this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
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I don't need to defend every Soviet policy, nor do I try to. I can merely explain why they happened and wether it has been fairly judged or not in the west, and overwhelmingly that tends to be "not." My opinion on the Soviets is that they were overall the best, not that they never committed errors or crimes.
Either way, Blacklisting was originally a punishment meant to counteract resistance to collectivization, the Kulaks often intentionally killed their livestock and burnt their crops. The execution of Blacklisting was obviously more hit or miss.
As for Stalin's role, it seems clear to me that when collectivization was met with outright hostility from the semi-Capitalist kulaks, that his goal was to finish collectivization and try to prevent further famine, not intentionally killing people. You said it yourself, if collectivization did not complete after it was started, even more famine would have occured. I am not sure what should have been done, but I don't think Stalin looks like he would have chosen for famine to happen, more that if anything he would have rather had it go off without a hitch.
As for Socialism vs Collectivism, I don't know what you mean. Socialism is a Mode of Production, characterized by Public Ownership and Planning as being the primary force of an economy. It isn't synonymous with Social Safety Nets.
I bring up blacklisting because it is the clearest demonstration of intentionally starving people that comes to mind. Sure, Stalin wanted collectivization to go off without a hitch. Problem was, there was a hitch. So he decided it would happen anyway, starving people be damned. Imo good governments don't intentionally starve people in order to achieve their goals.
To me your argument boils down to "the ends justify the means."
Blacklisting was a punishment for intentionally sabotaging your crop yields and contributing to the famine, the goal wasn't to starve but to prevent further starvation by preventing subsistence farming in a time where many people were starving to death. Had they not done something to prevent Kulaks from intentionally starving the rest of the USSR becayse their semi-bourgeois ownership was threatened, many more people likely would have died. I can't say if Blacklisting was the correct means to deal with this issue, but once collectivization started, it couldn't be stopped, as the Kulaks were destroying their farms to retain ownership.
It's not that the ends justify means, it's that by not doing anything, the ends would have been far worse and many more would have starved. How would you suggest collectivization occur, if you were in Stalin's shoes, or Kosior? I personally am glad that I never have to make such decisions.