Tolerating Stalin and Stalinism [Archive]

Zurdito

23rd November 2007, 00:35

Originally posted by [email protected] 22, 2007 09:22 am

And he would probably have had them shot.

Why do we need 'leaders'?

The point i'm trying to get across is that you should try to be tolerant of "stalinists", as they have done nothing wrong (in action).
you could say this about inactive right-wingers also.

let's be clear that Stalinists, everywhere they have taken power, have put Trotskyists up against walls and shot them. The Stalinists here know this. Therefore they endorse the murder of our comrades. Why be tolerant of them then?

They are socially reactionary, opposing democratic rights, rights for homosexuals, women, etc., and internationalism, and in practice, their politics, everywhere they have been tried, have eventally lead to the re-instatement of capitalism (perhaps Cuba and North Korea were the two last bastions: in Cuba the leadership is already marching on the road to "reform", which leaves the only unreformed Stalinist state as North Korea - great example eh) - and I bet you my bottom dollar that if the eventual re-instatement of capitalism is defeated in either of those two states, it will be by the mass of workers, AGAINST the wishes of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

So please let's not here any more calls to tolerate Stalinists because they are supposedly good revolutionaries. I can make UF's with them sure, as one would with a wide variety of people in certain circumstances, but the doctrine itself is one we must constantly expose and resist in the left, as they will betray any revolution given half a chance. More fool us if when the reovlution comes around, they are in a position to do so.

Ismail

23rd November 2007, 00:58

Originally posted by [email protected] 22, 2007 07:34 pm
let's be clear that Stalinists, everywhere they have taken power, have put Trotskyists up against walls and shot them. The Stalinists here know this.Because whenever the Trotskyists tried to start a resistance movement (particularly in WWII, of course) it included opposing both the "Stalinists" and Nazis/Fascists at the same time. Since Trotskyists are Communists, this would damage the image of Communism being united against Nazism/Fascism. In Albania, for example, the Communists fought eachother more than they fought the Nazis. It wasn't until Enver Hoxha unified the various Communist movements (and silenced the anarchists, Trotskyists, and "Greater Albania"-ists) that a clear line against Nazism/Fascism was finally taken.

They are socially reactionary, opposing democratic rights, rights for homosexuals, women, etc.Odd, considering that every "Stalinist" I've met has been for all of those. Also, Hoxha executed tribal leaders who refused to give women equal rights (something very risky due to the tribal influence on politics even then in the 60's in local areas which is now coming back to the national scene), and said that all those who opposed womens rights be "thrown into the fire", so I seriously doubt that claim. As for opposing homosexuality and such, it was a common belief then which, while unfortunate, has been showed as outdated.

and internationalismHoxha's attempts to build up Marxist-Leninist parties across the world (Canada, Peru, etc) and calls for internationalism and unity against imperialism were... (If you're wondering why I keep on mentioning Hoxha, it's because he is generally considered to be "more Stalinist than Stalin")

and in practice, their politics, everywhere they have been tried, have eventally lead to the re-instatement of capitalism (perhaps Cuba and North Korea were the two last bastions: in Cuba the leadership is already marching on the road to "reform", which leaves the only unreformed Stalinist state as North Korea - great example eh)I fail to see how "Stalinism" led to the reinstatement of capitalism. The Khrushchevites were the ones with the whole "peaceful co-existence" and reformist views. Then Brezhnev reformed the economy directly, and eventually by 1990 the Soviet Union resembled a competing, imperialist (I doubt anyone seriously believed it was truly Socialist anymore even in social-imperialist context) and capitalistic state at odds with the US mainly in markets. So if "Stalinism" led to the development of capitalism, its heirs made sure to condemn and reform it away.

Also, on the DPRK I believe that while Kim Il Sung was a decent leader (he seemed willing to continue his brand of Socialism no matter what, not moderating at the request of the Khrushchevites) his brand of Socialism known as Juche is shitty, and his son also registers as "shitty" on the Marxist-Leninist scale. Also, unlike Hoxha, who used his isolation to keep Albania non-dependent on other nations and to protest against social-imperialism, the DPRK pretty much has never attempted to build up Juche parties in any other nation.

Comrade Rage

23rd November 2007, 00:59

Originally posted by [email protected] 22, 2007 07:34 pm
their politics, everywhere they have been tried, have eventally lead to the re-instatement of capitalism
I hear this criticism all of the time, but what about other ideologies?

Khrushchevism is what lead the USSR to capitalism.

And besides, what about Mao Testung thought? I think Maoism has more of a state-capitalist background, but I have yet to hear anyone leveling such criticisms at that.

Random Precision

23rd November 2007, 01:27

]Because whenever the Trotskyists tried to start a resistance movement (particularly in WWII, of course) it included opposing both the "Stalinists" and Nazis/Fascists at the same time. Since Trotskyists are Communists, this would damage the image of Communism being united against Nazism/Fascism. In Albania, for example, the Communists fought eachother more than they fought the Nazis. It wasn't until Enver Hoxha unified the various Communist movements (and silenced the anarchists, Trotskyists, and "Greater Albania"-ists) that a clear line against Nazism/Fascism was finally taken.

Was there actually a large Trotskyist movement in Albania? Did they actually attack the Stalinists? What were the exact circumstances?

Hoxha's attempts to build up Marxist-Leninist parties across the world (Canada, Peru, etc) and calls for internationalism and unity against imperialism were... (If you're wondering why I keep on mentioning Hoxha, it's because he is generally considered to be "more Stalinist than Stalin")

I'm sure he had no qualms about extending his influence into those countries. It's actually too bad his people in Albania couldn't have held out for another few years to see their coreligionists take power in Ethiopia. :lol:

I fail to see how "Stalinism" led to the reinstatement of capitalism. The Khrushchevites were the ones with the whole "peaceful co-existence" and reformist views. Then Brezhnev reformed the economy directly, and eventually by 1990 the Soviet Union resembled a competing, imperialist (I doubt anyone seriously believed it was truly Socialist anymore even in social-imperialist context) and capitalistic state at odds with the US mainly in markets. So if "Stalinism" led to the development of capitalism, its heirs made sure to condemn and reform it away.

"Khrushchevism" does not exist. It is merely a further development in the political stance of a Stalinist bureaucracy.

Comrade Rage

23rd November 2007, 01:36

Originally posted by Hope Lies in the [email protected] 22, 2007 08:26 pm
"Khrushchevism" does not exist. It is merely a further development in the political stance of a Stalinist bureaucracy.
I think you are confusing Khrushchev's early views (close to Stalin) with his post 1952/1953 views.

The USSR completely changed from when Khrushchev took power.

Zurdito

23rd November 2007, 01:50

I will reply in more depth later, after sleeping, but can I point out that Trotskyists did not fight fascists and Stalinists at the same time. They defended the Soviet Union against fascists whilst pointing out the mistake of betraying revolutionary movements in Western Europe, as this would lead to the defeat of the last chance in generations to overthrow capitalism. Instead they called for the overthrow of the imperialist states at the time of their biggest crisis before or since. They noted that"peaceful co-existence" would not be possible and that isolated workers states would be ground back into capitalist states. And then they were vilified and even imprisoned across the capitalist world for the duration of the cold war for bravely coming out and defending the degenerated workers states whose leaders had handed them over to their own governments in order to carry on their comfortable and priveliged lives.

Comrade Rage

23rd November 2007, 02:00

Originally posted by [email protected] 22, 2007 08:49 pm
I will reply in more depth later, after sleeping, but can I point out that Trotskyists did not fight fascists and Stalinists at the same time. They defended the Soviet Union against fascists whilst pointing out the mistake of betraying revolutionary movements in Western Europe, as this would lead to the defeat of the last chance in generations to overthrow capitalism. Instead they called for the overthrow of the imperialist states at the time of their biggest crisis before or since. They noted that"peaceful co-existence" would not be possible and that isolated workers states would be ground back into capitalist states. And then they were vilified and even imprisoned across the capitalist world for the duration of the cold war for bravely coming out and defending the degenerated workers states whose leaders had handed them over to their own governments in order to carry on their comfortable and priveliged lives.
That's a pretty sweet portrait of Trotskyism you're painting there.
Too bad it's untrue.

While I concur with Trotsky on the urgency of revolution in the western nations, it is true that Trots DID fight against the USSR.

Random Precision

23rd November 2007, 02:05

I think you are confusing Khrushchev's early views (close to Stalin) with his post 1952/1953 views.

The USSR completely changed from when Khrushchev took power.

That's a pretty sweet portrait of Trotskyism you're painting there.
Too bad it's untrue.

While I concur with Trotsky on the urgency of revolution in the western nations, it is true that Trots DID fight against the USSR.

It's a good thing you can replace that little thing called "evidence" with bold emphases. :lol:

Ismail

23rd November 2007, 02:11

Originally posted by Hope Lies in the [email protected] 22, 2007 08:26 pm
Was there actually a large Trotskyist movement in Albania? Did they actually attack the Stalinists? What were the exact circumstances?
Communism was 99% an intellectual movement pre-war. There were both "Stalinist" and Trotskyist intellectuals, who later led the Communist movements and eventually fought eachother.

If you don't mind having burnt retinas: a Trotskyist talking about the war effort. (http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backiss/vol3/no1/premtaj.html)

Prior to 1941 there was no Communist Party in Albania. There were only three groups – the Shkodër group, the Youth group and the Korçe groups [1] – and while all three claimed to be Communist, they were in constant conflict with one another. Lacking experience and a Marxist-Leninist education, these three groups were unable to arrive at a correct political line. Each group acted in accordance with its own ideas and impulses, and the major part of their activity consisted of polemics against the other two rival groups.

1. The Korçe Group was founded in June 1929, and was strongly influenced by the Greek Archeio-Marxist Group to begin with. But after Ali Kelmendi returned from Moscow it was turned in a Stalinist direction, and the main supporter of Archeio ideas, Niko Xoxi, was expelled. Enver Hoxha joined the Korçe Group when he returned from Western Europe in 1936.

The Shkodër Group was formed in 1934, and was joined by Niko Xoxi, who led it along with Zefa Mala. From 1938 it issued Buletini Jeshil, an illegal journal which argued against the ideas of the Popular Front held by the Korçe Group. According to the Stalinists, its leaders “were for direct social, and not for national, revolution, that they were opposed to imperialism, but unwilling to collaborate with the nationalists; that they were in favour of direct action when the time came, and not of dilatory and roundabout actions” (History of the Albanian Party of Labor, pp.53-4). The smashing of the group by arrests and torture in 1939 created the disillusionment that turned. its remains towards Stalinism.

The Youth Group carne from a split inside the Korçe Group in 1940. It was led by Anastas Lulja and Sadik Premtaj, “elements of pronounced Trotskyite and Anarchist inclinations”, according to the Stalinists, who described its ideas as “that the Fascist invasion would bring about the development of capitalism, the growth of the proletariat, and the consolidation of the relations between the Albanian and Italian working classes. Thus class struggle would develop, creating favourable conditions for founding a Communist Party to lead the struggle for Socialism” (History of the Albanian Party of Labor, p.75).

Zurdito

23rd November 2007, 02:22

Originally posted by COMRADE CRUM+November 23, 2007 01:59 am--> (COMRADE CRUM @ November 23, 2007 01:59 am)
[email protected] 22, 2007 08:49 pm
I will reply in more depth later, after sleeping, but can I point out that Trotskyists did not fight fascists and Stalinists at the same time. They defended the Soviet Union against fascists whilst pointing out the mistake of betraying revolutionary movements in Western Europe, as this would lead to the defeat of the last chance in generations to overthrow capitalism. Instead they called for the overthrow of the imperialist states at the time of their biggest crisis before or since. They noted that"peaceful co-existence" would not be possible and that isolated workers states would be ground back into capitalist states. And then they were vilified and even imprisoned across the capitalist world for the duration of the cold war for bravely coming out and defending the degenerated workers states whose leaders had handed them over to their own governments in order to carry on their comfortable and priveliged lives.
That's a pretty sweet portrait of Trotskyism you're painting there.
Too bad it's untrue.

While I concur with Trotsky on the urgency of revolution in the western nations, it is true that Trots DID fight against the USSR. [/b]
The USSR fought against workers in Western Europe who wanted a revolution. This meant that they were backing chauvinist nationalism within imperialist states. The Stalinist bureaucracy was an enemy of the working class in that sense, and eventually needed to be overthrown. You say you concur with the urgency of revolution in the imperialist states, but then you want to do this apparently without any conflict with the same people who are actively committed to opposing that (see Stalin-Laval Pact 1935)

However trotskyists defended the Soviet Union from fascist attack. This does not mean political support for the bureaucracy, rather mass action by the workers, in solidarity with workers in the imperialist states and semi-colonial nations (unlike the Stalinist bureaucracy whose stooges in India for example helped the British, in 1942, put down the independence movement!)

Defending the USSR's property relations against the fascists and imperialists, AND advocating revolutionary politics in the imperialist states which as history has shown would have been the only way for those property relations to survive long-term, is not the same as fighting against the workers state during a war with imperialists. There was no support for any attack on the USSR. In fact it was the Stalinists gave a free pass to the imperialists who would come back to defeat them.

Rosa Lichtenstein

23rd November 2007, 04:14

This part of the thread has been moved from Philosophy -- it began with a comment by Herman, which I had intended to move too, but somehow the system left it where it was originally posted.

Devrim

23rd November 2007, 05:30

Originally posted by COMRADE CRUM+November 23, 2007 01:35 am--> (COMRADE CRUM @ November 23, 2007 01:35 am)
Hope Lies in the [email protected] 22, 2007 08:26 pm
"Khrushchevism" does not exist. It is merely a further development in the political stance of a Stalinist bureaucracy.
I think you are confusing Khrushchev's early views (close to Stalin) with his post 1952/1953 views.

The USSR completely changed from when Khrushchev took power. [/b]
Please elaborate.

Devrim

Marsella

23rd November 2007, 07:33

Just a brief comment.

I find it interesting that Stalinists maintain that revolution is a class-based action, but when it comes to counter-revolution, why, that is the job of a mere individual.

Panda Tse Tung

23rd November 2007, 12:34

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 07:32 am
Just a brief comment.

I find it interesting that Stalinists maintain that revolution is a class-based action, but when it comes to counter-revolution, why, that is the job of a mere individual.
Yeah, it's quite an incorrect statement to just blame it all on Khrushchev. But he was the figurehead, making it understandable (i mean out of plain laziness i do the same thing lots of times).

Hiero

23rd November 2007, 13:41

When they go about murdering us Trots, you can hardly expect 'tolerance'.

When you go around sabotaging revolution, that is what you get.

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 06:32 pm
Just a brief comment.

I find it interesting that Stalinists maintain that revolution is a class-based action, but when it comes to counter-revolution, why, that is the job of a mere individual.
You don't understand Maoism.

Wanted Man

23rd November 2007, 13:59

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 08:32 am
Just a brief comment.

I find it interesting that Stalinists maintain that revolution is a class-based action, but when it comes to counter-revolution, why, that is the job of a mere individual.
It's not that simple at all. An actual analysis (as opposed to RevLeft posts) most definitely takes all the factors into account. One such work is "USSR - the Velvet Counter-Revolution" by Ludo Martens. I'm not sure if it has been translated in English, or where one could find it, though. A list of other titles: http://cmkp.wordpress.com/category/the-uni...list-republics/ (http://cmkp.wordpress.com/category/the-union-of-soviet-socialist-republics/)

Marsella

23rd November 2007, 14:02

You don't understand Maoism.

Well could you explain it for me then?

And I did say Stalinists, but I suppose Stalinists and Maoists agree on most things (there seems distinctions on how they 'purge' those who disagree with the 'correct path.')

It seems difficult to conceive of a Maoist whom would support China but not Russia, but I would happily be proven wrong.

Edit: Thanks for the link Van, but is there any analysis from a Stalinist (or Marxist-Leninist) point of view which I do not have to pay to read? :P

Ismail

23rd November 2007, 14:04

Khrushchev, though he did not hold dictatorial power, was supported by the revisionists and entrenched revisionists in the government while silencing "Stalinists". This and his foreign actions (being the representative of the Soviet Union to the rest of the world, this was his most important task at this point) are what made him revisionist. Not him simply occupying the same chair that Stalin had also occupied.

As a note, some (most?) Hoxhaists consider Mao to have been anti-Marxist, or at least Maoism not at all a successor to Marxist-Leninism and instead deeply flawed.

Cmde. Slavyanski

23rd November 2007, 15:36

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 02:03 pm
Khrushchev, though he did not hold dictatorial power, was supported by the revisionists and entrenched revisionists in the government while silencing "Stalinists". This and his foreign actions (being the representative of the Soviet Union to the rest of the world, this was his most important task at this point) are what made him revisionist. Not him simply occupying the same chair that Stalin had also occupied.

As a note, some (most?) Hoxhaists consider Mao to have been anti-Marxist, or at least Maoism not at all a successor to Marxist-Leninism and instead deeply flawed.
Indeed, while I consider some of Hoxha's condemnations of Mao(in Imperialism and Revolution) to be a bit extreme(like alleging that China was never socialist or that Mao was never a real Marxist), I also support the statement that Mao did not make a sufficient contribution to Marxism-Leninism to support the idea that this "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism" is anything but revisionism. When will Maoists account for what happened to China, which not only restored capitalism sooner than the USSR, but aided US imperialism and created a veritable hell on Earth as a capitalists country which is more repressive than anything in Eastern Europe today?

Now as for lining up Trotskites against a wall well, that was a good idea back then, but I think in modern times, when the environment is a major concern, it would make more sense to use Trotskyites for the generation of electric power. Basically we some how hook them up to machines that can harness the hot-air generated by their idealistic and unrealistic criticism of every real-world revolutionary movement of any stripe, and then compress that air to turn turbines which are in turn connected to generators.

But seriously, is it any wonder that Trotskyites sound almost like hard core capitalists when they criticize 'Stalinism', referring to Cuba and the DPRK as the only remnants of "socialism"? Cuba has been something of a socialist country, but has always been rather wishy-washy from the beginning. The DPRK went down the revisionist road with Juche, which is heavily infused with Korean nationalism. Trotskyites love to label any regime "Stalinist" at the drop of a hat. I have seen a Trot publication refer to Tito's Yugoslavia as "Stalinist". Yes- THE SFRJ was "Stalinist" apparently, despite having jailed and killed over 100,000 people for allegedly being Stalinists after 1948.

Trotskyism is unrealistic, idealistic, and has been proven wrong on virtually every claim it has ever made. There has never been a real revolution that Trotskyites have been behind, and there never will be. It is no surprise that Trotskyites are mostly found in wealthy, privileged countries as well.

kasama-rl

23rd November 2007, 15:36

i think there needs to be a discussion of method.....here.

example:

An old man looks back at his childhood, and thinks over his mistakes. "Yeah, i shit in my pants. Yeah, I was really shitty to my first girl friends, because I didn't understand their feelings much. I remember shoplifting from that old man's grocery store, and didn't realize he was going bankrupt and I was helping."

Now how should we look on such remarks?

Should we shout: WTF, this old man is upholding someone who made women clean up his shit. He is thinking in a friendly way about someone who treated women badly in intimate relationships and mistreated an old retired man.

Well the old man realized that the younger person was HIM, was part of what he came out of... but he is not upholding the mistakes. But to learn from the mistakes, he has to accept that they are his mistakes.... that he (and his present insights) can't be separated from who he was earlier and the mistakes he made.

Errors are not something awful -- they are fully integral to the learning process. It is not like Darwin was a saint and Lamark (whose theory was wrong) was a devil. The scientist with the erroneous theory is a valid and honored part of the process.

Now sometimes errors LEAD to awful things, that we can more clearly see now. A sailor can land on a distant island and (as an error) have sex with women there. But in awful ways siphylus can spread. (As happened many times unfortunately in the history of the last 500 years.) The sailor made an error -- whose consequences we can see more clearly now. But we can't flatten everything, and shout "That man caused the deaths of 5,500 people, that monster."

so these are complex dynamics, complex questions of knowing and learning. -- when we look backwards into history.

The revolutionary forces, the forces trying to liberate humanity, tried many things over the last two hundred years. Some were wrong. Many were not. Some had awful consequences. Many had profoundly positive results. Many processes and movements had BOTH positive and negative -- bound up in complex ways.

So looking at history as a moral test. To talk about "tolerating" this or that... is not the point.

The point is (today and into the future) how we will liberate humanity, and what we will learn from our own past (and from humanity's larger past). How we will learn from inevitably errors (those we committed in the past, and those we pretty inevitably will commit in the future new conditions).

I find moralism and simplicity in that regard completely wrong.

Stalin and the Soviet experience was not a result of "monsters and evil men in command." If it was, then you could repudiate monsters and evil, and move on.

but these were the actions of revolutionaries (some of them rather great revolutionaries) acting in the first revolution in history, with complex choices, under intense pressures, and sharp pulls in different direcitons. They face chilling challenges of continual war and threat of war, millions of people ambivolent about the socialists project, rising hitlerism, and failure of revolutoin to spread to the west and so on....

We need to learn from what happened, how they chose, and face the challenges of today from a new and higher plane of understanding.

And in the next wave of socialist revolution, advance even further.

Cmde. Slavyanski

23rd November 2007, 20:11

Strange way of putting it but yeah...I think I see what you're getting at.

BTW, I have been finding some more information about that Avakian cult accusation; I'm looking into it more after reading an interesting essay from a former RCP member.

kasama-rl

23rd November 2007, 20:32

which essay?

Wanted Man

23rd November 2007, 20:39

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 03:01 pm
Edit: Thanks for the link Van, but is there any analysis from a Stalinist (or Marxist-Leninist) point of view which I do not have to pay to read? :P
I'll have to search later. Unfortunately a lot of it predates the current time where everything can easily be found on the 'net for free.

By the way, I daresay that the issue of "tolerating Stalinists" or not is not relevant everywhere. Certainly not in countries where the Communist Party already has significant mass support, as in many southern European countries.

In northern and western Europe, the weakness of the "Stalinists" is at the same level as that of Trotskyists, anarchists, etc. so it also isn't very important. I doubt that Trotskyist and anarchist organizations that actually try to get some work done will want to waste their time on arguing whether or not to "tolerate Stalinists". It just seems kind of stupid, we're certainly not putting up any "no trots" or "no anarchists" signs anytime soon.

OneBrickOneVoice

23rd November 2007, 20:44

Did they actually attack the Stalinists?

Of course they would, that's the whole foundation of the Trotskyist movement sabotaging "stalinism" at all costs

Wanted Man

23rd November 2007, 20:48

Uh huh. Can someone explain the relevance of this today? If we believe the stereotypes about each other, Trotskyists are all middle class students, while Stalinists are all either nostalgic old men or Red Alert 2 teenagers. Oh, and all anarchists are bomb-throwing chaotics who don't really care about workers liberation. I'm sure all of these groups are really good at making angry faces and saying "Do not tolerate Stalinists/Trotskyites/anarchists!!!" but where is the relevance to the actual working class movement?

kasama-rl

23rd November 2007, 21:07

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 08:43 pm
that's the whole foundation of the Trotskyist movement sabotaging "stalinism" at all costs
I think that misses the real differences of line.

Trotskyism has always looked like a centrist movement to me -- half-way between social democracy and communism.

(That is why they were called "semi-menshiviks")

This is not just a matter of looking at Trotsky's personal history -- but the way trotskyism (and those attracted to it today) focuses on trade unionism, the whole theory of "transitional demands" and similar attractions to labor parties.

It is a political theory, not rooted in some irrational hatred of "stalinism" but in a political and ideological line.

Our method should be to excavate the differences and "compare and contrast" the actual lines.

OneBrickOneVoice

23rd November 2007, 21:43

Trotsky and Trotskyism are two very different things. The Trotskyist movement handle themselves like a bunch of pricks filling every edition of their papers with slanders of Stalin and Cuba and Venezuela and Mao and etc etc... while their are real issues facing the working class like institutionalized racism and lack of healthcare. I mean, look at the Jena 6, this issue completely flew by the trotskyist movement because they were busy reporting on how Stalin was a bad man. Trotsky himself had some valid critiscisms, but attempted to tear apart the USSR being opportunistic and going waay to far. That said Trotsky I have respect for. The Trotskyist movement however, would make him roll over in his grave because that's its central reason for exsisting as a movement, disagreement over Stalin.

kasama-rl

23rd November 2007, 22:23

They have a different analysis. that doesn't make them "pricks."

And my point is that you can't understand the issues of analysis (you can't "compare and contrast" lines) if you just call them pricks.

After all Sam Marcy (who you uphold) was a Trotskyist. And understanding his evolution requires an understanding of line (not of a move from prick to non-prick).

this practice of treating opponents as if they are just dirt and bad people -- is part of a history that doesn't take ideas and the struggle over ideas seriously.

Hiero

23rd November 2007, 22:58

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 01:01 am

You don't understand Maoism.

Well could you explain it for me then?

And I did say Stalinists, but I suppose Stalinists and Maoists agree on most things (there seems distinctions on how they 'purge' those who disagree with the 'correct path.')
Leaders are just figureheads for classes and political groups. When we say Stalin, we mean more then the individual. We are talking about the state, the bureaucracy, the proleteriat, the nation, the people who fought Nazism. Well at least that is how I see it should be. In this way we can make a more thorough analysis of the USSR in the time of Stalin's leadership.

We can do this for Khrushchev. We look at the revisionist political group he lead within the CPSU and the bureaucratic managers (who wanted independence from the state to decide prices and quotas). When Khrushchev came to power he was able to make reforms in the interest of these groups.

Of course they would, that's the whole foundation of the Trotskyist movement sabotaging "stalinism" at all costs

And that is not an exaggeration. Every revolutionary Marxist-Leninist movement, even before they had real basis to claim they were "Stalinist" the Trotskyist made groups oppossed to the popular movements.

In Greece for examples, where Stalin is criticised for not given enough support to the KKE, the Trotskyist set up a party opposed to the KKE and worked with the Americans. Same as Vietnam, Cuba and China.

Intelligitimate

23rd November 2007, 23:35

The only positive light I can see Stalin in is that he had the decency to drop dead -- I only wish he had elected to do that 30 years earlier.

This from a Cliffite.

Depends on who they were and what they do/did.

When they go about murdering us Trots, you can hardly expect 'tolerance'.

Reactionary trash deserves to die. Too bad no one ever stuck a pick in Cliff's head for remaining 'neutral' on US imperialism in Korea, or your friends the Shachtmanites, who openly supported US imperialism in Vietnam.

Trotskyites are the best friends of the bourgeois and the fascists, particularly the brand of cult you follow.

All this talk about leaders is ridiculous, as all forms of Trotskyism are cults of personality, centered around the “Old Man” and the current leader of the various Trotskyite organizations. Trotsky is never wrong on any topic, nor are the leaders of the various Trotskyite factions in their interpretations and deviations of Trotskyism. The slavish devotion to the cult of personality is nowhere more evident than in Trotskyite devotion to the works of Trotsky and their own cults. Going to alt.politics.socialism.trotsky, where is is just one giant flame-fest by Trots on each other, is to find sectarianism in the extreme.

Random Precision

24th November 2007, 00:57

It's funny that you simultaneously say:

This from a Cliffite.

and

All this talk about leaders is ridiculous, as all forms of Trotskyism are cults of personality, centered around the “Old Man” and the current leader of the various Trotskyite organizations. Trotsky is never wrong on any topic

Gee, who could tell me what's wrong with that analysis, or lack thereof?

Going to alt.politics.socialism.trotsky, where is is just one giant flame-fest by Trots on each other, is to find sectarianism in the extreme.

Of course, since an about.com discussion group is representative of the entire Trotskyist movement. :rolleyes:

Trotskyites are the best friends of the bourgeois and the fascists, particularly the brand of cult you follow.

Stalinism is the natural ally of the bourgeoisie and fascism. Have we forgotten the Nazi-Soviet Pact and Stalin toasting the health of the Fuehrer so soon?

Random Precision

24th November 2007, 01:01

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 09:42 pm
I mean, look at the Jena 6, this issue completely flew by the trotskyist movement because they were busy reporting on how Stalin was a bad man.
My own organization, the "Cliffite" ISO was one of the most active groups in protesting and condemning what happened in Jena.

Intelligitimate

24th November 2007, 03:10

Gee, who could tell me what's wrong with that analysis, or lack thereof?

What would be wrong with it is that Trots don't like it. The truth often hurts.

Of course, since an about.com discussion group is representative of the entire Trotskyist movement. :rolleyes:

It is obvious you have no clue what Usenet is and how long it has been around, otherwise you wouldn't say something so incredibly stupid.

Stalinism is the natural ally of the bourgeoisie and fascism. Have we forgotten the Nazi-Soviet Pact and Stalin toasting the health of the Fuehrer so soon?

The subject of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact has been brought up many times, and the more the anti-communists bring it up, the stupider they look. Everyone knew the pact was stalling the inevitable. Stalin personally had any mention of friendship between the nations removed from the wording of the pact, and the documentary evidence of the alleged toast appears weak to me, coming from the writings of the Nazi diplomat/spy Andor Hencke, and is insignificant in any case.

Hiero

24th November 2007, 03:39

Ideas surrounding the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact are so stupid.

Nazi Germany and the USSR were always hostile to each other, then in one day 1939 they were best friends and allies? This new founded friendship seemed to have only lasted 2 years and then after that the USSR wiped Nazi Germany off the map.

The pact did not envolve any form of frienship.

grove street

24th November 2007, 03:49

So what do Trots have to say about intellectuals like Michael Parenti who claim that Trotsky was not only ideologically flawed but also one of the more Authotarian Bolsheviks?

Random Precision

24th November 2007, 04:35

What would be wrong with it is that Trots don't like it. The truth often hurts.

No, moron, the fucking problem is that we "Cliffites" disagree with Trotsky on many different things. Like the "degenerated workers' state" hypothesis.

It is obvious you have no clue what Usenet is and how long it has been around, otherwise you wouldn't say something so incredibly stupid.

I also couldn't really care less, and my point still stands even if it's a "Usenet" group.

So I guess my point is that you can go fuck yourself. :)

Cmde. Slavyanski

24th November 2007, 05:04

Originally posted by kasama-[email protected] 23, 2007 08:31 pm
which essay?
I think it was called "It's a Sin" or something like that, I found it as a post on Soviet-Empire(I think I followed a link here). The guy was in the RCYB for a while. Is there a way to reach Avakian directly? He really ought to address this and lay the matter to rest. Incidentily I have seen some RCP members who debate rather intelligently without constant reference to Avakian.

kasama-rl

24th November 2007, 14:45

ah, i've read that. it is by Andrei. and is posted here (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=71551&st=50) in the Practice forum too.

he writes:

"We want no condescending saviours”

The second stanza of the Internationale, the international anthem of the working class, states that the workers “want no condescending saviours”. The RCP seems to have sadly forgotten this, as I watch the cult of Avakian grow out of control and out of proportion with each issue of Revolution I read.

I am a Maoist; at the end of the day, I have no problem with a “culture of appreciation” or “cult of personality” built around a leader if that leader is at the forefront of a key revolutionary line. I make no apologies for this. However, Communists must constantly interrogate themselves around the question of leadership and how to exercise it, asking at all times “on what basis and with what methods should we Communists use to promote our leadership”? Even with a revolutionary line, a cult of personality around a great leader can become counter-productive- nay, even dangerous- if it is upheld in a wrong way.

The Revolutionary Communist Party speaks of Comrade Avakian in messianic terms, such as “once in a while, a great leader comes forward…” and sees him as the “single thread” that the International Communist Movement “hangs by”. The RCP speaks of their leadership as the “revolutionary people in a concentrated form”, which has arisen out of this particular epoch in history due to its virtuousness and greatness. The RCP, in its methods of upholding Avakian, hearken back to the capitalist-roaders in China such as Chen Boda, who tried to uphold the cult of Mao on the basis of the “genius theory” (the concept of a leader arising periodically across history that concentrates a great leap in understanding or theory), a theory that Mao criticized deeply. Lin Biao, the revisionist leader who eventually tried to pull a coup d’etat against Mao, put forward unscientific ideas such as “Every sentence of Chairman Mao’s works is a truth; one single sentence of his surpasses ten thousand of ours.” Looking at these quotes and theories, and looking at the way the RCP uphold Avakian (just read through the special issue of Revolution “The Crossroads We Face, The Leadership We Need”!) can one say that the RCP’s method of promoting their leader is any different from the way Lin and Chen promoted Mao?

bloody_capitalist_sham

24th November 2007, 15:33

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 10:42 pm
Trotsky and Trotskyism are two very different things. The Trotskyist movement handle themselves like a bunch of pricks filling every edition of their papers with slanders of Stalin and Cuba and Venezuela and Mao and etc etc... while their are real issues facing the working class like institutionalized racism and lack of healthcare. I mean, look at the Jena 6, this issue completely flew by the trotskyist movement because they were busy reporting on how Stalin was a bad man. Trotsky himself had some valid critiscisms, but attempted to tear apart the USSR being opportunistic and going waay to far. That said Trotsky I have respect for. The Trotskyist movement however, would make him roll over in his grave because that's its central reason for exsisting as a movement, disagreement over Stalin.
The Trotskyist movement, which started out as a very small amount of people under Trotsky's wing, is not still around centrally for being in opposition to Stalin.

What it really is, is a form of Marxism that understood that a counter-revolution had taken place in the USSR and that the working class no longer were in power.

And, since the USSR existed for quite a long time Trotskyism developed into sub branches who all deviated from what Trotsky thought at the time of his death.

Stalinism or Marxism-Leninism and Maoism are to Trotskyists forms of Marxism that are not proletarian but bureaucratic.

So, i'm not saying Trotskyism does not have its own problems, but it is one of the main forms of Marxism that was able to develop outside the Stalinist countries and thus was free from officialdom.

Remember, in the soviet union, many Marxists, who developed Marxism were killed in the purges because of the anti-intellectual nature of Marxism-Leninism.

Criticism can never go "too far" especially when the deep questions are asked about what class is in power in a socialist country. Death and forced labor are the only solution to internal criticism that goes "too far".

But then again, Trotskyism attempt to use Marxism as a science, others believe in it to an almost proto religious extent, and cast out 'heretics'.

Intelligitimate

24th November 2007, 17:06

No, moron, the fucking problem is that we "Cliffites" disagree with Trotsky on many different things. Like the "degenerated workers' state" hypothesis.

This is hysterical. I've actually read Cliff's stuff, and where he deviates from Trotsky, he gives 'evidence' Trotsky would have come around to his views, had he not got stabbed in the head, or that it is a naturally extention of Trotsky's ideas.

I also couldn't really care less, and my point still stands even if it's a "Usenet" group.

Your point is false, because the group is filled with old Trots.

Herman

24th November 2007, 21:51

Okay, this have gotten out of hand.

My only point was that so called "stalinists" should be tolerated as much as trotskyists".

Depends on who they were and what they do/did.

When they go about murdering us Trots, you can hardly expect 'tolerance'.

Yes, but "stalinists" aren't murdering you, your family or anyone else, are they?

No such person exists, not could.

Such people do exist. Marx was one of them. So was Che or La Pasionaria.

I am not talking about supermen. I am talking about real things, things that have happened. You seem to think that if there is a leader, it automatically means "dictator". George Galloway is a "leader" too, remember that. He does not order you around, but he is a good orator, someone who can be charismatic.

And if they did, they would be a danger to the movement, and should be opposed/resisted at all costs.

What, should men who can inspire the masses with fiery speeches be opposed? Not at all. If they can rally men and women to the socialist cause, who are we to stop them? what we should do is to check them, observe what they do and not allow them to concentrate too much power.

The acceptance of any sort of 'leader' means that workers are viewed as the objects of history, not the subject.

No. The acceptance of "leaders" means that we recognize that the individual does have some effect over the people, no matter how limited. We recognize that it is the people and, specifically, the oppressed who make history. We also recognize that between these oppressed, there are men and women who lead and inspire others to do great deeds. The Paris Commune for example, was not simply a spontaneous occurence. Nor was it by any means leaderless.

Cmde. Slavyanski

25th November 2007, 04:37

Could all the non-'Stalinists' here please kindly return to their wall and await their salvo of hot lead?

Remember, Trotsky is the genius who said constructiing socialism in one country was impossible, and then years later he would attack the purges by claiming that socialism was so firmly entrenched in the USSR that it would never be defeated save for a bloody coup or outside intervention. Sure was wrong about that no?

Nobody embraces Trotskism or revisionism out of priniciple or for theory. They embrace it because they are moral cowards who cringe when the bourgeoisie trots(pardon the pun) out the old Stalin-bogeyman. Rather than challenge them and cite historical facts, they'd rather pretend that crap like Animal Farm is accurate history and claim that "Marxism was never tried" or some other nonsense.

Random Precision

26th November 2007, 05:11

Originally posted by RavenBlade
What are you on about? If you mean Mengistu, Mengistu was not a Hoxhaist; he was actually in the Soviet economic/ideological sphere.

I was actually referring to Meles Zenawi and his "Marxist-Leninist League of Tigray", which formed the core leadership of the TPLF that overthrew Mengistu. They were very pro-Albanian in their time, and proclaimed themselves warriors against Khrushchevism, Titoism, Trotskyism, Eurocommunism and Maoism, and all other forms of "revisionism". Unfortunately when the TPLF took power, it dropped all references to Marxism-Leninism from its name and policies.

Although apparently Zenawi remains in power in Ethiopia. I wonder if he ever remembers his days as a Hoxhaist... :lol:

Refusing to exalt Leon does not constitute "betraying the revolution". Seriously, the majority of Trot whining about Stalin is that he "took Trotskys rightful position" as "heir to Lenin".

No, the vast majority of "Trot whining about Stalin" is that the bureaucratic caste he represented took Russia off the road to socialism entirely.

In actuality, I'd consider the act of becoming a Mcarthyite informer MUCH more treasonous ( up on Trotsky, and the predecessor to the house comittee on un-American activities).

Trotsky was invited to testify before the HUAC to answer questions about the history of Stalinism, as well as to answer the charges of Stalinist witnesses against him personally. He planned to use his testimony as a platform to explain the reactionary role of Stalinism to workers in the United States, but he never got the chance to do that because HUAC Chairman Martin Dies cancelled his invitation to testify, most likely for political reasons. Before his anticipated testimony, bourgeois newspapers in the United States reported that Trotsky planned to reveal information about the covert activity of Mexican and Latin American Stalinists, a charge which he himself denied, as he had no such information to present.

Random Precision

26th November 2007, 06:15

Your point is false, because the group is filled with old Trots.

Which is important why now? You still have no basis whatsoever to compare a discussion group on the internet to the entire "Trotskyist" movement.

bezdomni

26th November 2007, 06:37

No, the vast majority of "Trot whining about Stalin" is that the bureaucratic caste he represented took Russia off the road to socialism entirely.

This is the sort of idealist crap that us "Stalinists" (i.e. people who agree with Lenin) are opposed to.

I don't think you will find anyone among those who would usually be labelled 'Stalinists' that don't have at least some criticisms of Stalin. Maoists make some very harsh criticisms of Stalin, so I think the trotskyite tendency to make the question of Stalin a 'dividing question' so to speak is really quite silly. Any Marxist who studies seriously studies history will admit that Stalin fucked up and there were some serious fuck ups in the Soviet Union under his leadership.

Nobody is immune from mistakes. That includes everyone from Stalin to Trotsky, Tito to Hoxha...hell, even Lenin and Marx made some serious blunders!

The point is to learn from these mistakes and incorrect tendencies, rather than writing off decades of the socialist experience as being some sort of nightmarish 'degenerated workers state' (whatever that means) that had nothing to do with socialism whatsoever.

[Or if you want to disagree with Trotsky entirely, yet still maintain his blatant economism and lack of capacity for materialist analysis...that "state capitalist" hell hole that 'had nothing to do with socialism whatsoever'.]

Hiero

26th November 2007, 09:15

The question is ridiclous in it's self. If we look at the long history of communism internationaly, it is never really a choice if the Trotskyist should tolerate the "Stalinist". It is the other way round, these so called "Stalinist" lead the popular movement, and have to decide should they tolerate the Trotskyist.

Trotskyist are so arragonent, they actually think that 1) They are such a position to decide wether to tolerate us 2) that it would really matter.

Herman

26th November 2007, 10:54

(Sigh) This reminds me of the thread that said (paraphrasing) "are Stalinists evil, or just misguided", as if those are the only two options.

By the same token, thank you to Herman for being nice enough to suggest that we should be "tolerated"... kind of like chicken pox.

I guess that's a start, but it is still a little...pompous. As always, it reflects the typical anti-stalin viewpoint that, at best, we should be "tolerated"
(At worst, we should be stomped out.). This viewpoint supposes that there is no legitimacy to our outlook, and that your own is inherently superior, therefore the best you can do is allow us to exist.

Well, what can I do? If I say, "stalinists are popular", I will be insulted by the trotskyists. If I say, "trotskyists are popular", I will be insulted by the stalinists.

I'm trying to take the middle-ground here, but it seems that i'm going to be insulted by both sides if I do. This is all I can say: there are many "stalinists" who are great people and have done a lot of good things for the workers. The same I will say for the trotskyists.

Cmde. Slavyanski

26th November 2007, 12:48

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 09:14 am
The question is ridiclous in it's self. If we look at the long history of communism internationaly, it is never really a choice if the Trotskyist should tolerate the "Stalinist". It is the other way round, these so called "Stalinist" lead the popular movement, and have to decide should they tolerate the Trotskyist.

Trotskyist are so arragonent, they actually think that 1) They are such a position to decide wether to tolerate us 2) that it would really matter.
Hell yeah!! Is it any coincidence that Trotskites tend to be found most numerous in:

A. Imperialist, better-off countries

B. Academia and other fields generally disconnected from the reality of the working class- or at least the most oppressed elements of it overseas.

C. Former Trotskyite intellectuals became radical neo-liberal anti-Communists.

Labor Shall Rule

26th November 2007, 14:34

Stalinism is the organic political expression of the military-bureaucratic strata. Its poison spread through the disastrous policies that Moscow imposed on foreign parties, which has derailed many revolutionary efforts.

To me, "Stalinists" are not people who uphold Stalin. It is not an ideology, though there is a theoretical blanket that sugar codes his actions. It is the parties and unions that were once associated with Comintern, who callously followed all of its bureaucratic directives that could be appropriately called "Stalinist". If it is a question of tolerating political organizations that are now essentially social-imperialist, then no, we should not call ourselves chums with social-democratic dicks.

Cmde. Slavyanski

26th November 2007, 14:45

Originally posted by Labor Shall [email protected] 26, 2007 02:33 pm
Stalinism is the organic political expression of the military-bureaucratic strata. Its poison spread through the disastrous policies that Moscow imposed on foreign parties, which has derailed many revolutionary efforts.

To me, "Stalinists" are not people who uphold Stalin. It is not an ideology, though there is a theoretical blanket that sugar codes his actions. It is the parties and unions that were once associated with Comintern, who callously followed all of its bureaucratic directives that could be appropriately called "Stalinist". If it is a question of tolerating political organizations that are now essentially social-imperialist, then no, we should not call ourselves chums with social-democratic dicks.
Again, let's just throw around words like "bureaucratic" without looking at history and the proven efforts and actions Stalin led against those currents. And by no means should your side have to provide an explanation as to how your alternative would somehow not be bureaucratic in the least. Do you think the bourgeoisie will let you slide by if you label socialism as "bureaucratic" while claiming you have something better? Ever hear of Von Hayek? They will Austrian school your ass into a smoking crater, because you already caved in and accepted their framework of Soviet history. It was the decentralization as practiced by Khruschev during his reforms that led not simply to rampant bureacracy, but that which was impossible to fight because of the lack of communication and increased power for managers.

Labor Shall Rule

26th November 2007, 15:31

Originally posted by Cmde. [email protected] 26, 2007 02:44 pm
Again, let's just throw around words like "bureaucratic" without looking at history and the proven efforts and actions Stalin led against those currents. And by no means should your side have to provide an explanation as to how your alternative would somehow not be bureaucratic in the least. Do you think the bourgeoisie will let you slide by if you label socialism as "bureaucratic" while claiming you have something better? Ever hear of Von Hayek? They will Austrian school your ass into a smoking crater, because you already caved in and accepted their framework of Soviet history. It was the decentralization as practiced by Khruschev during his reforms that led not simply to rampant bureacracy, but that which was impossible to fight because of the lack of communication and increased power for managers.
According to The All-Union Communist Party by Bubnov, in 1923, 29% of the party were factory directors. By 1925, after Stalin's victory, 73.7% of all members were on the managing board of trusts, 81.5% were on the boards of syndicates, and 95% of the directors of large enterprises were party members. This means that the composition of a vast majority of the party were factory and technical managers. The bureaucratic personnel constituted as nine-tenths of the entire party.

Not only that, but as Aleksandrov reported in Soviet Labour Law, "...all collective agreements stopped" by 1934. The Party Central Committee already resolved in 1929 that the worker committees "may not intervene directly in the running of the plant or endeavor in any way to replace plant administration; they shall by all means help to secure one-man management, increase production, plant development, and, thereby, improvement of the material conditions of the working class." Wage Labour in Russia and Trade Unions in USSR 1926-1928 reported that strikes in state-owned industries decreased by a total of 55% between 1923 and 1929.

So, bureaucratic managers control the party, trade unions are smashed, and workers are not allowed to demonstrate? Keep in mind, this was within the time that Stalin and his cronies took control of the Soviet state.

kasama-rl

26th November 2007, 18:10

LSR wrote: "According to The All-Union Communist Party by Bubnov, in 1923, 29% of the party were factory directors. By 1925, after Stalin's victory, 73.7% of all members were on the managing board of trusts, 81.5% were on the boards of syndicates, and 95% of the directors of large enterprises were party members. This means that the composition of a vast majority of the party were factory and technical managers. The bureaucratic personnel constituted as nine-tenths of the entire party."

Uh, don't take it wrong when I point out that this is OBVIOUSLY not true.

There was (in 1923 and 1925) a huge mass working class membership in the party, and a significant party contingent in the large new Red Army. And (in 1923) the socialist industry was quite small (and under NEP, often still under its old management).

In fact, Stalin led the "Lenin Enrollment" in 1924 that radically increased the ranks of working class communists in the party. Over 200,000 new members joined the party and a majority of them were working class. In fact the main criticism of Stalin's opponents (including Trotsky) is that he brought so many basic workers INTO the party at that point!

So you get the facts exactly wrong.

More details:

It may be that "95% of the directors of large enterprises were party members" (i.e. that the large factories had been taken over by the workers and were led by worker-communists!) But why is this surprising? And why is this a bad development?

But just because most directors are party members, doesn't mean that most party members are directors (which seems to be one confusion you are making).

Do you think that a communist member who has BECOME part of a factory's leadership is now "a bureaucrat"? Isn't that rather confused (if you think about it).

When you have a revolution, and the advanced workers lead the process of taking over the major plants, and if these workers go from the political underground and from the factory floor to become the new factory leadership (to implement radical changes in production and society) .... is that a bad thing or a good thing?

Is this one example and method of working class takeover of industry, or is it somehow bureaucratic takeover of the party?

Let's raise the level of our discussion by having a more serious appreciation of truth and principled debate.

I may be wrong, of course, so I look forward to your reply.

Labor Shall Rule

26th November 2007, 19:51

It is “not true”? Would you like to offer statistics that would prove otherwise? These are statistics that were drafted and ratified by the Party Central Committee. Bubnov, member of the Central Committee and People's Commissar of Education, oversaw the composing of the data.

In USSR, The Land of Socialism, it was determined that there was over 1,751,000 managers in the country at that time — a good portion who were actual party members from the statistics that I offered. So, proportionately speaking, if the party truly had 3.5 million members and canidate members, and if we were to combine those on the board of syndicates and the directors of large enterprises with the amount of managers, we would see that 'bureaucrats' that occupy traditional bourgeois positions numerically outnumber the amount of workers.

The rest of argument is ridiculous.

Statutory minimum, rural areas…………………$360
Statutory minimum, urban areas………………....400
Collective farmer (1962)...……………………....574
State Farmer worker……...………………………586
Official typist…………...……………………..….588
Textile worker…………………………………….679
Construction worker………………………………746
Machine tool operator……………………………..746
High school teacher………………………………..824
Steel worker………………………………………..872
Coal Miner………………………………………..1,092
Physician, M.D…………………………………...1,260
Lawyer……………………………………………1,376
Average for all worker and employees…………...1,445
State farm manager………………………………..3,530
Technician………………………………………....3,724
Engineer (oil industry)…………………………….4,238
Master foreman (machine-building)………….....…5,028
Doctor of science, head of department in research….5,738
Factory director (machine-building)……………….6,240
University professor………………………………..7,070
Cabinet minister, republic government…………….9,125

If so-called 'worker-communists' control the factories, why are they enjoying a far better social position than their fellow workers? Why did they silence the worker committees? The manager's non-productive labor is disproportionately awarded more than it is socially necessary for their reproduction, which reveals that there is a definite social layer that pulls the strings of production at their own enrichment.

There is nothing wrong with having 'managers,' but their position should be determined through democratic ratification.

kasama-rl

26th November 2007, 20:41

thanks for replying, LSR.

I read you post and don't see where your source (or any source) claims that the CPSU(B) was overwhelmingly factory managers. It is not the case. You are misunderstanding what you are looking at.

Also there is a further and important flaw in your argument:

You write:"we would see that 'bureaucrats' that occupy traditional bourgeois positions numerically outnumber the amount of workers."

Well the position of leading a socialist factory after a socialist revolutin is not a "traditional bourgeois position" it is something rather radically new.

Or to take another example: Is leading a military unit in the new RED ARMY a "traditional bourgeois position"? Just becauseall previous generals in all previous armies were bourgeois? No.

The new leaders in the new army were something new -- especially as there was struggle to develop new working class leaders to replace the Tsarist officers that initially led much of the Red Army.

When worker communists (through struggle) come to lead major industries and factories they are not "bureaucrats" sliding into "traditional bourgeois positions" -- they are worker communists creating NEW positions in a new kind of society. (once the revolution got into the 1930s, some new dynamics kicked in.... but that is not what you were raising or what we are discussing at the moment).

In other words, I'm making two points:

1) You are factually wrong in your underestimation of the party's working class membership.

2) You are wrong in crudely and simply asserting that worker-communists who leave the factories to help create a new state and army suddenly and simply become "bureaucrats" who are the functional equivalent of bourgeois.

As for the facts of composition:

1) The lowest point of working class composition was in 1921, during the civil war under lenin -- when the party membership was only 41% working class. This was in part because the party was leading a huge army in civil war, and the working class itself was shrinking rapidly under those conditions (with many returning to the land to survive0.

2) Under Stalin the working class composition of the party rapidly expanded (as I pointed out above). By the 15th Congress in 1927 well over 400,000 working class members had been recruited over the three year since Stalin had risen to overall leadership.

3) The main criticism of Stalin's opponents was that he "opened the gates of the party to raw working class recruits" -- not that he presided over the rise of a managerial composition during the 1920s. Your facts are simply wrong.

4) Examples: by 1927, the educational level of party members showed the class character: less than 1 percent was college educated. less than 8 percent had finished high school. And about a quarter were listed as "self taught."

5) One bourgeois historian describes why it is difficult to precisely specify composition, but writes: "There is no doubt, however, that the efforts of the leaders to increase the proletarian component of the party were crowned with some success."
(Leonard Shapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union.)

6) Unlike you, any serious student of this has to differentiate between cadre of working class origin, and cadre who are still on the plant floor. After all many of the most advanced workers had LEFT THE FACTORIES to help create the world's first socialist state and red army. This was part of CREATING socialism, and was necessary -- and did not automatically change their class character. It was in fact an important means and struggle for changing the class character of the state.

By 1928, the class composition was roughly like this:
workers 56.8 percent
peasants 22.9 percent

If you look at their actuall occupations it is far from the claims you make about them all being managers of factories:

35.2 % were still on the factory floor.
10.4 % were working the land.
6 % were in the Red army
and 38.3 % were playing leading roles of various kinds in the state and the new socialist economy.

Shapiro writes "459,067 workers communists of 1928 represented a substantial proportion of the total labor force."

In other words, a considerable section of t he actual workers were in the party -- as much as 20% in the three major industries.

The problem was not so much non-working class elements taking over the new state and the party -- but the fact that the support for the communist project was still heavily limited to urban areas -- surrounded by a sea of peasant agriculture generating capitalist markets, property and ideology.

The Advent of Anarchy

27th November 2007, 02:41

Trotsky is a parasitic, manipulative, militarist, individualist, and downright scummy bourgeois agent and revisionist. Here's the real story:

First off, Trotsky led the origional charge against Stalin by accusing him of keeping vital information of what the Secretariat was doing, and stopping all reports of what was going on from Lenin in order to continue a diobolical plot to become supreme de facto tyrant king of the USSR. This was after Lenin had a stroke and was paralyzed partially, and had some brain damage. However, these charges were false. The doctors, whom saw that Lenin wasn't in any condition to return to politics, told Stalin, Kamenev, and Bukharin that any political controversy might provoke another stroke. Therefore, the doctors prohibited all political visitors and prohibited anyone from giving Lenin political information and reports for the sake of his health. Stalin was merely doing what everyone was told to do, and wasn't deliberately hiding info so he can sneak around and grab power for himself. However, it didn't stop Trotsky from writing this obvious lie:

`In the middle of December, 1922, Lenin's health again took a turn for the worse .... Stalin at once tried to capitalize on this situation, hiding from Lenin much of the information which was concentrating in the Party Secretariat .... Krupskaya did whatever she could to shield the sick man from hostile jolts by the Secretariat.'

These are the words of an oppritunistic, manipulative, sick man.

Moving on, here's something about the "will" of Lenin. Trotsky also charged that Stalin concealed the so called "will" so that he, not Trotsky, would be Lenin's successor. Here's a bit of the will:

Lenin called for `increasing the number of C.C. members (to 50 to 100), I think it must be done in order to raise the prestige of the Central Committee, to do a thorough job of improving our administrative machinery and to prevent conflicts between small sections of the C.C. from acquiring excessive importance for the future of the Party. It seems to me that our Party has every right to demand from the working class 50 to 100 C.C. members'. These would be `measures against a split'. `I think that from this standpoint the prime factors in the question of stability are such members of the C.C. as Stalin and Trotsky. I think relations between them make the greater part of the danger of a split'.

This is obviously made by a man who is diminished and ill. How can increasing the CC member count to 100 protect the Soviet Government against a split, let alone raise it's prestige? Also, this is hardly comprehensible. I can hardly understand it myself, and I have a good vocabulary.

That applies to the famous quote below as well. Also, to quote one of Lenin's secretaries, he wasn't feeling well when he wrote this:

`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's Commissariat for Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by exceptional abilities. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has diplayed excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work. '

Lenin was angry at Stalin when he wrote this, for Stalin lost his temper and insulted his wife:

`Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings 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. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a detail, or it is a detail which can assume decisive importance.'

Krupskaya (Lenin's Wife) kept asking Stalin for political information. Stalin eventually lost it and insulted her, his way of saying "NO!". She ran to Lenin, whom was already angry, and he wrote the thing above.

Years later, in 1927, the united opposition of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev tried once again to use this `will' against the Party leadership. In a public declaration, Stalin said:

`The oppositionists shouted here ... that the Central Committee of the Party ``concealed'' Lenin's ``will.'' We have discussed this question several times at the plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission .... (A voice: ``Scores of times.'') It has been proved and proved again that nobody has concealed anything, that Lenin's ``will'' was addressed to the Thirteenth Party Congress, that this ``will'' was read out at the congress ( voices: ``That's right!''), that the congress unanimously decided not to publish it because, among other things, Lenin himself did not want it to be published and did not ask that it should be published.'

Clearly, this is proof that Stalin didn't hide the will, nor did the Central Committee, it was because Lenin did not ask it to be published, nor did he want it published. Again, it doesn't stop Trotsky from lying.

Trotsky had a theory called "Permanent Revolution". It stands directly in opposition to the "Socialism in One Country" theory. To define Permarevolution, it means that the Proletarian Revolution in (insert country here) cannot be sustained very long, and therefore, must "export" the revolution to other countries. Note, this doesn't just mean financial support; it means military support. Trotsky proposed a form of 'socialist imperialism', which, if the Soviet Union followed that particular theory in it's entire history, we wouldn't be living in any system; we'd all be dead by a nuclear holocaust. However, the proletariat of the USSR were able to develope socialism in one country, and the Eastern Bloc, China, and others did so and followed the Leninist principles. They held out for 75 years. Trotsky predicted falsely that it would collapse in a few years. He was wrong. It took 75 years of pressure from all of capitalism's strength, determination, and underhanded plotting, to destroy it, but even now, there are many trying to undo what capitalism has done, with guns or otherwise.

That is my say about Trotsky and his anti-Leninist theory.

Labor Shall Rule

27th November 2007, 16:35

Michael Shapiro didn't get his statistics from Moscow itself, did he? I have state-sponsored statistics certified by the Party Central Committee themselves. I would like to see where Shapiro got his information from.

UndergroundConnexion

27th November 2007, 17:49

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 10:53 am

(Sigh) This reminds me of the thread that said (paraphrasing) "are Stalinists evil, or just misguided", as if those are the only two options.

By the same token, thank you to Herman for being nice enough to suggest that we should be "tolerated"... kind of like chicken pox.

I guess that's a start, but it is still a little...pompous. As always, it reflects the typical anti-stalin viewpoint that, at best, we should be "tolerated"
(At worst, we should be stomped out.). This viewpoint supposes that there is no legitimacy to our outlook, and that your own is inherently superior, therefore the best you can do is allow us to exist.

Well, what can I do? If I say, "stalinists are popular", I will be insulted by the trotskyists. If I say, "trotskyists are popular", I will be insulted by the stalinists.

I'm trying to take the middle-ground here, but it seems that i'm going to be insulted by both sides if I do. This is all I can say: there are many "stalinists" who are great people and have done a lot of good things for the workers. The same I will say for the trotskyists.
I was just thinking on that aswell, although completely opposed to stalinism , and followers Stalin , in the idea,s I do have to say that there are many followers of Stalin who indeed worked to improve the conditions of the workers. I'M thinking aobut people like Maurice Thorez and such.

bezdomni

27th November 2007, 20:35

If I say, "trotskyists are popular", I will be insulted by the stalinists.

You'd also be wrong. Nobody likes trots, not even other trots. :P

kasama-rl

27th November 2007, 21:41

Originally posted by Labor Shall [email protected] 27, 2007 04:34 pm
Michael Shapiro didn't get his statistics from Moscow itself, did he? I have state-sponsored statistics certified by the Party Central Committee themselves. I would like to see where Shapiro got his information from.
First: his name is Leonard Shapiro.

Second, he is a major scholar of Soviet history -- who drew certainly drew his data from Soviet sources. But we don't need to "rely" on one person. I have a shelf of books by all kinds of sources (left and right) that say the same thing.

Third, NO ONE ANYWHERE ANYTIME has your analysis (i.e. that the Soviet party rapidly became less working class under Stalin's leadership in the 1920s) -- because anyone and everyone can see (from the data of all sides) that this is not what happened.

I'm not going to "make this about you," and I'm not going to speculate why you are so stubbornly confused.

But there are important issues of line and history involved. And we should focus on them.

manic expression

27th November 2007, 22:53

Originally posted by kasama-rl+November 27, 2007 09:40 pm--> (kasama-rl @ November 27, 2007 09:40 pm)
Labor Shall [email protected] 27, 2007 04:34 pm
Michael Shapiro didn't get his statistics from Moscow itself, did he? I have state-sponsored statistics certified by the Party Central Committee themselves. I would like to see where Shapiro got his information from.
First: his name is Leonard Shapiro.

Second, he is a major scholar of Soviet history -- who drew certainly drew his data from Soviet sources. But we don't need to "rely" on one person. I have a shelf of books by all kinds of sources (left and right) that say the same thing.

Third, NO ONE ANYWHERE ANYTIME has your analysis (i.e. that the Soviet party rapidly became less working class under Stalin's leadership in the 1920s) -- because anyone and everyone can see (from the data of all sides) that this is not what happened.

I'm not going to "make this about you," and I'm not going to speculate why you are so stubbornly confused.

But there are important issues of line and history involved. And we should focus on them. [/b]
Regardless, it is hard to find an instance where Stalin actively worked against the growing Soviet bureaucracy. Sure, he destroyed the kulaks, but did he take any steps to eliminate the bureacracy? IIRC, the nomenklatura thrived under Stalin, and were given a great amount of power and influence in Soviet society. Trotsky's analysis of the deformed worker state seems to work in this case.

kasama-rl

28th November 2007, 00:13

Originally posted by manic expression+November 27, 2007 10:52 pm--> (manic expression @ November 27, 2007 10:52 pm)
Originally posted by kasama-[email protected] 27, 2007 09:40 pm

Labor Shall [email protected] 27, 2007 04:34 pm
Michael Shapiro didn't get his statistics from Moscow itself, did he? I have state-sponsored statistics certified by the Party Central Committee themselves. I would like to see where Shapiro got his information from.
First: his name is Leonard Shapiro.

Second, he is a major scholar of Soviet history -- who drew certainly drew his data from Soviet sources. But we don't need to "rely" on one person. I have a shelf of books by all kinds of sources (left and right) that say the same thing.

Third, NO ONE ANYWHERE ANYTIME has your analysis (i.e. that the Soviet party rapidly became less working class under Stalin's leadership in the 1920s) -- because anyone and everyone can see (from the data of all sides) that this is not what happened.

I'm not going to "make this about you," and I'm not going to speculate why you are so stubbornly confused.

But there are important issues of line and history involved. And we should focus on them.
Regardless, it is hard to find an instance where Stalin actively worked against the growing Soviet bureaucracy. Sure, he destroyed the kulaks, but did he take any steps to eliminate the bureacracy? IIRC, the nomenklatura thrived under Stalin, and were given a great amount of power and influence in Soviet society. Trotsky's analysis of the deformed worker state seems to work in this case. [/b]
Manic expression:

I think you are mistaken. Stalin's approach is far more complex than you suggest.

First, as I point out, he was spearheading an effort to expand the working class base of the party throughout the twenties -- by bringing literally hundreds of thousands of workers into the party.

Second, it should come as not surprise to anyone who has studied the 30s that the main spearhead of the "purges" and the struggles of that period was at the upper levels of the party and army (not external opposition.) After the struggles against the wealth peasants (kulaks) in the early thirties, a great and sharp struggle unfolded between the party center (headed by stalin) and middle levels of the state cadre.

The best place to read this is the work by Arch Getty -- a left activist who has been one of the most prominent academic historians of that period.

http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Great-Purges...t/dp/0521335701 (http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Great-Purges-Reconsidered-Post-Soviet/dp/0521335701)

His work documents that what appeared (from without) to be a struggle against opposition forces (in the party and army) had an important aspect of "taming" and subordinating the regional party forces pulling in their own directions.

Third: One of the clearest demands of the anti-stalin forces around Krushchev was that the heavy hand against the nomenclatura stop. Read Krushchev's speech at the 20th Congress.

Fourth, it is true that in many important ways there was a consolidation of new middle strata in the stalin years -- including expansion of wage differentials, and an expansion of the state cadre (not surprisingly parallel to the growth of the state economy and planning.)

However the (common) notion that Stalin was a representative of "the bureaucracy" is wrong on several levels:

first, it doesn't correspond to his actual, and very contradictory relationship with the middlelevels of state cadre.

second, it is not true that the state cadre had their own interests and line (i.e. that they were an indepedent and self-conscious force in the new state's class struggle). In many ways, the state cadre (in both socialist Russia and China) were split -- and congealed around very different lines -- some acting as a social base for capitalist restoration, others serving as cadre of a new socialist order and transformation.

The political alignment among the state cadre varied with the times.

But the history of the Soviet Union makes it clear that a chunk of them were very pro Stalin (and pro socialist) and saw their own lives having been improved by the new socialist system. And others among them were aggressively anti-Stalin, and eager to see the rise of forces like Krushchev that would allow their transition to capitalist relations (and what is now called "the enfranchisement of the nomenklatura."

Finally, while there was a consolidation of a nomenklatura under Stalin -- its real growth, enrichment and entrenchment happened after his death, under the leadership of the anti-Stalin forces represented by Krushchev.

Labor Shall Rule

28th November 2007, 02:43

Alright, allow me to repeat myself, they are fucking Soviet statistics that the Party Central Committee reviewed themselves. You can't look away from that as if it was not true.

kasama-rl

28th November 2007, 03:34

Labor shall rule: I don't doubt that you are looking at such figures.... my point is that you obviously don't understand them.

No one is questioning the data (we are all looking at the same data) -- the problem is that you obviously are makng mistaken extrapolations based on what you are reading.

And everyone reading this thread has basically gotten that point. So I won't waste anyone's time.

If anyone has any questions or comments about the trends in the 1920s, let's go there and dig into that. OK?

manic expression

28th November 2007, 03:59

Originally posted by kasama-[email protected] 28, 2007 12:12 am
Manic expression:

I think you are mistaken. Stalin's approach is far more complex than you suggest.

First, as I point out, he was spearheading an effort to expand the working class base of the party throughout the twenties -- by bringing literally hundreds of thousands of workers into the party.

Second, it should come as not surprise to anyone who has studied the 30s that the main spearhead of the "purges" and the struggles of that period was at the upper levels of the party and army (not external opposition.) After the struggles against the wealth peasants (kulaks) in the early thirties, a great and sharp struggle unfolded between the party center (headed by stalin) and middle levels of the state cadre.

The best place to read this is the work by Arch Getty -- a left activist who has been one of the most prominent academic historians of that period.

http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Great-Purges...t/dp/0521335701 (http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Great-Purges-Reconsidered-Post-Soviet/dp/0521335701)

His work documents that what appeared (from without) to be a struggle against opposition forces (in the party and army) had an important aspect of "taming" and subordinating the regional party forces pulling in their own directions.

Third: One of the clearest demands of the anti-stalin forces around Krushchev was that the heavy hand against the nomenclatura stop. Read Krushchev's speech at the 20th Congress.

Fourth, it is true that in many important ways there was a consolidation of new middle strata in the stalin years -- including expansion of wage differentials, and an expansion of the state cadre (not surprisingly parallel to the growth of the state economy and planning.)

However the (common) notion that Stalin was a representative of "the bureaucracy" is wrong on several levels:

first, it doesn't correspond to his actual, and very contradictory relationship with the middlelevels of state cadre.

second, it is not true that the state cadre had their own interests and line (i.e. that they were an indepedent and self-conscious force in the new state's class struggle). In many ways, the state cadre (in both socialist Russia and China) were split -- and congealed around very different lines -- some acting as a social base for capitalist restoration, others serving as cadre of a new socialist order and transformation.

The political alignment among the state cadre varied with the times.

But the history of the Soviet Union makes it clear that a chunk of them were very pro Stalin (and pro socialist) and saw their own lives having been improved by the new socialist system. And others among them were aggressively anti-Stalin, and eager to see the rise of forces like Krushchev that would allow their transition to capitalist relations (and what is now called "the enfranchisement of the nomenklatura."

Finally, while there was a consolidation of a nomenklatura under Stalin -- its real growth, enrichment and entrenchment happened after his death, under the leadership of the anti-Stalin forces represented by Krushchev.
The base of the party was expanding more due to the political education done pre-1924 than Stalin. The party was heavily involved in teaching the workers and soldiers (Jack Reed wrote a lot about this) about socialism and Marxism, and the inevitable consequences were simply coming to fruition at the time. One can scarcely credit Stalin with this development.

What do you mean the "main spreahead of the 'purges'"? The military was targetted, as were other sections of Soviet society. The purges, IIRC, happened in the wake of dekulakization, and were not restricted to the "middle levels of the state cadre".

Yes, I've been meaning to read Getty and Thurston. Both bury Robert "Propaganda Agent" Conquest.

Although I haven't read Getty, what he found was that the purges were not always under Stalin's control, and oftentimes Stalin would have to reign in some of the agents carrying out the purges. However, this doesn't let Stalin off the hook (or anyone else), it just puts the purges into perspective and portrays them in a realistic way.

Khruschev reversed many of Stalin's policies, but the bureaucracy remained. Had Stalin's hand been so "heavy" against the nomenklatura, they wouldn't have existed in the first place. Instead, they were powerful enough to demand and force change.

When I say that Stalin represented the bureaucracy, I mean that he did not threaten their position and actually worked to strengthen it.

What was his "actual, and very contradictory relationship" with the bureaucracy? Looking on the outside in, it is clear that the bureaucracy did grow and become powerful during Stalin's time; they were certainly powerful enough to make Khruschev bow to their will after 1953, were they not?

Bureaucrats do have interests which diverge from the proletariat. If they are not under the full control of the workers, they can become Bonapartist and gain political power for themselves. This creates deformities in a worker state.

Of course, no one has said that the state cadre were a monolithic force. It is obvious that their alignment varied, but their importance in Soviet society is the issue at hand.

I would argue that many Soviet denizens believed that Stalin was a good thing, and that they supported the direction of their society. I would also argue that the Soviet Union DID improve life in tremendous ways during this period. However, that only speaks of the relative effects and not the net worth. In other words: Soviet society was still a worker state, but it was accumulating deformities which eventually led to its fall. Trotsky was always clear in his defense of the Soviet Union, but he was also clear in his opposition to the power of the bureaucracy.

If the nomenklatura was consolidated under Stalin, and was subsequently powerful enough to fully assert its dominance after Stalin, does that not make Stalin at fault for what happened? Is it not reasonable to claim that this was not merely a mistake but a consequence of Stalin's own interests (among other things)?

Thank you for the response, this is easily the most constructive discussion I've had about Stalin for a long time.

kasama-rl

28th November 2007, 05:24

just to sharpen it up:

I don't think that the conservatiation of Soviet society is a matter of "bureaucracy" it is a matter of struggle with "capitalist roaders" over whether to take the capitalist road or the socialist road.

these are fundamentally different ways of understanding the problems and struggles of the socialist transition.

That is why the historical facts don't fit the "bureacracy" theory....

It is not class analysis, and posits a society with socialist base and counterrevolutionary superstructure -- which is basically impossible.

It is worth unravelling those differences (between the two theories) -- and lay bare the weakness of the "bureaucracy" theory of "deformed/degenerated workers states."

Random Precision

28th November 2007, 22:30

Originally posted by kasama-[email protected] 28, 2007 05:23 am
just to sharpen it up:

I don't think that the conservatiation of Soviet society is a matter of "bureaucracy" it is a matter of struggle with "capitalist roaders" over whether to take the capitalist road or the socialist road.

these are fundamentally different ways of understanding the problems and struggles of the socialist transition.

That is why the historical facts don't fit the "bureacracy" theory....

It is not class analysis, and posits a society with socialist base and counterrevolutionary superstructure -- which is basically impossible.

It is worth unravelling those differences (between the two theories) -- and lay bare the weakness of the "bureaucracy" theory of "deformed/degenerated workers states."
Trotsky never said that the "base" of the Soviet Union was socialist- that would indeed be impossible given the amount of time it had to develop before the bureaucratic caste began its influence. What he said was that the framework was a workers' state, which bureaucratically degenerated over time as the workers lost control.

The Advent of Anarchy

29th November 2007, 03:13

No Trotskyists replied to my post. I want an argument! MY TURN! *pushes the rest of the anti-revisionists aside* :P

I don't like being ignored. :D

Axel1917

29th November 2007, 07:13

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 03:12 am
No Trotskyists replied to my post. I want an argument! MY TURN! *pushes the rest of the anti-revisionists aside* :P

I don't like being ignored. :D
You Lose (http://www.marxist.com/lenin-trotsky-stalinism-johnstone-41.htm)

A comrade once remarked that the aforementioned work should be required reading for anyone considering becoming a Stalinist. It is full of factual information and primary sources that shatter all kinds of common Stalinist lies.

Rosa, I think you worry too much about Stalinists - their ideology is one of the most discredited ones out there, and even when they are able to seize power, their Menshevism prevents them from doing as such these days (take Nepal for a great example.). I personally think that Stalinism in today's world could only have the slighest chance of arising in the ex-colonial world due to peculiar circumstances. It never has, and never will, touch the advanced countries. In fact, it is a dead letter in those nations, and it is so highly discredited and so Menshevik that the outlook for it seizing power is very slim.

I would critically support Stalinists that took power, given that they would be the only ones capable of developing the productive forces in the ex-colonial world, but I would also point out the need for a political revolution to bring political power to the proletariat and protect the nationalized economy from a future sell-out to capitalism by the Stalinists.

kasama-rl

29th November 2007, 15:40

Originally posted by Hope Lies in the Proles+November 28, 2007 10:29 pm--> (Hope Lies in the Proles @ November 28, 2007 10:29 pm)
kasama-[email protected] 28, 2007 05:23 am
just to sharpen it up:

I don't think that the conservatiation of Soviet society is a matter of "bureaucracy" it is a matter of struggle with "capitalist roaders" over whether to take the capitalist road or the socialist road.

these are fundamentally different ways of understanding the problems and struggles of the socialist transition.

That is why the historical facts don't fit the "bureacracy" theory....

It is not class analysis, and posits a society with socialist base and counterrevolutionary superstructure -- which is basically impossible.

It is worth unravelling those differences (between the two theories) -- and lay bare the weakness of the "bureaucracy" theory of "deformed/degenerated workers states."
Trotsky never said that the "base" of the Soviet Union was socialist- that would indeed be impossible given the amount of time it had to develop before the bureaucratic caste began its influence. What he said was that the framework was a workers' state, which bureaucratically degenerated over time as the workers lost control. [/b]
Trotsky (and most trotskyists) hold that the "gains of october" (in the base) could be preserved even after a couterrevolution in the superstructure.

You are right that there are nuances of terminology -- they claim "socialism" can only happen on a world scale, so don't say that a socialist base ever existed in the USSR...

But setting that aside: they claim that a country can be a "workers state" even if that state is ruled by a counterevolutionary "caste" hostile to the working class.

This is a major theoretical assertion, which needs to be analyzed concretely. Is it true that you can have a society where the institutions reflect the "gains" of proletarian revolution, even if the leading party and state are counterrevolutionary?

For many reasons i don't think that is true, or possible. And it greatly underestimates the degree to which the maintanence of the "gains" of any socialist revolution REQUIRES continuing revolution (expansion of the socialist relations of production, transformation of the social relations in society, struggle over ideology and line, and extension of the involvement of the people in the political direction of society),

Trotskyists feel they need some basis in marx for their remarkable theory (i.e. revolutionary base, countrevolutionary state). So they found the term Bonapartism. Sometimes in history, when major contenting forces were exhausted or mutually neutralizing, forces came to power (briefly and fleetingly) that represented something else, or where individuals (like Napoleon Bonaparte) had a hugely disproportionate ability to define the direction of things (and dominate the classes in society, rather than be dominated by them.)

There are two points to raise:

First, I don't think "Bonapartism" is that major a phenom in the world -- and even someone like Bonaparte had to operate within the confines of the society he ruled (which had production, markets, commodities, scarcity, foreign foes etc.) And so he had to rule through a specific class structure, and one way or another his policies reflected the politics and outlook of the exploiting classes (his restoration of slavery, his approach to the "mob", his ending of bourgeois democracy and resurrection of the crown).

Second, even the extent to which Bonapartism exists (which I'm dubious about) it is fleeting. Ultimately and fundamentally the superstructure reflects the base (i.e. the state and ideas of a society reflect its relations of production). These things are not in linear lock-step. There are contradictions. An early socialist state often leads an economy filled with capitalism and state capitalism, etc. But in the intense dynamics of real life, either the state brings the base in line with its policies (through revolution and counterrevolution) or the base determines the class nature of the state. And that process is not slow, not drawn out.

Trotskyism claims (believe it or not) that a Bonapartist phenom governed the USSR from 1924 (when Stalin came into overall leadership) until 1992 when the USSR dissolved. That is 80 years where (supposedly) the "gains of October" and the "workers state" existed WITHOUT a revolutionary state.

This is a remarkable assertion -- the implications of which include that you really DON'T need a revolutionary party or a state to continue the revolution, because (like a ball rollng downhill) these relations in the base (supposedly) maintain themselves (!) not matter what-the-fuck the state and party are doing.

In fact, every part of this theory is wrong.

a) the rise of Stalin did not correspond with a power seizure by some classless counter revolutionary "bureaucracy."

b) the nature of the society was not the same from 1924 until 1992 (the soviet union first constructed socialism, then saw capitalism restored in the mid-1950s)

c) and in general you can't have a socalled workers state (which is supposedly neither capitalist nor socialist!) that continues in a Bonapartist way, for decades after decades, with a counterrevolutionary caste running things in its own interest.

The theory is just wrong in all its details -- and does not correspond to Marxism or reality.

Labor Shall Rule

29th November 2007, 17:30

A "socialist base" existed in a country where unions were wiped out, and collective bargaining effectively ended?

kasama-rl

29th November 2007, 18:06

Originally posted by Labor Shall [email protected] 29, 2007 05:29 pm
A "socialist base" existed in a country where unions were wiped out, and collective bargaining effectively ended?
i'm not sure how to answer that, since the answer seems obvious.... but then, we have very very different views of the world don't we?

"Collective bargaining" is a phenom of capitaism -- and a shitty one.
Unions are a historic form for the struggle over the terms of sale of labor value (i.e. over the conditions of wage slavery.)

I think that under socialism, there are needs for all kinds of mass organization...
and there will be conflicts between sections of the masses and the state (even though it is in a larger sense "their" state). And there will even be conflict (at times) between workers and the direction of their workplaces and their industry.

So there need to be mass forms of many kinds -- and struggle over direction. (And under socialism, obviously, it is not always clear who is right -- and there will be many times when the masses need to struggle to understand the direction the vanguard core is taking things as they struggle to understand whether they agree or not. Under capitalism, it is a bit easier to assume that "if it comes from them it sux.")

So the idea that there would be "collective bargaining" under socialism is a rather narrow and unimaginative view -- and one that radically underestimates how new and different real socialism would be.

Random Precision

1st December 2007, 05:24

Kasama-RL, I would like you to address once again the issue of workers' control in the factories in terms of the role of the managers and workers' committees, if you don't mind.

Here is some stuff I've found in my studies on the subject:

[The workers' committees] may not intervene directly in the running of the plant or endeavour in any way to replace plant administration; they shall by all means help to secure one-man management, increase production, plant development, and, thereby, improvement of the material conditions of the working class

[The manager's economic orders are] unconditionally binding on his subordinate administrative staff and on all workers

- VKP(b)* in Resolutions and Decisions of the Congresses, Conferences and Plenums of the Central Committee, Moscow 1941, 6th ed. Vol. II, pages 811 and 812, respectively

(Both of the above from the year 1929)

The foreman is the authoritative leader of the shop, the factory director is the authoritative leader of the factory, and each has all the rights, duties, and responsibilities that accompany these positions.
- Socialism Victorious, London 1934, p.137

It is necessary to proceed from the basic assumption that the director is the supreme chief in the factory. All the employees in the factory must be completely subordinated to him.
- M.M. Kaganovich** in Za Industrializatsiu (Organ of the Commissariat of Heavy Industry), Moscow, 16 April 1934

Considering this, how do you argue that the workers still essentially had control of their factories? I know that your argument is that the factory managers were worker-communists who came into their position after the revolution by and large (can you demonstrate in some way that this indeed happened, btw?- thanks) but how are the workers in control of the factories if their managers are not directly responsible to them?

I look forward to your response.

* All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik)
** Deputy Commissar for Heavy Industry. Not to be confused with Stalin associate L.M. Kaganovich

kasama-rl

1st December 2007, 16:18

HLITP: Thanks for posting this important and complex question so clearly.

First I think what you documented is true: In the soviet union (starting very early in the socialist revolution) there was not direct "worker control" of production. And (further) the system of "one man management" got (if anything) more entrenched and more unquestioned as time went on.

And so the question you pose is then sharp:

"Considering this, how do you argue that the workers still essentially had control of their factories? I know that your argument is that the factory managers were worker-communists who came into their position after the revolution by and large (can you demonstrate in some way that this indeed happened, btw?- thanks) but how are the workers in control of the factories if their managers are not directly responsible to them?"

there are a number of levels to this...

1) I don't believe that socialism equals "direct worker control." It never has, it never will. And there are some deep reasons for that.

First of all, socialism requires that production (the use of society's resources) be developed in the interests of the people and of the people's highest interests (i.e. the ongoing revolution for communism worldwide). And directing production (and all of society) in that direction (on that socialist road) CAN'T simply be done by direct worker control.

there needs to be overall social direction of the process.

For example: Society needs to move away from internal combustion engines toward mass transportation. How is that done? By direct worker control of the auto plants? By a democratic decision made by the transit workers and their representatives? No, clearly such a decision has to be made (and then planned and then carried out) on a society-wide level -- by a political process. It can't be done on the basis of plant floor decisionmaking.

And then, in important ways, those society wide decisions have to be carried out at the plant floor -- even (ironically) if the majority of workers there don't agree.

for example: Strip mining is a capitalist industry that we may not want to continue under socialism -- because it destroys the environment we (the revolutionary people) need to be the custodians of. But (in my experience) strip miners themselves are often pretty "pro-strip mining" because without that industry, they can't stay and live in these rural areas so easily. So the decision about strip mining has to be made at a social level, and then it has to be carried out even if the workers themselves (in one place or another) don't agree with it.

so this is an argument for society-wide political decisions, for a planned economy etc.
and those needs of socialism are in contradiction to making an absolute out of direct worker control.

2) to raise the level of discussion a notch:

we can't resolve the world historic divide of North South (and the "seal of parasitism" on the U.S.) if the working people in the U.S. simply decide ("for themselves") at each point what is in THEIR best interests.

The interests of working people are complex. They have both long term and historic interests (for revolution, socialism and communism) -- but they also often have short-term, sectoral and individual interests. (So that historically white workers on the railroads supported the exclusion of black people and women because the restricted access to the jobs increased their ability to have some limited security.)

On a theoretical level, one way to say this is: If each factory and workplace makes its decisions for itself, and starts from the analysis of its own interests, if we have "worker control" rooted in factory decision making, then (inevitably and pretty quickly) we will have a commodity market in goods, we will have the expansion (not restriction) of the law of value. Ironically a system of "worker control" at the factory level would produce a society wide market system -- and would be a means to restore capitalism (in the most literal sense).

This is not a hypothetical: worker control of factories in Yugoslavia was the form through which capitalism was continued there after world war 2 -- under Tito the national markets were maintained, and factories remained the cost accounting locus of decision making, and "brought their goods to market" and made "their own decisions."

Another famous example: in the Spanish civil war there were notorious examples of "workers democracy" undermining the war effort against the fascists. For example where a shoe factory council voted to produce fashion shoes for export rather than boots for the anti-fascist army -- because it was "in the workers interests" (i.e. the workers in THAT factory) would be able to pay themselves more.

The point here is not that "workers are greedy and should have no say" (not at all!)-- the point is that IF decisions are made locally, at the lowest factory level, you CAN'T have socialist planning and you can't have socialism.

3) so what do you need?

There are three different things that define the relations of production in a society:

a) the ownership system (i.e. who makes the macro decisions of society and on what basis)

b) the relations IN production (the social relations in carrying out production)

c) relations of distribution (how are goods, wages and social wealth distributed to the people and by what standards)

All three of those (together) make up the relations of production. And all three are involved in creating (and deepening) the socialist realtions in a society.

In the soviet union, they thought (wrongly and mechanically) that only the first on mattered.

They thought that if there was state ownership of the land and economy, then you had socialism, and the only other thing to decide was efficiency and motivation. so they nationalized everything, they put everything under state planning -- but the relations of production were not that different from capitalism, and the distribution relations started to widen inequalities (not narrow them) as the 1930 went on.

One of the important lessons we sum up (thanks to Mao and the four) based on theSoviet experience is the importance of working on all three of these aspects of the relation of production.

Because without that the overall relations return to capitalism.

If you have "state ownership" but the intersts of the masses are not really represented by the state -- then how is it socialism?

If you have "worker control" but the proletariat AS A CLASS can't carry out (or plan) the radical historic and internationalist transformations it needs to make, then how is it socialism?

If you have a narrowing of the inequalities, but really it is done through a welfare state where the larger transformation aren't happen, then how is it socialism?

You need a larger planned economy, but in which the relations IN production are a center of revolutionary struggle too. And you need a process where the masses of people are INCREASINGLY politicized, increasingly conscious of the larger line questions of society, and increasingly intervening (directly and indirectly) in the decisionmaking process (not on the basis of their narrow, personal self interest, but with an increasingly CONSCIOUS understanding of the transformations needed to reach communism.)

MattBusby

7th December 2007, 22:48

Stalin was consumed by his own power. A way most "great" leaders head. They make a distance between themselves and the "workers" - that allso distance the leader from the reality of life. They were living 1st class, while their own people was starving.

Stalin-Soviet was a nation with the right intentions, but failed bigtime in putting it into life.

apathy maybe

10th December 2007, 07:48

As an anarchist (and opposed to all "great leaders", as well as bureaucratic bullshit, and so much else that is included in the history of all sorts of Leninism), I'm finding this whole debate quite interesting.

It is amusing to watch the Trots accuse the Stalinists of shooting them... (great to see the bullets fly in a different direction for once...).

Anyway, in the end, however, I think that the whole debate is redundant, except for the historical debate.

After all, in any major revolution, is anyone going to seriously let a group of people like Stalin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev take the reigns of power again? I would hope that even if there was a state created (or if the old state was simply taken over...) that such positions of power would not exist. There should not be a small executive group in any revolutionary state (of course, I don't think that there should even be a state..., but keeping on topic...).

kasama-rl

13th December 2007, 12:31

ApMA: I think there are objective dynamics in the revolutionary process that require strong leading cores, and organizations that act in a united, disciplined way.

Without such vanguard forces, you can't really lead the masses of people in the kinds of actions and political programs that are needed, and it is not possible to defeat the reactionary forces that will be arrayed againsst you.

So (perhaps different from you) I assume that the emergence of leading parties and leading political cores are INEVITABLE and much needed as part of a process of revolution (not in a pre-announced, self-announced way, as so often happens with smaller left groupings who have little real traction yet).

The issue is not will we have leadership? The question will be what kidn of leadership, what line will guide process, how active will the masses of people be in grasping and influencing the riptides of opposing policies and direction?

Angry Young Man

13th December 2007, 19:37

My estimation of Stalin has raised no end in the last few months. I think he knew what he was doing and acted according to circumstance.

manic expression

13th December 2007, 19:55

Originally posted by kasama-[email protected] 01, 2007 04:17 pm
1) I don't believe that socialism equals "direct worker control." It never has, it never will. And there are some deep reasons for that.

First of all, socialism requires that production (the use of society's resources) be developed in the interests of the people and of the people's highest interests (i.e. the ongoing revolution for communism worldwide). And directing production (and all of society) in that direction (on that socialist road) CAN'T simply be done by direct worker control.

there needs to be overall social direction of the process.

For example: Society needs to move away from internal combustion engines toward mass transportation. How is that done? By direct worker control of the auto plants? By a democratic decision made by the transit workers and their representatives? No, clearly such a decision has to be made (and then planned and then carried out) on a society-wide level -- by a political process. It can't be done on the basis of plant floor decisionmaking.
Well, that is quite a strawman. The point is that if a change needs to be made, then the working class must COLLECTIVELY control the process from start to finish. No questions asked. That is socialism. Only anarchists think that isolated worker councils should formulate policy.

And then, in important ways, those society wide decisions have to be carried out at the plant floor -- even (ironically) if the majority of workers there don't agree.

Yes, of course, that is what happens in a democratic system: oftentimes, people of the same class do not agree, but must abide by the decision. That is still direct worker control, because the workers as a whole made the decision (and not a Stalinist bureaucracy).

This is the crux of the issue: should workers control society, or should a bureaucracy control society? It is the question between socialism and bonapartism, between revolution and Thermidor. Stalin represented the latter in every case.

kasama-rl

13th December 2007, 20:26

Well, if you think about it, the question is HOW does a class control society.

And this clearly needs to be done through representative means.

No class in history has, or can, directly (however collectively) control society.

And there is the added issue that many objective problems can't simply be put to a vote -- rather obviously.

For example: take the very basic problems of a planned economy:

What ratio of the society should be light industry and consumer goods, what part should be heavy industry, and what part military?

Does the east coast need five new colleges or just four?

Should the ratio of wages between top and bottom be 5 or 20, and how should the changes be introduced to doctors (or physicists)?

What should be negotiated with still-capitalist neighbors? Should their offer of secret trade be accepted, and how should it be politically discussed?

And there are, of course, a thousand similar questions (local, regional, natoinal and international) that a new revolutionary state confronts and decides every day.

So you tell me, how does your asserted principle of "the working class must COLLECTIVELY control the process from start to finish."

What does that actually mean? A vote on every policy and decision? Based on what kind of investigation and debate?

Your insistance "No questions asked." is not that helpful.... since of course questions will be asked at every stage. And in practice the question of who is collectively controling the process is in question at every point "from start to finish."

As we all know (from living in bourgeois democracy) it is quite possible to have the masses of people vote (on a presidential candidate, or a state referendum, or even a union strike vote) and YET have the terms and outcome fully determined by quite hostile class forces (who aren't even significant part of the voters).

So I turn the questoin back to you, manic expression. In the real world, how does the working class collectively move society toward communism (if not by the process of political representation and leadership by the advanced organized as a party)?

manic expression

13th December 2007, 20:43

Originally posted by kasama-[email protected] 13, 2007 08:25 pm
Well, if you think about it, the question is HOW does a class control society.

And this clearly needs to be done through representative means.
Yes and no. Representational government is obviously a factor, but one of many. The working class musn't simply vote every few years for a representative, there must be constant involvement in the worker state. Thus, local level governance is important, as are women's associations, unions, youth organizations and the like. Worker control constitutes all these things, not just one of them.

No class in history has, or can, directly (however collectively) control society.

Then again, no class in history has established socialism yet. Government takes on a new character when in the hands of the working class, would you not agree?

And there is the added issue that many objective problems can't simply be put to a vote -- rather obviously.

For example: take the very basic problems of a planned economy:

Yes, all these things must be done by administrators, they cannot be subject to referendum or a general vote. I never argued as much.

The point is that administrators and officials differ from bureaucrats in one important regard: they must be subject to worker democracy. Bureaucracies can develop an independence, if allowed to do so. That is a dire threat to socialism itself. What is the solution? When it comes to questions such as planned economy, I'm lucky enough to have examples in front of me. For instance, the Congress of the Soviets elected the council of commissars, who then went about in administrative duties. The commissars were always appointed by the Soviets, that is the main thing. That, specifically, is worker control.

I'm also lucky enough to have counter examples in front of me. Stalin abolished the Congress of the Soviets and consolidated the nomenklatura, solidifying the suppression of worker democracy and the supremacy of the bureaucratic caste.

So I turn the questoin back to you, manic expression. In the real world, how does the working class collectively move society toward communism (if not by the process of political representation and leadership by the advanced organized as a party)?

As I've said, the working class must maintain worker control through the various organs of worker democracy. Only then will revolutionary gains be held and furthered. The existence of a vanguard is of utmost importance, and it should be organized into a structured party, but the party is not the worker state.

If you want a really real world example, I support the Cuban socialist model (which is based on the Soviet model).

kasama-rl

13th December 2007, 21:42

I think that is helpful as clarification.

And I think most people reading this can get a sense of the differences in approach -- and the different sense of reality -- that separates our comments.

When I speak of political representation I am not speaking of U.S. style "representative democracy" (where you pick a representative every two years or whatever.) Classes do not rule directly, and can't -- it has to do with the difference between the base (where classes are organized in production) and the superstructure (where classes are "represented" in the realms of politics and ideas by different levels of mediation.)

How a revolutionary working class gets "represented" is precisely the core of the problem... and also how other classes enter into the class struggle and the decisionmaking process (including the capitalist roaders -- who are the problem not some "bureaucracy.")

You wrote that "For instance, the Congress of the Soviets elected the council of commissars, who then went about in administrative duties. The commissars were always appointed by the Soviets, that is the main thing. That, specifically, is worker control. I'm also lucky enough to have counter examples in front of me. Stalin abolished the Congress of the Soviets and consolidated the nomenklatura, solidifying the suppression of worker democracy and the supremacy of the bureaucratic caste."

This is historically confused at best. In fact there was a congress of soviets nominally functioning in the USSR far into the 1980s (certainly thirty years after Stalin died). It was (like many bourgeois parliaments) a pro-forma thing -- that did not really "represent" the interests of those (nominally) voting for the representatives.

It is true that a "nomenklatura" consolidated in the USSR (though Stalin's role in that process is considerably more complex than your linear "he is the chicken they are the egg" analysis.)

In any case, I think we have laid out some clear and helpful differences on these points.

manic expression

13th December 2007, 21:50

Originally posted by kasama-[email protected] 13, 2007 09:41 pm
I think that is helpful as clarification.

And I think most people reading this can get a sense of the differences in approach -- and the different sense of reality -- that separates our comments.
Yes, I think we understand one another for the most part. Two quick things:

This is historically confused at best. In fact there was a congress of soviets nominally functioning in the USSR far into the 1980s (certainly thirty years after Stalin died). It was (like many bourgeois parliaments) a pro-forma thing -- that did not really "represent" the interests of those (nominally) voting for the representatives.

From what I know, the Congress of the Soviets functioned from 1917 to 1936, when they ceased to meet for the time being. The 1936 Constitution eliminated the Congress of the Soviets and established the Supreme Soviet. The Congress of the Soviets was resurrected by Gorbachev, but only for a small time. The 1936 elimination is what I'm talking about.

Classes do not rule directly, and can't -- it has to do with the difference between the base (where classes are organized in production) and the superstructure (where classes are "represented" in the realms of politics and ideas by different levels of mediation.)

Yes, of course the two do not line up completely. However, would you agree that there is a direct link between the two? When people say "direct worker control", there is a grey area to be sure, but it is not a fallacious concept IMO.

kasama-rl

13th December 2007, 22:05

I wrote: "Classes do not rule directly, and can't -- it has to do with the difference between the base (where classes are organized in production) and the superstructure (where classes are "represented" in the realms of politics and ideas by different levels of mediation.)"

ME responded: "Yes, of course the two do not line up completely. However, would you agree that there is a direct link between the two? When people say "direct worker control", there is a grey area to be sure, but it is not a fallacious concept IMO."

I have been involved in wildcat strike movements when the workers directly ruled. We would gather in the dark at a bend in the road -- and debate on how to proceed. And there were accepted leaders who handled the details of assigning pickets (and sometimes the quiet negotiations of specific concerns).

But it was as direct as something could be.

However....

A wildcat strike is not a state, or a planned economy or a foreign policy or an army.

I don't believe you can have "direct rule" over the complex issues above the workplace level.

And IF you have "direct rule" even at the workplace (especially the issues of investment, product and price) then you can't have a planned economy. "Worker control" at the factory level is the rule of the market (as many examples in history show, and as we seem to have agreed earlier.)

In other words: i don't think that "direct worker control" has much applicability to socialism -- except for those moments (and I expect there will be many) when our comrades under socialism need to stage a wildcat -- or an impromptu protest against the emergence of capitalist policies and capitalist political forces in high places!!

Put another way: the direct involvement of the masses in politics is a wavelike thing.

It becomes intense during crucial moments of decision and crisis (like the July days 1917 and from there until October). But there are reasons why that level of involvement and mass engagement can't simply be sustained (among other things the heavy pull of personal life and the demands of production). INevitably (and unfortunately) the glare of revolutionary upsurge ebbs, and new institutional forms of continuing the revolution need to kick in.

There is much to say about power and institutions of socialism. But one thing that is fairly clear in history is that you can't run a society (or even an industry!) under "direct worker control."

That does not mean that you can't or don't have a society that is governed by the highest interests of the oppressed, and that you can't have a society where the heights of power are fundamentally "in the hands of the proletariat" -- it means that the way this happens is through the mediation of levels of representation, and dependent on wavelike intersessions of mass struggle and heightened involvement.

Invader Zim

13th December 2007, 23:48

This viewpoint supposes that there is no legitimacy to our outlook, and that your own is inherently superior, therefore the best you can do is allow us to exist.

An accurate assessment of the situation; you are like holocaust deniers and white supremacists, in my opinion Stalinists should be treated like holocaust deniers and white supremacists.

manic expression

14th December 2007, 00:19

Originally posted by kasama-[email protected] 13, 2007 10:04 pm
I have been involved in wildcat strike movements when the workers directly ruled. We would gather in the dark at a bend in the road -- and debate on how to proceed. And there were accepted leaders who handled the details of assigning pickets (and sometimes the quiet negotiations of specific concerns).

But it was as direct as something could be.

However....

A wildcat strike is not a state, or a planned economy or a foreign policy or an army.

I don't believe you can have "direct rule" over the complex issues above the workplace level.
That's not the point, that's not my argument.

The argument is that "direct worker control" can take many forms, but must be a collective process. I have clearly stated that "direct" control should not take the form of isolated worker councils, that is an anarchist position. Please don't misconstrue my argument.

Intelligitimate

14th December 2007, 04:46

Originally posted by Invader [email protected] 13, 2007 11:47 pm
An accurate assessment of the situation; you are like holocaust deniers and white supremacists, in my opinion Stalinists should be treated like holocaust deniers and white supremacists.
You're the one that shares nearly identical views on history with neo-Nazis. They also hate socialism with a passion. You're just a stupid worthless anti-communist shit.

black magick hustla

14th December 2007, 05:34

Originally posted by Intelligitimate+December 14, 2007 04:45 am--> (Intelligitimate @ December 14, 2007 04:45 am)
Invader [email protected] 13, 2007 11:47 pm
An accurate assessment of the situation; you are like holocaust deniers and white supremacists, in my opinion Stalinists should be treated like holocaust deniers and white supremacists.
You're the one that shares nearly identical views on history with neo-Nazis. They also hate socialism with a passion. You're just a stupid worthless anti-communist shit. [/b]
you sure are an angry guy

Invader Zim

14th December 2007, 16:06

Originally posted by Intelligitimate+December 14, 2007 05:45 am--> (Intelligitimate @ December 14, 2007 05:45 am)
Invader [email protected] 13, 2007 11:47 pm
An accurate assessment of the situation; you are like holocaust deniers and white supremacists, in my opinion Stalinists should be treated like holocaust deniers and white supremacists.
You're the one that shares nearly identical views on history with neo-Nazis. They also hate socialism with a passion. You're just a stupid worthless anti-communist shit. [/b]
I love the irony of being called "anti-communist" and told that I "hate socialism" by an individual who defends Stalin; the man who destroyed socialism in the USSR, removed any possibility of communism ever being achieved in the USSR and sullied the name and reputation of the entire radical left, a reputation that has yet to recover from the blight that was Stalinism. I truly love it. Its like being called a racist by Hitler himself.

kasama-rl

15th December 2007, 04:13

Originally posted by manic expression+December 14, 2007 12:18 am--> (manic expression @ December 14, 2007 12:18 am)
kasama-[email protected] 13, 2007 10:04 pm
I have been involved in wildcat strike movements when the workers directly ruled. We would gather in the dark at a bend in the road -- and debate on how to proceed. And there were accepted leaders who handled the details of assigning pickets (and sometimes the quiet negotiations of specific concerns).

But it was as direct as something could be.

However....

A wildcat strike is not a state, or a planned economy or a foreign policy or an army.

I don't believe you can have "direct rule" over the complex issues above the workplace level.
That's not the point, that's not my argument.

The argument is that "direct worker control" can take many forms, but must be a collective process. I have clearly stated that "direct" control should not take the form of isolated worker councils, that is an anarchist position. Please don't misconstrue my argument. [/b]
sometimes in these discussions, we "talk past each other" -- because we don't yet have a common language.

To me the concept of "direct worker control" is opposed to the idea of control through representative politics.

How do workers "directly" decide the national budget for investment in (say) the steel industry?

I don't think it can be done... for many reasons, including that there are too many decisions and too many variables for any public forum to make the issues (and lines and controversies!) clear for broad sections of the population.

so, in my view, politics at the national and planned level can't be "direct."

Perhaps you use the words differently. Right?

Hiero

15th December 2007, 04:30

removed any possibility of communism ever being achieved in the USSR

There will never be communism in the USSR?

Intelligitimate

15th December 2007, 07:23

Originally posted by Invader Zim+December 14, 2007 04:05 pm--> (Invader Zim @ December 14, 2007 04:05 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 05:45 am

Invader [email protected] 13, 2007 11:47 pm
An accurate assessment of the situation; you are like holocaust deniers and white supremacists, in my opinion Stalinists should be treated like holocaust deniers and white supremacists.
You're the one that shares nearly identical views on history with neo-Nazis. They also hate socialism with a passion. You're just a stupid worthless anti-communist shit.
I love the irony of being called "anti-communist" and told that I "hate socialism" by an individual who defends Stalin; the man who destroyed socialism in the USSR, removed any possibility of communism ever being achieved in the USSR and sullied the name and reputation of the entire radical left, a reputation that has yet to recover from the blight that was Stalinism. I truly love it. Its like being called a racist by Hitler himself. [/b]
Stalin did not destroy socialism in the USSR (in fact just the opposite occured under Stalin's leadership), did not remove the possibility of communism being achieved in the USSR, and did not sully the reputation of the radical Left. That was a job accomplished by trash like yourself, because you spout the most vile anti-communist bullshit at every opportunity, right along side with the bourgeois, conservatives, liberals, neo-Nazis, etc. They're rabid anti-communists, just like you.

You and Hitler would have a lot in common when it came to the USSR.

Marsella

15th December 2007, 07:27

You and Hitler would have a lot in common when it came to the USSR.

Oh no! I forgot to ask Adolf for an alliance! :(

Herman

15th December 2007, 11:28

Oh no! I forgot to ask Adolf for an alliance!

Oh no! I forgot to increase the capability of my army! I'd better ask for an alliance with Adolf to stall him...

Random Precision

15th December 2007, 15:10

Kasama, perhaps I am being dense, but I don't understand why what you're proposing with central planning (and in your assertion that the bureaucratic planning/one man management of the Soviet economy was socialist) amounts to anything less than wage slavery.

And I for one thought socialism was for the abolition of wage slavery. :huh:

RNK

15th December 2007, 15:44

I like that -- Stalin utterly obliterated socialism in the USSR, to the point that even after his death, and the seizure of state power by proto-Trotskyists like Kruschev, socialism still couldn't be implimented. Hell, Stalin's obliteration of it was so damned thorough that to this day, he's at fault for all the failings of all Communists everywhere, because the only logical reason for such a failure is NOT the theoretical bankruptcy of the many strings and sub-cults of socialism running around the world, but rather Stalin reaching beyond the grave to fuck with socialists (especialy Trotskyists, mind you).

Afterall, it's easier to convince people that Stalin wasn't actually a Communist, rather than convince people that the 70 years of western anti-communist propaganda is baseless.

Intelligitimate

15th December 2007, 15:51

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 07:26 am

You and Hitler would have a lot in common when it came to the USSR.

Oh no! I forgot to ask Adolf for an alliance! :(
Here is another teenager at revleft that hasn't read anything beyond grade-school propaganda on world history.

This "alliance' was a non-aggression pact, formed at a time when all the great Western 'democracies' were all trying to appease the fascists and hoping they were gonna start a war with the USSR. This was at the same time the USSR was basically fighting proxy wars with the fascists in Spain, and they were desperately trying to form an anti-fascist alliance with the Western 'democracies'. They realized that wasn't gonna work, so to forestall the inevitable war that literally everyone knew was gonna happen anyway, the USSR sought a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. There is nothing 'morally' wrong with this whatsoever, and in fact, probably saved the world from Nazism. A war against the USSR with the Western 'democracies' backing the fascists would have meant the end of the USSR, and after that, the bourgeois 'democracies' and everyone else. It also would have meant millions more people exterminated outside of war.

We should be lucky the Bolsheviks had such political cunning, and were not prone to the foolish adventurism and defeatism of Trotsky.

kasama-rl

15th December 2007, 15:55

Nah, HLITP, you are not being dense. We are grappling with one of the core issues (and hard contradictions) of socialism.

You ask: "I don't understand why what you're proposing with central planning (and in your assertion that the bureaucratic planning/one man management of the Soviet economy was socialist) amounts to anything less than wage slavery."

Let's dig into how I understand it, and then you can respond, ok?

What abolishes wage slavery? that is the first question.

In wage slavery, the labor power of working people is a commodity -- it is sold. and people receive more or less enough to make it back to work.

However, unlike other commodities, labor power ends up having created value. And that surplus value (the difference between the value of the product and the wages) is alienated from the working people -- this great creation, this wealth, becomes the property of the owning class, which means that they DEVELOP society, its directions, its forms, its future production, and so on... because they control how social surplus is invested, and they invest it in ways that serve the expansion of their capital.

So workers are wage slaves: unlike chattel slaves they are not personally and directly owned by one owner. but as a class, they are enslaved to the owning class. You can quit, but you generally (as a class) can't escape a world where you have to sell yourself to ONE or ANOTHER of these owners.

On one level, socialism involves a radically new way of using the surplus. It doesn't "go back to the individual worker" -- as individuals we don't receive "the full value of our labor." We aren't suddenly small farmers freed from feudal taxes, and suddenly allowed to keep the full harvest, and sell it as we want.

No. workers still work. they still produce a huge surplus above the means of life that they need. And then, through social means, the decisions about the use of that surplus are made in ways that don't start (and end) with the reproduction and expansion of capital. That is why (for the first time) it becomes possible to have cheap housing, or decent mass healthcare in the slums, or mass transportation, or radical new forms of mass culture.... Before only things that made some capitalist profit were done, or built, or offered for sale. Now, the victorious revolutionary forces can consider new and different priorities -- untethered from a fundamental control of the capital relation.

Breaking that link, expropriating the social surplus from the control of the capitalist, is the key way that wage slavery is abolished.

Under socialism, of course, people still receive wages. But, while efforts are made to raise the living standards of the formerly oppressed, the new state and socialist poanning (i.e. the proletariat in power) can now wield a social surplus to transform society in new ways.

The key political means for that transformation is the expropriation of capitalist ownership and the creation of socialist state ownership -- as the basic form of ownership in production. And on the basis of the new ownership, socialist planning becomes possible.

And also key is the continuing struggle to ensure that this "socialist state ownership" is actually guided by the HISTORIC AND INTERNATIONAL interests of the proletariat. History tells us that you can have "state ownership" and "planning" (i.e. like under Breznev) where the essense of the relations of society are actually capitalist, and profit is fundamentally in command, and "planning" is done in order to expand capital.

So there is a historic and complex struggle against capitalist restoration WITHIN the socialist state, economic planning, and especially within the heights of the ruling party.

There are other issues that relate into whether you have genuine socialism or state capitalism. For example relations IN PRODUCTOIN, (i.e. what is the plantfloor like, is there essentially the old capitalist relations of bosses-and-drones.)

In the soviet union, they had no previous experience with socialism, and they believed that once socialist ownership was established, then the only issues were efficiency and increase of production.... and that led the quickly to rather capitalist forms in the process of production (as you say "one man management").

We can now see that this undermined socialism... in many ways. And helped lay the basis for the final restoration of capitalism -- by making the working people passive, by reducing the degree to which political line and direction were struggled out throughout society etc.

However, overall, in the socialist period (in the Soviet Union 1917-1956 and china 1949-1976) there was (overall!) in command (not totally, but overall) a socialist line. it was contested. there were organized capitalist roaders fighting to go in a different direction, and they often had great inflouence and power (in whole industries, spheres of society, within planning, and certainly in many-or-even-most of the individual factories.)

In other words, history has shown that real, existing socialism is like a checkerboard, in some ways, where some institutions (including factories) have quite capitalist ocnditions, and yet there is contending (in society) a socialist road, that is represented at the highest level by the fact that state power is (through complex layers of mediation and struggle) held by political representatives of the highest and historic interests of the proletariat (interests that ultimately boil down to the need for a continuing revolutionary transition to classless commmunist society.)

that is as clear as i can answer.... I look forward to hearing your response.

Invader Zim

15th December 2007, 18:05

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 05:29 am

removed any possibility of communism ever being achieved in the USSR

There will never be communism in the USSR?
Well, as the USSR doesn't exist anymore, what do you think?

That was a job accomplished by trash like yourself, because you spout the most vile anti-communist bullshit at every opportunity, right along side with the bourgeois, conservatives, liberals, neo-Nazis, etc. They're rabid anti-communists, just like you.

You and Hitler would have a lot in common when it came to the USSR.

Quote me sweetie, or go back to masturbating over images of The Great Leader.

Here is another teenager at revleft that hasn't read anything beyond grade-school propaganda on world history.

Well I hate to speak for Martov, but I am pretty sure that my qualifications in the disipline of history exceed yours; indeed your post makes it highly unlikely you know anything about the history of the Spanish Civil War

This was at the same time the USSR was basically fighting proxy wars with the fascists in Spain

By that I hope you mean using the comintern to wage street battles with the rest of the republican forces, arresting and mudering revolutionaries (such as those of the POUM), stripping republican spain of resources and stealing the Spanish gold reserves. Rather like the Hitler and Mussolini, Stalin was nothing more than a vulture exploiting Spain.

Go and read some history your self, before you insult someone elses understanding of history, because you Sweetie, are hardly a font of knowledge.

manic expression

15th December 2007, 18:41

Originally posted by kasama-[email protected] 15, 2007 04:12 am
sometimes in these discussions, we "talk past each other" -- because we don't yet have a common language.

To me the concept of "direct worker control" is opposed to the idea of control through representative politics.

How do workers "directly" decide the national budget for investment in (say) the steel industry?

I don't think it can be done... for many reasons, including that there are too many decisions and too many variables for any public forum to make the issues (and lines and controversies!) clear for broad sections of the population.

so, in my view, politics at the national and planned level can't be "direct."

Perhaps you use the words differently. Right?
To me, "direct worker control" simply means that the working class excercises control over the means of production through worker democracy. That, basically, is all. The "direct" qualifier is only to drive home the point that democratic organs MUST be maintained for socialism to survive.

I've answered your concerns before, I fully promote the Soviet system (before Stalin changed it in 1936), which can be seen today in Cuba.

So yes, we are using words differently. No big deal.

RNK

Afterall, it's easier to convince people that Stalin wasn't actually a Communist, rather than convince people that the 70 years of western anti-communist propaganda is baseless.

I like to do a mixture of both: expose anti-communist propaganda for the garbage it really is AND show that Stalin diverged from the socialist route by implementing the supremacy of the bureaucracy.

kasama-rl

15th December 2007, 19:05

obviously you are free to define words any way you want.

If i lean over and pick up a ball, I have done it directly.

If i organize a bunch of people to search the park, and find the ball and bring it back to me, I have done it indirectly.

If workers DIRECTLY run things, it means (to me!) that they must approve the decisions directly... otherwise it has no meaning (to me).

And that (rather obviously) is an impossibility.

The Soviet system (developed in 1917) was not direct, of course -- it was a representative system, where decisions were made by representatives of the workers (and NOT by the workers directly).

So, again, you can define 'direct control" to include all kinds of forms of INdirect control... and we now understand what YOU mean.

As for the idea that Cuba is run by any kind of working class control (direct or not).... well, that is a rather (uh) questionable claim (for anyone who has looked into it).

manic expression

15th December 2007, 19:36

Originally posted by kasama-[email protected] 15, 2007 07:04 pm
obviously you are free to define words any way you want.

If i lean over and pick up a ball, I have done it directly.

If i organize a bunch of people to search the park, and find the ball and bring it back to me, I have done it indirectly.

If workers DIRECTLY run things, it means (to me!) that they must approve the decisions directly... otherwise it has no meaning (to me).

And that (rather obviously) is an impossibility.

The Soviet system (developed in 1917) was not direct, of course -- it was a representative system, where decisions were made by representatives of the workers (and NOT by the workers directly).

So, again, you can define 'direct control" to include all kinds of forms of INdirect control... and we now understand what YOU mean.
The problem here is that you are using the term very strictly, which is not how I'm using it. If you form a committe to find your lost ball, that is a form of direct organization. Why? You were involved in the process and had input into its decision making.

On the other hand, if you must formally request the Ministry of Ball Finding to send a team to find your lost ball, this no longer uses your participation. It is a bureaucratic method of finding your ball, and this cuts out the players from their part in it.

Does that make it clearer? You can and should have representational forms of government in a society controlled (directly) by the workers. Your tautology is in thinking that you cannot have a directly run society, because directly run societies cannot have representation.

As for the idea that Cuba is run by any kind of working class control (direct or not).... well, that is a rather (uh) questionable claim (for anyone who has looked into it).

Try me:

http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html
(FYI, it cites sources for its claims)

By the way, you're a Maoist, no? If so, "questioning" Cuba's worker democracy is just classic.

Intelligitimate

16th December 2007, 00:30

Quote me sweetie, or go back to masturbating over images of The Great Leader.

Your words in this thread already prove what I say about your anti-communism. Hell, your words in this very post do.

Well I hate to speak for Martov, but I am pretty sure that my qualifications in the disipline of history exceed yours; indeed your post makes it highly unlikely you know anything about the history of the Spanish Civil War

I know quite a bit about the Spanish Civil War, and have read many books on the subject. I'm quite familiar with the delusional lies of anarchists and Trots when it comes to Spain, which go hand in hand with the most anti-communist interpretations around. Indeed, I've brought up the issue several times with that 'anarcho-Albertist' that posts here, and he uses the most anti-communist material he can find on the subject, like Anthony Beevor, who writes favorably of the Nazis against the USSR (http://www.mariosousa.se/ReviewBeevorStalingrad050729.html). The subject of the Spanish Civil War only further proves my point that anarchist/Trot/ultra-Left interpretations of history go hand in hand with the most extreme anti-communism of the Right.

By that I hope you mean using the comintern to wage street battles with the rest of the republican forces, arresting and mudering revolutionaries (such as those of the POUM), stripping republican spain of resources and stealing the Spanish gold reserves.

Except I don't mean this, because this is all a lie. It is a conspiracy theory, invented by certain groups in the Republic, to explain away their own failures, and echoed by fascists, liberals, and fake Leftists ever since. No serious scholar, such as Helen Graham, takes this stuff seriously, as there isn't the slightest shred of evidence for it, and everything we know contradicts it.

Go and read some history your self, before you insult someone elses understanding of history, because you Sweetie, are hardly a font of knowledge.

Your 'knowledge' is probably limited to crap from the Anarchist FAQ and probably the works of Orwell and Felix Morrow. Maybe you've bothered to read Peirats, or the more modern extreme anti-communists who support the same ideas, like Radosh and Beevor. In any case, based on what you've already said, you believe any bullshit as long as it is anti-communist.

Hiero

16th December 2007, 01:41

Well, as the USSR doesn't exist anymore, what do you think?

Ugh, I actually read USSR as Russia, when I realised you said USSR I tried to patch up my question.

Regardless of any of the leaders of the USSR, the USSR was not going to reach Communism any time soon after 1921. The USA and other imperialist powers will have to be defeated first.

Invader Zim

16th December 2007, 03:13

I actually read USSR as Russia, when I realised you said USSR I tried to patch up my question.

Fair enough, i thought it was something of an odd question.

Your words in this thread already prove what I say about your anti-communism. Hell, your words in this very post do.

So basically, you can't substanciate your claim. I see.

I know quite a bit about the Spanish Civil War

I doubt that.

I'm quite familiar with the delusional lies of anarchists and Trots when it comes to Spain

Ah yes, the familiar tactic of the Stalin Kiddie on the internet; proclaiming that accepted history is the product of anarchist and Trotskyite lies. It was tedious nonsense the first time I was subjected to it; and Sweetie, its no less feable now.

which go hand in hand with the most anti-communist interpretations around.

Really? Have you taken a sample so we can see some quantative evidence, or are you just pulling yet more shit from your Stalinist ass?

You know, I am willing to bet my left bollock that it is the latter.

and he uses the most anti-communist material he can find on the subject, like Anthony Beevor,

Sweetie, I am sure that you, just like your other playmate, have read less on this subject than I have; so let me assure you, my reading exceeds that of Beevor, Thomas, or any other Waterstones historian you care to name drop.

anarchist/Trot/ultra-Left interpretations of history go hand in hand with the most extreme anti-communism of the Right.

So just about everyone who criticises the Great Leader are extreme anti-communists, and members of the right-wing?

Except I don't mean this, because this is all a lie. It is a conspiracy theory, invented by certain groups in the Republic, to explain away their own failures, and echoed by fascists, liberals, and fake Leftists ever since.

Which, incidentally, is exactly what Nazis' and holocaust deniers say. Rather than accept the evidence of historians, they proclaim it all lies. It is the typical reaction of children... which is unfortunately what we are dealing with.

No serious scholar [...] takes this stuff seriously

Actually Sweetie, they do.

Had you been aware of modern historiography you would realise that modern historians widely accept the fact that the Stalinist Soviet Union attempted to 'Sovietise' Republican Spain and demanded a vast degree of resources for limited support. One only has to read the journals to see that; but I doubt you have ever laid eyes upon an academic journal. Indeed all one has to do, in order to contradict your moronic claim, is walk into a univeraity library or search JSTOR in order to see that you are spouting pure bullshit.

Intelligitimate

16th December 2007, 16:25

So basically, you can't substanciate your claim. I see.

Except I already have, because you're clearing a raving anti-communist. You don't want to accept it because you like to pretend to be a radical, but you are.

I doubt that.

I'm sure I know more about it than someone who chooses a nickname based on a failed Nickelodeon cartoon.

Ah yes, the familiar tactic of the Stalin Kiddie on the internet; proclaiming that accepted history is the product of anarchist and Trotskyite lies. It was tedious nonsense the first time I was subjected to it; and Sweetie, its no less feable now.

Actually, the 'accepted' history doesn't even resemble much the classical anarchist and Trotskyist versions. It is closer to Hugh Thomas' classic 'liberal' account, The Spanish Civil War. Helen Graham, one of the better modern scholars, basically completely rejects the anarchist/Trot account all together. Orwell's Homage to Catalonia doesn't even appear in her bibliography.

Really? Have you taken a sample so we can see some quantative evidence, or are you just pulling yet more shit from your Stalinist ass?

The example I gave was of syndicat on this forum, but the sources I mentioned like Radosh and Beevor (that syndicat has used) basically accept all the same shit anarchists and Trots spew. It's why someone like syndicat has no trouble citing extreme anti-communists, because what they say is exactly the same thing anarchists and Trots say.

Sweetie, I am sure that you, just like your other playmate, have read less on this subject than I have; so let me assure you, my reading exceeds that of Beevor, Thomas, or any other Waterstones historian you care to name drop.

I don't care what someone who watches shitty Nickelodeon cartoons claims to know. I'm quite sure you're just a teenage idiot who has read Orwell and pieces of the Anarchist FAQ, and thinks that you know something.

So just about everyone who criticises the Great Leader are extreme anti-communists, and members of the right-wing?

Again, the anarchist/Trot interpretations of history are nearly identical with that of the extreme anti-communist Right; they freely borrow from each others work to substantiate their bullshit. That makes fake Leftists like yourself essentially mouthpieces for the bourgeoisie.

Which, incidentally, is exactly what Nazis' and holocaust deniers say. Rather than accept the evidence of historians, they proclaim it all lies. It is the typical reaction of children... which is unfortunately what we are dealing with.

It actually has no similarity at all, and you're just grasping at straws. It doesn't even appear you're talking about Spain anymore, even though what you're replying to was in reference to the conspiratorial nonsense of anarchist/Trot narratives, which are rejected by many modern scholars of the war, except the most Right-wing ones like Radosh and Beevor.

Yes, this is like dealing with children. Children that watch children's cartoon shows on Nickelodeon. Maybe that is why you support the cartoonish version of history espoused by anarchists, Trots, and the extreme Right, because it is simply enough for even slow children to grasp. You must imagine history is like a TV show, with good guys (the anarchists and Trotskyists) and the 'bad' guys (“Stalinists”).

Actually Sweetie, they do.

Only if by “serious scholar” you include people like Beevor and Radosh, and whatever other anarchist/Trot crap you can dig up.

Had you been aware of modern historiography you would realise that modern historians widely accept the fact that the Stalinist Soviet Union attempted to 'Sovietise' Republican Spain and demanded a vast degree of resources for limited support.

Except they don't. Graham specifically argues against this in her The Spanish Republic at War: 1936-1939, as does Kowalsky in his Stalin and the Spanish Civil War.

One only has to read the journals to see that; but I doubt you have ever laid eyes upon an academic journal. Indeed all one has to do, in order to contradict your moronic claim, is walk into a univeraity library or search JSTOR in order to see that you are spouting pure bullshit.

I actually read academic journals all the time, and have made reference to articles appearing in journals like Slavic Review many times on this forum, and have offered to send them to people who don't have access to sources like the JSTOR. But I think anyone who bothers to do this will find serious academic research on Spain doesn't substantiate anarchist/Trot bullshit.

Invader Zim

16th December 2007, 17:31

You know what, I am just going to ignore the tedious rhetoric and stupid insults: -

Except I already have, because you're clearing a raving anti-communist.

Boring unproductive insult utterly devoid of truth.

I'm sure I know more about it than someone who chooses a nickname based on a failed Nickelodeon cartoon.

An irrelevent insult as my username doesn't alter the fact that I am doing a Masters in history and am putting in an aplication to do a Ph.D next year.

It is closer to Hugh Thomas' classic 'liberal' account

Hugh Thomas does not produce a liberal account of the war; like the rest of his history, it is coloured by a conservative Thatcherite bias. Incidentally Helen Graham (whom you seem to like) takes Thomas's line repeatedly especially when it comes to the issue of the French policy.

Helen Graham, one of the better modern scholars, basically completely rejects the anarchist/Trot account all together.

She is yet another Waterstones historian, who publishes 150 page introductory works for first year undergrads and lay people (at least Thomas produces vast works). As I recall, The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction, was a primer that didn't add anything new and which glossed over the social aspect of the war and her only good work was her first one. Incidentally The Spanish Republic at War: 1936-1939 emphasises the exact same points as Raymond Carr and Thomas. Indeed the whole work is nothing more than an attempt at a repost to Bolloten.

I don't care what someone who watches shitty Nickelodeon cartoons claims to know.

An irrelevent insult and refusal to meet the point.

I'm quite sure you're just a teenage idiot who has read Orwell and pieces of the Anarchist FAQ, and thinks that you know something.

An irrelevent insult.

Again, the anarchist/Trot interpretations of history are nearly identical with that of the extreme anti-communist Right; they freely borrow from each others work to substantiate their bullshit. That makes fake Leftists like yourself essentially mouthpieces for the bourgeoisie.

Irrelevent insults and unsubstanciated rhetoric.

which are rejected by many modern scholars of the war, except the most Right-wing ones like Radosh and Beevor.

An unsubstanciated claim; and unsubstanciated because it is untrue.

Except they don't. Graham specifically argues against this in her The Spanish Republic at War: 1936-1939, as does Kowalsky in his Stalin and the Spanish Civil War.

Your repeated name dropping of Graham only exposes your limited examination of the secondary literature.

I actually read academic journals all the time

I would say that your posts in this thread prove otherwise.

Intelligitimate

16th December 2007, 19:46

Well, I invite you to start a thread or something and post information you think is relevant to the topic, if you think yourself so knowledgable. Cite some sources for whatever claims you want to make about the Spanish Civil War, recommend some secondary literature, etc. Cause I'm not impressed that you're "doing a Masters in history and am putting in an aplication to do a Ph.D next year." If you actually know as much about the topic as you claim, I'm sure we all could learn something, if only how dishonest the sources you prefer are.

Invader Zim

16th December 2007, 20:43

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 08:45 pm
Well, I invite you to start a thread or something and post information you think is relevant to the topic, if you think yourself so knowledgable. Cite some sources for whatever claims you want to make about the Spanish Civil War, recommend some secondary literature, etc. Cause I'm not impressed that you're "doing a Masters in history and am putting in an aplication to do a Ph.D next year." If you actually know as much about the topic as you claim, I'm sure we all could learn something, if only how dishonest the sources you prefer are.

I invite you to start a thread or something and post information you think is relevant to the topic

What would be the point; enough threads which outline the history of the Spanish Civil War already exist; and you have already made it clear that any historian or source one cares to mention will be dismissed as an Anarchist/Trot/Liberal/Fascist/Nazi/Capitalist/Bourgeois account of the conflict. And to be honest, the idea of schooling what at best promises to be mediocre Stalinist fresher in the historiography of the Spanish Civil War doesn't sound worth my time. If of course you are serious about actually learning something go away and read the likes of Pierre Broué, Bolloten, Esenwein, etc. But I doubt you will and even if you do, you will no doubt dismiss them.

Intelligitimate

17th December 2007, 04:50

What would be the point; enough threads which outline the history of the Spanish Civil War already exist; and you have already made it clear that any historian or source one cares to mention will be dismissed as an Anarchist/Trot/Liberal/Fascist/Nazi/Capitalist/Bourgeois account of the conflict. And to be honest, the idea of schooling what at best promises to be mediocre Stalinist fresher in the historiography of the Spanish Civil War doesn't sound worth my time. If of course you are serious about actually learning something go away and read the likes of Pierre Broué, Bolloten, Esenwein, etc. But I doubt you will and even if you do, you will no doubt dismiss them.

Sounds more like cowardice to me.

Cmde. Slavyanski

17th December 2007, 05:02

I just popped in to point something out:

If a non-aggression pact means an "alliance", then the USSR was an ally of Japan after 1939, and Poland was an ally of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the mid-30s.

These are not the same things.

Invader, you sound like a moron on here ranting about Holocaust deniers. I have enough experience with the sort, and I will sum up the difference very easily.

The Holocaust is proven via demographic records, and Nazi documentation, among other things.

The claims against the Soviet Union under Stalin have been drastically torn asunder by the opening of the Soviet archives, mainly by objective historians like J. Arch Getty and Mark Tauger. Neither are Communists. There is not one major Holocaust denier who does not have ties to neo-Nazi organizations. Not one.

Cmde. Slavyanski

18th December 2007, 19:49

Another thing, what's with all this "Great Leader" nonsense? Nobody supportive of Stalin refers to him as "Great Leader", as Juche-adherents refer to Kim Il Sung. The first guy to coin the word "vozhd"(leader) for Stalin was none other than....Nikita S. Khruschev.

Random Precision

18th December 2007, 23:07

Originally posted by Cmde. Slavyanski
I just popped in to point something out:

If a non-aggression pact means an "alliance", then the USSR was an ally of Japan after 1939, and Poland was an ally of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the mid-30s.

What would you consider two countries who had an economic agreement in which one supplied raw materials for the other's war effort, thus enabling that nation to get said raw materials around a naval blockade that was currently in effect on it? :rolleyes:

Herman

18th December 2007, 23:39

What would you consider two countries who had an economic agreement in which one supplied raw materials for the other's war effort, thus enabling that nation to get said raw materials around a naval blockade that was currently in effect on it?

A harsh (and perhaps foolish) price to pay to avoid an early conflict.

Invader Zim

18th December 2007, 23:52

Invader, you sound like a moron on here ranting about Holocaust deniers.

Another Stalinist; how dull.

The claims against the Soviet Union under Stalin have been drastically torn asunder by the opening of the Soviet archives

An interesting point is that upon release of the soviet archives, Robert Conquest had a name for his new book suggested for him; it was, "How about 'I told you so, you fucking fools'?"

The actions of Stalin have been well documented by historians; denial of them is little different from holocaust denial, it is simply a different regime. Oh and Getty most certainly does not deny that a vast number of unnecessary deaths were incurred under Stalin's Russia. This, I think is yet another example of a Stalin kiddie commenting on works he or she has not read. For example, you will find in an article by Alec Novac, contained within a work compiled and edited by Getty, Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, that the figure given is approaching 10 million. While this is certainly much lower than Rummel's 15+ million for the 1930's, or Chistyakovoy's 20 million, etc, it most certainly is a truly vast number; a large portion of which are attributed to deaths in labour camps or out right executions.

Nove, A., 'Victims of Stalinism: How Many?', Getty, J. A. (ed.), Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, (1993).

Maybe you can impress 15 year olds by name dropping historians you haven't read; but not me.

Cmde. Slavyanski

19th December 2007, 00:21

An interesting point is that upon release of the soviet archives, Robert Conquest had a name for his new book suggested for him; it was, "How about 'I told you so, you fucking fools'?"

Would that per chance be the same Robert Conquest who was exposed as a fraud and an agent of the IRD? The same Robert Conquest who arbitrarily upped the death toll of the so-called Ukrainian famine for a book at the bequest of Ukrainian nationalist emigres? The same Conquest who once claimed that the famine stoppped precisely at the borders of Ukraine, then had to admit that it didn't, then later had to admit to Tauger , Davies, and Wheatcroft that the famine wasn't man-made, but still blamed it on the Soviet government? THAT Conquest?

The actions of Stalin have been well documented by historians;

Yes they have, and Conquest isn't one of them.

denial of them is little different from holocaust denial, it is simply a different regime.

Clearly you know little about Holocaust revisionism.

Oh and Getty most certainly does not deny that a vast number of unnecessary deaths were incurred under Stalin's Russia.

NEWSFLASH: Nobody denies this.

This, I think is yet another example of a Stalin kiddie commenting on works he or she has not read. For example, you will find in an article by Alec Novac, contained within a work compiled and edited by Getty, Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, that the figure given is approaching 10 million.

Got some bad news for you. Not only have I read several of Getty's key works, I've corresponded with him via e-mail about some of it. Your Google search and Wikipedia searches aren't going to bluff me.

As for the 10 million, are you talking about the entire Stalin era, and does that attribute the famine of 31-32 to Stalin? That is an important point. Lastly, Getty has pointed out that the purges were a panicked reaction to internal threats as well as spreading bureaucracy, managed from above and below. He, unlike you, realizes that what went on in the Soviet Union in 1924-53 did not simply revolve around Stalin. There's a reason why the worst purges were called the "Ezhovschina", and there is a reason why Ezhov was purged.

I think it's you who needs to start hitting the books.

Invader Zim

19th December 2007, 02:43

Would that per chance be the same Robert Conquest who was exposed as a fraud and an agent of the IRD?

LOL, you read Conquest's Wikipedia article and then talk about his being 'exposed' as being in the IRD; it isn't a revelation. Incidentally, the whole point is that in Conquest's view (or rather the view of Kingsley Amis) and multiple other historians, the Soviet archives far from disprove the mass murders and unnecessary death in Stalin's regime, but actually prove it. Your short and woefully incomplete biography of Conquest's dubious past is irrelevent and, to be honest, old hat.

Nobody denies this.

Actually my dear fellow, they do (or attempt to minimalise the figures to the point where they may as well deny the whole thing). And those Stalinists who do not, apologise for it; just like neo-Nazis.

To be honest I have a good deal of sympathy for some of the criticisms of the numbers. One historian, Sheila Fitzpatrick, compared the number of phone subscribers during 37-38 in an attempt to work out how many vanished. This maybe a basic guideline for figures in the purges, but it doesn't strike me as at all conclusive. However there is a significant difference between skepticism for some of the numbers and denial or radical 'revisionism'.

Your Google search and Wikipedia searches aren't going to bluff me.

As it is a book reference, rather than a webpage reference, it clearly isn't from a google search or a wikipedia page.

I've corresponded with him via e-mail about some of it.

How charming for you, I happen to know Bill Rubinstein, another expert on mass-murder; it makes no odds even if it is true, you still seem to have missed the point.

As for the 10 million, are you talking about the entire Stalin era

1927-1936; which does not include Ezhovschina, but does include the famine. However to say that the famine makes up the entire figure is untrue; and clearly so.

Getty has pointed out that the purges were a panicked reaction to internal threats as well as spreading bureaucracy, managed from above and below.

Getty's argument in that case is only in relation to executions in the Great Terror, which is what 750,000? Not a general death count. Not to mention that Getty simply injects a degree of structuralism; something Conquest and co, who are obsessed with intentionalism, have not done and the subject is better off for it. Would you say that Christopher Browning denies Hitlers involvment with the holocaust because he points out numerous structural influences?

black magick hustla

19th December 2007, 03:42

Originally posted by Invader [email protected] 18, 2007 11:51 pm

The actions of Stalin have been well documented by historians; denial of them is little different from holocaust denial, it is simply a different regime. Oh and Getty most certainly does not deny that a vast number of unnecessary deaths were incurred under Stalin's Russia. This, I think is yet another example of a Stalin kiddie commenting on works he or she has not read. For example, you will find in an article by Alec Novac, contained within a work compiled and edited by Getty, Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, that the figure given is approaching 10 million. While this is certainly much lower than Rummel's 15+ million for the 1930's, or Chistyakovoy's 20 million, etc, it most certainly is a truly vast number; a large portion of which are attributed to deaths in labour camps or out right executions.

Getty also mentions that most of those deaths were actually unintentional, and product of bad planning etc. Therefore that cannot be compared to the holocaust.

I am not a stalinist by any means, and I drift more to the old left communists rather than mainstream marxism leninism, however, I do understand that contemporary reactionaries love to grossly exaggerate what happened under those years, without realizing that "state capitalism" was much more succesful at raising life standards than its "free" counterpart (although state capitalism is a universal tendency, but it shows itself more diluted in other places)

Cmde. Slavyanski

19th December 2007, 08:22

Originally posted by Invader [email protected] 19, 2007 02:42 am
Would you say that Christopher Browning denies Hitlers involvment with the holocaust because he points out numerous structural influences?

the Soviet archives far from disprove the mass murders and unnecessary death in Stalin's regime, but actually prove it.

Nobody denies these executions took place. What the archives disprove is the numbers, the nature of the crimes, and so on. The reality of what actually took place is also borne out by a lot of evidence that was never kept secret.

Actually my dear fellow, they do (or attempt to minimalise the figures to the point where they may as well deny the whole thing). And those Stalinists who do not, apologise for it; just like neo-Nazis.

WHO is denying it? Probably the same amount of "Stalinists" that refer to him as the Great Leader. Your Googling abilities are not going to bluff anyone here.

Numerous "Stalinist" writers refer to the archival records, the work of Getty, etc. I have yet to see one that has denied these archive-derived numbers.

So again, it is not comparable to Neo-Nazis.

1927-1936; which does not include Ezhovschina, but does include the famine. However to say that the famine makes up the entire figure is untrue; and clearly so.

Who said the famine must take up that entire figure? Again, you can't argue without presenting strawmen. If the famine is included(and it is simply against the facts to claim it was man-made much less directed by Stalin), then this is VERY significant. Death tolls for the famine(quite arbitrarily) run from 4 million to 10 million. Assuming a 5-7 million figure, that seriously undercuts a 10 million total figure, leaving a far smaller amount of deaths that could even remotely be pinned on Stalin.

Would you say that Christopher Browning denies Hitlers involvment with the holocaust because he points out numerous structural influences?

It is an undeniable fact that Hitler's power in the Third Reich was absolute, whereas Stalin's was not. More importantly, Hitler's security services, the functionaries that carried out the Holocaust, were hardcore, loyal Nazis well known to Hitler. The NSDAP's organization was far more solid and reliable to the center. The excesses that occurred in the Stalin era were due to lack of organization, chaotic conditions native to that region, and lack of reliable communication.

Again, they cannot be compared, and plenty of historians have said so.

Herman

19th December 2007, 09:01

It is an undeniable fact that Hitler's power in the Third Reich was absolute, whereas Stalin's was not. More importantly, Hitler's security services, the functionaries that carried out the Holocaust, were hardcore, loyal Nazis well known to Hitler. The NSDAP's organization was far more solid and reliable to the center.

Reading from a few historians, I get the sense that Hitler did not exercise absolute power, mostly because he let everyone else do the administrative work.

This does not mean he didn't have absolute power, but he did not use it like a crazy tyrant with a wand.

All the governmental and party institutions sent most of their proposals to Hitler, and he signed them all. He disliked bureaucratic work and was quite lazy (most of the day he would be in his room or office, without anyone disturbing him. It was only around in the later morning till the afternoon that the ministers or any officer could see him.

Another thing: The administration of the Nazi regime was as chaotic as the administration of the SU. There were many institutions without a clearly defined goal, so they mostly competed with each other to gain the "Fuhrers'" favour. this led to a competitive atmosphere leading to unnecessary made decisions, inneficiency and bureaucratic chaos.

Cmde. Slavyanski

19th December 2007, 11:49

Hitler's regime was not nearly as chaotic; the Soviet Union had not only to deal with the task of building an entirely new society, but building one on top of the ruins of one of the most untamed places in history. People have no idea exactly how vast, diverse, and dangerous the Russian empire was. Many territories in Central Asia had not even been properly mapped out.

What rivalry did exist in Hitler's government, was in fact set in motion by Hitler himself, who designed the system in such a way that rivals would always be competing for his favor, and few would unite against him. The National Socialist government was based on Hitler's "leadership principle." By this(which he mapped out in detail in Mein Kampf), it specifically says that the leader is to have absolute power(and absolute responsibility), and though others may advise him, his is always the final word. Rarely was Hitler's order contradicted, and when it was it was usually in the heat of battle.

The same cannot be said for Stalin. Stalin was contradicted all the time, and not only did he tolerate this for a long time(up to 16 years in some cases), he often promoted such people. It was only when violence was used(against Kirov) that the center ever went against these individuals.

Invader Zim

19th December 2007, 16:39

WHO is denying it?

In the years I have been here I have seen numerous Stalin kiddies who deny it and I take it you have never read people like Martens.

Numerous "Stalinist" writers refer to the archival records, the work of Getty

And, doubtless, have never read him.

If the famine is included(and it is simply against the facts to claim it was man-made much less directed by Stalin), then this is VERY significant.

Historians such as Wheatcraft state that the maximum number of deaths incured from famine are between 4-5 million. This still leaves around five million who were deliberately killed, in Gulags, executions, etc, and another five killed as a result of poorly executed economic policy. Hell, the fact that between 1935-1953 the population of the Gulags never dropped below a million people, is alone a horrific statistic. This of course brings us back to the point; why do Stalinists apologise for such a man and regime and do we, the rest of the left, tolerate Stalinists? The simple fact is that STalin and his regime, despite Stalin apologists attempts to remove all 'wrong doing' from his record, is guilty of the death of millions (excluding the famine), thus any support for Stalin or the ideology is utterly abhorent and totally reactionary.

It is an undeniable fact that Hitler's power in the Third Reich was absolute

This is an intentionalist, 'great man', line, and one that has recieved significant attack from modern leftwing historians. There were far more structural and functional considerations than you are suggesting; it is kind of how Herman described it. Hans Mommsen even went as far as describing Hitler as a 'weak dictator'. Of course Mommsen takes it too far, but the structuralist arguments of Browning are far more realistic.

Lenin II

19th December 2007, 19:44

let's be clear that Stalinists, everywhere they have taken power, have put Trotskyists up against walls and shot them.

Nice plagiarism of the manifesto there. But about your point, when exactly have Stalinists taken power? As far as I’m concerned, they never have, since the word “Stalinist” is not an ideology but a pejorative term for Marxist-Leninists, and you cannot claim that Stalin himself was a “Stalinist.”

The Stalinists here know this. Therefore they endorse the murder of our comrades.

Black-and-white thinking much? Take your Trot sectarianism and go running into the open arms of the Nazis.

They are socially reactionary, opposing democratic rights, rights for homosexuals, women, etc., and internationalism, and in practice, their politics, everywhere they have been tried, have eventually lead to the re-instatement of capitalism.

No, nope, uh-uh, not true, no way. Have I mentioned you are a fucking idiot? There is seriously no way to respond to these arguments because they are simply NOT TRUE.

QUOTE (Martov @ November 23, 2007 06:32 pm)
Just a brief comment.

I find it interesting that Stalinists maintain that revolution is a class-based action, but when it comes to counter-revolution, why, that is the job of a mere individual.

You don't understand Maoism.

Martov doesn’t understand anything except counter-revolution.

Why be tolerant of them then?

Do you actually see Stalinists as more of a threat than the bourgeoisie? Do you actually support sectarianism and intolerance among the sects rather than united front to revolution? That is nothing more or less than individualistic tribalism, brought upon by a focus on the semantics of one’s ideology rather than desire for worker’s liberation.

Uh huh. Can someone explain the relevance of this today? If we believe the stereotypes about each other, Trotskyists are all middle class students, while Stalinists are all either nostalgic old men or Red Alert 2 teenagers. Oh, and all anarchists are bomb-throwing chaotics who don't really care about workers liberation. I'm sure all of these groups are really good at making angry faces and saying "Do not tolerate Stalinists/Trotskyites/anarchists!!!" but where is the relevance to the actual working class movement?

There is none. That’s why this thread is reactionary. And by the way THANK YOU RAVENBLADE for recommending the essay.

I love the irony of being called "anti-communist" and told that I "hate socialism" by an individual who defends Stalin; the man who destroyed socialism in the USSR,

If by “ruined,” you mean “expanded and greatly increased the power of socialism until the USSR was the second most powerful and prosperous nation on earth,” then yes. If you mean “signle-handedly crushed fascism with barely any help from imperialist powers,” then yes.

removed any possibility of communism ever being achieved in the USSR and sullied the name and reputation of the entire radical left

As opposed to the worldwide fawning that we received from imperialist nations before Stalin, right?

Oh no! I forgot to ask Adolf for an alliance! :(

The Soviet Union was facing the mortal danger of a single anti-Soviet front consisting of all the imperialist powers—Great Britain and France had opened negotiations with fascist Germany ad Italy, and niether Czechoslovakia nor the Soviet Union were invited to the party. In March 1939, the Soviet Union began negociations to form an anti-fascist alliance, but Britain and France allowed time to pass and plotted. The two great “democracies” made Hitler understand that he could march against Stalin without being worried about the West. With the support of Britain and France, Germany could, after having occupied Poland, continue on its way and begin its blitzkrieg against the USSR, while Japan would attack Siberia.
Hitler proposed a non-aggression pact to the Soviet Union. Stalin reacted promptly, and the pact was signed.

I like to do a mixture of both: expose anti-communist propaganda for the garbage it really is AND show that Stalin diverged from the socialist route by implementing the supremacy of the bureaucracy.

Please define for me the meaning of the word “bureaucracy,” as that word has mostly become a meaningless word thrown around by those critical of the Leninist model, the same way America throws around the words, “democracy” and “freedom.” As soon as any worker’s state seizes power, their opponents use the word `bureaucracy' to describe and denigrate the revolutionary régime itself. For counter-revolutionaries, it seems any revolutionary enterprise automatically receives the label of `bureaucratic'. The Mensheviks, for example, declared their hate for the `bureaucratic' Bolshevik government.

Invader, you sound like a moron on here ranting about Holocaust deniers.

Another Stalinist; how dull.

So just about everyone who criticises the Great Leader are extreme anti-communists, and members of the right-wing?

Well apparently everyone who thinks reports of deaths in the USSR under Stalin are fraudulent or exaggerated is a Stalinist. So why not?

Historians such as Wheatcraft state that the maximum number of deaths incured from famine are between 4-5 million. This still leaves around five million who were deliberately killed, in Gulags, executions, etc, and another five killed as a result of poorly executed economic policy. Hell, the fact that between 1935-1953 the population of the Gulags never dropped below a million people, is alone a horrific statistic. This of course brings us back to the point; why do Stalinists apologise for such a man and regime and do we, the rest of the left, tolerate Stalinists? The simple fact is that STalin and his regime, despite Stalin apologists attempts to remove all 'wrong doing' from his record, is guilty of the death of millions (excluding the famine), thus any support for Stalin or the ideology is utterly abhorent and totally reactionary.

So, what would you do then? Say there are counterrevolutionaries murdering members of the revolutionary movement, do you just stand there and watch? What would you do, i.e. in the time of civil war? Surrender to the bourgeois reactionaries? Why support revolutionary movement in the first place if you're just going to sit back and watch your fellow comrades die? No one ever said it was an ideal situation, but what situation is ideal? A situation where bourgeois reactionaries kill as many revolutionaries as they want but where opposition is never formed against it? Well, if I was ever in such a position, I would argue that for every revolutionary that is killed, five times as many counterrevolutionaries should be eliminated. It is necessary to eliminate existent threats to the revolutionary movement.

As to the infamous famine, there are mountains of evidence that almost all of the evidence for the so-called “Ukrainian Genocide” is fraud perpetrate by imperialist such as Joe McCarthy and Nazi agents. In fact, almost all the famous history books quote Nazi collaborators as sources for their estimates of the number of deaths. Unlike Holocaust denial, which denies an extremely well-documented event, the Ukrianian famine is entirely guesswork: between 1 and 15 million dead says the professors who quote Nazis. I was going to write a detailed rebuke, but I refuse to do your own research work for you. Look it up.

Invader Zim

19th December 2007, 23:53

Another boring individual parroting the same bullshit we have already heard in this thread. Lenin II say something new or interesting, or don't bother.

So, what would you do then?

Denounce them for what they are; reactionaries with a fixation for a vicious tyrant.

Surrender to the bourgeois reactionaries?

Stalinists are, bourgeois or not, reactionaries.

Why support revolutionary movement in the first place if you're just going to sit back and watch your fellow comrades die?

You don't seem to have grasped the point here; Stalinists are counter-revolutionaries, or rather they idolise a counter-revolutionary.

Lenin II

20th December 2007, 04:55

Another boring individual parroting the same bullshit we have already heard in this thread. Lenin II say something new or interesting, or don't bother.

Nice way to divert from the original issue by using a style-over-substance argument. I am not entertaining you. If you want to hear an opinion different from yours, listen to me. Otherwise, bugger off. Perhaps you should take a look at the fallacious arguments listed in your signature before typing your own—you seem to use them a great deal. And if anything is boring and parroted, it is your ceaseless barrage of empty fallacies and ridicule.

Denounce them for what they are; reactionaries with a fixation for a vicious tyrant.

Here I meant to those people, like bourgeoisie or kulaks, who would slaughter your comrades like animals and reinstate a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in your home country, not to Stalinists.

Stalinists are, bourgeois or not, reactionaries.

This is a conclusion, not an argument—logic by assertion. What is your evidence for such a generalized claim? What particular facet of what you call “Stalinist” (Marxist-Leninist) ideology is “reactionary?”

You don't seem to have grasped the point here; Stalinists are counter-revolutionaries, or rather they idolise a counter-revolutionary.

You don’t seem to have grasped the point here, not to mention you have COMPLETELY side-stepped my counterpoints. First, you argue that Stalin was “reactionary” because he had people killed (even though violence is not inherently reactionary or revolutionary), and I counter-point that. Then, you invoke memory of the Ukrainian Famine (an extension of the earlier assertion) and I give a counter-point to that. And finally we arrive at the counter-revolutionary label. Explain HOW they are counter-revolutionary or stop wasting my time.

Cmde. Slavyanski

20th December 2007, 07:17

Apparently Invader Zim, rather than debate with us, is arguing against some phantom "Stalinists" who deny the numbers based on archival evidence, refer to him as the Great Leader, and so on.

I wouldn't pay much attention to him, just another leftie-wannabe kid.

Cmde. Slavyanski

20th December 2007, 07:23

Originally posted by Invader Zim
In the years I have been here I have seen numerous Stalin kiddies who deny it and I take it you have never read people like Martens.

Damn, you just fucked up AGAIN! Remember what you said about "never reading things"? Well sadly for you I read Ludo Martens book(which I find to be slavishly devoted, and Martens is something of a Maoist), does not deny the numbers presented by Getty. In fact, his work is cited in them.

So once again you try to bluff and fuck up royally.

It is natural that the first socialist state would face a huge counter-revolutionary movement, and more than this, it is a proven fact that many deaths were incurred due to counter-revolutionaries IN the secret police and party itself.

Generally it is those who live in privileged countries, who look back on the history of Russia then in horror. They do not realize what kind of people serious Bolsheviks were fighting with, they do not understand the culture of these places, even with modern capitalist Russia as proof-positive of this reality.

Invader Zim

20th December 2007, 14:47

Damn, you just fucked up AGAIN!

Hardly; unlike you I have actually read some of his work. Dear Ludo spends a large part of his book, Another view of Stalin, attempting to massively reduce estimates of deaths or, where he cannot, shifting any blame away from Stalin - which is exactly what I said. You only have to read chapter five to get that point. Not to mention that Ludo references Getty just once in that chapter; he does however reference Tottle over 40 times in a chapter of 46 references. This is of course ironic, because in Ludo's chpater on the purges he writes, "books about the purges written by great Western specialists, such as Conquest, Deutscher, Schapiro and Fainsod, are worthless, superficial, and written with the utmost contempt for the most elementary rules learnt by a first-year history student." Considering he practically based his entire chapter on one individuals work, Tottle, he would have have undoubtedly been failed in his first year.

And the one reference to Getty in the whole chapter is to Getty's work on the origion of the Great Purge. In the entire book, Getty is referenced only a few times and the majority of those are in his chapter on the War.

If you want to hear an opinion different from yours, listen to me. Otherwise, bugger off.

Sorry L, but I've been reading and debating other views from my own for years; yours however are just boring nonsense I have read dozens of times before, even in this thread. And the answer to every tedious 'point' you think you have raised has already been argued and dismissed in this thread, and numerous others. So why don't you 'bugger off' and try reading what has already been stated.

Lenin II

21st December 2007, 22:38

Sorry L, but I've been reading and debating other views from my own for years; yours however are just boring nonsense I have read dozens of times before, even in this thread. And the answer to every tedious 'point' you think you have raised has already been argued and dismissed in this thread, and numerous others. So why don't you 'bugger off' and try reading what has already been stated.

Mostly what this thread consists of is you calling people names and saying Stalin is a "fascist," which is a horrible misnomer. Every authoritarian leader is not a fascist, or else you might as well call Saddam, Bush and Castro fascists. I read this thread entirely before I posted, and your "counter-arguments" mostly consist of the following:

Judgmental language: Go and read some history your self, before you insult someone elses understanding of history, because you Sweetie, are hardly a font of knowledge.

Appeal to Ridicule, Appeal to Motive & argumentum ad populum: Ah yes, the familiar tactic of the Stalin Kiddie on the internet; proclaiming that accepted history is the product of anarchist and Trotskyite lies.

Guilt by Association: An accurate assessment of the situation; you are like holocaust deniers and white supremacists, in my opinion Stalinists should be treated like holocaust deniers and white supremacists.

Which, incidentally, is exactly what Nazis' and holocaust deniers say. Rather than accept the evidence of historians, they proclaim it all lies. It is the typical reaction of children... which is unfortunately what we are dealing with.

And those Stalinists who do not, apologise for it; just like neo-Nazis.

Style over substance: Another boring individual parroting the same bullshit we have already heard in this thread. Lenin II say something new or interesting, or don't bother.

HYPOCRISY: irrelevent insult and refusal to meet the point.

Affirming the Consequent: The simple fact is that STalin and his regime, despite Stalin apologists attempts to remove all 'wrong doing' from his record, is guilty of the death of millions (excluding the famine), thus any support for Stalin or the ideology is utterly abhorent and totally reactionary.

Proof by Assertion & Affirming the Consequent: the man who destroyed socialism in the USSR, removed any possibility of communism ever being achieved in the USSR and sullied the name and reputation of the entire radical left, a reputation that has yet to recover from the blight that was Stalinism.

”If by Whiskey”: By that I hope you mean using the comintern to wage street battles with the rest of the republican forces, arresting and mudering revolutionaries (such as those of the POUM), stripping republican spain of resources and stealing the Spanish gold reserves.

MORE FALSE conclusions: Rather like the Hitler and Mussolini, Stalin was nothing more than a vulture exploiting Spain.

Invader Zim

22nd December 2007, 03:12

:lol:

I love the hypocricy of that post Lenin II, rather than actually accept, build on or reject my criticism of your posts thus far (that they are unorigional), you spend an entire post creating an elaborate red-herring, which had the duel purpose of avoiding my critique (or adding to the discussion) and attempting to make me look bad, by pointing out various logical fallacies in my posts.

PS. Most of the fallacies you highlighted were incorrect (for example it was not an argumentum ad populum, but an argumentum ad verecundiam (as it is based on historical consensus, as opposed to popular consensus): You fail at wikipedia.

PPS.

And finally we arrive at the counter-revolutionary label. Explain HOW they are counter-revolutionary or stop wasting my time.

Do your own reading (http://www.marxist.com/History/stalin_death1.html). Now you rememer what you were saying about 'Appeal to motive' arguments, don't you?

Lenin II

22nd December 2007, 18:11

As should be insanely obvious, any discussion of Stalin, even in passing, is going to bring up some truly rotten sectarian feuding among the left, and it is also going to strengthen discussion of the whole “well, the workers’ liberation is good and all but Stalin was too authoritarian and killed so many people” idiocy.

The whole “good Lenin, good Trotsky, bad Stalin” theory holds absolutely no water when one looks at the theories and actions of both. Trotsky, while an extremely respectable leftist writer and politician, has unfortunately become a cheap “good guy” caricature for people who cannot handle the idea of Stalin. In reality, Trotsky and Lenin were every bit as ruthless and authoritarian as Stalin was, and Trotsky was responsible for just as many murders and atrocities as the Red Army general. Trotsky’s theories were even more authoritarian than Stalin’s, and the Soviet Union would have been different only in the theory driving it, not in the number of deaths or camps, if Trotsky had been given command instead of Stalin.
The ceaseless venom spouted by the “left” communists at every conceivable opportunity at Stalin often rivals that of the poison hurled at capitalism and imperialism, if it does not surpass it, because so many have bought into the revisionist nonsense about “human rights” and “liberation without a revolutionary government.” There can be no “liberation” until the workers take it back BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!

The Trotskyite, pacifist and “left” communist influence has helped this myth of a benevolent revolution stay fueled by convincing themselves that to turn into Stalin would be the absolute worst of all possible outcomes—that accepting permanent slavery of the body and mind by the most vile imperialist powers ever to be conceived by man is somehow more “virtuous” than responding in kind! Rather, the workers must turn themselves into willing, bow-headed and singing slaves before becoming Stalinist! Indeed, the entire revolution must be cast aside at any given arbitrary moment when a certain number of digits accrues in the number of deaths or when the magical Deux Ex Machina term “bureaucracy” is invoked!
The Trotskyists and “lefts” thus turn themselves into hand-wringing apologists for socialism’s past, crying sympathetic crocodile tears for all those kulak land owners liquidated in the camps instead of the millions of victims of the imperialist holocaust.
If on no other issue, people like Stalin have so far taught the international communist movement some lessons in anti-imperialist struggle and it would serve us well if we could show some fucking realism. The left and Trotskyist “a plague upon the house of Stalin!” condemnations have only had one result, and that is to give aid to every powerful reactionary bourgeoisie movement on earth. What did you think a revolution would be—one of consensus where the entire working class and all the rich peasants attain Buddhist-like enlightenment overnight, and then sit down and agree on Marxist theory over a delicious caramel-tinted cappuccino with chocolate dust?

You don’t like Stalin or Lenin or Castro, etc, etc, etc, etc?
Tough!
You want to “condemn” them at the time when they are waging a revolutionary struggle against the very same “war machine” you claim to oppose, but in fact do nothing about, unless to encourage it with more “condemnation” speeches about the bourgeoisie guilt-fueled Judeo-Christian concept of “human rights,” giving mercy to those who have none?
We must not join in the imperialist and left condemnation of whether Lenin and Stalin are somehow “worthy enough” or “cuddly enough” to be our “buddies” or not.
This has been the essence of all the anti-Stalinist propaganda regurgitated from Washington, London and Tel Aviv to the trembling intellectuals of the left communists who, because of their cringing refusal to agitate for the UNCONDITIONAL DEFEAT of the imperialist ruling class now, in this age by the anti-imperialists, end up actually echoing the reactionary opinions: militarism = fascism and violence = bad, calling Stalin “fascist” to peddle every bit of ‘OMFG SHOCK HORROR STALIN ATE CHILDREN’ garbage.
Whatever the Trotskyists and lefts and anarchists think or say is one thing, what they DO is another. Because what they DO instead of joining in the attack on imperialist holocaust aggression is use of their time and resources to trawl around digging up every bit of dirt they can find on Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Castro, Chavez and Nepalese Maoists in the name of “legitimate criticism,” “balance,” “truth,” “democracy,” and of course 'socialism', as if such things can exist WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF BRUTAL IMPERIALIST DOMINATION. They are laying the propaganda to justify the next “shock and awe” blitzkrieg smiting of revolutionaries, yet they delude themselves that they are very progressive by defending ‘democracy’ and their precious “human rights,” which, as you should know, without the “dictatorship of the proletariat” is nothing but a smokescreen for more capitalist massacres. Do you want the responsibility for that, just because you don‘t like or agree with some or even much of Stalin’s politics?

Invader Zim

22nd December 2007, 23:49

Well, someone’s thrown their toys out the pram.

As should be insanely obvious, any discussion of Stalin, even in passing, is going to bring up some truly rotten sectarian feuding among the left, and it is also going to strengthen discussion of the whole “well, the workers’ liberation is good and all but Stalin was too authoritarian and killed so many people” idiocy.

Firstly, it is an unsupported assertion that Stalin was at all progressive in the field of workers liberation. In fact I would say that study of the Stalinist Russia shows that Stalin was regressive in that area (along with many others). Indeed the Gulags, which were in effect a vast source of slave labour to which around 18 million people were subjected is obvious testament to the fact that Stalin had an agenda diametrically opposed to "workers liberation"; rather he had an agenda of slavery. Secondly, it is not 'idiocy' to criticise a dictator for his actions and criticise his followers for their folly.

giving mercy to those who have none?

And there in lies your error, Stalin did not simply eliminate a few counter-revolutionaries. He maintained a massive slave system of millions, exiled millions and had however many million killed.

The whole “good Lenin, good Trotsky, bad Stalin” theory holds absolutely no water when one looks at the theories and actions of both.

I would agree that they all have their negative points; however Stalin's actions clearly set him apart in that field. As for claiming that Trotsky was responsible for as many deaths and atrocities as Stalin (whose are well documented), is an assertion you are going to have to support if you wish it to be accepted.

And from here on in it seems that you have fallen into apoplexy and replaced argument for mindless vitriolic blather. And, in all honesty I lack the patience to wade through that mountain of bile against, Trotskyites, pacifists, "left communists", the bourgeoisie guilt-fueled Judeo-Christian concept of “human rights", the "anti-Stalinist propaganda regurgitated from Washington, London and Tel Aviv to the trembling intellectuals of the left communists" (them again), the illuminate, Santa, etc.

Intelligitimate

23rd December 2007, 04:07

An interesting point is that upon release of the soviet archives, Robert Conquest had a name for his new book suggested for him; it was, "How about 'I told you so, you fucking fools'?"

Except this is a bunch of crap. Nearly all of Conquest's claims, which had been thoroughly trashed already in the academic journals in the 80s, had been completely made bankrupt by the opening of the archives. For instance, his speculations on the number of people in the Soviet Penal system were completely debunked. See Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years:A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence (http://www.etext.org/Politics/Staljin/Staljin/articles/AHR/AHR.html).

What Conquest has been doing since the opening of the archives is crying in right-wing rags about the way the whole field has shifted away from his crap.

Oh and Getty most certainly does not deny that a vast number of unnecessary deaths were incurred under Stalin's Russia. This, I think is yet another example of a Stalin kiddie commenting on works he or she has not read. For example, you will find in an article by Alec Novac, contained within a work compiled and edited by Getty, Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, that the figure given is approaching 10 million. While this is certainly much lower than Rummel's 15+ million for the 1930's, or Chistyakovoy's 20 million, etc, it most certainly is a truly vast number; a large portion of which are attributed to deaths in labour camps or out right executions.

I can't seem to locate my copy at the moment, but I seem to recall this piece by Alec Nove being included as sort of a counter-weight: he is representing the 'Cold Warrior' aspect of Soviet scholarship, which the entire book is a reaction against. In fact, Nove's article is basically refuted in the much better article by Wheatecroft, which appears immediately after his, and who is a much more competent scholar than Nove.

Rummel is just an idiot, and no one takes him seriously. His posts over on the H-net discussions are hysterical, and have been refuted by various real scholars many times. I suggest reading his discussions about Vietnam in particular.

In any case, the best article I've read on the subject is Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR, Barbara A. Anderson, Brian D. Silver, Slavic Review, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 517-536. They pretty convincingly show most of the higher figures are completely unjustified.

Historians such as Wheatcraft state that the maximum number of deaths incured from famine are between 4-5 million. This still leaves around five million who were deliberately killed, in Gulags, executions, etc, and another five killed as a result of poorly executed economic policy.

Except you can't show, demographically, even 4-5 million died at all. As Silver and Anderson show, you have to make certain assumptions about fertility and mortality to arrive at any figure, and as they also discuss, there is good reason to suspect low fertility and high mortality rates, which would make the population deficits much lower.

That is, after all, what all these numbers are based on. You take one census, make assumptions about what the total population should be in some future time period, and then look at the actual census data from that period. If the assumptions lead to a higher population than is actually shown in the census, you have a population deficit. Anti-communists 'historians' like Conquest then pronounce these population deficits, based on assumptions they made in the first place, to be “victims of communism.” Questioning these assumptions basically brings the whole house of cards down.

Indeed the Gulags, which were in effect a vast source of slave labour to which around 18 million people were subjected is obvious testament to the fact that Stalin had an agenda diametrically opposed to "workers liberation"; rather he had an agenda of slavery.

Except this is just nonsense. The whole idea of “Gulag slave labor” is complete horse shit, and no one takes it seriously. See all of Wheatcroft's articles destroying the likes of idiots like Rosefielde on the pages of Slavic Review and Soviet Studies.

And there in lies your error, Stalin did not simply eliminate a few counter-revolutionaries. He maintained a massive slave system of millions, exiled millions and had however many million killed.

Except you can't demonstrate this in anyway.

Hardly; unlike you I have actually read some of his work. Dear Ludo spends a large part of his book, Another view of Stalin, attempting to massively reduce estimates of deaths or, where he cannot, shifting any blame away from Stalin - which is exactly what I said. You only have to read chapter five to get that point. Not to mention that Ludo references Getty just once in that chapter; he does however reference Tottle over 40 times in a chapter of 46 references. This is of course ironic, because in Ludo's chpater on the purges he writes, "books about the purges written by great Western specialists, such as Conquest, Deutscher, Schapiro and Fainsod, are worthless, superficial, and written with the utmost contempt for the most elementary rules learnt by a first-year history student." Considering he practically based his entire chapter on one individuals work, Tottle, he would have have undoubtedly

Tottle's work on the Ukrainian Genocide crap is very good, and I don't see relying on it as a fault. In any case, even Robert Conquest no longer supports the idea, and has admitted such in more recent exchanges with Davies and Wheatcroft.

Invader Zim

23rd December 2007, 18:22

They pretty convincingly show most of the higher figures are completely unjustified.

You don't need to convinse me of that. The point is that even the low numbers are vast.

The whole idea of “Gulag slave labor” is complete horse shit,

What exactly are you arguing here, the vast scale of numbers involved in the Gulag system or the nature of the camps. Wheatecroft, whle certainly taking issue with Rosefielde sources and figures, he does not attack the fact that a vast number of people were in them. In his 1981 article critiquing Rosefielde, Wheatecroft argues that upto 4-5 million labourers could have been in the camps in 1939.

As for the nature of the camps, the journalist Anne Applebaum wrote a relatively lengthy book on the gulags, largely based on personal accounts of time in the camps. While taking von Ranke's words on memoirs to heart, and accepting the testemony with a bucket of salt, the nature of the Gulags is rather clear. Not to mention that she also relies, for her contribution for the numbers debate, upon Getty, Ritterspoon and Zemskov and Bacon.

Except you can't demonstrate this in anyway.

Well, I can quote you historians and economists who have trawled through the evidence and claim that they ave accurate numbers. But you suffer under the illusion that historians who disagree with your views are, to quote you, "idiots like Rosefielde". Rosefielde's articles such as 'An Assessment of the Sources and Uses of Gulag Forced Labour 1929-56', 'Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization 1929-1949' and 'Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labour and Economic Growth in the 1930s' are not unconvinsing and the articles you claim debunk them also provide contrasting figures that are well into the millions. Indeed your speed to proclaim historians who disagree with your very narrow view of the subject, in my opinion, displays a fundermental failure to understand the 'numbers' debates (be it labour camp, exile, death, etc) between the likes of Conquest, Wheatecroft, Silver, Anderson, Rosefielde, Bacon, etc. These people, while they disagree about scale, most certainly do accept that millions were placed in forced labour camps, that millions died, that millions were exiled and that millions were executed.

"More accurate estimates, based on information recently published by Boris Urlanis and the suppressed census population statistic for 1937 reported by Anton Antonov-
Ovseenko, suggest that the real figure is nearly twice as high, and point to the following causal distribution: Gulag 4.3 million excess deaths; collectivization 1929-32, 5.8 million; famine 1933-34, 4.2 million; terror 3.7 million; and other causes 2.6 million."'"

Steven Rosefielde, 'Excess Deaths and Industrialization: A Realist Theory of Stalinist Economic Development in the 1930s' Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 23, No. 2, Bolshevism and the Socialist Left. (Apr.,1988), p. 280.

"This points to the conclusion that some four to five million is the maximum number of concentration camp labourers who could have existed in 1939."

S. G. Wheatcroft, 'On Assessing the Size of Forced Concentration Camp Labour in the Soviet Union 1929-56', Soviet Studies, Vol. 33, No. 2. (Apr., 1981), p. 286.

"The far higher figures for the camps reflect the degree of difference between the welfare of even city dwellers in comparison with the difficult working and living conditions of Gulag inmates, which also worsened markedly during the war."

Edwin Bacon, ''Glasnost' and the Gulag: New Information on Soviet Forced Labour around World War II', Soviet Studies, Vol. 44, No. 6. (1992), p. 1079

"The Soviet Union around the outbreak of World War I1 had a vast system of
forced labour, involving the imprisonment, exile and forced migration of millions
of victims."

Ibid, p. 1082.

Need I quote more?

Except you can't demonstrate this in anyway.

Other than quote historians at you? I think I've already been through that.

Intelligitimate

23rd December 2007, 19:49

You don't need to convinse me of that. The point is that even the low numbers are vast.

Actually, the low numbers are not vast, and do not suggest anything seriously wrong with the Soviet leadership. They are mainly a reflection of death in the Soviet wide famine, a famine which the government did try and do something about (see the work of Mark Tauger for the best research there is on the Soviet famine). It was not caused by the government, but by weather conditions, and the process of collectivization ended over a thousand years of periodic famines in Russia.

What exactly are you arguing here, the vast scale of numbers involved in the Gulag system or the nature of the camps. Wheatecroft, whle certainly taking issue with Rosefielde sources and figures, he does not attack the fact that a vast number of people were in them. In his 1981 article critiquing Rosefielde, Wheatecroft argues that upto 4-5 million labourers could have been in the camps in 1939.

We already know those figures are too high. We know the exact figures. Set the Getty article I linked you to. There is no point in quoting sources from the 80s on camp populations.

As for the nature of the camps, the journalist Anne Applebaum wrote a relatively lengthy book on the gulags, largely based on personal accounts of time in the camps.

Applebaum's work is garbage. It's as simple as that.

Again, people reading this should take special notice. So-called Leftists like Invader Zim reference the work of the most extreme Right-wing anti-communists they can find. IZ has already referenced Conquest favorably, and now references the non-historian hack journalist Applebaum, another extreme right-winger. If anyone has been paying attention to my posts with pseudo-Leftists on this forum, I always point out how they do this. The extreme Right and much of the so-called Left are in complete harmony on their views of socialist history, and IZ is just another example of this.

Well, I can quote you historians and economists who have trawled through the evidence and claim that they ave accurate numbers. But you suffer under the illusion that historians who disagree with your views are, to quote you, "idiots like Rosefielde". Rosefielde's articles such as 'An Assessment of the Sources and Uses of Gulag Forced Labour 1929-56', 'Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization 1929-1949' and 'Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labour and Economic Growth in the 1930s' are not unconvinsing and the articles you claim debunk them also provide contrasting figures that are well into the millions.

The reader should note here that this is an issue that has basically already been settled. The idea that much of Soviet economic growth depended on “gulag slave labor” was one that was still open to question, even though it was obviously false, up until the opening of the archives. With the figures we now have, it is obviously nonsense to suggest “gulag slave labor” made any important contribution to the Soviet economy. It is also worth pointing out that the United States imprisons a larger percentage of its adult population than the USSR ever did.

Indeed your speed to proclaim historians who disagree with your very narrow view of the subject, in my opinion, displays a fundermental failure to understand the 'numbers' debates (be it labour camp, exile, death, etc) between the likes of Conquest, Wheatecroft, Silver, Anderson, Rosefielde, Bacon, etc. These people, while they disagree about scale, most certainly do accept that millions were placed in forced labour camps, that millions died, that millions were exiled and that millions were executed.

Again, the actual numbers pretty much burst the anti-communist bubble. We know a lot of people died during the famine. What the anti-communists wanted to show was that USSR “killed” a whole bunch of people. We know the government isn't responsible for the famine, and did an adequate job in alleviating the effects of it. We also know not even a million people were executed in the purges, and those they did execute were mainly people already in prison and higher ups in the government, not the general population. And we knot that the USSR did not even have as many of its people in its penal system as the US currently does. The whole totalitarian paradigm has been thoroughly debunked. The USSR was not a nightmarish police state, as told to little children since grade school, and parroted by the extreme-Right and the pseudo-Left.

Need I quote more?

You can quote all you want of irrelevant sources like Rosefielde in the 80s quoting the even more irrelevant Ovseenko. We already know the figures. They have been published. It's not a matter of debate.

Invader Zim

23rd December 2007, 22:52

Actually, the low numbers are not vast, and do not suggest anything seriously wrong with the Soviet leadership.

Cmde. Slavyanski, are you paying attention?

We know the exact figures.

We don't know anything of the sort. The article you cite, says it all in the title. 'A first approach', and Getty notes in the article that the figures are by no means conclusive, "Admittedly, our figures are far from being complete and sometimes pose almost as many questions as they answer." The entire point of the article is to show a sample of what is in the archives. Certainly Getty does not claim that the archives are necessarily accurate and no does he claim that the material shown in his article signals that the debate is over.

I am now positive that you haven't read any of what you have been referencing.

Applebaum's work is garbage.

I see we have another example of this kind of nonsense; if it doesn't agree with your narrow ideologicaly motivated position it must be shit.

And Applebaum, when it comes to quantifiable stats cites scholars such as Getty, to whose work you clink like a sticky turd.

IZ has already referenced Conquest favorably

Yes because comments such as this; "Your short and woefully incomplete biography of Conquest's dubious past is irrelevent and, to be honest, old hat." are favourable. :lol:

The important part is highlighted for the benefit of any other ignorant Stalinists who can't keep up.

now references the non-historian hack journalist Applebaum

Hypocritical coming from a guy who references Doug Tottle, who is also not a historian.

The idea that much of Soviet economic growth depended on “gulag slave labor” was one that was still open to question, even though it was obviously false, up until the opening of the archives.

This is simply untrue. The debate is still on going and certainly was not put to rest after the archives were opened, as even the most brief appraisal of the secondary literature being released shows. To take an example of such a work: -

"The Gulag had come into being as an instrument of isolation for criminals and counter-revolutionaries but quickly became an important branch of the country's economy, without which the centrally planned industrialisation of eastern and northern regions would have been practically imposible. At a meeting of the Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 25 August 1938, the question of the early release of those labour camp prisoners who had worked exceptionally well was considered. Stalin, whilst recognising the desirability of some sort of 'reward' for such inmates, was reluctant actually to release his best workers, remarking that, 'from the point of view of the state economy, it would be a bad thing . . . we'll be left with the worst ones'."

Bacon, Op. cit., p. 1080.

It is also worth pointing out that the United States imprisons a larger percentage of its adult population than the USSR ever did.

However, American prisoners are not placed in labour camps.

The Author

24th December 2007, 00:38

Why should we tolerate Stalin and "Stalinism"?

Stalin did not run the entire Soviet Union. Whatever mistakes made on the part of the Communist Party or the Soviet State, involved anyone among the thousands of officials among the collective leadership. For instance, if someone tripped over a pothole on a paved street in Vladivostok, because repairs had not been made to the road, it is foolish to blame this merely on Stalin. If someone is arrested in Kiev because the police officer had a personal grudge against the person in question, it is foolish to blame this on Stalin. Dizzy With Success (http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/DS30.html) and Speech in Reply to Debate (http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/SRD37.html) give us a clear idea of the political nature of the events in question.

Some people say we are in "denial." Denial of what? The problems that took place in the U.S.S.R.? We know there were problems, there are problems which remain during the socialist transition from capitalism to communism. Socialism is not "utopian paradise," we know that. We know full well that it wasn't the dark gray landscape one often gets in vivid detail from Orwellian fiction, either. It was much better than the pitiful state of affairs which had existed in tsarist times, and which exist in the present time in the ex-Soviet countries. These people want to conveniently lump us with the Nazis so that they can avoid further indulging themselves in politics. Labeling people of an opposing view "fascists" and "Nazis" is nothing new, it's been done to death for years. They say we have this murder fetish for other communists. I don't have a problem with Trotskyists or Anarchists or Council Communists, Ultra-Lefts, etc. There are numerous comrades among these movements who did a good number of things. But I have a problem with their ideologies, and with the ringleaders who push these ideologies. I hold an extremely critical attitude towards the ideologies and ringleaders. I don't wish murder on anyone, and those who say so are extremely paranoid.

People like to denounce "Stalinism." Very well. Show us a viable alternative. Something that lasts beyond a few months or a few years, but is long term. Cuba and Venezuela do not count. A lot of what Cuba practices is what other socialist countries practiced in the past. It still has its bureaucracy, even Juventud Rebelde said as recently as September of this year that bureaucracy was still a problem in Cuba (http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/columnists/2007-09-13/bureaucracy-in-cuba-between-distortion-and-rigidity/). So long as there is capitalist encirclement, and so long as the productive forces lag behind, a socialist revolution will have its problems and will not be closer to communism. As for Venezuela, it needs to do much better than what it has been doing in progressing into the socialist transition. Because what happened earlier this month with that referendum was a telling sign that despite all this talk of "democracy," the bourgeoisie and its forces are starting to regain momentum, and if the Bolivarian Revolution does not act soon and start adopting democratic centralist instead of mere democratic tactics, its days will be numbered. It's an example of what happens when a revolution does not follow "Stalinism," but picks a third way.

We know that the statistics of what transpired during the famine and purges are vastly exaggerated. Robert Conquest says (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n13_v48/ai_18459818):

It is reasonably clear, if we collate other sources, that the probable figure from executions in 1937 - 38 is not the 681,692 given in such documents and accepted by Thurston, but some two and a half times as high....it is worth looking at the provenance of the 681,692 execution figure. It was made available to a party commission in the Khrushchev period, at a time when the KGB was covering its tracks: for example, by falsifying the dates and causes of death of rehabilitated victims, to imply that they had died naturally in prison when they had actually been shot.

Note the key word "probable." He's not certain, he's guessing. Of course, he's willing to say that the newer generation of bourgeois scholars have accepted "falsification, dismissed established evidence, and misinterpreted newer materials." And we're supposed to swallow this. What "established evidence?" Memoirs? Accounts from dissidents, over documentary evidence? "Misinterpretation"? Perish the thought. As if bourgeois historians over the decades since the existence of socialism in the twentieth century have not misinterpreted, distorted, or merely left out facts and information about the events in question. Everything is from secondhand, thirdhand, fourthhand, and fifthhand sources. That was the whole point behind the "Annals of Communism" series released by Yale- releasing documentary primary evidence from the archives into the public eye, instead of relying merely on secondhand monographs and biographies.

It's ironic Conquest talks about how the KGB "falsified evidence." Yuri Mukhin says that the Gorbachev and Yeltsin administrations falsified a lot of documents pertaining to issues such as Katyn, yet Western bourgeois scholars say this is laughable, "unprofessional" nonsense. But whenever it's evidence that throws doubt on Western interpretations of Soviet history, that's different. Then you have falsification. Who is to be believed, who is to be taken seriously?

Intelligitimate

24th December 2007, 01:02

We don't know anything of the sort. The article you cite, says it all in the title. 'A first approach', and Getty notes in the article that the figures are by no means conclusive, "Admittedly, our figures are far from being complete and sometimes pose almost as many questions as they answer." The entire point of the article is to show a sample of what is in the archives. Certainly Getty does not claim that the archives are necessarily accurate and no does he claim that the material shown in his article signals that the debate is over.

This is all pretty standard stuff for scholars to say. Of course nothing is ever completely definitive. Of course official data is not always accurate. Scholars don't typically claim things like the articles they write “signals that the debate is over.” They tend to be rather humble in regards to their own work.

The fact of the matter is these are the definitive numbers, and the only people seriously questioning the reliability of the data are people who desperately want to cling to their anti-communist nonsense.

I am now positive that you haven't read any of what you have been referencing.

I don't care what you're positive about.

I see we have another example of this kind of nonsense; if it doesn't agree with your narrow ideologicaly motivated position it must be shit.

And Applebaum, when it comes to quantifiable stats cites scholars such as Getty, to whose work you clink like a sticky turd.

LOL! Have you read Applebaum's work? Here is a little tidbit from her site on what she thinks of Getty:

And yet - the opposite view persists as well. Legitimate academics, with prestigious jobs at prestigious universities, can write books which amount to "gulag denial", and nobody finds their writing either offensive or objectionable. The most famous, J. Arch Getty - famous for having written than "thousands" died in the gulag - goes on teaching and writing as always

Just browse her website. She is a raving anti-communist moron.

Yes because comments such as this; "Your short and woefully incomplete biography of Conquest's dubious past is irrelevent and, to be honest, old hat." are favourable.

The quote I am referring to in question is this one:

“An interesting point is that upon release of the soviet archives, Robert Conquest had a name for his new book suggested for him; it was, "How about 'I told you so, you fucking fools'?"

You obviously haven't read his articles in right-wing rags where he cries for pages on end about the course Soviet scholarship has taken, or all the beatings he has taken, from people like Getty, Thurston, Manning, etc, etc. He wasn't proven right; he was proved to be a propagandist. He just switched from the IRD to Sovietology. There is even a rumor in the academic community that Conquest didn't even write The Great Terror, it being completely the work of the IRD.

Hypocritical coming from a guy who references Doug Tottle, who is also not a historian.

Tottle is at least competent. Applebaum is not.

This is simply untrue. The debate is still on going and certainly was not put to rest after the archives were opened, as even the most brief appraisal of the secondary literature being released shows. To take an example of such a work: -

The reason why the idea is nonsense is because it requires figures like 16 million people in the camps, like Ovseenko claims. The idea that the Soviet economy depended on “gulag slave labor” requires an extremely high camp population, which the data simply doesn't substantiate. Nowhere does Bacon's article suggest that they higher figures are reliable. His article is mainly just a discussion of Dugin and Zemkov's work, who worked with Getty on the article I linked to earlier.

However, American prisoners are not placed in labour camps.

You would probably rather be in a Soviet labor camp than a modern US prison, where violence and rape are extremely rampant, and even glorified in the media. In fact, vice president Henry Wallace once even visited one of the camps, and didn't even realize he was in a penal colony. The man who popularized how horrible the Gulag was supposed to be, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, even had his cancer cured in them, twice.

Invader Zim

24th December 2007, 02:12

The fact of the matter is these are the definitive numbers

In your opinion perhaps; not in everyone elses, including its authors.

Have you read Applebaum's work?

Yes, and the vast majority of the other works we have discussed; have you? I can, for example, tell you that notes 3, 4, 5, 15 and 19 of the 'Appendix: How Many' section of her book, Getty work is referenced; and that includes his figures.

The quote I am referring to in question is this one:

I didn't author anything favourabe about Conquest; I quoted what someone else said as an exampe of an opposing view of the evidence of the archives.

You obviously haven't read his articles in right-wing rags where he cries for pages on end about the course Soviet scholarship has taken, or all the beatings he has taken, from people like Getty, Thurston, Manning, etc, etc.

Your right, I haven't; I read his actual academic articles, book reviews, comments, etc, from academic journals. I think you will find that Conquest harps on about just about every historian of this topic, including others from the 'big numbers school'.

because it requires figures like 16 million people in the camps, like Ovseenko claims.

The turn over-rate in the camps was quite high and millions did pass through the system.

You would probably rather be in a Soviet labor camp than a modern US prison

Considering that Getty, with his very low estimates, claims that nearly 40,000 people died in the camps in 1938, and that figure is in the hundreds in US prisons; I disagree. I suggest you read getty's article.

Intelligitimate

25th December 2007, 15:04

In your opinion perhaps; not in everyone elses, including its authors.

You look more into the humbleness of the authors than what there really is. These are the numbers from the archives, the numbers everyone, including Conquest and the rest of the Cold Warriors, said would vindicate their bullshit. These are the figures everyone was waiting for, because everything up to that point had been speculative crap from memoir material or demographic guesses. The real figures were such a shock to anti-communists like Conquest, that he even suggested they were fake! The only real questions left now are some relatively minor issues over exactly what the figures are telling us, but the big picture is crystal clear: the large numbers are completely untenable. And this has been known since Timasheff, Jasny, Bergson, Eason, etc, writing in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and then Wheatcroft, Davies, Getty, and others in the 70s and 80s. It's basically always been known that the high figures are bullshit. There only purpose is a propagandistic one, which the pseudo-Left and the extreme-Right are in perfect harmony on.

Yes, and the vast majority of the other works we have discussed; have you? I can, for example, tell you that notes 3, 4, 5, 15 and 19 of the 'Appendix: How Many' section of her book, Getty work is referenced; and that includes his figures.

LOL! Good for you.

I didn't author anything favourabe about Conquest; I quoted what someone else said as an exampe of an opposing view of the evidence of the archives.

What I quoted you as saying does have you indicate Conquest and the extreme anti-communist version of history was vindicated by the opening of the archives. It seems you're now learning that this definitely isn't the case, and trying to back pedal.

Your right, I haven't; I read his actual academic articles, book reviews, comments, etc, from academic journals. I think you will find that Conquest harps on about just about every historian of this topic, including others from the 'big numbers school'.

LOL! Good for you, again. I'm glad you admit to being such a fan of the work of extreme Right-wing anti-communists, and I urge the readers to take note of this.

The turn over-rate in the camps was quite high and millions did pass through the system.

Your point? Millions more pass through the US penal system than ever did the USSR's. Most of the people in the penal system of the USSR were also common criminals. It's as if anti-communists like yourself want people to imagine no one ever did anything unethical in the USSR, except for the “Stalinists.”

Considering that Getty, with his very low estimates, claims that nearly 40,000 people died in the camps in 1938, and that figure is in the hundreds in US prisons; I disagree. I suggest you read getty's article.

I have. As Getty says, there may be overlap in the number of executions counted in that figure, and other issues of double counting. What is actually listed as “camp deaths” is 160,084 in 1937-38. And the number of deaths in US State prisons between 2001-2005 was 15,308, in local jails between 2000-2005 was 5,935. I can't seem to find the federal figures at the moment. I don't think US prisons are as safe as places as your comment suggests, especially considering the extremely high numbers of rapes and assaults. And in any case, outside of those two years, camp deaths figures normalize again, except for the war years.

Of course, this isn't to suggest that everything that was happening in the so-called Great Purges was just fine. It would be a mistake to suggest this was all just getting rid of counter-revolutionaries and whatnot; this is not even the official Soviet line immediately afterwards. It does seem the leadership was reacting wildly to internal and external threats, both real and exaggerated ones. I also see no reason to seriously doubt the official line, which was that Ezhov was the one with the main responsibility for the officially acknowledged excesses of that time. In fact, Ezhov would later admit to his own conspiracy to destroy the party, and would be executed for this.

Invader Zim

29th December 2007, 23:37

You look more into the humbleness of the authors than what there really is.

Sorry, its in black and white. You place a massive amount of importance into an article never designed to be in any way definitive.

What I quoted you as saying does have you indicate Conquest and the extreme anti-communist version of history was vindicated by the opening of the archives.

It does no such thing, it shows an alternative view, not one I ever endorced. But you are to busy attempting to besmerch my character to take note of little details such as fact; a policy you cary over to your plainly limited reading.

I'm glad you admit to being such a fan of the work of extreme Right-wing anti-communists

Firstly, you claim to have read his various articles in newspapers. Secondly, I have read literally hundreds of historians work. If I agreed with every historian I have read I would be a Capitalist, Communist, Feminist, Paternalist, Postmodernist, Empiricist, Intentionalist, Functionalist, Conservative, Liberal, Nationalistic internationalist who belived the middle class was the driving force in society and at the same time believing that the working class is the vehicle of radical historical change.

Millions more pass through the US penal system than ever did the USSR's.

Firstly, I doubt it. Secondly, US prisons aren't slave labour camps.

Intelligitimate

30th December 2007, 00:12

Sorry, its in black and white. You place a massive amount of importance into an article never designed to be in any way definitive.

You're a moron.

It does no such thing, it shows an alternative view, not one I ever endorced.

You're a liar and backpeddling, because you didn't know shit about Conquest. You don't know shit about modern Soviet research at all.

Firstly, I doubt it. Secondly, US prisons aren't slave labour camps.

I don't care what you doubt. We already know they do, and the term “slave labor” is just your retarded anti-communist nonsense, not supported by anything of substance.

Sky

30th December 2007, 00:31

Indeed the Gulags, which were in effect a vast source of slave labour to which around 18 million people were subjected is obvious testament to the fact that Stalin had an agenda diametrically opposed to "workers liberation";
The vast majority of prisoners in 1930s Russia were those whose crimes would have been punished in any society (hooliganism, banditry, assault, etc). They were subject to sentences exceeding no more than than five years and were generally receptive to adequate treatment. This fact is demonstrated by the death rate in the Gulag in 1950 which is half that of Russia today.

The characterization of their status as slaves is inaccurate because it has been documented that they received material and even financial incentives in the form of bonuses and wages to increase production. The precedent of many nations allows for the State to sentence criminals to institutions of penal labor.

kromando33

30th December 2007, 00:50

I seriously being amused by the assortment of naive teenage leftists around this forum, the kinda useless idealists who contribute nothing to the science Marx gave to us, but just criticize the worker movement and the work in building socialism (class struggle) of comrade Stalin. I think we all know about the secret alliance between the bourgeois and the new 'left' of liberals and other degenerate anti-social elements.

Sky

30th December 2007, 01:02

By that I hope you mean using the comintern to wage street battles with the rest of the republican forces, arresting and mudering revolutionaries (such as those of the POUM), stripping republican spain of resources and stealing the Spanish gold reserves. Rather like the Hitler and Mussolini, Stalin was nothing more than a vulture exploiting Spain.
Actually, the Comintern rendered the greatest amount of assistance to the Spanish Republic. The Communist Party of Spain formed the Fifth Regiment which became the nucleus of the people's army. The Comintern helped to form the International Brigade. The USSR allowed 2000 Russian volunteers including pilots and tank operators to serve the Spanish Republic.

The anarchists were pursuing an ultraleftist adventure of "pushing" a revolution in the middle of a war against fascism. Objectively, the anarchists proved to be of assistance to the cause of the reactionaries.

Invader Zim

30th December 2007, 03:03

You're a moron.

But unlike you, at least I can read. :lol:

You're a liar because you didn't know shit about Conquest. You don't know shit about modern Soviet research at all.

Where did I lie, or backpeddle? I never once stated I agreed with Conquest or Kingsley Amis's opinions. What I said was, 'Robert Conquest had a name for his new book suggested for him it was, "How about 'I told you so, you fucking fools'?"'. That is a statement of fact - the fact that people disagree about the revelations found in the Soviet Archives - not a statement of endorsement. It is a shame that you obviously lack the ability to comprehend the difference.

And considering that you have been shown to be ignorant on every topic we have discussed (because unlike you I have actually read and understood these articles) you are in no position to criticise anyone.

We already know they do, and the term “slave labor” is just your retarded anti-communist nonsense, not supported by anything of substance.

Ah, I see you have returned to that old gem; when roundly thrashed in discussion resort to tedious insults. You lot are all the same, so disappointingly and unimaginatively predictable.

Intelligitimate

30th December 2007, 21:27

But unlike you, at least I can read.

You have no ability to interpret anything you read, because you are a stupid fucking moron.

Where did I lie

Where ever you claim to know jack shit about modern Soviet scholarship, and right now where you're claiming to not cite Conquest favorably. You've even done just that in the other thread, you stupid fuck.

or backpeddle?

Right now, dumb fuck.

What I said was, 'Robert Conquest had a name for his new book suggested for him it was, "How about 'I told you so, you fucking fools'?"'. That is a statement of fact - the fact that people disagree about the revelations found in the Soviet Archives - not a statement of endorsement. It is a shame that you obviously lack the ability to comprehend the difference.

You're simply lying about your intentions. There is no point in bringing up this idiotic shit except to try and give validity to Conquest's work and the anti-communist nonsense he spews, just like you're spewing in this thread, you stupid fucking liar.

And considering that you have been shown to be ignorant on every topic we have discussed (because unlike you I have actually read and understood these articles) you are in no position to criticise anyone.

You're so fucking ignorant and stupid you claimed Conquest is famous for his work in the archives, and cited a book written in the 1980s as proof, you ignorant motherfucker. You don't know a god damn thing about Conquest or the field. You're just pretending to at this moment.

Ah, I see you have returned to that old gem; when roundly thrashed in discussion resort to tedious insults. You lot are all the same, so disappointingly and unimaginatively predictable.

You haven't thrashed anything but your own credibility. You've clearly exposed yourself as an ignorant liar, who simply doesn't care about pulling shit straight from your ass and presenting it as fact, like Conquest is famous for his archival research. God you're fucking dumb.

Invader Zim

30th December 2007, 22:56

You have no ability to interpret anything you read, because you are a stupid fucking moron.

'Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.' - The Dude

Where ever you claim to know jack shit about modern Soviet scholarship

I have never claimed to be an expert, however my reading does clearly exceed yours.

and right now where you're claiming to not cite Conquest favorably

Now you are the one lying.

Right now, dumb fuck.

Learn what back peddling is Sweetie.

There is no point in bringing up this idiotic shit except to try and give validity to Conquest's work

There is a reason, and i explained it to you: -

To show "the fact that people disagree about the revelations found in the Soviet Archives".

You've clearly exposed yourself as an ignorant liar,

What you mean other than the fact taht I haven't once lied and I have shown that you haven't read the majority of the scholars you cite?

Intelligitimate

30th December 2007, 23:30

I have never claimed to be an expert, however my reading does clearly exceed yours.

You're so learned you think Conquest has done “prodigious exploration of the Soviet archives,” and then cite a work from the 1980s to prove it. Fucking retard.

Now you are the one lying.

The implication of your comment is clear, now you're just backpeddling to distance yourself from your favorable mention of Conquest's work, no doubt because you did a little searching and realized just how seriously questionable his scholarship is.

Learn what back peddling is Sweetie.

Backpeddling is what you're doing: distancing yourself from statements you made and the implications thereof that are clearly ridiculous.

There is a reason, and i explained it to you: -

To show "the fact that people disagree about the revelations found in the Soviet Archives".

The only reason you would bring this up is if you thought the idea of Conquest being proved right by the opening of the archives had any validity to it, the idea of which is even further implied by your very next paragraph, where you equate denial of the bullshit, anti-communist nonsense of people like Conquest as akin to Holocaust denial. You're a dishonest piece of shit.

What you mean other than the fact taht I haven't once lied and I have shown that you haven't read the majority of the scholars you cite?

You haven't shown any such thing, you stupid motherfucker. You clearly didn't even fucking know the figures had been published, otherwise you wouldn't have even cited the numbers tossed around in the Wheatcroft-Rosefielde debates of the 80s, like a fucking dumbass. And then you despartely latch on to a few words of caution by Getty to basically throw away what the archives actually demonstrate about the numbers of people in the Soviet penal system. Just like your right-wing anti-communist hero Conquest, you don't like the fact that the anti-communist nonsense you spew has been refuted by the opening of the archives. You're a fucking dishonest piece of shit.

On the other hand, you've clearly shown you don't know a god damn thing about the field, by citing out of date scholarship of the 80s on Gulag population, and your absolutely moronic assertion Conquest has done “prodigious exploration of the Soviet archives,” and then citing a fucking book from the 1980s to prove it, when non-Russians didn't even have access to the archives.

Invader Zim

31st December 2007, 00:09

You're so learned you think Conquest has done “prodigious exploration of the Soviet archives,” and then cite a work from the 1980s to prove it. Fucking retard.

I said it in the other thread, I will say it again; Western scholars gained, if limited, access to the Soviet Archives in the mid-1980's. Everyone with even a meagre knowledge of the historiography of the Soviet Union knows this. But no matter, I have proven this point in the other thread.

The implication of your comment is clear

Indeed it is, its meaning is however not what you are claiming.

distancing yourself from statements you made

Your failure to understand what I said and then being made to look foolish when your misunderstanding was exposed is not backpeddling.

The only reason you would bring this up is if you thought the idea of Conquest being proved right by the opening of the archives had any validity to it,

I have explianed to you twice why I employed that quote; if you are too foolish to accept that, that is your problem.

when non-Russians didn't even have access to the archives.

This is untrue.

"Those who belong to my generation (I did my graduate work in the 1970s), or to the generation that trained us, initially harbored few hopes of gaining right of entry to the Soviet archives if our research topics focused on 1917 or on later periods in Soviet history. As a result of détente and of expanding bilateral exchanges between the American and Soviet governments, however, researchers by the 1980s began to obtain limited access to certain archival collections. Working in the Central State Archive of the October Revolution and Socialist Construction (TsGAOR, today GARF) in 1986, I experienced not only great personal satisfaction but also a strange sensation of doing something risqué and forbidden, for even though I had been trained as an archival historian in the Rankean tradition, I had never before set foot in a Soviet archive."

Donald J Raleigh, 'Doing Soviet History: The Impact of the Archival Revolution', Russian Review, Volume 61 Issue 1 Page 16-24, January 2002 p. 16.

Fucking retard.

You're a dishonest piece of shit.

you stupid motherfucker.

fucking dumbass

the anti-communist nonsense you spew

You're a fucking dishonest piece of shit.

your absolutely moronic assertion

:lol:

if we needed any more proof that you are incapable of forming an argument or defeating my arguments, the above have proven it.

Intelligitimate

31st December 2007, 01:13

I have explianed to you twice why I employed that quote; if you are too foolish to accept that, that is your problem.

I don't care about your idiotic explanation. It is not believable, for the reasons I have outlined.

And to copy my response to your post in the other thread:

Originally posted by Intelligitimate

I admit my wording was not very precise. Some non-Russians did have rather limited access to the archives, though did not do anything of real importance. This is confirmed by the very source you cite, which you either did not fully read or quoted dishonestly.

"Moreover, the terms of admission imposed from above also put me on edge. For one thing, I was shown -- and then only after frustrating delays -- a mere twenty archival files (dela). I could not consult archival inventories (iopisi) or catalogs, discuss my research with archivists willing to help, or inspect files in the same building in which our Soviet colleagues conducted their research."

The first work cited in this article is the one I just mentioned, R. W. Davies Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution which leads me to believe it was also the first thing you could find in your college's academic journal search. Raliegh's difficulties were not unique, and were part of the wider restrictions placed on any non-Russian seeking access to the archives. To quote Davies:

"While the battles are still continuing, all historians are agreed that the restrictions on access to the archives constitute a major obstacle to serious research, , ,While British scholars are still not allowed to consult the catalogues (opisi) relating to the Soviet period, and depend on archivists to supply a limited range of files on their topics, access to the material on the Soviet period has improved since as early as 1981, particularly after the archival protocol signed in March 1984 between the State Archive Administration and the British Academic Committee for Liason with Soviet Archives."

This statement was made as late as 1989, when the figures for the Gulag populations were being published (again, without proper citation). Your source, and Davies, confirm what I said, if taken in the sense I meant it, which was that no non-Russian was doing any serious archival research. The confusion though is entirely my own fault, and for that I do apologize.

I said it in the other thread, I will say it again; Western scholars gained, if limited, access to the Soviet Archives in the mid-1980's. Everyone with even a meagre knowledge of the historiography of the Soviet Union knows this. But no matter, I have proven this point in the other thread.

Again, your statement that Conquest is famous for “prodigious exploration of the Soviet archives,”is proven false by your own source, along with the absurdity of trying to prove this by reference to a work written in the 80s. My original remarks about your lack of familiarity with the field stand, not withstanding proving some statement I never intended to make wrong.