Obsession With Stalin

[R_P_A_S]

Communism has had a bad reputation we all know this. mostly is the Capitalist who give it this bad reputation, but the asshole dictators also had smething to do with it. and on the top of my list is Stalin. to me that man does not represent true communism. why do people continue to idolize him?

[R_P_A_S]

LOL WTF!!!!??

is like he's telling me "dude gimme a break!"

[GoRiLLaZ]

'hardcore Stalinists won't find many friends here. Stalinist members are free to post in all forums unless they show they are not able to have a polite and respectful debate' Got it from the Revleft guidelines.... ;)

[sri]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2006, 07:38 AM
Stalin. to me that man does not represent true communism. why do people continue to idolize him?
Why do you think Stalin was a dictator and a cause for getting bad reputation to communism?Please,show me those reliable historical evidences basing on which you came to this conclusion.

[R_P_A_S]

Originally posted by sri+Aug 4 2006, 08:39 AM--> (sri @ Aug 4 2006, 08:39 AM)
[email protected] 4 2006, 07:38 AM
Stalin. to me that man does not represent true communism. why do people continue to idolize him?
Why do you think Stalin was a dictator and a cause for getting bad reputation to communism?Please,show me those reliable historical evidences basing on which you came to this conclusion. [/b]
I'm not an expert. never claimed to be. but his history with human rights is not what you can call clean.

[Whitten]

Im not a stalinist, but I am a realist. I havent seen much reliable evidence that suggest that he did persecute any fellow communists (trotskyites, reformists, anarchists excluded)

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2006, 10:14 AM
I havent seen much reliable evidence that suggest that he did persecute any fellow communists (trotskyites, reformists, anarchists excluded)

how about having Trotsky killed?

[Whitten]

Originally posted by Kevis+Aug 4 2006, 01:08 PM--> (Kevis @ Aug 4 2006, 01:08 PM)
[email protected] 4 2006, 10:14 AM
I havent seen much reliable evidence that suggest that he did persecute any fellow communists (trotskyites, reformists, anarchists excluded)

how about having Trotsky killed? [/b]
i said trotskyites excluded. And I wasnt aware that it has been proven the order came from Stalin?

[sav]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2006, 10:14 AM
Im not a stalinist, but I am a realist. I havent seen much reliable evidence that suggest that he did persecute any fellow communists (trotskyites, reformists, anarchists excluded)

All of the surviving members of the Lenin-era Politburo, except Stalin, Mikhail Kalinin and Vyacheslav Molotov, were tried. By the end of the final trial Stalin had arrested and executed almost every important living Bolshevik from the Revolution. Of 1,966 delegates to the party congress in 1934, 1,108 were arrested. Of 139 members of the Central Committee, 98 were arrested. Three out of five Soviet marshals and one-third of the Red Army officers were arrested or shot. Outside of politics, many millions of others died in the purges. The key defendant, Leon Trotsky, was living in exile abroad, but he still did not survive Stalin's desire to have him dead and was assassinated by a Soviet agent in 1940.

From wiki, but the purge of the Bolsheviks is well documented.

[Global_Justice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2006, 10:14 AM
Im not a stalinist, but I am a realist. I havent seen much reliable evidence that suggest that he did persecute any fellow communists (trotskyites, reformists, anarchists excluded)
well you cant say that. if the people most persecuted were trotskyists, anarchists and reformists, why exclude them?

thats like saying i haven't seen any evidence of israel persecuting arabs (palastinians, jordinians and lebenese excluded)

i haven't seen any evidence of a british empire (africa, the indian sub-continent, ireland and the caribean excluded)

i haven't seen any evidence that the KKK are racist (black, jews, arabs and latinos excluded)

[Delta]

Personally I don't understand it either RPAS :blink:

[More Fire for the People]

Stalinist insist that words outweight deeds. For instance, Stalin's historical materialism and diamat are more important than the failure to act in the Ukrainian famine and the systematic destruction of the Bolshevik party.

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Originally posted by Whitten+Aug 4 2006, 01:23 PM--> (Whitten @ Aug 4 2006, 01:23 PM)
Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2006, 01:08 PM

[email protected] 4 2006, 10:14 AM
I havent seen much reliable evidence that suggest that he did persecute any fellow communists (trotskyites, reformists, anarchists excluded)

how about having Trotsky killed?
i said trotskyites excluded. And I wasnt aware that it has been proven the order came from Stalin? [/b]
oops, didn't read the excluded bit :ph34r:

But that's like saying "bush has never curbed civil liberties (the patriot act, bla bla bla etc excluded) EDIT: oops, global justice already made this point...

And it's generally accepted amongst historians that the orders for Leon's death came from uncle Joe himself, people who believe otherwise are probably just being overly cynical...

[Janus]

why do people continue to idolize him?
As you can see, Stalinists deny Stalin's crimes as bourgeois lies. However, there continue to be fewer and fewer of them. :)

[bezdomni]

Stalin didn't kill as many people as you probably heard in history class or from one of your anti-communist friends or whatever. For example, the boundary between Ukraine and Russia changed while Stalin was General Secretary, resulting in 10 million Ukranians becoming Russians. In the history books, Stalin "killed" 10 million Ukranians because they just disappeared...when they became Russians in reality.

Another problem with the way Stalin and Mao's "murder counts" were calculated is the manner in which they are calculated. They take the population of Russia (or China) and then compare it with the population several years later (taking into account birth rate and death rate...but not taking into account the CHANGE between the years), and all of the people who weren't born between year x and year y were "murdered by Stalin and Mao". You gotta keep in mind that the USSR and China were industrializing during Stalin and Mao, which meant more people were moving to the cities (meaning Stalin and Mao "killed peasants" who actually justed moved to the city), people were using condoms and just generally having less children (apparently we are operating under the christian paradigm of birth starting at conception...in which case Stalin and Mao did kill millions of sperm).

My main problems with Stalin lie with his treatment of the Left Opposition and his "systematic destruction of the bolshevik party" (I think that is a good way to put it). Of course, Stalin didn't wake up one day and destroy the Soviet Union...it took several decades for the USSR to be "destroyed" by "Stalinism", or rather, the bureaucracy that formed in the Soviet Union.

As far as Stalin ordering the execution of Trotsky...it seems possible. It's almost certain that the orders came from the USSR (since there had been several previous attempts to kill Trotsky before he was actually murdered), but if they came from Stalin or not we can't be entirely certain.

[Gold Against The Soul]

I've heard laughable figures quoted, in all seriousness, for how many Stalin killed. Up to 100m sometimes, which must just about include every person that died during his entire reign!. It's nearly always used in arguments where he is compared to Hitler. Yes, of course he was worst than Hitler. It was the Soviets who invaded Poland, France and half of Europe and then they attacked themselves! :rolleyes: And how different would it have been, if the revolution hadn't happened?. :o

[Janus]

Another problem with the way Stalin and Mao's "murder counts" were calculated is the manner in which they are calculated
Yeah, CPA brings up a good point there. In order to estimate death counts, historians try to measure how much of the previous generation was "lost", it's quite inaccurate and sketchy at best so a lot of these figures are more or less guesses. There was no archived detailed info. on the pop. back then nor any censuses.

[southernmissfan]

Clown is correct. Your criticism of Stalin, Mao, etc., should come from a communist stand point, based on class analysis and historical materialism.

Certainly there is a lot to criticize, but don't base it on cooked up numbers from capitalist "historians". We should look at what really happened and why.

[Ander]

It doesn't really matter that the numbers were cooked up, the true amount of deaths is still substantially high enough to confirm that the Soviet Union could have done without Stalin.

[R_P_A_S]

it actually comes more from fellow comrades and people who know what real communism is. he was not close to that at all. i hear tons of bad shit about Che and Lenin too. but I like them more than Stalin. to me Stalin did more damage to communism, and to the true concept of the USSR.

[LSD]

Stalin. to me that man does not represent true communism. why do people continue to idolize him?

They don't, not really.

Oh sure, there are the occasional internet "Stalinists" and stubbourn "anti-revisionist", but it's really more of a psychological phenomnenon than it is a political one.

Stalin, like Hitler, is a great symbol. Everyone knows the name and everyone knows the power. For someone feeling alienated or disenfranchised, identifying with a figure of strength can offer sollace.

So-called "Stalin kiddies" don't really know jack about who Stalin was or what he did, hell they barely even know what communism is. They just like the idea of "Stalin" and the idea of the "Evil Empire".

And even for the more educated "Stalinists", their obsession with defending the man belies any claims of political maturity. The evidence is so conclusive and so damning and any efforts to "rehabilitate" Stalin's memory cannot but come from some sort of irrational motivation.

Again it's the power of the man's image. Even for those who should know better, it's just so tempting to claim the "man of steel" as an icon.

Besides, "Stalinism" rarely has anything to do with Stalin's actual ideas. The fact is the man was a brutal dictator; strictly speaking therefore "Stalinism" should be a form of bureaucratic despotism.

And yet so-called "Stalinists" go to preposterous lengths to deny that there hero was actually a despot! That means that even if he name has survived, his ideas have been fully discredited.

The only real form of "Stalinism" that has any life to it these days is Maoism and, like all the other suriving branches, it's protestations of "democratic" influences bear nothing in common with Stalin's brutal personal rule. In practice, of course, Maoists are just as authoritarian as any other "Stalinist", but the fact that they relly upon democratic propaganda shows just how little traction Stalin's ideas actually have these days.


I havent seen much reliable evidence that suggest that he did persecute any fellow communists (trotskyites, reformists, anarchists excluded)

:lol:

That's got to be one of the more ridiculous sentences ever posted on RevLeft. Especially considering that everyone persecuted by Stlalin was generally labeled as one of those things.

It's like "counterrevolutionary" or "enemy of the state". Under a corrupted bureaucratic "socialism" these words cease to have any meaning of their own and become just another propagandistic tool of the oppressive state.


Stalin didn't kill as many people as you probably heard in history class


Obviously not, but he killed enough.


My main problems with Stalin lie with his treatment of the Left Opposition and his "systematic destruction of the bolshevik party"

Personally, I find the "systematic destruction" of Soviet civil liberties to be more important, although in fairness he did only complete the process that Lenin had already begun.

Stalin was only able to rise to power becasue he operated within an already authoritarian system. If he had been subject to democratic controlls, he never would have been able to excersize the power he ultimately did.

It's the same way that Hitler was able to exploit the power of the Weimar Presidency to deal his way into power.

Personal power perpetuates itself. Lenin might have been an able leader but Stalin wasn't and we all know the result. The only way that Stalin could have been prevented from rising was if the precedent was never set, if the cult of the individual had never been established.

Stalin didn't "destroy" the Bolshevik party, he used the Bolshvik party. He took advantage of the machinery that Lenin had left behind and used it much in the way that Lenin himself did.

Obviously, Stalin was not as skilled or as theoretically advanced as Lenin so his leadership is marked by less success, but the underlying nature of both mens' rules are practically identical.


i hear tons of bad shit about Che and Lenin too. but I like them more than Stalin.

Che's actions are what distinguishes him, his "theories" were rather insignificant.

In terms of Lenin, I don't think there can be any doubt that the man was a fiercely intelligent theoretician, but, again, his actions speak louder than his writings and those actions were almost universally not good.

The fact is the Bolshevik party was not your ordinary communist party. I'm not one to harp on the specific details of the Russian Revolution, but I think that it's important to remember that the Bolsheviks were rather uniquely authoritarian in their management.

Unfortunately, I think that many people learned the wrong lesson from the October Revolution. Far too many communist parties starting thinkin that in order to gain power, one must be "as disciplined" as the Bolsheviks.

The thing is though, the Bolsheviks had something that no future party ever would: Lenin. The fact is Lenin was a genius. In terms of management, in terms of politics, in terms of social understanding, in terms of pure political intuition, he is unrivaled by any communist leader before or since.

With this kind of phenomenal leadership, the Bolsheviks could afford to let their leadership make all the rules. It wasn't "how they were running things" that let them outsmart their oponents, it was who was running things.

If the Bolsheviks had been run democratically, there can really be no doubt that Lenin would have been in charge anyway and that his line would have dominated. The fact that they happened to be run "democratically centralist" is just an accident of history, and one that has been repeated far too often.

If communism is about liberating people than it needs to run its party on libertine principles. No more "leader cults" or "centralist" bullshit about "iron discipline".

[sri]

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2006, 12:48 AM
it actually comes more from fellow comrades and people who know what real communism is. he was not close to that at all. i hear tons of bad shit about Che and Lenin too. but I like them more than Stalin. to me Stalin did more damage to communism, and to the true concept of the USSR.
I request all those comrades who participated in this debate 'On Stalin' should read "Another view of Stalin"It's available at:

http://www.plp.org/books/stalin/book.html

[Marxist_Fire]

My take on Stalin:

Stalin was the greatest perverter of Marxism that modern history has ever seen, and his Soviet Union was not socialist or communist in any sense. Yes, the means of production and distribution did remain nationalized under his regime, but neither Russian workers nor peasants possessed any real power or voice. Stalin was a tyrant who came to power on the backs of the working class that had been devastated from years of civil war and imperialist invasion. This was a man who made an open pact with Adolf Hitler solely for purposes of temporary political convenience, and sacrificed his own son to the Nazis during WWII. Stalin was responsible for a grotesque revival of "great-Russian" national chauvinism. The massive cult of personality around Stalin was completely anti-Marxist and disgusting, and was almost religious, despite the USSR's status as an "atheistic state." Any person who wastes time defending the monster of Stalin today is acting with a huge amount of political immaturity.

[Gold Against The Soul]

Originally posted by sri+Aug 5 2006, 03:10 AM--> (sri @ Aug 5 2006, 03:10 AM)
[email protected] 5 2006, 12:48 AM
it actually comes more from fellow comrades and people who know what real communism is. he was not close to that at all. i hear tons of bad shit about Che and Lenin too. but I like them more than Stalin. to me Stalin did more damage to communism, and to the true concept of the USSR.
I request all those comrades who participated in this debate 'On Stalin' should read "Another view of Stalin"It's available at:

http://www.plp.org/books/stalin/book.html [/b]
The link doesn't work for me?. Another good one is 'Stalin : Man of History' by Ian Grey. Which is an excellent book. There is also the excellent 'Unknown Stalin', a more recent book, focused on the new material found in the secret Soviet archives, only recently opened. Both fascinating books.