There were many die hard Stalin apologists. I remember the story recounted by Sydney Hook of Bertold Brecht not only excusing but cheerleading Stalin's show trials, proclaiming:
"The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot."
There was also Michael Ignatieff's infamous interview of Eric Hobsbawm, the British historian and Communist Party member, who argued that even if he knew that Stalin would murder 15 million people ahead of time, it would still have been worth it. Hobsbawm's reasoning is familiar (see 10:56 into the interview):
Ignatieff: At about this period '33-'34, the Kulak class is being liquidated and millions of peasants are dying, being starved, or being deported by Stalin [...] If you had known that, would it have made a difference to you at that point? To your commitment to being a communist?
Hobsbawm: [...] If I were to give you a retrospective answer, the answer of a historian, I would have said 'Probably not'.
Ignatieff: Why?
Hobsbawm: Because in a period of mass murder and mass suffering are absolutely universal, the chance of a new world being born in great suffering would still have been worth backing. Now looking back as a historian, I'd say that the sacrifices of the Russian people were probably only marginally worthwhile.
"The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot."
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/may/18/politicaltheat...
There was also Michael Ignatieff's infamous interview of Eric Hobsbawm, the British historian and Communist Party member, who argued that even if he knew that Stalin would murder 15 million people ahead of time, it would still have been worth it. Hobsbawm's reasoning is familiar (see 10:56 into the interview):
Ignatieff: At about this period '33-'34, the Kulak class is being liquidated and millions of peasants are dying, being starved, or being deported by Stalin [...] If you had known that, would it have made a difference to you at that point? To your commitment to being a communist?
Hobsbawm: [...] If I were to give you a retrospective answer, the answer of a historian, I would have said 'Probably not'.
Ignatieff: Why?
Hobsbawm: Because in a period of mass murder and mass suffering are absolutely universal, the chance of a new world being born in great suffering would still have been worth backing. Now looking back as a historian, I'd say that the sacrifices of the Russian people were probably only marginally worthwhile.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnd2Pu9NNPw
People forget how intransigent the western intellectuals were to news of mass murder coming from Stalin's Russia.