I haven’t assessed the quality of the comments yet, but this is incredibly interesting to see.
Edit: aaannd its gone. I should have copied the post when it was up.
Yeah saw a lot of “look, a lot of Marxists also think Stalin was an evil dictator”
Was he not? Described to be a generally paranoid man and also all the purges that occured
Enlighten me
Being wary about capitalist (including Nazi) spies as the leader of the world’s first socialist country, one that had been under attack since it was born, is prudent, not “paranoid.”
Some of the purges (to be clear, purges means “party members being kicked out of the party” and not “mass executions”) might have been in excess, but as I said above, they really worry under constant attack both overt and covert and their concern that capitalist sympathizers might have infiltrated the party was obviously warranted given that a capitalist sympathizer infiltrating the party ultimately became a pro-Western dictator and illegally overthrew the Soviet Union.
I’m not saying he was perfect, he was a human and had as many flaws as anyone, but he was a devoted communist, led the Soviet Union competently and these people are trying to throw him under the bus (and to avoid beating around the bush, they’re trying to throw the whole Soviet project, as well as all other Communist projects under the bus) to gain clout with liberals who will never respect them.
I do believe that he was a communist thoroughly but I am not sure about your claim that his purges weren’t a cause for bloodshed, it would be great if there was a source I could read
His leadership was not perfect and I do view him in a negative light (you may guess why) but it did propel the socialist world forward and his reforms helped many people and it was the first stepping stone for what came after
