Liberals: “Stalin was a brutal dictator!”
Liberals: “Stalin was a brutal dictator!”
If I believed in a god I'd ask them to save me from the baby communists who see a sickle and hammer on a flag and insist they must have represented utopia.
Hey, just a few thoughts I wanted to share in response to this:
First, citing the CIA to praise Stalin is… an odd move. Second, it's important to recognize that liberals and neoliberals aren't the same thing. The terms get conflated a lot, but they refer to different ideological frameworks, especially in terms of economics and state intervention. Neoliberalism is basically a rebranding of laissez-faire capitalism whereas liberalism favors more of a welfare-state capitalist system.
Third, I’d encourage reading the full context of the document in question. Here are a few excerpts that stood out:
There will not be a dramatic purge.
This might seem like a neutral observation, but it’s actually referring to a change after Stalin’s death. The implication is that dramatic purges did happen under him, and they’re noting that the new leadership wouldn’t continue that pattern.
Inasmuch as the MVD has already been cleaned up.
Again, this is post-Stalin. The MVD (Interior Ministry, which ran the secret police) being “cleaned up” suggests reform following abuses that were, again, tied to Stalin’s regime.
There is now no organized opposition inside the Party in the Soviet Union.
This kind of political consolidation didn’t happen in a vacuum. It reflects the legacy of Stalin’s crackdowns on dissent and internal opposition.
Since the death of Stalin and the blow which was given to the power of the secret police…
That’s a pretty direct reference to Stalin's reliance on the secret police to maintain control. Again, the document frames the aftermath of his death as a shift away from that.
No improvement in the food situation can be expected.
This points to long-standing issues in agricultural production and distribution under the USSR, including during Stalin’s time. Whether or not the shortages were intentional, they’re part of the broader legacy of how poorly the Soviet agricultural system was managed. They were pretty much just experimenting with ways to grow food while failing to produce enough for their own population. I'm all for agricultural research, but only after the people are fed.
In short, this isn’t a glowing report of Stalin’s achievements. It’s describing a system trying to recover from the kind of authoritarian control he enforced.
If you're interested in more critical perspectives from the time, I really recommend My Disillusionment in Russia and My Further Disillusionment in Russia by Emma Goldman. They were written in the early 1920s (just as Stalin was rising to power) and they offer a fascinating, firsthand account of someone who initially supported the revolution (Emma Goldman was an American anarchist exiled to Russia for her beliefs) but became deeply disillusioned with how it played out.
We really don't need to dig up dead guys to give them accolades. We can think of a better system that the USSR or USA.
We can think of a better system that the USSR or USA.
The USSR was literally the first time socialism has ever been tried. Of course we can improve upon and refine the socialism soviets came up with, using the obvious power of hindsight.
Socialism was never meant to be some static ideal truth dogma, and misrepresenting it that way is a strawman.
I also find it kind of weird to lump both like they are the same thing. The US is the bloodiest empire in the world by far.
We can think of a better system that the USSR or USA.
Not by listening to anarchists in the imperial core. If y'all can't be trusted not to sling mud at the guy under whose leadership the Nazis were stopped (and who repeatedly tried to stop them before they got as powerful as they did) then I don't trust y'all with anything else regarding politics.
In short, this isn’t a glowing report of Stalin’s achievements.
Of course it's not. It's an internal report by the CIA regarding the political situation in the USSR.
reflects the legacy of Stalin’s crackdowns on dissent and internal opposition
Oh no, if only they'd let CIA agents run amok in the name of freedom and democracy.
It's not an internal report, it's an unevaluated info, received by a source. Not some conclusion the CIA came to.
The constant onslaught of really bad boomer tier memes praising Stalin and the the CCP is really not helping to win over people to Lemmy.
feds aren't the target audience
100 gorillion dead stalin ribbentrop ate all the grain with his giant vuvuzela
Oh dang! Yellow, sir. I see what you did there, but in almond.
Did anyone think that Stalin's immediate subordinates were neutral bystanders?
No, they were thought to be oppressed yes-men, forced to keep clapping for their supreme leader because whoever stopped clapping first would be taken to the gulags.
Stalin 🤝 Trump
Being a dictator even though he has a team