Beria an Indictment of Stalin?

[Antiochus]

I've read a bit more about Beria and the guy seems like an opportunistic piece of shit and serial rapist. Whats more is his "proclivities" seem to have been well known within the Stalinist regime. Why on earth would they continue promoting such a guy, is this not in itself an indictment on Stalin himself?

[General Winter]

I've read a bit more about Beria

From bourgeois sources,I guess? And what information did you expect to have from them?

[Heretek]

Stalin is an indictment of Stalin, what do you expect of those he surrounds himself with

[Antiochus]

From bourgeois sources,I guess? And what information did you expect to have from them?

No, from 'Soviet' sources. Never mind the fact that Beria was all too happy to celebrate Stalin's death anyway. Beria being a serial rapist is quite well known, not merely a random calumny. Soviet archives confirm this too.

[General Winter]

Can I know what "Soviet sources" do you mean? Something from the time of a bourgeois restoration known under the name of "perestroyka"? Or something really serious?

[General Winter]

Well,I'll answer myself.

The only serious source of information on any crime,the only primary source is a court record.No one till this time has ever seen the record of Beria's court.This raises doubts the court really has happened to be.There is a version that Beria was simply killed during his arrest without any trail. Anyway, no one has everv seen documents that proves Beria's guilt.

The myth of serial rapist Beria was pushed in 1960-s by anti-Soviet writer Aksenov and since this the gossip was many times repeated by all anti-commies as an andisputable fact.

Let's use our brain.

beria.jpg

This is a house of Beria ( click the image ). A one-storied building with five rooms.

In this five rooms constantly lived Beria's wife Nino,as they say a very beautiful and dominatrix woman;his son Sergo,btw an exellent engeneer,one of the founders of the Soviet air defense system; daughter in law Martha;three grandkids.

And that's not the whole story.

There are houshold workers who constantly present in the house.

Numerous security.

Couriers.

State messengers.

Permanent place of secret communication with two operators as a minimum.

Now if somebody is able to explain me how it is possible in this human crowd to sneeze secretly (not to mantion raping), I'll believe without doubt that Beria was the serial rapist and the British spy.However,the second accusation anti-commies do not like to remember, perhaps because they think that to be the British spy is not a bad thing.

[The Idler]

Why would a society that had achieved socialism have a secret police or a nuclear bomb?
What should socialists think of a person in charge of the secret police or building a nuclear bomb?

He attended the Yalta Conference with Stalin, who introduced him to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as "our Himmler".

[Ismail]

One thing I find interesting about Beria is that seemingly nobody who worked with him liked him, including "Stalinists" like Molotov (who condemns Beria in his 1970s-80s recollections and who claims Beria personally boasted to him of poisoning Stalin.)

From Andrei Gromyko's Glasnost-era Memoirs, pages 317-318,

It was a short time after Stalin's death, during the so-called 'interregnum' of March to September 1953, when the Politburo (or Presidium as it was called between 1952 and 1966) consisted of only ten people, and a new General Secretary (at that time called First Secretary) had not yet been found. Sessions were being chaired by Malenkov and were no longer held in Stalin's study. At one meeting when the Politburo was discussing the question of East Germany, the discussion was getting quite lively. Malenkov was in the chair with Molotov and Beria alongside him. On either side of the table were Kaganovich, Mikoyan and Bulganin. Vyshinsky and I, as Deputy Foreign Ministers, had been summoned that day, since the GDR was on the agenda.

Malenkov opened the discussion, pointing out the importance of the GDR, since it was in the forefront of our negotiations with the Western powers... although not everyone held the same point of view, the differences were not over matters of principle.

Until suddenly Beria spoke up: 'The GDR? What does it amount to, this GDR? It's not even a real state. It's only kept in being by Soviet troops, even if we do call it the "German Democratic Republic".'

We were all shocked by such political crudeness, and that he could say this about a socialist country in a dismissive tone and with a sneer on his face.

The first reproof came from Molotov. Speaking firmly, he said: 'The Democratic Republic is in the same position as the Federal Republic. I strongly object to such an attitude to a friendly country. It has the right to exist as an independent state.'

Then Malenkov spoke. Although his tone was milder than Molotov's, there was no mistaking the fact that he did not share Beria's point of view. Bulganin, Kaganovich and Mikoyan all agreed with Molotov and Malenkov and expressed warm support for the GDR. The discussion then came to a close. Beria was confounded...

Beria's dismissive judgement of the GDR was enough to get him kicked out of the leadership. His position reflected a hostile and insulting attitude to the first workers' state on German soil. This sort of thing happened with him more than once, and Beria was finally exposed in full later that year, when he was arrested, tried and shot.

He then talks about Vyshinsky, who was said to be similarly unpopular among everyone and who was associated with Beria.

Why would a society that had achieved socialism have a secret police or a nuclear bomb?

Because so long as capitalism and imperialism still exist in the world, so will the danger of subversion and war. The USSR's nuclear program was in response to American attempts at nuclear blackmail. The USSR was always at the forefront, beginning in Lenin's day, in advocating world disarmament whether in terms of standing armies or atom bombs.

What should socialists think of a person in charge of the secret police or building a nuclear bomb?

"Thanks for defending socialism." Dzerzhinsky, Menzhinsky, Andropov and Kryuchkov were all pretty honorable men, clearly different from the aberrations that were Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria.

[Antiochus]

3 people placed in highly important posts with a very specific function doesn't seem like an aberration. But I am actually curious specifically if Beria the serial rapist was known to the Soviet leadership all along or if it was simply something used to shoot him later on at their convenience.

[Ismail]

3 people placed in highly important posts with a very specific function doesn't seem like an aberration. But I am actually curious specifically if Beria the serial rapist was known to the Soviet leadership all along or if it was simply something used to shoot him later on at their convenience.

According to Gromyko, Vyshinsky was always concerned about Stalin having information of him during his Menshevik period. According to to other sources, copious materials also existed against Beria.

By "aberration" I didn't mean in terms of their placement, I meant in terms of them as individuals. The Idler seems to think that the heads of security services are all alike, which isn't true. That Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria could emerge was due to the deviations from Leninist norms that developed as a result of Kirov's assassination.

"Stalin rightly stressed the necessity of strengthening the Soviet State in every possible way, of keeping a watchful eye on the intrigues of enemies and, above all, on the machinations of the hostile capitalist encirclement... On the other hand in 1937, when Socialism was already victorious in the U.S.S.R., Stalin advanced the erroneous thesis that the class struggle in the country would intensify as the Soviet State grew stronger... In practice it served as a justification for mass repressions against the Party's ideological enemies who had already been routed politically. Many honest Communists and non-Party people, not guilty of any offence, also became victims of these repressions. During this period the political adventurer and scoundrel, Beria, who did not stop short at any atrocity to achieve his criminal aims, worked his way into responsible positions in the State, and, taking advantage of Stalin's personal shortcomings, slandered and exterminated many honest people, devoted to the Party and the people.

In the same period a despicable role was played by Yezhov, the then People's Commissar for Home Affairs. Many workers, both Communists and non-Party people, who were utterly devoted to the cause of the Party, were slandered with his assistance and perished. Yezhov and Beria were duly punished for their crimes." - History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1960, pages 512-513.

[General Winter]

Why would a society that had achieved socialism have a secret police or a nuclear bomb?

To protect itself.

What should socialists think of a person in charge of the secret police or building a nuclear bomb?

They should think the person had a major role in the protection of socialism.

[Heretek]

To protect itself.



They should think the person had a major role in the protection of socialism.

Please, protect us some more. I think the nuclear holocaust is the only way socialism can be safe.

[Ismail]

Please, protect us some more. I think the nuclear holocaust is the only way socialism can be safe.

That was Mao's view, not the Soviet view. The Soviet purpose in having nuclear weapons was defensive. The US, during the period when it felt it had superiority over the USSR in this area (the 1940s-60s), regularly threatened to attack the USSR. The Soviets made many proposals for disarmament. Among other things, the Soviets had a no-first-strike pledge and called on the Americans to follow up on it, which they refused to do. The Soviets also weren't the ones who wrecked SALT II or who created the "Star Wars" program which, if fully implemented, would have given the US free reign to strike the Soviets without having to worry about the possibility of counterattack.

The Soviets never sought to "one-up" the Americans in the arms race. Their goal remained parity with whatever advances the Americans made so that the US could not blackmail them with nuclear annihilation. Soviet theory explicitly held that the results of nuclear war would render capitalism versus socialism a moot point.

[Antiochus]

^^Not totally true. The Soviets actually pioneered ICBMs and that includes as a nuclear delivery system ofc.

[Ismail]

^^Not totally true. The Soviets actually pioneered ICBMs and that includes as a nuclear delivery system ofc.

True enough, but it doesn't change that they came about in the context of deterring the US. Case in point, during the 1950s and in the 1960 Presidential campaign there were claims of a "missile gap" which grossly overstated the amount of ICBMs the Soviets had (claiming they'd have up to a thousand by 1961, as opposed to actually having about four by 1962.)

The fundamental thing is that there was no Soviet equivalent to the arms manufacturers in capitalist countries. In the US the arms race promised tons of profits to business, whereas in the USSR it only served to siphon money and materials that could have been used for non-military purposes. The prospects of détente were welcomed far more in the USSR than in the US for that reason.

[General Winter]

That was Mao's view, not the Soviet view. The Soviet purpose in having nuclear weapons was defensive. The US, during the period when it felt it had superiority over the USSR in this area (the 1940s-60s), regularly threatened to attack the USSR. The Soviets made many proposals for disarmament. Among other things, the Soviets had a no-first-strike pledge and called on the Americans to follow up on it, which they refused to do. The Soviets also weren't the ones who wrecked SALT II or who created the "Star Wars" program which, if fully implemented, would have given the US free reign to strike the Soviets without having to worry about the possibility of counterattack.

The Soviets never sought to "one-up" the Americans in the arms race. Their goal remained parity with whatever advances the Americans made so that the US could not blackmail them with nuclear annihilation. Soviet theory explicitly held that the results of nuclear war would render capitalism versus socialism a moot point.

Don't you see that the dude simply wants a disarmament of the Soviet Union before the bourgeoisie ?

[Heretek]

Don't you see that the dude simply wants a disarmament of the Soviet Union before the bourgeoisie ?

Please, tell me how the Soviet Union disarming today would in any way affect the world? I have trouble believing it would because it doesn't seem to exist.

[Homo Songun]

Please, tell me how the Soviet Union disarming today would in any way affect the world? I have trouble believing it would because it doesn't seem to exist.

Yes, and I suspect your belief is that it couldn't have come soon enough. So why the rhetorical posturing about a state defending itself by any means available? If one follows Marx, one understands that the exigencies of statecraft demand it, whatever ones political ideals.

[Heretek]

Yes, and I suspect your belief is that it couldn't have come soon enough. So why the rhetorical posturing about a state defending itself by any means available? If one follows Marx, one understands that the exigencies of statecraft demand it, whatever ones political ideals.

My point has and continues to be A) the Soviets were not a communist or socialist society and B) if they were, if communism has been achieved, why are weapons designed to kill humans continually created? Finally, not as emphasized in the last post C) Great Man fetishization is counter-revolutionary

Perhaps I should expand this to D) socialism has no place for nationalism

I take it from your stance you think the Soviet Union, even in the last of days, after the death of precious Stalin, was a 'socialist society,' the one true bastion against capital? Pathetic. Why would you continue to defend a society, a state, an instrument of capital, after absolutely all traces of revolutionary thought or practice had been wiped out?

[Homo Songun]

My point has and continues to be A) the Soviets were not a communist or socialist society and B) if they were, if communism has been achieved, why are weapons designed to kill humans continually created? Finally, not as emphasized in the last post C) Great Man fetishization is counter-revolutionary

Perhaps I should expand this to D) socialism has no place for nationalism

I take it from your stance you think the Soviet Union, even in the last of days, after the death of precious Stalin, was a 'socialist society,' the one true bastion against capital? Pathetic. Why would you continue to defend a society, a state, an instrument of capital, after absolutely all traces of revolutionary thought or practice had been wiped out?

Yes. To be utterly explicit: suppose I grant all the points you make about the Soviet Union. Again, my question is, if you do not support "actually existing socialism" with or without nukes, why are you posing the question to the rest of us as if it matters?