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

[Cumannach]

I've been looking for an opportunity to give the endless Stalin-discussions a sticky of their own for a while now. The OP is such a great post that I think I finally found it. From now on, let's keep all discussions that primarily concern Mr Stalin (as a person) in this thread. Such threads posted on the forum will be merged here.

And everyone, regardless our opinion in this issue, let's follow the advice of the OP: let's keep the discussion civil, and based on material facts that can be backed up by evidence. -- Sentinel


I thought there wasn't enough threads on this forum about Stalin's crimes, so I want to make another one. I want this one to be different from all the other ones though. Everyone's free to have their opinions about Stalin, but we have to admit that his alleged crimes either did or did not happen, as a matter of historical fact.

In this thread, I invite anyone with a criticism of Stalin to present their accusation only if they can provide what they consider is evidence for it, in the form only of fully referenced quotations from published sources. If the source is available online then a link would be helpful, so the rest of the source can be perused by anyone interested. Using the sources of course, anyone is free to make a reasoned argument to back up their condemnation or Stalin, but please no emotional vitriole. Then another poster can make known their objections. The sources and their authors of course are fully open to discussion as well obviously, but, please, only in the same fashion as above. Maybe after reading some of the posts some comrades will change their opinion of Stalin and regard him as a murderer and tyrant. Maybe some comrades will change their view on him and see him as a great communist. But no need for inter-poster attacks and insults.

Just one more thing, rather than linking to sources, please actually post the essential extracts, concisely as possible. You know, for readability.

So does any comrade care to start?

[MarxSchmarx]

This thread has exceeded 500 posts and is being restarted.

[bailey_187]

how long was his slong

[Geiseric]

I'm sure kleber has a seperate hard drive filled with crap about Stalin. inb4 getty quotation and huge tendency war where the same outcome is me raging about some bullshit, and hoping that i'm being trolled. On a seperate note, answering above poster's question, my guesstimate is his penis is 7 inches. his balls are the size of grapefruits however, he needed them.

[Rooster]

Why did Stalin support Kerensky's provisional government?

[Ismail]

Why did Stalin support Kerensky's provisional government?

"On March 12 [1917], the day of his return to Petrograd, the bureau considered the question of Stalin's admission to its membership.... Three days after his return he was elected to the bureau's Presidium with full voting rights and was appointed Bolshevik representative on the Executive Committee (Excom) of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' Deputies. With Kamenev he also took over Pravda... Stalin dominated the party during the three weeks until Lenin's return. Recognizing that Lenin's violent opposition to the war and to the provisional government would antagonize most party members and people outside the party, he pursued a moderate policy. He advocated limited support for the provisional government on the grounds that the bourgeois-democratic revolution was not yet complete and that there would be a period of years before conditions were ripe for the socialist revolution. It made no sense, therefore, to work to destroy the government at this stage.

In his policy towards the war he was equally common-sensed, writing that 'when an army faces the enemy, it would be the most stupid policy to urge it to lay down arms and go home.' In response to the general demand among Social Democrats, he was even prepared to consider reunion with acceptable elements in the Menshevik party, and on his initiative the bureau agreed to convene a joint conference.

Pravda reflected this policy of moderation. Articles received from Lenin were edited, and the abusive references to the provisional government and to the Mensheviks were toned down or cut. According to Shlyapnikov, jaundiced by his summary displacement, the 'editorial revolution was strongly criticized by Petrograd workers, some even demanding the expulsion of Stalin, Kamenev and Muranov from the party.'"
(Grey, Ian. Stalin: Man of History. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979., pp. 89-90.)

Stalin later admitted he was wrong, saying in 1924 the following:

The Party (its majority) groped its way towards this new orientation. It adopted the policy of pressure on the Provisional Government through the Soviets on the question of peace and did not venture to step forward at once from the old slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry to the new slogan of power to the Soviets. The aim of this halfway policy was to enable the Soviets to discern the actual imperialist nature of the Provisional Government on the basis of the concrete questions of peace, and in this way to wrest the Soviets from the Provisional Government. But this was a profoundly mistaken position, for it gave rise to pacifist illusions, brought grist to the mill of defencism and hindered the revolutionary education of the masses. At that time I shared this mistaken position with other Party comrades and fully abandoned it only in the middle of April, when I associated myself with Lenin's theses. A new orientation was needed. This new orientation was given to the Party by Lenin, in his celebrated April Theses.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Why isn't there a Stalin Sub-Board?

[Ismail]

Why isn't there a Stalin Sub-Board?

It'd probably be about as productive as Kosovo being an autonomous republic under Serbia was.

[John Seneca]

Good ole Stalin:

purged about the entire original Politburo
re-instated puritan morale codex
kinda crapped up soviet modern art (see El Lissitsky, in the 20s Moscow was something of an emergent art capitol, similar to New York or Paris, which would've surely been a good propaganda argument)
let an awesome lot of dudes die in WWII.
liked musicals

But then again, Trotsky could have done worse. Dude didn't understand that Stalin wasn't actually arguing. Didn't purge him and his crew when the time was right. Oh well.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

Good ole Stalin:

purged about the entire original Politburo
re-instated puritan morale codex
kinda crapped up soviet modern art (see El Lissitsky, in the 20s Moscow was something of an emergent art capitol, similar to New York or Paris, which would've surely been a good propaganda argument)
let an awesome lot of dudes die in WWII.
liked musicals

But then again, Trotsky could have done worse. Dude didn't understand that Stalin wasn't actually arguing. Didn't purge him and his crew when the time was right. Oh well.

Seriously?

[John Seneca]

What do you mean "seriously"? All of those critiques of Stalin are based on facts I believe to be true. These are not the only critiques. He made a mighty fine emperor, though. Secured the continuation of the Soviet experiment.

But when we look at Trotsky, one gets a feeling that in an alt-history where he got to rule the State, he might have crapped the game up for the whole Union. Precisely the thing old Lenin said about him in his Testament. He was too confident in his own awesomeness.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Thou must not accuse the great leader Stalin. Repeat x 100.

Having said that, it is true that Stalin purged a majority of the original Bolsheviks, did re-instate a conservative social society (abortion, homosexuality), Socialist Realism did hold back the culture scene and his failings in WW2 are well known.

I won't hold it against him that he liked musicals, though.

[Ismail]

That Stalin "made a fine Emperor" is not a Marxist analysis, nor are claims that he "crapped up" arts.

[dinoantifaru]

Stalin did many mistakes as dictator . he murdered many soviets , he also had death camps for them. I am not sure, but i think that because of Stalin's arrogance now exist many neo-nazis in ex-USSR countries , cause every time i spoke to the neo nazi from Russia,Ukraine , Poland etc. ,when i ask them why they hate commies , antifascists the main theme is Stalin .

[Nox]

One thing's for certain - the Holdomor did not happen. That is fascist propaganda.

[Ismail]

Yes, claims that Stalin intentionally starved Ukrainians to "genocide" them (or intentionally starved them to begin with) are pretty much debunked outside of conservative circles. ComradeOm (who hates "Stalinists") had good posts on the subject, but any decent overview of the situation will show you that the "Holodomor" is fictitious. I don't think anyone on RevLeft believes in the "Holodomor," though.

Stalin did many mistakes as dictator . he murdered many soviets , he also had death camps for them. I am not sure, but i think that because of Stalin's arrogance now exist many neo-nazis in ex-USSR countries , cause every time i spoke to the neo nazi from Russia,Ukraine , Poland etc. ,when i ask them why they hate commies , antifascists the main theme is Stalin .

Well Ukrainian nationalists and Poles basically just shout "EVIL RUSSIANS" over and over. The year 1939 for Poles represents a dark period in which the glorious Polish nation was enslaved by the evil Communist menace and the sacred, God-given independence of Poland was trampled by the monstrous mongrel Russians or whatever.

[Gustav HK]

Socialist Realism did hold back the culture scene [...].

How did it do that?

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

What do you mean "seriously"? All of those critiques of Stalin are based on facts I believe to be true. These are not the only critiques. He made a mighty fine emperor, though. Secured the continuation of the Soviet experiment.

Aside from the purges and morality in the USSR circa Stalin the rest just seems like a bunch of inane bro babble "dude."

Thou must not accuse the great leader Stalin. Repeat x 100.

Self-flagellation, repeat x200.

Socialist Realism did hold back the culture scene

Elaborate.

and his failings in WW2 are well known.

This could be arguable and did make mistakes in terms of military strategy and tactics but to say he just "let a bunch of awesome 'dudes' die," during WWII seems absurd.

[Ismail]

How did it do that?

It prevented wonderfully moving works of art like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wcMmI0tKkQ

But seriously, the only real criticism I've seen of Socialist Realism is that it "stifled" non-Socialist Realist art (obviously) and that too much emphasis was placed on painting leaders and such, which isn't really an indictment of Socialist Realism as it is painters being required (or consciously deciding) to paint leaders to score brownie points.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

It prevented wonderfully moving works of art like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wcMmI0tKkQ

But seriously, the only real criticism I've seen of Socialist Realism is that it "stifled" non-Socialist Realist art (obviously) and that too much emphasis was placed on painting leaders and such, which isn't really an indictment of Socialist Realism as it is painters being required (or consciously deciding) to paint leaders to score brownie points.

I would like to further this point by citing the article Literature and Art Should Serve to Temper People with Class Consciousness for the Construction of Socialism by Enver Hoxha.