{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "cid": "bafyreidm4qfif5ggsqnpoceyutfrci74izisqcpdd4ccan5gnpfkedqh7i",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:pn6pisnhglaisb7dotyn3s43/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhg23lxffrd2"
  },
  "path": "/post/44419060",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-18T11:02:24.000Z",
  "site": "https://lemmy.world",
  "tags": [
    "You Should Know",
    "Valnao",
    "youshouldknow",
    "196 comments",
    "Matvei Bronstein",
    "Lev Shubnikov",
    "Adrian Piotrovsky",
    "Nikolai Bukharin",
    "General Alexander Egorov",
    "General Mikhail Tukhachevsky",
    "Grigory Zinoviev:",
    "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda",
    "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov",
    "thousands of people turned to cannibalism",
    "cla.umn.edu/chgs/…/holodomor",
    "www.history.com/articles/ukrainian-famine-stalin"
  ],
  "textContent": "submitted by Valnao to youshouldknow\n439 points | 196 comments\n\nJoseph Stalin was a communist leader inspired by Leon Trotsky\n\nTrotsky was a communist revolutionary and intellectual. He once wrote _“In politics, obtaining power and maintaining power justifies anything”_ in his book “**Leur morale et la nôtre** ”*\n\nIn this book, Trotsky justifies the use of lies, infiltration of other political parties, smearing, even hostage taking. He says absolute ruthlesness is necessary to overthrow a hostile system and wield power. He concludes \"_We are acting for the greater good. We can’t be restrained by normal morality\"_.\n\nJoseph Stalin took Trotsky’s advice literally. So he murdered Trotsky because he saw him as rival. Stalin also started killing people because he believed they could be sympathetic to capitalism or opponents to his power.\n\nMatvei Bronstein: Theorical physicist. Pioneer of quantum gravity. Arrested, accused of fictional “terroristic” activity and shot in 1938\n\nLev Shubnikov: Experimental physicist. Accused on false charges. Executed\n\nAdrian Piotrovsky: Russian dramaturge. Accused on false charges of treason. Executed.\n\nNikolai Bukharin: Leader of the Communist revolution. Member of the Politburo. Falsely accused of treason. Executed.\n\nGeneral Alexander Egorov: Marshal of the Soviet Union. Commander of the Red Army Southern Front. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Arrested, accused on false charges, executed.\n\nGeneral Mikhail Tukhachevsky: Supreme Marshal of the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the Red Napoleon. Arrested, accused on fake charges. Executed.\n\nGrigory Zinoviev:: Communist intellectual. Chairman of the Communist International Movement. Member of the Soviet Politburo. Accused of treason and executed.\n\nEven the secret police themselves were not safe:\n\n**Genrikh Yagoda :** Right-hand of Joseph Stalin. Head of the NKD Secret Police. He spied on everyone and jailed thousands of innocents. Arrested and executed.\n\nen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda\n\n**Nikolai Yezhov :** Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the killing of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges. Also executed.\n\nen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov\n\nEverybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 500 000 people were murdered. Over 1 million people were deported to Gulags, secret prisons in Siberia, where they worked 12 hours a day.\n\nJoseph Stalin decided to crush Ukraine for resisting communism and supporting independance. In 1933, he seized all Ukraine’s food production including all the bread, the wheat, the cows, the chicken. In the next months, over 5 million Ukrainians were starved to death. The situation was so bad that thousands of people turned to cannibalism. When the Nazis invaded Ukraine, some Ukrainians thought they were saviors\n\ncla.umn.edu/chgs/…/holodomor\n\nwww.history.com/articles/ukrainian-famine-stalin\n\nHitler was a monster, but we really don’t talk enough about how bad Stalin was.",
  "title": "YSK that Joseph Stalin created the Great Terror. He started killing people randomly including artists, generals, doctors, scientists, government officials. Everyone was terrified."
}