Many biographers have cited it, including Simon Montefiore is his book The Red Tsar, which was very well researched and shows Stalin as multi-faceted and charismatic, albeit deeply flawed.
The idea that Stalin was brutal is ridiculous.
Um, have you ever read a book about the man? The Great Purges between 1936-1938 and his policies towards the Soviet peasantry are just two examples of his ruthlessness.
Ummm excuse me?) I’ll have you know it’s at least as well sourced and unbiased as Sir Richard Empire III’s seminal works “Stalin: Inscrutable Asiatic Tyrant” and “Stalin, Hitler of the Caucasus”!!!
I’ll listen to 1 hour of the audiobook and come back lol.
Update 1: immediately admitted to be written from the perspective of “personality” lol. Simon did a fuckin tarot card reading on Stalin’s psychology to make this book
The great purges removed undesirable elements from the CPSU.
Undesirable from Stalin’s point of view, certainly.
You can’t name a single ill action taken towards Soviet peasants.Stalin brought them nothing but benefits
Hoo, boy. I would advise you to research how many people died during forced collectivization and how much death was caused by the confiscation of grain by the NKVD and the Red Army before you start making statements like that.
This theory is pretty roundly discredited in academia, though. The consensus view is that while there was a drought that lasted several years, the starvation that occured was exacerbated by the policies set by the Politburo, including:
Excessive quotas leading to the reduction in crop rotation and leaving land fallow, which in turn lead to weaker crop yields
The fall in livestock numbers following forced collectivization
Poor quality harvest resulting from an unsettled agriculture industry that resulted from political upheaval
So yes, nature itself was partly to blame but the refusal to deviate from the unrealistic goals set by the people in charge was the reason why the grain shortages and resulting famines were so much worse that they ought to have been.
You’ve missed out the main cause, which was a lack of oversight over figures that were being reported by the farms. They trusted the numbers they were being given which proved to be false reporting, which led to the incorrect quotas and crop rotation mistakes, which led to all the other mistakes.
This was a blunder that was corrected later (with extra third party checking of numbers). Solving it.
Keep in mind this was the very first time central planning had been applied to a task like this. The notion that the numbers reported would be wrong was not something anyone expected because there was no precedent to go on. All of these “incorrect policies” that you blame them for are a product of the incorrect figures that they had. Figures that were incorrect because kulaks were grain hoarding to sell for profit then reporting incorrect figures.
Are you telling me a group of men with an 1800s education didn’t have the most up to date agricultural science? Sounds like the fault of the people who educated them to me.
Asked and answered: I cited the specific book that referenced it, among others.
For the record, I am more than capable of recognizing the positive aspects of the USSR - I just don’t like the simple-minded good vs bad binary thinking that often plagues these discussions.
Edit: user I was replying to says they cited multiple sources. Just wanted to say they only cited one author - who’s more a story-teller than a historian - while handwaving about “many authors saying it’s true” without listing anyone. They completely rely on hearsay and vibes for evidence and not concrete source material for their worldview.
I’m probably less enthused about Stalin than your average Hexbear user. While I’ll fully recognize Stalin’s faults and harmful actions, what bugs me about liberal “Stalin bad” takes is a refusal to acknowledge the objectively impossible problems the USSR had to address in the 20s and 30s. With the peasants, for example, you can’t just let them continue on with small plots and wooden tools. You do that and eventually the cities starve, industrialization never happens, and the Nazis steamroll them back past the Urals (killing tens of millions in the process). The rollout of collectivization was a shit show but it’s not unreasonable for a socialist country to push for collective ownership of land.
Yours is the last comment I’ll reply to in this thread because of your nuanced response.
it’s not unreasonable for a socialist country to push for collective ownership of land"
Perhaps so, but the way the Soviets did it was brutal however you look at it. If it requires the deaths and incarceration of millions of innocent people, then the ends do not justify the means, in my book.
Also, it’s quite a stretch to cite Nazi Germany as a justification for the violence and rapidity that was employed, given that the process of land reclamation and forced collectivization had started many years before Hitler became a threat to the USSR.
Kotkin’s first volume on Stalin is a far better work that I’d recommend as far as biographies go. Kotkin is very obviously an anti-communist, but even a turbo Stalinite like Grover Furr finds few academic faults with that particular work. The other volumes are less stellar though.
There’s also the recently authorized re-translation of Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Demenico Losurdo which has a free PDF available. It offers insight on a perspective of Stalin that seeks to de-mythologize the “monster.”
As for Montefiore and authors of his ilk, I wouldn’t rely too much on narratives spun by pop history writers and journalists.
Many biographers have cited it, including Simon Montefiore is his book The Red Tsar, which was very well researched and shows Stalin as multi-faceted and charismatic, albeit deeply flawed.
Um, have you ever read a book about the man? The Great Purges between 1936-1938 and his policies towards the Soviet peasantry are just two examples of his ruthlessness.
I’m sure the book titled Red Tsar was a very even handed account
Ummm excuse me?) I’ll have you know it’s at least as well sourced and unbiased as Sir Richard Empire III’s seminal works “Stalin: Inscrutable Asiatic Tyrant” and “Stalin, Hitler of the Caucasus”!!!
It is. You should read it.
Unless you think that anything less than a glowing account of Stalin in unacceptable, of course.
The title is literally comparing him to a monarch. I do not think it will be even handed.
Read this
Wait for it
Even the CIA dispels the notion of Stalin having absolute power as ridiculous propaganda that they cooked up
I’ll listen to 1 hour of the audiobook and come back lol.
Update 1: immediately admitted to be written from the perspective of “personality” lol. Simon did a fuckin tarot card reading on Stalin’s psychology to make this book
deleted by creator
Post I made on what the hell “purging” meant in the Soviet Union
If anyone wants to do some light educational reading on the subject of Chiskas
Undesirable from Stalin’s point of view, certainly.
Hoo, boy. I would advise you to research how many people died during forced collectivization and how much death was caused by the confiscation of grain by the NKVD and the Red Army before you start making statements like that.
None. None was caused by this. The death was caused by the hoarding of it for profit. The confiscation was a response to that hoarding.
Hoarding for profit by the privileged farmers who had wage slaves while the peasants starved. (Just adding more context)
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
This theory is pretty roundly discredited in academia, though. The consensus view is that while there was a drought that lasted several years, the starvation that occured was exacerbated by the policies set by the Politburo, including:
Excessive quotas leading to the reduction in crop rotation and leaving land fallow, which in turn lead to weaker crop yields
The fall in livestock numbers following forced collectivization
Poor quality harvest resulting from an unsettled agriculture industry that resulted from political upheaval
So yes, nature itself was partly to blame but the refusal to deviate from the unrealistic goals set by the people in charge was the reason why the grain shortages and resulting famines were so much worse that they ought to have been.
You’ve missed out the main cause, which was a lack of oversight over figures that were being reported by the farms. They trusted the numbers they were being given which proved to be false reporting, which led to the incorrect quotas and crop rotation mistakes, which led to all the other mistakes.
This was a blunder that was corrected later (with extra third party checking of numbers). Solving it.
Keep in mind this was the very first time central planning had been applied to a task like this. The notion that the numbers reported would be wrong was not something anyone expected because there was no precedent to go on. All of these “incorrect policies” that you blame them for are a product of the incorrect figures that they had. Figures that were incorrect because kulaks were grain hoarding to sell for profit then reporting incorrect figures.
Are you telling me a group of men with an 1800s education didn’t have the most up to date agricultural science? Sounds like the fault of the people who educated them to me.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Asked and answered: I cited the specific book that referenced it, among others.
For the record, I am more than capable of recognizing the positive aspects of the USSR - I just don’t like the simple-minded good vs bad binary thinking that often plagues these discussions.
deleted by creator
You just waved a few titles around without actually citing evidence.
Evidence is when you type out directly the material you’re talking about, followed by the source you got it from, the page(s) and paragraph(s).
You want an example of what actual quality citations look like please take a brief moment to read through some of the citations in this post
Edit: user I was replying to says they cited multiple sources. Just wanted to say they only cited one author - who’s more a story-teller than a historian - while handwaving about “many authors saying it’s true” without listing anyone. They completely rely on hearsay and vibes for evidence and not concrete source material for their worldview.
Like what? You’re only saying negatives. Let’s get your positives.
That’s fair.
As for the pluses, I’d list:
Add in these next time.
deleted by creator
I don’t believe you’ve ever completed reading a book about any of these events, or even Soviet history in general honestly
Homie just shut up and take the L here
I’m probably less enthused about Stalin than your average Hexbear user. While I’ll fully recognize Stalin’s faults and harmful actions, what bugs me about liberal “Stalin bad” takes is a refusal to acknowledge the objectively impossible problems the USSR had to address in the 20s and 30s. With the peasants, for example, you can’t just let them continue on with small plots and wooden tools. You do that and eventually the cities starve, industrialization never happens, and the Nazis steamroll them back past the Urals (killing tens of millions in the process). The rollout of collectivization was a shit show but it’s not unreasonable for a socialist country to push for collective ownership of land.
Yours is the last comment I’ll reply to in this thread because of your nuanced response.
Perhaps so, but the way the Soviets did it was brutal however you look at it. If it requires the deaths and incarceration of millions of innocent people, then the ends do not justify the means, in my book.
Also, it’s quite a stretch to cite Nazi Germany as a justification for the violence and rapidity that was employed, given that the process of land reclamation and forced collectivization had started many years before Hitler became a threat to the USSR.
Kotkin’s first volume on Stalin is a far better work that I’d recommend as far as biographies go. Kotkin is very obviously an anti-communist, but even a turbo Stalinite like Grover Furr finds few academic faults with that particular work. The other volumes are less stellar though.
There’s also the recently authorized re-translation of Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Demenico Losurdo which has a free PDF available. It offers insight on a perspective of Stalin that seeks to de-mythologize the “monster.”
As for Montefiore and authors of his ilk, I wouldn’t rely too much on narratives spun by pop history writers and journalists.