I gave this thread title a bad name, I think…as I understood her, the assignment wasn’t to find an excuse for Stalin. The question wasn’t “was what Stalin did a good thing”, or even “was Stalin justified”. It was simply “was he a totalitarian”, so I’d guess theoretically one could claim he wasn’t, while at the same time not excusing the things he did. (But of course, the only way I can see to do even that as we said upthread was to define totalitarianism so narrowly that no one ever qualifies). But I like what Cervaise said, I hadn’t thought of going that route (which is why I posed the question here).
It’s not my assignment though, I was just more curious what other people thought about the question because it seemed an open and shut case to me.
I’m still holding out hope that she misunderstood the assignment, but I won’t be seeing her for a few days. I’ll let you know what happens after I see her again.