Did Stalin destroy Communism

[thebigcom]

We all know that with the death of Lenin came the end of hope for a sucessful russian communist environment. after using underhanded techniques Stalin grabbed power and tried to rush his people intoa pure form of communism, after discontinuing Lenin's NEP, which would have eased the people into communism. what are your thoughts on whether stalin destroyed russian communism or not.

[Nateddi]

Despite how much I hate Stalin, the Russian Revolution was basically over before it was started.

The civil war left a devestating effect, and during that time the NEP came to power, etc. People got around Stalin because he seemed to be the stronger leader in a time of great uncertainty.

Even without Stalin, russia would still stay lagging behind the west many decades, and the western bourgeois would still have never let up on Russia. The only hope I could see, is if Trotsky could have been able to stabalize the country, perhaps give the Internationale greater popularity, that could lead to communist revolutions in Germany during their depression, instead of a movement to the extreme right.

Stalin only ruined communism by giving people an argument how communism is ideologically meant to kill people; and giving headlines of millions of deaths, etc. He certainly deteriorated Marxism; however Russia had very little chance of getting anywhere even if he didn't get power.

[guerrillaradio]

Quote: from Nateddi on 4:33 am on May 30, 2002
People got around Stalin because he seemed to be the stronger leader in a time of great uncertainty.

No, Stalin got into power cos he purged everyone else in authority. Agreed about Leninism though. Some of what he did was a quite delicate but ultimately successful balancing act of communism and capitalism, however I find your quote of his fascinating. If "democracy is indispensible", then how come he rejected the Russian election and parliament after only 20% voted Bolshevik??

[lenin]

this is a very worrying thread indeed! in seeing a thread like this, i fell it is impossible for communism to take off in the west because of the split between stalinism and libertarian communism.
stalin didn't ruin communism, USA ruined communism! intentionally that is! the embagos they placed on communist countries made it hard for communism to survive. also, if there was no US, there would be no massive military spending! it all poins tp the USA to be honest with you.

[Menshevik]

Stalin definitely ruined the image of Communism with his militaristic, aggressive, border-line insane personality.

[Kez]

Fuckin Crazy

I reckon, if trotsky had got in, then the capitalists would have invaded.

Stalin DID NOT get into power by purging, however he maintained his power by doing so

If stalin hadnt tainted the image of communism, then the capitalists would have killed it

[lenin]

well said comrade kamo!

trotsky wouldn't have industrialised quick enough. could you imagine a non-industrialised USSR vs nazi germany? taveresshkamo, me and you would be speaking german right now if trotsky would of got in (you are armenian aren't you?).

[Nateddi]

Quote: from guerrillaradio on 11:48 am on May 30, 2002

No, Stalin got into power cos he purged everyone else in authority. Agreed about Leninism though. Some of what he did was a quite delicate but ultimately successful balancing act of communism and capitalism, however I find your quote of his fascinating. If "democracy is indispensible", then how come he rejected the Russian election and parliament after only 20% voted Bolshevik??


People's democracy and democratic centralism is better than state-capitalism. That is basically what he was refrering to. Not bourgeois democracy.

[Political Prisoner]

This thread troubles me too. The information given by thebigcom is no more than propaganda and rheteric that is taught to students of the US since ninth grade soviet history class. And because u throw around words like the NEP you think you understand it.

[thebigcom]

hey "poitical prisoner" or should i say Mike. i learned most of what i said from history class. i dont understand this totally. thats what i want, to learn from those who know. i may not be a hardcore communist but i dont come on here for kicks like you

[Well in doubt]

hey Political Prisoner and big com why dont you two stop *****ing at each other, hey big com your a hypocrite and Politcal Prisoiner eh i got no beef with you.

[Political Prisoner]

First of all BigCom theres no need to mudsling and go using first names. Not cool. Second i dont come on here for kicks, i come to learn and voice my opinions. You on the other hand followed us here as some kind of fad. Our beliefs are no fad and this is where this ends.

[Well in doubt]

I LIKE SOCIAL STUDIES, IM A BIG FAN OF IT AND ENJOY WATCHING THE HISTORY, BUT SOME PEOPLE ON THIS WEBSITE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. YOU KNOW WHO IM TALKING ABOUT.

[thebigcom]

thank you for backing me up Well in Doubt. while i came here after hearing about from deadpool 52, and yourself. i came out of curiousity, and i found that it was an appropriate environment for learning about te ideals of communism. now lets just back of each
other

[marxistdisciple]

I've not got a great deal of knowledge on stalin....unfortunately my only knowledge is through the capitalist "bell jar" shall we call it it (to steal a sylvia plath term.) The thing is, I find that political leaders who kill people to get into power generally dont have a good image with the capitalist public. This is almost without exception. So although the capitalists may have skewed and strangled and tortured the life out of actual history to match their own needs.....stalin still killed a lot of people. I don't know how many, but once you start killing people to make your argument heard, suddenly people stop listening. I retract, they listen alright... thing is, it's out of fear, and pure survival instinct, instead of faith, and belief and all the good ideas we like and respect. So, to sum up, I don't think either the US or Stalin murdered communism. I thinkSstalin dug the hole, and the capitalists threw it in. (is that a good analagy?) Under the nature of the bastard capitalists, they then effectively rewrote history (or at least tainted it severely) so that if anyone tried to dig up the grave, they would look instantly "unpatriotic" and/or "insert other nasty words here." Please feel free to pick apart my argument, I know you will :)

[kingbee]

stalin did kill it- and pol pot made sure it wouldnt come back for a while- there wasnt one famil in cambodia that didnt have a killed relative

[Kez]

I think Stalin inadvertantly killed the unity of Communism and this community is proof of that.

Like Mao sed, 70% good, 30% bad, capitalist leaders cant even get that high for good

but Khrushev was a fuckin god he was mint

[guerrillaradio]

Quote: from TavareeshKamo on 11:42 am on June 13, 2002
but Khrushev was a fuckin god he was mint

Hardly. 20,000 killed in Hungary?? Fucked up farming methods that led to the starvation of many more?? Even the most ardent commies admit Khrushchev didn't do very well...

[Kez]

Khrushev opened up markets for farmers to sell their surplus goods.
He also fucked stalin over, meaning oppression was over.
Dissendents were allowed

Anyhow, reasons why STalin was a ****:
The Purges
The death of the communist internation in 1947 by mr porno tasche Stalin
The way he made himself into a demiGod.

Comrade Kamo

(Edited by TavareeshKamo at 11:04 am on June 15, 2002)

[guerrillaradio]

Quote: from TavareeshKamo on 11:01 am on June 15, 2002
Khrushev opened up markets for farmers to sell their surplus goods.
He also fucked stalin over, meaning oppression was over.
Dissendents were allowed


Big deal. He also caused a slaughter in Hungary, bowed to the US over the Cuban Missile Crisis, and starved many millions through attempted new farming methods. Hardly the makings of a great leader. There's a reason why he only lasted eight years y'know...

[Kez]

bowed down?
didnt u read about the bit where they got the Turkish AND italian missiles down for taking cuban ones down?
i think khrushev won there.....

comrade kamo

[guerrillaradio]

Then how come Khrushchev was ousted very soon after then?? The men at the top weren't impressed, and Che was pissed off too.

Might you answer some of my other points, such as his murderous imperialism in Hungary??

[Kez]

who the fuck cares what CHe said?

was he a politician? no, did he know of the missiles in italy and turkey coming down? no.

What happened in Hungary wasnt all down to Khrushev.
There was such a thing as the politburo u know.
The same thing happened in afghanastan, brezhnev sed no to war, but the politburo sed yes to war, so therefore the war went ahead.

Quiet simple really if you know of the soviet structure before you bombard it

[ILoveShrub]

I hate Stalin. But one must excuse his insanity. For one reason alone. During the Civil war the western forces were aiding, and fighting with the Whites. At that the Russians realized that the West would try to destroy them at the next best time. The only thing that saved the Russians was WW2 which made the West work with the East. But Stalin knew that at the next chance they would destroy him. But still Stalin was an Idiot.

[Mazdak]

Hey Stalin may have been somewhat paranoid but i once again agree with lenin- the split between the Stalinists and the trotskyist/other communists prevents there from ever being a united world revolution. We are all communists, after all, so why not dis out George W Bush than talk about how much Stalin sucked?

[Kez]

The reason is so the neo-liberal democrat blowjobbers on this site can give each other pats on the back by saying the same old shit.

"Lenin" - guy from che-lives is not a stalinist despeite what he ses, he knows fuck all.
"YuriAndropov" is not a Stalinist, he knows fuck all

Go to a socialist meeting and u will be surprised to how stalinists and trotskyists can agree on things and dont slang insults at each other. You know why? coz theyre educaed people, not fuckin about with nothin to do but insult. They work with each other, and even tho there are others who dont work together, u must see all cases before callin all stalinists wankers from sitting on your foam chair and typing on the computer.

Stalinism is shite, but doesnt mean true stalinists and even leninists arent communists.

[Mazdak]

Yes, well i haven't seen too much trotskyist/stalinist cooperation anywhere and if a revolution ever took place, it would collapse quickly due to the disunity of the rebels. Remeber the Spanish Civil War?? Because of anarchist/socialist disagreements( at least one of the reasons), facism took over Spain.

[Ymir]

"Did stalin destroy communism?"

You can kill the revolutionary but you can't kill the revolution.

[Mazdak]

Stalin helped the spaniards fight against facism.
ok

[Michael De Panama]

Stalin WAS a fascist.

Stalinists are NOT communists. If they are, then tell me one difference (aside from their proletarian status) between their ideals and fascism. And don't give me some half-assed answer, either. You know what I'm talking about. Seriously, I would really like to know why you think they deserve to be considered "communist".

And in what way was "lenin" not a Stalinist, Kamo?

[RGacky3]

Quote: from TavareeshKamo on 12:40 pm on June 23, 2002
The reason is so the neo-liberal democrat blowjobbers on this site can give each other pats on the back by saying the same old shit.

"Lenin" - guy from che-lives is not a stalinist despeite what he ses, he knows fuck all.
"YuriAndropov" is not a Stalinist, he knows fuck all

Go to a socialist meeting and u will be surprised to how stalinists and trotskyists can agree on things and dont slang insults at each other. You know why? coz theyre educaed people, not fuckin about with nothin to do but insult. They work with each other, and even tho there are others who dont work together, u must see all cases before callin all stalinists wankers from sitting on your foam chair and typing on the computer.

Stalinism is shite, but doesnt mean true stalinists and even leninists arent communists.


Well said I agree compleatly, Listen to him stalin haters.

[Mazdak]

TK, thank god that someone finally took the middle ground. Fighting fellow leftists is foolish, as the tyrant Abe Lincoln said,a house divided on itself cannot stand or soemthingnlike that

[thebigcom]

Thank you all for responding, some of it was a tad over my head due to my limited knowledge but im happy you took the time to respond to a seemingly simple question.

[ComradeJunichi]

Stalin did not destroy communism. He ruined it in Russia, but I don't know how much better it would have turned out there anyway. Stalin created stalinism, he did not destroy communism. We havn't seen any communist state yet, you can't destroy an idea.

[Buttface McGee]

Micheal de Panama! you sure do suck at politcal thinking!! GO BE A MALE CHEERLEADER!!!! HA!

[Michael De Panama]

Hey. How's it going, Matt?

[Mazdak]

blarrg! how can one say stalin ruined communism? He saved the first communist state from destruction in WW2, and communist "imperialism" is acceptable. Even the Fins were not so "innocent," they committed atrocities during the civil war against the Red army. They deserved to be invaded.

[maoist3]

The Soviet Union did not have the time to
keep the NEP forever, besides which people were
STARVING because of it, because some peasants
were speculating in grain by witholding it from the
cities. That's why grain procurement for the cities
actually went down and that's why Stalin swung
away from the NEP, fast.

With the Germans inevitably coming, the USSR could
not afford every dissident view--and contrary to
Liberals--Stalin proved that talk is NOT a panacea.
The Soviet Union industrialized faster than any nation
in history up to that point--thanks to repression in part,
yes.

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/faq/stalin.html

is our FAQ on Stalin.

[Mazdak]

Which is why the Kulaks were executed. they were becoming greedy and tyrannic

[Gergely]

Stalin, Pol Pot, Chrustschew and Breschnew destroyed communism!
That's all I have to say (maybe even more commy leaders)!

[Mazdak]

How can you say "stalin and kruchev??" That is like saying Marx and Bush.

Pol Pot was only one country.. And although Brezhnev sucked, Stalin didnt ruin communisn. He enhanced it.

[monkeydust]

I wouldnt fully say 'Stalin destroyed communism' but he certainly seemed to taint the ideas of many naive people about communism. I know many fools who simply claim communism is 'evil' , 'so many people have to be killed' or 'living conditions hve to be terrible'. If anyone was considering to try and start a communist or socialist revolution, thry would have to condemn Stalin or claim they are completely different just to get the support of the masses.

Still, in some ways Stalins paranoia payed off in the end. He believed he needed to industrialise because he believed he would be attacked. His means to achieving this transformation were problably neccesary for such quick industrialisation but were so harsh. So what if he managed to beat Hitler n all that ( I think Hitler would have lost in the end anyway), in doing so I think hes changed the mainstreams opinions on communism for the worse

[Mazdak]

Don't talk like that hear, you will be hated forever. You have to condemn Stalin or they will try to have you banned/treated like a capitalist in a heartbeat.

[Cassius Clay]

'Did Stalin destroy Communism' Simple answer no. He and the Soviet people turned a 3rd world Fuedal society ruined by years of World War and Civil War, into a World Superpower which had crushed the forces of fascism and matched US Imperialism. Socialism now stretched from Berlin to Seoul. The life of the average Soviet Citizen improved dramatically (well up till June 22nd 1941 anyway) with free health care, free enducation, full employment, shelter. Things that would of been unimaginable in 1917.

Oh know you say but 'He murdered atleast 10 million innocent people'. While the now opened Soviet Archives state that around 800,000 people died in the Soviet Prison system between 1934 and 1953. For a variety of reasons such as suicide, discease, murders by other prisoners and finally Execution.

But millions were sent to the Gulag you cry. Well apart from this being a great overexagartion, what they don't teach you at school is that 120,000 prisoners were realeased in 1940 when there cases were bought to a re-trail. This of course sounds rather blunt and and just a cold statistic, and the suffering those people wen't through of being accussed of something they did not do, most of us will probably not experience.

But remember the Soviet state faced a enourmous threat at this time. Not only was Nazi Germany preparing rather obviously to attack, but it appeared that the Empires of Britain and France were actually going to join them. Also the Soviets faced the internal threat of Kulaks, a right wing military coup by former Tsarist officers and the many Capatalists who had taken advantage of the NEP and were not going to give back power without a fight.

But his policies of Industrialisation and Collectivisation caused untold misery and death. First of all they were not his policies but the party's. The Soviet Union had to Industrialise at some point and the 30's was better time then any. True it did cause misery and suffering, but all nations had to modernise at some point. And check out the suffering of workers in England from 1750-1900, which was far worse than anything the Soviets had to endure.

As for Collectivisation, well the Kulaks had to be got rid of (in a sense where they could no longer exploit the peasants). It was a legitimate part of the class war and the building of Socialism. It is true that atrocities were commited, usually by over zealous Party officials and poor peasants (who had suffered at the hands of the Kulaks for centuries, and particularly in the last decade of NEP) who would sometimes liquidate the Kulaks in a physical sense. But what they don't tell you is thousands of Red Army and innocents died due terriorism and Kulak uprisings. What is was a 2nd Civil War.

Ah but the famine in the Ukraine caused by collectivisation. Are you to believe a man like Robert Conquest who will change his figures from 7 million to 15 million from book to book without providing any evidence. The photo's they showed me at school I later found out were from the Volga famine of 1921-22 and there is no suggestion of delbirate genocide there. Yes a famine did take place, but famines also took place in India and the Midwest that year (where thousands fled there homes). Was the Soviet government to slow to react? Yes, they could of atleast stoped the export of grain sooner, but are not all governments slow to react in situations like this?

The matter of deportations after the war. Well this no doubt did take place, and undoubtly thousands of innocents did die, victim to a policy which we know was wrong and cannot not deny Stalin approved of. However in his defense remember the circumstances and morals of the day. The Nazis had devastated everything the Soviet Union had built over the last 20 years and killed over 25 million Soviets. Fanatical hatred of the Fascists would be a undersatment. The Tartars (far from all though) had welcomed the Nazis for a variety of complex reasons which date back centuries. Actively supplying labor, manpower and helping the SS hunt down partisans. So the point is they were far from innocent.

However that does not excuse the thousands of women and children who were resettlled miles from their homes and the innocent men who were executed for collobarition. But remember the circumstances and morals of the day. I have allready explained the circumstances and now onto the morals.

This is the 1940's we are talking about and a world war tends to brutalise people. The atrocities commited on so called collobarators in France where atleast 30,000 were shot and thousands more sent to prison match anything that happened in the Soviet Union. In Yugoslavia to0 atrocities were commited on collobarators and the innocents died. Hell name me one occupied nation which did not take revenge on the guilty and those that they thought were guilty?

Anyway I have sought of gone of topic now so with that I wish you all sweat dreams.

[Cassius Clay]

Quote: from Mazdak on 10:43 pm on Aug. 29, 2002
Don't talk like that hear, you will be hated forever. You have to condemn Stalin or they will try to have you banned/treated like a capitalist in a heartbeat.


LOL