[Andropov]

Why do nationalists dislike the Soviet Union?

I believe the Soviet Union was as a function much like Revolutionary France; a national revolt (meaning a revolt by the nation) against a state that was unwilling or unable to support it. Both were at first internationalist in outlook, but so was Republicanism, but nobody would consider modern France to be an "aberration" of "real" France, unlike many think of the USSR as an "aberration" of Russia.

The Soviet Union heavily used Russian imagery in its propaganda and promoted ethnopluralism over multiculturalism. It favored class collaboration, between the farmers, workers, scientists, bureaucrats, etc, over class warfare, as the "classes" were seen as natural and not in conflict. The USSR was, in theory, just as much as a volksgemeinschaft as Nazi Germany.

The USSR was very much a continuation of the Russian nation, and Russian nationalists should take pride in its acheivements and not shy away from them.

Stalin's speech to the Red Army in Moscow:

[youtube]8IGbjPqFFvA[/youtube]

Stalin references Alexander Nevsky and other Russian national heroes, and calls on the Red Army to "defend the motherland" from the "Germanic hordes".

[Potemkin]

Never before or since has Russia been as powerful as it was under the rule of Comrade Stalin. For a Russian nationalist, that should be reason enough to admire Stalin's achievements, despite the many negative aspects of his regime.

[Far-Right Sage]

No, no, no.

I'm currently a bit sleepy, but I'd like to hopefully take the time soon and dispute this.

What you're referring to are the nationalistic and Russian chauvinist aspects of Stalinism, not the long-term anti-statist ideals which Marx and Engels theorized and Lenin helped put into actual practice. "Socialism in one country" shouldn't be mistaken for a nationalistic belief system. Many Communists of Stalin's school believed that by strengthening Russia (and by extension the other Soviet republics) Communism was strengthened worldwide, as Russian might was the last best hope for the success of the Red banner globally. Trotsky had some differing views, hence why Comrade Stalin stopped his whining.

There are some aspects to admire of Stalin's rule and personal character, but this doesn't render Soviet Communism in any period a move toward an evolutionary national identity.

Concerning spiritual life, in Georgia alone under Soviet rule, 200 Georgian Orthodox churches were left opened by the 80's out of an original 2,100 in 1917. Also in 1917, mosques throughout Central Asia numbered 25,000, an integral part of daily life in, for example, Azerbaijan. By the early 70's, this number had been reduced to 500. Marxism was highly regressive in that sense (although they wouldn't see it in such a way) and a menace to culture.

but nobody would consider modern France to be an "aberration" of "real" France

Charles Maurras, Action Française, and the Legitimist faction might have something to say about that.

[Baff]

Never before or since has Russia been as powerful as it was under the rule of Comrade Stalin. For a Russian nationalist, that should be reason enough to admire Stalin's achievements, despite the many negative aspects of his regime.

This about sums it up for me.

The saviours of Europe.

[Political Interest]

But Stalin was not a Russian, more like a Russified Georgian.

[fuser]

You don't have to be Russian to become a Russian nationalist. Why don't you try it out.

[Preston Cole]

I agree with FRS. The Soviet Union might be a beacon of nationalism for Russians, just like Ceausescu is a beacon of moderate nationalism for some Romanians (a small number), but for the countries neighboring the Soviet Union before and after the war, the USSR with its Marxism was threatening European culture, nationalism and spirit. For many modern nationalists, including myself, the USSR represents a dark episode of our national history where traditions, culture and our spiritual nationalism suffered mostly negative changes. Marxists will claim that the countries that were under their control in the past were "patriotic," but that's only from their warped materialism-imperialism viewpoint.

It favored class collaboration, between the farmers, workers, scientists, bureaucrats, etc, over class warfare, as the "classes" were seen as natural and not in conflict. The USSR was, in theory, just as much as a volksgemeinschaft as Nazi Germany.

Farmers, workers, scientists, etc., are not classes. I keep hearing this bullshit that the Soviet Union was "class collaborationist" when Stalinism proved to be the greatest enemy of class collaboration through its crimes against the European peasantry. Provide some evidence that the USSR had a corporatist system where the real classes (not the phony ones Marxists cling to) worked together in the interest of nationalism like they did in Germany, Italy, Argentina, Iraq and Spain.

[Political Interest]

By the 1970s was the Soviet Union really still Marxist, or was Marxism-Leninism more of a shield for a quasi-Eurasianist Soviet nationalist foreign policy? In my view the USSR by this time was more or less nominally Marxist or at the very least had in place a moderate form of Marxism-Leninism. Decisions in the USSR seemed more about retaining the system and status quo, more out of conservatism and wanting to preserve the way of life and economic and political systems of the country. No where was there seen anything on the scale of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, there were also no ideologically driven campaigns such as the Great Leap Forward. It seems that either by the latter years the USSR had reached ideological maturity in that it was now no longer in the phase of extremism or mass killings, but had instead become more pragmatic. Was this because they did not believe in Marxism was strongly as before or was it because they were looking to exercise their practical interests? It is very hard to tell.

[Seer]

The USSR was by all means a vehicle for the exportation of Russian culture and language. Even by the early 1920's, party schools and other institutions throughout the old Russian Empire (Ukraine for example) were being forced to adopt Russian as the official language and all other languages were forbidden to be used. Also, add to the fact that one of it's primary leaders practically denied his Georgian heritage and changed his name to one more suitable for a man leading the old Russian Empire. Any notions on internationalism need only look at the exploitation of eastern europe and the famine of Ukraine to see the facts: The USSR was merely a second iteration of the Russian Empire and the natural evolution of Russian empire making.

[Social_Critic]

The Soviet Union was Imperialist. I know because I was there. I remember one day, right after the fall of the USSR, I was in a town in Kazakhstan and I ran into a local official, who had a box of business cards all the other foreigners had been dropping on him. When he saw I was Cuban, he decided I had to be the only guy around he could trust, seeing how Cuba was poor, ruled by an idiot, and could never dream of invading Kazak territory. He explained to me he had just recently taken over his job, that his "Russian masters" had been driven out of office, and now he had to sort out things, but he had been educated as an engineer at the Aktybinsk Engine Bolt University, and he didn't have the foggiest idea of what the cards meant or what those guys were all about.

I explained to him all of them were greedy capitalists who represented large corporate interests in their repective countries, although some of them definitely had the look of CIA types trying to pass as businessmen. I decided not to turn out the CIA and other intelligence types I identified, after all I'm not Dick Cheney and I knew we had to find all that weapons grade uranium, but I did open his eyes as much as possible before I offered him $5000 to sell me the contents of the file room he had. I didn't know if that file room was really worth it, but I was nervous carrying the money in my socks (we had stopped using money belts after the gypsies in Moscow figured out the trick). Eventually we shook hands on the deal, we drew up a decent sounding protocol about cooperation and so on, and I bought the darned file room, microfilmed it, and took it home for our guys to sniff over.

That Kazak, by the way, was smarter than he let on, he invited me and my friends for lunch, then passed us the bill. I remember with fondness the day I left that town, I cried when the plane took off I was so happy.

[Section Leader]

Both.

The Soviet Union used internationalism to forward it's own nationalist objectives, at least before 1985 (Gorbechev blindly believed in Marxist doctrine rather than in the reality of the USSR in the 1980s, perestroika and glastnost were attempts to make the Soviet Union more communist, not less). Stalin's nationalist policies resulted in half of Europe under Soviet socialism, while Trotsky's more literal internationalist views never got anywhere. Communism in the USSR was essentially a theology of sorts, it was used as a motivational technique to inspire the workers with the dream of a utopian future, while the here and now propaganda was nationalist in character.

[JAM]

The internationalism was used as a mask to cover the nationalist ambitions of USSR. This can be viewed in the force relations between Moscow and its satellites after the world war II and ulterior soviet domination of Eastern Europe. If it were an international policy we would had witnessed a more balanced force relations between USSR and its satellites, instead we saw a totally subordination to it.

The doctrine "Socialism in one country" is also a prove of the nationalist nature of the USSR mixed with socialism. If you want to talk about internationalist communist you need to look at Trotsky theories which were defeated and rejected by the majority of the communist party already under control of Stalin. I think it's correct to say that we never saw a truly and genuine communist regime in the world since all the communist experiences of the xx century resembled the soviet one.

[Far-Right Sage]

If you want to talk about internationalist communist you need to look at Trotsky theories which were defeated and rejected by the majority of the communist party already under control of Stalin.

The only positive act of Stalin's career was having an icepick put through that man's skull.

[Andropov]

Interesting quotes by Stalin signifying a strong Pan-Slavic undercurrent to his worldview.

"The Germans are a very powerful and talented people and they would be able to recover very quickly after the war...[There is a] necessity for Slavic co-operation after the war...up to now the Germans had been able to divide the Slavs, co-operating with some Slavs against others and then turning agianst them. From now on the Slavs must be united." -Benes recollection of conversations with Stalin in December 1943, cited in ibid.

"Germany will be able to renew itself in some 15 years. That is why we must think not only about how to end this war...but also about what would happen in 20 years, when Germany revives itself. This is why an alliance between Russia and Poland is absolutely necessary in order not to let the Germans become an agressor once again...[He] could give the example of the Grunwald battle during which the Slavic peoples united against the members of the German order of Knights of the Sword. The united Poles, Russians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians then defeated the Germans...we should revive the policy of Grunwald on a broad basis. This is his dream." -Recollection by Father Orlemanski of his conversation with Stalin in April 1944.

"...the first time the Poles and Russians united...together they beat the Germans. Then the Russians and Poles quarralled. In the 17th century under Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich there was a minister of foreign affairs, Ordin-Nashchekin, who proposed the conclusion of a union with the Poles. For this he was sacked. Now a return is necessary. The war has much to teach our people." -Stalin's conversation with Polish Prime Minister Stanislav Mikolajczyk, August 1944.

"The capitalist world is divided into two hostile blocs -the democratic and fascist. The Soviet Union takes advantage of this in order to fight against the most dangerous [country] for the Slavs -Germany. But even after the defeat of Germany the danger of war/invasion will continue to exist. Germany is a great state with large industry, strong organization, employees, and traditions; it shall never accept its defeat and will continue to be dangerous for the Slavonic world, because it sees it as an enemy." -Stalin's remarks as recalled by Andrija Hebrang, from a January 1945 conversation.

"Germany will be routed, but the Germans are a sturdy people with great numbers of cadres; they will rise again. The Slavic peoples should not be caught unawares next time they attempt an attack against them, and in the future this will probabily, even certainly, occur. The old Slavophilism expressed the aim of tsarist Russia to subjugate the other Slavic peoples. Our Slavophilism is something completely different -the unification of the Slavic peoples as equals for the common defense of their existence and future..." -Same remarks as recalled by Giorgi Dimitrov in his diary, January 1945.

and finally:

"We are the new Slavophile-Leninists, Slavophile-Bolsheviks, communists who stand for the unity and alliance of the Slavic peoples. We consider that irrespective of political and social differences, irrespective of social and ethnic differences, all Slavs must ally with one another against the common enemy -the Germans. The history of the Slavs teaches that an alliance between them is necessary to defend Slavdom. Take the last two world wars. Why did they begin? Because of the Slavs. The Germans wanted to enslave the Slavs. And who suffered most because of these wars? In the First World War as well as the Second World War the Slavic peoples suffered most: Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Serbia, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Poles...Now we are beating the Germans and many think the Germans will never be able to threaten us again. This is not so. I hate the Germans. But that must not cloud one's judgement of the Germans. The Germans are a great people. Very good technicians and organizers. Good, naturally brave soldiers. It is impossible to get rid of the Germans, they will remain. We are fighting the Germans and will do so until the end. But we must bear in mind that our allies will try to save the Germans and come to an arrangement with them. We must be merciless toward the Germans but our allies will treat them with kid gloves. Thus we Slavs must be prepared for the Germans to rise again against us. That is why we, the new Slavophile-Leninists, are so insistent on calling for the union of the Slavic peoples. There is talk that we want to impose the Soviet system on the Slav peoples. This is empty talk. We do not want this because we know that the Soviet system cannot be exported abroad as you wish; certain conditions are necessary. We can't establish the Soviet system in Bulgaria if they don't want it there. But we don't want to do that. In friendship with the Slavic countries we want genuine democratic governments." -Stalin's remarks during discussions with a visiting Czechoslovak delegation, March 1945.

[Orestes]

"...the first time the Poles and Russians united...together they beat the Germans. Then the Russians and Poles quarralled. In the 17th century under Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich there was a minister of foreign affairs, Ordin-Nashchekin, who proposed the conclusion of a union with the Poles. For this he was sacked. Now a return is necessary. The war has much to teach our people." -Stalin's conversation with Polish Prime Minister Stanislav Mikolajczyk, August 1944.

This quote means nothing whatsoever once you consider the context of it. It's just Stalin being Stalin.

Those talks were taking place since the 3rd of August that year. On August 1st the Warsaw Uprising had begun, and Mikołajczyk was there to request some military assitance from the Red Army that had already been stationing on the right shore of Vistula, which Stalin explicitly denied giving.

And why wouldn't he ? Backbone of the Underground Army consisted of the pre-war, anti-Soviet authoritarian faction and the High Command conceived the uprising itself as the focal point of Action Tempest, the aim of which was to liberate large swaths of country mainly with their own hands before the Russians move in, and thus appear as the rightful hosts of the land (something the Yugoslavs actually managed).

[fuser]

Those talks were taking place since the 3rd of August that year. On August 1st the Warsaw Uprising had begun, and Mikołajczyk was there to request some military assitance from the Red Army that had already been stationing on the right shore of Vistula, which Stalin explicitly denied giving.

That red army was exhausted and was lacking supplies. The supplies and logistics were yet to catch up with the army, attacking over a river without preparation would had been disastrous for Red Army, it was perfectly rational decision (not to intervene) to take form military pov.
Also, given that the whole uprising's point was to liberate Warsaw before Red Army and it was prepared and done in secrecy (Soviet Union had no knowledge about any preparation of such an uprising), it was again a good decision from political pov.

[redcarpet]

Nationalist. To call it 'internationalist' is a bad joke. Even internal to the USSR, there was fervent bigotry towards non-Russians.

[Political Interest]

Stalin was a complete Russophile and he had to do this in order to advance his political career outside the Caucasus. Also Stalin changed the nature of Soviet socialism. Under Lenin and Trotsky it was classically doctrinaire Marxist. It sought to destroy the family institution, had liberal laws such as abortion rights, homoexuality and other features. Furthermore it surpressed the culture of the Russian people as well. It is important to note that the early USSR was vehemently anti-Russian. Trotsky sought to continue the revolution into Europe and not stop. Stalin however revived Russian culture, implemented far more conservative policies such as restrictions on abortion and banning homosexuality and implemented 'socialism in one country'. Therefore it seems Stalin had a far more national communist character and was far more conservative.

Interestingly enough as well in 1941 Stalin reopened the churches and there was a mass flocking to religion during the war years. Apparently he even considered making Moscow an international centre of Orthodoxy with the cooperation of the Church but this never happened.

After Stalin the USSR was no longer fanatically Marxist but had more pragmatic rulers. Marxism seems to have just become something like a state religion to which deference was paid but in which people no longer had unyielding faith and conviction. The symbols of the USSR and memories became patriotic and conservative rather than Marxist ones. Today many Russian "communists" are just Russian nationalists who want a return to the old system. Hence they are Soviet patriots rather than Marxist-Leninists. How many of them have laboured through Marxist texts and truly view everything through 'scientific Marxism'? This is how I view many of these people and is my perception of the USSR in the 1960s onwards.

[Far-Right Sage]

I only just got around to reading this but I had to state that this is an excellent analysis, Political Interest.

I am essentially in full agreement.

Also, I would imagine that the history of Europe would be very different if the Trotskyite faction had gained the upper hand in the interwar period and were successful in their power struggles with Stalin following Lenin's demise.

Trotsky maintained a strict internationalist view and would have taken a far more proactive role to aid the Marxists in Spain, as well as emboldening, if not attempting to militarize the Communist opposition in France. With Trotsky at the helm in Moscow, it is very unlikely that the British and French establishment would have been willing to cooperate with this radically revisionist power against an ascendant Germany. By the time Stalin consolidated power and established what I would call a successful totalitarian system in his country (even if I believe it to have been for the wrong reasons, it was no doubt successful), the Soviet Union placed much less emphasis on revisionism and was seen less and less as a haunting beacon of world revolution with memories of the Russian Civil War beginning to fade and Trotsky isolated in Mexico.

[redcarpet]

In a way the political Right should be thankful Stalin ruled the USSR. Under Trotsky the USSR really WOULD have assaulted the corporatist-state capitalist system.