Stalin is/was so popular because of the economic boom, industrialization, universal literacy and mopping the floor with the Nazis. A standard point abong Stalinophiles is that, yes, forced industrialization was cruel, but if he hadn't done it, the Nazis would have won the Great Patriotic War. They may have a point.
The USSR was a peasant society before Stalin. The Moscow metro still has the attendants by the escalators Stalin placed there to guard against peasants, who had never seen such a wondrous thing as an escalator, freaking out, falling down and killing themselves.
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