Stalins rule caused more problems than benefits for the people of Soviet Union. Do you agree?
The sheer number of the people repressed during his rule speaks for itself. But… unlike the Western historians the Russian ones are bitterly divided on the issue. Let me serve as a “devil’s advocate” now. 1) Stalinism was just one sample of all-European trend of mass political mobilization with the purpose of modernization. Look at the map of prewar Europe with the special attention to Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary and Portugal; 2) Nobody argues that the Stalinist way of modernization was a brutal one. But the question is could Russia be modernized by any other methods for such a short time? Especially if we keep in mind the perspective of the WW2; 3) Stalin’s modernization demanded a huge number of professionals for the industry. Millions of people with, as we call it now, “deprived background” got opportunity to get educated; 4) Even Stalin’s repressions might look differently if we argue that: a) a lot of professionals who were punished and settled in remote and wild parts of the
