Okay so I was wondering why Stalin got the most flack of the Cold War propaganda, at least in my experience growing up in the U.S., He's the only Soviet Leader we were "taught" about. Sorry if this is dumb.

  • Star Wars Enjoyer @lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    3 years ago

    As a previous commenter said, Stalin was the last hardline ML to hold the position of premier. During and directly following WWII Stalin's opponents started distorting his memory, once Khrushchev took power following Stalin's death, he immediately started liberalizing the Union with revisionism. All of the premiers to follow weren't any better than Khrushchev and continued the process of "de-stalinization".

    When the red scare started in the west, Stalin was still the premier and the USSR was both actively and passively engaged in ML movements across the globe, he was the obvious target for anti-communist fear campaigns, so a lot of the earlier red scare rhetoric focused on distorting him, his power, and the history surrounding his rise to power. Much of that propaganda was lifted directly from the Nazis, who spent nearly a decade making stuff up about the USSR.

    So, it's a combination of following leaders being useless for anti-communist propaganda, and existing propaganda already being anti-Stalin.

    • CITRUS@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      3 years ago

      Thanks! Do, whatcha call em, western "leftists" knee-jerk into hating Stalin cause of their leftover liberalism prohibits them from learning past the propaganda? How can people realize that the rich aren't our friends and never trace it back to the Amerikkkan bourgeoisie atnd their Empire?

      • Star Wars Enjoyer @lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        3 years ago

        western """leftists""" are just too propagandized to see through the bullshit, while also often being too arrogant to accept that they're still being led astray on stuff after accepting that the rich have always lied about socialist movements.

        In my opinion, and based on what I've observed and experienced, every ML in the imperial core has to have a moment in their past where they learn about something the bourgeoisie lied about, and then everything clicks for them and they migrate into Marxism-Leninism. And I hope all of the losers who post anarchist memes on twitter, or get into pointless fights over long-dead politicians have their eye-opening moment.

        • Ice_wizzard12@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          3 years ago

          This right here, For me it was Allende in chile and the execution of Fred Hampton along with the demonization of the black panthers that turned me from on the fence into a ML