Crypto-fascism within the left

[Ismail]

It was never claimed during the trials that he actually became a fascist or otherwise changed his views on fascism, but that he was willing to use them in order to come to power in the USSR, claiming that otherwise the "Stalinists" would lose in a future war with Nazi Germany and that the gains of the revolution would thus be completely wiped away along with the Trots.

[Dialectical Wizard]

It was never claimed during the trials that he actually became a fascist or otherwise changed his views on fascism, but that he was willing to use them in order to come to power in the USSR, claiming that otherwise the "Stalinists" would lose in a future war with Nazi Germany and that the gains of the revolution would thus be completely wiped away along with the Trots.

Nothing more than another one of those wacky stalinoid conspiracy theories.

Stalin's crypto-antisemitism on the other hand ran pretty deep though; he purged almost all of the Jewish Bolsheviks, his immense hatred for Trotsky and the doctors plot etc.

[Broviet Union]

Given that Stalin also wrote that hatred of the Jews was a disease or something along those lines in his writing on Anti-Semitism, I can only assume the guy was a mess of cognitive dissonance.

[Ismail]

he purged almost all of the Jewish Bolsheviks, his immense hatred for Trotsky

Apparently the only reason Stalin clashed with persons like Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev was because they were Jews.

I've never heard that the purges specifically targeted Jews either. The Moscow Trials certainly do not indicate it, nor will you find such claims in, say, Robert Conquest's works.

and the doctors plot etc.

As Furr noted a few years back,

• The "Doctors' Plot" case had nothing to do with Stalin.
  
  • Ferociously anticommunist and anti-Stalin researcher Gennadiy Kostyrchenko exposed the supposed "plan" to execute the Doctors and exile Soviet Jews in 2003, in an article titled "Deportatsiia -- Mistifikatsiia" in the Russian Jewish journal Lekhaim in September 2002.
  • According to anti-Stalin Soviet dissident Zhores Medvedev it was the aged Stalin who put an end to this case (Stalin i evreiskaia problema. Chapter "Stalin i 'delo vrachei'").
  • According to Stalin's daughter Svetlana Allilueva (Twenty Letters To A Friend, Letter 18) Stalin didn't believe the charges against the Doctors anyway.
  
  
• Nobody can find any examples of "bestial anti-Semitism" during Stalin's time. Kostyrchenko himself, and the far-right "Memorial" organization, published a book titled State Antisemitism in the USSR. But they don't have any examples of it during Stalin's time.

Also, in-re the late 40s anti-cosmpolitanism campaign, which was used by some for anti-semitic purposes:

"According to the writer Faeev, after a few months the leader noted that the divulging of literary pseudonyms smelled of anti-Semitism. His colleague Simonov overheard Stalin saying:

'Why Mal'tsev, and then Rovinskii between brackets? What's the matter here? How long will this continue...? If a man chose a literary pseudonym for himself, it's his right.... But apparently someone is glad to emphasise that this person has a double surname, to emphasise that he is a Jew.... Why create anti-Semitism?'

Thereafter, the practice of revealing Jewish names stopped. Stalin also rejected Suslov's proposal according to which 'nationality' might be used as the official reason for dismissal from one's work place." (The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin, p. 205)

[Rafiq]

To change the subject slightly, what do you all make of the East German government's inclusion of a cryptofascist party - the national democratic party?

[Ismail]

To change the subject slightly, what do you all make of the East German government's inclusion of a cryptofascist party - the national democratic party?

Its statues did define it as an anti-fascist and anti-militarist party though, its position being that the Nazis led Germany to national ruin, that Hitler and Co. deceived the country, that the American occupation of the west would result in the defacement of German culture, and that US policy was leading Europe into another war which would supposedly destroy the German nation.

Apparently the majority of NDPD members weren't actually ex-NSDAP even though the NDPD did target former soldiers and those sections of the petty-bourgeoisie seen as sympathetic to the NSDAP back when it was in power.

East German materials in the 50s and 60s stressed the ex-Nazi aspect of the NDPD. Afterwards winning over ex-Nazis wasn't important anymore and the NDPD's activities shifted towards educating its members in the "spirit of socialism." From a 1986 East German publication: "The NDPD is mainly composed of members of the former middle classes. It greatly helped to overcome nationalistic thinking. Its members are private and cooperative craftsmen, tradespeople, intellectuals and cultural workers. The main thrust of the party's political work is strengthening socialist state consciousness. The NDPD bears a great deal of responsibility for the political and moral as well as the socio-economic development of these sectors of the population it represents." (The German Democratic Republic, Verlag Zeit im Bild, p. 62.)

[fugazi]

The Moscow Trials, particularly the second and third ones.

You can see the three reports for yourself:
* https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1ZP...?usp=drive_web
* https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1ZP...E2cjFaYTg/edit
* https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1ZP...FRSnUwTW8/edit

For a summary of the charges see chapters XVI-XX of the following work: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1ZP...hHYl9BUEE/edit

As Stalin put it: "Our Party comrades did not notice that Trotskyism has ceased to be a political trend in the working class, that it has changed from the political trend in the working class which it was seven or eight years ago, into a frantic and unprincipled gang of wreckers, diversionists, spies and murderers acting on the instructions of the intelligence services of foreign states."

After 1956 the Soviet revisionists ceased mentioning the Trials and dropped the claim that Trotsky had degenerated into a paid agent of fascism.

darkness at noon.

[Ismail]

darkness at noon.

... was a fiction work written by an anti-communist which has little to do with your original question.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Ironically, most of those people claim to be Marxists.

Is it not ironic that there are Marxists who claim not to agree with the great man theory?

[BolshevikBabe]

Is it not ironic that there are Marxists who claim not to agree with the great man theory?

So I'm guessing you think people who are Darwinists believe in the great man theory of history too?

[Tim Cornelis]

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/96/leninists

From quickly glancing over the text, they are referring to [Marxism-]Leninism (i.e. Stalinism) and not Lenin. I use 'Leninism' as with the ideas and writings associated and by Lenin.

We will wait till tomorrow.

I consider Bolshevik practice to have been counter-revolutionary, but I do not consider Leninism as such. The notion that Leninism advances the notion that 'socialism is capitalism minus ownership' is inaccurate as well. In State and Revolution it's clear that he understands socialism to include labour cheques, common property (and I think it's fair to assume associated labour as extension).

Lenin was a vanguardist, just like Marx and Kautsky, only more authoritarian, and such centralist ideas are inherently anti-socialist, that is- contrary to workers' power.

This is a statement but contains no argument.

I don't see how this is "authoritarian": And so in capitalist society we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false, a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to communism, will for the first time create democracy for the people, for the majority, along with the necessary suppression of the exploiters, of the minority. Communism alone is capable of providing really complete democracy, and the more complete it is, the sooner it will become unnecessary and wither away of its own accord. (State and Revolution)

Lenin and Trotsky instituted one man management in the economy, army and the party structure, Stalin only instituted it in the CC, it was a logical consequence. Party dictatorship and brutal oppression of dissidents no matter how small democratization they asked for- that also existed before Stalin. Those are all core leninist ideas, anti-socialist through and through.

No they are not "core Leninist ideals" and I challenge you to substantiate that. I'm not familiar with any of Lenin's theoretical writings that advocate the measures as implemented by the Bolsheviks.

Destroying socialism was the consequence of leninism being anti-socialist, not of any other circumstances, which is obvious to anyone who turns on his brain- if the historical circumstances really did preclude socialism then there wouldn't be in that time and place any socialists, socialist institutions, or a whole socialist society there, and thus no need to destroy any of them.

>destroying socialism
Socialism in one country?

Your understanding of Leninism seems to begin and end with Bolshevik practice and Stalinism, not with Lenin's writings.

Also, Bolsheviks themselves didn't blame their actions on circumstances, Trotsky wrote in '35 that to look at bolshevik methods as applicable only to backward Russia and not to advanced lands is the "consoling illusion" of "incurable Fabians".

Please tell us how being ruled by party managers is the same as managing one's work and life by oneself.

Why should I?

[Ismail]

Your understanding of Leninism seems to begin and end with Bolshevik practice and Stalinism, not with Lenin's writings.

Bolshevik practice was largely bound up with Lenin's writings and directives. One-man management, the formation of the Cheka, suppression of the Kronstadt mutineers, the NEP, and other subjects which get Lenin attacked by ultra-leftists were all initiated and given theoretical defenses by Lenin. Your statement would only make sense if Lenin died in 1917 or early 1918.

I don't see how this is "authoritarian": And so in capitalist society we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false, a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to communism, will for the first time create democracy for the people, for the majority, along with the necessary suppression of the exploiters, of the minority. Communism alone is capable of providing really complete democracy, and the more complete it is, the sooner it will become unnecessary and wither away of its own accord. (State and Revolution)

I don't see how this is a logical argument.

"Lenin was authoritarian."
"Lies, he said that Communism will be the most complete democracy ever!"
"Damn, looks like I was wrong."

People defending Lenin and Leninism are fine, people using dumb arguments and trying to turn Lenin into a figure more to their own liking is not fine.

Edit: I missed this comment of yours: "I'm not familiar with any of Lenin's theoretical writings that advocate the measures as implemented by the Bolsheviks."

To start with you could read the section "'Harmonious Organisation' and Dictatorship" in Lenin's "The Immediate Task of the Soviet Government." Among other things he notes that, "We must learn to combine the 'public meeting' democracy of the working people -- turbulent, surging, overflowing its banks like a spring flood -- with iron discipline while at work, with unquestioning obedience to the will of a single person, the Soviet leader, while at work."

[SensibleLuxemburgist]

Personally, I think Fidel Castro was a crypto-fascist in red colors. He read the works of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera when he was younger and he maintained relations with Francoist Spain after he took over Cuba. To add injury to the insult of the deaths of thousands of dead Spanish Republicans, socialists, and workers due to Franco's forces both during and after the Spanish Civil War, Castro mandated a mourning period after Franco's death.