The Stalin Thread - all discussion about J.Stalin (as a person) in this thread please

[Pogue]

Lets get this straight, do you really think Stalin was a good man and true, genuine socialist who has to be defended, and also, is it your goal/do you believe it improtant and possible to convince people that he wasn't actually bad?

[Charles Xavier]

Lets get this straight, do you really think Stalin was a good man and true, genuine socialist who has to be defended, and also, is it your goal/do you believe it improtant and possible to convince people that he wasn't actually bad?
Do you honestly only write 1 sentence posts all the time?

If you think Stalin was a bad man, prove him to be your chance to make a larger post than you have ever in your time on the forums on top of that you get to be a prosecutor.

In any crime motive has to be proven, what was Stalin/soviet union's motive.

[Woland]

What about how so many of the kulaks killed their own livestock and burned their crops?

[Cumannach]

On the subject of the cause of the Famine, and the role played by the kulaks, I have some interesting sources to quote;

The first is from Frederick Schuman, who toured through Ukraine during the Famine period and was later Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government at Williams College. He's cited by Martens and Tottle in their books. Speaking about the kulaks.;

"Their [kulak] opposition took the initial form of slaughtering their cattle and horses in preference to having them collectivized. The result was a grievous blow to Soviet agriculture, for most of the cattle and horses were owned by the kulaks. Between 1928 and 1933 the number of horses in the USSR declined from almost 30,000,000 to less than 15,000,000; of horned cattle from 70,000,000 (including 31,000,0000 cows) to 38,000,000 (including 20,000,000 cows); of sheep and goats from 147,000,000 to 50,000,000; and of hogs from 20,000,000 to 12,000,000. Soviet rural economy had not recovered from this staggering loss by 1941.

"... Some [kulaks] murdered officials, set the torch to the property of the collectives, and even burned their own crops and seed grain. More refused to sow or reap, perhaps on the assumption that the authorities would make concessions and would in any case feed them.

"The aftermath was the ``Ukraine famine'' of 1932--33 .... Lurid accounts, mostly fictional, appeared in the Nazi press in Germany and in the Hearst press in the United States, often illustrated with photographs that turned out to have been taken along the Volga in 1921 .... The ``famine'' was not, in its later stages, a result of food shortage, despite the sharp reduction of seed grain and harvests flowing from special requisitions in the spring of 1932 which were apparently occasioned by fear of war in Japan. Most of the victims were kulaks who had refused to sow their fields or had destroyed their crops.'"

-("Russia since 1917; Four Decades of Soviet Politics")1957
Frederick Schuman

Corroborations of such claims are provided by none other than Isaac Mazepa, leader of the Ukrainian Nationalist movement;

"At first there were disturbances in the kolkhosi [collective farms] or else the Communist officials and their agents were killed, but later a system of passive resistance was favored which aimed at the systematic frustation of the Bolsheviks' plans for the sowing and gathering of the harvest .... The catastrophe of 1932 was the hardest blow that Soviet Ukraine had to face since the famine of 1921--1922. The autumn and spring sowing campaigns both failed. Whole tracts were left unsown, in addition when the crop was being gathered ... in many areas, especially in the south, 20, 40 and even 50 per cent was left in the fields, and was either not collected at all or was ruined in the threshing."

(""Ukraine under Bolshevist rule" Slavonic Review Volume 12, 1933-34")
-Isaac Mazepa

And this besides the drought.What do the other comrades make of these sources?

[Glenn Beck]

On the subject of the cause of the Famine, and the role played by the kulaks, I have some interesting sources to quote;

The first is from Frederick Schuman, who toured through Ukraine during the Famine period and was later Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government at Williams College. He's cited by Martens and Tottle in their books. Speaking about the kulaks.;

"Their [kulak] opposition took the initial form of slaughtering their cattle and horses in preference to having them collectivized. The result was a grievous blow to Soviet agriculture, for most of the cattle and horses were owned by the kulaks. Between 1928 and 1933 the number of horses in the USSR declined from almost 30,000,000 to less than 15,000,000; of horned cattle from 70,000,000 (including 31,000,0000 cows) to 38,000,000 (including 20,000,000 cows); of sheep and goats from 147,000,000 to 50,000,000; and of hogs from 20,000,000 to 12,000,000. Soviet rural economy had not recovered from this staggering loss by 1941.

"... Some [kulaks] murdered officials, set the torch to the property of the collectives, and even burned their own crops and seed grain. More refused to sow or reap, perhaps on the assumption that the authorities would make concessions and would in any case feed them.

"The aftermath was the ``Ukraine famine'' of 1932--33 .... Lurid accounts, mostly fictional, appeared in the Nazi press in Germany and in the Hearst press in the United States, often illustrated with photographs that turned out to have been taken along the Volga in 1921 .... The ``famine'' was not, in its later stages, a result of food shortage, despite the sharp reduction of seed grain and harvests flowing from special requisitions in the spring of 1932 which were apparently occasioned by fear of war in Japan. Most of the victims were kulaks who had refused to sow their fields or had destroyed their crops.'"

-("Russia since 1917; Four Decades of Soviet Politics")1957
Frederick Schuman

Corroborations of such claims are provided by none other than Isaac Mazepa, leader of the Ukrainian Nationalist movement;

"At first there were disturbances in the kolkhosi [collective farms] or else the Communist officials and their agents were killed, but later a system of passive resistance was favored which aimed at the systematic frustation of the Bolsheviks' plans for the sowing and gathering of the harvest .... The catastrophe of 1932 was the hardest blow that Soviet Ukraine had to face since the famine of 1921--1922. The autumn and spring sowing campaigns both failed. Whole tracts were left unsown, in addition when the crop was being gathered ... in many areas, especially in the south, 20, 40 and even 50 per cent was left in the fields, and was either not collected at all or was ruined in the threshing."

(""Ukraine under Bolshevist rule" Slavonic Review Volume 12, 1933-34")
-Isaac Mazepa

And this besides the drought.What do the other comrades make of these sources?

I have heard pro-capitalist commentators, including a libertarian from a Ukrainian nationalist family say the same thing. I never really thought there was any controversy over whether kulaks sabotaged collective farming efforts. The argument I have always heard was that they were justified in doing so and the Soviet government should have expected this to happen in response to their encroachments on the property rights of the peasantry.

The idea that well-to-do Ukrainian peasants would have passively resigned themselves to a collectivization that was not in their interests is inconsistent with both common sense and all anti-communist rhetoric and arguments I am familiar with. The typical response in my experience is not to deny that these events occurred but to paint them as heroic resistance. Just look at Cuban exile attitudes towards Luis Posada Carriles for example.

[Kassad]

The typical response in my experience is not to deny that these events occurred but to paint them as heroic resistance. Just look at Cuban exile attitudes towards Luis Posada Carriles for example.

Of course. Mind-numbingly idiotic Batista supporters love Carriles, since he's behind numerous anti-Castro attacks that have resulted in well over one hundred deaths. The man works hand in hand with the Central Intelligence Agency in their ongoing campaign of criticizing "terrorists" and then performing the exact same actions against opposing nations. They demonize nations like Cuba and China that potentially threaten their profit and means of exploitation. To be blunt, anyone who has a shred of respect for the man is likely a delusional fool with no concept of dignity. He should be deported.

As we all know, history is written by the winners. A workers democracy like Cuba is painted negatively because it rejects American corporatism. A potential socialist victory in Russia was negated by Western imperialism and the need to industrialize due to aggression after World War I and leading into World War II. I do find it amusing that I never get a straight answer to this question: If Stalin had not industrialized the Soviet Union, would Hitler's armies have not marched through the Soviet Union and caused millions more deaths? The bourgeoisie in the Soviet Union consistently fought against Lenin. What makes you think they would not do the same against Stalin? Western aggression forced the impoverished Soviet Union into a hyper-industrialization. Stalin's Union had the choice to either industrialize or be destroyed. Counterrevolutionary forces were also being funded by the bourgeoise in the Soviet Union and likely from many Western states, notably the United States. Of course, as we know, the West is hostile towards socialism, since it threatens their potential for profit and exploitation.

[Die Neue Zeit]

What about how so many of the kulaks killed their own livestock and burned their crops?

Your remark here oddly reminds me of Palestinian suicide bombers, for good and for ill.

[Cumannach]

the authors conclude that a total of 10 million excess deaths occurred in the period 1927-38, of which 8-8.5 occurred during 1927-36.



Comarde Om, this number looks very high to me. These are bourgeois scholars aren't they? Could you quote the sources the authors use to make this estimate?

[ComradeOm]

Comarde Om, this number looks very high to me. These are bourgeois scholars aren't they? Could you quote the sources the authors use to make this estimate?The principle sources used are Andreev, Darskii, & Khar'kova (1990), Maksudov (1982), and Lorimer (1946). Work from Tsaplin and Kurman is also incorporated into the final estimate. But, and I have to stress this, an estimate it all it is. Demographic calculations of this type are notorious inaccurate, complex, and sensitive to bias

[Cumannach]

The principle sources used are Andreev, Darskii, & Khar'kova (1990), Maksudov (1982), and Lorimer (1946). Work from Tsaplin and Kurman is also incorporated into the final estimate. But, and I have to stress this, an estimate it all it is. Demographic calculations of this type are notorious inaccurate, complex, and sensitive to bias

So their estimate is just pieced together from other people's estimates? I'm be interested in seeing the actual sources used to make the estimates in the first place. Did somebody get a hold of State Documents? Has there been a study of mass graves or something? Are there credible contemporary reports from the region that can be used to approximate the number, or the conditions at least? I'm not tring to be anatagonistic here, but it's well known that the most impeccable, prestigious, 'unbiased', objective research coming out of bourgeois scholarship, has no problem with just pulling numbers out of thin air when it comes to Socialism.

[Panda Tse Tung]

The principle sources used are Andreev, Darskii, & Khar'kova (1990), Maksudov (1982), and Lorimer (1946). Work from Tsaplin and Kurman is also incorporated into the final estimate. But, and I have to stress this, an estimate it all it is. Demographic calculations of this type are notorious inaccurate, complex, and sensitive to bias
These numbers are from an estimation which works like this:
Number A. population and population growth in the Ukraine during 1929 (so the estimated amount of civilians in 1940).
Number B. population of the Ukraine at 1940
Number C = the gap, which is 8 million.
But, this completely ignores a couple of very concrete things.
A. an extremely low birth-rate.
B. an area containing 2 million citizens had been designated to the Russian Soviet Republic (making it: 6 million).
C. certain other Ukraine-specific conditions (in terms of the Famine itself).

Just thought I'd add my 2 cents.

[Pogue]

Do you honestly only write 1 sentence posts all the time?

If you think Stalin was a bad man, prove him to be your chance to make a larger post than you have ever in your time on the forums on top of that you get to be a prosecutor.

In any crime motive has to be proven, what was Stalin/soviet union's motive.

Its called a question, you numpty. The clue is the question mark, and the words 'do you'. Work on getitng that rep bar up, theres a good boy.

[ComradeOm]

So their estimate is just pieced together from other people's estimates? I'm be interested in seeing the actual sources used to make the estimates in the first place. Did somebody get a hold of State Documents? Has there been a study of mass graves or something? Are there credible contemporary reports from the region that can be used to approximate the number, or the conditions at least?Ah, I see you're new to the question of demographic calculations. Do you think there would be so much variance/controversy if hard figures were available? ;)

To answer your question there are a multitude of sources. The Soviet effort in collecting statistics was far ahead of its time and the most relevant sources are the official Soviet censuses of 1926, 1937, and 1929. These figures are questionable however as from the early 30s TsUNKhU (essentially the central statistics office) and its practices came under sustained assault from Stalin. Distortions are certainly present in the initially published results of the '37 and '39 censuses* but there is enough information present to a) reconstruct the original findings, and b) extrapolate data to estimate population changes in the intervening years

Crucially the census, and other registration data, gives vital background information such as the birth/death rates, with which its possible to arrive at some reasonably accurate estimates, albeit with significant margin of error. For example, the detailed results of the 1937 census, ie beyond headline figures, were not published until 1990 but Lorimer (working in 1946) was able to predict the population level to a good degree of accuracy (he was only out by a million). Of course this also leads to controversy - Andreev, Darskii, & Khar'kova (ADK) assume a much higher rate of birth than Lorimer and thus arrive at a significantly higher number of excess deaths

Nonetheless, much data has been released since 1990 but there remains the stubborn difficulties of collecting data in an overwhelming peasant society and one marked by the massive internal migrations of urbanisation, dekulakisation, and the legacy of civil war. Confident estimates as to the numbers in NKVD camps (or executions) can be gleaned from official records but there will never be the same degree of confidence for the general population - the data simply isn't there. The best that can be done is assemble ranges of estimates and consensus seems to have settled on 5.5-10m excess deaths (note: different from population deficit) during the 1926-39 period

*For example, the aborted census of 1937 includes a completely arbitary increase of 1m people to account for "undercounting". There's no real basis for this, and it was not enough to prevent Kurman's arrest, and the 1939 census includes a similarly crude adjustment of another 1m upwards


I'm not tring to be anatagonistic here, but it's well known that the most impeccable, prestigious, 'unbiased', objective research coming out of bourgeois scholarship, has no problem with just pulling numbers out of thin air when it comes to Socialism.Which is in turn just as biased a generalisation. Remember that any Marxist writing during the decades 1917-53 (at the earliest) would have far more likely to swallow official distortions and handwave away the millions of deaths. Indeed until the sixties, and in many cases the nineties, it was common amongst communists to simply dismiss the whole affair as simple bourgeois propaganda

Its also worth noting that, by and large, the range of estimates has increasingly narrowed over the decades and have largely been revised downwards. For example, you will be hard pressed to find a credible demographer, or historian, today who takes the numbers given in the 'Great Terror', never mind the 'Black Book' or Rummel's works, any way seriously. Increased study in the past decade has significantly punctured the bourgeois myths that were common during the Cold War (when total of over 20m deaths for the same period was taken as the benchmark number!)

Edit: Mao Chi X correctly identities the infamous "Kurman gap" of eight million unregistered deaths - the difference between what the Soviet statisticians were expecting (based on their own population trend analyses) and the initial results of the 1937 census. Kurman himself, fearing for his job and life, attempted to handwave away this difference by claiming that at least half was due to emigration, undercounting in 1937, and overcounting in 1927. There's no basis for these assumptions. This leaves roughly 5.1m unregistered deaths which can be divided between the famine and unregistered deaths in the prison system. Whatever way that division goes, in addition to the 3.4m registered deaths during the same period it produces a total of 8.5m deaths

As I noted above, changing the birth rate (as ADK does) produces different totals. However if it didn't occur to Kurman, the head statistician, to account for either a different birth rate or detaching 2 million citizens (both very obvious possibilities) then I wouldn't really credit this as an explanation

[Wake Up]

it seems to me that the information thrown around by both sides is equally biased. Of course the bourgeois west want to defame Stalin and the Marxist-Lenninsts want to support him or show that he did the right thing in the long run.
So for me if their is an equal amount of bias the most sensible course of action is to take all the estimates from both sides and find the average. (Thats going to go down well....)

How about the story that Stalin sent ex Soviet POW's to Siberia after the end of WW2
any facts behind that horrible tale?

[Panda Tse Tung]

How about the story that Stalin sent ex Soviet POW's to Siberia after the end of WW2
any facts behind that horrible tale?

Half of them we're, since either side is equally biased. :rolleyes:

[Pogue]

Even socialists (such as Trots, Anarchists), those opposed to capitalism, recognise Stalin was a twat and so the argument of it being cappie propoganda is somewhat stupid.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Even socialists (such as Trots, Anarchists), those opposed to capitalism, recognise Stalin was a twat and so the argument of it being cappie propoganda is somewhat stupid.
Well, if they say it it must be true.

[Wake Up]

Half of them we're, since either side is equally biased. :rolleyes:

indeed.

[Kassad]

Even socialists (such as Trots, Anarchists), those opposed to capitalism, recognise Stalin was a twat and so the argument of it being cappie propoganda is somewhat stupid.

Okay... Capitalists and anti-revisionists think Trotsky was a 'twat', so does that make him bad? I'm sure the same goes for Bakunin, Rocker and Luxemborg, right? Capitalists and Leninists show a significant level of disdain for anarchists like Bakunin, so does that make him useless and absurd? Do you really want to attempt an argument with that kind of outline?

[Charles Xavier]

Even socialists (such as Trots, Anarchists), those opposed to capitalism, recognise Stalin was a twat and so the argument of it being cappie propoganda is somewhat stupid.


An example of some of the most useless posts on this forum. If you don't have anything intelligent to say don't say anything at all. Please stop derailing intelligent discussion with this dribble.

I mean if that is your logic, because this guy and that guy says this thing it must be true! TWO PEOPLE SAID THE SAME THING ITS THE TRUTH! I hope you don't plan on being a defense lawyer you'd convince me that innocent people are guilty.


Even socialist such as Marxists, Leninists, Anarchists, even liberals, your family, all those opposed to capitalism or are in favour of capitalism, recognize you are liberal and so the argument of it being cappie poopaganda is somewhat stupid.

[Cumannach]

Ah, I see you're new to the question of demographic calculations. Do you think there would be so much variance/controversy if hard figures were available? ;)


Well first of all, if no credible estimates are able to be made, those of us who claim that a certain number of millions of people didn't die as a cause of the Famine, are not under the obligation to conclusively prove it. It's up to the people claiming that 10 million Ukrainians are likely to have died because of the Famine, to offer some credible evidence for this or to admit they have none. How is it so hard to prove 10 million deaths?

Tottle in his book, refers to

"Present-Day Ethnic Processes in the USSR", (Moscow, Progress Pubs.)
ed; Julian V. Bromley 1982

Which claims that the population of the Ukraine did not decline in absolute terms between 1926 and 1939. The population increased by 3.3 million.

Martens in his book accepts 1-2 million deaths, which I see as plausible.



Which is in turn just as biased a generalisation. Remember that any Marxist writing during the decades 1917-53 (at the earliest) would have far more likely to swallow official distortions and handwave away the millions of deaths.

It's not biased to be more skeptical towards an argument that fits in with the authors own political disposition than towards one which doesn't. It's just common sense. That's why quotes from elite bourgeois academics and ukrainian nationalists which affirm the culpability of the kulaks in the famine are far more credible than socialist claims of the same thing, and more credible than bouregois claims that the kulaks were completely innocent.

Some claim that 10 million Ukrainians died as a result of the Famine and I would follow the claim of others it was more like 1-2 million at most. The numbers actually don't matter for the point of this thread. The point is, was this Famine an act of genocide by Stalin? Was it his personal fault or not?

If you believe it was, please cite sources and make an argument to back up your claim.

[ComradeOm]

Well first of all, if no credible estimates are able to be made...Incorrect. Very credible estimates have been made but they remain estimates


How is it so hard to prove 10 million deaths?Listen, I've tried to impress on you just how difficult it is to assemble this data. You're effectively asking to be shown a death cert for every single person that died. That's simply ridiculous when discussing a famine


Which claims that the population of the Ukraine did not decline in absolute terms between 1926 and 1939. The population increased by 3.3 millionAbsolute population has nothing to do with this. There is no question that the population of the USSR greatly increased during this period. The problem is that it did not increase to the degree that it should have. The result was the 'gap' of eight million. Note that the people who expected the greater increase were none other than Stalin and the Soviet statisticians (essentially using the same methods that you dismiss so). Hence the reaction to the 1937 census


Martens in his book accepts 1-2 million deaths, which I see as plausibleFair enough. Once you're aware that this is an extremely low estimate (which goes nowhere near filling the Kurman gap) and is decidedly out of synch with virtually all mainstream research on the subject. Unless of course you discount every other study as biased


The point is, was this Famine an act of genocide by Stalin? Was it his personal fault or not? See my responses to JimmyJazz

[NecroCommie]

I am not a big friend of Stalin, but even so I would like to ask one thing. Provided that the famine was indeed the result of Stalins actions, and that the number really was 10million, why famine? I mean that if the boss really wanted to deliberately kill millions of people, wasn't there any easier way? It is not very likely he was just shy about shooting them in siberia. :confused:

Just asking out of curiosity.

[Cumannach]

ComradeOm, we'll just have to agree to disagree, and since the scale of the famine mortality isn't what the thread is about we can leave it that. You don't think Stalin was responsible for Genocide in Ukraine. Okay. Well I'm not arguing with you cause that's my opinion as well. And as for 'mainstream' research I think you give far too much credit to the integrity of bourgeois scholarship, but again, we can differ.

Does anyone want to bring up some more of Stalin's crimes?

[Cory]

While on the subject of Stalin:

Great Purges anyone?

Stalin had anyone who opposed him(ESPECIALLY fellow Communists) killed so he could consolidate power into his own hands.

He had Lenin's entire politberau killed.

He had Trotsky killed.

He had Mikhail Tukhachevsky killed.

He had infamous show trials.

I don't think he was responsible for the famine but the purges are unexcuaseable.

[KC]

Okay... Capitalists and anti-revisionists think Trotsky was a 'twat', so does that make him bad? I'm sure the same goes for Bakunin, Rocker and Luxemborg, right? Capitalists and Leninists show a significant level of disdain for anarchists like Bakunin, so does that make him useless and absurd? Do you really want to attempt an argument with that kind of outline?Isn't argumentum ad populum (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1347435&postcount=69) one of your favorite arguments?

I'd like to see further discussion on the Ukrainian famine, so please nobody address the above post. Let's have a little more intelligent discussion before this thread degenerates into a flame fest.

[Kassad]

Dead link, but I figure it's irrelevant anyway, so why bother?

[KC]

Dead link, but I figure it's irrelevant anyway, so why bother?

Fixed. And it's perfectly relevant, given the fact that you are willing to criticize someone in one thread for it and then go and do it yourself in another. That is called "hypocrisy".

[Kassad]

I don't see what you're referring to. A quote and some explanation would be nice.

[Cumannach]

One of the alleged 'crimes' of Stalin is that he created a genocidal Famine directed at the Ukrainian people. No one here has tried to provide evidence for that and I don't think anybody will, since it's a very easy claim to disprove.

However, one could raise the question of Stalin and the CPSU's decision to bring about the rapid collectivization of the peasant farms. Did Stalin and the CPSU recklessly attempt a project that could only result in Famine? If the Famine was solely a result of the collectivization drive, there are grounds for making this claim. But as can and has been shown, it was the criminal resistance of the kulaks against having to join with the poor and middle peasants in collectives, to develop a prosperous agricultural system for everyone, that played a large part in causing the Hunger, along with the drought.

Did Stalin 'force' the peasants to collectivize? No he did not. In fact he believed that it was impossible to force such a thing and that it would be catastrophic. It would alienate the peasants from the Soviet state which depended upon the alliance between the peasants and workers.

"The successes of our collective-farm policy are due, among other things, to the fact that it rests on the voluntary character of the collective-farm movement and on taking into account the diversity of conditions in the various regions of the U.S.S.R. Collective farms must not be established by force. That would be foolish and reactionary. The collective-farm movement must rest on the active support of the main mass of the peasantry."

-("Dizzy With Success") Pravda, March 2, 1930
Stalin

(http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1930/03/02.htm)

In the struggle against the kulaks, many 'excesses' occurred. Can we lay the blame for these on Stalin's leadership? Do these excesses mean it was wrong to collectivize? Hear Stalin, responding to the Bukharinites;

"The most fashionable word just now among Bukharin's group is the word 'excess' in grain procurement...They go on to relate stories of the horrors of these excesses...and then draw the conclusion: the policy of bringing pressure to bear on the kulaks must be abandoned.
"How do you like that? BECAUSE excess are committed in carrying out a correct policy THAT CORRECT POLICY it seems, MUST BE ABANDONED.
"Of course we are all opposed to these excesses. None of us wants the blows directed against the kulaks to hurt the middle peasants...
"The conclusion to be drawn from this is that we must combat excesses"

-("Collected Works Vol 12" pp 96-97)
Stalin

Collectivization was a huge success ultimately, though not a painless one. It put an end to famines for good and allowed for the vast expansion of Industry in the cities. Had a slower pace been adopted, the Soviet Union would not have been adequately prepared for the Capitalist assault that came in 1941, industrially or militarily.

[Led Zeppelin]

LOL, I love how you talk about objectivity and then go on to quote Stalin.

[KC]

I don't see what you're referring to. A quote and some explanation would be nice.

Ok, here:


Hamas has shown their ability to recruit massive numbers of supporters and Palestinians which pose a significant threat to Israeli imperialism. Though a workers movement is our ideal goal, it is not plausible at the current time.

"I support Hamas because they are popular in Palestine. A workers' movement is not currently popular in Palestine so I don't think it is plausible."

Argumentum ad populum.

[Leo]

Marxists do not judge historical political characters accordingly to whether they have been good or bad people either in some ambiguous idealistic moral political sense or in the individual sense of being good or bad to his family, friends and all. What matters is which class the politics of the person in question represents.

Now, with Stalin we are talking about the chief representative, the face of a regime that murdered thousands of communists and revolutionary, militant and class-conscious workers, the overwhelming majority of the Bolshevik Party of 1917 as well as the overwhelming majority of the central committee of the Bolshevik Party of 1917. He was the face of a regime that in every ideological move it made, in every policy it announced did everything within it's power to attack, weaken and cripple the revolutionary consciousness obtained by the working class who made the October Revolution. The face of a regime that viciously attacked the internationalism of the world workers' movement by putting forward the theory of "socialism in one country", advocating Russian nationalism and turning the communist parties in the world into mere instruments of it's interests by destroying even the tiniest dissidence in those parties. The face of a regime which were defenders of those who managed factories, those who commanded armies, those who were high in the hierarchy of bureaucratic institutions. The face of a regime that was imperialist, mobilized millions and sent them to death for it's imperialist interests and occupied half of Europe and formed satellite states there.

He was the face of the reactionary, counter-revolutionary regime in Russia, he was the face of the Russian bourgeoisie rising from it's ashes. He was the gravedigger of the Russian Revolution. Whether he was good person or a bad one, whether he had good intentions or was malicious is hardly relevant in the face of the class, the regime he represented.

[Cumannach]

We can have that discussion in another Stalin thread. This one is supposed to be for quoting sources that have made us hold the opinions we do. Opinions about the famous crimes specifically.

[ComradeOm]

Collectivization was a huge success ultimately, though not a painless one. It put an end to famines for good and allowed for the vast expansion of Industry in the cities. Had a slower pace been adopted, the Soviet Union would not have been adequately prepared for the Capitalist assault that came in 1941, industrially or militarily.How exactly are you defining "huge success2? During the 1930s agricultural production took a nosedive - grain production (according to an official Soviet study in 1987) did not regain its 1929 level until the end of the decade and by 1940 had increased on the 1929 level by a mere 2.5%. This was better than the various livestock categories (horses, pigs, sheep, cattle) which, according to the same study, had still not recovered by the outbreak of war. That there was no repeat of the mass deaths in the Ukraine is due solely to the lack of drought (although famine was only narrowly averted in '36) and when drought did occur in '46 famine (costing over a million lives) was again the result. So much for "putting an end to famines for good"

That little agricultural growth that did occur during the 1930s, including the recovery from the crisis years, can be largely attributable to the spread of modern technology and, in particular, the mechanisation of industry. The latter certainly delivered on the Party's hopes (albeit a few years too late) but still never came close to delivering on the efficiencies required to sustain the grossly inefficient collective model. In later decades the entire system of Soviet agriculture rested on peasant's private plot and ever increasing grain imports from capitalist nations. There is no economic or technical reason why the mechanical innovations could not have been applied to the NEP system of peasant landowning

By any standards this was a damning failure but it appears even more so when compared to the immense triumphs of Soviet industry. The gap only continued to grow and by 1940 a worker in the non-agricultural sector was four times as productive as a comrade working in agriculture

[JimmyJazz]

LOL, I love how you talk about objectivity and then go on to quote Stalin.

The thing that struck me in that post was not quoting Stalin, but this:


Collectivization was a huge success ultimately, though not a painless one. It put an end to famines for good and allowed for the vast expansion of Industry in the cities.

Which could, if you replaced "collectivization" with "bourgeois society", be Marx talking about capitalism in the first section of the Manifesto.

[Cumannach]

thanks again to comrade om for bothering to make a serious post. (although you could be more liberal in quoting your sources.) I'll reply to that. just let me gather some sources.

[Cumannach]

Why do I think collectivization was a huge success? These are reasons I think it was a great success.

It eliminated the kulaks as a class. This in itself would have been a huge success, since they were the greatest danger to the socialist Soviet State. When faced with losing their privileges they either caused or greatly exacerbated a Famine and dealt Soviet livestock a huge blow as you said.

It destroyed the old capitalist relations of production in the countryside and went a good way towards socializing agriculture. It did this without any drastic permanent decrease in agricultural productivity, even if it went without a huge immediate increase in output volume.

This is how Stalin described the change in his report to the Seventeenth Party Congress, which has all the relevant stat. tables;

"...The tables further show that the 65 per cent of peasant farms united in collective farms control 73.9 per cent of the total area under grain crops, whereas all the individual peasant farms that remain, representing 35 per cent of the entire peasant population, control only 15.5 per cent of the total area under grain crops. If we add to this fact that in 1933 the various deliveries to the state made by the collective farms amounted to more than 1,000 million poods of grain, while the individual peasants, who fulfilled their plan 100 per cent, delivered only about 130,000,000 poods; whereas in 1929-30 the individual peasants delivered to the state about 780,000,000 poods, and the collective farms not more than 120,000,000 poods — then it becomes absolutely clear that during the period under review the collective farms and the individual peasants have completely exchanged roles: the collective farms during this period have become the predominant force in agriculture, whereas the individual peasants have become a secondary force and are compelled to subordinate and adapt themselves to the collective-farm system.

"...The facts show that our Soviet peasantry has quit the shores of capitalism for good and is going forward, in alliance with the working class, to socialism. The facts show that we have already laid the foundations of a socialist society in the U.S.S.R., and it only remains for us to erect the superstructures—a task which undoubtedly is much easier than that of laying the foundations of a socialist society."

-("Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.)") January 26, 1934
Stalin

Of course agriculture was hit during the early 30's during collectivization. That was expected.

An authority on the Soviet economy is 'Charles Bettelheim', who's certainly not pro-Stalin.

(L'économie soviétique) 1950
Bettelheim

As often, Martens is of great use. He used the work in his own book. We learn that,

'Socialist agriculture dramatically rose as soon as the considerable industrial and agricultural investments had an effect. The total value of agricultural production stagnated between 1928 and 1934, oscillating between 13.1 billion rubles and 14.7 billion rubles. Then it rose to 16.2 billion in 1935, to 20.1 billion in 1937, and 23.2 billion in 1940.
-p.89 -(L'économie soviétique) 1950 Bettelheim

'A peasant population rising from 120.7 to 132 million people between 1926 and 1940 was able to feed an urban population that increased from 26.3 to 61 million in the same period.'
-p93 -(L'économie soviétique) 1950 Bettelheim

'The kolkhozian consumption in 1938 had increased, in terms of percentage of peasant consumption under the former régime, to: bread and flour, 125; potatoes, 180; fruit and vegetables, 147; milk and dairy products, 148; meat and sausage, 179.'
-p113 n1 - (L'économie soviétique) 1950 Bettelheim

All from Martens.

I'll let Stalin make the final point;

"To sum up, we have:
...
c) The final abandonment of small-commodity individual farming by the overwhelming majority of the peasants; their uniting in collective farms on the basis of collective labour and collective ownership of the means of production; the complete victory of collective farming over small-commodity individual farming.

d) An ever-increasing process of expansion of the collective farms through the absorption of individual peasant farms, which are thus diminishing in number month by month and are, in fact, being converted into an auxiliary force for the collective farms and state farms.

Naturally, this historic victory over the exploiters could not but lead to a radical improvement in the material standard of the working people and in their conditions of life generally.

The elimination of the parasitic classes has led to the disappearance of the exploitation of man by man.

The labour of the worker and the peasant is freed from exploitation. The incomes which the exploiters used to squeeze out of the labour of the people now remain in the hands of the working people and are used partly for the expansion of production and the enlistment of new detachments of working people in production, and partly for directly increasing the incomes of the workers and peasants.
...
With the disappearance of kulak bondage, poverty in the countryside has disappeared. Every peasant, whether a collective farmer or an individual farmer, now has the opportunity of living a human existence, provided only that he wants to work conscientiously and not to be a loafer, a tramp, or a despoiler of collective-farm property.

The abolition of exploitation, the abolition of unemployment in the towns, and the abolition of poverty in the countryside are historic achievements in the material condition of the working people that are beyond even the dreams of the workers and peasants even in the most "democratic" of the bourgeois countries.
...
The appearance of the countryside has changed even more. The old type of village, with the church in the most prominent place, with the best houses—those of the police officer, the priest, and the kulaks—in the foreground, and the dilapidated huts of the peasants in the background, is beginning to disappear. Its place is being taken by the new type of village, with its public farm buildings, with its clubs, radio, cinemas, schools, libraries and creches; with its tractors, harvester combines, threshing machines and automobiles. The former important personages of the village, the kulak-exploiter, the bloodsucking usurer, the merchant-speculator, the "little father" police officer, have disappeared. Now, the prominent personages are the leading people of the collective farms and state farms, of the schools and clubs, the senior tractor and combine drivers, the brigade leaders in field work and livestock raising, and the best men and women shock brigaders on the collective-farm fields.

The antithesis between town and country is disappearing. The peasants are ceasing to regard the town as the centre of their exploitation. The economic and cultural bond between town and country is becoming stronger. The country now receives assistance from the town and from urban industry in the shape of tractors, agricultural machinery, automobiles, workers, and funds. And the countryside itself now has its own industry, in the shape of the machine and tractor stations, repair shops, all sorts of industrial undertakings of the collective farms, small electric power stations, etc. The cultural gulf between town and country is being bridged."

-("Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.)") January 26, 1934
Stalin

Now Stalin himself was the first to admit things weren't perfect. In his Report, he rails against the failures occurring in many areas, in Industry ("The fact that red-tape and bureaucratic methods of management in the economic People's Commissariats and their bodies, including the People's Commissariats of the light and food industries, are still far from having been eliminated."!) but especially in Agriculture. I won't fill up the thread with all his criticisms, you can read them all here along with all the relevant data on the economy;

(http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1934/01/26.htm)

[Kassad]

KC, are you trying to make me laugh? In Palestine, there is a significant mass movement for liberation that has united under Hamas. A workers movement has not risen up to fight against the Zionist imperialism. If it does, I'd be quick to support it, but it isn't happening at the current time. It isn't any kind of logical fallacy to observe a scenario and realize facts. Sorry.

[KC]

KC, are you trying to make me laugh? In Palestine, there is a significant mass movement for liberation that has united under Hamas. A workers movement has not risen up to fight against the Zionist imperialism. If it does, I'd be quick to support it, but it isn't happening at the current time. It isn't any kind of logical fallacy to observe a scenario and realize facts. Sorry.

Ok, so you are then saying what I originally stated:

"I support Hamas because they are popular in Palestine. A workers' movement is not currently popular in Palestine so I don't think it is plausible."

[Das war einmal]

Ok, so you are then saying what I originally stated:

"I support Hamas because they are popular in Palestine. A workers' movement is not currently popular in Palestine so I don't think it is plausible."

??? Strange way of interpertating others you have there

[ComradeOm]

It eliminated the kulaks as a class. This in itself would have been a huge success, since they were the greatest danger to the socialist Soviet State. When faced with losing their privileges they either caused or greatly exacerbated a Famine and dealt Soviet livestock a huge blow as you saidActually I've never agreed with the kulak analysis. That there was a thin stratum of rich peasants is not in question but the whole analysis is extremely crude and ill defined. Even the richest 3.2% of peasant households owned a mere 2.3 draught animals and 2.5 cows, compared to an average of 1 and 1.1 for all households. Similarly only 0.6% of the peasant population relied on hired labour (thus being capitalist in the Marxist sense) and a further 0.14% were judged to be "engaged in entrepreneurial non-agricultural occupations" (according to the 1927 census). The vast majority of the kulaks, in its originally sense, were created by the Stolypin reforms and reabsorbed into the mir system following the Revolution. Dekulakisation was thus aimed not at a particular class of peasantry but the peasantry as a class. The aim of the programme was to remove the obvious opponents to the Soviet government and, via collectivisation, break the political power of the peasantry

Similarly, it makes no sense for peasants to simply kill their livestock just to spite some distant government. It would be akin to a peasant cutting his own throat. Draught horses and other livestock were of immense importance to the average peasant household, which relied heavily on them, and would only have been killed when the peasant was unable to feed either them or his family. The primary cause of livestock deaths during the early 1930s therefore has to be a lack of grain and fodder. This is borne out by numerical analysis, which I referred to in my above post (edit: Narodnoe khozyaistvo SSSR, 1987), that saw the number of livestock halve in the USSR between 1929 and 1935. Suggesting that all these dead animals belonged to kulaks just doesn't add up


It destroyed the old capitalist relations of production in the countryside and went a good way towards socializing agriculture. It did this without any drastic permanent decrease in agricultural productivity, even if it went without a huge immediate increase in output volumeI've addressed the absence of "capitalist relations of production in the countryside" above. And while there was no permanent decrease this was primarily due to the increased mechanisation of agriculture - tractor production alone amounted for half of available quality steel allocated in 1932 (252,000 tons of 502,000, Davies 1976) - which would have been perfectly feasible within the NEP framework

The best that can be said about collectivisation is that it managed to recover from its own catastrophic introduction. It was adequate, just about, to Soviet needs. Even then its rate of growth was far too small to sustain the growing urban population and forced the Soviet government to spend its precious foreign currency reserves on importing grain from the 1960s onwards

[Post-Something]

Does it not bother any of you Anti-Revisionists that there wasn't any workers democracy? Socialism is supposed to be an advance upon capitalism, and therefor an attempt to broaden and deepen Liberal Democracy. How can any of you call the USSR socialist? It was an authoritarian hell hole and was doomed from the word go.

[Kassad]

Ok, so you are then saying what I originally stated:

"I support Hamas because they are popular in Palestine. A workers' movement is not currently popular in Palestine so I don't think it is plausible."

Well, I apologize that your means of liberating Palestine is not possible at this time and attempting to be divisive would cripple the anti-imperialist struggle in Palestine. A defeat of Israel and Zionist imperialism is a victory for revolutionaries everywhere, as it promotes the formulation of resistance against colonialism. It isn't a fallacy to observe facts, which is something you appear unable to do.

[Cumannach]

This is my understanding of the issue; The significance of the kulak class, other than being a rising capitalist class, was in their control of a certain portion of the marketable grain; that is, the surplus grain not consumed by the peasantry but marketed to the state in order to feed the proletariat in the cities, and to export in order to acquire foreign machinery. The interest of the kulaks was in having the state pay high prices for the grain obviously. This meant the state had to pour it's money into simply feeding the working class, rather than into expanding industry. The interest of the state was in paying lower prices.

The Soviet Union had to become an industrial power or it would be crushed. The slower the pace of industrialization, the more likely the Soviets would be crushed and Socialism brought to an end.

This is how Sheila Fitzpatrick, who otherwise wrote a whole book about the misery of the peasants under Stalin, puts it;

"In 1927 however the impending industrialization drive changed the equation in a number of ways. Unreliable grain procurements jeopardized plans for large scale grain export to balance the import of foreign machinery. Higher grain prices would reduce the funds available for industrial expansion and perhaps make it impossible to fulfil the First Five Year Plan. Moreover since it was surmised that a very large proportion of all marketed grain came from only a small proportion of russia's peasant farmers, it seemed likely that the benefit from higher grain prices would go to 'kulaks'...rather than the peasantry as a whole"

-("The Russian Revolution")
Sheila Fitzpatick

Martens deals with this at length. From Him;

'In 1926, the kulaks, a rising force, controlled 20 per cent of the market wheat. '

Stalin, On the Grain Front. Leninism, p. 59

'According to another statistic, in the European part of the USSR, the kulaks and the upper part of the middle peasants, i.e. about 10 to 11 per cent of families, made 56 per cent of the sales in 1927--1928. '

Davies, op. cit. , p. 27.

The problems with this;

'To accrue sufficient assets for industrialization, the State had paid a relatively low price for wheat since the beginning of the twenties.

In the fall of 1924, after a quite meager harvest, the State did not succeed in buying the grain at a fixed rate. The kulaks and private merchants bought the grain on the open market, speculating on a price hike in the spring and summer.

In May 1925, the State had to double its buying prices of December 1924. That year, the USSR had a good harvest. Industrial development in the cities increased the demand for grain. Buying prices paid by the State remained high from October to December 1925. But since there was a lack of light machinery products, the better-off peasants refused to sell their wheat. The State was forced to capitulate, abandoning its plans for grain exports, reducing industrial equipment imports and reducing industrial credit. '

Davies, op. cit. , pp. 29--30.

As for the kulaks trying to sabotage the Collective Farms, what do you make of the quotes in the earlier post? Why would the wealthy Kulaks starve themseves to spite a far away government? They wouldn't- they would kill any livestock that was to be made a part of the collective farm right on their doorstep, they would disrupt the attempts of the collective farms to sow and function etc, right on their doorsteps, they would hope the state would back down in fright and discontinue collectivization. They could make up their loss. And they had no foreknowledge that the destruction of the productive forces would, first, be so widespread all throughout the country, and secondly, coincide with a drought, those factors making rescue rations from the state impossible.

The stagnation of soviet agriculture under Khruschev, who instituted many reforms, has nothing to do with Stalin, who he hated.

Sorry if the post is a bit long.

[Cory]

While on the subject of Stalin:

Great Purges anyone?

Stalin had anyone who opposed him(ESPECIALLY fellow Communists) killed so he could consolidate power into his own hands.

He had Lenin's entire politberau killed.

He had Trotsky killed.

He had Mikhail Tukhachevsky killed.

He had infamous show trials.

I don't think he was responsible for the famine but the purges are unexcuaseable.

Still waiting for Stalinists response to this.

[Cumannach]

read the op

[Sentinel]

I've stickied this thread, and given the poster of the OP a positive reputation point. It is now the Official Stalin Thread.

Let's keep all discussions about Stalin (as a person, from whatever pov) here from now on, and let's also follow the OP's advice and keep the arguments based on material evidence rather than emotion.

Edit: posts by JimmyJazz and direct replies to his posts have been split off by his request.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

While on the subject of Stalin:

Great Purges anyone?

Necessary to erase capitalist, fascist and reactionary infiltrators, traitors and spies.



Stalin had anyone who opposed him(ESPECIALLY fellow Communists) killed so he could consolidate power into his own hands.

He only eliminated the opportunists who were in the Party, but not Communist. Most of them were just kicked out of the Party, not killed.


He had Lenin's entire politberau killed.
No, he had not.



He had Trotsky killed.

Trotsky wasn't even a Communist. He was a bourgeois agent.



He had infamous show trials.

They weren't "show" trials, they were actual trials against actual enemies.

[Che_Guevara_]

These numbers are from an estimation which works like this:
Number A. population and population growth in the Ukraine during 1929 (so the estimated amount of civilians in 1940).
Number B. population of the Ukraine at 1940
Number C = the gap, which is 8 million.
But, this completely ignores a couple of very concrete things.
A. an extremely low birth-rate.
B. an area containing 2 million citizens had been designated to the Russian Soviet Republic (making it: 6 million).
C. certain other Ukraine-specific conditions (in terms of the Famine itself).

Just thought I'd add my 2 cents.
not 6 million because from what ive been told by my history tutor a while back is that many ukrainians when the land was granted for soviets then they move out for soviet public to use...otherwise you are saying the 2 million ukrainians and soviet public all fitted in this piece of land? not possible you couldnt do that with such an influx of soviets the place would go into economic turmoil..thats why many ukrainians moved away.

[Che_Guevara_]

Necessary to erase capitalist, fascist and reactionary infiltrators, traitors and spies.


He only eliminated the opportunists who were in the Party, but not Communist. Most of them were just kicked out of the Party, not killed.


No, he had not.


Trotsky wasn't even a Communist. He was a bourgeois agent.


They weren't "show" trials, they were actual trials against actual enemies.

Never if i was in the position Stalin was in would i do the Great Purge.
Not all of them were as you put it 'traitors, spies, fascists and capitalists', im sure some of theem were but that isnt the point. I read a book i think it was called 'brainwash 2001' not sure though and it studied the cases of the great purge and people that werent killed but were brainwashed and they proved 65% of the cases they studied were paranoia and were in fact innocent.
capitalists should either embrace communism or be deported not killed only in extreme cases where they are committing crimes against the state should they die.

[Rangi]

Hands up those who think it is necessary to murder your political enemies?

[Pogue]

An example of some of the most useless posts on this forum. If you don't have anything intelligent to say don't say anything at all. Please stop derailing intelligent discussion with this dribble.

I mean if that is your logic, because this guy and that guy says this thing it must be true! TWO PEOPLE SAID THE SAME THING ITS THE TRUTH! I hope you don't plan on being a defense lawyer you'd convince me that innocent people are guilty.


Even socialist such as Marxists, Leninists, Anarchists, even liberals, your family, all those opposed to capitalism or are in favour of capitalism, recognize you are liberal and so the argument of it being cappie poopaganda is somewhat stupid.

You're the most hated person on this forum, look at you rep bar and then look at mine for easy comparison, so stop being so thick.

I was saying that if anti-Stalin feeling is cappie propoganda, how come anarchists, Trots, etc have been critical of Stalin, whilst also being more anti-capitalist than Stalin?

Why did Stalin co-operate with Hitler?

Why did Stalin betray the POUM and CNT in Spain?

Why did Stalin purge many communists, including Trotsky?

[Woland]

H-L-V-S, take it easy. This thread is for gradual, in-depth discussion, without any flaming.

Anyway, just decided to post this here, official Soviet archive information on the losses in WW2:

Soviet losses:
Complete Soviet military casualties in the Great Patriotic War, including NKVD border and inner troops, in 1941-1945, were 11,440,100 people, out of which:

-killed and died of wounds, also in hospitals and during evacuation - 6,329,600
-missing in combat, taken prisoner - 4,559,000
-non-combat deaths (accidents, diseases, other) - 555,500

Complete deaths- 27 million (8,7 million military, 18,3 million civilians).

During mobilization in newly-liberated former occupied territories, 939 700 people were conscripted, and 1,836,000 prisoners were freed.

The number of Soviet prisoners of war is estimated to be between 5,200,000-5,750,000 people, with 3,9 million taken prisoner in the first stage of the war (June 1941- November 1942).

German losses:
Complete German military casualties in World War 2 are 13,448,000 people, or 75,1% of all mobilized, or 46% of the whole male population of Germany in 1939, including Austria. Out of which:

-demobilized to help the war economy - 2 million
-demobilized due to injuries and diseases - 2,310,000
-wounded and sick, in hospitals at the end of the war - 700,000
-killed in combat, died in hospitals - 3,810,000
-taken prisoner - 3,357,000

Complete German (and allies) losses at the German-Soviet front: 6,923,700.


Don't ask me if it's confusing, I just translated it, but pay attention to the difference between specific deaths and the non-fatal casualties. But it is still good information to have.

[Cumannach]

h l v s

I'd be happy to discuss some of those issues if it was done through an actual justification of your claims. Why do you think Stalin co-operated with Hitler? What made you believe that? If you quote the evidence that you read in a book or somewhere else that made you come to that conclusion (and reference the quote properly), we could have a meaningful discussion. I would provide evidence to back up my counter claims. Either you can be unconvinced by my evidence, and thus have become even more secure in your position, or you will see things differently and have learnt something. Same goes for me. It's win win for everyone.

It's lose lose for everyone if we just mouth our final opinions. In a subject like this no one cares what opinions other people have until they present some justification for them.

[ComradeOm]

This is my understanding of the issue; The significance of the kulak class, other than being a rising capitalist class, was in their control of a certain portion of the marketable grainMy primary objection - and I have to stress that I'm not particularly well read on this particular aspect - is to the identification of the kulaks as a distinct class or subclass. As a label its extremely vague and it was interpreted in different ways by different administrators throughout the USSR. The problem was not that the kulaks actively opposing Soviet industrialisation but that this industrialisation was not in the interests of the peasantry as a whole. For "kulak" you can therefore substitute "village elder" or "anti-collectivisation peasant"

Fitzpatrick is very good at this (and I think this is the third time at recommending her in this thread) as she puts the collectivisation drive in the context of proletariat/peasantry class conflict. It was just not a matter of a few rich peasants sabotaging efforts while the rest of the peasantry happily joined the collective farms of their own accord (You've quoted Fitzpatrick so I assume you've read her dismissal of the propaganda myth of 'voluntary collectivisation'. Following the initial two years of the programme at least)

But you are entirely correct in that collectivisation cannot be divorced from the question of industrialisation. I've taken efforts in previous posts to stress that I was talking from a purely technical/economic viewpoint; that is, measuring the results in agricultural terms. From this perspective collectivisation was a complete failure. However when confronted with the requirement to "squeeze" the peasantry in order to facilitate continued industrial growth Stalin did not hesitate. He was probably correct in this

Which is not to gloss over the facts that collectivisation was often mismanaged and failed as a long term policy


As for the kulaks trying to sabotage the Collective Farms, what do you make of the quotes in the earlier post? Why would the wealthy Kulaks starve themseves to spite a far away government? They wouldn't- they would kill any livestock that was to be made a part of the collective farm right on their doorstep, they would disrupt the attempts of the collective farms to sow and function etc, right on their doorsteps, they would hope the state would back down in fright and discontinue collectivizationBetween 1929 and 1934 roughly 15m horses, 30m cattle, 70m sheep/goats, and 12m pigs were killed by peasants. Are you really suggesting that this was all the actions of 1-2m disgruntled peasants? The numbers simply do not add up. No doubt there was some "wrecking" but any kulak who killed his neighbours' livestock would likely find peasant retribution far nastier than official justice. (Edit: To clarify that last point, had the kulaks actually begun to slaughter the livestock of other peasants en masse then you would have actually seen real class warfare, as claimed by Soviet propagandists, grip the countryside) Again, you proposing that the peasantry starved themselves rather than submit to collectivisation. Where animals were slaughtered it was for their meat

It is no coincidence that the collapse in livestock numbers (which would incidentally take more than two decades to return to 1929 levels) coincided with the sudden lack of grain and fodder. Furthermore livestock were central to the peasant economy (I've already commented in past posts on the massive impact that the slaughter of horses had) and would really be a measure of last resort for any peasant household. As a final note, you'll also see that the famine scare of '36 also saw a drop in livestock numbers (though obviously not to the same degree)


And they had no foreknowledge that the destruction of the productive forces would, first, be so widespread all throughout the country, and secondly, coincide with a drought, those factors making rescue rations from the state impossibleSo they opposed the state while expecting the state to save them? :confused:


The stagnation of soviet agriculture under Khruschev, who instituted many reforms, has nothing to do with Stalin, who he hatedGiven that the collective model persisted until the end of the USSR, its failures have everything to do with the man who drove its establishment. As a model collective farms simply do not work. They facilitate greater state control of agriculture but little else. Indeed the system may well have collapsed entirely if private plots (the most productive sector of the agricultural economy but one that Stalin viewed as transitory) had been abolished by his successors in line with his wishes

[ComradeOm]

Some posts were cut from this thread that I think were useful and on topic. I've gotten word from the relevant mod to repost these, for reference purposes, without mentioning the other poster


-----


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

I am no expert in Soviet history, but this seems like a biggie. Having just been banned from editing wikipedia, I'm more than aware that they are not a neutral source, but in any case the Ukranian Famine is an event that needs to be looked at, and accusations that it is man made (that man being Stalin) taken seriously.Be careful with this one. Virtually nobody denies that a mass famine occurred in the Ukraine during these years but the term Holodomor is exclusively used by those who argue that the deaths were deliberately orchestrated by Moscow as part of a campaign that was tantamount to genocide. The whole topic is extremely controversial and debate continues to rage in both academia and beyond

Which illustrates the (rather, a) major problem with this thread. I could easily present half a dozen sources that conclusively prove that Stalin masterminded the whole affair. I could also present an equal number of works that state, just as conclusively, the exact opposite. This is particularly true when presenting population estimates (and anyone who claims to have hard and exact figures is simply lying) from the USSR

For what its worth - and all figures below are drawn from 'Davies et al, (1994), The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union 1913-1945' - there was a significant drop in the grain harvest of 1932/33 which amounted to less than 19m tons collected; this compares to 23m tons collected in 1931/32 and 1933/34. There were similar, although longer lasting, drops in livestock figures. This was not limited to the Ukraine. Actual deaths... well this is murky with conflicting projections throughout the decades, but the authors conclude that a total of 10 million excess deaths occurred in the period 1927-38, of which 8-8.5 occurred during 1927-36. Virtually all sources are in agreement that the vast bulk of the deaths took place during the famine years

All of which has to be qualified by the circumstances. Certainly there is nothing to suggest that Stalin decided to "do in" the Ukrainian peasantry. As I said above, this was a famine first and foremost. The weather during the early thirties was poor - on average an index of weather conditions was down 0.37 tsentners per hectare (edit: old unit used to measure mass of crops) - but there were also human errors at work. The agricultural system introduced by collectivisation was over centralised (farmers need to be able to react to their own a regional/provincial circumstances) and collectivisation itself was a huge disruption to agriculture. In particular the drop in livestock numbers was a disaster - horses were still employed on the vast majority of farms and their losses (approx 50% were killed from 1929-35) proved irreplaceable

I've seen it suggested that this livestock issue was foreseen by the Party but it was expected that the benefits from mechanisation of agriculture (which were very real) would compensate. Unfortunately the projections for tractor production were wildly optimistic and the result was a humanitarian disaster. It would take years to achieve the desired levels of mechanisation (the inspiration for which, incidentally, was the huge farms of the USA)

So there you have it. A horrible convergence of poor weather, poor planning, and human error. Although its interesting to place the whole collectivisation effort against the backdrop of Stalin's attempts to simultaneously industrialise and crush peasant dissent (see Sheila Fitzpatrick's The Russian Revolution) and it has to be noted that a major drain on the country's grain requirements was the explosion of the urban population during this decade


-----


What about this?Famines, no matter what Wikipedia says, are not acts of genocide. Unless of course the Soviet government somehow found a way to actively prevent tens of millions of peasants from actually growing their crops. That's how agriculture works - the peasants grow the food before passing it on. As long as the crop is there and can be harvested the peasantry will survive

For example, I can argue, and I often do, that the deaths resulting from the Great Famine in Ireland were the result of dire British economic mismanagement. But it would be absurd to claim that it was a deliberate case of genocide or that Queen Victoria secretly introduced the Blight to Ireland in order to kill off a few million Catholic


The question is not whether times were poor (whether there was actually a famine), but whether the Ukrainians were targeted for political reasons. The page also says this:So what, Stalin deliberately targeted the Ukrainians and then threw in a few million Russians for the sake of it? :confused:

As I noted in my post, agriculture is regional in character. This is especially true when discussing a nation that stretched across several timezones and when the relevant area is larger than Western Europe. That the Ukraine suffered more than most can be attributed to both regional draughts and the fact that it was designated a Producer Region; that is, the primary purpose was the production of foodstuffs and it was thus far more agriculturally originated than a Consumer Region. Obviously peasant societies (and is true of all countries at all times) are far more at risk of famine than more economically advanced societies


I find it odd that you are less eager to lay the blame on Stalin than on socialist planning itselfI've never been one to think that each and every mistake or policy of the Soviet Union was due to Stalin's personal interference. Was he involved in the process of setting policy and targets, of course. Did he draw up crop/tractor projections, enact agricultural policies across the entire USSR, deal with famine relief on the ground, or stalk the Ukraine killing individual peasants... of course not. Stalin was merely at the summit of the regime and blame must be allocated on a much wider basis. At the same time suggesting that Stalin maliciously set out to kill millions of Ukrainians is without merit and simply consists of rehashing tired old political grudges

In short - look past the individuals and focus on the systems and institutions that were involved. That's where the lessons are to be learned. Unfortunately even Marxists are far too prone to obsessing about what 'their' Great Man said or did


That's not to say that I think agricultural collectivization is a "socialist" policy; I don't. But those who defend Stalin usually seem to believe that his policies were basically correct socialist ones. You can let me know if that is what you believe.Collectivization failed. There is no question of that. Might it have worked under different circumstances? Perhaps... personally its led me to believe that there is no 'socialist answer' to the peasantry. Some may argue that it was necessary for Soviet industrialisation, that's not a debate I'm particularly interested in

That goes for this whole thread. Stalin is dead and so, with the odd exception, are those who take his theories/practices seriously. We can analyse his programmes and their effects but there's no real point in arguing whether or not they were 'socialist' or whatever. I think that's the idea behind the OP's call for reasoned analysis using sources but you can see for yourself how that turns out


-----


ComradeOm, maybe I will reply to all of that later, but probably not. You basically say that a priori famines cannot be anyone's fault, so what's the point?No, I am saying that famines are never intentional. That does not excuse the Soviet state apparatus, or its leader, from any economic mismanagement prior to the event, or lacklustre reaction after it. Its simply stating that famines are acts of nature


When people in a region with separatist/nationalist tendencies suffer much worse from a famine than people without such tendencies, people will ask if this was a coincidence. If a Chinese famine killed 10 million people from tiny Tibet or tiny Taiwan, and only 5 million from China proper, this would raise some eyebrowsThis is my problem with the whole line of reasoning that proclaims the famine a genocide. We know that Stalin was not particularly soft hearted and we know that the Ukrainians are not Russian*, ergo he actively set out to kill millions of Ukrainians. Frankly that's some leap of logic. I hate to agree with GeorgiDimitrovII here but if there's no evidence to suggest that this was a deliberate act of genocide on Stalin's part (and as far as I know there is not any "smoking gun") then there is no case

Is it really too much to expect that the famine hit the most agriculturally intensive region of the USSR (its famed bread basket, as it had been since Tsarist times) harder than most regions? Which is not to forget that millions of peasants also died outside the Ukraine. To answer your question, I would not be surprised if famine in China devastated Tibet if Tibet was a net agricultural producer based on peasant farming

*Although its extremely easy to play up this last fact up. Ukrainian nationalism as a mass movement was less than three decades old at the time of the famine. Furthermore, the eastern parts of the region were heavily Russian in character (particularly around Kiev which was essentially a Russian city). Those who argue that Stalin was deliberately seeking to crush a nascent nationalist movement are likely to be projecting today's attitudes back in time. If Stalin did want to "do a number" on the Ukrainian peasants its far more likely that it was because they were peasants first and Ukrainians second. Again, I refer to the background of class conflict between workers and peasants (Fitzpatrick)


However, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica cited on the wiki page, the opposite occurred and the Soviet gov't was actually requisitioning grain during this periodYou'll note that on a page with almost a hundred references the Encyclopedia Brittanica (one step up from Wikipedia) is the only one to make that claim. You'll also note that the same reference states that "that no physical basis for famine". That's simply false


I am not an expert in history, but I can spot which historical facts are relevant and which are not. So far you have not given any that I would consider relevant to the claims made in the wiki article.Naturally. I produce detailed numbers as to weather conditions, livestock quantities, and grain collections and you consider these worthless. You in turn produce Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Brittanica, and completely unfounded accusations as to Stalin's culpability. Really, what can I do here?


-----


What you are ostensibly replying to, however, was this:You are the only one who can take issue with sources? The Encyclopedia Britannica reference is extremely unsatisfactory. Firstly because of its source which is not specialised and does not appear in any other reference on the Wikipedia entry. Secondly because other aspects of the claim are blatantly false. It asserts that the famine was "a man-made demographic catastrophe" and that "no physical basis for famine existed in Ukraine". This is simply not true, as I'd hoped to have proven above, and throws into question the verifiability of the whole source

It even confuses the practice of forced grain procurements (prodrazvyorstka) which characterised War Communism, and were largely abandoned thereafter, with the rationing system designed to channel grain from the countryside to the urban settlements! But its worth elaborating on this for a bit...

It is of course true that the massive growth of the industrial proletariat (Consumer Regions) placed the agricultural Producer Regions under immense stress. However the great push to reduce the grain retained in the countryside (and which succeeded in doing so by about 15%) came not in the 1930s but in 1927/28. This still left the vast bulk of farm produce (46m tons to 16m tons) in the hands of the peasants and the ratio of grain distribution was largely actually increased (in favour of the cities) in the later 1930s. The problem during the famine years was not in the level of the imposed quotas but, as Davies et al admit, "the lack of produce to distribute"

The greatest problem with grain quotas, and again I've seen nothing to suggest that they were applied differently to the Ukraine, was that the need for food for the cities, which were also on the brink of starvation, was so great that it disrupted crop rotation cycles and added to the disruption caused by collectivisation itself. But then I've never pretended that that policy was particularly well implemented and have expressly labelled poor planning as one of the factors behind the famine

Its also worthwhile asking however that if, as you contend, the quotas were unnecessarily harsh... then just where was all this grain going? Foreign exports of agricultural produce were slashed by over 4/5s (Davies again) during the famine years and, as we've seen, the deaths and starvation were not limited to the Ukraine. Furthermore there was extensive rationing of food stuffs in the cities* until 1935. So perhaps Stalin himself was eating millions of tons of grain a year?

*"In Moscow, working class consumption of meat fell by 60% and dairy products by 50% between 1929 and 1932. The average worker's diet during the first five year plan was to a large extent one of enforced vegetarianism, the bulk of it consisting of rye bread, potatoes, and cabbage. Rations, even bread, were not always issued in full to all workers" Davies et al


Right. And that's stupid, because allegations have been made that this one was. One should attempt to refute these allegations if one can.No. You are asserting that this was genocide and therefore the burden of proof lies on you and you alone. I've pointed out the difficulties with this theory (can you even name another "deliberate famine"?) and the lack of logic/evidence but I cannot disprove something that did not happen

It should be relatively easy to find paperwork engineering the famine, if there was any, but its obviously a lot more difficult to find an internal Party memo that just happens to state that "no, Comrade Stalin does not plan any engineered famines in the Ukraine this year" :rolleyes:


OK, so your argument is that no credible source claims the Ukranian Famine was a deliberate punishment for Ukranian nationalism?Plenty of people have claimed that it was. I've not yet come across anything convincing in my reading. No smoking gun, as they say. It may well be out there and if you do produce it then I'd obviously re-evaluate my theories. But in this discussion the onus remains on you to to provide evidence that supports your accusations


I don't think anyone claims that there wasn't a famineExcept of course for the Encyclopedia Britannica


The point being what? That they died because of their labor conditions as peasants under collectivization? I thought it was a point of agreement that they died of starvation, so I'm not totally sure what you mean by this.As I said before, peasant economies are particularly susceptible to famine. Subsistence farming, as its name suggests, is first and foremost about providing for the farmer. Surplus goods may be sold, bartered, or requisitioned but the overriding priority is self-sufficiency. In contrast, urban or more advanced farming societies draw their food sources from a much wider number of streams. Indeed the former, urban settlements, rarely produce their own foodstuffs at all

Now this is particularly true in the Ukraine which, yet again, was officially designated the Southern Producer Region by the Soviets. This means that the vast majority of the food consumed in the region was grown in the region and the surplus exported to the rest of the country. The undeniable feature of pre-collectivised Russian agriculture was one of subsistence farming. When famine hit, thus turning the major disruption of collectivisation into a major humanitarian disaster, it devastated the peasant holdings and ensured that they had not enough food to survive the winter. This in turn forced the mass cull of livestock which further deepened the crisis

Had this famine visited either the Central or Eastern Producer regions with the same force as it hit the Ukraine then the results would have surely been just as devastating. Indeed as many as five million Russians may well have died during the famine of 1921 which primarily affected the Central Producer Region... what was Stalin's reason for killing them?

[Cumannach]

now the threads all backwards. why was that cut off anyway?

[Cumannach]

I broke this into two posts since it's so long and the first part isn't really directed at you. Especially not it's belligerency. Don't think you'll like it though.

I don’t rate Fitzpatrick any higher than the average bourgeois author. Like many anti-communist idealogues, she knows how much more effective her work is when it presents the veneer of disinterested, all-empirical objective scholarship, all erudite respectability and fairness, not a hint of bias, as if she didn’t live in the real world and didn’t have her own political positions. It’s ridiculous and disgusting to read to be honest. Such authors can’t load every sentence with their hatred of socialism, like a Conquest or an Ulam, but they still take their swipes all the same in the end . The only advantage is the occasional reluctant honesty that such a cover of credibility neccesitates. But it’s nauseating, the insidiousness.

“Political Analysis has often come uncomfortably close to political partisanship in Western Sovietology…”
-( "The Russian Revolution")
Sheila Fitzpatrick

No! For Truth?! Thank God for objective academics like yourself, floating on a cloud far above all that petty partisanship. At least we have you.

“’What was the Revolution about?’ My answer could be roughly summarized as ‘terror, progress and upward mobility’.”
Ibid

Right, it was all just Bolshevik thuggery, big factories and peasants in the presidium. Nothing about popular will, the hatred of exploitation, the struggle against it, the overthrow of a system that was sick, that was inhuman, the courage and determination of the ordinary people, their sacrifice, their resolution to build a new life, a new society free from oppression, their immense achievements etc…Of course not. She’s a little functionary of a similar barbaric social system to the one they smashed and will always be well paid not to recognize that.

And her caricature of Stalin as a conniving, unprincipled ‘totalitarian’ is absurd.

In the end I think it all comes down to this,

“…one Western scholar has recently argued that similar levels of growth could have been achieved by the mid 30’s without any departure from the NEP framework.”
Ibid

For people who hate the idea of socialism, the prospect of the people creating and running an industrial economy by themselves, fitted to their needs, without any capitalists, any bloodsuckers getting their cut, any profiteers running things their way, without ‘free’ markets and private benefits, this thought raises the furies in them. And to see it all succeeding. It sends them into fits. The NEP, they can negotiate with. Private ownership, private markets, wage labour, rent, inequality, all of that gaining momentum, lagging industrial growth, continued weakness. This is the correct course of socialist construction, friends, and we capitalists will aid you, as your brothers. Don’t be rash. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Those guns on the horizon aren’t pointed at you, not at all.

I believe, this is the source of their criticism of Collectivization and Industrialization.

[Cumannach]

About the ‘kulak’ class;

'In 1927, after the spontaneous evolution of the free market, 7 per cent of peasants, i.e. 2,700,000 peasants, were once again without land. Each year, one quarter of a million poor lost their land. Furthermore, the landless men were no longer accepted in the traditional village commune. In 1927, there were still 27 million peasants who had neither horse nor cart. These poor peasants formed 35 per cent of the peasant population.

The great majority were formed of middle peasants: 51 to 53 per cent. But they still worked with their primitive instruments. In 1929, 60 per cent of families in the Ukraine had no form of machinery; 71 per cent of the families in the North Caucasus, 87.5 per cent in the Lower Volga and 92.5 per cent in the Central Black-Earth Region were in the same situation. These were the grain-producing regions.

In the whole of the Soviet Union, between 5 and 7 per cent of peasants succeeded in enriching themselves: these were the kulaks.'

from, Jean Elleinstein, -("Le socialisme dans un seul pays") via Martens

-( see here http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/node23.html#SECTION00710300000000000000 )

“The immediate sequel of the Revolution had been a redistribution of land and animals, …, on a basis of equality,…, there was no doubt that it had left the poor peasant better off, and the well to do peasant worse off than before the Revolution. What had occurred since was a partial reversal of this initial process. The practices of leasing land and hiring labour,…, as well as the leasing of animals and machines, were instruments of differentiation, and represented an encroachment, …, of a capitalist economy,..Evidence points to a widespread increase in these practices in 1926 and 1927 and to many glaring instances of differentiation.”

-(“Foundations of a Planned Economy”)
E.H. Carr, R.W. Davies

As for the point about the kulaks and the livestock. I think we’ve both made the same points twice. We don’t seem to agree. But what you said about there being open class warfare in the countryside, that’s what I believe there was. I don’t at all accept the bourgeois claim of ‘forced’ collectivization, though there were obviously some instances of this. That’s what is meant by excesses. Oh and about the kulaks looking for help from the state they despised, well, three words; Bank of Ireland.:p:cursing:

The collectivized farms did not remain untouched after Stalin died. I don’t know that much about the later period in this respect, I can’t find much material on it, but I know Khruschev messed with farm policy along with everything else, maybe I’ll have more to say in the future.

I think the collectivization of agriculture was necessary and notwithstanding it’s shortcomings, a great success, and give credit to Stalin and the group around him who overcame the opposition to implement it (see the quotes in my earlier post). The socialization of agriculture was necessary one way or the other. Either by capitalist expropriation or socialist collectivization. Even if there hadn’t been a kulak class, it was in the interests of all the middle and poor peasants to create a secure marketable grain supply to allow for the industrialization of their country, and to mechanize and develop agriculture, whether they saw it that way or not, and I believe they did. If it is a case of criticising the Soviets for breaking the political power of a section of the peasantry or of the whole peasantry, and wielding power as they saw fit, well, that’s a criticism of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, of Marxism, of Socialism. But I don’t think that was the case.

[ComradeOm]

No! For Truth?! Thank God for objective academics like yourself, floating on a cloud far above all that petty partisanship. At least we have youYou've completely missed the context here. Fitzpatrick, one of the leading scholars of the 'revisionist' school of Soviet historiography, is arguing against the 'totalitarian' school as epitomised by 'Cold Warriors' such as Pipes. In this Fitzpatrick and co represent those who have based their analyses on social and economic studies and purposefully distance themselves from any 'ideological contamination'


Right, it was all just Bolshevik thuggery, big factories and peasants in the presidium. Nothing about popular will, the hatred of exploitation, the struggle against it, the overthrow of a system that was sick, that was inhuman, the courage and determination of the ordinary people, their sacrifice, their resolution to build a new life, a new society free from oppression, their immense achievements etc…Of course not. She’s a little functionary of a similar barbaric social system to the one they smashed and will always be well paid not to recognize thatAt this point I have to ask whether you have actually read the book? Fitzpatrick has done more than any other Western academic to dispel the myth of the 'Bolshevik coup' and emphasise the mass support enjoyed by the Revolution. What exactly do you want her to say… that the efforts of 1917 produced a marvellous socialist society with a minimum of fuss or bloodshed?

I mean, terror (or "organised terror", to quote Dzerzhinsky) and progress were practically the twin watchwords of the Bolsheviks. Compared to Figes, Fitzpatrick is extremely understanding of their motives... compared to Pipes and she is practically a Bolshevik herself!


For people who hate the idea of socialism, the prospect of the people creating and running an industrial economy by themselves, fitted to their needs, without any capitalists, any bloodsuckers getting their cut, any profiteers running things their way, without ‘free’ markets and private benefits, this thought raises the furies in them. And to see it all succeeding. It sends them into fits. The NEP, they can negotiate with. Private ownership, private markets, wage labour, rent, inequality, all of that gaining momentum, lagging industrial growth, continued weakness. This is the correct course of socialist construction, friends, and we capitalists we aid you, as your brothers. Don’t be rash. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Those guns on the horizon aren’t pointed at you, not at all.Yet that has nothing to do with the quote you presented. There are several economists, Western and Russian, who argue that NEP was sustainable, others argue that more 'liberal' markets were required, and yet more who believe that state planning was the only way to go. I tend to agree with the latter of course but there is absolutely no reason to lambaste Fitzpatrick for highlighting alternate viewpoints

The quote doesn't even summarise her opinions, sitting as it does in a general comment that industrialisation was rife with inefficiencies. In this Fitzpatrick is perfectly correct – there was indeed a mad rush to "fulfil and overfill the plan" with an understandably detrimental impact. There was a marked decline in industrial growth rates in both 1933 and 1937 as overoptimistic planning forced growth to occur in distinct bursts. Many new factories lay idle or half constructed because there were not the resources to bring them into operations. It was only after sober reassessments that resources were devoted to key industries; completing factories in serial rather than parallel, if you will (Davies et al)

(Incidentally, students of economic history might be interested to note that the frantic Nazi rearmament campaigns of that same decade ran into similar problems as the difficulty of coordinating resources led to similar bottle necks and a 'rollercoaster' growth. See, Tooze, Wages of Destruction)

[Cumannach]

You've completely missed the context here. Fitzpatrick, one of the leading scholars of the 'revisionist' school of Soviet historiography, is arguing against the 'totalitarian' school as epitomised by 'Cold Warriors' such as Pipes. In this Fitzpatrick and co represent those who have based their analyses on social and economic studies and purposefully distance themselves from any 'ideological contamination'


But I don't believe they have 'distanced themselves' from ideology. They're more sophisticated than morons like Pipes, and they display a bit more grudging honesty here and there, but ultimately they're anti-Soviet as well. They have an ideology like everyone else. It's very irritating to listen to them claiming to be unbiased. If they base their ideological arguments on social and economic studies rather than tales of horrible death camps, well, really, that doesn't make me admire them that much.


At this point I have to ask whether you have actually read the book? Fitzpatrick has done more than any other Western academic to dispel the myth of the 'Bolshevik coup' and emphasise the mass support enjoyed by the Revolution. What exactly do you want her to say… that the efforts of 1917 produced a marvellous socialist society with a minimum of fuss or bloodshed?


I've read it cover to cover Comrade, I don't mean to disrespect your opinion if you rate her highly, but I'm sure you don't have a high estimation for authors I rate, not the least of which, Stalin himself.
And to be quite honest, she would be closer to the truth if she said that, in my opinion. But of course she wouldn't because she's not a socialist, and it's not her opinon.


I mean, terror (or "organised terror", to quote Dzerzhinsky) and progress were practically the twin watchwords of the Bolsheviks. Compared to Figes, Fitzpatrick is extremely understanding of their motives... compared to Pipes and she is practically a Bolshevik herself!


Again I agree, but it's relative. There's a world of difference between the type of exposition by Fitzpatrick and any number of bourgeois Cold Warrior reactionaries. But, from my point of view, whcih I guess is anti-revisionist, she misrepresents.


Yet that has nothing to do with the quote you presented. There are several economists, Western and Russian, who argue that NEP was sustainable, others argue that more 'liberal' markets were required, and yet more who believe that state planning was the only way to go. I tend to agree with the latter of course but there is absolutely no reason to lambaste Fitzpatrick for highlighting alternate viewpoints


But of course there are. Immediately following the death of Stalin the leaders, intellectual and political of the SU started moving backwards towards NEP and beyond, most openly, Gorbachev, and we know his real motives. I think it's her own view aswell.


The quote doesn't even summarise her opinions, sitting as it does in a general comment that industrialisation was rife with inefficiencies. In this Fitzpatrick is perfectly correct – there was indeed a mad rush to "fulfil and overfill the plan" with an understandably detrimental impact. There was a marked decline in industrial growth rates in both 1933 and 1937 as overoptimistic planning forced growth to occur in distinct bursts. Many new factories lay idle or half constructed because there were not the resources to bring them into operations. It was only after sober reassessments that resources were devoted to key industries; completing factories in serial rather than parallel, if you will (Davies et al)



So what? Everybody knows this, Stalin detailed it in his public reports to the Congress. Why not focus more on the dazzling achievements of industrialization, achieved without capitalism? There are people all over the world right now dying in poverty from capitalist and imperialist oppression, that need to emulate the Soviet achievement. Tell them about what was achieved by socialist expropriation and construction.

btw I posted a reply to your other points^ just in case you missed it.

[ComradeOm]

But I don't believe they have 'distanced themselves' from ideology. They're more sophisticated than morons like Pipes, and they display a bit more grudging honesty here and there, but ultimately they're anti-Soviet as well. They have an ideology like everyone else. It's very irritating to listen to them claiming to be unbiased. If they base their ideological arguments on social and economic studies rather than tales of horrible death camps, well, really, that doesn't make me admire them that muchSo what should 'they' do? Uncritically accept everything that Stalin wrote? Slavishly ignore all evidence of deliberate distortions and extol the triumphs of the Soviet state? Frankly your dismissal is, like that of Pipes, entirely based on ideological prejudices. It also makes the very large assumption that Stalin's USSR was actually socialist and therefore spawned historians that were more trustworthy than those of bourgeois nations

I can't combat either of these assumptions because they are based entirely on your own political beliefs and owe nothing to fact. If you're going to simply disregard every Westerner (or at least non-Marxist-Leninist) who wrote about the Russian Revolution there there's really little common ground on which to engage


I've read it cover to cover Comrade, I don't mean to disrespect your opinion if you rate her highly, but I'm sure you don't have a high estimation for authors I rate, not the least of which, Stalin himself.
And to be quite honest, she would be closer to the truth if she said that, in my opinion. But of course she wouldn't because she's not a socialist, and it's not her opinonAnd in that case this thread has been a huge waste of my time. There was no famine in the Ukraine and there was no population deficit. I was clearly motivated by anti-socialist sentiment when I pointed out that the census figures had been artificially adjusted :rolleyes:


So what? Everybody knows this, Stalin detailed it in his public reports to the Congress. Why not focus more on the dazzling achievements of industrialization, achieved without capitalism?Because her job is to document the course of the Revolution, not mindlessly sing its praises. That's the difference between a proper historian and an ideologue

Frankly this particular criticism is bizarre - Stalin is allowed to mention the drawbacks and yet future historians are not? This is despite the fact that Fitzpatrick also notes the tremendous accomplishments and ultimate success of industrialisation. By the sounds of it you are not satisfied with a mere summary of the Revolution but rather desire an unadulterated hymn of praise to the great Uncle Joe. I suggest this site (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/)

[Cumannach]

I don't think that's a very fair post. I stated that everybody has an ideology when it comes to politics and history, and that denying they have one is deceit. It's a deceit which purports to replace a defense of their ideology through exposition of evidence and arguments built around it (which is perfectly fine with me), with a scientific, unbiased observation. This observation then happens to vindicate their ideology, but that's just a coincidence, and objective truth is objective truth so what can you do, I didn't load the deck, why would I, I have no ideology. Why can't they put their cards on the table before they dive into history? Marxist authors aren't afraid to. It's just this silly charade which irritates me, I mean to make that statement about Sovietology coming uncomfortably close to partisanship, it's just beyond ridiculous. That's all my post was.

When have I suggested anyone uncritically take Stalin's word alone for everything? When have I refused to accept unbiased irrefutable evidence? I have extolled certain triumphs of the Soviet Union because, based on the evidence I have read, I believe they were real, and were praiseworthy indeed. That doesn't make me slavish. My opinion is that the USSR was socialist. This opinion is a political opinion and like all opinions is based on what I believe to be fact. My ideology comes from what I can to the best of my ability discern as fact and recognise as morally right. I don't see how you can say I disregard every non-Marxist, when I actually used several of them, including Fitzpatrick, in my arguments. In fact, I didn't rely on quotes from anti-revisionists. It's a pity you think the thread was a waste of time.

You really think Universities pay professors to objectively document history and politics? I don't. I don't think it's Fitzpatrick's job to document the course of the Revolution, I think it's her job to undermine it, and to undermine Socialism. Although you seem to think I dismissed her, I read her whole book, knowing her ideology though she purported to have none, and none of her evidence and arguments convinced me to change my opinion and thus possibly alter my ideology. I also quoted her when making a point of my own. I gave her a fair chance. Well, let's not waste time bickering about it.

[ComradeDeidara]

Stalin had made mistakes during his rule and he may of been an ass in personality, but in an objective observation, he saved the USSR from being overrun by Imperialist powers, he helped crushed Fascism, and inspired the workers of the world to fight back against their oppressors.

[rocker935]

Stalin had made mistakes during his rule and he may of been an ass in personality, but in an objective observation, he saved the USSR from being overrun by Imperialist powers, he helped crushed Fascism, and inspired the workers of the world to fight back against their oppressors.

The only reason Stalin crushed the nazis was because Hitler broke the non-aggression pact that they had. Before that, they worked together to takeover poland. Any true socialist not only cares about the people of his country but of every country in the world. And I don't think stalin cared about any person anywhere.

[Uppercut]

Democratic Stalinist is an oxymoron, my friend.

[Cumannach]

so's your face

[Chambered Word]

So their estimate is just pieced together from other people's estimates? I'm be interested in seeing the actual sources used to make the estimates in the first place. Did somebody get a hold of State Documents? Has there been a study of mass graves or something? Are there credible contemporary reports from the region that can be used to approximate the number, or the conditions at least? I'm not tring to be anatagonistic here, but it's well known that the most impeccable, prestigious, 'unbiased', objective research coming out of bourgeois scholarship, has no problem with just pulling numbers out of thin air when it comes to Socialism.

I'm sorry but this is the same kind of BS argument a Holocaust denier would use.

Stalin did not represent the people, killed off incredible numbers of innocent people and screwed up everything Trotsky had created. His purge of the Red Army cost even more lives when WW2 came and the army was not sufficiently organized or supplied to defend effectively against the German invaders without taking heavy casualties, and all because he was paranoid.

You can call him a true socialist all you like, but the facts are he thought nothing of having many innocent people and their families killed and did not rise to meet the Nazi threat when as a 'true communist' I would expect him to declare war before anyone else.

His industrialization of Russia cost alot more lives aswell. I really don't know how you can like the guy. He's a liar, a murderer and not an incredibly smart one at that.

[Chambered Word]

Stalin had made mistakes during his rule and he may of been an ass in personality, but in an objective observation, he saved the USSR from being overrun by Imperialist powers, he helped crushed Fascism, and inspired the workers of the world to fight back against their oppressors.

The revolution in the CCCP had long since ended, the main players of it in the Bolshevik Party were Lenin and Trotsky, the latter formed the Red Army which Stalin completely pissed up the wall.

And Cumannach, 'so's your face'? How old are you? It is, infact, an oxymoron, and I'm 14 and wouldn't use that kind of crap in an argument.

[Brother No. 1]

the main players of it in the Bolshevik Party were Lenin and Trotsky,

Are you purposely forgetting what Joseph Stalin contributed to the Bolshevik party during the Revolution? you also sound like you believe in the "Great men" theory.




Democratic Stalinist is an oxymoron, my friend.


Apperently the word Stalinist is a popular word for bieng a political insult to us.





did not rise to meet the Nazi threat when as a 'true communist' I would expect him to declare war before anyone else.


sure...go against a superpower That has more experience troops, a moderized army, while you have a poor army, not moderized, and still trying to recover from mistakes he made.:rolleyes: You have to under stand the Stiuation during pre-WW2. The CCCP couldnt mount a attack against the Nazis and were already at war with the Finish and didnt have a good moderized military as seen from the Octoer Revolution and the Winter Wars.

[Das war einmal]

I'm sorry but this is the same kind of BS argument a Holocaust denier would use.

Stalin did not represent the people, killed off incredible numbers of innocent people and screwed up everything Trotsky had created. His purge of the Red Army cost even more lives when WW2 came and the army was not sufficiently organized or supplied to defend effectively against the German invaders without taking heavy casualties, and all because he was paranoid.

You can call him a true socialist all you like, but the facts are he thought nothing of having many innocent people and their families killed and did not rise to meet the Nazi threat when as a 'true communist' I would expect him to declare war before anyone else.

His industrialization of Russia cost alot more lives aswell. I really don't know how you can like the guy. He's a liar, a murderer and not an incredibly smart one at that.

No it is BS that you are comparing the acknowledgment of the absence of proof of the so called tens of millions of victims to holocaust denial. In fact, the most disgusting lies concerning mass executions of Soviet citizens were indeed fabricated by the same people who deny the holocaust.

If the USSR would have waged war to early they would have been defeated. The Nazi reich had full functioning industry, trained generals and army staff and millions of reserves to fund their war-machine in the thirties while the USSR was still in the process of recovering from the civil war and teaching farmers on how to use machines.

[Radical]

Although I believe Stalin made the Soviet Union a Super power with his industrial policies, I still consider him an evil man.

He had many of his generals executed so that people below could move up to the Rank of General and therefore would be more loyal to him. He left millions of people to starv to death when he could haved helped them. He ordered the execution of thousands of Russian Othodox Priests. He executed people for petty crimes. He advocated executions without trial in circumstances that could have been handled otherwise. Stalin murdered his political opposition so that he could remain in power. Stalin ordered the death of thousands of innocent german civilians when they attempt to flee.

Stalin assisted Nazi Germany in invading Poland. Communism is about fighting oppression, not assisting it.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Although I believe Stalin made the Soviet Union a Super power with his industrial policies, I still consider him an evil man.

He had many of his generals executed so that people below could move up to the Rank of General and therefore would be more loyal to him. He left millions of people to starv to death when he could haved helped them. He ordered the execution of thousands of Russian Othodox Priests. He executed people for petty crimes. He advocated executions without trial in circumstances that could have been handled otherwise. Stalin murdered his political opposition so that he could remain in power. Stalin ordered the death of thousands of innocent german civilians when they attempt to flee.

Stalin assisted Nazi Germany in invading Poland. Communism is about fighting oppression, not assisting it.

Lol, cool story bro. Now for some evidence to prove every last thing you said, then maybe we'll consider it fact/plausible rather than a nice story.

[Radical]

Lol, cool story bro. Now for some evidence to prove every last thing you said, then maybe we'll consider it fact/plausible rather than a nice story.

If you know anything about Stalin you should know everything I just said. I'm not looking all over the internet to find sources which you probably already know anyway.

[mykittyhasaboner]

If you know anything about Stalin you should know everything I just said. I'm not looking all over the internet to find sources which you probably already know anyway.
:lol: Nice evidence: "you should already know it because it's true". :laugh:

[Brother No. 1]

Stalin assisted Nazi Germany in invading Poland. Communism is about fighting oppression, not assisting it.

Now since when has Communism represented one man? You dont understand the situation that the USSR was in at that time.



Although I believe Stalin made the Soviet Union a Super power with his industrial policies, I still consider him an evil man.

I really hate it when people do the "world is in black and white" theory.




He had many of his generals executed so that people below could move up to the Rank of General and therefore would be more loyal to him. He left millions of people to starv to death when he could haved helped them. He ordered the execution of thousands of Russian Othodox Priests. He executed people for petty crimes. He advocated executions without trial in circumstances that could have been handled otherwise. Stalin murdered his political opposition so that he could remain in power. Stalin ordered the death of thousands of innocent german civilians when they attempt to flee.


evidence please.

[Verix]

Aleksandra Sokolovskaya (trotskys first wife, sent to labor camp were she died) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandra_Sokolovskaya)
Sergei Sedov (trotskys son, was killed even thought he wasnt politcally active) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Sedov)
going after your rivels family even thought they pose no threat to you? 2 points against stalin,
Lev Borisovich Kamenev (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Kamenev)
Vagarshak Arutyunovich Ter-Vaganyan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagarshak_Arutyunovich_Ter-Vaganyan)
Alexey Rykov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Rykov)
Nikolai Bukharin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Bukharin)
Nikolai Krestinsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Krestinsky)
Gregory Yevseevich Zinoviev (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigory_Zinoviev)
Christian Rakovsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Rakovsky)
Genrikh Grigor'evich Yagoda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda)
Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tukhachevsky) (to the above poster, military)
Iona Emmanuilovich Yakir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iona_Yakir) (military)
Ieronim Petrovich Uborevich (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ieronim_Uborevich) (military)
Vitaly Primakov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitaly_Primakov) (military)
Nikolai Muralov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Muralov)
Vasiliy Ulrikh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Ulrikh)
thats 14 more points against stalin, now i could go on but im tired of linking, and will give you time to catch up. list all the people you can find that trotsky had killed and we will see who was more evil and for those who dont belive that the Purges happened were did all these people go? answer that and i will concede that you were right, hmmmmmm?

Now since when has Communism represented one man? You dont understand the situation that the USSR was in at that time.
theres a big difference between, not speaking out against evil to preserve peace, and letting another country commit mass murder next door to you because you signed a treaty that they would leave you alone if you didnt interfere, had stalin hit germany from the east before the hitlers bliltzkreig kicked his ass many many many russians, would have lived but he didnt and 32,000,000 russians died good job stalin! also this is going to bring up a shit storm but lenin wanted stalin kicked from the party......

[RedAnarchist]

I've split the Irish landowning posts from the Stalin thread, see the thread about Ireland here - http://www.revleft.com/vb/landowers-....html?t=115675 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../landowers-ireland-t115675/index.html?t=115675)

[The Bear]

i read so many things about him from many sources that i dont even know what source to trust , and what is true and what is lie....

[RHIZOMES]

i read so many things about him from many sources that i dont even know what source to trust , and what is true and what is lie....

That is basically me too, but I can recognize baseless moralistic rhetoric (OMG STALIN EVIL DICTATOR vs STALIN GREAT COMMUNIST or GREATEST COMMUNIST) from more nuanced views backed up with sources (whether true or false) like ComradeOm and Cumannach are doing in this thread. And every time I see a Stalin debate the anti-Stalinists tend to be more likely to be making posts of the former, which has somewhat turned me off that side...

[Paul Cockshott]

If the USSR would have waged war to early they would have been defeated. The Nazi reich had full functioning industry, trained generals and army staff and millions of reserves to fund their war-machine in the thirties while the USSR was still in the process of recovering from the civil war and teaching farmers on how to use machines.


There is also the question as to whether it would have been morally justified to have launched an unprovoked attack on Germany.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

There is also the question as to whether it would have been morally justified to have launched an unprovoked attack on Germany.
Why not? Nazis don't deserve mercy I believe.

[Paul Cockshott]

You must realise that in any war against Germany huge numbers of workers and civilians who were not supporters of the Nazis would have perished. Huge numbers of would have perished on the Soviet side too.

Socialists can not lend credence to the 'preventive war' doctrine of Bush and Blair, even projected into the past.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Why not? Nazis don't deserve mercy I believe.

Why? As Paul Cockshott mentioned, not all Germans were Nazis. Launching an unprovoked attack would be similar to the whole Japanese A-bomb thing. Those bombs were dropped to target civilians. The civilians never did anything wrong.

[☭World Views]

I would like some resources/writings to study the Great Purge, preferably from a Marxist-Leninist.

[Paul Cockshott]

You should look at Getty's books

[☭World Views]

I will look into Getty's books.


Now where can I learn a factual account of the famines without capitalist propaganda?

[Paul Cockshott]

look at Grover Furrs web site

[Black Sheep]

What about the idol worship of Joseph? :cool:

[Bright Banana Beard]

What about the idol worship of Joseph? :cool:
This is true among all Leninists, Stalinists, Hoxhaists, and Maoists. We sacrificed and ate 365 (366 if leap year) babies a year to worship Stalin. This practice still continues to this day. :lol:

[Black Sheep]

Hilarious.
I was talking about the situation of leader worship (state-sponsored, that is) of Stalin in the USSR.

[Die Rote Fahne]

I stand firm on the anti-stalinist left.

[Bright Banana Beard]

I stand firm on the anti-stalinist left.

So does the majority of here too. What is your point?

[ComradeRed22'91]

Why? As Paul Cockshott mentioned, not all Germans were Nazis. Launching an unprovoked attack would be similar to the whole Japanese A-bomb thing. Those bombs were dropped to target civilians. The civilians never did anything wrong.

This is where warfare and socialist philosophy have a cold war amongst themselves. i think Stalin was right; sending Hitler an E-Mail saying "Hey bro...can you give up power?" wouldnt've been that effective. if Bush was attacking Nazi Germany, i'd be all for it. Furthermore, if they didn't agree with Hitler, wouldn't they have defected? (which is a silly thought, of course)

[Weezer]

For anyone who loves Stalin and loves gay rights: It appears Stalin loved gay rights too, enough to ban male homosexuality in 1933!

In 1933, Article 121 was added to the criminal code, for the entire Soviet Union, that expressly prohibited male homosexuality, with up to five years of hard labor in prison.

But wait! There's more!

Some historians have noted that it was during this time that Soviet propaganda began to depict homosexuality as a sign of fascism, and that Article 121 may have a simple political tool to use against dissidents, irrespective of their true sexual orientation, and to solidify Russian opposition to Nazi Germany, who had broken its treaty with Russia.

More recently, a third possible reason for the anti-gay law has emerged from declassified Soviet documents and transcripts. Beyond expressed fears of a vast "counterrevolutionary" or fascist homosexual conspiracy

Gay fascism, now that was a threat to Soviet Union if I've heard of one. :laugh:

[spiltteeth]

For anyone who loves Stalin and loves gay rights: It appears Stalin loved gay rights too, enough to ban male homosexuality in 1933!

In 1933, Article 121 was added to the criminal code, for the entire Soviet Union, that expressly prohibited male homosexuality, with up to five years of hard labor in prison.

But wait! There's more!

Some historians have noted that it was during this time that Soviet propaganda began to depict homosexuality as a sign of fascism, and that Article 121 may have a simple political tool to use against dissidents, irrespective of their true sexual orientation, and to solidify Russian opposition to Nazi Germany, who had broken its treaty with Russia.

More recently, a third possible reason for the anti-gay law has emerged from declassified Soviet documents and transcripts. Beyond expressed fears of a vast "counterrevolutionary" or fascist homosexual conspiracy

Gay fascism, now that was a threat to Soviet Union if I've heard of one. :laugh:

There's a thread on this in Learning under 'Hoxa' thread.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I don't have any political ties (I don't go round calling myself 'trotskyist', 'marxist' or whatever. I am a Socialist who tries to view things with an open mind.

With that, I don't really think there is a strong case for the defence of Stalin. I have read sources from the left and from capitalists (although I have tried to avoid the likes of Conquest and that sort of doss). It seems impossible that a man who was not at the forefront of the revolution, or indeed the Bolshevik movement preceding the revolution, rose to such prominence in such a short space of time, without really expressing strong ideological loyalty to anything (refer to the suddenness of the start of collectivisation 1929/30.

The sort of hero worship that welcomed the man also seems highly unlikely to occur in a country of genuine socialism (and thus democracy, via the socialism). Indeed, that seems to turn the idea of class struggle on its head, that one man should be so unquestionably revered, as, even if (in the extremely unlikely event) he was not directly responsible for the murder of millions, of Kirov, of establishing a Nomenklatura, there were clearly many difficulties that ordinary people faced in the USSR.

I simply cannot believe that so many people would die in peacetime (1937-38) without the crimes being at the behest of somebody who was supposedly such a great leader. It is also telling that of the 139 Central Committee members of the 1936 conference, 98 were to die/go missing during 1937/38. I have my doubts as to whether such a large majority of senior Communists would be plotting against Socialism. If they were plotting at all, it is likely that this is more a judgement on Stalin's brand of Socialism than on them.

Stalin is a tar on the brush of Socialist history. Because of what he did to the USSR, revolutionary socialism has been discredited in all but the most committed of circles. Indeed this has had a domino effect, to the extent that now Socialism has become 'the S word.'

[LeninBalls]

I
The sort of hero worship that welcomed the man also seems highly unlikely to occur in a country of genuine socialism (and thus democracy, via the socialism). Indeed, that seems to turn the idea of class struggle on its head, that one man should be so unquestionably revered, as, even if (in the extremely unlikely event) he was not directly responsible for the murder of millions, of Kirov, of establishing a Nomenklatura, there were clearly many difficulties that ordinary people faced in the USSR.

I simply cannot believe that so many people would die in peacetime (1937-38) without the crimes being at the behest of somebody who was supposedly such a great leader. It is also telling that of the 139 Central Committee members of the 1936 conference, 98 were to die/go missing during 1937/38. I have my doubts as to whether such a large majority of senior Communists would be plotting against Socialism. If they were plotting at all, it is likely that this is more a judgement on Stalin's brand of Socialism than on them.

http://marxists.org/archive/molotov/1991/remembers-abs.htm

[4 Leaf Clover]

i think stalin was very sexy , and he is the man who best suited pipe
http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/marxists/espanol/stalin/stalin-gde.jpg

fuck yeah

[4 Leaf Clover]

For anyone who loves Stalin and loves gay rights: It appears Stalin loved gay rights too, enough to ban male homosexuality in 1933!

In 1933, Article 121 was added to the criminal code, for the entire Soviet Union, that expressly prohibited male homosexuality, with up to five years of hard labor in prison.

But wait! There's more!

Some historians have noted that it was during this time that Soviet propaganda began to depict homosexuality as a sign of fascism, and that Article 121 may have a simple political tool to use against dissidents, irrespective of their true sexual orientation, and to solidify Russian opposition to Nazi Germany, who had broken its treaty with Russia.

More recently, a third possible reason for the anti-gay law has emerged from declassified Soviet documents and transcripts. Beyond expressed fears of a vast "counterrevolutionary" or fascist homosexual conspiracy

Gay fascism, now that was a threat to Soviet Union if I've heard of one. :laugh:
even the most radical left had this stance in 30'es

hey those were '30's

[pranabjyoti]

even the most radical left had this stance in 30'es

hey those were '30's
Exactly, those people just forget about the stance of USA and other FREE DEMOCRACIES regarding plain sex in those times.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Paul C:


There is also the question as to whether it would have been morally justified to have launched an unprovoked attack on Germany.

Whereas an unprovoked attack on Poland was Ok, was it?

[Soviet]

And do you like Polish fascists more than Soviet communists?

[Paul Cockshott]

Paul C:



Whereas an unprovoked attack on Poland was Ok, was it?

There was no such attack.

When the Germans attacked Poland, Soviet forces initially stayed behind the international frontier. Had the Polish government withdrawn to the east into eastern Poland they could then have negotiated a peace treaty with German as the French did. Under the German Soviet pact the Germans had undertaken not to advance into the east of Poland.

Soviet forces only occupied eastern Poland after the Polish government had in a cowardly fashion fled to Romania and been interned. At that point there was no Polish government in existence any more. Had the USSR not sent its troops in the Germans would have occupied the whole country. The Polish forces offered no resistance to the USSR, whilst continuing to fight the Germans. This indicates that at that point in time, the Poles made a distinction between the actions of Germany and the USSR -- a distinction that is not maintained by current Polish nationalists.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Paul:


There was no such attack.

When the Germans attacked Poland, Soviet forces initially stayed behind the international frontier. Had the Polish government withdrawn to the east into eastern Poland they could then have negotiated a peace treaty with German as the French did. Under the German Soviet pact the Germans had undertaken not to advance into the east of Poland.

Soviet forces only occupied eastern Poland after the Polish government had in a cowardly fashion fled to Romania and been interned. At that point there was no Polish government in existence any more. Had the USSR not sent its troops in the Germans would have occupied the whole country. The Polish forces offered no resistance to the USSR, whilst continuing to fight the Germans. This indicates that at that point in time, the Poles made a distinction between the actions of Germany and the USSR -- a distinction that is not maintained by current Polish nationalists.

On that basis, there was no 'attack' by the Nazis, either; they were merely responding 'defensively' to an 'attack' on their own troops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident

And, the Polish forces were commanded only to 'defend themselves' against the 'soviet' forces; so your account is incorrect. Moreover, the secret protocols to the Hitler-Stain pact divided Poland in two, so there was no reason for Stalin to suppose the German forces would occupy the entire country.

But what about Stalin's unprovoked attack on Finland?

[Soviet]

http://militera.lib.ru/research/pyhalov_i/17.jpg
This is an exhibit of captured weapon's exhibition in Leningrad,1940 - one of aircrafts with swastika unprovoked shot down by damned stalinists.

[pranabjyoti]

But what about Stalin's unprovoked attack on Finland?
So far, I know, during the Nazi invasion, the Fin authority assisted the Nazis. Finland, after 1917, was a dangerous center of anti-USSR activity.

[ComradeOm]

This is an exhibit of captured weapon's exhibition in Leningrad,1940 - one of aircrafts with swastika unprovoked shot down by damned stalinists.The Finnish Air Force (FAF) had used the swastika as its insignia since 1918. It thus predated its adoption by the NSDAP and later Nazi Germany. But then what exactly is this image supposed to prove, if anything?

[Paul Cockshott]

Paul:





And, the Polish forces were commanded only to 'defend themselves' against the 'soviet' forces; so your account is incorrect. Moreover, the secret protocols to the Hitler-Stain pact divided Poland in two, so there was no reason for Stalin to suppose the German forces would occupy the entire country.

But what about Stalin's unprovoked attack on Finland?
You probably are right about the unprovoked attack on Finland. But on Poland I think you may be depending too much on cold war accounts

It is conventionally stated as fact that the Nonaggression Pact between the USSR and Germany (often called the “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact” or “Treaty” after the two foreign ministers who signed it) was an agreement to “partition Poland”, divide it up.
This is completely false. I’ve prepared a page with much fuller evidence; see “The Secret Protocols to the M-R Pact Did NOT Plan Any Partition of Poland” (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/no_partition.html).
No doubt a big reason for this falsehood is this: Britain and France did sign a Nonaggression Pact with Hitler that “partitioned” another state — Czechoslovakia. That was the Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement)
Poland too took part in the “partition” of Czechoslovakia too. Poland seized a part of the Cieszyn area of Czechoslovakia, even though it had only a minority Polish population. This invasion and occupation was not even agreed upon in the Munich Agreement. But neither France nor Britain did anything about it.
Hitler seized the remaining part of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. This had not been foreseen in the Munich Agreement. But Britain, France, and Poland did nothing about it.
So the anticommunist “Allies” Britain, France, and Poland really did participate in the partitioning of a powerless state! Maybe that’s why the anticommunist “party line” is that the USSR did likewise? But whatever the reason for this lie, it remains a lie.
The Soviet Union signed the Nonaggression Pact with Germany not to “partition Poland” like the Allies had partitioned Czechoslovakia, but in order to defend the USSR.
The Treaty included a line of Soviet interest within Poland beyond which German troops could not pass in the event Germany routed the Polish army in a war.
The point here was that, if the Polish army were beaten, it and the Polish government could retreat beyond the line of Soviet interest, and so find shelter, since Hitler had agreed not to penetrate further into Poland than that line. From there they could make peace with Germany. The USSR would have a buffer state, armed and hostile to Germany, between the Reich and the Soviet frontier.
The Soviets — “Stalin”, to use a crude synecdoche (= “a part that stands for the whole”) — did not do this out of any love for fascist Poland. The Soviets wanted a Polish government — ANY Polish government — as a buffer between the USSR and the Nazi armies.
The utter betrayal of the fascist Polish Government of its own people frustrated this plan.
As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the Polish government had two alternatives in the event its army was smashed by an attacking army.

1. It could stay inside the country, perhaps moving its capital away from the invading army. From there it could have sued for peace, or surrendered.
2. The Polish government could have fled to an allied country that was at war with Germany: either France or England.
The governments of all other countries defeated by Germany did one or both of these things. The Polish government — racist, anticommunist, hyper-nationalist, — in short fascist, as bad as they get — didn’t do either. Rather than fight the Polish government fled into neighboring Rumania.
Rumania was neutral in the war. By crossing into neutral Rumania the Polish government became prisoners. The legal word is “interned”. They could not function as a government from Rumania, or pass through Rumania to a country at war with Germany like France, because to permit them to do that would be a violation of Rumania’s neutrality, a hostile act against Germany.
I will discuss “internment” and the international law on this question extensively below (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/did_ussr_invade_poland.html#The%20Question%20of%20 the%20State%20in%20International%20Law).
The USSR did not invade Poland – and everybody knew it at the time

When Poland had no government, Poland was no longer a state. (More detailed discussion below (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/did_ussr_invade_poland.html#The%20Question%20of%20 the%20State%20in%20International%20Law))
What that meant was this: at this point Hitler had nobody with whom to negotiate a cease-fire, or treaty.
Furthermore, the M-R Treaty’s Secret Protocols were void, since they were an agreement about the state of Poland and no state of Poland existed any longer. Unless the Red Army came in to prevent it, there was nothing to prevent the Nazis from coming right up to the Soviet border.
Or — as we now know they were in fact preparing to do — Hitler could have formed one or more pro-Nazi states in what had until recently been Eastern Poland. That way Hitler could have had it both ways: claim to the Soviets that he was still adhering to the “spheres of influence” agreement of the M-R Pact while in fact setting up a pro-Nazi, highly militarized fascist Ukrainian nationalist state on the Soviet border.
At the end of September a new secret agreement was concluded. In it the Soviet line of interest was far to the East of the “sphere of influence” line decided upon a month earlier in the Secret Protocol and published in Izvestiia and in the New York Times during September 1939. This reflected Hitler’s greater power, now that he had smashed the Polish military. See the map at new_spheres_0939.html (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/new_spheres_0939.html)
In this territory Poles were a minority, even after the “polonization” campaign of settling Poles in the area during the ‘20s and ‘30s. You can see the ethnic / linguistic population map at curzonline.html (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/curzonline.html)

How do we know this interpretation of events is true?
How do we know the USSR did not commit aggression against, or “invade”, Poland when it occupied Eastern Poland beginning on September 17, 1939 after the Polish Government had interned itself in Rumania? Here are nine pieces of evidence:
1. The Polish government did not declare war on USSR.

The Polish government declared war on Germany when Germany invaded on September 1, 1939. It did not declare war on the USSR.
2. The Polish Supreme Commander Rydz-Smigly ordered Polish soldiers not to fight the Soviets, though he ordered Polish forces to continue to fight the Germans.

See rydz_dont_fight.html (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/rydz_dont_fight.html)
3. The Polish President Ignaz Moscicki, interned in Rumania since Sept. 17, tacitly admitted that Poland no longer had a government.

See moscicki_resignation.html (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/moscicki_resignation.html)
4. The Rumanian government tacitly admitted that Poland no longer had a government.

See moscicki_resignation.html (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/moscicki_resignation.html)

The Rumanian position recognized the fact that Moscicki was blowing smoke when he claimed he had legally resigned on September 30. So the Rumanian government fabricated a story according to which Moscicki had already resigned back on September 15, just before entering Rumania and being interned (NYT 10.04.39, p.12). Note that Moscicki himself did not claim this!
Rumania needed this legal fiction to try to sidestep the following issue. Once Moscicki had been interned in Rumania – that is, from September 17 1939 on – he could not function as President of Poland. Since resignation is an official act, Moscicki could not resign once he was in Rumania.
For our present purposes, here’s the significant point: Both the Polish leaders and the Rumanian government recognized that Poland was bereft of a government once the Polish government crossed the border into Rumania and were interned there.
Both Moscicki and Rumania wanted a legal basis – a fig-leaf — for such a government. But they disagreed completely about this fig-leaf, which exposes it as what it was – a fiction.

5. Rumania had a military treaty with Poland aimed against the USSR. Rumania did not declare war on the USSR.

The Polish government later claimed that it had “released” Rumania from its obligations under this military treaty in return for safe haven in Rumania.
But there is no evidence for this statement. No wonder: it is at least highly unlikely that Rumania would have ever promised “safe haven” for Poland, since that would have been an act of hostility against Nazi Germany. Rumania was neutral in the war and, as discussed below, insisted upon imprisoning the Polish goverment and disarming the Polish forced once they had crossed the border into Rumania.
The real reason for Rumania’s failure to declare war on the USSR is probably the one given in a New York Times article of September 19, 1939:



“The Rumanian viewpoint concerning the Rumanian-Polish anti-Soviet agreement is that it would be operative only if a Russian attack came as an isolated event and not as a consequence of other wars.”
- “Rumania Anxious; Watches Frontier.” NYT 09.19.39, p.8.

That means Rumania recognized that the Red Army was not allied with Germany, an “other war.” This is tacit recognition of the Soviet and German position that Poland no longer had a government, and therefore was no longer a state.

6. France did not declare war on the USSR, though it had a mutual defense treaty with Poland.

See m-rpact.html (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/m-rpact.html) for the reconstructed text of the “secret military protocol” of this treaty, which has been “lost” – i.e. which the French government still keeps “secret”
7. England never demanded that the USSR withdraw its troops from Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine, the parts of the former Polish state occupied by the Red Army after September 17, 1939.

On the contrary, the British government concluded that these territories should not be a part of a future Polish state. Even the Polish government-in-exile agreed!

See maisky_101739_102739.html (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/maisky_101739_102739.html) These documents are in the original Russian, with the relevant quotations translated into English below them.



Quote taken from http://www.freemediaproductions.info/Editorials/2009/07/14/did-the-soviet-union-invade-poland-in-september-1939/

But my original point was that it would have been unjustified for the USSR to initiate an unprovoked attack on Germany. Intervention to defend the Czechoslovak republic would have been a different matter, but that was blocked by the UK and France refusing to participate.

[TheElectricWarrior]

............most people have failed to appreciate that Stalin drove the USSR to become world leaders in moustache technology, surely a plus point ? Stalin's fine growth was probably the result of a 5 year plan that actually worked. Was this technology later sold to Iraq by a disaffected KGB officer and employed by Saddam Hussein and his cronies to deflect attention from their WMD ?

[Lord Testicles]

I think Stalin was a pretty cool guy, eh kills nazis and doesn't afraid of anything.

http://johnl.org/files/stalinvshitler/Panel-09.png

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think after Putin praised Stalin using the EXACT SAME argument that marxist-leninists on this website use we can end this debate altogether:



Putin also waded into the debate on Stalin – the subject of a row this year between Russia and its eastern European partners. The Stalin era saw Soviet Russia's transformation from an agrarian to an industrial state, he said, as well as its victory in the second world war. "If the war had been lost the consequences would have been catastrophic," he reminded his audience.

[bailey_187]

I think after Putin praised Stalin using the EXACT SAME argument that marxist-leninists on this website use we can end this debate altogether:

But thats not the "EXACT SAME argument" is it?
Its one of many arguments.

[pranabjyoti]

I think after Putin praised Stalin using the EXACT SAME argument that marxist-leninists on this website use we can end this debate altogether:
At least this can be a very very good proof that even nationalist bourgeoisie can't deny the contribution of Stalin. After a long years of worthless shit vomit by Bustards like Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and other like that, the historical progress forced the nationalist bourgeoisie to confess the truth.

[danny bohy]

Ive not ever really got into the history of the USSR but most marxists i know say Stalin was more of a dictator and gave communism a bad name. i wasnt alive at the time and ive never studied it so can anyone tell me what were is strengths and weaknesses.

[Kayser_Soso]

Socialism had an even worse name even before the USSR was ever established. It always will so long as the media and academia are in the hands of the ruling class.

[Paul Cockshott]

Ive not ever really got into the history of the USSR but most marxists i know say Stalin was more of a dictator and gave communism a bad name. i wasnt alive at the time and ive never studied it so can anyone tell me what were is strengths and weaknesses.

When talking about people have a bad name one must distinguish between the reputation they had at the time and reputation they had later. During Stalin's life, the reputation of the USSR and of socialism was pretty close to its historical peak level -- perhaps the absolute peak came around 1960 with Gagarin. Similarly, during Mao's life, the reputation of China among socialists and radicals around the world was high.

The reputation that thes figures have in the west now is heavily shaped by the accounts given of them in Western books, which often have a right wing, or at least anti-socialist slant.

The reputation that a person has now, is more a testimony to the work of subsequent propagandists than a reflection of their reputation at an earlier historical period.

[blake 3:17]

This is kinda interesting and weird:
Exhibition reveals Stalin's 'nude drawings hobby'
By Anna Malpas (AFP) – 2 days ago

MOSCOW — An unprecedented exhibition opened in Moscow Friday of nude prints with scrawled comments apparently written by former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that make ribald references to his party comrades.
Titled "Messages from the Great Leader: Stalin's Autographs," the week-long exhibition shows prints of 19th- and 20th-century art works that Stalin is said to have defaced with messages in coloured pencil.

"Ginger b..(expletive) Radek, if he hadn't p..(expletive) against the wind, if he hadn't been angry, he would be alive," he wrote across the leg of a weighty male nude.

The macabre comment was an apparent reference to Karl Radek, the former head of the international communist organisation, the Comintern, believed to have been shot dead by Stalin's secret police in 1939.
Another comment refers to Marxist theorist Georgy Plekhanov, who opposed the October Revolution. The writer scribbles on a drawing of a nude man, "Plekhanov, why are you pointing backwards? Coward and enemy of the people."

Other comments are simply coarse jokes about nudity. "Don't sit with a bare arse on stones," Stalin writes on a drawing of a man sitting on a pedestal. "Give the boy some pants."

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iP77Tu3W9UHACDODDDkHFy1tNdew


Also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8423412.stm

[Valeofruin]

he liked to comment on art! =D

In fact the art is probably more significant and valuable today by virtue of having Stalins 'defacements' on it, then it ever would have been without them!

[ComradeRed22'91]

he liked to comment on art! =D

In fact the art is probably more significant and valuable today by virtue of having Stalins 'defacements' on it, then it ever would have been without them!

Heh, anti-stalin or pro-stalin, that's true.

[Intelligitimate]

lol, what a ridiculous fraud.

Happy 130th Birthday to Stalin!

[bailey_187]

Does it not bother any of you Anti-Revisionists that there wasn't any workers democracy? Socialism is supposed to be an advance upon capitalism, and therefor an attempt to broaden and deepen Liberal Democracy. How can any of you call the USSR socialist? It was an authoritarian hell hole and was doomed from the word go.

Walter Reuther, later the anti-Communist president of the United Auto Workers, who worked in a Soviet auto factory in the 1930s said, "Here are no bosses to drive fear into the workers. No one to drive them in mad speed-ups. Here the workers are in control. Even the shop superintendent had no more right in these meetings than any other worker. I have witnessed many times already when the superintendent spoke too long. The workers in the hall decided he had already consumed enough time and the floor was given to a lathe hand who told of his problems and offered suggestions. Imagine this at Ford or Briggs. This is what the outside world calls the 'ruthless dictatorship in Russia'. I tell you ... in all countries we have thus far been in we have never found such genuine proletarian democracy"... (quoted from Phillip Bonosky, Brother Bill McKie: Building the Union at Ford [New York: International Publishers, 1953]).

As the British bourgeois scholar Mary McAuley writes (in "Labour Disputes in the Soviet Union," Oxford 1969), there were special courts to hear industrial disputes to which only workers had access; managerial personnel could appear there only as defendants and were barred from initiating cases (pp. 54-55). Even before matters came to court, there were ways that the workers on the shop floor could let a troublesome director know who was boss.

One of these avenues, the production meeting, is described by the bourgeois
scholar David Granick in his book, "The Red Executive":

"Management is operating under severe ideological and practical
handicaps in its efforts to keep down worker criticism. One factory director . .
. implied that production meetings were a real ordeal for him. But at a question
as to whether workers dared to criticize openly, he said, 'Any director who
suppressed criticism would be severely punished. He would not only be
removed, he would be tried.'" (New York, 1960, p. 230)

“The regime regularly urged people to criticise local conditions as well as leaders.....For example, in March 1937 Stalin emphasized the importance of the party’s “ties to the masses”. To maintain them it was necessary to “listen carefully to the voice of the masses, to the voice of rank and file members of the party, to the voice of the so-called ‘little people,’ to the voice of the ordinary folk”. Pravda even went as far as to indentify lack of criticism with enemies of the people “Only an enemy is interested in seeing that we, the Bolsheviks....do not notice actual reality....Only and enemy....strives to put rose-coloured glasses of self-satisfaction over the eyes of our people”. As the Zawodny materials and a mass of over evidence show, these calls were by no means merely a vicious sham that permiated ony carfully chosen, reliable individuals to make safe criticisms” - Robert Thurston – Life and Terror pg 185-6


“A civil engineer interviewed after the war remembered that people frequently complained about the poor quality of construction materials and that he had to spend considerable time responding. Citizens protested to the city Soviet “and then when they see it doesn’t help they write direct to Stalin” “ - Robert Thurston – Life and Terror pg 186


“A former shop chief ina textile mill recalled how the RKK (Rates and Conflicts Commision) worked in his section of the plant until 1935, when he moved to a higher position. The RKK “was very good indeed; the worker could go by himself and complain...We wanted to give the worker justice and a good deal as far as we could. Workers with grievences testified personally, and “the larger factories allowed workers to be represented by an old, experienced worker...” - Robert Thurston – Life and Terror pg 188

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I do not know if this has been debated here before, but was Stalin an Okhrana double agent?

http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:ZR2zcjXiTfcJ:www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/refs/Safari_Scrapbook2/Was%2520Stalin%2520an%2520Agent%2520of%2520the%252 0Tsarist%2520Okhrana%253F.html+Stalin+and+Okhrana+ spy&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Roman Brackman, The Secret Life Of Joseph Stalin. A Hidden Life (Frank Cass, 2003).

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=158643

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SE8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=Stalin+and+Okhrana+spy&source=bl&ots=_PJpqpJUrv&sig=BvHVv3kEQlponns38dwa5s_HmE4&hl=en&ei=4Tk_S7DiDI360wTJ96mSBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CB8Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Stalin%20and%20Okhrana%20spy&f=false

I pass no opinion on this, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[ReggaeCat]

lolwut???
how can that be?if stalin was sent 6 times in siberia???:confused:

[ReggaeCat]

damn this americans are too damn dumb ...i mean leave the dead man alone for marx sake!!!!it reminds me of ukranian holocaust.....just so we can throw mud in socialism name once more...:sneaky:

[RedStarOverChina]

This is the thing I hate the most about Trots...No offense to the intelligent Trots out there, which I'm sure there are many. :(

[ls]

I've never heard the claim before either, but would be interested to hear cases made for and against it.

[gorillafuck]

I really doubt it.

[Kassad]

Rosa Lichtenstein, your thread regaring Stalin as an Okhrana agent has been merged here.

[Intelligitimate]

The document used to claim Stalin was an Okhrana agent (the so-called Yeremin letter) is a known forgery. Don Levine, notorious anti-communist of old and the one who worked to get this document published in Life, himself later believed it to be a forgery. The only scholarly debate on this document that I am aware of is speculation about who forged it. All of this is in the the Eric Lee piece, which one has to wonder why you apparently want to believe it is true, if you bothered reading the document.

Another great document people should read, in the case of forgeries about the USSR and Stalin, is Paul Blackstock's "Books for Idiots: False Soviet Memoirs," Russian Review, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul., 1966), pp. 285-296. It is a fascinating account of various known forgeries dating up to 1966. If anyone needs a JSTOR copy of the article, PM me.

[Wanted Man]

I pass no opinion on this, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Sounds like an opinion to me.

Anyway, given the vast amounts of evidence, this should clearly be discussed seriously. Once we're done with that, I've also got some of Hitler's Diaries that I would like you to look at.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

WM:


Sounds like an opinion to me.

Well, it's not an opinion on the truth of the claim, only one on if it were true. There is a difference.


Once we're done with that, I've also got some of Hitler's Diaries that I would like you to look at.

Yeah, and I have pictures of Moses' DVD collection...:rolleyes:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Intelligitimate:


The document used to claim Stalin was an Okhrana agent (the so-called Yeremin letter) is a known forgery. Don Levine, notorious anti-communist of old and the one who worked to get this document published in Life, himself later believed it to be a forgery. The only scholarly debate on this document that I am aware of is speculation about who forged it. All of this is in the the Eric Lee piece, which one has to wonder why you apparently want to believe it is true, if you bothered reading the document.

Another great document people should read, in the case of forgeries about the USSR and Stalin, is Paul Blackstock's "Books for Idiots: False Soviet Memoirs," Russian Review, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul., 1966), pp. 285-296. It is a fascinating account of various known forgeries dating up to 1966. If anyone needs a JSTOR copy of the article, PM me.

Like the many forgeries and lies some spread about Trotsky.

Except, this is not the only evidence as the book I referenced points out.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RSOA:


This is the thing I hate the most about Trots

What? That we are prepared to believe the worst about Stalin just like you ML-ers believe every lie you hear about Trotsky?

If so, we can live with all the 'hate' you can muster.

Be my guest...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ReggaeCat:


how can that be?if stalin was sent 6 times in siberia???

What does that prove, except that it was a perfect cover?

You'll be telling me next that undercover cops are never sent into prisons these days.

[Intelligitimate]

Like the many forgeries and lies some spread about Trotsky.

Such as?


Except, this is not the only evidence as the book I referenced points out

lol, the other "evidence" is the ravings of an associate of Don Levine that insisted the Soviet government forged the Yeremin letter and that Stalin personally wrote some obscure book about an Okhrana agent.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Intell:


Such as?

Read any Stalinist work of the 1930s to see what.


lol, the other "evidence" is the ravings of an associate of Don Levine that insisted the Soviet government forged the Yeremin letter and that Stalin personally wrote some obscure book about an Okhrana agent.

Ok, so you haven't read this book. Just admit it...:)

[Intelligitimate]

Intell:Read any Stalinist work of the 1930s to see what.

Anything specific you want to discuss? Perhaps you'd like to tell us why Trotsky lied to the Dewey Commission about not communicating and organizing with the opposition in the USSR, something we know for a fact he lied about because of his own personal archives?


Ok, so you haven't read this book. Just admit it...:)

Why the hell would I read this book? In fact, why would anyone read this book? The only positive review of it I could find was from the equally crazy anti-communist Amy Knight, who still argues Stalin had Kirov killed, even though nearly the entirety of the academic community now rejects that.

Apparently you can download it off a torrent though, if anyone actually cares to read it (I certainly don't).

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4761714/The_Secret_File_of_Joseph_Stalin_A_Hidden_Life.pdf

[ReggaeCat]

i wondered why stalin would kill SOME of the trots....now i know it was this kind of attitude...ok..keep on....i never understood tho why torts,nazis,americans,anarchos(not all of them) have the same lies and actually can get along pretty well if it is about stalin..pathetic.

[Muzk]

http://jamie-online.com/random-jamz/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/facepalm.jpg


damn this americans are too damn dumb
Racist.

[ReggaeCat]

well i wouldnt consider me a racist since the music i hear and the culture i aproach most is like country/blouse/souther rock/stoner/biker thing which is mostly american...when i say americans i mean their political thing wich is to be ashamed of(again their mainstream politics like obama bush clinton and such) so...when you say damn this nazis are fucktards it means youre a racist??

[ReggaeCat]

was stalin assasinated????


MERGED THREAD ON WHETHER STALIN WAS ASSASINATED WITH THIS THREAD - REUBEN

[Intelligitimate]

Americans are stupid. Especially white petty-bourgeois Americans that inhabit this forum.

Brits too.

[ReggaeCat]

Americans are stupid. Especially white petty-bourgeois Americans that inhabit this forum.

Brits too.


they could call you too an racist....are you?:laugh:

[ls]

Americans are stupid. Especially white petty-bourgeois Americans that inhabit this forum.

Like yourself for example?

[Atlanta]

in Portraits Political and Personal in the section on Stalin Trotsky said from as far as he could tell rumors about Stalin being a czarist agent were false.

[RED DAVE]

Americans are stupid. Especially white petty-bourgeois Americans that inhabit this forumAnd of what ethnic persuasion and social class art thou, Comrade?

RED DAVE

[Reuben]

Guys: Stop talking about americans and keep this on topic otherwise I will happily cull a hold load of posts.

Reuben - History Mod

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

On the subject of the cause of the Famine, and the role played by the kulaks, I have some interesting sources to quote;

The first is from Frederick Schuman, who toured through Ukraine during the Famine period and was later Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government at Williams College. He's cited by Martens and Tottle in their books. Speaking about the kulaks.;

"Their [kulak] opposition took the initial form of slaughtering their cattle and horses in preference to having them collectivized. The result was a grievous blow to Soviet agriculture, for most of the cattle and horses were owned by the kulaks. Between 1928 and 1933 the number of horses in the USSR declined from almost 30,000,000 to less than 15,000,000; of horned cattle from 70,000,000 (including 31,000,0000 cows) to 38,000,000 (including 20,000,000 cows); of sheep and goats from 147,000,000 to 50,000,000; and of hogs from 20,000,000 to 12,000,000. Soviet rural economy had not recovered from this staggering loss by 1941.

"... Some [kulaks] murdered officials, set the torch to the property of the collectives, and even burned their own crops and seed grain. More refused to sow or reap, perhaps on the assumption that the authorities would make concessions and would in any case feed them.

"The aftermath was the ``Ukraine famine'' of 1932--33 .... Lurid accounts, mostly fictional, appeared in the Nazi press in Germany and in the Hearst press in the United States, often illustrated with photographs that turned out to have been taken along the Volga in 1921 .... The ``famine'' was not, in its later stages, a result of food shortage, despite the sharp reduction of seed grain and harvests flowing from special requisitions in the spring of 1932 which were apparently occasioned by fear of war in Japan. Most of the victims were kulaks who had refused to sow their fields or had destroyed their crops.'"

-("Russia since 1917; Four Decades of Soviet Politics")1957
Frederick Schuman

Corroborations of such claims are provided by none other than Isaac Mazepa, leader of the Ukrainian Nationalist movement;

"At first there were disturbances in the kolkhosi [collective farms] or else the Communist officials and their agents were killed, but later a system of passive resistance was favored which aimed at the systematic frustation of the Bolsheviks' plans for the sowing and gathering of the harvest .... The catastrophe of 1932 was the hardest blow that Soviet Ukraine had to face since the famine of 1921--1922. The autumn and spring sowing campaigns both failed. Whole tracts were left unsown, in addition when the crop was being gathered ... in many areas, especially in the south, 20, 40 and even 50 per cent was left in the fields, and was either not collected at all or was ruined in the threshing."

(""Ukraine under Bolshevist rule" Slavonic Review Volume 12, 1933-34")
-Isaac Mazepa

And this besides the drought.What do the other comrades make of these sources?
The mass slaughtering of animals led to the remark speaking of the kulak "annihilation of the Livestock as a class"

[Drace]

was stalin assasinated????

Yes, by nature.

[Robocommie]

I'm going to have to go and finally declare what I think on this. I think Stalin was a complete bastard, and I base this not on my politics, but on everything said about the man by professional historians, experts on Russian history who have consulted not merely the sources available prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain but on sources available AFTER the fall of the Berlin Wall when a lot more things began to be made public. Primary sources, contemporary sources from within Russia. They speak of Stalin being a paranoid cynic with a negative view of human beings in general and a desire to grab power and stay on the top. He unleashed an excruciating amount of suffering on the Soviet Union, eternally tarnished the name of Socialism in a way that we have yet to overcome, and severely damaged the economic development of the Soviet Union, probably in a way that would eventually lead to it's failure.

I base this on history, knowing full well I'll be told I'm a fool for believing the lies of capitalists and right-wing propagandists. No, I believe the "lies" of professional historians, the very same people who have established everything we think we know about world history. This notion that all history, the history that taught me that Henry Ford was a monstrous anti-Semite who hated the working class, the same history that has taught me that the free market fails where cooperation succeeds, the same history that has in fact taught me that not everything said about Che Guevara is true, suddenly I'm to believe that all the lies and conspiracies come about the great hero, Stalin? No. Not just no, but fuck no.

It, to me, is the great disgrace of the Left, this Stalin apologia. It's akin to Holocaust denial, people so desperate to defend a figure they've come to identify with politically that they'll do anything to deny what every respected scholar has established. I'll have no part of it. I'm a historian, I am not a slave to ideology. My loyalty is to the truth.

[Weezer]

Americans are stupid. Especially white petty-bourgeois Americans that inhabit this forum.

Brits too.

A self-hating racist? Or are all racists like that?

[Kayser_Soso]

I'm going to have to go and finally declare what I think on this. I think Stalin was a complete bastard, and I base this not on my politics, but on everything said about the man by professional historians, experts on Russian history who have consulted not merely the sources available prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain but on sources available AFTER the fall of the Berlin Wall when a lot more things began to be made public. Primary sources, contemporary sources from within Russia. They speak of Stalin being a paranoid cynic with a negative view of human beings in general and a desire to grab power and stay on the top. He unleashed an excruciating amount of suffering on the Soviet Union, eternally tarnished the name of Socialism in a way that we have yet to overcome, and severely damaged the economic development of the Soviet Union, probably in a way that would eventually lead to it's failure.

I base this on history, knowing full well I'll be told I'm a fool for believing the lies of capitalists and right-wing propagandists. No, I believe the "lies" of professional historians, the very same people who have established everything we think we know about world history. This notion that all history, the history that taught me that Henry Ford was a monstrous anti-Semite who hated the working class, the same history that has taught me that the free market fails where cooperation succeeds, the same history that has in fact taught me that not everything said about Che Guevara is true, suddenly I'm to believe that all the lies and conspiracies come about the great hero, Stalin? No. Not just no, but fuck no.

It, to me, is the great disgrace of the Left, this Stalin apologia. It's akin to Holocaust denial, people so desperate to defend a figure they've come to identify with politically that they'll do anything to deny what every respected scholar has established. I'll have no part of it. I'm a historian, I am not a slave to ideology. My loyalty is to the truth.

Actually I think you haven't been reading enough of the work of professional historians apparently. Had that been the case, you would have seen that Stalin did not inflict such "suffering" on the Soviet Union- quite the opposite in fact.

[Robocommie]

Actually I think you haven't been reading enough of the work of professional historians apparently. Had that been the case, you would have seen that Stalin did not inflict such "suffering" on the Soviet Union- quite the opposite in fact.

The Red Army Purges? The Holodomor? The Great Terror?

[mykittyhasaboner]

The Red Army Purges? The Holodomor? The Great Terror?

Lol.



The Holodomor?

:laugh::laugh::laugh:

[Robocommie]

Fine then, be that way.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Actually I think you haven't been reading enough of the work of professional historians apparently. Had that been the case, you would have seen that Stalin did not inflict such "suffering" on the Soviet Union- quite the opposite in fact.

It is so arrogant to absolve Stalin of blame for these events.

It is undeniable truth that at least hundreds of thousands died in the series of trials from the mid 1930s onwards and culminating in the shredding of human life that ensued with the appointment of Yezhov as the head of the NKVD.

You simply cannot excuse your way out of so many deaths. Perhaps Stalin did not know about every single death. Perhaps death lists were signed without his express permission. Perhaps, even, in certain cases he saved lives, or tried to. However, you simply cannot argue that Stalin, as the leader of the USSR, was blind to, or not somehow involved within, the counter-revolutionary force that was executing anybody suspected of being a reactionary, Trotskyist or whatever, when all around him were knee deep on either side. You had Yagoda, Yezhov and the NKVD hunting down these supposed counter-revolutionaries, and then you had, according to the death lists, the vast majority of the Central Committee and the wider party involved in counter-revolutionary activities, supposedly.

It just does not wash that Stalin bears no responsibility. At the very least, he should have been banished from the Politburo and from national politics simply for allowing the deaths of hundreds of thousands (at a conservative estimate, in all honesty) of people under his leadership. And that would be discounting any sense of sinister play.

[FSL]

Some people are not comfortable with -or are even hostile to- the idea of the working class in power. To them all power might be bad, all violence "life shredding" etc. After all facts have been stated there's really little more you can do.
I'm quite sure that people who think that, say, Stalin was a bad man will at best be irrelevant and at worst an obstacle in any real effort for change. This infighting among trends involving one person's manners is rather petty. When the working class gains power again it will of course try to keep it, regardless of what others might preach on democracy and rights.

[Robocommie]

Some people are not comfortable with -or are even hostile to- the idea of the working class in power. To them all power might be bad, all violence "life shredding" etc. After all facts have been stated there's really little more you can do.
I'm quite sure that people who think that, say, Stalin was a bad man will at best be irrelevant and at worst an obstacle in any real effort for change. This infighting among trends involving one person's manners is rather petty. When the working class gains power again it will of course try to keep it, regardless of what others might preach on democracy and rights.

What the hell can I say, when protestations against brutality and despotism are passed off as preaching? But if you can think you can bring about a new, socialist, egalitarian order without being wary of everything history has to say about men and power, then you're being extremely foolish.

[FSL]

What the hell can I say, when protestations against brutality and despotism are passed off as preaching? But if you can think you can bring about a new, socialist, egalitarian order without being wary of everything history has to say about men and power, then you're being extremely foolish.


The only thing history has to say to me about power is that it lies in classes and not men.

[Atlanta]

did Stalin ever criticise Mao or his tactics during or after the Chinese revolution

[Kayser_Soso]

It is so arrogant to absolve Stalin of blame for these events.

It's also logical and historically accurate.



It is undeniable truth that at least hundreds of thousands died in the series of trials from the mid 1930s onwards and culminating in the shredding of human life that ensued with the appointment of Yezhov as the head of the NKVD.

And Yezhov and Yagoda were primarily to blame for that "shredding of life as you say", as were their allies and a lot of petty or incompetent people. Both men were punished for their work, and thousands of people had automatic appeals because of it.



You simply cannot excuse your way out of so many deaths.

The capitalist excuses his way out of far more. This is an issue of perspective. In the view of our enemies, one death in the name of worker power is too much, because such power is seen as illegitimate.



Perhaps Stalin did not know about every single death. Perhaps death lists were signed without his express permission. Perhaps, even, in certain cases he saved lives, or tried to. However, you simply cannot argue that Stalin, as the leader of the USSR, was blind to, or not somehow involved within, the counter-revolutionary force that was executing anybody suspected of being a reactionary, Trotskyist or whatever, when all around him were knee deep on either side. You had Yagoda, Yezhov and the NKVD hunting down these supposed counter-revolutionaries, and then you had, according to the death lists, the vast majority of the Central Committee and the wider party involved in counter-revolutionary activities, supposedly.

That there were counter-revolutionaries he certainly knew. It is difficult without the benefit of hindsight to understand who was aligned to whom.



It just does not wash that Stalin bears no responsibility. At the very least, he should have been banished from the Politburo and from national politics simply for allowing the deaths of hundreds of thousands (at a conservative estimate, in all honesty) of people under his leadership. And that would be discounting any sense of sinister play.

Consider this- with all the death you attribute to Stalin, Stalin not only helped the country save its very existence(at least all those west of the Archangel-Astrakhan line) in WWII, eliminated illiteracy, doubled the lifespan, lowered the death rate, and as a result greatly increased the population despite the massive losses in WWII. By contrast, all the anti-Stalinist humanitarians, the biggest being Gorbachev, have managed to destroy the Soviet Union, and with it, tens of millions of lives, to the point where some countries such as Russia are literally "dying" due to depopulation. These revisionists manage to commit genocide without executing a single person. It because of the existence of such people that extreme tactics are necessary.

If you are not willing to pay the price for a better society, you might as well stop pretending to care.

[Robocommie]

The only thing history has to say to me about power is that it lies in classes and not men.

That's nonsensical. Is that supposed to mean anything or is it just supposed to sound good? Because you seem to be operating under the idea that anything that calls itself a worker's movement, or any organization headed by people who used to be proletarian, is in fact a genuine worker's movement. After all, if the power is in the class, then it isn't even CONCIEVABLE that the Soviet Union could have been anything but a proletarian state, not even in the worst of all worlds, because individuals cannot subvert the power of the working class!

[Kayser_Soso]

That's nonsensical. Is that supposed to mean anything or is it just supposed to sound good? Because you seem to be operating under the idea that anything that calls itself a worker's movement, or any organization headed by people who used to be proletarian, is in fact a genuine worker's movement. After all, if the power is in the class, then it isn't even CONCIEVABLE that the Soviet Union could have been anything but a proletarian state, not even in the worst of all worlds, because individuals cannot subvert the power of the working class!


It is rather ridiculous to think that one individual has the power to totally dominate an entire class, working or otherwise.

[FSL]

That's nonsensical. Is that supposed to mean anything or is it just supposed to sound good? Because you seem to be operating under the idea that anything that calls itself a worker's movement, or any organization headed by people who used to be proletarian, is in fact a genuine worker's movement. After all, if the power is in the class, then it isn't even CONCIEVABLE that the Soviet Union could have been anything but a proletarian state, not even in the worst of all worlds, because individuals cannot subvert the power of the working class!


If something is not a genuine workers' movement then it will be a petty bourgeois movement or a liberal bourgeois movement or... It won't be a bad people movement.

And yes, the Soviet Union was a proletarian state. That's why it was overthrown and replaced by a bourgeois state with a bourgeois constitution, a parliamentary system etc.
Who wields political power in a given state can be a matter of debate. A working class party winning elections in a bourgeois state could bring forth reforms. Increase the minimum wage, institute price controls, nationalize a few large industries to deal a blow to monopolies among things. In the end, you'd have a poorly functioning legal market, a thriving illegal one, inflation to combat wage increases and capital flight as capitalists seek a nicer place to invest. People are still making profits. They might even be making huge profits taking advantage of the black market, bribing officials to evade the increased taxes. A working class party can thus achieve very few things with little to no meaning unless it directly challenges the state, the right to property, the rulling class. The Soviet Union was a proletarian state. One that guaranteed healthcare, education, food and housing to everyone of its citizens and protected public property until its final minute. Even if the devil himself took power in it, there would only be a few things he could do without challenging the nature of the state, without dismantling it and building a new one. When this did happen, production decreased by half, millions were left unemployed and Moscow became the city with the most billionaires.
If you want to make a case against Stalin, then accuse him on the grounds of supporting a certain segment of the soviet society that was in conflict with the working class as a whole. In production, where life actually happens. Then you can check around and see if he really was in support of them. Accusing him of being a bastard..., that's wrong, no other way to say it.

If a bad person could subvert working class power in the Soviet Union and change its character fundamentally, then maybe all we need to do is get a really good and kind person, have him run for office and watch as he subverts the bourgeois power. Well, that's now how the world works.

You're free to believe that individuals decide the course of history. I think class struggle does. You're free to think states don't represent class interests. I think they do. When you have such a poor understanding of history even the absolute best of intentions can only be a little help.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Consider this- with all the death you attribute to Stalin, Stalin not only helped the country save its very existence(at least all those west of the Archangel-Astrakhan line) in WWII, eliminated illiteracy, doubled the lifespan, lowered the death rate, and as a result greatly increased the population despite the massive losses in WWII. By contrast, all the anti-Stalinist humanitarians, the biggest being Gorbachev, have managed to destroy the Soviet Union, and with it, tens of millions of lives, to the point where some countries such as Russia are literally "dying" due to depopulation. These revisionists manage to commit genocide without executing a single person. It because of the existence of such people that extreme tactics are necessary.

If you are not willing to pay the price for a better society, you might as well stop pretending to care.

Like I say, you are using the many veritable achievements of the SOviet Union (and I agree that there were many and they were important) to downplay the events of particularly the 1930s. Stalin did not have lives to play with (even 'Capitalist' and 'counter-revolutionary' lives) simply because under his leadership the USSR became a developed, industrialised nation.

I am against the Capitalist notion of 'one death during revolutionary war being too many' as much as you are. However, one must consider that whilst there was undoubted sabotage (relating to the trials of the early 1930s, which were probably genuinely needed), we now know that an overwhelming majority of those purged and executed in the 1930s were in fact innocents.

You fail also, to approach the history from the USSR from a cause-consequence perspective. The USSR didn't simply collapse because Gorbachev wanted to re-install Capitalism (although this did accelerate the breakup of the USSR no doubt). There were problems embedded deep within the system that took root in the days of Stalin and even Lenin. Why, for instance, was Brezhnev replaced by both Andropov and Chernenko, both of whom clearly had not long to live and were not going to be of huge use to the USSR (that is not ageism, it is simply sense that you do not put men in their 80s who are desperately ill into positions of huge stress)? It is for sure that the political strata created under the leadership of Stalin was to blame - they were simply the last remaining anachronisms of this strata. If there was no nomenklature, then the upper echelons of the party would not have been filled by the same decaying faces from the end of the war onwards to the breakup of the Soviet Union.

I simply cannot concur that, despite the definite achievements the USSR made under Stalin, he is, because of these achievements, allowed to bear little or no responsibility for the deaths that occurred on his watch. Such a 'fantastic' leader would simply not have been ignorant to the wretched truths of the time.

[ReggaeCat]

for the deaths in the 30's 300000 cases were re examinated and those families took back what belonged to them....also the charges were often (as far as i know) from the people because its impossible for an party to control an population of 100 millions so....yes..mistakes were done..but those people were not killed (exept the 1st class kulaks wich were charged of counter revolutionary actions such as killing animals,communists,burning the things the farmers collected(cant find the word) and such..all the others were sent into gulags and the deaths there were done by many reasons and such healthcare(pleas dont forget it was 1930 not 00's so it wasnt the best healthcare cause such was the time and the economy of the state) people not following the orders of the party on the transfer of the kulaks and stuff....communists sent by the party to educate the proletariat were sent and some of them killed by the kulaks....it's not an easy period to judge...even for the communists since its the nowaday propaganda and the lack of sources (trustable ones) and the situation CCCP faced those times....anyways not to say that stalin was an saint or something like that...but it's not the mosnter anarchos trotskyists and the borgeoise want to present stalin like...i think im forgeting something so if you dont agree with something id be happy to discuss :)

[Kayser_Soso]

Like I say, you are using the many veritable achievements of the SOviet Union (and I agree that there were many and they were important) to downplay the events of particularly the 1930s. Stalin did not have lives to play with (even 'Capitalist' and 'counter-revolutionary' lives) simply because under his leadership the USSR became a developed, industrialised nation.

So socialists aren't allowed to resist the threats of deadly force from counter-revolutionaries with deadly force?



I am against the Capitalist notion of 'one death during revolutionary war being too many' as much as you are. However, one must consider that whilst there was undoubted sabotage (relating to the trials of the early 1930s, which were probably genuinely needed), we now know that an overwhelming majority of those purged and executed in the 1930s were in fact innocents.

Excuse me but from where do we now "know" this? In fact the vast majority of GULAG inmates were common law criminals, not political at all. And many who were purged were not executed. Purge does not automatically mean executed.



You fail also, to approach the history from the USSR from a cause-consequence perspective. The USSR didn't simply collapse because Gorbachev wanted to re-install Capitalism (although this did accelerate the breakup of the USSR no doubt). There were problems embedded deep within the system that took root in the days of Stalin and even Lenin. Why, for instance, was Brezhnev replaced by both Andropov and Chernenko, both of whom clearly had not long to live and were not going to be of huge use to the USSR (that is not ageism, it is simply sense that you do not put men in their 80s who are desperately ill into positions of huge stress)?

Believe me I take into account Brezhnev, Khruschev, and a whole slough of revisionists. Gorbachev was simply an extreme example.



It is for sure that the political strata created under the leadership of Stalin was to blame - they were simply the last remaining anachronisms of this strata. If there was no nomenklature, then the upper echelons of the party would not have been filled by the same decaying faces from the end of the war onwards to the breakup of the Soviet Union.

It is true that many of these things grew up under Stalin, but recent research has shown that Stalin did little to change the way things were run in the party since the time of Lenin. Moreover, Stalin was most often on the side of those who wished to change and destroy that system within the Soviet government. Ironically, it is due to the fact that Stalin wasn't an omnipotent dictator that he could not advance his ideas to eliminate the bureaucracy.



I simply cannot concur that, despite the definite achievements the USSR made under Stalin, he is, because of these achievements, allowed to bear little or no responsibility for the deaths that occurred on his watch. Such a 'fantastic' leader would simply not have been ignorant to the wretched truths of the time.

What progress in human history isn't littered with the bones of those who opposed it? The "wretched truth" as you call it, is the fact that whenever you try to do something for humanity, to stop suffering, or to bring justice, legions of fucktards and their greedy masters will stop at nothing to stop it. Either you beat them, or they beat you without shedding a tear or blinking an eye.

[Robocommie]

It's also logical and historically accurate.

No, it's not.



And Yezhov and Yagoda were primarily to blame for that "shredding of life as you say", as were their allies and a lot of petty or incompetent people. Both men were punished for their work, and thousands of people had automatic appeals because of it.

We have documents confirming that Stalin was orchestrating the killings. There are death lists he personally signed, with comments like "get rid of 3000" scrawled on notes. Simon Sebag Montefiore has documented this. Furthermore, this "shredding of life" continued well past Yezhov and Yagoda. And where does Beria fit into this? And just what the hell is the likelihood of these two leaders of the NKVD just happening to go wildly out of control and be executed at different times? Ockham's Razor, man. Is it really logical to believe that Soviet bureaucrats just can't seem to stop killing people, or is it intentional? And you know, the Gulags continued well after Stalin, including the mass imprisonment of Soviet soldiers who had been captured by the Germans, which is a pretty fucked up thing to do to your own men.



The capitalist excuses his way out of far more. This is an issue of perspective. In the view of our enemies, one death in the name of worker power is too much, because such power is seen as illegitimate.

So you start with a tu quoque fallacy, "They do it too, and they're worse!" And then you continue by propping up your argument with empty rhetoric about "empowering the workers" and the legitimacy of power, which doesn't mean anything on it's own.



Consider this- with all the death you attribute to Stalin, Stalin not only helped the country save its very existence(at least all those west of the Archangel-Astrakhan line) in WWII, eliminated illiteracy, doubled the lifespan, lowered the death rate, and as a result greatly increased the population despite the massive losses in WWII. By contrast, all the anti-Stalinist humanitarians, the biggest being Gorbachev, have managed to destroy the Soviet Union, and with it, tens of millions of lives, to the point where some countries such as Russia are literally "dying" due to depopulation. These revisionists manage to commit genocide without executing a single person.

Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to begin with, and fed the Nazis vital resources for a year. He jointly attacked the Poles with Hitler - and the secret protocols of the Pact make it very clear this was his intention all along - and also swallowed up the peaceful Baltic states and attacked Finland. Furthermore, these officer purges of the 1930s did serious damage to the command structure and quality of the Red Army and was largely responsible for the Germans making as many advances as they did early on - Stalin was directly responsible for that, and all the war dead, not to mention those murdered by Nazi Einsatzgruppen, died because the Red Army couldn't hold the fascists back. Furthermore, it is documented that Stalin obstinately refused to believe any intelligence given to him, of which there was plenty, that the Nazis were about to attack, allowing them to take complete strategic surprise.

As for the improvements in the Soviet Union, lifespans did improve, but they did so after the 1940s as a result of a number of medicinal and organizational advances that had the same boosting effect in other European countries, the Soviet Union was not remarkable for this, and these other countries did not need to kill vast numbers of people to achieve this. The population boom was largely thanks to the shitloads of kids that people were having. In the 1920s, the average family size was seven or eight kids, or basically the same as modern India.

The birth rate started dropping in the mid-70s. And the disastrous 90's for Russia was not thanks to Gorbachev, it had everything to do with disastrous policies implemented by Yeltsin and Gaidar, as well as malign influence from neo-conservatives and the World Bank. Tens of millions is a ridiculous number, the death rate DID double, which is appalling, but the most significant contribution to Russian population levels is an extremely low birth rate and emigration.



It because of the existence of such people that extreme tactics are necessary.

If you are not willing to pay the price for a better society, you might as well stop pretending to care.

This is the exact kind of language used by fascists and tyrants. "We have to use such extreme measures to protect ourselves! There's a better world on the horizon, but we have to be prepared to pay the price!" But you can't fucking murder your way to a better world. Extreme tactics are illegitimate tactics. If what you said is true, then right wing Americans might actually have a point about using torture to protect themselves from terrorism, and they might actually have a point in using violent and bloody warfare against foreign terrorist cells. They don't though, and it's not just because they're capitalists, it's not their ideology that makes their tactics illegitimate, it's the fact that they're fucking ineffective, counterproductive and barbaric! They'd be barbaric and counterproductive REGARDLESS OF WHO USED THEM.

There is a legitimate and an illegitimate way to use revolutionary violence, and the Soviet Union grossly exhibited the latter. Because you would rather defend what most people think of as the archetypical socialist regime, by using lies and historical revisionism, you're going to always come off as being a Left wing equivalent of holocaust deniers. Socialism and Marxism doesn't fucking need the Soviet Union to triumph, and it's a good fucking thing too, because it was a failed attempt to institute a truly democratic society.

It truly gives me despair that I find myself arguing with Socialists over firing squads and secret police.

[Robocommie]

If something is not a genuine workers' movement then it will be a petty bourgeois movement or a liberal bourgeois movement or... It won't be a bad people movement.

Overlooking that revolutions can be, and often are, co-opted. The French Revolution started off as rather populist, but it got all fucked up and they ended up crowning an Emperor. If an anti-monarchist revolution can be usurped into the crowning of an imperial figure, then why can't a leftist revolution be usurped into supporting a dictator? It can, and it did.



And yes, the Soviet Union was a proletarian state. That's why it was overthrown and replaced by a bourgeois state with a bourgeois constitution, a parliamentary system etc.

Power derives from class, doesn't it? How on Earth did Nikita Khruschev and his cronies overthrown the proletarian state if power derives from class? Are we to believe that a group of bourgeois bureaucrats (if indeed Khruschev, the son of poor peasants, was bourgeois) could enter a proletarian system and overthrow it and force it to liberalize? I might suggest then that we send proletarians into bourgeois systems and force them to socialize! Er... except, a little bird told me that the world doesn't work that way.



If a bad person could subvert working class power in the Soviet Union and change its character fundamentally, then maybe all we need to do is get a really good and kind person, have him run for office and watch as he subverts the bourgeois power. Well, that's now how the world works.


Oh, well, there you go.



You're free to believe that individuals decide the course of history. I think class struggle does. You're free to think states don't represent class interests. I think they do. When you have such a poor understanding of history even the absolute best of intentions can only be a little help.

Hah, I don't believe that individuals decide the course of history, nor great movements alone, but in fact a conjunction of the decisions of individuals great and small tend to forge social movements in total. Thank you for your evaluation but all the same, I think I'll take the positive remarks of my colleagues and elders in the field of academics over your own estimation, given that you seem to prefer empty rhetoric in place of historical analysis.

[Kayser_Soso]

No, it's not.

Uh yeah, it is.




We have documents confirming that Stalin was orchestrating the killings. There are death lists he personally signed, with comments like "get rid of 3000" scrawled on notes. Simon Sebag Montefiore has documented this.

Stalin had reports passed up to him which claimed that such and such were proven counter-revolutionaries. Do you really expect him to review every single case? He did personally send people like Panteylon Ponomarenko to various places with the explicit orders to stop the repressions however.



Furthermore, this "shredding of life" continued well past Yezhov and Yagoda. And where does Beria fit into this? And just what the hell is the likelihood of these two leaders of the NKVD just happening to go wildly out of control and be executed at different times? Ockham's Razor, man. Is it really logical to believe that Soviet bureaucrats just can't seem to stop killing people, or is it intentional?

J. Arch Getty characterizes the purges as a panicked reaction to serious events from above and below.



And you know, the Gulags continued well after Stalin, including the mass imprisonment of Soviet soldiers who had been captured by the Germans, which is a pretty fucked up thing to do to your own men.

GULags existed before Stalin as well. Also, Soviet soldiers who were captured were not sent to GULags but rather filtration camps- after which most were simply returned to the army. This occurred not only in the last days of the war but even in the midst of some battles as intense as Stalingrad. Voices From Stalingrad quotes one NKVD document where POWs captured in that very battle were recovered- the vast majority of them returned to their units.




So you start with a tu quoque fallacy, "They do it too, and they're worse!" And then you continue by propping up your argument with empty rhetoric about "empowering the workers" and the legitimacy of power, which doesn't mean anything on it's own.

Yes, they do it to, so we do it until we beat them. It's only a fallacy if you think I'm trying to use the argument to assert some kind of objective moral superiority.




Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to begin with, and fed the Nazis vital resources for a year.

After years of trying to sign a collective agreement with Britain and France(who dicked around the whole time), plus providing arms and troops in the Spanish Civil War. The USSR engaged in trade with Nazi Germany on the agreement that the latter would provide the former with military technology(it was hoped that this would act as a deterrent).



He jointly attacked the Poles with Hitler - and the secret protocols of the Pact make it very clear this was his intention all along -

Wrong. The USSR retook the territories of Western Belarus and Galicia. These were non-Polish territories, which were under Polish persecution for some time. In fact there had been an anti-Polish insurgency in Galicia since the late 20s and some of those nationalists aided the German side(they were anti-Communist). The Soviet Union invaded these territories between 16-17 September, one to two days after the Germans declared Poland non-existent as a state and the government had fled. The Red Army was ordered to restore the 1918 borders and prevent the Germans from driving all the way through to what was formerly interwar Poland(and they did this in a number of areas).



and also swallowed up the peaceful Baltic states and attacked Finland.

At least several of the Baltic states, fearing German annexation, voted in their central councils to join the Soviet Union. In those days there were strong Communist movements in these countries. Naturally, today they prefer that people don't find this interesting piece of history, so they prefer the invasion theory. Then one needs to ask why they didn't fire so much as a shot. Even the Danish did more than that when the Germans invaded.

Finland on the other hand was given a fair offer but refused to take the land the USSR was offering in exchange(for much less). Encouraged by the west, they mobilized their army.



Furthermore, these officer purges of the 1930s did serious damage to the command structure and quality of the Red Army and was largely responsible for the Germans making as many advances as they did early on - Stalin was directly responsible for that,

Actually I would say that Tukhachevsky was directly responsible for that.



and all the war dead, not to mention those murdered by Nazi Einsatzgruppen, died because the Red Army couldn't hold the fascists back.

The reason why so many casualties were suffered by the Red Army is a complicated issue and only a moron would try to attribute it to one man. It is partially due to defenses not being finished in the new military districts. It also has a lot to do with the fact that the Red Army doctrine had been primarily offensive and not defensive for quite some time, and again you can blame Tukhachevsky for that. In general the Soviet doctrine of "Deep Battle" was a good doctrine, it just had no provision for defense.

Another issue is that for security reasons, the Red Army usually depended on telephone communication. The Germans in the hours before Barbarossa dropped paratroopers and activated thousands of agents who immediately went to work sabotaging the phone network. This left many commanders cut off in the early hours of the war.

Lastly, people tend to forget that until Barbarossa, no army had actually stood and fought against the Germans. They either retreated or surrendered. Barbarossa was envisioned as a knock-out blow(as virtually every German campaign) which was supposed to conquer Moscow in a matter of weeks, not months. The highest hopes and dreams of Hitler and Nazi Germany were riding on it. They had amassed the largest land invasion in history. Anyone standing in their way, determined to fight, was not going to get off lightly. It is folly to think otherwise.



Furthermore, it is documented that Stalin obstinately refused to believe any intelligence given to him, of which there was plenty, that the Nazis were about to attack, allowing them to take complete strategic surprise.

Again, this is a matter of hindsight. You have to take into context Hitler's propensity to justify attacks as pre-emptive, plus the mission of Rudolf Hess which is still not fully understood today. Diplomatically the USSR was already asserting itself over Yugoslavia, and there were some attempts to re-establish communication with the British. This is documented in Stalin's Wars by Geoffery Roberts.



As for the improvements in the Soviet Union, lifespans did improve, but they did so after the 1940s as a result of a number of medicinal and organizational advances that had the same boosting effect in other European countries, the Soviet Union was not remarkable for this, and these other countries did not need to kill vast numbers of people to achieve this.

Actually many of them did need to kill vast numbers of people to achieve that. You see, the industrialization of many of those nations, which took far longer than that of the USSR, was based on colonization and imperialism over centuries in some cases. Belgium, to take one small example, had a terribly cruel colonial regime whose bloody actions have had real consequences for the people of Africa even in recent times. You also forget that you are comparing some nations which were far more advanced from the beginning with Tsarist Russia. It is foolish to believe that had Tsarist Russia somehow survived WWI, it would have become a state on par with say Britain or France. In fact given its situation it probably would have become a neo-colonial state ruled by investors from abroad.



The population boom was largely thanks to the shitloads of kids that people were having. In the 1920s, the average family size was seven or eight kids, or basically the same as modern India.

Yeah, that and the provision of childcare, medical care, hospital facilities, and the lowering of infant mortality.



The birth rate started dropping in the mid-70s. And the disastrous 90's for Russia was not thanks to Gorbachev, it had everything to do with disastrous policies implemented by Yeltsin and Gaidar, as well as malign influence from neo-conservatives and the World Bank. Tens of millions is a ridiculous number, the death rate DID double, which is appalling, but the most significant contribution to Russian population levels is an extremely low birth rate and emigration.

It was thanks to Gorbachev because he deliberately sabotaged the system so as to hand it over to Yeltsin, and he even admitted this in an interview after the fact.




This is the exact kind of language used by fascists and tyrants. "We have to use such extreme measures to protect ourselves! There's a better world on the horizon, but we have to be prepared to pay the price!"

Fascists wear pants too.



But you can't fucking murder your way to a better world.

And you can't protest or vote your way to a better world.



Extreme tactics are illegitimate tactics.

Really? Who says?



If what you said is true, then right wing Americans might actually have a point about using torture to protect themselves from terrorism, and they might actually have a point in using violent and bloody warfare against foreign terrorist cells.

It is of no concern to me whether the right-wing has a point or not. When the reactionaries are in the dirt, nobody will care if they had a point.



They don't though, and it's not just because they're capitalists, it's not their ideology that makes their tactics illegitimate, it's the fact that they're fucking ineffective, counterproductive and barbaric! They'd be barbaric and counterproductive REGARDLESS OF WHO USED THEM.

Yes the methods are counter-productive. I am not excusing torture by either side. Incidentally Stalin didn't either. He and others made official statements regarding the NKVD resorting to illegal methods of questioning.



There is a legitimate and an illegitimate way to use revolutionary violence, and the Soviet Union grossly exhibited the latter.

Who decides what is illegitimate? Pro-capitalist liberals who condemn everyone who actually does something about the system as opposed to becoming a martyr or just whining all the time? This is why it's so infuriating that the same people still idolize Che. If someone stood up and did the exact same thing Che did in some country(say Honduras), the liberals would be the first to claim he is an extremist and condemn him or her.



Because you would rather defend what most people think of as the archetypical socialist regime, by using lies and historical revisionism, you're going to always come off as being a Left wing equivalent of holocaust deniers.

First of all the sources I use are by David M. Glantz, J. Arch Getty, Mark Tauger, Erik van Ree, Chris Bellamy, Geoffery Roberts, and other recognized experts in their respective fields. I am capable of reading both Russian and English sources as well. If you think I am lying then you can take it up with those mainstream academics and authors. I do not rely on more controversial authors such as Ludo Martens or Grover Furr(at least not on some things). I do not, for example, believe the Germans committed the Katyn massacre and I will not until I see some better evidence. I have read scans of Beria's letters to Stalin on the matter in the original language.

Comparing this with Holocaust denial is ridiculous because Holocaust denial is debunked by historical documentation, whereas what I am saying is backed up by it. Holocaust denial also presupposes a conspiracy which continues across generations and borders, despite radical changes in government as well.



Socialism and Marxism doesn't fucking need the Soviet Union to triumph, and it's a good fucking thing too, because it was a failed attempt to institute a truly democratic society.

Of course we do not need the USSR. It was one first step on the road to socialism. The road to a better world is bloody, it isn't lined with gumdrops and pixie sticks.



It truly gives me despair that I find myself arguing with Socialists over firing squads and secret police.

If that makes you despair, try facing the Russian mafia or any other number of bloodthirsty, soulless scumbags who will be the first obstacle in any revolution where I live. It's easy for you to preach about solutions where nobody gets hurt or loses, safe in a Western nation where you don't have the scum of the earth between you and people's freedom.

Face it, you're not a socialist, you're still a liberal. Revolution makes you squeamish. If anyone did what needs to be done on my side of the world, people like you would be the first to stand with the right-wingers and condemn it, because you do not know what we are up against. To be acceptable to you, we would have to sit down in the street like Ghandi and be beaten, tortured, or worse. You'll accept us as martyrs and in a few years you'll carry our quotes and photos on protest signs. No thanks. I prefer to make martyrs of the capitalists, their criminal helpers, and the fascists. After all, a martyr is only worth something so long as their are those left who still idolize them.

[Atlanta]

Simon Sebag-Montefiore a great revolutionary author...

Taken from Wikipedia;

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he lives in London with his wife and sister-in-law, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children.[1] His father-in-law is the landowner Charles Palmer-Tomkinson, his brother is Hugh Sebag-Montefiore and his sister-in-law is the socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.[8] His friends include Prince Charles and Conservative Party leader David Cameron.

and before you start citing his academic credentials let me say there are also "academics"(the word hurts to say) that studied the same sources Simon did and came to very different conclusions. Robert W. Thurston's book Life and Terror in Stalins Russia is one example.

[FSL]

The French Revolution started off as rather populist, but it got all fucked up and they ended up crowning an Emperor.






If you actually are/study to be a historian then it's 10 times as sad that you have not the slightest idea of what historical materialism is.
I still think you (and people like you) will be irrelevant as a result.

[Robocommie]

If I carry on this debate I'll simply become increasingly downhearted and angry. But I'll close with this. Kayser Soso you are too fucking dualistic. You paint a picture of it being either or. Either you're ready to be bloodthirsty and use Gestapo-like tactics, or you're a social democrat trying to bring change through protests and votes.

Damnit, fucking fight the Mafiya, fight the billionaires and their thugs, fight the army of the Russian Federation if you have to, do it with knives and guns and bombs and rockets if that's what it takes. But that doesn't fucking mean you have to use your revolution to establish an autocratic state without the equality of the law. Even IF the purges were the fault of underlings, which is at least as well as supported by mainstream historians if not more, then at the very least it shows that the Soviet Union had too much power over the lives of individuals. Why the hell can't a post-revolutionary society have a stable law enforcement system, which can charge people when they break the law, and try them in court, and give them a just and civilized punishment like any other modern society? Why the fuck would it NEED secret police and firing squads?

And for the record, I'm really tired of having Stalinists try and expel me from Socialism on this forum. I didn't apply for my Socialist card on Revleft, I came here to find a community of like minded people because I was sick of arguing about social change with people who didn't recognize the need for a militant revolution - ironically. I don't recall anyone appointing you General Secretary, with the power to determine other people's political beliefs and tell THEM what they believe just because they're not hardcore authoritarians, so fuck you.

[Robocommie]

If you actually are/study to be a historian then it's 10 times as sad that you have not the slightest idea of what historical materialism is.
I still think you (and people like you) will be irrelevant as a result.

I know very well what historical materialism is, but just because I know what it is, doesn't mean I accept every aspect of the theory. Some of Marx's writings betray their 19th century origin in the sense that they are very Eurocentric. Historical materialism works quite well in Europe, but it runs into problems when it comes to the social development of other areas, which it views as an aberration. That's too Eurocentric to be completely reliable.

And on the issue of my "irrelevance" I think it's fairly safe to say that I will go on to live my life, do my career, and then one day I will die and be buried, and all the details of my life will be mere biographical and in time I will be forgotten except perhaps by any descendants I may have, but even they in time will forget me. I think the same will likely be said of you. Unless you see yourself as the next Lenin? I don't need to be "relevant" except for my own life, my own family and friends, the time and place I find myself in, for my life to have any meaning. What a stupid thing to say, in other words.

[Kayser_Soso]

If I carry on this debate I'll simply become increasingly downhearted and angry. But I'll close with this. Kayser Soso you are too fucking dualistic. You paint a picture of it being either or. Either you're ready to be bloodthirsty and use Gestapo-like tactics, or you're a social democrat trying to bring change through protests and votes.

Unfortunately the capitalists have surrounded themselves with armies of bloodthirsty thugs, and as we will be weak in the beginning, our tactics against such thugs must be sufficient to shock them. And they are not easy to shock. Granted, I believe in concepts like rule of law, habeas corpus, and sound investigation tactics(which by the way the NKVD operated under in some very extreme situations, such as during the siege of Leningrad). These concepts can be applied under the dictatorship of the proletariat. But on the other hand revolution is war, and war is full of unfairness.




Damnit, fucking fight the Mafiya, fight the billionaires and their thugs, fight the army of the Russian Federation if you have to, do it with knives and guns and bombs and rockets if that's what it takes. But that doesn't fucking mean you have to use your revolution to establish an autocratic state without the equality of the law.

Are you implying that the USSR did not have equality under the law? Had that been the case Beria and a whole host of other high-ranking leaders would not have been shot.



Even IF the purges were the fault of underlings, which is at least as well as supported by mainstream historians if not more, then at the very least it shows that the Soviet Union had too much power over the lives of individuals. Why the hell can't a post-revolutionary society have a stable law enforcement system, which can charge people when they break the law, and try them in court, and give them a just and civilized punishment like any other modern society? Why the fuck would it NEED secret police and firing squads?

Gee...maybe it had something to do with the fact that from the beginning, the USSR was NOT a modern society. It wasn't a modern liberal democratic society, perhaps like the one you live in, where the only bad thing that ever happens in your country is the once in a life time catastrophic terrorist attack, where you never have the threat of invasion, blockade, etc. When you live under conditions like that, when the vast space of land outstrips communication and it is too easy for local bureaucrats to fall into the old Russian practice of running an area like a fiefdom, sometimes what is necessary is not always pleasant.

Again, my ideal would be to establish just the sort of legal system you are talking about- perhaps even more just since there would no longer be disparity of class. The thing is, that what tactics we use are determined largely by the opposition. So we may learn from the mistakes of the past but we cannot pretend that in the course of class struggle injustices will never happen. They happen all the time even in the most progressive western countries.



And for the record, I'm really tired of having Stalinists try and expel me from Socialism on this forum. I didn't apply for my Socialist card on Revleft, I came here to find a community of like minded people because I was sick of arguing about social change with people who didn't recognize the need for a militant revolution - ironically. I don't recall anyone appointing you General Secretary, with the power to determine other people's political beliefs and tell THEM what they believe just because they're not hardcore authoritarians, so fuck you.

"Authoritarian" is really just another meaningless buzzword. You say you recognize the need for militant revolution- but I'm not sure you fully understand what that entails. I suggest you read the history of national liberation struggles waged in China, Cuba, Albania, Yugoslavia, etc. Read not only about the Bolshevik revolution, but read about the enemies they were facing. And if possible, go spend a few years living in a country with rampant corruption.

[Kayser_Soso]

I know very well what historical materialism is, but just because I know what it is, doesn't mean I accept every aspect of the theory. Some of Marx's writings betray their 19th century origin in the sense that they are very Eurocentric. Historical materialism works quite well in Europe, but it runs into problems when it comes to the social development of other areas, which it views as an aberration. That's too Eurocentric to be completely reliable.


Please explain how historical materialism is "Eurocentric", and why it has problems with development in non-European areas.

[FSL]

I know very well what historical materialism is, but just because I know what it is, doesn't mean I accept every aspect of the theory.


That would be enough.

Those of us who do accept historical materialism don't think that it's Lenin who is the "force" that moves history but classes who rebel. Those that don't accept this aspect of the theory will most likely not be crazy on joining such a revolution.

[Soviet]

The era of Stalin. Just the facts. (#)

1. Population


a) The number of Russian ( Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians) during Stalin's rule has increased by an average of 1,3-1,5 million a year.
1926 - 113,7 million (146,6 million - the total population of the USSR)
1939 - 133 million (170.6 million)
1959 - 159,3 million (208,8 million)
To compare: during the Yeltsin era the number of Russian in Russia decreased by 6.8 million people, during Putin's rule - on 6,4 million people.

b) The overall mortality rate in Russia under Stalin declined almost 3 times (10.1 per 1 thousand inh. in 1950, compared with 29.1 in 1913). At the same time, fertility has declined and in 1950 (26.9 per 1 thousand inh. In 1950 and 45.5 - in 1913), which is associated with the effects of war, the increasing number of elderly, urban population growth, the integration of women the sphere of production. However, the natural population growth, even increased slightly and amounted in 1950, 16.8 per. 1000 inh. (16.4 - 1913).

c) The infant mortality rate was in 1913 - 268.6 per 1000 births, in 1950 - already 81 per 1000. The average number of children born to a woman who in 1950 was 2.89 in 2006 - 1,38.

d) Under Stalin, the consumption of alcohol was more than 2 times less (a maximum of 1.9 liters of pure alcohol nd year - 1952) than in Tsarist Russia in 1914 - 4,7 l. and more than 10 times smaller than today (20-25 liters). Russia leads the scale of child alcoholism.
Ther was no addiction under Stalin, because there was no drug mafia. For 20 last years the number of addicts has increased more than 10 times and now according to the Federal Service for drug control, amounts to 5,1 million people. Russia is one of the leaders on the extent of child abuse.

e) Prostitution under Stalin was seen as a form of a parasitic existence, and its organized forms were completely destroyed. And now Russia has one of the first places on the scale of prostitution, child prostitution, sexual assault, sex-slave trade.

f) Immediately after the war, in 1945, there were 678 thousand orphans. Today in Russia, 850 thousand of these children.

g) In 1956 the rate on personal incomes was 3.28, and in 1986 - 3,38,it rose from 13,8 (1998 to 16,8 times (2007 g .).

h) 79% of population of Russian Empire were illiterate (according to 1897 census), they could not even read nor write. Under Stalin, illiteracy has been eliminated. Literacy rate rose to 89,1% (1932).
Elementary schools (in brackets - students): 1914 - 106 thousand (5.4 million) 1940 - 192 thousand
Middle School (students): 1914 - 4000 1940 - 65000 (13 million)
Universities and technical colleges: 1914 - 400, 1940 - 4600


2.Economy.

a) National income per capita of the USSR amounted to ($ in 1980 prices):
1913 - 350 (15% of the U.S. level)
1920 - 120 (5%)
1929 - 365 (13%)
1938 - 640 (24%)
1950 - 1100 (26%)
in 1987 - 3900 (57% of the U.S. level)

b)Total volume of industrial output per capita over 1913-1950 gg. in the USSR increased by 4 times. The share of world industrial output in the USSR:
1913 - 3,6%
1920 - 0,6%
1938 - 5,6%
1950 - 6,9%
1986 - 14,6%
In 2007, Russia's share in world GDP - 3,2%.

b) Gold reserve.
In July 16, 1914, there were approximately 1,240 tons of gold in the storerooms of the State Bank of Russia ,more about 110 tons of stored abroard - therfore, 1350 tons in total.
By the end of Stalin's rule in 1953 the gold reserve has increased in 6,5 times and reached 2050 tons
On the eve of perestroika in 1985 ash reserves of the USSR was about 2500 tons, but by 1991 dropped to 10 times!
Gold deposits in the state reserve of Russia on 01.12.2008 is about 445 tons

c) Unemployment in the USSR was abolished in 1933.

d) The real income of workers in 1940 increased in compared with 1913 by 2,7 times, peasants - in 2,4 times.

e) The USSR was the first of the States of the world wich abolished the rationing system in 1947. And since 1948 every year - until 1954 - there was a price reduction. For example, here is the ratio of price levels as of 1.01.51, the the price of 1.01.46, the: bread (39%), meat (42%)

f) The number of doctors in 1950 increased compared with 1940 by 1,5 times.
The number of scientific workers in 1950 increased compared with 1940 by 1,5 times.
The number of scientific institutions in 1950 increased by 40% compared with 1940
The number of university students in 1950 increased by 50% compared with 1940

g)Atomic Bomb United States created in 1945 and tested it on the inhabitants of the Japanese cities. We made an atomic bomb in 1949, the U.S. tested a hydrogen bomb in 1952, we did it in 1953.

h) In 1946, the USSR were also deployed to work:
1) air defence;
2) missile technology;
3) for automation of technological processes;
4) to introduce the latest computer technology (in 1950 created the first computer);
5) for space flight (in 1957, we launched into space the world's first satellite in 1961 - the first person);
6) on the gasification of the country;
7) for household appliances, etc.


3. The war and the army.

a) There were 4,9018 millions of personell in the Red army at the begining of the war in 1941. There were mobilizide during the war 29,5749 millions.The total number is : 34,4767 millions.

Irreversible loss of the Soviet armed forces
Killed or died of wounds at stages of evacuation - 5226.8 millions. Died of wounds in hospitals - 1,1028 millions. Died of disease, deaths due to accidents, condemned to death (non-combat losses) - 555.5 thosands. POWs and missed - 4,559 millions.Total irrecoverable losses - 11,4441 millions (33.2% of total Num. troops)
- Have returned from captivity - 1,836 millions (40% of captured)
Total irrecoverable loss of population - 8668.4 millions (25.1% of total Num. Troops)

There were brought into the armed forces of Germany during the WW2 21,107 millions.

Irreversible loss of Germany's armed forces and the army's allies on the Soviet-front from 22/6/1941 till 9/5/1945 g. (thousand):
Killed, died of wounds and disease, missing, non-combat losses - 4273.0 Captured - 4,376.3 Total irrecoverable losses - 8649.3
( German losses - 7181.1 (34.0% of the total forces of Germany))
- Have returned from captivity - 3572.6 (82% of captured)
Total irrecoverable loss of population - 5076.7
(including Germany - 4270.7 (20.2% of total Num. forces))

As can be seen, and irretrievable loss of troops in Germany and its allies were huge too(8.6 million people.)
Value deadweight losses of troops of the USSR and Germany (with allies)
Irreversible loss: 1,32:1
Irreversible demographic losses: 1,71:1
The difference can be explained by the fact that the number of Soviet POWs returned from Nazi captivity is 2 times less than the number of returned from Soviet captivity Nazi personnels (40% vs. 82%).

b)During the WWII deserted 588.7 thousand (1.7% of the total number of troops). For comparison, during the WW1 deserted 1865.0 thousand (12.1% of the total number of troops) - 7 times more!

c)There were 427 910 people sent to batalions and companies of militaey offenders during the war. On the other hand, the total number of the Red Army was 34 4767 thousand people. It turns out that the proportion of military personnel have been in penal companies and battalions is only 1,24%. Losses of personnel of these units were 52% of the average of their numbers (27326 people).. This is 3-6 times greater than the overall average monthly losses of personnel in the conventional forces in the same offensive operations in 1944.

4.Crimes and prisoners.


a)According to Khruschov official report during the period from 1921 to early 1954 for counterrevolutionary and other especially dangerous crimes against the state was sentenced to death 642,980 people to prison - 2,369,220, to exile and expulsion - 765,180 (this amount: 3.777.380 inhabitants ).
For other archival documents the number of convicts for the anti-revolutionary and other especially dangerous crimes against the state for the period from 1921 to 1953. are:
- The highest measure - 799455
- The camps, colonies and prisons - 2634397
- Link and expulsion - 413512
- Other measures - 215942
Total convicted - 4060306

b)The composition of the prison to the Gulag for example, the 01/01/1951 convicted of counter-revolutionary and extremely dangerous gos.prestupleniya was 23% (most common story is: treason, participation in the anti-Soviet conspiracies, anti-Soviet propaganda, espionage, sabotage, etc.) others - criminals.

c) Mortality of Gulag prisoners (average): 1931-1940 gg. - 5,1%, 1941-1945. - 12,7%, 1946-1952. - 1,7%.
Number of all prisoners, both located in all places of detention (prisons, camps, colonies, etc.) on average for the years 1935-1953. 2 million people (1.13% of population)
For comparison:
In Russia, on November 1, 2008 in facilities in places of deprivation of liberty contained 0,9 million (0.64% of the population). In the United States at the beginning of 2008 prisoners were 2,3 million people. (0.77% of the population).

d) The proportion of acquittals in the 1937-1953 . in the USSR was 9-10%.
For comparison:
In 2007, according to the Justice Department under the Supreme Court of Russia acquittal rate was 0,8%, caught in the dock (in Moscow - 0,3%). In the U.S., the acquittal rate - 17-25%.

e)There were 10,3 thousand of murders in the USSR in 1946(in 1940 - 6,5 thousand).In Russia in 2007 committed murders more than 2 times than in the first postwar year - 22,2 thousand.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[Soviet]

The era of Stalin. Just the facts.Continuation.


5.Starvation.


a)History of Russia is a long series of hungry years with the steady intensification of crop failures and famine until the XX century. It's a fact that crop failures in Russia are repeated every 6-7 years, lasting for two years. During the second half of the XIX century the most terrible starvation were in 1873, 1880, 1883, 1891, 1892, 1897 and 1898,in the XX century they were in 1901, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1911 and 1913.

b) in 1921-1922. under the threat of famine and epidemics there were 23 provinces with a population of 32 million people. Yes, there was a starvation, but the Soviet government organized the fight against this scourge. There were collected 120 million pounds of bread. 5,053 million people migrated from the starving areas. Anticommunist liers presents them as clearly died of hunger. But most of all lying is around the so-called "Holodomor".

c) Anticommies proclaim that Bolsheviks confiscated all the grain of the poor peasants and they have begun to starve. In fact, grain reserves, for example in Ukraine, in 1932 were lower than in 1931, when there was no hunger. In 1930, the volume of grain in Ukraine amounted to 6.92 million tons (30% of gross output) in 1931 - 7.39 million tons (40%), and in 1932 - 4.28 (29%).

The losses of population in Ukraine in 1932-1933 associated with hunger,were about 2 million people.
Of course, it is a lot of hindsight. But let's say, in the U.S. the Great Depression of 1929-1933 with its 15-million army of unemployed led to population losses of about 7 million people.

And let's remember the fact:the starvation of 1932 was the last starvation in Russian history - socialism abolished this terrible occurrence.

P.S. I beg your pardon for my English. " Don't shoot the pianist,he playes as he is able to." :)

[I Can Has Communism]

Thanks for this comrade. Can you provide your sources?

[Soviet]

All sources are in Russian.

[Muzk]

Saved. Might come in handy

[Intelligitimate]

Of course, it is a lot of hindsight. But let's say, in the U.S. the Great Depression of 1929-1933 with its 15-million army of unemployed led to population losses of about 7 million people.

The point the guy who did the analysis, Boris Boriso, I think is trying to make is that demographic analysis is often highly unreliable and subject to a ton of assumptions, many of which are not realistic. If the same type of analysis that is used to say X million died in the USSR in the 1930s tells us that 7 million people died in America, then unless there has been some sort of massive cover up of US history, the method can't be reliable.

This, of course, has already been known for some time, but it is highly amusing for Boris Borisov to demonstrate it in such an entertaining fashion. This will soon become part of my one-liner retorts to people.

[The Red Next Door]

Stalin only did two good things, which is turn the USSR into a superpower and fraught against the Nazi despite he was the one who made a deal with him but at least he realize that was a mistake. When the fash was moving across the border of soyuz, but he did things that was not very communist at all, he made himself a perfect tool of anti communist propaganda in the west by starving the Ukrainians, murdering most the members of the party because he want to be the only true leader of the USSR, and was a paranoid asshole who taught everyone was gonna to kill him. I admit he did do some great things but overall he was a power hungry (insert word of choice).

[FSL]

he made himself a perfect tool of anti communist propaganda in the west by starving the Ukrainians, murdering most the members of the party because he want to be the only true leader of the USSR, and was a paranoid asshole who taught everyone was gonna to kill him.


The irony is just mind-blowing.

[bailey_187]

Stalin only did two good things, which is turn the USSR into a superpower and fraught against the Nazi despite he was the one who made a deal with him but at least he realize that was a mistake. When the fash was moving across the border of soyuz, but he did things that was not very communist at all, he made himself a perfect tool of anti communist propaganda in the west by starving the Ukrainians, murdering most the members of the party because he want to be the only true leader of the USSR, and was a paranoid asshole who taught everyone was gonna to kill him. I admit he did do some great things but overall he was a power hungry (insert word of choice).


Do you just press reply and bang your head on the key board and hope something useful comes out? (it doesnt)

Maybe you could try the reading the threaD?

[RATM-Eubie]

Sorry but i despise of Stalin. Every which way. I believe he had more in common with fascism than anything to the left. He was simply a "red fascist" in my book.

[bailey_187]

Sorry but i despise of Stalin. Every which way. I believe he had more in common with fascism than anything to the left. He was simply a "red fascist" in my book.

Well "your book" is wrong.

[RATM-Eubie]

Please explain.....

[bailey_187]

Well, Stalin wasnt a Fascist.

[ComradeOm]

Don't have much time so very quickly, having skipped through the rest, some problems with the below "facts"


The losses of population in Ukraine in 1932-1933 associated with hunger,were about 2 million peopleSource. The most authoritative works I have seen on this subject (some of which were referenced in the early pages of this thread) have invariably placed the death toll at least five million. A figure of two million is over three times less than the minimum range commonly accepted by academics today


And let's remember the fact:the starvation of 1932 was the last starvation in Russian history - socialism abolished this terrible occurrenceConveniently forgetting the famine of '47?

[Soviet]

Source. The most authoritative works I have seen on this subject (some of which were referenced in the early pages of this thread) have invariably placed the death toll at least five million. A figure of two million is over three times less than the minimum range commonly accepted by academics today


By bourgeois academics,my friend,by bourgeois.You can only add: "Long live the bourgeois propaganda, the most truthful propaganda in the world!"
Is it not clear that Western historians tend to exaggerate the number of victims of hunger?But there are other opinions.Here, for example, the author argues that there were 227 000 victims.(http://za.zubr.in.ua/2009/05/28/2797/).
As I've just said all my sources are in Russian.


Conveniently forgetting the famine of '47?

The famine caused by war do not count.

[Kléber]

Lysenkoist agricultural "theories," which were so popular because they had enjoyed the exclusive sponsorship of the Soviet government, also led to a major famine in China, 1958-61.

[ComradeOm]

By bourgeois academics,my friendWhereas your impeccable sources are all drawn from proletarian intellectuals in a socialist society?

If you have a problem with individual references, and I believe I mentioned at least one or two in those early posts, then feel free to state them. Otherwise simply dismissing every work that was not written by a Stalinist or fellow traveller is simply the height of desperation


Here, for example, the author argues that there were 227 000 victims.(http://za.zubr.in.ua/2009/05/28/2797/)And I can show you sources that state that there was no famine at all. Incidentally a figure of a mere two hundred thousand is significantly lower than produced within the USSR itself during its final two decades. It is absurdly low


The famine caused by war do not count.If so then you should have made this clear. Obviously neither famines "caused by war" or that take place during industrialisation drives actually "count" in your accounts

[The Red Next Door]

Do you just press reply and bang your head on the key board and hope something useful comes out? (it doesnt)

Maybe you could try the reading the threaD?
Do you, whenever someone tell you the truth?

[bailey_187]

Do you, whenever someone tell you the truth?

No. Why? What truth?

[pranabjyoti]

Lysenkoist agricultural "theories," which were so popular because they had enjoyed the exclusive sponsorship of the Soviet government, also led to a major famine in China, 1958-61.
Famines are not something unique to USSR and China, it also happened in other parts of the world. Which theory is behind those famines?

[Kléber]

The "theory" of cavalier disregard for the lives of peasants, whether by British imperialists or Soviet or Chinese bureaucrats.

The famines in the "socialist" USSR and PRC were possible for the same basic reason they happen everywhere, a lack of democracy. The state encouraged over-reporting by officials and the peasants had no democratic channels of redress. Even people high up within the party-state structure who reported the fact that peasants were dying, like Peng Dehuai, could be purged for stating the truth.

[pranabjyoti]

The "theory" of cavalier disregard for the lives of peasants, whether by British imperialists or Soviet or Chinese bureaucrats.

The famines in the "socialist" USSR and PRC were possible for the same basic reason they happen everywhere, a lack of democracy. The state encouraged over-reporting by officials and the peasants had no democratic channels of redress. Even people high up within the party-state structure who reported the fact that peasants were dying, like Peng Dehuai, could be purged for stating the truth.
Why so far, no famine has been observed in Saudi Arab, the Gulf countries and in the South East Asia? If the so called "lack of democracy" is the basic reason behind the famines.

[Bright Banana Beard]

The "theory" of cavalier disregard for the lives of peasants, whether by British imperialists or Soviet or Chinese bureaucrats.

The famines in the "socialist" USSR and PRC were possible for the same basic reason they happen everywhere, a lack of democracy. The state encouraged over-reporting by officials and the peasants had no democratic channels of redress. Even people high up within the party-state structure who reported the fact that peasants were dying, like Peng Dehuai, could be purged for stating the truth.

Why don't the USA has famines too?

[ComradeOm]

The famines in the "socialist" USSR and PRC were possible for the same basic reason they happen everywhere, a lack of democracyThe famines in the USSR and China were made possible by the fact that these were still overwhelmingly peasant societies in which pre-capitalist relations were prominent. Societies in which a majority of the population are dependant on subsistence farming are particularly vulnerable to famine conditions. Conversely industrialised societies - in which agriculture has been rationalised and diversified, and is no longer the primary occupation of the population - are far less susceptible to changing weather conditions

Which is not to say that the Soviet and Chinese governments cannot be faulted for exacerbating famine conditions through poor economic management

[Kléber]

Thank you for the clarification ComradeOm. However, famine was not a constant condition of life in the PRC or the USSR. The particular famines in question were the direct result of state policies.

pranabjyoti and BR, the countries you described are openly capitalist, so it's surprising that they manage to feed the people. The USSR and the PRC claimed to be socialist, but one would think a famine due to overreporting or national feuds between bureaucrats should be impossible in socialism. So, are you implying that the Soviet famine of 1932-33 and the Chinese famine of 1958-1961 were not related to government decisions?

[pranabjyoti]

Thank you for the clarification ComradeOm. However, famine was not a constant condition of life in the PRC or the USSR. The particular famines in question were the direct result of state policies.

pranabjyoti and BR, the countries you described are openly capitalist, so it's surprising that they manage to feed the people. The USSR and the PRC claimed to be socialist, but one would think a famine due to overreporting or national feuds between bureaucrats should be impossible in socialism. So, are you implying that the Soviet famine of 1932-33 and the Chinese famine of 1958-1961 were not related to government decisions?
Saudi Arab is openly capitalist! Do you have any idea about capitalism and democracy. So far, with my little understanding of the conditions of USSR and PRC, I can say that the "famines" were happened during the transition phase, as what ComradeOm has said.

[Soviet]

Whereas your impeccable sources are all drawn from proletarian intellectuals in a socialist society?


Yes,my impeccable sources are from proletarian intellectuals.


If you have a problem with individual references,No,not me,but you have problems with references,you could find fault with only one item from a large text.
The desire of the bourgeoisie and it's yes-men from so cold "leftists" to exaggerate the scale of the disaster in the Soviet Union is understandable.
But what you want to prove by that?Hunger was a constant phenomenon in Russia before the revolution, Stalin's government finished with it - that is a fact.Those of you who can prove that everything was the opposite,let him first cast a stone at me.


Originally Posted by Kléber
Lysenkoist agricultural "theories," which were so popular because they had enjoyed the exclusive sponsorship of the Soviet government, also led to a major famine in China, 1958-61.


What kind of theory were they, why they do not lead to an annual famine in the USSR , only one time in China - can you explain me?

[comradesvs]

I think there is a lot of misconception and a lot of buying into capitalist propaganda on this question but I really don't think Stalin as a person is that important. What is important are his ideas, his actions as leader of the Soviet Union etc. Whatever one wants to say about him as a person it should not cloud the fact that the Soviet Union in those years stands as an example of how socialism can transform a society from one that was in rubble, poverty, ignorance, and hunger to a world super power wherein the people have food, housing, education, work, medical care and so on.

[Jacobinist]

Stalin crushed true socialist revolutions on several occassions; in Spain, in the Ukraine, etc. He collaborated with Hitler and the Fascists (who eventually betrayed him), an offense he used SEVERAL times to purge his perceived enemies by labeling them fascists (ironic, huh?) or Trotskyites. He collaborated with kapitalist puppet democracies, and instituted undemocratic state-run kapitalism. He was no Marxist, nor even by the slightest measurement a true socialist, he was however a fascist, an authoritarian leader, and a anti-revolutionary. He protected the petty bourgeois and their interests. He blackened the term communist in the 20th century...

Must I say more?

[Jacobinist]

Let us not confuse the triumph of the Russian people (and for that matter all the antifascists in Europe) as being Stalin's own. The Soviets took the brunt of the German Wermacht spearhead through most of the war, and it held the line despite devastating causualty rates and horrendous conditioins, true proletarian resistance indeed! This victory however, should not be linked to Stalin, for it was the Soviet proletariat who faced the fascist guns on the front, not the bourgeois Soviet government.

Take note, fascism can never be truly defeated, it is a tendency just like that of greed or jealousy. And as history shows, fascism gripped the USSR through most of Stalins tenure.

[Soviet]

I gave facts and figures describing the reign of Stalin, and what did Trotskyists give us except chatter?

In general, the fact that Trots propaganda merges with the bourgeois propaganda, clearly shows the class nature of these gentlemen.

[bailey_187]

He collaborated with Hitler and the Fascists (who eventually betrayed him)

The non-agression pact allowed the Soviets to fight the Japanese and prepare further for (what the Soviets knew was inevitable) war with the Nazis.


He collaborated with kapitalist puppet democracies

So i suppose the Soviets could have taken on the world in one go? Sure, Soviet Socialism was succesaful, but not that succesful.




He was no Marxist, nor even by the slightest measurement a true socialist
Now Stalin made some theoretical errors, however, to claim he was no Marxist is false. How else would you explain the fact that he was writting Marxist essays well before the revolution? Why did he continue to write on theoretical issues e.g. "Economic problems of socialism in the soviet union" when he didnt need to? Was he just doing it to give me a rebuttle to stupid people like you writing stuff like this.


he was however a fascist
You dont know what fascism is then.


an authoritarian leader
A revolution is the most authorian thing we can do. However, to an extent, i agree Stalin's methods were too "top down".


He protected the petty bourgeois
erm....lol? I dont know whether to call you a liar or an idiot.


and their interests
Ok, even if we accept your moronic statement that what Stalin made was "state capitalism", how, in anyway is that in the interests of the small business owner?


He blackened the term communist in the 20th century...

Yes, because Communism would be seen as such a great idea to the Capitalists had Iosef Stalin not been born. And you have the cheek to call Stalin not a Marxist.


Must I say more?

No, just log off.

[ComradeOm]

Yes,my impeccable sources are from proletarian intellectualsSays who?

One of the fundamental problems with arguing with a typical Stalinist is their reliance on circular reasoning. Given that "bourgeois academics" obviously cannot be trusted then the only works that have merit are those that emerge from a socialist society (or good Soviet "proletarian intellectuals"). But how do we know that this society is socialist or the intellectuals suitably proletarian...? Why that's easy, we merely fall back on the only trustworthy sources - those of Soviet academics and "proletarian intellectuals" :rolleyes:

This is the inevitable, and profoundly stupid, result of considering every work that does not emanate from a particular narrow intellectual milieu to be ideologically suspect


Those of you who can prove that everything was the opposite,let him first cast a stone at meYou want me to prove a negation? How about the fact that under Stalin's government (millions) more people died of starvation than under that of, say, Khrushchev?


Thank you for the clarification ComradeOm. However, famine was not a constant condition of life in the PRC or the USSR. The particular famines in question were the direct result of state policies.I disagree. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that famine would not have struck the Ukraine had Soviet state policies been different. At the very least the weather of that year entailed a severe drought. I reiterate my belief that the Soviet state did not cause the famine

What it can be faulted for however is the gross economic mismanagement that turned this famine into a major humanitarian disaster. I elaborated on this is earlier posts (up to page 3 of this thread I believe)

[Jacobinist]

To Bailey_41

You obviously know nothing of history, well except for what Stalinist propaganda you've immersed yourself in has taught you. Soviets fought the Japanese, eh? The Soviets did relatively next to nothing to aid Mao's revolutionary army, in fear that they would ultimately lose their ongoing civil war with the Kuomintang. This my friend, is the seed of the Sino-Soviet Split that came to fruitition in the 50's. What Stalin did do however, was invade Poland and Finland, and other Eastern EU countries, in accordance of course with his plan with Hitler to divide Europe between themselves. Who knows, if Hitler had never attacked the Soviets...



erm....lol? I dont know whether to call you a liar or an idiot.

Judging from your (uneducated) statements, I think YOU ARE THE IDIOT.


Ok, even if we accept your moronic statement that what Stalin made was "state capitalism", how, in anyway is that in the interests of the small business owner?

Well, well, well. The ardent Marxist-Lennist-Stalinist is worried about the small business owner! (Much like Stalin, and his Popular Front scheme).Why do you assume I care about the small business owner? Lolz, assumming too much eh? The COLLAPSE OF SOVIET 'SOCIALISM' is not a rebuttal of socialism, but a direct consequence of monopoly kapitalism, which in the USSR was controlled by the State Politburo, led by Stalin. Kapitalism was never undone or reversed in the USSR, instead it was manifested and adopted by the bougeoise govenment, that you adore, defend and admire. Much like the current situation in China, where we have a 'communist' regime, fully involved in free market kapitalism/exploitation/imperialism. Sure is revolutionary huh? Im sure the kapitalists are trembling in their boots!:D

Remember Stalinist dimwits, NATIONALIZATION DOES NOT = SOCIALISM.

As a matter a fact its the worst kind of "socialism", where one as the proletariat seves the needs of the bourgeousie government, believing that kapitalism was overthrown, while only replacing your privatized shackles, with shackles painted in patriotic colors, FUCK THAT.

If you dont know why I call Stalin a fascist. If you dont know what kapitalism is. If you dont agree that Stalin protected the petty bougeouise (internationally). If you think that by 1935, the USSR was still a revolutionary force, then you my friend HAVE A LOT OF READING TO DO. And the last thing you should be doing is spreading misinformation or outright lies about the failed communist model of the 20th century (again, developed largely by Stalin).

:p

[pranabjyoti]

Finland was an ally of Nazi Germany during WWII and what Stalin 'invaded' from Poland is snatched up part of Ukraine and Belarus by Brest-Litovosk treaty.

[Jacobinist]

No, wrong, twisting the facts again arent we? Finland became a German ally AFTER THE SOVIETS INVADED. The soviet invasion and subsequent debacle also shows how lowly the Stalinist military was (after purges eliminated the smartest, and thus most dangerous officers).

Only then, did Germany offer to help Finland.

Why so much ignorance on this site? Fuck. Its not even ignorance, its obstruction of truths and most dangerous of all, its lies and misinformation.

[Soviet]

Information for thought.

Not long ago there was the anniversary : 45 years ago,at 19 March 1965 during the flight at spaceship "Voskhod-2" Alexey Leonov made the first in the history of space out in the open spacespaceship .

Born May 30, 1934 in the village Listvyanka, now the Kemerovo region,Alexey was the ninth child in the family. In 1938, he and his mother moved to Kemerovo. In 1943 he went to primary school. In 1948 the family moved to the city of Kaliningrad where he graduated a High school in 1953 year. In 1955 he graduated from the 10 th Military Aviation School of the initial training of pilots in Kremenchug, which he entered on the Young Communist League set. In 1957 he graduated from Chuguyivske Military Aviation School . In 1960 he was enrolled in the first detachment of Soviet cosmonauts.

Thus, the ninth son of a peasant finishes school and becomes the first pilot. and then an astronaut. Note this fact.

And here are roads to the astronauts of other people from the first space unit:

Yury Gagarin: by origin comes from a peasant: his father, Alexei Ivanovich Gagarin (1902-1973), - a carpenter, his mother, Anna Matveeva Timofeevna (1903-1984) - worked on a dairy farm. During nearly 1,5 years the village Klushino was occupied by German troops.

In May 1949, Gagarin graduated from sixth grade Gzhatsk high school, and 30 September Lyuberetskiy enrolled in vocational school № 10. Simultaneously enrolled in night school for working youth, the seventh grade where he graduated in May 1951 and in June he graduated with honors from college with specialty of molder.

In August 1951, Gagarin joined the Saratov Industrial Technical School, and Oct. 25, 1954 he joined the Saratov Flying Club. In 1955, Yuri Gagarin had made significant progress, graduated with honors from school and made the first solo flight on a plane Yak-18.

October 27, 1955 Gagarin was drafted and sent to Orenburg, to the 1 st Military Aviation School. In October 25, 1957 Gagarin graduated from college with honors. Within two years he served in the 169 th Fighter Aviation Regiment 122 th Fighter Division of the Northern Fleet.In December 9, 1959 Gagarin written statement requesting to enroll him in a group of candidates in cosmonauts. </span>

Gherman Titov was born Sept. 11, 1935 in the village of Upper Zhilino Kosikhino District of the Altai Territory in the family of teachers. In 1953 he graduated from high school in the village Nalobiha.

In the army since July 1953. In 1955 he graduated from the 9 th Air Force School of initial training of pilots (g.Kustanay), in 1957 - Stalingrad Military Aviation School (Novosibirsk). He served in the military line units (in the Leningrad Military District).

In 1957 he graduated from the Stalingrad Military Aviation School. In 1960, he was enrolled in the cosmonaut corps. </span>

Pavel Popovich:Pilot-cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Air Force Major General Pavel Romanovich Popovich was born October 5, 1930 in the Kiev region of Ukraine in the family of fireman. During the Great Patriotic War was at occupied territory.

The school was closed and Pavel was able to continue his studies only after the arrival of Soviet troops. The times were difficult, and that's why Paul did not quit school, he entered an apprentice fireman at the factory where his father worked. Soon, he was admitted to the vocational school. In 1947,he was qualified carpenter and also graduated from seventh grade night school. In the same year he entered the Magnitogorsk industrial college. Along with studying at college he was engaged in a flying club. In 1951 he graduated from college and flying club. In 1951 he entered, and in 1954 he graduated the Kachin Military Aviation School behalf AF Myasnikov. After graduating from college he served in the parts of the Air Forces of the USSR. In 1960 enlisted in the detachment of Soviet cosmonauts. </span>

Valentina Tereshkova:Born March 6, 1937 in the village Maslennikovo Tutayev district of the Yaroslavl region in the family of farmers. Her father worked as a tractor driver, her mother was engaged in housework, worked on the farm. During the Great Patriotic War, her father was killed at the front, and mother with three children moved to the city of Yaroslavl. There little Valya went to school. She graduated from seven years school and then the evening school for working youth. At the end of June 1954 she came to work at the Yaroslavl Tire Plant in the assembly shop as a tailor.

In 1956 she entered the Yaroslavl Correspondence College of Light Industry. Besides working and studying in the college she attended a local flying club and was engaged in parachuting, made 163 parachute jumps. She was awarded the first class of parachute jumping.

The Mill Red Perekop joined the Komsomol, and in 1960 was elected secretary of the Komsomol organization of the plant. In 1960 she graduated from the Yaroslavl Correspondence College of Light Industry. She worked as a Free Secretary of the Komsomol committee Yaroslavl combine technical fabrics "Red Perekop until 1962, when she was credited to the detachment of Soviet cosmonauts</span>.

Evgeny Khrunov:Born September 10, 1933 in the village ponds Volovské district of the Tula region in a large peasant family. Besides him, Vasily Yegorovich and Agrafena Nikolaevna Khrunova had two daughters and five sons. It was not easy at the postwar years, especially after his father died. Mother alone had to raise a numerous family.

With eight years Eugeny dreamed of becoming a pilot. He received secondary education in rural schools, then graduated from college with a degree in Mechanical on tractors and automobiles.

In 1952, Eugene Khrunov was drafted into the army and enlisted in the military aviation school. In 1956, after Bataisk Military Aviation School, aims to serve in the 86-th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment 119 th Fighter Air Division, 48 th Air Force. </span>In 1959 Khrunov with Viktor Gorbatko caught up with him in the same unit, has successfully passed the medical board and was soon enlisted in the military unit 26266 - the future of Cosmonaut Training Center. </span></span>

Georgy Dobrovolsky: was born June 1, 1928 in Odessa, a working class family in the marginal zones of Mills. He spent two and a half years, from October 1941 to April 1944, in the occupied territory, after all this time, Odessa was under the German-Romanian authorities.

In 1946 he graduated from the Odessa Special School Air Force, then Chuguyev pilot school, the Air Force Academy. Detachment of astronauts since 1963.


So,what do we see?
Most of the astronauts came from the "common people", from peasants. And many of them from large families. And some families have lost their fathers at all during the war.

And yet they could not only finish school and get a profession, but also to become an elite of the country.

And this was made possible by implementing the most important principle, which is essential for the successful existence of the state - the availability of operating social elevators available to those who are truly worthy of their abilities to become the best part of society. And as you can see, in the USSR, these elevators were working very successfully.

And it was due to Stalin, during whose governing the opportunities were created for all is indeed capable of it. Chain of "School" - "college (vocational school)" - "flying club" - "Summer School" - "air" - "cosmonaut" could pass anyone who had the strength, abilities, and most importantly - the desire.</span></span>

And now a simple question. Will they repeat the path Alexei Leonov today for the boys from a peasant family with many children?

What 'd you say,gentlemen Trots?Would you still tell us fairy tales about "state capitalism", "dictatorship of beurocracy","Stalin's fascism","degenerative working state" in the USSR?

"Degenerative working state",indeed:laugh: Or perhaps somebody have degenarative brain?



http://www.google.com/images/cleardot.gif

[Jacobinist]

"the availability of operating social elevators available to those who are truly worthy of their abilities to become the best part of society. And as you can see, in the USSR, these elevators were working very successfully." -Soviet

I agree with what you say, and that those 'elevators' are vital. But you are selectively choosing whom you choose to use as an example of Soviet kapitalism; which you dismiss as a fairy tale. No true communist should stand for a sub-par degenerative kapitalist state. But if you want to play such games, then Michael Jackson came from a large 'peasant' family (dad worked in steel industry) and yet he reached success too! You should be more creative when defending the indefensible.

And the Soviet politicians had a funny way of defining 'peasant.' Sometimes, even calling skilled labor professions 'peasants' because they worked using their hands. By that definition, an educated typographist is a peasant. So, again, read up on how things are sometimes spun, and then decide for yourself.

[pranabjyoti]

No, wrong, twisting the facts again arent we? Finland became a German ally AFTER THE SOVIETS INVADED. The soviet invasion and subsequent debacle also shows how lowly the Stalinist military was (after purges eliminated the smartest, and thus most dangerous officers).

Only then, did Germany offer to help Finland.

Why so much ignorance on this site? Fuck. Its not even ignorance, its obstruction of truths and most dangerous of all, its lies and misinformation.
Hey Mr. Knowledgeable, as far as I know, there was no purging done in France, so why the mighty French army knelt down before the Nazi Germany in just a few weeks. Why Belgium, Holland and some other European countries just broke like palace of cards before German invasion? Why UK and other European forces agreed to "gift" Sudetenland and other part of former Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany? Why the Czech rulers were "alone" during the Nazi invasion.
Finland, from the very beginning (kindly go to textbooks and have some knowledge of history) is anti-soviet. Actually, it had separated after 1917 just the rulers of Finland don't want to be a part of USSR. For a long time, it has been a very good center of anti-soviet activities after 1917.

[Jacobinist]

"Hey Mr. Knowledgeable, as far as I know" - PranaBJ..

Thats the problem, 'as far as YOU know,' when apparently you're not too well informed on those events.

First, we were talking about Finland, and yet you bring in France, Belgium, Sudetenland, the Czech, etc.

Why? Have you heard of the kapitliast democracy tactic of appeasment? Its also why they let Spain fall with out providing a single rifle to the democratically elected Republican government. Why did France, Belguim, etc fall so rapidly? Because Hitler had a better equipped, well trained and experienced (from the battles in Spain) Wermacht! (army units). Germany in the 30's pulled itself out of the depression by developing a 'war' economy in a time of peace, leading to large weapons arsenals, advanced tanks and fighter planes, etc etc. Also, in the 1930's before the war, the kapitalist democracies were more afraid of real revolutionary communists toppling kapitalism, and thus too many saw Hitler as the 'lesser evil.' Lets not be so ignorant, ok?

About Finland. They actually didn't do nothing wrong separating themselves from the Russian empire (not USSR yet). The Bolshevik government had issued a decree of 'self-determination' (Dec. '17) allowing certain territories to secede from the empire, legally. Look it up genius.

And then came the Winter War of '39. Stalin's commitment to Hitler, represented by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact outlined that Eastern EU would be divided in spheres of influence. Stalin's invasion of Finland is suppose to reinforce his 'sphere' and thus his contract with Hitler in eastern EU. When Finland found itself under attack however, it was Hitler himself who offered arms, cash and assistance to them to help defeat the Soviets. Hitler was pretty smart, Stalin on the other hand, was not. He played into Hitlers game.

If Stalin had really only 'accepted' the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to buy time for the preparation of war with Germany, he certainly didn't help himself by invading countries, instead of preparing for war with Germany, did he? Weird huh rookie?

[bailey_187]

Lol, Jacobinist, you really are hilarious. I have made up my mind, i will not call you a liar, but an idiot.



Soviets fought the Japanese, eh? The Soviets did relatively next to nothing to aid Mao's revolutionary army, in fear that they would ultimately lose their ongoing civil war with the Kuomintang. This my friend, is the seed of the Sino-Soviet Split that came to fruitition in the 50's.

You know the Japanese invaded parts of the Soviet Union too? Well done on attempting to show your knowledge of Chinese history, but i wasnt talking about China.
The Japanese problem was not however the major cause of the pact. The major cause was for the Soviet Union to prepare for war.



What Stalin did do however, was invade Poland.
"The Polish territories occupied by the Red Army..were infact the Western regions of the Ukraine and Belarussia. They lay east if the so called 'Curzon Line' - the ethnographical frontier between Russia and Poland drawn up by a commision of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919......The final boarder however, was determined by Polish military success in the war and the Soviet Union ceded Western Ukraine and Western Belarussia to Poland in the Treaty of Riga 1921" (Geoffrey Roberts - Stalin's Wars pg. 37 - Yale University Press; 2006).

So you could say the USSR invaded Poland, but to take back territories stolen from it by a cartel of crypto-fascists in 1921.


plan with Hitler to divide Europe between themselves. Who knows, if Hitler had never attacked the Soviets...

Wow. Want to provide some evidence for this? Also noted in Roberts - Stalin's Wars is that fact that the Soviets had drawn up plans for an offensive war. However, Stalin primarily wished to maintain peace (rendering any conspiracy of a Soviet-Nazi takeover of Europe false) as he feared with war breaking out the Nazis and West would unite againt their common enemy; Communists. Such was not the case, but its a fair suspicion for a Marxist to have right?



Well, well, well. The ardent Marxist-Lennist-Stalinist is worried about the small business owner! (Much like Stalin, and his Popular Front scheme).Why do you assume I care about the small business owner? Lolz, assumming too much eh? The COLLAPSE OF SOVIET 'SOCIALISM' is not a rebuttal of socialism, but a direct consequence of monopoly kapitalism, which in the USSR was controlled by the State Politburo, led by Stalin. Kapitalism was never undone or reversed in the USSR, instead it was manifested and adopted by the bougeoise govenment, that you adore, defend and admire. Much like the current situation in China, where we have a 'communist' regime, fully involved in free market kapitalism/exploitation/imperialism. Sure is revolutionary huh? Im sure the kapitalists are trembling in their boots!:D

Wow, way to not read what i wrote and put words in my mouth. You said Stalin represented the interests of the petty-bourgeosie (small business owners). How in anway would the interests of the small business owener lye in their complete liquidation as a class and the creation of an intirely planned and centralised economy?
I dont know why you talk of Capitalist China - i say Capitalism was put in place in China in the late 70s.


Remember Stalinist dimwits, NATIONALIZATION DOES NOT = SOCIALISM.

Where have i ever said it is?

Ok, the rest of what you said is inchorent nonsense (more so than what you wrote above which was not near of) so i wont reply. I dont know why you think you are so clever. If you are wrong and modest, all is well and good. But you are wrong and think you know more.

[Jacobinist]

"You know the Japanese invaded parts of the Soviet Union too?" - Bailey_41

Really? Are you referring to small conflict of the Kolhkin? Get real, fucking frozen, abandoned tundra. Zuhkov, commander that ousted the Germans from Stalingrad, was the commander against this VERY SMALL Japanese offensive.

"So you could say the USSR invaded Poland, but to take back territories stolen from it by a cartel of crypto-fascists in 1921" -Bailey_41

Crypto fascists? Lolz.

"Want to provide some evidence for this? Also noted in Roberts - Stalin's Wars is that fact that the Soviets had drawn up plans for an offensive war" - Bailey_41

LOLZ. Yea. Umm, that party line propaganda has been shown to be a farce. After the handshake and collaboration with Hitler, Stalin set upon re-conquering the countries lost in the turmoil of the revolution in '17-18. Ukraine, Finland, Poland, etc. Hardly the actions a man preparing for a fight to the death, dont you think comrade?

"How in anway would the interests of the small business owener lye in their complete liquidation as a class and the creation of an intirely planned and centralised economy" - Bailey_41

Have you heard of the popular front scheme? Have you read of how Stalin had the COMITERN promoted anti-revolutionary parties? Of how petti-bougeouise caste in Russia was never done away with, and only replaced with new 'communist' faces? Of how COMINTERN parties were not anti-kapitalist, or revolutionary? Such a kid you are.

Read some more, and try again.:thumbup1:

[bailey_187]

If Stalin had really only 'accepted' the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to buy time for the preparation of war with Germany, he certainly didn't help himself by invading countries, instead of preparing for war with Germany, did he? Weird huh rookie?


"The Winter War with Finland was not of Stalin's choosing. He would have preffered a negotiation to the border and security issues that sparked the conflict" Roberts - Stalin's Wars pg.47

Even when the chance of war was imminent, the Soviets (mistakenly) expected it to be short lived, hoping it may even be over after the first shots were fired.

The demands put on Findland were preperation for war. So no, the invasion didnt help, but, the goals Stalin hoped to acheive (e.g the allowance of the Soviets to build some naval bases in Finnish islands in the gulf) were preperations that would have helped.

[bailey_187]

"You know the Japanese invaded parts of the Soviet Union too?" - Bailey_41

Really? Are you referring to small conflict of the Kolhkin? Get real, fucking frozen, abandoned tundra. Zuhkov, commander that ousted the Germans from Stalingrad, was the commander against this VERY SMALL Japanese offensive.

Yes, but no one wants to be fighting a war on two fronts. Besides, this was not the main reasoning behind the pact.




Crypto fascists? Lolz.

You dont think the Polish government after WW1 were crypto-fascist?




LOLZ. Yea. Umm, that party line propaganda has been shown to be a farce..
What?


After the handshake and collaboration with Hitler, Stalin set upon re-conquering the countries lost in the turmoil of the revolution in '17-18. Ukraine, Finland, Poland, etc. Hardly the actions a man preparing for a fight to the death, dont you think comrade?

Securing an area between you and the (soon to be) enemy is quite a logical thing to do.



Have you heard of the popular front scheme? Have you read of how Stalin had the COMITERN promoted anti-revolutionary parties??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Comintern
These parties were more revolutionary than you will ever be.
I accept that the Comintern made some made decisions and lopsidely pursued Soviet interests to the detrement of international interests. How these were the interest of the small business owner; christ knows.


Of how petti-bougeouise caste in Russia was never done away with, and only replaced with new 'communist' faces?
You know, i dont think you know what the petty-bourgeoisie is. How the fuck did the Communist Party replace small business men?



Read some more, and try again.:thumbup1:

How do you write that nonsense above then feel so sure of yourself to write that? Seriously, either you are troll or rediculously stupid.

How about you reply to all of what i write to? You seem to ignore large parts of my posts.

[Jacobinist]

"Geoffrey Roberts...blah,blah,blah, Im on his dick" - Bailey_41

You keep quoting Mr. Roberts? Why? Because like you, he takes Soviet propaganda as literal truth? Sheesh.


"Even when the chance of war was imminent, the Soviets (mistakenly) expected it to be short lived, hoping it may even be over after the first shots were fired" - Bailey_41

Really, short lived huh? A fight between to arch enemies, two collosal foes, would be short lived, pretty stupid, right? And yet you would have chosen to stand as cannon fodder for Stalin. Good choice for you, if I may add!:lol:

The fight between communism and fascism is one that is fought to the death, not a short lived war, as should the fight between communism and kapitalism. Communism should be involved in a permanent war against kapitalism, not a collaborative process.

[bailey_187]

"Geoffrey Roberts...blah,blah,blah, Im on his dick" - Bailey_41

You keep quoting Mr. Roberts? Why? Because like you, he takes Soviet propaganda as literal truth? Sheesh..

Considering even my school text books feel it acceptable to quote G.Roberts (not that school text books are always right, but since when they did they quote Soviet propagandists as you claim Roberts is), and Yale univeristy feel his books good enought to print, i am going to have to say he doesnt accept Soviet propaganda as truth and is a fairly respectable source.
I quote Roberts because it is a good book on Soviet history. You on the other hand just make wild accusations and do not back them up.



"
Really, short lived huh? A fight between to arch enemies, two collosal foes, would be short lived, pretty stupid, right? And yet you would have chosen to stand as cannon fodder for Stalin. Good choice for you, if I may add!:lol:
I provide you with facts and you do this? Why do i even bother to debate with you. By you posting this i am going to take this as you saying "i am wrong but think i am too clever to admit it. Read more! not that i do"


"The fight between communism and fascism is one that is fought to the death, not a short lived war
The Soviets expected the Finnish to surender quickly. You yourself recognise that the Soviets had a bigger threat on their doorstep; Germany. So why would they fight Finland to the death? Marching all the way to Lappland while the Nazis are near your boarder would not have been a good idea.


as should the fight between communism and kapitalism. Communism should be involved in a permanent war against kapitalism, not a collaborative process.
And here we see the infantale nature of some Anarchists. The war is permanent, but the battles can not be constant.

[bailey_187]

And the Soviet politicians had a funny way of defining 'peasant.' Sometimes, even calling skilled labor professions 'peasants' because they worked using their hands. By that definition, an educated typographist is a peasant. So, again, read up on how things are sometimes spun, and then decide for yourself.

I would like to see a source for this, because i do not beleive you. Prove me wrong please.

[Jacobinist]

"Considering even my school text books feel it acceptable to quote G.Roberts" - Bailey_41

LOLZ. Enough said. The modern kapitalist state would prefer for ALL communists to follow the Lenninst-Stalinst model, because, it is anti-revolutionary, and changes very little if anything at all!


"Marching all the way to Lappland while the Nazis are near your boarder would not have been a good idea" - Bailey_41

And yet, thats what Stalin attempted. Lolz.:laugh:


"I would like to see a source for this, because i do not beleive you." - Bailey_41

We all feel the same about you, being that you get your info off of Soviet era propaganda posters!



"And here we see the infantale nature of some Anarchists" - Bailey_41

Lolz, coming from a kid confused about his state provided text books, LOLZ. :blink:

[bailey_187]

"Considering even my school text books feel it acceptable to quote G.Roberts" - Bailey_41

LOLZ. Enough said
No, that is not nuff said because that is not all i said. You fail to respond to the fact that YALE UNIVERSITY printed the book.


The modern kapitalist state would prefer for ALL communists to follow the Lenninst-Stalinst model

Then why, does the bourgeoisie spend all its time trying to slander the Soviet Union? Sure my school book quotes Roberts, however, it also slanders Stalin in many other aspect. What i have not seen however, is any talk of Anarchists; either slander or praise. Why? Because you have no history.


changes very little if anything at all!

The Soviet Republics saw massive changes under the Stalin times.




And yet, thats what Stalin attempted. Lolz:laugh:

No he didnt




We all feel the same about you, being that you get your info off of Soviet era propaganda posters!

Except i dont. I have quoted a book printed by Yale University Press you fucking idiot. You on the other hand have posted nothing but idiotic statments.




Lolz, coming from a kid confused about his state provided text books, LOLZ. :blink:

1) I am not confused about my text book, i merely noted that Roberts was quoted in a textbook and hence unlikley to be a pedler of Soviet propaganda. I havnt seen ludo Martens quoted in any text books. I knew i shouldnt have typed that as your thick skull is unable to comprehend that and had to jump straight to saying "ZOMG STATE PROPAGANDA!"
2) my text book was not state provided but publsihed by Edexcel




Why have you resorted to attacking Roberts, my reference to the text book and not responded to most of the original points concerning Stalin?

Seriously, YOU ARE FUCKING STUPID. Stop typing, you are embarresing yourself.

[bailey_187]

Are you going to provide a source, or are you going to admit you simply made that up?

[Brother No. 1]

The modern kapitalist state would prefer for ALL communists to follow the Lenninst-Stalinst model

Really? "Kapitalist"? Just add to more K's and you have yourself a MIMer in here.

But to the point(oh wait this user doesnt have a point) to the post. What you're saying is that "Kapitalist" societies would have nothing better to do then have all communists follow the "Leninist-Stalinist" line even though it directly was against it and has payed to make sure there is no communists in their school?

Another thing is if the capitalists wanted communists to follow the line, why create "Harvest of sorrows"? Why constantly make it to where the "Leninist-Stalinist" line is more like a hellbent ideology then that of Nazism?


changes very little if anything at all!

...right for who needs education, industrlization, equality for women, workers rights, culturally independent from Russia and having a well put economy? Oh wait the SSRs did and they got it.

My Sources? Beria's "On the 15th anniversery of Soviet power" and Anna Louise Strong's "Stalin"



And yet, thats what Stalin attempted.

Really? You mean how since the polish goverment no longer existed and since the only options the Soviets wanted was either a: a buffer state between the USSR and Nazi Germany or b: something to keep the Nazis from getting closer to the capital what would have you done?

Oh yes and I'll show you how your 'invasion' theory on Poland was wrong by the polish soldiers themselvs.

"The Soviets have invaded. My orders are to carry out the retirement into Rumania and Hungary by the shortest routes. Do not engage the Soviets in military actions, only in the event of disarming our units by them. The task for Warsaw and Modlin, which must defend themselves against the Germans, remain unchanged. Units towards whose formations the Soviets have approached should negotiate with them with the aim of the exit of the garrisons into Rumania or Hungary.
Supreme Commander
Marshal of Poland E. Rydz-Smigly "(
Katyn. Captives of undeclared war. Documents and Materials. Edited by RG Pikhoya, A. Geyshtora. Compilers: NS Lebedeva, NA Petrosova, B. Voschinsky, V. Matersky. Moscow: International Foundation for Democracy, 1999. ISBN 5-89511-002-9 )


"Soviets invaded. I order you to carry out waste in Romania and Hungary, shortest paths. The Soviets fighting not to, only in case of an attempt on their part disarmament of our parts. The challenge for Warsaw and [Modlin], which must be protected from the Germans, without changes. [Part], to the location of which came councils should negotiate with them in order to reach the garrisons in Romania or Hungary.
Supreme Commander
Marshal of Poland E. Rydz-Smigly "
DAB, p/1/4, room 245. Copy. Typescript. Polish.
Published in the book.: "WojnaObronnaPolski 1939." Wyborzrodef, Warszawa, 1968, s. 888.

[Nolan]

Why don't the USA has famines too?

http://sharonastyk.com/2008/05/25/fascinating-read/

And bailey and brother, don't feed the troll.

[Jacobinist]

" You fail to respond to the fact that YALE UNIVERSITY printed the book" - Bailey_41

Your name should Bailey_LULZ, because your sure do provide them!!! Now, why would a Marxist-Lennist quote something from a privatized learning institution of arguably the richest and most powerful people? And of all the universities, a privatized Ivy League one! Seriously bailey, keep bring 'em lolz!!!:D


"why, does the bourgeoisie spend all its time trying to slander the Soviet Union? Sure my school book quotes Roberts, however, it also slanders Stalin in many other aspect" - Bailey

Slander the USSR? Hmmm, maybe, this is just a guess so bear with me, but just maybe, the USSR brought a lot of slander on to itself? You know, claiming their a 'peasant revolutionary vanguard' (what?) and then punishing and crushing the peasants they swear to defend, hmmm? Hypocrites anyone? And about Stalin, sheesh, we all know he committed no wrongs and even rescued 20th century communism! (lolz).


"No he didnt" - Bailey

Oh. So Stalin didn't try to reconquer territory lost during the October Revolution of '17. So Ukraine, Poland, Finland, and other small baltic states, voluntarily reintegrated into the USSR. Riiiiiight.:confused:


" I have quoted a book printed by Yale University Press you fucking idiot" - Bailey

Ouch, talk about teenage angst!! Smells like teen spirit if you ask me. Lulz.



"my text book was not state provided but publsihed by Edexcel"- Bailey

HAHA.

From Das Wiki:

Edexcel is a UK company...(Private Corp.)

Such a loser kid!



""Leninist-Stalinist" line is more like a hellbent ideology then that of Nazism?" - Bro1

Well, because, lennist-marxist essentailly means Vanguard leadership. Not communism, but vanguard leadership. And well, the vanguard leadership in USSR was not unlike that of the fascists in Germany or Italy for that matter. Racist, Nationalist, Patriotic, Mass Deception, Genocide, etc etc.



"You mean how since the polish goverment no longer existed"- BRO1
Oh, so the USSR only split Poland between themselves and Hitler, because Poland no longer existed because the USSR had agreed to let Germany divide in two. That solves everything!!!!:laugh:

[Jacobinist]

"And bailey and brother, don't feed the troll." - Captain Fidel

Yup. Because debating with like-minded individuals about similiar ideologies is feeding them trolls. No, no, no, instead, stick to the COMINTER official line and dont think for yourself!

[Nolan]

"And bailey and brother, don't feed the troll." - Captain Fidel

Yup. Because debating with like-minded individuals about similiar ideologies is feeding them trolls. No, no, no, instead, stick to the COMINTER official line and dont think for yourself!

You're not debating, you're just spewing anti-stalin stupidity with no sources or proof to back it up. But I guess that's "defying the COMINTERN line."

[Jacobinist]

"You're not debating, you're just spewing anti-stalin stupidity with no sources or proof to back it up" -Capitain FIdel

HAHA. The proof is all around you homie! The truth is buried in mass graves all over Russia homie! The proof is in the USSR collapse! Lolz, proof.

Oh, and citing Stalinst literature should not be considered 'proper citations.'

[Brother No. 1]

Oh,
so the USSR only split Poland between themselves and Hitler, because Poland no longer existed because the USSR had agreed to let Germany divide in two. That solves everything!!!!

You obviously dont know of the 'divison' of poland. Here I'll provide you a picture even.

http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/images/map_spheres_influence_izvestiia_091839.jpg

This picture provides a image not of a 'division' of poland but rather sphere's of influence.

This didnt divide poland but rather if a war occured between Germany and Poland the Polish goverment could retreat to the beyond the soviet line of interest and sue for peace with Germany. That was the plan and here's some more proof.


"Article I. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party.
Article II. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.
The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.
In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement. "

And here's some double sided proof that Hitler was not planning to liquidate poland in the early days of september but make peace with them.

"7 September 1939
The High Command with the Fuehrer (second half of the day 7 September): Three different ways the situation may develop.
1. The Poles offer to begin negotiations. He [Hitler - GF] is ready for negotiations [on the following conditions]: [Poland must] break with England and France. A part of Poland will be [preserved and] recognized. [The regions from the] Narev to Warsaw - to Poland. The industrial region - to us. Krakow - to Poland. The northern region of the Beskidow mountains - to us. [The provinces of the Western] Ukraine - independent."(Halder F. Kriegstagebuch. Tägliche Aufzeichnungen des Chefs des Generalstabes des Heeres 1939-1942. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1962-1964.)

That's not enough you say? here's some more..

September 9:
"Bring to the attention of the Supreme Command: ... b) The independence of the Western Ukraine."

September 10:
"Warlimont: a) A call to the Western Ukraine is imminent."



Col. Walter Warlimont was deputy head of operations at the German High Command. A note in the annotated text of Halder's diary reads: "That is, for the setting up of an independent state out of Polish Ukraine."

Under September 11 Halder noted that:
"The flight of active Polish soldiers [= combat troops] into Rumania has begun."

On September 12 Halder noted: "Talks between the High Command and the Fuehrer" and said:
"The Russian apparently does not want to come in…. [The Russian] believes it possible that Poland wants [to conclude a] peace [with Germany]."

He also noted:
"Rumania does not wish to accept [the entry of] the Polish government; will close ....He [Hitler] is prepared to be content with the Eastern part of Upper Silesia and the Polish Corridor, if the West doesn't interfere."

During post-war interrogations General-major Erwin von Lahousen of the German military intellegence said this:
"Lahousen: In conformity with the foreign policy doctrines officially announced by von Ribbentrop and the orders recieved by Admiral Canaris from General-Fieldmarshal Keitel, Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command, Abwehr-2 carried out the preparation for an uprising in Galicia, the main goals of were the liquidation of communists, Jews and Poles. As far as I know this decision was taken at a meeting in Field Marshal Keitel's railroad car.
... from Canaris' handwritten notes in the battle journal it follows that this meeting took place on September 12, 1939. The sense of the arrangements formulated by von Ribbentrop and given as an order by Keitel to Admiral Canaris, is as follows: The OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists), which collaborated with the Abwehr on military questions, was to begin an uprising in Poland, relying upon the Ukrainian emigrants who lived there. The goal of the uprising was the liquidation of Poles and Jews."

They also didnt seem to regonize it's existence either: "[I]Also the question is disposed of in case a Russian intervention did not take place, of whether in the area lying to the east of the German zone of influence a political vacuum might not occur. Since we on our part have no intention of undertaking any political or administrative activities in these areas, apart from what is made necessary by military operations, without such an intervention on the part of the Soviet Government there might be the possibility of the construction of new states there."


And the reason why it wasnt a state is that:

"1. Moscicki knew there was no other President of Poland (he had not resigned). Yet he could not be President because he could not carry out any official functions while interned in Rumania. Therefore, Poland had no government.
2. Rumania was unhappy with this situation, since
(a) the Rumanian authorities knew that Moscicki would claim he had "resigned" in favor of some figure who was not in either Poland or Rumania, but
(b) this would anger Hitler, since resignation is a political act, while Rumania was obligated by its neutrality to prevent the interned Polish government from any political acts. For Rumania to permit the Polish government to carry out political acts would be an act incompatible with its neutrality -- in effect, an act hostile to Germany."


They couldnt act as a goverment, so there was no polish state.





And well, the vanguard leadership in USSR was not unlike that of the fascists in Germany or Italy for that matter.


You're a moronic piece of shit for this reason: After progressiveness of socialism you compare a Socialist state to a Fascist state in which Fascism still maintains capitalism and in the USSR, once the kulaks were out of the way, there was pratically no Capitalism in there.



Racist, Nationalist, Patriotic, Mass Deception, Genocide, etc etc.






Racist how? Nationalist how? If you mean the Patriotic War then fuck yourself for being against a nation fighting against a fascist invasion, what deception and what genocide?

Edit: The spheres of influence also had to be re-negotiated and a picture is here:

http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/images/poland082839_092839.jpg



http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/images/key_to_poland082839_092839.jpg

[Jacobinist]

"You obviously dont know of the 'divison' of poland. Here I'll provide you a picture even" - Bro1
Wow, thanks bro! (sarcasm) Did you have to post a pic in Russian? Did you know that's Russian? Im sure you did. Also, is that your strategy? To flood a post full of irrelevant bullshit?


"This picture provides a image not of a 'division' of poland but rather sphere's of influence." - Bro1
Now that is just pure puppet talk. Following the Party line eh, comrade? Let us take a look at what happened, for all those unfortunate ones whom dont speak Russian:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2b/Second_World_War_europe.PNG

Now I know that Stalin called it a speres of influence (bullshit), and that the 'invasion' was to protect Ukraine and Belarus, but are you really that stupid?

FROM DAS WIKI:

On 17 September the Red Army marched its troops into Poland, which the Soviet Union now claimed to be non-existent (Sound familiar?). ......Also, concerns about the Soviets' own security were used to justify the invasion. The Red Army advance was coordinated with the movement of the German forces and met little resistance from the Polish forces who were ordered to allow the Soviet advance.....All the media became controlled by Moscow. Soviet occupation implemented a political regime similar to a police state based on terror. All Polish left-wing parties and organisations were disbanded. Only the Communist Paty loyal to Moscow was allowed to exist with organisations subordinated to it. (Sound familiar? Like Imperialism?).......The Soviet authorities regarded service for the pre-war Polish state as a "crime against revolution" and "counter-revolutionary activity", and subsequently started arresting large numbers of Polish inteligentsia, politicians, civil servants and scientists, but also ordinary people suspected of posing a threat to the Soviet rule. (Is this soviet socialism?).....Soviet and German troops met on numerous occasions. The most remarkable event of this kind occurred at Brest-Litovsk on 22 September. The German 19th Panzer Corps under the command of Heinz Guiderian had occupied the city, which lay within the Soviet sphere of interest. When the Soviet 29th Tank Brigade under the command of S. M. Krivoshein approached, the commanders negotiated that the German troops would withdraw and the Soviet troops would enter the city saluting each other. (HOW VERY REVOLUTIONARY!!!)....Subsequently, all institutions of the dismantled Polish state were being closed down and reopened with new mostly Russian directors and in rare casesUkrainian or Polish ones.

Any bullshit you try to bring up about 'spheres' means nothing, the truth is Eastern Poland was annexed by Stalin, according to the guideline in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. And actually, further negotiations and concessions by Stalin pushed the dividing line further East, oh mighty Stalin!!!


"you compare a Socialist state to a Fascist state in which Fascism still maintains capitalism and in the USSR, once the kulaks were out of the way, there was pratically no Capitalism" - Bro1

No, that is why you, and Stalinists like you are idiots. Your complete understanding of Fascism is that it is an economic theory, one interwinded with kapitalism, and to a large extent it is. But fascism is a tendency. Lets take a look.

From Das Websters Dictionary:

Fascism believes that a nation is an organic (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Organicism) community that requires strong leadership, collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong.

Sounds a lot like the USSR huh? The state in Russia acted like a corporation, where agricultural peasants now had to meet State quotas instead of kapitalist ones. The only change was the color of the shackles. But to any honest, educated communist, what was created in the Soviet Union was nothing more that monopoly kapitalism.


"Racist how? Nationalist how? If you mean the Patriotic War then fuck yourself" - Bro1

Racist? Extermination of the Jews and Poles isn't racist to Stalinsts (Look up Katyn Massacre for one example) Nationalist? Are you fucking serious? You dont see the patriotism in all Soviet propaganda? BTW, the 'Patriotic War' was the Soviet Unions shining moment, where the proletarian single-handedly defeated the Wermacht. That was a great achievment by the working class in Russia, NOT STALIN.

(In bad heavily accented Russian) There is no patriotism, where!!! (Notice the supreme leader wrapped in the flag)

http://larussophobe.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/stalin-hitler.jpg


In other words chumpette, try again.

[bailey_187]

http://larussophobe.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/stalin-hitler.jpg

.


You know, when the miners strike was on in the 1984-85 in Britain, the leader of the strike Arthur Scargill was photographed with his hand in a similar position and the ultra-right newspaper The Sun tried to print it to compare Scargill to Hitler too. You are using the same tactics as the British Bourgeoisies gutter press.

[bailey_187]

" You fail to respond to the fact that YALE UNIVERSITY printed the book" - Bailey_41

Your name should Bailey_LULZ, because your sure do provide them!!! Now, why would a Marxist-Lennist quote something from a privatized learning institution of arguably the richest and most powerful people? And of all the universities, a privatized Ivy League one! Seriously bailey, keep bring 'em lolz!!!:D

Right, but what is your point? Are you claiming that G.Roberts is a peddler of Soviet propaganda and the Yale univeristy and Edexcel are in on a secret Stalinist conspiracy to indoctrinate people into thinking Stalin is good? You are mental.
Yale university most likley to not agree with G.Roberts, and you can probably find books that argue the opposite. However, the fact that they printed his book proves that it is well enough researched and sourced to be trusted. I am sure however, what ever obscure Anarcho-Kiddie group links you post will be much more reliable :rolleyes:



"
Slander the USSR? Hmmm, maybe, this is just a guess so bear with me, but just maybe, the USSR brought a lot of slander on to itself? You know, claiming their a 'peasant revolutionary vanguard' (what?) and then punishing and crushing the peasants they swear to defend, hmmm? Hypocrites anyone?

What? This makes no sense. You are talking out your ass, please desist.


" And about Stalin, sheesh, we all know he committed no wrongs and even rescued 20th century communism! (lolz).

Well he did do many wrong things.





Oh. So Stalin didn't try to reconquer territory lost during the October Revolution of '17. So Ukraine, Poland, Finland, and other small baltic states, voluntarily reintegrated into the USSR. Riiiiiight.:confused:).
Wow, you really need to read what i write. You said Stalin should have fought fascism in Finkland to death. I said he had bigger things to worry about, so he wasnt going to march all the way to Lappland. You said he did. He didnt though. What the rest of your post has to do with anything i do not know. What does Poland, Belorussia, Ukraine have to do with Lappland?





Ouch, talk about teenage angst!! Smells like teen spirit if you ask me. Lulz

Your attempts at being condensending fail because of how stupid your posts are.



"my text book was not state provided but publsihed by Edexcel"- Bailey

HAHA.

From Das Wiki:

Edexcel is a UK company...(Private Corp.)

Such a loser kid!

Right. What is your point? Why have you given up arguing about the actual history of Stalin? Is it because you realise you are complete fucking simpleton.

[pranabjyoti]

Actually, trots and anarchists so far had done nothing but vomiting the same worthless imperialist propaganda against revolutionary leaders. This just helped the imperialist and their controlled press to show that "how even the leftists(!) hate communists".

[Kléber]

It seems some comrades are of the opinion that the USSR never invaded Poland, but merely diplo-annexed half of it without firing a shot. It was a complicated affair, but let's be clear about something. Soviet forces attacked and helped pin down the Polish army while it was still fighting the German army. The Polish government in the main may have fled, giving Stalin the pretext to invade, but Nazi and Soviet forces collaborated in some engagements against units that were still defending the Polish state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lw%C3%B3w_%281939%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grodno_%281939%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wytyczno

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wilno_%281939%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Szack

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_military_parade_in_Brest-Litovsk

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Spotkanie_Sojusznik%C3%B3w.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Armia_Czerwona%2CWehrmacht_23.09.1939_wsp%C3%B3lna _parada.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-121-0012-30%2C_Polen%2C_deutsch-sowjetische_Siegesparade%2C_Panzer.jpg

[Nolan]

It seems some comrades are of the opinion that the USSR never invaded Poland, but merely diplo-annexed half of it without firing a shot. It was a complicated affair, but let's be clear about something. Soviet forces attacked and helped pin down the Polish army while it was still fighting the German army. The Polish government in the main may have fled, giving Stalin the pretext to invade, but Nazi and Soviet forces collaborated in some engagements against units that were still defending the Polish state.

None of this is news. It was to deny land and space to the fascists. The fact that some remaining Polish forces resisted the Soviet advance doesn't constitute "collaboration." Your point?

[Kléber]

None of this is news. It was to deny land and space to the fascists. The fact that some remaining Polish forces resisted the Soviet advance doesn't constitute "collaboration." Your point?
The best way to deny land and space to the fascists would have been to tear up Molotov-Ribbentrop and defend Poland. That would have been a huge moral victory for the Comintern and the USSR and restored the support that had been broken by the Moscow frame-ups and the pact with Nazi Germany. Molotov-Ribbentrop confused and demoralized the supporters of the Third International and facilitated its annulment altogether. This course is explained by the fact that Stalin wasn't interested in the international socialist revolution because he didn't represent the workers, he stood for chauvinist interests of a bureaucratic caste that acted in 1939 as Russian Tsars had in the Eighteenth Century Partitions of Poland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland).

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Epolpomor/pol-part.gif

[Jacobinist]

"You know, when the miners strike was on in the 1984-85 in Britain, the leader of the strike Arthur Scargill was photographed with his hand in a similar position and the ultra-right newspaper The Sun " - Bailey

Actually, I care nothing of his arm or his salute. Im asking you to focus on the obvious PATRIOTISM/NATIONALISM in the pic. Communists arent nationalistic (Stalinists are tho) and so are fascists!


"Actually, trots and anarchists so far had done nothing but vomiting the same worthless imperialist propaganda against revolutionary leaders. This just helped the imperialist and their controlled press to show that "how even the leftists(!) hate communists". " - PranaBJ

Thats silly. Im a communist too, but I do hate uninformed communists who just follow the party line with out thinking for themselves! Also, you're using roughly a 70 year old stalinist tactic to dismiss criticism as covert fascist or anti-revolutionary rhetoric.
Two things tho:
1) Stalin collaborated with fascists.
2) Stalin was no revolutionary.

[bailey_187]

Nice map, Bailey, you are an idiot!

what map? I aint posted a map.

[bailey_187]

Thats silly. Im a communist too, but I do hate uninformed communists who just follow the party line with out thinking for themselves! Also, you're using roughly a 70 year old stalinist tactic to dismiss criticism as covert fascist or anti-revolutionary rhetoric.
Two things tho:
1) Stalin collaborated with fascists.
2) Stalin was no revolutionary.

You keep saying this, but it seems to be you who is following the party line as you stubbornly refuse to accept any source that shows Stalin in a slightly positive light. You are just as bad as some of the most dogmatic-stalin defenders.

[Nolan]

The best way to deny land and space to the fascists would have been to tear up Molotov-Ribbentrop and defend Poland. That would have been a huge moral victory for the Comintern and the USSR and restored the support that had been broken by the Moscow frame-ups and the pact with Nazi Germany.

Um... Are you suicidal or something? Do you realize what confronting the Wehrmacht at that point in time would have meant?

[Jacobinist]

Lolz, Stalinsts scrambling to defend their supreme leader is always funny.

Cant hide the truth!

[Jacobinist]

Yet Stalin didnt sign the pact and then followed to prepare for war with Hitler. Instead he signed the pact and feeling safe, began imperialist expansionism. Not very revolutionary.

Had he signed the pact with Hitler, and proceeded to build a maginot line (or similar defenses) than maybe, but Stalin was a fool.

[bailey_187]

Yet Stalin didnt sign the pact and then followed to prepare for war with Hitler. Instead he signed the pact and feeling safe, began imperialist expansionism. Not very revolutionary.

Had he signed the pact with Hitler, and proceeded to build a maginot line (or similar defenses) than maybe, but Stalin was a fool.

Preperations for war were made. You can read about this in "Stalin's Wars". Part of this preperation was the invasion of Finland, yet you claim this to be Imperialism.