[ilyich]

The only fucking idiot among top Soviet politicians was Gorbachev who sold one of the world's biggest economic, scientific and military powers just for 30 pieces of silver. His predecessors were no idiots at all. They are depicted as complete morons by the western propaganda - it's true. But propaganda and reality are two completely different things. I would advise you to learn history instead of blindly believing the yellow press and political articles on Wikipedia.

[BigBubbleButt]

So the politician who sent the world's greatest rocket engineer to the gulags out of spite isn't an idiot?

I'd be happy to learn more if you can point me towards some sources.

[ilyich]

First, by the time of his imprisonment he was not yet the world's greatest rocket engineer. He became one some 20 years after.

Quote from here: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/50_years_of_humans_...

> On 23 March 1938, Valentin Glushko was arrested. To reduce his charges he denounced Korolev, which resulted in his arrest on 7 June and a sentence of ten years forced labour. From that day on, the two men were bitterly opposed to each other.

So as you can see he was not sent to gulag out of spite by Stalin but out of envy and professional competition by his fellow rocket engineer.

While in gulag he was not tortured or sent to gold mines. He and other scientists continued their work in relatively comfortable conditions in so called "sharashka": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka

I'm not saying that Stalin was a saint or a winged seraph. But definitely he was anyone but an idiot.

Also Korolev did not died because he was sent to the Gulags. He died from a chronic disease from which he started suffering long before he was imprisoned.

[BigBubbleButt]

An engineer was imprisoned because another engineer was spiteful. You don't consider this a dumb political decision? I consider the default judgment of "everyone goes to the gulags" to be shitty governance, and also quite stupid.

My understanding is Korolev's health greatly declined because of his time while imprisoned, and had he never had to endure it he likely would have lived much longer.

[thesmok]

I must point out that username ilyich is a transliterated name likely referring to Lenin – real name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. So ilyich seems to be a fan of USSR.

[BigBubbleButt]

That much is obvious. It doesn't mean I don't want to hear his perspective though.

[cbHXBY1D]

I read Stephen Kotkin's excellent three part series on Stalin this summer and Kotkin (who is by no means a Soviet apologist; he's a conservative) thinks Stalin was a political genius, a modern Machiavelli. For example, in this interview [1] he explains how Stalin's administration was what he considers a "transcendental work of art" while also explaining how it was psychotic and evil.

I highly recommend Kotkin's books. You can jump into the second, Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 if you want to learn more about him as a leader.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz1ROc0pTU4

[BigBubbleButt]

Thank you! I appreciate it.

[nickik]

Gorbachev saw an totally undemocratic nation that had long flattened out in terms growth and innovation and wanted to make it democratic, he didn't realize that all these rich people in the society had more interest in keeping the system in their control and they had no interest in his vision.

> They are depicted as complete morons by the western propaganda - it's true. But propaganda and reality are two completely different things.

They were not idiots, but their intensives didn't align with the goals of the engineers.