The point, as he makes it in his books, is that western historiography of the Soviet Union has a deeply embedded anti-Stalin paradigm. Every discussion of the USSR from 1930-1950 is nothing more than "Stalin bad", ignoring the entire actual history in favor of fabricating outright lies about one person. He specifically defends Stalin, in books that don't claim to be more than a defence of Stalin, because it's Stalin who is under attack and who is the only point on which western academia will engage with the USSR. Debunking the idea that Stalin was a lone omnipotent tyrannical figure - and the extrapolation by bourgeoise historians that communism inevitably becomes a dictatorship of such a figure - is a huge part of that. He even says he would never call himself a Stalinist, not least because Stalin wouldn't have wanted people to call themselves Stalinists!
The point, as he makes it in his books, is that western historiography of the Soviet Union has a deeply embedded anti-Stalin paradigm. Every discussion of the USSR from 1930-1950 is nothing more than "Stalin bad", ignoring the entire actual history in favor of fabricating outright lies about one person. He specifically defends Stalin, in books that don't claim to be more than a defence of Stalin, because it's Stalin who is under attack and who is the only point on which western academia will engage with the USSR. Debunking the idea that Stalin was a lone omnipotent tyrannical figure - and the extrapolation by bourgeoise historians that communism inevitably becomes a dictatorship of such a figure - is a huge part of that. He even says he would never call himself a Stalinist, not least because Stalin wouldn't have wanted people to call themselves Stalinists!