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.
one really obvious thing would make it ok is if they were in fact not actually innocent.
if they were hoarding food or something would you have been told about that?
So for you someone's life is worth a "bag of food" I'm not sure what you're saying here? There was no food and the hardship was great for a lot of people.
I live through some of it. I'm in my 60s. I didn't live through Stalin but the times after him weren't that great either. I lived in Ukraine and Poland.
where the fuck did you get that from?
That's why I'm asking for clarification. Because you damn well better believe that I'd do everything in my power to make sure my family is not starving and if someone came and murdered my family for doing that, that's fucking cold blooded.
hoarding isn't a solution to shortage, it creates shortage ya kulak
That's a question I'd direct to your ancestors if they were hoarding food during a famine to price-gouge the poorer peasantry.
Of course, that's just one possibility, but we know people were killed for that reason and we don't have even the slightest evidence people were killed by the CC for "being Jewish" during that period, so if you can't produce any better historical evidence, the default is probably that they were twisting the knife on famine victims and don't need tears shed for them.
No they were poor miners and factory workers.
Then the question comes back to what they were actually charged with.
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Hold on, I thought they were forced to do prison labor because they were Jewish, not for “Bourgeois nationalism.” Granted there was no charge for being Jewish in the USSR, then again where does this certainty come from?
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“Read up on that” like you actually wrote anything worthwhile. I haven’t seen any real evidence that “bourgeois nationalism” is as a rule a cover charge, especially since it is a real thing?
I'm honestly not trying to be disrespectful to your family members, especially if they managed to miraculously survive Auschwitz, but have you honestly considered and acknowledged to yourself that maybe they were detained for being anti-communist pro-bourgeois
capitalistsreactionaries?I'm not saying it's impossible for some forms of antisemitism to exist in USSR, it wasn't perfect nor was it populated by perfect people, but there wasn't an antisemitic genocide there like in Nazi Germany and this kinda sounds like it was actually about something else entirely.
Apparently some were sentenced to forced prison labor despite not even being accused of anything specific, much less charged (can't find any cases of this)? The liquidation of Jewish people from positions of authority is one thing to accuse the USSR of (despite numerous examples showing this was not done across the board), but the idea that ordinary people ("poor miners and factory workers") were sent to do compulsory labor for being Jewish/Ukrainian is even more strange considering how poorly this alleged goal was carried out.