JohnRawls wrote:Pretty much but the video tried to portray Stalin as a some kind of anti-communist who ruined a lot of things.(Watched like half of the video) The person answering tries to say Kotkin is wrong by saying a lot of things that Kotkin has said while portraying Stalin to be some kind of anti-communist/anti-revolutionary administrator forgetting that the revolution has won by that time already so it needed an administrator.
Stalin was perhaps one of the most competent communist leaders. He actually implemented things that most considering physically impossible to do which Stalin did and proved them wrong. Like destroying free market in the villages/rural areas etc. What caused a lot of tragedy is the fact that communism/socialism ideas of that time didn't work and even now, it is hard to say if they work. So Stalin is a monster in this sense. But a monster with great talent, ability, perseverence etc
Also its funny how people try to say that Kotkin doesn't understand Stalin.
Well I think Kotkin is right in his summary of Stalin as a true believer. But is is also the case that he is part of the thermidorean reaction. There is a lot of thought in the Soviet Union to criticize as being communist but that it had ended up distorted by the crisis that faced the Union. I don’t think of Stalin as consciously opposing Marxist theory but do think of him as in believing in a degenerated form.
I like Kotkins point that its not clear whether anyone could’ve done what Stalin did. Although I do wonder how much this might also be informed by the purges of many of the revolutionaries of the time.
And I do wonder about competence of Stalin although I don’t attribute all problems to him either despite being first among equals. Consider the point about the third position with equating social democrats with fascists and in avoiding war with Hitler up until Moscow. Complex issue but a concerning one. But the USSRs politics flip flopped to international concerns they were trying to navigate than primarily a cause of the revolution. It became a defensive line to survive.
And with Kotkin I don’t think its about his credentials in understanding Stalin but perhaps the nuances of Stalins relationship to Marxism and Marxist Leninism which of course sparks all the trotsky stalin debates. Which there is something odd in that I don’t think Stalin should be dismissed as an anticommunist in communist garb but there is much to criticize of how much he adheres to Marxism on many things also. He certainly wasn’t a great theoretician as Trotsky.
I guess im trying to emphasize straddling the line Trotsky says in his assessment of the USSR against sinple dogmatism that the USSR was everything socialism was meant to be and could be, and the simple dismissal of the USSR due to its failure. Both simply ignore an analysis of the gains and failures of the USSR to assert their preferred end.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/For%20Ethical%20Politics.pdf#page90
-For Ethical Politics