It is good that Russians can discuss Stalin openly and honestly. Stalin was a weak, wicked and power hungry, and sadistic. But as long as the current economic elite act as bandits and looters of the nation’s wealth who have no respect for the lives of ordinary people, nostalgia for Stalin and Stalinist era will remain strong among older Russians.

Absolutely this is the case, and it is a great continual vector. We are very educated people, we can discuss these things, we can identify the hidden and overt agendas and separate the facts from the fictional backed propaganda. We can also contextualise the period, both internally and externally, benchmarking against other nations and periods. It is a good discussion, I wouldn't recommend you devote your every waking moment to it, but as always people are free to debate what they want; but academic debate is what is needed, not the mantra chanters. We are talking about serious history here, not electing a student head.

One day a true history will be revealed as who was really behind the October Revolution who brought Lenin and subsequently Stalin in power. These World Evil forces are well alive and very active even today by stirring antagonism against nations which creates fertile grounds for their hidden agenda to control the World financially and in turn politically. These evil forces own the World Bank and IMF.

I neither like nor dislike Stalin. Those who vilify Stalin often make all sorts of claims about him, most of which have no proof. I think Winston Churchill's assessment of Stalin that he was both good and bad is about as close to the truth as can be got. On the positive side for Stalin, independent writers have said that he was the most effective wartime leader of all the wartime leaders in World War II. He accepted the advice of his generals and had excellent communications with his troops at the front and knew what was going on daily. Also Stalin faced pressure far greater than either Churchill or Roosevelt had to deal with and there is an account of him being told by his bureaucrats, when Moscow was surrounded on 2 out of 3 sides, that there was a train waiting to take him east to the Urals and he should go, he said he was staying in Moscow. That decision probably greatly helped win the war and showed great courage on his part because things appeared desperately bad at that time.. Critics of Stalin also blame every conceivable thing on him such as that the famine in Ukraine was "genocide by Stalin" but just as many people in Russia also suffered the same famine and there were other factors such as collective farm failures , too much grain sold overseas for currency, bad organization , crop failures such as happened in USA at the same time. The constant criticism posthumously of Stalin reminds me of "thou doth protest too much" and that the critics seem to have hidden agendas. It is good that people in Russia can discuss Stalin but I think that the critics of Stalin outside Russia are often not honest and are trying to make politics in an attempt to belittle Russia's great achievements in World War II..

Donninz, there isn’t a recognized historian anywhere who doubts Stalin’s mass criminality. What is questioned is not Stalin’s criminality, but was he responsible for 5 million deaths or 15 million? His crimes were so enormous, so widespread and lasted such a long that figures have to be extrapolated by the records of known slave labor camps, and multiplying these out by the number of camps known to exist, adjusted for known deceits in Soviet record-keeping, and matching these with populations that simply disappeared from Soviet regions, towns and villages. You have a very imperfect understanding of Stalin’s war tactics if you believe he accepted the advice of his generals. Literally months before the outbreak of war, he executed most of the higher echelons of Red Army officers. And Hitler was able to catch him by surprise and make such devastating inroads into Russia in the initial German attack was precisely because Stalin point-blank refused to hear the warning of Russia’s own intelligence apparatus about the pending German attack. Furthermore, given the atmosphere of paranoia and terror which Stalin generated around him, very few people, generals included, had the courage to tell him what they really thought. Their lives weren’t worth that much – they largely told him what they thought he wanted to hear. It isn’t a case of “thou protesteth too much” regarding Stalin. How can one protest too much about one of the greatest mass murderers of all history? Please also forget about hidden agendas and the like. Everyone has an agenda, whether hidden or not, but not a one of these is able to overturn the facts of Stalin’s mass criminality – these stand quite independently of all agendas. Finally, it isn’t a question of liking or not liking Stalin. Stalin is dead, and it doesn’t matter whether anyone likes him or not. What is important is that his criminality, like Hitler’s, not be excused or defended, as that would make it easier for it all to happen again.

"Marzipan6'' Many things are said about Stalin , good and bad, without proof either way. Stalin did many bad things that is for sure, he did good things also. My point is that I do not know whether the good outweighs the bad ,and I think that most historians do not know either. Some say good and some say bad about Stalin, and many today have agendas to re-write history. Many in the West have not forgiven Russia in the form of the USSR , for having won the Great Patriotic War, and are doing their very best to rewrite history. You may be right , you may be wrong- I have an open mind about Stalin. Even Hitler who left great proof of his evil, did some good too. No man is all good or all bad. No one is perfect .

Stalin is my idol. Mao comes in a close second. I guess it's a lot easier to talk about people when they are not there to defend themselves and they take on all sorts of faces that they never wore. Only those of those times would know, slightly tainted with a golden hue of yesterday perhaps. Dictators need to hurry up and become immortal so that they can contain more and don't get soft and weak in old age. The meek have inherited the Earth . Some are more perfect that others - and with good reason.

Stalin was a despot and mass murderer.Look at all the innocent peasants he stole land from and sent out to siberia as dissidents because they would not conform to his totalitarianism or whatever you call it.He did not save Russia from Hitler..THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE DID! Hitler was a fasist along with mussolini and their mob...and lets not forget the companies and wealthy backers and lobbyists who supported and funded their causes while making a healthy profit supplying arms and oil etc.. Forget about this madman ...putin has done more in ten years than this man could do in ten lifetimes Sorry to offend but the truth sometimes does