What is Stalinism?

[Bolshevika]

What is Stalinism? Who are the Stalinists?

[Deniz Gezmis]

Stalinists are those evil baby eaters. :)

[El Brujo]

Stalinists are people who worship mass murder and dream about being dictators. :rolleyes:

[Bolshevika]

Originally posted by El [email protected] 28 2003, 01:53 AM
Stalinists are people who worship mass murder and dream about being dictators. :rolleyes:
Hey that sounds a lot like me.

You know Hitler was a Stalinist. So was Saddam. (I can't explain this in rational words so just take my word for it)

Hitler wasn't as much of a murderer as Stalin though.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, according to this book, Stalin hated science as well: http://pup.princeton.edu/images/j5926.gif

[Soviet power supreme]

Stalinism is make the socialism work properly in one country.

[Saint-Just]

Stalinists are people who call themselves Marxist-Leninists, but obviously aren't because they support mass murder, corruption and oppression. Thats what the bourgeoisie says, and who are we to question them?

[Pete]

Labels are elusive, but I'll try to give a serious answer none the less.

A Stalinist a leftist who is also an authoritarian, and sees the model of socialism used by Stalin as more or less a good idea, especially when compared to other forms that have been mused about in theory or applied to practicle situations. Personally, I think that that kind of authoritarianism would ultimately fail and is an oxymoron, especially in places where people are able to think for themselves. Stalinism, in my opinion, is against the collectives that have been formed in various parts of the world, such as El Slavador in the 70's, and in the Russian Empire before it became the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (or whatever order the words are in). Stalinists are, again in my opinion, extremely vanguardists and see such grassroot movements as harmful and must gain control over them and centralize everything. They believe they want democratic centralism, but in all practicality they prefer bureaucratic centralism. They are not totalitarians by anymeans, but authoritarian. Certainitly not the most democratic bunch, as they wish for centralism, one of those ideas that removes power from the local collectives and thus is a process of undemocraticization. Stalinists are, again in my opinion, stuck in a period long gone, and not even of any era that could be considered modern in their political philosophy. Although their intentions are good, they may make a step or two forward in some cases, but always they are a step backwards.

I guess my objectivity took a hit as that 'definition' went on, but hey, you asked what we thought it was, and there you go.

-Pete

[Hate Is Art]

hitler wasnt a stalinist full stop.

[The Feral Underclass]

Bolshevika

In my experience Stalinists have been people who have simply admired Stalin as a leader. Usually through a lack of understansing of communism. People look at Stalin, look at the name he called himself [communist], saw that it entertained some success economically and militarily and rationalize this as a victory for communism, claiming that the overwhelming evidence which supports the idea that he was a brutal tyrant are simply bouregois lies. Not one stalinist has succesfully proved beyond a reasonable doubt that all the witnesses, mass graves and concentration camps were lies staged managed by the west....delusional people.

I can not see what Stalin actually advocated. It is not clear whether he had any intention of pulling through socialism to achieve communism in the begining, at the end this certainly was not the case. Stalinism seems to be a dictatorial socialism. A rigid state seated in the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat and made extreme. Ultimatly the regime was Stalin. He had created a personality cult and had completely disregarded any notion of consciousness, using the working class to achieve absolute control. Which he maintained with paranoia, balancing on psychosis.

From what you have put it sounds as if you are begining to cast away your stalinist ideas???

[Scottish_Militant]

What is Stalinism? (http://www.newyouth.com/archives/theory/faq/why_russia_degenerate_and_market.asp)

[Bolshevika]

C_R: I guess your still spreading Colonel Sander's...err...Lev's accusations against Stalin eh? Ted Grant too?

Anarchist Tension:

In my experience Stalinists have been people who have simply admired Stalin as a leader. Usually through a lack of understansing of communism. People look at Stalin, look at the name he called himself [communist], saw that it entertained some success economically and militarily and rationalize this as a victory for communism, claiming that the overwhelming evidence which supports the idea that he was a brutal tyrant are simply bouregois lies. Not one stalinist has succesfully proved beyond a reasonable doubt that all the witnesses, mass graves and concentration camps were lies staged managed by the west....delusional people.

Many people have named Josef Stalin's Russia a sucessful alternative to the United States. Seriously, how bad could it have been if even thousands of Americans moved there (Operation Kuzbas).

I am very critical of Stalin, for example, I disagree with his idea that class struggle ends when socialism is accomplished. This is healthy.

However, I've noticed that the Marx Engels Lenin Stalin Mao brand of socialism has been the most sucessful so far.

Cuba, which many Anarchists have sympathy towards, has a government model extremely similar to the one Stalin implemented in the USSR (well Lenin implemented it, Stalin perfected it).

I do not know what you talk about when you say "witnesses". It seems that from Russian polls, the majority of them support Stalin and wish he would come back. Lenin and Stalin are still the most popular figures in Russian history.

These mass graves, I do not see how they can be attributed to Stalin. The famine in the Ukraine is certainly not Stalin or Collectivizations fault, it is the kulak's fault for burning their and other peoples crops. The famine came to a point where the peasants in the Ukraine began to liquidate kulak's (rich land owners).

I do not understand how you can believe anything the bourgeoisie says. I bet that if they made some ridiculous assumption like, "Emma Goldman was Hitler 2" you wouldn't believe it.

The bourgeoisie want you to think nothing is worse than Socialism, they'll even dumb down the holocaust (deliberate slaughter of civilian men women and children) to prove it. They'll tell you "Mao Tse Tung killed the most people in history!", although they fail to mention this is taken out of context. They'll tell you "Stalin purposely starved peasants in the Ukraine for no reason!" and "Hitler wasn't so bad as Stalin or Mao"- Bla bla bla.

I believe Stalin did things wrong, he was human, however the good he did outweighs the bad.



I can not see what Stalin actually advocated. It is not clear whether he had any intention of pulling through socialism to achieve communism in the begining, at the end this certainly was not the case. Stalinism seems to be a dictatorial socialism. A rigid state seated in the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat and made extreme. Ultimatly the regime was Stalin. He had created a personality cult and had completely disregarded any notion of consciousness, using the working class to achieve absolute control. Which he maintained with paranoia, balancing on psychosis.

All revolutionaries are dictators, because revolution is the most authoritarian act. Democracy is authoritarian as well, so I don't know why you claim he is a "dictator".

Personality cult? Stalin did not put guns to peoples heads and say "put my portrait on your wall" (well, I guess you'd believe if Robert Conquest told you so)

Let me tell you what, one day of Stalin's government counts more than 10000 books by Proudhon, by Bukunin, even by Marx and Engels. Because he did his best to put it in practice, not just make extreme assumptions and whilst not providing another alternative.



From what you have put it sounds as if you are begining to cast away your stalinist ideas???

I am a Marxist-Leninist, and will stay one until someone provides a better, working alternative to capitalism. An alternative that works on a large scale, not some little hippy commune.

Crazy Pete

I am firmly against all forms of bureaucracy, so was Stalin. People who claim Stalin's Russia was bureaucratic have read too much Trotsky and bourgeois (have you noticed that in almost all history books they ignore the brutality of Trotsky whilst training his army, and instead praise him?) and not enough by the Russian people/people who were actually there.

Remember, it was Trotsky who first made the accusation of Stalin's "bureaucracy", and the Western cold war propagandists later adopted this along with Nazi history books after WWII.

I believe in the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat , led by elected workers delegates.

[Soviet power supreme]

I do not know what you talk about when you say "witnesses". It seems that from Russian polls, the majority of them support Stalin and wish he would come back. Lenin and Stalin are still the most popular figures in Russian history.

In Russia, the Public Opinion fund has conducted a poll to find out the most popular politicians in July 2002. Russians mainly consider their former Communistic leaders as the most outstanding public figures. The winner of the poll was Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), who took 14 percent of the vote. He is followed by Iosif Stalin with nine percent. The correposnding share for Vladimir Putin was 2 percent.

[Pete]

I am firmly against all forms of bureaucracy, so was Stalin


I believe in the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat , led by elected workers delegates

All governments are bureaucracies. All elected bodies are centralized. Centralization requires a bureaucracy. Your two statements are self denying. You cannot believe in one and the other 100% at the same time without some leap of faith and willfull blindness to the reality of things.

The rest of your reply to me is useless. I told you what I thought a Stalinist was. We know he was the leader of a government, an authoritarian government, and thus the leader of a bureaucracy. There is no great conspiracy to corrupt the West. The organizational body of any government is the bureaucracy. Planned economies are one of many possible products of a bureaucracy. Come now, thats obvious.

Representative Democracy is bureaucratic in its very nature. You have councils, legistlative bodies, judiciaries, ect ect. I don't know what you are trying to argue in your reply, but whatever it does it does not stand up to its self.

-Pete

[Bolshevika]

I agree with you pete. But when Trotsky spoke of bureaucracy, he spoke of lack of democracy, ie a few elite ran everything without influence from the Soviets. Not bureaucracy in its literal sense.

In reality, Trotsky wanted something similar to what Stalin had, since Trotsky considered himself a Leninist, and Stalin preserved all government institutions Lenin had installed.

All forms of government are authoritarian.

[SonofRage]

The same old responses of "revolution is the most authoritarian act" and "democracy is authoritarian too" used to justify the actions of dictators.

[Pete]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28 2003, 03:33 PM
I agree with you pete. But when Trotsky spoke of bureaucracy, he spoke of lack of democracy, ie a few elite ran everything without influence from the Soviets. Not bureaucracy in its literal sense.

In reality, Trotsky wanted something similar to what Stalin had, since Trotsky considered himself a Leninist, and Stalin preserved all government institutions Lenin had installed.

All forms of government are authoritarian.
And you see nothing wrong with the two quotes of yours I presented to you? That is what I was doing, showing you an internal conflict in your ideology since you layed it before me.

-Pete

[Bolshevika]

When I said bureaucracy I meant it in the sense that people have no democratic power and are ruled by a small elite, like some people on this board and the bourgeoisie makes it out.

[Fidel Castro]

Stalinism is to create a nation that is economically and militarily strong at the expense of civil rights and the act of mass murder and terror.

[redstar2000]

Many people have named Josef Stalin's Russia a successful alternative to the United States. Seriously, how bad could it have been if even thousands of Americans moved there?

Thousands of (not very well-informed) people emigrate to the United States every week. That really doesn't mean much.


I am very critical of Stalin, for example, I disagree with his idea that class struggle ends when socialism is accomplished.

You are misinformed. Stalin actually said that class struggle intensifies under "socialism". I believe he spells this out in Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, his last work before his death.


However, I've noticed that the Marx Engels Lenin Stalin Mao brand of socialism has been the most successful so far.

Cuba, which many Anarchists have sympathy towards, has a government model extremely similar to the one Stalin implemented in the USSR (well Lenin implemented it, Stalin perfected it).

You must be using a definition of "successful" that is unknown to any dictionary that I've ever heard of.

The efforts of Stalin and Mao are ashes. Cuba totters on the edge of the capitalist abyss.

If that's "success", how do you define failure?


I believe Stalin did things wrong, he was human, however the good he did outweighs the bad.

It seems to me that the only way you could legitimately reach this conclusion is if the USSR had actually passed through the "transition stage" and reached communism.

Since what actually happened was the complete opposite, the logical conclusion is that the "bad" outweighed the "good".


Let me tell you what, one day of Stalin's government counts more than 10000 books by Proudhon, by Bakunin, even by Marx and Engels. Because he did his best to put it in practice, not just make extreme assumptions and whilst not providing another alternative.

Actually, Marx did make a similar statement to yours on at least one occasion...something to the effect that one practical step forward for the movement was worth 100 "correct programmes".

The controversy, of course, circles around the issue whether or not Stalin's government was truly "a step forward".

The evidence is not encouraging.


I am a Marxist-Leninist, and will stay one until someone provides a better, working alternative to capitalism.

I guess that's fair enough...though if you were to make a more rigorous theoretical investigation, you would find that Leninism probably can't work...at least more than temporarily.


I believe in the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat , led by elected workers delegates.

How many candidates for each position?

Just one? Selected by the leadership?

Quit using the word "democratic" then...it's fake.


In reality, Trotsky wanted something similar to what Stalin had, since Trotsky considered himself a Leninist, and Stalin preserved all government institutions Lenin had installed.

Quite right...and very embarrassing to the Trotskyists. I think that had Trotsky "won out" over Stalin, he would have done pretty much the same things...including the "crimes".

It's becoming common, I've noticed, for Stalinists to actually deny that there's any such thing as "Stalinism". Their view seems to be that Stalin was simply a "good Marxist-Leninist" who did not make any original contributions to "Marxism-Leninism" and, therefore, the use of Stalin's name in this context is unjustified.

They still speak of "Trotskyism"...but not of "Stalinism".

Perhaps this is a "public relations" gambit.

I confess I find it "most curious".

http://anarchist-action.org/forums/images/smiles/redstar.gif

The RedStar2000 Papers (http://www.anarchist-action.org/marxists/redstar2000/)
A site about communist ideas

[Rastaman]

redstar you are very well read, and I'd have to agree withh you on most points, but I must say i think stalin did some things that are important for us to know.. and I also believe that if the russians (that poll) want him back, not just those in his government, they know what they are talking about.

[Comrade Ceausescu]

When anyone finds a dead body in Russia,the west just jumps in and yells "Stalin did it!"Are these people forgetting about WWII?The Nazis killed a lot of Russians.In an excecution style way.As for the so called ideology of 'Stalinism' it does not exsist in my eyes.To me it is true Marxism-Leninism.

[YKTMX]

In loose terms, I would say Stalinism is this.

A version of state capitalism where the "communist party" has become highly beauracratized (sp?) and surplus value produced by the proletariat goes into the hands of a priveliged class of "officials".

These societies (as they were first realized in extremely reactionery times e.g. Russia after the Civil War) are generally extremely repressive. Massive police forces and military budgets are used to snuff out working class resistance to the regime, e.g. the crushing of the Hungarian revolution, "solidarity" in Poland and Tianamen Square.

The first "Stalinist" regime was created under Joseph Stalin in post-revolutionary Russia. His rule was blighted by massive "purges" of the CP, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Socialists. This example has been followed by many Stalinist "leaders", most notably Mao.

Stalinist leaders also enjoy massive personality cults and most have enjoyed dabbling in class collobaration.

Many of these states have also become imperialist, exerting "soviet power" and "socialist rule" over countires with NO working class involvement, re-writing a hundred years of Marxism in the process.

These regimes usually define themself by a negative e.g "anti-imperialism" or "enemies of the people".


I'm sure there are other things. Oh yeah, and they name lots of streets after Marx and Engels :lol: Long live Socialism!

[Saint-Just]

That descrpition is like reading a western history book, one that might favour Leon Trotsky or George Orwell. Anyway, why would 'Stalinists' want to create this ridiculous state that simply represses people and create a 'state capitalist' system?

[YKTMX]

Originally posted by Chairman [email protected] 30 2003, 08:48 PM
That descrpition is like reading a western history book, one that might favour Leon Trotsky or George Orwell. Anyway, why would 'Stalinists' want to create this ridiculous state that simply represses people and create a 'state capitalist' system?

Trotsky and Orwell were both socialists, so any association with them I will tolerate happily.
Well, that's a "non-point". It is not up to me to acess their aims, maybe they were noble, maybe they weren't, we'll discuss it in the Gulag.

Trotsky and Orwell were both socialists, so any association with them I will tolerate happily.

[The Feral Underclass]

Bolshevika


Many people have named Josef Stalin's Russia a sucessful alternative to the United States. Seriously, how bad could it have been if even thousands of Americans moved there (Operation Kuzbas).

What people? What was "operation kuzbas"? How are you not certain it was a PR stunt designed by the KGB? These people were all probably US Communist Party members who were still in the "i-love-stalin" stage of their politics and wanted to move their.


Cuba, which many Anarchists have sympathy towards, has a government model extremely similar to the one Stalin implemented in the USSR (well Lenin implemented it, Stalin perfected it).

Which anarchists?


I do not know what you talk about when you say "witnesses". It seems that from Russian polls, the majority of them support Stalin and wish he would come back. Lenin and Stalin are still the most popular figures in Russian history.

What polls?


These mass graves, I do not see how they can be attributed to Stalin. The famine in the Ukraine is certainly not Stalin or Collectivizations fault, it is the kulak's fault for burning their and other peoples crops. The famine came to a point where the peasants in the Ukraine began to liquidate kulak's (rich land owners).

So all the activities of the KGB went completely unnoticed by stalin and completely against his wishes?


I do not understand how you can believe anything the bourgeoisie says. I bet that if they made some ridiculous assumption like, "Emma Goldman was Hitler 2" you wouldn't believe it.

Granted I have only seen mass graves and concentration camps on television documentries. My question to you was is all this staged managed by the west? Creations, like stage plays to create this image of stalin? All the evidence that has been documented is all this just bouregois creations?

Of course I would not believe Emma Goldman was Hitler 2 because it is factually untrue. The evidence to support Stalins oppression is overwhelming. Unless of course you believe it was just created and staged managed by the west.


The bourgeoisie want you to think nothing is worse than Socialism, they'll even dumb down the holocaust (deliberate slaughter of civilian men women and children) to prove it.

Name one bouregois leader who did this and give me a quote.


They'll tell you "Mao Tse Tung killed the most people in history!", although they fail to mention this is taken out of context.

I dont understand what you mean by "..taken out of context."


They'll tell you "Stalin purposely starved peasants in the Ukraine for no reason!" and "Hitler wasn't so bad as Stalin or Mao"- Bla bla bla.

There is lots of evidence that says the Stalin did commit these crimes. You must have seen it in order to refute it. Now you give me evidence, links etc which prove that Stalin did not commit these crimes.


All revolutionaries are dictators, because revolution is the most authoritarian act.

Any revolutionay act mst be a majority against a minority so the context of authotarianism is completely different and can be justified in the context of workers struggle. Stalins authority can not be justified when examined and was not a majority fighting a minority it was his rule over the people.


Democracy is authoritarian as well, so I don't know why you claim he is a "dictator".

What are you talking about?

A dictator is defiend as an absolute ruler or a tyrant. Exactly what Stalin was.


Personality cult? Stalin did not put guns to peoples heads and say "put my portrait on your wall"

No, the KGB did...What were all these pagants and marches for? What were the huge pictures of his head everywhere for? Why were soldiers asked to die for comrade stalin etc etc when fighting the russians?


Let me tell you what, one day of Stalin's government counts more than 10000 books by Proudhon, by Bukunin, even by Marx and Engels. Because he did his best to put it in practice, not just make extreme assumptions and whilst not providing another alternative.

This dosnt sound like you arew "very critical of stalin" at all....Stalin did try and put something into practice and look what it turned out to be and evetually end up as...Tyrany into capitalism.


An alternative that works on a large scale, not some little hippy commune.

I presume your refering to anarchism. For a start Anarchism has worked on a large scale and secondly anarchists tend not to be hippies. Hippies by nautre are pacifists. Anarchists generally are not.

[Deniz Gezmis]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 30 2003, 07:15 PM
When anyone finds a dead body in Russia,the west just jumps in and yells "Stalin did it!"Are these people forgetting about WWII?The Nazis killed a lot of Russians.In an excecution style way.As for the so called ideology of 'Stalinism' it does not exsist in my eyes.To me it is true Marxism-Leninism.
Well, There were bodies of Free Polish soldiers found in Russia and when the Free Polish government in London asked Stalin to comment on this, They received no reply from Moscow. It was the Nazis that found the bodies though.. So we cannot be sure what the truth is.

[Yevgraf]

There's no such phenomenon as "Stalinism". Any concrete analysis of Soviet history from 1928 to 1953 dosen't reveal anything during that period which is blatantly at odds with Marxism-Leninism.

The term is simply an invention by those who wanted to see he downfall of the Soviet Union. Namely Trotskyites and their allies the capitalist imperialists, who provide each other with a mutual service in spreading anti-Stalin/anti-Soviet propaganda.

Notice how sympathetically Trot is potrayed in the Bourgeois media to this day <_< as opposed to "evil" Stalin. I find this, "in theory", to be somewhat confusing. I mean Trot&#39;s fantastic abstract notion of &#39;permanent revolution&#39; is, "in theory", more of a danger to imperialist interests, should it come to pass, than the more rational realistic &#39;Socialism in one country&#39;(a necessary pre-requisite for the global revolutionary process).
Why then do the capitalists rarely if ever attack Trot/trotskyism, yet continue to disseminate anti-Stalin propaganda? Well, it&#39;s quite obvious, the imperialists obviously realise that trotskyism is so fantastic and unrealistic that the infamous &#39;theory of permanent revolution&#39; will never come to fruition and thus trots are not much of a threat to them whatsoever&#33;


.......A version of state capitalism where the "communist party" has become highly beauracratized (sp?) and surplus value produced by the proletariat goes into the hands of a priveliged class of "officials". ...

....The first "Stalinist" regime was created under Joseph Stalin in post-revolutionary Russia. His rule was blighted by massive "purges" of the CP, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Socialists. This example has been followed by many Stalinist "leaders", most notably Mao.

I&#39;ll leave you to work out the contradiction of the above, which arises from the standard trotskyite &#39;analysis&#39;

[James]

Stalinism

In contemporary parlance, the word “Stalinism” has come to embody a range of ideologies, specific political positions, forms of societal organization, and political tendencies. That makes getting at the core definition of “Stalinism” difficult, but not impossible.

First and foremost, Stalinism must be understood as the politics of a political stratum. Specifically, Stalinism is the politics of the bureaucracy that hovers over a workers&#39; state. Its first manifestation was in the Soviet Union, where Stalinism arose when sections of the bureaucracy began to express their own interests against those of the working class, which had created the workers&#39; state through revolution to serve its class interests.

Soviet Russia was an isolated workers&#39; state, and its developmental problems were profound. The socialist movement—including the Bolshevik leaders in Russia—had never confronted such problems. Chief among these was that Russia was a backward, peasant-dominated country, the “weakest link in the capitalist chain,” and had to fight for its survival within an imperialist world. This challenge was compounded by the defeat of the revolution in Europe, particularly in Germany, and the isolation of the Soviet workers&#39; state from the material aid that could have been provided by a stronger workers&#39; state. But the pressures of imperialism were too great.

From a social point of view, then, Stalinism is the expression of these pressures of imperialism within the workers&#39; state. The politics of Stalinism flow from these pressures.

The political tenets of Stalinism revolve around the theory of socialism in one country—developed by Stalin to counter the Bolshevik theory that the survival of the Russian Revolution depended on proletarian revolutions in Europe. In contradistinction, the Stalinist theory stipulates that a socialist society can be achieved within a single country.

In April 1924, in the first edition of his book Foundations of Leninism, Stalin had explicitly rejected the idea that socialism could be constructed in one country. He wrote: “Is it possible to attain the final victory of socialism in one country, without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is not. The efforts of one country are enough for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. This is what the history of our revolution tells us. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough. For this we must have the efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries. Such, on the whole, are the characteristic features of the Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.”

In August 1924, as Stalin was consolidating his power in the Soviet Union, a second edition of the same book was published. The text just quoted had been replaced with, in part, the following: “Having consolidated its power, and taking the lead of the peasantry, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society.” And by November 1926, Stalin had completely revised history, stating: “The party always took as its starting point the idea that the victory of socialism ... can be accomplished with the forces of a single country.”

Leon Trotsky, in The Third International After Lenin, called the Stalinist concept of “socialism one country” a “reactionary theory” and characterized its “basis” as one that“sums up to sophistic interpretations of several lines from Lenin on the one hand, and to a scholastic interpretation of the &#39;law of uneven development&#39; on the other. By giving a correct interpretation of the historic law as well as of the quotations [from Lenin] in question,” Trotsky continued, “we arrive at a directly opposite conclusion, that is, the conclusion that was reached by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and all of us, including Stalin and Bukharin, up to 1925."

Stalinism had uprooted the very foundations of Marxism and Leninism.

From “socialism in one country” flow the two other main tenets of Stalinist politics. First is that the workers&#39; movement—given the focus on building socialism in one country (i.e., the Soviet Union)—must adapt itself to whatever is in the best interests of that focus at any given moment. Hence we find the Stalinists engaged in “a series of contradictory zigzags” (Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed), from confrontation with imperialism to détente and from seeming support for the working-class struggle to outright betrayal of the workers. In other words, Russia&#39;s own economic development comes first, above an international policy of revolution—which was the Bolshevik perspective. The second is the idea of revolution in “stages” —that the “national-democratic revolution” must be completed before the socialist revolution takes place. This, too, runs contrary to Marxism. But because of this theory and as the expression of imperialism within the workers&#39; state—and, by extension, within the world workers&#39; movement—we find the Stalinists assigning to the national bourgeoisie a revolutionary role.

The case of Indonesia in 1965 affords an ideal illustration of the bankruptcy and treachery of the “two-stage theory.” As class tensions mounted among the workers and the peasantry, and the masses began to rise up against the shaky regime of President Sukarno, the Stalinist leadership in Beijing told the Indonesian masses and their mass organization the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) to tie their fate to the national bourgeoisie. In October, as many as 1 million workers and peasants were slaughtered in a CIA-organized coup led by General Suharto, which swept aside the Sukarno, crushed the rising mass movements, and installed a brutal military dictatorship.

The “two-stage theory” has also propelled the Stalinists into “popular fronts” with so-called“progressive”elements of the bourgeois class to “advance” the first revolutionary stage. Examples include Stalinist support (through the Communist Party, USA) to President Roosevelt 1930s. And, taking this orientation to its logical conclusion, the Communist Party in the United States consistently supports Democratic Party candidates for office, including the presidency.

The theory of “socialism in one country” and the policies that flowed from it propelled a transformation of Soviet foreign policy under Stalin. The Bolshevik revolutionary strategy, based on support for the working classes of all countries and an effort through the Communist International to construct Communist Parties as revolutionary leaderships throughout the world, gave way to deal-making and maneuvers with bourgeois governments, colonial “democrats” like Chiang Kai-shek in China, and the trade union bureaucracies.

In his 1937 essay “Stalinism and Bolshevism,” Trotsky wrote: “The experience of Stalinism does not refute the teaching of Marxism but confirms it by inversion. The revolutionary doctrine which teaches the proletariat to orient itself correctly in situations and to profit actively by them, contains of course no automatic guarantee of victory. But victory is possible only through the application of this doctrine.” At best, one can say that the Stalinist orientation has not been one of orienting “correctly."

In terms of the organization of a state, Stalinist policies are quite clear: democratic rights threaten the position of the bureaucracy, and hence democracy is incompatible with Stalinism. In basic terms on a world scale, the forces of Stalinism have done everything in their power to prevent socialist revolution.



From http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t...t.htm#stalinism (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#stalinism)

[Bolshevika]

I suggest everyone get "The Lie of The Lenin Testament" at www.Northstarcompass.org , it is a very good book that does an excellent job at refuting Trotskyist claims and falsified documents.

Also, what is wrong with supporting progressive people that aren&#39;t 100% Marxist, but have the peoples interests in mind?

You know Trotskyists, the real world isn&#39;t all dogma. Sometimes you have to make alliances with people because you have no choice (of course, there are special situations, such as Trotskyists working with the Japanese imperialists when they invaded China, see article I posted) .

And the link above, if my source of info is not good because it is from a pro-Stalin source, then Marxists.org is not good because it is from a Trotskyists source.

[kylie]

lenin died for your sins. YOUR SINS.

[Xprewatik RED]

Lenin was the savior of the Soviet people. But Stalin wasn&#39;t. He starved Ukraine. Stalinists argue that it was the "kulaks". This is utter non sense if one looks at a map of the time and thinks a little. East Ukraine was under Soviet control, while West Ukraine was under Polish control. In East Ukraine, after Svoet troops moved into the region starvation began. West Ukraine had NO starvation. You really think the Red Army was helpless? You really think they would leave such a large area unguarded? No, they needed to break the will of the Ukrainian people, who would rather have had their own PEople&#39;s Republic then be a part of Russias. Most Ukrainian peasants much like Russian peasants were sick of Tsarist capitalism. I don&#39;t need to see your evidence, my family lived through this. They saw the gulags, but they were not Kulaks. They had no money they had no horse, they had never heard of indoor plumming or of electricity. They had a couple of chickens and a hog they were in other words peasants, caught in a hell created by Stalin. You think Stalin cared for the people?
Would anyone who cared for the proletariats of a nation sign them away? The Molotov-Ribbentrov pact signed the Poilish proletariat away for Hitiler. Stalin knowing Hitler was a murderor signed away millions of people to him. Stalin attempted to imperialise Finland. He didn&#39;t allow the Finns to lead their own rebellion and establish their own people&#39;s republic he invaded them, he bombed them. WOuld Trotsky be any better, no he would have probablly have been alot worse. I don&#39;t perform hero worship. A new society should be just that a new one.

[Bolshevika]

Prewatik: I wonder why they saw the gulags? Did Stalin just randomly pick a group of innocent, peaceful peasants and put them in gulags?

I doubt it. Most people that were sent to the gulags were individualists who refused collectivization, religious from the Ukrainian orthodox church that refused to close them down, or kulaks.

Ie, they were not forced to go to the gulags, they decided to when they refused to work for the benefit of the people.

I hear very different theories on the Ukrainian famine. The capitalists say "it was because of collectivization, it is a failure&#33;" and the Trotskyists, liberal Marxists, and Anarchists say "Stalin just wanted to murder peasants".

So you are saying Soviet troops starved Ukrainians on purpose because they wanted to "form their own peoples republic"? They did have one, they were not part of Russia, they were part of the USSR (although, they had always been part of Russia, even when Lenin and the Bolsheviks overthrew the Czar, the Red Army invaded Ukraine from the North in 1919 and the White army from the south) .

The reason the Ukrainians starved while Russians didn&#39;t is because the Russian people depended on the potato, which was plentiful in Russia, whilst in the Ukraine the Ukrainians depended more on bread, and 1932-1933 had produced bad harvests and there were thousands of incidents recorded about kulaks destroying and vandalizing farms and crops.

[redstar2000]

Stalinism is the politics of the bureaucracy that hovers over a workers&#39; state.

hovers over?

Like a helicopter? Or a gas balloon?

I&#39;m not much for these kinds of discussions, granted. They seem very antiquarian and even arid, at least to me.

But I couldn&#39;t let this example of Trotskyist verbal gymnastics pass without notice.

The "Stalinist bureaucracy" didn&#39;t exist "up in the air"...it ran the so-called "workers&#39; state". It formulated the policies and ordered their implementation. It rewarded itself with perks and privileges.

It was the "workers&#39; state"...in every way.

Perhaps I shouldn&#39;t be the one to say it, but this is the kind of idealism that sharply reduces the appeal of Trotskyism to those who may be dissatisfied with "Stalinism".

I mean, can you imagine Marx or Engels writing about a group that collectively controls a state apparatus and speak of that group as "hovering over" the state? :lol:

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A site about communist ideas

[Xprewatik RED]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2004, 02:08 AM
Prewatik: I wonder why they saw the gulags? Did Stalin just randomly pick a group of innocent, peaceful peasants and put them in gulags?

I doubt it. Most people that were sent to the gulags were individualists who refused collectivization, religious from the Ukrainian orthodox church that refused to close them down, or kulaks.

Ie, they were not forced to go to the gulags, they decided to when they refused to work for the benefit of the people.

I hear very different theories on the Ukrainian famine. The capitalists say "it was because of collectivization, it is a failure&#33;" and the Trotskyists, liberal Marxists, and Anarchists say "Stalin just wanted to murder peasants".

So you are saying Soviet troops starved Ukrainians on purpose because they wanted to "form their own peoples republic"? They did have one, they were not part of Russia, they were part of the USSR (although, they had always been part of Russia, even when Lenin and the Bolsheviks overthrew the Czar, the Red Army invaded Ukraine from the North in 1919 and the White army from the south) .

The reason the Ukrainians starved while Russians didn&#39;t is because the Russian people depended on the potato, which was plentiful in Russia, whilst in the Ukraine the Ukrainians depended more on bread, and 1932-1933 had produced bad harvests and there were thousands of incidents recorded about kulaks destroying and vandalizing farms and crops.
Ukraine had been the bread basket of Europe for centuries. Stalin disliked the Ukrainians want for independace after World War 1 so he broke their spirit. Your telling me the East Ukraine had a bad harvest and West Ukraine didn&#39;t at the same time? This isn&#39;t comparing W Eu with E Eu these places share weather conditions. Lets say it was the Kulaks and a bad harvest, Stalin coudn&#39;t spare any potatoes? The Red Army soldiers in Ukraine were unarmed and helpless to a band of aristocrats? My rebelious grandparents ..haha.. you&#39;ll justify anything. Stalin had to break their spirits teach &#39;em a lesson about free speech. If they want to believe in god we&#39;ll teach em a lesson right? They can watch their kids starve in a prison camp yeah that&#39;ll show them&#33; He sure did cause they work on a collective farm and I have never heard them complain; even though they dont have things you take for granted like a TV or plumming. They had no objections to whatever the Soviet government told them. They were hearded on trains like cattle and sent up North. They got to stand and got a free tour of Russia. Also the Soviet Union was a Russian Empire. The language was Russian, the capital was Moscow. The Ukrainians tried to form a PR with a capital in Ukraine and with strong ties to the USSR so they could micromanage their own country.

[Scottish_Militant]

It&#39;s a great privaledge to hear comrade Xprewatik&#39;s accounts of his/her grandparents. No doubt though it will all remain &#39;western propoganda&#39; in the eyes of certain people :rolleyes:

[Bolshevika]

The West Ukraine was run by the Poles, so West Ukraine depended on different foods, although the bad harvest wasn&#39;t the sole reason for the famine, it was a good part of it.

When informers told Stalin there was a famine Stalin (from Next To Stalin) did not believe it, I guess he is partly to blame for not investigating it further, but he had no real reason to starve the Ukrainians. The masses of peasantry was already collectivized far before the famine and the clash between the peasants and the kulkas. His bodyguard confirms this in his book.

Sorry, but I don&#39;t buy your story. I remember you once said you were a Trotskyist in another thread, so you could just be making this up for all I know (many members of this bored say stuff like "My grandmother in poland was misplaced by Stalin" and it&#39;s not even true).

I know there was immense poverty in some areas in Eastern Europe, but this certainly is not Stalin&#39;s fault, since the people of the USSR.

And Moscow was not the capital of the "Soviet Empire". Each Soviet state had a capital, I believe the Ukraine&#39;s is and was Kiev. That is far more ethnic autonomy than they had under the Czar, and the languages of all official ethnic groups were recognized by the Soviet government.

[Xprewatik RED]

Poor Stalin he would have never suspected. haha he was dictator of a vast empire. You think there would have been one informant from a country of 40million&#33; haha. No pointin argueing with you; my grandparents might disintgrate into sand before my eyes&#33; This isn&#39;t going anywhere so there is no pinting in digging up the graves of my poor people once again.

[Bolshevika]

So tell me Red, what reason did Stalin have to purposely starve the Ukrainian peasantry? Why did many Ukrainian peasants support the liquidation of the kulaks? Why were so many already collectivized before Stalin made it official?

Do you deny that you are a Trotskyist?

[Scottish_Militant]

Sorry, but I don&#39;t buy your story. I remember you once said you were a Trotskyist in another thread, so you could just be making this up for all I know

A typical stalinist &#39;brick wall&#39; attitude

[Bolshevika]

His failure to elaborate on why Stalin took his grandparents and purged them is what makes me question it. He also strikes me as a Ukrainian nationalist.

And C_R, can you please bring something to the discussion rather than going on about "typical Stalinist"? If not, just don&#39;t post here and run along and type about your shit like usual. You seem to be good at this, posting in the trashcan, so fuck off.

So, Red, did Stalin starve, did Stalin put in the gulags, or did Stalin do all of the above to your grandparents?

[Eastside Revolt]

Originally posted by Bolshe[email protected] 2 2004, 04:18 AM
His failure to elaborate on why Stalin took his grandparents and purged them is what makes me question it. He also strikes me as a Ukrainian nationalist.

And C_R, can you please bring something to the discussion rather than going on about "typical Stalinist"? If not, just don&#39;t post here and run along and type about your shit like usual. You seem to be good at this, posting in the trashcan, so fuck off.

So, Red, did Stalin starve, did Stalin put in the gulags, or did Stalin do all of the above to your grandparents?
A nationalist trotskyist? :blink:

[Scottish_Militant]

A nationalist trotskyist?

My thoughts exactly, was Stalin not a great Russian nationalist and chauvanist?

[Bolshevika]

He may have been a patriot, Stalin, but he certainly was no chauvinist. He was an internationalist, the internationalist movement was far stronger under Stalin than it was under any Trotskyist organization kiddie.

Let&#39;s balance it out now in the spirit of Engels: 28 years of Stalin&#39;s industrialization of Russia and spread of revolution across the globe > 10000000 books by Trot.

I&#39;m sorry, Trotsky was a big talker, but he and his movement have accomplished nothing. They are nothings, nothingness that is trying to take advantage of our youths newfound interest in Leftism (most "rebel" bands are pro Trotsky, like for example the guitarist of RATM). Hence, the overall popularity of anti-Stalin threads in cute Che Guevara shirt wearing boards like this one. Rabid opportunism and idealism they may be good at, but when it comes to practice, they have accomplished little to nothing&#33;

Even Redstar2000, who is respected as a knowlegable guy for his anti-Stalin anarchist ideas admits the Trotskyists are a bunch of opportunist idealists and that Stalin was the true upholder of Leninism.

I don&#39;t know if you know, but Ukrainian nationalists tend to lean towards the Nazi collaborating subversionist side of the political spectrum.

[Yevgraf]

I&#39;m sorry, Trotsky was a big talker, but he and his movement have accomplished nothing. They are nothings, nothingness that is trying to take advantage of our youths newfound interest in Leftism (most "rebel" bands are pro Trotsky, like for example the guitarist of RATM). Hence, the overall popularity of anti-Stalin threads in cute Che Guevara shirt wearing boards like this one. Rabid opportunism and idealism they may be good at, but when it comes to practice, they have accomplished little to nothing&#33;

Well said.

The thing is not to take these pseudo-radical trots too seriously. Essentially most of them are just middle class kids who are going through a &#39;rebellious phase&#39; in their youth, who mostly end up rejecting what they claimed to have believed in later in life, vote tory and and read the Daily Mail.

They churn out all the old trot slogans - "stalinist bureacracy" "deformed workers state" "permanent revolution" etc etc - like some quasi-religious catechism. Showing no semblance of original thought whatsoever.

I move that production quotas be increased at the Red October Ice-Pick Co-operative :D :hammer:

[Scottish_Militant]

I&#39;m actually a young working class man with a poorly paid job considering the work I do. I&#39;ve been a trade unionist for a few years now. My familly has a socialist tradition, my grandmothers dad was active in red clydeside in the 1920&#39;s, the battle of george square and all that. Thats why I resent being called a &#39;middle class trot&#39; by uneducated people who mostly follow stalin because he was &#39;ruthless&#39; and they think it&#39;s cool

[redstar2000]

As long as we&#39;re all mucking about in the archives, there&#39;s this...


Well, There were bodies of Free Polish soldiers found in Russia and when the Free Polish government in London asked Stalin to comment on this, They received no reply from Moscow. It was the Nazis that found the bodies though.. So we cannot be sure what the truth is.

The truth is known; what you make of it is something else.

The Russians did the killings immediately after they occupied eastern Poland in late 1939. The mass grave was not discovered until 1943 (I think) by the Nazis...who engaged in a massive publicity campaign to capitalize on this example of "communist barbarism".

The official Russian response was that the Nazis did it. That was a lie.

But wait, there&#39;s more. The victims of the massacre were not ordinary soldiers, they were officers.

And they were not "free". People rarely remember that Poland in 1939 was a clerical fascist dictatorship whose official anti-semitism was exceeded only by the Third Reich itself. (Which gives you an idea, by the way, of the background of Pope John Paul II.)

The Russians killed 12,000 loyal officers of a fascist army.

This was, to be sure, in violation of the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of prisoners-of-war.

I confess, however, that I am unable to muster much in the way of "righteous indignation". When something bad happens to fascists, they generally have earned it.

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[The Feral Underclass]

Bolshevika&#33;&#33;&#33; I demand you reply to my post&#33;&#33;&#33;

[Scottish_Militant]

The &#39;informed&#39; comrade Yevgraf in his infinite wisdom tells us


Notice how sympathetically Trot is potrayed in the Bourgeois media to this day as opposed to "evil" Stalin. I find this, "in theory", to be somewhat confusing. I mean Trot&#39;s fantastic abstract notion of &#39;permanent revolution&#39; is, "in theory", more of a danger to imperialist interests, should it come to pass, than the more rational realistic &#39;Socialism in one country&#39;(a necessary pre-requisite for the global revolutionary process).
Why then do the capitalists rarely if ever attack Trot/trotskyism, yet continue to disseminate anti-Stalin propaganda? Well, it&#39;s quite obvious, the imperialists obviously realise that trotskyism is so fantastic and unrealistic that the infamous &#39;theory of permanent revolution&#39; will never come to fruition and thus trots are not much of a threat to them whatsoever&#33;


Lenin, who was a great Marxist and internationalist wrote much on this subject as I have shown many times before

"We are far from having completed even the transitional period from capitalism to socialism. We have never cherished the hope that we could finish it without the aid of the international proletariat. We never had any illusions on that score The final victory of socialism in a single country is of course impossible. Our contingent of workers and peasants which is upholding Soviet power is one of the contingents of the great world army, which at present has been split by the world war, but which is striving for unity We can now see clearly how far the development of the Revolution will go. The Russian began it - the German, the Frenchman and the Englishman will finish it, and socialism will be victorious." (LCW, Vol. 26, pp. 465-72.)

"The Congress considers the only reliable guarantee of the consolidation of the socialist revolution that has been victorious in Russia to be its conversion into a world working-class revolution." (LCW, from Resolution on War and Peace, Vol. 27. p. 119.)

"We shall achieve final victory only when we succeed at last in conclusively smashing international imperialism, which relies on the tremendous strength of its equipment and discipline. But we shall achieve victory only together with all the workers of other countries, of the whole world" (LCW, Vol. 27, p. 231.)

"To wait until the working classes carry out a revolution on an international scale means that everyone will remain suspended in mid-air It may begin with brilliant success in one country and then go through agonising periods, since final victory is only possible on a world scale, and only by the joint efforts of the workers of all countries." (LCW, Vol. 27, pp. 372-3.)

"We never harboured the illusion that the forces of the proletariat and the revolutionary people of any one country, however heroic and however organised and disciplined they might be, could overthrow international imperialism. That can be done only by the joint efforts of the workers of the world We never deceived ourselves into thinking this could be done by the efforts of one country alone. We knew that our efforts were inevitably leading to a worldwide revolution, and that the war begun by the imperialist governments could not be stopped by the efforts of those governments themselves. It can be stopped only by the efforts of all workers; and when we came to power, our task was to retain that power, that torch of socialism, so that it might scatter as many sparks as possible to add to the growing flames of socialist revolution." (LCW, Vol. 28, pp. 24-5.)

"From the very beginning of the October Revolution, foreign policy and international relations have been the main question facing us. Not merely because from now on all the states of the world are being firmly linked by imperialism into one, dirty, bloody mass, but because the complete victory of the socialist revolution in one country alone is inconceivable and demands the most active co-operation of at least several advanced countries, which do not include Russia We have never been so near to world proletarian revolution as we are now. We have proved we were not mistaken in banking on world proletarian revolution Even if they crush one country, they can never crush the world proletarian revolution, they will only add fuel to the flames that will consume them all." (LCW, Vol. 28, pp. 151-64.)

"The transformation of our Russian Revolution into a socialist revolution was not a dubious venture but a necessity, for there was no other alternative: Anglo-French and American imperialism will inevitably destroy the independence and freedom of Russia if the world socialist revolution, world Bolshevism, does not triumph." (LCW, Vol. 28, p. 188.)

"Complete and final victory on a world scale cannot be achieved in Russia alone; it can be achieved only when the proletariat is victorious in at least all the advanced countries, or, at all events, in some of the largest of the advanced countries. Only then shall we be able to say with absolute confidence that the cause of the proletariat has triumphed, that our first objective - the overthrow of capitalism - has been achieved. We have achieved this objective in one country, and this confronts us with a second task. Since Soviet power has been established, since the bourgeoisie has been overthrown in one country, the second task in to wage the struggle on a world scale, on a different plane, the struggle of the proletarian state surrounded by capitalist states." (LCW, Vol. 29, pp. 151-64.)

"Both prior to October and during the October Revolution, we always said that we regard ourselves and can only regard ourselves as one of the contingents of the international proletarian army We always said that the victory of the socialist revolution therefore, can only be regarded as final when it becomes the victory of the proletariat in at least several advanced countries." (LCW, Vol. 30, pp. 207-8.)

"The Mensheviks assert that we are pledged to defeating the world bourgeoisie on our own. We have, however, always said that we are only a single link in the chain of the world revolution, and have never set ourselves the aim of achieving victory by our own means." (LCW, Vol. 31, p. 431.)

"But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile powers of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions And there is absolutely nothing terrible in admitting this bitter truth; for we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism - that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism." (LCW, Vol. 33, p. 206.)

[YKTMX]

The final victory of socialism in a single country is of course impossibl


That says it all doesn&#39;t it.


Great post comrade :hammer:

[kylie]

On the subject of Stalinism and all that silliness, I recently read an article about how Mcarthy himself was really in on the communist conspiracy. I personally think its bullshit, but then it does make for an interesting love-triangle. Trotksy attempting to help the US, but the US secretly loving Stalin instead. But Stalin didn&#39;t know this, and so continued to hate Trotsky, who he saw as a rival.
ANYWAY, by 1948 the army&#39;s signal intelligence special branch had decoded significant portions of soviet wartime cable trafiic. These revleaed an extensive soviet espionage apparatus operating in washington, new york and san francisco during the war years. The FBI, working in cooperation with the NSA, had identified many US officials at many agencies as being spies. These were removed from their positions, but never charged. Due to the army not wanting to reveal the source of its information. Truman knew this, yet still never acted upon it, despite it allowing in 1952 when the messages had entirely been decoded, to identify all soviet agents.

Secondly had Roosevelt died one year earlier than he did, then the pro-soviet vice president Wallace would have came into power. This being who told reporters he would consider White and Duggan for appointment to cabinet positions(both being people who spent the war giving information to the soviets).

Al Gore Sr. was the political bagman for Armand Hammer, the millionaire communist. Hammer having many links to Americans who had funded Lenin and the Bolshevik regime. Al Gore junior appearing quite a few times with his father and Hammer.

The only surviving members in 1990 of the Bolshevik party of 1917 were Hammer, and Theremin. Theremin was, like Hammer, a millionaire, having also invented the first electronic instrument of the same name. This being used many western musicians, such as the Beach Boys. During his time in the west, he was always treated well, despite being one of the original Bolsheviks.

ok thats enough, im typing this up from a book. The same book that argues for complete deregulation of prostitution and pornography, and that environmentalism is a bunch of overreacting crap. Its from the Disinformation series, i would reccomend it to none of you.

[Saint-Just]

How would the Trotskyists suggest the USSR spread the revolution. Stalin and the Bolsheviks helped create many revolutions around the world. For example, Stalin gace great help to the Chinese communists who with Stalin&#39;s help were able to set up Soviet Areas around China and to eventually turn the worlds largest populated country into a socialist state. Many Chinese revolutionaries were given help on studying Marxism in Moscow and around Europe.

Later on revolutionaries such as Kim Il Sung and Ho Chi Minh were given vast resources and they both studied in Moscow. African revolutionaries were also given help.

The Comintern was set up with the idea of spreading the revolution across the globe. Stalin succeeded in building socialism in the USSR and spread Bolshevism to all countries and aiding the triumph of other revolutionary movements.

How would the Trotskyists have done it?

[Scottish_Militant]

Stalin publicly admitted that he had no plans or intentions for world revolution, and here lay the main major problem, if he was a genuine marxist it would have been his intentions.

[Saint-Just]

That quote has been discussed before, I do not know if you were present. Anyway, evidently he did further the world revolution since he was instrumental in revolutions in China, Eastern Europe, Korea and so on. And his legacy lived on even into the Khrushchev era.

That quote with Stalin denying intentions for a world revolution is from an interview with westerners if I remember correctly.

[YKTMX]

Firstly, we would NOT have moved into any country that had NOT had a working class revolution. Working class REVOLUTION is the ONLY way of creating socialism in any given country. It is not sufficient to use military power and treaties to create "workers states" in the pursuit of socialism. This has no basis in Marxism and is one of the principle flaws in Stalinist ideology. Also, another point to be made is, if we accept that these countries created after WW2 were NOT socialist, then we have to advance that analysis to the nature of the Soviet Union itself. If a country that is OPPRESSING another, then that country itself CANNOT be free.

"Trotskyists" would have advanced the cause of socialism by aggressive fermenting and assistance of revolutionaries in ALL countries of the world and not just countries where it was in the geo-political interests of Russia.

We all know the story of the Stalinist betrayal of the Spainish revolution and the great tragedy, namely Franco, that that was. But we must ask WHY it happened? It wasn&#39;t merely that Stalinism was a reactionery and conservative ideology (which it was), the reason Stalinist Russia were averse to Communist revolution in Spain was because they were AFRAID of a GENUINE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION that would make people question the superiority of Soviet Socialism. If a country had become Socialist without the involvement of the "GREATEST SOCIALIST STATE ON EARTH" then what was the nature of the other socialist states.

[Saint-Just]

Actually, I would have to suggest that not all of us accept the theory of a Stalinist betrayal in the Spanish revolution. The excuse as to why Stalin would not have wanted a Spanish revolution is amusing. You can hardly criticise Stalin for not encouraging Anarchists and other pseudo lefist movements when Trotskyists and so forth would of course sabotage any &#39;Stalinist&#39; movement.

Stalin was involved in the Spanish civil war, that is the precise reason that the fascists got involved. And of course the involvement of Italy was the main reason that the Fascists won in Spain. Of course it was a disaster for Italy.

Anyway, we simply can&#39;t agree. Stalin created all the revolutions I have listed, and if that is not enough then what is?

[Xprewatik RED]

Even though I dislike Stalin. A person who doesn&#39;t support a revolution doesn&#39;t send tanks and plances etc. to a country. But this couldn&#39;t compete with supierior German technology and 50,000 Italian soldiers on the Iberian Peninsula.

[El Brujo]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2004, 03:23 AM
Firstly, we would NOT have moved into any country that had NOT had a working class revolution. Working class REVOLUTION is the ONLY way of creating socialism in any given country. It is not sufficient to use military power and treaties to create "workers states" in the pursuit of socialism. This has no basis in Marxism and is one of the principle flaws in Stalinist ideology. Also, another point to be made is, if we accept that these countries created after WW2 were NOT socialist, then we have to advance that analysis to the nature of the Soviet Union itself. If a country that is OPPRESSING another, then that country itself CANNOT be free.
If you are referring to Eastern European countries, they all had strong socialist movements. The USSR brought them to power and helped them militarily. I don&#39;t see this scenario as "anti-socialist" and your argument is obviously an excuse to criticize Stalin. The USSR did eventually "dominate" Eastern Europe beyond what was necessary but this was after the death of Stalin.


"Trotskyists" would have advanced the cause of socialism by aggressive fermenting and assistance of revolutionaries in ALL countries of the world and not just countries where it was in the geo-political interests of Russia.

And that is exactly what the USSR under Stalin did. The USSR funded Latin American guerrillas since the 1930&#39;s.


We all know the story of the Stalinist betrayal of the Spainish revolution and the great tragedy, namely Franco, that that was. But we must ask WHY it happened? It wasn&#39;t merely that Stalinism was a reactionery and conservative ideology (which it was), the reason Stalinist Russia were averse to Communist revolution in Spain was because they were AFRAID of a GENUINE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION that would make people question the superiority of Soviet Socialism. If a country had become Socialist without the involvement of the "GREATEST SOCIALIST STATE ON EARTH" then what was the nature of the other socialist states.

More irrelevant babbeling. The USSR did not involve itsself much in the Spanish revolution because it was trying to prevent a millitary alliance between the fascist states and the west. The fact that the Republicans had bourgeoisie and revisionist elements was a factor as well, but they still did not "betray" them and actively work against them during times of war as Trotsky did with the USSR. The USSR did indeed help the Republicans on a small scale and the conflicts between the PCE and the Trots and Anarchists was merely an internal issue (due to the extreme sectarianism of the latter, might I add).