Once again, this is an actual question; and I'm hoping to broaden my horizons and have a good conversation or two. I'm relatively new to commie subs, still trying to read political theory to figure out which one I like the most, so this might come off as uneducated. But why am I seeing so many positive posts about Stalin, followed by some comments that boil down to "Stalin was good, if you think he wasn't, that's just western propaganda" I'm thinking of the post that mentioned the 1921 Soviet Famine as a specific example.
I know that Stalin didn't create the famine, it was a byproduct of almost a decade of war, unrest, and a ton of other factors. But Stalin did do some bad shit. Things like sending 14 million people to gulags to work as slave labor, and killing millions more in his purges. I would argue that he used communism to become an authoritarian. Similar to how Putin is ruling now, stuffing ballot boxes, starting wars, and pushing propaganda. (I realize that we get pushed propaganda, too in the form of faux news, MSNBC, and most media outlets. I don't wish to have a discussion that boils down to "we do it too, you just don't see it")
I get what u are trying to say but its kinda hard to acknowledged your point when u say shit like the ""infamous" order 227" clearly there is a lot more western propaganda to unpack on your side, because there was nothing wrong with telling generals to stop retreating when conditions werent just right especially when u consider that at that point in time the nazi hoards controlled more territory than the USSR, no it was not an order to kill deserters there werent many to begin with since people knew what giving up to the nazis meant it was an order for generals to stop spreading fear and fucking around and while it included a provision for death as a punishment it was only ever used a handful of times and again against high ranking officers not common soldiers.
There were actual bad things done by the USSR's government while Stalin was in power some of them he could have been personally responsible for, like the exile of the Crimean tartars or the fact that relief efforts for the famine in Ukraine were carried out in secrete (and therefore were less effective) seemingly to save face. There is no need to invent reasons for critique. Rest assured we are all well aware of his flaws after all we had to read plenty of his history to debunk the made up flaws u fell for, we dont blindly like him, his flaws and mistakes (the real ones) just dont outweigh the good he did if u disagree thats fine its a line and its gotta be drawn somewhere, as long u know the facts its not wrong to draw that line such that his more bad than good. Either way im not gonna go tell a lib about how amazing Stalin was (tho i will certainly correct any misinformation) nor is anyone here trying to replicate the bad parts of the USSR during his time in power, we just think he did more good than bad and theres a lot of hate for him out there so someones gotta love him.