Given that this community has generally positive view of Stalin, I’m curious what he did that my comrades find irredeemable or out of line. Since it’s easy to criticize the Soviet Union from a western perspective, bonus points if you explain how this was detrimental to the development of socialism and/or communism.

  • Muad'DibberA
    19•2 years ago

    It was not limited material or manpower support, it was pretty substantial. From the link:

    First, they organized a civilian aid campaign, even getting Soviet workers to volunteer for a .5% pay reduction to help the Republicans

    Soviet totals for the Spanish relief campaign altogether came to 115 million rubles for 1936, 102 million for 1937, 45 million for 1938, and 9 million for 1939— a total of 271 million rubles, or approximately £1,416,000 sterling, which took the form of large amounts of Soviet foodstuffs and other civilian goods shipped to Republican Spain.

    As far as military aid goes, it was pretty substantial

    estimates of material provided by the USSR to the Republicans vary between 634 and 806 planes, 331 and 362 tanks, and 1,034 and 1,895 artillery pieces

    In addition they provided 15,113 - 20,486 machine guns, 414,645-500,000 rifles, 110,000 bombs, 500,000 grenades, and massive amounts of ammunition.

    Altogether, the number of military personnel was limited, and Soviet sources recognize little more than 3,000 in all, of whom 200, or 6.67 percent, were killed. This rate of loss was about average for the two contending armies

    Offsetting the small numbers, however, was the skill level of the Soviet personnel. Not a single one was an ordinary infantryman. The largest contingent was made up of the nearly 800 air crewmen who flew in the Republican air force, followed by several hundred tank crewmen. Many of the rest were officers, some of fairly senior rank; the remainder consisted of technical support personnel, nearly all of them commissioned or noncommissioned offcers.