Mfw libs call my kittin :stalin-cig: a big meanie :kitty-cri-texas:
Marxism-Leninism can never be legitimized and Stalin can never be seen as a revolutionary hero— this is what all left-anticommunists and intelligence services agree on.
Because Marxism-Leninism has been adaptable and agile enough to build socialism in Russia, Eastern Europe, Cuba, Korea, Vietnam, Laos and China.
This is despite the fact in Russia— where the descendants of the people who lived under Stalin lived— see Stalin as a better figure than Lenin and routinely rate him the best Russian leader and currently have a 70% approval rating of him.
Even today statues of Stalin are going up all over Russia.
Because Lenin died in the mid 1920s after World War, Civil war and all capitalist invasion and then a famine in 1921 was the start of reconstruction of Soviet industry. When Lenin died Russia was still a very miserable and war torn place.
Whereas Stalin led the Soviet Union during Socialist construction which (from the memoirs of working people) was like a groundswell of human liberation and flowering.
The truth is if Lenin had lived instead and made the necessary decisions to ensure Soviet survival (collectivisation, smashing the fifth column in the 1930s) then they'd hate Lenin today as much as they did Stalin because bourgeois propaganda would've been levelled at Lenin instead.
Which is why they pushed the faked "Lenin's Testament" for almost a century. As if Trotsky (a guy that joined the Bolshevik party a few months before the Oct Revolution) was usurped by evil Stalin who stole the Communist crown off Lenin's head.
Instead, of you know, like having a vote on who the leader should be as you would expect in a Communist party and what was done.
It's why Trotsky was hailed as the "true bolshevik" by Hearst press— which was run by a fascist William Randolph Hearst who spent the entire time making shit up about the Soviet Union and providing Goering and Mussolini columns in his newspapers.
credit to JoeysStainlessSteel
The truth of the matter is, if Stalin and Putin were running against one another in an election, Stalin would win. If that isn't indicative of how successful a leader of the USSR he was, I don't know what is.
The Russian bourgeoisie would be too scared to do anything :stalin-gun-1: :stalin-gun-2:
There wouldn't be any Russian Bourgeoisie by the time the election came around.
Hold on a second are we saying that Trotsky wasn’t vital to the successful founding of the USSR now? Because as far as I know he absolutely was. Not debating the falsehood of the “it should’ve been Leon” narrative and it’s use as an anti-communist propaganda piece, but painting Trotsky as some weird outsider and not someone vital to the revolution’s success doesn’t sound right. Am I wrong here?
I'd agree with you. Trotsky was pretty instrumental as far as I know. I mean, I take Stalin's side in the Trotsky/Stalin debate, just to wear my biases on my sleeve, but I wouldn't consider Trotsky's contributions unimportant to the revolution.
I wasn't getting that, I think they're reacting to the myth built around Trotsky by the west afterwards
again not an expert from what I've absorbed Trotsky exercised good military leadership during the revolution
all left-anticommunists and intelligence services agree on.
:same-picture:
“Countries should simply avoid problems and then bad people wouldn’t exist.” - Western Leftists
…what?
:what-the-hell:
spoiler
I can absolutely imagine this being true. It really dawned on me how possible it could have been. Holy shit. I had a wave of realization hit me and it’s terrifying.
Lmfao it's always funny to learn how catty everyone of the old Bolcheviks were with each other. Like damn bro y'all would dominate left Twitter with your shit-flinging fights if it existed back then
tbf I would also get my claws out if anyone insulted the love of my life.
Lenin to Stalin:
Что, черт возьми, ты только что сказал обо мне, маленькая сучка? Хочу сообщить, что я получил высшее образование в Красной Армии, участвовал в многочисленных секретных рейдах на монархистов, и у меня более 300 подтвержденных убийств.
I can seem to find anything, it could have been a personal letter that was lost to time. If you want to check for yourself, Here's the Stalin archives
This tracks with the generally held opinions about bald men vs nonbald men
For real. Lenin was fucking ruthless. He is the greatest among us because of that. No one was as keen an operator as him, more prepared to do what was necessary
Lenin was fucking ruthless
You literally have to be when combatting the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionaries. Civility is something the wealthy call for as they murder the poor and the helpless.
I wasn't saying it like a bad thing. In the same manner than no one but Stalin could get through WW2, only Lenin's willingness to be brutal could make Petrograd survive as long as the Paris Commune, let alone win. As Bukharin said
We see now that infringement of freedom is necessary with regard to the opponents of the revolution. At a time of revolution we cannot allow freedom for the enemies of the people and of the revolution. That is a surely clear, irrefutable conclusion.
Civility is absolutely a scam. It's easy to tell people to stick to the rules if you're the one making the rules.
In that case I might like Lenin slightly less as while I think Stalin was great I don't think he was too soft
I think a lot of people, partially bc of propaganda, get over the idea of lenin as a harsh man because of the revolutionary context but can't do that with stalin's wartime context, whereas the truth is both men made exceptionally tough (to some brutal) decisions during their times of leadership
There's also the propaganda value of turning Lenin into a martyr betrayed by Stalin to delegitimise the soviet union. It's part of why Khrushchev was so stupid to demonise Stalin after his death as Stalin could at that point only serve as a political tool to legitimise the Soviet union. He wasn't going to challenge Khrushchev anymore because he was dead
Imagine a soviet union which took a 70-30 view of its leaders and refined and developed marxism further to adapt to soviet conditions. I know some people put the turning point for the collapse of the USSR as pre-Krushchev, but...
...there has grown up in the United States a curious and inaccurate distinction between Lenin and Stalin. Lenin has been presented as a kind-hearted idealist–almost a democrat in our sense–whereas Stalin has been pictured as a ruthless Asiatic dictator…. But Lenin’s actions and speeches against the opposition of the kulaks, the clergy, the bourgeois, landlords, and generals were just as harsh as anything we know of Stalin. Both men were agreed in showing no mercy to their enemies, but Lenin’s enemies, for the most part, were outsiders, the foes of the Revolution. Against them he showed no mercy. By the time Stalin came to power non-Party opposition in the USSR had been thoroughly defeated. …That, in short, was the difference–a difference of time and a personality. In Lenin’s day the prime struggle was against the anti-Bolshevik elements in Russia and outside Russia, the counterrevolution of Denikin, Kolchak, and Yudenich, supported by the invasion, or intervention, of French, British, Czechs, Japanese, and Americans. In addition, Lenin’s personal authority was so great that he had no real or prolonged difficulty with opponents inside the Communist Party. Stalin’s situation was otherwise. Since, by 1924, when Lenin died, internal and external non-communist enemies had been defeated, Stalin’s conflict was within the Party.
Duranty, Walter. Stalin & Co. New York: W. Sloane Associates, 1949, p. 20
