I feel like I've learned a lot more about the soviets since watching it. Like how the party really was filled with genuine communists who wanted to create a new world for the better (before the purges after collectivization of agriculture in the countryside in the 30s). Production in the countryside was over 80% of the russian economy at the time, and was a capitalist market totally outside the control of the party. Farming was unproductive (low technology) and unorganized. There were regular famines every time there was a bad harvest due to weather. I have always given shit for tankies here and have considered myself on more the anarchist side, but this discussion made has made me realize how shitty the situation was and that the people in the party genuinely wanted to build a new world where production was controlled by the community democratically and not controlled by competition and the market. I can't say I disagree. To me it just makes the whole story more tragic. Ridiculously fucking tragic. The one point that was made that got me, and I'm heavily paraphrasing "WWI taught people, that the generals on all sides were willing to throw millions and millions of people to there deaths, just to move a trench a few yards one way or another. For nothing. At least when we sacrifice lives, it can be for something actually worthwhile." And I've always hated people who defend stalin here, but I'm starting to think stalin wasn't just some psycho that ruined everything. Stalin was taking the idea and taking it to the end, so to speak. Collectivization of agriculture was something that had to be done, to construct socialism. In order to survive against imperial powers (Imperialism was seriously no joke at the time), and to spread revolution world wide, I understand why it was considered a necessity. Stalin was probably the only one who was psycho enough to follow through on it to the end. And he did it. primitive socialism, because it lacked genuine democracy (actual control by the working class), may be, but it was a post-market economy. Production for use and distribution by need. Different pay scales for different positions, but things were remarkably more equal then our society. With most needs guaranteed by society, like education, employment, healthcare, housing. And the famines, although intensified by the collectivization temporarily, although millions had died, the famines were over. The regular famines caused by bad weather were stopped. I can't totally say it was worth it. Too many people died. But I see why it happened and understand. And then the bastard wrecked it. Stalin went nuts and purged everyone. Socialism (primitive because it wasn't democratic but it was a post-market system of production) had been built, was functioning, and Stalin crashed it. He killed thousands of people who were totally loyal. All the factory bosses that were totally loyal and ran a functioning production system were killed. or put in gulags. Loyal generals were executed. Stalin's entire foreign intelligence agency was killed or imprisoned. Even though there was no evidence that the were disloyal. The government had no foreign intelligence reports (after Stalin receiving daily briefs for years) for something like 100+ days. What the fuck. The whole thing is just so tragic to me.
What are your thoughts? I'd particularly like to hear from people who've watched this video or done research on soviet history.
As a side note to anarchists, yes the peasants could have potentially switched to communal production. But soviet industry would then be totally dead in the water. And the entire idea behind the communist movement was to take advantage of the labor saving technology produced by capitalism to build advanced production by the whole community for the whole community/ the whole world for the whole world. In our modern context, I would totally support cooperation and mutual support between socialist republics and anarchist free territories.
p.s. sorry for the wall of text, I'm hoping to get a thread with actually decent discussion
The downfall of every socialist community is disagreements about ideology.
Samuel Parker
Why can't you tankies just get over your Soviet Union fetish already? If you honestly think that life in the USSR is better than living in the west today, you deserve to be tortured in some gulag. Of course Leftypol will defend being tortured in Stalin's gulags compared to living in the west, because the West is "evil".
Austin Lewis
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Nathaniel Taylor
did you read my post? I think the whole thing is a tragedy, probably the greatest tragedy in human history
Juan Myers
Didn't watch the video, done research.
a) your evaluation of Soviet economy seems broadly correct, but you don't mention the impact of grain trading. Each and every famine was greatly increased due to kulak's grain hoarding that begun at the first signs of incoming shortage ("panic on the market" in our terms). Except not "panic", but greed. Kulaks preferred to hold onto grain until the prices tripled, at the very least - which is how they literally destroyed Russian Empire.
b) you are still thoroughly misinformed about Soviet power structure, popular support for collectivisation, cause (Constitution of 1936) and mechanism of 1937/38 "purges", as well as the role of Stalin's faction (it was not dictatorship even de facto) in all of it.
c) for unknowable reasons you attribute changes in Communist Party to 1937/38, despite the fact that at the very least 3-4 times more Communists died in WWII.
Overall: 3/10 (better than Black Book retardation, but far from real research).
Because ignoring USSR is dooming oneself to fiasco.
Soviets were the only functioning nation-wide Dictatorship of the Proletariat we've seen IRL. If you actually intend to replace Capitalism with anything ("nothing" is an option only for anarkiddies), you need to understand benefits and dangers of applying undiluted direct democracy on a massive scale. You don't have Capitalists overseeing things. You have people that should be organized enough, so as to avoid Scylla of mob rule, but free enough so as to avoid Charybdis of bureaucrat rule. So what should be done? How do we protect ourselves from dictators? How do we retain political will so as to be able to do what is necessary?
Even Paris Commune - two months! one city! thoroughly non-functional! - was enough to be discussed for decades. Soviets? Seventy years of huge nation that went toe-to-toe with the absolute best Capitalism could muster up. And we should ignore it? Have you gone completely Marxian?
We've already compared iPhone factory in China to Soviet gulags. Anons preferred gulags.
Jason Long
oh boy, here we go
Jaxon Gomez
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Cameron Butler
A lack of a capital market was an issue for firms in the SU after initial industrialization. It was difficult to judge firm performance.
I don't see how point one is relevant to point two.
Could you at least direct OP to some books to read about "real" Soviet history?
Ryan Mitchell
Thanks for the replies. I never got the "kulaks hording grain" think until now. That makes sense.
Thomas Murphy
Also Most of the sabotage/Shortages During collectivization weren't a result of the party officials manhandling poor peasants, It was mostly due to Kulak sabotage (e.g. mas killing of cattle; of which bottom peasants had none)
Jack Hill
Maybe The book advertised in the video is a good start? Kotkin did eventually revert to the "Stalin Wuz crazeh" but he held out longer than others, at least it'd be a better read than commies killed muh gazillions
Caleb Lewis
I had always been totally opposed to Stalin, but from the perspective of a communist at the time, collectivization of agriculture seems like a necessity. But it still seems like Stalin went nuts and purged thousands of loyal people for no reason right after.
Jack Evans
6/10
Can't agree with "fear of state" that supposedly forced Bolsheviks to put Person on top of the state.
Bolsheviks were exceedingly careful about state. Arch got this part right. But they went in the direction completely opposite of what Getty describes: the only "Person" to get on top a state - the first and last dictator of USSR - was Gorbachev. Hardly Bolshevik in any way.
Lenin's idea (the one that was mostly shared by the others; at least of non-Trotskyist persuasion) was that you can't entrust such a post to a single person. Nobody should be in charge. Which is why Soviets didn't have anything resembling "President" nor "Prime Minister". It was absolutely unacceptable to let one person have so much power. Not the kind of authority "democratic" regimes associate with such a post.
Bolsheviks went for "collective responsibility". "Presidium" instead of "President" - a committee, that collectively fulfils the role of President (of parliamentary republic, not PotUS level of Presidency) - which is why Soviet actual head of state (Presidium's chairman; Kalinin, for the first part of Soviet era - until 1946) was constantly accused of being "nominal" head of state (and Stalin was presented as "real"), as if this was some flaw, rather than the intended limitation of state power.
Even if we are talking about meme of Stalin's dictatorship - he got to the top only in 1941, and it clearly wasn't "Bolshevik's decision". He essentially executed a coup in the first days of war, to get himself (and a few select allies) in charge of Soviet Union (those two days that bourgeois propagandists like to call "cowering in fear" - Stalin was out of Kremlin, secretly negotiating with people).
In my opinion Stalin's cult of personality has much more to do with the masses, rather than Bolsheviks themselves or Stalin's own politics. But that's very deep into the "unprovable" territory.
That said, i'd better read the book ("Practicing Stalinism", is it?) instead of arguing with video.
Also, what's with this "special Russian history" nonsense again?
Christian King
It doesn't just "seem like" a necessity, It has always been the foremost item on the agenda, even Trotsky when he later wrote about it didn't denounce it, he said that They should've collectivized earlier as that would've made it go more smoothly
Jackson Kelly
As I've said: you didn't do your homework.
Mason Lee
There was no Great Depression earlier to force West to sell stuff to Soviets.
Wyatt Wright
I don't understand, what are you talking about? and btw I'm not saying Trotsky was right.
Ethan Kelly
Give resources or fuck off. Going around like a smug twat isn't helping anyone.
Logan Moore
Yeah do you have a PDF of Practicing Stalinism? Do you have any book(after the archives were opened up) that you can post here as a PDF?
Juan Powell
The USA would have crushed the USSR if it was really motivated to do so. I love it when tankies deliberately overestimate and overstate the economic capacity and military capacity of the USSR, it was vastly inferior to the USA.
The USSR will never be resurrected, and your beloved Lenin will forever remain dead. So you replace capitalists with communist leaders that oppress the people, kill dissidents, profit off the backs of the people. And don't give me this "dictatorship of the proletariat", then in the same breath defend having a vanguard communist party.
What you and every other stupid leftist fail to accept, and refuse to accept, is that the USSR collapsed and the notion of 20th century communism is over. You idiots need to read and accept Zizek, especially when he says the 20th century is over. It was a shameful and horrible period. I love it when Leftypol and other leftist lunatics shit on people who actually lived in the USSR as being "western/imperialist propaganda". If the personal accounts of people who lived in a shitty, authoritarian hellhole don't change your views, you are a religious moron.
Austin Jackson
Kind of related but I'm interested in finding some non-meme-worthy sources on the USSR, especially on the early part. I'm not necessarily looking for "Stalin did nothing wrong" type shit, but maybe a few different perspectives on Lenin, Stalin, or the Russian Revolution that are reasonably critical without being pure bourgeois ideology.
Caleb Myers
That fact that the USSR had nukes mitigates any shortcomings in military they might have had. Your point is kinda redundant.
Anecdotal evidence bud. Just because everybody thought it was great doesn't mean it was but neither is it hell because a group of people said so.
Wew. It's like you never watched the video or know what you're talking about.
Jackson Morgan
I still don't see how this justifies installing a dictator.
Hunter Russell
To what extent do you believe that the characterization of Stalin's rule as this crushing, totalitarian bureaucracy is correct?
What exactly do you believe went wrong within the Soviet Union?
Christian Adams
Read this.
Logan Green
thanks user. Any more?
Jack Long
Right after World War 2 the USSR had the best general staff on the planet and still had the largest military on the planet it had better tanks and more of them and even had some far more advanced equipment ready like the IS 3 fuck off
Jason Johnson
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Sebastian James
About starting collectivization earlier. I don't think it was possible to do it when Trotsky suggested. There were external factors at work.
Not only there wasn't enough public support (near-famine happened only in 1927/28), there was also necessity to have industry. I.e. there should've been Industrialization going simultaneously.
Even if you ignore resources (which weren't there; Dzerzhinsky's metallurgy reforms weren't finished), Industrialization also required cooperation with the West: USSR simply had neither expertise, nor industry to mass-produce necessary industrial goods. And all industrial states hated Soviets with a vengeance.
Only when Great Depression begun did the Soviets manage to get massive trade deals approved.
And I seriously doubt that Trotsky's "smooth" collectivisation would've gone better. It's like pulling teeth - the faster you do it, the better. But that's subjective opinion.
Connor Parker
I think he purposefully doesn't post actual book here.
Josiah Scott
Zizek likes Arch Getty's book on the great purges though Arch getty is not a communist but a liberal.
www.lacan.com/zizek-suicide.htm
I also hear the Maoist Charles Bettelheim's Class Struggles in the USSR is good.
>dumb tankie here is the real one Are you implying mine is fake?
Kayden Stewart
What resources do you want?
"Real" history - primary sources - are boring and/or indigestible for most people (the fact I was made painfully aware of after reading some leftypol Anarchist review of Stalin's article circa 1906).
What archives? Soviet? They are not "open" as in "digitally available".
And there obviously are PDF's (btw, I recommend >>>/marx/ ; Ismail made available quite a lot of unique books in English), but which ones do you want?
Kevin Moore
In the interview, Zizek urges Kotkin to keep to his "wonderful" political perspective, while Kotkin asserts that the personality has to shine through somewhere with something as bizarre as the purges.
The obvious answer, from a layman's point of view, is that Kotkin should search for how the political pathologized Stalin. Kotkin notes that very, very few people have ever wielded the kind of power Stalin had during his reign, and that should have an affect on his behavior. So hopefully he'll pursue that line of thinking in the next volume.
For much of the Cold War it was precisely the opposite. But you wouldn't know that, since, judging from your previous posts, you're a retard with a bizarre historical grudge against the USSR.
Lucas Turner
I don't like the question (too subjective, i.e. idealist). Does the statement "pre-WWII Soviet bureaucracy was less restrictive than contemporary EU or US" answer the question you wanted to ask?
Moreover, I don't "believe" in Stalin's rule. To re-phrase: "I do not think Stalin was in charge of USSR". Not in the way people commonly think he was.
Same as above. "Wrong" is very subjective thing. USSR accomplished a lot of things when compared to the rest of the planet. Thus, the only correct answer is "Nothing".
Better question: What didn't go right?
The answer would be: the Party. Unfortunately, at this moment, I do not consider myself sufficiently qualified to provide more informative answer. Pointing to 1956-1965 (1961 especially) and Khrushchev would be a cop-out.
Cooper Campbell
Revolutionary Catalonia tho?
Jason Hughes
Was Socialist. Or attempted to be.
What is the question?
Jackson Rivera
Well, I can't say I'd be surprised you'd unironically buy Party propaganda.
Oliver Long
I've got some news for you.
Jeremiah Wilson
Are you taking dance lessons?
Jason Morales
More socialist than Soviet Russia innit
no question tbh
Hudson Robinson
There are specific categories history operates within. You don't ask mathematicians "how pink is 4", do you?
Attempted to be. I remain sceptical about the result.
