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

[OnlyCommunistYouKnow]

http://red-channel.de/Ordner_Lit/Lit..._Sprache.htm#p
That is all.

[revolutionary crab]

Anyone have any thoughts on this alleged quote by Stalin that defends the rape of women by Red Army soldiers?

Does Djilas, who is himself a writer, not know what human suffering and the human heart are? Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?

[Ismail]

Anyone have any thoughts on this alleged quote by Stalin that defends the rape of women by Red Army soldiers?

After the war many rapists were dealt with. Anyway, quoted in Stalin's Wars by Geoffrey Roberts, p. 264; Stalin to a Czechoslovak delegation, "Don't be surprised therefore if some of our people in your country do not behave themselves as they should. We know that some soldiers of little intelligence pester and insult girls and women and behave disgracefully. Let our Czechoslovak friends know this now so that their praise of the Red Army does not turn into disappointment."

[Geiseric]

After the war many rapists were dealt with. Anyway, quoted in Stalin's Wars by Geoffrey Roberts, p. 264; Stalin to a Czechoslovak delegation, "Don't be surprised therefore if some of our people in your country do not behave themselves as they should. We know that some soldiers of little intelligence pester and insult girls and women and behave disgracefully. Let our Czechoslovak friends know this now so that their praise of the Red Army does not turn into disappointment."

"insulting girls and women," equates to mass rape of several million woman? That's pretty cheuvanist for Stalin to say... In what way were they "dealt with," as well? Did he imprison every single soldier and force them to beg forgiveness and act as slaves for the rest of their lives to the women they raped? Anything short than that I don't see as being very productive. I'd even be ok if he shot a bunch of them as a way of making sure that trend stopped.

[Ismail]

"insulting girls and women," equates to mass rape of several million woman? That's pretty cheuvanist for Stalin to say... In what way were they "dealt with," as well? Did he imprison every single soldier and force them to beg forgiveness and act as slaves for the rest of their lives to the women they raped?

IIRC Road to Berlin by J. Erickson talks about tribunals. I also recall reading that 4000 officers or so received punishment for rape-related charges (plus many more other Soviet army officials.)

[TheGodlessUtopian]

IIRC Road to Berlin by J. Erickson talks about tribunals. I also recall reading that 4000 officers or so received punishment for rape-related charges (plus many more other Soviet army officials.)

What kind of punishment(s) did they receive?

[Ismail]

Some were shot, some were imprisoned for years.

[Towarzysz Leninski]

Ismail is totally right. In a matter of decades, the merits and triumphs of socialism as constructed by the Soviet people with Stalin at the helm were so glaringly, evidently amazing that the imperialists and bourgeoisie of the world were compelled to resort to the most fantastical slanders to discredit the success of the Soviet people and their leaders, especially Stalin. And it doesn't help that all the Trotskyites, as indirect allies and agents of imperialism, have spread such slanders around to support their "arguments."

The most famous of such slanders include the tales of the "Ukrainian Genocide" (which has been proven to be a lie started by Ukrainian fascists, profited on by escaped American convicts, and spread by William Hearst and his wonderfully propagandistic and baseless newspapers only to be later sold by him to the Nazis in a multi-million dollar propaganda swap!)

If you take any famous anti-Stalin history book, such as Medvedev's "Let History Judge" or Conquest's many books, if you take the time to go through and verify each source in the footnotes, you'll see that almost 90% of them are of fascist or kulak origin, and at best mere quotations of already bourgeois accounts.

I am a Pole, and am also part Russian, and the very reactionary attitude shared by many Polish people (that has been mistakenly accepted as supposed "primary source accounts of the horrors of 'communism'"!) is really just ignorance.

Each and every slander against Stalin can be proved wrong, or proved at least an exaggeration, and it is unsurprising that Stalin, the leader and icon of the once glorious bastion of socialism and of the Marxist-Leninist movement for the emancipation of the exploited and oppressed, has been subject to more slander than any figure in history. And there is no one to thanks for such but the bourgeoisie.

[Geiseric]

Stalin only industrialised though because the Kulak insurrections and man made famines were growing so strong, beforehand he wanted to continue the N.E.P. and he executed anybody who talked about industrialisation or collectivisation.

[Ismail]

and he executed anybody who talked about industrialisation or collectivisation.

Name one before the Great Purges.

[Omsk]

"insulting girls and women," equates to mass rape of several million woman?

I understand that this is normal for the "Anti-Stalin" clique on this website, but please, just explain to me how the Red Army raped "several million women" in Yugoslavia? (Or Czechoslovakia) Because that is the country of the individual Djilas, have you heard of it ?

And don't you dare mention Berlin, because the two quotes are not about Berlin, but about Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.

And with that cleared we come to an inevitable conclusion - you don't know what you are talking about but you still have the wit to come and lie, provoke, exaggerate.

[vagrantmoralist]

Is Holocaust denial allowed on this site? If it is, then I can understand why people can lie and say Holodomor wasn't caused by Stalin and the Kremlin. Otherwise, such an insult to the families of those who suffered and simple historical accuracy should be wiped.

My great-grandmother lived through the famines. My family had to personally go through the Holodomor. Do you think that the Party suffered as the ordinary person? Do you believe that a Party high-up starved just as the ordinary worker? Do you think Stalin starved? My great-grandmother saw with her own eyes how the factory manager and his family stayed fat and happy while she begged and waited in food lines, only to be told that there wasn't any food. To deny Stalin's direct role in creating the Holodomor is as repulsive as it is to deny the Holocaust or the horrific loss of life during Mao's so-called 'Great Leap Forward'.

Stalinists are no better than Fascists. In short, bastards. I do not care to be part of a site that allows such. If Stalinists are a large, active presence on this site, then I'm gone, and you lot have fun with the mass-murder deniers.

[Ismail]

Is Holocaust denial allowed on this site? If it is, then I can understand why people can lie and say Holodomor wasn't caused by Stalin and the Kremlin. Otherwise, such an insult to the families of those who suffered and simple historical accuracy should be wiped.

My great-grandmother lived through the famines. My family had to personally go through the Holodomor. Do you think that the Party suffered as the ordinary person? Do you believe that a Party high-up starved just as the ordinary worker? Do you think Stalin starved? My great-grandmother saw with her own eyes how the factory manager and his family stayed fat and happy while she begged and waited in food lines, only to be told that there wasn't any food. To deny Stalin's direct role in creating the Holodomor is as repulsive as it is to deny the Holocaust or the horrific loss of life during Mao's so-called 'Great Leap Forward'.

No one is denying that Soviet policies (of which Stalin was obviously the initiator of a great many) contributed to famine conditions in the Ukraine, and no one (at least not in modern times) is denying that a famine actually occurred. What people are rejecting is the claim that Stalin purposefully caused it in order to "punish" or even genocide Ukrainians. Most historians on Soviet affairs, even Robert Conquest, hold that the Soviets did not intentionally create a famine. Soviet archives demonstrate that Stalin knew little of what was occurring until it was too late, since local officials were reporting how "wonderful" things were going.

Two examples should be sufficient. The first: "The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine." The second, a letter from Stalin: "Comrade Kosior! You must read attached summaries. Judging by this information, it looks like the Soviet authority has ceased to exist in some areas of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Can this be true? Is the situation invillages in Ukraine this bad? Where are the operatives of the OGPU [Joint Main Political Directorate], what are they doing? Could you verify this information and inform the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party about taken measures." (from "Famine in the USSR: 1929-1934: New Documentary Evidence.")

J. Arch Getty on the famine and Soviet handling of events: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrow...yYXlA&user=&pw

For a much more elaborate discussion see The Years of Hunger by Davies and Wheatcroft.

[Geiseric]

During the great purges he killed anybody who was part of the left opposition, which would have been people who pushed for collectivisation in 1925 instead of following Stalin and Bukharin's clique which was interested in continuing the N.E.P. as for the famine in Ukraine, it along with most other starvations would have been avoided if the Left Opposition's economic policies were carried out earlier rather than later, can you agree with that Ismail? My point is that the Kulaks, already a strong force by 1925, should of been assaulted as a class before they instigated the city famines, which resulted in "5 year plan in 4 years," doctrine, forcing the peasantry into cattle trucks to collective farms and robbing their belongings and personal wealth along with the Kulaks, which we all see as a tragedy.

[Grenzer]

Stalin only industrialised though because the Kulak insurrections and man made famines were growing so strong, beforehand he wanted to continue the N.E.P. and he executed anybody who talked about industrialisation or collectivisation.

I can sympathize with you on your views of the inadequacy of Soviet policy, but at the same time I would like to argue why immediate industrialization and collectivization was an impossibility.

While the left opposition's demand for industrialization seemed superficially logical, it ignored the very real material constraints and conditions that existed in Russia. You may be correct about what motivated Stalin, but at the same time I can't imagine industrialization pushing forward too much earlier than it did. Perhaps in 1927 at the earliest.

The first thing that must be understood is that the Civil War absolutely devastated the peasantry to the point where they were on the edge of revolt, in fact. The rhetoric about there being no antagonistic class contradictions between the peasantry and proletariat is actually bullshit, as I'm sure you should imagine. The peasantry is a reactionary class and was deeply hostile to the Bolsheviks. Combined with the hardships they faced in the Civil War, they were about ready to tear everything down if they had been pushed further. The NEP provided an absolutely vital period in which the peasantry could recover, and when this had happened sufficiently industrialization could take place.

It's difficult to understate the extremely precarious position the Soviet Union was in during the mid 1920's. I can't really comment much on the Kulaks, as personally I think it's a useless term that discards Marxist analysis. I don't think "rich/well to do peasants" is a scientific classification, much like the bourgeois insistence on "middle class". It is primarily a term that is used for propaganda purposes, and has few to no roots in actual scientific analysis. Anyway, to continue on the subject, I think you need to be aware of the contradictions that tore through Russian society. The Russian Empire was a huge, multi-ethnic entity that spanned dozens of different nationalities. For all the talk of "self-determination", the reality was that this was usually ignored. Personally, I don't have a principle for self-determination because I believe class analysis supersedes it. In many of the regions on the periphery of the Soviet Union, independence was a common sentiment and there were frequent revolts and rebellions. What spurred this sentiment I would say is even cruder than ordinary bourgeois nationalism, as most of the regions that displayed this separatist tendency tended to be primarily feudal in nature. Had industrialization been pushed sooner, I doubt the Soviets would have been able to do anything from preventing most of these regions from breaking off simultaneously, which leads into the next issue..

Early industrialization was a logistical impossibility. I suggest you do some research into the state of the Soviet Union's infrastructure and bureaucratic capacity. The 1920's were marked by an extreme lack of capable personnel, a poor to non-existent infrastructure, and social instability. As an example of how poor the bureaucracy's capabilities were, I don't believe that the Central Committee even gained the ability to review decisions already made until 1925. Telephone lines did not even connect most major cities to each other. They were rushing the expansion of the Party enough as it was. Most new Party members had little to no knowledge of Marxism, and were of questionable background and loyalty. In short, demands for immediate industrialization and socialism in the early/mid 1920's were completely detached from reality.

Your claim that people were executed simply for opposing the NEP is also entirely untrue, unless you are talking about the fact that people who opposed the NEP in the 1920's were later executed in the Great Purges, then yes, you are right about that. The simple fact is that Stalin adopted most of the left opposition's platforms. For all of Trotsky's criticisms of the Stalinist bureaucracy, it's important to remember that he was initially in favor of stronger centralization and bureaucratization than Stalin. Make no mistake, I'm not decrying this as opportunism, and I don't necessarily see anything inconsistent about this. Although anti-bureaucratic hysteria is fashionable these days, Trotsky realized that bureaucracy is a process. Bureaucracy is absolutely necessary, but the key is to master the bureaucracy and not let it rule us.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I can sympathize with you on your views of the inadequacy of Soviet policy, but at the same time I would like to argue why immediate industrialization and collectivization was an impossibility.

While the left opposition's demand for industrialization seemed superficially logical, it ignored the very real material constraints and conditions that existed in Russia. You may be correct about what motivated Stalin, but at the same time I can't imagine industrialization pushing forward too much earlier than it did. Perhaps in 1927 at the earliest.

The first thing that must be understood is that the Civil War absolutely devastated the peasantry to the point where they were on the edge of revolt, in fact. The rhetoric about there being no antagonistic class contradictions between the peasantry and proletariat is actually bullshit, as I'm sure you should imagine. The peasantry is a reactionary class and was deeply hostile to the Bolsheviks.

The peasantry wasn't politically reactionary enough such that blocs with it would be rendered impossible.

Your claim that people were executed simply for opposing the NEP is also entirely untrue, unless you are talking about the fact that people who opposed the NEP in the 1920's were later executed in the Great Purges, then yes, you are right about that. The simple fact is that Stalin adopted most of the left opposition's platforms. For all of Trotsky's criticisms of the Stalinist bureaucracy, it's important to remember that he was initially in favor of stronger centralization and bureaucratization than Stalin. Make no mistake, I'm not decrying this as opportunism, and I don't necessarily see anything inconsistent about this. Although anti-bureaucratic hysteria is fashionable these days, Trotsky realized that bureaucracy is a process. Bureaucracy is absolutely necessary, but the key is to master the bureaucracy and not let it rule us.

An old post of mine quoting a book said that Stalin didn't adopt the left platforms out of opportunism, but circumstances (i.e., Scissors Crisis) actually convinced him to move left even as Zinoviev and Kamenev were drifting to the right.

Unfortunately for food production, he didn't move left enough.

[Grenzer]

The peasantry wasn't politically reactionary enough such that blocs with it would be rendered impossible.

I agree. Class antagonisms will always exist, but I think there was enough common ground for things to be worked out.. especially if the state pursued a policy of Sovkhozification.

An old post of mine quoting a book said that Stalin didn't adopt the left platforms out of opportunism, but circumstances (i.e., Scissors Crisis) actually convinced him to move left even as Zinoviev and Kamenev were drifting to the right.

Unfortunately for food production, he didn't move left enough.

I have never bought the idea that everything Stalin did was political opportunism, especially both the domestic and foreign policies during the Third Period. Opportunism cannot explain the policy. As my post suggests, I believe that socialization of agriculture and industrialization could not have occurred on a practical level earlier than it did. The main problem I have is not with the fact that they did socialize, but how they did it.

I can understand why some people believe Stalin to be so repugnant, but it really is better if one examines him not with the assumption that he is some evil spider queen at the center of a web of intrigues, but on his own terms.

Some people have wondered why you bring up the question of Kolkhozy vs Sovkhozy, but it seems to me that it is related to the question of class demographics. Should the class make up of Sovkhoz workers be proletarian? A policy of Sovkhozification would then follow to quickly begin converting the peasantry into proletarians on a mass basis, in addition to bypassing the problems associated with Kolkhozification.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Sovkhoz-ization (one less syllable ) would have converted peasants into farm workers fairly quickly.

[Grenzer]

Sovkhoz-ization (one less syllable ) would have converted peasants into farm workers fairly quickly.

It seems that Khrushchev may have actually been to the left of Stalin on this issue. I recall reading that he began guaranteeing a minimum wage to even Kolkhozy farmers in the 1960's.

[Ismail]

No, he wasn't to the "left" on the agricultural issue, which is what must be looked at in general. Stalin called for abolishing commodity relations in the countryside (this, of course, was directed at the overwhelming majority of the countryside which was in collectives) and replacing them with products-exchange, as Lenin had originally called for. Khrushchev by contrast said that Stalin was "dogmatic" and that he "distrusted" the peasantry, and that commodities existed throughout socialism and in fact were just fine rather than a fetter on things.

For Stalin the goal was obviously to increase the amount of property of the whole people in the countryside (i.e. state farms.) Just because Khrushchev oversaw the creation of more state farms does not mean the abolition of the machine-tractor stations in 1957 or other measures which brought capitalist relations to the collectives didn't exist. Khrushchev was concerned with maximizing profit, the creation of more state farms has to be seen in that vein.