Tell me what you think about Stalin. Good? Bad? Somewhere in between...

Tell me what you think about Stalin. Good? Bad? Somewhere in between? What did he do right and what could he have done better? General thoughts? He surprisingly doesn't come up very often, other than in passing when people day the Holodomor didn't happen.

Other urls found in this thread:

spartacus.atheles.org/livres/trotskylestalinemanque/.
libcom.org/library/part-1-0.
marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1942/russian-economy/ch03.htm
libcom.org/library/nation-state-nationalism-oiseau-temp-te-andr-dr).
northstarcompass.org/nsc0608/zinoviev.htm
revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/lenstal.htm
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

dindu nuffin

A dirty mass murderer who not only slaughtered his own people, but tainted the image of Lenin and Marx in the minds of the ignorant. His only saving grace was wiping out the nazis and pissing off burgerland. I really dont understand how ☭TANKIE☭s can try and defend authoritarian regimes like the USSR

t. Lenin

Please don't let this derail the thread.

He kinda fucked up defeating the Nazis too. Killed his best generals and trusted the fascists in the first place then basically left some of the best equipped battalions to be encircled and captured/massacred en mass.

Thread derailed by illiterates

...

Memes aside, he was unironically a really good leader. He was able to build the strongest socialist country in history, help fund revolutions all around the world, and take the weakest country in Europe and completely industrializ it and turn it into one of the leading world powers in only a couple of decades. That's not to say that he was perfect or anything but overall he did a good job

Greatest politician since Ceasar.
Uncompromising, ballsy, visionary and loyal to his country and his ideals.
Now, why the fuck are you asking this question here?

What are some of his major imperfections?

Didn't do a single thing wrong

Figurehead of the world counter-revolution and puppet for its demands which started in around 1921, in Russia.

Lenin, in his testament writing about his concerns about Stalin and his desire to have him expulsed from power, was there very much an idealist: it literally would not have mattered at all who took over when he died; it would have been gunpoint social democracy under any such constellation of power. Maybe the USSR would have more efficiently Zerged the Nazis if it had a more intelligent guy as head of State (one who wouldn't liberally interfere with actually intelligent war generals and push through his autistic wishes)

Also, he was a manlet and counter-revolution being dubbed "Stalinism" just doesn't have a nice ring to it. Imagine "Zinovievism". Fuck, Zinoviev might have even not been cheesy enough to force the "Marxism-Leninism" meme into our faces or at least have given it a better name. Even better might have been Trotsky taking over since then we wouldn't have Trotskyism as our side with the counter-revolution main course. Although that would mean Stalinism would now be a big thing in western leftism and who knows what a personality cult around Stalin would look like in a world where Stalin never got to pretend to have agency. There's a good book about this, in French, which runs down the lot of Trotsky's writings and the many things he did manage to effectuate when he still had a position in the Comintern and headed the Red Army: spartacus.atheles.org/livres/trotskylestalinemanque/.

Mice Trotskists
Propaganda, take this bullshit to twitter

Pros:

Cons:

Stalin did some bad things and some great things. He was unable to establish socialism in the former Russian Empire and crystallized its system of state capitalism that mostly persisted until the 1980s. Though he defended Soviet people from utter annihilation, his political persecutions were responsible for such a terrifyingly large number of deaths (around a million if not more) that it's weird right-wingers feel needed to inflate the numbers.

Stalin isn't somebody we should admire. If your socialism has much in common with the Stalinist model then you need to read Marx.

Bad. He betrayed the revolution and hindered communist movements for decades. Collectivization was clearly going to kill loads of people but he did it anyways. He was a nationalist who used communism as a vehicle to carry him to power.

Lmaoooooooooooooo how so?

Since your reading comprehension sucks dick and you can't take a hint: Trotsky was already in a slew of his principles and notions an alt-Stalin, and whenever he did actually get to do things (he actually held a high seat in the Third International for a few years and was the defacto commander of the Red Army) he acted in the exact same way: bureaucratically, "authoritarian", purging dissidents, et cetera. I am suggesting, however, that whoever might've replaced Stalin's position would not even need to have so much similarity with Stalin, as e.g. Trotsky did, because what kind of decisions the situation in Russia demanded from that very position would in large lines not be different at all (should its prospect be to secure and reproduce its own existence, of course, which then again is impossible to contest on such an individual, non-structural basis).

He abolished the NEP while Lenin wanted to keep it. Look, Lenin probably would've abolished it anyway, if he had lived long enough. But, ok forget it, forget what I said earlier, keeping the NEP for a bit was pretty understandable

Substantiate what you mean by this.

Stalin went out of his way to transcend mere social democracy (NEP) through collectivization, by the end of the collectivization movement production wasn't organized according to profit but for use. The greatest indicator that it wasn't a social democracy is the fact that the labor market was abolished (no unemployment, right to work), which means labor wasn't a commodity anymore - there is not a single social democracy that achieved full employment, in fact, social democracies tend to increase unemployment through tightening the market entry.

The reason the USSR won the war was its industrial output, not the brilliance of individual generals. You are being inconsistent here, as someone who rejects great man theories you ignore the material bases completely.

...

are you the 18 year old

surely we don't believe this, he was at least sincere in his marxism, he wasn't some cynic who was just using the USSR for personal power. You can disagree with what he did and his theory but to say he just wanted to be the big dog is purely western smear.

In short: the death of international revolutions forced the USSR to defacto adopt every principle of bourgeois societies to survive, including capitalism (albeit at the start still only in primitive form; late Tsarist Russia did a poor job at socialising labour and was still quasi-feudal). These are things Lenin and Bukharin both wholly affirmed, though Lenin died before he could see it happen with his own eyes and Bukharin helped engineer a proper plan to modernise capital and lead it for a bunch of years before getting culled by Stalin and he did his minor modifications of the same essentially capitalist society again.

At length: libcom.org/library/part-1-0.

Whatever "Stalin" (stop giving this pathetic puppet faggot so much agency in all of this, or better yet any at all, fuck, especially if later on you suggest I'm the one Great Manning, jeez) did constituted a change in capital's form. Collectivised capital is still capital; the bourgeoisie is merely the character mask of capital, as proper Marxists know.

All production, even under capitalist society, is for use. A commodity must sate a need, and human need cannot be qualified into category. The unique thing about capitalist society is that under the generalisation of capital and commodity production it manifests all goods also have an exchange value, for the purpose of profit. This is always manifested back into ratios of exchange, and its highest form is the money-form.

The biggest promise of social democracy was full employment, which is precisely the problem: the wedding of and exposing of the existence of a proletariat (subject of wage labour) to a plot of property (State-scale, firm-scale, whatever). The aim of socialism/communism (or whatever you want to call a society that has successfully negated capital) is a society without the concept of either employment or unemployment; of man to man, without the mediation of an object (the commodity and commodity-form).

Look, since it's obviously fruitless to try and convince an ML that his conception of socialism is wrong as per Marx, I'm gonna keep this short and skip to this real quick:
This is actually a myth that not even contemporary foreign supporters of the USSR could support that well, especially as the years went on and official document upon official document and witness upon witness leaked to the outside world showing that Russia had not only failed to proletarianise (that is, it still knew a gigantic peasant class distinct from the proletariat) in the wake of the NEP and later the collectivisation, but that it had a huge amount of unemployment which was structural (as per capitalist society's invariant excellence, nicely noted by Marx in Capital vol. 3, p. 273). See IV in this text: marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1942/russian-economy/ch03.htm (take a good look at the sources).

100%ing the "proletarians engaging in wage labour" category (impossible) doesn't magically cease to make the labour-power being consistently purchased for a wage not a commodity anymore, my guy (again, were it possible).

Yeah, I only suggested, cynically, that it might've been used with a little more finesse had Dumbo Stalin not putten his fingers in it a few times. Again with the reading comprehension.


Putting "authoritarian" in quotation marks should have hinted that I think it's meaningless term there, no?

I'm not claiming he did what he did sole out of desire for power, but it's undeniable that his nationalism put him at odds with mainstream communist ideas. He used communism to further his own peculiar nationalist/communist ideology. I agree that he believed in the shit he said, he wasn't a cynic.

Nice derailing dickhead.

Who are you to accuse literally anyone of needing to read anything? Thanks for the alternate take on Stalin but seriously fuck off.

Thanks for these boys, I truly appreciate the diversity. I'll be thinking about this.

I just realized that Holla Forums is a group of people that like Stalin, but act like they hate him, and /leftpol/ hates Stalin, but acts like they love him.

How is this Stalin's fault? Stalin exported the revolution to the entirety of Eastern Europe and Korea. The failure of the communist movement in the First World of the first half of the 20th century might have plenty of reasons, may it be organisational weaknesses, material conditions or just a particularly harsh reaction, but to lay the corpse of the communist movement at Stalin's feet is disingenuous Trotskyst bullshit.

To say that the capitalist NEP and the collectivised "Stalinist" USSR is one of the same is a cheap cop-out and frankly laziness.

Why so emotional?

I fail to identify capital relations in the USSR especially in the post-WW II years. For it to be capital, a M-C-M' must have existed, which didn't, as goods weren't produces in accordance with the law of value.

Made some crucial, fairly unforgivable mistakes in the purges. Didn't properly carry out collectivization, wasn't pragmatic enough on that front. Gulags were too harsh. Shouldn't have propped up corrupt fucks like Ceaușescu. Didn't loosen up restraints on free speech and demonstration after the civil war or WWII.

Other than that, decent. 5-year plans were a good policy, also the USSR under him built all of the best parts of their social welfare system and such. Challenged the capitalist world order and presided over a genuinely socialist country, which he strived to keep socialist.

And you unironically think personalising him by saying he betrayed the revolution, that "he was further left than Lenin", some equivocating, etc. says more? At least I offered you a theoretical take under all the bantz. Smh fam.

Have you ever laid eyes on the very first few paragraphs of the very first chapter of Marx's Capital, my guy?

It isn't really alternate or unique, honestly. Of course it's far from as prevalent as the common liberal take or the Trotskyist take, but my position draws from the few very well-established and thorough analyses of the Frankfurt School on the USSR (Adorno's, Horkheimer's and Benjamin's side, the others had a way different take) and the communist left (the Russian communist left in Bukharin and Ossinsky, and Dutch-German and Italian communist lefts in mostly Gorter and Mattick and Bordiga respectively). I strongly suggest you read the texts I linked above if you want a thorough read on this position, very well-sourced and all.


It isn't. When did I imply this? God, stop trying to give this manlet credit for anything except being a manlet.

What he exported was red-hued Wilsonian/anti-colonial nationalism and anti-fascism, the only and "best" thing left to do when watching over the remnants of a counter-revolution (check this out: libcom.org/library/nation-state-nationalism-oiseau-temp-te-andr-dr).

Yeah, this is what I'm doing.

This is not what I'm doing you dense motherfucker.

Because I'm desperately trying to communicate and affirm that I don't think Stalin was a demon figure responsible for the counter-revolution. Also, reading poetry written by a Foxconn worker who killed himself kinda has me on edge right now.

You don't detect it in the defacto existence of class and State forms of private property, and the capital they constitute and reproduce?

If they weren't produced in accordance with the law of value then they wouldn't be measured in value (gross product, money-form in the Rouble, etc.), nor would all the essential prerequisites and notions of generalised commodity production exist such as a proletariat, growth, crisis, employment and unemployment, and so on.

Like I said, it's always going to be utterly fruitless trying to convert a Jesuit by anything other than their own potential ability to become disillusioned. One cannot make a Marxist-Leninist read and understand Marx; the investment and pride in dead States like the USSR is always going to be too high to get disillusioned this way. Let's get back to things like official documents that show the USSR failed to even be a better social democracy than any social democrat, since can't (or have yet to?) deny those.

Gotta love it when the money-form "just exists" I guess in a society where production isn't regulated by profit. I hope you don't follow in the footsteps of that one ML from the infamous screenshot who said "the Rouble acted like labour vouchers in the USSR", in all its value-fluctuating glory.

Can we agree to be done about interaction that involves one another's understandings of capitalism and socialism and can you also add more meat than just
followed by no statistics or evidence whatsoever when she provided statistics for the whole period from the '30s collectivisation until the late '40s showing structural unemployment? We're going to be analysing how well the USSR lived up to the promises of social democracy compared to the historical social democrats so try to make it look good evidence-based.

We can talk about the amount of people sent to the gulags, but the gulags itself weren't too harsh. They were like any other prison, with prison labour. And like in any other country, the prison population is going to be the one that is at the shit end first when famine or a genocidal war strikes. If the US were attacked in a similar fashion as the USSR was, you can bet your ass that the American prison population would be ten times worse as the gulag convicts.

Yout wrote:

Here is a quote from Alexander Zinoviev, a Soviet dissident who was kicked out of the USSR under Brezhnev for criticizing Brezhnev's cult of personality.


A. Zinoviev was born to a poor peasant family with many children.

He became a scientist, a professor, his older brother became the head of a factory, other siblings became engineers, one became a colonel and was about to become a general.


It is fashionable to day to blame collectivization, which, supposedly, "destroyed the master-peasant". However, Zinoviev recalls asking his mother whether she would like to return to the individual cultivation. His mother responded with "No". Why? Zinoviev goes on in describing her reply: "Because despite of the hardship, which collectivization of peasants brought along, it freed the peasants from hard labour and from threat of starvation, which periodically used to hang over the villages before the revolution. Numerous new professions were developed in villages, as well as culture, and education. This is a stunning contradiction: material and other difficulties and opportunity to join great culture."

northstarcompass.org/nsc0608/zinoviev.htm

Yeah, figurehead: (n.) a nominal leader or head without real power, synonyms: titular head, nominal leader, leader in name only, frontman, cipher, token, mouthpiece, puppet (the very next other signifier I used), instrument, man of straw.

By god my good man.

I'm on edge, and your density is pushing me over it.

1m86.

Not sure how I'd measure my smarts for you. I did an Autism Level test once at my first teenage orphan center that said 121 but Autism Level is a pretty worthless metric. I'm a college dropout that part-times as a translator and librarian living in a second hand camper van I bought off the internet if that helps you.

Yeah Coldstalin the Hedgeheg was great OC, very relatable and powerful character.

I called him a manlet (1m68), not a brainlet. Fucking hell, dude.

And for the record I don't think Stalin was an idiot. I think he probably did the best he could do and most importantly perfectly did what he had to in his position and for the course of the USSR.

I said stop it.

Oof, buddy, please, let's not make it a contest of which wage labour one would prefer to do, nor what life was like for the average or even many workers under the USSR (I've got a bunch of statistics primed for you whenever my guy, and hint: life in the USSR was, as expected for the proletariat, just as shitty as anywhere else on the planet, and just like elsewhere had its own particularities in enjoyables and terribles).

That money is the highest expression of the commodity-form? Capital vol. 2, literally expressed (Marx shows that the advent of money marks a specific development in that it provides an instrument necessary to generalise the exchange of commodities and therefore accelerates its production, no longer relying on simple alienable goods that would exchange in rough ratios between themselves). Grundrisse's Chapter on Money is the first part where Marx truly elucidates the essential and final characteristic of money as such a supreme expression of the commodity, which is relevant here especially because you claim that Marx did not foresee the supposed "specificity" of Russian "socialism" to have money; the abnegation of property would in any and all cases have to do away with money (as it would all other expressions of the existence of property). It's why Marx hypothesis a system of labour notes could be utilised in an underdeveloped socialist/communist society ("lower phase"), since they serve only to entitle to communal produce and correspond always-already to fixed labour time, unlike money or any other commodity, of which the value constantly fluctuates since it correspons to the socially necessary amount of labour needed to (re)produce them. "Socialist money" is actually a concept Marx specifically ridiculed when Proudhon and Fourier concocted it; the idea that you can have value but have it function in a way that somehow gives the full value of their labour (which doesn't work because value only exists as a substraction of wage labour).

>Stalin makes in Economic Problems
God, what an awful text. See, here again, I would do anything but call Stalin an idiot; the way he dances around Marx in there and skillfully manages to trivialise commodity production as "limited" and concocts all manner of "socialist commodity productions" and "socialist banking" in the Gosbank, et cetera is amazing. Stalin is the nice guy caught in the wrong part of history, where he has to legitimise all the things he cannot but be forced to do. Anyways, for a fully-sourced and argumented rebuttal to Stalin and his shitty text, see PDF related.

Actually (and the same Dunayevskaya text elsewhere goes into this in-depth, showing that this did occur, and on a very modernistic level, especially the development of Soviet banking and industrialisation of the countryside) I just didn't want to bother commenting on the USSR's specific inefficiencies and poor management at all, as if this constitutes an argument. Guess which other historical powerhouse of a State acted badly with the sectors it was managing? The USA: it was almost a decade-late with reviewing the stagnant economic growth of all trade happening on its railways, in the '40s.

You… do realize that, ignoring that "strictly speaking" the Soviet Rouble was in every way a money-form, "currency" is a literal synonym for a common exchange-value form, right? You do know that Marx specifically goes out of his way to say that something like a labour voucher as potential keeping system would not be currency, right, because currency is exchange and transferred; that its only function then is to complete cycles of double-entry bookkeeping of capital? Capital vol. 2, chapter 18, section 2.

Oh no, not at all. I can admire many of the things achieved under the USSR, it's just that I don't think it had jack shit to do with socialism/communism, or even really any type of revolutionary proletarian movement starting from around the Treaty of Brest-Livotsk.

Going to bed, ttyl.

I have yet to see a coherent defense of the Stalinist repression of the arts —this to me is a sign of reactionary backsliding more than anything else. Accusations of ‘formalism’ and ‘art for art’s sake’ were leveled at literally any form of creative output that did not serve a propagandistic or ‘useful’ purpose. I could not live in a society where the human need for transcendence via art and music was denied. Resistance to transcendence, btw, is a hallmark of fascism according to Nolte. Draw your own conclusions from that.

Not saying innocents didn't die, but this whole notion of his people being anyone with a vague identity of "Russian" is so bullshit.

I was wont to argue, but I remembered Mayakovsky was lost in that manner. pointless bloodletting

That is where the

Stalin is 80% good 20% bad

Transcendence is found only in socialist society, and nowhere else.

BEGONE TROT

he wasn't as powerful as claimed to be and didn't use this imaginary power to actually force his democratic reforms against the hostile gang that murdered him.
he also didn't put the death penalty on continued undue praise for himself for party members.

0/10
no effort was made

good guy overall

You went from me enjoying dick, which is correct, to concluding that means I haven't read the text, which isn't.

It concerns many other topics.

Yeah dude, Lenin did not at all point out that he was a poorly-tempered megalomaniac with Russian chauvinistic tendencies. Stalin covered the testament up and had all those who wanted it published or were even just aware of its existence were put under tight supervision or executed just because, uh, Lenin said Stalin was rude and didn't respect women.

Do you actually believe any of the things you just spouted here? I'm actually curious.

it wasn't covered up and is actualyl more flattering to Stalin than anything else when you realize that Lenin was salty because his wife was shat on for being a dumb bitch.
if you actually read the whole thing and knew about the background while putting shit into relation you'd know that already, little trotshit.
i don't believe this, i know it thanks to actual reading comprehension.
maybe you should try harder actually studying shit instead of collecting garbage maymay pics to distract from how pathetic and low quality your shitpost is. it's even more of an indicator, really.

Which is why the then-ruling triumvate did everything to not have it published, and it was only suggested to exist for decades because butthurt Trotsky claimed it did abroad. Only during Glasnost did the actual document surface in its full original content for the first time, before which every other member of the CCCP who wanted it published got culled or suppressed (although to their credit wanting to leak a document that shows Lenin thought Stalin was deranged was far from the only thing that got them into trouble with the main leadership).

That's insulting to Lenin yo, you can't just disparage the essence of a man who's thought is supposedly the second half of Marxism-Leninism just because you're asspained like that.

Just gotta love how you made a complete 180 on what the content of Lenin's Testament on Stalin was.

Just did, again, for probably the fifth time. A great read, with many fantastic passages such as:
Too bad, as I already stated before ITT, Lenin goes on to pretend like Trotsky was any better:

You should also check out all Lenin wrote in accusation of the many communists he identified as Russian chauvinists, which you can find in V.I. Lenin Collected Works vol. 35 (available on libgen), including Stalin of course (a good prediction, considering all the things Stalin did as Commissar for Nationalities following the October Revolution, n.b. the events in Baku after May 1920!).

I can do both, and so should we all imo, lest we become militants (LARPers who fail to recognise their LARPing). The separation between execution and decision reinforces the civil servant aspect of the militant; the separation between work time and leisure time, between activity devoted to production and activity devoted to consumption, the very form of life man is made to adopt under the capitalist mode of production.

A bloo bloo.

Lenin fell seriously ill in 1921:

‘Lenin fell seriously ill towards the end of 1921 and was forced to rest for several weeks’.89

On 23 April 1922 Lenin underwent surgery to remove one of the bullets fired at him in an assassination attempt by the Socialist Revolutionary Fanya Kaplan on 30 August 1918.90

Then, on 26 May 1922,

‘Catastrophe struck: his right hand and leg became paralysed and his speech was impaired, sometimes completely so… his convalescence was slow and tedious… He never fully regained his health. The return to public life was not to last long’.91

And on 16 December, Lenin suffered: ‘Two dangerous strokes’.92

And furthermore:

‘On December 23 he… suffered another attack of his illness… He realised next morning that once again a part of his body, his right hand and leg, was paralysed’.93

On 10 March 1923:

‘A new stroke paralyses half of Lenin’s body and deprives him of his capacity to speak. Lenin’s political activity is finished’.94

Lenin died on 21 January 1924. The doctors who performed the autopsy on Lenin on 22 January found that

‘The basic disease of the deceased was disseminated vascular arteriosclerosis based on premature wearing out of the vessels. The narrowing of the lumen of the cerebral arteries and the disturbances of the cerebral blood supply brought about focal softening of the brain tissue which can account for all symptoms of the disease (paralysis, disturbance of speech)’.95

The controversial document known as ‘Lenin’s Testament’ was dictated between 23 and 31 December 1922, with a supplement dated 4 January 1923, after Lenin had already suffered four severe strokes which had adversely affected his brain function. Thus Lenin’s radical changes of opinion on Stalin, on Trotsky and on Transcaucasia are partly explicable by psycho-pathologica1 factors.

However, the puzzles of Lenin’s remarkable changes of opinion up on Stalin, on Trotsky and on Transcaucasia are not explicable on psycho-pathological grounds alone. The political role of Krupskaya must be examined to unravel the puzzle further. Although on 18 December 1922 a Plenum of the Central Committee, had:

‘Made Stalin personally responsible for the observance of the regime prescribed for Lenin by the doctors.’96

Nevertheless, Stalin was prevented from seeing Lenin :

‘Though virtually Lenin’s legal guardian, Stalin never saw his charge in person’.97

In fact after 13 December, Stalin never saw Lenin alive at all:

‘The last time Stalin saw Lenin alive… Was 13 December’.98

This was supposedly for strict medical rules, since:

‘Strict rules were established, and it was agreed that no visitors should be allowed. Except for the doctors, immediate family, he was permitted to see only his secretaries… He was to be isolated almost as completely as a prisoner in the Peter Paul fortress’.99

In these conditions of isolation, an extremely important role was played by Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya*. Her biographer Robert McNeal* speaks of Krupskaya’s:

‘Long personal antipathy to Stalin’.100

After Lenin’s death in 1924, Krupskaya participated in the Opposition. McNeal speaks of her

‘Readiness to lean towards the opposition. Krupskaya… really stood with the opposition. It dates her entry into this status. Krupskaya was in reality coming round to… signing a manifesto of protest against official policy. This document was the work of Zinoviev*…. Kamenev*, Krupskaya and Sokolnikov* (the Commissar of Finance) jointly signed a ‘platform’ attacking the leadership… It was circulated among members of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission. The 14th Party Congress (in December 1925) was the pinnacle of Krupskaya’s career in the opposition. It was left to her to begin the opposition’s critique. Krupskaya remained in the opposition… until October 1926. She signed the major political manifesto that the Trotsky-Zinoviev opposition produced in this period, the ‘Declaration of the Thirteen’ … along with another protest against Soviet policy in the English General Strike of 1926’.101

‘Krupskaya stood firmly behind Zinoviev and Kamenev… She was now eager to testify in favour of Zinoviev U5 interpretation of Leninism and against socialism in one country’.102

At the 15th Conference of the CPSU in November 1926, Stalin hinted that Krupskaya had broken with the opposition:

‘Is it not a fact that Comrade Krupskaya, for instance, is leaving the opposition bloc? (Stormy applause)’.103

But not until six months later, in May 1927, did Krupskaya herself confirm this:

‘On May 20 1927, ‘Pravda’ carried a short, undated note from Krupskaya to the editor. In it she gave the Party and the public at large the first confirmation that she had left the opposition… There was no word of repentance on any specific issue’.104

Afterwards,

‘She even explained her membership of the opposition as if it had been quite correct’.105

Robert Payne* – a biographer of Lenin who is violently antagonistic to Stalin – admits that Krupskaya took advantage of her role during Lenin’s illness to feed selected items of ‘information’ to him :

‘Krupskaya showed not the slightest intention of carrying out the orders of the doctors and the Politburo; and so small scraps of information were fed to Lenin… While he lay ill, she was his ears and eyes, his sole powerful contact with the outside world’.106

These selected items of ‘information’ were naturally hostile to Stalin, and favourable to Trotsky and to the ‘Georgian deviators’ and Krupskaya’s biographer agrees that Stalin was justified in suspecting her of having influenced Lenin’s attitude towards him in 1923-24:

‘She (Krupskaya – Ed.) may have influenced Lenin’s attitude toward Stalin, intentionally or otherwise. Stalin is justified in suspecting that she had, as he later intimated’.107

While Payne is even more frank:

‘Krupskaya did what she had to do: she waged war against Stalin’.108

On 22 December Stalin rebuked Krupskaya on the telephone for her role in feeding selective items of ‘information’ to Lenin and threatened to bring the matter before the Central Control Commission of the CPSU. On the following day she wrote to a letter of complaint to Lev Kamenev* on Stalin’s ‘rudeness’:

‘Stalin subjected me to a storm of the coarsest abuse yesterday about a brief note that Lenin dictated to me. I know better than all the doctors what can and what cannot be said to Ilyich, for I know what disturbs him and what doesn’t. And in any case I know better than Stalin. I have no doubt as to the unanimous decision of the Control Commission with which Stalin takes it upon himself to threaten me, but I have neither the time nor the energy to lose in such a stupid farce’.109

When this incident came to Lenin’s knowledge, on 5 March 1923 he wrote to Stalin saying:

‘You have been so rude as to summon my wife to the telephone and use bad language… What has been done against my wife I consider having been done against me as well. I ask you, therefore, to think it over whether you are prepared to… make your apologies, or whether you prefer that relations between us should be broken off’.110

Lenin’s sister, Maria Ulyanova,* wrote to the Presidium of the 1926 Joint Plenum of the CC and CCC, stating that: ‘Stalin offered to apologise’.111

Oh boy this is going to be fun

On 18 May 1924 Krupskaya sent the ‘Testament’ to Lev Kamenev, who passed it on to Stalin, as General Secretary. On 19 May Stalin passed the documents to the steering committee for the next (13th) Congress, which was due to begin on 23 May 1924.

By a vote of 30-10, the steering committee resolved not to publish the document, but to read it to a closed session of delegates

‘With explanations that Lenin had been ill’.112

‘As regards publishing the ‘will’, the congress decided not to publish it, since it was addressed to the congress and was not intended for publication’.113

First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, in his secret speech to the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956, confirmed that Lenin’s ‘Testament’

‘Was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of Secretary General’.114

At the Congress itself, in view of the criticism of him made in ‘Lenin’s Testament’, Stalin offered his resignation as General Secretary

‘This question was discussed by each delegation separately, and all the delegations unanimously, including Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev*, obliged Stalin to remain at his post. What could I do? Desert my post? That is not in my nature. I have never deserted any post, and I have no right to do so. When the Party imposes an obligation upon me, I must obey.’115

Khrushchev confirms that

‘The delegates (to the 13th Party Congress – Ed.) declared themselves in favour of retaining Stalin in this post’.116

‘At the first meeting of the Central Committee elected at the 13th Congress of the Party, and again a year later, Stalin offered his resignation, and each time it was rejected:

"At the very first plenum of the Central Committee after the 13th Congress, I asked the plenum to release me from my duties as General Secretary. A year later I again put in a request to the plenum to release me, but I was again obliged to remain at my post. What else could I do?’117

In 1925 the Trotskyist Max Eastman* published the book ‘Since Lenin Died’ which included excerpts from ‘Lenin’s Testament’. As Stalin said in October 1927:

‘There is a certain Eastman, a former American Communist who was later expelled from the Party. This gentleman, who mixed with the Trotskyists in Moscow, picked up some rumours and gossip about Lenin’s ‘will’, went abroad and published a book entitled ‘Since Lenin Died’, in which he did his best to blacken the Party, the Central Committee and the Soviet regime, and the gist of which was that the Central Committee of our Party was ‘concealing’ Lenin’s ‘will’’.118

In September 1925, in a statement published in ‘Bolshevik’, Trotsky publicly dissociated himself from Eastman and denied that Lenin’s letter to the Congress constituted any form of ‘testament’, which would have been quite alien to Party practice:

‘In several parts of his book Eastman says that the Central Committee concealed’ from the Party a number of exceptionally important documents written by Lenin in the last period of his life (it is a matter of letters on the national question, the so-called ‘will’, and others); there can be no other name for this than slander against the Central Committee of our Party. From what Eastman says it may be inferred that Vladimir Ilyich intended those letters, which bore the character of advice on internal organisation, for the press. In point of fact, that is absolutely untrue. It goes without saying that all those letters and proposals… were brought to the knowledge of the delegates at the 12th and 13th Congresses, and always, of course, exercised due influence upon the Party’s decisions; and if not all of those letters were published, it was because the author did not intend them for the press. Vladimir Ilyich did not leave any ‘will’, and the very character of his attitude towards the Party, as well as the character of the Party itself, precluded any possibility of such a ‘will’. What is usually referred to as a ‘will’ in the émigré and foreign bourgeois and Menshevik press (in a manner garbled beyond recognition) is one of Vladimir Ilyich’s letters containing advice on organisational matters. The 13th Congress of the Party paid the closest attention to that letter, as to all of the others, and drew from it the conclusions appropriate to the conditions and circumstances of the time. All talk about concealing or violating a ‘will’ is a malicious invention’.119

At a Joint Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the CPSU in October 1927, the opposition raised the question of ‘Lenin’s Testament’. Stalin replied:

‘The oppositionists shouted here – you heard them – that the Central Committee of the Party ‘concealed’ Lenin’s ‘will’. It has been proved and proved again that nobody has concealed anything, that Lenin’s ‘will’ was addressed to the 13th Party Congress, that this ‘will’ was read out at the Congress (Voices: That’s right!), that the congress unanimously decided not to publish it because, among other things, Lenin himself did not want it to be published and did not ask that it should be published’.120

At this point Stalin publicly confirmed and commented upon the reference in the ‘Testament’ to his ‘rudeness’ and on Lenin’s proposal that he should be removed as General Secretary:

‘It is said that in that ‘will’ Comrade Lenin suggests to the congress that in view of Stalin’s ‘rudeness’ it should consider the question of putting other comrade in Stalin’s place as General Secretary. That is quite true. Yes, comrades, I am rude to those who grossly and perfidiously wreck and split the Party. I have not concealed this and do not conceal it now. Perhaps some mildness is needed in the treatment of splitters, but I am a bad hand at that. But rudeness is not and cannot be counted as a defect in Stalin’s political line or position.’121

The 15th Congress of the CPSU in December 1927 decided to publish the ‘Testament’ in the Congress Bulletin, so that:

‘After the 15th Congress of 1927 Lenin’s ‘Testament’ became somewhat more widely known among the Party aktiv’.122

Finally, after the victory of revisionism in the CPSU following the death of Stalin in 1953, First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev quoted extensively from ‘Lenin’s Testament in his secret speech to the 20th Congress in February 1956, and copies were:

‘Distributed among the delegates’.123

Later, the ‘Testament’ was published in Lenin’s ‘Collected Works’.

>let me not form an argument and cite elements to support my claim, like you did

Bad look there buddy. Guess I'll leave Rainmanov Jr. over here to thrash around like a mongoloid in the baby box by himself and look on at a distance.

1 N.S. Khrushchev: Secret Speech to 20th Congress CPSU, in: Russian Institute, Columbia Univ. (Ed.): ‘The Anti-Stalin Campaign and International Communism: A Selection of Documents’; New York; 1956; p. 6, 7.

2 V.I. Lenin: Letter to the Congress, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 36; Moscow: 1966; p. 596.

3 V.I. Lenin: Letter to Maksim Gorky, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 35; Moscow; 1966; p. 84.

4 V.I. Lenin: ‘The National Programme of the RSDLP’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 19; Moscow; 1963; p. 539.

5 V.I. Lenin: Closing Speech on the Political Report of Committee, 11th Congress of RCP, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 33; Moscow; 1966; p. 315.

6 G.F. Aleksandrov et al (Eds.): ‘Joseph Stalin: A Short Biography’; Moscow; 1947; pp. 74-75.

7 Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute: ‘Lenin’; London; 1943; p. 183.

8 R.H. McNeal: ‘Stalin: Man and Ruler’ (hereafter listed as ‘R. H. McNeal: 1988’); Basingstoke; 1988; p. 67.

9 A.B. Ulam: ‘Stalin: The Man and his Era’; London; 1989; p. 205.

10 I. Grey: ‘Stalin: Man of History’; London; 1979; p. 159.

11 V.I. Lenin: Letter to the Congress, in: ‘Collected Works’ Vol. 36; Moscow; 1966; p. 595.

12 I. Deutscher: ‘Prophet Armed: Trotsky: 1879-1921’ (hereafter: ‘I. Deutscher: 1989 (1)’; Oxford; 1989; pp. 80-81.

13 L.D. Trotsky: ‘Vtoroi Syezd RSDRP (Otchet Sibirskoi Delegatsy)’; Geneva; 1903; p. 33.

14 I. Deutscher: 1989 (1); p. 84.

15 L.D. Trotsky: ‘Nos Taches Politiques’; Paris; 1970; p. 19

16 I. Deutscher: 1989 (1): p. 93.

17 V.I. Lenin: Letter to Yelena Stasova and Others, in: ‘Collected Works’; Vol. 43; Moscow; 1969; p. 129.

18 V.I. Lenin: Letter to Grigory Zinoviev, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 34; Moscow; 1966; pp. 399-400.

19 V.I. Lenin: ‘Notes of a Publicist’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 16; Moscow; 1963; p. 211, 251.

20 V.I. Lenin: ‘The State of Affairs in the Party’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 17; Moscow; 1968; p. 23.

21 V.I. Lenin: To Russian Collegium of the CC of RSDLP, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 17; Moscow; 1963; p. 20, 21, 22.

22 V.I. Lenin: ‘Historical Meaning of Inner-Party Struggle in Russia’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 16; Moscow, 1963; p. 375, 380, 389, 391.

23 V.I. Lenin: ‘Judas Trotsky’s Blush of Shame’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 17; Moscow; 1968; p. 45.

24 V.I. Lenin: ‘From the Camp of Stolypin Labour Party’, ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 17; Moscow; 1968; p. 243.

25 Lenin: ‘The New Faction of Conciliators, or the Virtuous’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 17; 1968; p. 258, 260, 264, 270.

26 V.I. Lenin: ‘Trotsky’s Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 17; 1968; p. 362.

27 I. Deutscher: 1989 (1); pp. 198-99.

28 V.I. Lenin: Letter to the Editor of ‘Pravda’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 35; Moscow; 1966; p. 41.

29 I. Deutscher: 1989 (1); p. 200.

30 V.I. Lenin: ‘The Platform of the Reformists and the Platform of Revolutionary Social-Democrats’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 18, Moscow; 1968; p. 380.

31 V.I. Lenin: ‘The Right of Nations to Self-Determination’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 20; Moscow; 1964; pp. 447-48.

32 V.I. Lenin: ‘Disruption of Unity under Cover of Outcries for Unity’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 20; Moscow; 1964; pp. 329, 331, 332, 333-334, 345, 346-7.

33 V.I. Lenin: ‘The State of Affairs in Russian Social-Democracy’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 21; Moscow; 1964; p. 284.

34 V.I. Lenin: ‘The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 21; Moscow; 1964; p. 275.

35 V.I. Lenin: ‘The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 21; Moscow; 1964; p. 278, 279, 280.

36 V.I. Lenin: ‘The ‘Peace’ Slogan Appraised’, Vol. 21; ‘Collected Works’; Moscow; 1964; p. 288.

37 V.I. Lenin: ‘Socialism and War’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 29; Moscow; 1964; p. 312.

38 V.I. Lenin: ‘On the Two Lines in the Revolution’, in ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 21; Moscow; 1964; p. 419, 420.

39 V.I. Lenin: Letter to Henriette Roland-Holst, in: ‘Collected ‘Works’, Vol. 43; Moscow 1969; pp. 515-16.

40 V.I. Lenin: ‘The Peace Programme’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 22; Moscow; 1964; p. 167.

41 V.I. Lenin: ‘Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 22; Moscow; 1964; p. 360.

42 V.I. Lenin: Letter to Aleksandra Kollontai, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 35; Moscow; 1966; p. 285.

43 V.I Lenin: Letter to Inessa Armand, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 35; Moscow; 1966; p. 288.

44 V.I. Lenin: Concluding Remarks, Debate on the Present Situation, Petrograd City Conference of RSDLP, in: ‘Collected Works’ Vol. 24; Moscow; 1966; p. 150.

45 L.D. Trotsky: Speech at the Mezhraiontsii** Conference, in: Institute of Marxism-Leninism: ‘Against Trotskyism’: Struggle of Lenin and CPSU against Trotskyism: Collection of Documents’; Moscow; 1972; p. l22.

46 I. Deutscher: 1989 (1); p. 175.

47 L.D. Trotsky: ‘Lenin’; New York; 1925; p. 135.

48 I. Deutscher: 1989 (1); p. 375.

49 J.L. Magnes: ‘Russia and Germany at Brest-Litovsk’; New York; 1919; p. 132.

49 J.L. Magnes: ‘Russia and Germany at Brest-Litovsk’; New York; 1919; p. 132.

50 V.I. Lenin : ‘Political Report of the Central Committee, Extraordinary 7th Congress of the RCP’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 27; Moscow; 965; p.102.

51 Foreword: Institute of Marxism-Leninism: ‘Against Trotskyism’; op. cit.; p. 13-14.

52 ‘Great Soviet Encyclopedia’, Vol. 4; New York; 1974; p. 66, 67.

53 V.I. Lenin: ‘The Trade Unions, the Present Situation and Trotsky’s Mistakes’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 32; Moscow; 1965; p. 22.

54 V.I. Lenin: ‘The Party Crisis’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 32; Moscow; 1965; p. 45.

55 V.I. Lenin: ‘Once Again on the Trade Unions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 32; Moscow; 1965; p. 74, 85, 90.

56 I. Deutscher: ‘The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky: 1921-1929 (hereafter listed as: ‘I. Deutscher: 1989 (2)’); Oxford; 1989; pp. 35, 65-66.

57 J.V. Stalin: ‘Immediate Tasks of Communism in Georgia and Transcaucasia’, ‘Works’, Vol. 5; 1953; p. 97

58 V.I. Lenin: ‘Memo’ to J. V. Stalin, 28 November 1921, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 33; Moscow; 1973; p. 127.

59 ‘Great Soviet Encyclopedia’, Vol. 9; New York; 1975; p. 495.

60 J.V. Stalin: ‘Reply to Discussion on CC’s Organizational Report, 12th Congress RCP’, Vol. 5; 1953; p.234.

61 J.V. Stalin: ibid.; p. 257.

62 Note to: J.V. Stalin: ‘Works’, Vol. 5; Moscow; 1953; p. 421.

63 J.V. Stalin: ‘Reply to Discussion on CC’s Organizational Report, 12th Congress of RCP’, Works Vol. 5; p. 232.

64 J.V. Stalin: ‘Report on National Factors in Party and State Affairs, 12th Congress of RCP’, in: ‘Works’, Vol. 5; Moscow; 1953; pp. 256, 257, 258-59.

65 J.V. Stalin: ‘Reply to the Discussion on the Central Committee’s Organisational Report, 12th Congress of RCP’, in: ‘Works’, Vol. 5; Moscow; 1953; p. 234.

66 L.P. Beria: ‘On the History of Bolshevik Organisations in Transcaucasia’; London; 1939; p. 167.

67 Loc. cit.

68 J.V. Stalin: ‘Report on National Factors in Party and State Affairs, 12th Congress of RCP’, in: ‘Works’, Vol. 5; Moscow; 1953; p. 257.

69 J.V. Stalin: ‘Report on National Factors in Party and State Affairs, 12th Congress of RCP’, in: ‘Works’, Vol. 5; Moscow; 1953; p. 258, 261

70 J.V. Stalin: ‘Reply to the Discussion on the Central Committee’s Organisational Report, 12th Congress of RCP’, in: ‘Works’, Vol. 5; Moscow; 1953; pp. 234-35.

71 Note to: V. I. Lenin: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 45; Moscow; 1970; p. 750.

72 R.G. Suny: ‘The Making of the Georgian Nation’; London; 1989; p. 215.

73 M. Lewin: ‘Lenin’s Last Struggle’; London; 1969; p. 45.

74 R. G. Suny: op. cit.; p. 218.

75 R.G. Suny: ibid; p. 216.

76 Loc. cit.

77 R. Pipes: ‘The Formation of the Soviet Union’; Cambridge (USA); 1964; p.274.

78 V. I. Lenin: ‘Telegram to K.M. Tsintsadze and S.I. Kavtaradze’, 21 October 1922, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 45; Moscow; 1970; p. 582.

79 R.G. Suny: op. cit.; p. 216.

80 Note to: V.I. Lenin: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 45; Moscow; l970; pp. 656-57.

81 M. Lewin, op. cit.; p. 68.

82 V.I. Lenin: ‘The Question of Nationalities, or ‘Autonomisation’’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 36; Moscow; 1966; p. 606

83 Loc. cit.

84 Loc. cit.

85 V.I. Lenin: ‘Letter to L. D. Trotsky’, 5 March 1923, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 45; Moscow; 1970; p. 607.

86 Note to: V. I. Lenin: ‘Collected Works;’ Vol. 45; Moscow; 1970; p. 757.

87 V.I. Lenin: ‘Letter to P. G. Mdivani, F. Y. Makharadze and Others’, 6 March 1923, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 45; Moscow; 1970; p. 608.

88 R.G. Suny: op. cit.; p. 218.

89 M. Lewin: op. cit.; p. 33.

90 Note to: V. I. Lenin: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 33; Moscow; 1966; p. 527.

91 M. Lewin: op. cit.; p. 33, 34

92 M. Lewin: ibid.; p. xxii.

93 M. Lewin: ibid.; p. 73.

94 M. Lewin: ibid.; p. xxiv.

95 R. Payne: Report on the Pathological-Anatomical Examination of the Body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, in: ‘The Life and Death of Lenin’; London; 1967; p. 632.

96 R.H. McNeal (1988): p. 73.

97 Loc. cit.

98 Loc. cit.

99 R. Payne: op. cit.; p. 555.

100 R.H. McNeal: ‘Bride of the Revolution: Krupskaya and Lenin’ (hereafter referred to as ‘R. H. McNeal (1973)’; London; 1973; p. 254.

101 Ibid.; p. 250, 251, 252, 253, 256.

102 I. Deutscher 1989 (2): p. 247.

103 J.V. Stalin: ‘Reply to the Discussion on the Report on ‘The Social Democratic Deviation in our Party’’, in: ‘Works’, Vol. 8; Moscow; 1954; p. 371.

104 R.H. McNeal (1973): pp. 261-62.

105 R.H. McNeal (1973): pp. 262-63.

106 R. Payne: op. cit.; pp. 555-56.

107 R.H. McNeal (1973): pp. 223.

108 R. Payne: op. cit.; p. 563.

109 N.K. Krupskaya: ‘Letter to Lev Kamenev’, 23 December 1922, in: M. Lewin: op. cit.; pp.152-53.

110 Lenin: ‘Letter to J.V. Stalin’, 5 March 1923, in: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 45; Moscow; 1970; pp. 607-08.

111 Note to: V.I. Lenin: ‘Collected Works’, Vol. 45; Moscow; 1970; p. 75.

112 R.H. McNeal (1988): p. 110.

113 J.V. Stalin: ‘Speech to Joint Plenum of CC and CCC of CPSU’, in: ‘Works’, Vol. 10; Moscow; 1954; p. 181.

114 N.S. Khrushchev: op. cit.; p. 7.

115 J.V. Stalin: ‘Speech to Joint Plenum of CC and CCC of CPSU’, in: ‘Works’, Vol. 10; Moscow; 1954; p. 181.

116 N.S. Khrushchev: op. cit.; p. 7.

117 J.V. Stalin: ibid., p. 181

118 J.V. Stalin: ‘Speech to Joint Plenum of CC and CCC of CPSU’, in: ‘Works’, Vol. 10; 1954; p. 178-79.

119 L.D. Trotsky: ‘Concerning Eastman’s Book ‘Since Lenin Died’’, in: ‘Bolshevik’, 16; 1 Sept, 1925; p. 68.

120 J.V. Stalin: ‘Speech at Joint Plenum of CC and CCC of CPSU’, in: ‘Works’, Vol. 10; Moscow; 1927; p. 173.

121 J.V. Stalin: ibid.; pp. 180-81, 182.

122 R.A. Medvedev: ‘Let History Judge’; London; 1972; p. 29.

123 N.S. Khrushchev: op. cit.; p. 6.

and have some other source, lenins sister, for more background rather than some user maymayposting opinion, no?

On the Relations between Lenin and Stalin

Maria Ulyanova

In this issue we publish the third in the series of materials relating to the ‘Lenin Testament’ and the relations between Lenin and Stalin. The two statements of Maria Ulyanova, the sister of Lenin, given below were published for the first time in the USSR in 1989 during the period of ‘perestroika’. Yu Murin and V. Stepanov who prepared these and related documents for publication in the Soviet journal ‘Izvestia TsK KPSS’ noted that the background to the writing of these two statements was the joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the A-UCP(b) held in 1926:

‘The opposition (L.D. Trotsky, G.E. Zinoviev, L.B. Kamenev and others) in their struggle against I.V. Stalin and the majority in the CC used the last letters written by V.I. Lenin, in which he had put forth his opinions of eminent party leaders, and accused the CC of hiding these documents from the party. G.E. Zinoviev in his speech at the plenum talked about the contents of V.I. Lenin’s letter to I.V. Stalin dated 5 March 1923. Consequently the following documents were read out in the plenum: V.I. Lenin’s letter to the Congress dated 25 December 1922, the follow-up letter dated to the Congress dated 25 December 1922 – ‘On the question of nationalities or ‘autonomisation’ and the letter ‘To the party of Bolsheviks’ dated 18 (31) October 1917 on the attitude of L.B. Kamenev and G.E. Zinoviev towards the question of the armed rebellion.

‘Following the discussion at the plenum and having taken into consideration the reading of the letters of V.I. Lenin, G.E. Zinoviev, L.D. Trotsky, N.I. Bukharin and I.V. Stalin, M.I. Ulyanova issued statements which were appended to the stenographic report of the plenum.’

(‘Izvestia TsK KPSS’, No. 12, 1989, below p. 200, translated from Russian by Tahir Asghar).

It is clear from the second statement made by Maria Ulyanova that the first had been prompted by the request of Bukharin and Stalin to guard the latter a little from the attack of the opposition. The involvement of Nikolai Bukharin in the preparation of Maria Ulyanova’s statement dated 26th July is evident from the following note in his handwriting on the letterhead of the CC of the RCP(b) which is preserved in the former archives of the CPSU(b) :

‘In view of the systematic slander on Comrade Stalin by the opposition minority in the CC and the unending assertions regarding a virtual termination of all relations by V.I. Lenin with I.V. Stalin, I feel obliged to say a few words about the relations between Lenin and Stalin as I was present alongside of Lenin during the whole period at the end of V.I.’s life.

‘Vlad. Ilyich Lenin highly valued Stalin, so much so, that at the time of the first stroke and also during the second stroke V.I. entrusted Stalin with the most intimate of assignments while emphasising that it is Stalin alone that he is asking for.

‘In general, during the whole period of his illness, V.I. did not ask for any of the members of the CC and did not want to meet any of them and would ask only for Stalin to come. Thus all the speculations that V.I.’s relations with Stalin were not as good as with others is totally contrary to the truth’.

(Loc. cit. Translated from the Russian by Tahir Asghar).

In the first statement Maria Ulyanova rejected the charges made by the opposition that there had been a rupture between Lenin and Stalin in the last months of the life of Lenin and also affirmed the closeness of the political and personal relations between the two Bolshevik leaders. Zinoviev in his speech of 21st July 1926 at the joint plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the A-UCP(b) had referred to the evaluations by Lenin of Stalin in the second part of his ‘Letter to the Congress’ (24th December, 1922), the continuation of the letter (4th January 1923) and the article ‘On the Question of Nationalities or ‘Autonomisation’. On the question of Stalin’s ‘rudeness’ Maria Ulyanova asserted her opinion that the incident between Stalin and Nadezhda Krupskaya was ‘completely personal and had nothing to do with politics’. It had arisen as by the decision of the Central Committee Stalin was charged with the responsibility of ensuring that no political news reached Lenin during the period of his serious illness as per the instructions of the doctors. Nadezhda Krupskaya had breached this decision which led to Stalin criticising her and in turn was hammered by Lenin. Maria Ulyanova considered that ‘had Lenin not been so seriously ill then he would have reacted to the incident differently’.

The second, undated, statement by Maria Ulyanova is more reflective of the events in the last months of the life of Lenin. Ulyanova sought to delve more deeply into the connection between the last letter of Lenin which demands an apology from Stalin for his behaviour with Nadezhda Krupskaya with the last writings of Lenin and the political line of Stalin in the period after the death of Lenin. Maria Ulyanova sheds new light on the personal and political intimacy between Lenin and Stalin. We learn that Stalin was a more frequent visitor to Lenin in the period of his illness compared to the other party leaders. Lenin turned to Stalin for help when he came to the decision that in the event of his becoming paralysed he wished to end his life by consuming potassium cyanide. Maria Ulyanova’s account of this matter is of great value as it answers the scandalous charge levelled by Trotsky that Stalin had arranged for Lenin to be administered poison. (L. Trotsky, ‘Stalin’, Vol. 2, London, 1969, p. 199). The narration is of further value in countering the assiduously fostered notion prevalent in the west that Trotsky was in some sense closer to Lenin and in fact the ‘heir’ of Lenin and Leninism. From her direct knowledge of the discussions of Lenin and Stalin on the subject of Trotsky, Maria Ulyanova is able to aver that Lenin stood in close political proximity to Stalin despite the difference between the two on the Caucasian question. (On this see the note ‘Bolshevism and the National Question’, ‘Revolutionary Democracy’, Vol. 1, No. 2, September 1995, pp. 66-69). Ulyanova’s account of the dissatisfaction of Lenin with Stalin on the matter of sending monetary assistance to the émigré Menshevik Martov may not convince many of Lenin’s political correctness on the question, rather political sympathy may go to Stalin who exclaimed to Lenin that he should find another party secretary if he wished to send money to this enemy of the workers.

The differences between Lenin and Stalin manifested in Lenin’s last letter to Stalin where he demanded an apology from Stalin originated, as Maria Ulyanova pointed out, from a situation where Stalin was required by the party politbureau to ensure the compliance of the doctors’ instructions that Lenin should not be informed of political developments. Ulyanova indicates that the ‘maximum fear’ was of Nadezhda Krupskaya who was accustomed to holding discussions on political matters with Lenin. Stalin’s attempt to maintain the medical instructions precipitated the quarrel with Krupskaya in which he threatened to take her before the Central Control Commission of the party. This in turn provoked the contretemps between Lenin and Stalin.

Lenin’s letter to Stalin of 5th March 1923 did not touch upon the fact that Nadezhda Krupskaya was circumventing the medical instructions and that Stalin had been charged by the politbureau to ensure their compliance. Lenin demanded that Stalin withdraw his words to Nadezhda Krupskaya, apologise or face a rupture in their relations.

This letter is well-known as it was circulated at the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU by Khrushchev in 1956 and later reprinted all over the world by the revisionist Soviet press.

It is now known that Khrushchev had been a member of the Trotskyist opposition in the early 1920s so that, as Kaganovich has pointed out in his memoirs, the ‘secret speech’ represented an example of political recidivism.

Lenin’s letter to Stalin was held back at the request of Nadezhda Krupskaya and was eventually delivered personally by M.A. Volodcheva to Stalin on 7th March, 1923. Stalin immediately replied to the letter of Lenin but it was not read by the intended recipient as Lenin’s health worsened. The rebuttal of Stalin is self-explanatory. It is published as an appendix to the two statements of Maria Ulyanova for the first time in the English language.

M.I. Ulyanova to the presidium of the
joint plenum of the cc and CCC of the RCP(b).

26th July, 1926

To the Joint Plenum of the CC and CCC

The oppositional minority in the CC in the recent period has carried out a systematic attack on Comrade Stalin not even stopping at affirming as though there had been a rupture between Lenin and Stalin in the last months of the life of V.I. With the objective of re-establishing the truth I consider it my obligation to inform comrades briefly about the relations of Lenin towards Stalin in the period of the illness of V.I. (I am not here concerned with the period prior to his illness about which I have wide-ranging evidences of the most touching relations between V.I. and Stalin of which CC members know no less than I) when I was continually present with him and fulfilled a number of charges.

Vladimir Ilyich really appreciated Stalin. For example, in the spring of 1922 when V. Ilyich had his first attack, and also at the time of his second attack in December 1922, he invited Stalin and addressed him with the most intimate tasks. The type of tasks with which one can address a person on whom one has total faith, whom you know as a dedicated revolutionist, and as a intimate comrade. Moreover Ilyich insisted, that he wanted to talk only with Stalin and nobody else. In general, in the entire period of his illness, till he had the opportunity to associate with his comrades, he invited comrade Stalin the maximum. And during the most serious period of the illness, he invited not a single member of the politbureau except Stalin.

There was an incident between Lenin and Stalin which comrade Zinoviev mentions in his speech and which took place not long before Ilyich lost his power of speech (March, 1923) but it was completely personal and had nothing to do with politics. Comrade Zinoviev knew this very well and to quote it was absolutely unnecessary. This incident took place because on the demand of the doctors the Central Committee gave Stalin the charge of keeping a watch so that no political news reached Lenin during this period of serious illness. This was done so as not to upset him and so that his condition did not deteriorate, he (Stalin) even scolded his family for conveying this type of information. Ilyich, who accidentally came to know about this and who was also always worried about such a strong regime of protection, in turn scolded Stalin. Stalin apologized and with this the incident was settled. What is there to be said – during this period, as I had indicated, if Lenin had not been so seriously ill then he would have reacted to the incident differently. There are documents regarding this incident and on the first demand from the Central Committee I can present them.

This way, I affirm that all the talk of the opposition about Lenin’s relation towards Stalin does not correspond to reality. These relations were most intimate and friendly and remained so.

26th July 1926. M. Ulyanova.

M.I. Ulyanova on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s relation towards J. Stalin:

In my application to the Central Committee plenum I wrote that V. Ilyich appreciated Stalin. This is of course right. Stalin is a major worker and a good organiser. But it is also without doubt, that in this application, I did not say the whole truth about Lenin’s attitude towards Stalin. The aim of the application, which was written at the request of Bukharin and Stalin, was to refer to Ilyich’s relation towards him. This would have guarded him a little from the opposition attack. This speculation was based on the last letter by V. Ilyich to Stalin where the question of breaking this relationship was posed. The immediate reason for this was personal – V. Ilyich’s outrage that Stalin allowed himself to be rude towards Nadezhda Konstantinovna. At that time it seemed to me that this very personal matter was used by Zinoviev, Kamenev and others for political objectives and the purpose of factionalism. Further weighing this fact with other statements of V. Ilyich, his political testament and also Stalin’s behaviour after Lenin’s death, his ‘political’ line, I all the more started explaining to myself the real relation Lenin had with Stalin towards the end of his life. Even if briefly I think that it is my duty to talk about it.

V. Ilyich had a lot of control. He was very good in concealing. For whatever reasons whenever he thought it necessary he would not reveal his relations to other people. I remember how he hid himself in his room and closed the door when a worker from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee whom he could not tolerate, came to our flat. He was definitely afraid to meet this man, fearing that he would not be able to control himself, and that his real attitude would become rudely apparent.

He controlled himself even more in his relations towards the comrades with whom he worked. For him work was the first priority. He subjugated the personal in the interests of work. Never did the personal protrude or prevail.

A distinct example of this type of relation was the incident with Trotsky. In one politbureau meeting Trotsky called Ilyich ‘a hooligan’. V. Ilyich turned as pale as chalk, but he controlled himself. ‘It seems some people are losing their nerves’. He said something like this in reply to Trotsky’s rudeness. This is what the comrades told me while retelling the incident. He never had any sympathy for Trotsky. This person had so many characteristics which made it extremely difficult to work with him in a collective fashion. But he was a great worker and a talented person and I repeat for V. Ilyich work was the first priority and that is why he tried to retain him for the job and tried to work with him jointly in the future. What this cost him – is a different question. It was extremely difficult to maintain a balance between Trotsky and the other members of the politbureau, especially between Trotsky and Stalin. Both of them were extremely ambitious and intolerant people. For them personal aspects preponderated over the interests of work. From the telegrams of Trotsky and Stalin sent to Lenin from the front, it becomes clear what was the type of relation they had in the first years of Soviet rule.

Vladimir Ilyich’s authority controlled them. Things did not reach that height of unpleasantness which they would reach after the death of V. Ilyich. I think for a number of reasons V. Ilyich’s attitude towards Zinoviev was not good. But here also he controlled himself for the interest of the work.

In the summer of 1922, during the first illness of V. Ilyich, when I was staying with him constantly almost without absences, I was able to closely observe his relation with the comrades with whom he worked closely and with the members of the politbureau.

By this time I have heard something about V. Ilyich’s dissatisfaction with Stalin. I was told that when V. Ilyich came to know about Martov’s illness, he requested Stalin to send him some money. In reply Stalin told him ‘I should spend money on the enemy of the workers! Find yourself another secretary for this’. V. Ilyich was very disappointed and angry with Stalin. Were there other reasons also for V. Ilyich to be dissatisfied. It seems there were. Shkolovski narrates about a letter by V. Ilyich to him, in Berlin, when he was there. From this it becomes clear that somebody was undermining V. Ilyich. Who and how – it remained a secret.

In the winter of 20-21, 21-22 V. Ilyich was feeling sick. He had headaches and was unable to work – Lenin was deeply disturbed. I exactly do not know when, but somehow during this period V. Ilyich told Stalin that he would probably be stricken with paralysis and made Stalin promise that in this event he would help V. Ilyich to obtain potassium cyanide. Stalin promised. Why did he appeal to Stalin with this request? Because he knew him to be an extremely strong man devoid of any sentimentality. V. Ilyich had nobody else but Stalin to approach with this type of request.

In May 1922 after his first attack he appealed to Stalin with the same request. V. Ilyich had then decided that everything was finished for him and demanded that Stalin should be brought to him immediately. This request was so insistent that nobody could gainsay it. Stalin was with V. Ilyich within 5 minutes and not more. When Stalin came out he told Bukharin and me that V. Ilyich had asked him to obtain poison. The time had come to fulfil his earlier promise. Stalin promised. V. Ilyich and Stalin kissed each other and Stalin left the room.

But later on after discussing the matter together we decided that V. Ilyich’s spirits should be raised. Stalin returned to Lenin and told him that after talking it over with the doctors he was convinced that everything was not yet lost and therefore the time for fulfilling his promise had not come. V. Ilyich noticeably cheered up and agreed. He said to Stalin, ‘you are being cunning?’ In reply Stalin said ‘when did you ever know me to be cunning?’ They parted and did not see each other till V. Ilyich’s condition improved. He was not allowed to meet his comrades.

During this period Stalin was a more frequent visitor in comparison to others. He was the first to come to V. Ilyich. Ilyich met him amicably, joked, laughed and demanded that I should treat Stalin with wine and so on. In this and in other meetings they discussed Trotsky and from their talk in front of me it was clear that here Ilyich was with Stalin against Trotsky. Once the question of inviting Trotsky to Ilyich was discussed. This had a diplomatic character. The offer to Trotsky to become Ilyich’s deputy in Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars – ed. R.D.) was made with the same motive. In this period Kamenev and Bukharin came to meet V. Ilyich, but Zinoviev did not come even once. And so far as I knew V. Ilyich never expressed any willingness to meet him.

After returning to work, in the autumn of 1922, V. Ilyich frequently met Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin in the evenings in his private office. Once in a while, I tried to part them, reminding them that the doctors had forbidden him to sit for long at work. They joked and explained that their meetings were simple discussions and not official talk.

V. Ilyich was most annoyed with Stalin regarding the national, Caucasus question. This is known from his correspondence with Trotsky regarding this matter. It is clear that V. Ilyich was completely outraged with Stalin, Ordjonikidze and Dzerzhinsky. During the period of his further illness, this question would strongly torture him.

To this the other conflict was also added, and which was brought about by V. Ilyich’s letter to Stalin on 5.3.23 and which I am going to quote below. It was like this. The doctors insisted that V. Ilyich should not be informed anything about work. The maximum fear was of Nadezhda Konstantinovna discussing anything with V. Ilyich. She was so used to discussing everything with him that sometimes completely unintentionally and unwillingly she might blurt things out. The politbureau gave Stalin the charge of keeping watch so that the doctors’ instructions were maintained. It seems, one day coming to know about certain conversations between N.K. and V.I., Stalin called her to the telephone and spoke to her quite sharply thinking this would not reach V. Ilyich. He warned her that she should not discuss work with V.I. or this may drag her to the Central Control Commission of the party. This discussion deeply disturbed N.K. she completely lost control of herself – she sobbed and rolled on the floor. After a few days she told V.I. about this incident and added that they had already reconciled. Before this it seems Stalin had actually called her to smooth over the negative reaction his threat and warning had created upon her. She told Kamenev and Zinoviev that Stalin had shouted at her on the phone and it seems she mentioned the Caucasus matter.

Next morning Stalin invited me to V. Ilyich’s office. He looked upset and offended. He told me ‘I did not sleep the whole night. Who does Ilyich think I am, how he regards me, as towards a traitor, I love him with all my heart. Please, somehow tell him this.’ I felt sorry for Stalin. It seemed to me that he was sincerely distressed. Ilyich called me for something and in between I told him that the comrades were sending him regards ‘Ah’ – objected V.I. ‘And Stalin has requested me to tell you, that he loves you’. Ilyich frowned and kept quiet. ‘Then what’ – I asked ‘should I convey your greetings to him?’ ‘Convey them’ answered Ilyich quite coldly. But I continued ‘Volodia he is still the intelligent Stalin’. ‘He is absolutely not intelligent’ frowning Ilyich answered resolutely.

I did not continue the discussion and after a few days. V.I. came to know that Stalin had been rude with N.K. and Kamenev and Zinoviev knew about it. In the morning very distressed Lenin asked for the stenographer to be sent to him. Before this he asked whether N.K. had already left for Narkompros (People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment – ed. R.D.) to which he received a positive answer. When Volodicheva came V.I. dictated the following letter to Stalin:

‘Absolutely secret. Personal. Respected Comrade Stalin! You were rude enough to call my wife to the telephone and insult her. Even though she has expressed to you her willingness to forget the incident, but even then this fact came to be known through her by Zinoviev and Kamenev. I am not ready to forget so easily what has been done against me and what is done against my wife I consider as having been done against me. Therefore I ask you to inform me whether you are ready to take back what you said and apologise or whether you prefer to break off our relationship. With respect Lenin. Written by M.V. 5/III-23’.

V.I. asked Volodicheva to send it to Stalin without telling N.K. and to put a copy of the letter in a sealed envelope and give it to me.

After returning home and seeing V.I. distressed N.K. understood that something had happened. She requested Volidicheva not to send the letter. She would personally talk to Stalin and ask him to apologize. That is what N.K. is saying now, but I feel that she did not see this letter and it was sent to Stalin as V.I. had wanted. The reply of Stalin was not handed over immediately and then it was decided probably by the doctors and N.K. not to give it to V.I. as his condition had worsened. And so V.I. did not come to know about the reply of Stalin in which he apologised.

But howsoever irritated Lenin was with Stalin there is one thing I can say with complete conviction, his words that Stalin was ‘not at all intelligent’ were said without any irritation. This was his opinion about him – decided and complex and which he told me. This opinion did not refute the fact that V.I. valued Stalin as a practical worker. He considered it absolutely essential that there should be some initial control over his ways and peculiarities, on the force of which V.I. considered that Stalin should be removed from the post of general secretary. He spoke about this very decisively in his political will, in his description of a group of comrades which he gave before his death. But these documents never reached the party. But about this some other time.

(Ts PA IML, F. 14, Op. 1, D. 398, l. 1-8; avtograf).

Courtesy: ‘Izvestia Ts.K. KPSS’, 1989, No. 12, pp. 196-199.

Comments

On 18 December 1922 - two meetings of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. (b) took place and which Lenin could not attend due to illness.

Appendix

Letter of Joseph Stalin to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

7th March, 1923.

To Com. Lenin from Stalin

Personal

Comrade Lenin!

Five weeks ago I had a discussion with Nadezhda Konstantinovna whom I consider not only your wife, but also my senior party comrade. I told her on the telephone something very close to the following :

‘The doctors have forbidden any political information to be given to Ilyich. They consider this routine the most effective method to cure him, whereas you Nadezhda Konstantinovna are violating this routine. To play with the life of Ilyich is not allowed’.

I do not think that these words can be seen as anything rude or impermissible directed ‘against’ you nor I did I proceed from any other purposes other than your quick recovery. Moreover, I think it my duty to see that this routine is maintained. My explanation to Nadezhda Konstantinovna confirms that there was nothing except a simple misunderstanding.

If you think that to maintain the ‘relationship’ I must ‘take back’ the above-mentioned words, then I can take them back but I do not understand where is my ‘fault’ and what exactly is wanted from me.

I. Stalin.
revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/lenstal.htm

holy autism

He didn't do what needed to be done to keep the Soviet Union together for at least 1000 years

Just because you wrote more doesn't mean you contributed more. You and the Tank user have more or less made this thread your "Epic Debating Forum", and I really don't think you've contributed much at all, and definitely not as much as you smothered with your giant, reddit spaced posts. I would definitely say that they said more with less, that they smothered less discussion, and we're overall much more interesting to think about. If I wanted exact facts about Stalin I'd ask for some history books, I was interested in what people thought/felt about Stalin, so I could go from there. Knowing that Holla Forums has these split views, with people seeing him as farther left than Lenin and the betrayer of the revolution was unironically more illuminating than your autistic episodes.
At least, I appreciate the attempt in that regard.
That I didn't see this coming was a mistake on my part. Yes, I know commodities have a "useful character embedded in them"(I believe that was what Marx said at one point), and that use value forms the basis for its exchange value. But saying, "all production is for use" is at best pedantic, because the first and foremost benifit of production is exchange value, the use value is really more of a secondary consideration to the actual money the producer gets from that the product.
Trust me, you and this tank user are unique individuals, it is certainly so.

Imagine my shock at all this while I wrote this post.
Further imagine my shock at this point.
I'm not going to even touch the tank user, but almost all that has gone in this thread was "The USSR was totally capitalist", "No", "Yes", and I really wonder if the references to evidence really count as evidence to the both of you.

Care to present any evidence?


False - "Production for use" and "production for exchange" are specific terms. The former denotes production that is not exchanged, but consumed directly.

False. "Human need" - as a term in Marxism - doesn't exist. Any need (desire) is a "need", consequently, "qualifying into category".

False. There is no "capital and commodity production". All production under Capitalist mode of production is commodity production with the intent to create more Capital.

False. While Capitalist mode of production steadily displaces other modes of production, it doesn't displace them in entirety. Consequently, production for use still exists and not all goods manifest exchange value.

Tautology.

And what should this prove or disprove? "Money-form" no longer existed in USSR by 1930s.

I.e. you are unable to argue your position and is forced to resort to ad hominem.

How do you differentiate between abstract units of labour-time and "value"? I'm guessing you don't.

Prove your most bold claims.

Just dropping by to remind everyone that Lenin's political testament was a forgery made up by his shrew of a wife who had it out for Stalin because he was "too rude"

Are you implying it did?

...

Nah dude, but that's more or less because I believe Holla Forums, haven't ever heard convincing evidence either way and haven't felt compelled to research it. Made this post actually because I heard some crazy shit about Stalin and wondered what people thought. They told me he drank his own piss when I could find literally no reference to Stalin and urine in even the most flimsy of ways. That man has never had any interaction with piss as far as the Internet has shown me.

G-good points my dude
This thread is unholy.

Look, I'm not about to stroke myself here but in spite of all my autism I actually bothered to argue, through all the terrible reading comprehension of the tanks and all. I tried to stray away as much as possible from the theoretical debate about what does and does not qualify as capitalism and socialism, and to address e.g. the essentially empirical questions of employment and unemployment in the USSR by using official documents and readings of them, quotations directly from Lenin on the Stalin question and references to texts that treat the matter more broadly (on a specific element of it, with page numbers or chapters where applicable, unlike Joestache who got asspained at reaction images and just linked to and then copy-pasted a text to look edgy).

What else do you think this place is for?

Reddit-spacing involves putting two or more lines between two separate paragraphs and quotations, since that's what you have to do to even make a single empty line appear with Markdown (reddit) formatting. Putting a single space between separate subjects is not redditspacing.

Yeah, without really much of anything to elaborate on it whatsoever; just a greentext saying "was further left", "betrayed le revolution". Truly illuminating. Whatever you fancy I guess.

I don't know how you can backpedal on your misunderstanding of the second paragraph of the first chapter of Capital and then go on to say something the very same first chapter goes on to invalidate.

Yeah, he did write nothing; he copy and pasted something someone else wrote when I reminded him of the fact that simply linking to something while dismissing everything the other person says and being edgy towards them is a pathetic excuse for an argument or having authority on a subject.


Rest of the thread provides some.

Reading comprehension: I was arguing the futility of insisting on the primacy of production for use in the first place, since all production is first for use. What matters in considering productive modes is the presence or absence of any exchange at all; of the social relation to production that stands before it all.

Reading comprehension: A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. (Karl Marx, Capital vol. 1, chapter 1, paragraph 2, bolded emphasis mine; inability to understand quantitative and qualitative to refer to "nature of [such] wants" in Marx, pedantry over want vs. need and illiteracy/pretend-reading Marx yours).

All commodity production must first sate a human need; this human need is wholly uncategorisable. The unique property of generalised commodity production (AKA "capitalism", our relatively modern shorthand for it, remember Marx never said "capitalism") is the depository aspect of the commodity: exchange-value, and the law of value and requirement to (re-)accumulate capital it spawns. All in the first chapter of Capital again, user.

A very interesting take in light of everything Marx has ever written on the advent of capital, I guess. Care to elaborate on this counter-Marxian claim?

Then what was the Rouble and why did the banks print them?

No, I'm just really, really, really not interested in trying to convert the proveribial Jesuit; I do not say to the Stalinist "cease your struggles"; I say to the Stalinist continue to LARP over the legacy of dead social democracies until your last breath.

One is the expression of purchased labour-power, as a commodity, the other the spawn of production when it occurs in isolation; for the purpose of exchange.

Which claims are bold; any non-Jesuitism related claims in particular you'd like me to address? This is my last reminder that I will not be wasting my time talking to an iron curtain about matters it can't acknowledge; that part will fall all on its own without my help.


Yo keep a soft-refresh on /marx/ like I am; the perpetually illiterate ☭TANKIE☭ brigade is doing a small stunt. Unfortunately one of them already cracked and sperged out too hard and spammed and got banned. I hope the namefags last longer before losing it.

"No"

Did more for communism than anyone else in history. But he probably went too far with the purges (there were certainly plotters but not as many as were purged) and he deserves the blame for the USSR's dreadful military performance in 1941.

I'm sorry, but I really need you to clarify two things right now.

1) Are you claiming to be Marxist?
2) What is the objective of Marxists? Specifically, how do we (Marxists) intend to abolish Capitalism (i.e. Capitalist mode of produciton)?

Why people keep thinking that Stalin was some sort of supernatural overmind that oversaw and controlled every aspect of Soviet Union? It's obvious he could not and did not. USSR had collective leadership since the first day until the Perestroika. Gorbachev was the first and last leader of Soviet Union in the sense we attribute to the term "leader".

Almost definitely weren't his idea (documents are still inaccessible; there is strong argument for Eikhe being the one) - and he started resisting them midway.

First and foremost, it was better than any other army managed to pull off, when faced with Blitzkrieg. Soviets were the first who managed to stop it, and did it in 1941. Consequently, "dreadfulness" of performance is a blatant lie.

Secondly, Stalin was not directly involved in army's performance until after the first week (i.e. could not be held responsible for poor preparations) and there is little factual evidence of him being responsible for clusterfucks that got attributed to him postmortem.

For example, while Kiev encirclement is attributed to Stalin, there is very little actual evidence (other than a few articles during Khrushchev's time) that actually supports this. In fact, several sources explicitly mention local commander (Kirponos) and his aide, who kept persuading Stavka (and Stalin personally) that Moscow is being overly cautious and there is absolutely no need to be afraid of Kiev encirclement. Apparently, they even managed to countermand already issued order for Kiev's evacuation.

Well specifically I said "Tell me what you think of Stalin" and more or less made my displeasure at derailing known, and you continued anyways. The board as a whole is for leftist politics tho.
Okay that's interestingly specific but I'm just talking about you putting spaces between your posts. I don't like it, don't see the need for it, and I correctly associate it with people I don't like. Name fags and such. It's not the root of all bad posters but it is the flower.
Do you want to provide any proof of this? I even went back and reread the first one or two pages to see if I missed some glaring detail. I don't think I did. The vast majority of Capitalist production is produced to be sold, or to rephrase, is produced to be exchanged. Sure it is later used, but the companies that produce these goods produce them for exchange. So yes, production is for use throughout all societies, but that's not what the guy you responded to you said, he more or less said "things were organized for use instead of exchange" and you responded saying that "Well capitalists produce for use too". All of this culminates into you being a pedant (yes all production produces use values but production centered directly around making use values instead of for exchange is different) and you didn't even address his point.
Overall you haven't really addressed any points meaningfully in the etirety of you and the tanks postings, imo. Seriously who is supposed to believe either of you when everything boils down to "Nuh uh"? Here Ill quote some just to prove that I'm not letting my distaste cloud my judgement.
">False. There is no "capital and commodity production". All production under Capitalist mode of production is commodity production with the intent to create more Capital.
All commodity production must first sate a human need; this human need is wholly uncategorisable. The unique property of generalised commodity production (AKA "capitalism", our relatively modern shorthand for it, remember Marx never said "capitalism") is the depository aspect of the commodity: exchange-value, and the law of value and requirement to (re-)accumulate capital it spawns. All in the first chapter of Capital again, user."
How to correctly quote something that indents?:thinking:
If your idea of a theoretical argument is to say "Hey you know that book we are obviously both referencing, reread it and you'll see I'm right" then I honestly don't know what to say to you.

It's called "non-autistic formatting". You might want to try it. To make your posts readable.

That's how:

I seriously doubt he read Marx (other than some iffy Trot articles). He raises all kind of red flags with his absolutely insane terminology.

Wrong. You do know that there is a difference between the function of a good and the incentive to produce it? Capitalism produces for exchange only, of course this is also based on supply and demand but the satisfaction of human need isn't the reason to produce it, just its profitability. No idea why this is so hard to grasp. Marx wasn't the best writer but I thought he laid it down quite clearly how the exchange value becomes the dominant aspect of a commodity under capitalism.