Also Stalinism was so dead in Cuba that Che was a committed follower of Stalin https://cpcml.ca/cpcmlarticle2303081445/
“Along the way, I had the opportunity to pass through the dominions of the United Fruit, convincing me once again of just how terrible these capitalist octopuses are. I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won’t rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated” (1953 letter to his Aunt Beatriz.
In the so called mistakes of Stalin lies the difference between a revolutionary attitude and a revisionist attitude. You have to look at Stalin in the historical context in which he moves, you don’t have to look at him as some kind of brute, but in that particular historical context. I have come to communism because of daddy Stalin and nobody must come and tell me that I mustn’t read Stalin. I read him when it was very bad to read him. That was another time. And because I’m not very bright, and a hard-headed person, I keep on reading him. Especially in this new period, now that it is worse to read him. Then, as well as now, I still find a Series of things that are very good
I'd like to think that living under United Fruit would make even the most ardent principled anarchist reconsider the merits of Stalinist terror.
i think they reveal what they mean pretty clearly through their analogy, "Stalinism" is a religious belief, an unquestioned veneration of Stalin that totally existed in the Soviet Union
what they found in Cuba was not that. "Stalinism" was therefore dead, nonexistent in Cuba. but 'Stalinism' was never that, it's not even a proper thing just an appellation applied from the outside to variant beliefs about a guy. like sure there are a handful of 'Stalin did absolutely nothing wrong' people out there, but to characterise everyone that doesn't 100% condemn the guy that way is a great misunderstanding---yet that's 99% of the use of the word
like sure there are a handful of 'Stalin did absolutely nothing wrong' people out there
Hmm, I knew I should've taken that left turn at Berlin.
We all know Stalin had a personality cult develop (unwillingly) around him. And some correction was going to happen even without the revisionism of the nomenklatura taking it to extremes.
That doesn't mean we can or should discount Stalin as a leader or theorist, and it's bizzare to me that anyone does. Just because I disagree with Lenin or Mao or even Deng on some (the latter many) points doesn't mean that they aren't communists in good standing.
It's important to transition from the liberal challenge of "identifying one's enemies correctly" to the constructive "identifying one's allies correctly" which is actually useful to building a socialist culture around you.
Man, I got excited but also bummed that I just recently bought and read the current translation.
How is this even an April Fool's Joke? Just agitating people who would be shocked that Verso is publishing the book? Now I'm disappointed in Verso. Looking into Sebastian Budgen's reaction against Losurdo's Stalin makes me never want to purchase another one of their books unless it's a used copy.
I'm glad I have the current English version and wish it was more widely distributed, it helped completely changed my perspective on Stalin for the better. Leftists of all tendencies should be able to critically read and make decisions on political history for themselves with the right tools and Losurdo helps us do this. Being afraid of publishing certain books like this strikes me as reactionary, but then again they probably just equate Stalin with Hitler which is an issue discussed at length for an entire chapter in the book and they would know that if they bothered to read it.
The translators of the English version of the text had approached Verso asking to publish it with them since Verso has published other works by Losurdo. The translators were rudely rebuked by Verso and I think this "joke" was a petty continuation of that.
I’m halfway through it now. I really want to like it… but it does feel a little unfocused and meandering. And surprisingly, I don’t feel like he’s actually talked all that much about Stalin yet. I’ve had to take a couple breaks in reading it so maybe that’s why, idk.
I understand what you mean. It can be a slog. I think he does compare quite a lot and goes further into detail with his comparison than with Stalin/USSR. But it does help put both Stalin and USSR into their historical and political contexts.
More than anything, I feel like Losurdo does a great job of showing how the tale of Stalin is distorted and doesn't hold up logically. He doesn't really argue as a full apologia and he doesn't go into detail into neither the politics nor the personal life of Stalin, but he does a great job of explaining or attacking the context and shows how as a result the Stalinist myth is untenable. This is another reason why I don't understand the reaction against the book, he doesn't argue that Stalin was perfect and can't be accused of doing unethical things. But, in the context, Stalin did pretty well even when he didn't have many choices.
Between this book and Getty's Origins of the Great Purges, one can really see how Stalin wasn't the dictatorial authoritarian that people always criticize. There was a lot of confusion and chaos in Soviet Union at the time but there were real attempts at good Communist policy too, and Stalin's political project was clearly not a bloodthirsty reign of genocidal terror akin to Hitler's.
On closer inspection, I think the problem was more how I was reading it. Life dictated that for weeks I was only able to read two or three pages every other day or so. Read a bigger chunk over the weekend and it seemed way less disjointed. It’s definitely a good book.
Cool, man! I'm glad it worked out better for you. But I feel you, I also had to read it spread over a longer period of time than I wanted because of shit coming up. That's also why I felt like it was a slog, I wanted to read a chapter at a time but sometimes Losurdo's chapters are too long and stopping at sections can make you lose the larger argument of the chapter. I wish the chapters were shorter but it's still a great book otherwise!
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What is the opposite of a personality cult?
An anti-cult so to speak.
There are a lot of these anti-cults and a good useful single word that can describe the behaviour would be useful in counter-attacking it.
I think "anti-cult" may bring up images of "opposite of a cult" which isn't quite what we want. "Hate cult" might be better, a cult built around the hating of a person or idea instead of worshiping it.
Hmmm not really what I'm going for. Need a more technical phrase for it, and using the word hate in regards to an individual rather than marginalised groups is just going to immediately create resistance.
Yeah, that's true. It is probably too strong a word and would colour people's opinions too strongly.
Bill Bland: The “Cult of the Individual” (1934-52)
Heavily abbreviated good bits that give the idea but leave out most of the argument:
The Finnish revisionist Arvo Tuominen (Arvo Tuominen, Finnish revisionist politician (1894-1981) — strongly hostile to Stalin — comments in his book “The Bells of the Kremlin” on Stalin’s personal self -effacement: “In his speeches and writings Stalin always withdrew into the background, speaking only of communism, the Soviet power and the Party, and stressing that he was really a representative of the idea and the organisation, nothing more.. . . . I never noticed any signs of vainglory in Stalin.” (A. Tuominen: ‘The Bells of the Kremlin’; Hanover (New Hampshire, USA); 1983; p. 155, 163).
A letter from Stalin
February 1938 “I am absolutely against the publication of ‘Stories of the Childhood of Stalin’.
The book abounds with a mass of inexactitudes of fact, of alterations, of exaggerations and off unmerited praise. . But . . . . the important thing resides it the fact that the book has a tendency to engrave on the minds of Soviet children (and people in general) the personality cult of leaders, of infallible heroes. This is dangerous and detrimental. The theory of ‘heroes’ and the ‘crowd’ is not a Bolshevik, but a Social-Revolutionary (Anarchist) theory. I suggest we burn this book.” (J. V. Stalin: ibid.; p. 327).
Bill Bland summarizes his discussion about the cult of personality:
It therefore follows irrefutably that
- either Stalin was unable to stop it,
- or he did not want to stop it and so was a petty-minded, lying, non-Marxist-Leninist, hypocrite.
The Initiators of the “Cult” But if the “cult of personality” around Stalin was not built up by Stalin, but against his wishes, by whom was it built up? The facts show that the most fervent exponents of the ‘cult of personality’ around Stalin were revisionists and concealed revisionists like Karl Radek (Soviet revisionist politician (1885-1939); pleaded guilty at his public trial to terrorism and treason (1937); murdered in prison by fellow-prisoner (1939), Nikita Khrushchev and Anastas Mikoyan (Soviet revisionist politician (1895-1978)
It was Khrushchev who introduced the term “vozhd” (“leader,” corresponding to the German word “Fuhrer”). At the Moscow Party Conference in January 1932, Khrushchev finished his speech by saying: “The Moscow Bolsheviks, rallied around the Leninist Central Committee as never before, and around the ‘vozhd’ of our Party, Comrade Stalin, are cheerfully and confidently marching toward new victories in the battles for socialism, for world proletarian revolution.” (‘Rabochaya Moskva’, 26 January 1932, cited in: L. Pistrak: ‘The Grand Tactician: Khrushchev’s Rise to Power’; London; 1961; p. 159).
At the Eighth All-Union Congress of Soviets in November 1936 it was again Khrushchev who proposed that the new Soviet Constitution, which was before the Congress for approval, should be called the “Stalinist Constitution” because “it was written from beginning to end by Comrade Stalin himself.” (‘Pravda’, 30 November 1936, cited in: L. Pistrak: ibid.; p. 161).
In the same speech Khrushchev coined the term “Stalinism”: “Our Constitution is the Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism that has conquered one sixth of the globe.” (Ibid.).
at the 18th Congress of the Party in March 1939 as: “…the greatest genius of humanity, teacher and ‘vozhd’, who leads us towards Communism, our very own Stalin.” (XVIII s’ezd Vsesoiueznoi Kommunisticheskoi Partii (B). in: p. 174; cited in L. Pistrak: ibid,; p. 164).
and in May 1945 as “. . . . great Marshal of the Victory.” (‘Pravda Ukrainy’, 13 May 1945, cited in: L. Pistrak: ibid.; p. 164).
That Stalin himself was not unaware of the fact that concealed revisionists were the main force behind the “cult of persona lily” was reported by the Finnish revisionist Tuominen in 1935, who describes how, when he was informed that busts of him had been given prominent places in the Moscow’s leading art gallery, the Tretyakov, Stalin exclaimed: “That’s downright sabotage!” (A. Touminen: op. cit.; p. 164).
The German writer Lion Feuchtwanger (Lion Feuchtwanger, German writer (1884-1958) in 1936 confirms that Stalin suspected that the “cult of personality” was being fostered by “wreckers” with the aim of discrediting him: “It is manifestly irksome to Stalin to be worshipped as he is, and from time to time he makes fun of it. … Of all the men I know who have power, Stalin is the most unpretentious. I spoke frankly to him about the vulgar and excessive cult made of him, and he replied with equal candour. . . He thinks it is possible even that ‘wreckers’ may be behind it in an attempt to discredit him.” (L. Feuchtwanger: ‘Moscow 1937’; London; 1937; p., 93, 94-95).
Rather similar to Ho Chi Minh, who wanted a simple, unassuming gravesite but the party gave him a mausoleum instead.
Yeah it’s more the 2nd generation, non-revolutionary, leaders who want to cloak themselves in the glory of the first generation who do this.
It’s like wrapping yourself in a flag or sounding off about the “founding fathers”.
Deifying them is a way of claiming you’re the successor to their legacy, asserting your legitimacy with a show of devout pious reverence to avoid anyone looking too closely at your actual policies.
The same shit happened in Ancient Rome with Julius Caesar. His successors literally deified him used that to legitimize the monarchy they soon established that Caesar himself expressly rejected.
Fuck Krushchev.
Cult of Stalin
Deeply unserious, discard this gusano
You take notice when the weird desert religion suddenly finds new converts.
Here’s the translation in case any of you wanted it. Henry Hakamaki is also a host of Guerrilla History podcast, and I very much enjoy his takes on most things.
https://www.iskrabooks.org/stalin-history-and-critique
