Me and my girlfriend pretty often have heated but respectful political discussions and recently we were discussing Stalin. She thinks that he was awful, mainly because of repressions, cult of personality etc.
When I say that repressions were actually good and Stalin didn't kill enough fuckers, she gets a little angry, but I can't seem to explain my position in great detail because of lack of knowledge.
In the case of the cult of personality, I say that Stalin WAS loved by the majority of soviet citizens because he did a shit ton of good for them, but she still doesn't quite get it.
What arguments would you suggest to use, or maybe something to read in order to deepen my knowledge on the topic?
Domenico Losurdo "Stalin: History and critique of a black legend" is the best book on the topic.
Early USSR was in a permanent state of emergency due to several factors like the backwardness it was found, devastated by war, foreign powers invaded, counterrevolution threats, and the rise of fascism in the west.
Losurdo builds on this foundation for his defense of Stalin, compares his policies to those of the "free" west (these would be called whataboutism by liberals) and, what makes his book special, it exclusively uses anti-communist sources to contradict these narratives.
In the book you will find even quotes of Hitler struggling to comprehend how these primitive people managed to develop, Goebbels accepting that they underestimated their material development, Goebbels enjoying using trotsky to cause unrest, different western leaders praising Stalin prowess, etc...
It's always an uphill battle because people are way too conquered ideologically, but what i always point out is that the USSR under his leadership defeated Nazi Germany and that is something they cannot take away from him.
Would these western leftists have praised Stalin if he didn't push for rapid industrialization and forced collectivization, and ultimately lead to the USSR being enslaved by Nazi Germany?
Yes. The western left loves the communists who were crushed.
You would hear "Stalin would have built a much better nation than Mao did." Just like you hear about Trotsky.
I tried pointing that out to a family member and guess what - they did just take it away from Stalin by repeating the same tired bullshit that the USSR wouldn't have lasted without western help and so it was the western allies that really beat the nazis. Which is factually wrong and implies Soviet lives were worthless (could US guns shoot on their own?), but that's what you get when arguing with racists
But even for less reactionary people, defending Stalin is the final boss of deprogramming them