The image attached portrays the defence of Stalin as a waste of time at best, this is frankly charitable compared to most self proclaimed leftists who think the rehabilitation of Stalin is actively harmful towards our movement.

There are reasons as to why the rehabilitation of Stalin is indeed an important issue and not just some trivial thing that we must halt in order to gain a larger following.

The rehabilitation of Stalin’s image is less about the rehabilitation of Stalin as a historical individual and more about defending and upholding Marxism.

Condemning or even refusing to uphold Stalin to at least some extent is equivalent to fighting our enemies on their terms. Why would we let our enemies decide who we should love and hate? There’s no reason to allow the historical narrative that our enemies have constructed to be our historical narrative, that’s just ideological surrender, may as well become a liberal at that point.

The total slander and demonization of Stalin’s image is what leads most people into deviationist tendencies, tendencies which are totally harmless towards the bourgeoisie. It’s only logical, if people believe Marxism-Leninism led to practically 1984 in real life, then why would they follow it?

Rather than keeping quiet about the USSR under Stalin, it is our duty to defend this period against the reactionary slander laid upon it. It was the first time in human history that mankind entered the socialist mode of production, and that’s something to be cherished.

  • UndercoverEnby@lemmygrad.ml
    11·
    9 days ago

    It’s becoming my latest obsession honestly - understanding how to communicate the fact that history isn’t just one sided, and that people then acted as they do now: with limited info and hundreds of complications that need to be taken into account; that history isn’t some flat chain of events but actually a huge yarn ball of cause and effect and that yes, sometimes things devolved into unnecessary chaos and gasp even necessary violence.

    Some ideas to demonstrate that point about history having two sides:

    1. Frame something current and relevant as uncharitably/dishonesty as they do to Communist history. Maybe something that puts them in poor framing. Ask them to imagine a future book about US history, and it’s taught that all us voters voted for global imperialism and actively supported third world exploitation. It’s funny because it’s honestly not untrue but since it’s relevant to them, they’ll be eager to explain why that’s not the case. And you can hit them with the same dismissive excuses they use.
    2. You could compare America’s retelling of history as the equivalent of Fox New’s coverage. They’re smart enough to see the bias of that, perhaps even other news networks but they can’t see the bias seen in how we retell history? Demonstrating that framing and retelling of history is inherently biased by the writer could work. Do they trust the US government at their word? If not, why would they reserve that trust ONLY for world history? If they don’t trust the US, then what was the red scare really about?
    3. Personally, the biggest example that made me distrust every Western narrative of its enemies was learning of all of the US interventions in progressive elections and governments around the world. The US doesn’t just target socialist developments, they target progressive developments broadly. I think framing it that way demonstrates that the US is an enemy of progress in general, which makes you wonder why they are so aggressive against communism. If the US stops progressive developments abroad, why would they have an honest telling of history of those and related nations?