#321
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oh we're still on stalin

At the same time, we know that Ezhov also was approving increases and that Stalin was doing so personally. Local party leaders often wrote directly to Stalin asking for augmented limits, bypassing Ezhov and the established procedure altogether. We have notes in Stalin's hand approving increases of limits for Krasnoiarsk, Bashkiria, Smolensk, and Engels which do not appear in the Politburo records.
#322
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EmanuelaBrolandi posted:

This from the post '92 Getty article



re this

But perhaps the most important decision was left outside central control and in local hands: who would live and who would die, reversing the rules of the preceding years, when the Politburo had approved all death sentences. Now, local troikas composed of party and police officials had the right to try and execute "in expedited fashion," and only had to report to NKVD chief Ezhov every two weeks on the quantity and characteristics of those arrested and sentenced.

#323
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EmanuelaBrolandi posted:

A little tidbit id once read which i was inspired to retrace as its related to Stalin and also tangentially to the excelerationism discussion we've been having in the recent usaia politics threads or as a rhizzone meme in general:



Apparently this practice was well reported. Some party members who objected to the Ezhovshchina just thought theyd bog down the system with baseless accusations and nonesense but in the panic of the era and the fear by party officials who felt as if they would be targetted if they didnt follow up on any reports of misbehavior or 'trotskyism,' many of these innocent people were expelled neways.

But also: less people were expelled in 37 than in 35 so it probably wasnt that bad right guys?



maybe stalin could have produced fewer embittered enemies of the system by setting the limits at like, 10 executions per oblast. or even zero.

#324
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Panopticon posted:

maybe stalin could have produced fewer embittered enemies of the system by setting the limits at like, 10 executions per oblast. or even zero.



Yes maybe he could have saved millions of lives if he had just surrendered to Hitler too

#325
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most of the victims of the purges were innocent of any personal wrong doing, so i'm not sure what your point is
#326
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citation needed
#327
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I dont think theres any way to extrapolate that from the scarce available information. In your opinion they didnt deserve the death semtence maybe but "most not gilty of any wrongdoing" is personal fantasy
#328
Dont Mess With Sucess
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Panopticon posted:

most of the victims of the purges were innocent of any personal wrong doing

citation needed

#329
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actually most of the people eradicated in the soviet purges were various reincarnations of mother theresa, gandhi, and martin luther king jr. source? this sick book by anne applebaum, confirmed by a blog post by richard pipes
#330
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swampman posted:

Panopticon posted:

most of the victims of the purges were innocent of any personal wrong doing

citation needed



"These data confirm that arrests were made by category, by biography, rather than based on any action or crime by the victim."

#331
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Considering that the biggest chistka ('33) was marked by a lot of getting rid of forged party membership cards and cards of dead relative people have sold, maybe most ofbthese dead / made up ppl were in fact not guilty of wrongdoing.
#332
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So you meant most of those in the Ezhovshchina or most in all thr purges?
#333
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most of the victims in "Krasnoiarsk, Bashkiria, Smolensk, and Engels"
#334
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So what percentage of the total purged is that? By your own admission wasnt Smolensk like 4500 ppl?

Also i didnt know they changed the name of a province to 'Engels' but that owns
#335
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Panopticon posted:

swampman posted:

Panopticon posted:

most of the victims of the purges were innocent of any personal wrong doing

citation needed

"These data confirm that arrests were made by category, by biography, rather than based on any action or crime by the victim."



citation needed

#336
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EmanuelaBrolandi posted:

So what percentage of the total purged is that? By your own admission wasnt Smolensk like 4500 ppl?

Also i didnt know they changed the name of a province to 'Engels' but that owns



i will ask getty for you

#337
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aerdil posted:

citation needed



Its from Getty. Getty characterizes the 37 purges as being disproportionately aimed at higher ups in regional party positions (who had escaped the previous purges by abusing their powers and not performing the purges as instructed) instead of 'rank and file' members like

Edited by EmanuelaBrolandi ()

#338
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Panopticon posted:

i will ask getty for you



You named small provincial districts which had the smallest party membership. You posted for Smolensk (iirc the largest of those you named) the executions as 4500ish, and then said "most of the victims of the purges" were innocent - So im asking you not Getty.

#339
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If as many people were executed in all 4 districts as smolensk and we round up to 5000 and accept 400k or whatever executed then thats uh 1/20 of those executed so even if they were all innocent thats not 'most'
#340
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EmanuelaBrolandi posted:

Panopticon posted:

i will ask getty for you

You named small provincial districts which had the smallest party membership. You posted for Smolensk (iirc the largest of those you named) the executions as 4500ish, and then said "most of the victims of the purges" were innocent - So im asking you not Getty.



i repeated a list of "arrest limits" stalin had personally accepted increases on without ezhov or the politburo acting as intermediaries. this is, after all, the stalin thread

#341
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Really though, I don't see why leftists can be so gung-ho about attacking Stalin. Sure, he made some errors, I don't think anyone here is denying that. However, with the vast majority of people have grown up being taught he was as evil as hitler, it doesn't serve our purposes any to keep attacking him. Any attacks on Stalin only reinforce people's negative feelings on socialism, which is something we don't need. Certainly, after the success of the revolution it will be appropriate to analyse and study all communist leaders on their merits and failings so that we can create better leaders for tomorrow, but until that point, all it does is divide people who really should be working together.
I'm not asking you to defend Stalin if you don't want to. With how ingrained the feeling are at this point, it may be against our aims to further radicalise people. Just point out that capitalism is not judged by the actions of any single man, so why should socialism be? And then change the subject, bringing up all the other utter paragons of humanity that socialism has produced. Unlike Nazism, it is hardly bound up in the actions of any one man.
#342
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intervening in a police operation so that more people can be killed or sent to prison without trial isn't an "error"

defending stalin's purges gains us nothing and makes us look like we don't care about justice.
#343
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What about the proverka (not a purge!) do u support that pamopticon?
#344
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EmanuelaBrolandi posted:

What about the proverka (not a purge!) do u support that pamopticon?



there are lots of historical battles in which socialists and communists acquitted themselves well. extending voting rights, overthrowing autocratic monarchies, creating socialist health and education systems, ending colonialism, stopping fascism.

#345
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If it isn't an error, it must be a correct action? You're just arguing magnitude. I didn't say we had to defend the purges, if you would read. What's your endgame here? We all agree the purges were bad... Then what?
#346
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Red_Canadian posted:

If it isn't an error, it must be a correct action? You're just arguing magnitude. I didn't say we had to defend the purges, if you would read. What's your endgame here? We all agree the purges were bad... Then what?



error implies he didn't intend the consequences

the end game is accepting the need for rule of law and democracy in socialism.

#347
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He didnt intend the consequences thats the entire point you dolt
#348
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Panopticon posted:

there are lots of historical battles in which socialists and communists acquitted themselves well. extending voting rights, overthrowing autocratic monarchies, creating socialist health and education systems, ending colonialism, stopping fascism.



Ageeed, the USSR was a magnificent project.

#349
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EmanuelaBrolandi posted:

He didnt intend the consequences thats the entire point you dolt



ezhov: "stalin the tatar ASSR comrades have finished shooting bearded men suspected of being mullahs but they're reached the limit on executions you agreed to and request that it be extended by another 1,000"
stalin: "executions?! oh no! i was just doodling my name on scraps of paper!"
ezhov: "oh what an error you have made, comrade stalin! you surely did not intend these consequences!"

#350
[account deactivated]
#351
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he was a real jerk
#352
[account deactivated]
#353
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You seem to be under, what I feel, is the misconception that western society, or really any society has perfect adherence to the rule of law. I'll bet you believe that all of the American mass shooters are killing themselves and the police are. Just trying their damnedest to arrest them.
#354
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read some nietzsche to cure urself of this "rule of law" stuff imo
#355
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or go down to the county courthouse on bail hearing day
#356
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Baby Finland once said, "Nietzsche is a must for all religious people" and since as we know Marxism is a religion, I agree.
#357
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If im reading panopticon right hes not saying the west follows rule of law to his satisfaction either, just that the ussr didnt so its bad also
#358
mt.real
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aerdil posted:

even a cursory google search shows english scholars claiming лимит is the "russian word for quota" but that is the word for limit, the russian word for quota is квота


i dunno anything about this particular word but if you're looking at sources from the 1930s, a lot of non-english languages borrowed english vocabulary into them heavily over the intervening 80 years, so modern 2016 dictionaries are probably not the best indication of the actual proper contemporary intention of a foreign word in context.

#359
mt.real
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EmanuelaBrolandi posted:

If im reading panopticon right hes not saying the west follows rule of law to his satisfaction either, just that the ussr didnt so its bad also


he walks a lonely road o/~

#360
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Well, drwhat, if those Cyrillic letters were to be transliterated into Roman ones it would roughly be written as 'lymyt'