Why was Stalin so beloved

I don't agree that dictatorship is necessarily based on lies. No more so than democratic politics. Democracy with its elections and politicking is very dependant on lies since rarely is one party so obviously preferable to the others that it can simply tell the truth and expect to get elected. And don't forget that student groups that resisted Hitler were far outnumbered by those that were avidly Nazi.

 

I agree with those questioning whether Stalin is actually all that beloved by Russians. Already within a year or two of his death his cult and hero status were being quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) dismantled. His cronies were sacked and a new Soviet leadership emerged, to the consternation of the new Eastern European toadies who had wormed their way into power by kissing up to Stalin and his clique. If Germany hadn't lost the war Hitler would probably have a somewhat similar, if not even greater, reputation than Stalin has today. The reason why Stalin isn't hated as much as Hitler, even though he killed more people than Hitler, is due to a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that he only killed Russians and Germans and other Eastern Europeans. Hitler killed Jews and Jews and their sympathizers have enormous resources to publish book after book after TV special after Hollywood movie after Holocaust Museum to keep the memory of Hitler's murders alive and relevant. No such resources to publicize Stalin's crimes or make people interested or sympathetic for the eastern Europeans. And the fact that Hitler was actually at war with us didn't help his cause out either. Stalin never fought us but fought with us against the Nazis. That's what gets him a pass and allows him to escape being personified in popular culture as evil embodied. Hitler fought us and lost and that's why his Nazis will remain ever available to writers and film-makers to act as boogeymen and foils to our American heroes.

 

It seems to me Stalin agreed with Hitler about Jews in the end although Stalin mostly kept on removing anyone he considered a possbile threat.

....later again during 1948-53 he unleashed another reign of terror where multiple executions were the order of the day and none, not even his closest associates, were spared. Of the various purges and plots planned by him, the last perhaps was the dyelo vrachey or the Doctors’ Plot. This preplanned conspiracy against the top Jewish doctors of the Soviet Union was aimed to “show” that Jews in the highest positions of power were spies in the USSR and were being used in a grand plan by the enemies of socialism to destroy the Soviet state. Farfetched as it may sound, it did unleash an anti-Semitic campaign that led to executions of doctors, artists, poets and writers after false accusations of treason had been made against them.

http://www.curledup.com/stalins.htm

Also Hitler did kill Slavs, disabled, communists, traitors....