Stalinist henchmen... SURVIVOR!

[Ismail]

Basis of game is simple and probably everyone has heard of it if they've been on forums in general for more than a year. Basically, there's a list of people (in this case, Stalin's "henchmen") and the goal is to vote to eliminate a person from the list, and thus eventually the "best" of the bunch remains. Basically, seeing who RevLeft considers the "best Stalinist" out of the bunch. If things go a certain way, I may eliminate two persons each round.

Each round = one day long.

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Sergei Kirov
Lavrentry Beria
Anastas Mikoyan
Genrikh Yagoda
Nikolai Yezhov
Lazar Kaganovich
Andrey Vyshinsky
Georgy Malenkov
Nikita Khrushchev
Vyacheslav Molotov
Nikolai Bulganin
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Mikhail Suslov
Yuri Andropov
Georgy Zhukov
Alexey Kosygin
Nikolay Shvernik
Andrey Zhdanov
Maxim Litvinov

For what it's worth, I vote Khrushchev. He was anti-Stalin, so... yeah.

[Lenin II]

I vote to purge Zhukov of his position, due to the fact that without him Khrushchev's coup wouldn't have worked. He made an announcement promising to "crush" anyone who went against Khrushchev. He's an opportunist and a potential usurper with no faith in the Communist Party or collective leadership.

[Dimentio]

I would purge Yezhov on the grounds of insanity.

[mosfeld]

Kruuuuuschev

[LOLseph Stalin]

I vote Molotov because he associated with Hitler.

[Ismail]

I vote Molotov because he associated with Hitler.This reminds me...

“When we received Ribbentrop, of course he toasted Stalin and me—on the whole he was my best friend. (Molotov's eyes twinkled) Stalin unexpectedly suggested, ‘Let's drink to the new Anti-Cominternist—Stalin!’ He said this mocking and winked at me. He had made a joke to see Ribbentrop's reaction. Ribbentrop rushed to phone Berlin and reported ecstatically to Hitler. Hitler replied, ‘My genius minister of foreign affairs!’ Hitler never understood Marxists.”
(Molotov Remembers, p. 12.)

[bailey_187]

Alexey Kosygin because of the '65 economic reforms

[Wanted Man]

Yagoda.

[cb9's_unity]

Ismail:rolleyes:

[Pirate Utopian]

Hoxha.

[Random Precision]

Andrey Vyshinsky. Signing the order for Lenin's arrest in 1917 and 20 years later accusing Bukharin of plotting to assassinate Lenin surely get you a special place in Communist Hell. Also, unlike about half of the people on this list, he never got the bullet in the back of the head that he so richly deserved. :(

[Ismail]

Hoxha.If we include international leaders, then I pick pre-1948 Tito.


IsmailI'm just going pretend "Yuri" is transcribed as "Juri" and then go back to the 17th century and turn J's into I's (e.g. Iohannes), which brings this to a vote for Yuri Andropov.

[Valeofruin]

bulganin

[Rusty Shackleford]

Molotov

[Bright Banana Beard]

Lavrentry Beria he alleged poisoned Stalin.

[The Author]

I vote Khrushchev. He's at the top of my "to go" list.

[BobKKKindle$]

I vote for Mikhail Borodin, on the grounds that he forced the CPC to cooperate with the KMT against the wishes of its leaders, eventually resulting in the massacre of thousands of activists and trade unionists, thereby symbolizing the degeneration of the Comintern. It also seems he was editor of the English-language daily, Moscow News...before he was purged.

[Ismail]

I vote for Mikhail Borodin...I'm pretty sure the Comintern hired thousands upon thousands of people to be agents (plus that isn't exactly a "henchman").

Anyway, Khrushchev gets an icepick to the penis.


Chuev: But for supporting Khrushchev you will be blamed.

Kaganovich: Yes, you are right. I was the one who pushed him up as I thought him to be a capable person. But he had been a Trotskyist. I informed Stalin that he had been a Trotskyist. I told this to Stalin when Khrushchev was elected a member of the Moscow Committee. Stalin asked: 'How is he now?' I replied: 'He is fighting against the Trotskyists, genuinely, actively'. Stalin then asked me to support him on behalf of the CC at the conference.

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Sergei Kirov
Lavrentry Beria
Anastas Mikoyan
Genrikh Yagoda
Nikolai Yezhov
Lazar Kaganovich
Andrey Vyshinsky
Georgy Malenkov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Nikolai Bulganin
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Mikhail Suslov
Yuri Andropov
Georgy Zhukov
Alexey Kosygin
Nikolay Shvernik
Andrey Zhdanov
Maxim Litvinov

[Dimentio]

I still think Nikolai Yezhov has to go. Its like letting loose a fox in a hen house.

[n0thing]

Trotsky.
Reinstate him then purge him again.

[Bright Banana Beard]

Trotsky.
Reinstate him then purge him again.
This, please.

[Woland]

Zhukov.


Lavrentry Beria he alleged poisoned Stalin.

Funny, because Beria himself was murdered by Khrushchev's cronies (there was no trial).

[Panda Tse Tung]

Kruschev

[Ismail]

KruschevYou want us to kill him again?

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/formosus.jpg

[Bandito]

Yep, Khruschev is dead allright along with Zhukov. :)

For me it has to be Anastas Mikoyan. Stalin's minister of Trade, later betraying his idea and backing Khruschev in "destalinisation process". Like that wasn't enough, he supported Brezhnev against Khruschev and as a reward gained the position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet under Brezhnev.
Times magazine called him Soviet's "traveling salesman" because of his visits to USA as "inspection" of capitalist system. Yeh right.
Typical bureaucrat that has nothing to do with a real revolutionary. Traitor who would sell everything for a better position.

Only good thing about him is his brother. :)

[LOLseph Stalin]

I still vote Molotov. That two faced traitor! :cursing:

[Pirate Utopian]

Mao.

[Bright Banana Beard]

Nikolai Bulganin, obviously he was a supporter of Khrushchev.

[frozencompass]

Stalinist henchmen survivor. Wow. RevLeft sure has some ...interesting activities.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Stalinist henchmen survivor. Wow. RevLeft sure has some ...interesting activities.

That's how we roll. ;)

Next we should have an American President survivor. :laugh:

[Ismail]

Yezhov, Zhukov, Mikoyan, Molotov, and Bulganin. All tied. All... dead.

"Eliminating the Marxist-Leninist majority in the Presidium was possible thanks to the army, particularly Zhukov, and regional secretaries who came to support Khrushchev when he was in the minority."
(Another View of Stalin, p. 263.)

"Stalin could not maintain direct control over the purge. He was aware that the NKVD had arrested many people who were not guilty and that of the 7 to 14 million people serving sentences of forced labor in the GULAG camps many were innocent of any taint of disloyalty. They were inevitable sacrifices, inseparable from any campaign on this scale. But he resented this waste of human material. The aircraft designer Yakovlev recorded a conversation with him in 1940, in which Stalin exclaimed: 'Ezhov was a rat; in 1938 he killed many innocent people. We shot him for that!'"
(Grey, Ian. Stalin: Man of History. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979., p. 290.)

"Towards the end of the 1940s the close relationship between Stalin and Molotov began to falter... It was only Stalin's death a few months later that saved both Molotov and his wife from death. Despite this, Molotov refused ever to openly condemn Stalin."
(Helen Rapport, Joseph Stalin: A Biographical Companion (1999), p. 186.)

"From this meeting I observed also that there was no unity in the Presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: Malenkov and Beria were predominant, Molotov hardly spoke, Mikoyan seemed to be on the outer and spouted venom, while what Bulganin said was bullshit."
(Enver Hoxha, The Khrushchevites (1980), p. 29.)

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Sergei Kirov
Lavrentry Beria
Genrikh Yagoda
Lazar Kaganovich
Andrey Vyshinsky
Georgy Malenkov
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Mikhail Suslov
Yuri Andropov
Alexey Kosygin
Nikolay Shvernik
Andrey Zhdanov
Maxim Litvinov

[LOLseph Stalin]

I'll have to vote Kalinin for being Trotsky's Stalinist twin. :p

[Bright Banana Beard]

Genrikh Yagoda

This guy tainted the image of Stalin.

[Lenin II]

Let's go with Beria for being one of the most right-wing of the Party and for allegedly poisoning Stalin, and for basically being an opportunist.

[Revy]

Beria.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Can i personally purge stalin? ill use an ice cream scooper. if not i vote um, Kalinin because thats the only remaining soviet that i know of from this list.

[Dimentio]

Now its time for Beria ^^

[Revy]

Can I vote twice now? Andropov.

[Ismail]

Can I vote twice now? Andropov.Er, if you mean vote for two people in one round, no. It's either Beria or Andropov.

[Panda Tse Tung]

edit: mixed 2 peeps up. I go for Yagoda now.

[Bandito]

Yagoda is my 2nd choice too.

[Искра]

Durruti:)

[Pavlov's House Party]

Kalinin.

[The Author]

I vote Yagoda.

[Ismail]

Yagoda? More like... DEADGOITER.

"IN May 1934, six months before the assassination of Sergei Kirov, a heart attack caused the death of Vyacheslav R. Menzhinsky, the long-ailing Chairman of the OGPU. His post was filled by the forty-three-year-old OGPU Vice-Chairman, Henry G. Yagoda, a short, quiet, efficient-looking man with a receding chin and a trim little mustache.

Henry Yagoda was a secret member of the Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites. He had joined the conspiracy in 1929, as a member of the Right Opposition, not because he believed in Bukharin's or Trotsky's program, but because he thought the oppositionists were destined to come to power in Russia."
(Sayers, Michael, and Albert E. Kahn. The Great Conspiracy against Russia. Second Printing (Paper Edition). London: Collet's Holdings Ltd., 1946., p. 265.)

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Sergei Kirov
Lavrentry Beria
Lazar Kaganovich
Andrey Vyshinsky
Georgy Malenkov
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Mikhail Suslov
Yuri Andropov
Alexey Kosygin
Nikolay Shvernik
Andrey Zhdanov
Maxim Litvinov

[bailey_187]

Kosygin, same reason as last

[Rjevan]

Yeah, Alexey Kosygin, that Khrushchevite traitor!

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Beria.
It's a shame you guys killed Molotov, i'm sure you've made a big mistake there.

[Bright Banana Beard]

Alexey Kosygin

[Lenin II]

Beria

[LOLseph Stalin]

Fuck it, I vote Kosygin as well.

[Ismail]

The pressure and provocations were exerted against us openly. In the reception put on in the Kremlin on the occasion of November 7, Kosygin approached me, his face as pale as wax, and began to give me a sermon about friendship.

“We shall safeguard and defend our friendship with the Soviet Union on the Marxist-Leninist road,”. I told him.

“There are enemies in your party who are fighting this friendship,” said Kosygin.

“Ask him,” I said to Mehmet, who knew Russian well, “can he tell us who are these enemies in our Party?”

Kosygin found himself in a tight spot. He began to mumble and said:

“You did not understand me well.”

“Enough of that,” said Mehmet, “we understood you very well, but you lack the courage to speak openly. We shall tell you openly in the meeting what we think about you.”

We walked away from that revisionist mummy.(Enver Hoxha, The Khrushchevites, pp. 431-2)

Kosygin has, accordingly, been found mummified.

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Sergei Kirov
Lavrentry Beria
Lazar Kaganovich
Andrey Vyshinsky
Georgy Malenkov
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Mikhail Suslov
Yuri Andropov
Nikolay Shvernik
Andrey Zhdanov
Maxim Litvinov

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Beria! Beria! Beria!
Just kill him!

[Woland]

Beria! Beria! Beria!
Just kill him!

Beria is the only one who deserves to stay.

Kalinin.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Kalinin

[Rjevan]

I'd say Shvernik, that Khrushchevite traitor! ;)

[Panda Tse Tung]

Beria! (also: why the fuck kalinin?)
edit: then again, why the fuck molotov?
Cant the rules be changed so that only anti-revs can vote :p. I'm positive Molotov would still be in if so :).

[Lenin II]

Beria.


Why is everyone voting Kalinin? Seriously.

[Ismail]

Beria's gone.


Abakumov, Minister of State Security, close to Beria, was then leading the inquiry. But in the end of 1951, Ignatiev, a Party man with no experience in security, replaced Abakumov, who was arrested for lack of vigilance. Had Abakumov protected his boss, Beria?

The inquiry was then led by Ryumin, the man formerly responsible for Security in Stalin's personal secretariat. Nine doctors were arrested, accused of being "connected with the international Jewish bourgeois nationalist organisation 'JOINT' (American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), established by American intelligence."

This affair was understood as Stalin's first attack against Beria. The second attack took place simultaneously. In November 1951, leaders of the Communist Party of Georgia were arrested for redirecting public funds and for theft of State property and were accused of being bourgeois nationalist forces with links to Anglo-American imperialism. In the ensuing purge, more than half of the Central Committee members, known as Beria's men, lost their position.(Another View of Stalin, p. 260)

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Sergei Kirov
Lazar Kaganovich
Andrey Vyshinsky
Georgy Malenkov
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Mikhail Suslov
Yuri Andropov
Nikolay Shvernik
Andrey Zhdanov
Maxim Litvinov

[Lenin II]

Mikhail Suslov.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Nikolay Shvernik

[Rjevan]

Shvernik!

[Ismail]

Shvernik was shiskabobbed. I can't find a quote that could implicate him in anything, so... damn.

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Sergei Kirov
Lazar Kaganovich
Andrey Vyshinsky
Georgy Malenkov
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Mikhail Suslov
Yuri Andropov
Andrey Zhdanov
Maxim Litvinov

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Beria! (also: why the fuck kalinin?)
edit: then again, why the fuck molotov?
Cant the rules be changed so that only anti-revs can vote :p. I'm positive Molotov would still be in if so :).
Indeed, if the anti-revs would have the power here, Molotov would surely still be alive. He was one of the best Marxist-Leninists ever.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Sergei Kirov.

[Woland]

Indeed, if the anti-revs would have the power here, Molotov would surely still be alive. He was one of the best Marxist-Leninists ever.

Yeah, right. Molotov was nothing but a more ''honest'' traitor.

Edit: Kaganovich.

[Rjevan]

Yep, I'm also for Kirov.

[The Author]

I'm surprised Yuri Andropov is still on that list. I see him as a reformer akin to Deng Xiaoping of China and the fact that he held Gorbachev in high regards says a lot about his character. The fact that he stayed in office along with Chernenko and never retired to allow some much younger generation of collective leadership that was not thinking in terms of market reforms on the brain but genuine ML theory is also a turnoff. He should go.

Edit: Oh yeah, and Kaganovich is my second choice. Apparently he had a very bad judgment of character if someone like Khrushchev- who admittedly expressed Trotskyist tendencies- claimed to renounce them and Kaganovich just took Khrushchev at his word. It's like with Tito. He got accused of Trotskyist sympathies as well when he was translating the "History of the CPSU: Short Course" into Serbo-Croatian in the late 1930s and started adding his own remarks to the work. Seeing how things turned out, the accusation wasn't far-fetched. It's unfortunate these two assholes were never purged before they took political office.

[Brother No. 1]

Yuri Andropov, always wanted him to get booted out.

[Ismail]

Kirov and Andropov are... dead.

I don't have any quotes about Kirov, so...


The scabby bird, Imre Nagy, had flown from the hands of Khrushchev and Suslov. This traitor, in whom Moscow had placed its hopes, like a drowning man clutching at his own hair to save himself from death, showed what he was, and in the upsurge of the counter-revolutionary fury, announced his reactionary policy and made public declarations about Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Treaty. The Soviet ambassador in Hungary was a certain Andropov, a KGB man, who was elevated to power later and played a dirty role against us. This agent, with the label of ambassador, found himself surrounded by the counter-revolution which broke out. Even when the counter-revolutionary events were taking place openly, when Nagy came to the head of the government, the Soviets still continued to support him, apparently hoping that they could keep him under control. During those days, after the first half-hearted intervention of the Soviet army, Andropov told our ambassador in Budapest:

“We cannot call the insurgents counter-revolutionaries because there are honest people among them. The new government is good and it is necessary to support it in order to stabilize the situation.”

“What do you think of Nagy’s speeches?” our ambassador asked him.
“They are not bad,” replied Andropov, and when our comrade pointed out that what was being said about the Soviet Union did not seem to be correct, he replied:

“There is anti-Sovietism, but Nagy’s recent speech was not bad, it was not anti-Soviet. He wants to maintain links with the masses. The Political Bureau is good and has credit.

The counter-revolutionaries acted with such arrogance that they forced Andropov, together with all his staff, out into the street and left them there for hours on end. We instructed our ambassador in Budapest to take measures for the defence of the embassy and its staff, and to place a machine-gun at the top of the stairs. If the counter-revolutionaries dared to attack the embassy he was to open fire without hesitation. But when our ambassador asked Andropov for weapons to ensure the defence of our embassy, he refused:

“We have diplomatic immunity, therefore no one will touch you.”

“What diplomatic immunity?!” said our ambassador. “They threw you out into the street.”

“No, no,” said Andropov, “if we give you arms, some incident might be created.”

“Very well,” said our representative. “I am making you an official request on behalf of the Albanian government.”

“I shall ask Moscow,” said Andropov, and when the request was refused our ambassador declared:

“All right, only I am letting you know that we shall defend ourselves with the pistol and shotguns we have. ”

The Soviet ambassador had shut himself up in the embassy and did not dare to stick his head out. A responsible functionary of the Foreign Ministry of Hungary, who was being chased by the bandits, sought refuge in our embassy and we admitted him. He told our comrades that he had gone to the Soviet embassy but they had turned him away.(Enver Hoxha, The Khrushchevites, pp. 280-1)

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Lazar Kaganovich
Andrey Vyshinsky
Georgy Malenkov
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Mikhail Suslov
Andrey Zhdanov
Maxim Litvinov

[Rjevan]

I suggest Maxim Litvinov.

[Lenin II]

The HELL? I leave for one day and the so-called "anti-revisionists" killed Stalin's chief protege before Andropov and Suslov? Jesus.

Suslov.

[Brother No. 1]

Lazar Kaganovich

[Ismail]

Litvinov, Suslov, and Kaganovich are dead. Litvinov was against sending arms to the Spanish Republic during the civil war, so... yeah.

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Andrey Vyshinsky
Georgy Malenkov
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Andrey Zhdanov

[Dimentio]

Andrey Vyshinsky. Just because he was about to arrest Lenin ^^

[LOLseph Stalin]

Vyshinsky as well. No arresting comrade Lenin!

[Lenin II]

I like every one left.

But since I have to choose....Andrey Vyshinsky

[Woland]

Malenkov.

[Brother No. 1]

Vyshinsky

[Rjevan]

Also Malenkov.

[Ismail]

Vyshinsky knocked upside the head.

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Georgy Malenkov
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Andrey Zhdanov

[mykittyhasaboner]

Voroshilov

[Bright Banana Beard]

Andrey Zhdanov

[Dimentio]

Sergo Ordzhonikidze

[Pavlov's House Party]

Kalinin, obviously.

[Lenin II]

All these people are good but....fine, Andrey Zhdanov.

[Brother No. 1]

of the ones there....Andrey Zhdanov should go.

[Ismail]

Zhdanov is... dead. Voznesensky, a revisionist economist, was his protégé, so yeah.

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Georgy Malenkov
Sergo Ordzhonikidze

[LOLseph Stalin]

Kalinin. Trotsky's twin is still here. ;)

[Woland]

What a joke this poll is...the only real communists (Zhdanov, Beria, Kirov) are dead and while we are left with hacks like Kalinin, Voroshilov and Malenkov.

Anyway, I vote Malenkov.

[Dimentio]

Georgy Malenkov

[Ismail]

Malenkov's gone. The end is near...

Mikhail Kalinin
Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov
Sergo Ordzhonikidze

[LOLseph Stalin]

Kalinin. :p

[Lenin II]

Sergo Ordzhonikidz.

[Bandito]

Kalinin.

[Bright Banana Beard]

Ordzhonikidz

[Ismail]

Kalinin and and Ordzhonikidze are... gone!

I recall in Ian Grey's Stalin: Man of History that Ordzhonikidze was scared that the NKVD were searching his house, so he phoned Stalin and Stalin was like "Oh, well, they can search my house too, no big deal." Ordzhonikidze was sickly and eventually got so scared he thought he was going to be killed, so he shot himself. Fin.

And so we are left with two people:

Andrey Andreyev
Klement Voroshilov

[Dimentio]

Andrey Andreyev

Just for the lulz

[Bright Banana Beard]

Klement Voroshilov

[Lenin II]

Klement Voroshilov.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Voroshilov

[Ismail]

And so it is done, Voroshilov is dead and Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev wins for being notable for nothing.

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/AndreyAndreyevichAndreyev.jpg

Andreyev: RevLeft's Favorite Stalinist

[Bright Banana Beard]

hahaha, we should try the Trotskyist henchmen

[Panda Tse Tung]

I still dont get why Kalinin, Molotov and some others are out, but meeh.

[The Author]

How the hell did Kirov end up being dead? I don't recall him doing anything that merits criticism, so that result was a bit odd.

If I had still voted, I would have picked Malenkov. Because he was a mediocre leader.

As for the other picks, I can't really say. Sometimes the things said about these people might be true, other times it sounds like bullshit. Take Beria. I don't know a lot about him except for his role as NKVD leader. People say he was a rapist. But then they also say Stalin was a womanizer, or that Mao was a pedophile, and Lenin had syphilis. So I have great doubt and I think this is a lie. Just another in the endless list of them regarding the history of communism. People say Beria poisoned Stalin. I always was under the impression that Khrushchev was responsible for Stalin's death. What happened in 1953, what happened at the Nineteenth Party Congress, the politics in the months leading up to and right after Stalin's death are partly a mystery to me. People say Beria was bad. Guess what? They also said Stalin's son Vassily Dzhugashvili was an alcoholic, but he was actually a clever man- a trait he inherited from his father. Too smart for Khrushchev's own good, which is why the revisionists did their utmost to ruin Vasily's life and his career. The alcoholism sounds like a myth to me. It's these kinds of things that make me wonder how much you guys are thinking between the lines, or merely echoing what was written by some jackass like Simon Sebag Montefiore.

[Anaximander]

Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev.

[dez]

Edit: meh, thought the thread ended on page 3 or 4 or something