Die Neue Zeit
24th February 2011, 14:57
It's surprising that a self-proclaimed Dubcekist would say that "nobody in the USSR had to go hungry after 1948 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/misproportion-anti-communist-t150602/index.html)." I mean, not only did Dubcek tried to introduce market mechanisms during the Prague Spring, but Kadar in post-1956 Hungary had a free hand economically (http://www.revleft.com/vb/questions-ussr-t149435/index.html?p=2017361). In fact, most of the Eastern European countries' economic systems could be called state-capitalist, and one aspect of this the deficit of sovkhozization, even mere kolkhozization, plus the bigger reliance on private farming (most evident in Poland, but Yugoslavia may have done the same thing).
Market rants aside, this does raise a question of Stalin in separate historical periods, specifically the post-WWII period. My evaluation was:
Lost Peace / Cold Peace: positive
A - Not installing satellite governments until the last minute: positive
B - Wanting a unified, neutral Germany: positive
C - Abandoning the KKE's insurrection in Greece: big negative
D - Not really supporting the CPC's post-WWII insurrection (to the point of being rhetorically friendlier with the GMD if not logistically): neutral
F - Post-GPW military-industrial/superpower development: big positive
G - Not abandoning socialist primitive accumulation, even while subordinates did so in small steps: negative
For example, had Yuri Andropov lived longer, he might have become similar in authoritarianism to the post-WWII Stalin. I read some 1982 article saying that Russians wanted more authoritarian rule but without a Stalin. Well, that article was wrong in lumping the various Stalins together.
So, how can we evaluate the post-WWII Stalin, as Alexander Filippov's [i]Modern History of Russia: 1945-2006 and Geoffrey Roberts's Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 have attempted to do?
Market rants aside, this does raise a question of Stalin in separate historical periods, specifically the post-WWII period. My evaluation was:
Lost Peace / Cold Peace: positive
A - Not installing satellite governments until the last minute: positive
B - Wanting a unified, neutral Germany: positive
C - Abandoning the KKE's insurrection in Greece: big negative
D - Not really supporting the CPC's post-WWII insurrection (to the point of being rhetorically friendlier with the GMD if not logistically): neutral
F - Post-GPW military-industrial/superpower development: big positive
G - Not abandoning socialist primitive accumulation, even while subordinates did so in small steps: negative
For example, had Yuri Andropov lived longer, he might have become similar in authoritarianism to the post-WWII Stalin. I read some 1982 article saying that Russians wanted more authoritarian rule but without a Stalin. Well, that article was wrong in lumping the various Stalins together.
So, how can we evaluate the post-WWII Stalin, as Alexander Filippov's [i]Modern History of Russia: 1945-2006 and Geoffrey Roberts's Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 have attempted to do?