Stalin's purges............ in Eastern Europe

[Die Neue Zeit]

Perhaps I was a bit rushed in my assessment of Stalin's purges in Eastern Europe ("military competence was not an immediate issue for the cannon-fodder satellite militaries, and de-Nazification was a bigger issue").

I know the accounts of those purges which were related to "Titoism," but nevertheless weren't there other purges, too, most notably as part of a de-Nazification campaign?

[Jose Gracchus]

The Slansky Trial had anti-Semitic opportunistic undertones, and alleged Zionist involvement in Trotskyite-Titoist Conspiracy or some such Anti-Revisionist drivel.

[Queercommie Girl]

The Trotskyist leader of the USFI, Ernst Mandel, considered Tito to be a "semi-Trotskyist".

[Kléber]

Pabloites like Mandel are renegades from Trotskyism, a movement that Tito did everything in his power to crush through torture and murder.

[Jose Gracchus]

Trotskyite is, by the 1950s, simply a de rigueur claim of heresy by Stalinists. It shouldn't be taken seriously (anymore than fictions of heresy in clearly political show trials in medieval Europe, like of Joan of Arc, etc.). In this case, Slansky et al made the cardinal sin of hoping to follow a Tito-esque non-alignment road. This required public butchery to adequately correct.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Was Slansky the only notable purge to have happened?

[Kiev Communard]

Was Slansky the only notable purge to have happened?

No, there were other similar political trials in Hungary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Rajk#List_of_defendants_in_the_Rajk_Trial), Bulgaria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traicho_Kostov), and also Albania (the Xoxe Trial of May- July 1949). In Poland the Gomułka group was not physically liquidated, but still purged from the state apparatus for the period of 1951 - 1956.

In addition, there was large-scale process of rank-and-file purge. According to Férenc Fejtö (Histoire des démocraties populaires, 1952), 2.5 million people, about a quarter of the total membership,were purged from the East-European Communist parties, and between 125,000 and 250,000 people were imprisoned (p.246), but these figures seem somewhat exaggerated to me.

[Toppler]

I would not call the satellites "cannon fodder" (in which war?), but these purges got nothing to do with "denazification". It was not needed anywhere else than Germany, as everybody despised the Nazis (I heard a story about my grandgrandmother almost killed by Nazis because she said something similiar to the german word "Hund" [dog] in Slovak to a passing SS man and he thought she was calling him a dog and wanted to kill her until she explained herself and brought him pastry and alcohol, and our goverment was a Nazi ally at the time, imagine what they did to their enemies). Also, Nazis were doing outrageously openly brutal things later after the SNP uprising such as shooting 900 Jews in the village of Nemecka and throwing them into a limeklin, destroying 93 villages etc.

It was the Trotskyte-Titoite-Zinevite bullshit. Basically, just political murder. They didn't even pretend to believe their enemies were fascists. They killed some non-communist anti-Nazi resistance members too. Just like the Moscow trials repeated. I think cca 1000 people were sentenced to death here, and god knows how many more killed nonformally by the StB in the 1950s

[Die Neue Zeit]

No, there were other similar political trials in Hungary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Rajk#List_of_defendants_in_the_Rajk_Trial), Bulgaria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traicho_Kostov), and also Albania (the Xoxe Trial of May- July 1949). In Poland the Gomułka group was not physically liquidated, but still purged from the state apparatus for the period of 1951 - 1956.

In addition, there was large-scale process of rank-and-file purge. According to Férenc Fejtö (Histoire des démocraties populaires, 1952), 2.5 million people, about a quarter of the total membership,were purged from the East-European Communist parties, and between 125,000 and 250,000 people were imprisoned (p.246), but these figures seem somewhat exaggerated to me.

Something occurred to me: these particular examples of purges in Eastern Europe appear to have happened too late to have any sort of "de-Nazification" cover. Were there any publicized purges that occurred between 1945 and, say, 1948?

[Kiev Communard]

Something occurred to me: these particular examples of purges in Eastern Europe appear to have happened too late to have any sort of "de-Nazification" cover. Were there any publicized purges that occurred between 1945 and, say, 1948?

Yes, they were, but that was the purges aimed at members of pre-War bourgeois and social-democratic parties (particularly in Poland and Hungary around 1947). The fascists were being put on trial just in the immediate aftermath of the WW II end, so it was no use instituting separate "purge" against them, apart from simple prosecution for high treason and crimes against humanity.

[Dimentio]

The purges were wise and rational.

In order to win "Great Patriotic War" you need to sacrifice human beings to Glorious God Ctulhu.

DA SMERT!

:lol:

[Andropov]

The purges were wise and rational.

In order to win "Great Patriotic War" you need to sacrifice human beings to Glorious God Ctulhu.

DA SMERT!

:lol:
What an insightfull contribution.
What are you doing as a mod again?

[blake 3:17]

Excuse the thread drift...



The Trotskyist leader of the USFI, Ernst Mandel, considered Tito to be a "semi-Trotskyist".


In the recent biography of Mandel (which is a great read whether you are sympathetic or not (it reads like a thriller)) there's a very interesting account of Mandel and other European Trotskyists trying to make sense of the Yugoslavian revolution, the first successful socialist revolution following the Second World War.

Mandel (along with many other Trotskyists) was shocked that a non-Trotskyist could lead a revolution in Europe.

[Queercommie Girl]

Excuse the thread drift...



In the recent biography of Mandel (which is a great read whether you are sympathetic or not (it reads like a thriller)) there's a very interesting account of Mandel and other European Trotskyists trying to make sense of the Yugoslavian revolution, the first successful socialist revolution following the Second World War.

Mandel (along with many other Trotskyists) was shocked that a non-Trotskyist could lead a revolution in Europe.

I'm not a formal Trotskyist, but I understand that a genuine socialist revolution is much more than just winning a revolutionary war and overthrowing the existing capitalist order, it's also about creating a healthy new socialist order that can last for a very long time. In this sense there were certainly many flaws in all of the "actually-existing-socialist" states in history.

In ancient China, a Han Chinese scholar-official once advised a nomadic warrior-leader from the north: "You could conquer all-under-heaven on horseback, but you cannot run all-under-heaven on horseback". Military success is only a small part of what genuine socialism is all about. Military success, no matter how great, does not equate with a genuinely successful socialist revolution.

[Jose Gracchus]

In ancient China, a Han Chinese scholar-official once advised a nomadic warrior-leader from the north: "You could conquer all-under-heaven on horseback, but you cannot run all-under-heaven on horseback". Military success is only a small part of what genuine socialism is all about. Military success, no matter how great, does not equate with a genuinely successful socialist revolution.

Thank you so much. I'm so tired of Stalinist degeneration of the meaning of "revolution" to "any dude with a Red flag and symbols and defends Stalin gets into state power by any means".

[Queercommie Girl]

Thank you so much. I'm so tired of Stalinist degeneration of the meaning of "revolution" to "any dude with a Red flag and symbols and defends Stalin gets into state power by any means".

Well I don't reject Stalin completely but I'm Trotskyism-leaning.

A socialist revolution is not just about military power.