this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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2019 North Korean assembly election ressults (i.redd.it)
submitted 3 months ago by ooli3@sopuli.xyz to c/map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz
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[–] Railcar8095@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Nothing says socialism as an absolute monarchy. Stalin would be proud

[–] Ferrous@lemmy.ml -3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Disregarding the fact that Stalin's attempts to resign were rejected multiple times, the CIA had some words.

Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organi- zation of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain.

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf

[–] RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Stalin's attempt to resign

He had a massive cult of personality and the whole thing was a charade. Who in their right mind would support the dictator saying they'll resign?? First time he tried to resign I think it was an actual political gamble, he wasn't a dictator at that point yet.

Not to mention he also shuffled the members of that "collective leadership" often and nobody was safe even at the very top. Such collective leadership.

Random CIA document, a "comment" from someone with no context and apparently right at the time and huge "this information is UNVALUED" vs all the later studies that could rely on vastly more information on the subject of Stalin indeed having been an absolute dictator during the height of his power to the very end

Yeah checks out.

Someone put it well in Reddit's AskHistorians:

On the topic of this kind of CIA document in general, see this discussion. We don't know who wrote this. We don't know why they wrote it. We don't know on the basis of what they wrote it. We don't know exactly what was meant by it. There's a big ol' paragraph at the beginning that probably explains what the basis of this "information report" is, it's blacked out, no doubt to protect "sources and methods." So this could be a wise report from someone who know what they are talking about... or it could be a report of something overheard at the cocktail party of a middle-ranking Warsaw Pact bureaucrat.

The problem with these kind of intelligence sources is that to a layman they might look authoritative or like they had access to special data and so on. But in reality we know that the CIA was wrong about as much as it was right in those days, and that individual analysts and sources could be hit and miss. Just because they stamp "SECRET" on it doesn't make it authoritative in any degree.