Once again, this is an actual question; and I’m hoping to broaden my horizons and have a good conversation or two. I’m relatively new to commie subs, still trying to read political theory to figure out which one I like the most, so this might come off as uneducated. But why am I seeing so many positive posts about Stalin, followed by some comments that boil down to “Stalin was good, if you think he wasn’t, that’s just western propaganda” I’m thinking of the post that mentioned the 1921 Soviet Famine as a specific example. I know that Stalin didn’t create the famine, it was a byproduct of almost a decade of war, unrest, and a ton of other factors. But Stalin did do some bad shit. Things like sending 14 million people to gulags to work as slave labor, and killing millions more in his purges. I would argue that he used communism to become an authoritarian. Similar to how Putin is ruling now, stuffing ballot boxes, starting wars, and pushing propaganda. (I realize that we get pushed propaganda, too in the form of faux news, MSNBC, and most media outlets. I don’t wish to have a discussion that boils down to “we do it too, you just don’t see it”)
I now know those numbers were wrong. Like most other internet historians, I used Wikipedia and didn’t have time to double check those numbers as I was in the bathroom at work (always poop on the clock ;) ). That’s on me. Even Wikipedia has largely differing numbers on that matter. One said 1.8 million, another said 14, and I think it’ll be almost impossible to get right numbers because of the secrecy the USSR had during that time (especially during the Cold War). I know he did great things, but I truly believe that those are far overshadowed by the shady and cruel things he did. Another specific example would be his infamous Order 227. I acknowledge that he did a great job of mobilizing the economy and industry to help defeat the Nazis while being in an active invasion. That being said, I believe we can find better communist leaders that didn’t kill at least 700,000 of his political opponents to maintain power, with some sources estimating between 650,000 and 1.2 million. That last link is directed to a PDF from the Jackson School of International Studies. Like I said, I know he did great things, and we should draw a light to those actions, but we shouldn’t blindly say he was great. I think we have different people in history that set a much better example, like Fidel Castro for one. None of this was meant as a personal attack, just trying to back up my points of view and explain why part of my post was just numskullery :)
We have perfectly fine accuracy regarding the numbers for most things in the USSR. In the 90s, the USSR archives were open to researchers from across the world and many propagandized narratives about the USSR were promptly shown to be false, at least in serious academic circles.
Firstly, Stalin didn’t do any of this on his own and neither did any other communist leader. Secondly, around 700 000 people were executed in the entire ~30 years Stalin was the leader, not just during the purges. Thirdly, he didn’t “just do this to maintain power”. Our job is not “to find better communist leaders” from the past. It’s to accurately analyze concrete historical situations, the material reality in its social and historical context and learn from that analysis as much as we can - both the good and the bad. However, ceding any ground to baseless anticommunist propaganda does not benefit us at all. No one is going around saying Stalin was flawless but any nuanced discussion is impossible in mainstream spaces.
This doesn’t mean much at all. It’s a liberal institution connected to a university in the US. It cites the CIA world fact book as a good source and even mentions The Gulag Archipelago in a positive, uncritical light. Not to mention all your other sources which include wikipedia and the history channel website which cites Business Insider articles and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty all of which serve as explicitly anticommunist propaganda.
You cannot just pick and choose who you like and don’t like from history. You have to study all of it fairly. The situation in Cuba from the 50s onward is not the same as in the USSR around WW2. We aren’t looking for good examples to blindly follow form the past. We are looking to learn, based on their specific examples, how to in general better analyze and approach our situation today. We cannot just replicate any past socialist strategy, we have to formulate our own that is specific to our current circumstances.
I would recommend you read Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti or Stalin: History and Critique of A Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo to better understand the history and historiography concerned with past and current socialist states, and Stalin in particular.
This is why I posted this question! I had no idea my sources were basically sponsored by the CIA. I appreciate the book recommendations. I realize that 50’s Cuba and WW2 USSR are fundamentally different due to almost every aspect from time to culture, I was just confused as to why it seemed like Stalin is exalted while nobody mentions Fidel when (due to bad and/or misinformed information) Stalin seemed like a more brutal…dictator? Is that the right word? I’ll definitely read those books, thanks again
Stalin might get more attention here, but there’s no shortage of appreciation of Fidel.
I’m glad you found my comment helpful!
This comes from the fact that the USSR was a lot more powerful than Cuba (and every other socialist state that existed then) and could thus much more effectively, and on a much greater scale repel western imperialism and colonialism - the clearest example of this is the USSR’s victory in World War 2. In the West, a lot more propaganda and effort to demonize was directed towards the USSR, and Stalin in particular as he sort of embodied the greatest victories of the Soviets. You can also see a similar dynamic with how the broader left in the West tends to like Che Guevara (who represents revolution but died young and can be idealized as a handsome, charismatic rebel) while in comparison demonizing Castro (who successfully lead a socialist country permanently blockaded and threatened by the US).
After the war, mainstream liberal philosophy and history, instead of promoting actual material analysis, proceeded to paint a picture of WW2 (and the Soviet Union in general) that didn’t correspond to facts. The US wasn’t instrumental in the defeat of Nazi Germany, and wasn’t even ideologically opposed to it. It joined the war to protect its imperial interests which could be threatened by the rise of German (and Japanese) imperialism - this is only one part of the whole war. A second, key part of WW2 was the anticolonial war fought by the USSR and China (and Korea) against the colonial invasions by Germany and Japan. To obfuscate this reality, liberal theory often falls back on concepts like totalitarianism which seeks to falsely equate Nazi Germany and the USSR, and subsequently also Hitler and Stalin. This concept is flawed in many ways and, as we know, Nazi Germany and the USSR were polar opposites. Any similarities between the two could also be found in the “liberal” countries at the time.
Still to this day in the West there exists a sort of knee jerk reaction to Stalin and the need to quickly denounce him as nothing but bad which is a result of the propaganda I’ve described and also a way to try and demonize present day communist movements by associating them with Stalin. Both of these are erroneous and done in bad faith, as you can see from the articles I’ve linked.
I get what u are trying to say but its kinda hard to acknowledged your point when u say shit like the ““infamous” order 227” clearly there is a lot more western propaganda to unpack on your side, because there was nothing wrong with telling generals to stop retreating when conditions werent just right especially when u consider that at that point in time the nazi hoards controlled more territory than the USSR, no it was not an order to kill deserters there werent many to begin with since people knew what giving up to the nazis meant it was an order for generals to stop spreading fear and fucking around and while it included a provision for death as a punishment it was only ever used a handful of times and again against high ranking officers not common soldiers.
There were actual bad things done by the USSR’s government while Stalin was in power some of them he could have been personally responsible for, like the exile of the Crimean tartars or the fact that relief efforts for the famine in Ukraine were carried out in secrete (and therefore were less effective) seemingly to save face. There is no need to invent reasons for critique. Rest assured we are all well aware of his flaws after all we had to read plenty of his history to debunk the made up flaws u fell for, we dont blindly like him, his flaws and mistakes (the real ones) just dont outweigh the good he did if u disagree thats fine its a line and its gotta be drawn somewhere, as long u know the facts its not wrong to draw that line such that his more bad than good. Either way im not gonna go tell a lib about how amazing Stalin was (tho i will certainly correct any misinformation) nor is anyone here trying to replicate the bad parts of the USSR during his time in power, we just think he did more good than bad and theres a lot of hate for him out there so someones gotta love him.
The soviet archives were opened after the dissolution of the USSR, the idea that these things are unknowable is wrong. Anti soviet historians with a shred of decency revised their analysis following those events and retracted many of their extreme claims. Conquest called the Holodomor a genocide prior to the opening of the archives and later admitted he was wrong.
“Not a step back” was a policy introduced because generals believed that the size of the USSR territory meant that they could afford to tactically retreat more often, which resulted in civilian deaths and a large amount of soviet resources being taken by the Nazis.
They needed to make a stand somewhere, and Stalingrad might’ve been the turning point of the entire war.