Class struggle and Joseph Stalin - be objective, please

[Revolution Hero]

Many bourgeois historians blame Stalin for committing of groundless mass murders. Many leftists conclude from this that Stalin was as bad as Hitler was. These leftists are probably NOT MARXISTS.

It is very naive to think that class struggle ends with the victory of socialistic revolution. Sometimes class struggle can reach the highest points of its manifestation even during the peaceful socialistic building and during socialism itself. Why does it take place?
Only dreamer can hope that socialism eliminates all past bourgeois or petty- bourgeois elements. Of course, there would be always people who will direct all their efforts to restore the system of exploitation of one man by the other. This group of people always finds the support of foreign bourgeois class. These people struggles against socialism in order to restore capitalism; these people fights against working people, these people are bourgeois class representatives.
Now you answer my question: What measure of punishment do this group of people deserve? Should it be 5,10,15,20,25 or maybe 50 years of imprisonment for those guilty in high treason? NO. The enemies of the socialistic state deserve CAPITAL PUNISHMENT!
Just like counter- revolutionists are killed during revolutionary civil war, they have to be punished accordingly during the peaceful socialistic development. This is the part of the class struggle; this is the oppression of bourgeois class by the working class.

I don’t protect Stalin, but I ask you all to be objective when talking about Stalinist period of USSR’s development. I don’t negate that there were many groundless mass murders, but Stalin is not guilty for them. Who was then? Yagoda and Yezhov, those were them who started purges and killed “guilty” Soviet citizens without appropriate investigations, without proving their guilt. Stalin ordered to punish Yagoda and Yezhov for their crimes; this order was not baseless.

Who were the real enemies? Who were really guilty? Lithuanian and Latvian nationalists, who killed more than million of teachers, party and komsomol activists before and after WW2; tartar nationalists, who killed 200 000 communists in Crimea; other renegades, such as spies, terrorists and simple criminals. These people were punished for the right reason.

It is very easy to judge about “crimes” of Stalin, not considering the situation of single socialistic state, which was surrounded by the rival capitalistic countries. It is very easy to judge about “crimes” of Stalin after reading another history book written by anticommunist author. It is very easy to judge about “crimes” of Stalin, being extremely subjective.
I ask all of you to think about class struggle, historical period of the Soviet development before the WW2 and only then about Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.
Don’t try to find only bad sides. Don’t try to find only good sides. Just try to be objective…

[Anonymous]

......

cuba is in a worse situation than URSS was, cuba, as too a somewhat authoritarian socialist country becuase of USA, and becuase of USA atempts to destroy its goverment and people, yet i dont see mass murders and gullags in cuba like the ones that existed in URSS...

stalins defenition of internationalism was imperialism, and his way to propagate socialism was conquering new lands and regions to the soviet empire

and comrade, his crimes were alredy declared by the internationalist communist association in 1953 (i think)


those enemys of the socialist state you refer were most of the time bolsheviks, taht dared to deffy or even question stalins power...


now on to the marxist part....

dictatorship of the proletariat, is about the proletariat controling the means of production, in russia, the state (aka stalin) controled the means of production, it is a known fact, even to some hardliners, that stalin wasnt that much of a marxist, and you also speak ofcounter revolutionarys, yet the bigest revolutionary here was stalin!

stalin was to the bolsheviks what napoleon was to the french revolution...

stalin was not communist, this is a fact, almost all communist partys and associations will say you that, this is, if you dont count with north american communist party, wich is a shitty and stalinist party...

there is also the great myth of stalin as the great leader, this is not interly true, he did industrialize russia, but so did hitlerin germany, franco in spain, mussolini in italy... but iot would be stupid not tonreconize that as a somewhat great achievement, but itisnt rpecisly a very socialist achievement, as any other system can industrialize, there is also the myth that stalinw as the great educator and brought the people to a advanced state of education, this is wrong, stalin did not invest in education but in propaganda, the cult personality was inflictedin litle children, children that were teached to worship "grandpa" lenin and "father"stalin, prarvda and all russian ways of informationdid not propagate information but propaganda, there was no such thing as information, onlt balant propaganda of how great and socialist CCCP was, and how capitalist and poor the rest of the world was...

science had a great boost, yes, but mainly to be usedin rocketand military programs, oncemore it wasnteducation but propagnda, reduced education to creat ideal workers taht lived only to serve the state..

repression and censorship was also at top of his crimes, and as you know, freedom of speech is very important, and i cant see how a country can call himself socialist if it hasnt freedom of speech along with other civil libertys...

there were also the mass murders and the gullags, jsut a ltile fact, during the war, thelong and bloody worl war II, the familys of the desertors were killed,and the ones that werent killed were sent to the gullag, this to serve as a example to all soldiers of teh red army...


the crimes of stalin were more tahn many, and i only told some...

and to know more i advise youtor ead some Nikita Kruchev works...

[Tkinter1]

Are you condoning killing people for there beliefs?

[Mazdak]

I disagree on Yezhov. He was supposedly shot after he went mad and poisoned his wife. The fact is, he did not do enough. That drove him to the brink(however whether he was executed or actually committed suicide can easily be brought into question).

Yagoda was a problem and i agree.

[Tavarish Spetsnaz]

Right...regarding Yezhov...he was not punished for anything. He killed his wife...becasue she was cheating on him. This drove him insane. According to two different answers...one is that he died in a prison some days after he was put there..and others say he died in a mental institution after he hanged himself. This second one is more likely...beasue it is from Molotov.

Yagoda was a problem...becasue he was shows to have known of these Trot agenst in the NKVD and allowed them to freely operate.

Many NKVD officers were arrested for wrongfully arresting people...and over 200.000 people were released from jails after their cases were re-investigated to see if NKVD had done mistakes.

So yes mistakes were made...but the bulk of the enemies of the revolution were eliminated in this period...This is what allowed the USSR to survive the pressure of WW2...there were no internal traitors as there were in France for example.

[thursday night]

"This is what allowed the USSR to survive the pressure of WW2...there were no internal traitors as there were in France for example."

Brilliant example Tavarish! Just look at France, an extremely disunited country in which fascists roamed freely and helped the Nazi war machine simply trample over the French army, and also created a puppet government under the Nazis. The Soviet Union would have lost the war if it wasn’t for Stalin, this fact cannot be refuted. If it was not for him the country would be totally disunited with Trotskyites committing outrageous acts of sabotage, counterrevolutionaries attempting to overthrow the state, Anarchists running wild, Axis agents infiltrating the government...the Nazis probably wouldn’t have even required a military to take over the nation.

Does this make everything Stalin do totally acceptable? No. Was Stalinist USSR often to harsh? Yes, but the fact is that the country remained alive and was turned into a superpower because of Stalin’s actions and the sacrifices of the Soviet people.

[Stormin Norman]

Why are the moderators of che-lives such weaklings?

[Cassius Clay]

''cuba is in a worse situation than URSS was, cuba, as too a somewhat authoritarian socialist country becuase of USA, and becuase of USA atempts to destroy its goverment and people, yet i dont see mass murders and gullags in cuba like the ones that existed in URSS...''

Well I don't see mass murders and gulags (whatever happened to the Gulags? asked some guy in the 1990's, well now that Russia isn't the enemy any more they became normal prisons again) in the USSR.

'Authoritarian socialist country', now just what is that? Certainly it is the complete opposite to what the USSR was and for that matter Cuba. As for saying that Cuba faces a similar threat to that the USSR faced in the 1930's, it is similar in some respects but the USSR faced a much greater external threat and the threat of a coup by the military or oppostion elements who refused to accept that Stalin had been elected.


''stalins defenition of internationalism was imperialism, and his way to propagate socialism was conquering new lands and regions to the soviet empire''

And yet when he didn't go invade western Europe you all go and accuse him of being a 'National Socialist'. Ofcourse Stalin can't win. It is Trotsky's 'Permanent Revolution' that is Imperialist, and if you would like to tell me where Stalin added lands to the 'Soviet Empire' please do. The Example of Yugoslavia in 1948 ofcourse proves you totally wrong but then again I've never seen a Anarchist right before.

''and comrade, his crimes were alredy declared by the internationalist communist association in 1953 (i think)''

Well that's some evil dictator you got there who is criticised for 'crimes' by people whom are supposed to be his supporters while he is still alive. Ofcourse the above didn't actually happen but never mind.

''those enemys of the socialist state you refer were most of the time bolsheviks, taht dared to deffy or even question stalins power...''

Let's see Trotsky a man described by Lenin as 'Judas' and 'Scroundrel' and beurcratic, not to mention a man who wanted to impose 'military discipline' in the work place and who got less than 2% of the vote when the party chose between the oppostion and the party (Stalin). Bakhurin who in 1918 was prepared to go along with the SR's and have Lenin arrested, whose ideology is exactly the same as Deng Xia Ping's and who disscussed 'the physical elimination of Stalin' with everybody from French 'Communists' to the Gestapo. Zinoviev and Kamenev whom Lenin had wanted thrown out of the party in 1917 and who murdered Sergie Kirov.

And Stalin whom Lenin thought was 'rude'.


''dictatorship of the proletariat, is about the proletariat controling the means of production, in russia, the state (aka stalin) controled the means of production, it is a known fact, even to some hardliners, that stalin wasnt that much of a marxist, and you also speak ofcounter revolutionarys, yet the bigest revolutionary here was stalin!''

Correct Stalin was the 'biggest revolutionary' around. As for the rest of your post, if you would like to tell me a state where workers would walk into their factory managers office and demand their resigantion and actually get it then please do.

''stalin was to the bolsheviks what napoleon was to the french revolution...''

Obviously you've never read any of Josef Stalin's works or read his speeches, not to mention that Stalin never unleashed a war which killed tens of millions.

''stalin was not communist, this is a fact, almost all communist partys and associations will say you that, this is, if you dont count with north american communist party, wich is a shitty and stalinist party...''

So what Communist party is anti-Stalin? THE CPUSA has no anti-Stalin position, the KPRF whose leadership in my opinion resembles Mensheviks have nothing bad to say about Stalin, the new CPSU throughout the former Soviet Union is very much pro-Stalin. Castro and Cuba are not anti-Stalin, 'To blame Stalin for everything would be historical simplism' Fidel Castro 1992. The DPRK is often described as 'Stalinist'. THe Maoist struggles throughout South America and South East Asia are all pro-Stalin. The Phillipine Communists are pro-Stalin and Che Guavera admired Stalin very much.


''there is also the great myth of stalin as the great leader, this is not interly true, he did industrialize russia, but so did hitlerin germany, franco in spain, mussolini in italy... but iot would be stupid not tonreconize that as a somewhat great achievement, but itisnt rpecisly a very socialist achievement, as any other system can industrialize,''

Oh dear, do you actually know what 'Industrialise' means? Russia was stuck in the middle ages when Stalin came to power. Germany, Italy, Spain were allready industrialised when their respective Fascists came to power.

''there is also the myth that stalinw as the great educator and brought the people to a advanced state of education, this is wrong, stalin did not invest in education but in propaganda, the cult personality was inflictedin litle children, children that were teached to worship "grandpa" lenin and "father"stalin, prarvda and all russian ways of informationdid not propagate information but propaganda, there was no such thing as information, onlt balant propaganda of how great and socialist CCCP was, and how capitalist and poor the rest of the world was...''

First of all please tell me a country that doesn't engage in propaganda? Stalin didn't invest in education? This is why nearly everybody learn't to read under Stalin? As for this 'cult', that was created by opportunists, revisionists and people who generally admired the man. Stalin fought against it. If Stalin wasn't like though why the did the prolitariat of Georgia rise up in Stalin's name against the revisionism of Khruschev? Why did General Rokosvky (spell) refuse to go along with Khruschev and attack Stalin, instead declaring 'To me Stalin is a God'?

''science had a great boost, yes, but mainly to be usedin rocketand military programs, oncemore it wasnteducation but propagnda, reduced education to creat ideal workers taht lived only to serve the state..''

Sigh, you really are a fanatic and ignorant anti-Stalin guy aren't you? This is worn out and boring rhectoric.

''repression and censorship was also at top of his crimes, and as you know, freedom of speech is very important, and i cant see how a country can call himself socialist if it hasnt freedom of speech along with other civil libertys...''

You know you should really read the Soviet Constitution drawn up by Stalin himself in 1936.

''there were also the mass murders and the gullags, jsut a ltile fact, during the war, thelong and bloody worl war II, the familys of the desertors were killed,and the ones that werent killed were sent to the gullag, this to serve as a example to all soldiers of teh red army...''

So close to 5 million 'families' (that's probably about 20 million atleast) were all deported were they? During a war where close to 30 million are killed anyway and all the nation's resources are going towards the war effort. Come on even if Stalin wanted to do all this he couldn't of.

''the crimes of stalin were more tahn many, and i only told some...

and to know more i advise youtor ead some Nikita Kruchev works...''

Oh please tell us more? As for Khruschev a man who purposly released thousands of prisoners and used them to unleash a mafia style terror on genuine socialists. Who when voted out of office democraticly called in the army and used to be a member of the Trotskyite oppostion. This man is hardly credible. Not to mention apart from the 20th Party congress he infact says very little anti-Stalin.

Oh and Thinker 1 criticism and self-criticism are all part of socialist democracy. To kill sombody for their beliefs is wrong and shouldn't happen, if their views are wrong we solve it through education or in some circumstances (eg Nazis or hardened Capitalists who continue to spout there criminall ideolgoy) through a spell in prison. If they engage in terriorism and sabotage then they should expect nothing less than a bullet in the back of the head.

Ofcourse such are legal systems that inevitably that bullet will never come.

[Stormin Norman]

(Edited by James at 2:15 pm on Feb. 7, 2003)