Shouldn't the dictatorship of the proletariat have been disbanded after the revolution was successful?
Why were the people not free to self organize into communes of their own design that best reflects their values?
this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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At what point do you think Marxists believe the DotP is to be ended? Moreover, what do you think a DotP is? People weren't allowed to dissolve government into small communes because they were invaded by more than 14 Capitalist countries, and in addition the Soviets were Marxists and not Anarchists, they wanted full public ownership and central planning as the goal.
Sooner the Soviets I guess. A shame there was no peace to see what could have been.
Same as it ever was.
The USSR never had a single year of peace, in its entire existence. Following the revolution was a brutal civil war in which 14+ nations (including the US) landed troops to try to stop the republic. Even after the reds won against the whites, they had years of intrigues against them, then rising fascism, which a lot of historians see as a continuous conflict in eastern europe from the years between the twe world wars.
Stalin presciently stated that "we have 10 years to industrialize in the time it took capitalist nations 50+ years, or we're toast". Then you have operation barbarossa and the nazi onslaught, with its scorched earth policy and genocidal onslaught of the USSR, the eastern front of ww2 being the bloodiest conflict in history, with the soviets saving the world from fascism.
Then you have the US atom bombing civilians as a warning to the soviets, and 60 years of a cold war arms race, and too many other threats and incursions to count.
The USSR wouldn't have lasted a single year if they disarmed and followed that advice, and europe would probably be all speaking german now if it weren't for Stalin.
Appreciate the reply m'dude.
For starters, "Gulag" just means "prison." Of course prisons existed in the USSR, and some had rather brutal conditions. Others, however, did not, and treated prisoners better to much better than your average American prison. Nobody is saying the Gulags never existed, perhaps they mean your specific interpretation of the conditions of gulags and the extent to which they were used. Edit 1
As for Stalin himself, it's fair to say he committed a fair degree of errors in judgement, had reactionary social views such as his view of homosexuality, was frequently paranoid, and so forth. At the same time, it is equally fair to understand that Stalin has been the subject of countless lies, exaggerations, myths, and other degrees of Cold War propaganda we learn as fact despite evidence to the contrary, especially following the opening of the Soviet Archives. Moreover, it is necessary to acknowledge the vital role he played in governing the worlds first Socialist State, and building the foundations of this rapid improvement on the utter squalor of the Tsarist regime.
Should Stalin be idolized? I don't think so, as I believe that can get in the way of accurate analysis. Should Stalin be villianized and made a scapegoat to brush the Red Scare under the rug? I don't believe so, either. The USSR came with countless benefits, from a doubling of life expectancy to free healthcare to near 100% literacy rates (better than the modern US), and more. These benefits were formed under Stalin, and as such we must do our absolute best to separate fact from fiction. If we accept and push purely the accepted bourgeois narrative regarding the real experience of AES states, then we cannot learn from them properly and sort out what worked and what did not.
Basically, Stalin was neither a perfect saint devoid of mistakes nor a unique monster that should be especially condemned. He was the leader of the USSR, but did not have absolute control, and in addition was in many ways less monstrous than contemporary leaders such as Hitler and Churchill. Correct contextualization is important. I highly recommend the short, 8 minute article "Tankies" by Roderic Day, hosted over on Red Sails. For more in-depth reading, Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo is a good historical critique of Stalin that focuses on taking a critical stance towards Stalin and contextualizes him.
Edit 1: seeing your other two comments, I am now entirely certain that this is the case.
As always, I have a book that I wish to quote from, but I cannot choose which parts, so I'll just point to Russian Justice if anyone is interested.
For a shorter read see Chapter 14 in This Soviet World
Excellent work, comrade 🫡
I think you hit the nail on the head with this comment. Stalin was a very influential man who shaped large part of the 20th century. Villanizing or idolizong his achievements without acknowledging the other side of the coin would be having an incorrect outlook on him.
I took a quick read of the link describing tankies. It more or less echoes what you said. That being said my observation of the use of the word tankie doesn't fall in line with what the author was talking about. I've seen it used primarily for people who staunchly or blindly defend figures like Stalin and are incapable of acknowledging any criticisms of said figures. What yoyre describing is more of a lefty or a socialist in my opinion. The article was written in 2020 so maybe the use of the word has evolved over time. I haven't been familiar with the word for that long to say otherwise.
Regarding the term "tankie," I actually disagree with what you're saying here. The term "tankie" is described to mean what you say, but the term is applied to people with the same analysis as myself, Roderic Day, and others who defend AES. I've even seen Anarchists labeled "tankie." The reason the word "tankie" is used is because it allows the thrower to terminate the conversation and misrepresent the accused as having all of the blind, dogmatic sins the term itself has been associated with, regardless of the actual bearings of the conversation at play.
The quantity of people who actually fit the term "tankie" is miniscule compared to the quantity the word is thrown at with regularity.
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Thanks, this is the kind of response I was looking for. I'll look into what you said further.
With the image that Stalin has in the west, I think it alienates people when he's not condemned. I can't think of a singe leader that we should praise (Mandela maybe?) if anything we should praise ideas not people.
If you don't directly challenge false, bourgeois narratives, then they are used as ammo against related subjects. "Stalin was a butcher of 100 million," if accepted, means the Soviet Union was a horrible failure as well. This means Socialism was a horrible failure in the Soviet Union. This cascading power of bourgeois narratives prevents real radicalization, and moreover allows repitition of failures if not properly analyzed.
Take another example. Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism. As a Marxist-Leninist, there is no avoiding Stalin when talking with liberals. Because of my belief that Marxism-Leninism is correct, I cannot avoid the topic of grappling with Stalin's existence.
As Marx said, "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."
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he was s power hungry megalomaniac that felt no shame in killing anyone who crossed him
When you get your politics from Marvel movies
He killed loyal communists, many falsely accused of treason, and became the poster boy of the Red Scare, providing anti-communists with propaganda to equate socialism with totalitarianism. His oppressive policies, human rights abuses, and betrayal of socialist principles alienated global leftist movements and set back the progress of socialism by decades.
From what I understand, people who were sent to Gulag mostly were Nazis, bourgeoisie (basically people like the UnitedHealthcare CEO) and counter-revolutionaries.
I'm not saying it was the best way to seize resources from the rich and prevent counter-revolution. Some of the things he did were good, and some were bad.
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Not a great socialist
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