Stalin and the Gulags

[SidBh]

If you are a Communist who thinks that Stalin was a great Soviet leader, how do you explain your beliefs to people who know that Stalin was a mass murderer? As a Stalinist how would you justify your beliefs that Stalin was a good leader?

[W1N5T0N]

Look at it this way:
If you think stalin was a great leader, you aren't a real communist.

In my opinion anyway. I dont know exactly what makes a "Communist", but stalinism is the next best thing to fascism...

[norwegianwood90]

I'm not a Stalinist, but any leftist can (if not should) point out that capitalism rests on the shoulders of slavery, imperialism, and genocide.

[Collectorgeneral]

Aggravation of class struggle under socialism, nothing more needs to be said.

[Rodrigo]

"people who know that Stalin was a mass murderer" "Who know"? No, no, the right thing to say is "who THINKS/BELIEVES Stalin was a mass murderer". No mass murder was ever incited by Stalin. The exaggerated number of "victims of Stalin's regime" was created out of nothing by anticommunist sell-out intellectuals; some say 20 million (that's the number of Soviet people who died in the WW2), others 50 million (that includes the so-called Holodomor, which was caused by epidemic illnesses at the 30's and the sabotage of individualist peasants -- kulaks -- who attacked the collectivization process -- read Douglas Tottle's "Fraud, Famine and Fascism"), and some even say "Stalin killed 100 millions Russians" (there's no reasonable argument for that! it's this false premise: 1) Stalin was a mass murderer; 2) USSR was totalitarian; 3) Then, a lot of people died! Millions! Hundreds of millions!

And the GULAG was by far the best prison system at that time, and much better if compared to the old czarist prisons. It were composed of LABOR camps, usually hard labor, not "killing camps" as anticommunists and pseudo-communists see. The majority of prisoners were criminals, not "political prisoners". A good percentage of the prisoners used to be RELEASED each year. About it, you should read Mario Sousa's Lies About The History of Soviet Union. He's better at explaining this subject than any other person here.

Of course, if we compare to today, it's not useful, it's repudiable. But we have to compare to the situation at THAT time in similar countries.

[Rodrigo]

Ludo Martens' Another View of Stalin: http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Ludo%20Martens/

The Red Comrades Documentation Project: http://redcomrades.byethost5.com/red.../articles.html (http://redcomrades.byethost5.com/redcomrades/articles.html)

[Astarte]

There is no real denying Stalin 'liquidated' the 'Old Guard' of the Bolshevik Party during the purge trials of the 1930's. Though the USSR under Stalin had some great successes in building the infrastructure of Russia on a non-capitalist basis, it is clear he and his revolving Party of henchmen held total power over the Party and society and sought to eliminate anyone who might represent an alternative to Stalin's methods.

http://www.warchat.org/pictures/russian_civil_war_1918-1920_the_central_committee_of_communist_party.jpg

[piet11111]

I never liked how everyone says stalin killed X amount of people.
It sounds as if he personally wrote down every name on a list while obviously he could not do such a thing on his own.

Clearly a lot of bureaucrats where writing down names of people they wanted to get rid of and then send those names to stalin who wrote of on those lists.
That is more then enough to condemn stalin but the actions of a whole bureaucracy needs to be condemned and its those same bureaucrats that continued to rule after stalin was gone this is the legacy of what we call stalinism.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

"people who know that Stalin was a mass murderer" "Who know"? No, no, the right thing to say is "who THINKS/BELIEVES Stalin was a mass murderer". No mass murder was ever incited by Stalin. The exaggerated number of "victims of Stalin's regime" was created out of nothing by anticommunist sell-out intellectuals; some say 20 million (that's the number of Soviet people who died in the WW2), others 50 million (that includes the so-called Holodomor, which was caused by epidemic illnesses at the 30's and the sabotage of individualist peasants -- kulaks -- who attacked the collectivization process -- read Douglas Tottle's "Fraud, Famine and Fascism"), and some even say "Stalin killed 100 millions Russians" (there's no reasonable argument for that! it's this false premise: 1) Stalin was a mass murderer; 2) USSR was totalitarian; 3) Then, a lot of people died! Millions! Hundreds of millions!

What? Anti-Soviet critics exaggerate the number of deaths but this doesn't mean that people didn't die in large numbers in Stalinist Russia.

Kulak sabotage was not responsible for the starvation of millions either. Maybe it was a contributing factor but it was not the sole cause. Stalin's bad policies and corrupted bureaucracies were contributing factors too.



And the GULAG was by far the best prison system at that time, and much better if compared to the old czarist prisons. It were composed of LABOR camps, usually hard labor, not "killing camps" as anticommunists and pseudo-communists see. The majority of prisoners were criminals, not "political prisoners". A good percentage of the prisoners used to be RELEASED each year. About it, you should read Mario Sousa's Lies About The History of Soviet Union. He's better at explaining this subject than any other person here.

Of course, if we compare to today, it's not useful, it's repudiable. But we have to compare to the situation at THAT time in similar countries.Gulags were the best prisons of their time? :lol: right im sure that they were a picnic. Gulags had nowhere near a 100% mortality rate but a lot of people were still worked to death there in very harsh conditions. Just because anti-soviet propagandists lie about how bad they were it doesn't justify your lies in the other direction.

You are nuts for thinking every "Criminal" in the USSR in the 1930s deserved to be classified as a criminal. Fascists and bourgeois democracies send undesirables to hellish prison as "criminals" and that is wrong, and its not ok when Stalinists do it either. Do you know that Stalin's government rounded up ethnic groups like Chechens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Lentil_%28Caucasus%29), Tatars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Crimean_Tatars) and Kalmyks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmyk_deportations_of_1943) and sent them to Siberia? Many of them died due to harsh conditions, even though their only crime was being a member of an ethnic group. By some accounts he planned on doing the same to the Jews at some point, hence the "doctor's plot" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor%27s_Plot). That is ethnic cleansing, plain and simple. What the USSR did was collective punishment, and tens of thousands of innocents died thanks to decisions that he and his government made.

[Rooster]

"people who know that Stalin was a mass murderer" "Who know"?

Who doesn't know?


No, no, the right thing to say is "who THINKS/BELIEVES Stalin was a mass murderer".

Sane people?


No mass murder was ever incited by Stalin. The exaggerated number of "victims of Stalin's regime" was created out of nothing by anticommunist sell-out intellectuals; I don't think that the number was created out of nothing. You can't exaggerate out of nothing.


some say 20 million (that's the number of Soviet people who died in the WW2), others 50 million (that includes the so-called Holodomor, which was caused by epidemic illnesses at the 30's Some say a million. Isn't a million too much?


and the sabotage of individualist peasants -- kulaks -- who attacked the collectivization process -- read Douglas Tottle's "Fraud, Famine and Fascism"), That's underplaying the whole problem, just blaming it on kulaks. Besides, Stalin personally supported continuing the NEP, strengthing the peasants class conciousness and such. Then during the collectivisation, peasant resistance generally came around because of mismanaged and poorly handled polices.


and some even say "Stalin killed 100 millions Russians" (there's no reasonable argument for that! it's this false premise: Yeah but, a million or so people, man...


1) Stalin was a mass murderer; 2) USSR was totalitarian; 3) Then, a lot of people died! Millions! Hundreds of millions!more of less.


And the GULAG was by far the best prison system at that time, and much better if compared to the old czarist prisons. It were composed of LABOR camps, usually hard labor, not "killing camps" as anticommunists and pseudo-communists see. The majority of prisoners were criminals, not "political prisoners". A good percentage of the prisoners used to be RELEASED each year. About it, you should read Mario Sousa's Lies About The History of Soviet Union. He's better at explaining this subject than any other person here.Gimme a break. At that time? In comparison to Tsarist Russia? What about in comparison to the US where they also labour, usually used hard labour, as punishment and where a good percentage of prisoners where released each year, where most criminals are just criminals (and not "political prisoners")?


Of course, if we compare to today, it's not useful, it's repudiable. But we have to compare to the situation at THAT time in similar countries.Go on, compare it with other countries then.

[DarkPast]

If you are a Communist who thinks that Stalin was a great Soviet leader, how do you explain your beliefs to people who know that Stalin was a mass murderer? As a Stalinist how would you justify your beliefs that Stalin was a good leader?

"If Comrade Stalin says it, it must be right."

[Astarte]

If you are a Communist who thinks that Stalin was a great Soviet leader, how do you explain your beliefs to people who know that Stalin was a mass murderer? As a Stalinist how would you justify your beliefs that Stalin was a good leader?

Actually, I have also heard Stalinists argue that the only ones purged from the CPSU under Stalin were those with Bourgeois or Petty Bourgeois "backgrounds". I never understood how vanguardists even, despite his accomplishments, could whole heartedly support Stalin in the face of the massacre of the entire vanguard which "lead" the working class to victory.

It seems like Stalin was a bit of an exception as far as "Stalinists" go even as a breed, making any intra-party warring Tito, Castro, or even Mao to some extent engaged in look fairly tame.

He was like Robespierre if he could have continued the Reign of Terror perpetually, and 10x more resilient than Bonaparte in terms of waging war, and using his resources to stay power.

[Comintern1919]

I always find it hilarious how Stalinist always say how bad capitalist propaganda is, even though communist propaganda is bad as well.

Just because he was a communist doesn't mean he is good, as well as being a capitalist doesn't mean you're bad.
And that also doesn't mean everything against him is wong and comes from right-wing anti-communist conservatives.

Not all people saying Stalin was a mass-murdering are anti-communists and capitalists, most are neutral, some even communist themselves.

Maybe he wasn't as bad as some say, but he was bad nevertheless, and did kill innocent. How much doesn't matter, one is too much.

He did good things for the USSR, no question, but I think the bad things are much more, and more heavy.

If you, Rodrigo, argue that no mass-murder was incited by Stalin, you pretty much say Hitler also never incited murder, he also never directly ordered murder. He also had his "special words" and his "minions" who did it for him.

Stalin is pretty much the main reason the common people think bad about communism, and regulary compare it to fascism. And I have to say, I can understand them. You can think that if you know nothing about communism and hear how Stalin was. I thought so myself for a time, when I wasn't yet a communist.

My opinion is, Stalin wasn't much better, or much different, then Hitler.

[W1N5T0N]

These fucking modern day Stalinists disgust me.
They would have ended up in the Gulags like anybody else who had slightly different ideas.

Go back to your lovely little homes and enjoy your life. Dont ever say shit like Gulags were good or no people died in USSR.

im fucking SICK of it.

[manic expression]

These fucking modern day Stalinists disgust me.
They would have ended up in the Gulags like anybody else who had slightly different ideas.

Go back to your lovely little homes and enjoy your life. Dont ever say shit like Gulags were good or no people died in USSR.

im fucking SICK of it.
Gulags weren't "good" or "bad", they were a system of prisons. Don't act like non-"Stalinists" don't use prisons.

Yes, people died in the USSR, some of them because they were opposed to Soviet power, some because they fell in party struggles, some because they got caught up in the mess. The purges were a real tragedy in many ways, but that doesn't change how the Soviet Union was fundamentally the most progressive country on the planet at the time, and that it was most certainly worth defending.

But that's a very revolutionary line you have, "go back to your lovely little homes and enjoy your life". Some spicy anti-capitalist rhetoric, there. :rolleyes:


Actually, I have also heard Stalinists argue that the only ones purged from the CPSU under Stalin were those with Bourgeois or Petty Bourgeois "backgrounds".
The interesting part of that is that Stalin himself didn't even argue that (agreed on your points, though).

[Iron Felix]

As a Marxist, as a Communist and as a free human being, I oppose any Czar, Dear Leader, Premier, Emperor, Kaiser, Dictator, etc, etc. So I tell you; to hell with your Stalins, Hitlers, Maos, and Francos. I oppose any tyrant not because he kills a million people, but because he is a tyrant. I say no to tyranny and oppression, and anyone who disagrees does not belong here.

[W1N5T0N]

Felix: Quoting that!

[W1N5T0N]

@manic expression:

Soviet Union was a cultural, economic and politcal catastrophe in many ways too.

Now, had i lived in russia 60 years prior to this and uttered such a statement, i would have been thrown into the gulags. :D or even better, a "psychiatry".

because, obviously, if you dont agree with the ruling party, you are wrong.

[Rodrigo]

These fucking modern day Stalinists disgust me.
They would have ended up in the Gulags like anybody else who had slightly different ideas.

Go back to your lovely little homes and enjoy your life. Dont ever say shit like Gulags were good or no people died in USSR.

im fucking SICK of it.

So people who had "stlightly different ideas" were sent to Gulags? You, neither anyone, can prove this absurdity what's no more than ignorant anticommunist propaganga, so don't talk bullshit, please.

[Astarte]

...haha, OK. Lets not go overboard. In the USSR there was universal healthcare, housing, education, etc... lets not take it in the other direction and make it look worse than it actually was. After Stalin I do not think the USSR was too much worse than the USA over all - remember the Civil Rights movements was a propaganda coup for the Soviet Union.

I still say defend the USSR over the West.

[DarkPast]

...haha, OK. Lets not go overboard. In the USSR there was universal healthcare, housing, education, etc... lets not take it in the other direction and make it look worse than it actually was. After Stalin I do not think the USSR was too much worse than the USA over all - remember the Civil Rights movements was a propaganda coup for the Soviet Union.

You see the problem here is that a few countries - lets take Sweden as an example - managed to have the welfare elements you mentioned, but also avoided putting millions of people in gulags, purges, massive censorship etc. (of course I acknowledge the gulags were greatly reduced in size and harshness after Stalin died, and being purged meant losing your position rather than your head, so there definitely was some improvement)


I still say defend the USSR over the West.

"The West" is a big place... I agree the USSR was better than the West in some respects, but overall? As much as I'd like to, I don't think I could honestly say I'd prefer having lived in the USSR rather than in most Western European countries.

The USA might have been an exception, mostly because I'd feel sickened by the "red scare/yellow peril" hysteria and their imperialistic wars and coups.

[Astarte]

You see the problem here is that a few countries - lets take Sweden as an example - managed to have the welfare elements you mentioned, but also avoided putting millions of people in gulags, purges, massive censorship etc. (of course I acknowledge the gulags were greatly reduced in size and harshness after Stalin died, and being purged meant losing your position rather than your head, so there definitely was some improvement)
Agreed!



"The West" is a big place... I agree the USSR was better than the West in some respects, but overall? As much as I'd like to, I don't think I could honestly say I'd prefer having lived in the USSR rather than in most Western European countries.
Well, I would assume Western Europe and the Scandinavian countries are a lot better - but that is essentially because the 2nd International was able to actually succeed with their "evolutionist" programs to an extent ... of course only after two world wars and a total managerial quasi-workers' state threatened to consume the capitalist class globally.



The USA might have been an exception, mostly because I'd feel sickened by the "red scare/yellow peril" hysteria and their imperialistic wars and coups.

Not only this, but if you are from the USA you will know that when the Soviet Union was around living standards domestically were a lot better. The imperialists in state power over here were forced to provide higher living standards to the population as a way of showing that "capitalism really was better than Communism" - now that there is no alternative mode to the capitalist/imperialist mode, huge finance capital, imperialism, contracted out military industrial-complex can do whatever it wants globally.

The point is the Soviet Union represented a great dialectical counter balance to the USA - now that it is gone Imperialism, lead by the USA and Western Europe can go about like 2003 means 1898.

[Rodrigo]

I don't think that the number was created out of nothing. You can't exaggerate out of nothing.

Yes, you can. Conquest, Hearst, Solhenytsin and the parrots of these do it everytime.


Some say a million. Isn't a million too much?Is a million "much" in Russia? Or China? Or India? . . .

Take that in account. :)


That's underplaying the whole problem, just blaming it on kulaks.Not just because of kulaks, but they of course contributed to it. There were also weather problems, and illness epidemic problems.


because of mismanaged and poorly handled polices.

And these policies - or attitudes -, which were NOT in any way fault of Stalin (we're talking about the biggest "country" the world has seen!!!), were fought by... Stalin and his supporters!


Yeah but, a million or so people, man...

Deaths are inevitable in revolutions, and after a proletarian revolution (its beginning, in reality) class war against bourgeoisie is more ferocious. And there was the Second World War, the battles against Nazism and the pressure of every capitalist power against USSR. It's strange to think a country in this situations would not face problems. And it's counter-revolutionary, anti-Marxist, reactionary, to blame, defame and discredit a good communist like Stalin for these problems. Doing this empowers anticommunism.


At that time? In comparison to Tsarist Russia?

Also, but not only.


What about in comparison to the US where they also labour, usually used hard labour, as punishment and where a good percentage of prisoners where released each year, where most criminals are just criminals (and not "political prisoners")?
Go on, compare it with other countries then.

Tsc, tsc, tsc... Very simplistic. What about comparing the history of USA and the history of Russia,? Even if it were similar, of course it didn't mean the same. The two societies were different and also the functioning of the two systems. That's serious analysis, not stupid comparison.

From 1925 to 1939 the US rate of incarceration climbed from 79 to 137 per 100,000 residents. In large measure, this growth was driven by greater incarceration of blacks. Between 1930 and 1936 alone, black incarceration rates rose to a level about three times greater than those for whites, while white incarceration rates actually declined.

In 1929 Congress passed the Hawes-Cooper Act, which enabled any state to prohibit within its borders the sale of any goods made in the prisons of another state. By the time the act became effective in 1934, most states had enacted laws restricting the sale and movement of prison products. In 1935 the Ashurst-Sumners Act strengthened the law to prohibit the transportation of prison products to any state in violation of the laws of that state. In 1940 Congress enacted legislation to bar, with a few exceptions, the interstate transportation of prison-made goods. These developments contributed to decreased reliance on prison labor to pay for prison costs. More and more inmates became idle and were not assigned to jobs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_inequality_in_the_American_criminal_justice _system

http://www.correctionsproject.com/corrections/pris_priv.htm

Yeah, yeah... Very "similar" indeed.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

In my opinion anyway. I dont know exactly what makes a "Communist", but stalinism is the next best thing to fascism...

Are you serious? Regardless of how you may feel about comrade Stalin or his leadership to lay the claim "Stalinism is the next best thing to fascism," is simply moronic on the face of it. Come on [insert superfluous elipses].

[OHumanista]

As a Marxist, as a Communist and as a free human being, I oppose any Czar, Dear Leader, Premier, Emperor, Kaiser, Dictator, etc, etc. So I tell you; to hell with your Stalins, Hitlers, Maos, and Francos. I oppose any tyrant not because he kills a million people, but because he is a tyrant. I say no to tyranny and oppression, and anyone who disagrees does not belong here.

This, and not much else to add.
Stalin was a monster who slaughtered of his own party only to replace it with obedient cronies(not counting the peasants, workers and everyone else). The end.
So screw him, and all tyrants.

[The Man]

Look at it this way:
If you think stalin was a great leader, you aren't a real communist.

In my opinion anyway. I dont know exactly what makes a "Communist", but stalinism is the next best thing to fascism...

What the fuck do you mean? So apparently, I all of the sudden, magically don't believe in Classlessness, Statelessness, and Worker's owned means of production because I am a Marxist-Leninist?

I could say that "You aren't a real Communist, cause you think Trotsky was a good man." or "You aren't a real Communist, because you liked Kropotkin." or "You aren't real a Communist because you like Luxembourg." too, but does that mean anything? No.

Better yet, you provide no evidence to back up your statement. You use cheeky little comments without actually using a legitimate argument.

So please, enlighten me on how I am not a Communist because "I think Stalin was a good leader." And tell me, how come the use of a Vanguard Party to achieve Socialism suddenly makes us "The next best thing to fascism."

[Comintern1919]

So people who had "stlightly different ideas" were sent to Gulags? You, neither anyone, can prove this absurdity what's no more than ignorant anticommunist propaganga, so don't talk bullshit, please.

Sure, of course, he was a Saint, everyone saying something against him are capitalists, anti-communists and always completely wrong.

Yeah, I really doubt that. It is a well known fact among capitalists as well as communists that it was and is common among "communist" states.

No, really, do you HONESTLY think the USSR was that fair and righteous? Do you also think China is open and fair? If so, I really think you should check your mental status, as there seems to be something wrong.




Is a million "much" in Russia? Or China? Or India?..

So, you say that if my country has enough population, it is okay to kill "some" million people? Dude, that's just plain evil and stupid. Would you still think this way if one of your beloved ones would be one of this million? I doubt so.

Your throwing with thing you don't even have the smallest idea of how terrible that is, living in a safe country where you and your family are safe.

One is too much, there is no thing in the world that justifice a single innocent to die.

[DarkPast]

Not only this, but if you are from the USA you will know that when the Soviet Union was around living standards domestically were a lot better. The imperialists in state power over here were forced to provide higher living standards to the population as a way of showing that "capitalism really was better than Communism" - now that there is no alternative mode to the capitalist/imperialist mode, huge finance capital, imperialism, contracted out military industrial-complex can do whatever it wants globally.

The point is the Soviet Union represented a great dialectical counter balance to the USA - now that it is gone Imperialism, lead by the USA and Western Europe can go about like 2003 means 1898.

I agree, those are very good points. The recent austerity measures show just how much the capitalists care for the living standards of the working class. So yeah the world was a better place when the USSR was still around.

There's a somewhat good side to all this, though, as the increasing "austerity" will make people more likely to see the inherent problems of capitalism, especially as they see more and more money being funneled into the self-perpetuating military-industrial complex.

[manic expression]

@manic expression:

Soviet Union was a cultural, economic and politcal catastrophe in many ways too.

Now, had i lived in russia 60 years prior to this and uttered such a statement, i would have been thrown into the gulags. :D or even better, a "psychiatry".

because, obviously, if you dont agree with the ruling party, you are wrong.
It wasn't a cultural catastrophe when it led extremely important innovations in fields such as film, architecture and ballet. It wasn't an economic catastrophe when it saw the greatest increase in living standards in human history. It wasn't a political catastrophe when the gains of the October Revolution were defended for decades.

As for your "I would've been in the gulags"...maybe, maybe not. There were plenty of anti-Soviet individuals who weren't, and we know this because when the Nazis came rolling through Ukraine, lots of people came out with black crosses (the symbol of the Teutonic Order, who the Nazis saw as their medieval equivalent).

I don't always agree with the rulers of the USSR, either...so what?

[black magick hustla]

...haha, OK. Lets not go overboard. In the USSR there was universal healthcare, housing, education, etc... lets not take it in the other direction and make it look worse than it actually was. After Stalin I do not think the USSR was too much worse than the USA over all - remember the Civil Rights movements was a propaganda coup for the Soviet Union.

I still say defend the USSR over the West.

in the 1930s, so there was in mexico. in fact, ussr ambassadors mentioned how "mexico was the country most similar to ours). nobody ever calls for its defense today though (although the stalinist and trotskyist bootlickers were all over the mexican state and lazaro cardenas)

[manic expression]

in the 1930s, so there was in mexico. in fact, ussr ambassadors mentioned how "mexico was the country most similar to ours). nobody ever calls for its defense today though (although the stalinist and trotskyist bootlickers were all over the mexican state and lazaro cardenas)
Mexico also sent much-needed weaponry to the Spanish Republic during the Civil War. It was quite progressive amongst bourgeois governments, sure. However, I would doubt the notion that it saw completely collectivized agriculture and industry as in the Soviet Union.

[W1N5T0N]

There was also universal suffrage, free voting, great political freedom,

and of course, anyone who said different was just anticommunist, a fascist jewhating motherfucking cappy nazi, i take it?

[Jose Gracchus]

Mexico also sent much-needed weaponry to the Spanish Republic during the Civil War. It was quite progressive amongst bourgeois governments, sure. However, I would doubt the notion that it saw completely collectivized agriculture and industry as in the Soviet Union.

The farming sector was significantly redistributed and collectivized in the wake of the Mexican Revolution, the 'ejido' communal rights of the peasantry in Mexico was one of the casualties of the forced acquiescence of Mexico by a fraudulently installed regime to Washington's NAFTA plans. This is actually the source of the large influx of poor Mexican labor into the United States in the past 20-25 years.

In the industrial sector, Lazaro Cardenas did form opportunistic alliances with labor, and did come to nationalize American oil industry, forming the modern PEMEX state monopoly (and the only financial buttress for the meager Mexican welfare state that does exist, and is in retreat).

[o well this is ok I guess]

Man does anyone else think "Stalin and the Gulags" would be a rad band name

[W1N5T0N]

and then have like anti-stalinist lyrics, as a mocking :D ;)

[The Man]

There was also universal suffrage, free voting, great political freedom,

and of course, anyone who said different was just anticommunist, a fascist jewhating motherfucking cappy nazi, i take it?

Actually, Stalin did attempt to create a secret ballot voting system...

[thesadmafioso]

Actually, Stalin did attempt to create a secret ballot voting system...

So everyone could vote for Stalinist politicians in 'secret', what marvelous progress indeed!

Honestly though, I love these timid yet horribly idiotic defenses of the myth of Stalin's democratic behavior. Well, so what if he violently purged the party of all political dissent, he made up for his reactionary destruction of the revolutionary party by making peoples votes for Stalinist politico's a secret. That atones for his murderous march down the path of counter revolution, right everyone?

[W1N5T0N]

[ ] communist
[ ]communist
[x] communist

[manic expression]

I'm chuckling at supposed anarchists holding aloft bourgeois election norms as sacrosanct.

[W1N5T0N]

I'm chuckling at supposed anarchists holding aloft bourgeois election norms as sacrosanct.


You will need some form of voting wherever you participate in politics, local or regional.
Or of course, you can have the vanguard party SMASH those anticommunists and take over control, building a glorious democratic (oh wait thats bourgeois too nvm) workers paradise.

And...dont councils also rely on voting?
Voting SHOULD be at the base of every decision bottom up.
I know it is not like that in many places like america, but does that defy the principle of things completely?

Its like saying communism is absolute shit because of stalin.
Democracy is not absolute shit either, far away from it, but it has been warped by current governments and certain elites using them as popularity contests.

[piet11111]

Actually, Stalin did attempt to create a secret ballot voting system...

Right and who would be the one doing the counting then ?


It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. uncle joe

[manic expression]

You will need some form of voting wherever you participate in politics, local or regional.
Or of course, you can have the vanguard party SMASH those anticommunists and take over control, building a glorious democratic (oh wait thats bourgeois too nvm) workers paradise.

And...dont councils also rely on voting?
Voting SHOULD be at the base of every decision bottom up.
I know it is not like that in many places like america, but does that defy the principle of things completely?

Its like saying communism is absolute shit because of stalin.
Democracy is not absolute shit either, far away from it, but it has been warped by current governments and certain elites using them as popularity contests.
Alright, let me guess what your anarchist federation's voting ballot would look like:

[ ] anarchist
[x] anarchist
[ ] anarchist

That aside, my main point is that there are many ways to organize elections...just because they're different from what we're used to in bourgeois republics doesn't mean they're undemocratic. If you want to show us that the Soviet Union came up short in that area (something I'd be open to...it wasn't perfect in that way), then just saying that there weren't two or more parties to vote for doesn't say much.

[A Marxist Historian]

I never liked how everyone says stalin killed X amount of people.
It sounds as if he personally wrote down every name on a list while obviously he could not do such a thing on his own.

Clearly a lot of bureaucrats where writing down names of people they wanted to get rid of and then send those names to stalin who wrote of on those lists.
That is more then enough to condemn stalin but the actions of a whole bureaucracy needs to be condemned and its those same bureaucrats that continued to rule after stalin was gone this is the legacy of what we call stalinism.

Here's how it worked. The department in charge of such things, run by a guy named Malenkov, would write up these huge lists, with on average some 300-400 names on them, and Stalin or Molotov or Khrushchev or Kaganovich would sign on the front page, presumably after scanning them over for a few seconds.

I've done research in the Soviet archives and I've seen those lists, and the signatures.

Of course not everybody executed was on lists like that, that was only for officials, the *nomenklatura.* The total number of people on lists like that personally signed by Stalin or one of his close buddies was "only" 68,000, according to current figures.

The great majority of the people killed weren't top officials, so no need for Stalin or Molotov to sign off. That was the department of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police.

Basically, the NKVD was turned loose by Stalin, and everybody that the Soviet police had a file on was executed, some 700,000 people, or sent to the gulags, about an equal number, in 1937 and 1938.

If the same thing was done in America, believe me, the death toll would be far, far higher! And that would make quite a few cops in America as happy as clams.

When Stalin noticed things were getting out of hand, and especially when he heard a rumor that Yezhov the NKVD head was compiling a file on *him,* he put a stop to it and had some 10,000 of the worst executioners executed, starting with Yezhov of course, and replaced him with that wonderful reformer who has such a good reputation, Lavrenti Beria.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Right and who would be the one doing the counting then ?

People have been mentioning J. Arch Getty. His main theory about the Great Terror is that it was motivated by the adoption of secret ballots and the fear that the regime could be toppled by them, so you'd better kill anybody who might even think of voting the wrong way.

I think he's wrong for a variety of reasons. no need to get into that here, but that pretty much says enough about Stalin and his 1936 "democratic constitution" that Bukharin wrote for him.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

You see the problem here is that a few countries - lets take Sweden as an example - managed to have the welfare elements you mentioned, but also avoided putting millions of people in gulags, purges, massive censorship etc. (of course I acknowledge the gulags were greatly reduced in size and harshness after Stalin died, and being purged meant losing your position rather than your head, so there definitely was some improvement)

And how did the Swedes manage this? By getting rich during WWII making ball bearings and treads for the German Panzers crunching their way across Europe, with Sweden safe from the Blitzkrieg because of this and because Swedes by Hitler's lights were part of the Aryan master race.

Most of that welfare stuff has been dropped since the collapse of the Soviet Union, just like in the rest of Europe, as no longer necessary to prevent the workers from thinking the USSR is better.

If you really think Sweden is such a great place, you should get out and go to the movies more often, and find out about the girl who kicked over the hornet's nest. Or maybe even read the books!


"The West" is a big place... I agree the USSR was better than the West in some respects, but overall? As much as I'd like to, I don't think I could honestly say I'd prefer having lived in the USSR rather than in most Western European countries.

The USA might have been an exception, mostly because I'd feel sickened by the "red scare/yellow peril" hysteria and their imperialistic wars and coups.

[QUOTE=DarkPast;2242809]Well of course a lot of the West was a better place to live in than the USSR. Even forgetting about Stalinism, the fact is that the Soviet Union was squashed flat in WWII, with the current estimate of the death toll at 26 million, and much of the country destroyed by the Nazis. The Holocaust *mostly* happened on Soviet soil, and nonetheless Hitler killed about ten times as many non-Jews as Jews in the USSR.

So yes, in the 1950s and 1960s the USA was a better place to live in than the USSR, at least if you were white. It was also a better place to live in than England or Western Europe or Japan, as back then the US standard of living, believe it or not, was by far the highest in the world, being as the US won WWII at relatively little cost and took full advantage.

Nowadays, things are going to hell in a handbasket, and the USSR under Brezhnev is not only vastly better than Putin's Russia now, as most Russians will tell you, but frankly a pleasanter place to live in than America.

You had free education, health care and almost free rent, and no unemployment or homelessness. None. Period. And a society in which auto workers made more money than doctors and lawyers.

You also had a nasty corrupt bureaucratic government and no freedom of expression, but for most people on a day to day basis that's a lot less important, as survival always comes first. Dissidents were in big trouble, but they were a tiny minority. For average people the days of Stalinist terror and the gulag were long gone, Khrushchev had gotten rid of all that.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

in the 1930s, so there was in mexico. in fact, ussr ambassadors mentioned how "mexico was the country most similar to ours). nobody ever calls for its defense today though (although the stalinist and trotskyist bootlickers were all over the mexican state and lazaro cardenas)

You really think that there was universal health care, no unemployment, free rent etc. in Mexico in the 1930s? I don't think so!

Trotsky was glad to accept Cardenas welcoming him to Mexico, and he supported Cardenas taking the oil away from the British, as an anti-imperialist act.

I would hope you would too.

But he *did not* support the Mexican government, don't know where you're getting that from.

Cardenas was basically the Hugo Chavez of the 1930s. Actually rather better in a lot of ways, if anything, but the same kind of guy. Some reforms, so that he could get some popular support to stand up to the oil companies and to America. But basically a nationalist bourgeois dictator, not a socialist of any way, shape or form. Mexico unlike the USSR was and is a thoroughly capitalist country.

Cardenas just wanted the Mexican ruling class in charge, instead of foreign imperialists. Which was supportable as far as it went.

-M.H.-

[W1N5T0N]

The name "Soviet Union" became something of a joke after the soviets were dissolved and worker self management ceased.