Good article.

Joseph Stalin: A Great Marxist-Leninist Leader of the International Working Class

Stalin Waged a Lifelong Struggle to Defend Marxism-Leninism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
December 21 marks the 107th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest leaders of the international working class, Joseph Stalin. Stalin's place in history is monumental. He led the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet working people for nearly three decades. These were the decades in which socialism, the social system which is destined replace capitalism on a world scale, was first created. Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and V.I. Lenin had all pointed the way forward to socialism and had laid out the path to be followed. But it was Joseph Stalin who, after Lenin's death, actually led the Soviet workers and peasants to carry out the collectivization of agriculture and the building of socialist industry, to complete the radical political and social transformations necessary to build a socialist society. The path for carrying out these tasks was uncharted and Stalin shouldered the great historic responsibility of leading the Soviet people to blaze this trail.

Stalin's Struggle Against Opportunism and Revisionism

J.V. Stalin was a faithful pupil and comrade-in-arms of V.I. Lenin

Under Stalin's guidance the Soviet Party stayed on the revolutionary path of Leninism, following the principles he set forth for the building of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism. Stalin further developed the theoretical understanding of the transition from capitalism to socialism and the nature of the new socialist society- He waged a determined struggle against those who attempted to deviate the Party to the right or the "left", which would have resulted in surrendering the revolution to the bourgeoisie. Of the critical ideological and political struggles waged under Stalin's leadership, three stand out - the struggles against Trotskyism, against Bukharinism and against Yugoslav revisionism. These were all essentially struggles to defend Marxism-Leninism and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The. Struggle. Against Trotskyism

The first of these struggles was waged against the Trotskyists, who at first represented petty bourgeois radicalism within the Soviet Party. Fundamentally, the Trotskyists did not believe that it was possible to build socialism in one country, especially a country as backward as the Soviet Union was in the years immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution. Trotsky distorted Marx's theory of "permanent revolution" which, while super-revolutionary in words, in deeds meant defeatism and capitulation to the capitalists in the one country where the socialist revolution had been victorious, the Soviet Union.

"The essence of Trotskyism", wrote Stalin, "is, first of all, denial of the possibility of completely building socialism in the USSR by the efforts of the working class and the peasantry of our country. What does this mean? It means that if a victorious world revolution does not come to our aid in the near future, we shall have to surrender to the bourgeoisie and clear the way for a bourgeois-democratic republic. Consequently, we have here the bourgeois denial of the possibility of completely building socialism in our country, disguised by 'revolutionary' phrases about the victory of the world revolution."

The Trotskyists claimed that the peasantry was hopelessly tied to small-scale capitalist production and that there was no basis for an alliance of the working class and the peasantry.

"The essence of Trotskyism," continued Stalin, "is secondly, denial of the possibility of drawing the main mass of the peasantry into the work of socialist construction in the countryside. What does this mean? It means that the working class is incapable of leading the peasantry in the work of transferring the individual peasant farms to collectivist lines, that if victory of the world revolution does not come to the aid of the working class in the near future, the peasantry will restore the old bourgeois order."

Based on these views, the Trotskyists proposed a whole series of reckless and adventurist policies during the period of reconstruction, including a policy of super-industrialization at the expense of the peasantry, which would have led to the ruin of the peasantry and the rupture of the worker-peasant alliance. At the same time, he argued for far-reaching concessions to foreign capital in order to finance and acquire technology for industrialization. Later, he joined Right opportunists in criticizing the rates of collectivization of agriculture and socialist industrialization as "excessive." Stalin explained that these apparent contradictions in Trotskyist policies reflected "the duality of the position of the urban petty bourgeoisie," which "is striving either to jump into socialism 'at one go' in order to avoid being ruined (hence adventurism and hysterics in policy), or, if this is impossible, to make every conceivable concession to capitalism (hence capitulation in policy)."
Trotsky, a life-long factionalist, joined in a series of unprincipled blocs with all opposition forces in the Party to attack the leadership and promote factions, advancing theories to justify the "necessity of factions" in the Party.

"The essence of Trotskyism," continued Stalin, "is, lastly, denial of the necessity for iron discipline in the Party, recognition of freedom for factional groupings in the Party, recognition of the need to form a Trotskyist party. According to Trotskyism, the [Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)] must not be a single, united militant party, but a collection of factions, each with its own center, its own discipline, its own, press and so forth. What does this mean? It means proclaiming freedom for political factions in the Party. It means that freedom for political groupings in the Party must be followed by freedom for political parties in the country, i.e. bourgeois democracy."
"That freedom for factional squabbling of groups of intellectuals is not inner-party democracy, that the widely developed self-criticism conducted by the Party and the colossal activity of the mass of the party membership is real and genuine inner-party democracy - Trotskyism cannot understand."

The defeat of Trotskyism was decisive to the construction of socialism. "There is no doubt that the triumph of the 'Left' deviation in our Party," wrote Stalin, "would lead to the working class being separated from its peasant base, to the vanguard of the working class being separated from the rest of the working class masses and, consequently, to the defeat of the proletariat and to facilitating conditions for the restoration of capitalism." After their defeat in the Soviet Party, the Trotskyists joined with international capital to slander and sabotage socialism in the Soviet Union.

The Struggle Against Bukharinism

The second major struggle was against Bukharin and the Right opportunists. Bukharin claimed that socialism could be built automatically, and peacefully withoutclass struggle. They protestedagainst the elimination of the kulak (rich peasant) economy and its replacement by collectivized agriculture. They argued that the kulaks and the other capitalist elements remaining in Soviet society would "growpeacefully into socialism." They also demanded that the state's monopoly on foreign trade be relaxed to allow for the growth of capitalist merchants, that the rate of industrialization be cut back and that the struggle against bureaucracy be curtailed, claiming that it undermined the Soviet state apparatus. Stalin warned that "A victory for the right deviation would mean a development of the conditions necessary for the restoration of capitalism." He reaffirmed Lenin's thesis that the defense of the dictatorship of the proletariat required a fierce class struggle against the remnants of the overthrown exploiting classes, the agents of international capital and new capitalist elements which arose within Soviet society. "Either we vanquish and crush them, the exploiters," warned Stalin, "or they will vanquish and crush us, the workers and peasants of the USSR."
Stalin pointed out that bureaucracy, the tendency of party and state officials to place themselves above the control of the masses, was "oneof the most savage enemies" of the socialist order and could only be success-fully combated by "raising the fury of the masses of working people against bureaucratic distortions in our organizations." "The abolition of classes," taught Stalin, "is not achieved by the extinction of class struggle, but by its intensification."
In addition to the struggles against "Left" and Right opportunism within the Soviet Party, Stalin led the struggle against similar tendencies in the international communist movement. Of particular importance for the communist movement in the United States, was the intervention of Stalin and the Communist International in 1929 to correct the problems of factionalism, "American exceptionalism" and right opportunism which plagued the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA). Stalin told the U.S. communists, who were then divided into two unprincipled factions:

"The error of both groups is that they exaggerate the significance of the specific features of American capitalism which are characteristic of world capitalism as a whole... It cannot be denied that American conditions form a medium in which it is easy for the American Communist Party to be led astray and to exaggerate the strength and stability of American capitalism. These conditions lead our comrades from America, both the majority and minority, into errors of the type of the Right deviation."

The intervention of the Communist International resulted in the purge of the right opportunist Lovestone faction from the CPUSA and set the Party on a clear path of revolutionary struggle. The finest period of the revolutionary activity of the CPUSA followed, during the early 1930's. Marxist-Leninists today have much to learn from the leadership Stalin provided for the CPUSA and for the communist movement as a whole.

The Struggle Against Yugoslav Revisionism

The third major ideological struggle waged by Stalin took place after World War II and was directed against Tito and the revisionist leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY). The Yugoslav revisionists were the first revisionists to hold state power. After they came to power in 1944, the Yugoslav revisionists pursued a liberal and opportunist policy of alliance with the capitalist elements of the city and the countryside, and they maintained close ties with the U.S. and British imperialists. In 1948, the Soviet Communist Party, at Stalin's initiative, openly criticized the Yugoslav policies before the international communist movement in a series of letters. The main ideological criticism concerned the question of class struggle in the construction of socialism.

"[The] spirit of the policy of class struggle is not felt in the CPY... the capitalist elements are increasing in the cities and the villages and… the leaders of the Party are not undertaking any measures to check the capitalist elements....
"The denial on the part of these comrades of the strengthening of the capitalist elements, and in connection with this, the sharpening of the class struggle in the village under the conditions of contemporary Yugoslavia, arises from the opportunist contention that, in the transition period between capitalism and socialism, the class struggle does not become sharper, as taught by Marxism-Leninism, but dies out, as averred by opportunists of the type of Bukharin, who postulated the decadent theory of the peaceful absorption of the capitalist elements into the socialist structure.
"Where, as in Yugoslavia, there is no nationalization of the land, where private ownership of the land exists and land is bought and sold, where considerable portions of land are concentrated in the hands of the kulaks, where hired labor is used, etc., the Party cannot be educated in the spirit of camouflaging the class struggle and smoothing over class controversies without disarming itself for the struggle with the main difficulties in the development of socialism."

The letters further exposed the policy of submerging the proletarian party within the multi-class popular front, which was a reflection of the same right opportunist policy of class conciliation:

"[In] Yugoslavia the CPY is not considered the main leading force, but rather the People's Front... Yugoslav leaders diminish the role of the Party and are in fact dissolving the Party into a non-party People's Front, allowing in this way the same cardinal error committed by the Mensheviks in Russia forty years ago."
"It must be borne in mind that in the People's Front a variety of classes are admitted: kulaks, merchants, small manufacturers, bourgeois intelligentsia, various political groups, including some bourgeois parties. The fact that, in Yugoslavia, only the People's Front enters the political arena and that the Party and its organizations do not take part in political life openly under its own name, not only diminishes the role of the Party in the political life of the country, but also undermines the Party as an independent political force, called upon to gain the confidence of the people and to spread its influence over even broader masses of workers through open political work, through open propaganda of its opinions and its programme."

The letter further criticized the sectarian-bureaucratic nature of the CPY:

"[The] CPY retains a semi-legal status, in spite of the fact that it came into power more that three and a half years ago;… there is no democracy in the Party; there is no system of elections; there is no criticism or self-criticism... the CPY Central Committee is not composed of elected persons, but of co-opted persons."
"[The] Politbureau of the CC of the CPY does not consider the Party as an independent entity, with the right to its own opinion, but as a partisan detachment, whose members have no right to discuss any questions but are obliged to fulfill all the desires of the 'chief' without comment. We call this cultivating militarism in the Party, which is incompatible with the principles of democracy within a Marxist-Leninist Party."

The Yugoslav leaders rejected these criticisms of Stalin and the Soviet Party and continued on their capitalist course, and, after being denounced by the international communist movement, openly allied themselves with U.S. and British imperialism. They claimed to be building a new "model of socialism," in which there was no need to expropriate the capitalists or build a proletarian dictatorship. They returned factories to the old exploiters and threw open the doors to foreign capitalist investment. In 1951, the Soviet government declared that Tito and his clique had already reestablished the capitalist system in Yugoslavia, thereby depriving the people of their revolutionary victory, and transforming the nation into a weapon of the aggressive imperialist powers.
The struggle against Yugoslav revisionism was part of a broader struggle initiated by Stalin against Right opportunist deviations which had been generated during World War II when an alliance was made with the U.S., Britain and other bourgeois democratic states to defeat fascism. This struggle included the exposure of Browderism in the U.S. Communist Party and similar opportunist lines which claimed that the War would be followed by a long period of alliance between the Soviet Union and the Anglo-American imperialists, and that here was no longer any need forrevolution in the imperialist countries. The struggle was also carried out in all of the People's Democracies that had been born out of the anti-fascist war, directed against similar deviations to those that were occurring in Yugoslavia. Stalin also initiated a new campaign against Right opportunism in the Soviet Union, targeting deviations in the fields of culture and economic theory.

Stalin's Death and the Victory of Modern Revisionism

This struggle against Right opportunism was cut short by Stalin's death in 1953. Following Stalin's death the Khrushchev revisionist clique, representing a stratum of privileged and bureaucratic Soviet party and state officials, seized power, destroyed socialism and restored capitalism in the Soviet Union. They promoted the treacherous ideology of modern revisionism throughout the world, causing the degeneration of most of thecommunist parties. This momentous tragedy for the international communist movement was only possible after the death of Joseph Stalin, who, as the central leader of the communist movement, had defended Marxism-Leninism with determination throughout his life.
The genuine Marxist-Leninists, led by the Party of Labor of Albania (PLA) took up the struggle against the onslaught of modern revisionism. In waging this struggle they were guided by the teachings of Joseph Stalin. They had been trained by the struggle Stalin had led against Yugoslav revisionism, which had been the first battle in the struggle against modern revisionism. The Albanian Marxist-Leninists had been particularly schooled in this struggle, in which they had taken a direct part.
Stalin, of course, could not have foreseen the entire process by which the dictatorship of the proletariat would degenerate from within, a process which was concluded only after his death. The Marxist-Leninist analysis and summation of these events, and of modern revisionism in its fully developed form, were left up to Stalin's successors, Enver Hoxha and the PLA, as well as the other genuine Marxist-Leninists. After summing up the causes of the tragedy which befell the Soviet people, the PLA took important measures to correct weaknesses and distortions that had developed in the Soviet system of socialism. These measures were a perfection of the socialism pioneered by Stalin, not a rejection of it. The Albanians relied on precisely the course championed by Stalin (i.e., the continuation of the class struggle, the mobilization of the masses of people in the struggle against bureaucracy, etc.) as the basis of their measures to continually perfect and revolutionize the socialist system. In contrast, the Chinese revisionists, who also denounced Soviet revisionism, used these denunciations as an excuse to discard the basic teachings of Marxism-Leninism and the model of Soviet socialism during Stalin's time. They have ended up building capitalism, not socialism

The Capitalist and Revisionist Attacks on Stalin

Joseph Stalin has been viciously slandered by the capitalists and revisionists, who make him out to be the devil incarnate. The reason for these unbridled attacks is clear. Stalin's name is synonymous with socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. He was, during the years he led the Soviet people, the most formidable and implacable enemy of the capitalist exploiters. Even now that he has died, his ideas and the system that he represents remain a fatal danger to the capitalists and the revisionists. For this reason they must attack him with all their resources; they must use every lie and deception to defame this great working class leader.
Among those who attack Stalin are a whole array of political forces which call themselves Marxists. First there are the Soviet revisionists, who have destroyed the socialist system created under Stalin's leadership and are determined to vilify anything connected with the years when the dictatorship of the working class existed in the Soviet Union, and to attack the basic principles of genuine Marxism-Leninism. (The Communist Party, USA repeats the Soviet revisionists' attacks on Stalin.) Then there are the Trotskyists, the arch-enemies of Marxism-Leninism and Soviet socialism, who have made a profession out of slandering Stalin in the service of the capitalists for over half a century. These anti-Marxist tendencies are joined by various other opportunists, and have recently found a new ally in their attacks on Stalin in the so-called Marxist-Leninist Party (MLP) in the United States. The MLP, which for many years proclaimed affiliation to the international Marxist-Leninist movement headed by the PLA, has, since 1984, shown its true colors in a series of scurrilous attacks on the Party of Labor of Albania and on Stalin. Their arguments are essentially a rehash of the lies and distortions put forward by the Trotskyists for decades.

Stalin: A Touchstone of Marxism-Leninism

All genuine Marxist-Leninists are proud to uphold Joseph Stalin as one of the great teachers of Marxism-Leninism. The question of Stalin and his work is not simply one of historical importance. It is a question of critical importance to the ongoing development of the Marxist-Leninist movement worldwide. All of the basic ideas of Marxism-Leninism and especially the heart of this theory, the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat, are tied up with the defense of Stalin. The capitalists and revisionists attack on Stalin is at the same time an attack on the ideas of Lenin and of Marx. The upholding of Stalin is a touchstone differentiating genuineMarxism-Leninism from all of the theories that defend capitalism (although they may do this under a myriad of "radical" and "revolutionary" signboards). Only those who uphold and defend the work and teachings of Joseph Stalin will be able to build the kind of political party necessary to lead the working class to victory and to establish and maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Enver Hoxha, the great Albanian communist who died last year, spoke for all genuine Marxist-Leninists when he said:

"The historic merits of Stalin are undeniable. Those merits constitute his fundamental characteristic as a great leader and revolutionary. The revisionists' slanders against Stalin cannot in the least obscure his outstanding figure andmonumental work, which will remain brilliant through the ages and will always serve as a great and inspiring example and a banner of struggle for all Marxist-Leninists of the world."

A Short Biography of J.V. Stalin

Comrade J.V. Stalin,
Dec. 21, 1879 - Mar. 5, 1953

"As for myself, I am merely a pupil of Lenin, and my aim is to be a worthy pupil of his." Thus spoke Joseph Stalin, the great leader of the Russian working class, who proved himself a truly worthy pupil of Lenin. Stalin was a dedicated revolutionary who fought together with Lenin from the beginning of the Bolshevik movement. He worked tirelessly to build the Bolshevik Party and helped lead it to victory in the struggles to overthrow Czarism and capitalism in Russia. He succeeded Lenin as leader of the party and of the Soviet State.
The son of a peasant woman and a cobbler, Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili (Stalin) was born on December 2 1, 1879, in Tiflis, Georgia. Georgia was one of several oppressed nations in the Transcaucasian region of the Czarist Empire. At the age of 15 Stalin joined the revolutionary movement and at 18 he enrolled in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). At that time, the RSDLP was just being formed. The first Georgian Social-Democratic organization, the "Messameh Dassy," which Stalin joined, was not a politically homogeneous organization. The majority of its members were "legal Marxists" who inclined toward economism and bourgeois nationalism. Stalin, Ketskhoveli, and Tsulukidze formed the core of the revolutionary Marxist minority which gave rise to the revolutionary Social-Democratic movement in Georgia. This revolutionary minority broke with the old narrow methods of the Messameh Dassy and, instead, engaged in widespread revolutionary political agitation among the masses of workers.
Stalin threw himself tirelessly into the work of building up this revolutionary organization in Transcaucasia, leading workers' study circles, writing leaflets, organizing mass activities among the workers - mass agitation, political meetings, strikes and political demonstrations. Stalin also led the ideological struggle against the counter-revolutionary views of the "legal Marxists." When, in December 1900, Lenin's newspaper Iskra appeared, Stalin supported it whole-heartedly. Although Stalin and Lenin did not meet until 1905, they were already linked closely by their dedication to the same revolutionary ideals.

Joseph Stalin, 1902. Photo from the files of the Czarist police.

In furtherance of these ideals, Stalin was the moving force behind the secret press apparatus in the Transcaucasia. Under the noses of the Czar's police, the Bolsheviks ran a secret printing press in Tiflis from November 1903 to April 1906. The Party program and rules, books, pamphlets, newspapers and scores ofleaflets were published in three languages and were printed in thousands of copies. These publications were very important in preparing the working class for the coming revolution.

The Revolution of 1905

In December 1904, a huge strike of the oil workers in Baku (the largest industrial area in Transcaucasia) was organized by the Bolsheviks under Stalin's leadership. "This strike was like a clap of thunder heralding a great revolutionary storm" in Russia. In leaflets, "Armed Insurrection and Our Tactics," "The Provisional Revolutionary Government and Social Democracy," and "Reaction Is Growing," Stalin followed Lenin's lead in preparing the workers for the inevitable revolt. He skillfully explained the necessity for armed insurrection while exposing the Mensheviks who stood for compromise and not revolution.
In 1905, the workers and peasants throughout Russia rose up in revolt against Czarist rule. Stalin led the armed uprising in Georgia and the rest of the Transcaucasian region. The 1905 uprising was defeated and was followed by fierce reactionary attacks by the Czarist government. These attacks did not slow the pace of Stalin's work for he knew that this was only a temporary setback for the workers' revolution.

J.V. Stalin addressing a meeting of exiled Bolsheviks.

In 1907 he directed the party activities in Baku, organizing the publication of Bolshevik papers, the Bolshevik electoral campaign and another massive struggle of the oil workers. "Amid the gloomy night of the Stolypin(*) reaction, proletarian Baku presented an unusual spectacle, with the proletarian struggle seething, and the voice of Stalin's creations, the legal Bolshevik newspapers reverberating throughout Russia." The Czarist police dogged Stalin at every turn. In 1901, a warrant was issued for his arrest and he was forced to go underground. In 1902 he was imprisoned and then exiled. After only a few months In Siberia, Stalin escaped and returned to his revolutionary post. He was arrested again in 1908, and several more times in 1911, 1912 and 1913. He was arrested no less than eight times. Each time he escaped and returned to his work. Finally, in 1913, he was exiled to the most remote Siberian wilderness where he was held for four years. But Stalin never lost contact with the revolutionary movement. He was elected to the Central Committee of the RSDLP in 1912 while in exile. He maintained correspondence with Lenin, addressed meetings of other exiled Bolsheviks, and sent messages to Bolshevik publications.

In 1912, Stalin's contact with Lenin became closer. Between periods of exile, Stalin traveled to Krakow, Poland to meet with Lenin. They worked together to develop the Bolshevik view on the National Question. This policy, which is based on the principle of the right to political independence for all oppressed nations, was expressed in Stalin's article Marxism and the National Question. Lenin said this statement "stands in the forefront" of Marxist literature on the national question. The correct resolution of the national question was an important element in uniting the workers of various nationalities in their struggle against the Czar.

1917 - The October Socialist Revolution

In 1917, World War I was raging. Stalin was still in exile when the Russian workers and peasants toppled the rule of the Czar in February 1917. Immediately he made his way back to Petrograd. In March he was back In Petrograd where the party appointed him editor of Pravda. Lenin, also newly returned from exile, outlined in his April Theses the course that the party must take to prepare the workers for the transition from the bourgeois democratic to the socialist revolution. Stalin vigorously supported Lenin's views and combated those within the party who opposed these correct policies. Throughout this complex period Stalin worked energetically to win the masses and organize them for militant action. During 1917, Stalin wrote many articles explaining the revolutionary situation to the masses, including "The Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers Deputies," and "The War." Stalin also prepared a number of important speeches and reports for the Party Central Committee.
In the preparations for the October Revolution, Stalin was appointed to the practical leadership body to direct the insurrection. In organizing the October Socialist Revolution, Stalin was Lenin's closest associate. Stalin had direct charge of all the preparations for the insurrection. At 11 o'clock on the morning of October 24, the central party newspaper came out with a leading article by Stalin entitled "What Do We Need?" calling on the masses to overthrow the capitalist Provisional Government. The moment for the insurrection had arrived.
All night on Oct. 24, revolutionary units of the army and armed detachments of the workers' Red Guard arrived at the Bolshevik headquarters in the Smolny Institute. They were dispatched to surround the Winter Palace where the Provisional Government was entrenched. On the 25th, Red Guards occupied the railway stations, post office, telegraph office, the Ministries and the State Bank. The cruiser Aurora, manned by Bolshevik sailors, trained its guns on the Winter Palace. On the night of October 25, the Winter Palace was taken by storm; the Provisional Government was arrested.
That same night, the All-Russian Congress of Soviets was convened. The following night it adopted decrees: calling on all the belligerent countries fighting in the imperialist war (World War I) to conclude an immediate armistice to permit negotiations for peace; abolishing landlord ownership of the land, without compensation; and establishing the Council of People's Commissars, the first Soviet Government. Lenin was elected chairman of the Council. Thus a new chapter in the history of Russia and the world was begun.

Soviet Defense Against Foreign Intervention and Civil War

After the seizure of power, Stalin was involved In the immense tasks of implementing the policy of the revolutionary state power and defending the new workers' government from internal and external attack. In 1918 the U.S., France, Britain and Japan invaded the Soviet Union at Archangel and Vladivostok. Linking up with various Whiteguard forces, they waged war against the Soviet state. The war was fought in three main campaigns and was finally won by the Red Army in 1922.
Throughout 1918, Stalin demonstrated his tremendous skill as a political and military organizer. In June he engineered the defense of the strategic city of Tsaritsyn against the counter-revolutionary Whiteguard forces. This victory maintained the supply route for grain and oil from Baku to Moscow and Petrograd. In November, he was commissioned by the Central Committee to organize the Ukrainian Front and assist the Ukrainian workers and peasants in their battle against the German occupiers and their collaborators. In May 1919, Stalin organized the successful defense of Petrograd and in the summer of that year, he was sent to the Western Front to organize the resistance to the Polish offensive.
Meanwhile, Trotsky's treacherous activities had totally disorganized the Southern Front. A new Whiteguard offensive threatened to overrun Moscow. Stalin was again chosen to lead the Red Army to victory. He scrapped Trotsky's plans and removed his appointees. Imbued with Stalin's fighting spirit the Red Army rallied once again and completely defeated the Whiteguard forces led by Denikin. This victory gave the Soviets a brief respite. Stalin was dispatched to direct the rebuilding of the war-ravaged economy in the Ukraine.
In May 1920, the foreign imperialists launched their third campaign against the Soviet Union. Again, Stalin's organizational and military leadership was key in defeating the enemy onslaught. Although the Japanese intervention in the Far East lasted until 1922, the principle forces of intervention were shattered by the end of 1920; the Soviets were victorious.
Throughout this long period of civil war and intervention, Lenin and Stalin worked closely together. Lenin directed the entire work of defense, both at the front and at the rear. Stalin was Lenin's chief lieutenant in the organization and direction of the defense of the Soviet Republic. When Stalin was at the front, they maintained communication on all important questions of politics and military strategy and tactics through letters, notes and telegrams.

Socialist Construction

Finally, after seven years of war, the Russian workers were able to turn to the task of economic reconstruction. Again, Stalin stood firmly with Lenin in implementing the New Economic Policy to get the economy moving again. But Lenin's health was failing; from the end of 1921 on, more and more of the burden of leading the Party and the country fell to Stalin. At the Eleventh Party Congress in April, 1922, on Lenin's motion, Stalin was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee, a post he held until his death in 1953.
From 1917 to 1923 Stalin served as the People's Commissar of Nationalities. In this position he played a leading role in the struggle to put the Marxist-Leninist principles on the national question into practice. The old Russian Empire had been composed of many nations oppressed by the Czar. The task, as laid out by Lenin and Stalin, was to unite these nations on a voluntary basis into a federation of soviet republics. They stressed that the soviet system could not be imposed on any nation by force and that any attempt to do so would be rightly rejected by the peoples of the formerly oppressed nations as Great Russian chauvinism. They argued against chauvinist proposals of party leaders, including Bukharin and others, that the Party no longer needed to recognize the self-determination of nations after the victory of the socialist revolution. Stalin denounced the "survivals of dominant nation chauvinism, which is a reflection of the former privileged position of the Great Russians," which "still persist in the minds of our Soviet officials." On the other hand, Stalin also led the struggle against local nationalism, which represented the viewpoint of the local exploiters who fought against the establishment of the soviet system and the transition to socialism, and who took chauvinist positions against the weaker nationalities in some regions.
With Stalin's help and guidance, soviet republics were established by all of the nations which had been liberated by the October Revolution. In December, 1922, these republics united into a voluntary federation, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Stalin pointed out that although these nations enjoyed formal equality, the national problem had not been fully and finally solved. A continuing struggle would be necessary against national chauvinism andprolonged assistance would have to be extended by the Russian proletariat to the other nationalities to help them develop their economy and culture. He defended the on-going right of self-determination of all republics within the union.
Lenin's death in 1924 was a great loss to the Soviet Union and the workers and oppressed people of the world. But he had left behind many capable comrades; the foremost of these was Joseph Stalin. All of Stalin's study and revolutionary activity up to this point had prepared him to carry on in Lenin's footsteps. He had learned Lenin's scientific method and shared his revolutionary vision. He was able to successfully carry forward his teacher's legacy.
Stalin acted decisively to defeat the treacherous opportunism of the Trotskyists and Bukharin and the "Right Opposition." He led the Soviet people in the construction of socialism and the continuation of the classstruggle.
By 1926 the economy of the country had been largely reconstructed and it was possible to move from the period of the New Economic Policy, which had allowed a limited growth of capitalism, and advance towards socialism. In order to build the economic base of socialism the country had to be industrialized and agriculture had to be collectivized. It was necessary to build up a large number of new industries in a very short time, including a defense industry and plants for the production of modern agricultural implements where none had existed before. To build up socialist industry presented new problems. The workers government had to raise the large sums necessary for such construction, not on the basis of war and plunder, as do the capitalists. Neither could the Soviet government rely on foreign loans, which would be means for the foreign capitalists to exploit the labor of the Russian workers and peasants. The sums had to be raised internally, through the efforts of the workers and peasants. By increasing the productivity of labor, cutting production costs, instituting economies, etc. it was possible to accumulate sufficient funds while gradually raising the standard of living of the laboring people. Stalin personally acquainted himself with all of the details of the construction of industry, inspiring the masses of workers to ever-greater accomplishments.
Collectivization of agriculture meant transforming small, individually owned peasant plots into larger collective farms which could be operated on a more rational basis, using modern technique and equipment. The collective farms were developed voluntarily. As the individual poor and middle peasants saw the benefits of the collective farms they joined collectives. New state farms were developed gradually on lands which had belonged to the aristocracy or the state, or on previously undeveloped land. Collectivization received great support from the poor peasants and agricultural workers. The rich peasants, or kulaks, on the other hand, fought collectivization because it ended their domination of agriculture and exploitation of the other peasants. Thus a sharp class struggle had to be carried out against them and their supporters in the party.
The years of socialist construction were difficult and the Soviet people endured great sacrifices and hardships. But through their heroic efforts the Soviet workers and peasants, under Stalin's leadership, transformed a backwards, semi-feudal country into a modern industrial country, with the most advanced social, economic and political system that the world had known. Unemployment, illiteracy, poverty, and hunger were eliminated. The standard of living and the quality of life of the working people were improved qualitatively and a new outlook on life was cultivated, based on the collective spirit. Proletarian democracy (a democratic system 1,000 times more democratic than any bourgeois republic) was extended to bring the masses of working people into the governing of the country.
In addition to guiding the accomplishments of the Soviet people, Stalin also provided leadership to the international communist movement. He played a leading role in the formation of the Communist International and helped build it into a powerful International movement. He consistently fought against both right and "left" deviations and organized fraternal aid to other parties. He greatly strengthened the forces of revolution in the struggle against international capitalism and revisionism

World War II – Defense of the Socialist Homeland

In 1941, Hitler's armies invaded the Soviet Union. Stalin's leadership in the heroic war against the German Nazis allowed the Soviet people to defeat the invaders and play the key role in the defeat of fascism worldwide. This accomplishment alone distinguishes Stalin as one of the most outstanding leaders in history. It was under his leadership that the Red Army and the Soviet people played the decisive role in crushing the fascists. The Soviet Union recognized the danger of fascism and rallied the world's democratic forces to oppose it. Hitler had been armed by the imperialist powers to destroy the Soviet Union, the homeland of socialism. During the war, U.S. and Britain delayed opening up the second Europe an front against the Germans, hoping Hitler would destroy the Soviet Union.
Stalin's defense was brilliant. Hitler planned a rapid advance into Russia, hoping to capture Leningrad and Moscow in a few months at the most. This, Hitler believed, would cause the collapse of the Soviet Union and provide the Nazis with immense material reserves for further conquest.
Stalin directed a strategic retreat, inflicting as much damage as possible on the advancing enemy, never allowing large stocks of arms and munitions to fall into enemy hands and organizing partisan warfare behind the German lines. The Germans were drawn in, overextended, with long lines of communication and few reserves. In the fall of 1942 Stalin prepared the trap. Massing troops at Stalingrad (formerly Tsaritsyn) on the Volga River, the Soviet troops made a stand. The major part of the German army was committed; Hitler's "lightning war" was bogged down in house-to-house fighting. The Nazis believed that the Russian forces were taxed to their limit.
However, Stalin had held major Soviet forces in reserve. On November 19, the trap was sprung. The Soviet reserve troops attacked the Germans on both flanks and finally broke through the German lines. The Germans could not escape. In February the encircled army, some 200,000 troops, surrendered. Hitler's offensive had been halted. The battle of Stalingrad was the largest battle in world history. It marked the turning of point in the war against Hitler. By November 1943, two thirds of occupied Soviet territory was liberated. In 1944 Soviet victories carried the war into the territories of Germany and its allies. Rumania, Finland and Bulgaria surrendered. The Soviet forces were in a position to occupy Germany and liberate France. It was only at this point that the British and U.S. opened up a second European front and then claimed credit for the victory over Nazi Germany. The war in Europe ended May 2, 1945, when the Red Army captured Berlin.

Stalin's Legacy

Approximately 20 million Soviet citizens were killed. Much of Russia lay in ruins. Again, Stalin's firm hand guided the Soviet people in the difficult tasks of reconstruction. The Soviets also extended the hand of friendship to the new People's Democracies in Eastern Europe and China, providing them with both material assistance and ideological leadership. In this period, Stalin identified and exposed Yugoslav revisionism and the danger of Right Opportunism which it typified.
When Stalin died on March 5, 1953, the workers and oppressed people of the world lost a great and beloved leader. He was a true Bolshevik, well tempered in the revolutionary struggle. His spirit lives on in his writings and in the living revolutionary movement which is preparing to topple the world imperialist system against which Stalin fought so bravely and so well.
*) Stolypin was the Czarist Interior Minister who directed punitive attacks on the workers and peasants after the 1905 Revolution.

Combat the Lies and Slanders of the Ruling Class
Defend Stalin's True History

The actual history of Stalin's outstanding leadership stands in sharp contrast to the false history presented by ruling class "scholars" in the United States. Perhaps the most elaborate and extended campaign of lies and slanders ever organized by the capitalists has been that directed against Stalin. We do not wish to dignify these base lies by commenting on them. But given the wide scale of dissemination of these falsehoods among large sections of the American people, we feel it is our duty to give a direct rebuttal. We are told that Stalin was a tyrant, a dictator and a mass murderer worse than Hitler. These are the hysterical screams of the capitalist propaganda machine. Of course, there is not a shred of truth in these charges, but they are nonetheless repeated again and again in the press, in history books, in academic circles, etc.
To understand why these lies are constantly promoted, it is only necessary to examine the significance of the Russian Revolution of 1917. When the Russian workers and peasants overthrew first the Czar and then the capitalists they struck terror into the ruling classes around the world. The rich exploiters saw their paradise come tumbling around them. The Czar, the Russian aristocracy, the Russian capitalists and the foreign capitalists who had owned huge wealth in Russia lost it all. Furthermore, the workers and peasants around the world were inspired to follow the lead of the Bolshevik Revolution.
The international capitalists rallied to the aid of the overthrown Russian ruling classes. Together they engaged in all types of intrigues, military intervention and sabotage in a desperate attempt to regain their lost paradise. They accompanied this with a massive campaign of lies to justify the treachery and aggression carried out against the Soviet state and to discredit the Soviet system in the eyes of the masses of workers and progressive people around the world. The attacks on Stalin are a continuation of this savage slander campaign directed, in essence, against the proletarian revolution.
It would require many volumes to refute all of the lies that have been told over the years; here we can only touch upon the main ones. There is a large body of works which present the true history of Stalin and refute these lies. Stalin's own works and the publications of the Soviet Union from the socialist period are essential reading on this question. The writings of the international communist movement from that period and the current material from Albania are also of great importance, as are the writings of many non-communist scholars, reporters and workers who visited the Soviet Union. Furthermore, many documents from the bourgeoisie contain facts and admissions which expose their own fabrications.(*)

The Collectivization of Agriculture

A favorite anti-Stalin slander is the claim that Stalin intentionally created a tremendous famine in order to force the peasants to join collective farms. Sometimes it is alleged that 7 million died in the Ukraine alone in the period of 1933-34. In other versions, the famine occurred in 1932. In either case it is a total lie. Collectivization was carried out voluntarily, and received great support from the poor peasants and agricultural workers. By pooling their land the poor and medium peasants were able to move beyond mere subsistence and develop large-scale production based on mechanization. They were able to escape from the usury and exploitation of the kulaks (rich peasants who hired labor and dominated private agriculture before collectivization) and receive the aid of the workers' state in the form of tractors, etc. Only the kulaks resisted and tried to sabotage collectivization. The kulaks murdered leaders of the collectivization campaign, burned their buildings and destroyed livestock. This campaign of sabotage combined with drought caused some localized food shortages, but there was no famine. According to Anna Louise Strong, an American journalist who traveled extensively through the affected areas:

Peasants voting to form a collective farm. Farm hands and poor peasants took the initiative in the Soviet collective farm movement.

"American commentators usually speak of collective farms as enforced by Stalin; they even assert that he deliberately starved millions of peasants to make them join collectives. This is untrue. I traveled the countryside those years and know what occurred…
"I saw collectivization break like a storm on the Lower Volga in the autumn of 1929. It was a revolution that made deeper changes than did the revolution of 1917, of which it was the ripened fruit. Farm hands and poor peasants took the initiative, hoping to better themselves by government aid. Kulaks fought the movement bitterly by all means up to arson and murder..." (A.L. Strong, The Stalin Era, pp. 35-37)

The Capitalists Armed Hitler, Blamed Stalin

Two builders of the Kuznetz steelworks in 1931.

One of the most far-fetched lies is the allegation that Stalin was responsible for Hitler's aggression in World War II. This is an especially outrageous lie because the British and U.S. capitalists and governments conspired with the most reactionary section of the German ruling class to re-arm Germany and promote Hitler fascism in a vain attempt to destroy the Soviet Union. In 1933 the British and French signed a "Pact of Accord and Co-operation" with Italy and Germany. In 1934, the British and French engineered a Polish-German Non-aggression Pact. These powers made it clear they would not interfere with Germany's plans for aggression. Throughout this period the Soviet Union championed a policy of collective security against the fascist aggressors. But it was rebuffed at every turn. The U.S., British, French and other European governments refused to join with the Soviet Union in opposition to fascism. They claimed "neutrality" in the Spanish Civil War when Franco and the German and Italian fascist troops were attacking the Republican forces and slaughtering the Spanish civilian population. In March of 1938 Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Great Britain and France signed the Munich Pact. The Pact completed the European capitalists' efforts to leave the Soviet Union isolated in the face of impending Nazi aggression. The Czech Sudetenland had been annexed by Germany. The Nazi war machine was aimed at the Soviet Union. It was only at this point that the government of the Soviet Union signed the Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in 1939 to buy time to strengthen its defense against the inevitable attack. The Soviet Union took the brunt of the German aggression during World War II and it also dealt the death blows to the Nazis.

Trotsky - A Major Source of Anti-Stalin Lies

Many of the slanders against Stalin and the Soviet system had their origins in the activities of the traitorous Leon Trotsky. Although Trotsky pretended to be with the Bolsheviks in October 1917, he opposed all of the revolutionary policies of V.I. Lenin. He opposed the idea of building socialism in one country and the Bolshevik forms of the party and state organization.
At the Tenth Bolshevik Party Congress, in March 1921, the Central Committee headed by Lenin passed a resolution outlawing all "factions" in the Party as a menace to the unity of the revolutionary leadership. From that point forward, party leaders were required to submit to the majority decisions, on penalty of expulsion from the Party. Trotsky, in particular, was warned against his factional activities and a number of his associates were demoted. What mass following he had was rapidly disappearing.
After Lenin's death in 1924, Trotsky stepped-up the activities of his faction within the Party, undermining the party's policies. But Trotsky did not content himself with just agitation against the party leadership. He was actively building up a secret armed apparatus with the object of overthrowing the Soviet government. Trotsky was already receiving money for these activities from the German Secret Service.
In October, 1927 the Bolshevik Party held a general discussion and referendum of its members on the question of Trotsky and his Opposition. By a vote of 740,000 to 4,000 the Party members repudiated Trotsky and declared themselves in support of the line of the Central Committee headed by Stalin. The defeated Opposition claimed that they did not get a fair hearing. But the opposite is true. As even some Western observers noted, the Trotsky Opposition was given every opportunity to air their views according to party rules. "An astonishing measure of freedom of debate, criticism and assembly was granted to the Trotskyist oppositionists by the Soviet government… The social and economic policies of the Stalin administration were subjected to continuous criticism… No attempt was made to suppress Trotsky's agitation until it had openly exposed itself as, in fact, anti-Soviet and connected with other anti-Soviet forces." (Great Conspiracy, p. 204)
After their resounding defeat Trotsky and his followers refused to submit to the will of the Party and instead launched an open attack on the Party and the Soviet government. Trotsky was expelled from the Party, and his secret printing presses, arms caches, etc. were raided. Trotsky continued to plot against the Soviet government and in January 1929 he was deported from the Soviet Union. After his deportation, Trotsky continued to organize against the workers revolution in the pay of all kinds of capitalist forces, including both the German and Japanese fascists.
In 1930-31, Trotsky undertook a major anti-Soviet propaganda campaign beginning with his autobiography, in which he portrays himself as the "real leader" of the Russian revolution. This was followed by a barrage of countless other anti-soviet, anti-revolutionary tracts. These works provided a sophisticated new form of anti-Bolshevik propaganda. Workers the world over, suffering under the hardships of the Great Depression, looked to Soviet Russia as a guiding hope. The masses were sympathetic to ideas of revolution, so Trotsky attacked Stalin "from the Left." Using radical-sounding, ultra-revolutionary phrases, Trotsky called for the violent overthrow of the Soviet regime, claiming it was "counter-revolutionary." These works were greeted eagerly by the reactionary capitalists around the world and played up in the bourgeois press. Many of the long-time anti- Bolshevik crusaders abandoned their former pro-Czar line in favor of Trotsky's line of attack.

The Real Meaning of the Party Purge

The U.S. capitalist press has given the term "purge" a sinister meaning implying that when the Bolsheviks purged the Party it meant that individuals who disagreed with party leaders were imprisoned or executed. This is totally untrue. In fact, a purge of the Bolshevik Party meant simply that Party members who did not carry out their duties or who violated Party rules were expelled from the Party. It is important to remember that Party membership is voluntary and open only to those who agree with the program and principles of the Party. It is, therefore, both just and democratic to remove those members who do not live up to the requirements of membership. At several periods in its history the Bolshevik Party carried out large-scale purges of its ranks. For example, shortly after the seizure of power in 1918, it became clear to Lenin and other Party leaders that many people joined the party to try and insure themselves a good position in the new government. A re-enrollment was required, the qualifications and work of all party members was examined and many were not re-enrolled; they were purged from the Party.
At the same time, it was necessary for the Bolsheviks to take more stern measures against those who tried to overthrow the workers' rule and bring the old exploiters and the foreign imperialists. Trotsky and his clique rallied all of these enemies of proletarian rule. In the 1930's Trotsky's followers continued to organize secretly inside and outside of the Bolshevik Party. They carried out a massive campaign of sabotage and planned to assassinate many of the Sovietleaders. When these plots were uncovered, those suspected of crimes were tried. Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin and other long-time Bolshevik Party leaders were part of Trotsky's conspiracy to undermine the construction of socialism and overthrowthe Soviet government. They were tried in three famous trials held in 1936-38, known as the Moscow Treason Trials. At the trials it was shown beyond a doubt that the defendants had committed treason, engaged in terrorist activities, including conspiracy in the murders of the Bolshevik leader Kirov and the great writer Maxim Gorky, spying for the Nazis and plotting amilitary coup against the government, etc. Many of those involved, when faced with the overwhelming evidence against them, admitted their guilt and gave detailed confessions. These trials were held in open court and complete transcripts were published. Foreign news correspondents, including reporters for U.S. ruling class newspapers, were present. The U.S. Ambassador to the U.S.S.R. at that time was John Davies, a capitalist lawyer and anti-Communist. He attended the trials and wrote an account of them in his memoirs. At the end of the Bukharin trial in which 21 conspirators had been tried, Davies stated: "…after daily observation of the witnesses, their manner of testifying, the unconscious corroborations which developed, and other facts in the course of the trial, together with others of which 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 of treason and the adjudication of the punishment provided by Soviet criminal statutes." All of the defendants at that trial were found guilty, three were given prison terms, the rest sentenced to be shot.
The treason trials took place during a period in history when all the capitalist world was whipping up a frenzy against the Soviet Union. The Soviet leaders discovered the most vicious plot against the workers' government, which had already cost many lives. But when stern actions were taken against these counter-revolutionary elements, the capitalist press claimed that they were unjustly persecuted, the victims of a mad dictator, etc.

From even this brief review, it is clear that a tremendous screen of lies and half-truths have been created by the imperialist ruling class to hide the real Stalin from the workers. It is the duty of all revolutionary-minded people to break through this screen and clear the air. It is essential that we study the truth about Stalin and the correct revolutionary principles which he followed and developed.

Where this was copied from?

http://www.mltranslations.org/home.htm

awesome, gonna read them for few days.

That website has no material on it, perhaps its under construction?

no it has its posts at the side like when it says about russian,america,ect.
literaly there at the side of the page.

Excellent stuff.

I only see one link, and that is to contact information for the site's administrator. There are no other links on that page. Perhaps you posted the wrong link?

Yeah comrade miguel has it.

Really good stuff! I now don't have to worry that I might run out of something to read.

Ah, that page has links on the left. Thanks.

Well done Polish Soviet.

This reminds me, perhaps we should make a list of useful ML websites?

Thanks Woland Thank you all for reading this.