Systematic slaughter/enslavement of innocent people on a intercontinental scale that continued for generations or some government/military officials get merced and some of them might have been innocent. I don't even understand the equivalence this person is going for
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
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A lot of the people killed in the purges were definitely innocent, that was even the contention of Stalin. That was why he purged Yagoda and particularly Yeshov.
If we simply take for granted that all of them are innocent (and many were, probably most, but there were also real threats) then this is still not as bad as what America did, so it's such a strange thing to say.
It's so weird for an anticommunist to say that the killing of people who, if they were innocent, were dedicated and loyal old bolsheviks is worse than genocide. I mean thanks for putting the value of communist lives so high I guess.
Wait so the soviet union is worse because some of the violence targeted their own leadership?
In the mind of the liberal, horrors being inflicted upon the masses is never as bad as the same being inflicted upon even a handful of elites.
named NPC vs Commoner
Notice how all the things they listed (Native genocide, slavery, etc.) are things that happened to racial minorities.
White supremacy is the black hole at the center of liberal thought: not directly observable, but made apparent by how all of their other ideas orbit around it.
The Soviet Union avoided a civil war with those purges. The US did not avoid a civil war. Perhaps purges are a greater good? Purging some officials to save millions of people from a war sounds like a good trade to me.
Side note, it's always deeply suspicious to me when a person expresses anger at the actions that prevented a Soviet Union civil war right before ww2. The soviet union saved the world from nazism and had a civil war occurred I doubt the outcome would have been the same.
The US not purging(violently or otherwise) the confederates after the civil war lead directly to Jim Crow etc
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The Soviet Union avoided a civil war with those purges. The US did not avoid a civil war. Perhaps purges are a greater good? Purging some officials to save millions of people from a war sounds like a good trade to me.
It is a good trade, but (large parts of) the purges were still a mistake. They weren't carried out as they should have been, and a huge number of innocent people were purged and/or killed. As others have pointed out in this thread, Stalin himself agreed with this.
I'm well aware of the excesses I'm just not inclined to give anything but a passing hand-wavy criticism about them when the alternative was lebensraum.
Trolley problem: Stalin's purges exactly as they were vs Hitler's extermination of every ethnic and religious minority in Europe alongside everyone that wasn't cishetero and the entire disabled population
I choose the purges every single time. Zero hesitation. Anyone that does not is a nazi, along with anyone that claims these two are remotely comparable.
If faced with the same scenario would I hope it's approached better today? Yeah sure. But I'd still do it again exactly as it was in order to defeat fascism.
I agree with you, but as communists, that's not the choice we're presented with going forwards.
If faced with the same scenario would I hope it's approached better today? Yeah sure.
This is what I mean. The past cannot be changed, but we can learn from it.
But I'd still do it again exactly as it was in order to defeat fascism.
No two situations are the same, and with the benefit of hindsight the Soviet Union has given us, I think we'll be able to tackle the problem better next time.
The liberal in the OP screenshot is just doing nazi apologia, you are correct.
The only context in which this conversation ever happens is a liberal doing nazi apologia and showing that they are more opposed to communists than they are to nazis. They'll claim we're as bad as nazis while simultaneously refusing to ever visit China, Cuba etc. The very claim is either a denial of nazis being genocidal monsters or a belief that we are.
I refuse to entertain that they're speaking in good faith.
The only context in which this conversation ever happens is a liberal doing nazi apologia and showing that they are more opposed to communists than they are to nazis.
We can and should (and communists, including Stalin himself when Yezhov was prosecuted, have) also be having this conversation amongst ourselves. Many were prosecuted and killed who were, according to the party itself, not guilty. This means that mistakes were made which can be learned from.
I refuse to entertain that they're speaking in good faith.
You're right, they're not.
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Even taking this at face value, genocide and slavery are surely magnitudes worse than military and government purges 
But worse than a giant spoon?! 😱
Hell even take those two off the table and the segregation and apartheid is still worse than anything the Soviet Union did
“I can excuse genocide and slavery, but I draw the line at killing soldiers”
No, instead we leave our aristocratic slave owning class intact so they can infest our social and political institutions with far right influence and make movies where we portray them as cool dudes who just made a bit of an oopsie by trying to create a pro-slavery successionist state.
Does this lady realize she's arguing that internal power struggles are worse than genocide?
in the liberal mind violence on the in-group is worse than violence on the out-group (unless it's DV, which is a property crime at most)
lol post revolution, you have to purge. Liberals love to try and co-exist with Nazis.
Even the American founders understood this, people who picked the losing side in the Revolution who weren't killed during the war were generally driven off to Canada.
Hey, quick question, how are government purges worse than genocide, slavery, and apartheid? 
This feels like the kind of truly horrible person that picks one meaningless trait to delude themselves into thinking they're a good person. Like:
"Yeah, I may drive drunk, sell dangerously cut drugs to kids, and torture small animals...but at least I never leave my trash bins out too long!"
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"i'm just really interested in world war 2!"
My "I just like the way the uniform looks" shirt is causing a lot of questions already answered by the shirt.
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Are we sure they aren't saying this ironically? That's gotta be the only reason for as outlandish a statement as that
Jumps from the purges to the "Holodomor", then back to the "Russian people".
Behold, an amerikkkan "historian".
Well thanks for the confirmation
Uh, but USA is going through a military purge right now. I guess at least no executions? At least American military leaders have so little backbone they step down willingly.
Homer Simpson: "No executions yet!"
It wasn't a purge, it was a "Red Scare" and "McCarthyism"
"killing communists is worse than genocide and slavery" is certainly a take
Answer me this:
what are you, a goblin that lives under a bridge? even if this weren't a dogshit argument, fuck all the way off with this snide debatebro garbage
Imagine if America had done political purges in the aftermath of their revolution hahahahaha Imagine if they'd exiled a significant portion of their population hahahahahaha
We had multiple purges out of the government...
She holds a BA in history from Chadron State College and an MA in history from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL).
So she’s more of a historian than say, Anne Applebaum or Dan Carlin. But less of a historian than… actual historians. No teaching position, no academic papers, etc
I’m not trying to be a snob about credentials, but there is a huge gulf between someone who has a BA in history and someone who has a PhD from a legit program. MAs can be good but there’s not really much of a standard there (Mike Duncan has an MA in history and IIRC he has enough respect for the work to not call himself a historian formally).
The reality is that a rigorous PhD program will teach you about how to research and analyze properly. The kind of research that would help prevent you from making brain dead takes like this one that most historians - even anti-communist ones - wouldn’t make.
That is not true lol. Literally read anything by Sarah Paine, and she has a doctorate from Columbia. PhD's will have brain-dead takes.
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Riddle me this, Batman!
Rule 1 btw
Like the Journalists that buzzed like an agitated hive after the murder of Kashoggi because one of them got targeted the purges are always fixated upon by liberals because it’s an example of state violence being leveled against middle management.
Her website is so Peggy Hill coded. Endless drivel about herself as if it’s fascinating to anybody else.
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