Requesting users oppinions on the following...

[Fidel Castro]

I have noticed many different oppinions on prominant Leftists/Communists etc etc. I would like people to give a brief oppinion on the following people:

1) Vladimir Lenin :)
2) Iosif Stalin <_<
3) Chairman Mao ;)
4) Fidel Castro :D

This may appear a waste of time to some, but I am interested to see what people&#39;s oppinions are on these 4 people.

[Solace]

Oh, come on&#33; That "Search" feature is not just there to fill the emptiness&#33;

[RedAnarchist]

1) Vladimir Lenin - Hero of Communism
2) Iosif Stalin - Murderous tyrant who shamed the name of Communism
3) Chairman Mao - good guy who just went too crazy
4) Fidel Castro - Hero of Communism. True leader of Cuba.

[Monty Cantsin]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11 2004, 10:33 AM
4) Fidel Castro - Hero of Communism. True leader of Cuba.
fidel is not a communist so how can he be a hero of?

[RedAnarchist]

what is he then?

[Mano Dayak]

I hate the middle two, but I don&#39;t have problems with Lenin and Castro.

[Intifada]

lenin was cool
stalin was just a mean tyrant
mao wasnt too bad
castro is a dude

:D

[shakermaker]

well, i agree with most of you...

1) Lenin: great man.
2) Stalin: idiot and tyrant, i hate him&#33;
3) Mao: well, he&#39;s just ok.
4) Castro: cool guy. my fave of these four.

[Ortega]

1) Vladimir Lenin - Pretty good guy, shaped modern Communism

2) Iosif Stalin - Forever ruined the name of Communism - a tyrant

3) Chairman Mao - Not much better than Stalin, but somewhat tolerable, I suppose

4) Fidel Castro - He&#39;s not without flaws, but in many ways he is quite a hero to me. Cuba&#39;s savior... :cuba:

[Hippie Kid]

Vladimir Lenin - Good idea, good man, but corrupted in the very end by his power (secret police, censorship, etc.: the things leftists are against)

Iosif Stalin - A dictator who has given communism a bad name

Chairman Mao - See above

Fidel Castro - While he initially did much for communism and cuba, he is currently becoming more and more opressive...

I wore a beret to class today. How cool is that?

[The Children of the Revolution]

Vladimir Lenin - Good idea, good man, but corrupted in the very end by his power (secret police, censorship, etc.: the things leftists are against)


No&#33;&#33; Lenin was a hero&#33;&#33; He was never corrupted; rather, he was forced into the harsh measures he adopted by counter-revolutionary bourgeois types and foul Imperialists&#33;&#33;

Stalin was a power crazed lunatic, responsible for the deterioration of the USSR and the ruin of Lenin&#39;s ideals.

Mao I know little about - but from what I do, he seems to be less than reasonable...

Castro I view as a hero too - for successfully standing up to the US for decades and for establishing a socialist (if not communist) country in the devils back yard.

[Saint-Just]

1) Vladimir Lenin - Greatest theoretician of 20th Century.

2) Iosif Stalin - The most excellent leader, and a master of socialist economics. He created the model for all socialist society to follow. As the greatest and most powerful leader we have the worst opinions of him in the west.

3) Chairman Mao - He had ambitious vision for socialism, but ill-fated ultimately.

4) Fidel Castro - The brilliant leader of the Cuban revolution, loved by all Cubans.

[LuZhiming]

1) Vladimir Lenin: Well, he was very clever, but I also believe he was a liar, hypocrite, oppressor, and an arrogant man. Lenin did make some significant reforms, but he had plenty of failures as well. I can understand wanting to get rid of the Tsars and create a Socialist state, but many of Lenin&#39;s actions are simply dispicable. I can&#39;t say I am very fond of him.

2) Joseph Stalin: Another clever, but very brutal man. He was obliged to intervene in the affairs of other nations, as well as to allow or participate in acts of murder, torture, and looting. He was an enemy of any sort of criticism, and also very fond of ethnic cleansing. His economic policies were very successful, but they were much more devastating in the short term to many workers.

3)Chairman Mao: Again, Mao was very clever as well. He wasn&#39;t a perfectly benevolent ruler, but I don&#39;t believe he was anywhere near as brutal as two Soviet tyrants. His popular revolution against a U.S. backed dictator was neccessary and appropriate. Mao&#39;s economic miscalculations combined with the famine lead to the starvation of millions of people. He was overall an incompetent administrator. He was by all means a murderous dictator, he had no problem with destruction of property, torture, murder, etc. Mao&#39;s writings are much more interesting than his actual accomplishments, he was a very creative man. I am not fond of Mao either.

4) Fidel Castro: As is the case with the three men above, Fidel is a brilliant man. His Revolution overthrowing Fulgencio Batista, was absolutely neccessary and appropriate. He has instituted many reforms, which have had excellent success. His argrarian reform program, and policies in education, healthcare, medical research, scientific research, medical aid to foreign countries, literacy, homelessness, access to adequate water for all homes, agriculture, reforestation, forming popular organizations, equality, and numerous other policies have been excellent, and perhaps unmatched in the Third World. Fidel&#39;s defiance of the U.S. has been courageous. Fidel&#39;s various actions around the world(Whether it is military or sending doctors and teachers) has been admirable. In terms of Human Rights, prison conditions should a bit better, and his detaining of certain dissidents is unacceptable. Despite that, I think Fidel is trying to act morally. I respect him.

[Fidel Castro]

Thanks for your oppinions, most interesting, suppose I should give my own:

Lenin - a genius who has proved to be an influence on the ideal of communism secend only to Marx himself. Right now a smull bust of Lenin from the former USSR is looking at me, as a constant reminder and source of inspiration.

Stalin - Despite his lack of popularity I think he was a genius of economics and actually dragged the Soiviet Union into the 20th centuary. His brutality and paranoia cannot be ignored.

Mao - Don&#39;t know much about the Chairman to comment.

Castro - For myself, Fidel has to be one of the most sincere and passionate of revolutionaries and socialists. I admire and adore Fidel, his highly successful social policies and refusal to abandon the course of Socialism as well as his courage in defying the colossius to the North mean that for myself, Fidel Castro is one of the greatest men ever.

[dark fairy]

lenin-great man
stalin-great man, had his faults but we&#39;re only human
mao-he&#39;s cool he wanted the violence
castro-cool man, that could do better but isn&#39;t that bad :unsure:

[Invader Zim]

Lenin, full of crap, altered Marxism to the point where it was barley recognisable. Based the power structure of the USSR around him, and when he died the system collapsed into a power struggle.

Stalin, mass murdering brutal mad man, not to mention asinine to the point of insanity. The guy killed 9/10 of his generals and refused to belive that Hitler invaded him when he did. Man was a sick joke.

Mao, well intentioned fool.

Castro, best of a bad bunch, not bad as far as dictators go, but still a dictator.

[Rastafari]

somehow, though, the USSR became competition with the strongest nation in the world and basically won the Western part of the 2nd World War. Look at what they were doing during WWI.

[Mike Fakelastname]

Lenin: Eh, I don&#39;t agree wholeheartedly with Leninism, but nevertheless, he contributed much to the movement, and proved that a successful and lasting revolution is possible even in the most backward countries.

Stalin: Hmmm, he proved that an entirely backwards country can become a successful, leading world power in less than a few decades. But I disagree with most of his tactics, and I think that Stalinism goes against a lot of the teachings of Lenin, and pretty much shoots down Marxism.

Mao: Good guy, made many mistakes though. His heart was definitely in the right place though, and I respect him for that.

Castro: My favorite leader, he&#39;s a great man, and one of the few truely Marxist leaders. He&#39;s a man of his people, and I have an extremely deep respect for him and Che.

[Comrade BNS]

Lenin- Very intelligent economist and clever leader. Although very egocentric and arrogant to a certain extent.

Stalin- the only tradition he carried on from Lenin was economic development. An evil, callous and brutal figure. Conservative estimates of the number of deaths he caused to his own people during his reign stands at 50 million.

Mao- a selfish and evil tyrant. Very intellignet and creative as is evident from his writings. If you know little of the effects of his rule, i suggest you read the book Wild Sawns....instaed of removing economic class he imposed stricter classes then had previously existed.

Castro- Started out well...has done alot of good for Cuba, but is now just an oppressive dictator for the most part.

Comrade BNS

[Knowledge 6 6 6]

I dont understand how ppl can call Stalin &#39;great&#39;. This man mass-murdered MILLIONS of people. How can we consider this action good? Even if there&#39;s a reason....we&#39;re talking millions here, not hundreds, or even thousands.

Guerilla warfare is one thing...but mass-execution of this magnitude is just not excusable by any measure.

Castro shouldnt be called a communist. He&#39;s a more socialist leader, you know, less class distinction.

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by Knowledge 6 6 [email protected] 22 2004, 04:09 PM
I dont understand how ppl can call Stalin &#39;great&#39;. This man mass-murdered MILLIONS of people. How can we consider this action good? Even if there&#39;s a reason....we&#39;re talking millions here, not hundreds, or even thousands.

Guerilla warfare is one thing...but mass-execution of this magnitude is just not excusable by any measure.
Yes, but if you thought the number of people he had murdered was thousands, then would it be understandable?


Conservative estimates of the number of deaths he caused to his own people during his reign stands at 50 million.

I think when you said Conservative you meant &#39;no one has ever estimated this high&#39; estimates of the number of deaths he caused....

[Knowledge 6 6 6]

Chairman Mao, lemme rephrase my response,

Killing millions of ppl is wrong. I think both of us (well, at least I) can draw this conclusion. No justification will suit this. It&#39;s just simply...wrong. You just dont do that.

I didnt mean for it to come across that if Stalin killed thousands it&#39;d be deemed acceptable. What I wanted to enforce, was that if killings of certain ppl were necessary to promote a revolution, rebellion, etc that involved only armed combatants, then you can make the argument that the murder was necessary to prove the point. If he&#39;s killed millions...this includes civilians...which means unarmed combatants.

What if Stalin killed your entire family with no one left but u? Would u think of him highly? Nope, didnt think so.

[Guest1]

All of them except for Castro advocated disgusting policies that were contrary to the goals of working class liberation and self rule.

Though lenin may have honestly thought he was doing the right thing, so I don&#39;t quite hate the man.

Castro&#39;s done alot of good, but he&#39;s taken way too long to make the new society he worked so hard for permanent. The only way to do that would have been through slowly sliding into open democracy over decades.

Example:
First decade, only a handful of parties that are very left-wing can run.

Second decade, many left-wing parties may run, but this includes some green party types and not entirely socialist parties.

Third decade, open democracy, anyone can run. Here&#39;s the trick though, by this point, the constitution has been changed and the real power is not with the parties at the top. It&#39;s with the local level governments who are very very accountable to the people and could be recalled in weeks if needs be. Furthermore, the social programs and the general direction has been set already, and it would likely need a real screw-up to convince the people to trade it for free markets again. See, those social programs and socialism in general are now in the constitution and changing them would require a huge majority of the popular vote and a referendum.

Hehehe.

Anyways, that&#39;s what he should have done. Instead, now people will see the collapse of his regime as nothing different, cause they won&#39;t feel a deep connection to their government. They may care a bit, but they&#39;ll say "oh, too bad" and go on.

[orangemonkey]

Lenin: Smart guy who manipulated deteriating Russia and world events to install himself as &#39;Socialist&#39; Dictator. Killed thousands and set up the institutions and climate for Stalin to kill millions.

Stalin: Paranoid nutter killed millions and greatly damaged socialist cause

Chairman Mao: Don&#39;t really know enough about him to comment, never studied chinese history

Castro: Done a lot of good things for his country by overthrowing one dictator but has merely installed a slightly more benevolent one. Throwing in his lot with Kruschev damaged cause of socialism further

[Fidel Castro]

Throwing in his lot with Kruschev damaged cause of socialism further

Throwing in his lot with Kruschev helped secure the survival of the revolution. Alliance with the USSR brought a certain amount of security, both economic and military.

Remember that the USA was against Cuba, so Castro had to turn to someone for support, and the USSR was the only option at that time.

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by Knowledge 6 6 [email protected] 25 2004, 06:55 PM
Chairman Mao, lemme rephrase my response,

Killing millions of ppl is wrong. I think both of us (well, at least I) can draw this conclusion. No justification will suit this. It&#39;s just simply...wrong. You just dont do that.

I didnt mean for it to come across that if Stalin killed thousands it&#39;d be deemed acceptable. What I wanted to enforce, was that if killings of certain ppl were necessary to promote a revolution, rebellion, etc that involved only armed combatants, then you can make the argument that the murder was necessary to prove the point. If he&#39;s killed millions...this includes civilians...which means unarmed combatants.

What if Stalin killed your entire family with no one left but u? Would u think of him highly? Nope, didnt think so.
I don&#39;t quite understand what you are saying. I think you are saying that he killed a lot of innocent people for which there is, in your opinion, no justifcation for.

If he killed my entire family I probably would not be too fond of him, but if my entire family were guilty of treason, for example, I could not argue that there was not some logic behind their killing.

[Knowledge 6 6 6]

blood&#39;s thicker than water. Whatever the reason, they&#39;re family simply put.

Stalin was a mass-murderer. He killed innocent ppl, and that&#39;s wrong.

If you dont see that, ur part of the problem.

[STI]

Lenin: Far too statist for his own good. Disbanded the soviets and basically outlawed any socialist deviation within the USSR

Stalin: Perpetuated the state capitalism created by Lenin

Mao: Before his time. I&#39;m not sure how things would have turned out had China been industrial when he began the revolution, but the oppressive direction in which he pointed his nation isn&#39;t much of a bonus in my eyes.

Castro: the best of the bunch, and the most skilled in preserving socialism. Without his leadership, Cuba would have been lost long ago.

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by Knowledge 6 6 [email protected] 3 2004, 06:36 PM
blood&#39;s thicker than water. Whatever the reason, they&#39;re family simply put.

Stalin was a mass-murderer. He killed innocent ppl, and that&#39;s wrong.

If you dont see that, ur part of the problem.
Thats easy to say, however its not particularly valid if you don&#39;t substantiate it. Being rational and logical solves problems quite well and as such I am not part of the problem.

[Knowledge 6 6 6]

i cant believe you can defend a mass-murderer of MILLIONS of ppl. That&#39;s not being rational at all, nor logical.

If you defend this, then indeed you ARE part of the problem, whether you admit it or not.

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by Knowledge 6 6 [email protected] 7 2004, 10:34 PM
i cant believe you can defend a mass-murderer of MILLIONS of ppl. That&#39;s not being rational at all, nor logical.

If you defend this, then indeed you ARE part of the problem, whether you admit it or not.
To consider myself to be defending a mass-murderer of millions of people I would first have to consider whether the person was a mass-murdered of millions of people. I do not advocate mass murder, therefore my views are inconsistent with Stalin&#39;s, or, if my views are consistent with Stalin&#39;s it is the case that he is not a mass murderer. If mass murder is the problem then obviously I am not part of the problem because I would not justify mass murder.

I would say that, fundamentally, something that leads to mass murder would be lieing to people and appealing to irrationality. As such I would also say that since I seek to find the truth and look at things based on factual information I am less a part of the problem than you, juding by your responses.

There is no use arguing about me, it would be better to argue about the man you claim is a mass-murderer; about the USSR and its history.

[redstar2000]

Contrary to the "History" Channel and other bourgeois media, real history is not a matter of "villains" and "heroes".

Had there been no Lenin, Stalin, Mao, or Castro, there would have been people "like" them...people who would have done things similar to what they did.

Instead of thinking about "how much I really like this guy" or "how much I really detest that bastard"...it would be far better to actually read some serious stuff and learn why these various revolutions happened the way they did.

Behind all the "great men" (or "great bastards") of history, there are material conditions, relations of production, classes, etc.

In Marxist theory, "leaders" do not make history; history makes leaders.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.vze.com)
A site about communist ideas

[Knowledge 6 6 6]

hmm...good points Chariman Mao and redstar...

"History is a lie agreed upon." - Napoleon Bonaparte.

I guess you can say i&#39;m a product of mainstream american media. Hey, i only regurgitate what i&#39;m being fed.

I only really dig deep on topics that appeal to me, I&#39;ve studied stalin before, but briefly. What i did study however, were more negatively connotated. I should really study him more in-depth.

Sorry for lack of &#39;knowledge&#39; on the subject. (quotes due to name&#33; hah)

Again, my apologies. My error.

[Saint-Just]

You are not necessarily wrong in what you are saying. You can assert that I am an &#39;evil&#39; individual and so on, but you have substantiate it with evidence. Its certainly true that the western media does not tell the truth about socialism very often. They criticise socialism as a model of society, they will always say socialism is oppressive and create lies about socialist societies and socialists and give a highly bias view of anything concerned with socialism. And, you are right in saying that you are a product of your environment. Marx pointed out the same thing redstar2000 points out, and Marxism is the first philosophy developed in which the philosopher stood aloof from the previaling ideas of the day and analysed society.

Marx said that the economic base (in capitalist society the bourgeoisie) of any society determines the base superstructure and as a result bourgeois ideology and the ideas that will sustain that system will pervade every sphere of life, work, education etc. So it is difficult to step away from those ideas.

These are a few links on Stalin, of course a lot of people argue against what it is said here, but at least you can see that what the western media says is not exactly true.

http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc9912/lies.htm

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/faq/stal...alindeaths.html (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/faq/stalindeaths.html)

http://www.plp.org/cd_sup/ukfam1.html

[sh0cker]

Vladimir Lenin --&#62; The greatest leader of communisam, the one who we are proud of.. It&#39;s immposible to explain in few sentences, he is the communisam ;)

Iosif Stalin --&#62; I respect him a lot, but I am not in favour of him.. He really did a lot of good things for USSR and communisam.
But it is very hard to compare with what he actually did to population of Russia.

Mao --&#62; He was quite unreasonable.

Fidel Casto --&#62; There are two opinions in me which can&#39;t go along together.. The fact is that he is really big leader who love communisam and etc. But also it is a fact that Cuba and Cubans live in very bad conditions, and that communisam now days is very hard to spread and try as he is to be against everyone without compromises.


sh0cker

[Danton]

Lenin <_<
Stalin :angry:
Mao :unsure:
Castro :D