Joseph Stalin was a communist leader friend with Leon Trotsky
Trotsky was a communist revolutionary and intellectual. He once wrote “In politics, obtaining power and maintaining power justifies anything” in his book “Leur morale et la nôtre”*
In this book, Trotsky justifies the use of lies, manipulation, bribery, spying, infiltration of other political parties, even hostage taking. He says absolute ruthlesness is necessary to wield political power. He concludes "We are acting for the greater good. We can’t be restrained by normal morality"
Joseph Stalin took Trotsky’s advice literally. So he murdered Trotsky because he saw him as rival. Stalin also started killing people because he believed they could be sympathetic to capitalism or opponents to his personal power.
Matvei Bronstein: Theorical physicist. Pioneer of quantum gravity. Arrested, accused of fictional “terroristic” activity and shot in 1938
Lev Shubnikov: Experimental physicist. Accused on false charges. Executed
Adrian Piotrovsky: Russian dramaturge. Accused on false charges of treason. Executed.
Nikolai Bukharin: Leader of the Communist revolution. Member of the Politburo. Falsely accused of treason. Executed.
General Alexander Egorov: Marshal of the Soviet Union. Commander of the Red Army Southern Front. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Arrested, accused on false charges, executed.
General Mikhail Tukhachevsky: Supreme Marshal of the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the Red Napoleon. Arrested, accused on fake charges. Executed.
Grigory Zinoviev:: Communist intellectual. Chairman of the Communist International Movement. Member of the Soviet Politburo. Accused of treason and executed.
Even the secret police themselves were not safe:
Genrikh Yagoda : Right-hand of Joseph Stalin. Head of the NKD Secret Police. He spied on everyone and jailed thousands of innocents. Arrested and executed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda
Nikolai Yezhov : Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the killing of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges. Also executed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov
Everybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 500 000 people were murdered. Over 1 million people were deported to Gulags, secret prisons in Siberia, where they worked 12 hours a day.
Joseph Stalin decided to crush Ukraine for resisting communism and supporting independance. In 1933, he seized all Ukraine’s food. In the next months, 5 million Ukrainians were starved to death. The situation was so bad that thousands of Ukrainians turned to cannibalism. When Nazis invaded Ukraine, some Ukrainians thought they were saviors
https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor
https://www.history.com/articles/ukrainian-famine-stalin
Hitler was a monster, but we really don’t talk enough about how bad Stalin was.
My American education, and that of everyone I’ve discussed the topic with, reamed stalin a mfing new one
It may have a lot to do with the era you were educated, and where. Mine was the 60s and 70s, so the Cold War was always looming in the background of general life, but I honestly don’t remember hearing much about it in school. I don’t recall ever hearing Stalin’s name in a class, other than as an ironic WW2 Ally.
Also, every state creates its own educational curriculum, so American educations are very hit & miss, depending on what state you’re from. I heard nothing about it, while your state might have emphasized it. I remember living in one place, and every year we had a history unit on Native Americans that had lived in our region. Then we moved to a different state, and I never heard another word about Native Americans. I was unhappy about that, because that was always my favorite part of history class.