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YSK that Joseph Stalin created the Great Terror. He started killing people randomly including artists, generals, doctors, scientists, government officials. Everyone was terrified. (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Valnao@sh.itjust.works to c/youshouldknow@lemmy.world
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Joseph Stalin was a communist leader inspired by Leon Trotsky

Trotsky was a communist revolutionary and intellectual. He once wrote "In politics, obtaining power and maintaining power justifies anything" in his book "Leur morale et la nôtre"*

In this book, Trotsky justifies the use of lies, infiltration of other political parties, smearing, even hostage taking. He says absolute ruthlesness is necessary to overthrow a hostile system and wield power. He concludes "We are acting for the greater good. We can't be restrained by normal morality".

Joseph Stalin took Trotsky's advice literally. So he murdered Trotsky because he saw him as rival. Stalin also started killing people because he believed they could be sympathetic to capitalism or opponents to his power.

Matvei Bronstein: Theorical physicist. Pioneer of quantum gravity. Arrested, accused of fictional “terroristic” activity and shot in 1938

Lev Shubnikov: Experimental physicist. Accused on false charges. Executed

Adrian Piotrovsky: Russian dramaturge. Accused on false charges of treason. Executed.

Nikolai Bukharin: Leader of the Communist revolution. Member of the Politburo. Falsely accused of treason. Executed.

General Alexander Egorov: Marshal of the Soviet Union. Commander of the Red Army Southern Front. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Arrested, accused on false charges, executed.

General Mikhail Tukhachevsky: Supreme Marshal of the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the Red Napoleon. Arrested, accused on fake charges. Executed.

Grigory Zinoviev:: Communist intellectual. Chairman of the Communist International Movement. Member of the Soviet Politburo. Accused of treason and executed.

Even the secret police themselves were not safe:

Genrikh Yagoda : Right-hand of Joseph Stalin. Head of the NKD Secret Police. He spied on everyone and jailed thousands of innocents. Arrested and executed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda

Nikolai Yezhov : Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the killing of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges. Also executed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov

Everybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 500 000 people were murdered. Over 1 million people were deported to Gulags, secret prisons in Siberia, where they worked 12 hours a day.

Joseph Stalin decided to crush Ukraine for resisting communism and supporting independance. In 1933, he seized all Ukraine's food. In the next months, 5 million Ukrainians were starved to death. The situation was so bad that thousands of Ukrainians turned to cannibalism. When Nazis invaded Ukraine, some Ukrainians thought they were saviors

https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor

https://www.history.com/articles/ukrainian-famine-stalin

Hitler was a monster, but we really don't talk enough about how bad Stalin was.

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[-] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 17 points 2 weeks ago

All my life I’ve seen Stalin listed with people like Hitler and Pol Pot as murderous despots. How the hell are we “not talking enough about how bad he was?”

[-] Zagorath@aussie.zone 15 points 2 weeks ago

We're on Lemmy. A not insignificant percentage of the crowd are tankies.

[-] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 weeks ago

the thing I love about tankies is they hate the US as much as I do 🥰

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[-] davel@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

All your life you’ve lived under capitalism and have been exposed to anti-communist propaganda, because to date communism has been the only successful alternative to capitalism.

Somehow OP thinks that a lifetime of anti-communism isn’t enough anti-communism.

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[-] yucandu@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

I live in Canada, the general vibe we get through our culture and education is that Hitler was #1 worst guy in history, everyone else was a close second.

[-] VinegarChunks@lemmus.org 2 points 2 weeks ago

I had probably 10 times as many educational hours dedicated to Hitler and the Holocaust as I did learning about Stalin.

[-] 3abas@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Israel weaponized the Holocaust and drilled two falsehoods into everyone's head:

  1. Jews were the only victims.
  2. The Holocaust is a special genocide that hasn't happened before or since, is the worst crime in recorded history, and no one should dare question that.

This allows them to genocide Palestinians while calling everyone who questions their ethno supremacist expansionist colonial project a Nazi.

6 million Jews were murdered, out of 17 million victims.

Genocide of Indigenous Americans (1492–1832): it is estimated that 90% of the indigenous population, amounting to over 55 million people, died due to violence, forced labor, and disease after European colonization.

Mao Zedong (China, 1958–1961/1966–1969): Historians estimate that between 30-70 million people died due to famine, persecution, and forced labor during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Mongol Conquests (13th Century): Under Genghis Khan, it is estimated that 30-60 million people were killed, representing about 10% of the world's population at the time.

To name a few... Hitler was a monster, but he was hardly the worst monster.

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[-] OilyArena@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 weeks ago

Is this post satire?

"Stalin was a communist leader inspired by Leon Trotsky"??? The two were massive rivals with completely different ideologies.

[-] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I can hear the Hexbear slop community furiously masturbating at thought of ripping this post to shreds.

As they should, with factual errors this fucking baby-brained

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[-] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago

Hitler was a monster, but we really don't talk enough about how bad Stalin was

Not only is The Double Genocide Theory a form of soft Holocaust denial, it's deeply comical to claim "we don't talk enough about how bad Stalin was". Yes we fucking do??? American popular code culture has been built on anti-Communism for decades!

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[-] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 weeks ago

I swear this exact post was made a while ago here

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[-] Dojan@pawb.social 5 points 2 weeks ago

"In politics, obtaining power and maintaining power justifies anything"

I mean if that doesn't sum up most big name politicians I don't know what does.

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[-] Allero@lemmy.today 4 points 2 weeks ago

Everybody was terrified

Not really. Many thought the charges are real, and that Stalin led them to a great future with an iron fist, that's all. The problem was, there really was no due process involved, so many of those thinking it won't affect them were indeed affected. My great grandfather has made some enemies at work, so they reported him on false accusations. The "investigation" was brief, he was arrested, never to be seen again. This was a shock to the family, who never expected to get into this, being law-abiding citizens.

Stalin decided to crush Ukraine

Also known as Holodomor, this topic is highly contentious among historians. There is no definitive proof that this was intentional and not a massive failure on the side of early Soviet logistics, which was a mess at the time, plagued with dishonest reporting, high latency, and other systemic issues. Still, this did lead to a massive famine killing millions, so it's not to be taken lightly.

Stalin is indeed a highly contentious figure, and a lot of what he did has led to grave consequences. But it makes sense to set the record straight.

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[-] lemonhat75@lemmy.today 4 points 2 weeks ago

That's why I'm a capitalist, who famously have never killed anyone for being a communist

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[-] chloroken@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

Fascist slop. Disregarded.

[-] ChadGPT2@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Are you saying the facts are wrong?

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[-] Gork@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 weeks ago

Do people actually defend Stalin still?

[-] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

It's more that some people don't actively condemn him to the satisfaction of others.

The USSR under Stalin defeated Nazi Germany. Idle denunciation of Stalin in 2026 is the classic and most trusted pivot for (crypto)fascists to focus on when cornered or feeling insecure.

That's the primary scenario that people are accused of 'defending Stalin'. There's always a nazi all too willing to spearhead this conversation, 70 years on after his death. Usually can't even bring up Khrushchev and De-Stalinization usually since it's not focusing on Stalin enough.

[-] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I've spent time with a Marxist-Leninist who worshiped Stalin, thought Stalin was a great Marxist theorist, and he also was very fond of North Korea. While I'm not saying you're wrong, I do wonder what you make of someone in a leftist space who was so enthusiastic about Stalin without being prompted to defend him by fascists?

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[-] qyron@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago

Just this morning, I was looking at a tv screen when it was announced a new study had concluded nearly 68% of russians still lament the disband of the soviet union.

Propaganda as it is, even if we cut those numbers by two thirds, it's still too many people longing by one of the most brutal totalitarian regimes that has ever existed.

As a side note: I worked for some time with a company that imported machinery from Ukraine and Belarus, in the 2000's, and I saw the amount of graffiti with USSR simbology that was plastered on the crates. Some people don't allow it to just shrivel and die silently.

This isn't to say the USSR did not created good things.

I worked with a fellow from Romania and he was appalled with how bad by comparison my country's public health care system was.

But the numbers tally a grimm story of the USSR and the wrongs vastly outnumber the rights.

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[-] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Honestly, the guy was a real jerk.

[-] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 1 points 2 weeks ago

the more I read about this Hitler guy the more I don't like him

[-] siipale@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 weeks ago

I'm sick of these kind of characters. I think we should kill Hitler.

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[-] jimmy90@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

party foul!

[-] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

Joseph Stalin was a communist leader inspired by Leon Trotsky

Obvious factual error in the first sentence. Sigh. They don't make nazis like they used to.

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[-] Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Guys DAE umm...... Stalin killed a gorrillion people I know this because my 5th grade teacher told me in history class. And that's why communism is really bad

THE END /s

Did we finish animal farm today and the teacher told you the Pig = Stalin?

[-] Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 weeks ago

Nah, Communism is bad because it is as much of a fairy tale as a free market. For exactly the same reasons.

Bad people ruin things for everybody. Whether they are head of state or head of corporations doesn't change much as long as they have power.

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this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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