Joseph Stalin was a communist leader friend with Leon Trotsky
Trotsky was a communist revolutionary and intellectual. He once wrote "In politics, obtaining power and maintaining power justifies anything" in his book "Leur morale et la nôtre"*
In this book, Trotsky justifies the use of lies, manipulation, bribery, spying, infiltration of other political parties, even hostage taking. He says absolute ruthlesness is necessary to wield political power. He concludes "We are acting for the greater good. We can't be restrained by normal morality"
Joseph Stalin took Trotsky's advice literally. So he murdered Trotsky because he saw him as rival. Stalin also started killing people because he believed they could be sympathetic to capitalism or opponents to his personal power.
Matvei Bronstein: Theorical physicist. Pioneer of quantum gravity. Arrested, accused of fictional “terroristic” activity and shot in 1938
Lev Shubnikov: Experimental physicist. Accused on false charges. Executed
Adrian Piotrovsky: Russian dramaturge. Accused on false charges of treason. Executed.
Nikolai Bukharin: Leader of the Communist revolution. Member of the Politburo. Falsely accused of treason. Executed.
General Alexander Egorov: Marshal of the Soviet Union. Commander of the Red Army Southern Front. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Arrested, accused on false charges, executed.
General Mikhail Tukhachevsky: Supreme Marshal of the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the Red Napoleon. Arrested, accused on fake charges. Executed.
Grigory Zinoviev:: Communist intellectual. Chairman of the Communist International Movement. Member of the Soviet Politburo. Accused of treason and executed.
Even the secret police themselves were not safe:
Genrikh Yagoda : Right-hand of Joseph Stalin. Head of the NKD Secret Police. He spied on everyone and jailed thousands of innocents. Arrested and executed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda
Nikolai Yezhov : Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the killing of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges. Also executed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov
Everybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 500 000 people were murdered. Over 1 million people were deported to Gulags, secret prisons in Siberia, where they worked 12 hours a day.
Joseph Stalin decided to crush Ukraine for resisting communism and supporting independance. In 1933, he seized all Ukraine's food. In the next months, 5 million Ukrainians were starved to death. The situation was so bad that thousands of Ukrainians turned to cannibalism. When Nazis invaded Ukraine, some Ukrainians thought they were saviors
https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor
https://www.history.com/articles/ukrainian-famine-stalin
Hitler was a monster, but we really don't talk enough about how bad Stalin was.
Do people actually defend Stalin still?
As older generations with direct knowledge die off, the younger generations are forgetting.
The younger generation doesn't remember it in the first place, due to not being alive. And that is used against them.
It's why it's important to teach students to be critical of their sources. And try to find multiple reputable sources that corroborate the same information.
It's more that some people don't actively condemn him to the satisfaction of others.
The USSR under Stalin defeated Nazi Germany. Idle denunciation of Stalin in 2026 is the classic and most trusted pivot for (crypto)fascists to focus on when cornered or feeling insecure.
That's the primary scenario that people are accused of 'defending Stalin'. There's always a nazi all too willing to spearhead this conversation, 70 years on after his death. Usually can't even bring up Khrushchev and De-Stalinization usually since it's not focusing on Stalin enough.
They usually can't bring this stuff up because they have no idea about any of it
I've spent time with a Marxist-Leninist who worshiped Stalin, thought Stalin was a great Marxist theorist, and he also was very fond of North Korea. While I'm not saying you're wrong, I do wonder what you make of someone in a leftist space who was so enthusiastic about Stalin without being prompted to defend him by fascists?
I wouldn't really be able to know what they're on about without interacting with them, quite frankly. But I can't say I really approve of the worship of political figures, historical or not.
I try to approach historical figures as a part of the context in which they existed. It does sound like this person was into theory, so I'd wager their interest in Stalin was more academic than a celebration of the ills that occurred in 20th century Eurasia. But if this person was advocating for Lysenkoism or someshit then you've got a grade A idiot.
Like, I find Stalin to be fascinating and the balance of power that he operated both inside and outside the USSR to be remarkable. He can be a very symbolic figure for a kind of struggle against overwhelming odds, which resonates at least on some level with a lot of people, Marxist or not. People get really into things like mob bosses and Scarface so I would try to slate someone's fandom of Stalin against that, too.
Also, if American, we go over eight decades of rabid anti-communism so sometimes people throw up things like hammers and sickles just as a fuck-you to (Neo)McCarthyism.
Just this morning, I was looking at a tv screen when it was announced a new study had concluded nearly 68% of russians still lament the disband of the soviet union.
Propaganda as it is, even if we cut those numbers by two thirds, it's still too many people longing by one of the most brutal totalitarian regimes that has ever existed.
As a side note: I worked for some time with a company that imported machinery from Ukraine and Belarus, in the 2000's, and I saw the amount of graffiti with USSR simbology that was plastered on the crates. Some people don't allow it to just shrivel and die silently.
This isn't to say the USSR did not created good things.
I worked with a fellow from Romania and he was appalled with how bad by comparison my country's public health care system was.
But the numbers tally a grimm story of the USSR and the wrongs vastly outnumber the rights.
Lamenting the fall of the Soviet Union isn’t the same as thinking Stalin was good. There were several people after Stalin who didn’t randomly disappear people. At least, not as much.
That said, post WWII through the fall of the USSR I’d bet the average Soviet citizen had a better standard of living than the average Russian does today.
We can ask some russian citizens if they're available. Until that opportunity presents itself, we'll have to make do with whatever information we can access and read it with a good dose of skepticism.
This guy has some pretty good cartoon shorts on Russian nostalgia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQGQT9b9jeI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1u7XZ9c8fI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfydR4ra4U0
"am I so about of touch? No, it's the Russians who are wrong"
Not necssesarily defend, but they shift blame away from Stalin. Essentially, "He was bad, but not THAT bad, that's just western propaganda"
You'll see commonly that .ml excuses the famines (yes, plural) created by Stalin by shifting the blame towards environmental factors like "oh but there was a bit of a drought" or "they actually did it all themselves by burning their grain", "it was to stop the Nazis from siezing the grain themselves", the list of excuses goes on.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf
"Even in Stalin's time, there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the communist setup is exaggerated.".
"tankies" though, amirite?
A much more convenient excuse is that the USA is telling the truth about USSR while simultaneously executing millions of communists in South America, Africa, and Asia and lying about pretty much everything regarding anti-capitalism over the past century.
LMAO. How to summon the .ml warrior with this one simple step. Thank you for proving my point.
The US is not the only source of information regarding USSR, you're acting like we in Europe don't know what happened right next to us.
Plenty of us millenials are old enough to have spoken to our late great grandparents. Who saw what happened with their own eyes. Or did you forget that one little detail? It's not very convenient for you is it. That we've actually still have accounts of those who witnessed and experienced it first hand.
Fuck the USSR, fuck the apologists, fuck Russia, and fuck the US.
Me: provides evidence from the CIA itself, directly related to the topic on hand
Another user: provides evidence that many/most ex-soviet citizens actually preferred Socialism vs the Shock Capitalism they experienced. (Read Shock Doctrine and Blackshirts and Reds)
You: nuh uhh! My great grandparents told me a story once!
Yes indeed. I fight against misinformation and for human rights. I support and march alongside strikers. I confront Proud Boys and other fascists. I resist against ICE. I fight for LGBTQ+ and BIPOC rights. I am active in mutual aid in my community. I've helped put Progressives and Socialists in elected office. I'm organizing my community against fascism and capitalism that ruins our lives.
You? Well ... what have you accomplished lately?
Yes of course. And there's Cubans in Miami who denounce Cuba. Nevermind that these people are all ex-land owners, factory owners, and capitalists who exploited the working class for their own benefit. Castro was kind enough to exile them instead of what Mao did.
Myth: Communism Killed 100 Million+ People
Debunked:
Death tolls often include WWII casualties, famines, and natural disasters, misattributed to communism.
Capitalist atrocities (Native American genocide, transatlantic slavery) dwarf these numbers.
Sources like the "Black Book of Communism" are ideologically biased and widely discredited.
Myth: "Communist countries have no food!"
Busted:
Famines (e.g., USSR 1921) were caused by war/sanctions, not socialism.
Socialist states often had better nutrition than capitalist peers (e.g., Cuba’s food security vs. US food deserts).
Capitalist countries waste 40% of food while millions starve.
A good book to read is Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism by Kristen Ghodsee. So yea, read some books. Or rely on anecdotes 2 generations removed lol
Blocking you, I have no desire to continue this thread.
What's the point of asking questions if you're gonna block?
What CIA says or doesn't say is literally, irrelevant. We have plenty of accounts from within Europe.
That other user very conveniently left out the 3 baltic countries where the vast majority doesn't want to rejoin. And those 3 countries just so happen to also have much higher gdppc and ppp than the rest.
You're not fighting misinformation by being a Stalin apologist. And certainly not with your whataboutism. This isn't about Cuba.. or the US.
No idea where this 100m+ is from or that communist countries doeant have food. Literally never heard that. Are you just making up myths so you can "debunk" them?
The famines were created by Stalins collectivisation. His policy dealt the final blow that doomed millions to starvation. They had food. They just didn't let certain people keep it...
You're not fooling anyone. We know things were not great under Stalin. From the famines to the arbitrary dissapearnces and arrests. But keep excusing it.
It's so hilarious that you say you fight against ICE, while defending the Soviet's far worse version of "ICE". You know how ICE drags people off the street in broad daylight. That's what happened back then too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia_for_the_Soviet_Union
Further, let’s look at the actual referendum:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum
Your survey there seems to include most ex Soviet states. But it would seem you forgot atleast 3. I don't see Lithuania, Estonia or Latvia there. I wonder why you chose to not include them.
Oh, was it because in Estonia 75% said the dissolution was good (15% bad)
Latvia because 53% said it was good (35% bad)
Or Lithuani where 62% said it was good (23% bad), whom in 1991 according to pew, showed that 13% of them rated their lives as "good". Where as 44% in 2019.
I have no doubt, that those living in the smaller ex Soviet states were favorable. Their gdppc and ppp are significantly lower than Russias. And they probably think being part of a much larger nation will give them the benefit of a larger economy. That is, until they saw what happened to Ukraine. Which is why almost all of them, except Belarus. Have sought influence elsewhere, mainly China and Turkey.
Though I'd do like to add one final note. Those who disliked Stalin either fled, hid, or "dissapeared". What's left are those who remained loyal or hid well enough. The love for Stalin was not out of respect, it was out of fear.
We see all the morons in the US praising Trump. No amount of incompetence will ever make them leave the cult. Reminds me of someone...
Your original (implicit) point was that people who have lived experienced in the era of the USSR disliked it. That's just not true. All you have is anecdotes - and anecdotes mostly from USians, at that.
No, all I have is not anecdotes. But the anecdotes confirm everything else.
People fled and smuggled themselves out for a reason. You either fall in line and praise the rulers, or you might trip and fall out of a window.
Millions upon millions died under Stalin. And when he was on deaths door, there were hardly any doctors to treat him due to him having them killed, tortured, and/or arrested. Now that is poetic justice. Though it's hardly any consolation for his victims.
I saw once a dude defending Mao cause "famines happen like great potatoe famine"
except one was on mid 1800s and the other was in 1960s...
These people are mental.
We are in the golden age of stupidity. People defend everything.
source, pg 493
(see also)