u/69kidsatmybasement

A youtuber by the name of TheFinnishBolshevik has made videos (also available in text form in his website about the Moscow Trials, ultimately reaching the conclusion that the verdicts in the Moscow Trials were, for the most part, correct.

I have watched all in their entirety except one, and without much prior knowledge of the subject at hand, he seems to be somewhat correct in some of his assessments, however, he does have a heavy Stalinist bias and relies on some unreliable historians and sources, such as that of Grover Furr, and his conclusions goes against the common consensus amongst historians, which is why I came to ask.

To those who have watched his videos or are interested in doing so, is there any historical basis for his claims?

The rest of his videos are easy to debunk with an elementary knowledge of marxism, but the one about the Moscow Trials seems more difficult. I haven't watched it fully myself, for I am too busy with more important matters, but glancing at it, most of the sources seem to come from historians instead of testimonials, government statements and the likes. It's probably still just good old Stalinist historical denialism, and it's not like I'd feel any sympathy for Stalin and his goons if these conspiracies were actually true, but I still want to be sure. Have any of you watched it? What are your objections?

I have had hundreds (most likely in the literal sense as well) of conlang ideas but they all eventually get scrapped. I first started out by making a priori conlangs before moving to making a posteriori conlangs based on alt histories. I have a much better experience with the latter, and I have felt proud and happy about my works, but still with the same issues. The happiness about my works lasts only temporarily, although longer than it did for my a priori works, before inevitably getting scrapped.

I do not know what I should do at this point and I want your advice, but first it must be made clear what I'm going for specifically. I want my conlangs to evolve from real world languages through an alt-history, that must meet the following criteria:

1. The point of divergence of the alt-history must be reasonably plausible. I do not get much satisfaction from making conlangs out of woefully unrealistic scenarios

2. The language that I'm evolving my conlang from must be reasonably documented and it's phonology reasonably known. Making my conlangs out of poorly attested languages leave a lot of a priori work to do, which I have said I've felt less satisfied with

3. The idea must not be done to death. I do not want to make something like the thousandth British Latin conlang

For most of my ideas it takes very little research to find a criterion where it fails, so they never get implemented, and the few that DO make it out and get implemented, all eventually fail at criterion number one after further research.

So, any advice? I have posted on the advices and answers thread but it gets very little answers and I want to get a diversity of opinions (which is more likely when I make entire posts)