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Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
I wouldn't disagree, but within the context of this discusion I will still hold that Russians accepted Stalin for the same reason they currently accept Putin, I don't think they expect a hell of alot more than brutal dictatorships.
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I wouldn't say they accepted Stalin, but lived in constant abject fear. The Black Marias were out every night knocking on doors. Stalin would getting standing ovations for an hour in length because the first people in crowd to stop clapping would go missing that very night. Read the Gulag Archipelago--the full version, not the abridged version--and you'll get an the picture of how bad things got in the Soviet Union. It is an astonishing read.