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

[Ismail]

The fact remains that the Soviet, Chinese and other revisionists attacked Stalin because of what he represented. When visiting China in 1956, Hoxha noted in his diary that Mao spoke of the supposed "mistakes" the Cominform made in-re Yugoslavia, and how it was "necessary" for a party to make mistakes, which prompted Hoxha to write a sarcastic remark in his diary about how "educational" this all was. (Ditar: 1955-1957, 1987, pp. 214-215.) This was connected to Mao's right-wing theory of the "two-line struggle" within the party. Mao's attacks on Stalin's handling of contradictions was directly related to presenting his own "superior" experience in this regard.

[Geiseric]

I received documents like this from the Petrograd Soviet, from trades-unions and various other organizations. I handed the banners over to the regiments and the documents were put away by my secretaries in the archives, where they stayed until, some time later, they were removed when Zinoviev began to sing new songs and in quite a different key.

To-day it is difficult to describe, or even to recall, the outburst of joy over the victory before Petrograd, rejoicing that was all the greater because we had just begun to win decisive successes on the southern front as well. The revolution was again holding its head high. In Lenin’s eyes, our victory over Yudenich took on even greater importance because toward the middle of October he had thought it quite out of the question. The Politbureau decided to confer on me the order of the Red Flag for the defense of Petrograd. This placed me in a very difficult position. I had been rather hesitant about introducing the revolutionary order because it was not very long since we had abolished the orders of the old regime. In introducing the order of the Red Flag, I hoped that it might be an added stimulus for those for whom the consciousness of revolutionary duty was not enough. Lenin supported me in this. The decoration became established, and it was awarded, at least in those days, for actual services under fire. And now it was being given to me. I could not decline it without disparaging the mark of distinction that I had so often given to others. There was nothing for me but to yield to the convention.

Apropos of this, I remember an episode that I saw in its proper light only some time later. At the close of the meeting of the Politbureau, Kamenev, considerably embarrassed, introduced a proposal to award the decoration to Stalin. “For what?” Kalinin inquired, sincerely indignant. “I can’t understand why it should be awarded to Stalin.” They pacified him with a jest, and the proposal was accepted. After the meeting Bukharin pounced on Kalinin. “Can’t you understand? This is Lenin’s idea. Stalin can’t live unless he has what some one else has. He will never forgive it.” I understood Lenin, and inwardly agreed with him.

The award of the decoration was very impressively staged in the Grand Opera theatre, where I made a report on the military situation before the joint session of the major Soviet institutions. When, toward the end, the chairman named Stalin, I tried to applaud. Two or three hesitant hand-claps followed mine. A sort of cold bewilderment crept through the hail; it was especially noticeable after the ovations that had gone before. Stalin himself was wisely absent.

Funny story from Trotsky's "My Life," about the aftermath of the defense of petrograd.

[Sea]

Did Stalin have anything to say in regards to the elimination of partmaximum? And I'm not looking for "it happened under Stalin's tenure and is thus his fault", I want a decent materialist argument.

[Ismail]

The policy basically meant that a party member could not earn more than the average wage of a skilled worker. During the early 30's material incentives were encouraged to ensure the completion of the First and Second Five-Year Plans. The slogans of the period (like Stalin's "There are no fortresses that Bolsheviks cannot storm") gave party members the task of leading the way in the completion of said plans, and thus the wage cap policy was see as inimical to this.

Presumably most of those who would get paid more than the average salary of a skilled worker would be exceptional skilled workers themselves. The abolition of partmaximum had nothing to do with the expansion of petty privilege, which had existed from the earliest days of the Revolution. Emma Goldman gave the following from her account of a 1920-21 visit to Soviet Russia:

When we pulled into the Moscow station my chaperon, Demyan Bedny, had vanished and I was left on the platform with all my traps. Radek came to my rescue. He called a porter, took me and my baggage to his waiting automobile and insisted that I come to his apartments in the Kremlin. There I was graciously received by his wife and invited to dinner served by their maid. After that Radek began the difficult task of getting me quartered in the Hotel National, known as the First House of the Moscow Soviet. With all his influence it required hours to secure a room for me.

Radek's luxurious apartment, the maidservant, the splendid dinner seemed strange in Russia. But the comradely concern of Radek and the hospitality of his wife were grateful to me.

These privileges had nothing to do with wages, they were tied to certain positions within the party or within the state.

Khrushchev demagogically attacked Stalin's policy of increasing differentials to meet plan targets as being contrary to "Leninist norms," and wage differentials were reduced (something Soviet apologists liked using against anti-revisionists.) Yet actual privileges for the former grew, not to mention actual control over the means of production, which is what mattered.

Albania had the world's most egalitarian wage structure, yet this in of itself did little to address the issue of petty privilege within the party, which, as in the USSR, did not depend on wages (which in Albania were very modest on paper.)

[Sea]

But in a socialist economy a wage (money) cap shouldn't present a problem in the first place, right?

[Ismail]

But in a socialist economy a wage (money) cap shouldn't present a problem in the first place, right?

Bourgeois right (of which unequal wages are a part), as Lenin noted, will continue to exist for some time. The issue is striking a good balance between moral and material incentives in production, with the former taking precedence over the latter whenever possible.

In Albania, as Bill Bland noted, the leadership "regards the economic basis for [Soviet] revisionism as the existence of a highly-paid, privileged stratum of the working class. To avoid such a development in Albania, income differentials are limited by law to a maximum of 2:1. This makes Albania by far the most egalitarian society in the world." (Tom Winnifrith (ed), Perspectives on Albania, p. 134.)

[Delenda Carthago]

Since I posted this part of the speech elsewhere in the forum, I guess it suits well to post it here too.

II
Organise Mass Criticism from Below

The second question concerns the task of combating bureaucracy, of organising mass criticism of our shortcomings, of organising mass control from below.
Bureaucracy is one of the worst enemies of our progress. It exists in all our organisations—Party, Y.C.L., trade-union and economic. When people talk of bureaucrats, they usually point to the old non-Party officials, who as a rule are depicted in our cartoons as men wearing spectacles. (Laughter.) That is not quite true, comrades. If it were only a question of the old bureaucrats, the fight against bureaucracy would be very easy. The trouble is that it is not a matter of the old bureaucrats. It is a matter of the new bureaucrats, bureaucrats who sympathise with the Soviet Government, and finally, communist bureaucrats. The communist bureaucrat is the most dangerous type of bureaucrat. Why? Because he masks his bureaucracy with the title of Party member. And, unfortunately, we have quite a number of such communist bureaucrats.
Take our Party organisations. You have no doubt read about the Smolensk affair, the Artyomovsk affair and so on. What do you think, were they matters of chance? What is the explanation of these shameful instances of corruption and moral deterioration in certain of our Party organisations? The fact that Party monopoly was carried to absurd lengths, that the voice of the rank and file was stifled, that inner-Party democracy was abolished and bureaucracy became rife. How is this evil to be combated? I think that there is not and cannot be any other way of combating this evil than by organising control from below by the Party masses, by implanting inner-Party democracy. What objection can there be to rousing the fury of the mass of the Party membership against these corrupt elements and giving it the opportunity to send such elements packing? There can hardly be any objection to that.
Or take the Young Communist League, for instance. You will not deny, of course, that here and there in the Young Communist League there are utterly corrupt elements against whom it is absolutely essential to wage a ruthless struggle. But let us leave aside the corrupt elements. Let us take the latest fact of an unprincipled struggle waged by groups within the Young Communist League around personalities, a struggle which is poisoning the atmosphere in the Young Communist League. Why is it that you can find as many "Kosarevites" and "Sobolevites" as you like in the Young Communist League, while Marxists have to be looked for with a candle? (Applause.) What does this indicate, if not that a process of bureaucratic petrification is taking place in certain sections of the Y.C.L. top leadership?
And the trade unions? Who will deny that in the trade unions there is bureaucracy in plenty? We have production conferences in the factories. We have temporary control commissions in the trade unions. It is the task of these organisations to rouse the masses, to bring our shortcomings to light and to indicate ways and means of improving our constructive work. Why are these organisations not developing? Why are they not seething with activity? Is it not obvious that it is bureaucracy in the trade unions, coupled with bureaucracy in the Party organisations, that is preventing these highly important organisations of the working class from developing?
Lastly, our economic organisations. Who will deny that our economic bodies suffer from bureaucracy? Take the Shakhty affair as an illustration. Does not the Shakhty affair indicate that our economic bodies are not speeding ahead, but crawling, dragging their feet?
How are we to put an end to bureaucracy in all these organisations?
There is only one sole way of doing this, and that is to organise control from below, to organise criticism of the bureaucracy in our institutions, of their shortcomings and their mistakes, by the vast masses of the working class.
I know that by rousing the fury of the masses of the working people against the bureaucratic distortions in our organisations, we sometimes have to tread on the toes of some of our comrades who have past services to their credit, but who are now suffering from the disease of bureaucracy. But ought this to stop our work of organising control from below? I think that it ought not and must not. For their past services we should take off our hats to them, but for their present blunders and bureaucracy it would be quite in order to give them a good drubbing. (Laughter and applause.) How else? Why not do this if the interests of the work demand it?
There is talk of criticism from above, criticism by the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, by the Central Committee of our Party and so on. That, of course, is all very good. But it is still far from enough. More, it is by no means the chief thing now. The chief thing now is to start a broad tide of criticism from below against bureaucracy in general, against shortcomings in our work in particular. Only by organising twofold pressure —from above and from below—and only by shifting the principal stress to criticism from below, can we count on waging a successful struggle against bureaucracy and on rooting it out.
It would be a mistake to think that only the leaders possess experience in constructive work. That is not true, comrades. The vast masses of the workers who are engaged in building our industry are day by day accumulating vast experience in construction, experience which is not a whit less valuable to us than the experience of the leaders. Mass criticism from below, control from below, is needed by us in order that, among other things, this experience of the vast masses should not be wasted, but be reckoned with and translated into practice.
From this follows the immediate task of the Party: to wage a ruthless struggle against bureaucracy, to organise mass criticism from below, and to take this criticism into account when adopting practical decisions for eliminating our shortcomings.
It cannot be said that the Young Communist League, and especially Komsomolskaya Pravda, have not appreciated the importance of this task. The shortcoming here is that often the fulfilment of this task is not carried out completely. And in order to carry it out completely, it is necessary to give heed not only to criticism, but also to the results of criticism, to the improvements that are introduced as a result of criticism.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...1928/05/16.htm

[Karlorax]

I don't think Stalin can be understood outside the context of the times. I think this article answers alot of questions about the gulags, deaths, etc: http://llco.org/revolutionary-histor...al-summations/

__________________

Currently reading, dare to join me? I am no Leading Light Communist, but I am studying their work for my MA thesis

Leading Light on Conspiracy Theory is Intelligent Design
Was Lin Biao guilty plotting a coup? Part 1 of 2 (draft)
Revisiting Value and Exploitation
What about the Gulag? Mao’s errors? Stalin’s?

[sixdollarchampagne]

During the 1930's, I believe, there was a Soviet song, Zhizn stala luchshe, "Life has become better," the title being a quote from Stalin. Does anyone have a URL or other reference for that song? I used to be able to access it, a while ago.

EDIT: Never mind; I found the song on the wonderful Sovietskaya muzyka site, http://www.sovmusic.ru/download.php?fname=zhitstal The music sounds a lot like the old USSR national anthem. I think the same person must have composed both songs. Sorry for my intrusion. Carry on, please

[Brutus]

I believe the quote came from a speech to the stakhnovite movement

[Sea]

Since I posted this part of the speech elsewhere in the forum, I guess it suits well to post it here too.

II
Organise Mass Criticism from Below

The second question concerns the task of combating bureaucracy, of organising mass criticism of our shortcomings, of organising mass control from below.
Bureaucracy is one of the worst enemies of our progress. It exists in all our organisations—Party, Y.C.L., trade-union and economic. When people talk of bureaucrats, they usually point to the old non-Party officials, who as a rule are depicted in our cartoons as men wearing spectacles. (Laughter.) That is not quite true, comrades. If it were only a question of the old bureaucrats, the fight against bureaucracy would be very easy. The trouble is that it is not a matter of the old bureaucrats. It is a matter of the new bureaucrats, bureaucrats who sympathise with the Soviet Government, and finally, communist bureaucrats. The communist bureaucrat is the most dangerous type of bureaucrat. Why? Because he masks his bureaucracy with the title of Party member. And, unfortunately, we have quite a number of such communist bureaucrats.
Take our Party organisations. You have no doubt read about the Smolensk affair, the Artyomovsk affair and so on. What do you think, were they matters of chance? What is the explanation of these shameful instances of corruption and moral deterioration in certain of our Party organisations? The fact that Party monopoly was carried to absurd lengths, that the voice of the rank and file was stifled, that inner-Party democracy was abolished and bureaucracy became rife. How is this evil to be combated? I think that there is not and cannot be any other way of combating this evil than by organising control from below by the Party masses, by implanting inner-Party democracy. What objection can there be to rousing the fury of the mass of the Party membership against these corrupt elements and giving it the opportunity to send such elements packing? There can hardly be any objection to that.
Or take the Young Communist League, for instance. You will not deny, of course, that here and there in the Young Communist League there are utterly corrupt elements against whom it is absolutely essential to wage a ruthless struggle. But let us leave aside the corrupt elements. Let us take the latest fact of an unprincipled struggle waged by groups within the Young Communist League around personalities, a struggle which is poisoning the atmosphere in the Young Communist League. Why is it that you can find as many "Kosarevites" and "Sobolevites" as you like in the Young Communist League, while Marxists have to be looked for with a candle? (Applause.) What does this indicate, if not that a process of bureaucratic petrification is taking place in certain sections of the Y.C.L. top leadership?
And the trade unions? Who will deny that in the trade unions there is bureaucracy in plenty? We have production conferences in the factories. We have temporary control commissions in the trade unions. It is the task of these organisations to rouse the masses, to bring our shortcomings to light and to indicate ways and means of improving our constructive work. Why are these organisations not developing? Why are they not seething with activity? Is it not obvious that it is bureaucracy in the trade unions, coupled with bureaucracy in the Party organisations, that is preventing these highly important organisations of the working class from developing?
Lastly, our economic organisations. Who will deny that our economic bodies suffer from bureaucracy? Take the Shakhty affair as an illustration. Does not the Shakhty affair indicate that our economic bodies are not speeding ahead, but crawling, dragging their feet?
How are we to put an end to bureaucracy in all these organisations?
There is only one sole way of doing this, and that is to organise control from below, to organise criticism of the bureaucracy in our institutions, of their shortcomings and their mistakes, by the vast masses of the working class.
I know that by rousing the fury of the masses of the working people against the bureaucratic distortions in our organisations, we sometimes have to tread on the toes of some of our comrades who have past services to their credit, but who are now suffering from the disease of bureaucracy. But ought this to stop our work of organising control from below? I think that it ought not and must not. For their past services we should take off our hats to them, but for their present blunders and bureaucracy it would be quite in order to give them a good drubbing. (Laughter and applause.) How else? Why not do this if the interests of the work demand it?
There is talk of criticism from above, criticism by the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, by the Central Committee of our Party and so on. That, of course, is all very good. But it is still far from enough. More, it is by no means the chief thing now. The chief thing now is to start a broad tide of criticism from below against bureaucracy in general, against shortcomings in our work in particular. Only by organising twofold pressure —from above and from below—and only by shifting the principal stress to criticism from below, can we count on waging a successful struggle against bureaucracy and on rooting it out.
It would be a mistake to think that only the leaders possess experience in constructive work. That is not true, comrades. The vast masses of the workers who are engaged in building our industry are day by day accumulating vast experience in construction, experience which is not a whit less valuable to us than the experience of the leaders. Mass criticism from below, control from below, is needed by us in order that, among other things, this experience of the vast masses should not be wasted, but be reckoned with and translated into practice.
From this follows the immediate task of the Party: to wage a ruthless struggle against bureaucracy, to organise mass criticism from below, and to take this criticism into account when adopting practical decisions for eliminating our shortcomings.
It cannot be said that the Young Communist League, and especially Komsomolskaya Pravda, have not appreciated the importance of this task. The shortcoming here is that often the fulfilment of this task is not carried out completely. And in order to carry it out completely, it is necessary to give heed not only to criticism, but also to the results of criticism, to the improvements that are introduced as a result of criticism.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...1928/05/16.htm

Great letter. Really blows up in the face of those "question stalin and he'll kill you" types.

[sixdollarchampagne]

I believe the quote came from a speech to the stakhnovite movement

Thank you for that information that I did not know. The tune, though it begins by sounding like the beginning of the old USSR national anthem, is catchy and has stayed with me.

The quote is, "Living has become better, happier." I had forgotten the "happier" part of it.

As a Trotskyist, I think it would be interesting to know what year the speech was given, so one could correlate the "... better, happier" claim with whatever was going on under Stalin in terms of repression and state terror within the USSR. I am guessing that Stakhanovism began in the thirties; the quote is almost certainly from before June 1941, when, IIRC, the Third Reich attacked the USSR. I think I read that 1937 was remembered by Soviet citizens as the worst year for Stalinist repression.

[Ismail]

As a Trotskyist, I think it would be interesting to know what year the speech was given, so one could correlate the "... better, happier" claim with whatever was going on under Stalin in terms of repression and state terror within the USSR. I am guessing that Stakhanovism began in the thirties; the quote is almost certainly from before June 1941, when, IIRC, the Third Reich attacked the USSR. I think I read that 1937 was remembered by Soviet citizens as the worst year for Stalinist repression.

The years 1936-38 were certainly happier in terms of class struggle, but I wouldn't except a Trot to understand that.

Of course the Khrushchevite revisionists associated "happiness" with catching up to the standards of Western consumerism, with achieving "communism" by 1980 on this basis, all while speaking of "combating the Stalin personality cult," of "returning to Leninist norms," of declaring that the continuation of class struggle under socialism was a "deviation" born by "Stalinism," etc.

[nizan]

The fraud of satisfaction exposes itself by being replaced, by following the change of products and of the general conditions of production. That which asserted its definitive excellence with perfect impudence nevertheless changes, both in the diffuse and the concentrated spectacle, and it is the system alone which must continue: Stalin as well as the outmoded commodity are denounced precisely by those who imposed them. Every new lie of advertising is also an avowal of the previous lie. The fall of every figure with totalitarian power reveals the illusory community which had approved him unanimously, and which had been nothing more than an agglomeration of solitudes without illusions.

The industrialization of the Stalin epoch revealed the reality behind the bureaucracy: the continuation of the power of the economy and the preservation of the essence of the market society commodity labor. The independent economy, which dominates society to the extent of reinstituting the class domination it needs for its own ends, is thus confirmed. Which is to say that the bourgeoisie created an autonomous power which, so long as its autonomy lasts, can even do without a bourgeoisie. The totalitarian bureaucracy is not “the last owning class in history” in the sense of Bruna Rizzi; it is only a substitute ruling class for the commodity economy. Capitalist private property in decline is replaced by a simplified, less diversified surrogate which is condensed as collective property of the bureaucratic class. This underdeveloped ruling class is the expression of economic underdevelopment, and has no perspective other than to overcome the retardation of this development in certain regions of the world. It was the workers’ party organized according to the bourgeois model of separation which furnished the hierarchical-statist cadre for this supplementary edition of a ruling class. While in one of Stalin’s prisons, Anton Ciliga observed that “technical questions of organization turned out to be social questions”(Lenin and the Revolution).

[G4b3n]

The years 1936-38 were certainly happier in terms of class struggle, but I wouldn't except a Trot to understand that.

Of course the Khrushchevite revisionists associated "happiness" with catching up to the standards of Western consumerism, with achieving "communism" by 1980 on this basis, all while speaking of "combating the Stalin personality cult," of "returning to Leninist norms," of declaring that the continuation of class struggle under socialism was a "deviation" born by "Stalinism," etc.

Only Stalinists can understand the genius of Stalinist politics, you silly trots.

[Ismail]

Only Stalinists can understand the genius of Stalinist politics, you silly trots.

Considering that 1936-38 saw mass worker participation (both in the country's elections and within the factories), as well as the strengthening of democratic norms within the party, obviously it was a positive step in the struggle for the defense of socialism.

While in one of Stalin’s prisons, Anton Ciliga observed that “technical questions of organization turned out to be social questions”(Lenin and the Revolution).

Unfortunately he was later able to leave those same prisons, whereupon he became a fascist engaged in propaganda against the Yugoslav partisans during WWII on behalf of Hitler's Croatian puppet regime.

[Brutus]

@Broody

"During the Civil War and Foreign Military Intervention (1918–20), Stalin performed a number of important services for the Central Committee of the RCP (Bolshevik) and the Soviet state. He was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, one of the organizers of the defense of Petrograd, a member of the Revolutionary Military Councils of the Southern, Western, and Southwestern fronts, and the representative of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defense. Stalin showed himself to be a prominent party worker in military affairs and politics. By a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Stalin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner on Nov. 27,1919."

From Ian Grey's biography.

[Ismail]

Actually that's from the 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia article. That being said, Grey's biography does note his Civil War activities. Of Trotsky's view of Stalin during this period he writes that despite the disputes between the two men over military affairs back then, "In later years, when seeking every pretext to denigrate Stalin, Trotsky wrote contemptuously of his role in the Civil War. It is clear, however, from contemporary sources, including Trotsky's papers, that at the time he rated Stalin high as a military organizer. In times of crisis when party interests and the revolutionary cause transcended personal rivalries, he turned to him. During the Polish War, for example, when anxious about an attack by Wrangel from the Crimea, Trotsky recommended that 'Comrade Stalin should be charged with forming a new military council with Egorov or Frunze as commander by agreement between the Commander-in-Chief and Comrade Stalin.' On other occasions he made or supported similar proposals to send Stalin to resolve crucial problems at the front. Like Lenin and other members of the Central Committee, he had come to value Stalin's abilities." (pp. 140-141.)

[Art Vandelay]

Actually that's from the 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia article. That being said, Grey's biography does note his Civil War activities. Of Trotsky's view of Stalin during this period he writes that despite the disputes between the two men over military affairs back then, "In later years, when seeking every pretext to denigrate Stalin, Trotsky wrote contemptuously of his role in the Civil War. It is clear, however, from contemporary sources, including Trotsky's papers, that at the time he rated Stalin high as a military organizer. In times of crisis when party interests and the revolutionary cause transcended personal rivalries, he turned to him. During the Polish War, for example, when anxious about an attack by Wrangel from the Crimea, Trotsky recommended that 'Comrade Stalin should be charged with forming a new military council with Egorov or Frunze as commander by agreement between the Commander-in-Chief and Comrade Stalin.' On other occasions he made or supported similar proposals to send Stalin to resolve crucial problems at the front. Like Lenin and other members of the Central Committee, he had come to value Stalin's abilities." (pp. 140-141.)

Regardless of the context that quote is pulled from, are you (perhaps the most ardent stalinist around) seriously attempting to slander trotsky with the charge of the revision of history? Even if it were true what would that even mean? That trotsky white washed his earlier opinion of stalin (oh the horror), because its not as if anything of the sort happened under stalin's rule.

[Ismail]

Regardless of the context that quote is pulled from, are you (perhaps the most ardent stalinist around) seriously attempting to slander trotsky with the charge of the revision of history?

Sure, why not? Someone who changes their opinion of someone based on a personal vendetta should have their original perceptions of said person looked into. Ian Grey noted that during the Civil War Trotsky had a high appreciation of Stalin. After 1927 his evaluation of Stalin's role mysteriously changed.

Even if it were true what would that even mean? That trotsky white washed his earlier opinion of stalin (oh the horror), because its not as if anything of the sort happened under stalin's rule.

The context was a quote by Trotsky claiming that Stalin was unexpectedly awarded a medal (the same medal Trotsky also received) to the confusion of various Bolsheviks. The implication, obviously, was that Stalin's role in the Civil War was not notable but that he somehow got the medal anyway because he's Stalin and everyone but Trotsky bows down in fear before him.

Considering that Trotsky was the one who postured himself as struggling against the "Stalin school of falsification," it is important to point out where he's being self-serving and rewriting his own history. What Stalin did or did not do in this case is irrelevant.