The Stalin Thread - all discussion about J.Stalin (as a person) in this thread please

Lets get this straight, do you really think Stalin was a good man and true, genuine socialist who has to be defended, and also, is it your goal/do you believe it improtant and possible to convince people that he wasn't actually bad?

Do you honestly only write 1 sentence posts all the time?

If you think Stalin was a bad man, prove him to be your chance to make a larger post than you have ever in your time on the forums on top of that you get to be a prosecutor.

In any crime motive has to be proven, what was Stalin/soviet union's motive.

What about how so many of the kulaks killed their own livestock and burned their crops?

On the subject of the cause of the Famine, and the role played by the kulaks, I have some interesting sources to quote;

The first is from Frederick Schuman, who toured through Ukraine during the Famine period and was later Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government at Williams College. He's cited by Martens and Tottle in their books. Speaking about the kulaks.;

"Their [kulak] opposition took the initial form of slaughtering their cattle and horses in preference to having them collectivized. The result was a grievous blow to Soviet agriculture, for most of the cattle and horses were owned by the kulaks. Between 1928 and 1933 the number of horses in the USSR declined from almost 30,000,000 to less than 15,000,000; of horned cattle from 70,000,000 (including 31,000,0000 cows) to 38,000,000 (including 20,000,000 cows); of sheep and goats from 147,000,000 to 50,000,000; and of hogs from 20,000,000 to 12,000,000. Soviet rural economy had not recovered from this staggering loss by 1941.

"... Some [kulaks] murdered officials, set the torch to the property of the collectives, and even burned their own crops and seed grain. More refused to sow or reap, perhaps on the assumption that the authorities would make concessions and would in any case feed them.

"The aftermath was the ``Ukraine famine'' of 1932--33 .... Lurid accounts, mostly fictional, appeared in the Nazi press in Germany and in the Hearst press in the United States, often illustrated with photographs that turned out to have been taken along the Volga in 1921 .... The ``famine'' was not, in its later stages, a result of food shortage, despite the sharp reduction of seed grain and harvests flowing from special requisitions in the spring of 1932 which were apparently occasioned by fear of war in Japan. Most of the victims were kulaks who had refused to sow their fields or had destroyed their crops.'"

-("Russia since 1917; Four Decades of Soviet Politics")1957
Frederick Schuman

Corroborations of such claims are provided by none other than Isaac Mazepa, leader of the Ukrainian Nationalist movement;

"At first there were disturbances in the kolkhosi [collective farms] or else the Communist officials and their agents were killed, but later a system of passive resistance was favored which aimed at the systematic frustation of the Bolsheviks' plans for the sowing and gathering of the harvest .... The catastrophe of 1932 was the hardest blow that Soviet Ukraine had to face since the famine of 1921--1922. The autumn and spring sowing campaigns both failed. Whole tracts were left unsown, in addition when the crop was being gathered ... in many areas, especially in the south, 20, 40 and even 50 per cent was left in the fields, and was either not collected at all or was ruined in the threshing."

(""Ukraine under Bolshevist rule" Slavonic Review Volume 12, 1933-34")
-Isaac Mazepa

And this besides the drought.What do the other comrades make of these sources?

I have heard pro-capitalist commentators, including a libertarian from a Ukrainian nationalist family say the same thing. I never really thought there was any controversy over whether kulaks sabotaged collective farming efforts. The argument I have always heard was that they were justified in doing so and the Soviet government should have expected this to happen in response to their encroachments on the property rights of the peasantry.

The idea that well-to-do Ukrainian peasants would have passively resigned themselves to a collectivization that was not in their interests is inconsistent with both common sense and all anti-communist rhetoric and arguments I am familiar with. The typical response in my experience is not to deny that these events occurred but to paint them as heroic resistance. Just look at Cuban exile attitudes towards Luis Posada Carriles for example.

Of course. Mind-numbingly idiotic Batista supporters love Carriles, since he's behind numerous anti-Castro attacks that have resulted in well over one hundred deaths. The man works hand in hand with the Central Intelligence Agency in their ongoing campaign of criticizing "terrorists" and then performing the exact same actions against opposing nations. They demonize nations like Cuba and China that potentially threaten their profit and means of exploitation. To be blunt, anyone who has a shred of respect for the man is likely a delusional fool with no concept of dignity. He should be deported.

As we all know, history is written by the winners. A workers democracy like Cuba is painted negatively because it rejects American corporatism. A potential socialist victory in Russia was negated by Western imperialism and the need to industrialize due to aggression after World War I and leading into World War II. I do find it amusing that I never get a straight answer to this question: If Stalin had not industrialized the Soviet Union, would Hitler's armies have not marched through the Soviet Union and caused millions more deaths? The bourgeoisie in the Soviet Union consistently fought against Lenin. What makes you think they would not do the same against Stalin? Western aggression forced the impoverished Soviet Union into a hyper-industrialization. Stalin's Union had the choice to either industrialize or be destroyed. Counterrevolutionary forces were also being funded by the bourgeoise in the Soviet Union and likely from many Western states, notably the United States. Of course, as we know, the West is hostile towards socialism, since it threatens their potential for profit and exploitation.

Your remark here oddly reminds me of Palestinian suicide bombers, for good and for ill.

Comarde Om, this number looks very high to me. These are bourgeois scholars aren't they? Could you quote the sources the authors use to make this estimate?

The principle sources used are Andreev, Darskii, & Khar'kova (1990), Maksudov (1982), and Lorimer (1946). Work from Tsaplin and Kurman is also incorporated into the final estimate. But, and I have to stress this, an estimate it all it is. Demographic calculations of this type are notorious inaccurate, complex, and sensitive to bias

So their estimate is just pieced together from other people's estimates? I'm be interested in seeing the actual sources used to make the estimates in the first place. Did somebody get a hold of State Documents? Has there been a study of mass graves or something? Are there credible contemporary reports from the region that can be used to approximate the number, or the conditions at least? I'm not tring to be anatagonistic here, but it's well known that the most impeccable, prestigious, 'unbiased', objective research coming out of bourgeois scholarship, has no problem with just pulling numbers out of thin air when it comes to Socialism.

These numbers are from an estimation which works like this:
Number A. population and population growth in the Ukraine during 1929 (so the estimated amount of civilians in 1940).
Number B. population of the Ukraine at 1940
Number C = the gap, which is 8 million.
But, this completely ignores a couple of very concrete things.
A. an extremely low birth-rate.
B. an area containing 2 million citizens had been designated to the Russian Soviet Republic (making it: 6 million).
C. certain other Ukraine-specific conditions (in terms of the Famine itself).

Just thought I'd add my 2 cents.

Its called a question, you numpty. The clue is the question mark, and the words 'do you'. Work on getitng that rep bar up, theres a good boy.

Ah, I see you're new to the question of demographic calculations. Do you think there would be so much variance/controversy if hard figures were available? ;)

To answer your question there are a multitude of sources. The Soviet effort in collecting statistics was far ahead of its time and the most relevant sources are the official Soviet censuses of 1926, 1937, and 1929. These figures are questionable however as from the early 30s TsUNKhU (essentially the central statistics office) and its practices came under sustained assault from Stalin. Distortions are certainly present in the initially published results of the '37 and '39 censuses* but there is enough information present to a) reconstruct the original findings, and b) extrapolate data to estimate population changes in the intervening years

Crucially the census, and other registration data, gives vital background information such as the birth/death rates, with which its possible to arrive at some reasonably accurate estimates, albeit with significant margin of error. For example, the detailed results of the 1937 census, ie beyond headline figures, were not published until 1990 but Lorimer (working in 1946) was able to predict the population level to a good degree of accuracy (he was only out by a million). Of course this also leads to controversy - Andreev, Darskii, & Khar'kova (ADK) assume a much higher rate of birth than Lorimer and thus arrive at a significantly higher number of excess deaths

Nonetheless, much data has been released since 1990 but there remains the stubborn difficulties of collecting data in an overwhelming peasant society and one marked by the massive internal migrations of urbanisation, dekulakisation, and the legacy of civil war. Confident estimates as to the numbers in NKVD camps (or executions) can be gleaned from official records but there will never be the same degree of confidence for the general population - the data simply isn't there. The best that can be done is assemble ranges of estimates and consensus seems to have settled on 5.5-10m excess deaths (note: different from population deficit) during the 1926-39 period

*For example, the aborted census of 1937 includes a completely arbitary increase of 1m people to account for "undercounting". There's no real basis for this, and it was not enough to prevent Kurman's arrest, and the 1939 census includes a similarly crude adjustment of another 1m upwards

Which is in turn just as biased a generalisation. Remember that any Marxist writing during the decades 1917-53 (at the earliest) would have far more likely to swallow official distortions and handwave away the millions of deaths. Indeed until the sixties, and in many cases the nineties, it was common amongst communists to simply dismiss the whole affair as simple bourgeois propaganda

Its also worth noting that, by and large, the range of estimates has increasingly narrowed over the decades and have largely been revised downwards. For example, you will be hard pressed to find a credible demographer, or historian, today who takes the numbers given in the 'Great Terror', never mind the 'Black Book' or Rummel's works, any way seriously. Increased study in the past decade has significantly punctured the bourgeois myths that were common during the Cold War (when total of over 20m deaths for the same period was taken as the benchmark number!)

Edit: Mao Chi X correctly identities the infamous "Kurman gap" of eight million unregistered deaths - the difference between what the Soviet statisticians were expecting (based on their own population trend analyses) and the initial results of the 1937 census. Kurman himself, fearing for his job and life, attempted to handwave away this difference by claiming that at least half was due to emigration, undercounting in 1937, and overcounting in 1927. There's no basis for these assumptions. This leaves roughly 5.1m unregistered deaths which can be divided between the famine and unregistered deaths in the prison system. Whatever way that division goes, in addition to the 3.4m registered deaths during the same period it produces a total of 8.5m deaths

As I noted above, changing the birth rate (as ADK does) produces different totals. However if it didn't occur to Kurman, the head statistician, to account for either a different birth rate or detaching 2 million citizens (both very obvious possibilities) then I wouldn't really credit this as an explanation

it seems to me that the information thrown around by both sides is equally biased. Of course the bourgeois west want to defame Stalin and the Marxist-Lenninsts want to support him or show that he did the right thing in the long run.
So for me if their is an equal amount of bias the most sensible course of action is to take all the estimates from both sides and find the average. (Thats going to go down well....)

How about the story that Stalin sent ex Soviet POW's to Siberia after the end of WW2
any facts behind that horrible tale?

Half of them we're, since either side is equally biased. :rolleyes:

Even socialists (such as Trots, Anarchists), those opposed to capitalism, recognise Stalin was a twat and so the argument of it being cappie propoganda is somewhat stupid.

Well, if they say it it must be true.

indeed.

Okay... Capitalists and anti-revisionists think Trotsky was a 'twat', so does that make him bad? I'm sure the same goes for Bakunin, Rocker and Luxemborg, right? Capitalists and Leninists show a significant level of disdain for anarchists like Bakunin, so does that make him useless and absurd? Do you really want to attempt an argument with that kind of outline?

An example of some of the most useless posts on this forum. If you don't have anything intelligent to say don't say anything at all. Please stop derailing intelligent discussion with this dribble.

I mean if that is your logic, because this guy and that guy says this thing it must be true! TWO PEOPLE SAID THE SAME THING ITS THE TRUTH! I hope you don't plan on being a defense lawyer you'd convince me that innocent people are guilty.


Even socialist such as Marxists, Leninists, Anarchists, even liberals, your family, all those opposed to capitalism or are in favour of capitalism, recognize you are liberal and so the argument of it being cappie poopaganda is somewhat stupid.