The US is almost as bad as the USSR, with the exception that they don’t kill their own people, only other people.

Have to give it to you there, that is absolutely true.

I could explain why these things were done in the USSR… that doesn’t exempt them, of course, from it, but there is logic behind some of these actions. I can’t speak for the USSR in particular, because I haven’t lived there and in that time, but I can speak for Yugoslavia, since I have lived there (and still do).

The USSR had Gulag, we had Goli Otok. Basically the same thing, except not as nearly as many people were sent to Goli Otok (percentage of population I mean). See, back when Yugoslavia was formed, it was supposed to be a federation. And it was, but some people thought that having a federation is not good, especially from a nationalist/religious perspective (the Balkans is a clusterfuck of nationalities and religions, mainly christians and muslims), so they were “tactically silenced” (sometimes executed, mostly sent to Goli Otok or relocated abroad). The idea behind the federation (or as Tito saw it, at least how I interpret it) was having one single nation - Yugoslavs. The idea was more than good, especially since almost every single war that was fought on these grounds was either a war between nations or a religious war (this was the de facto standard for centuries). So, his idea was to eradicate this (once again, my interpretation). The easiest way to do this is to, one, distance the masses from religion, two, do tactical reprogramming about how the concept of nationalism and national treasures is viewed. The simplest way to achieve this - impose a new social order - socialism (integrated through the communist party, of course). And, I can confirm that the idea was more than good. The time during Tito’s reign was probably the most peaceful time this piece of land has ever seen. And there were also preventive measures taken, to ensure that the blood of the masses get’s mixed, so that no religious or national war was ever fought again. Soldiers on mandatory service (it was mandatory back then) were sent from one part of the federation to another. The idea was - horny soldiers will probably find some girl there and marry her. People were encouraged to move and travel all across the country, as well as out of the state (view things from a different perspective, learn, maybe meet a partner in another part of the country, or abroad, doesn’t matter, as long as there is gene mixing, it was fine).

See, all of these were very delicately picked tactics that would actually bring people closer to each other and mix the gene pool, which would of course eventually lead to less fighting and bigotry (you’re certainly not gonna kill your wife if she was muslim and you were christian, just because an incident happened somewhere in the federation that involved muslims and christians, which, to be honest, it never did, at least not while Tito was at the head of the communist party). But there will always be some bad apples, wanting to defederate from the federation because they felt that their nation, country or religion is not getting enough independence or rights from the federation. This wasn’t true in most cases, they were just die hard nationalists and were just clinging on to this ancient idea that was about to be eradicated for the greater good of all of the nations. Sure, that means loosing some of their national identity, but the risk of keeping it was even greater (my opinion as well). So, what did Tito and the communist party do with those individuals? They either dislocated them to other parts of the world (told never to come back), sent to Goli Otok, or in rare cases, executed (usually when the 1st or 2nd one didn’t work with this particular individual). Since this was done all for the greater good of the people, I am totally behind this. Mind you, I’ve got a grandfather that was sent to Goli Otok for publicly expressing his ideas about how his country should be defederated from Yugoslavia, talking smack about Tito in public, etc. (this was going on for way too long I might add, years, people weren’t just sent there like that, like if you curse at the state or Tito in a bar during happy hour, you had to really be in on it for months or years to get the desired attention and effect that might get you sent there), and to be honest, even if it was me doing the shots, yes, I’d sent him there as well. There is a bigger picture behind this whole thing, but some people just failed to see it. Even though there was nothing wrong with the way the lived (everyone was pretty much equal, you had an apartment, a car, enough money to go on a vacation once a year and spend on some luxuries, like owning a color TV, which was expensive back then), they still needed to express their opinion publicly regarding those ideas, and, of course, if shout long and hard enough, eventually someone will hear you. This was the fear that communist party and Tito had, not to spread ideas like this amongst the population, cuz that’ll just bring this whole thing down. I certainly don’t think it was for Tito to establish himself as a ruthless dictator (if anything, he was known as the benevolent dictator, the majority of people loved him, can tell you from what I’ve seen, there were framed pictures of him in people’s homes even 20 years+ after his death) since he already had the sympathy from most of the people in the federation. But, yes, he did some bad things, no doubt there. On the other hand, you can’t make an omelette if you don’t break some eggs… there will be collateral damage, no matter how many ways you slice this thing.

What you’re saying about Kronstadt dosen’t match what I have heard at all. They fought alongside each other in the revolution and then the Bolsheviks decided to bring in horrible undemocratic policies. The other groups protested this and where slaughtered at Kronstadt.

Yes, they were hoping for a more democratic approach to communism from Stalin, he was against it (yes, he really did want to rule with an iron fist, I most definitely can agree on that), so he decided to, basically execute all of them. That was a way more drastic way to deal with people that don’t agree with your ideology, but hey, what do you expect from a person that would send his own son to jail…

He was a man with many character flaws, like Hitler. And yes, he’s not that different in the way he ruled, compared to Hitler… heck, Hitler didn’t kill as many Germans as he did Russians, just because they didn’t agree with him or even whispered one word against him (the walls had ears back then, as far as I know), so yeah, that puts him even higher on the evil scale if you ask me. The only question (if you ask me) is, did he do at least one good deed that we can learn from? Yes, he did. So did Hitler… and many other rulers/dictators across history. Does that make them good? Of course not. Should they be mentioned in the history books as the inventors/promotors of a certain idea? Yes, most definitely. Should they be praised for that idea? No, but mentioned, most definitely yes.