Is there anybody that supports post-Stalin USSR?

[Questionable]

I'm just curious. I know there's huge divisions about Stalin obviously, but I've never seen a single leftist support Kruschev or Brehznev or Gorbachev. Are there any neo-Kruschevist or such groups in existence, or are they universally condemned by the radical left?

Obviously I don't like any of them, but I was just wondering if there was some political party that attempted to justify what they did in some way.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

Some would call these Brezhnevites, and there's a lot of them. CPUSA, the PSL... they probably constitute most of the larger nominally communist parties in the US. In the UK there are more Trotskyists.

But yeah, a fairly large majority of revolutionary leftists don't support capitalist superpowers.

[leftistman]

Some would call these Brezhnevites, and there's a lot of them. CPUSA, the PSL... they probably constitute most of the larger nominally communist parties in the US. In the UK there are more Trotskyists.

But yeah, a fairly large majority of revolutionary leftists don't support capitalist superpowers.
Except, of course, the so-called "leftists" who believe that Obama and the Democrats support the interests of working-class people and small businesses. I used to be one of those people, you know. I'm sure that many RevLeft users were.

[Solidarity]

I support the idea of Khrushchev deleting Stalin and his policies from the USSR.

[Камо́ Зэд]

I support the idea of Khrushchev deleting Stalin and his policies from the USSR.

Which set in motion the restoration of capitalism in that country in less than ten years.

[Questionable]

But yeah, a fairly large majority of revolutionary leftists don't support capitalist superpowers

Naturally. I just wondered if there were still some leftists that ignored the fundamental economic changes in favor of rhetoric.

[Ostrinski]

There's plenty of Brezhnevites out there, some on this site. Paul Cockshott is a very intelligent one.

[Solidarity]

Which set in motion the restoration of capitalism in that country in less than ten years.

With Stalin in charge it was already Capitalist

[Ostrinski]

Also, Brezhnevite refers to anyone who upholds anything other than the USSR under Stalin, China under Mao, or Albania under Hoxha as socialist.

[Камо́ Зэд]

With Stalin in charge it was already Capitalist

So you're saying that the Kosygin reforms had no effect on the character of production in the Soviet Union?

[PetyaRostov]

I dug the secret speech

[Questionable]

Also, Brezhnevite refers to anyone who upholds anything other than the USSR under Stalin, China under Mao, or Albania under Hoxha as socialist.

Really? I was under the impression that it referred to the Soviet foreign policy to use force to put down threats to Soviet hegemony in other nations.

[Positivist]

There's plenty of Brezhnevites out there, some on this site. Paul Cockshott is a very intelligent one.

It should be noted that Paul's support of Soviet "socialism" is based on the defense of successes in planning achieved by the Soviet States. Furthermore, if anything he should be called a highly critical supporter.

[Solidarity]

So you're saying that the Kosygin reforms had no effect on the character of production in the Soviet Union?

Stalin is the one who set it on the tract to those reforms

[Ostrinski]

Really? I was under the impression that it referred to the Soviet foreign policy to use force to put down threats to Soviet hegemony in other nations.It's more of a casual, colloquial term thrown at people who "support anything wrapped in a red flag." A political cussword, if you will.

Personally, I'd probably be a Brezhnevite before an "anti-revisionist" because I don't really understand on what grounds a bureucratically administered and mandated economy is socialist and then suddenly isn't. Unless of course you think socialism is a matte of ideoloical purity or economic policy, which I don't. Certainly if the USSR was socialist during Stalin then it was socialist afterward. Conversely, if it was capitalist afterward, then it was capitalist before as well. There was no fundamental change in the class make up of society between those years.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Stalin is the one who set it on the tract to those reforms

So the Kosygin reforms are Stalin's fault. #trotlogic

[Камо́ Зэд]

Personally, I'd probably be a Brezhnevite before an "anti-revisionist" because I don't really understand on what grounds a bureucratically administered and mandated economy is socialist and then suddenly isn't.

"Bureaucracy" is a word that refers to any kind of administration undertaken by agents who are not elected, but rather appointed to the position. More often than not, bureaucrats are appointed by agents who actually are elected. While bureaucracy is something to be struggled against, it's not something that is going to magically vanish after the revolution. The groundwork for socialism is laid, but Marx, Engels, and Lenin were all in agreement that a socialist society will necessarily bear the birthmarks of the previous capitalist society. All three were fairly clear that by this they meant that a state with some bureaucratic character would persist into the lower phase of communism. To completely eliminate bureaucracy would mean to implement a system of productive administration in which all administrative agents were elected, and, given the structure of the capitalist world, this will not be immediately practical; much of what exists in terms of productive power and administrative structure exists in a highly centralized way on enormous scales. The process of eliminating bureaucratic administration will necessarily take some time.

[Solidarity]

So the Kosygin reforms are Stalin's fault. #trotlogic

*sigh*

just like only 8% of Soviets had shoes in 1943

[Камо́ Зэд]

*sigh*

just like only 8% of Soviets had shoes in 1943

Two things:


that has absolutely nothing to do with the Kosygin reforms; and
that isn't even remotely true.

I'm beginning to see why Lenin coined the expression пиздить как Тротский, "to bullshit like Trotsky."

[Solidarity]

Two things:


that has absolutely nothing to do with the Kosygin reforms; and
that isn't even remotely true.

I'm beginning to see why Lenin coined the expression пиздить как Тротский, "to bullshit like Trotsky."

I was referring to Stalin's bad leadership in general.

I have never heard of Lenin saying that

[Камо́ Зэд]

I was referring to Stalin's bad leadership in general.

So you were just making shit up. Stalin's "bad leadership," nothing specifically, just him bein' Stalin I guess, lead to the Kosygin reforms that restored private property and the profit incentive in the Soviet Union in 1965, despite both of those things already apparently existing because of Stalin earlier.

#trotlogic

[Solidarity]

So you were just making shit up. Stalin's "bad leadership," nothing specifically, just him bein' Stalin I guess, lead to the Kosygin reforms that restored private property and the profit incentive in the Soviet Union in 1965, despite both of those things already apparently existing because of Stalin earlier.

#trotlogic

Im not making anything up. Stalin was a terrible leader who supported capitalist production before 'socialism' In generalization, Stalin's failure to be a leader to the USSR affected how it would act throughout history.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Im not making anything up. Stalin was a terrible leader who supported capitalist production before 'socialism' In generalization, Stalin's failure to be a leader to the USSR affected how it would act throughout history.

Now all you need to do is back any of that up to any extent whatsoever.

[Solidarity]

Now all you need to do is back any of that up to any extent whatsoever.

back it up? he sent millions of people to their deaths in the gulag. You don't exactly win leader of the year by doing that.

[Камо́ Зэд]

back it up? he sent millions of people to their deaths in the gulag. You don't exactly win leader of the year by doing that.

Exactly 1,053,829 people died in the labor camps over a period of almost twenty years. So, yes, you're going to need to back up even one of your claims to any extent whatsoever. And now you have the added bonus of having to explain how labor camp deaths restored capitalism years after Stalin's death.

[Zealot]

"Brezhnevite" and "Khrushchevite" are common derogatory labels that leftists like to use on people who have ideas that may sound vaguely reminiscent of them, even for people who aren't actual supporters of those figures. If you mean "are there any leftists that literally support Khrushchevite/Brezhnevite/Gorbachevite theories and policies" then I would say no. If they do exist they're close to non-existent as to be of no concern.

[PetyaRostov]

Exactly 1,053,829 people died in the labor camps over a period of almost twenty years. .

However, taking into account that it was common practice to release prisoners who were either suffering from incurable diseases or on the point of death, the actual Gulag death toll was somewhat higher, amounting to 1,258,537 in 1934-53, or 1.6 million casualties during the whole period from 1929 to 1953.

[Камо́ Зэд]

However, taking into account that it was common practice to release prisoners who were either suffering from incurable diseases or on the point of death, the actual Gulag death toll was somewhat higher, amounting to 1,258,537 in 1934-53, or 1.6 million casualties during the whole period from 1929 to 1953.

Typically, when someone refers to the Gulag death toll, they mean those who died while incarcerated. To consider those who died shortly after release may imply that the Gulag system was itself responsible for their deaths. This isn't entirely unreasonable, though, and it is still much, much lower than the typically accepted toll of nine million deaths (of political prisoners alone) over a period of three years during the Thirties.

Scholarly estimates place the death toll of the Ukrainian Famine between two and eight million. Historian Michael Ellman estimates the death toll of the Great Purge to as high as over one million, although the Soviet archives record fewer than seven hundred thousand executions. I bring these things up because the death toll attributed to Stalin can be as high as forty million and typically doesn't fall below twenty million. (Solzhenitsyn is known to have claimed that sixty million political prisoners died under Stalin alone!)

To figure that Stalin was responsible for as many as twenty million deaths is to add the Conquest estimate of no fewer than nine million labor camp deaths, the Ellman estimate of no fewer than one million Great Purge executions, no fewer than eight million Famine deaths (which hinges on the premises of the Famine as having been orchestrated deliberately and Stalin's complicity in this orchestration), and at least two million deaths in miscellaneous executions or imprisonments. On the lower end, Stalin can be estimated to have been complicit in two million three hundred thousand deaths over the course of thirty-one years. For comparison, that's fewer than the number of people who die in the United States from smoking every year.

To summarize my own position, Stalin was complicit in fewer deaths over a period of three decades than for which tobacco is responsible within a single year in the U.S. Also, his leadership saw a peak economic growth rate of fourteen percent, a rate which no country in the history of the world has ever once matched.

EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that the number of people who die every year from smoking in the United States is actually something closer to half a million. About two and a half million United States citizens die every year in general. This would still mean that Stalin, over the course of three decades, was complicit in deaths numbering fewer than those who die in the United States every year. Per year, that means Stalin killed fewer than eighty thousand people, less than a fifth of the number of lives smoking claims in my country. I've achieved this number by accounting for the number of deaths for which the Gulag could be held responsible (including those who died very shortly after their release), as well as the official figures for the Great Purge executions, and I did not include deaths related to the Famine, as I do not believe Stalin can be implicated as having deliberately orchestrated those conditions. If Soviet archival records are incomplete, I still doubt the death toll would be as high as four million or roughly one hundred thirty thousand per year. By my rough estimate, that's less than a percent of the population per year.

[PetyaRostov]

IF we accept the lower end of the death toll

[Winkers Fons]

Khrushchev wasn't so bad. In my opinion he was still an honest communist if also a bit of a buffoon. However, I would not say the same of his successors.

[Paul Cockshott]

With Stalin in charge it was already Capitalist
If that was capialism, give me that sort any day! But I doubt Branson or Buffet would much take to it.

[Paul Cockshott]

It is implausible that more than 2.3 million deaths a year in the US are due to smoking, what is your source?

[Vanguard1917]

The bulk of the 'official' Communist movement in the West tended to support whoever was in the Kremlin.

[Zealot]

It is implausible that more than 2.3 million deaths a year in the US are due to smoking, what is your source?

It's actually somewhere closer to half a million. Nevertheless, regardless of what the figure is, his main argument still stands.

[Камо́ Зэд]

It is implausible that more than 2.3 million deaths a year in the US are due to smoking, what is your source?

You're right that it's implausible. In fact, I'd misread the data. The number I gave is actually closer to how many people in the United States die per year from any cause. I shall make an edit to the original post explaining my mistake.

[Sir Comradical]

I know a lot of MLs hate Khrushchev, but I really like the guy. What happened to the Khrushchevite Revisionists tendency that was here before?

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Which set in motion the restoration of capitalism in that country in less than ten years.

:rolleyes:

This may be off-topic but there was no "restoration," of capitalism in the USSR; there was just capitalism.

[Камо́ Зэд]

:rolleyes:

This may be off-topic but there was no "restoration," of capitalism in the USSR; there was just capitalism.

This would mean that the Kosygin reforms, including the Statute on the Socialist State Production Enterprises, were unnecessary and had absolutely no effect on the economy and production in the U.S.S.R. whatsoever.

[Zealot]

:rolleyes:

This may be off-topic but there was no "restoration," of capitalism in the USSR; there was just capitalism.

I'm afraid to admit that Trotsky had a better analysis than this bunk.

[Камо́ Зэд]

I'm afraid to admit that Trotsky had a better analysis than this bunk.

That's not saying much, really.

[Raskolnikov]

To the original question; yes. There are. I view the USSR as a mixed result post-mortem of Stalin. Whilst still supportative of national liberation movements, socialist movements and the like there was a definite revisionist sense in the USSR as well as beaucratic corruption seeping through the party that was evident in the Stalin era.

So for that reason(and more) it was a mixed result. Such as China with it's domestic affairs and horrible affair of anti-social Imperialism of the USSR.

[Ismail]

To return to the original topic: after 1991 the pro-Soviet parties either remained "communist" or morphed/merged into avowedly social-democratic ones. The former uphold the USSR throughout its entire existence. On the question of Gorbachev the view is either that he was a rightist who restored capitalism in the USSR, or that he was a man who could not undo the problems which he was faced with (usually with the argument that "democracy" was either a possibility under Lenin that Western intervention and blockade and so on made impossible and that under Stalin the USSR was transformed into something that could not be excised despite the 20th Party Congress.)

Soviet revisionism operated through proclaimed "loyalty" to the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Thus the 20th Party Congress was the Congress of the return to "Leninist norms," of eliminating "one-sidedness" in foreign affairs (Gandhi and Nasser were denounced under Stalin but were rehabilitated after his death, for instance), in combating the "cult of the individual" in society and historiography, in promoting "collective leadership," etc.

Just like the 27th Party Congress and onwards under Gorby was one of restoring "Leninist norms" (again), restoring "Lenin's theses" on economics against "Stalinist" aberrations (the Soviets under Gorby argued that the NEP was supposed to last for an indefinite period, significantly beyond the 1920's), and so on. In 1989 Gorbachev even went so far as to claim that the collapse of the "socialist" countries in Eastern Europe wasn't too bad because it was a collapse of "Stalinism," not of "Marxism-Leninism."

A lot of Trots praised Khrushchev at the time, e.g. The Militant claimed in its December 18, 1961 issue that "the Kremlin's exposure and denunciation of the savagely repressive regime in Albania furthers the process of democratization within the Soviet bloc and the Communist parties internationally" and that reappraisals of Trotsky by the PCI and other pro-Soviet parties and organizations demonstrated more evidence of this "process." Likewise under Gorbachev a number of Trots, most notably Ernest Mandel, thought that a glorious "process" was beginning.

Of course the Albanians as usual had the correct analysis of Gorby early on:

"The present-day Soviet Union has already lost any socialist or revolutionary feature. A series of processes are being intensified there and a series of reforms are being carried out for the reconstruction of the economy and its management on a capitalist basis. The present campaign in the Soviet Union announced by Gorbachev against the backwardness and stagnation of the economy, against bureaucracy in the management of it, against the parasitism and corruption of the leading cadres, embezzlement and illicit gains, is a demagogic campaign, the purpose of which is to deceive the Soviet peoples and put them to sleep. These evils are not by any means the fruit of earlier subjective mistakes, as is claimed, but the offspring of the capitalist system restored there. They cannot be cured either with decrees or with reforms.

In the Soviet Union the transformation of the state, party, educational, cultural and other superstructures has already been completed and they have been adapted to the new capitalist economic base and placed completely in the service of the interests of the ruling bourgeoisie."
(Alia, Ramiz. Report to the 9th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1986. p. 172.)

[Os Cangaceiros]

I know a lot of MLs hate Khrushchev, but I really like the guy. What happened to the Khrushchevite Revisionists tendency that was here before?

Khruschev had a fun personality, I'll give him that.

http://mcgarnagle.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/khrushchev_shoe1.jpg

he gave Beria a taste of his own medicine, too, LOL

[Ismail]

he gave Beria a taste of his own medicine, too, LOLHe also had Zhukov threaten to launch a military coup if the "Anti-Party Group" (Molotov, Kaganovich, etc.) did not cease in their activity of forcing Khrushchev to resign. So much for his outbursts at Stalin's "violation of Leninist norms."

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I'm afraid to admit that Trotsky had a better analysis than this bunk.

When the hell did the SR ever reach anything resembling the socialist mode of production? When did it ever move past the capitalist phase? Perhaps I missed something.


This would mean that the Kosygin reforms, including the Statute on the Socialist State Production Enterprises, were unnecessary and had absolutely no effect on the economy and production in the U.S.S.R. whatsoever.

I honestly don't know why you keep citing the Kosygin reforms as if it's some magical rebuttal which refutes any objection I or others have said. To me, the reforms don't really mean anything significant, just state capitalist horseshit. It's the same shit, it's still capitalism, if however augmented or what have you than neo-liberal capitalism. First it was so called "War Communism," then it was the NEP then it was Stalin's Five Year Plans and so on and so on till the Kosygin reforms. Again, not seeing where the SR was ever anything other than capitalist.

[Sea]

Now that the USSR is gone, I'm sure most of them are retired.

[Камо́ Зэд]

I honestly don't know why you keep citing the Kosygin reforms as if it's some magical rebuttal which refutes any objection I or others have said. To me, the reforms don't really mean anything significant, just state capitalist horseshit. It's the same shit, it's still capitalism, if however augmented or what have you than neo-liberal capitalism. First it was so called "War Communism," then it was the NEP then it was Stalin's Five Year Plans and so on and so on till the Kosygin reforms. Again, not seeing where the SR was ever anything other than capitalist.

The problem with your objection is that it doesn't really make any kind of argument, much less one that makes any sense. The Kosygin reforms restored private ownership of enterprise, especially, but not limited to the fact that directors of enterprise could then act in the names of their enterprises, without power of attorney or any kind of state approval, and dispose of any income those enterprises generated at their personal discretion. The reforms also restored the profit incentive for production, which weakened the centralized planning that had been the rule of law up until that time. If the Soviet Union had been capitalist, as you argue, these reforms would have been a complete waste of paper and administrative resources. Likewise, the economy wouldn't have all of a sudden been radically transformed and stagnated if no such change were occurring.

Dismissing a counterargument out of hand by calling it "magical" is really no kind of argument either. That word isn't, well, magical either.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

The problem with your objection is that it doesn't really make any kind of argument, much less one that makes any sense.

Of course not.


The Kosygin reforms restored private ownership of enterprise, especially, but not limited to the fact that directors of enterprise could then act in the names of their enterprises, without power of attorney or any kind of state approval, and dispose of any income those enterprises generated at their personal discretion. The reforms also restored the profit incentive for production, which weakened the centralized planning that had been the rule of law up until that time. If the Soviet Union had been capitalist, as you argue, these reforms would have been a complete waste of paper and administrative resources. Likewise, the economy wouldn't have all of a sudden been radically transformed and stagnated if no such change were occurring.

So, the SR went from some overtly centralized state capitalist clap-trap to some more liberal version. Such a radical change indeed.


Dismissing a counterargument out of hand by calling it "magical" is really no kind of argument either. That word isn't, well, magical either.

Previously all I had really seen was you saying "come on, those Kosygin reforms, come on." More or less.

[Камо́ Зэд]

So, the SR went from some overtly centralized state capitalist clap-trap to some more liberal version. Such a radical change indeed.

I'm not sure what this "S.R." is that you keep referring to, but that's really not an argument. You can't have capitalism without private ownership of the means of production, and that is exactly what was introduced by the Kosygin reforms.


Previously all I had really seen was you saying "come on, those Kosygin reforms, come on." More or less.

And now all I'm seeing is, "Nuh uh, it was capitalist!" I'm not sure why you feel like you deserve any more than what you described.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Capitalism was restored in the USSR/Russia under Boris Yeltsin, building on the destruction wrought by Gorbachev.

The fSU under Stalin certainly wasn't capitalist or "state capitalism"-although there are interesting complex debates over the nature of the Soviet economy.There were aspects of capitalism with bigger elements of socialism. They subverted each other. There was production of commodities for a wage, which is capitalistic, but distribution was not though a market system but by bureaucratic allocation. There was a huge problem with accountability. Hence Stalin's praising of US accounting methods (as cited by Istvan Mazaros in Beyond Capital) and the "mini-NEP" of the late 30s.This could have been alleviated by democratic allocation and distribution, i.e the worker's democracy advocated by Trotsky and others.

As for modern day Brezhnevists, as I understand the Greek KKE seems to point towards Bulgaria under Todor Zhikov as their model of socialism. Perhaps they could be called Brezhnevists.

[jookyle]

I will say that I do enjoy reading the kitchen debate.

[Ismail]

As for modern day Brezhnevists, as I understand the Greek KKE seems to point towards Bulgaria under Todor Zhikov as their model of socialism. Perhaps they could be called Brezhnevists.The same Todor Zhivkov who after 1989 apparently said that he stopped actually being a communist on a personal level after 1960 and basically just faked it after that. This same Zhivkov who initiated a blatantly racist campaign against Bulgarian Turks. This same Zhivkov who was the most obediently pro-Soviet leader in the Eastern Bloc.

Why not idolize the GDR? At least Honecker actually described himself as a communist after 1989, and their system was not much more "market socialist" than Bulgaria's.