70% good 30% bad. Absolutely must be analysed within the historical context of the time. Should not be seen as a cartoon character monster, a constructed image that has been built up as a means of opposition to socialism as he represents the first socialist experiment and its incredibly fast rise against capitalism.

Strongly recommend Domenico Losurdo's book - Stalin: History and Critique of A Black Legend

I think the most important thing is that Stalin pretty much saved the world from fascism and made enormous sacrifices to defeat Hitler, as you mentioned, yet NATO quickly formed after WW2 and changed the narrative surrounding him for the rest of history. The reason we emphasize the point so much is because of the prevalence of Double Genocide Theory, which, especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has really served to demonize him and the USSR, while minimizing Nazis. Red scare propaganda has used Stalin as a Hitler analogue and it's important that we try to clear up the myths about him. I don't have a lot of other material on him outside of that, though, hopefully some other people can chip in.

"What's the deal with Stalin?"

Dude robbed trains to support the revolution.

As always, has a lot of great, succinct views on Stalin in Blackshirts and Reds. There are a bunch of free PDF links if you google for them. These are not all rosy -- he has at least one whole chapter critiquing the USSR from a leftist perspective, and he acknowledges that under Stalin the USSR committed some crimes of state -- but overall the conclusion he reaches is justifiably positive on balance.

Another good (but longer) source on Stalin is Domenico Losurdo's Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend.

I'm one of the people who won't shut the fuck up about Stalin, so I'll let my list of posts on him speak for themselves.

Stalin good actually, but best not to bring it up with the Tatars or the Ingush. Also the song about Stalin in the Tractor Drivers maybe a little cringe. All literature published in the English language covering the prewar Soviet Union, especially academic literature, must contain a ritual denunciation of Stalin. If you want to engage directly with the bases for these denunciations, that is a little harder to research.

It's important to understand that Khrushchov's "secret" speech denouncing Stalin in 1956 was an enormous contributing factor to the Sino-Soviet split, which became more or less official that year. The image of Stalin represents anti-revisionism to the communists who use it today. Stalin's bust is a symbol for the rejection of the revisionist turn in the postwar Soviet Union. It is also stands for staunch opposition to Trotskyism and Maoism. You will find however that communists rarely deal in absolutes. Dialectic analysis of history allows for simultaneous acknowledgment of the bad and celebration of the good in any person or political project.

There are some really interesting interviews with Stalin, some examples:

With Emil Ludwig, my favorite

With Roy Howard

And of course with HG Wells

When assessing someone, it's good to let them speak for themselves, even if your attitude towards what they say is nonetheless one of complete skepticism. Of course, Stalin wrote a few books and some of them are very accessible, so that's another option.

https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/joseph-mother-fucking-stain

This is one of my favorite analysis on Stalin, it's concise and well researched using many of the sources that have already been mentioned here with a combination of members of two great podcasts

WHAT is the DEAL with STALIN

He was a complicated guy. Grew up with an abusive father and a mother who left his dad and basically raised Stalin by herself. He got into a lot of fights in school, got disabled when a carriage almost ran him over, studied to be a priest as seminary, which is when he stumbled across Marxist theory. I think he really believed in what he fought for, but was such a hothead in his youth that he was even mistaken for an agent provocateur of the Tsarist secret police.

But he put his life on the line to become a revolutionary and in the end climbed to the top of Lenin's cadre. The guy was a gangster, but in maybe the best way possible. He sacrificed a lot of people for a greater cause and ultimately saved the Soviet Union from destruction by significantly worse men.

At the same time, he wasnt a nice dude. If you look into his personal life there are a lot of nasty things. I mean the guy used Beria as a tool to ensure he wouldnt lose power. Had bad personal relationships with his friends and family.

But unlike the shittiest men you've probably known irl, he actually did a lot of good for the cause. We can hem and haw over who SHOULD have held power in the USSR and global communist movement, but at the end of the day he wasthe guy. Tbh his biggest fuck up was stopping at Berlin.

Somebody already mentioned Losurdo's book on Stalin--Ill add that a good companion piece is Losurdo's response to a Trostyist critic in "Primitve Thinking And Stalin As Scapegoat" https://redsails.org/stalin-come-capro-espiatorio/

The vibe I get is that people at a minimum don't hate Stalin, but also maybe at most appricate Stalin.

Correct. If you look at actual, modern, and active leftist movements around the world, they’ll proudly praise Lenin, Marx, maybe even Mao and other figures, but Stalin is usually absent.

Part of it is optics, I’m sure, but the other part is Stalin didn’t really write too much valuable theory nor tactics. Yes, he lead the USSR to victory in WWII, but it’s not relevant to every country and leftist movement whereas Lenin’s theories were and continue to be relevant. Stalin’s country’s survival meant it could help colonized people fight back and that’s why these movements and countries usually don’t hate him. But he is long gone now, and now that appreciation has shifted over to the Russian Federstion.

The closest you’ll get to modern praise is China saying that one major reason for the USSR’s fall is the slander of Stalin and the (largely) incoherent soviet ideology after his death. Also Russia and Belarus talking about the USSR defeating Nazis without mentioning who commanded the Red Army lol.

I don't have much knowledge of the dude himself in that much detail but look at where the USSR was when he came to power and where it was when he died. And also that ww2 happened in there too. That's one of the most impressive 30ish years a country has ever had.

The problem with Stalin is that his foreign policy was centrist. Stalin didn't have a liberal counterpart to balance the Spanish republican resistance around and didn't have the balls to turn it communist. His insistence on a United front had him minimize the potential of the Chinese communist yet boosted the reactionary Chang Kai Shek.

Whats the deal with Stalin?

He didn't like airplane food. He thought it was too dry. Other stuff happened because of that, which people have opinions about. There's a pretty good TV show about it called Seinfeld.

I need a :seinfeld-stalin: emote for...I just need one