Stalinists: Why Are You?

[mykittyhasaboner]

In the eyes of 90% of the world he's damaged goods.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7802485.stm

Apparently Stalin is more important to the majority of Russians than Lenin, Yeltsin, Gorbachev (or any other member of your ilk), Peter the Great, and Catherine--losing to 2 guys who basically nobody outside of Russia has heard of.

No people in large numbers are going to flock to an organization that bears his name and likeness

Yeah so the Maoist organizations in India, Nepal, and the Philippines are made up of a handful of armchair scholar revolutionaries--not landless peasants or workers.

I think 90% is a gross exaggeration. Kwisatz was right when he said this demonized view of Stalin is only prevalent in North America and Europe (pretty much only Western Europe).

[bailey_187]

I think this is a recent picture from Russia celebrating Stalins birthday

Stalin is also upheld by the Indian Maoists (which the Indian PM caled the biggest threat to Indian security), the Philipines NPA and the Greek KKE hwich is the biggest Communist party in the Western World

[Brother No. 1]

So people can be mass-murdered (incl women and children) as long as they aren't in the right class? Besides kulaks are not bourgeois any more than American farmers who own their own land are bourgeois.

Uh, yeah for ruling a selective part of land and hiring those who don't have any land and taking over 50% of their profits is what the average American farmer does isnt it? Or that The Average American farmer doesnt preside 5% of the American population and have 75% of the wheat market in their hands?

Its amusing when you actually try to be intellegent, for it only makes you more of a idiot who listens to propaganda so much so I'd believe you listen to Gobbles himself if you could.

He could have actually supported the Polish with weapons or maybe even intervened in favour of Poland.

So, Supporting a state that not only had a angagonistic history with it, but used concentration camps during war (the Polish-Soviet war) against the U.S.S.R. is in the best interests of the U.S.S.R.'s soverigty? Besides the red army troops entered after the Polish state was disolved.

Here’s a recent article in The New York Review of Books (April 30, 2009, p. 17) by Timothy Snyder, Yale University professor, academic expert in this area — and fanatic anticommunist — who just has to know that what he writes here is, to put it politely, false:
Because the film (although not the book)* begins with the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 rather than the joint German-Soviet invasion and division of Poland in 1939… the Soviet state had just months earlier been an ally of Nazi Germany… (* “Defiance”)
“Behind Closed Doors” (PBS series 2009):
“After invading Poland in September 1939, the Nazis and the Soviets divided the country as they had agreed to do in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact…”
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors...le-poland.html
Wikipedia article: “Soviet invasion of Poland”:
“… on 17 September, the Red Army invaded Poland from the east…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
Every historian I have read, even those who do not conform to Cold War paradigms, state unproblematically that the Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939.
But the the truth is that the USSR did not invade Poland in September, 1939. Even though the chances are at least 99 to 1 that every history book you can find says that it did. I have yet to find an English-language book that gets this correct. And, of course, the USSR had never been an “ally” of Nazi Germany.
I will present a lot of evidence in support of this statement. There is a great deal more evidence to support what I say – much more than I can present here, and no doubt much more that I have not yet even identified or located.
Furthermore, at the time it was widely acknowledged that no such invasion occurred. I’ll demonstrate that too.
Probably the truth of this matter was another victim of the post-WW2 Cold War, when a great many falsehoods about Soviet history were invented or popularized. The truth about this and many other questions concerning the history of the first socialist state has simply become “unmentionable in polite company.”
Demonizing – I use the word advisedly, it is not too strong – the history of the communist movement and anything to do with Stalin has become de rigueur, a shibboleth of respectability. And not only among avowed champions of capitalism but among ourselves, on the left, among Marxists, opponents of capitalism, the natural constituency of a movement for communism.
Some time ago Doug Henwood tweaked me on the MLG list for “defending Stalin.”
I could make a crack about what defenses of Stalin have to do with a “sensible materialism,” but that would be beneath me. (MLG list May 17 2009)
Doug thinks he knows something about Stalin and the USSR during Stalin’s time. He doesn’t! But you can’t blame him too much, since none of us do. More precisely: We “know” a lot of things about the Soviet Union and Stalin, and almost all of those things are just not true. We’ve been swallowing lies for the truth our whole lives.
I’ll be brief in this presentation. I have prepared separate web pages with references to much of the evidence I have found (not all – there is just too much). I’m also preparing a longer version for eventual publication.

How do we know the USSR did not commit aggression against, or “invade”, Poland when it occupied Eastern Poland beginning on September 17, 1939 after the Polish Government had interned itself in Rumania? Here are nine pieces of evidence:
1. The Polish government did not declare war on USSR.
The Polish government declared war on Germany when Germany invaded on September 1, 1939. It did not declare war on the USSR.
2. The Polish Supreme Commander Rydz-Smigly ordered Polish soldiers not to fight the Soviets, though he ordered Polish forces to continue to fight the Germans.
See rydz_dont_fight.html
3. The Polish President Ignaz Moscicki, interned in Rumania since Sept. 17, tacitly admitted that Poland no longer had a government.
See moscicki_resignation.html
4. The Rumanian government tacitly admitted that Poland no longer had a government.
See moscicki_resignation.html
The Rumanian position recognized the fact that Moscicki was blowing smoke when he claimed he had legally resigned on September 30. So the Rumanian government fabricated a story according to which Moscicki had already resigned back on September 15, just before entering Rumania and being interned (NYT 10.04.39, p.12). Note that Moscicki himself did not claim this!
Rumania needed this legal fiction to try to sidestep the following issue. Once Moscicki had been interned in Rumania – that is, from September 17 1939 on – he could not function as President of Poland. Since resignation is an official act, Moscicki could not resign once he was in Rumania.
For our present purposes, here’s the significant point: Both the Polish leaders and the Rumanian government recognized that Poland was bereft of a government once the Polish government crossed the border into Rumania and were interned there.
Both Moscicki and Rumania wanted a legal basis – a fig-leaf — for such a government. But they disagreed completely about this fig-leaf, which exposes it as what it was – a fiction.
5. Rumania had a military treaty with Poland aimed against the USSR. Rumania did not declare war on the USSR.
The Polish government later claimed that it had “released” Rumania from its obligations under this military treaty in return for safe haven in Rumania.
But there is no evidence for this statement. No wonder: it is at least highly unlikely that Rumania would have ever promised “safe haven” for Poland, since that would have been an act of hostility against Nazi Germany. Rumania was neutral in the war and, as discussed below, insisted upon imprisoning the Polish goverment and disarming the Polish forced once they had crossed the border into Rumania. The real reason for Rumania’s failure to declare war on the USSR is probably the one given in a New York Times article of September 19, 1939:
“The Rumanian viewpoint concerning the Rumanian-Polish anti-Soviet agreement is that it would be operative only if a Russian attack came as an isolated event and not as a consequence of other wars.” - “Rumania Anxious; Watches Frontier.” NYT 09.19.39, p.8.
That means Rumania recognized that the Red Army was not allied with Germany, an “other war.” This is tacit recognition of the Soviet and German position that Poland no longer had a government, and therefore was no longer a state.
6. France did not declare war on the USSR, though it had a mutual defense treaty with Poland. See m-rpact.html for the reconstructed text of the “secret military protocol” of this treaty, which has been “lost” – i.e. which the French government still keeps “secret”
7. England never demanded that the USSR withdraw its troops from Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine, the parts of the former Polish state occupied by the Red Army after September 17, 1939. On the contrary, the British government concluded that these territories should not be a part of a future Polish state. Even the Polish government-in-exile agreed! See maisky_101739_102739.html These documents are in the original Russian, with the relevant quotations translated into English below them.
8. The League of Nations did not determine the USSR had invaded a member state.
Article 16 of the League of Nations Covenant required members to take trade and economic sanctions against any member who “resorted to war”.
No country took any sanctions against the USSR. No country broke diplomatic relations with the USSR over this action. However, when the USSR attacked Finland in 1939 the League did vote to expel the USSR, and several countries broke diplomatic relations with it. See http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1939/391214a.html
A very different response! which tells us how the League viewed the Soviet action in the case of Poland.
9. All countries accepted the USSR’s declaration of neutrality. All, including the belligerent Polish allies France and England, agreed that the USSR was not a belligerent power, was not participating in the war. In effect they accepted the USSR’s claim that it was neutral in the conflict. See FDR’s “Proclamation 2374 on Neutrality”, November 4, 1939:
“…a state of war unhappily exists between Germany and France; Poland; and the United Kingdom, India, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa,…” – http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/in...15831&st=&st1=
also “152 – Statement on Combat Areas” – defines “belligerent ports, British, French, and German, in Europe or Africa…” – http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/in...15833&st=&st1=
The Soviet Union is not mentioned as a belligerent. That means the USA did not consider the USSR to be at war with Poland. For the Soviet Union’s claim of neutrality see soviet_neutrality.html
Naturally, a country cannot “invade” another country and yet credibly claim that it is “neutral” with respect to the war involving that country. But NONE of these countries declared the USSR a belligerent. Nor did the United States, the League of Nations, or any country in the world.

http://www.bestcyrano.org/filesdepot/?p=1753

I wouldn't call killing millions of people including skilled workers, military officers, and others "efficient".

Yes, for you know Tukhachevsky was not planning at all to start a coup d'etat.

"On May 26th, 1937, Marshal Tukhachevsky and commanders Yakir,Uborevich,Eideman,Kork, Putna, Feldman and Prikakov were arrested and tried in front of a military tribunal. Their execution was announced on July 12th. They had been under the suspsicon since the beginning of May.On May 8th, the political commissar system, used during the civil War, was re-introduced in the army. Its reintroduction reflected the party's fear of Bonapartist tendencies within the amry." (J. Arch Getty, Origin of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-38, p. 167)

A May 13th, 1927 Commissar of Defence directive ended the control that the political commissars had over the highest officers. The military commander was given the responsibility for `general political leadership for the purpose of complete coordination of military and political affairs in the unit'. The `political assistant' was to be responsible for `all party-political work' and was to report to the commander on the political condition of the unit.

(Edward Hallet Carr,Foundations of a planned Economy, 1926-29, Volume 2, p. 325)



Journalist Alexander Werth wrote in his book Moscow 41 a chapter entitled, `Trial of Tukhachevsky'. He wrote: "I am also pretty sure that the purge in the Red Army had a great deal to do with Stalin's belief in an imminent war with Germany. What did Tukhachevsky stand for? People of the French Deuxieme Bureau told me long ago that Tukhachevsky was pro-German. And the Czechs told me the extraordinary story of Tukhachevsky's visit to Prague, when towards the end of the banquet --- he had got rather drunk --- he blurted out that an agreement with Hitler was the only hope for both Czechoslovakia and Russia. And he then proceeded to abuse Stalin. The Czechs did not fail to report this to the Kremlin, and that was the end of Tukhachevsky --- and of so many of his followers.''



(Alexander Werth, quoted in Harpal Brar, Perestroika: The Complete Collapse of Revisionism (London: Harpal Brar, 1992), p. 161.)


The U.S. Ambassador Moscow, Joseph Davies, wrote his impressions on on June 28 and July 4, 1937: "(T)he best judgment seems to believe that in all probability there was a definite conspiracy in the making looking to a coup d'état by the army --- not necessarily anti-Stalin, but antipolitical and antiparty, and that Stalin struck with characteristic speed, boldness and strength.''

(Joseph E. Davies, Mission in Moscow,p.99)


"Had a fine talk with Litvinov. I told him quite frankly the reactions in U.S. and western Europe to the purges; and to the executions of the Red Army generals; that it definitely was bad ....

"Litvinov was very frank. He stated that they had to ``make sure'' through these purges that there was no treason left which could co-operate with Berlin or Tokyo; that someday the world would understand that what they had done was to protect the government from ``menacing treason.'' In fact, he said they were doing the whole world a service in protecting themselves against the menace of Hitler and Nazi world domination, and thereby preserving the Soviet Union strong as a bulwark against the Nazi threat. That the world would appreciate what a very great man Stalin was.''


(Joseph E. Davies, Mission in Moscow, p.103)



In 1937, Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov was working for the Central Commitee of the Bolshevik Party. A bourgeois nationalist, he had close ties to opposition leaders and with the Central Committee members from the Caucausus. In his book The Reign of Stalin, he regrets that Tukhachevsky did not seize power in 1937. He claims that early in 1937, after his trip to England, Tukhachevsky spoke to his superior officers as follows: `The great thing about His Britannic Majesty's Army is that there could not be a Scotland Yard agent at its head (allusion to the rôle played by state security in the USSR). As for cobblers (allusion to Stalin's father), they belong in the supply depots, and they don't need a Party card. The British don't talk readily about patriotism, because it seems to them natural to be simply British. There is no political ``line'' in Britain, right, left or centre; there is just British policy, which every peer and worker, every conservative and member of the Labour Party, every officer and soldier, is equally zealous in serving .... The British soldier is completely ignorant of Party history and production figures, but on the other hand he knows the geography of the world as well as he knows his own barracks .... The King is loaded with honours, but he has no personal power .... Two qualities are called for in an officer --- courage and professional competence.''

(Alexander Uralov (Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov), The Reign of Stalin (Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, p. 1975), p. 50.)

Stalin could have bribed the kulaks or made a deal with them. Kulaks like everyone else are human beings and they naturally don't want to give up land. They certainly weren't totally opposed to socialism but what they were opposed to was complete forced collectivzation. They were sort of like the civil rights protestors in the US in the '60s or the anti-war protestors in their tactics.

Bribe a Capitalist? Oh sure, that would have worked out fine since I mean they didnt control any peasant associates or pose any threat to what developing Socialism was in the U.S.S.R and didnt want Capitalism to return to obtain profit.

So, civil rights as in sabotage Soviet industry, trying impose on another assosciates or burn their own fields ('their own' as in their owned it as a commmodity as you'd own a lamp or they'd own a serf before Serfdom was abolished) and kill livestock?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

I think 90% is a gross exaggeration. Kwisatz was right when he said this demonized view of Stalin is only prevalent in North America and Europe (pretty much only Western Europe).

Actually, the demonized view of Stalin is also prevalent in much of Eastern Europe outside of the former USSR - and also in Reichskommissariat Ostland... err, I mean, the Baltic states.

But Eastern Europe is patchy in this regard. Stalin is reviled in some countries (like Poland and the aforementioned Baltic states), while being viewed mostly positively in others (like Bulgaria).

[bailey_187]

Kwisatz, where in Eastern Europe are you from? (if you dont mind me asking)

[mykittyhasaboner]

Actually, the demonized view of Stalin is also prevalent in much of Eastern Europe outside of the former USSR - and also in Reichskommissariat Ostland... err, I mean, the Baltic states.

But Eastern Europe is patchy in this regard. Stalin is reviled in some countries (like Poland and the aforementioned Baltic states), while being viewed mostly positively in others (like Bulgaria).

This is true, that's why I didn't want to generalize all of Eastern Europe as predominantly "anti-Stalin", where as Western Europe obviously is.

From my experience I would say many in ex-Yugoslavia view Stalin negatively, but many are the other way around. It all goes back to 1948 there.

I would guess that folks in Bulgaria and Albania are predominantly "pro-Stalin".

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Kwisatz, where in Eastern Europe are you from? (if you dont mind me asking)

I'm from Romania. The general attitude towards Stalin here is very negative, but for different reasons than in the West. His authoritarianism or lack of respect for "human rights" is not the issue. The issue is that Romania had a territorial dispute with the USSR, and lost territory after WW2.

Fucking nationalism...

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Stalin is also upheld by the Indian Maoists (which the Indian PM caled the biggest threat to Indian security), the Philipines NPA and the Greek KKE hwich is the biggest Communist party in the Western World

The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, in the Czech Republic, is also very large. They uphold the old Soviet-style system (pre-1989), but I'm not sure about their views on Stalin. I suspect they agree with Khrushchev.

[Richard Nixon]

1. Stalin was right 'most' of the time, or rather, Stalin made many good decisions, is a view held by 'Stalinists', Maoists, Jucheists, Castroites, 'Marxist-Leninists', pan socialists etc.

If all the 'pro stalin' groups are lumped together, and stacked against all the 'anti stalin' groups (aka the trots, anarcho communists and spartacist types), pro stalin has the majority. If you count social democrats this can change, but I really wouldn't call them 'Communists'

However this is a leftist forum not a communist forum and among leftists (including anarchists) most people here are most not pro-Stalinist.

2. The kulaks could technically be considered petty bourgeois, depending on who you ask. Regardless they were reactionaries and nationalists, it was their choice to adopt a policy of violent resistance to collectivization, they brought the wrath of the soviet workers upon themselves.

Further, the notion that killing women and children is any worse or better then killing men is a rather chauvinist idea. Women are quite capable of fighting, as are SOME children (at a certain point in their maturity). They are not weak and vulnerable and need the almighty alpha male to protect them.

However the kulaks did not use violence at first until the commisars began arresting and murdering their numbers thus the Soviets had no excuse at first to murder any kulaks.

3. The USSR was not caught off guard, he did prepare, he was preparing since 1935, possibly just early 1936.

Just because you do not like the strategy, and you think preparation equates to putting a shit load of missiles on the border, does not mean the USSR was 'unprepared'.

Than why was the Soviet army pushed hundreds of miles eastward to the gates of Moscow when the Nazi Germans attacked?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barabossa

In August 1940 British intelligence had received hints of German plans to attack the Soviets only a week after Hitler informally approved the plans for Barbarossa.[46] Stalin's distrust of the British led to his ignoring the warnings, believing it to be a trick designed to bring the Soviet Union into the war.[46][56] In the spring of 1941, Stalin's own intelligence services and American intelligence made regular and repeated warnings of an impending German attack.[57] However, Stalin chose to ignore these warnings. Although acknowledging the possibility of an attack in general and making significant preparations, he decided not to run the risk of provoking Hitler.[58] He also had an ill-founded confidence in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which had been signed just two years before. Last, he also suspected the British of trying to spread false rumours in order to trigger a war between Germany and the USSR.[59][60] Consequently, the Soviet border troops were not put on full alert and were sometimes even forbidden to fire back without permission when attacked — though a partial alert was implemented on 10 April — they were simply not ready when the German attack came.[56]

4. Communists don't 'bribe' reactionaries, we just shoot them.

Alot of former peasants in the Ukraine supported the Nazis, I wonder why? Point being, anti collectivization quickly degraded to anti Sovietism and anti communism.

Or you could put them in jails where at least they have some chance of "seeing the light" rather than commit mass murder of anyone who remotely disagrees with you. As for the Ukrainians supporting the Nazis, hmm if the Soviets murdered your family, friends, and neighbours by the thousands wouldn't you be inclined to support their enemies?

Yes, but that would have meant going to war with Germany in September 1939, while the Western Allies did nothing (remember, France and Britain declared war and then sat around for months without firing a single shot). So, this course of action would have been suicide for the USSR.


Oh, I never said Stalin was in any way interested in the welfare of Poland. I said he was interested in defeating the Nazis. Saving the Polish people from slavery was, for the most part, just a side effect of Stalin's main goal (and I do mean slavery in the literal sense, because that's what the Nazis had planned for Slavic peoples in their conquered territories - some were to be exterminated, and others were to be kept as illiterate servants).

Which means Stalin like most other heads of state were believe in brutal realpolitik rather than for the welfare of the working classes around the world.

Stalin occupied Eastern Poland not because he cared about the people there (the majority of whom were Belorussian, by the way, not Polish), but because he cared about stopping the Nazis from advancing further East.


Actually, most of the time, the US exploits the countries in its sphere of influence. Imperialism requires economic domination and exploitation (with or without the cooperation of local elites in the dominated country). This is precisely what the American ruling class does. You can see it most clearly with oil, but practically every American military action in the last 60 years has been intended to defend or promote the profits of American corporations - at the expense of the workers in the conquered country.

Why Imperialism happens is a less important question than what someone does to enforce imperialism and Stalin's actions are comparable to that of a very hardline policy.

Obviously, there are some cases where United States insists on unconditional foreign policy support but does not demand anything else. American policy towards Western Europe is the best example. In those particular cases, the US is not acting in an imperialistic manner. I don't think anyone claims that, say, Belgium has been a victim of US imperialism.

When France pulled out of the NATO command did the US try to overthrow it's government? Compare that to what Stalin's immediate successors (more moderate than Stalin) did to Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

I agree. The amazing thing is that Stalin's regime was efficient, despite some horrible sources of inefficiency, like the ones you listed. Imagine what could have been achieved if Stalin hadn't imprisoned hundreds of thousands of people who could have been doing skilled work.


Not much of an improvement? Are you kidding? Do you have any idea what the Nazis planned to do after the war, if they won? What we call the Holocaust was supposed to be just the beginning. The Jews were the first "non-Aryan" nation on Hitler's hit list, but they were by no means the last. The Nazis wanted Lebensraum - "living space" - in the East, and they planned to get it by doing to the people of the Soviet Union exactly what European colonists did to the Native Americans... except on a much grander scale, since there were so many more of them.

Stalinism, in the post-war years, threw lots of people in jail for opposing the government. Yes, this is repressive, but it is rather ordinary, mundane repression, which happened in many different countries (including most Western countries in the 19th century). It is infinitely better than a Nazi superpower dedicated to the extermination and/or enslavement of about 1/4 of Europe's population - and its replacement with German colonists.

And Stalinism was more than just political repression. That was the negative side of it, but there was also a big positive side. In Eastern Europe after WW2, women were given equal rights to men (in some countries, like my own, this was a radical progressive reform). The 1950s in the East were a better experience for women than the 1950s in the West. Women were able, for the first time, to get the same jobs as men and earn their own income (which, by the way, was equal to the income of men for the same job - something capitalism has not achieved even today).

In the late 1940s, private schools and universities were nationalized, and all education was made free for everyone. This made it possible for the children of ordinary workers, like my grandfather, to get a higher education and have successful careers as professionals, intellectuals, civil servants or politicians. For about 10 years, there was even an affirmative action program to help children from working class backgrounds get an education. The pre-war societies of Eastern Europe were highly stratified and intensely conservative. Stalinism smashed the old elites and massively improved social mobility. Under Stalinism, it was really possible for a worker to rise to the highest levels of government - and many did. Such a thing would have been unthinkable before the war.

Today, the generation of people who were 20 years old around the year 1950 is still extremely supportive of Stalin and Stalinism. I don't really know why that is, but I suspect it's because the people of that generation feel they owe their education and their careers to Stalinism. For young people who did not oppose the government, the 1950s were a time of amazing new opportunities.

And, of course, Stalinism also brought industrialization to the agricultural societies that existed in most of Eastern Europe.

There's evidence Stalin too planned anti-Semitic programs-not as bad as the Holocaust of course-but certainly something of an anti-Semitic movement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Stalin

officials.[206] The prevailing opinion of many scholars outside the Soviet Union is that Stalin intended to use the resulting doctors' trial to launch a massive party purge.[207] The plot is also viewed by many historians as an anti-Semitic provocation.[206] It followed on the heels of the 1952 show trials of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee[208] and the secret execution of thirteen members on Stalin's orders in the Night of the Murdered Poets.[209] Thereafter, in a December Politburo session, Stalin announced that "Every Jewish nationalist is the agent of the American intelligence service. Jewish nationalists think that their nation was saved by the USA (there you can become rich, bourgeois, etc.). They think they're indebted to the Americans. Among doctors, there are many Jewish nationalists."[210] To mobilize the Soviet people for his campaign, Stalin ordered TASS and Pravda to issue stories along with Stalin's alleged uncovering of a "Doctors Plot" to assassinate top Soviet leaders,[211][212] including Stalin, in order to set the stage for show trials.[213]
The next month, Pravda published stories with text regarding the purported "Jewish bourgeois-nationalist" plotters.[214] Kruschev wrote that Stalin hinted him to incite anti-Semitism in the Ukraine, telling him that "the good workers at the factory should be given clubs so they can beat the hell out of those Jews."[215][216] Stalin also ordered falsely accused physicians to be tortured "to death".[217] Regarding the origins of the plot, people who knew Stalin, such as Kruschev, suggest that Stalin had long harbored negative sentiments toward Jews,[206][218][219] and anti-Semitic trends in the Kremlin's policies were further fueled by the exile of Leon Trotsky.[206][220] In 1946, Stalin allegedly said privately that "every Jew is a potential spy."[206][221]
Some historians have argued that Stalin was also planning to send millions of Jews to four large newly built labor camps in Western Russia[213][222] using a "Deportation Commission"[223][224][225] that would purportedly act to save Soviet Jews from an engraged Soviet population after the Doctors Plot trials.[223][226][227] Others argue that any charge of an alleged mass deportation lacks specific documentary evidence.[212] Regardless of whether a plot to deport Jews was planned, in his "Secret Speech" in 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev stated that the Doctors Plot was "fabricated ... set up by Stalin", that Stalin told the judge to beat confessions from the defendants[228] and had told Politburo members "You are blind like young kittens. What will happen without me? The country will perish because you do not know how to recognize enemies."[228]

[QUOTE=bailey_187;1630789]Because we are the only left ideology that can be classed as "still around", all others are where they have always been - irelevent.
Stalin showed Socialism in practice.




1) This was a view held since the 1930s. Nowadays, so its nothing new
2)if you actually read Soviet History you will see he did not kill millions. 700,000 were executed. The reasons for this are numerois though but not due to Stalin just wanting them all dead. I can explain later if you want. The question should be, why, after all the new scholarhsip from the likes of Getty with the new Soviet archives do you keep (not you personally) keep repeating this stuff which is objectivly not true?

Again from the Josef Stalin Wiki Article:

Calculating the number of victims

Researchers before the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union attempting to count the number of people killed under Stalin's regime produced estimates ranging from 3 to 60 million.[70] After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives also became available, containing official records of the execution of approximately 800,000 prisoners under Stalin for either political or criminal offenses, around 1.7 million deaths in the Gulags and some 390,000 deaths during kulak forced resettlement – for a total of about 3 million officially recorded victims in these categories.[71]
The official Soviet archival records do not contain comprehensive figures for some categories of victims, such as the those of ethnic deportations or of German population transfers in the aftermath of WWII.[72] Other notable exclusions from NKVD data on repression deaths include the Katyn massacre, other killings in the newly occupied areas, and the mass shootings of Red Army personnel (deserters and so-called deserters) in 1941. Also, the official statistics on Gulag mortality exclude deaths of prisoners taking place shortly after their release but which resulted from the harsh treatment in the camps.[73] Some historians also believe the official archival figures of the categories that were recorded by Soviet authorities to be unreliable and incomplete.[74][75] In addition to failures regarding comprehensive recordings, as one additional example, Robert Gellately and Simon Sebag-Montefiore argue the many suspects beaten and tortured to death while in "investigative custody" were likely not to have been counted amongst the executed.[8][76]
Historians working after the Soviet Union's dissolution have estimated victim totals ranging from approximately 4 million to nearly 10 million, not including those who died in famines.[77] Russian writer Vadim Erlikman, for example, makes the following estimates: executions, 1.5 million; gulags, 5 million; deportations, 1.7 million out of 7.5 million deported; and POWs and German civilians, 1 million – a total of about 9 million victims of repression.[78]
Some have also included deaths of 6 to 8 million people in the 1932–1933 famine as victims of Stalin's repression. This categorization is controversial however, as historians differ as to whether the famine was a deliberate part of the campaign of repression against kulaks and others,[53] or simply an unintended consequence of the struggle over forced collectivization.[48][79][80]
Accordingly, if famine victims are included, a minimum of around 10 million deaths—6 million from famine and 4 million from other causes—are attributable to the regime,[81] with a number of recent historians suggesting a likely total of around 20 million, citing much higher victim totals from executions, gulags, deportations and other causes.[82] Adding 6–8 million famine victims to Erlikman's estimates above, for example, would yield a total of between 15 and 17 million victims. Researcher Robert Conquest, meanwhile, has revised his original estimate of up to 30 million victims down to 20 million.[83] Others maintain that their earlier higher victim total estimates are correct.[84][85]

According to Soviet records itself the death toll of Stalin's three million-over four times higher than your estimate.

I may aswell repost what paul cockshott said in another post then rewriting it
"
[FONT=Verdana]When the Germans attacked Poland, Soviet forces initially stayed behind the international frontier. Had the Polish government withdrawn to the east into eastern Poland they could then have negotiated a peace treaty with German as the French did. Under the German Soviet pact the Germans had undertaken not to advance into the east of Poland.

Soviet forces only occupied eastern Poland after the Polish government had in a cowardly fashion fled to Romania and been interned. At that point there was no Polish government in existence any more. Had the USSR not sent its troops in the Germans would have occupied the whole country. The Polish forces offered no resistance to the USSR, whilst continuing to fight the Germans. This indicates that at that point in time, the Poles made a distinction between the actions of Germany and the USSR -- a distinction that is not maintained by current Polish nationalists."[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]the pact allowed the USSR, as Robert's in Stalin's Wars says to prepare and plan for war. It also allowed the Soviets to divert troops ot the east to fight Japan[/FONT]

Ah yes...than how do you explain the Katyn Massacre exactly if the Soviets were at least neutral toward the Polish?

Eastern Europe did not subsidise the standard of living for Soviet workers. The closest thing to that was the taking of reperations from the Soviet Sector in Germany but the extent to whic the USSR was destroyed by the Germans, its understandable to take reperations.



Ultimatly though, workers benefited from the industrialisation. Consumption started to increased in the late 30s but then resources had to be diverted for war preperation.

Eastern Europe weren't much of a Soviet economic puppets but they were more or less political puppets.

Uh, yeah for ruling a selective part of land and hiring those who don't have any land and taking over 50% of their profits is what the average American farmer does isnt it? Or that The Average American farmer doesnt preside 5% of the American population and have 75% of the wheat market in their hands?

I think you're confusing wealthy agricultural corporations with dozens of large farms and a small yeomen farmer who has a few acres and maybe one or two hired hands.

Its amusing when you actually try to be intellegent, for it only makes you more of a idiot who listens to propaganda so much so I'd believe you listen to Gobbles himself if you could.

Ridiculous ad hominem attack. I might as well say that you listen to the Soviet Ministry of Propaganda.

So, Supporting a state that not only had a angagonistic history with it, but used concentration camps during war (the Polish-Soviet war) against the U.S.S.R. is in the best interests of the U.S.S.R.'s soverigty? Besides the red army troops entered after the Polish state was disolved.









http://www.bestcyrano.org/filesdepot/?p=1753




Yes, for you know Tukhachevsky was not planning at all to start a coup d'etat.

"On May 26th, 1937, Marshal Tukhachevsky and commanders Yakir,Uborevich,Eideman,Kork, Putna, Feldman and Prikakov were arrested and tried in front of a military tribunal. Their execution was announced on July 12th. They had been under the suspsicon since the beginning of May.On May 8th, the political commissar system, used during the civil War, was re-introduced in the army. Its reintroduction reflected the party's fear of Bonapartist tendencies within the amry." (J. Arch Getty, Origin of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-38, p. 167)

A May 13th, 1927 Commissar of Defence directive ended the control that the political commissars had over the highest officers. The military commander was given the responsibility for `general political leadership for the purpose of complete coordination of military and political affairs in the unit'. The `political assistant' was to be responsible for `all party-political work' and was to report to the commander on the political condition of the unit.

(Edward Hallet Carr,Foundations of a planned Economy, 1926-29, Volume 2, p. 325)



Journalist Alexander Werth wrote in his book Moscow 41 a chapter entitled, `Trial of Tukhachevsky'. He wrote: "I am also pretty sure that the purge in the Red Army had a great deal to do with Stalin's belief in an imminent war with Germany. What did Tukhachevsky stand for? People of the French Deuxieme Bureau told me long ago that Tukhachevsky was pro-German. And the Czechs told me the extraordinary story of Tukhachevsky's visit to Prague, when towards the end of the banquet --- he had got rather drunk --- he blurted out that an agreement with Hitler was the only hope for both Czechoslovakia and Russia. And he then proceeded to abuse Stalin. The Czechs did not fail to report this to the Kremlin, and that was the end of Tukhachevsky --- and of so many of his followers.''



(Alexander Werth, quoted in Harpal Brar, Perestroika: The Complete Collapse of Revisionism (London: Harpal Brar, 1992), p. 161.)


The U.S. Ambassador Moscow, Joseph Davies, wrote his impressions on on June 28 and July 4, 1937: "(T)he best judgment seems to believe that in all probability there was a definite conspiracy in the making looking to a coup d'état by the army --- not necessarily anti-Stalin, but antipolitical and antiparty, and that Stalin struck with characteristic speed, boldness and strength.''

(Joseph E. Davies, Mission in Moscow,p.99)


"Had a fine talk with Litvinov. I told him quite frankly the reactions in U.S. and western Europe to the purges; and to the executions of the Red Army generals; that it definitely was bad ....

"Litvinov was very frank. He stated that they had to ``make sure'' through these purges that there was no treason left which could co-operate with Berlin or Tokyo; that someday the world would understand that what they had done was to protect the government from ``menacing treason.'' In fact, he said they were doing the whole world a service in protecting themselves against the menace of Hitler and Nazi world domination, and thereby preserving the Soviet Union strong as a bulwark against the Nazi threat. That the world would appreciate what a very great man Stalin was.''


(Joseph E. Davies, Mission in Moscow, p.103)



In 1937, Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov was working for the Central Commitee of the Bolshevik Party. A bourgeois nationalist, he had close ties to opposition leaders and with the Central Committee members from the Caucausus. In his book The Reign of Stalin, he regrets that Tukhachevsky did not seize power in 1937. He claims that early in 1937, after his trip to England, Tukhachevsky spoke to his superior officers as follows: `The great thing about His Britannic Majesty's Army is that there could not be a Scotland Yard agent at its head (allusion to the rôle played by state security in the USSR). As for cobblers (allusion to Stalin's father), they belong in the supply depots, and they don't need a Party card. The British don't talk readily about patriotism, because it seems to them natural to be simply British. There is no political ``line'' in Britain, right, left or centre; there is just British policy, which every peer and worker, every conservative and member of the Labour Party, every officer and soldier, is equally zealous in serving .... The British soldier is completely ignorant of Party history and production figures, but on the other hand he knows the geography of the world as well as he knows his own barracks .... The King is loaded with honours, but he has no personal power .... Two qualities are called for in an officer --- courage and professional competence.''

(Alexander Uralov (Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov), The Reign of Stalin (Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, p. 1975), p. 50.)

I'm not talking about just Tukhachevsky. But here's the Wiki article again (yes it's imperfect but your sources like the Mission to Moscow were written by people who sympathized with Stalin or did not have access to all the facts) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_of...y_Organization

The trial triggered a massive subsequent purge of the Red Army. In September 1938 the People's Commissar for Defence, Kliment Voroshilov, reported that a total of 37,761 officers and commissars were dismissed from the army, 10,868 were arrested and 7,211 were condemned for anti-Soviet crimes.

That's pretty much gutting the entire Red Army's officer ranks.

Bribe a Capitalist? Oh sure, that would have worked out fine since I mean they didnt control any peasant associates or pose any threat to what developing Socialism was in the U.S.S.R and didnt want Capitalism to return to obtain profit.

So, civil rights as in sabotage Soviet industry, trying impose on another assosciates or burn their own fields ('their own' as in their owned it as a commmodity as you'd own a lamp or they'd own a serf before Serfdom was abolished) and kill livestock?

That would be wrong yes but it warrants prison or labor camps (and no not gulags but a decent work camp).

[mykittyhasaboner]

Richard Nixon:

There's evidence Stalin too planned anti-Semitic programs-not as bad as the Holocaust of course-but certainly something of an anti-Semitic movement.

Anti-Semitism was against the law in the Soviet Union.

In answer to your inquiry :

National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.

Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism.

In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.


J. Stalin
January 12, 1931

First published in the newspaper Pravda, No. 329, November 30, 1936

Ah yes...than how do you explain the Katyn Massacre exactly if the Soviets were at least neutral toward the Polish?

It's nice to see you trying to defame the Soviet Union with fabrications committed none other than the Nazis. It's kind of funny to say the least.

http://chss.montclair.edu/english/fu...atyn062945.pdf

[Red Saxon]

I won't deny that he probably killed a lot of people who didn't deserve it, but he almost single handedly brought a relatively unimportant Russia and turned it into a major economic and political force.
Whether that's justification or not, I can't say.

[Brother No. 1]

I think you're confusing wealthy agricultural corporations with dozens of large farms and a small yeomen farmer who has a few acres and maybe one or two hired hands.

eh, no. The kulaks themselfs were 5% of the mass population of the U.S.S.R and did infact holding much of the wheat market in the 1920s.



"Every village commune has always three or four regular kulaks, as also some half dozen smaller fry of the same kidney .... They want neither skill nor industry; only promptitude to turn to their own profit the needs, the sorrows, the sufferings and the misfortunes of others." "`The distinctive characteristic of this class ... is the hard, unflinching cruelty of a thoroughly educated man who has made his way from poverty to wealth, and has come to consider money-making, by whatever means, as the only pursuit to which a rational being should devote himself."


The Collective Farms were, eventually, surpassing the Kulaks production.

From another View of Stalin
During 1929, collectivized agriculture produced 2.2 million tonnes of market wheat, as much as the kulaks did two years previously. Stalin foresaw that during the course of the next year, it would bring 6.6 million tonnes to the cities.

But the source of commercial grain had also undergone tremendous change. Before the revolution, 72 per cent of the grain had come from large exploitations (landowners and kulaks). In 1926, on the other hand, the poor and middle peasants produced 74 per cent of the market wheat. In fact, they consumed 89 per cent of their production, bringing only 11 per cent to market. The large socialist enterprises, the kolkhozy (collective farms) and the sovkhozy (state farms) only represented 1.7 per cent of the total wheat production and 6 per cent of the market wheat. But they sold 47.2 per cent of their production, almost half of their harvest. In 1926, the kulaks, a rising force, controlled 20 per cent of the market wheat.

(Stalin, On the Grain Front. Leninism, p. 59.)


According to another statistic, in the European part of the USSR, the kulaks and the upper part of the middle peasants, i.e. about 10 to 11 per cent of families, made 56 per cent of the sales in 1927--1928

(Joseph E. Davies, Mission to Moscow, p. 27.)




In 1927, the balance of forces between the socialist economy and the capitalist economy could be summed up as follows: collectivized agriculture brought 0.57 million tonnes of wheat to market, the kulaks 2.13 million.
(Stalin, Problems of Agrarian Policy in the U.S.S.R. Leninism, p. 155.)

Ridiculous ad hominem attack. I might as well say that you listen to the Soviet Ministry of Propaganda.

For I dont listen to Robert Conquest's books about Stalin killing 15 million people and citing liars and Nazis sympathizers in his books? But then, you'd listen to any propaganda agaisnt the U.S.S.R. wouldnt you?

I'm not talking about just Tukhachevsky. But here's the Wiki article again (yes it's imperfect but your sources like the Mission to Moscow were written by people who sympathized with Stalin or did not have access to all the facts)

For I'm pretty sure Churchill fully sympathized with Stalin.



`In the autumn of 1936, a message from a high military source in Germany was conveyed to President Benes to the effect that if he wanted to take advantage of the Fuehrer's offer, he had better be quick, because events would shortly take place in Russia rendering any help he could give to Germany insignificant.
`While Benes was pondering over this disturbing hint, he became aware that communications were passing through the Soviet Embassy in Prague between important personages in Russia and the German Government. This was a part of the so-called military and Old-Guard Communist conspiracy to overthrow Stalin and introduce a new régime based on a pro-German policy. President Benes lost no time in communicating all he could find out to Stalin. Thereafter there followed the merciless, but perhaps not needless, military and political purge in Soviet Russia ....
`The Russian Army was purged of its pro-German elements at a heavy cost to its military efficiency. The bias of the Soviet Government was turned in a marked manner against Germany .... The situation was, of course, thoroughly understood by Hitler; but I am not aware that the British and French Governments were equally enlightened. To Mr.\ Chamberlain and the British and French General Staffs the purge of 1937 presented itself mainly as a tearing to pieces internally of the Russian Army, and a picture of the Soviet Union as riven asunder by ferocious hatreds and vengeance.'
(Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: The Gathering Storm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), pp. 288--289.)

Eastern Europe weren't much of a Soviet economic puppets but they were more or less political puppets.

right which is why the last leader of the Romanian People's Republic didnt follow Soviet orders?

However the kulaks did not use violence at first until the commisars began arresting and murdering their numbers thus the Soviets had no excuse at first to murder any 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.'
(The Nation 140 (36), 13 March 1935, quoted in Tottle,p. 93--94)

According to Soviet records itself the death toll of Stalin's three million-over four times higher than your estimate.

I'd like another source other then wikipedia, for that site can (you know) get edited.

There's evidence Stalin too planned anti-Semitic programs-not as bad as the Holocaust of course-but certainly something of an anti-Semitic movement.

not only did Stalin write against Anti-semitism (see mykittyhasaboner post and can be found at Marxist-Internet Archive) but Red Army soliders did also help the jewish plight and stop anti-semistic attacks.

Days before the pogrom, the Polish primate, Cardinal August Hlold, had spurned Jewish entreaties to condemn Roman Catholic anti-semitism. Afterward, he charged that by leading the effort to impose Communism on Poland [FONT=Arial]–[/FONT] Jews were in fact prominent in the party, though hardly in control [FONT=Arial]–[/FONT] the Jews had only themselves to blame. The point was seconded by the bishop of Kielce, who suggested that Jews had actually orchestrated the unrest to persuade Britain to hand over Palestine. It was a neat trick: being Communists and Zionists simultaneously. Only the bishop of Czestochowa condemned the killings, and was promptly reprimanded by his colleagues. One wonders how Karol Wojtyla, then a young seminarian, later Pope John Paul II, viewed this cesspool of ignorance and intolerance.
So the Roman Catholic church, evidently including the later ‘saintly’ Pope Karol Wojtyla, either did nothing or actively blamed the Jews themselves!
Then Margolick says this:
’If the Church gave the Jews short shrift, [FONT=Arial]–[/FONT] the same was true of the Communists, even the Jewish ones. For them, ignoring the Jewish plight, as well as Polish complicity in wartime atrocities [FONT=Arial]–[/FONT], offered a way to ingratiate themselves with a wary nation.’
This is a lie. The Communists did not ‘ignore the Jewish plight.’
Margolick has to know [FONT=Arial]–[/FONT] but fails to mention [FONT=Arial]–[/FONT] that Polish and Soviet communist authorities moved very swiftly to severely punish those responsible for the murderous anti-semitic pogrom at Kielce.
The communist authorities compelled everyone in the city of Kielce [FONT=Arial]–[/FONT] 10,000 people [FONT=Arial]–[/FONT] to stand along the street to watch the funeral procession for those Jews murdered in the pogrom.
[FONT=Arial]–[/FONT] Five days later [FONT=Arial]–[/FONT], July 1946, the Communist authorities put 38 participants in this pogrom on trial. Nine of them were sentenced to death and executed on July 12.
(http://www.itar-tass.com/level2.html?NewsID=10603773 ;
http://www.religare.ru/monitoring31367.htm )
Evidently the New York Times writer did not want to reveal that the despised communists fought anti-semitism with a determination unmatched by the Western allies. Former Israeli PM Menachem Begin admitted as much.
Like Poland, pre-war Hungary was a fascist, Nazi-like dictatorship in which anti-Semitism, along with other forms of racism against minorities (e.g. Rumanians in Hungary, Ukrainians in Poland) was institutionalised. During the 1930’s and 1940’s the Communist movement opposed anti-Semitism more strongly than any other political force (including the Zionist movement; see below).
*As Menachem Begin wrote in 1951, ’the Soviet Government fought anti-Semitism with characteristic pertinacity... The truth is that the Soviet Government is anti-anti-semitic.’
Naturally many Jews were attracted to the communist movement. Many others welcomed the Red Army after the war and joined the various communist parties. Many of the leaders of the communist movement in Hungary as elsewhere were of Jewish origin. This fact neither explains nor excuses the anti-semitic character of the anti-communists, any more than Hitler’s racism was ’justified’ by the fact that there were many prominent Jews in Weimar Germany.
*Grover Furr, ‘A Lethal Form of Lying: Notes on Anti-Semitism and Cold War Scholarship,"’ /Comment/, Vol. 3, Nos. 3-4 (Spring 1984), 24-29.

http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv12n2/furr.htm

As for the Ukrainians supporting the Nazis, hmm if the Soviets murdered your family, friends, and neighbours by the thousands wouldn't you be inclined to support their enemies?

ERRRRR, wrong answer.

"In the largest eastern portion of the Ukraine, which had been Soviet for twenty years loyalty was overwhelming and active. There were half a million organized Soviet guerillas ... and 4,500,000 ethnic Ukrainians fought in the Soviet army. Clearly that army would have been fundamentally weakened if there had been basic disaffections among so large a component."
(William Mandle, p. 109)

"Alexei Fyodorov led a group of partisans that eliminated 25,000 Nazis during the war. His book The Underground Committee Carries On admirably shows the attitude of the Ukrainian people to the Nazis. Its reading is highly recommended as an antidote to those who talk about the `Stalinist Ukrainian genocide".

Alexei Fyodorov, The Underground Committee Carries On (Moscow: Progress Publishers).


"They claimed to have done battle against 10,000 German soldiers in Volnia and Polyssa, during the summer of 1943. Historian Reuben Ainsztein proved that during the course of this battle, 5000 Ukrainian nationalists had participated at the sides of 10,000 German soldiers, in the great campaign of encirclement and attempted annihilation of the partisan army led by the famous Bolshevik Alexei Fyodorov !"


(The Nation 140 (36), 13 March 1935, quoted in Tottle,p. 113)

[danyboy27]

i hate stalins debates, its always about the number of people he killed or how grand he was for saving russia.

but never, never people focus on the main issue: Even tho stalin principles and ideas MIGHT have been good or justified for russia, i fail to see how those apply to the world of today.

things changed since the 30s.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Which means Stalin like most other heads of state were believe in brutal realpolitik rather than for the welfare of the working classes around the world.

Yes, of course. I don't dispute that. Stalin was only interested in the welfare of the workers to the extent that it was politically useful to him. And there are many instances when he outright betrayed the working classes of various countries for the sake of realpolitik concerns. For example, he dissolved the Comintern in 1943 to appease Western capitalists. Then, after WW2, when communists were in a position to seize power in several countries within the Western sphere of influence (France, Italy, Greece), Stalin told them to stand down and support the Western Allies instead.

I do not claim that Stalinist regimes gave power to the working class. They did not. I do not claim that Stalinist regimes were a form of socialism. They were not. I only claim that Stalinism was better than capitalism. That is all.

Why Imperialism happens is a less important question than what someone does to enforce imperialism and Stalin's actions are comparable to that of a very hardline policy.

Marxism argues that economic relationships are the foundation of everything else in society. The main reason why we oppose capitalism is because it exploits workers, and the main reason why we oppose imperialism is because it produces even more exploitation (over and above the "normal" level of capitalist exploitation).

So, when I talk about the exploitative economic relationships underlying imperialism, I'm not just talking about "why imperialism happens". I'm talking about the main thing that makes imperialism wrong, as far as Marxists are concerned. We oppose imperialism because it involves economic domination and exploitation.

Without the economic domination and exploitation, imperialism becomes far less objectionable - and, in fact, most Marxists would say that such a thing cannot be called imperialism at all.

When France pulled out of the NATO command did the US try to overthrow it's government? Compare that to what Stalin's immediate successors (more moderate than Stalin) did to Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

When France pulled out of the NATO command, there was no bitter struggle between pro-American and anti-American factions in the French government. The country was perfectly stable. And it was clear that this stable government would continue to be an American ally.

On the other hand, in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, things were chaotic and unclear. Pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet factions were in open conflict, the anti-Soviet factions had the upper hand, and it was not at all clear how far they wanted to go in their anti-Soviet foreign policies. They were not guaranteed to remain Soviet allies, like France was guaranteed to remain an American ally.

Simply put, the situation facing the Soviets was far more severe than the one facing the Americans. If there was any question of France leaving NATO and joining the Warsaw Pact, you can be sure the US would have invaded.

There's evidence Stalin too planned anti-Semitic programs-not as bad as the Holocaust of course-but certainly something of an anti-Semitic movement.

Yes, but my point was that the Nazis were more than just anti-Semitic. They also had intentions to organize a genocide of the Slavs. After they were done with the Jews, they were planning to do something similar to about half of the Slavic population of Europe - which would have made the Holocaust look like a mild unpleasantness by comparison.

You can't compare that with the fact that Stalin was planning yet another Party purge in the early 1950s (after doing several others before), and wanted to have it directed mostly against Jewish comrades this time. The Nazi plans involved the murder of tens of millions of Slavs, Jews, and others. Stalin's plan would have resulted in the murder of one or two hundred thousand people, at most. That's a ratio of 1000:1.

Sure, Stalin's plans for a new purge show that he was a murderous bastard, but the point is that the Nazis were literally a thousand times worse.

And notice that I'm talking about the "Nazis" in the plural, while Stalin was only one man. The fact that Stalin's planned purge did not happen - because of his death - shows that most of the other high-ranking Soviet leaders did not support the purge (and any feelings of anti-Semitism that might have been behind it). By contrast, all Nazi leaders supported the plans for genocide against the "inferior peoples."

According to Soviet records itself the death toll of Stalin's three million-over four times higher than your estimate.

Notice that, out of those 3 million people, only 800,000 were actually executed - that is, killed directly by the state, under Stalin's orders. The rest died as a result of harsh treatment (prison or resettlement), but no one gave an order for them to be killed. As such, the responsibility for the deaths resulting from prison or resettlement is debatable. You can certainly accuse Stalin and his government of negligence in their case. But murder? I don't know.

And so, the number of people who can be indisputably said to have been killed by Stalin, in full knowledge of what he was doing, is 800,000. However, this includes executions for both political and criminal reasons. Some of these people were actual criminals. How many? I don't know. Bailey must have assumed that 100,000 were guilty criminals, so he concluded there were 700,000 innocent victims. I prefer to say that Stalin killed hundreds of thousands or somewhat less than one million people, to reflect the uncertainty in the numbers.

[Intelligitimate]

lol, what a ridiculous thread. It just shows there isn't really much difference in the beliefs of right-wingers, liberals, fascists and Trotskyites and anarchos. They're basically anti-communist reactionaries.

[Demogorgon]

helped form the Molotov-Ribbentop Pact which divided up Poland

God knows I am no Stalinist and have criticised the Molotov-Ribbentop pact on several occasions but I don't think it is properly understood. At the time the pact was signed, the Red Army was in no position to fight a war with Germany and so something had to be done to buy some time.

The same thing can be said about appeasement in Western Europe actually. I have argued before that there might have been some sympathy from Germany amongst the major players there (particularly Chamberlain who clearly felt Germany had been given a raw deal at Versailles) but nonetheless the policy was being adopted in order to give Britain and France time to build up their armies. They were hoping they could avoid war altogether by doing so, presumably by building up to the point where Germany would decide it wasn't worth bothering with them, but nonetheless the policy was being conducted with a clear desire to buy time for military build up.

Essentially what I am saying therefore is that you need to understand the position the various European powers were in at the time before commenting on what they did. Everybody bar Germany had a desire to delay war as long as possible. This is because Britain, France, The Soviets and whatnot all needed to build up their armed forces and were in an economic position to do so. Germany on the other hand had a ready army, but was on poor footing economically and would find war harder and harder to afford the longer it left it. Keep that fact in mind when examining Europe at the time.

[bailey_187]

i hate stalins debates, its always about the number of people he killed or how grand he was for saving russia.
.

Well there isnt much else he is known for....
Want about Stalin do you want to talk about? His private life? (no thanks)

but never, never people focus on the main issue: Even tho stalin principles and ideas MIGHT have been good or justified for russia, i fail to see how those apply to the world of today.

things changed since the 30s.

No one is saying that we should exactly copy what Stalin did.
We uphold Stalin a a positive figure in Socialist history and as a great leader of the working class.

[bailey_187]

Than why was the Soviet army pushed hundreds of miles eastward to the gates of Moscow when the Nazi Germans attacked?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barabossa
.

Bliztkrieg or whatever its called. Seriosuly, no one could stop a Nazi land attack.

Or you could put them in jails where at least they have some chance of "seeing the light" rather than commit mass murder of anyone who remotely disagrees with you. .

They were. They were put in GULAG. Why am i telling YOU about GULAGs?

Why Imperialism happens is a less important question than what someone does to enforce imperialism and Stalin's actions are comparable to that of a very hardline policy. .

But thats not Imperialism.

When France pulled out of the NATO command did the US try to overthrow it's government? Compare that to what Stalin's immediate successors (more moderate than Stalin) did to Hungary and Czechoslovakia..

So you are blaming Stalin for somthing he did not do? Ok.

There's evidence Stalin too planned anti-Semitic programs-not as bad as the Holocaust of course-but certainly something of an anti-Semitic movement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Stalin.. ..

Even Roy Medvedev the anti-stalin scholar has concluded that STalin was not anti-semitic.

Again from the Josef Stalin Wiki Article:
..

According to Soviet records itself the death toll of Stalin's three million-over four times higher than your estimate. ..

Its not my estimate, its JA Gettys, its also Wheatcrofts - from Soviet Archives


Do you get all your Soviet History from Wikipedia?

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I wonder though, no matter what the actual pros and cons of Stalin are--why bother with him? In the eyes of 90% of the world he's damaged goods. No people in large numbers are going to flock to an organization that bears his name and likeness. Besides he's DEAD.

Communism isn't a half bad idea, but as long as you keep bring up Stalin and Trotsky and Mao and some of the others no serious people are going to listen to anything you say.

You'd do better advancing the cause or world Communism as a plan for the future than trying to rehabilitate the memory of another dead Commie butcher.

Oh god at least somebody gets it.

Fuck stalin. Russian news media can debate him but for godsakes the guys dead and buried and just not worth it.

[ComradeMan]

80% of German casualties were due to the Workers of the Soviet Union using Socialist-made weapons.

Comrade, a game of chess is not won by counting the pieces at the end!