The Stalin Thread 2: all discussion about Stalin (as a person) in this thread please

[Камо́ Зэд]

Stalin obviously didn't listen to his generals, or the troops and spies who warned him about troop movements, not days or weeks, but months ahead of the Nazi invasion. If he did, he would of done something about it, and not just stood around with his thumb up his butt, sending Molotov to berlin to negotiate how to carve up eastern europe with Hitler.

The problem with the above is that I actually provided citation for my assertion originally, and the response I'm receiving for it amounts to "nuh-uh." Comrade Ismail makes a good point about why it would be, once again, completely suicidal for the Soviet Union to attack Germany preemptively.

And don't change the subject to the U.S, we're not talking about that.

In fact, we were talking about the United States, because you were the one who asserted that the Soviet Union had exceeded the total productive capacity of that country. This was your claim. You are solely responsible for the subject's introduction into this conversation.

We're talking about the eastern front. The U.S.S.R. had much better productive capabilities than the Nazis, who were bogged down by capitalists trying to profiteer from the effort. Besides, the U.S. couldn't send anywhere near as many soldiers to europe as the red army. They really didn't do shit during World War two, but I don't see why that's relevant to this conversation.

More efficient production does not make the kind of adventurist scenario you're proposing even remotely intelligent, though. There's much more to war than comparing firepower. See Comrade Ismail's post.

[fug]

It's also odd that a Russian chauvinist should come from Georgia, isn't it?

Actually Lenin once said that "Russians by adoption" are worse than Russians when they become chauvinist. I think he was aiming at Stalin.

"Lenin's anger about such practices climaxed during the notorious Georgian affair of 1922, when he denounced Dzerzhinskii, Stalin, and Ordzhonikidze as Great Russian chauvinists (russified natives, he maintained, were often the worst chauvinists). Such Bolshevik chauvinism inspired Lenin to coin the term rusotiapstvo (mindless Russian chauvinism), which then entered the Bolshevik lexicon and became an invaluable weapon in the national republics' rhetorical arsenals."

A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin by Ronald Grigor Suny

[Камо́ Зэд]

Actually Lenin once said that "Russians by adoption" are worse than Russians when they become chauvinist. I think he was aiming at Stalin.

"Lenin's anger about such practices climaxed during the notorious Georgian affair of 1922, when he denounced Dzerzhinskii, Stalin, and Ordzhonikidze as Great Russian chauvinists (russified natives, he maintained, were often the worst chauvinists). Such Bolshevik chauvinism inspired Lenin to coin the term rusotiapstvo (mindless Russian chauvinism), which then entered the Bolshevik lexicon and became an invaluable weapon in the national republics' rhetorical arsenals."

A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin by Ronald Grigor Suny

This is a tricky bit of Soviet history. Lenin had, up until the end of December 1922, initiated the concept of the Transcaucasian Federation, denounced the "Georgian deviators," and defended Ordzhonikidze. It was right when he dictated the "Testament" to Maria Volodicheva (this being the year Lenin had undergone surgery to remove a bullet and suffered several strokes to the point of seeing his body paralyzed and his speech severely impaired) that his opinions on the matter were suddenly reversed. This is notably true, also, of Lenin's complete reversal of opinion with regards to Stalin and Trotsky. This may have had something to do not only with Lenin's illness, but also with his isolation. It isn't any secret his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya was supportive of the Trotsky-Zinoviev opposition and even signed its manifesto, the Declaration of the Thirteen. It was also true that, at the time of Lenin's illness, Krupskaya was his sole contact with the outside world. Stalin rebuked Krupskaya on December 22, 1922 for feeding Lenin selective "information," and she wrote a letter of complaint to Kamenev:

"Stalin subjected me to a storm of the coarsest abuse yesterday about a brief note that Lenin dictated to me. . I know better than all the doctors what can and what cannot be said to Ilyich, for I know what disturbs him and what doesn't. And in any case I know better than Stalin. I have no doubt as to the unanimous decision of the Control Commission with which Stalin takes it upon himself to threaten me, but I have neither the time nor the energy to lose in such a stupid farce.

Afterwards, Lenin became very upset with Stalin said that he would break his friendship with Stalin off should he refuse to apologize. Lenin's sister, Maria Ulyanova, wrote to the Presidium of the 1926 Joint Plenum of the C.C. and C.C.C., noting that Stalin did indeed offer to apologize. Of interesting note is that, after Krupskaya sent the "Testament" to Kamenev, it was passed to Stalin, as General Secretary. He passed the documents on May 19 to the steering committee for the 13th Congress, due to begin in four days. At the Congress, which voted 30-10 not to publish the "Testament," Stalin offered his resignation as General Secretary in his speech to the Joint Plenum. At the first plenum of the C.C. after the 14th Congress, Stalin again offered his resignation. A year later, he put in yet another request to be released from his duties as General Secretary.

[ind_com]

It becomes clear that Stalin's use of the word "socialism" deviates significantly from how it is understood in Marx, Engels, and, to a lesser extent, Lenin. Where Marx and Engels would use the word and "communism" interchangeably, Lenin assigned "socialism" to the lower phase of communism, during which certain vestiges of the old class society persist. These vestiges, though, do not seem to include active struggle with the infiltration of non-proletarian elements into politics and production; they are represented, for the most part, by progressively obsolete political-administrative organs. On the other hand, Stalin's use of the word "socialism" strikes me as referring to the endeavor to cultivate the lower phase, rather than the phase itself. From this point of view, the aggravation of class struggle under "socialism" begins to make more sense as a way of articulating the struggle of a proletarian state against global capitalist-imperialist influence. I am willing to accept that the national exploiter classes of the Soviet Union were eliminated, but class struggle persisted between the Soviet Union and most of the rest of the world. Stalin may have misjudged the intelligentsia and the peasantry, as well, or otherwise overestimated whatever effect the revolutionary character of Soviet society may have had on the historically determined character of those classes.


I don't buy, at all, that Stalin "completely missed out" on this. In fact, his famous "paranoia" and his reputation for being a hardliner demonstrate the exact opposite of this, doesn't it? He was not able to prevent the restoration of capitalism some time after his death, and Michael Parenti actually makes a good point about the work necessary to ensure the socialist endeavor outlasted Stalin's lifetime having been sidetracked by intensive industrialization and the Great Patriotic War, as well as the early pressures of the Cold War. It is as idealist to attribute the collapse of the socialist endeavor in the Soviet Union to the ideas of a single man as it is to attribute the successes of the endeavor to the same.

In my opinion, Stalin did not deviate at all from Lenin's description of socialism. I am not claiming that Stalin was anti-Leninist in any way. The problem is, Lenin himself saw only a few years of socialism in the USSR and that made his theories insufficient to maintain and consolidate socialism. Hence, internal class struggle in a socialist society is absent from Leninism. The traitors that had to be eliminated by purges were not just a few evil individuals, they were the representatives of the new bourgeoisie emerging in the Soviet Union. Though Stalin had been leading proletarian class struggle itself, he was doing so in a mechanical manner. He did little to empower the masses, so that after his murder, things deteriorated to a mere power struggle between various revisionist groups.

I actually don't know much about Stalin's involvement in India, although I'm not sure how wise it would've been to wage war with Great Britain, especially given that they would be allies during the Great Patriotic War against fascism, which was most certainly not an imperialist war like the first World War. The fight against the threat of fascist expansion doesn't strike me as the most opportune time to foment revolution against a government with whom one is allied in said fight. Further, I don't really see how major a mistake it is that Stalin didn't criticize something years after the fact.

You mean the blood of the millions of Indians regularly slaughtered by British imperialism was somehow cheaper than that of Russians that would die in war? Or would it be very appropriate for countless communists to religiously subordinate themselves to the leadership of a distant socialist land and abandon their own struggles in dreams of deliverance from above?

[Камо́ Зэд]

In my opinion, Stalin did not deviate at all from Lenin's description of socialism. I am not claiming that Stalin was anti-Leninist in any way. The problem is, Lenin himself saw only a few years of socialism in the USSR and that made his theories insufficient to maintain and consolidate socialism. Hence, internal class struggle in a socialist society is absent from Leninism. The traitors that had to be eliminated by purges were not just a few evil individuals, they were the representatives of the new bourgeoisie emerging in the Soviet Union. Though Stalin had been leading proletarian class struggle itself, he was doing so in a mechanical manner. He did little to empower the masses, so that after his murder, things deteriorated to a mere power struggle between various revisionist groups.

I think it's a mistake to say that a new class developed rather than that extant non-proletarian elements penetrated the politics of the Party. This penetration could not be struggled against effectively in large part due to the administrative character of industrialization and the military character of war. To say that Stalin did "little" to empower the masses is false, although this isn't to say the extent to which the proletariat were empowered was sufficient to struggle effectively against the infiltration of non-proletarian elements into the politics of the Party.

You mean the blood of the millions of Indians regularly slaughtered by British imperialism was somehow cheaper than that of Russians that would die in war? Or would it be very appropriate for countless communists to religiously subordinate themselves to the leadership of a distant socialist land and abandon their own struggles in dreams of deliverance from above?

Listen, save the impassioned poetry for when what you're saying makes any sense in context. Exactly how practical is it to hamstring an ally in a time of war? If the Soviet Union had actively fomented revolution in that country, it would leave both Great Britain and India vulnerable to fascism. With fascism's record of exterminating groups of people on an industrial scale, I'd say the right choice was made.

[ind_com]

I think it's a mistake to say that a new class developed rather than that extant non-proletarian elements penetrated the politics of the Party. This penetration could not be struggled against effectively in large part due to the administrative character of industrialization and the military character of war.

The penetration of "non-proletarian" elements into party and state machinery to such an extent that state-capitalism is set against the proletariat. That is exactly what the development of a new class in a socialist society is.

To say that Stalin did "little" to empower the masses is false, although this isn't to say the extent to which the proletariat were empowered was sufficient to struggle effectively against the infiltration of non-proletarian elements into the politics of the Party.

In what ways were the masses empowered? Exactly what role did the masses play in exposing the reactionaries?

Listen, save the impassioned poetry for when what you're saying makes any sense in context.

If the mention of murder of millions of workers seems like impassioned poetry to you, then you are surely in a sorry state.

Exactly how practical is it to hamstring an ally in a time of war?

It is quite practical if that ally is still your class-enemy, and just as ferocious as your war-enemy towards the working classes.

If the Soviet Union had actively fomented revolution in that country, it would leave both Great Britain and India vulnerable to fascism.

In essence this amounts to subordinating revolutions in other countries for the sake of a place that is viewed as more precious globally. Seems like a twisted version of Trotsky's permanent revolution.

With fascism's record of exterminating groups of people on an industrial scale, I'd say the right choice was made.

These numbers were matched by the mass murders made by other imperialist powers as well. So until you're outright Eurocentric, you shouldn't differentiate between fascists and other capitalists as far as mass-exterminations are concerned.

[Камо́ Зэд]

The penetration of "non-proletarian" elements into party and state machinery to such an extent that state-capitalism is set against the proletariat. That is exactly what the development of a new class in a socialist society is.

But it isn't a "new" class at all. What I was saying that it was a bourgeoisie, not a new "species," because property relations reverted to capitalism; they didn't create a new species of ownership.

In what ways were the masses empowered? Exactly what role did the masses play in exposing the reactionaries?

There's collectivization, industrialization, and the pursuit of socialism to consider, to be sure, but Stalin endeavored to democratize the Soviet Union from the 1930's on. Grover Furr outlines these endeavors in Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform. One of those endeavors includes the 1936 draft of the new Soviet Constitution that called for secret ballots, uncontested elections, and the allowance of candidates not from the Bolshevik Party to run for office.

It is quite practical if that ally is still your class-enemy, and just as ferocious as your war-enemy towards the working classes.

So your method would have been to attack Germany and Great Britain at the same time? Not every attempt at fomenting revolution results in socialism.

These numbers were matched by the mass murders made by other imperialist powers as well. So until you're outright Eurocentric, you shouldn't differentiate between fascists and other capitalists as far as mass-exterminations are concerned.

To get this straight, you're saying that if the British were to have killed at least as many Indians as German and Italian fascists would have, that means the only reasonable course of action is to leave both Great Britain and India open to fascist invasion.

[ind_com]

But it isn't a "new" class at all. What I was saying that it was a bourgeoisie, not a new "species," because property relations reverted to capitalism; they didn't create a new species of ownership.

It was a new class in the sense that it emerged from the party and state apparatus of a socialist country, and it grew into a class even when the USSR was still socialist. The overthrowal of socialism happened only when this class became more powerful than the working class and its vanguards.

There's collectivization, industrialization, and the pursuit of socialism to consider, to be sure, but Stalin endeavored to democratize the Soviet Union from the 1930's on. Grover Furr outlines these endeavors in Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform. One of those endeavors includes the 1936 draft of the new Soviet Constitution that called for secret ballots, uncontested elections, and the allowance of candidates not from the Bolshevik Party to run for office.

Again, this is not what is in question. The USSR was undoubtedly the most democratic country of its times, far ahead of even the most advanced capitalist countries. But did the masses play an active role in exposing reactionaries? Or was it just the "good part" of the government doing all that?

So your method would have been to attack Germany and Great Britain at the same time? Not every attempt at fomenting revolution results in socialism.

To get this straight, you're saying that if the British were to have killed at least as many Indians as German and Italian fascists would have, that means the only reasonable course of action is to leave both Great Britain and India open to fascist invasion.

The correct position in this situation would be a tactical alliance with British imperialism at the same time extending all support to class struggle inside its empire. Agreeing not to deploy Soviet forces to attack British forces, or even attacking German forces together are permitted in such alliances. Upholding an anti-British revolutionary line in the colonies in such a situation does not equate to leaving the colonies open to fascist invasion.

[Solidarity]

How do the Stalinist feel about forcing homosexuals into the gulag labour camps for being gay?

[Ismail]

How do the Stalinist feel about forcing homosexuals into the gulag labour camps for being gay?

Homosexuality was already being persecuted in Central Asia during the 20's and obviously homophobia is nothing new to communists (originating with Marx and Engels.) In the 30's homosexuality also had the misfortune of being identified with Nazism, not just by "Stalinists" but by socialists in general. The anarchists in Spain had no shortage of homophobes either. Trotsky, who spoke out against "Stalinist" social policies, was completely silent on the issue of homosexuality. George Orwell, hero to Trots everywhere, was not only homophobic but ranted against feminism as well.

In short, it was a sign of the times. Soviet physicians and doctors had been arguing that homosexuality was an "illness" (if not worse, e.g. pedophilia) as early as the revolution itself. Such was the standard line on homosexuality in Europe at the time. In poorer regions homosexuality was also associated with patriarchy.

If it makes you sleep better at night though, homosexuality was decriminalized in East Germany (the most "Westernized" country in the Eastern Bloc, culturally) in 1968. Cuba, whose policies on gays were less than friendly, has in recent years taken a noticeably more tolerant attitude. But the fact is that the communist movement in general was more or less uniformly homophobic into the 70's, and even then most Western Trot parties took a line of "you can be gay, just pretend to be straight in public."

[Камо́ Зэд]

It was a new class in the sense that it emerged from the party and state apparatus of a socialist country, and it grew into a class even when the USSR was still socialist. The overthrowal [sic] of socialism happened only when this class became more powerful than the working class and its vanguards.

I thought you were saying something else entirely. Thanks for clearing it up; I don't disagree.

Again, this is not what is in question. The USSR was undoubtedly the most democratic country of its times, far ahead of even the most advanced capitalist countries. But did the masses play an active role in exposing reactionaries? Or was it just the "good part" of the government doing all that?

I think it would be a mistake to separate the machinations of a working class government from the class itself.

The correct position in this situation would be a tactical alliance with British imperialism at the same time extending all support to class struggle inside its empire. Agreeing not to deploy Soviet forces to attack British forces, or even attacking German forces together are permitted in such alliances. Upholding an anti-British revolutionary line in the colonies in such a situation does not equate to leaving the colonies open to fascist invasion.

See, this is what I really don't buy. A revolutionary overthrow and reorganization of government is pretty tricky business. There's also the fact that the British and the Soviets were allies, in that they had mutually agreed to help one another militarily and politically. The Soviets stood to benefit as much from the alliance as did the British. And India was a part of the British Empire at the time. You don't send troops to fight the government of the entity with whom you're allied in a time of war.

[Geiseric]

Homosexuality was already being persecuted in Central Asia during the 20's and obviously homophobia is nothing new to communists (originating with Marx and Engels.) In the 30's homosexuality also had the misfortune of being identified with Nazism, not just by "Stalinists" but by socialists in general. The anarchists in Spain had no shortage of homophobes either. Trotsky, who spoke out against "Stalinist" social policies, was completely silent on the issue of homosexuality. George Orwell, hero to Trots everywhere, was not only homophobic but ranted against feminism as well.

In short, it was a sign of the times. Soviet physicians and doctors had been arguing that homosexuality was an "illness" (if not worse, e.g. pedophilia) as early as the revolution itself. Such was the standard line on homosexuality in Europe at the time. In poorer regions homosexuality was also associated with patriarchy.

If it makes you sleep better at night though, homosexuality was decriminalized in East Germany (the most "Westernized" country in the Eastern Bloc, culturally) in 1968. Cuba, whose policies on gays were less than friendly, has in recent years taken a noticeably more tolerant attitude. But the fact is that the communist movement in general was more or less uniformly homophobic into the 70's, and even then most Western Trot parties took a line of "you can be gay, just pretend to be straight in public."

Wow I know for sure that there were gay bolsheviks. Why can't you just say, "Yeah that was fucked up."?

[Камо́ Зэд]

Wow I know for sure that there were gay bolsheviks. Why can't you just say, "Yeah that was fucked up."?

Yeah, that was fucked up.

[Ismail]

Wow I know for sure that there were gay bolsheviks. Why can't you just say, "Yeah that was fucked up."?

Yeah, there was Chicherin for instance, who had been in sanitoriums for health reasons. At one point during negotiations in 1922, Chicherin was actually deemed mentally unwell by Lenin (citing Chicherin's "bad nerves" IIRC), who suggested he return to one for a period. Finally in 1925 and onwards he regularly went to Weimar-era Germany in a continuous effort to improve his health in these institutions.

The reason he couldn't find much success was because, as his cousin later noted, much of the "bad health" was actually euphemisms for homosexuality.

[Solidarity]

Trotsky, who spoke out against "Stalinist" social policies, was completely silent on the issue of homosexuality.

Was he now? I must have missed the part when the Soviet Union, under Lenin and Trotsky, took anti-sodomy laws off the books back in 1919.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Was he now? I must have missed the part when the Soviet Union, under Lenin and Trotsky, took anti-sodomy laws off the books back in 1919.

Yeah, while "under" Trotsky.

[Art Vandelay]

Yeah, while "under" Trotsky.

You know what he meant, don't nitpick over semantics.

[Камо́ Зэд]

You know what he meant, don't nitpick over semantics.

What he meant was that Trotsky was at all responsible for this repeal. He wasn't. "Lenin and Trotsky" were not somehow co-leaders of the Soviet Union at any point.

[Solidarity]

Yeah, while "under" Trotsky.

Yeah ya'know. When there were no purges......

[Камо́ Зэд]

Yeah ya'know. When there were no purges......

So, while Trotsky was around, no one ever got kicked out of the Party?