is this just atrocity propaganda, or was stalin actually a mass murderer? deleting someone from a photograph is not a good sign.
is this just atrocity propaganda, or was stalin actually a mass murderer? deleting someone from a photograph is not a good sign.
hundreds of thousands is still a lot, and mass executions/murder are surely not healthy for a country, even if those are people with dangerous beliefs. imprisonment or reeducation would be more humane. i would also hope that they were given fair trials before their punishments.
You’re right, it’s not healthy for a country, but considering the USSR was under the threat of (and eventually actual) war, and influenced by espionage and sabotage, it’s at least understandable the party had this period of repression. Besides, the people, the workers in general, were not affected at all by this, most of those who suffered from repression were high-ranking party members.
In the entire span of 1921-1953, there was 799.455 executions in Soviet Union. Do note this includes ALL reasons, including criminal, nazi war criminals, court martials etc. Considering WW2 happened and massive amount of traitors, that number isn’t even that high. Were there mistakes? Surely were, USSR was basically besieged by enemies for all that time and the chaos of war was insane. And then Khrushchev came and in order to legitimize his literal coup and complete change in policies and personnel, he massively smeared previous administration and praised its victims, which was very cheerfully supported by west.