alcoholicorn , 3 days ago

The transport of Baltic peoples, Tatars, Japanese, etc were ethnic cleansing, but not genocide because it didn’t seek to destroy those people. I don’t think you’ll find anyone defending those actions.

The famine in Ukraine was part of a wider crop failure of the grain-producing regions of the USSR. The role Soviet policy of distribution grain, reaction to soviet policy in the form of destruction of grain and livestock, and the reaction to that resistance all played is contested, but no serious historian argues that the USSR intended to bring about the destruction of the Ukrainian people.

Life And Terror In Stalin’s Russia, is a great book that is critical of the USSR, but with more nuance than the western narrative. Here’s a free PDF.

The invasion of Hungary

While the initial uprising was sparked by democratic reformers, it was quickly co-opted by fascists, as evidenced by the destruction of communist imagery and murder of Hungarian communists.