this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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You can’t tell me the Great Purge is something a left-wing person would do. He thought Hitler was “a great man”.
I’m far from an expert in political history, but if we were to look at controversial figures on the left, Guevara and Castro are probably the “worst” I can think of that still clearly had left-wing ideals in mind.
I mean, it’s not an absolute, but Wikipedia defines Left-wing politics as “the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy as a whole or certain social hierarchies”.
Stalin actively repressed and killed ethnic minorities during the Great Purge. That’s absolutely not egalitarianism. I don’t know much of his politics but if he was trying to be a communist, his government was not really a “Dictatorship of the proletariat”. He could’ve written anything, actions speak clearer than words.
Even if he was targeting different ethnicities just because of the risk they could’ve been spies, what he effectively did was put a different “value” on his citizens, which is the opposite of social equality, a center aspect of leftism.
Maybe in his and his followers’ minds the end justified the means and he was actually aiming to build a better society for everyone, but ultimately what he did was enact racism and social hierarchies. If that still counts as left-wing to you we have different definitions.
If an action has such a big impact and such little payoff as the ethnic cleansing in the great purge, I think that disqualifies you from actually being a leftist.
By that reasoning, even christian fundamentalists would be leftists: they want everyone to believe in god and adhere to their teachings so that we can all be at peace for eternity in heaven. But if what they’re doing to achieve it is Crusades, discrimination and antagonizing progress, the end result isn’t worth it (especially since, like with the great purge, there’s no guarantee all this suffering will actually bring results).
And we can learn from the mistakes of people even if we don’t think they align with our political stance, me considering Stalin a leftist or not doesn’t change my opinion on what he’s done.