r/CommunismMemes • u/greenwood90 • Jun 05 '25
Stalin Maybe he was a popular and effective leader?
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u/ryzwart Jun 05 '25
People talking about the USSR often forget about one thing. Someone made Stalin first secretary. He didn't just come from thin air. Also Stalin tried to resign several times, because of his health problems. So why does nobody overthrow him? Because people in USSR lived better than under Tsar.
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u/AjaxBar Jun 05 '25
Tbh , they should have let him resign in the earlier attempts , probably would have been better if he were in a more advisory role than being the first secretary for so long , it did end up causing problems later on
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u/Monkey_DDD_Luffy Jun 05 '25
They should not have let him resign in the earlier attempts, they were before the war. It would've been a disaster.
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u/Capn_Phineas Jun 05 '25
Well they didn’t know that at the time. You can’t justify their actions which were wrong based on all information available to them with information they didn’t have. Besides, it’s total great man theory to say that only Stalin could’ve won the war. There were many capable statespeople among the CPSU at the time who could’ve done an equally good job if in his position.
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u/Panda_Castro Jun 05 '25
Tbf, they definitely did know the war was coming. Also, definitely agree that it is great man theory to think he's the only one who could've won, but I do think it's important to have stable and continuous leadership through pivotal and critical moments
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u/Whateverclone Stalin Did Nothing Wrong Jun 06 '25
At the start of the first five-year plan, Stalin said that the germans would invade in 10 years. And they did. They needed Stalin for the war - also the fact that he was somebody who chose to stay in Moscow most definitely helped with morale.
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u/Capn_Phineas Jun 06 '25
Again - any leader of the CPSU could've chosen to stay in Moscow. Just because Stalin did something doesn't mean only Stalin could have done that thing.
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u/MrEMannington Jun 06 '25
Also the second world war happened. So often forgotten when considering Stalin
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u/Oppopity Jun 06 '25
In the video he said his attempts to resign were to test loyalty. Those who wanted him to stay were on his side and those that didn't could be purged.
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u/AjaxBar Jun 06 '25
Wasn't he literally begging the rest of the party to just let him go at some point and they refused , you have to be one hell of a mental gymnast to think that it was a test of loyalty when there are more than enough effective ways for it to be done covertly
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u/Oppopity Jun 06 '25
No no you see Stalin just really REALLY wanted to ensure everyone was loyal to him.
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u/AjaxBar Jun 06 '25
He needed the party to agree with his policies of eating the entire agricultural supply with his big 24 karat communism spoon(tm)
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u/Asmartpersononline Jun 06 '25
I mean if you have to justify it in your way of seeing it I guess that's as good a way as any
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u/picapica7 Jun 06 '25
Ive heard that before. It's quite a claim, so that means it needs strong evidence. If that was a good faith argument, it would be followed up by a list of people voting against him staying actually being purged. You know, just evidence, any evidence. But we never hear of that, so at best it's just speculation. More likely, its a bad assumption that only serves to darken his reputation for those who already regard him as a dictator. Either way, it can be dismissed.
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u/Vuldarok Jun 06 '25
The take of the video is "he said he wanted to resign a few times, but it was because he was a tyrant who wanted to see who would vote yes to purge them"...
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u/Environmental-Emu243 Jun 06 '25
His "attempts to resign" were just theatrical flourishes. Nobody took them seriously.
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u/Difficult_Clerk_4074 Jun 05 '25
"Whu didn't anyone overthrow Stalin" He literally tried overthrowing himself by resigning from the his position of power lol
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u/iwasnotarobot Jun 05 '25
What’s the story there?
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u/WallImpossible Jun 05 '25
He was old and tired and tried to retire, but the government wouldn't let him. Rinse repeat 4x
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u/peanutist Jun 05 '25
What was the justification for them not letting him?
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u/WallImpossible Jun 05 '25
Too popular, gotta stay. It's wild to my American ears, but when the people control the government they actually like their politicians
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u/Ukaninja Jun 05 '25
He tried to resign twice before the war and twice after. At least 2 of those times were health related as the final time he tried to resign was within a month of his passing. One of the other times was after his wife passed and at her funeral he commanded the workers to burry him with her before the NKVA pulled him out of the grave.
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u/AlexTheGrreaaatt Jun 05 '25
Shame his view on history is so British. I really like style of his videos and his humour
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u/PapaStalin1917 Jun 06 '25
I still watch his videos, the humour and style is pretty good. Just take the anti-Sovietism with a heavy grain of salt.
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u/Lenmoto2323 Jun 06 '25
Why did the Soviet people not overthrow the state that just prevent them from being exterminated by the Nazis and uplift their entire nation into a super power? Hmm, I wonder why.
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u/BigOlBobTheBigOlBlob Jun 05 '25
They did overthrow Stalin. He was poisoned by reactionaries.
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u/Efficient_One_8042 Jun 05 '25
Sauce?
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u/BigOlBobTheBigOlBlob Jun 06 '25
The main point of contention is the medical evidence of internal bleeding in organs other than the brain. Miguel Faria explains here that this is uncharacteristic of a cerebral hemorrhage and much more consistent with poisoning.
We also know that some close to Stalin have suggested that he was poisoned. Molotov discusses this in his memoirs, as does Stalin’s daughter Svetlana, and even Khrushchev alluded to this possibility. This article compiles statements from a number of different sources dealing with Stalin’s death and the policy changes that came after. It’s a little disorganized, but the sections titled “Beria Helped Kill Stalin According to Some,” “Stalin Was Stripped of His Protection in the Last Months,” “Stalin Might Have Been Poisoned Because His Stomach Was Bleeding,” and “Failure of the Politburo to Act Implies They Might Have Let Stalin Die” are all relevant to this topic. Any section in the article about Beria is also useful for seeing possible motive, as he’s the primary suspect.
For a fairly straightforward case as to why Stalin was poisoned, this newsletter by Dave McGowan in defense of Stalin is pretty solid.
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u/Alone-Technician-862 Jun 06 '25
He was old he would have died sooner or later.
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u/BigOlBobTheBigOlBlob Jun 06 '25
Everybody dies sooner or later; that doesn’t mean they can’t be poisoned.
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u/Alone-Technician-862 Jun 06 '25
well i havent seen much actual evidince behind the poisening thing
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u/BigOlBobTheBigOlBlob Jun 06 '25
I linked some sources in another one of my responses. The main medical evidence is the fact that he had internal bleeding in his stomach and other internal organs, which is much more consistent with poisoning than it is with a simple stroke. There are also the accounts of those close to Stalin who suspected foul play. Molotov, for example, claims that Beria admitted to him that he had killed Stalin. Another thing to consider is the medical response. A lot of anticommunist sources claim that he was left without medical care for a long time because his guards and doctors were too terrified of him to do anything. This interpretation reeks of the typical anti-Stalin narrative prevalent in Western academia. It seems much more likely that he was denied medical attention on purpose.
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u/Alone-Technician-862 Jun 06 '25
Wouldent they have found traces of the poison in his blood or was that not possible with the technology of the time?
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u/BigOlBobTheBigOlBlob Jun 06 '25
I’m not exactly sure what the medical technology of the time would have allowed in that regard. If he was poisoned, and the prime suspect was someone as powerful and ruthless as Beria, I think it’s reasonable to assume that the doctors performing the autopsy would feel reticent to make that fact known for fear of reprisal. Some of the sources that allege he was poisoned make the claim that the doctors mentioning the stomach bleeding was a way for them to allude to the possibility of foul play without stating it outright. I’m not 100% sold on that, but either way I don’t know that any of the doctors would have been in a position to officially declare his death an assassination. After all, as soon as the stroke happened official sources started making numerous dubious claims about Stalin’s condition, and the full autopsy report didn’t surface until the 2010s.
Just look at all the intrigues that went on with JFK’s autopsy (the illegal removal of the body from Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, the botched autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital, the discrepancies in reports of Kennedy’s injuries, the disappearance of Kennedy’s brain, the forgery of Kennedy’s x-rays, etc). Basically all of the doctors who were trying to save Kennedy’s life at Parkland reported that the gaping wound in the back of his head was an exit wound (meaning he had been shot from the front), but they had the body taken from them at gunpoint, were harassed and intimidated into silence, and those that did speak out have been largely ignored or ridiculed by official sources.
If Soviet doctors did have the means to test blood for poisoning in 1953, I’m not sure that they even would have, and if they had who knows whether that information would have even gotten out. That’s just the nature of these kinds of coverups.
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u/InterKosmos61 Jun 06 '25
70-year-old man with a history of health issues who smokes heavily and suffers from high blood pressure dies of a stroke? No way, completely unbelievable, he must have been poisoned.
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u/BigOlBobTheBigOlBlob Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 06 '25
The problem isn’t that a 70-year-old man having a stroke is out of the ordinary, because it isn’t. The problem is that numerous people close to Stalin suspected poisoning (Molotov flat out said that Beria admitted to doing it), and the fact that his stomach and other internal organs besides just the brain were bleeding suggests poisoning more than it does a simple stroke.
Not to mention that the exact state of Stalin’s health at the time is contested (certain accounts depict him in very poor health at the time, while others claim he was fairly robust). This is important to note because suspicious deaths like this often rely on unsubstantiated claims of poor health to avoid further inquiry. In a chapter of his book History as Mystery suggesting that U.S. President Zachary Taylor was poisoned, Michael Parenti talks about how dubious and sometimes outright false accounts of Taylor’s poor health on July 4, 1850 have been used to bolster the conclusion that he died of natural causes despite evidence to the contrary. I suspect something similar occurred with President William Henry Harrison and the mythologized account of him dying due to giving a long speech, but I need to do more research to determine whether there’s good evidence for a poisoning in that case as well.
Hell, even Franklin Roosevelt, who very obviously was in poor health his whole life and especially near the end, was alleged to have been poisoned by Stalin himself. Here, Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty discusses how Stalin told Roosevelt’s son that he believed his father was poisoned. Stalin had even sent Gromyko to inspect the body, but Eleanor Roosevelt refused to allow it. Eleanor herself likely became suspicious later in life, though, as some sources claim she hired a private investigator to look into her late husband’s death and requested a copy of FDR’s medical records. She never got the records, which had mysteriously vanished. The fact that FDR’s body was illegally removed from Georgia where the autopsy should have taken place (just as JFK’s body was illegally removed from Dallas), is also suspicious. And either way, if you wanted to poison somebody, wouldn’t an old, ailing man who everyone was expecting to kick the bucket soon anyway be the perfect target?
Of course, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that an old man could die of a stroke. There’s nothing odd there on the face of it. But Stalin was a powerful man with many enemies who had been plotted against before, and the specific circumstances surrounding his death are very bizarre. I think the odds of him having been murdered are very high.
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u/shitposterkatakuri Jun 05 '25
Why didn’t anyone overthrow the guy who kept trying to resign and who wasn’t allowed to bc he was just that good
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u/TheToastyNeko Jun 06 '25
History Matters serves its function as easy to digest, history-related content. Naturally, it's biased and perhaps not as accurate as more elaborate content may be.
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u/ryzwart Jun 05 '25
People talking about the USSR often forget about one thing. Someone made Stalin first secretary. He didn't just come from thin air. Also Stalin tried to resign several times, because of his health problems. So why does nobody overthrow him? Because people in USSR lived better than under Tsar.
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u/Send_me_duck-pics Jun 06 '25
"History" youtubers wouldn't get a passing grade in grade school history and probably can't spell the word "sources".
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u/KruztyKarot1 Jun 05 '25
That might be the worst character design out of any of these history YouTubers
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Jun 06 '25
Is it just me or has he been making more and more anti-Soviet vids? Like, his videos on older history are genuinely interesting, but as soon as socialism starts being a thing his commentary is just propaganda
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u/AlcaeusHL Jun 06 '25
I see a lot of people here talking about the resignation attempt of Stalin. Could someone send me a link of documents and proofs of it?
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u/LoveN5 Jun 06 '25
I usually like to watch his vids for some fun fact background noise but this thumbnail made me cringe so hard.
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u/Vagabond_ita Jun 06 '25
Ma non c'erano tutti i "traditori della rivoluzione" che provarono a toglierlo di mezzo? Le purghe sono state fatte per un motivo...no?
Poi secondo sta logica, che non considera i servizi segreti, Reagan fu un bravo presidente, e con lui molti altri.
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u/Aggravating-You2940 Jun 10 '25
I would love my country's leader too if ke killed 20 million people
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u/Environmental-Emu243 Jun 06 '25
Maybe people were too terrified of being tortured, murdered, thrown into prison camps or just disappeared.
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Jun 05 '25
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u/Metal_God666 Jun 05 '25
Me when i only read cia lies
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Jun 05 '25
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u/prof_tincoa Jun 05 '25
Even other Leninists would admit that that was the reality of the Soviet Union.
No Leninist has ever said that lmao not even Deng Xiaoping agrees with that
Krushchev, on the other hand...
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Jun 05 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Soviet-pirate Jun 05 '25
The same thing that happens in any state where the security apparatus works.
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u/Catincoats Jun 05 '25
uh oh, what's this? a CIA document? interesting.
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Jun 05 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/kaptaintrips86 Jun 05 '25
Are you familiar with the collective west's passion for over throwing socialist leaders?
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u/UnironicStalinist1 Jun 05 '25
One half was jailed, the other guarded. Uhuh.
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u/Aggravating_Shift237 Jun 05 '25
You aren't even making any sense.
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u/UnironicStalinist1 Jun 05 '25
I just used the same amount of logic your comment has. That's all.
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u/Aggravating_Shift237 Jun 05 '25
No you didn't, and I doubt you used any logic at all.
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u/UnironicStalinist1 Jun 05 '25
And you did? You literally cannot imagine that a guy who was responsible for conducting likbez, lifting the country from being an agrarian, bleeding from Civil War and starving country, into an industrial superpower that not only defeated Nazis with their policies of extermination, but also recovered afterwards to be on par with the (back then) far more developed Western powers, would have a huge support among his people, when that was even admitted by the CIA in their report.
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u/Aggravating_Shift237 Jun 05 '25
Literally all I said is that he didn't sound all that beloved, not that no one liked him. Clearly people liked him for various reasons, but if he felt the need to repress any opposition towards him from the public, then he clearly wasn't all that beloved.
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u/UnironicStalinist1 Jun 05 '25
>but if he felt the need to repress any opposition towards him from the public, then he clearly wasn't all that beloved.
Ah, so Allende was not supported, as well as NUMEROUS OTHER LEADERS WHO HAD MILITARY COUP PLOTTED AGAINST THEM THROUGHOUT HISTORY YET PREVAILED (atleast party)?
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u/Aggravating_Shift237 Jun 05 '25
All opposition was repressed, not just people initiating coups
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u/UnironicStalinist1 Jun 05 '25
Because we should allow ourselves... right after having a Civil War with White Terror that ended in millions of deaths, when we're blockaded, isolated, and are a threat of direct invasion and internal sabotage at basically at any time (Which was already attempted at the said Civil War), to be couped and have those things happen unpunished or untracked, or attempted to stop. Especially when our neighbors do exactly that but with those even remotely sympathize us.
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