The crimes of Stalin

[Black Radical]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 10:53 PM

I don't have proof but neither do you. Im only going on what figures i have. Maybe they are bourgeois figures but they are still the only one's i have

Since you're the one making the accusations, i believe the burden of proof remains in your hands ;)
I agree, you cannot prove people were not raped. Thats a ridiculous request. If you claim something happened, you have to prove it. Its like proving god doesn't exist. You don't have to prove that, believers have to prove that he does exist.

[Maksym]

Originally posted by Makaveli_05+Apr 3 2005, 08:23 PM--> (Makaveli_05 @ Apr 3 2005, 08:23 PM)
[email protected] 3 2005, 07:31 PM

As for saying he wanted to restore capitalism..... . Small time private trade hardly makes for a capitalist economy. If it does, then i suppose Lenin wanted capitalism as well. NEP anyone ???

And where the fuck is your proof 2 million women weren't raped ? You seem to be a typical narrow-minded Stalinist and nothing more.

What proof do you have the Red army raped 2 million women? All reprisals taken against the German were individually motivated and not sanctioned by the Red Army. The Germans murdered 7 million soldiers, 3.2 million POWs and 17 million civilians. The Germans were planning to exterminate the Slavic race and enslave a minority that survived. They have no right to complain about the reprisals taken against them.

NEP was only a temporary economic model to rebuild the USSR after seven years of war. Lenin never intended it to be nothing more then temporary.
I don't have proof but neither do you. Im only going on what figures i have. Maybe they are bourgeois figures but they are still the only one's i have.

So you are saying that ordinary German women had no right to complain about being raped because of the Nazis actions ? I thought we were past the childish stage of branding all German's in the 1930's nazis. And the last time i heard it was 11 million civilians, not 17 million. You wouldn't happen to be a revisionist Stalinist would you ?

And Bukharin only intended the NEP to be temporary as well. Just because he opposed rapid industrialisation doesn't mean he opposed industrialistion. [/b]
The USSR lost 27 million people. 7.5 million soldiers, 3.2 million POWs and 17 million civilians. This is the official figure from any Russian source. The Americans inflate the number of military casualties by including POWs as combat dead. This is because they are defending the Fascists, since they became friends after WW2.
All the armies that occupied Germany’s territory raped German women. If the Russians raped millions of German women then where are the babies?


USA ... 36,334 France ... 10,188 Great Britain ... 8,397 Soviet Union ... 3,105 Belgium ... 1,767 Undetermined ... 6,829

http://www.cronaca.com/archives/002461.html

The German nation is collectively responsible for the crimes of the Nazi’s. The majority of Germans understand this, the only people who are complaining seem to be closet Fascists in America.

[Redmau5]

We got a bit off-topic with the whole Red Army rape thing. Could we just talk about Stalin and HIS crimes, which are undeniable.

[waltersm]

stalin was a criminal, he ordered the killing of millions, a fascist act, he was not a true communist, and the misconception that he was is the reason marxism is associated with evil, we really need to start an education orginization or something

[OleMarxco]

That would be bankrupt because capitalists would not donate it with money ;)
What if the millions where counter-revolutionists to the system? Is that fascistic? What if he -were- communistic? Perhaps it is his fault Marxism appears so evil but renember: Hard at the Hard. But I'll join that education org, feh'sho, comrade ;)

[shadows]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2005, 03:38 PM
stalin was a criminal, he ordered the killing of millions, a fascist act, he was not a true communist


Well, I suppose Stalin considered himself a communist, perhaps even a good Bolshevik. And it was Lenin who acknowledged both Trotsky and Stalin were capable leaders (Deutscher, in the Trotsky trilogy). At different conjunctures, each of them had significant roles to play. The crimes of Stalin relate not just to the person of Stalin, but to the overall degeneration of the Bolshevik party, which as history has shown was greatly decimate under the grip of Stalin, but also to the desperation of the Bolsheviks to hold on to the gains made from the 1917 revolution. It was a series of steps from the dictatorship of the proletariat (in a land where little existed of this class) to the dictatorship of the Party, to the dictatorship of the Supreme Leader.

[Redmau5]

We have to remember Stalin was still sub-ordinate to the Central Committee, a point which isn't stressed enough. Although he was a murderous bastard, it was the Central Committee that allowed him to be. They have as much blood on their hands as Stalin himself.

[Redmau5]

Im surprised comrade Rice hasn't been on recently to defend Stalin. Where are you Rice ? The place seems less authoritative without you. Lol

[rice349]

Im surprised comrade Rice hasn't been on recently to defend Stalin. Where are you Rice ? The place seems less authoritative without you. Lol

:D glad to see i have made somewhat of an impact. I don't get to come on as much anymore, and when i do i usually post at E-G

[Red Skyscraper]

Im surprised comrade Rice hasn't been on recently to defend Stalin. Where are you Rice ? The place seems less authoritative without you. Lol

Well when you encounter little 4 year olds who don't know how to use spell-check and use the History Channel, Google, and wikipedia as their "undisputed" sources of information, you're bound to give up hanging around here...

[Poum_1936]

This may have been said somwhere but I'm just gonna post it for shits and giggles.

Stalin:

-Killed some 10-15 million people (just in the Purges - deaths from famine etc. are not counted, as with Lenin, even though Stalin had one million times more responsibility than Lenin for the famines during his rule)
-His government rested solely on the bureaucracy and the police, and maintaining fear in the population
-Killed more communists than Hitler, Franco and Mussolini combined
-Falsified the history of Bolshevism
-No Party democracy, the only reason congresses were ever held was to ratify some decision of the "leaders"
-Destroyed the first democratic workers' state and replaced it with a totalitarian machine
-Shut down the Comintern without even a congress
-Poisoned the minds of generations of Communists with chauvinism and despotism
-Betrayed the British General Strike in 1926
-Destroyed the Chinese Revolution in 1927
-Through "third period" politics, allowed Hitler to come to power
-Through "Popular Front" politics, allowed Franco to come to power
-Signed a Pact with Hitler allowing him to overrun Western Europe
-Killed the officers of the Red Army
-Went hiding during the first days of Operation Barbarossa
-His Stalinist parties have destroyed the whole world revolution since WWII (just off the top of my mind: Greece, Chile, Sudan, Venezuela, France, Italy are some of the countries that could be socialist if it wasn't for him and his bureaucracy. There are probably dozens more)
-Sullied the names of Marxism, communism and socialism

[bolshevik butcher]

That's well summed up.

[rice349]

Stalin:

-Killed some 10-15 million people (just in the Purges - deaths from famine etc. are not counted, as with Lenin, even though Stalin had one million times more responsibility than Lenin for the famines during his rule)
-His government rested solely on the bureaucracy and the police, and maintaining fear in the population
-Killed more communists than Hitler, Franco and Mussolini combined
-Falsified the history of Bolshevism
-No Party democracy, the only reason congresses were ever held was to ratify some decision of the "leaders"
-Destroyed the first democratic workers' state and replaced it with a totalitarian machine
-Shut down the Comintern without even a congress
-Poisoned the minds of generations of Communists with chauvinism and despotism
-Betrayed the British General Strike in 1926
-Destroyed the Chinese Revolution in 1927
-Through "third period" politics, allowed Hitler to come to power
-Through "Popular Front" politics, allowed Franco to come to power
-Signed a Pact with Hitler allowing him to overrun Western Europe
-Killed the officers of the Red Army
-Went hiding during the first days of Operation Barbarossa
-His Stalinist parties have destroyed the whole world revolution since WWII (just off the top of my mind: Greece, Chile, Sudan, Venezuela, France, Italy are some of the countries that could be socialist if it wasn't for him and his bureaucracy. There are probably dozens more)
-Sullied the names of Marxism, communism and socialism

History Channel bullshit...

[Red Skyscraper]

Indeed, it is history channel bullshit. Those jackasses could be ghostwriters for the next Tom Clancy novel. :lol:

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 03:26 PM


Stalin:

-Killed some 10-15 million people (just in the Purges - deaths from famine etc. are not counted, as with Lenin, even though Stalin had one million times more responsibility than Lenin for the famines during his rule)
-His government rested solely on the bureaucracy and the police, and maintaining fear in the population
-Killed more communists than Hitler, Franco and Mussolini combined
-Falsified the history of Bolshevism
-No Party democracy, the only reason congresses were ever held was to ratify some decision of the "leaders"
-Destroyed the first democratic workers' state and replaced it with a totalitarian machine
-Shut down the Comintern without even a congress
-Poisoned the minds of generations of Communists with chauvinism and despotism
-Betrayed the British General Strike in 1926
-Destroyed the Chinese Revolution in 1927
-Through "third period" politics, allowed Hitler to come to power
-Through "Popular Front" politics, allowed Franco to come to power
-Signed a Pact with Hitler allowing him to overrun Western Europe
-Killed the officers of the Red Army
-Went hiding during the first days of Operation Barbarossa
-His Stalinist parties have destroyed the whole world revolution since WWII (just off the top of my mind: Greece, Chile, Sudan, Venezuela, France, Italy are some of the countries that could be socialist if it wasn't for him and his bureaucracy. There are probably dozens more)
-Sullied the names of Marxism, communism and socialism

History Channel bullshit...
Oh yeh, i suppose you know people who were in ukraine druing the famine? STOP LIVING A FANTASY

[rice349]

Oh yeh, i suppose you know people who were in ukraine druing the famine? STOP LIVING A FANTASY

Considering my family is Georgia and directly near the Ukraine, well yes, I tend to know a little about this...perhaps you should be questioning your understanding of history and geopolitical biases in western history...

Secondly, i suppose you know full-well the ideological intentions of those who feed you this kind of bullshit, nonsensical information? :rolleyes:

[Redmau5]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 03:44 PM

Oh yeh, i suppose you know people who were in ukraine druing the famine? STOP LIVING A FANTASY

Considering my family is Georgia and directly near the Ukraine, well yes, I tend to know a little about this...perhaps you should be questioning your understanding of history and geopolitical biases in western history...

Secondly, i suppose you know full-well the ideological intentions of those who feed you this kind of bullshit, nonsensical information? :rolleyes:
The killing of the old Bolshevik guard is an unforgivable crime, one which Lenin would have never approved off. This alone should prove that Stalin was only interested in furthering his own ambitions, rather than looking out for his party comrades and furthering the socialist cause.

[Red Skyscraper]

The killing of the old Bolshevik guard is an unforgivable crime, one which Lenin would have never approved off

No, Lenin would have definitely welcomed this. He saw the Trotskyites as deviating from the Party line and causing problems and if he had lived a few years longer he would have done the same thing. And then you Trots would be screaming "Leninist!" instead of "Stalinist!" :lol:

Want proof? Two articles by Lenin for example on Trotskyite misbehavior:

Lenin "Adventurism"

http://marx2mao.phpwebhosting.com/Lenin/A14.html


Now take the other groups which pose as "trends". We shall enumerate them: 1) the Vperyod group plus Alexinsky; 2) ditto plus Bogdanov; 3) ditto plus Voinov; 4) the Plekhanovites; 5) the "pro-Party Bolsheviks" (actually conciliators: Mark Sommer and his crowd); 6) the Trotskyists (i.e., Trotsky even minus Semkovsky); 7) the "Caucasians" (i.e., An minus the Caucasus).

We have enumerated the groups mentioned in the press. In Russia and abroad they have stated that they want to be separate "trends" and groups. We have tried to list all the Russian groups, omitting the non-Russian.

All these groups, without exception, represent sheer adventurism.

"Why? Where is the proof?" the reader will ask.

Proof is provided by the history of the last decade (1904-14), which is most eventful and significant. During these ten years members of these groups have displayed the most helpless, most pitiful, most ludicrous vacillation on serious questions of tactics and organisation, and have shown their utter inability to create trends with roots among the masses.

Lenin, "Judas Trotsky's Blush of Shame"

http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/JT11.html


JUDAS TROTSKY'S BLUSH OF SHAME


At the Plenary Meeting Judas Trotsky made a big show of fighting liquidationism and otzovism. He vowed and swore that he was true to the Party. He was given a subsidy.

After the Meeting the Central Committee grew weaker, the Vperyod group grew stronger and acquired funds. The liquidators strengthened their position and in Nasha Zarya [26] spat in the face of the illegal Party, before Stolypin's very eyes.

Judas expelled the representative of the Central Committee from Pravda and began to write liquidationist articles in Vorwärts.[27] In defiance of the direct decision of the School Commission[28] appointed by the Plenary Meeting to the effect that no Party lecturer may go to the Vperyod factional school, Judas Trotsky did go and discussed a plan for a conference with the Vperyod group. This plan has now been published by the Vperyod group in a leaflet.

And it is this Judas who beats his breast and loudly professes his loyalty to the Party, claiming that he did not grovel before the Vperyod group and the liquidators.

Such is Judas Trotsky's blush of shame.

[Redmau5]

That was the biggest load of complete bullshit i've ever read.

If you know anything, you'll know Lenin followed Trotsky's line when he was close to death. Lenin began to criticise Stalin and the Rabkrin, something which Trotsky had been doing all along. He also clamped down on Stalin over the nationalities problem despite having sided with him earlier. Lenin said he was going to "crush Stalin politically". Lenin began making moves to lessen the party bureacracy and to focus the economic plan, which had once again been advocated by Trotsky from the start.

Of course Trotsky wasn't always in Lenin's good books either, and this was remarked upon in Lenin's final testament. But he definitly favoured Trotsky over Stalin. Lenin's final testament, if it had been read out, would have ended Stalin's role as general secretariat.

Face it. Lenin did not want Stalin as General secretary let alone head of the party and USSR.

[Edelweiss]

RS, 90% of all of your posts are on Stalin, this is ridiculous. You obviesly have some kind of sick obsession about him, I suggest you to grow up and get into real leftist poltics, instead of wasting all of your energy with this boring Stalin busllshit. Same goes gor other Stalin kiddies like rice349. If you just came here to debate on Stalin, and proof us "Trotanarchists, pot-smoking, hippies on Che-Libs" your truths, please leave now and stay in your own fascist E-G.com ghetto. Once again, I'm totally sick of you. You are a joke.

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 03:44 PM

Oh yeh, i suppose you know people who were in ukraine druing the famine? STOP LIVING A FANTASY

Considering my family is Georgia and directly near the Ukraine, well yes, I tend to know a little about this...perhaps you should be questioning your understanding of history and geopolitical biases in western history...

Secondly, i suppose you know full-well the ideological intentions of those who feed you this kind of bullshit, nonsensical information? :rolleyes:
well thrankly you are an insult to there memeories. My family lived through it, and then Stlain's eman tried to shoot my grnadad when he returned to Ukraine after fighting for Stlain and being taken prisoner. No doubt you'll tell me he was a traitor.

[Maksym]

-Killed some 10-15 million people (just in the Purges - deaths from famine etc. are not counted, as with Lenin, even though Stalin had one million times more responsibility than Lenin for the famines during his rule)

Here is a document on the total number of people serving in labour camps and the total number of deaths.




Year Average number of prisoners Died Percentage
1931 240.350 ------------------------- 7283 3,03
1932 301.500 -------------------------- 13267 4,40
1933 422.304 -------------------------- 67297 15,94
1934 617.895 --------------------------26295 4,26
1935 782.445 ------------------------- 28328 3,62
1936 830.144 ------------------------- 20595 2,48
1937 908.624 ------------------------- 25376 2,79
1938 1.156.781 --------------------- ---90546 7,83
1939 1.330.802 -------------------- ---50502 3,79
1940 1.422.466 ----------------------- 46665 3,28
1941 1.458.060 ----------------------- 100997 6,93
1942 1.199.785 ----------------------- 248877 20,74
1943 823.784 ------------------------- 166967 20,27
1944 689.550 -------------------- -----60948 8,84
1945 658.202 ------------------------- 43848 6,66
1946 704.868 ------------------------- 18154 2,58
1947 958.448 --------------------------35668 3,72
1948 1.316.331 -------------------- ---15739 1,20
1949 1.475.034 -------------------- ---14703 1,00
1950 1.622.485 ----------------------- 15587 0,96
1951 1.719.586 -------------------- ---13806 0,80
28. V.N.Zemskov. GULAG (historico-sociologic aspect)// sociological studies. 1991, №'. Of s.yya-yshch; 1931-1940. - GARF, f.9yayya, op.y, d.yyshchshch, l.2; d.2"ya0, l.y, 5, 8, 14, 26, 38, 42, 48, 58, 96-110; 1949-1952. - Dugin A.N. The unknown GULAG: Documents and facts. M.: Science, 1999. S.yay, 43, 45, 49.

Document released by the Russian State Archive

The USSR had the highest growth rate out of these nations. It is impossible for so many people to have died.


· Country --- Year --- Population --- Year --- Population --- Annual Growth Rate
England --- 1920 --- 43'718 --- 1960 --- 52'559 --- 0,46%
France --- 1920 --- 38'750 --- 1960 --- 45'684 --- 0,41%
Germany --- 1920 --- 61'794 --- 1960 --- 72'664 --- 0,41%
RE/USSR --- 1913 --- 159'153 --- 1959 --- 208'827 --- 0,60%



-Went hiding during the first days of Operation Barbarossa

Here are the people Stalin met when he was “hiding”:

21.06.41 wrote:


1. Molotov: 18.27 - 23.00
2. Voroshilov: 19.05 - 23.00
3. Beriya: 19.05 - 23.00
4. Voznesenskiy: 19.05 - 20.15
5. Malenkov: 19.05 - 22.20
6. Kuznezov: 19.05 - 20.15
7. Timoshenko: 19.05 - 20.15
8. Safonov: 19.05 - 20.15
9. Timoshenko: 20.50 - 22.20
10. Zhukov: 20.50 - 22.20
11. Budennyy: 20.50 - 22.00
12. Mechlis: 21.55 - 22.20
13. Beriya: 22.40 - 23.00

22.06.41 wrote:



1. Molotov: 5.45 - 12.05
2. Beriya: 5.45 - 9.20
3. Timoshenko: 5.45 - 8.30
4. Mechlis: 5.45 - 8.30
5. Zhukov: 5.45 - 8.30
6. Malenkov: 7.30 - 9.20
7. Mikoyan: 7.55 - 9.30
8. Kaganovich L.M.: 8.00 - 9.35
9. Voroshilov: 8.00 - 10.15
10. Vyshinskiy: 7.30 - 10.40
11. Kuznezov: 8.15 - 8.30
12. Dimitrov: 8.40 - 10.40
13. Manuil'skiy: 8.40 - 10.40
14. Kuznezov: 9.40 - 10.20
15. Mikoyan: 9.50 - 10.30
16. Molotov: 12.25 - 16.45
17. Voroshilov: 11.40 - 12.05
18. Beriya: 11.30 - 12.00
19. Malenkov: 11.30 - 12.00
20. Voroshilov: 12.30 - 16.45
21. Mikoyan: 12.30 - 14.30
22. Vyshinskiy: 13.05 - 15.25
23. Shaposhnikov: 13.15 - 16.00
24. Timoshenko: 14.00 - 16.00
25. Zhukov: 14.00 - 16.00
26. Vatutin: 14.00 - 16.00
27. Kuznezov: 15.20 - 15.45
28. Kulik: 15.30 - 16.00
29. Beriya: 16.25 - 16.40


http://img225.exs.cx/img225/796/tetradm4vr.gif

Considering the actions that are being taken against a few of the users from comradeche, this will probably be my last post. Farewell.

[Redmau5]

What was that ? Just looks like non-sensical trash.

[Anti-establishment]

Anyone who can read that deserves a medal, no doubt the loser who wrote it was awarded somethin by Stalin.

Probably Gulagged himself a while later.

[wifkgoehj]

That was the biggest load of complete bullshit i've ever read.

You mean like you're bullshit? Hey, this is Lenin talking buddy, but since you don't know how to read, well there you go.


If you know anything, you'll know Lenin followed Trotsky's line when he was close to death. Lenin began to criticise Stalin and the Rabkrin, something which Trotsky had been doing all along. He also clamped down on Stalin over the nationalities problem despite having sided with him earlier. Lenin said he was going to "crush Stalin politically". Lenin began making moves to lessen the party bureacracy and to focus the economic plan, which had once again been advocated by Trotsky from the start.

Oy vey how very smart of you, my sinuses are all oyy...

Ever realized the testament was a forgery, Twatskyite?

http://www.mltranslations.org/Russia/LeninTest.htm


Of course Trotsky wasn't always in Lenin's good books either

Oh my, this is an understatement. Twatsky and the Twatskyites were never in Lenin's good books, ever. Stalin was a true faithful comrade of Lenin, while Twatsky Judas went to sell out the proletariat for his own slimy skin.

Newsflash: Trotsky was a mortal enemy of Marxism-Leninism, and had Lenin lived a few more years Trots would be screaming "Leninist!" instead of "Stalinist!" :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


RS, 90% of all of your posts are on Stalin, this is ridiculous.

No, I'm defending the Great Soviet Leader against LSD-infested retards like yourself from smearing his good name. Because he did save the world and build true socialism and there's not a damned thing you can say that will prove otherwise.


I suggest you to grow up and get into real leftist poltics

Wow, you tell me to "grow up" and yet you can't spell for shit? That's rich. But typical of the stupidity around here, especially concerning yourself, son. And hey, I don't waste my time screaming "Nazi!" like I have some kind of hard-on or something, and I don't waste my time selling Che T-Shirts. And if Che were alive he'd put your worthless ass in front of a brick wall and shoot you. :lol: :lol:


instead of wasting all of your energy with this boring Stalin busllshit.

Well I'm glad I touched a nerve, boy. Hey, at least I provide some real answers instead of what this fuckhole has got to offer. :D


Same goes gor other Stalin kiddies like rice349.

Huh, The Twatskyanarchy Kiddies are pissed off we're giving off the real answers! :D


If you just came here to debate on Stalin, and proof us "Trotanarchists, pot-smoking, hippies on Che-Libs" your truths, please leave now and stay in your own fascist E-G.com ghetto.

Oh don't worry asswipe, I won't be hanging around here...for a long while. E-G certainly beats the hell out of Che-Libs hands down any day.

So much for the lies about "Stalinism" being more accepted at Che-Libs/Retarded-Left. You guys were hypocrites since day one. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Edelweiss]

No, I'm defending the Great Soviet Leader against LSD-infested retards like yourself from smearing his good name. Because he did save the world and build true socialism and there's not a damned thing you can say that will prove otherwise.

Socialism is not a fucking religion! Again, you disqualify yourself from being taken serioulsy by anyone but your Stalin kiddie friends. Hear yourself, you speak like Dubya when he speaks about Jesus. I don't know what it is what gets you so obsessed about the "Great Soviet Leader", maybe it's some father replacement for you or whatever, but PLEASE don't waste our bandwidth with your issues. Just shut up when adults are speaking.

[Poum_1936]

Indeed, it is history channel bullshit. Those jackasses could be ghostwriters for the next Tom Clancy novel.

Slightly true. The Hunt for Red October was based on a somewhat true story. But instead of defecting over to the US, the sub (i believe it was a sub) commander was attempting to taken down the ruling Soviet regime and put in place a genuine socialist democracy. I think he was attempting to try being another Potemkin.

But History Channel isnt all bullshit anymore. They have brought Marxists onto their program on the French Revolution. Of course it was a "Twatskyist." More proof that Stalinists have to resort to such petty childish nonsense such as "Twatsky."

Have you looked at Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution? The idea that in a backwards country the bourgeoisie are inseperably linked to the old feudal society and that the works must put forth the bourgeois democratic tasks but not stop there but go even further and carry out the socialist tasks as well. Lenin in 1905 did not think that was possible. But in 1917 that is exactly the line of thought Lenin had and was carried out by the Bolshevik party.

[cormacobear]

I've met several people who lived in the Ukraine, (edmonton has both a large Ukrainian Pop, and a large Senior Citizen, pop.), And they all confirmed there was famine during the early portion of Stalin's reign but that it was certainly not as prevelant as was taught to us in western schools. I've found the U.S. History channel to be signifigantly biased, and virtually all there content is U.S. history of the last 100 years. The Canadian History channel is only a little less biased, but has far more content from other countries and other periods.

several Russian historians i've read put Stalins death toll between 3 and four million excluding famine victims. I',ve seen figures from the famine in the Ukraine ranging from about 4-6 million in the western press, and as low as 20,000 from Russian news of the period. Though the truth is likely somewhere in between, the most credible accounts i've seen were about 150,000- 250,000.

It's certainly important that we remain aware of Stalins crimes against his people, but we should take any western reports with a grain of salt, after all we know we've been lied to before. Lenin had problems with both Trotsky and Stalin. BUt seemed to lean more towards Trotsky in his last year, although he thought Trotsky was too beurocratic and lacking in Charisma, but he was aware of Stalin's totalitarian and violent views.

I've seen most of the documents posted by Marksym before. The first is a list of Gulag prisoners that died in the 20 years between 1931-1951, a total of 1, 067, 600 people. That doesn't include those who were just executed. The other documents are provided as proof of Stalin going into hiding during the Barberosa period. I don't know much about that.

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2005, 12:01 PM
I've met several people who lived in the Ukraine, (edmonton has both a large Ukrainian Pop, and a large Senior Citizen, pop.), And they all confirmed there was famine during the early portion of Stalin's reign but that it was certainly not as prevelant as was taught to us in western schools. I've found the U.S. History channel to be signifigantly biased, and virtually all there content is U.S. history of the last 100 years. The Canadian History channel is only a little less biased, but has far more content from other countries and other periods.

several Russian historians i've read put Stalins death toll between 3 and four million excluding famine victims. I',ve seen figures from the famine in the Ukraine ranging from about 4-6 million in the western press, and as low as 20,000 from Russian news of the period. Though the truth is likely somewhere in between, the most credible accounts i've seen were about 150,000- 250,000.

It's certainly important that we remain aware of Stalins crimes against his people, but we should take any western reports with a grain of salt, after all we know we've been lied to before. Lenin had problems with both Trotsky and Stalin. BUt seemed to lean more towards Trotsky in his last year, although he thought Trotsky was too beurocratic and lacking in Charisma, but he was aware of Stalin's totalitarian and violent views.

I've seen most of the documents posted by Marksym before. The first is a list of Gulag prisoners that died in the 20 years between 1931-1951, a total of 1, 067, 600 people. That doesn't include those who were just executed. The other documents are provided as proof of Stalin going into hiding during the Barberosa period. I don't know much about that.
ok, but there was a famine, and the purges happened, as well, they were not made up.

[trotsky4ever]

ok, but there was a famine, and the purges happened, as well, they were not made up.

you're already backpeddling. if you want anybody to believe your ludicrous claims about the man made Ukrainian famine then you better provide proff, it's not up to us to provide proof that something DIDN'T happen, its up to you to prove that something didn't happen.

Also, purge doens't simply mean killed or sent to a gulag, it simply means forced out of the party. You know, like when self-conscious people "binge and purge" they aren't killing themselves (well not overtly) they are exiting the food from their digestive system. Stalin exited the counter-revolutionary twats out of the party during the purges...

[Redmau5]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 11:02 PM
Newsflash: Trotsky was a mortal enemy of Marxism-Leninism, and had Lenin lived a few more years Trots would be screaming "Leninist!" instead of "Stalinist!" :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:





Newsflash : You're an idiot. If Trotsky was the "mortal enemy" why did he lead the Red Army to victory in the Civil War ? Surely if you were someone's "mortal enemy" you would join the opposition rather than fight for the enemy.

Wait, i know what you're gonna squeal. "Trotsky didn't do anything in the Civil War, comrade Stalin was in the background controlling it all !". Wise up to yourself and that Stalinist revisionist bullshit.

Stalin was all too happy to fill the position that Lenin left behind, which explains why he changed sides so much during the power struggle. How could he betray so many people ? During his time as General Secretary he was allied with Kamenev, Zinoviev (left), Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky (right). Must have been a pretty fickle guy <_< . He was only concerned with power, and this explains why he was a turn-coat to so many of the Old Guard and his old comrades.


Huh, The Twatskyanarchy Kiddies are pissed off we&#39;re giving off the real answers&#33; :D

You&#39;re talking real shit, but that&#39;s about it. Trotsky-Anarchy ? Are you thick ? I seem to recall a little event known as the Kronstadt Mutiny which Trotsky suppressed. There were many anarchist sailors based at Kronstadt. Why would Trotsky do that if he had anarchist sympathies? Stalin was the only arch-traitor of the revolution. Just because he killed and exiled his comrades doesn&#39;t mean Trotsky did.

You&#39;re pathetic, and so&#39;s your argument.

[trotsky4ever]

why did he lead the Red Army to victory in the Civil War ? Surely if you were someone&#39;s "mortal enemy" you would join the opposition rather than fight for the enemy.

because he&#39;s an opportunist. i love trotsky, he&#39;s my hero and represents everything i want to be; however, i think he was doing the right thing when he led the Red Army so he could later use this as a means of trying to get ahead and control the party for himself. Excellent thinking comrade trotsky, you&#39;re a hero to coffee shop revolutionaries everywhere ;)


Stalin was all too happy to fill the position that Lenin left behind, which explains why he changed sides so much during the power struggle. How could he betray so many people ? During his time as General Secretary he was allied with Kamenev, Zinoviev (left), Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky (right). Must have been a pretty fickle guy . He was only concerned with power, and this explains why he was a turn-coat to so many of the Old Guard and his old comrades.

And comrade Trotsky must have been pretty bitter when he wasn&#39;t able to get ahold of the party either....What a shame.



You&#39;re talking real shit, but that&#39;s about it. Trotsky-Anarchy ? Are you thick ? I seem to recall a little event known as the Kronstadt Mutiny which Trotsky suppressed. There were many anarchist sailors based at Kronstadt. Why would Trotsky do that if he had anarchist sympathies? Stalin was the only arch-traitor of the revolution. Just because he killed and exiled his comrades doesn&#39;t mean Trotsky did.

You&#39;re pathetic, and so&#39;s your argument.

Trotsky-Anarchy refers to the mutated ideology of comrades like myself who also embrace petit-bourgeois liberalism along with trotskyite nonsensical rhetoric as the guiding philosophy of the masses...err..i meant marxism-leninism. :rolleyes:

[1936]

Come into live chat rice.

[bolshevik butcher]

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/stalin.htm follow the links if your not happy.

[Poum_1936]

BUt seemed to lean more towards Trotsky in his last year, although he thought Trotsky was too beurocratic and lacking in Charisma

Not excatly true. "Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People&#39;s Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work." -Lenin

But Trotsky had much charisma which gained him alot of popularity after the 1905 revolution for his role as president of the St. Petersburg Soviet.

“His [Trotsky’s] popularity among the Petersburg proletariat at the time of his arrest [in December] was tremendous and increased still more as a result of his picturesque and heroic behaviour in court. I must say that of all the social democratic leaders of 1905-06 Trotsky undoubtedly showed himself, despite his youth, to be the best prepared. Less than any of them did he bear the stamp of a certain kind of émigré narrowness of outlook which, as I have said, even affected Lenin at that time. Trotsky understood better than all the others what it means to conduct the political struggle on a broad, national scale. He emerged from the revolution having acquired an enormous degree of popularity, whereas neither Lenin nor Martov had effectively gained any at all. Plekhanov had lost a great deal, thanks to his display of quasi-Cadet tendencies. Trotsky stood then in the very front rank.” -Lunacharsky

Lunacharsky recalls that Trotsky “held himself apart not only from us but from the Mensheviks too. His work was largely carried out in the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and together with Parvus he organised some sort of separate group which published a very militant and very well-edited small and cheap newspaper Nachalo”. And he adds: “I remember someone saying in Lenin’s presence: ‘Khrustalyov’s star is waning and now the strong man in the Soviet is Trotsky’. Lenin’s face darkened for a moment, then he said: ‘Well, Trotsky has earned it by his brilliant and unflagging work’.”

One of Trotsky&#39;s most notable achievements at the time was the publication of a mass revolutionary daily paper named "Nachalo." By December 1905 the circulation of the paper reached as high as 500,000. It had a much higher circulation than Novaya Zhizn which was edited by Kamenev. Even Kamenev remarked "The demand was only for revolutionary papers. &#39;Nachalo, Nachalo, Nachalo,&#39; came the cry of the waiting crowds. &#39;Novaya Zhizn&#39; and then &#39;Nachalo, Nachalo, Nachalo.&#39; Then I said to myself, with a feeling of resentment, they do write better in Nachalo then we do."

The Bolshevik Novaya Zhizn also had this to say on the appearance of Trotsky&#39;s first issue of Nachalo: "The first number of Nachalo has come out. We welcome a comrade in the struggle. The first issue is notable for the brilliant description of the October strike written by Comrade Trotsky."

The Meneshevik leader Dan also write a letter to Trosky concerning Nachalo. "In St. Petersburg they founded a newspaper, Nachalo, which succeeded Iskra, and throughout November and December 1905 it carried the most radical prouncements, hardly distinguishable from those in the Bolshevik paper, Novaya Zhizn."


because he&#39;s an opportunist. i love trotsky, he&#39;s my hero and represents everything i want to be; however, i think he was doing the right thing when he led the Red Army so he could later use this as a means of trying to get ahead and control the party for himself. Excellent thinking comrade trotsky, you&#39;re a hero to coffee shop revolutionaries everywhere

Thats a new low. Im not used to debating Stalinist&#39;s but this is just a shame. This is the only defence they can give? Such nonsense that could be acredited to the Republicans?

At least a Stalinist comrade from Pakistan who I have talked to alittle bit is willing to debate and listen. And not have to resort to such assine methods such as...


Trotsky-Anarchy refers to the mutated ideology of comrades like myself who also embrace petit-bourgeois liberalism along with trotskyite nonsensical rhetoric as the guiding philosophy of the masses...err..i meant marxism-leninism

[Anarcho-Communist]

Personally I think Stalin was a crap leader, he did nothing good and Lenin didn&#39;t want him to be in power. He should have been shot long before his death for crimes to humanity&#33;

Peace, Love, Empathy

[American_Trotskyist]

Rice is a funny kid. I know it is a joke, he is probibly just a Trotskyist who finds it funny to act as a Stalinist. Here is his quote, "All Problems Are Solved With Death" Stalinist try to act like their guy wasn&#39;t a murderer and scientific, BS, but hey Rice is funny.

[cormacobear]

Well he did organize 2 centuries of industrialization in fifteen years, but his crimes certainly outweigh any good he did.

[986Boobop424]

Rice is a funny kid. I know it is a joke, he is probibly just a Trotskyist who finds it funny to act as a Stalinist. Here is his quote, "All Problems Are Solved With Death" Stalinist try to act like their guy wasn&#39;t a murderer and scientific, BS, but hey Rice is funny.

No, Rice is a true crossdresser who supports Stalin&#39;s decisions, just like me. You on the other hand are a textbook example of a &#33;



Personally I think Stalin was a crap leader, he did nothing good and Lenin didn&#39;t want him to be in power. He should have been shot long before his death for crimes to humanity&#33;

Same old bullshit, same old lies, same old garbage, around here. Nothing changes, except that you &#33;&#33;&#33;


Well he did organize 2 centuries of industrialization in fifteen years, but his crimes certainly outweigh any good he did.

No, he did lots of good and very little bad.

[Redmau5]

Yeah and you&#39;d prefer to be part of the new elitist ruling class oppressing the workers. You may have been able to use the "it&#39;s just bourgeois lies" argument during the Cold War but there is overwhelming evidence from the Soviet archives as well. So why don&#39;t you get a real ideology instead of worshipping some tyrant ?

As for "Trotsky anarchy", there&#39;s only one thing i can say. :lol:

Sort your life out and stop living in a fantasy. The world has had Stalinism once, it won&#39;t be stupid it enough to let it happen again.

[internationalesoviet]

Rice is a funny kid. I know it is a joke, he is probibly just a Trotskyist who finds it funny to act as a Stalinist. Here is his quote, "All Problems Are Solved With Death" Stalinist try to act like their guy wasn&#39;t a murderer and scientific, BS, but hey Rice is funny.

No, i know rice in real life and he does believe in killing opposition. You&#39;ve taken that quote and first off, misquoted it "death solves all problems--no man, no problem." And while i am by no means a "stalinist," even most people take this out of context. So no, it&#39;s not a joke he is just a narcissistic megalomaniac :lol:

[1936]

I have thousands more where this came from

[jagjkdfblfjasl;gj]

Sort your life out and stop living in a fantasy. The world has had Stalinism once, it won&#39;t be stupid it enough to let it happen again.

Oh believe me, "Stalinism" will definitely make its return. Meanwhile, like you will continue to sell out the proletariat around the world and make life a living hell for us.

[internationalesoviet]

Oh believe me, "Stalinism" will definitely make its return. Meanwhile, Twatskyanarchy kiddies like you will continue to sell out the proletariat around the world and make life a living hell for us.

Quotably quoted ;)

[Soviet sally]

Stalinism will never return on a scale worth raising an eyebrow about.

Face it, your bastard ideology died with your bastard idol.

[umair]

I think we must all read &#39;ANOTHER VIEW OF STALIN&#39; by Ludo Martens.

[1936]

Why?....he murderd millions of people thats the only view i need.

[Redmau5]

So it&#39;s only about human life ? What if had of murdered all the bourgeois ? Would you still be pissed off at him ?

[Hiero]

Im sick of this Stalin debate. I wont be putting any comment after this.

Basically there are to modes of thought you can when criticsing Stalin and the regime of the USSR during 1917-1953.

The marxist-leninist critic or the bourgeois critic.

The Marxist-Leninist critic looks to see how Stalin did or didn&#39;t strengthen the proleteriat power and the continue the class war.

The bourgeois critic plans to descredit the whole Socialist movement. The bourgeois look for anything that will descredit the socialist movement, anti-semitism, dictatorship etc. The will even create lies, some which were generated by Nazis.

You must choose, one which looks to improve the proleteriat class movement one which tries to destroy it about lies.

[Soviet sally]

So it&#39;s only about human life ? What if had of murdered all the bourgeois ? Would you still be pissed off at him ?

Well he didnt JUST kill the bourgeois did he? He killed all capitalsts.

Thats like george bush killing us all for being communist, socialist...etc.

[Redmau5]

Well what if they refused to become socialist ? Would you still not get rid of them ? I suppose you&#39;re some bleedin&#39;-heart liberal who would send them to rehab or something weak like that.

I don&#39;t hate Stalin because he murdered the bourgeois, i hate him becasue he murdered the workers as well. If the bourgeois don&#39;t change their reactionary attitudes, what else can you do except execute them ? Would you send them to jail and let them leech off the economy ?

[bolshevik butcher]

People are entightled to there opinions.

[AK47]

One problem not being mentioned. Stalin had been diagnosed with a sociopathic personality. Yea he was a sociopath. He had been diagnosed then had the doctor sent off to Siberia. I have a feeling that the entire Bolshevik idea of trying to go from a feudal Russia to a communist Soviet Union was insane in the first place. As much as it pains me to say it, The Capitalist State was and is necessary to obtain a true communist community. The working "class" learn how to organize and work efficiently in this stage of societal evolution. The proletariat obtain the skills and organizational capacity then Take Over. That was the plan, then comes those loony Russians and set the whole thing back 100 years.

Well, the point is Stalin was an insane Man trying to do the impossible. The Former Soviet Union rather than being the Socialist revolution was a socialist premature ejaculation, replete with al the corruption and greed associated with a society that had not dealt with its greed. This revolution will come from the low and downtrodden. The real change will come when we stop looking for leaders to rule over us (hierarchical) and become completely self ruled (anarchical). :marx:

[romanm]

What is your source on this alleged diagnosis? Did a little birdy tell you? Or a Trot?

[Redmau5]

There&#39;s roman on again licking Stalin&#39;s ass. Funny you should mention sources, when you never provide any yourself. <_<

[AK47]

The Doctors name was Vladimir Vinogradov . He was Stalin&#39;s Personal Md. Read a history book Romanm, might do ya some good. Else bash your head in with a axe an do the movement a favor.

[American_Trotskyist]

I don&#39;t think that his psychological condition is relevant to his crimes. Stalin was only a representative of the bureaucracy within the Soviet Union caused by the Thermador. This was caused because Russia was isolated in a backwards country with no revolution in the West, which undoubtedly would still need an international revolution.

The Bureaucracy was a cancer on the workers state and eventually consumed it. Stalin wasn&#39;t as powerful as the Kruschevites/Post-Stalin Stalinists and Capitalist claim. Stalin was just the figure head of the bureaucracy and thus killed those who were threats to the bureaucracy. The 20th Congress&#39;s explanations (Cult of Personality, Ideological inexperience, etc, etc) lacks any real substance and are used to divert the attention away from the true cause for his crimes, the bureaucracy.

[Hiero]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2005, 07:52 AM
The Doctors name was Vladimir Vinogradov . He was Stalin&#39;s Personal Md. Read a history book Romanm, might do ya some good. Else bash your head in with a axe an do the movement a favor.
I have never heard. I think its a lie. I recently read a bio on Stalin and they did not mention that. That is something big to forget.

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2005, 08:09 AM
I think its a lie.

Lies Lies Lies....im so sick of hearing that from defenders of Stalin.

[bolshevik butcher]

Yeh, especially when they then go onto claim how he was the man of hte people and the defender of liberty. I think it is true that stalin was a representitive of the democracy. The ussr was a state ruled by the democracy.

[Le People]

Hey I&#39;m new here. Let me just say that Stalin did some very shitty things, like genocide, famine and Soviet Imperialism. I think that this legacy and the fact that some socailist (unlike me,a Trotskyist) align themselves with him, even none Stalinists has hurt the socailist cause eminsely. If the cause is good, which it is, and the methods are right, I hope, then Stalinist will never win. I&#39;m saying Stalin was all Lenin&#39;s fault because he suspended all parties, not allowing a check on the Bolsheviks during the Civil War, and was planning to create a democracy afterwards. This only cleared the path for a sadistic son of a ***** like stalin to get into power. In short, vanguardism is dangerous if used improperly.

[Hiero]

Originally posted by Additives Free+Jul 12 2005, 09:29 PM--> (Additives Free @ Jul 12 2005, 09:29 PM)
[email protected] 12 2005, 08:09 AM
I think its a lie.

Lies Lies Lies....im so sick of hearing that from defenders of Stalin. [/b]
This claim is so far fetched. There is no prove, its another tactic to build this monster character of Stalin.

There is no way a Scociopath could became a leader of a country.

[Le People]

Yeah their is. When that socio path works his way up the party and is able to STRONG ARM people out for his power trip. At first he was as normal as a dictator can get, then he flew off the nut&#33; This is late in the conversation, but I am a slow typer. :)

[Warren Peace]

I&#39;m against Stalinism, but we shouldn&#39;t get too divided over this. We are all comrades in the revolution&#33;

You could argue that Stalinism is socialism because there is collective control over the industry instead of private control. But in Stalinism, that collective control isn&#39;t in the hands of the workers, it&#39;s in the hands of the ruling class&#33;

So in short, when a socialist state is corrupted and becomes Stalinist, like what happened to the USSR, you&#39;re just reverting to capitalism again&#33;


There is no way a Scociopath could became a leader of a country.

I have to agree with you there.

Was Stalin a son of a *****? Yes. But Sociopath? Nah.


Hey I&#39;m new here. Let me just say that Stalin did some very shitty things, like genocide, famine and Soviet Imperialism.

True, he starved people and was an imperialist. But I wouldn&#39;t say he commited genocide. He killed lots of people and sent a lot of people to freeze their asses off in Siberian work camps, but he never tried to exterminate a certain race or religion like Hitler did.

[Le People]

True. But he did try to wipe out every suspected political oppenent. Hell, they didn&#39;t even have to be in the country. Remeber Trotsky in Mexico?

[Warren Peace]

True. But he did try to wipe out every suspected political oppenent. Hell, they didn&#39;t even have to be in the country. Remeber Trotsky in Mexico?

True, but Trotsky wasn&#39;t just a suspected opponet, he was Stalin&#39;s main opponet. Trotsky wouldn&#39;t have been whacked with that ice axe if he wasn&#39;t continually publishing kickass anti-Stalinist writtings.

[Le People]

Hey, Revolt now, you seem to know some things about Trotsky. Could come over to the disscusion about Trotsky on freedom?

[Hiero]

But in Stalinism, that collective control isn&#39;t in the hands of the workers, it&#39;s in the hands of the ruling class&#33;

In every soceity there is a ruling class but communism. In Capitalism there is the capitalist, in socialism there is the proleteriat. In a Leninist socialist model the proleteriat has a vangaurd.

[refuse_resist]

The Anti-Stalin Slanders of PBS-TV:
Never Believe What the Bosses Say About Communism

This is the last of four articles about the 1990 PBS series "Stalin." The first three articles (see jumps at the end) exposed how the series was made up of lies. This one examines what we should learn from it.

What Should We Learn From This PBS Series?

Lesson No. 1.
The series is a cold-blooded lie.

* It is not a question of proven facts which can be interpreted differently, as though, say, bourgeois scholars interpret them one way, while we communists interpret them another way;
* It is not a matter of statements which best fit the evidence for a time, but which have been disproven by new research;
* Nor is it a matter of researchers&#39; lies that were accepted in good faith by the PBS writers.

This is something different. These articles have shown that:

* The series has used "experts" and sources which, for the most part, are rejected by bourgeois historians;
* The series has totally ignored the best bourgeois research done during the past 20 years;
* The series has used only those parts of their sources which contain anti-Stalin and anti-Communist "horror stories," while ignoring the rest;
* Whenever one sources contradicts another, whichever source has the most anti-communist tale is used, without exception;
* Viewers are never told about the contradictions;
* The series has made serious allegations without asking for evidence, even when excellent evidence exists that the statements are wrong.

In other words: The PBS series involved conscious, deliberate misrepresentations at every stage; in selection of sources and "experts," by the "experts" themselves, and by the writers of the series.

Take a minute to think about this. Reread the three Challenge reviews, if you need to. It is very important to learn this lesson -- and very hard to learn it&#33;

Lesson No. 2:
Do not believe what the ruling class says about the history of the working class, the communist movement, and its leaders.

Virtually all of us, including both new readers of Challenge and long-time, experienced communists, still have many illusions about the capitalist media. We are too apt to think: "Where there&#39;s smoke, there must be fire." We find it hard to accept that the bosses&#39; media and experts can really be lying as totally as they are.

We tend to think that culture is somewhat independent of capitalist control. But why shouldn&#39;t the ruling class use its media, schools, newspapers, experts, etc., to lie in their own behalf? What else are these means of miseducation except a way to prop up capitalists&#39; power and serve their interests?

Lesson No. 3:
Anti-Communism is Fascism.

Nazi Origins of Western Anti-Communism

The Challenge reviews have pointed out how, in several instances, anti-communist lies in the series were simply copied directly from Nazi propaganda. 1 "Soviet studies" in the West was begun by three groups. Most important were Nazis and their collaborators, who were hired after World War II by the CIA as anti-communist experts, often given jobs at American or British universities. The other two groups -- CIA, MI-6 agents themselves (like Robert Conquest), and Trotskyites, Mensheviks and a few other pre-war defectors, long cut off from the USSR, drew heavily upon the tainted sources of the Nazis or of Nazi collaborators, "laundered" the Nazi lies and gave them credibility.

The Nazis themselves had an entire research and propaganda apparatus concerned with anti-communist propaganda. Much Nazi propaganda -- like the story of the "man-made" famine in the Ukraine -- was simply reprinted in the Western capitalist media at the time, and is still being passed off as the truth, its Nazi origins hidden. A recent book, Blowback, by Christopher Simpson, begins to sum up the tremendous extent to which false Nazi propaganda created the anti-communist propaganda of the Cold War.

Capitalist Propaganda Follows Nazi "Big Lie"

In his autobiography Mein Kampf head Nazi Adolf Hitler described the "Big Lie" technique of propaganda:

"...the size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, because the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad... They would never credit others with the possibility of such great impudence as the complete reversal of facts ... Something therefore always remains and sticks from the most impudent lie, a fact which all bodies and individuals concerned in the art of lying in this world know only too well, and therefore they stop at nothing to achieve this end."

The "Big Lie" is the key to understanding capitalist propaganda against communism and the working-class movement generally. With fascist forces emerging openly in the USSR for the first time since the revolution, with a fascist advance against the working class raging throughout the world, we can expect to see and hear more and more lies about communism, especially about the period of Stalin&#39;s leadership.

Anti-Communism Is Essential To Fascism

The attack on Stalin and on the first workers&#39; state is basically outright fascism. It runs like this: "Communist revolution inevitably means &#39;Stalinism&#39; -- terror and millions of innocents killed. Therefore it must be stopped at any cost." This kind of argument has been and remains the main justification of fascist repression of workers and peasants everywhere, ever since Hitler dreamed it up.

How can intellectuals and others be won to torturing, killing, and terrorizing Vietnamese, or Peruvian, or Salvadoran, Filipino, etc., workers and peasants who are rebelling against tremendous exploitation and repression by landlords, capitalists and their governments? Here&#39;s how: Convince them that Marxism-Leninism and communist revolution leads inevitably to a "gulag," to "mass killings equal to or worse than the Nazis." It follows that workers and peasants fighting brutal oppression are really worse than their fascist oppressors, and so must be stopped at any cost. This fascist line is the logical conclusion of anti- Stalinism -- in fact, it is the reason anti-Stalinism exists at all&#33;

Capitalist Lies vs. the Communist Truth

"Propaganda must not serve the truth, especially not insofar as it might bring out something favorable for the opponent."
-- Adolph Hitler

We can never hope to disprove the lies as fast as the bourgeoisie can grind them out. Furthermore, we do not have access to the media to bring out the truth. We must therefore win our friends and co-workers -- and, first of all, ourselves -- to this axiom: Don&#39;t drink water from a poisoned well. Never believe anything the bosses or their "experts" say about communism&#33; The louder they say it, the more the exploiters unite -- Russian, British, American, whoever -- the less we should believe them.

The capitalists have much to lose from the truth, as this series has shown. Their lies about working-class history are a means to protect their privileges, to preserve their right to exploit. Only the working class can afford to look at the world objectively, because, as Marx and Engels said in 1948, at the dawn of the communist era, "We have nothing to lose but our chains. We have a world to win." Join us&#33;

1. There are certainly more lies of Nazi origin in the PBS series than the Challenge reviews indicated. For instance: in Part Two, unidentified film footage was shown while the narrator told of Soviets killing East European nationalists upon the Nazi invasion. This is undoubtedly Nazi newsreel footage, used without acknowledgement, and usually staged for the camera. Back.

Bibliography: Works by PLP

First: want to read the other articles in this series? Click here for the first article, here for the second; and here for the third.

* "Stalin&#39;s Successes -- Humanity&#39;s Gains," The Communist, No. 1 (Fall 1989), 9-12, 48-72.
* Series of six articles on the Hoax of the Man-Made Famine in the Ukraine, and the "purges" generally, in Challenge, Feb. 26-Apr. 1, 1987. Now on the Worldwide Web -- click here to jump to the first article in this series, with links to the second, and so on.
* "Road to Revolution III" and "Strategy and Tactics of the International Communist Movement," PL Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 3 (November, 1971).
* "The Name and the Game of the Anti-Stalinists," PL Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 4 (June-July, 1976), pp. 58-79.
* "Towards a Correct Assessment of Stalin&#39;s Role," PL Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 5 (April, 1977), 14-18.
* "The Retreat from Revolution," PL Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Summer, 1979), 10-29.
* "The Bolsheviks and the Peasants," PL Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Fall, 1979), 68-79.
* "The Gulag, the Purges, and the Truth," Challenge, February 28, March 7, 1979; also see the letter, April 11, 1979.
* PL Magazine, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Spring, 1981) -- Special issue on the USSR.

Bibliography: Bourgeois Research Worth Reading

A note on bourgeois (non-communist, therefore capitalist) sources: in addition to those cited in the three-part review and in the series on the Ukrainian famine hoax, see any articles by: Jerry Hough, Stephen Wheatcroft, R.W. Davies, J. Arch Getty, Lewis Siegelbaum, William Chase, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Hiroaki Kuromiya, Roberta Manning, Lynne Viola, Robert W. Thurston, in Soviet Studies (Edinburgh), The Russian Review, Slavic Review, Russian History / Histoire Russe. Some have published books also.

http://www.plp.org/cd_sup/pbsstal4.html


Never Believe What Bosses&#39; Mouthpieces Say About the Fight for Communism&#33;

Sixth and last article in the series refuting the fascist, anti-communist lies in the film "Harvest of Despair" and the book Harvest of Sorrow. Originally published in Challenge-Desafio, newspaper of the Progressive Labor Party, in 1987.

Gorbachev&#39;s glasnost&#39; ("reforms") is speeding up the growth of capitalism in the Soviet Union [Note: these prophetic lines were published on April 1, 1987, in Challenge-Desafio&#33;&#33;]. Since Khrushchev, all Soviet leaders have plunged to the right, attacking the "excesses" of the Stalin era. In this series of articles exposing the anti-communist lies around the Ukrainian famine of the early 1930s, we have shown how Stalin was not the monster all bosses and right-wingers make him out to be. The "mistakes" made by the Soviet government during the Stalin era were not that of a brutal dictator, but rather mistakes made in the process of building a new society. In the following article, the last of the series, we criticize these mistakes from the left.

The concept Stalin had of socialism tended to equate it with building the economy using capitalist models and stressing production over ideology. It also tended to build authoritarianism ("do what the boss says") as an indispensable aspect of capitalist modes of production. It took years for this tendency to work to its full effect. American workers who went to the USSR in the 1930s -- including the Reuther brothers, later anti-communist bosses of the United Auto Workers Union -- testified to the much greater democracy and freedom from foreman and boss harassment Soviet workers enjoyed as compared to American workers (the Reuthers had worked in US auto plants before going to the USSR).

But capitalist ideas gradually won out. From being a voluntary organization of dedicated communists, the Party became essentially a hierarchical organization whose leaders were economic managers. By the early 1950s this transformation was complete. The Soviet Union was capitalist in all but name.

The Bolshevik Party had been split by dissention and factionalism during the 1920s, as the members struggled to learn how to construct the world&#39;s first workers&#39; state. These disagreements were handled very responsibly, according to the principles of democratic centralism. The relatively few individualists who, like Leon Trotsky, continued to form factions to oppose carrying out the line of the Party, were expelled only after long, mass struggles had isolated them, and they had been given many chances to change themselves. By the late 1920s the party was more united than ever before.

The trauma of the collectivization movement changed all that. Called by the Party a "revolution from above," it resembled a civil war in some areas of the country, including Asia, where the Party was especially weak. It produced many disagreements. Under these circumstances old factions, as well as some new ones, emerged.

Yet none of these factions or dissidents broke with the Party&#39;s line to the left. None saw through the idea that "the material bases for socialism must be built first." Virtually all the factions advocated some form or another of capitalism, some kind of return to NEP (the New Economic Policy) which had proven unsuccessful in the 1920s. All of the "oppositionists" from Bukharin to Trotsky who are favored among "left"-wing anti-Stalinists today fit this description.

The Bolshevik left wing, both in the USSR and around the world, stuck with the Party&#39;s line. But due to the erroneous notion that the `forces of production" had to be built to provide the "material basis" for socialism, this contradictions with the Party were handled very differently from in the past.

During the 1920s there was a Party Congress and a Party Conference virtually every year, and thousands of lower- level meetings throughout the USSR. During these meetings the Party&#39;s line was thrashed out, debated fully, and decided upon. This is the way Trotsky and the other factionalists had been defeated. This process also accounts for Stalin&#39;s great prestige in the party, since Stalin represented the left wing in all these debates. His works written during the 20s, collected in his book On the Opposition, illustrate his ability to unmask revisionist ideas -- capitalism masquerading as communism -- and are still valuable reading for communists today.

But the authoritarian style of work and of leadership that flowed from the idea of putting economics ahead of politics made it impossible for democratic centralism to operate as before. An authoritarian centralism, or "commandism" -- the leadership giving orders -- too over. "Material incentives" -- higher pay to some, lower pay to most -- to increase production followed close behind. In 1932 the "Party Maximum" was abolished. This was an important rule that stated that communists could not make more than a certain modest wage. Communists were supposed to be examples of selfless working for their class, not for themselves. This "partymax" had been intended to fight careerism, and to make sure that communists were an example for others.

It was apparently abolished because it was thought to hinder the recruitment of technically-trained experts into the Party -- persons whose expertise was thought essential to the Five-Year Plan&#39;s crash industrialization programs. From then on, getting into the Party became the only route to a high standard of living. so the fact that collectivization was, to a large extent, forced upon unwilling peasants was a consequence of an incorrect idea of what communism was all about.

The experience of the Rural People&#39;s Commune movement in China in 1955-56, which was a "revolution from below," from the peasant masses, shows that peasants can be won to communism. But the reversal of the Chinese revolution during the 1960s shows that a conception of communism that fails to eradicate capitalist differences in pay and living standards among the population will lead to a return of capitalist exploitation, regardless of the degree of mass support for that concept. In this sense, the fact that Soviet collectivization was largely forced is, finally, only a secondary factor in explaining the reversal of workers&#39; power in the USSR. Without a change in the fundamental concept of what socialism was -- of how to advance to a classless, communist society -- a new capitalist, class society will evolve.

The Chinese Communist Party&#39;s success in making communism a more mass goal did produce a huge and often violent rebellion against revisionist idea -- the Cultural Revolution. That experience and our own struggles have made it possible for our Party, the PLP, to advance our line and learn from the weaknesses of the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions.

The Importance of a Communist Standpoint

We have seen through the lies about he "Ukrainian holocaust" with the help of recent research on the Soviet Union in the 1930s. These researchers wish to make good careers for themselves by applying to research on the Soviet Union the same standards of sources and evidence that most bourgeois scholars use about other periods of history. In addition, many of them are animated by a hostility for the Cold War and a desire for "detente" with the USSR.

This is useful, but it is far from enough. These researchers are not interested in learning where the Soviets went wrong, from the viewpoint of learning how to build a communist society the right way the next time. Since they don&#39;t ask this question, they can hardly come to the right answer to it&#33; Since their research serves the interest only of the diminishing sing of the capitalist class that holds out promise for detente, it doesn&#39;t gain much support or prominence. They have little impact.

Until the late 1970s none of these researchers were around. Suppose the "Ukrainian holocaust" story had been pushed more vigorously at that time? A series of articles like this one, with detailed refutations of the dishonest sources used by the anti-communists and illustrated by the research of thorough bourgeois scholars, would not have been possible.

The point here is, we cannot rely on bourgeois scholars, however well-intentioned, to refute anti-communist lies. The ruling class has thousands of "experts" like Conquest who can turn out anti-Communist slander far faster than we can hoe to refute them. The fat that, in the case of the "Ukrainian famine," we were able to do so is largely a matter of historical accident.

Conquest can help us here. In the course of defending the US imperialist invasion of Vietnam, he once wrote as follows:

* The Vietcong lobby [he means the anti-war movement - ed.]do not, as a rule, believe (or at any rate expect other people to believe) such Vietcong allegations as that made by its official representative at a Stockholm communist women&#39;s conference last year, of children "gunned down in their thousands, beheaded, buried alive, quartered and thrown into the flames" by the Americans (The Times [London, England], 4 October 1966). But they do not draw the obvious conclusion that no information emanating directly or indirectly from such a source deserves credit. 1

Ironically, the My Lai massacre and many other atrocities by US troops later showed Conquest was wrong about this particular case. But his general point is valid. "Researchers" like Conquest and the sources he uses or like Mace and the Ukrainian nationalists, have been exposed time and time again. Anti-Communists like Conquest have been proven to lie shamelessly to advance their goals. Nothing any anti-Communist sources write about the history of the Communist movement should be believed.

We ought to promote among workers and among our friends -- and, first of all, within ourselves -- certain fundamental truths which are beyond question:

* The fight for communism in the USSR was a wonderful chapter in the struggle for a world of justice and equality that has animated most of humankind since the days of the slave empires of antiquity. The October Revolution of 1917 and the struggle to build communism is a great source of inspiration for the oppressed of the world. It proved for all time that the working class can and will overthrow the capitalists. It struck terror into the hearts of ruling classes everywhere, and it still does.
* It was inevitable that the first workers&#39; state would eventually fail. The Bolsheviks&#39; errors were made in an inspiring struggle to learn how to construct a communist society on the ruins of capitalism. Most of these errors were unavoidable. History proceeds by zigs and zags, never in a straight line of upward progress.
* The tremendous successes and errors of the Bolshevik Party are largely identified with the leadership of Joseph Stalin. Only those who, like we in the PLP, are striving to learn from the mistakes of our predecessors in the communist movement how to succeed where they ultimately failed, have the correct standpoint from which to objectively evaluate what is positive in their experience and what must be rejected. Capitalists and their "scholars" like Conquest or the Ukrainian nationalists are always attacking Stalin. As we&#39;ve seen in this essay, they do so dishonestly.

This is because they are not interested in the truth. They are interested in preserving capitalism, and will tell whatever lies are necessary to persuade workers, students, intellectuals and others not to fight for a communist society. The truth -- that the Bolsheviks achieved much, and that future communists will inevitably succeed where they failed -- is completely unacceptable to the capitalists. Regardless of the evidence, they will never acknowledge this. For this reason, all attacks upon the USSR under Stalin as "horrible," "totalitarian," and upon Stalin himself as a "power-hungry murderer," etc., must be seen for the lies they are. This is not a matter of personalities. Stalin had the loyalty of the working class of the USSR and of tens of millions of other workers around the world.

As the leader of the world communist movement during most of its revolutionary history, Stalin was responsible for its successes and failures more than any other single individual. We should study and learn from them, but always with respect. There is no reason for us ever to apologize for them. Stalin and the Bolshevik workers he led fought the Revolution and built the world&#39;s first working class state. Under them the ideas of communism spread throughout the world. As their heir, we must go farther towards communism. This means building a mass movement for communism along the lines of Road to Revolution IV. That movement itself will be the only valid "criticism" of the period of Stalin&#39;s leadership.

Notes

1. Conquest, "Arguing about Vietnam," Encounter, 30, No. 2 (February, 1968), p. 92. Characteristically, Encounter magazine was revealed during the `60s to have receive CIA funding, and it continues to receive it. Its main editor resigned as a result. Conquest worked for the British anti-Communist propaganda bureau; see part one of this series. Back.

http://www.plp.org/cd_sup/ukfam6.html


Anti-Communists Use Big Lie to Slander Fight for Social Equality

(The following is a review of Stalin, Part II, part of a three-part television series on PBS channels. Part One was reviewed in the last issue of Challenge-Desafio)

During the period from 1929 to 1932 a great "turn to the left" took place in the Soviet Union. Tens of thousands of activist workers went from the cities to help the poor peasants collectivize the countryside. The five-year plan, to begin the industrialization of the country, was begun. Brand-new industries sprang up; whole cities, like Komsomolsk and Magnitogorsk, were built from nothing, through the communist enthusiasm and dedication of hundreds of thousands of workers and youth. In the throes of this enthusiasm, a recruitment drive brought the majority of the Soviet working class into the Communist Party.

Parallel with these economic developments, left-wing forces pushed for a working-class line in literature, art, and education. Schools and colleges gave preferential admission to workers; communist writers and artists challenged themselves and their colleagues to "serve the working class" in whatever they did. It was truly a "cultural revolution," as some bourgeois scholars have termed it. 1

Taken together, these developments can be seen as the first attempt in human history to create an entirely new society based upon the working class&#33; The profound importance of this �period for workers and their allies everywhere cannot be overestimated.

These advances could be unleashed only because a left-wing line -- Stalin&#39;s line -- had won out in the central Communist Part debates of the 1920s. Naturally, this period horrifies capitalists and anti-working class forces. They would like to portray it, and everything that came after it, as a terrible time. And so they do in this program, through lies -- saying things happened that never did -- as well as by omission -- leaving out important events, like those mentioned above. This article will concentrate on exposing the lies.

Collectivization

There was much real support for collectivization among the poorer peasants, and among peasant women especially. Many hated the "kulaks" -- the rich peasants who, along with the priests, traditionally controlled village life -- as did many workers, most of whom were first- or second-generation away from the village and who remembered its oppression. But you would never guess it from this program, which portrays collectivization as an inhuman onslaught against a defenseless peasantry.

The lies about the "man-made famine" of 1932-33 are repeated, with the fabricated stories of 5 to 7 million deaths and phony photographs taken, without acknowledgement, from the �Volga famine of 1921-22. A long series appeared in Challenge-Desafio three years ago on this question; 3 ; its arguments will not be repeated here, except to say that bourgeois, capitalist scholars have themselves long since exposed this nonsense [ed. -- to go to the first article of this earlier series on the "Hoax of the &#39;Man-Made Famine&#39; in the Ukraine", click here .]

The Murder of Sergei Kirov

A long section of the film is devoted to trying to show that Stalin was responsible for the murder of Kirov, his closest ally in the leadership of the Communist Party. The film takes its argument from a recent book by professional anti-communist liar and British Secret Service agent Robert Conquest. 4 Though Conquest repeats over and over in his book that Stalin&#39;s guilt is "proven," in fact he has no decent evidence at all&#33; A recent (and very polite) review of Conquest&#39;s book points out how dishonest it is, and repeats that there is apparently no Soviet evidence of Stalin&#39;s guilt -- for the best of reasons, we might add&#33; 5

The International Communist Movement

Just over one minute of the program is devoted to the Communist International, or Comintern. We are told that "it was all Trotsky&#39;s idea," "Stalin disliked foreigners," -- complete lies&#33; The Comintern also partook of the "left turn" during the period 1929-32, which witnessed the most class-conscious, revolutionary efforts of workers towards the goal of communist revolution. Far from a xenophobic madman, as the film portrays him, Stalin himself led the struggle, ultimately unsuccessful, to rid the communist parties of their right-wing leadership and tendencies during this period.

The Trials and the "Terror"

The most striking part of Stalin, Part II focuses on the arrests, imprisonments, trials and executions which followed Kirov&#39;s murder in December 1934. The period from 1934 to the war is described as one of "terror," when millions were wrongly killed and everyone lived in fear (although, incongruously, we are also told that "for many people, life was better"). The film portrays all this as a result of Stalin&#39;s "greed for power," and paranoia. This too is all rubbish.

Some important trials were held in 1935 and 1936, of high-ranking Party officials who were accused of anti-Party conspiracies and industrial sabotage. That the conspiracies, including contact with Trotsky abroad, and secret factionalizing existed, has been proven by bourgeois scholars. 6 As for the sabotage, both émigrés and American engineers working as consultants in the USSR at the time attest to it, particularly suspecting Yuri Pyatakov, in fact charged with sabotage in his 1936 trial 7

The real wave of arrests, imprisonments, and executions, during which many innocent people were unquestionably punished or killed, did not in fact occur until the Soviet government uncovered a massive treasonable conspiracy involving top party and military leaders, in May 1937. Much circumstantial evidence exists to confirm this plot, and the NKVD (political police) reacted in panic. 8

Following Conquest, Cohen and other liars, the film estimates 8 to 14 million persons killed as a result of the "terror." Conquest&#39;s death figures have been disproven and mocked by more responsible bourgeois scholars. 9

One of them (still a ferocious anti-Communist) recently estimated the death toll at 75,000 - 200,000 10 , or one one-hundredth of the figures given in the film and book&#33;

Why the numbers game? Isn&#39;t this level of deaths "bad enough" for the anti-Communists? No&#33; They realize that their audience knows millions have been killed by capitalists in the name of anti- communism and for exploitation. They know that anti-Communism can be effective only if workers can be convinced that communism is worse than the worst form of capitalism -- fascism. Hitler killed 20 million Soviet citizens [ed. -- actually, more like 28 million, as the Russian government revealed a few years ago], Hitlerism was capitalism -- therefore, they must "prove" that Stalin was even worse&#33; Hence the lies.

Notes

1. See Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928-1931 (Indiana University Press, 1978). Back.

2. Lynne Viola, The Best Sons of the Fatherland: Workers in the Vanguard of Soviet Collectivization. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); "Bab&#39;y Bunty and Peasant Women&#39;s Protest During Collectivization," The Russian Review, 45 (Jan. 1986). For the mixed response of peasants to the early stages of collectivization including the support of many peasants for the Soviets, see Maurice Hindus, Red Bread: Collectivization in a Russian Village (Indiana U. Pr., 1988; original edition, 1931). Hindus grew up in this village and then emigrated to the US; he came back to see how the people were reacting to Soviet power. Back.

3. Challenge-Desafio, February 26 through April 1, 1987. This series is now available on the Worldwide Web: click here to go to the first article in the series of six, with links to the rest. Back.

4. Stalin and the Murder of Kirov New York: Oxford, 1989. Back.

5. J. Arch Getty, review of Conquest&#39;s book in The Russian Review, 48 (July, 1989), 348-351. Back.

6. J. Arch Getty, "Trotsky in Exile: The Founding of the Fourth International," Soviet Studies, 38 (Jan. 1986); Pierre Broué, in Cahiers Léon Trotsky, Number 5. Broué is a leading Trotskyite, but admits the evidence shows his hero lied. Back.

7. Americans: see John Littlepage, "Red Wreckers in Russia," Saturday Evening Post, January 1, 1938; Carroll G. Holmes, "I Knew Those Wreckers," Soviet Russia Today, April, 1938; for the émigré, see N. Valentinov-Volsky, "Sut&#39; bol&#39;shevizma v izobrazhenii Yu. Pyatakova," Novy Zhurnal (New York), No. 52 (1958), 146- 149. Back.

8. J. Arch Getty, The &#39;Great Purges&#39; Reconsidered: The Soviet Communist Party, 1933-1939 (Ph.D. dissertation, Boston College, 1979), 422-457. For Tukhachevsky, see the very cautious article by Grover Furr, "New Light on Old Stories About Marshal Tukhachevskii: Some Documents Reconsidered," Russian History / Histoire Russe, 13 (1986), 293-308 [ed. - now available on the Worldwide Web; click here to go to this article].
Some anti-communist émigrés like Grigori Tokaev (Betrayal of an Ideal and Comrade X) wrote openly about a military conspiracy; their works are often cited by anti- communist scholars, but this fact is never mentioned. Back.

9. See the series in Challenge-Desafio referred to in note 3 above, and the bibliography cited there. Back.

10. The Nation (New York), August 7/14, 1989, p. 184 Back.

http://www.plp.org/cd_sup/pbsstal2.html

[jvs]

Joseph Stalin industrialised the Soviet Union at a rate that has never been seen before in the history of the world. He turned a new state that was struggling to find its purpose after Lenin&#39;s death, into a superpower of the world.

If you oppose Stalin, then you oppose Lenin, you appose Marx and Engels. Although he did commit crimes, they were absolutely neccessary. If you think that is a basis for hating him, you are worse than Hitler.

If Stalin had been any less than what he was, the Soviet Union wouldnt have lasted. It would have been defeated by Hitler, and faschism would rule the world. Communism would be purged from the world. Che Guevara would have never existed.

Calling Stalin a faschist is like calling George Bush an Islamic extremist. It was Stalin that defeated Hitler and faschism. He was the man who led the Red Army into Berlin and found Hitler&#39;s body burning.

[Le People]

You know, I belive in crap in crap out. If you use crappy means you get crappy ends. The less crappy your means are, the less crappy your end. Read Ghandi&#33; Stalin used crappy means and got crappy ends, which was death, destruction, and the dissulotion of the USSR after a long, long time.

[jabra nicola]

Originally posted by Le [email protected] 23 2005, 02:56 AM
You know, I belive in crap in crap out. If you use crappy means you get crappy ends. The less crappy your means are, the less crappy your end. Read Ghandi&#33; Stalin used crappy means and got crappy ends, which was death, destruction, and the dissulotion of the USSR after a long, long time.
You know, I belive in crap in crap out. If you use crappy means you get crappy ends. The less crappy your means are, the less crappy your end. Ghandi began movements against the British Raj in India and then abandoned those involved in the struggle to the not so tender mercies of the british armed forces and their local stooges. Usually at the behest of the Indian capitalists with whom Ghandi had forged an alliance in the Congress Party. Ghandis crappy methods involved his sitting on his arse during the massive Quit India campaingn, along with the local Stalinists, and the division of India into two bourgeois states at the expense of the Indian masses.

Yup Ghandi and Stalin were both defenders of the bourgeois order.

[Le People]

Ghandi, no matter how bourgise he may be, had good theories. I believe that good fundementals in the world of civics can come from all over. Marx had good ideas, but so did Rousse. I have a copy of Selected Works of Lenin, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. I have a open mind. I don&#39;t like bourgise explotation, but I do like freedom of speech, press, and assembly, which were created by bourgise. But Marxism is much better. Politicaly, I&#39;m somewhat half and half. Half liberal, half Marxist.

[jabra nicola]

Originally posted by Le [email protected] 24 2005, 01:59 AM
Ghandi, no matter how bourgise he may be, had good theories. I believe that good fundementals in the world of civics can come from all over. Marx had good ideas, but so did Rousse. I have a copy of Selected Works of Lenin, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. I have a open mind. I don&#39;t like bourgise explotation, but I do like freedom of speech, press, and assembly, which were created by bourgise. But Marxism is much better. Politicaly, I&#39;m somewhat half and half. Half liberal, half Marxist.
Ghandi had &#39;good ideas&#39;? No he did not his ideas were reactionary tosh. His importance, which cannot be denied, lay in his ability to mobilise the Indian masses. But once mobilised as soon as the struggle threatened to go beyond the bounderies he set, at the behest of his bourgeois allies, he would pull the plug. Leaving workers and peasants to pay the price.

Moreover his ideas were mired in religious nonsense which cannot but serve to obfuscate the truth that this society, and society in Ghandis day, is divided between two mutually hostile classes which have nothing in common. This is something that Ghandi and his present day followers deny in the name of the nation.

As for being half Marxist and half liberal i can only wish you well in exploring the various schools of social thought. But in the long term one cannot be half and half. Marxism and liberalism are the ideologies of opposing classes and cannot be reconciled as such. I would suggest to you that those varieties of &#39;Marxism&#39; that deny the freedom of speech that you rightly laud are not in fact true to the emancipatory vision of Marx. Check out The Two Souls of Socialism by Hal Draper on this btw I suspect you will find it of some use.

[Le People]

Hey brotha, I&#39;m down with Satayagraha&#33;

[jabra nicola]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2005, 07:19 PM
Jabra you know nothing of Stalin or Marxism

Youre so ignorant that its not even worth responding to your ridiculous posts.

All I can say is your knowledge of Marxism is about as useful as an ass on an elbow :lol: :lol:
Just as a matter of interest but what is that ass doing on your elbow?

That said IF you were capable of responding to my posts you would. But you don&#39;t because you cannot.

[afnan]

The review was published in the Miami Herald, June
22, 2005 by one Peter Calder. . .Here are the relevent notations from the Calder piece:



Jorge Castañeda, in Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara
(New York: Vintage, 1998), at page 62, describes how Che, in mid-
1953 wrote to his aunt from San José after seeing the United Fruit
Company&#39;s holdings in Costa Rica, in the following terms: "I have
sworn before a picture of our old, much lamented comrade Stalin [who
had died in March] that I will not rest until I see these capitalist
octopuses annihilated." On page 181 of the same book Castañeda
writes that Guevara "signed another letter to his aunt as "Stalin
II" (this is mentioned in Anderson&#39;s book cited below, on page 167)
and placed flowers at Stalin&#39;s tomb when he visited the Soviet Union
in November 1960.

In Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, by Jon Lee Anderson, (Bantam,
London, 1997) at page 696, Che is described as having been "charged
by his early discovery of Stalin." Admittedly, this refers to his
early life but Anderson also remarks on the same page that just
before he headed off to mount the foco in Bolivia he passed on to a
close friend his "well-thumbed" and closely annotated copy of
Economia Politica, the Stalin-era Soviet-manual for construction of
the socialist economy and pointed that since Lenin (whom he indicted
for introducing some capitalist forms of competition into the Soviet
Union as a way of kickstarting the economy in the 1920s) "only
Stalin and Mao" had seriously attempted to update Marx&#39;s ideas.

[Hachi-Go]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2005, 07:37 PM
All I can say is your knowledge of Marxism is about as useful as an ass on an elbow :lol: :lol:
man that would be helpful, just imagine how easier it would be to whipe&#33; :lol:

[Iroquois Xavier]

Stalin was as much an oppressive dictator as Hitler was and used communism to cover himself&#33; He is the reason why communists are seen as bad as nazis&#33; He might as well have draped himself with a swastika and goose stepped around red square&#33;

[gilhyle]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2005, 10:05 PM
The review was published in the Miami Herald, June
22, 2005 by one Peter Calder. . .Here are the relevent notations from the Calder piece:



Jorge Castañeda, in Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara
(New York: Vintage, 1998), at page 62, describes how Che, in mid-
1953 wrote to his aunt from San José after seeing the United Fruit
Company&#39;s holdings in Costa Rica, in the following terms: "I have
sworn before a picture of our old, much lamented comrade Stalin [who
had died in March] that I will not rest until I see these capitalist
octopuses annihilated." On page 181 of the same book Castañeda
writes that Guevara "signed another letter to his aunt as "Stalin
II" (this is mentioned in Anderson&#39;s book cited below, on page 167)
and placed flowers at Stalin&#39;s tomb when he visited the Soviet Union
in November 1960.

In Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, by Jon Lee Anderson, (Bantam,
London, 1997) at page 696, Che is described as having been "charged
by his early discovery of Stalin." Admittedly, this refers to his
early life but Anderson also remarks on the same page that just
before he headed off to mount the foco in Bolivia he passed on to a
close friend his "well-thumbed" and closely annotated copy of
Economia Politica, the Stalin-era Soviet-manual for construction of
the socialist economy and pointed that since Lenin (whom he indicted
for introducing some capitalist forms of competition into the Soviet
Union as a way of kickstarting the economy in the 1920s) "only
Stalin and Mao" had seriously attempted to update Marx&#39;s ideas.
This is tendentious stuff. BTW, Che was reading Trotsky in Bolivia. Is that significant ? No.

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by Iroquois [email protected] 10 2006, 10:31 AM
Stalin was as much an oppressive dictator as Hitler was and used communism to cover himself&#33; He is the reason why communists are seen as bad as nazis&#33; He might as well have draped himself with a swastika and goose stepped around red square&#33;
Pff, you argue like a 10-year-old, go read a book, little boy.

[Iroquois Xavier]

Originally posted by Matthijs+Jan 12 2006, 08:10 AM--> (Matthijs @ Jan 12 2006, 08:10 AM)
Iroquois [email protected] 10 2006, 10:31 AM
Stalin was as much an oppressive dictator as Hitler was and used communism to cover himself&#33; He is the reason why communists are seen as bad as nazis&#33; He might as well have draped himself with a swastika and goose stepped around red square&#33;
Pff, you argue like a 10-year-old, go read a book, little boy. [/b]
Oh no you didnt just say that&#33; and who you callin little boy&#33;im older than you&#33;ill whoop your ass so shut it puto&#33; You read your history books Stalin and Hitler had a pact during the war which Stalin only broke because Hitler invaded Russia. He wasnt much of a communist if he was making pacts with the leader of the nazis&#33; :angry: anyway no hard feelings :) HAVE A NICE DAY&#33;

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

He said you argue like a little boy, even if you are older than him, this is true. Its common knowledge that Stalin and Hitler had a pact during the 30s. This pact was purely one of non-aggression, and as Stalin knew that Hitler&#39;s final aim was to attack and destroy the USSR, he needed to buy as much time as possible to build up his armed forces and defences to repel the attack of the best military machine in the world at the time. Which he achieved four years later.

And how could Stalin have broken the pact if Hitler was the one that attacked, thus breaking the pact?&#33; :blink: Give reasons for your accusations.

[Iroquois Xavier]

Damn. i agree with you on some points Comrade Yastrebkov but not all of them. I still think Stalin and Hitler were assholes. Im just for people power. I was saying the idea of a communist and a nazi making a pact was absurd. I meant that Hitler invading made Stalin break the pact (I understand where your coming from though). Oh and by the way HAVE A NICE DAY&#33; :)

[commiecrusader]

By creating a pact of non-aggression with the nazis, knowing Hitler would bread it, Stalin also pretty much guaranteed Western help against the invasion despite the unpopularity of communism in many of the powers at the time. I&#39;m by no means enamoured with Stalin, but despite the apparent hypocrisies, the non-aggression pact was a master-stroke, end of. You have a nice day too :D

[Wanted Man]

Take a look at the situation Stalin was in.

It&#39;s in the late 30&#39;s. The British and the French just made deals with Hitler: they had no problem with the Germans taking Austria, as well as big parts of Czechia. In the Munich Conference, where the latter was decided, neither Stalin nor the Czechs themselves were invited. Then, a while later, the entire Czech Republic is incorporated by Germany, and in Slovakia a puppet government is set up.

Now what kind of message does this send? It seems that the British and the French would have given plenty more concessions to Hitler(remember, when Hitler attacked Poland, he himself believed he would get away with it). The USSR wasn&#39;t quite ready to deal with the Nazis just yet, so quite obviously the pact was the only way to gain time to avoid being overrun by the Germans.

Also, I&#39;d still like to know why Stalin was "as bad as Hitler", as you claimed.

[Iroquois Xavier]

Basically i said Stalin was as bad as Hitler because of the way he treated his people. He was an oppressive dictator who lied constantly to his people. Despite representing communism he did not preach it. :) oh and by the way commiecrusader i will Have A Nice Day&#33; :D

[norwegian commie]

Stalin was as much an oppressive dictator as Hitler was and used communism to cover himself&#33; He is the reason why communists are seen as bad as nazis&#33; He might as well have draped himself with a swastika and goose stepped around red square&#33; ¨

The capitalsit have exploited stalin, and demonised him way out.
The conflict between troskists and supporters of stalin were used by USA to create attitudes againsta communism. Equallising it with nazism.

Some of you kids out there, calling yourself communists denie this fact and suddenly take the western history books seriusly&#33; WTF?
You read your lenin and marx bu condemn stalin and his achevments.
Imagine ww2 without stalin? or the strenghtening he made on sovjet.
Only lenin could match tis as a current candidate but he died.

God night folks

[queerifyanarchy]

my first impression when i read the thread was, oh nice, my prejudice against the authoritarian communists/socialist as beeing totally out of the ability of selfcritism, to be missjudged and a result of my cnt-fai passion, and deeply rooted anarchist soul and believes, but then reading down the thread the same thing again, same lines as used to capture and kill leftwing opponets during the sovjet highlights and spanish revolution, me too argued once that if anyone was killed or assissinated during buy the communist it was a fascist or capitalist, but throughout litterature of anarchism and other socialist historians my point of veiw has changed, no i don&#39;t beileve anyone of you here where born back then and can vitness for your stance neither can I but I have made my stand here, and anyone who calls me a facist or whatever les flatterd only makes themself look dumb.

words like fascist, counter-revolutionary or whatever comes out of your brainwashed mouths /heads just makes my prejudice stand for it self.

as long as communist are not willing or mature enough to deal with it&#39;s fault in the past and be creatvie for the future i still will argue about the communist-issue like citated

"It&#39;s not communism that is the problem, it&#39;s the communist&#33;"

and to quote Malatesta

"Communist beilives they need communism to create anarchy, anarchist beilieves we need anarchy to create a communism"

finally i say as my dear friend and anarchist once said about this

"no point discuss with the wolf&#33; said the litte pig and built a steady little cottage"

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 12:55 PM
my first impression when i read the thread was, oh nice, my prejudice against the authoritarian communists/socialist as beeing totally out of the ability of selfcritism, to be missjudged and a result of my cnt-fai passion, and deeply rooted anarchist soul and believes, but then reading down the thread the same thing again, same lines as used to capture and kill leftwing opponets during the sovjet highlights and spanish revolution, me too argued once that if anyone was killed or assissinated during buy the communist it was a fascist or capitalist, but throughout litterature of anarchism and other socialist historians my point of veiw has changed, no i don&#39;t beileve anyone of you here where born back then and can vitness for your stance neither can I but I have made my stand here, and anyone who calls me a facist or whatever les flatterd only makes themself look dumb.
Is that one sentence?

[Mesijs]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2006, 01:21 PM
Take a look at the situation Stalin was in.

It&#39;s in the late 30&#39;s. The British and the French just made deals with Hitler: they had no problem with the Germans taking Austria, as well as big parts of Czechia. In the Munich Conference, where the latter was decided, neither Stalin nor the Czechs themselves were invited. Then, a while later, the entire Czech Republic is incorporated by Germany, and in Slovakia a puppet government is set up.

Now what kind of message does this send? It seems that the British and the French would have given plenty more concessions to Hitler(remember, when Hitler attacked Poland, he himself believed he would get away with it). The USSR wasn&#39;t quite ready to deal with the Nazis just yet, so quite obviously the pact was the only way to gain time to avoid being overrun by the Germans.

Also, I&#39;d still like to know why Stalin was "as bad as Hitler", as you claimed.
Why he was as bad as Hitler?

Well, what about collectivization. Millions were killed in it. And no, these weren&#39;t just the rich, oppressive farmers, this was anybody who opposed this policy.

The Great Purges? In the 30s everywhere in the country people were arrested and shot dead. The Purges returend throughout the history of Stalin, especially just before his death. And no, all these people weren&#39;t big conspirators.

The show trials (also part of the Great Purges) where people were accused of the most ridiculous things and were tortured until they confessed, and then they were shot.

What about the gulag then? Hundreds of camps full of slave labour. People were starving and beaten to death. Also a lot people were killed there. The conditions were like in the nazi slave-camps. These slave-labourers were used in big projects, such as digging canals, and a lot of them died.

Estimates of the kills of Stalin are about 30 million. After Mao he&#39;s the biggest mass-murderer ever.

[Djehuti]

Have you noticed how fast the murders in the soviet union are increasing?
A few years ago most historians appreciated the murders to 10-30 million people. A terrible number&#33;

Today, 120 million is common. Just a minute ago a guy claimed that 250 million was a likely deathcount (according to "most modern historians"), just in the Soviet Union. Interesting, did it even live 250 million people in Stalins Soviet Union? Maybe a few of them survived the gigantic murders and managed to fuck forth a population of 293 million before the empire finally fell.




I&#39;ve never really understood anti-communists. Do they really believe that they are more anti-communist just because they add an extra zero to the death counts? And do they really believe that this scenario is likely:

Person 1: "40 million died in the Soviet Union, how can you support that?&#33;"
Person 2: "Ehh, i&#39;ts not so bad..."
Person 3: "Actually, 200 million died&#33;"
Person 2: "Oh... Ok, thats bad. Where do I sign to quit the communist party?"



But we can view this development with optimism too (not only because the bourgeoisie undermines their own credibility), it&#39;s a clear sign of that they can&#39;t counter our arguments and can&#39;t manage to understand what communism really is. So instead they try to counter us by trying to make the Soviet Union into the worst possible state ever abd forever. Propaganda of fear. Unfortuntatly for them they don&#39;t understand that we communists allready know that the Soviet Union was a terrible state where many million died, and that very few of those who calls themselves communists even supported that state.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2006, 04:49 PM
Have you noticed how fast the murders in the soviet union are increasing?
A few years ago most historians appreciated the murders to 10-30 million people. A terrible number&#33;

Today, 120 million is common. Just a minute ago a guy claimed that 250 million was a likely deathcount (according to "most modern historians"), just in the Soviet Union. Interesting, did it even live 250 million people in Stalins Soviet Union? Maybe a few of them survived the gigantic murders and managed to fuck forth a population of 293 million before the empire finally fell.
I&#39;ve always laughed at that. So Hitler killed 30 million Soviet citizens and Stalin killed 40... is that half the population of Russia dead?

[Mesijs]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2006, 04:24 PM
Have you noticed how fast the murders in the soviet union are increasing?
A few years ago most historians appreciated the murders to 10-30 million people. A terrible number&#33;

Today, 120 million is common. Just a minute ago a guy claimed that 250 million was a likely deathcount (according to "most modern historians"), just in the Soviet Union. Interesting, did it even live 250 million people in Stalins Soviet Union? Maybe a few of them survived the gigantic murders and managed to fuck forth a population of 293 million before the empire finally fell.




I&#39;ve never really understood anti-communists. Do they really believe that they are more anti-communist just because they add an extra zero to the death counts? And do they really believe that this scenario is likely:

Person 1: "40 million died in the Soviet Union, how can you support that?&#33;"
Person 2: "Ehh, i&#39;ts not so bad..."
Person 3: "Actually, 200 million died&#33;"
Person 2: "Oh... Ok, thats bad. Where do I sign to quit the communist party?"



But we can view this development with optimism too (not only because the bourgeoisie undermines their own credibility), it&#39;s a clear sign of that they can&#39;t counter our arguments and can&#39;t manage to understand what communism really is. So instead they try to counter us by trying to make the Soviet Union into the worst possible state ever abd forever. Propaganda of fear. Unfortuntatly for them they don&#39;t understand that we communists allready know that the Soviet Union was a terrible state where many million died, and that very few of those who calls themselves communists even supported that state.
This is just plain stupid argumentation. No, he didn&#39;t killed 250 million people, but most historians say he killed around 20-30 million.

So what about that? Is that ok then? Or were you just doing &#39;funny&#39; because you didn&#39;t have real arguments?

[Djehuti]

Eh...? Just to make things clear: I am an anti-stalinist, and i view the USSR as a brutal capitalist dictatorship. I do not support the murders in the USSR.

[Kaze no Kae]

Originally posted by El [email protected] 29 2002, 10:19 PM
”Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution.
If Lenin could see at that point that Stalin might be incapable of ruling justly, then... why was he chosen to succeed him?

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by Assassin+Mar 13 2006, 12:28 AM--> (Assassin @ Mar 13 2006, 12:28 AM) If Lenin could see at that point that Stalin might be incapable of ruling justly, then... why was he chosen to succeed him? [/b]
He was voted into the central committee by the party.

By the same party who severed ties with the soviets.


norwegian commie
Imagine ww2 without stalin? or the strenghtening he made on sovjet.

WW2 without Stalin?

Oh man, without him we could have stopped the Nazi and Fascists dead in their tracks&#33;
But no, the Politburo under Stalins thumb denied any unions between the Social-Democrats and the Communists. Even when a union between the two was formed in France (because of demand by the workers), and working conditions were made a little bit better, Thorez didn&#39;t push for soviets or workers organs--he just said "Go back to work".

Besides it wasn&#39;t the magic of Stalin, but the people of the USSR that beat the Nazis into their bunker.

[Mesijs]

Originally posted by Assassin+Mar 13 2006, 12:28 AM--> (Assassin @ Mar 13 2006, 12:28 AM)
El [email protected] 29 2002, 10:19 PM
”Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution.
If Lenin could see at that point that Stalin might be incapable of ruling justly, then... why was he chosen to succeed him? [/b]
He wasn&#39;t... Lenin liked Stalin for his hard work and for executing all the orders, so Stalin got more and more power. And when Lenin was almost dead, he realised he didn&#39;t want Stalin succeeding him. It was too late by then.

[Thorez]

These vile slanders against Comrade Stalin are unacceptable. I am quite disgusted with how the doctrines of bourgeois westerners are propagated here. It seems that a great many of you are also influenced by the immature, misguided Trotskyist movement that is responsible for a fair share of the anti-Stalin propaganda in the West.

Stalin being a man of evil is one of the biggest myths of history. It was he who liberated Europe from Fascist hegemony. It was he who fought to preserve the bourgeois revolution of the Spanish Republic from fascist-militarist forces. He saved our ancestors from fascism and worked for world peace despite western belligerence.

It is because of Stalin why Russia/USSR has been anything relevant. The USSR under Stalin was flabbergastingly ahead of its time in terms of workers&#39; rights, women&#39;s rights, education, and housing. With the western capitalist countries in ruins during the 1930s, the USSR was progressing at an unprecedented rate. The economic growth rate during the 1930s was an amazing 14%. In 1925, only 12% of Soviet citizens lived in towns. In 1939, this percentage nearly tripled to 33%. During the 1960s, the majority of Soviet citizens lived in towns.

In 1913, the infant mortality rate in the Russian Empire was an astounding 273 out of every 1000 deaths. In 1940, this rate sunk to 184/1000. In 1956, the year of the revisionist takeover of the Communist Party SU, the infant mortality stood at 47/1000. The life expectancy of the Soviet people under Stalin close to doubled. Russian men in the early 1950s lived longer than they do today. Under Stalin, education, health clinics, and transporation were massively expanded. Countless towns were founded and numerous regions were industrialised. The masses under Stalin lived in unprecedented comfort. All necessary factors of life including housing, food, education, and medical care were either free of charge or were very inexpensive. There was an absence of poverty and the presence of full employment. The masses were free of the burdens found in capitalist society because of extensive assistance from the State. Despite the extensive amount of anti-Stalin propaganda espoused by the revisionist leadership, he is adored by a significant percentage of the Russian masses. According to "Life and Terror in Stalin&#39;s Russia" by Robert Thurston, in a poll asking if "Stalin was a great leader" conducted in June-July 1992, 27% agreed completely with the statement while 22% did more or less. In other words, half of Russia despite extensive anti-Stalin and general anti-Soviet propaganda admire Stalin; the proportion of elderly Russians who admire Stalin is guaranteed to by much higher. Having lived extensively in the worker-peasant state and the new bourgeois capitalist federation, elderly Russians feel that the USSR easily exceeded today&#39;s bourgeois oligarchic republic in every respect.


Lenin begins his testament, Dec. 23 1922.

”Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People&#39;s Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work.”

This amounts to flatulently unsubstantiated Trotskyist propaganda. Trotsky demonstrated to be nothing but a political opportunist manifested by how he joined the Bolsheviks in the summer of 1917 just as the party&#39;s popularity soared. Prior to 1917, Trotsky was a firm Menshevik. In numerous writings published by Comrade Lenin during the revolutionary upswing of 1912-1913, he was frequently critical of Trotsky&#39;s foolish views. He called Trotsky a despicable factionalist and a careerist.

At the 1903 Congress of the RSDLP, Lenin pointed out the fallacies in Trotsky&#39;s views:

“To come to the main subject, I must say that Comrade Trotsky has completely misunderstood Comrade Plekhanov’s fundamental idea, and his arguments have therefore evaded the gist of the matter. He has spoken of intellectuals and workers, of the class point of view and of the mass movement, but he has failed to notice a basic question: does my formulation narrow or expand the concept of a Party member? If he had asked himself that question, he would have easily have seen that my formulation narrows this concept, while Martov’s expands it, for (to use Martov’s own correct expression) what distinguishes his concept is its ‘elasticity.’ And in the period of Party life that we are now passing through it is just this ‘elasticity’ that undoubtedly opens the door to all elements of confusion, vacillation, and opportunism."

In a 1915 article labeled “The State of Affairs in Russian Social-Democracy” Lenin comments, “Trotsky, who as always entirely disagrees with the social-chauvinists in principle, but agrees with them in everything in practice....”

In a February 1913 letter to Maxim Gorky, Lenin said in regard to Stalin, “We have a marvellous Georgian who has sat down to write a big article for Prosveshcheniye, for which he has collected all the Austrian and other materials.”, enin’s Collected Works, Vol. 35, page 84.

At the 11th Congress of the R.C.P. (B) in 1922 said about Stalin, “It is terribly difficult to do this; we lack the men&#33; But Preobrazhensky comes along and airily says that Stalin has jobs in two Commissariats. Who among us has not sinned in this way? who has not undertaking several duties at once? And how can we do otherwise? What can we do to preserve the Nationalities; to handle all the Turkestan, Caucasian, and other questions? These are all political questions&#33; They have to be settled. These are questions that have engaged the attention of European states for hundreds of years, and only an infinitesimal number of them have been settled in democratic republics. We are settling them; and we need a man to whom the representatives of any of these nations can go and discuss their difficulties in all detail. Where can we find such a man? I don’t think Comrade Preobrazhensky could suggest any better candidate than Comrade Stalin."
Lenin’s Collected Works, Vol. 33, page 315


”Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc.”

Lenin&#39;s view on Stalin&#39;s personality is absolutely irrelevant to everything. Lenin was not attacking Stalin based on his tactics of theories but rather felt uncomfortable with what he perceived to be Stalin&#39;s rude behaviour. Lenin reacted this way because his Nadezhda Krupskaya in defiance of medical orders was not making sure that Lenin got rest.

First Five-Year plan, 1928


Collectivization was calculated to eliminate effective peasant opposition to the policies of the Soviet state by reducing the number of separate units in the agricultural population from 25 million independent families to several hundred thousand collective farms.

This is utter nonesense. Collectivisation was adoped becaue there was an economic grisis in USSR during the late 1920s. During the NEP, high prices for peasant grain stripped the treasury. Market for industrial goods did not increase by raising peasant buying power. In 1929, industrial growth was stagnating having reached the 1914 level. There were high food prices and unemployment reared its head. The Russian peasantry did not market an adequate quantity of grain for urban and military needs. Poor agricultural technology, bad harvests, and the peasants&#39;&#39; holding back grain for higher prices were factors for such behaviour. Stalin&#39;s right-wing colleague Bukharin broke with him over economic policy. When a vote by the Party was taken, Stalin captured an overhwhelming majority of support.


”Stalin temporarily called a halt to forcible collectivization with his famous &#39;&#39;Dizziness with Success&#39;&#39; article of March 2, 1930, but massive peasant abandonment of collectivization during the ensuing months led to renewed administrative pressure and violence against &#39;&#39;kulaks,&#39;&#39; the term then indiscriminately used to label all peasants who opposed collectivization.”

You are being delusional if you think that there weren&#39;t obstructive kulaks in the USSR. These few millon peasants exploited the labour of less fortunate peasants. They tried to sabotage the campaign of collectivisation that was favoured by the toiling masses. There were 120 million peasants in the USSR during the early 1930s. Of this number, about 381,026 households amounting to 1.8 million people were relocated in settlements in the Urals, Siberia, and Kazakhstan in order to assist with the development of these regions. O these 1.8 million people, according to OGPU files, there were 1.3 million located at the settlements on 1 January 1932. There is not full information to what became of these peasants but in the Narym territory, out of about 220,000 settlers, there was a loss of 35,464. Of these, 15,712 died, 12,756 escaped, and 7,146 were legally returned. Since this region was harsher than others, it would be reasonable to estimate that perhaps 150,000 special settlers died by 1932. Contrary to the blatant misinterpretations of Stalin&#39;s quotations, the Kulaks were to be eliminated as a class but not necessarily through murder. Rather, they were simply placed in other sectors of the economy. Through this, the kulak class was exterminated in USSR.


When the peasants retaliated by destroying crops and killing their animals, the Soviet state confiscated foodstuffs the peasants needed to feed themselves. A particularly serious crisis developed in the Ukraine and northern Caucasus during the famine winter of 1932-1933, when apparently millions of peasants starved to death. The exact human toll resulting from collectivization is not known, but estimates run as high as 5 to 10 million. A recent study by Robert Conquest suggests the real figure is closer to 20 million.

This consists of exaggerations, misinterpreations, and an omission of emphasis on various other factors. First off, about 97% of all famine deaths occurred during February-August in 1933. The force that ended famine was the successful harvest of 1933. The assertion that famine was brought about because of a massive confiscation of crops is an utter lie. In 1931, there was a disastrous harvest. Grain production was 14 million tons below the previous year. Grain collections for 1931 were just 37% of total production. The notion that USSR authorities could and would collect every single husk of grain is unfeasable and preposterous. In 1932, there was another disastrous harvest during which grain production was about 3 million tons below the previous year. State collections amounted to about 30% of total grain production. In 1933, when grain production was about 15 million tons above the 1932 level, collections totalled about 30% of total production. It was because of this outstanding harvest why the famine ended.

The assertion that the 1932-1933 was artificial is utterly preposterous. The "Years of Hunger" by Stephen Wheatcroft and R.W Davies demonstrate that there was disastrous weather in various agricultural regions of the USSR in 1931.

In 1931, an extraordinary cold spring caused a delay in sowing in Ukraine and the Lower Volga. June and July were far hotter than usual. The southeast suffered from dry-winds in June. In May-July, a normal weather pattern in the Volga, Black-Earth, and Ukrainian steppe of warm, dry, south-easterly winds from Kazakhstan gave way to colder and wetter winds from the northwest. For the first time in 12 years, south-easterlies predominated throughout these months. Winds became scorching, no rain fell. Grain yields significantly fell. Known as sukhovei, these winds brought famine in 1891 and 1921. Drought, starting in May spread to the Volga in June. A defecit in rainfall was accompanied by temperatures higher than average in June.

"Rain poured down endlessly, raods were turned into a sea of mud, potatoes could not be dug, hemp could not be harvested, the hemp and sunflower seeds were drowned in the fields"---RGASPI 17/2/484

In 1932, the Soviet Union experienced another poor harvest ", pp.105 of "Years of Hunger" by RW Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft

Poor weather, lack of autumn and spring ploughing, shortage and poor quality of seed, poor cultivation of crops and the delay in harvesting combined to increase incidence of fungal disease.

By August 15, harvested area was 10.6mn hectares less than in 1931. Threashing was 5-7mn hectares behind 1931. The yield was poor and shortage of labour made threshing slow. There was slow progress of the harvest, endless rain in August-September, and an insufficient supply of horses.

The 1932 total harvest according to TSUNKHU was 67.11mn tons compared to 69.48mn tons the previous year. Thus, Robert Conquest is full of shit; the 1932 harvest was indeed worse than the one of the previous year. This is evidence that famine occurred because of the disastrous harvests of 1931 and 1932. Remember that Russia has had a history of famine; the 1891 famine in the Volga resulted in 500,000 dead. The series of famines similarly resulting from poor harvests of 1918-1922 in Russia resulted in an estimated 12 million dead. The 1946-1947 famine in Moldavia and parts of Ukraine resulted in about 1 million dead.

Narkomzem reported that the disinfecting of fields, storehoses, and sacks for harvested grain were done extremely badly in Ukraine.

"Winter wheat was exteremely weedy and looked as though it was badly rusted. All spring wheat I saw was simply rotten with rust"--Andrew Cairns, Scottish agricultural expert

From Eastern Europe where there was an exceptionally severe rust epidemic in 1932, leading to a spread of spores. Ergot and pests caused damage before harvesting of grain began.

According to Kuibyshev, infestation in Ukraine resulted from poor sowing, ploughing as well as undesirable conditions in weather.

In July 1930, there were 20.9mn horses. Exactly one year later, the number declined to 19.5mn. In 1932, the figure plummeted to 16.2mn. The factors contributing to this decline were a shortage of fodder; the kolkhozy used up fodder in autumn without planning for spring. In the Lower Volga, the straw roofs used for fodder brought disease. Ill horses were not isolated from the healthy. Developed diseases included ringworm, mange, and glanders. In 1931, there were 964,000 tractors of which 393,000 were imported. A crisis in foreign trade the following year obstructed the aquisition of additional tractors from abroad. Of the 679,000 tractors supplied during 1932, only half were available in time for the harvest. According to RGAE 7486/37/235, 20% of all tractors were damaged while an additional 20% did not function due to a need of spare parts.

In concern to the death toll, it is quite clear that these western anti-Communist scholars have concocted such flatulent estimations. Having originated during hte Cold War in which hysterical anti-Communist propagand was extensive, this material seems to be politically motivated. "The Years of Hunger" by Stephen Wheatcroft and RW Davies gathered material from the archives in establishing a death toll from famine. Excluding Kazakhstan where a registration system for births and deaths did not exist, there were 2.3 million registered excess deaths throughout the USSR in 1932-1933; 97% of these deaths occurred during 1933. Source (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/harrison/archive/hunger/deaths.xls)

The above is derived from RGAE 1562/329/108. RGAE stands for Russian State Economic Archives.

Furthermore, it is reasonable to state that the bulk of those excess deaths during 1933 were not due to actual starvation but through disease accompanied by famine.

Cases of infectious disease (in thousands):

1929: Typhus, 40; Typhoid Fever, 170; Relasping Fever, 6; Small Pox, 8; Malaria, 3000
1933: Typhus, 800; Typhoid Fever, 210; Relasping Fever, 12; Small Pox, 38; Malaria, 3000


“During the second half of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin set the stage for gaining absolute power by employing police repression against opposition elements within the Communist Party. The machinery of coercion had previously been used only against opponents of Bolshevism, not against party members themselves. The first victims were Politburo members Leon Trotskii, Grigorii Zinov&#39;ev, and Lev Kamenev, who were defeated and expelled from the party in late 1927. Stalin then turned against Nikolai Bukharin, who was denounced as a "right opposition," for opposing his policy of forced collectivization and rapid industrialization at the expense of the peasantry.”

Once again, you have espoused unsubstantiated propaganda. Trotsky and the other Jews Zinoviev and Kamenev were expelled from the Party because despite the majority of the Party having favoured Stalin and Bukharin, they took the streets in protest in a blatant attempt to undermine Soviet power. They disregarded the Leninist principles of democratic centralism. Zinoviev and Kamenev had fiercely clashed with Lenin prior to the Great October Socialist Revolution because they did not want to go through with the plan. They disclosed the planned date to a newspaper several weeks prior&#33; They were enemies of the revolution from the start. Only the case of Nikolai Bukharin was excessive because he had recanted his mistaken views after the Party favoured Stalin.


But under party leader Joseph Stalin, the secret police again acquired vast punitive powers and in 1934 was renamed the People&#39;s Comissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD. No longer subject to party control or restricted by law, the NKVD became a direct instrument of Stalin for use against the party and the country during the Great Terror of the 1930s.

This above piece of propaganda gives no indication that the creation of the NKVD was a reaction to threatening forces including the rise of fascism and the murder of Sergei Kirov.


But because Stalin insisted on unrealistic production targets, serious problems soon arose. With the greatest share of investment put into heavy industry, widespread shortages of consumer goods occurred.”

Stalin was not being unrealistic with production targets because each of the Five Year Plans were quite successful in that the actual production was quite close to the targets.


” The dreadful famine that engulfed Ukraine, the northern Caucasus, and the lower Volga River area in 1932-1933 was the result of Joseph Stalin&#39;s policy of forced collectivization. The heaviest losses occurred in Ukraine, which had been the most productive agricultural area of the Soviet Union. Stalin was determined to crush all vestiges of Ukrainian nationalism. Thus, the famine was accompanied by a devastating purge of the Ukrainian intelligentsia and the Ukrainian Communist party itself. The famine broke the peasants&#39; will to resist collectivization and left Ukraine politically, socially, and psychologically traumatized.”The man-made famine of 1933 in Soviet Ukraine: what happened and why

”The event which Ukrainians call "shtuchnyi holod," the man-made famine, or sometimes even the Ukrainian holocaust, claimed an estimated 5 to 7 million victims. Purely in terms of mortality, it thus was of the same order of magnitude as the Jewish holocaust.”

The famine was not man-made as I extensively proved above. Undesirable weather and a severe decline in livestock obstructed agricultural plans. The famine resulted exclusively from the disastrous harvests of 1931 and 1932. It was far from the intention of the Soviet regime for its subjects to endure famine. According to "Years of Hunger" by R.W Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft, between February and July 1933, no fewer than 35 Politburo decisions and Sovarkom decrees authorised in total the issue of 320,000 tons of grain for food to the countryside. Therfore, this myth that the famine was engineered by the Soviet leadership is completely destroyed by the fact that the extensive assistance was furnished to famine-stricken regions&#33;

In regard to allocations of grain to the countryside, Stalin stated this in a response to Sholokhov of Veshenskii district in the North Caucuses: "We will do everything required. Inform size of necessary help. State a figure". --- Pg. 317 of "Years of Hunger"

In another response, Stalin scolded Sholokhov for, "You have sent an answer not by letter but by telegram. Time was wasted"

On May 31, 1933, there was a request by Chubar and Kosior of allocations to grain. They called for 200k puds to Kharkov, 150k puds for Kiev and Vinnitsa each, and 30k for Chernigov. Deliveries of grain were carried out soon after to these areas.

These material on the death toll has been demonstrated to consist of huge exaggerations. are utter falsehoods. As I showed above, the death toll in Ukraine according to Russian archives barely exceeded 1.5 million Source (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/harrison/archive/hunger/deaths.xls) Please spare us of these fantastic tales.


”From the mid-thirties on, the terror became yet more intense, the treatment worse still. These millions of totally innocent men and women were treated in ways that would have been thought grossly inhumane elsewhere even if applied to the worst criminals.”

The number of inhabitants in the GULAG never exceeded 2.5 million, the figure reached in 1950. The overwhelming majority were non-political prisoners i.e they were bandits, murderers, etc. During the peace years of 1934-1940, the percentage of political prisoners in the GULAG was 22%. In 1950, when the GULAG reached its peak with 2.5 million inhabitants, the percentage of political prisoners was 23%. The GULAG contrary to the false connotation churned out by the West was not an extermination camp. During 1934-1954, there were 1 million deaths in the GULAG. However, 620,000 of these deaths occurred during 1941-1945 when war was waged by the Germans. Therefore, it would be unfair to exempt the Germans for the deaths of these prisoners. In 1950, again, when the GULAG reached its peak with 2.5 million inhabitants, there were 14,703 deaths or 60% of 1%. When 99.4% of the inhabitants of a facility survive, the facility cannot possibly be classified as a "death camp". This is a groundbreaking source for the GULAG authored by J.Arch Getty in "American Historical Review" in 1993: Source (http://www.etext.org/Politics/Staljin/Staljin/articles/AHR/AHR.html)


”There were often executions in the camps. Ten thousand were specifically ordered by Moscow in 1937. Others were carried out for local offenses such as failing three times to work, or simply as a means of removing those showing any other sign of independence, or uttering any “anti-Soviet” words.”

No, there were not executions in the camps. It does not make sense to sentence someone to a camp and then carry out an execution. Those that were sentenced to deaths were executed. Those that were sentenced to the GULAG were transferred to a labour camp.


As a result, artists and intellectuals as well as political figures became victims of the Great Terror of the 1930s.”

"Artists" "intellectuals" and "political figures" are all euphemisms for the bourgeoisie. The repression of bourgeois parasites is not something that the proletariat and peasantry care about to protest against.


”The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labor camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited. By 1939 only about 500 of over 50,000 churches remained open.
After Nazi Germany&#39;s attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for the war effort. By 1957 about 22,000 Russian Orthodox churches had become active. But in 1959 Nikita Khrushchev initiated his own campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church and forced the closure of about 12,000 churches. By 1985 fewer than 7,000 churches remained active. Members of the church hierarchy were jailed or forced out, their places taken by docile clergy, many of whom had ties with the KGB.

The Russian Orthodox Church was merely stripped of its Tsarist priveleges. They poisoned the masses with their reactionary doctrines aimed at putting forth Confucianistic cooperation in a hierarchy. Such ideas are contrary to the interests of the proletariat. The demise of religion in Russia has not been even remotely tragic. People have been liberated of these backwards, absurdly superstitious ideas. Hopefully the future of religion will mirror the societies of Russia and Czech Republic.


”The murder of Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934, set off a chain of events that culminated in the Great Terror of the 1930s(…)It is doubtful that Kirov represented an immediate threat to Stalin&#39;s predominance, but he did disagree with some of Stalin&#39;s policies, and Stalin had begun to doubt the loyalty of members of the Leningrad apparatus. In need of a pretext for launching a broad purge, Stalin evidently decided that murdering Kirov would be expedient. The murder was carried out by a young assassin named Leonid Nikolaev. Recent evidence has indicated that Stalin and the NKVD planned the crime.”

This is all amateurish speculation. There is no evidence whatsoever that Stalin plotted to have Kirov killed. As a political ally and close personal friend of Stalin, it is dubious why Stalin would want such a person killed. If Khrushchev were to charge Stalin for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Communists, why would he also not charge Stalin for having Kirov killed? There is no logic whatsoever to these ridiculous claims that Stalin had Kirov killed.


”Stalin then used the murder as an excuse for introducing draconian laws against political crime and for conducting a witch-hunt for alleged conspirators against Kirov. Over the next four-and-a-half years, millions of innocent party members and others were arrested -- many of them for complicity in the vast plot that supposedly lay behind the killing of Kirov.”

The Great Purge has been documented to have hardly been a massive conspiracy arranged by Stalin. J.Arch Getty presents extensive evidence in "The Road to Terror" in which the Communist Party was in deep conflict and splintered in various factions. There is the case of Mikhail Riutin who in his manifesto explicitly called for Stalin to be removed with the use of force if necessary.This "Great Purge" was arranged not exclusively by Stalin but by a portion of the Party&#39;s elite. It is a fact that Nikolai Yezhov and other officials of the NKVD played a notable role in the severity of the purge. The initial targets for the purge were 72,000 executions. It has been documented that a whopping 681,692 were executed in 1937-1938. When it was seen how destructive Yezhov&#39;s actions were, he was replaced by Lavrenti Beria who purged the purgers including the execution of Yezhov.


”In the summer of 1932 Joseph Stalin became aware that opposition to his policies were growing. Some party members were publicly criticizing Stalin and calling for the readmission of Leon Trotsky to the party. When the issue was discussed at the Politburo, Stalin demanded that the critics should be arrested and executed. Kirov, who up to this time had been a staunch Stalinist, argued against this policy. When the vote was taken, the majority of the Politburo supported Kirov against Stalin.

Here we go again with the distortions. Kirov disagreed with Stalin and instead proposed for the Trotskyists to be IMPRISONED instead of executed.


In the spring of 1934 Kirov put forward a policy of reconciliation. He argued that people should be released from prison who had opposed the government&#39;s policy on collective farms and industrialization. Once again, Joseph Stalin found himself in a minority in the Politburo.

This is composed of falsehoods. The notion that Kirov was a liberal voice in the Party is a falsehood. He was firmly aligned with Stalin.

Stalin&#39;s Final Solution: What Might Have Happened


” Not accidently, a disproportionate number of those purged (arrested, imprisoned, and killed) from the party at Stalin&#39;s command in the 1930s were Jews. That Stalin allowed no news of Nazi brutalities against Jews in Poland during the duration of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939-1941) to be broadcast in the Soviet Union leads one to entertain serious suspicions as to his motives. That he initiated a broad campaign of culturecide against Yiddish-speaking intellectuals, directly after World War II in the wake of the Holocaust, further deepens these suspicions.”

What in the world is "culturecide"? My goodness, you people and your fabricated terms. There was not a disproportionate number of Jews purged. Out of the 32 members of the 1934 Central Committee that made it to the 1939 Central Committee, 8 were Jewish. In 1939, out of 139 members, 11 were Jewish. The notion that the Yezhoschina was directed exclusively towards Jews is nonesensical. Alleged Nazi brutalities towards Jews in Poland was completely irrelevant to the interests of the USSR and the global proletariat. There is such thing as a "Yiddish" culture either. Yiddisch is nothing but a distorted variation of the excellent High German tongue.


He concludes that Stalin had laid plans that included special concentration camps just for Jews, equipped with gas chambers. The first round of that campaign, Borchagovsky maintains, was the 1948 frontal assault on Jewish culture. His evidence comes from seventy volumes of documents found in the KGB archives.”

This is all unsubstantiated Zionist Neo-Con rubbish that attempts to slanderously compare Stalin to Hitler. According to Marxism, there is no such thing as a Jewish culture. Marx in an article titled "On the Jewish Question" wrote that society will be emancipated when it is emancipated from the Jew. In other words, Jews are supposed to assimilate and discard their chauvinistic Hebrew tongue as well as their distorted variation of German called Yiddisch. It is due entirely to Soviet policy why Jews have discarded this Yiddish tongue in favour of Russian which is the first language of the majority of Russian Jews today. In contrast, only a small minority of Jews in Tsarist Russia were fluent in Russian.


Polina Molotova, the wife of his foreign minister and closest colleague, was sentenced in 1948 to 10 years in prison.”

She was a Zionist who was sympathetic to the Fascist state Israel. If anything she should have been shot.


In 1948, Mikhoels was assassinated by secret agents of Stalin, and, as part of a newly launched official anti-Semitic campaign, the JAC was disbanded in November and most of its members arrested.”

These charges of "anti-Semitism" against Stalin are hollow given that in 1952 there were 3 Jews in the Central Committee including Lazar Kaganovitch, B.I Vannikov, and Zakhar Mekhlis. The anti-cosmopolitan campaign in the USSR were simply a reaction to the rise of the fascist state Israel that has for the past 60 or so years threatened hegemony in the Middle East.


”Joseph Stalin&#39;s forcible resettlement of over 1.5 million people, mostly Muslims, during and after World War II is now viewed by many human rights experts in Russia as one of his most drastic genocidal acts. Volga Germans and seven nationalities of Crimea and the northern Caucasus were deported: the Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachai, and Meskhetians. Other minorities evicted from the Black Sea coastal region included Bulgarians, Greeks, and Armenians.”

The relocation of these minorities was a direct reaction to World War II. There were indeed cases of treason in the Crimea and the Caucuses. These relocations were not even marginally pre-medidtated; they were a reaction to war.


Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact

This has been incessantly cited by western propaganda as if USSR was doing anything unprincipled by signing a NEUTRALITY pact with Germany.

Only after the West demonstrated its treasonous disloyalty during the Munich Agreement did the USSR seek the establish PEACE with the world. The USSR was far from the first country to sign an agreement or a specefic pact of neutrality with Germany. This is a list of other countries that established relations of neutrality or friendship with Nazi Germany prior to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact:

Poland signed a non-aggression pact with the Germany in 1934
England and France signed in 1938 an agreement that led to the destruction of Czechoslovakia.
Romania signed an economic treaty with Germany on 24 March 1939
Hungary signed the anti-Comintern pact on 24 February 1939
Latvia signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in March 1939.
Liathuania signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in March 1939
Estonia signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in May 1939
Denmark signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in May 1939.
Slovakia signed a military agreement with Germany on 18 August 1939

Yet, somehow the USSR is demonised for a deal that is connoted by the West to have been a partnership when it was anything but. USSR&#39;s relationship with Germany in 1939-1941 was no different than Germany&#39;s relationship with Poland during 1934-1938. But you wouldn&#39;t consider Germany and Poland to be allies during 1934-1938, now would you? The West displayed its apathy towards the fascist threat by refraining from assisting the bourgeois Spanish Republic during the country&#39;s civil war and agreed to end the existence of Czechoslovakia in the treachorous Munich Agreement.


I&#39;ve always laughed at that. So Hitler killed 30 million Soviet citizens and Stalin killed 40... is that half the population of Russia dead?

These are nothing but flatulent lies. These were politically motivated estimations by right-wing Cold Warriors such as the original Neo-Con Robert Conquest. Evidence from Russian archives shows that about 3 million died in the 1932-1933 famine that was caused by several natural factors. In 1937-1938 there were 680,000 executions. In the GULAG from 1934-1954, there were 1 million deaths of which 620,000 were during 1941-1945 in the war waged by the Germans. As I said, it would be fair to attribute these deaths to the Germans because they would not have died under peaceful circumstances. Furthermore, if we apply the proportion of common to political prisoners in the GULAG to the total dead, then only about 100,000 of the 380,000 dead during peace time were political prisoners. Here are sources:

Famine Deaths by Stephen Wheatcroft and R.W Davies (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/harrison/archive/hunger/deaths.xls)

GULAG and Purge by J.Arch Getty (http://www.etext.org/Politics/Staljin/Staljin/articles/AHR/AHR.html)

[Salvador Allende]

I agree 100% with Comrade Thorez.

[Horatii]

Unfortunately, these "revisionists" are prime examples of the human mind&#39;s ability to make itself believe anything&#33;



Also, Koba cannot be blamed for every single death in the time-period of 1924-1953. I believe when many Poles were executed it took a large vote from the House of Soviets and House of Nationalities to even have those executions happen. Thus, the entire Parliament was behind many of the killings of Kulaks and other people who were putting their own greed above the people and jeapordizing the people. Also, many of the main people who were executed were tried and admitted to have plotted against the government.


Really? They confessed? Just like "Heretics" "Witches" and "Jews" confessed under the Spanish Inquisition? Don&#39;t be so niave comrade&#33;

Stalins "Parallel anti-Soviet Trotstkyist Center" tried from Janurary 23-30, 1937 has 400 pages of documentation&#33; Piakatov was alleged to have flown to Oslo but the Norwegian authorities stated that no foreign aircraft had landed there at the time. A letter from Radek to his wife "I have admitted I was the member of a center, took part in its terrorist activity...I don&#39;t need to tell you that such admissions could not have been extracted from me by violent means nor by promises."


Oh please Elijah&#33; The only "Mass Grave" that has ever been found contained no more than 35,000 people and has NOT been linked to comrade Stalin in any way shape or fucking form. Grow up. These bodies are more than likely individuals that died in WWII. Please show me one mass grave in The Soviet Union that has been positively linked to only comrade Stalin Elijah. You can&#39;t because THEY DON"T FUCKING EXIST&#33;


By this same "logic", Bush and his cabinet are completely innocent of murder&#33;


what ever he was or did...You guys can&#39;t deny the fact that he killed thousends and maybe even Millions of people...and that&#39;s not the communist idea is it??

These "revisionists" are as Communist as Hitler was a Socialist&#33;



Tell me was child labour and prositution in the Ukraine under Stalin? No there wasn&#39;t, today there is. The reason those old people are poor today is not because of Stalin but because there pensions were taken away in 1990.


It is because of Stalin why Russia/USSR has been anything relevant. The USSR under Stalin was flabbergastingly ahead of its time in terms of workers&#39; rights, women&#39;s rights, education, and housing.

He just banned Homosexuality, Abortion, and Divorce. That&#39;s pretty Socialist on agenda, isn&#39;t it? This is a report by Iagoda on December 19, 1933, after which male Homosexuality was banned:

"While liquidating recently a union of pederasts in Moscow and Leningrad, OGPU as ascertained the existence of salons and dens where orgies have been arranged...Pederasts have been recruiting and debauching completely healthy young people, Red Army men, navy men and students. We have no criminal law to enable us to prosecute pederasts...I would consider it essential to issue an appropriate law to make pederasty answerable as a crime. In many ways this will clean up society; will rid it of noncomformists. (source Mikhail Il&#39;inskii, Narkmom Iagoda,Moscow ,2002,241)


You are being delusional if you think that there weren&#39;t obstructive kulaks in the USSR. These few millon peasants exploited the labour of less fortunate peasants. They tried to sabotage the campaign of collectivisation that was favoured by the toiling masses.

You&#39;re being delusional if you actually believe that. It almost seems like something straight out of Stalin&#39;s mouth. ...The Kulak was rarely rich enough to be an exploiter, but often employed the poor peasants, giving them corn to survive the winter and buying them tools...To meet targets for confiscation, middle peasants were arrested as Kulaks. Thus, those who could not farm and would not work inherited the earth as members of collective farms. For a source, see V Kvashonkin et al. Sovetskoe Rukovodstvo: perepiska 1928-1941, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1999



This is all amateurish speculation. There is no evidence whatsoever that Stalin plotted to have Kirov killed. As a political ally and close personal friend of Stalin, it is dubious why Stalin would want such a person killed. If Khrushchev were to charge Stalin for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Communists, why would he also not charge Stalin for having Kirov killed? There is no logic whatsoever to these ridiculous claims that Stalin had Kirov killed.

Finally, a revisionist&#39;s statement I agree with. Stalin had nothing to do with his murder.


Yet, somehow the USSR is demonised for a deal that is connoted by the West to have been a partnership when it was anything but. USSR&#39;s relationship with Germany in 1939-1941 was no different than Germany&#39;s relationship with Poland during 1934-1938. But you wouldn&#39;t consider Germany and Poland to be allies during 1934-1938, now would you? The West displayed its apathy towards the fascist threat by refraining from assisting the bourgeois Spanish Republic during the country&#39;s civil war and agreed to end the existence of Czechoslovakia in the treachorous Munich Agreement

Obviously you haven&#39;t read any books on this matter. Your "facts" are little more revisionist propaganda. Explain the bases of Lipetsk, Kazan in Tataria, and Tomka? All were in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, but Stalin permitted their placement within the Soviet Union. Yes these were Nazi facilities.

Tukhacvhesky developed jointly with the Germans blitzkrieg tank tactics&#33;

In 1934, Stalin bought for some 64 million marks worth of military hardware and technology&#33;

By 1936, Soviet imports of technology from Germany were doubling again&#33;

Tell me you can&#39;t be this ignorant.

See Sergei Gorlov&#39;s, Alians Moskva - Berlin 1920-1933, Moscow, 2001 315


LOL. Guess that&#39;s why Maxim Gorky wrote to Stalin saying that he shouldn&#39;t be allowing so much criticism in the press? Lets get one thing clear, Stalin didn&#39;t put anyone into prison or labour camps. There were cases of &#39;children&#39; being arrested, these were often by criminall and opportunist elements insider NKVD. When Stalin and the politburo found out about them the officials were often punished in public courts. The English Broadsheet the Times reported on this.

This is probably the most laughable denial by a Stalinist ever to disgrace my eyes. Renounce your claim to socialism, for you further its cause not. This is probably the easiest claim to refute:

A letter from Dziernzynski to Lenin, September 4, 1922:

"I think that things won&#39;t progress if Comrade Menzhinsky himself does not undertake it. Have a word with him and give him this note. We must work out a plan, constantly correcting and adding to it. We must divide the intelligentsia into groups. For example 1) literary writers; 2) journalists and political writers; 3) Economists, and here we need subgroups a) financial, b) energy c) transport d trade, e) cooperatives etc. 4) technical (more subgroups): a) engineers, b) agronomists, c) docotors, d) general staff; 5) professors and teachers, etc. etc. Each intellectual must have a file...It must be remembered that our section&#39;s taks is not just deportation, but active help in straightening out the [party] line on specialists, i.e. causing disntegration in their ranks and bringing forwards those who are prepared without reservatons to support Soviet power. (A.G. Latyshev, Rassekrechnennyi Lenin, Moscow: Mart, 1996)

This is only the beginning - After the executions of Tagantsev and Gumiliov and the deportations of Gorky and Berdiaev (1921) few intellectuals saw any future in living by anything other than the party line. If science or art was to survive, one had to collaborate with the Bolsheviks.

Take Ivan Pavlov for example (famous for his dog experiment) on the anniversary of the birth of biologist Ivan Sechenov:

"O stern and noble comrade&#33; How you would have suffered if you had remained among us&#33; We live under the domination of a cruel principle:state power is everything, the individual personality is nothing....On this foundation gentelment, no cultured state can be built, and no state whatsoever can hold out for long." This was in 1929. Let me guess though, Pavlov was an ardent Trostkyist, right? Lol.

Ill be continuing this in a bit, I just realized it&#39;s 2:30.



The Great Purge has been documented to have hardly been a massive conspiracy arranged by Stalin. J.Arch Getty presents extensive evidence in "The Road to Terror" in which the Communist Party was in deep conflict and splintered in various factions. There is the case of Mikhail Riutin who in his manifesto explicitly called for Stalin to be removed with the use of force if necessary.This "Great Purge" was arranged not exclusively by Stalin but by a portion of the Party&#39;s elite. It is a fact that Nikolai Yezhov and other officials of the NKVD played a notable role in the severity of the purge. The initial targets for the purge were 72,000 executions. It has been documented that a whopping 681,692 were executed in 1937-1938. When it was seen how destructive Yezhov&#39;s actions were, he was replaced by Lavrenti Beria who purged the purgers including the execution of Yezhov.


Right. Beria - the serial rapist. How "nice" of Stalin to replace Ezhov with a sadistic serial Rapist. And since you&#39;re obviously delusional about who is responsible for the deaths, here you go THE PARTY UPPER ECHELON:

From 1937-1938, the NKVD&#39;s own records show that 1,444,923 persons were convincted of counterrevolutionary crimes, and 681,692 were shot.

The Leningrad Martyrology tells of 47,000 men and women who perished at the hands of the NKVD over eighteen months. Futhermore, according to the same NKVD records, Manual workers and peasants made up 24-248% of the victims. But you&#39;re right Stalin liberated the workers....of their lives&#33;

And yet again, some 7% of the victims of the Great terror were perused by Stalin, Kaganovich, Molotov, and Voroshilov.

See A Ia. Razumov, Leningradskii martirolog, vols 1-4, St Petersburg, 1995-9
See also N V Petrov and K V Skorkin, Kto Rukovodil NKVD 1934-1941, Moscow: 1999, 492-500.

I&#39;ll be gradually adding more and more to this.



Stalin being a man of evil is one of the biggest myths of history. It was he who liberated Europe from Fascist hegemony. It was he who fought to preserve the bourgeois revolution of the Spanish Republic from fascist-militarist forces. He saved our ancestors from fascism and worked for world peace despite western belligerence.


...

Liberated Europe? You really are as dense as I thought. Let&#39;s check the economic disparity between East and West Germany:

"Eastern worker productivity and wages stood at roughly a third of the western average in 1990. Both the productivity and wage gaps have narrowed considerably in most professions and branches of industry . Three independent research institutes - the German Institute for Economic Research (Berlin) , the Institute of International Economics (Kiel) and the Halle Institute for Economic Research - reported in the summer of 1998, for example, that worker productivity in eastern Germany&#39;s manufacturing sector. has improved markedly, more than doubling between 1991 and 1997. But even with that gain, the institutes noted, output per worker in the east still averages about 70 percent of the western level. Eastern wages, on the other hand, have risen to 90 percent of basic western wages. Wage growth in the east has slowed, however, while productivity levels continue to rise."

"Obsolescence and inefficiency were made worse by the physical legacy of the GDR&#39;s economic policies: the eastern landscape abounded in toxic waste sites and in crumbling public infrastructure. The euphoria sparked by the opening of the Berlin Wall gradually gave way to a more sober realization of the full magnitude of the task of rebuilding the east from the ground up."

http://www.germany.info/relaunch/culture/h...nification.html (http://www.germany.info/relaunch/culture/history/unification.html)

*Waits for Bourgoise- Capitalist - Counterrevolutionary - Trotskyite insult*



Trotsky and his band of thieves (kamenev, zinoviev, et al) printed out anti-Central committee propaganda illegally with illegal printing presses.

You&#39;re pathetic you know that? Illegal printing presses? You sound like the Catholic Church in the middle ages.



An OPTION&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;, you truly are a fascist

This was in response to the "option" of liquidating counterrevolutionaries. On a more hilarious note, Workers Unity has in his profile "Destroy Israel."
Contradict much?


How is that a joke? Comrade Stalin is a hero, even the capitalist media was able to recognize that...Time Magazine Man of the Year...

So was Adolf Hitler, George Bush, "The American Soldier" etc. They were all heroes too? Please, spare me.


I myself am a Stalinist and i don&#39;t beleive i would&#39;ve been sent to the Gulags because I would&#39;ve worked with Stalin in trying to achieve socialism and weed out counter-revolutionaries, reactionaries, and capitalists.

I don&#39;t even need to refute this.


While your post bears some merit Makaveli_05, according to his own writings stalin ws highly critical of nationalism. In fact, the anti-communist author/historian Robert Conquest in his biography of Stalin, claims some of the supposed "brutal" tactics which Stalin used against nationalists in the Ukraine and his native Georgia. According to Conquest, Stalin used severe military force against these nationalist sects of the workers.

Like other Opportunistic dicatators, Stalin denounced and then instituted policies when they benefited him. Installing Soviet Hegemony over his birthland would OBVIOUSLY have been met with resistance from Nationalistic groups. However, Stalin and the NKVD had absolutely no problem utilizing Nationalism in WW2.

"For the Motherland Comrades&#33;"


Even evidence that contradicts their view. Russians by and large still have a good view of Stalin and they’ll say “those poor brainwashed bastards”. If he killed 20 million people, there isn’t that much brainwashing in the world.

How many voted for George Bush?


It is appaling to me how many on the left have been won to this way of thinking when they have obviously not done their homework, and are getting their info from bourgeois sources. But there are even bourgeois sources that give better descriptions of what happened. From there it is up to communists to make analysis. There is no simple answer and yes there were bad moves made, that cannot be repeated, but Stalin was a communist who lead the worlds first socialist nation, and everyone on the left including trots, and anarchists, should be trying to learn from what happened. None of us gain by blindly repeating what cappie mouthpieces say.

Exactly, HOWEVER, many of us *have* done our "homework." Obviously "stalinist" sources are more reliable than "trot" "cappie" sources, right? LOL&#33;


There is hardly a single clear, unbiased source that can be found in the west.

Agreed, which is why all of my sources are straight from Russia - and they still support the "tyrant myth." Russia must be full of Trots&#33;


It all depends on the way in which you use counter-revolutionary. In Stalin&#39;s defense, he probably saw those people as legitimate threats to something he held very dear, the October Revolution.

Counter-Revolutionary is a pathetic phrase. In George Bush&#39;s defence, he probably saw Saddam as a legitmate threat. Get more biased?

On an ending note, I have read some of Trotsky&#39;s "works" and they were rubbish. He&#39;s a joke, and a scapegoat by Stalin fanatics. You "leftists" (serious doubt as to where your allegiance lies) need to get out of the past. Trotsky and Stalin are dead, and it&#39;s pathetic that you ally yourself with either side, demonizing the other. Absolutely pathetic. That&#39;s not socialism, that&#39;s a fan club.

[Gottwald]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2006, 09:18 AM


On an ending note, I have read some of Trotsky&#39;s "works" and they were rubbish. He&#39;s a joke, and a scapegoat by Stalin fanatics. You "leftists" (serious doubt as to where your allegiance lies) need to get out of the past. Trotsky and Stalin are dead, and it&#39;s pathetic that you ally yourself with either side, demonizing the other. Absolutely pathetic. That&#39;s not socialism, that&#39;s a fan club.

Unfortunately, these "revisionists" are prime examples of the human mind&#39;s ability to make itself believe anything&#33;

Are you sure you know what the term "revisionist" means? Those who have deviated from Soviet orthodoxy are the revisionists especially Eurocommunism that an overhwhelming percentage of partcipants at this message board seem to adhere to. Your labelling of Stalinists as "revisionist" is an enormous misuse of the term.


I believe when many Poles were executed it took a large vote from the House of Soviets and House of Nationalities to even have those executions happen.

There was not anything wrong with the executions of the Polish gentries. These people were not innocent -- they do not fit in the out of bounds women, children, and elderly categories. With Poland having hijacked western Ukraine and Belorussia from the young Soviet state circa 1920, these bourgeois Poles harshly abused our Little Russian (Ukrainian) comrades manifested by suppressing their culture. They were brutal occupants of regions held captive by the bourgeois militarist Polish regime. With the majority of the population in the territory annexed by USSR in 1939 from Poland having consisted of Ukrainians and Belorussians, USSR was entirely justified on behalf of the Ukrainian and Belorussian people in reunifying their divided blood brothers.


By this same "logic", Bush and his cabinet are completely innocent of murder&#33;

This is an absurdly inappropriate comparison. It has been extensively documented that tens of thousands of Iraqis have been murdered as a result of the Neo-Con imperialist adventure.


He just banned Homosexuality, Abortion, and Divorce. That&#39;s pretty Socialist on agenda, isn&#39;t it? This is a report by Iagoda on December 19, 1933, after which male Homosexuality was banned:

Abortion and divorce were not banned. How else would my grandmother get seven abortions? They were made more difficult because they were clearly hazardous for society. If these did not bring about any problems, then there would be no reason to obstruct the performance of abortion and divorce. It was particularly crucial for abortion to have been obstructed in the post-war years in order to compensate for the catastrophic loss in population. It must be taken into consideration that the Sovet regime represented the people and thus acted in their interests. It is undeniable that a vast majority of the Sovet proletariat at the time was repulsed by homosexuality as it is linked to bourgeois aristocratic customs manifested uncannily by the Roman Senate, bourgeois English private schools, and several others. The whole "gentleman" concept, which is homosexual, is a model developed by the bourgeoisie in order to display itself as superior to the dignified proletariat. Maxim Gorki was indeed correct in exclaiming, "destroy homosexuality and fascism will dissapear." Nazism, an variation of fascism, had several homosexual components the most conspicuous of which was an emphasis on physical features e.g blond hair, blue eyes, ski-jump nose, etc. Marx and Engels were repulsed by homosexuality. Homosexuality is an anti-revolutionary concept.

*****Of course, I do not personally feel that abortion and divorce ought to be made difficult. Rather, in accordance with the decisions of the majority of the Soviet Communist Party, I adhere to the Leninist doctrine of Democratic Centralism. In other words, whenever a decision by the majority of the Party is taken, it is the duty of every comrade to meticulously defend the position in order to prevent the disruption of unity. The revolution cannot be preserved when the Party&#39;s discipline is undermined.


To meet targets for confiscation, middle peasants were arrested as Kulaks.

That is a total lie. The dekulakisation campaign included the relocation of 1.8 million kulaks. Only 20% of all kulaks were involved in this campaign. With plenty of room left for kulaks, there wouldn&#39;t be any reason to target middle peasants.


Your "facts" are little more revisionist propaganda.

To repeat, you are misusing the term "revisionist". A revisionist is not someone who adheres to orthodox views. It is your Eurocommunist views that are revisionist.


Explain the bases of Lipetsk, Kazan in Tataria, and Tomka? All were in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, but Stalin permitted their placement within the Soviet Union.

The above consists of nothing but propaganda devoid of any perspective. These were developed during the Weimar Republic in which Communists at one time or another received the votes of 15% of the German people. If you&#39;re attempting to link Hitler to Stalin in this petty manifestation of western propaganda, you&#39;ve failed.


By 1936, Soviet imports of technology from Germany were doubling again&#33;

There is neither anything illegal nor unscrupulous about engaging in economic deals with a country.


This is only the beginning - After the executions of Tagantsev and Gumiliov and the deportations of Gorky and Berdiaev (1921) few intellectuals saw any future in living by anything other than the party line. If science or art was to survive, one had to collaborate with the Bolsheviks.

This is one massive lie with not even a superficial hint of credibility. Maxim Gorky was not deported. He left the country in order to get treatment for an illness. Art and science not only survived in the USSR, but was abundant. The Russians were/are amongst the most avid readers in the world. Such a triumph has only been made possible with Bolshevism.


Let&#39;s check the economic disparity between East and West Germany:

Wage earnings are irrelevant given that housing, education, and health care were far more affordable than in the western capitalist countries.

In 1971, the infant mortality rate in German Democratic Republic was 18/1000. In NATO-occupied Germany, it was 23/1000; Source: "United States Statistical Abstract"

It is clear that German Democratic Republic was far superior. Please spare us of these manifestations of western propaganda to the effect of, "then why did people try to get past the Berlin Wall LOL&#33;#&#33;" The only ones that defected to NATO Germany were of a bourgeois specialist background that unscrupulously self-interested. A few hundred thousand defectors to NATO Germany is hardly massive and represents not the whole of German Democratic Republic.


You sound like the Catholic Church in the middle ages.

This is a misinterpetation and you clearly are oblvious to the doctrines of Democratic Centralism.


On a more hilarious note, Workers Unity has in his profile "Destroy Israel."
Contradict much?

I see that we&#39;ve got amongst a fascistic Zionist sympathiser.


Like other Opportunistic dicatators, Stalin denounced and then instituted policies when they benefited him. Installing Soviet Hegemony over his birthland would OBVIOUSLY have been met with resistance from Nationalistic groups. However, Stalin and the NKVD had absolutely no problem utilizing Nationalism in WW2.

Stalin, having been a leading member of the Bolshevik Party which was the most popular group amongst the Russian people at the time of the revolution, was hardly a dictator. He was a legitimate political figure who was adored by the masses. Your accusation of WWII nationalism is another misinterpretation. There was a sort of Marxist patriotism in which there was a life or death battle with fascism. You are falsely connoting a sort Russian nationalism which is just a fantasy of your&#39;s.


How many voted for George Bush?

With voter turnout at about 60%, it is absolutely irrelevant the number that voted for George Bush when trying to assess popularity. This method of trying to compare historical figures from the 1930s to present day unscrupulous Washington politicians is inappropriate. It&#39;s as absurd as accusing Genghis Khan of "human rights" violations :lol:


Agreed, which is why all of my sources are straight from Russia - and they still support the "tyrant myth." Russia must be full of Trots&#33;

It seems that you&#39;ve been oblivious to the capitalist transformation that Russia has endured. Of course there would be sensationalised literature influenced by the West that would slander Stalin and more broadly USSR. The Russian people since Khrushchev were conditioned to loathe Stalin. Even with this high degree of defaming Stalin, half of the Russian people view Stalin positively. The ones that are unpopular with the Russian people are not Lenin and Stalin but are rather Yeltsin, Gorbachev, and Khrushchev.


Counter-Revolutionary is a pathetic phrase. In George Bush&#39;s defence, he probably saw Saddam as a legitmate threat. Get more biased?

It seems that you are unable to distinguish between suppressing counter-revolutionary internal dissension and the waging of illegal wars with sovereign countries.

[Horatii]

You might want to open your eyes.

/fail. Try again please. Minus the Stalinist revisionist bullshit.

[Brownfist]

I am sorry if someone has already said this but I find this whole thread kind of riduclous for one reason, and my understanding of this could be wrong but communists are not supposed to believe in "great men". The very idea of elevating any individual to the status of "great men" is a bourgeois individualism and need for individual leadership. Communism does not believe in "great men" but rather, on the ability of the proletariat to create its own conditions. Thus, we do not require a Stalin etc to shape a society, but rather the working class will shape that society themselves. This need for great leaders is reflective of our bourgeois ideologies. I am not a great supporter of Stalin and personally think that he committed many faults and crimes. Also, I do not think that he was a very good or intelligent communist especially because he did not believe in world revolution or tried to get rid of religion through abolishing it. Now someone can jump me and call me a counter-revolutionary, kid, or whatever term they feel fit.

[Mesijs]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2006, 07:23 AM
I am sorry if someone has already said this but I find this whole thread kind of riduclous for one reason, and my understanding of this could be wrong but communists are not supposed to believe in "great men". The very idea of elevating any individual to the status of "great men" is a bourgeois individualism and need for individual leadership. Communism does not believe in "great men" but rather, on the ability of the proletariat to create its own conditions. Thus, we do not require a Stalin etc to shape a society, but rather the working class will shape that society themselves. This need for great leaders is reflective of our bourgeois ideologies. I am not a great supporter of Stalin and personally think that he committed many faults and crimes. Also, I do not think that he was a very good or intelligent communist especially because he did not believe in world revolution or tried to get rid of religion through abolishing it. Now someone can jump me and call me a counter-revolutionary, kid, or whatever term they feel fit.
You&#39;re completely right. Stalin was the counter-revolutionary.

I cannot believe how stupid and blind people are when they defend Stalin. There are tons of historical evidence everywhere. There are endless pages in the Soviet archives, which documented the horrible crimes. Everywhere in Russia there are still millions of eyewitnesses of Stalin&#39;s time.

How can one be so stupid and blind to call these facts &#39;bourgeoise lies&#39;. When people keep that stupid, history will repeat itself.

With the kind of dumb arguments the Stalin-fans mention, one could also defend Hitler and Mao. Wait, a lot of you are already defending Mao... :(

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by Horatii+Apr 21 2006, 03:16 AM--> (Horatii &#064; Apr 21 2006, 03:16 AM) You might want to open your eyes.

/fail. Try again please. Minus the Stalinist revisionist bullshit. [/b]


Mesijs
You&#39;re completely right. Stalin was the counter-revolutionary.

I cannot believe how stupid and blind people are when they defend Stalin. There are tons of historical evidence everywhere. There are endless pages in the Soviet archives, which documented the horrible crimes. Everywhere in Russia there are still millions of eyewitnesses of Stalin&#39;s time.

How can one be so stupid and blind to call these facts &#39;bourgeoise lies&#39;. When people keep that stupid, history will repeat itself.

With the kind of dumb arguments the Stalin-fans mention, one could also defend Hitler and Mao. Wait, a lot of you are already defending Mao... :(

Respond to Gottwald&#39;s arguments or STFU.

[Mesijs]

Originally posted by Matthijs+Apr 21 2006, 01:44 PM--> (Matthijs @ Apr 21 2006, 01:44 PM)
Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2006, 03:16 AM
You might want to open your eyes.

/fail. Try again please. Minus the Stalinist revisionist bullshit.


Mesijs
You&#39;re completely right. Stalin was the counter-revolutionary.

I cannot believe how stupid and blind people are when they defend Stalin. There are tons of historical evidence everywhere. There are endless pages in the Soviet archives, which documented the horrible crimes. Everywhere in Russia there are still millions of eyewitnesses of Stalin&#39;s time.

How can one be so stupid and blind to call these facts &#39;bourgeoise lies&#39;. When people keep that stupid, history will repeat itself.

With the kind of dumb arguments the Stalin-fans mention, one could also defend Hitler and Mao. Wait, a lot of you are already defending Mao... :(

Respond to Gottwald&#39;s arguments or STFU. [/b]
I was primarily reacting to the lies by Thorez. Please read them and say what you think about them.

[Wanted Man]

As much as I disagree with some of the things Thorez has said in other threads, his post here sounds a lot more likely than "Stalin was an evil man who deliberately starved people to death just because he&#39;s evil like that". And it stands unrefuted so far, so to simply point and shout "lies&#33;" when he brings up arguments like that, is not exactly constructive.

[Horatii]

Respond to Gottwald&#39;s arguments or STFU.

You&#39;re assuming his arguments are worth refutation. Leftist-reviosionist propaganda is not worthy of being refuted..

You can only waste your time telling the truth so much and still they bathe in ignorance.

[Mesijs]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2006, 09:00 PM
As much as I disagree with some of the things Thorez has said in other threads, his post here sounds a lot more likely than "Stalin was an evil man who deliberately starved people to death just because he&#39;s evil like that". And it stands unrefuted so far, so to simply point and shout "lies&#33;" when he brings up arguments like that, is not exactly constructive.
Why are you deliberately transforming my words? I didn&#39;t put it as simple as that. I said all the historical facts and that there are millions of sources.

So why don&#39;t you quote him and tell him what you think?

[nikos]

my comrades,
it is very difficult for religion to wither especially in middle east only for one reason...because big capitalist countries dont want religions to disappear..because as long as religions exist, they can manipulate the fanatic religious people, mostly the deep reliigious workers...havent u seen arab people being attacked, carrying dead bodies and they are saying thats what allah wants...so ..they dont react..and thats what capitalist countries want in order to keep manipulating the poor, uneducated, deep religious people..

[Sky]

Over the next four-and-a-half years, millions of innocent party members and others were arrested -- many of them for complicity in the vast plot that supposedly lay behind the killing of Kirov.”

This is an oversimplistic view of the situation. To a large extent, the Yezhovschina was just a demonstration of traditional Russian xenophobia in the context of an increased threat of war with Germany, Poland, and Japan. It has been estimated that diaspora nationalities such as the Poles, Germans, and Finns made up almost one-third of all those given death sentenecs in the 1937-38 period. These same nationalities represented only 1.5 percent of the total Soviet population. The purge was not a centrally directed campaign and there were spontaneous excesses committed by local officials. Stalin and the members of the Politburo approved of only some 45,000 death sentences in that period out of 700,000. There were outstanding excesses committed in Turkmenia not because of a plot from the Kremlin but because of the zealous behavior of the local officials.

[Luís Henrique]

There were outstanding excesses committed in Turkmenia not because of a plot from the Kremlin but because of the zealous behavior of the local officials.

Sans doute. Now, who were those local officials trying to impress?

Luís Henrique

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Sans doute. Now, who were those local officials trying to impress?

Luís Henrique

You fail to understand that in many cases this kind of crap was basically a way for corrupt local officials to secure their position, to create fiefdoms, and so on. It's something common in the history of Russia because of the vast territory. Central Asia was a particularly chaotic region.

[Andres Marcos]

Sans doute. Now, who were those local officials trying to impress?

Luís Henrique

Their egos possibly, it certainly was not Stalin. Many instances of arrests initiated by Yezhov were actually overturned after an investigation one of the victims was Marshal Rokossovskiy Konstantin Konstantinovich. During the Summer of 1941, as Rokossovskiy remembers, Stalin picked white roses from his garden and gave them to Rokossovskiy, saying with a sadness in his voice: "This is for you and for the torment you had to endure in the past". I find it hard to believe after consistent analysis of Stalin's personality by his adopted son vassilly seergev, the kaganovich family, and others that he would be "impressed" by the targetting of innocents.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Luis, the two posters do have a point. I'm sure the outward reason they'd say to others would be "I want to impress Stalin." Seriously, however, how much contact did Stalin have with these lower-rung folks?

Stalin did so much to create an "opportunistic" environment, but the opportunists themselves, especially those way under Stalin's personal radar, took it a step further. Bureaucracy's a b****.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Luis, the two posters do have a point. I'm sure the outward reason they'd say to others would be "I want to impress Stalin." Seriously, however, how much contact did Stalin have with these lower-rung folks?

Stalin did so much to create an "opportunistic" environment, but the opportunists themselves, especially those way under Stalin's personal radar, took it a step further. Bureaucracy's a b****.


The situation in Russia at the time(somewhat as it is today) was "opportunistic" with or without Stalin, or even the Bolsheviks for that matter. People were separated by thousands of miles, many people were illiterate and could complain formally, and so on.

[Luís Henrique]

Luis, the two posters do have a point. I'm sure the outward reason they'd say to others would be "I want to impress Stalin." Seriously, however, how much contact did Stalin have with these lower-rung folks?

They do have a point; however, their point don't help them, Stalin or Marxism in general.

Evidently, Stalin did not know of each and every development under him. As I am sure that the Tsars did not know of every movement of the Okhrana. However, there was a political establishment. The fact is, the "lower-rung" folks had every reason to believe that acting in the way they did would foster their careers within party and State. In fact, having your boss framed and arrested was a practical way to get the position for yourself. Which points out that the regime was not a workers' democracy - not the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie - but a dictatorship over the proletariat. At this point, whether Stalin was the living force behind such dictatorship, or just a privileged instrument of it, becomes an issue of merely biographical interest.


Stalin did so much to create an "opportunistic" environment, but the opportunists themselves, especially those way under Stalin's personal radar, took it a step further. Bureaucracy's a b****.

Not that bureaucracy isn't horrible, but... in fact, the reason behind such actions doesn't seem to have been bureaucracy. There is nothing bureaucratic in executions without trial.

Luís Henrique

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Given the fact that managers and party members who engaged in such behavior were the main targets, it was a dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Luís Henrique]

You fail to understand that in many cases this kind of crap was basically a way for corrupt local officials to secure their position, to create fiefdoms, and so on. It's something common in the history of Russia because of the vast territory. Central Asia was a particularly chaotic region.

And people made a revolution so that Russian history remained like that?

Evidently, local corrupt officials understood that unleashing brutal repression against their perceived enemies was expedient to foster their careers. This points to a flaw in the system as a whole; evidently, corrupt local officials are a world-wide plague: in the United States in the twenties and thirties, for instance, they were a notorious problem. But the truth remains that in the US (albeit their vast territory), the widespread corruption of local officials didn't lead to the mass killing of the leadership of their political parties.

At which point it seems that your position can only be defended by one of two different, but equally reactionary, lines: either Stalinism is a product of Russian barbarism (after all, they aren't even westerners, they are doomed to "oriental despotism"), or it is a product of revolution.

I would rather throw Stalin into the garbage bin than the notions that all people are equal, or that we need a revolution to get rid of our miseries.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Their egos possibly, it certainly was not Stalin. Many instances of arrests initiated by Yezhov were actually overturned after an investigation one of the victims was Marshal Rokossovskiy Konstantin Konstantinovich. During the Summer of 1941, as Rokossovskiy remembers, Stalin picked white roses from his garden and gave them to Rokossovskiy, saying with a sadness in his voice: "This is for you and for the torment you had to endure in the past". I find it hard to believe after consistent analysis of Stalin's personality by his adopted son vassilly seergev, the kaganovich family, and others that he would be "impressed" by the targetting of innocents.

Look, we have a thread called "Stalin the Democrat", which is already sick enough. But "Stalin the Queen of England" seems to be too much of a shot.

If Stalin really allowed the local officials of the Bolshevik Party and/or the State to run amok in their repressive appetites, then he was probably the most incompetent leader ever. I find it very hard to believe, because the political environment at the place and time was brutally competitive, and a supreme leader that was weak and incompetent would have been quickly replaced by someone more energetic. But even if true, it doesn't save Stalin at all; just instead of "Stalin the Terrible", we would have "Stalin the Fool".

Luís Henrique

[Andres Marcos]

Look, we have a thread called "Stalin the Democrat", which is already sick enough. But "Stalin the Queen of England" seems to be too much of a shot.


Now why exactly would it be sick? It seems you are too accepting of bourgeois and Hitlerite propaganda as is the case with most of the 'left', it really says something when the left that is against nazism and fascism does not hesitate to feed on its 'research' such as the katyn incident when goebbels said the soviets massacred polish officers and could prove the names of the officers who did it who just so happened to be jewish(coincidence?), or the ukranian famine was intentionally provoked by Stalin which is another Nazi accusation.



If Stalin really allowed the local officials of the Bolshevik Party and/or the State to run amok in their repressive appetites, then he was probably the most incompetent leader ever. I find it very hard to believe, because the political environment at the place and time was brutally competitive, and a supreme leader that was weak and incompetent would have been quickly replaced by someone more energetic. But even if true, it doesn't save Stalin at all; just instead of "Stalin the Terrible", we would have "Stalin the Fool".


Well have you considered how massive the USSR would have been? Or the simple fact that you cant know everything that is going on in a nation due to lack of communications tools? Also I feel I must stress this, people who claim that Stalin was a dictator do not know marxism, statist societies are dictatorships of classes not individuals and a bureacracy is NOT a class, it is a state apparatus that has existed for thousands of years, and they do not know how Leninist parties work for that matter, NO one man in the Party had the power in order to kick someone out of the party, set policy etc. it had to be collectively decided upon.

[spartan]

Now why exactly would it be sick? It seems you are too accepting of bourgeois and Hitlerite propaganda as is the case with most of the 'left', it really says something when the left that is against nazism and fascism does not hesitate to feed on its 'research' such as the katyn incident when goebbels said the soviets massacred polish officers and could prove the names of the officers who did it who just so happened to be jewish(coincidence?), or the ukranian famine was intentionally provoked by Stalin which is another Nazi accusation.

It should be pointed out that recent archive material released in Russia, proves that the Katyn massacre was done by the Soviets.

Also a few years back, the Russian government sent an official apology to the Polish government over the incident.

As for the famine in Ukraine, i myself think of it not as a forced famine, but as a gigantic catastrophe where no one person was to blame for it.

[Andres Marcos]

It should be pointed out that recent archive material released in Russia, proves that the Katyn massacre was done by the Soviets.

Also a few years back, the Russian government sent an official apology to the Polish government over the incident.

As for the famine in Ukraine, i myself think of it not as a forced famine, but as a gigantic catastrophe where no one person was to blame for it.

Well I would like to see this evidence or at least quotes from it and see if it matches up with the nazi accusation that those commissars who commited it were all jews specifically the names Lev Rybak, Avraam Brodninsky, Chaim Fineberg because these people did not exist, I highly doubt even if it does exist that it was the case of the Soviets rather than the Germans who were the ones who did it since they were the ones who found it and were known to treat poles as untermensch. Here is what Maria Alexandrovna Sashneva, a local school teacher had to say about the Katyn incident since she was in the vacinity.


"Simultaneously with the noise stopping single shots would be heard. The shots followed each other at short but approximately even intervals. Then the shooting would die down and the trucks would drive right up to the country house. German soldiers and NCOs came out of the trucks. Talking noisily they went to wash in the bathhouse, after which they engaged in drunken orgies.

"On days when the trucks arrived more soldiers from some German military units used to arrive at the country house. Special beds were put up for them… Shortly before the trucks reached the country house armed soldiers went to the forest evidently to the spot where the trucks stopped because in half an hour they returned in these trucks, together with the soldiers who lived permanently in the country house.

"…On several occasions I noticed stains of fresh blood on the clothes of two Lance Corporals. From all this I inferred that the Germans brought people in the truck to the country house and shot them."

"Once I stayed at the country house somewhat later than usual… Before I finished the work which had kept me there, a soldier suddenly entered and told me I could go … He … accompanied me to the highway.
"Standing on the highway 150 or 200 metres from where the road branches off to the country house I saw a group of about 30 Polish war prisoners marching along the highway under heavy German escort… I halted near the roadside to see where they were being led, and I saw that they turned towards our country house at Kozy Gory.
"Since by that time I had begun to watch closely everything going on at the country house, I became interested. I went back some distance along the highway, hid in bushes near the roadside, and waited. In some 20 or 30 minutes I heard the familiar single shots. "



As for the Russian government apologizing that is irrelevant.

[Luís Henrique]

Now why exactly would it be sick? It seems you are too accepting of bourgeois and Hitlerite propaganda as is the case with most of the 'left', it really says something when the left that is against nazism and fascism does not hesitate to feed on its 'research' such as the katyn incident when goebbels said the soviets massacred polish officers and could prove the names of the officers who did it who just so happened to be jewish(coincidence?), or the ukranian famine was intentionally provoked by Stalin which is another Nazi accusation.

Accusations stand on themselves or they don't, never mind who made them. The "Ukrainian" famine was neither intentional nor "Ukrainian"; it swept all of European Soviet Union plus Kazakhstan, including, of course, Russia. So it is a fantasy (though more correctly, an Ukrainian nationalist fantasy, rather than a Nazi one) to attribute it to Stalin's intentions on genocide against Ukrainians. The Katyn incident, on the other hand, was the execution of Polish military officials by the Red Army. There is no way out of it. I doubt that the officers who conducted it were Jewish and see no reason for that. Some of them, maybe, of course.


Well have you considered how massive the USSR would have been? Or the simple fact that you cant know everything that is going on in a nation due to lack of communications tools?

OK. Let's take a look at a nation of a similar size, equally underdeveloped, and at the same time: Brazil. Why does it happen that mass atrocities of the same nature and scale didn't happen in Brazil between 1930 and 1955?


Also I feel I must stress this, people who claim that Stalin was a dictator do not know marxism, statist societies are dictatorships of classes not individuals

It seems that it is you who have some problems of knowledge. Evidently any State is an instrument of the dictatorship of one class over the other. It doesn't mean that there are not dictatorships of institutions (military dictatorships like in Brazil 1964-1985, clerical dictatorships like Austria between wars, police dictatorships, etc) or even family or individual dictatorships (the Somozas in Nicaragua, the Duvaliers in Haiti, Franco in Spain or Salazar in Portugal, etc). Of course such dictatorships are only able to subsist because they serve the interests of the bourgeoisie (or landed oligarchy), but this doesn't mean that their internal dynamics isn't completely different from the "normal" whole-class dictatorship that we call "bourgeois democracy". You should read the 18th Brummaire; but I would dare say that the caricature of Marxism you seem to be defending here is incompatible even with Stalinism properly - read Dimitrov, for instance.

Luís Henrique

[Andres Marcos]

Accusations stand on themselves or they don't, never mind who made them.

Really? so as leftists who use sources especially the bourgeois and nazi sources must be accepted as fact(especially when these people say communism is jewish/against human nature)? I find this extremely hypocritical since I have seen on many occasion people dismiss sources as 'biased' because it came from a Stalin supporter(but at least is backed by credible evidence) but its perfectly normal to accept the Russian fascist Solzhenitsyn's claim of 60 million killed or similar claims by the bourgeois propagandist Robert Conquest's which truly do not relate to the facts or common sense for that matter(those losses would have been devastating for ANY population and would have ruined it to the point of no recovery). It seems truth has become a statistic that is only qualified by the number of bourgeois/nazi "experts" who concur and how many times their 'truth' is repeated to the point its 'common knowledge' and thus unquestionable. Do you really think its a coincidence that the bourgeois use unfounded nazi claims to 'prove' that ''bolshevism is fascism but worse''? What really surprises me is that Trotskyites, anarchists, and others feed off this propaganda without even thinking about doing research themselves accepting this as 'fact' but scream foul when the bourgeois claims it can prove Communism is against 'human nature'.



The Katyn incident, on the other hand, was the execution of Polish military officials by the Red Army. There is no way out of it. I doubt that the officers who conducted it were Jewish and see no reason for that. Some of them, maybe, of course.Except the Germans discovered it and claimed they had proof of the commissars who did it which coincidentally ALL were Jewish, not to mention the fact that there were numerous names of the Jewish Commissars who actually did not even exist such as Lev Rybak, Avraam Brodninsky, Chaim Finebergor(I wonder how they even claimed to find those names!) that 3 eyewitnesses in the vicinity all claimed that the executions were of polish prisoners (not free officers) who were executed by the Germans, which is not far from the truth because we know Germans who captured Russians would simply let them die whereas the poles they would shoot when they felt like it. Lets also not forget that German ammunition was found in the area as well as attested by Goebbels' diary(which sounds like a confession of it being totally to blame on the Germans) on May 8th 1943:


"Unfortunately, German ammunition has been found in the graves at Katyn … It is essential that this incident remains a top secret. If it were to come to the knowledge of the enemy the whole Katyn affair would have to be dropped. "


OK. Let's take a look at a nation of a similar size, equally underdeveloped, and at the same time: Brazil. Why does it happen that mass atrocities of the same nature and scale didn't happen in Brazil between 1930 and 1955?
1. Completely different nation and completely different class dictatorship.
2. NOT similar in size(im talking land mass and the spreading of population)
3. USSR was more developed than Brazil in fact I believe it was the 2nd largest producer of steel if i remember correctly.
4. what mass atrocities? 20 million-60 million people? surely you dont believe those numbers(these should have been debunked a long time ago as propaganda) also looks like you are resorting to a totalitarian paradigm in order to contrast the USSR using sources from the bourgeoisie and nazis I imagine.



It seems that it is you who have some problems of knowledge. Evidently any State is an instrument of the dictatorship of one class over the other. It doesn't mean that there are not dictatorships of institutions (military dictatorships like in Brazil 1964-1985, clerical dictatorships like Austria between wars, police dictatorships, etc) or even family or individual dictatorships (the Somozas in Nicaragua, the Duvaliers in Haiti, Franco in Spain or Salazar in Portugal, etc).
Actually I know perfectly well what I said but thank you for the concern as for these dictatorships they had explicit support of the domestic as well as the foreign bourgeosie and the state served its interest, it was a class dictatorship and to say it was ruled by the will of one person or a small clique(besides the bourgeois) is not only wrong its a gross interpretation of history.



Of course such dictatorships are only able to subsist because they serve the interests of the bourgeoisie (or landed oligarchy), but this doesn't mean that their internal dynamics isn't completely different from the "normal" whole-class dictatorship that we call "bourgeois democracy".
The simple fact that it serves the bourgeosie and does its will(trade, economics, repression of workers, strikes etc.) Defines any state no matter its form of govt. whether bourgeois democracy or bourgeois fascism is still a class dictatorship not the one of an individual after all private property and private means of production is still intact in fascist dictatorships.



You should read the 18th Brummaire;
Still does not contradict what I say here is what it says



"Napoleon completed this state machinery. The Legitimate Monarchy and the July Monarchy added nothing to it but a greater division of labor, increasing at the same rate as the division of labor inside the bourgeois society created new groups of interests, and therefore new material for the state administration. Every common interest was immediately severed from the society, countered by a higher, general interest, snatched from the activities of society’s members themselves and made an object of government activity – from a bridge, a schoolhouse, and the communal property of a village community, to the railroads, the national wealth, and the national University of France. Finally the parliamentary republic, in its struggle against the revolution, found itself compelled to strengthen the means and the centralization of governmental power with repressive measures. All revolutions perfected this machine instead of breaking it.''

"But under the absolute monarchy, during the first Revolution, and under Napoleon the bureaucracy was only the means of preparing the class rule of the bourgeoisie."

"...the state power is not suspended in the air. Bonaparte represented a class, and the most numerous class of French society at that, the small-holding peasants."

"But let us not misunderstand. The Bonaparte dynasty represents not the revolutionary, but the conservative peasant; not the peasant who strikes out beyond the condition of his social existence, the small holding, but rather one who wants to consolidate his holding; not the countryfolk who in alliance with the towns want to overthrow the old order through their own energies, but on the contrary those who, in solid seclusion within this old order, want to see themselves and their small holdings saved and favored by the ghost of the Empire."

"Under Napoleon the fragmentation of the land in the countryside supplemented free competition and the beginning of big industry in the towns. The peasant class was the ubiquitous protest against the recently overthrown landed aristocracy. "




but I would dare say that the caricature of Marxism you seem to be defending here is incompatible even with Stalinism properly - read Dimitrov, for instance.1. Marxism states that ALL statist societies are class dictatorships no matter their political trappings, there is no such thing as a individual or institution having power over all classes, state institutions are the tools of the ruling class.
2. There is no such thing as 'Stalinism' it is Marxism-Leninism, Stalin's writings are completely compatible with Lenin's there is no theoretical difference between the writings of Lenin and the writings of Stalin and Marxism-Leninism as well defines the U.S. and Nazi Germany(thus bourgeois democracy and bourgeois fascism STILL preserves the bourgeois as the exclusive ruling class) as bourgeois class dictatorships no matter the political apparatus differences. If stalin was such a dictator then why did he have to convince people to vote a different way? Like I said Stalin was a minority in numerous votes in the central committee such as in the invasion of poland(he advised against it b/c polish nationalism was too high), and he opposed the support of the state of Israel etc.? Does this sound like a Hitler or any other bourgeois tool to you in which he had to get people on board with his ideas or else they would not happen? Leninist parties are not based on the power of an individual it never has it has always been one of collective leadership.

[Luís Henrique]

Really? so as leftists who use sources especially the bourgeois and nazi sources must be accepted as fact(especially when these people say communism is jewish/against human nature)?

Nope. Any source must be taken in a critical way. Evidently communism isn't Jewish (there are many anti-communist Jews, and many communist goyim).


I find this extremely hypocritical since I have seen on many occasion people dismiss sources as 'biased' because it came from a Stalin supporter(but at least is backed by credible evidence) but its perfectly normal to accept the Russian fascist Solzhenitsyn's claim of 60 million killed or similar claims by the bourgeois propagandist Robert Conquest's

This seems to be simply a strawman. Is anyone arguing Solzhenitsyn's 60,000,000? I for sure don't believe the number (and we know perfectly how numbers like that are obtained: in war, casualties of both sides are attributed to the evil communists; in peace, differences are calculated between what a population should have been and what they seem to be, and the difference is attributed, into its entirety, to intentional genocide.


which truly do not relate to the facts or common sense for that matter(those losses would have been devastating for ANY population and would have ruined it to the point of no recovery).

Well, the Soviet Union suffered about 20,000,000 losses from WWII, and it recovered from it (including Ukraine, which according to right-wing crackpots was targeted for ethnic elimination).


It seems truth has become a statistic that is only qualified by the number of bourgeois/nazi "experts" who concur and how many times their 'truth' is repeated to the point its 'common knowledge' and thus unquestionable. Do you really think its a coincidence that the bourgeois use unfounded nazi claims to 'prove' that ''bolshevism is fascism but worse''?

This is again a strawman. Nobody here is arguing that.


What really surprises me is that Trotskyites, anarchists, and others feed off this propaganda without even thinking about doing research themselves accepting this as 'fact' but scream foul when the bourgeois claims it can prove Communism is against 'human nature'.

Very nice and impressive. It still doesn't turn around the fact that the Katyn massacre was carried on by the NKVD.


Except the Germans discovered it and claimed they had proof of the commissars who did it which coincidentally ALL were Jewish, not to mention the fact that there were numerous names of the Jewish Commissars who actually did not even exist such as Lev Rybak, Avraam Brodninsky, Chaim Finebergor(I wonder how they even claimed to find those names!)

That the Nazis exploited the Katyn massacre as much as they could, there can be absolutely no doubt. But as I had said elsewhere, it is the actions of the Stalinist regime, not the words of Trotsyists, or anarchists, or whatever, that do discredit the Soviet Union.


1. Completely different nation and completely different class dictatorship.

So the existence of mass murders in the Soviet Union and their inexistence in Brazil is due to the fact that the Soviet Union was a dictatorship of the proletariat, and Brazil a dictatorship of the landed oligarchy?

How does this tell anything good of the dictatorship of the proletariat? It seems that you are now doing the anti-communist propaganda...


2. NOT similar in size(im talking land mass and the spreading of population)

Both are huge continental nations, both had a sparse population, both had bad transportation and communication systems.


3. USSR was more developed than Brazil in fact I believe it was the 2nd largest producer of steel if i remember correctly.

Probably was; which makes the brutality of Stalinism even more inexplicable. Wasn't the argument the backwardness of the Soviet Union?


4. what mass atrocities? 20 million-60 million people? surely you dont believe those numbers(these should have been debunked a long time ago as propaganda) also looks like you are resorting to a totalitarian paradigm in order to contrast the USSR using sources from the bourgeoisie and nazis I imagine.

No, not 20,000,000 people. Hundreds of thousands, as Grover Furr text in the thread about "Stalin the Democrat" says. Do you think it is acceptable at those numbers?


Actually I know perfectly well what I said but thank you for the concern as for these dictatorships they had explicit support of the domestic as well as the foreign bourgeosie and the state served its interest, it was a class dictatorship and to say it was ruled by the will of one person or a small clique(besides the bourgeois) is not only wrong its a gross interpretation of history.

Evidently the served the interests of the bourgeoisie, that is the reason they were bourgeois dictatorships. They were completely different from the bourgeois class dictatorship in modern Britain or Sweden.


whether bourgeois democracy or bourgeois fascism is still a class dictatorship not the one of an individual after all private property and private means of production is still intact in fascist dictatorships.

No one said otherwise.


I will if you could provide an online link

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, by Karl Marx:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/index.htm

The People's Front, by Georgi Dimitrov:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1936/12.htm


1. Marxism states that ALL statist societies are class dictatorships no matter their political trappings, there is no such thing as a individual or institution having power over all classes, state institutions are the tools of the ruling class.

Not so. "Marxism states" that all class societies are class dictatorships.


2. There is no such thing as 'Stalinism' it is Marxism-Leninism,

Of course there is such thing as Stalinism; it is a reformist perversion of Marxism.

Luís Henrique

[Andres Marcos]

Very nice and impressive. It still doesn't turn around the fact that the Katyn massacre was carried on by the NKVD.


Actually it does when there was german ammunition in the pits, and 3 eyewitnesses stated the Germans were the ones who shot polish prisoners(check above) in the exact vicinity they ''found'' the slaughtered officers. Why are you ignoring that fact?



That the Nazis exploited the Katyn massacre as much as they could, there can be absolutely no doubt. But as I had said elsewhere, it is the actions of the Stalinist regime, not the words of Trotsyists, or anarchists, or whatever, that do discredit the Soviet Union.
Actually it IS the words of the Trotskyites, anarchists, and nazis who discredit ther USSR by delibirately making up accusations of things that the Soviet Union never did, take things out of context, or blow out of proportions(i.e. gulag labor camps, ukranian famine, katyn massacre, molotov-ribbentropp pact etc.)



So the existence of mass murders in the Soviet Union and their inexistence in Brazil is due to the fact that the Soviet Union was a dictatorship of the proletariat, and Brazil a dictatorship of the landed oligarchy?

How does this tell anything good of the dictatorship of the proletariat? It seems that you are now doing the anti-communist propaganda...
This does not make any sense especially how I am reciting "anti-communist propaganda". Actually what my objection to was that you were trying to compare what you call ''similar'' nations when in fact they are not similar at all.




Probably was; which makes the brutality of Stalinism even more inexplicable. Wasn't the argument the backwardness of the Soviet Union?
Repetition of propaganda and I never gave an argument of backwardness.



No, not 20,000,000 people. Hundreds of thousands, as Grover Furr text in the thread about "Stalin the Democrat" says. Do you think it is acceptable at those numbers?
If the facts say so then yes, although the Russian intelligence service has reason to believe even those numbers are inflated. I also have reason to believe the majority killed were guilty of what the reasons were(based on the fact that Russia had hundreds of years of czarist rule as well as a civil war), especially in times of war and the dictatorship of the proletariat.



Evidently the served the interests of the bourgeoisie, that is the reason they were bourgeois dictatorships. They were completely different from the bourgeois class dictatorship in modern Britain or Sweden.
Does this mean anything? Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, Roosevelt, and other bourgeois heads of state are not rulers OVER the bourgeosie they are the representation of the bourgeois state. Of course they were different than Britiain and Sweden because they reverted to authoritarianism to protect the bourgeois class from the workers. Sweden and Britain were not threatened by worker revolution like the state of Franco or Hitlers were. Liberal democracy and fascism are merely the shades of bourgeois rule, fascism comes as a result of danger to capitalism.




The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
already responded to it.



Not so. "Marxism states" that all class societies are class dictatorships.
Actually Class dictatorships ARE statist societies and the sole reason for the state is to protect the class in power. There has never been a situation where the control of the state has been in the hands of an individual rather than a class in power.



Of course there is such thing as Stalinism; it is a reformist perversion of Marxism.
A statement that has no basis in reality, the 'Stalinists' have all been at the forefront of every major people's revolution whereas the Trotskyites, none and anarchists only in times coinciding with Civil War in which in ALL cases between those three only the 'Stalinists' have been successful in spreading socialism. 'Stalinism' is the same as Marxism-Leninism there are no theoretical differences between the writings of Stalin and the writings of Lenin. whereas the writings of Lenin and Trotsky are so different that anyone claiming it is Leninist is just lying or has not studied the works of Trotsky.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Evidently, Stalin did not know of each and every development under him. As I am sure that the Tsars did not know of every movement of the Okhrana. However, there was a political establishment. The fact is, the "lower-rung" folks had every reason to believe that acting in the way they did would foster their careers within party and State. In fact, having your boss framed and arrested was a practical way to get the position for yourself. Which points out that the regime was not a workers' democracy - not the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie - but a dictatorship over the proletariat. At this point, whether Stalin was the living force behind such dictatorship, or just a privileged instrument of it, becomes an issue of merely biographical interest.

Not that bureaucracy isn't horrible, but... in fact, the reason behind such actions doesn't seem to have been bureaucracy. There is nothing bureaucratic in executions without trial.

Thanks for clarifying on that last point regarding the lack of bureaucracy during the incrimination process.