https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWnm6YNCexg
www.youtube.com

No.

According to a claim circulating online, there is a CIA document or internal communication from the 1950s asserting that Joseph Stalin was not a dictator. The existence of this document is cited as proof either that Stalin was not a dictator after all, or at least that even the CIA didn’t think he was. However, looking at the document in question, we see it is not a pronouncement of fact by the CIA whatsoever, but an anecdotal information report submitted to CIA information gatherers. As such, the document is a primary source representing the perspective of one anonymous informant, not the opinion of the CIA as a whole. Additionally, the document is contradicted by dozens of more reliable or detailed documents obtained or created by the CIA in the same period, indicating that they did not believe Stalin was non-dictatorial as claimed.

The transcript is in the comments.

    • SovietCollie [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      5·
      11 hours ago

      The thumbnail of the first video is just clickbait, with the conclusion at the end of the video being that Trotsky wasn’t right or completely vindicated about everything and that Trotsky and Stalin both used the history of the Soviet Union as a weapon for political and ideological orthodoxy.

      Here’s the transcript of that conclusion

      Now, am I trying to argue that Trotsky was right about everything after all and is completely politically vindicated? No, not at all. Rather, this is just an illustrative example of how in the 1920s, Soviet history itself was one of the key weapons wielded in the battle for political and ideological orthodoxy. As the ongoing historiography series will illustrate, Stalin cultivated a certain historical narrative that was favorable to himself and his goals. Well, Trotsky did the same. In the former’s case, a considerable industry emerged of party committees, government departments, press outlets, even entertainment. The school of falsification, if you will, which wrote and rewrote the history of the revolution. This school censored or suppressed certain pieces of evidence, canonizing one interpretation to the detriment of others, and in the process worked to cement Stalin’s position as the school’s leading professor.

    • sadschmuck [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      4·
      13 hours ago

      I just finished the first video and, knowing nothing about any of this, I’d like to be pointed towards the direction of any refutation or criticism of the contents of the video.

      I guess I don’t know the first thing about Trotsky.

      • cerealkiller [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        15·
        13 hours ago

        Most obviously faked document. Lenin went from heavily criticizing Trotsky in a great chunk of his work to saying “akshully, he was awesome and Stalin is an asshole” on his death bed? It doesn’t even pass the sniff test.

        Grover Furrk, a Marxist, has a book about called “The Fraud of the “Testament of Lenin””.

        Stephen Kotkin, a right-winger, has also talked about it being forged:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXutg47BwEU

        • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          1·
          58 minutes ago

          Honestly, it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things because Lenin wasn’t King of the Bolsheviks. He might have wanted Trotsky, but the Party wanted Stalin. And no single person, even someone as brilliant as Lenin, trumps the will of the Party. This is democratic centralism.

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          8·
          12 hours ago

          Lenin went from heavily criticizing Trotsky in a great chunk of his work to saying “akshully, he was awesome and Stalin is an asshole” on his death bed?

          Yeah Lenin totally hated the guy he asked to help him commit assisted suicide. Not like that’s the kind of thing you ask the person you’re closest to when you can’t ask your wife to do it. (Stalin refused btw)

      • AOCapitulator [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        7·
        12 hours ago

        Trotsky gets uncritically dogged on more than any other leftist I’ve ever heard of, not that he’s above criticism but it’s just kind of embarrassing how knee jerk most opinions of him/ his politics are

        • xiaohongshu [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          11·
          12 hours ago

          To be fair, from an economic standpoint, Trotsky would have been disastrous for the USSR.

          Trotsky thought that FDR’s New Deal would bankrupt America lol. And this is the guy who advocated for a rapid, planned industrialization while criticizing the NEP, but also believe that you cannot run large deficit for rapid expansion of industrial base while maintaining full employment.

          Stalin, on the other hand, figured out exactly how to do that without relying on foreign capital or lowering workers wages (as Deng’s reform did) with his Five Year Plans, in a country torn apart by a devastating civil war with much of their wealth already looted.

          One could even argue that without Stalin’s timely FYPs that started in 1929, it would be unlikely for the USSR to industrialize in time to resist Nazi invasion. In fact, the Germans themselves were surprised by how fast the Soviets could churn out entire mechanized divisions during the invasion itself.

          I always joke that if Deng, by chance or by life circumstances, had arrived at the USSR just a few years later in 1930-31, so instead of witnessing the NEP, he would have seen what the first, early stage of FYP looked like, his later reform in China could very well have taken a radically different turn.

          • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            1·
            57 minutes ago

            He got one thing right about the CPC out of pure contrarianism against Stalin saying the CPC should self-liquidate, and Trots have been riding that coattail ever since.

        • DornerStan@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
          5·
          10 hours ago

          30% of my knee-jerk anti-Trotsky feelings come from how insufferable he was and 70% come from how insufferable Trotskyists tend to be.

          There’s far worse crimes than being insufferable, though-- worthy of actual criticism. Like actively trying to undermine and sabotage a precarious revolution.

    • sadschmuck [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      3·
      13 hours ago

      Re the 2nd video:

      As the story goes, Stalin was Lenin’s right-hand-man and the person slated to succeed him upon his death. Or if not Stalin, sometimes emphasis is placed on Leon Trotsky as a possible alternative. However, in actuality there was a man more senior than both Stalin and Trotsky, a man who was Lenin’s original right-hand-man: Yakov Sverdlov. Up to his untimely death in 1919, Sverdlov held the reins of the Secretariat, placing him in a position to succeed Lenin if the opportunity arose. He was effectively Stalin before Stalin, serving as the blueprint for the latter’s rise to power.