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#14720541
I don't understand the Pro-Stalin sentiment. The Soviet Union doesn't seem very Communist to me. The purges under Stalin, do you Stalinists deny them, or at least his involvement? I watched documentaries on Stalin but I understand the possible bias against him (As they were American). Can you Stalinists explain your reasoning and if possible help me understand and be able to empathize with that view.

Stalin's USSR is widely seen as comparable to Hitler, so why support is ideals.
#14720551
While I wouldn't call myself a Stalinist, Western sentiment regarding Stalin is hypocritical. At the time of the Great Purge, Moscow Trials, etc, socialism in the USSR was still facing off against a world that was capitalist and opposed to its very existence: many nations participated in expeditions and invasions of what would become the USSR during the Revolution. Not only were there imperialists like Hitler (who wrote veiled threats against the Soviet people) or the Japanese (who attempted to assert their dominance over East Asia and move against Soviet interests there), socialists in the USSR had to contend with Trotskyites whose ideology served the interests of global capitalism, in that Trotskyism was a recipe for defeat in spreading socialists thin and guaranteeing defeat against the organized, established forces of capitalism and bourgeois democracy, who would then demonize socialists and labor and claim they were "anti-democratic." Trotsky continued to agitate for unity coalitions with the social democrats, who represent forces opposed to the transition of capitalism to socialism.

The Purges were born out of a multitude of reasons, but I think the underlying common factor was the need to try and rid the USSR of elements seen as pro-Trotsky or counterrevolutionary: in every successful socialist revolution there is always a risk of liberalization (moving away from socialism towards capitalism) and anti-revolutionary reforms promoted by such people. The Purges killed people who probably had done nothing wrong and weren't involved in plots to kill Stalin or were even counterrevolutionary. Of course the other major consideration was Stalin wanting to rid himself of any possible rivals or organized groups of military officers thinking about plotting against him, but I think the desire to rid the USSR of Trotskyism was the primary factor.

I'm not sure what you mean by comparable to Hitler: the USSR was not fascist, did not engage in genocide, and didn't promote racism. Ethnic groups were discriminated against and some were deported internally, but it's not like that never happened in other countries. Doesn't make it right, but the forcible deportation of ethnic groups happened in many countries, like the many removals of American Indians to worse land west countless times, and so on, and it was certainly not unique to the Soviet Union. The collectivization of agriculture is something I'm pretty ambivalent toward: while the pace of industrialization of the USSR allowed for rapid development, collectivization was a mixed bag. The gulag system was also not perfect, but the concept of labor camps isn't uniquely Soviet, and while the conditions were certainly harsh, it's not like the prison systems in the rest of world aren't bad.

As for the Purges themselves and mass arrests and whatnot, if there was ever a threat against the established government of any Western nation, real or perceived, the same would happen. No one should forget the waves of violence against organized labor during the 19th and 20th centuries by social democrats, businessmen, police, and the Army not just in America but in Germany immediately after WWI and many other countries.

The USSR under Stalin had its ups and downs, and not everything was perfect. Mistakes were made and people died. It's a revolution based on class struggle: what do people expect? I also don't mean to sound like I'm a callous guy: my ancestry and immediate family includes Crimean Germans, one of the ethnic groups discriminated against during the Stalinist era. So again, I'm not a Stalinist and I think Stalin made some pretty bad decisions, but at the same time there was a revolution to safeguard against the forces of capitalism that continued to try to undermine socialism in the USSR. In any country where a socialist revolution has achieved immediate victory, counterrevolutionary reformers and remnants of the bourgeoisie (the ruling class) are always a threat. The bourgeoisie of every capitalist society has maintained its control through violence, exploitation, using social democracy/reforms to try and stop socialism, and terror for a long time: why would that ruling class suddenly abandon its historical methods of murder and violence when faced with the prospect of the working class seizing state institutions and the means of production, and forcibly disenfranchise the ruling class?

I don't think it's hard to fathom why Stalin did some of the things he did. It also helps to consider how terribly backwards Russia was when the Bolsheviks seized power, including how it was hardly industrialized. In a short span of time, which included utilizing forced labor, Lenin and later Stalin basically dragged the USSR kicking and screaming into the 20th century.
#14720562
Thank you for that, very well put. Just a couple of points/questions. Firstly, I was talking about the Hitler and Stalin comparison in a cultural sense, generally viewing Stalin and Hitler in the same light. This is because of Anti-Communism and Anti-Nazism going hand in hand during the 20th Century in America. I personally don't compare the two beyond the Totalitarianism of their respective regimes. But we all know that Anti-Socialist/Communist ideals stick in the heads of people and grouping Stalin in with the Nazis helps to deteriorate his image more. As for what you said about the purges, I don't agree with what you stated, you essential said was the purges were necessary, yet extreme. But any Western nation would do the same. Their were groups all over the western world that were a risk to capitalism, such as George Rockwell and his Nazi party, as tensions between the white and black people of America were fueled by the Civil Rights movement, it was possible that white people (especially in the south) would support National Socialism, but we still see these groups growing today and Rockwell was assassinated by a former member of his party not the government. So if Stalin was willing to send to death camps Millions to rat out his detractors, but America was content on leaving a threat alone to protect freedom of expression. How could you say that western countries would have done the same?
#14720565
TrumpSortOfMeme wrote:Firstly, I was talking about the Hitler and Stalin comparison in a cultural sense, generally viewing Stalin and Hitler in the same light. This is because of Anti-Communism and Anti-Nazism going hand in hand during the 20th Century in America. I personally don't compare the two beyond the Totalitarianism of their respective regimes. But we all know that Anti-Socialist/Communist ideals stick in the heads of people and grouping Stalin in with the Nazis helps to deteriorate his image more.


Yes, both headed totalitarian regimes. I was pointing out the distinction that Stalin was not a fascist and neither was the Soviet Union. You can compare Hitler to a lot of people in the same sense: Genghis Khan in terms of mass murder, Cecil Rhodes in terms of colonialist/imperialist vision of domination and racial supremacy, and so on. You can compare a lot of people to the different facets of Stalin, too.

As for what you said about the purges, I don't agree with what you stated, you essential said was the purges were necessary, yet extreme. But any Western nation would do the same. Their were groups all over the western world that were a risk to capitalism, such as George Rockwell and his Nazi party, as tensions between the white and black people of America were fueled by the Civil Rights movement, it was possible that white people (especially in the south) would support National Socialism, but we still see these groups growing today and Rockwell was assassinated by a former member of his party not the government. So if Stalin was willing to send to death camps Millions to rat out his detractors, but America was content on leaving a threat alone to protect freedom of expression. How could you say that western countries would have done the same?


I was basically pointing out how Stalinists tend to feel about the Purges. As a communist, I agree with "purges" in the sense of the way socialism is intended to liquidate the bourgeoisie (this doesn't necessitate mass murder, but liquidation in the sense of how the aristocracy around the world has gradually been liquidated through violent and nonviolent means over the centuries as capitalism has replaced feudalism). Liquidating the bourgeoisie is a necessary function of socialism if it is to survive.

As for what you say about how the West treats opposition groups, we have to consider here how independence movements and ethnic resistance were treated for centuries by Western governments. Mass murder and genocide was acceptable for a long time. In the more modern era, it moved towards murder and violence inflicted upon men who went on strike simply to earn a decent wage for other working men. The police and the Army were used to murder such people in an attempt to destroy organized labor. Western governments have sought to destroy Marxist organizations by banning Marxist parties and conducting mass arrests. The US government doesn't need to arrest all members of the KKK and all neo-Nazis because these organizations are powerless, even when they had tens of thousands of members. You have to keep in mind that for the last century, the US government has worked hard to infiltrate and dismantle any Marxist organization capable of amounting to anything; it is now a matter of public record how the FBI and other government agencies have worked hard to sabotage and discredit socialism in America. By the 1930s, with socialist organizations in America effectively neutered for good, government propaganda made the very notion of socialism and workers' liberation entirely distorted, and with the Cold War there was little further need for the US government to employ the same kind of heavy-handed violence deemed necessary over in the USSR against its own enemies. If the efforts during the early 20th century weren't successful in destroying the socialist movement in the US, we would continue to see the police and the Army murder people agitating in real strikes and real labor movements. The only reason we see less of that kind of violence now is because that kind of violence happened a century ago, broke the labor movement, and can afford to be less violent to give the impression people have freedom of choice. Should any of that change, and a socialist movement arise again, there's absolutely no reason to possibly think the political and business establishment would possibly let it happen without the same kind of bloodshed they inflicted on the working poor before.

The extreme majority of people who fell victim to the Purges were incarcerated, not killed.
#14720647
Lots of people purged were later rehabilitated and lived long successful happy lives after paying for their crimes. As Bulaba said there is a tendency in capitalist propaganda to talk about x number of people "purged" with the reader not given any information on what that term means (people tend to assume it means killed). A short prison sentence with a bit of manual work is not the worst thing in the world and frankly is much better than class traitors deserve.

As for the love of Stalin, what is not to love? He saved the entire worlds working class from the Nazis, we all owe him our lives. He was without doubt the greatest hero the working class ever had.
#14720708
Decky wrote:He saved the entire worlds working class from the Nazis, we all owe him our lives.

The Nazis only came to power because the German Communist party deputies refused to support a moderate government. Basically the red Fascists combined with the brown to end democracy in Germany. Stalin veered back and forth on cooperation with moderate socialists and democratic parties. He was for cooperation, before twenty eight and then denounced the social democrats as social fascists. Once it was too late and the Nazis were in power he swung to popular fronts. Then he ended the popular fronts when he made his alliance with Hitler in 39. Gestapo and NKVD worked together to destroy Polish nationalist resistance. Communist parties were ordered to collaborate with their Nazi occupiers in the German occupied countries. In Britain, France, Belgium etc the Communists supported a victory for Hitler and a defeat for their own nation. Russian resources were vital to the Nazi war machine from 39 to 41. Then Stalin swung again.
#14720755
TrumpSortOfMeme wrote:Very good points, that makes sense. Funny isn't it, the establishment fears Socialists undoing it, but now its undoing itself.


I just want to make it clear again to you and anyone else that I'm not a Stalinist. I think that the Soviet Union was a good thing, and that it made a real attempt to establish socialism for good. A lot of mistakes, as well as a lot of social good, were made along the way. I thoroughly reject the idea that anyone needs to lie on behalf of Stalin or the USSR to promote Marxism: Marxism ought to stand on its own and speak for itself than anyone needing to promote fantasies and propaganda about any particular man.

Many things Stalin did were indefensible. But I honestly believe he also ended up doing a lot of good. The Soviet people, despite any abuses that occurred, had a greatly improved standard of living by the time Stalin died than when he took charge. Education, industrialization, class equality (the USSR obviously did not manage this), science, and so on were dramatically improved, almost from the ground up in some cases, throughout Stalin's reign. At the same time, he did terrible things which give people ammo to tarnish socialism, and it's almost entirely deserved.

Despite the things he did wrong, it doesn't change the core idea that instead of bourgeois democracy, we should have a proletarian democracy (of sorts; you may have heard the more common term "dictatorship of the proletariat" which is meant to contrast with what our society is now, a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie), that labor ought not be exploited as the basis for our economic system, and that the means of production should be seized by the working class for the benefit of everyone, not just a wealthy and lucky few. Many good things did happen in the USSR regardless of one's opinion of Stalin, and I think people, being adult enough to handle political truths or be able to interpret history, ought to have the right to be able to separate a single man from the idea itself.
#14720756
THE PRO-STALIN ARGUMENT

By naked_turk - Tue 03 Apr 2012, 08:44

viewtopic.php?t=138839



When I googled this subject, this old thread came on top of other results. Stalin’s supporters promote his legacy as a strong leader who led the Soviet Union to victory in World War II and stood up to the West during the Cold War. The pro-Stalin camp is led by the defunct Russian Communist Party not all Russians are in love with Stalin in Russia. In the past two election cycles, the CP increased its vote from about 12 to 20% and the Communist Party won 42 seats with 13.54% of the vote in recent parliamentary elections.

Image
#14720764
Bulaba Jones wrote: ...socialists in the USSR had to contend with Trotskyites whose ideology served the interests of global capitalism, in that Trotskyism was a recipe for defeat in spreading socialists thin and guaranteeing defeat against the organized, established forces of capitalism and bourgeois democracy, who would then demonize socialists and labor and claim they were "anti-democratic." Trotsky continued to agitate for unity coalitions with the social democrats, who represent forces opposed to the transition of capitalism to socialism...


What is historically interesting is not the validity of Trotsky's political stance, but the inevitable rigidity inherent in the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet model was doomed from the very start. Perhaps all such innovative models are, but the DotP ended up being a perversion of socialism. Worker ownership and control of the means of production should mean precisely that. Workers neither owned nor controlled the means of production in the Soviet Union, except in the most attenuated sense.

Bulaba Jones wrote:Many things Stalin did were indefensible. But I honestly believe he also ended up doing a lot of good. The Soviet people, despite any abuses that occurred, had a greatly improved standard of living by the time Stalin died than when he took charge. Education, industrialization, class equality (the USSR obviously did not manage this), science, and so on were dramatically improved, almost from the ground up in some cases, throughout Stalin's reign.


Such arguments could be also made (to a lesser degree) about social democrats who managed to improve living standards in their countries. Ultimately the Soviet model did not achieve socialism, and it is critical to acknowledge this.
#14720831
Bulaba Jones wrote:I just want to make it clear again to you and anyone else that I'm not a Stalinist.

Bulaba Jones wrote:Of course, the correct choice for you would be to reexamine your feelings for Stalin, the gentle father of nations, but I digress.


A recent change in attitude?
I'm just messing with ya. :P
#14720998
Decky wrote:You don't have to be a Stalinist to love Stalin, you just have to be a human.


It would seem most people disagree with that statement.
#14721317
It is very easy to make out Trotsky to have been some sort of saint who could have done no wrong when he never actually held power. If Trotsky had been in Stalin's position I have no doubt that he would have been just as ruthless, if not more. It is entirely possible that the Soviet Union would have been destroyed under his leadership.
#14721553
For Trotsky, it was about the revolution. For Stalin, there was that whole problem Lenin had with him as, "a real and true 'nationalist-socialist', and even a vulgar Great-Russian bully [that], violates, in substance, the interests of proletarian class solidarity..."

It's as easy to speculate that Trotsky would have pushed for revolutions in Germany, Italy, China, and other places hard enough that it all would have been aces; as it is to speculate he would have tried, failed, and brought the fascist reaction faster on top of a Russian population with less of an infrastructure.

We just don't know, so people tend to project themselves on Trotsky; which is why you have Trotskyists proudly saying they oppose Trotsky's theories for some reason.
#14913788
The first thing that needs to be understood is that the price of revolution is blood, each major phase of "enlightenment" from the agrarianism onwards has been bought with blood. Socialism is a dictatorship of the proletariat that seeks to superimpose itself on society until the antagonistic forces that give rise to capitalism are eliminated. So unfortunately like all others that precede it marxist revolution will be bloody.
We hear talk of the horrors of gulags from the US all the while they ignore the fact that the US has the worlds largest prison population and coupled with the 13th Amendment prison slavery is part of the fabric of US politics, then of course there is Guantanamo Bay. Here in the UK we have used concentration camps to subdue rebellion all over "empire" and still to this day participate in torture programs around the world. Prisons are instruments of oppression that according to Foucault remove "enemies" from sight. The Gulag system was designed to deal with those seeking to overthrow the rule of the proletariat, the state exists dialectically to both uplift and oppress. Capitalism uses the state to give power to the bourgeois classes while oppressing the working classes, subjugating people to profit, under socialism the state in the early stages of revolution (an ongoing process) is used to give power to the proletariat and oppress those who seek to elevate capital over people. So yes both have these oppressive instruments but the key difference is their deployment, one in service of capital the other in service of the people.
This talk of Hitler and Stalin being compatible is literally propaganda, we hear outrageous numbers when people talk of Stalin I read the other day he murdered 60m people which is ridiculous if you consider that there was no population collapse, considering the total population of the USSR at the beginning of Stalin's was between 90-100m catastrophic population collapse would have been inevitable. While Stalin is compared to Hitler, Churchill who killed 4m in West Bengal during ww2 is lauded as a hero, Churchill also instituted concentration camps in Africa and sent death squads to Ireland.
So the truth about Stalin? He was definitely flawed and he definitely made mistakes, he effectively closed any form of cultural revolution which did adversely effect the revolution but his subjugating economic production to serve the people was hugely positive. He was not the great thinker that many "stalinists" claim him to be but he was an excellent administrator and he could apply the marxist theory to economic and social development of the USSR and his policies radically improved the quality of life for so many citizens of the USSR.
Socialism is a dictatorship of the proletariat it is not the singular autocratic rule of monarchy, he could have been removed if the people willed it, he was merely the chairman of he communist party. To claim that he "usurped power" like some royal bandit completely disregards the nature of socialist democracy.
#14914005
Alexei Peshkov wrote: Socialism is a dictatorship of the proletariat that seeks to superimpose itself on society until the antagonistic forces that give rise to capitalism are eliminated.


Socialism is definitely not gulaging people into submission.

We hear talk of the horrors of gulags from the US all the while they ignore the fact that the US has the worlds largest prison population and coupled with the 13th Amendment prison slavery is part of the fabric of US politics, then of course there is Guantanamo Bay. Here in the UK we have used concentration camps to subdue rebellion all over "empire" and still to this day participate in torture programs around the world.


If it's ok for the red fascists to interrogate, gulag, and execute their ideological enemies I don't see why it would be wrong for capitalists to do likewise?

Prisons are instruments of oppression


They can be, but not when they're used to lock up dangerous felons. That's justice, not oppression.


The Gulag system was designed to deal with those seeking to overthrow the rule of the proletariat


It may have been designed for that, but it was primarily used to protect the oligarchs of collectivism from the proles.

under socialism the state in the early stages of revolution (an ongoing process) is used to give power to the proletariat and oppress those who seek to elevate capital over people. So yes both have these oppressive instruments but the key difference is their deployment, one in service of capital the other in service of the people.


Maybe in theory, but not at all in reality.


This talk of Hitler and Stalin being compatible is literally propaganda,

I read the other day he murdered 60m people which is ridiculous


Even the official number from Soviet records is 3 million over thirty years. That's a lot of murdering.

So the truth about Stalin?


He was a mass murderer and a brutal thug who lived like a czar off the backs of his gulaged zeks.

Socialism is a dictatorship of the proletariat


Socialism isn't any kind of dictatorship.

he could have been removed if the people willed it


That's true of every tyrant in history.

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