#Stalin apologetics is actually a thing. Some Western communists deny that Joseph Stalin was the murderous #dictator he is extensively documented as having been.

Their motivation stems from standard "my enemy's enemy" logic, combined with the idea that The Revolution required and requires a strong leader, and Stalin fits that bill. Therefore, his flaws must be papered over, for the good of all.

Stalinists, and similarly authoritarian communists, are often referred to with the derogatory epithet #tankies.

Stalin apologists call people who disagree with them "revisionist" — particularly their mortal enemies, the Trots — while calling themselves "anti-revisionist", much like how TERFs call themselves (and insist on being called) "gender critical", or how white supremacists call themselves "race realists". If talking about non-communists, Stalin apologists will often use the curious phrase "right-wing liberal".

#RationalWiki #stalinapologetics #communism
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Stalin_apologetics

Grover Furr and Sven-Eric Holmström allege that the Trotsky #Harvard archive was “purged” of explicit material that would implicate Trotsky in terrorism.

Their source is J Arch Getty who inconclusively suggested materials might have been "removed". Getty also made a more careless statement in his book "Origins of the Great Purges". By 1999 he stated that these materials were simply not preserved. So they have no conclusive evidence that the archive was “purged”.
#Stalin #Stalinapologetics

Grover Furr has made extensive use of Valentin Astrov’s (Валентин Астров) 1937 “confessions” regularly claiming that he had “explicitly refused” to “retract” his testimony in the 1980s and 1990s. However, Astrov told #Soviet rehabilitation officials that his testimony was “fictitious and dictated by #NKVD officers”. Is Grover Furr correct?
https://diedreiraben.substack.com/p/valentin-astrov-and-grover-furr

#Stalinapologetics #Stalin #Soviethistory @histodons #Histodons

Grover Furr in his book "The Mystery of the #Katyn Massacre" lies about the archeological work of Dominika Siemińska. He specifically uses the findings related to two mass graves (no1 and no2) to "debunk" the findings of other mass graves. (no4 and no5)

#Katynmassacre #Stalin #Stalinapologetics #Histodons @histodons

Just a friendly reminder that the director of the Federal Security Service ( #FSB ) Alexander Bortnikov believes the #Yezhovschina was justified and the Moscow trial defendants had connections to "foreign secret services".
https://rg.ru/2017/12/19/aleksandr-bortnikov-fsb-rossii-svobodna-ot-politicheskogo-vliianiia.html

#Russia #Stalin #Stalinapologetics @histodons

Grover Furr in his “critique” of Stephen Kotkins #stalin biographies cites Valentin Astrov’s 1937 “confession” to prove the Ryutin platform was actually Bukharin’s. Furr however ignores that in his 1993 Izvestia letter Astrov wrote that he “knew nothing about its composition or program”.

#Stalinapologetics @histodons #histodon

#Stalinapologetists are forever stuck in the 1940's. They haven't read any of the subsequent literature that documented that United States Ambassador Joseph E Davies saw the Moscow trials as “nightmare” proceedings that were not "trial[s] at all". (MacLean, Envoy to the Soviets, p.50) Or that he dishonestly altered his reports and diary entires in his book "Mission to Moscow".

#Stalinapologetics #Soviethistory

Grover Furr back in 2018 deliberately omitted text from doctor Vincenzo Palmieri's testimony to the Madden Commission that showed he derived his own conclusions that were similar to doctor Ferenc Orsós. By doing so he can falsely allege that Sanford lied about Palmieri's statements.

#Stalinapologetics #Katyn #Katynmassacre @histodons