The image attached portrays the defence of Stalin as a waste of time at best, this is frankly charitable compared to most self proclaimed leftists who think the rehabilitation of Stalin is actively harmful towards our movement.
There are reasons as to why the rehabilitation of Stalin is indeed an important issue and not just some trivial thing that we must halt in order to gain a larger following.
The rehabilitation of Stalin's image is less about the rehabilitation of Stalin as a historical individual and more about defending and upholding Marxism.
Condemning or even refusing to uphold Stalin to at least some extent is equivalent to fighting our enemies on their terms. Why would we let our enemies decide who we should love and hate? There's no reason to allow the historical narrative that our enemies have constructed to be our historical narrative, that's just ideological surrender, may as well become a liberal at that point.
The total slander and demonization of Stalin's image is what leads most people into deviationist tendencies, tendencies which are totally harmless towards the bourgeoisie. It's only logical, if people believe Marxism-Leninism led to practically 1984 in real life, then why would they follow it?
Rather than keeping quiet about the USSR under Stalin, it is our duty to defend this period against the reactionary slander laid upon it. It was the first time in human history that mankind entered the socialist mode of production, and that's something to be cherished.
Stalin and Mao remain constant blockages for when I talk with my more soc-dem friends. Was with some comrades at the May Day rally in my city recently and my more soc-dem friend noticed one of them handing out pamphlets to a reading/analysis of On Contradiction by Mao, and they immediately brought up how "Mao killed millions and was a ruthless dictator etc etc etc" and in the moment we just kind of brushed it off because the speeches were starting - it makes me wanna scream sometimes.
For me it was as easy as distrusting the current system and understanding how deep the propaganda goes, alongside understanding the breadth and depth of actual history - but when trying to explain that all it took to radicalize me was simply reading accurate history to libs they look at me like I just did a Nazi salute.
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.
It makes me so frustrated sometimes, like people don't engage enough with history to understand the why. It's so much easier to simply say this thing bad and therefore all things attached to it bad.
I just want to shake them out of their placated stupor and make them understand that 1. An entirely new system of organized society is being tested and there will be mistakes and 2. Motherfuckers I know you hate were the ones fighting against it violently and sometimes can only be met with in kind. 😤
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.