this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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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 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days 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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[–] OilyArena@lemmy.ml 82 points 6 days ago (5 children)

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 47 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days 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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[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 41 points 6 days ago (9 children)

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.

[–] ActualCommunistLearning@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Literally what I was thinking. Trotsky indirectly (but still probably intentionally) catching strays lol

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[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 50 points 6 days ago (11 children)

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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[–] Allero@lemmy.today 17 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

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. Besides, history should serve us as an advisor, and not as an ideological battlefield.

[–] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

You’re right that there is no evidence that the “Holodomor” was a genocide, while there is plenty of evidence that the guy who coined the term had Nazi affiliations and was specifically looking to smear communism.

It’s still possible to blame Moscow for the famine. After all, they were in charge. But you also have to acknowledge that it was the last famine Ukraine experienced, in a long long history of cyclical famine. Meanwhile, under capitalism we still have famine in places in Africa because it’s not profitable to feed poor people.

The history of communism is a history full of mistakes with the occasional bad actor. However, compare that to the history of capitalism, which is a history full of bad actors occasionally making mistakes that let the good guys get a win.

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I swear this exact post was made a while ago here

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[–] dellish@lemmy.world 13 points 6 days ago (6 children)

And now for those who haven't seen it, or haven't seen it for a while, go and watch The Death Of Stalin. Brilliant relatively truthful satire of the events preceding and after the event.

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[–] Dojan@pawb.social 16 points 6 days ago (8 children)

"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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[–] chloroken@lemmy.ml 13 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Fascist slop. Disregarded.

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[–] Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago (4 children)

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?

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[–] manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml 9 points 6 days ago (4 children)

To place Russian communism and Nazi-fascism on the same moral plane, in that both would be totalitarian, is superficial at best, fascism at worst.

Whoever insists on this equation may well consider himself a democrat, in truth and in the bottom of his heart he is in fact already a fascist, and certainly only in a hypocritical and insincere way will he fight fascism, while reserving all his hatred for communism.

  • Thomas Mann

Quote is from this book https://www.iskrabooks.org/books/p/losurdo-stalin-history-and-critique

[–] DigitalAudio@sopuli.xyz 18 points 6 days ago (3 children)

What is the reasoning behind that conclusion? I can see how comparing the two simply because they're totalitarian would be superficial (there are many structural differences between both). And to me, what the Nazis did, the rhetoric they used and their rise to power has always felt much more ominous and foreboding than even Stalin's.

But I can't put it into words and I see no real reason why Stalin's crimes and death camps would in any way be less evil than the Nazis'. To me it feels like Nazis went beyond just political power straight into core beliefs and ideology, whereas Stalin's crimes were just your typical tyrant authoritarian maneuvering, but I don't know if that really makes an ethical difference.

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[–] greygore@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

providing an essential academic counter-narrative to the rampant demonization of one of fascism's most ardent enemies.

That seems awfully generous for a man that signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and only became an ardent enemy of the Nazi’s after they backstabbed him. I don’t have the time to energy to dive deeper before saying this sounds like one hell of an apologist for one of history’s most evil authoritarians and I have no desire to engage with it further. This man did not care for his comrades and anyone that equates him with any form of socialism is just poisoning socialism in the general public.

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[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

He even imprisoned his airplane designers until it was pointed out that if he wanted a modern air force he couldn't kill the airplane designers.

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Whenever someone says we have to take control no matter the price and ignore all our previous values and laws you know what is coming next.

I also like murdering every capitalists so you can be the only one. Very Highlander.

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[–] 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

New canon: neocons astroturfing YSK

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[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

The purge of the red army was noticed by the German high command which factored into launching Operation Barbarossa. The red army was a shambles as most of the officers had been murdered or imprisoned. Units struggled to respond without them.

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

The guilty were innocent so being innocent was a crime.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

How tf was he inspired by Trotsky? He fucking had the guy killed!

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