what is a Stalinist? - Some sort of utopian?

[peaccenicked]

This idea is so funny not because it is true because it is pure fantasy. It betrays childish niavete in the extreme.
It is not so funny when you consider how dangerous it is.
Yet how dangerous can it be when it is so fantastic.
The per centage of people who take this notion on board must be very small indeed, 0.000000000000001 per cent of the world's population and these people have less than half a brain, so, it makes them harder to count.
Stalin was self serving, and every academic study will point to this with a huge ammount of gusto.
Those who defend Stalin because of his good intentions
have to wonder what mass murder and good intentions can have in common.
Millions of people died for the ''greater good''.
The greater good of socialism whose main tenet is ''the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.''
How is taking away a life anything to do with individual development.
The transitional period may not provide full freedom as the State is yet to wither away.
However,the transitional period is about human development for all.
The highly bureaucratic State under Stalin took parts of the economy and partially developed them but held back more development in science and art through restriction and murderous malpractice.
What the Stalinist hang onto and have nothing to argue about is a falsified version of history.
It is like the capi arguement that Imperialism is about promoting freedom.
They are profoudly deaf when it comes to the truth and
have nothing but filthy lying accusations to make when it is pointed out to them.

This forum which was probably a mistake to begin with
because it welcomed some of the worst types of ignorant fanatics to take us on ideologically at the expense of the main purpose of this bb.
However, it seems to me that we have to ask.
How long can a dialogue with deaf, brutal and ignorant ideologues be fruitful?
To sum up:Are they worth it?
It is hard enough in the real world already to make headway in a society that is at the height of its criminality in the way that it propagates Orwellian ''values'', and negates the very language we use to understand and think clearly about the world?

This forum is like an Australian soap opera where the main characters are the local fascisti out to shout at the aboriginals.
We get pissed off and shout back. Maybe it serves a function.
The question maybe at what cost?
Maybe, it has just become a custom.
Personally, I have decided that it is better to become
not too accustomed with some of the sinister elements
who make up this forum from the brain dead Stalinists to the despicable anti -human capies.
I dare say I will make interventions when it gets to me.

[Cassius Clay]

What is a Stalinist? Somebody who believes in the concept of abolition of all private property, a Socialist who believes that if the circumstances of the day deem it, then 'Socialism in One Country' is possible. Or could it be somebody who believes that the theory of Communism never progressed further after 1953. Does that answer your question?

[uth1984]

A stalinist is basically someone who, like all socialists/commies, believes in the creation of a socialist society, where there are no distinction of lass or any inequality. However, the way to achieve this is by creating a new elite "Caste" (not new class -- an important distinction) of administrators and beareaucrats to oversee the transition from Capitalism to Socialism.

Also, ruthless leadership and a dicatorship is nessessery to protect the revolution from class enemies. The most famous Stalinist (ummm, Stalin) siad of Ivan the Terrible: "he was ruthless. That cannot be denied. But one must ask WHY it was nessessary for him to be ruthless."


Combined with this, a huge econmic and industrial gains must be made to compete with capitalist countries, again to preserve the revolution. As Stalin said: "We are 50 ort more years behind the capitalists. Either we make good this difference in 10 years or we will be crushed."

[uth1984]

Has anyone seen that simpsons Halloween special when Homer is the last man alive, apart from Zombies, and he gets chased by all the Zombies? And the Zombies say "You know, what with all the killing and maiming, we forgot the love." Thats kinda what Stalinism's like.

[Cassius Clay]

Wow what a mangnificent definition of Stalinism that was. 'Creating a new elite' no that was under Brezheve not Stalin. Under Stalin the workers had the right to criticise the Factory managers and the managers had to listen. If the workers thought the manager was not doing his/her job then they would of been quickly sacked. Under Stalin the Managers and Party men had the lions share of the responsibility while the workers had the power. Under Brezheve the Managers and Party officials (although far from all there were genuine Communists who were not corrupted) gradually decreased their responsibility and increased their power.

'Dictatorship' ? I suppose the fact that there was a election held in December 1927 and the united opposition of Kamenev, Zioneve and Trotsky got just 6000 votes out of 725,000 (less than 1%) votes cast means nothing.

The originall poster called Stalinists a minority. Why is it then that a large majority of those who vote for the Communists in present day Russia happened to of grown up in 1930's, 40's and 50's? And that is why Revolutions occur/occurred in Central America, South East Asia and South America have/were inspired by the example of the PRC and Soviet Union.

Mass murderer? The archives prove you wrong, the FACTS are that just 800,000 (rounded up) died in the Soviet prison system between 1934 and 1953, for all reasons including Execution. And at no point in the history of the Soviet Union were there any more than 2.4% of the adult population in prison. For a comparision the US as of 1998 had 2.8 %.

'How long can a dialogue with deaf, brutal and ignorant ideologues be fruitful?' Indeed.

[komsomol]

Quote: from Cassius Clay on 2:24 pm on Sep. 10, 2002

'Dictatorship' ? I suppose the fact that there was a election held in December 1927 and the united opposition of Kamenev, Zioneve and Trotsky got just 6000 votes out of 725,000 (less than 1%) votes cast means nothing.


I demand a reliable source to support this.

[Cassius Clay]

Oh you 'Demand' a source, well I would like sources proving the use of torture in the trials of 1936-38. Or perhaps a source proving that Stalin gave the order to 'exterminate' all the Germans and maybe something proving that he was a anti-semite. Finally I would just like somebody to discover just a few dozen of all those millions of dead bodies in Siberia, I mean I know it's a big place. Why should I provide a source when you will likely deem it not 'reliable'?

Ah you may have your source.........






In a few hours, for I am going to have a bath and a shave which I'm sure makes your life worth living. :biggrin:

[komsomol]

Quote: from Cassius Clay on 10:52 am on Sep. 11, 2002
Oh you 'Demand' a source, well I would like sources proving the use of torture in the trials of 1936-38. Or perhaps a source proving that Stalin gave the order to 'exterminate' all the Germans and maybe something proving that he was a anti-semite. Finally I would just like somebody to discover just a few dozen of all those millions of dead bodies in Siberia, I mean I know it's a big place. Why should I provide a source when you will likely deem it not 'reliable'?

Ah you may have your source.........






In a few hours, for I am going to have a bath and a shave which I'm sure makes your life worth living. :biggrin:

Did you here me say these things about Stalin beforehand? Why would you require me to back up what other people have said. I am just cynical, and curious, you see I have searched for a source myself about this and have unfortunateley found nothing. By a reliable source I mean a purely unbiased source, prefferably one not just focusing on Stalin himself and rather wider Soviet politics.

[Marxman]

Stalinism

In contemporary parlance, the word “Stalinism” has come to embody a range of ideologies, specific political positions, forms of societal organization, and political tendencies. That makes getting at the core definition of “Stalinism” difficult, but not impossible.

First and foremost, Stalinism must be understood as the politics of a political stratum. Specifically, Stalinism is the politics of the bureaucracy that hovers over a workers' state. Its first manifestation was in the Soviet Union, where Stalinism arose when sections of the bureaucracy began to express their own interests against those of the working class, which had created the workers' state through revolution to serve its class interests.

Soviet Russia was an isolated workers' state, and its developmental problems were profound. The socialist movement—including the Bolshevik leaders in Russia—had never confronted such problems. Chief among these was that Russia was a backward, peasant-dominated country, the “weakest link in the capitalist chain,” and had to fight for its survival within an imperialist world. This challenge was compounded by the defeat of the revolution in Europe, particularly in Germany, and the isolation of the Soviet workers' state from the material aid that could have been provided by a stronger workers' state. But the pressures of imperialism were too great.

From a social point of view, then, Stalinism is the expression of these pressures of imperialism within the workers' state. The politics of Stalinism flow from these pressures.

The political tenets of Stalinism revolve around the theory of socialism in one country—developed by Stalin to counter the Bolshevik theory that the survival of the Russian Revolution depended on proletarian revolutions in Europe. In contradistinction, the Stalinist theory stipulates that a socialist society can be achieved within a single country.

In April 1924, in the first edition of his book Foundations of Leninism, Stalin had explicitly rejected the idea that socialism could be constructed in one country. He wrote: “Is it possible to attain the final victory of socialism in one country, without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is not. The efforts of one country are enough for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. This is what the history of our revolution tells us. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough. For this we must have the efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries. Such, on the whole, are the characteristic features of the Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.”

In August 1924, as Stalin was consolidating his power in the Soviet Union, a second edition of the same book was published. The text just quoted had been replaced with, in part, the following: “Having consolidated its power, and taking the lead of the peasantry, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society.” And by November 1926, Stalin had completely revised history, stating: “The party always took as its starting point the idea that the victory of socialism ... can be accomplished with the forces of a single country.”

Leon Trotsky, in The Third International After Lenin, called the Stalinist concept of “socialism one country” a “reactionary theory” and characterized its “basis” as one that“sums up to sophistic interpretations of several lines from Lenin on the one hand, and to a scholastic interpretation of the 'law of uneven development' on the other. By giving a correct interpretation of the historic law as well as of the quotations [from Lenin] in question,” Trotsky continued, “we arrive at a directly opposite conclusion, that is, the conclusion that was reached by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and all of us, including Stalin and Bukharin, up to 1925."

Stalinism had uprooted the very foundations of Marxism and Leninism.

From “socialism in one country” flow the two other main tenets of Stalinist politics. First is that the workers' movement—given the focus on building socialism in one country (i.e., the Soviet Union)—must adapt itself to whatever is in the best interests of that focus at any given moment. Hence we find the Stalinists engaged in “a series of contradictory zigzags” (Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed), from confrontation with imperialism to détente and from seeming support for the working-class struggle to outright betrayal of the workers. In other words, Russia's own economic development comes first, above an international policy of revolution—which was the Bolshevik perspective. The second is the idea of revolution in “stages” —that the “national-democratic revolution” must be completed before the socialist revolution takes place. This, too, runs contrary to Marxism. But because of this theory and as the expression of imperialism within the workers' state—and, by extension, within the world workers' movement—we find the Stalinists assigning to the national bourgeoisie a revolutionary role.

The case of Indonesia in 1965 affords an ideal illustration of the bankruptcy and treachery of the “two-stage theory.” As class tensions mounted among the workers and the peasantry, and the masses began to rise up against the shaky regime of President Sukarno, the Stalinist leadership in Beijing told the Indonesian masses and their mass organization the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) to tie their fate to the national bourgeoisie. In October, as many as 1 million workers and peasants were slaughtered in a CIA-organized coup led by General Suharto, which swept aside the Sukarno, crushed the rising mass movements, and installed a brutal military dictatorship.

The “two-stage theory” has also propelled the Stalinists into “popular fronts” with so-called“progressive”elements of the bourgeois class to “advance” the first revolutionary stage. Examples include Stalinist support (through the Communist Party, USA) to President Roosevelt 1930s. And, taking this orientation to its logical conclusion, the Communist Party in the United States consistently supports Democratic Party candidates for office, including the presidency.

The theory of “socialism in one country” and the policies that flowed from it propelled a transformation of Soviet foreign policy under Stalin. The Bolshevik revolutionary strategy, based on support for the working classes of all countries and an effort through the Communist International to construct Communist Parties as revolutionary leaderships throughout the world, gave way to deal-making and maneuvers with bourgeois governments, colonial “democrats” like Chiang Kai-shek in China, and the trade union bureaucracies.

In his 1937 essay “Stalinism and Bolshevism,” Trotsky wrote: “The experience of Stalinism does not refute the teaching of Marxism but confirms it by inversion. The revolutionary doctrine which teaches the proletariat to orient itself correctly in situations and to profit actively by them, contains of course no automatic guarantee of victory. But victory is possible only through the application of this doctrine.” At best, one can say that the Stalinist orientation has not been one of orienting “correctly."

In terms of the organization of a state, Stalinist policies are quite clear: democratic rights threaten the position of the bureaucracy, and hence democracy is incompatible with Stalinism. In basic terms on a world scale, the forces of Stalinism have done everything in their power to prevent socialist revolution.

[Cassius Clay]

Moloch I apologise, I too have been trying to search thee web for what the stats I quoted, however all I am left with is the originall source from where I quoted it. Unfournatly I will admit this source is biased and does tend to focus on Stalin, however it does provide a wider source of information on the Soviet Union.

So go to following link www.geocities.com/redcomrades/lies.html, the bit you are looking for is almost at the bottom of the article under the section titled 'The purges of 1937' the precise numbers are in the first paragraph.

Reliability? Well the UN admits that they are right on other stat issues, so I trust them. But I understand if you would like another one or two sources so I will try my best to post something in the next couple of days.

[komsomol]

Hmmm that site looks fairly reliable since its got a lot of content, I would like one more, but there is no hurry, you can take your time.

PS: You are forgiven for the misunderstanding.

[peaccenicked]

Quote: from Cassius Clay on 11:10 am on Sep. 10, 2002
What is a Stalinist? Somebody who believes in the concept of abolition of all private property, a Socialist who believes that if the circumstances of the day deem it, then 'Socialism in One Country' is possible. Or could it be somebody who believes that the theory of Communism never progressed further after 1953. Does that answer your question?



It does not anwer my question. Stalinism is not about the abolition of all private property but turning all public life into the private property of the 'elite' or the new state aparatus which contained much of its fuedal past.
Communism did progress beyond 1953. The Himalayas
were climbed. Communism is about humanity not about elites.

[Guest]

you're so full of bullshit peaccenicked...

[Cassius Clay]

Peaccenicked, okay if you new the answer to your question then why did you bother asking in the first place?

[uth1984]

Comrade, I respect your passionate defence of Stalin. My posts show what my study of history shows "Stalinism" to be. "What is a Stalinist? Somebody who believes in the concept of abolition of all private property" Besides the Socialism in One Country, how do you see Stanlinism as differeing from other forms of Socialism?

[Marxman]

Stalinism has got nothing to do with the genuine form of socialism. As a matter of fact, stalinism was, and still is, the biggest burden of socialism that outranks capitalism in that scale. Why would Stalin be a socialist when he killed all the Bolsheviks and diminished all the workers' movements throughout the East? Socialism is based on the workers' movement, which applies to the first step of its pre-revolutionary procedure, so why would Stalinism had something to do with socialism? Let me tell you why, because Stalinism creates its basis on the deformed workers' state, which Russia was in the time of Lenin and Trotsky that followed civil war and NEP. Stalinism grew stronger every minute of the deformation and it won its seizure of the state apparatus and soon stretched its tentacles world-wide. But it did not called itself Stalinism but Communism, which is typical for a parasitic form of all shapes and size. It was under the bannes of socialism and it destroyed its basis (workers' movements) actually. The power was immense, it reached every workers and enslaved it with the same tactic as fascism did with the burgeois. So you see, another annexation between stalinism and fascism.

[American Kid]

I think Michael De Panama is the resident expert on Stalinists, isn't he? Where is that little fuck?

Cassius Ali, are you a hobbit or an orc?

from one wiseass to the other
-AK

(btw I don't agree with a single one of you; let freedom ring)

[Cassius Clay]

Quote: from uth1984 on 1:25 pm on Sep. 13, 2002
Comrade, I respect your passionate defence of Stalin. My posts show what my study of history shows "Stalinism" to be. "What is a Stalinist? Somebody who believes in the concept of abolition of all private property" Besides the Socialism in One Country, how do you see Stanlinism as differeing from other forms of Socialism?


I don't really see it being that different from other forms of Socialism really, other than the points listed. Ofcourse it is perceived by just about everybody as 'Authoriatiarian', which I believe to be complete rubbish (now the cries that I should move to North Korea will come in).

The other example of Stalinism in practice is probably Albania, where great things were acheived. Ofcourse you will hear estimates of 1 million people being imprisoned (that's a third of the population) but of course the facts are quite different. Now what has Capatalism bought to Albania? The answer is a mafia/fascist state where prostitution, crime and corruption run wild.

If you have the time check out the following article by Envver Hoxha, which explains the difference between Stalinism and other Socialist ideology's such as Maoism, Trotskyism, Titoism, Khruscheve style 'socialsim' and Euro-Communism. You may find some it to be just boring rhectoric, but try to stick through it. So go to www.marxists.org/refernce/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/imp_ch1.htm

Note I do not agree with everything written there (just pacific points) but I agree with alot of it.

[American Kid]

.......................................I see :)

Don't worry. I'll get you.
-AK

[Cassius Clay]

AK, what are you talking about? And no I'm not a Hobbit or a Orc, just a former Heavyweight Champion who was exploited by a guy with fuzzy hair and a nice laugh. Aswell as thousands of other leaches who called me 'Champ' and said that I was their 'freind' they even told me I could beat Larry Holmes. I could of beaten Larry you know it was all going so well till the bell rang.

Oh yes the link should be http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/...rev/imp_ch1.htm (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/imp_ch1.htm)

[American Kid]

I challenge you to a fist fight.

Be wary though. I got a rep for bringin' knifes to fistfights.

"What? Ref, I ain't got nothin'!" *slash*

Anyway........I'm the......Easter Bunny. I uh, was born on the day Christ rose from the grave and since then I've been uh..............exploited by people in shopping malls across the USA. So fuck it. I'm just waiting for my pension.

Swear to God.
-AK