The "Gulag Myth" [Archive]

KlÃ©ber

5th September 2010, 21:28

http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/lies.html (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/lies.html)Yeah, because when you want the fair and balanced view on purges and gulags, you can always count on the Stalin Society.

The GULAG death rates are inflated by some historians but in terms of the conditions under which veteran Communist revolutionaries like Lovett Fort-Whiteman (http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-life-and-t134938/index.html?t=134938), Karl Radek and Manfred Stern met their end were hardly pleasant. The people being killed or worked to death were not "fat kulak thugs" or "class enemies." The real rich criminal fatsoes were Stalin and his little buddies. The people they were killing were generally good communists, workers and farmers, or intellectuals from Soviet minorities who were killed en masse in the "ethnic operations" against local autonomy.

If you want a good book on the repressions, check out 1937: Stalin's Year of Terror (http://books.google.com/books?id=PZ92ueBx7MQC&printsec=frontcover) by Vadim Z. Rogovin. His argument, confirmed by the opened archives, is that yes, the bureaucracy led by Stalin did execute 700-800,000 people, but they didn't do it because they were "evil" or "crazy," they did it in response to real threats from the working class and other bureaucratic factions. There was vast popular discontent and political opposition in the USSR, and Stalin's clique was afraid of being overthrown, so they did what had to be done in order to save an unpopular regime.

Or just go on Wikipedia and read about Russian revolutionaries and Bolshevik leaders, most of their articles end with their execution in 1937-38. But it wasn't mostly the political people getting shot. The vast majority of GULAG prisoners were petty criminals from the poorest layers of society, who were deemed "counter-revolutionary" for stealing even food due to the "Misappropriation of Socialist Property" law. The most reprehensible decree however was the "Law of Spikelets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Spikelets)" for which starving peasants could be and were shot for "stealing" individual pieces of grain (despite that gleaning was an ancient, culturally-accepted practice of the rural poor in times of hunger).

And actually, Soviet labor camp conditions were initially okay, but after the Frenkel reforms it became pretty disgusting. Prior to Frenkel being put in charge, labor camp prisoners were properly fed, housed, treated, and even paid, they could complain about mistreatment and people were always released when their sentences were up. However as social tensions increased, the bureaucrats went on a trip about destroying "class enemies" by working them to death, and the ruling clique got a total scumbag, bourgeois criminal smuggler to manage the operation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naftaly_Frenkel

Once again, the Stalinists murdered the founder of the American Negro Labor Congress (http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-life-and-t134938/index.html?t=134938) through slave labor in the Kolyma gold mines.. how can anyone still justify and deny this shit?

fa2991

5th September 2010, 22:23

All of them!

But many claim that some are illusory, like that only 1 million people went to the gulags, not 25 million or whatever, and that most were criminals, or that sabotage and natural disasters caused the famines...

Weezer

5th September 2010, 22:40

Stalin's crimes are exaggerated for polemical reasons, and things that can be explained in part by incompetence (i.e. the Ukrainian famine) are attributed 100% to personal malice, which is wrong. But he did imprison and murder thousands at least, and he was the instrument of the bureaucracy in crushing workers' democracy in the USSR. And, as a Bolshevik, he killed other Bolsheviks - I think this was seen as being inconceivable in the first Moscow Trials.

While I do think Stalin was less evil than he's made out to be, he was still capable of pretty significant crimes. We should oppose the anti-Communist attempts to make them greater, but not at the price of forgiving the actual crimes.

This, 110%.

We shouldn't fall the reactionary exaggerated statistics, hell, even the authors of the Black Book of Communism said that their editors exaggerated the number of death by Communist regimes in their book.

At the same time, what Stalin did shouldn't be forgiven, and Stalin's sectarianism shouldn't be repeated.

Jazzhands

5th September 2010, 23:39

At the same time, what Stalin did shouldn't be forgiven, and Stalin's sectarianism shouldn't be repeated.

Stalin wasn't really as much of a sectarian as his followers Mao and Hoxha were. But he did change the playing field so that sectarian wars usually resulted in someone's death. What goes on on Revleft would be a bloodbath in his time.

thriller

5th September 2010, 23:43

Well I believe with the USSR being dead and gone for almost 20 years now, new information will surface about the deceased rate during Stalin's reign. If it shows less than 25 or 50 million, then we'll know that it was quite exaggerated. The truth is that no one will really ever know. Stalinist's have their side and anti-stalinist's have their side. It's hard to find an in between to actually look at Stalin's crimes unbiasedly.

Sasha

5th September 2010, 23:53

any regime that massmurder their artists and/or burns books is unbiasedly evil.

stalinism and nazism are unbiasdly evil

stella2010

6th September 2010, 04:03

Stalin was a dictator during a time of savagery and war.

The people around him and those he ruled were in a brutal existence.

Stalin got a taste for power grab and did not rule out the possibility of world domination.

Alexander and Genghis Khan once ruled known worlds, the power is in their heads.

However, in Russia's case the idea of a peoples army that would oppose enslavement to capitalism became a huge inspiration to the common man.

Such a might, such a power

From peasant to pilot

The idea that the people can do anything was the REAL driving force of communism.

Stalin went mad with power. He is not over exaggerated. He went mad in a time of madness.

fa2991

6th September 2010, 04:55

He is not over exaggerated. He went mad in a time of madness.

Not at all?

stella2010

6th September 2010, 11:04

Not at all?

Biasm will exist.

Truth HERTZ.

Any Parisian will agree.

Das war einmal

6th September 2010, 11:44

Stalin's crimes are exaggerated for polemical reasons, and things that can be explained in part by incompetence (i.e. the Ukrainian famine) are attributed 100% to personal malice, which is wrong. But he did imprison and murder thousands at least, and he was the instrument of the bureaucracy in crushing workers' democracy in the USSR. And, as a Bolshevik, he killed other Bolsheviks - I think this was seen as being inconceivable in the first Moscow Trials.

While I do think Stalin was less evil than he's made out to be, he was still capable of pretty significant crimes. We should oppose the anti-Communist attempts to make them greater, but not at the price of forgiving the actual crimes.

I still wonder where people get the idea that Stalin 'installed' a bureaucracy. If anything, the lack of a bureaucracy enhanced the fact that many people were falsely accused of being a counter-revolutionary at people's tribune's. The collectivization was far more an anarchistic act then a bureaucratic. If Stalin did install a far reaching bureaucracy then I must admit I'm impressed, considering the fact that 80% of the Russian population was illiterate and there was a total lack of communications network generally needed for a bureaucracy to function.

graymouser

6th September 2010, 11:55

I still wonder where people get the idea that Stalin 'installed' a bureaucracy. If anything, the lack of a bureaucracy enhanced the fact that many people were falsely accused of being a counter-revolutionary at people's tribune's. The collectivization was far more an anarchistic act then a bureaucratic. If Stalin did install a far reaching bureaucracy then I must admit I'm impressed, considering the fact that 80% of the Russian population was illiterate and there was a total lack of communications network generally needed for a bureaucracy to function.
I specifically did not say that Stalin "installed" a bureaucracy; the bureaucracy (the administrative apparatus that ran the USSR) existed in Lenin's time as well, but after Lenin's death it became relatively free to move independently and Stalin was effectively its representative in the party. Much of this consisted of specialists and administrative officials who had to be kept on at a higher rate of pay than Lenin had envisioned, as a temporary measure for rebuilding the economy. These bureaucrats effectively hijacked the Bolshevik Party through Stalin's machinations (his zig-zag between Zinoviev/Kamenev and then Bukharin) and through flooding the party with politically untrained recruits (i.e. the "Lenin Levy").

Das war einmal

6th September 2010, 12:45

I specifically did not say that Stalin "installed" a bureaucracy; the bureaucracy (the administrative apparatus that ran the USSR) existed in Lenin's time as well, but after Lenin's death it became relatively free to move independently and Stalin was effectively its representative in the party. Much of this consisted of specialists and administrative officials who had to be kept on at a higher rate of pay than Lenin had envisioned, as a temporary measure for rebuilding the economy. These bureaucrats effectively hijacked the Bolshevik Party through Stalin's machinations (his zig-zag between Zinoviev/Kamenev and then Bukharin) and through flooding the party with politically untrained recruits (i.e. the "Lenin Levy").

What is this bureaucracy? What is it in your terms? I study HRM (Human Resource Management) and there are many forms of bureaucracy. It's even stated that you can't have an organization without some form of bureaucracy (meaning: it's not bad perse).

The vanguard led the revolution. A vanguard existing primarily out of higher educated workers, who had capacities to lead farmers and other less educated workers. This was a minority. I won't be surprised if they enriched themselves on the backs of their comrades but given the fact that they we're few of the people capable to lead a backward country it's not a big surprise.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the state apparatus was cleansed of former Tsarist officers who sided with the whites, there are those who sided with the reds, but I'm positive these were a minority.

thÃ¤lmann

6th September 2010, 13:44

i think somebody calling himself critical or left, should not reproduce storys , that today only fascists and ukrainian nationalists talk about. even bourgois media changed a lot in the last years, so that the deaths during the stalin time decreased to 1-3 million. including peoples dying in gulags, death penaltys, kulaks on their journey to the east, and tose who died of hunger during collektivising the peasents.

to the collektivisation: it is really funny that people made stalin responsible for deaths during this part of the revolution, because of the people who talk proudly of their resistance against the communists. and they openly tell that a lot of kulaks and nationalists burned their crop and killed their animals. in the ukraine round about the half of all. of course a famine appeared. but after the collektivisation, the hunger problem was solved, which wasnt the case during the time since 1917.

Jazzhands

6th September 2010, 18:53

Here's an eyewitness account of the Holodomor reproduced in The Century from a Soviet citizen named Eugene Alexandrov. It shows that the Soviet government actually made the famine worse. There was sabotage and people did burn their crops in protest, but the Soviet government's policies did at least as much to cause the famine.

http://books.google.com/books?id=wzUUXl6y_rsC&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=%22eugene+alexandrov%22+famine&source=bl&ots=EIs1Hn0MsD&sig=QmZew3TV8Ud__waRx2hUWuITUVY&hl=en&ei=0yiFTJ-aN8SblgestIzfDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22eugene%20alexandrov%22%20famine&f=false

this is an eyewitness account, not some Robert Service propaganda. I also don't like the insinuation that discussing the Ukrainian famine at all amounts to being a fascist, so watch your tone.

graymouser

7th September 2010, 00:03

What is this bureaucracy? What is it in your terms? I study HRM (Human Resource Management) and there are many forms of bureaucracy. It's even stated that you can't have an organization without some form of bureaucracy (meaning: it's not bad perse).

The vanguard led the revolution. A vanguard existing primarily out of higher educated workers, who had capacities to lead farmers and other less educated workers. This was a minority. I won't be surprised if they enriched themselves on the backs of their comrades but given the fact that they we're few of the people capable to lead a backward country it's not a big surprise.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the state apparatus was cleansed of former Tsarist officers who sided with the whites, there are those who sided with the reds, but I'm positive these were a minority.
By "bureaucracy" I mean the technical and administrative apparatus that ran the Soviet Union day-to-day, the managers and the specialists whose posts led to CPSU(B) membership as a definite layer by 1923, to the point where the Party tried to increase its concentration among industrial workers as a counter-balance (the way this was achieved, however, only deepened the deformations of the party). Engineers and the like who were motivated more by the higher pay than by any actual political conviction - these were Stalin's base, and he acted based on their narrow interests.

It was inevitable that such a bureaucracy would exist, yes. But what could have been avoided was that they ran the Party and, in the person of Stalin, eventually the entire Soviet Union.

Sasha

7th September 2010, 00:23

i'm still waiting for any stalinists willing to debate the point i made here:

any regime that massmurder their artists and/or burns books is unbiasedly evil.

stalinism and nazism are unbiasdly evil

please defend the persecution and murder of people like meyerhold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vsevolod_Meyerhold)

gorillafuck

7th September 2010, 00:53

Cool story bro..... http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/lies.html
Ah, the unsourced claims of The Stalin Society....

Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk

7th September 2010, 01:15

I wouldn't ever call Stalin a great socialist. At the same time I acknowledge that his crimes have been exaggerated greatly by people who's interest it is to undermine any alternative to capitalism.

Stalin's regime was a bad one overall, but we can't hold one man responsible for that. There is a world of factors that led to the degeneration of the USSR. One, greater than Stalin, was the fact that Russia was underdeveloped, had a small working class, and it had to create the means of production that the workers were meant to control (at the expense of many of the people it was meant to liberate). There is also the fact that the USSR had to create these means of production, whilst being isolated internationally, and surrounded by capitalist powerhouses.

Stalin was just a man; overall, the regime he represented was the way it was because of the conditions surrounding it, not because one man, Stalin, had a great desire to kill millions of people. International capitalism and war played a much greater role in the USSR's degeneration than Stalin ever did; his bureaucracy was created because of these conditions, not because he was a great manipulator, that could fool millions of human beings into following him. A socialist revolution would look very different in a country that had the means of production that could transfer into the hands of the proletariat, and even more so in a country that had enormous international influence.

In Britain, we wouldn't need a bureaucratic regime that would have to create the means of production necessary for socialism; we already have them, thanks to centuries of capitalism. Russia did not have this, therefore some kind of ruling elite had to create it, and therefore develop and advance the class that was meant to liberate itself. Let's not forget the ratio of workers to peasants in Russia.

Sasha

7th September 2010, 23:42

anticap

8th September 2010, 00:42

Anybody who defends Stalin on the grounds that his regime had anything to do with socialism makes me want to laugh until I vomit and vomit until I cry, but I'm going to add this to the discussion just because nobody else has:

Om0YaqV-5EM

Hiero

8th September 2010, 00:53

still no takers huh?

cowards...

What do you want people to say?

this is an invasion

8th September 2010, 01:16

Has anyone ever read the book called "The Gulag Archipelago" ?

Here's a link to a bunch of excerpts from it http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

It's a gigantic book written by someone who actually experienced the gulags, and then smuggled the book out of the USSR. The gulags are one of the most disgusting institutions to be created in modern history and anyone who thinks that any sort of prison is even remotely in the interests of the working class or the communist project should probably fuck off.

I've read and heard of some pretty brutal accounts of the gulags - including one of a Jew who survived Nazi death camps only to end up in a gulag so unbearable that he killed himself. I've also read about prisoners in the gulags being shipped out to gold mines to literally work until they died. I don't know for sure if that's all true. But based on reading some of the shit in that book, I really doubt they're all that far off from the truth.

Fuck prisons.

#FF0000

8th September 2010, 01:40

Jazzhands

8th September 2010, 01:55

It's written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

This is the guy who thinks that murder and terror are inevitable results of communism's effects on human liberty. lol that's not biased or uneducated, especially since the goal of communism is the end of capitalism, inequality and government, the biggest inhibitors of human freedom. But what do I know, I'm just a mass murdering dictator like all communists:rolleyes:

Although to be fair, he was actually in a gulag and probably witnessed a lot of terrible things.

Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk

8th September 2010, 02:00

Gulags were terrible places, for sure. However I'd take anything that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn sayswith several grains of salt.

this is an invasion

8th September 2010, 02:12

This is the guy who thinks that murder and terror are inevitable results of communism's effects on human liberty. lol that's not biased or uneducated, especially since the goal of communism is the end of capitalism, inequality and government, the biggest inhibitors of human freedom. But what do I know, I'm just a mass murdering dictator like all communists:rolleyes:um... if I grew up in a society that called itself "Communist" and then went off murdering and terrorizing and jailing basically whoever it wanted, I would probably think "Communism" can only lead to that shit, too. SORRY (no I'm not).

I do think there is some truth to what he saying about "Communism" though. The sort of "Communism" that that spawned from the USSR is probably one of the most brutal attacks on human liberty, and I might even go so far as to say that it is one of the most brutal manifestations of the state in modern history. I don't think the "Communism" of the USSR has anything to do with actual communism.

#FF0000

8th September 2010, 03:11

and I might even go so far as to say that it is one of the most brutal manifestations of the state in modern history.

You're really giving the Soviet state far too much credit. It wasn't this massive, monolithic beast. It was a bumbling and inefficient state with a ton of problems in its structure.

M-26-7

8th September 2010, 04:33

If you want a good book on the repressions, check out 1937: Stalin's Year of Terror (http://books.google.com/books?id=PZ92ueBx7MQC&printsec=frontcover) by Vadim Z. Rogovin. His argument, confirmed by the opened archives, is that yes, the bureaucracy led by Stalin did execute 700-800,000 people, but they didn't do it because they were "evil" or "crazy," they did it in response to real threats from the working class and other bureaucratic factions.

I second the recommendation for this book, and I'd also recommend The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror by Oleg V. Khlevniuk, and Enemies within the Gates?: The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934-1939 by William J. Chase.

The figure of 700,000 executed by the NKVD organs alone (not counting local police) during 1937-8 is damning enough. If the purpose is simply to decide whether or not Stalin was an anti-freedom, anti-working class monster, I don't really see why we need to have much of a discussion beyond the basic fact of 700,000 murdered by the state (a number which is based on the official archival Soviet records themselves). Many of those killed and deported during this two year period were victims of "mass operations", i.e. targeting people based on national origin, i.e. overt violent racism.

Whether the famines killed 5 million or 20 million, whether Holodomor was intentional or not, etc...all of this would just be additional evidence of Stalin's rottenness, but none of it is really necessary in order to prove that he was rotten. He was a piece of shit and its too bad he didn't get shot and die of the complications like Lenin did. He certainly deserved it more.

Has anyone ever read the book called "The Gulag Archipelago" ?

Here's a link to a bunch of excerpts from it http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

It's a gigantic book written by someone who actually experienced the gulags, and then smuggled the book out of the USSR. The gulags are one of the most disgusting institutions to be created in modern history and anyone who thinks that any sort of prison is even remotely in the interests of the working class or the communist project should probably fuck off.

I've read and heard of some pretty brutal accounts of the gulags - including one of a Jew who survived Nazi death camps only to end up in a gulag so unbearable that he killed himself. I've also read about prisoners in the gulags being shipped out to gold mines to literally work until they died. I don't know for sure if that's all true. But based on reading some of the shit in that book, I really doubt they're all that far off from the truth.

Fuck prisons.

Solzhenitsyn is a liar. You should really do some research so as not to discredit us anti-Stalinists by parading discredited Cold War works by Conquest, Solzhenitsyn, etc.

If it's firsthand accounts of Stalinist Russia that you're after, you'd do better to read Sheila Fizpatrick's Everyday Stalinism than Solzhenitsyn. The truth is more damning than any false account which touts fake and discredited numbers.

The Stalin Revolution, edited by Robert V. Daniels, also contains some interesting info on many different aspects of life in the Stalinist Soviet Union (for example, a fascinating discussion of the Stalinist-era literature in the USSR). Not every selection is good, but most of them are.

#FF0000

8th September 2010, 04:54

Sheila Fitzpatrick owns. Read her stuff.

fa2991

8th September 2010, 04:56

This is the guy who thinks that murder and terror are inevitable results of communism's effects on human liberty. lol that's not biased or uneducated, especially since the goal of communism is the end of capitalism, inequality and government, the biggest inhibitors of human freedom. But what do I know, I'm just a mass murdering dictator like all communists:rolleyes:

:rolleyes: Yeah, I'm sure that he was just naturally disposed to think that. Being locked in a Stalinist labor camp had nothing to do with it. Most gulag prisoners were commies when they left! So let's just disregard everything he saw and experienced.

I've read and heard of some pretty brutal accounts of the gulags - including one of a Jew who survived Nazi death camps only to end up in a gulag so unbearable that he killed himself. I've also read about prisoners in the gulags being shipped out to gold mines to literally work until they died. I don't know for sure if that's all true. But based on reading some of the shit in that book, I really doubt they're all that far off from the truth.

My impression is that they were basically slave labor camps, which I think is at least a step above Nazi death camps.

Hiero

8th September 2010, 07:03

My impression is that they were basically slave labor camps, which I think is at least a step above Nazi death camps.

On the contrary, a fellow university student who was going to reseach Gulags but changed to Nazi camps told me a different story.

The point about prisoners working to death does not make sense. Prisoners were sent to Gulags to work. I was told that there are instance where prisoners were treated, clothed and feed to keep them alive. Also some instance of day leave.

Now there are probally levels of the gulag. But the point was that people could serve there time and leave. In a Nazi Death camp you can't and you really were worked to death.

I think when it comes to camps in either the USSR or NAZI people are happy to skim the top and read about the horrific cases, which leads to a selective understanding. For instance in regards to Auschwitz I rarelly here about the tens of thousand of workers in auxilary camps, some who volountered from Germany and France. These people could get weekend leave and were always fed and clothed.

By ignoring such detials which is what happens at a popular reading of camps, we ignored the "banality of evil". Maybe we want to find that abosulete evil so as not to face the mundane happens that are circled around an atrocity.

Invader Zim

8th September 2010, 07:58

For instance in regards to Auschwitz I rarelly here about the tens of thousand of workers in auxilary camps, some who volountered from Germany and France.

Perhaps because their contribution to the historical record at Auschwitz is overshadowed by the fact that at least 1.1 million people were murdered there? But i guess people don't see the woods for the tree's, right?

Optiow

8th September 2010, 09:12

I really don't give a shit if he killed 100 million people or 10,000 people fact is he murdered whoever questioned him and five year plans created greater subjection of the worker and peasant than in the heyday of the Industrial Revolution.
Well said.

Hiero

8th September 2010, 11:42

Perhaps because their contribution to the historical record at Auschwitz is overshadowed by the fact that at least 1.1 million people were murdered there? But i guess people don't see the woods for the tree's, right?

There contribution was the runing of Auschwitz. This is where historians fail. By analysing how the trains run on time we get an understanding about how mundane "evil" really is. Also how people come to "not knowing" about what was going, like Taussigs public "secrets".

We should not trade interesting history for full depth analysis.

M-26-7

8th September 2010, 14:46

The point about prisoners working to death does not make sense. Prisoners were sent to Gulags to work. I was told that there are instance where prisoners were treated, clothed and feed to keep them alive. Also some instance of day leave

...

I think when it comes to camps in either the USSR or NAZI people are happy to skim the top and read about the horrific cases, which leads to a selective understanding.

It's true that prisoners of the GULAG were not intentionally worked to death, at least not in the sense that their death was orchestrated from Moscow. There was relatively constant pressure from the center to stop overexhausting workers and to implement brief week-long "recovery" periods--rest from work plus increased rations--for the most exhausted workers. This was because the center (Sovnarkom, the Party) wanted to be able to hand large economic construction tasks to the NKVD, such as gold mining, railroad construction, and aircraft construction, and did not want the GULAG camps to be full of invalids who couldn't do productive work.

That said, an atrocious number of people did die due to conditions in the camps. Often when a new camp was first set up in a remote area, the prisoners would arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs and would have to construct the new camp with their own labor, and people would die en masse while trying to build a camp from scratch in Siberian conditions and with little food. Also, the center would send mixed signals to the camp directors to say the least, since one minute they'd order the camp directors to provide rest for the most exhausted prisoners, and the next minute they'd order them to shoot "wreckers" and "refusers" of work. Naturally, if you were a camp administrator you would be motivated to classify people as "wreckers" and "refusers", since the presence of many exhausted people in your camp earned you a reprimand from the center, whereas the shooting of "wreckers" earned you a pat on the back.

Finally, I don't think that in a discussion of whether millions of people were intentionally worked to death or kept alive as slave labor, one should lose sight of the fact that neither option can be called remotely communist. This is not a matter of exonerating Stalin, but rather of being accurate in determining exactly which kinds of crimes he and his government were guilty of. They did enough that there is no need to exaggerate, and exaggerating merely plays into the hands of crude anti-communists anyway.

By the way, my source for most of this is The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror by Oleg V. Khlevniuk, which I mentioned earlier.

Sasha

8th September 2010, 15:06

What do you want people to say?

that stalinists always have some "but you have too understand that under the circumstrances" or "its 10.000 not 100.000" excuse for almost anything but when you point to one of those many things that are just inexusable they dont have the balls too say; "yes, you're right. That was beyond wrong. That was evil."

i have spoken to nazi's who are more honest about the holocaust than most stalinist are willing to look at the crimes of stalins regime.

danyboy27

8th September 2010, 17:34

gulags where far more preferable to deportation or re-location.
relocated group of people like the korean minority where often dumped in the middle of nowhere left to their fate and forced to build shelter and grow food from scratch with no or little tool, the mortality rate was extremely high but it was never considered a statistic by the soviet union, it was not even included in the initial casualities list of 3 million the russian federation made after the fall of the soviet union, neither was the thousand of dispersed families disbanded beccause the father was a ''political dissent''. ''reactionary children'' where often separated from their mother when their dad where arrested and sent to orphonage for ''reabilitation''.

gorillafuck

8th September 2010, 20:17

The sort of "Communism" that that spawned from the USSR is probably one of the most brutal attacks on human liberty, and I might even go so far as to say that it is one of the most brutal manifestations of the state in modern history.
You think the USSR was more brutal than colonialist states, past slave society governments, and theocratic monarchies (like Saudi Arabia)?

Despite the enormous, gaping problems in the USSR (institutionalized racism, gulags, extreme authoritarianism in everyday life, unchecked authority by "security forces") it was not as monstrous as many states still are today.

this is an invasion

8th September 2010, 21:02

You think the USSR was more brutal than colonialist states, past slave society governments, and theocratic monarchies (like Saudi Arabia)?

Despite the enormous, gaping problems in the USSR (institutionalized racism, gulags, extreme authoritarianism in everyday life, unchecked authority by "security forces") it was not as monstrous as many states still are today.
Well I actually said it was one of the most brutal.

But really this is missing my main point, and that is: fuck prisons and anyone who thinks they have anything to do with the communist project.

Os Cangaceiros

8th September 2010, 21:40

There's an interesting book that I'm currently on-and-off reading called Stalinism As A Way Of Life by Lewis Siegalbaum and Andrei Sokolov. It's basically just a collection of hundreds of documents and letters from Soviet citizens during the 1930's.

It's a pretty mixed record. On the one hand, you had a lot of people going to technical schools, learning trades and generally developing Soviet industry. The USSR also made the population literate, which was something that the czarists were careful not to do...that in and of itself allowed a lot of people's voices to be heard that otherwise wouldn't have. But obviously Stalinist society was pretty bleak, as well: many of the work camps were notoriously brutal (that reputation wasn't fabricated entirely by "bourgeois historians"), a general air of suspicion and paranoia pervaded multiple levels of Russian society (with talk of Bukharinite-Trotskyite-kulak saboteurs and such), and the level of personality cult around Stalin was pretty sickening...some of the petitions sent to Soviet authorities that mentioned him sounded like people were supplicating themselves before God. And of course there's the whole question of the average Russian's ability (or inability, as the case may be) to have an active influence in his or her workplace, beyond the usual Stakhanovite "look at how many turnips I just gathered" mentality.

Das war einmal

9th September 2010, 15:45

i'm still waiting for any stalinists willing to debate the point i made here:

please defend the persecution and murder of people like meyerhold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vsevolod_Meyerhold)

Nobody's defending anything. We are discussing about history and if it's accurate or not. Yes there was a lot of done evil. You want to claim that anarchists were always righteous?

I don't feel least responsible for what happened back in the 30's, but its still bullshit to claim that both the nazi regime and stalins regime we're the same.

Sasha

9th September 2010, 16:02

Nobody's defending anything. We are discussing about history and if it's accurate or not. Yes there was a lot of done evil. You want to claim that anarchists were always righteous?

nope, i freely admit that the whole propaganda of the deed tactic was an stupid, counterproductive one. And anarchist militia did some stupid shit in spain too (no matter how much the church is in bed with the fascists, burning nuns is an big no no).

my whole point is that i believe most MLs are decent people but who (out of this decency) have an stupid habbit of glossing over some seriously uncomfertable stuff in their history, "incidents, lies, lies, incidents and incidents" is becomming quite an embarissing ML mantra wich prevent an acurate analysis of the systametic faults of authoritarianism.

I don't feel least responsible for what happened back in the 30's, but its still bullshit to claim that both the nazi regime and stalins regime we're the same.i never said they are the same, i said, and will continue to say, that they where both evil.
offcourse there are gradations of evil but thats arguing between the devil and beelzebub

Invader Zim

9th September 2010, 16:31

There contribution was the runing of Auschwitz. This is where historians fail. By analysing how the trains run on time we get an understanding about how mundane "evil" really is. Also how people come to "not knowing" about what was going, like Taussigs public "secrets".

We should not trade interesting history for full depth analysis.

You obviously haven't read much about the holocaust, because there is a vast cannon of literature dedicated to precisely these questions, regarding structures and functionaries.

Barry Lyndon

9th September 2010, 20:16

that stalinists always have some "but you have too understand that under the circumstrances" or "its 10.000 not 100.000" excuse for almost anything but when you point to one of those many things that are just inexusable they dont have the balls too say; "yes, you're right. That was beyond wrong. That was evil."

i have spoken to nazi's who are more honest about the holocaust than most stalinist are willing to look at the crimes of stalins regime.

This.

It is important to always keep in mind that all revolutions-whether in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, or elsewhere are/were in under a state of economic and military siege imposed on them by capitalist powers. And that they were trying to transform very poor, backward countries almost from scratch.

But you have to draw the line somewhere. Those conditions are not a justification for everything. Especially when the primary victims of such crimes were the very workers and peasants for whom the revolution was fought.

I remember on this forum arguing with someone who was justifying POL POT, portraying his disgusting crimes as the inevitable consequence of American bombing and so on. I pointed out that the Vietnamese endured horrible US bombing as well, but they didn't carry out a genocide and cover the countryside with mass graves. It was the Vietnamese communists who toppled the Khmer Rogue and fully exposed the horrors that that regime committed to the world-were they 'bourgeois revisionists' too? It's absurd.

Some comrades seem to think that if we concede that communism has at times hijacked by criminals and murderers, we will surrendering the field of debate to the capitalists.
But in fact self-criticism is a central component of being a Marxist, and identifying the mistakes and outright crimes of those who have called themselves communists in the past is essential, for it is the only way to succeed in the future.

Hiero

10th September 2010, 00:51

that stalinists always have some "but you have too understand that under the circumstrances" or "its 10.000 not 100.000" excuse for almost anything but when you point to one of those many things that are just inexusable they dont have the balls too say; "yes, you're right. That was beyond wrong. That was evil."

i have spoken to nazi's who are more honest about the holocaust than most stalinist are willing to look at the crimes of stalins regime.

So you want a pre determined result? You want a caricature to prove you right by setting up an impossible situation.

There are plenty of MLs like myself who say "yeah that was wrong". I am not going to say that it was evil. I am a Marxist, there were structural and cultural and deap psycho-social reasons why certian people were targeted. Not some underlying evilness. Nor were they crimes, crime is within the realm of law and that is within the realm of the state. It was not that Stalin was personally paraniod, rather paranoia was institutionalisted.

So now that I have admited (which I always thought was wrong, not because you proved a right to me) does that make me a...Stalinist with balls?

You obviously haven't read much about the holocaust, because there is a vast cannon of literature dedicated to precisely these questions, regarding structures and functionaries.

I was talking about a mainstream reading of the holocaust.

Some comrades seem to think that if we concede that communism has at times hijacked by criminals and murderers, we will surrendering the field of debate to the capitalists.
But in fact self-criticism is a central component of being a Marxist, and identifying the mistakes and outright crimes of those who have called themselves communists in the past is essential, for it is the only way to succeed in the future.

Well if it was hijacked by "criminals" and "murderers" then there is no need for self-criticism because it was an outside source. That is my problem with designating this contradictions to the realm of crime and psychology. These are apparantly people who were never communists they only called themselves communist due to their criminal drive, so they are not one of us.

Jazzhands

10th September 2010, 03:01

There are plenty of MLs like myself who say "yeah that was wrong". I am not going to say that it was evil. I am a Marxist, there were structural and cultural and deap psycho-social reasons why certian people were targeted. Not some underlying evilness. Nor were they crimes, crime is within the realm of law and that is within the realm of the state. It was not that Stalin was personally paraniod, rather paranoia was institutionalisted.

Since when is murder not evil? Serial killers often have problems in their childhood development for "psycho-social" reasons. They are shaped by their environmental, material and social problems that cause intellectual, mental, psychological and even physical pain. Does that make serial killing not evil?

Not being prosecuted for something does not mean that it wasn't a crime. Stalin would be guilty on many, many charges of murder under any country's criminal code. He got away with it because he was placed above the law. If he were a normal citizen and not a high-ranking government official, and he still carried out these crimes (of course he would do so through other means and for other purposes), he would have been held accountable under the law regardless of the reasoning behind them.

The Author

10th September 2010, 06:37

Sure, the gulags were nothing but fabrications and propaganda and Western lies...The Soviet land was a land of milk and honey and paradise... :lol::rolleyes:

But seriously, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Lewis Siegalbaum, etc., excellent sources. Gives us insight into the complications associated with socialist construction, good, important supplemental material to Marxist-Leninist literature on the subject. As Stalin said, "The transition from socialism to communism is a terribly complicated matter." I love how some people like to talk about crimes and "guilt" here though, so liberally. Lenin said, "There will be no famine in Russia if we calculate how much grain there is, check up on all stocks, and if any breaking of the regulations is followed by the most severe punishment..." But no, everything that was carried out back then was 100% wrong, and the critics are 100% right. So simple...so plain...some sloganeer and call it "material analysis." Lenin said, "They talk about the dictatorship of Napoleon III, Julius Caesar and so on [well, nowadays it's Stalinism or Totalitarianism, but you get Volodya's point.], providing material for a hundred issues that no one will read [well, isn't that the truth!]...Without railways not only will there be no socialism but everyone will starve to death like dogs while there is grain to be had close by[But, Ilyich, to act is to be a criminal! And if one does nothing, that is then criminal!]." But no, let's not look at this rationally. Let's not look at this as if there were mistakes that were made while correct things were done by everyone involved as well. Let's just dismiss the whole thing as paranoia. Or madness. Or criminal bloodthirsty aspirations for power. Or whatever suits one's fancy of character or historical assassination for the moment. Simple, very simple. Then we'll debate another variant of the same subject and accomplish nothing from it like we've been doing for years.

Hiero

10th September 2010, 06:51

Since when is murder not evil? Serial killers often have problems in their childhood development for "psycho-social" reasons. They are shaped by their environmental, material and social problems that cause intellectual, mental, psychological and even physical pain. Does that make serial killing not evil?

What weight in social science does evil have?

Not being prosecuted for something does not mean that it wasn't a crime. Stalin would be guilty on many, many charges of murder under any country's criminal code. He got away with it because he was placed above the law. If he were a normal citizen and not a high-ranking government official, and he still carried out these crimes (of course he would do so through other means and for other purposes), he would have been held accountable under the law regardless of the reasoning behind them.

Revolutionaries commite crime all the time. The politics we supposedly promote and aspire to, if enacted and failed, would result in criminal charges. Regardless of the reason behind them. You have to face some form of trial under some form of law or be under investigation for there to be a crime.

Whose law did Stalin breach. Surely not the USSR's law and not UN laws as the USSR along with the UK and USA created them.

Unless you mean some transcedental human nature law. Which I would say does not exist.

Invader Zim

10th September 2010, 07:15

I was talking about a mainstream reading of the holocaust.

Then why did you declare that it was on these points that 'historians fail', and implied that the topic lacks 'full in depth analysis' when manifestly it doesn't? I would agree that these kids of questions do not often appear in populist literature, but that is understandable; the public want, and consume, introductory literature.

bie

10th September 2010, 11:58

Some comrades seem to think that if we concede that communism has at times hijacked by criminals and murderers, we will surrendering the field of debate to the capitalists.
But in fact self-criticism is a central component of being a Marxist, and identifying the mistakes and outright crimes of those who have called themselves communists in the past is essential, for it is the only way to succeed in the future
There is some sort of misunderstanding. You are not "surrendering the debate to capitalists". You are openly on the capitalists side. The same way as rightist propagandists spread lies and false horror stories about communism in the popular circles, the "leftist" propagandists are doing the same in the anti-capitalist circles. The type of arguments and its content is identical.

Let me state an example: right wing has risen the old Nazi provocation - Katyn case - in order to justify prosecution of communists in Eastern Europe (as you know, communist parties and communist symbolism is banned in a few former socialist countries and communists are being prosecuted). As it is a case of giving an order to kill 20k of POW, it became a quite an important part of the anticommunist campaign. That "Katyn propaganda" (spread by catholic church) in the 1980s was one of the main factors that turned the workers in Poland against socialism and Soviet Union. This may show how important this issue was. Now - it is becoming more and more clear that the whole issue was fabricated, documents around it were falsified and the evidence material was simply ignored. The old Nazi crime is being blamed on the Soviets. But the rightist is forcing that this case is a proof that "communist is a criminal ideology" that has to be eliminated and outlawed. The prosecution (or even murder) of communists is justified, as the prevention of the "communist crimes". Among the other "justifications" is the famine in Ukraine, trials in 1930 etc. They are all packed into a "horror mythology" of "criminal communism". The closer look, however may denounce the falseness of those accusation, but this propaganda does its job. Whoever wants to object this and defend historical truth, is being accused of "communist crimes denial". In Hungary for example, it is a crime to investigate and denounce anticommunist propaganda. This is how capitalists protect themselves, their businesses, from the possibility of the socialist revolution. They say there is no alternative - and that the alternatives end up in bringing horrors.

Capitalists have also its servants in the leftist, anti-capitalist circles. These are the people who object capitalism for some reason, but also accept and spread all the anticommunist lies that were mentioned before. For example, Barry Lyndon has published on its profile "anti-stalinist" pictures, where he states that Katyn was committed by Soviets as well as the Ukrainian famine of the 30s. These are lies, that serve capitalists in defending their possession against the possibility of the popular revolution. "Do you want a revolution?" - they say - "Have a look at Barry Lyndons antistalinist pictures and see what revolution is leading to".

Therefore it is not "surrendering the debate to capitalists". It is acting on the capitalists side.

Concerning the subject - the class struggle is not a fairy tale. It is a deadly war, harsh and unpleasant. In the history of socialism of the XX century there was a lot of blood and suffering, armed interventions. It was not the "lack of democracy" that socialist societies were lacking, but it was the defeatism and betrayal that caused the victory of the counterrevolution in 1989.

Sasha

10th September 2010, 12:18

What weight in social science does evil have?

Revolutionaries commite crime all the time. The politics we supposedly promote and aspire to, if enacted and failed, would result in criminal charges. Regardless of the reason behind them. You have to face some form of trial under some form of law or be under investigation for there to be a crime.

Whose law did Stalin breach. Surely not the USSR's law and not UN laws as the USSR along with the UK and USA created them.

Unless you mean some transcedental human nature law. Which I would say does not exist.

you see, thats the kind of attitude i find problematic. Are you seriously denying there is such an thing as good and evil? the right thing to do and the wrong thing? if not, why would you be an revolutionary if not for justice? if not for "some transcedental" humanist ideal?
for what? for personal gain? for power and might? what is then not inherently reactionary about your politics?

surely you are not of the opinion that crimes against humanity exist because "the USSR along with the UK and USA created them" in UN law. surely these laws are just an reflection of an moral sense of right and wrong. IMHO not only shared by all of humanity but also the more consious animals.

Kayser_Soso

10th September 2010, 13:00

The US has now a higher percentage of its population in prison where they are forced to carry out what amounts to slave labour than the USSR ever did.

And then there's those centuries of....slavery. That made the USSR under Stalin seem like club med.

Kayser_Soso

10th September 2010, 13:07

This.

It is important to always keep in mind that all revolutions-whether in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, or elsewhere are/were in under a state of economic and military siege imposed on them by capitalist powers. And that they were trying to transform very poor, backward countries almost from scratch.

True, true.

Some comrades seem to think that if we concede that communism has at times hijacked by criminals and murderers, we will surrendering the field of debate to the capitalists.
But in fact self-criticism is a central component of being a Marxist, and identifying the mistakes and outright crimes of those who have called themselves communists in the past is essential, for it is the only way to succeed in the future.

While this is also true it IS supplication to the capitalists when we accept their claims uncritically, or do not compare them to capitalist societies, especially those at the same time of the USSR.

You know who the worst criminals are though? The Trots and the Anarchists. Think about it- through their gross incompetance, they allow the evil bureaucratic Stalinists to take hold, kill tens of millions, commit atrocities, and ruin world revolution!!! When have you EVER seen any of them admit to this gross negligence?

pranabjyoti

10th September 2010, 16:38

Our problem with "critics" here is that, they are very very very ......... idealistic when you talk about USSR, China and any other socialist country, but just CALLOUS when it's about doing something REAL REVOLUTIONARY IN REAL LIFE.
I just want to see, if some of those critics somehow has been transported to that time and has been appointed in place of Stalin/Mao, then WHAT ACTIONS THEY THEMSELVES WILL TAKE.
In fact, in my opinion, they are actually the biggest pillars of capitalism and imperialism, whether knowingly or unknowingly. They are always ready to spread imperialist BS specially in left forums like this. But, you will see very rarely against imperialist atrocities. I have doubt that some of them are actually imperialist agents, because the way they talk looks very similar to imperialist viewpoint.

M-26-7

10th September 2010, 16:54

And then there's those centuries of....slavery. That made the USSR under Stalin seem like club med.

Ah, the old "Stalinism is better than the worst thing I can think of" argument.

pranabjyoti

10th September 2010, 16:56

Ah, the old "Stalinism is better than the worst thing I can think of" argument.
What is better than "Stalinism"? Anarchism or trotism? Perhaps we can toss. I hope you wouldn't vote for imperialist form of "democracy".

Sasha

10th September 2010, 17:09

What is better than "Stalinism"? Anarchism or trotism? Perhaps we can toss. I hope you wouldn't vote for imperialist form of "democracy".

actualy, yes, i think social-democarcy is preferable above stalinism.
at least the worst we have too fear for oposing the goverment is getting locked up and not getting excecuted

M-26-7

10th September 2010, 17:18

What is better than "Stalinism"? Anarchism or trotism? Perhaps we can toss. I hope you wouldn't vote for imperialist form of "democracy".

Ah, the old "Stalinism is the only feasible alternative" argument.

It is characteristic of these types of discussions (discussions about the GULAG, the Terror, etc.), that Stalin's defenders do not enter the discussion with numbers and facts that refute what is being said, they merely enter to rage at others for even discussing the numbers in the first place. In my opinion the discussion that you are attempting to have should be saved for another thread--one titled "Was the GULAG really that bad when put in historical perspective?", or something along those lines. This one is called "The Gulag myth", so let's try and limit the discussion to material pertaining to whether or not the Gulag is, in fact, a myth, or whether it is a historical reality attested to by mountains of documentary and archival evidence as well as personal accounts of survivors.

pranabjyoti

10th September 2010, 17:22

actualy, yes, i think social-democarcy is preferable above stalinism.
at least the worst we have too fear for oposing the goverment is getting locked up and not getting excecuted
Thanks for revealing your true character. Those who have a little understanding of Marx, should have a clear idea that social-democracy is nothing but a soft face of imperialism, specially in the awake of workers struggle. Basically, those who favor "social-democracy" over Stalinism and still call himself some kind of "leftist", is clearly a wolf in sheep's disguise.

Os Cangaceiros

10th September 2010, 17:29

Thanks for revealing your true character. Those who have a little understanding of Marx, should have a clear idea that social-democracy is nothing but a soft face of imperialism, specially in the awake of workers struggle. Basically, those who favor "social-democracy" over Stalinism and still call himself some kind of "leftist", is clearly a wolf in sheep's disguise.

Well, I think you'll find it's hard to convince people to fight for a lower standard of living than the one they currently have. If Stalinism à la the former USSR (work more and have less) is the best that you can offer, I wouldn't expect much support from the "First World" working class, and (as I'm not a Third World-ist) I believe that they're necessary in the fight for social change.

RadioRaheem84

10th September 2010, 17:59

You're really giving the Soviet state far too much credit. It wasn't this massive, monolithic beast. It was a bumbling and inefficient state with a ton of problems in its structure.

I thought this much was obvious to the comrades here but apparently not.

The National Security State established under Truman had more centralized authority and order than Stalin's Russia. Stalin's rather autocratic rule was limited and not as extensive as liberal historians would have you believe.

What we're dealing with was a young incompetent state that was practically forced into rapid industrialization for it's survival and they in turn persecuted any detractors because of their paranoid state of mind. When dealing with a civil war, invasion from imperial forces, Nazi onslaught and infiltration in a developing nation, you have a recipe for disaster.

Consider the order that the Western Nations have had for quite some time and try to justify their brutal repression, whether directly or via proxy on other nations, and tell me if there is even on iota of an excuse for such behavior. Yet no context is ever given for the US crimes, except for lapses in judgment by planners.

But with the USSR it was apparently a systematic mass murdering machine? One giant gulag?

C'mon, guys think!

bie

10th September 2010, 18:12

Well, I think you'll find it's hard to convince people to fight for a lower standard of living than the one they currently have. If Stalinism à la the former USSR (work more and have less) is the best that you can offer, I wouldn't expect much support from the "First World" working class, and (as I'm not a Third World-ist) I believe that they're necessary in the fight for social change.

Why do you think that after introduction of socialism/communism (a la USSR: central planning and so on), the level of life of the ordinary worker in the West would decrease? I am not talking here abour the labour aristocracy, but an ordinary worker.

Tavarisch_Mike

10th September 2010, 18:22

As RadioRaheem84 says, the soviet union did have a lot of problem, but they must be put in its context and given perspective, such as menthioned Truman did also centralized a lot of power, but then its said "it was necessary."

Many of the problems in the USSR was the same problems that existed in capitalist countrys, its just that in the west its blamed on individuals ore, once again, they say "it was necessary", the same problem in the USSR will be blamed on its evil leaders that just used all days to plane how to mess with people. Labour camps did exist in the west to, that seems to have been forgotten, the NKVD/KGB did persecute to many people for fragile reasons, thats true, but in the United States they had McCarthy. I mean blacklisting and inprision people just because they have some (communis) books, thats quite the same.

Ooh since my whole post was oftopic i will contribute to the main subject by saying;
Gulags sucks.

pranabjyoti

10th September 2010, 18:50

Well, I think you'll find it's hard to convince people to fight for a lower standard of living than the one they currently have. If Stalinism à la the former USSR (work more and have less) is the best that you can offer, I wouldn't expect much support from the "First World" working class, and (as I'm not a Third World-ist) I believe that they're necessary in the fight for social change.
Well, if what you have said reflects the mentality of the working class of the first world, then I just feel sorry that they are part of "working class". This kind of mentality just ignores the fact that how much distress they will brought to the people of third world just to maintain their life standard.
People, who just deny Stalinism because it means harder work for them, just forgot that actually their leisure work is totally dependent on the hardest works of the people of third world

Kayser_Soso

10th September 2010, 19:00

Ah, the old "Stalinism is better than the worst thing I can think of" argument.

Except....

A. It's not.

B. There's no such thing as "Stalinism." If there were such a thing, Trots and anarkids would be hard pressed to explain why they refer to post-Stalin socialist states as "Stalinists" as many of them were run far differently than the Stalin-era USSR, and the USSR itself had gone in a direction 180 degrees from the theoretical points of Stalin.

Kayser_Soso

10th September 2010, 19:02

Well, I think you'll find it's hard to convince people to fight for a lower standard of living than the one they currently have. If Stalinism à la the former USSR (work more and have less) is the best that you can offer, I wouldn't expect much support from the "First World" working class, and (as I'm not a Third World-ist) I believe that they're necessary in the fight for social change.

There is no way you could offer anyone, including a Russian, a standard of living equal to the post Russian Empire USSR. It's physically impossible. In virtually all ways those existing socialist regimes were better than they were prior to their revolutions, and in many cases even after. This is a realistic standard to measure by. So if the USSR was a great leap forward from the backward Russian empire, we should ask what would a great leap forward in America look like?

Panda Tse Tung

10th September 2010, 19:10

Ah, the old "Stalinism is the only feasible alternative" argument.

It is characteristic of these types of discussions (discussions about the GULAG, the Terror, etc.), that Stalin's defenders do not enter the discussion with numbers and facts that refute what is being said, they merely enter to rage at others for even discussing the numbers in the first place. In my opinion the discussion that you are attempting to have should be saved for another thread--one titled "Was the GULAG really that bad when put in historical perspective?", or something along those lines. This one is called "The Gulag myth", so let's try and limit the discussion to material pertaining to whether or not the Gulag is, in fact, a myth, or whether it is a historical reality attested to by mountains of documentary and archival evidence as well as personal accounts of survivors.
Look, if we start talking about numbers we will be depicted as cold blooded bastards who only care for statistics. If we discuss other aspects involved we ignore historical facts. There's no use debating strawmen like that.
Fact of the matter is, there we're gulags. They we're a bad place but not horrible and can be (both their existence and what happened there) contextualized. The Tsarists only left a vast system of labor camps rather then prisons. The priority does not lie with building prisons in a revolutionary society, simple as that. A lot of things happened which we're not right, but we're often against the laws of the Soviet Union as well. The vast majority of people in the gulags survived the gulags. They we're not death-camps. They we're labor camps. Those who died often died of old-age or desease (which spread due to the breaking of Soviet laws conserning water hygiene). Also laws concerning transport we're often broken, causing some deaths. Ironically, the people who got caught breaking these laws we're send to these same gulags. And as Soviet authority increased and supervision improved death-tolls declined significantly, by 1956 death-tolls in gulags we're at the exact same rate as death-tolls in the rest of the Soviet Union.

People did get executed yes, but as i summed up in an earlier post the vast majority of these people we're not kosjer. Even though i disagree with the deathpenalty i certainly do not disagree with giving these people life-long prison sentences. I am not going to condemn the Soviet Union over the fact they had the death penalty installed.
Nazi's, kulaks creating a man-made famine and other thugs are not the kind of people i will mourn. Maybe you will, but thats up to you. Yes, innocent people we're targeted and yes; this was a bad thing. But it did not count for the majority of people targeted and this is also why i am an opponent of the death penalty. You can not bring back the dead if they later turn out to be innocent.

Yes, bad things happened in the Soviet Union, no this was not because they we're evil. And no this was not so horrible that we should completely condemn the Soviet Union as a non-socialist state.

Edit:

you see, thats the kind of attitude i find problematic. Are you seriously denying there is such an thing as good and evil? the right thing to do and the wrong thing? if not, why would you be an revolutionary if not for justice? if not for "some transcedental" humanist ideal?
for what? for personal gain? for power and might? what is then not inherently reactionary about your politics?

surely you are not of the opinion that crimes against humanity exist because "the USSR along with the UK and USA created them" in UN law. surely these laws are just an reflection of an moral sense of right and wrong. IMHO not only shared by all of humanity but also the more consious animals.
Right and wrong; evil and good are relative. The definitions of these words have greatly differed and varried throughout the past and throughout different georgaphical area's. What you perceive to be evil is a product of your environment, not your own mind. There is a certain moral code in ones head by default as a human being, this is what some scientists argue at least. But these are quite restricted and can only take their complete form through their environment (even though the basis already exists). What you are currently condemning is based A. on your current knowledge of the Soviet Union B. Your worldview in general C. your environment in general. On the basis of this you are condemning something as evil, which is quite an un-scientific approach. I am absolutely certain that you would not frown upon slavery if you we're born 2000 years ago. And even if you would, the vast majority of people would not. Nowadays slavery is perceived to be 'evil'. I do not see the problem with understanding this quite easy concept (of good and evil; right and wrong being relative). But meeh.

Kayser_Soso

10th September 2010, 19:27

Look, if you say something like- "The number of deaths was grossly exaggerated"(absolutely true, often by a factor of ten or more), they say something like- "NUMBERS DON'T MATTER!!" Hell, here we have "Communists" saying that it doesn't matter if it were only 100,000 or 10,000. Of course they would say the same thing if we pointed out the far lower amount of people executed in say, Albania(probably not even breaking 1,000 if we don't count armed insurgents dropped into the country).

Now what happens if we point out someone like Pinochet, or even Suharto- then they say "Oh but only X amount of people died under so-and-so." In other words, numbers matter when we want them to. You accept this, and you accept the bourgeois frame of debate.

I am also skeptical as to whether the "one unjustified death is too many" argument would be upheld by anarchists when faced with the reality of executions without trial in Makhno's "Free Ukraine" or in Spain. I have a feeling numbers would suddenly matter again.

Remember, to the capitalist, ONE death at the hands of a revolution is too many. This is because they don't see the rule of any class other than their own as legitimate, no matter how it comes into power or how they retain their power. A socialist state is not allowed to defend itself. For example, one book I read last year lavishes praise on this woman who was "persecuted" as being a spy in East Germany. They continue to generate sympathy for the poor women until the end of the chapter, when it is revealed that she was indeed a spy. In other words, the Stasi had a good reason to be fucking with her. But of course the DDR was not legitimate in any way to the capitalist, so they were supposed to lay down and let her walk off with state secrets in hand or something.

The bottom line is this- you try to overthrow the system, people are going to go all out and commit any atrocity to stop you. What was the ultimate reaction to the Bolshevik revolution by the most strident anti-Communists? The largest land invasion in history with the aim of exterminating nearly 80 million people from Arkhangelsk to Astrakhan. Hell, forget the Nazis. Just look at what US troops alone do in countries they were supposedly "helping", like South Vietnam or Iraq. Kill indiscriminately while listening to rock music, crack some jokes about the locals, destroy their houses and laugh, and then go screw some sex slaves. And these are what they do in countries they are supposedly trying to save; not like the Nazi campaign of conquest.

Knowing what any revolution will come up against, in fact knowing even better than Stalin or Beria or even Lenin could imagine in 1917 onward, we have to realize that revolution and securing that revolution are not going to be a fucking Sunday BBQ.

Thirsty Crow

10th September 2010, 19:28

Os Cangaceiros

10th September 2010, 20:13

There is no way you could offer anyone, including a Russian, a standard of living equal to the post Russian Empire USSR. It's physically impossible. In virtually all ways those existing socialist regimes were better than they were prior to their revolutions, and in many cases even after. This is a realistic standard to measure by. So if the USSR was a great leap forward from the backward Russian empire, we should ask what would a great leap forward in America look like?

Life sucked for a lot of people in Russia before the USSR. Peasants were kept in economic bondage, illiterate workers drank dirty water, people lived in dank basements that frequently flooded, war deprivation, etc. etc. So in that sense the establishment of the USSR was an improvement. And all social revolutions have been brought about by people who are seeking a better, more fulfilling future for themselves and their fellows...unless leftists can convince workers in developed countries that their project is one that's going to result in a better quality of life for all who are involved with it, I don't see it coming to fruition, personally. And by "quality of life" (or standard of living, for that matter), I'm not refering to a measure of material wealth...I put much more importance on leisure and a reduced work program. Having people toil all day in socialism kind of defeats the purpose of abolishing surplus value extraction, as you're still wasting people's finite existence on this planet.

Barry Lyndon

10th September 2010, 20:35

There is some sort of misunderstanding. You are not "surrendering the debate to capitalists". You are openly on the capitalists side. The same way as rightist propagandists spread lies and false horror stories about communism in the popular circles, the "leftist" propagandists are doing the same in the anti-capitalist circles. The type of arguments and its content is identical.

Let me state an example: right wing has risen the old Nazi provocation - Katyn case - in order to justify prosecution of communists in Eastern Europe (as you know, communist parties and communist symbolism is banned in a few former socialist countries and communists are being prosecuted). As it is a case of giving an order to kill 20k of POW, it became a quite an important part of the anticommunist campaign. That "Katyn propaganda" (spread by catholic church) in the 1980s was one of the main factors that turned the workers in Poland against socialism and Soviet Union. This may show how important this issue was. Now - it is becoming more and more clear that the whole issue was fabricated, documents around it were falsified and the evidence material was simply ignored. The old Nazi crime is being blamed on the Soviets. But the rightist is forcing that this case is a proof that "communist is a criminal ideology" that has to be eliminated and outlawed. The prosecution (or even murder) of communists is justified, as the prevention of the "communist crimes". Among the other "justifications" is the famine in Ukraine, trials in 1930 etc. They are all packed into a "horror mythology" of "criminal communism". The closer look, however may denounce the falseness of those accusation, but this propaganda does its job. Whoever wants to object this and defend historical truth, is being accused of "communist crimes denial". In Hungary for example, it is a crime to investigate and denounce anticommunist propaganda. This is how capitalists protect themselves, their businesses, from the possibility of the socialist revolution. They say there is no alternative - and that the alternatives end up in bringing horrors.

Capitalists have also its servants in the leftist, anti-capitalist circles. These are the people who object capitalism for some reason, but also accept and spread all the anticommunist lies that were mentioned before. For example, Barry Lyndon has published on its profile "anti-stalinist" pictures, where he states that Katyn was committed by Soviets as well as the Ukrainian famine of the 30s. These are lies, that serve capitalists in defending their possession against the possibility of the popular revolution. "Do you want a revolution?" - they say - "Have a look at Barry Lyndons antistalinist pictures and see what revolution is leading to".

Therefore it is not "surrendering the debate to capitalists". It is acting on the capitalists side.

Concerning the subject - the class struggle is not a fairy tale. It is a deadly war, harsh and unpleasant. In the history of socialism of the XX century there was a lot of blood and suffering, armed interventions. It was not the "lack of democracy" that socialist societies were lacking, but it was the defeatism and betrayal that caused the victory of the counterrevolution in 1989.

I am quite familiar with the rise of reactionary forces all over Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. A friend of mine is half Polish, and his relatives there tell him that, among other things, there is a major political party in Poland now that aims to make the Pope-that pedophile protecting bastard-the official head of the Polish state! This in addition to the fact that abortion is now illegal, among other progressive policies that were rolled back when the Poland became capitalist again. You are Polish, I presume, so you can tell me whether this is true or not, or if I'm garbling it.
The point is that I do not deny that the collapse of the USSR and its allies were a tremendous defeat for the working class the world over. Where I disagree with you on is the cause of that defeat.

But herin lies the problem-if Poland and other Eastern European countries, the USSR included, were healthy workers states, as you say, how did these 'revisionists' who steered these countries back to capitalism get within ten miles of the Party leadership? That fact alone indicates that something was very rotten in Denmark, or in this case, the Soviet bloc.

It also irritates me that several comrades here have posted extensive references to works of scholarship(and are explicitly NOT pieces of Cold War propaganda like Conquest) that document, often using the Soviet archives themselves and eyewitness accounts, the horrors of the gulag prison labor camps, the heartless purges of hundreds of thousands of loyal Communists, the deportations of entire ethnic minorities to Siberia, the whole climate of rigid conformity and fear that stifled the energy and life of the Revolution, and you have no answer to them. You just scream about 'lies' and 'Trotskyite-fascist' conspiracies that exist nowhere but in you imagination.

And what are your sources? The Stalin Society. Reprintings of Russian documents that virtually no one can read, and for all we know might be a grocery shopping list. The recollections of an elderly NKVD agent that we are supposed to take as gospel, but the eyewitness accounts of journalists like Gareth Jones of the Ukraine famine is dismissed because some of his articles were exploited by William Randolph Hearst. And so on and on with your double standards.

Trotsky was charged with being 'objectively pro-fascist' by the likes of you for attacking Stalin, because fascists also attacked Stalin. His response is that he only meant for his criticism to be true, it was irrelevant whether others engaged in that criticism for different reasons. You have used that logical fallacy to the hilt, and its time you came off it and actually engaged in a civilized debate. You self-righteousness and name-calling is very tiresome.

bie

10th September 2010, 21:29

Do you sincerely think that the holy duty of every revolutionary is to dismiss every single criticism and a depiction of the unpleasant truth of the regimes of "actually existing socialism"? Do you propose mindless idealization (something which you're good at*) of the glorious past in order that the workers and other oppressed groups realize that establishing something similar is in their interests?
You didn't understand. You may criticize whatever you want, if any positive conclusion comes out of your critics, the better for everyone. But the problem is that what some of you do is not a critique - but it is right-wing propaganda. There is a huge difference between the subtle, deep and critical analysis of eg. changes in the Soviet economic or political system, and calling Stalin "murder and criminal" or blaming the Soviets for Nazi crimes. So - you are free to criticize, but if your critique is nothing else than repeating imperialists lies, that critique will not be welcome.

And the duty of every revolutionary, but also all the democratic and progressive community now, is to fight against the new anticommunist campaign, aiming in equating communism with Nazism. This campaign is making use of the revision of the history in revanchist way in order to prosecute and outlaw communists, and, later on - all the enemies of the bourgeoisie state.

That's why it is crucial to unite against that bourgeois effort, to defend XX century socialism and all the good aspects of it. Not to allow its flaws to overshadow its good points. Because bourgeoisie attacks communists first, than everyone else, who wants to challenge injustice and poverty of the capitalism.

So we stray from the analysis of material conditions, eh?
So, the stable system of workers' state, implying that workers enjoyed full participation in the decision making process, managed to crumble because a hand full of restorationist betrayers decided to act?

This is "Great Men History", this is bourgeois idealism disguised as historical analysis.
This is most definitively NOT Marxist analysis.
Sorry, but I couldn't fit an analysis of material conditions into one sentence. There were many reasons for the victory of the counterrevolution. I have stated the one that I find the most important: degeneration within the communist, ruling party. Of course it did not came from nowhere, and its direct cause were the remains of the past: nationalistic and religious sentiments. As known, the elements of the superstructure are more conservative than the elements of the socio-economic base. Therefore it was possible to transform the base of the society relatively fast, but some of the old sentiments, in forms of the old ideologies (nationalism, idealism, liberalism etc) and remains of the old social classes (e.g. emigrees) remained. And, having support of the all international bourgeoisie, they managed to get into the ruling party as well as to fool minds of the large parts of the working class (remind "Solidarity"). This IS a Marxist analysis.

The popular claim I hear often that XX century Socialism lacked some sort of democracy. This is not true. The society was organized in such a way to allow the biggest participation possible. But you cannot MAKE workers to go into the politics. Many of them didn't give a shit about the state, communism or participation. They had their own things - families, work. They were not interested in politics at all. How would you MAKE the workers to participate in politics? Would you put a platoon of soldiers with the rifles to force the workers to go into politics - "It is your workers state - you have to participate"? That's why an complete participatory democracy is an idealistic fiction. In socialist countries of the XX century you had, however, dozens of millions of people engaged in the decision making process through thousands of commissions, social organizations etc. In USSR in 1974 there was more than 11 million people engaged in the decision making processes at different levels. It was definitely the most democratic society in the world.

bie

10th September 2010, 21:55

And what are your sources?

...but the eyewitness accounts of journalists like Gareth Jones of the Ukraine famine..

What a hypocrisy! Lets check your sources: who was Gareth Jones? I am sure we have already discussed that, but just to remind:

In the following year 1931, he was offered employment in New York by Dr. Ivy Lee, Public Relations adviser to organizations such as the Rockefeller Institute, the Chrysler foundation and Standard Oil to research a book on the Soviet Union. ((http://www.garethjones.org/overview/mainoverview.htm))

He was a PR man for a large oils companies.

In the summer of 1931 he accompanied Jack Heinz II to the Soviet Union (fortified with food from the Heinz organization) when at the end of their tour they visited Ukraine. Gareth wrote a comprehensive diary of this visit and Jack Heinz was to publish a book anonymously entitled Experiences in Russia 1931. A Diary, which includes probably the first recorded (seven) references to the word 'starve' or 'starving' of the Soviet peasants as a result of Collectivization. (http://www.garethjones.org/overview/mainoverview.htm)

Henry John Heinz II, best known as Jack Heinz, (1908–1987) was an American business executive and CEO of the H. J. Heinz Company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

He was the grandson and namesake of the company founder, Henry J. Heinz, and father of United States Senator John Heinz. His second wife, Drue Heinz, is a noted philanthropist, especially of the literary arts, and founder of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. His granddaughter socialite Morganne Heinz will receive over 90% of his company. (from: Wikipedia).
So - Barry Lyndon - verify your sources first. Then we can engage in the historical debates.

But herin lies the problem-if Poland and other Eastern European countries, the USSR included, were healthy workers states, as you say, how did these 'revisionists' who steered these countries back to capitalism get within ten miles of the Party leadership?
The answer is actually quite simple. In many countries of the Eastern Europe, communists were forced to make allies during and after the war. Those allies were not always friendly towards deepening of the socialist relations. There were also strong religious and nationalistic sentiments among the society. The class struggle took place within the ruling party in form of the fractional struggle. The anticommunist opposition aiming in capitalist restoration was free to exists and act. Catholic church was a major political player. etc. Adding the economic crisis of 1979-81 and the subsequent blockade you will have the answer why things went the way they did.

M-26-7

10th September 2010, 22:15

There's no such thing as "Stalinism."

Considering that in the next sentence you use the term "anarkids", you'll excuse me if I choose to consider your objection disingenuous.

Look, if we start talking about numbers we will be depicted as cold blooded bastards who only care for statistics. If we discuss other aspects involved we ignore historical facts. There's no use debating strawmen like that.

I understand your frustration on this. Obviously you cannot please everybody. However, I personally would not fault you for talking about statistics, least of all in a thread (like this one) that was clearly geared toward establishing the quantitative scope of Stalin's crimes.

As a sidenote, I have to wonder whether some of the times when you have believed that someone got mad at a Marxist-Leninist for "talking about numbers", it was in fact the Marxist-Leninist's attitude toward those killed (whatever their number) that earned them the criticism.

The vast majority of people in the gulags survived the gulags. They we're not death-camps. They we're labor camps.

People did get executed yes, but as i summed up in an earlier post the vast majority of these people we're not kosjer. Even though i disagree with the deathpenalty i certainly do not disagree with giving these people life-long prison sentences.

I too oppose the death penalty (although I also oppose life-long prison sentences, not to mention prisons themselves). What I don't understand is the tortuous logic by which someone can claim to be outraged at prisons, state execution, and so many other abuses that are the lifeblood of the repressive capitalist state, then turn around and call these merely "mistakes" or "excesses" when they happen in a country that is supposedly "Marxist". What defines a society is the social relations within it, not what the leaders call themselves. I mean, imagine if someone defended Pinochet's Chile by saying that "the vast majority survived being locked up in his prisons. They were not death camps." Really, what kind of justifying logic is that? I imagine that most leftists would rightfully scoff as such a "defense" of large-scale political repression which permeates a society.

Speaking of political repression, it is simply false to characterize the GULAG prisoners with a broad brush as "counter-revolutionaries", "wreckers", and all the other labels that were applied to them. An enormous number of them were political prisoners (mostly "Trotskyists", later "Zinovievists", and finally "Bukharinists" and "Right-Deviationists"; later it was people based on their nationality-German, Polish, Finnish, Ukrainian). Others, so-called "wreckers" and "saboteurs", were often there because they let themselves be made the scapegoat when their economic enterprise under-fulfilled its quota. Certainly not the kind of thing that deserved a life-long sentence in a camp where death rates are sky high, no matter what your perspective.

Here is an excerpt from a report to the head of the GULAG by a lower-ranking camp official in 1938:

For the most part, the Ukhtpechlag contingent of prisoners are extremely dangerous. Of the 54,947 total number of prisoners (as of 1 December 1937), there are 24, 461 prisoners convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes:

Trotskyists 6,080
Spies 3,184
Subversives 466
Traitors 180
Terrorists 1,318
Other counterrevolutionary activities 15,233

Once again, this is from the book History of the Gulag by Khlevniuk (since I bothered to dig it out, I figure I might as well make good use and quote it a lot). I think this particular quote gives a good feel for the kinds of people that were locked up in the GULAG.

Later in the same memo, the camp official refers to "the extremely dangerous contingent (Trotskyists, spies, subversives, etc.)". Isn't it clear to any reasonable person that a Trotskyist (notice how they are listed first, even before spies and subversives) was only "extremely dangerous" to the Stalinist regime in one way--namely, politically dangerous?

Finally, I don't have time to dig up quotes to support this at the moment, but many people in the GULAG (especially those who were sent during 1937-38) were there on the basis of confessions which were extracted using torture. Some people were arrested and confessed to espionage (despite it being a capital crime, for which they must have known they would be shot) within half an hour. So many of the people locked up as Trotskyists probably were not even Trotskyists in any sense.

Later, when I get some time, maybe I'll post some quotes from internal NKVD memos about the kinds of casually-made, disgruntled statements that could get a Soviet citizen locked up in the GULAG just for uttering them. But basically, they were statements like "we were better off under the Tsar".

bie

10th September 2010, 22:44

Certainly not the kind of thing that deserved a life-long sentence in a camp where death rates are sky high, no matter what your perspective.
(1) Concerning that 10 years was the maximum possible sentence (-1937) you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. According to statistics from the Soviet courts, in 1939 only 0.1% of the verdicts were the punishment longer than 10 years.

(2) Mortality rates were not "sky high" - another lie - here are numbers:
- 1934 - 5.2%
- 1935 - 3.9%
- 1936 - 2.5%
- 1937 - 3.1%
- 1938 - 9.1%
- 1939 - 3.8%

Source: American Historical Review

(Compare to 30% mortality rates of Soviet POW in Polish-Soviet war in 1920.)

I know that some of you prefer to see all the criminals and counterrevolutionaries outside jails, but it cannot work, I am afraid.

M-26-7

11th September 2010, 06:39

(1) Concerning that 10 years was the maximum possible sentence (-1937) you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

I think I've demonstrated that I do know what I'm talking about on this topic, but you're right, that was a slip of the tongue (or fingers) and I was incorrect to write the phrase "life-long sentence". (Although for the many prisoners who died, the sentence was indeed life-long).

However, at least according to what I've read, you are incorrect to say that the maximum sentence until 1937 was 10 years. Sentences of up to 25 years were handed out, although rarely. After 1939 the category of 25-year sentences was no longer used, however sentences of 11-15 years continued to be handed out in some cases (again, not the majority of cases). What is your source for saying that 10 years was the maximum sentence until 1937?

(2) Mortality rates were not "sky high" - another lie - here are numbers:
- 1934 - 5.2%
- 1935 - 3.9%
- 1936 - 2.5%
- 1937 - 3.1%
- 1938 - 9.1%
- 1939 - 3.8%

I am well aware of what the mortality rates in the camps were. You may judge socialism against the mortality in Polish POW camps, but I judge socialism by the fact that it should not contain concentration camps or political prisoners at all. Having five percent of your detainees die per year due to overwork, hunger, and preventable disease from overcrowded living conditions, is sickening--particularly because real socialism doesn't have prisons or concentration camps in the first place. Anyway, I don't think much credit is exactly due to the Stalinist leadership for the fact that they wanted to keep prisoners alive so that they could use them as slave labor.

Also, averaging out the mortality rates for all camps obscures acute tragedies, like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazino_affair

Finally, do you have nothing to say about the rest of my post beyond that single sentence? What do you think: are Trotskyists "extremely dangerous"--more dangerous than spies? Or do you part ways with the NKVD on that point?

Palingenisis

11th September 2010, 06:45

any regime that massmurder their artists and/or burns books is unbiasedly evil.

stalinism and nazism are unbiasdly evil

I presume that sympathize with physical force anti-fascism (most of us I think do here)....Do you hold the view of some anarchists that MLs and neo-Nazies are basically the same and should be treated as such?

For the record in my experiance working class anarchists are generally sound, good people who I wouldnt see as enemies at all...Some middle class ones though can be very annoying.

Kayser_Soso

11th September 2010, 07:00

I am well aware of what the mortality rates in the camps were. You may judge socialism against the mortality in Polish POW camps, but I judge socialism by the fact that it should not contain concentration camps or political prisoners at all.

Yes, REAL socialism means nothing unpleasant- it's like a wonderful land where the streets are lined by gumdrops, there are no tears, and everyone sings songs on the way to work.

Kayser_Soso

11th September 2010, 07:06

But herin lies the problem-if Poland and other Eastern European countries, the USSR included, were healthy workers states, as you say, how did these 'revisionists' who steered these countries back to capitalism get within ten miles of the Party leadership? That fact alone indicates that something was very rotten in Denmark, or in this case, the Soviet bloc.

It's simple- revolution is not a zero sum game. There is no way you crush the bourgeoisie and build socialism in the "right way" so that it can never be overturned or the party can never be corrupted. This is a normal risk of life.

It also irritates me that several comrades here have posted extensive references to works of scholarship(and are explicitly NOT pieces of Cold War propaganda like Conquest) that document, often using the Soviet archives themselves and eyewitness accounts, the horrors of the gulag prison labor camps, the heartless purges of hundreds of thousands of loyal Communists, the deportations of entire ethnic minorities to Siberia, the whole climate of rigid conformity and fear that stifled the energy and life of the Revolution, and you have no answer to them. You just scream about 'lies' and 'Trotskyite-fascist' conspiracies that exist nowhere but in you imagination.

Actually we do- the archival evidence mainly supports us. I have never cited anything from the "Stalin Society" here. My sources are J. Arch Getty, Stalin a New History, Stalin's Wars by Geoffery Roberts, and a number of other non-Communist sources.

Reprintings of Russian documents that virtually no one can read, and for all we know might be a grocery shopping list.

Virtually nobody except more than the 180 million FSU citizens alone who speak Russian- and me. The fact that you can't read something doesn't mean it should be dismissed. When you speak of Soviet archives, what language do you suppose they were written in?

The recollections of an elderly NKVD agent that we are supposed to take as gospel, but the eyewitness accounts of journalists like Gareth Jones of the Ukraine famine is dismissed because some of his articles were exploited by William Randolph Hearst. And so on and on with your double standards.

Well there's Hearst, and the fact that his claims were entirely false and after more than 20 years of the archives being open they have not found one scrap of paper to suggest a plan to starve Ukrainians.

Trotsky was charged with being 'objectively pro-fascist' by the likes of you for attacking Stalin, because fascists also attacked Stalin. His response is that he only meant for his criticism to be true, it was irrelevant whether others engaged in that criticism for different reasons. You have used that logical fallacy to the hilt, and its time you came off it and actually engaged in a civilized debate. You self-righteousness and name-calling is very tiresome.

No, this is not why Trotsky was accused of collaboration with Fascism. I suggest you examine that argument in greater detail some time.

M-26-7

11th September 2010, 08:00

A few more of the quotes that I promised earlier, then I will probably be done with this thread:

Labor settler Ya. A. Apin (Chermekhovskaya commandant's office) thinks that all decrees by the Supreme Soviet are unjust. Ya. A. Apin says: "The workers are now squeezed tighter than [they were] under landlords before.

Labor settler A. Simonov stated during his conversation with Romanov: "Under [Tsar] Nicholas [they] worked for twelve hours, and now in the Soviet Union they work for twelve hours." He added that "in the capitalist countries, although there is unemployment, the workers live well, while in the Soviet Union one can croak from working."

Labor settler P. Kotova said that "the Soviet regime is based on labor settlers. Had it not been for labor settlers, who would work for them?"

Labor settler A Rtischev, May the First sovkhoz, said that "they starve us, the labor settlers, while sending bread abroad."

The labor settlers have been arrested for anti-Soviet agitation.

Labor settler M V. Antonenok said that "nobody is going to free us. One has to commit something to be convicted, serve the term, and then become a free citizen." Labor settler Antonenok has been arrested.

On 29 June 1940, during a discussion of the 26 June 1940 decree by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, labor settler A. A. Kropotov said that "this decree does not affect us. It was written for free laborers, and they will not prosecute us. Therefore we, the labor settlers, don't have to know about it." Two days later, labor settler Kropotov was absent from work, for which he has been convicted.

Very many similar conversations by labor settlers have been registered during the reported period. All materials on the anti-Soviet and counterrevolutionary moods of the labor settlers are being forward to the heads of local RO NKVD [district departments].

It is important to mention that during the reported period, in the Cheremkhovskaya district commandant's office, four labor settlers were arrested and sentenced to seven to ten years in prison for anti-Soviet counterrevolutionary agitation.

Top secret.
To all heads of administrations in NKVD camps and corrective labor colonies.
In late 1940 twenty-six prisoners were prosecuted for violating the camp regimen and for systematically refusing to work.
The supreme tribunal of the NKVD troops sentenced twenty-one of the accused to the ultimate penalty of capital punishment--shooting (the verdicts have been carried out). The other five prisoners have been sentenced to ten years in prison.
To prevent violations of the camp regimen by prisoners and to fight against those stubbornly refusing to work, I order that:
In the future, all verdicts passed by the military tribunals and courts for similar crimes be formally announced to the prisoners of the camps and corrective labor colonies.
Deputy People's Commisar of Internal Affairs of the USSR,
Chernyshev.

Cases of persistent refusal to work by the prisoners have lately become more frequent in some NKVD camps.
....
On 23 September of this year, the judicial-criminal collegium of the Supreme Court of the Buriat-Mongol ASSR reviewed the case of those in this group refusing to work and sentenced the instigators of self-injury, Kovalev and Silaev, to be shot.
The remaining thirteen prisoners were each sentenced to ten years in prison.
....
[Prisoners] often skillfully simulate various mental illnesses, epilepsy, traumatic neurosis, pull out (with their fingers) the mucous membrane of a rectum to simulate prolapse, aggravate illnesses of internal organs, simulate and aggravate the immobility of joints and muscle contractions, blindness, deafness, etc.
The most frequent cases of self-injury are:

hacking off fingers and extremities
freezing the extremities
artificial irritation and reopening of wounds, rashes, scratches, and other actions preventing prompt healing
chemical burns of the skin and underlying tissues
injuries, traumas, etc.

Head of the GULAG Sanitary Department, Chalov.

Sasha

11th September 2010, 11:38

I presume that sympathize with physical force anti-fascism (most of us I think do here)....Do you hold the view of some anarchists that MLs and neo-Nazies are basically the same and should be treated as such?

Nope, in fact in physical anti-fascism I even prefer to work with cjb'rs (lenninists) over the IS (trotskyte).
Most mls are good people who follow an stupid ideas.some are idiot tankys. but non of them are an threat over here. Neither political (mostly thanks to their waving of historical portraits and symbols that scare the working class faster away than screaming "bomb") nor physical on the street (what was the.last time you saw roving bands of mls beating up passersby?)
They are over here mostly an embarrassment overtaken by history.

On the other hand i completly understand the position of my polish and chech antifa colleagues who refuse too work with authoritarians.

Sir Comradical

11th September 2010, 12:47

bie

11th September 2010, 13:38

What is your source for saying that 10 years was the maximum sentence until 1937?
7818
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, October 1993, Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence, J. ARCH GETTY, GABOR T. RITTERSPORN, and VIKTOR N. ZEMSKOV. Available here (http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf).

You may judge socialism against the mortality in Polish POW camps, but I judge socialism by the fact that it should not contain concentration camps or political prisoners at all. Having five percent of your detainees die per year due to overwork, hunger, and preventable disease from overcrowded living conditions, is sickening--particularly because real socialism doesn't have prisons or concentration camps in the first place. Anyway, I don't think much credit is exactly due to the Stalinist leadership for the fact that they wanted to keep prisoners alive so that they could use them as slave labor.
Well, socialism never had concentration camps and it will never have. The role of socialism is to serve the people of all the nations and races, not to put ones over the others.

But I am afraid that there is still a need for the prisons to exist. Socialism by itself will not solve immediately all the social problems and pathologies inherited by the old regime. There will, for some time at least, still an ordinary crimes: murders, thieveries, rapes etc. It is unrealistic to solve that problems at once. Therefore the place of the criminals is in a sort of a prison system. We cannot allow murderers or rapists to be free in the society.

Other thing is the class struggle. Building a new society is a deadly war with many victims on the both sides. Capitalists will not give away its possessions without the bloody fight. Counterrevolution will aim in exterminating and murder of the revolutionaries. Therefore there is no place for counterrevolutionary bandits in the socialist society. It is justified to hold those criminals, enemies of the socialism, aiming in bringing back exploitation and misery to the people in prison system.

Finally, do you have nothing to say about the rest of my post beyond that single sentence? What do you think: are Trotskyists "extremely dangerous"--more dangerous than spies? Or do you part ways with the NKVD on that point?
Trotsytists were extremely dangerous in fact. They knew the language and could move among communists freely. They could easily penetrate into soviet structures and expose them to the enemies. They could also use its internal structures to start a civil war, when Nazis were 100 miles from Moscow (this is what they were afraid the most) - refer to famous Trotsky's "Clemenceau speech". I am well aware that many people were accused unjustly as trotskysist, but the threat of the internal enemy was huge. Molotov stated in the interview in 1985, that if Trotsky started his opposition in the war time, the amount of victims would be COLOSSAL. Imagine how many more millions of people would die in the bloody civil war along with the fight with Nazis.

On the other hand i completly understand the position of my polish and chech antifa colleagues who refuse too work with authoritarians.
Please keep in mind that the "Polish and Czech antifa" (anarchists etc.)were actively supporting restoration of capitalism in those countries, allied as the "democratic opposition" with nationalists, liberals, social-democrats, catholics and CIA.

This is a question I've been wrestling with at a more general level. I think the reason capitalist-roaders managed to weasel their way into the state communist parties of these countries is simply because the political system allows all kinds of people to be elected. Take Yugoslavia, Franjo Tudjman, an anti-communist, nazi-sympathising maggot got elected into the League of Communists because the system allowed him to. The question is, how do genuine socialists prevent their respective parties from being hijacked by cap-roaders? Maybe SOME of the people Stalin purged were the Tudjmans, Gorbachevs and Yeltsins of the time? Maybe repression is needed to prevent such undesirables gaining power? I don't claim to have the answers.
This is actually an excellent point. I wouldn't say that repressions as such are necessary (they have always the negative impact), but it is essential to realize that the class struggle does not end with the socialist revolution. It is essential to struggle against all sort of opportunism, revisionism, restoration-ism etc. during the all period of the socialist construction. It doesn't mean the repressions, but mainly the cadres policy. The purges don't have to be brutal. Lets have in mind, that USSR existed through the most brutal period in the history - 2 armed interventions, terrible crimes committed by imperialists and Nazis etc. Have in mind also the political repression was the common practice among the imperialist countries: mass killings and prosecutions of communists (Dachau, Bereza Kartuska, Franco etc.) were a worldwide practice.

But I am sure that in different circumstances, the problem of cadres and opportunism/ revisionism can be solved without political repressions or state violence. We can hope that the horrors of world wars would not repeat anymore, and it would be possible to carry on the political agenda without the bloodsheds and unnecessary victims. Because the power of class conscious proletariat is enormous. They cannot be beaten.

Sasha

11th September 2010, 14:15

Please keep in mind that the "Polish and Czech antifa" (anarchists etc.)were actively supporting restoration of capitalism in those countries, allied as the "democratic opposition" with nationalists, liberals, social-democrats, catholics and CIA.

source that,
i never met an antifa/anarchist from those countrys that is not at least 4 years younger than me. so that means they are tops 25. liberal/democratic capitalism (unlike state-capitalism) got restored around 1989 in poland and the czech republic.
so they where 5 years old at the time and "actively supporting restoration of capitalism in those countries, allied as the "democratic opposition" with nationalists, liberals, social-democrats, catholics and CIA."

so please direct me to the reports of armys of kindergardenkids chasing out the soviet tanks. I must have missed that bit of unique history

idiot.

bie

11th September 2010, 14:44

source that
Of course. It is an "Anarchist Review".

"Anarchist press in People's Republic of Poland - Part 1" (http://www.przeglad-anarchistyczny.org/historia/121-prasa-anarchistyczna-w-prl)
"Anarchist press in People's Republic of Poland - Part 2" (http://www.przeglad-anarchistyczny.org/historia/123-prasa-anarchistyczna-w-prl-cz-2)
"R. Gorski - Social Resistance in Poland 1944-1989 - Part 1" (http://www.przeglad-anarchistyczny.org/samorzad/27-opor-spoleczny-w-polsce-44-89-1)
"R. Gorski - Social Resistance in Poland 1944-1989 - Part 2" (http://www.przeglad-anarchistyczny.org/samorzad/29-opor-spoleczny-w-polsce-1944-1989-ii)
(use google translate)

i never met an antifa/anarchist from those countrys that is not at least 4 years younger than me. so that means they are tops 25. liberal/democratic capitalism (unlike state-capitalism) got restored around 1989 in poland and the czech republic.
so they where 5 years old at the time and "actively supporting restoration of capitalism in those countries, allied as the "democratic opposition" with nationalists, liberals, social-democrats, catholics and CIA."

so please direct me to the reports of armys of kindergardenkids chasing out the soviet tanks. I must have missed that bit of unique history

idiot.
What a stupid and hypocritical claim. Contemporary neonazis were also too young to carry on exterminations of millions.

There were many anarchists actually older that 12 years, who were founders and very active and influential members of anarchists societies - like eg. Rafal Gorski (http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafał_Górski) (Anarchist Federation) and many others. Anarchism in those countries arose from the anticommunist, pro-capitalist opposition, it is simply a fact.

And contemporary 20 years old anarchists are proud of their past. They have never rejected that and present their older collegues as anti-communist and anti-system fighters and heroes. Robert Gorski, an anarchist guru for example, was a co- founder of the ultra-right wing party in 1977 Confederation of Independent Poland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_of_Independent_Poland), that praised the fascist prewar government. R. Gorski was not the only person of the Polish anarchism, but a very influential one.

It shows why anarchists in those countries do not want to cooperate with "authoritarians". The anarchists there comes from the right-wing tradition.

Honggweilo

11th September 2010, 14:50

still no takers huh?

cowards...

there is one thing i wont defend is the conservative cultural streak during the 30's due to fear of nationalist, conservatie/religeous sentements and rebellion among the bureaucracy and all strata from society.. Or did you just want prove your thesis that any "stalinoid" sees man as a demi-god and that period as an utopia? Reality was a *****, history changes.

Sasha

11th September 2010, 15:49

Thanks for revealing your true character. Those who have a little understanding of Marx, should have a clear idea that social-democracy is nothing but a soft face of imperialism, specially in the awake of workers struggle. Basically, those who favor "social-democracy" over Stalinism and still call himself some kind of "leftist", is clearly a wolf in sheep's disguise.

:laugh:, hey you put me for an choice between two evils and i chose the imo lesser one.
what if i said i favor prefer cuban "socialism" over chicago school capitalism?
an statement just as true, would i then be all swell in your book?

you see, the world just isnt black and white

Sasha

11th September 2010, 15:59

What a stupid and hypocritical claim. Contemporary neonazis were also too young to carry on exterminations of millions.

but they explictly admire hitler or if you are lucky strasser.
you cant lump anarchists together like that, wich you do here:

There were many anarchists actually older that 12 years, who were founders and very active and influential members of anarchists societies - like eg. Rafal Gorski (http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafa%C5%82_G%C3%B3rski) (Anarchist Federation) and many others. Anarchism in those countries arose from the anticommunist, pro-capitalist opposition, it is simply a fact.

And contemporary 20 years old anarchists are proud of their past. They have never rejected that and present their older collegues as anti-communist and anti-system fighters and heroes. Robert Gorski, an anarchist guru for example, was a co- founder of the ultra-right wing party in 1977 Confederation of Independent Poland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_of_Independent_Poland), that praised the fascist prewar government. R. Gorski was not the only person of the Polish anarchism, but a very influential one.

i never heard any contemparey polish anarchist (and i know a lot of them) placing themself in the tradition of gorski. most position themselfs as akin to the dutch, danish and german anti-authoritarian autonomus-left.

wich renders your claim bogus:

It shows why anarchists in those countries do not want to cooperate with "authoritarians". The anarchists there comes from the right-wing tradition.

no they come from an anti-authoritarian tradition. you might not agree with their (and now i'm refering to the older generation of polish anarchists) chosen tactics at the time but temporarly siding with reformists to get ocupational troops out is not an completly bizare one.

Panda Tse Tung

11th September 2010, 16:40

you see, the world just isnt black and white
But there is evil and good?

bie

11th September 2010, 16:41

i never heard any contemparey polish anarchist (and i know a lot of them) placing themself in the tradition of gorski. most position themselfs as akin to the dutch, danish and german anti-authoritarian autonomus-left.
Well, he was the icon and the guru of the Polish anarchist movement (probably the most important person). Source (http://www.rozbrat.org/news-in-english/1363-rafal-gorski-passed-away).

The point we are discussing here that Polish anarchists and founders of Polish anarchism originate from the right-wing. That's why they are so hostile towards cooperation with communists. Not only anarchists - also Trots (apart from Spartacus section) fought together with "Solidarity" against socialism. It is very important to understand their current positions.

M-26-7

11th September 2010, 16:53

7818
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, October 1993, Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence, J. ARCH GETTY, GABOR T. RITTERSPORN, and VIKTOR N. ZEMSKOV. Available here (http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf).

Thanks. I've read that article before in fact.

My source is the three memoranda on the numbers of those arrested by the NKVD that were circulated among CP members after Stalin's death in 1953. The first one covers 1930-36, the second one 1937-38, the third one 1939-41. They are the main source that we have for determining the total scope of the Stalinist repression (both executions and prisoners sent to the GULAG), and as a matter of fact, they are Getty's source as well: his figure of 681,692 executed by the NKVD in 1937-38 is lifted directly from them.

You've probably seen it, but for a refresher, it is on p.288-91 here (http://books.google.com/books?id=8bH4Uw2SRmAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+history+of+the+gulag&hl=en&ei=EJ6LTPLbI4eksQOtqZyKBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=memorandum%20on%20the%20number%20of%20those%20co nvicted&f=false).

As you can see, sentences went up to 25 years until 1939. Yet your table shows a blank line through the "10+ years" category.

It appears to me that the discrepancy comes because the table you were looking at only lists those sentenced by the RSFSR courts for common criminals and the USSR civilian courts for political crimes. The report that was circulated during the Krushchev era--my source and Getty's--has tables which include four categories:

"Military Collegium, military tribunals, or courts"
"Special collegiums"
"Special Council"
"Troikas of the NKVD or UNKVD"

I don't claim to be an expert on the judicial structure of the Stalinist USSR, but it would appear to me that all of the people represented by J. Arch Getty's table (your source) fall within the first of those four categories. However, a quick glance at the official Krushchev-era table on NKVD repressions will show that by far the vast majority of victims during the period that it covers were sentenced by the last category, the troikas of the NKVD. Evidentally it was these last three categories--or some combination from among them--that were empowered to give out the 25-year sentences, which would account for there being none on J. Arch Getty's table. This hunch is confirmed by the fact that after 1939, the troikas of the NKVD were no longer used to sentence people. Therefore, while formerly the troikas were the only one to hand out the longer (10+ year sentences), after 1939 the courts had to pick up the slack. That explains why the 10+ category on your table suddenly has entries starting in 1939. The courts were picking up the slack of the disbanded NKVD troikas. And in fact, far from increasing the sentences after Stalin's death, as Getty's table gives an impression that they did, sentences were actually reduced: although the courts now handed out the 10+ year sentences, 25-year sentences were no longer used (as they had been in Stalin's time).

It's clear from his numbers that Getty is using the same tables that I am drawing on, but for some odd reason, he chose to only display one of four bodies (the courts) that were empowered to sentence people during the Stalinst era. And for some reason, he chooses to display one of the more minor bodies: except for in 1933, the troikas always sentenced far more people than the courts.

Total number sentenced by the "Military collegium, military tribunals, or courts" in 1921-38: 713,301.
Total number sentenced by the "Troikas of the NKVD or UNKVD" in 1921-38: 1,813,707.

Thanks for posting your source. I've found the Getty article useful in the past, but I didn't realize that it was incomplete.

Sasha

11th September 2010, 17:03

But there is evil and good?

well, i would prefer right and wrong but yeah, how would that contradict each other?

bie

11th September 2010, 17:37

Total number sentenced by the "Military collegium, military tribunals, or courts" in 1921-38: 713,301.
Total number sentenced by the "Troikas of the NKVD or UNKVD" in 1921-38: 1,813,707.
Can I ask where are those numbers from? Can you prove that Troikas have authority to impose sentences higher than 10 years? Where is that information of 700 000 executed coming from exactly? I want to verify that source. I have suspicion that it could be a similar case like "Beria's letter" from "5.03.1940" that was actually proved to be a falsification. My assumption is based on that fact, that the total collection of all the cases of the prosecution on the basis of the 58 articles made by an anticommunist association Memorial for the time 1917-1991 included approximately 900 thousands cases. And it has been proved that on that list there are people put twice and more. This list also included people who were accused and released immediately.

The courts were picking up the slack of the disbanded NKVD troikas. And in fact, far from increasing the sentences after Stalin's death, as Getty's table gives an impression that they did, sentences were actually reduced: although the courts now handed out the 10+ year sentences, 25-year sentences were no longer used (as they had been in Stalin's time).
It is important to note that sentences higher than 10 years after 1939 imposed by civilian and military courts were:

1) 1939 - 0.1% of all sentences
2) 1940 - 1.0% of all sentences

Therefore it wasn't a common practice.

Das war einmal

11th September 2010, 17:56

Nope, in fact in physical anti-fascism I even prefer to work with cjb'rs (lenninists) over the IS (trotskyte).
Most mls are good people who follow an stupid ideas.some are idiot tankys. but non of them are an threat over here. Neither political (mostly thanks to their waving of historical portraits and symbols that scare the working class faster away than screaming "bomb") nor physical on the street (what was the.last time you saw roving bands of mls beating up passersby?)
They are over here mostly an embarrassment overtaken by history.

Real cute. We are an embarrassment. I'm glad anarchists in The Netherlands are being taken seriously.

Btw. waving of historical portraits? When is the last time that happened? The only symbols we use is the good old 'hammer and sickle', but I doubt that the working class is scared of that. Since when do anarchists give a fuck about public opinion anyway?

Sasha

11th September 2010, 18:58

i was talking about the young tankies and the elderly stalinists... not the mayority of the CJB who are good activists for the most.

M-26-7

11th September 2010, 20:27

Can I ask where are those numbers from? Can you prove that Troikas have authority to impose sentences higher than 10 years? Where is that information of 700 000 executed coming from exactly? I want to verify that source. I have suspicion that it could be a similar case like "Beria's letter" from "5.03.1940" that was actually proved to be a falsification.

All my numbers come from the source that I just gave in my last post. Follow the link.

It is not a falsification - or rather, if it is, then J. Arch Getty (and all the other historians using these memoranda as their main source) are apparently mistaken in using it.

As for proving that the troikas had the authority to impose sentences higher than 10 years, of course I can't, because I didn't claim that they could. All that can be said on the basis of the source which I shared with you is that someone was handing out sentences up to 25 years, prior to 1939. It could be any of the four categories--courts, collegium, Special Council or NKVD troikas. On the basis of the J. Arch Getty article which you posted, we can apparently rule out the courts, as we see that they were only handing out sentences of ten years or less. That leaves the other three categories, and I don't claim to know which one (or which two, or which three) was handing out the 25 year sentences.

It is important to note that sentences higher than 10 years after 1939 imposed by civilian and military courts were:

1) 1939 - 0.1% of all sentences
2) 1940 - 1.0% of all sentences

Therefore it wasn't a common practice.

That's true, it wasn't a common practice. Then again, I never said that it was. I simply objected to your statement that 10 years was the maximum sentence in the USSR when in reality it was not.

Sir Comradical

11th September 2010, 23:16

This is actually an excellent point. I wouldn't say that repressions as such are necessary (they have always the negative impact), but it is essential to realize that the class struggle does not end with the socialist revolution. It is essential to struggle against all sort of opportunism, revisionism, restoration-ism etc. during the all period of the socialist construction. It doesn't mean the repressions, but mainly the cadres policy. The purges don't have to be brutal. Lets have in mind, that USSR existed through the most brutal period in the history - 2 armed interventions, terrible crimes committed by imperialists and Nazis etc. Have in mind also the political repression was the common practice among the imperialist countries: mass killings and prosecutions of communists (Dachau, Bereza Kartuska, Franco etc.) were a worldwide practice.

I agree especially with the part in bold. When I say purge, I'm not saying that killing people is the way to go, after all a purge can simply mean sacking people. I personally don't think the large death-toll from the Soviet purges of the late thirties was at all justified. Anyway, at least you get my point, people without a single socialist bone in their bodies will seize power so the goal has to be to develop a political system that involves making sure that such elements don't get into power.

In a capitalist democracy, the direction the state takes with regards to policy is contingent upon the interests of the dominant faction of the capitalist class. There may be a few surface conflicts between parties, but since the end goal is the accumulation of wealth, there is essentially mass consensus regarding 'what is to be done'. Under socialism however, the ideological aim of society must be enforced by a party apparatus that hasn't been corrupted. This probably explains the failure of China and Yugoslavia. When their leaders died, their political systems were hijacked by roaders resulting in chaos.

But I am sure that in different circumstances, the problem of cadres and opportunism/ revisionism can be solved without political repressions or state violence. We can hope that the horrors of world wars would not repeat anymore, and it would be possible to carry on the political agenda without the bloodsheds and unnecessary victims. Because the power of class conscious proletariat is enormous. They cannot be beaten.

I'm not that optimistic because communist revolutions are the ones that face the harshest reactions because they expropriate private property.

Hiero

12th September 2010, 06:48

Then why did you declare that it was on these points that 'historians fail', and implied that the topic lacks 'full in depth analysis' when manifestly it doesn't? I would agree that these kids of questions do not often appear in populist literature, but that is understandable; the public want, and consume, introductory literature.

I was being lazy.

you see, thats the kind of attitude i find problematic. Are you seriously denying there is such an thing as good and evil? the right thing to do and the wrong thing? if not, why would you be an revolutionary if not for justice? if not for "some transcedental" humanist ideal?
for what? for personal gain? for power and might? what is then not inherently reactionary about your politics?

Yes that is what I am denying. It is called historical materialism.

surely you are not of the opinion that crimes against humanity exist because "the USSR along with the UK and USA created them" in UN law. surely these laws are just an reflection of an moral sense of right and wrong. IMHO not only shared by all of humanity but also the more consious animals.

Yes that is what I am saying. If they are simply a reflection of the moral sense of right and wrong, where does this come from?

Not surely innate in humans, because this term "crimes against humanity" is only a recent thing begining with the end of the slave trade.

Shared by humanity?

The Ancient Greeks didn't believe there were humans outside their borders. The Western Europeans created a whole psuedo-science to "prove" that Africans were a sub species. Various small social linguistic groups have terms to describe people outside their group which translates to non-human. Where and are these just people surpressing their natural feelings towards all of humanity?

If is a reflection of being human, it took a hell long time for it to surface and still doesn't surface in alot of cultures and societies.

I am not arguing that the concept of the "Crimes Against Humanity" does not improve people's lives and protects people. It does and it doesn't, it is simply an improvement, it does not stop ethnic cleansing or genocide in most cases. It just allows international law to prosecute people who have engaged in "crimes against humanity" at the same time it can give justification of such acts as exampled by new Western imperialism.

These concepts are not innately human, they came with the rise of bourgeiosie law. Like the concept of property ownership, initially believed to be a reflection of being human.

Your moral compasses is not a revolutionary one of this epoch, it is borrowed from the revolutionary character of a previous epoch, the bourgeiosie.

12th September 2010, 15:54

BTW this thread is probably one of the best I've read on RevLeft in a while. I've picked up Khlevniuk's book and am eager to get through it.

Does anyone know of any books that cover the Cheka and the prison system prior to the Stalin era - i.e. immediately following the revolution up until around 1930? I haven't been able to find much information on this. Did they merely appropriate and maintain the Tsar-era katorgas or what?

Volcanicity

12th September 2010, 16:06

Panda Tse Tung

12th September 2010, 16:31

well, i would prefer right and wrong but yeah, how would that contradict each other?
Well, it seems to me this is a black and white way to look at things. You either have good or you have evil (or right and wrong). With possibly different degrees, this is not relevant however.

Das war einmal

13th September 2010, 14:44

i was talking about the young tankies and the elderly stalinists... not the mayority of the CJB who are good activists for the most.

Good.I feel the need to express the anger about these aberrations of the past. Now that thats clear, maybe we can take this discussion to another level.

However, claiming that 'stalinism' is evil is a bit pointless. I have started a thread in the Dutch language section about morals sometime ago and as correctly pointed out, morals are developed along the way.

This is absolutely not an attempt to justify atrocities, but for the sake of our movement, it is important to look at all the facts of that time.

What is 'good' and what is 'evil' has changed overtime, the most human rights we take for granted now were made after WWII.

Back the the topic: When talking about early soviet Russia its always important to keep in mind that we are talking about a backward, illiterate country, were pogroms where common until the 1920's. In this poverty stricken, war torn country, it is logic that there was harsh opposition. The whites, supported by the clergy, showed no mercy and the reds responded in kind. In this time, as I understand, the Bolsheviks developed an attitude that accepted no opposition. The civil war, followed by the threat of fascism, have developed a mass paranoia in which numerous innocents fell victim to a witch hunt that was spread all over the country. This is also largely to blame on backwardness, as fear (in my opinion) makes people unreasonable and stupidity in general leads to cruelty.

So does that make the USSR an 'empire of evil'? I think that's short-sighted. There were developments that deserve credit, like the abolishment of anti-Semitism (the pogroms did end), the battle against religious fanaticism (women rights were greatly enhanced), not to mention the eradication of third world diseases. In all the soviet society did improve on certain levels.

Does that justify the prosecution of artists or innocents in general? No. In order to learn from that time, we should acknowledge the facts as they are. There is a reason why we should not exaggerate statistics: it derails the discussion into a 'who is the lesser of two evils' debate with the liberal capitalists as a laughing third and besides that, it does no justice to the people who have suffered.

To summarize: I don't really think there is an universal good or evil, but that cruelty and irresponsibility are (mostly) a product of collective backwardness and stupidity. The crimes committed by the Soviet Authorities are an aberration to the cause of communism, for we do fight for human rights in general, but is a logical result if you look at the fact that Russia was 80% illiterate.

KlÃ©ber

14th September 2010, 09:20

To summarize: I don't really think there is an universal good or evil, but that cruelty and irresponsibility are (mostly) a product of collective backwardness and stupidity. The crimes committed by the Soviet Authorities are an aberration to the cause of communism, for we do fight for human rights in general, but is a logical result if you look at the fact that Russia was 80% illiterate.
So the purges started because some stereotypical illiterate workers were like, "Uunnngh. Me worker. Worker stupid. Worker can not read. Worker angry! Worker kill Trotskyites and Bukharinites!! Worker RAGE!!!!"

If the purges can be explained as simply as "Russia was backwards" then why did China, which was more "backwards," have fewer executions by its Stalinist regime despite a larger population? Obviously it is because the working class was stronger in Russia and it was partisans of the working class who were being purged.

It was not illiterate workers but the most elite section of Soviet society, the bureaucracy, which carried out the purges in its own interests, to vanquish the remnants of the internationalist-minded proletarian vanguard which had carried out the 1917 revolution and still posed a threat to the ossified bureaucratic dictatorship.

14th September 2010, 13:56

The best book ive read on the Cheka is by George leggett called The Cheka-Lenins political police.

I'll probably pick it up, but it doesn't sound too promising:

Significant errors are committed in Leggett's central argument concerning the Cheka's exercises. One does not have to be a Leninist to object to Leggett's characterization of Lenin as "the self-appointed Marxist Messiah," the Russian soviet government as "Lenin's state", or the Civil War in Russia as a "bitter class war of Lenin's making." Bitter it was, but to attribute the bitterness to Lenin's "manipulation of the lives of millions" is to cast workers and peasants in the role of mindless sheep. So keen is Leggett to demonstrate that mass "limitless terror" was the cornerstone of Bolshevism, springing full-blown from Lenin's head, that he never once entertains the degree of popular support for and participation in the activities in soviet state organs, accepts without qualification the not unbiased agitprop accounts of Steinberg, Melgunov, and others, and relies frequently on third-hand quotations in his attempts to condemn Lenin and Dzerzhinsky out of their own mouths. There is virtually no sense of a desperate struggle against foreign invaders, internal counterrevolutionaries, disease, or hunger. Leggett's allegation that the revolutionary Russian government wanted a civil war is impossible to reconcile with Lenin's optimism in the fall of 1917 on the likelihood of avoiding civil war. Following the peace treaty with Germany and the consolidation of soviet power in almost all of Russia, Lenin said on 23 April 1918: "It can be said with certainty that, in the main, the Civil War has ended." It was not until the following summer when large-scale civil war broke out in Russia with the Czech aggression, the Left SR revolt in Moscow, the Yaroslavl Revolt, the White Cossack invasion of Tsaritsyn, , and the Entente aggression in Baku, Vladivostok, and elsewhere. For Lenin to have said during a peaceful April 1918 that civil war had ended demonstrates that Leggett distorts Lenin's understanding of civil war. From an Amazon review.

Volcanicity

14th September 2010, 15:16

Yes,there are always errors and inconsistancies in every book I've read on either the Cheka or the Gulag,but for the time-frame you mentioned you were looking for, that book would be the best choice errors aside.

Communist Pear

14th September 2010, 18:03

i was talking about the young tankies and the elderly stalinists... not the mayority of the CJB who are good activists for the most.
Elderly stalinists, in an organisation called the communist youth movement. ORLY? :laugh:

Oh and we are all "tankies" anyway.

NecroCommie

14th September 2010, 18:55

Personally, I don't care who killed who in what numbers. Stalin could have killed the entire european populace and it still would not have made marxist-leninist theory any less valid.

Sasha

15th September 2010, 11:44

Elderly stalinists, in an organisation called the communist youth movement. ORLY? :laugh:

Oh and we are all "tankies" anyway.

Jezus, i know i'm an sloppy writer but there was really an . in that post of mine.
you do know that significies the end of an sentence right?

so when i say:

X are idiots, Y are mostly OK.

yes, then they are conected, then maybe X is part of Y.

but i said;

X are idiots. Y are mostly OK.

Stop being so fucking defensive and attacking me on shit i didnt even say.

Communist Pear

15th September 2010, 14:57

Jezus, i know i'm an sloppy writer but there was really an . in that post of mine.
you do know that significies the end of an sentence right?

so when i say:

X are idiots, Y are mostly OK.

yes, then they are conected, then maybe X is part of Y.

but i said;

X are idiots. Y are mostly OK.

Stop being so fucking defensive and attacking me on shit i didnt even say.
Generally when making a post, all the things in your post are connected in a way, especially if they are close together. Sorry for assuming that there was any kind of structure in your post. :eek:

I'm still a bit confused on who these "elderly stalinists" and "young tankies" would be, are you talking about ML-ers from another country?

Anyway, I am not going to respond anything on-topic in this post, since that's a very useless discussion that has been made OVER and OVER again into oblivion.

chegitz guevara

15th September 2010, 19:02

Barry Lyndon

15th September 2010, 20:45

Who ever said evil had to be intentional? Evil can be banal.

Ever read Hannah Arendt, Hiero?

Sasha

15th September 2010, 21:04

Who ever said evil had to be intentional? Evil can be banal.

in fact most evil is banal

Das war einmal

16th September 2010, 00:19

So the purges started because some stereotypical illiterate workers were like, "Uunnngh. Me worker. Worker stupid. Worker can not read. Worker angry! Worker kill Trotskyites and Bukharinites!! Worker RAGE!!!!"

If the purges can be explained as simply as "Russia was backwards" then why did China, which was more "backwards," have fewer executions by its Stalinist regime despite a larger population? Obviously it is because the working class was stronger in Russia and it was partisans of the working class who were being purged.

It was not illiterate workers but the most elite section of Soviet society, the bureaucracy, which carried out the purges in its own interests, to vanquish the remnants of the internationalist-minded proletarian vanguard which had carried out the 1917 revolution and still posed a threat to the ossified bureaucratic dictatorship.

We were talking about the Gulag, not just the purges.This bureaucracy of yours consist out of bolshevik workers who were part of the vanguard itself. And more importantly I didn't said the workers were backwards, but the country itself was, the workers were the once who were capable of leading the revolution because they had this abilities because of the fact that they moved from the murky backwaters to the cities. These were the ones who also leaded the revolution and the majority of them backed up Stalin.

I have the feeling lots of people think this bureaucracy was some evil cult whose only purpose was to destroy and enslave the workers, but fail to see that these were mostly people who are from the workers vanguard themselves. Maybe workers are not some holy enlightened force but are capable of succumbing to corruption as well?

Still the point remains: a lack of (self)awareness leads to cruelty: you can see that in the Third World countries which are trifled with civil war and lack of education; the most gruesome acts are displayed there everyday. And if you think that in China there weren't any cruelties you're being delusional.

M-26-7

16th September 2010, 18:05

I have the feeling lots of people think this bureaucracy was some evil cult whose only purpose was to destroy and enslave the workers, but fail to see that these were mostly people who are from the workers vanguard themselves.

At first, perhaps, this was true--notwithstanding my anarchist criticisms of the vanguard idea itself, which I won't go into here.

However, the whole idea of the critique of the socialist bureaucracy--from the original Left Opposition, down to those who still criticize it today--is that material privileges were allowed to accumulate for the offices of the bureaucracy. This made bureaucratic positions attractive even to those who were not committed communists, or even communists at all. Hence as time went on, those roles tended to be filled by people who were not remotely communist, who in fact, on the contrary, were out for individual privileges. Basically, the people with the most capitalist mindset in the entire country (those who were actively seeking special privileges for themselves) were allowed, even enticed, to muscle real communists out of the way in a bid to fill those bureaucratic positions. And this is exactly what happened.

Yeltsin, Gorbachev, and virtually all those who had a hand in dissolving the Soviet Union, were Communist Party functionaries and officials. Does this tell you anything about how the quality of Party members and state bureaucrats degraded over just a few generations, under a situation of material privileges for Party members and bureaucrats? Do you consider men like Yeltsin and Gorbachev to have been, in your own words, "bolshevik workers who were part of the vanguard itself"? (Was Yeltsin--who went straight from getting a college degree in construction to working as a foreman--a worker?) And if not, how do you explain their membership in the CPSU, much less the fact that they rose to the very top?

Maybe workers are not some holy enlightened force but are capable of succumbing to corruption as well?

Possibly the most central point of both Anarchism and Marxism is that social equality is in the objective material self-interest of the working class, since they form the "bottom layer", whose labor powers everything society does. The working class does not need to be "some holy enlightened force" to strive for socialism. They only need to be conscious of their own self-interest and empowered to act on its behalf. I'm not sure how a Marxist like yourself could be confused on such a basic point of Marxist thought.

Still the point remains: a lack of (self)awareness leads to cruelty: you can see that in the Third World countries which are trifled with civil war and lack of education; the most gruesome acts are displayed there everyday. And if you think that in China there weren't any cruelties you're being delusional.

I think you are talking here about the situation in non-socialist countries, right? If so, then I agree, of course. Here is a good article (by the author of a book Kleber recommended earlier in this thread) which talks about Soviet bureaucracy, but at the same time does a good job of keeping things in perspective by comparing it to the much greater privileges which exist for the ruling class under capitalism:

http://www.wsws.org/exhibits/1937/lecture3.htm

He makes it clear that his point is not that the Soviet bureaucracy was worse than a capitalist ruling class; on the contrary, he points out that the gross material inequalities that exist under capitalism are worse than those that were ever seen at any point under the Soviet system. His point is simply that bureaucratic socialism was an ineffective (and ultimately failed, in 1991) method of fighting capitalism, for the simple reason that you can't fight inequality (capitalism) with inequality (bureaucratic "socialism"). His point is that if socialism wants to win, it needs to pursue its egalitarian aims with more resoluteness, not less. Stalin's ardent defenders today still deny this basic fact, whether they realize it or not.

Barry Lyndon

16th September 2010, 18:51

At first, perhaps, this was true--notwithstanding my anarchist criticisms of the vanguard idea itself, which I won't go into here.

However, the whole idea of the critique of the socialist bureaucracy--from the original Left Opposition, down to those who still criticize it today--is that material privileges were allowed to accumulate for the offices of the bureaucracy. This made bureaucratic positions attractive even to those who were not committed communists, or even communists at all. Hence as time went on, those roles tended to be filled by people who were not remotely communist, who in fact, on the contrary, were out for individual privileges. Basically, the people with the most capitalist mindset in the entire country (those who were actively seeking special privileges for themselves) were allowed, even enticed, to muscle real communists out of the way in a bid to fill those bureaucratic positions. And this is exactly what happened.

Yeltsin, Gorbachev, and virtually all those who had a hand in dissolving the Soviet Union, were Communist Party functionaries and officials. Does this tell you anything about how the quality of Party members and state bureaucrats degraded over just a few generations, under a situation of material privileges for Party members and bureaucrats? Do you consider men like Yeltsin and Gorbachev to have been, in your own words, "bolshevik workers who were part of the vanguard itself"? (Was Yeltsin--who went straight from getting a college degree in construction to working as a foreman--a worker?) And if not, how do you explain their membership in the CPSU, much less the fact that they rose to the very top?

Yes, this is an excellent point. I am a Leninist myself, but these 'anti-revisionists'(esp bie) irritate me to no end with their relentless refusal to adknowledge that things seriously wrong within the ruling party were apparent before the 'Great Leader' died.

Another good example would be that Slobodan Milosevic was a high-ranking member of the Yugoslavian Communist Party who was jailed by Tito for inciting ethnic hatred in the 1970's.
Or that Deng Xiaopeng was purged as being a 'capitalist roader'(which subsequent history indicated that he was) during the Cultural Revolution.
Yet both men weathered the storm and proceeded to destroy every vestige of socialism that existed in both countries. And there are some leftists who are still living in denial, who want adhere to an inverted 'Great Man' theory in which these demonic revisionists magically tear down healthy workers states, rather then taking advantage of the systems already existing weaknesses.

bie

17th September 2010, 16:45

I am a Leninist myself...
No, you are not.

...but these 'anti-revisionists'(esp bie) irritate me to no end with their relentless refusal to adknowledge that things seriously wrong within the ruling party were apparent before the 'Great Leader' died.
Why don't you see a funny contradiction in your way of thinking? Things went "seriously wrong in the ruling party" due to the abandoning of the principles of Marxism-Leninism. This phenomenon is called "revisionism". So how can you be against revisionism and anti-revisionism at the same time?

My point is that the political line of ruling party called Leninism, that originated from the revolutionary practice was correct in its theoretical principles and practical application. It was proved to be correct both in pre-revolutionary period and during the stages of building a base of socialism. Basically, this political line contained the necessity of struggle with opportunism and revisionism within the ruling party. On the practical level, it is known that power mean privileges and may attract individuals who wants to take advantage of that. This phenomenon is known as opportunism. Those people constitute a real danger for the socialist society, as they can be easily "bought" by another political option.

That is why the systematic and periodical verification of ruling party membership (so called "purge") is essential as the Leninist solution to the problem of opportunism. Answer for yourself - how many verifications of party membership were carried on in late period of existence of real socialism? This could give us some sort of appreciation of the political line of the ruling party.

This made bureaucratic positions attractive even to those who were not committed communists, or even communists at all. Hence as time went on, those roles tended to be filled by people who were not remotely communist, who in fact, on the contrary, were out for individual privileges. Basically, the people with the most capitalist mindset in the entire country (those who were actively seeking special privileges for themselves) were allowed, even enticed, to muscle real communists out of the way in a bid to fill those bureaucratic positions. And this is exactly what happened.
Yes, this observation is correct. But I will make a different conclusion out of that. It is based on 2 assumptions: (1) Modern society cannot exist without what you called "bureaucracy" due to the complexity of the division of labor (2) Political power (any kind) is always accompanied by privileges and a danger of opportunism.

The conclusion is that knowing that 2 limitations, we organize the society in such way to minimize the negative impact of those phenomena. It is possible by the agreement within the class oriented organization - expressed in the political line of struggle against that.

Amphictyonis

18th September 2010, 01:36

Russia wasn't communist and I suspect Stalin never intended to form an egalitarian society in the future. He and the rest of the nation fell victim to hierarchy. Centralized authority has no -lace in a socialist system. No excuses for Stalin, at least there shouldn't be.

Reznov

18th September 2010, 01:44

um... if I grew up in a society that called itself "Communist" and then went off murdering and terrorizing and jailing basically whoever it wanted, I would probably think "Communism" can only lead to that shit, too. SORRY (no I'm not).

I do think there is some truth to what he saying about "Communism" though. The sort of "Communism" that that spawned from the USSR is probably one of the most brutal attacks on human liberty, and I might even go so far as to say that it is one of the most brutal manifestations of the state in modern history. I don't think the "Communism" of the USSR has anything to do with actual communism.

So true. Just because they use a hammer and sickle and say "were communist" doesn't make them so.

Whats worse is, not only do these "Communist" governments usually end up being worse to the people than the capitalist are, they also give any thing with the word Communism and Marxism a bad name and casts it in a really bad light. Here in Ameirca, Communism and horrible oppressive Government go hand in hand.

pranabjyoti

18th September 2010, 06:15

So true. Just because they use a hammer and sickle and say "were communist" doesn't make them so.

Whats worse is, not only do these "Communist" governments usually end up being worse to the people than the capitalist are, they also give any thing with the word Communism and Marxism a bad name and casts it in a really bad light. Here in Ameirca, Communism and horrible oppressive Government go hand in hand.
But they (the general American population) can easily digest the worst feudal monarchy of Saudi Arab and other middle eastern oil Barons and even the incidents of Mei Lei, Abu Ghribe and Guantanamo Bay etc. But, "communist atrocities", yak! Their European "civilized" allies crossed far ago the "described atrocities" of Stalin. Churchill alone killed 5 million people in the province of Bengal of British India alone by starvation. Belgian soldiers cut the limbs and legs of freedom fighters of Belgian Congo during the freedom struggle there. And those BUSTARDS are now teaching the world about "communist atrocities" and some are pointing towards that in a leftist website. WHAT A SHAME!
Basically, such kind of posts is an example of what "idiotic" is and if it's true, then how much ignorant general US citizen can be.

Reznov

20th September 2010, 02:08

But they (the general American population) can easily digest the worst feudal monarchy of Saudi Arab and other middle eastern oil Barons and even the incidents of Mei Lei, Abu Ghribe and Guantanamo Bay etc. But, "communist atrocities", yak! Their European "civilized" allies crossed far ago the "described atrocities" of Stalin. Churchill alone killed 5 million people in the province of Bengal of British India alone by starvation. Belgian soldiers cut the limbs and legs of freedom fighters of Belgian Congo during the freedom struggle there. And those BUSTARDS are now teaching the world about "communist atrocities" and some are pointing towards that in a leftist website. WHAT A SHAME!
Basically, such kind of posts is an example of what "idiotic" is and if it's true, then how much ignorant general US citizen can be.

You seem to think that I was implying that communist countrys are horrible while capitalist ones are perfect. Which is not the case.

Don't get angry at the fact by calling them stupid. Instead of *****ing and calling me and the "general US citizen" idiotic and ignorant, why don't you try to create a solution to help inform the average American Citizen of the things that Capitalism has done.

Apoi_Viitor

20th September 2010, 02:26

But they (the general American population) can easily digest the worst feudal monarchy of Saudi Arab and other middle eastern oil Barons and even the incidents of Mei Lei, Abu Ghribe and Guantanamo Bay etc. But, "communist atrocities", yak! Their European "civilized" allies crossed far ago the "described atrocities" of Stalin. Churchill alone killed 5 million people in the province of Bengal of British India alone by starvation. Belgian soldiers cut the limbs and legs of freedom fighters of Belgian Congo during the freedom struggle there. And those BUSTARDS are now teaching the world about "communist atrocities" and some are pointing towards that in a leftist website. WHAT A SHAME!
Basically, such kind of posts is an example of what "idiotic" is and if it's true, then how much ignorant general US citizen can be.

Fact Check: Churchill's policies led to the deaths of approximately 3 million people.

Although, during 19th century British rule, countless (I've heard the number placed at 20+ million) Indians starved to death.

I think the point Reznov is trying to make is that, these statistics don't make Stalin's or Mao's genocidal policies dissapear. Mao still resided over (arguably) the greatest man-made famine in history.

pranabjyoti

20th September 2010, 03:18

Fact Check: Churchill's policies led to the deaths of approximately 3 million people.

Although, during 19th century British rule, countless (I've heard the number placed at 20+ million) Indians starved to death.

I think the point Reznov is trying to make is that, these statistics don't make Stalin's or Mao's genocidal policies dissapear. Mao still resided over (arguably) the greatest man-made famine in history.
Just 5 million died in the province of Bengal due to the "scorched earth" policy, not 3 million. So far, the maximum number of chinese died in famine during the "great leap forward" is 300,000. Then, HOW CAN MAO BE THE CREATOR OF THE GREATEST MAN MADE FAMINE?

Palingenisis

20th September 2010, 03:25

Just 5 million died in the province of Bengal due to the "scorched earth" policy, not 3 million. So far, the maximum number of chinese died in famine during the "great leap forward" is 300,000. Then, HOW CAN MAO BE THE CREATOR OF THE GREATEST MAN MADE FAMINE?

The "socialism" of the "comrade" you attempting to debate with Im afraid is typical of a certain type of AnarKKKidist....Its tied into a self-obessive and often self-destructive sub-culture which has arisen out of the decadence of the Imperialist west...Its pointless.

Over in India you know what the red flag means....You understand struggle and sacrafice.....

Apoi_Viitor

20th September 2010, 04:38

Just 5 million died in the province of Bengal due to the "scorched earth" policy, not 3 million. So far, the maximum number of chinese died in famine during the "great leap forward" is 300,000. Then, HOW CAN MAO BE THE CREATOR OF THE GREATEST MAN MADE FAMINE?

Sorry, that was my mistake. I based the 3 million figure around the works of a pro-British intellectual (I didn't know that was his political orientation, until now), and actually, I just read that at the time, one Indian professor declared that the famine killed five million by starvation, and another five million through indirect famine related diseases.

However, saying that 300,000 people died during the great leap forward is possibly as ridiculous as saying "there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz".

Likewise, I am an "Anarchist" who believes in decadence and luxury. I'm quite guilty of believing that people shouldn't starve to death (that includes Indians and Chinese citizens)...

pranabjyoti

20th September 2010, 06:25

Sorry, that was my mistake. I based the 3 million figure around the works of a pro-British intellectual (I didn't know that was his political orientation, until now), and actually, I just read that at the time, one Indian professor declared that the famine killed five million by starvation, and another five million through indirect famine related diseases.

However, saying that 300,000 people died during the great leap forward is possibly as ridiculous as saying "there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz".

Likewise, I am an "Anarchist" who believes in decadence and luxury. I'm quite guilty of believing that people shouldn't starve to death (that includes Indians and Chinese citizens)...
This data is given by Economist Amartya Sen, HE ISN'T A MAOIST.

Apoi_Viitor

20th September 2010, 06:48

This data is given by Economist Amartya Sen, HE ISN'T A MAOIST.

Amartya Sen was the economist who said only 1.5 million Indians died as a result of British policy, and then later revised the total to around 3 million. I admit that my original use of Amartya Sen's 3 million figure was wrong, but so is your use of Amartya Sen's 300,000 figure.

Edit: I agree with some of Amartya Sen's conclusions, specifically as said by Noam Chomsky

He observes that India and China had "similarities that were quite striking" when development planning began 50 years ago, including death rates. "But there is little doubt that as far as morbidity, mortality and longevity are concerned, China has a large and decisive lead over India" (in education and other social indicators as well). In both cases, the outcomes have to do with the "ideological predispositions" of the political systems: for China, relatively equitable distribution of medical resources, including rural health services and public distribution of food, all lacking in India.

And also, in the words of Amartya Sen, "The Chinese famines of 1958-61 killed, it is now estimated, close to 30 million of people – ten times larger than even the gigantic 1943 famine in British India."

It seems as though Amartya Sen never said 300,000 people died. http://www.rothschildfostertrust.com/materials/lecture_sen.pdf

iskrabronstein

20th September 2010, 08:07

No, you are not.

Why don't you see a funny contradiction in your way of thinking? Things went "seriously wrong in the ruling party" due to the abandoning of the principles of Marxism-Leninism. This phenomenon is called "revisionism". So how can you be against revisionism and anti-revisionism at the same time?

My point is that the political line of ruling party called Leninism, that originated from the revolutionary practice was correct in its theoretical principles and practical application. It was proved to be correct both in pre-revolutionary period and during the stages of building a base of socialism. Basically, this political line contained the necessity of struggle with opportunism and revisionism within the ruling party. On the practical level, it is known that power mean privileges and may attract individuals who wants to take advantage of that. This phenomenon is known as opportunism. Those people constitute a real danger for the socialist society, as they can be easily "bought" by another political option.

That is why the systematic and periodical verification of ruling party membership (so called "purge") is essential as the Leninist solution to the problem of opportunism. Answer for yourself - how many verifications of party membership were carried on in late period of existence of real socialism? This could give us some sort of appreciation of the political line of the ruling party.

Yes, this observation is correct. But I will make a different conclusion out of that. It is based on 2 assumptions: (1) Modern society cannot exist without what you called "bureaucracy" due to the complexity of the division of labor (2) Political power (any kind) is always accompanied by privileges and a danger of opportunism.

The conclusion is that knowing that 2 limitations, we organize the society in such way to minimize the negative impact of those phenomena. It is possible by the agreement within the class oriented organization - expressed in the political line of struggle against that.

This is nonsense. Your argument is based entirely on qualifying categories according to ideology within a homogeneous, ostensibly proletarian society, when as a Marxist you should know that political interests are at heart representative of antagonistic social interests. The existence of a governing layer or system to coordinate the efforts of the workers' state is by no means necessarily degenerative, but when it exists not as a participatory democracy but as an unresponsive, disorganized apparatus attempting to coordinate the economy with politically subordinated regional bodies, it is bound to failure. This structural failure was representative of the weakness of the proletariat as a class after the close of the Civil War - other comrades have before noted the increasing centralization over political administration and flooding of the governing party with recruits in search of privilege.

This social layer were not workers - they did not work. They governed. The clarity of the historical record that the administration of the Soviet state was far less centrally administered than many accounts would have, combined with the self-purging nature of the ruling party, only serves to validate the claim that the degenerative aspect of the Soviet Union was part of its socio-economic framework, a genuine social interest with distinct political aims.

The bureaucracy, nebulous as it was in composition and political tendency, formed a social layer that had a vested interest in the continued political disengagement of the proletariat. They were a new ruling class.

This degeneration was not necessary or predetermined by economic forces, but neither was it simply the result of a wrong ideological interpretation by political leadership. It represented a definite trend of social progress, one that was pointed out by Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Bukharin, even Stalin. The answer to this degeneration could perhaps have lain in more public hearing for party politics in policy debate, more open party proceedings aimed at engaging the mass of the growing but as yet politically immature proletariat into the business of government, and economic growth investment geared at a proportional mixture of consumer and heavy industry development - this would have spurred capital extraction rates from the private sector of the Soviet economy into the public, allowing for incremental increases in the industrialisation rate of the economy.

Which, ironically, constitutes the main bulk of the Left Opposition's program.

pranabjyoti

20th September 2010, 12:58

Amartya Sen was the economist who said only 1.5 million Indians died as a result of British policy, and then later revised the total to around 3 million. I admit that my original use of Amartya Sen's 3 million figure was wrong, but so is your use of Amartya Sen's 300,000 figure.

Edit: I agree with some of Amartya Sen's conclusions, specifically as said by Noam Chomsky

He observes that India and China had "similarities that were quite striking" when development planning began 50 years ago, including death rates. "But there is little doubt that as far as morbidity, mortality and longevity are concerned, China has a large and decisive lead over India" (in education and other social indicators as well). In both cases, the outcomes have to do with the "ideological predispositions" of the political systems: for China, relatively equitable distribution of medical resources, including rural health services and public distribution of food, all lacking in India.

And also, in the words of Amartya Sen, "The Chinese famines of 1958-61 killed, it is now estimated, close to 30 million of people – ten times larger than even the gigantic 1943 famine in British India."

It seems as though Amartya Sen never said 300,000 people died. http://www.rothschildfostertrust.com/materials/lecture_sen.pdf
As far as I can recall, he had said it on a TV interview in India, and there he clearly mentioned 300,000. We, the Indians who have little acquittance with his political view, know well about his dubious character. But, I don't have any idea it's such an extent. Perhaps, with such pieces, he is probably paying the debt of his noble prize.
But, what stuns me is his source of information. As per him and you, the "authoritarian" :crying: governments tend to suppress fact, but what is the source of such facts. The source of "Stalinist" atrocities is the "documents" revealed during the Gorbachev era, specially like the Katyn "massacre" and etc etc kind of BS.
But, actually what Mr. Sen failed to explain that WHY WITH SUCH A LEGACY OF DEMOCRACY, WHICH MR. SEN HAS PRAISED SO MUCH, 80% INDIANS TODAY HAVE TO LIVE WITH JUST US$1/2 PER DAY, A MISERABLE AMOUNT EVERYBODY CAN UNDERSTAND AND WHY FROM 1949 ONWARDS, CHINA CONTINUED TO HAVE A HIGHER GDP AND LESS SOCIAL INEQUALITY THAN "DEMOCRATIC" INDIA.
Actually, I want to thank you to give source of such a writing which can reveal his dubious character so well. We know about that but don't have any idea that it's such an extent. To serve the imperialists, he just reduced the number of Indians who died in man-made famines during the WWII by 50%.
You may be satisfied with publications from the Rockefeller Institute, but to me its like depending on a "Stalinist" source to know about USA.

Kiev Communard

20th September 2010, 14:28

RadioRaheem84

20th September 2010, 16:47

Kiev Communard

20th September 2010, 17:19

1 million in the Gulags? Repression victims include deaths? 9 Million?

Most of this probably happened during WWII. What was the cause for the severe repression according to the authors of the book? All counter revolutionary dissidents?

Also, did 12 million really die under Yeltsin? That sounds like a lot of people.

The numbers of victims of Yeltsin and Putin regime include the people who died due to the deterioration of health care system, spread of alcoholism, aided and abetted by the state, and the criminal violence. Most of the victims are from the province, and are therefore ignored by Neo-Liberal media. Don't forget also several dozen thousands victims of two wars in Chechnya, and about 2000 victims of 3 October 1993 coup d'etat - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_constitutional_crisis_of_1993

Tavarisch_Mike

20th September 2010, 18:45

M-26-7

20th September 2010, 19:41

Im no friend of gulags, but frome what i know, to compare them towards the nazis koncentration camps is a clear exaggeration. Anyway i think taht they have been taken out frome theire context, during theire existence didnt most countries have prison sentence with hard labour, or penal survitude and was the gulags so much worse then them? But either sucks.

GULAG camps did not have gas chambers or intentional starvation, and when people in GULAG camps died, it was usually by privation or exposure to the elements during work. Cruel camp guards certainly did exist, and inmates were killed by guard shootings (the NKVD archives show that many of the guards who shot prisoners were later punished; on the other hand, many were deemed to have shot prisoners with good justification, such as they were trying to "escape", sometimes even when this was extremely dubious.)

In short, to compare Nazi death camps with Soviet GULAG camps would be preposterous. Then again, I rarely hear a leftist make any such comparison. More often they compare GULAG denial with holocaust denial, which is an entirely different comparison to make than actually comparing the two types of camps themselves. To say that the two types of denial are equivalent simply means that you think the weight of historical and documentary evidence in favor of the existence of both kinds of camps is roughly equal. And that is a claim which I think you could make a good case for.

I think the most appropriate question, rather than whether the GULAG camps were better than or equal to the Nazi death camps, or whether the GULAG camps were better than or equal to convict labor conditions in capitalist countries, is whether the GULAG camps are something worth fighting for from the perspective of working people now living under capitalism.

RadioRaheem84

20th September 2010, 20:58

Were the Gulags seperate from the prinson system?

Kiev Communard

20th September 2010, 21:07

Were the Gulags seperate from the prinson system?

No, all of them constituted the integral parts of united "penitentiary system". Even now modern convict labour institutions in Russia and Ukraine are vaguely based on GULAG patterns.

bie

20th September 2010, 21:44

1 million in the Gulags? Repression victims include deaths? 9 Million?

Most of this probably happened during WWII. What was the cause for the severe repression according to the authors of the book? All counter revolutionary dissidents?
Here are the data (from the non-communist source)
78247825
We can see that in the period of 20 years 1934-1953, there was 1 113 829 deaths, out of which 668 302 (almost 60%) happened during the war time, that can be understood by the harsh war conditions (20 000 000 Soviet citizens perished during the war).

In the years 1934-1938, less than 15% of all convicts were punished for the counterrevolutionary crimes (58th paragraph). The rest were criminals sentenced for "ordinary" but also very serious crimes like murder or rape.

Interestingly, for the whole period of 1917-1991, there was no more than 900 000 cases of application of 58th paragraph.This is the number of recently "rehabilitated" by Russian courts on the request of anticommunist organization "Memorial". The "rehabilitation" was based entirely on formal principles. It was sufficient to be charged from this article to be rehabilitated. It is known that many Nazi collaborators and people who were making execution on civilians while collaborating with Nazis were rehabilitated. It is also known that many names appear on the list of "Memorial" more than once and that this association placed on its lists names of the people charged and released immediately as "victims of communism". Here you have "millions of victims of communism"!

Therefore the number of 9 000 000 is taken from the moon.

I think the most appropriate question, rather than whether the GULAG camps were better than or equal to the Nazi death camps, or whether the GULAG camps were better than or equal to convict labor conditions in capitalist countries, is whether the GULAG camps are something worth fighting for from the perspective of working people now living under capitalism
This question is irrelevant. It is obvious that the Soviet prison system was the creation of very concrete circumstances that will not repeat anymore. But it is also obvious that the prison system has to exist if we like it or not , regardless of the fact if we are living in capitalism or in socialism. And of course the prison system will take different forms, depending on the country. Socialist society cannot tolerate ordinary criminals nor counterrevolutionary bandits.

Comparing Nazi death camps, that served as the means of the physical extermination of whole nations to the Soviet prison system, that acted on the similar principles as prison systems in any other country is the part of the bourgeoisie, right wing campaign that aims in the relativization and whitewashing of Nazi crimes and blaming the communism in order to find the justification for the future prosecution of communists and other revolutionaries in their fight against imperialism.

Kiev Communard

20th September 2010, 22:09

Therefore the number of 9 000 000 is taken from the moon.

The number of 7-9 million "excessive unnatural deaths not caused by the WW II" was suggested by your ideological compatriots, not by me. I've simply used their data. Also note that these numbers include all the victims of all famines in Stalin's times, while you listed only GULAG and 1937-1939 Purges victims, so the data I cited are not very unreasonable.

bie

20th September 2010, 22:22

The number of 7-9 million "excessive unnatural deaths not caused by the WW II" was suggested by your ideological compatriots, not by me. I've simply used their data. Also note that these numbers include all the victims of all famines in Stalin's times, while you listed only GULAG and 1937-1939 Purges victims, so the data I cited are not very unreasonable.
I would be very skeptical about that, until I see documentation. Can you tell more about this book and the estimates (including sources)?

pranabjyoti

21st September 2010, 02:19

Kiev Communard

21st September 2010, 08:11

I would be very skeptical about that, until I see documentation. Can you tell more about this book and the estimates (including sources)?

If you speak/read Russian, I may post you a link - http://depositfiles.com/ru/files/i3xnvpx6f

Kiev Communard

21st September 2010, 08:12

Who are those "ideological compatriots"?

Algoritm Publishing, which is known for the Stalinist views of its editorial stuff and which has published a lot of vageuly "Left-Stalinist" books.

bie

21st September 2010, 23:31

If you speak/read Russian, I may post you a link - http://depositfiles.com/ru/files/i3xnvpx6f (http://www.anonym.to/?http://depositfiles.com/ru/files/i3xnvpx6f)
Thank you. As far as I understood, authors refer to that estimate as made by anticommunists (p. 48). The purpose for mentioning that was that even when we consider the estimates of "unnatural deaths" made by anticommunists they are 2-3 times smaller than estimates of similar cases under Yeltsin - Putin regime. Correct me If I am wrong.

Apart from that, I think that the line "imperialism committed more crimes" is the last line of defense. Rather than that the whole concept of alleged "crimes of communism" has to be challenged. Communists did not commit "crimes". There is nothing "criminal" in communist theory or communist practice.

Kiev Communard

22nd September 2010, 13:18

Thank you. As far as I understood, authors refer to that estimate as made by anticommunists (p. 48). The purpose for mentioning that was that even when we consider the estimates of "unnatural deaths" made by anticommunists they are 2-3 times smaller than estimates of similar cases under Yeltsin - Putin regime. Correct me If I am wrong.

But they acknowledge the fact of the repressions and the estimates on p. 48 (of 7-9 million deaths) are theirs, not those of anticommunists (who tend to use the numbers close to 60 million, which has nothing to do with reality).

RadioRaheem84

22nd September 2010, 15:59

No, all of them constituted the integral parts of united "penitentiary system". Even now modern convict labour institutions in Russia and Ukraine are vaguely based on GULAG patterns.

So, it was basically the prison system in the USSR? So are anti-communists including non-political prisoners in their stats? Are they also counting right wing collaborators with the fascists during war time where the numbers swelled?

I mean the situation seems like an opportunity to swell numbers to make the USSR look absolutely abysmal and beyond repute. There was a problem I agree but I highly doubt it was on the verge of Nazi Germany.

Kiev Communard

23rd September 2010, 10:13

So, it was basically the prison system in the USSR? So are anti-communists including non-political prisoners in their stats? Are they also counting right wing collaborators with the fascists during war time where the numbers swelled?

I mean the situation seems like an opportunity to swell numbers to make the USSR look absolutely abysmal and beyond repute. There was a problem I agree but I highly doubt it was on the verge of Nazi Germany.

The anti-communists do include the criminal prisoners in their estimates, but the fact that political prisoners made up (in 1930s) about one third of total prisoners of GULAG does not diminish the still extreme scope of political repressions. Also note that the repressions did nothing to stop the collaborationists in the occupied territories from co-operating with the Nazis - in fact, most of those collaborationists were opportunistic NKVD informers in the 1930s!

Besides, many criminal prisoners were charged with only the minor offences, while still being sentenced to the unreasonably high sentences (5-7 years of hard labour for petty theft from kolkhoz field, for instance).

Barry Lyndon

23rd September 2010, 18:31

Besides, many criminal prisoners were charged with only the minor offences, while still being sentenced to the unreasonably high sentences (5-7 years of hard labour for petty theft from kolkhoz field, for instance).

Yes, it is interesting that none of the Stalinists have even to bothered to address Kleber's point that many of the 'criminals' were peasants who were sent to the gulag for 'stealing' individual pieces of grain(!) under the Law_of_Spikelets.

Lenin, indeed also used terror against the peasantry, but it was specifically targeting the parasitical kulaks, as his 'Hanging Order' demonstrates. Stalin basically labeled any peasant who resisted his policies, rich or poor, as a 'kulak'. This is the definition of collective punishment. I hardly see this kind of behavior worthy of a regime that claimed to be on the side of the workers and peasants.

bie

24th September 2010, 14:45

But they acknowledge the fact of the repressions and the estimates on p. 48 (of 7-9 million deaths) are theirs, not those of anticommunists (who tend to use the numbers close to 60 million, which has nothing to do with reality).
As far as I understood those estimates are made by paid anticommunists (e.g. Roy Medvedev). But there are of course absurd estimates as well. I consider that number to be unreasonably high.

Besides, many criminal prisoners were charged with only the minor offences, while still being sentenced to the unreasonably high sentences (5-7 years of hard labour for petty theft from kolkhoz field, for instance).
Thievery from kolkhozes was not a minor offense but a major one, in the situation of low level of agricultural production causing shortages of food and famines. Disrespect for the social property and creation of the black market were the reason for the low agricultural inputs that effected the distribution of foodstuff in all the country. Therefore in was something more than just "minor offense". Thievery from kolkhoz'es was a plague. Peasants were not accustomed with other production than privately owned, and in the conditions of the bigger demand over supply, significant amount of its production ended up in the black market. Therefore theft from the kolkhozes was a domestic crime, that, when cumulated, significantly effected the the whole society by the decrease food supply. It can be understood why the severe punishment was introduced to fight with that type of crimes.

Yes, it is interesting that none of the Stalinists have even to bothered to address Kleber's point that many of the 'criminals' were peasants who were sent to the gulag for 'stealing' individual pieces of grain(!) under the Law_of_Spikelets.

Lenin, indeed also used terror against the peasantry, but it was specifically targeting the parasitical kulaks, as his 'Hanging Order' demonstrates. Stalin basically labeled any peasant who resisted his policies, rich or poor, as a 'kulak'. This is the definition of collective punishment. I hardly see this kind of behavior worthy of a regime that claimed to be on the side of the workers and peasants.
I am afraid that theft (as well as other crimes) is a punishable in any society and it would be even in Trots paradise. If one allows the thieves to go and act freely, there will be nothing left from the social property and one will end up in the circulation of goods on the black market only (that was always the issue). Barry Lyndon confuses here revolution in the countryside against peasants capitalists (kulaks) and the struggle against domestic crimes.

Another contradiction in the way of thinking of Trots and other ultra-lefts: when there are shortages and famines - it was all the communists fault. When communists took essential steps to fight domestic crime in order to increase food supply - this was "fight with peasantry"! This is incredible example of lack of sense of reality and common ignorance.

I am a Leninist myself

The bureaucracy, nebulous as it was in composition and political tendency, formed a social layer that had a vested interest in the continued political disengagement of the proletariat. They were a new ruling class.
Please explain to us how Leninist is a statement of "bureaucracy as a new social class". Where and when Lenin wrote that sort of "theory"?

pranabjyoti

24th September 2010, 15:32

Yes, it is interesting that none of the Stalinists have even to bothered to address Kleber's point that many of the 'criminals' were peasants who were sent to the gulag for 'stealing' individual pieces of grain(!) under the Law_of_Spikelets.

Lenin, indeed also used terror against the peasantry, but it was specifically targeting the parasitical kulaks, as his 'Hanging Order' demonstrates. Stalin basically labeled any peasant who resisted his policies, rich or poor, as a 'kulak'. This is the definition of collective punishment. I hardly see this kind of behavior worthy of a regime that claimed to be on the side of the workers and peasants.
Barry, sorry to say, but this post reflects the basic misunderstanding of Marxism of you (and many like you). Basically, the initial stage of socialism i.e. the dictatorship of proletariat is dictatorship of workers, NOT PEASANTS AND OTHER "POOR" PETTY-BOURGEOISIE SECTION OF SOCIETY.
I have discussed the class nature of petty-bourgeoisie in many of my posts and I don't want to repeat. Just for your information, Mao himself on an interview with Edgar Snow, clearly stated that "every peasant dreams to be a bourgeoisie". To me, Lenin sent the "kulaks" to Gulag and Stalin sent the "would be kulaks" to Gulag. Peasants may be poor, but they were deeply submerged in backward ideas and ideologies. Do you know that "millions' of peasant women had been killed or highly injured due to the brutality of their own family-men, mainly husbands. After revolution, the reactionary classes spread the rumor that "Bolsheviks will confiscate all private property" and to the most of "poor" peasants, whom you and others are advocating so loudly, women are nothing but "property for sexual enjoyment" and they just want to squeeze out all enjoyment out of them before the confiscation of this property. A large section of the "poor" peasants strongly opposed collectivization, without which there would be no USSR and probably no you and me.
Just try to understand that being "poor" doesn't make one above every judgment. "Poor" people can certainly degrade, can go against their own class interest and this is highly possible with petty-bourgeoisie mentality, a self centered class ideology.
Moreover, USSR itself was a backward nation and the level of technological development of the whole world is much less below in comparison to today. Therefore, educating people at that time isn't so easy as we think sitting before our own PC. The "criticism" of Stalin by you and others often sounds like "Alexander is an autocratic emperor, not democratic".

bie

24th September 2010, 16:19

Only a person with a limited imagination can state that the severe punishment for the theft of goods from kolkhoz were directed against peasantry. It was the law invented in order to protect the peasantry from food shortages caused by the stealing of fruits of their work.

Kiev Communard

24th September 2010, 17:39

Peasants may be poor, but they were deeply submerged in backward ideas and ideologies.

Just try to understand that being "poor" doesn't make one above every judgment. "Poor" people can certainly degrade, can go against their own class interest and this is highly possible with petty-bourgeoisie mentality, a self centered class ideology.

You sound rather elitist here. I doubt that such a view of peasantry is really constructive, especially as pertains India. The fact that peasants are backward doesn't mean they should be deprived of the right to voice their grievances and influence agricultural policies as this is they who produce this field's goods. Your argument is pretty much close to the liberal intelligentsia's idea that proletarians are "backward and right-wing", having "self-centered class ideology", and should not be trusted.

Kiev Communard

24th September 2010, 17:41

bie

24th September 2010, 18:22

It would be nice to tell these to the kolkhoz members punished under such a law.
Well, if they were not stealing, they wouldn't be punished.

pranabjyoti

24th September 2010, 18:30

You sound rather elitist here. I doubt that such a view of peasantry is really constructive, especially as pertains India. The fact that peasants are backward doesn't mean they should be deprived of the right to voice their grievances and influence agricultural policies as this is they who produce this field's goods. Your argument is pretty much close to the liberal intelligentsia's idea that proletarians are "backward and right-wing", having "self-centered class ideology", and should not be trusted.
I never meant to deprive any class from voicing their grievances. I just want to mean that due to their lack of understanding and their backward mentality, they may stand beside the same society and social structure, that's the root cause of their poverty. The real fact is collectivization certainly increased the income and life standard of peasants by increasing their productivity with introduction of modern machinery and methods in agriculture, but initially a lot of peasants opposed the collectivization. Do you think just being poor, they are right regarding opposing the collectivization?
From Marx to Mao, all our leaders had discussed the peasant issue very cautiously and carefully. I am requesting you to go through those classic literature before calling me "elitist" or something like that.

Barry Lyndon

24th September 2010, 19:58

I am afraid that theft (as well as other crimes) is a punishable in any society and it would be even in Trots paradise. If one allows the thieves to go and act freely, there will be nothing left from the social property and one will end up in the circulation of goods on the black market only (that was always the issue). Barry Lyndon confuses here revolution in the countryside against peasants capitalists (kulaks) and the struggle against domestic crimes.

Another contradiction in the way of thinking of Trots and other ultra-lefts: when there are shortages and famines - it was all the communists fault. When communists took essential steps to fight domestic crime in order to increase food supply - this was "fight with peasantry"! This is incredible example of lack of sense of reality and common ignorance.

Please explain to us how Leninist is a statement of "bureaucracy as a new social class". Where and when Lenin wrote that sort of "theory"?

Uhm, I actually very specifically noted the difference between Lenin's policy of explicitly targeting exploitative peasants and other criminals, and Stalin's punishment against the peasantry as a whole. Something you are incapable of reading, apparently, because in your fantasy world you are either with Stalin 100% or are a 'petty-bourgeois agent', or 'criminal'.

So, you think that shooting starving peasants for taking pieces of grain is an appropriate punishment? Such as champion of the people you are!

And I have never said that all famines in Communist countries 'were all the communists fault'. The Volga famine in 1920-21, for instance, was not Lenin's fault-it was the combined effects of drought, civil war, blockade, and pillaging by the White armies. But the Ukraine famine was different-there was no civil war, and the Soviet Union had in fact restored relations with many countries that had been blockading it about a decade ago(in fact during the famine, the USSR was exporting grain to capitalist countries!). On top of all that, while the Soviet government did not create the famine per se, it exacerbated it by blocking off famine regions with military and secret police(taking special care to post secret police in train stations so that migration to the cities was blocked), in order to punish the entire peasantry for resisting collectivization-which was largely poor peasants defending the land they had won under Lenin's New Economic Policy. The criticism is not of collectivization per se(Trotsky was an early advocate of the policy), but the crude, murderous, and incompetent manner in which it was carried out.

The second quote you attributed to me I don't recall ever making-could you produce the thread in which I said that?

Kiev Communard

24th September 2010, 20:16

From Marx to Mao, all our leaders had discussed the peasant issue very cautiously and carefully. I am requesting you to go through those classic literature before calling me "elitist" or something like that.

I am familiar with Marxist literature on peasants' question but what we are discussing now is real practice of Soviet-type nations as regards peasantry, irrespective of the official stances of their governing structures that claimed to be "Marxist".

bie

24th September 2010, 20:25

Uhm, I actually very specifically noted the difference between Lenin's policy of explicitly targeting exploitative peasants and other criminals, and Stalin's punishment against the peasantry as a whole
It is so absurd claim that it is unbelievable. In the years 1928-1950 peasantry experience the biggest economic, social and cultural progress in the history of that part of the world. "Punishment of peasantry" - you must be joking!

So, you think that shooting starving peasants for taking pieces of grain is an appropriate punishment? Such as champion of the people you are!
Another false remark. The punishment for stealing grain was 5-7 years of imprisonment and not "a bullet". By the way it is another example of your anticommunist rhetorics - putting entirely false statements in the middle of the sentence.

I am sure that you would prefer it, but it was not. Thieves were not stealing grain from kolkhozes because they were hungry, but in order to sell it on the black market. And this was, especially in a situation of food shortage, a criminal behavior.

On top of all that, while the Soviet government did not create the famine per se, it exacerbated it by blocking off famine regions with military and secret police(taking special care to post secret police in train stations so that migration to the cities was blocked), in order to punish the entire peasantry for resisting collectivization-which was largely poor peasants defending the land they had won under Lenin's New Economic Policy.
These are lies that were actually invented by Nazis in order to discredit Soviets on Ukraine and justify German colonial ambitions to those lands. There was no "human made famine in Ukraine" - that even anticommunist powers had to admit (Walerij Soldatenko).

In fact only small part of peasantry resisted collectivization, mainly those who were hiring labor for profit. The accelerated tempo that lead sometimes to use administrative measures was forced by the necessity of rapid industrialization.

The second quote you attributed to me I don't recall ever making-could you produce the thread in which I said that?
It is not my fault that you don't know what are you writing. Here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1869819&postcount=140), third paragraph. I am waiting for your explanation.

Kiev Communard

24th September 2010, 20:53

Thieves were not stealing grain from kolkhozes because they were hungry, but in order to sell it on the black market.

I am sorry but in the 1930s the black market in Ukraine was almost completely eliminated (it returned during the War), so the "thieves" were "stealing" merely some pieces of grain to increase their diet, not the large quanitities thereof to sell it on (at that time nonexistent) black market.

cska

24th September 2010, 21:07

I read the title and decided to take a look for the lulz. I'm astounded by the civility in this thread, considering its topic. :blink: :blink: :blink:

bie

24th September 2010, 21:26

I am sorry but in the 1930s the black market in Ukraine was almost completely eliminated (it returned during the War), so the "thieves" were "stealing" merely some pieces of grain to increase their diet, not the large quanitities thereof to sell it on (at that time nonexistent) black market.
I would be skeptical if it was completely eliminated, but even reduction of the scale of the black market was rather a success of the communist authorities. We can say that this sort of legislation "did its job".

My point is that we may speculate that without such measures, the scale of food shortages and its consequences would be much higher.

I read the title and decided to take a look for the lulz. I'm astounded by the civility in this thread, considering its topic
There is nothing strange in it. You expect communists to by civilized, isn't it?

Barry Lyndon

24th September 2010, 22:06

It is not my fault that you don't know what are you writing. Here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1869819&postcount=140), third paragraph. I am waiting for your explanation.

It's not my fault that you don't know what you are reading. That was written by a user by the name 'iskrabronstien', not Barry Lyndon. I am waiting for your apology, liar.

I'll respond to your other points later when I have the time and energy to do so.

bie

24th September 2010, 22:15

It's not my fault that you don't know what you are reading. That was written by a user by the name 'iskrabronstien', not Barry Lyndon. I am waiting for your apology, liar.
OK, sorry, this guy had the same profile picture. It wasn't really intentional, so you shouldn't call me "liar"/

KlÃ©ber

25th September 2010, 04:40

Well, if they were not stealing, they wouldn't be punished.
Gleaning for unharvested pieces of grain is not stealing. It's a centuries-old, accepted practice of the agricultural poor; it was a cultural tradition for centuries to let hungry people glean the fields after harvest during times of starvation. Gleaners were not kulaks, they were the poorest of the poor.

Unless of course you believe the Maoist bullshit that class is determined by ancestry rather than relation to the means of production, and thus a person who was once a "bad class element" or "black category," or one of whose parents or grandparents was one, should receive a bad "class label" and be shot or actively discriminated against along with their descendants.

If a capitalist state executed gleaners and petty thieves to crack down on "lazy peasants and wreckers" would you support that as a progressive initiative to boost the economy? Who knows, maybe you would, since you do after all support a regime that repressed your people and shot down Polish workers in the streets (even before the dark day when "revisionism" began).

These stalinite dinosaurs are really something else. I did not think it was possible for me to hate stalinism any more until I read these disgusting elitist remarks against farmers from the self-professed bushwhacking third-world guerrillas in this thread.

pranabjyoti

25th September 2010, 07:46

I am familiar with Marxist literature on peasants' question but what we are discussing now is real practice of Soviet-type nations as regards peasantry, irrespective of the official stances of their governing structures that claimed to be "Marxist".
If so, then why don't you understand that how the petty-bourgeoisie individualistic nature of peasants were disrupting the progress in agriculture of USSR at that time? The behavior of the peasants is perfectly in accordance with Marxist analysis of character of peasants. You and many other other just don't understand that after revolution, class struggle will still exist, it exists between workers and petty-bourgeoisie section. And a state with "dictatorship of proletariat" will retain most of the oppressive character of other class based societies, because class struggle still will be there.

Kiev Communard

25th September 2010, 09:00

And a state with "dictatorship of proletariat" will retain most of the oppressive character of other class based societies, because class struggle still will be there.

But you leave out of account the fact that the purpose of the DoTP is to enact the measures to abolish the classes, not to somehow "re-organise" them.

pranabjyoti

25th September 2010, 12:48

But you leave out of account the fact that the purpose of the DoTP is to enact the measures to abolish the classes, not to somehow "re-organise" them.
Before the abolistion, they must be controlled. How do you think that those classes will happily agree to be abolished, wouldn't they resist with full force? And where I have mentioned re-organizing of classes instead of establishing a classless society.

Barry Lyndon

25th September 2010, 16:21

OK, sorry, this guy had the same profile picture. It wasn't really intentional, so you shouldn't call me "liar"/

Oh, I'm sorry. I must have lost track of how many times you have called me a liar. Forgive me if I think your misquoting of me was not in good faith.

Barry Lyndon

25th September 2010, 16:24

If so, then why don't you understand that how the petty-bourgeoisie individualistic nature of peasants were disrupting the progress in agriculture of USSR at that time? The behavior of the peasants is perfectly in accordance with Marxist analysis of character of peasants. You and many other other just don't understand that after revolution, class struggle will still exist, it exists between workers and petty-bourgeoisie section. And a state with "dictatorship of proletariat" will retain most of the oppressive character of other class based societies, because class struggle still will be there.

Peasants trying to feed themselves is evidence of their 'petty-bourgeoisie individualistic nature'? It's called a survival instinct. Is breathing also 'petty-bourgeois individualism'?

You hardline Stalinists are disgusting. Hopefully we'll never have people like you within ten miles of any position of power ever again.

pranabjyoti

25th September 2010, 17:08

Peasants trying to feed themselves is evidence of their 'petty-bourgeoisie individualistic nature'? It's called a survival instinct. Is breathing also 'petty-bourgeois individualism'?

You hardline Stalinists are disgusting. Hopefully we'll never have people like you within ten miles of any position of power ever again.
Everybody is trying to feed themselves, even petty thieves and gangsters. But, the question is how? You can not kill anybody just to fend your family. In short, I don't believe that peasants were sent to Gulag just for collecting dropped grains from the field. I strongly suspect that they were punished for opposing the collectivization or probably they just turned into lumpen activities.

KlÃ©ber

25th September 2010, 18:04

Everybody is trying to feed themselves, even petty thieves and gangsters. But, the question is how? You can not kill anybody just to fend your family.
Gleaners not only did not kill anybody, they did not rob anybody either. And if there were petty thieves and gangsters it should have been recognized as a byproduct of lingering capitalist social relations, rather than a reason to brutally crack down on suspected "lumpen" elements.

I don't believe that peasants were sent to Gulag just for collecting dropped grains from the field. I strongly suspect that they were punished for opposing the collectivization or probably they just turned into lumpen activities.Of course, according to the Stalinist regime and its executioners, by "eating for free" they were in fact sabotaging the Soviet economy and damaging grain production. This is similar to the cynical logic that bourgeois states use to justify the exploitation and brutalization of working people. The capitalist People's Republic of China government, for example, when it breaks up a protest or strike, typically refers to the working people involved as rampaging "lumpen elements."

People were indeed punished for gleaning under the Soviet law, enacted August 7 1932, "About protection of the property of state enterprises, kolkhozes and cooperatives, and strengthening of the public (socialist) property." Of course gleaning is as you say "lumpen activity." If poor people are conducting "lumpen activities" then the state should try to remedy their situation instead of crying "WRECKERS!" and shooting some dirt-poor gleaners.

This is why the Stalinist claim to have built "socialism" is so disgusting - it was used as an excuse to execute petty "criminals" of worker and farmer origin, because supposedly there could not be anyone stealing or gleaning to feed themselves or their family in socialism - such "thieves," absent a social excuse for their crime, had to be spies or wreckers deliberately trying to weaken the Soviet power by eating for free when they had no food or money. Never mind the fact that these people were actually starving to death.. how could there be hunger or scarcity in socialism? How dare they rain on our socialist parade with their starving, their gleaning, their greedy, lazy eating for free?

Such horrendous logic of power shows the great social divide between the parasite bureaucracy and the working people, which happened before 1956 - did Khrushchev ever order the Soviet police to shoot and enslave poor people who went around eating scraps of food off the ground? Something tells me you would rage about it and consider this the greatest sin of "Khrushchev revisionism" if it happened.

And from the negrep comment:

What a deep understanding of Maoism
So are you denying the historically-documented fact that Mao's party turned class labeling into a feudal-style form of hereditary privilege which lasted until 1976 in which the richest and most powerful people (the CPC leadership caste) got the best "worker" labels on their papers while the unlucky "black categories" and "capitalists" (none of whom owned any factories or businesses) were discriminated against, given the worst jobs and sent to labor camps?

pranabjyoti

26th September 2010, 08:09

Gleaners not only did not kill anybody, they did not rob anybody either. And if there were petty thieves and gangsters it should have been recognized as a byproduct of lingering capitalist social relations, rather than a reason to brutally crack down on suspected "lumpen" elements.

Of course, according to the Stalinist regime and its executioners, by "eating for free" they were in fact sabotaging the Soviet economy and damaging grain production. This is similar to the cynical logic that bourgeois states use to justify the exploitation and brutalization of working people. The capitalist People's Republic of China government, for example, when it breaks up a protest or strike, typically refers to the working people involved as rampaging "lumpen elements."

People were indeed punished for gleaning under the Soviet law, enacted August 7 1932, "About protection of the property of state enterprises, kolkhozes and cooperatives, and strengthening of the public (socialist) property." Of course gleaning is as you say "lumpen activity." If poor people are conducting "lumpen activities" then the state should try to remedy their situation instead of crying "WRECKERS!" and shooting some dirt-poor gleaners.
WONDERFUL STORY. Kindly try to sell it to any film Director like the B***ard Andre Weijda or some like him from Poland, Hungary, Romania or anywhere else. I am sure it will get some prize in any film festival.
If you ask me, I want to say that if people in the USSR had been sent to Gulag just for gleaning, it wouldn't stand just 5 months before Nazi attack. Wavering Red Flag in the Berlin would be far cry.
Now, I strongly suspect that there must be some trot brains behind the "award winning" films of 80's.

This is why the Stalinist claim to have built "socialism" is so disgusting - it was used as an excuse to execute petty "criminals" of worker and farmer origin, because supposedly there could not be anyone stealing or gleaning to feed themselves or their family in socialism - such "thieves," absent a social excuse for their crime, had to be spies or wreckers deliberately trying to weaken the Soviet power by eating for free when they had no food or money. Never mind the fact that these people were actually starving to death.. how could there be hunger or scarcity in socialism? How dare they rain on our socialist parade with their starving, their gleaning, their greedy, lazy eating for free?

Such horrendous logic of power shows the great social divide between the parasite bureaucracy and the working people, which happened before 1956 - did Khrushchev ever order the Soviet police to shoot and enslave poor people who went around eating scraps of food off the ground? Something tells me you would rage about it and consider this the greatest sin of "Khrushchev revisionism" if it happened.
So, as per you the the Khrushchevite regime is better than the Stalinist Regime. I just wonder, why so much people from other European countries flocked to USSR during the 30's for better jobs and working conditions.
During the initial phase of USSR, most knew that there were shortages of food, but most also knew the reasons, the kulaks and their associates.
Now, you are making new stories (not too much new, who are accustomed with imperialist propaganda) that gleaners had been sent to Gulag just to show that there is no hungry people in the STALINIST REGIME. Another wonderful cinematic story. I am sure Hollywood will grab such idea. Though it seems that this will be too much for them to digest.

And from the negrep comment:

So are you denying the historically-documented fact that Mao's party turned class labeling into a feudal-style form of hereditary privilege which lasted until 1976 in which the richest and most powerful people (the CPC leadership caste) got the best "worker" labels on their papers while the unlucky "black categories" and "capitalists" (none of whom owned any factories or businesses) were discriminated against, given the worst jobs and sent to labor camps?
The historically documented facts running inside trot brains. Now, can you tell me who are those "unlucky" people, anti-state capitalists?

KlÃ©ber

26th September 2010, 08:28

So, as per you the the Khrushchevite regime is better than the Stalinist Regime
No, it was just less repressive. Khrushchev was not some kind of "nice guy" - Stalin had simply already done him a favor by wiping out the proletarian opposition to bureaucratic rule. Khrushchev was not a "bastard" either simply because he blamed the crimes of his own social caste on Stalin... Stalin had once denounced Yezhov as his scapegoat for the purges after all.

I just wonder, why so much people from other European countries flocked to USSR during the 30's for better jobs and working conditions.Yeah, for some reason they stopped coming after 1937. Something about tending to get shot on false charges of treason.

The murder of communist refugees by the Stalinist bureaucracy was one of the greatest crimes in the history of the workers' movement. As much as revisionist scum like you would love to erase their memory, comrades like Bela Kun, Lovett Fort-Whiteman, and Carola Neher still lie beneath the earth, their corpses burning with the demand for justice. Their struggle should never be forgotten and the Stalinist crimes against workers should never be forgiven. These were good communist revolutionaries who sought safety and freedom in the Soviet workers' state, only to be brutally tortured and murdered as "Trotskyites" (which few of them even actually were) by the Stalinist traitors.

During the initial phase of USSR, most knew that there were shortages of food, but most also knew the reasons, the kulaks and their associates.And how did these kulaks get so strong after the land redistribution during the revolution? Stalin's regime had openly encouraged kulaks to get busy exploiting others and making money during the 1920's, Bukharin even advanced the slogan "Enrich yourselves!" so for ten years the government was promoting social differentiation in the countryside and pandering to the kulaks. The resulting agricultural crisis was not foreseen by the bureaucracy but it was predicted and warned against by Trotsky, who advocated collectivization and industrialization from the beginning.

Now, you are making new stories (not too much new, who are accustomed with imperialist propaganda) that gleaners had been sent to Gulag just to show that there is no hungry people in the STALINIST REGIME. Another wonderful cinematic story. I am sure Hollywood will grab such idea. Though it seems that this will be too much for them to digest.Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah!

Jayshin_JTTH

26th September 2010, 12:45

But you leave out of account the fact that the purpose of the DoTP is to enact the measures to abolish the classes, not to somehow "re-organise" them.
"The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won, and maintained, by the use of violence, by the proletariat, against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws." - Lenin

pranabjyoti

26th September 2010, 13:23

No, it was just less repressive. Khrushchev was not some kind of "nice guy" - Stalin had simply already done him a favor by wiping out the proletarian opposition to bureaucratic rule. Khrushchev was not a "bastard" either simply because he blamed the crimes of his own social caste on Stalin... Stalin had once denounced Yezhov as his scapegoat for the purges after all.
Source please.

Yeah, for some reason they stopped coming after 1937. Something about tending to get shot on false charges of treason.
I haven't find such an information in any book including Anna Louis Strong or any other. Do you want to rewrite history.

The murder of communist refugees by the Stalinist bureaucracy was one of the greatest crimes in the history of the workers' movement. As much as revisionist scum like you would love to erase their memory, comrades like Bela Kun, Lovett Fort-Whiteman, and Carola Neher still lie beneath the earth, their corpses burning with the demand for justice. Their struggle should never be forgotten and the Stalinist crimes against workers should never be forgiven. These were good communist revolutionaries who sought safety and freedom in the Soviet workers' state, only to be brutally tortured and murdered as "Trotskyites" (which few of them even actually were) by the Stalinist traitors.
Seems more like novel than history.

And how did these kulaks get so strong after the land redistribution during the revolution? Stalin's regime had openly encouraged kulaks to get busy exploiting others and making money during the 1920's, Bukharin even advanced the slogan "Enrich yourselves!" so for ten years the government was promoting social differentiation in the countryside and pandering to the kulaks. The resulting agricultural crisis was not foreseen by the bureaucracy but it was predicted and warned against by Trotsky, who advocated collectivization and industrialization from the beginning.
If the Bloody Stalinist Regime made the Kulaks stronger, then where do they go after the war? And on whose lands the collectivization and modernization was going on from 1928 onwards? I hope you know that Bukharin too was punished during the "purges". It seems that after dispelling Trotsky, Stalin had continued the policies of Trotsky. In that case, he may be just a "plagiarist", nothing more. Do you admit?
After all, he continued the policies of Trotsky in reality. As Lenin after the revolution continued the policy of Socialist Revolutionaries, which he himself admitted with a smile (Ten Days that Shook the world by John Reed).

Amphictyonis

26th September 2010, 23:30

There are millions of sociopolitical/economic prisoners here in US prisons. Young men as old as 18 being sentenced to 70 years for stealing 500 dollars. Kids in juvenile hall, children of impoverished parents. Police killing people in the streets. America.

pranabjyoti

27th September 2010, 02:08

Uppercut

27th September 2010, 03:09

Let me say this about the so-called "Law of Spikelets": I'm guessing most of you are getting this from the wikipedia article on the subject, which lists Alexander Solzhenistyn and his ever famous "Gulage Archipelago", and Mike Ellman's "Soviet Famine of 1932-1933 Revsited" as sources, of all writings. Other sites I have seen cover this topic give the exact same sources.

Now Kleber, I believe you thanked a post earlier in this same thread that called Solzhenistyn a liar. If you agree that he is a lying scum, why would you defend his false "Law of Spikelets" of all things? Do you honestly believe peasants were shot for gleaning?

The Author

27th September 2010, 04:17

"The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won, and maintained, by the use of violence, by the proletariat, against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws." - Lenin

But, everyone who was victimized was a poor worker, so Lenin was talking out of his ass quite obviously according to the forum experts here. :rolleyes:

After all, the proletariat must never use violence, must never use dictatorship, must never use revolution. It must use "R-R-R-evolution." It must use "democratic socialism," it must believe in "peace." :drool:

Of course, according to the Stalinist regime and its executioners, by "eating for free" they were in fact sabotaging the Soviet economy and damaging grain production. This is similar to the cynical logic that bourgeois states use to justify the exploitation and brutalization of working people. The capitalist People's Republic of China government, for example, when it breaks up a protest or strike, typically refers to the working people involved as rampaging "lumpen elements."

People were indeed punished for gleaning under the Soviet law, enacted August 7 1932, "About protection of the property of state enterprises, kolkhozes and cooperatives, and strengthening of the public (socialist) property." Of course gleaning is as you say "lumpen activity." If poor people are conducting "lumpen activities" then the state should try to remedy their situation instead of crying "WRECKERS!" and shooting some dirt-poor gleaners.

I see, communism is just a "free-for-all" and no one should be hindered, no regulations should be set in the struggle to reach this goal. If this is how you see the potential revolution, thank God you're not leading it because I want no part of your ridiculous utopia. I'd rather live in a society with security and an assuredness of what it can do with rules and regulations to make sure goods and services are used effectively than some shitty collective of communes where everyone steals from everyone because, well, "property is theft" and such other talk.

In socialism, you have shortages, you have problems, you're still stuck in the "realm of necessity" inherent in capitalist and earlier social relations and the "realm of freedom" is not yet possible. You need rules, you need regulations, you need control ("workers control" in whatever form is a subject for a different debate, but you need control) to avoid fuck-ups. People who steal have to be punished. Otherwise they make everyone else starve and thus destroy the system. And this applied to anybody, from workers to managers to bureaucrats to party secretaries. But see, whenever regulations are used, this is "Stalinist oppression." When workers abuse the rules (just because you're a worker doesn't mean you're immune from doing mischief against other members of your class) and were punished, they're called "victims." When bureaucrats were punished, they're called "Old Bolsheviks." Obviously, the lesson to be learned here is that we should stop advocating for a dictatorship of the proletariat, that we should be advocating for a "free for all" instead with no rules, to hell with authoritarian measures, to hell with Lenin and Marx, they lied to us because they were inept intellectuals who were losers in life with absolutely no conception of just what it was the working class would get into when it came to overthrowing capitalism, that we were better off not bothering at all.

You talk about the state "needing to remedy the situation of these poor." Well, gee, trying to create jobs, factories, houses, teaching people to read and write and count, giving them electricity, food, a bed to sleep in, etc., etc., was exactly the whole aim and purpose of this state since its initial conception in 1917. What really disgusts you is the fact that this struggle is hard as hell and fraught with a lot of difficulties, mistakes, problems, and situations, and no one except the most naive is disputing this fact of history. But if you can't accept the fact that this change will be a trying and difficult one, then you're really deluding yourself.

M-26-7

27th September 2010, 04:18

pranabjyoti

27th September 2010, 15:52

Actually executing peasants for stealing is one of the things Stalin did that I agree with. After watching all of Charles Bronson's Death Wish movies I can now see that death is, in fact, too good for petty thieves. This is the proper socialist way to deal with these lumpen scum.
Your whole assumption stands on "Stalin shoot peasants who steal grains just to fend themselves" i.e. they don't have enough grain but enough bullet to shoot poor peasants for petty crimes.
Can anybody educate me about the definition of "ridiculous".

Apoi_Viitor

29th September 2010, 04:14

Your whole assumption stands on "Stalin shoot peasants who steal grains just to fend themselves" i.e. they don't have enough grain but enough bullet to shoot poor peasants for petty crimes.
Can anybody educate me about the definition of "ridiculous".

Ridiculous: an idea or statement that is 'absurd'.

Used in a sentence: Pranabjyot's views are so ridiculous, he actually believes that there wasn't a mass-purging of peasants in Stalinist Russia.

Why was Colonist Britain able to violently oppress the starving Indians? I mean, the Indian Peasants were starving, but the British had bullets for their guns?

Uppercut

29th September 2010, 04:27

Used in a sentence: Pranabjyot's views are so ridiculous, he actually believes that there wasn't a mass-purging of peasants in Stalinist Russia.

Actually, the main purge of the peasantry was under Lenin in 1921. 45 percent of the cadres in the countryside did not meet the criteria for membership and were expelled.

And by the way, purged does not mean that they were automatically shot.

pranabjyoti

29th September 2010, 14:49

Ridiculous: an idea or statement that is 'absurd'.

Used in a sentence: Pranabjyot's views are so ridiculous, he actually believes that there wasn't a mass-purging of peasants in Stalinist Russia.

Why was Colonist Britain able to violently oppress the starving Indians? I mean, the Indian Peasants were starving, but the British had bullets for their guns?
Britain colonized India. They just don't care about Indians. After 1917, who or which had colonized USSR?

chegitz guevara

29th September 2010, 17:39

Why don't you see a funny contradiction in your way of thinking? Things went "seriously wrong in the ruling party" due to the abandoning of the principles of Marxism-Leninism.

This explanation is philosophical idealism. You are saying it was incorrect ideas, rather than concrete material conditions, that led to the collapse of socialism. This is not Marxism.

Furthermore, if socialism is so weak that simply having bad ideas in the leadership will cause it to fall, we should just give up, because we cannot ensure that no one will ever have bad ideas.

chegitz guevara

29th September 2010, 17:46

Well, if they were not stealing, they wouldn't be punished.

They'd just starve to death. Nice choice.

Barry Lyndon

29th September 2010, 18:25

And by the way, purged does not mean that they were automatically shot.

Yes, if they weren't shot they were sent to the gulag, which was a picnic of course.

Uppercut

29th September 2010, 20:52

Yes, if they weren't shot they were sent to the gulag, which was a picnic of course.

I was actually talking about the purge during Lenin's lifetime in the post you quoted. Nice job.

Apoi_Viitor

29th September 2010, 21:25

Britain colonized India. They just don't care about Indians. After 1917, who or which had colonized USSR?

Stalin.

I was actually talking about the purge during Lenin's lifetime in the post you quoted. Nice job.

What purge?

Uppercut

29th September 2010, 22:01

What purge?

http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/PCP21.html
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/sep/20.htm

There's also a paragraph on the 1921 purge here: http://books.google.com/books?id=PbQqdOu3xJUC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=1921+purge&source=bl&ots=s0tS4icvXI&sig=W2H6HVyrcPGkqFbTzinm2V7dloQ&hl=en&ei=UqejTO_XLI6gsQPNuMT6Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=1921%20purge&f=false

About 200,000 members were purged or left the party in 1921. Compare this to the 1929-1930 purge, where only about 10% were expelled. At the same time, the CPSU (B) recruited new members, mostly industrial workers into the party.

pranabjyoti

30th September 2010, 02:10

Stalin.
On behalf of which country or class, he colonized the USSR? The working class, then certainly he had done the greatest job in 20th century. The capitalists? Of which country?
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT COLONIZATION IS? Probably today's Iraq can give you some good idea.

Apoi_Viitor

30th September 2010, 02:32

On behalf of which country or class, he colonized the USSR? The working class, then certainly he had done the greatest job in 20th century. The capitalists? Of which country?
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT COLONIZATION IS? Probably today's Iraq can give you some good idea.

Well of course Stalin didn't colonize Russia (I thought it was quite obvious I only labeled hims as such to illicit a certain response from you), but really does it matter? The point I was making in my original post, was that British colonists cared as much for the well being of the proletariat, as Stalinist Bureaucrats did. They did whatever they could to preserve their power - often the effects of this were negative (what is the commonly accepted death toll of Stalin - 20+ million or so? *He doesn't have shit on Britain, but that's because they've been around longer...) - but Stalin's occasional beneficiary policy was probably implemented by decree of the same motivational forces which pushed Churchill to eventually give some kind of aid to the starving Indian populace - this would be the "Alright take this, just shut the hell up already" factor...

There is no doubt in my mind that Soviet Bureaucrats were well paid - and in possession of guns, bullets, and all kinds of luxuries while the Soviet proletariat starved - just as Britain's colonial forces lived in luxury while the Indian proletariat starved.

Apoi_Viitor

30th September 2010, 02:38

About 200,000 members were purged or left the party in 1921. Compare this to the 1929-1930 purge, where only about 10% were expelled. At the same time, the CPSU (B) recruited new members, mostly industrial workers into the party.

Are we talking about purging as in expelling from the party, or as in killing?

chegitz guevara

30th September 2010, 03:58

http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/PCP21.html

About 200,000 members were purged or left the party in 1921. Compare this to the 1929-1930 purge, where only about 10% were expelled. At the same time, the CPSU (B) recruited new members, mostly industrial workers into the party.

The 1921 purge was to purge the bureaucracy from the Party.

The 1929 purge was to purge the Party for the bureaucracy.

Barry Lyndon

30th September 2010, 05:11

The 1921 purge was to purge the bureaucracy from the Party.

The 1929 purge was to purge the Party for the bureaucracy.

This is a typical Stalinist tactic- slandering Lenin by claiming that he did the exact same things that Stalin did, that Stalin's policies were a direct continuation of Lenin's(parroting the line of bourgeois historians everywhere).

Stalin's policies were so low and foul that Stalin apologists have to tear Lenin down to bring Stalin to his level.

pranabjyoti

30th September 2010, 17:02

This is a typical Stalinist tactic- slandering Lenin by claiming that he did the exact same things that Stalin did, that Stalin's policies were a direct continuation of Lenin's(parroting the line of bourgeois historians everywhere).

Stalin's policies were so low and foul that Stalin apologists have to tear Lenin down to bring Stalin to his level.
Problem with non-Stalinists and anti-Stalinists is that they rare have answers to the argument and fact produced by Stalinists. Just go through your replies, what's that "Lenin purges bureaucrats, Stalin purges anti-bureaucrats". What a deep and insightful reply!

KlÃ©ber

30th September 2010, 17:33

Problem with non-Stalinists and anti-Stalinists is that they rare have answers to the argument and fact produced by Stalinists. Just go through your replies, what's that "Lenin purges bureaucrats, Stalin purges anti-bureaucrats". What a deep and insightful reply!
There was never an argument to begin with, due to a misunderstanding or deliberate and stupid dishonesty over the multiple definitions word "purge." Expelling (without violence) party members for corruption and careerism is not comparable to shooting and enslaving twice as many peasants and agricultural proletarians for the lightest petty "crimes."

I see, communism is just a "free-for-all" and no one should be hindered, no regulations should be set in the struggle to reach this goal. If this is how you see the potential revolution, thank God you're not leading it because I want no part of your ridiculous utopia. I'd rather live in a society with security and an assuredness of what it can do with rules and regulations to make sure goods and services are used effectively than some shitty collective of communes where everyone steals from everyone because, well, "property is theft" and such other talk.
The discussion was about gleaning, not stealing. If you really think that a classless society will need a permanent state to execute people who eat food off the ground without paying for it, or steal from vending machines or w/e, then you are either trolling or completely out of your mind. I'm not an anarchist as you seem to believe, but I thought that we all wanted the same thing in the end. Fuck whatever kind of society you have in mind.

Now Kleber, I believe you thanked a post earlier in this same thread that called Solzhenistyn a liar. If you agree that he is a lying scum, why would you defend his false "Law of Spikelets" of all things? Do you honestly believe peasants were shot for gleaning?
Solzhenitsyn was indeed a lying monarchist rat and it was your beloved gulag system that turned him into one. It is one thing to ridiculously inflate the death toll of Stalinism into the tens of millions. But it does not follow that by rejecting bourgeois lies, all the brutality against working and farming people, the hundreds of thousands murdered by the NKVD, were justified and should be ignored by "progressives." By attempting to salvage the sunken wreck of Stalinism, you are in fact serving the interests of bourgeois propaganda, whose primary aim in smearing communism is to associate it with a bureaucratic police state.

Honggweilo

30th September 2010, 23:33

i was talking about the young tankies and the elderly stalinists... not the mayority of the CJB who are good activists for the most.

neither the elderly "stalinists", nor the young "tankies" promote themselves in anyway you mention. If the majority of us are good activists, i wonder which tankies you are talking about?

well, i would prefer right and wrong but yeah, how would that contradict each other?

dialectics + deviding by zero = mind blown

fa2991

1st October 2010, 01:27

This is a typical Stalinist tactic- slandering Lenin by claiming that he did the exact same things that Stalin did, that Stalin's policies were a direct continuation of Lenin's(parroting the line of bourgeois historians everywhere).

Stalin's policies were so low and foul that Stalin apologists have to tear Lenin down to bring Stalin to his level.

If you feel that way, why do you have Ho Chi Minh ("Stalinist") as your avatar?

Barry Lyndon

1st October 2010, 01:42

If you feel that way, why do you have Ho Chi Minh ("Stalinist") as your avatar?

Ho Chi Minh was not, in my opinion, a 'Stalinist'. He said some pro-Stalin things in the 1940's, but that was largely to secure Soviet aid when the Viet Minh were locked in a desperate struggle with the French colonialists. Realistically, the Soviet Union was the only country the Vietnamese could turn to if there was any hope of them beating the French and later, the Americans. I find it rather idealistic to blame Ho Chi Minh from doing what he could to win.
There were cases of the Viet Minh violently attacking Vietnamese Trotskyists at the end of World War II, but I have never seen a shred of evidence that Ho Chi Minh himself was responsible, even from sectarian Trotskyist articles.
In Ho Chi Minh's speeches, that of I know of, he often referred to Marx and Lenin with admiration, but rarely to Stalin. He was essentially a Leninist, it seems, and had a conception of how a Communist party functioned before Stalinism took over-he had been a founding member of the French Communist Party in 1920.
Several people who visited North Vietnam at the time of Ho Chi Minh's leadership, even anarchists like Noam Chomsky I believe, noted that in spite of the deprivation resulting from American bombing and blockade, their was a remarkable degree of grassroots democracy and local decision-making by workers and peasants at that time. Something that did not exist in Russia under Stalin.

Palingenisis

1st October 2010, 01:52

Ho Chi Minh was not, in my opinion, a 'Stalinist'..

No you are right he wasnt a "Stalinist" because Stalin was a Revolutionary Communist and Ho Chi Minh was a progressive middle class nationalist.

fa2991

1st October 2010, 02:14

No you are right he wasnt a "Stalinist" because Stalin was a Revolutionary Communist and Ho Chi Minh was a progressive middle class nationalist.

Hmm, I seem to recall this decade-long battle against imperialism that established a communist government... which just might make Ho Chi Minh a little bit of a revolutionary. A little.

Uppercut

1st October 2010, 02:54

Solzhenitsyn was indeed a lying monarchist rat and it was your beloved gulag system that turned him into one.

Jesus Christ, what isn't Stalin's fault to you?:laugh:

Barry Lyndon

1st October 2010, 04:18

Jesus Christ, what isn't Stalin's fault to you?:laugh:

Is anything Stalin's fault for you? 'Material conditions' is a mode of analysis, not an alibi.

Palingenisis

1st October 2010, 14:24

Hmm, I seem to recall this decade-long battle against imperialism that established a communist government... which just might make Ho Chi Minh a little bit of a revolutionary. A little.

He fought a long anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle that ended in victory.

Whether the goverment established was Communist or not is debatable. Did the coup that toppled the Ethopian monarchy establish a Communist goverment or just a goverment allied with the USSR?

1st October 2010, 16:36

Is anything Stalin's fault for you? 'Material conditions' is a mode of analysis, not an alibi.

Could have done more to fight against his personality cult maybe. He said that the USSR had achieved socialism which allowed Khrushchov to justify his "state of the whole people" bullshit. Some other negligible errors maybe.

All in all, insignificant compared to his overwhelming achievements.

pranabjyoti

1st October 2010, 16:55

Could have done more to fight against his personality cult maybe. He said that the USSR had achieved socialism which allowed Khrushchev to justify his "state of the whole people" bullshit. Some other negligible errors maybe.

All in all, insignificant compared to his overwhelming achievements.
What Stalin had said that USSR is "basically socialist". In fact, socialism is the link between capitalism and communism. In socialism, there may not be class, but as there will be division of labor and difference between physical and mental labor, probably the remains of class based system can exist.
As for example, slavery existed in feudal system. Even the french Monarchs and the aristocrats had their own slaves before The French Revolution. But, slave based society like ancient Greece and Rome is certainly different from a feudal society.
In such a way, remains of previous class based system can exist even in socialism. Socialism is in fact, a pathway to go from capitalism to communism.

RED DAVE

1st October 2010, 17:58

In such a way, remains of previous class based system can exist even in socialism. Socialism is in fact, a pathway to go from capitalism to communism.No one gives a fuck about "remains of previous class based system": small businesses, artisans, family farms, etc.
What's crucial for socialism is workers power: and that Stalin was lying about. In fact, that is the lie of Stalinism: that the workers controlled production in the USSR.

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

1st October 2010, 17:59

Back In The U.S.S.R.

(Lennon/McCartney)

Oh, flew in from Miami Beach B.O.A.C.
Didn't get to bed last night
On the way the paper bag was on my knee
Man I had a dreadful flight
I'm back in the U.S.S.R.
You don't know how lucky you are boy
Back in the U.S.S.R. (Yeah)

Been away so long I hardly knew the place
Gee it's good to be back home
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey disconnect the phone
I'm back in the U.S.S.R.
You don't know how lucky you are boy
Back in the U.S.
Back in the U.S.
Back in the U.S.S.R.

Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the West behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on my mind

Aw come on!
Ho yeah!
Ho yeah!
Ho ho yeah!
Yeah yeah!

Yeah I'm back in the U.S.S.R.
You don't know how lucky you are boys
Back in the U.S.S.R.

Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the West behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on my mind

Oh, show me around your snow-peaked mountains way down south
Take me to your daddy's farm
Let me hear your balalaika's ringing out
Come and keep your comrade warm
I'm back in the U.S.S.R.
Hey you don't know how lucky you are boys
Back in the U.S.S.R.

Oh let me tell you, honey
Hey, I'm back!
I'm back in the U.S.S.R.
Yes, I'm free!
Yeah, back in the U.S.S.R.

Ha ha:cool:

RED DAVE

Barry Lyndon

1st October 2010, 18:07

Could have done more to fight against his personality cult maybe. He said that the USSR had achieved socialism which allowed Khrushchov to justify his "state of the whole people" bullshit. Some other negligible errors maybe.

All in all, insignificant compared to his overwhelming achievements.

Says someone with a serial murderer, torturer, pedophile and rapist as his avatar.
Gives you a lot of credibility, your a regular champion of the workers.

The 'overwhelming achievements', were either derived from plans taken from previous Bolsheviks(like Stalin's industrialization plans were largely taken from Trotsky), or the heroic efforts of the Soviet workers, peasants, and soldiers(the defeat of Nazi Germany, in spite of Stalin's murder of most of his best generals, pact with Hitler, and refusal to listen to his own intelligence about an impending Nazi invasion).

Barry Lyndon

1st October 2010, 18:10

He fought a long anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle that ended in victory.

Whether the goverment established was Communist or not is debatable. Did the coup that toppled the Ethopian monarchy establish a Communist goverment or just a goverment allied with the USSR?

There's no comparison of the two. Ho Chi Minh did not seize power in some 'coup', like the Derg did in Ethiopia. It was a protracted 'Peoples War' of the peasantry mobilized from below.
I mean, hell, it was the exact strategy Mao used. Don't you consider yourself a Maoist? Or was Uncle Ho a 'revisionist' because he accepted military support from the post-Stalin USSR as well as China?

Kiev Communard

1st October 2010, 18:44

There's no comparison of the two. Ho Chi Minh did not seize power in some 'coup', like the Derg did in Ethiopia. It was a protracted 'Peoples War' of the peasantry mobilized from below.
I mean, hell, it was the exact strategy Mao used. Don't you consider yourself a Maoist? Or was Uncle Ho a 'revisionist' because he accepted military support from the post-Stalin USSR as well as China?

Actually the Dergue liquidated both pro-Soviet and Maoist communist parties through state terror (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror_(Ethiopia)#Attacks_on_the_EPRP), before creating its own pseudo-"Workers" party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_Party_of_Ethiopia) that was reluctantly accepted by the USSR as "Marxist-Leninist", even though all three main opposition forces to the Dergue (EPRP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPRP), MEISON (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEISON) and Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist-Leninist_League_of_Tigray)) claimed the same label.

1st October 2010, 19:36

Says someone with a serial murderer, torturer, pedophile and rapist as his avatar.
Gives you a lot of credibility, your a regular champion of the workers.

The 'overwhelming achievements', were either derived from plans taken from previous Bolsheviks(like Stalin's industrialization plans were largely taken from Trotsky), or the heroic efforts of the Soviet workers, peasants, and soldiers(the defeat of Nazi Germany, in spite of Stalin's murder of most of his best generals, pact with Hitler, and refusal to listen to his own intelligence about an impending Nazi invasion).
Khrushchev? Is that you from beyond the grave?

Uppercut

2nd October 2010, 04:56

Is anything Stalin's fault for you?

Well he didn't make any theoretical mistakes. Practical errors, perhaps, but no big fuck ups.
Pertaining to the "great purge", George Solomon, an "old bolshevik", was being accused of being a bourgeoise, a spculator, and a German spy as early as 1918 by other Bolsheviks, repeating the Menshevik analysis of the new order being a "bloodthirsty regime". Funny enough, as soon as he left the USSR, he proclaimed himself an anti-communist.
Second, there was Grigory Sokolnikov, former ambassador to Great Britain, who made the following statement, "We considered that fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better, therefore, to come to terms with it". What an excellent example of an "old Bolshevik".
Lastly we have Zinoviev and Kamenev, who both opposed to October uprising. After their defeat in the Central Committee, they carried their opposition to the press before giving in to the Bolshevik government.

"I should consider it disgraceful on my part if, on account of my former close relations with these former comrades, I were not to condemn them. I declare outright that I do not consider either of them comrades any longer and that I will fight with all my might, both in the Central Committee and at the Congress, to secure the expulsion of both of them from the Party. … Let Messrs. Zinoviev and Kamenev found their own party from the dozens of disoriented people. … The workers will not join such a party …" - Lenin

So it's ok if Lenin criticized them and points out their opportunistic actions, but when they are actually purged, it's because of the "Stalinist bueaurocracy."

What's crucial for socialism is workers power: and that Stalin was lying about. In fact, that is the lie of Stalinism: that the workers controlled production in the USSR.

Yes, and that is why the 1936 constitution was originally drafted to include secret and direct voting, and that is why Nikolai Shvernik took measures to carry these new voting methods to the unions themselves.

"Throughout the summer of 1937, the unions held multi-candidate, secret-ballot elections at every level from the factory to the central committees. The workers took up the campaign for union democracy and swept out the old apparat in one election after another. A report from the Woolen Workers' Union to the VTsSPS optimistically noted, "Work in the factories has completely changed its face." For the first time in years, woolen workers actively participated in large, noisy "accountability" meetings. Of the more than 1,300 people elected to 195 factory committees in the woolen industry, 65 percent were new, and 43 percent had never participated in union activities. They voted out about half of the old factory committee chairmen, and elected more than 1,000 people to shop committees and another 1,000 as shop organizers. The sheer numbers of new participants pointed to a major overhaul of the union. In the Red Weaving Factory, about one-sixth of the 4,400 workers were elected to shop committees, an unprecedented level of voluntary participation. Paid officials were eliminated from the shops and replaced with volunteers. The factory committee began meeting regularly to discuss living conditions. In August, the Woolen Workers held their first congress, with 245 delegates. After sharply criticizing the members of the union's central committee for their phony performances, poor leadership, and "deep violations of union democracy," the delegates voted them out of office. Only four previous members were reelected. Stakhanovite workers from the shop floor composed almost half of the new 41-member central committee. It promptly created labor protection commissions to improve ventilation, record accidents, provide work clothes, and monitor overtime work."

"The electoral shake-up in the Woolen Workers' Union was replicated in other unions. Through the fall of 1937 and into the winter, 116 unions held congresses attended by more than 23,300 delegates. They were turbulent affairs. Using the language of democracy and purge, the delegates strongly criticized the existing central committees and "unmasked an entire series of individuals in leadership positions who were politically blind and careless, as well as a number of corrupt elements, idlers, and bureaucrats." The blame game spread like wildfire. At the congresses, each layer of leadership criticized the one above it: delegates from the Railroad Construction Union criticized their central committee; the central committee of the Union of Central Cooperative Employees criticized its presidium. Union members from electric power stations, peat bogs, schools, and dining halls denounced their officials for "bureaucracy, separation from the masses, and ignoring the needs of their members." http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/110.5/goldman.html

It's true that the anti-bueaurocratic struggles and the degree of workers' control in the USSR was imperfect, but it's incorrect to say that there were no attempts to improve the system of governence.

Lyndon...I'll get to you tomorrow. I need to go sacrifice a cat and say a prayer to Stalin before bed.

pranabjyoti

2nd October 2010, 05:09

The 'overwhelming achievements', were either derived from plans taken from previous Bolsheviks(like Stalin's industrialization plans were largely taken from Trotsky), or the heroic efforts of the Soviet workers, peasants, and soldiers(the defeat of Nazi Germany, in spite of Stalin's murder of most of his best generals, pact with Hitler, and refusal to listen to his own intelligence about an impending Nazi invasion).
What a magic, the workers, who had done the "October Revolution", can not find someone better than Stalin to head the country in this hour of need. And this just illogical, why workers would fight under one "bloodthirsty" dictator to fight another? If they were human being, both should be equal to them.

Is anything Stalin's fault for you?
Does opposing a "personality cult" means findings the wrongs in a person and stretching only on that? I want to know "is anything Stalin's achievement to you"?

What's crucial for socialism is workers power: and that Stalin was lying about. In fact, that is the lie of Stalinism: that the workers controlled production in the USSR.
I am just curious, why the "workers democracy", which had been killed by Stalin hasn't been revived so far by anybody. Does that ever exist? If yes, then in which form?
If the USSR during Lenin was example of workers democracy, why it can not be revived in anywhere in the world. And dear comrade "anti-Stalinints", kindly set up a real sizable example to show the world what is "workers democracy".

Apoi_Viitor

2nd October 2010, 07:04

What a magic, the workers, who had done the "October Revolution", can not find someone better than Stalin to head the country in this hour of need. And this just illogical, why workers would fight under one "bloodthirsty" dictator to fight another? If they were human being, both should be equal to them.

You must be trollin.

1. The workers didn't choose Stalin to lead their movement.
2. Why did the Iranian Revolutionaries fight under one "bloodthirsty" dictator to fight another?

Does opposing a "personality cult" means findings the wrongs in a person and stretching only on that? I want to know "is anything Stalin's achievement to you"?

Well, what are Stalin's achievements?

I am just curious, why the "workers democracy", which had been killed by Stalin hasn't been revived so far by anybody. Does that ever exist? If yes, then in which form?
If the USSR during Lenin was example of workers democracy, why it can not be revived in anywhere in the world. And dear comrade "anti-Stalinints", kindly set up a real sizable example to show the world what is "workers democracy".

1. If the Soviet example of Socialism is the only achievable/practical way of implementing Marx's ideology, then I'd declare that socialism is not worth fighting for.
2. You sound like a capitalist: "If your communism is so good, why hasn't it been implemented yet?"

pranabjyoti

2nd October 2010, 07:17

You must be trollin.

1. The workers didn't choose Stalin to lead their movement.
2. Why did the Iranian Revolutionaries fight under one "bloodthirsty" dictator to fight another?
Then perhaps Stalin just made a coup and taken over the Revolution and the state. In that case, it would be perfectly ideal for him to take the USSR in the original capitalist (not state capitalist) path and become someone like Pinochet, Salazar. Why would be taken a totally different path, the harder way?

Well, what are Stalin's achievements?
This is the most idiotic question that I have ever heard. Probably you belong to that group of i***ts as per whom, everything achieved after 1917 was by great Russian workers and every fault was result of Stalin's action.

1. If the Soviet example of Socialism is the only achievable/practical way of implementing Marx's ideology, then I'd declare that socialism is not worth fighting for.
2. You sound like a capitalist: "If your communism is so good, why hasn't it been implemented yet?"
What are derived by world proletariat were originated from the Russian Revolution. Delete it and very little will be left. I suggest you and people like you stay out of "socialism" as far as possible, it would be better for the both the people and proletariat of the world.
Actually, like the capitalist, you are just unable to see and understand the progress of communism AS IT ISN'T GOING IN A STRAIGHT LINE.

Apoi_Viitor

2nd October 2010, 13:25

Then perhaps Stalin just made a coup and taken over the Revolution and the state. In that case, it would be perfectly ideal for him to take the USSR in the original capitalist (not state capitalist) path and become someone like Pinochet, Salazar. Why would be taken a totally different path, the harder way?

What would have happened to Stalin's power, had he decided to change the economic system to pure capitalism? But anyways, I think Stalin's intentions are irrelevant, all that matters is what came about do to his policies - and history is definitely not on Stalin's side.

This is the most idiotic question that I have ever heard. Probably you belong to that group of i***ts as per whom, everything achieved after 1917 was by great Russian workers and every fault was result of Stalin's action.

Well, I just think after Lenin, The Soviet experiment went dramatically downhill. I don't really see what progressed after Stalin took power...

What are derived by world proletariat were originated from the Russian Revolution. Delete it and very little will be left. I suggest you and people like you stay out of "socialism" as far as possible, it would be better for the both the people and proletariat of the world.
Actually, like the capitalist, you are just unable to see and understand the progress of communism AS IT ISN'T GOING IN A STRAIGHT LINE.

Sorry, when I referred to "The Soviet Union" I specifically meant Stalin and every leader after him. No doubt Marxist-Leninism influenced the world proletariat, and in my opinion, Marxist-Leninism was a step-forward in the progress of communism. Stalin on the other hand, was a few steps backwards...

2nd October 2010, 13:56

and history is definitely not on Stalin's side

Bourgeois history definitely isn't on Stalin's side, you've got that right. If the class enemies still hate him so much to this day, doesn't that suggest he must have actually been doing something right? Surely it would be a bad thing if bourgeois historians instead had nothing praise for Stalin, wouldn't you think?

RED DAVE

2nd October 2010, 14:14

It's true that the anti-bueaurocratic struggles and the degree of workers' control in the USSR was imperfect, but it's incorrect to say that there were no attempts to improve the system of governenceIs that the best you can do?

Pure liberalism. Either a society is a workers state (with or without problems) or it isn't. The crucial issue is, always, do the workers control production from bottom to top and top to bottom. What you describe, even given the nauseating Stalinist rhetoric is far from workers power.

The only actual power control that is, described by you is:

[The factory committee] began meeting regularly to discuss living conditions. In August, the Woolen Workers held their first congress [since 1917 – 20 years] .... [I]t promptly created labor protection commissions to improve ventilation, record accidents, provide work clothes, and monitor overtime work."(emph. added)

That is not workers control of industry. Any bourgeois union can do that shit.

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

2nd October 2010, 16:29

Bourgeois history definitely isn't on Stalin's side, you've got that right.Neither is working class history.

If the class enemies still hate him so much to this day, doesn't that suggest he must have actually been doing something right?The same argument could be used for hitler.

RED DAVE

Uppercut

2nd October 2010, 17:21

Either a society is a workers state (with or without problems) or it isn't.

Yes, and as I described, it was a workers' state with problems. It was the country of the first dictatorship of the proletariat, having no previously tried model to go by.
But apparently I''m a liberal for admitting the USSR wasn't the most advanced socialist state ever built. That commemoration belongs to Albania.

The crucial issue is, always, do the workers control production from bottom to top and top to bottom

Do you really think it was possible to implement total workers' control at the time? The Bolsheviks tried this with the railroad system in 1918 and it was a failure. Gaining the knowledge to effectively manage the entire enterprise takes time, and material and social development.

If you want a "Stalinist" government where workers did actually plan production, along with making suggestions and alterations to the five year plan, then observe this: http://www.enver-hoxha.net/content/content_english/books/books-new_albania.htm (Chapter deux is on state power)

RED DAVE

2nd October 2010, 17:44

Yes, and as I described, it was a workers' state with problems. It was the country of the first dictatorship of the proletariat, having no previously tried model to go by.But it had a principle to go by: workers control.

But apparently I''m a liberal for admitting the USSR wasn't the most advanced socialist state ever built. That commemoration belongs to Albania.Some people also believe that the Israelites crossed the Red Sea dry shod.

Do you really think it was possible to implement total workers' control at the time? The Bolsheviks tried this with the railroad system in 1918 and it was a failure. Gaining the knowledge to effectively manage the entire enterprise takes time, and material and social development.Uhh, duh, the civil war was over by 1923. What were they doing for the next 67 years? Stalin said they had socialism in the late 1930s. Where did it go? is it hiding in a cave in the Caucuses?

If you want a "Stalinist" government where workers did actually plan production, along with making suggestions and alterations to the five year plan, then observe this: http://www.enver-hoxha.net/content/content_english/books/books-new_albania.htm (Chapter deux is on state power)Wow! The workers got to make suggestions! Then it must be workers control. Where did it go? Is it hiding somewhere in a sheepfold?

What you Stalinists, Maoists, Hoxhaists, etc., can never explain is: how did your so-called workers states morph into capitalist states without uprisings of the workers? In not one of these countries did the workers think enough of their "socialist property" to fight for it the way the workers fought in the Russian civil war for the infant soviet state.

RED DAVE

pranabjyoti

2nd October 2010, 18:10

What would have happened to Stalin's power, had he decided to change the economic system to pure capitalism? But anyways, I think Stalin's intentions are irrelevant, all that matters is what came about do to his policies - and history is definitely not on Stalin's side.
There are many examples of world leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, who were "socialist" by speeches but actually capitalist and in reality worse than that. If Stalin was like Nehru, USSR then would become another India.
Uppercut has clearly answered one point.

Well, I just think after Lenin, The Soviet experiment went dramatically downhill. I don't really see what progressed after Stalin took power...
If you think rapid industrialization, defeating the Nazis and some great achievements in science and technology are "no progress at all", I want to request you to go back to your studies.

Sorry, when I referred to "The Soviet Union" I specifically meant Stalin and every leader after him. No doubt Marxist-Leninism influenced the world proletariat, and in my opinion, Marxist-Leninism was a step-forward in the progress of communism. Stalin on the other hand, was a few steps backwards...
Marxism-Leninism is a forward step, but Stalin is a backward step and most Marxist-Leninists are now known as "Stalinist" today, I just can't bear with such comments.

Thirsty Crow

2nd October 2010, 18:37

Well he didn't make any theoretical mistakes.

:laugh::laugh::laugh:
Ok, I'd like you to explain this "brilliant" theoretical achievement: how can three classes exist, in mutual non-antagonistic relationship? How can classes be in a non-antagonistic relationship if the basis of class analysis is the actual relationship of a class to the means of production? If this "contribution" is in fact correct, that necessarily entails the fact that the notion of "class" changed. And you should account for this change.
Enlighten me.

What you Stalinists, Maoists, Hoxhaists, etc., can never explain is: how did your so-called workers states morph into capitalist states without uprisings of the workers? In not one of these countries did the workers think enough of their "socialist property" to fight for it the way the workers fought in the Russian civil war for the infant soviet state.

It was the mind controllin' concealed revisionists-restorationists.

Barry Lyndon

2nd October 2010, 18:56

What you Stalinists, Maoists, Hoxhaists, etc., can never explain is: how did your so-called workers states morph into capitalist states without uprisings of the workers? In not one of these countries did the workers think enough of their "socialist property" to fight for it the way the workers fought in the Russian civil war for the infant soviet state.

RED DAVE

I agree with everything you have written, Red Dave, except the part about their not being resistance to Maoist China turning to capitalism. What about the whole Cultural Revolution? There was massive fighting being Leftist factions of the Red Guards and factions that supported the likes of Deng Xiaopeng and others who were accurately called 'capitalist roaders'-hundreds of thousands of people were killed in factional fighting which was a de facto civil war in all but in name.
When Deng Xiaopeng took power in 1976, the workers in Shanghai militarily resisted the direction China took but were crushed.
With Stalinist Russia you are right, there was virtually no resistance to the 'Secret Speech' of Khruschev in 1956, save for one riot in Georgia.

pranabjyoti

2nd October 2010, 18:58

Ok, I'd like you to explain this "brilliant" theoretical achievement: how can three classes exist, in mutual non-antagonistic relationship? How can classes be in a non-antagonistic relationship if the basis of class analysis is the actual relationship of a class to the means of production? If this "contribution" is in fact correct, that necessarily entails the fact that the notion of "class" changed. And you should account for this change.
Enlighten me.
Please enlighten me first that in USSR during Stalin, where have you find the existence of the capitalist class? Probably your answer is "the bureaucracy" was the capitalist class etc and in that case I don't want to waste my time.

how did your so-called workers states morph into capitalist states without uprisings of the workers? In not one of these countries did the workers think enough of their "socialist property" to fight for it the way the workers fought in the Russian civil war for the infant soviet state.
Just try to understand the nature of "petty-bourgeoisie" class and their activities, I hope you yourself can understand that. If you deny the existence of the petty-bourgeoisie class, I suggest you better go back to study dialectic materialism and Marx again from the beginning.
Lenin himself, in "April thesis" warned that the revolution (The October Revolution) was mainly dependent on petty-bourgeoisie forces like peasants and soldiers. At least he can understand the danger from the petty-bourgeoisie class.
Mao too know about this and in an interview with Edgar Snow, he clearly said that "every peasant wants to be a capitalist".
At present, it's clear that degeneration of the revolutions of the 20th century is due to the petty-bourgeoisie class.

Roach

2nd October 2010, 19:02

There was resistence in Albania:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_rebellion_in_Albania

Thirsty Crow

2nd October 2010, 19:20

Please enlighten me first that in USSR during Stalin, where have you find the existence of the capitalist class? Probably your answer is "the bureaucracy" was the capitalist class etc and in that case I don't want to waste my time.

Uumm, do I recall addressing you? No.
But I'll indulge you.
First of all, I responded to a preposterous claim that Stalin didn't make any theoretical mistakes. As I have demonstrated, he practically abandoned Marxist class analysis which does not allow for "non-antagonistic classes" since the basis of the analysis is the relationship between groups of people and the means of production. I'll try to make it as simple as possible for you: in order that someone could conclude that there are classes, but that they are non-antagonistic, that someone should also provide a new basis for understanding class relations.
Secondly, you're making a straw man argument.
Have I claimed that the USSR was capitalist? Provide a quote to back it up if you think so.
However, I do not think that USSR achieved socialism ever. If there ever did exist a socio-economic formation even remotely similar to USSR, then it was the formation which Marx and Engels called the "Asiatic mode of production", with a difference in that the USSR was at least partially integrated into the global capitalist market.
But it's high time you people learn that ACTUAL management of production and social issues by the working class is a defining feature of socialism. We may even take up Stalin's three non-antagonistic classes theory and conclude that it is the third class, soviet intelligentsia (yeah, he defined intelligentsia as a class), that actually managed production and held a monopoly over political and social issues as well.

RED DAVE

2nd October 2010, 19:20

There was resistence in Albania:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_rebellion_in_AlbaniaRead your own link. This was not a fight by the workers for the retention of the stalinist system.

RED DAVE

Roach

2nd October 2010, 20:19

Read your own link. This was not a fight by the workers for the retention of the stalinist system.

RED DAVE

Yes it was,certainly other political groups took advantage of the situation.But the ''Stalinists'' made the best they could do to represent the workers (even though I don't doubt that the PSSH was already revisionist)

I will post a better link when I found one.

Thirsty Crow

2nd October 2010, 20:31

Yes it was,certainly other political groups took advantage of the situation.But the ''Stalinists'' made the best they could do to represent the workers (even though I don't doubt that the PSSH was already revisionist)

I will post a better link when I found one.

Since when do the CPs meddle into the business of political representation?
Silly me, I thought that was the playing field of the bourgeoisie.

KlÃ©ber

2nd October 2010, 21:02

Yes it was,certainly other political groups took advantage of the situation.But the ''Stalinists'' made the best they could do to represent the workers (even though I don't doubt that the PSSH was already revisionist)
Warning. We are entering a Twilight Zone of cognitive dissonance. The Stalinist PPSh were revisionist capitalists who restored capitalism, but let's not forget comrades, they were also doing the best they could to represent workers at the time.

chegitz guevara

3rd October 2010, 00:16

Bourgeois history definitely isn't on Stalin's side, you've got that right. If the class enemies still hate him so much to this day, doesn't that suggest he must have actually been doing something right? Surely it would be a bad thing if bourgeois historians instead had nothing praise for Stalin, wouldn't you think?

No. The fact that the capitalists would likely lie about anything going right in the USSR or other socialist countries doesn't mean every bad thing they say is false. Furthermore, you are guilty of basing what you believe on what the capitalist says. If the capitalist says something, you believe the opposite. This not Marxism. Marxism demands we find the truth, not knee jerk oppose a statement simply because of the source. That's called the genetic fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy), and it's a major flaw in the thinking of many Stalinists.

chegitz guevara

3rd October 2010, 00:21

Just try to understand the nature of "petty-bourgeoisie" class and their activities, I hope you yourself can understand that. If you deny the existence of the petty-bourgeoisie class, I suggest you better go back to study dialectic materialism and Marx again from the beginning.

So all the workers are petty bourgeois now? And wtf does this have to do with dialectical materialism?

pranabjyoti

3rd October 2010, 02:20

So all the workers are petty bourgeois now? And wtf does this have to do with dialectical materialism?
In my post I have clearly mentioned what petty-bourgeoisie is. Kindly read my post before posting anything.

Barry Lyndon

3rd October 2010, 02:34

No. The fact that the capitalists would likely lie about anything going right in the USSR or other socialist countries doesn't mean every bad thing they say is false. Furthermore, you are guilty of basing what you believe on what the capitalist says. If the capitalist says something, you believe the opposite. This not Marxism. Marxism demands we find the truth, not knee jerk oppose a statement simply because of the source. That's called the genetic fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy), and it's a major flaw in the thinking of many Stalinists.

This.
It's pretty infantile, actually. It's like how a teenager decides to rebel against his parents by doing the exact opposite of everything they tell him to do, rejecting the good as well as the bad rules. Ultimately, such a entirely negative rebellion will only end up hurting(or even killing) the teenager.

In much the same way, rejecting as 'propaganda', and 'lies', all the bad things that are said about the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, even things that can be verified as true by third parties and even other Marxists involved in those revolutions, is only hurting Marxism in the long run. There is no way we can learn from our mistakes and do better next time if we are so completely in denial about what went wrong the first time.