American school teacher here. It really depends on the school district its self as each kinda have their own rules. When it comes to communism iv seen everything from slight bias to the us but not terrible to "communism is literal ant hiveminds"
Like I said depends on the district and the teacher teaching it. Imo its better then youd expect but not great. My approach has always been just teach the facts and let the students form their own conclusions
Edit: after thinking about it a bit more I think schools tend to view Lenin in a more positive light then Stalin. Borderline favorable depending on the context? (To be fair I spend some time teaching AP EURO where rhe curriculum is made by colleges at the college level so its more academic and less room for teacher input. In a more general classroom the bias against him could be worse)
Also taught history in the US so I can corroborate.
The following is just my personal experience when I was student teaching but I’m sharing it because my lesson plans were scrutinized by my host teacher and the education department at my college. They had no problem with this approach.
A big theme in my classes was “why did people do X?” in as sterile a way as possible. It’s a historical fact that stuff happened. Good stuff, bad stuff. So I put the emphasis on why. I wanted them to tell me why Abolitionists wanted to end slavery, why Lenin wanted to overthrow the Tsar, and why Germans voted Hitler into power.
I taught the Holocaust to this class. I don’t think I ever said ANYTHING was right or wrong, including that. It’s because if I did my job correctly, I should think most kids would come to their own conclusions that the Holocaust was wrong.
I had a surprising amount of time for Russia. When I covered WW1, I legit had kids reading Leninist pamphlets the same way I’d have them reading Thomas Paine’s common sense. I was worried I’d get in trouble, lol. So the emphasis was on ‘why did people rebel?’
It was a fun culminating activity because the kids had to create revolutionary propaganda (I’m using this term neutrally) that identified the issues that the Bolsheviks were raising. So the artsy kids made posters, the drama students made skits, and the loud ones shouted revolutionary slogans, etc.
It was framed as roleplaying. I wasn’t asking them to sincerely shout these slogans. Amazed I didn’t get in trouble with some maga parent.
In retrospect, however fun that activity was, I’m not sure I want to ever do it again. Kids often transpose the aesthetics of something with the reality. They internalize surface level things, like shouting a slogan, but may forget that they were playing a character.
I think, in my effort to be impartial and correct for my own biases (I am left-leaning but not communist), I robbed some kids of a chance to formulate their own opinions.
But that shit’s hard to do anyways. Kids want to be told the ‘correct’ answer in social studies. They hate being asked ‘Do you agree or disagree with…’
In general, both the left and right leaning social studies teachers I’ve met- they have been very careful to temper their biases. The lefties probably overcompensate while the righties hold back from what they really want to say. So both go towards the center, though the lefties moreso.
Sorry. I rambled but this dug up fun memories and helps me reassess what I could do better as an educator.
Above all, trying to answer big overarching questions without understanding that the Russian people had very limited understanding of what socialism would look like done in reality.
They were also addressing how to create a democratic society at the same time.
That’s a lot of shit to do all at once. It’s hard to compare to the USA, which had 100+ years of democratic traditions and smooth transitions of power; also a burgeoning industrial economy in the north and a literal slave empire, “King Cotton,” in the south.
What I have found about being a leftist teacher is that my politics don’t really fit well in the Democrat-Replicant binary we have in the US, so I can speak pretty freely and students don’t think I am taking a side
Liberals and soc dems always do this. With Lenin, with Sankara who was assassinated after four years, with anarchists who never made a difference. Even after centuries of terror by the governments they over throw, the revolution is expected to be perfect, and thats not possible so even to "sympathizers" the only good revolutionary is a dead revolutionary. Stalins crime in their eyes was living long enough to help achieve many revolutionary things and to therefore taint them with reality.
Or maybe Stalin just wasn't 100% perfect? Hes only human. Of course he would want to protect his position against political rivals. Just because he was a bit paranoid and perhaps selfishly killed people he viewed as political rivals doesnt mean he also didnt use his power for good things as well, both can be true. That's just my view of the situation anyways.
I don't think you read what I typed. I was criticizing people who expect revolution to be perfect, because there is no such thing. Not only was Stalin not perfect, he also was not in fact a totalitarian dictator. That is infantilizing of the millions of people, the nations and their union which defeated the Nazis and sent the first man to space. The idea that the "purges" were a slaughterhouse is also completely ahistorical. People got fired from their cushy public sector jobs. Some of them went to prison for corruption, a few were executed for nazi collaboration.
Im not infantalizing any of that if anything i was just stating that theres more nuisance to Stalin then hes ether perfect and every action he took was 100% selfless or he was a evil dictator who killed millions. Both positions are extreme and Infantalize the issue. Im simply stating his actions are more complex and human then people realize and it helps to analyze our own biases when looking at his actions
Okay, yeah. That's essentially what I was saying. Revolutionaries are human, revolutions are going to be imperfect. I was just also criticizing a trend of praising only the revolutionaries who die before this fact can crystallize in their legacy, or who never achieve and weild power.
For AP classes I usually cant teach what id like to because the kids there have to pay a lot of money (relatively speaking. Low income area) to be in the ap class to get college credit and I wanna make sure they pass the AP test to get what they paid for. For my general classes/honors classes I always liked putting students into groups where they each take a side in events like this. Id have one group try and defend stalins actions while another would decry them as ether evil or against the "idea" of the revolution while moderating to keep the class from going crazy. Like I said my approach is i like to give my students the opportunity to teach themselves how to conduct research and make their own opinions or even new ideas that may be better then old ones.
They have to pay for AP courses? What? Mine were all free. Is it a private school in a low income area or something? I’m confused. I went to public school though.
In my school you have to give 100 upfront to make sure you can pay for the exam. Less if you manage to get a waiver (iv seen mixed successes with those tho)
Its because the school doesnt run the exam college board does and theyre the ones that actually give the college credit. Iv heard of some schools getting grants from them covering the test costs so its possible thats why you never had to pay.
Gotcha. That makes sense. That’s messed up that they have to pay for them though, that makes me so mad. I guess it’s cheaper than paying for the college courses in the end though, my AP exams saved me thousands of dollars in debt. and hopefully the fees are actually waived more often than not.
I would suggest pointing out the fact that it is only distinguished from other events in history linguistically. A gulag is just a prison, the purges were just some people getting fired. There are many other examples in history, it's completely normal, except perhaps in that most other governments had smaller internal ideological differences because they were all liberal capitalists. McCarthyism was a purge. I don't want to do their homework for them but people who want to criticize Stalin should criticize him for allowing the ethnic cleansing of ethnic koreans and crimean tatars, and for suporting Israel through the Nakba. Some have argued the ethnic cleansings could have been prevented with more purging of the party, of a fifth element of Russian and Ukrainian chauvinists.
I’m British. The way they taught the Russian Revolution to us was that the USSR was overall a force of good. Lenin was a good guy, Stalin was a bad guy, and Trotsky should have become leader.
Then when they do Hitler (which they taught after Russian Revolution) they basically denounced anything good about the USSR and taught us the horseshoe theory. Very contradictory curriculum.
You “just teach the facts”? What facts? How do you choose them? How do you teach them? Do history teachers truly believe that they can teach history without bias?
No person is truly without bias but its important to try none the less. Id rather try to do that then just blindly teach some propaganda even if that would make my job much easier.
Yeah, I agree, but I do think that a lot of schools in the US blindly teach propaganda under the guise of “just teaching the facts,” so when I see the expression, it feels suspect
I ask this because I mentioned Lenin and Stalin to a friend of mine, and he didn't even know who those two were. I myself was never taught about Lenin at all during any of my school years, but I always knew about him because I had a knack for history. Stalin would at least get a mention or two when teachers were teaching us about WW2.
Not where I live. I didn’t even know Lenin and Stalin were different people until towards the end of my senior year (from watching an AlternateHistoryHub video, not learning it in school)
USSR, Lenin, Stalin weren't taught in my high school either. I went to a very small school in the middle of a very conservative area. We had three "social studies" classes, US History, World History, and US Government. The entirety of our World History class was WWII and only focused on Germany, the US, and UK involvement.
I went to school in the US and I knew who Lenin and Stalin were from history courses before I ever became knowledgeable on Marxism. Of course we learned about Lenin and Stalin - I explicitly remember it from 10th grade history. It would be interesting to listen to those lectures now, to reevaluate how they were taught but I no longer have access to that information obviously, I wasn’t recording my teacher’s lessons 16 years ago. Like I knew who the Bolsheviks were, I knew about the Lend-lease, etc, I don’t recall my teacher painting soviets in a negative light whatsoever - this will vary greatly depending on the school district, the locality, and who the teacher is.
History taught in the US at least is egregiously white-washed and notorious for being particularly anti-communist, so I never learned anything beyond the facts of what Lenin and Stalin did and surely I would notice some apparent biases if I were to look over the textbooks today in 2025. I didn’t learn about the evils of the FBI until an upper division African American history course I took my freshman year of college - that was the very baby beginning of my radicalization.
American schools should start by teaching their children general history better. They can move on to Lenin and Stalin when they actually produce public high school students that can point out a country on a map that the US has bombed.
For what? Now with capitalist state and its education teaching American students about Lenin and Stalin truthfully would be like shooting in a leg. And teaching them like they teach about every other revolutionary now would be hurtful to their legacy.
In highschool, I was told that Hitler and Stalin were the same people and killed everyone they looked at. Then the US came and saved Europe from itself.
All further questions may be directed to the comissar ICE agent in the hallway
I think American students should read Lenin and Stalin, instead of being told what to think about them. I understand this is impractical, but I can dream.
Well, here in Finland we have that A LOT. But I guess there's the reason that we were part of Russia, and it's also part of our own history. In fact, the revolution is the main reason we are independent in the first place.
Not American, but as a student in the UK I could sense my history teacher being a strong leftist/socialist, and did everything she could to put communism in a positive light without glossing over the shortcomings. It did nothing to convert my reform supporting fascist class.
They do, most of the time Lenin is portrayed as the neutral revolution guy and Stalin as the evil communist who took over everything and built the big spoon.
Yes, I would start by reading their books they wrote;
The Three Sources and Component Parts of Marxism by Vladimir Lenin and Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. by Joseph Stalin.
They aren't studied at school in Russia as well. The major topics are revolution of 1905; then ww1, two revolutions and civi war; then creation of USSR, collectivisation and industrialisation; then eastern front.
While they were major actors they aren't discussed much due to controversy.
My liberal parents are always asking me why I’m so radical/why can’t I just go along with the capitalist program and I’m like: guys, you are the ones who introduced me to Jesus and all the “USA” myths when I was a kid! What did you expect?
They do. But they also teach us about Malcolm X and make him out to be an evil POS. So take from that what you will - history taught to US children has always been incredibly white-washed, biased, and untruthful for obvious reasons.
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They do, but like most history courses in K-12 education in the US, it’s white-washed, anti-communist, and extremely biased. Some teachers are better than others, but they’re limited in what they can teach, of course.
Knowledge isn't a bad thing. There's no reason not to teach kids about communism. But that wasn't your question.... you asked if they teach about Lenin and Stalin. Knowledge of history is essential and both are important historical figures. Though I imagine you'd object if they also taught about things like the violations of human rights of the Soviet regimes under their rules. The progroms, the targeting of religious and ethnic minorities.
Change the question to „should american schools teach students unbiased historical facts about socialist leaders and socialism in general“ and I say yes
Absolutely. They should teach their works in school. It would totally change the way people see the world and help end empire. I wish I had read Lenin as a kid. Instead, I believed the 100 billion vuvuzela stories. Only later, when I was much older, did I come to realize I had been deceived.
Capitalist here. Of course they should. There are practical limits to what can be taught in limited amounts of time though. Are you asking about in principle, or in actual fact? If you’re asking about the latter I don’t know exactly what the answer should be. I would say that Stalin certainly be at least mentioned, just like a Russian high schooler, I imagine, might have heard of Abraham Lincoln.
At US university people learn quite a lot about these kind of people if they take their studies seriously and major in a field related to international relations or history. Despite what someone like Richard Wolff says - maybe it was true they didn’t teach this stuff in his time I don’t know - Us universities do teach about socialism and Marx, at least a little bit, probably about as much as they teach about any other person of similar influence.
They have realy big influence on world so why would they don't teach about them.
If they don't do it it explains why there are americans glofying them without knowlege what they have done to entire nations
The goal of the education system should to give children as holistic and practical an education as possible.
The first priority should be the way in which their own country and government work. Primarily how to best play their role as a law abiding citizen, nothing crazy, just how to interact with law enforcement, what to and not to do for YOUR best interests.
Then we could teach about how the whole thing actually works, blemishes and all, lobbying, campaigning, how it's rigged AGAINST the common man and is actively built for the rich and corporate.
Then we could touch on the other forms of government that exist, the USSR could easily be spend two semesters on with how much they achieved, where they went wrong, what ideas what ideas proved themselves horrible and ultimately played into the downfall of what could have been the greatest country on earth.
Not teaching them what to think, just teaching them the facts and showing them some of the perspectives scholars have INCLUDING opposing ones. Showing that even the brightest in the field disagree, and more often than you'd think.
Only if they teach the actual truth without capitalist propaganda. How Lenin led the revolution and actually DID improve the lives of the working class in Russia, to turn the Soviet Union into the most free and democratic country in the world and how Stalin turned the soviet Union into a beureucratic dictatorship, subverting the actual meaning of Marxism.
I'm not anti-Lenin and I wouldn't call myself Stalinist either but I honestly think that Lenin's government wouldn't be capable of neither industrializing nor fighting WW2 the way Stalin did (btw Soviet role in WW2 and industrialization are as closely related as possible).
Theory ? I've read quite a bit about Stalin, mostly in relation to WW2 and the years leading to it (famine, industrialization, purges of generals), but not much about Lenin, although I do know a few things. The loss of Finland, the unopposed march of Germans into Russia and cession of territories and so on. I do accept that I might be mistaken about him though, I'm not unreasonable.
Trotsky created and organized the red army into a modernized fighting force that succesfully defended the newly established workers state against all invading armies from both sides of the war and the counter-revolutionary white army.
Lenin laid out the theoretical work that guided the Bolsheviks through all hardships and did a lot of the administrative work that kept the Russian working class united in order to consolidate the success of the revolution.
If Lenin's health hadn't deteriorated as it did, him and Trotsky would still have held leading positions within the Soviet Union and if anything they'd have been more ready than ever. The Soviet Union under Lenin and Trotsky was a true workers democracy where the working class ruled directly through the soviets, Stalin built a beureucratic dictatorship that upheld its power through political and military purges, anyone who was a threat to Stalin's power was an enemy. Leading political theorists that were close to Lenin but opposed Stalin were removed, robbing the Union of their greatest thinkers, military geniuses like Tuchachevsky were accused of being nazi sympathizers and executed leaving the Red Army outdated and weak.
The effect of these military purges was first felt when the Soviet Union invaded Finland, and suffered humiliation on the world stage. Hitler saw this and had his generals make risky but ambitious war plans since the Soviets were so weakened. Stalin's response to the war declaration was also disastrous, upon hearing the news he secluded himself in isolation due to the shock that Hitler could betray him like this, ordering Soviet soldiers to shoot their retreating comrades wasn't very good either. It wasn't until the soviet partisans in Stalingrad, who were cut off from red army command, used a style of guerilla warfare against the Germans and push them out, that Stalin backed off and gave the officers of the red army free reign to plan the war, that they could use their new and mass produced equipment to finally push the germans back.
In conclusion, most people could have done a better job than Stalin, especially Lenin and Trotsky.
Yeah so the people will see what communism/socialism does to a person and what that person can do to a country. P.S. I don’t support capitalism nor any left or right
So my school must have been an anomaly? I took AP English courses and was advanced enough to skip basic freshman college courses (I was hyperlexic as a child, so that may have had something to do with my writing and reading skills.)The only education I was deprived of, was history education that wasn’t white-washed or untruthful, and my college education and subsequent independent education solved that.
They don’t teach history properly or truthfully, and they do a whole lot wrong, but there are some schools that do better than others, I was shocked at the amount of fellow students I encountered in college who didn’t even know how to write a college-level paper.
Edit: I understand sarcasm perfectly, but what you wrote isn’t untrue for the vast majority of schools in the US, so I read your comment (with its lack of diction, syntax and punctuation) as completely serious. You really don’t understand writing or digital communication, do you?
We teach that Lenin was making incredibly difficult decisions and acted as a leader, not a dictator. We talk about the early jump to collectivism and the negative reactions from peasant farmers.
We highlight that Lenin was a good and responsive leader who listened to the people when they shifted to the NEP.
The official curriculum teaches that Stalin staged a coup and seized party leadership. Then ran the Soviet Union as a dictatorship akin to Italy or Germany.
It’s taught like a dramatic tale of “what could have been” than an outright “shadow of totalitarianism” from the get go…I mean to those that are even paying attention.
I’ve been looking for more evidence suggesting that the sheer numbers of deaths suggested by western contemporaries do not make sense with how much progress they made and the overall population at the time of Stalins rise.
The math just doesn’t math. 🧮
I’ve also pointed out that without the industrialization that took place, the eventual counterattack from the old order would destroy all their hopes of a proletariat run future.
I’ve been looking for more evidence suggesting that the sheer numbers of deaths suggested by western contemporaries do not make sense with how much progress they made and the overall population at the time of Stalins rise.
Population in 1924, compare growth with similar sized nations
I think they should. Because skipping them even though they are wiewed as "bad guys" in USA is editing of history. It's sad how every thing is taught differently in each country. But yeah skipping anything because of political reasons is unacceptable
Why? What is factually incorrect in what I wrote here? Revolutions of 1915 and 1917 were driven by ideas (despite being enabled by state of society and external factors), and it’s really hard to find more textbook dictator and totalitarian leader than Stalin.
I mean Lenin / the Bolsheviks are only relevant at the end to explain why Russia dropped out of the war. You can easily tell the story of WW1 while reducing Lenin to a footnote at the end.
American school teacher here. It really depends on the school district its self as each kinda have their own rules. When it comes to communism iv seen everything from slight bias to the us but not terrible to "communism is literal ant hiveminds"
Like I said depends on the district and the teacher teaching it. Imo its better then youd expect but not great. My approach has always been just teach the facts and let the students form their own conclusions
Edit: after thinking about it a bit more I think schools tend to view Lenin in a more positive light then Stalin. Borderline favorable depending on the context? (To be fair I spend some time teaching AP EURO where rhe curriculum is made by colleges at the college level so its more academic and less room for teacher input. In a more general classroom the bias against him could be worse)
Also taught history in the US so I can corroborate.
The following is just my personal experience when I was student teaching but I’m sharing it because my lesson plans were scrutinized by my host teacher and the education department at my college. They had no problem with this approach.
A big theme in my classes was “why did people do X?” in as sterile a way as possible. It’s a historical fact that stuff happened. Good stuff, bad stuff. So I put the emphasis on why. I wanted them to tell me why Abolitionists wanted to end slavery, why Lenin wanted to overthrow the Tsar, and why Germans voted Hitler into power.
I taught the Holocaust to this class. I don’t think I ever said ANYTHING was right or wrong, including that. It’s because if I did my job correctly, I should think most kids would come to their own conclusions that the Holocaust was wrong.
I had a surprising amount of time for Russia. When I covered WW1, I legit had kids reading Leninist pamphlets the same way I’d have them reading Thomas Paine’s common sense. I was worried I’d get in trouble, lol. So the emphasis was on ‘why did people rebel?’
It was a fun culminating activity because the kids had to create revolutionary propaganda (I’m using this term neutrally) that identified the issues that the Bolsheviks were raising. So the artsy kids made posters, the drama students made skits, and the loud ones shouted revolutionary slogans, etc.
It was framed as roleplaying. I wasn’t asking them to sincerely shout these slogans. Amazed I didn’t get in trouble with some maga parent.
In retrospect, however fun that activity was, I’m not sure I want to ever do it again. Kids often transpose the aesthetics of something with the reality. They internalize surface level things, like shouting a slogan, but may forget that they were playing a character.
I think, in my effort to be impartial and correct for my own biases (I am left-leaning but not communist), I robbed some kids of a chance to formulate their own opinions.
But that shit’s hard to do anyways. Kids want to be told the ‘correct’ answer in social studies. They hate being asked ‘Do you agree or disagree with…’
In general, both the left and right leaning social studies teachers I’ve met- they have been very careful to temper their biases. The lefties probably overcompensate while the righties hold back from what they really want to say. So both go towards the center, though the lefties moreso.
Sorry. I rambled but this dug up fun memories and helps me reassess what I could do better as an educator.
Wow. This is an epic-level of introspection and self-scrutiny. I salute you and keep being awesome!
Above all, trying to answer big overarching questions without understanding that the Russian people had very limited understanding of what socialism would look like done in reality.
They were also addressing how to create a democratic society at the same time.
That’s a lot of shit to do all at once. It’s hard to compare to the USA, which had 100+ years of democratic traditions and smooth transitions of power; also a burgeoning industrial economy in the north and a literal slave empire, “King Cotton,” in the south.
So much nuance.
What I have found about being a leftist teacher is that my politics don’t really fit well in the Democrat-Replicant binary we have in the US, so I can speak pretty freely and students don’t think I am taking a side
Speaking from my experience here in OH, the high school I went to pretty much taught "If Lenin hadn't died, the USSR would have been better off."
Liberals and soc dems always do this. With Lenin, with Sankara who was assassinated after four years, with anarchists who never made a difference. Even after centuries of terror by the governments they over throw, the revolution is expected to be perfect, and thats not possible so even to "sympathizers" the only good revolutionary is a dead revolutionary. Stalins crime in their eyes was living long enough to help achieve many revolutionary things and to therefore taint them with reality.
Or maybe Stalin just wasn't 100% perfect? Hes only human. Of course he would want to protect his position against political rivals. Just because he was a bit paranoid and perhaps selfishly killed people he viewed as political rivals doesnt mean he also didnt use his power for good things as well, both can be true. That's just my view of the situation anyways.
I don't think you read what I typed. I was criticizing people who expect revolution to be perfect, because there is no such thing. Not only was Stalin not perfect, he also was not in fact a totalitarian dictator. That is infantilizing of the millions of people, the nations and their union which defeated the Nazis and sent the first man to space. The idea that the "purges" were a slaughterhouse is also completely ahistorical. People got fired from their cushy public sector jobs. Some of them went to prison for corruption, a few were executed for nazi collaboration.
Im not infantalizing any of that if anything i was just stating that theres more nuisance to Stalin then hes ether perfect and every action he took was 100% selfless or he was a evil dictator who killed millions. Both positions are extreme and Infantalize the issue. Im simply stating his actions are more complex and human then people realize and it helps to analyze our own biases when looking at his actions
Okay, yeah. That's essentially what I was saying. Revolutionaries are human, revolutions are going to be imperfect. I was just also criticizing a trend of praising only the revolutionaries who die before this fact can crystallize in their legacy, or who never achieve and weild power.
You mind sharing a source on the purges?
How do you think the purges should be told?
There ia difference in implementation and what the idea is.
For AP classes I usually cant teach what id like to because the kids there have to pay a lot of money (relatively speaking. Low income area) to be in the ap class to get college credit and I wanna make sure they pass the AP test to get what they paid for. For my general classes/honors classes I always liked putting students into groups where they each take a side in events like this. Id have one group try and defend stalins actions while another would decry them as ether evil or against the "idea" of the revolution while moderating to keep the class from going crazy. Like I said my approach is i like to give my students the opportunity to teach themselves how to conduct research and make their own opinions or even new ideas that may be better then old ones.
This sounds realky nice and mltivational.
They have to pay for AP courses? What? Mine were all free. Is it a private school in a low income area or something? I’m confused. I went to public school though.
In my school you have to give 100 upfront to make sure you can pay for the exam. Less if you manage to get a waiver (iv seen mixed successes with those tho)
That’s wild, I don’t recall paying a dime for anything.
Its because the school doesnt run the exam college board does and theyre the ones that actually give the college credit. Iv heard of some schools getting grants from them covering the test costs so its possible thats why you never had to pay.
Gotcha. That makes sense. That’s messed up that they have to pay for them though, that makes me so mad. I guess it’s cheaper than paying for the college courses in the end though, my AP exams saved me thousands of dollars in debt. and hopefully the fees are actually waived more often than not.
I would suggest pointing out the fact that it is only distinguished from other events in history linguistically. A gulag is just a prison, the purges were just some people getting fired. There are many other examples in history, it's completely normal, except perhaps in that most other governments had smaller internal ideological differences because they were all liberal capitalists. McCarthyism was a purge. I don't want to do their homework for them but people who want to criticize Stalin should criticize him for allowing the ethnic cleansing of ethnic koreans and crimean tatars, and for suporting Israel through the Nakba. Some have argued the ethnic cleansings could have been prevented with more purging of the party, of a fifth element of Russian and Ukrainian chauvinists.
Yup.
Its a big country doing big country stuff.
I’m British. The way they taught the Russian Revolution to us was that the USSR was overall a force of good. Lenin was a good guy, Stalin was a bad guy, and Trotsky should have become leader.
Then when they do Hitler (which they taught after Russian Revolution) they basically denounced anything good about the USSR and taught us the horseshoe theory. Very contradictory curriculum.
You “just teach the facts”? What facts? How do you choose them? How do you teach them? Do history teachers truly believe that they can teach history without bias?
No person is truly without bias but its important to try none the less. Id rather try to do that then just blindly teach some propaganda even if that would make my job much easier.
Yeah, I agree, but I do think that a lot of schools in the US blindly teach propaganda under the guise of “just teaching the facts,” so when I see the expression, it feels suspect
european person here. ok!
I ask this because I mentioned Lenin and Stalin to a friend of mine, and he didn't even know who those two were. I myself was never taught about Lenin at all during any of my school years, but I always knew about him because I had a knack for history. Stalin would at least get a mention or two when teachers were teaching us about WW2.
I think your friend is just dumb. Because they are very well taught in school, both middle and high school for sure.
Not where I live. I didn’t even know Lenin and Stalin were different people until towards the end of my senior year (from watching an AlternateHistoryHub video, not learning it in school)
USSR, Lenin, Stalin weren't taught in my high school either. I went to a very small school in the middle of a very conservative area. We had three "social studies" classes, US History, World History, and US Government. The entirety of our World History class was WWII and only focused on Germany, the US, and UK involvement.
I went to school in the US and I knew who Lenin and Stalin were from history courses before I ever became knowledgeable on Marxism. Of course we learned about Lenin and Stalin - I explicitly remember it from 10th grade history. It would be interesting to listen to those lectures now, to reevaluate how they were taught but I no longer have access to that information obviously, I wasn’t recording my teacher’s lessons 16 years ago. Like I knew who the Bolsheviks were, I knew about the Lend-lease, etc, I don’t recall my teacher painting soviets in a negative light whatsoever - this will vary greatly depending on the school district, the locality, and who the teacher is.
History taught in the US at least is egregiously white-washed and notorious for being particularly anti-communist, so I never learned anything beyond the facts of what Lenin and Stalin did and surely I would notice some apparent biases if I were to look over the textbooks today in 2025. I didn’t learn about the evils of the FBI until an upper division African American history course I took my freshman year of college - that was the very baby beginning of my radicalization.
No, they would only teach about trillions of killed oppositioners
Tbf that's what made me like them in the first place. Then i found out that wasn't true so I became a Pol Potist instead /s
No, they will only use it for red scare.
American schools should start by teaching their children general history better. They can move on to Lenin and Stalin when they actually produce public high school students that can point out a country on a map that the US has bombed.
Am Canuck, learned about the entire Russian revolution in high school including the why.
Really? We weren’t taught about it at all here in Toronto 10+ years ago when I was in high school
For what? Now with capitalist state and its education teaching American students about Lenin and Stalin truthfully would be like shooting in a leg. And teaching them like they teach about every other revolutionary now would be hurtful to their legacy.
they don't ?
In highschool, I was told that Hitler and Stalin were the same people and killed everyone they looked at. Then the US came and saved Europe from itself. All further questions may be directed to the
comissarICE agent in the hallwaythis is... sure this is a joke ?
The first two sentences are an unfortunately very accurate summary. I grew up in Colorado Springs, a city with 5 military bases.
That explains why most Americans sometimes seem a bit stupid to us Europeans. Your school system fails you right there
We never stood a chance honestly. Americans have big hearts and empty brains.
At least not in my experience.
I mean it's common history knowledge about the Russian Revolution and WW2, Americans really on something else
I think American students should read Lenin and Stalin, instead of being told what to think about them. I understand this is impractical, but I can dream.
Ofc, another world is possible out of capitalism.
Yes! ✊❤️
Do they not?
At least not in my experience. its a shame because The Russian Revolution is a very interesting topic.
Well, here in Finland we have that A LOT. But I guess there's the reason that we were part of Russia, and it's also part of our own history. In fact, the revolution is the main reason we are independent in the first place.
Not American, but as a student in the UK I could sense my history teacher being a strong leftist/socialist, and did everything she could to put communism in a positive light without glossing over the shortcomings. It did nothing to convert my reform supporting fascist class.
They do, most of the time Lenin is portrayed as the neutral revolution guy and Stalin as the evil communist who took over everything and built the big spoon.
Yes, I would start by reading their books they wrote; The Three Sources and Component Parts of Marxism by Vladimir Lenin and Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. by Joseph Stalin.
I want to say yes, but the would probably end up teaching a hole lot of redscare
They aren't studied at school in Russia as well. The major topics are revolution of 1905; then ww1, two revolutions and civi war; then creation of USSR, collectivisation and industrialisation; then eastern front.
While they were major actors they aren't discussed much due to controversy.
My liberal parents are always asking me why I’m so radical/why can’t I just go along with the capitalist program and I’m like: guys, you are the ones who introduced me to Jesus and all the “USA” myths when I was a kid! What did you expect?
They don't? Both Lenin and Stalin played a major role in history so i don't see a reason on why they shouldn't be talked about
They do. But they also teach us about Malcolm X and make him out to be an evil POS. So take from that what you will - history taught to US children has always been incredibly white-washed, biased, and untruthful for obvious reasons.
They do and it's all bad.
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Do you trust them to?
THEY DON'T??
They do, but like most history courses in K-12 education in the US, it’s white-washed, anti-communist, and extremely biased. Some teachers are better than others, but they’re limited in what they can teach, of course.
Not from my experience.
That explains a lot.
Knowledge isn't a bad thing. There's no reason not to teach kids about communism. But that wasn't your question.... you asked if they teach about Lenin and Stalin. Knowledge of history is essential and both are important historical figures. Though I imagine you'd object if they also taught about things like the violations of human rights of the Soviet regimes under their rules. The progroms, the targeting of religious and ethnic minorities.
"Do you think America'" let me stop you right there pal. America should not be tolerated
Change the question to „should american schools teach students unbiased historical facts about socialist leaders and socialism in general“ and I say yes
Absolutely. They should teach their works in school. It would totally change the way people see the world and help end empire. I wish I had read Lenin as a kid. Instead, I believed the 100 billion vuvuzela stories. Only later, when I was much older, did I come to realize I had been deceived.
Communism ended bad, and it only hold east back a old...
American schooly should be though how they got to power and what they did...
Same with Germany... And now, look who is in power, in Russia it's a terrorist state in USA it's a clown...
they dont?
Capitalist here. Of course they should. There are practical limits to what can be taught in limited amounts of time though. Are you asking about in principle, or in actual fact? If you’re asking about the latter I don’t know exactly what the answer should be. I would say that Stalin certainly be at least mentioned, just like a Russian high schooler, I imagine, might have heard of Abraham Lincoln.
At US university people learn quite a lot about these kind of people if they take their studies seriously and major in a field related to international relations or history. Despite what someone like Richard Wolff says - maybe it was true they didn’t teach this stuff in his time I don’t know - Us universities do teach about socialism and Marx, at least a little bit, probably about as much as they teach about any other person of similar influence.
Yes. The Incontrovertible things they did with no commentary.
They have realy big influence on world so why would they don't teach about them. If they don't do it it explains why there are americans glofying them without knowlege what they have done to entire nations
The goal of the education system should to give children as holistic and practical an education as possible.
The first priority should be the way in which their own country and government work. Primarily how to best play their role as a law abiding citizen, nothing crazy, just how to interact with law enforcement, what to and not to do for YOUR best interests.
Then we could teach about how the whole thing actually works, blemishes and all, lobbying, campaigning, how it's rigged AGAINST the common man and is actively built for the rich and corporate.
Then we could touch on the other forms of government that exist, the USSR could easily be spend two semesters on with how much they achieved, where they went wrong, what ideas what ideas proved themselves horrible and ultimately played into the downfall of what could have been the greatest country on earth.
Not teaching them what to think, just teaching them the facts and showing them some of the perspectives scholars have INCLUDING opposing ones. Showing that even the brightest in the field disagree, and more often than you'd think.
good things.
They have already had targeted "two-minute hatred", right?
Animal Farm by George Orwell is great representation of communism I encourage you americans to read it
Only if they teach the actual truth without capitalist propaganda. How Lenin led the revolution and actually DID improve the lives of the working class in Russia, to turn the Soviet Union into the most free and democratic country in the world and how Stalin turned the soviet Union into a beureucratic dictatorship, subverting the actual meaning of Marxism.
USSR with Lenin or Trotsky and the rest of the Sesame street would lose WW2
This is a rare find, an anti-Lenin Stalinist
I'm not anti-Lenin and I wouldn't call myself Stalinist either but I honestly think that Lenin's government wouldn't be capable of neither industrializing nor fighting WW2 the way Stalin did (btw Soviet role in WW2 and industrialization are as closely related as possible).
Respectfully, how much theory have you read?
Theory ? I've read quite a bit about Stalin, mostly in relation to WW2 and the years leading to it (famine, industrialization, purges of generals), but not much about Lenin, although I do know a few things. The loss of Finland, the unopposed march of Germans into Russia and cession of territories and so on. I do accept that I might be mistaken about him though, I'm not unreasonable.
Trotsky created and organized the red army into a modernized fighting force that succesfully defended the newly established workers state against all invading armies from both sides of the war and the counter-revolutionary white army.
Lenin laid out the theoretical work that guided the Bolsheviks through all hardships and did a lot of the administrative work that kept the Russian working class united in order to consolidate the success of the revolution.
If Lenin's health hadn't deteriorated as it did, him and Trotsky would still have held leading positions within the Soviet Union and if anything they'd have been more ready than ever. The Soviet Union under Lenin and Trotsky was a true workers democracy where the working class ruled directly through the soviets, Stalin built a beureucratic dictatorship that upheld its power through political and military purges, anyone who was a threat to Stalin's power was an enemy. Leading political theorists that were close to Lenin but opposed Stalin were removed, robbing the Union of their greatest thinkers, military geniuses like Tuchachevsky were accused of being nazi sympathizers and executed leaving the Red Army outdated and weak.
The effect of these military purges was first felt when the Soviet Union invaded Finland, and suffered humiliation on the world stage. Hitler saw this and had his generals make risky but ambitious war plans since the Soviets were so weakened. Stalin's response to the war declaration was also disastrous, upon hearing the news he secluded himself in isolation due to the shock that Hitler could betray him like this, ordering Soviet soldiers to shoot their retreating comrades wasn't very good either. It wasn't until the soviet partisans in Stalingrad, who were cut off from red army command, used a style of guerilla warfare against the Germans and push them out, that Stalin backed off and gave the officers of the red army free reign to plan the war, that they could use their new and mass produced equipment to finally push the germans back.
In conclusion, most people could have done a better job than Stalin, especially Lenin and Trotsky.
Interesting. I always kind of wondered did USSR win WW2 because or despite of Stalin.
May turn out to be a very bad idea.
Yes. Also for Hitler.
Stop teaching History: THEY BOTH FAILED, so what's the point of studying those two pieces of shit??
Absolutely. Kids need to learn about the atrocities suffered under their awful regimes.
Those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it.
Yeah so the people will see what communism/socialism does to a person and what that person can do to a country. P.S. I don’t support capitalism nor any left or right
No if they did gen Z protests would reach USA too
I mean they would be neglecting history if they didnt. Im south american and we learned abt them in school
American Schools don't teach in general
So my school must have been an anomaly? I took AP English courses and was advanced enough to skip basic freshman college courses (I was hyperlexic as a child, so that may have had something to do with my writing and reading skills.)The only education I was deprived of, was history education that wasn’t white-washed or untruthful, and my college education and subsequent independent education solved that.
They don’t teach history properly or truthfully, and they do a whole lot wrong, but there are some schools that do better than others, I was shocked at the amount of fellow students I encountered in college who didn’t even know how to write a college-level paper.
Edit: I understand sarcasm perfectly, but what you wrote isn’t untrue for the vast majority of schools in the US, so I read your comment (with its lack of diction, syntax and punctuation) as completely serious. You really don’t understand writing or digital communication, do you?
You really don't get sarcasm do you
I do as a teacher in NYS
We teach that Lenin was making incredibly difficult decisions and acted as a leader, not a dictator. We talk about the early jump to collectivism and the negative reactions from peasant farmers.
We highlight that Lenin was a good and responsive leader who listened to the people when they shifted to the NEP.
The official curriculum teaches that Stalin staged a coup and seized party leadership. Then ran the Soviet Union as a dictatorship akin to Italy or Germany.
It’s taught like a dramatic tale of “what could have been” than an outright “shadow of totalitarianism” from the get go…I mean to those that are even paying attention.
I’ve been looking for more evidence suggesting that the sheer numbers of deaths suggested by western contemporaries do not make sense with how much progress they made and the overall population at the time of Stalins rise.
The math just doesn’t math. 🧮
I’ve also pointed out that without the industrialization that took place, the eventual counterattack from the old order would destroy all their hopes of a proletariat run future.
Population in 1924, compare growth with similar sized nations
Look up Ivan Kurganov and investigate him.
They should. But not like they would/already do. They should try to keep it on facts. Not CIA storytelling.
I think they should. Because skipping them even though they are wiewed as "bad guys" in USA is editing of history. It's sad how every thing is taught differently in each country. But yeah skipping anything because of political reasons is unacceptable
What is the significance of Lenin and Stalin that makes them relevant for US children? What a dumb question
Maybe only about the 30 million deaths of their own citizens.
Certainly, all those young and naive people need to be warned before they start idolizing those bastards.
Yes. Lenin as part of idealistic revolution turned bloodbath, Stalin as establishment and consolidation of totalitarian regime.
ridiculous take
Why? What is factually incorrect in what I wrote here? Revolutions of 1915 and 1917 were driven by ideas (despite being enabled by state of society and external factors), and it’s really hard to find more textbook dictator and totalitarian leader than Stalin.
If they teach WWI dont they have to
I mean Lenin / the Bolsheviks are only relevant at the end to explain why Russia dropped out of the war. You can easily tell the story of WW1 while reducing Lenin to a footnote at the end.
They don't typically spend more than a single lesson on WWI, and if they teach the Russian revolution they mostly use Animal Farm.
If To teach them about how they were wrong then yes
We do, we teach them the truth about them.
Of course they should, we have too many kids thinking they are the good guys.