Stalinist Elections

[GracchusBabeuf]

.

[DecDoom]

It's like the North Korean elections; one candidate, everyone votes, candidate wins, North Korea proudly gets to display their "democratic system."

[Black Sheep]

And this is a proof that the elections where rigged?


Stalin became General Secretary before Lenin's death, before his trio with Kamenev & Zinoviev.

[Pogue]

Lenin was was undemocratic and anti-worker as Stalin, so...

[Absolut]

Im not sure wether or not the elections during the Stalin-era was democratic or not, and I dont see how its relevant at all. I read a pretty long article on the matter, and some of the research done in the opened Soviet archives, made by some pretty heavy names (I dont remember any of the names) and published in some of the most respected journals around. There was also a discussion on this at the local Communist Party branch quite some time ago, and it was pretty interesting. Apparently, if one is to assume that the Soviet archives are trustworthy, Stalin was a democrat, held back by the system and the nomenklatura, and it wasnt actually him that conducted the purges, it was Crustjov et al clearing out the competition.

Either way, Im not saying I trust these sources, I basically know too little of the time to make a qualified judgement, but one thing I think people miss out on when the concentrate on Stalin as a person and try to make apologies for him is an analysis of the system in itself. Wether or not Stalin was a nice guy or not doesnt matter, the system is still the same undemocratic, anti-worker bullshit, regardless of how Stalin was.

Just my view of the whole thing.

[mel]

Im not sure wether or not the elections during the Stalin-era was democratic or not, and I dont see how its relevant at all. I read a pretty long article on the matter, and some of the research done in the opened Soviet archives, made by some pretty heavy names (I dont remember any of the names) and published in some of the most respected journals around. There was also a discussion on this at the local Communist Party branch quite some time ago, and it was pretty interesting. Apparently, if one is to assume that the Soviet archives are trustworthy, Stalin was a democrat, held back by the system and the nomenklatura, and it wasnt actually him that conducted the purges, it was Crustjov et al clearing out the competition.

Either way, Im not saying I trust these sources, I basically know too little of the time to make a qualified judgement, but one thing I think people miss out on when the concentrate on Stalin as a person and try to make apologies for him is an analysis of the system in itself. Wether or not Stalin was a nice guy or not doesnt matter, the system is still the same undemocratic, anti-worker bullshit, regardless of how Stalin was.

Just my view of the whole thing.

This the source you're talking about? It's an interesting read, I'm not sure how much I trust it, and either way it confirms that whether it was stalin pulling the strings or not, the workers certainly weren't the ones in control. The USSR never did have contested elections, which made the "democracy" little more than a sham.

Source: http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html

[Glenn Beck]

I agree. Stalinism is the undemocratic system of bureaucrats ruling over the workers. We should try to understand the Stalinist bureaucracy's rule over the workers instead of concentrating on Stalin the person.

The term 'stalinism' itself would be problematic in this regard and is a poor choice for the name of the ideology of the bureaucratic castes that rose up in the worker's states as opposed to the ideology of Stalin himself.

This simplistic picture is complicated by the fact that many socialists with a positive or neutral perception of Stalin are aware and opposed to the bureaucratic turn in socialist states and their orientation towards capitalist restoration.

[Glenn Beck]

I'd argue whether capitalist restoration makes any sense here since, those states were all state capitalist. Anyway, state capitalist seems to be the more appropriate term here. Be aware though, this has nothing to do with the OP,;)

If you don't think the USSR ever had a socialist orientation then why talk about its bureaucracy like it's anything special?

Your nitpicking over terminology while failing to address the substance of my post is irritating, to say the least.

We could argue all day at what point a socialist state in the midst of internal reaction stops being "socialist" and starts being "state-capitalist", the reality is never so simple, the distinction is both qualitative and gradual, like boiling water. The point is that you agree with some 'stalinists' on one key fact: that a pro-capitalist bureaucracy took power in the USSR and restored capitalism (or 'non-state capitalism', if that warms the cockles of your pedantic heart, whatever).

[Glenn Beck]

In late 1920, Trotsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky) argued for a formal imposition of Party dictatorship over the industrial sectors. Believing this would needlessly upset the trade unions, Lenin asked Stalin to build a support base for him against Trotsky; Lenin's faction eventually prevailed at the Tenth Party Congress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_Congress_of_the_Russian_Communist_Party_%28b% 29) in March 1921. Lenin still, however, encountered difficulties with various factions in pushing his policies through and decided to give his ally more power.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin%27s_rise_to_power#cite_note-StalinRobertService-0) With the help of Kamenev, Lenin successfully had Stalin appointed to the post of General Secretary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Secretary_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_So viet_Union) on April 3, 1922. He still held his posts in the Orgburo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgburo), the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_and_Peasants%27_Inspectorate) and the Commassariat for Nationalities Affairs, though he agreed to delegate his workload to subordinates. With this power, he would steadily place his supporters in positions of authority.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin%27s_rise_to_power#cite_note-StalinRobertService-0)

From this it doesn't seem that Stalin was elected in any general election but was elected through parliamentary procedures within the Party itself. It seems that after the various factional disputes that rocked the party, along with the the privilege of making appointments his office held, Stalin had gained enough supporters to mostly dominate the party for some time.

Also this is interesting but wikipedia doesn't go into much detail on the topic:

The position of a General Secretary was originally an administrative one when it was created in 1922 with Joseph Stalin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin) being the first to hold the title. Once Stalin came to dominate the Politburo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_of_the_CPSU_Central_Committee), the position of General Secretary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Secretary) became synonymous with that of party leader and de facto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto) ruler of the Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union). Stalin proposed abolishing the post of General Secretary at the first Central Committee Plenum after the 15th Party Congress, on 19 December 1927. His proposal was defeated. No post of General Secretary formally existed after the 17th Party Congress of 1934. At the first Central Committee Plenum after each of the 17th, 18th and 19th Party Congresses (2 February 1934, 22 March 1939, and 16 October 1952 respectively) no confirmation of anyone as General Secretary took place. Rather, the Politburo, Secretariat, and Orgburo of the CC were elected, and Stalin was included in each. From 1934 on, Stalin increasingly preferred to sign documents as just "Secretary of the Central Committee" and there are no official references to the post between the XVIIth Party Congress and Stalin's death on 5 March 1953. However, Soviet encyclopediae of Stalin's time referred to Stalin as "General Secretary from 1922 till 1953".

[Ismail]

For some reason socialists relied on a modified Westminster system (people elect legislature, legislature forms government) for elections. In the USSR local elections were fairly democratic (some had non-CPSU candidates where necessary), but as you got higher up it was obvious that a candidate was going to win no matter what, and Stalin was to my knowledge elected by the Party (just about unanimously, obviously), not popular vote.

Every other socialist state was the same way. Albania, the DPRK, Cuba, etc. The only differences were if they allowed other parties or how voting was organized. None ever went for competitive voting, just one-candidate because it was seen as superior. (In theory, you'd be able to focus entirely on the candidate, question him, etc.)

Another problem here is that the party and state were obviously connected, but they were, administratively, totally different things with their own elections.

[AntinoiteBolshevik]

That's horrible. Lenin was the greatest man ever born!

[Absolut]

This the source you're talking about? It's an interesting read, I'm not sure how much I trust it, and either way it confirms that whether it was stalin pulling the strings or not, the workers certainly weren't the ones in control. The USSR never did have contested elections, which made the "democracy" little more than a sham.

Source: http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html

Yeah, thats the one.:)

[mel]

I'm just interested to see how the "elections" were held, if at all they were held.

By the 1936 Constitution, elections were allowed to have candidates that weren't from the communist party, but they had to be nominated by a trade union or other social or economic group. Any candidate had to be nominated by the party or group, and elections weren't contested. Basically, the party put up a candidate, everyone voted, they showed off their wonderful democratic system. At least, this is how elections to the Supreme Soviet were handled. There was the Soviet of Nationalities and the Soviet of the Union. The Soviet of the Union had one representative for every 300,000 people, and the Soviet of Nationalities had even fewer representatives, meant to represent ethnic groups in the USSR.

In theory, a candidate could be put up from someone other than the communist party, but in order to get support, over 150,000 people would have needed to be members of or supporters of a given trade union or social group that had the power to nominate candidates, so elections remained uncontested through almost the entire history of the USSR. What the 1936 constitution did do was allow universal suffrage and institute a secret ballot, which meant that nobody could see that everyone was voting for the only available candidate. Seems to me a bit of an empty gesture, but it could have laid the groundwork for a freer electoral system that, unfortunately, never came.

[thundertail19921]

Really? I didn't know that. That's a very interesting idea. Is there any historical evidence besides Pravda?

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Good luck in your "quest against Stalin". Fact is tha Stalin was very popular, and actually I don't really care how he "got to power".
Stalin is the one who has made the USSR into a superpower, Stalin is the one who made the USSR ready for the war against the nazis, Stalin is the one who could rally massive forces to combat the nazis, Stalin realized Lenin's ideas, Stalin mechanised and industrialised one of the most backwater nations in the world, and turned it to a world power.

[Gleb]

Good luck in your "quest against Stalin". Fact is tha Stalin was very popular, and actually I don't really care how he "got to power".
Stalin is the one who has made the USSR into a superpower, Stalin is the one who made the USSR ready for the war against the nazis, Stalin is the one who could rally massive forces to combat the nazis, Stalin realized Lenin's ideas, Stalin mechanised and industrialised one of the most backwater nations in the world, and turned it to a world power.

While Hitler was very popular in Germany and made Germany into a superpower. Should we yay for him, as well, then?

I truly find it somewhat odd for a communist to hurray for someone because he actually created an imperialist state with expansionist and interventionist foreign policy. I don't really think this is what people were after in 1917, were they? But in the end, you are really the lowest scum among the Stalinists, who really doesn't even care about workers' rights or how democratic or open the system is, all people like you care about is the fact that because of Stalin THE GREAT MOTHERLAND WAS STRONG AGAIN and you can masturbate over your Soviet map hanging in your room.

EDIT: Also, hello.

[redguard2009]

Keep in mind, we in the west have been raised under the ideal that proper democratic leadership means a constant, never-ending switching of hands of national authority every few years from one leader to the next; anything else is viewed immediately as a dictatorship. We're all well aware of the nonconsequential nature of "term limits" for our leaders; Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, sure the US has had 4 different leaders in the past 20 years but for all their "differences" they all run on the same platform; the idea that a proper democracy needs to switch heads (to an almost identical head whose differences are skin-deep) is idiotic.

Did the Soviet Union have proper elections? Does Cuba? Two states in which a single man led for decades, and most automatically assume that such a fact is incompatible with "democracy".

What is true, though (most likely) is that the Communist parties in both states were highly influential on national politics, and naturally the head of those parties would end up dominating the political scene. A more important question is, who ran against Stalin? Who could have? Those experiments in transitional socialism were infantile at best and I don't lend much credence to them. Their failures are not evidence of any systemic failure in the system.

[RHIZOMES]

While Hitler was very popular in Germany and made Germany into a superpower. Should we yay for him, as well, then?

I truly find it somewhat odd for a communist to hurray for someone because he actually created an imperialist state with expansionist and interventionist foreign policy. I don't really think this is what people were after in 1917, were they? But in the end, you are really the lowest scum among the Stalinists, who really doesn't even care about workers' rights or how democratic or open the system is, all people like you care about is the fact that because of Stalin THE GREAT MOTHERLAND WAS STRONG AGAIN and you can masturbate over your Soviet map hanging in your room.

EDIT: Also, hello.

Yeah industrializing a semi-feudal nation in 10 years, what a dick!

[Diagoras]

Keep in mind, we in the west have been raised under the ideal that proper democratic leadership means a constant, never-ending switching of hands of national authority every few years from one leader to the next; anything else is viewed immediately as a dictatorship. We're all well aware of the nonconsequential nature of "term limits" for our leaders; Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, sure the US has had 4 different leaders in the past 20 years but for all their "differences" they all run on the same platform; the idea that a proper democracy needs to switch heads (to an almost identical head whose differences are skin-deep) is idiotic.

Did the Soviet Union have proper elections? Does Cuba? Two states in which a single man led for decades, and most automatically assume that such a fact is incompatible with "democracy".

What is true, though (most likely) is that the Communist parties in both states were highly influential on national politics, and naturally the head of those parties would end up dominating the political scene. A more important question is, who ran against Stalin? Who could have? Those experiments in transitional socialism were infantile at best and I don't lend much credence to them. Their failures are not evidence of any systemic failure in the system.

The criticism of single-party states (especially single-party states with cults of personality) for their undemocratic nature is not centered upon the lack of head-switching, but upon the simple lack of any discernible democratic control, especially in the upper echelons of these statist systems. You are presenting a straw man. Indeed, "the idea that a proper democracy needs to switch heads" can be considered idiotic in some ways. That is also not the primary thrust of criticisms of the oligarchic states you mentioned.

[Diagoras]

Yeah industrializing a semi-feudal nation in 10 years, what a dick!

I am going to go out on a limb here, and guess that this particular facet of Russian history is NOT quite what is most criticized about Stalin's rule :rolleyes:. My labor vouchers are on the dictatorship and his continued subversion of democratic forces in favor of concentrated power. Mass-murder would probably also make the list.

[mel]

I am going to go out on a limb here, and guess that this particular facet of Russian history is NOT quite what is most criticized about Stalin's rule :rolleyes:. My labor vouchers are on the dictatorship and his continued subversion of democratic forces in favor of concentrated power. Mass-murder would probably also make the list.

While I agree with you re: the criticism of Stalin is not centered around his industrializing, there is evidence to suggest that Stalin made an honest attempt to democratize the USSR under his rule, and while he failed brilliantly to do so (he was met with a lot of opposition from the rest of the party) the continued subversion of democratic forces may not be directly attributable to Stalin himself.

The murder is more complicated, but I think most do agree that at the very least Stalin was...excessively enthusiastic about the execution of "counter-revolutionaries". I don't believe the claims are as greatly exaggerated as his supporters claim, however. There is solid evidence of mass graves discovered as recently as 2002 (and more may have been found since then). The death toll is estimated in at least the hundreds of thousands directly attributable to Stalin's "excesses" in policy and we can't just ignore that or dismiss it offhand as bourgeois propaganda. Democracy was at least as much a sham in the USSR under Lenin and Stalin as Bourgeois democracies are (and I would be pressed to say even more so, although talking about exploitation and unfair representation in degrees is usually a fairly useless analysis), and they never really got much better.

[redguard2009]

How can you attribute something to an "excess"? Was each and every single person "punished" by Stalin's laws a political prisoner who did not deserve to be punished? Were Russia's jails filled with liberals and conservatives and tsarists and political terrorists without a single murderer, rapist, criminal or other miscreant?

The problem I have with assertations about Stalin's "excess" is that they are very, very vague. 500,000 people killed on Stalin's order. 500,000 who? Where is the written order? Where were these executions carried out? Under the authority of which officers and performed by which men? And of these so-called innocent political prisoners, what were their crimes? Terrorism? Espionage? Saboutage? Theft? Murder? Rape?

The unfortunate crime of this thread is how it showcases the lengths some will go to in order to stand contradictory to their perceived enemy (Stalinism). Even going so far as to accuse democracy in the Soviet Union of being of a "worse caliber" than bourgeois democracy.

The USSR wasn't free. There's no point in arguing about it, or arguing whether it should have been. I support the Soviet Union under Stalin because it could not have existed under any other conditions. Absolute freedom is a pipedream (for the foreseeable future) and criticizing its absence is a waste of time.

[Il Medico]

Why would anyone think Stalin was elected? The USSR never tried electing people, the just appointed people and said, 100% of the vote goes to them. Stalin was appointed to position of General Secretary (which at the time wasn't very important) as a reward for helping Lenin. Stalin however, was a crafty fellow and made this the most important position next to Lenin. When Lenin died, he killed or exiled his rivals, in a rather brilliant coup. He was a smart man, no one denies that, but he certainly was doing any of it for the revolution. What Marxist-Leninist don't seem to understand is that Stalin neither wanted, nor did Stalin's USSR ever have a "dictatorship of the proletariat", it had a dictatorship of Stalin.

[redguard2009]

What a very History Channel view of the Soviet Union. I'm sure you have as much if not more proof of those assertions as they do.

[Il Medico]

I'll assume that was sarcastic.
1. I don't really watch the History Channel. Though they do have something interesting on every once in a while. Like that one series on Rome was pretty good.
2. My knowledge of how Stalin came to power is mostly based on writings and articles from that period.
3. I am sure if I said anything (Historical not ideological) incorrect, Kassad would come out of his corner and historically beat the shit out of me. Still not going to change the fact Stalin was a dictator for Stalin, not the workers.

[Dimentio]

While Hitler was very popular in Germany and made Germany into a superpower. Should we yay for him, as well, then?

I truly find it somewhat odd for a communist to hurray for someone because he actually created an imperialist state with expansionist and interventionist foreign policy. I don't really think this is what people were after in 1917, were they? But in the end, you are really the lowest scum among the Stalinists, who really doesn't even care about workers' rights or how democratic or open the system is, all people like you care about is the fact that because of Stalin THE GREAT MOTHERLAND WAS STRONG AGAIN and you can masturbate over your Soviet map hanging in your room.

EDIT: Also, hello.

Brilliant.

[Dimentio]

Keep in mind, we in the west have been raised under the ideal that proper democratic leadership means a constant, never-ending switching of hands of national authority every few years from one leader to the next; anything else is viewed immediately as a dictatorship. We're all well aware of the nonconsequential nature of "term limits" for our leaders; Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, sure the US has had 4 different leaders in the past 20 years but for all their "differences" they all run on the same platform; the idea that a proper democracy needs to switch heads (to an almost identical head whose differences are skin-deep) is idiotic.

Did the Soviet Union have proper elections? Does Cuba? Two states in which a single man led for decades, and most automatically assume that such a fact is incompatible with "democracy".


What is true, though (most likely) is that the Communist parties in both states were highly influential on national politics, and naturally the head of those parties would end up dominating the political scene. A more important question is, who ran against Stalin? Who could have? Those experiments in transitional socialism were infantile at best and I don't lend much credence to them. Their failures are not evidence of any systemic failure in the system.

It is true that the US has term limits of the executive, but many bourgeoisie republics in the west does'nt have it. In the US, neither congressmen or senators have term limits. And some senators have sat since the 1960's.

In Sweden, we had a prime minister (Tage Erlander) who sat in power between 1946 and 1969.

So I agree that criticisms of term limits is moot. That is hardly the most important aspect of representative democracy. The most important factor though, is the divisions of power, a concept I happen to agree with and which I think should be even more important in some kind of socialist system.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

While Hitler was very popular in Germany and made Germany into a superpower. Should we yay for him, as well, then?

I truly find it somewhat odd for a communist to hurray for someone because he actually created an imperialist state with expansionist and interventionist foreign policy. I don't really think this is what people were after in 1917, were they? But in the end, you are really the lowest scum among the Stalinists, who really doesn't even care about workers' rights or how democratic or open the system is, all people like you care about is the fact that because of Stalin THE GREAT MOTHERLAND WAS STRONG AGAIN and you can masturbate over your Soviet map hanging in your room.

EDIT: Also, hello.

Aaah yes, the times of denouncing every form of Communism that ever worked, only in order not to be confused with people that really did something, such as Stalin and Mao. Always ready to say "but THAT isn't REAL Communism!", always prepared to condemn the forms of Communism that actually did something and remaining in your dream world.
Nice isn't it? Been there, done that...

[mel]

Aaah yes, the times of denouncing every form of Communism that ever worked, only in order not to be confused with people that really did something, such as Stalin and Mao. Always ready to say "but THAT isn't REAL Communism!", always prepared to condemn the forms of Communism that actually did something and remaining in your dream world.
Nice isn't it? Been there, done that...

If they worked we wouldn't denounce them. As it stands they weren't communism but an abomination that I do not want my ideology roped in with.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

If they worked we wouldn't denounce them. As it stands they weren't communism but an abomination that I do not want my ideology roped in with.
A reminder: no other form of Communism has ever succeeded in achieving anything.

[mel]

A reminder: no other form of Communism has ever succeeded in achieving anything.

No form of communism has ever been tried, but there were some ugly regimes that called themselves socialist and caused a lot of problems.

I'm not one to say that those so-called socialist regimes have done nothing right, but they did a lot wrong, and to call them communist does a great disservice to our ideals.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

No form of communism has ever been tried, but there were some ugly regimes that called themselves socialist and caused a lot of problems.

I'm not one to say that those so-called socialist regimes have done nothing right, but they did a lot wrong, and to call them communist does a great disservice to our ideals.
The danger of such a stance is falling to dogmatism and refusing to support all kinds of Communism you don't totally agree with.
For example, do you sympathise with FARC? The Nepalese Maoists? The Naxalites in India? PFLP? Cuba? Vietnam? North Korea?
Or are you such a person who refuses to sympathize with every form of Communism that isn't "entirely" corresponding to their ideas?

[mel]

The danger of such a stance is falling to dogmatism and refusing to support all kinds of Communism you don't totally agree with.
For example, do you sympathise with FARC? The Nepalese Maoists? The Naxalites in India? PFLP? Cuba? Vietnam? North Korea?
Or are you such a person who refuses to sympathize with every form of Communism that isn't "entirely" corresponding to their ideas?

I don't have sufficient knowledge of all of the existing workers movements in order to pass judgment on them as such, but there is a great danger in making a revolution without a widespread and highly educated working class behind it. Movements that were not a mass movement of the working class, performed by revolutionaries working "on behalf of" the working class who is not ready to emancipate themselves can only lead to disaster and more exploitation. Movements made in areas that are not wholly self-sufficient and would need to extract surplus value from the workers in order to trade with Capitalist countries are not movements I can get behind, because the so-called "worker's state" just takes on the role of the capitalist class, extracting surplus value from the workers.

In order for socialism and communism to work as designed, they require democratic control (which none of the "worker's states" I've heard of so far have had) and they require a working class that is class conscious. None of the existing movements which I have heard of have these two things, and while I realize that it was out of historical necessity that the USSR turned out the way it did, and was organized the way it was, that does not mean that we cannot learn from its many mistakes and do things better next time.

And at least have the decency to call them forms of socialism. Even supporters of the USSR and others know better than to say that they were communist.

[Diagoras]

The danger of such a stance is falling to dogmatism and refusing to support all kinds of Communism you don't totally agree with.
For example, do you sympathise with FARC? The Nepalese Maoists? The Naxalites in India? PFLP? Cuba? Vietnam? North Korea?
Or are you such a person who refuses to sympathize with every form of Communism that isn't "entirely" corresponding to their ideas?


The question at hand for these is not a matter of petty sectarianism. It is a question of whether these groups in any way, shape, or form actually manifest the ideological democratic prerequisites to be considered socialists at all. You can't simply conclude that all, or even any of the groups you mentioned are socialist, simply because the alternative conclusion is that we do not have a truly sustained historical example of socialism in action on a national scale. It is not through some petty dogmatism that socialists decide that undemocratic statist regimes that happen to wave red flags are not socialist. I find your willingness to accept many of these overtly undemocratic groups under the socialist umbrella a rather disturbing dismissal of notions of actual popular control of the economy and society in general.

[Bright Banana Beard]

What have Stalinists "done" but taint the name of communism/socialism?
Turning the world into new era, but when they died, the world now become even more shittier.

[mel]

Turning the world into new era, but when they died, the world now become even more shittier.

Can you really make an analysis as to whether worker exploitation by a single party state or worker exploitation by a group of private property owners is "better"? There were both good and bad things about the USSR, and we can debate its relative merits under Stalin's leadership in an apples to apples comparison (what was done well, what was done poorly, what needs to be improved, what kinds of activities should we avoid) but I really don't see how you can make a claim that exploitation is any "better" because it is carried out under the false banner of "Socialism" and "Worker Equality"

[Bright Banana Beard]

Can you really make an analysis as to whether worker exploitation by a single party state or worker exploitation by a group of private property owners is "better"? There was many technology discovery, class struggle was high in 1940 as in French, Italy, USA, etc.


I really don't see how you can make a claim that exploitationI don't see exploitation if they were pay full for their labour, just because a bureaucrat act like a capitalist does not make them capitalist. I just want to remained that this is the first system where it was tried and we cannot know how to be successful unless we try it, but it is like Edison building a bulblight, revolution might fail, but it will learn to adopt the new strategy and toss out the one that isn't working so it can rerun it in the future.

I will remind myself that socialist love to twist the word around and thinking that I am Stalinist, when in fact I just a ordinary Leninist. Don't worry socialist, your petty word won't hurt me, in fact, it strengthen me about the infantile of the left communist. I give rep to you! :)

[Nwoye]

I don't see exploitation if they were pay full for their labour, just because a bureaucrat act like a capitalist does not make them capitalist. I just want to remained that this is the first system where it was tried and we cannot know how to be successful unless we try it, but it is like Edison building a bulblight, revolution might fail, but it will learn to adopt the new strategy and toss out the one that isn't working so it can rerun it in the future.

I will remind myself that socialist love to twist the word around and thinking that I am Stalinist, when in fact I just a ordinary Leninist. Don't worry socialist, your petty word won't hurt me, in fact, it strengthen me about the infantile of the left communist. I give rep to you! :)
Forced labor is exploitation, either passive (capitalism) or active (the Soviet Union). and keep in mind, I'm not just referring to Stalin here.