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What is your opinion of Joseph Stalin? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I believe in socialism, but I feel Stalin shouldn't be idolised due to things like the Gulag.

I would like more people to become socialist, but I feel not condemning Stalin doesn't help the cause.

I've tried to have a constructieve conversation about this, but I basically get angry comments calling me stupid for believing he did atrocious things.

That's not how you win someone over.

I struggle to believe the Gulag etc. Never happened, and if it happened I firmly believe Stalin should be condemned.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

If you don't directly challenge false, bourgeois narratives, then they are used as ammo against related subjects. "Stalin was a butcher of 100 million," if accepted, means the Soviet Union was a horrible failure as well. This means Socialism was a horrible failure in the Soviet Union. This cascading power of bourgeois narratives presents real radicalization.

Take another example. Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism. As a Marxist-Leninist, there is no avoiding Stalin when talking with liberals. Despite my belief that Marxism-Leninism is correct, I cannot avoid the topic of grappling with Stalin's existence.

As Marx said, "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."