Stalin

[viva le revolution]

I suggest you all take a look at this article. It looks at Stalin's struggle for democratic reform in the soviet union.


http://eserver.org/clogic/2005/furr.html

[viva le revolution]

Here's part two:


http://eserver.org/clogic/2005/furr2.html

[Socialistpenguin]

What the hell! I may as well have a crack at it:
First off, the following concerns me:
But it relies most heavily upon scholarly works by Russian historians who have access to unpublished or recently-published documents from Soviet archives.
And as we all know, the chance of bias in these source is zero <_<

Next,

For the most part he cites unpublished archival material, or archival documents only recently declassified and published.
This is brillaint. How is the reader meant to check his sources if it&#39;s unpublished, and as the article said earlier, the archives are only open to a handful of Russian historians. How are the rest of us meant to check up on that?


One of the very best American researchers of the Stalin period in the USSR, J. Arch Getty, has called the historical research done during the period of the Cold War "products of propaganda"
...Which is most amusing considering the bias this man possesses. Ironic, isn&#39;t it, that "the very best" American researcher, was in fact, the one who agreed with the Stalinist regime the most? :lol:


In December 1936 the Extraordinary 8th Congress of Soviets approved the draft of the new Soviet Constitution. It called for secret ballot and contested elections. (Zhukov, Inoy 307-9)
It also says that "officials could be held accountable at any time." Was that why Stalin was found stuffing the ballot boxes against Kirov?


Candidates were to be allowed not only from the Bolshevik Party -- called the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) at that time5 -- but from other citizens&#39; groups as well, based on residence, affiliation (such as religious groups), or workplace organizations. This last provision was never put into effect. Contested elections were never held.
This puzzles me. If Stalin fought so hard for contested elections, and he was fighting for proletarian "democracy", why was the last proposal never put into effect?


The democratic aspects of the Constitution were inserted at the express insistence of Joseph Stalin. Together with his closest supporters in the Politburo of the Bolshevik Party Stalin fought tenaciously to keep these provisions. (Getty, "State") He, and they, yielded only when confronted by the complete refusal by the Party&#39;s Central Committee, and by the panic surrounding the discovery of serious conspiracies, in collaboration with Japanese and German fascism, to overthrow the Soviet government.
For the love of Pie, not the "social-fascist Trotskyite/Zinovievite" line AGAIN&#33; I thought we buried that along with "Uncle Joe".

I will be back with more. Thank you for sharing this with us, as now we can hear the inane ramblings of some OTHER obscure Stalinist&#33; :lol:

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 04:40 PM
This puzzles me. If Stalin fought so hard for contested elections, and he was fighting for proletarian "democracy", why was the last proposal never put into effect?
Nothing to be puzzled about, comrade. Obviously Trotsky conspired with Bukharin&#39;s ghost to hinder Soviet democracy...

Luís "an ice-pick&#33; My People&#39;s Republic for an ice pick&#33;" Henrique

[viva le revolution]

No, i suppose the autobiography of a pompous self-aggrandizing peacock is more objective right?

An example: The U.S Trotskyist Max Eastman published Lenin&#39;s "will" in 1925 alongwith laudory remarks about Trotsky. At the time Trotsky had to write a correction in the &#39;bolshevik&#39; newspaper. Trotsky concerning the &#39;will&#39; wrote:
" Eastman says that the central committee &#39;concealed&#39; from the party....the so-called &#39;will&#39;....there can be no other name for this than slander against the central comittee of our party...Vladimir illyich did not leave any &#39;will&#39; and the very character of the party itself precluded the possibility of such a &#39;will&#39;. What is usually referred to as a &#39;will&#39; in the emigre and foreign bourgeois and menshevik press( in a manner garbled beyond recognition) is one of Vladimir Ilyvich&#39;s letters containing advice on organizational matters. the thirteenth congress of the party paid the closest attention to that letter....all talk about concealing or violating a &#39;will&#39; is a malicious invention"
Leon Trotsky.

Explian that, my dear stubborn Trotskyite.

[viva le revolution]

Then in the same book which you Trotskyites take to be fact, My life by leon trotsky, Trotsky goes on harping about the very same which he dismissed years earlier to claim that the leadership of the party was &#39;stolen&#39; from him&#33;.
Not to mention the contradiction between the theory of permamnent revolution and uninterrupted revolution and the opposition of lenin to trotsky&#39;s proposal of the militarization of labour.
But of course relying on a self-contradicting peacock would arouse confusion amongst the ranks.

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 04:40 PM
This is brillaint. How is the reader meant to check his sources if it&#39;s unpublished, and as the article said earlier, the archives are only open to a handful of Russian historians. How are the rest of us meant to check up on that?

...Which is most amusing considering the bias this man possesses. Ironic, isn&#39;t it, that "the very best" American researcher, was in fact, the one who agreed with the Stalinist regime the most? :lol:


It also says that "officials could be held accountable at any time." Was that why Stalin was found stuffing the ballot boxes against Kirov?


This puzzles me. If Stalin fought so hard for contested elections, and he was fighting for proletarian "democracy", why was the last proposal never put into effect?


The democratic aspects of the Constitution were inserted at the express insistence of Joseph Stalin. Together with his closest supporters in the Politburo of the Bolshevik Party Stalin fought tenaciously to keep these provisions. (Getty, "State") He, and they, yielded only when confronted by the complete refusal by the Party&#39;s Central Committee, and by the panic surrounding the discovery of serious conspiracies, in collaboration with Japanese and German fascism, to overthrow the Soviet government.
For the love of Pie, not the "social-fascist Trotskyite/Zinovievite" line AGAIN&#33; I thought we buried that along with "Uncle Joe".

I will be back with more. Thank you for sharing this with us, as now we can hear the inane ramblings of some OTHER obscure Stalinist&#33; :lol:
1. How are the rest of us meant to check up on your sources that "stalin killed millions"? Where is the proof? And actually my learned friend, the archives are open to everyone - go to Moscow to the National Archive library and have a dig around rather than relying on trotskyist propaganda.

2. Perhaps you would prefer to believe very objective and unbiased sources such as Robert Conquest, Volkogonov or Solzhenytsin?

3. Proof please, proof.

4. Comrade Luis Henrique says it all lol

5. Obviously we havent, thank god

6. Oh dear...

[The Red Scare]

A friend of mine showed me this article the other week....very interesting stuff. I still don&#39;t particularly like Stalin, but I&#39;m certainly not one of those Trots who believes that Stalin ate babies and was worse than Hitler and Satan combined.

And I really don&#39;t buy the assertion that "Stalin killed millions." Like Comrade Yastrebkov said, where is the proof&#33;? There is simply no proof WHATSOEVER that an organized, massive system of gulags existed throughout the USSR. I&#39;m not saying that they definitely didn&#39;t exist...but where are they??

I know many well-intentioned comrades who get so caught up in the anti-Communist propaganda that our government and media spews forth, its a shame they can&#39;t open their eyes and see the world from an objective viewpoint.

[Socialistpenguin]

No, i suppose the autobiography of a pompous self-aggrandizing peacock is more objective right?

Sorry, I haven&#39;t read the autobiography of Stalin yet :lol: &#33; Seriously though, I haven&#39;t read Trotsky&#39;s (as I asume you&#39;re talking about) autobiography, but now you&#39;ve ruined the book for me you arsehole :lol: ;) Just kidding.



An example: The U.S Trotskyist Max Eastman published Lenin&#39;s "will" in 1925 alongwith laudory remarks about Trotsky. At the time Trotsky had to write a correction in the &#39;bolshevik&#39; newspaper. Trotsky concerning the &#39;will&#39; wrote:
" Eastman says that the central committee &#39;concealed&#39; from the party....the so-called &#39;will&#39;....there can be no other name for this than slander against the central comittee of our party...Vladimir illyich did not leave any &#39;will&#39; and the very character of the party itself precluded the possibility of such a &#39;will&#39;. What is usually referred to as a &#39;will&#39; in the emigre and foreign bourgeois and menshevik press( in a manner garbled beyond recognition) is one of Vladimir Ilyvich&#39;s letters containing advice on organizational matters. the thirteenth congress of the party paid the closest attention to that letter....all talk about concealing or violating a &#39;will&#39; is a malicious invention"
Leon Trotsky.

Explian that, my dear stubborn Trotskyite.
Erm, OK, but I&#39;m not entirely sure you want me to explain. From Wikipedia,

The text of the testament and the fact of its concealment soon became known in the West, especially after the circumstances surrounding the controversy were described by Max Eastman in Since Lenin Died (1925). The Soviet leadership denounced Eastman&#39;s account and used Party discipline to force Trotsky, then still a member of the Politburo, to write an article (see the quote from Bolshevik) denying Eastman&#39;s version of the events. I hope this clears things up. Thanks for quoting my title, BTW :D



1. How are the rest of us meant to check up on your sources that "stalin killed millions"? Where is the proof? And actually my learned friend, the archives are open to everyone - go to Moscow to the National Archive library and have a dig around rather than relying on trotskyist propaganda.
I don&#39;t believe I&#39;ve said in this thread that "Stalin killed millions". Though I think the figure is exaggerated, this does not justify it in anyway.
2. Oh yes, like anyone would REALLY go all the way to Moscow to find out information. The author is preying on this.


2. Perhaps you would prefer to believe very objective and unbiased sources such as Robert Conquest, Volkogonov or Solzhenytsin? I&#39;m sorry, but I&#39;ve never really heard of those people :lol:


3. Proof please, proof. Gladly&#33;
From Alan Bullock&#39;s "Hitler and Stalin, Parallel Lives":

A special commission of the Central Committee, which examined the records of the Seventeenth Congress in 1957, after Stalin&#39;s death, found that 267 votes were missing. (Medvedev, Let History Judge, pp 331-3).


5. Obviously we havent, thank god
It seems you really should have: it adds nothing to your level of debate.


Then in the same book which you Trotskyites take to be fact, My life by leon trotsky, Trotsky goes on harping about the very same which he dismissed years earlier to claim that the leadership of the party was &#39;stolen&#39; from him&#33;.
Not to mention the contradiction between the theory of permamnent revolution and uninterrupted revolution and the opposition of lenin to trotsky&#39;s proposal of the militarization of labour.
But of course relying on a self-contradicting peacock would arouse confusion amongst the ranks. This is fantastic. You Stalinists weep and piss and moan that we Trotskyists "defile your character", yet you are SO willing to add vitriolic rants against Trotsky&#33; You also claim that Trotsky often contradicted himself. Maybe this is true, but you cannot compare it to how Stalin made the 3rd International flip through various hoops and lines, to be discarded at a moment&#39;s notice, and those who don&#39;t follow the NEW Party Line are kicked out.

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

"2. Oh yes, like anyone would REALLY go all the way to Moscow to find out information. The author is preying on this."

Well actually, a Russian politologist and writer, Sergey Kara-Murza, visited the archives after reading a book by A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko in which he stated that "according to the archives of the GULAG administration, there were 16 million prisoners in the early post-war years - this was calculated by the number of ration cards handed out."

In fact, Kara-Murza found that Antonov-Ovseenko&#39;s name was absent from the archive visitor list. Had he been there, he would have found that "according to the GULAG administration", there were only 1.6 million prisoners in late 1945. The man simply missed out the point in between the 1 and 6 on purpose. And people believe this crap&#33;

3. Ah you mention Medvedev&#39;s source - a well known anti-Soviet campaigner. Very reliable and un-biased. By tye way he estimated the number of &#39;Stalin&#39;s victims&#39; at 5 - 7 million. Well at least that&#39;s more accurate than Arthur Koestler who said 20-25 million or William Rusher who refers to the "100 million people wantonly murdered by communist dictators since the Bolshevik revolution in 1917".

Just a little fact there about reliable sources and figure toggling.


5. Why should we foorget the Trotskyite/ Zinovievite conspiracy? They cause problems for the USSR.

6. I am not a Stalinist and never said Trotskyists defile my character. They defile communism.

[Wanted Man]

2. Oh yes, like anyone would REALLY go all the way to Moscow to find out information. The author is preying on this.
Yes, a serious historian probably would. Otherwise, it&#39;s just guessing.

[guerrillache67]

Originally posted by [email protected] Dec 14 2005, 12:47 PM
Erm, OK, but I&#39;m not entirely sure you want me to explain. From Wikipedia,

The text of the testament and the fact of its concealment soon became known in the West, especially after the circumstances surrounding the controversy were described by Max Eastman in Since Lenin Died (1925). The Soviet leadership denounced Eastman&#39;s account and used Party discipline to force Trotsky, then still a member of the Politburo, to write an article (see the quote from Bolshevik) denying Eastman&#39;s version of the events.
I hope this clears things up.


Actually, that&#39;s not correct. What happened was that some comrades living in the West had inquired Trotsky about the book "Since Lenin Died." They had read the book and they were given to understand that Trotsky was in favor of bourgeois democracy and free trade. So they wrote letters to Trotsky asking him to refute Eastman because anti-Communists attacking the Comintern were using Eastman&#39;s book as a resource. Trotsky sent a letter, in particular to a comrade Inkpin of the British Communist Party on May of 1925, referring to an article of Trotsky&#39;s known as "Where is England Headed?" Trotsky did not answer the inquiries of the comrades but avoided them. Next, Trotsky immediately afterwards wrote a letter to Stalin about how Trotsky had no notion of Eastman&#39;s intention to write a book devoted to the discussion of what was going on at the time, and Trotsky stated Eastman could not have received any party documents from him or through him- yet Eastman was claiming he received several documents from Trotsky and that Trotsky was sending the sources because he was being "suppressed" by the party. So at the Politburo and Presidium, the Bolsheviks with Stalin at the forefront had asked- not forced- Trotsky to make a rebuttal of Eastman&#39;s claims, since Trotsky had stated in his letter that Eastman had not communicated with him in over a year and had received no such documents from Trotsky as Eastman was claiming. Trotsky wrote a draft of the rebuttal, then submitted a final draft, which ended up in the newspaper Bolshevik, stating that Eastman had lied and that Lenin did not write a "testament," that whatever was not published was because Lenin did not want his "testament" writings to be published, and Trotsky stated that Lenin never intended Trotsky to succeed as leader of the party. Trotsky also wrote that he wasn&#39;t being suppressed either by some "conspiracy," and that Eastman wrote a slanderous account of what happened. This is what happened, Trotsky was never forced to do anything, he was asked by the party to write the rebuttal after Trotsky himself stated that Eastman was lying. You can check this all out in "Stalin&#39;s Letters to Molotov," from the Annals of Communism series.


2. Oh yes, like anyone would REALLY go all the way to Moscow to find out information. The author is preying on this.

If it were a person who really valued the truth, and was critical of what was written, he would go to the archives, be they in Moscow, or anywhere else. The location of the archives and their proximity to the person interested in research are inconsequential. What is important is whether the material gathered was concrete fact. The author preyed on nothing.


A special commission of the Central Committee, which examined the records of the Seventeenth Congress in 1957, after Stalin&#39;s death, found that 267 votes were missing. (Medvedev, Let History Judge, pp 331-3).

We have to be critical of this commission&#39;s examination, because it was written during the revisionist period when Khrushchev was attempting to rewrite history and denounce Stalin and Marxism-Leninism. The only way we can be certain of whether these 267 votes were missing or not is to go to the archives themselves and find the primary sources themselves, not rely on the report of a commission that clearly had an anti-communist agenda.

Secondly, one must be critical of Medvedev. This man was an anti-communist who was held in high regard during the Gorbachev years, and even looks positively upon Vladimir Putin, who is a strong anti-communist as well. Because Medvedev represents the anti-communist minority seeking to reassert their position over the majority, Medvedev must be criticized.


It seems you really should have: it adds nothing to your level of debate.

There is a "level of debate"? I thought the whole purpose of a Marxist-Leninist organization was to permit debate so that a majority consensus can be reached based on concrete facts? If new concrete facts are being discovered, and debates have not been resolved over the truth, then by all means we must continue to debate. To not do so and cling to the abstract and not be critical means to be a bureaucrat. Let&#39;s not fall down that trap. Let&#39;s learn, be critical and educate ourselves instead.

[unite2fight1984]

Hitler - approx. 13 Million
Stalin - approx. 20 Million
Mao - approx. 40 Million

These are not deaths for revolution. These deaths were the result what would commonly be called "disturbed minds." These are deaths without war. This was not civil conflict nor forgeign war- these stats can be blamed on these three men. Yes people did not stop them but they did not want to become the 40,000,001st on the grave.

Forgein Deaths Caused By U.S. Foreign Policy 1945- May 2003
10,774,706 to 16,856,361

Hitler is highlighted because of his targeting of specific peoples (Jews, Gays, Gypsies, etc) and the use of death camps. Stalin and Mao used what I sometimes called is "demand-side economics." Both of them intentionally starved their own people. Stalin starved peasants because they opposed communalism. Mao created a famine because he sold most food stores to the Soviets in exchange for weaponry- primarily nuclear.

Do not protect a man simply because you share a common ideology with him. Yes there are worthy causes to be fought for but how can it be justified with unnecessary blood.

Check it out 20th Century Death Tolls (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstats.htm#Recurring)

[unite2fight1984]

Originally posted by guerrillache67+Dec 14 2005, 04:27 PM--> (guerrillache67 &#064; Dec 14 2005, 04:27 PM)
[email protected] Dec 14 2005, 12:47 PM
Erm, OK, but I&#39;m not entirely sure you want me to explain. From Wikipedia,

The text of the testament and the fact of its concealment soon became known in the West, especially after the circumstances surrounding the controversy were described by Max Eastman in Since Lenin Died (1925). The Soviet leadership denounced Eastman&#39;s account and used Party discipline to force Trotsky, then still a member of the Politburo, to write an article (see the quote from Bolshevik) denying Eastman&#39;s version of the events.
I hope this clears things up.

[/b]
Wikipedia is can be edited by anyone who has a free account with the site. I could change it to say that Lincoln ate babies and defecated on Wayne Brady. So I did but it was soon removed as "vandalism". However, I have no doubt that a statement better hidden as a "truth" could penetrate the lines for an extended period of time. Although noble, Wikipedia should never be mistakened as an academic source.

[Socialistpenguin]

Well actually, a Russian politologist and writer, Sergey Kara-Murza, visited the archives after reading a book by A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko in which he stated that "according to the archives of the GULAG administration, there were 16 million prisoners in the early post-war years - this was calculated by the number of ration cards handed out."
Well, I&#39;m not entirely sure how this could be, seeing he was executed in 1939, before the "early post-war years". Perhaps you would like to enlighten me on this?


5. Why should we foorget the Trotskyite/ Zinovievite conspiracy? They cause problems for the USSR.

Sorry to burst your bubble mate, but the Stalin Trials, and later, the claims that Trotsky was colloborating with the Nazis, were proven entirely FALSE. You&#39;d best find another scapegoat, methinks ;)


6. I am not a Stalinist and never said Trotskyists defile my character. They defile communism.
And, prey tell, how do we do this?


ctually, that&#39;s not correct. What happened was that some comrades living in the West had inquired Trotsky about the book "Since Lenin Died." They had read the book and they were given to understand that Trotsky was in favor of bourgeois democracy and free trade. So they wrote letters to Trotsky asking him to refute Eastman because anti-Communists attacking the Comintern were using Eastman&#39;s book as a resource. Trotsky sent a letter, in particular to a comrade Inkpin of the British Communist Party on May of 1925, referring to an article of Trotsky&#39;s known as "Where is England Headed?" Trotsky did not answer the inquiries of the comrades but avoided them. Next, Trotsky immediately afterwards wrote a letter to Stalin about how Trotsky had no notion of Eastman&#39;s intention to write a book devoted to the discussion of what was going on at the time, and Trotsky stated Eastman could not have received any party documents from him or through him- yet Eastman was claiming he received several documents from Trotsky and that Trotsky was sending the sources because he was being "suppressed" by the party. So at the Politburo and Presidium, the Bolsheviks with Stalin at the forefront had asked- not forced- Trotsky to make a rebuttal of Eastman&#39;s claims, since Trotsky had stated in his letter that Eastman had not communicated with him in over a year and had received no such documents from Trotsky as Eastman was claiming. Trotsky wrote a draft of the rebuttal, then submitted a final draft, which ended up in the newspaper Bolshevik, stating that Eastman had lied and that Lenin did not write a "testament," that whatever was not published was because Lenin did not want his "testament" writings to be published, and Trotsky stated that Lenin never intended Trotsky to succeed as leader of the party. Trotsky also wrote that he wasn&#39;t being suppressed either by some "conspiracy," and that Eastman wrote a slanderous account of what happened. This is what happened, Trotsky was never forced to do anything, he was asked by the party to write the rebuttal after Trotsky himself stated that Eastman was lying. You can check this all out in "Stalin&#39;s Letters to Molotov," from the Annals of Communism series.

Actually, I can&#39;t find any mention of this in either marxists.org or elsewhere. Could you perhaps quote something to this effect, please?


If it were a person who really valued the truth, and was critical of what was written, he would go to the archives, be they in Moscow, or anywhere else. The location of the archives and their proximity to the person interested in research are inconsequential. What is important is whether the material gathered was concrete fact. The author preyed on nothing.
Then tell me: WHY did they feel it necessary to include the line: "But it relies most heavily upon scholarly works by Russian historians who have access to unpublished or recently-published documents from Soviet archives."? Besides which, why do YOU not go to Moscow yourself?


We have to be critical of this commission&#39;s examination, because it was written during the revisionist period when Khrushchev was attempting to rewrite history and denounce Stalin and Marxism-Leninism. The only way we can be certain of whether these 267 votes were missing or not is to go to the archives themselves and find the primary sources themselves, not rely on the report of a commission that clearly had an anti-communist agenda.

Secondly, one must be critical of Medvedev. This man was an anti-communist who was held in high regard during the Gorbachev years, and even looks positively upon Vladimir Putin, who is a strong anti-communist as well. Because Medvedev represents the anti-communist minority seeking to reassert their position over the majority, Medvedev must be criticized.

Apart from your point about Putin, that&#39;s not what I read:
Roy Medvedev (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Medvedev)



There is a "level of debate"? I thought the whole purpose of a Marxist-Leninist organization was to permit debate so that a majority consensus can be reached based on concrete facts? If new concrete facts are being discovered, and debates have not been resolved over the truth, then by all means we must continue to debate. To not do so and cling to the abstract and not be critical means to be a bureaucrat. Let&#39;s not fall down that trap. Let&#39;s learn, be critical and educate ourselves instead.
As I have stated before, the Moscow trials have been proven to be fraudulent, as have the claims that Trotsky was in league with the Nazis.

[ReD_ReBeL]

Stalin was mediocre figure who played no significant role in the russian revolution, who developed into a tyrant and was perfectly fitted, as trotsky pointed out, the head of the bureaucratic counter-revolution which eliminated the Bolshevik party and established the bureaucratic regime.

[viva le revolution]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 07:08 PM
Stalin was mediocre figure who played no significant role in the russian revolution, who developed into a tyrant and was perfectly fitted, as trotsky pointed out, the head of the bureaucratic counter-revolution which eliminated the Bolshevik party and established the bureaucratic regime.
Come up with a arguement please. present some facts etc. etc. y&#39;know scientific empirical proof. Merely regurgitating infantile lines is not enough sweetheart.

[ReD_ReBeL]

"In the first years of collectivization, it was estimated that industrial and agricultural production would rise by 200% and 50%, respectively; however, agricultural production actually dropped. Stalin blamed this unexpected drop on kulaks (rich peasants), who resisted collectivization. Therefore those defined as "kulaks," "kulak helpers" and later "ex-kulaks" were to be shot, placed into Gulag labor_camps, or deported to remote areas of the country, depending on the charge."


"Many historians agree that the disruption caused by forced collectivization was largely responsible for major famines which caused up to 5 million deaths in 1932–33, particularly in Ukraine and the lower Volga region."

"Not only rich peasants were killed. The_Black_Book_of_Communism documents that all grains were taken from areas that did not meet targets, including the next year&#39;s seed grain. It also documents that peasants were forced to remain in the starving areas, sales of train tickets were stopped, and the State_Political_Directorate set up barriers to prevent people from leaving the starving areas .The Soviet Union exported grain while millions of Soviet citizens were starving to death"

"Education in primary schools continued to be free and was expanded, with many more Soviet citizens learning to read and write, and higher education also expanded. Stalin was the only ruler in the history of Russia and Soviet Union who established fees for secondary education in public schools."

Aw man what a gay this man sounds....not.;)
now i am not saying that everything he did was bad of course there was some good, but some of you people praise this guy way to much.
Source (http://www.freedomsailing.com/Joseph_Stalin)

[ComradeOm]

Not only rich peasants were killed. The_Black_Book_of_Communism documents that all grains were taken from areas that did not meet targets, including the next year&#39;s seed grain.
The Black Book is hardly the most impartial source of information :rolleyes:


Aw man what a gay this man sounds....not.
The death of millions is a homosexual attribute?

[ReD_ReBeL]

The death of millions is a homosexual attribute? [QUOTE]

lol i meant &#39;aw man what a GUY this man sounds..not&#39;

[romanm]

The Maoist Internationalist Movement has already refuted the BlacK Book and even gotten the publisher to admit basic mathematical errors that exagerate the deaths:

Harvard University Press sent me your e-mail correspondence about The Black Book of Communism. The points you raise in No. 1 and No. 2 are certainly correct. My original translation of these passages used the European symbol for "per thousand" (as the French edition did), but evidently the typesetter wasn&#39;t accustomed to the symbol and read it as "percent" rather than "per thousand." I should have noticed the erroneous switch when I looked over the galley proofs. I appreciate your drawing the misprint to our attention. It will be fixed in the next printing of the book.

Best regards,

Mark Kramer
Director, Harvard Project on Cold War Studies
Senior Associate, Davis Center for Russian Studies
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/agitation/blackbook/

[guerrillache67]

Originally posted by [email protected] Dec 15 2005, 12:37 PM
Actually, I can&#39;t find any mention of this in either marxists.org or elsewhere. Could you perhaps quote something to this effect, please?


You can check this all out in "Stalin&#39;s Letters to Molotov," from the Annals of Communism series.


Then tell me: WHY did they feel it necessary to include the line: "But it relies most heavily upon scholarly works by Russian historians who have access to unpublished or recently-published documents from Soviet archives."?

I&#39;m guessing it&#39;s because over here we have such easy access to Western sources, but not enough access to what Russian historians have interpreted, perhaps?


Besides which, why do YOU not go to Moscow yourself?

I would certainly like to, when I gather the money to do so. For now, I&#39;m confined to digging around for whatever published primary documents have been released.



Apart from your point about Putin, that&#39;s not what I read:
Roy Medvedev



Medvedev restored his reputation and returned to the ruling party in 1989 after Mikhail Gorbachev launched his perestroika program of gradual political and economic reforms. He was elected to the Soviet Union&#39;s Congress of People&#39;s Deputies and was named as member of the Supreme Soviet, the permanent working body of the Congress.

Notice how in this new government, which is leaning towards more privatized market capitalism, Medvedev is recognized as an important politician. That, along with the fact that he is friendly to Putin and is a "social-democrat," shows that he is about as unbiased on the stance of communism as a cabinet member of a US presidency. Hence why criticism of Medvedev is well-deserved. Plus, this is what you quoted, "A special commission of the Central Committee, which examined the records of the Seventeenth Congress in 1957, after Stalin&#39;s death, found that 267 votes were missing. (Medvedev, Let History Judge, pp 331-3)." And we know that the Khrushchevite government was fond of attacking Marxism-Leninism as well and attempting to do everything in its power to rewrite history. No, the only way history can be explained is to go to the primary sources themselves.


As I have stated before, the Moscow trials have been proven to be fraudulent

By whom? The Dewey Commission? Oh sure, we got to hear Trotsky&#39;s point of view, but what about the other side&#39;s case? Where&#39;s the evidence from their side? Doesn&#39;t it strike you as odd that we only heard one side of the story and we never got to see much evidence from archives or personal interviews of people from the trials? The only way to know for certain if the trials were fraudulent is to compare the information from both sides and get as much first-hand material as possible and then we can decide who&#39;s telling the truth and who&#39;s lying.


as have the claims that Trotsky was in league with the Nazis.

There certainly isn&#39;t enough evidence to prove Trotsky was directly in league with the Nazis. But it is a fact that Trotsky was comfortable with several Western intellectuals and was widely recognized by many Western governments as a tool for destroying communism, even if Trotsky tried denying any links to them. That, along with the fact that Trotsky was against the Marxist-Leninist concept of organization and having the minority of intellectuals submit to the majority of the advanced workers within the party, and the fact that he never really self-criticized himself for joining the Menshevik opposition against the Bolsheviks, and was not too popular to the people of the USSR, that shows us a lot about his "revolutionary" character indeed.

[celticfire]

I&#39;ve seen this document before. My conclusion after reading several books on the Stalin period, it went down like this: formally the Soviet Union got more "democratic" as Stalin&#39;s mechanical thinking led him to believe that classes were being eliminated on the SU and there were on there happy way to &#39;communism&#39;. This of course was very false, because a new bourgeoisie emerged within the ranks of the CP -- and had firm control of the country by the time of Stalin&#39;s death, and consolidated it in 1956.

Read the Stalin consitution&#33; It&#39;s very democratic -- so is North Korea&#39;s. <_<

I still, for all Stalin&#39;s errors would not go around quoting from the Black book of Communism. That is nothing but falsification of history. J. Arch Getty is more reality based than sensational based.

[celticfire]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 04:40 PM

In December 1936 the Extraordinary 8th Congress of Soviets approved the draft of the new Soviet Constitution. It called for secret ballot and contested elections. (Zhukov, Inoy 307-9)
It also says that "officials could be held accountable at any time." Was that why Stalin was found stuffing the ballot boxes against Kirov?
Really? What&#39;s your source for this? I believe you and all, just looking for more reading ;)

[gilhyle]

There are two alternative interpretations of Stalins actions in late 1936/early 1937 in advocating the use of referenda and secret ballots:

1. Stalin loved democracy

2. Stalin was turning on the bureaucracy with which he was previousy allied, who had relied on undemocratic methods of cooption etc.

Both theses are consistent with the discussions at the CC plenum in Feb 37 and the draft constitution discussions at the congress.

The problem with the first interpretation is the complete lack of internal democracy at the height of Stalins power in the 1940s and 1950s. For example, having put in place provisions for referenda, and having hailed this as a crucial provision, Stalin then held NO referenda. ALso at the same as Stalin supported secret ballots and referenda, he did also start killing all the bureucrats he had previously relied on, which suggests a possible link between the two policies.

Aganst that background, we can see that the promise of secrets ballots had and was intended to have the effect of promising young bureaucrats that they could replace the established bureaucratic leaders who had previously had Stalin&#39;s fulsome support for using cooption to avoid any element of internal democracy in the party and State elections.

The idea that Stalins actions at this time reflect a deep commitment of Stalinism to inner party democracy or democracy within the Soviet Union generally is laughable, given the subsequent practice of single slate elections and the complete lack of substantial dissent on ANY issue in Stalin&#39;s USSR. Dissent is the mark of democracy. Democratic forms that lead only to monolithic consensus are a clear sign that somehow, dissent is being obliterated.

It is not hard, in Stalin&#39;s case to find out how that dissent was obliterated. Just read the autobiographies of the many who suffered from the supposedly bizarre collective illusion of having being arrested and sent to camps for no purpose other than to terrorise others...and who have the marks and lost years to prove it.

[commie anarchist rebel]

ok im kinda new to communism but this is wat u believe. no im not taking this from the media. as a matter afact ive never even listened to wat the media says about stalin.at least no knowengly


stalin was a power hungery tyrant. he murdered millions, and took the peoples power. it went from a dictatorship of the people to a dictatorship of a power hungery geedy bastard.

ill give he credit for beating back hitler even though stalin was just as bad.

no i dont have proof that stalin killed millions of ppl but do u have proof that he didnt. stalin terrorized the people of russia.

in my opinion the only persons who might have been able to give russia or any country true communism would either be karl marx himself or trosky

keep in mind this is coming from a very strong anarchist pov

[celticfire]

Originally posted by commie anarchist [email protected] 27 2005, 02:59 AM
ok im kinda new to communism but this is wat u believe. no im not taking this from the media. as a matter afact ive never even listened to wat the media says about stalin.at least no knowengly


stalin was a power hungery tyrant. he murdered millions, and took the peoples power. it went from a dictatorship of the people to a dictatorship of a power hungery geedy bastard.

ill give he credit for beating back hitler even though stalin was just as bad.

no i dont have proof that stalin killed millions of ppl but do u have proof that he didnt. stalin terrorized the people of russia.

in my opinion the only persons who might have been able to give russia or any country true communism would either be karl marx himself or trosky

keep in mind this is coming from a very strong anarchist pov
Comrade, I am not a Stalinist or anything, but I think you need to dig a bit deeper. Everything you said is exactly what the bourgeoisie say about comrade Stalin - and as communists and workers our view should reflect our class&#39;s view of Stalin. Not narrow and one-sided, but all around.

Stalin led collectivization, he defended the Soviet Union from fascism, he promoted anti-racism (Hitler actually criticized the Soviet Union&#39;s lack of racism as example of weakness&#33;)

Now that being said, Stalin&#39;s thinking was largely mechanical, and not dialectical. He used administrative measures to fight counter revolutionaries instead of relying on the people - and this led the arrest and even deaths of a significant number of people.

But - it is completely wrong and and completely ignorant to equate the communist experience with that of Nazism - which was truly oppressive and horrible.

Stalin violated the Party&#39;s democratic centralism, the government&#39;s democratic means, and the people&#39;s trust. These are grevious errors yes-- but a far far cry from the crimes committed by Nazism.

[commie anarchist rebel]

ok so maybe stalin wasnt racist. even though there has been evidence that he didnt treat the jewish ppl all to great but not as bad as hitler. i will say he did a few good things such as beating back fashism, and allowing russia to progess into the 20th centry. but u have to admit stalins government was quite totalitarianist. then again im an anarchist so i hate the any government wether its socialist or fashist( note the communism is not a government so i do not include it.) . i feel that all the government does is take your posesions weither private or held within a community.

But u do have to admit stalin was a dictator and did not always gave the ppl a choose

[celticfire]

As a communist - I am for the truth. And from my experience there is always more to the truth then the bourgeoisie tell us.

Take Osama bin Laden -- a bad dude, we can all agree. He wants to impose a religious islamo-fascist state in the middle east. Okay. Well, when Sept. 11 happened - did the government remind everyone that they had given him money, guns, training, etc,. etc.? No - it was discovered and pointed out though&#33;

The same goes for Stalin. I am not a Stalinist. But Stalin did same really good things for the masses, like the liberation of women.

From the Set the Record Straight Project:

The widely promoted demonization and lies about Stalin stand in the way of gaining a real understanding of the historical role that he played and the great accomplishments of the Soviet Union.

After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin assumed leadership— and in the decade that followed, the Soviet Union was an exciting and emancipatory society. Stalin led the struggles to carry out collectivization of agriculture and to socialize the ownership of industry.

The revolution created a socialist economy based on public-state ownership, social cooperation, and conscious planning. This had never been done before. Throughout Stalin’s leadership, the Soviet Union faced incredible pressures: counterrevolution, encirclement by hostile imperial powers, and invasion by the Nazis during World War 2.

Stalin led people to stand up to this. But Stalin also had real weaknesses. For example, as the revolution came under greater pressure in the 1930s, he relied less and less on the conscious activism of the masses and more and more on administrative measures. It was necessary to suppress counterrevolutionary forces. But as threats grew in the 1930s Stalin repressed people who were just raising disagreements and dissent.

Bob Avakian points out that if the bourgeoisie can uphold Madison and Jefferson—who played pivotal roles in the bourgeois American Revolution but were unapologetic slave-owners—then revolutionaries can uphold Stalin while also criticizing and learning from his mistakes.

The state is not the premise of class oppression. The state is a tool used by a class to supress another class. Democracy then is practiced among the ruling class. Today, there is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie - and their democracy is practiced among the bourgeoisie.

Under socialism democracy will be practiced among the large masses of people.

Anarchism completely negates the need for a transition from capitalism to communism. Anarchism completely ignores the social realities that exist, like the mental/manual labor contradction and glass over them.

As Michael Parenti said, you can&#39;t prove it (idealist socialism, anarchism) against reality.

I am more critical of Stalin than the RCP is. Mao said Stalin was 70% right and 30% wrong, I think its more like 50/50.

[commie anarchist rebel]

ahhh fuck this stupid thing the past is the past no need to talk about the bad things stalin did lets focus on the good things and see how they can help us to understand how we can make communism work

[Zeruzo]

Originally posted by commie anarchist [email protected] 27 2005, 06:05 PM
ahhh fuck this stupid thing the past is the past no need to talk about the bad things stalin did lets focus on the good things and see how they can help us to understand how we can make communism work
Studying the mistakes is one of the vital parts of understanding history and thus the future. To study Stalin does not only mean we should study his merits but also study his flaws.

[gilhyle]

Originally posted by Zeruzo+Dec 27 2005, 06:11 PM--> (Zeruzo @ Dec 27 2005, 06:11 PM)
commie anarchist [email protected] 27 2005, 06:05 PM
ahhh fuck this stupid thing the past is the past no need to talk about the bad things stalin did lets focus on the good things and see how they can help us to understand how we can make communism work
Studying the mistakes is one of the vital parts of understanding history and thus the future. To study Stalin does not only mean we should study his merits but also study his flaws. [/b]
I will give Stalin two merits:

1. He was not lazy (unlike Mao, for example, who was quite lazy)

2. He recognised the significance of inner-party strife for the outcome of the revolutionary process.

Everything else he either did very inefficiently or did efficiently but with the effect of retarding the cause of socialism or retarding the economic and cultural development of the USSR

[jackdaw1924]

Wow it seems like Stalin was actually poisoned :-O... talk about him being &#39;paranoid&#39;

Secret documents reveal Stalin was poisoned
12/29/2005 11:38
December 21 was the 126th birthday of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Historian and publicist Nikolay Dobryukha says the Kremlin archives contain documented evidence proving that Stalin was poisoned.

The discovered documents absolutely disprove all affirmations saying that Stalin died of cerebral hemorrhage caused by his poor health. These documents are the records of Stalin&#39;s medical examination within the period of over 30 years. These documents also demonstrate that Stalin was not at all apprehensive of medical examinations and was not afraid of receiving treatment of doctors as it was rumored. It was also said that for fear to visit doctors Stalin often resorted to self-medication. In fact, highly-qualified doctors were called for in case of Stalin&#39;s slightest indisposition and had close medical examination of the high-ranking client all day round.

Records made in September 1947 state that Joseph Stalin had initial stage hypertension, also chronic articular rheumatism and overfatigue. Doctor Kirillov made a record of Stalin&#39;s blood pressure - 145 per 85 - which was excellent for his age of 67 at that time.

At the age of 70, Stalin&#39;s blood pressure made up 140 per 80 and the pulse made up 74 beats per minute before taking bath. After the bath, blood pressure dropped to 138 per 75 and the pulse made up 68 per minute. The Soviet leader did not complain of bad sleep, had regular bowel movements and was fine in general. The medical records show Stalin had the blood pressure of 140 per 80 and the pulse 70 beats per minute at the age of 72. At that, the latter measuring was made when Stalin had flu and fever. It is unlikely that younger and healthier people can register similar showing. And this is astonishing that no other medical record mentions of the initial stage hypertension of Stalin.

It was not true when some people stated that "Stalin was seriously ill, especially after the dramatic stress he endured during WWII". These talks appeared as soon as bulletins about Stalin&#39;s health were published for the first time on March 4, 1953. These official bulletins stated that on the night of March 2 Joseph Stalin had cerebral hemorrhage caused by his hypertension and atherosclerosis.

The false statements were encouraged by Lavrentiy Beria and his protégés Malenkov and Khrushchev as soon as they became leaders of the country.

The discovered documents reveal that the Soviet leader got poisoned within February 28 - March 1, 1953, between the Saturday night and Monday, the period when majority of doctors cannot be reached for because of their day off. That was done on purpose to give the poison enough time to take effect.

But it is not also ruled out that conspirators first immediately poisoned Stalin and only after that his double fell victim of the poison as well. In fact, Beria did not expect the poisoning would be so protracted and that is why he felt incredibly nervous. On March 4, newspapers controlled by Beria reported that "Stalin had cerebral hemorrhage staying in his Moscow apartment on the night of March 2" which was not true because Stalin died at the out-of-town residence. Why did Beria need to report the leader died in his Moscow apartment? Probably he spread misinformation to use Stalin&#39;s look-alike: maybe Stalin died immediately after poisoning staying in the out-of-town residence and his double "fell ill" in an instant in the Kremlin and then on the night of March 2 was moved to the out-of-town residence to substitute the already dead Lord. In a word, Beria&#39;s plan turned out to be not quite smooth. To be on the safe side, when it was publicly announced Stalin was dead Beria still arrested the head of a laboratory making poisons for secret killings.

Many people knew that Beria was going to wage war against Stalin. His son Sergo said that father highly likely schemed something against Stalin with the help of his supporters in law enforcement structures and with his own intelligence structure that was not controlled by any of the governmental structures.

Stalin&#39;s bodyguards say that the leader got poisoned immediately after he drank mineral water. Indeed, Stalin was found dead lying near a table on which a bottle with mineral water and a glass stood. The poison took effect instantaneously. Some sources state that Stalin fell down dead and others insist he fell down unconscious.

Study of the archives revealed that on November 8, 1953 the Kremlin sanitary department wanted to hand "medicaments and three empty mineral water battles" over to the Stalin Museum. But for some reason, the department handed just two empty bottles to the Museum on November 9. What is the secret of the third lost bottle?

The journal kept by doctors treating Stalin brings to nothing the memoirs and researches of Stalin&#39;s last illness and death. As seen from the records in the journal the doctors obviously understood that Stalin was poisoned. This is proved by prescriptions they made: ice application to the head; sweet tea with lemon; catharsis with sulfur-acid magnesia and so on.

When doctors examined Stalin at 7 a.m. March 2 they found the patient lying on his back on a sofa with the head turned to the left and the eyes closed. The hyperemia of face was moderate; the breathing was not upset. The pulse made up 78 beats per minute, the heart sounds were rather muffled. The blood pressure made up 190 per 110. The stomach was soft and the liver protruded 3-4 cm from under the rib edge. Stalin was unconscious; his condition was grave.

Doctor Lukomsky discovered that Stalin&#39;s right arm and leg were paralyzed. From time to time his left leg and arm moved a little. The medical records suggest that doctors did their best to treat the leader for poisoning and for its consequences, blood supply disturbance and insult, at the same time. But none of them pronounced that was poisoning.

It was on March 3 when Stalin&#39;s doctors registered that condition of the patient grew even worse and heart activity got weaker. Next day, March 4, the condition of the patient grew extremely grave because of frequent respiratory standstills. Suddenly, the skin on the face, legs and arms became blue which is quite typical of poisoning with some poisons. When a human organism is poisoned with aniline, nitrobenzene and others hemoglobin turns into methemoglobin having dark color. It is not ruled out that Stalin was poisoned with a mixture of different poisons.

On the night of March 5, doctors got results of Stalin&#39;s blood and urine tests which indicated the patient suffered from poisoning. But the doctors were afraid to tell Beria about poisoning as they feared he would blame any of them for the poisoning. Stalin&#39;s liver was still enlarged, another factor typical of poisoning.

Early in the morning March 5, Stalin had bloody vomit as a result of which the pulse declined and the blood pressure dropped. The doctors were at a loss how to explain what was happening to the patient. All day long Stalin had bloody vomit and was in collapse several times.

In the evening on March 5, Stalin was wet through with perspiration, the pulse was thready and cyanosis intensified. The doctors gave the patient carbogene several times but the condition did not improve. At 9:40 p.m. Stalin had artificial ventilation but in vain. His death was registered at 9:50 p.m.

Many of documented evidence left by doctors, including premortal examination of Stalin, disagree with recollections of other eyewitnesses. For instance, Stalin&#39;s daughter Svetlana said she could not recognize the father as his illness changed him beyond recognition. Was it possible that Beria&#39;s people substituted Stalin with his double and even his relatives could not recognize him?

One of the documents pertaining to Stalin&#39;s death discovered in the Kremlin archives seems to be particularly mysterious. The document says that nurse Moiseyeva gave Stalin an injection of calcium gluconate at 8:45 p.m. Never before that over the whole period of illness was Stalin given such an injection. At 9:48 p.m., the nurse affixed her signature to a document revealing she gave Stalin an injection of 20-percent camphor oil. Finally, the woman made an injection of adrenalin to Stalin for the first time over the whole course of treatment and made an official record of the fact. Soon after that the Soviet leader died. This coincidence probable gave rise to rumors that a Jewish woman trained by Beria dispatched Stalin to the next world by giving him a special injection.

When contemporary doctors studied medical records of Stalin&#39;s illness and last hours of life they stated adrenaline injections were forbidden for patients registering the same symptoms that Stalin had.

But it is a fact that soon after Stalin&#39;s brothers-in-arms distributed authority at a special plenary session in the Kremlin, they came to the out-of-town residence where Stalin was still staying alive and gave him the fatal injection.


http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/363/16693_Stalin.html

[gilhyle]

I was always quite sympathetic to the idea that Beria poisoned Stalin (an old theory). A recent documentary on TV (about a year ago) argued strongly that the details of the day do not suppoprt the theory. It was modestly persuasive.