In my continued exposure to leftist spaces and a leftist view on history it has become clear that all I understand about Stalin is the reactionary rhetoric I’ve been fed my whole life. I have only just started on reading theory and exposing myself to a leftist view, so Stalin as a topic isn’t something I’ve reached yet.

But I have to ask, and I think this is the place to ask it, what is the deal with Stalin?

The vibe I get is that people at a minimum don’t hate Stalin, but also maybe at most appricate Stalin. I’m aware that the efforts of the USSR during WW2, especially in regards to Nazi aggression are a credit to his administration and leadership, but is that really where the vibe starts and stops?

I’m not looking for a dissertation on the guy, but just the notes or primary points. I’ll take reading suggestions too.

Thanks comrades.

  • AcidMarxist [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    32·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      35·
      10 months ago

      He was a complicated guy. Grew up with an abusive father and a mother who left his dad and basically raised Stalin by herself.

      Isn’t a lot of that sourced from historical fabricator Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Young Stalin? From my understanding of what’s written by him and about him from reputable authors and historians, his father was not abusive nor entirely absent from his life up till his departure to seminary school. That’s not saying he didn’t get his ass whooped, as such was a historical and cultural norm of the period.

      As I recall reading from both Kotkin, Barbusse, and G. Roberts, Stalin was more closer to a scholarly type than a rough and tumble gangster. I think to save myself time from writing another Stalin dissertation, I’ll wrap up by saying even the modern communist understanding of who Stalin was is incredibly flawed as well.

      • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        17·
        10 months ago

        Later in life he asked his mom why she beat him so bad as a kid and she told him so that he would become the good man that he was.

        I like telling people that bit if they think smacking kids is okay. Because they’re usually reactionary fucks that think Stalin was the devil incarnate.

        • Muad'Dibber@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
          15·
          10 months ago

          That’s only going to reinforce their view that Stalin was a mindless barbarian then. It’s like using a racist trope like saying, “we’re sophisticated brits, don’t act like an insert unsophisticated race here.”