I never seriously talked with a Marxist about Stalin IRL. I think we always had more important things to discuss. So I tend to think the amount of Stalin defense you see online doesnt really translate into other contexts

Why not?
why are so many anarchists feds and/or fascist supporters?

Why do so many people on the liberal side defend slavery, genocide, etc?

Libs and their fash partners literally worship racist rapists like washington, jefferson, trump, etal.

There is zero reality or justice in dealing with these creeps.

So, when people attack “stalin” for some tales that they’ve heard within the empire, it’s completely propaganda and highly questionable. Likewise for people focused on Mao or whatever. It’s just racist pale skins externalizing their own crimes. It’s another example of “every accusation is a confession”. It has almost nothing to do with the reality of stalin, mao, etal.

TBH any question about “tankies” can be answered by thinking about the liberals analogue. They’re the same thing with different imperial branding.

I think a lot of it is that there are clear, historical examples to point to where ML/MLM idiology has been implemented and tried, whereas anarchist idiology hasn’t really been implemented in any kind of large scale. Anarchy is also a tad loosly defined compared to something like Stalinism, where different anarchists will have different ideas as to what their ideal society would look like.

There is also a large amount of propaganda, both historical from countries like the USSR and modern from countries like China and North Korea that can and do influence opinions outside of their respective countries.

When people talk about “Stalinism,” they usually mean one of 2 things:

1. Marxism-Leninism, the synthesis of Marxism with the advancements made by Lenin. Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism, so this gets called “Stalinism” despite Stalin’s minor contributions compared to Marx and Lenin.

2. The policies of the USSR while Stalin was General Secretary of the CPSU.

The former, Marxism-Leninism, is the largest tendency of Marxism by far. This is because it has proven its utility in practice, establishing socialism in many countries with varying local conditions and contexts. Lenin’s contributions to Marxism are near universally accepted by Marxists, and Stalin did not change from them in synthesizing Marxism-Leninism.

The latter, Stalin’s policy positions, are largely either contextualized and explained, rather than actively defended, or are genuinely good feats. For example, under Stalin, literacy rates skyrocketed from ~30% to 99.9%, life expectancy doubled, education and healthcare were made free at all levels, jobs were guaranteed, and much more. Genuine faults, like criminalizing homosexuality, are recognized as such by Marxist-Leninists.

As Weng Weiguang says, The Evaluation of Stalin is Essentially an Ideological Struggle. Marxist-Leninists don’t idolize Stalin. At the same time, Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism, and oversaw the world’s first socialist state during its most turbulent period. The CPC rates him as 70% good, 30% bad, and this rating is roughly orbited by most communist orgs. Those who denounce Stalin entirely, also denounce the USSR, and existing socialism.

Stalin was a committed Marxist-Leninist, and oversaw the world’s first socialist state for the overwhelming majority of its most tumultuous period. He was no saint, but at the same time was no monster either. He is remembered by liberal historians as far worse than comtemporaries like Churchill who in actuality were far worse than Stalin.

As Nia Frome says, we can either distance ourselves from Stalin, and by extension the USSR and actually existing socialism, or we can fight back against bourgeois narratives about Stalin and the USSR, acknowledging their faults while being able to uphold their tremendous successes as examples of the possibilities of socialism in power. Historical nihilism, and throwing Stalin and by extension much of the early soviet union under the bus, was ultimately what allowed for liberalization within the USSR and partially contributed to the death of socialism in eastern Europe.

If you want an intro to Marxism-Leninism, check out my new basic ML study guide!

Yeah idk I think it’s just being edgy. Tbh more people on the left know about Stalin’s crimes against humanity than Churchill’s.

People want the world to be simple and make sense. The cold war was great for this, as it presented two simplistic idealistic world views in competition.

Some people saw through capitalism and understood that freedom in the west is not all that it’s made up to be. Not wrong. But then they make the fallacy of concluding that the alternative they are presented with is good, which would be Soviet communism.

Of course many people understood that both alternatives are oppressive, but once you discover some “forbidden knowledge” it’s easy to start going a bit insane and to disregard evidence that goes against your world view, because clearly there is a great conspiracy at work. If you make the mistake of arguing with radicalized people they always have some stupid anecdote that they believe serves as solid evidence of any crackpot theory they have. In this sense it’s just like conspiracy theories, and it tends to be the same type of people: lonely men who feel the world has treated them unfairly.

Authoritarian-leaning people need to believe that there is a good authority out there who wants them well and that they can follow. For the authoritarians that lost faith in the west, Stalin provided a strong alternative and remains iconic among these bootlickers. Putin just doesn’t offer an alternative in the same way.

A form of tribalism specific to the Left known as Campism where people will justify any bullshit by people who oppose “the West” in some way.

I think the defense of Stalin comes at the end of a particular path in Marxism that can be very appealing to people for various reasons.

One potential driver of it is that those groups are not too dissimilar from a secular religion; it has a group of people ready to welcome you as a friend and ally as long as you agree to a certain worldview and a very specific reading of history from approved texts that always pose historical Maxist-Leninists as righteous figures who didn’t really do anything that bad, and if they did, it was for the greater good, and justified.

Those texts can even make a certain amount of sense if you’re disillusioned with the status quo, and distrust western media. I think it’s also likely extremely comforting to believe that while the western world is fucked up and exploitative, there are at the same time powerful allies elsewhere in the form of the AES states, which in their view are making steady progress towards the promised socialist utopia.

So ML groups can offer a feeling of belonging, friendship, a comforting worldview, and the belief that if we just follow the directions of long dead prophet-like historical figures (like Stalin), than we will someday have heaven on earth. These are extremely appealing aspects to someone who may be very lonely, or who may have suffered a severe trauma and may not have their basic needs met (which may also be what leads to some people being attracted to the MAGA cult)

To someone well versed in history and desire to find multiple viewpoints for a historical event to avoid propaganda bubbles, the true nature of ML/Stalinism and its authoritarianism becomes self-evident. But for those who never down that path and are in a vulnerable state, a ‘scientific’ cult offering you hope, meaning, and companionship is very easy to fall into, and thus eventually willingly self-delude themselves to attain in-group status.

Just like with normal religions/cults, once they are deep inside it, they are trained to suspect any outside information that challenges it or isn’t approved by the group, and thus the cognitive dissonance they could create if looked at more objectively can be avoided.

So yeah, I think overall it’s fairly similar to other cults like Scientology, just with a different flavor, and a lot of historical examples to point to as ‘proof’ that it works.

For the most part Stalin is used to trigger the aggressive anti-communists.

Like, there are enough “How could Hitler have won the war?” types around for me to be overly concerned with memes that defend/don’t condemn Stalin.

as an anarchist who has organised with meatspace MLs, the topic of Stalin never comes up on its own. it comes up online more often because we’re not doing anything more important than just talking.

Stalin comes up in meatspace when some liberal confronts an ML and demands to know if they’re ‘Stalinist’ and what they think of the ‘Holomdor’. then the ML explains how ‘Stalinism’ isn’t a thing, they primarily read Marx, Engels and Lenin, and how Stalin was the leader of a team not a dictator and even the CIA’s own profile on him says exactly that, and then explain the ongoing threats the Soviet security state was protecting against and the cultural and economic trauma of losing 15% of their population in World War II, and the climatological history of the Southern regions and how the famine impacted more than just Ukraine and how famines were common in the region, and how the Ukrainian kulaks, protesting that their lands were being given to the serfs, burned crops and equipment and salted the land, and how famines were ended in the region under the USSR, and then ask the liberal if they care about famines under capitalism.

then the liberal says ‘yeah but Stalin was basically Hitler’ and then we in this group of anarchists, ML(M)s and syndicalists chase this fucking wrecker out into the street so we can get back to work.

i think any strong opinion on Stalin as an individual is already wrong, because you’re falling for the Great Man of History fallacy. i think Stalin is irrelevant unless you’re an ML cadre who needs to learn from the successes and mistakes of the USSR, but i think the history of the USSR is also important to any communist.

when you see an ML defending Stalin, it’s almost always because someone is criticising MLs based on an uninformed claim about Stalin, or they’re criticising Stalin from an uninformed position. and i don’t blame them: i’m all for criticising mistakes, but we don’t need to make shit up to do that.

i get that as anarchists we’re suspicious of statist leaders, but i don’t get why it’s so hard to understand that statists would defend a communist state. even if you see them enemies, you would benefit from reading their theory to understand their position rather than going ‘uhhh, why do statists defend states so much? must be they can’t read, or they’re just stu~pid lol must be because they have daddy issues lol’

Its wild reading this shit online every day when the real.life communists I meat in mutual aid get along wonderfully with me. Its time guys, the Soviet Union has fallen, Capitalism has emerged from its Cocoon once again showing its true colors of fascism. Anarchists and Communists need each other now more than ever. Make those alliances, I’d much rather deal with each other in the aftermath than be put to the boot in Amazon City.

Here’s a good question for you, why are you such a reactionary? And why does this comm keep attracting reactionaries?

Same reason the various right wings can overlook that Trump is very obviously not interested in Christianity, free markets, the white race, or anything else that’s not about enriching Trump. They think strongman is going to bring about the world they want by destroying their enemies for them.

George Orwell kept having to write books warning his fellow socialists not to fall into authoritarian thinking, it’s so prevalent.

I would wager it’s as they don’t read actual historical documents of those who witnessed and survived Stalin, is why. Dude was bloody-minded as fuck, and in a tweenaged subset of the population, death, misery and degradations are “cool”.

The political flip side are the right-wing chuds that join ICE so they can tear families apart and “own” the left.