National socialism and Stalin

[Riveraxis]

I have never heard anyone define Stalin as a "national socialist", despite his philosophy of "socialism in one country". I understand Stalin waged war against Hitler and they hated each other deeply, so it should seem preposterous to compare the two. But looking past the historical context...

My understanding is that National socialism calls for:
*A syndicate type of economy, where trade unions in the revolutionary sense do not exist, but a new sort of trade union does. One which is simply a bureaucratic force responsible for regulating labor, outside of profit. Not one responsible for unionizing the workers.
*A strong central (authoritarian, by nature) leader. Often times this leader may start out with limited power, but gains it from other branches of government.
*A strong social system confined in a nation's borders. Strict nationalism, especially in times of crisis.

In addition to all of this, many former socialists have turned to fascism in the name of opportunism. They speak like socialists. Their movements are also populist in nature, so it's necessary for them to act like socialists.

All of this could easily apply to "Stalinism". He advocated a syndicalist type of economy, forced collectivism for the "greater good", was a strong central leader who took power from the rest of the government, advocated socialism in one country, and was a big nationalist.
On top of all that, he did absolutely nothing to dissolve classes and claimed to start off as a socialist as well. He created a huge bureaucracy that was used frequently to silence those who opposed his rule or inspired a real revolution, who held special posts in society- his version of the petty bourgeois. The gem of fascist policies.

His nationalism may not be comparable to a fascists idea of nationalism. But other than that I think the comparison stands up well. I don't see much of a different between "national socialism" and "socialism in one state". Yet I've never heard Stalin regarded as a "fascist". Am I missing something here or was Stalin closer to NS than communism?

[Yuppie Grinder]

Stalinism was sometimes more successful at achieving Fascism's goals than Fascism.
They are not the same thing though.

[Geiseric]

No stalin's state had a planned economy. There was no market interactions and everything was public property. Fascism is simply capitalism in its dying phase, using ruthless tactics to maintain profits. The fSU had an economy run by the principle of use value, which grew to objctively benefit the country as a whole. It wasn't socialism though, there was still a state which had its interests in becoming the new bourgeoisie which is what happened.

[Rusty Shackleford]

The term was "Socialism in one country" not "socialism in one nation"

yes, national socialism and fascism have left sounding rhetoric but it is thoroughly anti-left.


stalin wrote quite a bit against nationalism, even in his early years. as for him being a big nationalist, how? he may have been into being from the soviet union but he wasnt all like "yeah Georgia FSR is the best!"

stalin may have been a chauvanist about the soviet union when relating to other entities (CPC for example). and like i said, he was a national minority.


also, people tend to ignore class dynamics when comparing the fsu to fascism.

[Nevsky]

Stalin wasn't a nationalist at all, "Socialism in one Country" is part of internationalist strategy. The intention was to build up a strong fortress of socialism which could then support the international worker struggle far more efficiently than a bunch of adventurous "permanent revolutionaries".

Also, Stalin did want to abolish class conflict in the USSR:


"In conformity with these changes in the economic life of the U.S.S.R., the class structure of our society has also changed.
The landlord class, as you know, had already been eliminated as a result of the victorious conclusion of the civil war. As for the other exploiting classes, they have shared the fate of the landlord class. The capitalist class in the sphere of industry has ceased to exist. The kulak class in the sphere of agriculture has ceased to exist. And the merchants and profiteers in the sphere of trade have ceased to exist. Thus all the exploiting classes have been eliminated.

There remains the working class.

There remains the peasant class.

There remains the intelligentsia.

But it would be a mistake to think that these social groups have undergone no change during this period, that they have remained the same as they were, say, in the period of capitalism.
Take, for example, the working class of the U.S.S.R. By force of habit, it is often called the proletariat. But what is the proletariat? The proletariat is a class bereft of the instruments and means of production, under an economic system in which the means and instruments of production belong to the capitalists and in which the capitalist class exploits the proletariat. The proletariat is a class exploited by the capitalists. But in our country, as you know, the capitalist class has already been eliminated, and the instruments and means of production have been taken from the capitalists and transferred to the state, of which the leading force is the working class. Consequently, our working class, far from being bereft of the instruments and means of production, on the contrary, possess them jointly with the whole people. And since it possesses them, and the capitalist class has been eliminated, all possibility of the working class being exploited is precluded. This being the case, can our working class be called the proletariat? Clearly, it cannot. Marx said that if the proletariat is to emancipate itself, it must crush the capitalist class, take the instruments and means of production from the capitalists, and abolish those conditions of production which give rise to the proletariat. Can it be said that the working class of the U.S.S.R. has already brought about these conditions for its emancipation?

Unquestionably, this can and must be said. And what does this mean? This means that the proletariat of the U.S.S.R. has been transformed into an entirely new class, into the working class of the U.S.S.R., which has abolished the capitalist economic system, which has established the Socialist ownership of the instruments and means of production and is directing Soviet society along the road to Communism."


Fascist corporatism is the extreme contrary of the class situation that Stalin described. For example the so called "Völkische Wirtschaft" (People's Economy) - developed in hitlerite Germany - intended to reconcile the bourgeoisie and the working class instead of solving the conflict. The class war was to be replaced by the "race war". Therein lies a fundamental difference between nazism and "stalinism".

[Revy]

Stalin's policies were racist toward non-Russians. One of the first groups that were targeted were Koreans in far eastern Russia, who were deported to Kazakhstan, a country in Central Asia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Koreans_in_the_Soviet_Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Soviet_Union

[Neoprime]

Stalin's policies were racist toward non-Russians. One of the first groups that were targeted were Koreans in far eastern Russia, who were deported to Kazakhstan, a country in Central Asia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Koreans_in_the_Soviet_Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Soviet_Union

You can't be racist to non-Russians you can be jingoistic/nationalist against them, race deals with phenotype/skin color/distinct features not were you live.

[Comrade #138672]

You can't be racist to non-Russians you can be jingoistic/nationalist against them, race deals with phenotype/skin color/distinct features not were you live.They are somewhat related, though.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

To be fair, from the standpoint of marxist sociology; fascism and stalinism are two different beasts alltogether.
Their socio- economic roots are very different; stalinism arose as the counter-revolution following a successful proletarian revolution which degenerated due to it´s isolation within the borders of one country.
Fascism is also a counter-revolutionary phenomenon, but the difference is it arises as the reaction of the bourgeoisie against failed revolutions. It is also the reaction of the bourgeosie when it´s hegemony is profoundly threatened by a combatitive working class.
There are some superficial similarities between stalinism and fascism which liberals like to highlight and cling to, but that only obscures the issue.
It is not useful to equate the phrase "socialism in one country" with the "national socialism" of the German fascists. "Socialism in one country" was a response to the isolation of the revolution where "national socialism" was from the start a racist and jingoistic ideology.
Finally, it should be noted that Trotsky used the phrase "national communism" on a few occasions as a slur against the stalinists and their ideology, but "national socialism" is a fascist term that has never been associated with socialism or the workers movement.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

everything was public property.

You mean state property.

[Drosophila]

stalin wrote quite a bit against nationalism, even in his early years. as for him being a big nationalist, how? he may have been into being from the soviet union but he wasnt all like "yeah Georgia FSR is the best!"

stalin may have been a chauvanist about the soviet union when relating to other entities (CPC for example). and like i said, he was a national minority.


Hitler was Austrian. Washington was British. Doesn't mean they weren't nationalists for other nations.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Hitler was Austrian. Washington was British. Doesn't mean they weren't nationalists for other nations.

Austria speaks german and acts somewhat bavarian (Gruss Gott instead of guten tag) Is southern german) and though yes its another country, it is part of a pan-german nationalist movement.


Washington was born in virginia in the early 170ss. during his life 'american' was becoming distinct from 'british' though id agree Washington and the american independence movement is the funkiest thing ever. kind of like quebec nationalism(independence, not superiority). which i cannot really grasp quite yet. you know, because of the whole indigenous question.

point is, Austrian is not a national minority in the context of german nationalism, and washington was a minority in the context of the british empire, he led the "american minority" (and i strongly emphasise the quotes) to having its own national territory. he did not end up leading the british empire.

now, stalin was Georgian. Georgia has a distinct language and culture apart from russian, armenian, finnish, or kazakh. It was part of the russian empire, and he along with other nations was a national minority. but how could he be a bourgeois-nationalist(because there is a distinction, and the argument is that he is one) if he is the head of a federation that is specifically NOT SET UP FOR THE SUPREMACY OF ONE NATION OVER ANOTHER?

[Geiseric]

You mean state property.

Yeah there's no difference. The state officials didn't have nearly as high of an income, nor did they have the power to extract labor value from their workers. Their money was basically worthless, seeing as everybody was employed, and there was so much of it around. The army however was where most of the country's money went, so it was a full on command, planned economy.

[Riveraxis]

Stalin was a nationalist specifically because of the *way* he collectivized conquered territories. He did not extend a hand in partnership to them, explain his glorious social system, or try to assimilate them into it. In the non-Russian nations (and probably in Russia too, but these examples are more prominent) he would force collectivism by threat of death or gulag.
Now, he may not have been so gung-ho on deporting foreigners. His nationalism was a different brand than Hitlers, obviously, but he was definitely a nationalist.

He had a different kind of planned economy, but I was under the impression that Hitler had one as well. Not a leftist, collectivist style planned economy, but more of a capitalism regulated by the top. I could be wrong on that account tho. Stalin's economic policies may be this boldest distinction from Hitler, which isn't saying much, because Stalin's policies do not seem to work voluntarily. Like, ever.

His brutality was the equivalent of Hitlers. He persecuted real revolutionaries, like a fascist. He spoke like a socialist, but if that is an indication of anything, it's that he was a great liar. Because he did not act like one.

As for this idea of "socialism in one country to hold down the fort for the coming revolution". Well, in theory, I don't think that's a bad idea. If you have a socialist revolution, it would be stupid to throw it to the wolves because the rest of the world didn't have one at the same time. But I would go as far as to say that Stalin did his best to kill the world revolution, by taking up a 30+ year brutal dictatorship, thereby convincing the rest of the world that communism = slave labor.

THAT sounds like an elaborate fascist plot to me. I mean, I understand that they are "two different beasts" but the parallels go on and on.

[Riveraxis]

Yeah there's no difference. The state officials didn't have nearly as high of an income, nor did they have the power to extract labor value from their workers. Their money was basically worthless, seeing as everybody was employed, and there was so much of it around. The army however was where most of the country's money went, so it was a full on command, planned economy.

No difference? I think there is a very clear difference between public property and state property. If it's "state" property I do not see how the workers have any influence over it. Your argument here seems to be that the state workers have limited authority or money, which somehow makes it okay in principal, even tho its the opposite of what most of us advocate?

Moreover, Stalin, to the best of my knowledge, was NOT a proletariat. Not for a very long time, anyway. And he mad more direct control over the means of production than ANY worker at any time.

[Old Bolshie]

While both Nazi and the Soviet regimes were obviously different starting with its economic nature, it is true that under Stalin leadership USSR took a more nationalistic approach which was more a result from the heavily centralization imposed during Stalin's rule under the auspices of "socialism in one country".




stalin wrote quite a bit against nationalism, even in his early years. as for him being a big nationalist, how? he may have been into being from the soviet union but he wasnt all like "yeah Georgia FSR is the best!"

It was actually the opposite. Stalin enforced Russian Nationalism to the prejudice of Georgia and all the other Republics but the Russian. Lenin had a major disagreement with Stalin precisely over the Georgian issue.

This is quite ironic when Stalin as a Georgian student fought against the Russian Nationalism imposed by the Tsarist Regime...

[Paul Pott]

That was pretty mind-numbing, but understandable given your ideological background and (I assume) relative newness to leftism.

First of all, the popular view of SIOC, which usually goes unchallenged on these boards, is the old Trot strawman that that it renounced the necessity of working class revolution around the world and concerned itself with the Soviet Union only, like it was some sort of island that had nothing to do with the proletariat and its struggles in the rest of the world. Or in other words, it was not internationalist.

Stalin held that the USSR was building socialism, but that the consolidation of Soviet socialism would come with the rest of the worldwide revolution. This was the only possible way because of the simple reality that the USSR was the only place where the DOTP existed. He said that when the working class of other nations saw that it was necessary, they would take power from their ruling classes, to paraphrase. So socialism was being build in one country. This wasn't some sort of nationalist perversion, like if they thought socialism was a Russian system and the USSR had to retreat into its own nationalist shell and perfect great Russian society or something. What's more, Russia in 1917 had issues that made the construction of socialism difficult at best. Everyone constantly noted this in their work. Even if, say, all of Latin America, or all of the Balkans, or all of Africa, were to establish a worker's state, it would still be in conditions of SIOC.

I don't even know what you mean by syndicalist here. Nazi Germany was loosely corporatist, which is something totally different. The Soviet economy under Stalin was planned, and commodity production didn't exist except for the countryside. The class thing has already been addressed.

Another tip: you can't expect the bourgeoisie to ever view your cause with sympathy. Our job isn't to apologize point by point and accusation by accusation for Stalin but to educate people about what really went on in the USSR. Stalin wasn't some sort of monster who killed people at random, and he is generally viewed positively in Russia today, no thanks to the school system where everyone has to read Solzhenitsyn.

[Iosif]

Stalinism was sometimes more successful at achieving Fascism's goals than Fascism.
They are not the same thing though.

The goal of fascism is to preserve capitalism. How can you say that Stalin wanted that? The Bolsheviks created and protected the socialist revolution in Russia.

[Lokomotive293]

Good things have been said, I just want to give you a quote:


Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.

The most reactionary variety of fascism is the German type of fascism. It has the effrontery to call itself National Socialism, though it has nothing in common with socialism. German fascism is not only bourgeois nationalism, it is fiendish chauvinism. It is a government system of political gangsterism, a system of provocation and torture practised upon the working class and the revolutionary elements of the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. It is medieval barbarity and bestiality, it is unbridled aggression in relation to other nations.

German fascism is acting as the spearhead of international counter-revolution, as the chief instigator of imperialist war, as the initiator of a crusade against the Soviet Union, the great fatherland of the working people of the whole world.

Fascism is not a form of state power "standing above both classes -- the proletariat and the bourgeoisie," as Otto Bauer, for instance, has asserted. It is not "the revolt of the petty bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state," as the British Socialist Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.

This, the true character of fascism, must be particularly stressed because in a number of countries, under cover of social demagogy, fascism has managed to gain the following of the mass of the petty bourgeoisie that has been dislocated by the crisis, and even of certain sections of the most backward strata of the proletariat. These would never have supported fascism if they had understood its real character and its true nature.

Georgi Dimitrov: The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm#s2)

Maybe, thinking about the true class character of fascism will be enough to answer your question. Equating Stalin, and with him the whole left, with Hitler is one of the most evil forms of bourgeois propaganda, its objective is to split the anti-fascist movement and all progressive movements in general, so that they can force their reactionary programs on us. Such propaganda plays in the hands of the bourgeoisie, and right into the hands of the fascists. It's particularly sad when even some on the left fall to it, as posts like this:


Stalinism was sometimes more successful at achieving Fascism's goals than Fascism.

show.

[Riveraxis]

That was pretty mind-numbing, but understandable given your ideological background and (I assume) relative newness to leftism.Very helpful, thank you. I'll be sure to consider the rest of what you said with an open mind now. :rolleyes: If your point is to discourage unorthodox conversation then you didn't have to read it. Youre correct on account of my relative newness to leftism, which is why this was all phrased as a question. And why it's in the "learning" category.


Comparing Stalin to Hitler isn't the same as equating the left with Hitler. It may be of the "most evil forms of bourgeois propaganda" but that should not stop us from analyzing their similarities, which was my point here. Stalin's actions are used as anti-communist propaganda just as well. I am quicker to oppose his work than defend it, and I still call myself a leftist.

I know that SOIC was meant to preserve the DOTP. The disagreement here (at least on my end) is not in that theory. Its that *nothing he did helped the cause*. Aye, there are a few quotes where he claims to be class-conscious. That's hardly worth anything, we can all speak. Show me one instance where he even attempted to dissolve the classes of the Soviet Union, OR empower the working class above others, and I'll accept that his actions were meant to preserve the DOTP. All I've seen backing Stalin are Stalin's own quotes, so you'll excuse me if I won't take them at face value.

And this still says nothing about all the revolutionaries he killed/exiled. Is it acceptable to kill a revolutionary if your dictator brands them "reactionary"? Or for any other reason?
///

Fascism isn't reactionary capitalism. They gain power from the disaster that capitalism leaves behind. So they are reacting to it. But I wouldn't imply that they mean to preserve it. Fascists are just opportunists. The bourgeois are opportunists as well. So of course they will work hand in hand while it suits them. But fascists will turn on capitalists when they no longer need their financing, and capitalists will turn on fascists when they no longer need their brutality.
But they do openly oppose capitalism. That's why sometimes, if they've got a bit of sense left in them, you could help move someone from the fascist party to the revolutionary party. The ones that aren't deeply corrupted with fascist hate only side with fascists out of desperation. Their bloated rhetoric promises the most immediate benefits.

[Geiseric]

Fascism still thrives off the accumulation of capital, as in monopoly capitalists are still in charge during fascis. The fascists use left rhetoric as a wa of recruiting would be commies, however fascism and communism are antithetical. Stalin was neither, he was in charge of the fSU's state which wanted to return to private ownership. Stalin was basically the chief manager of the fSU who wanted to own (part of) it but was unable to. Stalin was basically Vladamir Putin and Gorbachev, they're the same beast!

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Comrade, I think this is where Trotskyism can lend a theoretical hand. We don't deny the hideous abuses of the bureaucracy in the USSR. But we recognize the social/property forms that came out of the October Revolution to be progressive historically, even through the decades of Stalinist misrule defended the gains of the revolution until capitalism was restored in 1992. One needs to understand the material bases for the rise of the bureaucracy -- primarily the backwardness of Russia and the failure of advanced industrialized nations to follow Russia in instituting the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Revolution Betrayed provides Trotsky's view in the late thirties on the USSR.

From a Marxist perspective, equating Fascism with Stalinism is absolutely wrong. ANd it was a pernicious view, at that -- equating the USSR under Stalin, with fascism has always been a way to piss on the Russian Revolution.

Fascism is a bureacratic and particularly brutal form of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Stalinism, which varies highly as to the degree of oppression, is a bureaucratic form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The are based on different social/economic forms of organization.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

My understanding is that National socialism calls for [a] syndicate type of economy, where trade unions in the revolutionary sense do not exist, but a new sort of trade union does. One which is simply a bureaucratic force responsible for regulating labor, outside of profit. Not one responsible for unionizing the workers.

That sounds more like the "corporatism" advocated by the earlier Fascist ideologists; de Ambris or Panunzio or Corradini. National "Socialist" economic theory, on the other hand, runs the gamut from "socialism" in the manner of FDR (Goebbels), state feudalism (Strasser), to simple finance capitalism (Hitler). But the economic reality of both fascist Italy and Nazi Germany was the dominance of finance capital, both over the economy and over the state (recall that the great cartel chiefs could order the supposed supreme leader Hitler to kill members of his own party).

And even if those syndicalist fantasies had any connection to the reality of fascist states, syndicalism is not Bolshevism. The Soviet economy was not run by the labour unions, and for a long time the unions were essentially independent of comrade Koba (and filled with members of the Right Opposition like Tomsky).


In addition to all of this, many former socialists have turned to fascism in the name of opportunism.

The only "socialists" that had turned to fascism are, as far as I know, opportunists, revisionists and centrists like Sorel, de Man etc. etc.


Stalin wasn't a nationalist at all, "Socialism in one Country" is part of internationalist strategy. The intention was to build up a strong fortress of socialism which could then support the international worker struggle far more efficiently than a bunch of adventurous "permanent revolutionaries".

I largely agree that the theory of socialism in one country was intended to be a part of an international strategy, but you misrepresent the Left Opposition and the later Bolshevik-Leninists. Unlike the former Left Communist group in the RKP(b), the Trotskyists had no desire to destroy the Soviet union by dragging it into exhausting wars; furthermore, most of the LO supported the construction of the planned economy even before the Centre did.


Stalin's policies were racist toward non-Russians. One of the first groups that were targeted were Koreans in far eastern Russia, who were deported to Kazakhstan, a country in Central Asia.

The rationale for such policies was not racist as such, but it does demonstrate how the bureaucracy increasingly relied on purely administrative solutions (even while Stalin called members of the Left Opposition out for that very same thing) and how confused it had become.


Stalin was a nationalist specifically because of the *way* he collectivized conquered territories. He did not extend a hand in partnership to them, explain his glorious social system, or try to assimilate them into it. In the non-Russian nations (and probably in Russia too, but these examples are more prominent) he would force collectivism by threat of death or gulag.

What "conquered territories"? If you are referring to the so-called glacis states, the proletariat and the poor peasantry of those countries pushed for increased nationalisation and land reform; the original bureaucratic plans were quite modest.


It was actually the opposite. Stalin enforced Russian Nationalism to the prejudice of Georgia and all the other Republics but the Russian. Lenin had a major disagreement with Stalin precisely over the Georgian issue.

The Georgian affair was complex; I am not familiar with the inner workings of the Georgian Bolshevik organisation and whether the administrative changes pursued by Stalin and Ordzhonikidze made sense. But in the theoretical side of the conflict, I must say that I have some sympathy for Stalin's and Dzerzhinsky's position - local national chauvinism can be as poisonous as dominant nation chauvinism, and it led to certain excesses in the course of the korenizatsiya movement.

Good grief, am I really defending comrade Koba that much? But don't take this as a sign that I'm going gaga over the great leader; I think that Stalin had committed numerous errors, that some of his positions were deeply flawed etc. etc. But exaggeration only hurts the case "against Stalin" (actually against the bureaucratic degeneration in the Soviet state).

[Turinbaar]

There is a particular similarity between the two regimes that deserves some attention. It is not exact, and is subject to contrasts, but it is undeniable that both required a personality cult as the crown jewel of their propaganda, and both (in one way or another) required validation of these cults by older religions.

Hitler's first act was to sign a concordat with the Vatican, which exchanged control of german education for total support of the church for the regime. In a book called "Hitler in Memoirs of a Confinant," (p.139-140) one of hitler's cohorts recalls a conversation on the essence of National-Socialism, in which the Hitler would flatly assert that Nazism is the original teaching of jesus christ. Mein Kampf includes a section where hitler describes his transition from purely racial anti-semitism to understanding it as religious. Vatican city is a state unto itself because of Benito Mussolini.

In 1943 Stalin restored the Orthodox Church as the official religion of the USSR. His reasoning was not fanatical in the way Hitlers was; it was more for propaganda purposes (Patriarchs hailed him as a hero of Russia sent by Providence), and the church was very useful as an instrument of the secret police. Much of his persecutions during the previous decades were attempts to make the church a tool of the state by whittling out dissent.

[Geiseric]

No difference? I think there is a very clear difference between public property and state property. If it's "state" property I do not see how the workers have any influence over it. Your argument here seems to be that the state workers have limited authority or money, which somehow makes it okay in principal, even tho its the opposite of what most of us advocate?

Moreover, Stalin, to the best of my knowledge, was NOT a proletariat. Not for a very long time, anyway. And he mad more direct control over the means of production than ANY worker at any time.

Who administrates it is irrelevant, the point is that none of the industry in the fSU was technically capital since private ownership was against the law. Everybody knew it was against the law and everybody knew what private ownership was and how it differs from administration.

There's a big difference, namely economic administrators can't exchange any of their supposed "state owned capital," nor did they have any authority as to who was hired, nor what their pay was. There was a big state bureaucracy, like in 1984, which organized the entire economy, so no one person could really profit out of it without the entire state apparatus knowing.

There were examples during Lenin and Stalin of an excessive amount of power and privelage building up within the bureaucracy, to the point where a lot of the state works in its own interests. The bribery and compliance of the Cheka was necessary for this. Starting during the Civil War, a lot of the state officials started doing backdoor deals to affirm their access to things like big houses, a store room full of food, firewood, usually bare essentials. That culture though expanded and intensified during the N.E.P. and finally was full blown by industrialization, resulting in figures like Beria driving around in Limousines, raping women as they please, without any kind of threat. Beria wasn't a capitalist, he was a state official, there is a big difference.

The state as a whole supported the N.E.P. because they knew they would have control of the scarce amount of grain and food shipped into the cities, where they were in charge. The state bureaucracy, which Stalin as General Secretary was basically at the center of, grew in power as the cities were choked by the Kulaks who demanded exorbant amounts of money for the food they farmed. So that is where the social basis for the degeneration of the fSU came from.

As for Georgia, there were things like mass forced deportations, bigotry towards Muslims (Who were still Revolutionaries), and a total disregard for national self determination in general on the part of the Soviet occupation force. They wanted to lump Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia into one big country, which is a fucking rediculous idea seeing as they are completely different people, who wanted to avoid being just another province like during the Tsar. And look at what happened, thousands were killed in the red terror of the Caucuses, administrated by Dzherinisky, who supported Stalin.

[Riveraxis]

Comrade, I think this is where Trotskyism can lend a theoretical hand. We don't deny the hideous abuses of the bureaucracy in the USSR. But we recognize the social/property forms that came out of the October Revolution to be progressive historically, even through the decades of Stalinist misrule defended the gains of the revolution until capitalism was restored in 1992. One needs to understand the material bases for the rise of the bureaucracy -- primarily the backwardness of Russia and the failure of advanced industrialized nations to follow Russia in instituting the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Revolution Betrayed provides Trotsky's view in the late thirties on the USSR.

From a Marxist perspective, equating Fascism with Stalinism is absolutely wrong. ANd it was a pernicious view, at that -- equating the USSR under Stalin, with fascism has always been a way to piss on the Russian Revolution.

Fascism is a bureacratic and particularly brutal form of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Stalinism, which varies highly as to the degree of oppression, is a bureaucratic form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The are based on different social/economic forms of organization.

I truly don't mean to "piss on the Russian revolution". Like I said, I understand that "Stalin = Hitler" is primarily a bourgeois argument. I just meant to compare (as well as contrast) the similarities. I wouldn't call Stalin a fascist- now or before this debate- it just seemed to me that "SIOC" and national socialism share common ground. They are by no means the same. But just because capitalists make this comparison does not mean we should not consider it. They clearly make the comparison because without extensive background information, their policies appear relatively similar. That's all I intended to figure out.

Aye! I do mean to read "The revolution betrayed". My most extensive knowledge of fascism mostly comes from Trotsky. Although I try not to limit it to that.
We refer to Stalin's rule still as a "dictatorship of the proletariat". But it seems to me that it was more of a dictatorship OVER the proletariat, for the supposed benefit of the proletariat. Any thoughts on that?

[Riveraxis]

There is a particular similarity between the two regimes that deserves some attention. It is not exact, and is subject to contrasts, but it is undeniable that both required a personality cult as the crown jewel of their propaganda, and both (in one way or another) required validation of these cults by older religions.


Thank you. That was my point in a nutshell.


That sounds more like the "corporatism"
Aren't corporatism and syndicalism relatively similar tho? I assume we're both talking about actual corporatism, not the kind of corporate control many people call "corporatism" today.
My understanding was that syndicalism and corporatism differed mostly in the structure of their unions, not in the function of their economies. As syndicalists advocate proletariat-run unions while corporatist advocate hierarchic unions that manage labor. Hitler clearly supported the later- if anything- but I would go as far as to say that Stalin did as well. As the proletariat was not in control of his own means of production, basically...


What "conquered territories"? If you are referring to the so-called glacis states, the proletariat and the poor peasantry of those countries pushed for increased nationalisation and land reform; the original bureaucratic plans were quite modest.
To the best of my knowledge, I am refering to east Germany, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Poland, the Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Although I am not well-read on the exact policies concerning each and every one of these nations, so the fallacy is mine if his forced collectivism wasn't as brutal in some places as much as others. I know it was particularly awful in Hungary, tho. And apparently Georgia too. Which makes me think that in the places it wasn't brutal, that's probably just because they cooperated.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I truly don't mean to "piss on the Russian revolution". Like I said, I understand that "Stalin = Hitler" is primarily a bourgeois argument. I just meant to compare (as well as contrast) the similarities. I wouldn't call Stalin a fascist- now or before this debate- it just seemed to me that "SIOC" and national socialism share common ground. They are by no means the same. But just because capitalists make this comparison does not mean we should not consider it. They clearly make the comparison because without extensive background information, their policies appear relatively similar. That's all I intended to figure out.

Aye! I do mean to read "The revolution betrayed". My most extensive knowledge of fascism mostly comes from Trotsky. Although I try not to limit it to that.
We refer to Stalin's rule still as a "dictatorship of the proletariat". But it seems to me that it was more of a dictatorship OVER the proletariat, for the supposed benefit of the proletariat. Any thoughts on that?
Well, in that case there is something analogous between Hitler and Stalin. Stalin usurped political power from the proletariat. Hitler from the bourgeoisie (Napoleon did that, too). But of course, the socioeconomic basis for the state and the society make a world of difference (even if some of the passing phenomenological aspects may be similar).

[Lokomotive293]

Well, in that case there is something analogous between Hitler and Stalin. Stalin usurped political power from the proletariat. Hitler from the bourgeoisie (Napoleon did that, too). But of course, the socioeconomic basis for the state and the society make a world of difference (even if some of the passing phenomenological aspects may be similar).

I wouldn't say Hitler "usurped power from the bourgeoisie". He got it served on a silver plate, because the bourgeoisie, at that specific time, needed him. That is a huge difference, and it's a huge difference to Napoleon.
Stalin also didn't "usurp power from the proletariat", he was a leader produced by the proletarian state at a certain time.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Aren't corporatism and syndicalism relatively similar tho? I assume we're both talking about actual corporatism, not the kind of corporate control many people call "corporatism" today.
My understanding was that syndicalism and corporatism differed mostly in the structure of their unions, not in the function of their economies. As syndicalists advocate proletariat-run unions while corporatist advocate hierarchic unions that manage labor. Hitler clearly supported the later- if anything- but I would go as far as to say that Stalin did as well. As the proletariat was not in control of his own means of production, basically...


Syndicalists advocate an increased political role for the trade unions; corporatists, meanwhile, advocate "vertical" organisations in which both the bosses and the workers are represented (something like the old VIKZhel in Russia). And there are revolutionary syndicalists and even guild socialists - as confused as they are - but the very nature of corporatism as a means of regulating labour prevents the existence of a socialist corporatism.

Anyway, my point was that National "Socialism" did not place much faith in syndicates or corporations in the fascist sense, and the economic reality of both Italy and Germany was that of advanced, predatory, finance capital.

As for the trade unions in the Soviet union, they organised the workers, and, as I've said, many trade union officials were opposed to the centrist course after Stalin's break with the Right Opposition. Stalin actually fought to keep the trade unions civilian.


To the best of my knowledge, I am refering to east Germany, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Poland, the Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Although I am not well-read on the exact policies concerning each and every one of these nations, so the fallacy is mine if his forced collectivism wasn't as brutal in some places as much as others. I know it was particularly awful in Hungary, tho. And apparently Georgia too. Which makes me think that in the places it wasn't brutal, that's probably just because they cooperated.

Collectivisation in Democratic Germany happened after Stalin had died, and was one of the progressive demands of the East German workers. And in the case of Romania and Hungary, for example, collectivisation was mostly voluntary, except the seizure of the land from kulaks. Again, the people pushed for such reforms.

[Labor Aristocrat Killer]

Though Trotsky criticized Stalin on many grounds, Nationalism was not one of them. Trotsky even backhandedly praised Stalin's major theoretical contribution to Marxism, Marxism and the National Question, by asserting that it was essentially completely written by Lenin (which, true or not, means Trotskyists should uphold this work).

Trotsky even attacked Stalin on some very questionable grounds himself, in his biography of Stalin. To quote from Trotsky's Stalin – An Appraisal of the Man and his Influence:



THE late Leonid Krassin, old revolutionist, eminent engineer, brilliant Soviet diplomat and, above all, intelligent human being, was the first, if I am not mistaken, to call Stalin an “Asiatic”. In saying that, he had in mind no problematical racial attributes, but rather that blending of grit, shrewdness, craftiness and cruelty which has been considered characteristic of the statesmen of Asia. Bukharin subsequently simplified the appellation, calling Stalin “Genghis Khan,” manifestly in order to draw attention to his cruelty, which has developed into brutality. Stalin himself, in conversation with a Japanese journalist, once called himself an “Asiatic,” not in the old but rather in the new sense of the word: with that personal allusion he wished to hint at the existence of common interests between the U.S.S.R. and Japan as against the imperialistic West. Contemplating the term “Asiatic” from a scientific point of view, we must admit that in this instance it is but partially correct. Geographically, the Caucasus, especially Transcaucasia, is undoubtedly a continuation of Asia. The Georgians, however, in contradistinction from the Mongolian Azerbaijanians, belong to the so-called Mediterranean, European race. Thus Stalin was not exact when he called himself an Asiatic. But geography, ethnography and anthropology are not all that matters; history looms larger.

A few spatters of the human flood that has poured for centuries from Asia into Europe have clung to the valleys and mountains of the Caucasus. Disconnected tribes and groups seemed to have frozen there in the process of their development, transforming the Caucasus into a gigantic ethnographic museum. In the course of many centuries the fate of these people remained closely bound up with that of Persia and Turkey, being thus retained in the sphere of the old Asiatic culture, which has contrived to remain static despite continual jolts from war and mutiny.

Anywhere else, on a site more traversed, that small, Georgian branch of humanity—about two and a half millions at the present time—undoubtedly would have dissolved in the crucible of history and left no trace. Protected by the Caucasian mountain range, the Georgians preserved in a comparatively pure form their ethnic physiognomy and their language, for which philology to this day seems to have difficulty in finding a proper place. Written language appeared in Georgia simultaneously with the penetration of Christianity, as early as the fourth century, six hundred years earlier than in Kievian Russia. The tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries are considered the epoch in which Georgia’s military power, and its art and literature flourished. Then followed centuries of stagnation and decay. The frequent bloody raids into the Caucasus of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane left their traces upon the national epos of Georgia. If one can believe the unfortunate Bukharin, they left their traces likewise on the character of Stalin.


The national character of the Georgians is usually represented as trusting, impressionable, quick-tempered, while at the same time devoid of energy and initiative. Above all, Reclus noted their gaiety, sociability and forthrightness. Stalin’s character has few of these attributes, which, indeed, are the most immediately noticeable in personal intercourse with Georgians. Georgian émigrés in Paris assured Souvarine, the author of Stalin’s French biography, that Joseph Djugashvili’s mother was not a Georgian but an Osetin and that there is an admixture of Mongolian blood in his veins. But a certain Iremashvili, whom we shall have occasion to meet again in the future, asserts that Stalin’s mother was a pure-blooded Georgian, whereas his father was an Osetin, “a coarse, uncouth person, like all the Osetins, who live in the high Caucasian mountains”. It is difficult, if not impossible, to verify these assertions. However, they are scarcely necessary for the purpose of explaining Stalin’s moral stature. In the countries of the Mediterranean Sea, in the Balkans, in Italy, in Spain, in addition to the so-called Southern type, which is characterized by a combination of lazy shiftlessness and explosive irascibility, one meets cold natures, in whom phlegm is combined with stubbornness and slyness. The first type prevails; the second augments it as an exception. It would seem as if each national group is doled out its due share of basic character elements, yet these are less happily distributed under the southern than under the northern sun. But we must not venture too far afield into the unprofitable region of national metaphysics.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/stalin/ch01.htm

[Old Bolshie]

The Georgian affair was complex; I am not familiar with the inner workings of the Georgian Bolshevik organisation and whether the administrative changes pursued by Stalin and Ordzhonikidze made sense. But in the theoretical side of the conflict, I must say that I have some sympathy for Stalin's and Dzerzhinsky's position - local national chauvinism can be as poisonous as dominant nation chauvinism, and it led to certain excesses in the course of the korenizatsiya movement.


But where was the local chauvinism? If it was a question of local chauvinism Lenin hardly would have taken a stance against Stalin and Ordzhonikidze. Of course Stalin accused the Georgians of local chauvinism just like he accused 90% of the Bolshevik CC in 1917 of belonging to a an international Nazi conspiracy against the soviet state. Absolutely nonsense.

The Georgian affair was a sign of what would happen during Stalin's rule and a clearly manifestation of Stalin's national chauvinism Besides, even if it was a case of local chauvinism you don't fight it with refolded national chauvinism.