In the west, Stalinist is just a pejorative for marxist-leninists; Stalin was a ML.
Within ML circles tho, there’s more nuance regarding Stalin; there was a split after Stalin’s death; for reasons, under Kruschev the USSR used any pretense to revise history and villify him, some true, most untrue or taken wildly out of context. Even Mao who really didn’t like Stalin and blamed him and the USSR’s support coming with non-materialist, one-size-fits all strings for severe losses incurred during the chinese civil war, was shocked by Kruschev’s actions there. For comparison, even the chinese leaders who essentially coup’d Mao took a more nuanced take on Mao’s legacy.
But nobody calls themselves stalinists.
Regarding the DPRK, I don’t have a take regarding their domestic politics because I don’t have any reliable information about the country as its all filtered through western media or unreliable witnesses who can be imprisoned or executed as spies under SK or US law. Its probably not a great place to live, but without access to their politics and history, there’s not much useful discussion to be had.
The chinese people I’ve asked who’ve been there were depressingly uncurious and just had cool vacation photos.
In the west, Stalinist is just a pejorative for marxist-leninists; Stalin was a ML.
Within ML circles tho, there’s more nuance regarding Stalin; there was a split after Stalin’s death; for reasons, under Kruschev the USSR used any pretense to revise history and villify him, some true, most untrue or taken wildly out of context. Even Mao who really didn’t like Stalin and blamed him and the USSR’s support coming with non-materialist, one-size-fits all strings for severe losses incurred during the chinese civil war, was shocked by Kruschev’s actions there. For comparison, even the chinese leaders who essentially coup’d Mao took a more nuanced take on Mao’s legacy.
But nobody calls themselves stalinists.
Regarding the DPRK, I don’t have a take regarding their domestic politics because I don’t have any reliable information about the country as its all filtered through western media or unreliable witnesses who can be imprisoned or executed as spies under SK or US law. Its probably not a great place to live, but without access to their politics and history, there’s not much useful discussion to be had.
The chinese people I’ve asked who’ve been there were depressingly uncurious and just had cool vacation photos.