how do Stalinists excuse the "great purge"?
I would understand had he targeted some reactionaries, but he had all of the old bolsheviks killed, incluiding Trotksy, and I know you guys hate him but he was supposed to "succeed" Lenin
this is the one thing that makes me feel repulsion towards Stalinism, I like represion of capitalist pigs, the exploiters, I'm all for that, but Stalin killed fucking socialists.
what the actual fuck.
Hey this seems like a very new and interesting discussion, I too, wonder why nobody ever made a thread about it.
What is there to excuse? Purges are essential, Stalin did them, Pol Pot did them, etc. Are you trying to tell me that if you came to power you would NOT enact massive purges to secure the continuation and pace of the revolution? I would make the Red Terror look like a walk in the park. Celebrities would be purged, church figures, media figures, bourgeois politicians, assorted reactionaries, opportunists, the unloyal, intellectuals – bye bye
I don't post in this site and checked the catalog, there was no thread about this, no need to be a sarcastic cunt.
Pls spaer mai waifu
Depends how bourgeois her lifestyle is
bye bye rootless cosmopolitans
Mmm not sure about that.
Anyways I see Stalin as like this Robespierre-like guy who felt he needed to defend the revolution at all costs from the center during conditions in which USSR had no allies and was under the constant threat of attack. This combined with his paranoia, which likely resulted in part from his experiences under the Tsarist police/surveillance state, led to the great purge. Not justifying it, just offering an explanation as I see it.
I think we also have to consider the possibility that one can be genuinely committed communist and also an egomaniac consumed by ambition. The fact that the purges just happened to target pretty much anybody with a legitimate claim to the Soviet leadership and significant popular support is more than a little suspicious. Also the fact that the trials were clearly not entirely legit to anybody who isn't a Furr tier retard.
Like, outside of memes, people who are attracted to "Stalinism" precisely because it was murderous in its way I think are pretty sick in the head and not to be trusted. Fact is something went really wrong but this also doesn't mean Stalin wasn't a communist – he most certainly was and Robespierre-like terror is part of the tradition. I don't feel this is a desirable outcome but it is one possible outcome that Marxist thinkers have to reckon with and think about (how to avoid). Anyways, peace.
Right. I also think the USSR inherited a lot of the old Tsarist machinery. There have been socialist revolutions in other countries where you did not see a Stalin in particular emerge. Even hypothetically speaking if there there was a socialist revolution in – let's just say – Britain today I don't think you'd get a Stalin situation. Instead of the Okhrana getting carried over you'd get the British intelligence services which seems to prefer to do embarrassing sex stuff (Brits are pervy). Anyways…
There is nothing to excuse for!
Trotsky was a Jewish-fascist rat and deserved to be slaughtered!
Jews are just as racist and fascist as Nazis!(>being this obvious of a Zig Forums falseflagger)
If killing the exploiters and swindlers of the people causes the proletariat to hate their liberators maybe the proletariat will need re-educated en masse as well until they are reading to assume the mantle of revolution. They have been propagandized to from birth
Will you ever make a good post?
it's not killing the exploiters what were discussing here.
it's the killing of socialists, like in the great purge, all of the old bolsheviks were executed.
Opportunists, revionists and sectarians should be killed.
i swear we've had this EXACT thread before, right down to the opening line.
I'm just gonna ignore OP's bullshit crying over Trotsky (very unlikeable human being, Bukharin would be a far more sympathetic example) and address the question of Terror as a weapon directly.
There is literally no way you can shoot thousands of people annually like the Soviet government did in Stalin times and genuinely claim that all of them deserved it, human society does not work like that, there will never be any justice system that accurate. If a head-of-state orders that many executions, it is practically a guarantee his juniors in the state structure will have place many innocents there. This would be true even in a proper republic founded on the rule of law, in a despotic system like the Soviet Union's where arbitrary decree ruled there is no telling how many were rounded up needlessly, or for petty reasons.
The CCCP fixed many of these problems after Stalin though and were on there way to improving their political system even more until Yeltsin and his supporters, aided by the incompetent birthmark man, managed to totally destroy the SU. Emotional reactions to the cruelties of Stalinism SHOULD NOT distract you from the Soviet Union's endless achievements in science, public health, foreign policy successes, and other improvements over Tsarism.
I think a lot of it is just internet larping combined with a main character complex; they think that if a purge started they'd be the one orchestrating it instead of some poor fool getting caught in a confusing torrent of political power plays and winding up on the wrong side of a gun.
Fuck yourself, Jewish Pig!
The bullet waits for you!
And fuck this Zionist admin on Zig Forums!
You will bleed!
What if he lifestyle is super bourgeois but then she's ok with a communist life style?
The same way I excuse the Reign of Terror: circumstantially necessary.
You realize this is a contradiction right?
why would we?
Terror that occurs during the revolution is absolutely necessary because that's what a revolution is. You have to terrorize in order to seize. However, I've never understood the need for suppression after the revolution is done. It seems that after that point you'd only be suppressing fellow socialists from highly suspect and corrupt purposes.
In my mind, the proletarian state should already have removed all of the capitalists from power upon the revolution, so there should be no capitalists left to require suppression. The terror is actually an admission that the revolution is incomplete. If the state has a proletarian character, then the revolution is done, and all that's left is defending militarily against bourgeois states, spreading the revolution through international propaganda and military action, and doing normal state stuff like enforcing laws. Purges strongly imply the state is not proletarian.
Step 1: Revolution, YOU SET UP A DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT AND FUCKING SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION. The proletarian state operates some, and the rest can be co-ops, or some other scheme. Whatever. POINT IS: NONE OF IT SHOULD BE PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Step 2: You're kind of done, internally. There are no capitalists to purge. It makes no sense to declare things to be abstractly bourgeois if they have no relation to any kind of capitalist property system. The revolution can be expanded externally, but this should be it.
The only reason the purges happened in Russia was because the NEP instituted by Lenin was an admission of failure in of itself, and then Stalin reacted to that failure partly by destroying the new capitalists (good), but then pointlessly destroying the army officers and fellow socialists (bad). Next time the revolution won't need to go like this, because the only real revolution is one that occurs in the very core of the economic world, in america. Capitalism has developed enough that there is ZERO excuse for a NEP type climb down. The capitalists will be 100% purged during the revolution, and then that will be that. There will be no need for inter-party purges that only excuse capitalism, and at least half of the propaganda against socialism.
There's no excuse, this place is filled with 14 yo edgy ☭TANKIE☭s. Defending Stalin does not make you a "truer" socialist, don't fall for that crap.
"after the revolution"
ah yes, it just ends with the construction of capitalism because "there's no capitalists"
literally nowhere
and the ideological struggle seizes as well, because them not being in position of power somehow just disposes of all backward and revisionist thought
what the hell…
*construction of capitalism
*ceases
Those who are sectarian against the dominant line should be killed.
Purges were necessary to root out those plotting to overthrow Stalin, such as the Trotskyists and Bukharinists, as well as corrupt party officials. There were, unfortunately, excesses during the Purges. Stalin, however, was not at fault for these excesses, that blame lies with Nikolai Yezhov, head of the NKVD at the time. Yezhov was responsible for killing innocents and hiding it from Stalin and the Politburo. Once Stalin found out about Yezhov's actions, an investigation was launched into him and he was found guilty of his crimes and executed. Lavrentiy Beria replaced him and began reviewing the cases of those arrested by Yezhov and releasing the falsely imprisoned. Look into Grover Furr's book Yezhov vs. Stalin for a better picture of the Purges.
You are just a fascist with red coating. Being against "sectarianism" is just your way of saying you don't like democracy or anything that challenges your beliefs. You and liberals are the fucking cancer of the left, if you want to purge people start with yourself.
I seriously hope nobody actually swallows this bullshit. This is on the same realm of those who deny the Holocaust.
The cherry of the cake is your mention of Grover Furr.
Yeah I think a related problem is that dictatorships tend to lead to revisionism and then capitalist restoration because you're now trying to pass something off as socialist through reference to the political leadership of the state rather than the economy. Of course it's a hell of a problem because these dictatorships were often necessary to stop capitalist regimes from destroying these nominally socialist societies after the revolution. Dunno what to do really.
every time
NOT ONE CRIME
Furr isn't some crazy conspiracy theorist. He just writes against the anti-Stalin paradigm. Whether or not you like Furr, the point still stands that the excesses of the Purges were Yezhov's fault. Beria succeeded him and proceeded to clean up the mess he made. Do you really think that Stalin, or any historical leader for that matter, was omniscient and had complete knowledge of absolutely everything that every minister of his was doing? Of course not, which is why the "totalitarianism" meme is bullshit. Yezhov was actively involved in a conspiracy to overthrow Stalin and misused the NKVD in an attempt to blame Stalin for the misdeeds and turn the people against his government. Ultimately, Yezhov was discovered and purged for his crimes.
so Stalin was just an incompetent leader then? 4D Furr apologetics
Lots of the greatest revolutionaries have been stabbed in the back. Guess what, when you're the leader of world communism, a lot of motherfuckers are gunning for you!
That's false though, 30% of them were executed.
Furr is a literal historical revisionist, not just a critic of Western anti-communist bias. You do not need to be a delusional burger to think Uncle Joe at least fucked up occasionally.
The failure to immediately discover covert activities of supposedly loyal comrades should be held to the scale of his achievements and opposition before you label a leader as "incompetent".
this reminds me when I talked with an old lady who defended the disappearances of people that my country's military de facto government did by arguing that "they didn't know about it" while literally everyone knew, but somehow those in power just couldn't see it
fuck you all, you're a disgrace to the left
Anyone who is afraid of being imprisoned or killed for whatever reason is not a true revolutionary anyway. If you are guilty, you deserve it. If you are innocent, own it and acknowledge that this possibility is what you signed up for for the sake of the revolution.
To be entirely honest, the degree to which Furr goes to ensure that the reins of statecraft with respect to the purges and political reprisals cannot be used as a meter stick, as it would call into question in what capacity Stalin actually served as a leader. In compromising his position as master of state and executor of the CPSU, he has been made void of his accomplishments and subject to severe admonishment for his failures to recognize the grandiosity of the impasses by his immediate subordinates - to the degree where he becomes a figure of supreme incompetence. Accept the faults and weigh against the immense achievements, you don't need to pawn responsibility to Yagoda or Yezhov or some shadow society of threatening and overzealous allies or opponents - the world is more mundane and practical than all that
This does not imply that one shouldn't work to rectify excesses and attempt to mute needless bloodshed
The Great Purge was a mistake, does anyone doubt this? It doesn't need to be justified, it was even criticized by the Politburo itself
From Human Rights in the Soviet Union by Albert Szymanski
Of course.
And it still didn't prevent the military staff purge that was undertaken in the immediate aftermath of Operation Barbarossa
Closeted school shooter right here.
Stalin was not an all-seeing, omniscient being. Yezhov actively worked to conceal his actions from the Politburo. Most of the misdeeds were done at the local level. Do you have any understanding of how vast the USSR was at the time? How do you expect Stalin to personally review every single case at every single town and village level party apparatus in the country while managing a massive industrialization effort to catch up with the developed powers, build a new army to defend the country from external threats and perform the general tasks that came with running a country as large as the Soviet Union? Governments have ministers for a reason. In the case of the USSR, many of these ministers were traitors and saboteurs who collaborated with the nation's enemies to achieve their political goals. If Trotsky had respected the will of the Politburo and refrained from actively conspiring to overthrow Stalin's government, the Purges would have not needed to happen in the first place.
I never said Stalin was perfect. Of course he made mistakes, every historical figure has. The thing is is that Stalin's mistakes are more heavily scrutinized and counted against him than anyone else's, undoubtedly to discredit his successful development of socialism in the USSR. Ultimately, Stalin built and defended socialism, defeated fascism and spread socialist ideals to half the world. History will vindicate him.
No, you are for believing the lies and propaganda about one of the greatest leftists of all time.
History is constantly being revised, if it didn't need revising then we wouldn't need historians.
...
Being a historical revisionist is not inherently bad. It is badly needed in the case of the USSR, as most of the accepted history of the Soviet Union was based on anti-communist propaganda from the likes of MI6 agent Robert Conquest. With the fall of the USSR and the subsequent opening of some of the archives and the availability of new sources, a different picture of the USSR is being painted that does not match the preposterous images conjured by the anti-communist slanderers. New archives are opened over time and new historians such as J. Arch Getty and Grover Furr are the ones who take them into account and adjust the narrative accordingly.
But in the contemporary era, we usually revise a social valuation of a scenario in which we have all of the information on what happened. There is a great wealth of false data and speculation on this particular event which makes it rife for ACTUAL revision, as in the redefinition and re-imagining of the whole event. We usually use this as an excellent example of the biases of politically compromised or vocational historic inquiry, but Furr does literally the exact same thing (actual REVISION of the event, rather than simple interpretation)
What is being challenged isnt re-interpretation, but shoddy and ideologically compromised academic inquiry
I've not read Furr yet. Do you have sources that show Furr's research is garbage?
This is literally what western accounts of Soviet history are. Furr is a Marxist-Leninist, yes, but this does not make him any less credible. Most of the most famous Western "Sovietologists" are the most guilty of this.
That doesn’t make Furr’s work any good. There are examples of western historians who offer an actually balanced account, like J Arch Gettt.
Not really
There is no evidence Bukharin was a traitor
There is no evidence that any significant amount of the party or the Military killed / Imprisoned were Trots
There is no evidence that any significant portion of the Army / Military was aiming to overthrow Stalin etc
Except there is. Grover Furr reviews it in his book on the Moscow Trials.
No one is critiquing Furr to the exemption of the Western propagandists, they're simply guilty of the same revisionist tendencies for their own benefit. That we happen to be more wont to agree with Furr has no effect on the quality of the interpretation.
what does he prove?
Which of these conspiracies does he point out to be factual?
I wrote some giant effortpost in the past, but I am not going to bother attempting to dredge it up. I recommend reading Furr in all honesty, but only as an exercise in recognizing ideological writing.
"balanced" accounts are not more credible by virtue of being balanced, we need to examine all available evidence and challenge our preconceived notions (pro or anti stalin)
Also isn't most of Furrs evidence to prove the Trials just literally Anti-Communist / Soviet tier shit and the forced confessions?
Balanced in the sense that it takes a relatively neutral position and examines the actual evidence without massive ideological axes to grind in either direction.
Neutrality is a liberal fantasy, because commitment to balance and neutrality is itself an ideological axis.
...
It prevented it from being worse than it would otherwise be. The troops were more prepared and the armed forces were alert, allowing for an immediate reaction to the German assault. The failures of the initial weeks was more due to the fact that the Germans concentrated their forces, while the USSR was forced to spread them out along the border because there was no definite point of attack known to them. moreover, they could not concentrate troops there without provoking an international issue, but giving the Germans a reason to justify attacking (claiming that the were preparing to invade themselves, as western historians would sometimes claim decades later).
im laffin
I see no reason why any of this has anything to do with the execution of scores of senior commanders, under the purview of the Interior forces rather than under military tribunal.
>>>/gulag/
Edgelords must realize they have been conditioned to glorify violence by red-tooth-and-claw capitalism and media conditioning. Killing of human brothers is as darwinian capitalist as it gets, ~muh survival of the fittest~. Also possibly the most severe form of oppression (which so-called-comrades wish to destroy, ya?).
To requote another poster, violent comrades are spooks and will destroy any revolution.
Why break in the door when you can knock on the door and be invited in for dinner?
Why were they targeted? I hear both stories from Getty and Kotkin. They both say that Stalin was ideologically driven by an authentic desire for socialism and that the upper party were paranoid about sabotage and assassination. They still say Stalin was a monster who maintained dictatorship by putting people against each other, but they say it wasn’t for power’s sake but to establish socialism. So did Stalin consider Bukharin a real threat to the revolution, or was he just aimlessly killing people?
Holocaustianity is the epitome of identitarianism, i.e. deeply revisionist.
I don't, but when he noticed his underlings were starting to kill hundreds of thousands it might have been a hint to check into things. Also, Stalin was known for being paranoid and trusting no one, not even people he appointed personally; there is no way he was letting Yezhov do whatever he wanted for years without keeping tabs on him.
He really is the scapegoat of all ☭TANKIE☭s, apparently anything that went wrong in the 30's was his fault despite being in Siberia or Mexico.
I would agree, but that doesn't lessen the magnitude and consequences of his "mistakes" any.
Maybe if the CIA stopped funding Troskyists we wouldn't be bitching about him.
I agree that mass killings are bad and I'd love it if we had a velvet revolution where one day everyone just refused to come into work anymore but you have to face the reality that a purely pacifistic approach most likely won't work either, if nothing else the revolution will need to be defended from reactionaries and coups, maybe foreign invaders.
Also the only thing that Stalin did wrong was not go far enough and kill more.
...
The CIA has funded literally everybody that they thought could suit their ends, including MLs.
There's a difference between defending the revolution and killing your own comrades and innocent people, stop playing fool.
The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.
It's a quote about it.
who said that shit
Bertolt Brecht
i don't really agree
can you be any more of an utopian idealist?
oh, okay…
This is heartbreaking.
Koba, why do you need me to die?
Fuck Stalin and fuck every single one of his retard worshippers.
condiments?
Did I say there was no difference?
So… are you pro- or anti-Stalin?
Because Stalin had the power to change the result of a court hearing, right. Just a question, but can president Trump go against a Supreme Court ruling? No, he can't. The same applies to the Moscow Trials. Even if he wanted to help, Stalin had his hands tied. Stop being a feels>reals moron.
“There are increasing signs the Russian trials are not faked, but that there is a plot among those who look upon Stalin as a stupid reactionary who has betrayed the ideas of the revolution.” –Comrade Einstein speaking against critics of the trials of traitors within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
See
Stalin literally had Yezhov executed after a court martial and many of the people unjustly imprisoned released you fucking twit.
bourg propaganda
Trotsky isn't alone y'know. Not to mention things like
The CIA funded Trotskyism to combat Marxist-Leninism.
Among other things.
lol
If you're using wikipedia unironically, you should leave this board