A question for Marxist-Leninists...

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

And in particular, those who support Stalin's leadership of the USSR:

Stalin eliminated a vast number of people during the period 1929-53. The liquidation of people peaked during 1937-38, during what supporters would call a period of 'mistakes' and 'excesses', and what his detractors would call the 'yezhovchina', 'great terror' and so on. The period 1937-38 was one where party members in particular were vulnerable to denunciation. Realistically, we can estimate that anywhere between 100,000 (a very conservative estimate) to 2million (near enough the Conquest estimate) perished during the 'great terror'. For a more accurate figure, we might refer to Michael Ellman, who said that at most, including deaths relating to treatment in the Gulag, 1.2million died during this period.

But this question is not really about the numbers. Whether the true figure be 100,000 or 5 million, I do not wish to speculate. The point is that a spectacularly large number of party members died in the mid/late 1930s. Indeed, of the 1936 'Congress of Victors', 98 of the 139 who were elected/re-elected to the Central Committee died in the coming years. Stalin's supporters would say that these people were disloyal to Socialism and to Russia, were counter-revolutionaries, bourgeois lackeys and so on. His detractors, meanwhile, would say that this was internal politicking at its worst; that Stalin eliminated these people because they represented a possible threat to his leadership.

My question is: To those Marxist-Leninists here who support Stalin, if in the event a Socialist society/commonwealth is established, and you were the dominant tendency in power, would you follow Stalin's line and execute/sentence to hard labour/sentence to prison those of us who are not supporters of the methods of Stalin, or indeed those of us who are Marxist Socialists, revolutionaries but not Leninists?

I made such a long winded post because this is in learning and I don't want to encourage those with less knowledge of the events of the period to respond with 'Stalin was awesome' 'Stalin was soooooooooo evil' sort of replies.

[Spawn of Stalin]

I'd support doing whatever is necessary to protect the revolutionary state. If that means sending counter-revolutionaries off to labour camps or even to the gallows, then so be it, I can't say I like the idea much, but whatever it takes. I don't think that putting everyone who doesn't worship the regime to death would be a good way of dealing with things, it would just turn more people against socialism, but groups of Trotskyists caught meeting up in abandoned buildings after dark are certainly going to have some explaining to do, and yes I would support taking necessary action against them, they can plot their coup d'état from a labour camp. To be honest I think that a lot of anti-Stalinist lefties will change their minds about Marxism-Leninism when they see it working in their home countries, and of course these people won't need to be executed, but there will always be a few who just want to overthrow the state for some silly reason.

Short answer: If it is necessary.

[Kayser_Soso]

And in particular, those who support Stalin's leadership of the USSR:

Stalin eliminated a vast number of people during the period 1929-53.

Almost sounds like he did it personally.



The liquidation of people peaked during 1937-38, during what supporters would call a period of 'mistakes' and 'excesses', and what his detractors would call the 'yezhovchina', 'great terror' and so on.

These excesses were more the fault of Yezhov, his predecessor Yagoda, and the contacts they had within the NKVD. I suggest you look up J. Arch Getty's Origins of the Great Purges, where based on archival evidence he shows how the great purges were due not to some plan of Stalin, but a hasty, ad hoc reaction to corruption and contradictions at local levels.



The period 1937-38 was one where party members in particular were vulnerable to denunciation. Realistically, we can estimate that anywhere between 100,000 (a very conservative estimate) to 2million (near enough the Conquest estimate) perished during the 'great terror'. For a more accurate figure, we might refer to Michael Ellman, who said that at most, including deaths relating to treatment in the Gulag, 1.2million died during this period.

Conquest estimates can be discarded pretty readily now.



But this question is not really about the numbers. Whether the true figure be 100,000 or 5 million, I do not wish to speculate. The point is that a spectacularly large number of party members died in the mid/late 1930s. Indeed, of the 1936 'Congress of Victors', 98 of the 139 who were elected/re-elected to the Central Committee died in the coming years. Stalin's supporters would say that these people were disloyal to Socialism and to Russia, were counter-revolutionaries, bourgeois lackeys and so on. His detractors, meanwhile, would say that this was internal politicking at its worst; that Stalin eliminated these people because they represented a possible threat to his leadership.

Again, see Getty's work on this subject. Many people were denounced simply because their neighbors or somebody wanted their job. Can one fault Stalin for that? In fact there is a rather remarkable story of an official named Ponomarenko who was sent to Belarus with a full mandate from Stalin, given his mission personally by Stalin who ordered him: "Stop the repression." What he did was visit the courthouses and the jails, with full access to case files. He reviewed cases and found many ridiculous charges, freeing many people.



My question is: To those Marxist-Leninists here who support Stalin, if in the event a Socialist society/commonwealth is established, and you were the dominant tendency in power, would you follow Stalin's line and execute/sentence to hard labour/sentence to prison those of us who are not supporters of the methods of Stalin, or indeed those of us who are Marxist Socialists, revolutionaries but not Leninists?

The "methods of Stalin" existed in a particular place, under particular conditions. To repeat them would be stupid and in these days, in some countries, those who wish to rebuild the USSR as it was are in fact endorsing a regressive ideal. The answer is simply, Marxist-Leninists must be willing to do what is necessary in the course of class struggle, including the internal class struggle. Our tactics are often determined by our opponents, not ourselves.

Terror was not unprecedented at the time of the "Great Terror", ruthless tactics were used and encouraged by both Lenin and Trotsky as well. A lot of this was produced by the conditions of the Civil War and the brutality of the Whites. Thanks to the experience of the USSR, we have learned a lot about how a socialist society might be undermined, and we can do our best to avoid situations that lead to excesses. But we must also remember that we have the benefit of hindsight, and we never know what the capitalists will pull out of their hat.

[Muzk]

Short answer: If it is necessary.


And this is why people don't like us:thumbdown:

[FSL]

And this is why people don't like us:thumbdown:



Drop class struggle and start preaching the gospel or Lennon, no one's stopping you.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

With regards to your first four points Kayser, I am well aware of what happened. I am not saying that this happened under the direct command of Stalin. Having said that, I cannot accept that he was ignorant of what was going on and thus, it happened on his watch, and indeed on the likes of Yezhov, Yagoda and others, whether they were directly complicit or not.

Of course, in terms of your last point, I have no doubt that Trotsky would have employed similar tactics. Which leads me to a point which I feel enabled to make as neither a Stalinist or a Trotskyist. To me, and I think many non Marxist-Leninists, it seems that the struggle between Stalin and Trotsky was to a large extent the result of power struggle and politicking. Clearly there were programmatic differences between the two - in terms of the Socialism in One Country theory especially - and character differences too - Trotsky the Red Army commander vs Comrade 'Card-Index'. However, despite great debate in the 1920s, Lenin was able to unite the likes of the aforementioned, and was able to accomodate the radically different economic theories of the likes of Bukharin, Preobrazhensky under a fairly united force. It seems to me that there is little reason, aside from petty personal politcal self-interest, why such figures could not continue under the banner of Leninism, without resorting to pretty derogatory political tactics.

Also, Motionless, why shouldn't people be allowed to 'meet up after dark'? Trotsky and his clan were Leninists too, despite what you would like to think. You don't take part in a revolution to overthrow the entire Capitalist entity in a country and then fight a war against the counter-revolutionary whites unless you are a Leninist. It seems that you are of the mindset that any policy different to Stalin's was somehow counter-revolutionary, simply because Stalin and his supporters were in the main, in control of the Communist Party. It is crazyness, absolute crazyness, and if you stepped back and considered the realities of the situation you would realise this.

[Muzk]

Drop class struggle and start preaching the gospel or Lennon, no one's stopping you.


You fail, killing your own people is not neccessary(and killing is only needed for the bourgeoise to keep their system running) to keep communism up if there was communism in the first place, but Stalin had a beaurocratic state of which you know, and probably deny it. And deny all the other crimes he has done. Or excuse it with the shit "it was neccessary", you know what Stormfront says about killing the jews? Yeah, you get it.


Revolutions always start in the head, not with a bullet to the head.
:thumbdown:

[Rjevan]

My question is: To those Marxist-Leninists here who support Stalin, if in the event a Socialist society/commonwealth is established, and you were the dominant tendency in power, would you follow Stalin's line and execute/sentence to hard labour/sentence to prison those of us who are not supporters of the methods of Stalin, or indeed those of us who are Marxist Socialists, revolutionaries but not Leninists?
As Kayser Soso already said, it is not about "the methods of Stalin" nor about killing everybody who dares to have an own opinion and doesn't blindly "worship" the leaders and the line of the CP, a ridiculous idea which only shows how little people who argue this way have understood.

It is about ensuring that the party upholdes the principles of Marxism-Leninism, doesn't turn revisionist and isn't undercut by opportunists and reactionaries. If the party fails to be a communist party, socialism (not to speak of communism) can never be achieved, one has to keep that in mind and so I agree saying: to maintain the interests of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the proletariat and to ensure that socialism is developed and the revolution has not been in vain we as Marxist-Leninists have to do whatever is necessary, no matter how unpleasant it may be.

Some quotes which underline this point from "Left-Wing Communism: An Infertile Disorder":

The strictest centralisation and discipline are required within the political party of the proletariat in order to counteract this, in order that the organisational role of the proletariat (and that is its principal role) may be exercised correctly, successfully and victoriously. The dictatorship of the proletariat means a persistent struggle—bloody and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative -- against the forces and traditions of the old society.

Whoever brings about even the slightest weakening of the iron discipline of the party of the proletariat (especially during its dictatorship), is actually aiding the bourgeoisie against the proletariat.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch05.htm


We are apprehensive of an excessive growth of the Party, because careerists and charlatans, who deserve only to be shot, inevitably do all they can to insinuate themselves into the ranks of the ruling party.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch06.htm

So does that mean that every criticism on the CP is strictly forbidden, dogmatism must be worshipped and mentioning mistakes in the party line is equally to asking to be sent to gulag? Of course not:

A political party’s attitude towards its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it fulfils in practice its obligations towards its class and the working people. Frankly acknowledging a mistake, ascertaining the reasons for it, analysing the conditions that have led up to it, and thrashing out the means of its rectification -- that is the hallmark of a serious party
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm


Clearly there were programmatic differences between the two... why such figures could not continue under the banner of Leninism, without resorting to pretty derogatory political tactics.
There were massive programmatic differences between Trotsky and Stalin and Stalin outlines in his works (I am aware that Trotsky does the same with "Stalinism" but for some strange reason Stalin's arguments make much more sense and are much more convincing than those of Comrade Leon, at least for me) that Trotskyism is incompatible with the theories of Marx, Engels and Lenin. So no, they could not continue under the banner of Leninism from a "Stalinist" view.

[Kayser_Soso]

People should also note the difference between strict discipline within the party and the rest of the population at large. The party needs strict discipline(look what happened when it got out of hand), but this doesn't need to extend to the whole of society as in some kind of fascist state.

[Kayser_Soso]

You fail, killing your own people is not neccessary(and killing is only needed for the bourgeoise to keep their system running) to keep communism up if there was communism in the first place, but Stalin had a beaurocratic state of which you know, and probably deny it. And deny all the other crimes he has done. Or excuse it with the shit "it was neccessary", you know what Stormfront says about killing the jews? Yeah, you get it.


Revolutions always start in the head, not with a bullet to the head.
:thumbdown:


"Killing your own people" is a little vague. What happens when some of your people are duped by internal or external enemies, and decide to sabotage your system or commit acts of terrorism.

The Jewish analogy also fails because while yes, there were people in the USSR who were falsely denounced(as many people were falsely denounced as Communists and killed/jailed/tortured in many capitalist countries), but in the USSR to earn the highest punishment you at least had to be directly accused of terrorism or some treasonous act. Sure the Nazis accused Jews of crimes against their nation, but they were entirely false, and the Nazis were even interested in wiping out children who couldn't possibly have anything to do with crimes against Germany.

Nazis claimed that Jews were disloyal in WWI- this was false, Jews served in the German army disproportionately, many were decorated veterans, and the Nazis deliberately lied about this.

Nazis claimed that Jews were responsible for Communism- this is also false.

Nazis claimed that Jews, all Jews, were engaged in a conspiracy against Germany and were killing the German nation- false.


Only in the mass deportations of 1943-44 could one find examples of Soviet collective punishment, and even then it is not comparable, and should be considered in the extreme situation the country was in at that time. By stark contrast, Germany created its own problems.