Is Stalin worth reading?

stop this

Very important point.

More accurate imo: Lenin=Robespierre, Stalin=Napoleon

to say it with Stalins words
Historical parallels are always risky. There is no sense in this one.

Honestly, no.

- Foundations of Leninism (1939)

Not really.

You missed out on Stalin:
1) saying that both Trot version (Socialism is impossible) and Bukharin's version (complete Socialism is possible/already achieved) are wrong.
2) admitting that peasantry is not Proletariat, and does not actually participate in Communist mode of production (i.e. not functioning in Socialist manner); nevertheless it is asserted that such a country will be Socialist.
3) explaining why there is a necessity to expand Socialism.

That's what Stalin's defenders thought about Trotsky, who was a war leader after all.

but the paragraph I cited doesn't mention any of that and explain about it, it would've been better just to write a single sentence and then maybe follow it up with the rest of the stuff you mentioned, which is what I was getting at.

The paragraph I cited, this is what we call "padding" and its a staple of college papers: it's needlessly filling up page space in an effort to seem smarter than it actually is, and in college, its used to meet arbitrary word count/page requirements, when you basically already ran out of everything to say. I've been to college, people do this all the time.

He was a dictator who genuinely believed in socialism, but also that it could only be achieved through harsh means. In doing so he made both great achievements as well as. mistakes that in the long term damaged the Soviet Union and the socialist cause. However these mistakes weren't necessarily his fault since he was acting according to the conditions at hand, not what may happen 40 years down the line.

It does.

> After consolidating its power and taking the peasantry in tow, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build up a socialist society.

> For this [complete and final victory of socialism, i.e., … consolidate socialism and fully guarantee that country against intervention and, consequently, also against restoration] the victory of the revolution in at least several countries is needed. Therefore the development and support of revolution in other countries is an essential task of the victorious revolution.

Every single nation that is not allied with US is a tyranny in need of liberation via carpet bombing.