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

[seventeethdecember2016]

Was Queen Victoria a proto-fascist then?

I'm not in the position to make such a claim without knowing more about her political views. However, she did portray herself as living a Middle Class life with propaganda she spread. She also was appalled at working conditions in England, the same working conditions which Marx wrote about in Capital.

In my opinion, she seems to me more of a Liberal. I will however claim that Benjamin Disraeli was something close to a Fascist, which is evident with his actions towards Ireland in 1879.

[Ismail]

The correct answer was "no."

[Invader Zim]

Yes it would. Virtually every government on earth had reactionary attitudes towards all those various issues. The only big difference is that some states were bourgeois democracies whereas others weren't.

It's a terrible way to gauge fascism.

Reactionary yes, akin to the position the actual fascist governments held, no. For example, the western powers did not hold what I would call truly 'democratic' principals, but their attitudes were very different from that of Mussolini's fascists or in Nazi Germany. I could go through the list and point out numerous other differences, as well. But you're, or at least were, the history moderator; perhaps you should try reading about these governments?

[Ismail]

I've well aware of these governments.

[Robespierre Richard]

It's not that governing expression is wrong on a moral level that concerns me (though that is a valid criticism). The point is that art and culture are something that develop organically. You (especially if the 'you' is the "monolithic Marxist-Leninist Party"!) cannot force art, culture, music etc. towards a working class perspective. Firstly, especially not from the monolithic M-L party. That is but one tendency in but one political philosophy. Secondly, you will end up constraining or even excluding whole careers. Shostakovitch was somebody who was massively constrained by the Socialist Realist directive in the USSR, for example. A great shame.

There are things that can be done to bring the art and culture sector in line with Socialism, mainly related to how artists are paid, copyrighting, royalties and so on. But you cannot, cannot, have non-artists directing the greatest geniuses of the day on how to go about making their art, according to some half-baked, third rate philosophical idea about what they believe art and culture should be. That is absolutely key. Unless your idea of art is some bullcrap like 'Tempering The Steel'.

I know that you didn't grow up in the former USSR and probably learned about the state of Soviet art from Wikipedia and possibly art history books, but soc-realism is a huge layer of Soviet culture that still remains today. Growing up both in post-Soviet Russia and the US, almost every children's book I read was soc-realist and was written in the 1920s or later and had themes of communist politics, poverty, adventure, and contributing to society. Respublika ShKID is probably the gold standard of soc-realist children's literature, describing the life of a post-civil war orphanage for 'defective' children who transform themselves into productive individuals and find interest in life.

Besides this, with the socrealist epics you may find that most of them were written before 1932 when the very term Socialist Realism was first said. Gorkiy's My Childhood was published in 1914, Ostrovsky wrote How Steel was Tempered between 1930 and 1932, Sholokhov's Quiet Flows the Don was written between 1926 and 1928. If anything, the state of art at the time was coming to this anyway. I don't know if you've read How Steel was Tempered, but it is a very readable novel that makes you understand the characters and the situation that they were in, historically and socially. It also tackles difficult themes such as rape, and not in the masturbatory way of Victorian novels where the woman is tired, the man is cunning, and in the next scene she is six months pregnant. It of course has a lot of propaganda, but it serves as the setting, not as painting the antiheroes as immoral capitalist bogeymen.

With avant-garde, there was nothing proletarian or revolutionary with it by itself, it simply took on revolutionary themes thanks to its existing popularity and artists generally having more diverse political views. However, besides being art, movies such as Aelita and Battleship Potemkin are really not watchable as simply movies and not art of the time because of their heavy-handed political rhetoric, lack of any real relationships between characters, and very strong use of symbolism. Over time these films faded out and were replaced by soc-realist ones that while still tackling many important themes such as revolution, war, collectivization, soviet politics, etc., are still watchable today simply for the plot and not so that you can get stirred off emotionally and march off with a rifle after watching it. There were still political epics, such as The Communist, which had self-sacrifice for the revolution, but centrally the importance of being a good person.

In terms of art scene, I am not sure what the point is of having them compete. It's not like Andy Warhol or Salvador Dali did some sort of massive damage to the USSR's image because of them being obvious symbols of Western superiority. Soc-realism was simply part of the cultural revolution of the 1930s that saw tens of millions of people become employed for the first time after many generations of being serfs and later peasants.

As for control of the process, soc-realism was "enforced" by the Union of Writers and the Union of Painters, the latter of which was an already existing organization that in the early 1920s began painting in the realist style with political and everyday themes. Of course it was not very 'balanced' in terms of having a direction, but this is because its purpose was not to win awards or be internationally renowned, it was for various clubs and social organizations throughout the union to place in recreation rooms. Regular people bought paintings too, but usually either from amateur painters or reproductions of classic paintings. Outside of political works, the most common theme for painters was nature. For writers, membership and approval of the union was important for getting published.

Of course I wish the Soviet government found something to do with the nonconformists. However, they were faced with a party of people with mostly proletarian and peasant origins who didn't understand their work and didn't see why it should be important and a public which didn't care about them, making the whole scene become reactionary over time, as such social isolation only pushed them further toward more controversial themes. Overall though, I would rate the USSR as having done a relatively good job in its war on hipsters, creating outlets for both political and apolitical youth who did not see themselves as having a prolonged career in the Komsomol and later the Party.

Activity-wise, there was a great promotion of a culture of sports, not for the purpose of macho bullshit but personal improvement and camaraderie. Of these the biggest was sport tourism, with widespread promotion beginning in 1934. That is hiking mountain climbing, and general trekking over challenging terrain such as glaciers. It also created a whole subculture of singer-songwriters, called the club of do-it-yourself songs, inspired by Vladimir Vysotsky, which pretty much was an outlet for creative expression for anyone who wanted to be heard, though this began in the 60s and 70s when society became more complex and the question of artistic expression became more actualized.

Honestly, I do wish the Soviets paid more attention to the Samizdat culture, because many of the issues tackled in it, such as alcoholism and wrecking in Moskva-Petushki were no less controversial and political as the caricatures in the satirical magazine Krokodil. Ultimately, the only way to prevent these attitudes from arising are continuous economic decentralization, or as Marx called it "gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country."

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I remember reading that Stalin decided to ban modern music after sitting near the horn section during an orchestral performance of some dissonant piece. The idea of state control of art is profoundly anti-marxist. The only time it might be considered is if the art is DIRECTLY begin used for counterrevolutionary activities -- I can't really think of what that might be -- maybe fund raising for fascism? Otherwise the rest of this Stalinist/Hoxaista stuff is idealistic clap trap. What the fuck is proletarian art, anyway? Who the hell knows what kind of art socialist humankind will produce? We'll find out after we achieve socialism.

I'm not sure if this thread is an invitation to list Stalin's crimes against the world revolution. But I'll start with a short list detailing some especially damaging things:

Stalin's anti-Leninist theory of Socialism in One Country and his building of a nationalist bureaucracy, was one step down the road to hell for world revolution.

His gutting of the Comintern and turning it into a club of opportunist hacks who were competing to see who could bend over lower to accept the polituburo's magical pronouncements and the purging of the best elements of the CI and CPUSSR was also disasterous. (See Draper's American Communism and Soviet Russia, James Cannon's The First Ten Years of American Communism)

He played a major role in the defeats in Spain (See The Civil War in Spain by Felix Morrow and Homage to Catalonia by Orwell) and China in 1927 (See Trotsky on China and The Fate of Man).

As a last "highlight" Comintern's line in Germany, "After Hitler, us," and their refusal to form a defensive united front with the SP allowed Hitler to take power at a time when the combined SP and CP had greater numbers and support than the Nazis. (See Trotsky's The Rise of Fascism in German).

I guess I'm wading into pretty hostile waters in this thread, but, what the hell -- we are supposed to be discussing these things.

[Ismail]

Stalin's anti-Leninist theory of Socialism in One Country and his building of a nationalist bureaucracy, was one step down the road to hell for world revolution.

Stalin did not have a "theory of socialism in one country." He considered himself continuing Lenin's line, as noted by Erik Van Ree in his book The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin. J. Arch Getty noted the anti-bureaucratic nature of, say, the Great Purges, while various other authors have noted that various nationalist tendencies also suffered strong setbacks in that decade.

His gutting of the Comintern and turning it into a club of opportunist hacks who were competing to see who could bend over lower to accept the polituburo's magical pronouncements and the purging of the best elements of the CI and CPUSSR was also disasterous. (See Draper's American Communism and Soviet Russia, James Cannon's The First Ten Years of American Communism)

The Comintern wasn't "gutted." It was an important organization 'till the day it was dissolved. The CPUSA was more or less always a poor party. The Soviet leadership did, however, denounce Browderism when it emerged.

He played a major role in the defeats in Spain (See The Civil War in Spain by Felix Morrow and Homage to Catalonia by Orwell)

Orwell in 1943:

"The much-publicized disunity on the Government side was not a main cause of defeat. The Government militias were hurriedly raised, ill-armed and unimaginative in their military outlook, but they would have been the same if complete political agreement had existed from the start. At the outbreak of war the average Spanish factory-worker did not even know how to fire a rifle (there had never been universal conscription in Spain), and the traditional pacifism of the Left was a great handicap. The thousands of foreigners who served in Spain made good infantry, but there were very few experts of any kind among them. The Trotskyist thesis that the war could have been won if the revolution had not been sabotaged was probably false. To nationalize factories, demolish churches, and issue revolutionary manifestoes would not have made the armies more efficient. The Fascists won because they were the stronger; they had modern arms and the others hadn't. No political strategy could offset that."
(George Orwell. A Collection of Essays. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. 1981. pp. 203-204.)

Histories of the war by Paul Preston and Helen Graham provide better balance.

and China in 1927 (See Trotsky on China and The Fate of Man).

Stalin in his letters to Molotov (in the aptly named Stalin's Letters to Molotov) criticized the CCP after Chiang Kai-shek's coup and blamed it for insufficiently carrying out Comintern orders. After this event Stalin would never really trust the CCP, which Mao himself noted.

As a last "highlight" Comintern's line in Germany, "After Hitler, us," and their refusal to form a defensive united front with the SP allowed Hitler to take power at a time when the combined SP and CP had greater numbers and support than the Nazis. (See Trotsky's The Rise of Fascism in German).

It is true that ultra-leftist errors were made, but at the same time these errors did not come into being because of the Comintern. ComradeOm (who does not like Stalin one bit) made good posts on this subject, noting that the KPD was always bound by sectarian errors. As ComradeOm once said, "Trotsky was also in power during the early twenties when the United Front strategy singularly failed to capitalise on turmoil in Germany during that crucial period. His own analysis of fascism also happens to pre-date the ComIntern's by a full two years. What a visionary"

And in another post:

With all that said and done I believe that the idea that the KPD and SPD could have made up and simply stopped Hitler to be a delusion born of desperation, sectarianism, and hindsight. These were two parties that had engaged in a bitter civil war not a decade previously and remained fiercely competitive rivals. Certainly the SPD could was hardly a natural ally for communists or socialists - the policy of social fascism makes far more sense when you consider that it followed the massacre of 33 workers by SPD police on May Day 1929 (Berlin's Bloody May)

That last point deserves stressing - social fascism was only adapted by the KPD in 1929. By this time there was a decade of mutual and unforgiving animosity between both 'Marxist' parties. Blame the KPD for its own undeniable failures but don't pretend that sectarianism on its part, or the puppet masters in Moscow, were the cause, or enablers, of Hitler's rise. If you must have a scapegoat then pick the decision of the SPD leadership to betray its working class support by taking the reigns of the bourgeois state and becoming an undeniable party of reaction

Of course ComradeOm didn't come up with this out of the blue. Bourgeois sources note it as well:

"A genuine misunderstanding within the ranks of the Comintern [in regard to fascism] also existed. First, it did not consider seriously the possibility that conclusions could be drawn from the Italian experience. This was seen somehow as an event unique to backward, peripheral societies, and not to advanced, 'democratic' ones. Second, the Comintern on the whole tended to equate any military/authoritarian regime with fascism. Third, its dim view of social democracy as 'social fascist' was by no means new. It had used the term as early as 1924, prior to Stalin's ascendancy, when describing social democracy's role in bringing about post-war capitalist stabilization in Germany, and in doing so it had cooperated with the right-wing paramilitary Frei Korps.

Fourth, the German SPD was responsible for expelling KPD members from trade unions and killing 25 May Day demonstrators in Berlin, in 1929. Fifth, the Grand Coalition government headed by the Social Democratic Herman Müller was antagonistic towards the Soviet Union. Indeed, from a Soviet point of view the capitalist West had been hostile towards it since 1917, whatever the political hue of their governments. Sixth, while the Comintern's optimism about the rapid demise of Hitler was simplistic, this in part derived from an economism found in Marxism and Marx himself. Unemployment throughout the advanced capitalist countries had reached record levels, and few predicted that Hitler would be able to bring about a dramatic revival of the German economy...

However, even if [Trotsky's] united front recommendations, 'from above and below' were in fact implemented by a KPD leadership, the difficulties in achieving cooperation need acknowledgement. The SPD leadership had a deep distrust of the KPD, and treated the occasion offer of cooperation with a good deal of cynicism... A final obstacle to unity lay in a sociological fact: the overwhelming bulk of SPD members were relatively well-paid and unionized, while the KPD consisted largely of the unemployed."
(Jules Townshend. The Politics of Marxism: The Critical Debates. New York: Leicester University Press. 1996. pp. 117-118.)

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Come on, Ismail. Calling the "Great" purges anti-bureaucratic is true only insofar as some bureaucrats were killed along with the hundreds of thousands of other people. And yes, Stalin said that he was merely following Lenin when he formulated the theory of socialism in one country. What was he going to say? "I am making a fundamental revision to Leninism to reflect the conservative desires of the emerging bureaucracy"? There is a single quote from Lenin, taken out of context that is used to bolster the crazy idea that Lenin thought that you could build socialism without a world revolution. One quote against thousands explicitly contradicting it. Stalin could not possibly have been unaware that he was going against what Lenin had said. Hell, building the CI was such a priority to Lenin and Bolsheviks that they were devoting precious resources to it during the civil war.

Oh yeah, the CI was important until it was dissolved -- Who, dissolved it comrade? Still by the late twenties it was a shell of its former self. The leadership of the national parties had to be approved of by Moscow (often picked by Moscow)-- and Moscow's primary interest was factional, to destroy all individuals and groupings that were not loyal to Stalin above all else.

Trotsky's writings on the rise of Naziism are remarkable, I highly recommend them. He was able to extrapolate from the Italian experience and predict the catastrophe for the working class that a Nazi victory would mean. And of course there was plenty of animosity between the KPD and SPD (rightly so, forget about the killings in 1929, what about the drowning of the Spartacus uprising in blood?). The KPD needed to appeal to the ranks of the SPD for action. It might have been difficult to make it happen, but that does not excuse the idiotic line of treating the SPD as worse than the Nazis. And I don't know about the specific the demographics of membership in each party, but it seems beside the point. The SPD had millions of members -- I'm sure plenty were among the less privileged. And it was after the debacle in Germany was followed by almost no discussion in CI, no post mortem, no self-criticism, that Trotsky declared the CI to be dead and called for the building of a Fourth International.

[Rodrigo]

There's a LOT to talk about Stalin or Stalin-related facts. This kind of thread disorganizes discussion. I'm for the creation of sub-forums.

[Rodrigo]

@Lev Bronsteinovich
http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Ludo%...00000000000000

http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Ludo%...00000000000000

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1683

[Ismail]

There is a single quote from Lenin, taken out of context that is used to bolster the crazy idea that Lenin thought that you could build socialism without a world revolution.

Actually Stalin basically used like three quotes, but there's a fair amount of others. It's not a surprise that his more "radical" quotes come during the revolution and immediately after it at the height of the civil war, when the very existence of the government was at times doubted, while his more "conservative" quotes come from the 1921-1923 period.

I wrote two posts with various Lenin quotes a year ago:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...1&postcount=14
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...7&postcount=16

Oh yeah, the CI was important until it was dissolved -- Who, dissolved it comrade?

"We now know that on 20 April 1941, at a closed dinner at the Bolshoi Theater, Stalin... [r]effering to the fact that the American Communists had disaffiliated from the Comintern in order to avoid prosecution under the Voorhis Act... declared,

'Dimitrov is losing his parties. That's not bad. On the contrary, it would be good to make the Com[munist] parties entirely independent instead of being sections of the CI. They must be transformed into national Com. parties under various names—Labor Party, Marxist Party, etc. The name doesn't matter. What is important is that they take root in their own people and concentrate on their own special tasks. The situation and tasks vary greatly from country to country, for instance in England and Germany, they are not at all the same. When the Com. parties get strong in this fashion, then you'll reestablish their international organization.'

Stalin continued:

'The [First] International was created in the days of Marx in anticipation of an early world revolution. The Comintern was created in the days of Lenin in a similar period. At present the national tasks for each country move into the forefront. But the status of Com. parties as sections of an international organization, subordinate to the Executive of the CI, is an obstacle.... Don't hold on to what was yesterday. Strictly take into account the newly created circumstances... Under present conditions, membership in the Comintern makes it easier for the bourgeoisie to persecute the Com. parties and accomplish its plan to isolate them from the masses in their own countries, while it hinders the Com. parties' independent development and task-solving as national parties.'"
(Alexander Dallin & Fridrikh I. Firsov. Dimitrov and Stalin: 1934-1943. Hew Haven: Yale University Press. 2000. pp. 226-227.)

Yet even after the Comintern dissolved Dimitrov still managed a covert organization (whose name escapes me, although I can look it up) which was still involved in financing foreign CPs and giving them leadership and directions.

Still by the late twenties it was a shell of its former self. The leadership of the national parties had to be approved of by Moscow (often picked by Moscow)-- and Moscow's primary interest was factional, to destroy all individuals and groupings that were not loyal to Stalin above all else.

I like how you trace this development to Stalin. A great many parties were financially and, for lack of better word, "leaderily" dependent on the Comintern from their start. Even at the height of the CPUSA's popularity in the 30's and 40's they were still asking for a lot of money.

The KPD needed to appeal to the ranks of the SPD for action.

It did. It called for a united front on various occasions with the SPD rank-and-file, but SPD members denounced this as not being unity but "submission" or whatever.

And it was after the debacle in Germany was followed by almost no discussion in CI, no post mortem, no self-criticism, that Trotsky declared the CI to be dead and called for the building of a Fourth International.

Actually, Getty notes it was more because Trotsky's offer to return to the Soviet leadership in exchange for not condemning Stalin and Co. was rejected. In Trotsky's mind both naturally followed, though.

See: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...11&postcount=7

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Cripes, Ismail, where to begin? I'll start with one item -- the KPD did form military blocks except it was with the Nazis against the SPD. Their violent approach to the SPD and their propaganda, labeling the SPD as being worse than the Nazis ("Social Fascists") helped to drive a wedge between potential allies in the SPD and the KPD. It is a matter of public record and documented in many places that the KPD had little interest in any kind of united fight against the Nazis. Why argue otherwise?

Do you know that Trotsky rejected overtures from the right opposition in the late twenties? Bukharin contacted him once he became afraid of Stalin. Trotsky rejected the offer out of hand saying he would not unite with the Right Opposition as it was politically worse than Stalin's faction and posed the risk of capitalist restoration. If Trotsky had been all about seizing power, why was he principled in this case? Also, as the head of the Red Army, as an extremely popular public figure, a great orator, etc. Why did he not try to leverage these things and appeal to his troops and the masses when the Triumvirate was vilifying him and stripping him of his Party posts? It is hard to understand this perhaps, but he was deeply principled, comrade. The idea of starting new parties to please his vanity or hunger for power was an anathema to him. He always avoided unprincipled blocs (e.g. with Nin in Spain), even if it might be politically expedient in the short run. Stalin liquidates the Comintern because he is such a great internationalist LMFAO. Lenin said that he would sacrifice the Russian Revolution to make the German Revolution without hesitation.

[Ismail]

Cripes, Ismail, where to begin? I'll start with one item -- the KPD did form military blocks except it was with the Nazis against the SPD. Their violent approach to the SPD and their propaganda, labeling the SPD as being worse than the Nazis ("Social Fascists") helped to drive a wedge between potential allies in the SPD and the KPD. It is a matter of public record and documented in many places that the KPD had little interest in any kind of united fight against the Nazis. Why argue otherwise?

E.H. Carr (in Twilight of the Comintern) and various others note that the KPD did appeal to unity with the SPD rank-and-file via trade unions and so on. They just did it in a way which, again, was seen as sectarian and as less of a call for unity and more "join the KPD since the SPD are traitors to socialism and agents of the capitalists."

Also the KPD paramilitary was outlawed whereas its Nazi counterpart was not. That alone was seen as a strong reason to distrust the SPD.

Do you know that Trotsky rejected overtures from the right opposition in the late twenties? Bukharin contacted him once he became afraid of Stalin. Trotsky rejected the offer out of hand saying he would not unite with the Right Opposition as it was politically worse than Stalin's faction and posed the risk of capitalist restoration. If Trotsky had been all about seizing power, why was he principled in this case?

Well first off, we know that Trotsky did support a left-right bloc after he was exiled, as Getty's article (which I linked to in my last post) notes, and which Trotskyist historian Pierre Broué has also noted. He distrusted the Rightists and the Rightists distrusted him, with both groups attacking each other at the Trials. Second, the Rightists had been tactically aligned with the "Centrists" under Stalin and at that time Trotsky probably viewed them as liable towards "capitulation." Naturally having just broken from the Stalin wing of the Party, the Rightists didn't look like an attractive group for the Trots to align with.

Also, as the head of the Red Army, as an extremely popular public figure, a great orator, etc. Why did he not try to leverage these things and appeal to his troops and the masses when the Triumvirate was vilifying him and stripping him of his Party posts?

He'd probably be accused of trying to ferment a coup d'état or something if he tried making appeals to the Red Army. That'd undermine him further.

Lenin said that he would sacrifice the Russian Revolution to make the German Revolution without hesitation.

Yet Lenin also said the following:

"Perhaps the authors believe that the interests of the world revolution forbid making any peace at all with imperialists? ... The incorrectness of this view (which was rejected, for example, by a majority of the Petrograd opponents of peace) is as clear as day. A socialist republic surrounded by imperialist powers could not, from this point of view, conclude any economic treaties, and could not exist at all, without flying to the moon.

Perhaps the authors believe that the interests of the world revolution require that it should be given a push, and that such a push can be given only by war, never by peace, which might give the people the impression that imperialism was being 'legitimised'? Such a 'theory' would be completely at variance with Marxism, for Marxism has always been opposed to 'pushing' revolutions, which develop with the growing acuteness of the class antagonisms that engender revolutions. Such a theory would be tantamount to the view that armed uprising is a form of struggle which is obligatory always and under all conditions. Actually, however, the interests of the world revolution demand that Soviet power, having overthrown the bourgeoisie in our country, should help that revolution, but that it should choose a form of help which is commensurate with its own strength. To help the socialist revolution on an international scale by accepting the possibility of defeat of that revolution in one's own country is a view that does not follow even from the 'pushing' theory....

Twist and turn them how you will, but you can find no logic in the authors' contentions. There are no sensible arguments to support the view that 'in the interests of the world revolution it is expedient to accept the possibility of losing Soviet power'."
(V.I. Lenin. Selected Works Vol. 2. New York: International Publishers. 1967. pp. 521-523.)

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

E.H. Carr (in Twilight of the Comintern) and various others note that the KPD did appeal to unity with the SPD rank-and-file via trade unions and so on. They just did it in a way which, again, was seen as sectarian and as less of a call for unity and more "join the KPD since the SPD are traitors to socialism and agents of the capitalists."

Gee, that's a real useful approach to form a united front. "Join us and leave your traitorous party." It's not serious and was not meant to be. And yes, there were a mountain of reasons not to trust the SPD, so what?

Also the KPD paramilitary was outlawed whereas its Nazi counterpart was not. That alone was seen as a strong reason to distrust the SPD.
Well first off, we know that Trotsky did support a left-right bloc after he was exiled, as Getty's article (which I linked to in my last post) notes, and which Trotskyist historian Pierre Broué has also noted. He distrusted the Rightists and the Rightists distrusted him, with both groups attacking each other at the Trials. Second, the Rightists had been tactically aligned with the "Centrists" under Stalin and at that time Trotsky probably viewed them as liable towards "capitulation." Naturally having just broken from the Stalin wing of the Party, the Rightists didn't look like an attractive group for the Trots to align with.

With you Stalinists, it's always about intrigue and factional advantage. That's the lens through which you tend to view all of the intra-party fights. I don't buy that Trotsky was seeking a bloc with the rights -- he was very clear in his writings and in practice as well. Why seek a bloc with the Right when he had rejected such a bloc before and after? Makes no sense. Just because Stalin was the supreme factional player and put personal power above all else, does not mean everyone else did.

He'd probably be accused of trying to ferment a coup d'état or something if he tried making appeals to the Red Army. That'd undermine him further.

Well yes. He was acutely aware of not wanting to be the Napoleon of the Russian Revolution -- which he certainly was in a position to be. Even in 1923 Stalin was not a particularly well known public figure. Trotsky was second to Lenin in the minds of the Soviet populace (in fact, in the period around the October Revolution, peasants were reported to have referred to Lenintrotsky as a single person). Zinoviev and Kamanev, fresh off being humiliated by Trotsky's Lessons of October, and jealous of the LT's close relationship with Lenin (after all, they had been with Lenin for much longer then Trotsky who only joined the party in 1917) and fearing being eclipsed by Trotsky, joined with Stalin (who nobody thought was a real contender for power) to fight "Trotskyism." They did fear that Trotsky was going to be the Bonaparte of the Russian Revolution, but Trotsky wanted no part of that. It was only when Zinoviev began to realize what Stalin was up to that he agreed to form a bloc with Trotsky, alas, too late. When Bukharin, who was Stalin's theoretical axeman against Trotsky realized his days were numbered he sent out feelers to Trotsky to form a bloc. Trotsky rejected it flatly saying that Bukharin's rightist policies were more dangerous than Stalin's and further, that he would form a bloc with Stalin against Bukharin and the Right Opposition if need be (in the interest of defending the gains of the Russian Revolution) never the other way around.

Yet Lenin also said the following:

"Perhaps the authors believe that the interests of the world revolution forbid making any peace at all with imperialists? ... The incorrectness of this view (which was rejected, for example, by a majority of the Petrograd opponents of peace) is as clear as day. A socialist republic surrounded by imperialist powers could not, from this point of view, conclude any economic treaties, and could not exist at all, without flying to the moon.

Perhaps the authors believe that the interests of the world revolution require that it should be given a push, and that such a push can be given only by war, never by peace, which might give the people the impression that imperialism was being 'legitimised'? Such a 'theory' would be completely at variance with Marxism, for Marxism has always been opposed to 'pushing' revolutions, which develop with the growing acuteness of the class antagonisms that engender revolutions. Such a theory would be tantamount to the view that armed uprising is a form of struggle which is obligatory always and under all conditions. Actually, however, the interests of the world revolution demand that Soviet power, having overthrown the bourgeoisie in our country, should help that revolution, but that it should choose a form of help which is commensurate with its own strength. To help the socialist revolution on an international scale by accepting the possibility of defeat of that revolution in one's own country is a view that does not follow even from the 'pushing' theory....

Twist and turn them how you will, but you can find no logic in the authors' contentions. There are no sensible arguments to support the view that 'in the interests of the world revolution it is expedient to accept the possibility of losing Soviet power'."
(V.I. Lenin. Selected Works Vol. 2. New York: International Publishers. 1967. pp. 521-523.)

Well doo dah. The USSR should not commit suicide in seeking world revolution -- Who would argue with that? Lenin's point when he made the comment about the German Revolution was that without the spread of a wider revolution to Germany and other advanced capitalist countries, the Russian Revolution was doomed -- he was proven correct on this point, although it did take a lot longer then anticipated. Lenin was an internationalist to the bone -- any depiction of him as otherwise is cynical and dishonest. You can cherry pick choice quotes that seem to bolster your argument, but surely comrade, this is simply a false view of Lenin twisted to fit what Stalin did after Lenin's death. There are MOUNTAINS of data that contradict the notion that Lenin ever supported or would support the nationalist bent of Stalin's line of Socialism in One Country.

[Ismail]

I don't buy that Trotsky was seeking a bloc with the rights -- he was very clear in his writings and in practice as well. Why seek a bloc with the Right when he had rejected such a bloc before and after?

Well gee, did you read the article? It gets its sources from Trotsky's own private correspondence at Harvard. The article makes it pretty obvious that he was seeking a Left-Right Bloc.

Here's an abridged version:

"Although the Riutin Platform originated in the right wing of the Bolshevik Party, its specific criticisms of the Stalinist regime were in the early 1930s shared by the more leftist Leon Trotsky, who also had sought to organize political opposition 'from below.' ... Like the Riutin group, Trotsky believed that the Soviet Union in 1932 was in a period of extreme crisis provoked by Stalin's policies. Like them, he believed that the rapid pace of forced collectivization was a disaster... Along with the Riutinists, Trotsky called for a drastic change in economic course and democratization of the dictatorial regime within a party that suppressed all dissent. According to Trotsky, Stalin had brought the country to ruin.

At the same time the Riutin group was forging its progammatic documents, Trotsky was attempting to activate his followers in the Soviet Union...

Sometime in 1932 Trotsky sent a series of secret personal letters to his former followers Karl Radek, G.I. Sokolnikov, and Ye. Preobrazhensky and others in the Soviet Union. And at about the same time he sent a letter to his oppositionist colleagues in the Soviet Union by way of an English traveler...

More concretely, in late 1932 Trotsky was actively trying to forge a new opposition coalition in which former oppositionists from both left and right would participate. From Berlin, Trotsky's son Lev Sedov maintained contact with veteran Trotskyist I. N. Smirnov in the Soviet Union... Shortly thereafter, Smirnov relayed word to Sedov that the bloc had been organized; Sedov wrote to his father that 'it embraces the Zinovievists, the Sten-Lominadze group, and the Trotskyists (old '—').' Trotsky promptly announced in his newspaper that the first steps toward an illegal organization of 'Bolshevik-Leninists' had been formed.

Back in the Soviet Union, the authorities smashed Trotsky's bloc before it got off the ground. In connection with their roundup of suspected participants in the Riutin group, nearly all the leaders of the new bloc were pulled in for questioning. Many of them were expelled from the party and sentenced to prison or exile. Sedov wrote to his father that although 'the arrest of the 'ancients' is a great blow, the lower workers are safe.'"
(J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov. The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1999. pp. 60-63.)

Two years earlier Stalin had mentioned Lominadze:

"In 1930, the authorities were informed that RSFSR Prime Minister Syrtsov was conspiring with First Secretary of the trans-Caucasian District Committee Lominadze. Stalin took this 'Left–Right bloc' seriously. He commented to Molotov about the 'anti-party (in essence right deviationist) little factional group' and added: 'They played at a takeover.'"
(Erik Van Ree. The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin: A Study in Twentieth-Century Revolutionary Patriotism. New York: RoutledgeCurzon. 2002. p. 119.)

Zinoviev and Kamanev, fresh off being humiliated by Trotsky's Lessons of October, and jealous of the LT's close relationship with Lenin (after all, they had been with Lenin for much longer then Trotsky who only joined the party in 1917) and fearing being eclipsed by Trotsky, joined with Stalin (who nobody thought was a real contender for power) to fight "Trotskyism."

Actually if anything Stalin followed Zinoviev, who was far harsher in his attacks on Trotsky than Stalin was at the time.

"He had never expected that his 'Lessons of October,' which he had written to set the record straight and to warn the party that it was on the wrong course, would loose such a hurricane of protest. Under the strain his health broke down. Doctors recommended a rest-spell in the Caucasus. He refused to leave his quarters in the Kremlin. Sick, solitary, and surrounded by hostility, he awaited the meeting of the Central Committee to be held January 17-20, 1925. He had written what is known as the letter of resignation in which, as in his speech to the Thirteenth Congress, he expressed his loyalty and submission to the party, but refused to make any confession of error.

At the committee meeting Zinoviev and Kamenev showed eagerness to make the final kill. Supported by others, they demanded the expulsion of Trotsky not only from the committee and Politburo but from the party itself. This, the final sentence of excommunication, was opposed by Stalin. Reporting later to the Fourteenth Party Congress, he explained that 'we, the majority of the Central Committee . . . did not agree with Comrades Zinoviev and Kamenev because we realized that the policy of cutting off heads is fraught with major blood-letting—and they want blood—dangerous and contagious; today you cut off one head, tomorrow a second, then a third; who would remain in the party?' It was a fateful pronouncement.

The only action taken against Trotsky at this meeting of the Central Committee was to remove him from office as president of the Revolutionary War Council and Kommissar for War. For some months he had held office only nominally. M.V. Frunze, one of his chief antagonists in the military, had been appointed Deputy Kommissar in the spring of 1924, and had virtually taken control. For the time being Trotsky remained a member of the Central Committee of the Politburo, but he was a member on sufferance. He had forfeited the support and prestige he had commanded in the party. His conduct had demoralized his few supporters. He was alone."
(Ian Grey. Stalin: Man of History. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1979. pp. 204-205.)

There are MOUNTAINS of data that contradict the notion that Lenin ever supported or would support the nationalist bent of Stalin's line of Socialism in One Country.

Let's hear it.

Van Ree wrote an interesting article of Lenin in the 1915-1917 period two years back. In it he argues that although Lenin's views weren't the same as Stalin's, they were closer to him than Trotsky's.

E.g. Van Ree notes (p. 172):

At the Seventh Party Congress held [in March 1918] Lenin observed that, ‘it is an absolute truth that we would go under without a German revolution’. Years later, in July 1921, he famously remarked that, before the revolution, ‘we thought: either immediately or at least very soon the revolution will come in other, capitalistically more developed countries, or, in the opposite case, we must go under’.

You can access it here: dare.uva.nl/document/199423

[Geiseric]

Show me a quote saying that Lenin was fine with selling out workers in other countries in order for trade agreements, and i'll believe you. Otherwise, show me a quote saying how Lenin was against the founding of comintern, how Lenin was fine with marching with Fascists against social dems, and a quote saying how Popular Frontism is a good idea. You can quote all of your Getty sources all you want, they're secondary sources of misinformation.

I also want a quote from Trotsky himself about how he was open to a left-right bloc. Getty saying Trotsky was doesn't mean anything at all.

And that last quote wasn't saying sell out the workers in order for the survival of our positions, it means the workers revolutions succeed, with help from the U.S.S.R. or we collapse. You're disrespecting Lenin as a person saying he was in favor of these anti-marxist views. If he was in favor of capitulating with capitalists, he would have done it during the civil war instead of fighting the whole thing in order for a chance of socialism obtaining its first victory. Quote direct sources saying clearly that Lenin was saying what you support, or there is no proof that he did.

[Ismail]

Show me a quote saying that Lenin was fine with selling out workers in other countries in order for trade agreements, and i'll believe you.

Show me Stalin saying that.

Otherwise, show me a quote saying how Lenin was against the founding of comintern,

Why would Lenin say that? Why would Stalin? Are you trying to create a strawman? No one was against the Comintern's founding. The Comintern was a great organization which coordinated the international communist movement at a time when it was organizationally weak and prone to ideological vacillations. When it became a fetter on the development of this movement, however, it was dissolved.

a quote saying how Popular Frontism is a good idea.

The Popular Front wasn't introduced until 1935, as a response to the failure to unite with broader social forces against fascism during the preceding years. Fascism was not seen as a major threat in Lenin's time.

You can quote all of your Getty sources all you want, they're secondary sources of misinformation.

Misinformation? Really? Last I heard Getty is a reliable academic source.

I also want a quote from Trotsky himself about how he was open to a left-right bloc. Getty saying Trotsky was doesn't mean anything at all.

Sure thing, I'll just quote Trotsky and his son from the Getty article:

We know considerably more, however, about another clandestine communication between Trotsky and his supporters in the USSR late in 1932. Sometime in October, E.S. Gol'tsman, a former Trotskyist and current Soviet official, met Sedov in Berlin and gave him a proposal from veteran Trotskyist Ivan Smirnov and other left oppositionists in the USSR for the formation of a united opposition bloc. The proposed bloc was to include Trotskyists, Zinovievists, members of the Lominadze group, and others. Sedov wrote to Trotsky relaying the proposal and Trotsky approved. 'The proposition of the bloc seems to me completely acceptable', Trotsky wrote, 'but it is a question of bloc, not merger'. 'How will the bloc manifest itself? For the moment, principally through reciprocal information. Our allies will keep us up to date on that which concerns the Soviet Union, and we will do the same thing on that which concerns the Comintern'.19 In his view, the bloc should exclude those who capitulated and recanted: capitulationist sentiment 'will be inexorably and pitilessly combatted by us'.20 Gol'tsman had relayed the opinion of those in the Soviet Union that participation in the bloc by the Right Opposition was desirable, and that formation of the bloc should be delayed until their participation could be secured. Trotsky reacted against this suggestion: 'The allies' opinion that one must wait until the rights can easily join does not have my approval . . . .' Trotsky was impatient with what he considered passivity on the part of the Right Opposition. 'One struggles against repression by anonymity and conspiracy, not by silence'.21 Sedov then replied that the bloc had been organized. 'It embraces the Zinovievists, the Sten-Lominadze group, and the Trotskyists (old "—")'22 'The Safarov-Tarkhanov group has not yet formally entered—they have a very extreme position; they will enter soon.'

Then Getty later quotes a letter Trotsky sent to the Soviet Politburo pledging not to attack the government if Trotsky and Co. were allowed back into it.

And in a footnote to the article:

21 ... In the light of the apparent similarities between his and Bukharin's critiques, Trotsky was anxious to maintain the separate identity of the Left Opposition. He wrote in 1932 that although 'practical disagreements with the Right will hardly be revealed . . . it is intolerable to mix up the ranks and blunt the distinctions'. (WLT Supplement (1929-1933), p. 174). In a secret letter to his son about the 1932 bloc, he warned Sedov not to 'leave the field to the rights' (Trotsky Papers, 13095).

So, as noted, both the "Left" and Right disagreed with each other on various issues (including organization, as noted in the Moscow Trials.) Yet they were still willing to collaborate in some form against Stalin and the Soviet leadership.

And that last quote wasn't saying sell out the workers in order for the survival of our positions, it means the workers revolutions succeed, with help from the U.S.S.R. or we collapse. You're disrespecting Lenin as a person saying he was in favor of these anti-marxist views.

Except I wasn't claiming anything about "selling out" workers. You're putting words in my mouth.

Quote direct sources saying clearly that Lenin was saying what you support, or there is no proof that he did.

I've already provided links to a collection of quotes by Lenin that I've compiled. That's also a ridiculous argument that you're making. Remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (not that there's anything in the way of absence anyway.)

Again, here are the Lenin quotes:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...1&postcount=14
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...7&postcount=16

[Capitalist Octopus]

This is a random question but I'm hoping someone can answer it. I've seen a quote on the internet attributed to Stalin which talks about him seeing the Swiss Alps and saying "That was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I never want to see it again". But I can't find out if he actually said it, when, context, etc.

Anyone care to help out? I have googled it.

[Ismail]

Google Books brings up nothing, so he probably never said it. There are a fair amount of quotes attributed to Stalin without basis in fact. Same thing with Lenin, Marx, etc.

[garymeyer]

Joseph Stalin (b. December 18, 1878 in the Russian Empire) served as the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. Stalin assumed the leading role in Soviet politics after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, and gradually marginalized his opponents until he had become the unchallenged leader of the Soviet Union.