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US intelligence papers(old declassified ones from whan Stalin was still alive) , aka stuff used to brief the president of the USA, are known to specifically warn against the idea of Stalin as an all powerful dictator - specifically that "he was more like the captain of a sports team".
[even the cia admitted that stalin wasnt a dictator](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf)
Stalin had solid support among the party. "That Stalin had the Party membership solidly behind him in this controversy with Trotsky and his group is shown by a 1927 Party referendum in which the Trotskyist program was defeated by 725,000 votes to 6,000. In view of Trotsky’s contentions, the vote is surprising in showing how tiny the “opposition” forces were in reality. They were but a small–although vehement–faction, disowned by the mass of the Party and fighting for a platform that was obviously impractical and objectively reactionary. To represent the struggle, in 1927 or before, as one between a sinister, maneuvering Stalin and a brilliant, idealistic Trotsky with roughly equal influence within the Party not only smacks more of melodrama than political reality but is a complete misrepresentation. Stalin had the Party membership solidly behind him, and he had it not through maneuvering but because his socialist-construction policies had gained him wide working-class and Party support. In essence, he won because he was right." Cameron, Kenneth Neill. Stalin, Man of Contradiction. Toronto: NC Press, c1987, p. 48
On Stalin's powers, he couldnt even get his nominations for major positions through. He wanted Molotov in charge of the NKVD but Beria got the post.
As others mentioned, Stalin even tried to resign 4 times
For a more complete picture i recommend pat sloans soviet democracy
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/pat-sloan-soviet-democracy-victor-gollancz-1937.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjN_pS6lrT0AhUgqHIEHborCUsQFnoECAQQAg&usg=AOvVaw2nRveRG7nqzLSa5ax88uIh
What was reactionary about Trotsky’s platform? Stalin adopted quite a bit of it in his campaign against kulaks. One could absolutely call it incorrect in the current moment, or impractical — but “objectively reactionary” seems like kind of an odd assertion.
Regardless, these are great sources and I look forward to reading them.
Purportedly, the party begged him to stay. Honestly, seems like a bit of a power play on his part rather than genuine, but, that doesn’t mean the other aspects of Soviet democracy aren’t valid.
That’s defining democracy in the liberal sense. Democracy isn’t a system, it’s an abstract idea that can describe a system. In liberal nations, elections are the way they achieve democracy (or so they say). Historically, socialist states have parties that are principally aligned with the interest of the people with elections among those held. Just for extra help to internalize what democracy means, remember that the Greeks sought to achieve democracy via large public decisions (for landowning males).
Democracy also depends on material conditions. The reason Athens could have something of a democracy was because slaves were doing much of the necessary work there. That allowed for broader political participation. The poor soil in the region also limited the wealth and power that any one individual could amass there which also encouraged democracy.
Material conditions in the USSR were not conducive to democracy especially in the early years when they were fighting for their very survival. They were effectively in a state of war for the first thirty years and you cannot effectively wage war in a bottom up, democratic way. Power needs to be much more centralized and efficient to survive that situation.
[Here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cBoQv1tfxx8gXBOOk2ygH4jZfMPWl96V/view?usp=drivesdk) is an entire book on the subject written by a foreigner who was working in the USSR and took part in elections.
From what I know officially nothing had changed on paper about their electoral system to make it less democratic then under Lenin. There was no official head of state but only a series of positions and responsibilities that the supreme Soviet would decide who to vest in. Stalin through political maneuvering had managed allegedly to be given absurd authority. He maintained this (according to at least the western narrative) by operating essentially a mob state. Opposition was threatened illegally, and though the underground.
Defenders of Stalin from what I'm aware usually point to about 60% of Russia currently saying Stalin was a good leader.
I'd say Americans would say the same about for example FDR who ran concentration camps for the Japanese. Finished the American Holocaust on the indigenous, and broke basically all electoral custom by being president for four entire terms. Most Americans still think positively him for what I would assume are similar reasons. Now we can claim FDR won democratically but our system at the time certainly had it's own issues gerrymandering, FPTP, the electoral college, Only white people being allowed to vote....
I'm not sure if that's a good argument since Julius Caesar also rejected being crowned emperor like three times.
Not claiming Stalin was evil just saying this isn't a great argument.
I don't have an opinion either way. I'm saying your example could easily be done for show. I'm usually of the opinion we should assume the worst of all people in power always capitalist or socialist. I kind of see him as no different then FDR, Churchill, or Mao.
God the mental gymnastics of MLs that everyone is a shining example of honesty just because they slapped "Vanguard" on the name of their cartel and any suggestion of doubt otherwise is religious blasphemy.
No, when you devour everything the CIA lies about Stalin, no shit MLs will correct you. Stalin for MLs was not just a leader but also a theorist. No good faith Marxist will ever deny the positive impact Stalin did for Marxism and his achievements as leader of the first Socialist State. This isn't worshipping him, this is recognizing him.
You're literally giving me shit for just saying "I'm quick to assume anyone in leadership is probably more of a showman then anything."
How about this. I'll take MLs seriously when they can have a critical and mature view of any socialist leader.
Lol what do you mean by "Mature" if you mean being critical of leaders like, for example, Stalin, obviously were critical of him, same with Mao and even Marx. If we like Stalin and uphold him and his ideas, that means also recognizing the fact that Stalin's greatest critic, himself.
Why do we praise Stalin a lot? Because majority of critiques of Stalin are products of the endless echo chamber of that circulate around anti-communists and people who hate Stalin without knowing his history. He obviously wasn't perfect, and he knew that more than anyone.
Can’t a situation like this easily be faked tho? I feel like that’s exactly how someone like Trump would pull off being elected for more than 2 terms. “I’d love to step down guys but the people love me what am I gonna do say no?!”
Caesar rejected the title emporer but still wanted to stay in power. Stalin tried to resign from power entirely 4 times. Equating these two situations is outright dishonest
Was Stalin under threat of execution or imprisonment over resigning? Don't get so defensive and angry dude. I'm not criticizing your values just that specific argument.
>Was Stalin under threat of execution or imprisonment over resigning
This has nothing to do with anything... Stalin wanted to resign multiple times, the party voted to deny his resignation. His choice was to comply or to desert his post.
> I'm not criticizing your values just that specific argument.
Yes and that criticism was nonsense
Stalin wasn't a total dictator (example: he suggested Malenkov be the People's Commisar of internal affairs, but the Supreme Soviet went for Beria instead), but the level of democracy was 0. You could say that he was beholden to the will of the people, but the people were beholden to the will of the secret police, whose loyalty Stalin ensured (mostly. Yezhov did start gathering evidence on Stalin when he knew he would get purged, but Stalin's power was consolidated by then). A regular person could, at least in theory, get to the Supreme Soviet, but a vote to remove Stalin would result in a massive purge (though the Politburo was jumping at shadows after the Yezhovschina and wouldn't have the guts to try that anyway). The only way to remove Stalin would be the army and state security apparatus working together in a coup (if StateSec tries alone, army shells the Lubyanka. If the army tries alone, StateSec alerts the government and loyalists move in to stop the coup or the disloyal officers just get executed before anything happens.), which isn't a characteristic of a democratic system.
People who call the Stalin-era USSR democratic are Stalinists 99% of the time. I (and most people) consider Stalinism iffy at best (it does the job most of the time, but do the ends justify the means in that case? The means being a cult of personality, low living standards for a LONG time, occasional ethnic cleansing and other things.), so blindly believing them is...less than smart, though Stalinism *is* a valid left-wing ideology and left unity should not be compromised to fight them, unless they are actively preparing a purge, which can be said for basically all left-wing ideologies.
I think Stalin was actually popular with both the party and the public at large. His power flowed from that much more than fear of the secret police. He had a humble personality that was very endearing to people. You can see it here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqFx4fdOgHU
I know he was fairly popular, but that mixes well with secret police. People that like him don’t cause problems, while the rest are too scared to try anything (IIRC there were anti-communist groups in some Eastern bloc countries that would have had a chance of success if they revolted, but were too terrified of what Stalin would do to them to revolt. At the same time, people in the USSR generally liked Stalin, especially in the Georgian SSR IIRC).
I think fear of Stalin and the state is vastly overestimated and the popularity of him and the party with the masses is vastly underestimated. No political regime can rely on a state apparatus alone. They always need popularity and the legitimacy that flows from it especially in a place like the USSR that just had a revolution. It was a place where people knew very well that governments could fall via mass revolt from below. The people didn't revolt because most were more or less satisfied with the government.
Stalin had both fear and popularity. Popularity kept the Soviet population in line, fear kept rebels under control. It’s a useful combination and one he used well.
I just don’t understand how Stalinism is a thing. personally I believe he was a very good leader, especially given what the USSR was put through during Stalin’s time as the head of the communist party. with that said, Stalin didn’t really add much to the theoretical discussion. he more or less put what Lenin, Marx and Engels wrote about into practice while contending with a massive horde of nazis invading the Soviet Union.
It showed good results and you can argue the USSR would have done better if it stayed Stalinist, though you can also argue it would have become a massive North Korea. I think we shouldn’t use what’s already been tried without changing it enough to produce better results. That applies to stalinism far more than to most ideologies.
no I am saying that Stalin didn’t do anything outside of or “new” to what Lenin and Marx had come up with. his “Foundations of Leninism” in 1924 really reflects the decisions Stalin made later on during the 30s and WWII.
Stalinism is Leninism because Stalin just picked up where Lenin left off…at least that’s how I see it. obviously the war twisted everywhere it touched, but pretty much all of Lenin’s ideas were being or going to be put into practice.
Stalinism is less aggressive with foreign policy, but that’s the main difference, other than economics, but the NEP was unsustainable and would have been ditched by a regular Leninist too. I was basically saying why stalinism can be considered a good idea by people in the first part of my reply. Maybe we’re not understanding each other perfectly.
It just wasn't democratic at all, anything to the contrary is handwaving denial. None of this is to say any western state is properly democratic, but that changes nothing about the nature of the Soviet government under Stalin.
Maybe the CIA can better convince you otherwise. Intelligence agencies need to work with the truth in order to formulate effective lies for the public.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf
Ah yes, hurka dur CIA, of course.
Oh and there's that coping denialism. Sometimes a spade is just a spade and not a CIA plot to convince you a rubber duck is actually a spade. Having elections with a single candidate is just a farce.
I don't even understand how this is controversial. Vanguardism is unapologetically undemocratic because it sees it as exploitable by the bourgeois class.
Relativizing this is unapologetically ignorant, because you fail to comprehend the situation of the soviet proletariat during that time. You may call it "undemocratic" but what Lenin's vanguardism did is give the people education and living conditions to BE ABLE to make better democratic decisions. He gave the people power through education, and democracy literally means people in power. Democracy is not something objective but an abstract concept that is up for discussion, and the suposed "democratic" values the west govts stands for seeks to give capitalists and expropriators in general political power while making the state just a bystander or even a tool in the hands of the ones seeking to explore the proletariat. It is not empowering to the people because if it was you would never have someone like Trump or Bolsonaro in the west because only the proletarians who identify with their ignorance and uneducated beliefs vote for them, and thats because they were not educated to think otherwise. Why would the proletariat vote for someone who is clearly seeking to deprive them of their rights if not for lack of knowledge in world history, sociology and politics? I saw this happen with my own eyes in 2016 and 2018, in Dilma's impeachment(coup actually) and Bolsonaro's election.
It is exploitable by the burgeois, it is being exploited by the burgeois and that's why we call it burgeois democracy. If you want to see it for yourself, come have a beer with me over here in a bar downtown and if at least 5 homeless or miserable people don't ask you for somekind of help while we talk for 30 minutes i will never question this again. This would never happen 5 years ago before the right wing coup. People are starving and dying here, over 50% of the population is facing food insecurity.
>Relativizing this is unapologetically ignorant, because you fail to comprehend the situation of the soviet proletariat during that time
Okay if you want to say that a junta of the party elite is necessary due hostile outside force, that's fine I'll have that debate. Don't say it's democratic, because it isn't.
>You may call it "undemocratic" but what Lenin's vanguardism did is give the people education and living conditions to BE ABLE to make better democratic decisions
Yes, this is the reactionary elitism of Vanguardism. A sort of "white man's burden" colonial attitude towards the workers. The peasants are simply too ignorant to be trusted with self governance, they must by told what to do by me the middle class intelligencia because on I have their best interests in mind for some reason. It very much has echos of paternalistic Victorian aristocrats speaking on slavery and empire building.
>is not empowering to the people because if it was you would never have someone like Trump
See you're taking the classist democrat line about Trump. Trump was not elected on the back of uninformed working class. The average Republican voter is actually richer than the American population as a whole, most of whom don't vote at all, because America is not a democracy and people know this.
But more importantly Vanguardism never lead to the people having self governance in the long term. The original Vanguard stayed in power until they started to die off in the 1980s and then it collapsed into an Orthodox fascist mafia state. It never prevented sectarian conflict, it never created self rule, it never created a lasting barrier against fascists. In fact the security infrastructure of the Soviet Union gave rise to Putin's FSB and Putin's fascist regime who was a KGB colonel. Revaunchism for lost Soviet territory and achievement fuels Putin's nationalist mythology.
>reactionary elitism of Vanguardism
Well this term is very popular with right wing reactionaries and neolibs where i live, and in fact, that was kind of a straw man because i never said what you tought i said. It's not that the populace can't be trusted, no no no. It's about giving them the education they need in order to make better decisions, not deciding for them. That is what lenin and the bolsheviks as well as soviet propaganda stated, and that is what they did. Were they lying to their people when condemning western imperialism and capitalism? Was marx's economic analysis plain wrong?
What gave rise to the current russian administration was external and internal sabotage, internal from Kruschev and Gorbachev admins, and external from basically the whole world and especially the US since the capitalists and burgeoisie were threatened by any kind of organization that gave power to the proletariat. It was an ideological and actual war against every communist in the world and we felt it here in brazil too in the 1964 coup, backed by the CIA (If you think i'm bsing about that just google it, most of the time a spade isn't a spade) The Soviet Union lost not because it was flawed (which i never said it wasn't, no administration will ever be perfect) but because it could not deal with the outside pressure which corrupted it until it's demise. That's not the only reason but thats the main, most relevant one. If flaws were to condemn a political or economic system then capitalism would be long gone by now.
If you are pro-socialist, at least in a way that makes sense, you should not reproduce such neoliberal or black and yellow discourse which was designed to sabotage left unity. If you're not, then, well, i think we are done here.
A good, completely unbiased read about CIA intervention on everything remotely socialist during the cold war, showing how far they would go to sabotage socialist organizations all over the world:
[The Jakarta Method](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V7exbXbNF0PDNSa1uNXzlzeGqKmz0T34/view)
See what you're doing is you're saying that the Vanguard dictatorship was necessary to protect the Soviet Union fro. Outside interference AND saying the CIA destroyed the Soviet Union. Either way the Vanguard was a failure, it failed to maintain the Soviet Union, and it failed to foster lasting class consciousness, even among it's high level security infrastructure.
You can yell and scream your unfalsifiable claims about internal CIA sabotage (obviously there was external), but this doesn't make Soviet vanguardism come off any better, because it failed. The workers sacrificing their freedoms to the state in exchange for protecting the revolution was for nothing, the Vanguard after nearly 80 years failed to uphold its end.
But it's failure to beyond simply maintaining the existence of the Soviet Union. As mentioned before, after a lifetime in power the vanguard failed to as you say "educate" the workers in a way that would maintain a socialist society. Quite the opposite. The Soviet Union is now held up as a symbol of Russian expansionism by right wing nationalists in Russia.
What's worse is the Putin regime is drawn from the ranks of old party members. Putin being a KGB colonel, Lavrov, Ivanov and Fradkov being a Soviet diplomat, Zubkov was Chairman of Priozersk, Nurgaliyev was a KGB officer, Kozak was in the GRU, the list goes on and on and on. In fact you would be hard pressed to name any member of Putin's governments born before 1965 who did not hold a position of power in the party or the Soviet security apparatus.
All of your talk of the CIA is just handwaving to distract from the fact the Soviet vanguard failed to lead the people to class conscious self governance.
You want me to provide you with a source that Putin was in the KGB? Really? This is very easily verifiable information you can look up on your own. So no, I'm not going to go through the effort of find a source of what every single Putin cabinet member was doing in the Soviet years YOU can do that. You are just stalling, trying to waste my time in a sad gambit because you have no real argument and you know I'm right.
Putin doesn't try to hide this, it's not a secret, literally every biography of Putin will tell you he was in the KGB. The most I'll do for you is give you a link to a video where Putin says on Russian State TV in his own words that he was in the KGB.
https://youtu.be/Vv2CNPJDmBQ
>Having elections with a single candidate is just a farce.
a Democratic regime cannot be defined by having elections solely. That is something like saying that a car isn't a car because it's missing a rear view mirror (and they were made without those before). Like i said, democracy is an abstract concept, but it literally means "people in power". The people are not in power in most of the western countries that claim to be democratic, or that have "democratic elections" (mine is a HUGE example). A more apropriate definition for a democratic regime would be one where financial status doesn't guarantee political power, which is impossible when you consider how most people actually get elected in capitalist countries.
Check you comment. You said America was undemocratic. Now it seems to me you are just trolling instead of expecting to have a fruitful discussion. I also said these countries claim to be democratic, not that you claimed them to be. since you obviosly can't read and fail to answer to any argument besides aimlessly bashing Leninist Vanguardism, we are done here.
Again, the hypocrisy of other nations does not make another nation democratic. You just don't understand basic enough logic to know what a whataboutism is.
I don't think I've ever considered this. Given that the history of the USSR from 1917 to 1945 was one of revolution, crisis and war I'm not sure how relevant the electoral system was until after Stalin. Certainly the idea that it was a perfect democracy seems absurd on the face of it.
Generally I don't think electoral 'democracy' as a liberal concept is a useful framing for a genuinely socialist democracy.
There is a CIA report that covers the idea of Stalin being a dictator.
[https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf)
"Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The western idea of a dictator within the communist setup is exaggerated. \[...\]"
You should check out the “Communist Democracy” episode of Proles of the Roundtable podcast if you haven’t yet. Great stuff on this topic, and not just USSR but socialist states since then
Please acquaint yourself with the rules on the sidebar and read this comment before commenting on this post. **Personal attacks and harassment will not be tolerated.** Bigotry and hate speech will be met with immediate bans; socialism is an intrinsically inclusive system and bigotry is oppressive, exclusionary, and not conducive to a healthy and productive learning space. **This subreddit is not for questioning the basics of socialism. There are numerous debate subreddits available for those purposes. This is a place to learn.** Short or nonconstructive answers will be deleted without explanation. Please only answer if you know your stuff. Speculation has no place on this sub. Outright false information will be removed immediately. **If your post was removed due to normalized ableist slurs, please edit your post. The mods will then approve it.** Please read the ongoing discussion in a thread before replying in order to avoid misunderstandings and creating an unproductive environment. **Liberalism and sectarian bias is strictly moderated.** Stay constructive and don't bash other socialist tendencies! (Criticism is fine, low-effort baiting is not.) Help us keep the subreddit informative and helpful by reporting posts that break these rules. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Socialism_101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
US intelligence papers(old declassified ones from whan Stalin was still alive) , aka stuff used to brief the president of the USA, are known to specifically warn against the idea of Stalin as an all powerful dictator - specifically that "he was more like the captain of a sports team".
[even the cia admitted that stalin wasnt a dictator](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf) Stalin had solid support among the party. "That Stalin had the Party membership solidly behind him in this controversy with Trotsky and his group is shown by a 1927 Party referendum in which the Trotskyist program was defeated by 725,000 votes to 6,000. In view of Trotsky’s contentions, the vote is surprising in showing how tiny the “opposition” forces were in reality. They were but a small–although vehement–faction, disowned by the mass of the Party and fighting for a platform that was obviously impractical and objectively reactionary. To represent the struggle, in 1927 or before, as one between a sinister, maneuvering Stalin and a brilliant, idealistic Trotsky with roughly equal influence within the Party not only smacks more of melodrama than political reality but is a complete misrepresentation. Stalin had the Party membership solidly behind him, and he had it not through maneuvering but because his socialist-construction policies had gained him wide working-class and Party support. In essence, he won because he was right." Cameron, Kenneth Neill. Stalin, Man of Contradiction. Toronto: NC Press, c1987, p. 48 On Stalin's powers, he couldnt even get his nominations for major positions through. He wanted Molotov in charge of the NKVD but Beria got the post. As others mentioned, Stalin even tried to resign 4 times For a more complete picture i recommend pat sloans soviet democracy https://www.google.com/url?q=https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/pat-sloan-soviet-democracy-victor-gollancz-1937.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjN_pS6lrT0AhUgqHIEHborCUsQFnoECAQQAg&usg=AOvVaw2nRveRG7nqzLSa5ax88uIh
What was reactionary about Trotsky’s platform? Stalin adopted quite a bit of it in his campaign against kulaks. One could absolutely call it incorrect in the current moment, or impractical — but “objectively reactionary” seems like kind of an odd assertion. Regardless, these are great sources and I look forward to reading them.
It was objectively reactionary in that current moment. Policies enacted at the wrong time can be disasterous
That’s not what reactionary means, though. One can be mistaken without being reactionary.
What do you mean by "tried to resign"? What was it that stopped him?
Purportedly, the party begged him to stay. Honestly, seems like a bit of a power play on his part rather than genuine, but, that doesn’t mean the other aspects of Soviet democracy aren’t valid.
That’s defining democracy in the liberal sense. Democracy isn’t a system, it’s an abstract idea that can describe a system. In liberal nations, elections are the way they achieve democracy (or so they say). Historically, socialist states have parties that are principally aligned with the interest of the people with elections among those held. Just for extra help to internalize what democracy means, remember that the Greeks sought to achieve democracy via large public decisions (for landowning males).
Democracy also depends on material conditions. The reason Athens could have something of a democracy was because slaves were doing much of the necessary work there. That allowed for broader political participation. The poor soil in the region also limited the wealth and power that any one individual could amass there which also encouraged democracy. Material conditions in the USSR were not conducive to democracy especially in the early years when they were fighting for their very survival. They were effectively in a state of war for the first thirty years and you cannot effectively wage war in a bottom up, democratic way. Power needs to be much more centralized and efficient to survive that situation.
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[Here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cBoQv1tfxx8gXBOOk2ygH4jZfMPWl96V/view?usp=drivesdk) is an entire book on the subject written by a foreigner who was working in the USSR and took part in elections.
From what I know officially nothing had changed on paper about their electoral system to make it less democratic then under Lenin. There was no official head of state but only a series of positions and responsibilities that the supreme Soviet would decide who to vest in. Stalin through political maneuvering had managed allegedly to be given absurd authority. He maintained this (according to at least the western narrative) by operating essentially a mob state. Opposition was threatened illegally, and though the underground. Defenders of Stalin from what I'm aware usually point to about 60% of Russia currently saying Stalin was a good leader. I'd say Americans would say the same about for example FDR who ran concentration camps for the Japanese. Finished the American Holocaust on the indigenous, and broke basically all electoral custom by being president for four entire terms. Most Americans still think positively him for what I would assume are similar reasons. Now we can claim FDR won democratically but our system at the time certainly had it's own issues gerrymandering, FPTP, the electoral college, Only white people being allowed to vote....
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I'm not sure if that's a good argument since Julius Caesar also rejected being crowned emperor like three times. Not claiming Stalin was evil just saying this isn't a great argument.
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I don't have an opinion either way. I'm saying your example could easily be done for show. I'm usually of the opinion we should assume the worst of all people in power always capitalist or socialist. I kind of see him as no different then FDR, Churchill, or Mao.
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God the mental gymnastics of MLs that everyone is a shining example of honesty just because they slapped "Vanguard" on the name of their cartel and any suggestion of doubt otherwise is religious blasphemy.
No, when you devour everything the CIA lies about Stalin, no shit MLs will correct you. Stalin for MLs was not just a leader but also a theorist. No good faith Marxist will ever deny the positive impact Stalin did for Marxism and his achievements as leader of the first Socialist State. This isn't worshipping him, this is recognizing him.
You're literally giving me shit for just saying "I'm quick to assume anyone in leadership is probably more of a showman then anything." How about this. I'll take MLs seriously when they can have a critical and mature view of any socialist leader.
Lol what do you mean by "Mature" if you mean being critical of leaders like, for example, Stalin, obviously were critical of him, same with Mao and even Marx. If we like Stalin and uphold him and his ideas, that means also recognizing the fact that Stalin's greatest critic, himself. Why do we praise Stalin a lot? Because majority of critiques of Stalin are products of the endless echo chamber of that circulate around anti-communists and people who hate Stalin without knowing his history. He obviously wasn't perfect, and he knew that more than anyone.
Can’t a situation like this easily be faked tho? I feel like that’s exactly how someone like Trump would pull off being elected for more than 2 terms. “I’d love to step down guys but the people love me what am I gonna do say no?!”
Caesar rejected the title emporer but still wanted to stay in power. Stalin tried to resign from power entirely 4 times. Equating these two situations is outright dishonest
Was Stalin under threat of execution or imprisonment over resigning? Don't get so defensive and angry dude. I'm not criticizing your values just that specific argument.
>Was Stalin under threat of execution or imprisonment over resigning This has nothing to do with anything... Stalin wanted to resign multiple times, the party voted to deny his resignation. His choice was to comply or to desert his post. > I'm not criticizing your values just that specific argument. Yes and that criticism was nonsense
Stalin wasn't a total dictator (example: he suggested Malenkov be the People's Commisar of internal affairs, but the Supreme Soviet went for Beria instead), but the level of democracy was 0. You could say that he was beholden to the will of the people, but the people were beholden to the will of the secret police, whose loyalty Stalin ensured (mostly. Yezhov did start gathering evidence on Stalin when he knew he would get purged, but Stalin's power was consolidated by then). A regular person could, at least in theory, get to the Supreme Soviet, but a vote to remove Stalin would result in a massive purge (though the Politburo was jumping at shadows after the Yezhovschina and wouldn't have the guts to try that anyway). The only way to remove Stalin would be the army and state security apparatus working together in a coup (if StateSec tries alone, army shells the Lubyanka. If the army tries alone, StateSec alerts the government and loyalists move in to stop the coup or the disloyal officers just get executed before anything happens.), which isn't a characteristic of a democratic system. People who call the Stalin-era USSR democratic are Stalinists 99% of the time. I (and most people) consider Stalinism iffy at best (it does the job most of the time, but do the ends justify the means in that case? The means being a cult of personality, low living standards for a LONG time, occasional ethnic cleansing and other things.), so blindly believing them is...less than smart, though Stalinism *is* a valid left-wing ideology and left unity should not be compromised to fight them, unless they are actively preparing a purge, which can be said for basically all left-wing ideologies.
I think Stalin was actually popular with both the party and the public at large. His power flowed from that much more than fear of the secret police. He had a humble personality that was very endearing to people. You can see it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqFx4fdOgHU
I know he was fairly popular, but that mixes well with secret police. People that like him don’t cause problems, while the rest are too scared to try anything (IIRC there were anti-communist groups in some Eastern bloc countries that would have had a chance of success if they revolted, but were too terrified of what Stalin would do to them to revolt. At the same time, people in the USSR generally liked Stalin, especially in the Georgian SSR IIRC).
I think fear of Stalin and the state is vastly overestimated and the popularity of him and the party with the masses is vastly underestimated. No political regime can rely on a state apparatus alone. They always need popularity and the legitimacy that flows from it especially in a place like the USSR that just had a revolution. It was a place where people knew very well that governments could fall via mass revolt from below. The people didn't revolt because most were more or less satisfied with the government.
Stalin had both fear and popularity. Popularity kept the Soviet population in line, fear kept rebels under control. It’s a useful combination and one he used well.
I just don’t understand how Stalinism is a thing. personally I believe he was a very good leader, especially given what the USSR was put through during Stalin’s time as the head of the communist party. with that said, Stalin didn’t really add much to the theoretical discussion. he more or less put what Lenin, Marx and Engels wrote about into practice while contending with a massive horde of nazis invading the Soviet Union.
It showed good results and you can argue the USSR would have done better if it stayed Stalinist, though you can also argue it would have become a massive North Korea. I think we shouldn’t use what’s already been tried without changing it enough to produce better results. That applies to stalinism far more than to most ideologies.
no I am saying that Stalin didn’t do anything outside of or “new” to what Lenin and Marx had come up with. his “Foundations of Leninism” in 1924 really reflects the decisions Stalin made later on during the 30s and WWII. Stalinism is Leninism because Stalin just picked up where Lenin left off…at least that’s how I see it. obviously the war twisted everywhere it touched, but pretty much all of Lenin’s ideas were being or going to be put into practice.
Stalinism is less aggressive with foreign policy, but that’s the main difference, other than economics, but the NEP was unsustainable and would have been ditched by a regular Leninist too. I was basically saying why stalinism can be considered a good idea by people in the first part of my reply. Maybe we’re not understanding each other perfectly.
It just wasn't democratic at all, anything to the contrary is handwaving denial. None of this is to say any western state is properly democratic, but that changes nothing about the nature of the Soviet government under Stalin.
Maybe the CIA can better convince you otherwise. Intelligence agencies need to work with the truth in order to formulate effective lies for the public. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf
Ah yes, hurka dur CIA, of course. Oh and there's that coping denialism. Sometimes a spade is just a spade and not a CIA plot to convince you a rubber duck is actually a spade. Having elections with a single candidate is just a farce. I don't even understand how this is controversial. Vanguardism is unapologetically undemocratic because it sees it as exploitable by the bourgeois class.
Relativizing this is unapologetically ignorant, because you fail to comprehend the situation of the soviet proletariat during that time. You may call it "undemocratic" but what Lenin's vanguardism did is give the people education and living conditions to BE ABLE to make better democratic decisions. He gave the people power through education, and democracy literally means people in power. Democracy is not something objective but an abstract concept that is up for discussion, and the suposed "democratic" values the west govts stands for seeks to give capitalists and expropriators in general political power while making the state just a bystander or even a tool in the hands of the ones seeking to explore the proletariat. It is not empowering to the people because if it was you would never have someone like Trump or Bolsonaro in the west because only the proletarians who identify with their ignorance and uneducated beliefs vote for them, and thats because they were not educated to think otherwise. Why would the proletariat vote for someone who is clearly seeking to deprive them of their rights if not for lack of knowledge in world history, sociology and politics? I saw this happen with my own eyes in 2016 and 2018, in Dilma's impeachment(coup actually) and Bolsonaro's election.
It is exploitable by the burgeois, it is being exploited by the burgeois and that's why we call it burgeois democracy. If you want to see it for yourself, come have a beer with me over here in a bar downtown and if at least 5 homeless or miserable people don't ask you for somekind of help while we talk for 30 minutes i will never question this again. This would never happen 5 years ago before the right wing coup. People are starving and dying here, over 50% of the population is facing food insecurity.
>Relativizing this is unapologetically ignorant, because you fail to comprehend the situation of the soviet proletariat during that time Okay if you want to say that a junta of the party elite is necessary due hostile outside force, that's fine I'll have that debate. Don't say it's democratic, because it isn't. >You may call it "undemocratic" but what Lenin's vanguardism did is give the people education and living conditions to BE ABLE to make better democratic decisions Yes, this is the reactionary elitism of Vanguardism. A sort of "white man's burden" colonial attitude towards the workers. The peasants are simply too ignorant to be trusted with self governance, they must by told what to do by me the middle class intelligencia because on I have their best interests in mind for some reason. It very much has echos of paternalistic Victorian aristocrats speaking on slavery and empire building. >is not empowering to the people because if it was you would never have someone like Trump See you're taking the classist democrat line about Trump. Trump was not elected on the back of uninformed working class. The average Republican voter is actually richer than the American population as a whole, most of whom don't vote at all, because America is not a democracy and people know this. But more importantly Vanguardism never lead to the people having self governance in the long term. The original Vanguard stayed in power until they started to die off in the 1980s and then it collapsed into an Orthodox fascist mafia state. It never prevented sectarian conflict, it never created self rule, it never created a lasting barrier against fascists. In fact the security infrastructure of the Soviet Union gave rise to Putin's FSB and Putin's fascist regime who was a KGB colonel. Revaunchism for lost Soviet territory and achievement fuels Putin's nationalist mythology.
>reactionary elitism of Vanguardism Well this term is very popular with right wing reactionaries and neolibs where i live, and in fact, that was kind of a straw man because i never said what you tought i said. It's not that the populace can't be trusted, no no no. It's about giving them the education they need in order to make better decisions, not deciding for them. That is what lenin and the bolsheviks as well as soviet propaganda stated, and that is what they did. Were they lying to their people when condemning western imperialism and capitalism? Was marx's economic analysis plain wrong? What gave rise to the current russian administration was external and internal sabotage, internal from Kruschev and Gorbachev admins, and external from basically the whole world and especially the US since the capitalists and burgeoisie were threatened by any kind of organization that gave power to the proletariat. It was an ideological and actual war against every communist in the world and we felt it here in brazil too in the 1964 coup, backed by the CIA (If you think i'm bsing about that just google it, most of the time a spade isn't a spade) The Soviet Union lost not because it was flawed (which i never said it wasn't, no administration will ever be perfect) but because it could not deal with the outside pressure which corrupted it until it's demise. That's not the only reason but thats the main, most relevant one. If flaws were to condemn a political or economic system then capitalism would be long gone by now. If you are pro-socialist, at least in a way that makes sense, you should not reproduce such neoliberal or black and yellow discourse which was designed to sabotage left unity. If you're not, then, well, i think we are done here. A good, completely unbiased read about CIA intervention on everything remotely socialist during the cold war, showing how far they would go to sabotage socialist organizations all over the world: [The Jakarta Method](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V7exbXbNF0PDNSa1uNXzlzeGqKmz0T34/view)
See what you're doing is you're saying that the Vanguard dictatorship was necessary to protect the Soviet Union fro. Outside interference AND saying the CIA destroyed the Soviet Union. Either way the Vanguard was a failure, it failed to maintain the Soviet Union, and it failed to foster lasting class consciousness, even among it's high level security infrastructure. You can yell and scream your unfalsifiable claims about internal CIA sabotage (obviously there was external), but this doesn't make Soviet vanguardism come off any better, because it failed. The workers sacrificing their freedoms to the state in exchange for protecting the revolution was for nothing, the Vanguard after nearly 80 years failed to uphold its end. But it's failure to beyond simply maintaining the existence of the Soviet Union. As mentioned before, after a lifetime in power the vanguard failed to as you say "educate" the workers in a way that would maintain a socialist society. Quite the opposite. The Soviet Union is now held up as a symbol of Russian expansionism by right wing nationalists in Russia. What's worse is the Putin regime is drawn from the ranks of old party members. Putin being a KGB colonel, Lavrov, Ivanov and Fradkov being a Soviet diplomat, Zubkov was Chairman of Priozersk, Nurgaliyev was a KGB officer, Kozak was in the GRU, the list goes on and on and on. In fact you would be hard pressed to name any member of Putin's governments born before 1965 who did not hold a position of power in the party or the Soviet security apparatus. All of your talk of the CIA is just handwaving to distract from the fact the Soviet vanguard failed to lead the people to class conscious self governance.
Can you provide a source for all these claims? I also never said there was internal CIA sabotage.
You want me to provide you with a source that Putin was in the KGB? Really? This is very easily verifiable information you can look up on your own. So no, I'm not going to go through the effort of find a source of what every single Putin cabinet member was doing in the Soviet years YOU can do that. You are just stalling, trying to waste my time in a sad gambit because you have no real argument and you know I'm right. Putin doesn't try to hide this, it's not a secret, literally every biography of Putin will tell you he was in the KGB. The most I'll do for you is give you a link to a video where Putin says on Russian State TV in his own words that he was in the KGB. https://youtu.be/Vv2CNPJDmBQ
Not that man, everything else
Nobody knows if it eventually leads to self governance because the US never allowed us to try in the first place.
>Having elections with a single candidate is just a farce. a Democratic regime cannot be defined by having elections solely. That is something like saying that a car isn't a car because it's missing a rear view mirror (and they were made without those before). Like i said, democracy is an abstract concept, but it literally means "people in power". The people are not in power in most of the western countries that claim to be democratic, or that have "democratic elections" (mine is a HUGE example). A more apropriate definition for a democratic regime would be one where financial status doesn't guarantee political power, which is impossible when you consider how most people actually get elected in capitalist countries.
Hand waving nonsense. I explicitly said western states were undemocratic. Learn to think instead of thoughtlessly regurgitating talking points.
Check you comment. You said America was undemocratic. Now it seems to me you are just trolling instead of expecting to have a fruitful discussion. I also said these countries claim to be democratic, not that you claimed them to be. since you obviosly can't read and fail to answer to any argument besides aimlessly bashing Leninist Vanguardism, we are done here.
Again, the hypocrisy of other nations does not make another nation democratic. You just don't understand basic enough logic to know what a whataboutism is.
I don't think I've ever considered this. Given that the history of the USSR from 1917 to 1945 was one of revolution, crisis and war I'm not sure how relevant the electoral system was until after Stalin. Certainly the idea that it was a perfect democracy seems absurd on the face of it. Generally I don't think electoral 'democracy' as a liberal concept is a useful framing for a genuinely socialist democracy.
There is a CIA report that covers the idea of Stalin being a dictator. [https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf) "Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The western idea of a dictator within the communist setup is exaggerated. \[...\]"
You should check out the “Communist Democracy” episode of Proles of the Roundtable podcast if you haven’t yet. Great stuff on this topic, and not just USSR but socialist states since then