Great Purge - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org

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: 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 in Russia and jailed thousands of innocents. Yagoda was arrested and executed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda

Nikolai Yezhov : Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the death of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges, executed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov

Everybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 600 000 people were killed and over 100 000 people were deported to Gulags in Siberia.

Today, Russian schools no longer teach what Joseph Stalin did. Many young russians actually believe that Stalin was a great patriot.

This is part of an effort by Vladimir Putin to rehabilitate him:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/10/vladimir-putin-russia-rehabilitating-stalin-soviet-past

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/21/stalin-is-making-a-comeback-in-russia-heres-why-a89155

  • telokic@lemmy.worldOP
    11410·
    10 hours ago

    And this, folks, is why I prefer to live in a democracy.

    Perhaps some dictators are competent. But if they go crazy, you are truly fucked.

    • ozymandias@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      11010·
      11 hours ago

      i’d like to point out that communism is an economic system whereas democracy is a social one, they are not incompatible concepts….

      just because Stalin wasn’t a very communist regime but was brutally authoritarian and is widely criticized as “what communism is like”.

      • roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        8·
        5 hours ago

        But he wasn’t criticizing communism, or advocating for capitalism. He was criticizing a dictator and saying he prefers democracy.

        Unless you think communism can’t exist outside of a brutal dictatorship.

      • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
        435·
        9 hours ago

        Communism under a dictatorship is a paradox. The people own and control nothing. The leader and their chosen circle own and control everything. That is neither communism nor socialism and it is not possible for either to exist in any authoritarian context.

        • real_squids@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          101·
          8 hours ago

          I like the “moneyless” part of the definition, aka if you have a currency you’re not communist. Which, to be fair, they didn’t call themselves as a country.

      • fonix232@fedia.io
        263·
        10 hours ago

        Yep.

        Communism and socialism in itself isn’t that problematic an economic system. Unless of course you belong to the few select brands of freeloaders who’ve successfully managed to sell to the general population that without you, everything would collapse (looking at you, landlords and billionaires and stock market speculators).

        The problem is that the economic part can’t work without an evenly matched societal system - and for people to bypass their immediate greed reaction of the usual “why should the result of my work go to others who didn’t do that work” BS, as seeing far ahead to realise that pooling resources in such manner will benefit everyone, and when the community thrives, so does the individual. For that, one needs proper education, which is usually the antithesis of a capitalist system (a capitalist system will inherently only allow one to learn a limited set of facts, and will systematically ridicule those who dare step outside those limits).

        And herein lies the second problem. Socialism and communism could be great for the average people, but the average people have been misled and lied to and been brainwashed for so long, they need to be forcibly broken out of that bubble. And the only way to force that is through a revolution, and authoritarian enforcement of the socioeconomic system.

        Now the problem with that is… it’s incredibly easy for a malicious actor to then infiltrate the authoritarian system, and push its leaders to do counterproductive things. Add on top of that the constant CIA meddling, and you get your run of the mill authoritarian “communist” (in name only) paranoid leader who rules with an iron fist. The intention might’ve been good, but the execution was starkly against the very people the revolution was supposed to help. Repeat it a few times and now the whole world is afraid of the economic system, not authoritarianism.

        Then continue by throwing in some brainwashed tankies who literally suck up to the authoritarian regimes, spreading BS about how those are “true communism”, just so average people don’t even consider learning about it because the term becomes synonymous with authoritarians and their bootlickers.

        • ozymandias@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          8·
          9 hours ago

          The problem is that the economic part can’t work without an evenly matched societal system

          well that’s absurd, and exactly why the tankies are shilling so hard

        • zeca@lemmy.ml
          91·
          10 hours ago

          but the average people have been misled and lied to and been brainwashed for so long, they need to be forcibly broken out of that bubble. And the only way to force that is through a revolution, and authoritarian enforcement of the socioeconomic system.

          That word “only” seems too pessimistic and unjustified, and your point relies too heavily on it.

        • SeeMarkFly@lemmy.mlEnglish
          41·
          10 hours ago

          seeing far ahead to realize that pooling resources in such manner will benefit everyone,

          Pooling resources is how car insurance works.

          • Zorque@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6·
            5 hours ago

            It’s part of how car insurance works. It also works by underwriters and adjusters being paid to do everything they can to keep from paying out claims.

          • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
            10·
            9 hours ago

            And the value it provides is enough to prop up the entire car insurance industry with incredibly inflated salaries at the top, and pay for a good portion of the damage caused by car accidents plus a fuckload of attorneys paid trying to avoid the rest of the damage.

      • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
        719·
        10 hours ago

        Communism inherently couples both the economy and the government.

        In theory, capitalism can be decoupled since it mostly depends on laissez-faire governance. Communism inherently requires a planned economy and centralized control of such.

        There is theoretically nothing stopping said leaders of a communist regime from being elected through a democratic process. But much like democracies tend to favor capitalism and (lower case) libertarian ideals, communism tends to lend itself to dictatorships because… you have a centralized control of all aspects of society.

        • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
          238·
          11 hours ago

          I honestly have no issue there. My issue is the claim that such atrocities don’t happen in democratic institutions.

          • MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world
            82·
            9 hours ago

            I honestly have no issue there. My issue is the claim that such atrocities don’t happen in democratic institutions.

            I can’t recall any democratic countries, fragile or not, that can hold a candle to the atrocities committed by Joseph Stalin.

            Can you point out the equivalent that we should look at in this case of whataboutism? Since we’re talking about millions being killed by Joseph Stalin, what are the comparables?

            • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              75·
              8 hours ago

              Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the archival revelations, some historians estimated that the numbers killed by Stalin’s regime were 20 million or higher.[5][6][7] After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives was declassified and researchers were allowed to study it. This contained official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953),[8][9][10][11][12] around 1.5 to 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag,[13][14][15] some 390,000[16] deaths during the dekulakization forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s,[17] with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories.[18] According to historian Stephen Wheatcroft, approximately 1 million of these deaths were “purposive” while the rest happened through neglect and irresponsibility.[2] The deaths of at least 5.5 to 6.5 million[19] persons in the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 are sometimes included with the victims of the Stalin era.[2][20] - wikipedia

              So being generous we’ll go high and say 10 million

              According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 9 million people die annually from hunger and malnutrition, mostly in regions where capitalist-driven global inequality has made basic necessities unaffordable or inaccessible.

              So less in a year due to capitalism (ignoring wars and whatnot) than the total of Stalin. But also dealing with huge differences in populations involved. Both seem pretty shitty if you ask me.

              • MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world
                83·
                6 hours ago

                An estimated 30 local NKVD agents, guards and drivers were pressed into service to escort prisoners to the basement, confirm identification, then remove the bodies and hose down the blood after each execution. Although some of the executions were carried out by Senior Lieutenant of State Security Andrei Rubanov, Blokhin was the primary executioner and, true to his reputation, liked to work continuously and rapidly without interruption.[14] In keeping with NKVD policy and the overall “wet” nature of the operation, the executions were conducted at night, starting at dark and continuing until just prior to dawn. The bodies were continuously loaded onto covered flat-bed trucks through a back door in the execution chamber and trucked, twice a night, to the nearby village of Mednoye. Blokhin had arranged for a bulldozer and two NKVD drivers to dispose of bodies at an unfenced site. Each night, 24–25 trenches were dug, measuring 8 to 10 metres (26 to 33 ft) in length, to hold that night’s corpses, and each trench was covered over before dawn.[17]

                Blokhin and his team worked without pause for 10 hours each night, with Blokhin himself executing an average of one prisoner every three minutes.[2] At the end of the night, he provided vodka to all his men.[18] On 27 April 1940, Blokhin secretly received the Order of the Red Banner and a modest monthly pay premium as a reward from Stalin for his “skill and organization in the effective carrying out of special tasks”.[19][20] His tally of 7,000 shot in 28 days remains the most organised and protracted mass murder by a single individual on record, and caused him being named the Guinness World Record holder for “Most Prolific Executioner” in 2010.[2][3]

                Ya, totally equivalent.

                Sit the fuck down.

                • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                  34·
                  5 hours ago

                  What the fuck are you on about? I guess it’s easy for a smooth brain moron to hype up gross mass murder as somehow way worse than prolonged systematic suffering and death. You’re a fucking lost cause.

                  • MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world
                    32·
                    4 hours ago

                    Prolonged systematic suffering and death, huh? If you hate that sort of thing, you’re really gonna hate that Joseph Stalin guy.

                    But here’s some more gruesome details about Stalin’s favorite executioner:

                    Blokhin initially decided on an ambitious quota of 300 executions per night, and engineered an efficient system in which the prisoners were individually led to a small antechamber — which had been painted red and was known as the “Leninist room” — for a brief and cursory positive identification, before being handcuffed and led into the execution room next door. The room was specially designed with padded walls for soundproofing, a sloping concrete floor with a drain and hose, and a log wall for the prisoners to stand against. Blokhin would stand waiting behind the door in his executioner garb: a leather butcher’s apron, leather hat, and shoulder-length leather gloves. Then, without a hearing, the reading of a sentence or any other formalities, each prisoner was brought in and restrained by guards while Blokhin shot him once in the base of the skull with a German Walther Model 2 .25 ACP pistol.[13][14][15] He had brought a briefcase full of his own Walther pistols, since he did not trust the reliability of the standard-issue Soviet TT-30 for the frequent, heavy use he intended. The use of a German pocket pistol, which was commonly carried by German police and intelligence agents, also provided plausible deniability of the executions if the bodies were discovered later.[16]

                    I bolded the part where Blokhin is literally dressed like Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

                    Like I said, sit the fuck down.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
            817·
            10 hours ago

            My issue is the claim that such atrocities don’t happen in democratic institutions.

            But that’s the point, they don’t. Atrocities can happen, but not as bad as such.
            Just give one example of a democracy where an atrocity remotely close to that happened.

            • flandish@lemmy.world
              103·
              10 hours ago

              they don’t?

              lol. have you seen how child labor works? or banana republics? or coups? or prison labor? or slavery?

              come on now. stop being a thick moron.

            • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
              129·
              10 hours ago

              You sure?

              Really?

              How sure?

              Like, I could look at ICE raids and their obvious purpose of terrorizing the immigrant community, but I have a feeling you’re the type of bootlicker that thinks those actions are justified.

              • Buffalox@lemmy.world
                813·
                10 hours ago

                Compared to genocide by Stalin, ICE is peanuts.
                But no it’s not justified, that still doesn’t make it an equal atrocity to what Stalin did.
                Also USA is not a democracy, it is a deeply dysfunctional democracy. And In USA it can go 2 ways now, they either go full dictator, or if they go the other, these things will be softened.

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin

                official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953),[8][9][10][11][12] around 1.5 to 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag,[13][14][15] some 390,000[16] deaths during the dekulakization forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s,[17] with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories.

                So kindly piss off with your false equivalences.

                • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
                  144·
                  10 hours ago

                  Dude the US is fully funding a genocide right now. Since October 7, 2023, the U.S. has provided Israel with billions in military aid, including at least $21.7 billion in approved funding, along with tens of billions more in future arms sale commitments.

                  Your entire premise is so inherently flawed.

                  Also rofl at you sounding like a tankie:

                  Also USA is not a democracy, it is a deeply dysfunctional democracy.

                  “It wasn’t real communism bro.”

                  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
                    46·
                    10 hours ago

                    Please read my edited post.
                    And no I’m not anything remotely like a tankie, I am one who favor ACTAUL democracy, where among the best models we have running currently is the Scandinavian model.
                    A 2 party system can never be accepted as a functional democracy, also the level of corruption in elections is undemocratic. preventing people from voting and gerrymandering.
                    All those things detract from USA as a democracy.

                    You are delusional and create strawmen and then you think you have a superior view based on your delusions and false equivalences that have no basis in reality.

                • flandish@lemmy.world
                  82·
                  10 hours ago

                  fine. compare stalin to something else that was closer to his time than he is to us:

                  American slave trade. do it. tell me stalin was worse than slavery?

                  the gfy.

                  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
                    17·
                    10 hours ago

                    Again with USA as the example, no other democracy had slaves like USA did.
                    On the other hand comparable stories to Stalin can be found in multiple autocratic systems.
                    Where USA is the exception as in exceptionally bad among democracies, what Stain did is commonplace among autocracies.