The idealized "Stalin committed no crimes" mentality is overreaching and a turn off, but beating the Nazis isn't the only good thing Stalin did, and pushing back on the narrative of "Stalin is just as bad as Hitler" is important.
I think the best approach is to couple Parenti's "compare the revolutionary generation with the generation that came before it" with "compare the USSR with like countries that existed at the same time."
The idealized "Stalin committed no crimes" mentality is overreaching and a turn off, but beating the Nazis isn't the only good thing Stalin did, and pushing back on the narrative of "Stalin is just as bad as Hitler" is important.
I think the best approach is to couple Parenti's "compare the revolutionary generation with the generation that came before it" with "compare the USSR with like countries that existed at the same time."