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

[Fourth Internationalist]

Because he defended Marxism-Leninism. That is precisely why Khrushchev, Tito, Mao, and all other revisionists attacked him, whether claiming he "violated Leninist norms" as the Soviet revisionists did, or that he was supposedly "dogmatic" as the Maoists do, etc. As Hoxha noted, attacks on Stalin were in reality attacks on Marxism-Leninism, on the proletarian revolution and communism.

Stalin was not perfect (even from an ML point of view). I can hardly see how criticising someone could be an attack on communism, considering Maoists (who are generally more friendly towards Stalin), anti-Stalinists (left communists, anarchists, Trotskyists, some "revisionists" etc.), etc. are all communists. Why was criticising Stalin "revisionist"?

[Akshay!]

Stalin was not perfect (even from an ML point of view).

Says an "Anarcho-Marxist".

Marx would roll over in his grave if he knew such a "tendency" was invented in his name, after he spent all that time debating Bakunin, Proudhon, and others.

I'm pretty sure some bonehead would soon invent something called "Anarcho-Leninism" (or even better, "Anarcho-Stalinism"? )

[Fourth Internationalist]

Says an "Anarcho-Marxist".

Marx would roll over in his grave if he knew such a "tendency" was invented in his name, after he spent all that time debating Bakunin, Proudhon, and others.

I'm pretty sure some bonehead would soon invent something called "Anarcho-Leninism" (or even better, "Anarcho-Stalinism"? )

It's just a fun (ie not real) tendency for those that wish for anarchists and Marxists to work together rather than fight. You really need to stop whining like a child all the time. " " all you want. It's immature regardless.

[Brutus]

I criticise Stalin. He made mistakes, as all people do, but his accomplishments outweigh his mistakes. Didn't Marx say 'criticise everything'?

[Fourth Internationalist]

I criticise Stalin. He made mistakes, as all people do, but his accomplishments outweigh his mistakes. Didn't Marx say 'criticise everything'?

No, his mistakes, by far, outweigh his psuedo-socialist accomplishments.

[Brutus]

It's rather silly to talk about 'Stalin's accomplishments'; Stalin was the figurehead of the party. We should talk about the accomplishments of the party and the proletariat and peasantry of the USSR.

[Fourth Internationalist]

It's rather silly to talk about 'Stalin's accomplishments'; Stalin was the figurehead of the party. We should talk about the accomplishments of the party and the proletariat and peasantry of the USSR.

They managed to not be all killed. That's an accomplishment.

[Brutus]

They managed to not be all killed. That's an accomplishment.

It is rather unwise to kill of all those who produce food and all those who make the country run.

[Fourth Internationalist]

It is rather unwise to kill of all those who produce food and all those who make the country run.

I know. It was a joke.

[Brutus]

I know. It was a joke.

Jokes are meant to be funny.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Jokes are meant to be funny.

It was funny. And true.

[Ismail]

Hilarious. You are the person who less than a month of ago, after it was brought to his attention that Marx defined socialism as a classless society without a proletariat or "dictatorship of the proletariat," was trying to argue that Marxism is not a cold, dead dogma and that therefore we should be open to separating Marxist theory from what Marx himself said. Now when that idea is inconvenient, you are trying to argue that attacking a specific personality is attacking an entire body of thought.

Stalin himself noted that when given the choice between dogmatic and creative Marxism, he chose the latter. Revisionism is not against dogmatism, it is against Marxism. It was the Soviet revisionists who attacked Stalin's line that class struggle (and thus the dictatorship of the proletariat) continues under socialism. The Soviet revisionists thus rose to "defend" Marxism from the "deviations" of Stalin, in order to justify the restoration of capitalism they presided over.

Stalin was not perfect (even from an ML point of view). I can hardly see how criticising someone could be an attack on communism, considering Maoists (who are generally more friendly towards Stalin), anti-Stalinists (left communists, anarchists, Trotskyists, some "revisionists" etc.), etc. are all communists. Why was criticising Stalin "revisionist"?

Maoists nominally uphold Stalin just as the Soviet revisionists nominally upheld Lenin. In reality they attack Stalin. Mao himself admitted that Stalin treated him as a Tito-type figure.

The "criticisms" by Khrushchev, Mao and so on were attacks on Marxism-Leninism, were a key part of bringing in their own deviations. Mao was a nationalist who spoke of a "Sinified Marxism" and extolled the negation of the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution. Stalin warned the CCP about the nationalist current within its ranks.

[Lucretia]

Stalin himself noted that when given the choice between dogmatic and creative Marxism, he chose the latter. Revisionism is not against dogmatism, it is against Marxism. It was the Soviet revisionists who attacked Stalin's line that class struggle (and thus the dictatorship of the proletariat) continues under socialism. The Soviet revisionists thus rose to "defend" Marxism from the "deviations" of Stalin, in order to justify the restoration of capitalism they presided over.

The problem here, of course, is that you were not "defending Marxism." You were equating it with Stalin, and claiming that those who attacked him were attacking Marxism itself. Sounds pretty dogmatic and "uncreative" to me.

[Ismail]

The problem here, of course, is that you were not "defending Marxism." You were equating it with Stalin, and claiming that those who attacked him were attacking Marxism itself. Sounds pretty dogmatic and "uncreative" to me.

Considering that the denunciation of Stalin by the Soviet revisionists went hand-in-hand with attacking either his "deviations" or his "dogmatism"/"subjectivism" on pretty much every object under the sun, from the inevitability of world wars under imperialism to economic matters, from class struggle under socialism to his supposed "mistrust" of the peasantry (a "criticism" Mao also made), it should be reasonably obvious that the "criticism" the Soviet revisionists made about Stalin was about as genuine as the "criticism" Bernstein made about Marx. The Soviet revisionists just had the advantage of being able to claim a "return to Leninist norms," whereas Bernstein could only be in a position to extoll a bourgeois "socialism."

[Lucretia]

Considering that the denunciation of Stalin by the Soviet revisionists went hand-in-hand with attacking either his "deviations" or his "dogmatism"/"subjectivism" on pretty much every object under the sun, from the inevitability of world wars under imperialism to economic matters, from class struggle under socialism to his supposed "mistrust" of the peasantry (a "criticism" Mao also made), it should be reasonably obvious that the "criticism" the Soviet revisionists made about Stalin was about as genuine as the "criticism" Bernstein made about Marx.

This is so vague as to be meaningless. Marxism is a method of analysis, not a person. Marx himself was not always consistently a "Marxist" when dealing with certain issues like homosexuality. And he should rightly be criticized for these failings, without cultists trying to blur lines between methods and people.

Where you show your anti-rational nationalist cult-of-personality hand is in collapsing the two, which leads to your odd bit of reasoning that, because some attacks on ideas Stalin upheld might have been flawed, ALL attacks on the ideas he upheld MUST have been flawed and anti-Marxist by definition. But again, this is to cede to him a kind of authority that you don't even grant to Marx himself (nor should you) in our little discussion about classes under socialism.

So the contradiction remains.

[Ismail]

Where you show your anti-rational nationalist hand is in collapsing the two, which leads to odd your bit of reasoning that, because some attacks on ideas he upheld might have been flawed, ALL attacks on the ideas he upheld might have been flawed.

As Hoxha said to Khrushchev at the 1960 meeting of communist parties, "The Party of Labor of Albania thinks that it is not correct, normal or Marxist to blot out Stalin's name and great work from all this epoch, as is being done at the present time. We should all defend the good and immortal work of Stalin. He who does not defend it is an opportunist and a coward.... Stalin belongs to the entire communist world and not only to the Soviet communists.... Did Stalin make mistakes? In so long a period filled with heroism, trials, struggle, triumphs, not only Joseph Stalin personally, but also the leadership as a collective body, could not help making mistakes. Which is the party and who is the leader that can claim to have made no mistakes in their work? When the existing leadership of the Soviet Union is criticized, the comrades of the Soviet leadership advise us to look ahead and let bygones be bygones, they tell us to avoid polemics. But when it comes to Stalin, they not only did not look ahead, but they turned right around, completely backward, in order to track down only the weak spots in Stalin's work." (Albania Challenges Khrushchev Revisionism, 1976, pp. 227-228.)

Hoxha did note that a personality cult grew up around Stalin, that Stalin was not behind this cult and yet did not do enough to combat it. He also noted that Khrushchev, who made a big deal of "opposing the cult of the individual," was himself building up a cult. Hoxha also noted that mistakes could have indeed been made in other spheres, but that the revisionists were not interested in these. Their interest lay in negating Stalin's work, which is inextricably bound up with Marxism-Leninism, and through negating such work negating the work of Marx, Engels and Lenin as well in deed if not yet fully in words. On issues of principle, as Hoxha noted, Stalin did not err.

[Lucretia]

As Hoxha said to Khrushchev at the 1960 meeting of communist parties, "The Party of Labor of Albania thinks that it is not correct, normal or Marxist to blot out Stalin's name and great work from all this epoch, as is being done at the present time. We should all defend the good and immortal work of Stalin. He who does not defend it is an opportunist and a coward.... Stalin belongs to the entire communist world and not only to the Soviet communists.... Did Stalin make mistakes? In so long a period filled with heroism, trials, struggle, triumphs, not only Joseph Stalin personally, but also the leadership as a collective body, could not help making mistakes. Which is the party and who is the leader that can claim to have made no mistakes in their work? When the existing leadership of the Soviet Union is criticized, the comrades of the Soviet leadership advise us to look ahead and let bygones be bygones, they tell us to avoid polemics. But when it comes to Stalin, they not only did not look ahead, but they turned right around, completely backward, in order to track down only the weak spots in Stalin's work." (Albania Challenges Khrushchev Revisionism, 1976, pp. 227-228.)

Hoxha did note that a personality cult grew up around Stalin, that Stalin was not behind this cult and yet did not do enough to combat it. He also noted that Khrushchev, who made a big deal of "opposing the cult of the individual," was himself building up a cult. Hoxha also noted that mistakes could have indeed been made in other spheres, but that the revisionists were not interested in these. Their interest lay in negating Stalin's work, which is inextricably bound up with Marxism-Leninism.

How sad. You are so steeped in reviving the words of your dead gods that you can't be bothered to respond in your own words to a basic challenge: if all attacks on Stalin are categorically attacks on Marxist inquiry, effectively rendering all of Stalin's ideas unfalsifiable as well as unchallengeable, how can you claim with a straight face to uphold the banner of a living and creative Marxism?

You can't answer this question, so instead you hide behind block-quotes from chapter 21, verse 5 of Holy Hoxha's Book of Communist Prayer. Your needle is seriously stuck in the groove.

Do you never take five minutes of your day to pause, read and reflect on the shit you write on this forum, and think about what in the world you would think if somebody behaved in analogous ways in regards to other political figures the way you do to Hoxha and Stalin?

[Ismail]

As I said, on matters of principle Stalin did not err. Bill Bland, a British ML, gave a good answer in a 1994 interview:

JP: As far as the history of the Soviet Union is concerned and the triumph of revisionism there, do you think that Stalin shares any of the responsibility for what has happened?

WB: All share responsibility. You could always say that Stalin could have done more, could have done this, could have shot this person beforehand. But I would be unwilling to criticise Stalin at all, because I feel that Stalin stands head and shoulders above all of us, all existing communists as far as his line was concerned – I think it is becoming more and more clear, if our analysis is correct, that Stalin was not the all seeing all powerful dictator that he is presented as being, but was in fact one member of a collective, in which membership was included concealed revisionist conspirators, and people were able to be misled by these conspirators, by their wrong line, even though they weren’t conspirators themselves, then I think we must, our admiration for Stalin must increase tremendously because he was able to prevent this revisionist group from taking any steps which really critically damaged socialist society, and it was not until three years after his death that the first moves were made to change, to start disrupting socialist society. It took another thirty years or so before they were able to actually come out and disrupt the whole structure of socialism as handed down by Stalin. I don’t think we have anything to criticise Stalin for, of course one could point out mistakes that Stalin made, but Stalin being a living person and not a divinely inspired person, must have made some mistakes, but I can’t find any. I have read the whole of his works and I can find nothing today even after all this hindsight that is available to us now, there is nothing he said, definitely said, that is inaccurate now. Therefore I think Stalin was a model, as Lenin was, for a correct Marxist-Leninist way of life.

[Lucretia]

As I said, on matters of principle Stalin did not err. Bill Bland, a British ML, gave a good answer in a 1994 interview:

I am not asking Enver Hoxha or Bill Bland. I am asking you. You seem constitutionally incapable of forming your own thoughts, which just hammers home the fact that your "Marxism" consists of a slavish, dead, dogmatic devotion to words you view as perfected for all time by Stalin and Hoxha and therefore off limits to any reasonable challenge.

[Lucretia]

Ismail, talking to you today reminded me of this classic scene from the 70s sitcom Soap. You, obviously, are Chuck. The various items of food obviously stand in for Hoxha's collected works.

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