Something I’ve noticed about how bourgeois historians treat Stalin is how they always assume the worst motives without any basis other than he must have always had the worst motives. I’m not talking about the hardcore “Stalin was a totalitarian monster” types, I mean the historians who actually try to be reasonable and even-handed. But even they just assume yeah, Stalin must’ve orchestrated all that. And they have no basis for that assumption, other than just “we have to assume the worst about Stalin at all times because he’s Stalin”.