I apologize that the picture posted isn't relevant to the post in any way whatsoever.
This is the first time I have ever been on an imageboard, I hope I'm not breaking any rules. Please tell me if I am, or simply am not using this site for its intended purpose.
I have been doing some casual googling about the atrocities supposedly commited under Stalin, and have come across 4 perspectives held by different people on the web:
1. The atrocities were commited with malicious intent; Stalin was an evil jerk 2. The atrocities were commited because Stalin was incompetent 3. The atrocities were committed out of necessity; there were no other choices available 4. The whole "atrocities" thing is all capitalist propaganda, Stalin never committed any atrocities
Which of these statements is the closest to reality?
Some things went wrong because Stalin fucked up (Yes there were things that Stalin did wrong), some other things were necessary, and some of these atrocities are fabricated and have no basis in reality.
I'd say that approximately 75% of these supposed atrocities are just capitalist propaganda. and the rest 25% falls under 2 and 3.
Blake Taylor
From the objective point of view, only two possibilities has any claim to reality: Number 2 and Number 3.
Except, number 2 should sound like
"The atrocities happened because of Stalin's choices, but other ways were possible that would lead to same solutions without the casualties"
For me, it's mostly number 3. Stalin had steep and difficult challenges and acted within information and situation available. Failing any would result in a catastrophe for Russia. Claiming that there was a better way is historic revisionism in this situation for the most part.
Dominic Diaz
Welcome, friend. Please don't put your email in the email field, that's optional & you should want to remain anonymous in this culture. But you're doing a good job though! You need to be more specific, otherwise we can't really help you. It needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, I don't think generalizations will really help here. For one, if you're talking about the "Holodomor", the supposed "Ukranian genocide", where Stalin supposedly killed a bunch of Ukranians for no reason, that's capitalist propaganda. In truth, weather conditions caused a serious drought over Russia and would lead to a mass famine, Stalin originally offered the Kulaks (farm-owners who were able to hire their own employees) a fixed price for the grain they had (to prevent price gouging), the Kulaks started burning grain & killing livestock in protest, so Stalin intervened and forcefully repossessed the grain to redistribute to the starving Russians, some of the Kulaks fought back in protest & were killed. Ukranian nationalists also jump the numbers up to unreasonable levels, "Stalin killed millions of Ukranians!"; in reality, the estimated total Kulaks killed was around ~30,000. I will attach a book to this post which will give you more info, click on the paperclip icon to download it (.pdf format)
If you're talking about the Gulags, those weren't "evil death camps where you work until you died", they were actually quite progressive & better than America's prison system: You were allowed 2 weeks of vacation a year, paid a living wage, recieved free healthcare, prisoners had their own democracy, and the maximum punishment for the most serious crime was only 10 years (many were released before even that). Link below will show you to references on them, including firsthand eyewitness accounts from prisoners and ex-convicts: espressostalinist.com/the-real-stalin-series/gulag/ (The scope of all the books and articles mentioned is too broad to include in this post, but the cited sources should take care of you if you wish to go further.)
And congratulations on doing your own independent research! Way to go!
Cooper Mitchell
some of the excesses: maybe 1 the great purge, persecution of religious people, etc.: 2 kulaks who died because they were dumb enough to kill their own livestock: i guess 3 the idea that Stalin intentionally genocided ukrainians: 4
Owen Foster
Also don't worry about what pic you post, if you browse the catalog you'll see yours is more relevant to the topic than the random shit most people pick
Christopher Campbell
Dropping some PDFs that i haven't read yet, but that i've frequently seen people quote
