Nikita Khrushchev

[berlitz23]

What's your opinion on the man?

[RHIZOMES]

A revisionist hypocritical dickhead.

Specifically - his "Party of the people" BS and his criticisms of Stalin's personality cult when he was one of the creators of it in the first place.

[Holden Caulfield]

opportunist mainly, revisionist, short sighted,
caused many issues for the USSR and wasted money on the space race,

i'm not a fan of the man,
didn't he sneak his memoirs out the country as well? i think he did..

[3A CCCP]

What's your opinion on the man?

Khrushchev was an opportunist and revisionist whose vile lies about comrade Stalin helped split the world Communist movement. His attack on comrade Stalin also drove many Communists to the Trotskyites and breathed new life into their cause.

Khrushchev's personal conduct was an embarrassment to me and all Eastern Slavic people. His banging shoes on the table in the U.N. and other crude behavior gave the anti-Soviet West the ammunition it needed to say that we were just barbarians and animals. His backing down to Kennedy on the missiles in Cuba was a disgrace and an act of cowardice.

Worst of all, his actions allowed the door to be eventually open 30 years later to the traitor Gorbachev who destroyed our Motherland.
3A CCCP!
Mikhail

[Die Neue Zeit]

A revisionist hypocritical dickhead.

Specifically - his "Party of the people" BS and his criticisms of Stalin's personality cult when he was one of the creators of it in the first place.

Why can't Trotskyists and "Marxist-Leninists" work together on this issue and lambaste the Soviet regime after Stalin's death? Granted, the creator of "Marxism-Leninism" was reductionist and grossly revisionist ("SIOC" as a "virtue" in the various Eastern European countries, plus post-WWII realpolitik), but his immediate successor was just an outright Kautskyist! :cursing:

Was Khrushchev a Kautskyist? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/khrushchev-kautskyist-t78318/index.html)

"State of the whole people," "peaceful coexistence," etc. (although really he continued, in effect, Stalin's post-WWII thinking :( )



[Well, at least a Trot above is in agreement. :) ]

[Pogue]

Comrade Stalin? Stalin was a comrade of no one but himself. Murderous, power mad maniac.

[spartan]

Small and pudgy and who seemingly had the mannerisms of a small time crook or gangster who hides behind a gang of toughs whilst at the same time appearing as a lovable little idiot in public (Deception?)

All in all not the kind of guy you would want running a self described Socialist state:lol:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40967000/jpg/_40967074_nikita.jpg

[RHIZOMES]

Comrade Stalin? Stalin was a comrade of no one but himself. Murderous, power mad maniac.

Sure sure... However, this thread is about KHRUSHCHEV.

[Dros]

Comrade Stalin? Stalin was a comrade of no one but himself. Murderous, power mad maniac.

Go read a book.

[Prairie Fire]

Jacob Ritcher:


Why can't Trotskyists and "Marxist-Leninists" work together on this issue and lambaste the Soviet regime after Stalin's death?


Actually, most of th M-L's here have been commenting on Kruschev on this thread, not Trotsky.

Kruschev was a revisionist/capitalist. He represented a trend within the CPSU that began to dismantle socialism in the USSR, and gradually introduce elements of capitalism as well ,such as the profit motrive, finance capital, imperialist military intervention, etc, etc.

He began as a conspiring sycophant, who soon showed his true colours in his monumental betrayal of socialism in the USSR.

Not only did he sabotage and dismantle Soviet socialism, but he hampered and crushed socialist construction in dozens of countries: DDR, Cuba, Czechoslavakia, Hungary, Romania, Albania (attempted), Poland, DPRK (attempted coup against Kim Il sung/WPK,), China, etc,etc.

Of all of the revisionists, reformists and outright capitalist-restorationists, Nikita Kruschev was the greatest traitor of all time, who bit the foot of socialism at the time of it's greatest triumphs.



Comrade Stalin? Stalin was a comrade of no one but himself. Murderous, power mad maniac.


You know what the best thing about anti-Stalin sentiments are? That they can be expressed in less than a paragraph.

You know nothing; if you have a point of view, PM me and explain your tired cliches in detail. If not, stop hijacking a thread as a platform for a renewed burst of anti-stalin rhetoric.

I have to believe that even the most fervent Trots are a little fatigued of hearing Stalin bashing all the time, because regardless of content, it does get annoying.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I wasn't referring to Trotsky at all, PF. Why can't Trotsky-ists and M-Ls come together and lambaste Khrushchev and his gang, Brezhnev and his gang, etc.?

[Dros]

^^^ I wasn't referring to Trotsky at all, PF. Why can't Trotsky-ists and M-Ls come together and lambaste Khrushchev and his gang, Brezhnev and his gang, etc.?

Probably because the Trots always start whining about Comrade Stalin and how their guy lost!

[Prairie Fire]

Why can't Trotsky-ists and M-Ls come together and lambaste Khrushchev and his gang, Brezhnev and his gang, etc.?

Ideally that would be fantastic, except that in the eyes of Trotskyists, Kruschev was a "Stalinist" (:rolleyes:). Most Trots believe that the USSR was not a socialist state long before Kruschevs rise to power, and most see Kruschevs policies as a continuation of those intiated by Joseph Stalin (despite the fact that there is no similarity in theory nor practice), which could cause complications in our basis of unity.

We both disagree with Kruschev and certainly regard him as a revisionist, but the Trotskyists metaphysical inability to distinguish between the policies of the Kruschev USSR (as well as the Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko era), and the policies of the USSR in the era of Lenin and Stalin, could cause massive complications. It is difficult to have a united front effort against a revisionist, if your comrade in arms accuse the revisionists of simply being an extension of your theoretical line, you dig?

That said, I'm willing to work with un-dog,matic Trots, always have.

[Die Neue Zeit]

"Marxism-Leninism": anti-Leninist, reductionist, and grossly revisionist (http://www.revleft.com/vb/marxism-leninism-anti-t73258/index.html)
Lenin, Stalin, and post-Stalin (Khrushchev) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lenin-stalin-and-t66656/index.html)

"Khrushchevism-Brezhnevism-yadda-yadda-yadda" is an odd mix, ideologically speaking. To be objective, it is a practical continuation of Stalin's post-WWII realpolitik, but without the primitive accumulation.

Like the "Pauline" founder of Marxism, Karl Kautsky, who abandoned it and became a renegade, "Comrade" Stalin abandoned his own reductionist and grossly revisionist "Marxism-Leninism" in the post-war period.

It's one thing to have a mixed legacy regarding Spain (logistical problems due to geographic distance), but it's quite another to become a realpolitik-cian extraordinaire during the post-war period from a position of strength (Greece, Yugoslavia, and even China).



How's that for "undogmatic" (and I'm not a Trot)? :D

[BIG BROTHER]

about Nikita I would say: "¡Nikita! ¡Marica! ¡lo que se da no se quita!(Nikita! you fag! you don't take what you gave!) that was what Cubans thought about him after the missiles crisis.

[Unicorn]

His backing down to Kennedy on the missiles in Cuba was a disgrace and an act of cowardice.
There was a danger of nuclear war. The crazy Americans were ready to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union if Khruschev kept the missiles in Cuba. A nuclear war would have been the end of socialism in the world and perhaps the whole humanity.

[ManyAntsDefeatSpiders]

about Nikita I would say: "¡Nikita! ¡Marica! ¡lo que se da no se quita!(Nikita! you fag! you don't take what you gave!) that was what Cubans thought about him after the missiles crisis.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but homophobic slurs should not be tolerated even when directed at our 'class enemies.'

***

Question: What made this, seemingly former communist, turn 'revisionist?'

What is the materialist explanation?

[BobKKKindle$]

What is the materialist explanation?

There is none - the concept of "revisionism" locates individuals as having the ability to influence the course of historical development, but Marxists look beyond this shallow view of history and seek to identify the role of structures. Khrushchev was part of the same ruling stratum as Stalin, and this stratum was able to emerge and attain a hegemony on political activity as a result of the disintegration of the party's social base following the civil war. This disintegration occured primarily in the form of a decline of the urban population - because many proletarians had been killed due to military conflict and a lack of adequate food, or had been forced to return to their peasant villages. This enabled the growth of a bureaucracy within the party apparatus, as identified by Lenin:

"Ours is not a workers' state, but a workers' state with a bureaucratic twist to it" (Works, vol. 32, page 24)

This is the materialist explanation for the collapse of proletarian democracy, and yet Stalinists reject this explanation and assume a continuity between Lenin and Stalin, where none existed.

[BobKKKindle$]

If "revisionism" is a genuine danger, then why did Mao's GPCR fail to prevent the victory of "revisionism" in China?

[RHIZOMES]

If "revisionism" is a genuine danger, then why did Mao's GPCR fail to prevent the victory of "revisionism" in China?

They did, they just lost...

[Holden Caulfield]

Probably because the Trots always start whining about Comrade Stalin and how their guy lost!

oh damn those sectarian trots! not to mention you are *****ing about Trotsky and Trotskyists when me a Trotskyist is (probably, disregarding causality) in agreement with you and managed to post a reply without attacking Stalin, (as JR pointed out)

some Trots are bored of the sectarianism in threads which it has no place, save the Stalin vs Trotsky lark for a thread where it is relevant please..

[3A CCCP]

There was a danger of nuclear war. The crazy Americans were ready to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union if Khruschev kept the missiles in Cuba. A nuclear war would have been the end of socialism in the world and perhaps the whole humanity.

50 years after the fact all any of us can do is speculate on whether Kennedy's gang would have followed through on their threats. I feel that had Khrushchev held his ground the U.S. would have backed down.

The Americans in Washington may have been "crazy," but they weren't stupid. The capitalist rich were living more than very well and none of them wanted to see a war that would ruin their opulent life style. Launching a nuclear war against the USSR would have ended that life style forever.

Also, keep in mind the main mission of the U.S. government is to support and protect the capitalists that run the country. Even if the U.S. had won (which would have been the most likely scenario at that time), the victory would have thrown U.S. civilization back into the dark ages along with the rest of the world.

My guess is that there would have been no war and Cuba would have had the protection it needed.

3A CCCP!
MIkhail

[3A CCCP]

oh damn those sectarian trots! not to mention you are *****ing about Trotsky and Trotskyists when me a Trotskyist is (probably, disregarding causality) in agreement with you and managed to post a reply without attacking Stalin, (as JR pointed out)

some Trots are bored of the sectarianism in threads which it has no place, save the Stalin vs Trotsky lark for a thread where it is relevant please..


My first post on this thread did not mention Trotsky's movement in order to start another Stalin-Trotsky flame war. I agree that these arguments are becoming more than tiresome.

I simply pointed out that Khrushchev's lies about comrade Stalin caused many Communists to go over to the pro-Trotsky camp. This is a fact.

I alway use "comrade" before Stalin's or Lenin's surnames as a sign of my personal respect for them. If this offends anyone, too bad!

3A CCCP!
Mikhail

[Pogue]

I've read books. How about you get your head out of Stalin's arse and look at the great purge, or what he did to the Popular Front in Spain. Executing people you don't agree with and deporting ethnic minorities isn't really something to be admired.
Oh shit, did I just tell the truth about one of the mighty dead Russians who you all worship? Dam! I think the Trots are all bored of the name of a dead traitor being flung around like some Jesus figure when he was clearly a prick.

[Led Zeppelin]

I alway use "comrade" before Stalin's or Lenin's surnames as a sign of my personal respect for them. If this offends anyone, too bad!

It doesn't really offend me, it just makes me pity you, to be honest, for you have no understanding at all of what Lenin stood for.

Can you please point me to an example of Lenin referring to Marx or Engels as "comrade Marx" or "comrade Engels"? I don't think so.

You know why? Because unlike you he was a Marxist and didn't raise people to the status of demi-gods.

[Dros]

oh damn those sectarian trots! not to mention you are *****ing about Trotsky and Trotskyists when me a Trotskyist is (probably, disregarding causality) in agreement with you and managed to post a reply without attacking Stalin, (as JR pointed out)

some Trots are bored of the sectarianism in threads which it has no place, save the Stalin vs Trotsky lark for a thread where it is relevant please..

That was what is known as a joke. I think even Trotsky used to make them occasionally.


I've read books. How about you get your head out of Stalin's arse and look at the great purge, or what he did to the Popular Front in Spain. Executing people you don't agree with and deporting ethnic minorities isn't really something to be admired.
Oh shit, did I just tell the truth about one of the mighty dead Russians who you all worship? Dam! I think the Trots are all bored of the name of a dead traitor being flung around like some Jesus figure when he was clearly a prick.

Clearly you haven't. If you had, you would know that everything in your last post is bullshit and that a "dam" is something used to stop up rivers.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Actually, I want a materialist discussion regarding Stalin, Khrushchev, and WWII. I was tempted to start a separate thread on this, but here's my anti-sectarian reasoning:

For Trots

The Civil War caused the rise of the bureaucracy, right? Why don't you consider similar organizational opportunism during the chaos of WWII? I've read a lot about Soviet history between 1946-1953:

Ordinary Stalinism: The Council of Ministers and the Soviet Neopatrimonial State, 1946-1953 (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/376210)

Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945-1953 (http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/he/subject/History/WorldHistory/GeographicalEuropeanHistory/RussianRevolutionSovietRussia/?view=usa&ci=9780195304206)

Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 (http://www.amazon.com/Stalins-Wars-World-Cold-1939-1953/dp/0300112041)

For M-Ls

Methinks that, had Khrushchev come to power in 1938-1939, he would NOT have turned against his boss like he did in the 50s. Again, like what I said above in regards to challenging the reductionist Trotskyist view that there was no fundamental difference between the Stalin and post-Stalin eras, I am challenging the equally reductionist "Marxist-Leninist" view that there were no similarities between the two eras. Organization during the war and the post-war period is the key!!!



[Like what I said above, Stalin abandoned "Marxism-Leninism" and became an "ordinary Stalinist" during the war and the post-war period.]

[Dros]

For M-Ls

Methinks that, had Khrushchev come to power in 1938-1939, he would NOT have turned against his boss like he did in the 50s.

Why? Khrushchev was a revisionist. The war would have been a great excuse to introduce his revisionism.


Again, like what I said above in regards to challenging the reductionist Trotskyist view that there was no fundamental difference between the Stalin and post-Stalin eras, I am challenging the equally reductionist "Marxist-Leninist" view that there were no similarities between the two eras.

Which is not an Marxist-Leninist position.


[Like what I said above, Stalin abandoned "Marxism-Leninism" and became an "ordinary Stalinist" during the war and the post-war period.]

Except that Marxism-Leninism and "Stalinism" are synonymous.

[BobKKKindle$]

ManyAntsDefeatSpiders asked a legitimate question which no-one has answered: What is the materialist explanation for the alleged danger of "revisionism" within the Communist Party? What might cause an individual or a section of the party leadership to adopt a revisionist policy?

In response to this question, I argued that there was continuity between Stalin and Khrushchev (despite changes in some areas of policy) because they were part of the same ruling stratum, and then I gave an explanation of how this stratum was able to gain power. This was a legitimate point in a discussion concerning Khrushchev, and thus far no-one has been able to respond to my materialist explanation of bureaucratic degeneration.

I then asked a question regarding the effectiveness of the GPCR which is obviously relevant given that the objective of the GPCR is to prevent revisionism - but again, no-one has answered this.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Bobkindles, please be more open-minded.


What is the materialist explanation for the alleged danger of "revisionism" within the Communist Party? What might cause an individual or a section of the party leadership to adopt a revisionist policy?

War - both civil war (Stalin) and invasion (Khrushchev)???


Again, like what I said above in regards to challenging the reductionist Trotskyist view that there was no fundamental difference between the Stalin and post-Stalin eras, I am challenging the equally reductionist "Marxist-Leninist" view that there were no similarities between the two eras. Organization during the war and the post-war period is the key!!!

[Like what I said above, Stalin abandoned "Marxism-Leninism" and became an "ordinary Stalinist" during the war and the post-war period.]

[BobKKKindle$]

^^^ Bobkindles, please be more open-minded.How am I not being open minded? I am drawing attention to questions which need to be answered - if these questions are recognized by the proponents of the theory of "revisionism" those of us who do not agree with this theory will be able to gain a better understanding of what it means.

As a reminder:

1. What is the materialist explanation for revisionism? Or is this based on the great-man theory of history which locates individuals as having the power to change the course of historical events?

2. Given that the objective of the GPCR was to prevent revisionism, how did the revisionists take control of the Party and implement market reforms?



War - both civil war (Stalin) and invasion (Khrushchev)"Anti-Revisionists" do not recognize Stalin as a "revisionist" leader however, rather they stress continuity between Stalin and Lenin. Could you expand on the "invasion" explanation for Khrushchev's revisionism, and note the policies which made him a revisionist?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Like I said, there needs to be a distinction between the pre-war Stalin era and the rest of the Stalin era. "Methinks that, had Khrushchev come to power in 1938-1939, he would NOT have turned against his boss like he did in the 50s." This means that continuity between Stalin and Khrushchev was limited to the latter part of the Stalin era.

You are ignoring the organizational dynamics of the Soviet regime during and after the war. They were more lax, and thus holes were exploited by post-revisionist opportunists. These post-revisionist opportunists were similar to the original revisionist "stratum" that was Stalin's neopatrimonial network of clients just after the civil war.

Consider Stalin's abandonment of his own "Marxism-Leninism" when he had no near-death plans to get rid of Khrushchev or Malenkov (and their post-revisionist patron-client networks), instead focusing on Molotov and Mikoyan (latter on part of the "Anti-Party Group"), plus the proto-Dengist Beria (and his notorious NKVD-based patron-client network)!



The only irony in all this post-revisionism is that Stalin's successors were more progressive in some areas than the pre-war, still-revisionist "Comrade" Stalin: sovkhozization, economic integration, and more extensive support for "national-democratic" revolutions abroad.

[BobKKKindle$]

They were more lax, and thus holes were exploited by opportunists. It's the same manner with Stalin and Uchraspred just after the civil war.

However, Khrushchev was a member of the Politburo before the war in 1939 as leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party - if the organizational structure was more effective and less prone to penetration by opportunists (relative to during and after the war) how was Khrushchev able to gain such an important position without being identified as a (potential) revisionist?

The main continuity between the two leaders was a lack of soviet democracy and internal party discussion - I have never claimed that there was absolute continuity.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ But like I said, pre-war Khrushchev was NOT a "revisionist." He was still loyal to "Marxism-Leninism," just as Central Committee member Stalin was still loyal to Bolshevism, even if accommodating at times, before the civil war.

[BobKKKindle$]

But like I said, pre-war Khrushchev was NOT a "revisionist." He was still loyal to "Marxism-Leninism"

So what caused Khrushchev to "transform" into a revisionist?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Like I said above, the WAR. Just as the Civil War transformed Stalin into a reductionist and revisionist, WWII transformed Khrushchev from a reductionist and revisionist into a POST-revisionist. Please read my EDITED posts above. :)

[BobKKKindle$]

Simply saying "war" is not a sufficient explanation - what material consequences of the war caused Khrushchev to transform into a revisionist leader?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I said "POST-revisionist" in terms of Khrushchev. :rolleyes:

Why don't you outline, once more, the material consequences of the war that caused Stalin to transform into a reductionist and grossly revisionist leader? I can tell you from that typical Trotskyist account that something similar occurred with Khrushchev.

20 million people ("social base") died during the "Great Patriotic War." Wanton destruction was prevalent throughout much of the western Soviet Union. Just as in the Civil War, organizational dynamics were more lax, and enough opportunists snuck into the system.

Although this is a Stalinist account, the names are useful:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bland/1980/restoration-capitalism-soviet-union/appendix-3.htm

This time around, they had a greater diversity of bureaucratic patrons, not just Stalin, Molotov, and Kaganovich: Voznesensky (although he got axed), Rodionov, Popov, Povkov, Malenkov, Kuznetsov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, etc.

[Random Precision]

Jacob, I find it rather difficult to see what kind of point you are trying to make here. Khrushchev represented a shift from the Stalin era only in that things settled down a bit within the Soviet government. The bureaucracy finally became certain of its position, essentially. There were no major changes in the structure of the economy or in the composition of the leadership. There were no more purges- at least, not any that had execution as an endpoint for the defeated. Khrushchev did indeed denounce Stalin- but this was because it was convenient for him to do so. Blaming Stalin for the "excesses" of his rule made the new leaders more popular at home and abroad, and served to cover up their own guilt surrounding the purges, Stalin's cult of personality, and most of all, the low living standards of the Soviet people. Khrushchev's "liberal" policies, such as the cutting of the work-week, release of surviving old Bolsheviks from the gulag, etc.- these were all things that Stalin had done before. Even the infamous "peaceful coexistence" policy credited to Khrushchev was precedented by Stalin during the imperialist war when he dissolved the Third International and called for "all patriots and lovers of freedom" (workers and bourgeois) to fight side by side against "Hitlerite fascism".

My apologies to Prairie Fire and other Stalin supporters that this has become more or less a thread about Stalin. But I think it is important to consider Stalin when we are looking at his successor- after all, Khrushchev had his origins during the time of Stalin's leadership, and it is clear that many of his future ideas and policies were shaped during his time with Stalin, whether that meant continuing the tradition of Stalin or breaking with it.

Continuing in the vein of "revisionism", I have a couple questions for the Stalin supporters on this thread. Understand here that all I want is to better understand your historical perspective, as I've heard many conflicting accounts from anti-revisionists on the last years of Stalin's leadership and the subsequent struggle for power.

1. Exactly which members of the Politbureau and the Central Committee of the CPSU represented the revolutionary faction (i.e., the leaders who sought to continue in Stalin's revolutionary tradition)? Was it the Stalinist old guard of Molotov and Kaganovich? Was it Malenkov or Bulganin? Or Beria? Essentially, which people were defeated by the rise of revisionism within the party leadership? Did such a faction even exist after the death of Stalin? If it did, how was it defeated by the revisionist faction?

2. Exactly which members represented the revisionist faction? How large was it? How did it grow large enough under Stalin's rule to commence a fight for leadership once he was gone? Furthermore, how did revisionism extend its reach to leaders at the highest level of leadership while Stalin was still in charge? Were Khrushchev, Brezhnev etc. revisionist from the start, or were they seduced by capitalism after they had entered the leadership? If the latter, how did this happen? Why were they not exposed at some point while Stalin remained at the helm? If so many of the people immediately under Stalin were revisionists, why did they wait until after his death to fight for power? Why did the party rank and file not struggle against its takeover of leadership? Were most of them revisionists as well? If so, how did that happen?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Khrushchev represented a shift from the Stalin era only in that things settled down a bit within the Soviet government... Blaming Stalin for the "excesses" of his rule made the new leaders more popular at home and abroad, and served to cover up their own guilt surrounding the purges, Stalin's cult of personality, and most of all, the low living standards of the Soviet people. Khrushchev's "liberal" policies, such as the cutting of the work-week, release of surviving old Bolsheviks from the gulag, etc.- these were all things that Stalin had done before.

Comrade, up above I mentioned one MAJOR change that's missed by everybody here: no more primitive accumulation of capital!

Under Khrushchev, for example, there finally was a minimum-wage law, a major housing program was launched (since there were homeless people in Moscow), etc.


Exactly which members of the Politbureau and the Central Committee of the CPSU represented the "revolutionary" faction (i.e., the leaders who sought to continue in Stalin's [...] tradition)? Was it the Stalinist old guard of Molotov and Kaganovich?

Just them.


Was it Malenkov or Bulganin?

Post-revisionists, as I mentioned above.


Or Beria?

Russia's Deng Xiaoping!!!




The bureaucracy finally became certain of its position, essentially.

I'm not sure if it was certain in the immediate post-war era, with all the devastation and what not. This uncertainly allowed the opportunists to seep in with a greater number of patrons to choose from (expanded bureaucracy, as opposed to the rise of the bureaucracy in the 20s).


Jacob, I find it rather difficult to see what kind of point you are trying to make here.

I'm taking a middle-of-the-road approach by separating the pre-war Stalin era from the later Stalin era. Please ask Prairie Fire for more details if you still don't get my point. [It's kinda like how left-commies see Lenin as "revolutionary" until sometime during the civil war, then turned "counter-revolutionary" afterwards.]

[Random Precision]

I'm taking a middle-of-the-road approach by separating pre-war Stalin era from the later Stalin era. Please ask Bobkindles for more details if you still don't get my point.

Ah, now I see. Your posts just seemed out of place in the rest of the thread, so I was a bit confused. But thanks for the explanation.


Comrade, up above I mentioned one MAJOR change that's missed by everybody here: no more primitive accumulation of capital!

Under Khrushchev, for example, there finally was a minimum-wage law, a major housing program was launched (since there were homeless people in Moscow), etc.

Interesting. I must confess that I don't know much specifically about Khrushchev's economic policy. Could it be the end of primitive accumulation that anti-revisionists see as why he was a revisionist? I also wonder if Stalin had made any moves in that direction before his death.


I'm not sure if it was certain in the immediate post-war era, with all the devastation and what not. This uncertainly allowed the opportunists to seep in with a greater number of patrons to choose from (expanded bureaucracy, as opposed to the [i]rise of the bureaucracy in the 20s).

Also interesting. I'd like to hear what Stalin supporters think of this, to what extent the war contributed to the rise of revisionism in the party. I'd also like to see if any historical evidence can be gathered (i.e., party membership surveys) in support of your hypothesis.


Just them.

[...]

Post-revisionists, as I mentioned above.

[...]

Russia's Deng Xiaoping!!!

Haha, indeed. However, I'm more interested in what Stalin supporters specifically have to say on the subject, for as I mentioned I've heard a number of conflicting stories from them. I read one essay by Bill Bland (Britain's Mr. Albania) that claimed Beria was opposed to Khrushchev's revisionism and was the true revolutionary successor to Stalin. This obviously ignores Beria's right-wing leanings. Ludo Martens in his book looked to the viewpoint of Molotov and saw both Beria and Khrushchev as revisionist. But this ignores Stalin's distrust of his "old guard". I've even heard a viewpoint that suggests Stalin was surrounded by revisionists in the Soviet leadership, to the point that they would only let him publish articles about linguistics. This obviously defies reality at the most basic level.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Interesting. I must confess that I don't know much specifically about Khrushchev's economic policy. Could it be the end of primitive accumulation that anti-revisionists see as why he was a revisionist? I also wonder if Stalin had made any moves in that direction before his death.

I'm not sure, comrade. Perhaps there was such a trend under the opportunistic post-revisionist Vosnesensky (the guy who headed Gosplan before getting shot during the "Leningrad Affair" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leningrad_Affair)).

Per Gorlizki's Ordinary Stalinism: The Council of Ministers and the Soviet Neopatrimonial State, 1945-1953 (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/376210) (you can e-mail me if you want the original webpage before they took it down) post-war Stalin, even while chair of Sovmin, was NOT active in "government" (read: economic) affairs at all, never attending meetings of the Sovmin Bureau/Presidium. The former "Marxist-Leninist" tyrant wanted to focus on "national security" concerns (the "kitchen cabinet" meetings of the informal Politburo, so to be sure Khrushchev was right about Stalin's flagrant violation of Party rules).

Also, "party affairs" and "state affairs" were, until 1952, separate. That proto-Dengist Beria, for instance, never wanted Party guys like Popov to interfere in ministerial assignments and promotions.

These two factors (Stalin's absence and party-state separation) enabled the opportunists to further seep in (to join their opportunist buddies who entered during the war)... through the state-administrative apparatus. It's kinda like Stalin when he was the head of Rabkrin during and after the Civil War. ;)

[Dros]

ManyAntsDefeatSpiders asked a legitimate question which no-one has answered: What is the materialist explanation for the alleged danger of "revisionism" within the Communist Party? What might cause an individual or a section of the party leadership to adopt a revisionist policy?

The material basis for capitalist restoration of socialist countries is the fact that capitalist ideology and classes created by capitalism are still present in socialist societies.


In response to this question, I argued that there was continuity between Stalin and Khrushchev (despite changes in some areas of policy) because they were part of the same ruling stratum, and then I gave an explanation of how this stratum was able to gain power. This was a legitimate point in a discussion concerning Khrushchev, and thus far no-one has been able to respond to my materialist explanation of bureaucratic degeneration.

I obviously dispute this analysis. I would say that Khrushchev takes a clearly anti-Proletarian position never taken by Stalin. This manifests itself very clearly in terms of the "Party of the Whole People" bs that Khrushchev put forward.


I then asked a question regarding the effectiveness of the GPCR which is obviously relevant given that the objective of the GPCR is to prevent revisionism - but again, no-one has answered this.

The GPCR ultimately did not succeed in preventing a revisionist coup in China (obviously). But it did postpone that coup by almost a decade. The removal of Liu and Teng were great leaps. Sadly, Teng was latter allowed back into the party and the revisionist Hua/Teng faction was able to rest control away from the "Gang of Four". The material basis for this coup is the same as the material basis for the revision in the USSR: the existence of capitalists in socialist society, people who want to take the capitalist road (either subjectively or objectively).

I'm probably going to get a lot of shit for this, but this is one of the questions to which my dear leader (<joke:rolleyes:) Bob Avakian has been dedicating himself to. In fact, most of his work deals with these questions either in part or entirely. Basically, I would say that what is needed to prevent revisionism is more of what happened in the GPCR: greater democratic involvement of the masses, greater criticism and self criticism both within and outside of the party and encouragement for the masses to directly criticize and even oust revisionist factions when they take hold.

[hekmatista]

Basically, I would say that what is needed to prevent revisionism is more of what happened in the GPCR: greater democratic involvement of the masses, greater criticism and self criticism both within and outside of the party and encouragement for the masses to directly criticize and even oust revisionist factions when they take hold.
That much I would agree with. How is this to be done if non-ruling party workers' organizations are denied rights of publication, self-organization, and assembly (which is usually done in the name of suppressing supposedly anti-Soviet activity)?

[Dros]

That much I would agree with. How is this to be done if non-ruling party workers' organizations are denied rights of publication, self-organization, and assembly (which is usually done in the name of suppressing supposedly anti-Soviet activity)?

Not done during the GPCR. This was actually encouraged by the Communist Party.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Can we please discuss the original topic - preferrably where I left off with RP - and not veer off into discussions regarding the Cultural Revolution?

[Dros]

Can we please discuss the original topic - preferrably where I left off with RP - and not veer off into discussions regarding the Cultural Revolution?

They are the same topic essentially. How do we prevent revisionists like Khrushchev from seizing power? As suggested by BobKindles.

[Random Precision]

Drosera, would you care to respond to the questions I addressed to Stalin supporters?


1. Exactly which members of the Politbureau and the Central Committee of the CPSU represented the revolutionary faction (i.e., the leaders who sought to continue in Stalin's revolutionary tradition)? Was it the Stalinist old guard of Molotov and Kaganovich? Was it Malenkov or Bulganin? Or Beria? Essentially, which people were defeated by the rise of revisionism within the party leadership? Did such a faction even exist after the death of Stalin? If it did, how was it defeated by the revisionist faction?

2. Exactly which members represented the revisionist faction? How large was it? How did it grow large enough under Stalin's rule to commence a fight for leadership once he was gone? Furthermore, how did revisionism extend its reach to leaders at the highest level of leadership while Stalin was still in charge? Were Khrushchev, Brezhnev etc. revisionist from the start, or were they seduced by capitalism after they had entered the leadership? If the latter, how did this happen? Why were they not exposed at some point while Stalin remained at the helm? If so many of the people immediately under Stalin were revisionists, why did they wait until after his death to fight for power? Why did the party rank and file not struggle against its takeover of leadership? Were most of them revisionists as well? If so, how did that happen?

[Abluegreen7]

A hero. He led the destalinisation of the Soviet Union. And threw up the Wall. He was much more sucsessful then Stalin.

[oujiQualm]

50 years after the fact all any of us can do is speculate on whether Kennedy's gang would have followed through on their threats. I feel that had Khrushchev held his ground the U.S. would have backed down.

The Americans in Washington may have been "crazy," but they weren't stupid. The capitalist rich were living more than very well and none of them wanted to see a war that would ruin their opulent life style. Launching a nuclear war against the USSR would have ended that life style forever.

Also, keep in mind the main mission of the U.S. government is to support and protect the capitalists that run the country. Even if the U.S. had won (which would have been the most likely scenario at that time), the victory would have thrown U.S. civilization back into the dark ages along with the rest of the world.

My guess is that there would have been no war and Cuba would have had the protection it needed.

3A CCCP!
MIkhail

-----------


"The Americans in Washington may have been "crazy," but they weren't stupid. The capitalist rich were living more than very well and none of them wanted to see a war that would ruin their opulent life style. Launching a nuclear war against the USSR would have ended that life style forever. "

I think that this statement seriously underestimates the degree of right wing fanaticism within the Joint Chiefs of Staff and CIA at the time of the Missile Crisis.

Even before the Missile Crisis there was TREMENDOUS pressure for a first strike during the Summer of 1961 on the USSR. The US knew that they had a serious advantage in nukes and wanted to act quickly.

During the Missile Crisis this pressure grew to an unbelievable degree. Kennedy commented to his brother Now I Knewe how Tojo felt the day before Pearl Harbor. These were intelligence sources with direct access to Luces Time/life empire and other huge media resources that were pushing Kennedy from the right on Cuba.

Revisionism within US Corporate Media is why so many have not understood the fanaticism from within the permanent military burocracy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It makes the US look mad. Also it helps explain what happened to Kennedy's brain later on.

[Hiero]

Jacob, I find it rather difficult to see what kind of point you are trying to make here. Khrushchev represented a shift from the Stalin era only in that things settled down a bit within the Soviet government. The bureaucracy finally became certain of its position, essentially. There were no major changes in the structure of the economy or in the composition of the leadership.

In a little book I have by a English economist called Socialist Planning: Some Problems by Maurice Dobb he describes the changes that occured under different leadership of the USSR.

Krushchev changed the economic model. He moved the power of production to the "grass roots" level of management. He also gave more incentive to thoose managers who could produce above the quotas and make a profit.

Now I am not doubting there was bureaucratc method in the Soviet Union under Stalin. It did exist and begin with Stalin, this is a Maoist analysis. However when Kruschchev's faction finally came to power the bureaucracy represented the managers. Unders Stalin the bureaucracy represented the proleteriat and peasantry. Local mananges, state, district planners always had to make decision in line with decisions of a national commitee which could overlook the needs of population, profit wasn't a motive here. When Khrushchev initated "de-stalinisation" period it was a move to benift the micro elements of the economy which is a form of revisionism that has elements of capitalism, unlike Stalin's era the economy was based state planning of a macro level in a bureaucratic method.




1. Exactly which members of the Politbureau and the Central Committee of the CPSU represented the revolutionary faction (i.e., the leaders who sought to continue in Stalin's revolutionary tradition)? Was it the Stalinist old guard of Molotov and Kaganovich? Was it Malenkov or Bulganin? Or Beria? Essentially, which people were defeated by the rise of revisionism within the party leadership? Did such a faction even exist after the death of Stalin? If it did, how was it defeated by the revisionist faction?

2. Exactly which members represented the revisionist faction? How large was it? How did it grow large enough under Stalin's rule to commence a fight for leadership once he was gone? Furthermore, how did revisionism extend its reach to leaders at the highest level of leadership while Stalin was still in charge? Were Khrushchev, Brezhnev etc. revisionist from the start, or were they seduced by capitalism after they had entered the leadership? If the latter, how did this happen? Why were they not exposed at some point while Stalin remained at the helm? If so many of the people immediately under Stalin were revisionists, why did they wait until after his death to fight for power? Why did the party rank and file not struggle against its takeover of leadership? Were most of them revisionists as well? If so, how did that happen?

Here is Mao's critique of Stalin's era in regards to revisionism and bureaucracy. I could answer thoose questions, but my answer would mean nothing if you don't know how I go there.

Critique of Stalin’s Economic Problems Of Socialism In The USSR (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_66.htm)

[Charles Xavier]

Khrushchev and the leadership of the communist party at that time, created a party of opportunists, offering better deals to party members than non party members. You got longer vacations and other things for being a party member, on the basis communists work harder so they should be rewarded as such. I say bs to that, communists do what they do out of love for the people not for a longer vacation.