Holocaust denying [Archive]

Mesijs

5th October 2006, 18:13

Well, I came up with some idea of a thread. There are some fascist holocaust deniers, while everyone knows that the holocaust happened.

How could those people have these thoughts? The thing they do is call obvious evidence 'propaganda' and ask for 'facts'.

On this forum, there are a lot of people who call evidence against Stalin 'propaganda' and also ask for 'facts'.

Now, I don't want to be predudiced against anyone, so I've come with an idea to prove whether there are differences between Holocaust deniers and deniers of Stalins crimes.

The idea is that we have some little 'play'. I'm going to play the holocaust denier. Of course I'm not, but I'll do as if I am. You all have to convince me with evidence and facts that the Holocaust did not exist, and I'm trying to deny that.

Especially, I ask people who deny Stalins crimes, or think they're not as they're portrayed by the media, to bring in evidence and facts about the holocaust.

In the end, I would like to compare the arguments that the Holocaust did happen (brought to me by 'Stalin-deniers') to the arguments that Stalin's crimes did happen (or were as worse as the media describe).

Then I can come to a conclusion whether the way of arguing of Holocaust-deniers is similiar to the way of arguing of 'Stalin-deniers'.

I myself do think that Stalin commited the most horrible crimes, portrayed by 'bourgeois propaganda'.

The main purpose of this whole thing is, whether people are arguing differently when it comes to the Holocaust than when they argue about the crimes of Stalin. So it's not about whether either of them actually happened, but whether people use reasoning techniques in proving the holocaust that they find inappropriate when arguing about Stalin.

Of course, people supporting Stalin can find this thread apalling or do not want to react. That's your won choice.

However, I would find this very weak and cowardly. Because if you're a good debater and convinced of your own truth, then this is the ultimate place to convince other people. So, do you dare to take the challenge?

Wanted Man

5th October 2006, 18:29

Sure. Bring it on.

Pirate Utopian

5th October 2006, 18:32

Hitler actaully was a humanist who hugged a jew everyday, nope i cant pretend the holocaust didnt exist

Mesijs

5th October 2006, 18:34

No, wait, you don't get it right.

I'm pretending as if the holocaust did not happen, and you have to give facts and evidence that it did exist.

Marukusu

5th October 2006, 18:34

I agree with Comrade Matthijs. Bring on the evidence, and if I will reject Stalin once and for and call him a nazi if I deem the the evidence sufficient.

Pirate Utopian

5th October 2006, 18:35

well what about all the camps in poland and germany?

Mesijs

5th October 2006, 18:35

Originally posted by Big [email protected] 5 2006, 03:36 PM
well what about all the camps in poland and germany?
Facts?
How do you know they killed people there?

Marukusu

5th October 2006, 18:46

well what about all the camps in poland and germany?

Facts?
How do you know they killed people there?

Whoa... The camps in Poland and Germany? The German KZ- and Death Camps? (I seriously doubt that Stalin in all his evilness constructed GULAG:s in Europe proper)

English is not my first language, so I might have misunderstood things here, but are you denying the nazi holocaust?

Wanted Man

5th October 2006, 18:52

Mesijs

5th October 2006, 18:55

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2006, 03:47 PM

well what about all the camps in poland and germany?

Facts?
How do you know they killed people there?

Whoa... The camps in Poland and Germany? The German KZ- and Death Camps? (I seriously doubt that Stalin in all his evilness constructed GULAG:s in Europe proper)

English is not my first language, so I might have misunderstood things here, but are you denying the nazi holocaust?
Nooooo I'm not. Please read it again carefully, OK.

Once again, I'm acting as if I'm denying the Holocaust. That is because people also deny Stalin's crimes, and I would like to see the difference and similiarities in arguing between denial of Stalins crimes and the Holocaust, because I both see them as inevitable truths.

Very good post Matthijs, I'll look into it.

Revolution67

5th October 2006, 18:57

Wanted Man

5th October 2006, 19:02

I only have the usual internet stuff like Wikipedia to go by, sadly. In the future I hope to get my hands on "The Holocaust Industry" by Norman Finkelstein, as it apparently opposes Holocaust denial, but does carry a strong accusation against the way the Holocaust is now being used to justify Zionist aggression.

Likewise, on Stalin, obviously we shouldn't just stick to communist ideologues with an axe to grind, but if you see the link that I posted in the "Stalin's Crimes" thread, there are scores of books written by bourgeois historians from after the Cold War who also dispute "official" counts which still mostly come from Cold Warriors of the 70s who had a great interest in inflating the numbers as much as possible.

Mesijs

5th October 2006, 19:06

Comrade Mesijs:

You cannot put Nazi Holocast Deniers in the same category as those who defend Stalin against the false allegations, accusations and dishonest propaganda. While Nazis no doubt adhered to an ideology that sought to establish the supremacy of one race over the others and indulged in henious genocide ever witnessed on Earth. While they were anti-Jewish, they were anti-Communist too.

Yes, and I see Stalinism as an ideology that wanted to put the supremacy of one person over that of his people, openly against people with another opinion. The personal cultus was very openly (every statues and portraits of Stalin) and the 'enemy of the people' thing was also.

A lot of video footage of concentration camps and labor camps operational in Nazi Germany is avialable in public library archives and documentaries.

"Maybe it were criminals? How can you say the deaths numbered so much?"
I've also seen video footage of people in Siberia being forced to work in the cold in documentaries.

We have seen emaciated people starving to death and beign carried around.

"How does that prove genocide?"
I've also seen Soviet people starving to death, being executed and being carried around.

We have seen photographs of victims of concentration camps, whose dead bodies were stacked upon one another just like someone would stack firewood.

"Criminals? Food shortages?"
I've seen Soviet people being executed and rolling into a mass grave.

Surely, you cannot deny that do you? On the other hand, every peice that has been passed around as a supposed evidence of Stalin's crime, has dis-integrated under its own contradictions on crucial examination. The point is, while we have loads of unflicnhing evidence against the atrocities committed by the Nazis, we do not have tenacious evidence to prove Stalin's guilt.

When Soviet Archives were de-classified for the first time under revisionist Gorbachev, the researchers rushed to verfiy their bloated, inflated and imaginary figures of death and devastation under Stalin. But the enthusiasm of the bourgeosie scholars soon evaporated when nothing incriminating could be found in the archives which could prove that Stalin was a ruthless dictator. Well, to amuse yourself, you can play the role of nazi Holocast denier and merry as long as this game goes.

I've seen a lot of references to the Soviet archives that cited sources of execution orders. I haven't seen the archives myself, but have you seen the nazi ones?

Hiero

5th October 2006, 19:19

I support Stalin. There is a difference between Stalin supporters and Holocaust deniers. The difference is one denys something that actually happened. I am not going to deny that bad things happened or went wrong in the USSR under Stalin. That did happen, but however to claim that it was planned is wrong.

There is no proof that Stalin, and Stalin alone through hate and paranoia pland to massacare people. Numbers are highly exaggerated by Nazi sources (such as the Ukraine famine) and bourgioes sources. With the purges and gulags, these a neccasary. There are always going to be counter revolutionaries in a new revolutionary society and a espically one as weak as young USSR. Finally criticism of Stalin lacks class analysis. Take the Ukraine famine. It was horrible, but not planed. The goal was to collectivise farming and defeat the Kulaks. It was just bad that Kulak opposition and other conditions resulted in a famine.

The difference is the Holocaust denies deny a huge event that is well recorded. "Stalinist" do not deny events, however they wish to explain them with correct data and from a class perspective. We even criticise the excesses or errors in this period.

Marukusu

5th October 2006, 20:26

(This is the third time I'm trying to answer to this thread. Things like that (i.e. a crappy computer) pisses me off, so don't be surprised if I flip out.)

Mesijs: Yeah, I that's what I thought. I just wanted to be sure.

However, I haven't seen any evidence of a soviet holocaust yet. The evidence for a that the nazi holocaust actually occured is to far to great to ignore or deny, but where is the actual evidence for Stalin's supposed crimes?

I need proof before I'm going to call Stalin a nazi.

Joseph Ball

6th October 2006, 00:27

According to figures accepted by bourgeois historians (see Geoffrey Hosking 'A History of the Soviet Union, for example) the population of the USSR was 147.0 million in 1926 and 170.5 million in 1939. It is clear just from looking at the population increase that took place that all the rubbish about Stalin murdering tens of millions of people cannot possibly be true. In 1940 the population of the USSR was increased to 194 million by the annexation of new territories such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia. In 1950, with these territories still annexed, the population of the Soviet Union was 178.5 million. Such was the devastation caused by Fascism. Whatever the Soviet Union suffered during the industrialisation of the Soviet Union in the 30's it pales into comparison with the huge losses caused by the Nazis.

We must be clear that the sacrifices made by the Soviet people during industrialisation were absolutely necessary to prevent the complete genocide of the Slavic people by Hitler. Ideas that the Soviet people would have resisted more effectively if the system had been more bourgeois democratic (the kind of line revisionists come out with) are laughable. The Soviet people would not have lasted 6 months against the Fascists with this kind of leadership.

The Russians lost the Crimean War, they lost the Russo-Japanese war, they suffered complete collapse in the First World War. Without Stalin's policies they would have lost again.

Comparing the magnificent leadership of Stalin to Hitler who created the world's first socialist economic system and saved the world from Fascism is nonsensical and insulting. Stalin was the true heir of Lenin. His example was built on and developed by Mao, in a dialectical manner, who then carried the banner forward to initiate the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the highest development of the proletarian struggle the world has ever seen.

Joseph Ball www.re-evaluationmao.org

Severian

6th October 2006, 03:39

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2006, 09:14 AM
Well, I came up with some idea of a thread. There are some fascist holocaust deniers, while everyone knows that the holocaust happened.

How could those people have these thoughts? The thing they do is call obvious evidence 'propaganda' and ask for 'facts'.
Yes, that's why it's pointless to argue with Holocaust deniers.

Amazingly, the people who are most determined to deny the reality of an atrocity - are often the people who are quickest to justify it.

And in that respect, yes, Stalin fans (not necessarily Stalinists) are similar.

I don't mean that Stalin and Hitler represented the same thing.

But the mechanisms of psychological and PR denial are similar.

IronColumn

6th October 2006, 03:40

The irrationality of fascist Holocaust deniers is the same as those espousing the cause of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc. A denial of all facts since they are all being doctored by the "jews" or the "kulaks" or what have you. This mindless irrationality reveals (yet again) the absolutely prostitute, state capitalist, fascist nature of the USSR & co.

Intelligitimate

6th October 2006, 05:27

What's the matter, Mesijs, still smarting from the ass-kicking you received in the other threads?

The primary difference between Holocaust Denial and the claims "Stalinists" make are that we back our claims up with solid, first rate scholarship. There are no academically respected Holocaust Deniers, while the people we use as sources are some of the most respected names in the field of Soviet history. Mesijs has time and time again shown he has absolutely zero familiarity with modern scholarship of the USSR. For instance, no one, not even Robert Conquest maintains the bullshit about a "Ukrainian genocide" anymore. Nor has anyone ever presented any reason to continue believing the old numbers spewed by anti-communist 'scholars' in face of the Soviet Archive data.

Anti-communist like Mesijs will grasp at anything to justify their hatred of socialism. This worthless, cowardly tactic is laughable, because Mesijs doesn't know the first god damn thing about the Holocaust or Soviet history. Mesijs is just another pathetic socialist-wannabe who has never escaped out of the bourgeois-liberal mode of thought. He is anti-communist to the core, and will always be.

Severian

6th October 2006, 05:49

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2006, 08:28 PM
There are no academically respected Holocaust Deniers, while the people we use as sources are some of the most respected names in the field of Soviet history.
But those people would not agree with your viewpoint.

Many respected scholars would say that Stalin's deathtoll has been inflated, for example. I'll agree with that myself, and point out that the exagerations are motivated by anticommunism.

But nobody sane denies that, for example, Stalin is a mass murderer.

So what is the point of obsessively arguing about how big a mass murderer someone is?

What's the point of arguing over whether Manson is worse than Dahmer, or vice versa?

Nothing worthwhile.....

I do notice that contending chauvinists in Yugoslavia love this kind of debate, too. Croatian chauvinists, for example, try to minimize the number of murders committed by the Croatian Ustasha during WWII, while maximizing the number committed by Serb Chetniks.

This also seems pointless to many bystanders: you admit they committed mass murder, so why the quibbles?

But that kind of historical argument does have a practical purpose: justifying present and future atrocities.

Joseph Ball

6th October 2006, 09:51

Sevarin is saying why quibble about the figures if someone is a 'mass murderer'. If you look at things from that point of view, all leaders in history have blood on their hands. Nearly one million died in the US civil war. Does that make Abraham Lincoln a mass murderer? The death toll in the Russian civil war was very high too. Does that make Lenin and Trotsky mass murderers? If Stalin had sat on his backside and not prepared his country for the Fascist invasion, in the manner that he did, tens of millions more Soviet citizens would have died in the subsequent occupation and enslavement of his country. Would this have made Stalin responsible for their deaths and hence a mass murderer?

I'm not saying that deaths are OK. That's why I am a communist. I want to get rid of the repressive apparatus of the state. But we have to go through the stage of socialism first. We can't just wish it away. Policies like Stalin's are not inevitable. They were just the product of a particular situation and a counter-revolutionary threat (Hitler's invasion) that not all socialist nations will have to face with the same intensity (although they will all face a significant counter-revolutionary threat and will therefore need police and an army to deal with this).

Rollo

6th October 2006, 09:59

http://www.nizkor.org/

Intelligitimate

7th October 2006, 00:04

But nobody sane denies that, for example, Stalin is a mass murderer.

The important thing, Severian, is the rejection of the totalitarian paradigm by mainstream scholars. Once you admit Stalin was not some cartoonishly evil despot, you basically have to admit more realistic explanations for events. You see, previous scholars would interpret the 'Great Terror' as some sort of devilish plot to terrorize the population in submission. Now that no one takes this bullshit seriously anymore, you have to use some alternative explanation. And that explanation, according to mainstream scholars, is that Stalin was not in total control of the events, and that the Party did seriously believe in conspiracies against it. There are also other things going on, but that is the gist of the mainstream scholarly opinion.

Also mainstream scholars don't believe in the 'Ukrainian Genocide' bullshit anymore. Not even Conquest still supports it, and he was its greatest champion. The scholarly opinion is that it was a combination of factors, weather being the primary one. Also Conquest's bullshit about the number of people in the GULAG was completely discredited by the opening of the Soviet Archives.

The facts and the scholarship are on our side. I don't ask you to love comrade Stalin, only acknowledge that mainstream scholarship shows he isn't even close to the monster he is portrayed as by anti-communists and the bourgeois media.

Severian

7th October 2006, 02:21

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2006, 03:05 PM

But nobody sane denies that, for example, Stalin is a mass murderer.

The important thing, Severian, is the rejection of the totalitarian paradigm by mainstream scholars. Once you admit Stalin was not some cartoonishly evil despot, you basically have to admit more realistic explanations for events. You see, previous scholars would interpret the 'Great Terror' as some sort of devilish plot to terrorize the population in submission.
Excuse me, a regime doesn't have to be headed by Satan in order to seek to intimidate those it rules. That is, in fact, the most common function of repression - on whatever scale.

And that explanation, according to mainstream scholars, is that Stalin was not in total control of the events, and that the Party did seriously believe in conspiracies against it. There are also other things going on, but that is the gist of the mainstream scholarly opinion.

That may even be true. And bourgeois scholars are free to stop with that superficial explanation.

Marxists, however, have never explained the behavior of a regime by means of its own propaganda and rationalizations. We have always asked: what material interests lie behind the ruling ideas?

Also mainstream scholars don't believe in the 'Ukrainian Genocide' bullshit anymore. Not even Conquest still supports it, and he was its greatest champion. The scholarly opinion is that it was a combination of factors, weather being the primary one.

Mainstream scholars don't believe that Stalin set out to deliberately cause a famine, that's true.

But you have to be deep in psychological denial - to deny that his policies, especially forced collectivization, caused one.

I don't ask you to love comrade Stalin,

But you do. And that attitude, again, is not rational in relation to mainstream scholarship or anything else.

The Author

7th October 2006, 03:24

Originally posted by [email protected] Oct 6 2006, 07:22 PM
Excuse me, a regime doesn't have to be headed by Satan in order to seek to intimidate those it rules. That is, in fact, the most common function of repression - on whatever scale.

Define who was repressed, and who was intimidated.

Marxists, however, have never explained the behavior of a regime by means of its own propaganda and rationalizations. We have always asked: what material interests lie behind the ruling ideas?

Show how we have relied on propaganda and rationalizations alone, and not information on the social life of the USSR in terms of the economic base and the superstructure?

But you have to be deep in psychological denial - to deny that his policies, especially forced collectivization, caused one.

"Psychological denial" according to whom? Usually it's an anti-communist who says someone is a "lunatic" for holding certain ideas. I did not expect a leftist to make such a comment.

Show us some evidence that Stalin himself had a policy of forced collectivization?

You see, Stalin said in "Dizzy With Success" that:

The successes of our collective-farm policy are due, among other things, to the fact that it rests on the voluntary character of the collective-farm movement and on taking into account the diversity of conditions in the various regions of the U.S.S.R. Collective farms must not be established by force. That would be foolish and reactionary. The collective-farm movement must rest on the active support of the main mass of the peasantry. Examples of the formation of collective farms in the developed areas must not be mechanically transplanted to under-developed areas. That would be foolish and reactionary. Such a "policy" would discredit the collectivization idea at one stroke.

http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/DS30.html

Stalin is in total agreement with you on collectivization. Collectivization must not be done by force, but is of a voluntary nature. We know that there were mistakes made in the collectivization of agriculture, that some collective farms were established by force by the government. Such a mistake was criticized by Stalin.

I once again ask, show us evidence where he advocated otherwise, where forced collectivization was an official Soviet policy which Stalin personally supported.

Comrade Kurtz

8th October 2006, 02:55

Most of you are very ignorant. There is copious evidence to suggest purges in Mao's China (many of you defend him but in some ways there is more evidence of his crimes than Hitlers!) and Stalin's Russia. The original poster has drawn a good point; you seem way too easy to condemn Nazi Holocaust deniers who turn away from evidence that is stipulated to "support" Hitler but most of you do they same thing with Stalin and Mao.

Communists are utterly ridiculous, by and large. No wonder no one takes you seriously.

Comrade Kurtz

8th October 2006, 03:03

Interestingly enough, most of the Stalinists on here seem to be alone in their line of thinking. In the light of amassed evidence, most Stalinists have the good sense to accept that this attrocity did indeed occur; they just choose to justify it by saying it was necessary for the survival of the revolution. At least these people are on the same page as most everyone and seem to have some sense of reality.

In that sense I do apologize; my comments in the previous post are addressed to the Stalinists I've encountered on this board and not in general.

Marukusu

8th October 2006, 11:45

There is copious evidence to suggest purges in Mao's China (many of you defend him but in some ways there is more evidence of his crimes than Hitlers!) and Stalin's Russia.

Enlighten us!

Communists are utterly ridiculous, by and large. No wonder no one takes you seriously.

Thanks for that, reformist.

Interestingly enough, most of the Stalinists on here seem to be alone in their line of thinking. In the light of amassed evidence, most Stalinists have the good sense to accept that this attrocity did indeed occur; they just choose to justify it by saying it was necessary for the survival of the revolution. At least these people are on the same page as most everyone and seem to have some sense of reality.

Now this is getting surreal... where is the damned evidence?

Mesijs

8th October 2006, 14:47

Marukusu: he is pretending, and he then tries to make those who don't believe in all the bullshit about Stalin look like David Irving. But that's kind of pointless. He pretends that all we ever do is shout "LOL PROPAGANDA!!!!!", but as this post (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=49516&st=75&#entry1292066619) shows, that is not true.

Well, for starters, the Nazis kept pretty good track themselves:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e8/Hoefletelegram.jpg

"OK, what's this?"
In the Soviet archives, documents like this are also to be found.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Coffinmap.jpg

"How does this say anything? Is this fake?"

They didn't hide a lot:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/12/EnthanasiePropaganda.jpg

"Well, they just helped with euthanasia."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/75/Einsatzgruppen_Killing.jpg

"How does one execution proves a genocide?"
There are numerous pics like this on the Soviet Union.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/bd/Holocaust-gas-hair.jpg/800px-Holocaust-gas-hair.jpg

"Where did they get this from? A barber shop? And even if it is from dead people, how can you say it were 6 million?"

The places where it happened are also pretty well-known:

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/sitemap03.html

"What's up with these prison camps for criminals? How could you say that 6 million people were killed there?"
Maps and lists of the gulag are also well known, just search wikipedia.

In contrast with the USSR, where information is only known of a few camps, causing historians to often take one where the worst atrocities happened, and then going on to assume that this was the standard for the whole country.

So when in all camps you know there where atrocities, isn't is logical that you assume that's the standard.

Anyhow, it's tragic how poor the arguing once again is. While playing the holocaust denier, I can easily refute all the claims you made on the same way as Stalinist do that.

Once on this forum there was even a Stalinist who said that Stalins signature on a death order could be faked... Come on man...

Joseph Ball

9th October 2006, 02:21

Mesijis last post is absurd. I thought this was a serious historical discussion. He shows a lot of pictures of Nazi atocities and then says that similar evidence of communist atrocities is available without showing it. This sort of line comes from being a citizen of a imperialist nation and getting bloated on the super-profits produced by the sweat of the masses in the oppressed nations. It's interesting how many liberal and social democratic pigs in Germany supported Hitler because they thought he would save them from Bolshevism. Now people with the same line want to compare Hitler to Stalin. Funny that, isn't it?

Joseph Ball www.re-evaluationmao.org

Hiero

9th October 2006, 09:28

Intelligitimate

9th October 2006, 22:10

Excuse me, a regime doesn't have to be headed by Satan in order to seek to intimidate those it rules. That is, in fact, the most common function of repression - on whatever scale.

You'll have to forgive me for not seeing the relevance this has to what I stated.

That may even be true. And bourgeois scholars are free to stop with that superficial explanation.

The only superficial analysis I see of the USSR and Stalin comes from Trots and Anarchists. While people like Getty may not analysize the USSR from a Marxist perspective, they do so from that of a trained academic historian. There is no substitute for this. Indeed, if I remember correctly, Marx's comment about not being a Marxist was in reference to people who attempted to use Marxian analysis without actually studying history.

Marxists, however, have never explained the behavior of a regime by means of its own propaganda and rationalizations. We have always asked: what material interests lie behind the ruling ideas?

There are many types of bourgeois governments, and no doubt there will be many types of proletarian governments. The Marxist position is that all States are either dictatorships of the bourgeoisie or dictatorships of the proletariat, and that is what the USSR was. The particular shape of and competence of the government regime doesn't change its class nature. The Bolsheviks completely liquidated the capitalist class, so there can be no question as to its class nature. No socialist would say Bush doesn't rule for the bourgeoisie just because he may be incompetent or does not benefit certain capitalists or does things most of the capitalist class doesn't give a shit about (religion).

Mainstream scholars don't believe that Stalin set out to deliberately cause a famine, that's true.

But you have to be deep in psychological denial - to deny that his policies, especially forced collectivization, caused one.

Again, mainstream scholars simply don't agree with you here. I suggest looking into the work of Dr. Mark Tauger. Sure the policies played a part. Kulak resistance played a part, cadre zeal played a part, party mismanagement played a part. The primary cause was still the weather.

http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/soviet.htm

But you do.

No, I don't. Just to illustrate, if you modified your rhetoric to something more in line with mainstream scholarship, we probably wouldn't argue about much. If you just said you don't particularly like the USSR, and that Stalin did things you think were mistakes, even serious mistakes, that would be fine. But your position (assuming you have learned nothing from this discussions) is that of the bourgeois and extreme anti-communists: that Stalin was evil-incarnate, that he ate babies, and killed 300 million people.

All I would like you to admit is that Stalin was a genuine Marxist-Leninist who was genuinely concerned with building and spreading socialism. I don't ask you to think he made no mistakes (he certainly did) or that he wasn't at times brutal (this is true of nearly any socialist hero, Trotsky and Makhno definitely included). Well, I don't ask you to admit that just because, I would hope you realize this based on evidence and the arguments presented.

Severian

10th October 2006, 11:42

Originally posted by Intelligitimate+Oct 9 2006, 01:11 PM--> (Intelligitimate @ Oct 9 2006, 01:11 PM)
Excuse me, a regime doesn't have to be headed by Satan in order to seek to intimidate those it rules. That is, in fact, the most common function of repression - on whatever scale.

You'll have to forgive me for not seeing the relevance this has to what I stated. [/b]
You wrote - and I quoted - "Once you admit Stalin was not some cartoonishly evil despot, you basically have to admit more realistic explanations for events. You see, previous scholars would interpret the 'Great Terror' as some sort of devilish plot to terrorize the population in submission."

Originally posted by [email protected]

Severian

Marxists, however, have never explained the behavior of a regime by means of its own propaganda and rationalizations. We have always asked: what material interests lie behind the ruling ideas?
There are many types of bourgeois governments, and no doubt there will be many types of proletarian governments. The Marxist position is that all States are either dictatorships of the bourgeoisie or dictatorships of the proletariat, and that is what the USSR was.

That simplistic abstraction does nothing to contribute to a Marxist explanation of events. It does nothing to explain what class interests lay behind the Great Terror, or the ideas developed to justify those class interests (like a paranoid belief in omnipresent conspiracies.)

As Lenin pointed out, it was an abstraction to simply describe the USSR as a workers' state. Rather, it was a workers state with bureaucratic deformations, in a majority-peasant country under imperialist encirclement.

"Dictatorship of the proletariat" describes the property foundations underlying the state machine, right enough; but that doesn't automatically say who the political regime served.

Certainly the massive purges and their accompanying paranoid delusions didn't serve working-class interests.....and the workers weren't the only class in the USSR, so don't stop looking there. There was also this highly privileged bureaucracy......

(And BTW, Marx didn't think DoB and DoP were the only options, either....for example, he wrote the Paris Commune was a government of the working classes, plural - and that it wasn't and couldn't have been a socialist government. Anytime you start saying there are only two options, and if it wasn't one, it musta been the other....that's schematic and not starting from facts, i.e. not materialist. But that's a more general point about method.)

But your position (assuming you have learned nothing from this discussions) is that of the bourgeois and extreme anti-communists: that Stalin was evil-incarnate, that he ate babies, and killed 300 million people.

All I would like you to admit is that Stalin was a genuine Marxist-Leninist who was genuinely concerned with building and spreading socialism.

As if those two possibilities are the only options. (You're big on dividing everything into exactly two, aren't you? As if the world came with convenient pre-stressed "cut here" lines.)

Heck, as if those two views are even mutually exclusive! Many bourgeois writers seem to hold both of those views. The hold that Stalin was evil incarnate and killed more people than Hitler - and also that he was a "genuine Marxist-Leninist who was genuinely concerned with building and spreading socialism."

They do this in order to argue that those two are the same thing. And other bourgeois writers, who argue that Stalin was more moderately murderous - also agree that he was a communist, also in order to discredit communism. I doubt any of them would say that his policies served the needs of working people.....

Besides servant of Satan and representative of the working class, there is another possibility. That he served...another set of class interests. I'd suggest that's the beginning of a Marxist analysis of the history of the USSR. Explaining it in terms of individuals' "mistakes" is not remotely Marxist.

(Of course, I never said "that Stalin was evil-incarnate, that he ate babies, and killed 300 million people." Or anything like that.)

No socialist would say Bush doesn't rule for the bourgeoisie just because he may be incompetent or does not benefit certain capitalists or does things most of the capitalist class doesn't give a shit about (religion).

A digression here, but that's a liberal fallacy. He isn't incompetent, or stupid, and the faction of the bourgeoisie that thinks he is incompetent and stupid - has lost two elections to him. And can propose no basically different approach to advancing their common interests. So who's really stupid?

Their constant claims he's stupid only play into his hands - by playing the stereotyped role of the "liberal elite", they've contributed to the amazing success of this hereditary millionaire in his attempt to seem folksy and down with the common man.

And the capitalist class does care about religion - "religion must be kept alive for the sake of the people." Bush is, if anything, less concerned about the issues of the so-called Christian Right than past Republican presidents.

Again, mainstream scholars simply don't agree with you here. I suggest looking into the work of Dr. Mark Tauger. Sure the policies played a part. Kulak resistance played a part, cadre zeal played a part, party mismanagement played a part. The primary cause was still the weather.

Yeah, I tend to be sceptical of that kind of claims; weather-related problems can be overcome...if that's a priority. Some experts might claim those who died during and after Hurricane Katrina were primarily killed by weather. I disagree, those deaths were preventable....and the example of Cuba shows what can be done, even with limited resources....if the working class in charge.

Intelligitimate

10th October 2006, 22:31

Excuse me, a regime doesn't have to be headed by Satan in order to seek to intimidate those it rules. That is, in fact, the most common function of repression - on whatever scale.

The people repressed in the Great Terror were primarily people already in prison and people in the Party. The repression was not felt much at all by the population at large. So it would appear that this repression wasn’t very common at all.

That simplistic abstraction does nothing to contribute to a Marxist explanation of events.

That “simplistic abstraction” is the conclusion reached by Lenin after extensive analysis of Marx and Engels view of the State. If you want to call State and Revolution un-Marxist, that is your prerogative, but I see no reason to view any State outside of this context, which has been the context of the Marxist tradition for the last century.

"Dictatorship of the proletariat" describes the property foundations underlying the state machine, right enough; but that doesn't automatically say who the political regime served.

Obviously the Bolshevik regime tried to preserve its own existence, first and foremost. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is what is to be expected. Who they attempted to serve were the poor peasants, workers, and Red Army soldiers. Maybe you might argue they didn’t do that very well, but it would certainly be hard to argue their policies didn’t have their interests in mind.

Certainly the massive purges and their accompanying paranoid delusions didn't serve working-class interests…

I don’t see any reason to accept the purges didn’t have a positive effect. Many people, Hitler himself, believed it eliminated any potential Fifth Column in Russia. The military purges especially might have saved thousands of lives by eliminating generals like Vlaslov before they had a chance to betray the USSR.

and the workers weren't the only class in the USSR, so don't stop looking there. There was also this highly privileged bureaucracy

First of all, I would ask you to present evidence regarding the extent of the privileged of the Nomenklatura under Stalin. I’m not aware of anything suggesting it was very extensive until the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras.

In any case, even the worst of the Nomenklatura were nowhere near privileged as Western Capitalists. The poster-boy of Party privilege was Ceausescu, and his entire estate after he died didn’t fetch much more than a half a million dollars, and that was only because collectors wanted his stuff.

And BTW, Marx didn't think DoB and DoP were the only options, either....for example, he wrote the Paris Commune was a government of the working classes, plural - and that it wasn't and couldn't have been a socialist government.

Socialism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat are not the same thing. I wouldn’t even put the USSR as socialist until the 30s, though it was a DoP since 1917.

As if those two possibilities are the only options.

Certainly not, but that is generally the only views people are confronted with on these forums. I think the truth lies somewhere between ‘Stalin as Hero’ and the picture painted by modern scholars like Getty and Thurston. ‘Stalin as Villian’ is the popular one among anarchists and Trots.

Heck, as if those two views are even mutually exclusive! Many bourgeois writers seem to hold both of those views.

True, but as our audience is not composed of bourgeois writers, I don’t see the need to argue about this option. Most Leftists want Stalin to be not only evil but non-socialist/Marxist, and so I framed the issue in these terms.

Besides servant of Satan and representative of the working class, there is another possibility. That he served...another set of class interests. I'd suggest that's the beginning of a Marxist analysis of the history of the USSR.

I would say you would have to start that as your premise, because there is no way you can get the evidence to show it.

Explaining it in terms of individuals' "mistakes" is not remotely Marxist.

It is not Marxist to believe everything people advocate has something to do with their class-interest. It’s not only not Marxist, it is stupid. Do you think poor people are religious because of their class interests?

Of course, I never said "that Stalin was evil-incarnate, that he ate babies, and killed 300 million people." Or anything like that.

Ok, fine. You seem to be wanting to say he wasn’t a socialist/Marxist and that he ruled in the interests of some bureaucracy. I can’t guess offhand which version of this idea you espouse (Trotsky’s “Degenerated Worker’s State,” FI’s “Deformed Worker’s State,” Shachtman’s “Bureaucratic collectivism,” Cliff’s “State Capitalism” etc, etc), but I’m not too interested in arguing this unless you are able to actually deal with the issue in a scholarly way.

A digression here, but that's a liberal fallacy.

Of course it is. I never meant to imply I personally believe Bush is incompetent.

Yeah, I tend to be sceptical of that kind of claims

That’s fine with me, as long as you admit the weight of scholarly opinion is against you (and it most certainly is in this case).

Mesijs

13th October 2006, 00:18

Originally posted by Joseph [email protected] 8 2006, 11:22 PM
Mesijis last post is absurd. I thought this was a serious historical discussion. He shows a lot of pictures of Nazi atocities and then says that similar evidence of communist atrocities is available without showing it. This sort of line comes from being a citizen of a imperialist nation and getting bloated on the super-profits produced by the sweat of the masses in the oppressed nations. It's interesting how many liberal and social democratic pigs in Germany supported Hitler because they thought he would save them from Bolshevism. Now people with the same line want to compare Hitler to Stalin. Funny that, isn't it?

Joseph Ball www.re-evaluationmao.org
http://www.gulag.hu/images/gulag_ag1_improved.jpgOk, here they are:

Stalin signing to kill thousands of Polish officers:

http://www.videofact.com/images/katyn3_opt.jpg

The massacre:

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid83/p326f08fe46639552790dcd26d266b7b1/fae03ab2.jpg

Massacre of POW's:

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid83/pbfc668ca58447a1a27b9686f75c40984/fae03ae7.jpg

A map of all the gulag camps. They must have a lot of 'criminals' in the USSR!

There's also a strange Islamic documentary called 'The Bloody History of Communism' (yes it's a dumb documentary), with a lot of historical content, of executions and such.

Here's another site with pics: http://www.lietuvos.net/istorija/communism/

Here's a site with biggest mass-murderers of 20th century, just look through all the notes and techniques hoe he came with the numbers: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM

Here's the Wikipedia page for 'gualg'. It also gives A LOT of references to books and sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag