Pros and cons of stalinism

[flaming bolshevik]

what are the pros and cons of stalinism?

[motion denied]

Sorry, I think you're BolSickle and this is a troll bait.

Pros: people will say.

Cons: killing of lifelong communists and workers, exploitation of labour, impairment of marxism (dogmatism and revisionism [yes, they did it!]) whose damages we still feel to this day, outright reactionary practice world wide, opportunism... Really, too fucking many.

[Sinister Intents]

Ummm... I guess a pro might be... I can't think of any, but I can think of a con: Socialism cannot exist in one country and the whole idea of socialism in one country directly contradicts Engels in The Principles of Communism (I think that's the title, could be wrong book I'm thinking of...)

[reb]

Pros:

- It can provide a meaning to the lives of basement dwelling teenage boys who want to annoy their uptight conservative parents.
- ....
- Profit

Cons:

- It's the counter revolution
- People think it's socialism
- It can provide a meaning to the lives of basement dwelling teenage boys who want to annoy their uptight conservative parents.

[AnaRchic]

The Con is that, in Stalinist systems, the masses of workers retain no significant control over the "proletarian" state. The organs of workers power become mere rubber stamp bodies, single candidates run uncontested in almost all elections, and a "no" vote to a candidate may result in an up-close-and-personal view of the gulag. On top of that the only legal party is controlled by one or a few leaders who will physically eliminate any opposition within that party, under the guise of fighting "revisionists" or "opportunists" or whatever.

Stalinism arose as the ideology of the ruling bureaucratic caste of the USSR, which was born in and consolidated by the chaos of the civil war, the isolation of the revolution, and the consequent militarization of Russian society. This bureaucracy, having become separated from the masses, now had a material interest in its own self-perpetuation, and consequently became a cancerous lesion upon an otherwise genuine workers power. All the other Stalinist states were effectively based on this model, and consequently existed only as crude caricatures of socialism.

Instead of this nonsense, we should envision and fight for a workers government where all officials are elected, in contested elections, and re-callable at any time, where any and all socialist parties (including anarchists!) may participate in the process, and wherein increasingly broad masses of people participate in the institutions of government. Leaders must be servants of the people, and directly accountable to them, not the other way around as was the case in the USSR after the civil war.

[Hrafn]

Pro: You'll always have someone by your side. Big Brother loves you, after all.

Con: It can get very confusing when all the cities in your country get new names like "Airstrip One".

[Rusty Shackleford]

Pro: Stalin
Con: Trotsky

[Diirez]

Pros- Nothing.
Cons- exploitation of workers, dictatorship, full control of all aspect of life, not communist.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Pro: Stalin was hot

[Seriously?]

Pro: Stalin is popular (at least here he is)

[Sea]

Pro: Stalin was hot
con:
nowadays it's necrophilia

[BIXX]

con:
nowadays it's necrophilia


:(

I would sex up young Stalin.

[Revy]

Features of Stalinist regimes:

Dictatorship, reformism (five year plan after five year plan, all headed by a bureaucratic state), racism (such as the forced population transfer of ethnic groups in the Soviet Union, including the forced removal of ethnic Koreans from Far East Russia to Kazakhstan), sexism, homophobia, nationalism, militarism, imperialism, state capitalism, and repression of genuine revolutionary left politics in favor of a religious personality cult.

More on what happened to ethnic-Korean Russians under Stalin:

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


Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union, originally conceived in 1926, initiated in 1930, and carried through in 1937, was the first mass transfer of an entire nationality in the Soviet Union. Almost the entire Soviet population of ethnic Koreans (171,781 persons) were forcefully moved from the Russian Far East to unpopulated areas of the Kazakh SSR in October 1937. The official reason for the deportation was to stem "the penetration of the Japanese espionage into the Far Eastern Krai", as Koreans were at the time subjects of the Empire of Japan, which was hostile to the Soviet Union. The deported Koreans were allowed to take moveable property and livestock, and were compensated for what they could not take with them. The descendants of these migrants today have intermarried with Russians and Kazakhs, and some fully consider themselves citizens of Kazakhstan.

[Skyhilist]

Pros: That magnificent mustache.
Cons: Everything else.

[Ele'ill]

the pros of stalin are revleft threads about stalin

the cons of stalin are none because it isn't ever going to be an actual thing ever again ever

[The Intransigent Faction]

Pros: That magnificent mustache.
Cons: Everything else.

Beat me to it. :laugh:

[The Intransigent Faction]

In all seriousness, Pro:

I suppose, for those of us who oppose vanguardism, Stalinism serves as a handy historical embodiment of every reason why?

[Brutus]

Pros: You get a free room in Lubyanka, just for being a communist.

Cons: a cat painted red is still a cat... A counter-revolutionary one, at that.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

pros: if you're in to cosplay this is an ideal tendency

cons: cosplay communists

[Prometeo liberado]

Pro: I don't see anyone goose stepping down Westminster Abbey.
Con: Turned Trotsky into Archangel Michael.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Pros? :laugh:

[Red Economist]

Your not thinking dialectically comrade;

The pros and the cons are the same thing- the absolute, tyrannical rule of Joesph Stalin as the realization of 'Socialism' in the USSR.

:grin:

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Con: Turned Trotsky into Archangel Michael.

This is incorrect, comrade. As is well known, Trotsky was in fact Saint Comrade George.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Trotsky-Saint_George_allusion.png

[Broviet Union]

Pro: A lot of dead Nazis

Con: Most people don't take socialism seriously anymore

[reb]

Pro: I don't see anyone goose stepping down Westminster Abbey.

I don't see any red flags flying in Westminster Abbey either, what's your point?

[Leftsolidarity]

For all the posts saying how much people on Revleft love Stalin, I sure only see posts attacking Stalin.

Pros:
Dead Nazis
Industrialization under 5-year plans that greatly increased the Soviet Union's ability to survive

Cons:
Purged the party of good comrades
Held some incorrect positions
and the long list of other things that are usually exaggerated to make him seem like a Red Hitler.

[Thirsty Crow]

I don't see any red flags flying in Westminster Abbey either, what's your point?
The supposed point is that Nazis would've overrun Europe were it not for Stalinism.

[Rusty Shackleford]

The supposed point is that Nazis would've overrun Europe were it not for Stalinism.

Don't you get it though? He was basically Mussolini but draped in red and Russian! Don't forget the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Con: Most people don't take socialism seriously anymore

That's their own fault, not Stalin's. :mad:

[Geiseric]

Don't you get it though? He was basically Mussolini but draped in red and Russian! Don't forget the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Is that seriously how PSL approaches history? That's sad.

[Geiseric]

For all the posts saying how much people on Revleft love Stalin, I sure only see posts attacking Stalin.

Pros:
Dead Nazis
Industrialization under 5-year plans that greatly increased the Soviet Union's ability to survive

Cons:
Purged the party of good comrades
Held some incorrect positions
and the long list of other things that are usually exaggerated to make him seem like a Red Hitler.

Are you serious? Those along with the millions of dead due to the farcical collectivization, forced deportations, and the isolation or straight up murder of the leaders of the world revolution. He wanted peace on the edge of an assassins dagger which he ordered be thrust into the back of his lifelong allies. He was a bastard who needs to be condemned by modern day socialists. He did more than Cavignac, Bismarck, and Churchill could of possibly done to make sure socialism didn't happen.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Is that seriously how PSL approaches history? That's sad.

lol can't you tell sarcasm from anything?

[Geiseric]

Of course I support the survival of the USSR but the difference is that i also support the overthrow of Stalinism by the workers.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Wut stalinism tho? It don't exist no more.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Wut stalinism tho? It don't exist no more.

Trotskyists consider China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, etc. as Stalinist. Despite the name, it was not just the system under Stalin but also afterwards and in other "socialist" countries.

[sosolo]

Is that seriously how PSL approaches history? That's sad.


I am a member of PSL, and I definitely do not share this view. As far as history of the fSU, etc., there are a range of thoughts in the party.

[sosolo]

I am a member of PSL, and I definitely do not share this view. As far as history of the fSU, etc., there are a range of thoughts in the party.


Sorry, didn't catch the sarcasm. I'm stupid this early in the morning.