This is not intended to flame anyone on RevLeft.
Why is it that so many of you Revlefters think of Communist leaders such as Stalin and Pol Pot your heroes and idloise them when they were such brutal killers? I understand they had their good points but why would you idolise them when they ordered massacres and purges against common people, who I thought we were supposed to be fighting for?

Also not interested in flaming, but why do so many people make uneducated comments thinking they 're contributing anything? It happens all the time.


Reason is that some people have looked around and learnt stuff you ignore. Because they 're smarter/more hard-working than you.
You can always change your ways of course but I lose faith in people as time goes by.

PS I won't even start on your obvious strawmans as they 're not the point here, the point is people -marxists!- insisting on not studying history/marxism and just taking whatever is readily presented to them.
PS2 Bad mood, at least it's Friday...

Presumably the "Pol Potist" usergroup, if that is what the OP is referring to, is actually supposed to be a joke. I think it's in poor taste, but then again, it doesn't really make a difference what I think about it as it isn't my usergroup.

Hmm It probably would've been best to check that. But why would people praise Stalin even when they know what he did. Many sources are exagerrated but it's still a significant amount and inexcusable.

I think it's inexcusable to put Stalin and Mao in a 'mass murderers' category but not every other head of state of every other nation ever.

The fact is, all governments commit atrocities. During the pre-WWII period the Western Allies were responsible for plenty of unnecessary and unjust deaths (the Bengal famine comes to mind).
Trying to place Stalin and Mao into a separate category, of leaders who are somehow 'more bloodthirsty' than the leaders of the western capitalist states is nothing more than a tactic used by the bourgeois media to discredit socialism- to claim that their hands were clean in an era when, due to global economic meltdown, social upheaval, and the rise of fascism, everybody was forced to get their hands bloody to some extent.

The difference, however, is that when Stalin used violence, he always did so with the goal of socialism and the liberation of the working class in mind. Unfortunately, in difficult situations, like the one the Soviet Union under Stalin was in, many innocents get caught in the crossfire, and I'm sure Stalin was aware of that, but revolution is a bloody mess, and it's not like miscarriages of justice never occur in the west, anyway.

Oh, and he didn't target 'common people'. As I said, unfortunately, many innocent commoners suffered because it was an era of distrust and fifth columns, but the problem of kulak saboteurs and Nazi spies was a very real one.

Yes, all governments commmit atrocities, thats why we reject bourgeoisie governments, including those of Stalin and Mao.

Ha, so people have never committed atrocities without official governments? Anarchists have never forced collectivisation and burnt churches? Puh-lease..

Cmde. Mantis has it spot on.

What's wrong with burning churches and how can you compare it with starving people or exploiting them for "state capitalist machinery"? Just because Maoist guerillas look cool that doesn't mean that they are right.

Just a few things. We can assume, as it's reasonable that some innocents did get in the crossfire as that's reasonable, seeing the distrust which is normal when all the world is literally out to get you and the "zeal" shown by lower rank party members during periods of unrest.

But

a) The first to criticize these actions was the party itself
b) Nothing suggests that these phenomena were widespread. Most of the punishments seem to have come to those that brought them to themselves.


Pogue, those anarchists that bombed the party headquarters in Moscow, killing many innocents? I 'm sure they got their fair share of Gulag time.

Not to mention that the anarchists executed church worshippers without giving them fair trial.

LOL

I've brought you up on this before but its worth quoting the post in full. Perhaps this time you'll respond. Or anyone else who wishes to defend Stalin's bloody purges/campaigns:



EN Egorova (Petersburg Committee) (Executed 1938)
GF Fedorov (Central Committee) (Assassinated 1937)
AF Ilin-Zhenevsky (Military Organisation) (Executed 1941)
LB Kamenev (Central Committee) (Executed 1936)
MS Kedrov (Military Organisation) (Executed 1941)
FP Khaustov (Military Organisation) (Executed 1938)
NV Krylenko (Military Organisation) (Executed 1938)
M Latis (Petersburg Committee) (Executed)
KA Mekhonoshin (Military Organisation) (Executed)
VP Miliutin (Central Committee) (Executed 1937)
VI Nevsky (Military Organisation) (Executed 1938)
SK Ordzhonikidze (Petersburg Committee) (Suicide 1937)
MA Saveliev (Petersburg Committee) (Executed 1938)
AG Shliapnikov (Russian Bureau of the Central Committee) (Executed 1937)
IT Smilga (Central Committee) (Executed 1938)
IN Stukov (Petersburg Committee) (Executed)
MP Tomsky (Petersburg Committee) (Suicide 1936)
PA Zalutsky (Russian Bureau of the Central Committee) (Executed 1937)
GE Zinoviev (Central Committee) (Executed 1936)

Recognise a few names on this list? I'm sure you do. This is a very small sample of prominent Petrograd Bolsheviks who were active in the capital during 1917. Like I said, a tiny sample of Stalin's total victims. But I want to focus on these for a minute because I doubt you give a damn about the countless victims who have not had their names recorded. Each of the above furthered the revolutionary cause in 1917 (a few also were good Stalinists afterwards) and served with distinction on the various Bolshevik organisations and committees. The names above vary from party leaders* to those who worked tirelessly at grassroots level. Revolutionary heroes, one and all

Certainly they were responsible for a state that provided "free education, medicine, and housing". Their revolutionary credentials are impeccable yet they ended up murdered by a despot who cared for nothing but his own personal power. There is no excuse for these deaths and they, and the countless others of Stalin's personal political opponents, did not deserve the fate they ultimately received

Now you can talk all you want about 'crypto-Trots' or whatever you like. That's bullshit and if you can't see that then its solely because of your own narrow-mindedness. But I'm not going to let you pretend that these names tried to 'step outside the Party' or tried to destroy the USSR. They were the heroes without whom the latter would not have existed. To dismiss them as somehow 'legitimate targets' is a thundering disgrace and a damning indictment of your own ideology

*Interesting enough, of the nine-man Central Committee elected in April 1917 only one reached the 1940s. Three (Sverdlov, Lenin and Nogin) died of natural causes but the remaining five were executed on Stalin's orders

Oh? That might come as a surprise to the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Soviet citizens who were deliberately targeted simply because of their ethnic background. Or can you explain away the 'national operations' of the NKVD?

Kamenev and Zinoviev even voted against having an armed uprising just days before the revolution. The only ones that voted no. Saying they were prominent leaders and not saying that they were those prominent leaders that didn't want the revolution to happen isn't so fair, is it now?

And what would this prove even if they were all the most perfect examples of a revolutionary in 1917? If they came to stand for interests of others and not the workers, are they innocent victims? Try supporting their positions at that time without bringing forth what had they done decades ago.

Amazingly they were not immediately executed for their opinions. Then again, the Bolshevik party of 1917 tolerated differences of opinion and both Kamenev and Zinoviev went on to play productive roles during the revolutionary years

But then perhaps all Stalin's later policies/actions should be dismissed because he supported Kamenev in recognising the Provisional Government in early 1917?

Because according to the typical defence of Stalin supplied by his apologists, this would mean that the revolution of 1917 was led by those in "contact with White Guard circles and the German fascists". Do you believe this to be the case? Do you believe that the entire surviving leadership of the Bolsheviks from 1917, with the exception of Stalin of course, consequently sought to restore the capitalist regime that they had worked so hard to overthrow?

It is typical Stalinist bunk to portray these revolutionaries, many of whom had been good Bolsheviks for decades, as German spies, fascists, and White sympathisers. Few regimes were as proficient at executing revolutionaries as Stalin's USSR

And Bolsheviks send them to Den Hague?
btw. sources please

Do you think all of those people deserved to be killed?

I think that you should watch what you write because you could become Anarchist in the next few seconds. Drastic changes are common at your age. You could end up being liberal in the end.

No one is seperating Mao and Stalin from other leaders, why would they? Anyway the point you're trying to make is frankly nonsensical. No one is saying they're less or more blood thirsty than any other capitalist leaders, past or present. Why should other atrocities come into it? Are you saying that just because atrocities have been committed by cappie governments that we should somehow downplay atrocities committed under 'socialism'? What's your point there? And don't give the OP this crap; the goal of socialism and the liberation of the working class in mind- you're kidding no one. 'Liberation of the working class' cannot be given down to the workers. I'll provide you with a quote from Marx you seem to have forgotten- 'The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself', do you understand?

Most, yes.
Not specifically among *them* as I can only be sure of what some stood for but generally the purges targeted people who aimed at undermining socialism.

Edit: And to not be labeled a violence fetishist, I 'll say they were worthy of some form of punishment. I have not lived in times of such an "upheaval" as the late 30s were so I trust that this was the "less dangerous" choise.

Of course back then the bolshevik party tolerated freedom of opinion. As it always did until the revisionists got on top.

What was not tolerated back then or later was acting against the interests of the workers. As Kamenev and Zinoviev did when, after the comittee voted in favour of the uprising, they went out, broke party line and propagated their disagreement on it happening, endangering its very success. An action that had Lenin -who judged people on their behaviour and not "credentials"- wanting to expell them immediately. Unfortunately, this didn't happen at that time.
Their less-than-friendly stance towards workers got them expelled from the party early in the 30s after all. Their treason was the reason they were executed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ComradeOm Because according to the typical defence of Stalin supplied by his apologists, this would mean that the revolution of 1917 was led by those in "contact with White Guard circles and the German fascists". Do you believe this to be the case? Do you believe that the entire surviving leadership of the Bolsheviks from 1917, with the exception of Stalin of course, consequently sought to restore the capitalist regime that they had worked so hard to overthrow?

The overwhelming majority of those executed was at that time supporting reactionaries. Make the case why koulaks were nice lads and shouldn't have their land taken away from them if you can, but stop mentioning how great these revolutionaries were without ever going into their positions. Now, taking into account that the USSR was a workers' state, it makes perfect sense that people who didn't agree with its existence would try to overthrow the government. At least judging by their supporters today, who would be more than happy to have seen that happening. Judges went over each case and made their decision that, I believe, was in the benefit of the working class. Everything seems quite ok.

Clearly they can. Stalin is proof enough of that. But then that is beside my point - that the Stalinist regime oversaw the effective destruction of the revolutionary Bolshevik party. We are not discussing one or two names here but a huge percentage of the party's 1917 leadership (on several levels) who were executed during the 1930s. But then perhaps its simply coincidence that almost every one of Stalin’s political rivals turned out to be “class enemies”

What's depressing is that you probably honestly believe this

The Kamenev and Zinoviev case is an interesting example with which to contrast Stalin. Despite Lenin's understandable anger at their actions, there was never any question of expelling them (and certainly not executing them!), and they subsequently went on to prove their "credentials" with high-profile roles during the Civil War years. It is absolutely unthinkable that anyone could have survived such public disagreements with Stalin during or following the purges

This contrast was summed up in the wonderful anecdote (the source of which I unfortunately can't recall) in which Sverdlov, chairing the CC meeting, slapped down Lenin's calls for their expulsion from the party with a curt "That is not how we do things in the Bolshevik party Comrade Lenin". Or something to that effect. A nice story which serves to illustrate the degree of open debate tolerated and encouraged by the pre-Stalinist Bolsheviks. But then you're already on the record in disagreeing with this policy

Of course, each and every executed was judged "ok" by the Stalinist state. Which suggests that either the Bolsheviks who fought in 1917 defected en masse to the "White Guard and German fascists" (to quote the crime that Bukharin was accused of) or the trials were staged opportunities for Stalin to eliminate his political rivals. I know which I consider to be more plausible but I suspect you'd disagree