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How to counter "Stalin bad" arguments? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

If the conversations are something that you want to continue having drill down on any one claim or criticism until you get an idea of what specifics she's using to feed her opinion.

"Stalin repressed people!" isn't the same thing as "Stalin repressed the Kulaks!" as far you being able to figure out what her critique is. You can do some historical research on who the Kulaks were, what was happening in the USSR at that time, what other means were attempted before Stalin rolled in the military, what the consequences would have possibly been if the USSR didn't do anything at all, etc.

If you have these conversations fairly frequently, you can hear her out one day, do some reading on other days, and when this type of conversation starts up again bring the topic back around to something she previously said but being more informed.

Unless its just a thing you two do (being antagonistic towards each other), you don't even have to set up the conversation as You vs Her. Move into the conversation by reminding her of the thing the talked about previously, it got you thinking about it, and you did some reading and you'd like to share what you've learned. Not going to change anybody's mind immediately but if they're listening to you and accepting the information, you might stop hearing that particular criticism being used in future conversations.