Ask Lemmygrad

I think his quote about unemployment is pretty eye opening.

Under Stalin the Soviets defeated Hitler and liberated Eastern Europe from Nazism. Under Stalin the Soviets built up a backward, mostly agrarian society into a modern industrial, space-faring, nuclear superpower.

Lately I've been going with some variant of this (not that it comes up often):

Accusations against Stalin, when they're not totally ahistorical black book of communism double genocide theory nonsense, always focus on specific things he did like using secret police. The problem is, secret police are not an inherently good or evil thing, they are simply one of the tools in the toolbox of a 20th century government. When you want secret police to sound friendly and professional instead of scary and repressive, you use euphemisms like "plainclothes officer" or "intelligence analyst", but the methods are exactly the same.

What separates states is not the methods by which they did things, but the goals and results of those methods. Stalin's government by and large perpetuated violence against the previous ruling class in order to promote equality and progress. The kulaks were not an ethnic minority that were targeted out of irrational hatred the way that fascists were targeting Jews at the same time, they were capitalists who owned everything and hoarded wealth and who needed to be dispossessed of that wealth in order for the Soviet peasants to be freed from their generational poverty and economic repression.

The goals of the Soviet government under Stalin were inarguably progressive: to rapidly industrialize a backward country, eliminate feudal remnants, and create a more equal society. The results were undeniable: the USSR defeated fascism and became a superpower, and the life of the average Soviet citizen massively improved under his tenure. Stalin's primary mistakes were when he mistook contradictions among the people with those against the enemy, and deployed the tools of the state against those who were not class enemies.

edit: refined it a bunch, removed the mamdani comparison, brought in a direct reference to Mao's critique

edit2: restored a bunch of my original language, cleaned up a bit that sounded like a whataboutism (it wasn't but it soundedlike one), restored the original "states are what they do, not how they do it" framework

we just have to start telling people the truth. they might not like it but thats the only way.

i saw this australian communist say that she hates stalin so i told her that if it werent for stalin her country would likely have been a sex colony for the Japanese Empire. i saw a girl from hong kong defend charlie kirk so i reminded her that less than 100 years ago she would be sexually exploited for her ration of opium by british expatriates and that will soon be her fate again if she doesnt stop defending white supremacy. whenever an eastern european person says they hate stalin you have to tell them that they would have been a slave for a german family if they were LUCKY if it werent for stalin. less than 6 months ago i was full on believing all sorts of NATO propaganda and i only changed bc communities like this opened my eyes.

my opinion is to SAY IT LIKE IT IS. dont be afraid to plant that seed of thought in someones mind. thats what happened to me and how i stopped being liberal.

If you're talking with western libs start with a comparison to Churchill:

'You think Churchill was a good guy for his part in beating the Nazis right'

'Yep'

'Despite that he was directly involved in perpetrating a genocide that killed millions(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943)?'

'Uhhh'

'Well don't you think that Stalin who was even more instrumental in defeating the Nazis, and while he may have had policies that led to unnecessary deaths is also worthy of praise? and perhaps your admiration of Churchill and contempt for Stalin is influenced by propaganda rather than an neutral analysis of both's intentions and actions?'

Some are too propagandised to even consider it, some more critical thinking and curious may actually consider their preconceived notations are wrong and do some reading

You can also hit them with things like, 'The over-demonisation of Stalin and the USSR in official US/western history has been driven by literal Nazi propaganda'

'Nazis like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Halder#Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht a Nazi general who post-war became lead consultant to the US Army Historical Division is responsible for such things as the myth of the clean Wehrmacht', that 'the soviets were worse than the Nazis', 'Stalin personally ordered human wave attacks that's the only way the Untermensch soviets could beat the superior aryans, certainly not through any sort of tactical and strategic brilliance' etc'

'What's that you didn't even know this guy existed and had such an effect on the history you were taught? wowee don't you think then there maybe other notions and opinions that you hold as being gospel truth despite never examining their source may also be wrong?'

ofc this requires a at-least somewhat receptive interlocutor, some people simply shut down at the association of anything positive with Stalin and the USSR, that even things like 'the Stalin led soviets liberated every single Nazi death camp' won't penetrate, Which is how you can get every member of the contemporary Canadian parliament give a standing ovation to a Nazi collaborator who was in an SS unit, even after being introduced as a 'hero who fought against the russians in world war two' I have to imagine at least some of those people have basic knowledge of history and know that Russia/USSR was an allied power in WWII, but the drilled in 'stalin/ussr/russia/communism == bad' takes precedence

I like to point out that the USSR did the bulk of the fighting in defeating Nazi Germany. That alone doesn't intrinsically mean the USSR was good (technically one shitty power can fight another, like when the US starts fighting Imperial Japan), but if somebody believes the Nazis were terrible as they should and as is common among western liberals, then positioning the USSR as the actual savior in that equation seems like a step up from the aggrandized contributions of the western allied states, especially the US who comes in at the tail end and acts like it always hated Nazis. Even though it continued to work with them after the war, even though the Nazis modeled their discriminatory policies after Jim Crow laws, etc.

It's not a direct point about Stalin, but he was the one at the helm during that period and certainly played a part in ensuring the USSR was more than ready when Nazi Germany attacked.

In other words, if somebody is very entrenched, sometimes a good starting point is springboarding off of what they already believe. "You think Nazis are bad? Good! Here's the guy who headed up the state that destroyed them." "You're a Christian and believe in the teachings of Jesus? What about when Jesus said 'I was hungry and you gave me to eat.'?" "You believe in the sanctity of life? Then what's up with the US murdering kids in another country, huh?" And so on.

Personally I find it pointless to defend Stalin specifically unless speaking with anti-Stalin comrades.

If you're talking with liberals there are far more crucial points of contention to address before trying to rehabilitate Stalin; you have to convince them capitalism & liberalism is bad, then that Western media & academia lies about socialism, then that socialism is good, then that socialism works, and then that the USSR was socialist before you can start talking about Stalin or you're not gonna get through with them IME.

I just don't get into debates about Stalin. Governments are run by people, not one person. I take the 70/30 line on Stalin. 70% good 30% bad. Most of the "bad" stuff are errors resulting from the conditions of the time, errors that we do not need to make again.

I feel like people my age and younger aren’t as propagandized about Stalin as previous generations (having most of our history classes revolve around the civil war and the western front of WWII), so generally anything I say about him is “huh I didn’t know that.” I personally find more friction when it comes to DPRK because of propaganda created and disseminated while people my age have been alive.

Usually Stalin comes up when I’m agreeing with a concept someone has by giving a Stalin quote, then telling them it’s a quote from Stalin. Eventually the goal is to get them to either read theory or watch me give a “be a communist with me” power point style presentation.

I'm currently reading Losurdo's book on Stalin. It has some incredible information that you can arm yourself with to better defend your points.

In general I've learned to not initiate such conversations in a vaccum but to respond to people if they are spewing nonsense, but in a calm manner. People who are uneducated on a topic and have been led to believe something their entire lives are really open to hearing their entire worldview be changed on a whim, you need to subtlely get them to a point where they would want to hear you out.

I've come to conclude that it's impossible to have constructive discussions about Stalin with western liberals (and most leftists, too). There's just way too much cultural programming to break through, and you just put yourself at risk of being written off as a crazy person. You're better off talking about the Soviet Union's actual record of human development from the 20's through 50's, and just sidestep the subject of who was nominally in charge during that period.

Domenico Losurdo for the most modern approach. Better yet, compare his book in Stalin with his book on Liberalism.

If they already know that the genocide is a thing and the US has done wars for "oil" then I have a slightly different approach - be brazen but charming. (Please let me know if you would like me to elaborate).

Like AES education in general, it’s good to put things in context. It also depends heavily on who are you talking to. Leftcoms / trots? Anarchists? Liberals? MLs? My approach would be different with everyone.

An approach that a few revisionist (in a good way) sovietologists use is talking about the class issues and struggles of early Soviet Russia. As well as the context of being isolated on the international stage. In this way you can show that the hardships of that time were caused by existing conditions, not materialized by one man. The problem that I’ve found with this approach is that often you end up giving a lecture on the history of Soviet Union.

If you would like more specifics let me know!

Get a sign outside of your house that says:

“in this house we believe in; science, Black Lives Matter, ACAB, Trans rights, Stalin did nothing wrong”

and then use that as a springboard into the discussion with your neighbors!

I was incredibly drunk on a train and I tried to have this discussion for reasons I don't remember. Thank you for asking, and thank you to the other posters for providing the information. I'm better armed the next time I'm too drunk on a train.