Themselves posted:so... ehhhh, the truth is in the middle?
getfiscal posted:grover furr's defence of stalin hinges on the idea that yezhov became a mass murderer in order to undermine stalin's rule and eventually substitute himself, but that this became apparent and yezhov was removed, and afterwards the system reached a sort of equilibrium where there weren't hundreds of thousands of arbitrary state murders. this is an interesting argument because it accepts basically every horror about stalinism as true but then simply says that stalin himself was only indirectly to blame. as if any leftist should care about stalin's individual culpability and not the huge apparatus of repression.
I actually agree except the "apparatus of repression" as a bad thing. The purges were clearly an attempt by Stalin (representing the proletarian line in the party) to eliminate rightist and leftist deviations and the restoration of capitalism. Especially the failure of the 1936 constitution made Stalin realize the rot was far deeper than he realized.
Here's Stalin in 1927:
Under the conditions of Soviet development, when capitalism has already been overthrown, but its roots have not yet been torn out, the Right deviation in communism signifies a tendency, an inclination that has not yet taken shape, it is true, and is perhaps not yet consciously realised, but nevertheless a tendency of a section of the Communists to depart from the general line of our Party in the direction of bourgeois ideology. When certain circles of our Communists strive to drag the Party back from the decisions of the Fifteenth Congress, by denying the need for an offensive against the capitalist elements in the countryside; or demand a contraction of our industry, in the belief that its present rapid rate of development is fatal for the country; or deny the expediency of subsidies to the collective farms and state farms, in the belief that such subsidies are money thrown to the winds; or deny the expediency of fighting against bureaucracy by methods of self-criticism, in the belief that self-criticism undermines our apparatus; or demand that the monopoly of foreign trade be relaxed, etc., etc., it means that there are people in the ranks of our Party who are striving, perhaps without themselves realising it, to adapt our socialist construction to the tastes and requirements of the "Soviet" bourgeoisie.
A victory of the Right deviation in our Party would mean an enormous strengthening of the capitalist elements in our country. And what does the strengthening of the capitalist elements in our country mean? It means weakening the proletarian dictatorship and increasing the chances of the restoration of capitalism.
Consequently, a victory of the Right deviation in our Party would mean a development of the conditions necessary for the restoration of capitalism in our country.
Have we in our Soviet country any of the conditions that would make the restoration of capitalism possible? Yes, we have. That, comrades, may appear strange, but it is a fact. We have overthrown capitalism, we have established the dictatorship of the proletariat, we are developing our socialist industry at a rapid pace and are linking peasant economy with it. But we have not yet torn out the roots of capitalism. Where are these roots imbedded? They are imbedded in commodity production, in small production in the towns and, especially, the countryside.
By 1934 Stalin believed socialism was secure and the party was united on a proletarian line
I pass to the question of the Party. The present congress is taking place under the flag of the complete victory of Leninism, under the flag of the liquidation of the remnants of the anti-Leninist groups.
The anti-Leninist group of Trotskyites has been smashed and scattered. Its organisers are now to be found in the backyards of the bourgeois parties abroad.
The anti-Leninist group of the Right deviators has been smashed and scattered. Its organisers have long ago renounced their views and are now trying in every way to expiate the sins they committed against the Party.
The groups of nationalist deviators have been smashed and scattered. Their organisers have either completely merged with the interventionist emigres, or else they have recanted.
The majority of the adherents to these anti-revolutionary groups had to admit that the line of the Party was correct and they have capitulated to the Party.
But by 1936 had done a complete 180:
How are we to explain the fact that our leading comrades, having a rich experience in the struggle against all sorts of anti-Party and anti-Soviet currents, proved in the present case to be so naive and blind that they were unable to discern the real face of the enemies of the people, that they failed to recognize the wolves in sheep's clothing and were unable to tear away their masks?
Can it be claimed that the wrecking and diversionist-espionage work of the agents of foreign states operating in the territory of the USSR can be anything unexpected and unprecedented for us? No, it is impossible to claim this. This is demonstrated by the wrecking acts in various branches of the national economy during the past ten years, beginning in the Shakhty period, as recorded in official documents.
Can it be claimed that in this past period there were no precautionary signals or warnings about the wrecking, spying, or terrorist activities of the Trotskyist-Zinovievist agents of fascism? No, it is impossible to claim this. We had such signals, and Bolsheviks have no right to forget about them.
The foul murder of Comrade Kirov was the first serious warning which indicated that enemies of the people would resort to double-dealing and that they would mask themselves as Bolsheviks, as Party members, in order to worm their way into our confidence and to thus open access for themselves into our organizations.
The trial of the "Leningrad Center," as well as the "Zinoviev-Kamenev" trial, gave new grounds for the lessons following from the foul murder of Comrade Kirov.
The trial of the "Zinovievist-Trotskyist Bloc" broadened the lessons of the preceding trials and demonstrated before our eyes that the Zinovievites and Trotskyites had united around themselves every hostile bourgeois element; that they had turned into an espionage, diversionist-terrorist agency of the German secret police; that double-dealing and masking themselves are the only means by which the Zinovievites and Trotskyites can penetrate into our organizations; that vigilance and political insight are the surest means of preventing such penetration and for liquidation of the Zinovievist-Trotskyist gang.
all of this is pretty well known but it's important to quote the man himself instead of bourgeois sources which take 'Stalinism' for granted and are objectively reactionary.
Furr's desire to prove Stalin's accusations right is interesting, but ultimately pointless. The Stalin of 1928 would have seen the material conditions which allowed the restoration of capitalism, not the individual actions of petty party politicians. The purges had a very specific goal, that obviously they failed in; but this is the same goal of the cultural revolution. This is why all Maoists are Marxist-Leninists and defend Stalin but go beyond his work to the next scientific breakthrough in how to stop the rightist deviation in the party (the leftist deviation isn't especially hard to stop I think). Furr's work is like trying to prove the Lin Biao actually tried to commit a coup against Mao, what matters is the tendency that Lin Biao represented not his personal disagreements with Mao over rude comments about his wife.
We need to defend the spirit of the purges as the last great attempt to defend socialism, defend the 1936 constitution and democracy, and defeat the restoration of capitalism. Calling them "arbitrary state murders" and a "huge apparatus of repression" is pure propaganda, the purges were anything but arbitrary and the fucntion of repression is exactly the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
once stalin died every socialist country in europe (except albania) gave up the idea of moving towards a full command economy in the short-term and there were numerous attempts to sideline 'hardliners' because their ideas were harmful. they attempted to build local alternatives to straightforward commandism which maintained the integrity of socialism. the leaderships often tried to go further and were 'corrected' by moscow. but moscow itself had already moved away from commandism and there were further experiments under kosygin.
china only gradually escalated its fight with khrushchev. the soviets thought the 'great leap' was a bad idea and they ended up being obviously correct. the chinese leadership probably mostly agreed with them, which is why mao had to retreat for a few years. people like liu shaoqi and deng xiaoping became prominent because they seemed more credible than the disastrous commandism of the great leap. mao used his prominence and personal popularity (due to liberation and not subsequent policy) to launch a counterattack. that failed, which mao ended up accepting, causing him to systematically undermine leftist currents and then align with the US in hopes of getting modern fertilizers and other technologies. deng xiaoping took power and then further reforms (which were already happening all over anyway and were now being condoned). however, as hoxha notes, mao himself had never really tried to run the economy on a truly physical basis, probably because everyone underneath him told him it was a terrible idea, despite everything he said in public.
one explanation requires the vast majority of workers to be tacit accomplices to a right-wing plot by the vast majority of party officials, the solution to which is some sort of extreme people's war and cultural revolution to systematically destroy opposition to socialism, which is the true aim of all working peoples. the other suggests that reforms were a mass demand fulfilled by fairly intelligent people which brought about other problems. also i'm not saying some narrow version of marxist socialism is impossible, just that it didn't seem all that great in those historical cases. obviously running an economy via directives is not impossible.
i always think of that fable now when i criticize something about a particular socialist ideology and people are just rude in response. it's like okay you've figured out the secret to marxist science and your group is going to lead us to victory or whatever. that's great, go do that. like am i the obstacle. i might be big but i'm not that big. some random NEET complainer is not the problem here. also if you actually do it it's not like i'm going to be like "no you have achieved stateless utopia, this is fail and lose." i'll probably chill out and have fun and sing your praises and it'll be great. whatever who cares go do it.
Panopticon posted:stalin and his clique were traitors immediately responsible for the loss to the right of spain and germany. they had 20 years of near absolute power to "defend socialism" from the leaderless trotskyists and right-deviationists (if they even existed) and yet within 40 years of stalin's death the ussr was broken up and privatised by his party.
mods, ban this chucklefuck
babyhueypnewton posted:hmm yes reformism and revisionism is actually a rational response to the excesses of communism. actually that's not bougie enough, let's attack the very idea of a planned economy. while we're at it lets erase class struggle and material conditions rooted in production and make personalities (Mao was pretty fit tho) and fictitious capital the real motor of history.
so your explanation is that a small stratum of managers aimed to restore capitalism out of their self-interest. they were then obeyed by communist party members, the people's armies, and the broader working class, despite the fact they were capitalist-roaders. the working class knew that socialism was clearly superior but were unable to overthrow the now bourgeois state, which was somehow staffed by members of that working class. this is all as stalin predicted, because of the power of commodity production, but also commodity production is inferior and backwards and obviously dramatically less efficient. this is somehow materialist.
getfiscal posted:babyhueypnewton posted:hmm yes reformism and revisionism is actually a rational response to the excesses of communism. actually that's not bougie enough, let's attack the very idea of a planned economy. while we're at it lets erase class struggle and material conditions rooted in production and make personalities (Mao was pretty fit tho) and fictitious capital the real motor of history.
so your explanation is that a small stratum of managers aimed to restore capitalism out of their self-interest. they were then obeyed by communist party members, the people's armies, and the broader working class, despite the fact they were capitalist-roaders. the working class knew that socialism was clearly superior but were unable to overthrow the now bourgeois state, which was somehow staffed by members of that working class. this is all as stalin predicted, because of the power of commodity production, but also commodity production is inferior and backwards and obviously dramatically less efficient. this is somehow materialist.
clearly you've read hoxha, i dont need to reinvent the wheel here
Panopticon posted:stalin and his clique were traitors immediately responsible for the loss to the right of spain and germany. they had 20 years of near absolute power to "defend socialism" from the leaderless trotskyists and right-deviationists (if they even existed) and yet within 40 years of stalin's death the ussr was broken up and privatised by his party.
Hmm, aloto f excellent contributions in the thread..
to make u think.,.
getfiscal posted:i think there is a more mundane reason for revisionism: officials witnessed in real time the fact that the attempt to move towards an administered economy organized on a physical basis was leading to absurdities and terrible inefficiencies.
Crow posted:Hey baby H This is how you deal with these degenerates:
roseweird posted:let's spend our lives idly planning and daydreaming of a revolution that can obviously never succeed or really even begin, while missing every possible opportunity to become useful reformers, actors in the world as we find it rather than as we would wish to, fully realized humans who by the grace of god accept their failings and strive to do good in the way of heaven and against those entropic tendencies of the morbid parts of the soul. let's all be jaw-clenching hardbody killaz with the enemy always in our eyes. let's never be complicated. let's never accept the death of the body and individual mind. let's build the hive from our bones and goo. let's watch star wars.
Lets make me think. Success.
no nay never no more
will i listen to grover
furr never, no more
Edited by dipshit420 ()
babyfinland posted:That's fire
yeah but which type of fire is it? cause if its green it aint no thang
c_man posted:could you elaborate?
the purges were supported by a fairly broad section of soviet society, mostly new low-level administrators and similar who were the children of peasants and had been educated at new technical schools etc
Donald was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics, and also the Nobel Peace Prize, and also a giant plate of McNuggets, in a joint ceremony at CIA Headquarters. His acceptance speech was met with rousing approval. "We can still do everything we want even though Marxism has AIDS", he said. "We can still do critical theory and literary deconstruction. We can check our privilege and promote green growth. And we can eat nuggets lol". He received 1488 standing ovations, a world record and well-deserved. The ghosts of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao were all in attendance and they all recanted socialism and agreed that McNuggets were full of win. It was the happiest day of Donald's life because he had finally destroyed socialism, which he hated. Also all the girls made out with him even though he was bald and weighed bout tree fiddy. They all lived happily ever after, except for the idiot socialists who never even ate a nugget. The end.