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.
My understanding is that after Lenin “recovered” from his second stroke, after he started investigating personally, the scrutiny aimed at Stalin lessened. Lenin had his third stroke before the party met to discuss Stalin’s actions in Georgia, but Trotsky was there, and he gave a lot of ground to Stalin’s side. Strong talks about that in the book I linked. That to me indicates that Lenin’s investigations clarified things in a light that favored Stalin, but that’s just my speculation I suppose.
I am fairly certain that Lenin’s request to remove Stalin from office was dictated after his second stroke.
But I think I’ve lost the thread of the argument. If you’re critiquing the Great Purges, my understanding was there was a real threat of Nazi collaboration within the Soviet Union. That comes to me word of mouth, though I do recall reading something by Grover Furr explaining that Trotsky was guilty of this.