- 18 Feb 2010 17:03
#13323987
I know that there are a fair number of Stalinists here, so I thought I'd raise this matter. Often non-communists and anti-Stalinist communists denounce the purging of the Old Bolsheviks and Stalin's show trials. While I oppose the show trials as being dishonest, having read a bit (just a bit) about the Old Bolsheviks it seems like Stalin's actions were intelligent. If you think about it, what sort of a person becomes a revolutionary? Generally a deranged lunatic, often of a marginalized ethnic group, who is unhappy with his own life and decides to blame others, including society, for his own shortcomings. Why would you want people like that around after the revolution?
To get into specifics, it seems like most of the victims of the Moscow trials were left communists. Left communism as I recall was called an infantile disorder by Lenin, and left communism's descendants today seem to be people like KurtFF8 and Parvus, concerned more with social oppression and the "rights" of degenerates and foreigners more than actual socialism. Further, many seem to have not been ethnic Russians. Unless I'm missing something, a majority were Jews as well (Radek, Sokolnikov, Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda, and Krestinsky were all Jewish for instance), whom Stalin later would rightly describe as rootless cosmopolitans.
So basically, it seems like the Old Bolsheviks were a series of nutjobs and untrustworthy aliens whom were carefully used by Lenin for a specific purpose, but ultimately outlived their usefulness and became a danger to the USSR. Stalin recognized this and eliminated them, consolidating his power and increasing the stability of the USSR in one fell swoop. Would the Stalinists here agree with this assessment, and what do the anti-Stalinists think?
To get into specifics, it seems like most of the victims of the Moscow trials were left communists. Left communism as I recall was called an infantile disorder by Lenin, and left communism's descendants today seem to be people like KurtFF8 and Parvus, concerned more with social oppression and the "rights" of degenerates and foreigners more than actual socialism. Further, many seem to have not been ethnic Russians. Unless I'm missing something, a majority were Jews as well (Radek, Sokolnikov, Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda, and Krestinsky were all Jewish for instance), whom Stalin later would rightly describe as rootless cosmopolitans.
So basically, it seems like the Old Bolsheviks were a series of nutjobs and untrustworthy aliens whom were carefully used by Lenin for a specific purpose, but ultimately outlived their usefulness and became a danger to the USSR. Stalin recognized this and eliminated them, consolidating his power and increasing the stability of the USSR in one fell swoop. Would the Stalinists here agree with this assessment, and what do the anti-Stalinists think?
Everything you believe is wrong. Yes, you!
Boom. You just got Dave'd. -Bramlow
Boom. You just got Dave'd. -Bramlow