Stalin was a Marxist in the streets and a libertarian in the sheets.
I have seen people justify this by saying that the age of consent in Russia was 13 at the time lol
Marxist-Leninist more like Marxist-Libertarianist
Person from the original image: actually he was only (2 and 5/7ths) times her age. Wrong much?
In 1922, homosexuality was legalised in revolutionary Soviet Russia, making it one of the most advanced countries in the world on this question.
March 1934 Stalin re-criminalised homosexuality across the whole of the Soviet Union.
So fucking typical that a child molester would be the one to make that decision.
Also remember that Harry Whyte, a Scottish Communist living in the USSR at the time, wrote to Stalin in prostest at the new law.
Stalin dismissed his letter and called him "an idiot and a degenerate".
Thanks so much for linking that it was a very interesting read.
This paragraph was pretty sad:
I visited two psychiatrists in the search for an answer to the question of whether it was possible to “cure” homosexuality — perhaps you will find this surprising. I admit that this was opportunism on my part (this time, perhaps, it can be forgiven), but I was incited to do this by the desire to find some kind of solution to this cursed dilemma. Least of all did I want to contradict the decision of the Soviet government. I was prepared to do anything if only to avoid the necessity of finding myself in contradiction with Soviet law. I took this step despite the fact that I did not know whether contemporary researchers had succeeded in establishing the true nature of homosexuality and the possibility of converting homosexuals into heterosexuals — that is, into people who engage in the sexual act only with members of the opposite sex. If such a possibility were in fact established, then everything would be much simpler of course.
I suggest people read the whole thing.
I like the way he signed the letter:
Communist Greetings,
Electric MonkI simply see no rational justification whatsoever for criminalising homosexuality. Even if you thought it was a mental disorder, you don't put people with schitzophrenia in jail.
I'm just honestly at a complete loss as to why the Soviets decided this was a good idea.
for the same reason people are for the criminalization of drug use and the buying of drugs while still believing drug addiction is a disease. people don't necessarily have coherent beliefs.
(it was already recriminalized by the individual SSRs years earlier, stalin's move was a mere formality, did you really think a country filled with conservative Christians, Muslims, and Jews needed stalin to force them to oppose homosexuality, rather than him making a popular democratic concession?)
Not all of the SSRs had it criminalised. Only Azerbaijan and the Central asian ones IIRC. And even still it was completely the wrong thing to do. You should have educated them instead of pandering to their reactionary views.
Many of those conservative people aren't going to be all that open-minded to what you have to say after all much effort has been out toward releasing their religious practices. I'll admit that I'm not super well informed on this (yet), but understanding was that the USSR caused a lot of issues for itself with it's attitudes toward religion (or at least the handling of it).
Edit: to clarify, I'd have rather seen a more lenient approach to religious practices, so that the political capital could be better spent on things like preventing the actual oppression of LGBT people. Saying "well he should have just done the right thing" is overly simplistic, but my understanding of Stalin is that this was a shortcomings of his leadership in general (though he had his strengths)
A land of contrasts and all that
You can say that the party appealed to popular opinion but they made no effort whatsoever to change it. Homosexuality remained illegal and taboo in Soviet society until 1991, after which pretty much every Western country had decriminalised. Hell, the Warsaw pact states decriminalised it too.
The uncomforatble truth is that the soviet leadership was either actually homophobic or didn't care about gay people, or both.
He should have split the country over sex while preparing for the next invasion?
Yeah I guess they should have done no progressive reforms whatsoever, spend no time at all building socialism and just dump everything into building tanks, guns and planes.
They did exactly that, for the Jews and others, getting mad at them for not being progressive enough when they were already the most progressive country in the world is radlib bullshit
No it is not radlib to get mad at them for regressing on a progressive policies.
Remove your rose tinted glasses, stop trying to make it seem like any criticism is unjustified.
They didn't even mean to decriminalize it in the first place, which is why it was almost immediately recriminalized in some places and longer in others.
I simply see no rational justification whatsoever for criminalising homosexuality
"why is the state cutting down individuality to fit the collective, I don't get it"
Of course a trotskyite website would fucking lie about this issue.
Reality check, in 1922, the Communist Revolutionaries abolished the book of TSARIST LAWS as the law of the land and started rewriting laws for the proletarian state from the ground up.
This does not mean homosexuality was legalized in the RSFR, it means the laws that declared homosexuality illegal, along with all other tsarist laws were abolished as they were bougeoise laws.
THIS IS NOT defending the legal decision reached by the Presidium of the USSR that Stalin was the General Secretary of in 1934.
This is pointing out the historical reality of the fact that Trotskyite wreckers lie about everything to make themselves look good.
In the Communist Party itself during this period of the 1920s, such divergences of opinion and policy on Soviet treatment of homosexuality was also common, ranging from positive, to negative, to ambivalent over views about homosexuals and homosexual rights. Some sections and factions of the Bolshevik government attempted to improve rights and social conditions for homosexuals based on further legal reforms in 1922 and 1923 while others opposed such moves. In the early 1920s, Commissar of Health Nikolai Semashko for example was sympathetic to homosexual emancipation "as part of the [sexual] revolution" and attempted such reforms for homosexual rights in the area of civil and medical areas. According to Wayne R. Dynes, some sections of the Bolsheviks of the 1920s actively considered homosexuality a "[social] illness to be cured" or an example of "bourgeois degeneracy" while other Bolsheviks believed it should be legally/socially tolerated and legally/socially respected in the new socialist society.
The Bolsheviks also rescinded Tzarist legal bans on homosexual civil and political rights, especially in the area of state employment. In 1918, Georgy Chicherin, an openly homosexual man, was appointed as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR. In 1923, Chicherin was also appointed People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, a position he held until 1930.
Women’s rights were very advanced after the revolution until Stalin.
Abolishing laws that make something illegal means that thing is no longer illegal
This is pointing out the historical reality of the fact that Trotskyite wreckers lie about everything to make themselves look good.
you know you're reading an anti-Stalin thread when the anti-semetic screeching starts
Ah yes, "Everything I disagree with is antisemetic"
National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.
Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism.
In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.
- J. Stalin January 12, 1931
Get fucked race-baiting chud.
The first openly gay cabinet level official in Europe served under Stalin, chicherin
Somewhat misleading, since he started serving under Lenin; continued working until illness prevented it in 1928, then retired in 1930, and died in 1936 at age 63.
So he was no longer working in that position when homosexuality was re-criminalized in 1934.Why do you think Stalin allowed the country and himself to be represented by an openly gay guy in the 1920s if he was coming for them?
Here's my take: these threads are good because they help you kill the mythological "Stalin who did nothing wrong" from your head. More importantly if we're going to start #cancelling people for things they did we're going to have to cancel a lot of anarchist writers for anti-semitism and even Marx because he cheated on his wife with their maid.
The point is no-one is perfect, Stalin did some good things, Stalin did some bad things, most importantly Stalin has been dead for 70 years and when de-stalinization happened they also threw out Lenin which fucked over the whole Soviet Union in the long run.
the mythological “Stalin who did nothing wrong”
How can anyone think this when Stalin clearly stopped at Berlin?
This is a bit right? Impregnating a 14 year old is not on the same level of despicable as cheating wtf
I don't think I ever implied that but just for the sake of clarity:
Fucking a 14 year old until miscarriage and then until pregnancy is not on the same level of despicable and is in fact worse than creeping on your employee until she fucks you in the same bed where you fuck your wife.
Good, most famous anarchist writers are garbage, anyway. At least Stirner had the good sense to squander an entire inheritance on an absurdist milk shop and die from a bug bite rather than knocking up a teenager. Or worse, suggesting one should vote for a Democrat.
The Belden Program's important addition to Marxism-Leninism will be a strong anti-pedophilia stance.
I enjoy these threads most of all because they show me best where the political lines are drawn poster by poster.
Not the greatest look.
Stalin had a lot of shit takes socially, which probably influenced him in letting Beria fuck around.
Still critical support though.
I mean Stalin fucked a lot of shit up though, really ran over a lot of good policies Lenin had put in place. I don't think it's weird to say the USSR was good and wish they were still around while also pointing out all the dumb shit leadership did.
i mean yeah the ussr doesnt exist anymore so obviously something was bad
Stalin did more to help destroy the idea of international socialism than any single person. If the west was ran by one guy then sure he'd get it, but it wasn't. Stalin is the reason socialism has the taint of authoritarianism. Socialism is inherently democratic, anything less is just a dictatorship of the powerful few with proletarian window dressing.
Yeah man they definitely weren’t calling Lenin a right winger in 1919. Stalin is the reason they slander us so viciously. Without that we could just convince rich liberals to do a gentle socialism in all our best interests right? sweet non threatening liberal democracy is in all our interests. What? The people of a backwards feudal area democratically decide to criminalize homosexuality? Lol fucking issueless leadership amirite, you’re supposed to let democracy wreck the revolution but override democracy for an unpopular social policy before there’s been a major global liberation movement for them.
Just poor “pee pee poo poo” designed to make you be unable to understand history in context and emotionally recoil away without thinking.
Stalin is the reason socialism has the taint of authoritarianism.
No he's not. They were calling us authoritarians before the ussr even happened and before Stalin was even born. The only reason this is attached to Stalin is because he led the first proletarian state for the majority of its climb out of poverty and into a world-leading position. He simply became the face of the first proletarian state and thus all the accusations of "authoritarians" that had been around since Marx first began writing were levelled at him. There's a reason all of Marx' writing addresses accusations of authoritarianism and shamelessly says "yes actually we are authoritarians to the bourgeoisie".
Still critical support though.
Why? Did the USSR not have other competent people to lead in his place?
Is there really anything to be gained from defending this guy?No, I don't think they had anyone as competent as Stalin.
Trotsky probably would have been better on a number of fronts. He'd also alienated most of the party and had some disasterous foreign policy takes.
The right opposition were terrible and in many cases actually caused the SUs fuckups in the 20s.
Everyone else I think could do it (Zdanhov, Molotov) supported Stalin. Others like Zukhov were not candidates.
Trotsky had alienated the party so badly by 1925 Kamenev and Zinoviev were trying to assassinate him and by 1927 (When Trotsky was thrown out of the party) they openly called for shooting him
To which Stalin replied "Why make a martyr out of Trotsky who will soon be defeated anyway. We better not start chopping heads or we wont know where it will end" (referencing the french revolution)
Stalin only started chopping heads when the opposition started doing actual assassinations like killing Sergei Kirov
In 1940 when all the communists in Ukraine were pro Soviet he was writing articles on the "independence of Ukraine" when those calling for independence were bourgeois nationalists and fascists and would later go on to collaborate with nazis and up their own SS divisions. This is despite knowing that Hitler called for conquerinUkraine for Lebensraum
Trotsky basically saw himself as a Napolean Bonaparte that should rule all by himself and the party wouldnt even let him be a normal member after 1927 let alone lead them
In the year of his expulsion(1927) he set up the Opposition. At the party congress 724,000 members voted for the Stalin led party platform and 4000 voted for the Trotskys opposition program
In order for Trotsky to ever lead the Bolsheviks he basically needs to be an entirely different person making entirely different decisions
Fuck this shit I'm just going to stan Mao harder so I don't have to think about it.
Disastrous like trying to expand socialism and not ally with the west like Stalin tried multiple times to do (and succeeded briefly with...Nazi Germany).
“The first thing that strikes one is the abundance of allusions, hints and evasions with regard to the old question of whether it was right to conclude the Brest Treaty. The “Lefts” dare not put the question in a straightforward manner. They flounder about in a comical fashion, pile argument on argument, fish for reasons, plead that “on the one hand” it may be so, but “on the other hand” it may not, their thoughts wander over all and sundry subjects, they try all the time not to see that they are defeating themselves. The “Lefts” are very careful to quote the figures: twelve votes at the Party Congress against peace, twenty-eight votes in favour, but they discreetly refrain from mentioning that of the hundreds of votes cast at the meeting of the Bolshevik group of the Congress of Soviets they obtained less than one-tenth. They have invented a “theory” that the peace was carried by “the exhausted and declassed elements”, while it was opposed by “the workers and peasants of the southern regions, where there was greater vitality in economic life and the supply of bread was more assured”. . . . Can one do anything but laugh at this? There is not a word about the voting at the All-Ukraine Congress of Soviets in favour of peace, nor about the social and class character of the typically petty-bourgeois and declassed political conglomeration in Russia who were opposed to peace (the Left Socialist-Revolutionary party). In an utterly childish manner, by means of amusing “scientific” explanations, they try to conceal their own bankruptcy, to conceal the facts, the mere review of which would show that it was precisely the declassed, intellectual “cream” of the party, the elite, who opposed the peace with slogans couched in revolutionary petty-bourgeois phrases, that it was precisely the mass of workers and exploited peasants who carried the peace. Nevertheless, in spite of all the above-mentioned declarations and evasions of the “Lefts” on the question of war and peace, the plain and obvious truth manages to come to light. The authors of the theses are compelled to admit that “the conclusion of peace has for the time being weakened the imperialists’ attempts to make a deal on a world scale” (this is inaccurately formulated by the “Lefts”, but this is not the place to deal with inaccuracies). “The conclusion of peace has already caused the conflict between the imperialist powers to become more acute.” Now this is a fact. Here is something that has decisive significance. That is why those who opposed the conclusion of peace were unwittingly playthings in the hands of the imperialists and fell into the trap laid for them by the imperialists. For, until the world socialist revolution breaks out, until it embraces several countries and is strong enough to overcome international imperialism, it is the direct duty of the socialists who have conquered in one country (especially a backward one) not to accept battle against the giants of imperialism. Their duty is to try to avoid battle, to wait until the conflicts between the imperialists weaken them even more, and bring the revolution in other countries even nearer. Our “Lefts” did not understand this simple truth in January, February and March. Even now they are afraid of admitting it openly. But it comes to light through all their confused reasoning like “on the one hand it must be confessed, on the other hand one must admit”. “During the coming spring and summer,” the “Lefts” write in their theses, “the collapse of the imperialist system must begin. In the event of a victory for German imperialism in the present phase of the war this collapse can only be postponed, but it will then express itself in even more acute forms.”
This formulation is even more childishly inaccurate despite its playing at science. It is natural for children to “understand” science to mean something that can determine in what year, spring, summer, autumn or winter the “collapse must begin”.
These are ridiculous, vain attempts to ascertain what cannot be ascertained. No serious politician will ever say when this or that collapse of a “system” “must begin” (the more so that the collapse of the system has already begun, and it is now a question of the moment when the outbreak of revolution in particular countries will begin). But an indisputable truth forces its way through this childishly helpless formulation, namely, the outbreaks of revolution in other, more advanced, countries are nearer now, a month since the beginning of the “respite” which followed the conclusion of peace, than they were a month or six weeks ago.
What follows? It follows that the peace supporters were absolutely right, and their stand has been justified by the course of events. They were right in having drummed into the minds of the lovers of ostentation that one must be able to calculate the balance of forces and not help the imperialists by making the battle against socialism easier for them when socialism is still weak, and when the chances of the battle are manifestly against socialism.
Our “Left” Communists, however, who are also fond of calling themselves “proletarian” Communists, because there is very little that is proletarian about them and very much that is petty-bourgeois, are incapable of giving thought to the balance of forces, to calculating it. This is the core of Marxism and Marxist tactics, but they disdainfully brush aside the “core” with “proud” phrases such as:
“. . . That the masses have become firmly imbued with an inactive *&8216;peace mentality’ is an objective fact of the political situation. . . .”
What a gem! After three years of the most agonising and reactionary war, the people, thanks to Soviet power and its correct tactics, which never lapsed into mere phrase-making, have obtained a very, very brief, insecure and far from sufficient respite. The “Left” intellectual striplings, however, with the magnificence of a self-infatuated Narcissus, profoundly declare “that the masses [???] have become firmly imbued [!!!] with an inactive [!!!???] peace mentality”. Was I not right when I said at the Party Congress that the paper or journal of the “Lefts” ought to have been called not Kommunist but Szlachcic. [Szlachcic—a Polish nobleman —Ed.]
Can a Communist with the slightest understanding of the mentality and the conditions of life of the toiling and exploited people descend to the point of view of the typical declassed petty-bourgeois intellectual with the mental outlook of a noble or szlachcic, which declares that a “peace mentality” is “inactive” and believes that the brandishing of a cardboard sword is “activity"? For our “Lefts” merely brandish a cardboard sword when they ignore the universally known fact, of which the war in the Ukraine has served as an additional proof, that peoples utterly exhausted by three years of butchery cannot go on fighting without a respite; and that war, if it cannot be organised on a national scale, very often creates a mentality of disintegration peculiar to petty proprietors, instead of the iron discipline of the proletariat. Every page of Kommunist shows that our “Lefts” have no idea of iron proletarian discipline and how it is achieved, that they are thoroughly imbued with the mentality of the declassed petty-bourgeois intellectual.“
TL;DR: “For, until the world socialist revolution breaks out, until it embraces several countries and is strong enough to overcome international imperialism, it is the direct duty of the socialists who have conquered in one country (especially a backward one) not to accept battle against the giants of imperialism. Their duty is to try to avoid battle, to wait until the conflicts between the imperialists weaken them even more, and bring the revolution in other countries even nearer. Our “Lefts” did not understand this simple truth“
didn't stalin basically say "boys will be boys" when he found out about the rape of some women in berlin?
yeah, dude was a shithead but i think he did a good amount of good things as a leader, such as stopping hitler.
Yeah I'm totally sure he said that and youre not just regurgitating propaganda
On the other hand heres what he actually said
Stalin's Order of the Day from January 19, 1945: "Officers and men of the Red Army! We are entering the country of the enemy. the remaining population in the liberated areas, regardless of whether they’re German, Czech, or Polish, should not be subjected to violence. The perpetrators will be punished according to the laws of war. In the liberated territories, sexual relations with females are not allowed. Perpetrators of violence and rape will be shot."
sexual relations with females are not allowed
:rainbow-has: FORCED GAY SOVIETS :rainbow-has:
:rainbow-has: FORCED GAY SOVIETS :rainbow-has:
Yes that order does exist but in reality very few soldiers were punished for it. IIRC Rokossovsky mentioned that it was up to individual commanders to discipline their forces and most of them didn't care.
Stalin interrupted: “Yes, you have, of course, read Dostoevsky? Do you see what a complicated thing is man’s soul, man’s psyche? Well then, imagine a man who has fought from Stalingrad to Belgrade–over thousands of kilometers of his own devastated land, across the dead bodies of his comrades and dearest ones! How can such a man react normally? And what is so awful in his having fun with the woman, after such horrors? You have imagined the Red Army to be ideal. And it is not ideal, nor can it be, even if it did not contain a certain percentage of criminals–we opened up our penitentiaries and stuck everybody into the army.
Djilas, Milovan. Conversations with Stalin. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962, p. 110
Djilas was an anti-communist though so it isn't the most reliable source.
we opened up our penitentiaries and stuck everybody into the army
This bit seems to argue against the veracity of the quote. Literally millions were stuck in the infamous prison camps at the time, and they were not let out - only the previously out-of-favor officers like Rokossovsky were.
One of my ancestors was an imprisoned soldier when the war broke out (long story, he was innocent); he was put in a penal battalion, but never saw combat, despite volunteering for it. I think there were more than enough volunteers - many stories you read from the time are of kids who lied about their age so they'd be allowed to join, i.e., the subsequently famous writer Astaf'yev.
Enlisting criminals wasn't necessary nor considered desirable because they'd be less trustworthy - but someone trying to smear the image of the army would add that detail in.
Djilas was anti-communist? I thought he was literally one of the top guys in the Yugoslav government.
He was anti stalin as the Yugoslavs were and he later renounced communism entirely IIRC
edit: He was one of the leading critics of Stalin leading to the Soviet-Yugo split. Then during the mid 1950s he went full lib and denounced the Yugoslav government as authoritarian. He spent the rest of his life being sent to jail by the Yugoslav government over and over again for publishing books that were against communism.
