Stalin

[Litwin]

Yes he slaughtered his own family with as much care free ruthlesness as he did tens of millions of innocent people

Not unusual for tyrants

Doesnt make a tyrant into a great leader or hero it makes them into a monster which all communists are

+1, ps Vasily Stalin, the son of Joseph Stalin, lived a life defined not by merit but by the extraordinary privileges that came with being the offspring of the Bolshevik dictator. His career, lifestyle, and protection from consequences all demonstrate how deeply insulated he was from the realities faced by ordinary Bolshevik slaves.

From childhood, Vasily enjoyed access to elite education, special housing, and a level of personal freedom unimaginable for anyone outside the ruling circle. While millions of Bolshevik slaves lived under rationing, repression, and fear, Vasily grew up surrounded by luxury, servants, and the constant attention of state security.

His military career is one of the clearest examples of inherited privilege. Vasily rose rapidly through the ranks of the Bolshevik Air Force, not because of exceptional skill, but because of his father’s name. He was promoted far beyond his competence, given command positions he was unprepared for, and shielded from accountability when his behavior caused problems. Reports from the era describe chronic alcoholism, reckless flying, and misuse of military resources — all tolerated because no one dared discipline Stalin’s son.

Vasily also enjoyed access to wealth and comforts unavailable to the public. He lived in lavish residences, kept racehorses, hosted extravagant parties, and moved through Moscow with the impunity of someone who knew the system existed to protect him. Even when his actions caused scandals, he was quietly relocated or covered for, rather than punished.

The most telling sign of his privilege is what happened after Stalin’s death. Only then — when the protective aura of his father vanished — did Vasily face consequences for years of misconduct. He was arrested, stripped of rank, and eventually exiled. His rapid fall from grace revealed how artificial his entire life had been: without his father’s power, he had no real standing, no achievements, and no allies.

Vasily Stalin’s life is therefore a textbook example of how Bolshevik elites lived above the rules they imposed on everyone else. His story exposes the hypocrisy of a regime that preached equality while creating a hereditary aristocracy of privilege, excess, and impunity.

 

[JimH52]

+1, ps Vasily Stalin, the son of Joseph Stalin, lived a life defined not by merit but by the extraordinary privileges that came with being the offspring of the Bolshevik dictator. His career, lifestyle, and protection from consequences all demonstrate how deeply insulated he was from the realities faced by ordinary Bolshevik slaves.

From childhood, Vasily enjoyed access to elite education, special housing, and a level of personal freedom unimaginable for anyone outside the ruling circle. While millions of Bolshevik slaves lived under rationing, repression, and fear, Vasily grew up surrounded by luxury, servants, and the constant attention of state security.

His military career is one of the clearest examples of inherited privilege. Vasily rose rapidly through the ranks of the Bolshevik Air Force, not because of exceptional skill, but because of his father’s name. He was promoted far beyond his competence, given command positions he was unprepared for, and shielded from accountability when his behavior caused problems. Reports from the era describe chronic alcoholism, reckless flying, and misuse of military resources — all tolerated because no one dared discipline Stalin’s son.

Vasily also enjoyed access to wealth and comforts unavailable to the public. He lived in lavish residences, kept racehorses, hosted extravagant parties, and moved through Moscow with the impunity of someone who knew the system existed to protect him. Even when his actions caused scandals, he was quietly relocated or covered for, rather than punished.

The most telling sign of his privilege is what happened after Stalin’s death. Only then — when the protective aura of his father vanished — did Vasily face consequences for years of misconduct. He was arrested, stripped of rank, and eventually exiled. His rapid fall from grace revealed how artificial his entire life had been: without his father’s power, he had no real standing, no achievements, and no allies.

Vasily Stalin’s life is therefore a textbook example of how Bolshevik elites lived above the rules they imposed on everyone else. His story exposes the hypocrisy of a regime that preached equality while creating a hereditary aristocracy of privilege, excess, and impunity.

Sounds really familiar,

 

[Litwin]

Sounds really familiar,

I dont think so . the US is not a Mongol ulus — it’s a democracy and a republic.

what do you know about qazaliq? Moscow ’s qazaliq — the invasions of Poland, Finland, Chechnya, Moldova, Georgia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Baltics, Ukraine, Kosava, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, etc. — serve to legitimize his claimed Mongol right to rule for the Mongol - Moscow imperialists. Each of these violent expeditions functions not only as conquest but as a ritual of political validation, echoing the old steppe tradition where raids established authority. Successful qazaliq does more than secure territory; it provides ideological justification for the existence of the Moscow empire itself. This is especially powerful in regions of Afro‑Asia where democracy is weak or absent, allowing Moscow to present itself as a rightful imperial center, sustained by force and myth rather than consent.

Tsarev ulus : Russia in the Golden Horde - Persée

"Moscow ulus has established an expansionist new imperialist state ideology with which it has brainwashed its soldiers, its children, its population. If Moscow ulus were to prevail in Ukraine, it would be tempted to go further."

–Radosław Sikorski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland

 

[Ringo]

 

[Ringo]

Most people’s idea of Joseph Stalin comes from two places that are supposed to be opposites but actually feed off each other: Khrushchev’s post-1956 line and Western anti-communist propaganda.

Khrushchev needed to tear down the previous leadership to legitimize his own power. The West needed one single villain who could stand in for socialism as a whole. Put together, you get a simple moral story with a cartoon bad guy. That’s why arguments about Stalin almost never go anywhere. People aren’t talking about evidence or context. They’re just repeating conclusions they inherited.

Two examples show how far reality is from the popular version.First, the Great Purge and the idea that Stalin personally controlled everything.The usual story is that the purges were just Stalin’s paranoia turned into policy, a reign of terror run by one man micromanaging arrests out of sheer madness. That assumes a level of centralized control that didn’t really exist in the 1930s Soviet Union.

This wasn’t a stable country. It was barely twenty years removed from civil war, foreign invasion, economic collapse, and constant internal sabotage. Party factionalism was real. Trotskyists, Bukharin’s supporters, and nationalist movements didn’t just vanish because someone said so. Even the Red Army depended heavily on former Tsarist officers, which was necessary but obviously risky.

When you look at archival material, repression often came from below, not as a clean order from the top. Regional party bosses and NKVD officials pushed arrests further, inflated accusations, and played with quotas to protect themselves or crush rivals. In a number of cases, Moscow stepped in to slow things down, remove local officials, or reduce operations once things were clearly spinning out of control. Stalin was central to the system, but not in some theatrical, mustache-twirling way. He looks less like a paranoid madman pulling random levers and more like a head of state trying to keep a fragile system together under enormous strain, with real fears of internal collapse and a major war on the horizon.

Second, famine, collectivization, and the limits of intent-based explanations.
The early 1930s famine is often presented as straightforward proof of intentional mass murder. That framing ignores both history and scale.

Famine didn’t start with Stalin. It was a regular feature of the Russian Empire, with massive death tolls long before 1917. What changed under Soviet rule was the attempt to tear up a centuries-old agrarian system in just a few years, while isolated internationally and racing to industrialize.

Collectivization was brutal, and in many places it was handled terribly. Local officials enforced grain requisitions rigidly and often blindly, without regard for actual conditions. But the famine wasn’t limited to one area and it didn’t follow clean ethnic lines. Kazakhstan was devastated. Large Russian regions suffered badly. Ukraine was hit extremely hard, but it wasn’t uniquely targeted.

Just as important, state behavior during the famine doesn’t match an extermination model. Relief efforts were introduced. Some internal movement restrictions were adjusted. None of this erases responsibility, but it strongly suggests that mass death was not the goal.

What you’re left with is a state trying to survive, industrialize, and defend its sovereignty under extreme pressure, making catastrophic mistakes, correcting some of them too late, and paying for it with an enormous human cost.

 

[Litwin]

 

[Soupnazi630]

Most people’s idea of Joseph Stalin comes from two places that are supposed to be opposites but actually feed off each other: Khrushchev’s post-1956 line and Western anti-communist propaganda.

Khrushchev needed to tear down the previous leadership to legitimize his own power. The West needed one single villain who could stand in for socialism as a whole. Put together, you get a simple moral story with a cartoon bad guy. That’s why arguments about Stalin almost never go anywhere. People aren’t talking about evidence or context. They’re just repeating conclusions they inherited.

Two examples show how far reality is from the popular version.First, the Great Purge and the idea that Stalin personally controlled everything.The usual story is that the purges were just Stalin’s paranoia turned into policy, a reign of terror run by one man micromanaging arrests out of sheer madness. That assumes a level of centralized control that didn’t really exist in the 1930s Soviet Union.

This wasn’t a stable country. It was barely twenty years removed from civil war, foreign invasion, economic collapse, and constant internal sabotage. Party factionalism was real. Trotskyists, Bukharin’s supporters, and nationalist movements didn’t just vanish because someone said so. Even the Red Army depended heavily on former Tsarist officers, which was necessary but obviously risky.

When you look at archival material, repression often came from below, not as a clean order from the top. Regional party bosses and NKVD officials pushed arrests further, inflated accusations, and played with quotas to protect themselves or crush rivals. In a number of cases, Moscow stepped in to slow things down, remove local officials, or reduce operations once things were clearly spinning out of control. Stalin was central to the system, but not in some theatrical, mustache-twirling way. He looks less like a paranoid madman pulling random levers and more like a head of state trying to keep a fragile system together under enormous strain, with real fears of internal collapse and a major war on the horizon.

Second, famine, collectivization, and the limits of intent-based explanations.
The early 1930s famine is often presented as straightforward proof of intentional mass murder. That framing ignores both history and scale.

Famine didn’t start with Stalin. It was a regular feature of the Russian Empire, with massive death tolls long before 1917. What changed under Soviet rule was the attempt to tear up a centuries-old agrarian system in just a few years, while isolated internationally and racing to industrialize.

Collectivization was brutal, and in many places it was handled terribly. Local officials enforced grain requisitions rigidly and often blindly, without regard for actual conditions. But the famine wasn’t limited to one area and it didn’t follow clean ethnic lines. Kazakhstan was devastated. Large Russian regions suffered badly. Ukraine was hit extremely hard, but it wasn’t uniquely targeted.

Just as important, state behavior during the famine doesn’t match an extermination model. Relief efforts were introduced. Some internal movement restrictions were adjusted. None of this erases responsibility, but it strongly suggests that mass death was not the goal.

What you’re left with is a state trying to survive, industrialize, and defend its sovereignty under extreme pressure, making catastrophic mistakes, correcting some of them too late, and paying for it with an enormous human cost.

Wrong

The propaganda is coming strictly and exclusively from you.

Stalin was a totalitarian dictator with absolute control, He was more murderous than Hitler and controlled every aspect of life in the USSR.

It was never de centralized MORON

Having Famine in the past does not excuse causing famine to kill millions as he did.

 

[Ringo]

Stalin was a totalitarian dictator with absolute control

Those who denounce Stalin constantly fall into the same trap:
In their denunciations, Stalin appears as an omnipotent deity, completely free in his actions.
In their view, the omnipotent Stalin can do whatever he wants on a whim.

Accordingly, these foolish people make claims against Stalin as if he were a deity: “Why, possessing absolute omnipotence, did Stalin not do great Good? So, if he didn't do this great Good, he was a villain!"”

The idea that “politics is the art of the possible,” that Stalin was a human being, not a deity, that his possibilities were limited by the specific historical situation, and that he did not have a “make everything good” button, does not occur to them.
But that was the kind of education poor bastards had, based on false propaganda.

 

[Soupnazi630]

Those who denounce Stalin constantly fall into the same trap:
In their denunciations, Stalin appears as an omnipotent deity, completely free in his actions.
In their view, the omnipotent Stalin can do whatever he wants on a whim.

Accordingly, these foolish people make claims against Stalin as if he were a deity: “Why, possessing absolute omnipotence, did Stalin not do great Good? So, if he didn't do this great Good, he was a villain!"”

The idea that “politics is the art of the possible,” that Stalin was a human being, not a deity, that his possibilities were limited by the specific historical situation, and that he did not have a “make everything good” button, does not occur to them.
But that was the kind of education poor bastards had, based on false propaganda.

Of course he was a villain which is why there is no such trap. He had that power and like all such men of power he abused it

 

[Ringo]

The authentic house where Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was born and raised in Gori, Georgia, is a rare example of historical real estate that has been preserved without distortion or reconstruction.

It should be noted that the room in this house was rented, then there will be government-owned “apartments” in theological schools, theological academies, and, of course, various prisons and places of exile, a multitude of clandestine underground apartments, and after the revolution - government housing, which, compared to the current real estate of even middle-income people, let alone oligarchs, looks extremely sparse and ascetic.

All these “Kremlin residences, dachas in Kuntsevo, and government facilities” did not belong to Stalin.
Conclusion: THE MOST POWERFUL MAN OF THE 20TH CENTURY NEVER OWNED ANY REAL ESTATE ANYWHERE.
And so, once again, let us admire and pay tribute to the Great Man of Little Means, who left behind a pipe, a worn-out overcoat, worn-out boots, and a mighty superpower with nuclear energy and the world's second-largest economy.

For comparison, here is an incomplete list of real estate owned by one of the “successful managers” of capitalist Russia, former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, which he owned as a private owner:
a 150-square-meter apartment in Moscow (worth 0.6 billion rubles),
a residence in Molodenovo—in fact, a country palace with a gigantic infrastructure,
a residence in Austria “reminiscent of a palace,” worth about 60 million euros,
an apiary in Medyn,
a plot of land in the Kaliningrad region covering about 5,000 hectares, with a stud farm.