Given that this community has generally positive view of Stalin, I’m curious what he did that my comrades find irredeemable or out of line. Since it’s easy to criticize the Soviet Union from a western perspective, bonus points if you explain how this was detrimental to the development of socialism and/or communism.
Not seen anyone bring this up but there was this one time where Lenin wanted to set up a meeting with Stalin about his brutality in Georgia. So Stalin rolls his eyes and says “Alright, we can have a meeting at 10am tomorrow” and Lenin was like “Okay.” And Stalin said “10am. Don’t fucking forget it.” And Lenin said “I won’t.”
11am rolls around and finally Stalin shows up. Made Lenin wait an hour. And at this point Lenin was pretty miffed but he didn’t want to say anything because he just wanted to get the meeting over with but before he could open his mouth Stalin splashed his scalding hot coffee on Lenin and yelled, “Don’t play ball in my yard, chico–” obviously this was in Russian but he did use the Spanish word chico. “Don’t play ball in my yard, chico, 'cause I got balls enough for both of us.” then he stormed out.
Just really petty and unprofessional
Wild to see a community that’s supposed to be a fan of Lenin making excuses for Stalin… Lenin’s last dying wish was that the party find a way to get rid of Stalin. Stalin literally had all of the original members of the Bolsheviks – everyone that was there during the October Revolution – killed. He pretty much stood against everything Lenin (and obviously his arch-rival Trotsky) stood for
For which part? The bit about Lenin’s warning is from Lenin’s Testament[0] in the post-script:
Stalin is too coarse and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a [minor] detail, but it is a detail which can assume decisive importance.
Also in the testament he said of Stalin
I think that Stalin’s haste and his infatuation with pure administration, together with his spite against the notorious “nationalist-socialism” [Stalin critised the minority nations for not being “internationalist” because they did want to unite with Russia], played a fatal role here. In politics spite generally plays the basest of roles.
Also there was 21 members and 10 candidate members of the Central Committee at the time of the Revolution in 1917. You can look up the history of each of the members and see that, for the ones who made it through till Lenin’s death, Stalin had them executed in order to consolidate all power. These members include Zinoviev and Kamenev who represented the “left wing” of the party. Trotsky was the only original member that survived but he was banished and never returned to Russia. Stalin would use him as a scapegoat for many years afterwards; using alleged involvement in “Trotskyist groups” as an excuse to imprison or kill other members of the party.
You’ve been mislead in a very serious way. That “warning,” which is more critical of Trotsky than of Stalin, comes from Stalin’s only conflict with Lenin, which happened to take place during Lenin’s last days, over Stalin’s supposed “brutality” in Georgia. Since Lenin only got this information second-hand (he was bedridden), he never published that “testament.” Once he recovered, he began to investigate personally. After he did, Stalin was acquitted.
On another note, those “left-wing Bolsheviks” like Zinoviev and Kamenev betrayed Lenin at the very hour of the revolution. Trotsky had been against it until that hour. Stalin and Lenin had been working together to bring about the revolution for decades, longer than any of these “left-wing Bolsheviks,” and on top of that he never backstabbed Lenin. The idea that Lenin and Trotsky of all people were close friends and Stalin was a distant, shifty politician lurking in the background waiting to take power is absurd. Stalin was the only legitimate successor to Lenin, especially since he built the party into power even before Lenin’s death.
Stalin saved the world from the Nazis too, so you might want to show a little bit of respect for this great leader. I think part of that respect involves doing your research before you unknowingly reiterate these lies in an explicitly pro-AES community.
he never published that “testament.” Once he recovered, he began to investigate personally. After he did, Stalin was acquitted.
Lenin never recovered from this… This testament came from the series of strokes that lead to his death
Stalin and Lenin had been working together to bring about the revolution for decades
Also I think you’re seriously confused. Zinoviev was part of the Bolsheviks since it split with the Mensheviks in 1903. Same with Kamenev. Stalin joined in 1917. Hell, the first time he even met Lenin was in 1906. And he was in and out of prison until the revolution (he was only out of prison for a total of 2 years between 1908 and 1917) so there’s no way he could have possibly been “working together to bring about the revolution for decades”
Furthermore Lenin was (once again) forced into exile in 1907. He wouldn’t even return to Russia until April of 1917 (hence the “April Theses”)
This is just a matter of basic dates. Like shit you could have simply looked up. Please don’t rudely ask me to do my research when you can’t even get the very basics right.
Next time you reply I hope you’ve at least learned to use Google
Lenin recovered from his second stroke enough to investigate the Georgia matter himself before suffering his third stroke and dying. You make it sound like Lenin was warning the world of the evils of Stalin on his deathbed, and that’s just not what happened.
And Stalin and Lenin had been colleagues and friends for twenty years by this time. They knew each other since 1905. And was he not in prison for working on the revolutionary socialist project?
And I apologize for being rude, but this is just contrary to everything I’ve learned about Stalin. Frankly, it feels indistinguishable from liberal histories of Stalin, which have been extremely falsified. So when I say you’ve been mislead in a serious way, I’m being quite serious.
Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out. I’m not sure how it sounded like “Lenin was warning the world of the evils of Stalin on his deathbed” as that was definitely not my intention. Lenin definitely saw Stalin as a comrade. I was just pointing out that there was clear signs Lenin did NOT want Stalin to be his successor.
And yes, Stalin was in prison for those reasons (mostly for bank robberies and such to attain funding for revolutionary groups. Sounds noble but it’s worth mentioning there was some seriously fucked up civilian casualties in some of these plots). But so were many other revolutionaries… The Bolshevikes were FAR from the only revolutionary group at the time. In fact they were still a pretty niche minority. The majority of assassinations of the Tsar’s officials were plots carried out by the SRs. The SRs were also unique amongst the revolutionaries in that they were the only group that actually had widespread peasant support. Most other groups only had proletariat and some military support.
I guess what I’m trying to say, is the fact that Stalin was one of the (thousands of) revolutionaries at the time doesn’t at all imply he “worked closely” with Lenin. In fact there’s very little evidence to support such a close relationship at that time. And no matter which way you spin it, it’s obviously true that Lenin knew the other Bolshevik leaders since before he even met Stalin. You admitted as much yourself when you stated that they met in 1905 (which is technically inaccurate, they met in 1906 for the first time). Whereas the split that created the Bolshevik party happened in 1903 and before that split Lenin had known the other members for AT LEAST 2 years.
Fair enough. Read the first chapter of that source and tell me if there’s some good reason I shouldn’t take it at its word. From what Strong claims, it sounds like Lenin had more serious conflicts with these other characters than he ever had with Stalin, even if he may have known them personally for longer. If Lenin was able to forgive these guys, I don’t think it’s fair to suppose that he wouldn’t have forgiven Stalin (assuming that’s what you’re saying).
No Lenin didn’t. In fact he basically trash talked every single person that might’ve been a “natural” successor. The closest thing was Trotsky who he at least left some compliments for lol. It’s all in Lenin’s Testament I inked if you wanna learn more
By “consolidate all the power” I mean get rid of anyone who could possibly challenge him. Like Trotsky and Kamanev. He decisively took the position of the rightwing of the party in order to overthrow the leftwing and then also killed the leaders of the rightwing lol.
I’m not even gonna engage with the rest of that question though because… lol. Do you think the Tsar was able to rule for so long because “he had plenty of allies”? He was extremely unpopular even amongst the nobility. That’s just not how power works
Stalin’s view is generally positive because in the end all he did gave results and he treated himself no less harsh than he treated others.
Of course, there is a lot he can be criticized for, but guess what, there is also Thomas Sankara who I believe cannot really be criticized and look where it got him.
The deportations were a massive L. I get why there were done and it’s not like it was an intentional genocide (or a genocide in general for that matter) but it’s still horrible that it mostly hit those who did nothing wrong. Collective punishment isn’t great. But I can understand why it happened as an extreme reaction to an extreme event.
I think that Luna Oi had mentioned on her channel before that initially Stalin didn’t support Ho Chi Minh and wanted Mao to support them instead. This is not the worst mistake on his part, but it set back the Revolution in Vietnam a bit. Also not sure if anyone else mentioned it but his family life was not great. Stalin was a powerful man in every sense of the word, and sometimes that affected the relationships of those close to him in a negative way.
His policies on homosexuality was misguided, it was a different time and he thought it would help boost the population. Obviously he was wrong, but I still think its tough to pin that entirely on him, at the time there wasn’t as much understanding as we have now.
It’s worth noting this was actually a huge step back. After the October Revolution when the Bolsheviks rewrote all the laws they specifically and purposefully left out anti-homosexuality laws. Twice. I don’t think it’s completely fair to make so many excuses for him when his predecessors were clearly ahead of him on this
The support for the republicans in the Spanish civil war was pretty substantial, especially considering they needed resources themselves to arm up against the Germans.
It was not limited material or manpower support, it was pretty substantial. From the link:
First, they organized a civilian aid campaign, even getting Soviet workers to volunteer for a .5% pay reduction to help the Republicans
Soviet totals for the Spanish relief campaign altogether came to 115 million rubles for 1936, 102 million for 1937, 45 million for 1938, and 9 million for 1939— a total of 271 million rubles, or approximately £1,416,000 sterling, which took the form of large amounts of Soviet foodstuffs and other civilian goods shipped to Republican Spain.
As far as military aid goes, it was pretty substantial
estimates of material provided by the USSR to the Republicans vary between 634 and 806 planes, 331 and 362 tanks, and 1,034 and 1,895 artillery pieces
In addition they provided 15,113 - 20,486 machine guns, 414,645-500,000 rifles, 110,000 bombs, 500,000 grenades, and massive amounts of ammunition.
Altogether, the number of military personnel was limited, and Soviet sources recognize little more than 3,000 in all, of whom 200, or 6.67 percent, were killed. This rate of loss was about average for the two contending armies
Offsetting the small numbers, however, was the skill level of the Soviet personnel. Not a single one was an ordinary infantryman. The largest contingent was made up of the nearly 800 air crewmen who flew in the Republican air force, followed by several hundred tank crewmen. Many of the rest were officers, some of fairly senior rank; the remainder consisted of technical support personnel, nearly all of them commissioned or noncommissioned offcers.
A podcast about Stalin where they talk about his limited support during the civil war (amongst other things). It’s a good podcast with many primary sources
Nadezhda Alliluyeva. She was only 18 when they got married. Then she eventually killed herself.
Obviously I can’t say that it was his fault that she killed herself, or that he had bad intentions by marrying her. But I still judge him for it.
Edit: Seems this was a bit controversial. I’m not mad about it or anything, but I do wonder why. Please do feel free to share your thoughts and tell me why I’m wrong.
Wikipedia distorts facts in favor of western bias (in this case the U.S, Britain, etc.); so hearing about the abuse that Stalin did to his second wife, they absolutely would revel in that fact and use it to demonize Stalin.
I didn’t say he abused her. I don’t know enough about their relationship to make such a claim. I just think it’s messed up to marry a teenager as an adult.
I will criticize Stalin in that I think he shouldn’t have made abortion illegal after the Russian Revolutionary era Recovery years.
I understand he wanted more soldiers to fight fascism, and I appreciate that the Soviet authorities allowed millions of exceptions in cases of rape and incest and life-threatening situations, but regardless.
I also understand that Darwinism was often used as an excuse for scientific racism, and I don’t think that Lysenko did nothing of value, but Stalin shouldn’t have rejected genetics and Darwinian evolution as fast or as hard as he did.
I’ve read that he rejected Darwinian evolution because it was a bourgeois neoliberal theory used to justify racism. Many people did use evolution as an excuse for racism, and so did lots of scientists. But it was only due to elements of scientific and neoliberal culture and prejudice, and inaccuracies. Even Darwin himself was against slavery, and had relatively progressive views on race at the time.
This is a Dengist community in favor of Bashar al-Assad with no information that can lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton, our fellow liberal and queen. This community is not ironic. We are Marxists-Leninists.
If you haven’t already found it, this GitHub page is an excellent collection of sources about socialism, imperialism, and other relevant topics, made by @dessalines and others.
Not seen anyone bring this up but there was this one time where Lenin wanted to set up a meeting with Stalin about his brutality in Georgia. So Stalin rolls his eyes and says “Alright, we can have a meeting at 10am tomorrow” and Lenin was like “Okay.” And Stalin said “10am. Don’t fucking forget it.” And Lenin said “I won’t.” 11am rolls around and finally Stalin shows up. Made Lenin wait an hour. And at this point Lenin was pretty miffed but he didn’t want to say anything because he just wanted to get the meeting over with but before he could open his mouth Stalin splashed his scalding hot coffee on Lenin and yelled, “Don’t play ball in my yard, chico–” obviously this was in Russian but he did use the Spanish word chico. “Don’t play ball in my yard, chico, 'cause I got balls enough for both of us.” then he stormed out. Just really petty and unprofessional
Wild to see a community that’s supposed to be a fan of Lenin making excuses for Stalin… Lenin’s last dying wish was that the party find a way to get rid of Stalin. Stalin literally had all of the original members of the Bolsheviks – everyone that was there during the October Revolution – killed. He pretty much stood against everything Lenin (and obviously his arch-rival Trotsky) stood for
source?
For which part? The bit about Lenin’s warning is from Lenin’s Testament[0] in the post-script:
Also in the testament he said of Stalin
Also there was 21 members and 10 candidate members of the Central Committee at the time of the Revolution in 1917. You can look up the history of each of the members and see that, for the ones who made it through till Lenin’s death, Stalin had them executed in order to consolidate all power. These members include Zinoviev and Kamenev who represented the “left wing” of the party. Trotsky was the only original member that survived but he was banished and never returned to Russia. Stalin would use him as a scapegoat for many years afterwards; using alleged involvement in “Trotskyist groups” as an excuse to imprison or kill other members of the party.
[0] https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/index.htm
You’ve been mislead in a very serious way. That “warning,” which is more critical of Trotsky than of Stalin, comes from Stalin’s only conflict with Lenin, which happened to take place during Lenin’s last days, over Stalin’s supposed “brutality” in Georgia. Since Lenin only got this information second-hand (he was bedridden), he never published that “testament.” Once he recovered, he began to investigate personally. After he did, Stalin was acquitted.
On another note, those “left-wing Bolsheviks” like Zinoviev and Kamenev betrayed Lenin at the very hour of the revolution. Trotsky had been against it until that hour. Stalin and Lenin had been working together to bring about the revolution for decades, longer than any of these “left-wing Bolsheviks,” and on top of that he never backstabbed Lenin. The idea that Lenin and Trotsky of all people were close friends and Stalin was a distant, shifty politician lurking in the background waiting to take power is absurd. Stalin was the only legitimate successor to Lenin, especially since he built the party into power even before Lenin’s death.
Stalin saved the world from the Nazis too, so you might want to show a little bit of respect for this great leader. I think part of that respect involves doing your research before you unknowingly reiterate these lies in an explicitly pro-AES community.
Lenin never recovered from this… This testament came from the series of strokes that lead to his death
Also I think you’re seriously confused. Zinoviev was part of the Bolsheviks since it split with the Mensheviks in 1903. Same with Kamenev. Stalin joined in 1917. Hell, the first time he even met Lenin was in 1906. And he was in and out of prison until the revolution (he was only out of prison for a total of 2 years between 1908 and 1917) so there’s no way he could have possibly been “working together to bring about the revolution for decades”
Furthermore Lenin was (once again) forced into exile in 1907. He wouldn’t even return to Russia until April of 1917 (hence the “April Theses”)
This is just a matter of basic dates. Like shit you could have simply looked up. Please don’t rudely ask me to do my research when you can’t even get the very basics right.
Next time you reply I hope you’ve at least learned to use Google
http://209.151.22.101/Journalists/Strong-AL/TheStalinEra-AL-Strong-1956.pdf
Lenin recovered from his second stroke enough to investigate the Georgia matter himself before suffering his third stroke and dying. You make it sound like Lenin was warning the world of the evils of Stalin on his deathbed, and that’s just not what happened.
And Stalin and Lenin had been colleagues and friends for twenty years by this time. They knew each other since 1905. And was he not in prison for working on the revolutionary socialist project?
And I apologize for being rude, but this is just contrary to everything I’ve learned about Stalin. Frankly, it feels indistinguishable from liberal histories of Stalin, which have been extremely falsified. So when I say you’ve been mislead in a serious way, I’m being quite serious.
Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out. I’m not sure how it sounded like “Lenin was warning the world of the evils of Stalin on his deathbed” as that was definitely not my intention. Lenin definitely saw Stalin as a comrade. I was just pointing out that there was clear signs Lenin did NOT want Stalin to be his successor.
And yes, Stalin was in prison for those reasons (mostly for bank robberies and such to attain funding for revolutionary groups. Sounds noble but it’s worth mentioning there was some seriously fucked up civilian casualties in some of these plots). But so were many other revolutionaries… The Bolshevikes were FAR from the only revolutionary group at the time. In fact they were still a pretty niche minority. The majority of assassinations of the Tsar’s officials were plots carried out by the SRs. The SRs were also unique amongst the revolutionaries in that they were the only group that actually had widespread peasant support. Most other groups only had proletariat and some military support.
I guess what I’m trying to say, is the fact that Stalin was one of the (thousands of) revolutionaries at the time doesn’t at all imply he “worked closely” with Lenin. In fact there’s very little evidence to support such a close relationship at that time. And no matter which way you spin it, it’s obviously true that Lenin knew the other Bolshevik leaders since before he even met Stalin. You admitted as much yourself when you stated that they met in 1905 (which is technically inaccurate, they met in 1906 for the first time). Whereas the split that created the Bolshevik party happened in 1903 and before that split Lenin had known the other members for AT LEAST 2 years.
Fair enough. Read the first chapter of that source and tell me if there’s some good reason I shouldn’t take it at its word. From what Strong claims, it sounds like Lenin had more serious conflicts with these other characters than he ever had with Stalin, even if he may have known them personally for longer. If Lenin was able to forgive these guys, I don’t think it’s fair to suppose that he wouldn’t have forgiven Stalin (assuming that’s what you’re saying).
deleted by creator
What does ‘consolidate all power’ mean? He still must have plenty of allies left to run a whole country.
Also did Lenin ever name a preferred successor?
No Lenin didn’t. In fact he basically trash talked every single person that might’ve been a “natural” successor. The closest thing was Trotsky who he at least left some compliments for lol. It’s all in Lenin’s Testament I inked if you wanna learn more
By “consolidate all the power” I mean get rid of anyone who could possibly challenge him. Like Trotsky and Kamanev. He decisively took the position of the rightwing of the party in order to overthrow the leftwing and then also killed the leaders of the rightwing lol.
I’m not even gonna engage with the rest of that question though because… lol. Do you think the Tsar was able to rule for so long because “he had plenty of allies”? He was extremely unpopular even amongst the nobility. That’s just not how power works
Damn that’s crazy
see my comment above for sources if you wanna be a sarcastic asshole without actually engaging with the content
Stalin’s view is generally positive because in the end all he did gave results and he treated himself no less harsh than he treated others. Of course, there is a lot he can be criticized for, but guess what, there is also Thomas Sankara who I believe cannot really be criticized and look where it got him.
The deportations were a massive L. I get why there were done and it’s not like it was an intentional genocide (or a genocide in general for that matter) but it’s still horrible that it mostly hit those who did nothing wrong. Collective punishment isn’t great. But I can understand why it happened as an extreme reaction to an extreme event.
he should have committed to helping korea instead of fence sitting
My one criticism of Stalin is that he shouldn’t have stopped at Berlin…
Sus
I cross posted this to !stalin@lemmygrad.ml.
I think that Luna Oi had mentioned on her channel before that initially Stalin didn’t support Ho Chi Minh and wanted Mao to support them instead. This is not the worst mistake on his part, but it set back the Revolution in Vietnam a bit. Also not sure if anyone else mentioned it but his family life was not great. Stalin was a powerful man in every sense of the word, and sometimes that affected the relationships of those close to him in a negative way.
uh oh… please tell me he didn’t abuse them…
His policies on homosexuality was misguided, it was a different time and he thought it would help boost the population. Obviously he was wrong, but I still think its tough to pin that entirely on him, at the time there wasn’t as much understanding as we have now.
It’s worth noting this was actually a huge step back. After the October Revolution when the Bolsheviks rewrote all the laws they specifically and purposefully left out anti-homosexuality laws. Twice. I don’t think it’s completely fair to make so many excuses for him when his predecessors were clearly ahead of him on this
Deporting the Sakhalin japanese back to Japan. Overwhelmingly, they were pro-USSR and wanted to stay.
Overall, the resettlement policy was pretty shit and resulted in unjustified misery a lot of the time.
Deportation of Wolga Germans based on ethnicity instead if class
Outlawing homosexual partnerships between men
That he didn’t support the popular front in the Spanish civil war more
Stopping after Berlin
Stopping before Tokyo
Only the first 2 are big mistakes imo
Great leader overall
The support for the republicans in the Spanish civil war was pretty substantial, especially considering they needed resources themselves to arm up against the Germans.
I realize he helped them and that he didn’t wreck them on purpose, he send a couple hundred men and after that rather limited material support.
Obviously the party discussed the issue and decided it wasn’t worth it, in hindsight it seems very helpful to have a socialist Spain during ww2 tho
It’s a minor mistake at most, and that’s easy for me say not knowing about all the internal discussions they must’ve had
It was not limited material or manpower support, it was pretty substantial. From the link:
First, they organized a civilian aid campaign, even getting Soviet workers to volunteer for a .5% pay reduction to help the Republicans
Soviet totals for the Spanish relief campaign altogether came to 115 million rubles for 1936, 102 million for 1937, 45 million for 1938, and 9 million for 1939— a total of 271 million rubles, or approximately £1,416,000 sterling, which took the form of large amounts of Soviet foodstuffs and other civilian goods shipped to Republican Spain.
As far as military aid goes, it was pretty substantial
estimates of material provided by the USSR to the Republicans vary between 634 and 806 planes, 331 and 362 tanks, and 1,034 and 1,895 artillery pieces
In addition they provided 15,113 - 20,486 machine guns, 414,645-500,000 rifles, 110,000 bombs, 500,000 grenades, and massive amounts of ammunition.
Altogether, the number of military personnel was limited, and Soviet sources recognize little more than 3,000 in all, of whom 200, or 6.67 percent, were killed. This rate of loss was about average for the two contending armies
Offsetting the small numbers, however, was the skill level of the Soviet personnel. Not a single one was an ordinary infantryman. The largest contingent was made up of the nearly 800 air crewmen who flew in the Republican air force, followed by several hundred tank crewmen. Many of the rest were officers, some of fairly senior rank; the remainder consisted of technical support personnel, nearly all of them commissioned or noncommissioned offcers.
You might be right, it’s kinda funny because we have the same source
Your link comes from the socialist faq, right above your link there’s this one
https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/joseph-mother-fucking-stain
A podcast about Stalin where they talk about his limited support during the civil war (amongst other things). It’s a good podcast with many primary sources
Nadezhda Alliluyeva. She was only 18 when they got married. Then she eventually killed herself.
Obviously I can’t say that it was his fault that she killed herself, or that he had bad intentions by marrying her. But I still judge him for it.
Edit: Seems this was a bit controversial. I’m not mad about it or anything, but I do wonder why. Please do feel free to share your thoughts and tell me why I’m wrong.
Oh boy. I’mma guess wikipedia is gonna have a field day on that one…
So, what happened?
Huh?
Wikipedia distorts facts in favor of western bias (in this case the U.S, Britain, etc.); so hearing about the abuse that Stalin did to his second wife, they absolutely would revel in that fact and use it to demonize Stalin.
I didn’t say he abused her. I don’t know enough about their relationship to make such a claim. I just think it’s messed up to marry a teenager as an adult.
I will criticize Stalin in that I think he shouldn’t have made abortion illegal after the Russian Revolutionary era Recovery years.
I understand he wanted more soldiers to fight fascism, and I appreciate that the Soviet authorities allowed millions of exceptions in cases of rape and incest and life-threatening situations, but regardless.
I also understand that Darwinism was often used as an excuse for scientific racism, and I don’t think that Lysenko did nothing of value, but Stalin shouldn’t have rejected genetics and Darwinian evolution as fast or as hard as he did.
Do you happen to have a link where I could read up o Stalin’s rejecting of evolution
Not anything directly on hand, my apologies.
I’ve read that he rejected Darwinian evolution because it was a bourgeois neoliberal theory used to justify racism. Many people did use evolution as an excuse for racism, and so did lots of scientists. But it was only due to elements of scientific and neoliberal culture and prejudice, and inaccuracies. Even Darwin himself was against slavery, and had relatively progressive views on race at the time.
Their initial support of Israel. They stopped supporting them in the 50s but the damage was already done by that point.
gag. How did he fuck up that badly?
He was misinformed about zionism, once he learned what it was about, he came out staunchly against it. They even fought a short few day war against Israel when Israel invaded Egypt.
The USSR didn’t have the greatest policy history with the Arab world tho, but most most of that came after Stalin’s death.
oof.
Why is he so banned?