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Totally wrong on every account. Lenin himself set up the Soviet system and he himself put Stalin in control. It was a brutal dictatorship from literally day 1.

by nickik 9y ago

Totally wrong on every account. Lenin himself set up the Soviet system and he himself put Stalin in control. It was a brutal dictatorship from literally day 1. This socialist fairy tail of the 'good' soviet union that was destroyed by the evil Stalin is socialist self-rationalizations. The USSR was communist in the sense that it was lead by people who strongly believed in communism and had a socialist economy that they hoped to transform into communism. Stalin was a strong ideological believer in communism and his communism was just as real as that of Trotsky or Lenin. His actions, specifically collectivization, very clear target the achievement of an ideological goal, that the majority of the party ideologically agree on.

fao_ 9y ago
> he himself put Stalin in control. Except his last testament was to ask that Stalin be removed from power because he was too controlling.
- nickik 9y ago
  Actually, that testament is hard to actually link to Lenin directly. There has been a lot of research on this and the document is extremely suspicious. Stephen Kotkin in his Stalin biography goes into a lot of detail on all aspects of the testament. Also, threw-out his career he went with Lenin and Lenin put him into the positions. Basically he had Lenins support all the way until days before he died. A bit strange to say the least.
  - fao_ 9y ago
    > Basically he had Lenins support all the way until days before he died. A bit strange to say the least. That's a misrepresentation at best, since the documents were written up over several months. In any case, it doesn't matter, since Stalin created the Troika, ensured that Lenin was unable to contact outsiders without his authority, made sure that his will and testament was never to be spoken of in public, and consolidated power and control to himself. Communism is about giving the power to the proletariat. Stalin can hardly be said to have done that.
    - nickik 9y ago
      Please actually inform yourself about these things. > In any case, it doesn't matter, since Stalin created the Troika, ensured that Lenin was unable to contact outsiders without his authority This is at best an exaturation. Many non-Stalin allies had contact with Lenin during most of that time. > That's a misrepresentation at best, since the documents were written up over several months. When these things were actually written is not at all clear. The information is actually inconsistant and we don't have the original documents. The testament was known and debated extensivly inside the party. > Communism is about giving the power to the proletariat. Stalin can hardly be said to have done that. Literally the first thing Lenin did is take as much power for himself as possible. So much is made out of the differences between all of these guys, but in reality they are more simular then different. The theory they were opperating under was that the state should take control guided by the proletarian party to transform into communism. That was Lenin and many other people interpretation of Marxism and Stalin was very much a studend of Lenin in that respect. Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 by Stephen Kotkin is a great new biography of Stalin it goes into great detail on the testaments and Stalin idiology.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> The USSR was communist in the sense that it was lead by people who strongly believed in communism Genuine belief is hard to assess, especially in an end-state goal like Communism that is remote from the immediate means sought to pursue it. What is absolutely clear, though, is that Leninism was fundamentally divorced, both in it's understanding of the prerequisites circumstances for the socialist step on the route to communism and in it's understanding of the implementation of that step from the form of Communism (Marxism) which it claimed to be an expression of.
- nickik 9y ago
  Well, many of them lived in poverty and fought in the underground with very little chance of success for a very long time. Also, all the internal record we have, when they are by them-selves, all basically reinforce that. They used communist language and talked about archiving communist goals.
losteric 9y ago
It's funny how everyone's dog-piling in response to things I didn't say. I invite you to find any of the topics you bring up in my original post. You won't. Stalin, Trotsky, and Lenin may have hoped for Communism, but their actions built a brutal dictatorship. I don't care what they called themselves - I care about the results. No one "accidentally" builds a dictatorship. I'm not supporting Communism, or the USSR, I'm calling out intellectual laziness. Communism is a specific ideology, there are plenty of real and valid criticisms - but "look at the USSR" is not a valid argument. The USSR is a good argument against dictatorships, monarchies, totalitarianism, on and on... but Communism is one thing it was not.
- nickik 9y ago
  The error that you are making is that when we are looking at ideology and evaluation if it could help to improve the world. With Communism there are massive amounts of problems, but a major one is how to think of the transition, and how to enact the transition. The USSR had to be a dictatorship because otherwise they and everybody who thinks about it for 5 min understand that the transition to communism will simply not happen. So if you have a ideology that practically unreachable then that is a massive problem for that ideology and its ability to actually improve the world. The very extreme proposition dictated by communism forces the people who follow the ideology into extreme actions.
anigbrowl 9y ago
This just isn't factual. The October 1917 revolution was one of the least violent in history, with fewer than 10 fatalities (primarily because the country was already in disarray after an earlier revolution in February of that year, and the Bolshevik arty succeeded in October by persuading the army to come to its side). Soon afterwards civil war broke out between the communists and , which unfortunately seems quite common in countries that move from one form of government to another, see for example how many of Britain's former colonies had civil wars or splits following independence. there was a long-running and rather bitter power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky during Lenin's period of declining health and subsequent to his death, with the former arguing for 'socialism in one country' and Trotsky arguing that this just wasn't practical and would essentially just be a continuation of the civil war along a national front. I happen to think he was correct in this. If you have a few minutes, try reading this letter from Trotsky to the USSR's Central Committee, written in 1930. It's a bit of a long read, given the literary conventions of the time, Trotsky's polemical style, and the political context it was written within. But it's essentially a diatribe against collectivization, central planning and authoritarianism, and in favor of contractual relations, economic rationality and voluntarist strategies. https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/03/openletter.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/03/openletter.... Pretending that all historical communists were going from the same playbook is just not true. Personally, I'm a fan of Trotsky because he was arguing from 1905 (when russia had a half-baked revolution that failed) that Communism would succeed by doing a better job at meeting people's needs in competition with other forms of governance.
Bendingo 9y ago
>he himself put Stalin in control It is true that it was Lenin who brought Stalin into the inner circle of command. Later on, however, after Lenin was bedridden due to strokes, Lenin explicitly stated that Stalin was not to assume party leadership. This directive was ignored because of Lenin's declining authority in the party.

by nickik 9y ago

fao_ 9y ago

> he himself put Stalin in control. Except his last testament was to ask that Stalin be removed from power because he was too controlling.

nickik 9y ago
Actually, that testament is hard to actually link to Lenin directly. There has been a lot of research on this and the document is extremely suspicious. Stephen Kotkin in his Stalin biography goes into a lot of detail on all aspects of the testament. Also, threw-out his career he went with Lenin and Lenin put him into the positions. Basically he had Lenins support all the way until days before he died. A bit strange to say the least.
- fao_ 9y ago
  > Basically he had Lenins support all the way until days before he died. A bit strange to say the least. That's a misrepresentation at best, since the documents were written up over several months. In any case, it doesn't matter, since Stalin created the Troika, ensured that Lenin was unable to contact outsiders without his authority, made sure that his will and testament was never to be spoken of in public, and consolidated power and control to himself. Communism is about giving the power to the proletariat. Stalin can hardly be said to have done that.
  - nickik 9y ago
    Please actually inform yourself about these things. > In any case, it doesn't matter, since Stalin created the Troika, ensured that Lenin was unable to contact outsiders without his authority This is at best an exaturation. Many non-Stalin allies had contact with Lenin during most of that time. > That's a misrepresentation at best, since the documents were written up over several months. When these things were actually written is not at all clear. The information is actually inconsistant and we don't have the original documents. The testament was known and debated extensivly inside the party. > Communism is about giving the power to the proletariat. Stalin can hardly be said to have done that. Literally the first thing Lenin did is take as much power for himself as possible. So much is made out of the differences between all of these guys, but in reality they are more simular then different. The theory they were opperating under was that the state should take control guided by the proletarian party to transform into communism. That was Lenin and many other people interpretation of Marxism and Stalin was very much a studend of Lenin in that respect. Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 by Stephen Kotkin is a great new biography of Stalin it goes into great detail on the testaments and Stalin idiology.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> The USSR was communist in the sense that it was lead by people who strongly believed in communism Genuine belief is hard to assess, especially in an end-state goal like Communism that is remote from the immediate means sought to pursue it. What is absolutely clear, though, is that Leninism was fundamentally divorced, both in it's understanding of the prerequisites circumstances for the socialist step on the route to communism and in it's understanding of the implementation of that step from the form of Communism (Marxism) which it claimed to be an expression of.

nickik 9y ago
Well, many of them lived in poverty and fought in the underground with very little chance of success for a very long time. Also, all the internal record we have, when they are by them-selves, all basically reinforce that. They used communist language and talked about archiving communist goals.

losteric 9y ago

It's funny how everyone's dog-piling in response to things I didn't say. I invite you to find any of the topics you bring up in my original post. You won't. Stalin, Trotsky, and Lenin may have hoped for Communism, but their actions built a brutal dictatorship. I don't care what they called themselves - I care about the results. No one "accidentally" builds a dictatorship. I'm not supporting Communism, or the USSR, I'm calling out intellectual laziness. Communism is a specific ideology, there are plenty of real and valid criticisms - but "look at the USSR" is not a valid argument. The USSR is a good argument against dictatorships, monarchies, totalitarianism, on and on... but Communism is one thing it was not.

nickik 9y ago
The error that you are making is that when we are looking at ideology and evaluation if it could help to improve the world. With Communism there are massive amounts of problems, but a major one is how to think of the transition, and how to enact the transition. The USSR had to be a dictatorship because otherwise they and everybody who thinks about it for 5 min understand that the transition to communism will simply not happen. So if you have a ideology that practically unreachable then that is a massive problem for that ideology and its ability to actually improve the world. The very extreme proposition dictated by communism forces the people who follow the ideology into extreme actions.

anigbrowl 9y ago

This just isn't factual. The October 1917 revolution was one of the least violent in history, with fewer than 10 fatalities (primarily because the country was already in disarray after an earlier revolution in February of that year, and the Bolshevik arty succeeded in October by persuading the army to come to its side). Soon afterwards civil war broke out between the communists and , which unfortunately seems quite common in countries that move from one form of government to another, see for example how many of Britain's former colonies had civil wars or splits following independence. there was a long-running and rather bitter power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky during Lenin's period of declining health and subsequent to his death, with the former arguing for 'socialism in one country' and Trotsky arguing that this just wasn't practical and would essentially just be a continuation of the civil war along a national front. I happen to think he was correct in this. If you have a few minutes, try reading this letter from Trotsky to the USSR's Central Committee, written in 1930. It's a bit of a long read, given the literary conventions of the time, Trotsky's polemical style, and the political context it was written within. But it's essentially a diatribe against collectivization, central planning and authoritarianism, and in favor of contractual relations, economic rationality and voluntarist strategies. https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/03/openletter.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/03/openletter.... Pretending that all historical communists were going from the same playbook is just not true. Personally, I'm a fan of Trotsky because he was arguing from 1905 (when russia had a half-baked revolution that failed) that Communism would succeed by doing a better job at meeting people's needs in competition with other forms of governance.

Bendingo 9y ago

>he himself put Stalin in control It is true that it was Lenin who brought Stalin into the inner circle of command. Later on, however, after Lenin was bedridden due to strokes, Lenin explicitly stated that Stalin was not to assume party leadership. This directive was ignored because of Lenin's declining authority in the party.