He is also quoted as saying [blahblahblahbollocksbollocksbollocks]
No he isn't. Maybe you should actually verify instead of spreading complete and utter bullshit with such confidence?
Let's not fall into the trap of either lionizing or demonizing historical figures.
Yet here we are, with you attempting to demonise a historic figure by spreading bullshit.
responsible for the deaths of a lot of innocent people.
Every single US president in world history is too. Every single supporter of capitalism is responsible for 100million deaths every 5 years, what's your point? You're making an emotional attempt to demonise in one breath while pretending otherwise in the next.
I like how the people actively pursuing plots against Stalin then also criticize him for being paranoid. I would be paranoid too if all of the richest people and institutions in the world were organizing nazi collaborator opposition against me.
Can you provide a source for where he said that quote? The idea that Stalin was brutal is ridiculous. Should he have used kiddie gloves with the Nazis and the saboteur Kulaks?
This one
it predates every non-fiction instance of the phrase being used to my knowledge
This phrase is from the novel "Children of the Arbat" (1987) by Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov (1911 - 1998). This is how J.V. Stalin speaks about the execution of military experts in Tsaritsyn in 1918: “Death solves all problems. There is no person, and there is no problem. Later, in his “Novel-Memoir” (1997), A. Rybakov himself wrote that he “may have heard this phrase from someone, perhaps he came up with it himself.” That was the Stalinist principle. I just, briefly formulated it.
Many biographers have cited it, including Simon Montefiore is his book The Red Tsar, which was very well researched and shows Stalin as multi-faceted and charismatic, albeit deeply flawed.
The idea that Stalin was brutal is ridiculous.
Um, have you ever read a book about the man? The Great Purges between 1936-1938 and his policies towards the Soviet peasantry are just two examples of his ruthlessness.
Ummm excuse me?) I'll have you know it's at least as well sourced and unbiased as Sir Richard Empire III's seminal works "Stalin: Inscrutable Asiatic Tyrant" and "Stalin, Hitler of the Caucasus"!!!
I'll listen to 1 hour of the audiobook and come back lol.
Update 1: immediately admitted to be written from the perspective of "personality" lol. Simon did a fuckin tarot card reading on Stalin's psychology to make this book
I’m not asking about which biographers said it. I’m asking for evidence of Stalin saying it. (Letter, book, speech etc etc, If he said it you should have evidence) The great purges removed undesirable elements from the CPSU. You can’t name a single ill action taken towards Soviet peasants. Stalin brought them nothing but benefits
The great purges removed undesirable elements from the CPSU.
Undesirable from Stalin's point of view, certainly.
You can’t name a single ill action taken towards Soviet peasants.Stalin brought them nothing but benefits
Hoo, boy. I would advise you to research how many people died during forced collectivization and how much death was caused by the confiscation of grain by the NKVD and the Red Army before you start making statements like that.
This theory is pretty roundly discredited in academia, though. The consensus view is that while there was a drought that lasted several years, the starvation that occured was exacerbated by the policies set by the Politburo, including:
Excessive quotas leading to the reduction in crop rotation and leaving land fallow, which in turn lead to weaker crop yields
The fall in livestock numbers following forced collectivization
Poor quality harvest resulting from an unsettled agriculture industry that resulted from political upheaval
So yes, nature itself was partly to blame but the refusal to deviate from the unrealistic goals set by the people in charge was the reason why the grain shortages and resulting famines were so much worse that they ought to have been.
You've missed out the main cause, which was a lack of oversight over figures that were being reported by the farms. They trusted the numbers they were being given which proved to be false reporting, which led to the incorrect quotas and crop rotation mistakes, which led to all the other mistakes.
This was a blunder that was corrected later (with extra third party checking of numbers). Solving it.
Keep in mind this was the very first time central planning had been applied to a task like this. The notion that the numbers reported would be wrong was not something anyone expected because there was no precedent to go on. All of these "incorrect policies" that you blame them for are a product of the incorrect figures that they had. Figures that were incorrect because kulaks were grain hoarding to sell for profit then reporting incorrect figures.
Are you telling me a group of men with an 1800s education didn't have the most up to date agricultural science? Sounds like the fault of the people who educated them to me.
Asked and answered: I cited the specific book that referenced it, among others.
For the record, I am more than capable of recognizing the positive aspects of the USSR - I just don't like the simple-minded good vs bad binary thinking that often plagues these discussions.
Edit: user I was replying to says they cited multiple sources. Just wanted to say they only cited one author - who's more a story-teller than a historian - while handwaving about "many authors saying it's true" without listing anyone. They completely rely on hearsay and vibes for evidence and not concrete source material for their worldview.
I’m probably less enthused about Stalin than your average Hexbear user. While I’ll fully recognize Stalin’s faults and harmful actions, what bugs me about liberal “Stalin bad” takes is a refusal to acknowledge the objectively impossible problems the USSR had to address in the 20s and 30s. With the peasants, for example, you can’t just let them continue on with small plots and wooden tools. You do that and eventually the cities starve, industrialization never happens, and the Nazis steamroll them back past the Urals (killing tens of millions in the process). The rollout of collectivization was a shit show but it’s not unreasonable for a socialist country to push for collective ownership of land.
Kotkin's first volume on Stalin is a far better work that I'd recommend as far as biographies go. Kotkin is very obviously an anti-communist, but even a turbo Stalinite like Grover Furr finds few academic faults with that particular work. The other volumes are less stellar though.
There's also the recently authorized re-translation of Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Demenico Losurdo which has a free PDF available. It offers insight on a perspective of Stalin that seeks to de-mythologize the "monster."
As for Montefiore and authors of his ilk, I wouldn't rely too much on narratives spun by pop history writers and journalists.
Don't you find it a little strange that this short bit of quote is so often repeated but we never hear the context for it?
When you hear it out of context it sounds callous and cruel, but it would be a very different statement if (for example) he said it in response to finding out Hitler killed himself or that some enemy had died of cancer or something.
And that's not even taking into account the fact that it's inherently very suspicious that nobody seems to be able to produce a source for the original context and attribution of the quote.
No investigation, no right to speak. If you don't even have evidence he said it you're just working backwards to justify your conclusion, which is what every westerner is taught. If you don't have an actual source to cite don't be arrogant and just accept that you made a mistake.
I'm not denying that at all. Ruthlessness and brutality are some editorialized words, but fair enough to describe the attitude the early Soviet Union had to assume to stomp out opportunists and reactionaries. Every single actually existing, surviving socialist state had to do something similar. The ones who didn't, like Allende and Arbenz, were swiftly dealt with by the reactionaries they treated with mercy which was not paid back.
Yes that's very true. The argument I was trying to capture is that when us socialists try to do things the nice and peaceful way, reactionaries don't spare us the same mercy. So to everyone who believes in the goals of socialism, they should accept that the only way they've been achieved in history is through the suppression of reaction.
But what you say is also true and it reminds me of Parenti's remarks on liberal criticism of the Cuban revolution in the yellow lecture. Liberals will look at a brutal, oppressive capitalist government that has no regard for civil rights in a third world country and say, "that's the cost of development; it's very unfortunate but there is no other way for these nations to succeed". But when socialists overthrow that regime and turn the mechanisms of repression back on the fascists, the liberals pipe up, "Oh you've established better quality of life for the workers, but what about the fascists? Are there civil liberties for the fascists?" And just like that, liberals go from pragmatic, realpolitikers to bleeding heart humanitarians protecting the rights of every fascist in the globe.
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No he isn't. Maybe you should actually verify instead of spreading complete and utter bullshit with such confidence?
Yet here we are, with you attempting to demonise a historic figure by spreading bullshit.
Every single US president in world history is too. Every single supporter of capitalism is responsible for 100million deaths every 5 years, what's your point? You're making an emotional attempt to demonise in one breath while pretending otherwise in the next.
You're full of shit mate.
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Oh fuck off. Weasel words. How fucking slimey are you?
Stalin was a soft kind grandpa compared to Lenin.
I like how the people actively pursuing plots against Stalin then also criticize him for being paranoid. I would be paranoid too if all of the richest people and institutions in the world were organizing nazi collaborator opposition against me.
like his best friend was killed by foreign agents, who wouldn't be paranoid to hell?
He is quoted as saying something he didn't say. It is undeniably true that words where put in his mouth
I think we get your point
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Source where? I always have big doubt when someone claims very confidently something is undeniably true.
Can you provide a source for where he said that quote? The idea that Stalin was brutal is ridiculous. Should he have used kiddie gloves with the Nazis and the saboteur Kulaks?
he never did, it's from a novel
This one
it predates every non-fiction instance of the phrase being used to my knowledge
from here
Many biographers have cited it, including Simon Montefiore is his book The Red Tsar, which was very well researched and shows Stalin as multi-faceted and charismatic, albeit deeply flawed.
Um, have you ever read a book about the man? The Great Purges between 1936-1938 and his policies towards the Soviet peasantry are just two examples of his ruthlessness.
I'm sure the book titled Red Tsar was a very even handed account
Ummm excuse me?) I'll have you know it's at least as well sourced and unbiased as Sir Richard Empire III's seminal works "Stalin: Inscrutable Asiatic Tyrant" and "Stalin, Hitler of the Caucasus"!!!
It is. You should read it.
Unless you think that anything less than a glowing account of Stalin in unacceptable, of course.
The title is literally comparing him to a monarch. I do not think it will be even handed.
Read this
Wait for it
Even the CIA dispels the notion of Stalin having absolute power as ridiculous propaganda that they cooked up
I'll listen to 1 hour of the audiobook and come back lol.
Update 1: immediately admitted to be written from the perspective of "personality" lol. Simon did a fuckin tarot card reading on Stalin's psychology to make this book
I’m not asking about which biographers said it. I’m asking for evidence of Stalin saying it. (Letter, book, speech etc etc, If he said it you should have evidence) The great purges removed undesirable elements from the CPSU. You can’t name a single ill action taken towards Soviet peasants. Stalin brought them nothing but benefits
Post I made on what the hell "purging" meant in the Soviet Union
If anyone wants to do some light educational reading on the subject of Chiskas
Undesirable from Stalin's point of view, certainly.
Hoo, boy. I would advise you to research how many people died during forced collectivization and how much death was caused by the confiscation of grain by the NKVD and the Red Army before you start making statements like that.
None. None was caused by this. The death was caused by the hoarding of it for profit. The confiscation was a response to that hoarding.
Hoarding for profit by the privileged farmers who had wage slaves while the peasants starved. (Just adding more context)
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This theory is pretty roundly discredited in academia, though. The consensus view is that while there was a drought that lasted several years, the starvation that occured was exacerbated by the policies set by the Politburo, including:
Excessive quotas leading to the reduction in crop rotation and leaving land fallow, which in turn lead to weaker crop yields
The fall in livestock numbers following forced collectivization
Poor quality harvest resulting from an unsettled agriculture industry that resulted from political upheaval
So yes, nature itself was partly to blame but the refusal to deviate from the unrealistic goals set by the people in charge was the reason why the grain shortages and resulting famines were so much worse that they ought to have been.
You've missed out the main cause, which was a lack of oversight over figures that were being reported by the farms. They trusted the numbers they were being given which proved to be false reporting, which led to the incorrect quotas and crop rotation mistakes, which led to all the other mistakes.
This was a blunder that was corrected later (with extra third party checking of numbers). Solving it.
Keep in mind this was the very first time central planning had been applied to a task like this. The notion that the numbers reported would be wrong was not something anyone expected because there was no precedent to go on. All of these "incorrect policies" that you blame them for are a product of the incorrect figures that they had. Figures that were incorrect because kulaks were grain hoarding to sell for profit then reporting incorrect figures.
Are you telling me a group of men with an 1800s education didn't have the most up to date agricultural science? Sounds like the fault of the people who educated them to me.
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Asked and answered: I cited the specific book that referenced it, among others.
For the record, I am more than capable of recognizing the positive aspects of the USSR - I just don't like the simple-minded good vs bad binary thinking that often plagues these discussions.
No, you haven’t show where Stalin said it. We aren’t interested in some biography but where it was said by Stalin
You just waved a few titles around without actually citing evidence.
Evidence is when you type out directly the material you're talking about, followed by the source you got it from, the page(s) and paragraph(s).
You want an example of what actual quality citations look like please take a brief moment to read through some of the citations in this post
Edit: user I was replying to says they cited multiple sources. Just wanted to say they only cited one author - who's more a story-teller than a historian - while handwaving about "many authors saying it's true" without listing anyone. They completely rely on hearsay and vibes for evidence and not concrete source material for their worldview.
Like what? You're only saying negatives. Let's get your positives.
That's fair.
As for the pluses, I'd list:
Add in these next time.
That's usually listed under Stalin's crimes by western historians.
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I don't believe you've ever completed reading a book about any of these events, or even Soviet history in general honestly
Homie just shut up and take the L here
I’m probably less enthused about Stalin than your average Hexbear user. While I’ll fully recognize Stalin’s faults and harmful actions, what bugs me about liberal “Stalin bad” takes is a refusal to acknowledge the objectively impossible problems the USSR had to address in the 20s and 30s. With the peasants, for example, you can’t just let them continue on with small plots and wooden tools. You do that and eventually the cities starve, industrialization never happens, and the Nazis steamroll them back past the Urals (killing tens of millions in the process). The rollout of collectivization was a shit show but it’s not unreasonable for a socialist country to push for collective ownership of land.
Kotkin's first volume on Stalin is a far better work that I'd recommend as far as biographies go. Kotkin is very obviously an anti-communist, but even a turbo Stalinite like Grover Furr finds few academic faults with that particular work. The other volumes are less stellar though.
There's also the recently authorized re-translation of Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Demenico Losurdo which has a free PDF available. It offers insight on a perspective of Stalin that seeks to de-mythologize the "monster."
As for Montefiore and authors of his ilk, I wouldn't rely too much on narratives spun by pop history writers and journalists.
Don't you find it a little strange that this short bit of quote is so often repeated but we never hear the context for it?
When you hear it out of context it sounds callous and cruel, but it would be a very different statement if (for example) he said it in response to finding out Hitler killed himself or that some enemy had died of cancer or something.
And that's not even taking into account the fact that it's inherently very suspicious that nobody seems to be able to produce a source for the original context and attribution of the quote.
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Let me just pop on my They Live sunglasses and give this post a reread
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No investigation, no right to speak. If you don't even have evidence he said it you're just working backwards to justify your conclusion, which is what every westerner is taught. If you don't have an actual source to cite don't be arrogant and just accept that you made a mistake.
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I'm not denying that at all. Ruthlessness and brutality are some editorialized words, but fair enough to describe the attitude the early Soviet Union had to assume to stomp out opportunists and reactionaries. Every single actually existing, surviving socialist state had to do something similar. The ones who didn't, like Allende and Arbenz, were swiftly dealt with by the reactionaries they treated with mercy which was not paid back.
Every single actually existing state had to as well. Capitalists killed the monarchists and the competing monarchs killed each other.
Liberals literally think violence only happens when it's not "their" police or soldiers killing people
Yes that's very true. The argument I was trying to capture is that when us socialists try to do things the nice and peaceful way, reactionaries don't spare us the same mercy. So to everyone who believes in the goals of socialism, they should accept that the only way they've been achieved in history is through the suppression of reaction.
But what you say is also true and it reminds me of Parenti's remarks on liberal criticism of the Cuban revolution in the yellow lecture. Liberals will look at a brutal, oppressive capitalist government that has no regard for civil rights in a third world country and say, "that's the cost of development; it's very unfortunate but there is no other way for these nations to succeed". But when socialists overthrow that regime and turn the mechanisms of repression back on the fascists, the liberals pipe up, "Oh you've established better quality of life for the workers, but what about the fascists? Are there civil liberties for the fascists?" And just like that, liberals go from pragmatic, realpolitikers to bleeding heart humanitarians protecting the rights of every fascist in the globe.
He said the line
... Wow
New site tagline just drop?
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Just a rehash of Reagan’s Iran contra statement lmfao
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Reread this again and again until it sinks in that you are making stuff up based on feelings. Facts don’t care about your feelings.
"This is completely made up, but because it sounds right to me, it must be true."
Edit: if you’re going to quote, at least put a fucking source. Right now you’re making shit up.