Socialism

For starters, "Gulag" just means "prison." Of course prisons existed in the USSR, and some had rather brutal conditions. Others, however, did not, and treated prisoners better to much better than your average American prison. Nobody is saying the Gulags never existed, perhaps they mean your specific interpretation of the conditions of gulags and the extent to which they were used. Edit 1

As for Stalin himself, it's fair to say he committed a fair degree of errors in judgement, had reactionary social views such as his view of homosexuality, was frequently paranoid, and so forth. At the same time, it is equally fair to understand that Stalin has been the subject of countless lies, exaggerations, myths, and other degrees of Cold War propaganda we learn as fact despite evidence to the contrary, especially following the opening of the Soviet Archives. Moreover, it is necessary to acknowledge the vital role he played in governing the worlds first Socialist State, and building the foundations of this rapid improvement on the utter squalor of the Tsarist regime.

Should Stalin be idolized? I don't think so, as I believe that can get in the way of accurate analysis. Should Stalin be villianized and made a scapegoat to brush the Red Scare under the rug? I don't believe so, either. The USSR came with countless benefits, from a doubling of life expectancy to free healthcare to near 100% literacy rates (better than the modern US), and more. These benefits were formed under Stalin, and as such we must do our absolute best to separate fact from fiction. If we accept and push purely the accepted bourgeois narrative regarding the real experience of AES states, then we cannot learn from them properly and sort out what worked and what did not.

Basically, Stalin was neither a perfect saint devoid of mistakes nor a unique monster that should be especially condemned. He was the leader of the USSR, but did not have absolute control, and in addition was in many ways less monstrous than contemporary leaders such as Hitler and Churchill. Correct contextualization is important. I highly recommend the short, 8 minute article "Tankies" by Roderic Day, hosted over on Red Sails. For more in-depth reading, Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo is a good historical critique of Stalin that focuses on taking a critical stance towards Stalin and contextualizes him.

Edit 1: seeing your other two comments, I am now entirely certain that this is the case.

he was s power hungry megalomaniac that felt no shame in killing anyone who crossed him

From what I understand, people who were sent to Gulag mostly were Nazis, bourgeoisie (basically people like the UnitedHealthcare CEO) and counter-revolutionaries.

I'm not saying it was the best way to seize resources from the rich and prevent counter-revolution. Some of the things he did were good, and some were bad.

He killed loyal communists, many falsely accused of treason, and became the poster boy of the Red Scare, providing anti-communists with propaganda to equate socialism with totalitarianism. His oppressive policies, human rights abuses, and betrayal of socialist principles alienated global leftist movements and set back the progress of socialism by decades.

Not a great socialist

He is an ambiguous person. He certainly did a lot of good things, but there were mistakes and even from our point of view, quite cruel decisions. It is difficult to assess why he made certain decisions. There is a lot of unconfirmed information and ambiguous accusations around him, although, of course, there are bad decisions, maybe we don't know all the information, or maybe he was wrong. It was a difficult time back then. According to some reports, at the end of his life, even Lenin treated him ambiguously and was afraid of the concentration of power in one hand and even wrote a letter to the congress, but some doubt this, so it may not be true. To truly understand this, you need to be a historian and read a lot of original documents by yourself. But I don't think that we should consider him only a complete villain, as he is often exposed.

From my limited understanding Stalin tried to change things too fast. A comparison that would piss everyone off is like Elon Musk going all-in on robotics in an underdeveloped country.

In the long term Stalins policies paid off, but a lot of people starved because as it turns out putting all your points in technology means you don't have farms.

Gulagging bourgeoisie also isn't bad per se. But Stalin definitely sacraficed innocent people in the crossfire.