Please give me a brief lesson in history

[Mike Fakelastname]

First off, don't ***** at me because I put Lenin in my avatar without knowing that much about him, I just liked the picture... I have a few questions about Communist Russia. My whole knowledge of Russian Communism comes from what they've hastely taught me in school, and reading the book "Animal Farm".

1. Describe Lenin's Revolution please, how did it happen? How was he successful? How did Socialism work out? Exactly how did Lenin come into power?

2. Give me a brief description of Lenin's life? Born, death, how did he die? That stuff.

3. Who's this "Trotsky" fellow?

4. How come Stalin sold out? What was his deal?

[The Children of the Revolution]

First off, don't ***** at me because I put Lenin in my avatar without knowing that much about him, I just liked the picture...


How shallow... :P

I shall attempt to give a VERY brief answer to the questions you raised. I am, as you may guess from my avatar, a HUGE fan of Lenin. If anyone wishes to challenge my views then fine; I don't mind. Here we go.



1. Describe Lenin's Revolution please, how did it happen? How was he successful? How did Socialism work out? Exactly how did Lenin come into power?


Lenin came to power in 1917. Russia was still involved in the First World War; this actually aided the cause of Lenin's Party, the Bolsheviks. The workers in the main industrial cities (Petrograd, and Moscow) were "restless". They had been subjected to intolerable oppression and foul conditions - the same as any working class just after industrialisation. There was a revolution in 1905, but this changed little. Russia was still an "autocracy" - all power was concentrated in the hands of the Tsar, a kind of monarch. After the failure of the Russian military in the War, the public became increasingly incensed. Their anger was directed at the Tsar. Long term oppression, and short term concerns (food, austerity of War etc) led the workers to rebel. The first revolution of 1917 was a true revolution. Workers spilled onto the streets, sections of the army mutinied... The "people" took power.

An interim government was set up, which shared power with the workers "Soviets". (Democratic bodies representing the workers) After a few months, nothing much had changed. Lenin attacked the "Provisional Government" on every issue; he announced popular policies such as "Peace, Land, Bread". In October, the Red Guard (under the inspired leadership of Leon Trotsky) took power in Petrograd. There was no fighting on the streets, the Revolution passed by without bloodshed. Similar military "coup d'etat" style takeovers took place in cities across the country.

The revolution was declared to the World only days later. Of course, it wasn't going to be that easy... A brutal Civil War followed. Long and complex though it was, The Red's eventually pulled through. It would be fair to say that the Revolution was popular from the perspective of the Workers; but not necessarily from the perspective of the peasants. Who, unfortunately, made up 80% of the population. For this reason, the elections which were held were ignored. Russian democracy lasted one day. The new "Constituent Assembly" was dissolved at gunpoint by the Red Guards.

In the context of the Civil War, "Socialism" took a battering. Drastic measures had to be imposed on a population already tired from three years of War. These measures were collectively known as "War Communism". This created an anti-Bolshevik feeling amongst the populace, one which was impossible to overcome without repression. This repression became all too obvious as time wore on.

[I have left HUGE chunks out - I really suggest you invest in a book on the Russian Revolution. It is fascinating stuff; well worth it...]



2. Give me a brief description of Lenin's life? Born, death, how did he die? That stuff.


Er, mind if I write a little less here?

Lenin was born into a bourgeois family. His brother was hung for revolutionary activities; this instilled a deep hatred of Tsarism into the young Lenin. He dedicated himself to Revolution. He studied law at university but was kicked out for attending a protest against the government. He studied in private and graduated first in his class. Around 1890-5 he moved to Petrograd and practiced law. He founded an underground Marxist group and went on to found the "Social Democratic Party".

His strong views led to a split in the party; between "Bolsheviks" and "Mensheviks". The split was down to the nature of the revolution which was desired. Lenin (and the Bolsheviks) believed that the bourgeois phase of exploitation could be bypassed and that the two inevitable revolutions could be telescoped into one. The Mensheviks believed the opposite; that they should wait until the time was ripe to overthrow the bourgeois class.

He effectively led the Revolution, and made most major decisions afterward. He suffered a stroke in 1922 and from then on his health deteriorated. In his later years, he tried to correct the harsh policies he had started but to little effect. He died on the 21st January, 1924. :( :( :(



3. Who's this "Trotsky" fellow?


Trotsky was a Menshevik who "converted" to Bolshevism. He was a fine orator and a superb theoretician. He organised the Red Army, and was responsible for several impressive victories in the Civil War. After Lenin's death, he was a serious contender in the Power struggle - many though he would take over. But he was beaten by Stalin, who controlled the party Beaurocracy. He was exiled and wrote many critical books aimed at Stalin and the Soviet Union after 1925. Ultimately, he became another victim of Stalin's; he was tracked down and killed halfway through the century.



4. How come Stalin sold out? What was his deal?


Stalin was a bastard; he betrayed the Revolution Lenin had worked so hard to create. He was, however, a genius when it came to organisation and paperwork. He was appointed General Secretary of the Party after the Revolution. Although this was regarded as a "bum assignment", it allowed him to promote his supporters to Key positions in the Party. He manipulated the other contenders in the Power struggle, and tricked Trotsky into not turning up to Lenin's funeral.

Once in power, Stalin initiated cruel purges of the party. He actions killed thousands and condemned many more to life in the "gulags". (Prison labour camps) He rushed through industrialisation at great cost with his "Five Year Plans". His inept military leadership almost gifted Hitler the War. And he introduced the corruption and inequality which characterised the USSR until its collapse in 1991.

This will be ridiculously incoherent, as it's 5:40 and I haven't slept all night. I have probably missed out key parts of Russian History and made a thousand spelling errors. But I have tried to give a BRIEF outline of Russian history... Basically, Trotsky good; Lenin better; Stalin bad.

I shall write more tomorrow. (Today...)

[ernestolynch]

All the above is Trotskyite bullshit.

[The Children of the Revolution]

Oh Lord, no. A Stalinist! (Or is it Stalinite?) Either way, you are foolish and misguided.

Yes, Stalin industrialised the Soviet Union.
Yes, Stalin collectivised agriculture.
Yes, Stalin made Russia a "Superpower".

But, Stalin's industrial policies focussed solely on Heavy Industry. A huge increase in Steel or Iron output is great... but not if most of the population doesn't own a pair of shoes.

And Stalin's agricultural policy, flawed and inefficient, resulted in the deaths of millions. HIS PERSONAL ORDERS CONDEMNED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS TO STRAVATION IN THE UKRAINE - WHEN THERE WAS GRAIN ROTTING IN SILOS MERE MILES AWAY.

The Soviet Union failed in its aim to create a Socialist workers state. Largely due to the influence of Stalin and his cronies.

Trotsky on the other hand was bold enough to admit that mistakes had been made; he was openly critical of Stalin and of his regime. He was talented, a superb leader, and would have steered Russia in the right direction. Khruschev, Stalins immediate successor, also attacked Stalinism and the corruption which had plagued the country.

I repeat. Trotsky good; Lenin better; Stalin BAD!!!

Everyone hates Stalin.

[Soviet power supreme]

What trotsky would have done better if he would have been at Stalins position.
Soviet union needed the trains,tractors,ships and other heavy industry.Would trotsky just let the kulaks own the farms?

[Cassius Clay]

Yeah everybody hates Stalin, such great men like Adolf Hitler and Bennito Mussolini hated old Uncle Joe.

What kind of argument 'Trotsky good, Stalin bad' is I dont know. Oh yeah silly me it's the argument that's been used by the west for 70 years.

''. He was appointed General Secretary of the Party after the Revolution. Although this was regarded as a "bum assignment", it allowed him to promote his supporters to Key positions in the Party. He manipulated the other contenders in the Power struggle, and tricked Trotsky into not turning up to Lenin's funeral.''

No Stalin did not trick Trotsky into not turning up to Lenin's funeral. What happened was that the funeral was orginally planeed for one date but because so many people wanted to travel to Moscow it was delayed by a day, now do you honestly expect anyone to belive that Trotsky wasn't able to find this information out, was Stalin (who should never be trusted according to Trot) Trotsky's only source of information? And why wasn't Trotsky able to get to the funeral when millions who didn't have access to 'spe cial trains' were able to from far greater distances?

As Lenin once sdaid Trotsky has a great way of turning history on it's head to look favourable to Trotsky.

And why dont you find out who nominated Stalin for the job of General Secretary and what he said before describing it as a 'bum assingment'? There was no manipulation atleast on Stalin's part, 1927 election result was 725,000 in favour of Stalin and 6000 in favour of Trot.


''Once in power, Stalin initiated cruel purges of the party.''

Tell me what difference3 was there in Stalin's 'power' before 1934 and afterwards? Answer none.

''He actions killed thousands and condemned many more to life in the "gulags". (Prison labour camps)''

No they were just prisons, no need to come up with some fancy word like 'Gulag' to sacre the folks. And Stalin never killed anyone, he didn't have that sought of power. And nevermind that those prisons held less than modern day U$ prisons and that unlike in the west and thrid world today prisoners wern't paid slave-labour wages but the same as the workers outside. Also remember that the death rate in those prisons fell dramtically when modern medicine was introduced, in the late 1940's. Oh yeah and your far more likely to die in a Russian prison today than you ever were in Soviet prisons of that era.

''He rushed through industrialisation at great cost with his "Five Year Plans". His inept military leadership almost gifted Hitler the War. And he introduced the corruption and inequality which characterised the USSR until its collapse in 1991.''

So who won the war again? And all the Generals remained pro-Stalin and spoke positively of his contribution even when they were told to repeat the same lies you spread. Stalin didn't rush through anything, he took a correct line against Trotsky who wanted to 'rush thing through' and against Bakhruin who didn't want any industrialisation full stop. As for inequalities and corruption, simple stats for you. 1953 there were no millionaires in the USSR, after a former Trot took over there were over 15,000.

[Hate Is Art]

cassius one quick question, my grand father is polish, in early 1940 his family was tooken off to a prison in siberia and were forced to work there for the next 4 years becuase they were polish. Luckily my grandad was out getting some food when they came to take them away.

can you justify this? they were tooken from the homes, put in a train and sent to a labour camp in siberia because they were in russian occupied land. My grandad never saw them again.

stalin what a great man

[Cassius Clay]

If what you say is true (not doubting you but folkes on the net have lied before) then that's bad.

However I doubt very much you can provide me with a document by Stalin ordering you Grandad's arrest, etc. I say Stalin didn't have that power because he didn't, there's numerous example's of him being overruled on such matters.

Many Poles were moved to the Urals and Central Asia (not sure about Siberia) after the Red Army came in in 1939/40 (they were generally welcomed as proctectors against the Nazis and the Red Army played little role in the 'internal' affairs of the people there). It must be remembered that Poland was a Fascist state which oppressed numerous nationalities, as such Ukrainians and Slavs in eastern Poland elected to join the USSR. By your own admission your Grandad's family was only there for four years and presumably left come the end of the war and the liberation of Poland. Many such cases happened during the war, what is certain is that ethnic groups like the Chechens, Tartars were removed because of the circumstances of the day not because Stalin was a bad guy. Also the Chechnens for example were given land which remained their automous republic with their culture etc. They returned after the war just like your Grandad.

Some Poles were deported, alot or most weren't. Just like the Americans felt it neccessary to deport Japanese and the British to hold many different nationalities in interment camps during the war. It wasn't nice but neither was it antything 'murderous' or such. Even Robert Conquest who is the most anti-Stalin author around admits 'That There is absoblutly no comparision between this and the Nazi holocaust of the Jews' and that was in his book 'Stalin. Breaker of Nations'. And if those Poles that were moved were treated so badly then two whole Army's eachof 90,000 men and women wouldn't of signed up with the Red Army in 1941 and fight all the way from Moscow to Berlin.

[Hate Is Art]

its the truth dw

i see what you saying and its most likely true that he didnt order it, and they were free to return home, i was just saying how people were treated like objects and were moved away from their homes out of convience to the USSR.

im not an anti-stalinist or a stalinist, i dont really know enough about him to have a pov, my grandad is pretty anti-stalin just because of the way the separated him from his family.

have you got an accurate figure of the ammount of people sent to a labour camps or party members dissapeared under stalins rule?

cheers

[Cassius Clay]

Sure.

http://www.etext.org/Politics/Staljin/Stal.../lies/lies.html (http://www.etext.org/Politics/Staljin/Staljin/articles/lies/lies.html)

[Mike Fakelastname]

The Children of the Revolution: Thank you very much, you were most helpful, I will learn more and more as I go. I read all your posts word for word, thank you for clearing that stuff up, I'm kinda new to the Communism thing.

Cassius Clay: Thank you also, I haven't made up my mind to be pro-Stalin or anti-Stalin yet, I'm leaning toward anti though. Because I knew a bit about him before all this, and about his policies. But still yet, thanks for clearing that up, I'm not an extreme anti-Stalinist though, I just don't like what he did.

[Hate Is Art]

a very interesting read, thanks.

i especially liked this bit


In the United States of America, for example, a country of 252 million inhabitants (in 1996), the richest country in the world, which consumes 60% of the world resources, how many people are in prison? What is the situation in the US, a country not threatened by any war and where there are no deep social changes affecting economic stability?

In a rather small news item appearing in the newspapers of August 1997, the FLT-AP news agency reported that in the US there had never previously been so many people in the prison system as the 5.5 million held in 1996. This represents an increase of 200,000 people since 1995 and means that the number of criminals in the US equals 2.8% of the adult population. These data are available to all those who are part of the North American department of justice. (Bureau of Justice Statistics Home page, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ ) . The number of convicts in the US today is 3 million higher than the maximum number ever held in the Soviet Union! In the Soviet Union there was a maximum of 2.4% of the adult population in prison for their crimes – in the US the figure is 2.8%, and rising! According to a press release put out by the US department of justice on 18 January 1998, the number of convicts in the US in 1997 rose by 96,100.

As far as the Soviet labour camps were concerned, it is true that the regime was harsh and difficult for the prisoners, but what is the situation today in the prisons of the US, which are rife with violence, drugs, prostitution, sexual slavery (290,000 rapes a year in US prisons). Nobody feels safe in US prisons! And this today, and in a society richer than ever before!


thats something for the capitilists! HAHA!

one question cassius, do you think its right to put someone in prison just because they have a different set of political beliefs to the government?

[Mike Fakelastname]

Originally posted by Digital [email protected] 22 2003, 04:56 PM
one question cassius, do you think its right to put someone in prison just because they have a different set of political beliefs to the government?
Of course it's not right, I'm sure he understands that. But sometimes they feel like it's necessary, like if they didn't, their power would be threatened. Anyone would do the same thing if given a chance, not just Stalin.

[Cassius Clay]

No I dont think it's right just to throw someone in prsion because they have different political views to the government. Ofcourse it's a very difficult question you ask there. It's easy to write about things and then be faced with reality later on. Take Lenin's State and Revolution for example, while a excellent work it does tend to fool into a Anarchist trap (which is kinda ironic since he does his fair share of criticisng the Anarchists in it) of idealism. But by the 1920's Lenin was quite correctly stating that Soviet Russia was neither a democracy of Soviets or Socialist, he admitted as much that it was still Capitalist.

On the issue of prisons as a whole and 'political prisoners'. In a revolutionary period the Capitalists will throw everything at you, usually backed up by world Imperialism. How many times have Socialist and progressive movements been shattered and destroyed because of spy's and cons[piracy's backed by Imperialism? Answer is to many. Lenin pointed out that throwing Mensheviks and SR's into prison for a few weeks was hardly suffering compared to what everyone would face if the WHites captured Moscow.

The USSR under Stalin was a democratic society, the folkes who go around with their rants aboput 'Leninism and Stalinist Authoirtarianism' rely on rhectoric which doesn't stand up to the facts. Obviously it wasn't perfect you dont here anyone claiming it was. Never the less there are numerous examples of people disagreeing with the government and not only getting away with it but getting rid of those officials they didn't like. Criticism was encouranged at all levels in the USSR of that era. I would follow the Bolsheviks example as much as poossible. Does that mean I wouldn't condemm every Nazi to death and their modern day cousins who parade under a banner of 'democracy' to a re-education camp? No I would gladly do it, but it is poverty in our current system that causes rascism and the like. Eliminate poverty and the right-wing propaganda and you most likely to create a society which no longer has those problems.

In my opinion Stalin was far to forgiving on various elements higher up in the Soviet Party apparatus. Other times he had to fight for a policy of criticsm and democracy, rightly so.

Mao made the mistake o not only believing people of Fascist ilk could be re-habiltated but aloud Capitalists to have their own newspapers and such. Now look at China today.

Us Communists aren't historians although we sometimes fall into that trap, but it's imporatant to take what's good from history aswell as learn from the mistakes.

[Invader Zim]

My evidence that stalin was an evil man was that he had a moustache... :D

nahh the soviet archives are filled with evidence as I have posted before... then got told it was trotsky lies, and went to bed...

BTW stalinists are best to talk to when they are drunk...

[The Children of the Revolution]

Thank you very much, you were most helpful


No problem. Although it really is a limited history... I couln't include all of Stalin's errors and vices, there wouldn't be enough room on the internet for them all... And why (serious question!) haven't you learnt this in school? We were force-fed it for four years! (Which I actually really enjoyed...) Do they not like teaching Communist History in the US???



Yeah everybody hates Stalin, such great men like Adolf Hitler and Bennito Mussolini hated old Uncle Joe.


Nobody liked Stalin!!! All his party cronies denounced him after he died!!! The only reason they didn't do so when he was alive? Well, they obviously valued their lives... By the way, Trotsky is spelt Trotsky, not Trot. I shall call Uncle Joe "Stal" until you change your spelling!



And why dont you find out who nominated Stalin for the job of General Secretary and what he said before describing it as a 'bum assingment'? There was no manipulation atleast on Stalin's part, 1927 election result was 725,000 in favour of Stalin and 6000 in favour of Trot.


Why do you think Stal was nominated? They were trying to phase him out!!! He was "Commissar for Nationalities" too; a REALLY 'bum assignment'! Another interesting fact about our friend Stal - he was a bank robber! He used to organise raids on banks to provide the party with funds! He was nothing more than a merciless thug. As regards the election... Why do you think Stal got such an overwhelming majority of the vote? Did he fix the results? No. He didn't need to! His position as Party Secretary allowed him to appoint and reject perty membership as he saw fit! So he let all his supporters (no really, these were all his supporters) in, and banned any Trotskyites. But no, he didn't fix the election :P :P :P



No they were just prisons, no need to come up with some fancy word like 'Gulag' to sacre the folks. And Stalin never killed anyone, he didn't have that sought of power.


I find that absolutely hillarious!! Almost as bad as those loonies who try and deny the existence of the holocaust!! Outrageous!!



Crucial is the distinction that Ellman draws between the Gulag's relatively modest "stocks" and its much greater "flows." "Only" a few million people were prisoners in the Gulag at any one time (at the end of 1940, "only" 1.5 million); nonetheless turnover was so high that according to the author's estimate "in the 27 years of the Gulag's existence (1930-56) the number of people who were sentenced to detention in prisons, colonies and camps was 17-18 million." (3)

Like Wheatcroft and several Russian researchers, Ellman concludes that the number of "repression deaths" in 1937 and 1938, the peak years of the great terror, was about one million (more precisely, in the range 950,000--1,200,000). Most of these deaths were deliberate NKVD killings ("executions"), deaths in detention accounting for the remainder.

But although this is the best numerical estimate obtainable, it omits an important hidden category -- deaths that occurred after release but were caused by detention in the Gulag. Of the 644,000 people recorded as being released from the Gulag in 1937-38, how many died shortly afterward as a direct result of the way they were treated there? We do not know, but the number must be very substantial because it was common practice to release from camp prisoners who were no longer strong and healthy enough to work. This improved the camp's indicators for both mortality and labor productivity. (4)


Hah!! About a million a year at it's peak?? No, you're right, this was nothing special for Stalin. Another interesting fact: Stal actions contributed to the deaths of more Jews than the actions of Hitler. But it was Stal that won the War... Uncle Joe... In his peasant smock with his pipe and his friendly moustache...



And all the Generals remained pro-Stalin and spoke positively of his contribution even when they were told to repeat the same lies you spread.


Stal lost every single battle he commanded. It was only when he appointed Marshal Zhukov joint commander in chief (or something similar) that the tide turned. At Stalingrad. And what was Zhukov's reward? "Bum Assignments" in deepest Siberia. Stal took all the glory - no surprises there. And I suspect a major factor in the generals decision to speak highly of Stal was simply fear.



Stalin didn't rush through anything


What about the five-year plan that he condensed into four?

I find your argument laughable. Stalinist apologists are no better then modern Neo-Nazis. Stal betrayed Lenin&#39;s glorious revolution; for this he deserves to be shot&#33; <oh wait, he&#39;s already dead...>

[Sorry, long post]

[Cassius Clay]

Sigh another Trot keeps trotting along to what is written in Trots biography by the various Trots. Usless Trots, although this Trot has actually written something of value.


I couln&#39;t include all of Stalin&#39;s errors and vices, there wouldn&#39;t be enough room on the internet for them all... And why (serious question&#33;) haven&#39;t you learnt this in school? We were force-fed it for four years&#33; (Which I actually really enjoyed...) Do they not like teaching Communist History in the US???

The Trots get there material from those nice people in western education boards. No surprise there, just relieved one of them has finally admittede it.


Nobody liked Stalin&#33;&#33;&#33; All his party cronies denounced him after he died&#33;&#33;&#33; The only reason they didn&#39;t do so when he was alive? Well, they obviously valued their lives...

Guess that&#39;s why millions attended his funeral was it? Who denounced him? Certainly Molotov, Kaganovich, Vorroshilov and numerous others including Generals not only didn&#39;t renounce him but reamined pro-Stalin for the rest of their lifes. Even when the Trot Khruschev told them to criticse Stalin they refused to. Folkes like Khruschev crticised Stalin, sure they did because they restored Capitalism. And you know how the workers, peasants, students and party members reacted to Khruschev&#39;s speech? No ofcourse you dont because they dont tell you that in school to they Trot.


Why do you think Stal was nominated? They were trying to phase him out&#33;&#33;&#33; He was "Commissar for Nationalities" too; a REALLY &#39;bum assignment&#39;&#33; Another interesting fact about our friend Stal - he was a bank robber&#33; He used to organise raids on banks to provide the party with funds&#33; He was nothing more than a merciless thug. As regards the election... Why do you think Stal got such an overwhelming majority of the vote? Did he fix the results? No. He didn&#39;t need to&#33; His position as Party Secretary allowed him to appoint and reject perty membership as he saw fit&#33; So he let all his supporters (no really, these were all his supporters) in, and banned any Trotskyites. But no, he didn&#39;t fix the election

Okay since this Trot hasn&#39;t bothered to research anything other than Trots biography it&#39;s clear he hasn&#39;t any sense of the facts. Stalin was nominated by Lenin in 1922 for the position of General Secretary, it was on Lenin&#39;s recomendation that Stalin take the post. And NOT because it was a &#39;bum assignment&#39;. And Stalin was more than a bank robber, that&#39;s why he led mass workers strikes in Central Asia which Lenin wrote of as a key and very important struggle. And that&#39;s why Lenin commented on Stalin&#39;s work on Nationalities to Maxim Gorky not only in a favourable manner but as the best Marxist work on nationalities there was.

Stalin didn&#39;t fix the election. That&#39;s whty western observers said that the Trots were given all the freedom they wanted. Read into the facts the so called &#39;Left-Opposition&#39; criticsed Stalin to the hilt and they did it for years, trouble is they like you now had no real facts to back themselves up.


Another interesting fact: Stal actions contributed to the deaths of more Jews than the actions of Hitler. But it was Stal that won the War... Uncle Joe... In his peasant smock with his pipe and his friendly moustache...

Here we see the total lies and not to match battle with reality that the Trots spread. If you take this statement seriously your even make your useless Trot friends look bad. No actually scrap the Trot bit. Lenin said &#39;Trotskyites decieve the workers&#39; and 80 years on he&#39;s still proved right. Back this statement up Judas Trot.

Clearly your not up to much. The Generals weren&#39;t pro-Stalin because they were scared for their lives, that would make no sense since Stalin had been dead for years when they wrote their memoirs saying that they could argue their point freely with and that Stalin contriubted greatly to the war effort in a military sense.

[Mike Fakelastname]

I think I&#39;ll remain neutral on the Stalin thing for a little while.

And no, they didn&#39;t teach us shit in US school about Communism. All I learned in school was: Communism=bad, Marx started it, Lenin led a revolution, Stalin was an evil man who was in power during WWII, and an explanation of what the red scare was in America.

[The Children of the Revolution]

The Trots get there material from those nice people in western education boards.


I think you underestimate the scope of our education system.



Certainly Molotov, Kaganovich, Vorroshilov and numerous others including Generals not only didn&#39;t renounce him but reamined pro-Stalin for the rest of their lifes.


If Stalinism had been widely supported, then Khruschev would not have come to power. He came to power because those in the Party wanted a change from the extremes of Stalinism. The public had suffered intloerably under Stalin and welcomed the change. I saw no protests against Khruschev.



Stalin was nominated by Lenin in 1922 for the position of General Secretary, it was on Lenin&#39;s recomendation that Stalin take the post. And NOT because it was a &#39;bum assignment&#39;.


I know this. I know it was on Lenins recomendation. I also know what Lenin though of Comrade Stalin as written in his political testament. (Yes, I know he criticised Trotsky too... But Stalin recieved the harshest treatment.)

Stalin abused his position as General Secretary. Trotsky was the better theoretician, the better orator, and the better thinker. But Stalin was good with books; he was a beaurocrat. A nasty one, who also robbed banks. He used his position of power (which, incidentally, Lenin tried in vain to remove him from) to strenghten his personal power base in the party. This is why he won the election. Out of all the candidates who could have succeeded Lenin, Stalin was in the weakest position initially. Through trickery, manipulation, and by playing each candidate off against each other he managed to come to power.

Incidentally, these Western observers you refer to - are they the same "Westerners" that are Trotskist agents? Manipulating facts? Controlling vast information banks and brainwashing an entire population? Your argument is pathetic. What makes your sources any more reliable?



total lies and ... battle with reality


Ah, a nice summary of your comments comrade.



Stalin contriubted greatly to the war effort in a military sense.


I have to say, this one really takes the biscuit. What a load of tripe. Stalin was more incompetent than Hitler on the battlefield. The evidence is ireffutable - Stalin NEVER directed a successful campaign on the Eastern Front. Also noticeable is the shocking correlation between the appointment of Marshall Zhukov and the miraculous change in fortune of the Red Army...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



All I learned in school was: ... Stalin was an evil man who was in power during WWII


Well, one out of five ain&#39;t bad is it?

[The Children of the Revolution]

My God, I just had a look at that website you [Cassius Clay] recomended&#33;&#33;&#33;

It is the biggest load of rubbish ever published&#33;&#33;&#33; All these people have done is try to make excuses for the excesses of Stalinism&#33;&#33;&#33; Utter dross&#33;&#33;&#33; An entirely new History has been created&#33; This should be under the title "Fiction", not a serious document&#33; It actually made me laugh&#33; They spelt Stalin wrong for crying out loud&#33; The URL is actually very telling...



http://www.etext.org/Politics/Staljin/Stal.../lies/lies.html


>Staljin? Who was he, the Azerbijani equivalent or something?
>And the page is called "lies.html"&#33;&#33;&#33;
>Plus, the "etext" homepage issues a disclaimer so they don&#39;t have to pass judgement on what is, in reality, a pile of steaming crap. Bloody Stalinists...

[Mike Fakelastname]

Originally posted by The Children of the [email protected] 22 2003, 09:02 PM
My God, I just had a look at that website you [Cassius Clay] recomended&#33;&#33;&#33;

It is the biggest load of rubbish ever published&#33;&#33;&#33; All these people have done is try to make excuses for the excesses of Stalinism&#33;&#33;&#33; Utter dross&#33;&#33;&#33; An entirely new History has been created&#33; This should be under the title "Fiction", not a serious document&#33; It actually made me laugh&#33; They spelt Stalin wrong for crying out loud&#33; The URL is actually very telling...
Staljin? Who was he, the Azerbijani equivalent or something?
And the page is called "lies.html"&#33;&#33;&#33;
Plus, the "etext" homepage issues a disclaimer so they don&#39;t have to pass judgement on what is, in reality, a pile of steaming crap. Bloody Stalinists...
I noticed that also, heh. Someone asked for a truthful death census, and he gives them a link that spells "Stalin" wrong, and has "lies" twice in the address.

[Cassius Clay]

Judas Trot is still unable to accept the facts when they stare him in the face and resorts to repeating Trot&#39;s biography.

I&#39;ve asked you for evidence to back up your statement that Stalin is responsibel for more deaths of Jewish people than Hitler was. You haven&#39;t provided any. I&#39;ve pointed out to you that Trotsky like about Lenin&#39;s funeral, you fail to address that point. It&#39;s you who isn&#39;t living in reality, you and your Nazi friends who create mythical famines and evil prisons where tens of millions supposedly died. Oh gey you aren&#39;t going to provide any evidence for that either. How unsurprising.

I couldn&#39;t really care what you think of the site, that article &#39;Lies concerning the history of the Soviet Union&#39; is written by Moura Sousa a worker in Sweden who is a member of a Marxist-Leninist group. The material is based on what the archives say, and the article is available all over the web. And as it says the data has also been used by many prominet western and Russian historians who are far from being pro-Stalin.

You say you saw no protests against Khruschev. Why do you think that is? Could it be that is because it doesn&#39;t tend to be reported in your copy of Socialst Worker or whatever Alan Woods article you read? There were plenty of protests, in particular in Central Asia which Revolutionary Democracy has a great article on.

Khrushev came to power because there was flaws in Soviet society which no one denys. If you are talking in a literal sense he came to power because he carried out a military coup, killed and got rid of all the Communists, released war-criminalls from prison and banned dissent in the party.

And unlike Trot&#39;s account of the world this can all be backed up by reality.

I&#39;ll clear this whole thing about Stalin being a mere &#39;bank-robber&#39; up right now,but I cant imagine you will pay any attention.

As early as 1901 Stalin was involved in workers struggles, Lenin reffered to one as being

&#39;&#39;the event ... is of historical importance for the entire Caucasus&#39;.&#39;&#39;

During the 1906-12 period Stalin led massive strikes involving up to 50,000 workers. Lenin did not nominate Stalin for &#39;Commisar of Nationalities&#39; or General Secretary because it was to get rid of him or a &#39;bum-assignment&#39;.

&#39;&#39;`(W)e need a man to whom the representatives of any of these nations can go and discuss their difficulties in all detail .... I don&#39;t think Comrade Preobrazhensky could suggest any better comrade than Comrade Stalin.

`The same thing applies to the Workers&#39; and Peasants&#39; Inspection. This is a vast business; but to be able to handle investigations we must have at the head of it a man who enjoys high prestige, otherwise we shall become submerged in and overwhelmed by petty intrigue.&#39; &#39;&#39;

That&#39;s what Lenin said.

There was NO &#39;testament&#39;, just what do you think the USSR was? A monarchy? Trotsky even admitted that there was no &#39;testament&#39;. Lenin criticses Stalin for being &#39;rude&#39; and wonders if he is up to the job of GS this was in the context of a personal dispute. Nothing to do with politics. And what does it show when this testament is read out to the party and Lenin&#39;s advise is rejected and the Politburo, Central Commitee, etc who all unaimously still support Stalin?

It&#39;s ironic that you can only find one document by Lenin critical of Stalin yet dozens if not hundred where Lenin is scathing of Trotsky. Yet which one gets distorted and repeated again and again from every school book to Trot newspaer? Why would that be.

Still it matters little. Trot got 6000 votes out of over 725,000 cast.

&#39;&#39;. "An astonishing measure of freedom of debate, criticism and assembly was granted to the Trotskyist oppositionists by the Soviet government… The social and economic policies of the Stalin administration were subjected to continuous criticism… No attempt was made to suppress Trotsky&#39;s agitation until it had openly exposed itself as, in fact, anti-Soviet and connected with other anti-Soviet forces." (Great Conspiracy, p. 204)&#39;&#39;


Regarding Stalin;s military atributes, once again your claims have no basis of reality what so ever. But before I&#39;ll address that perhaps you could explain why Stalin is responsible for more Jewish deaths than Hitler. LOL.

[The Children of the Revolution]

And Cassius "Dishonouring the name of Ali" Clay still refuses to accept (or discuss, barring flat denial) Stalin&#39;s military incompetence, or the REAL reason why Stalin won so many votes - he had purged the Trotskyites&#33; Here are some figures to chew over.

Norman Davies, in "Europe: A History" estimates that (paraphrasing) fifty million were killed in Russia (excluding War losses) in Stalins Regime. Conservative estimates put the figure (excluding War losses again) at around thirty million. (Robert Conquest) Most of these were peasants, political prisoners, and Jews - who were persecuted under Stalin. Hitler killed roughly six million jews, as has been widely publicised.

Stalin was chosen as Commissar for Nationalities because he was a Georgian. Not because he possessed any magical charm. Because he was a Georgian. And please respond to my accusation that Stalin abused his post as General Secretary and promoted his supporters to key party posistions... I would be interested to hear the excuse for that one.



It&#39;s ironic that you can only find one document by Lenin critical of Stalin yet dozens if not hundred where Lenin is scathing of Trotsky.


Lenin was more critical of Trotsky earlier on because of his History as a Menshevik. Also, he was the only individual (apart from Bukharin perhaps...) to threaten Lenin&#39;s position. Stalin was insignificant at the time - Lenin realised his mistake too late. And look at the positions Trotsky had held - he led the Petrograd Soviet. And, he was Commissar for War - hugely important in the context of the time. Why, if Lenin disliked Trotsky, did he trust him with the most important post in the Party?

Whatever you say, the census reports prove Stalin&#39;s guilt. A Russian Historian studying "Demograficheskaya statistika neyestestvennoy smertnosti v SSSR 1918-1956" [Russian censuses of 1918 and 1956] found an enormous 62 million unnatural deaths in the period. This does not include War dead. Of these 62 million, 49 million were during Stalin&#39;s reign of terror. How do you account for these deaths comrade?

[Hate Is Art]

your still avoided the jewish question

trotsky was a great war leader and pretty much won the russian civil war, in fact it was his appearence on the front lines that spurred the red gaurd on to defeat the whites just north of petrograd.

[Cassius Clay]

Well I never thought you&#39;d actually admit where you get your sources from. Robert Conquest, LOL. It&#39;s really difficult to take you seriously you know when you quote material from those sought of &#39;historians&#39;. You want to know where Conquest and the like get all their &#39;sources&#39; from, I&#39;ll tell you. The Nazi press from the 1930&#39;s and so called Ukrainian Dissidents who fired the guns at Babi Yar. Hitler alledgeed that Stalin was responsible for 30 million deaths &#39;through torture and famine&#39;, &#39;millions of Russia&#39;s intelliegensta and christians&#39;. As with most things the Fuhrer said it doesn&#39;t have any basis of reality to it. And if the fact that these Nazi-colloborating sources weren&#39;t discredited enough we have a former one of them by the name of Alexander Zinoviev who admits that &#39;the more they lied the more they were paid in dollars and hailed as geniuses&#39; and that &#39;most of these so called &#39;dissidents&#39; weren&#39;t right in the head&#39; (may not be precise quote, but North Star Compass has it).

You can alledge all you want about how many Stalin was supposedly responsible for. Doesn&#39;t change the facts shown in the archives that the U&#036; today has more in prison, that the life expectancy in the USSR doubled under Stalin and that Stalin didn&#39;t have the power to condemm anyone to death.

You alledge that Stalin was responsible for more deaths than Hitler in particular of the Jewish people. I&#39;ve axsked you for evidence of this and you haven&#39;t backed it up. Stalin not only fought against anti-semitism but for the first time in Russian history the Jewish people were NOT subject to pogroms and murderous prejudice. Not only that but for the first time in the history of the wrold the Jewish people were given a homeland where their culture and history was promoted. This is the actions of your anti-semitic. So why did the USSR highlight to the world what was happening to the Jewish people in the war? No reality just lies.

So tell mew where did Lenin say that Stalin should be made Commissar of Nationalities and other jobs because he was &#39;Georgian&#39;? You have no answer because he didn&#39;t, once again read the quotes above. I know it&#39;s difficult to accept something which goes contray to Trot&#39;s biography but that&#39;s soemthing your gonna have to get used to.

Maybe Lenin nominated Stalin to these positions because he had regonised Stalin from his &#39;bank-robing&#39; days? LOL.


"In this respect we have been left behind by the Caucasus and Poland and the Baltic Region, i.e., precisely those centers where the movement had progressed farthest beyond the old terrorist methods, where the uprising was best prepared, where the mass character of the proletarian struggle was most forcibly and clearly evidenced." ("The Present Situation in Russia and the Tactics of the Workers&#39; Party.")

"Comrade Koba&#39;s [Stalin&#39;s] correspondence merits the utmost attention of all who hold our Party dear. A better exposure of Golos policy (and Golos diplomacy) a better refutation of the views and hopes of our &#39;peacemakers and conciliators&#39; can hardly be imagined...

"...It is not always that these Liquidators come in contact with Party workingmen: it is very rare that the Party receives information on their shameful utterances as exact as that for which we must thank Comrade Koba, but the group of Independent-Legalists preach always and everywhere in this very spirit."

"Regarding nationalism, I quite agree with you that it must be studied more earnestly. We have a splendid Georgian who has got down to work and is writing a big article for &#39;Enlightenment,&#39; after collecting all the Austrian and other data."

"In theoretical Marxist literature this state of affairs and of principles of the national program of S-D have already been elucidated recently (here Stalin&#39;s article comes first.)"

Wow. Who would of thought a mere &#39;bank-robber&#39; would be causing such a fuss?



Stalin couldn&#39;t &#39;promote his supporters&#39;, even in the 1930&#39;s he could not. Stalin wanted Malenkov to be head of the NKVD, the politburo proceeded to nominate Beria. That&#39;s your &#39;beuracrate&#39; who &#39;filled all the posts with his supporters&#39;. If it were true that Stalin ahd such power then Rykov wouldn&#39;t of been made head of the Soviet Trade Unions in 1930&#39;s, Bakhurin wouldn&#39;t of been made editor of Ivesta and Zinoviev and Kamanev wouldn&#39;t of been let back into the party time and time again.

As usual no reality just lies.

Moreover if Stalin was a &#39;manipulating, beurcrate who appointed all his supporters to posistions&#39; then he wouldn&#39;t of stood up for Trotsky in 1925.


Shortly after this, when the Plenum of the Central Committee met and the Leningrad group, together with Kamenev, demanded Trotsky&#39;s immediate expulsion from the Political Bureau, we also disagreed with this proposal of the Opposition, we obtained a majority on the Central Committee and restricted ourselves to removing Trotsky from the post of People&#39;s Commissar for War. We disagreed with Zinoviev and Kamenev, because we knew that lopping method, the bloodletting method - and they demanded blood - was dangerous, contagious: today you lop of one, tomorrow, another, the day after tomorrow a third - what will we have left in the Party? ("Political Report of the CC. to the 14th Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B)") - 1925)


A few posts back you were alledging that Stalin was a mere &#39;bank-robber&#39; and that he was resposnible for more Jewish deaths than Hitler. Among other things. And now you expect me to take you seriously when you alledge Stalin&#39;s military incompetence. Once again who won the war? Which nation supposedly led by a &#39;military fool&#39; defeated the Nazis and half a dozen of their allies who conquered what was previously regarded as the best army in the world (French) in a few weeks?

A few quotes from those same Generals who according to you were scarred of ther lifes so they remained pro-Stalin even when Stalin had been dead for years and they told to be anti-Stalin. :lol:

&#39;&#39;Stalin allways relie3d on collective thinking&#39;&#39;. That was from General Vasilevsky.

&#39;&#39;Stalin did not decide the important questions of the war on his own and did not like deciding on his own. He understood the neccessity of collective work in this complex field perfectly. He could tell someone who had authority in such and such a field and allways took his opinion into account.&#39;&#39; From General Sthermenko.

And General Zhukov said this &#39;&#39;Joseph Stalin was not at all a man whom difficult problems could not be brought up, with whom one could not discuss and even energetically defend their opinion. If some people mantain the contray, I say their declarations are untrue.&#39;&#39;

I know it&#39;s very difficult for a Trot to acknowledge that the USSR actually won the war. Particularly a dogmatic Trot since good old Trotsky predicted that the Nazis would win in a few weeks and the people would not fight and that the &#39;Stalinists&#39; would run away.

Oh yes and Trotsky&#39;s role in the Civil War was hardly that of a saviour. Lenin correctly condemmed his role as &#39;Bonpartist&#39; and risked turning the orkers against the Bolsheviks, and the military actually ended up demanding that he &#39;play no further role in military affairs&#39;.

Guess Trotsky didn&#39;t mention that in his biogrpahy.

[ernestolynch]

Go on Cassius my son&#33; Tell it to that piece of Trot carrion&#33;

[Mike Fakelastname]

Through this topic, my opinion of Stalin has changed for the better, but I still do not believe that there were no prison camps where he sent his own people and worked them to death. I&#39;ve seen too many photos and documentaries on the history channel to deny they existed.

[Bianconero]

Lesson Number 1: Fuck the History Channel;

[The Children of the Revolution]

Well I never thought you&#39;d actually admit where you get your sources from.


At least he can spell "Stalin". And how about the Russian census figures? The vanishing of 49 million people? I see you ignored those. I suppose they were compiled by a Trot were they? Therefore don&#39;t count? Just because Robert Conquest was a Westerner, doesn&#39;t discount his opinion. Historians aren&#39;t given to deliberately misrepresenting the past - that&#39;s the job of "apologists" such as yourself.



... life expectancy in the USSR doubled under Stalin.


Life expectancy doubled? They must not have counted the 49 million that "disappeared". Life expectancy always increases post-industrialisation anyhow. It did in Britain, France, and Germany. No big deal.



So why did the USSR highlight to the world what was happening to the Jewish people in the war?


Propaganda, nothing more. Stalin&#39;s actions were even worse; not just Jews but most of the Kulak class and anyone that opposed him. Of which there were quite a few.



That&#39;s your &#39;beuracrate&#39; who &#39;filled all the posts with his supporters&#39;.


My main point was that Stalin controlled admission to the Party. The individuals you mentioned were important - but numbered only five. Out of 731,000, that&#39;s not too many is it? The power struggle was between these individuals; Stalin could not oust them from their Party positions but he could defeat any measure that was proposed by them.



I know it&#39;s very difficult for a Trot to acknowledge that the USSR actually won the war. Particularly a dogmatic Trot since good old Trotsky predicted that the Nazis would win in a few weeks and the people would not fight and that the &#39;Stalinists&#39; would run away.


I know that the USSR won the War, largely through the efforts of the aforementioned General Zhukov. But your comment (or rather Trotskys) about the Stalinists running away - this is absolutely correct. They did run away. Stalin himself neglected to comment publically on the Nazi invasion for a week. The Nazis made incredible territorial gains, unparalled in Military History. The Stalinists were on the retreat for a year and a half&#33; Indeed, Hitler was so confident of victory against the inferior Russian army that he split his "Stalingrad" force in two&#33; How different the world would have looked if that decision were to have been reversed...

The Russian conscript army was weak. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were shot for cowardice; "running away". Yes, the USSR won the War. Which was good, else Europe would be overrun with Nazis. (Oh sorry, I forgot... it is. Historians, right???) But this was in a large part down to Hitler&#39;s failures as a General and Zhukov&#39;s brilliance; Stalin had little to do with any of it.

By the way, every single one of your quotes says virtually the same thing: Stalin was militarilt inept. He could not make sensible decisions on his own, (as proven before he reluctantly allowed Zhukov a share in the conduct of the War) therefore WAS FORCED TO introduce "collective thinking". He made sure he took all the glory when the War was won, though.

Here&#39;s a new idea: what, if anything, do you think about Stalin&#39;s infamous &#39;Show Trials&#39;? Will you deny them, too? Are they Trotskyite propaganda?

[Scottish_Militant]

All the above is Trotskyite bullshit.

What a robot you are Lynch, you are pathetic :rolleyes:

[Cassius Clay]

Yes life expectancy doubled dear Judas Trot and this was despite the fact 20 million plus Soviets died in the war. The difference is between &#39;other post-industrial society&#39;s&#39; as you say is that you aren&#39;t alledging that they murdered however many millions (although they did). And anyway Russia today is a post-industrial society, yet the average life expectancy there is almost a decade lower than in Stalin&#39;s USSR. So your point is?


USSR progress on mortality under socialism

Year USSR deaths per 1000 USA deaths per 1000
1913 30.2 13.2
1940 18.3 10.8
1950 9.6 9.6
1953 9.0 9.6
1956 7.5 9.4

Year USSR infant deaths per 1000 USA infant deaths per 1000
1913 273 99.9
1940 184 47.0
1950 81 29.2
1953 68 27.8
1956 47 26.0

Source: John F. Kantner, "Basic Demographic Comparisons Between the USSR and the United States," (1959)...paper submitted to the Subcommittee on Economic Statistics of the Joint Economic Committee, Eighty-sixth Congress, First Session, Washington, DC. in Alex Inkeles & Kent Geiger, eds. Soviet Society: A Book of Readings (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1961), p. 18.


The whole of you post is a incoherent and contradicting mess. All your agrument against the article by Comrade Sousa is &#39;oh look the site that hosted it spelt Stalin wrong&#39;. Robert Conquest is a western stooge, he worked for MI6&#39;s anti-communist propaganda dpeartment (it was under that name as well). But even he admitted in the 1990&#39;s that most of his material was infact based on emigre sources (those nice folkes who commited genoice with the Nazis) and none of his work was based on the archives. This ias a man who in 1968 alledges that Stalin was respopnsible for eight million Ukrainians dying, then by 1982 the number has risen to 15 million. Yet you take him seriously. Oh and the west has never lied before has it. Sigh&#33;

Now I&#39;ve picked up on something that really shows your true colours. When I point out that the USSR was one of the few nations pointing out the mistreatment and rascism against Jews in occupied terriotary you reply with

&#39;&#39;Propaganda, nothing more.&#39;&#39;

The answer of a Nazi if there ever was one. But I wont go that low (it&#39;s there for everyone to see) I&#39;m sure your not a Nazi just a &#39;poor misguided fool&#39; to quote a British band I forget the name of. Just see the kind of rubbish your spewing out.

You have still yet to provide me with any evidence that Stalin mistreated the Jewish people, ever let alone is responsible for more Jewish deaths than Hitler. Your arguments have no basis to reality what so ever. You are aware many a Hitler sympathisers in the Cold War era repeated the same rubbish you do, the holocaust was okay because Stalin killed more. Rubbish. You stick up for the Kulaks as a class. Are you interested in Socialist revolution or preserving not only Capitalism but slavery?

The truth is Stalin was far to lenient on them. There were over a million Kulaks, out of which 63,000 were arrested and sent to prison, most were later on aloud to retun home. Ofcourse I dont suspect that you are familiar with the work of the 25,000 who actually took steps to prevent outfight slaughter of the Kulaks from the peasants.

There was no &#39;power struggle&#39; only in the accounts of the west and their Trot friends. If that were the case then once again why did Stalin defend Trotsky when so many wanted him shot? I list those examples not because they are a small number but because it shows that Stalin is in direct contrast to your accuxsations and lies against him. Once again how did Stalin&#39;s &#39;power&#39; or position change between 1922 and afterwards? Answer it didn&#39;t.

Your arguments against Stalin during the war are a mess of contradictions (not to mention a read from a Goebbbels diary. &#39;The Inferior Russian army&#39;. Yes Mein fuhrer those subhuman slavs will never defeat us.)

If Stalin is responsible for every time the Red Army messed up during the war then surely he is responsible for every victory. That&#39;s the way it goes when you take the &#39;Evil Dictator&#39; view of history. You chose that view Judas Trot now you stick with it.

I quote those Red Army Generals because it contradicts what your saying. Even after one of them points out that Stalin &#39;did not like taking decisons on his own&#39; you alledge that &#39;Stalin was forced&#39; into collective thinking. You dont see anything wrong with that argument?


When did the &#39;Stalinists&#39; run away? Remind me where did Stalin go in December 1941? Oh yeah he stayed in Moscow when the German Army was a few miles away and the Luftwaffe was reguarly bombing the city. Millions of members of the CPSU died during the war. And when three million people actually joined tyhe Party during the war when they knew it meant immediat execution upon caputre by the Nazis it goes someway to reffuting the Trot lie that the people weren&#39;t behind the Party and that they were &#39;cowards who run away&#39;.

Here&#39;s what Trotsky said would happen when the Nazis invaded the USSR.


Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question we will answer as frankly; if the war should only remain a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union will be inevitable. In a technical, economic and military sense, imperialism is incomparably more strong. If it is not paralysed by revolution in the west, imperialism will sweep away the regime which issued from the October Revolution» (Revolution Betrayed, p.216).

«We always started from the fact that the international policy of the Kremlin was determined by the new aristocracy&#39;s ... incapacity to conduct a war.
«... the ruling caste is no longer capable of thinking about tomorrow. Its formula is that of all doomed regimes `after us the deluge’...
«The war will topple many things and many individuals. Artifice, trickery, frame-ups and treasons will prove of no avail in escaping its severe judgement» (Statement to the British capitalist press on Stalin - Hitler&#39;s Quartermaster).
«Stalin cannot make a war with discontented workers and peasants and with a decapitated Red Army» (German-Soviet Alliance).
«The level of the USSR&#39;s productive forces forbids a major war. ... the Involvement of the USSR in a major war before the end of this period would signify in any case a struggle with unequal weapons
«The subjective factor, not less important than the material, has changed in the last years sharply for the worse...
«Stalin cannot wage an offensive war with any hope of victory.
«Should the USSR enter the war with its innumerable victims and privations, the whole fraud of the official regime, its outrages and violence, will inevitably provoke a profound reaction on the part of the people, who have already carried out three revolutions in this century. ...
«The present war can crush the Kremlin bureaucracy long before revolution breaks out in some capitalist country. ...» (The Twin Stars: Hitler-Stalin).


So tell me was Trotsky proved right or was he proved wrong? Fact is every single one of Trotsky&#39;s predictions if and has been proven totally and completly false. So the Trots employ the technique of &#39;True. But&#39;. To discredit the 20 million Soviets who fell to defeat Fascism and to hide Trotsky&#39;s criminall lies (all seen above) they seek to lie and manipulate the role played by all members of Soviet society, the peasants, the party, the workers, the army, the Jews and yes Stalin in smashing Fascism.

I mention the army because they and in particular Zhukov completely disagree with your account of Joseph Stalin during the war.


«I am often asked the question: `Where was Stalin at the time of the Moscow battle?&#39;
«Stalin was in Moscow, organising the forces and means for the defeat of the enemy. He must be given his due. As head of the State Defence Committee, and with the members of the Supreme Headquarters and leaders of the People&#39;s Commissariats, he carried on major work in the organising of strategic reserves and the material-technical means essential for the military struggle. With his harsh demands, he achieved, one might say, almost the impossible...» (ibid, pp.102-103).

General Zhukov.

Oh yes and what &#39;Show&#39; Trials would they be? I&#39;m aware of a series of trials between 1936 and 1938 but nothing was a &#39;Show&#39; about them.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by The Children of the [email protected] 23 2003, 12:27 AM
Norman Davies, in "Europe: A History" estimates that (paraphrasing) fifty million were killed in Russia (excluding War losses) in Stalins Regime. Conservative estimates put the figure (excluding War losses again) at around thirty million. (Robert Conquest)
Actually conservative estimates put it at five million. These absurdly high numbers of 50 million, etc. are usually attained by using a dishonest methodology. First they add in the number of people they think were intentionally killed (executed, shot, hung, etc.). This is fair. Then they add in the number killed by starvation under their regime. This is also fair, but most apply a double standard and only do this with Leninist states. The number killed by starvation in western & western backed states is not counted in their death toll. It should be. Then they look at the population figures and add in what the population would have been if this even had not happened. Thus, if population growth would have resulted in a country&#39;s population being 60 million but it was only 40 million they treat that as killing 20 million people. This is an absurd methodology. Just because a country&#39;s birth rate goes down doesn&#39;t mean people are dying. In order to die first you have to be born. If you applied the methodology used to get 50 million deaths by Stalin to other countries you&#39;d find that Western Europe since WW2 has under gone a mass famine that killed millions and that at least 10 million died under FDR. Drop in birth rate does not equal death camps.

Stalin was probably responsible for the deaths of 10-15 million people, including Starvation. The fact that the West has done even worse things does not excuse Stalin&#39;s crimes. Anyone who puts the number killed by Stalin under 4 million is the equivalent of a flat earther, as is anyone who puts it highter than 25 million.

Nikita Khrushchev, who became head of the USSR after Stalin, admitted that Stalin was a mass murderer who committed may crimes, etc. See his speech on this at http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/archi...6/02/24-abs.htm (http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/archive/khrushchev/1956/02/24-abs.htm) I strongly recommend the book "Let History Judge" by Roy Medvedev for a good examination of Stalin&#39;s rule. It backs up many of the criticisms made here of Stalin. Medvedev was a Leninist and a scholar in the USSR, so it can&#39;t be dismissed as "bourgeois propanda." For a good critique of the period prior to Stalin&#39;s rise to power I recommend "The Guillotine at Work" by G.P. Maximoff. Maximoff relies solely on anarchist, socialist & Bolshevik sources so it can&#39;t be dismissed as "bourgeois propaganda" either. Both are good accounts of the atrocities committed by the USSR.

[Cassius Clay]

Same old, same old.

The &#39;flat earther&#39; is far more akin description of you. It must be true that Stalin murdered more than four million because there&#39;s plenty of books on it. Go back 600 years and the guy who says the world is round will face the exact same arguemnts (if they can be called that) that you all produce on Stalin said. It&#39;s &#39;oh but everyone knows Stalin was evil&#39; arguement. No truth, no reality just lies and denial.

You quote a historian from the USSR when it was allready Capitalist. Then you call him a &#39;Leninist&#39;, would be funny if it weren&#39;t true. And Nikita Khruschev. His speech has no evidence to back his claims up and has been proven to be a series of lies and fabricatio. More to the point even he doesn&#39;t alledge Stalin murdered millions.

You say &#39;Stalin was probably responsible for between 10-15 million deaths&#39;. Do you back this up? No as usual that word &#39;probably&#39; comes up. Just like &#39;I heard&#39; and &#39;I read&#39;.

You expect anyone to believe that independent teams of scientists and the like are capable of finding the remains of a 30,000 year old elaphent in Siberia but the Russian government backed by the international community cant find even a few thousand of all these bodies which are barely half a century old?

[crazy comie]

reed revoulotion betrayed by trotsky it is an excilent critisicm of stalin

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by Cassius [email protected] 24 2003, 01:11 AM
The &#39;flat earther&#39; is far more akin description of you. It must be true that Stalin murdered more than four million because there&#39;s plenty of books on it. Go back 600 years and the guy who says the world is round will face the exact same arguemnts (if they can be called that) that you all produce on Stalin said. It&#39;s &#39;oh but everyone knows Stalin was evil&#39; arguement. No truth, no reality just lies and denial.
Straw man fallacy. I didn&#39;t say Stalin was evil because lots of books said that, I said Stalin committed these atrocities because certain books present powerfull evidence to support the assertion. This includes Medvedev&#39;s book "Let History Judge" and others. He wrote that book in the &#39;60s, IIRC. Yes it was capitalist then, the USSR was practicing state monopoly capitalism from day one. Just because an author writes in a capitalist society does not mean his claims are false. Marx lived in capitalist & feudal societies for all his life, does that mean we should disregard everything he said? The "Soviet" government was opposed to his publishing of the book at the time, they did not back it. Medvedev was like the USSR&#39;s version of Michael Parenti or Noam Chomsky - a leftist dissident. Medvedev explicitly identifies himself as a Leninist and in this book criticizes those who would equate Stalin&#39;s "excesses" with Lenin or the dictatorship of the proletariat. Just because the author of a piece comes from a perspective you disagree with does not automatically render it invalid. Believing only works that agree with the ideology you already have is called dogmatism. Have you even read Medvedev&#39;s book?&#33;?

If you read Krushev&#39;s speech you&#39;ll see that it actually cites many pieces of evidence to support his position, including eye-witness testimonies and other stuff. He was the Stalin&#39;s successor, the friggin head of the USSR, and even he admitted that Stalin committed crimes. Plus Maximoff&#39;s book, which relies solely on anarchist, socialist & bolshevik sources, substantiates this as well.

And people have found many mass graves from the Stalin era. A recent example was the grave found near a monastary in Lviv last year. Of course, you&#39;ll dismiss all of this, because like a true dogmatist you only believe things that come from sources agreeing with your ideology - all other sources are rejected solely because they disagree with your ideaology. Neoconservatives do the same thing.

[Cassius Clay]

Your argument that I only accept sources which I agree with could be used with far more credibility against you. I&#39;ve shown you a article which deals with ther facts from the archives based on numerous studies from different perspectives and yet you still repeat &#39;Stalin was probably responsible for between 10-15 million deaths&#39;.

Yeah the USSR was Capitalist by the 1960&#39;s your also right that it was Capitlaist on &#39;day one&#39;. Lenin admitted as much. Socialist development happened between 1920&#39;s and 1950&#39;s. It wasn&#39;t perfect but the USSR achieved what no other nation except Albania and thatt was a Socialism. And no it wasn&#39;t &#39;Authoritarian&#39; as you Anarchists like to say. Regarding Lviv, there wasn&#39;t a war that killed an estimated 28 million people was there? Frankly you tried your best to pin Katryn on Stalin and you were proven to be liars.

Khruschev also said he was a Leninist, it didn&#39;t stop him lying about Stalin and putting in Capitalism did it? I have read Khruschev&#39;s speech and it has no evidence in it what so ever. And once again why were there uprising&#39;s against it? Why did Khruschev have to silence and ban thousands who protested it?

I would just post the link on K&#39;s Speech but unfournatly it sends you somewhere else so I&#39;ll have to post it here.



&#39;&#39;On the Efficient Circulation of Secret Material&#33;

On Feb.24 and 25, 1956, the CPSU Congress held a secret session from which even the representatives of fraternal Communist Parties were barred. On this occasion, Khrushchev(1) delivered a 25,000 word denunciation of Stalin&#39;s alleged "cult of the individual."

Why isn&#39;t this secret speech a secret??? More - why is it (and we take into account the marriage of Grace Kelly) the least secret news of our time? Why did K take the greatest pains to circulate this speech globally after hypocritically warning:

"We cannot let this matter get out of the party, especially not to the press. It is for this reason that we are considering it here at a closed Congress session. We should know the limits; we should not give ammunition to the enemy; we should not wash our dirty linen before their eyes."

K&#39;s speech was meant to be a ruptured secret, a favorite form of calumny. Any cheap Hollywood publicity agent would grant that secrecy is promotion&#39;s greatest propellant. However, K had to test and check audience reaction to the shock of an initial exhibition of what he terms his "dirty linen." Therefore, the session was closed for the purposes of a theatrical preview - with one modification: critics were not welcome. At the preview, K could be certain of the largest "key" audience under "lock and key" circumstances. While details of the "Stalin cult" could be leaked at the discretion of K, details of opposition or even of unhappiness among the delegates could be muffled. Such acoustics are ideal for Khrushchevian revelations.

First, rumored items oozed out (certainly not by Osmosis) to the world capitalist press. These were "high quality" rumors - the kind which turn out to be accurate. We have always noticed that unreliable rumors tend to come from unreliable sources. Rumored reports of the secret speech proved to be reliable Khrushchevisms from a reliable source&#33;

After the period of ooze, K considered it timely to advance to the next stage: a "purported text." A "purported text" allows for revision, clarification, or amplification in event of misfires. For instance, the circulators of the "purported text" indicate certain missing items of a delicate nature.(2)

It should be noted in understanding the ooze technique that even before the circulation of the "purported text." certain alert colleagues of K, misguiding other Communist Parties, immediately understood their signals and began to "de-cult-ivate" their parties.

When K warned that "we should not give ammunition to the enemy," he was being hypocritical in two distinct ways. First, he was deliberately giving ammunition to world capitalism in order to utilize anti-Communist forces in his anti-Stalin campaign. (This should receive historical recognition as K&#39;s contribution to the tactics of the United Front.) Second, he was fostering the lie that Communists are afraid of open self-criticism. Since K, during his attack on Stalin, hypocritically poses as sensitive to enemy observation, let us allow Stalin to advise him:

"Some say that the exposure of its own mistakes and self-criticism are dangerous for the Party because they may be used by the enemy against the party of the proletariat. Lenin regarded such objections as trivial and entirely wrong. ("Foundations of Leninism")

Then Stalin quotes Lenin&#39;s famous passage from "One Step Forward":

"…The Russian Social-Democrats are already steeled enough in battle not to be perturbed by these pinpricks and to continue, in spite of them, their work of self-criticism and ruthless exposure of their own shortcomings, which will unquestionably and inevitably be overcome as the working class movement grows."

Of course, if the criticism in question is scurrilous, ii not only shouldn&#39;t be discussed openly - it shouldn&#39;t exist.

Communist self-criticism may sometimes look like ammunition to the enemy, but its high Marxist caliber precludes its misuse. However, K&#39;s ammunition seems to fit the enemy bore. (Those who have been reading the New York Times know that without K that paper would shrink to the size of a holiday edition and create panic in the pulp industry.)

We are not in the least interested in proving that the K secret should not have leaked. On the contrary, it was designed for leakage; the point is that K found it opportune to collaborate with international capitalism to re-educate international Communism along Khrushchevite lines.

So open is this secret that the NYT was forced into rare modesty: it refused to rejoice in the claim of a captured secret document. On 6-5-56, the day it printed the "purported text," a NYT heading suggested soberly: "Some Observers Think That Moscow Deliberately Put Speech in Western Hands." A NYT editorial said happily: "...a sense of satisfaction must pervade every opponent of communism these past decades." But, although the NYT was sober and happy, even it was shocked because - "it is a searing experience to read that speech."

We are sure that the NYT will recover from its "searing experience" quickly. But - how long will it take the Communist movement&#33;

The "class-conscious" NYT takes some trouble to bring news to the capitalist world for the exhilaration of the rulers and the disillusionment of the oppressed; K&#39;s information takes a detour behind enemy lines before it reaches the socialist sector.

The Eclectic Boomerang

Man is besieged by scoundrels, one worse than the next. K is not the worst type of scoundrel: the worst type is smooth, and K is crude. His crudeness lies in eclectic habits, a common failing of the opportunist.

The opportunist eclectic collects his arguments from various unmatched garbage pails. Therefore, his message lacks continuity and consistency. He is clumsily ambidextrous; he sets up with the right hand what he knocks down with the left. Ambidexterity without coordination does not allow an eclectic to keep track of his points. What he supports in his first paragraph he forgetfully undermines in his last. He is concerned hectically only with the point he is proving at the moment. What bearing this will have on his next point escapes him. While an honest eclectic is simply an untrained thinker, a dishonest one is a demagogue who doesn&#39;t credit his audience with memory.

One night a crescent Moon sought to impress an earth-dweller with its thin cold light. It argued that the Sun was a completely vain projector of too much light. This didn&#39;t impress the earth-dweller - who answered: "And what are YOU but a pale parasite reflecting too little of that light?" Obviously, the earth-dweller was not poetically awed by his momentary association with the Moon. He was an Australian aborigine with a knack for ballistics and sarcasm. Appreciating the design of the crescent Moon for symbolic reasons and adding some slight modifications for ballistic reasons, he fashioned an interesting missile which would first fly circuitously at its target, but which would, in event of a miss, strike back at its source. Thus was a missile with a conscience, the boomerang, invented to memorialize a very poor and dishonest argument.

Now that we have embroidered a boomerang as a proper coat-of-arms for K, let us dissect the technique of this pale parasite while he discredits Stalin in whose reflected accomplishments he basks at the moment.

Inside Dope

Is K&#39;s attack on Stalin objective? Although his attack stems from a definite opportunist ideology, its content is not politics or ideology - but scandal. Stalin is quite famous for many ideas and analyses. They are all to be found in his extensive works. Isn&#39;t it strange that K shies away from this large, close target&#33; Here is Stalin laid flat on an open page at K&#39;s mercy, and K ignores this opportunity for scholarly dissection.

By way of comparison, how does Turning Point tackle K? In all fairness to K, we allow him to attack himself&#33; -via his own works&#33; - meager though they be&#33; We have no need to invent a lurid sex life for him, and we have no need to invent or discover alleged documents - or even marginal notes. K&#39;s self-incriminating word is good enough for us.

Not only does K bypass Stalin&#39;s books, he liquidates them. Foolish&#33; Even hardworking Hitler failed to burn out Communist literature. (Consistently, we would consider the loss of one word of K&#39;s to be great historical waste. Only an unconscionable "editor" would attempt to deprive history of prime laboratory materials in the study of the famous 1956 eclipse.) The Soviet Encyclopedia has skipped for the time being Volume 40 which includes the chapter on Stalin. Stalin will appear later, retouched in the image of K. We are confident that, some day soon, this volume of the encyclopedia will be a valuable collector&#39;s item - and more than that, an appendix (an inflamed appendix&#33;) to Stalin&#39;s collected works.(3)

A lie takes fewer words than its correction. Considering that K dropped 25,000 words worth of lie on the dead Stalin, it will be understood that this article will trace the trajectory of the boomerang only through some representative passages.

According to K, Stalin saw himself as a

"superman possessing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior."

Stalin once said:

"And precisely in order that we may move forward and improve the relations between the masses and the leaders, we must keep the valve of self-criticism open all the time, we must make it possible for Soviet people to &#39;go for&#39; their leaders, to criticize their mistakes, so that the leaders may not grow conceited and the masses may not get out of touch with the leaders." (1925 Report, p. 35, Vol. XI, Collected Works)

K, we suppose, would discount these as idle words and insist, as he did in the un-secret session:

"He never acknowledged to anyone that he made any mistakes, large or small...

An appropriate answer to this accusation appears at the beginning of Stalin&#39;s collected "Works." In an "Author&#39;s Preface" to Volume I, Stalin restricts his attention to a single task: pointing out his own mistakes. Stalin does not, with affected modesty, merely admit mistakes. Honest self-criticism is specific. He painstakingly directs the reader&#39;s attention to specific mistakes in specific articles. With this, he contrasts the correct position of Lenin, traces the history of the correction, and admits:

"…because of our inadequate theoretical training, and because of our neglect, characteristic of practical workers, of theoretical questions, we had not studied the question thoroughly enough and had failed to understand its great significance."(4)

And when did Stalin write this? At the end of his life. The boomerang we have just followed indicates that K is a wild variety of liar. We will conclude this example with a 19th Congress message from K about liars:

"&#39;He who lies can be nobody&#39;s friend,&#39; the proverb rightly says. Deceivers must be dragged into the light of day; we must mete out stern punishment to them and rid our ranks of them."

And he finished his report with:

"Long live the wise leader of our Party and people, the inspirer and organizer of all our victories, Comrade Stalin&#33;"

More than anything else, K would like to "anti-Leninize" Stalin, but this is rather difficult. Let us offer one of the most ridiculous of K&#39;s daredevil attempts.

"At the same time Stalin gave proofs of his lack of respect for Lenin&#39;s memory. It is not a coincidence that, despite the decision taken, over thirty years ago to build a Palace of Soviets as a monument to Vladimir Ilyich, this Palace was not built, its construction was always postponed, and the project allowed to lapse."

What "monumental" proof we have here&#33; Stalin has built mere paper monuments to Lenin in all his writings; K promises more solid stuff - brick on brick&#33;

The story of the Palace of Soviets is an interesting one. Long ago, when photographs of the model were circulated, they aroused mixed feelings - as often as not of horror. The Palace was to rival the tallest and gaudiest structures in the world. A dubious honor&#33; It was said (we think accurately) that it looked like a birthday cake gone mad, with a statue of Lenin perched perilously on top - in danger of falling into the icing. Architects, including Soviet ones, disagreed on this tour de force. The war put it out of the question for a few years because it would have consumed too much material. After the war, we understand, the Soviet Union thought better of this unthinking competition with foreign monstrosities and ditched the plan. More and more, Soviet architects, including those in K&#39;s good graces, have been ridiculing over-ornateness and the skyscraper urge.

This is one of many cases (music, genetics, linguistics, etc.) of prolonged Soviet debate over controversial questions. For this reason, the birthday cake, heaved at Stalin in TV comedy style, also boomerangs. We are touched to see K sobbing over a delayed monument. We thought he was allergic to monuments&#33; Perhaps he believes in a "cult"? Perhaps he confused the giant character of the monument with the picayune character of his attack on an architect whose whole life-plan complied with the difficult specifications of Lenin.

K gives us the benefit of his personal scrutiny. Stalin, we are told, was "sickly suspicious." We are unimpressed by K&#39;s inside dope, but we might - with a little hindsight - even whisper that if Stalin was suspicious he turns out to have had good reason. For instance, didn&#39;t K drop his mask after the funeral? We cannot condemn Stalin even if, according to K, he would look at a person (like K?) and say, "Why are your eyes so shifty today?" There are "shifty" people who sometimes betray themselves a bit through their "shifty" eyes. Moreover, people who wear masks should not whine about the inevitable attention directed to their eyes&#33;

We indulged ourselves above because we were examining a K portrait, but we won&#39;t buy it. The capitalist world has always had a monopoly of such portraits, and Communists have never - before K - attempted to break that monopoly.

As painter, K shows little discipline. At one point when he is emphasizing egotist lines to prove Stalin&#39;s "bragging tone," his brush (or had he grabbed the palette knife?) actually tears through the canvas:

"…for every blow of the enemy we will answer with three blows."

What low opinion of people does K have that he can present such a quote as an example of vanity. On several occasions, Stalin, in the name of the Soviet Union ("we"&#33;) thus warned the hostile world when it began to threaten the Soviet Union. The promise materialized.

Perhaps K is not as bad as we think. Perhaps he is simply a gentle man who is upset by the ferocity of Stalin&#39;s "three blows." K, however, destroys such a considerate approach by telling us:

"They [the fascists] would be well advised to bear in mind any attempt to raid our Ukrainian larder for bread is very apt to cost the raider his head. The Ukrainian people themselves prefer white bread and will dent the skull of anyone who sticks his dirty snout into our Soviet garden." (Speech to 13th Congress, CPSU). (Our emphasis)

In all honesty, we do not object to harsh talk like K&#39;s "dent the skull" (when applied to fascists), but we do not understand the preferability of such expression over Stalin&#39;s less sensational "three blows." Is it that K is searching too hard for Stalin&#39;s sins?

These attacks are all clearly personal. There are other accounts of Stalin&#39;s personal behavior to choose from. Ex-Ambassador to the Soviet Union Davies has given one of the most interesting and detailed accounts. Because his book answers K&#39;s lies on so many grounds, we direct the reader&#39;s attention to this issue&#39;s supplement which extracts a few of Davies&#39; opinions.

Assertions as Facts

In his attack on Stalin, Khrushchev equates mere assertions (inventions) with facts - without offering any proof. This is how K pictures Stalin&#39;s alleged collapse during World War II:

"It would be incorrect to forget that after the first severe disaster and defeats at the front Stalin thought that this was the end. In one of those speeches in those days he said: &#39;All that Lenin created we have lost forever.&#39;"

Wouldn&#39;t it be reasonable to expect that K would identify and prove the existence of such a speech. We suppose we will not find it in Stalin&#39;s collected works. To fill this vacuum, TP is toying with the idea of commissioning K to write and edit the "Collected Unwritten Works of Stalin".

K refers to a wartime plenum which, he says, failed to materialize:

"They [C.C. members] waited two days for the opening of the plenum, but in vain. Stalin did not even want to meet and talk to the Central Committee members. This fact shows how demoralized Stalin was in the first months of the war… Our emphasis)

If this assertion (of Stalin&#39;s self-imposed solitary confinement&#33;) were a fact, it would prove bureaucracy, not demoralization. We bother with this point of logic only to remind the reader of K&#39;s sloppy use of an alleged fact. However, since K&#39;s "fact" is a new and surprising revelation, unsupported by proof, thinking people can qualify it only as an assertion. We understand that such distinctions do not trouble demagogues who flirt with the appearance of fact but who snub the meaning of fact.

Closely allied to this sample is another, that Stalin –

"did not meet with and therefore could not know the opinions of party workers."

Again, is this a fact or an assertion? Observing K leads us to believe that sometimes two wrongs do make a right. Sometimes, two scandalous assertions direct one (via deduction) towards truth. For instance, we noted earlier K&#39;s assertion that Stalin saw himself as a "superman" who "can do anything." Now K exposes a "demoralized" Stalin. We therefore deduce that Stalin was both too demoralized to win the war and too self-confident to let anyone help him lose it&#33;&#33; We also deduce that it would be naive to trust such an unbalanced accounting of Stalin&#39;s sins.

K asserts that Hitler caught Stalin napping despite a warning from Churchill. .Assuming that the warning did occur (the Soviet Union received many warnings at various times and was on guard against provocation), we wonder at Churchill&#39;s reliability and motives. K forgets his point and elucidates in a most correct manner:

"He had in this his own imperialist goals - to bring Germany and the USSR into a bloody war and thereby to strengthen the position of the British Empire."

Here we agree with K. But why, therefore, support Churchill as Stalin&#39;s reliable "intelligence"? In case Churchill&#39;s word is not good enough, K, anti-climatically, offers alternate choices: either the word of an unnamed German soldier or a German civilian.

K asserts that Stalin was a dictator who was incapable of "patient persuasion." Stalin believed in patient persuasion, and often warned against the contrary - in the most famous case defending Trotsky.

"Shortly after this, when the Plenum of the Central Committee met and the Leningrad group, together with Kamenev, demanded Trotsky&#39;s immediate expulsion from the Political Bureau, we also disagreed with this proposal of the Opposition, we obtained a majority on the Central Committee and restricted ourselves to removing Trotsky from the post of People&#39;s Commissar for War. We disagreed with Zinoviev and Kamenev, because we knew that lopping method, the bloodletting method - and they demanded blood - was dangerous, contagious: today you lop of one, tomorrow, another, the day after tomorrow a third - what will we have left in the Party? ("Political Report of the CC. to the 14th Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B)") - 1925) (Our emphasis)

It is not necessary to further disprove K here by drawing from Stalin&#39;s writings. Involved is a simple point of logic. Dictators order; they do not argue. Hitler ordered; Mussolini ordered. Stalin spent a lifetime arguing the fine points of plans, theories, ideologies. His speeches and books are not orders or threats, they are expositions and polemics.

The Latrine Rumor

Sometimes K advances one step beyond the arbitrary assertion; he uses the latrine rumor - sometimes even with witnesses. The latrine rumor is justly famous in the U. S. Army (and we suppose in other armies). Its source is placed in the latrine for reasons both of poetry and accuracy. In promoting a particularly unbelievable rumor, one points to "Mike over there" as proof because he was in the latrine during the rumor&#39;s first flush of life&#33; Thus did K. After certain revelations he would say, there&#39;s so-and-so sitting in the hall; he&#39;ll prove it.

Let us illustrate this farce. K saw that Stalin "had completely lost consciousness of reality," that his only source of information was films, that he never saw people, cities, etc., that even during the war he "never visited any section of the front... except for one short ride on the Mozhaisk Highway during a stabilized situation at the front." Moreover, "Stalin planned operations on a globe." And before one can cough, K is pointing to a Marshal Bagramyan over here or a Vasilevsky over there as witnesses.(5)

K objects to Stalin as a whole and piece by piece. He makes quite an attack on Stalin&#39;s little finger. He informs us that Stalin had a habit of saying that he would shake that little finger and the opponent in question would be no more. For instance, K quotes (without source):

"I will shake my little finger - and there will be no more Tito."

K has Stalin also shake his little finger at others – Kosior, Postyshev, Chubar, Voznesensky, Kuznetsov, etc.

In the chapter preceding the "Conclusion" in the "Short History of CPSU" Stalin says:

"These Whiteguard insects forgot that the real masters of the Soviet country were the Soviet people, and that the Rykovs [already rehabilitated by Khrushchev], Bukharins, Zinovievs, and Kamenevs were only temporary employees of the state, which could at any moment sweep them out from its offices as so much useless rubbish.

"These contemptible lackeys of the fascists forget that the Soviet people had only to move a finger, and not a trace of them would be left." (Our emphasis)

As good Americans, we may be TV&#39;d into the miracles of various laundry aids, but do we have to buy this one which, when applied to Stalin&#39;s faith in the power of the Soviet people, bleaches it down to personal despotism? In truth, a lackey has removed the "Soviet people" from the style of Stalin and inserted the word "I". This was a latrine rumor without witness.

Now, another "latrine rumor" - with witness:

"He said the academician, Vinogradov, should be put in chains, another one should he beaten. Present at this congress as a delegate is the former Minister of State Security, Comrade Ignatiev. Stalin told him curtly, &#39;lf you do not obtain confessions from the doctors we will shorten you by a head.&#39;"

And again (lucky for history), K has, without witness, preserved Stalin&#39;s advice in all cases of opposition:

"…beat, beat and once again beat."

Doesn&#39;t the reader think that before K wrote his line into his speech the thought occurred to him that one should give some source, some foundation for such an incredible charge? After all, this sounds as bad as Bulganin&#39;s recent observation on the new Soviet-Yugoslav relationship:

"We shall chop off the hands of anyone who dares to try to break the friendship." (NYT, 6-7-56)

If someone is dying to believe K because it releases him from all kinds of responsibilities, the latrine rumor is enough. In fact, in such a case, the more advanced "latrine rumor with witnesses" is unnecessary. But, in other cases, the technique of K is self-incriminating.

The "Period Technique"

Uneasy about the known accomplishments of Stalin and uneasy about the contradictions in his own speech, K uses a device which we will call the "period technique." When he has, in embarrassment, to give Stalin his due credit, he says, oh, that was the early period; he changed in his "later period." This is supposed to align all contradictions in K&#39;s accusations. K cannot avoid admitting:

"The role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist revolution, in the civil war, and in the fight for the Construction of Socialism in our country is universally known. Everyone knows this well."

This is quite a statement and covers a lot of history. If Stalin&#39;s contribution is positive in preparing the revolution, in making the revolution, in the civil war, and in the construction of socialism, we had better go easy about believing tall tales about his degeneration in the "later period." After all, the Trotskyites, whom K defends, cannot so easily be defended during the above continuous periods.

When does this glorious period end for Stalin? K tells us that it ends in 1934. This means that the "later period" is really quite a hunk of Stalin&#39;s life - 18 years. Are we to gather that until 1935 Stalin did use that "patient persuasion" which K has accused him of lacking?

When K refers to the ideological fight against the Trotskyites up to 1934, he admits: "Here Stalin played a positive role." When K laments the punishment of Trotskyites after 1934, he blames Stalin&#39;s "willfulness," his "administrative violence, mass repressions, and terror," etc. K is concerned with all those people who were -

"doomed to... moral and physical annihilation... the only proof used... was the confession of the accused himself... acquired through physical pressures."

We have already sampled K&#39;s integrity, so we won&#39;t be concerned here with an examination of an alleged sadistic Stalin. The Trotskyite trials were open, and we again refer the reader to the accompanying supplement. What intrigues us here is not the lurid picture of Stalin, but, more import ant, K&#39;s own attitude - if he can stop shifting long enough to simulate an attitude. The problem is: if the Trotskyites, aside from ideological considerations, were criminal, would K agree that they should receive the penalties prescribed by Soviet law? This merits careful investigation.

K&#39;s denunciation of the punishment of the Trotskyites in 1935-37-39 rests on the formula that it was alright to use "extraordinary" methods during the fight, but, having won, Stalin should have desisted. K insists that after the 17th Congress -

"…the Trotskyites and the rightist opportunists were politically isolated."

K admits that there was no repression against the Trotskyites during the period of their political expose. His point is that -

"…when the ideological opponents of the party were long since defeated politically, then the repressions against them began." (Our emphasis)

There is one factor so far omitted - that after their ideological defeat, the Trotskyites ceased being a political trend and became a gang of anti-Soviet saboteurs. If this were true, would K withdraw his charges against Stalin? K admits that -

"Extraordinary methods would have been resorted to only against those people who had in fact committed criminal acts against the Soviet system." (Our emphasis)

Now we are getting somewhere. We may yet prove that with the help of roller skates even an eclectic can be followed. K says that the Trotskyites were victims of repression after they were defeated ideologically, and he says that this would be permissible only if they were criminals against the Soviet system. If only we could make K understand that they were criminals.

At the 18th CPSU Congress in 1939, wasn&#39;t it Stalin who made the following references to sabotage?

"…agents of fascist espionage services - the Trotskyites, Bukharinites and bourgeois nationalists."

"These monsters, these outcasts of human society, are the accursed of the people of the Soviet Ukraine."

"…mad dogs... despicable Trotskyites… all the foul creatures which the foreign espionage services deposit on Ukrainian soil... enemies and traitors...

"The wreckers - the Trotskyites, Bukharinites and bourgeois nationalists - did every thing to ruin stock raising in the Ukraine."

No, it wasn&#39;t Stalin; it was K expounding on criminals. So - K knows that their repression was permissible. But, what a man knows and what a scoundrel refuses to admit are worlds apart.

One point of common sense must be included here. K has called Stalin everything but a fool. Good - logic can survive even on morsels. Now, if Stalin were not a fool, why would he labor patiently for more than a decade exposing the ideology of the Trotskyites and then, after the achievement of their political isolation, begin repressions? Why didn&#39;t he, with what K calls his "willfulness" destroy them in the first place - the easy way, the "willful" way?

True - But&#33;

K uses the "true - but&#33;" technique. He deplores the unjust treatment of innocent people. True - innocent people were mistreated. But - who mistreated them, and who exposed such mistreatment? (K does not prove that the innocents mentioned by him were in fact innocent. And his "handling" of Beria, Bagirov, etc. since his rise to power hardly qualifies him to talk loudly on the subject.) It was Stalin and others, not K & Co., who exposed the victimization of innocent people. It was Stalin, most of all, who made it dangerous for unprincipled careerists to frame their critics with the label of Trotskyism. We offer an important case&#39;

In 1938, in the course of discussion on the final victory of Socialism in the Soviet Union, a Young Communist League member got into hot water for insisting that while Socialism was victorious in the Soviet Union, the final victory of Socialism was possible only on a world scale. For this correct position, Ivanov was rewarded by being branded a Trotskyite (during the very period of the Trotskyite trials), removed from propaganda work and threatened with expulsion from the League. Ivanov stuck by his convictions - and also wrote to Stalin.

Stalin&#39;s answer is typical. He told Ivanov that he was right, that his persecutor&#39;s

"assertion can be explained only by his failure to understand the surrounding reality and his ignorance of the elementary propositions of Leninism, or by the empty boastfulness of a conceited young bureaucrat."

Reassuring the young man, Stalin said:

"As for the fact that it appears that you, Comrade Ivanov, have been &#39;removed from propaganda work and the question has been raised of your fitness to remain in the regional committee of the Y.C.L,&#39; you have nothing to fear. If the people in the regional committee of the Y.C.L. really want to imitate Chekhov&#39;s Sergeant Prishibeyev,(6) you can be sure that they will lose in this game. Prishibeyevs are not liked in our country." (Communist International of March 1938.)

The troublemaker was right; the righteous were wrong. And the Prishibeyevs grew to hate Stalin more and more.

Up to this point we have watched K operating without the document. In our next point, K tries a few alleged documents (copies of which he distributed to Congress delegates).

History Edited

K attacks Stalin through the editing of history. He does this with three revelation documents. The first is the "infamous" forgery, the Lenin "Testament." This forgery is to the arsenal of Trotskyism what the "The Protocols of Zion" forgery is to anti-Semitism. In a future issue, we will trace the colorful history of the "testament" in detail, but for the moment a few basic points should be made.

1. K has given no proof for the authenticity of this "testament." The burden of proof is on K. For decades, the CP&#39;s of the world have exposed this invention and now they are using it because they will use any argument to achieve their liberation from orthodox Marxism.

2. A forgery is indicated most of all by some political considerations. Of all people in the world, Lenin could least accuse anyone of being "rude," etc. Lenin himself (like Marx before him) was the continual target of this Emily Post projectile. Lenin often scoffed at this whimpering complaint about rudeness. And Lenin was a consistent man with a consistent style which reflected his handling of politics.

3. Stalin was Lenin&#39;s most ardent and consistent defender while he was alive (as he was after his death). Lenin knew this and made it plain in documents which exist. Stalin became General Sec&#39;y of the CP while Lenin was alive and on his motion. We will take the trouble to circulate some of these documents since they are being ignored.

4. Lenin trusted Stalin as much as he mistrusted Zinoviev and Kamenev, whom he denounced as "strike-breakers." On the eve of the revolution, Lenin attempted unsuccessfully to have Zinoviev and Kamenev expelled for divulging the date of the planned uprising.

5. There is one last thing to he said of great importance for all those who really do not believe in anyone&#39;s cult. Let us say for the moment that Lenin did write this - what then? Very simple. Lenin would have proven himself wrong in his criticism of his best defender. An error would be proven against Lenin and not Stalin. We do not think that an error will thus be proven or that the document can be proven. We believe that only the skullduggery of K will be proven. Even K does not deny that during this early period, Stalin was the staunchest defender of the principles of Lenin in the fight against alien ideologies in the Party. Why, then, does K refuse to give Lenin credit for seeing at close range what K can see from a distance.

The second document is a letter from Lenin&#39;s wife, Krupskaya, to Zinoviev and Kamenev complaining of Stalin&#39;s rudeness. The third document is an alleged letter from Lenin to Stalin complaining of Stalin&#39;s "rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her." Lenin allegedly threatened a "severance of relations between us."

Neither K nor his documents indicate what awfully rude remark Stalin made. In this respect, the lineup of documents fires a blank. A revelation of rudeness is being made, but the rudeness, itself, is not revealed&#33; We will not get involved in the Krupskaya letter to Zinoviev and Kamenev except to say that, if true, she displayed a weak choice of shoulders to weep on. In any case, an opinion of Krupskaya would not prove anything about Stalin. It is perfectly possible that Stalin did criticize Krupskaya; he did later.

The Lenin letter is out of character for the reason given above regarding rudeness. Furthermore. Lenin wrote political letters - not personal threats. Again we say, if (?) these two documents were proven authentic, they would prove an error on Lenin&#39;s part because Stalin was the arch enemy of Zinoviev and Kamenev and the political friend of Lenin. It is perfectly possible that a great man can momentarily incorrectly criticize his most staunch supporter, but this case is not very probable. The burden is on K to prove his documents, to put up or shut up, to get beyond the latrine rumor phase of polemics. Of course, we will hear more of this, because we understand from the NYT that a former secretary of Lenin has been found in Moscow. We would suggest to K that he immediately dump Molotov and elevate the secretary to the C.C. and then have her deliver a report to a secret session, which is then leaked to the capitalist press, which then leaks it to Communists.

K accuses Stalin of that "brutal force which had once so alarmed V. I. Lenin." This remark is made some time after having quoted Lenin&#39;s alleged "testament," and K hopes the reader&#39;s memory has dimmed. But when we go back to the very quotes used by K we find no "brutal force"; we find instead an alleged rudeness over the telephone, etc. Only an overconfident finagler could be so careless.

History Un-edited

There is factual data on Lenin&#39;s attitude towards Stalin - in Lenin&#39;s own writings. We have no need to discover death-bed documents. As one would expect, these expressions are always political. They do not deal with how Stalin held a teacup but with the importance of his political contributions. As for personal feelings, Lenin felt a respect for Stalin&#39;s intelligence and a warm comradeship for his principle. After all, at the time of some of the quotes(7) which we are about to give, almost every important political name in Russia fought Lenin. Stalin, long before Lenin met him (or even knew his name and aliases), was independently supporting the Lenin line.

In April 1901, one of the most famous early demonstrations in Russia occurred in Tiflis - 2,000 factory workers under the leadership of Stalin. Writing in Iskra in July 1901, Lenin said:

"The event that took place on Sunday, April 22, in Tiflis is of historic import for the entire Caucasus; this day marks the beginning of an open revolutionary movement in the Caucasus."

During the 1905 revolution, Lenin held a very high opinion of the Caucasus under Stalin&#39;s leadership.

"In this respect we have been left behind by the Caucasus and Poland and the Baltic Region, i.e., precisely those centers where the movement had progressed farthest beyond the old terrorist methods, where the uprising was best prepared, where the mass character of the proletarian struggle was most forcibly and clearly evidenced." ("The Present Situation in Russia and the Tactics of the Workers&#39; Party.")

When Stalin led the Baku workers in a famous political strike in 1908, Lenin was deeply moved to remark:

"The last of the Mohicans of the mass political strike."

In 1905, in an article in "Proletary" Lenin had a high opinion of an article by Stalin:

"In the article &#39;Answer to A Social-Democrat,&#39; we find an excellent formulation of the question of the famous &#39;introduction of consciousness from without.&#39;"

Then Lenin goes on to quote Stalin&#39;s formulation in great detail.

In his article in 1911, "From the Camp of the Stolypin &#39;Labour Party&#39; (Dedicated to Our &#39;Peace-makers and Conciliators&#39;)," Lenin wrote:

"Comrade Koba&#39;s [Stalin&#39;s] correspondence merits the utmost attention of all who hold our Party dear. A better exposure of Golos policy (and Golos diplomacy) a better refutation of the views and hopes of our &#39;peacemakers and conciliators&#39; can hardly be imagined...

"...It is not always that these Liquidators come in contact with Party workingmen: it is very rare that the Party receives information on their shameful utterances as exact as that for which we must thank Comrade Koba, but the group of Independent-Legalists preach always and everywhere in this very spirit."

During the very important Prague Party Conference, Stalin had been arrested and was in exile in Solvychegodsk, but on Lenin&#39;s proposal he was put at the head of a bureau of the Central Committee to lead Party work in Russia.

We have heard slurs on Stalin&#39;s plagiarizing on the National Question from Lenin, but what did Lenin think? In 1913, Lenin wrote to Gorky:

"Regarding nationalism, I quite agree with you that it must be studied more earnestly. We have a splendid Georgian who has got down to work and is writing a big article for &#39;Enlightenment,&#39; after collecting all the Austrian and other data."

Later, in "On the National Program of the R.S.D.L.P.," Lenin wrote:

"In theoretical Marxist literature this state of affairs and of principles of the national program of S-D have already been elucidated recently (here Stalin&#39;s article comes first.)"

On the eve of the revolution, Lenin argued with the Central Committee because they refused to move and endangered the revolution. Stalin stood with Lenin. Lenin felt forced to actually resign from the C.C. This is a fact which is not talked about but the fact is here in Lenin&#39;s own words:

"I am compelled to tender my resignation from the Central Committee, which I hereby do, leaving myself the freedom of propaganda in the lower ranks of the party and at the Party Congress." ("The Crisis Has Matured" Oct 12, 1917)

On Oct. 24, 1917, the morning of the revolution, the editorial in Rabochy Put(8) calling the people to revolt. "What Do We Need?" was written by Stalin.

And what more need be said than that Stalin was elected General Secretary of the CPSU on the motion of Lenin at a Plenum of the Central Committee on April 3, 1922.

A Real Document

K makes quite a case of the "Short Biography" of Stalin. He insinuates that, in effect, this book is a Stalin-controlled piece of flattery. Actually, the book is poorly written. Many of Stalin&#39;s most interesting contributions are neglected. The book has one merit: it offers at least a sparse outline of the continuity of Stalin&#39;s activity. Despite the alleged "cult," very few books have been written about Stalin.

K refers to an alleged first edition with marginal notes:

"Here are some examples characterizing Stalin&#39;s activity, added in Stalin&#39;s own hand:

"&#39;In this fight against the skeptics and capitulators, the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites and Kamenevites, there was definitely welded together, after Lenin&#39;s death, that leading core of the party... that upheld the great banner of Lenin, rallied the party behind Lenin&#39;s behests, and brought the Soviet people into the broad road of industrializing the country and collectivising the rural economy. The leader of this core and the guiding force of the party and the state was Comrade Stalin.&#39;"

See the three dots? What do they mean: what was left out? Even the NYT wondered and looked up the "Short Biography" (which the reader can obtain from TP). This is what the three dots omitted:

"…consisting of Stalin, Molotov, Kalinin, Voroshilov, Kuibyshev, Frunze, Dzerzhinsky, Kaganovitch Ordzdonikidze, Kirov, Yaroslavsky, Mikoyan, Andreyev, Shvernik, Zhdanov, Shriryatov and others."

We underlined Ordzdonikidze for a special reason. K, just before this in his secret speech, had sworn that Stalin had liquidated Ordzdonikidze by forcing him to shoot himself. But this is secondary. The important thing is that in K&#39;s quote of Stalin, Stalin ignores all but himself. In the original, in this case available for scrutiny, Stalin takes the space to spread the honor quite a bit.

Most documents used by K are conveniently unavailable for the intelligent reader to check. However, here is a case of an available document, and when the reader checks he finds that K is an absolute scoundrel.

Again from this available text, K tries a trick with mirrors:

"In the draft text of this hook appeared the following sentence:

"&#39;Stalin is the Lenin of today.&#39;

"This sentence appeared to Stalin to he too weak, so in his own handwriting he changed it to read:

"&#39;Stalin is the worthy continuer of Lenin&#39;s work, or, as it is said in our party, Stalin is the Lenin of today.&#39;"

Now, excusing fools from the room for a moment, read these two versions and weep. Is the rewritten version built up or toned down? We say that whether or not Stalin wrote the alleged second version in the margin, it is toned down: the difference between the "Lenin of today" and "a worthy continuer of Lenin." It might also be added that Stalin was, in a basic sense, "the Lenin of today," as Henri Barbusse put it&#33;

K also points out that Stalin edited the biography to state that the "Short History" was written by Stalin and approved by a commission of the Central Committee. We have only one thing to say. The "Short History" is the finest textbook we know of and worthy of Stalin&#39;s style. There is no argument about the author of the most difficult part on dialectical materialism, so we suppose Stalin was capable of the less difficult parts.

Khrushchev&#39;s Self-Portrait

In our outline analysis of the 20th Congress we gave a basic definition of Khrushchevism:

"Khrushchevism, a current form of revisionism and opportunism, is the attempt to dissolve the contradictions between peaceful coexistence and world revolution."

We explained K&#39;s concentration on Stalin as follows:

"Khrushchevism means placating the hostile world by the deletion of the MOST HATED IDEA and its MOST HATED EXPONENT. To the hostile world, the most hated idea is the proletarian revolution, and its most hated exponent in our time is Stalin."

Therefore, we called our article "Proletarian Revolution and Renegade Khrushchev," and subtitled it "In Defense of Stalin." This brief recapitulation is calculated to remind the sympathetic reader not to develop oversimplified explanations of the 20th Congress based on K&#39;s self-portrait.

We find it necessary to defend K against himself. The self-portrait is so disgusting that the viewer can easily mistake K&#39;s technique for his purpose. K hates Stalin so hard that one can too easily decide that K has produced the current catastrophe in the S.U. simply to avenge himself against a corpse. K himself is to blame for this impression. It is true that the hate is there in concentration. But that is not K&#39;s purpose; that is simply K&#39;s method. The method of a principled Communist should be determined by objective needs. The method of K is highly personal because scoundrels have a wide and free choice of methods.

It must be noticed that K comes to rest on a defense of the Trotskyites. He perverts Leninism for many reasons, but sometimes simply for the purpose of discrediting Stalin in order to rehabilitate old Trotskyite friends. It is not inconceivable that K is an old Trotskyite in disguise. (We will deal with K&#39;s background in another issue.) Although he has helped Trotskyism, we do not think that K&#39;s basic purpose is to restore Trotskyism. In any case, his task is difficult because Lenin and Stalin fought Trotskyism together, because they had the beat opinions of each other, and because Trotskyism has a low opinion of both. K is playing with a forced mixture which will inevitably explode in his face.

K says "facts prove," but, always, his "facts prove" to be merely his own base assertions elevated into facts. Isn&#39;t it surprising that although Communists all over the world were "deeply shocked" by K&#39;s revelations, they accepted the new surprising facts immediately, easily and hypocritically? An ancient member of a Communist parry is told on the authority of one K that Stalin&#39;s slogan was "beat, beat, and once again beat," and he is horrified. What is he horrified at - the smear technique of K? Oh no&#33; He is horrified at Stalin, and also at the fact that no one told him sooner. He is not horrified at his own hypocrisy. But how can a Communist be so hypocritical? He can&#39;t. Many people have been misusing the name Communist.

The wide acceptance of K and his tales is an accurate reflection of the low state of the Communist movement. We may be asked, "but isn&#39;t it true that Communists are disagreeing with specific points as made by K." True - but the points raised prove the hypocrisy. K is not attacked for lying about Stalin. He is criticized because of the amateurish way that he slopped it up. He is not criticized for lies about the murderous Soviet regime under Stalin. He is criticized for not having explained his role in it. That&#39;s the interesting point: the automatic acceptance of the word of a man who, according to his own evidence, played a false role since 1934.

We have heard that "truth shall set you free," but all kinds of fake Communists are in the market for lies about the Soviet Union so that they can free themselves of Marxist responsibility and become "open-minded liberal." The KHRUSHCHEV STORY hit the spot for such people.(9)

We realize it is hard to think in a completely foul atmosphere. For some time the stench has been great. Now, however, the secret speech of K has acted as a knife cutting open the gangrene infection of opportunism. Let no one make the mistake of thinking that the stench has anything to do with Communism. It is the gangrene of opportunism that projects the stench. It is the stench that permeates the air of the new alliance between the alleged leaders of world Communism and the main enemies of world Communism. (We advocate a breath of fresh air to be found in the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin.)

Inevitably, certain Communists will assert themselves and help deliver a climactic blow to this EPISODE in history. These will be Communists who are capable of (in Lenin&#39;s words) -

"protecting the honor, the prestige, and continuity of the Party in periods of acute &#39;depression.&#39;"

Notes:

1) Hereafter: K

2) According to the New York Times, 6-9-56, Agenzia Continentale in Rome printed purported missing items regarding Stalin&#39;s boners in Korea, India and China. It quoted K on "sycophants" who won Stalin prizes at home and abroad.

3) One of the important but less noticed results of K&#39;s debut is the interruption of the printing of Stalin&#39;s complete works. We can imagine how much data on Stalin&#39;s "later period" K is trying to choke by the suppression of the later volumes.

4) Space does not allow our quoting here in detail. The interested and honest reader cannot afford to miss reading this preface in "J. V. Stalin Works," Vol. 1, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1952. If the reader has trouble in acquiring a copy, TP will cooperate.

5) Davies (see supplement) has other information.

6) Chekhov&#39;s police officer was a mixture of bureaucracy, stupidity, righteousness and cruelty.

7) Most of our quotes from Lenin, in this section are taken from Beria&#39;s "On the History of Bolshevik Organization in Transcaucasia," a scholarly and highly documented study of Stalin&#39;s early writings and activities.

8) Pravda

9) In our next article, we will consider the confusion caused by K&#39;s speech in other Communist Parties and the resulting statement of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

Click here to return to the U.S. Index[QUOTE]

[crazy comie]

Quotes do not neaccecarly express someones true belifs. Stalin also probably changed alot of documents letters etc of lenins as is proved likly by him destroying most of the pictures of lenin and trotsky together.. Kruchoves only changes of documents where those implementing him in the purges. There is many first hand evidence of pepole saying how he destroyed half the party and they tried to not be the first to stop claping so as not to anger stalin. As well as this stalin made members of the party to sign death worrents in front of him to see weather they ehere loyal inof.

[Mike Fakelastname]

Hmmm, Clay, you type too much comrade.

[The Children of the Revolution]

There were over a million Kulaks, out of which 63,000 were arrested and sent to prison, most were later on aloud to retun home.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33; &#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33; :P :P :P :P :P

(oh wait, you were being serious...)



There was no &#39;power struggle&#39; only in the accounts of the west and their Trot friends.


Then why did Stalin have Bukharin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev tried and executed in his infamous show trials? (Which I notice you failed to mention - unless it was in that mammoth post I couldn&#39;t be bothered to read...) And why did thousands of foreign engineers and Stalin&#39;s political enemies suffer the same fate? This passage sums up the Power Struggle neatly:



In the first phase of the struggle Trotsky was isolated and defeated by all his colleagues. In the second phase the "Right-Centre", led by Bukharin and Stalin, routed the Zinoviev-Kamenev "Left". In the third phase, Stalin detached himself from, and politically destroyed, the Bukharin "Right".


"Stalin: Man of Steel, Heart of stone"

Plus, I have some information (which you will no doubt deny) about that Red Army and it&#39;s Generals. And before I display that, I will repeat my assertion that the Russian Army WAS inferior to the German (Nazi) one. Quite blatantly. Not because they were slavs, but because they were poorly led, (until after Stalingrad) poorly trained, (in contrast to the model German army) lacked equipment (one in every ten soldiers had a weapon), and because their armour was inferior. (Until the development of the T-34 tank) Back to the generals. I still disagree with their viewpoint, but consider this:



In 1935 and 1936, there were more purges, and in 1937 many military leaders, such as Tukhachevsky, were imprisoned or executed. About half the officers in the army were purged, including ninety per cent of the army&#39;s generals.


© Charlotte McCubbin: &#39;The principle of governing by terror&#39;

Not surprising that the remaining Generals supported Stalin after his earlier exploits... Out of fear rather than respect.

Another interesting FACT: Half the delegates to the "Congress of Victors" (which had secretly tried to remove Stalin from power) were killed during the height of the Party Purges of 1938-39. Stalin had signed their death warrants. And yes, he did have this power. One of Khruschev&#39;s first objectives as the new Premier was to remove Lavrenti Beria as head of the NKVD. He had carried out the purges ordered by Stalin.

I will say this about Stalin:
> He saved the USSR from destruction by the Nazis; through a combination of shrewd diplomacy and rapid industrialisation, then followed by a successful (eventually, and at great cost) military campaign.
> He made the USSR a world superpower, industrially and militarily.
> He ensured the survival of the USSR by, to put it bluntly, killing those who would challenge it.

However.
> He perverted the true course of Socialism / Communism in Russia, introduced corruption and decadence, and laid the long term foundations for the collapse of the Soviet Union.
> He terrorised his opponents; individuals (the show trials, for example) and groups (political opponents sent to the gulags)
> He destroyed Lenin&#39;s dream - for this he deserves the harshest criticism&#33;
> He made Communism in Russia fail.

By the way I am a Leninist more than a Trotskyite.

[Cassius Clay]

Maybe I do but there&#39;s a old saying. It takes one setence to say a lie, it takes far more to refute that lie.

Crazy Commie. All I see in that post is the usual speculation and lies. So if you presented me with a genuine quote from Stalin which was real which had Stalin saying &#39;Yeah I&#39;m a evil dictator. Everybody in Russia better agree with me or I&#39;ll kill them and eat their children&#39; and I responded with &#39;But quotes dont neccessarily mean anything&#39; would you accept that? More to the point why did Stalin write all this stuff if he didn&#39;t mean it? As that article says Hitler ordered, Mussolini ordered, Stalin had to argue and persuade. And why are their numerous sources which prove the USSR under Stalin was a democratic society NOT ran by Joseph Stalin the evil dictator.

Could you provide a reliable source which says &#39;Stalin destroyed half the party&#39;. You should know the first &#39;purges&#39; (and that meant expelling) in the party occurred in 1919 under Lenin. This was aimed against carrerists, opportunists and the like. And there&#39;s accounts of Stalin having to fight against the NKVD because they were going to far. It cant be repeated enough that Stalin did NOT have the power to execute anyone. That&#39;s fact. Instead you come up with lies from a Alexander Soljenistsyn book (yes about the clapping, funny that he would provide this first hand account yet he wasn&#39;t in Moscow, was barely a adult at the time and wasn&#39;t in the party. Yet there he is in Moscow with Stalin. :rolleyes: ) and rubbish about Stalin forcing people to sign death warrants. Can you provide a source for that?

[Cassius Clay]

Yes I was being serious. And if I wanted to I could just say that once again the Generals wrote all this (in particularly Zhukov who you keep on mentioning) after Stalin had died. Yet according you they wrote it because they were scarred of Stalin. That my friend deserves a sentence of laughs. Not some stats based on the facts.


- unless it was in that mammoth post I couldn&#39;t be bothered to read...)

There lies your problem. Go back and read it and then maybe you&#39;ll stop repeating yourself.

Once again what &#39;Show&#39; trials are you reffering to? There was a series of trials between 1936-38 yes but numerous sources confirm both their guilt and the fact the trials were fair. And Stalin actually said he was against Bakhurin&#39;s execution. Moreover if there was a &#39;power-struggle&#39; and &#39;Stalin wanted to get rid of his opponents&#39; why didn&#39;t he just do this in 1925? Afterall he held the same power he did then that he did in the 1930&#39;s. And why would he put them in the public where numerous foriegn journalists and diplomats saw it (where they testified that they were guilty)? Even Hitler couldn&#39;t stage a trial in public. In 1933 in the Leipzeg trial of Georgie Dmitroff and other Communists, Dmitroff exposed the Nazis in court.

If you insist on following Trot&#39;s account of events then you must explain why Stalin defended Trotsky when people were calling for him to be shot. And Stalin never allied with Bakhurin, Stalin at this time actually sent a letter to Bakhurin saying &#39;The slogan &#39;&#39;enrich yourself&#39;&#39; is not ours, our slogan is Socialist development&#39;&#39;.

Oh yes and if you want to talk about &#39;foriegn enginners&#39; and the like then please explain why quite a few of them testify to a delibarate policy of sabotage and links to foriegn powers on behalf of those people bought to trial between 1936-38? You could also address the numerous &#39;foriegn&#39; sources which state that workers in the USSR had far more democracy than in the west.

Regarding the Generals. You still say you &#39;still disagree with what they say&#39;. That&#39;s fine but most people will take their account over your&#39;s so stop repeating your opinion as if it has some basis when the real facts have been shown. And the number of officers actually doubled in the late 1930&#39;s. Those Generals gotten rid of were involved in plans for a coup with the aid of the Nazis. Both Brittish and Czech intelliegence services accounted for this, it was President Benes of Czechslovakia who first notified the Soviet government. Not to mention there is testimony from officers who later on defected and wrote books about how they joined the military for the sole purpose of carrying out a anti-Communist coup.

And the number of Generals executed is greatly inflated (btw they were tried by their own officers) and no one would be having a go at Allende if he had had Pinochet shot on September 9th 1973. Your figures for the Red Army are wrong. Literally thousands of tanks, aircraft, artillery, motars and the like were produced for the upcoming war (those damn pesky Generals testify to this, but let me guess they were scarred of Stalin&#39;s ghost :rolleyes: ). Once again it wasn&#39;t Nazi Germany and their allies that won the war was it. It seems that you hold Stalin responsible for all the Red Army&#39;s mistakes, yet everyone else is owned the glory for all the victory&#39;s. It&#39;s a logic that doesn&#39;t fit with the facts.

Oh and no Stalin did not have the power to execute anyone. This is why according to Stalin&#39;s daughter (who is usually used to present anti-Stalin account) &#39;he was extremely upset&#39; and &#39;thought they were innocent&#39; in reference to the so called &#39;Doctor&#39;s plot&#39;.

[crazy comie]

Acctualy all that suff i got from a program on krushuv and various exparty members where saying this to say why kruchev was some much better than stalin and obviously to back up kruchov.
I was refering to stalins purges stalin did not rid the party of carrerists like lenin he killed half of the true communists.

[Cassius Clay]

No first Stalin didn&#39;t kill anyone, second of all those &#39;real communists&#39; were careerists and opportunists and they were generally got rid of by the people.

[Morpheus]

Please explain how Bela Kun was a "careerist." And if Stalin didn&#39;t kill him then what happened to him?

[Cassius Clay]

Where did I call Bela Kun a careerist?

More to the point why are you who as far as I can see is a self proclaimed Anarchist who seems to be deeply anti Marxist-Leninist (forgive me if I&#39;m wrong) suddenly defending him? As if he wasn&#39;t a &#39;Leninist authoritarian dictator&#39; before he died.

Bela Kun made many mistakes and crucial errors in 1918-19 in Hungary which could be defined as a opportunist. In that he forced the CP to join with the SDP, failed to carry out any class struggle while in power and criticised alot of genuine Communists as to radical when they protested joining with SDP and to reformist when Kun wanted &#39;revolutionary war&#39; against generally everybody. Also ask yourself how a self styled Communist managed to become the sole minister out of 11 ministers in a Capitalist government.

Now also what makes you think Stalin had anything to do with his death? I say that Stalin didn&#39;t have that power because he didn&#39;t not because I&#39;m lying. When what is called the &#39;Doctors Plot&#39; happened according to Stalin&#39;s daughter who is often anti-Stalin, Stalin &#39;was extremely distressed&#39; and &#39;thought they were innocent&#39; (note btw the doctors in question were arrested on valid grounds, what happens in most society&#39;s when a eye-witness comes forward and says they witnessed murder) yet Stalin was unable to get them released. There&#39;s other example&#39;s.

On Kun specificly. Stalin actually telephoned Kun days before asking him to give a interview to a French journalist. Kun denied in this that he had been arrested or anything. A few days later Kun dissapears. Now all this was in 1937 I believe. What was going on in 1937? Yezhov was incharge of the NKVD, there are accounts of Stalin having to fight against Yezhov and in some cases Yezhov having the final decision.

Also Bela Kun had been questioned in a meeting by leaders of the Comintern before all this. While Kun&#39;s previous mistakes had been of a &#39;ultra-leftist&#39; theme it&#39;s clear that plenty of those members of the Comintern were pursing and would later on implement themselves in very much rightist policies (such as Togliatti).

In the meeting Kun was criticised for basically pointing out some flaws of the Comintern in relation to the USSR. It was then pointed out to Kun that Stalin was the leader of the USSR. This was done in the way most of the revisionists did it, as in building up Stalin to a God-like figure and then later on criticisng him for among other things &#39;Cult of personality&#39;. While Stalin is on record of having condoned the cult and fought against it.

Anyway Kun responded with

&#39;&#39;...roared like a mortally wounded lion:
&#39;This is a terrible provocation, a conspriacy to get me murdered. But I swear that I have not wanted to insult Stalin. I want to explain everything to Comrade Stalin himself&#39;&#39;
(A.Tuominen: Article in &#39;&#39;Uusi Kuvaehti&#39;&#39; (New Illustrated Magazine) No. 10/13, June 22nd, 1956; in R.Conquest: &#39;&#39;The great Terror&#39;&#39;; Harmondsworth; 1971; p. 579-80).

Since the case for Kun&#39;s &#39;insulting&#39; Stalin is very vague (and Stalin not only couldn&#39;t of done anything about it but probably would of shrugged it off as when a former foriegn minister &#39;insulted&#39; him) this cant be a motivation for Stalin having done anything. And why would Stalin telephone Kun after this in a seemingly non-agressive or threatening manner?

Those who had the motive and provocation to kill Bela Kun were the rightists who wanted to lead the Comintern to a policy of bankcruptcy without revolution or socialism. Kun opposed their line and was seen as a threat. Why would Stalin feel the need to kill someone who was still for all the disagreements pro-Stalin? Stalin had previously defended Trotsky who was criticising him for everything, it doesn&#39;t fit that Stalin would then feel the need to get rid of someone who compared to Trotsky wasn&#39;t uttering a wimper. Why then would he be asked by Stalin to see a foriegn journalist?

Since the theory that Stalin was a &#39;evil paranoid dictator&#39; has been blown apart by the facts (something even the west is coming round to addmitting, atleast some like Getty) it cant be said that Stalin just did it because he was a &#39;perveted sadist&#39;.

No Bela Kun was very likely killed by the rightists in the Comintern and NKVD who later on were either exposed by Marxist-Leninists to be revisionists or by there very actions once Stalin had died. Bela Kun made serious mistakes though this shouldn&#39;t be forgotten but if your looking for suspects try the same guys that murdered Sergie Kirov and Maxim Gorky.

[The Children of the Revolution]

... numerous sources confirm both their guilt and the fact the trials were fair.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA&#33;&#33;&#33; :D



And why would he put them in the public where numerous foriegn journalists and diplomats saw it (where they testified that they were guilty)?


All the evidence was fabricated; the only reason a "conviction" was secured is that the individuals concerned were forced to sign a "confession". If they didn&#39;t, they (or their families) faced torture. Do you really think that all the leading Bolsheviks were plotting against the revolution? The revolution that they had spent their entire lives trying to create? Rubbish, absolute rot.



... you must explain why Stalin defended Trotsky ...


Why did Stalin have Trotsky assassinated abroad?



Those Generals gotten rid of were involved in plans for a coup with the aid of the Nazis.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA&#33;&#33;&#33; :D



Not to mention there is testimony from officers who later on defected and wrote books about how they joined the military for the sole purpose of carrying out a anti-Communist coup.


How is this testimony valid? They have defected, they are bound to write with an anti-Soviet bias... And would these officers be the same ones that praised comrade Stalins bravery and intelligence in the War? You speak utter nonsense.



Once again it wasn&#39;t Nazi Germany and their allies that won the war was it. It seems that you hold Stalin responsible for all the Red Army&#39;s mistakes, yet everyone else is owned the glory for all the victory&#39;s. It&#39;s a logic that doesn&#39;t fit with the facts.


Yes. This is exactly what I am saying. Stalins errors in the first half of the War (and the military superiority of the Germans) almost proved decisive. After Stalingrad (when Marshal Zhukov assumed control of the armed forces) the Russian Army was stronger tactically. And the industrial power of the USSR eventually began to tell. Initially though, you cannot seriously say that the Red Army was even close to the level of Hitlers Army. Yes, the Soviet Union had developed industrially - but if it had had an equal military base to that of the Nazis, why did the Nazis make so much progress in the first years of the War?

The truth is that Stalin WAS bad. And Trotsky wasn&#39;t. Neither was Lenin.

[Cassius Clay]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA.

I know I&#39;m in the early hours of the morning to but it seems that you only post after midnight and not after dawn. Anyway just curious.

Atleast it might explain why your both in such a good mood and why your posts keep on repeating same old, same old.

Now then.

Anyway here&#39;s part of a post I made way back on the issue of the &#39;Show Trials&#39;.


&#39;&#39;First of all here is the testimony of the American Ambassador to the USSR who was present at all three trials, he wrote about these events in his book &#39;Mission to Moscow&#39; in 1940.


"…after daily observation of the witnesses, their manner of testifying, the unconscious corroborations which developed, and other facts in the course of the trial, together with others of which judicial notice could be taken, it is my opinion so far as the political defendants are concerned sufficient crimes under Soviet law, among those charged in the indictment, were established by the proof and beyond a reasonable doubt to justify the verdict of guilty of treason and the adjudication of the punishment provided by Soviet criminal statutes."


The British Lawyer Pitt wrote.


&#39;&#39;And the charge against the men was not merely made. It was admitted, admitted by men the majority of whom were shown by their records to be possessed of physical and moral courage well adapted to protect them from confessing under pressure. And at no stage was any suggestion made by any of them that any sort of improper treatment had been used to persuade them to confess.

The first thing that struck me, as an English lawyer, was the almost free-and-easy dameanour of the prisoners. They all looked well; they all got up and spoke, even at length, whenever they wanted to do so (for the matter of that, they strolled out, with a guard, when they wanted to).

The one or two witnesses who were called by the prosecution were cross-examined by the prisoners who were affected by their evidence, with the same freedom as would have been the case in England.

The prisoners voluntarily renounced counsel; they could have had counsel without fee had they wished, but they preferred to dispense with them. And having regard to their pleas of guilty and to their own ability to speak, amounting in most cases to real eloquence, they probably did not suffer by their decision, able as some of my Moscow colleagues are.

The most striking novelty, perhaps, to an English lawyer, was the easy way in which first one and then another prisoner would intervene in the course of the examination of one of their co-defendants, without any objection from the Court or from the prosecutor, so that one got the impression of a quick and vivid debate between four people, the prosecutor and three prisoners, all talking together, if not actually at the same moment -- a method which, whilst impossible with a jury, is certainly conducive to clearing up disputes of fact with some rapidity

Far more important, however, if less striking, were the final speeches.

In accordance with Soviet law, the prisoners had the last word -- 15 speeches after the last chance of the prosecution to say anything.

The Public prosecutor, Vishinsky, spoke first. He spoke for four or five hours. He looked like a very intelligent and rather mild-mannered English business man.

He spoke with vigour and clarity. He seldom raised his voice. He never ranted, or shouted, or thumped the table. He rarely looked at the public or played for effect.

He said strong things; he called the defendants bandits, and mad dogs, and suggested that they ought to be exterminated. Even in as grave a case as this, some English Attorney-Generals might not have spoken so strongly; but in many cases less grave many English prosecuting counsel have used much harsher words.

He was not interrupted by the Court or by any of the accused. His speech was clapped by the public, and no attempt was made to prevent the applause.

That seems odd to the English mind, but where there is no jury it cannot do much harm, and it was noticeable throughout that the Court’s efforts, by the use of a little bell, to repress the laughter that was caused either by the prisoners’ sallies or by any other incident were not immediately successful.

But now came the final test. The 15 guilty men, who had sought to overthrow the whole Soviet State, now had their rights to speak; and they spoke.

Some at great length, some shortly, some argumentatively, others with some measures of pleading; most with eloquence, some with emotion; some consciously addressing the public in the crowded hall, some turning to the court.

But they all said what they had to say.

They met with no interruption from the prosecutor, with no more than a rare short word or two from the court; and the public itself sat quiet, manifesting none of the hatred it must have felt.

They spoke without any embarrassment or hindrance.

The executive authorities of U.S.S.R. may have taken, by the successful prosecution of this case, a very big step towards eradicating counter-revolutionary activities.

But it is equally clear that the judicature and the prosecuting attorney of U.S.S.R. have taken at least as great a step towards establishing their reputation among the legal systems of the modern world.


For the rest of the post on the so called &#39;fabricated&#39; evidence you can go here http://www.socialistfront.org/forum/index....T&f=9&t=250&hl= (http://www.socialistfront.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=9&t=250&hl=)


No the officers wouldn&#39;t &#39;be the same ones&#39; (what are you talking about I&#39;ve shown you there names for crying out loud) who took a pro-Stalin line and provided a honest account of what happened. Why do you still muster this point? Do you think you know more about it then they did? That your opinion matters more in a historical perspective than their&#39;s who were actually there. Give me a break Judas Trot.

One such officer who wrote about just one conspricy within the Red Army at that time was a Colonel. Here&#39;s his story below.


A clandestine anti-Communist organization in the Red Army
In general, the purges within the Red Army are presented as acts of foolish, arbitrary, blind repression; the accusations were all set-ups, diabolically prepared to ensure Stalin&#39;s personal dictatorship.

What is the truth?

A concrete and very interesting example can give us some essential aspects.

A colonel in the Soviet Army, G. A. Tokaev, defected to the British in 1948. He wrote a book called Comrade X, a real gold mine for those who want to try to understand the complexity of the struggle within the Bolshevik Party. Aeronautical engineer, Tokaev was from 1937 to 1948 the Political Secretary of the largest Party branch of the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. He was therefore a leading cadre.

.

Tokaev, op. cit. , pp. 83--84.


When he entered the Party in 1933 at the age of 22, Tokaev was already a member of a clandestine anti-Communist organization. At the head of his organization was a leading officer of the Red Army, an influential member of the Bolshevik Party Central Committee&#33; Tokaev&#39;s group held secret conferences, adopted resolutions and sent emissaries around the country.

Throughout the book, published in 1956, he developed the political ideas of his clandestine group. Reading the main points adopted by this clandestine anti-Communist organization is very instructive.

Tokaev first presented himself as a `revolutionary democrat and liberal&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 1.


We were, he claimed, `the enemy of any man who thought to divide the world into `us&#39; and `them&#39;, into communists and anti-communists&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 5.


Tokaev&#39;s group `proclaimed the ideal of universal brotherhood&#39; and `regarded Christianity as one of the great systems of universal human values&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 220.


Tokaev&#39;s group was partisan to the bourgeois régime set up by the February Revolution. The `February Revolution represented at least a flicker of democracy ... (that) pointed to a latent belief in democracy among the common people&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 75.


The exile Menshevik newspaper, Sozialistichesky Vestnik was circulated within Tokaev&#39;s group, as was the book The Dawn of the Red Terror by the Menshevik G. Aaronson .

.

Ibid. , p. 8.


Tokaev recognized the link between his anti-Communist organization and the social-democrat International. `The revolutionary democratic movement is close to the democratic socialists. I have worked in close co-operation with many convinced socialists, such as Kurt Schumacher .... Such names as Attlee, Bevin, Spaak and Blum mean something to humanity&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 45.


Tokaev also fought for the `human rights&#39; of all anti-Communists. `In our view ... there was no more urgent and important matter for the U.S.S.R. than the struggle for the human rights of the individual&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 15.


Multi-partyism and the division of the U.S.S.R. into independent republics were two essential points of the conspirators&#39; program.

Tokaev&#39;s group, the majority of whose members seem to have been nationalists from the Caucasus region, expressed his support for Yenukidze&#39;s plan, which aimed at destroying Stalinism `root and branch&#39; and replacing Stalin&#39;s `reactionary U.S.S.R.&#39; by a `free union of free peoples&#39;. The country was to be divided into ten natural regions: The North Caucasian United States, The Ukraine Democratic Republic, The Moscow Democratic Republic, The Siberian Democratic Republic, etc.

.

Ibid. , p. 21.


While preparing in 1939 a plan to overthrow Stalin&#39;s government, Tokaev&#39;s group was ready to `seek outside support, particularly from the parties of the Second International .... a new Constituent Assembly would be elected and its first measure would be to terminate one Party rule&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 160.


Tokaev&#39;s clandestine group was clearly engaged in a struggle to the end with the Party leadership. In the summer of 1935, `We of the opposition, whether army or civilian, fully realised that we had entered a life-or-death struggle&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 17.


Finally, Tokaev considered `Britain the freest and most democratic country in the world&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 189.

After World War II, `My friends and I had become great admirers of the United States&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 274.


Astoundingly, this is, almost point by point, Gorbachev&#39;s program. Starting in 1985, the ideas that were being defended in 1931--1941 by clandestine anti-Communist organizations resurfaced at the head of the Party. Gorbachev denounced the division of the world between socialism and capitalism and converted himself to `universal values&#39;. The rapprochement with social-democracy was initiated by Gorbachev in 1986. Multi-partyism became reality in the USSR in 1989. Yeltsin just reminded French Prime Minister Chirac that the February Revolution brought `democratic hope&#39; to Russia. The transformation of the `reactionary U.S.S.R.&#39; into a `Union of Free Republics&#39; has been achieved.

But in 1935 when Tokaev was fighting for the program applied 50 years later by Gorbachev, he was fully conscious that he was engaged in a struggle to the end with the Bolshevik leadership.

`(I)n the summer of 1935 ... We of the opposition, whether army or civilian, fully realised that we had entered a life-or-death struggle.&#39;

.

Ibid. , p. 17.



Who belonged to Tokaev&#39;s clandestine group?

They were mostly Red Army officers, often young officers coming out of military academies. His leader, Comrade X --- the real name is never given --- was a member of the Central Committee during the thirties and forties.

Riz, lieutenant-captain in the navy, was the head of the clandestine movement in the Black Sea flottila. Expelled from the Party four times, he was reintegrated four times.

.

Ibid. , p. 6.


Generals Osepyan, Deputy Head of the Political Administration of the Armed Forces (&#33;), and Alksnis were among the main leaders of the clandestine organization. They were all close to General Kashirin. All three were arrested and executed during the Tukhachevsky affair.

.

Ibid. , p. 118.


A few more names. Lieutenant-Colonel Gaï, killed in 1936 in an armed confrontation with the police.

.

Ibid. , p. 22.

Colonel Kosmodemyansky, who `had made heroic but untimely attempts to shake off the Stalin oligarchy&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 215.

Colonel-General Todorsky, Chief of the Zhukovsky Academy, and Smolensky, Divisional Commissar, Deputy Chief of the Academy, responsible for political affairs.

.

Ibid. , p. 28.


In Ukraine, the group supported Nikolai Generalov, whom Tokaev met in 1931 during a clandestine meeting in Moscow, and Lentzer. The two were arrested in Dniepropetrovsk in 1936.

.

Ibid. , pp. 9, 47.


Katya Okman, the daughter of an Old Bolshevik, entered into conflict with the Party at the beginning of the Revolution, and Klava Yeryomenko, Ukrainian widow of a naval aviation officer at Sebastopol, assured links throughout the country.

During the purge of the Bukharin group (`right deviationist&#39;) and that of Marshal Tukhachevsky, most of Tokaev&#39;s group was arrested and shot: `circles close to Comrade X had been almost completely wiped out. Most of them had been arrested in connection with the `Right-wing deviationists&#39; &#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 84.

Our situation, wrote Tokaev, had become tragic. One of the cadres, Belinsky, remarked that we had made a mistake in believing that Stalin was an incapable who would never be able to achieve industrialization and cultural development. Riz replied that he was wrong, that it was a struggle between generations and that the after-Stalin had to be prepared.

.

Ibid. , pp. 74--75.


Despite having an anti-Communist platform, Tokaev&#39;s clandestine organization maintained close links with `reformist-communist&#39; factions within the Party.

In June 1935, Tokaev was sent to the south. He made a few comments about Yenukidze and Sheboldayev, two `Stalinist&#39; Bolsheviks, commonly considered as typical victims of Stalin&#39;s arbitrariness.

`One of my tasks was to try to ward off an attack against a number of Sea of Azov, Black Sea and North Caucasian opposition leaders, the chief of whom was B. P. Sheboldayev, First Secretary of the Regional Committee of the Party and a member of the Central Committee itself. Not that our movement was completely at one with the Sheboldayev--Yenukidze group, but we knew what they were doing and Comrade X considered it our revolutionary duty to help them at a critical moment .... We disagreed on details, but these were nevertheless brave and honorable men, who had many a time saved members of our group, and who had a considerable chance of success.&#39;

.

Ibid. , p. 6.


`(In 1935), my personal contacts made it possible for me to get at certain top-secret files belonging to the Party Central Office and relating to `Abu&#39; Yenukidze and his group. The papers would help us to find out just how much the Stalinists knew about all those working against them ....

`(Yanukdize) was a committed communist of the right-wing ....

`The open conflict between Stalin and Yenukidze really dated from the law of December 1st, 1934, which followed immediately on the assassination of Kirov.&#39;

.

Ibid. , pp. 17--18.


`Yenukidze (tolerated) under him a handful ... of men who were technically efficient and useful to the community but who were anti-communists.&#39;

.

Ibid. , p. 20.


Yenukidze was placed under house arrest in mid-1935. Lieutenant-Colonel Gaï, a leader of Tokaev&#39;s organization, organized his escape. At Rostov-on-Don, they held a conference with Sheboldayev, First Secretary of the Regional Committee for Sea of Azon--Black Sea, with Pivovarov, the President of the Soviet of the Region and with Larin, the Prime Minister. Then Yenukidze and Gaï continued to the south, but they were ambushed by the NKVD near Baku. Gaï shot two men, but was himself killed.

.

Ibid. , p. 22.


Tokaev&#39;s opposition group also had links with Bukharin&#39;s group (see page ).

Tokaev claimed that his group maintained close contact with another faction at the head of the Party, that of the Chief of Security, Yagoda. `(W)e knew the power of ... NKVD bosses Yagoda or Beria ... in their roles not of servants, but of enemies of the régime&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 7.


Tokaev wrote that Yagoda protected many of their men who were in danger. When Yagoda was arrested, all the links that Tokaev&#39;s group had with the leadership of state security were broken. For their clandestine movement, this was a tremendous loss.

`The NKVD now headed by Yezhov, took another step forward. The Little Politbureau had penetrated the Yenukidze--Sheboldayev and the Yagoda--Zelinsky conspiracies, and broken through the opposition&#39;s links within the central institutions of the political police&#39;. Yagoda `was removed from the NKVD, and we lost a strong link in our opposition intelligence service&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 63.




What were the intentions, the projects and the activities of Tokaev&#39;s group?

Well before 1934, wrote Tokaev, `our group had planned to assassinate Kirov and Kalinin, the President of the Soviet Union. Finally, it was another group that assassinated Kirov, a group with which we were in contact.&#39;

.

Ibid. , p. 2.


`In 1934 there was a plot to start a revolution by arresting the whole of the Stalinist-packed 17th Congress of the Party&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 37.


A comrade from the group, Klava Yeryomenko, proposed in mid-1936 to kill Stalin. She knew officers of Stalin&#39;s bodyguard. Comrade X had refused, and `pointed out that there had already been no less than fifteen attempts to assassinate Stalin, none had got near to success, each had cost many brave lives&#39;.

.

Ibid. , pp. 48--49.


`In August, 1936 ... My own conclusion was that the time for delay was past. We must make immediate preparations for an armed uprising. I was sure then, as I am today, that if Comrade X had chosen to send out a call to arms, he would have been joined at once by many of the big men of the U.S.S.R. In 1936, Alksnis , Yegorov, Osepyan and Kashirin would have joined him&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 48.


Note that all these generals were executed after the Tukhachevsky conspiracy. Tokaev thought that they had in 1936 sufficiently many men in the army to succeed in a coup d&#39;état, which, Bukharin still being alive, would have had support from the peasantry.

One of `our pilots&#39;, recalled Tokaev, submitted to Comrade X and to Alksnis and Osepyan his plan to bomb the Lenin Mausoleum and the Politburo.

.

Ibid. , p. 34.


On November 20, 1936, in Moscow, Comrade X, during a clandestine meeting of five members, proposed to Demokratov to assassinate Yezhov during the Eighth Extraordinary Congress of the Soviets.

.

Ibid. , p. 64.


`In April (1939) we held a congress of underground oppositionist leaders to review the position at home and abroad. Apart from revolutionary democrats there were present two socialists and two Right-wing military oppositionists, one of whom called himself a popular democrat-decentralist. We passed a resolution for the first time defining Stalinism as counter-revolutionary fascism, a betrayal of the working class .... The resolution was immediately communicated to prominent personalities of both Party and Government and similar conferences were organised in other centres .... we went to assess the chances of an armed uprising against Stalin&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 156.

Note that the theme `&#39; was shared in the thirties by Soviet military conspirators, Trotskyists, social-democrats and the Western Catholic right-wing.

Soon after, Tokaev was discussing with Smolninsky, a clandestine name for a leading officer of the Leningrad district, the possibility of a attempt against Zhdanov.

.

Ibid. , pp. 156--157.


Still in 1939, on the eve of the war, there was another meeting, where the conspirators discussed the question of assassinating Stalin in the case of war. They decided it was inopportune because they no longer had enough men to run the country and because the masses would not have followed them.

.

Ibid. , p. 159--160.


When war broke out, the Party leadership proposed to Tokaev, who spoke German, to lead the partisan war behind the Nazi lines. The partisans, of course, were subject to terrible risks. At the time, Comrade X decided that Tokaev could not accept: `We were, as far as we could, to remain in the main centres, to be ready to take over power if the Stalin régime broke down&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 183.

`Comrade X was convinced that it was touch and go for Stalin. The pity of it was that we could not see Hitler as the liberator. Therefore, said Comrade X, we must be prepared for Stalin&#39;s régime to collapse, but we should do nothing whatever to weaken it&#39;. This point was discussed during a clandestine meeting on July 5, 1941.

.

Ibid. , p. 188.


After the war, in 1947, Tokaev was in charge of discussions with the German professor Tank, who specialized in aeronautics, in order to persuade him to come work in the Soviet Union. `Tank ... was indeed prepared to work on a jet fighter for the U.S.S.R.... I discussed the matter with a number of key men. We agreed that while it was wrong to assume that Soviet aircraft designers could not design a jet bomber, it was not in the interests of the country that they should .... The U.S.S.R. as we saw it was not really threatened by external enemies; therefore our own efforts must be directed towards weakening, not strengthening, the Soviet monopolistic imperialism in the hope of thus making a democratic revolution possible&#39;.

.

Ibid. , p. 352.

Tokaev recognized here that economic sabotage was a political form of struggle for power.

These examples give an idea of the conspiratorial nature of a clandestine military group, hidden within the Bolshevik Party, whose survivors would see their `ideals&#39; recognized with the arrival in power of Khrushchev, and implemented under Gorbachev.


You are right that they write anti-Soviet material. This is all the more reason to believe such people when their accounts prove that there were plans for a coup within the Red Army&#39;s officer corp.

Now regarding the Nazis invasion. It seems that your pretty stuck on your own set point and wont budge. So I&#39;ll keep it short. What was the main reason Egypt and Syria advanced so rapidly in 1973 against Isreal? Surprise. The same thing happened in 1941. I know many of you Trots seem to think Stalin should of somehow predicted the precise date of the invasion but for some unimaginable reason he failed to do that :P .

If the Red Army was so ill equipped and not a match for the Nazis then why did the Nazis suffer more casualties than they did against the French, British, Dutch and Belgium armies in 1940 compared to the first three weeks of the invasion of the Soviet Union? As I said previously it was partly due to surprise and because the Nazis and their allies (half a dozen or so nations) had previous combat experience, high morale and the whole rescourses of Europe to support there armed forces.

Now then stop repeating yourself, address the points made in previous posts and stop the useless rhectoric and somewhat amusing but nothing to do with the topic sentences. Oh yes and &#39;Stalin was bad. Trotsky wasn&#39;t&#39; isn&#39;t a argument that gains much credit.

Ha indeed.

[The Children of the Revolution]

... you only post after midnight and not after dawn.


I am an insomniac, it&#39;s true. But I have (something resembling) a life during the day. Plus I have to write numerous essays. And think of new ways to destroy the reputation of Stalin, of course. All this as well as planning the World Revolution - it&#39;s quite astounding what one can fit into a mere 18 hours or so.



No the officers wouldn&#39;t &#39;be the same ones&#39; (what are you talking about I&#39;ve shown you there names for crying out loud) who took a pro-Stalin line and provided a honest account of what happened.


This was IRONY you tit. Must be the lack of sleep...



You are right that they write anti-Soviet material. This is all the more reason to believe such people when their accounts prove that there were plans for a coup within the Red Army&#39;s officer corp.


No - I disagree&#33; Their "testimony" becomes unreliable precisely because they are writing anti-Soviet material; having emmigrated from the Soviet Union. Does this not strike you as odd? You yourself applied the same principle to Trotsky&#39;s work. Because he fled Russia, (to avoid certain death) and then criticised Stalin, you discount his argument. Well, I shall do the same. As a historian though, I am loath to do so. I discount the source because it seems, quite frankly, to be utterly ridiculous. If there was a plot, and Stalin did not control the NKVD, the Party, the other Generals, or at least command a vague authority over ANYTHING, why did such a plot fail?



I know many of you Trots seem to think Stalin should of somehow predicted the precise date of the invasion...


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA&#33;&#33;&#33; :D (It&#39;s not just the late hour that has this effect&#33;)

Stalin himself said, after the Nazi-Soviet pact had been signed, that he knew War with Germany was inevitable&#33; Hitler had declared his intention to create "lebensraum" in the East, at the expense of the Slavs. Who else could he have been referring to? Stalin knew the invasion was coming - or should have done. He could have prepared defences; trained troops... Hell, Stalin had the whole resource base of Russia behind him&#33; YES, Stalin SHOULD have predicted an invasion date. OR AT LEAST MADE A VAGUE EFFORT TO DEFEND "HIS" COUNTRY&#33;&#33;&#33;



If the Red Army was so ill equipped and not a match for the Nazis then why did the Nazis suffer more casualties than they did against the French, British, Dutch and Belgium armies in 1940 compared to the first three weeks of the invasion of the Soviet Union?


The casualty figures of the whole War speak volumes about the Red Armies military prestige.
USSR military dead (on Eastern front alone): 8.6 million plus 17 million civillian dead.
German military dead (versus USSR and other Allies - two fronts): 3.2 million plus 3.8 million civillian dead.
(UK and US suffered 300,000 military dead each)

THE NAZI ARMY WAS SUPERIOR TO THE RED ARMY UNTIL THE INTERVENTION OF THE T-34&#33;&#33;&#33;

(I am not a Nazi)
(But being a Stalinist is worse)

[crazy comie]

Do you cassius have any evidence against the evidence saying stalin killed so many

[Cassius Clay]

Crazy Commie.

I&#39;ve provided numerous evidence in this thread. It&#39;s not my fault that you and others chose to ignore it.


No - I disagree&#33; Their "testimony" becomes unreliable precisely because they are writing anti-Soviet material; having emmigrated from the Soviet Union. Does this not strike you as odd? You yourself applied the same principle to Trotsky&#39;s work. Because he fled Russia, (to avoid certain death) and then criticised Stalin, you discount his argument. Well, I shall do the same. As a historian though, I am loath to do so. I discount the source because it seems, quite frankly, to be utterly ridiculous. If there was a plot, and Stalin did not control the NKVD, the Party, the other Generals, or at least command a vague authority over ANYTHING, why did such a plot fail?


Did you read the material? It is very anti-Soviet and anti-Stalin. Your argument&#39;s not making sense. I criticise Trotsky because his &#39;works&#39; dont fit in with what really happened and if you look into it you&#39;ll find he said the precise same things about Lenin and Leninism. Can you prove that this particular Colonel was lying? Why would someone who is fanatically anti-Soviet write something which gives credibility to the actions taken against various Red Army officers in the 1930&#39;s. And it is not that &#39;ridiculous&#39; that former Tsarist officers would plan a coup against the Soviet government in favor of the Nazis? Hardly. Lenin actually wrote that former Whites were just simply joining the Reds for such reasons.

Oh yes and they failed for a number of reasons. Partly something to do with being bought to trial and found guilty and also something to do with the fact that Stalin wasn&#39;t the only Marxist-Leninist around.



Stalin himself said, after the Nazi-Soviet pact had been signed, that he knew War with Germany was inevitable&#33; Hitler had declared his intention to create "lebensraum" in the East, at the expense of the Slavs. Who else could he have been referring to? Stalin knew the invasion was coming - or should have done. He could have prepared defences; trained troops... Hell, Stalin had the whole resource base of Russia behind him&#33; YES, Stalin SHOULD have predicted an invasion date. OR AT LEAST MADE A VAGUE EFFORT TO DEFEND "HIS" COUNTRY&#33;&#33;&#33;

You again contradict yourself. You admit that Stalin said that war was inevitable yet a few sentences on you imply he made no effort to defend the USSR. Ofcourse I understand that they dont teach you at school and college (where you said you learnt all about this) that the Red Army made numerous prepartions for war.

Read below and you&#39;ll see that every single one of your &#39;criticisms&#39; or opinions which you state as if they were fact are fundamentally wrong.


Experienced Party workers and prominent experts were assigned to large defence enterprises as CC Party organizers, to help the plants have everything needed and ensure attainment of targets. I must say that Stalin himself worked much with defence enterprises --- he was personally acquainted with dozens of directors, Party leaders, and chief engineers; he often met with them, demanding fulfilment of plans with a persistence typical of him.&#39;

.

Zhukov, op. cit. , p. 191.


The military deliveries that took place between January 1, 1939 and June 22, 1941 are impressive.

Artillery received 92,578 units, including 29,637 canons and 52,407 mortars. New mortars, 82mm and 120mm, were introduced just before the war.

.

Zhukov, op. cit. , pp. 198--199. La grande guerre nationale, op. cit. , p. 33.

The Air Force received 17,745 fighter aircraft, including 3,719 new models. In the area of aviation:

`The measures taken between 1939 and 1941 created the conditions necessary to quickly obtain during the war quantitative and qualitative superiority&#39;.

.

Zhukov, op. cit. , p. 201. La grande guerre nationale, op. cit. , p. 33.


The Red Army received more that 7,000 tanks. In 1940, production of the medium-size T-34 tank and heavy KV tank, superior to the German tanks, began. There were already 1,851 produced when war broke out.

.

Zhukov, op. cit. , pp. 197. La grande guerre nationale, op. cit. , p. 33.


Referring to these achievements, as if to express his disdain for Khrushchev&#39;s accusations, Zhukov made a telling self-criticism:

`Recalling what we military leaders demanded of industry in the very last months of peace, I can see that we did not always take full stock of the country&#39;s real economic possibilities.&#39;

.

Zhukov, op. cit. , p. 192.


The actual military preparation was also pushed to the hilt by Stalin. The military confrontations in May--August 1939 with Japan and in December 1939--March 1940 with Finland were directly linked with the anti-fascist resistance. These combat experiences were carefully analyzed to strengthen the Red Army&#39;s weaknesses.

In March 1940, a Central Committee meeting examined the operations against Finland. Zhukov related:

`Discussions were sharp. The system of combat training and educating troops was strongly criticized.&#39;

.

Ibid. , p. 180.

In May, Zhukov paid a visit to Stalin:

` ``Now that you have this combat experience,&#39;&#39; Stalin said, ``take upon yourself the command of the Kiev Military District and use this experience for training the troops.&#39;&#39; &#39;

.

Ibid. , p. 170.


For Stalin, Kiev was of significant military importance. He expected that the main attack in the German attack would focus on Kiev.

`Stalin was convinced that in the war against the Soviet Union the Nazis would first try to seize the Ukraine and the Donets Coal Basin in order to deprive the country of its most important economic regions and lay hands on the Ukrainian grain, Donets coal and, later, Caucasian oil. During the discussion of the operational plan in the spring of 1941, Stalin said: ``Nazi Germany will not be able to wage a major lengthy war without those vital resources.&#39;&#39; &#39;

.

Ibid. , p. 211.


In summer and fall 1940, Zhukov made his troops undergo intense combat preparation. He noted that he had with him capable young officers and generals. He made them learn the lessons resulting from German operations against France.

.

Ibid. , p. 173.


From December 23, 1940 to January 13, 1941, all leading officers were brought together for a large conference. At the center of debates: the future war with Germany. The experience that the fascists had accumulated with large tank corps was carefully examined. The day after the conference, a great operational and strategic exercise took place on a map. Stalin attended. Zhukov wrote:

`The strategic situation was based on probable developments in the western frontier zone in the event of a German attack on the Soviet Union.&#39;

.

Ibid. , p. 184.


Zhukov led the German aggression, Pavlov the Soviet resistance. Zhukov noted:

`The game abounded in dramatic situations for the eastern side. They proved to be in many ways similar to what really happened after June 22, 1941, when fascist Germany attacked the Soviet Union&#39;. Pavlov had lost the war against the Nazis. Stalin rebuked him in no uncertain terms:

`The officer commanding a district must be an expert in the art of war and he must be able to find correct solutions in any conditions, which is what you failed to do in this game.&#39;

.

Ibid. , pp. 185--186.


Building of fortified sectors along the new Western border began in 1940. By the beginning of the war, 2,500 cement installations had been built. There were 140,000 men working on them every day.

`Stalin was also pushing us with that work&#39;, wrote Zhukov.

.

Ibid. , p. 213.


The Eighteenth Congress of the Party, February 15--20, 1941, dealt entirely with preparing industry and transportion for the war. Delegates coming from all over the Soviet Union elected a number of extra military members to the Central Committee.

.

Zhiline, op. cit. , p. 212. Zhukov, op. cit. , p. 209.


Early in March 1941, Timoshenko and Zhukov asked Stalin to call up the infantry reservists. Stalin refused, not wanting to give the Germans a pretext for provoking war. Finally, late in March, he accepted to call up 800,000 reservists, who were sent to the borders.

.

Zhukov, op. cit. , p. 196.

In April, the Chiefs of Staff informed Stalin that the troops from the Baltic, Byelorussia, Kiev and Odessa Military Regions would not be sufficient to push back the attack. Stalin decided to advance 28 border divisions, grouped into four armies, and insisted on the importance of not provoking the Nazis.

.

Ibid. , 217--218.


On May 5, 1941, in the Kremlin Great Palace, Stalin spoke to officers coming out of the military academies. His main theme: `the Germans are wrong in thinking that it&#39;s an ideal, invincible army.&#39;

.

Ibid. , p. 225.


All these facts allow one to refute the standard slanders against Stalin:

`He prepared the army for the offensive, but not for the defensive&#39;; `He believed in the Germano-Soviet Pact and in Hitler, his accomplice&#39;; `He did not believe that there would be a war with the Nazis&#39;. The purpose of these slanders is to denigrate the historic achievements of the Communists and, consequently, to increase the prestige of their opponents, the Nazis.

Zhukov, who played a crucial rôle in Khrushchev&#39;s seizure of power between 1953 and 1957, still insisted, in his Memoirs, on giving the lie to Khrushchev&#39;s Secret Report. He concluded as follows about the country&#39;s preparation for war:

`It seems to me that the country&#39;s defence was managed correctly in its basic and principal features and orientations. For many years everything possible or almost everything was done in the economic and social aspects. As to the period between 1939 and the middle of 1941, the people and Party exerted particular effort to strengthen defence.

`Our highly developed industry, the kolkhoz system, universal literacy, the unity of nations, the strength of the socialist state, the people&#39;s great patriotism, the Party leadership which was ready to unite the front and rear in one whole --- this was the splendid foundation of our immense country&#39;s defensive capacity, the underlying cause of the great victory we won in the fight against fascism. The fact that in spite of enormous difficulties and losses during the four years of the war, Soviet industry turned out a collosal amount of armaments --- almost 490 thousand guns and mortars, over 102 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, over 137 thousand military aircraft --- shows that the foundations of the economy from the military, the defence standpoint, were laid correctly and firmly.&#39;

.

Ibid. , p. 226.


`In basic matters --- matters which in the end decide a country&#39;s fate in war and determine whether it is to be victory or defeat --- the Party and the people prepared their Motherland for defence.&#39;


You speak with that great benefit called hignsight when you criticise Stalin for not having predicted the precise date of the invasion. It&#39;s ludicrous, and if it were anyone else people would laugh it off. I&#39;m not sure why I should take you seriesly when you claim &#39;only one soldier in ten had a rifle&#39; and &#39;the only reason the Red Armywon was because of the T-34&#39;.

Another quote by one of them damn generals.

&#39;&#39;`The process of Stalin&#39;s growth as a general came to maturity .... After the Stalingrad and especially the Kursk battles he rose to the heights of strategic leadership. From then on Stalin would think in terms of modern warfare, had a good grasp of all questions relating to the preparation for and execution of operations. He would now demand that military action be carried out in a creative way, with full account of military science, so that all actions were decisive and flexible, designed to split up and encircle the enemy. In his military thinking he markedly displayed a tendency to concentrate men and materiel, to diversified employment of all possible ways of commencing operations and their conduct. Stalin began to show an excellent grasp of military strategy, which came fairly easily to him since he was a past master at the art of political strategy, and of operational art as well.&#39;


`Joseph Stalin has certainly gone down in military history. His undoubted service is that it was under his direct guidance as Supreme High Commander that the Soviet Armed Forces withstood the defensive campaigns and carried out all the offensive operations so splendidly. Yet he, to the best of my judgment, never spoke of his own contribution. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union and rank of Generalissimus were awarded to him by written representation to the Party Central Committee Politburo from front commanders .... He told people plainly and honestly about the miscalculations made during the war.&#39;


Now ignorance is no excuse Judas Trot you&#39;ve been shown the evidence and the real facts. You can either respond directly to that or continue repeating yourself like a good Trot.

[Hate Is Art]

I&#39;m no stalinist but i see casius clay constantly pouring out loads of agruments with reliable sources to prove that Stalin didnt have that many people killed compared to popular myth.

You all seem to laugh at his arguments prove apsolutly nothing and then just repeatedly call Stalin Bad and Lening Good&#33;

You appear to have no real dedication wherease Cassius is typing long responses over and over again to just get laughed at and have his arguments called rubbish while u prove nothing&#33;

If I was him i wouldnt bother&#33;

[The Children of the Revolution]

You admit that Stalin said that war was inevitable yet a few sentences on you imply he made no effort to defend the USSR.


Absolutely. Which is why he showed such incompetence. HE KNEW the War was coming. It was inevitable. But he chose not to prepare for it. This, in my view, constitutes inadequacy.



It is very anti-Soviet and anti-Stalin.


This is precisely my point. Anti-Soviet and Anti-Stalin writings... By Generals who have left Russia of their own will... Because they disliked the Soviet Union and Stalin... Can you not see that their "testimony" is bound to show bias? Therefore is unreliable?

And you criticise me for not responding to your "evidence" - well how about responding to mine? The casualty figures which show that the Nazi Army was WAY better than the Reds? The historians sources on the power struggle and the existence, and brutality, of the gulags? If you simply discount them again, I shan&#39;t bother continuing the discussion....



... try the same guys that murdered Sergie Kirov


Stalin, you mean?



In the summer of 1932 Joseph Stalin became aware that opposition to his policies were growing. Some party members were publicly criticizing Stalin and calling for the readmission of Leon Trotsky to the party. When the issue was discussed at the Politburo, Stalin demanded that the critics should be arrested and executed. Kirov, who up to this time had been a staunch Stalinist, argued against this policy. When the vote was taken, the majority of the Politburo supported Kirov against Stalin.

After years of arranging for the removal of his opponents from the party, Joseph Stalin realized he still could not rely on the total support of the people whom he had replaced them with. Stalin no doubt began to wonder if Kirov was willing to wait for his mentor to die before becoming leader of the party. Stalin was particularly concerned by Kirov&#39;s willingness to argue with him in public. He feared that this would undermine his authority in the party.

As usual, that summer Kirov and Joseph Stalin went on holiday together. Stalin, who treated Kirov like a son, used this opportunity to try to persuade him to remain loyal to his leadership. Stalin asked him to leave Leningrad to join him in Moscow. Stalin wanted Kirov in a place where he could keep a close eye on him. When Kirov refused, Stalin knew he had lost control over his protégé.

Sergei Kirov was assassinated by a young party member, Leonid Nikolayev, on 1st December, 1934. Stalin claimed that Nikolayev was part of a larger conspiracy led by Leon Trotsky against the Soviet government. This resulted in the arrest and execution of Genrikh Yagoda, Lev Kamenev, Gregory Zinoviev, and fourteen other party members who had been critical of Stalin.


Sergei Kirov was assassinated on Stalins orders, because he had grown too powerful. Stalin then edited him out of history; airbrushing him out of photos, and rewording his contribution to the party. This can be shown by reading surviving copies of Russian Revolutionary Histories before and after his assassination. As illustrated above, this fate was not uncommon amongst successful Party members.

No doubt it was all a Trotskyite conspiracy, eh comrade?

[Cassius Clay]

Sigh.

Stalin did prepare for the war. I&#39;ve shown you the evidence for5 this which refutes every single one of your claims regarding how the USSR and Stalin didn&#39;t prepare for war. You&#39;ve ignored it.

Can you prove that that particular officer was lying? If not then please stop repearting yourself with logic which makes no sesne at all. Here is aanti-Soviet officer whowrites that there was indeed plans for a coup among some officers. The fact that this officer is anti-Stalin and still admits and writes in quite detail about how they planned a anti-Soviet coup makes it very reliable. If I quoted from a Soviet history book that there were plans for a coup among some officers then you&#39;d be far more justiifed in asking for more evidence. Unfournatly for you I have got it from another source. Now address that with more than a logic which has no credibilty what so ever.


You keep on saying the Nazi Army was &#39;way better than the Reds&#39; yet once again who won the war? The Fascists at Phora repeat the same rubbish still living in denial, like you. It&#39;s true the Red Army suffered more casualties than the German Army. That&#39;s probably because they had the element of surprise, previous experience and to begin with high morale. Still The Red Army smashed them. And you also forgot to list the casualties for the Hungarians, Romanians, Italians, Finnish and the rest of their colloboartors from Western Europe.


You alledge that Stalin murdered Sergie Kirov. You have no basis what so ever for this.

IF it were the case that Stalin had Kirov murdered then why did a KGB investigation in the late 1980&#39;s (at that time they were under orders to come up with as much anti-Stalin stuff they could) reveal that there was &#39;no evidence implacating Stalin in the murder&#39; and that the findings by the NKVD in the 1930&#39;s were correct? Why according to Stalin&#39;s daughter was Stalin extremely shockedby thde murder and was in a state of panic and fear? Why did a former NKVD officer later on state the when Stalin questioned Nikolaev he said &#39;Why did you kill such a nice man&#39;? Who had the motvie to kill Kirov? Who had been inf avor of collectivisation and who wrote that he wasn&#39;t? Anwer is Kirov and Nkioleav. Who was sleeping with Nikoleav&#39;s wife? Answer Kirov. Who approached Kirov to join a anti-Stalin opposition group and what did Kirov do in response? Answer the so called &#39;left-opposition&#39; and Kirov told them where to go. Who wrote letters saying that he wanted to go down in history as a &#39;Revolutionary&#39; and defended the so called &#39;Old Bolsheviks&#39;? Answer Nkioleav.

[The Children of the Revolution]

Sigh.



Stalin did prepare for the war.

It&#39;s true the Red Army suffered more casualties than the German Army. That&#39;s probably because they had the element of surprise...


Hmmm. You seem to be contradicting yourself. Stalin knew War was inevitable... (I have argued this myself) Stalin prepared for the invasion... (In your opinion) The Nazis inflicted HUGE casualties on the Russians because they surprised them? Don&#39;t be absurd. The Red Army were themselves smashed in the first years of the War; driven back to the gates of Moscow. Leningrad was under siege. The Ukraine had been overrun. The Nazi hordes were rampaging through Russia, yet you maintain that Stalin was a competent leader, and that the Red Army (with massive human resources to call upon) was better than the Germans? Ludicrous.



You alledge that Stalin murdered Sergie Kirov. You have no basis what so ever for this.


Apart from the source I quoted? Seems like a reasonable argument to me... I&#39;ll print it again seeing as you missed it the first time... Aren&#39;t I kind?



In the summer of 1932 Joseph Stalin became aware that opposition to his policies were growing. Some party members were publicly criticizing Stalin and calling for the readmission of Leon Trotsky to the party. When the issue was discussed at the Politburo, Stalin demanded that the critics should be arrested and executed. Kirov, who up to this time had been a staunch Stalinist, argued against this policy. When the vote was taken, the majority of the Politburo supported Kirov against Stalin.

After years of arranging for the removal of his opponents from the party, Joseph Stalin realized he still could not rely on the total support of the people whom he had replaced them with. Stalin no doubt began to wonder if Kirov was willing to wait for his mentor to die before becoming leader of the party. Stalin was particularly concerned by Kirov&#39;s willingness to argue with him in public. He feared that this would undermine his authority in the party.

As usual, that summer Kirov and Joseph Stalin went on holiday together. Stalin, who treated Kirov like a son, used this opportunity to try to persuade him to remain loyal to his leadership. Stalin asked him to leave Leningrad to join him in Moscow. Stalin wanted Kirov in a place where he could keep a close eye on him. When Kirov refused, Stalin knew he had lost control over his protégé.

Sergei Kirov was assassinated by a young party member, Leonid Nikolayev, on 1st December, 1934. Stalin claimed that Nikolayev was part of a larger conspiracy led by Leon Trotsky against the Soviet government. This resulted in the arrest and execution of Genrikh Yagoda, Lev Kamenev, Gregory Zinoviev, and fourteen other party members who had been critical of Stalin.


Respond, foul Stalinist.

[Cassius Clay]

It was you who alledged that Stalin did not prepare for the war. I&#39;ve shown you evidence that he did. Once again it&#39;s the Trot arguement that somehow Stalin should of predicted the precise time and date of the invasion.

The Nazis and their allies had the advantage because to begin with they had the element of surprise, had previous combat experience and were invading with a four million man army which to begin with outnumbered the Red Army. Even then the Nazis suffered over 750,000 casualties by the time they got to &#39;the gates of Moscow, laid seige to Leningrad and overrun the Ukraine&#39;. Not to mention the casualties of their allies.

All this attemtpting to smear the Red Army because they pushed back in 1941 is just that an attempt. Trotsky predicted that tthe Nazis would be victrious in a few months and that no one would fight for the &#39;beurcracy&#39; and that the USSR was weaker than Imperialism. Because Trotsky was proved wrong on every account you Trots today are forced to dismiss the Red Army and people of the USSR by making sure the Red Army &#39;only won because of Hitler&#39;s mistakes or despite of Stalin&#39;.

The Red Army inflicted more casualties on the Fascists than the whole of western Europe did in 1940 in just three weeks. It was the Red Army that killed 9 out of every 10 Fascist doldiers and it was the Red Army that won Stalingrad, it was the Red Army that won the largest armoured battle in history at Kursk, it was the people of the USSRin Leningrad that held out against three years of Fascist seige. It was the Red Army that liberated Europe, it was the Red Army that caputred the largest German Army in 1944 and it was the Red Army that took Berlin and forced Hitler to kill himself.

If you score a boxing fight you dont say because one fighter did better than the other in the first 2 or 3 rounds that they were the better after their opponent comes back to win the next 7 rounds and then knock out the fighter for good in the 12th. That&#39;s the logic your using.

But why should I expect it to make sense when youtelling me to respond after you haven&#39;t responded to numerous stuff in this thread. It&#39;s a pattern , you alledge something I prove you wrong then you alledge something else.

And waht is you &#39;evidence&#39;. A quote which could come from a GSCE text book. What&#39;s the point I dont know, I&#39;ll prove you wrong and your come up with soemthing else. Great.


First of all if Stalin had wanted to kill Kirov then he wouldn&#39;t of done it that day since Kirov had telephoned in syaing that he wasn&#39;t going in. He turned up unexpectedly.

In the late 1980&#39;s a commision was set up under Alexander Yakoleav a man who alledges that Stalin murdered 40 million people (and for that he gets shouted at by Moscow women workers) so you would expect him to come up with all the dirt on Stalin as possible. Yet even he found that


According to the oral tradition, Leningrad NKVD Deputy Chief Zaporozhets had approached assassin Nikolaev, put him up to the crime, and provided the weapon and bullets. It now seems that Zaporozhets had not been in Leningrad for months before the killing and that he never met Nikolaev. Nikolaev had owned the revolver in question since 1918 and had registered it legally in 1924 and again in 1930. He had purchased the bullets used in the crime legally, with his registration, back in 1930. Contrary to the popular version, Nikolaev was not detained three times while carrying a gun and following Kirov, and then mysteriously released by the Leningrad NKVD. Actually, he had been stopped only once, on October 15, 1934, and the circumstances at that time were not suspicious. A frustrated apparatchik with delusions of grandeur and lifelong chronic medical problems, Nikolaev wrote in his diary that he wanted to be a great revolutionary terrorist.

The same commission also said &#39;&#39;in this affair no materials objectively support Stalin&#39;s participation or NKVD participation in the organisation and carrying out of Kirov&#39;s murder.&#39;&#39;

And that &#39;&#39;&#39;one-sided, superficial, unverified facts, rumours and conjectures support Stalin&#39;s complicity&#39;&#39;


It was Nikita Khruschev who first alledged that Stalin was responsible for Kirov&#39;s murder and he ordered a investigation in the 1950&#39;s. Molotov who was later on interviewed said this in regard to it.


Khrushchev hinted that Stalin had Kirov killed. There are some who still believe that story. The seeds of suspicion were planted. A commission was set up in 1956. Some twelve persons, from various backgrounds, looked through a welter of documents but found nothing incriminating Stalin. But these results have never been published..

The KGB made a special report. Rudenko&#39;s group authenticated and examined the material and there was a great deal of material. We used all the materials sent to us as well as those we managed to obtain ourselves.

The commission concluded that Stalin was not implicated in Kirov&#39;s assassination. Khrushchev refused to have the findings published since they didn&#39;t serve his purpose.

Kaganovich said this in regard to Kirov in the context of the congress in 1934.


At the time of the 17th Congress of the Party there was great euphoria because of the First Five-Year Plan. In fact for this reason this Congress was named the &#39;Congress of the Victories&#39; by the people. Molotov&#39;s, Stalin&#39;s and, if I am not being immodest, my presentation was also very well received by the participants. Today the critics make an all-out effort to discredit the 17th Congress. They also concocted the story that 300 delegates voted against Stalin. I suppose that this kind of gossip was necessary so that one could say that Stalin later took revenge for this. They also generated the false story that Kaganovich, at the behest of the presidium of the Congress, interfered with work of the Counting Committee to misreport the votes against Stalin.



According to Nikoleav&#39;s wife at the time Nkioleav was of the view that


&#39;Nikolaev accused the Central Committee of pursuing the politics of militarisation, spending huge amounts on the defence of the country. To justify all the defence expenditure (building of factories etc.) they are raising the false alarm that the foreign forces are planning to attack the Soviet Union though there is no such threat. According to Nikolaev this false alarm is also being raised to divert the attention of the toiling masses of the Soviet Union away from the persisting hardships in the country. These hardships are also the result of the wrong policies of the CC... After his exclusion from the Party, in fact, Nikolaev turned into a hardcore anti-Soviet terrorist, killing Comrade Kirov&#39;.

Now who was a leading member of the Central Committee? Who had spoken up in favour of of those policies and was Party chairman in Leningrad? Answer is Kirov. Who took the exact same view as Nkioleav on these matter? Answer is the so called &#39;Old Bolsheviks&#39; in from the Right and Left oppositions. Who would Nikoleav of blamed for being &#39;dropped&#39; from the party? Answer is Kirov.

Finally see what Nikoleav said about this and who had infuluenced him.


&#39;What influence on your decision to murder Comrade Kirov had your relations with the Trotskyist opposition?&#39; Nikolaev replied: &#39;my decision to murder Comrade Kirov was influenced by my relations with the Trotskyists: Shatskii, Vanya Kotolynov, Nikolai Bardin. However I knew these persons not as members of a grouping, but as individuals.&#39; To the question: &#39;Did these individuals participate in his crimes?&#39; - Nikolaev answered: &#39;No, they did not take part. Roughly in the August of that year, when I carried an inspection of the house where Kirov and Chudov lived, I met Shatskii on Krasnikh Zor&#39;. He complained about his being cut off from the patty, his discontentment. He said that another person in his place would have been prepared for anything...


Now your so called &#39;evidence&#39; alledges that Stalin subsequently blamed Zinoviev and Kamenev for the death and used it as a excuse to hav ethem killed. Not only have I allready shown you that there trials were genuine but if that were the case then why were Zinoviev and Kamenev subsequently released because of

&#39;in the absence of sufficient evidence to put them on trial&#39; ?

This ofcourse smashes your belief that Stalin was anty of the things you accuse him of or had any of the motives you say he did. The facts and Stalin&#39;s actions directly contradict this.

And Kirov headed no opposition or anything like that. Getty says this.


Kirov was identified with Stalin, and the parts of his speech producing general ovations were the parts in which he praised Stalin and abused the opposition.... Careful scrutiny of Kirov&#39;s speeches and writings reveal little differences between them and Stalin&#39;s utterance, and Soviet scholars familiar with closed party archives scoff at the notion that Kirov was a moderate, an opponent of Stalin or the leader of any bloc..
The Politburo&#39;s commission&#39;s examination of the Ryutin group did not find any evidence that Stalin demanded their execution in 1932, or that Kirov opposed it.

[crazy comie]

I have herd from the history channel (not the most relibble source) that stalin had a two thirds of his army backed down how prepared for war is he really&#39; i have also herd that he let the germansfly in soviet air space but i&#39;m not sure of the reliabbilty of the source he got that from.

[Comrade of Cuba]

Originally posted by Cassius [email protected] 30 2003, 02:31 PM
The Red Army inflicted more casualties on the Fascists than the whole of western Europe did in 1940 in just three weeks. It was the Red Army that killed 9 out of every 10 Fascist doldiers and it was the Red Army that won Stalingrad, it was the Red Army that won the largest armoured battle in history at Kursk, it was the people of the USSRin Leningrad that held out against three years of Fascist seige. It was the Red Army that liberated Europe, it was the Red Army that caputred the largest German Army in 1944 and it was the Red Army that took Berlin and forced Hitler to kill himself.
That&#39;s true, the red army did all of that, but Stalin didn&#39;t do that. he sat in a big leather chair adn commanding the red army like a dictator, to give their lives for their so called communistic country. But Stalin had ruined the USSR in a just few years, after he succeeded the great Lenin. Stalin was like a dictator, he sent people to work camps. And the stalinists now deny, that that ever happened, just like the german people denied that Hittler never had workcamps. That wouldn&#39;t have happened with a real communist :hammer:

[Cassius Clay]

Crazy Commie.

Your right the history channel ain&#39;t the most reliable of sources. The number of officers actually doubled during the late 1930&#39;s. Those that were &#39;purged&#39; were got rid of because of incompetence and the like. Something most armies do when they expect a war to occur in the near future.


In the magazine "Young Guard" (1989 -- #9) there was published a document taken from the archives of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, which was presented at that time to Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov and Beria on May 5, 1940, that in 1937-1939, 36,898 commanders were dismissed from the ranks of Red Army. More than 75% of them were retired because of their age, sickness, moral grounds (drunkenness) and unworthy of service in the Red Army. From August of 1938, there was working a commission which was told to look into these cases and make recommendations. More than 30,000 requests were received by those dismissed to look into their appeals. In January 1, 1940, this commission returned to their posts more than 12,461 commanders, from those 10,700 were formerly dismissed for political reasons and now put back into ranks.

Regarding whether he let the Luftwaffe over the air space. Well it must be understood that the USSR wasn&#39;t interested in a war and was trying to not to &#39;provoke&#39; the Nazis. Maybe that was a mistake, with the benefit of hignsight it&#39;s easy to criticse. But the myth that Stalin somehow didn&#39;t let the Red Army fight back is just that a myth.

http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/node133.ht...000000000000000 (http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/node133.html#SECTION001230000000000000000)


&#39;Comrade of Cuba&#39;

Parrots are good in zoo&#39;s but not in a history forum.

Tell me where did I claim Stalin did all that? I didn&#39;t. But neither did Stalin just sit on a &#39;big leather chair&#39; (by all accounts he lived very simply) I&#39;ve allready shown you his role and even that damn History channel might tell you about a little thing in Moscow in December 1941.

Besides most armies dont tend to have 60 plus men in their ranks. Oh yes Stalin was such a evil bastard, anyone else could of won the war without any loss of life what so ever. This is the typhical arguement that the likes of Conquest use, to add more numbers on they blame every death of soldiers fighting to liberate their country from Imperialist aggression on Stalin. As usual has no credibility to it what so ever.

And Stalin didn&#39;t &#39;run the red army like a dictator&#39;. I&#39;m assuming your not blind so go up the page and read the statements from those Generals in the Red Army.

Every society has had prisons. It&#39;s not a nice aspect of life but hey why dont you go and start writing something useful about the millions in U&#036; prisons who incidently are more than there were in the USSR and unlike in the USSR aren&#39;t paid wages which are effectively slave labour (I guess TV hasn&#39;t told you that has it?).

The German people have never to my knowledge denied the concentration and death camps. Certainly the German people never protested the stuff the Red Army and Allies told them about Hitler, or during the de-nazification campaign after the war. Certainly the modern day Nazis dont hold any seats in the Reichstag or gain millions of votes.

You see the German people know fully well what Hitler did. And the Russian and other former Soviet nations know fully well what Stalin did. That&#39;s why the Nazis number a few thousand extremists while the CP&#39;s in the former USSR no matter that they are of various types they all uphold Stalin to some degree are capable of gaining millions of votes, being the main opposition in the various parliaments and lead mass workers and people&#39;s demonstrations and strikes.

[YKTMX]

I can&#39;t help but notice that the original inquisitive poster has long gone. If their is an award for dullest thread, this would win without competition. Absolutely excruciating bollocks.

[Cassius Clay]

YKTMX

Maybe he saw the light, got rid of the SWP paper and Alan Woods biography of Trotsky and after phoning his Trot girlfriend declaring his new found alliegance went and got his tea.

Oh yeah and what&#39;s so &#39;bollocks&#39; about it? It&#39;s okay now you remember how you felt when you were told the truth about Santa.

[The Children of the Revolution]

Maybe he saw the light, got rid of the SWP paper and Alan Woods biography of Trotsky and after phoning his Trot girlfriend declaring his new found alliegance went and got his tea.


Unlikely. I just got fed up of reading the utter garbage you post.

I discount your views and your sources; you do the same to mine.

And yes, this is certainly not a "brief" lesson in History.

I leave it at this.

[Cassius Clay]

In other words you been proved wrong on good old Uncle Joe and your opinion on history when you&#39;ve been shown the facts.

I haven&#39;t discounted your &#39;sources&#39; I&#39;ve just provided evidence that they are totally wrong.

If my post was so much crap then you ought to be able to refute it quite easily. Yet you haven&#39;t done that and haven&#39;t even tried.


"It&#39;s an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a
mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you. They don&#39;t
WANT to have their ideas upset. It rouses some vague uneasiness in them, I
think, and they resent it. So they reject it and refuse to think about it. if
there were merely indifferent it would be natural and understandable. But it is
much stronger than that, much more positive. They are annoyed. Very odd, isn&#39;t
it?"

So true.

[crazy comie]

So how many do you think stalin killed then.
I think the amount said in the "black book of communism" is probbably to much but i think it was certainly over 10,000,000.
Acording to the history channel stalin also had his army stood down before the invaision.

[Cassius Clay]

Crazy Commie.

If you go back a page your see a link I posted which refutes the &#39;history channel&#39; view of things. Stalin did NOT have the &#39;army stood down&#39;.

It&#39;s a very wide definiton you have if every death in the USSR&#39;s prison system is another to add onto &#39;how many Stalin killed&#39;. Once again go to the link I posted on page 2 and see the facts.

&#39;I think it was certainly over 10,000,000&#39; is hardly a argument.

Have you found any of those bodies then? Have you gone through the state archives and done research?

I&#39;ll tell you what I&#39;ll just say &#39;Ghandhi killed 20 million&#39;. Sounds ridiciulious doesn&#39;t it? But give me a mass media machine, a education system and 50 years to write this again and again it will probably sound alot more credible.

[crazy comie]

First of all what is your estimate of the amount of pepole killed by germans.
Oh the history channel i was talking about was ukhistory wich just shows year or older most of the time alot older bbc itv channel four programs.
Could you say that link again.
Oh and the reason i said over 10,000,000 is becuse i havn&#39;t herd a number under that in my entire life.
Oh as yes i would count any one who died in a prison system from anything other than normaly deadly diseses.