Stalin wrote like nothing useful
Wow. This is staggeringly ignorant.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/index.htm
This is just an example.
Stalin wrote a fuck load, and given his unique position, location, and time when/where he lived, it's immensely valuable.
There's a reason Stalin is more censored than Lenin and Marx, he was one of the only prolific theorists who dealt primarily from within a socialist system and was capable of observing the realities of a revolutionary state.
Much of Stalin bad is literal Nazi propaganda, trying to shift attention to the allied anticommunists distrust of the USSR. The Westerners were Nazi sympathizers. Fighting anti Stalinism is fighting Nazism, which is always good. Comrade Stalin wasn't perfect, but then, look at the mass genocide and atrocities of the early US presidents. Kulaks gonna kulak, I think not predicting a megacidal death driving among the land owning peasants is a pretty justified L. Who the fuck could have seen that coming? We're out here to educate, not just take the L on Nazi propaganda.
Yes but let’s also recognize that there’s a lot of lies and exaggerations mixed in there for good measure. Stalin was a literal mob boss before having any sort of leadership role in the bolsheviks, he undoubtedly did some very terrible things. But it’s still healthy to take a lot of the allegations against him and especially against the Soviet Union writ large under his rule with a grain of salt
Quite a lot of it apparently. Things like the myth that the Soviets were told to rape their way through Europe by Stalin being sourced back to a Goebbels sympathizer, when the truth is a direct order that any Soviet soldier who does rapes gets executed, and the evidence that this was actually carried out. The more I've seen people on here source things about Stalin with an emphasis on who's writing down what about what topic, it seems like most of the malice attributed to Stalin is Nazis and liberals all the way down.
being sourced back to a Goebbels sympathizer,
you wouldn't happen to know that source would you? Sounds like an interesting read
No, it was something I had seen in passing here a couple weeks ago. Sorry.
Solzhenitsyn. And yeah, he hit it big in the west as a "celebrity dissident" with his earlier book One day in the life of Ivan Desentivich which honestly reads just like a standard depiction of prison life except it's cold outside. Not that bad of a book tbh. Khrushchev even let him publish it so it was a big media event and Solzhenitsyn reached celebrity status. Then he followed it up with Gulag Archipelago and basically just wrote everything that would get the westerners to buy his book about evillll communists. Guy isn't a historian or anything but libs cites him like he didn't just write the book to fleece money out of their pockets.
I'm not sure about his wife to be honest but it would make sense to me. He won the Nobel Prize in 1970 for One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich but it was all part of stupid cold war political bullshit to piss off the Soviets. I think the official reason for the award was "returning ethics to Russian literature" or some outrageous nonsense like that. He was like best friends with the west at this point and had literal US army/intelligence contacts who were helping him out. The Soviets eventually had enough of his shit and deported him to West Germany where he became an icon of the "victims of communist oppression." He's a fine writer I guess but really he's famous for being a pawn in the cold war so he's very overrated in the west imo
yeah that doesn't matter. My point is that the capitalists used him for smear campaigns so I don't really trust most of what he writes
I don't think I lied about anything. The questions is, essentially, how ought Stalin be viewed? Most takes on this rely on Nazi propaganda to equate Stalin to Hitler. In the context of that, Stalin is as worth defending as any other leader of the era. I would never argue that any politician from that era should be viewed uncritically. Stalin was a social reactionary, at least very directly about sexual and gender minorities; ok then, what now? Is the test that I accept that? Sure. But what's newsworthy about that? Find a leader that expressly wasn't reactionary about this at the time. I'm not trying to bait an argument, or argue in bad faith. I just don't see how that really comes into the conversation. If the goal is a better freer world, I'm pretty sure at the time most people would have a better shot at avoiding privation in the USSR once the food supply issues were sorted. Unless maybe it wasn't, in which case I'd be happy to be educated about it. Were gender and sexual minorities routinely denied access to basic work, housing, and or food? If they were then that's condemnable. The US built it's social programs under FDR at the expense of black people, but we don't have to fight against comparisons of FDR with Hitler.
Take the newspaper Vlast Truda, for example, organ of the Irkutsk Okrug Party Committee and Okrug Soviet Executive Committee (No. 128). There you will find a whole page peppered all over with ostentatious "slogans," such as: "Sexual Promiscuity—a Bourgeois Vice"; "One Glass Leads to Another"; "Own Cottage Calls for Own Cow"; "Double-Bed Bandits"; "A Shot That Misfired," and so on and so forth. What, one asks, can there be in common between these "critical" shrieks, which are worthy of Birzhovka, 4 and Bolshevik self-criticism, the purpose of which is to improve our socialist construction? It is very possible that the author of these ostentatious items is a Communist. It is possible that he is burning with hatred of the "class enemies" of the Soviet regime. But that he is straying from the right path, that he is vulgarising the slogan of self-criticism, and that his voice is the voice not of our class, of that there cannot be any doubt.
Also, nothing in any of his writings mentioning "homosexual" or "sodomy". This is one of a couple instances where he even mentioned sexuality.
People seem to forget that Stalin wasn't a dictator or a king. He was a representative of the revolution and worked hard to understand what it was the people actually needed. He was surrounded by people who were homophobic, conservative, and reactionary. Even if he personally felt certain ways, he never made that a position that he stood by as he knew that was not a materialist way of representing working class interests.
Here's the other mention of sexuality:
The tsarist government took advantage of the defeat of the revolution to enlist the more cowardly and self-seeking fellow-travelers of the revolution as agents-provocateurs. These vile Judases were sent by the tsarist Okhrana into the working class and Party organizations, where they spied from within and betrayed revolutionaries.
The offensive of the counter-revolution was waged on the ideological front as well. There appeared a whole horde of fashionable writers who "criticized" Marxism, and "demolished" it, mocked and scoffed at the revolution, extolled treachery, and lauded sexual depravity under the guise of the "cult of individuality."
In the realm of philosophy increasing attempts were made to "criticize" and revise Marxism; there also appeared all sorts of religious trends camouflaged by pseudo-scientific theories.
He doesn't expand on what is meant by "sexual depravity", but he spends the rest of the chapter talking about the importance of dialectical materialism and avoiding pseudo scientific theories. I think it might be about some sort of cult thing? I'm thinking of some cults in America (eg. Oneida) that ignored Marxism in favor of like weird sexual liberation stuff that ended with the leader of the cult impregnating most of the women.
That's not from the quality of their posts though, just fanatical levels of debunking gish gallop. Like imo most of those posts have very little (and what there is is often very questionable upon further inspection) content outside the very general numbers debunks. Like it's basically copy pasta at this point.
About half the time I get into an argument with a Stalinist, the response is a copypasta, link, or quote which is usually completely irrelevant.
It's like they're pulling out of a "Stalin/USSR/China Good" bookmark folder instead of actually having any understanding of the issue. This impression is further strengthened by constantly using the phrase "material conditions" without ever explaining what those conditions are and what they mean.
I always take it to mean "the things the west usually say stalin did wrong either are exaggerated, untrue, or actually not wrong" but I can understand how thats a lot of nuance and a lot of understanding about history and communism to read that into it. If youre a lib with only an imperialist education on communism obv not gonna get that.
That's the first part of turning theory into praxis, how to run shit after the revolution is a much bigger part.
Writing shouldn't be the litmus test of how good a comrade was. Otherwise Zapata would be meaningless.
No dead communist can contribute to mass movements anymore in that case. And ask yourself "who" it would cost? Those current mass movements embody a heck of a lot of things. Praising Che costs us a decent amount of propagandized people who worry about being called out by Gusanos, doesn't mean we shouldn't do so. Don't worry about the optics or cost/benefit analysis. Find your ideology and stick to it, form your own understanding of it, and don't let the vague public's possible opinion influence you like that.
It also does help movements in Russia, as well as comrades who are acutely aware of the debt owed to Stalin if their family was nearly killed in the Holocaust; ag Finklestein's parents
Find your ideology and stick to it, form your own understanding of it, and don’t let the vague public’s possible opinion influence you like that.
:zizek:
I'm mocking the idea that ideology is good, ideology is bad people. Theory, knowledge, and practice are good. Just choosing a side and not thinking about it is counter revolutionary
No, I agree, but you have to remember that ideology and material reality are always at odds. Ideology without dialectic and science leads to utopianism or whatever the fuck libs have going on.
Stalin wrote a lot what are you talking about. He wrote almost as much as Lenin
I agree the "Stalin did nothing wrong" is a dumb phrase that only turns people away. Using memey little catchphrases is dumb unless you're arguing with some chud.
Did you unironically do the internet thing of posting a wrong answer to get a right answer faster? You could’ve just asked for readings on Stalin homie lol
Stalin famously has the quote that best dunks on the capitalist idea of “freedom.” I’m glad we could help a comrade out in understanding our shared histories
but im an anarchist who only says it to annoy people because they know absolutely nothing about Stalin.
I once lost a sofa to sleep on because I arrived high on heroin and proceeded to give a “hilarious” (to me anyway) lecture on the brilliance of Stalin, the importance of Beria and the general efficiancy of the Soviet Union during the second war which no other nation could even hope to compete with.
unfortunately a homeless heroin addict who you reluctantly put up for a night because hes an old friend of your long term live in boyfriend giving a 20 minute lecture about communism wasn’t considered appropriate entertainment for Isabella’s middle class wine and dinner party for her bourgeois friends from work and I was accused of ruining “the after dinner ambience” and escorted to the door. I still dont regret it but I do regret that I had to sleep in a fucking doorway that night.
Stalin expounded on a lot of ideas, theory, set forth by Lenin, so he did a ton of useful writings, they agreed on more than they disagreed, and when they did disagree Lenin was being cautious and eventually took to Stalin's view. He also took the important step of putting the theory into practice in the real world, so we got to see the practical side of it.
No one's perfect, idk about his views on many social issues, but he did improve things for a country's proletariat overall (minorities, women, etc) through economic change.
Was rough times to be LGBTQIA+ those days (still is). Not sure about his personal persecution, I think he may have worked with enough people to not really care as long as long as you did your job, he seemed pragmatic, but idk.
At the time people pretty much everywhere saw the whole LGBTQIA+ thing as being a throw back to the caveman clubbing people over the head days or bourgeois decadence, and he had to bow to those views regardless of how he thought since he wasn't the lone rulemaker as popmedia would say.
The citation is actually from a Feinberg article that goes in to way more detail. That passage is kinda taken out of the greater context of how the laws were applied and used (mainly as a tool for arresting Nazis and Pedophiles, who in the 30s were both kinda socially intertwined with homosexuality).
Not to say that it wasn't bad, but it was a very complex issue that shows that they were terrible at seeing just what sexuality was and should never had disbanded the council of sexologists that wanted to legalize homosexuality on the basis of transgender women not being able to become "fully/biologically women" at the time and therefore needing protections for homosexual marriage.
See, Lenin fully decriminalized homosexuality though. Stalin re-criminalized it. I don't have any context or analysis to provide with that and I'd actually appreciate it if anyone has the knowledge to contextualize it, but I think it's worth mentioning.
The world if liberal democracies had formed an antifascist alliance with Stalin in 1933
*picture of future utopia *
don’t forget “being fully aware of what fucking Beria was up to with all those women” in your list of legitimate criticisms. He rang his daughter to tell her to leave immediately and urgently when he found out she was alone with Beria.
yeah those bodies of women found under his rose garden were all propaganda.
Nah Beria was a rotten, sociopathic asshole but that's exactly who you want for the creation of a terrifying secret police. Judging by the last head of NKVD (Yezhov), Stalin probably planned to purge Beria eventually too after he was no longer useful.
lmao imagine reading about all of stalin’s stuff and being like “uhhh his biggest problem wasn’t homophobia, it was actually functioning as a competent head of state”
It makes sense in context: every legitimate problem with Stalin was something accepted as normal by Western countries until long after his death, so the vast majority of all propaganda attacking him focuses on things the far-right establishment thinks are distasteful rather than the real problems that they have in common with him. Like his homophobia was the dominant hegemonic stance on sexuality in the US for 50 years after Stalin died and still remains the position of the further right faction of the ruling capitalist party, so of course all the old Cold Warriors aren't going to attack him on that.
It's really only those liberals who see themselves as simultaneously successors to and apart from the history of liberalism in the US that will really go hard on it the second they sense a leftist because they're either ignorant of the history of liberal homophobia in the US or hypocritical enough to ignore it while also trying to smear the entire left with a man who's been dead for 70 years whose biggest problem was that in some respects he was just as vile as his liberal contemporaries. And those same liberals will continue to do so regardless of how much one denounces Stalin, because their objective is to attack the left in bad faith, not engage in legitimate criticism in a productive way, similar to how Gorbachev's bloc in the politburo would furiously denounce not only their enemies but any of their supporters who weren't enthusiastic enough as a "stalinists" regardless of how little sense that made.
Although I'll say that's still not as galling as when people go off about Cuba's history of homophobia as if Cuba didn't legalize homosexuality 30 years before the US did and begin formal government programs aimed at educating away homophobia and chauvinism at the same time that the US was deliberately exacerbating the AIDS epidemic. Even today, the Cuban government is still taking a proactive educational stance there, while the best the US government ever offers is trailing public opinion.
I don't know how the scope compares to what they're doing today (there's a government ministry dedicated to LGBT rights headed by Fidel Castro's niece who's articulated that the position of the Cuban government is that homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of chauvinism are something that has to be educated away at the family and community levels), but starting in the 80s they were importing sex-ed textbooks from the GDR and consulting with GDR academics on LGBT rights and there was at least some degree of support available even in the early 80s (I remember reading that the current president of Cuba was involved in those programs in the early 80s to some extent, but that didn't provide any more details than that mention).
So at a bare minimum, the "formal government programs" were LGBT-positive sex ed classes in school and at-least tacitly approved social organizations that provided community and support to LGBT Cubans.
Prefaced with
most unfair reputation for
Please read the comments fully before responding.
The United States realistically will probably last another 30+ years
If you shy away from a socialist figure or idea they villify, they'll just find another and keep pushing you back until the realm of discourse is to the right of Bernie Sanders. They don't read. They just repeat bullshit and get catty when you disagree.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm
I think it's a pretty clear explanation of dialectical materialism.
Shit post like this is why we need u/JoeySteel back. "Western leftists" at it again. Stalin did more than your larping ass could ever do in this lifetime.
You post about g*ming.
Didn't Stalin massively expand the gulag system? Thats pretty shitty. There is also the polish operation I think it is called?
Like a lot of stuff is exaggerated or just nazi propaganda but didn't he do some pretty shitty things?
If you're talking about annexing part of Poland, I'm pretty sure that it was part of Russia prior to WW1. As far as Gulags, a lot of people needed some Gulagging.
He did have an issue with looking for saboteurs where there weren't any.
Yeah that was for sure not good, I'm definitely not about being fully uncritical of Stalin but the good does very much outweigh the bad and the dude has been dragged for about a century and could use some good press.
I can’t imagine how world leaders in general keep the paranoia at bay, let alone how Stalin could have. Literally is the solution to just section off information between parts of your government and not give a shit about moles so long as people’s behavior is beneficial to you?
Well it was more that there was a culture of "if we can't find a saboteur the saboteur must be really good" that led to a criminalisation of incompetance, mainly because politically active people tend to assume other people are way more politically motivated than they are.
For instance a family friend of mine lived through ww1, ww2 and well into east germany without realising any of those things had happened thinking the kaiser was in charge
For instance a family friend of mine lived through ww1, ww2 and well into east germany without realising any of those things had happened thinking the kaiser was in charge
am i reading this correctly??? :wut:
Yeah his boss had political connections that got him out of the wars, and he took no interest in either politics or the news
Didn't the NKVD also target ethnic minorities at certain points? With a bunch of bullshit crimes? In order to get forced labor ala the US prison system?
No, the polish operation was something different. Trying to weed out saboteurs by being extremely racist to poles
I know that. Prisons are also shitty. Im not saying they're a unique evil, Im saying building a lot of prisons sucks.
