Moscow Trials

[red cat]

What is your opinion on the Moscow trials ? Discuss.

EDIT: I mean all of the four main trials.

[Kléber]

Which trials? The Trial of the Sixteen? The Trial of the Seventeen? The Trial of the Twenty-One? Case of the "Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization?" Or do you mean the killings in general, the Law of Spikelets, the "ethnic operations," the shootings of returning Spanish Civil War vets, etc? Roughly 800,000 people were executed by the NKVD under Stalin, mostly in 1937 and 1938. These included almost all of Lenin's surviving CC, half of the Seventeenth Party Congress delegates and two/thirds of that Congress' Central Committee, and just about every military or political leader of note in the 1917 revolution and subsequent civil war except for a clique of bunglers around Stalin who had screwed up every military assignment they were given (but whose conflicts with the Military Revolutionary Committee during the war won them popularity among many middling apparatchiks who despised Trotsky's puritanical attitudes toward corruption).

Not all of those shot were tried or killed in Moscow, and family members of prominent victims were usually summarily shot (making a crazy confession was a way to spare your family, although it didn't always work). Stalin even purged his own family, though, so at least he wasn't sentimental like that. Also, even more people died of overwork as slave laborers in the GULAG system. Furthermore, most of those killed by execution were not political at all, they were petty criminals, the absolute poorest proletarians or peasants charged as "counter-revolutionary wreckers" because they had stolen bread or minor commodities and petty theft was considered treason under the "Law of Misappropriation of Socialist Property," and very few of the executed probably had any real link to the opposition groups, killed instead based on suspicion, rumors, accusations, or quota orders to purge a certain number of party members.

Stalin himself admitted that the major trials must have been based on false confessions extorted through torture. He blamed it on a bad employee (Yezhov) and killed him, ending the "Yezhovschina" and absolving his own regime of blame, but spectacular purges of the old revolutionary vanguard continued under Beria up to 1941.

The presiding judge who sentenced the leaders of October to death was Vyshinsky, a cowardly Menshevik opportunist who had been with the Whites until the Red victory was almost assured in 1920.

I don't believe Stalin on this account, because Yezhov had been chosen for the job probably based on essays he wrote where he argued that all oppositionists deserved the death penalty.

Kirov and some other "moderates" had argued against the death penalty for oppositionists. Kirov died however, in mysterious circumstances, and his death was blamed on the people whose lives he had protected, who were then executed for assassinating Kirov :confused:. Genrikh Yagoda, security boss at the time, was later blamed for orchestrating Kirov's assassination, and poisoning many others, supposedly on his own initiative. Yagoda himself is also supposed to have told Stalin that the purges were becoming very unpopular, hence his replacement by someone more committed to the task. According to Radzinsky - who isn't totally reliable - Stalin supposedly defended the purges by saying "The GPU is four years behind!" (a reference to the 1932 security brief that there were as many as two million oppositionist supporters of Riutin and Trotsky).

Trotsky's argument about the purges was - why would a socialist society need a security apparatus to kill massive numbers of its own people, and even intensify the repression? After the dictatorship of the proletariat, the state is supposed to wither away. The only Marxist explanation was that the USSR was not socialist at all, it was divided into hostile social camps with divergent economic and political interests, and the mass killing of political dissidents and lumpen elements demonstrated the bureaucracy's fear of the revolutionary people.

Stalin's response was the revisionist theory of the "aggravation of class struggle under socialism," which says that constant purges are necessary as as society moves toward communism.

It is hard to say much about the purges using conclusive evidence because so much has been covered up and one side's witnesses were all murdered and forced to make ridiculous self-deprecating confessions using modern inquisitorial methods borrowed from the Gestapo. But this fact alone, and the assassination of the #1 critic of the purges, makes me give one side greater benefit of the doubt.

[bailey_187]

I'm not going to try to defend the trials. I can not. Most, if not all of the defendents were not guilt of actual terrorism and conspiracy it would seem. We (Marxist-Leninist-Maoists) need to stop pretending the Moscow trials were legit. Quoting that paragraph from Mission to Moscow is laughable - we arent convincing anyone.

JA Getty describes what happens as the "Algebra of Confession":

"According to Stalin's [or rather the top Soviet officials] formula, criticism was the same as opposition; opposition inevitably implied conspiracy; conspiracy meant treason. Algerbraicly therefore, the slightest opposition to the regime...was terrorism. This was a priori forumula behind the show trials, one of whos purposes was to fill in the facts- to assign values ot the equations variables- with desied concrete testimoney"

This can shown by the reaction of Molotov in 1973 when questioned about Bukharins guilt, when we knew that they were guilty , that they were enemies"

(All quotes from: JA Getty - The Road to Terror pg. 527)

So, it would seem that due to faulty thinking, it was taken for granted that all opposition equalled traitor. This, Stalin, Molotov etc were convinced of. So the gaps were filled in by the NKVD.

The faulty thinking that led to this cam about due to the paranoia of the Party due to various threats - real and perceived.
Partly this paranoia came about after Yezhovs cleansing of the party. Although centred centred on idlers, "scoundrals" and careerists - 77% of those kicked out the party initially were in this catagory. A passage in the minutes concerning the purge however says, in bold "In all organisations where the purge was carried out, the check of party documents additionally uncovered many deeply evil enemies of the party" 43072 were found in the catagories of White Guards, Kulaks, Trotskyites. Now i am not saying these "evil enemies" were really that, but someone must have thought they were. Imagine that, 43000 people in the Communist party found (rightly or wrongly) to be enemies of the USSR and its leadership. Imagine the outcry and fear if thousands of "Jihadists" were (even if false) found to be working for the CIA or MI5?
(All info i posted above comes from Robert Thurston's "Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia").
That, along with the rise of fascism, created the conditions for the paranoia that allowed for the view thet "all opposition=terrorism". Anyone who could have been a traitor, in their view had to go. "the Stalin faction, ... had by the middle of 1937 decided to destroy anyone whom they considered unreliable or potentially unreliable"(Getty - Road to Terror pg 488)

I have heard Maoists describe the trials as a "two line struggle gone bad". Anyone care to elaborate on that?

[pranabjyoti]

Moscow trials had been conducted in open court before the eyes of neutral witnesses. Some of them are 1) Joseph E Davis, US Ambassador to Moscow of that time and later who become the President of US Chamber of Commerce, 2) Foyeth Vangar, German novelist, 3) Walter Durante, US journalist, 4) Dudley Collard, British lawyer and a committee member of "National Council of Civil Liberties" at that time, 5) Ward Price, journalist of "Daily Mail", British newspaper ......... and many more. None of the names mentioned above are communist or sympathizers and there are many more examples.
I am requesting everybody to read The Great Conspiracy Against Russia by Michael Kahn and Albert Sears and then make "comments".

[pranabjyoti]

Comrade Kleber,
All are not bourgeoisie, the intellectuals, you may call them petty-bourgeoisie, but not just "imperialist agents". And kindly remember, the reaction of the imperialist countries to the Moscow trial worldwide. If those who were under trial then are really "communists", then why the bustard Gorby and Yeltsin arranged a re-trial of the Moscow trials and set all the accused free of charges. At least, I can not call those people communist, who had been supported by Bustard Gorby and Yeltsin. Moreover, why you have forgot the "official" view of the bourgeoisie imperialist media regarding the Moscow trial. Actually, those people are eyewitnesses and can not find anything wrong in the trial process even by their "democratic" standard.
This kind of procedure is followed during the time of Lenin too. There are records regarding that. Actually the bustard Solzhenitsyn had cleared that in his writings. As per him, there is no difference in the trial processes of the time of Lenin and Stalin.

[RED DAVE]

Comrade Kleber,
All are not bourgeoisie, the intellectuals, you may call them petty-bourgeoisie, but not just "imperialist agents". And kindly remember, the reaction of the imperialist countries to the Moscow trial worldwide. If those who were under trial then are really "communists", then why the bustard Gorby and Yeltsin arranged a re-trial of the Moscow trials and set all the accused free of charges. At least, I can not call those people communist, who had been supported by Bustard Gorby and Yeltsin. Moreover, why you have forgot the "official" view of the bourgeoisie imperialist media regarding the Moscow trial. Actually, those people are eyewitnesses and can not find anything wrong in the trial process even by their "democratic" standard.
This kind of procedure is followed during the time of Lenin too. There are records regarding that. Actually the bustard Solzhenitsyn had cleared that in his writings. As per him, there is no difference in the trial processes of the time of Lenin and Stalin.Are you trying to say that the trials were legit and the victims were guilty?

RED DAVE

[pranabjyoti]

Are you trying to say that the trials were legit and the victims were guilty?

RED DAVE
Not me, but the eyewitness whose names I have given above and many more other neutrals say that. The trials had been continued before their eyes and they are the witnesses of every steps.

[Kléber]

So, it would seem that due to faulty thinking, it was taken for granted that all opposition equalled traitor. This, Stalin, Molotov etc were convinced of.
I don't think Stalin thought faultily enough to believe that the same people who created the Soviet republic in 1917 had been spending all their free time over the next 20 years organizing zany conspiracies to destroy it.

Stalin and his buddies knew exactly what they were doing. Slandering the opposition as led by "dissatisfied Jewish intellectuals" or a bunch of "German Agents" were the oldest Tsarist remedies in the book for dealing with popular dissent.

Comrade pranabjyoti:
Neither Gorbachev nor the Russian state has ever forgiven the heretic Trotsky. The others were rehabilitated because their charges were commonly known and popularly accepted to be false. By your logic, you can't support the struggles of aboriginal Australians, because the Australian government has apologized to them, therefore you can't support someone supported by the bastard reformist revisionist labourites.

You speak as though the opinions of imperialist representatives would impress me. However, the fact that foreign bourgeois dilettantes and press officials applauded the execution of Bolshevik leaders is actually a strike against them. It makes perfect sense that capitalist dignitaries would praise the counter-revolution in Russia.

The suppression of political opponents under Lenin, which probably totaled ~50,000 executions (300,000 according to the worst exaggerations) throughout the Red Terror, was during the dictatorship of the proletariat, it was also during one of the bloodiest wars in history. The most prominent victims were admitted monarchists and White Guardists.

The ~800,000 executions under Stalin, and purge of most of the Seventeenth Congress delegates and CC, was during "socialism," when the state is supposed to be withering away, and it was during peacetime. The most prominent victims were leading Communist Party members and heroes of the October Revolution and the Red Army in the Civil War.

[bie]

The ~800,000 executions under Stalin
This may not be the case. We do not know the real number of people convicted for political reasons in 1936-1938. The number of 681,692 was given by the KGB only once in 1991. We do not know if it is true or not, but there is the basis to doubt (eg. falsification of documents in that period, eg. document from 5.III.1940).

There are also other statements: Dimitri Volkogonov, the person appointed by Yeltsin to take charge of the old Soviet archives, stated that there were 30,514 persons condemned to death by military tribunals between 1 October 1936 and 30 September 1938. So you can see- there is a difference.

It is not true that all the convicted were innocent, but it is also not true that they were all not guilty. The question is who is taking the responsibility for that. We know now that the accusation of beign "the 5th column" was true. If there were innocent people arrested - who's to blame to that? Prosecutors, who had to act fast and sometimes - blind - or plotters - whose action during the war could mean millions of casualities. I hope I got myself clear.

[Kléber]

The number of 681,692 was given by the KGB only once in 1991.
Thanks for the correction. The theory of "aggravation of class struggle under socialism" is still revisionist.


Dimitri Volkogonov, the person appointed by Yeltsin to take charge of the old Soviet archives, stated that there were 30,514 persons condemned to death by military tribunals between 1 October 1936 and 30 September 1938.
I believe that's only a minority of the cases included in the official figure. Volkogonov was an anti-communist historian anyway.


We know now that the accusation of beign "the 5th column" was true.
The suggestion that Jewish Communists were Nazi agents has been, is, and will always be ridiculous.


Prosecutors, who had to act fast and sometimes - blind - or plotters - whose action during the war could mean millions of casualities.My point was that the Stalinist terror was several, if not many times, as brutal and widespread as the Red Terror during the Civil War, but there was no war involving the USSR in 1937.

[pranabjyoti]

My point was that the Stalinist terror was several, if not many times, as brutal and widespread as the Red Terror during the Civil War, but there was no war involving the USSR in 1937.
From 1917 onwards till the end of WWII, there was always war, may be open, may be hidden was going on in the USSR. During the time of Stalin, much much more damage had been done by the counter revolutionary attacks, sabotages and their backed counter revolutionary uprisings (like the Don Cossacks). In short, DEMOCRATIC COUNTRIES LIKE THE USA, UK AND OTHER EUROPEAN IMPERIALIST POWERS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR MUCH MORE DEATHS THAN EVEN ALL THE REACTIONARY/TROTSKYIST CLAIMS ARE TRUE ABOUT HIM.

[Kléber]

Obviously, imperialist countries take the prize for most kills. Nobody had said the purges were the bloodiest act in history, although it was one of the greatest events of mass violence against communists. I'm just pointing out that the theory of "aggravation of class struggle under socialism" contradicts Marx's idea that the state would wither away.

[pranabjyoti]

Obviously, imperialist countries take the prize for most kills. Nobody had said the purges were the bloodiest act in history, although it was one of the greatest events of mass violence against communists. I'm just pointing out that the theory of "aggravation of class struggle under socialism" contradicts Marx's idea that the state would wither away.
Man, as per Marx state would wither away with withering of class. This is not the case when class struggle is intensified. This will only be possible when the reactionary old oppressor classes has been diminishing and there will be no hope of their return back.

[bailey_187]

I don't think Stalin thought faultily enough to believe that the same people who created the Soviet republic in 1917 had been spending all their free time over the next 20 years organizing zany conspiracies to destroy it.

Stalin, Molotov etc helped to create the Soviet republic in 1917, and you (and Trotsky) beleive they worked to destroy it. Kruschev and Brezhnev were veterens of the civil war too IIRC.

I'm not saying Bukharin etc were part of a Nazi conspiracy or anything, just pointing out that you too think that veterens of 1917 were able to work to destroy what they created.

[Soviet]

It's funny that Trotskyists denouncing the Soviet bureaucracy, at the same time condemn the repression against it - this is a good example of their hypocrisy.

[bie]

I believe that's only a minority of the cases included in the official figure. Volkogonov was an anti-communist historian anyway.
Hmm.. I made myself not clear enough. There are number of contradictory data concerning number of people convicted in 1936-1938. And we do not know the real number of prosecuted. That why talking of 600k executed is rather the creation of anticommunist KGB imagination than a real estimate.

My point was that the Stalinist terror was several, if not many times,
as brutal and widespread as the Red Terror during the Civil War, but there was no war involving the USSR in 1937.
I think it is a weak point. All actions of Soviet government in 30s have to be treated with respect to the incoming war - rapid industralisation, purges etc. And the war was proven to be the most bloody ever.

[danyboy27]

It's funny that Trotskyists denouncing the Soviet bureaucracy, at the same time condemn the repression against it - this is a good example of their hypocrisy.

thanks for this rather constructive information, i am sure it helped the debate to continue.

[Kléber]

Man, as per Marx state would wither away with withering of class. This is not the case when class struggle is intensified. This will only be possible when the reactionary old oppressor classes has been diminishing and there will be no hope of their return back.
Stalin declared socialism to have been established after the kulaks and nepmen were massacred. Thus, the purges we are discussing happened in "socialism," so there should have been no more reactionary classes.

According to Marx, state oppression is always the result of class antagonisms. Therefore, either Marx's conception of the state was fundamentally wrong, or, the USSR wasn't socialist. Either way, Stalinism = revisionism.


Stalin, Molotov etc helped to create the Soviet republic in 1917, and you (and Trotsky) beleive they worked to destroy it.
I didn't say they tried to overthrow it and were part of one of those insane mind-boggling conspiracies to replace it with a whiteguardist dictatorship going back to 1918. What they did was abolish partmaximum, murder the leaders of October, and axe the Comintern of Lenin, and on a wider scale, enshrine bureaucratic privilege, eradicate the revolutionary vanguard, and abandon proletarian internationalism.

The bureaucratic chauvinist empire they forged under a red banner was doomed (as Trotsky had predicted) to transition into an outright capitalist state if left unchecked by the working class.

Also, in 1917, Stalin had initially sided with Kamenev in supporting the Provisional Government, and they advocated reconciliation with the Mensheviks in Pravda. Without the return of Lenin from exile, it is doubtful the Bolsheviks would have seized power.


It's funny that Trotskyists denouncing the Soviet bureaucracy, at the same time condemn the repression against it - this is a good example of their hypocrisy.
Actually, the majority of those killed by the revisionists weren't other bureaucrats or even Party members, but workers and farmers - proletarians and lumpen elements worked to death as slave laborers, or shot outright, having been convicted as traitors for petty crimes under such monstrosities as the "Law of Misappropriation of Socialist Property" or "Law of Spikelets" which targeted the poorest of the poor.


Hmm.. I made myself not clear enough. There are number of contradictory data concerning number of people convicted in 1936-1938. And we do not know the real number of prosecuted. That why talking of 600k executed is rather the creation of anticommunist KGB imagination than a real estimate.
The same lot of KGB-turned-FSB gangsters are still running Russia; they had every reason to cover their tracks and try to decrease the numbers. It is probable that the number is in fact much greater than the recorded figure when one factors in summary, unrecorded and unauthorized shootings.


I think it is a weak point. All actions of Soviet government in 30s have to be treated with respect to the incoming war - rapid industralisation, purges etc.
This argument makes no sense when you consider that the first advocates of industrialization, and the inventors of the Five-Year Plan, had been the Left Opposition led by Trotsky. Stalin's centrist clique actually opposed and postponed industrialization for years, in order to use the petty-bourgeois right as allies against the working-class left. His position was expressed in the quote "Industrialization would be like a peasant buying a gramophone instead of a cow."

So even if all the purges can be explained by a need to terrorize the people to get them to industrialize (which makes no sense either), Stalin's policies had dug that hole to begin with by putting off the inevitable while he maneuvered to destroy rival Bolsheviks.


And the war was proven to be the most bloody ever.Again, this makes no sense when you consider that the USSR actually had a massive superiority in troops, armor, and aircraft at the beginning of the war. The initial defeats, encirclements and destruction of entire Soviet army groups by the Wehrmacht, was only possible because the military purges had revised the advanced Soviet military doctrine of deep operations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_operations) (superior to the German theories developed alongside it) and "physically annihilated" (along with their families) the best battle-proven generals in the Red Army, replacing them with backward-thinking buffoons like Budyonny, who preferred WWI static fronts and Civil War style cavalry charges to modern warfare.

When the Red Army began to win battles against the Nazi forces, that was only because it had been reformed along mechanized lines, with a mobile focus and defense in depth, as Tukhachevsky, Triandafillov and Yakir (whose works on theory were banned after the military purge) had intended it to fight, and because disgraced officers of the deep battle school like Zhukov were brought in to address the situation.

Not only was the Red Army blindfolded and decapitated by the purges, its hands were tied behind its back - Stalin had ignored correct intelligence data from multiple Soviet agents that his Nazi buddies were planning a surprise attack in June. According to Montefiore he even said, "There's this bastard [Richard Sorge] who's set up factories and brothels in Japan and even deigned to report the date of the German attack as 22 June. Are you suggesting I should believe him too?"

[Soviet]

Actually, the majority of those killed by the revisionists weren't other bureaucrats or even Party members, but workers and farmers - proletarians and lumpen elements worked to death as slave laborers, or shot outright, having been convicted as traitors for petty crimes under such monstrosities as the "Law of Misappropriation of Socialist Property" or "Law of Spikelets" which targeted the poorest of the poor.



The first Moscow trial of 16 members of the so-called "Trotsky-Zinoviev Terrorist Center" was held in August 1936. The main defendants were Zinoviev and Kamenev. Among other accusations, they were charged with the murder of Kirov and plotting to assassinate Stalin.
* The second trial (the "Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Centre") in January 1937 took place over 17 smaller heads, such as Radek, Pyatakov and Sokolnikov. 13 people were shot.
* The third process in March 1938 took over 21 members of the so-called "Right-Trotskyite Bloc." Chief defendant was Bukharin, former head of the Comintern, also a former chairman of People's Commissars Rykov, Rakowski, Krestinsky and Yagoda. </span>All defendants except three, were executed. </span>

Thus, we see that Kleber either deliberately lyes or does not know a damn, when he says that "the majority weren't other bureaucrats or even Party members, but workers and farmers".
It's interesting that Trots do not like repressions against vulgar thieves - "the "Law of Misappropriation of Socialist Property" or "Law of Spikelets" which targeted the poorest of the poor".Well,it's a great luck that these gentlemen have not won in the USSR!

However,reading Trot's postes I see that one talker can produce more charges than ten wise men are able to answer them.

[red cat]

The first Moscow trial of 16 members of the so-called "Trotsky-Zinoviev Terrorist Center" was held in August 1936. The main defendants were Zinoviev and Kamenev. Among other accusations, they were charged with the murder of Kirov and plotting to assassinate Stalin.
* The second trial (the "Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Centre") in January 1937 took place over 17 smaller heads, such as Radek, Pyatakov and Sokolnikov. 13 people were shot.
* The third process in March 1938 took over 21 members of the so-called "Right-Trotskyite Bloc." Chief defendant was Bukharin, former head of the Comintern, also a former chairman of People's Commissars Rykov, Rakowski, Krestinsky and Yagoda. </span>All defendants except three, were executed. </span>

Thus, we see that Kleber is either deliberately lyes or does not know a damn, when he says that "the majority weren't other bureaucrats or even Party members, but workers and farmers".
It's interesting that Trots do not like repressions against vulgar thieves - "the "Law of Misappropriation of Socialist Property" or "Law of Spikelets" which targeted the poorest of the poor".Well,it's a great luck that these gentlemen have not won in the USSR!

However,reading Trot's postes I see that one talker can produce more charges than ten wise men are able to answer them.

I think that Kleber is referring to the more widespread series of executions at the same time.

Class struggle at the base level might not always affect only the exact class-enemies; it can be even turned against communists at certain places, by the revisionists who can mislead the state machinery and even the masses to a certain extent. Also, a person who is professionally a farmer or a worker might not always support proletarian politics. For example, in all the countries where Maoist-led PPWs are going on, many of the traitors, spies and police-informers come from the peasantry or proletariat; though they constitute an extremely small fraction of these two classes

But I would like to know about the exact Trotskyist line about the main trials. If those who were executed were really communists, then USSR must have been socialist up to that point ?

[pranabjyoti]

Stalin declared socialism to have been established after the kulaks and nepmen were massacred. Thus, the purges we are discussing happened in "socialism," so there should have been no more reactionary classes.
What Stalin was declared that the USSR was "basically socialist" and I hope you can understand the difference between "socialist" and "basically socialist". And even there are difference in opinions about the definition of socialism even among leaders. As per Mao, after revolution, when proletariat has acquired the power is the starting point of socialism, with all its class contradictions. By adding the words "basically", Stalin want to mean that some advancements had been made towards socialism and conditions are better from the time just after revolution.

[Kléber]

Thus, we see that Kleber either deliberately lyes or does not know a damn, when he says that "the majority weren't other bureaucrats or even Party members, but workers and farmers".
The show trials of a few leaders were only the tip of the iceberg of a mass terror in peacetime that killed at least twice as many as the Red Terror of the civil war.


It's interesting that Trots do not like repressions against vulgar thieves - "the "Law of Misappropriation of Socialist Property" or "Law of Spikelets" which targeted the poorest of the poor".Well,it's a great luck that these gentlemen have not won in the USSR!
It's actually a great shame that proletarians were gunned down for the "crime" of stealing petty scraps to feed their families, or even gleaning for uncollected grain, a culturally accepted practice for the agricultural poor to feed themselves going back to feudal times.


Class struggle at the base level might not always affect only the exact class-enemies; it can be even turned against communists at certain places, by the revisionists who can mislead the state machinery and even the masses to a certain extent.
You are confusing Stalin with Mao, who modified his theories. Stalin did not believe a capitalist class could emerge inside the party. He believed that restoration could only come from imperialist invasion.


But I would like to know about the exact Trotskyist line about the main trials. If those who were executed were really communists, then USSR must have been socialist up to that point ?
The USSR never achieved socialism. That claim is a revisionist lie addressed by Trotsky in The Revolution Betrayed (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/index.htm).


What Stalin was declared that the USSR was "basically socialist" and I hope you can understand the difference between "socialist" and "basically socialist".
So is a "basically socialist" society socialist or not?


By adding the words "basically", Stalin want to mean that some advancements had been made towards socialism and conditions are better from the time just after revolution.
There had officially been "Victory of Socialist Construction in USSR" in 1936. According to Stalin, the construction of socialism was complete. This means the capitalist class had been successfully expropriated and the working class was in control. Therefore, if 600,000+ people were executed, Marx had to be wrong about the withering away of the state. Or, Stalin and friends were lying.

[red cat]

You are confusing Stalin with Mao, who modified his theories. Stalin did not believe a capitalist class could emerge inside the party. He believed that restoration could only come from imperialist invasion.


Stalin certainly believed that party members and some other citizens could be working against the party, for otherwise the Moscow trials wouldn't have taken place.



The USSR never achieved socialism. That claim is a revisionist lie addressed by Trotsky in The Revolution Betrayed (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/index.htm).


Then what were those poor old victimized "communists" doing for two decades since the revolution ?

[pranabjyoti]

There had officially been "Victory of Socialist Construction in USSR" in 1936. According to Stalin, the construction of socialism was complete. This means the capitalist class had been successfully expropriated and the working class was in control. Therefore, if 600,000+ people were executed, Marx had to be wrong about the withering away of the state. Or, Stalin and friends were lying.
Does that mean socialism was already achieved? Stalin himself on another of his writings, clearly stated that the farmers engaged in the collective farms "still remain in their old individual peasant mindset". That means the farmers of the collective farm still had the mentality to have their own property and back to the old style personnel property system of land.

[Kléber]

Stalin certainly believed that party members and some other citizens could be working against the party, for otherwise the Moscow trials wouldn't have taken place.
Some were working against his clique perhaps, but the clique was working against the proletariat.


Then what were those poor old victimized "communists" doing for two decades since the revolution ?
What do you mean?


Does that mean socialism was already achieved?
According to Stalin, yes.


Stalin himself on another of his writings, clearly stated that the farmers engaged in the collective farms "still remain in their old individual peasant mindset". That means the farmers of the collective farm still had the mentality to have their own property and back to the old style personnel property system of land.
So it was necessary for Stalin's government to kill at least 600,000 people to destroy lingering capitalist ideas, when Lenin's regime only had to kill at most 300,000 to expropriate the capitalists themselves?

[The red train]

If I m no mistaken they where open trials with neutral observers from other countries . Also those who where accused of treachery should defend themselves by telling the truth and not consent with the "constructed confessions". A communist should fight for his ideas till the end, No?

[Kléber]

If I m no mistaken they where open trials with neutral observers from other countries . Also those who where accused of treachery should defend themselves by telling the truth and not consent with the "constructed confessions". A communist should fight for his ideas till the end, No?
Defendants and suspects were tortured (everything was framed in terms of treason) and the NKVD threatened to kill their families if they did not invent such stories and betray their comrades. Making insane confessions was the best way to prolong one's own life (Rakovsky had the greatest imagination and lasted until 1941) and the lives of loved ones who weren't involved in the politics. Many of these "confessions" contradicted each other, and were temporarily withdrawn and had to be forced back out by more torture and threats. Stalin privately acknowledged as much when they laid off Yezhov.

[The red train]

Originally Posted by Kléber
Defendants and suspects were tortured (everything was framed in terms of treason) and the NKVD threatened to kill their families if they did not invent such stories and betray their comrades. Making insane confessions was the best way to prolong one's own life (Rakovsky had the greatest imagination and lasted until 1941) and the lives of loved ones who weren't involved in the politics. Many of these "confessions" contradicted each other, and were temporarily withdrawn and had to be forced back out by more torture and threats.Stalin privately acknowledged as much when they laid off Yezhov .

I think that If their fight was just , they should n t "confess".They should speak the "truth"..

[Kléber]

I think that If their fight was just , they should n t "confess".They should speak the "truth"..
Some did refuse to play along with the game of forced confessions (which was the old feudal religious methods of inquisition and excommunication imported from the church into the practices of a proletarian party), the foremost of these who spoke the "truth" was Leon Trotsky (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/index.htm). Assassins of the bureaucratic state tried to kill him with bombs and guns, but failed, and finally put a spy in his home who killed him with a cowardly stab in the back of the head.

[pranabjyoti]

According to Stalin, yes.
You are just distorting Stalin's words and real fact.

[Kléber]

You are just distorting Stalin's words and real fact.

Unlike bourgeois constitutions, the draft of the new Constitution of the U.S.S.R. proceeds from the fact that there are no longer any antagonistic classes in society; that society consists of two friendly classes, of workers and peasants; that it is these classes, the labouring classes, that are in power; that the guidance of society by the state (the dictatorship) is in the hands of the working class, the most advanced class in society, that a constitution is needed for the purpose of consolidating a social order desired by, and beneficial to, the working people.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/11/25.htm

For, during this period, we succeeded in liquidating our bourgeoisie, in establishing fraternal collaboration with our peasantry and in building, in the main, Socialist society, notwithstanding the fact that the Socialist revolution has not yet been victorious in other countries.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm

[red cat]

Some were working against his clique perhaps, but the clique was working against the proletariat.


What do you mean?



I mean that with so many prominent communists in the CP, the USSR must have been socialist. If it wasn't, then how can you identify those executed as communists?

[Soviet]

It's actually a great shame that proletarians were gunned down for the "crime" of stealing petty scraps to feed their families, or even gleaning for uncollected grain, a culturally accepted practice for the agricultural poor to feed themselves going back to feudal times.


It's all lies.
With the implementation of the collectivization of agriculture, with increasing number of collective farms there appeared new owners, who were often vulnerable to the appetites of both local authorities and to the theft from the "bottom".

Meanwhile, a situation of food shortages made this situation intolerable.

- Grain were stealing in large quantities under the guise of "unearned bread."
-Grain were stealing when it was transported in barns and commissioning items under the guise of "harvesting losses".
-Grain plundered during railing.

The massive theft failed the harvesting campaign and severely hampered grain purchases in 1931. Badly conducted spring sowing, the abundance of weeds, lack of serious food reserves from the state placed the struggle for the preservation of the crop in 1932 to the forefront and in practice meant an attempt to prevent starvation of the population who could not steal or didn't want to steal.

Resolution on the protection of socialist property was taken August 7, 1932 in the midst of the struggle for the harvest and was a strong central government attempt to mobilize food supplies and prevent starvation.


The show trials of a few leaders were only the tip of the iceberg of a mass terror in peacetime that killed at least twice as many as the Red Terror of the civil war.

A unsubstantiated lie again,no facts or figures ,he just lied - and let Stalinists justified.

[pranabjyoti]

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/11/25.htm

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm
Well, Socialism is a classless society while Stalin admitted that class existed in those times. That is "basically socialist" as the workers were in control of the society, but certainly IT CAN NOT BE CALLED A CLASSLESS SOCIETY. Actually, I was wrong when I said that you have distorted the words of Stalin. Basically, you haven't understand what Stalin want to say and have no idea about the real situation of that time in USSR.

[Kléber]

I mean that with so many prominent communists in the CP, the USSR must have been socialist. If it wasn't, then how can you identify those executed as communists?
The social relations of production are not determined by the subjective qualities of the most prominent politicians.


We know that we cannot establish a socialist order at the present time. It will be well if our children and perhaps our grandchildren will be able to establish it.

The revisionists only declared themselves to have established "socialism" in 1936, despite that they were enjoying lives of privilege at the expense of the population with exclusive bureaucrat and officer-only stores, restaurants, residential areas, limousines, domestic staff and exorbitantly high pay and bonuses since the limit on Party members' salaries, which had been instituted by Lenin, was abolished in 1931. Meanwhile super-exploited segments of the population like domestic workers and the agricultural poor persisted in this "socialism."


With the implementation of the collectivization of agriculture, with increasing number of collective farms there appeared new owners, who were often vulnerable to the appetites of both local authorities and to the theft from the "bottom".
"Bottom?" Why do you have that in quotes? Do you think that gleaners, people "stealing" individual pieces of unharvested grain, were secret agents of imperialist states?


Badly conducted spring sowing
Lysenkoist pseudo-science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism), the product of despotic politics, had an antagonistic role in the agricultural crisis.


Resolution on the protection of socialist property was taken August 7, 1932 in the midst of the struggle for the harvest and was a strong central government attempt to mobilize food supplies and prevent starvation.The bureaucratic regime, isolated from the masses, effectively blamed the poorest elements for its own incompetence and lack of coordination, in the same manner that a bourgeois government reacts most harshly to looters and rioters in the wake of a flood or some other humanitarian disaster.


A unsubstantiated lie again,no facts or figures ,he just lied - and let Stalinists justified.
Those figures are from the Soviet archives, counts of the official number of recorded executions range from ~680,000-720,000.


Well, Socialism is a classless society while Stalin admitted that class existed in those times. That is "basically socialist" as the workers were in control of the society, but certainly IT CAN NOT BE CALLED A CLASSLESS SOCIETY.
So, Stalin was lying when he said this?

... there are no longer any antagonistic classes in society;

[red cat]

The social relations of production are not determined by the subjective qualities of the most prominent politicians.



But the subjective qualities of politicians who are part of the ruling party, are determined to external observers by the ability of the said politicians to change social relations of production in favour of the class they support. I don't see why we should call the executed CP members "communists" when they failed to establish socialism while in power.

[Kléber]

I don't see why we should call the executed CP members "communists" when they failed to establish socialism while in power.
So according to you, Lenin was not a communist.

We know that we cannot establish a socialist order at the present time. It will be well if our children and perhaps our grandchildren will be able to establish it.

[red cat]

So according to you, Lenin was not a communist.

We hold that USSR under Stalin was socialist, and that its construction had begun right from 1917. Since Lenin led the socialist revolution that created USSR, he must have been a socialist.

[Kléber]

We hold that USSR under Stalin was socialist, and that its construction had begun right from 1917. Since Lenin led the socialist revolution that created USSR, he must have been a socialist.
So are you saying that the USSR suddenly became socialist when Stalin became undisputed lord of the realm?

Let us consider Stalin's own words on the matter, before he came up with the revisionist doctrine of "Socialism in One Country," from the original edition of Problems of Leninism:


The overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of a proletarian government in one country does not yet guarantee the complete victory of socialism. The main task of socialism – the organization of socialist production – still remains ahead. Can this task be accomplished, can the final victory of socialism in one country be attained, without the joint efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries? No, this is impossible. To overthrow the bourgeoisie, the efforts of one country are sufficient – the history of our revolution bears this out. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of such a peasant country as Russia are insufficient. For this the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are necessary ...

Such, on the whole, are the characteristic features of the Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.

Stalin later abandoned this theory. This section was revised in the 1926 edition, and rewritten to say that the complete victory of socialist construction was possible in one country (which was declared to be successful in 1936). The "characteristic features of the Leninist theory" became associated with none other than "Trotskyism."

[red cat]

So are you saying that the USSR suddenly became socialist when Stalin became undisputed lord of the realm?

Let us consider Stalin's own words on the matter, before he came up with "Socialism in One Country," from the original edition of Problems of Leninism:



Stalin later abandoned this theory. This section was revised in the 1926 edition, and rewritten to say that the complete victory of socialist construction was possible in one country (which was declared to be successful in 1936). The "characteristic features of the Leninist theory" became associated with none other than "Trotskyism."

From the point where the proletariat achieves victory over the bourgeoisie and starts implementing its own dictatorship, socialist construction starts. It is not possible for a country to become socialist "suddenly". All we can say is that the USSR under Stalin (and Lenin too) showed many features that we identify with socialism.

[Kléber]

From the point where the proletariat achieves victory over the bourgeoisie and starts implementing its own dictatorship, socialist construction starts. It is not possible for a country to become socialist "suddenly". All we can say is that the USSR under Stalin (and Lenin too) showed many features that we identify with socialism.
Stalin claimed that socialist construction had been "victoriously" completed by 1936. That implies not 1%, not 50%, but 100%. Completed. He said there were no more antagonistic classes in Soviet society. Do you agree with that or not?

[red cat]

Stalin claimed that socialist construction had been "victoriously" completed by 1936. That implies not 1%, not 50%, but 100%. Completed. He said there were no more antagonistic classes in Soviet society. Do you agree with that or not?

Completion of socialist construction as in end of class struggle ?

[Kléber]

Completion of socialist construction as in end of class struggle ?
Within the USSR, yes.

Unlike bourgeois constitutions, the draft of the new Constitution of the U.S.S.R. proceeds from the fact that there are no longer any antagonistic classes in society; that society consists of two friendly classes, of workers and peasants; that it is these classes, the labouring classes, that are in power; that the guidance of society by the state (the dictatorship) is in the hands of the working class, the most advanced class in society, that a constitution is needed for the purpose of consolidating a social order desired by, and beneficial to, the working people.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...1936/11/25.htm (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/11/25.htm)

[red cat]

Within the USSR, yes.


No. If that was the meaning of Stalin's statement, then I disagree with him on that point.

[pranabjyoti]

No. If that was the meaning of Stalin's statement, then I disagree with him on that point.
Stalin didn't said that. How can class exist in a classless society? And from the time of Marx, the class character of peasants/petty-bourgeoisie is a matter of hot debate which is perhaps still going on today. Stalin can not be so dumb to declare USSR to be socialist despite the presence of class.

[red cat]

Stalin didn't said that. How can class exist in a classless society? And from the time of Marx, the class character of peasants/petty-bourgeoisie is a matter of hot debate which is perhaps still going on today. Stalin can not be so dumb to declare USSR to be socialist despite the presence of class.

Precisely why my statement is conditional. :)

[Astinilats]

The evidence against most of the defendants is overwhelming. We know for a fact Trotsky organized anti-government opposition in the USSR, from his own archives. We know Bukharin wanted to kill Stalin as early as 1928, from Jules Humbert-Droz. We know Rykov knew about the Riutin platform and said nothing from his own remarks while not under arrest, etc.

[Astinilats]

Defendants and suspects were tortured (everything was framed in terms of treason) and the NKVD threatened to kill their families if they did not invent such stories and betray their comrades

You can't produce one single shred of evidence to support this. This is simply a lie, one that Trotskyites spew without even a shred of evidence. In fact, the defendants would not admit to many of the charges against them. Bukharin never admitted to wanting to kill Lenin. Bukharin also wrote many books while in prison, apparently between bouts of torture.

[RED DAVE]

The evidence against most of the defendants is overwhelming. We know for a fact Trotsky organized anti-government opposition in the USSR, from his own archives. We know Bukharin wanted to kill Stalin as early as 1928, from Jules Humbert-Droz. We know Rykov knew about the Riutin platform and said nothing from his own remarks while not under arrest, etc.Sources please.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

You can't produce one single shred of evidence to support this. This is simply a lie, one that Trotskyites spew without even a shred of evidence. In fact, the defendants would not admit to many of the charges against them. Bukharin never admitted to wanting to kill Lenin. Bukharin also wrote many books while in prison, apparently between bouts of torture.The burden of proof lies with you.

RED DAVE

[bailey_187]

Sources please.

RED DAVE

Concerning Trotsky organising opposition, it is written about in Robert Thurston's "Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia". I typed it out before, but i cba right now.

If you were on about the Bukharin thing, then no sorry i dont know anything about that.

[Kléber]

Concerning Trotsky organising opposition, it is written about in Robert Thurston's "Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia". I typed it out before, but i cba right now.
Duh Trotsky organized opposition. That doesn't mean he was a CIA agent in league with Satan. The fact his real or imagined supporters had to be shot by the hundreds of thousands to preserve a society without "antagonistic classes" makes you wonder about the social character of the Soviet regime.

Molotov and co. "organized opposition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Party_Group)," do you support them being suppressed by Khrushchev with Stalinist slander methods?

[bailey_187]

I have already explained my position on the Moscow Trials, so why even say that it doesnt prove that?

[pranabjyoti]

Sources please.

RED DAVE
The Great Conspiracy against Russia by Michael Kahn and Albert Sears. Also the book written by Joseph E Davis, US Ambassador to Russia and eyewitness of the trial process. There are much words from eyewitnesses, whom no trot can call A DIRECT STALIN SYMPATHIZER and most don't have a distant connection to any STALINIST party.
So far, I have seen that trots don't have the habit of reading books and submit proofs in support of their words other than the worthless imperialist propaganda. Perhaps for that reason they are trots.

[Kléber]

I have already explained my position on the Moscow Trials, so why even say that it doesnt prove that?
But then you brought up "evidence" that Trotsky and co. were traitors. I'm just pointing out, that Khrushchev suppressed Molotov and the orthodox Stalinists using the same methods (though less violently) that their clique had used against oppositionists in the 1930's.


So far, I have seen that trots don't have the habit of reading books and submit proofs in support of their words other than the worthless imperialist propaganda.
Says Mr. "Stalin didn't said that."

Your purge apologist dilettante hacks like Davies are the only worthless imperialist propaganda I see.

[Astinilats]

Sources please.

RED DAVE

1. Trotsky in exile: The founding of the fourth international. Author: J. Arch Getty. I'm not gonna cite the page number because I don't recall it off hand and you should read the whole thing anyway.

revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv8n1/bukharin.htm - the bottom of the page contains the relevant quote from the autobiography of Jules Humbert-Droz.

"Before leaving I went to see Bukharin for one last time not knowing whether I would see him again upon my return. We had a long and frank conversation. He brought me up to date with the contacts made by his group with the Zinoviev-Kamenev fraction in order to coordinate the struggle against the power of Stalin. I did not hide from him that I did not approve of this liaison of the oppositions. ‘The struggle against Stalin is not a political programme. We had combatted with reason the programme of the trotskyites on the essential questions, the danger of the kulaks in Russia, the struggle against the united front with the social-democrats, the Chinese problems, the very short-sighted revolutionary perspective, etc. On the morrow of a common victory against Stalin, the political problems will divide us. This bloc is a bloc without principles which will crumble away before achieving any results.’

Bukharin also told me that they had decided to utilise individual terror in order to rid themselves of Stalin. On this point as well I expressed my reservation: the introduction of individual terror into the political struggles born from the Russian Revolution would strongly risk turning against those who employed it. It had never been a revolutionary weapon. ‘My opinion is that we ought to continue the ideological and political struggle against Stalin. His line will lead in the near future to a catastrophe which will open the eyes of the communists and result in a changing of orientation. Fascism menaces Germany and our party of phrasemongers will be incapable of resisting it. Before the debacle of the Communist Party of Germany and the extension of fascism to Poland and to France, the International must change politics. That moment will then be our hour. It is necessary then to remain disciplined, to apply the sectarian decisions after having fought and opposed the leftist errors and measures, but to continue to struggle on the strictly political terrain’.

Bukharin doubtlessly had understood that I would not liase blindly with his fraction whose sole programme was to make Stalin disappear. This was our last meeting. Manifestly he did not have confidence in the tactic that I proposed."

3. Rykov admits to knowing about the Riutin platform and not telling anyone in a meeting. It is recorded in Getty's Road to Terror, page 401.

[Astinilats]

The burden of proof lies with you.

RED DAVE

The exact opposite is the case. The claim that they were tortured literally has not a shred, not a single shred of evidence to support it. You can literally not cite anything. It is an a priori assumption by anti-communists.

[RED DAVE]

The burden of proof lies with you.
The exact opposite is the case. The claim that they were tortured literally has not a shred, not a single shred of evidence to support it. You can literally not cite anything. It is an a priori assumption by anti-communists.Dream on Stalinista. And keep on feeding in the graveyard you and your ilk created.

Bought any ice axes lately?

RED DAVE

[Astinilats]

Dream on Stalinista. And keep on feeding in the graveyard you and your ilk created.

Bought any ice axes lately?

RED DAVE

If you could refute me, you would simply cite the relevant evidence right now, rather than talk about ice axes. I challenge you to go find it and bring it back here. Go find the evidence any of them were tortured or their lives of their family members threatened if they didn't confess. Show me I'm an idiot and don't know what I'm talking about, and bolster the case Trotskyism and anti-communism everywhere.

The fact is, and I think you're probably aware of it, is that this evidence doesn't exist. It is an a priori assumption, given that the possibility that the confessions are genuine is ruled out as unthinkable by anti-communists. This is even true when these assumptions literally don't make sense. Did Bukharin care more about denying he wanted to kill Lenin than he did his wife's safety?

[pranabjyoti]

Says Mr. "Stalin didn't said that."

Your purge apologist dilettante hacks like Davies are the only worthless imperialist propaganda I see.
Capitalist imperialism favoring Stalin! That's most craziest trot version I have ever heard and PLEASE DON'T TELL THAT IN OPEN. Anybody should be worried about your mental health.

[Kléber]

Capitalist imperialism favoring Stalin! That's most craziest trot version I have ever heard and PLEASE DON'T TELL THAT IN OPEN. Anybody should be worried about your mental health.
lol.

Did these people really believe the Moscow accusations? Only the most obtuse. The others did not wish to alarm themselves by verification. Is it reasonable to infringe upon the flattering, comfortable, and often well-paying friendship with the Soviet embassies? Moreover, they did not forget this indiscreet truth can injure the prestige of the U.S.S.R. These people screened the crimes by utilitarian considerations, that is, frankly applied the principle, “the end justifies the means.”
The King’s Counselor, Pritt, who succeeded with timeliness in peering under the chiton of the Stalinist Themis and there discovered everything in order, took upon himself the shameless initiative. Romain Rolland, whose moral authority is highly evaluated by the Soviet publishing house bookkeepers, hastened to proclaim one of his manifestos where melancholy lyricism unites with senile cynicism. The French League for the Rights of Man, which thundered about the “amoralism of Lenin and Trotsky” in 1917 when they broke the military alliance with France, hastened to screen Stalin’s crimes in 1936 in the interests of the Franco-Soviet pact. A patriotic end justifies, as is known, any means. The Nation and The New Republic closed their eyes to Yagoda’s exploits since their “friendship” with the USSR guaranteed their own authority. Yet only a year ago these gentlemen did not at all declare Stalinism and Trotskyism to be one and the same. They openly stood for Stalin, for his realism, for his justice and for his Yagoda. They clung to this position as long as they could.
Until the moment of the execution of Tukhachevsky, Yakir, and the others, the big bourgeoisie of the democratic countries, not without pleasure, though blanketed with fastidiousness, watched the execution of the revolutionists in the USSR. In this sense The Nation and The New Republic, not to speak of Duranty, Louis Fischer, and their kindred prostitutes of the pen, fully responded to the interests of “democratic” imperialism.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/morals/morals.htm

[RED DAVE]

Just a quick point to all you die-hard stalinists: keep doing what you're doing. Keep justifying mass murder, the liquidation of comrades, etc. Let us and the world know what you're good for. When we meet in the unions, mass movements, etc., put forth your programs, which re based on a method that justifies the purges, etc. We'll see what your program looks like.

A few months ago, I debated one of your ilk here about the Dewey Commission. He ended up accusing the administration of this website of being pedophiles. Typical stalinism. The degeneration of, say, the CPUSA, the main stalinist organization in the US, can be traced to the use of the same methodology that you use. If I have a chance to read Getty, I will. If he's an honest scholar, his work will show that you are plunging your hands into blood. Right now, I have a few other things to do, like watch paint dry or feed my cat.

So, have your fun while you can. And as the current surge of working class militancy continues to increase in strength, by all means work within with the rest of us, using your methodology. See ya; don't wanna be ya.

RED DAVE

[pranabjyoti]

Trots at last come to their real color. PERSONNEL ATTACK.

[RED DAVE]

Trots at last come to their real color. PERSONNEL ATTACK.Actually, you do the attacking. I'm saying, let's work this out in practice. I have worked with stalinists, maoists, orthodox trots, social democrats, liberals, etc. In general, the contradictions of their beliefs are soon exposed by their day-to-day practice. If I see you in a union I'm a member of, or a mass organization, sure let's work together. But I have lots of experience not connected to the Moscow Trials that demonstrates the fundamentally bureaucratic methods of stalinists and their ilk.

See you at the local meeting Thursday night. Hopefully, there's cookies. :cool:

RED DAVE

[Astinilats]

Just a quick point to all you die-hard stalinists: keep doing what you're doing. Keep justifying mass murder, the liquidation of comrades, etc. Let us and the world know what you're good for. When we meet in the unions, mass movements, etc., put forth your programs, which re based on a method that justifies the purges, etc. We'll see what your program looks like.

lol, if we went to those meetings, we'd be talking about organizing, while you'd be busy trying to sell some shitty newspaper and blathering about "socialism form below." The fact is workers don't give a fuck about Stalin or Trotsky. The only thing they'd see is your sectarian nonsense that agrees with everything the mass media and the bosses tell them.


A few months ago, I debated one of your ilk here about the Dewey Commission. He ended up accusing the administration of this website of being pedophiles.

I'm sure you did as poorly in that exchange as this one.


The degeneration of, say, the CPUSA, the main stalinist organization in the US, can be traced to the use of the same methodology that you use.

The CPUSA isn't "Stalinist" is any meaningful sense. That's just a nonsense buzzword used by Trotskyite cultists.

[RED DAVE]

lol, if we went to those meetings, we'd be talking about organizing, while you'd be busy trying to sell some shitty newspaper and blathering about "socialism form below." The fact is workers don't give a fuck about Stalin or Trotsky. The only thing they'd see is your sectarian nonsense that agrees with everything the mass media and the bosses tell them.Yeah, right. See you at the meeting. :cool:

RED DAVE

[Kléber]

The CPUSA isn't "Stalinist" is any meaningful sense.
The CPUSA believes that Stalin was telling the truth that socialism had been successfully constructed in 1936. Therefore the CPUSA, like you, is Stalinist.


That's just a nonsense buzzword used by Trotskyite cultists.
"Cultist" is a meaningless world whether it drops out among spit particles from the mouth of an online Papal Inquisitor or from an actual medieval heretic-hunter of the Sacred Cult of Rome.

[Durruti's Ghost]

Stalin didn't said that.

Wait a second. How can you make this claim? Are you saying that Stalin did not, in fact, deliver the report "On the Draft Constitution of USSR" at the Eighth Congress of Soviets? Are you saying the translation is faulty? If by saying that there are no more antagonistic classes in the USSR, Stalin doesn't really mean there are no more antagonistic classes in the USSR, then what does he mean?

[Bright Banana Beard]

The CPUSA believes that Stalin was telling the truth that socialism had been successfully constructed in 1936. Therefore the CPUSA, like you, is Stalinist. This is true when you appeal to ignorance.


"Cultist" is a meaningless world whether it drops out among spit particles from the mouth of an online Papal Inquisitor or from an actual medieval heretic-hunter of the Sacred Cult of Rome. It is a cultist as long you are using Trotskyism definition and using it for straw man. Even the MIA is terrible on the definition of Stalinism.

[red cat]

Even the MIA is terrible on the definition of Stalinism.

Isn't the MIA run by Trots ?

[RED DAVE]

What is the MIA?

(In general, could comrades use the entire names of groups in discussions like this.)

RED DAVE

[chegitz guevara]

MIA = Marx/Engels Internet Archive = http://www.marxists.org

[Astinilats]

The CPUSA believes that Stalin was telling the truth that socialism had been successfully constructed in 1936. Therefore the CPUSA, like you, is Stalinist.

Glenn Beck thinks Stalin built socialism too. Is Glenn Beck a Stalinist?


"Cultist" is a meaningless world whether it drops out among spit particles from the mouth of an online Papal Inquisitor or from an actual medieval heretic-hunter of the Sacred Cult of Rome.

That's what virtually all Trotskyite groupuscules are: cults devoted to some Trot who is the 'real heir' of the Fourth International.

[chegitz guevara]

Instead of pulling wild things out of your butt to try and win an argument against someone who knows his shit, you might try engaging in a conversation. Kléber, being a former Maoist, is thus a former Stalinist, and knows what the fuck he is talking about.

[Kléber]

Glenn Beck thinks Stalin built socialism too. Is Glenn Beck a Stalinist?
Of course Glenn Beck thinks that a reactionary military dictatorship was the logical outcome of the October Revolution, because he, like the Stalinist bureaucracy, has no faith in the international proletariat.


That's what virtually all Trotskyite groupuscules are: cults devoted to some Trot who is the 'real heir' of the Fourth International.
Your own name backwards shows what species of fanatic you are. Stalin was a cultist (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/01/30.htm), not Trotsky. Your crusade against the trots is a holdover of feudal times, when priests burned heretics at the stake.

[Astinilats]

Of course Glenn Beck thinks that a reactionary military dictatorship was the logical outcome of the October Revolution, because he, like the Stalinist bureaucracy, has no faith in the international proletariat.

You didn't answer the question because the example makes nonsense of your statement. Glenn Beck is a moron who thinks Obama is a socialist. Thinking the USSR was socialist doesn't have a damn thing to do with being a "Stalinist." Trots call each other "Stalinists" more than anyone else, and they all claim to despise him. It is a meaningless term used by Trotskyite cultists to insult anyone they don't like, mostly competing Trot cults.


Your own name backwards shows what species of fanatic you are.I don't hide from the ravings and insults of anti-communist trash like yourself. "Stalinism" and "Maoism" don't scare me, and most people who aren't petty-bourgeois white children rebelling from their parents don't give a shit either.


Stalin was a cultist, not Trotsky.lol, it would be trivially easy to find statements like this from Trotsky. You think something is wrong with writing obituaries for Lenin?


Your crusade against the trots is a holdover of feudal times, when priests burned heretics at the stake.No, it is a reaction to an ideology that is a cancer on the Left. Trotskyism is nothing but anti-communism.

[Astinilats]

Instead of pulling wild things out of your butt to try and win an argument against someone who knows his shit, you might try engaging in a conversation. Kléber, being a former Maoist, is thus a former Stalinist, and knows what the fuck he is talking about.

More like someone who knows shit. Kleber won't even attempt to back up wild lies about torture and threats against the lives of people in the Moscow Trials.

[Kléber]

Oh, sorry, I forgot the official narrative for a minute. Stalin invited everyone over to his place for some chips and salsa, they watched Friends reruns together and Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin cheerily confessed all their treasonous crimes and plots to assassinate Lenin and Sverdlov and establish a whiteguard dictatorship going back to 1918.

[Astinilats]

I take it you can't find any evidence, eh?

[pranabjyoti]

Wait a second. How can you make this claim? Are you saying that Stalin did not, in fact, deliver the report "On the Draft Constitution of USSR" at the Eighth Congress of Soviets? Are you saying the translation is faulty? If by saying that there are no more antagonistic classes in the USSR, Stalin doesn't really mean there are no more antagonistic classes in the USSR, then what does he mean?
Stalin want to mean that the base to establish socialism in USSR is established and now the superstructure have to be built. In that time, Stalin himself admitted that there are existence of class, though in his opinion "friendly", in USSR at that time.

[Durruti's Ghost]

Stalin want to mean that the base to establish socialism in USSR is established and now the superstructure have to be built. In that time, Stalin himself admitted that there are existence of class, though in his opinion "friendly", in USSR at that time.

But if the only classes remaining in the USSR at the time were non-antagonistic, how would it be possible for the class struggle to continue at all, let alone be "aggravated"?

[RED DAVE]

That's what virtually all Trotskyite groupuscules are: cults devoted to some Trot who is the 'real heir' of the Fourth International.Yeah. That's why Kleber's real moniker is Ykstort.

Ees uoy no eht eniltekcip, Astinilats.

RED DAVE

[black magick hustla]

Capitalist imperialism favoring Stalin! That's most craziest trot version I have ever heard and PLEASE DON'T TELL THAT IN OPEN. Anybody should be worried about your mental health.
Some of them did. They were their buisness partners. In the same sense "western imperialism" favors China today. And in the same sense The US favored Mao for a while.

[Arti]

Lets get back to the main theme. Here you have Furr's remarks on trials:

Remarks on the Moscow Trials, on Evidence, and Objectivity

by Grover Furr
June 25 2006
I’d like to reply to some remarks made by ShineThePath (hereafter STP for brevity) about the Moscow trials. STP made them on the subject of my interview by Celticfire, on his fine blog..
STP makes many incorrect statements. In addition, he often states or implies that he has evidence to support statements that in fact he does NOT have evidence for.
But many people hold similar views and misconceptions. So I think a response to STP might be useful generally. And – I hope – it will encourage STP to be more objective in the future, not to state or imply that he knows things that, in reality, he does NOT know.
Objectivity requires that one gather and study all the evidence available, and then draw your conclusions in accordance with that evidence. This is the only way to arrive at the truth.
In my remarks below I’ve quoted STP’s statements word for word, in italics, and put an asterisk (*) in front of them, so the reader can see which remarks are STP’s, and which are mine.
* "The Court charged high ranking Bolsheviks, such as Buhkarin, Rykov, and others for a plot to kill Lenin in 1917! Of course this unproven and has no evidence except from the hearsay of the defendants and testimony."
Actually, the charge was against Bukharin, not Rykov, and was about 1918. During the 1938 Moscow Trial Bukharin vigorously denied involvement in a plot to kill Lenin.
However, Bukharin admitted – as he had done in 1926 – to having been involved with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in a plot to have Lenin arrested. The S-R Party believed in, and practiced, assassination against political enemies.
The S-R Party had only recently split. Some Left S-Rs were still working with the Right S-Rs. The Right S-Rs did shoot Lenin, and killed a few other Bolsheviks. This is the connection that was explored by the Prosecutor in the 1938 Trial.
I never asserted that Bukharin was guilty of planning to assassinate Lenin (along with Stalin and Sverdlov, as he was accused). However, there was testimony from three former Left S-Rs – Iakovleva, Ossinsky, and Mantsev – that strongly implicated Bukharin.
Here’s another thing to consider. In the USA one is guilty of any crime committed by any member of a conspiracy one is involved in. A person involved with others in, say, a burglary is guilty of any crime committed by any of his co-conspirators.
For example, I have personally spoken with men imprisoned for over 20 years for "felony murder" – a murder committed by another member of a group involved in a burglary. Even though the murder was completely unplanned, and the persons I spoke with were not directly involved in it, they are still guilty of murder.
Another example is the recent case of Zacarias Moussaoui, who took no part at all in the 9/11 attacks but, because he was part of the conspiracy, was convicted of guilt in them.
Concerning "belief:" No objective researcher "believes" or "refused to believe" charges, testimony, or evidence. You must identify evidence; locate it; get access to it; study it; and draw your conclusions according to where the bulk of the evidence lies. Reliance on "belief" pollutes anti-communist "scholarship" of the Moscow Trials. Marxists need to avoid "belief", and decide truth or falsehood provisionally, according to the evidence -- that is, with objectivity.
Concerning evidence: The testimony of others, unsupported by physical evidence, is enough for conviction even in the United States. Often – as in the case of conspiracy – physical evidence is not to be expected. And physical evidence can be faked, forged, altered, etc., just as personal testimony can be.
As in the USA, the prosecution’s main weapon is to get co-conspirators to "rat out" each other, then to compare the confession statements of various defendants with each other.
Using the similarities and discrepancies among the different confessions, the investigators arrive at their reconstruction of what really happened. The fact that one or more of the accused does not confess is not at all fatal to the prosecution.
Additionally, many of the defendants in the Moscow Trials said they had misgivings about their parts in the conspiracy. They had been certain that the "Stalin" policies would fail, and so had decided that Stalin had to be removed. But by the mid-30s, as they believed, collectivization and industrialization were succeeding.
Finally, the defendants distrusted each other. There was no single conspiracy, but a network of them (the NKVD called this case the "klubok", or "tangle"). The Rights distrusted the Trotskyites; the NKVDists (Iagoda, Ezhov) distrusted everybody else and each other; they all distrusted Tukhachevsky & Co.; and nobody trusted the Germans or Japanese, either. So getting the various defendants to "rat out" each other did not prove very hard.
Of course, Bukharin’s failure to confess to plotting Lenin’s assassination does not mean that he didn’t do it. And we know that Bukharin lied on other occasions, so why not in this one?
To repeat, though: I did NOT conclude that Bukharin was guilty of this particular charge.
* "The very problem with all these trials was that all the conspirators were really never proven beyond a serious doubt, to have actually acted in attempts to destroy the Soviet Union and work for the Nazis…. Professor Furr also suspects us to believe that all these testimonies are genuine and real, and that we should just accept them…"
I’ve read this kind of thing many times. I think it’s basically wrong, lacking in objectivity.
First of all: I have never, ever asked anybody to "believe" or "just accept" the trial testimony! So why does STP say that I did? In effect, STP is setting up a "straw man", rather than confronting what I did say: the evidence that actually exists; and – maybe – his own ignorance of that evidence.
As for evidence:
a. The co-conspirators confessed and implicated each other (there was testimony from additional witnesses too) in great detail. This is enough to convict in the USA today. (I deal with the question of coercion below).
b. We do not know what evidence the Soviet Prosecution had! The Russian government has never permitted even their own trusted anti-communist researchers to see it.
c. There is a good deal of evidence outside the Trial that corroborates – is consistent with – some of the charges.
* "People's families were arrested and used as pieces to force a confession. Bukharin for one was threatened with the execution of his 12 year old son."
This is simply not true. There is no evidence of any such thing! Neither Bukharin nor his family were ever threatened. We know this, because we have (1) Bukharin’s last letter to his wife; (2) the memoirs of his wife, Anna Larina. None reflect any coercion, whether beatings, torture, threats, etc.; (3) the proceedings of the "Rehabilitation" commission that investigated Bukharin’s case in the late ‘80s. They were dismayed that they were unable to find any evidence that Bukharin was coerced, or that he was innocent.
Bukharin was "rehabilitated" – declared to have been innocent – on purely political grounds, despite the lack of any evidence. The Gorbachev regime wanted to accelerate the institution of capitalist, market-based economic "reforms", and to disguise them by saying "We are going back to Lenin’s NEP."
It’s easy to see where this all led in fact: back to the very right-wing, predatory capitalism that replaced the USSR.
* "Yezhov was held to blame for this (though it seems he was just a simple bureaucrat)…"
STP is evidently ignorant of a lot of the evidence now available concerning Ezhov.
Ezhov was himself a leader in a related Rightist plot to overthrow the Soviet government. A confession-statement by Ezhov, and a statement by his second-in-command Frinovsky, detailing their conspiracy, massive torture and murder of innocent people to cover up their own involvements, etc., were just published in February 2006. (See below for more detail)
* "Furr defends Beria who he speaks of as "similiar to Stalin" in regard to Marxism-Leninism. That seems to contradict the actualy policy of Beria and his known writings on Marxism."
About Beria: I do not "defend" him or Stalin, either. I’m not "defending" anybody. I just lay out the evidence we have, from Russian-language research, and draw the logical conclusions from that evidence.
It is true – as evidence the best contemporary Russian research – that Beria’s plans for democratizing the USSR, and other reforms he initiated, seem similar to those Stalin advocated. This research is listed in the bibliography of my two articles in Cultural Logic. As for Beria’s "Marxism", I did not even mention his writings.
* "This is an essay on this subject by Slavoj Zizek..."
In the essay cited by STP Zizek frequently cites Arch Getty and Vladimir Naumov’s book The Road to Terror. This book contains the only extensive summary of the February-March 1937 Central Committee Plenum during which, for example, Bukharin was sharply criticized and challenged to confess his guilt.
But Zizek follows Getty in tacitly accepting Bukharin’s claims of innocence at face value, and concocts a "psychological" explanation for Stalin’s, and the other CC members’, demanding a confession. Though Zizek references Lacan to justify this move, it seems to me like warmed-over Arthur Koestler a la Darkness At Noon.
In reality, the evidence that Bukharin was guilty is overwhelming. Bukharin was accused by dozens of people who claimed to have been his co-conspirators. We have the texts of "face to face confrontations" between Bukharin and five of these accusers. In the Feb.- Mar. 1937 Plenum Bukharin said he had received a great many more from the NKVD, up to 20 in a single day!
But Khrushchev (indirectly) and later Gorbachev had Bukharin declared "innocent" and "rehabilitated", so Zizek proceeds on that basis. Bukharin’s guilt undermines his whole bogus "psychological" theory.
The entire proceedings of the February-March 1937 Plenum have been published – naturally, or Getty / Naumov would not have been able to use them. I have them. Zizek too could have obtained, and studied, them.
So why didn’t he? Maybe Zizek was lazy! Studying a thousand pages or so of this transcript would be a lot of work. Far easier to "theorize" from Getty’s discussion.
* "…Furr is intellectually dishonest…"
All of STP’s comments imply I’ve been dishonest. It is at least forthright of him to accuse me explicitly of dishonesty.
So let me be equally forthright. STP is dishonest. He states things that are not true. In plain language this is called "lying." In this case, maybe it is just "bluffing."
Whatever we call it -- it’s something no Marxist should engage in.
* "For example, we know for a fact that months before the trial Bukharin had denied the charges. He would not admit guilt until his family was directly threatened."
This is – to put it politely – not a truthful statement.
There is no evidence that Bukharin’s family was threatened. As for Bukharin’s denials, so what? We know he finally began to confess on June 2, 1937. Getty / Naumov (pp. 446-7) suggest he may have done so when he found out that Tukhachevsky and the other top military men had been arrested, and so would not rescue him.
* "Tukachevsky was tortured before he confessed to a plot implicating Buhkarin."
There is no evidence that Tukhachevsky was tortured. Getty / Naumov say he was – but there’s no evidence of it. I discussed this in my Red Critique essay.
Incidentally, only parts of Tukhachevsky’s confessions have ever been published. They don’t even mention Bukharin. These documents are not hard to get – if you take the trouble to get them. Obviously, STP has not taken the trouble – but then why does he pretend that he has?
* "Yezhov was charged with … a plot to kill Stalin, which he utterly denied and there was no such evidence showing such."
Once again, this is not a true statement. Such evidence does exist. See the ferociously anti-communist and anti-Stalin Jansen & Petrov, Stalin’s Loyal Executioner (Hoover Institution, 2002), pp. 155-6; 183-4; 209.
J&P don’t "believe" this evidence – naturally, since they are wedded to a theory that Stalin planned it all; Ezhov was "loyal" to him; and so a plot by Ezhov to kill Stalin does not "fit" their preconceptions.
But the documents they cite confirms it – Ezhov’s, Frinovsky’s, Babulin’s (the Evdokimov confession they had access to, and used, does not seem to have been published). In particular, Ezhov confesses to meeting with General Ernst Koestring, German military attaché.
J&P used these documents – classified at the time they wrote their book – dishonestly, too. For Frinovsky states that Ezhov visited Bukharin in prison before the March 1938 Trial, and promised to see that Bukharin was not executed -- IF he (Bukharin) kept quiet about Ezhov’s participation in the Rightist conspiracy. Then, according to Frinovsky, Ezhov double-crossed Bukharin.
Yet J&P did not mention this fact in their book at all! It doesn't support their preconceived, highly anti-communist, and of course dishonest, position.
You don’t "believe" Frinovsky? Good! Evidence is not to be "believed" or "disbelieved." We have to collect all the evidence; analyze it; and reach our conclusions on the basis of that evidence even when those conclusions contradict our own preconceived ideas, or what we "want to believe."
Only that practice can be called "objective."
* "Many of these men confessed to something they had no part in."
How does STP know this? Let me say it: He does NOT know it. He is "bluffing" again.
I have never found any evidence to support this – and I have looked hard! By "evidence," I do not mean unsupported statements, but primary documents.
I challenge STP to produce any. If he cannot – why does he make such assertions?
Finally,
* "And saying somehow, that Grover Furr is objective when it comes to the issue of Stalin is some what foolish"
I reject this statement. I try very hard to be objective. For example, I don’t make statements without evidence.
However, being "objective" does not mean one "has the truth." It means drawing one’s conclusions on the basis of the best evidence, objectively evaluated. . If and when more evidence becomes available, an objective researcher will be prepared to change his conclusions to fit the new evidence. This is the scientific method applied to the study of history, and an essential, important element of dialectical and historical materialism.
These are important issues. Could I be wrong? Of course!
But STP has to be wrong. He is not arguing from evidence, but from prejudice. His preconceived ideas did not drop from the sky. They come from anti-communist "scholarship" – in plain language, from anti-communist lies. Nobody can ever discover the truth in this fashion. It has nothing to do with Marxism.
All of us have been strongly influence by anti-communism. Of course! We’ve grown up swimming in a sea of anti-communist propaganda from the day we were born. It is hard to overcome it.
But we have to try.

[chegitz guevara]

Nobody with a brain cares what Furr says. He's the David Irving of Stalinism.

[Arti]

Nobody with a brain judges a man's words by his name

[Astinilats]

Nobody with a brain cares what Furr says. He's the David Irving of Stalinism.

Says the Kasama-ite.

[pranabjyoti]

Some of them did. They were their buisness partners. In the same sense "western imperialism" favors China today. And in the same sense The US favored Mao for a while.
That was nothing but buying machinery for industrial built up. Even Lenin on one of his writings say that "we now have to order (buy) a huge heap of machinery from USA". It seems like by drinking a coke, you have become supporter of imperialism. TOTAL BS.

[Kléber]

That was nothing but buying machinery for industrial built up. Even Lenin on one of his writings say that "we now have to order (buy) a huge heap of machinery from USA". It seems like by drinking a coke, you have become supporter of imperialism. TOTAL BS.
There were members of government and the military in each of the imperialist countries that favored friendly relations with the USSR, although they were usually in the minority. There were also foreign commentators who cheered on the purges and the deaths of the leaders they understood to be responsible for 1917. Some Russian fascists today even praise Stalin for killing so many Bolsheviks.

[pranabjyoti]

There were members of government and the military in each of the imperialist countries that favored friendly relations with the USSR, although they were usually in the minority. There were also foreign commentators who cheered on the purges and the deaths of the leaders they understood to be responsible for 1917. Some Russian fascists today even praise Stalin for killing so many Bolsheviks.
Then why Stalin is so much hated in the "mainstream" media, which are actually controlled by those people, whom you say are in favor of good relation with him?

[Kléber]

Then why Stalin is so much hated in the "mainstream" media, which are actually controlled by those people, whom you say are in favor of good relation with him?
So based on the mechanical logic that the enemy of an enemy is a friend, we should support the views of of whatever politician is most widely hated in the media? That would lead you to support some much worse people than Stalin. Besides, are you not aware that Trotsky is equally if not more hated by the imperialist bourgeoisie, who would not allow him into their countries after he was exiled from USSR (only Mexico's nationalist government would take him permanently, and that was to piss off the USA), and were happy to see him go?

http://rationalrevolution.net/images/t1917d.jpg

http://www.nodo50.org/IMG/jpg/434px-WhiteArmyPropagandaPosterOfTrotsky.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Leon_Trotsky.JPG/436px-Leon_Trotsky.JPG

[bie]

Just a quick point to all you die-hard stalinists: keep doing what you're doing. Keep justifying mass murder, the liquidation of comrades, etc.
Just a quick point - it is to all "antistalinists" and all "leftists" critics - why instead of unmasking bourgeoise lies about the practice of Communism - you all stand on the same side with the bourgeoise - even more - you support and give credibility to the common LIES that have been invented against USRR by its enemies (white, brown) and later by imperialists during the Cold War? My question is - on which side are you? Did you investigate truly the case of Moscow Trials etc? Did you look up to the range of independent sources? I do not think so. I would rather say that you are just repeating what the bourgeiose said. Dont trust them. They are LIARS.

[Wanted Man]

Actually, you do the attacking. I'm saying, let's work this out in practice. I have worked with stalinists, maoists, orthodox trots, social democrats, liberals, etc. In general, the contradictions of their beliefs are soon exposed by their day-to-day practice. If I see you in a union I'm a member of, or a mass organization, sure let's work together. But I have lots of experience not connected to the Moscow Trials that demonstrates the fundamentally bureaucratic methods of stalinists and their ilk.

See you at the local meeting Thursday night. Hopefully, there's cookies. :cool:

RED DAVE

Weird, I must be going to the wrong picketlines and the wrong union meetings because, strangely enough, your experiences don't seem to apply universally! :ohmy:

I certainly can't claim the same amount of experience, or that we are doing everything right, but as you said yourself, it is easy to see how other groups act in day-to-day practice in mass organisations.

For instance, the local IST affiliate (not sure if that is your tendency or not) has an interesting way of working in unions, student movements, anti-war platforms, etc. Somehow, they always manage to enter in (relatively) great numbers with even greater zeal, the first priority being to rail against "the bureaucrats" and trying to form a "militant opposition", with the intent to create a split as soon as possible, and hopefully recruiting some activists. Oddly enough, this tends to fail, so then they pull out, leaving the "victims" wondering what the hell has just happened, while the "militant" split dies a slow death. But no harm there, they (the IST) soon find another place to go and do the same thing.

Their presence has some short-term benefits in terms of activity and militancy, but this does not last long for the reason mentioned above. The only other benefit they have on mass organisations is that some of their (the IS's) members may end up actually supporting the union work, rather than seeing it as a useless bureaucratic structure with some easy recruiting potential. These members then realise that that kind of work is more meaningful, and they are tired of being forced to sell papers on the street every weekend, so they leave the IST affiliate and stick around in the union.

However, I'm sure these experiences cannot be used to generalise anything, especially not (cliffite) trotskyism in practice. It would be pretty convenient if their failings could simply be blamed on the heretical theories of some old guy, but then we'd have to ask ourselves how they always seem to end up like this (people from other countries have similar experiences with IST-affiliated groups). I don't have the answer yet, though.

[RED DAVE]

WM, I'm not currently affiliated with any group. What is the IST?

RED DAVE

[black magick hustla]

That was nothing but buying machinery for industrial built up. Even Lenin on one of his writings say that "we now have to order (buy) a huge heap of machinery from USA". It seems like by drinking a coke, you have become supporter of imperialism. TOTAL BS.

You don't have to be "friends" to do buisness in capitalism. My point is that the social relations were thoroughly capitalist. You cannot build socialism in one country. I dont think chinese politicians necessarily like the americans, even the dengist ones.

[black magick hustla]

WM, I'm not currently affiliated with any group. What is the IST?

RED DAVE

uk swp etcetera. the ISO splitted from the IST.

[Soviet]

Unfotunately,I don't have a time to join discussions every day,but I'll post some facts and information from time to time.As I see,Trots have problems with facts - we'll beat them by facts.

Trots lied here that repressions were aimed at the common people - here are real facts:

http://pics.livejournal.com/baronet65/pic/0001xz58/s640x480



Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on 19 January 1938.

01 Molotov, VM (1890 - 1986) - Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (1930 -1941)
02 Chubar VJ (1891 -1939) - Vice Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (1934 -1936)
03 Mikoyan, AI (1895 - 1978) - Vice Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (1937 -1955)
04 Kosior SV (1889 -1939) - Vice Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (1938)
05 Voznensensky NA (1903 - 1950) - Chairman of the State Planning Commission (1938 -1941 1942 - 1949)
06 Litvinov, MM (1876 - 1951) - People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (1930 -1939)
07 NI Ezhov (1895 - 1940) - People's Commissar of Internal Affairs (1936 - 1938)
08 KE Voroshilov (1881 - 1969) - People's Commissar of Defence (1925 - 1940)
09 Smirnov, PA (1897 - 1939) - People's Commissar of the Navy (1937 - 1938)
10 Kaganovich, LM (1893 - 1991) - People's Commissar of Heavy Industry (1937 - 1939)
11 Bruskin AD (1897 - 1939) - People's Commissar of Engineering (1937 - 1938)
12 Kaganovich, MM (1888 - 1941) - People's Commissar of Defence Industry (1937 -1939)
13 Gilinsky AL (1897 - 1939) - People's Commissar for Food Industry (1938)
14 Shestakov VI (1891 - 1956) - People's Commissar of Light Industry (1937 - 1939)
15 Ryzhov, MI (1889 - 1939) - People's Commissar of Forest Industries (1937 - 1938)
16 Bakulin A. (1899 - 1939) - People's Commissar of Railways (1937 - 1938)
17 Pakhomov NI (1890 - 1938) - People's Commissar of Water Transport (1934 - 1938)
18 Berman MD (1898 - 1939) - People's Commissar of communication (1937 - 1938)
19 Eiche RI (1890 -1940) - Commissar of Agriculture (1937 - 1938)
20 Yurkin TA (1888 - 1938) - People's Commissar of grain and livestock. State farms (1937 - 1938)
21 Popov MV (1905 -1938) - People's Commissar of blanks (1,938)
22 Zverev, AG (1900 -1969) - People's Commissar of Finance (1938 -1948, 1948 -1960)
23 Smirnov, MP (1897 - 1939) - People's Commissar of Trade (1937 -1938)
24 Chvyalev ED (1898 -1940) - People's Commissar for Foreign Trade (1938 -1939)
25 Rychkov NM (1897 -1959) - People's Commissar of Justice (1938 - 1948)
26 Boldyrev, MF (1894 -1939) - People's Commissar of Health (1937 - 1938)
27 Grichmanov AP (1896 -1939) - Chairman of the State. bank (1937 - 1938)
28 Makar S. (1905 -1978) - Chairman of the Committee for height school. (1937 -1946)
29 Nazarov AI (1905 -1968) - Chairman of the Committee on the Arts (1938 -1939)

19 persones (2,4,5,7,9,11,12,13,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,23,24,26, 27) were repressed.

The purge of 1937-1938 was directed at the highest Soviet bureaucracy,they came down hard on state machinery from top to bottom.

Now tell us ,Trots,when are you sincere: when you are feeling sorry for bureaucracy or when you are damning it?

[Kléber]

19 out of 29? Not bad for a revisionist.

Stalin and co. sought to remove all those elements who reminded them of the internationalism of the 1917 revolution. At any rate, our solution to bureaucratism is democracy, which is the opposite of purging the opposition, so you aren't getting anywhere with that.

Soviet poster, "Leaders of the Proletarian Revolution:"

http://www.skrewdriver.org/zz_re4_britton54.gif

Too bad the gleaners shot for stealing individual grains don't have any photos in the newspaper. Ordinary people got airbrushed out of that phony history. Case in point:

http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/images/photos/12_lg.jpg
http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/images/photos/13_lg.jpg

Where did Mr. Helpful Worker go?

You all still haven't answered the basic point, why is there "aggravation of class struggle" after there are supposedly no longer antagonistic classes?

[red cat]

You all still haven't answered the basic point, why is there "aggravation of class struggle" after there are supposedly no longer antagonistic classes?

Please point out where Stalin says this. The disappearance of antagonistic classes implies that there is no possibility of capitalist restoration from inside.

[Durruti's Ghost]

He already did.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...1936/11/25.htm (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/11/25.htm)

[black magick hustla]

capitalism was restored when the last nail was put in uncle joes coffin

[Soviet]

Some more facts:

Nazis started a single trial of one man (Georgy Dimitrov) in 1934, it was led by Goering, and it fell on the at the first day!
There were three open trial of dozens of people in Moscow,they continued for many days in the presence of the international press - all defendants admitted guilt.
Fell the differense,gentlemen.

From the letters of American ambassador in the USSR Joseph Edward Davies:

"(February 18, 1938)

The general opinion of the diplomatic corps is that the government in the trails achieved its objectives and proved that the accused, at least, participated in a conspiracy.

Chatting with the Lithuanian ambassador: he believes that all the talk about torture and narcotic drugs, allegedly used against the defendants, are devoid of truth. He had a high opinion of the Soviet leadership in many respects.

The conversation with the ambassador who had spent 6 years in Russia. His opinion: a conspiracy existed and the defendants are guilty. They are from a young age were in the underground struggle, many years spent abroad and psychologically prone to conspiratorial activities."
"(Summer 1941) Today we know, thanks to the efforts of the FBI, that Nazi agents are operating everywhere, even in the United States and South America. German entry into Prague was accompanied by the active support of military organizations of Helen. The same thing happened in Norway (Quisling), Slovakia (Tiso), Belgium (de Grell) ... But nothing like this we do not see in Russia. "Where are Russian accomplices of Hitler?" -they ask me often. "They were shot" - I reply.

It is only now became clear how forward-looking the Soviet government submitted during the purges."

And some more facts:

"To People's Commissar of Internal Affairs
NI Ezhov

Being arrested in 22 May, arriving in Moscow in 24 th, the first time questioned in 25 th and today,in May 26, I declare that I admit the existence of anti-Soviet conspiracy and the fact that I was in charge.

I undertakes to present all the investigation concerning the conspiracy, without hiding any of its members, any fact or document.

The foundation of conspiracy relates to 1932. Took part in it: Feldman, Alafuzov, Primakov, Putna and others, as I will show in detail later. Tukhachevsky.26.5.37."

And what was in May 25, the day of the first interrogation of Tukhachevsky? On the first day, the marshal during the confrontation with Primakov, Putna and Feldman has denied involvement in the conspiracy. But he denied it very peculiar. In a statement, written immediately after the confrontation, we meet such wonderful lines: "Please provide me with a couple of the testimony of other participants in this conspiracy, which also accuse me. I undertake to give sincere testimony without the slightest disguise anything from his guilt in this matter, as well as from the guilt of others a conspiracy. "

After sentencing the defendant Yakir wrote a letter to Stalin.Here it is, this letter :"Dear comrade Stalin. I dare to adress to you in such manner,because I said everything, I gave everything and I think that I am again a honest and devoted to the party, state, nation fighter, as I was for many years. All my conscious life was in selfless, honest work in full view of the party and its leaders - then the failure of a nightmare, a horror of irreparable betrayal ... The investigation is finished. I was charged with treason, I pled guilty, I fully repented. I believe in the unlimited right and expediency of the decision of the court and the government. Now I'm honest with every word, I'll die with words of love to you, to the party and to the country with boundless faith in the victory of communism. " (H. A. Zenkovich. Marshals and secretaries-general. Smolensk. Rusich. 1998. S.594).

Just so facts.

And you,Trots, can continue your bla-bla.

[Leo]

Just a quick point - it is to all "antistalinists" and all "leftists" critics - why instead of unmasking bourgeoise lies about the practice of Communism - you all stand on the same side with the bourgeoise - even more - you support and give credibility to the common LIES that have been invented against USRR by its enemies (white, brown) and later by imperialists during the Cold War? My question is - on which side are you? Did you investigate truly the case of Moscow Trials etc? Did you look up to the range of independent sources? I do not think so. I would rather say that you are just repeating what the bourgeiose said. Dont trust them. They are LIARS.

Here's a graphic demonstration of what happened to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party of 1917:

http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/events/terror/cc-1917.jpg

Now, as it can be seen here, only three members of the Central Committee survived the Stalinist terror. Two of them, Kollontai and Stassova had retired from active politics completely before the purges (Kollontai had also recanted her political opinions while Stassove had retired from active politics in the early twenties when Lenin was alive). This leaves only one other person - Muranov, who was involved in politics as a Stalinist who survived. All the rest of the Bolshevik Part Central Committee that was alive at the time of the Stalinist purges were murdered by the regime. Out of six members of the original Politburo during the 1917 Revolution who lived until the Purges, only Stalin wasn't murdered. None from the first Council of People's Commissars formed in 1917 except Stalin who was alive at the time of his counter-revolutionary terror survived from it.

Other prominent Bolshevik leaders who weren't in the Central Committee at the time of the revolution and militant workers were also victims of the counter revolution, such as Karl Radek, Yuri Pyatakov, Alexander Shliapnikov, Yevgeny Preoprazhensky, David Riazanov, Christian Rakovsky, Ivan Smirnov, Varvara Yakovleva, Grigori Safarov, Gabriel Myasnikov, Timotei Sapranov, Vladimir Smirnov, Vyacheslav Zof, Georgy Oppokov, Mikhail Borodin, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, Lenin's one time personal secretary Nikolai Gorbunov, Sergei Medvedev, Vladimir Milyutin, Ivan Teodorovich, Nikolai Glebov-Avilov. There were many many others.

A very small amount of Old Bolsheviks survived the purges. The most significant one was Krupskaya who had said that had Lenin been alive, he'd be the first to be shot by Stalin's regime - she was being closely wathed of course. There were very few Old Bolsheviks who became Stalinists, and they were ones that did not have prominent roles during the revolution. The most well known Bolsheviks who became Stalinists were Kalinin and Voroshilov. The most prominent role played by Kalinin was the rather sinister role in the supression of Kronstadt, openly lying in order to get it suppressed before Lenin's death, as for Voroshilov he became a member of the Central Committee in 1921 and that was the most significant thing he had done. There were a few other old Bolsheviks who supported Stalin, such as Molotov, Kaganovich and Mikoyan - although none of them had any distinctive qualities or specific influence as opposed to the Bolshevik leaders murdered during the purges.

Communist leaders from Central Asia such as Sahipgirai Saidgaliev, Sherif Manatov, Sagidullin, Shamilgulov and Atnagulov, from Georgia such as Polikarp Mdivani, people like Afandiyev and Huseynov from Azerbaijan, people like Gayk Bzhishkyan, Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan and Aghasi Khanchian from Amerina were not spared from the counter-revolutionary terror either.

Neither were communist leaders of workers' revolutions in different countries who resided in the USSR at the time, such as Bela Kun and Joseph Pogany of the Hungarian Revolution, Jaan Anvelt from the Estonian Revolution, Avetis Sultanzade from the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic, Salih Hacioglu who was one of the leaders of the communist struggle against the national liberation movement in Turkey among lots and lots of other communist revolutionaries from different parts of the world. Lots of communist leaders who played a significant role in the formation of Communist Parties in different parties were toppled and replaced with loyal Stalinists who in most cases had been rather insignificant in the parties before. Such events happened in places like Italy, Germany, France, England, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, the US, Canada, China, Turkey and Iran, among lots of other places.

In total, about 100,000 members of the Bolshevik Party were arrested, many of whom were tortured and murdered (http://www.answers.com/topic/the-great-purges (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.answers.com/topic/the-great-purges)). In 1922 there were only 44,148 Old Bolsheviks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Bolsheviks).

As for the attitude of the West, when, from 1936, Stalin organized the wretched ‘Moscow Trials', when the old comrades of Lenin, broken by torture, were accused of the most abject crimes and themselves ended up asking for exemplary punishment, this same democratic press in the pay of capital let it be known that ‘there was no smoke without fire' (even if some newspapers made some timid criticisms of Stalin's policies, affirming that they were ‘exaggerated'). It was with the complicity of the bourgeoisies of the great powers that Stalin accomplished his monstrous crimes, that he exterminated, in his prisons and concentration camps, hundreds of thousands of communists, more than ten million workers and peasants. And the bourgeois sectors that showed the greatest zeal in this complicity were the democratic sectors (and particularly Social-Democracy); the same sectors that today virulently denounce the crimes of Stalinism and present themselves as models of virtue. It's only because the regime that consolidated itself in Russia after the death of Lenin and the final crushing of the German revolution was a variant of capitalism, and even the spearhead of the counter-revolution, that it received such warm support from all the bourgeoisies that only a few years earlier had ferociously fought the power of the Soviets. In 1934, in fact, these same ‘democratic' bourgeoisies accepted the USSR into the League of Nations, an institution that Lenin had called a "den of thieves" at the time of its foundation. This was the sign that Stalin had become a ‘respectable Bolshevik' in the eyes of the ruling class of every country, the same rulers who had once presented the Bolsheviks of 1917 as barbarians with knives between their teeth. The imperialist brigands recognized Stalin as one of their own. The communists who opposed Stalin submitted to the persecutions of the entire world bourgeoisie.

[Leo]

Sadly, the only state-capitalist bureaucrats in that list are the ones who survived the purges - and except a certain one of the survivors, all the rest spent their lives on obscure and insignificant posts. The rest were, despite all their mistakes and errors, sincere revolutionaries and fighters of the proletarian cause, who paid for the fact that they have been of the revolutionary generation of 1917 with their lives, even when they were completely broken and incapable of offering any resistance to the Stalinist counter-revolutionary terror anyway.

[red cat]

Sadly, the only state-capitalist bureaucrats in that list are the ones who survived the purges - and except a certain one of the survivors, all the rest spent their lives on obscure and insignificant posts. The rest were, despite all their mistakes and errors, sincere revolutionaries and fighters of the proletarian cause, who paid for the fact that they have been of the revolutionary generation of 1917 with their lives, even when they were completely broken and incapable of offering any resistance to the Stalinist counter-revolutionary terror anyway.

Exactly which Bolsheviks do left communists consider as revolutionaries ?

[Leo]

When are you saying the "counter-revolution" actually occured? After Stalin or after Kronstadt?

We see it as a process. In Kronstadt, the counter-revolution hadn't been completed yet but was a process, and the majority of the militants of the party stood at the wrong side of the barricade, but to say that the counter-revolution was complete by Kronstadt is to say that there is nothing different between the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion, and the Paris Commune for example - which clearly was not the case. If I was to give an exact date or event that marked the triumph of the counter-revolution in Russia, I would give the "thesis" of "socialism" in one country being accepted, replacing the previously dominant general slogan which summed up the program of the international proletariat for the day: world revolution... While Kronstadt was a massively important event and a massively important defeat for the working class as well as a shameful massacre, it wasn't much compared to the counter-revolutionary terror which followed the end of the process.


Exactly which Bolsheviks do left communists consider as revolutionaries ?

We consider the Bolshevik Party before and during the revolution, and especially during the years of war to be among exemplary revolutionary organizations of the time. Despite many serious criticisms we have of a lots of Bolsheviks, most seriously criticisms of opportunist and sectarian errors as well as that of their tactical or theoretical mistakes, we consider the Bolshevik Party, the party as a whole (regardless of a few insignificant rotten apples) to be revolutionary. We consider the fact that the Bolshevik Party degenerated does not have anything to do with the fact that its militants had counter-revolutionary intentions, but because the party got merged with the state, which had become a bastion of reaction especially after the Civil War. Regardless of the few "rotten apples" who became the pride and joy of the counter-revolution, the terror was not unleashed by the Bolsheviks against the "traitors" but by others against the Bolsheviks.

It is not without reason that the Prosecutor General of the USSR at the time of the purges, and the legal mastermind behind them, was Andrey Vyshinsky, who was a Menshevik until he joined the Russian Communist Party in 1920, after the Civil War ended. Vyshinsky had been among those who signed an order, according to the decision of the Russian Provisional Government, to arrest Lenin. An ironic twist of history made him the prosecutor of the trial against Lenin's Party in the late 30s.

[Astinilats]

The graphic contains photos of many people guilty as charged, and again, Leo doesn't present a shred of evidence to justify claims of torture or threats to family members. It is simply repeated over and over again, like the Nazi technique of the 'Big Lie,' because anti-communist trash don't care about the truth.


It's only because the regime that consolidated itself in Russia after the death of Lenin and the final crushing of the German revolution was a variant of capitalism, and even the spearhead of the counter-revolution, that it received such warm support from all the bourgeoisies that only a few years earlier had ferociously fought the power of the Soviets.This is beyond ridiculous. The USSR didn't receive "warm support" from "all the bourgeois." This is sheer fantasy, and only the most ignorant moron could say something so stupid. The only person who actually did receive "warm support" from the Western bourgeois was Trotsky. The bourgeois media paid him the equivalent of millions of dollars for his years of hard service slandering the USSR.

[bie]

Here's a graphic demonstration of what happened to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party of 1917:
I think there is no country in the world (isn't it?) where - even the most glorious political past or fact of having an important office long time ago - could free an individual from the penal responsibility for the severe crime against its own people.

And this is the case of so called "Old Bolshevics". Sure, some of them had important political positions before they were expelled - not by Stalin - but by the Lenin's Party for the anti-party activity -(Zinoviev, Kamieniev, Rykov etc.). But it didn't mean that they were above the law. I am sure that you all know how serious were charges raised against the them. Treason and Nazi collaboration were possibly the most serious accusation at those times. Imagine what would happen if Tuchachevsky/ Trotsky team started their coup d'etat in 1941 or 42 when Wehrmacht was just few miles from Moscow and Leningrad. 25 millions people died during the War in Russia. Guess how many more would if the traitors were still allowed to act.

There is a range of an evidence against the accused in the Moscow Trials and there are very serious arguments to state that they were guilty of the highest treason. It is worth mentioning that there was no 5th column in SU during the war, therefore it was possible to save millions of innocent lives from the Nazi holocaust.


It was with the complicity of the bourgeoisies of the great powers that Stalin accomplished his monstrous crimes, that he exterminated, in his prisons and concentration camps, hundreds of thousands of communists, more than ten million workers and peasants.
Those are obvious anticommunist bourgeiose lies. There was no concentration camps nor extermination etc in Soviet Union. These ridiculous accusations were invented by Nazi in order to justify their campaign to get Ukraine from Soviets. Nazi tried to present themselves as liberators, therefore their ministry of propaganda invented the large anti-soviet campaign. They, for example, used the photos from 1921 to spread the lie about the great famine in 1931-32 (it is well documented). The same pictures were shown in USA press (W. Hearst - many millions copies every day). These are the origins of anti-soviet propaganda in the US (and in the West in general). Hearst that time was a Nazi sympathizer. He even published the speeches of Goering in US newspapers.

Even during the II WW there were less people in the Soviet penal system than is TODAY in the US penal system (/per pop.). And the mortality wasn't significantly different from the mortality in prisons in other states those times (eg. 3.1% mortality (1937), 1 196 369 mln people in prison system (total for 1937) - source. American Historical Review. Today - in USA 7.2 mln people in the penal system (source: CNN)

[black magick hustla]

Its difficult to dig through your assertions, but are you saying that if this "slogan" was not accepted and if Trotskyism was somehow triumphant against the workers state, the "counter-revolution" would have been overturned?

It is quite funny to see your mental jugglery when you side with Trotskyist propaganda when it comes to the Moscow Trials by describing the death sentences handed to the state capitalist bureaucrats at the trials as "murder" while simultaneously believing that the counter-revolution had already started 15 years ago in 1921 at Kronstadt.

Also, its pretty anti-materialist to pin history on mere slogans.

the "slogan" was just symptomatic of a rot. the fact is that "socialism in one country" was accepted by the whole, defeated communist movement which pretty much signaled the death of the revolution.

[KC]

Lot of baseless opinions. When "socialism in one country" is accepted by the entire party, that is how democracy works. If you don't like it, too bad.

The fact that was accepted is symptomatic of the degeneration, which was his point.

[Kléber]

Lot of baseless opinions. When "socialism in one country" is accepted by the entire party, that is how democracy works. If you don't like it, too bad.
And if you're Stalin, come out with a new edition of Foundations of Leninism and revise the part about "several advanced countries"

[zimmerwald1915]

Lot of baseless opinions. When "socialism in one country" is accepted by the entire party, that is how democracy works. If you don't like it, too bad.
That such a theory could even be formulated was "symptomatic of a rot", never mind adopted as the analysis of the party.