalin was a person with pure ideals, he was in fact against anti-Semitism and racism.“National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism.Anti-Semitism is dangerous for the toilers, for it is a false track which diverts them from the proper road and leads them into the jungle. Hence, Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable and bitter enemies of anti-Semitism. In the U.S.S.R., anti-Semitism is strictly prosecuted as a phenomenon hostile to the Soviet system. According to the laws of the U.S.S.R. active anti-Semites are punished with death.”-Joseph Stalin“Still others think that war should be organised by a "superior race," say, the German "race," against an "inferior race," primarily against the Slavs; that only such a war can provide a way out of the situation, for it is the mission of the "superior race" to render the "inferior race" fruitful and to rule over it. Let us assume that this queer theory, which is as far removed from science as the sky from the earth, let us assume that this queer theory is put into practice. What may be the result of that? It is well known that ancient Rome looked upon the ancestors of the present-day Germans and French in the same way as the representatives of the "superior race" now look upon the Slav races.It is well known that ancient Rome treated them as an "inferior race," as "barbarians," destined to live in eternal subordination to the "superior race," to "great Rome", and, between ourselves be it said, ancient Rome had some grounds for this, which cannot be said of the representatives of the "superior race" of today. (Thunderous applause.) But what was the upshot of this? The upshot was that the non-Romans, i.e., all the "barbarians," united against the common enemy and brought Rome down with a crash.The question arises: What guarantee is there that the claims of the representatives of the "superior race" of today will not lead to the same lamentable results? What guarantee is there that the fascist literary politicians in Berlin will be more fortunate than the old and experienced conquerors in Rome? Would it not be more correct to assume that the opposite will be the case?”-Joseph StalinStalin was not a dictator, he was simply the secretary general of the CPSU and could be removed from the party.Nicolò Piva's answer to Was Joseph Stalin above the law?ChinaMao did not kill 65 million people.Monthly Review | Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?Reassessing the Great Leap ForwardApart from the fact that the Great Leap Forward was a natural famine (which did not kill 65 million people but 15 million, as the Chinese government of Deng Xiaoping and historian Leslie Holmes testify).This is nonsense invented by Dikotter which was highly criticized."Dikötter looks at China under Communist rule in a narrow vacuum, thus dispensing with the inconvenient fact that famine in this part of the world has been a recurring phenomenon, which Mao did not invent or even magnify."-Aaron LeonardPeople ignore the fact that China suffered terrible catastrophes at that time, about 100 million acres became unusable and in 1961 many typhoons hit southern China.China has a great history of famines, and it was Mao who ended this bad story.1810181118461849-of which 45 million died.1850–1873 - 20–30 million1876–1879 - 9.5–13 million1907, 1911 - 25 million1920–1921 - 500,001928–1930 - 3 million1936–1937 - 5 million1942–1943 - 2–3 millionMao increased life expectancy and decreased annual deaths.If you want to know more about Mao's reforms, I recommend Comrade Alexander Finnegan's answer.Alexander Finnegan's answer to What were some of Mao's best ideas?Godfree Roberts Archive - The Unz ReviewNicolò Piva's answer to What did the Great Leap Forward accomplish?CambodiaPol Pot, he was not a communist, he was just a madman.Pol Pot, unlike other leaders like Mao Zedong, was not a patriot, but a nationalist, and nationalism is incumbent on communism.Nicolò Piva's answer to What does nationalism mean?Patriotism is the love of one's homeland, nationalism is the holding of one's superior homeland.And since communism wants a society without a state, the two values are incompatible.Marx in his writings speaks of what is called proto-communism, that is, the period in which countries and money did not exist, in practice the Paleolithic period.What did that Pol Pot genius do?He attempted to deindustrialize the nation, so as to return to proto-communism lol.As to be able to see clearly this was not good.By the way the Khmer Rouge was founded by the USA.FRONTLINE/WORLD . Cambodia - Pol Pot's Shadow . Chronicle of Survival . 1980-1991: Back to square oneNorth KoreaThe deaths attributed to North Korea come from the Korean War, so the concept itself is wrong.Then it is wrong to say that those deaths were caused by North Korea as it was the US that gave Syngman Rhee a leading role.EthiopiaIt was practically a fascist dictatorship.VietnamSame speech as in North Korea.Those are the deaths from the war, caused inter alia by the USA.I will not speak of Latin America because I admit that I am totally ignorant of the matter.ConclusionCommunism did not kill 100 million people, but around 8/9 million.

Thanks for the A2A.I have to disagree with Tom Stagliano (which is unusual). For one thing, transfer admissions aren’t tied to dropout rates, which aren’t high but are definitely present.Many of the top 10 CS programs (and there are about 20, because there isn’t one list) are at public schools, which admit transfers as part of their mission. There are also schools with strong CS programs and overall excellent reputations that rival or exceed most private colleges and universities (no, not MIT or Harvard, but they’re atypical and not as much better as many people think in terms of outcome):University of MichiganUniversity of Wisconsin-MadisonUniversity of Illinois Urbana ChampaignUniversity of WashingtonUniversity of California-BerkeleyUCLAUC Santa CruzUC IrvineUC San DiegoUniversity of VirginiaUniversity of North Carolina - Chapel HillNC StatePurdue UniversityPenn StateRutgersUMass AmherstGeorgia TechSUNY BinghamtonUT AustinI know USC also likes transfers, even though it’s private. This is just off the top of my head; there’s also the list of Public Ivies (which will contain most or all of these). Any and all of these schools send students every year to top graduate programs (including CMU, Stanford, MIT) and to top employers (Google, Microsoft) for internships and full-time jobs. They all have top-notch faculty who bring in grant money and will bring talented undergrads into their labs (which can lead to grad school opportunities). Admissions are competitive; that is, they get a pool of applicants and select the best. Simply having a particular GPA is not necessarily enough. However, given what you’ve said, you would probably be competitive. Consider your state’s flagship university (if you aren’t already at it), where it’s more likely the transfer will go smoothly and where you would pay in-state tuition. This list includes the most populous states, so your state’s flagship may be here.The assumption that “private is better” is nonsense. For the so-called “elite” private colleges and universities, they do tend to have high percentages of whatever it is that you want to measure success with (although so do these schools). However, there’s evidence that people with similar abilities and skills who go to top public institutions (which damned well are “elite”, if that word has any meaning) will be as successful as if they went to an “elite” private school, and I assure you that an AB CS from Harvard is not as good a credential as a BS CS from UC Berkeley (although you do get social connections). More than many other fields, in CS, talent will out; you will get opportunities based on what you can do and your apparent potential. Also, those private elites have costs; yes, tuition (although many support students well, financially), but MIT has supposedly had years when more than 1% of freshman have attempted suicide (some successful) and has a standing committee to monitor this very issue. I’ve met some of these kids; it’s heartbreaking.Also, many MS CS programs are not cash-only. If you look at my other answers, you’ll find that there are programs that support some or all students.Good luck!

Yes (if you want a short answer).For the longer version, get ready for a doozy.First off, I’ve been posting my article recently that I wrote earlier this year explaining to the world what qualifies as a “strong college.” I’ll post it again down below.Secondly, one item that doesn’t copy over from the original source to here relatively well is a list produced by the New York Times. It conducted the following:“Thousands of recruiters, chosen from top companies in 20 countries, were asked to rank universities based on the employability of their graduates. The online survey was compiled by Emerging, a human resources consultancy based in Paris, and Trendence, an institute that researches employer branding, personal marketing and recruitment.”Original source: Global Companies Rank UniversitiesAs you can see from the list, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main holds the #10 position above some amazing Universities I’ll proclaim as stronger in the piece I wrote (which again I’ll post below). Above that, you have #3, #4, #9 all coming from the UK and traditionally considered some of the best institutions in the world. I think anyone would be incredibly happy to attend Cambridge or Oxford.On top of that, #12, #13#15, #16, #18, #20, #27 positions in the top 30 are European. There are many more in the list through the 150th ranked University.With that said, this was again published by a European agency. I would argue they have a Euro-centric perspective. I personally believe that American universities have higher brand value globally. For example, if you compared Goethe vs. Duke, I would argue there is a higher recognition of the latter. So, it also depends on where you believe the value resides? Many of the European Universities are great for employers in the region they are near. However, overall, American Universities have stronger weight minus the OxBridge two, IMHO.Please note, my perspective is based on “brand” and “networking” with your classmates and alumni which ultimately, I believe has the most power as I’ll explain the following. In terms of “actual education,” I don’t think there is an objective set of criteria that can help you decide one school over another.Which Top American Colleges are Truly the Best to Earn a Degree in 2016?For over 20 years, I’ve analyzed the many lists and surveys* about the Top Universities in the United States and the World. A recent inquiry from one of our valued clients reminded me there is significant need to “educate” people in Hong Kong and the world about these rankings and share what I’ve learned. As a result, I’ve decided to aggregate some of my best advice and share it with all of you.It was incredibly important for me to spend this time finally because the landscape is confusing.As you can see from the listing in Wikipedia on College Rankings, there are 19 different rankings they list right away. And these are ONLY the global rankings.If you examine the Regional and National rankings, there are many separate articles that elaborate on how individual nations evaluate higher institutions of education. For example, 3 publications are known to rate colleges in the article on university rankings in the uk: Mayfield University Consultants have created The Complete University Guide, the top UK newspaper regularly publishes a College Guide and The Sunday Times publishes the Good University Guide (and note, this is only one of the 29 different countries they list).The USA has become known for Top UniversitiesAt the same time, the U.S. rankings have become almost the default list of schools for “the world.” As written earlier, the United States supposedly hosts many of the Top Universities. We explain how US universities outdo their european counterparts even using UK based publications. In the same article cited above, the US’s set of rankings was the most exhaustive. It listed 16 different sets of rankings plus a number of “others” which pushes the list to potentially over 20 that are “well known.”There’s the grandaddy of them all: US News & World Report. It’s been around since 1983. This list has so much power that Michael Luca in 2011 claimed that:“The ranking order of universities has been shown to have great effect; a one-rank improvement leads to a 0.9% increase in number of applicants.”In the most recent National Rankings (within the US), they listed Princeton University in New Jersey as #1:And their Top Liberal Arts rankings places Williams College in Massachussetts as #1:While the publication lists their methodology very clearly on their website, do you ever wonder if their location in New York city has anything to do with the fact that all 6 of these Top Universities are in the East Coast? Hmmm…However, if you look at the Top 5 Employers in the world, the #1 company is based in the west coast and founded by two “west coast university” grads. Hmmm (again)…Google was founded by two Stanford graduates. Why is this University which has the lowest admissions rates of all collegesfailing to place in the top 3 in the most recent “grandaddy of all rankings?” Shouldn’t the most sought after university in the world be #1?Also, if you look at the following wired magazine article which analyzes all the universities where Google employs its staff, you can see that it is definitely not Princeton. The schools that “feed” google are the likely candidates like Stanford & UC Berkeley or two other tech behemoths: MIT & Carnegie Mellon. However, UCLA grads also find a way to get into Google more than the average college graduate. However, if you look at the graphic and read the story, you will hear that there are a good number of x-Microsoft employees now at Google. Where do Microsoft employees normally graduate? Well, below, you will see some analysis on the UW and that’s where a significant number of Microsoft staff finished college.In 2003 through approximately 2006, I was the #2 sales person in a Real Estate office in Bellevue, Washington. I sold a $1.75 million dollar home to Adrian Beltre, an MLB all star. In the contract though during the sales process, the seller was this gentleman who was being recruited by Google. He was one of the top minds at Microsoft, but after I “googled” him, I found that the search engine company was being sued by the PC Operating system company for “stealing away” talent from the old wall street darling. Let’s just say it wasn’t going to be the only Microsoft employee that Google stole away. Hundreds, if not thousands of Microsoftees were becoming Googlers, but again, where did the Microsoft employees start? The UW.How about “Visvesvaraya Technological University”? Well, obviously IBM has or its HR recruiters. The graph above clearly shows many somewhat lesser known universities are still good to its graduates.How about Goethe-Univ Frankfurt am Main? The German University ranked #10 in a New York Times list which was compiled by asking recruiters from 20 different nations in terms of the “employability” of their graduates.However, what do “we” seriously mean by the “Top Universities?”Many people don’t realize that it’s not just what our parents or what our friends think are the top institutions of higher learning (unless they are heads of venture capital firms or managers of human resource teams).In actuality, what REALLY matters is what do recruiters or hiring decision makers think? In other realms like venture capital, what really matters is what do the people who are funding startups believe? And if you’re pursuing additional university education, what do the graduate school admissions folks believe are the top universities in the world. It doesn’t exactly matter what you learned, but it truly matters what others believe you may have acquired at your “high quality institution of learning.”So, the above list that identifies the German University should be taken seriously despite the lack of awareness of the institution listed at #10.Obviously, you have heard of the rest of the Top 10:HarvardYaleCambridgeOxfordStanfordMITColumbiaPrincetonImperial CollegeImperial College though? As an American, I didn’t hear about the University until entering the Test Preparation industry. So, despite its top ranking in the UK, is it a school I would take seriously as a Hong Kong or Asian parent?How about Penn State?Well, the Wall Street Journal published an article in 2010 asking which schools were the best according to HR recruiters. They ranked these as the Top Universities they would choose candidates:Penn State UniversityTexas A&MUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignPurdue UniversityArizona State UniversityUniversity of MichiganGeorgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)University of Maryland, College ParkUniversity of FloridaCarnegie Mellon UniversityBrigham Young University (BYU)Ohio State UniversityVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State UniversityCornell UniversityUniversity of California, BerkeleyUniversity of Wisconsin, MadisonUCLATexas TechNorth Carolina State University, RaleighUniversity of Virginia (Tie for 19th)Rutgers UniversityUniversity of Notre DameMassachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT)University of Southern California (USC)Washington State University (Wazzu)University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (Tie for 25th)What REALLY matters as a parent?Another reason why it’s important for me to share this knowledge is because I am also a parent of two future college graduates. My twin boys are 14 years old and I want to give them the opportunities I didn’t have. For 20+ years, I’ve been questioned about my University degree. Despite graduating in the top 10% of my class, receiving multiple accolades and being a nationally ranked debater as a high school candidate (along with obtaining admissions into the #1 University in my area: University of Washington), I decided to attend the University of Puget Sound. The university was in the Top 40 Colleges that Changes Lives. However, it didn’t “change my life” because of its reputation. It changed my life because despite the hundreds of thousands I poured into the tuition and living fees, nobody recognized the institution after they asked me “What University did you attend?” I constantly had to justify my background and prove to my peers who I was. It made me work harder than most. It may have also slowed down my career growth along with limiting my opportunities due to the brand value.And while I want my children to work harder, I don’t want them to be questioned. As a result, I constantly look for the “better institutions” that will help them “open more doors” as I have for many of my past students who have gone onto Stanford, Yale,Seoul National University, Yonsei and many other top universities.So, what are the Universities that will open the doors? I would argue the number one factor is:#1 – Brand Awareness in ANY CountryAs stated earlier, it is critical for a company human resources recruiter or manager to recognize your university. Additionally, you should have “instant respect” from all the other decision makers in the companies or the folks who might be supporting your kids with future companies. Resumes are passed around inside companies when applicants are being screened. The talk many times will be”XYZ graduated from Stanford. We should look at her.” When someone asks “Where did you graduate from?” your answer should instantly garner attention.If your child was to work in North Carolina after college and then want to go and work in possibly Sweden for a few years, what University should she choose? What if she thought coming back to Hong Kong was ideal or maybe even making a pitstop in Australia for a few years? What would be the best education choice for her?Times Education has their “World Reputation Rankings 2015” which defines:The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2015 employ the world’s largest invitation-only academic opinion survey to provide the definitive list of the top 100 most powerful global university brands.The list shows Harvard as #1 (and definitely not surprising):The other 4 on the list are obviously not pushovers for Universities, but again, the Top 4 outrank the University that is the hardest to get in (as far as the USA is concerned) and the one that significantly helped in producing what we all use to even find information about University rankings.For further support in terms of brands HR Managers or CEO’s recognize, using “big data,” The Global Language Monitor tries to:“…understan[d] that new technologies and techniques [are] necessary for truly understanding the world of Big Data, as it is now known.”The company has evaluated the top brands in education and have come up with “brand power” lists of the top institutions of higher learning. In a recent report, they quoted the book: “2016 TrendTopper MediaBuzz of the Top 419 College Brands, 10th Edition.” It claimed that public college brands are now dominating the upper echelon. While MIT still claimed the #1 spot, the following public universities landed in the Top 10:University of California, Los Angeles – UCLA (#2)UC Berkeley (#3)UC Davis (#4)UC San Diego (#5)University of Texas, Austin (#7)University of Washington (#9)In its own report, it evaluated “Big Data textual analysis based on billions of webpages, millions of blogs, the top 375,000 global print and electronic media, and new social media formats as they appear.” With this comprehensive gauge, it determined that the top 100 brands were:2014 Rank, University, Rank in 2013Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1Harvard University 2University of California, Berkeley 5University of Chicago 7University of Texas, Austin 8University of California at Los Angeles 14University of California, Davis 18Stanford University 4New York University 15Northwestern University 34University of Pennsylvania 11University of California, San Diego 19University of Washington 13Columbia University 3University of Wisconsin, Madison 16University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 25Princeton University 10Dartmouth College 73University of Virginia 32University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 23Yale University 6University of Minnesota 20Cornell University 9Michigan State University 31Washington University in St. Louis 47Georgia Institute of Technology 21University of Southern California 30Ohio State University, Columbus 12University of Illinois — Urbana, Champaign 26Johns Hopkins University 22Purdue University 28Indiana University, Bloomington 44University of Colorado, Boulder 43George Washington University 38Texas A&M University 40University of California, Santa Barbara 56University of California, Irvine 49Arizona State University 101Boston College 25Boston University 33Georgetown University 35Pennsylvania State University 39University of Georgia 29University of Iowa 36University of Pittsburgh 37University of Miami 45Iowa State University 64Florida State University 46University of Oregon 50Wake Forest University 94University of Missouri, Columbia 58University of Massachusetts, Amherst 66University of Notre Dame 42Rutgers, the State University of NJ 41Carnegie Mellon University 51University of South Carolina, Columbia 55Loyola University Maryland 79American University 70Oregon State University 60California Institute of Technology 53Duke University 24George Mason University 59Rochester Inst. of Technology 98Californis State U, Long Beach 141Virginia Tech 17Brown University 48University of Florida 72Loyola University, Chicago 80Vanderbilt University 57University of Connecticut 179Syracuse University 52Missouri U. of Science and Technology 72University of California, Riverside 69University of Maryland, College Park 63University of Oklahoma 93Brigham Young University, Provo 106University of Arizona 67Central Michigan University 54Washington State University 143Northeastern University 81CUNY-Brooklyn 121Villanova University 89Colorado State University 132University of California, Santa Cruz 68University of Delaware 74University of Rochester 62Howard University 84St. Joseph’s University 133Case Western Reserve University 76University of Tennessee 77Miami University, OH 89Southern Methodist University 87Emory University 71Stony Brook University 88Cal Poly—San Luis Obispo 139University of Alabama 116University of New Hampshire 95University of Phoenix 27University of Kentucky 75Binghamton– SUNY 130Unfortunately, lower branded universities are just not recognized. I saw an advertisement while writing article about the University of Sydney. They displayed a banner with the following:However, why would you want to brag you are 56th? It’s like saying I finished behind 55 others.So…What if my child was not destined to be one of the chosen 5% of Stanford or the other small percentage selected at the other top 4 institutions? Well, as an American and someone who’s focused on these rankings throughout all my career, the following will be a list of Universities that are “recognized” significantly throughout the world.Here are a golden 40 on top of the Prestigious 5 presented earlier (Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT & Stanford).Golden 40 Top Ranked University BrandsThese should be strong enough universities to carry your child throughout life. Their brand power is above many of the ones listed already. The list is not in any specific order per se. However, there are some that might be considered a bit better in terms of brands:University of California, BerkeleyCalifornia Institute of Technology (i.e., Cal Tech)University of ChicagoDuke UniversityUniversity of Texas, AustinUniversity of California at Los AngelesNew York University (i.e., NYU)Northwestern UniversityUniversity of Pennsylvania (i.e., UPenn)University of California, San DiegoUniversity of Washington (i.e., UW)Columbia UniversityUniversity of Wisconsin, MadisonUniversity of Michigan, Ann ArborPrinceton UniversityDartmouth CollegeUniversity of VirginiaUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel HillYale UniversityCornell UniversityWashington University in St. LouisGeorgia Institute of Technology (i.e., Georgia Tech)University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of Illinois — Urbana, ChampaignJohns Hopkins UniversityPurdue UniversityUniversity of Colorado, BoulderBoston CollegeBoston UniversityGeorgetown UniversityWake Forest UniversityUniversity of Missouri, ColumbiaUniversity of Notre DameCarnegie Mellon UniversityRochester Inst. of TechnologyVirginia TechBrown UniversityVanderbilt UniversityUniversity of Maryland, College ParkEmory UniversityUniversity Brand’s Impact – Case in Point, the University of WashingtonFor example, in many rankings lists, the University of Washington is not as visible as top ones like Harvard or even Northwestern. However, everywhere I’ve worked from Seoul to Shanghai to here in Hong Kong, the northwest school is recognized as a reputable alma mater. While the admissions rates there are higher than most of the Top 10 or even 20, it deserves its #13 ranking in the Global Language Monitor surveys.Why?Think about it. The first ever president of the United States was George WASHINGTON. The capital of the United States is WASHINGTON, D.C. Also, the University that is commonly confused with the University of Washington (Washington University in St. Louis) is actually quite strong. And since it’s confused with it, the UW gets credit for the latter’s success academically. Also, the Seattle based institution of higher education has received tons of money from its symbolic prodigal “son” Bill Gates. As of January of 2007 (8 years ago) the University received 242 million (USD) in donations and was collecting close to $1 million a day in donations. Also, as a very entreprenuerial city (home of Microsoft, Starbucks, Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more, Nordstroms, Brooks Sports, Costco, MSNBC, Nintendo, PACCAR, R.E.I., Raleigh, Expedia, Brown-Haley [makers of Almond Roca], Callison, Holland America, Alaska Airlines, Safeco, PEMCO, Getty Images, Jones Soda, Cray Supercomputers, T-Mobile, Weyerhaeuser, Zillow: Real Estate, Apartments, Mortgages & Home Values, ZymoGenetics), the city also produces many other future business leaders at a rapid pace. While quiet at times, it produces some of the most savvy brilliant minds including Gates (as mentioned) or Rich Barton. To top it all off, it also has one of the best Medical schools in the entire country.The other universities in the above list provide very similar value in their regions and throughout the world. In future posts, we’ll explain.#2 – Alumni NetworkWhy did Bill Gates become the richest person in the entire world (and stay there for many of the past 20+ years)? Well, it wasn’t because he was antagonistic like Steve Jobs. Many people attribute jobs as being one of the most brilliant people in recent memory in terms of the technology space, but I would argue it’s Gates regardless of his wealth.From the Wikipedia article about Gates:He is the son of William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates. Gates’ ancestral origin includes English, German, and Irish, Scots-Irish. His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way. Gates’s maternal grandfather was JW Maxwell, a national bank president.I’ve told this story to many students in my illustrious 10 year teaching career. The main reason is because I point out that Gates was born with a “silver spoon in his mouth.” He didn’t rise from the ghettos of America. He went to Lakeside School – probably the best private school in the Seattle area. His father was the partner of a large law firm and as you can see from the Wiki article, his mom served on the Board of Directors of the United Way. At Lakeside, he met co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen. Allen currently is worth over $17 billion, the 38th richest person in the world. Before he dropped out of Harvard, he met Steve Ballmer who was CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. Basically, Gates networked his company into one of the most powerful companies in the world. Without being able to meet some of the brightest minds in the various education settings he had been connected to, he would most likely have found worst team members and possibly even failed.Harvard, Yale and the many others we’ve listed above have incredible alumni networks. They operate very tightly and filter one another by their own University degree. It’s not a bad filter given that many times their selectivity based on simply the university one attended does vet out very smart and talented people.As popular Harvard professor Steven Pinker wrote:First, an Ivy degree is treated as a certification of intelligence and self-discipline. Apparently adding a few Harvard students to a team raises its average intelligence and makes it more effective at solving problems. That, the employers feel, is more valuable than specific knowledge, which smart people can pick up quickly in any case.Did you know President Obama went to Harvard? How about his wife? Yes, Michelle Obama did as well. It probably didn’t hurt on the way to two terms of President of the most powerful nation on earth that many of his friends were Harvard grads and so were his wife’s.With this said, I would argue the following Top Liberal Arts Colleges also deserve mention:As we wrote before, the “Little Three Ivies:” Williams, Amherst, & Wesleyan.SwarthmoreBowdoinMiddleburyPomonaWellesleyCarletonDavidsonHaverfordVassarHamiltonHarvey MuddSmithWashington and LeeColbyColgateGrinnellBryn MawrColoradoWhitman