Was Stalin a Leninist?

[Hoggy_RS]

Answering this as part of an essay for college. Just looking to see what people think are the reasons that would qualify stalin to be known/not known as a leninist. Id like to hear viewpoints from both ML's and trots and whoever else has an opinion.

Cheers guys

[ZeroNowhere]

What do you mean by 'Leninist'?

[Klashnekov]

Yes Stalin always upheld the thoeries of Lenin, exactly how he claimed.

Stalin was not an idealogical theorist. He was an engineer. The theories Stalin put forward by Stalin were "Socialism in One Country, "Marxism and the National Question" and "aggravation of the class struggle". - Which were all supported by Lenin - Not to mention these theories aren't idealogical theories.

[Hit The North]

Stalin and his ideologues created the notion of "Leninism" as a set of iconic, dogmatic, unquestionable doctrines. In that sense he was a Leninist.

The fact that his icon-ization and elevation to the status of infallible saint would have revolted Lenin, paradoxically means Stalin was an anti-Leninist.

[which doctor]

He claimed to represent the legacy of Marx-Engels-Lenin, but at best he was an opportunist.

[Kléber]

Yes Stalin always upheld the thoeries of Lenin, exactly how he claimed.
Proletarian internationalism and democratic centralism were definitely not upheld. Party democracy, which had been severely limited by the constraints of the Civil War, was effectively abandoned altogether after the war as free discussion within the Party was not permitted and Communists criticizing the central line were ruthlessly suppressed, most of the 17th Congress ("of the Condemned") was purged. Also, the Soviet state enacted some chauvinist policies towards national minorities during the 1930's, and began to manipulate the Comintern (and eventually destroy it in 1943) in the interests of state foreign policy, not the international revolution. Thus it seems that the two principles Lenin fought so ardently for, were retreated from in a major way during the Stalin years.

[Ismail]

You could always get Another View of Stalin (http://www.plp.org/books/) via Google search if you want the M-L view.


Also, the Soviet state enacted some chauvinist policies towards national minorities during the 1930's,Like what? Terry Martin in Affirmative Action Empire actually points to Stalin's anti-chauvinist views in the 1930's. Russians in the Ukraine for example were forced to subscribe to Pravda Ukrainy, and as in the 20's native languages and cultures continued to be promoted to the detriment of Russian (and this process continued until the 1960's).

Throughout the 1930's the anti-Russian nationalism line was toned down due to Russian pressure, but I don't see any examples of chauvinism by Stalin in this period. There was also the Cyrillicization of the Central Asian alphabets, but it was a debate between whether or not Latin or Cyrillic should be used, since Arabic was seen as bad due to its Islamic origins (and in any case a changed alphabet does not equal chauvinism) and the fear that retaining it would aid anti-Bolshevik Pan-Islamist movements.

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

Proletarian internationalism and democratic centralism were definitely not upheld. Party democracy, which had been severely limited by the constraints of the Civil War, was effectively abandoned altogether after the war as free discussion within the Party was not permitted and Communists criticizing the central line were ruthlessly suppressed, most of the 17th Congress ("of the Condemned") was purged. Also, the Soviet state enacted some chauvinist policies towards national minorities during the 1930's, and began to manipulate the Comintern (and eventually destroy it in 1943) in the interests of state foreign policy, not the international revolution. Thus it seems that the two principles Lenin fought so ardently for, were retreated from in a major way during the Stalin years.

With the exception of the section Ismail quoted, I'd say this is basically correct. There's a lot of context missing in this description though.

I don't think it's a black and white issue here, where Leninism can be proscribed as a very rigid set of ideas that you either agree with or not. When I apply "-isms", I prefer to do it on the basis of methodology, not ideology. A Leninist, in my opinion, is somebody that uses Lenin's method and approach to find solutions to our present situation and its corresponding contradictions, not somebody that dogmatically applies Lenin's 90+ year old conclusion to a remotely similar, contemporary event. I suppose it may be useful to consider this angle in your research.

That's the best answer I can give you.

[Ismail]

Reminds me of a Stalin quote from 1926.

Lenin’s greatness as the continuer of the work of Marx and Engels consists precisely in the fact that he was never a slave to the letter of Marxism... he never regarded Marxism as a dogma but endeavoured to apply Marxism, as a fundamental method, in the new circumstances of capitalist development. Lenin’s greatness consists precisely in the fact that he openly and honestly, without any hesitation, raised the question of the necessity for a new formula about the possibility of the victory of the proletarian revolution in individual countries, undeterred by the fact that the opportunists of all countries would cling to the old formula and try to use the names of Marx and Engels as a screen for their opportunist activity....


Lenin’s greatness consists precisely in the fact that he... was able to grasp the essence of Marxism and use it as a starting point for developing further the teachings of Marx and Engels.Also:

"Dissenting from a proposal that revolution was possible 'on condition of a proletarian revolution in the West,' he [Stalin] said [at the Sixth Party Congress of August 1917] that 'the possibility is not excluded that Russia will be the country that blazes the trail to socialism.... It is necessary to give up the outworn idea that Europe alone can show us the way. There is a dogmatic Marxism and a creative Marxism. I stand on the ground of the latter.'"
(Grey, Ian. Stalin: Man of History. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979., pp. 95-96.)

[Kléber]

... as in the 20's native languages and cultures continued to be promoted to the detriment of Russian (and this process continued until the 1960's).True, with one exception, Yiddish.


There was also the Cyrillicization of the Central Asian alphabets, but it was a debate between whether or not Latin or Cyrillic should be used
Indeed, in most cases the Cyrillic was better than nothing, but the Azerbaijanis were forced to abandon a popularly accepted Latin alphabet from 1938 until 1991.


Throughout the 1930's the anti-Russian nationalism line was toned down due to Russian pressure
AT the risk of sounding like an "ultra-centrist" I think that even the tiniest sliding on that point was hugely problematic; Lenin said that in this contradiction, the Party was in danger of drowning like a "fly in a bowl of milk" in the Great Russian chauvinism that surrounded it.


Arabic was seen as bad due to its Islamic origins (and in any case a changed alphabet does not equal chauvinism) and the fear that retaining it would aid anti-Bolshevik Pan-Islamist movements.
Regardless of Stalin's intentions, that perspective led to the forcible curtailing of the religious freedom of Soviet peoples. Whereas anti-veiling had often been considered ultraleft prior to 1927, in Veiled Empire, Douglas Northrop shows that the "hujum" campaign insofar as it attacked veiling actually strengthened Islam, encouraged Russophobic nationalism (which later manifested itself in the spontaneous reemergence of veiling in Central Asia in 1991), severely hurt female participation in politics and encouraged violence against cadres without palpable results. This was echoed by the brutal suppression of Buddhism in Mongolia in the late 1930's. Like the Mongol leadership the national Communist leaderships of the Soviet republics were ravaged by the purges. Anandyn Amar went to his death demanding to be tried by a Mongolian court.

[ComradeOm]

Like what?How about the 'national operations' of the NKVD in which entire ethnic communities were deliberately targeted? Hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens were arrested and relocated for the 'crime' of belonging to one of the many ethnic minorities deemed untrustworthy. The 1930s is rife with cases of open discrimination by the Stalinist state apparatus against Soviet citizens solely on the basis of their ethnic/national background

[A.R.Amistad]

Yes Stalin always upheld the thoeries of Lenin, exactly how he claimed.

Stalin was not an idealogical theorist. He was an engineer. The theories Stalin put forward by Stalin were "Socialism in One Country, "Marxism and the National Question" and "aggravation of the class struggle". - Which were all supported by Lenin - Not to mention these theories aren't idealogical theories.


Lies, all lies.

[Ismail]

How about the 'national operations' of the NKVD in which entire ethnic communities were deliberately targeted? Hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens were arrested and relocated for the 'crime' of belonging to one of the many ethnic minorities deemed untrustworthy. The 1930s is rife with cases of open discrimination by the Stalinist state apparatus against Soviet citizens solely on the basis of their ethnic/national backgroundYes but this doesn't exactly have chauvinist implications. Russians who worked on the Manchurian railroads were seen as suspect too and some were relocated into other areas of the USSR.

It was a flawed policy, but it didn't mean inequality considering that said people were allowed to build anew their communities in newly relocated areas.


Whereas anti-veiling had often been considered ultraleft prior to 1927,It was ultraleft, yes. Just like Hoxha's anti-religious campaign, both went too far, too soon, and both needlessly alienated people.


True, with one exception, Yiddish.There was always Birobidzhan.

[Kayser_Soso]

True, with one exception, Yiddish.

Wrong. Hebrew, not Yiddish. Yiddish was seen as the language of Jews in Russia.


T
Indeed, in most cases the Cyrillic was better than nothing, but the Azerbaijanis were forced to abandon a popularly accepted Latin alphabet from 1938 until 1991.

First off, most Central Asian peoples DID have an alphabet, the problem being that it was Perso-Arabic, and that doesn't work well outside of Semitic languages. What Stalin did was no different from what Mustafa Kemal did when he introduced the Latin alphabet.

I cannot comment on Azerbaijanian, though I study Tatar and I can say that a Latin alphabet would be no help for Tatars and similar Turkic peoples, because of their wide variance in terms of dialects. For example, if we take the Tatar word "for how" ничек, may be pronounced three different ways. There are also a lot of problems with the letter ğ, which some Tatars and other Turkic groups have tried to incorporate into their proposed Latin alphabets. Tatars do not agree on how to pronounce it. Some pronounce it as a regular 'G' and others 'gh'.

Of course the whole argument is idiotic because whether they brought Latin or Cyrillic is totally irrelevant- any traditionalist could argue that these people already had their own alphabets based on Arabic.



T
AT the risk of sounding like an "ultra-centrist" I think that even the tiniest sliding on that point was hugely problematic; Lenin said that in this contradiction, the Party was in danger of drowning like a "fly in a bowl of milk" in the Great Russian chauvinism that surrounded it.

There are true examples of problems which later snowballed into Great Russian chauvinism, but that is a really pathetic one.


T
Regardless of Stalin's intentions, that perspective led to the forcible curtailing of the religious freedom of Soviet peoples. Whereas anti-veiling had often been considered ultraleft prior to 1927, in Veiled Empire, Douglas Northrop shows that the "hujum" campaign insofar as it attacked veiling actually strengthened Islam, encouraged Russophobic nationalism (which later manifested itself in the spontaneous reemergence of veiling in Central Asia in 1991), severely hurt female participation in politics and encouraged violence against cadres without palpable results.


Ah yes, sometimes Stalin is too far to the right, sometimes too far to the left. Either way, Trotsky is always right. I also think that most academics would take issue with Northdrop's claims. More importantly, the suppression of religion had FAR less to do with the unveiling campaign as it did something called the Basmachi rebellion. Please don't tell me you had never heard of that.


T
This was echoed by the brutal suppression of Buddhism in Mongolia in the late 1930's. Like the Mongol leadership the national Communist leaderships of the Soviet republics were ravaged by the purges. Anandyn Amar went to his death demanding to be tried by a Mongolian court.

Did you know about the support the lamas had given to the bloodthirsty Baron von Ungern-Sternberg? He invaded Mongolia to reinstall a lama to the throne(which he successfully did for a short time). He was a Buddhist himself, so I guess we have to give that murderous thug a free pass.

Incredible, when necessary, Trots will even take the side of religious fanatics.

[ComradeOm]

Yes but this doesn't exactly have chauvinist implicationsNo, the deliberate targeting of ethnic communities on the basis of their perceived treachery is pretty chauvinist. These programmes were distinct from the host of other measures directed at the general Soviet population

[Kayser_Soso]

No, the deliberate targeting of ethnic communities on the basis of their perceived treachery is pretty chauvinist. These programmes were distinct from the host of other measures directed at the general Soviet population

It's chauvinist if it's one group oppressing the others. As Ismail pointed out, Russians could be targeted as well. Unfortunately the Soviets saw themselves as locked in a struggle for survival, and they believed that some people had to sacrifice for the good of all.

[Kléber]

Wrong. Hebrew, not Yiddish. Yiddish was seen as the language of Jews in Russia.
Until the Jews began being slandered as "rootless cosmopolitans" after WWII, although their language and culture had already taken a serious hit during the purges in Birobidzhan.


There are true examples of problems which later snowballed into Great Russian chauvinism, but that is a really pathetic one.
What Lenin said may sound pathetic to you, but it came true, the USSR became an imperialist state.


Ah yes, sometimes Stalin is too far to the right, sometimes too far to the left. Either way, Trotsky is always right.
The Soviet leadership was actually given to some crazy vacillations in that period. There was a left period in the late 1920's, when Stalin was trying to win away Trotsky's Left Opposition supporters and rally them against the Rightists, but after all organized opposition had been dealt with, things went in a generally conservative direction.

And who said "Trotsky is always right?" Nobody said that. He made many mistakes. If you didn't take this bullying, glad-we-killed-him attitude towards all of his criticisms of Soviet and Comintern policy, then maybe people wouldn't defend him so ardently.


More importantly, the suppression of religion had FAR less to do with the unveiling campaign as it did something called the Basmachi rebellion. Please don't tell me you had never heard of that.
Lenin didn't see abrogation of their national independence or forced migrations as a good way to combat counter-revolutionary influence, and I'm with him on this one. Besides, the Basmachis were finished by 1934 at the latest but the hujum continued and its eventual success was illusory, veiling has reemerged since restoration.


As Ismail pointed out, Russians could be targeted as well.
The purge of "KVZhDists" was itself excessive and did not justify the ethnic purges, forced migrations and veil ban.


Unfortunately the Soviets saw themselves as locked in a struggle for survival, and they believed that some people had to sacrifice for the good of all.
Like I said, the RSFSR was in a pretty intense struggle in 1918 with no shortage of ethnic uprisings, foreign invasions, Basmachis, you name it, but the civil war was won without forcibly migrating any peoples, curtailing the religious freedom of Muslims and Buddhists, or rehabilitating the Orthodox Church.

[FSL]

The nationalist myth here has it that Greeks were ruthlessly hunted down, partly because they were orthodox.

[ComradeOm]

It's chauvinist if it's one group oppressing the others. As Ismail pointed out, Russians could be targeted as wellNot as part of the national operations. Or are you suggesting that a Russian national in Moscow could be arrested simply because of his ethnicy?

Countless Russians were arrested, exiled, relocated, and executed for no fault of their own (such as being considered a "socially dangerous/harmful element" or a threat to state security) but this is very different from the assault on minorities that took place during the national operations. In the latter entire ethnic communities (not individuals within these) were judged to be threats solely due to their nationalities. Applying guilt/suspicion to an entire ethnic group is indefensible for any proclaimed Marxists


The nationalist myth here has it that Greeks were ruthlessly hunted down, partly because they were orthodox.Whereas the reality is that Greeks were "hunted down" because there was a substantial Greek population living beyond Soviet borders. Ergo all Greeks within the USSR were considered suspect and thus liable to be arrested. The same applies to Latvians, Bulgarians, Turks, Armenians, Estonians, Koreans, etc, etc

[Kayser_Soso]

Until the Jews began being slandered as "rootless cosmopolitans" after WWII, although their language and culture had already taken a serious hit during the purges in Birobidzhan.

Bzzzttt!!! Wrong. Rootless cosmopolitanism did not refer to Jews- several of the biggest targets of this campaign were not Jewish, and several of its largest supporters were.



What Lenin said may sound pathetic to you, but it came true, the USSR became an imperialist state.


What you posted was a pathetic argument. As for the USSR becoming an imperialist state, we are not in disagreement in general here. But then again Trotsky's "permanent revolution" could also have led to imperialism.





Lenin didn't see abrogation of their national independence or forced migrations as a good way to combat counter-revolutionary influence, and I'm with him on this one. Besides, the Basmachis were finished by 1934 at the latest but the hujum continued and its eventual success was illusory, veiling has reemerged since restoration.

This stands logic on its head. You claimed that unveiling in 1934 caused religious uprising- it didn't. Also- of course veiling has come back- for 70 years there has been pro-Islamic propaganda aimed at Central Asian peoples- naturally with socialism considered "discredited", and these nations being open to foreign influence, veiling has come back, however not nearly as it was in 1917. There are entire ethnic groups with Islamic history that rarely veil at all, such as Volga Tatars.





Like I said, the RSFSR was in a pretty intense struggle in 1918 with no shortage of ethnic uprisings, foreign invasions, Basmachis, you name it, but the civil war was won without forcibly migrating any peoples, curtailing the religious freedom of Muslims and Buddhists, or rehabilitating the Orthodox Church.

You wouldn't call the war against the Basmachi "suppression of religion"? Do you think the Civil War was a picnic?

[Kayser_Soso]

Not as part of the national operations. Or are you suggesting that a Russian national in Moscow could be arrested simply because of his ethnicy?

Countless Russians were arrested, exiled, relocated, and executed for no fault of their own (such as being considered a "socially dangerous/harmful element" or a threat to state security) but this is very different from the assault on minorities that took place during the national operations. In the latter entire ethnic communities (not individuals within these) were judged to be threats solely due to their nationalities. Applying guilt/suspicion to an entire ethnic group is indefensible for any proclaimed Marxists

Whereas the reality is that Greeks were "hunted down" because there was a substantial Greek population living beyond Soviet borders. Ergo all Greeks within the USSR were considered suspect and thus liable to be arrested. The same applies to Latvians, Bulgarians, Turks, Armenians, Estonians, Koreans, etc, etc

It is true that these policies were heavy handed- but can you not figure out the problem with removing Muscovite Russians from Moscow, which by the way, is not in a border region by any stretch?

[SPEWtrotskyite]

Lenin fundamentally upheld trotsky's permanent revolution theory. lenins quotes that seemed to refute this that were churned out to every USSR citizen by Stalin were taken out of context and dated before Lenin had even read Trotskys work. Lenin and Trotsky pushed thorugh the very same piece of legeslature with regard to the peasentry despite Stalins wild claims that trotsky ignored such issues.

[FSL]

Whereas the reality is that Greeks were "hunted down" because there was a substantial Greek population living beyond Soviet borders. Ergo all Greeks within the USSR were considered suspect and thus liable to be arrested. The same applies to Latvians, Bulgarians, Turks, Armenians, Estonians, Koreans, etc, etc


It's a good thing greek nationalists have finally found support in their claims. This will make them very happy.

[Kayser_Soso]

Lenin fundamentally upheld trotsky's permanent revolution theory. lenins quotes that seemed to refute this that were churned out to every USSR citizen by Stalin were taken out of context and dated before Lenin had even read Trotskys work. Lenin and Trotsky pushed thorugh the very same piece of legeslature with regard to the peasentry despite Stalins wild claims that trotsky ignored such issues.

In fantasy land, perhaps. Lenin clearly did not support Trotsky's permanent revolution theory.

[Misanthrope]

Stalin was a very confused man when it came to communist theory.

[ComradeOm]

It is true that these policies were heavy handed- but can you not figure out the problem with removing Muscovite Russians from Moscow, which by the way, is not in a border region by any stretch?And you cannot see the problem with Greeks being arrested in Moscow because they were Greek?


It's a good thing greek nationalists have finally found support in their claims. This will make them very happy. I'm sure they're partying in Athens right now

But then I'm happy to see that the typical Stalinist defence - ie, immediately disparage the accuser/claims/source and refuse to actually engage in debate - continues to hold true. Well done on keeping these old traditions alive

[FSL]

And you cannot see the problem with Greeks being arrested in Moscow because they were Greek?


There is no need for a debate. No one was arrested simply because they were Greek. I'm in a better position to know this then you.

[ComradeOm]

There is no need for a debate. No one was arrested simply because they were Greek. I'm in a better position to know this then you.Let me guess, you were a Greek national in Moscow (or any Soviet urban centre) during the 1930s? Or is there is no mention of such practices in Stalin's Collected Works?

I know from past experience that you have no time for anything other than approved Marxist-Leninist works but I feel compelled to at least try. To quote from an old post (I unfortunately don't have the work in question to hand): According to Baberowski and Doering-Manteuffel (The Quest for Order and the Pursuit of Terror) "Latvians, Estonians, Koreans, Finns, Kurds, Greeks, Armenians, Turks, and Bulgarians... living outside their 'homeland' were considered a danger to the Socialist order". The whole paper is recommended

[scarletghoul]

Stalin was certainly a Leninist. Stalinism is applied Leninism.

Even if you don't like Stalin, I don't see how you can say he was anything but a hardcore Leninist. Some anti-Stalin people here are insisting that he was not a Leninist just because they like Lenin and not Stalin, rather than actually looking at Lenin's ideas and comparing them to Stalin's practice.

[FSL]

Let me guess, you were a Greek national in Moscow (or any Soviet urban centre) during the 1930s? Or is there is no mention of such practices in Stalin's Collected Works?

I know from past experience that you have no time for anything other than approved Marxist-Leninist works but I feel compelled to at least try. To quote from an old post (I unfortunately don't have the work in question to hand): According to Baberowski and Doering-Manteuffel (The Quest for Order and the Pursuit of Terror) "Latvians, Estonians, Koreans, Finns, Kurds, Greeks, Armenians, Turks, and Bulgarians... living outside their 'homeland' were considered a danger to the Socialist order". The whole paper is recommended


No, but I know through my party of cases of Greeks in the Soviet Union who weren't discriminated upon on the basis of their nationality.

[Uppercut]

I'm going to stay out of this argument all together.

http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html
http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr2.html

You might want to check out these two articles before you determine if Stalin was a Marxist-Leninist or not, and whether every injustice that occured is entirely his fault. He wasn't hesitant to criticize the NKVD for their harshness and many Kulaks and former inmates were released to give them a last chance at assimilating with the proletariat.

[Ismail]

In fantasy land, perhaps. Lenin clearly did not support Trotsky's permanent revolution theory."At the end of 1903, Trotsky was an ardent Menshevik, i. e., he deserted from the Iskrists to the Economists. He said that 'between the old Iskra and the new lies a gulf.' In 1904-05, he deserted the Mensheviks and occupied a vacillating position, now co-operating with Martynov (the Economist), now proclaiming his absurdly Left 'permanent revolution' theory."
(Vladimir Lenin. "Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/may/x01.htm)," 1914.)

"If you are unable to adapt yourself, if you are not inclined to crawl on your belly in the mud, you are not a revolutionary but a chatterbox; and I propose this, not because I like it, but because we have no other road, because history has not been kind enough to bring the revolution to maturity everywhere simultaneously." (Lenin, Political Report of the CC to the Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the RCP(B) (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/7thcong/01.htm), 1918).

(The latter is Lenin responding to Trotsky's "we can only be saved, in the true meaning of the word, by a European Revolution" in-re Brest-Litovsk)

"As a matter of fact, the political power of the Soviet over all large-scale means of production, the power in the state in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured leadership of the peasantry by the proletariat, etc, … is not this all that is necessary in order... to build a complete socialist society? This is not yet the building of socialist society but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for this building." (Lenin, "On Cooperation (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm)," 1923.)

"…when we are told that the victory of socialism is possible only on a world scale, we regard this merely as an attempt, a particularly hopeless attempt, on the part of the bourgeoisie and its voluntary and involuntary supporters to distort the irrefutable truth. The 'final' victory of socialism in a single country is of course impossible". (Lenin, Speech to the Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets (http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/TCS18.html), 1918.)

Etc.

All the quotations of Lenin apparently backing "Permanent Revolution" I've seen were made during 1918-1919 or so and are generally along the lines of "Oh god, we're going to lose this civil war if the European proletariat doesn't rise up!" Then the Bolsheviks won the civil war.

The other stuff quoted by Trots is that Lenin called for world revolution, but that's ridiculous "proof" considering that so did every communist ever, including Stalin (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm) as late as 1938:

Can the victorious Socialism of one country, which is encircled by many strong capitalist countries, regard itself as being fully guaranteed against the danger of military invasion, and hence, against attempts to restore capitalism in our country?

Can our working class and our peasantry, by their own efforts, without the serious assistance of the working class in capitalist countries, overcome the bourgeoisie of other countries in the same way as we overcame our own bourgeoisie? In other words :

Can we regard the victory of Socialism in our country as final, i.e., as being free from the dangers of military attack and of attempts to restore capitalism, assuming that Socialism is victorious only in one country and that the capitalist encirclement continues to exist?

Such are the problems that are connected with the second side of the question of the victory of Socialism in our country.

Leninism answers these problems in the negative.

Leninism teaches that "the final victory of Socialism, in the sense of full guarantee against the restoration of bourgeois relations, is possible only on an international scale" (c.f. resolution of the Fourteenth Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union).

This means that the serious assistance of the international proletariat is a force without which the problem of the final victory of Socialism in one country cannot be solved.

This, of course, does not mean that we must sit with folded arms and wait for assistance from outside.

On the contrary, this assistance of the international proletariat must be combined with our work to strengthen the defence of our country, to strengthen the Red Army and the Red Navy, to mobilise the whole country for the purpose of resisting military attack and attempts to restore bourgeois relations.

This is what Lenin says on this score :

"We are living not merely in a State but in a system of States, and it is inconceivable that the Soviet Republic should continue to coexist for a long period side by side with imperialist States. Ultimately one or other must conquer. Meanwhile, a number of terrible clashes between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois States is inevitable. This means that if the proletariat, as the ruling class, wants to and will rule, it must prove this also by military organization." (Collected Works, Vol. 24. P. 122.)

[Kléber]

Bzzzttt!!! Wrong. Rootless cosmopolitanism did not refer to Jews- several of the biggest targets of this campaign were not Jewish, and several of its largest supporters were.
The term was nevertheless used mainly to refer to Jewish intellectuals and those supposed to be influenced by them. The "rootless cosmopolitan" stuff was odious Jew-baiting, plucked out of 19th-Century anti-Semitic discourse, and not surprisingly, was eagerly reprinted by Russian neo-Nazis during the collapse of the USSR. The "Night of the Murdered Poets" and the purge of the Jewish Antifascist Committee was clearly an attack on the Yiddish intelligentsia.. if, as Stalin said in 1952, "Every Jewish nationalist is a potential agent of the American intelligence," then cultural nationalists should have been exiled to Israel at worst.


But then again Trotsky's "permanent revolution" could also have led to imperialism.
Any concept can be distorted. Trotsky however, wasn't content to revise and distort the principles of Marxism in the interest of bureaucratic interests. Hence his assassination.


You claimed that unveiling in 1934 caused religious uprising- it didn't.
No I didn't (???)


Also- of course veiling has come back- for 70 years there has been pro-Islamic propaganda aimed at Central Asian peoples- naturally with socialism considered "discredited"
And the restoration of such practices and views of socialism might not have happened had Lenin's advice been followed.


You wouldn't call the war against the Basmachi "suppression of religion"? Do you think the Civil War was a picnic?
Actually, chauvinism and suppression of religion were not necessary for the Bolsheviks to win the Russian Civil War, even at its toughest moments. There was freedom of religion in the RSFSR, and conscientious objectors such as Baptists were even allowed to get out of the draft on religious grounds - which not surprisingly led to a growth in Baptist congregations that was nevertheless tolerated on principled grounds.

In Central Asia, pan-Islamism was combated politically, but not with brute force (except in the case of local ultra-left deviations). In Kazakhstan the Ush Zhuz were incorporated into the Party (albeit stripped of formal independence due to alleged Left-SR links). The Bolsheviks were willing to tolerate and even dialogue and work together with conservative sects like the Old Believers and Vaisites. Other Sufi orders, such as in Chechnya were also tolerated, although as I understand it that district was later gerrymandered and not ruled by actual Chechens from the 1930's until 1989. Also, at least as many Jadidists as the number who rallied to the Basmachi cause were instead welcomed into the Bolshevik ranks, only to be brutally purged in 1937-38. The murder of figures like Sultan-Galiev in 1940 (which has since been revealed to be based on false accusations and fake evidence) was a cop-out: because if "socialism" as it existed in the USSR was really so great for Central Asians then it would not have been necessary to kill their petty-bourgeois intellectuals en masse. After re-establishing direct control over Central Asia following the Civil War, Lenin's administration had also conducted some purges there, but those were purges of ethnic Russian Bolsheviks who had used the Party-state apparatus for the purposes of bolstering their domination of the non-Russian peoples. In 1922 thousands of Orthodox Christian Party members in Central Asian republics were expelled for "religious prejudice" but that stipulation was not applied to Muslim members (a problematic double standard but that was how Lenin approached the situation).


All the quotations of Lenin apparently backing "Permanent Revolution" I've seen were made during 1918-1919 or so and are generally along the lines of "Oh god, we're going to lose this civil war if the European proletariat doesn't rise up!" Then the Bolsheviks won the civil war.
You are right to correct "SPEWtrotskyite" that Lenin certainly didn't have the same position as Trotsky. However, neither did Stalin.

Whereas Lenin insisted that the victory of socialism was only possible on an international scale, Stalin swapped the Soviet army for the world working class as the force of liberation (there was even a poster and a slogan in the period that "Our army is the liberating army of the world proletariat"). Like a thief of high art, Stalin was careful to coat his revisions in the veneer of Marxist orthodoxy. His training in the school of Lenin is evident in that he noted that the "serious assistance" of the international proletariat would nevertheless be necessary, almost as a footnote, to keeping Soviet borders safe so that new social forms could be evolutionarily advanced to within. Unfortunately, the purges wiped out the flower of the revolutionary school that had produced him, and his successors handily forgot about that little bit about the assistance of the world working class. Since Stalin had made the security interests of the USSR equal to, and therefore paramount over, the world revolution itself, the work of revisionism had already been done for Khrushchev and co., and they thanked the doer by axing his memory so as to extricate themselves from collective guilt in the purges - just as Stalin had purged Yezhov to tie up his own loose ends. The jump from Stalin's line to outright Red imperialism under his successors merely stripped a state, which had already slid back into the methods of imperialism, of what pretenses remained to Marxist and Leninist orthodoxy. Hence the political struggle that opposed Khrushchev's rise to power was correspondingly weak. The strongest forces that could have genuinely opposed the social-imperialist line had previously been wiped out or cowed by the ferocity of the purges. The purge of the Left had removed the greatest bulwark against restoration.. unlike the French revolution, where that purge was conducted by the lower elements of the bourgeoisie around Robespierre, in Russia the most privileged labor-aristocratic elements of the working class gathered the political power of their caste around the Stalin clique.

If you think this characterization of Trotsky as the sole defender of the working class, as opposed to thousands of slithering Zinovievs under Stalin's boot, sounds humorous or ridiculous, I can only reply that, when the majority betrays socialism, "I think it is better to remain alone, like Liebknecht: one against 110."

The clearest evidence of a breach in foreign policy between the Lenin and Stalin administrations was the latter's treatment of the Comintern. Catering to the GMD caused the near-destruction of the CCP in 1927 and its conversion into a peasant army with a severe rural petty-bourgeois deformation; the Popular Front chained Communists to the treasonous liberals and social-democrats in Spain; the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - in spite of the faults of what it replaced - demoralized the global proletariat, particularly the French Communists; the defencist course after 1941 was ruinous for Communism in the colonies of "democratic imperialism," particularly India; finally, the 1943 dissolution of the Comintern altogether was a renunciation of the revolution itself. For an exhaustive criticism of Comintern policy which stops at 1928 but draws a clear line between Leninism and "socialism in one country," see Trotsky's The Third International After Lenin (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/index.htm).


The other stuff quoted by Trots is that Lenin called for world revolution, but that's ridiculous "proof" considering that so did every communist ever, including Stalin as late as 1938:
"As late as" are key words in this case, since the purges were still underway in that year, and the Comintern still existed, so Stalin was still under some pressure to keep up appearances.

Quotes like those you mention can be found throughout Lenin's political career, not just 1918-19 (although they definitely pick up around then, and I've heard ones other than these that I wasn't able to locate):

1906:

I went on to say that from the point of view of restoration, the position of the Russian revolution may be ex pressed in the following thesis: the Russian revolution is strong enough to achieve victory by its own efforts; but it is not strong enough to retain the fruits of victory. It can achieve victory because the proletariat jointly with the revolutionary peasantry can constitute an invincible force. But it cannot retain its victory, because in a country where small production is vastly developed, the small commodity producers (including the peasants) will inevitably turn against the proletarians when they pass from freedom to socialism. To be able to retain its victory, to be able to prevent restoration, the Russian revolution will need non-Russian reserves, will need outside assistance. Are there such reserves? Jes, there are: the socialist proletariat in the West.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/rucong/iii.htm

1908:

It is not on liberal allies that the Russian proletariat should count. It must . follow its own independent path to the complete victory of the revolution, basing itself on the need for a forcible solution of the agrarian question in Russia by the peasant masses themselves, helping them to overthrow the rule of the Black- Hundred landlords and the Black-Hundred autocracy, setting itself the task of establishing a. democratic dictator ship of the proletariat and the peasantry in Russia, and remembering that its struggle and its victories are inseparable from the international revolutionary movement. Less illusions about the liberalism of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie (counter-revolutionary both in Russia and the world over). More attention to the growth of the international revolutionary proletariat!
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/jul/23.htm

1909:

The revolution and counter-revolution have shown us the alliance of autocracy and the bourgeoisie, the alliance of the Russian and international bourgeoisie—we must educate, rally and organise in three times greater numbers than in 1905 the masses of the proletariat, which alone, led by an independent Social-Democratic Party and marching hand in hand with the proletariat of the advanced countries, is capable of winning freedom for Russia.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/dec/24.htm

1915:

It follows that if the demand for the freedom of nations is not to be a false phrase covering up the imperialism and the nationalism of certain individual countries, it must be extended to all peoples and to all colonies. Such a demand, however, is obviously meaningless unless it is accompanied by a series of revolutions in all the advanced countries. Moreover, it cannot be accomplished without a successful socialist revolution.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/jul/x02.htm


The imperialist war has linked up the Russian revolutionary crisis, which stems from a bourgeois-democratic revolution, with the growing crisis of the proletarian socialist revolution in the West. This link is so direct that no individual solution of revolutionary [problems] is possible in any single country—the Russian bourgeois-democratic revolution is now not only a prologue to, but an indivisible and integral part of, the socialist revolution in the West. ... Life is advancing, through the defeat of Russia, towards a revolution in Russia and, through that revolution and in connection with it, towards a civil war in Europe.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/sep/x01.htm


The proletariat will at once utilise this ridding of bourgeois Russia of tsarism and the rule of the landowners, not to aid the rich peasants in their struggle against the rural workers, but to bring about the socialist revolution in alliance with the proletarians of Europe.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/nov/20.htm

1916:

The social revolution cannot be the united action of the proletarians of all countries for the simple reason that most of the countries and the majority of the world’s population have not even reached, or have only just reached, the capitalist stage of development. We stated this in section six of our theses, but P. Kievsky, because of lack of attention, or inability to think, did “not notice” that we included this section for a definite purpose, namely, to refute caricature distortions of Marxism. Only the advanced countries of Western Europe and North America have matured for socialism, and ii Engels’s letter to Kautsky (Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata)[5] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/carimarx/5.htm#fwV23E029) Kievsky will find a concrete illustration of the real and not merely promised “idea” that to dream of the “united action of the proletarians of all countries” means postponing socialism to the Greek calends, i.e., for ever.
Socialism will be achieved by the united action of the proletarians, not of all, but of a minority of countries, those that have reached the advanced capitalist stage of development. The cause of Kievsky’s error lies in failure to understand that. In these advanced countries (England, France, Germany, etc.) the national problem was solved long ago; national unity outlived its purpose long ago; objectively, there are no “general national tasks” to be accomplished. Hence, only in these countries is it possible now to “blow up” national unity and establish class unity.
The undeveloped countries are a different matter. They embrace the whole of Eastern Europe and all the colonies and semi-colonies and are dealt with in section six of the theses (second- and third-type countries). In those areas, as a rule, there still exist oppressed and capitalistically undeveloped nations. Objectively, these nations still have general national tasks to accomplish, namely, democratic tasks, the tasks of overthrowing foreign oppression.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/carimarx/5.htm

1917:

Upon the strength of the revolutionary movement, in the event of its being entirely successful, will depend the victory of socialism in Europe and the achievement not of an imperialist armistice in Germany’s struggle against Russia and England, or in Russia’s and Germany’s struggle against England, or the United States’ struggle against Germany and England, etc., but of a really lasting and really democratic peace.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jan/31.htm


I now pass on to the third question, namely, the analysis of the current situation with reference to the position of the international working-class movement and that of international capitalism. From the point of view of Marxism, in discussing imperialism it is absurd to restrict oneself to conditions in one country alone, since all capitalist countries are closely bound together. Now, in time of war, this bond has grown immeasurably stronger. All humanity is thrown into a tangled bloody heap from which no nation can extricate itself on its own. Though there are more and less advanced countries, this war has bound them all together by so many threads that escape from this tangle for any single country acting on its own is inconceivable.
We are all agreed that power must be wielded by the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. But what can and should they do if power passes to them, i. e., if power is in the hands of the proletarians and semi-proletarians? This is an involved and difficult situation. Speaking of the transfer of power, there is a danger—one that played a big part in previous revolutions, too—namely, the danger that the revolutionary class will not know what to do with state power when it has won it. The history of revolutions gives us examples of revolutions that failed for this very reason.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/7thconf/24c.htm


The urgency of the struggle against this evil, against the most deep-rooted petty-bourgeois national prejudices, looms ever larger with the mounting exigency of the task of converting the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national dictatorship (i.e., existing in a single country and incapable of determining world politics) into an international one (i.e., a dictatorship of the proletariat involving at least several advanced countries, and capable of exercising a decisive influence upon world politics as a whole). Petty-bourgeois nationalism proclaims as internationalism the mere recognition of the equality of nations, and nothing more. Quite apart from the fact that this recognition is purely verbal, petty-bourgeois nationalism preserves national self-interest intact, whereas proletarian internationalism demands, first, that the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country should be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world-wide scale, and, second, that a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capital.
...
Under present-day international conditions there is no salvation for dependent and weak nations except in a union of Soviet republics.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jun/05.htm


Not only should we create independent contingents of fighters and party organisations in the colonies and the backward countries, not only at once launch propaganda for the organisation of peasants’ Soviets and strive to adapt them to the pre-capitalist conditions, but the Communist International should advance the proposition, with the appropriate theoretical grounding, that with the aid of the proletariat of the advanced countries, backward countries can go over to the Soviet system and, through certain stages of development, to communism, without having to pass through the capitalist stage.
http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/jul/x03.htm

1921:

The result is a state of equilibrium which, although highly unstable and precarious, enables the Socialist Republic to exist—not for long, of course—within the capitalist encirclement.
...
We admit quite openly, and do not conceal the fact, that concessions in the system of state capitalism mean paying tribute to capitalism. But we gain time, and gaining time means gaining everything, particularly in the period of equilibrium, when our foreign comrades are preparing thoroughly for their revolution. The more thorough their preparations, the more certain will the victory be. Meanwhile, however, we shall have to pay the tribute."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/jun/12.htm

1922:

But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile powers of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; for we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism—that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/feb/x01.htm

But why even bother quoting Lenin since Stalin himself, three months after Lenin died in 1924, and before he had started to formulate "socialism in one country," said as much:


But the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and establishment of the power of the proletariat in one country does not yet mean that the complete victory of socialism has been ensured. After consolidating its power and leading the peasantry in its wake the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society. But does this mean that it will thereby achieve the complete and final victory of socialism, i.e., does it mean that with the forces of only one country it can finally consolidate socialism and fully guarantee that country against intervention and, consequently, also against restoration? No, it does not. For this the victory of the revolution in at least several countries is needed. Therefore, the development and support of the revolution in other countries is an essential task of the victorious revolution. Therefore, the revolution which has been victorious in one country must regard itself not as a self-sufficient entity, but as an aid, as a means for hastening the victory of the proletariat in other countries.
Lenin expressed this thought succinctly when he said that the task of the victorious revolution is to do "the utmost possible in one country for the development, support and awakening of the revolution in all countries," (see Vol. XXIII, p. 385).
These, in general, are the characteristic features of Lenin's theory of proletarian revolution.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/ch03.htm

By the end of 1924 however, Stalin had started to change his mind, as he rallied conservative forces in the USSR - emboldened by the failures of the world revolution - against "Trotskyism:"


Hitherto only one aspect of the theory of "permanent revolution" has usually been noted — lack of faith in the revolutionary potentialities of the peasant movement. Now, in fairness, this must be supplemented by another aspect — lack of faith in the strength and capacity of the proletariat in Russia.
What difference is there between Trotsky's theory and the ordinary Menshevik theory that the victory of socialism in one country, and in a backward country at that, is impossible without the preliminary victory of the proletarian revolution "in the principal countries of Western Europe"?
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/12.htm


It appears that Stalin distorted Lenin's concept of the world revolution in order to justify primitive accumulation by a bureaucratic caste and the quasi-imperialist policies that sustained its international interests.

[Ismail]

Whereas Lenin insisted that the victory of socialism was only possible on an international scale, Stalin swapped the Soviet army for the world working class as the force of liberation (there was even a poster and a slogan in the period that "Our army is the liberating army of the world proletariat").That is not a surprising position to take. The Red Army was instrumental in:
A. Taking power in October;
B. Winning the Civil War (obviously);
C. Trying to defeat reactionaries in the Baltics and Finland, and successfully defeating them in the Ukraine, Central Asia, etc.

Stalin said (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1928/02/25.htm) in 1928 that:

In contrast to such armies, our Red Army is distinguished by the fact that it is an instrument for the furtherance of the power of the workers and peasants, an instrument for the furtherance of the dictatorship of the proletariat, an instrument for the liberation of the workers and peasants from the yoke of the landlords and capitalists.

Our army is an army of liberation of the working people.


Have you considered the fact, comrades, that in the old days the people feared the army, as indeed they fear it now in the capitalist countries; that between the people and the army is a barrier separating the one from the other? And how is it with us? With us, on the contrary, people and army constitute a single whole, a single family. Nowhere in the world is there such an attitude of love and solicitude on the part of the people for the army as in our country. In our country the army is loved and respected, it is the object of general solicitude. Why? Because for the first time in the history of the world the workers and peasants have created their own army, which serves not the masters, but the former slaves, the now emancipated workers and peasants...


Ours is the only army in the world that has the sympathy and support of the workers and peasants. Therein lies its strength, therein lies its might...


And, lastly, a third distinctive feature of the Red Army. It is that the spirit of internationalism is trained and fostered in our army, that the spirit of internationalism imbues our Red Army through and through.


In the capitalist countries, armies are usually trained to hate the peoples of other countries, to hate other states, to hate the workers and peasants of other countries. Why is this done? In order to turn the army into an obedient herd in the event of armed clashes between states, between powers, between countries. That is a source of weakness of all capitalist armies.


Our army is built on entirely different principles. The strength of our Red Army lies in the fact that from the day of its birth it has been trained in a spirit of internationalism, that it has been trained to respect the peoples of other countries, to love and respect the workers of all countries, to preserve and promote peace among countries. And precisely because our army is trained in the spirit of internationalism, trained to understand that the interests of the workers of all countries are one, precisely for this reason our army is an army of the workers of all countries.


And that this is a source of our army’s strength and might, the bourgeois of all countries will learn if they should venture to attack our country, for they will then see that our Red Army, trained as it is in the spirit of internationalism, has countless friends and allies in all parts of the world, from Shanghai to New York and from London to Calcutta.The Red Army under both Lenin and Stalin set up revolutionary or progressive governments. If such a pro-Army policy led to a justification for social-imperialism after the 1950's (which it to an extent did), that cannot really be blamed on Stalin considering that it was also the practical policy of Lenin.



Since Stalin had made the security interests of the USSR equal to, and therefore paramount over, the world revolution itself, the work of revisionism had already been done for Khrushchev and co., and they thanked the doer by axing his memory so as to extricate themselves from collective guilt in the purges

[quote]- just as Stalin had purged Yezhov to tie up his own loose ends.The works of people like J. Arch Getty, Gábor Rittersporn, Robert W. Thurston, etc. do note that it's quite likely Yezhov took the purges farther than anything envisioned by Stalin and Co.

"In January 1938 the Central Committee passed a resolution which heralded what was to be called the "Great Change." ... The new enemy was identified as the Communist-careerist. He had taken advantage of the purge to denounce his superiors and to gain promotion. He was guilty of spreading suspicion and undermining the party. A purge of careerists was launched. At the same time mass repression diminished and the rehabilitation of victimized party members began... 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., pp. 289-290.)


The jump from Stalin's line to outright Red imperialism under his successors merely stripped a state, which had already slid back into the methods of imperialism, of what pretenses remained to Marxist and Leninist orthodoxy. Hence the political struggle that opposed Khrushchev's rise to power was correspondingly weak. The strongest forces that could have genuinely opposed the social-imperialist line had previously been wiped out or cowed by the ferocity of the purges.Technically most of those who died in the purges would have been quite old by 1956. In any case, the failure of resistance to Khrushchev's reforms were in fact due to the rise of bureaucracy, and the lack of workers control over the government which was an issue under Lenin and made worse under Stalin only because of the tasks of building a massive, industrialized state which Lenin noted (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm) would lead to quite a few compromises with managers, capitalists, etc.


The clearest evidence of a breach in foreign policy between the Lenin and Stalin administrations was the latter's treatment of the Comintern. Catering to the GMD caused the near-destruction of the CCP in 1927 and its conversion into a peasant army with a severe rural petty-bourgeois deformation;Except the GMD was seen as a progressive force at this point (let us not forget Sun Yat-sen) and it was the belief that abandoning unity with the Guomindang would isolate the Communists.


the Popular Front chained Communists to the treasonous liberals and social-democrats in Spain;... which actually worked pretty well for a while until a lack of outside aid (besides Soviet), massive military intervention by the Fascist powers, and of course those defeatist elements represented by people like Casado, Mera and Besteiro set in.


the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - in spite of the faults of what it replaced - demoralized the global proletariat, particularly the French Communists; the defencist course after 1941 was ruinous for Communism in the colonies of "democratic imperialism," particularly India;Molotov-Ribbentrop led to setbacks, but it was only demoralizing to those who didn't understand what was going on (and of course it isn't like Stalin was going to announce "Oh, yeah, we're just buying time until Hitler invades us" on the radio a day after signing it).

There was a similar situation in regards to Brest-Litovsk, where the Left Social-Revolutionaries and the "left-wing" of the Bolsheviks regarded it as a betrayal of the international revolution, and the former even went so far as to engage in terrorism over it.


finally, the 1943 dissolution of the Comintern altogether was a renunciation of the revolution itself.It's rather odd that you regard an international communist organization dominated by the USSR and CPSU's concerns, and which led to rigid policies in-re China (among other cases) which, had said rigidity not existed, could have avoided the massacre of Communists, as a great crime to have been dissolved yet the Red Army was apparently significantly worse. You could, of course, blame Stalin for this, but it was dominated by the CP under Lenin, too. (See, for example, Shlyapnikov and Kollontai's attempts to censure the Bolsheviks in the Comintern in 1922)

I agree with Mao on the dissolution of the Comintern: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_36.htm


"As late as" are key words in this case, since the purges were still underway in that year, and the Comintern still existed, so Stalin was still under some pressure to keep up appearances.He had spent the last 10 years advocating theoretical points you'd regard as anti-Marxist. I doubt he had much to hide at this point, especially considering that by 1938 the purge was transitioning from the excesses of Yezhov to the moderation of Beria.


But why even bother quoting Lenin since Stalin himself, three months after Lenin died in 1924, and before he had started to formulate "socialism in one country," said as much:He said basically the same thing in 1938. Did he rebuke "SIOC" in 1938 at a time where his position was absolutely secure (which would certainly be an odd claim)?

Stalin said that it was possible to build socialism in one country, but that the final victory of socialism was only possible on a world-scale. "Final" is rather ambiguous (Lenin used it too as noted in my post you replied too), but it seems to me that it means while there can be a form of socialism in one country, its development, and certainly its ability to move from socialism to communism, is possible only on a world-scale.

[Kayser_Soso]

The term was nevertheless used mainly to refer to Jewish intellectuals and those supposed to be influenced by them.

No, actually it wasn't as I just pointed out.



The "rootless cosmopolitan" stuff was odious Jew-baiting, plucked out of 19th-Century anti-Semitic discourse, and not surprisingly, was eagerly reprinted by Russian neo-Nazis during the collapse of the USSR.

Since it was just as easily applied to non-Jews, and non-Jews were some of the main targets of this campaign, it was clearly not "Jew-Baiting". By the way, thanks for upholding standard anti-Communist propaganda from a supposedly radical left-wing stance. The ruling class extends its thanks, as it has to Trotskyites for doing the same thing for decades. Your service is invaluable to them.



The "Night of the Murdered Poets" and the purge of the Jewish Antifascist Committee was clearly an attack on the Yiddish intelligentsia.. if, as Stalin said in 1952, "Every Jewish nationalist is a potential agent of the American intelligence," then cultural nationalists should have been exiled to Israel at worst.

Calm down, Mr. Conquest. If Stalin had been referring to Ukrainian or Belorussian nationalists, would we even be talking about this? The USSR applied the same rules to Jews as it did to others.

Again, thanks for repeating standard anti-communist propaganda as a phony leftist. It has been invaluable for the right for decades.




Any concept can be distorted. Trotsky however, wasn't content to revise and distort the principles of Marxism in the interest of bureaucratic interests. Hence his assassination.

Clearly Stalin was not in favor of bureaucracy either. More importantly, Trotskyites have yet to coherently explain why the system they envision would not lead to bureaucracy.



And the restoration of such practices and views of socialism might not have happened had Lenin's advice been followed.

Nonsense.



Actually, chauvinism and suppression of religion were not necessary for the Bolsheviks to win the Russian Civil War, even at its toughest moments.

So if something works one time, it must work a second time as well in a second war.



There was freedom of religion in the RSFSR, and conscientious objectors such as Baptists were even allowed to get out of the draft on religious grounds - which not surprisingly led to a growth in Baptist congregations that was nevertheless tolerated on principled grounds.

The idea that the Bolsheviks never engaged in suppression of religion, even before Stalin, is simply false. This was not entirely their fault, as in many cases the church or imams could not countenance letting their followers support the Bolsheviks.

This is hilarious how Trots love re-fighting the Civil War, idealistically believing that everything done in the Civil War was wonderful and positive, whereas evil Stalin corrupted everything from 1924 on. Hell, your contradictory views nearly constitute a religion on their own.

Trotskyites= Staunch defenders of religion, when it suits their purposes.



In Central Asia, pan-Islamism was combated politically, but not with brute force (except in the case of local ultra-left deviations).

You are quite naive.



In Kazakhstan the Ush Zhuz were incorporated into the Party (albeit stripped of formal independence due to alleged Left-SR links). The Bolsheviks were willing to tolerate and even dialogue and work together with conservative sects like the Old Believers and Vaisites. Other Sufi orders, such as in Chechnya were also tolerated, although as I understand it that district was later gerrymandered and not ruled by actual Chechens from the 1930's until 1989.

It might surprise you to find out that not only were things not nearly as black and white as you claim here, but also the Bolsheviks were at an extreme disadvantage in a difficult situation at the time. Some of the religious people they allied with had extreme, bizarre views- it was out of desperation that they did so. One Chechen leader who assisted the Bolsheviks once declared a sort of jihad on the whites in which he advised followers to "kill all the engineers and those who write from left to right!"

Yes, the Bolsheviks should take pride in being forced by necessity to ally with such forces, and of course they should have embraced people with those ideas after they were brought into the Soviet Union.



Also, at least as many Jadidists as the number who rallied to the Basmachi cause were instead welcomed into the Bolshevik ranks, only to be brutally purged in 1937-38.


And as we all know, anyone who was purged had to have been totally innocent.



The murder of figures like Sultan-Galiev in 1940 (which has since been revealed to be based on false accusations and fake evidence) was a cop-out: because if "socialism" as it existed in the USSR was really so great for Central Asians then it would not have been necessary to kill their petty-bourgeois intellectuals en masse.

Trotskyites: Defenders of petty-bourgeois intellectuals(perhaps because so many Trotskyites are petty-bourgeois intellectuals?)

So Galiev was set up by someone- is that Stalin's fault?


[QUOTE=Kléber;1677907]
After re-establishing direct control over Central Asia following the Civil War, Lenin's administration had also conducted some purges there, but those were purges of ethnic Russian Bolsheviks who had used the Party-state apparatus for the purposes of bolstering their domination of the non-Russian peoples. In 1922 thousands of Orthodox Christian Party members in Central Asian republics were expelled for "religious prejudice" but that stipulation was not applied to Muslim members (a problematic double standard but that was how Lenin approached the situation).

Double standards just fine when Lenin applies them.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Add to the quotations Kleber has listed (in order to show that Lenin never believed in socialism in one country, unlike Stalin and his clones), these I listed here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1610331&postcount=115

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1640164&postcount=10

[Kayser_Soso]

Add to the quotations Kleber has listed (in order to show that Lenin never believed in socialism in one country, unlike Stalin and his clones), these I listed here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1610331&postcount=115

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1640164&postcount=10

Everything Lenin believed was 100% accurate.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, I do not know if it was, or wasn't, but one thing for certain, he did not believe in SIOC. And that means Stalin was no Leninist.

[Kayser_Soso]

Well, I do not know if it was, or wasn't, but one thing for certain, he did not believe in SIOC. And that means Stalin was no Leninist.

Define socialism in one country. Clearly the Bolsheviks never limited themselves to turning the USSR into a fortress, as they helped expand socialism in numerous other countries.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

KS:


Define socialism in one country. Clearly the Bolsheviks never limited themselves to turning the USSR into a fortress, as they helped expand socialism in numerous other countries.

1) Define "define".

2) Whatever it means, Lenin was against it, as those quotations show.

3) That's not what Stalin said (in the second edition of his book, after he had altered what had been Lenin's view):


Hitherto only one aspect of the theory of "permanent revolution" has usually been noted — lack of faith in the revolutionary potentialities of the peasant movement. Now, in fairness, this must be supplemented by another aspect — lack of faith in the strength and capacity of the proletariat in Russia.

What difference is there between Trotsky's theory and the ordinary Menshevik theory that the victory of socialism in one country, and in a backward country at that, is impossible without the preliminary victory of the proletarian revolution "in the principal countries of Western Europe"?


But, as is well known, Lenin's theory of revolution is not limited only to this side of the question. It is also the theory of the development of the world revolution [See The Foundations of Leninism -J. V. Stalin]. The victory of socialism in one country is not a self-sufficient task. The revolution which has been victorious in one country must regard itself not as a self-sufficient entity, but as an aid, as a means for hastening the victory of the proletariat in all countries. For the victory of the revolution in one country, in the present case Russia, is not only the product of the uneven development and progressive decay of imperialism; it is at the same time the beginning of and the precondition for the world revolution.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/12.htm

So, it is quite clear that Stalin thought that socialism could be victorious in one country before it spread.

Lenin, on the other hand, said this was not possible. It must spread first.

That is why Stalin altered this earlier, Leninist statement of his:


But the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and establishment of the power of the proletariat in one country does not yet mean that the complete victory of socialism has been ensured. After consolidating its power and leading the peasantry in its wake the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society. But does this mean that it will thereby achieve the complete and final victory of socialism, i.e., does it mean that with the forces of only one country it can finally consolidate socialism and fully guarantee that country against intervention and, consequently, also against restoration? No, it does not. For this the victory of the revolution in at least several countries is needed. Therefore, the development and support of the revolution in other countries is an essential task of the victorious revolution. Therefore, the revolution which has been victorious in one country must regard itself not as a self-sufficient entity, but as an aid, as a means for hastening the victory of the proletariat in other countries.

Lenin expressed this thought succinctly when he said that the task of the victorious revolution is to do "the utmost possible in one country for the development, support and awakening of the revolution in all countries," (see Vol. XXIII, p. 385).
These, in general, are the characteristic features of Lenin's theory of proletarian revolution.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/ch03.htm

[Sendo]

Rosa, there is a difference between wanting international revolution and making it a priority and then seeing it fail and decide to give it your best in one country, and saying the revolution should never be spread. Lenin's beliefs developed.

To all: If we were in the SU in the 1920s and Lenin is dead, and we reject the "Stalinist SIOC", then what are we to do--give up?

[Kayser_Soso]

Rosa, there is a difference between wanting international revolution and making it a priority and then seeing it fail and decide to give it your best in one country, and saying the revolution should never be spread. Lenin's beliefs developed.

To all: If we were in the SU in the 1920s and Lenin is dead, and we reject the "Stalinist SIOC", then what are we to do--give up?

I've asked this very question and the best answer I got was "it(the revolution) must die." Apparently so must the people who started it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Sendo:


Rosa, there is a difference between wanting international revolution and making it a priority and then seeing it fail and decide to give it your best in one country, and saying the revolution should never be spread. Lenin's beliefs developed.

I agree, but Lenin had already argued that the revolution in the former USSR would fail unless it spread to the advanced capitalist countries -- and fail it did, as he predicted.

Stalin, by arguing the opposite, abandoned Leninism.

[Kayser_Soso]

Sendo:



I agree, but Lenin had already argued that the revolution in the former USSR would fail unless it spread to the advanced capitalist countries -- and fail it did, as he predicted.

Logical fallacy.



Yes, if you start a revolution and things don't work out like you planned, then everyone should just throw up their hands and hope that the bourgeoisie will be merciful. It's incredible how removed from reality Trotskyism really is.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

KS:


Logical fallacy.

Well, we have already established, in the SIOC thread, that your grasp of logic is not too secure, so you are one to talk.

But, what fallacy is this, anyway? You do not say. Wonder why.:rolleyes:


Yes, if you start a revolution and things don't work out like you planned, then everyone should just throw up their hands and hope that the bourgeoisie will be merciful. It's incredible how removed from reality Trotskyism really is.

No, if you ignore basic Marxist theory, and Lenin's prediction, refuse to listen to those trying to tell you where you went wrong, and will go wrong again, then you have only yourselves to blame.

Far from being 'removed from reality', Trotskyism is consonant with Leninism in this regard.

We already know from this thread that Stalinism isn't.:(

No wonder it has done nothing but fail everywhere it has been tried.:(:(

[Kayser_Soso]

KS:



Well, we have already established, in the SIOC thread, that your grasp of logic is not too secure, so you are one to talk.

But, what fallacy is this, anyway? You do not say. Wonder why.:rolleyes:

Actually I did and you were unable to grasp the concept. It is partially post hoc ergo propter hoc, and also reductionism.




No, if you ignore basic Marxist theory, and Lenin's prediction, refuse to listen to those trying to tell you where you went wrong, and will go wrong again, then you have only yourselves to blame.

Marxism is not some holy prophesy.




No wonder it has done nothing but fail everywhere it has been tried.:(:(

And Trotskyism has been a far greater failure, as even you admit it hasn't been implemented.

[Hit The North]

Stalin was certainly a Leninist. Stalinism is applied Leninism.


This may be the case but you have yet to define what 'Leninism' is and demonstrate its content before you can assess how far Stalin applied it.


Even if you don't like Stalin, I don't see how you can say he was anything but a hardcore Leninist.This would only matter if by being a Leninist he is saved from the accusations made by his opponents. But the main arguments against Stalin have nothing to do with the veracity of his claim to being a Leninist, but whether his regime was, as claimed, a socialist society, superior in form and content to the lesser capitalist nations around it. But this argument can only be made by appeal to empirical outcomes and analysis of the material relations which underpin them. We can't answer the question by appealing to the authority of a dead Lenin, without elevating Lenin's ideas to religious dogma and Lenin's corpse to the status of a holy relic. Oh, wait...

But apart from having to define Leninism, the understanding of its alter-ego, Trotskyism, by the Stalinists on this board is even more woeful.


Originally posted by Kayser_Soso
Yes, if you start a revolution and things don't work out like you planned, then everyone should just throw up their hands and hope that the bourgeoisie will be merciful. It's incredible how removed from reality Trotskyism really is.If Trotsky or anyone arguing in his tradition has ever stated such a thing, I'd like to see it quoted.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

KS:


Actually I did and you were unable to grasp the concept. It is partially post hoc ergo propter hoc, and also reductionism.

Well, you kept saying stuff like this but went mysteriously quiet when asked to elaborate.

And, what's wrong with reductionism?


Marxism is not some holy prophesy.

Indeed, this is a materialist prophesy, and Stalin and you sad ML-ers ignored it

No wonder you lot are serial screw-ups.:lol:


And Trotskyism has been a far greater failure, as even you admit it hasn't been implemented.

Trotskyism may or may not be a failure, but one thing is for certain, Stalin was no Leninist, as those quotations show -- which is all we need concern ourselves with in this thread.

[Kayser_Soso]

KS:



Well, you kept saying stuff like this but went mysteriously quiet when asked to elaborate.


First of all, Lenin did not predict that the revolution would fail. Lenin believed that socialism could be constructed in one country or several countries, and I posted the relevant quotes on this. Second, you cannot reduce the entire history of the Soviet collapse on one guy's prediction. Several members of the Austrian school predicted that the USSR would fail- maybe they were right, by your logic.



And, what's wrong with reductionism?

Apparently the depth of your reasoning skills are worse than I had previously believed.






Trotskyism may or may not be a failure, but one thing is for certain, Stalin was no Leninist, as those quotations show -- which is all we need concern ourselves with in this thread.

Experts like Erik Van Ree disagree with you. Since I haven't seen your published academic work on the subject I have to go with his analysis.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

KS:


First of all, Lenin did not predict that the revolution would fail. Lenin believed that socialism could be constructed in one country or several countries, and I posted the relevant quotes on this. Second, you cannot reduce the entire history of the Soviet collapse on one guy's prediction. Several members of the Austrian school predicted that the USSR would fail- maybe they were right, by your logic.

1) The quotations from Lenin we have referenced suggest otherwise.

2) And where are the quotations you posted? I didn't see any.

3) Lenin's prediction was not based on his personal opinion but on Marxist theory (as those quotations we have referenced show)

4) The predictions of others that the former USSR would collapse were not made on the basis of Marxist theory. To give you an analogy, if a group of astronomers predict that a certain event will occur in the solar system (say that in 2028 the earth will be hit by meteorite), based on a combination of Newton's and Einstein's theories, then we would be wise to take their predictions seriously. But, if an unqualified individual makes the same prediction based on guesswork, then we'd be foolish to ignore both just because the second person was merely guessing.


Apparently the depth of your reasoning skills are worse than I had previously believed.

Is this your only reason why you believe reductionism is wrong?


Experts like Erik Van Ree disagree with you.

So? Experts disagree with Lenin and Marx. Big deal. The point is, what are their reasons? Since you do not give any, then we can form no opinion of them.


Since I haven't seen your published academic work on the subject I have to go with his analysis.

But, my claim was that Stalin was no Leninist, and both I and Kleber gave dozens of quotations from Lenin to show that he rejected the idea that socialism could be built in once country. Unless this individual can show that these are forgeries, I think our argument still stands.

And, what has the publication of an academic work got to do with anything? Was Das Kapital an 'academic' work? Was anything Engels or Lenin wrote 'academic'?

And what would you have said of Marx's ideas before he published them (say, in the 1840s)? Something like: "I'm sorry Herr Marx, you haven't published anything yet, so I have to go with the ideas of Ricardo, who has published on this...".

It seems then that you can't argue your corner without trying to pull this fallacy: argumentum ad verecundiam -- argument from authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority).