Is there an unbiased history book about the Soviet Union? Im looking to educate myself on what really went down

Attached: sources_on_USSR.png (1020x1887, 504.09K)

nice quotemining, faggot

It is sometimes asked whether the law of value exists and operates in our country, under the socialist system.

Yes, it does exist and does operate. Wherever commodities and commodity production exist, there the law of value must also exist.

In our country, the sphere of operation of the law of value extends, first of all, to commodity circulation, to the ex-change of commodities through purchase and sale, the ex-change, chiefly, of articles of personal consumption. Here, in this sphere, the law of value preserves, within certain limits, of course, the function of a regulator.

But the operation of the law of value is not confined to the sphere of commodity circulation. It also extends to production. True, the law of value has no regulating function in our socialist production, but it nevertheless influences production, and this fact cannot be ignored when directing production. As a matter of fact, consumer goods, which arc needed to compensate the labour power expended in the process of production, are produced and realized in our country as commodities coming under the operation of the law of value. It is precisely here that the law of value exercises its influence on production. In this connection, such things as cost accounting and profitableness, production costs, prices, etc., are of actual importance in our enterprises. Consequently, our enterprises cannot, and must not, function without taking the law of value into account.

Is this a good thing? It is not a bad thing. Under present conditions, it really is not a bad thing, since it trains our business executives to conduct production on rational lines and disciplines them. It is not a bad thing because it teaches our executives to count production magnitudes, to count them accurately, and also to calculate the real things in production precisely, and not to talk nonsense about "approximate figures," spun out of thin air. It is not a bad thing because it teaches our executives to look for, find and utilize hidden reserves latent in production, and not to trample them under-foot. It is not a bad thing because it teaches our executives systematically to improve methods of production, to lower production costs, to practise cost accounting, and to make their enterprises pay. It is a good practical school which accelerates the development of our executive personnel and their growth into genuine leaders of socialist production at the present stage of development.

The trouble is not that production in our country is influenced by the law of value. The trouble is that our business executives and planners, with few exceptions, are poorly acquainted with the operations of the law of value, do not study them, and are unable to take account of them in their computations. This, in fact, explains the confusion that still reigns in the sphere of price-fixing policy. Here is one of many examples. Some time ago it was decided to adjust the prices of cotton and grain in the interest of cotton growing, to establish more accurate prices for grain sold to the cotton growers, and to raise the prices of cotton delivered to the state. Our business executives and planners submitted a proposal on this score which could not but astound the members of the Central Committee, since it suggested fixing the price of a ton of grain at practically the same level as a ton of cotton, and, moreover, the price of a ton of grain was taken as equivalent to that of a ton of baked bread. In reply to the remarks of members of the Central Committee that the price of a ton of bread must be higher than that of a ton of grain, because of the additional expense of milling and baking, and that cotton was generally much dearer than grain, as was also borne out by their prices in the world market, the authors of the proposal could find nothing coherent to say. The Central Committee was therefore obliged to take the matter into its own hands and to lower the prices of grain and raise the prices of cotton. What would have happened if the proposal of these comrades had received legal force? We should have ruined the cotton growers and would have found ourselves without cotton.

But does this mean that the operation of the law of value has as much scope with us as it has under capitalism, and that it is the regulator of production in our country too? No, it does not. Actually, the sphere of operation of the law of value under our economic system is strictly limited and placed within definite bounds. It has already been said that the sphere of operation of commodity production is restricted and placed within definite bounds by our system. The same must be said of the sphere of operation of the law of value. Undoubtedly, the fact that private ownership of the means of production does not exist, and that the means of production both in town and country are socialized, cannot but restrict the sphere of operation of the law of value and the extent of its influence on production.

In this same direction operates the law of balanced (proportionate) development of the national economy, which has superseded the law of competition and anarchy of production.

In this same direction, too, operate our yearly and five-yearly plans and our economic policy generally, which are based on the requirements of the law of balanced development of the national economy.

The effect of all this, taken together, is that the sphere of operation of the law of value in our country is strictly limited, and that the law of value cannot under our system function as the regulator of production.

This, indeed, explains the "striking" fact that whereas in our country the law of value, in spite of the steady and rapid expansion of our socialist production, does not lead to crises of overproduction, in the capitalist countries this same law, whose sphere of operation is very wide under capitalism, does lead, in spite of the low rate of expansion of production, to periodical crises of overproduction.

It is said that the law of value is a permanent law, binding upon all periods of historical development, and that if it does lose its function as a regulator of exchange relations in the second phase of communist society, it retains at this phase of development its function as a regulator of the relations between the various branches of production, as a regulator of the distribution of labour among them.

That is quite untrue. Value, like the law of value, is a historical category connected with the existence of commodity production. With the disappearance of commodity production, value and its forms and the law of value also disappear.

In the second phase of communist society, the amount of labour expended on the production of goods will be measured not in a roundabout way, not through value and its forms, as is the case under commodity production, but directly and immediately - by the amount of time, the number of hours, expended on the production of goods. As to the distribution of labour, its distribution among the branches of production will be regulated not by the law of value, which will have ceased to function by that time, but by the growth of society's demand for goods. It will be a society in which production will be regulated by the requirements of society, and computation of the requirements of society will acquire paramount importance for the planning bodies.

Totally incorrect, too, is the assertion that under our present economic system, in the first phase of development of communist society, the law of value regulates the "proportions" of labour distributed among the various branches of production.

If this were true, it would be incomprehensible why our light industries, which are the most profitable, are not being developed to the utmost, and why preference is given to our heavy industries, which are often less profitable, and some-times altogether unprofitable.

If this were true, it would be incomprehensible why a number of our heavy industry plants which arc still unprofitable and where the labour of the worker does not yield the "proper returns," are not closed down, and why new light industry plants, which would certainly be profitable and where the labour of the workers might yield "big returns," are not opened.

If this were true, it would be incomprehensible why workers are not transferred from plants that are less profitable, but very necessary to our national economy, to plants which are more profitable - in accordance with the law of value, which supposedly regulates the "proportions" of labour distributed among the branches of production.

Obviously, if we were to follow the lead of these comrades, we should have to cease giving primacy to the production of means of production in favour of the production of articles of consumption. And what would be the effect of ceasing to give primacy to the production of the means of production? The effect would be to destroy the possibility of the continuous expansion of our national economy, because the national economy cannot be continuously expanded with-out giving primacy to the production of means of production.

These comrades forget that the law of value can be a regulator of production only under capitalism, with private ownership of the means of production, and competition, anarchy of production, and crises of overproduction. They forget that in our country the sphere of operation of the law of value is limited by the social ownership of the means of production, and by the law of balanced development of the national economy, and is consequently also limited by our yearly and five-yearly plans, which are an approximate reflection of the requirements of this law.

Some comrades draw the conclusion from this that the law of balanced development of the national economy and economic planning annul the principle of profitableness of production. That is quite untrue. It is just the other way round. If profitableness is considered not from the stand-point of individual plants or industries, and not over a period of one year, but from the standpoint of the entire national economy and over a period of, say, ten or fifteen years, which is the only correct approach to the question, then the temporary and unstable profitableness of some plants or industries is beneath all comparison with that higher form of stable and permanent profitableness which we get from the operation of the law of balanced development of the national economy and from economic planning, which save us from periodical economic crises disruptive to the national economy and causing tremendous material damage to society, and which ensure a continuous and high rate of expansion of our national economy.

In brief, there can be no doubt that under our present socialist conditions of production, the law of value cannot be a "regulator of the proportions" of labour distributed among the various branches of production.
marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/ch04.htm

From the moment when society enters into possession of the means of production and uses them in direct association for production, the labour of each individual, however varied its specifically useful character may be, becomes at the start and directly social labour. The quantity of social labour contained in a product need not then be established in a roundabout way; daily experience shows in a direct way how much of it is required on the average. Society can simply calculate how many hours of labour are contained in a steam-engine, a bushel of wheat of the last harvest, or a hundred square yards of cloth of a certain quality. It could therefore never occur to it still to express the quantities of labour put into the products, quantities which it will then know directly and in their absolute amounts, in a third product, in a measure which, besides, is only relative, fluctuating, inadequate, though formerly unavoidable for lack of a better one, rather than express them in their natural, adequate and absolute measure, time. Just as little as it would occur to chemical science still to express atomic weight in a roundabout way, relatively, by means of the hydrogen atom, if it were able to express them absolutely, in their adequate measure, namely in actual weights, in billionths or quadrillionths of a gramme. Hence, on the assumptions we made above, society will not assign values to products. It will not express the simple fact that the hundred square yards of cloth have required for their production, say, a thousand hours of labour in the oblique and meaningless way, stating that they have the value of a thousand hours of labour. It is true that even then it will still be necessary for society to know how much labour each article of consumption requires for its production. It will have to arrange its plan of production in accordance with its means of production, which include, in particular, its labour-powers. The useful effects of the various articles of consumption, compared with one another and with the quantities of labour required for their production, will in the end determine the plan. People will be able to manage everything very simply, without the intervention of much-vaunted “value”. *15

The concept of value is the most general and therefore the most comprehensive expression of the economic conditions of commodity production. Consequently, this concept contains the germ, not only of money, but also of all the more developed forms of the production and exchange of commodities. The fact that value is the expression of the social labour contained in the privately produced products itself creates the possibility of a difference arising between this social labour and the private labour contained in these same products. If therefore a private producer continues to produce in the old way, while the social mode of production develops this difference will become palpably evident to him. The same result follows when the aggregate of private producers of a particular class of goods produces a quantity of them which exceeds the requirements of society. The fact that the value of a commodity is expressed only in terms of another commodity, and can only be realised in exchange for it, admits of the possibility that the exchange may never take place altogether, or at least may not realise the correct value. Finally, when the specific commodity labour-power appears on the market, its value is determined, like that of any other commodity, by the labour-time socially necessary for its production. The value form of products therefore already contains in embryo the whole capitalist form of production, the antagonism between capitalists and wage-workers, the industrial reserve army, crises. To seek to abolish the capitalist form of production by establishing "true value" {D. K. G. 78} is therefore tantamount to attempting to abolish Catholicism by establishing the "true" Pope, or to set up a society in which at last the producers control their product, by consistently carrying into life an economic category which is the most comprehensive expression of the enslavement of the producers by their own product.
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch26.htm

and back to stalin, the same source that you happen to not give:

Certain comrades affirm that the Party acted wrongly in preserving commodity production after it had assumed power and nationalized the means of production in our country. They consider that the Party should have banished commodity production there and then. In this connection they cite Engels, who says:

"With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer".
."(1)

These comrades are profoundly mistaken.

Let us examine Engels' formula. Engels' formula cannot be considered fully clear and precise, because it does not indicate whether it is referring to the seizure by society of all or only part of the means of production, that is, whether all or only part of the means of production are converted into public property. Hence, this formula of Engels' may be understood either way.

Elsewhere in Anti-Duhring Engels speaks of mastering "all the means of production," of taking possession of "all means of production." Hence, in this formula Engels has in mind the nationalization not of part, but of all the means of production, that is, the conversion into public property of the means of production not only of industry, but also of agriculture.

It follows from this that Engels has in mind countries where capitalism and the concentration of production have advanced far enough both in industry and in agriculture to permit the expropriation of all the means of production in the country and their conversion into public property. Engels, consequently, considers that in such countries, parallel with the socialization of all the means of production, commodity production should be put an end to. And that, of course, is correct.

There was only one such country at the close of the last century, when Anti-Duhring was published - Britain. There the development of capitalism and the concentration of production both in industry and in agriculture had reached such a point that it would have been possible, in the event of the assumption of power by the proletariat, to convert all the country's means of production into public property and to put an end to commodity production.

I leave aside in this instance the question of the importance of foreign trade to Britain and the vast part it plays in her national economy. I think that only after an investigation of this question can it be finally decided what would be the future of commodity production in Britain after the proletariat had assumed power and all the means of production had been nationalized.

However, not only at the close of the last century, but today too, no country has attained such a degree of development of capitalism and concentration of production in agriculture as is to be observed in Britain. As to the other countries, notwithstanding the development of capitalism in the countryside, they still have a fairly numerous class of small and medium rural owner-producers, whose future would have to be decided if the proletariat should assume power.

But here is a question: what are the proletariat and its party to do in countries, ours being a case in point, where the conditions arc favourable for the assumption of power by the proletariat and the overthrow of capitalism, where capitalism has so concentrated the means of production in industry that they may be expropriated and made the property of society, but where agriculture, notwithstanding the growth of capitalism, is divided up among numerous small and medium owner-producers to such an extent as to make it impossible to consider the expropriation of these producers?

To this question Engels' formula does not furnish an answer. Incidentally, it was not supposed to furnish an answer, since the formula arose from another question, namely, what should be the fate of commodity production after all the means of production had been socialized.

And so, what is to be done if not all, but only part of the means of production have been socialized, yet the conditions are favourable for the assumption of power by the proletariat - should the proletariat assume power and should commodity production be abolished immediately thereafter?

We cannot, of course, regard as an answer the opinion of certain half-baked Marxists who believe that under such conditions the thing to do is to refrain from taking power and to wait until capitalism has succeeded in ruining the millions of small and medium producers and converting them into farm labourers and in concentrating the means of production in agriculture, and that only after this would it be possible to consider the assumption of power by the proletariat and the socialization of all the means of production. Naturally, this is a "solution" which Marxists cannot accept if they do not want to disgrace themselves completely.

Nor can we regard as an answer the opinion of other half-baked Marxists, who think that the thing to do would be to assume power and to expropriate the small and medium rural producers and to socialize their means of production. Marxists cannot adopt this senseless and criminal course either, because it would destroy all chances of victory for the proletarian revolution, and would throw the peasantry into the camp of the enemies of the proletariat for a long time.

The answer to this question was given by Lenin in his writings on the "tax in kind" and in his celebrated "cooperative plan."

Lenin's answer may be briefly summed up as follows:

a) Favourable conditions for the assumption of power should not be missed - the proletariat should assume power without waiting until capitalism has succeeded in ruining the millions of small and medium individual producers;

b) The means of production in industry should be expropriated and converted into public property;

c) As to the small and medium individual producers, they should be gradually united in producers' cooperatives, i.e., in large agricultural enterprises, collective farms;

d) Industry should be developed to the utmost and the collective farms should be placed on the modern technical basis of large-scale production, not expropriating them, but on the contrary generously supplying them with first-class tractors and other machines;

e) In order to ensure an economic bond between town and country, between industry and agriculture, commodity production (exchange through purchase and sale) should be preserved for a certain period, it being the form of economic tie with the town which is alone acceptable to the peasants, and Soviet trade - state, cooperative, and collective-farm - should be developed to the full and the capitalists of all types and descriptions ousted from trading activity.

The history of socialist construction in our country has shown that this path of development, mapped out by Lenin, has fully justified itself.

There can be no doubt that in the case of all capitalist countries with a more or less numerous class of small and medium producers, this path of development is the only possible and expedient one for the victory of socialism.
marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/ch03.htm

let's throw in some Lenin referencing again Marx

"What we have to deal with here [in analyzing the programme of the workers' party] is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes."

It is this communist society, which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society, that Marx terms the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society.

The means of production are no longer the private property of individuals. The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it.

“Equality” apparently reigns supreme.

But when Lassalle, having in view such a social order (usually called socialism, but termed by Marx the first phase of communism), says that this is "equitable distribution", that this is "the equal right of all to an equal product of labor", Lassalle is mistaken and Marx exposes the mistake.

"Hence, the equal right," says Marx, in this case still certainly conforms to "bourgeois law", which,like all law, implies inequality. All law is an application of an equal measure to different people who in fact are not alike, are not equal to one another. That is why the "equal right" is violation of equality and an injustice. In fact, everyone, having performed as much social labor as another, receives an equal share of the social product (after the above-mentioned deductions).

But people are not alike: one is strong, another is weak; one is married, another is not; one has more children, another has less, and so on. And the conclusion Marx draws is:
"… With an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, the right instead of being equal would have to be unequal."

The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production–the factories, machines, land, etc.–and make them private property. In smashing Lassalle's petty-bourgeois, vague phrases about “equality” and “justice” in general, Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the “injustice” of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not according to needs).

The vulgar economists, including the bourgeois professors and “our” Tugan, constantly reproach the socialists with forgetting the inequality of people and with “dreaming” of eliminating this inequality. Such a reproach, as we see, only proves the extreme ignorance of the bourgeois ideologists.

Marx not only most scrupulously takes account of the inevitable inequality of men, but he also takes into account the fact that the mere conversion of the means of production into the common property of the whole society (commonly called “socialism”) does not remove the defects of distribution and the inequality of "bourgeois laws" which continues to prevail so long as products are divided "according to the amount of labor performed". Continuing, Marx says:

"But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged, after prolonged birth pangs, from capitalist society. Law can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby."

And so, in the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "bourgeois law" is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. "Bourgeois law" recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent–and to that extent alone–"bourgeois law" disappears.

However, it persists as far as its other part is concerned; it persists in the capacity of regulator (determining factor) in the distribution of products and the allotment of labor among the members of society. The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.

This is a “defect”, says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. Besides, the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic prerequisites for such a change.

Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.

The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.

But the state has not yet completely withered away, since the still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.

You got anything for me that's not plastered loadsatext without a single argument?

I.e. money-capital, like the Rouble (the unit of measurement within which necessary labour-time is quantified, the measurement upon which exchange is predicated).

You got anything for me that isn't the extended full quotation of Engels that only more thoroughly contradicts the notion of the 'socialist' commodity?

I come back here for a little evening time posting and reminiscing on when I frequented this dumpsterfire of a board and Zig Forums is still as brain wormed as ever.

Attached: got_heat.jpg (864x546, 60.47K)

And this brings us to the question of the scientific distinction between socialism and communism which Engels touched on in his above-quoted argument about the incorrectness of the name "Social-Democrat". Politically, the distinction between the first, or lower, and the higher phase of communism will in time, probably, be tremendous. But it would be ridiculous to recognize this distinction now, under capitalism, and only individual anarchists, perhaps, could invest it with primary importance (if there still are people among the anarchists who have learned nothing from the “Plekhanov” conversion of the Kropotkins, of Grave, Corneliseen, and other “stars” of anarchism into social- chauvinists or "anarcho-trenchists", as Ghe, one of the few anarchists who have still preserved a sense of humor and a conscience, has put it).

But the scientific distinction between socialism and communism is clear. What is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production becomes common property, the word “communism” is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism. The great significance of Marx's explanations is that here, too, he consistently applies materialist dialectics, the theory of development, and regards communism as something which develops out of capitalism. Instead of scholastically invented, “concocted” definitions and fruitless disputes over words (What is socialism? What is communism?), Marx gives an analysis of what might be called the stages of the economic maturity of communism.

yeah i could tell, now go kill yourself you dumbass faggot

because reading too much does ouchie to the brainlet

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.

what a complete fucking retard

The cool thing here is that it's noticeable you're playing a routine you frequently practice, within which the opposition to critique inherently assumes a personalising nature. It's even more pathetic when you realize this because, not only does it reveal a routine; a practiced appeal to authority within which one doesn't even need to understand whatever loadsatext is plastered, but it also shows that the object of critique isn't even understood. In a mental universe such as yours the thing keeping you invested is a blind loyalty to a concept of truth and justice that isn't allowed to be opposed; for you to be incapable of handling a critique that is depersonalised you need to have an ideological locus where everything is totally personalised.

The only things you post that aren't copied and pasted are just edgemaster insults. But in your universe, as long as you do exactly that while making sure you sent the last 'faggot', it means victory. I bet that's a comforting, non-confrontational way of life to take to the grave.

Attached: total defeat.jpg (226x250 111.11 KB, 5.08K)

...

You're the only one obsessed with saying 'I won' friend.

Do you say it out loud every time too? Or do you have a text document right next to the other copy and paste text documents where you keep a tally of every victory achieved through plastering and calling people faggots?

but yeah pardon me for actually giving a proper source and putting both quotemined maymays into proper context, i am totally just insisting on authority, unlike you who invokes engels without even giving a shit on what he even says
fucking brainlet shitbrain

yeah, much better, sorry for being so inaccurate, you illiterate pretentious sad sack of shit

I'd give a shit about the Stalin word salads you posted and which I've already read a dozen times if you could actually argue them in any way. Otherwise you're more or less like the ultraleftoids who think plastering 'the real movement' everywhere shows they understand anything or that they have an argument. In fact that's exactly what you are, just of a different breed.

Now this is an argument. lmao.

Attached: hannibottle.jpg (406x406, 15.8K)

you can't bitch about how other people are "blindly loyal" to their concept of truth while also blindly following some stupid meme as the truth instead of actually looking into the source material.

nice doublestandard

Attached: 74331d7081cfdd411fa3da0693efb91f30c364b3da36766749594740a5723212.png (500x513, 118.95K)

I never intended it to be an argument; it's literally just a meme I used to accompany my point: that 95% of people here won't appreciate any historical work on the USSR that 'isn't biased' because their idea of 'non-biased' equals shoddy, apologetic garbage to comfort their personally aestheticised politics surrounding the USSR. Those people aren't about looking into any text that shines a negative light on the USSR and its, I argue, absolutely capitalist and counter-revolutionary nature (post-1924 anyways).

Nonetheless I posted the name of an author, Donald Fitzer, who's written a lot about the history of the USSR and was not taken on that subject at all, nor was I engaged on my comments on someone's suggestion of Rabinowitch's trilogy of the USSR, which I corrected to not be comprehensive for the USSR's history as a whole, but only the pre-revolutionary, revolutionary and short post-revolutionary periods.

Afterwards this absolute galaxy brain Stalinist comes in and engages with nothing but the meme, embarasses himself by implying I quote mine by not just posting the links to the texts entirely, but finding himself important enough to spam the thread with its contents (without saging), I engage with a section of the longer Engels citation and point out that it directly contradcits Stalin in his Economic Problems and nothing more than 'hurr faggot cuck shit retard' follows suit.

If you want to argue, argue; don't expect me to lift more than my little finger if you're just gonna spam.

Also if you want to argue, don't think merely changing flags and tone is going to make it obvious it's not you.

Now come back when you have an argument and aren't totally obviously the same retard trying to save face.

Attached: implicators.png (672x334, 271.53K)

get over yourself

Attached: b2a8a58e5cba97f5eb8a56676ed2f7e3.png (455x656, 188.64K)

Try using 'ctrl + shift + N' (or 'ctrl + shift + P') to save time next time fam. :^)

Attached: marx spurd.png (275x293, 13.9K)

Not taking sides here but I would say that posting an obvious TLDR that nobody is going to read in its entirety in the middle of an argument, much less analyze properly, is shitty. You’re basically just posting walls of text that nobody is going to put the effort in to refute in a random internet argument and then acting superior when they do what most people will do and not read it. If you can’t summarize Stalin’s points in your own words and defend them yourself and instead just rely on people being intimidated by the size of the text then you’re bad at arguing.

the "cool" kids are all over at >>>Zig Forums
you're welcome

I didn’t say either of those things. I said that “read x” is not an argument, which is what you are doing by posting walls of text instead of explaining Stalin’s ideas in a format compatible with an actual discussion.

Look. Leftcoms don't belong here ok? Citizing Stalin through cia tier argument belongs on
>>>Zig Forums

Lmao imagine being this new.

Attached: EAF12F4C-9C23-4A44-9C6D-04BED74C22A5.png (483x368, 259.84K)

i didn't say "read x"
i provided the fucking related context of the quotes by giving multiple sources and the proper explanations
if this is too much for you to read
you are just a fucking retard
it's barely news articles length ffs

stalin wrote as concise as it can get, that shit was not even 2 fucking chapters related to the issue directly adressing the strawman this faggot illiterate creates by taking the first fucking sentence out of context
just fuck off you dense cunt, fucking seriously

OP,
The history of the USSR is a complex subject that covers very different periods. If you are looking for a general history then I would just read wikis and whatever book you can find. After that you can look for resources on specific periods. The most unbiased works you'll find are probably the most dry and academic. So authors like David Glantz, J. Arch Getty, and Wheatcroft & Davies are all good sources of info on things like WW2, the purges, collectivization, etc. But they'd be pretty boring to someone who wasn't interested in a lot of technical detail.

TBH youtubers like TheFinnishBolshevik put some nice detail into their videos but I can't vouch for their accuracy. He's very selective in how he will quote a writer like Stephen Kotkin (whose work is pretty dubious, imo) when it suits an anti-Trotsky agenda but he ignores all the quotes where Kotkin calls Stalin a dictator who had "absolute power" etc. I mean, I think Stalin was a "bad guy" but Kotkin is full of shit here and just wants to sell books. Likewise, I've read a pretty scathing critique of Grover Furr for doing the same thing. But I haven't read Furr so I can't/won't judge his work.

yeah, I agree, let's turn this place into reddit where opposing voices are sent away. It will improve post quality, just look at /r/fullcommunism or /r/anarchism

Mein Kampf and the Black Book of Gommunism :^)

That's exactly what he wants, and that's already almost entirely what Zig Forums is like.

Since this board started, around 2014, it's been a slow but steady downwards spiral towards a cultural Stalinism, one which proceeded to the state we are in now in 2017, when the BO and volunteers clearly started showing their bias even more. It has come to the point where this moderator preferentialism isn't even required anymore; to even suggest that any Stalinist cultural dogma of the board here is bogus will have you dogpiled by not just the most active brain wormed Stalinists but a fairly dominant majority of all other posters as well, since it was made sure majority consensus would ideologically influence the majority through prior purges (FFS, even OG non-retarded, non-Stalinist MLs like Freudposter, who have been here since day 1, have been banned).

Instead of simply fucking off like I did a while ago, some of the 'left unity' idiots, who instead of caring about fighting to create a Zig Forums with some actual rigour and permissiveness in all viewpoints, they made a different board (Zig Forums) that is as good as dead and, when it still lived a bit, was dominated by 'anti-authoritarian' over a dozen US military bases in Syriaite idiots who just want feel good happy times and also don't want to fathom real disagreement and discuss it. There, too, dissidence is banned, except it's dissidence towards their particular worldview.

Note how this exchange here proceeded (see:

and check for yourself)
and you'l note that idiots like this guy don't even have to try anymore to get away with their stupidity. Posts like this guy's would have been mocked and screencapped (look at the booru submissions under related tags like 'tankie' from a few years back) for endless weeks of posterity had this happened on 2015/2016 Zig Forums. And don't get me wrong: this place was never really good, but it's been far less worse.

So I've spent my bi-yearly revisit to this place again, doing a small heuristic analysis of it with a couple of posts and reading some threads, and it served only to remind me of how shit it was and surprisingly how much more shit it's become, and it will likely never get better looking at the state of things over time and right now. There currently is no decent place on the internet except maybe Leftbook groups like Aftermath where standards are kept up and people like Ross Wolfe and Anselm Jappe post, where things are actually discussed and stupidity like this is seriously addressed, but nothing beats just reading texts yourself, forming your own opinions and engaging with people in real life with people who also share an interest in some form of constructive discussion, in a constructive environment.

Attached: ruckwarts_genossen.png (827x645, 307.39K)