Exagerations about Stalin

[JC1]

Exaggerations against Stalin

by MC5
December, 1994

One of the most maligned periods of history in the Soviet Union is the so-called Great Terror from 1935 to 1941. This period is also marked by the so-called Purge Trials of the mid-1930s. According to Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko(1), Stalin's "terror" in that period resulted in 19 million dead.

Of course, by this time, World War II was already on in Asia and Africa with Japan and Italy on the move. Stalin was preparing for World War II and historians argue whether Stalinism represented a general high level of repressiveness all the time or just "Great Terror" at some times. MIM does not discuss this here.

As it turns out, there is no need to discuss history with Antonov-Ovseyenko and many other critics of Stalin. No it is not necessary to discuss the deaths in Siberia fighting Japan or in Finland thanks to the war that was going on in those years. Academic sources show that Stalin's "Great Terror" couldn't have killed 19 million.

Fewer than 25 million died from all causes from 1935 to 1941. That's using concrete numbers for 1935 to 1941 and the highest number from that period to estimate 1941, which according to historians was well past the peak of the "Great Terror" anyway. (2)

So to arrive at 19 million deaths to blame on Stalin, there had to be fewer than 6 million deaths from normal causes between 1935 and 1941. Again to round off in our critics' favor, let's assume that to be 900,000 deaths a year for seven years as the deaths from normal causes. So for example, in 1936, that would mean a crude death rate from normal causes of less than 5 per 1000 a year, based on a population of 180.2 million people in the Soviet Union.

That's impossible and the death rate has never been that low in the Soviet Union, Stalin or no Stalin, not even in 1982, when the crude death rate was 10.1. (3) In fact, the crude death rate has never been below 5 per 1000 a year in U.S. history either. A more realistic death rate from natural causes would be around 20. It was 20.3 in 1926, which according to almost all historians, was before Stalin started his repression, since he had only just assumed leadership in 1924.

So who is this responsible for this blatantly impossible assertion about Stalin? It was the son of a Trotskyist. Antonov-Ovseyenko was a Trotskyist who tried to use his military position to aid Trotsky take over the party in the USSR.

The bourgeois scholars in the West all clamored to support Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko's book. The endorsements on his book jacket read like a who's who of anti-Soviet propaganda. The book received an introduction and praise by Stephen F. Cohen, Princeton professor and darling of the social-democrats and revisionists for his sympathetic biography of N. Bukharin and political opposition to the Cold War. The other endorsers include democratic socialist Irving Howe, cold warrior and bourgeois scholar Robert Conquest, Robert G. Kaiser, Leonard Schapiro, Harrison Salisbury and of course the New Republic, which called it "the most important book to have come out of the Soviet experience since Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago." From this we can see how much credibility the mainstream discussion of Stalin deserves--none.

To cut through the distortions and lies about Stalin, read MIM Theory #6--"The Stalin Issue."

Notes:
1. Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko,The Time of Stalin: Portrait of a Tyranny, (NY: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 213.
2. Ger P. Van Den Berg, The Soviet System of Justice: Figures and Policy, (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985), p. 180.
3. Ibid., p. 181.

[Publius]

Fewer than 25 million died from all causes from 1935 to 1941. That's using concrete numbers for 1935 to 1941

Who are you getting these 'concrete' numbers from? The Soviet Government?

What kind of fucking Soviet apologist uses numbers given out by the Soviet government to determine how many people it killed?

It's like asking Jeffrey Dahmer how many people he killed, and after recieving the answer 'zero', saying, "Well, I guess he's innocent, he says he didn't kill anyone".

[redstar2000]

It is a curious characteristic of the Maoist Internationalist Movement that it has fallen victim to a common "marketing device" of late capitalism...

Something is "really scientific" only if it has a number attached to it.

The number does not have to be accurate or even plausible.

I think the quantitative approach that MIM takes is extremely unsophisticated...they don't seem to understand all (or even any) of the assumptions that bourgeois statisticians make nor do they seem to understand the purposes that lie beneath those numbers.

The advantage of MIM's approach is that they often "catch" gross statistical blunders and contradictions in bourgeois polemics -- as in their review of the quasi-fascist Black Book of Communism.

But their reification of arithmetic often leads them into absurdity -- such as their contention that there is "no proletariat" (of any significance) in the advanced capitalist countries.

Also lacking, I think, is any kind of skepticism about their sources...one of the first things a historian learns.

Are Soviet or Chinese or American "official statistics" likely to be true?

Who benefits from the "official lie"?

Note that people who gather the raw data for "official statistics" are poorly-paid clerical workers (everywhere) and often have a pretty good idea what their superiors want to hear. Nor do they have "anything to lose" by lying or by doing shoddy or careless work. (That goes for the private sector as well.)

It's true that the "best science" is often quantitative; that doesn't allow us to conclude that because something is "quantitative", that "means" it "must" be "the best science".

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[medyv]

Originally posted by JC1+--> (JC1)As it turns out, there is no need to discuss history with Antonov-Ovseyenko and many other critics of Stalin. No it is not necessary to discuss the deaths in Siberia fighting Japan or in Finland thanks to the war that was going on in those years. Academic sources show that Stalin's "Great Terror" couldn't have killed 19 million.[/b]

It's true that the statistics on those killed during the Stalin period are grossly inflated, but you unsurprisingly ignore the reasons behind it. A desire to make Stalin seem worse than he was might be a part of it, but the impact of exaggerating body counts on Stalin's image would be negligible. Whether he killed 1 or 20 million wouldn't change the fact that he was one of the 20th century's greatest mass murderers. The most important reason behind distorting the statistics on this subject is to shore up the argument, which is crucial to anti-communist and Stalinist ideology, that there was no socialist opposition to Stalin -- and accordingly, that Stalinism represented communist ideology in action. If anti-communist historians like Conquest or Pipes can inflate the number of those killed during the terror to absurd levels, they can logically argue that the repression chose its victims randomly and wasn't directed at socialist opposition to Stalin's regime.

As for the numbers themselves, the most realistic appraisal by far is that of the Russian Marxist historian Vadim Z. Rogovin, who wrote a six volume history of the socialist opposition to Stalinism in the USSR and died a few years ago. In one of his lectures transcribed online he says the following:

"Now, however, the picture is much clearer and we have a more adequate understanding of the actual figures. I'd like to cite four different types of statistics and sources that I have compared in my research: the notes that were sent from the KGB starting approximately in 1954 to the Central Committee, the Politburo and the higher organs of the party; the work that has been done by demographers in our country concerning the census that was taken in 1937 and 1939; then the figures recorded at the time concerning the prison population. There were very careful records kept. Indeed one of the peculiarities of the bureaucracy is that they keep such figures with extraordinary accuracy. The bosses of the camps had no interest in exaggerating such figures because the number of prisoners was tied to production requirements. Finally I would like to cite the number of people who were rehabilitated starting in 1954 and ending in 1992.

"If one combines all these sources, then the figure that emerges of prisoners who were repressed for political reasons reaches approximately 4 million during the Stalin period. Those actually shot number between 700,000 and 800,000. Of course, these are staggering figures by any standards, and never in world history have such high numbers of people been repressed for political reasons. Of those figures more than half fall within a two year period: 1937-8. As far as those who were shot, the number executed during that two year period was six times greater than the victims of all the remaining years of Soviet history." (The origins and consequences of Stalin's Great Terror (http://www.wsws.org/public_html/prioriss/iwb5-6/terror.htm))


Originally posted by [email protected]
So who is this responsible for this blatantly impossible assertion about Stalin? It was the son of a Trotskyist. Antonov-Ovseyenko was a Trotskyist who tried to use his military position to aid Trotsky take over the party in the USSR.

The fact that Antonov-Ovseyenko's son turned towards anti-communist ideology doesn't detract from the former's place in history. He was a revolutionary from the beginning of the 20th century and an important Bolshevik during and after the October Revolution. The fact that he opposed Stalin before he was executed gives him more credibility, not less.


Publius
What kind of fucking Soviet apologist uses numbers given out by the Soviet government to determine how many people it killed?

Most of the statistics from the agencies of the Soviet government weren't just given out, they became public record in the years following the collapse of the USSR. They weren't manufactured for public consumption at the time, and as Rogovin (a pretty authoritative source on this subject) says, their records were carefully kept.

[romanm]

The social democrat redstar who ADMITS he doesn't understand Marx's LVT says: But their reification of arithmetic often leads them into absurdity -- such as their contention that there is "no proletariat" (of any significance) in the advanced capitalist countries.

This is redstar's longwinded way of saying "numbers are dumb"..

Well, redstar, why don't you come test your knowledge of Marx over on marxleninmao.proboards43.com .. Anyone can *reply* in the economics section as a guest. Even Trotskyists can come.

We'll even be really nice.. :) ;) :) :P

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by romanm
The social democrat redstar...

Do you imagine that if you repeat this libel often enough that people will start to believe it?

Shall I respond in kind -- the Mickey-Maoist romanm?

Nah.


This is redstar's longwinded way of saying "numbers are dumb".

No, it's my short-winded way of advising you (and MIM) to learn something about the numbers you use and what they really mean.

Wasted advice, most likely.


Well, redstar, why don't you come test your knowledge of Marx over on marxleninmao.proboards43.com

Your board has 70 members. This board has over 4,000.

Do the math. :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[OleMarxco]

Throwing myself into the frey is a way I like :D


Originally posted by "RedStar2000"+--> ("RedStar2000")Do you imagine that if you repeat this libel often enough that people will start to believe it?

Shall I respond in kind -- the Mickey-Maoist romanm? Nah.[/b]

Oh no, that would be smearing, yourself going down to the level of the opponent :P
j/k, of course, as a third-person-case, I wouldn't mind if you did. But most probably,
he feels you as one of those social-democrats who gutted out after the Soviet-Union's
fall, who were previously cowards, afraid to speak in the face of the great Stalinism's
sons. Do you have "moral qualms" against insultin' or sumthin', whut, even if they do so to you, rightfully enough? Or perhaps you think, as Gandhi says; "An eye for an eye would make us all blind"?


Originally posted by "RedStar2000"@
No, it's my short-winded way of advising you (and MIM) to learn something about the numbers you use and what they really mean.

Wasted advice, most likely.

And wasted effort, apparantly. That means, takin' this to your heart, a wasted-life as well? Hmm, might be, might not, anyways, why not kill yourself right away? Sui Cide.
For your entire life might've been a whole wasted-advice. All your time here, too..
Not to make you depressed, but that's a harsh cold fact to realize.


"RedStar2000"
Your board has 70 members. This board has over 4,000.

Do the math http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

"Your" board might be subjective here. Someone never said it was 'reir board, but 'rat's autta 're question. In defence of him, why do YOU care for numbers? I thought you were attacking that..hmmm..perhaps not. But, what does quantity matter, to quality? Renember, the few with the force bested and beated the 'lot of numbers with clones - Star Wars. For what is 70 knowledgable and spiritful members to 4,000 louzy ones, were there are among 40 regulars and the rest is either half-active or non-active at all, with 0 posts!? HM!? EH!? Answer me that! It's better to have 70 fully-actives ones, yes indeed, more control over things yet, and uh, more potentional for governin' it ;)

[Revolutionary_Anarchism]

Stalin killed millions, even Stalinists acknowledge that, how can you not oppose that?

[JC1]

What kind of fucking Soviet apologist uses numbers given out by the Soviet government to determine how many people it killed?

The Soviet Archives are the only source anyone has. They would have no reason to lie in there own archies for one, secondly, no one else had on the ground forces to do tallys. So you can only get a " Stalin killed 24 mill " outcome if you make up numbers.

Edit Note: Im not from MIM.

[JC1]

Im not a stalinist, and even these pig conservatives cant respond to my arguments.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Ole Marxo
Do you have "moral qualms" against insultin' or sumthin', whut, even if they do so to you, rightfully enough?

It becomes...tedious. A really witty insult is entertaining...but what I see on message boards is mostly aimed at (and originates from) those with a mental age in the low single digits.

Romanm's constant refrain -- "social democrat Redstar" -- is a childish taunt intended solely to irritate...and to provoke an equally childish response from me.

For example, I could edit the "word-filter" so that every time romanm typed "social democrat Redstar" the post would actually display "great revolutionary genius Redstar"...or some even more colorful phrase. :lol:

But where does such behavior get us?


But, what does quantity matter, to quality?

You haven't actually visited romanm's board, have you? :lol:

Otherwise, you would never have used the world "quality".

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[medyv]

Originally posted by JC1
Im not a stalinist, and even these pig conservatives cant respond to my arguments.

Did you not see my post?

[TC]

Anti-leftists whether they're Fascists, liberals, Anarchists, or liberal appologists on the left, want to make someone out as a leftwing bogeyman equal to the rightwing's Hitler so as to make their crusade against the far left morally equal or superior to efforts against the far right. In other words, to make Communists as 'evil' as Fascists and imperialists, the public has to think that Stalin's and/or Mao's governments killed as many or more people then Hitler's and Tojo's (or for that matter the US government in the 20th century, killing millions of indochinese people just doesn't even register when thinking about histories greatest 'mass murderes'...).


There is absolutely no *evidence* to suggest that Stalin killed millions of people. To try to compare his government to governments that deliberately and systematically, organized from the top down, perpetrated mass murder, is such a stretch that the only motivation could be anti-leftism. At the same time though its also absurd to insist that Stalin's hands were totally clean and he was pure of any wrong doing, because criminal purges against party members were well documented enough to be investigated and publically exposed by the Soviet government only a few years after his death. He might not have been guilty of genocide or anything like that but he was clearly ruthless and used extra-legal means to enforce policy. You can argue that he was justified (socialism under siege, nearly 30 million soviets killed by nazis, had to have rapid industrialization to survive, whatever) or that it was unjustified (went against the rule of law, consolidated personal power in such a way that undermined soviet democracy, unjustly ended the careers or even lives of thousands of innocent people, ect.) but claiming that he commited some kindof genocide on the scale of hitler because you heard some unsubstantiated statement to that effect or claiming that he did nothing wrong because you happen to just like the guy, just makes any discussion of Stalin's place in history ridiculase

[Guerrilla22]

This discussion is as ridiculous as the argument made by some about the overall scale of the holocaust. Arguments about sheer number of killed are irrelavent. The fact is that people died no matter how you frame it.

[Revolutionary_Anarchism]

There is absolutely no *evidence* to suggest that Stalin killed millions of people.

Are you serious or was that supposed to be sarcastic?

http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b2stalin.htm

http://thc.worldarcstudio.com/classroom_20...vel/stalin2.htm (http://thc.worldarcstudio.com/classroom_20040211_JB/alevel/stalin2.htm)

[JC1]

This discussion is as ridiculous as the argument made by some about the overall scale of the holocaust. Arguments about sheer number of killed are irrelavent. The fact is that people died no matter how you frame it.

People died, but the number of those who died is infetesmialy small. And lets consider for what reasons did people die in the USSR to those who die under Capital.

In the USSR, people were killed to bulid a new, better society.

In Capitalist Countries, Propfit is the prime motive for genocide.

[Guerrilla22]

People died, but the number of those who died is infetesmialy small.

And I suppose you know this because you were there right?

[LoL84]

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=37380 ;)

[JC1]

And I suppose you know this because you were there right?

And I suppose you have some counter evidence to my arguments ?

[synthesis]

In the USSR, people were killed to bulid a new, better society.

That is a wholly un-Marxist analysis of the nature of state repression in Soviet Russia.

The actions of a government are always ultimately intended to protect its society's ruling class - if sometimes, saving the ruling class from itself.

That last bit is moot, however, when applied to the ruling class of Soviet Russia - the state itself. The state was the ruling class both in theory - it controlled the means of production - and in practice - there was no higher authority than the whims of the state.

The idea that people were murdered "for a better cause" is ridiculous. They were killed for a reason: they threatened the position of the ruling class, through reactionary propaganda or genuine socialist dissent.

[Guerrilla22]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2005, 02:56 AM

And I suppose you know this because you were there right?

And I suppose you have some counter evidence to my arguments ?
I don't, but at the same time I don't make statements like "a relatively small amount of people got killed," when I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

[JC1]

I don't, but at the same time I don't make statements like "a relatively small amount of people got killed," when I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

This [My position] has already been prooven by the statisticians at MIM.

[Guerrilla22]

Yes, unfortunately the reasoning "because the statisticians at MIM said so," doesn't really mean a whole lot to me.