That's absolutely right. Without Stalin, Hitler would have kept going far longer than he did. Things would have been much worse.

Do you have any resources that you would recommend on the Stalinist vs Trotskyist issue and/or scholarly resources on the history of the USSR? I don't see anything in your course/advanced course and it seems to be a reoccurring debate.

The only rational response to someone actively trying to kill you is to take them out in self-defense. Holding on to values of non-violence will serve you ill, if they want to kill you for your other values.

It's becoming my latest obsession honestly - understanding how to communicate the fact that history isn't just one sided, and that people then acted as they do now: with limited info and hundreds of complications that need to be taken into account; that history isn't some flat chain of events but actually a huge yarn ball of cause and effect and that yes, sometimes things devolved into unnecessary chaos and gasp even necessary violence.

Some ideas to demonstrate that point about history having two sides:

1. Frame something current and relevant as uncharitably/dishonesty as they do to Communist history. Maybe something that puts them in poor framing. Ask them to imagine a future book about US history, and it's taught that all us voters voted for global imperialism and actively supported third world exploitation. It's funny because it's honestly not untrue but since it's relevant to them, they'll be eager to explain why that's not the case. And you can hit them with the same dismissive excuses they use.
2. You could compare America's retelling of history as the equivalent of Fox New's coverage. They're smart enough to see the bias of that, perhaps even other news networks but they can't see the bias seen in how we retell history? Demonstrating that framing and retelling of history is inherently biased by the writer could work. Do they trust the US government at their word? If not, why would they reserve that trust ONLY for world history? If they don't trust the US, then what was the red scare really about?
3. Personally, the biggest example that made me distrust every Western narrative of its enemies was learning of all of the US interventions in progressive elections and governments around the world. The US doesn't just target socialist developments, they target progressive developments broadly. I think framing it that way demonstrates that the US is an enemy of progress in general, which makes you wonder why they are so aggressive against communism. If the US stops progressive developments abroad, why would they have an honest telling of history of those and related nations?

By comparison, China avoided making the same mistake, even though, arguably, Mao made just as many or even more (or more severe) mistakes than Stalin ever did.

Though they always get painted as two sides of the same coin, their conditions were so different. Yes, they were huge socialist revolutions embroiled in history's deadliest war, but aside from that they had little in common. Mao had to fill the roles of both Lenin and Stalin, in a way - building the party, theorizing and leading the revolutionary period, winning WWII, guiding industrialization, crushing counterrevolution, advancing socialist construction, overseeing a disastrous but final famine, etc.

Mao both progressed socialism more rapidly and aggressively than Stalin while also sowing more chaos and eventual revisionism that would lead to the strategic retreat of Deng.

Yeah, some ultras like to compare Khrushev and Deng as if they were both revisionists that betrayed socialism, but as far as I know, Deng never denounced Mao and "Maoism" to betray socialism (at least not to the same extent that Khrushev did for Stalin), so the comparison does not work.

"revolution" is just their moralist reframing of fucking around with their friends

99% of adventurists quit right before they achieve proletarian revolution

Narodniks actually did a lot of agitprop too.

the communists discussing Stalin have managed mass production of tanks meanwhile the anarchists are still sitting on the ground (presumably because they didn't find anybody who likes building 100 chairs in their spare time). MLism undefeated 😎

In my experience, you gotta acknowledge the errors first - the purges spiraled far out of control, forced resettlement and sedentization of nomadic nations was unjustifiable, power was too centralized in the party at certain periods, etc etc. If you can't do that, you don't just look like a loon, but you're not learning the full lessons our revolutionary predecessors fought to uncover for us. That leads right into the next step: our goal is to build on successes while avoiding the errors of our ideological precursors.

You have to convince the person in front of you that any evaluation must account for the full complexity of the situation. Refute idealistic notions of an absolute essence that claims every course of action undertaken in the USSR (or whatever project you're discussing) inseperable. You'll hear people say "the USSR was evil because it killed ten million Ukrainians" or whatever and use that to discount elements of the socialist project that can be separated out. I like to isolate in particular the value of the planned economy in producing positive gains for the workers and peasants. What about that necessitates the violent excesses of the USSR? Yes, the USSR did things wrong, but it quite clearly did many things right, and those are the parts we want to draw on productively. Demonstrate the poverty reduction, universal housing and healthcare, scientific and ecological advancement, women's rights, etc. Challenge them to think how we could recreate the systems that produced those successes without repeating the failures.

From there, you could take a few different approaches based on the person's general vibe.

With a lib, the focus is on demonstrating just how bad the US is in contrast. You could talk about imperialism, but they probably won't understand it. Instead I'd start by discussing economic degradation in the US and contrast it with China. China perfectly demonstrates a more 'moderate' socialism than the USSR, and the take on it among libs is improving (Redditors don't count as human in this discussion). Why could we not emulate the 'birdcage economy' in the US? What actually prevents us from nationalizing ~50% of the economy, focused on the commanding heights, and what could we achieve if we were able to do that?

With an anarchist, I talk about Venezuela. Discuss how Venezuela draws on the successes and failures of 20th century state socialism, applies those lessons to their context, and keeps the revolution dynamic. First they tried ML-style SOEs, but that hit its limits in expanding socialism throughout society even if it secured large material gains. Then they expanded to a cooperative Yugoslavia style system, but it stalled out by recreating a lot of the basic contradictions of capitalism. Both of those elements were retained, but the real advancement that anarchists should vibe with is the centrality of the communal project. After the intensification of the sanctions regime under Trump 1, the Venezuelan state responded by prioritizing the construction of true communes: self-governing units built from the bottom up, not imposed or structured by the state. The state dedicates substantial economic and coordinating resources to help the communes develop, build a communal network, and progress towards a 'communal state' that can fully replace the existing state and advance towards communism. Under an ML state that applies these lessons, anarchists have the choice of either struggling against the revolutionary state or struggling against private property with state support. They could dedicate their lives to the construction of fully horizontal democratic communes with state funding. Would that not be a massive improvement over what they are able to achieve under capitalism?

That's one of the reasons I recommend Blackshirts and Reds. Not because it's the best analysis on everything, but because it makes a point of differentiating between real communists and people who took advantage of working class energy to do something else (the fascists). It validates the idea that there is such a thing as real deception in working class movements, while also going into detail on those who weren't frauds, who really did make a difference on a revolutionary level.

I notice a peculiar phenomena where some leftists will agree with base and superstructure theory as well as nod along at the quote "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas" but for some reason they don't consistently apply them.

Needless to say, the dominant press is the bourgeois press. The dominant historiography is bourgeois historiography. Hell, even the dominant Marxism is an impotent bourgeois Marxism.

Some leftist want to look 'reasonable', but in this epoch it's a choice between being right and looking 'reasonable'. Demanding an end to private property is not 'reasonable', calling to armed struggle against the ruling class is not 'reasonable', wanting more than concessions is not 'reasonable'; any true Marxist will not ever be 'reasonable' in the eyes of the dominant ideology.