I don't think I lied about anything. The questions is, essentially, how ought Stalin be viewed? Most takes on this rely on Nazi propaganda to equate Stalin to Hitler. In the context of that, Stalin is as worth defending as any other leader of the era. I would never argue that any politician from that era should be viewed uncritically. Stalin was a social reactionary, at least very directly about sexual and gender minorities; ok then, what now? Is the test that I accept that? Sure. But what's newsworthy about that? Find a leader that expressly wasn't reactionary about this at the time. I'm not trying to bait an argument, or argue in bad faith. I just don't see how that really comes into the conversation. If the goal is a better freer world, I'm pretty sure at the time most people would have a better shot at avoiding privation in the USSR once the food supply issues were sorted. Unless maybe it wasn't, in which case I'd be happy to be educated about it. Were gender and sexual minorities routinely denied access to basic work, housing, and or food? If they were then that's condemnable. The US built it's social programs under FDR at the expense of black people, but we don't have to fight against comparisons of FDR with Hitler.

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