the official stance of the CPC is that he made a lot of mistakes

learning that that the russians acknowledged the full horrifying extent of stalin's cult of personality in school text books was the first time i realized i had been fooled by propaganda.

up until them i had assumed that they would white wash it like my own school text books did regarding the pogroms/ethnic-cleansings of native-americans/mexicans/black-people/etc. and my assumptions were later reassured by the knowledge the that german and japanese students get similar "education" but my russian lab partner in college translated outloud horrifying descriptions from his school text book on his laptop to me.

i was also struck by how similar they were to the descriptions of the few survivors from the native american pogroms and when i asked him why they would teach this to children; he told me that the popular consensus was that it was important not to sugar coat it for society's sake.