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It was a common position among European and American communists that the Stalinist turn was a grave error that communists should strongly oppose, and that the U

It was a common position among European and American communists that the Stalinist turn was a grave error that communists should strongly oppose, and that the USSR was not heading towards achieving communism (remember, not even China today calls itself communist, they have a communist party working towards that goal). For most western communists, it was a question of when not whether you had your "Kronstadt moment". Likewise, I wouldn't put every excess of a capitalist state on the head of someone who calls themself a capitalist. Should they be held a priori individually responsible for the late Victorian famines in India and Ireland? The various coups and dictatorships in the Middle East, Central and South America? The sanction regimes whose explicit goal is "to bring about hunger" because it violates the anti-sovereignty "sphere of influence" Monroe Doctrine?

nullifidian 3y ago
>It was a common position among European and American communists Sadly it wasn't. Some continued to deny Stalin's crimes well into perestroika. Especially in the academia.
- dundarious 3y ago
  Trotskyists were common, and hence, it was a common position -- I didn't say universal. I'm not even a Marxist/communist, never mind some scholar of sectarian subgroups, but that's just one popular example among many.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
> It was a common position among European and American communists that the Stalinist turn was a grave error that communists should strongly oppose… That was a “common position” in the sense that it was around, but it wasn’t the overriding position until 1956, when both the brutal Soviet invasion of Hungary and Khrushchev’s changes allowed European communists to make an easy break with Stalin. Before that, many European Communists were reluctant to alienate the Soviet Union or be tarred as Trotskyists. Then in the mid–late 1960s, the decline of Stalin’s popularity gave way to a rise in Mao’s popularity among some French, British, and German Communists, a position which has also dated badly. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Communist movement in many European countries remained fragmented, with the largest parties being post-Stalinist, but splinter parties still upholding Stalin and Mao as the models of their struggle. Interestingly, some of the smallest splinter parties operated just like cults of the Scientology sort, only without any religious basis – there was a trial in the UK fairly recently about an old Maoist party keeping a woman hostage for years.
- dundarious 3y ago
  Sure, a similar situation occurred with Mao -- many followers who were afraid to criticize for too long (and many others who were not so afraid, though they are often left out because they failed to comprehensively demonize China). Does that repudiate communism in its entirety as a school of thought and action? I don't think so -- that's why I disagree with the root comment who conflated communist with Stalinist, and who was defining the bounds of (barely) acceptable opinion as (paraphrasing) "minor increase to the welfare state", with anything further being equated with Stalinism or anti-semitism. I agree there are quasi-Marxist cults, I know the story you're talking about. (I'd argue the continued lack of development of what the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as opposed to the current "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" can successfully look like, and how to then achieve "the withering away of the state" -- or even how to take power in the place where it's supposed to, the developed capitalist countries like Germany, without just gesturing at "the contradictions" and saying the people will get there -- that's what destroyed the Old Left communists. I have a different but no less critical appraisal of the New Left, and the Millennial Left. None of these projects even have a vision for how to get a vision for the future).
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    My post was correcting a single factual error that I quoted. I don’t appreciate you replying to my post in an attempt to draw me into your political battle.
    - dundarious 3y ago
      No problem, I agree with your factual assertions. The root comment used some less nuanced but similar assertions (and some other inconsistent assertions) to make an objectionable political point, and so I think it’s still useful to repudiate their politics on the basis of your assertions.

nullifidian 3y ago

>It was a common position among European and American communists Sadly it wasn't. Some continued to deny Stalin's crimes well into perestroika. Especially in the academia.

dundarious 3y ago
Trotskyists were common, and hence, it was a common position -- I didn't say universal. I'm not even a Marxist/communist, never mind some scholar of sectarian subgroups, but that's just one popular example among many.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

> It was a common position among European and American communists that the Stalinist turn was a grave error that communists should strongly oppose… That was a “common position” in the sense that it was around, but it wasn’t the overriding position until 1956, when both the brutal Soviet invasion of Hungary and Khrushchev’s changes allowed European communists to make an easy break with Stalin. Before that, many European Communists were reluctant to alienate the Soviet Union or be tarred as Trotskyists. Then in the mid–late 1960s, the decline of Stalin’s popularity gave way to a rise in Mao’s popularity among some French, British, and German Communists, a position which has also dated badly. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Communist movement in many European countries remained fragmented, with the largest parties being post-Stalinist, but splinter parties still upholding Stalin and Mao as the models of their struggle. Interestingly, some of the smallest splinter parties operated just like cults of the Scientology sort, only without any religious basis – there was a trial in the UK fairly recently about an old Maoist party keeping a woman hostage for years.

dundarious 3y ago
Sure, a similar situation occurred with Mao -- many followers who were afraid to criticize for too long (and many others who were not so afraid, though they are often left out because they failed to comprehensively demonize China). Does that repudiate communism in its entirety as a school of thought and action? I don't think so -- that's why I disagree with the root comment who conflated communist with Stalinist, and who was defining the bounds of (barely) acceptable opinion as (paraphrasing) "minor increase to the welfare state", with anything further being equated with Stalinism or anti-semitism. I agree there are quasi-Marxist cults, I know the story you're talking about. (I'd argue the continued lack of development of what the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as opposed to the current "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" can successfully look like, and how to then achieve "the withering away of the state" -- or even how to take power in the place where it's supposed to, the developed capitalist countries like Germany, without just gesturing at "the contradictions" and saying the people will get there -- that's what destroyed the Old Left communists. I have a different but no less critical appraisal of the New Left, and the Millennial Left. None of these projects even have a vision for how to get a vision for the future).
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  My post was correcting a single factual error that I quoted. I don’t appreciate you replying to my post in an attempt to draw me into your political battle.
  - dundarious 3y ago
    No problem, I agree with your factual assertions. The root comment used some less nuanced but similar assertions (and some other inconsistent assertions) to make an objectionable political point, and so I think it’s still useful to repudiate their politics on the basis of your assertions.