Current Events > what is your impression of stalin?

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basically he was an evil af authoritarian who was a communist true believer. he made a ton of mistakes in ww2 that cost millions of russian lives (he was already a mass murderer at that point), but his organizational skills were the main reason the nazis got beat into the ground during ww2. the negatives outweigh the positives by a huge margin and he was a terrible military leader on the level of hitler, but without his organizational skills the soviet union possibly folds to the nazi aggressors. a lesser leader may have either lost the war or capitulated trying to save themselves.

history sees him as the monster he was, but at least he was an integral part of defeating nazism

Cool mustache, utter asshole otherwise.
Trotsky would have been a better successor to Lenin, but would have ended up about as much an asshole.

Bad dude did something good so he could continue to be a bad dude. That makes him a bad dude.

Only replace bad with heinous.

Poor

Had a way cooler mustache than Hitler

That's probably the nicest thing I can say about him. You don't need to be a good person to hate Nazis. They're fucking Nazis.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Cool mustache, utter asshole otherwise.
Trotsky would have been a better successor to Lenin, but would have ended up about as much an asshole.

trotsky was much less competent at wielding power. stalin was probably the most competent person to turn the soviet union into the world power it became. he was utterly ruthless and evil, but he was an exceptional administrator and organizer who adeptly consolidated power. he transformed the soviet state from a backwater into the second greatest power in the world .

trotsky was also an idealist (probably moreso), but he was terrible at dealing with other people and would never have been as successful in making the soviet union a modern industrial nation that could compete with the west or win a world war

Stalin when Hitler betrayed him and stabbed him in the back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwSUJM2EyqE

furb posted...

Bad dude did something good so he could continue to be a bad dude. That makes him a bad dude.

Only replace bad with heinous.

even the good thing he did was in a fucked up way. the best thing he did was masterfully keeping war production going and ramping it up in a super impressive way. that said, he wasted countless lives taking control of battles in a hitler-esque way before he finally started trusting his generals. there were really capable soviet generals like zhukov who was world class, stalin could have been more efficient just letting them do what they knew how to do.

TheHorus posted...

Stalin when Hitler betrayed him and stabbed him in the back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwSUJM2EyqE

at first he didn't believe his own intelligence apparatus and basically just let the nazis roll through ukraine unimpeded and then he had a meltdown and isolated himself for a couple of days until he finally faced reality and decided to fight the nazi menace.

the soviets often don't get enough credit for ww2 from the west. they made tons of mistakes and wasted close to 30 million lives, maybe half of which were unnecessary, but without them throwing waves and generations of russians into the grinder the war would have been much worse and longer for the west

fascinating figure. struck the perfect balance between marxist-leninist true believer and cold hard political pragmatist, with horrifically catastrophic policy externalities, but arguably keeping the soviet state intact much longer than it otherwise would have lasted.

i think he probably wasn't AS BAD as they say, because of how cold war propaganda was. it's hard not to reevaluate people like him a little when every GOP chud calls anyone with a semblance of good policy ideas "left of Lenin"

Stalin apologism is pretty gross

uncle joe

In college I had a Russian history professor who grew up under Stalin. Conditions were not good. He and his relatives had to worry about being disappeared.

Doe posted...

i think he probably wasn't AS BAD as they say, because of how cold war propaganda was. it's hard not to reevaluate people like him a little when every GOP chud calls anyone with a semblance of good policy ideas "left of Lenin"

Good lord. This post is embarrassing.

He is responsible for the deaths of millions of people. His country literally went through a destalinization period after he died because of how bad his policies and cult of personality were.

TheMikh posted...

fascinating figure. struck the perfect balance between marxist-leninist true believer and cold hard political pragmatist, with horrifically catastrophic policy externalities, but arguably keeping the soviet state intact much longer than it otherwise would have lasted.

yeah, it easily could have crumbled under a less competent leader during the important formative years. stalin is basically the prototypical dictator. he made plenty of mistakes and had ridiculous levels of paranoia at times, but ultimately was about as competent as possible in establishing the bureaucratic state and setting up the soviet union to be a lasting world imperial power.

I don't really have one, he's not as easy to imitate as Trump or Hitler.

Dude kinda sucked

HylianFox posted...

I don't really have one, he's not as easy to imitate as Trump or Hitler.

Start with Lou Albano's Mario, nudge the accent towards ambiguously-russian, then end every sentence with "to gulag!"

You do not "got to hand it to" Josef Stalin.

Doe posted...

i think he probably wasn't AS BAD as they say, because of how cold war propaganda was. it's hard not to reevaluate people like him a little when every GOP chud calls anyone with a semblance of good policy ideas "left of Lenin"

there is plenty of western propaganda that labels him a bumbling idiot which is obviously not true. he was absolutely ruthless and evil though. he was a communist true believer and through that lens justified everything as a step towards an idealistic future. he was absolutely responsible for enslaving millions of 'collective farmers' and he was absolutely responsible for planned famines that killed millions, and this was before the war.

during ww2 stalin's organizational skills were the single biggest factor in the defeat of the nazi armies, but his willingness to sacrifice millions of soldiers and civilians without a care was a part of that too. he is every bit one of the biggest monsters in history, he just happened to share a timeline with hitler who was more overtly evil.

here's my impression:

"Look at me, im Stalin! Im a dumb commie who got a lot of people killed and has a stupid moustache!"

HylianFox posted...

I don't really have one, he's not as easy to imitate as Trump or Hitler.

he was much more competent than both of those guys. he killed millions like hitler, but other than eliminating his political rivals (which hitler also did) it wasn't necessarily out of malice, just detachment and in the pursuit of a goal. like hitler he was ideologically driven, and like hitler he didn't mind compromising his beliefs in the short term to achieve longterm goals, but when stalin killed millions it was more out of apathy than pure smoldering hatred.

I am begging you to stop this

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


this is not accurate. hitler killed 17 million noncombatants and another 7-11 million soldiers just on the russian side. when you factor in the western front you have several million more than that. ww2 had 55 million casualties with a conservative estimate and more than half were russian deaths with the majority of the rest being chinese deaths. hitler actually killed more than anyone except arguably mao

UnholyMudcrab posted...

I am begging you to stop this

what?

Its sad how many internet dwellers thing hes cool or some shit.

I don't think Stalin was a true believer, otherwise he wouldn't have needed to purge the actual true believers. He's a textbook example of a guy taking a cause that resonated with the people and converting it into a cult of personality. Willing to sacrifice any amount of people to maintain power and violently paranoid of anyone not perceived fully 100% onboard with the national agenda.

The Nazi thing isn't really a credit, he was perfectly fine working with them until they moronically attacked him, we don't praise gang members just for killing rival gang members.

i blame stalin for the deaths of russian soldiers during ww2. he thought he could do molotov-ribbentrop, and carve up eastern europe between him and hitler. then he didn't adequately prepare when there were unmistakable signs that hitler was about to do a little light backstabbing

andel posted...

except arguably mao

Mao is still the champion, yes.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/4/6/AAEhCpAAEys2.jpg

Inohira posted...

I don't think Stalin was a true believer, otherwise he wouldn't have needed to purge the actual true believers. He's a textbook example of a guy taking a cause that resonated with the people and converting it into a cult of personality. Willing to sacrifice any amount of people to maintain power and violently paranoid of anyone not perceived fully 100% onboard with the national agenda.

The Nazi thing isn't really a credit, he was perfectly fine working with them until they moronically attacked him, we don't praise gang members just for killing rival gang members.

he was absolutely a true believer and the secret archives proved this. for years people theorized that stalin just used the communist revolution to gain and hold power, but the secret archives becoming public has made it clear that he fully believed in his message. the internal conversations stalin had mirrored the communist propaganda of the time and modern historians all concede that he was ideologically motivated.

his attempts at collectivization further illustrate this point. he started killing and imprisoning other communist leaders around '29 through the early to mid 30s, but at that point he had already consolidated power and did that more out of paranoia than anything.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Mao is still the champion, yes.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/4/6/AAEhCpAAEys2.jpg

that obviously isn't accurate at all. hitler is responsible for 17 million deaths of only noncombatants. since he started ww2 in europe the number is actually much higher and all of hitlers deaths are intentional while most of stalins were more from negligence than intentional murder. stalin murdered millions, but the majority attributed to him in ukraine weren't deliberate murder and were more from bad policy at the local and national level. while stalin didn't care about those deaths it isn't exactly the same thing as intentionally setting out to murder them.

also 75 million number for mao isn't accurate. communist china is generally thought to be responsible for around 65 million deaths and most of those mao is responsible for, but equating deliberate murder to every death is disingenuous and serious historians make a distinction between the two.

One of the worst mass murderers in history-- my impression is that he was a horrible monster.

Damn_Underscore posted...

Good lord. This post is embarrassing.

He is responsible for the deaths of millions of people. His country literally went through a destalinization period after he died because of how bad his policies and cult of personality were.

This @Doe

yeah even the soviets denounced stalin after he died. some of that was to consolidate power, but much of it is because of how brutal stalin was.

i have been watching kotkin lectures on stalinist topics lately

andel posted...

yeah even the soviets denounced stalin after he died.

Dude got Juan Carlos'd before Juan Carlos did it.

industrialization made the soviets able to hold out against the nazis in ww2. certainly they could have industrialized without the millions of deaths caused by the stalinist policy, but his lack of concern about the civilians dying before and during the war made rapid industrialization and the wartime industry move faster than it would have in a non totalitarian state. i think if lenin or trotsky had been at the helm during all of the 20s-ww2 the soviets would have probably lost. neither were nearly as capable as stalin and both were also brutal authoritarian leaders that didn't mind murdering scores of people.

andel posted...

i think if lenin or trotsky had been at the helm during all of the 20s-ww2 the soviets would have probably lost.

All Russia has ever had to do on defense is go hide out somewhere and wait for winter. It's worked every time.

Questionmarktarius posted...

All Russia has ever had to do on defense is go hide out somewhere and wait for winter. It's worked every time.

becoming a modern industrial power was the biggest key for them. if they hadn't had modern tanks and planes they wouldn't have had any chance. industrialization in the soviet union cost millions of lives but it also gave them the opportunity to fight a modern war in ww2 which was crucial.

I don't think I do a very good Stalin, sorry.

Doe posted...

i think he probably wasn't AS BAD as they say, because of how cold war propaganda was. it's hard not to reevaluate people like him a little when every GOP chud calls anyone with a semblance of good policy ideas "left of Lenin"

You for real, bro?

He has a shop round here that sells handbags.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/0/6/AAfEiJAAEyi2.jpg

Glob posted...

He has a shop round here that sells handbags.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/0/6/AAfEiJAAEyi2.jpg

they only come in one style, brutalist design

It's hard to imagine how anyone might have a favorable opinion of Stalin

AloneIBreak posted...

It's hard to imagine how anyone might have a favorable opinion of Stalin

tankies are the only people i have come across that seem to like him

Lol post 11 is still up.

Stalin was about as awful as dictators get, but its hard to really call him a "communism true believer". He was more a believer in authoritarianism with him at the helm, and communism was the window dressing for that (There is even some evidence that he got his start as an informant for the Tsar's secret police.). Right-communism is generally a mess that leads directly to authoritarianism.