Put yourself in Stalin's shoes

[Die Neue Zeit]

Within the bureaucratic dynamic, only those who had the right connections in Uchraspred (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uchraspred)/Orgraspred and the Orgburo could provide alternative leadership to the Chairman of Sovnarkom:

http://libcom.org/history/stalin-why-how-boris-souvarine


Since when has the secretary of a party held such immense power? He was appointed to carry out the decisions of the leading body, to ensure the receipt and dispatch of the post, to file documents, to send out circulars, to supervise the work of the people below him, etc. In succession Elena Stasova, then Sverdlov, then Krestinsky, then the trio of Krestinsky, Preobrazhensky and Serebriakov, and then the trio of Molotov, Yaroslavsky and Mikhailov had modestly assumed secretarial functions without encroaching on the authority of the Central Committee. All this was to change in the course of a process which would take several years with Stalin as General Secretary and Molotov and Kuibyshev as his acolytes.

So, put yourself in Stalin's shoes from 1922 until death.

Within reason, what policies would you do differently? [So becoming an anarchist isn't an option, but at least refraining from backstabbing them in Spain is.]

What policies would you do the same?

[Autumn Red]

I would actually support the workers, implement socialism, destroy wage, decentralize power to the republics, not cause mass of genocide of Ukrainians, allow greater autonomy for ethnic groups, actually implement Democracy, dismantle the Communist Party because it became the upper class, implement term limit for myself, not kick Trotsky out of Russia, shave that horrid mustache, etc.



[braces for stalinists]

[Os Cangaceiros]

I would issue a full pardon for Peter Arshinov in 1937.

Other than that, I'm not sure. Upon further reading about the USSR, it's become somewhat apparent that Stalin didn't have the icy totalitarian "total control" grip over soviet society that a lot of Western Cold War historians said he had...in a sense, the grim dystopian society that the USSR is portrayed as by many is just an inversion of how the USSR portrayed itself at the time, and in that sense is no more accurate.

That's not to say that I don't think that Stalin was a prick, though. Because I do.

[Die Neue Zeit]

PART I

I'll actually start with something more foreign:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/lec1-j05.shtml


The CCP's initial policy of forming a temporary alliance with the Kuomintang was based on the continuing independence of the two parties, each with its own organisation. But in August 1922, the Comintern leadership ordered the CCP to join the KMT as individual party members.

The CCP opposed the decision, but its objections were suppressed by the Comintern leadership under Zinoviev. Zinoviev justified the decision on the basis that the liberal-democratic KMT was the "only serious national-revolutionary group" in China. The independent working class movement was still weak, so the small CCP had to enter the KMT to expand its influence.

Where, oh where, was Lenin in opposition to this new form of ministerial coalitionism opposed by the Marxist center in the days of the Second International? Not even the Mensheviks before WWI contemplated being minority partners in coalition with bourgeois forces for the bourgeois revolution.

I would start with maneuvering against Zinoviev for this disgrace and for his errors on party organization.

[Kléber]

If Stalin had behaved contrary to the interests of the bureaucratic elite, he would not have risen to power in the political conditions of the time. Neither would he have stayed alive too long post-1928 if he had some kind of anarcho-trot epiphany while in charge. Note the threats to his life and power even while he was a loyal servant of the ruling bureaucracy: he was almost deposed and shot as traitor by the Tukhachevsky clique, he hid in his office for 10 days after Barbarossa because he was afraid the CC would execute him, and his little friends like Beria probably poisoned him in '53. If a Revleft poster from 2010 had gone into his brain and turned him into a hippie, he would have been dead man walking in the Kremlin. The corrupt officials and officers at the highest ranks who were living the "full and joyous Soviet life" would knock him off for going soft on them, then they would find some other opportunist scumbag from the nomenklatura to manage their affairs and preserve their hold on power.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Come on! You don't actually believe Tukachevsky was a conspirator, do you? :glare:

[Kléber]

Come on! You don't actually believe Tukachevsky was a conspirator, do you? :glare:
It is most likely imo that a coalition of officers and Party leaders, jolted into awareness by the fear they would suffer the fate of Zinoviev and Kamenev in the growing storm of purges, were indeed plotting to overthrow Stalin, and using a (real or forged) Okhrana document which indicated Stalin had been a Czarist police infiltrator until 1913, to build support for their conspiracy. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to this effect; hard to know what is true and what is not, of course, because the state propaganda organs made a great effort to legitimize the (inflated and distorted) charges against Tukhachevsky.

I certainly do not believe that Tukhachevsky and his fellow officers had any contacts with Nazi Germany (he made a point of saying this in his confession before he was executed, almost as a deviation from the script). On the contrary, Tukhachevsky had taken a vocally interventionist position on foreign policy matters from 1935, arguing for an anti-German stance and in favor of Soviet military buildup to counter Nazi threats. This indicates that another reason for his elimination may have been a fear by the party center that many of its officers and cadre would violently oppose the forthcoming Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The main piece of evidence is that, as nasty as Stalin was, he would not wipe out his most talented people for nothing - the generals slain in the military purges were the best and brightest of the Soviet armed forces. The purges, by their very ferocity, are cold hard proof that massive opposition to Stalin (and the bureaucratic forces he represented) existed in all layers of Soviet society.

[AK]

I'd try to conjure up something very vaguely similar to Mao's Cultural Revolution - except all forms of capitalism would be abolished and full workers' self-government and self-management would be implemented.

[28350]

I would actually support the workers, implement socialism, destroy wage, decentralize power to the republics, not cause mass of genocide of Ukrainians, allow greater autonomy for ethnic groups, actually implement Democracy, dismantle the Communist Party because it became the upper class, implement term limit for myself, not kick Trotsky out of Russia, shave that horrid mustache, etc.



[braces for stalinists]

HEY! HIS MUSTACHE WAS AWESOME!

And just saying, strategically (not ideologically), your plan is flawed.

Also, I thought he did pretty well for ethnic groups? Maybe I'm misinformed.

[Die Neue Zeit]

PART II

http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/FL24.html

"But the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and establishment of the power of the proletariat in one country does not yet mean that the complete victory of socialism has been ensured. After consolidating its power and leading the peasantry in its wake the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society. But does this mean that it will thereby achieve the complete and final victory of socialism, i.e., does it mean that with the forces of only one country it can finally consolidate socialism and fully guarantee that country against intervention and, consequently, also against restoration? No, it does not. For this the victory of the revolution in at least several countries is needed."

When the work was revised to more specifically mention SIOC, only three or four words were inserted. I would refer to "practical victory" or "substantive victory," and also to geographic size, resources, etc.:

But the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and establishment of the power of the proletariat in one country of reasonable size and resources does not yet mean that the practical or substantive victory, let alone complete victory, of socialism has been ensured. After consolidating its power and leading the peasantry in its wake the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a substantively socialist society in that country. But does this mean that it will thereby achieve the complete and final victory of socialism, i.e., does it mean that with the forces of only one country it can finally consolidate socialism and fully guarantee that country against intervention and, consequently, also against restoration? No, it does not. For this the victory of the social revolution in at least several countries is needed.

[Il Medico]

I find the people answering that they would implement true socialism to have an interesting view. Surely the overthrow of capitalism and the establishing of a socialist society would have more to do with mass action of the working class than the actions of one man in a crumbling revolutionary situation. No?

[Die Neue Zeit]

PART III

Trotsky and Kamenev were expelled from the Communist Party in 1927 after they organized a counter-demonstration to the party-organized demonstration. Ban on factions or no, this definitely is in contradiction with unity in action. [Later on, Trotsky was exiled because he refused to apologize for his actions.]

Surely Trotsky must have had a political protege whom I could have worked with, even to the point of restoring factions (damn that Zinoviev), but not to the point of violating unity in action? In the meantime, I'll emulate Lenin's example re. attempting to persuade Paul Levi to apologize and rejoin the KPD... by doing the same with Trotsky himself. Having him exiled is way down my priority list.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

HEY! HIS MUSTACHE WAS AWESOME!

And just saying, strategically (not ideologically), your plan is flawed.

Also, I thought he did pretty well for ethnic groups? Maybe I'm misinformed.

Tens of thousands of Soviet Koreans died after they were removed from the Soviet Far East and dumped in Kazakhstan with very little provision for their livelihood. The Ainu population of Sakhalin was exterminated, as I understand. Soviet Germans were dumped in Kazakhstan. Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, Balkars and Karachais were forcibly evicted from their homeland in the Caucuses. There was also the "Holodomor" in Ukraine.Stalin was contemplating the extermination of Soviet Jews.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I think Kleber expressed it best. If Stalin refrained from flowing the interests of the bureaucracy, he would no longer have been Stalin. Its the material conditions and social forces, not the individual.

Someone asked Nadezhda Krupskaya would have happened if Lenin had lived longer. "He'd be in jail", was her answer.

If class forces w/in the SU and elsewhere had been differently aligned perhaps things could have worked out differently. I don't know how likely this would be though.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think Kleber expressed it best. If Stalin refrained from flowing the interests of the bureaucracy, he would no longer have been Stalin. Its the material conditions and social forces, not the individual.

Someone asked Nadezhda Krupskaya would have happened if Lenin had lived longer. "He'd be in jail", was her answer.

If class forces w/in the SU and elsewhere had been differently aligned perhaps things could have worked out differently. I don't know how likely this would be though.

The bureaucracy was already becoming more "civil" in the 1930s. By 1934, its man was Kirov and not Stalin. [Stalin was recently absolved of any role in Kirov's murder, btw.]

Then came the purges.

PART IV

This is the big headache year. Everything from agricultural policy to labour policy to foreign policy needs to be addressed.

Agricultural Policy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivization_in_the_Soviet_Union#The_crisis_of _1928


Several forms of collective farming were suggested by the People's Commissariat for Agriculture (Narkomzem), distinguished according to the extent to which property was held in common:

1) Association for Joint Cultivation of Land (Товарищество по совместной обработке земли, ТОЗ/TOZ), where only land was in common use;
2) agricultural artel (initially in a loose meaning, later formalized to become an organizational basis of kolkhozes, via The Standard Statute of an Agricultural Artel adopted by Sovnarkom in March 1930);
3) agricultural commune, with the highest level of common use of resources.

Why not go all the way towards the sovkhoz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovkhoz) model? The state can afford the business risk, and we don't want to upset the food producers to the point of resistance, unless they really want to resist "buyouts" of their farms.

Labour Policy

A lot of labour policy re. increasing industrial labour productivity depends on the outcome of the agricultural policy above. The excess sovkhoz production is to be sold - dumped if necessary - to foreign markets in exchange for industrial equipment. The penal system (GULAG) needs to be expanded regardless. It is to be hoped that real wages won't be cut. [Historically, they were, and sharply.]

Foreign Policy

The bulk of Third Periodism remains, but some changes are necessary.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=3988 ("Social Corporatism")

Social Fascism or Social Corporatism is no excuse for tactical alliances on an indiscriminate basis with the Nazis. Like the SPD, the Nazis are not monolithic, and should be split along left-right lines to facilitate cooperation with the left-nationalists.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=3989 ("Communitarian Populist Front")
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=3990 ("United Front From Below")
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=4037 ("Red Unions")

[AK]

I find the people answering that they would implement true socialism to have an interesting view. Surely the overthrow of capitalism and the establishing of a socialist society would have more to do with mass action of the working class than the actions of one man in a crumbling revolutionary situation. No?
It would, exactly. My point is, that if I ever found myself in some position of power, that I would agitate the working class - I would not try and "implement" socialism, that is for the working class to do.

[Leo]

Stalin, in regards to policies effecting history, actions of the USSR with historical consequences and so forth, was dictated by the interests of the class he represented, which was the new "Soviet" bourgeoisie.

If I was in Stalin's shoes, I would probably be kinder to the wife, you know I wouldn't cheat her and emotionally force her to commit suicide, I wouldn't let Beria play with the children, I wouldn't go drinking with Tomsky and so on. Like Stalin himself did, I would keep the awesome mustache to the end.

[Shokaract]

I would actually support the workers, implement socialism, destroy wage, decentralize power to the republics, not cause mass of genocide of Ukrainians, allow greater autonomy for ethnic groups, actually implement Democracy, dismantle the Communist Party because it became the upper class, implement term limit for myself, not kick Trotsky out of Russia, shave that horrid mustache, etc.



[braces for stalinists]

Not sure if troll.. Keeping in mind Stalin wasn't the only person in the government of the USSR, in what ways did Stalin not "support the workers"? How would you "implement socialism, destroy wage" after "decentraliz[ing] power to the republics" and "dismantl[ing] the Communist Party"? Do you have evidence that Stalin intentionally caused a famine (throughout the USSR) in order to commit genocide in Ukraine? Are you saying that the Communist Party had become "the upper class" by the time of Lenin's death?


Tens of thousands of Soviet Koreans died after they were removed from the Soviet Far East and dumped in Kazakhstan with very little provision for their livelihood.The Ainu population of Sakhalin was exterminated, as I understand.
I'm aware that the government had failed to reimburse within the first year all the property that had been left behind, but could I request a source on "[t]ens of thousands" figure?
An Early Soviet Ethnic Deportation: The Far-Eastern Koreans (http://www.jstor.org/stable/131438?seq=17) states that despite the initial logistical failures "[e]ventually, though, the deportees were properly established."


Stalin was contemplating the extermination of Soviet Jews.
Is there a factual basis for this? Because it sounds like slander more than anything else.

[Das war einmal]

Tens of thousands of Soviet Koreans died after they were removed from the Soviet Far East and dumped in Kazakhstan with very little provision for their livelihood. The Ainu population of Sakhalin was exterminated, as I understand. Soviet Germans were dumped in Kazakhstan. Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, Balkars and Karachais were forcibly evicted from their homeland in the Caucuses. There was also the "Holodomor" in Ukraine.Stalin was contemplating the extermination of Soviet Jews.

I'm not well informed of the other minorities you mentioned, but the bold stated is not true. In contrary, 3 million Jews were saved from nazi extermination because they were moved to the back of the USSR.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

About Holdomor, wasn't it a very complexed event? Where you could blame all frome the CC in Kreml for reacting to late, to bad weather that destroyd the crops, to the fact that they until very reacently had been trough a civil war and was now facing a trade blockade, to that the Kulaks didn't want to cooperat and rather destroyd theire food then let them be collectivized. I'm not defending what happend, its just that this event is far more complexed then just one evil mans plan on how to kill as many people as possible, and after succeding he twitched his mustache and laughed very evil, no. Mostly i would have liked to dont see Stalin at the power, now i belong to those who think that the Soviet Union was doomed very earlie, that the the workers, peasents and soldiers should have organized theire councils (soviets) much more, preventing any group frome centralizing to much power above them and instead tried to make sure they could elect who they wanted for a higher position. Oh know we are really OfT.

[bricolage]

Have a wank and some dinner.

[Dimentio]

Within the bureaucratic dynamic, only those who had the right connections in Uchraspred (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uchraspred)/Orgraspred and the Orgburo could provide alternative leadership to the Chairman of Sovnarkom:

http://libcom.org/history/stalin-why-how-boris-souvarine



So, put yourself in Stalin's shoes from 1922 until death.

Within reason, what policies would you do differently? [So becoming an anarchist isn't an option, but at least refraining from backstabbing them in Spain is.]

What policies would you do the same?

Avoid setting up kolchozes, putting up sovkhozes instead and having them compete out private agriculture through heavily benefitting them with technology.

Allow competitive elections in the CPSU.

No executions in peace-time. No doctor's plot.

I would really do most things differently, including the war. Five year plans might have been a necessity given the backwardness of Russia.

[Die Neue Zeit]

About Holdomor, wasn't it a very complexed event? Where you could blame all frome the CC in Kreml for reacting to late, to bad weather that destroyd the crops, to the fact that they until very reacently had been trough a civil war and was now facing a trade blockade, to that the Kulaks didn't want to cooperat and rather destroyd theire food then let them be collectivized. I'm not defending what happend, its just that this event is far more complexed then just one evil mans plan on how to kill as many people as possible, and after succeding he twitched his mustache and laughed very evil, no. Mostly i would have liked to dont see Stalin at the power, now i belong to those who think that the Soviet Union was doomed very earlie, that the the workers, peasents and soldiers should have organized theire councils (soviets) much more, preventing any group frome centralizing to much power above them and instead tried to make sure they could elect who they wanted for a higher position. Oh know we are really OfT.

I wrote above how to avoid the so-called "Holodomor." The government chose sovkhozization in Central Asia but kolkhozization in the Ukraine. The business risk of collective farms was on the shoulders of the peasants. However, they overreacted by destroying their crops, animals, etc. The government responded to this economic terrorism in kind.

There wasn't much resistance in Central Asia, but if the Ukrainian farmers would have resisted to my proposed sovkhozization - still - then I would not hesitate to send in the NKVD.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Avoid setting up kolchozes, putting up sovkhozes instead and having them compete out private agriculture through heavily benefitting them with technology.

Allow competitive elections in the CPSU.

No executions in peace-time. No doctor's plot.

I would really do most things differently, including the war. Five year plans might have been a necessity given the backwardness of Russia.

Sheesh! You're spoiling my whole chronological plot and repeating my sovkhozization stuff! :blushing:

Re. the second point: Stalin planned to do this right after the war, actually (according to Stalin's Wars). I would couple competitive elections in the CPSU with the Eurocommunist resolution on factions vs. tendencies, officially banning factionalism but allowing tendencies and tendency organization (http://www.revleft.com/vb/factions-tendencies-and-t132448/index.html). But that's for a later post.

[Peter The Painter]

I wont put myslef in his shoes for two reasons

A) These socks are white, all that blood will stain them.
B) Stalin had sweaty boot rash, and you can catch that shit.

[Zanthorus]

I'd keep the third-period going and I wouldn't dissolve the Comintern.

[Kiev Communard]

I wrote above how to avoid the so-called "Holodomor." The government chose sovkhozization in Central Asia but kolkhozization in the Ukraine. The business risk of collective farms was on the shoulders of the peasants. However, they overreacted by destroying their crops, animals, etc. The government responded to this economic terrorism in kind.

There wasn't much resistance in Central Asia, but if the Ukrainian farmers would have resisted to my proposed sovkhozization - still - then I would not hesitate to send in the NKVD.

If the de-kulakization had been confined to real kulaks, no one would have missed them, but it wasn't. The sovkhoz system, of course, is far more modern and scientific than the kolkhoz one, but still there would have been a famine in early 1930s because under the circumstances of the Great Depression and rapid cheapening of the wheat on the global markets there would have still been pressure on the Soviet economy to export more grain in order to finance the Five-Year Plans, and in that time it would have been impossible without subordinating all of the peasantry to the State needs.

[Lyev]

I'd keep the third-period going and I wouldn't dissolve the Comintern.Please may someone explain what the third-period is/was? As I understand it, it was a strategy for fighting for fascism although I could be totally wrong.

[scarletghoul]

I would establish a classless stateless society overnight because I am a true communist !!!

[Zanthorus]

Please may someone explain what the third-period is/was? As I understand it, it was a strategy for fighting for fascism although I could be totally wrong.

The third-period was the Comintern line from 1928 to 1934. It was based on a periodisation of history whereby the "first period" was the period leading up to world war one was when capitalism was in the ascent, and the "second period" being the immediate post-war period when capitalism seemed to have stabilised. It was said that in the "third period" capitalism was in it's declining phase, and this caused the Comintern to adopt many "ultra-left" policies. Chief among them was the "united front from below", whereby the Communist parties denounced the social-democratic parties while working with their membership at a ground level. Another key aspect was the promotion of "red unionism" as opposed to reformist or "yellow" unions.

After Hitler's rise to power the Comintern took a sharp turn back to the right and implemented the policy of the so-called "popular front" whereby a class-collaborationist alliance was made with the "national", "democratic" bourgeoisie which usually involved concessions to and a defence of the bourgeois state apparatus against the interests of the working-class.

EDIT: There is a third-periodist group here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=552) :)

Double EDIT: Also lol at how at least half the people in the third-period group are Trots :lol:

[the last donut of the night]

i'm not really sure, depends on what shoes he wore. if he copped these fly kicks:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bouncemag.com/wp-content/images/bobbito/af1%2520kbl%2520hi%2520red.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bouncemag.com/2007/10/02/nike-af1-kool-bob-love-hi-fall-preview/&usg=__OOndG5Czd2XN5SPkr2hy0SalgI4=&h=322&w=480&sz=177&hl=en&start=0&sig2=2hvtiJcXDL9yG6hVP-IfcA&zoom=1&tbnid=8Zncci1cnUmc_M:&tbnh=134&tbnw=161&ei=LV2FTIShL4WdlgfjysSVDg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dred%2Bair%2Bforces%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den %26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D697%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=1036&oei=LV2FTIShL4WdlgfjysSVDg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:13,s:0&tx=61&ty=70

then maybe i'd consider it

[Antifa94]

Well, then.. I wouldn't be Stalin, first of all.
I'd be the leader of the left coalition/worker's opposition in the 20's.
Say I would be Stalin, though. Well. I would not banish opposition, wouldn't hold ridiculous show-trials and discriminate against "bourgeois" specialists a la 1930 Industrialist Trials, I wouldn't pursue a campaign of inhuman collectivization( meaning I'd implement it differently). I'd also pay attention to agricultural specialists and not exacerbate the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33, Wouldn't inhumanly industrialize, certainly not destroy the avant-garde and replace it with kitsch socialist-realism, would never have those absurd, counterrevolutionary Great Purges. I would give military aid to the German Left in '33 and possibly help to organize a guerilla resistance to the National-socialist state and carry out bombing raids on military-industrial targets in Germany. I would not betray Spain nor sign an opportunistic treaty with my so called ideological antithesis. Since I didn't purge my best army leaders in 1938, the tragedy of Leningrad and Stalingrad might have been averted and Operation Barbarossa significantly weakened( then again, none of this would have happened due to my funding of KPD guerrilla activities in germany which would overthrow the fascist regime). I wouldn't engage in post-war ethnic cleansing, especially to predominantly loyal ethnic minorities ( cough cough Chechens). I wouldn't become a post-war anti-semite either, wouldn't engage in the destruction of the yiddish socio-cultural community, and would supply much more aid to the North Koreans in 1950. I wouldn't engage in the Georgian purge of 1951-52. Oh, yeah, I wouldn't pursue a campaign of crypto-imperialism in Eastern Europe either.

Done.

Silly me! I forgot a few things. Well, then. I wouldn't become a despotic bureacratic regime, I'd end Lenin's NEP sooner, I'd provide much more financial aid and munitions to Leftist parties, wouldn't have a cult of personality, wouldn't allow the proliferation of pseudo-science, and not become a homophobic and sexist fuck.

[Das war einmal]

I would take a private army and build a fortress in the Crimea where I would spend the rest of my live drinking vodka and beer and enjoy having a different girl each week while the rest of the country goes to hell....edit: I would also enjoy a boy every now and then to prevent leftists of the 21st century thinking that I might be a sexist. Cause that would be horrible.

[Antifa94]

Also, I think an interesting thread would be: Put yourself in Lenin's shoes. For fuck's sake, he made the revolution, and I am sure many people would have different means of dealing with all the obstacles he faced.

[Antifa94]

or, redklok, you could simply not add article 121 to the criminal code of 1933.

[Das war einmal]

or, redklok, you could simply not add article 121 to the criminal code of 1933.


No I will add an exception for that article for myself. Homosexuality is prohibited with the exception for Stalin. Not because I'm gay but because I can!

Ok seriously: these are the worst discussions. If I knew what I know now when I was 12, I would have been a fucking billionaire and probably end up being a half-god by doing predictions and acting as some oracle.

[Sir Comradical]

I would argue for the gradual collectivisation of agriculture with the onus being on maintaining levels of agricultural output. There's no point achieving the ideological result of collectivisation, if it leads to shortages and famine. The kulaks would eventually oppose these policies and start sabotaging production to intimidate the decisions made by the state, so it's only inevitable that they'd have to be persecuted.

Industrialisation would still be absolutely necessary. After all, Stalin was correct in arguing that the USSR had only a decade to complete its own industrial revolution. When the Germans invaded, the factories that produced the weapons of war were safely away from the front.

Russia's religious institutions probably deserved some degree of persecution. After all, they did collaborate heavily with the former Czarist regime and they did generally side with the Whites in the civil war. Uprooting their power from society is fine. However, executing thousands of priests/monks during the purges was definitely excessive.

I wouldn't put a ban on 'bourgeois pseudo-sciences'. I wouldn't censor academia at all. Yes it may be true that some scientists would come come up with outright racist theories on genetics, but it's science which means that stupid theories will eventually be opposed and replaced by hard facts. The field of science should be left alone.

The purges cannot be justified at all, especially when considering the scale. Wasn't it something like half-a-million executions in 3 years? I just don't buy into this idea that it was all absolutely necessary. I mean seriously, executing Vsevolod Meyerhold because the party didn't like his theatre productions? Isn't that a little extreme?

The Greek Partisans should have been given full unconditional Soviet military assistance. If they fought off the Nazis then surely they would have been able to fight off Britain's puppets. Instead the USSR decided to negotiate with the Brits on how to carve up Europe.

[Sir Comradical]

Tens of thousands of Soviet Koreans died after they were removed from the Soviet Far East and dumped in Kazakhstan with very little provision for their livelihood. The Ainu population of Sakhalin was exterminated, as I understand. Soviet Germans were dumped in Kazakhstan. Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, Balkars and Karachais were forcibly evicted from their homeland in the Caucuses. There was also the "Holodomor" in Ukraine. Stalin was contemplating the extermination of Soviet Jews.

Reference?

I'm sorry, but my bullshit detector went right off.

[AK]

I would establish a classless stateless society overnight because I am a true communist !!!
Good.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Reference?

I'm sorry, but my bullshit detector went right off.

Ever hear of something called the "Doctor's Plot"? Would do you think was going on there? My most recent reference is Issac Deutscher's bio of Stalin but there are many other references as well.

These guys should be treated cautiously but they are on to something here.

http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/archives5762/vaypek/VP62features2.htm

http://www.amazon.com/STALINS-AGAINST-DOCTORS-SOLUTION-thoughts/dp/0029258219

[Bright Banana Beard]

I would actually make myself an asshole and continue with the light purge after the war. I would also take Austria, Greece (along with Cyprus and killed Fuserg9, I kid.), and Korea. I would also prevented the formation of Warsaw Pact and help reforms the Comintern after the war.

To be honest, Stalin's foreign policy is really a shame in his record.

[Sir Comradical]

Ever hear of something called the "Doctor's Plot"? Would do you think was going on there? My most recent reference is Issac Deutscher's bio of Stalin but there are many other references as well.

These guys should be treated cautiously but they are on to something here.

http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/archives5762/vaypek/VP62features2.htm

http://www.amazon.com/STALINS-AGAINST-DOCTORS-SOLUTION-thoughts/dp/0029258219

Implicating five Jewish doctors in a plot doesn't equate to having intentions to exterminate all Jews. There are a lot of ridiculous books about the Soviet Union. The funny thing is, that right-wing anti-communist propaganda before WW2 always portrayed communism as a jewish plot, but then to push forward this idea that Stalin was basically the same as Hitler, they push these absurd, unfalsifiable theories about how Stalin was planning to exterminate Jews. Complete nonsense if you ask me.

Your first link cites Solzhenitzin.

"Stalin planned a mass Jewish massacre. His plan was as follows: In the beginning of March the killer-doctors were to be hanged in Red Square. Embittered patriots (led by supervisors) would then begin a pogrom against the Jews. Next the Government, exhibiting great kindness, would protect the Jews from the fury of the masses -- and already on the same night it would transfer all the Jews to the East of the Soviet Union and Siberia (where the construction of huts for this purpose had already begun)."

Solzhenitzin has a fertile imagination.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Stalin's Wars says that the Doctors Plot and the surrounding hysteria was about neither a big purge coming up or some anti-Semitic reprisal, but rather a check on Jewish nationalism among Soviet Jews.

[Martin Blank]

So, put yourself in Stalin's shoes from 1922 until death.

Within reason, what policies would you do differently? [So becoming an anarchist isn't an option, but at least refraining from backstabbing them in Spain is.]

What policies would you do the same?

This would be tricky, especially since the petty bourgeoisie had already been reconstituted as a class by 1920 via the campaign to recruit the so-called "specialists". In other words, stepping into the shoes of the General Secretary in 1922 would entail a fight against both the Soviet state apparatus and the Party apparatus.

But starting from the position that, a) it was possible for a communist like me to be elected to the job, and b) I was able to cobble together a working majority in both the RKP(b), the ECCI, the SNK and Congress of Soviets (against the wishes of the aforementioned apparati), here would be the decisions:

(Note: Given the realities of the existing Soviet political setup at the time, I would not hesitate to use the position in such a way as to insure that what I want is what I get. It would be the beginning of a proletarian dictatorship in the original sense of the term.)

1922:


Issue a general amnesty and release all pro-Soviet political prisoners, including dissident communists, anarchists and all other workers, including those survivors of Kronstadt remaining in the USSR.
Legalize all pro-Soviet political parties and affirm the Soviet Republic's commitment to multi-party Soviet democracy. And end to the ban on factions in the Communist Party.
Initiate a call for a new Congress of Soviets, in which all pro-Soviet parties can contest for seats, within six months (before November 1922), and a Communist Party Congress within three months (before August 1922).
Propose a Second Declaration of Rights of the Exploited, reaffirming and expanding the civil and democratic rights of the proletariat, to be voted on at the Congress of Soviets.
Propose the restoration of the Congress of Factory-Shop Committees to oversee the organization of the economy under workers' control, to meet before March 1923. Propose the abolition of GOSPLAN and GOELRO in favor of standing commissions on economic planning and electrification elected from the CFSC and Congress of Soviets. These proposals to be voted on by the Congress of Soviets.
Propose to the upcoming Party Congress the establishment of three Party-sponsored mass schools: a Basic School to develop political literacy among the population; a Soviet School to educate workers on how to organize, participate in and administer workers' councils; a Workers' School to educate workers on methods of workers' control and self-management, as well as coordination and planning. Further propose these schools are transferred to control of the Congress of Soviets after their establishment. A special ad hoc commission would oversee the schools, not the People's Commissariat of Education.
Propose to the upcoming Party Congress the removal from membership of all non-workers admitted to the Party after November 7, 1917.
Propose to both the Party Congress and Congress of Soviets to meet again within nine months of the close of each of this year's Congresses.
Lobby, push and cajole to get these adopted by the Party Congress and Soviet Congress.
Propose that the V Congress of the Comintern take place within one year of the close of the IV Congress.


1923:


Propose to the ECCI and KPD to mobilize and initiate mass campaigns in support of German workers in response to the Ruhr Crisis, including a cross-border strike of French and German workers to force the demilitarization of the Ruhr. Propose that Rote Hilfe and IRA take on relief and assistance tasks for German workers impoverished as a result of the Ruhr Crisis. Propose to the SNK to place resources of the Red Army at the disposal of the ECCI and KPD, in order to prepare for military-insurrectionary action.
Three proposals to the First (Reorganized) CFSC: 1) adoption of a one-year plan to improve and expand industrial output, 2) adoption of a two-year plan for electrification of all major cities not yet fully electrified, and 3) adoption of a proposal to the Congress of Soviets to take responsibility for the Workers' School.
Initiate a call for a Congress of Trade Unions to take place before the CFSC, with a proposal to reorganize both its relationship to the Factory-Shop Committees and its internal functioning.
Lobby, push and cajole to get these adopted by the CFSC and CTU.
Again on Germany: Propose to the ECCI and membership of KPD to move decisively against "national Bolshevism" and proposals by KPD leaders to unite with sections of the bourgeoisie. Propose expulsion of KPD leaders who concede political ground to anti-revolutionary forces, especially nationalists and Nazis. Propose to SNK the sending of Red Army advisors. Propose to ECCI the sending of trained revolutionary agitators (and removal from office of those sympathetic to the "national Bolshevist" position).
Seven proposals to the April 1923 Party Congress: 1) drafting of a plan to end the NEP within two years, replaced by direct workers' control and self-management, to be discussed at the July 1923 Congress of Soviets; 2) turning over of Party full-timer activity on a local level to teams of worker-Bolsheviks; 3) reorganization of the Central Committee and Bureaus, allowing for worker-Bolsheviks to serve in place of "Old Bolsheviks" from the petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie; 4) a ban on unelected Soviet state officials holding positions in the Communist Party; 5) reorganization of Party units (cells, etc.) on the primary basis of workplace; 6) proposal to the ECCI and KPD to issue a call for the organization of workers' councils as the basis for a workers' government at the first opportunity; 7) to convene the next regular Party Congress in January 1924, and to authorize the calling of an emergency Congress sooner, if needed.
Six proposals to the July 1923 Congress of Soviets: 1) abolition of the relative autonomy of People's Commissariats that was carried over from the Civil War period; 2) proposal on ending the NEP within two years, as proposed to the Party Congress; 3) organization of Militia Schools, to give all workers a grounding in community policing and law enforcement; 4) separation of law enforcement/policing units and investigative units (in later years to include forensic and similar units); 5) co-optation of three representatives of the CFSC and two representatives of the CTU on the SNK as voting members; 6) authorization of the use of Red Army and Red Fleet forces to support any possible insurrection in Germany; 7) to convene the next regular Congress of Soviets in April 1924, and to authorize the calling of an emergency Congress sooner, if needed.
Lobby, push and cajole to get these proposals adopted by the Party Congress and Congress of Soviets.
Once again Germany: In response to the beginning of the Cuno Strike, reiterate Party and ECCI call for the organization of workers' councils in Germany; direct all Party and Red Army agents/advisors in Germany to organize German workers to these ends, whether with the support of the KPD leadership or not; propose to SNK that Red Fleet vessel sail toward Germany in a display of support for German workers, and that Red Army units are placed on immediate alert; propose Trotsky be restored as Commissar of Defense and Tukhachevsky promoted to Commander-General of Western Red Army forces; propose ECCI, KPD and PCF issue joint communiqué calling for immediate organization of workers' councils, based on elected representatives from the Factory Councils, and convening of a Congress of Workers' Councils to elect a workers' government; advocate and push for rejection of any calls for KPD to join in "coalition" parliamentary governments with SPD as an alternative to organization of workers' councils, and lobby ECCI and KPD to adopt the same position.


I sorta have to stop here, because, if all went more or less according to plan after this, we would be talking about the success of the 1923 German Revolution. But I think you get an idea of where I was going just with the proposals beginning in April 1922 and continuing through August 1923. The changes from what Stalin actually proposed and did are obvious. Some of the initial actions would have led to a lessening of the tensions following Kronstadt and the strikes of 1921, as well as the mistrust that resulted from the initiation of the NEP.

The legalization of other pro-Soviet parties would have, in many ways, restored some of the popularity of the Bolsheviks, while at the same time undercutting the growing power of the petty-bourgeois bureaucracy. The other proposals, from the transfer of planning and electrification control to workplace committees, to the training schools, to the reorganization of relations between the unions and the factory-shop committees, etc., also chipped away at the fledgling petty-bourgeois state apparatus and would have allowed for its complete dismantling within a few years -- or would have resulted in a civil war that would have ended with its complete destruction by Red Army forces from the USSR and Germany.

Anyway, while this kind of speculation is fun, it doesn't change what really happened. However, it does provide insight into what someone might do if faced with those kinds of material conditions.

ON EDIT: I probably should have also added more points on international/Comintern questions, such as opposing the proposal for the Chinese Communist Party to enter the Kuomintang. I guess we'll call what I wrote more of a sampler than a finished list.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This would be tricky, especially since the petty bourgeoisie had already been reconstituted as a class by 1920 via the campaign to recruit the so-called "specialists". In other words, stepping into the shoes of the General Secretary in 1922 would entail a fight against both the Soviet state apparatus and the Party apparatus.

But starting from the position that, a) it was possible for a communist like me to be elected to the job, and b) I was able to cobble together a working majority in both the RKP(b), the ECCI, the SNK and Congress of Soviets (against the wishes of the aforementioned apparati), here would be the decisions:

(Note: Given the realities of the existing Soviet political setup at the time, I would not hesitate to use the position in such a way as to insure that what I want is what I get. It would be the beginning of a proletarian dictatorship in the original sense of the term.)

1922:

[LIST]
Issue a general amnesty and release all pro-Soviet political prisoners, including dissident communists, anarchists and all other workers, including those survivors of Kronstadt remaining in the USSR.
Legalize all pro-Soviet political parties and affirm the Soviet Republic's commitment to multi-party Soviet democracy. And end to the ban on factions in the Communist Party.

I'm not sure he would have been comfortable releasing the anarchists (lack of cooperation in the Civil War) or the Kronstadt-ists in particular. Kronstadt came about a year too late.

The Stalin of Stalin's Wars did prefer a multi-party setup in Eastern Europe that was merely friendly to Soviet interests, but rehabilitating the Left-SRs would mean making them sign statements condemning what they did to Lenin and Uritsky.

When you say "what I want is what I get," it could have been possible for Stalin to indeed become a "Dictator for Democracy" because of Lenin's incapacitation.


Propose the restoration of the Congress of Factory-Shop Committees to oversee the organization of the economy under workers' control, to meet before March 1923. Propose the abolition of GOSPLAN and GOELRO in favor of standing commissions on economic planning and electrification elected from the CFSC and Congress of Soviets. These proposals to be voted on by the Congress of Soviets.[quote]

Why abolish GOELRO? The electrification was still not yet complete.

[quote] Propose to the upcoming Party Congress the removal from membership of all non-workers admitted to the Party after November 7, 1917.

It's the exact opposite of Lenin's pro-peasant renegacy this time and after. :D


I sorta have to stop here, because, if all went more or less according to plan after this, we would be talking about the success of the 1923 German Revolution.

Are you really sure about that? I'm under the impression that the revolutionary wave in Germany receded in 1920, hence why Lenin and Zinoviev were wrong to maneuver against the USPD as a whole and not merely its right wing.

[COMPLEXproductions]

I would establish a classless stateless society overnight because I am a true communist !!!

hahaha(in a friendly way, no mocking). Personally, I don't think it could be done over night. If i were Stalin, I would've killed myself at the age of 5 ;) . Anywho, I wouldn't allow the party to have all the say(or any say for that matter in any policies. At least, not any more than any other person). From the ground up, my friends. I believe politicians should only be used for the communication of what the masses of a given area desire. All the way up to the president(or whatever) to communicate with the other presidents. But in no way should any party, individual, or group of individuals have more say than one man for one vote. The reason politicians tend to pay themselves more is because money equals power. But if you give yourself more of a say, even if you don't give yourself more money, you still have more power than everyone else(which defeats my purpose for communism).I do understand the difficulties of the situation however. How the majority of the population was a peasant class as opposed to working class and what not. I'm not saying what Stalin or any other leader did or did not do, this is simply how i would go about it. Educate the "peasants" so that in a few generations they would merge with the workers for common goals of liberation. No followers and leaders, only students and teachers. Let reason the only dictator. Salam.

[Thirsty Crow]

...It's so sweet to hear Stalinists argue their critics by insisting on the (rhetorical) question "What would you have done? There was no other way!" and be served with something like this:D

[AK]

Stalin, in regards to policies effecting history, actions of the USSR with historical consequences and so forth, was dictated by the interests of the class he represented, which was the new "Soviet" bourgeoisie.
Really? The ruling class in the Soviet Union was the bourgeoisie? That seems very inaccurate. "Bourgeoisie" is not a placeholder for any ruling class that arises after capitalism - it has a specific definition in a Marxist class analysis. As far as I know, Stalin and the rest of his clique weren't the owners of private property.

[Kayser_Soso]

If Stalin had behaved contrary to the interests of the bureaucratic elite, he would not have risen to power in the political conditions of the time. Neither would he have stayed alive too long post-1928 if he had some kind of anarcho-trot epiphany while in charge. Note the threats to his life and power even while he was a loyal servant of the ruling bureaucracy: he was almost deposed and shot as traitor by the Tukhachevsky clique, he hid in his office for 10 days after Barbarossa because he was afraid the CC would execute him, and his little friends like Beria probably poisoned him in '53. If a Revleft poster from 2010 had gone into his brain and turned him into a hippie, he would have been dead man walking in the Kremlin. The corrupt officials and officers at the highest ranks who were living the "full and joyous Soviet life" would knock him off for going soft on them, then they would find some other opportunist scumbag from the nomenklatura to manage their affairs and preserve their hold on power.

You DO realize that the stoy that Stalin "hid" for ten days after Barbarossa was debunked a long time ago, even before the collapse of the USSR, right?

[Kayser_Soso]

Implicating five Jewish doctors in a plot doesn't equate to having intentions to exterminate all Jews. There are a lot of ridiculous books about the Soviet Union. The funny thing is, that right-wing anti-communist propaganda before WW2 always portrayed communism as a jewish plot, but then to push forward this idea that Stalin was basically the same as Hitler, they push these absurd, unfalsifiable theories about how Stalin was planning to exterminate Jews. Complete nonsense if you ask me.

Your first link cites Solzhenitzin.

"Stalin planned a mass Jewish massacre. His plan was as follows: In the beginning of March the killer-doctors were to be hanged in Red Square. Embittered patriots (led by supervisors) would then begin a pogrom against the Jews. Next the Government, exhibiting great kindness, would protect the Jews from the fury of the masses -- and already on the same night it would transfer all the Jews to the East of the Soviet Union and Siberia (where the construction of huts for this purpose had already begun)."

Solzhenitzin has a fertile imagination.


If anyone would have planned to execute the Jews of Russia, it would have been the anti-Semitic Russian nationalist Solzhenitsyn. His Russian nationalism and the Tsar was so ridiculous that even anti-Communist Richard Pipes called him on his bullshit.

[Sir Comradical]

If anyone would have planned to execute the Jews of Russia, it would have been the anti-Semitic Russian nationalist Solzhenitsyn. His Russian nationalism and the Tsar was so ridiculous that even anti-Communist Richard Pipes called him on his bullshit.

Haha that's right! The guy was a pro-tsarist wanker wasn't he? He supported every US war except the one against Serbia (probably because for him, slavophilism trumps America-worship).

[Kiev Communard]

Really? The ruling class in the Soviet Union was the bourgeoisie? That seems very inaccurate. "Bourgeoisie" is not a placeholder for any ruling class that arises after capitalism - it has a specific definition in a Marxist class analysis. As far as I know, Stalin and the rest of his clique weren't the owners of private property.

I would call this class, within the framework of Russian Neo-Marxist philosopher and historian Yuri Semyonov's works, "Industrial Politarists", that is, the class of State property managers whose individual members are not owners of the private property, while the class itself, through its affiliation with the State, owns it as a kind of corporate class property.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It's so sweet to hear Stalinists argue their critics by insisting on the (rhetorical) question "What would you have done? There was no other way!" and be served with something like this:D

This thread was aimed mainly at non-Stalinists. If they were Stalin, and given certain limits, what could they do?

Miles's post was good, but there are a lot of eggs in that basket, the basket being the assumption that Germany was still in a revolutionary period. That, and Stalin himself didn't have a working-class background.

However, Sergei Kirov did:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Kirov#Youth


Born to a poor family in Urzhum, Russia... In 1901 a group of wealthy benefactors provided a scholarship for him to attend an industrial school at Kazan. After gaining his degree in Engineering he moved to Tomsk. As Russian society went into crisis, Kirov became a Marxist and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1904.

I would count on Kirov to implement much of Miles's suggestions, thus leaving Stalin to retire. More on that later.

Dimentio's more cautious post was where I was heading.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Part V

The year is 1933 or 1934. This is where the rest of Dimentio's suggestions fit in. Again, I would couple competitive elections within the AUCP(B) with the Eurocommunist resolution on factions vs. tendencies, officially banning factionalism but allowing tendencies and tendency organization (http://www.revleft.com/vb/factions-tendencies-and-t132448/index.html) - topped by multi-candidate but AUCP(B)-based Soviet elections.

The German situation could have been at least such that neither the Nazis came to power nor the KPD shamed themselves by some false "United Front" electoral work with the SPD. The success of cooperating with the splinter SAPD and the left-nationalists could have been replicated in Spain when the time came.

The hard part to figure out by this time is domestic economic policy.

In any event, I'd step aside for a collective leadership of Voroshilov, Kaganovich, and Kirov - all of whom had working-class backgrounds prior to WWI. Molotov of a petit-bourgeois background would, for now, keep his job.

[Martin Blank]

I'm not sure he would have been comfortable releasing the anarchists (lack of cooperation in the Civil War) or the Kronstadt-ists in particular. Kronstadt came about a year too late.

IIRC, there had already been a limited amnesty and prisoner release in the late winter of 1922, just a month or so before Stalin became GenSec, that was considered to be a popular move.


The Stalin of Stalin's Wars did prefer a multi-party setup in Eastern Europe that was merely friendly to Soviet interests, but rehabilitating the Left-SRs would mean making them sign statements condemning what they did to Lenin and Uritsky.

If you notice, I didn't say all parties. I said all pro-Soviet parties. That implies a minimum set of conditions for legalization -- recognition of the soviets as the basis for the republic being the top condition. I would doubt that the SRs (Left, Center or Right) would have accepted that kind of condition, given their positions in 1918. If they did, though, then we could talk about the other things.


When you say "what I want is what I get," it could have been possible for Stalin to indeed become a "Dictator for Democracy" because of Lenin's incapacitation.

I was thinking more of the Roman style of dictatorship (which is what Marx had in mind as well when he talked of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" -- a temporary, emergency authority). Yes, it would have been a "revolution from above", and none of us are thrilled with the concept, but you asked me to work within the conditions you set, so....




Propose the restoration of the Congress of Factory-Shop Committees to oversee the organization of the economy under workers' control, to meet before March 1923. Propose the abolition of GOSPLAN and GOELRO in favor of standing commissions on economic planning and electrification elected from the CFSC and Congress of Soviets. These proposals to be voted on by the Congress of Soviets.

Why abolish GOELRO? The electrification was still not yet complete.

It wasn't abolishing GOELRO per se. Rather, it was transferring control of electrification from state control (GOELRO) to workers' control via the CFSC -- i.e., putting control of electrification policy in the hands of workers themselves, so it could not be used as a cudgel against "errant" working-class neighborhoods.




Propose to the upcoming Party Congress the removal from membership of all non-workers admitted to the Party after November 7, 1917.

It's the exact opposite of Lenin's pro-peasant renegacy this time and after. :D

I know! Ain't I a stinker? ;)



I sorta have to stop here, because, if all went more or less according to plan after this, we would be talking about the success of the 1923 German Revolution.

Are you really sure about that? I'm under the impression that the revolutionary wave in Germany receded in 1920, hence why Lenin and Zinoviev were wrong to maneuver against the USPD as a whole and not merely its right wing.

Actually, there was one more opportunity that opened up as a result of the Ruhr Crisis in January 1923. The Spartacists had an interesting historical article about it (http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/56/germany1923.html) in their magazine back in 2001.

[Die Neue Zeit]

IIRC, there had already been a limited amnesty and prisoner release in the late winter of 1922, just a month or so before Stalin became GenSec, that was considered to be a popular move.

I'd go for it then. Thanks for the popularity trivia.


If you notice, I didn't say all parties. I said all pro-Soviet parties. That implies a minimum set of conditions for legalization -- recognition of the soviets as the basis for the republic being the top condition. I would doubt that the SRs (Left, Center or Right) would have accepted that kind of condition, given their positions in 1918. If they did, though, then we could talk about the other things.

After what I said about the 1918 Bolshevik coups d'etat, 1920 as the lost opportunity year for the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left SRs, I do think that the Left SRs might be willing to recant their terrorist stances. Individual Left SRs joined the Communist Party, anyway.

The tricky question lies with the Menshevik-Internationalists.


I was thinking more of the Roman style of dictatorship (which is what Marx had in mind as well when he talked of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" -- a temporary, emergency authority). Yes, it would have been a "revolution from above", and none of us are thrilled with the concept, but you asked me to work within the conditions you set, so....

Yes, at least some here like you have worked within the conditions, while some have posted the usual, outlandish what-ifs.


It wasn't abolishing GOELRO per se. Rather, it was transferring control of electrification from state control (GOELRO) to workers' control via the CFSC -- i.e., putting control of electrification policy in the hands of workers themselves, so it could not be used as a cudgel against "errant" working-class neighborhoods.

Couldn't the CFSC organize a new GOELRO as a replacement for the technocratic one? The name would still stick in the minds of workers as something associated with modernization.


I know! Ain't I a stinker? ;)

Good that you're back in full force.


Actually, there was one more opportunity that opened up as a result of the Ruhr Crisis in January 1923. The Spartacists had an interesting historical article about it (http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/56/germany1923.html) in their magazine back in 2001.

Mike Macnair criticized moves during the Ruhr Crisis recently in his video on Anti-Fascism:

http://vimeo.com/13128522

The Ruhr Crisis was more nationalist unrest than class unrest.

[Martin Blank]

Couldn't the CFSC organize a new GOELRO as a replacement for the technocratic one? The name would still stick in the minds of workers as something associated with modernization.

That was more or less the plan. The rationale for the abolition of GOELRO in favor of a commission by the CFSC was to begin breaking up the bureaucracy at what was, in many respects, the focal point for it after the Civil War. Electrification had been promoted as the central task for the RSFSR and USSR. That was the epicenter of the gathering of bureaucratic power -- more so than the Rabkrin, which Lenin saw as the center of problems. At the same time, it was also its weakest point, since it had a seemingly bottomless appetite for bureaucrats and officials. To break the bureaucracy there, and shift that power back into the hands of the working class, would have slowed its progress and development enough to turn momentum in the fight against the petty bourgeoisie decisively in favor of the proletariat.


Mike Macnair criticized moves during the Ruhr Crisis recently in his video on Anti-Fascism:

http://vimeo.com/13128522

The Ruhr Crisis was more nationalist unrest than class unrest.

Macnair's critique is partial and secondary to what he was talking about in that video, so I'll not consider it a full critique worthy of a massive undertaking. Suffice to say, while his comments about the January strikes and the Schlageter Line were correct, his painting of the 1923 events overall were one-sided and seemingly shaped by laziness. What I mean is, it was not the January strikes alone that constituted the "revolutionary" character of what emerged from the Ruhr Crisis; they were merely Act One. There were the May strikes in Dortmund and the Cuno Strike in Berlin, the latter bringing down the government itself. Neither of these great strikes could be considered "nationalist" in character.

The failure of these events to lead to a broader revolutionary upsurge rests solely on the shoulders of the Comintern and its German section, the KPD. While the workers in Dortmund and other Ruhr cities were battling German police and workers' militias were enforcing price controls in the face of spiraling inflation, the KPD and Comintern were telling workers to limit their struggle to purely economic demands while making appeals to German nationalism (and debating the Nazis!). Nevertheless, the KPD grew in numbers to a point where it was arguable that the majority of the German working class supported it.

Had the KPD intervened on a more consistently proletarian internationalist basis during the January strikes -- had they taken the success of individualized events, like fraternization with French soldiers that resulted in them defending German strikers from German police, and generalized it -- that would have served as a powerful "teaching moment" for those German workers who were whipped up by the nationalist bourgeoisie. Had the KPD then used that experience when the Dortmund strike became a Ruhr-wide steelworkers' strike (and had they also NOT sat on their hands for four days, in addition to NOT adopting the Schlageter Line and NOT trying to limit the strike to "bread-and-butter" demands -- i.e., had they lived up to their program of organizing workers' councils and overthrowing the capitalist state -- the working class (arguably, in its majority) would have been prepared to initiate a revolutionary struggle at the moment when the capitalist state was weakest. By the time of the Cuno Strike, which toppled the government when it expanded into a near-general strike, the KPD would have been in a position akin to that of the Bolsheviks in late-October 1917: representing the class interests and desire of the majority of the working class, armed with a program and organization that could provide political leadership as well as guide, in terms of its proposals and ideas, the practical leaders of the revolution, the German workers themselves.

(Wait! What was that I said about a "massive undertaking"? :D )