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.

  • mathemachristian [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    2·
    5 hours ago

    I guess my main question would be… If the Soviet Union was truly raising thinking, critical workers that would one day not become slaves, then how is it possible that immediately after its collapse, Russia became almost immediately a fascist state that indeed allowed only slaves and never masters to exist beyond its oligarchy?

    The soviet union was an absolute academic powerhouse, for instance they won every space-race except the first walk on the moon. Women were particularly empowered this video essay is really really good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnTlejH-WzQ

    The collapse of the USSR was a betrayal from the top orchestrated with western companies that gutted the former socialist republics. Women with PhD’s were suddenly not being hired anymore and many were forced into sex work in order to survive. They even held a referendum in the months prior to legitimize the dissolution but the vast majority of the population voted in favor of keeping communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum .