Why Stalin shouldn't be hated.

[campesino]

a

[cynicles]

1. huh?
2. huh?
3. huh?
4. huh?
5. huh?
6. huh?
7. huh?
8. huh?


Conclusion: WTF?

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

The Stalin threads are rising.

[Ostrinski]

When the hell did Stalin sacrifice his life to create socialism? Moreover, how does that even work?

[GoddessCleoLover]

I find it somehow appropriate that this thread's OP has been restricted as a reactionary.:lol:

[campesino]

a

[Ostrinski]

poor guy

[hatzel]

I don't tend to worry my pretty little head about the twin economic theories of Stalin-hate and Stalin-love because Stalin died a while ago which means he isn't actually alive any more which means I don't really have to take a position on him if I don't want to because it's not particularly important to support or oppose people who aren't doing anything. The only thing left for me to take a position on is one of the following four contemporary Stalinocentric realities:

1. Stalin-love-love.
2. Stalin-love-hate.
3. Stalin-hate-love.
4. Stalin-hate-hate.

And I'm not gonna lie even caring about any of those is a bit of a struggle for me because I repeat I try to care only for things that are relevant but I do my best...

[GoddessCleoLover]

IMO it is important to learn from history, and learning can be fun. It doesn't have to worry one's pretty little head.;)

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Yep. A sterling revolutionary. Taught Hoxha and Kim Il Sung how it was done. Oh, to have lived in Tirana in the golden age of socialism.:rolleyes:

[GoddessCleoLover]

The golden age may have passed in Tirana but it's not too late to check out Pyongyang.:rolleyes:

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

1. He was an honest revolutionary.
Well, he created what was known as the Stalin school of falsification. That was incredibly honest of him...not.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

The golden age may have passed in Tirana but it's not too late to check out Pyongyang.:rolleyes:
Doh. What was I thinking? Of course although the current leader shares some of the DNA, things are not quite as "socialist" as they were under the leonine eye of Great Leader.:crying:

[Yuppie Grinder]

Lol @ this social engineer calling himself a leftcom and a bordigist to seem more intellectual then ordinary stalinoids without knowing anything about either of those

[Comrade Samuel]

The Stalin bashing games have begun!

OP you may be misguided, you may not have expressed your ideas in the cleareat way possible but that doesn't exactly warrant most of the sarcastic shit above.


If your interested in Marxist- Leninism (or Stalinism as the hip communist prefer) I strongly suggest you pay this place a visit.
http://marxistleninist.proboards.com/

[Ostrinski]

all non Stalinists are hip I suppose

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Lol @ this social engineer calling himself a leftcom and a bordigist to seem more intellectual then ordinary stalinoids without knowing anything about either of those

The thing is that the user has participated in Bordigist discussions and does know what left communism is, which makes this all the more confusing considering most of what is being said is completely antithetical to left communism and Bordigism.

[campesino]

a

[Yuppie Grinder]

Left Communism should officially have its name changed to Cool Kid Communism. That is what it should say on the ICC and ICT websites.
To respond to the OP seriously,
1. No. Honest revolutionaries do not take part in the sort of dastardly espionage Stalin did. They do not throw show trials to do with away with opponents in the party.
2. All sorts of spoiled whiny capitalists care about what they perceive to be "socialism". It doesn't mean they understand what that is or have any revolutionary potential.
3. This is a good excuse for losing a baseball game, not betraying a revolution.
4. Neato Burrito.
5. lol. The liberal notion that power corrupts magically just out of nowhere is not something that has any place in Communist discourse.
6. Nice Messianicism, idealist.
7. Good for him. You could use this argument for literally any historical authority figure. It's not a real argument.
8. Compared to proletarian internationalism, SioC is an awful idea.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Hatzel, you have a good point in that this tired old argument is something we should have moved past ages ago. Historical positions are generally not important. I just think it is important to differentiate Stalinism from Communism, both because it should be made clear that Stalinism historically is not the sort of thing Communists fight for, and because Stalinists have no interest in moving past the state or abolishing work.

[soso17]

8. Compared to proletarian internationalism, SioC is an awful idea.

No one denied this. Did you read the OP? He never claimed that SioC was preferable, just that, at that time in that place, the Bolsheviks, led by JVS, were working with what they were given. Russia was falling apart after years of war and civil war, famine, chaos, etc. Is it preferable to choose adventurism and have any revolutionary gains fall apart b/c "the revolution must be a world revolution, all at once, or else we should just give up on the whole thing, sit around reading Trotsky and imagining a magical world with unicorns and perfect revolutionary conditions!" M-L is the only approach that has worked, as yet. That doesn't mean it is the only way that will work, but it is the only historical experience we can claim, and thus the only starting point to learn from.

[campesino]

a

[The Jay]

Would an honest revolutionary have ordered the stalinists in revolutionary Spain to do what they did?

[campesino]

a

[Yuppie Grinder]

1. what is wrong with espionage, we need to be succesful right?
2. I don't see what this has to do with Stalin.
3. how did he betray the revolution? by not implementing your vision of socialism? he didn't implement mine either, but he did what could be done given the circumstance, sure it wasn't optimal, but it was not done with reactionary/capitalist malice.
4. things got done
5. I just want to differentiate him from ass-holes like kim Jong Il who sip bourbon while their people starve.
6. okay:confused:
7. for any succesful leader, there are plenty of failed leaders.
*. what is proletarian internationalism? how does it differ from socialism in one country?
Go to a Marxist-Leninist forum and never come back.

[Comrade Samuel]

Go to a Marxist-Leninist forum and never come back.

...this thread...it....it's slowly killing me.

[Let's Get Free]

Stalin should be buried as far into the ground as possible, I don't really think we need to waste our time 'hating' him.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Like Gladiator I won't waste my energy hating Stalin, but he ought to be buried at least ten feet blow, facing downward with a stake driven through his heart.

[helot]

what did they do? do you believe Stalin was doing it, so the fascist would come to power, because Stalin was crypto-fascist.

I think it's more to do with the Spanish revolution being a threat to the Party's hegemony.

The Communist Party of Spain, affiliated with the Comintern, engaged in counter-revolution for example May 1937 in Barcelona.

[Marxaveli]

Hatzel, you have a good point in that this tired old argument is something we should have moved past ages ago. Historical positions are generally not important. I just think it is important to differentiate Stalinism from Communism, both because it should be made clear that Stalinism historically is not the sort of thing Communists fight for, and because Stalinists have no interest in moving past the state or abolishing work.

This is on point. And not only should Stalinism be distinguished from communism, but from Marxism in general. It really boggles my mind that some people still think Stalinism is a tenable ideology.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't hate Stalin, I don't think he was bidding his time as a revolutionary before 1917 waiting for his chance to make himself the new Tsar. I do hate the politics and counter-revolution that he represents and the world-wide ramifications of what he represents.

1. He was an honest revolutionary.
2. He honestly cared about socialism.
3. He did the best he can.
4. His achievements are great.
5. He was not corrupt.
6. He sacrificed his life to create socialism.
7. He was decisive and did what had to be done.I don't view histroy in a "great man" sense, so this is all immaterial IMO.


8. Socialism in one country is not a bad idea, in matter of fact it was the only course the Soviets could have taken.It was not the only course they could have taken even though worker's power and socialism was off the table at that point.

Even then the policies of the Beurocracy and the Comintern fucked up CPs in other locations and betrayals in Spain and all sorts of shit. From a "socialist" perspective none of that make sense - but from the perspective of preserving rule in Russia it does make a kind of sense.

[Grenzer]

1. He was an honest revolutionary.
2. He honestly cared about socialism.
3. He did the best he can.
4. His achievements are great.
5. He was not corrupt.
6. He sacrificed his life to create socialism.
7. He was decisive and did what had to be done.
8. Socialism in one country is not a bad idea, in matter of fact it was the only course the Soviets could have taken.

How many of us have dreramed of having power and then going to foreign lands and freeing the proletariat.

but lets consider, after a resource draining revolution, do you think the people would gladly keep on going and spread the revolution. No matter what, the people care about what is going on at home, domestic affairs take center place over foreign affairs. the people would rise up complaining about how the state would be sending resources to establish socialism in other lands, even when it hasn't been established at home, and people at home are in need.

of course we must support socialism everywhere, but first we must become a strong established state, that will be able to support socialist around the world. If we pursue adventurism, we will collapse and there goes another set of wasted years of socialist struggle.

Weren't you just a Bordigist recently?

Lenin's reaction upon being resurrected in 1940 and seeing Stalin's handiwork. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8geLnpGmQAQ&feature=fvwrel)

[Jimmie Higgins]

what did they do? do you believe Stalin was doing it, so the fascist would come to power, because Stalin was crypto-fascist.Ideologically because they believed there needed to be a full bourgeois revolution before a worker's revolution and so the PSE alliged with the bourgeose who were not capable of defending against fascism (and some sections were for it) because they also feared revolt by workers.

Internationally, it was because the USSR was trying to cozy up to the bouregoise democracies at that point in order to have allies against Germany.

So on both the local and the international level, the Comintern sided with the bourgoise over the workers.

[Avanti]

stalin is dead.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

...Stalin again? Really?

*heavy sigh* Fine

(sits and watches the fruitless 'debate' around his virtues and faults go into it's 60th fucking year)

[l'Enfermé]

Stalin was a pretty cool guy. Eh was honest revolutionary and sacrificed his life for socialism and doesn't afraid of anything.

Yes, this thread is so stupid that I'm using a 4chan meme.

[Avanti]

stalin is dead

but avanti is alive

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

1. what is wrong with espionage, we need to be succesful right?
2. I don't see what this has to do with Stalin.
3. how did he betray the revolution? by not implementing your vision of socialism? he didn't implement mine either, but he did what could be done given the circumstance, sure it wasn't optimal, but it was not done with reactionary/capitalist malice.
4. things got done
5. I just want to differentiate him from ass-holes like kim Jong Il who sip bourbon while their people starve.
6. okay:confused:
7. for any succesful leader, there are plenty of failed leaders.
*. what is proletarian internationalism? how does it differ from socialism in one country?
There are many threads that go into the details of the things that Stalin did that are extremely objectionable to any revolutionary Marxist. Here's a couple of specific responses:
5: Stalin was the asshole that sipped Vodka as his henchmen slandered and then murdered a generation of revolutionary leaders. He was the asshole that purged anyone that disagreed with him from the party (prior to killing them). He is the asshole that propagated the ultra-left "third period" policy that helped the Nazis take power in Germany. He is the asshole that pushed for the Chinese CP to remain embedded in the KMT leading to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands in China in the late 1920s. ETC. . . .

*Proletarian internationalism basically means that you put the interests of the world revolution above those of your nation's revolution. (e.g., Lenin said he would sacrifice the Russian Revolution for the German Revolution). The Bolsheviks were the beacon of internationalism in the dark years after the beginning of WWI where almost all of the socialist parties in europe (of the Second International) sided with their own bourgeoisie. Stalin introduced the vile and corrosive agent of nationalism under the banner of building socialism in one country. As for there being a "problem" with it -- well yes, it cannot be done.

[LeftLibertarian]

... he also killed a shitload of people. I must have missed that passage in Marxist's teaching. Here I was thinking it was freedom from class, authority and capitalists.... Although I guess death does achieve that... Yay Stalin! Let's similarly create a new communist society by just killing everyone... Makes sense.

[Ismail]

Yep. A sterling revolutionary. Taught Hoxha and Kim Il Sung how it was done. Oh, to have lived in Tirana in the golden age of socialism.:rolleyes:The same Kim Il Sung who was one of Tito's friends, took a vacillating stand on Soviet revisionism, called Carter a wonderful guy and replaced Marxism-Leninism with "Juche."

Not to mention that Kim never really "learned" much from Stalin anyway. He fought alongside Chinese Communists while a guerrilla fighter. British intelligence in the late 40's was comparing Kim to Tito in terms of how relatively "autonomous" (i.e. nationalist) both were, and as early as 1946 many aspects of the Kim family cult were already well underway.

Hoxha called Kim a "vacillating, revisionist megalomaniac" and also said, "In Pyongyang, I believe that even Tito will be astonished at the proportions of the cult of his host, which has reached a level unheard of anywhere else, either in past or present times, let alone in a country which calls itself socialist." (Reflections on China Vol. II, pp. 148, 517.)

[GerrardWinstanley]

He was the leader of the world's only counterhegemony to US imperialism in his time. Could the third world liberation movements that started with Bandung and the subsequent communist revolutions, not to mention the Keynesian postwar consensus in the wealthy countries to placate an increasingly militant and organised working class have been possible without the threat of a powerful Soviet Union and of Soviet-backed communist subversion? I think this is worth asking, especially in a time when, since the fall of the Soviet Union, Marxism has been severely marginalised by academia, organised labour virtually destroyed and socialism become a term of abuse.

On the other hand, I think it is the Soviet people and not Stalin who deserve credit for this and it was they who suffered for it. Stalin very nearly lost the war with the Nazis on a number of occasions and it would be reasonable to imagine that a less dictatorial leader would have been just as, if not more successful repelling German forces. Plus, the war aside, it's difficult to imagine how Stalin could have governed his own country any worse. Apologies for the third camp cliche, but he genuinely placed no value on human life and appeared to be a psychopath. The effects of Stalin's ideology has been pernicious too, particularly on Maoism (which has many virtues, apart from its Stalinist pedigree). I don't imagine there would have been Sino-Soviet split if Mao hadn't been so extreme in his anti-revisionism and that is Stalin's legacy.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

aaahhh yesh, Hoxha noted in his diaries that soylent green is people, almost a decade before Charlton Heston made that same discovery...

and of course socialism in one country is a splendid idea it´s just too bad it hasn´t been working out in practice so far... I really don´t know if revisionism is entirely to blame or if it´s just the weather conditions in Siberia...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deDAxP8MzsQ

Who needs historial materialism when you have great ideas and even greater men:rolleyes:

[Ismail]

So are you coming to the defense of Kim Il Sung?

[Art Vandelay]

So are you coming to the defense of Kim Il Sung?

Yes Ismail, that's exactly it. :rolleyes:

You've made this argument before and its bullshit. You're a nice enough guy, but your politics suck and at times you resort to some underhanded maneuvers to try and score points in exchanges.

[Ismail]

Yes Ismail, that's exactly it. :rolleyes:

You've made this argument before and its bullshit. You're a nice enough guy, but your politics suck and at times you resort to some underhanded maneuvers to try and score points in exchanges.I don't see what Hoxha said is so objectionable. Not like I only cited Hoxha either.

[Rafiq]

So are you coming to the defense of Kim Il Sung?

:laugh:

Oh my god. I think I've tears from laughter.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

So are you coming to the defense of Kim Il Sung?
No, that´s the last thing I intend to do.


I don't see what Hoxha said is so objectionable. Not like I only cited Hoxha either.
Actually I agree with Hoxha on Kim Il Sung. What I´m criticising is this emphasis on personalities, words and ideas of "dear leaders". My criticism wasn´t just directed against you personally Ismail, but against this tendency here to focus on the merits (or lack thereof) of individuals while ignoring historical context and the OP of this thread is actually a perfect example of what my sarcasm was directed against. I think it negates historical materialism.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

The same Kim Il Sung who was one of Tito's friends, took a vacillating stand on Soviet revisionism, called Carter a wonderful guy and replaced Marxism-Leninism with "Juche."

Not to mention that Kim never really "learned" much from Stalin anyway. He fought alongside Chinese Communists while a guerrilla fighter. British intelligence in the late 40's was comparing Kim to Tito in terms of how relatively "autonomous" (i.e. nationalist) both were, and as early as 1946 many aspects of the Kim family cult were already well underway.

Hoxha called Kim a "vacillating, revisionist megalomaniac" and also said, "In Pyongyang, I believe that even Tito will be astonished at the proportions of the cult of his host, which has reached a level unheard of anywhere else, either in past or present times, let alone in a country which calls itself socialist." (Reflections on China Vol. II, pp. 148, 517.)
Nice story, Ismail. But in terms of a bureaucratic, nationalistic perversion of Leninism, i.e. Stalinism, Kim did his homework. And I guess comrade Enver knew something about vacillating, revisionist megalomaniacs.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Stalin is the wrong sort of revisionist, he revised the scientific character out of Marxism by disallowing revision. Science is built on revision.

[Ismail]

Stalin is the wrong sort of revisionist, he revised the scientific character out of Marxism by disallowing revision. Science is built on revision.Let's hear the scientific revisions undertaken by Bernstein, Kautsky, Tito, the Kims, Khrushchev, Castro, Brezhnev, Gorby, etc. then.

You're wrong in any case. "There is dogmatic Marxism and creative Marxism. I stand by the latter." (Stalin, Works Vol. 3, p. 200.) Hoxha likewise stressed the creative character of Marxism. What neither did was negate Marxism under the cover of this word or invent their own ideology or "higher stage." Not to mention that it was Lenin who noted the emergence of revisionism within the international working-class movement.

[Avanti]

Let's hear the scientific revisions undertaken by Bernstein, Kautsky, Tito, the Kims, Khrushchev, Castro, Brezhnev, Gorby, etc. then.

You're wrong in any case. "There is dogmatic Marxism and creative Marxism. I stand by the latter." (Stalin, Works Vol. 3, p. 200.) Hoxha likewise stressed the creative character of Marxism. What neither did was negate Marxism under the cover of this word or invent their own ideology or "higher stage."


it's a dialectical laws

all ideologies

must split

like cells in the human body

all ideologies

must be destroyed

to be born anew

that's the flow of time

existence

is a self-contradiction

therefore

all must be built

on self-contradictions

having said that

fuck hoxha

[Marxaveli]

Let's hear the scientific revisions undertaken by Bernstein, Kautsky, Tito, the Kims, Khrushchev, Castro, Brezhnev, Gorby, etc. then.

You're wrong in any case. "There is dogmatic Marxism and creative Marxism. I stand by the latter." (Stalin, Works Vol. 3, p. 200.) Hoxha likewise stressed the creative character of Marxism. What neither did was negate Marxism under the cover of this word or invent their own ideology or "higher stage." Not to mention that it was Lenin who noted the emergence of revisionism within the international working-class movement.

Right, because The Great Purge of 1936, that led to the execution of many of the original Bolsheviks was "creative Marxism". Im sure Lenin would have just been absolutely thrilled with that. I'm sure he would have also been absolutely thrilled with the Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in 1939 as well, also "creative Marxism", right? :rolleyes:

[Ismail]

Right, because The Great Purge of 1936, that led to the execution of many of the original Bolsheviks was "creative Marxism". Im sure Lenin would have just been absolutely thrilled with that. I'm sure he would have also been absolutely thrilled with the Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in 1939 as well, also "creative Marxism", right? :rolleyes:None of those have to do with a creative or dogmatic understanding of Marxism. The former had to do with getting rid of terrorist networks and an attempt at a military coup. The latter had to do with Stalin masterfully sticking it to the British and French imperialists who, rather than engage in collective security with the Soviets against Nazism, wanted to entice Hitler to march eastwards against the USSR.

Also the initial Soviet expectation was that Hitler would be stuck fighting the French and that proletarian revolts would occur in both France and Nazi Germany so yeah.

[campesino]

a

[Grenzer]

None of those have to do with a creative or dogmatic understanding of Marxism. The former had to do with getting rid of terrorist networks and an attempt at a military coup. The latter had to do with Stalin masterfully sticking it to the British and French imperialists who, rather than engage in collective security with the Soviets against Nazism, wanted to entice Hitler to march eastwards against the USSR.

You mean like the "Trotskyite-Zinoviest terrorist center" of which there is no physical documentary evidence in support of its alleged existence?

[quote]Also the initial Soviet expectation was that Hitler would be stuck fighting the French and that proletarian revolts would occur in both France and Nazi Germany so yeah.

That seems like a rather utopian expectation. How could there be a proletarian revolution in France when the Comintern policy, guided by Moscow, subordinated the PCF entirely to bourgeois class? The PCF pursued a defencist line in regards to fascism and played up to French nationalism. The 1922 Comintern line in regards to United Front and coalition with anti-communist renegades entirely destroyed any revolutionary agency of the Communist Parties. Permanently. The Popular Front merely buried the long dead corpse in the ground.

[Ismail]

That seems like a rather utopian expectation. How could there be a proletarian revolution in France when the Comintern policy, guided by Moscow, subordinated the PCF entirely to bourgeois class? The PCF pursued a defencist line in regards to fascism and played up to French nationalism. The 1922 Comintern line in regards to United Front and coalition with anti-communist renegades entirely destroyed any revolutionary agency of the Communist Parties. Permanently. The Popular Front merely buried the long dead corpse in the ground.To quote from an old post of mine:

As Molotov pointed out in 1939, "The decision to conclude a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany was adopted after military negotiations with France and Great Britain had reached an impasse... we could not but explore other possibilities of ensuring peace and eliminating the danger of war between Germany and the USSR. If the British and French Governments refused to reckon with this, that is their affair. It is our duty to think of the interests of the Soviet people, the interests of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—all the more because are firmly convinced that the interests of the USSR coincide with the fundamental interests of the peoples of other countries." (quoted in J.C. Johari, Soviet Diplomacy 1925-41, p. 43.) ...

Still, it most certainly did mean that the Germans would, for the time being, not be marching eastwards. It should be noted that the Soviets offered the Polish Government various treaties in event of a German invasion of the country. The Polish Government rejected them. Stalin noted to Dimitrov (as noted by Geoffrey Roberts in Stalin's Wars and Alfred Erich Senn in his book on Lithuania, in-re Molotov-Ribbentrop negotiations) that this would be a nice opportunity to get rid of an anti-Soviet and "fascist state" along with the possibility of spreading "the socialist system to new inhabitants in new territories." ...

As Senn notes (p. 21 of Lithuania: Revolution From Above): "Stalin indeed looked forward to profiting from an Anglo-German conflict. In a letter of September 7 [1939] to Georgii Dimitrov, the head of the Communist International, Stalin wrote that 'we are not against' a war between capitalist states in which they 'would weaken each other.' Hitler, nolens volens [aka unwillingly], was on his way to destroying the capitalist system."

Trotsky himself said near the end of his life that in the event of a war between Germany and the USSR that German soldiers would become infected "with a revolutionary spirit." The Soviets basically expected similar things to occur.

I will note quote from Erik Van Ree's book The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin, page 227:

In May 1940, Lev Mekhlis, chief of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army, told a conference in the Commissariat of Defence that his army might “come out as the initiator of the just war” against the capitalist world. In July of that year, Molotov told the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs that Lenin correctly predicted that “a second world war will allow us to take power in the whole of Europe.” The Kremlin supported Germany “just enough so as to prevent it from accepting peace proposals until the time when the hungering masses of the warring nations lose their illusions and rise up against their leaders.” Revolution in Germany would lead to reconciliation between the German and the French and British bourgeoisie, but “at that moment we’ll come to its aid, we’ll arrive with fresh forces, well prepared, and on the territory of Western Europe, I think somewhere near the Rhine, there will take place the decisive battle between the proletariat and the rotting bourgeoisie.”

... In April of [1941], the writer V. Vishnevskii wrote in his diary that, according to Voroshilov, the pact with Germany had been signed to set the imperialist powers against each other, adding: “we will cleverly incite them… and under the right conditions we will go over to the attack ourselves according to the Leninist formula.” Vishnevskii concluded that the time “of the ‘holy’ battles (according to an expression of Molotov in a recent talk) comes ever closer!”

[Art Vandelay]

None of those have to do with a creative or dogmatic understanding of Marxism. The former had to do with getting rid of terrorist networks and an attempt at a military coup.

I've always found this so lulzy. Trotsky could of very well taken control in a military coup, as he was the leader of the Red Army and was known as the co-leader of October, to the majority of the Russian proletariat; he chose to duke it out in the party instead.

[Grenzer]

Trotsky isn't the best person to reference, as he was the ultimate idealist in his expectations as well. He said that unless Stalinism was overthrown during World War 2, the Soviet Union would collapse within a decade. He lived his life constantly believing that the inevitable end of capitalism was just around the corner..

You should try reading some more Trotsky. He goes into detail in his writings from his stay in France that the PCF was firmly against the idea of revolution because proletarian revolution would give the Nazis an opportunity to invade. If they were afraid of revolution during peace, then why would they be more eager during a war where revolution could cause the collapse of anti-fascist resistance?

There could have been no revolution in Germany as even the Stalinized communists were dead, in exile, or imprisoned. The Fascist police state ultimately did not allow even the most reformist and liberal forms of proletarian organization. How is revolutionary opposition going to be organized in those circumstances? The quote really doesn't address any of these issues.

[Ismail]

I've always found this so lulzy. Trotsky could of very well taken control in a military coup, as he was the leader of the Red Army and was known as the co-leader of October, to the majority of the Russian proletariat; he chose to duke it out in the party instead.And in the party he was revealed to have had quite a minority of supporters. Not to mention that he lost his military positions in 1925 without trouble.

[Marxaveli]

I believe most anti-Stalin sentiments, come from the public schools(at least in my are) making children read Animal Farm, and all the liberal propaganda that goes with it.

I know Animal Farm, the Black Book of Communism, and so on are all nonsense. But so is Stalinism. What I hate about liberal propaganda is that it CONFLATES Stalinism to communism, when the two have nothing in common - ideologically or on the ground.


most people like to say they are above the fray, and Stalin's legacy shouldn't be paid attention to. "it was 60 years ago, Stalin is dead." the truth is that liberal propaganda has formed the left into movement that is abandoning some of its most useful tools and what separates it from liberal movements.

This is great man status nonsense. Even Marx and Engels don't have "legacies". There is no left movement as of now, which is indeed partly due to liberal propaganda but its also due to opportunists like Stalin and Mao who betrayed the revolutionary movement, and in fact, these two factors have a symbiotic relationship to one another as I mentioned above.


how can we disown The Soviet Union under Stalin. when it was an advancing state, with raising quality of life and life expectancy. It was truly an achievement of the proletariat. I think we are letting capitalist propaganda cloud and conceal the truth. Life in the Soviet Union vastly improved, the government supported many socialist led national liberation movements, it was giving the third world a vital ally in keeping the first world bourgeoisie from exploiting the third world.

Hardly. Life in the SU may have been better under Stalin than the Tzar (as far as being guaranteed a job, free education and healthcare, which they did not have under Tzarist rulership), but only relatively, and it came at great, great cost. Sometimes the ends doesn't justify the means comrade. Stalin was a cult of personality psychopath that ruled with an iron fist, and through Machiavellian tactics of fear. Great man theories are bullshit anyway, but even if they weren't, Stalin is one of the last people any self-respecting communist should admire.


lets abandon this liberal propaganda image of the Soviet Union, as an awful place to live, where sneezing during a party meeting would land you in a gulag, where a bureaucracy created so much red-tape, and do I dare say that reactionary buzzword "over-regulated" everything.

It isn't always liberal propaganda man. Historical fact can also speak for itself sometimes, you know, without a need for interpretation?


I will acknowledge Stalin made mistakes, but the man was no Deng Xiaoping, or capitalist-roader. he certainly did not betray the revolution, or seek to contain socialism in one country.

Now you are just straight up in denial. He DID betray the revolution, and he DID seek to contain SIOC and turn the SU into a capitalist global powerhouse - under the guise of socialism to justify his own thirst for power. He wasn't a revolutionary, or even a Marxist as far as I'm concerned. He was a opportunist, little better than the feudal absolutist monarchs of the middle ages.

[Grenzer]

And in the party he was revealed to have had quite a minority of supporters. Not to mention that he lost his military positions in 1925 without trouble.

Maybe in the beginning, but if he had formed an alliance with Kamenev and Zinoviev before the latter had been stripped of his position as President of the Comintern they would have been able to muster quite a bit of support. Possibly enough to weather the Stalinist storm.

One also has to question how few there really were if hundreds of thousands were executed for supposedly being Trotsky's supporters. Either it was just a bunch of bullshit, in which case hundreds of thousands of loyal communists were needlessly executed; or Trotsky's support was indeed considerable.

[Rafiq]

Let's hear the scientific revisions undertaken by Bernstein, Kautsky, Tito, the Kims, Khrushchev, Castro, Brezhnev, Gorby, etc. then.

You're wrong in any case. "There is dogmatic Marxism and creative Marxism. I stand by the latter." (Stalin, Works Vol. 3, p. 200.) Hoxha likewise stressed the creative character of Marxism. What neither did was negate Marxism under the cover of this word or invent their own ideology or "higher stage." Not to mention that it was Lenin who noted the emergence of revisionism within the international working-class movement.

Kautsky had reinvented Marxism, or re asserted it ("revised" it) long before the first world war, and Lenin remained an avid follower. Lenin's opposition to Kautsky amounted to his betrayal, supporting imperialist powers during the first world war. Creative Marxism is garbage. We should not be creative, we should instead, using the methods we have built over the years, re assert Marxism's hegemony over academia, over the intellectual sphere and so on by adding to it not out of "creativity" but out of an objective analysis of radical shifts in social and class relations, and the mode of production in general. In truth, it is quite apparent to the dullest of children that Marxism was "revised" because it was ideologically defiled, bastardized and adjusted as the ideological substantiation of existing states (and today, even now we have a hard time categorizing the Communist states, in their class nature). This was a trend started by none other than the Soviet state itself under Stalin, with the simplistic regurgitation of historical materialism and socialism in one country to name two of many examples. By the time of Khruschev (when it was declared all class antagonisms have gone and the time for 'peaceful coexistence' has begun, signifying a complete disregard for the Marxist conception of social and class relations) Marxism itself had been extinguished from Communist states. Nay, by the time the victory of Socialism in one country was declared, Marxism had been extinguished. In truth, Anti revisionism itself was just another ideological substantiation of another Stalinist state, namely Albania. Hoxha completely disregarded historical materialism in favor of a bankrupt, almost moralist or even populist analysis of existing events. Actually perhaps the only thing we can credit him for was a criticism of Eurocommunism. The fact that it might be half possible that Hoxha was less of a vulgarizer than Kim Sung Il doesn't excuse the fact that Marxism was a non-existent theoretical component of Albania's state. It was just another bastardized ideological mutation (note Marxism is not an ideology).

[Ismail]

One also has to question how few there really were if hundreds of thousands were executed for supposedly being Trotsky's supporters. Either it was just a bunch of bullshit, in which case hundreds of thousands of loyal communists were needlessly executed; or Trotsky's support was indeed considerable.Stalin in his report to the Eighteenth Congress of the AUCP(b) on March 10, 1939:
"It cannot be said that the purge was not accompanied by grave mistakes. There were unfortunately more mistakes than might have been expected. Undoubtedly, we shall have no further need of resorting to the method of mass purges. Nevertheless, the purge of 1933-36 was unavoidable and its results, on the whole, were beneficial."
(J.V. Stalin. Works Vol. 14. London: Red Star Press Ltd. 1978. p. 401.)

"As the statistics on Old Bolshevik victims show, the vast majority of those executed were associated with Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, et al., rather than with Trotsky of Zinoviev... all the 1934 Central Committee members re-elected to the 1939 Central Committee were from the [pro-Stalin wing] of the Party, and none were from the right."
(Albert Szymanski. Human Rights in the Soviet Union. London: Zed Books Ltd. 1984. p. 249.)

[Art Vandelay]

And in the party he was revealed to have had quite a minority of supporters. Not to mention that he lost his military positions in 1925 without trouble.

I never denied that. But ultimately, if Trotsky had wanted to take power in a military coup, he would of, probably around 1924-1925; he chose not to, and openly stated that he would not attempt a coup (which in all honesty would of, more likely than not, been successful, but this is neither here nor there). To believe the nonsense peddled by Stalinists, one would have to believe that Trotsky chose to attempt this coup, not at the height of his power (with the Red Army under his command), but instead at the point of his lowest influence, practically on the run, half way around the globe. Now regardless of anyone's opinions of his politics, you'd have to believe Trotsky was a complete dunce to have chosen that point in time, for this elaborate ploy of his.

Your an intelligent guy Ismail, which is why I can never decide if your just willfully ignorant, or delusional.

[Rafiq]

Right, because The Great Purge of 1936, that led to the execution of many of the original Bolsheviks was "creative Marxism". Im sure Lenin would have just been absolutely thrilled with that. I'm sure he would have also been absolutely thrilled with the Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in 1939 as well, also "creative Marxism", right? :rolleyes:

These have nothing at all to do with Marxism, Marxism is not a mode of production, it is not a means of organization and it is not a moral framework. The old bolsheviks were not executed in the name of Marxism (a scientific framework) but out of the supposed necessity of defending the Soviet state. A Marxist can come to your house and eat your grandmother, and so long as he upholds Marxism's theoretical foundations, historical materialism, to start, he is still a Marxist. If a Marxist collaborated with the Bourgeois state today, and personally killed 5,000 communists in an hour he could still be a Marxist. Whether he could be a genuine Communist is a different matter all together.

[campesino]

a

[Art Vandelay]

@ Marxaveli
all I just read was tired out propaganda, and straight up slander. If Stalin was such a capitalist why did he end the NEP, why did he collectivize, why did he de-kulakize? if he was such an isolationaist, why did he send weapons, resources, engineers to other countries? calling something machiavellian is such a liberal thing to do. Why can't you accept socialism and a proletarian movement took place in the 20th century? Because it doesn't match you vision of socialism, or better yet it doesn't match the liberalized version of socialism, the one that denies the Soviet Union, the one that can't be Machiavellian, the one that doesn't fall in line with the values of the liberals.

Fuck I just wish you`d get banned. No one denies that a proletarian movement took place in the 20th century. Well, at least, certainly not I, nor my comrade Marxavelli. The problem was the proletarian movement which took place, took place in an isolated state and failed to spread. The reaction against October found its expression in the man you claim we should not hate.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Well, because of him, people associate communism with totalitarianism. Kudos to him :crying:

[GoddessCleoLover]

Some of us have read about and studied the Soviet Union for years (decades) and have concluded that it was not a workers' state during the Stalin era. Some bourgeois liberals were enamored of the "progress" they saw in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. Marxian theory is quite clear that the DotP means the rule of the working class, not its exploitation by a single party dictatorship, even if that party calls itself "Communist". The real issue is not about "hating" Stalin but recognizing that Stalin represented a a variant of what Marx called "barracks socialism" not proletarian socialism.

[Grenzer]

@ Marxaveli
all I just read was tired out propaganda, and straight up slander. If Stalin was such a capitalist why did he end the NEP, why did he collectivize, why did he de-kulakize?

Nationalization has nothing to do with socialization.

[campesino]

a

[Art Vandelay]

@ 9mm
Stalin did not betray the proletarian revolution, he worked for it and extended it.


Really? Oh how fucking compelling, guess I'll become an M-L now.

Also Animal Farm wasn't a critique of Communism, so quit bringing it up.

[helot]

But the idea that it was exploiting the working class is ridiculous, the CPSU was legitimate in the eyes of the working class, it had popular support. If I am reading you right, you all are saying that the CPSU existed to exploit the working class and line the pockets of the bureaucracy, a favorite myth of the reactionary ideologues.

That's a flimsy argument. Not only does whether the working class supports something or not have no bearing on whether they're exploited but even going as far as to equate your debating opponents with reactionaries due to it is petty.

If you want to refute the claim that there was exploitation in the USSR how about starting by answering a simple question... who controlled the MoP and the surplus created?

[Marxaveli]

[QUOTE]calling something machiavellian is such a liberal thing to do.

Yea, only liberals call people machiavellian, just like only they call Hitler a fascist. :rolleyes:



Why can't you accept socialism and a proletarian movement took place in the 20th century?

Never said a proletarian revolution didn't take place - that's just you putting words in my mouth. If we were talking Lenin here, you might have a point, but we aren't - we are talking Stalin, which is another matter entirely.


Because it doesn't match you vision of socialism, or better yet it doesn't match the liberalized version of socialism, the one that denies the Soviet Union, the one that can't be Machiavellian, the one that doesn't fall in line with the values of the liberals.

MY vision of socialism? I don't have a 'vision' of socialism, only liberal idealists/utopians like yourself have "visions". I'm tired of counter-revolutionaries like yourself calling people "liberals" when they point out the errors in your thinking. It is YOU who is the liberal. GTFO.

[campesino]

a

[GoddessCleoLover]

The whole notion that the Bolsheviks were "the working class party" has more in common with bourgeois idealism than proletarian socialism. Assuming arguendo that the Bolsheviks were "the working class party" at the time of the 1917 Revolution it is sheer bourgeois idealism to anoint them as such for the future. Proletarian socialism is about the dictatorship of the proletariat, not of a singular vanguard. The proletarians of the USSR were disempowered by those who purported to be their vanguard and the state was a workers' state in name only. In substance, the soviets became mere instruments of the one party state and workers did not rule the state.

[Althusser]

Not a marxist-leninist, but goddamn, you people would get your point across better without the bitter sarcasm and pompousness.

[Marxaveli]

@ 9mm
well you said Stalin represent a reaction against the october revolution, is that not a compelling argument? What is your argument proving Stalin's betrayal?
@ helot
the working class party, CPSU administered the means of production, and managed resources and production.

@Marxaveli

what is your criteria for what is and isn't socialism, you have to have a criteria/vision to judge whether something is socialist. Does the Soviet Union not fit your criteria/vision?
Being machiavellian isn't the same as being anti-working class.

Which brings me to the conclusion

either you define the USSR as non-socialist because purges and other "machiavellian" actions took place. (I disagree, because socialism isn't about the morality of actions, My personal opinion, y'all probably disagree)
or you believe the USSR wasn't socialist, because you believe the liberal anti-socialist propaganda, that states, that the CPSU was a new bourgeoisie worker-exploiting class.

The only socialism I prescribe to is the scientific socialism as outlined by Marx and Engels. I am an Orthodox Marxist, not a bourgeois opportunist/revisionist. At what point during the SU's existence did it ever resemble anything they wrote about? Perhaps for a very short time under Lenin it could be argued, and the failure of the German Revolution in conjunction with the ideology of Vanguardism is what led to the revolution's doom. Whatever your perspective on that is, the SU under Stalin was not anything Marx or Engels would have ever condoned - and if you say otherwise, well, you might want to go back and read them again.

The Paris Commune was much closer to my "view" of Socialism than the SU under Stalin, and I would hope this would be the case for any proletarian socialist and humanitarian. Marxism doesn't involve morality, but socialism certainly does. So I ask you, when was the SU, realistically speaking, ever socialist?

[helot]

@ 9mm
well you said Stalin represent a reaction against the october revolution, is that not a compelling argument? What is your argument proving Stalin's betrayal?
@ helot
the working class party, CPSU administered the means of production, and managed resources and production.

So the CPSU controlled the MoP and the surplus created? What percentage of workers were members? How were decisions reached? Did the members as a whole control the surplus or was control of the surplus reserved for certain positions in the party?

Details would be nice as then you could prove your point about the USSR being socialist under Stalin.

[Ostrinski]

Not a marxist-leninist, but goddamn, you people would get your point across better without the bitter sarcasm and pompousness.The horse is dead and has been sufficiently beaten. Discussion has been had. The only sensible thing for those with justifiably little respect for their arguments is to treat them as what they are.

[Yuppie Grinder]

campesino your just making lots of empty claims and giving no evidence or critical argument to back them up. I don't think you know how arguments work.

[Ostrinski]

So are you coming to the defense of Kim Il Sung?Yes.

It is quite well known that in all his opportunism Ismail accuses anyone who does not fall into line right up behind the Stalinists he likes, of supporting, upholding, or defending the legacy of the Stalinists he dislikes. This was made apparent in a past discussion with Rafiq when he accused him of supporting the likes of Josip Broz Tito and Kim Il Sung, which is a laugh to anyone who is familiar with Rafiq's views on the matter. I myself have been accused of supporting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan simply because I noted the hypocrisy in Stalinists castigating the post Stalin Soviet Union as state capitalist or imperialist.

There have indeed been a plethora of other accusations made against a surplus of other members that they somehow supported Castro, Mao, among others simply because they thought anti-revisionism was horseshit. It is all very well documented. Now, if one truly holds the view that anarchists/ultra leftists, Trotskyists, and other non/anti Stalinists genuinely defend the leaders of Stalinist states, then it can only be said that this person lacks the capability of interpreting anything other than through their narrow, dogmatic prism of Marxism-Leninism and that they lack the skills to formulate a proper analysis of anything on their own accord.

Blake's Baby said something in another thread in a discussion against a Trotskyist but I think part of it merits replication here as even though it is taken out of context it demonstrates the point I am trying to make quite effectively, and I hope he doesn't mind:


...you can't say 'that was shit, this is shit', you have to taste the flavours of shit in order to declare that one or other is better. I don't really care however, you can make shit wear funny little hats or do a little dance, but it's still shit.As Rafiq noted in a past discussion, we all came to the very elementary conclusion presumably in the developing stages of our politics that Yugoslavia, North Korea, et. al were insufferable shitholes. We are merely waiting for you to admit the same for Albania.

In other words, you don't need to tell us that the grass is green or that the sky is blue. Yes, we all know that you know that the grass is green and the sky is blue, you've demonstrated that well. We're merely waiting for you to acknowledge that shit is brown.

[Ismail]

Claiming that Kim Il Sung had to adopt Juche and that anyone who opposed him was an opportunist does, in fact, qualify as apologia for him, just as those Trots (like AMH) who claimed that Tito had to adopt "market socialism." It is apologia for revisionism.

Likewise the defense of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, logically enough, constitutes apologia for it. You can happily say how the USSR by 1980 was a "shithole," "Stalinist," or whatever, but the fact is that taking the line that its occupation of the country was somehow "progressive" is what matters: one is defending an imperialist invasion and occupation, no matter how much you say "both sides are equally bad," the same with "leftists" who in 2002-2003 were defending the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq because America is supposedly the "lesser evil" in said conflicts (with various excuses being made to justify their positions, e.g. the Taliban being reactionary, closing down schools, having less-than-good respect for women's rights, and so on; Ba'athism being "fascist" and Saddam leading a "fascist state" that outlawed any real communist activity, etc.)

Those who go on about "dogmatism" find common ground with Castroites and Maoists in practice. It is not surprising that a number of Trots praise Cuba while denouncing Stalin to the utmost, because of Castro's "revolutionary" image, despite the fact that he came to power an avowed anti-communist and became a pawn of Soviet revisionism, having Cuban troops sent to Angola and Ethiopia to further Soviet social-imperialist interests in those countries. Likewise many ultra-leftists find in Mao a more likable character than Stalin, as evidenced by websites like Kasama.

Of course there are those ultra-leftists who genuinely abhor Mao, Castro, Stalin and everyone else, but then again they uphold obscure academics who preach spontaneity or otherwise non-proletarian "solutions," so they can simply be ignored.

The fact that you talk about "insufferable shitholes" demonstrates your chauvinism. How was Albania, whose living standards for its poorest were higher than Britain's poorest, whose mortality rate was one of the lowest in Europe, and whose citizens experienced no price rises from the 50's (among other things) living in a "shithole"? Because it didn't have a high GDP?

[Grenzer]

I don't think anyone was claiming that people who oppose Kim are opportunists, I think what they are claiming is that the idea that Kim could have done differently is absurd. They are correct because as materialists, we recognize that people make history, but not as they choose. Material being precedes thought and establishes the framework in which ideas are created. You cannot have an ideal such as anti-revisionism and have that as the first axiom, and the have material being follow it. It can only happen the other way around if one is to remain consistent with Marxism.

This isn't "apologizing" for the Kims: it's recognizing that their ideology could not be different because it is framed within the extant material circumstances. One can refuse to support Kim while recognizing that Juche isn't a doctrine of choice, but arose as justification for policies that pursued the interests of Capital. It is Great Man theory to say otherwise; the entire basis of Marxist political analysis is that it is the material relationships of production that determine consciousness. We are communists because our material relation to Capital is one of opposition and because we have the knowledge needed to recognize this reality.

I frankly do not see how this is much different from the liberals who go on about Obama's "betrayal" and complain that Obama isn't fulfilling his campaign promises. He doesn't carry out a further left policy because the interests of American Capital do not demand that he do so. His political doctrines are an organic reflection of his relation to Capital, not a matter of personal choice; it is the same with the Kims, Mao, Stalin, and even Lenin. Our opposition to Capital is a reflection of our conflict with it at a material level; just as Kim's ideology of Juche is an organic reflection of his role as a defender of Korean Capital, which had been his role from the very beginning.

It's for this same reason that while we oppose Stalin, we do not hate him. The only way the Soviet Union could survive in the absence of revolutionary successes elsewhere was to integrate with the global capitalist order. True, the Soviets always faced pressure form the "ordinary" bourgeois republics, but it was of a much different sort than that faced in the years of 1917-1921. They were not existential threats, save for the rise of the Nazis, which had absolutely nothing to do with the existence of the Soviet Union. The Nazis came to power because of the class struggle in Germany and the inability of the Weimar Republic to fully recover from the shock dealt by the failed revolution of 1917-1923, not because the German bourgeoisie feared the Soviet Union, which by this time had become fully integrated into global capitalism.

You really shouldn't be bringing up Afghanistan again. The Soviet Union pursued imperialist policies itself, long before the 1970's. The invasion and annexation of Karelia by the Soviet Union certainly constitutes imperialism. There was a convenient political pretext, but it does not change the reality that there is economic gain to be had from appropriation of that industrially developed area. It's even more straightforward than the Afghanistan situation. The Soviet Union's relation with its Eastern European satellites was one that was essentially imperialist, and one might even say colonial in nature. The Soviets extracted natural resources at an unfavorable level of exchange for domestic consumption.. a classic form of imperialist relations. One simply cannot be a supporter of the Soviet Union without simultaneously supporting imperialism.

So now you support the Mujahideen, Taliban and Saddam Hussein? Please don't tell me Ratko Mladić is next. :laugh:

These are all class alien forces, and supporting them either directly or in abstract amounts to class collaborationism. No matter who wins, the proletariat loses.

[Grenzer]

either you define the USSR as non-socialist because purges and other "machiavellian" actions took place. (I disagree, because socialism isn't about the morality of actions, My personal opinion, y'all probably disagree)
or you believe the USSR wasn't socialist, because you believe the liberal anti-socialist propaganda, that states, that the CPSU was a new bourgeoisie worker-exploiting class.

Really? Please point out the American and Western European propaganda lambasting the Soviet Union for being a bastion of free market capitalism as I seem to be having a hard time finding it.

Falling back on weak, baseless statements like this just makes you look like a tool, honestly.

[Omsk]

Actually, a liberal anti-communist, Milovan Đilas theorized about a new class in the Soviet Union, and Titoite Yugoslavia, the "red bourgeois". His view was horribly non-Marxist though. Than again he died some time ago, and his view is not accepted by the current bourgeois media, the current tool of the capital claims that the revisionist USSR of the years 1960 and 1970 is the example of "Communism" . Although, we should not care about what they say, their ways of understanding certain periods of history tend to be completely out of touch. The media uses the revisionist examples, ie, for Russia, communism is Brezhnevism, in the Balkans, communism is Titoism, in Albania, communism is the revisionism of the 1990 years, in Germany, communism is the Ulbricht revisionism.

[campesino]

a

[Comrade #138672]

Stalin probably 'meant well', but what does this even mean? You can't save the working-class by yourself. The working-class must save itself. History is not made by Great Men, but by the masses.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Trotsky isn't the best person to reference, as he was the ultimate idealist in his expectations as well. He said that unless Stalinism was overthrown during World War 2, the Soviet Union would collapse within a decade. He lived his life constantly believing that the inevitable end of capitalism was just around the corner..

You should try reading some more Trotsky. He goes into detail in his writings from his stay in France that the PCF was firmly against the idea of revolution because proletarian revolution would give the Nazis an opportunity to invade. If they were afraid of revolution during peace, then why would they be more eager during a war where revolution could cause the collapse of anti-fascist resistance?

There could have been no revolution in Germany as even the Stalinized communists were dead, in exile, or imprisoned. The Fascist police state ultimately did not allow even the most reformist and liberal forms of proletarian organization. How is revolutionary opposition going to be organized in those circumstances? The quote really doesn't address any of these issues.
Yeah, Trotsky's crystal ball wasn't always on point. Stalinism held on a lot longer than he expected. But, big picture -- the idea of deformed worker's states as being unstable and not viable in the long-term has been borne out.

Trotsky expected that the workers of the PCF would, under the force of events, move sharply to the left, providing an opening for and developing, revolutionary leadership. He did not think the PCF was going to lead a revolution in France.

Actually, Trotsky wrote some articles before Hitler rose to power that if the Nazis ruled, a the proletariat would be smashed for a full generation or more. And I believe being on the losing side of a cataclysmic war probably left things fairly wide open in Germany in 1945. Of course the occupying armies did see to it that not much happened. You are right though, it was not an ideal circumstance by any means.

[Ismail]

I don't think anyone was claiming that people who oppose Kim are opportunists, I think what they are claiming is that the idea that Kim could have done differently is absurd.As ComradeOm pointed out, this is the sort of "materialism" that makes a mockery out of the concept.

Of course he could have "done differently." Why couldn't he? Of course we know why he didn't do things differently; he was a revisionist and a bourgeois nationalist, who opportunistically sought aid from both the USSR and China (and the West in the 70's) while creating his own non-materialist ideology and family cult at home. Invoking "the material conditions" only works to explain how Juche could have come about and actually be upheld by the citizens of the DPRK (and, of course, why Kim thought the way he did.)

It's like saying China had to have its "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" or that Cambodia had to have the killing fields. There is then, in essence, no reason to oppose Kim, Mao or Pol Pot; after all, they were merely playthings of the "material conditions," they did what they had to do. Where's the human agency?


I frankly do not see how this is much different from the liberals who go on about Obama's "betrayal" and complain that Obama isn't fulfilling his campaign promises.Except the solution in the DPRK was and is for a proletarian revolution, not "let's hope Kim or his successors turn around." Just as Hoxha called for a proletarian revolution in the USSR and criticized the Chinese when they thought that the fall of Khrushchev and the rise of his former lackey Brezhnev might signal a "more correct" course in the country.


You really shouldn't be bringing up Afghanistan again. The Soviet Union pursued imperialist policies itself, long before the 1970's. The invasion and annexation of Karelia by the Soviet Union certainly constitutes imperialism. There was a convenient political pretext, but it does not change the reality that there is economic gain to be had from appropriation of that industrially developed area."Economic gain" is not imperialism, otherwise the Bolsheviks were "imperialists" for creating the Soviet Union rather than just staying inside the Russian SFSR.


It's even more straightforward than the Afghanistan situation. The Soviet Union's relation with its Eastern European satellites was one that was essentially imperialist, and one might even say colonial in nature. The Soviets extracted natural resources at an unfavorable level of exchange for domestic consumption.. a classic form of imperialist relations. One simply cannot be a supporter of the Soviet Union without simultaneously supporting imperialism.In fact it was the Soviet revisionists who created an imperialist relationship there and purposefully underdeveloped those countries. They denounced the "Stalinist aberration" of heavy industry in favor of the "international socialist division of labor," implemented through their control of Comecon and enforced through the Warsaw Pact.


So now you support the Mujahideen, Taliban and Saddam Hussein? Please don't tell me Ratko Mladić is next.Har-de-har. No, I support the people of Afghanistan and Iraq against imperialism, in the service of waging wars of national liberation against the occupiers. It's funny how for such "materialists" you people seem to always focus on groups and personalities when subjects like these come up.


These are all class alien forces, and supporting them either directly or in abstract amounts to class collaborationism. No matter who wins, the proletariat loses.I'm sure the proletarians of Afghanistan and Iraq would lose far less if their countries were not subjected to foreign invasions and (in the case of Iraq from 1991-2003) economic sanctions that caused a great many starvations.

But of course when it comes to Afghanistan you switch it around and say that it is the proletariat which has more to gain from the Soviet imperialists.

[LeftLibertarian]

Even though I'm like 2 pages too late. I feel i should defend Animal Farm, i think Animal Farm is simply a critique of Stalinism, and similar "socialist" campaigns that abandoned democracy. Orwell was a Socialist after all, he was simply a democratic socialist. The idea that a dictatorship of the proletariat is possible (sans the "dictatorship" whereby democracy was run purely by the workers) is just ridiculous, it will so often lead to the creation of a new oppressive class. The path to communism is through democratic internationalist socialism, not repressive authoritarian national "socialism"

[Art Vandelay]

The fact that you talk about "insufferable shitholes" demonstrates your chauvinism.

Please, for your sake Ismail, don't go down that road again.

[Drosophila]

Wasn't Hoxha credited with inventing the Theory of Gravity?

[Grenzer]

Of course he could have "done differently." Why couldn't he? Of course we know why he didn't do things differently; he was a revisionist and a bourgeois nationalist, who opportunistically sought aid from both the USSR and China (and the West in the 70's) while creating his own non-materialist ideology and family cult at home. Invoking "the material conditions" only works to explain how Juche could have come about and actually be upheld by the citizens of the DPRK (and, of course, why Kim thought the way he did.)

No he couldn't have, not in a sense that would have led to anything that is qualitatively different. Again, you're entirely failing to grasp the connection between ideology and material conditions. Why are most members of the bourgeoisie pro-capitalist with only extremely rare exceptions like Engels and Mehring? Their interests and ideology are framed as a consequence to their material relationship to the means of production. Why was Kim a bourgeois nationalist? He presided over a bourgeois state, just like Stalin did. Just like Stalin's ideology was one of fervent nationalism and virulent anti-communism, it could not have been otherwise because he presided over a capitalist state. The role of the capitalist state is to pursue the interests of the capitalist class. It's extremely vulgar materialism to deny the reality that the state is a vehicle for class rule. This is the material cause of "revisionism" in the Stalinist states.


It's like saying China had to have its "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" or that Cambodia had to have the killing fields. There is then, in essence, no reason to oppose Kim, Mao or Pol Pot; after all, they were merely playthings of the "material conditions," they did what they had to do. Where's the human agency?

Once again, you really haven't the faintest idea of what you're going on about. You have this idealist thesis that you can substitute material conditions for ideals: if only one keeps the faith with Stalinism, then no matter what happens one will continue towards the anti-revisionist utopia. There is human agency, but within the framework imposed by the relations of production. It's you who is consistently failing to grasp this most basic point of Marxism. The dominant mode of production in North Korea is the capitalist mode of production, and the North Korean state is the guardian of the interests of the North Korean capitalist class. The DPRK has been a bourgeois state since its foundation; it could not pursue a policy that was contradictory with the needs of Korean capital. You keep repeating this ridiculous idea that they could through force of will alone. Again, this is just repeating the line of the liberals who complain that the politicians are "corrupt" and are "betraying" them.

Hoxha took the idealist view that Khruschevism and all these inane variants on Stalinism arose because of a failure of ideological programming, failing to realize the connection between the Stalinist states as vehicles for international capital and the evolution of Stalinist ideology.

Outside of the state level, as individuals, organizations, and parties that exist outside the framework of the capitalist state, "anti-revisionism" can have some use. People can come under the sway of bourgeois ideologies and class alien interests; at this level, there is actually a point to fighting it and people can be convinced through political debate. Within the context of capitalist states like the Soviet Union, China, and the DPRK, however, it's profoundly idiotic. The ruling parties are nothing more than part of the state apparatus of the bourgeois state, the state that exists to serve as the vehicle for bourgeois class rule. If one thinks that this material relationship can be surpassed through ideals alone, then they are an anti-Marxist idealist and hopeless utopian.



Except the solution in the DPRK was and is for a proletarian revolution, not "let's hope Kim or his successors turn around." Just as Hoxha called for a proletarian revolution in the USSR and criticized the Chinese when they thought that the fall of Khrushchev and the rise of his former lackey Brezhnev might signal a "more correct" course in the country.

The problem is that you're the one making the insane claim that, somehow, North Korea could have followed the Hoxhaist path if only Kim Il-Sung had better understood and had genuine faith in Marxism! We, on the other hand, have always understood the anti-proletarian nature of the North Korean state and called for revolution against it from the very beginning. We have just refused to take the idealistic and anti-Marxist position that Juche represented a "betrayal" of Marxism because at no point had the DPRK ever represented the interests of the workers or endorsed genuine Marxism.


"Economic gain" is not imperialism, otherwise the Bolsheviks were "imperialists" for creating the Soviet Union rather than just staying inside the Russian SFSR.

The Soviet Union used military force to forcibly annex territory from another country, which by the way, had no agency for posing any kind of "imperialist" existential threat the Soviet Union, for the express purposes of putting it in a better position to exert its hegemony on the global arena.. all for the purpose of furthering the interests of Russian Capital. It's imperialism, plain and simple.


In fact it was the Soviet revisionists who created an imperialist relationship there and purposefully underdeveloped those countries. They denounced the "Stalinist aberration" of heavy industry in favor of the "international socialist division of labor," implemented through their control of Comecon and enforced through the Warsaw Pact.

Except that the transference of materials from Eastern Europe started immediately following the end of the war, and in some cases even before, while Stalin was still alive. The transference of materials without compensation is a clear and plain form of imperialist relations.


Har-de-har. No, I support the people of Afghanistan and Iraq against imperialism, in the service of waging wars of national liberation against the occupiers. It's funny how for such "materialists" you people seem to always focus on groups and personalities when subjects like these come up.

This position does not have much in common with Marxism or communism. One cannot speak about "the people" as a homogenous mass. In practice, supporting "the people" means supporting the bourgeoisie, which is class collaboration. You're resorting to the same kind of sophistry you did before. Either you actually support the Taliban in practice, or you are in fact not supporting the "resistance of the Afghan people against American Imperialism" and are a hypocrite, guilty of the same "neither support nor condemn" line you are criticizing us for taking; or you are supporting a class alien force, and a rather reactionary one at that.

This seems like a particularly ironic charge given that Hoxhaists and Maoists are always going on about "Khrushchevite" and "Titoite" revisionism, as if it was the provenance of the individuals of Khrushchev and Tito alone who deserve the lion's share of responsibility and that these ideologies are a result of a personal betrayal rather than a product of material forces.


I'm sure the proletarians of Afghanistan and Iraq would lose far less if their countries were not subjected to foreign invasions and (in the case of Iraq from 1991-2003) economic sanctions that caused a great many starvations.

And I'm sure they would stand even less to lose if alleged communists would stop playing around with class collaborationist games and work towards proletarian revolution.

Also funny that you're citing the liberal Om. I can respect him for his knowledge of history, but his knowledge and understanding of Marxism is practically non-existant.

[Geiseric]

This is ironic, since juche and Sioc are the same thing, and ismail is arguing against the former.

[Grenzer]

Yeah, Trotsky's crystal ball wasn't always on point. Stalinism held on a lot longer than he expected. But, big picture -- the idea of deformed worker's states as being unstable and not viable in the long-term has been borne out.

Trotsky expected that the workers of the PCF would, under the force of events, move sharply to the left, providing an opening for and developing, revolutionary leadership. He did not think the PCF was going to lead a revolution in France.

Actually, Trotsky wrote some articles before Hitler rose to power that if the Nazis ruled, a the proletariat would be smashed for a full generation or more. And I believe being on the losing side of a cataclysmic war probably left things fairly wide open in Germany in 1945. Of course the occupying armies did see to it that not much happened. You are right though, it was not an ideal circumstance by any means.

True, that's a good thing to bring up. Even when Trotsky was wrong, many of his predictions still had a pretty big kernel of truth to them.

Do you remember any of the articles specifically? I'd be interested in reading them. Even though I am not in agreement with all of Trotsky's politics, I still consider him one of the most reliable and authoritative commenters on the history and politics of the Third International and its parties. I have his First Five Years of the Communist International and The Communist International after Lenin, both of which are excellent reads. I also have volumes of Trotsky's collected works going up to(but not including) 1934, so even if it's not available on the Marxists Internet Archive I should be able to access it.

[Geiseric]

The struggle aganst fascism in germany is his coup de grace about nazism. I read it, and i'd reccomend it.

[o well this is ok I guess]

When the hell did Stalin sacrifice his life to create socialism? Moreover, how does that even work? Eisenhower himself challenged him to pistol at dawn, wagering that if he won he would make Stalins successor a revisionist.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Sounds more like something Patton would have done.;)

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Stalin probably 'meant well', but what does this even mean? You can't save the working-class by yourself. The working-class must save itself. History is not made by Great Men, but by the masses.
This view of history is just as idealistic as a one-sided Great Person view of history. You don't think people like Lenin, Hitler, Lincoln, Einstein, Robespierre, Napoleon, Catherine the Great, et al. changed history? Of course they did -- but not in ways that were out of context of the times in which they lived.

[Ismail]

It's extremely vulgar materialism to deny the reality that the state is a vehicle for class rule. This is the material cause of "revisionism" in the Stalinist states.It's a bit odd to accuse me of this considering that it was precisely the Soviet revisionists who went on about how the dictatorship of the proletariat was "outdated" and that the USSR was instead a "state of the whole people." It was the Albanians who pointed out that the class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat exist up until the achievement of communism on a global scale.


You keep repeating this ridiculous idea that they could through force of will alone. Again, this is just repeating the line of the liberals who complain that the politicians are "corrupt" and are "betraying" them.Except your logic is also adopted by liberals: "Obama is maybe a good guy, but the situation he's in forces him to do shady or sometimes just not very good things." Marxism-Leninism is a science, distorting it (let alone negating it as the DPRK has done) is a conscious act. The idea that "the DPRK was a shithole" or whatever made it logical for them to abandon Marxism is absurd. We know why they abandoned it, and it isn't because "the country sucked," that's an excuse and not really true anyway since the DPRK had a better economy and standard of living than the South throughout the 50's-70's.


Hoxha took the idealist view that Khruschevism and all these inane variants on Stalinism arose because of a failure of ideological programming, failing to realize the connection between the Stalinist states as vehicles for international capital and the evolution of Stalinist ideology.No, the Albanians gave various reasons for the rise of both old (Bernstein, Kautsky, etc.) revisionism and modern (Browder, Tito, Khrushchev, etc.) revisionism.


The Soviet Union used military force to forcibly annex territory from another country, which by the way, had no agency for posing any kind of "imperialist" existential threat the Soviet Union, for the express purposes of putting it in a better position to exert its hegemony on the global arena.. all for the purpose of furthering the interests of Russian Capital. It's imperialism, plain and simple."had no agency for posing any kind of 'imperialist' existential threat to the Soviet Union" ... except when Finland allied with Nazi Germany and waged war on Soviet territory, and when in 1938 Finland refused to promise the Soviets that they would be strictly neutral in the event of a war between the USSR and Nazi Germany.


Except that the transference of materials from Eastern Europe started immediately following the end of the war, and in some cases even before, while Stalin was still alive. The transference of materials without compensation is a clear and plain form of imperialist relations.The Soviets built up the industries of the East European states in accordance with Marxism-Leninism. See for instance: http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/hvindustry.htm


This position does not have much in common with Marxism or communism. One cannot speak about "the people" as a homogenous mass. In practice, supporting "the people" means supporting the bourgeoisie, which is class collaboration.Of course it means supporting the bourgeoisie of the oppressed country; and the peasantry, and the proletariat, and the petty-bourgeoisie as well. It means supporting the people in eradicating the principal contradiction. This can only be crowned with success and gains made from this victory through the leading role of the proletariat in this struggle, through their revolutionary vanguard.


You're resorting to the same kind of sophistry you did before. Either you actually support the Taliban in practice, or you are in fact not supporting the "resistance of the Afghan people against American Imperialism" and are a hypocrite, guilty of the same "neither support nor condemn" line you are criticizing us for taking; or you are supporting a class alien force, and a rather reactionary one at that.When you say "a rather reactionary one at that" you are demonstrating your defense of the more "progressive" side, the imperialist power. The Taliban resist the US occupation. They don't do it consistently and never will, of course, but their popularity stems mainly from this fact. Without a vanguard party in Afghanistan this situation will not change.


This seems like a particularly ironic charge given that Hoxhaists and Maoists are always going on about "Khrushchevite" and "Titoite" revisionism, as if it was the provenance of the individuals of Khrushchev and Tito alone who deserve the lion's share of responsibility and that these ideologies are a result of a personal betrayal rather than a product of material forces.Except material forces were analyzed. Problems of bureaucracy, technocratism, intellectualism, etc. sowed the seeds for the ascendancy of revisionism.

Complaining about the name of these forms of revisionism is ridiculous. "Workers' self-management," "non-aligned socialism," etc. are identified with Tito who was the representative of the Yugoslav state and publicly inaugurated these "theories." Khrushchev's version of "peaceful coexistence," his declaration of the "state of the whole people" and other policies bear the name Khrushchevite revisionism for the same reason. Do you complain about Bernsteinism? Kautskyism?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

True, that's a good thing to bring up. Even when Trotsky was wrong, many of his predictions still had a pretty big kernel of truth to them.

Do you remember any of the articles specifically? I'd be interested in reading them. Even though I am not in agreement with all of Trotsky's politics, I still consider him one of the most reliable and authoritative commenters on the history and politics of the Third International and its parties. I have his First Five Years of the Communist International and The Communist International after Lenin, both of which are excellent reads. I also have volumes of Trotsky's collected works going up to(but not including) 1934, so even if it's not available on the Marxists Internet Archive I should be able to access it.
What comrade Guthrie said. The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany if you can find it is great. I would guess that stuff would also be in the collected works, but TSAFIG is nice because it has all the articles in one compact place. Also, comrade, if you have not read it, I would strongly urge you to read Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution. It is a masterpiece. Also, his small book, The Lessons of October is also verrrry good IMO. Cheers.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Trotsky had an excellent writing style and Stalin loathed Trotsky because of the effectiveness of his polemics. In his memoirs, Pavel Sudoplatov wrote that the mission to murder Trotsky was of the highest importance to Stalin. If Stalin had spent the time he wasted obsessing about Trotsky analyzing the threat posed by Nazi Germany perhaps we wouldn't have welcomed the Nazi Ribbentrop into the Kremlin and signed that pact.

[Prometeo liberado]

At 6:30-7:15 why we don't hate Comrade Stalin:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9aappcKKgY&feature=player_detailpage#t=392s

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Trotsky had an excellent writing style and Stalin loathed Trotsky because of the effectiveness of his polemics. In his memoirs, Pavel Sudoplatov wrote that the mission to murder Trotsky was of the highest importance to Stalin. If Stalin had spent the time he wasted obsessing about Trotsky analyzing the threat posed by Nazi Germany perhaps we wouldn't have welcomed the Nazi Ribbentrop into the Kremlin and signed that pact.
Trotsky's nickname in Russian revolutionary circles was, The Pen. One work of his that is pretty obscure, but a fascinating read is The Balkan Wars. I'm pretty sure Pathfinder published it -- would probably be absurdly expensive at this point.

I don't think Trotsky's existence and perceived threat particularly affected Stalin's judgment or line of approach to Germany and other Western powers. It was all about the Russian bureaucracy's narrow interests in staying in power. Carried out with that Stalinist special sauce of panicked reactivity. That being said, I don't think that the pact with Germany was necessarily the worst thing -- the USSR, even when it was revolutionary made pacts with imperialist powers. The lies about Germany and lack of preparation for the invasion were massive betrayals, however.

[GoddessCleoLover]

It was the wrong pact, with the wrong imperialist power at the wrong time. The pact emboldened Hitler and allowed Hitler to take advantage of Soviet neutrality and concentrate his forces upon divided opponents.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

You are right. It was definitely a mistake. But as you seem to be saying, more of a strategic and tactical error than a betrayal of the proletariat.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I don't believe that Stalin signed the pact in order to betray the proletariat, it seemed to him to serve the short-term interests of the Union (the theory goes that it gave the Union time to prepare for the Nazi invasion). OTOH by relieving Hitler of the worry that the Soviets might either come to the assistance of Poland in September, 1939 or create a second front in the spring of 1940, Stalin played into Hitler's hands and placed the Union at a great disadvantage by the spring of 1941.

[Geiseric]

Well he did betray the proletariat in actuality, because he enabled the nazi war machine to grow all through the 30's with russian raw materials.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Well he did betray the proletariat in actuality, because he enabled the nazi war machine to grow all through the 30's with russian raw materials.
You need to be careful here, comrade. Because trading with bourgeois states was certainly something the USSR needed to do. It was perhaps particularly boneheaded to provide material to the Nazis, but in principle, not different from trading with Britain. This is different from say, squelching the Spanish Revolution or killing hundreds of thousands of the most politically conscious people in the USSR.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Holy shit. If someone transformed this thread into a movie it would become the most popular thriller of all time.

[Let's Get Free]

Stalin was cool. The people we should hate are those evil revisionists who managed to weasel themselves into positions of power, infect the entire party with their revisionist ideas and change the entire relationship between the workers and the means of production without anyone knowing.

[Ostrinski]

I wouldn't say I particularly hate Stalin - although he certainly did seem to be an unwholesome individual, quite vile really. But to waste energy on one individual long dead just seems irrational. We should acknowledge and condemn Stalin's agency in the betrayal of the Russian Revolution to an extent of course but we need to understand that Stalin was merely the personification of all that went wrong and all that failed. He only represented on a personal level all those broader circumstances that made the revolution of the east all the more difficult to maintain.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I wouldn't say I particularly hate Stalin - although he certainly did seem to be an unwholesome individual, quite vile really. But to waste energy on one individual long dead just seems irrational. We should acknowledge and condemn Stalin's agency in the betrayal of the Russian Revolution to an extent of course but we need to understand that Stalin was merely the personification of all that went wrong and all that failed. He only represented on a personal level all those broader circumstances that made the revolution of the east all the more difficult to maintain.
I don't know. Stalin was special -- he was not merely the personification of peasant reaction against the revolution. He was not merely a nationalist bureaucrat. He was not merely Napoleon. He was all of those things, but he was more. He was a paranoid and vicious master manipulator, who would kill his mother if he thought she might not support his position in a Politburo meeting. Let's suppose Stalin had died of influenza in 1919 (I know I'm just making shit up, but bear with me). Zinoviev and Kamenev have a ultimately fight with Trotsky for leadership of the party. Let's say Zinvoviev comes out top dog. He follows policies that are in line with NEP and lead to the same problems that actually occurred. My guess is that Trotsky is allowed to resume his full duties, is not exiled, and perhaps able to influence such key things as the Comintern's policies in Germany.

In The Lessons of October, which was treated as a polemical blast against Zinoviev and Kamenev, Trotsky makes a brilliant argument that there are nodal points in history where things might go one way or another -- in this case the Russian Revolution. He notes that if the Bolsheviks had waited, and not made the revolution when they did -- if the mood of the masses shifted against them, there was a real possibility that the revolution would never have happened or that it would have been crushed. If so, he reasons, bourgeois commentators (and leftist commentators) would have said with great certitude that there could never have been a proletarian revolution in Russia for a host of reasons (e.g., the small size of the Bolsheviks and the proletariat itself, the seeming overwhelming might of the army, the backwardness of Russia, etc.) So it is, to say the least, highly speculative to surmise what might have been without Stalin, but I think there are pretty good odds it would have been better. Of course, it also could have wound up being worse. Bukharin might have become dominant and fostered a counterrevolution by the early 30s.

[Ismail]

infect the entire party with their revisionist ideasWell, not the entire party. After all, as Hoxha noted in 1969, "If the Dubcek counterrevolutionaries attacked and purged the Soviet agency—the Novotny counter-revolutionaries whom the Soviet leadership call 'the Party's fund of gold,' the Khrushchevite counter-revolutionary clique of the Soviet Union in its own country attacked and purged the real revolutionary cadres who were remaining true to the Marxist-Leninist line of the Bolshevik Party and to the ideals of socialism. Under the slogan of the 'fight against Stalin's personality cult,' or under the pretext of rotation, the Khrushchevite revisionists rode roughshod over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Seventy per cent of the members of the members of the Central Committee elected at the 19th Congress of the CPSU in 1952 were no longer figuring on the list of the Central Committee members elected at the 22nd Congress in 1961. Sixty per cent of the CC members in 1956 were no longer figuring on the list of the CC members that were elected at the 23rd Congress in 1966. A still greater purge has been carried out in the lower party organs. For instance, during 1963 alone, more than 50 per cent of the members of the party central and regional committees in the Republics of the Soviet Union were relieved of their functions, while in the city and district party committees three quarters of their members were replaced with others. The purge of the revolutionary cadres has been carried out on a large scale also in the State organs, and especially in those of the army and State security." (The Party of Labor of Albania in Battle with Modern Revisionism, 1972, pp. 498-499.)

Not to mention that Khrushchev defeated the "Anti-Party Group" by having Zhukov (another "victim" of "Stalinism") threaten a military coup.


change the entire relationship between the workers and the means of production without anyone knowing.I do not see why you fail to recognize that the Soviets after 1956 cloaked everything they did as "returning to the path of Leninism." They claimed that not only had socialism been achieved, but that its victory was final and that the USSR would reach Communism by 1980. "By accepting only the narrow understanding of the transition period, the modern revisionists try to clothe it with a content such as would open the road to the theoretical justification of the peaceful counter-revolution, reestablishment of capitalism... it is said that the new economic-social order is not developed through class struggle and that the ideological political and economic-social soil for the reestablishment of capitalism cannot be created." (Hekuran Mera, in Some Questions of Socialist Construction in Albania and of the Struggle Against Revisionism, 1971, pp. 187-188.)

In the 50's and 60's the Soviet revisionists were also able to take advantage of the economic achievements of the 30's-40's and thus preside over increased living standards. This combined with an end to class struggle (aided, of course, by the low theoretical level of the great mass of the Soviet citizenry, something pointed out by Stalin in one of his last speeches) pretty clearly played a great role in their demagogic activities.

[Jason]

http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/Ball.pdf




In the case of the “Purge” of 1937-8, it is clear that there were many
executions at this time, but it may be inadvisable to accept a figure as high as 681,692
on the basis of this single document.

In addition, the context of the “Purge” needs to be understood. It was obvious
to everyone in the Soviet Union from the 1920s that an attack by the imperialist
powers would come. With the rise of Hitler and the encroachments of Japan into
Manchuria in the 1930s the situation became ever more desperate. The Soviet people
were facing absolute destruction. When the attack did come at least 20 million Soviet
people died. Hitler’s plan was to settle the European parts of the Soviet Union in the
same genocidal way that the Europeans had settled North America. If Hitler had won,
many tens of millions more would most likely have died, with the rest enslaved or
forced to try to eke out a living on the least productive land. However wrongly, Stalin
believed that the measures he took in 1937-38 were needed to prevent an internal
Fifth Column emerging in the Soviet Union and assisting Hitler in his murderous
enterprise. The executions of 1937-8 were a tragically wrong response to a terrible
threat; they were not simply some random evil act perpetrated because of
“totalitarianism.”

Despite the circumstances, the “Purge” is almost universally seen as
discrediting everything that happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin’s leadership –
including the massive achievements. Over the years it has led very many on the Left
to disown this period in its entirety and to go down the paths of revisionism and
reformism. This is a way of thinking that socialists must surely question, if
socialism’s fortunes are ever to revive. Millions die every year because of poverty
and hunger. US imperialism encourages coups and props up repressive regimes all
over the world. Its recent military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and
Somalia have led to the deaths or displacement of millions (either by direct US action
or through the action of US clients such as the Pakistani or Ethiopian governments).

When US imperialism’s crimes are exposed, the US Establishment does not simply
decide it has become discredited and give up. The apologists for imperialism just
make statements to the effect that mistakes have been made but it is time to “move
on.” Thus the US “moved on” from Vietnam to orchestrate mass killings in Central
America in the 1980s. It “moved on” from there to the impoverish Iraq through
sanctions and then bring it to absolute ruin following the 2003 invasion, while
abusing human rights in some of the grossest ways imaginable.