Stalin the Democrat

[kromando33]

Introduction
1. This article outlines Joseph Stalin's attempts, from the 1930s until his death, to democratize the government of the Soviet Union.
2. This statement, and the article, will astonish many, and outrage some. In fact my own amazement at the results of the research I'm reporting on led me to write this article. I had suspected for a long time that the Cold War version of Soviet history had serious flaws. Still, I was unprepared for the extent of the falsehoods I had been taught as fact.
3. This story is well known in Russia, where respect for, even admiration of, Stalin is common. Yuri Zhukov, the main Russian historian who sets forth the paradigm of "Stalin as Democrat" and whose works are the most important single source, though far from the only one, for this article, is a mainstream figure associated with the Academy of Sciences. His works are widely read.
4. However, this story and the facts that sustain it are virtually unknown outside Russia, where the Cold War paradigm of "Stalin as Villain" so controls what is published that the works cited here are still scarcely noted. Therefore, many of the secondary sources used in this article, as well as all the primary sources of course, are only available in Russian.1 (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html#note1)
5. This article does not simply inform readers of new facts about, and interpretations of, the history of the USSR. Rather, it is an attempt to bring to a non-Russian readership the results of new research, based on Soviet archives, on the Stalin period and Stalin himself. The facts discussed herein are compatible with a range of paradigms of Soviet history, just as they help to disprove a number of other interpretations. They will be utterly unacceptable -- in fact, outrageous -- to those whose political and historical perspectives have been based upon erroneous and ideologically motivated "Cold-War" notions of Soviet "totalitarianism" and Stalinist "terror."2 (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html#note2)
6. The Khrushchevite interpretation of Stalin as power-hungry dictator, betrayer of Lenin's legacy, was created to fit the needs of the Communist Party's nomenklatura in the 1950s. But it shows close similarities, and shares many assumptions, with the canonical discourse on Stalin inherited from the Cold War, which served the desire of capitalist elites to argue that communist struggles, or indeed any struggles for working-class power, must inevitably lead to some kind of horror.
Source: http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html

I thought I'd get a discussion going regarding Stalin's role in fighting for democratic centralism in the USSR against Trotskite ultra-bureucracy and revionist cliques.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Oh yeah?

This is what he said in order to justify the quashing of democracy (using the contradictiory nature of dialectics as his only justification):



"It may be said that such a presentation of the question is 'contradictory.' But is there not the same 'contradictoriness' in our presentation of the question of the state? We stand for the withering away of the state. At the same time we stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the mightiest and strongest state power that has ever existed. The highest development of state power with the object of preparing the conditions for the withering away of state power -- such is the Marxist formula. Is this 'contradictory'? Yes, it is 'contradictory.' But this contradiction us bound up with life, and it fully reflects Marx's dialectics." [Political (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1930/aug/27.htm)Report (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1930/aug/27.htm) of the Central Committee to the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU(B), June 27,1930. Qotation marks altered to conform to the conventions i have adopted here.]


As I have said, this 'theory' can be used to justify anything.

[gilhyle]

It is slightly interesting that Stalin went through a process in the late 30s of berating his colleagues in the bureaucracy for their approach to elections. However, it is the reading of this by Stalinists that is the real issue because it is very bad historiography to go from those very small incidents to a generalisation about Stalin's politics.

Stalin's relationship to the bureaucracy was complex. He was not merely the spokesperson for an homogenous bureaucratic layer. No serious commentator thinks he was. This incident is quite compatable with any complex view of Stalin's approach - particularly consistent given that he purged many of those he berated for fixing elections. He was not nearly so concerned about rigged elections in the 1940s and 1950s when his own yes-men were more widespread.

These incidents in the late 1930s did not turn into a general policy. Notwithstanding Stallin's overwhelming power there were no real attempts thereafter to develop the effectiveness of elections.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Just as he purged many who did not fix elections, and, indeed, anyone at all...

[Holden Caulfield]

against Trotskite ultra-bureucracy and revionist cliques.

Stalin was the biggest burecrat in the central commitee, and only came to power due to his place as a burecrat within key party systems and his ability from his burecratic position to control membership and there fore votes,

[Ismail]

Stalin was the biggest burecrat in the central commitee, and only came to power due to his place as a burecrat within key party systems and his ability from his burecratic position to control membership and there fore votes,Trotsky was a member of the Politburo himself, beside Stalin and Lenin. Both Stalin and Trotsky also fought in the Civil War. Ergo, Trotsky too was a bureaucrat according to this logic. Trotsky joined the party in 1917, Stalin claimed to be a supporter of Lenin since 1901 and by 1912 he was being sent to Vienna and such.

[Holden Caulfield]

because Trotsky was a menshevik, oo a dirty word,
however Lenin said himself when in Switzerland that he would probably never live to see the revolution which seems like a fairly menshevik thing to say,

in the 1917 revolution Stalin wrote to the Pravda praising Totsky, Trotsky was a hero of the civil war and revolution Stalin was a desk-job-burecrat, an administrator,

Trotsky wanted a increase in democracy and supported the 'Lenin Levy' but Stalin used this not to create democract but to increase the voting power of his own faction, he had control over membership and supporters of the United Oppositiion were never given powerful positions and were always out voted,

[Ismail]

because Trotsky was a menshevik, oo a dirty wordYeah, they criticized Lenin, calling him undemocratic, saying that socialism could not be put in the way the Bolsheviks wanted it, etc. They also accused Lenin of being a bureaucrat among many other things.


however Lenin said himself when in Switzerland that he would probably never live to see the revolution which seems like a fairly menshevik thing to say,How so?


in the 1917 revolution Stalin wrote to the Pravda praising Totsky, Trotsky was a hero of the civil war and revolution Stalin was a desk-job-burecrat, an administrator,Both received the Order of the Red Banner for what they did in the Civil War. I guess Trotsky's was more shiny or something.


Trotsky wanted a increase in democracy and supported the 'Lenin Levy' but Stalin used this not to create democract but to increase the voting power of his own faction, he had control over membership and supporters of the United Oppositiion were never given powerful positions and were always out voted,Yeah, everything Stalin did was evil. An attempt to increase the number of people in the party? Clearly an attempt to give him more power. (even though I'd expect a majority of the newcomers to have been kulaks or something by this logic) The United Opposition was expelled after a demonstration and what some feared were calls to overthrow the government. Now, I'd say that a majority in the party wanted them expelled, but since Stalin was clearly omnipotent and in complete control he managed to have said majority vote for their expulsion after consulting evil voodoo magic. He could only do this because he was a god damned genius. :rolleyes:

[Holden Caulfield]

How was it Menshevik? because the Bolsheviks were pushing for revolution now, where as the Mensheviks did think that the conditions were right for one, and ergo admitting that the revolution in the next 20 years would suggest that the conditions were not right

Yes they both got Orders, but i was including Trotskys work in the revolution as well which far far outshines Stalins, ALSO Stalin later claimed that the revolution was carried out bu a Comitte with him at its head...

As for the increasing numbers it was significant as the people who were drafted in in massive numbers were relatively ignorant to Bolshevik history and therefore would be easily manipulated but Stalin, head of the party etc.. who decided what information they should recieve at congress, when Stalin called Trotsky a menshevik these new members saw it as treason to the Bolshevik party not knowing the roots of the two parties were the same,

Stalin also sent police to break up mass student rallies held by Trotsky in Leningrad and Moscow,

[Ismail]

How was it Menshevik? because the Bolsheviks were pushing for revolution now, where as the Mensheviks did think that the conditions were right for one, and ergo admitting that the revolution in the next 20 years would suggest that the conditions were not rightOr maybe he feared he would of been shot or some such. (he was living the rest of his life with a bullet in his neck from 1918 onwards)


Yes they both got Orders, but i was including Trotskys work in the revolution as well which far far outshines StalinsEven though I don't think it really matters if Trotsky was some sort of military genius, (he was too into the military, he gave orders to trade unions like he was giving them to the army) I don't think that Stalin sat on his ass the entire revolution. Stalin defended Petrograd against Yudenich, defended the Southern Front against Denikin, etc.


As for the increasing numbers it was significant as the people who were drafted in in massive numbers were relatively ignorant to Bolshevik history and therefore would be easily manipulated but Stalin,Or Trotsky would manipulate them. See? I can be a conspiracy nut too.


when Stalin called Trotsky a menshevik these new members saw it as treason to the Bolshevik party not knowing the roots of the two parties were the same,Except at this point the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks weren't exactly getting along well.


Stalin also sent police to break up mass student rallies held by Trotsky in Leningrad and Moscow,Yeah, as I said, they feared an attempt to overthrow the government, which at that point was still under the same system that Lenin was under.

[Holden Caulfield]

Trotsky giving orders to the trade unions,

i think i can take this back to Stalins changing policy on the NEP, and then the implementation of collectives and 5 year plans, which seems like a militarization of the work force to me,

it was no conspiracy it is an opinion which you are countering why go for insults as well?

[Ismail]

Trotsky giving orders to the trade unions,

i think i can take this back to Stalins changing policy on the NEP, and then the implementation of collectives and 5 year plans, which seems like a militarization of the work force to me,Incorrect, Trotsky literally treated trade unions like the military for the most part. He proposed a "militarization of economic life" which Lenin thought was a bad idea as evidenced in The Trade Unions, the Present Situation, and Trotsky's Mistakes.

Concerning the collectivization campaign, the party barely had any control over the countryside and kulak influence was still major. The collectives campaign wasn't militaristic, as evidenced by the fact that it didn't involve immediately ordering workers from the city to go and shoot dead all the kulaks and impose martial law on all peasant-majority lands in Russia. It was, for the most part, a mass movement since party propaganda was constantly stressing how better life will be with collective farming, industrialization, etc. It wasn't until the kulaks were doing shit like refusing to hand over grain, beginning to promote dissent, and so on that things began to get heated.

Sorry if you're being offended by insults, but you seem like the ultra-left types who consider Stalin to be about as bad as Hitler, and I don't get along with those types well.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

M:



Yeah, they criticized Lenin, calling him undemocratic, saying that socialism could not be put in the way the Bolsheviks wanted it, etc. They also accused Lenin of being a bureaucrat among many other things.


That was years earlier.

He chaged his mind when Lenin won him over.

I am amazed you dialecticians are against change.

[Ismail]

"hewhocontrolstheyouth" claimed that Menshevik is a dirty word in a sarcastic manner, and I was pointing out that Mensheviks were clearly not on the side of the Bolsheviks by 1920. I know those were criticisms from years ago.

Also you're in love with that damned insult. "DIALECTICIAN!" even though I've probably made about two posts in my entire time on RevLeft mentioning dialectics.

[Holden Caulfield]

Sorry if you're being offended by insults, but you seem like the ultra-left types who consider Stalin to be about as bad as Hitler, and I don't get along with those types well.

yeah i am pretty much that guy but i dont like people who give insults when we

A) have the same common goal, i am not the enemy
B)if you can argue against my points my use insults like a ignorant person

anyhoo Kulaks created by the NEP which Leon was against and Stalin supported

[spartan]

Stalin the Democract?

Surely you mean Stalin the Demagouge?

[Holden Caulfield]

Stalin the Democract?

Surely you mean Stalin the Demagouge?

thank fuck somebody is coming in here against Stalin, well said comrade

[Hit The North]

Firstly, Trotsky was not a Menshevik for long but maintained a small organization which sought unity between the two factions.

Secondly, the most depressing thing about this thread - and nearly every intervention made by this idiot kromandoo33 - is that he isn't just content with trying to re-evaluate Stalin, he also has to make scurrilous, obviously fictional and paranoid slurs against 'Trotskyists'.

The question for us should never be about blaming specific policies or, worse, reducing the issue to one about personality. The development of the Soviet State and the form it took can only be fully explained by seeing it dialectically - that is, through its interconnections with the balance of class forces and other material factors at the local and global levels.

So the question of whether the USSR could or would have developed differently under the stewardship of Trotsky is a moot one. It gives too much weight to a great man analysis of history.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, as you should know Z, Maoists and Stalinists also appeal to 'dialectics' to defend their view of the former USSR, since that 'theory' can be used (and has been used) to defend anything.

Apart from that, I agree with everything you said.

[Ismail]

Okay, so some demagogue traits are:
1. Warmongering: Nope, Stalin never encouraged his people to go to war, the Finnish war was mainly due to Finland being a Fascist puppet and refusing to give the USSR leases on some ports so that the Soviets could defend against yet another possible front for the Nazis to invade through, and I don't think he was like "Let us show those stupid Finns we mean business!" or any patriotic bullshit to the people.
2. Fear: Yeah, fear of an incoming Fascist invasion; justified.
3. Censorship: Yes, reaction must be fought back. Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky himself all advocated this.
4. Propaganda: Everyone advocates this.
5. Nationalism: Only in limited amounts during WWII, but it was still mainly about how evil Fascism was.
6. Xenophobia: No.
7. Rhetoric: Stalin was a good speaker I'm sure, as was Lenin, Trotsky, Mao...

So that's 4 out of 7, and 1 was justified.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

M:



Also you're in love with that damned insult. "DIALECTICIAN!" even though I've probably made about two posts in my entire time on RevLeft mentioning dialectics.


If this was addressed to me, and if it means that you also reject this 'theory', then welcome aboard comrade!

However, if you do accept this theory, I am also glad to see that you seem to agree that not everything in reality is interconnected (and thus that this part of that 'theory' is wrong), and that this topic is not connected with Stalin's crimes.

I, on the other hand, think it is (at least ideologically).

And, not all my posts are about this 'theory'; a good 30-40% are on science, politics, history..., where I seldom mention it

[Ismail]

I don't reject dialectics. I don't mention it often because I don't think that everything can be solved solely by mastering it. Yes, I believe that it is more or less the way the world works, but that won't solve much in a majority of circumstances and, as a Hoxhaist, am not big on saying "contradictions!" (see: Mao) to justify revisionism.

[Hit The North]

Rosa,

Is the fact that the Stalinist and Maoist misuse and abuse of the term "dialectic" has cheapened it any different from the way in which the experience of these regimes cheapened the concepts of "socialism" "communism" and the "dictatorship of the proletariat"?

I assume you still support versions of these concepts despite their employment by regimes you disapprove of?

[spartan]

Okay, so some demagogue traits are:
1. Warmongering: Nope, Stalin never encouraged his people to go to war, the Finnish war was mainly due to Finland being a Fascist puppet and refusing to give the USSR leases on some ports so that the Soviets could defend against yet another possible front for the Nazis to invade through, and I don't think he was like "Let us show those stupid Finns we mean business!" or any patriotic bullshit to the people.

The Finns were no threat to the USSR!

They had the smallest army in Europe and a small population.

And if Finland was so Fascist then why was an attempted Fascist coup defeated?

Lets also not forget that this un-warmongering state, that was the USSR, invaded and annexed eastern Poland (In conjunction with those evil Nazis that they were friends with), Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania (Even though all those nations were neutral).

You Stalinists come up with the same old accusations which have no grounds in reality.

At least our arguements are based on what actually happened (i.e. reality).


2. Fear: Yeah, fear of an incoming Fascist invasion; justified.

Yeah so this is justification for the USSR becoming allies with those evil Fascists and then carving up all neutral states inbetween them between themselves?

The whole "buying time by becoming their allies" arguement is bullshit which you Stalinists happily regurgitate.


3. Censorship: Yes, reaction must be fought back. Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky himself all advocated this.

Censorship requires a body (Above all others) to do the censoring.

Censorship is un-Socialist as it is hierarchical in the sense that one body decides what is "good for all".

But then again that is the entire history of Stalinism summed up perfectly: One small body deciding whats "best" for everyone else (Just a shame that they end up benefiting the most from what is decided).

4. Propaganda: Everyone advocates this.
At one point the majority of Germans were advocating the extinction of entire peoples.

That doesnt make it right.

5. Nationalism: Only in limited amounts during WWII, but it was still mainly about how evil Fascism was.
Well i suppose that makes it aceptable then doesnt it:rolleyes:

6. Xenophobia: No.
Stalin started persecuting Jews before he died and entire peoples, such as the Chechens, were forcibly removed from their homeland because some of them happened to regard the Germans as liberators (Though you can hardly blame them for wrongly thinking this after living in Stalins USSR).


7. Rhetoric: Stalin was a good speaker I'm sure, as was Lenin, Trotsky, Mao...

The majority of what they spoke isnt important as what they said and what they did were two completly different things.

[Ismail]

We should seriously merge all these threads into one Super-Duper-"I hate Stalin" mega-ultra-thread because Jesus Christ these questions keep on repeating themselves.


The Finns were no threat to the USSR!Why did they refuse to grant leases?


They had the smallest army in Europe and a small population.It was also a military republic.


And if Finland was so Fascist then why was an attempted Fascist coup defeated?Finland was not a Fascist state, it collaborated with Fascism.


Lets also not forget that this un-warmongering state, that was the USSR, invaded and annexed eastern Poland (In conjunction with those evil Nazis that they were friends with), Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania (Even though all those nations were neutral).One of those nations (Lativa, I believe) was in fact a Fascist nation, the other two were also Nazi collaborators.

And as I've explained elsewhere (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=67969&page=2) of course they took eastern Poland, and the Nazis took the rest. Not doing so would both weaken the power of the Soviets and make the Nazis suspicious of a nation so willing to give everything to the Nazis.


At least our arguements are based on what actually happened (i.e. reality).Or at least what the History channel tells you.


Censorship requires a body (Above all others) to do the censoring.It requires a body, but not "above all others".


Censorship is un-Socialist as it is hierarchalh in the sense that one body decides what is "good for all".One democratically elected body that the people support.


But then again that is the entire history of Stalinism summed up perfectly: One class deciding whats "best" for everyone else (Just a shame that they end up benefiting from what is decided).Since censorship was also advocated by Lenin and Trotsky, I guess they were "Stalinists" too.


At one point the majority of Germans were advocating the extinction of entire peoples.

That doesnt make it right.....Soviet propaganda, on the other hand, was encouraging equal rights between men and women, industrialization, collective farming, and victory against Fascism.


Well i suppose that makes it aceptable then doesnt itYes, since there were still nationalists (ex-Tsar military leaders who didn't really care about Communism) who for the most part imagined it yet as another battle. (see: World War I) Of course, all these evil ex-Tsar guys came in while Lenin was alive. STALINISM.


Stalin started persecuting JewsYeah, advocating a Jewish Autonomous Republic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Republic) clearly shows his evil against the Jews. Let me guess, are you going to claim he feared Jewish doctors and such too? Is everything you're going to claim against Stalin going to be from the History channel?


The majority of what they spoke isnt important as what they said and what they did were two completly different things.Irrelevant, it's still what demagogues do.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:



Is the fact that the Stalinist and Maoist misuse and abuse of the term "dialectic" has cheapened it any different from the way in which the experience of these regimes cheapened the concepts of "socialism" "communism" and the "dictatorship of the proletariat"?



No, but it helped sell counter-revolutionary ideas to the cadres, and thus helped create a stench in the nostrils of workers everywhere.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

M:


I don't reject dialectics. I don't mention it often because I don't think that everything can be solved solely by mastering it. Yes, I believe that it is more or less the way the world works, but that won't solve much in a majority of circumstances and, as a Hoxhaist, am not big on saying "contradictions!" (see: Mao) to justify revisionism.


Fine, then you are half-way on the road to recovery.:)

[spartan]

Why did they refuse to grant leases?

Why the fuck should they grant "leases" to the USSR?

Its there fucking right to do whatever they want with their territory and not be bullied by the USSR.

I am sorry but that comment just sums up perfectly you Stalinists to me.

You are authoritarian bullies if you seriously think that you have the right to another nations territiory and facilities (For no reason at all).

It was also a military republic.
No it had conscription (Just like the USSR and the majority of nations did back then).

I tell you something the USSR was more of a military Republic then Finland, especially when you look at the size of its army (Even in peacetime) compared to Finlands.

Finland was not a Fascist state, it collaborated with Fascism.
Yes because a Fascist state was the only state willing to provide assistence to Finland who were being invaded by the biggest country in the world with the biggest military in the world.

Finlands situation reminds me of the famous Winston Churchill quote:

If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.

One of those nations (Lativa, I believe) was in fact a Fascist nation, the other two were also Nazi collaborators.
Based on the biased evidence provided by official USSR state sources no doubt.

Those countries were so small and un-important that this whole "Threat of Fascism" excuse simply doesnt hold up at all, especially when the USSR were Nazi Germany's allies (Who coincidentally gave the go ahead for the USSR to invade these "Fascist collaborator" nations).

Hell you could call the USSR "Fascist collaborators" seeing how they signed a treaty with Nazi Germany and became there allies (Which resulted in them carving up eastern Europe between themselves).

And as I've explained elsewhere (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=67969&page=2) of course they took eastern Poland, and the Nazis took the rest. Not doing so would both weaken the power of the Soviets and make the Nazis suspicious of a nation so willing to give everything to the Nazis.
That was a shit excuse.

Or at least what the History channel tells you.
Even the History Channel is better than the official state sources of the USSR from Stalins time.

It requires a body, but not "above all others".
The very nature of a body (Due to the power that it holds which others dont) makes it above all others.

Arguing otherwise is pointless as you are arguing against nature.

One democratically elected body that the people support.
Democratic in so far as the party allows.

Only the party members could vote and decide who went where and who stood for "elections" (If you can even call them that).

That isnt even a Representative Democracy!


Since censorship was also advocated by Lenin and Trotsky, I guess they were "Stalinists" too.

No but they sure as hell werent Socialists in practice either.


....Soviet propaganda, on the other hand, was encouraging equal rights between men and women, industrialization, collective farming, and victory against Fascism.

And?

The people werent free!

Equal rights is all well and good in a free society but does it make a difference when you are living in a country that doesnt care about gender but only the power of its Bureaucracy?

Induatrialization would have happened anyway whilst i have a sneaking suspicion that Fascism would never have been allowed to get so powerful if Stalin wasnt in power.

Yes, since there were still nationalists (ex-Tsar military leaders who didn't really care about Communism) who for the most part imagined it yet as another battle. (see: World War I) Of course, all these evil ex-Tsar guys came in while Lenin was alive. STALINISM.
Yeah i seem to remember that most Bolsheviks were got rid of (Execution, exiling amongst others) by Stalin (Probably to stop them from contradicting him as around about this time he started to rewrite the history of the Russian revolution to give himself a moe prominent role then the one he actually had which was minor compared to most other Bolsheviks at the top).

Funny how the ex-Tsarists were, for the most part, left untouched when compared to the Bolsheviks? (They were probably the perfect people for their jobs seeing how they worked under a similar Autocratic regime).

[Ismail]

Why the fuck should they grant "leases" to the USSR?Because the Nazis, if they weren't in bed with the Finns, would of taken them over anyway?


Its there fucking right to do whatever they want with their territory and not be bullied by the USSR.Except when it's Nazi Germany, then according to you Soviet soldiers should of marched right into Germany. Thing is, this was when Germany was readying up to attack the USSR, whereas Stalin had no idea what the hell Hitler was going to do in 1933, he just knew Hitler was bad news.


You are authoritarian bullies if you seriously think that you have the right to another nations territiory and facilities (For no reason at all).Maybe it's because the fucking Nazis were going to invade the Soviet Union and, if having won their battles, would become much more stronger.


Yes because a Fascist state was the only state willing to provide assistence to Finland who were being invaded by the biggest country in the world with the biggest military in the world.Yes, the good and noble white Aryan peoples sent their aid against the evil Jewish-Communist beast who was only intent on annexing the white men of Finland. :rolleyes:


Those countries were so small and un-important that this whole "Threat of Fascism" excuse simply doesnt hold up at allExcept when Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania combined begin giving supplies to the Nazi war effort. Then it becomes a problem.


Equal rights is all well and good in a free society but does it make a difference when you are living in a country that doesnt care about gender but only the power of its Bureaucracy?Yeah, they just made up propaganda pushing for womens rights because it was fun drawing women.


Induatrialization would have happened anyway whilst i have a sneaking suspicion that Fascism would never have been allowed to get so powerful if Stalin wasnt in power.It would. Neither Lenin nor even Trotsky would of invaded Germany, that would of gave the UK, etc the greenlight to invade the Soviet Union.


Yeah i seem to remember that most Bolsheviks were got rid ofMolotov was there, so was Zhdanov, and so on. The ones that were executed were the ones who also just happened to suggest completely shitty ideas like "the kulaks will just happily go into socialism" and "hey guys, Stalin sucks, let us overthrow him!", the latter is what got the party really pissed off.


Funny how the ex-Tsarists were, for the most part, left untouched when compared to the Bolsheviks? (They were probably the perfect people for their jobs seeing how they worked under a similar Autocratic regime).Uh, no, most of the ex-Tsarists didn't like the Soviets much, and some did try to get into plots to overthrow the USSR.

[Holden Caulfield]

"hey guys, Stalin sucks,

those 4 words are the most sense you have written all day,

[Ismail]

those 4 words are the most sense you have written all day,Only I quoted them from the words of those who, in their goal to overthrow the USSR, allied themselves with Tsar sympathizers or Fascists to achieve this goal.

[Holden Caulfield]

you with Stalinist views cannot call anyone a fascist

[Ismail]

you with Stalinist views cannot call anyone a fascistExplain. :rolleyes:

[Holden Caulfield]

Stalinism has alot of methods similar to fascism, to me Stalinism used communism just as a means for it to hold on to power,

[spartan]

Only I quoted them from the words of those who, in their goal to overthrow the USSR, allied themselves with Tsar sympathizers or Fascists to achieve this goal.

That is so typical of you authoritarians.

Anyone who isnt with you is against you and is thus a Fascist, Royalist, etc.

And anyone who doesnt follow the party line is a "revisionist".

You should grow up out of this fantasy world because nothing revolves around the party anymore because the party (Thank God) doesnt exist anymore.

The system that you authoritarians advocated didnt fail becuase of "revisionists" or traitors.

It failed because the people had had enough of the repressive system and the Bureaucrats decided that they could make more money by adopting a free market Liberal Capitalist system (Which allows them to trade and obtain other countries possessions, and thus more money, on the international market more freely) instead of the State Capitalist system they had (As this only allowed them to make as much money as the productive forces within the boundaries of the territory under their jurisdiction allowed them which by the 1980's wasnt alot).

[Dimentio]

Should we debate Muawiya against Ali next?

Or Putin against Berezovsky?

[spartan]

Slightly off topic but it connects to the un-Democratic nature of Stalin the demagouge.

Stalinists: How can you justify the exiling and eventual murder of Leon Trotsky both on the orders of the "Boss"?

[Holden Caulfield]

Stalinists: How can you justify the exiling and eventual murder of Leon Trotsky both on the orders of the "Boss"?

dont just mention Trotsky coz they will come up with a load of 'factionalism' answers

anyhoo it wasnt just Trotsky killed on Stalins orders, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin, most of the other 'old bolsheviks' as well as a few million lesser known political prisioners,

can they justify them all...no
why...it was simply to stop any threat to Stalins power

[spartan]

dont just mention Trotsky coz they will come up with a load of 'factionalism' answers

anyhoo it wasnt just Trotsky killed on Stalins orders, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin, most of the other 'old bolsheviks' as well as a few million lesser known political prisioners,

can they justify them all...no
why...it was simply to stop any threat to Stalins power

Exactly!

No wonder not one of them has had the guts to answer this question.

Because they cant find an excuse for their "Dear Leader".

Honest to God how people who practically worship one man and his horrific system of repression can still be around and on a Socialist forum really confuses me?

Perhaps Soviet propaganda is still having its effect even now?

[Invader Zim]

dont just mention Trotsky coz they will come up with a load of 'factionalism' answers

anyhoo it wasnt just Trotsky killed on Stalins orders, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin, most of the other 'old bolsheviks' as well as a few million lesser known political prisioners,

can they justify them all...no
why...it was simply to stop any threat to Stalins power

They will deny that these victims even existed. If you read my spars with Stalinists, you will discover that they cite respected historians to support their argument. If you know a little of the subject, you will soon find they have, cherry picked, misrepresented or even misunderstood those historians. Some of them do understand the historians but are not widely enough read to to get the whole flavour, etc. As such I urge you take caution going down this road, it involves significant reading of the secondary literature, because through the reading of your typical Stalinist is minimal, they read other Stalninists who are well read and simply reproduce those arguments. However, I do think that even a limited knowledge of the sources is enough to 'out read' the common Stalinist.

[kromando33]

you with Stalinist views cannot call anyone a fascist
You are obviously more of the naive idealist teens who have no idea about anything, least of all Stalin's fight to destroy fascism.

[spartan]

You are obviously more of the naive idealist teens who have no idea about anything, least of all Stalin's fight to destroy fascism.

Who can forget that this famous fight against Fascism also involved the USSR going into an alliance with Nazi Germany and the carving up of eastern Europe between themselves?

Of cousre you often throw the "Fascist collaborator" slur at the countries annexed by the USSR but in terms of collaboration with Fascists the USSR beats them all by becoming allies with a Fascist nation!

Though i am sure it was all just to buy some time (As well as go on a little military exercise in their neighbours territories as well).

[Ismail]

can they justify them all...noYes, we can.


dont just mention Trotsky coz they will come up with a load of 'factionalism' answers
The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution[/i]](T)he Thermidorian oligarchy ... hangs on by terroristic methods .... the chief political task in the USSR still remains the overthrow of this same Thermidorian bureaucracy .... Only the victorious revolutionary uprising of the oppressed masses can revive the Soviet regime and guarantee its further development toward socialism. There is but one party capable of leading the Soviet masses to insurrection --- the party of the Fourth International.


Kamenev, ZinovievAnd now from Tokaev, a Soviet dissent:

Comrade X[/i]]`In this atmosphere, there was only one thing for me to do: go with the tide .... I concentrated on Zinoviev and Kameniev. I avoided all mention of Bukharin. But the chairman would not let this pass: did I or did I not approve of the conclusions Vishinsky had drawn in regard to Bukharin? ....
`I said that Vishinsky's decision to investigate the activity of Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky and Uglanov had the approval of the people and the Party, and that I `completely agreed' --- that the `peoples of the Soviet Union and our Party had the right to know about the two-faced intrigues of Bukharin and Rykov ....
`(F)rom this statement alone my other readers will grasp in what a turgid atmosphere, in what an ultra-conspiratorial manner --- not even knowing one another's characters --- we oppositionists of the U.S.S.R. have to work.'


Bukharin,The same guy who proposed that kulaks will magically "move into" Socialism and that industrialization should be slowed down? He became increasingly social-democratic as time went on, which made him seek....not so legal ties. Also, in the trial, he admitted to conspiracies.

Notwithstanding a prejudice arising from the confession evidence and a prejudice against a judicial system which affords practically no protection for the accused, after daily observation of the witnesses, their manner of testifying, the unconscious corroboration which developed, and other facts in the course of the trial, together with others of which a judicial notice could be taken, it is my opinion so far as the political defendants are concerned sufficient crimes under Soviet law, among those charged in the indictment, were established by the proof and beyond a reasonable doubt to justify the verdict of guilty by treason and the adjudication of the punishment provided by Soviet criminal statutes. The opinion of those diplomats who attended the trial most regularly was general that the case had established the fact that there was a formidable political opposition and an exceedingly serious plot.'
http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/img1009.gif http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/img1033.gif.

I'd like to note that Stalin didn't just say "Kill these guys" for no reason. The party would not of allowed it. But of course 500+ members of the party were clearly all bowing down to Stalin like he was God. :rolleyes:


Who can forget that this famous fight against Fascism also involved the USSR going into an alliance with Nazi Germany and the carving up of eastern Europe between themselves?Non-Aggression Pact =/= alliance. Also you keep on saying "OMG HE ALLIED WITH FASCISM" over and over despite what anyone says. It looks more like you're trolling.

[Intelligitimate]

They will deny that these victims even existed. If you read my spars with Stalinists, you will discover that they cite respected historians to support their argument. If you know a little of the subject, you will soon find they have, cherry picked, misrepresented or even misunderstood those historians. Some of them do understand the historians but are not widely enough read to to get the whole flavour, etc. As such I urge you take caution going down this road, it involves significant reading of the secondary literature, because through the reading of your typical Stalinist is minimal, they read other Stalninists who are well read and simply reproduce those arguments. However, I do think that even a limited knowledge of the sources is enough to 'out read' the common Stalinist.

This is the whining of an ultra-reactionary pseudo-Leftist after being exposed for the ignoramus he is.

Though I would take his advice, don't bother trying to debate people who know more about the subject than yourself, or you'll end up looking as ignorant and foolish as Zim.

[spartan]

The same guy who proposed that kulaks will magically "move into" Socialism and that industrialization should be slowed down? He became increasingly social-democratic as time went on, which made him seek....not so legal ties. Also, in the trial, he admitted to conspiracies.

I am guessing that you have never read 1984 then?

[Ismail]

I am guessing that you have never read 1984 then?He didn't say "Yes, I was involved in the most evil of conspiracies that mankind has ever witnessed and I am 100% completely and totally guilty, comrade Stalin is God, I BOW BEFORE YE!"
*Bukharin worships Stalin as others look on*

First, Stalin wasn't in the room. :p

Secondly, he said it more along the lines of "Well, yes, I did interact with figures that did want to overthrow the government, and I did talk with them favorably and so on, but I've never attempted to overthrow the government, although they did want to use me as their representative in the likelihood of a coup and I didn't protest."

[kromando33]

Speaking of purges, I think a good one of his forum for uneducated pseudo-leftist know-it-alls would be appropriate.

[Invader Zim]

Speaking of purges, I think a good one of his forum for uneducated pseudo-leftist know-it-alls would be appropriate.

Oh, please do enlighten us of your vast educational qualifications and leftwing credentials.

[Xiao Banfa]

I'm no stalinist, but I find it astonishing that some members can defend the finnish side in the Soviet-Finnish War.

They were offered the opportunity to give the soviets the temporary use of some territory for the soviet anti-fascist defence, but the right wing bastards refused.

Any state opposed to fascism would have agreed to the soviet request, but no!

The finns had a proven track record of acting against the soviet state before Stalin, they were the ones that captured John Reed, they harboured white exiles-including the leader of the Kronstadt revolt, Petrichenko (who went onto crush finnish unionists in his adopted country)- they were utterly poisonous fucking right-wingers!

Who gives a shit about defending the sovereignty of a white, reactionary government- I would have been more interested in fighting fascism.

Trotsky supported the USSR in that war.

[Herman]

Oh, please do enlighten us of your vast educational qualifications and leftwing credentials.

How do I get the diploma for being a "left-wing"?

[RedAnarchist]

How do I get the diploma for being a "left-wing"?

Do yuo realise that hes being sarcastic?

[kromando33]

Oh, please do enlighten us of your vast educational qualifications and leftwing credentials.
I am not talking formally, I merely mean actually read Marx before you come on his board blabbing with your pseudo-leftist anti-'Stalinism'.

I just don't like people whose sole knowledge is from the bourgeois media etc.

[Herman]

Do you realise that he's being sarcastic?

I should be asking you that question. :P

[Luís Henrique]

Also, in the trial, he admitted to conspiracies.

If you were tried the way these guys were, you would confess to being a Trotskyist gay Muslism terrorist and beg the court to sentence you to death quicker than I can say "torture", man.

Luís Henrique

[Intelligitimate]

If you were tried the way these guys were, you would confess to being a Trotskyist gay Muslism terrorist and beg the court to sentence you to death quicker than I can say "torture", man.

Luís Henrique

You can't prove that, or even provide evidence of it, as there is none. In fact, all the evidence points the other way.

[Random Precision]

You can't prove that, or even provide evidence of it, as there is none. In fact, all the evidence points the other way.

What might that be?

[Refugee from Earth]

Much as I'm not a Stalinist, I know I don't function well as an individual (seems like I can't do a single bloody thing unless its part of a collective effort!) and so I don't think its right to pick on Stalin in particular. If I was handed power over the country I live in I'd like to think I'd do the right thing by the working class. But gulags, or at least shooting people against a wall, that would certainly happen.

Basically its the system that was at fault and not the individual. Same as it is today, Bush, Blair, Hitler, Stalin are just the poster boys of evil. The real problem is deeper than any individual.

[Intelligitimate]

What might that be?

There is no evidence any of the people in the Moscow Trials were tortured. Zero. It simply is just assumed, because the totalitarian model demands it. The fact of the matter is, the evidence we have outside of trial confessions only further points to their guilt, and in many cases, is a smoking gun.

[Luís Henrique]

There is no evidence any of the people in the Moscow Trials were tortured. Zero. It simply is just assumed, because the totalitarian model demands it. The fact of the matter is, the evidence we have outside of trial confessions only further points to their guilt, and in many cases, is a smoking gun.

Of course we have evidence of torture. No, there aren't photographs of beatings, and Stalin's victims hadn't bruises of brutal mistreatment when they appeared in court. Nor I can produce any secret NKVD document to prove the point. It doesn't matter. Torturers will do their best to avoid leaving evidence of torture.

But the confessions in themselves are evidence of torture. They make absolutely no sence. Some victims confessed crimes committed at a time in which they were under NKVD custody. The most ridiculous assertions transpire from those confessions, like meetings between the defendant and Hitler and Trotsky. And we have, of course, Bukharin's confession, which is the most vehement indictment of his accusers:


I plead guilty to...the sum total of crimes committed by this counter-revolutionary organization, irrespective of whether or not I knew of, whether or not I took part in, any particular act.

How can one be guilty of an act he didn't commit?

Luís Henrique

[kromando33]

Luis, I am not seeing any evidence of your claims, if the only proof you intend to produce against comrade Stalin is rumor, innuendo and Trotskyite-style popular lies and misconception, you might as well give up now.

My sources, by Ludo Martens and the like, are extremely well sourced, while yours come from bourgeois and Nazi propaganda, and McCarthyist like sources. How about yo go back to reading Solzhenitsyn, Orwell and your favorite 'Black Book of Communism', that is after all where your anti-communist sources come from.

[Luís Henrique]

Luis, I am not seeing any evidence of your claims, if the only proof you intend to produce against comrade Stalin is rumor, innuendo and Trotskyite-style popular lies and misconception, you might as well give up now.

My sources, by Ludo Martens and the like, are extremely well sourced, while yours come from bourgeois and Nazi propaganda, and McCarthyist like sources. How about yo go back to reading Solzhenitsyn, Orwell and your favorite 'Black Book of Communism', that is after all where your anti-communist sources come from.

Listen, arsehole: you don't come to me with slanderous suggestions of what my favourite books are, you cheap kind of pseudo-Marxist. Nikolai Bukharin had wife and son, which would have been killed, or tortured, by your false idol, if he did not confess. Your talk is similar to pro-American apologists of torture, to whom it is not torture unless it leaves a broken leg as evidence.

There is more evidence that your idol was a tsarist agent than of Bukharin's guilt.

Idiot.

Luís Henrique

[Intelligitimate]

Of course we have evidence of torture. No, there aren't photographs of beatings, and Stalin's victims hadn't bruises of brutal mistreatment when they appeared in court. Nor I can produce any secret NKVD document to prove the point. It doesn't matter. Torturers will do their best to avoid leaving evidence of torture.

Proof of exactly what I said: it is basically an axiom of the anti-communism paradigm. There is simply no evidence to substantiate the claim whatsoever.


But the confessions in themselves are evidence of torture. They make absolutely no sence. Some victims confessed crimes committed at a time in which they were under NKVD custody. The most ridiculous assertions transpire from those confessions, like meetings between the defendant and Hitler and Trotsky. And we have, of course, Bukharin's confession, which is the most vehement indictment of his accusers:

They most certainly are not evidence of torture. Bukharin denied all sorts of charges against him, as did other defendants. As you note, Bukharin's confession was even confrontational in tone. Yet, in front of the entire world, none of them ever said they were tortured, nor did they appeared tortured. Which brings up the other axiom anti-communists must make that also has zero-evidence; the defendants families were threatened. These two assertions have absolutely zero evidence behind them, yet they are repeated as if they are facts, when not even the slightest shred of evidence can be produced to substantiate them.


How can one be guilty of an act he didn't commit?

Luís Henrique


We already know Bukharin knew of the existence of the Riutin Platform and told no one. This much he admitted to the party before his arrest. An equivalent scenario would be someone in the Bush administration admitting he knew the existence of a coup plot again the government, a plot mind you that claims that same someone as its ideological father, and told not a single person about it, or about the people he knew who supported the idea. Bukharin's denials were bullshit, and read like bullshit under the questioning of the party (again, before the trial). He was guilty as charged, and eventually admitted to it, after sitting in prison for months.


This alone would be enough to get you thrown in prison in any legal system in the world, and possibly executed. Yet the true extent of Bukharin's involvement in the Rightist conspiracy is not completely known, and probably never will be.

[kromando33]

Listen, arsehole: you don't come to me with slanderous suggestions of what my favourite books are, you cheap kind of pseudo-Marxist. Nikolai Bukharin had wife and son, which would have been killed, or tortured, by your false idol, if he did not confess. Your talk is similar to pro-American apologists of torture, to whom it is not torture unless it leaves a broken leg as evidence.

There is more evidence that your idol was a tsarist agent than of Bukharin's guilt.

Idiot.

Luís Henrique
You know, personal attacks do not suffice for evidence of your claims, your the one saying he was tortured, prove it.

[black magick hustla]

You know, personal attacks do not suffice for evidence of your claims, your the one saying he was tortured, prove it.

uphold the correct line of marxism support the hoxhaist union

[Luís Henrique]

You know, personal attacks do not suffice for evidence of your claims, your the one saying he was tortured, prove it.

I suppose not. However, the intention was not that: it was to make sure that you stop with your own personal attacks. Telling me that the Black Book of Communism is my favourite book is a personal insult. So take my previous post as a response in kind.

Luís Henrique

[Die Neue Zeit]

couldn't have said it better myself.

Marmot was actually being sarcastic. :p ;)

[kromando33]

Marmot was actually being sarcastic. :p ;)
Maybe he was seen the truth.:rolleyes:

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Oh yeah?

This is what he said in order to justify the quashing of democracy (using the contradictiory nature of dialectics as his only justification):



As I have said, this 'theory' can be used to justify anything.

I don't see anything in there that attacks democracy. It looks more like a defense of command-economics.

[kromando33]

Rosa as I see it 'democracy' as a political term is value neutral, and the use of it today in bourgeois 'democracies' is indeed a negative connotation. It's hard however to see what you mean by your definition of 'democracy', for me it strikes a nasty tone and reminds me of the rotten liberalism, cynicism, indifference and 'pluralistic' division of the people. I say nothing should be allowed to compromise the solidarity of the proletarian dictatorship, 'democracy' in the economic period of socialism seems like simply allowing the bourgeois an avenue to organize and giving them reprieve.

[Luís Henrique]

One of the main accusations in the Moscow trials was about a Nazi-Trotskyist conspiracy against Stalin and the Soviet Union. Less than a decade later, the Soviet Union crashed the Nazi war machine, and occupied almost half of Germany, including most of its capital's governmental building. Yet this did not result in the discovery of one single historic document that provided any evidence of such absurd conspiracy. Why? Simply: because there is no such evidence, because there was no Trotsyist-Nazi conspiracy against Stalin.

The only evidence against the accused are their confessions; not a single document or material proof supports it. And the confessions are absolutely inidoneous, blatantly contradictory among them, referring to impossible events, evident products of fantasy. If directed against other people, they would be transparent lies to smear those others; directed against the defendants themselves, they can only be the product of physical or psychological torture. What evidence else do you need?

Luís Henrique

[Random Precision]

We already know Bukharin knew of the existence of the Riutin Platform and told no one. This much he admitted to the party before his arrest. An equivalent scenario would be someone in the Bush administration admitting he knew the existence of a coup plot again the government, a plot mind you that claims that same someone as its ideological father, and told not a single person about it, or about the people he knew who supported the idea. Bukharin's denials were bullshit, and read like bullshit under the questioning of the party (again, before the trial). He was guilty as charged, and eventually admitted to it, after sitting in prison for months.

Ryutin's platform recommended doing exactly nothing, despite all its fiery rhetoric. It had no support among the leaders of the "Rightist Bloc". Bukharin heard it being discussed one time, and everyone in the discussion was denouncing it as counterrevolutionary or whatever, and saw it for what it was: an anti-Stalin polemic that had no support, promised no action, and was not worth noting to anyone else as it presented no danger.

[Intelligitimate]

One of the main accusations in the Moscow trials was about a Nazi-Trotskyist conspiracy against Stalin and the Soviet Union. Less than a decade later, the Soviet Union crashed the Nazi war machine, and occupied almost half of Germany, including most of its capital's governmental building. Yet this did not result in the discovery of one single historic document that provided any evidence of such absurd conspiracy. Why? Simply: because there is no such evidence, because there was no Trotsyist-Nazi conspiracy against Stalin.
First off, we do have some evidence of POUM-Nazi collaboration, as I have outlined on this forum before. This evidence was taken extremely seriously by Soviet intelligence. And we also know, from Trotsky's own papers located at Harvard, that he lied to the Dewey Commission about the formation of the Trotskyist-Zinovievist bloc. We know this existed, from Trotsky's own archive.



The only evidence against the accused are their confessions; not a single document or material proof supports it. And the confessions are absolutely inidoneous, blatantly contradictory among them, referring to impossible events, evident products of fantasy. If directed against other people, they would be transparent lies to smear those others; directed against the defendants themselves, they can only be the product of physical or psychological torture. What evidence else do you need?
I don't see anything impossible or fantastic about their confessions. Bukharin and others denied some of the more serious charges against them, like plotting with foreign spies and plotting to kill Lenin, arguing at length with Vyshinsky about it. Why would Bukharin do that, if his family was threatened? On the axiom that his family was threatened (which is exactly what it is, because there is zero proof of it), this makes absolutely no sense.


Why does his wife not mention anything about threats and torture? Why does she report Bukharin was mostly concerned with making sure his documents were preserved? For that matter, how did Bukharin find time among all that “physical or psychological torture” to write a book of poetry, a book on philosophy, a novel, and several letters to people, including Stalin?

What is fantasy is the belief he was tortured and his family threatened.






Ryutin's platform recommended doing exactly nothing, despite all its fiery rhetoric. It had no support among the leaders of the "Rightist Bloc". Bukharin heard it being discussed one time, and everyone in the discussion was denouncing it as counterrevolutionary or whatever, and saw it for what it was: an anti-Stalin polemic that had no support, promised no action, and was not worth noting to anyone else as it presented no danger.
As I have already proved in the other thread against gilhyle, this is false. The Riutin platform does call for the violent overthrow of the party, and Bukharin's statements do not say he was in the company of people denouncing it. Rather, he says he didn't tell anyone because he thought he could “bring them back to the party.” Bukharin only admitted to being there after many face to face confrontation with his accusers, and his excuse is bullshit, as everyone recognized (again, all pre-arrest stuff). Given the number of people arrested in connection with this Rightist conspiracy, it could hardly be said it presented no danger.

[spartan]

First off, we do have some evidence of POUM-Nazi collaboration, as I have outlined on this forum before. This evidence was taken extremely seriously by Soviet intelligence.

That is absolute bollocks!

The POUM was the scapegoat in the fight between the counter revolutionary Stalinists (Allied with Liberals and Social Democrats in a "Popular Front" which aimed for a Bourgeoisie Capitalist state) and the Anarchists.

The POUM was the only Socialist movement which wouldnt follow the government (Backed by the USSR) line, which was becoming increasingly Republican and less Socialist.

Only the Anarchists bothered to raise concerns when the POUM was being suppressed by the counter revolutionary Stalinists.

I suggest that you read George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" before coming out with shit like that in the future!

[Intelligitimate]

That is absolute bollocks!

The POUM was the scapegoat in the fight between the counter revolutionary Stalinists (Allied with Liberals and Social Democrats in a "Popular Front" which aimed for a Bourgeoisie Capitalist state) and the Anarchists.

The POUM was the only Socialist movement which wouldnt follow the government (Backed by the USSR) line, which was becoming increasingly Republican and less Socialist.

Only the Anarchists bothered to raise concerns when the POUM was being suppressed by the counter revolutionary Stalinists.

I suggest that you read George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" before coming out with shit like that in the future!

Orwell's work is basically worthless as a source of history, nor does it have anything to do with evidence I've presented for POUM-Nazi collaboration.

[Holden Caulfield]

Stalins comintern refused to supply their 'allies' in the spanish civil war unless they bowed to the will of moscow and took orders directly from them, this made thousands of fighting socialist men far less effective due to lack of provisions and ammunitions, and massively helped the nationalist cause who had fewer numbers than the republicans but were better supplied,

this supports my point that Stalin only ever acted in the interest of his own lust for power and never in the interests of the people,

Stalins counter revolutionary attitude shows through again in his actions towards the Chinese communists, and the fact his comintern was never used properly and became a tool of the bourgosie nations

the POUM weren't supplied as they were 'Trots' and so they were far less effective because of this, and yes it is a FACT some factions of the republican side did buy weapons from German companies but if they didnt do this they would have to submit to the nationalists coz the USSR wasn't willing to help,

i suggest they pull their heads out of Stalinist bullshit and see the facts as they are

[Intelligitimate]

I should note for the sake of honesty and accuracy that I may have mixed up some of the evidence against Rykov with Bukharin. I may need to reread some stuff that I haven't read in awhile.

[Intelligitimate]

Stalins comintern refused to supply their 'allies' in the spanish civil war unless they bowed to the will of moscow and took orders directly from them

Prove it.

[Holden Caulfield]

-Nazi collaboration.

if ya want 'socialists' who collaborate with nazis check out the carving up of Poland, how is that for evidence,

if ya want 'socialists' who collaborate with nationalists how about the support for the Kuomintang even when they were purging Chinese communists, but wait i forgot how much Stalinists love to purge communists..

[Holden Caulfield]

Prove it.

its a fact any history book, antony beever, george orwel, soviet records, primary testaments of the men who were there

[Intelligitimate]

if ya want 'socialists' who collaborate with nazis check out the carving up of Poland, how is that for evidence,

The Non-Aggression Pact has been dealt with so many times on this forum I don't see the need of pointing out the obvious again.


if ya want 'socialists' who collaborate with nationalists how about the support for the Kuomintang even when they were purging Chinese communists, but wait i forgot how much Stalinists love to purge communists..

Mistakes were made. They also supported the Zionists in Israel when they shouldn't have, and didn't liberate all of Korea, among other things. Most of these things were eventually acknowledged as blunders.

[Holden Caulfield]

blunders but if it was anybody elses they would be counter revolutionaries, traitors, trotskite/fascists, and then eventually dead by the hands of the GPU or the NKVD

in the spanish civil war the soviets shot many men that were willing to give their lives for the socialist cause, they even shot thier own military commanders, they shit people that they had snuck in to Spain themselves,

they DID with hold supplies and ammunition, not to mention the fact that the soviet mechinary like planes and tanks were given exclusively to units that accepted thier commant,

yes the non agression pact has been done to death but so has calling anybody who was vaugely in support of L.D a fascist supporter

[Intelligitimate]

its a fact any history book, antony beever, george orwel, soviet records, primary testaments of the men who were there

Here you have cited someone who portrays Nazi Germany in the war positively (http://www.mariosousa.se/ReviewBeevorStalingrad050729.html), a man who was a soldier on an inactive front, and unnamed records and testimonies of unnamed people. Good going there...

The actual reality of the matter is that the USSR did not control Republican Spain. This is a lie, perputated by apologists of Franco and psuedo-Leftists alike. Nothing could be further from the truth.

[spartan]

Orwell's work is basically worthless as a source of history, nor does it have anything to do with evidence I've presented for POUM-Nazi collaboration.

You obviosuly havent read "Homage to Catalonia" then as it has whole chapters dedicated to the politics of the various parties and the eventual suppression of the POUM.

Orwell was a volunteer for the POUM (Not because he was a Trotskyist but because he didnt want to volunteer for the Anarchists or Stalinists) and was an eyewitness to many events (Including the suppression of the POUM by the counter revolutionary Stalinists because they werent prepared to give up on their Socialist beliefs to suit the USSR backed Bourgeoisie Popular Front government).

[Holden Caulfield]

The actual reality of the matter is that the USSR did not control Republican Spain. This is a lie, perputated by apologists of Franco and psuedo-Leftists alike. Nothing could be further from the truth.

if not saying they did, they gave a lot of effort to try and control them though their advisors often taking command, with the real commanders helpless as the advisors controlled all the equipment,

you cited soviet intelligence as your source: coz they aren't biased? coz they didnt hide every document that ever made their lovely leader look anything less than god like, they didnt lie about their own revolution, they didnt doctor photographs to remove people who were close to Lenin after Stalin had them all rounded up and shot,

a telegram from Voroshilov to Republican General Stern 'visit Callabllero personally and declare in response to his request for us to send our pilots etc.. to Spain: we cannot send them anymore of our men, but we will also have to withdraw the men who are in Spain now, unless they disavow this article in the Adelante and punish the ones who are guilty for its publication, and unless they apologize to us'

allow fascists to win a war and the control of a nation over an article in a newspaper, these guys are really fucking true revolutionaries,

[Intelligitimate]

Back to Bukharin's guilt for the moment:

There is also the statements of the Swiss communist and Bukharin supporter Jules Humbert-Droz, regarding the fact that Bukharin advocated killing Stalin and overthrowing the government as early as 1928:



Before leaving I went to see Bukharin for one last time not knowing whether I would see him again upon my return. We had a long and frank conversation. He brought me up to date with the contacts made by his group with the Zinoviev-Kamenev fraction in order to coordinate the struggle against the power of Stalin. I did not hide from him that I did not approve of this liaison of the oppositions. ‘The struggle against Stalin is not a political programme. We had combatted with reason the programme of the trotskyites on the essential questions, the danger of the kulaks in Russia, the struggle against the united front with the social-democrats, the Chinese problems, the very short-sighted revolutionary perspective, etc. On the morrow of a common victory against Stalin, the political problems will divide us. This bloc is a bloc without principles which will crumble away before achieving any results.’
Bukharin also told me that they had decided to utilise individual terror in order to rid themselves of Stalin. On this point as well I expressed my reservation: the introduction of individual terror into the political struggles born from the Russian Revolution would strongly risk turning against those who employed it. It had never been a revolutionary weapon. ‘My opinion is that we ought to continue the ideological and political struggle against Stalin. His line will lead in the near future to a catastrophe which will open the eyes of the communists and result in a changing of orientation. Fascism menaces Germany and our party of phrasemongers will be incapable of resisting it. Before the debacle of the Communist Party of Germany and the extension of fascism to Poland and to France, the International must change politics. That moment will then be our hour. It is necessary then to remain disciplined, to apply the sectarian decisions after having fought and opposed the leftist errors and measures, but to continue to struggle on the strictly political terrain’.
Bukharin doubtlessly had understood that I would not liase blindly with his fraction whose sole programme was to make Stalin disappear. This was our last meeting. Manifestly he did not have confidence in the tactic that I proposed.

[Holden Caulfield]

where as Stalin was the government and used that to kill all his opposition? on his terrain, killed freed soviet prisioners for surrendering and for being captured,
as early as 1923 Stalin was already fucking about everybody else,
e.g. lying to Trotsky about the time of Lenins funeral,

i dont know this quote that you use and am very suspect of any 'this is the truth' quotes used by Stalins supporters when you see how many 'this is the truth' statements were extracted from people to approve his views

[Intelligitimate]

You obviosuly havent read "Homage to Catalonia" then as it has whole chapters dedicated to the politics of the various parties and the eventual suppression of the POUM.

Orwell was a volunteer for the POUM (Not because he was a Trotskyist but because he didnt want to volunteer for the Anarchists or Stalinists) and was an eyewitness to many events (Including the suppression of the POUM by the counter revolutionary Stalinists because they werent prepared to give up on their Socialist beliefs to suit the USSR backed Bourgeoisie Popular Front government).

Orwell was not a volunteer of the POUM. He basically only wound up with them by sheer accident.

"I was associated with the Trotskyists in Spain. It was chance that I was serving in the POUM militia and not another, and I largely disagreed with the POUM 'line' and told the leaders so freely..."

http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/pacifism/english/e_patw

This is even stated as such in the book:


When I came to Spain, and for some time afterwards, I was not only uninterested in the political situation but unaware of it. I knew there was a war on, but I had no notion what kind of a war. If you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered: ‘To fight against Fascism,’ and if you had asked me what I was fighting for, I should have answered: ‘Common decency.’ I had accepted the News Chronicle-New Statesman version of the war as the defence of civilization against a maniacal outbreak by an army of Colonel Blimps in the pay of Hitler. The revolutionary atmosphere of Barcelona had attracted me deeply, but I had made no attempt to understand it. As for the kaleidoscope of political parties and trade unions, with their tiresome names — P.S.U.C., P.O.U.M., F.A.I., C.N.T., U.G.T., J.C.I., J.S.U., A.I.T. — they merely exasperated me. It looked at first sight as though Spain were suffering from a plague of initials. I knew that I was serving in something called the P.O.U.M. (I had only joined the P.O.U.M. militia rather than any other because I happened to arrive in Barcelona with I.L.P. papers), but I did not realize that there were serious differences between the political parties. At Monte Pocero, when they pointed to the position on our left and said:

[Holden Caulfield]

This bloc is a bloc without principles

Stalins ever changing and counter revolutionary policies show that he had no principals, i think the actions of Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin et al, show they had few principals,

Trotsky is the only prominet one who stood for the principals that he held, and died because of it,

Stalin had no prinicipals other wise as a communist he wouldn't have so rapidly abandoned permanant revolution, he wouldn't have had to have his 'Great turn' as he would have chosen his view from the start instead of jumping ship on the NEP,

and you still havent justified the carving up of Poland, just because it has been argued before doesnt make it any less of a point.

Stalin the democrat? fairly not..

[Luís Henrique]

First off, we do have some evidence of POUM-Nazi collaboration, as I have outlined on this forum before.

The confession of whom?


And we also know, from Trotsky's own papers located at Harvard, that he lied to the Dewey Commission about the formation of the Trotskyist-Zinovievist bloc. We know this existed, from Trotsky's own archive.Of course we know that a Trotsky-Zinoviev block existed... in 1926. It was called Unified Opposition. What is disputed, however, is the existence of a Trotsky-Zinoviev block in 1935, at a time when Trotsky was in exile and Zinoviev, completely defeated and demoralised, posed no threat to Stalin.

Besides, of course, the missing links on your "chain" of "reasoning" are blatant:

The POUM (not a Trotskyist party) would have links to Nazism (albeit militarily fighting against Franco's troops, which were supported by German Nazi). There was a Trotsky-Zinoviev block :rolleyes:. Ergo... Zinoviev had a meeting with Trotsky and Hess, to the end of fighting Stalin. Yeah, the leprechauns told me.


I don't see anything impossible or fantastic about their confessions.At the end of the war, when it was suggested that the Pope took a seat in peace talks, Stalin would have retorted, "how many armoured divisions does the Pope have?" Let me ask you: how many armoured divisions did Trotsky have, that would move Hitler, Hess, or representatives of the Mikado, to meet them?

Trotsky's importance in the real world in 1935 was not bigger than it is today: close to nihil. Only in Stalin's mind (not even in Trotsky's) did he pose any material danger to Koba.


Bukharin and others denied some of the more serious charges against them, like plotting with foreign spies and plotting to kill Lenin, arguing at length with Vyshinsky about it. Why would Bukharin do that, if his family was threatened?Good question. There are a lot of mysteries in the confessions, especially that of Bukharin. Evidently, he (perhaps unlike Zinoviev and Kamenev) knew he was going to die. It is quite possible that the many strange things about his confession were an attempt to encode an indiction of his tormentors. The same would have been true, in a less systematic way, of other confessions. For instance, Holtzmann situated a supposed counterrevolutionary meeting in the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen... there was not Bristol Hotel in Copenhagen at that time (either Holtzmann invented anything to escape torture, or deliberately cited an impossibility to the end of telling future generations that his confession was a lie).


On the axiom that his family was threatened (which is exactly what it is, because there is zero proof of it), this makes absolutely no sense.Of course there is proof of it. It was a regular practice in 1937-38 to arrest family members of the accused. Bukharin's wife, albeit having her life spared, was deported to Siberia... under what accusation, can you tell us? Being married to a traitor?


Why does his wife not mention anything about threats and torture?She was a smart woman, wasn't she? Why would her committ suicide in such a stupid way?


Why does she report Bukharin was mostly concerned with making sure his documents were preserved?This must have been an important concern of Bukharin?

Do you really think she was allowed to meet him immediately after torture?


For that matter, how did Bukharin find time among all that “physical or psychological torture” to write a book of poetry, a book on philosophy, a novel, and several letters to people, including Stalin?It looks a lot less impossible than he being guilty of crimes he didn't know of...

Evidently allowing a prisoner to write is always a possibility of gathering further information about such prisoner's activities and friends.

Luís Henrique

[Intelligitimate]

The confession of whom?


No one. You might want to try the search function, but I'll save you the time. Credit goes to professor Furr for this:



German Intelligence, Communist Anti-Trotskyism, and the Barcelona “May Days” of 1937

I’m writing an article on the falsifications in Khrushchev’s infamous 1956 “Secret Speech.” A few weeks ago I ran across the following statement, in an article on the subject of this speech:

"...в угоду политической конъюнктуре деятельность Троцкого и его сторонников за границей в 1930-1940 годах сводят лишь к пропагандистской работе. Но это не так. Троцкисты действовали активно: организовали, используя поддержку лиц, связанных с абвером, мятеж против республиканского правительства в Барселоне в 1937 году. Из троцкистских кругов в спецслужбы Франции и Германии шли "наводящие" материалы о действиях компартий в поддержку Советского Союза. О связях с абвером лидеров троцкистского мятежа в Барселоне в 1937 году сообщил нам Шульце-Бойзен...Впоследствии, после ареста, гестапо обвинило его в передаче нам данной информации, и этот факт фигурировал в смертном приговоре гитлеровского суда по его делу." (| Судоплатов, П. "Разведка и Кремль." М., 1996, с. 88; | Haase, N. Das Reichskriegsgericht und der Widerstand gegen nationalsozialistische Herrschaft. Berlin, 1993, S. 105)1

English translation from Gen. Pavel Sudoplatov, _The Intelligence Service and the Kremlin, Moscow 1996, p. 58:

“In the interests of the political situation the activities of Trotsky and his supporters abroad in the 1930s are said to have been propaganda only. But this is not so. The Trotskyists were also involved in actions. Making us of the support of persons with ties to German military intelligence [the ‘Abwehr’] they organized a revolt against the Republican government in Barcelona in 1937. From Trotskyist circles in the French and German special intelligence services came “indicative” information concerning the actions of the Communist Parties in supporting the Soviet Union. Concerning the connections of the leaders of the Trotskyist revolt in Barcelona in 1937 we were informed by Schuze-Boysen… Afterward, after his arrest, the Gestapo accused him of transmitting this information to us, and this fact figured in his death sentence by the Hitlerite court in his case.”

This passage is indeed in Sudoplatov’s book. But the footnote to the Haase volume is not. I assume it was added either by Lifshits, author of the Russian-language article, or by Trosten, author of the German version.

So I obtained the Haase volume. The text on pp. 105 ff. is the actual text of the German Reichskriegsgericht (Military Court of the Reich) against Harro Schulze-Boysen, charged with espionage for the Soviet Union (Haase, Norbert. Das Reichskriegsgericht und der Widerstand gegen die nationalsozialistische Herrschaft. Berlin: Druckerei der Justizvollzugsanstalt Tegel, 1993).The relevant paragraph, also on p. 105, reads thus:

Anfang 1938, während des Spanienkrieges, erfuhr der Angeklagte dienstlich, daß unter Mitwirkung des deutschen Geheimdienstes im Gebiet von Barcelona ein Aufstand gegen die dortige rote Regierung vorbereitet werde. Diese Nachricht wurde von ihm gemeinsam mit der von Pöllnitz der sowjetrussischen Botschaft in Paris zugeleitet.

English translation:

“At the beginning of 1938, during the Spanish Civil War, the accused learned in his official capacity that a rebellion against the local red government in the territory of Barcelona was being prepared with the co-operation of the German Secret Service. This information, together with that of Pöllnitz, was transmitted by him to the Soviet Russian embassy in Paris.”

“Pöllnitz” was Gisella von Pöllnitz, a recent recruit to the “Red Orchestra” (Rote Kapelle) anti-Nazi Soviet spy ring who worked for United Press and who “shoved the report through the mailbox of the Soviet embassy” (Brysac, Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra. Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 237).

* * * * *

By itself Sudoplatov’s statement only proves that Soviet intelligence sincerely believed that Trotskyists were involved with "persons with ties to German military intelligence" in preparing this revolt. By the time he wrote his memoirs, in the 1990s, Sudoplatov was very anti-Soviet, and showed much remorse for many of the things he had done in the Soviet secret service. The fact that he insisted that the Trotskyists were involved with the Nazis in the “May Days” revolt of 1937 in Barcelona surely means that he sincerely believed it was true.

The information from the German Military Court published by Haase provides independent confirmation of Sudoplatov’s statement and of Soviet contentions at the time. It fully confirms Communist suspicions that German intelligence was involved in planning the Barcelona revolt of May 1937. Communist hostility towards Trotskyists and Trotskyism becomes understandable in the light of this information.

There's good evidence that the real panic over clandestine Trotskyists did not take place, even in the USSR, until after the May Days in Barcelona, 1937. Stalin's speeches (two of them) to the February - March 1937 Central Committee Plenum, minimized the dangers of Trotskyists; declared them marginalized; and encouraged CC members not to discriminate against people who used to be Trotskyists but no longer were.2

By June or July this had all changed. At the enlarged session of the Military Soviet, held on June 1-4 to discuss the just-uncovered and very serious Tukhachevsky conspiracy, Stalin gave a speech in which he states that Tukhachevsky and the rest “tried to make out of the USSR another Spain.”3 The meant create a civil war, of course. But specifically it seems to have meant: Do what the Trotskyists and others had done in the May Days in Barcelona -- stab the USSR in the back in the course of a war with the fascists.

The Soviet NKVD had very credible evidence that Trotskyists were collaborating with the German military and Japanese. Soviet leaders certainly believed it. Pavel Sudoplatov believed it, in his memoirs, and he became very, very "anti-Stalin" and anti-Soviet in his old age.

The real panicked hunt for hidden oppositionists, Rights, Trotskyists, and others, began after that Plenum, in the atmosphere of the Tukhachevsky conspiracy. But the Tukhachevsky conspiracy was preceded by the Barcelona “May Days” revolt.

The German Military Court evidence cited above shows that the German Secret Service was involved in the planning of the “May Days” revolt. Later in May 1937 Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky wrote out by hand a lengthy statement in which he admitted to conspiring against the Soviet Union with the German General Staff.4 Tukhachevsky stated that the commanders discussed their planned revolt with Trotsky. These events provide the most likely explanation for the beginning of the fervent persecution by Communists of Trotskyists in Spain.5


[1] S Lifshits, “Preslovutyi Doklak Khrushcheva, ili CACATUM NON EST PICTUM”. In Moskva Sadovoe Kol’tso, http://m-s-k.newmail.ru (http://www.anonym.to/?http://m-s-k.newmail.ru) , downloaded July 5 2004. The same article is published as a pamphlet in German: Gersch Troston, Chruschtschows berüchtigte Rede, oder CACATUM NON EST PICTUM (hingeschissen ist nicht gemalt). «Marxistisch-leninistische Schriftenreihe für Geschichte, Politik, Ökonomie und Philosophie» (ISSN 1861-2954), Heft 45. Berlin: Ernst-Thaelmann-Verlag, n.d. I have verified all the Russian and English quotations in this article with the originals.

[2] J.V. Stalin, Mastering Bolshevism. NY: Workers Library Publishers, 1937, pp. 26-7; 43-4. Cited from http://ptb.lashout.net/marx2mao/Stalin/MB37.html (http://www.anonym.to/?http://ptb.lashout.net/marx2mao/Stalin/MB37.html)

[3] J.V. Stalin, “Speech by J.V. Stalin at the Ministry of Defense,” Secret Documents. Toronto, CA: Northstar Compass, n.d. [1996], p. 115: “These people tried to make out of the USSR another Spain…” Original in Lubianka. Stalin i Glavnoe Upravlenie Gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937-1938. Eds. V.N. Khaustov et al. Moscow: “Materik”, 2004, p. 206; Stalin, Sochineniia [Collected Works], vol. 14, at http://grachev62.narod.ru/stalin/t14/t14_48.htm (http://www.anonym.to/?http://grachev62.narod.ru/stalin/t14/t14_48.htm)

[4] Partial English translation in Steven J. Main, “The Arrest and ‘Testimony’ of Marshal of the Soviet Union M.N. Tukhachevsky (May – June 1937),” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 10, No. 1 (1997), 151-195. Trotsky and his followers are mentioned throughout Tukhachevsky’s statement.

[5] It’s important to emphasize that there is no evidence that any Trotskyists were killed by Soviet or other communists in Spain, with the exception of Andres Nin, POUM leader and former secretary of Trotsky. See Grover Furr, “Fraudulent Anti-Communist Scholarship From A "Respectable" Conservative Source: Prof. Paul Johnson,” at http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/pol...hnsonfraud.html (http://www.anonym.to/?http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/pol/pauljohnsonfraud.html)



Of course we know that a Trotsky-Zinoviev existed... in 1926. It was called Unified Opposition. What is disputed, however, is the existence of a Trotsky-Zinoviev block in 1935, at a time when Trotsky was in exile and Zinoviev, completely defeated and demoralised, posed no threat to Stalin.


Again, the search function would be helpful to me if you'd use it, but I'll save you the trouble:



After Trotsky’s exile in 1929, Trotsky maintained contact with Lev Sedov in the USSR until 1938 (when Sedov was shot). These communications are known as the “Exile Correspondence” sections in the Trotsky Papers at Harvard, opened in January 1980. Trotsky lied about having contact with former followers in the USSR in his Biulleten’ oppozitsii and to the Dewey Commission, which was setup to defend Trotsky of charges against him made in the show trials.

In 1932, he sent letters to former oppositionists Radek, Sokolnikov, Preobrazhenskii, and others. These letters were removed from Trotsky’s papers by someone, but they forgot to remove the certified-mail receipts signed by Trotsky’s secretaries. In October that same year, E. S. Gol’tsman met Sedov in Berlin and gave him some internal memorandum regarding the Soviet economy. He also brought Sedov a proposal from Left Oppositionists to form a united bloc consisting of Trotskyists, Zinovievists, members of the Lominadze group, and others. The proposal came from Ivan Smirnov.

Sedov wrote back to Trotsky, who wrote “The proposition of the bloc seems to me completely acceptable,” but “it is a question of a bloc, not a merger.” “How will the bloc manifest itself? For the moment, mainly through exchanging information. Our allies will keep us up to date on that which concerns the Soviet Union, and we will do the same thing on that which concerns the Soviet Union, and we will do the same thing on that which concerns the Comintern.” Trotsky also stipulated that the opposition should sent materials to be published in Biulleten', and that capitulationists should be excluded from the bloc. Smirnov proposed that Rightists should be allowed into the bloc, which Trotsky rejected: “The allies’ opinion that one must wait until the rights can easily join does not have my approval.”

The bloc was disrupted by the arrest of Zinoviev, Smirnov, and Kamenev, but Sedov didn’t think they had found anything on them regarding the bloc (they were arrested for other matters).

This block didn’t come out till 1936, during Ezhov’s participation with the NKVD. Stalin was suspicious of the late discovery of this bloc. Yagoda’s sympathy for the defeated oppositionists was documented by Serdiuk to the Twenty-Second Congress in 1961 (Pravda, Oct. 31, 1961). But perhaps Yagoda just discovered it in 1936.

Getty: Origin of the Great Purges, pages 119-128.



The POUM (not a Trotskyist party) would have links to Nazism (albeit militarily fighting against Franco's troops, which were supported by German Nazi). There was a Trotsky-Zinoviev block Ergo... Zinoviev had a meeting with Trotsky and Hess, to the end of fighting Stalin. Yeah, the leprechauns told me.


The point is there is evidence a party nominally affiliated with Trotsky through his former colleague did collaborate with the Nazis.



At the end of the war, when it was suggested that the Pope took a seat in peace talks, Stalin would have retorted, "how many armoured divisions does the Pope have?" Let me ask you: how many armoured divisions did Trotsky have, that would move Hitler, Hess, or representatives of the Mikado, to meet them?

Trotsky's importance in the real world in 1935 was not bigger than it is today: close to nihil. Only in Stalin's mind (not even in Trotsky's) did he pose any material danger to Koba.


I'm not sure I would totally agree or disagree. I certainly believe Trotsky's importance was greatly exaggerated, but that isn't the samething as him not being a potential threat. Trotsky had sent a letter to the Party threatening to agitate among the rank and file of the party against Stalin if they didn't let him back in with the right to form factions. Trotsky did still have many supporters, inside and outside the party, in Russia, and had openly advocated the violent overthrow of the government. And, after all, he was a conspirator in 1917 with all the rest of the Bolsheviks, so on a personal level, I'm sure many in the party did feel threatened by Trotsky's ability as a conspirator.



Good question. There are a lot of mysteries in the confessions, especially that of Bukharin. Evidently, he (perhaps unlike Zinoviev and Kamenev) knew he was going to die. It is quite possible that the many strange things about his confession were an attempt to encode an indiction of his tormentors.


There was no encoding his denial of many of the very serious charges against him. He flat out denied them. This makes zero sense if he was only confessing because of threats and/or torture. The only “mystery” is how you can account for facts which are in direct contradiction to the very assumptions you make about the trial.



The same would have been true, in a less systematic way, of other confessions. For instance, Holtzmann situated a supposed counterrevolutionary meeting in the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen... there was not Bristol Hotel in Copenhagen at that time (either Holtzmann invented anything to escape torture, or deliberately cited an impossibility to the end of telling future generations that his confession was a lie).


This was not a lie, but probably a misstatement on Holtzmann's part.



In the first trial, Holtzman, one of the accused, confessed to
having a long interview with Trotsky in the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen.
"But it so happens that the Hotel Bristol," says Trotsky gleefully, "was
razed to its foundations in 1917. In 1932 this hotel existed only as a fond
memory." The Trotskyists are gleeful: the OGPU, which made the prisoners
confess down to the minutest detail, was apparently so clumsy that when it
made Holtzman confess that he had seen Trotsky in the Hotel Bristol in
Copenhagen in 1932, it did not even trouble to ascertain whether there was a
Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen in 1932. A frame up is (according to Trotsky)
devised down to the minutest detail, but the authors are so clumsy that they
mention meeting places in hotels that do not exist. But what do the facts
show? Holtzman testified that when he arrived at the station he crossed
over to the Bristol Hotel. Now opposite the station there is no Bristol
Hotel. There is, however, the Grand Central Hotel, and in the same building
there is a Bristol Cafe. Further, at the date mentioned, it was possible to
obtain entrance to the Hotel through the cafe. It may be that Holtzman,
seeing the sign above the cafe, was confused as to the name of the hotel.
He was naturally not taking notes with a view to a future confession. It is
one of the curiosities of Trotskyist quibbling that while they were at great
pains to convince the world that no Bristol Hotel existed in Copenhagen,
they concealed the fact that just over from the station, as described by
Holtzman, there was the Bristol cafe through which entrance could be
obtained to the Grand Central Hotel.


Campbell, J. R. Soviet Policy and Its Critics. London: V. Gollancz, ltd.,
1939, p. 263-265



Of course there is proof of it. It was a regular practice in 1937-38 to arrest family members of the accused. Bukharin's wife, albeit having her life spared, was deported to Siberia... under what accusation, can you tell us? Being married to a traitor?


This was only done after Bukharin confessed, so it makes no sense anyway to suggest this was a threat. And she was arrested under suspicion, as Bukharin's other wives were politically active, and she herself was the daughter of another Bolshevik.



She was a smart woman, wasn't she? Why would her committ suicide in such a stupid way?


She lived a very long time after Stalin was already dead and it became fashionable to denounce him, and still never made the claim he told her about any threats, or that he was tortured, nor did she ever claim he looked tortured, despite the number of times she went to visit him.



This must have been an important concern of Bukharin?

Do you really think she was allowed to meet him immediately after torture?


I don't think he was tortured, as there is zero evidence of it. None.



It looks a lot less impossible than he being guilty of crimes he didn't know of...


Except he did know of them.

[kromando33]

Stalins comintern refused to supply their 'allies' in the spanish civil war unless they bowed to the will of moscow and took orders directly from them, this made thousands of fighting socialist men far less effective due to lack of provisions and ammunitions, and massively helped the nationalist cause who had fewer numbers than the republicans but were better supplied,

this supports my point that Stalin only ever acted in the interest of his own lust for power and never in the interests of the people,

Stalins counter revolutionary attitude shows through again in his actions towards the Chinese communists, and the fact his comintern was never used properly and became a tool of the bourgosie nations

the POUM weren't supplied as they were 'Trots' and so they were far less effective because of this, and yes it is a FACT some factions of the republican side did buy weapons from German companies but if they didnt do this they would have to submit to the nationalists coz the USSR wasn't willing to help,

i suggest they pull their heads out of Stalinist bullshit and see the facts as they are
What lies, Stalin and the Soviets simply wanted to properly coordinate the war efforts of the socialist side, while the anarchists on the other hand wanted to use the civil war as an excuse to push their ultra-leftist agenda, and disorganized the republican side by spreading sectarianism.

[spartan]

What lies, Stalin and the Soviets simply wanted to properly coordinate the war efforts of the socialist side, while the anarchists on the other hand wanted to use the civil war as an excuse to push their ultra-leftist agenda, and disorganized the republican side by spreading sectarianism.

What bullshit!

If it wasnt for the Anarchists, who were the first to arm and form militias to defend Spain from the Fascists, then Franco would have had no oppossition at all!

Whilst your beloved Popular Front army was training with Russian weaponry in the rear, it was the Anarchist and POUM militias (With outdated Spanish army weapons), as well as the International Brigades, who had to hold back the Fascists.

Next time when you read up on history, do it right.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

if ya want 'socialists' who collaborate with nazis check out the carving up of Poland, how is that for evidence,

if ya want 'socialists' who collaborate with nationalists how about the support for the Kuomintang even when they were purging Chinese communists, but wait i forgot how much Stalinists love to purge communists..


Oh poor lost child...

I am going to assume that others already informed you of the true nature of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but let me remind you that the areas which were taken in 1939 were not Polish, but rather Western Belarus and Halychyna(Western Ukraine). This roughly restored the Curzon line established in 1918 but violated by the Polish invasion and the Treaty of Riga. That is why the Soviet "invasion" was barely opposed. Had the Soviets not done this, the Germans would have happily taken those regions, past the river Bug(and important obstacle, and would have been deep into Ukraine. What do you think would have happened then?

[spartan]

I am going to assume that others already informed you of the true nature of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but let me remind you that the areas which were taken in 1939 were not Polish, but rather Western Belarus and Halychyna(Western Ukraine).

Well if you are going by the "This land was mine first" logic then let me tell you that the lands were originally taken from Poland in the 18th century by Russia.


This roughly restored the Curzon line established in 1918 but violated by the Polish invasion and the Treaty of Riga.

No one started the Polish-Soviet war.

Independence movements in the former Russian Empire were being suppressed by the Soviets.

So when ethnic Poles began forming self defence units, to defend themselves and their land from the Soviet invaders, the Polish government eventually decided to help these self defence units and various independence movements out, as the size of the Soviet forces moving west towards Poland were to big a threat to be ignored (Especially when you consider that independent Poland used to be part of the Russian Empire which the Soviets were, lets face it, trying to rebuild).


That is why the Soviet "invasion" was barely opposed.

No it was barely oppossed because the Polish army had been practically annihilated by the Germans.

So when what was left of the Polish army went to regroup in the east, they suddenly found the Russians on their rear (As planned between Stalin and Hitler, who had become allies and had decided to carve up all of eastern Europe between themselves).

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

What bullshit!

If it wasnt for the Anarchists, who were the first to arm and form militias to defend Spain from the Fascists, then Franco would have had no oppossition at all!

Whilst your beloved Popular Front army was training with Russian weaponry in the rear, it was the Anarchist and POUM militias (With outdated Spanish army weapons), as well as the International Brigades, who had to hold back the Fascists.

Next time when you read up on history, do it right.

Gee Spartan, where did those International Brigades COME from? Where did they get their training and weapons? Did you forget?

I also note from your signature the usual signs of Commie-Cowardice, what I call the tendancy of Western leftists to embrace things like Trotskyism, revisionism, or Anarchism out of fear of the Stalin bogeyman. It has nothing to do with real history or theory, but lack of zeal and the steadfastness to actually read up on history.

Western people, living in privileged nations, tend to forget what it was like living in a place like the former Russian empire. They look at their lives today and look at Western re-tellings of Soviet history through their experiences in the present. This is simply insane. Revolutionary Russia was not a very nice place to say the least. There were things that had to be done, and often times the choice was a bad road or the worse road. It's easy to look back and talk about 'what if', or 'they should have', but it's a bit more difficult on the ground in that time and place. "Stalinism" has nothing to do with theory- it's just an expedient, easy way out for various types of "socialists" who are too afraid to take the time to come up with a coherent explanation for the collapse of 20th century revisionist states.

The thing you people ignore, what you refuse to acknowledge and stand up and fight for in the face of the capitalist propagandists, is that the Soviet Union was a country of roughly 170-190 million people. In time of Stalin, illiteracy was wiped out, the country went from one of the most backward in Europe to a world economic powerhouse during a worldwide depression, womens' rights were brought to the most backward Central Asian regions, nations were put on the map for the first time, many peoples saw their languages in print for the first time in history, health care was provided, the life-span doubled in record time, and Fascism was repelled and defeated.

I'm sure you have heard all that before but what you are ignoring is that there were millions, tens of millions of people, who didn't find the Soviet Union even under Stalin to be some kind of dystopian nightmare. And many of them that have survived to this day still repeat that truth. How can that be explained? Brainwashing? Laughable; if that was the case why didn't the anti-Stalin claims of Khruschev on out have any effect on this entire generation? How did the fall of revisionism not change their views either? Even for all its faults, millions across the Former Soviet Union long for the days of the revisionist USSR, despite all the capitalist propaganda for almost 18 years, rather than continue to live through the humiliation that their nations have suffered since.

Many westerners NEVER even see or hear these peoples' words, or memories. If they wrote books they are often never translated and published in the west. No, the West, the Trotskyites, the anarchists, they rely on only the "dissidents" for their information, a group of people who, when considering the population of the USSR throughout the century, amounted to nothing but a handful of people, many of them utterly useless save for the propaganda value they had for some faction.


Mansur Abdulin was a Red Army soldier who described his life before and after the war. He lived in the Ural region. Life was hard from childhood through the war, and yet somehow he was happy, he led a fulfilling life, he was proud when he joined the party, he saw debates and discussions about opinions, and so on. But most people will never read his words unless they take an interest in military history and are willing to do some digging- rather they have been fed on George "I never set foot in the Soviet Union but I'm and Expert on Socialism" Orwell since high school.

So tell me Trots, anarchists, assorted liberals: Do the tens of millions who led fulfilling, interesting lives under Stalin and in the revisionist USSR get a voice? Do you ever consider that maybe they know something you, George Orwell, Trotsky, and Robert Conquest don't? None of them would ever claim it was a paradise, or deny that life was extremely difficult, but they accepted these things because they know the history of their nation and knew the conditions of the times. And truth be told, it is not Stalin they want back- it is the attitudes, the sense of community, the ideals of that era that Stalin and the Bolsheviks fostered. They were once the majority in these nations, and yet so called "Marxists" from privileged nations don't even take the time to acknowledge these people while they still live.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Well if you are going by the "This land was mine first" logic then let me tell you that the lands were originally taken from Poland in the 18th century by Russia.

That isn't my argument. My argument is that the land was not Polish, Poles were a minority there and they were repressing the locals. At the same time they had been fostering nationalist movements in Ukraine and Belarus hoping to retake the land they wanted there.



No one started the Polish-Soviet war.

Uh actually this country called Poland started it. In case nobody told you, they invaded and initially got all the way into Kiev.



Independence movements in the former Russian Empire were being suppressed by the Soviets.

And the intervention armies, and the White Guards, what is your point? An independence movement is not inherently a good thing. Look at the Fascist state of Slovakia or the NDH for example.



So when ethnic Poles began forming self defence units, to defend themselves and their land from the Soviet invaders, the Polish government eventually decided to help these self defence units and various independence movements out, as the size of the Soviet forces moving west towards Poland were to big a threat to be ignored (Especially when you consider that independent Poland used to be part of the Russian Empire which the Soviets were, lets face it, trying to rebuild).

Clearly you are very confused, because the Poles invaded taking a large part of Belarus and managing to get all the way to Kiev.



No it was barely oppossed because the Polish army had been practically annihilated by the Germans.

Actually it had more to do with the local population preferring the USSR given their ethnicity.



So when what was left of the Polish army went to regroup in the east, they suddenly found the Russians on their rear (As planned between Stalin and Hitler, who had become allies and had decided to carve up all of eastern Europe between themselves).

Hate to attack your junior level social studies textbook, but Hitler and Stalin were not "allies". A non-aggression pact is not an alliance. If that makes them allies, then Poland was an ally of Nazi Germany and the USSR from the mid-30s on. Also Japan and the USSR would have to be allies as well.

[gilhyle]

Why deny the existence of torture when its use was actually authorised - go look it up.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Why deny the existence of torture when its use was actually authorised - go look it up.

Who is denying the use of torture, in which case? Certainly it happened in the USSR, as it did in many nations throughout the world at that time. It is a regrettable practice that was inherited from the Tsarist times. Do you think any of us advocate it in the future?

[spartan]

Western people, living in privileged nations, tend to forget what it was like living in a place like the former Russian empire.

And?

Why do people use the "Oh but you live in a privileged nation and wont understand" arguement all the time?


In time of Stalin, illiteracy was wiped out, the country went from one of the most backward in Europe to a world economic powerhouse during a worldwide depression, womens' rights were brought to the most backward Central Asian regions, nations were put on the map for the first time, many peoples saw their languages in print for the first time in history, health care was provided, the life-span doubled in record time, and Fascism was repelled and defeated.

That still doesnt make it Socialist.

You also forgot to mention that homosexuality was made illegal, when Stalin came into power, and that entire peoples (The Chechens being a perfect example) were forced from their homes to Siberia (It was only when Khrushchev became leader that they were finally allowed to return to their homeland).


I'm sure you have heard all that before but what you are ignoring is that there were millions, tens of millions of people, who didn't find the Soviet Union even under Stalin to be some kind of dystopian nightmare.

I am sure millions of Germans found life under Hitler great as well.

It still doesnt make it right though.


Even for all its faults, millions across the Former Soviet Union long for the days of the revisionist USSR, despite all the capitalist propaganda for almost 18 years, rather than continue to live through the humiliation that their nations have suffered since.

Well you can blame the Bureaucracy for all that humiliation as they were the ones who decided to change over to international Capitalism to make more money for themselves at your expense (Loss of workers pensions).


Many westerners NEVER even see or hear these peoples' words, or memories. If they wrote books they are often never translated and published in the west. No, the West, the Trotskyites, the anarchists, they rely on only the "dissidents" for their information, a group of people who, when considering the population of the USSR throughout the century, amounted to nothing but a handful of people, many of them utterly useless save for the propaganda value they had for some faction.

The exact same thing could be said for Nazi Germany.

Dissidents from Nazi Germany werent offering themselves in record numbers either, but that doesnt mean that the whole system that the people lived under (No matter how happy or sad they were) was right.

[kromando33]

Don't bother Slavyanski, people like spartan have been all but brainwashed into by their anti-communist heroes like Trotsky, Orwell and the like.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

And?

Why do people use the "Oh but you live in a privileged nation and wont understand" arguement all the time?

I see, so you can't understand the concept of looking at things in their historical material conditions, but you're some kind of "Marxist". Sure.



That still doesnt make it Socialist.

The property relations make it socialist, and there was clearly a Dictatorship of the Proletariat during this time, though it was by no means the best possible incarnation, it was the best they could achieve within those conditions and at that time.



You also forgot to mention that homosexuality was made illegal, when Stalin came into power,

I didn't know homosexuality=socialism, sorry. And do you think it was made illegal because Stalin simply snapped his fingers and made it so?



and that entire peoples (The Chechens being a perfect example) were forced from their homes to Siberia (It was only when Khrushchev became leader that they were finally allowed to return to their homeland).

These measures were taken in the heat of the most brutal conflict the modern world has ever seen. They were expedient for sure, but it is important to remember what was rightfully done to collaborators who were Russian, Ukrainian, etc. they were shot almost to a man. Among the Chechens and groups like the Crimean Tatars, there was the most open collaboration with the Germans, with virtually no resistance for all intents and purposes. Moving them out of their areas prevented them from collaborating, and thus getting the bullet that they would have deserved in that case. Never forget how many people died in that war; collaboration helped advance the Nazi war machine.

As for the Chechens, since have returned they have been nothing but trouble for all of their neighbors, including the Ignush. But they have that martyrdom story to cover their asses.



I am sure millions of Germans found life under Hitler great as well.

It still doesnt make it right though.

I'm invoking Godwin's law here. For one thing, at least the bourgeois press will admit to the popularity of the Third Reich, whereas it pretends the huge Soviet populace was simply held in place by fear.

Granted, to simply state it was right because it was popular would be fallacious, however democracy is based on majority rule. The people chose to live and be productive under this system, and how could you compare them to what the Fascists did?



Well you can blame the Bureaucracy for all that humiliation as they were the ones who decided to change over to international Capitalism to make more money for themselves at your expense (Loss of workers pensions).[/QUJOTE]

Perhaps in your Trot or anarchist or whatever world, you can throw that word bureaucracy around without being questioned, but here you had better explain it. There has been plenty of proof of the measures the Stalin government took to fight bureaucracy, and in fact we didn't even need to wait for the secret archives to be open because the Smolensk archives that were captured first by the Germans and then by the Americans reveal a great deal about this. Soviet workers wrote hundreds of thousands of letters every year to party officials, CC members, Stalin himself, and newspapers to complain about bureaucrats, bad managers, and worthless party members. Many of these people were replaced.



The exact same thing could be said for Nazi Germany.
Dissidents from Nazi Germany werent offering themselves in record numbers either, but that doesnt mean that the whole system that the people lived under (No matter how happy or sad they were) was right.

Godwin's Law again.

Actually the mainstream press listened and still listens to the stories of many Germans as to why they supported the regime, and people try to understand it. The millions in the Soviet Union are simply written off as "brainwashed." And again, you cannot compare what the people of the Soviet Union did with that of the Nazis. The Nazi party was able to convince the people to support a regime that was committing genocide against other nations, waging aggressive wars of conquest, and trying to exterminate people. This was never the intention or action of the Bolsheviks and you know it. Many of the people who lived through that time and still see it in a positive light lost family members to the purges or famine. Yet they don't blame Stalin or Communism, because they understand the conditions of their country in that time.

Again, can you consider that perhaps they know something that you don't?


And I just want to add the line in your signature about Stalin speaks volumes about how you view Marxism.

[spartan]

I didn't know homosexuality=socialism, sorry. And do you think it was made illegal because Stalin simply snapped his fingers and made it so?

Socialism is suppossed to be a progressive force.

Sure it made women and non-whites equal, but why not homosexuals as well?

What did they ever do that didnt warrant them being accepted as a part of society?


Among the Chechens and groups like the Crimean Tatars, there was the most open collaboration with the Germans, with virtually no resistance for all intents and purposes.

What so you punish the entire people because some of them happened to prefer the Germans to the Russians?

Besides if these peoples were so willing to collaborate with the Germans then what does that say about the USSR?


Moving them out of their areas prevented them from collaborating, and thus getting the bullet that they would have deserved in that case.

Yes but every sinlge Chechen or Tatar didnt collaborate with the Germans!

Hell i bet that not even a majority of them collaborated!

But Stalins logic is "One man from a village is against me so i will kill not only him but the whole village as well".

Hardly the sign of a progressive Socialist leader there.


As for the Chechens, since have returned they have been nothing but trouble for all of their neighbors, including the Ignush. But they have that martyrdom story to cover their asses.

That is an unfair generalisation is it not?

Now i dont agree with the politics or tactics of the Chechen seperatists, but they have as much right as anyone else not to be apart of Russia if that is what they wish.


And I just want to add the line in your signature about Stalin speaks volumes about how you view Marxism.

No offence, but if anyone seriously believes that Stalins Russia had anything to do with Marxism, then they obviously dont know Marxism.

[kromando33]

Spartan, what is this 'bureaucracy' myth you speak of, again I have said this before and I'll say it again, please provide proof that the administrative wing of the Soviet Union had the control you suggest.

[spartan]

Spartan, what is this 'bureaucracy' myth you speak of, again I have said this before and I'll say it again, please provide proof that the administrative wing of the Soviet Union had the control you suggest.

Who else controlled all the productive forces in the USSR then?

Because it sure as hell wasnt the workers!

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Don't bother Slavyanski, people like spartan have been all but brainwashed into by their anti-communist heroes like Trotsky, Orwell and the like.

He would do well to read a damned basic history book rather than Orwell's little fables.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Socialism is suppossed to be a progressive force.

Sure it made women and non-whites equal, but why not homosexuals as well?

What did they ever do that didnt warrant them being accepted as a part of society?

First of all I don't know exactly what is inherently progressive about homosexuality; it has certainly been around for thousands of years and at times was quite acceptable in otherwise very oppressive societies. Given the history of Russia and the role of the church back then, it is very unlikely that there would have been many homosexuals, or people who believed themselves to be so.



What so you punish the entire people because some of them happened to prefer the Germans to the Russians?

You make it sound like paper or plastic. The Germans had trained nationalist groups in order to facilitate their advance into the Soviet Union. Wherever the Germans set foot, there the war of extermination, rape, and pillage went on.

You speak as if you have never heard of the Einsatzgruppen or the Commissar Order.



Besides if these peoples were so willing to collaborate with the Germans then what does that say about the USSR?

What does it say about France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Serbia, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain, etc? Hmm...maybe all those countries were Orwellian hell-holes too!



Yes but every sinlge Chechen or Tatar didnt collaborate with the Germans!

Of course not, which is why they removed them so as to prevent the collaboration from continuing.



Hell i bet that not even a majority of them collaborated!

You're lucky that's not a real bet.



But Stalins logic is "One man from a village is against me so i will kill not only him but the whole village as well".

What makes you bet that this decision was simply the whim of Stalin, or that his "logic" had anything to do with it?



Hardly the sign of a progressive Socialist leader there.

Are we talking about the real Stalin or the one Orwell made up?



That is an unfair generalisation is it not?

Life tends to be unfair, particularly in the middle of the most brutal conflict of the 20th century, a war of extermination. You know, many of the people that the Chechens and Crimean Tatars fingered for association with the partisans weren't really affiliated either, nor were they Communists- yet they were gunned down none the less as opposed to deported with their families and given new homes and resources to build a new life.



Now i dont agree with the politics or tactics of the Chechen seperatists, but they have as much right as anyone else not to be apart of Russia if that is what they wish.

If only that were the case. No they want an independent country, but they want to make money off of Russia as well. That's why a major source of funding for the rebels comes from rich Chechen businessmen living in Russia.



No offence, but if anyone seriously believes that Stalins Russia had anything to do with Marxism, then they obviously dont know Marxism.


Given the amount of historical errors you have managed to cite thus far, you might want to re-think your positions on this. Again, you are displaying cowardice, not adherence to any kind of scientific theory. The fact that a quote you seem to support likens Marx to Jesus is very telling. This sets Marx as some kind of extraordinary individual, whose works comprise some kind of classics or canon. Of course when socialism came off the paper and into the brutal real world, naturally the bourgeosie was hell-bent on attacking its every move.

Rather than do some damn research and stand up for your alleged beliefs, you just accept them and pretend that real-world socialism wasn't really socialism at all-PRESTO!!! DO-OVER!!

It doesn't work that way in the real world. When the average worker hears you tell them that all those "socialist" revolutions throughout an entire century weren't really Marxist nor socialist- they're going to tell you what any overworked person would- take "your" Marxism and shove it. Who has time for such a complicated theory that it can inspire dozens of revolutions and states that last for decades- allegedly without any of them having anything to do with the cause for which they claimed to be fighting. That's why Trotskyites are usually: 1. Students 2. Westerners. In academic la-la land, idealistic ultra-left ideals can be discussed endlessly. The majority of the working class has neither the time nor the patience to listen to such nonsense.

Also, if the Soviet Union wasn't socialist, why is it that during the purges Trotsky wrote of the alleged absurdity, claiming that SOCIALISM was so firmly entrenched that it couldn't be overthrown without a massive bloody civil war(he was wrong about that wasn't he?) So after 1917 he's claiming it's impossible to even build socialism(the people of the former Russian empire should have just sat tight in poverty until the heroic westerners could rescue them apparently), and yet in the late 30s he's claiming that only a bloody revolution could overthrow socialism in the Soviet Union.

Neat.

[kromando33]

He would do well to read a damned basic history book rather than Orwell's little fables.
Well at first Marxism isn't for everybody, to be a Marxist you must analyze everything based on reality and material conditions, you can't be held random to liberal notions of 'rights' or whatever, as spartan and many other people are. Marxism is scientific and practical. So on that note I can understand why people like spartan would reject that, it's just too hard for them to understand it and inevitably they will cling back to their liberal notions, they would rather believe conspiracy theories and popular myths than objective fact. Some of these fairy tales are the 'bureaucratic elite', the 'Stalinist conspiracy theory'.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Who else controlled all the productive forces in the USSR then?

Because it sure as hell wasnt the workers!


The productive forces were in the hands of the state, controlled by the Bolshevik party, which was the vanguard of the working class, ruling in the interests of the ruling class as a dictatorship of the proletariat. When we look at what benefits were extended to the workers, and how enterprises and factories were designed with the workers in mind, providing them with schools, nursuries, dining facilities, homes, etc. these interests were fulfilled to a great extent. Furthermore, workers did have a say in production at the local level. Workers had a lot more control and input in socialist Albania, which didn't suffer from the problem of size, among other things.

Granted, in this form certain negative features were retained, and the system was basically just a big set of checks on the power of managers; akin to a chain on a dog, but again this was due to the major problem in the Soviet Union at the time- backwardness.

At the rate of industrialization, the factories couldn't simply be turned over to complete worker control. This is not some kind of elitist argument- they literally couldn't handle it because many were still learning how to read. Thankfully in the future we in the FSU can build off of the public education system that the USSR brought to everyone here.

The fact is that the local soviet system that was initially implemented simply could not handle the country's state once industrialization began, not in a country like Russia. Russia still has problems with lack of communication between regions, which is why corruption is so rampant. Decentralization in the Khruschev era also contributed greatly to that kind of corruption as well.

[Holden Caulfield]

Who is denying the use of torture, in which case? Certainly it happened in the USSR, as it did in many nations throughout the world at that time. It is a regrettable practice that was inherited from the Tsarist times. Do you think any of us advocate it in the future?

that is a poor argument, they were revolutionaries they are ment to change the ways of the past not embrace it in open arms,

[kromando33]

The Social-Revolutionaries who were purged deserved it, they were not interested in revolution, only in conforming to the bourgeois state of Kerensky.

[Holden Caulfield]

and all the other people and former comrades branded 'traitors' and killed off? the old bolsheviks? the men who died in the Red Army purges?

all of these men, these traitors, that held down positions for years, were promoted time and again, gave their service, who fought off Kornilov, who over threw Kerensky, are these "Social-Revolutionaries"

Stalin soon abandoned permenant revolution and started to court bourgeois states, surely this makes him counter revolutionary, or a Social-Revolutionary?

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

that is a poor argument, they were revolutionaries they are ment to change the ways of the past not embrace it in open arms,

If you too believe that the Bolsheviks didn't radically change Russian society, mostly for the better, you too need to do some reading.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

and all the other people and former comrades branded 'traitors' and killed off? the old bolsheviks? the men who died in the Red Army purges?

all of these men, these traitors, that held down positions for years, were promoted time and again, gave their service, who fought off Kornilov, who over threw Kerensky, are these "Social-Revolutionaries"

I don't see how any of this gives those individuals a free pass. This shows the kind of idealism of Trotskyism, where people who become some kind of saints for past actions. Stalin was an "Old Bolshevik" as well, but somehow that is ignored.



Stalin soon abandoned permenant revolution and started to court bourgeois states, surely this makes him counter revolutionary, or a Social-Revolutionary?

There was no permanent revolution, and there cannot be. Revolutionary situations emerge in countries at different times and under different conditions.

[Luís Henrique]

Who is denying the use of torture, in which case?

Mr. Die, kromando33 and Intelligitimate certainly do deny that the confessions in the Moscow trials were attained by torture.


Certainly it happened in the USSR, as it did in many nations throughout the world at that time. It is a regrettable practice that was inherited from the Tsarist times.

The problem is, it was inherited from the Tsarist times (and previous times, because the Tzars certainly did not invent it), but it did not fade out under Stalin. On the contrary, it became even more widespread.


Do you think any of us advocate it in the future?

Yes, I do.

First, the conception of torture that some people hold here seems dangerously close to the CIA's concept of it (ie, if it does not leave evident bruises, it is not torture). So I am afraid some here would cynically advocate sleep deprivation, blackmail, and threats against family and friends of defendants as legitimate methods of investigation.

Second, the confessions in the Moscow trials were attained under torture. The denial of that historic fact is troublesome, because it shows an intellectual solidarity with torturers. It seems some people believe that yes, torture is admissible, if it is for a greater good, even if they know that it is morally wrong, and so they have to deny it. And if you believe that torture is admissible, yes, we should fear its use against those who disagree with you.

There was no other evidence of the guilt of the victims of the Moscow trials (at least concerning the crimes they were accused of), except their confessions. Those confessions do not make sence, are contradictory, incompatible with known facts, and clearly fictional on all levels. There is evidence of the use of torture against them, including direct orders issued by Stalin himself (crying that Khruschev was a revisionist won't change the facts that he essentially told the truth, with plenty of documental evidence, in 1956). Those who deny this cannot be trusted, and cannot be trusted particularly in the issue of claiming that they will not propose its use again.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Well at first Marxism isn't for everybody,

:eek:

Kind of socialists we have here...


to be a Marxist you must analyze everything based on reality and material conditions,

Surely. Which means you cannot believe the crazed idea that a socialist country can be brought back into capitalism without a revolution of some kind, eh?


they would rather believe conspiracy theories and popular myths than objective fact. Some of these fairy tales are the 'bureaucratic elite', the 'Stalinist conspiracy theory'.

Stalin's rule was never the expression of his psychology, as you seem to suggest. It was the expression of class struggle in the Soviet Union. The problem is, in which side of such class struggle Stalin was. So, there is nothing "conspirational" about criticism of Stalin's dictatorship.

Luís Henrique

[Ismail]

In some cases they had to get some things out of people. I'm sure some torture was used for some of the people they put up on trial.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Mr. Die, kromando33 and Intelligitimate certainly do deny that the confessions in the Moscow trials were attained by torture.

This is speculation.




The problem is, it was inherited from the Tsarist times (and previous times, because the Tzars certainly did not invent it), but it did not fade out under Stalin. On the contrary, it became even more widespread.

Stalin was not the omnipotent octopus you people try to paint him as.





First, the conception of torture that some people hold here seems dangerously close to the CIA's concept of it (ie, if it does not leave evident bruises, it is not torture). So I am afraid some here would cynically advocate sleep deprivation, blackmail, and threats against family and friends of defendants as legitimate methods of investigation.

I haven't seen anyone support this yet.



Second, the confessions in the Moscow trials were attained under torture. The denial of that historic fact is troublesome, because it shows an intellectual solidarity with torturers. It seems some people believe that yes, torture is admissible, if it is for a greater good, even if they know that it is morally wrong, and so they have to deny it. And if you believe that torture is admissible, yes, we should fear its use against those who disagree with you.

Have you ever taken the time to look at those confessions, or how they were obtained?

[/quote]

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/remarks_on_the_moscow_trials.html

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/

This also assumes that Stalin was in control of this whole enterprise, which archival researchers like J. Arch Getty now characterize as a panic from above and below. The Soviet Union didn't revolve around Stalin, they myth must die.

[Luís Henrique]

No one. You might want to try the search function, but I'll save you the time. Credit goes to professor Furr for this:

Again, the search function would be helpful to me if you'd use it, but I'll save you the trouble:

This isn't evidence of anything, it is just opinions of Stalinists.


The point is there is evidence a party nominally affiliated with Trotsky through his former colleague did collaborate with the Nazis.No. Your point is that the POUM was affiliated with Trotsky (it wasn't; Trotsky considered them "centrists", and they believed the trotskyists were doing more harm than good at the time), and you allege that the POUM collaborate with the Nazis. Evidently, the only "evidence" of this comes from Soviet sources - very particularly from Schulze-Boysen, a man who was never a Communist.


I'm not sure I would totally agree or disagree. I certainly believe Trotsky's importance was greatly exaggerated, but that isn't the samething as him not being a potential threat. Trotsky had sent a letter to the Party threatening to agitate among the rank and file of the party against Stalin if they didn't let him back in with the right to form factions. Trotsky did still have many supporters, inside and outside the party, in Russia, and had openly advocated the violent overthrow of the government.That's ridiculous. There was no serious Trotskyist organisation inside the Soviet Union after the 17th Congress.


And, after all, he was a conspirator in 1917 with all the rest of the Bolsheviks, so on a personal level, I'm sure many in the party did feel threatened by Trotsky's ability as a conspirator.So, he was a conspirator with the Bolsheviks in 1917? Wasn't he trying to kill Lenin at that time? And what kind of "Marxists" are these that fear a man because he is a good conspirator? Certainly the 1917 Revolution didn't come out of the Bolsheviks conspirational abilities, did it? Wasn't it rather the result of Russia being the weakest link in the imperialist chain, as Lenin wrote?


There was no encoding his denial of many of the very serious charges against him. He flat out denied them. This makes zero sense if he was only confessing because of threats and/or torture. The only “mystery” is how you can account for facts which are in direct contradiction to the very assumptions you make about the trial.Come on. Khrushchev produced the document showing how people were tried, in the 1956 Congress. Evidently, he only referred to the Stalinist who were "wrongly" accused at that time, not to the "Trotskyists, Zinovievists and rightists", whom he maintained were in fact enemies of the people... but it doesn't change anything; the methods used to extract confessions from Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev were the same used to extract confessions from Postyshev or Eikhe (and from Yagoda or Yezhov, for what it matters).


This was only done after Bukharin confessed, so it makes no sense anyway to suggest this was a threat. And she was arrested under suspicion, as Bukharin's other wives were politically active, and she herself was the daughter of another Bolshevik.Yes, I think you very well summed it all up: she was suspicious, because she was the daughter of a Bolshevik.


She lived a very long time after Stalin was already dead and it became fashionable to denounce him, and still never made the claim he told her about any threats, or that he was tortured, nor did she ever claim he looked tortured, despite the number of times she went to visit him. She spent 20 years in labour camps, as a punishment for the crime of being the daughter of a Bolshevik and the wife of other. Under which regime is someone kept 20 years in prison for "suspicion"? And more, she was only released because Stalin died; had he lived more, she would have spent more time in internal exile.

This is the wonderful "workers democracy" you are defending.

She wrote a book about her husband's ordeal, This I Cannot Forget. But you Stalinists are like that. Someone does not write a book, you claim that they did not complain about their relatives being tortured, proving that they weren't. Someone writes a book - you claim that they didn't.

That's the reason no sane person believes you.

Luís Henrique

[Intelligitimate]

Second, the confessions in the Moscow trials were attained under torture. The denial of that historic fact is troublesome, because it shows an intellectual solidarity with torturers.


Except this isn't a fact at all. You can't even give a single shred of evidence it is true. You just assume it is true, because to actually look at the evidence and evaluate it objectively would force to you abandon the anti-communist cartoon version of Soviet history.



There was no other evidence of the guilt of the victims of the Moscow trials (at least concerning the crimes they were accused of), except their confessions.


This is false, as I have already demonstrated.



Those confessions do not make sence, are contradictory, incompatible with known facts, and clearly fictional on all levels.


Except you can't demonstrate this at all.



There is evidence of the use of torture against them, including direct orders issued by Stalin himself (crying that Khruschev was a revisionist won't change the facts that he essentially told the truth, with plenty of documental evidence, in 1956).


Except this is a lie. There are no orders or documents anywhere stating that the defendants in the Moscow Trials were to be subjected to torture.


In fact, one of Bukharin's accusers in the face-to-face confrontations, Astrov, lived to be nearly 100, and made many statements that he was never tortured or threatened, and was actually treated with respect by his interrogators. These statements were made after the collapse of the USSR. Nor did he retract anything significant about his testimony against Bukharin.


And we know Khrushchev lied about a great many things in his secret speech. Practically every word out of his mouth can be documented to be a lie.

[Holden Caulfield]

There was no permanent revolution, and there cannot be. Revolutionary situations emerge in countries at different times and under different conditions.

yeah sure..

it emerged in England (1926) but there was no support to be had, it emerged in Germany (1919-23) but the Bolsheviks weren't in control enough to give support, it emerged in China in 1927 but the soviets supported the Bourgeoisie nationalists who happened to slaughter many communists, it emerged in 1936 in Spain but the Soviets wouldn't commit as they were tryin to seem non socialist so they could make a few more alliances in thier giant imperialist game of risk,

and those are just the ones directly around the soviet revolution, yes it does emerge at different times at different countires but this doesn't mean there can be no permenant revolution, you love Stalinism so much you think tourtue is fair play, and disregard the fact that communism is a international movement

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

yeah sure..

it emerged in England (1926) but there was no support to be had, it emerged in Germany (1919-23) but the Bolsheviks weren't in control enough to give support, it emerged in China in 1927 but the soviets supported the Bourgeoisie nationalists who happened to slaughter many communists, it emerged in 1936 in Spain but the Soviets wouldn't commit as they were tryin to seem non socialist so they could make a few more alliances in thier giant imperialist game of risk,

Of course! Just like the anarchists- we ALMOST made it here, we ALMOST made it there, we ALMOST! ALMOST!! But the evil Stalin ruined everything. While their are legitimate questions buried in each of those situations, they are horribly reductionist. For example Spain, many Bolsheviks in the government disagreed with the Popular Front idea of Dimitrov, which is why they sent arms in the first place.

Why was there no support in England- you say there was a revolution with no support? Are you speaking of support from the people or the Soviet Union? Either way it would be flawed, if you are relying on the former it is self-explanatory, and if on the latter the Soviet Union was in no position to support such revolutions so far away.



and those are just the ones directly around the soviet revolution, yes it does emerge at different times at different countires but this doesn't mean there can be no permenant revolution, you love Stalinism so much you think tourtue is fair play, and disregard the fact that communism is a international movement


I don't see anyone here supporting torture as a principle, and nobody disregards that Communism is an international movement. The problem is that you simply can't have an ongoing permanent revolution. This "all or nothing" stance of Trotskyites is why you will never achieve any notable revolution or success.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

I notice that most of the arguments against so-called "Stalinists" here tend to be base on strawman arguments such as:

1. We "deny" bad things happened under Stalin. Utterly ridiculous. By contrast we have people in here denying the existence of real world socialism!

2. We think the USSR under Stalin was the greatest expression of democracy and socialism. Absolutely not. If we believed Stalin's USSR to be the be-all end-all of democracy or socialism, we certainly wouldn't be Hoxhaists would we? The difference is that some people here don't like to think critically, don't like to keep up with the historical community's research, and don't like to consider the historical material context in which these events happened. They are more content to accept hook,line, and sinker, the historical narrative provided by the very people they claim to be opposed to- the ruling class. I am not suggesting that all capitalist sources on Soviet history are inherently false, but they have to be subjected to critical review, especially in light of what was discovered when evidence from the Soviet archives was compared with Cold War myth.

It is also important to remember that a great deal of the opposing side's claims about Soviet history come not from actual evidence, but a handful of 'dissidents' and Khruschev's propaganda. That is to say that while they allege that Communists of any stripe cannot be trusted, many dissidents(a great many of them claiming to be real socialists of different stripes) as well as revisionists apparently CAN be trusted so long as their claims suit the bourgeoisie narrative.

[Holden Caulfield]

well as the for the England bit it was too early for the USSR to help so im not blaming them for that one, and to a degree the same thing with Germany,

and its not we could have won here, and we could have won there, it is the fact we were winning here and there but the nationalists called on their nationalist allies for help and they did, and then the communists called on their communist allies for help and they basically couldn't be arsed coz it interfeared with their arse licking of other nations

the lack of support was the reasons for the left failing in these conflicts, all they needed was supplies and they could have won, this is demonstrated by the fact that in all the places mentioned the nationalists had smaller forces, but they won coz they were better equiped,

and the Stalinists upheld the Popular Front movements to show the rest of the world that they weren't trying to help the proles everywhere and that it was safe to make treaties with them,

at Yalta Stalin basically said we wont interfere in France where the popular resistance movement was made up of communists, if you let us have Poland,

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

well as the for the England bit it was too early for the USSR to help so im not blaming them for that one, and to a degree the same thing with Germany,

and its not we could have won here, and we could have won there, it is the fact we were winning here and there but the nationalists called on their nationalist allies for help and they did, and then the communists called on their communist allies for help and they basically couldn't be arsed coz it interfeared with their arse licking of other nations

the lack of support was the reasons for the left failing in these conflicts, all they needed was supplies and they could have won, this is demonstrated by the fact that in all the places mentioned the nationalists had smaller forces, but they won coz they were better equiped,

I HIGHLY recommend you take into consideration the material conditions of the Soviet Union during that time, before acting as if that was even feasible. You are basically demonstrating right here the reason why permanent revolution is unworkable. If it was workable, why would the proletariat in the industrial nations need to rely on the support of the backward nation that allegedly needs the revolution in the industrial countries to even begin building socialism? Feeling dizzy?

Also it is often claimed, somewhat justly, that Stalin and the Bolsheviks' view towards socialism in one country meant building up that country so that it could serve as a base for the revolution, supporting struggles abroad(which it eventually did by the middle of WWII and after, even as a revisionist power). You seem to be supporting this unknowingly, when talking about the need for support from the Soviet state. The Soviet state wasn't capable of supporting such movements in that era(and don't forget the British blockade as well). It had to industrialize and construct socialism. But if they had followed Trotsky's theories, this would not have happened and they never would have been able to survive at home much less support revolution abroad.

Now do you see the hilarious, yet tragic internal contradictions of Trotskyism?



and the Stalinists upheld the Popular Front movements to show the rest of the world that they weren't trying to help the proles everywhere and that it was safe to make treaties with them,

But they did support the Popular Front, supplying anywhere from 3,000-8,000 volunteers, usually specialists like pilots or tank drivers, they organized the international brigades, and sent tons of weapons as well.



at Yalta Stalin basically said we wont interfere in France where the popular resistance movement was made up of communists, if you let us have Poland,


The Soviets knew that they could not really contest the Anglo-American forces there. Blame has to go to the French Communists who foolishly laid down their weapons and trusted the ruling class.

[Intelligitimate]

This isn't evidence of anything, it is just opinions of Stalinists. Like all the other anti-communists on this forum confronted with this information, you simply refuse to even read. It usually takes 3-4 posts before they can actually be bothered to simply read something that disagrees with their anti-communist beliefs. Allow me to summarize it for you, since you are too closed minded to actually question your anti-communism:


Sudoplatov, now an anti-communist, wrote his memoirs. He was the head of Soviet intelligence, imprisoned under Khrushchev for refusing to denounce Beria. He says that the actions of the Trotskyists were not merely propaganda, and goes on to demonstrate the particular case of POUM-Nazi collaboration. The non-communist anti-Nazi group of the Red Orchestra, the so-called Berlin group around Harnack and Boysen (which was not affiliated with the USSR), sent the Soviets intelligence regarding Nazi participation with the POUM in the May Days revolt. When Boysen was caught, this was also specifically mentioned in his trial. So we have independent and anti-communist confirmation from Sudoplatov, former head of Soviet intelligence, and Nazi trial transcripts, that the non-USSR affiliated Berlin Group sent the Soviets information about POUM-Nazi collaboration.



No. Your point is that the POUM was affiliated with Trotsky (it wasn't; Trotsky considered them "centrists", and they believed the trotskyists were doing more harm than good at the time), and you allege that the POUM collaborate with the Nazis. Evidently, the only "evidence" of this comes from Soviet sources - very particularly from Schulze-Boysen, a man who was never a Communist. That Trotsky denounced some aspects of the POUM is irrelevant. It was under the control of his former colleague, and took the Trotskyist line on nearly everything, especially the rabidly anti-USSR stance of Trotsky.


You are either contradicting yourself mid-sentence or just mistaken. The Boysen-Harnack group was never under Soviet control.



That's ridiculous. There was no serious Trotskyist organisation inside the Soviet Union after the 17th Congress. Not publicly, no. Trotsky still had many followers inside the Soviet union, people that were still in the Party.



So, he was a conspirator with the Bolsheviks in 1917? Wasn't he trying to kill Lenin at that time? And what kind of "Marxists" are these that fear a man because he is a good conspirator? Certainly the 1917 Revolution didn't come out of the Bolsheviks conspirational abilities, did it? Wasn't it rather the result of Russia being the weakest link in the imperialist chain, as Lenin wrote? This is a bizarre line of questions that doesn't seem to have anything to do with validity of the Party's reaction to Trotsky's efforts to undermine the government, so I won't answer them.



Come on. Khrushchev produced the document showing how people were tried, in the 1956 Congress. Evidently, he only referred to the Stalinist who were "wrongly" accused at that time, not to the "Trotskyists, Zinovievists and rightists", whom he maintained were in fact enemies of the people... but it doesn't change anything; the methods used to extract confessions from Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev were the same used to extract confessions from Postyshev or Eikhe (and from Yagoda or Yezhov, for what it matters). Khrushchev didn't produce any document showing that torture was authorized or used against the defendants discussed here. Nor do we have any of these documents Khrushchev produced. In any case, Eikhe was one of Khrushchev's fellow first secretaries, who had a major role in so-called Great Purges. As argued in the first link of this thread, his arrest and execution is directly linked to huge role he played in these events.


Just like Eikhe, Postyshev was held up as an example of someone who got a lot of innocent people arrested, and this is even mentioned during his removal as First Secretary. And Khrushchev was one of his most vocal denouncers! This can be seen in Getty and Naumov's book. Allow me to quote a brief section:



Pavel Postyshev had long been known as a territorial party secretary who favored mass expulsions of party members. Since 1935 there had been numerous complaints against him and his circle from those expelled. At the June 1936 plenum he had been criticized for a ''light-minded" attitude toward the rank and file. On those occasions, however, even though he was called on the carpet, the matter was concealed from the party generally. In January 1937 Postyshev had been fired from his position in Kiev and transferred to Kuibyshev; even then the Politburo had gone out of its way to shield him from any serious attacks (see Documents 70, 71, 113, 114, and 116). Postyshev was tough. He had recently requested the arrest of his own regional NKVD chief for expressing oblique private doubts about the terror.8 Even though he had his enemies and attracted criticism, Postyshev enjoyed high-level protection through 1937.


But given the need for a new party discourse at the beginning of 1938, Postyshev became a negative symbol. Sometime around the beginning of the year, Politburo member A. A. Andreev was assigned the task of gathering compromising material on Postyshev's party expulsions in Kuibyshev.9 These documents, which became the basis not only for the January 1938 plenum attack on Postyshev but also for the resolution of the plenum, included documentation of mass party expulsions from the Kuibyshev soviet, from the ranks of party district committee secretaries, and from other organizations.10 One report from the Bazarno-Syzgansky district noted that large numbers had been expelled as enemies by order of Postyshev's men, though the NKVD subsequently found reason to arrest very few of them.


Both of these people were justly condemned for their excesses, and Khrushchev's claims of torture are not credible, especially when he is crying crocodile tears over Postyshev, when not only was he one of his strongest denouncers, he also was elected to First Secretary in the same session Postyshev was removed!



She spent 20 years in labour camps, as a punishment for the crime of being the daughter of a Bolshevik and the wife of other. Under which regime is someone kept 20 years in prison for "suspicion"? And more, she was only released because Stalin died; had he lived more, she would have spent more time in internal exile. The facts of her sentence I'm sure don't have anything to do with being the daughter or wife or anyone, but rather her being guilty in association with the conspiracy Bukharin was involved in.



This is the wonderful "workers democracy" you are defending. Except I'm not defending anything right now except the legitimacy of the Moscow Trials, which you can not produce the slightest shred of evidence against.



She wrote a book about her husband's ordeal, This I Cannot Forget. But you Stalinists are like that. Someone does not write a book, you claim that they did not complain about their relatives being tortured, proving that they weren't. Someone writes a book - you claim that they didn't. I'm not sure what you're claiming here, as you're not being very coherent. It seems you're claiming I am denying she wrote a book, but this is bizarre, as I never claimed any such thing. In that same book, she doesn't say anything about threats or torture against Bukharin.




That's the reason no sane person believes you.I think any sane person can read this thread and see you have produced zero evidence of torture or threats against the defendants of the Moscow Trials, while I've produced plenty of evidence outside of the trials to suggest the defendants are guilty.

[spartan]

That Trotsky denounced some aspects of the POUM is irrelevant. It was under the control of his former colleague, and took the Trotskyist line on nearly everything, especially the rabidly anti-USSR stance of Trotsky.

By this "former colleague of Trotsky" i am guessing that you mean Andres Nin?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_Nin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_Nin)

As this explains Nin broke with Trotsky and the ILO over a disagreement with a unification of two parties.

I would also like to point out that being a leftist against the USSR does not automatically make one a Trotskyist!

[Intelligitimate]

By this "former colleague of Trotsky" i am guessing that you mean Andres Nin?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_Nin

As this explains Nin broke with Trotsky and the ILO over a disagreement with a unification of two parties.

I would also like to point out that being a leftist against the USSR does not make one a Trotskyist!

The ICE under Nin was most certainly a Trotskyist party. That Nin disobeyed Trotsky and went along with the merger of the ICE and BOC made little difference in the line promoted by the POUM, which was Trotskyist in all but official affiliation.

[Luís Henrique]

Except this isn't a fact at all. You can't even give a single shred of evidence it is true. You just assume it is true, because to actually look at the evidence and evaluate it objectively would force to you abandon the anti-communist cartoon version of Soviet history.

Of course it is true; of course there is documentation that proves it is true. The problem is, you deny it because of your opinion of the man who provided such evidence, Nikita Khrushchev.


This is false, as I have already demonstrated.

No, you didn't.


Except you can't demonstrate this at all.

Of course I can, and did. The confessions refer to impossible facts, and are internally contradictory, just like one would expect of false confessions obtained under torture.


Except this is a lie. There are no orders or documents anywhere stating that the defendants in the Moscow Trials were to be subjected to torture.


The case is as follows: Not being able to suffer the tortures to which I was submitted by Ushakov and Nikolayev and especially by the first one who utilized the knowledge that my broken ribs have not properly mended and have caused me great pain, I have been forced to accuse myself and others.

The investigative methods are such that they force people to lie and to slander entirely innocent persons in addition to those who already stand accused.

In order to illustrate it to me, Zakovsky gave me several possible variants of the organization of this center and of its branches. After he detailed the organization to me, Zakovsky told me that the NKVD would prepare the case of this center, remarking that the trial would be public.

The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) explains that the application of methods of physical pressure in NKVD practice is permissible from 1937 on in accordance with permission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) ... It is known that all bourgeois intelligence services use methods of physical influence against the representatives of the socialist proletariat and that they use them in their most scandalous forms.

The question arises as to why the socialist intelligence service should be more humanitarian against the mad agents of the bourgeoisie, against the deadly enemies of the working class and of the kolkhoz workers. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) considers that physical pressure should still be used obligatorily, as an exception applicable to known and obstinate enemies of the people, as a method both justifiable and appropriate.

I am calling to you for help from a gloomy cell of the Lefortovsky prison. Let my cry of horror reach your ears; do not remain deaf, take me under your protection; please, help remove the nightmare of interrogations and show that this is all a mistake.
I suffer innocently. Please believe me. Time will testify to the truth. I am not an agent provocateur of the Tsarist Okhrana; I am not a spy, I am not a member of an anti-Soviet organization of which I am being accused on the basis of denunciations. I am also not guilty of any other crimes against the party and the Government. I am an old Bolshevik, free of any stain; I have honestly fought for almost 40 years in the ranks of the party for the good and prosperity of the nation.
(...)
Today I, a 62-year-old man, am being threatened by the investigative judges with more severe, cruel and degrading methods of physical pressure. They (the judges) are no longer capable of becoming aware of their error and of recognizing that their handling of my case is illegal and impermissible. They try to justify their actions by picturing me as a hardened and raving enemy and are demanding increased repressions.


And we know Khrushchev lied about a great many things in his secret speech. Practically every word out of his mouth can be documented to be a lie.

Yes, he lied - in that he pretended to be absolutely innocent of Stalin's crimes, as if he was not a willingful participant in those crimes. But you could "document" us as how the quotations above, all taken from his "secret speech" are false?

Luís Henrique

[Intelligitimate]

Of course it is true; of course there is documentation that proves it is true. The problem is, you deny it because of your opinion of the man who provided such evidence, Nikita Khrushchev.
Except Khrushchev didn't present anything regarding the torture of anyone under discussion, nor is this documentation available, and the people you brought up from his speech were punished justly for their own excesses in the Great Purges, as I have already demonstrated.



No, you didn't.
Yes, I did. The evidence from the Trotsky papers, the statements of Swiss communist Jules Humbert-Droz, the statements of Bukharin and Rykov to the party before their arrests, etc.



Of course I can, and did. The confessions refer to impossible facts, and are internally contradictory, just like one would expect of false confessions obtained under torture.
Except you can't and didn't. You didn't show any of the testimony referred to impossible events. You cited the testimony of Holtzmann on the alleged Bristol Hotel contradiction, but I already debunked that by showing there was a Bristol Cafe that had an entrance to the Grand Central Hotel, and was more than likely a case of confusion. You have demonstrated nothing.


The quotes you bring up from Khrushchev's speech demonstrate nothing about whether or not those under discussion were tortured or threatened, that is to say, the main defendants of the Moscow Trials, which Khrushchev's speech is completely hostile to.

[Random Precision]

As I recall from The Road to Terror, Marshal Tukachevsky's confession was stained with blood when Getty, or someone else, examined it. So did he just have a nosebleed when he signed it? :rolleyes:

Some other stuff that has grabbed my attention:


After Trotsky’s exile in 1929, Trotsky maintained contact with Lev Sedov in the USSR until 1938 (when Sedov was shot). These communications are known as the “Exile Correspondence” sections in the Trotsky Papers at Harvard, opened in January 1980. Trotsky lied about having contact with former followers in the USSR in his Biulleten’ oppozitsii and to the Dewey Commission, which was setup to defend Trotsky of charges against him made in the show trials.

In 1932, he sent letters to former oppositionists Radek, Sokolnikov, Preobrazhenskii, and others. These letters were removed from Trotsky’s papers by someone, but they forgot to remove the certified-mail receipts signed by Trotsky’s secretaries. In October that same year, E. S. Gol’tsman met Sedov in Berlin and gave him some internal memorandum regarding the Soviet economy. He also brought Sedov a proposal from Left Oppositionists to form a united bloc consisting of Trotskyists, Zinovievists, members of the Lominadze group, and others. The proposal came from Ivan Smirnov.

Sedov wrote back to Trotsky, who wrote “The proposition of the bloc seems to me completely acceptable,” but “it is a question of a bloc, not a merger.” “How will the bloc manifest itself? For the moment, mainly through exchanging information. Our allies will keep us up to date on that which concerns the Soviet Union, and we will do the same thing on that which concerns the Soviet Union, and we will do the same thing on that which concerns the Comintern.” Trotsky also stipulated that the opposition should sent materials to be published in Biulleten', and that capitulationists should be excluded from the bloc. Smirnov proposed that Rightists should be allowed into the bloc, which Trotsky rejected: “The allies’ opinion that one must wait until the rights can easily join does not have my approval.”

The bloc was disrupted by the arrest of Zinoviev, Smirnov, and Kamenev, but Sedov didn’t think they had found anything on them regarding the bloc (they were arrested for other matters).

This block didn’t come out till 1936, during Ezhov’s participation with the NKVD. Stalin was suspicious of the late discovery of this bloc. Yagoda’s sympathy for the defeated oppositionists was documented by Serdiuk to the Twenty-Second Congress in 1961 (Pravda, Oct. 31, 1961). But perhaps Yagoda just discovered it in 1936.

Getty: Origin of the Great Purges, pages 119-128.

Either Getty was wrong or you are, because Lev Sedov was not in the USSR (like he would have been allowed to continue political activity there until 1938). He died in France in 1938 during surgery (some suspect he was assassinated by the GPU).

As for the alleged POUM-Nazi collaboration, it's important to remember that the only proof we have for it is testimony from a Nazi military court by an Abwehr agent, who claimed that he had helped start the May Days uprising or something like that. It's not like intelligence agents ever exaggerate their activities to their superiors, even if we were to believe that the POUM provoked the May Days, which there is no evidence for. And, of course, we must keep in mind that you're trusting the word of a Nazi court here. And of course, you're forgetting that the POUM's program was much more influenced by the other faction that formed it, Joaquin Maurin's rightist Workers and Peasants Bloc. After the POUM participated in the electoral alliance of 1936, Trotsky said his former followers within it were to be "stigmatized forever as criminals against the revolution".

Funnily enough, the other leader of the POUM, Andreu Nin, was a former Trotskyist (although he had no contact with Trotsky after they split) and after the Barcelona riots was seized by the GPU, tortured to confess he was involved with the Nazis, then killed when he wouldn't. That seems rather germaine to the discussion, I think.

So what you're saying is essentially "Nazis said that they were collaborating with the POUM, so therefore the Nazis and the POUM were collaborating in Spain, so therefore Nazis were collaborating with Trotskyists to overthrow the USSR". That's quite a leap to make, even for a Stalinist.


Orwell's work is basically worthless as a source of history, nor does it have anything to do with evidence I've presented for POUM-Nazi collaboration.

Yea, cause it's not like he was actually there, or actually sympathized with the Communist Party originally, and tried to join their militia... oh wait, that's right.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

I believe it was Khruschev who claimed it was stained with blood, without offering proof. I have never seen such a claim from Getty.

And yes, Orwelll is indeed useless as a source of history. http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/orwell.html

[Random Precision]

I believe it was Khruschev who claimed it was stained with blood, without offering proof. I have never seen such a claim from Getty.

Here you are:


Tolerating no delay, Yezhov's investigators tortured the officers mercilessly until they confessed. Analysis many years later showed that there were boodstains on the confession signed by Tukhachevsky. On the day of the trial, investigators were still beating confessions out of the accused, who were shot immidiately after sentencing.

- From The Road to Terror by Getty and Naumov, p. 447-448

And then we also have this from Molotov about Yan Rudzutak, a member of the Politburo, who was shot for spying for Germany:


Rudzutak- he never confessed! He was shot. Member of the Politburo. I think that conciously, he was not a participant [in a conspiracy], but he was liberal with that fraternity [of conspirators] and thought that everything about it [the investigation] was a trifle. But it was impossible to excuse it. He did not understand the danger of it. Up to a certain time, he was not a bad comrade...

He complained about the secret police, that they applied to him intolerable methods. But he never gave any confession: "I don't admit to anything that they write about me." It was at the NKVD... they worked him over pretty hard. Evidently they tortured him severely.

- Feliks Chuev, Sto Sorok Besed p. 410-412, quoted in Getty and Naumov p. 489


And yes, Orwelll is indeed useless as a source of history. http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/orwell.html

From the objective academic research institute "The Stalin Society". Well done. :rolleyes:

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Here you are:



- From The Road to Terror by Getty and Naumov, p. 447-448

Analyzed by whom?



And then we also have this from Molotov about Yan Rudzutak, a member of the Politburo, who was shot for spying for Germany:


- Feliks Chuev, Sto Sorok Besed p. 410-412, quoted in Getty and Naumov p. 489

Molotov was obviously not happy about that killing. Yet had he confessed, we'd just hear the "it was only due to the torture" argument, so why bother pointing that out?




From the objective academic research institute "The Stalin Society". Well done. :rolleyes:

A better source than Orwell, an arrogant apologist for capitalism.

[Intelligitimate]

As I recall from The Road to Terror, Marshal Tukachevsky's confession was stained with blood when Getty, or someone else, examined it. Evidence of torture? Or did he just have a nosebleed when he signed it?
This claim originates from the Khrushchev era, and there are pictures of the document available. There is some type of stain on the documents, but what exactly it is and when it got there is anyone's guess.


Here is a detailed article on the evidence for Tukhachevsky's guilt:


http://www.chss.montclair.edu/English/furr/tukh.html


Trotsky also told the Western press he never took the ex-Tsarist officer's commitment to Marxism seriously. Just how reactionary Tukhachevsky was is confirmed by an associate of his:



In 1928 a former French officer published a short biography of Tukhachevskii "Pierre Fervacque" -- nom de plume of the French journalist Remy Roure -- had been Tukhachevskii's fellow prisoner-of-war in 1917 in the German officers' camp at Ingolstadt, Bavaria. In his biographical sketch he set down the contents of several conversations he had had with the young Russian lieutenant during their captivity, among them the following:
-- You are an anti-semite, then, I said to him. Why? -- The Jews brought us Christianity. That's reason enough to hate them. But then they are a low race. I don't even speak of the dangers they create in my country. You cannot understand that, you French, for you equality is a dogma. The Jew is a dog, son of a dog, which spreads his fleas in every land. It is he who has done the most to inoculate us with the plague of civilization, and who would like to give us his morality also, the morality of money, of capital. -- You are now a socialist, then? -- A socialist? Not at all! What a need you have for classifying! Besides the great socialists are Jews and socialist doctrine is a branch of universal Christianity. ... No, I detest socialists, Jews and Christians.

Either Getty was wrong or you are, because Lev Sedov was not in the USSR (like he would have been allowed to continue political activity there until 1938). He died in France in 1938 during surgery (some suspect he was assassinated by the GPU).
The error is my own, and has been pointed out to me before, but I wrote this a long time ago and sometimes copy and paste it without editing this bit out. I don't have the book on me to check exactly what was written at the moment, but the part about Sedov being shot was added by me incorrectly, no doubt thinking of Sergei Sedov instead.
In any case, the reference gives the relevant information, as does Getty's article on Trotsky, Trotsky in Exile: The Founding of the Fourth International.

As for the alleged POUM-Nazi collaboration, it's important to remember that the only proof we have for it is testimony from a Nazi military court by an Abwehr agent, who claimed that he had helped start the May Days uprising or something like that.
This is incorrect. No one is claiming they helped start anything in the information I gave. Giving the USSR information about Nazi participation in the event is actually listed as a charge against Boysen, one of many.

It's not like intelligence agents ever exaggerate their activities to their superiors, even if we were to believe that the POUM provoked the May Days
It seems to me that you're mixing up two different claims, as this is the standard Trot/anarchist response to Franco stating to Faupel his agents provoked the event:

"Concerning the disorders in Barcelona, Franco has told me that the street fighting was provoked by his agents. Nicholas Franco has confirmed this report, informing me that they have a total of 13 agents in Barcelona. Some time ago one of them had reported that the tension between Anarchists and Communists in Barcelona was so great that it could well end in street fighting. The Generalissimo told me that at first he doubted this agent's reports, but later they were confirmed by other agents. Ordinarily he didn't intend to take advantage of the possibility until military operations had been established in Catalonia. But since the Reds had recently attacked Teruel to aid the Government of Euzcadi (the Basque provinces), he thought the time was right for the outbreak of disorders in Barcelona. In fact, a few days after he had received the order, the agent in question with three or four of this men, succeeded in provoking shooting in the streets which later led to the desired results."
Again, it just seems to take anti-communists several rounds of actually talking about the evidence to actually bother reading it, which is just a reflection of the emotional commitment to hating the USSR among anti-communists.

And, of course, we must keep in mind that you're trusting the word of a Nazi court here.
This information is independently verified by Sudoplatov. We know the Berlin group gave the USSR information about POUM-Nazi collaboration, from both Sudoplatov and the Nazi court.

Funnily enough, the other leader of the POUM, Andreu Nin, was a former Trotskyist (although he had no contact with Trotsky after they split) and after the Barcelona riots was seized by the GPU, tortured to confess he was involved with the Nazis, then killed when he wouldn't. That seems rather germaine to the discussion, I think.
The only evidence I've seen of this is the story by Hernandez, which is completely contradicted by Orlov. Orlov, already in the US as a defector, categorically denied any involvement with Nin's disappearance. The authors of Deadly Illusions claim to have documents proving Orlov's involvement, but apparently these documents can't be found online. My experience is you simply can't trust anti-communists to interpret or even convey the contents of such documents with any honesty or accuracy, so I'll remain skeptical until I can read them myself.

So what you're saying is essentially "Nazis said that they were collaborating with the POUM, so therefore the Nazis and the POUM were collaborating in Spain, so therefore Nazis were collaborating with Trotskyists to overthrow the USSR". That's quite a leap to make, even for a Stalinist.
Except that isn't what I've said at all, and only shows how willing you are to erect strawman, which is a sign of your own dishonesty.

Yea, cause it's not like he was actually there, or actually sympathized with the Communist Party originally, and tried to join their militia... oh wait, that's right.
There are tons of much better works written by people actually there, nor did he try to join their militia, as I've already proved in this very thread.

[Invader Zim]

I believe it was Khruschev who claimed it was stained with blood, without offering proof. I have never seen such a claim from Getty.

And yes, Orwelll is indeed useless as a source of history. http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/orwell.html

That site is aweful, the section about Orwell being an informer is simply wrong. Orwell did not act as an informant. He was asked by a friend, who had recently joined the IRD, which writers he though would be unsuitable for the organisation.He did not 'inform' on anyone. That is, like Stalin, a load of utter shit.

[Random Precision]

Analyzed by whom?

Getty doesn't say. Maybe you should ask him- wasn't it you who said you had corresponded with him?


Molotov was obviously not happy about that killing. Yet had he confessed, we'd just hear the "it was only due to the torture" argument, so why bother pointing that out?

That part was for Intelligitimate, who as far as I know still claims that there was no evidence of torture.


A better source than Orwell, an arrogant apologist for capitalism.

Blah, blah, blah.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

That site is aweful, the section about Orwell being an informer is simply wrong. Orwell did not act as an informant. He was asked by a friend, who had recently joined the IRD, which writers he though would be unsuitable for the organisation.He did not 'inform' on anyone. That is, like Stalin, a load of utter shit.

Hmm...I think a load of utter shit would be a guy who decides to write a parable about the USSR without ever having set foot there.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Getty doesn't say. Maybe you should ask him- wasn't it you who said you had corresponded with him?

I could ask him, but it looks like Intell already beat me to it. Either you can drop that claim or if you must I can ask. Of course this is really irrelevant anyway. Absence of a bloodstain does not mean he wasn't tortured, and if a bloodstain is the only evidence to support torture in this case, and it isn't a bloodstain, I would say the case is pretty weak.

Personally I don't know why we're arguing over the past so much anyway. This might come as a shock to you and the Trots, but Marxism is a progressive movement.






Blah, blah, blah.

This is not an argument. The fact that you guys support a man whose work has done wonders for world capital says a lot about your devotion to the cause.

[Intelligitimate]

That part was for Intelligitimate, who as far as I know still claims that there was no evidence of torture.

I never said anything about these people mentioned in Khrushchev's speech. That some people were tortured at some point doesn't prove Bukharin, Zinoviev, Rykov, Kamenev, etc, were tortured or threatened, which is what I have continually stated, and what the anti-communists in this thread have continually failed to present any evidence of.

[spartan]

Originally Posted by Franco
"Concerning the disorders in Barcelona, Franco has told me that the street fighting was provoked by his agents. Nicholas Franco has confirmed this report, informing me that they have a total of 13 agents in Barcelona. Some time ago one of them had reported that the tension between Anarchists and Communists in Barcelona was so great that it could well end in street fighting. The Generalissimo told me that at first he doubted this agent's reports, but later they were confirmed by other agents. Ordinarily he didn't intend to take advantage of the possibility until military operations had been established in Catalonia. But since the Reds had recently attacked Teruel to aid the Government of Euzcadi (the Basque provinces), he thought the time was right for the outbreak of disorders in Barcelona. In fact, a few days after he had received the order, the agent in question with three or four of this men, succeeded in provoking shooting in the streets which later led to the desired results."


Again, it just seems to take anti-communists several rounds of actually talking about the evidence to actually bother reading it, which is just a reflection of the emotional commitment to hating the USSR among anti-communists.
Franco, like most politicians do, was lying.

Orwell, who was in Barcelona at the time and directly took part in the fighting, decribes in his book "Homage to Catalonia" the sensational, though ultimately untrue, newspaper reports on the fighting in Barcelona.

Like Orwell said, there was no artillery, no Fascist snipers and no fifth column trying to aid the Fascists.

The fighting started when two rival trade unions started fighting because one of them had tried to take over the others telephone exchange.

Of course the POUM decided, out of solidarity, to help the trade union, whos building had been attacked and who they were ideologically closer to, and eventually the counter revolutionary Stalinists jumped on this and started accusing the POUM of starting the fighting because they were a Fascist fifth column!

Go and educate yourselves by reading George Orwells book "Homage to Catalonia", which is the most true account of the Spanish civil war i have ever had the pleasure to have read.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Again, Orwell is not a good source of historical material. His bias is far too obvious, and as the article I linked to shows he was a rather ignorant man in terms of politics. I find it hilarious that he was so skeptical about wounded fighters voluntarily returning to the front. This has happened in wars all the time, and would continue to happen to this day.

[spartan]

Again, Orwell is not a good source of historical material. His bias is far too obvious, and as the article I linked to shows he was a rather ignorant man in terms of politics.

This coming from the person who linked to the Stalin society!

As for his ignorance in politics, please provide (Unbiased) evidence for this?

Orwell was a very politically active man, and his, primarily political, work in literature stands as testament to this.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

This coming from the person who linked to the Stalin society!

Yeah, and? I actually disagree with some of their stuff as well. If you go to my blog you'll see I put a warning saying I don't buy their Katyn claims. Also the article on Stalin Society refers to other articles and books.



As for his ignorance in politics, please provide (Unbiased) evidence for this?

I'll cite 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell.



Orwell was a very politically active man, and his, primarily political, work in literature stands as testament to this.


Active for whom, qui bono?

[Intelligitimate]

Franco, like most politicians do, was lying.

Orwell, who was in Barcelona at the time and directly took part in the fighting, decribes in his book "Homage to Catalonia" the sensational, though ultimately untrue, newspaper reports on the fighting in Barcelona.

Like Orwell said, there was no artillery, no Fascist snipers and no fifth column trying to aid the Fascists.

The fighting started when two rival trade unions started fighting because one of them had tried to take over the others telephone exchange.

Of course the POUM decided, out of solidarity, to help the trade union, whos building had been attacked and who they were ideologically closer to, and eventually the counter revolutionary Stalinists jumped on this and started accusing the POUM of starting the fighting because they were a Fascist fifth column!

Go and educate yourselves by reading George Orwells book "Homage to Catalonia", which is the most true account of the Spanish civil war i have ever had the pleasure to have read.

It's hard to take you seriously because everything you say is just so incredibly ridiculous. I mean, you make basic errors about the man and book you're touting, such as that Orwell sought out the POUM, which I corrected you on in this thread.

Some better material I'd recommend is Arthur Landis' Spain: The Unfinished Revolution, also written by someone who was in the war, and not on an inactive front like Orwell was. I'd also recommend the autobiography of La Pasionaria, They Shall Not Pass, which is very good. I'd also recommend reading the work of the respected scholar Helen Graham, The Spanish Republic At War 1936-1939, which goes so far as to not even include Orwell in her extensive bibliography.

The Trot/Anarchist/bourgeois/fascist account of the war is just ridiculous nonsense.

[Luís Henrique]

I never said anything about these people mentioned in Khrushchev's speech. That some people were tortured at some point doesn't prove Bukharin, Zinoviev, Rykov, Kamenev, etc, were tortured or threatened, which is what I have continually stated, and what the anti-communists in this thread have continually failed to present any evidence of.

So you mean Eikhe, Rudzutak, and Kedrov were tortured, but not Bukharin or Zinoviev?

Also, you say Eikhe was tried, sentenced and executed for taking part on "excesses". What "excesses" were those? Against whom were those "excesses" exerted?

Luís Henrique

[Intelligitimate]

So you mean Eikhe, Rudzutak, and Kedrov were tortured, but not Bukharin or Zinoviev?

I'm not saying they were tortured. I said, quite clearly, that these people being tortured, if true, is not evidence Bukharin or Zinoviev were tortured.


Also, you say Eikhe was tried, sentenced and executed for taking part on "excesses". What "excesses" were those? Against whom were those "excesses" exerted?

You should try reading the link posted in the opening post for that info. Eikhe was one of the first of the First Secretaries to push for the power of the troikas, which had the authority to execute people.

[Andy Bowden]

Im getting into this debate late, so excuse me if I've misinterpreted it, but the basic case for POUM-Nazi collaboration is based on,

* A Red Orchestra spy group sends a communique to the NKVD,
* The NKVD chief Sudapatolov records in his memoirs that this communique details POUM-Nazi collaboration,
* and during the trial of Schulze-Boysen in Nazi Germany, reference was made to this communique being sent to the NKVD.

The problem I see here is we have no information on the original intelligence allegedly found by the Red Orchestra.

And in 70 years since the end of the war we have no prominent Nazi officials, POUM members confessing to involvement in the same way we have seen with other conspiracies.

It also begs the question as to why the POUM would collaborate with an army they were fighting - was it to allow the Nazis to eliminate the PCE leadership, then take over, and crush the Nazis?

[Luís Henrique]

I'm not saying they were tortured. I said, quite clearly, that these people being tortured, if true, is not evidence Bukharin or Zinoviev were tortured.

Well, you do aknowledge that there is evidence that Rudzutak, Eikhe, and Kedrov were tortured?


You should try reading the link posted in the opening post for that info. Eikhe was one of the first of the First Secretaries to push for the power of the troikas, which had the authority to execute people.

And to whom did Eikhe request power for the troikas, which had authority to execute people without proper trial?

Luís Henrique

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

How is the use of torture in a certain state, in a time when it was common virtually world-wide, relevant to Marxism-Leninism today? It's not as if Stalin tried to make torture some theoretical aspect of Marxism. It is idiocy to discount the monumental accomplishments of the Soviet Union, and the foundation of knowledge it gives us, simply because some people, regardless of who specifically was responsible, were tortured for confessions in a world and time when such things were common all over?

[Intelligitimate]

Im getting into this debate late, so excuse me if I've misinterpreted it, but the basic case for POUM-Nazi collaboration is based on,

* A Red Orchestra spy group sends a communique to the NKVD,
* The NKVD chief Sudapatolov records in his memoirs that this communique details POUM-Nazi collaboration,
* and during the trial of Schulze-Boysen in Nazi Germany, reference was made to this communique being sent to the NKVD.

The problem I see here is we have no information on the original intelligence allegedly found by the Red Orchestra.

And in 70 years since the end of the war we have no prominent Nazi officials, POUM members confessing to involvement in the same way we have seen with other conspiracies.

It also begs the question as to why the POUM would collaborate with an army they were fighting - was it to allow the Nazis to eliminate the PCE leadership, then take over, and crush the Nazis?

The questions you bring up are interesting ones, and as you note, we don't actually know what the information the Berlin group gave to the Soviets contains, beyond Sudoplatov's recollections.

It should also be pointed out that many of the people who would have been able to talk about this collaboration died not too long after the events. It is also not very hard to believe elements in the POUM (and the CTN-FAI for that matter) thought The Republic was a greater threat to their power than the Fascists, especially considering the inactive nature of the Aragon front.

I'm sure some of this information will eventually come out, but I wouldn't expect anytime soon. It's not like scholars who would be interested in this are intent on proving the Soviets were right, given the anti-communist bias that is prevalent throughout the field.

[Intelligitimate]

Well, you do aknowledge that there is evidence that Rudzutak, Eikhe, and Kedrov were tortured?

I acknowledge Khruschev mentioned such things in his speech. Whether or not he is believable is an entirely different matter.


And to whom did Eikhe request power for the troikas, which had authority to execute people without proper trial?

Stalin.

[Luís Henrique]

How is the use of torture in a certain state, in a time when it was common virtually world-wide, relevant to Marxism-Leninism today? It's not as if Stalin tried to make torture some theoretical aspect of Marxism. It is idiocy to discount the monumental accomplishments of the Soviet Union, and the foundation of knowledge it gives us, simply because some people, regardless of who specifically was responsible, were tortured for confessions in a world and time when such things were common all over?

First, if the use of torture at that time isn't relevant, why would its denial be relevant?

Second, the central issue isn't whether torture was used, but whether the confessions of the Moscow Trials were authentic or not. Torture is the best explanation of why people confess crimes they did not commit. The use of torture against "enemies of the State" is clearly stated in Khrushchev's secret speech. The use of torture was denounced by many prisoners, when they retreated their confessions. The use of torture was explicitly recommended in a telegram by Stalin.

And that's why those people gave their confessions. That their confessions are false, it stems from their incongruence and fantastic nature.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Stalin.

So Eikhe asked Stalin to give him (and others) authority to execute people without proper trial. And did Stalin deny or concede him such authority?

Luís Henrique

[Intelligitimate]

Except you can't show they were tortured or threatened, or that anything about their testimony is fantastic or contradictory.

[Intelligitimate]

So Eikhe asked Stalin to give him (and others) authority to execute people without proper trial? And did Stalin deny or concede him such authority?

Luís Henrique

Read the article.

[Luís Henrique]

Read the article.

I read it. So, did Stalin deny Eikhe's request?

Luís Henrique

[Random Precision]

I could ask him, but it looks like Intell already beat me to it. Either you can drop that claim or if you must I can ask. Of course this is really irrelevant anyway. Absence of a bloodstain does not mean he wasn't tortured, and if a bloodstain is the only evidence to support torture in this case, and it isn't a bloodstain, I would say the case is pretty weak.

I've sent him an email regarding this question. But if I don't get a response, I'd appreciate it if you would do the same.


Personally I don't know why we're arguing over the past so much anyway. This might come as a shock to you and the Trots, but Marxism is a progressive movement.

... says the guy with Albania's coat of arms as his avatar. :rolleyes:


This is not an argument. The fact that you guys support a man whose work has done wonders for world capital says a lot about your devotion to the cause.

If you mean that Orwell's work has been appropriated by the bourgeoisie to condemn socialism, I have no problems. Whether he would have felt comfortable with that happening is a different matter altogether.

[Invader Zim]

Hmm...I think a load of utter shit would be a guy who decides to write a parable about the USSR without ever having set foot there.

Would you denounce Chaplin's parody of the Nazi regime as 'utter shit', on the same basis?

I also like the way you ignored the actual issue raised, that the website you cited is wrong.

[Intelligitimate]

I read it. So, did Stalin deny Eikhe's request?

Luís Henrique

If you've read the article, then you need to state your own interpretation of the events in question, rather than engaging in this fruitless line of questioning. The view Furr outlines is also very similar to the one Getty does in his Origins, and I think it is a convincing account of the nature of events occuring in 1936-38.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

... says the guy with Albania's coat of arms as his avatar. :rolleyes:

The Hoxhaist Union logo is NEW! But seriously, Socialist Albania was ahead of the Soviet Union in certain issues of socialism and democracy, mainly because they stuck to the Marxist-Leninist line. They did have some advantages though- namely that it was a much smaller country, and there was no way they could be a superpower. The lure of superpowerdom is definitely a corrupting influence.

The key issue here is I don't see how certain people being tortured in the Soviet Union back in the 30s at a time when everyone else was doing it can somehow invalidate all the progress the Soviet Union made and what it has contributed to the workers movement.





If you mean that Orwell's work has been appropriated by the bourgeoisie to condemn socialism, I have no problems. Whether he would have felt comfortable with that happening is a different matter altogether.


How he felt about that is irrelevant. His viewpoint is exactly what the ruling class needs: Basically it's the old "Capitalism is the worst system out there, until you consider the alternative" rationale. The fact that he might have really wanted some mythical other socialist system doesn't really have much of a bearing on the situation.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Would you denounce Chaplin's parody of the Nazi regime as 'utter shit', on the same basis?

Most people don't tend to take Chaplin's parody as actual history, nor do high school study guides use it as a historical guide to the Third Reich.



I also like the way you ignored the actual issue raised, that the website you cited is wrong.

I like the way you focused on one part, where perhaps the author was exaggerating, ignoring the rest of the content.

[Invader Zim]

Most people don't tend to take Chaplin's parody as actual history, nor do high school study guides use it as a historical guide to the Third Reich.

The same can be said of Animal Farm and 1984.


I like the way you focused on one part,

Its the only part I bothered reading, and it was (as I knew full well it would be), a load of bullshit designed to smear Orwell's character. I have absolutely no doubt that if I read the rest it would also be, just like the part it dedicated to Orwell's non-existant role as a 'state informer', a load of bullshit.


where perhaps the author was exaggerating

Or, if we are being honest (tricky for Stalinists, I know) utterly misrepresenting the mans history in a manner designed to be charcter damaging.


ignoring the rest of the content.

It is a hell of a lot more damning that you have failed to adequately respond to a 60 word post, than my failing to fully critique a 6,000 word document. After all, it turned out the sample I did look at said it all; the Stalin Society is a load of shit.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

The same can be said of Animal Farm and 1984.

Please don't pretend that there is a comparison here. You know damn well that though it is a satire of sorts, Animal Farm and the events which occur in it are commonly said(in schools no less) to be based on actual events.

As for 1984 yes, this is more metaphorical.




Its the only part I bothered reading, and it was (as I knew full well it would be), a load of bullshit designed to smear Orwell's character. I have absolutely no doubt that if I read the rest it would also be, just like the part it dedicated to Orwell's non-existant role as a 'state informer', a load of bullshit.

This is called "preconceived notions". You skimmed the article, found something you could contest, and only commented on that.




Or, if we are being honest (tricky for Stalinists, I know) utterly misrepresenting the mans history in a manner designed to be charcter damaging.

You just admitted to not reading the whole thing.




It is a hell of a lot more damning that you have failed to adequately respond to a 60 word post, than my failing to fully critique a 6,000 word document. After all, it turned out the sample I did look at said it all; the Stalin Society is a load of shit.

Did it ever occur to you, that with your hilarious and juvenile rants, perhaps your posts aren't really worth spending a lot of time responding to? I haven't seen anything of even the remote quality coming from you. Just ridiculous strawmen such as "Stalinists deny killings during the Stalin era" and nonsense about Stalinists referring to him as "Great Leader" and so on.

And yes of course it is perfectly acceptable to label a certain group to be "full of shit" because you found something you disagree with on the site. I disagree with the entire content of the Katyn article and yet I decided not to pronounce them "full of shit."

[kromando33]

I have to disagree comrade, Orwell's works imo were not 'appropriated' by the bourgeois after his deaths so much as they were anti-communist diatribes to begin with.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

I have to disagree comrade, Orwell's works imo were not 'appropriated' by the bourgeois after his deaths so much as they were anti-communist diatribes to begin with.

But he called himself a socialist and felt uncomfortable about that!! It's a Get Out of Jail Free card!

[kromando33]

He called himself a 'democratic socialist' yet basically abandoned it later, in the end he was a thoroughly confused individual.

[Intelligitimate]

There is nothing wrong with anything in the article. The only objection Zim could offer was over the word "state informer", which Zim stupidly quibbles over. Apparently, in the bizarro Nickelodeon cartoon world Zim lives in, being a “state informer” is something different than someone who gives a list of suspected fellow travelers to a government intelligence service.
So, if I knew all the real names of everyone on Revleft, and made a list of them and gave it to the FBI, I would not be a “state informer” as long as one of my FBI buddies merely asked me to give it to him for some allegedly non-serious reason.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Now now comrades, let's go easy on these high school kids. After all, they have just been introduced to Orwell recently and I'm sure their teachers talked about him in glowing terms. Often times this is unfortunately the first introduction to politics that a lot of young people get in school. That's why you hear so many American activists saying stuff like: "Wow man, the Patriot Act is like...1984 man!"

So naturally they are going to be upset when the myth gets shattered.

And they say we follow a cult of personality...absurd.

[spartan]

But he called himself a socialist and felt uncomfortable about that!! It's a Get Out of Jail Free card!

He felt uncomfortable about it because, as a Socialist, he was naturally associated with Stalinist scum (Even though what Stalinists advocate isnt Socialism).


I have to disagree comrade, Orwell's works imo were not 'appropriated' by the bourgeois after his deaths so much as they were anti-communist diatribes to begin with.

LOL!

If Stalinism is Communism then i think that it is fair to say that about 90% of the members of revleft are anti-Communist.


So, if I knew all the real names of everyone on Revleft, and made a list of them and gave it to the FBI, I would not be a “state informer” as long as one of my FBI buddies merely asked me to give it to him for some allegedly non-serious reason.

If Orwell was denouncing anyone, it was Stalinists!

If MI6 came to me and asked me for information on known Stalinists, i would happily tell them all i know!

I would rather live in a Capitalist society, with the opportunity of building up a Socialist movement, then in an un-Socialist Stalinist society (Where if i go against the party line, no matter how absurd it is, i will be sent to a Siberian gulag).

Like i said before, Stalinists are Socialist in words (Just about) and God knows what in action? (Take your pick from Fascist, Social-Imperialist, State Capitalist or all three?).

[Luís Henrique]

If MI6 came to me and asked me for information on known Stalinists, i would happily tell them all i know!

spartan, you are crossing a line here. Passing information on people to bourgeois State repressive agencies is utterly unacceptable.

I am issuing you a public warning on this, and I will bring it into discussion in the CC.

Luís Henrique

[spartan]

spartan, you are crossing a line here. Passing information on people to bourgeois State repressive agencies is utterly unacceptable.

I didnt mean it literally!


I am issuing you a public warning on this, and I will bring it into discussion in the CC.

For something that was meant to be taken as a non-serious statement of intent (i.e. joke) on my part?

I think that you have seriously misunderstood the intentions of that post (Humour, hence the explanation mark at the end of the sentence in question).

I make a post joking about how i would have done the same in Orwells position (Even though he didnt do it, which is where the humorous irony comes in to my post) and i get into trouble for it, whereas certain HU members have openly stated that the oppression of homosexuals, non-white people and women are unimportant and shouldnt be fought against by the left as they are characteristic of Liberal politics!

If my comment was an excess on my part then i accept that and apologize, but to get into trouble for something that wasnt meant to be taken seriously, is rather unfair to say the least.

[Luís Henrique]

I didnt mean it literally!

For something that was meant to be taken as a non-serious statement of intent (i.e. joke) on my part?

I think that you have seriously misunderstood the intentions of that post (Humour, hence the explanation mark at the end of the sentence in question).

There are some things about which you shouldn't joke. This is one.


I make a post joking about how i would have done the same in Orwells position (Even though he didnt do it, which is where the humorous irony comes in to my post) and i get into trouble for it, whereas certain HU members have openly stated that the oppression of homosexuals, non-white people and women are unimportant and shouldnt be fought against by the left as they are characteristic of Liberal politics!

Those who have expressed such kind of views did get into trouble, no less than you, regardless of being members of the HU or not.

Luís Henrique

[RedAnarchist]

He felt uncomfortable about it because, as a Socialist, he was naturally associated with Stalinist scum (Even though what Stalinists advocate isnt Socialism).

LOL!

If Stalinism is Communism then i think that it is fair to say that about 90% of the members of revleft are anti-Communist.

If Orwell was denouncing anyone, it was Stalinists!

If MI6 came to me and asked me for information on known Stalinists, i would happily tell them all i know!

I would rather live in a Capitalist society, with the opportunity of building up a Socialist movement, then in an un-Socialist Stalinist society (Where if i go against the party line, no matter how absurd it is, i will be sent to a Siberian gulag).

Like i said before, Stalinists are Socialist in words (Just about) and God knows what in action? (Take your pick from Fascist, Social-Imperialist, State Capitalist or all three?).

MI6 are external, you would contact MI5 for internal stuff, according to Wikipedia.

"Siberian gulag"?

[spartan]

There are some things about which you shouldn't joke. This is one.

Well yes and i am sorry for that.

But it was, in part, to show the stupidness of certain members accusation that Orwell helped MI6 to write up a list of politically unsuitable people (Which is an obvious attempt at damaging the credibility of Orwell and his work, as it is primarily against their style of politics).


MI6 are external, you would contact MI5 for internal stuff, according to Wikipedia.

I have never really known the difference between the two.


"Siberian gulag"?

I dont understand what you mean?

Are you saying that they didnt exist?

[RedAnarchist]

They existed yes, but not now, so why would you be sent to one?

[spartan]

They existed yes, but not now, so why would you be sent to one?

I meant back then, specifically during Stalins era.

[Holden Caulfield]

They existed yes, but not now, so why would you be sent to one?

im sure that the Russians still have prisions in Siberia, and Putin has convicted a lot of people he doesn't like, maybe they still do exsist in a different way, being in prision in Siberia has got to be fucking difficult

[spartan]

im sure that the Russians still have prisions in Siberia, and Putin has convicted a lot of people he doesn't like, maybe they still do exsist in a different way, being in prision in Siberia has got to be fucking difficult

I was reading a story recently about out of control German youths being sent to brat camps in Siberia.

Apparently it is so desolate their that they dont even need a barrier to keep the kids confined to a specific area, as their is no worry about them trying to escape as it is virtually inescapable.

[Holden Caulfield]

thats the one, it was in the Guardian i think,

at the risk of sounding excessivly authoratarian

i think that the hard line at an early age to the exsisting kids and education and moinitering of the younger kids would help massively,

better than giving them an ASBO to brag about

[Wanted Man]

im sure that the Russians still have prisions in Siberia, and Putin has convicted a lot of people he doesn't like, maybe they still do exsist in a different way, being in prision in Siberia has got to be fucking difficult
No, but the Germans do it to their "troubled youth":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,2242560,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

German conservative authorities, after all, have a lot of experience when it comes to sending kids to camps for "education" and "labour". It makes you free, donchaknow?

Anyway, if any "Gulag" or "Stalinist" comparisons are appropriate, it's in this story. Yet I'm not seeing them anywhere. Why give the Germans special treatment, while Putin supposedly "is a Stalinist" who runs "Gulags"?

[Holden Caulfield]

i know, im not saying send them all to Siberia, and i am swayed by the softly-softly approach towards British kids that we often see,

im just saying that trying to educate the younger ones (not in Siberia or anyother extreme measure like prision) and show control to the older ones would work, in a kinda "be gentle to the weak and tough to the strong kinda thing"

[spartan]

thats the one, it was in the Guardian i think,

at the risk of sounding excessivly authoratarian

i think that the hard line at an early age to the exsisting kids and education and moinitering of the younger kids would help massively,

better than giving them an ASBO to brag about

I agree to an extent, but you should also look at why alot of them turn to crime (The problem) and attack that instead of the symptom (Out of control kids reacting naturally to their enviroment).

Personally i believe that it isnt just a coincidence that kids started becoming worse when Thatcher came into power and privatisation replaced nationalisation and all the old union style jobs.

[Holden Caulfield]

i agree hence the education of the younger kids who i think could be far more easily turned away from crime, and a tougher stance on older ones who have built up negative traits through their crime, crime which may well be due to depravation and poverty, but still there will always be some dissenters whom need to be shown authority, not in inhumane ways as I&A implied i was getting at, but authority non the less

[Invader Zim]

Please don't pretend that there is a comparison here. You know damn well that though it is a satire of sorts, Animal Farm and the events which occur in it are commonly said(in schools no less) to be based on actual events.

As for 1984 yes, this is more metaphorical.




This is called "preconceived notions". You skimmed the article, found something you could contest, and only commented on that.




You just admitted to not reading the whole thing.




Did it ever occur to you, that with your hilarious and juvenile rants, perhaps your posts aren't really worth spending a lot of time responding to? I haven't seen anything of even the remote quality coming from you. Just ridiculous strawmen such as "Stalinists deny killings during the Stalin era" and nonsense about Stalinists referring to him as "Great Leader" and so on.

And yes of course it is perfectly acceptable to label a certain group to be "full of shit" because you found something you disagree with on the site. I disagree with the entire content of the Katyn article and yet I decided not to pronounce them "full of shit."


You know damn well that though it is a satire of sorts, Animal Farm and the events which occur in it are commonly said(in schools no less) to be based on actual events.

Nobody, thinks or claims that Animal farm is anything more than a fictional interpretation of a piece of history. Only Stalinist loons pretend that it is claimed, at least by anyone of sense, to be anything more than that. hense the reason why you will find Animal in the fiction section of a book shop, as opposed to the History shelves.



This is called "preconceived notions".No it is called sampling; and while I am aware there is a possibility of false positive, it is one I am more than willing to take.


You skimmed the articleI didn't even do that. I went directly to the part which in my experience I know Stalinists tend to tell lies about; and the article came out with the exactly the kind of bullshit I knew it would. And now I hve absolutely no doubt that the rest of the article is equally loaded with shit; I just can't be bothered to wade through it to provide yet more examples.


You just admitted to not reading the whole thing.And? The small part I did read was bullshit designed to smear the mans charcater.


Did it ever occur to you, that with your hilarious and juvenile rants, perhaps your posts aren't really worth spending a lot of time responding to?Considering you just have just responded to a significantly larger post; I guess we can discount that as a possibility Sherlock.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Nobody, thinks or claims that Animal farm is anything more than a fictional interpretation of a piece of history. Only Stalinist loons pretend that it is claimed, at least by anyone of sense, to be anything more than that.

Sure, that's why the article provided reviews a secondary school study guide that claims the book mirrors actual history.




No it is called sampling; and while I am aware there is a possibility of false positive, it is one I am more than willing to take.

It's called filtering out things you can't answer.



I didn't even do that. I went directly to the part which in my experience I know Stalinists tend to tell lies about; and the article came out with the exactly the kind of bullshit I knew it would. And now I hve absolutely no doubt that the rest of the article is equally loaded with shit; I just can't be bothered to wade through it to provide yet more examples.

In other words, you can't substantiate your position, and the only 'lie' is really just a matter of semantics.




And? The small part I did read was bullshit designed to smear the mans charcater.

According to you.



Considering you just have just responded to a significantly larger post; I guess we can discount that as a possibility Sherlock.

I tend to respond to posts of quality more readily than those of some teenager who can only make strawman arguments and sad attempts at witty one-liners.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

He felt uncomfortable about it because, as a Socialist, he was naturally associated with Stalinist scum (Even though what Stalinists advocate isnt Socialism).

You don't get to determine that. We've already seen how bizarre your explanation of socialism is.




If Orwell was denouncing anyone, it was Stalinists!

If MI6 came to me and asked me for information on known Stalinists, i would happily tell them all i know!

Too bad the imperialists don't give a damn about "Stalinists", Trotskyists, or whatever- Red is Red to them. That's why they never stopped the offensive when Khruschev attacked Stalin. That's why after all the service Tito did for them, they still dismantled his nation in 1991.



I would rather live in a Capitalist society, with the opportunity of building up a Socialist movement, then in an un-Socialist Stalinist society (Where if i go against the party line, no matter how absurd it is, i will be sent to a Siberian gulag).

More and more you reveal, like many Trots and Anarchists, how this has nothing to do with socialist theory but everything to do with moral cowardice. You are too lazy or cowardly to do some damn research and refute the standard narrative about Stalin, so you pretend that the USSR under Stalin had nothing to do with socialism. Then you go on to declare every other socialist state to be "Stalinist" no matter how far removed they became from the practices and property relations during the Stalin era.

Why? Because it's too hard for you to refute propaganda as to the "failure" of socialism in the 90s, so you just label it all "Stalinism" and pretend that it doesn't count, like the working class will give you a "do over." That may fly in your country, particularly on a college campus, but working people don't have time for it.

"You mean all those Marxist/socialist states weren't really Marxist or socialist? Then screw socialism, I don't have time for that!" That's the response you will get one way or another.

A realistic person would put things into their historical material context, and would spend time pointing out all the great things that socialist nations, including the revisionists ones, did for several hundred million people- far more good than bad hands down, even if one were to believe many of the ridiculous claims against Stalin or Mao for that matter.



Like i said before, Stalinists are Socialist in words (Just about) and God knows what in action? (Take your pick from Fascist, Social-Imperialist, State Capitalist or all three?).

This again shows how idealistic and un-Marxist your vision is. If "Stalinism"(read: all real existing socialism that you are too lazy to analyze and explain in realistic terms) is not socialism, then it has to be something else. It can't be one of three different things, or all three at the same time.

Whatever your definition of 'socialism' is, it may seem much better to you now when its just on paper. When you are forced onto the stage of history, things look different from that perspective. And while we can look at the genuine errors not only of revisionism but even of the Marxist-Leninist(what you call 'Stalinist') era in the USSR, Albania, and other early peoples' democracies, and we can avoid many of those errors in the future- do not think that revolution will ever be pleasant or easy.

And however you were to succeed with your "socialism" you would still have owed your success to the path that they cleared, for the knowledge they provided, whether you feel it is what or what not to do. What idealists such as your self don't realize, is that progress and experience in the real world, even if it doesn't succeed at first, is still worth a hell of a lot more than a lovely theory that can't get off the ground, or is easily crushed or marginalized.

Welcome to the real world.

[spartan]

A realistic person would put things into their historical material context, and would spend time pointing out all the great things that socialist nations, including the revisionists ones, did for several hundred million people- far more good than bad hands down, even if one were to believe many of the ridiculous claims against Stalin or Mao for that matter.

I am not arguing against any good things that these societies did.

Hell Capitalism was much better than bloody Feudalism when it first appeared!

But that doesnt mean that all the progressive things of the USSR (And there were many) make it in anyway Socialist.

You have the problem of immediately associating progress as Socialism (Just because they say it was), when this isnt the case in the USSR (Far from it in fact).

Sure they flew red flags and sung songs about the liberation of the workers, but does that really mean anything when those workers arent even liberated from that small elite who manage everything for them?

And the answer of course is no!

I seem to remember that the Nazis had the words "Socialist" and "Workers" in their official title, but do you seriously see anyone proposing that they were indeed Socialists because of this?

And even if someone is proposing this, they are immediately labelled a crackpot, because any idiot knows that the Nazis had nothing to do with Socialism.

Flags, images, songs, rhetoric, etc at the end of the day means jack shit when you have no control over your workplace.

Also one important thing to remember is that the USSR was the successor to a brutal Feudalist Autocracy, with backward beliefs and practices, so any progressive features of the USSR would naturally make it appear ten times better than what it originally came from (Rightly so i might add).

But if we are going on whats better is whats best, then that would make Nazi Germany, who slashed a high unemployment rate to virtually zero, better then what came before it (No matter what the social realities of Nazi Germany were at the time and even the state before it).

So lets face it, coming from the ruins of a Feudalist Autocracy, the USSR (Or any society for that matter) was bound to look alot more progressive when compared to something that shouldnt even have survived into the twentieth century.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

I am not arguing against any good things that these societies did.

That's strange because you keep bashing the USSR and every other existing socialist state and insisting that they were never socialist. Could you try taking a more mature view and accept that they were socialist, but that they were far from perfect(just like the Paris Commune before them), and there were a lot of historical factors that put them at a disadvantage. One could say that capitalism hadn't exactly reached its full apogee yet. Imperialism might be the highest stage of capitalism, but I am of the opinion that neo-colonialism, which began to spread like wildfire after WWII, could be said to be the highest form of imperialism.



Hell Capitalism was much better than bloody Feudalism when it first appeared!

Not at all. When capitalism appeared, these were the times of primitive accumulation, colonization, acts of enclosure tossing serfs onto the streets, draconian laws that sentenced people to death for no other reason but that they were paupers, and so on. No in many ways capitalism in the early form was actually worse than feudalism, which is why so many "third way" movements tended to be idealistic about feudalism and some longed to return to that kind of society(e.g. the Strasserite strand of National Socialism, Distributists, etc.)

Capitalist society only really improved for the worker once the workers' struggle began. This was also immensely helped by the Bolshevik revolution, showing bourgeoisie around the world that they had better take the workers' movement seriously. The great triumph in WWII, the creation of the Peoples' Democracies, and the struggle of Soviet partisans also led to a period of great reputation for socialism worldwide, until Khruschev had to screw the whole thing in 1956.



But that doesnt mean that all the progressive things of the USSR (And there were many) make it in anyway Socialist.

Technically you are right only in the sense that a society with progressive features is not necessarily socialist- were that the case the Netherlands or even Britain could be called socialist countries right now. But the fact is that until 1956, the Soviet Union had a dictatorship of the proletariat(Albania would have it almost to the very end), when the law was clearly on the side of the workers in most cases; usually only circumvented due to the extremely difficult conditions that the USSR faced(like impending war and extreme backwardness).

Again and again new studies have shown that the "terror" everyone speaks of was largely aimed at the top echelons of society- truly an ongoing class struggle. It was generally not the workers but rather the managers, the military officers, and the party members who were under scrutiny.



Sure they flew red flags and sung songs about the liberation of the workers, but does that really mean anything when those workers arent even liberated from that small elite who manage everything for them?

This does not accurately reflect the situation in the Soviet Union at the time. Hell in many ways it doesn't reflect it during the revisionist era either, because it is undeniable that the workers got a hell of a lot more benefits than red flags and songs.

I suggest you read about the Smolensk archives to see how people in the Soviet Union participated in society. There are many other examples throughout Soviet history.




I seem to remember that the Nazis had the words "Socialist" and "Workers" in their official title, but do you seriously see anyone proposing that they were indeed Socialists because of this?

The Nazis used these terms deceptively in order to draw people away from the Communists.



And even if someone is proposing this, they are immediately labelled a crackpot, because any idiot knows that the Nazis had nothing to do with Socialism.

Even that is inaccurate, because while the Nazis were in fact not socialist, their policies were not exactly full-blown capitalism either. They were the pre-cursor to Keynesian economics. In actuality, the main problem with the Nazis' style of regulated economy is that their massive government spending was literally driving them to war. Had they not gone to war to re-coop the capital they had lost, the economy would probably have collapsed in 1940 or 41.



Flags, images, songs, rhetoric, etc at the end of the day means jack shit when you have no control over your workplace.

But Soviet citizens did have a lot of control in their workplace. They might not have had complete control, but that was simply not feasible at the time given the conditions. Soviet workers could not be fired arbitrarily, they were allowed to call managers into account, elect representatives, and petition the government about the problems with managers. Here is an interesting quote from an American eye-witness who later went on to be an anti-Communist:

"the atmosphere of freedom and security, shop meetings with their proletarian industrial democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy); all these things make an inspiring contrast to what we know as Ford wage slaves in Detroit. What we have experienced here has reeducated us along new and more practical lines."

-Walter Reuther, former president of UAW



Also one important thing to remember is that the USSR was the successor to a brutal Feudalist Autocracy, with backward beliefs and practices, so any progressive features of the USSR would naturally make it appear ten times better than what it originally came from (Rightly so i might add).

Except that many of those successes had exceeded even countries like the United States at that time. Think about it- they had universal health care back then, while the US still doesn't have it today, despite all its wealth and advantages.



But if we are going on whats better is whats best, then that would make Nazi Germany, who slashed a high unemployment rate to virtually zero, better then what came before it (No matter what the social realities of that state were).

How did it do that? Two ways:

1. Massive rearmament; many of the unemployed ended up in the army.

2. Government spending on big projects- not a huge problem except for the fact that this was basically putting them on a runaway train to war. They were able to re-coop these losses once they occupied nations and could rely on cheap/slave labor and were able to collect "occupation" taxes and fees from these other nations.

The Soviet Union was able to build its economies without colonization, and say what you might about the brutal realities of the revolutionary/industrialization/collectivization era- it is miniscule in comparison to the bloodshed and cruelty that was necessary to build capitalist France, Britain, Germany, and the United States. And by stark contrast, that bloodshed was caused mainly by the very real struggle between the progressive Bolsheviks and those that wanted to put Russia back on the road to capitalism. Like in all conflicts, innocents were killed on both sides, but again, the two systems simply don't compare(I'm rightfully including Fascism as capitalism).

[Invader Zim]

Sure, that's why the article provided reviews a secondary school study guide that claims the book mirrors actual history.

All right Slavyanski, you've convinced me too read the article to find more BS, and I have. I have also taken a trip to the library to read the study guide by Wanda Opalinska, which the article so bemoans. The latter was actually a hard job because of the author of the article, in addition to being a shocking writer also fails to reference properly; but never the less I was able to find a copy. So I'm going to point out another example of BS from the article, only one mind you, I haven't the time or the inclination to trawl through the entire thing; but just to prove I could: -

The article states "It is interesting to note that in 1997, the anti-communist nature of Orwell's work is stressed over all else, far more than was the case 20 years ago. Older study guides are more apologetic, asking the reader not to take too literally the parallels with Soviet history. Obviously embarrassed by the blatant lies and unfounded allegations, they ask the reader to read the story as a fable about dictatorships `in general'."

This clearly suggests that this 'modern' guide, does not. That Orwell's work is to be taken literally, and is not to be conisdered a fable. Yet actual reading of the guide soon exposes that the author of the article is making things up, and twisting what the book actually says to suit is moronic case.

From the study guide, "The work is subtitled 'a fairy story', drawing readers' attention to the artificial nature of what is about to unfold." p. 8

"The novel is closer to another genre - that of the fable" p. 8.

I could continue pointing out where the author is full of shit; after all the article really is a load of crap providing a highly bias, and largely unaccepted version of history, to attempt to contradict this "warped version of history" provided by Orwell (he never did, and the study guide does not claim he did), and generally cherry picking and decontextualising statements in order to provide a misleading picture of Orwell and literture on him. However, this would take time, and I have better things to do that point out yet more of the nonsense Stalinist loons publish on the internet.

[Intelligitimate]

The only one full of shit here is Zim, as usual.

The paragraph cited does not claim modern guides say Animal Farm is not a fable. It says " the anti-communist nature of Orwell's work is stressed over all else," which is contrasted to previous guides that ask "the reader not to take too literally the parallels with Soviet history."

Is Zim so stupid that he is unable to understand the meaning of simple sentences?


This clearly suggests that this 'modern' guide, does not. That Orwell's work is to be taken literally, and is not to be conisdered a fable.

This is your invention. It is not, in anyway, suggested by the piece you cited. You need to take some remedial reading classes. Or stop making up lies. Or both.

[Invader Zim]

The only one full of shit here is Zim, as usual.Still sore about being proved utterly wrong last time?



Is Zim so stupid that he is unable to understand the meaning of simple sentences?No, but apparently you are. The passage points out the supposed difference between 'older' guides and the one from 1997. The author states they are different, proclaiming the features of the latter, then suggesting that is in contrast to the modern. Cmde. Slavyanski clearly took the same message as well, because he suggested that schools employ Animal Farm as a 'historical guide', and proceeded to cite the article's claims as evidence.

Pay attention.

Oh and please stay out of the discussion, you just lower the tone and the average IQ.

[Intelligitimate]

Still sore about being proved utterly wrong last time?

You should ask yourself that question, because you're the one who made stupid claim after claim, and then ran away from the discussion like a coward.


No, but apparently you are. The passage points out the supposed difference between 'older' guides and the one from 1997. The author states they are different, proclaiming the features of the latter, then suggesting that is in contrast to the modern.

Pay attention.It's amazing how absolutely fucking delusional you are. You must literally believe reality conforms to whatever the fuck you say.

Here it is again, you stupid fuck:

"The paragraph cited does not claim modern guides say Animal Farm is not a fable. It says " the anti-communist nature of Orwell's work is stressed over all else," which is contrasted to previous guides that ask "the reader not to take too literally the parallels with Soviet history."

[Led Zeppelin]

Can people please stop flaming in here?

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Now you're engaging in semantics by pretending that the thing needs to literally claim it is history to be damaging. Rambo III never claimed to be historical in anyway, and doesn't show up in schools either(hopefully), and yet these crappies films have had an effect on the way people, even adults, view politics and history. I can't tell you how many times I get in a debate with someone over some historical issue(often not related to this subject), and I have to stop their claim by telling them I know precisely what movie that got that from, and explaining that such and such was a film.

It is the quotes from the study guide(and keep in mind this is one study) that are relevant. History education sucks these days, most students will never read so much as a word of anyone who lived through the Stalin era, save for maybe Solzhenitsyn(because naturally his voice should outweigh the millions that would disagree with his conclusions). When something is explaining a reference- saying this is a metaphor for that, the assumption is that the thing being referenced was something that really happened. That's the whole point of metaphors in satirical novels, things represent other things.

To highlight your ignorance even further, let us consider the situation with the Wizard of Oz, which is still believed by many to contain allegorical references and may have been a work of political satire. If a study guide is explaining this- it is obvious to the reader that the METAPHOR is not historically accurate, but the event it is said to be based on is assumed to be correct. And from a teenager's perspective, this is very dangerous to their historical education. After all, look what it did to you.

[Luís Henrique]

I read it. So, did Stalin deny Eikhe's request?
If you've read the article, then you need to state your own interpretation of the events in question, rather than engaging in this fruitless line of questioning. The view Furr outlines is also very similar to the one Getty does in his Origins, and I think it is a convincing account of the nature of events occuring in 1936-38.

OK. My own interpretation of the events in question is that Stalin did not deny Eikhe's request, ie, that Stalin conceded Eikhe (and other first secretaries) authority to execute or arrest people without proper trials. That's what the article says. How's an article that straightforwardly admits that Stalin agree in giving orders to arrest or execute people without trial in any sence meaningful to prove that Stalin was trying to "democratise" the Soviet Union?

Luís Henrique

[Intelligitimate]

OK. My own interpretation of the events in question is that Stalin did not deny Eikhe's request, ie, that Stalin conceded Eikhe (and other first secretaries) authority to execute or arrest people without proper trials. That's what the article says. How's an article that straightforwardly admits that Stalin agree in giving orders to arrest or execute people without trial in any sence meaningful to prove that Stalin was trying to "democratise" the Soviet Union?

Luís Henrique

I recommend reading the entire thing for that answer. I also recommend Getty's Origins for a better understanding of the nature of events in 1936-38.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

OK. My own interpretation of the events in question is that Stalin did not deny Eikhe's request, ie, that Stalin conceded Eikhe (and other first secretaries) authority to execute or arrest people without proper trials. That's what the article says. How's an article that straightforwardly admits that Stalin agree in giving orders to arrest or execute people without trial in any sence meaningful to prove that Stalin was trying to "democratise" the Soviet Union?

Luís Henrique

First of all, Stalin was informed that these things were necessary for the security of the state. Second, these purges were all many of the first secretaries wanted to discuss, as opposed to Stalin's plans for holding contested, secret-ballot elections. They had considerable power in the CC.

[Invader Zim]

and then ran away from the discussion like a coward.I didn't 'run' away from anything. I stated a fact, you did your usual line of tedious schoolboy insults and stated I was wrong. I then proved I wasn't. After that your backpeddling and childishness didn't warrent a responce, so you didn't get one.


you stupid fuck:Combined with the term 'retard', and the fact that you are wrong (and obviously so), I don't think you could possibly do anything more to come across as a petulant child.


Now you're engaging in semantics by pretending that the thing needs to literally claim it is history to be damaging.Thats not my claim at all. My point is that both you and the article imply that the guide is making a claim, which it is not.




It is the quotes from the study guide(and keep in mind this is one study) that are relevant.Indeed, but the issue is that the article misrepresents and decontextualises the contents of the study guide, in an attempt at creating an inaccurate picture of education, to support the argument against Orwell and Animal Farm.

[Intelligitimate]

I didn't 'run' away from anything. I stated a fact, you did your usual line of tedious schoolboy insults and stated I was wrong. I then proved I wasn't.
Except you dishonestly quoted your source, which actually proved the bullshit you were spewing was wrong.


After that your backpeddling and childishness didn't warrent a responce, so you didn't get one.

You mean, you stopped responding after it was pointed out the book you were citing for Conquest being famous for archival research is 90% a reprint from his work decades earlier.



Combined with the term 'retard', and the fact that you are wrong (and obviously so), I don't think you could possibly do anything more to come across as a petulant child.
A bald-faced liar such as yourself doesn't deserve anything resembling civility.



Indeed, but the issue is that the article misrepresents and decontextualises the contents of the study guide
Except it doesn't, you're just a moron.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Invader, you don't really have a leg to stand on to start whining about personal attacks now. You lost on the Orwell issue, and now it's just a matter of semantics. All I have seen from you is strawman attacks on "Stalinists", pretending that they deny that large amounts of people died under the regime, and so forth.

Also I found the Great Leader thing intriguing because it seems to suggest where you get your information from and your level of education in these matters. Great Leader is generally used to refer to Kim Il Sung. The mainstream media, rather stupidly, continually refers to North Korea as Stalinist. Thus it would seem as though you think that that is how people who support Stalin(since there is no such thing as Stalinism), run around calling him Great Leader and possibly having pictures of him on our walls. In other words, sheer idiocy.

The argument still stands, that if something is presented as an allegory of something else, and an educational material claims that such and such is based on this or that event- there is an automatic assumption about the accuracy of the referenced event.

[Invader Zim]

Except you dishonestly quoted your source, which actually proved the bullshit you were spewing was wrong.I quoted the source verbatim, and proved that the archives were open to western scholars prior to the point you, wrongly, claimed.


You mean, you stopped responding after it was pointed out the book you were citing for Conquest being famous for archival research is 90% a reprint from his work decades earlier.You have already proved yourself to be utterly ignorant of the historiography of this subject; I'll tell you now what I told you then, read the scholarly review articles.


A bald-faced liar such as yourself doesn't deserve anything resembling civility.You called me a liar last time, and I proved you wrong and that I was entirely honest. But whatever, your insults harm your own image far more than they do mine; so please do keep going.


Invader, you don't really have a leg to stand on to start whining about personal attacks now. I don't bemoan it at all, if Intelligitimate wants to troll himself into Revlefts very own Gulag, then I wish him every success.


You lost on the Orwell issueHardly, you have yet to adiquately respond to the point that the article misrepresents the study guide. Your responce, noting that fiction impacts how people judge history, is not relevent to my point.


pretending that they deny that large amounts of people died under the regime,Individuals such as Intelligitimate here dedicate a vast amount of time attempting to downplay the 'number' of victims of Stalins regime.


and your level of education in these matters.I am more than willing to bet that my education exceeds your own. Especially as you provide links to the Stalin Society as a source for your arguments.


Thus it would seem as though you think that that is how people who support Stalin(since there is no such thing as Stalinism), run around calling him Great Leader and possibly having pictures of him on our walls.Actually Stalin is regularly described as 'great leader', in popular culture and academic works. If you do not believe me, I suggest you see for yourself, please do take a look at Christopher J. Ward's review article 'The Cult of Ivan the Terrible in Stalin's Russia' by Maureen Perrie, in Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 55.


and an educational material claims that such and such is based on this or that eventThis is of course the case, but it is not what I argued, I argued (and accurately), that the article had misrepresented the guide by failing to point out several salient passages which show the guide was and is much more balanced than the article suggested.

[spartan]

There is no point in continuing this arguement, as we have our beliefs (Which we are unwilling to compromise) and they have theirs (Which they also are unwilling to compromise).

I gave up on this thread earlier today, because we keep on going over the same shit and getting nowhere (Well nowhere to an agreed conclusion that satisfies both sides in this debate).

They provide evidence that such and such was such and such, and that is meant to make all of such and such's arguements, against such and such, invalid.

We disagree with what we see as biased evidence, and before you know it we are all producing more evidence to back up our respective positions on this issue (Which only our respective side will agree with).

I think that it is perhaps time that everyone in this "discussion" agreed to disagree?

Because i seriously dont see either side compromising their beliefs on this one.

Hell we are just wasting revleft bandwidth if we carry on anymore with the same old shit!

So come on people, enough is enough!

Lets end this now, where no one side in this debate wins, and no one side in this debate loses.

That outcome sounds fair enough for both sides in this debate IMO, as we have both argued our positions on this issue admirably and with determination.

NOTE: If anyone responds to this message saying "So you finally admit defeat then?", or something along those lines, i will personally rejoin the debate and never give up until i have bored you all to death!

You have been warned;)

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Individuals such as Intelligitimate here dedicate a vast amount of time attempting to downplay the 'number' of victims of Stalins regime.

Based on archival documents yes. When Stalin has been accused of killing(almost personally it seems) anywhere from 60 to 25 million people, while facts show otherwise, I don't see where that is a problem.



I am more than willing to bet that my education exceeds your
own.

Money wasted apparently.



Especially as you provide links to the Stalin Society as a source for your arguments.

This is what we would call a "lie", seeing that the only link I ever provided from the Stalin Society was the article on George Orwell.



Actually Stalin is regularly described as 'great leader', in popular culture and academic works. If you do not believe me, I suggest you see for yourself, please do take a look at Christopher J. Ward's review article 'The Cult of Ivan the Terrible in Stalin's Russia' by Maureen Perrie, in Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 55.

Whose popular culture and by whom exactly? And do you even know who coined the term "Vozhd" for Stalin in the first place?




This is of course the case, but it is not what I argued, I argued (and accurately), that the article had misrepresented the guide by failing to point out several salient passages which show the guide was and is much more balanced than the article suggested.


I think the passages it did quote are valid enough to say that it is sufficiently biased.

[Luís Henrique]

First of all, Stalin was informed that these things were necessary for the security of the state. Second, these purges were all many of the first secretaries wanted to discuss, as opposed to Stalin's plans for holding contested, secret-ballot elections. They had considerable power in the CC.

And the man who supposedly guided the peoples towards socialism agreed that executions and arrests without trial were necessary for the security of the State? And at the same time that he agreed to executing people without trial he was planning "democratic" (ie, democratic in the bourgeois sence) elections? What kind of planet did Stalin live in, in which one could dream of "democratic" elections simultaneous to a total absence of rule of law?

Luís Henrique

[Intelligitimate]

I quoted the source verbatim No you didn't. The very next few sentences went on to describe how limited the access he had was.



and proved that the archives were open to western scholars prior to the point you, wrongly, claimed. A mere semantic quibble, I should have been more careful in my wording. The fact of the matter is no Western scholar was doing any serious research in the archives in the 80s, which the very source you quoted shows. You wrongly stated Conquest is famous for archival research, and cited a book from the 1980s and a reprint of his earlier work as the basis of this statement, showing you don't know a god damn thing about the field. I seriously doubt you've actually read either book as well.



You have already proved yourself to be utterly ignorant of the historiography of this subject; I'll tell you now what I told you then, read the scholarly review articles. I'm not the one who thinks Conquest is famous for archival research, and then cites a book written in the 80s and a reprint of a book from the 60s as a source, dumbass.



You called me a liar last time, and I proved you wrong and that I was entirely honest. Except you didn't. You're just a delusion moron, that still probably thinks the piece you cited is saying modern guides to Animal Farm imply it is not a fable.



But whatever, your insults harm your own image far more than they do mine; so please do keep going. Except everyone can also see you're not the slightest bit interested in any sort of civil discussion. You invite attack and dish it out, but now you're trying to act innocent. More evidence of what a dishonest scumbag you are.



Hardly, you have yet to adiquately respond to the point that the article misrepresents the study guide. The point is you make shit up, dumbass. Nowhere does the piece you cite say a god damn thing about modern guides don't consider Animal Farm a fable.



Your responce, noting that fiction impacts how people judge history, is not relevent to my point. Your “point” has been pulled straight from your own imagination. It's even stupider than your complaint over the term “state informer.” You're getting stupider by the minute.



Individuals such as Intelligitimate here dedicate a vast amount of time attempting to downplay the 'number' of victims of Stalins regime. More evidence of what an ignorant moron you are, even though you pretend to know something about modern scholarship on the USSR: you cited debates from the 80s on penal populations, when the figures have already come out the archives. Only someone ignorant of the relevant literature would do this, which is what you are: fucking ignorant.



I am more than willing to bet that my education exceeds your own. Especially as you provide links to the Stalin Society as a source for your arguments. This from someone who cites Anna Applebaum as a source.



This is of course the case, but it is not what I argued, I argued (and accurately), that the article had misrepresented the guide by failing to point out several salient passages which show the guide was and is much more balanced than the article suggested. Except you didn't. You pulled the claim that the article says modern guides don't describe it as a fable straight from your ass, and then found a place where the guide describes it as a fable, and then claimed the author is misrepresenting the guide. Whether you did this because you're stupid or a liar, I can't quite tell.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Spartan, I have been more than willing to compromise on this issue. Nobody denies that the Soviet Union under Stalin was not the epitome of socialist democracy, but you have to realize the conditions of the time. I find it very telling that so many Trotskyites and other left-critics of Stalin's Russia are generally book-educated folks who are not familiar with the culture of Russia. While Russia today has many advantages they didn't have back then(largely thanks to the Soviet-built educational system), there are serious cultural problems that would make a revolution almost just as difficult.

I would at least like to see you acknowledge the very real accomplishments of the Soviet Union and existing socialist states, while also acknowledging that you can't just write off all these states, which went through many types of transmissions, as "Stalinist." If all the policies of the Soviet Union under Stalin constitute "Stalinism", then a cursory look at the history of the area shows that these policies were radically altered and in some cases totally reversed.

The idea that an ideal socialist society can form, and reach Communism with one attempt, was really invalidated before 1917 if you think about it, with the Paris Commune. Believe me, that if there is another socialist revolution, however it takes shape, and if it is successful, it will only be because it was based on a proper analysis of the experience of previous socialist states, and that would mean the Soviet Union, the Peoples' democracies, and other states. Socialist Albania represented what I feel could logically be called the last real step forward for socialism, not so much because they fought against revisionism but because they made some advances that even the socialist-era Soviet Union didn't.

[Invader Zim]

When Stalin has been accused of killing(almost personally it seems) anywhere from 60 to 25 million people, while facts show otherwise, I don't see where that is a problem.Of that we are in agreement, as are conservative historians such as Bill Rubinstein who also take the line that the Rummels of the world are wrong.


This is what we would call a "lie", seeing that the only link I ever provided from the Stalin Society was the article on George Orwell. Then how is it a lie. You posted the article as a source, and it was predictably bad.


And do you even know who coined the term "Vozhd" for Stalin in the first place?I have absolutely no idea, I imagine that like many of these terms it was used long prior to the point it came to light or was popularised, but if it is the latter you are looking for then I believe it was Khrushchev.



I think the passages it did quote are valid enough to say that it is sufficiently biased.The passages it quoted were subjected highly to dubious analysis by the author of the article who then made claims about the article, based on this dubious analysis. As noted the article makes claims of the guide which study of the guide soon exposed to being unfair. As I said, the author of the article simply cherry picked the guide, in order to create a misleading impression.

Oh and Intelligitimate, the childish nature of your insults were at first amusing but you have over played that card and now you're just dull; which is far more damning in my eyes than the actual act of flaming. So until I hear reports that you have expanded your imagination, you are going to languish on my ignore list; thus saving myself from having to read your inane comments which long since grew old.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Then how is it a lie. You posted the article as a source, and it was predictably bad.

Tense. You said I back my arguments with articles from the Stalin Society. The Orwell thing is the only time I have ever cited something from there. And furthermore I am still not convinced that the article doesn't make valid points.




I have absolutely no idea, I imagine that like many of these terms it was used long prior to the point it came to light or was popularised, but if it is the latter you are looking for then I believe it was Khrushchev.

Indeed it was. Now do you remember what Stalin said about this "cult of personality"?

[Holden Caulfield]

While Russia today has many advantages they didn't have back then(largely thanks to the Soviet-built educational system), there are serious cultural problems that would make a revolution almost just as difficult.


yeah and the german auto-bahns were very sucessful, and so was all of the medical 'research' that came from nazi germany, but the postives from these cannot be used as justifications, in the same what that the 'sucesses' of Stalinist policy cannot be justified due to the extreme way that they were often enforced

[Invader Zim]

And furthermore I am still not convinced that the article doesn't make valid points.I suppose some of it is accurate, after all even the misrepresentations and gross sensationalism are at least based on a warped perspective on actual events. The issue however is that the article does misrepresent, does sensationalise and does create a misleading picture of Orwell and his work in order to attack his character.




Now do you remember what Stalin said about this "cult of personality"?Nope, and nor do I care.

[Red Economist]

i was shocked to log on and find 'stalin the democrat' as a heading... but I can see how people might arrive at this point of view.

Stalin did launch the 1936 soviet constitution, which was supposedly authorised by the soviets, (i.e the entire people).
we should keep in mind however that the constitution was never properly enfroced, and was authored by Kamenev and Zinoviev, who were in prision at the time- hoping to redeem themselves by services to the regime.

Stalin brought 'order' and 'structure' to what had been a choatic series of constitutions before hand. the level of democracy in the soviet union, certainly in post stalin times- made it look like a american liberal democracy- but only with a socialist economy. (and the whole 'one-party-state' thing).

stalins fight against the bureaucracy- was a conflict within the bureaucracy, attempting to ensure the subordination of the 'lower levels' to the higher levels and also keeping stalin in power. the assaination of Kirov- which was never conclusively solved, may be such an example.

other than that. i will have to read this article in more depth...

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

yeah and the german auto-bahns were very sucessful, and so was all of the medical 'research' that came from nazi germany, but the postives from these cannot be used as justifications, in the same what that the 'sucesses' of Stalinist policy cannot be justified due to the extreme way that they were often enforced


That is once again a terrible analogy. Hitler targetted and attempted to wipe out entire groups of people. Under the Bolsheviks entire nations were put on the map. Life-spans doubled, populations grew, the agriculture and infrastructure grew so that the country could accomodate such a population. Much of the excesses you speak of were due to folks like Yagoda and Yezhov, which could hardly be blamed on Stalin save for in hindsight.

[Holden Caulfield]

he put these people in office, and when his intelligence service was so good at rooting out other 'traitors' why did people like Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria, etc.. remain in power?

the USSR is preferable to Nazi germany by a long shot, systematic genocide is far worse than the slaughter and paranoia of Stalin, but that still doesn't justify it

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

he put these people in office, and when his intelligence service was so good at rooting out other 'traitors' why did people like Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria, etc.. remain in power?

Well I think it is quite apparent that with Yagoda, and Yezhov, they weren't rooting out traitors. They were often implicating innocent people in order to cover for their buddies. That is why there were so many sentences overturned and appealed automatically after those former two got busted.

As for Beria, there is a lot of ridiculous propaganda about his personal life, but he was most likely not a traitor.

I would say a major problem for this actually goes back to the 1917 era, when there were things like arrest quotas.



the USSR is preferable to Nazi germany by a long shot, systematic genocide is far worse than the slaughter and paranoia of Stalin, but that still doesn't justify it


Traitors were not defined by Stalin's "paranoia". Not only is this reductionism, but it also ignores the very real, proven threats to the Soviet Union from without and within.

People can say "why didn't Stalin do this or why didn't he stop that?" Well if Stalin truly was such an all-powerful dictator he could have done just that. But in fact he wasn't, and he had a lot on his plate. Defense, collectivization, industrialization, all in the face of overwhelming odds. What is the point of building the most democratic state with a sparkling human rights record if it can't feed its people, can't build them houses, and gets overrun by foreign empires looking for a piece of real estate?

[Andres Marcos]

he put these people in office, and when his intelligence service was so good at rooting out other 'traitors' why did people like Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria, etc.. remain in power?

the USSR is preferable to Nazi germany by a long shot, systematic genocide is far worse than the slaughter and paranoia of Stalin, but that still doesn't justify it

1. Im not sure anyone can predict who is a bad guy and who isn't on face value. You are taking an after the fact approach to the situation. How could Stalin know what Ezhov and Yagoda were before they actually committed crimes of competitive arrestings, plotting etc.?

2. Once again the notion that Stalin is a "dictator" and thus the USSR under him was a personal dictatorship is something not only impossible(since all states are class dictatorships...if you are going to call a bureacracy a class then I cant help you with this) but what paranoia? If one is going to claim there were no class traitors present in socialist society(and thus a denial of Stalin's theory of Aggravated Class Struggle) then explain Khrushchev, Yeltsin, and the gulag "prisoners" who after the collapse of the USSR are big time supporters of capitalism, to say a state which had hundreds of years of czarist rule and who seeks them out must be paranoid is not looking at the Russian past also fun fact Trotsky himself wanted to purge the Old Bolsheviks from the Party as well only to change his position when it has he who was expelled.

In 1923, Trotsky called for `replacing the mummified bureaucrats' so that `from now on nobody will dare terrorize the party'.
.
-Trotsky, The New Course, pp. 126--127.

[spartan]

(since all states are class dictatorships...if you are going to call a bureacracy a class then I cant help you with this)

If the Bureaucracy (At least you recognize its existence) wasnt a class, then what the hell was it then?

The Bureaucracy controlled all productive forces in the USSR via a centralised planned economy.

They werent workers as their job was the managing of the workers and the workplace (A completly different role then the one the workers had, and one which was almost identical to the Capitalist employer-employee relationship).

They earned more money than the workers, they had better standards of living (Bigger houses) than the workers (Because they earned more money) and they (Not the workers) were in control of all productive forces in the USSR!

So tell me how all that doesnt make them a seperate class from the workers?

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

If the Bureaucracy wasnt a class, then what the hell was it then?

The Bureaucracy controlled all productive forces in the USSR via a centralised planned economy.

They werent workers as their job was the managing of the workers and the workplace.

They earned more money than the workers, they had better standards of living (Bigger houses) than the workers (Because they earned more money) and they (Not the workers) were in control of all productive forces in the USSR!

So tell me how all that doesnt make them a seperate class from the workers?


Workers were able to criticize and if necessary have managers removed, at least during the Stalin-era.

Without centralized planning, you can't have socialism at all. Khruschev got rid of the central plan and decentralized the economy, and look what happened. Even after the central planning bureau was reformed, it had little to nothing to do with production.

There were some big differentials even in the Stalin era, but back then this had more to do with the fact that these incentives had to be given to specialists, engineers, and intellectuals, because the Reds had no reliable source of peasant-proletarian specialists at that time. Of course under Stalin they were working extremely hard to rectify that through the educational system, but they had to start with what was left over after the civil war. To paraphrase Lenin, they had no other bricks with which to build.

[Andres Marcos]

If the Bureaucracy (At least you recognize its existence) wasnt a class, then what the hell was it then?

The Bureaucracy controlled all productive forces in the USSR via a centralised planned economy.

They werent workers as their job was the managing of the workers and the workplace (A completly different role then the one the workers had, and one which was almost identical to the Capitalist employer-employee relationship).

They earned more money than the workers, they had better standards of living (Bigger houses) than the workers (Because they earned more money) and they (Not the workers) were in control of all productive forces in the USSR!

So tell me how all that doesnt make them a seperate class from the workers?

1. Is the bureacracy in a capitalist society a seperate class in a capitalist nation? despite imposing regulations etc.? NO its not. Your viewpoint is that if there is a bureacracy at all then it must serve its own interest and not the class in power, your viewpoint seems to think that a bureacracy can never be subservient to the proletariat, without any backing of the facts Bureacracies have existed since the ancient times and were all subordinate to the classes in power, a bureacracy is an apparatus of the state, it has always existed in statist societies.
2. Once again false, the Soviet "bureacracy" did not have better houses than the workers, Stalin himself lived in a simple 3 room apartment and did not recieve a salary of more than 500 roubles(which was not enough to sustain the Dzugashvilli household thus forcing Nadezhda to work inside a factory).

[spartan]

There were some big differentials even in the Stalin era, but back then this had more to do with the fact that these incentives had to be given to specialists, engineers, and intellectuals, because the Reds had no reliable source of peasant-proletarian specialists at that time. Of course under Stalin they were working extremely hard to rectify that through the educational system, but they had to start with what was left over after the civil war. To paraphrase Lenin, they had no other bricks with which to build.

I can understand that.

So if the revolution had happened in an advanced nation, then all these measures, which Stalin had to take, wouldnt have been necessary?

But wouldnt that make Marxism-Leninism all but redundant as a model for a Socialist society for advanced nations (Such as exists in the current Capitalist first world)?

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

I can understand that.

So if the revolution had happened in an advanced nation, then all these measures, which Stalin had to take, wouldnt have been necessary?

But wouldnt that make Marxism-Leninism all but redundant as a model for a Socialist society for advanced nations (Such as exists in the current Capitalist first world)?


Unfortunately this is hard to say exactly because now technology has advanced so far that it can be an unfair comparison. I would like to say that in terms of ideas and mankind in general, we have better ways of determining the difference between dissent, even misguided dissent, and plots to overthrow the state. You have to consider the kind of people they had fought against in the Civil War, folks like the nutcase Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, a deranged butcher who terrorized Mongolia and even his own men. Then of course later there was Hitler, and the collaborators in Ukraine, Russia, and other areas.

But we must always remember, that this is about class struggle, not a class tea party. Capitalists got their power through bloodshed and terror, and when they lost it they get it back the same way. You have probably heard more than enough about the intervention in Budapest in 1956, and in Prague in 1968; a natural result of Soviet revisionism, and indeed tragedies. But many Westerners foolishly see the counter-revolution in Russia as "bloodless", when in fact it was secured by the use of tanks to bombard the parliament building in 1993. When the cappies use tanks, it's just fine apparently. I remember learning about how the mace was a popular medieval weapon in Europe, because there were certain religious restrictions about spilling blood on certain days. A mace could get around this because it was possible to crush someone's skull without spilling much blood. That is the reality of the "bloodless" counter-revolution in Eastern Europe.

Today the ruling class speaks of stability, human rights(when it suits them), and tolerance. They speak of these things because they are firmly in control and thus content with their status. But when they are truly pushed, when the workers begin to take back what they are owed, the velvet gloves will come off the iron fist. Soon all the talk about human rights, freedom of speech, and all this will go right out the window. Fascism, in various forms will spring up and be supported by the state. All these people who think American society is becoming Fascist now have no clue what it will be once the system is falling apart and a real challenger appears.

So I say we should do our best to:

1. Organize as much as possible prior to revolution. The Bolsheviks were weak in the countryside and this hurt them immensely later.

2. Do our best to train workers on technical subjects, even if it is outside of their actual work. They might need to be called upon later.

3. As much as possible create communities and venues where elements of socialist society can be emulated and demonstrated, to train people up to the task of using political power they never had.

And yet as much as we do this, seeing that we are doing what we do in the best interests of humanity in general, we must never forget that the opposition we see now may seem humane, but like a cornered predator they will lash out with unbelievable tenacity when cornered. The Iraq war and Abu Ghraib will pale in comparison.

[Holden Caulfield]

As for Beria, there is a lot of ridiculous propaganda about his personal life,

i dont care if he was a sexual sadist, he could enjoy watersports on nuns for all care,

im just saying people who carried out Stalins purges and who committed most atrocities were usually purged themselves, then replaced by people who carried on purging and atrocities, I dont think Stalin blind enough to replace 'traitors' with 'traitors', and I dont think the men would be retarded enough, to carry on atrocites that got their forerunners killed without Stalins say so

[kromando33]

i dont care if he was a sexual sadist, he could enjoy watersports on nuns for all care,

im just saying people who carried out Stalins purges and who committed most atrocities were usually purged themselves, then replaced by people who carried on purging and atrocities, I dont think Stalin blind enough to replace 'traitors' with 'traitors', and I dont think the men would be retarded enough, to carry on atrocites that got their forerunners killed without Stalins say so
Sounds like your just buying into more of this Trotskyist propaganda, maybe you should try and look at Stalin from an objective (may I say Marxist) perspective, rather than your slanted and ideological Trot-looking glass.

My problem with you Trots is that your so absolutist, 'Stalin was evil', 'state capitalist tyranny', etc etc, it's you people just as much as the bourgeois who spread sectarianism like a tumor in the movement. By taking such a 'all or nothing' ultimatist approach to Stalin, the analysis of Trots looses all grounding in realist Marxist analysis, instead it becomes a 'preaching to the converted' type dogmatism, Trotsky's polemical criticism of Stalin ultimately was designed to pander to the liberal-left audience outside the USSR (primarily the USA), an audience who had literally brought into the 'evil Stalinists' conspiracy imported from Nazi propagandists and taken on by the anti-communist forerunners of McCarthyism.

Trots have done quite alot to give the perception of the legitimacy of bourgeois dictatorship, whenever the bourgeois try to justify their oppression and capitalism itself, it's always 'communism never worked, look at Stalin' etc etc... Trots, either willingly or unconsciously, were able to give credence to bourgeois propaganda against Stalin by hiding behind 'socialism', much the same thing happened with Orwell.

[Luís Henrique]

My problem with you Trots is that your so absolutist, 'Stalin was evil', 'state capitalist tyranny',

You might like to enlighten yourself. Trotsky's position was never that the Soviet Union was "State capitalist". He always argued that it was a kind of "degenerate socialism", and always argued that it should be defended against imperialism.


Trots have done quite alot to give the perception of the legitimacy of bourgeois dictatorship, whenever the bourgeois try to justify their oppression and capitalism itself, it's always 'communism never worked, look at Stalin' etc etc...

Seriously, we don't need Trotskyists to make that point. The Soviet Union under Stalin was a regime in which a regional official like Eikhe would ask the national leadership (Stalin) for powers to execute people without trial; and in which the national leadership would in fact grant people like Eikhe the authority they demanded.

What demoralised Stalin and Stalinism was the reality of Stalin's rule over the Soviet Union, not Trotkyists talking about it. Even if you could (by which means, I wonder) ensure that no one in the left would talk against Stalin, the facts would remain facts, and people would still say 'communism never worked, look at Stalin'.

Luís Henrique

[Intelligitimate]

Seriously, we don't need Trotskyists to make that point. The Soviet Union under Stalin was a regime in which a regional official like Eikhe would ask the national leadership (Stalin) for powers to execute people without trial; and in which the national leadership would in fact grant people like Eikhe the authority they demanded.The troikas were trials, just one with the authority to sentence people to death without any further judicial review.

This was at a time when the government was in fear of its life (justified or not), and was taking extraordinary measures to protect itself. As the article also argues, people like Eikhe were the ones who stressed the need to deal with enemies the most, and then proceeded to abuse the extraordinary powers they were given for their own ends. Most of them were eventually themselves executed for this.

[Luís Henrique]

The troikas were trials, just one with the authority to sentence people to death without any further judicial review.

Mock trials, you mean.

When I said 'trials', I should have said 'proper trials'.


This was at a time when the government was in fear of its life (justified or not), and was taking extraordinary measures to protect itself. As the article also argues, people like Eikhe were the ones who stressed the need to deal with enemies the most, and then proceeded to abuse the extraordinary powers they were given for their own ends. Most of them were eventually themselves executed for this.

The fear was engendered, to begin with, by its higher levels; and it was amplified in its way from top to bottom.

Evidently. It cannot have gone past them the detail that things were shifting in a dangerous (for them) way: emphasis was not being put in the mistakes of the party, instead of actions of external enemies. The rotating gun machine was starting to aim at them. They reacted, it seems, by stressing the dangers from external enemies and gained a few months more.

I am far from sure that they were executed for their excesses.

Unhappily, it wasn't the only time it happened. We can see the same pattern of panic, repression, and blaming the repression on the lower layers at work also in the early 30's crisis (orders from top to be extremely harsh in the implementation of collectivisation, abuse of such orders, and then repression of the abusers); during war (wrong orders coming from above, then military officials being blamed for the ensuing defeats); and in Stalin's last days, with the infamous anti-semite campaign around the "physicians complot" and with the "georgian-mingrelian" "conspiracy" aimed at destroying Beria - only, in this last cases, Stalin was no longer there to carry out the last act of the bloody play.

Luís Henrique

[Intelligitimate]

Mock trials, you mean.
Not everyone who went before a troika was found guilty or executed.



The fear was engendered, to begin with, by its higher levels; and it was amplified in its way from top to bottom.
Not true. As the article shows (as does Getty in his Origins), most of the fear mongering was being done by the regional party leaders, people like Eikhe.



Evidently. It cannot have gone past them the detail that things were shifting in a dangerous (for them) way: emphasis was not being put in the mistakes of the party, instead of actions of external enemies. The rotating gun machine was starting to aim at them. They reacted, it seems, by stressing the dangers from external enemies and gained a few months more.

I am far from sure that they were executed for their excesses.
The fact has already been established in the case of Postyshev. You can read for yourself the charges and questioning of Postyshev in Getty's Road to Terror. Eikhe's case was basically the same.



Unhappily, it wasn't the only time it happened. We can see the same pattern of panic, repression, and blaming the repression on the lower layers at work also in the early 30's crisis (orders from top to be extremely harsh in the implementation of collectivisation, abuse of such orders, and then repression of the abusers); during war (wrong orders coming from above, then military officials being blamed for the ensuing defeats); and in Stalin's last days, with the infamous anti-semite campaign around the "physicians complot" and with the "georgian-mingrelian" "conspiracy" aimed at destroying Beria - only, in this last cases, Stalin was no longer there to carry out the last act of the bloody play.
There was nothing anti-Semitic about the whole "Doctor's Plot" affair, unless you equate anti-Zionism, which nearly the entirety of the Left accepts, with anti-Semitism (most of what is written on the subject is complete and utter bullshit, just like the idea the Georgian-Mingrelian case was a plot to get rid of Beria). Nor do any of these events have much in common with the 1936-38 events.

[Luís Henrique]

The fact has already been established in the case of Postyshev. You can read for yourself the charges and questioning of Postyshev in Getty's Road to Terror. Eikhe's case was basically the same.

Even Getty seems to have a different opinion:


Even as the overvigilant Postyshev was being sacrificed for the sake of ending mass expulsions in the party, the terror continued unabated on other fronts. The same week that Postyshev was expelled from the party for his excess zeal, the Politburo formally extended the time period for work of the murderous troykas; they were supposed to have finished their "mass operations" by the end of 1937. At the same time, the Politburo raised execution and exile limits established in the original order. The Politburo considered and approved higher limits for various regions on a weekly basis, and sometimes more often. These decisions would eventually prolong troyka operations until nearly the end of 1938. [...] an additional 48,000 people were to be shot.So while Postyshev was executed under the pretext that he was responsible for excesses, the Politburo continued approving measures that made the excesses possible under other secretaries.

Luís Henrique

[Holden Caulfield]

So while Postyshev was executed under the pretext that he was responsible for excesses, the Politburo continued approving measures that made the excesses possible under other secretaries.

Luís Henrique

this was my exact point when talking about the excesses of Stalinism, Stalinist claim that Stalin didn't know about these and when he did he removed those who had been guilty of them,

take the heads of the NKVD as example (Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria) if he kept appointing such men to such positions he surely either condoned their actions or was just really fucking stupid,

[spartan]

take the heads of the NKVD as example (Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria) if he kept appointing such men to such positions he surely either condoned their actions or was just really fucking stupid,

Stalin, like any Dictator, knew full well what those under him were doing.

Now when those under him started getting "to big for their boots", and in Stalins mind, started becoming a threat to his own power, he had them liquidated.

Of course it also worked when these local official's actions (Approved of by the Kremlin) were causing a problem for the Kremlin (Bad reputation), so to save face these people were sacrificed, as they could easily be replaced by the next generation of Stalin Loyalists (Who may, or may not, slip up like the ones before them did).

[Andres Marcos]

Stalin, like any Dictator, knew full well what those under him were doing.


Yet another accusation of 'dictatorship' has nobody ever looked at how decisions were made in the USSR? COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP i.e. meaning votes!, well Spartan what class was stalin the 'dictator' of? It sure was not a bourgeosie and no a bureacracy is a state apparatus that has existed for thousands of years so don't try that one.



Now when those under him started getting "to big for their boots", and in Stalins mind, started becoming a threat to his own power, he had them liquidated.

pure speculation which fits exactly into your totalitarian paradigm.

[Intelligitimate]

Even Getty seems to have a different opinion

Nowhere does Getty disagree with my statement, and as I already quoted earlier in the summary before the document in question, says exactly the same thing (that Postyshev was removed for his excesses), which is confirmed by the very passage you cite (again).


So while Postyshev was executed under the pretext that he was responsible for excesses, the Politburo continued approving measures that made the excesses possible under other secretaries.

Luís Henrique


So what? Did the party suddenly stop believing there were enemies that needed to be dealt with? Had all the people involved, especially Ezhov, been removed yet?

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

It is telling that the allegedly 'anti-capitalist' Trots and anarchists not only accept any bourgeois claim against Stalin as truth, but they also adopt the very same mentality toward it as well:

If Stalin wasn't aware of something, it was his fault. If he became aware and spoke out against it, he was really behind it and trying to cover up his involvement. If he put a stop to something, it was because he had some sinister reason to do so. Straight out of the anti-Communist handbook:

Rule #9 "Everything Stalin did or didn’t do had some sinister ulterior motive. Everything."

[HeavenCanWait]

Hi to all comrades,
SORRY that I'm way bored to read all the discussion about Stalin.
A couple of things I would like to state:
1. Lenin said in his political testament: "Stalin is way easy-to-get-angry and that's a bad habit for a GS" this doesn't mean that Stalin wasn't the best possible GS in that particular time, we also have to keep in mind that Stalin had to oppose and fight Nazis in WWII...
2. Stalin resigned (1 or 2 times, I don't remember) and he was reelected for GS (this is not a democratic action?????)
3. Trotsky definately was fighting Stalin more than he was fighting those who were opposed the Socialist Revolution is USSR...
4. All bourgeoises, capitalists and anti-communists are critisizing us for "Stalin's murders, Goulang" etc. including in "Stalin's murders" the brave soldiers of Red Army who died by Nazis. Our goal as leftists, communists, revolutionaries etc. is to support them???

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Hi to all comrades,
SORRY that I'm way bored to read all the discussion about Stalin.

2. Stalin resigned (1 or 2 times, I don't remember) and he was reelected for GS (this is not a democratic action?????)


Thank you for pointing this out again. One might also ask about Stalin' resignations- "are these the actions of a power-hungry dictator?" It just goes to show that even when one looks at the most basic factual details, the case against Stalin falls apart, because it was never really about Stalin the man in the first place.

[Invader Zim]

Thank you for pointing this out again. One might also ask about Stalin' resignations- "are these the actions of a power-hungry dictator?" It just goes to show that even when one looks at the most basic factual details, the case against Stalin falls apart, because it was never really about Stalin the man in the first place.

Resignation, and threatened resignation, is a typical tactic among bourgeois politicians. Robert Peel did it repeatedly. It’s the equivalent of throwing your toys out of the pram to force a concession.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CS:



If Stalin wasn't aware of something, it was his fault. If he became aware and spoke out against it, he was really behind it and trying to cover up his involvement. If he put a stop to something, it was because he had some sinister reason to do so. Straight out of the anti-Communist handbook:



Isn't this how Hitler is defended?

[Invader Zim]

CS:



Isn't this how Hitler is defended?

Sure is the tactic of David Irving.

[Andres Marcos]

CS:



Isn't this how Hitler is defended?

Didn't the bourgeoisie defend and even welcome Hitler and Trotsky?

Im sure we can do pointless Hitler comparisons all day so we should end it on this quote by Antonio Grasmci:

"Trotskyism is the puttanna(Italian. a vulgar word for prostitute) of fascism."

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Resignation, and threatened resignation, is a typical tactic among bourgeois politicians. Robert Peel did it repeatedly. It’s the equivalent of throwing your toys out of the pram to force a concession.

Or it could be precisely what it is- resignation. Stalin attempted to resign almost as soon as he got the post. What concession could this have possibly been for?

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Sure is the tactic of David Irving.

Too bad I just happen to have a copy of History on Trial less than a meter away...

The problem with Irving's tactics is that on one had he will deny the Holocaust outright, then on the other he will say Hitler didn't know about it, then Hitler tried to stop it. Hitler trying to stop it already implies that something is going on. Incidentally, the "evidence" that Hitler tried to stop the killings is based on the deliberate distortion of two memos in Himmler's phone logs. One involves a train-load of Jews from Berlin; Irving distorted it to seem as if he was stopping the liquidation of all Jews from Berlin. Then to make it seem like Hitler ordered this, he made up a story about Hitler summoning Himmler to his bunker and then ordering him to call Heydrich to allegedly "stop the liquidation"(as if for Jews in general). In fact Himmler met with Hitler AFTER that phone call, and he was not "summoned" as Irving claimed.

The next instance was when Irving replaced the word "haben" in "haben zu bleiben" with "Juden", the message was addressed to the SS administrators, telling them "haben zu bleiben", remain in place. The whole message made no sense when he distorted it.

Now the main logical fallacy here is that there was no plan of extermination as part of Marxism-Leninism, even if you believe that 'Stalinism' somehow distorts that. There is no "eliminate this group" or "eliminate that group". Not even the bourgeoisie; the dictatorship of the proletariat may repress them, denying them certain privileges a bourgeois society protects, but there is nothing in the body of Marxism that says eliminate these people. Moreover, the Soviet Union was under legitimate threat from a number of parties, and to get yourself deported or executed you had to at the very least be accused of taking part in some kind of counter-revolutionary activity. This was never the case with Jews- the Jew was assumed to be inherently anti-German regardless of age or sex. German Jews who had been patriotic WWI veterans were cast as traitors automatically.

Yet in the case of Nazi Germany, we have Hitler declaring over and over again the inevitable physical eradication of the Jews from Europe, then it is repeated by Himmler, Hitler is quoted as making another reference to it in Goebbels' diary, and the Max Taubner verdict affirms that this was a matter of state policy. There is no such document during the entire time of the revolution that says "such and such a people must be eradicated due to ethnicity or whatever", nothing that says "let's starve the Ukrainians" or anything of that sort.

So if you want to ***** about trials, assuming every conviction must have been false, or talk about high numbers of arrests and so on- fine, argue that point. But don't come in here pulling the whole Godwin's routine and invoking the Nazis.

Hitler wore pants, Stalin wore pants. There ya go.

[Intelligitimate]

CS:



Isn't this how Hitler is defended?

No. They argue there was no order to exterminate Jews, which is not in anyway analogous to what is being argued in the article (That during a real fear over internal enemies promoted by some officials, these same officials abused extraordinary powers given them to secure their positions, and then were later punished for it).

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

No. They argue there was no order to exterminate Jews, which is not in anyway analogous to what is being argued in the article (That during a real fear over internal enemies promoted by some officials, these same officials abused extraordinary powers given them to secure their positions, and then were later punished for it).

Yes, and while no written order was found, what the deniers fail to mention is the numerous documents and other statements that show it was part of the Third Reich policy, while Hitler himself made numerous references to it. No such equivalent exists in terms of the Soviet Union under Stalin.

[spartan]

Yes, and while no written order was found, what the deniers fail to mention is the numerous documents and other statements that show it was part of the Third Reich policy, while Hitler himself made numerous references to it. No such equivalent exists in terms of the Soviet Union under Stalin.

And yet when we present you with evidence of Stalins crimes, you either deny it, or call it Bourgeois propaganda.

I am sorry but you cant have it both ways on this matter.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

And yet when we present you with evidence of Stalins crimes, you either deny it, or call it Bourgeois propaganda.


Uh yeah hi there buddy...have you been reading this thread or not?



It occurred to me after writing the initial line, that perhaps you mistook my use of the term "bourgeois perspective" to be labeling certain things as "bourgeois propaganda". These are not the same thing. What I am talking about is first and foremost the uncritical acceptance of known bourgeois claims. Several people here seem to like what the ruling class says about Stalin, but in many cases those folks have plenty to say about your favored political systems as well.

Now as for the "bourgeois perspective" in regards to this question, this deals more with the way in which actions or inactions are characterized, as partiallyembodied for example in this satirical quote:

" Rule #9 "Everything Stalin did or didn’t do had some sinister ulterior motive. Everything."

What we have seen from archival research is that many anti-Communist claims that were accepted as fact for decades have been rent asunder. When put together with information that was available, but often ignored(like the actual process of decision making and organization in the USSR), they pain a totally different picture. Thus the ruling class today, which seems even more hell-bent on bashing a system they claim is over and done with, needs a new tactic- that is they need to use interpretation. In many ways this tactic hasn't changed. One time they were claiming that Stalin was more or less personally responsible for this many deaths, now they have to admit the number was much smaller but then Stalin is still to blame.

This is the perspective I am referring to. Acknowledging the facts while simultaneously insisting that Stalin is still to blame. If he did something, it was evil and a crime, if he did nothing, it was evil and a crime, if he had no knowledge of something, it was still a crime, if it is clear he had no knowledge, perhaps he really did. If he spoke out against something, it was because he was secretly behind it. If someone else did something, he was secretly behind it, if someone else clearly did something on their own initiative, they were trying to "impress" Stalin so it's still a Stalin "crime". If Stalin and crew punished someone for such excesses, it had to been to cover up their initial controlling involvement. Ad infinitum.

[Invader Zim]

Or it could be precisely what it is- resignation.]

So he just gave up the job and then was persuaded, against his better judgement, to take back control... I see.

As for your post about Irving, I fail to see why you made it; you provide a somewhat poor summary of the contents of Lipstadt's and Evan's books and seemingly ignore Irving's principal argument, which was to suggest that Hitler knew nothing of the holocaust until 1943, and by that point there was little he could do. It is the functionalist argument taken to extremes. That is exactly what Rosa claims of the arguments you make in the defence of Stalin.

[Andres Marcos]

Have we gone down to drawing nazi holocaust denial comparisons? It seems there has been a drainage of reliable proof on the ultra-left for trying to prove anything or disprove anything about Stalin on these forums that they have resorted to instinct and drawn silly conspiracy theories and insults claiming anyone who supports Stalin is on par with holocaust deniers. All of which without drawing any credible support but inflated rhetoric and hot words.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

]

So he just gave up the job and then was persuaded, against his better judgement, to take back control... I see.

Right, because people can't be persuaded by other people to reverse their decisions. Changing one's mind needs to be some kind of sinister plot.



As for your post about Irving, I fail to see why you made it; you provide a somewhat poor summary of the contents of Lipstadt's and Evan's books and seemingly ignore Irving's principal argument, which was to suggest that Hitler knew nothing of the holocaust until 1943, and by that point there was little he could do. It is the functionalist argument taken to extremes. That is exactly what Rosa claims of the arguments you make in the defence of Stalin.

Once again you attempt to make it seem as though you know what you're talking about, and fuck up royally. While that was a major claim of Irving, Irving at the time was also denying homicidal gassings. Irving is infamous for changing positions on things constantly. The Holocaust that he alleged Hitler not knowing about was the Einsatzgruppen killings, shootings- not gassings. So to be sure, in general Irving DENIES the Holocaust, he has denied established numbers, etc.

What this poor comparison ignores is the vast difference in terms of leadership structure in the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, the aims of the Soviet Union and its leadership, and also the criteria upon which someone could be executed in the Soviet Union. To ignore these vast differences suggest intellectual laziness at best, cowardice at worst.

All forms of revision of history are not equal. Revisionism of Soviet history has been a movement led by non and even anti-Communists, in stark contrast to the Holocaust denial movement which has generally been led by Neo-Nazis or at least those with ties to neo-Nazi organizations. The tales of the Soviet Union were drawn up without access to the records, with a strategic agenda in mind, often in conflict with demographic records. By contrast, the Holocaust was proven by all manner of forensic, documentary, eyewitness, and demographic records- deniers claim this is all a hoax. A conspiracy theory in other words.

[Invader Zim]

Once again you attempt to make it seem as though you know what you're talking about, and fuck up royally.Oh really, where?


Irving at the time was also denying homicidal gassings.No one claimed he didn't. But that was not what Irving 'defined' as the holocaust.


So to be sure, in general Irving DENIES the Holocaust, he has denied established numbers, etc.A point which he has made, gone back on, and remade time and time again. However his consistant point has been that Hitler was utterly unaware of any kind of murderous policy against the Jews until 1943. He based that argument, primarily, upon deliberately misread and deliberately misinterpretated statements by key Nazi officials, a prime example being a phone log of Himmlers, which said "Judentransport aus Berlin. keine Liquidierung"; which Irving declared meant that Hitler suggested that no Jews should be liquidated. However clearly the document reffers to only one individual Jew. So yes, Irving at various points in his career denied the existance of the gas chambers, and denied the 6 million number, but he did (at least publically) continue to accept that the death toll of the Jews under the Nazi regime was in the millions. His principal argument was to suggest that Hitler did not know of these killings until 1943.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Oh really, where?

In your claims about the Irving case.



No one claimed he didn't. But that was not what Irving 'defined' as the holocaust.

Irving has always been famous for changing his positions, almost by the minute, as needed.



A point which he has made, gone back on, and remade time and time again. However his consistant point has been that Hitler was utterly unaware of any kind of murderous policy against the Jews until 1943. He based that argument, primarily, upon deliberately misread and deliberately misinterpretated statements by key Nazi officials, a prime example being a phone log of Himmlers, which said "Judentransport aus Berlin. keine Liquidierung"; which Irving declared meant that Hitler suggested that no Jews should be liquidated. However clearly the document reffers to only one individual Jew. So yes, Irving at various points in his career denied the existance of the gas chambers, and denied the 6 million number, but he did (at least publically) continue to accept that the death toll of the Jews under the Nazi regime was in the millions. His principal argument was to suggest that Hitler did not know of these killings until 1943.

Wow, thanks for basically restating what I had already written, we certainly needed that to be repeated. But you miss the sailent point which was that the structure of the Third Reich was entirely different, and there was no "exterminate people" plan or policy in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's insecurity was also a matter of fact, whereas in Nazi Germany it was invented. Executing people for treason is not comparable to exterminating entire peoples simply based on who they are, no matter what you think of the charges.

[Invader Zim]

In your claims about the Irving case.

Which are correct.


Irving has always been famous for changing his positions, almost by the minute, as needed.

Indeed, but his primary position is that of extreme fuctionalism; which he used to blame the mass killings on Hitlers immidiate subordinates, in an attempt to alliviate the negative light cast on Hitler. His 'holocaust denial' and playing with the numbers is simply another part of the over-riding policy of making Hitler come across better in the historical record.


Wow, thanks for basically restating what I had already written, we certainly needed that to be repeated.

We didn't say the same thing at all, similar but not the same. My point was that his over-riding argument was that Hitler was unaware of the killings or at least the scale of the killings. His attempts to deminish the scale of the killings was a development late in his career. The attempt to make Hitler seem better than he was is a trend through out his career.


But you miss the sailent point which was that the structure of the Third Reich was entirely different,

Your 'salient point' is irrelevent, even if I were to accept that it holds water. What is relevent is that the Stalinist regime saw the murder, repression and imprisonment in concentration camps of a vast number of individuals; and the excuses provided by Stalinists, like Rosa pointed out, mirror that of Irving and his ilk, i.e. that it wasn't Stalin's fault and provide this over arching position of extreme functionalism.