Originally Posted by
Gaaz
Do not tell Ossetians that. They might really take offense.
At first I wanted to write a lengthy explanation, but I simply do not see that you comprehend anything I am trying to tell you.
1. There was no such thing as Georgia for most of Stalin's life. He was appointed to be a Georgian post mortem based on nothing but his place of birth, that at the actual time of his birth had a completely different name, structure and relations with the outside world. Neither his father, nor his mother were Georgians in any of their documents.
2. A presence of certain DNA markers that are absent in Georgians points to Ossetian roots.
3. The only logic behind assignment of Georgian nationality to Stalin is the location of his birth, which only much later became a part of newly formed Georgia. Again, inhabitants of East Jerusalem do not automatically become Israelis after annexation of this territory.
4. Stalin is actually VERY popular in Georgia. That is partially the reason why they do not want to let go of this myth. The rest simply do not care that much to correct them. According to Forbes, Stalin has about 57% approval rating in Georgia, something that vast majority of presidents all over the world can only dream of.
5. His repressions are very overblown. 90% of what is known about him in the West is similar to "Russia hacked US presidential elections of 2016". I mean yeah, it creates a nice narrative, a good bedtime story, but actual facts or archives in this case draw a completely different picture. I am sure you are not familiar with the idea of "destruction of cult of personality" introduced by Khrushchev in 1956. He had to create a good basis for himself as a USSR ruler and created a huge smear campaign for Stalin (who was already dead for 3 years). He even admitted that on several occasions in his memoirs, like how he had to exonerate several generals who were shot during first months of the German attack on the USSR. I can not remember the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of "would I have done the same? Definitely. But I had to do it because they were HIS responsibility."
In essence, the West wanted to smear Stalin because he represented a strong USSR. You need to put a monster in charge, wash the whole country with dirt to demote any positive interest, promote fear, or people may start getting ideas. McCarthy and all that nonsense. And this met a perfect match in Khrushchev's smear campaign from inside the USSR, him wanting to secure his seat of power. Right now, there are so many myths and fabrications around Stalin's figure (who was not a saint by any means), it is extremely hard to see past that. People get easily influenced by smears. Just look at Cardinal Richelieu and what Alexandre Dumas did to his reputation. I bet that anyone who is familiar with his book "The Three Musketeers" or saw any of the films based on it, think that Richelieu was some kind of a monster, whereas in fact he was practically a savior of France as an independent country from Austria and Spain.