Die Neue Zeit
1st July 2011, 03:51
http://books.google.ca/books?id=38gMzMRXCpQC&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=stalin+%22how+the+soviet%22+governed+machiavell ian+%22economic+debate%22&source=bl&ots=pb__dWG7KW&sig=JSbmyxfYw9NMKoqkpTsUbc-XyEE&hl=en&ei=UDMNTsCpIIrkiAKv7eX6DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
In discussing the 1920s, westerners have often described the economic debate and the concurrent struggle for power in rather schematic terms [...] Stalin, it is said, was a cynical Machiavellian interested only in his own power. He is supposed to have first allied himself with the right in order to defeat the Left Opposition in the Politburo, then to have stolen the latter's program so that he could condemn his erstwhile allies as a Right Opposition and remove them from the seats of power.
This schematic summary, like most others of a similar type, has elements of truth in it, but leaves a very misleading impression of the NEP period and almost surely constitutes too harsh a judgment of Stalin. The crucial fact to remember about the 1920s is that, as the following chronology makes clear, economic conditions changed radically from year to year.
[...]
Given these rapidly changing circumstances, it would have been foolish for any Soviet leader to advocate the same short-term policy at all times, and, in practice, none of them did so.
[...]
Western accounts of the mid-1920s often imply - and sometimes flatly state - that Stalin moved to the right in this period in order to have an issue with which to defeat the left. In reality, Stalin himself was moving to the left at this time.
[...]
If Stalin is to be attacked for Machiavellianism in 1925, it should not be for a cynical move to the right (at least not in domestic policy), but for a deliberate inconsistency between his industrial and agricultural policies - for failing to acknowledge how he was planning to finance rapid industrial growth.
[...]
In actuality, what seems to have occurred in 1925 was not some move to the right on Stalin's part, but an attempt by Zinoviev and Kamenev to adopt left policies for political reasons - and not a very consistent attempt at that. While Kamenev and Zinoviev did differ with Bukharin on the peasant question, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they launched their attack on agricultural policy as a desperate effort to stave off political defeat at Stalin's hands rather than as a result of deep policy differences with the Politburo majority.
Thoughts?
In discussing the 1920s, westerners have often described the economic debate and the concurrent struggle for power in rather schematic terms [...] Stalin, it is said, was a cynical Machiavellian interested only in his own power. He is supposed to have first allied himself with the right in order to defeat the Left Opposition in the Politburo, then to have stolen the latter's program so that he could condemn his erstwhile allies as a Right Opposition and remove them from the seats of power.
This schematic summary, like most others of a similar type, has elements of truth in it, but leaves a very misleading impression of the NEP period and almost surely constitutes too harsh a judgment of Stalin. The crucial fact to remember about the 1920s is that, as the following chronology makes clear, economic conditions changed radically from year to year.
[...]
Given these rapidly changing circumstances, it would have been foolish for any Soviet leader to advocate the same short-term policy at all times, and, in practice, none of them did so.
[...]
Western accounts of the mid-1920s often imply - and sometimes flatly state - that Stalin moved to the right in this period in order to have an issue with which to defeat the left. In reality, Stalin himself was moving to the left at this time.
[...]
If Stalin is to be attacked for Machiavellianism in 1925, it should not be for a cynical move to the right (at least not in domestic policy), but for a deliberate inconsistency between his industrial and agricultural policies - for failing to acknowledge how he was planning to finance rapid industrial growth.
[...]
In actuality, what seems to have occurred in 1925 was not some move to the right on Stalin's part, but an attempt by Zinoviev and Kamenev to adopt left policies for political reasons - and not a very consistent attempt at that. While Kamenev and Zinoviev did differ with Bukharin on the peasant question, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they launched their attack on agricultural policy as a desperate effort to stave off political defeat at Stalin's hands rather than as a result of deep policy differences with the Politburo majority.
Thoughts?