Was there an overall improvement? Did Lenin effectively apply Marx's ideals to the Soviet Union, or did Lenin's shift to an authoritarian state lead the way for Stalinism?

One oppressed the people in the name of the Monarchy the other did the same in the name of the State.

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Originally posted by rsfarrell:
Leninism was worse -- at least far worse than the monarchy it replaced. It was more repressive, more brutal, more murderous, more intolerent, more controlling, more expansionist, and far less prosperous.

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Originally posted by ctrl190:
Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!

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How much better was Lenin's reign in power compared to that of Tsar Nicholas II?
Was there an overall improvement? Did Lenin effectively apply Marx's ideals to the Soviet Union, or did Lenin's shift to an authoritarian state lead the way for Stalinism?

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!

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Sorry, you're going to have to write that freshman term paper yourself.

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Grade 12 World History, to be exact.

I am no apologist for anyone's CP, but then the story of the Romanovs has been much romanticized in Western mainstream media, so it is important to step back and try to think about each regime objectively.

At the time of the revolution, Russia and the rest of the other SSRs were still largely agrarian, peasant economies/cultures. Rapid industrialization was part of the religion of the CP, and almost overnight the Bolsheviks set out to reorganize the country top to bottom for that purpose. That kind of revolution is always brutal and oppressive -- except it got worse under Stalin.

The peasants and urban workers of the Russian Empire were not carefree and happy folk, however. It is a mistake, I think, to personify that empire in the czars -- the whole system was brutal, oppressive, corrupt, collapsing. Read the story of the 1905 Revolution, the revolution that failed -- read of the famous Cossack attack on the Russian workers who marched to the Winter Palace to petition Nicholas for food, better working conditions, and so on. And then see his response. The Cossacks were ordered just to ride into that march, slashing and killing scores of poor people.

It was also responsible, of course, for the creation of the proletariat and its organs which led the revolution.

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Originally posted by Red Albertan:

Please cite a source for this claim

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"Let History Judge," Roy Medvedev.

"The Gulag Archipeligo, Volume One," Solzhenitsyn.

"The Black Book of Communism," Courtois et al.

. . . and so on. Prison cells which had held four or five people under the Tsar were crammed with ten, fifteen, even twenty people by Lenin. Economic growth of six percent a year was replaced by the utter failure and starvation engendered by Leninist economics, which forced the retreat of the New Economic Policy.

The list goes on and on. About the only good things you can say about Leninism are; he did recognise he'd made a mistake and re-liberalized the conomy, and; Stalin was worse. But, let's not forget, the Republic that Lenin founded lead directly to Stalinism.

Now, compare early Communism with, say, Ivan the Terrible, and maybe it will look a little better. The irony of revolutions is that they usually strike reformers, who, by trying to reform the system, lose control of change. Louis the XVI, not Louis the XIV. Nick II, not Catherine the Great. Gorbachev, not Khrushchev.

Ever wonder why so many communists survived the 1905 revolution and lived to fight another day? This was because the tsar's terrible repression was limited to sending rebels, complete with books and pocket money, into a loosely supervised Siberian exile, from which the great majority returned fighting fit.

Compare Lenin's attitude to peasents resisting the confiscation of their property:

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"Comrades! ... Hang (hang without fail, so that people will see) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers ... Do it in such a way that ... for hundreds of versts around, the people will see, tremble, know, shout: 'They are strangling and will strangle to death the bloodsucker kulaks' ... Yours, Lenin."

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Soviet Communism was a horrific failure in terms of human life, human liberty, and human needs. The tsar they murdered, while not a democrat, was a better leader and a far better man than Lenin.

[ 23 October 2005: Message edited by: rsfarrell ]

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Originally posted by skdadl:
At the time of the revolution, Russia and the rest of the other SSRs were still largely agrarian, peasant economies/cultures. Rapid industrialization was part of the religion of the CP, and almost overnight the Bolsheviks set out to reorganize the country top to bottom for that purpose. That kind of revolution is always brutal and oppressive -- except it got worse under Stalin.

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What Skdadl says is true. The CP and its people rode merrily around the countryside and Ukraine, killing anyone and anything in opposition to the revolution. They thought of themselves as liberators and their actions justified. And there were many who were opposed to the revolution from the get-go. Scholars around the world give varying estimates of how many will remain loyal to an outgoing regime. Anywhere from a few hundred thousand to several million bureaucrats and military elite will go down fighting in a given revolution. They tend not to quietly into that good night. Power struggles and bloody revolutions do tend to be romanticized.

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Read the story of the 1905 Revolution, the revolution that failed -- read of the famous Cossack attack on the Russian workers who marched to the Winter Palace to petition Nicholas for food, better working conditions, and so on. And then see his response. The Cossacks were ordered just to ride into that march, slashing and killing scores of poor people.

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They were begging for a revolt. The czar and his family turned a blind eye to the suffering of Russian's living in abject poverty while giving lavish parties and living lives of grand opulence in any of their 30 some winter and summer palaces.

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Lenin didn't appear for nothing, nor Trotsky neither. Stalin, on the other hand, ...

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I think had Trotsky been leader of Russia, he would have tried to negotiate with Hitler and the Nazis. As it was, Stalin fully believed that Russian's would do the terrible march and remove him from power and line him up at dawn without cigarette or blindfold after the Nazis launched operation Barbarossa in June 1941. Stalin awaited the people's justice for two weeks as the Nazis rampaged into the heart of Russia.

The uncerimonious end did not come for Stalin as the fascists laid siege to Stalingrad, Leningrad and surrounded Moscow. The enemy at the gates presented an opportunity for Stalin, and the people needed a figurehead to look to for strength. Would Trotsky have provided that symbol of strength?. Would the people have referred to him as Father Trotsky for generations after what was to be their darkest hour ?.

[ 23 October 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
I think had Trotsky been leader of Russia, he would have tried to negotiate with Hitler and the Nazis.

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Originally posted by ctrl190:
How much better was Lenin's reign in power compared to that of Tsar Nicholas II?

Was there an overall improvement? Did Lenin effectively apply Marx's ideals to the Soviet Union, or did Lenin's shift to an authoritarian state lead the way for Stalinism?

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!

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I, however, would ask how does one determine the answer to such a broad question. I mean, are you comparing 19th Century Russia to 20th Century Russia as a whole. I mean, if one were to compare the Russia of 1860, with the Russia of 1960, I would have to say, yes, as a whole life for Russians in 1960, Russians were accorded more rights, a more equitable system, and a higher standard of living.

Stalin began to realize that the west was not going to oppose Hitler after the invasions of Denmark and Norway. Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini appeased Hitler with the Munich areement. Tommy Douglas was the first western politician to speak out against Hitler. There were copies of Mein Kampf circulated around the world for years beforehand. World leaders can't say they didn't know what Hitler was all about.

According to specialists on Hitler, the war of annihilation against Soviet communism was his ultimate plan from the start. Hitler's squawking oratories about Bolsheviks and Jews ruining his beloved Germany were well known throughout Russia by that time. Unemployment raged around the western world while Russia's economy began to recover from the previous imperialist invasions to put down the revolution. German's returned home from Russia and telling countrymen about a booming economy. German's were tired of seeing dirty faces on their children. There were 14 socialist and communist parties poised for election in 1933 Germany. The Nazis weren't all that popular until they published a little pamphlet entitled, The Road to Resurgence, assuring the industrialists and banking elite that the private sector economy would not be nationalized. Money flooded the Nazi campaign coffers after that.

Russia was to become living space for German's. A well corporate-sponsored army was expected to defeat an inferior Mongol horde. The Russian's weren't expected to put up such a fight. But fight they did. As two-thirds of Hitler's war machine poured in over the borders, Stalin ordered factories and equipment dismantled and carted off by horse and on foot by a volunterr army of hundreds of thousands of women, men and children over the frozen Ural mountains where they were re-assembled and set in motion for the resistance effort. Inferior indeed. Corporate fascism and Soviet communism were diametrically opposed. Churchill and Roosevelt fully expected the Nazis to occupy the Kremlin in about six weeks time.

[ 23 October 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
A good place to start on this topic: Roots of Revolution by Franco Venturi[/URL]

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It is apparent that Venturi wanted to seperate the historical and social context of the Russian revolution from the legacy of Lenin, as it was hyped for the purposes of Bolshevik political propoganda, and look at the concrete conditions, and the mode of thought that was the underlying Russian social movements that led to the revolution, without the much enlarged shadow of Lenin, as the sole spokespeson of the Russian revolution, which the latter day Soviet historians, and the state they served, used as the centerpiece of the ideological mandate.

Spector, is right that it may be, as a whole to detailed of grade 12, but if you are interested in the Russian social movements of which Lenin was only one part it is a very important book, and also devided into sections, so it is possible to use it as reference by only reading parts that may interest you.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Oh ay. Russia wasn't ready for war, and neither was anyone else. Churchill knew the Nazis were building war ships and breaking WWI agreements. Better to sign a non-agression pact than to plunge a nation into war. Chamberlain referred to the German embassy warnings as foolishness by "anti-Nazis" who weren't to be trusted. The launch of Operation Barbarossa shattered the non-aggression pact with Russia. There would be no war between capitalists as Stalin believed.

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The whole "buying time" argument falls as flat for Stalin as it does for Chamberlin. The truth is time served only Hitler. Had he been conforted at an early stage, he could have been defeated with ease.

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Originally posted by rsfarrell:

The whole "buying time" argument falls as flat for Stalin as it does for Chamberlin. The truth is time served only Hitler. Had he been conforted at an early stage, he could have been defeated with ease.

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Hind sight is 20/20. And this is not so simple. I am not entirely sure that Chamberlain was wrong in Munich, nor Stalin with Molotov Ribbentrop. But that is all academic really.

For instance, the Russian prepared positions, such as they were, were completely useless when the Russians were driven back into them. The sailent problem of the soviet army were organizational, logistical, and centered on inadequate communications and command, not material, when they were faced with a highly competent agressor, well trained and experienced at modern combined operations warfare.

It is oft noted that Soviet tanks of 1941, expecially the KV1 and T34 were far superior to the Mk III's which made up the bulk of the German armour, yet without radios, and operating with inexperienced crews commnicating by use of flags (in a manner reminicent of the era of wooden sailing ships) they were simply avoided or overwhelmed by German commanders applying force concentration docterine.

In fact by putting the main fron 200 miles west, it can be argued they bought a month of time, which left the intial German drive for Moscow stuck in the mud and snow in November, not October -- the story might have been quite different.

[ 23 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by rsfarrell:
Instead, Stalin's greed for Polish land drew the Russians a hundred miles out of their prepared defensive positions and left them wide open to Hitler's surprise attack. In addition to being a morally abbhorent land grab at the expense of the Poles, it was a colossal military mistake -- one of many.

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Yes, it seems there were corporate interests in Poland around the same time. Alan Dulles, future head of the CIA, made moves for the the rich Petschek family of Europe to sell their interest in Silesian Coal to George Mernane. Mernane was used as a pick to hide the Petschek purchase. Dulles then sold the shares to his good friend Schacht, Hitler's minister of the economy. Afterwards, Dulles became director of Consolidated SilesianSteel Company. Its sole asset was a one third interest in Upper Silesian Coal and Steel Company. The remainder of the shares was controlled by Fredrick Flick. Polish worker's decided to wobble for a living wage. Hitler invades not long after. Slave labour for corporate-fascism ?. Appalling greed, yes.

A HNN documentary showed an interview with Jewish survivors of the Nazi occupation. They hid in the forests near the Russian border. They created their own little village complete with shoemakers, class rooms, bakers, shelter builders, supply gatherers and entertainers. They didn't dare show their faces in towns and villages. One survivor said that when the German's retreated from the Russian front, the earth rumbled for about a week as tanks and troops pulled back. It gave them hope. The Russian's were coming.

[ 23 October 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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For instance, the Russian prepared positions, such as they were, were completely useless when the Russians were driven back into them.

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Of course! By that time, the great propondence of the Russian air force and armored divisions had been annihilated and the army was in disarry.

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The sailent problem of the soviet army were organizational, logistical, and centered on inadequate communications and command, not material, when they were faced with a highly competent agressor, well trained and experienced at modern combined operations warfare.

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The Russian army had adequete productive capacity -- its problems were a lack of leadership at all levels. Why did it lack leadership at all levels? Because Stalin murdered 98 of the 104 flag officers of the Red Army. That's another one of his major military mistakes. It's a long list.

I recommond Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," which argues, I think unaswerably, that the failure to confront Hitler at an early stage was a terrible blunder caused by a failure of understanding, a failure of will, and Hitler's brillant exploitation of same.

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Originally posted by rsfarrell:

The Russian army had adequete productive capacity -- its problems were a lack of leadership at all levels. Why did it lack leadership at all levels? Because Stalin murdered 98 of the 104 flag officers of the Red Army. That's another one of his major military mistakes. It's a long list.

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Competing theories of war actually played a significant role in the purging of Tukhachvsky, who found himself at odds with Marshal Vorishilov who was Stalin's civil war buddy, and an avid proponent of massed cavalary tactics. Tukhachevsky's ideas about war were identified as attempts at sabotage, essentially. He was also apparently something of a firebrand, whom made enemies.

So, "lack of leadership" actually resulted partly from the conflict of ideas, and the application of the politcally succesfull ideas (the wrong ones) led to distortions in the operational and technological abilities of the Soviet Army that were disasterous.

For instance, the Soviet army had no combined arms task force docterine, so Soviet ground attack aircraft could not operate in consort with the radioless infantry and armoured units on the ground. On the other hand they fielded excelent artillery, but still lacked for proper command co-ordination.

The bright spot, was actually on the strategic level were Marshal Shaposhnikov, correctly read the grand aspects of mass mobiliazation and production, as an essential aspect of war fighting. Some of his ideas seem to surface in Soviet Cold War attitudes in particular Shaposhnikov's main thesis: "Mobilization for war, is war."

So, the initial operational failures, which resulted from the purging of Tukhachevsky in favour of Vorishilov's outmoded civil war ideas, as well as the liquidation of a whole generation of field commanders, was made up for by the sheer bulk of space afforded by the Russian terrain, and Russia's ability to outproduce (assissted by US lend-lease) and outman (ala Shaposhikov's ambitious mobilization reform) their enemies and buy enough time to learn what it was necessary to learn, in order for Zhukov to gain the political space and assert Tukhachevsky ideas.

At least that is the way I see it.

[ 23 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by rsfarrell:

The Russian army had adequete productive capacity -- its problems were a lack of leadership at all levels. Why did it lack leadership at all levels? Because Stalin murdered 98 of the 104 flag officers of the Red Army. That's another one of his major military mistakes. It's a long list.

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And Hitler ordered his field commanders not to retreat. Rommel disobeyed while Paulus sacrificed hundreds of thousands for for the sake of the fuhrer. Hitler was said to be shuffling military pieces around a map of Russia and Europe which weren't representative of losses reported in the field. Hitler fancied himself a Roman battle line tactician whereas Stalin, a screwup in his own right, allowed his generals to call the shots in the end. German generals with field experience were increasingly rewarded with desk jobs and promotions. None of them wanted the Russian front.

At Kursk, Soviet T-34 tanks were driven or manned by women volunteers. The T-34's were supposed to be fitted with larger gun barrels to defend against the larger and heavier German Panzers, some of which were assembled at the German subsdiary, Ford Werkes. The Nazis drove GM and Ford trucks all over Europe.

Russian soldiers crawled out to no man's land under the cover of the night in order to dig up Nazi land mines. The Russian's had none of that were dependable and turned German "preparedness" against their enemy. They re-positioned the Nazi landmines during the night. Thousands of Russian soldiers were simply run over by German tanks. Panzer's had a greater range with their 88 mm guns than the Soviet T-34's, about a third of which were without shells for what would be the largest tank battle in history. A defenseless T-34, and often times driven by a Russian Olga and tapping the driver on shoulder to turn left and right, would drive hard at an oncoming Panzer in an act of sheer bravado and ram it in an attempt to knock the tracks off while a T-34 with ammo would zero in on the target. They sacrificed themselves in many cases.

I don't think the Soviets were nearly as prepared as the corporate-sponsored Nazis were. The Nazis ran out of gasoline, but not for a lack of trying to obtain alternative fuel from coal extraction technology handed them by Standard Oil. There were German soldiers on horseback and on foot near the end. Tito and guerilla fighters sabotaged the fuel supply line from the Balkan's and Turkey. Had the Nazis been able to secure that route to Turkey and then middle East, the war might have turned out differently. We can thank Serb's and Montenegrin's for that outcome.

Hitler ordered an expansion of the army and watering-down of the Panzer divisions with lesser tanks and artillary. The Panzers were key to various German victories up to that point.

Hitler refused to listen to his field generals who wanted to abandon the Roman battle line attack. The Nazi field commanders advised taking all of what they had left and air dropping it behind the Russian front lines. Some historian's say it would have caught the Russian's in disarray and allowed the Nazis to takeover key cities. The Nazis might have been unstoppable after that. Imo, it was Hitler's bad decision making and intervention in battle plans that cost the Nazis the war with Russia. I think we can thank Hitler for the Volkswagen and sabotaging the Nazis efforts in the end.

[ 23 October 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Actually, KV85 and T34's (adapted with the 85mm Long barrel) were a mainstay of Soviet armour at Kursk, in addition to the earlier T34 with the quite usful 76.2 MM main gun, of the earlier version.) The soviets also employed large numbers of SU 122 and SU 152 heavy Assault guns.

It is true that a handful of the lumbering heavy Tiger 1 tanks with 88mm main guns made their first appearance of the war, but the main armour forces of the German army were MK IV's with a 75mm gun (rough parity to the T 34 -- 76.2mm) and outgunned by the KV85's and T 34/85's.

More important than the Tiger (88's) was the introduction of the Panther (PZKw Mk V) medium tank with its superior grade long -- 75mm gun adapted from the Germany 75mm Pak antitank gun, and its sloped (T 34 like) front plating.

Overall, Russian armour had, if anything a slight edge on German euipment, especially given that Russian tanks were begining to be equipped with intercom and radio, especially numerically.

SU-152 at Kursk -- No taversable turret but that is one big gun, its effectivenss against Tiger I's had a direct impact on the Soviet decision to create JS 2 complete with 122mm gun.)

It was a colosal dust up, and a I think the whole war was a complete waste fo time energy and resouces better spent elsewhere.

[ 23 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by venus_man:
Russia is Russia, they way it was a 1000 years ago or during Peter the great....

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So, "lack of leadership" actually resulted partly from the conflict of ideas, and the application of the politcally succesfull ideas (the wrong ones) led to distortions in the operational and technological abilities of the Soviet Army that were disasterous.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
For a Grade 12 history essay, this rates an F.

What a load of ahistorical crap.

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What's the historic approach then?

[ 23 October 2005: Message edited by: venus_man ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
For what it is worth:

Actually, KV85 and T34's (adapted with the 85mm Long barrel) were a mainstay of Soviet armour at Kursk, in addition to the earlier T34 with the quite usful 76.2 MM main gun, of the earlier version.) The soviets also employed large numbers of SU 122 and SU 152 heavy Assault guns.

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You must remember that not only were the Russians superior in number of tanks, they also were fighting against an assault upon a prepared position, so Russian anti-tank guns and heavy assault guns like the Su 122 and Su 152, counted far more in favour of the Soviets, as German static artillery of any kind would have to be drawn up into the line of battle and fight in exposed position.

The Germans seemed to have forgotten the lessons they had taught the world about manouver warfare (and I see Hitlers guiding strategic hand here,) and threw their very best into a heavily fortified enemy position at less than even odds.

Certainly a terrible slaughter ensued, but I would not call Kursk a classic military victory for the Russians, except in the manner that so many of histories truly decisive victories are derived from the battle plans of the losers not from the genius or tenacity of the winner.

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

By what I've read, the wehrmacht was organized by class distinction with upper ranking officers being drawn from aristocracy, a leave over from the days of the kaisers army. Some Wehrmacht survivors were saying that the more ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers were made to wear a similar or same death-head lapel pin as what the waffen SS wore. I don't know if that was true or not, and apparently the Russian's shot them to death regardless rather than attempt to sort ordinary German soldiers from the deliberate killers. And so the wehrmacht, many of them conscripted into combat and not really believing in the effort, thought that if they doffed the pins, red army soldiers wouldn't mistake them for the bad asses. It didn't matter for them in the end though. I wonder about the pin story though.

I think that time and memories were too much for some of them to recall. This little old Russian was telling about his most important life experience at Kursk, and it was really something. In the end, these German wehrmacht'ers were on their way by bus to Kursk? for a re-union with those they'd fought against. The German's did not wear any military memorabilia by what I recall, and they were wondering what kind of reception they would encounter. You could sense the tension for them. Of course, vodka and schnapps flowed and lots of tears and warm embraces. There were these old Russian chaps decked-out in full military garb with medals galore, waiting for their old enemies on better terms. You could see it in their eyes and words that they'd been haunted by that battle for the rest of their lives. I think the re-union was a kind of therapy for them.

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

A lot of good people stayed loyal to it anyway, and fought and died for it, but they deserved a better system to be loyal to.

But the mistake made by the right-wing historians has been to blame the idealists, and not those who betrayed the people's ideals.

They weren't wrong to want a better world.

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Red Albertan:
Please cite a source for this claim

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One word, Biopolitics.

I think Bordiga had a good point on the revolution. It was either going to be a terain of decentralized egalitarian subsistance, or a centralized nightmare. There was no in between(for all the deluded liberals out there) While Bordiga ultimately had some regretable views, his insights were interesting.

"Workers of the world, cut off your hands, shave your heads and await the probe! You have nothing to lose but your sense of balance!"

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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In Russia, in 1861, the people, who had for centuries been kept in slavery by the landowners, were unable to launch a wide spread, open and conscious struggle for freedom. The peasant revolts of those days remained isolated, scattered, spontaneous “riots”, which were easily suppressed. The abolition of serfdom was effected, not by an insurrectionary people, but by the government, which realised after its defeat in the Crimean War[3] that it was no longer possible to maintain the system of serfdom.

It was the landowners themselves, the landowning government of the autocratic tsar and his officials, that “emancipated” the peasants in Russia. And these “emancipators” manipulated matters in such a way that the peasants entered “freedom” stripped to the point of pauperism; they were released from, slavery to the landowners to fall into bondage to the very same landowners and their flunkeys.

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V I Lenin

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Originally posted by ctrl190:
Thanks for the support everyone. Afraid I can't cite anyone...the idea of seeking information about Lenin from a left-leaning forum may not go too well with my wooden teacher.

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Made of wood, huh?

Yes Humans do organize, however in revolutionary situations, if the organizing and tactics are not in accordance with the reality you want to create then you are bound to fail. Human organizing is best done in a reciporical manner, in which does not fuck over the ballance between individual and social. From this when something like a factory takeover happens it happens in an informal unconrollable manner manner. And fundametally things should be contextualised to a given situation.Not driven by any governmentality. Decentralized blueprints if you want to call it that. Ideally one of a union of individuals.

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Vigilante ]

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Vigilante ]

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Originally posted by eastcoast:
I would not hesitate to add Lenins name (along with Stalin,Mao,Hitler,PolPot etc) to the list of worst human beings of the Twentieth century.

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Originally posted by Vigilante:
Well Cueball, we're getting semantical. You wish to call those things blueprints and instrumentality fine.[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Vigilante ]

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Vigilante ]

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Originally posted by eastcoast:
I would not hesitate to add Lenins name (along with Stalin,Mao,Hitler,PolPot etc) to the list of worst human beings of the Twentieth century.

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The Great Leap aside, Mao reduced infant mortality in China from worse than India's in 1949 to better than India's IM rate today by 1976. Improvements in Chinese infant mortality were greater under Mao than at any other time in Chinese history. World Bank statistics back this up.

Hitler was a stooge of western industrialists and banking elite. Do a google search for Prescott Bush. It's sickening.

The Khmer Rouge were funded and trained by the CIA and green berets as well as China.

You might want to add the doctor and the madman to your list. Dubya is well on his way to becoming a runner up

And if East Coast is at all interested in mass murdering dictators friendly with the west, I started a thread here several weeks ago.

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Cueball:
Therefore your mode of discourse must match your mode of execution, as well, therefore the term blue print, and the cunundrum I expressed contains is Trojan Horse you despise.

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What exactly is your point? I used the term blueprint in a very definitive way. That being tied to centralized mentality. And obviously discourse and execution should match, that's the point I'm making...they should be consistant. Unlike say...discourse=communism - execution="temporary" state. Or egalitarian society with non-egalitarian techniques. Or finally replacing a mode of governmentality with a different form governmentality.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Well of the people you mentioned, save Hitler, are on the left. Your failure to mention anyone from any other category is a strange exculsion given that it is arguable that the name John Negraponte, is at least indirectly associated with as much death as either Stalin or Hitler.

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The people I mentioned were dictatorial mass murderers. That's why I mentioned them.

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Vigilante ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Is that because they're semi-illiterate in those red, have-not, states and couldn't finger the latest oil-rich nation slated for bombing on a world map if their lives depended on it, ec?.

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Stick to Canadian bacon, Ice Hockey & draft dodgers okay.....things you know something about.

Leave World Domination to us.

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Originally posted by eastcoast:

Stick to Canadian bacon, Ice Hockey & draft dodgers okay.....things you know something about.

Leave World Domination to us.

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You guys are so bad at that. You make Hitler look like a genius.

The fact that someone whose best insult grovels at the level of a grade 6 (did you pass or fail) taunt, such as this;

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but then that might be akin to child abuse, so I refrain.

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Is in "media," is an exact example of why you guys are shit at empire, enter Condelezza Rice, exuant Colin Powell.

Lol. It speaks volumes that the only guy who had any sense of politic or dipliomacy and empire, not to mention the only actually combat Vetran, in the Bush-league administration is now persona non grata with the US government.

Poor Titus:

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Hear me, grave fathers! noble tribunes, stay!
For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent
In dangerous wars, whilst you securely slept;
For all my blood in Rome's great quarrel shed;
For all the frosty nights that I have watch'd;
And for these bitter tears, which now you see
Filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks;
Be pitiful to my condemned sons,
Whose souls are not corrupted as 'tis thought.
For two and twenty sons I never wept,
Because they died in honour's lofty bed.

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[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Vigilante:

What exactly is your point? I used the term blueprint in a very definitive way. That being tied to centralized mentality. And obviously discourse and execution should match, that's the point I'm making...they should be consistant. Unlike say...discourse=communism - execution="temporary" state. Or egalitarian society with non-egalitarian techniques. Or finally replacing a mode of governmentality with a different form governmentality.

That's what instrumentality is, as critiqued by the likes of Heidegger.

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And of note to Fidel, the Heidegger charge does get tireing after a while. He and other academics were in the same boat as many school children who had to join the Hitler youth.

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Originally posted by eastcoast:

Stick to Canadian bacon, Ice Hockey & draft dodgers okay.....things you know something about.

Leave World Domination to us.

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And we'll continue living longer and enjoying lower infant mortality, here, and in 40 other countries with socialized medicine while you guys prop-up the corporate welfare state and count body bags coming home from the Middle East.

Bring'em home. No more blood for oil.

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Cueball:
I have a very good friend who believes (and note that I do not necessarily subscribe to this view) that actually national socialism was not "modernist," but actually a throw-back. Nonetheless the argument was interesting, and I don't have time to go into it now.

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Why would you, based on a very limited description of an idea,

1) say that you understand it

2) Immediatly cross-associate it as means of condemnation.

[ 28 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

As much as we decry the hierarchical structuring of the Russian society, Lenin's shock treatment did far more harm than good. Under the Tsars the serfs were freed from serfdom and the Tsar was planning more release of power until WWI happened. WWI was very unfortunate for Russian society because it had regressed the surprising progressive gains in Russia over the previous 30 years.

Under the Tsars the common folk were left alone. You had more to fear of them if you were from the gentry. The reformed serfs were ostensibly left alone with little obligations. Not so under Lenin.

quote:

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Originally posted by Raskolnikov:
I'm dropping in late here but I don't think there's really much debate over the fact that the standard of living went down for everyone in Russia after Lenin took over.

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But I must tell you you are arguing from ignorance. There is in fact no general agreement that the standard of living of "everyone" went down after the October Revolution.

There were considerable hardships, of course, as there had been before, because of the "Great War", but they were aggravated by the murderous military counter-revolutionary war launched by the capitalist powers against the new Bolshevik regime.

quote:

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Originally posted by Raskolnikov:
They went from slavery to feudalism to mass murder.

So yes I would say they gained and then regressed.

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quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:

But I must tell you you are arguing from ignorance. There is in fact no general agreement that the standard of living of "everyone" went down after the October Revolution.

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You're right the Communist Party members made out a lot better. If you would read a book on the topic instead of believing the 'official' history of life after the revolution you will find that poverty became even more widespread. The Russian countryside was engaged in nascent capitalism whereby commoners began to buy land and gasp finally be able to grow and sell their own agriculture. I will not deny that the system was ideal. Far from it, taxes were burdensome and social attitudes from the gentry of dominion were still quite alive.

After the revolution though everyone was under the dominion of the communist party and Lenin's psychosis. Lenin was hardly the misunderstood hero or tough loving benevolent totalitarian. He was a mass murderer. The evidence quite accessible read up on it.

What did Lenin accomplish? He appropriated all the farms the common people spent the past 15 years toiling to buy and make productive. He's centrally planned brain child was faulty from the beginning as the peasants rightly disagreed, production steeply declined, Russian's went hungry and resisters were raped and murdered.

Lenin's plan was so horribly designed and out of tune with Russian reality. He should have listened to the genius Marx when he asserted that Russia would be the last place for a communist revolution to occur. Lenin was an academic who had no clue about the Russian countryside or how life was improving for them. He formed a revolutionary platform for Russia's then quite small industrial workers who represented a miniscule fraction of the population. When his revolution was succesful he further proved that he had no idea of the agrarian culture of Russia by attempting to take their hard earned farms. Reading his platforms on life after the revolution shows his outright denial of anything substantial on the Russian peasantry. How he could overlook this crucially important population is mindblowing and idiotic.

quote:

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There were considerable hardships, of course, as there had been before, because of the "Great War", but they were aggravated by the murderous military counter-revolutionary war launched by the capitalist powers against the new Bolshevik regime.

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Both sides were horrible and murderous in this affair. The Red Army was hardly laudable. They stole food and killed whole vilages.

quote:

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The gains made by the serfs under Tsarism and the "concentration camps" under Lenin are as fictional as your nickname.

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Is that so? The burden of proof is on you to show that the serfs did gain nothing through the abolition of serfdom, laws against the physical punishment of serfs, imposing maximum taxation levels for peasants on the gentry, the building of schools in rural communities by the Tsars are all fictional.

It is also the burden of proof to demonstrate that concentration camp numbers did not swell enormously almost instantly after the October revolution. Infact look at the numbers of Russian peasants killed by the Tsars and by the Communists. Sure the 1905 revolution was heinous but the massacres that have been unreported or deleted from the official record since the October revolution remain a far more troubling stain on Russian history.

Now please, I have books to read. I suggest you do the same.

edit: formatting

[ 29 October 2005: Message edited by: Raskolnikov ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Have I got a thread for you.

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What's your point? Because I disagree with the brutal murderous oppression of an entire nation under a communist government signifies that I will agree with brutal murderous oppression of a right wing government?

My point was things weren't nearly as bad under the Tsars. It's not a right-left thing. It's a quantitative analysis.

[ 29 October 2005: Message edited by: Prima Donna ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Prima Donna:
The Russian revolution was a catastrophe, no question about it. It could have been avoided had the Tsarist regime been more willing to compromise.
Evolution is better than revolution, but the world doesn't always work tha way.

[ 29 October 2005: Message edited by: Prima Donna ]

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If WWI had not happened. If Nicholas II had not committed a country to an industrial war it was woefully unprepared for because of his own ego the catastrophe of the Bolshevik revolution would have been avoided.

quote:

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Originally posted by Prima Donna:
The Russian revolution was a catastrophe, no question about it. It could have been avoided had the Tsarist regime been more willing to compromise.
Evolution is better than revolution, ...

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... like the joke popular among average Soviets:

Sir, where were you born?
-- Saint Petersburg.
Where did you grow up?
-- Petrograd.
Where do you live now?
-- Leningrad.
If you could live anywhere else, where would it be?
-- Saint Petersburg.

..........

Well, maybe now he does....

[ 29 October 2005: Message edited by: Geneva ]

quote:

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Originally posted by ctrl190:
How much better was Lenin's reign in power compared to that of Tsar Nicholas II?

Was there an overall improvement? Did Lenin effectively apply Marx's ideals to the Soviet Union, or did Lenin's shift to an authoritarian state lead the way for Stalinism?

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In the spring of 1922 he fell ill:

quote:

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the cause was put down to one of the bullets he had taken in 1918 and this was removed from his neck and he recovered rapidly. But a month later he faced paralysis and was unable to speak. He recovered by June and set about establishing the U.S.S.R., which was finally created on 30 December. However, just before the creation, he was again semi-paralysed and over the next month he dictated a number of articles to his secretary warning about the party falling under the control of the forceful personalities of Stalin or Trotsky. In March 1923 he suffered a stroke that would render him speechless from then until his death. It was a second stroke on the evening of 21 January 1924 that eventually killed him.

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It is true that a number of posters above seem to be generalizing wildly about the whole Soviet regime under the single name Lenin, but he certainly had more than four years as a very strong leader and had long before put his intellectual stamp on Bolshevik and subsequent Soviet politics.

In the context of the civil war and foreign pressures, it is also probably true that his hand was often forced during his few years in power, but it is hard to imagine that that situation would have changed much even given another decade.

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Lenin's Testament among other things criticized top-ranking communists such as Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. Of Stalin, who had been the Communist Party's general secretary since April 1922, Lenin said that he had "unlimited authority concentrated in his hands" and suggested that "comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post". Lenin's wife discovered the paper in Lenin's study, and read it to the central committee, who while believing parts of it, did not take it to heart, and as such, these sharp criticisms of the internal party were not more widely released.

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I think that neither Lenin nor Trotsky grasped until too late just how much manoeuvring Stalin had been doing with the rest of the Bolshevik leadership. Lenin's break with Stalin came very late; he may have advised Trotsky to denounce Stalin just before suffering his most serious stroke, but then he was incapacitated. A number of other leaders who would later be more sympathetic to Trotsky were temporarily allied with Stalin, and the wheels just came off.

Very sad for that entire first generation of old Bolsheviks. By 1938, I believe Stalin had managed to liquidate them all except for Trotsky, and he finally succeeded in having Trotsky bumped off in Mexico two years later.

Whatever any of the others was guilty of, it still seems to me possible to contextualize them all historically and politically, all except for Stalin. I do think it is fair to read Stalin as an autocrat, as a phenomenon that the rest of the Bolshevik leadership did not read well enough soon enough because he was so unlike them, such an exception in their terms.

quote:

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:
Interesting discussion, but most babblers get an F for failing to read the question.

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The essential question is, given that Lenin's reign was so short, did Lenin set into motion inevevitable processess that led to invevitably to tyrrany?

I personally, am not a fan of the "great man" (ne Person) theory of history, wherein, we attack sole responsibility for great events, both good and bad to a single man, or party. On the other hand I also think it is a mistake

My view is that many of the objective conditions surounding the revolution, both before, and a long time after indicate that much of the social unpheavals, supression and fighting were events that came directly from the social conditions, and that any persons who chose to put some kind of order upon the Russian empire, and also move it forward would have had to make decisions regarding similar dilemas, that likely would have resulted in similar catastrophes.

There were two general dilemas confronted by any Russian leadership, "Internal" and "External."

Externally the Leninist leadership (having iheritted a massive problems) were forced to answered two key questions, which greatly influenced the chain of events that appear as sub-questions from the main question, how can "the revolution" and Russia survive:

• Should the Russian Empire be maintained at its maximum perimeter of expansion?
• Should engage in a rapid indutrialization program to meet the external threat of the other European powers?

In both cases the answered yes, and within these answers was the seeds of so much of the destruction, which followed.

Inernally, and this is an area which Lenin had much more direct control over, Lenin and the bolsheviks had to create a mode of governance. The Bolsehviks chose to use the communist party as the main mode of answering the "internal" dilema, through the mechanism of "Democratic Centralism," and this took on autocratic forms, partly because of the extreme nature of social disorder but also because of what I believe are the natural anti-democratic tendencies of "Democratic Centralism" as a mode.

I also believe that the power struggle, which ensued after Lenin's death were a direct result of this autocratic system of leadership, and the implimentation of party discipline through the system of Democratic Centralism, and that it is here that Lenin's greatest politcal impact was felt, in Russia and throughout the world through the Comintern.

In summary the larger questions I listed above had to be answered by anyone who took on the job of leadership of Russia, and I think it is almost inevitable that were they not to answer them in the affirmative, they would have been replaced by someone who would, and it is very likely that they would have found need to impliment some kind of repressive dictarship in order to do so.

This is more or less what happened to Karensky when he was replaced by Lenin.

[ 30 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Lenin completely subverted the intention of what the Russian people seemed to want out of the Russian Revolution as can be easily seen by his handling of the Kronstadt uprising. Whether Lenin was true to his own vision is another matter, however. Lenin always planned on a dictatorship headed up by a small number of Bolsheviks. His argument was that only he and his planners at the top could bring about a communist state: essentially, he thought, the people were too stupid. Whether he actually tried to implement policies to try to bring about a communist state, or whether he just imposed policies to favour himself and his allies is a matter of debate I suppose.

[ 30 October 2005: Message edited by: Adam T ]

quote:

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My view is that many of the objective conditions surounding the revolution, both before, and a long time after indicate that much of the social unpheavals, supression and fighting were events that came directly from the social conditions, and that any persons who chose to put some kind of order upon the Russian empire, and also move it forward would have had to make decisions regarding similar dilemas, that likely would have resulted in similar catastrophes.

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Really? I doubt that. My guess is that if the Duma had been allowed to meet and take power, as 40 million Russians had voted for, the future might have been entirely different.

The army didn't want to fight, and despite the fact that Karensky was such a democrat, he refused to make terms with Germany. It was necessary to give up Poland, in order to save the friggin rest of it. Because Keransky balked, the army rebelled and he was replaced by Lenin.

In fact the only thing unusual, as far as the major European armies of the day were concerned, was that the Russian army rebelled first. The primary reason the war ended in the west was because it was apparent that the armies of Germany, France and England were poised to do the same.

You think that he and 5000 odd Bolshevik operators did the whole coup on their own, without the help of a broad mass of people, and the army?

I knew that a knee-jerk anti-Lenists would pick that paragraph out for attack, because of its Stalanist overtones. Not that I mind anti-Leninist's only the knee jerk kind. I'm an anti-Leninist myself. Of course, they aren't interested in the other aspects of my arguement, which isn't very flattering to Lenin. But I know, any attempt to talk about Lenin and the Bolsheviks, as any thing other than very very very very very naughty boys, is beyond some people it seems.

Don't you have anything better to offer than the naughty boy theory of history?

You're not a very convincing historian. What about answering the question, what happened and how. If Karensky was so beloved by the 40,000,000 you are talking about, why weren't they there to save his ass?

[ 31 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Yes, there is no question military support was the main reason Lenin won.

Whether Kerensky could have made a deal with the Germany back in February/March 1918 (depending on which calendar) is highly debatable. The turning point in the war was the entry of the Americans on the western front. They were barely involved in March of 1918. Had Russia tried to get a peace agreement back then, the terms would have been far worse than they ultimately were, and there is a possibility Germany may not have been interested in peace as they were quite close to Petrograd (the then capital of Russia). Germany would have loved to have captured Russian and all of its resources. So, at a minimum, Russian troops were required to remain on the front and defend their country.

When I said Duma earlier, I was referring to the constituent assembly. Kerensky's allies did very poorly in the vote, but so did the Bolsheviks. The agrarian Social Revolutionary Pary and their allies were the big winner taking nearly 60% of the vote.

That they and their allies received nearly 60% of the vote certainly suggests that Russia was far less divided than you seem to believe.

Had the constituent assembly been allowed to write a constitution and had a Duma been elected after that that most likely would have been dominated by Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, the future of Russia would likely have been very different.

What policies they would have implemented beyond land reform I have no idea, but they would certainly have been helped by the fact that the war was over.

Anyway, please illuminate me on the good points of Lenin, I could use a laugh.

[ 31 October 2005: Message edited by: Adam T ]

quote:

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The Bolsehviks chose to use the communist party as the main mode of answering the "internal" dilema, through the mechanism of "Democratic Centralism," and this took on autocratic forms, partly because of the extreme nature of social disorder

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In fact, what I did was try and explain what happened and why. I am not interested in wether he was a "good" man or a "bad" man.

Was Peter the great a "good" man?
Was Napoleon a "good" man?
Was Ceasar a "good" man?

What a stupid exercise.

It is only intellectual troglodyes who insist on turning ever historical episode into some kind of morality play, and it is usually done in the defence of some cherrished ideological predisposition, at the detriment to any real understanding of process and therefore history.

For instance, does this sound like Cuball lauding Lenin's brilliance, from earlier in the thread when when discussing Franco Venturi:

quote:

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It explictly does not talk about Leninism. In fact Venturi specifically set out not to mention Leninism, and in fact the name Lenin appears only once.
It is apparent that Venturi wanted to seperate the historical and social context of the Russian revolution from the legacy of Lenin, as it was hyped for the purposes of Bolshevik political propoganda, and look at the concrete conditions, and the mode of thought that was the underlying Russian social movements that led to the revolution, without the much enlarged shadow of Lenin, as the sole spokespeson of the Russian revolution, which the latter day Soviet historians, and the state they served, used as the centerpiece of the ideological mandate.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Adam T:

This is simply not true. Lenin had argued for a dictatorship governed by a tiny 'elite' at the head of the Communist Party long before he ever took power.

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That is not at all the case. The idea of "Democratic Centralism," is compltetely different from that of the "Vanguard of the Proletariat," which is what you are talking about.

They are two distinct ideas.

[ 31 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Adam T:

Whether Kerensky could have made a deal with the Germany back in February/March 1918 [sic](depending on which calendar) is highly debatable. The turning point in the war was the entry of the Americans on the western front. They were barely involved in March of 1918[sic]. Had Russia tried to get a peace agreement back then, the terms would have been far worse than they ultimately were, and there is a possibility Germany may not have been interested in peace as they were quite close to Petrograd (the then capital of Russia). Germany would have loved to have captured Russian and all of its resources. So, at a minimum, Russian troops were required to remain on the front and defend their country.*

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While I agree generally that the US entry into the war was pivotal to allied victory, this does not obviate my point regarding the morale of the armies of Europe at the end of the war:

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Of the contributions made by American forces to the Allied effort in World War I, the most important may have been the Americans' role in reviving French morale. Arriving in June 1917 after the failure of the Nivelle offensive and amid a spate of mutinies within the French Army, the Americans initially did little to reassure French soldiers in the trenches, but their eager entry into battle against the German offensive in March 1918 soon contributed significantly to restoring French morale and assuring Allied victory. Without this assistance, the French Army might have disintegrated and the Germans emerged victorious.

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That they and their allies received nearly 60% of the vote certainly suggests that Russia was far less divided than you seem to believe.

Had the constituent assembly been allowed to write a constitution and had a Duma been elected after that that most likely would have been dominated by Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, the future of Russia would likely have been very different.

What policies they would have implemented beyond land reform I have no idea, but they would certainly have been helped by the fact that the war was over.

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But would the war have been over?

This is why I asked you earlier, what do you mean by "Russian people." Trying to say that Russians, were not "divided" in 1917 is like looking into a box of timbits and saying: "look, they are all the same donut."

In fact the 'estate' passed onto Karensky, as it was to Lenin, by Czar Nicholas was nothing but a patchwork quilt of ethnicities tied together by Russian power, at the time less than 40% of all "Russian people" (subjects of the Czar) were Slavs and of those a huge number counted themselves and Ukrainian, not Russian.

What of the Tadjiks, Uzbeks, Khazaks, Armenians, Georgians, Chechyns, Estonians, etc. etc?

It is at least nominally true that the stresses caused by multi-ethnic, multi-national state of Russia contributed greatly to the final collapse of the USSR. I don't think anyone serious doubts that.

So, apart from "agrarian reform," the SR's et al, whom you assert as some kind of panacea to the "red terror" would have in fact had to answer the key question: "Russia as Russian only, or Russia as the center of the widened Czarist Empire?"

Again, would the war have truly been over, as you suggest?

This is in fact the question that has bedevilled all Russian rulers for 400 years, since it was pulled together from the remains of Novogorod, and triumphant Moscowy. It is so much a part of Russian history, and the policies of every government ever to sit, that it might rightly be called the Russian question.

The evidence of ten years of war in Chechnya, supervised by theoretical "democrats" begs the question; is the war over, even now?

What about that Estonian Seccession, eh? What of it?

Now if you hadn't been so insitant in using this opportunity to start beating your time warn anti-Bolshevik drum, you might have understood what I was trying to say about the greater startegic questions facing any government trying to rule Russia after the collapse of the monarchy.

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The Communist victory was at the same time a defeat for the various nationalist movements of the non-Russian peoples. The hopes of the Tatars and Bashkirs, between the Kazan area and the southern Urals, were ruined in the course of the civil war. The Communists proclaimed the right of self-determination, but in practice they imposed the dictatorship of the Russian Communist Party on them. In Tashkent the Muslim population remained mistrustful of any Russian authorities, and for some years guerrilla bands of nationalists, known as Basmachi, harassed the Communist authorities.

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On War

Are you absolutely sure that your SR/Menshevik coalition would have given over the South Ural steppes (territories that had been in Russia proper since before Pugachev.) and the Caucuses to the indepedence movements, or respected Armenian sovereignty?

If they had would they have survived, or would have some enterprising nationalist (ne Monarchist general) insisted on saving Russia from thier liberal ideas?

It is hypothetical question of course, but my instinct tells me that the 1920's were goning to be pretty brutal no matter whom was at the helm.

At least you could accept that these are valid questions, because it wasn't as if Russia, as it existed in 1917, was anything like a homgenous, uni-lingual, uni-ethnic state, where one even might be able to concieve as such a thing as a general unified will of "a people," in the singular form.

I ask: 60% of what vote; by whom? Did Tadjik's vote? I am supsicious of anyone who says that they did in any great numbers, or that anyone really cared.

I imagine that many people, especially those in the far flung reaches of the empire for whom the results of the "revolutions" had terrible results, concieved of these changes of the guard more or less like in-fighting between their Russian bosses.

*A typo, surely, the year decribed is 1917, not 1918.

[ 31 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Adam T, one thought: while I agree that Leninist democratic centralism began rigid in theory and got worse in practice, it is important to recognize that all serious modern thought about democracy (since the C17) has differentiated itself from sheer populism or the simply demotic. Democrats are commonly supposed to assume that there are minimal conditions necessary for the building and defence of democracy, that certain fundamental human principles will be defended by state structures (the courts, eg, interpreting constitutions and bills of rights) rather than left to the whims of shifting majority votes.

Although we pretend, idealistically, that citizens are born as citizens, democratic theory in fact argues that citizens are made, through education. No one is born a democrat -- defending some democratic principles is a counter-intuitive thing to do, and people must learn to do that.

Recognizing that hard truth means that we already sanction a certain kind of centralism (however corrupt in its present form). Not just anybody gets to be a Supreme Court justice, eg. (Well: in theory. ) The trick for democrats is preventing the emergence of elites, an oligarchy -- the western developed nations still haven't mastered that trick, I would say.

I read here that:

quote:

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the Red Army decisive beat back the Poles and drove into the heart of Poland. Now that their enemies had been beaten back, the Red Army began what Franz Borkenau called "the attempt to carry revolution into the West with Russian bayonets." As Borkenau elaborates:

Trotsky, in the gazette of his armoured train, wrote an article in which he claimed to see the Red Army, after defeating the Whites, conquer Europe and attack America. And Sinovjev, in number 1 of the Communist International, prophesied that within a year not only would all of Europe be a Soviet republic, but would already be forgetting that there had ever been a fight for it.

One year later, the second meeting of the Comintern coincided with the Red Army's offensive into Poland. Zinoviev addressed the conference, and joked about his overly optimistic prediction:

"[P]erhaps we have been carried away; probably, in reality, it will need not one year but two or three years before all Europe is one Soviet republic. If you are so modest that one or two years' delay seems to you extraordinary bliss, we can only congratulate you for your moderation."

Representatives of the Polish Communist Party, slightly more informed of real conditions in Poland, voiced the concern that the Polish proletariat was unlikely to take up arms to aid the Red Army's invasion. Trotsky too had doubts, but Lenin urged on the attack.

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Here again we can note the theoretical wandering of Lenin and the Bolsheviks: their defence of democracy and the wish to establish a proletarian democracy. The whole debate between them and the social-democrats (especially Kautsky and Bauer) was a huge quid pro quo. The latter called the Bolsheviks undemocratic; the Bolsheviks replied that they were realizing democracy, not pure democracy, but true democracy: democracy for the vast majority etc.. But this was impossible in Russia as this country could either go far beyond democracy, or engender despotism, given the historico-social character. This aided the social-democrats' positions given that the dictatorship of the proletariat was rapidly reduced to that of the party and so that of the state. The defence of democracy in the west could only be a defence of capital, but the Bolsheviks could not state that theoretically and practically as they were enlisted in the glorification of revolutionary parliamentarianism. Perhaps only Bordiga took a revolutionary position: total rejection of democracy [9], but his break was rapidly readsorbed due the position he took on the Russian revolution and the Communist International. The revolutionaries acted under the level of historical potentialities. If "words overflowed the content" in 1848, as Marx said, after 1917 in the West, words masked the inability to seize the content."

Jacques Camatte

PS...Democracy was never going to happen.

I posted the whole peace before but perhaps it warrents some attention here too.

I strongly disagree with this. All leaders have constraints, but I've seen very few times where leaders have only one choice.

I don't pretend to know anywhere near as much as you about Russian/Soviet history following the October (November) Revolution, in fact I don't know much at all, but I would suggest you examine the choices Lenin and the other Communist Party leaders had at these times:

1.In regards to the possible seperatism of various Russian/Soviet regions, would the world have ended if Lenin had allowed those areas to hold referendums on whether they wanted to be independent nations?

2.Did the Communists have to be so brutal in suppressing the Kronstadt rebellion? Indeed, did they have to supress it at all?

3.Couldn't Lenin have agreed to hand power to the Constituent Assembly and whatever form of constitution/parliament it decided on?

[ 31 October 2005: Message edited by: Adam T ]

And the alternative should have been "no rulers" as many in Russia and througout eastern europe wanted.

As for how fucked up things were Emma G reading should suffice.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1920s/disillusionment/

[ 31 October 2005: Message edited by: Vigilante ]

Was France better under monarchy or under Napoleon? I highly doubt anyone would bother asking this question as a premis for a discussion of the French revolution.

Certainly Napoleon was a brutal dictator, and imperialist, but is it entirely true that this was something that was at odds with the historical legacy handed to him by the monarchy that preceded the First Republic? Because at first blanche, the other European powers used the termporary disruption of French military power and social unrest to take advantage of her weakness for their own benefit. No. I think the roots of Napoleon's international ambitions, and the ferocious manner with which he and his revolutionary predecessors, dealt with dissent were entirely in accord with the methods, and modes of their predecessors.

Revolutions don't just pop into the picture, they come from somewhere, and can be the result of huge covulsion of built up social discord and frustrations. They are rarely pretty.

The French revolution was a fact, it had certain causes and certain consequences, its impact on France persist today and is still, by and large, the moral basis of French law: "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" -- name me a French politican who would publically denounce the principles, despite the terror of those who first professed their alleliance?

Why is it that so many who seem capable of seperating the moral imparatives of the French Revolutionaries from the misdeeds of their first practioners, seem incapable of doing the same with their Russian compatriots.

Could it be because the foundational principles of the French revolution are a nominally a part of the expressed ideological mandate which governs our society, and as such many have been indoctirnated to accept them 'prima facie,' while the Russian revolutionaries gave birth to a society which expressed a direct rejection of our world view?

Most of what I hear amounts to "old men grinding axes, the sound of ideologies clashing," rather than analysis of cause and effect.

quote:

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Why is it that so many who seem capable of seperating the moral imparatives of the French Revolutionaries from the misdeeds of their first practioners, seem incapable of doing the same with their Russian compatriots.

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If you are referring to me: where did I ever say that? I don't recall ever saying something like "it was unfortunate the Tsar was overthrown."

[ 31 October 2005: Message edited by: Adam T ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Adam T:
Cueball,
While I don't disagree with you that the 'great person' theory of history is incomplete, I also don't disagree with what you seem to be advocating. Of course all leaders face constraints on their choices, but to say that no matter who led Russia/Soviet Union they would have all made virtually the same choices suggests you believe in a 'TINA theory' of history (TINA = There Is No Alternative).

I strongly disagree with this. All leaders have constraints, but I've seen very few times where leaders have only one choice.

I don't pretend to know anywhere near as much as you about Russian/Soviet history following the October (November) Revolution, in fact I don't know much at all, but I would suggest you examine the choices Lenin and the other Communist Party leaders had at these times:

1.In regards to the possible seperatism of various Russian/Soviet regions, would the world have ended if Lenin had allowed those areas to hold referendums on whether they wanted to be independent nations?

2.Did the Communists have to be so brutal in suppressing the Kronstadt rebellion? Indeed, did they have to supress it at all?

3.Couldn't Lenin have agreed to hand power to the Constituent Assembly and whatever form of constitution/parliament it decided on?

[ 31 October 2005: Message edited by: Adam T ]

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Again you have misread my content. I did not exprress a "There is No Alternative" theory of history.

What I did was break down the questions facing Russian government in 1917 into two general areas, as I stated in my post above, but I will reiterate it perhaps more clearly:

1) The external questions of state soveriegnty and to some extent industrial progress. Things which may be construed as imparative defined by external preassures.

2) The internal questions of the mode of governance, or more directly the manner in which answered to "questions" were answered.

I hypothesized that almost any government might easily have ended up in the quagmire of interethnic strife in Estonia and elsewhere, and that the second area of "internal" questions would no doubt be impacted by those questions.

We need only look as far as 9/11 to see how even minor events (from a historical perspective) became the justification for the introduction of increasingly repressive police methods in the USA, and the reduction of constitutional rights.

However, I also tried to examine the area where Lenin concievably had the most latitude to 'make decisions' that had impact, and I identified that as the Internal question. I argued that the principle of Democratic Centralism was the central organizatonal device that wrought the repressive police state that was so handily used by Stalin to create absolute power.

In fact this division is clearly expressed in what actually happened, first in the civil war repression, and the repression of various dissenting voices outside of the Moscow party clique, and then later in the attack upon the party itself conducted by Stalin as part of his power struggle with Trotsky and other prominent Bolsehviks, internally.

[ 31 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

[ 31 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by ctrl190:
Just a question for clarification. Did the Tsar's reign allow free market opportunities for the peasants?

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Yes it did. Albeit very slowly. Things hastened for the six months or whatever that Russia was democratic. The entire process began with the abolution of serfdom by Alexander. The Russian monarchy apparently thought it a good idea to leave that little Adam Smith book on the shelf for 250 years or whatnot.

Try reading my posts before getting your knickers in a knot. If you had, you would have noted that I said:

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Inernally, and this is an area which Lenin had much more direct control over, Lenin and the bolsheviks had to create a mode of governance. The Bolsehviks chose to use the communist party as the main mode of answering the "internal" dilema, through the mechanism of "Democratic Centralism," and this took on autocratic forms, partly because of the extreme nature of social disorder but also because of what I believe are the natural anti-democratic tendencies of "Democratic Centralism" as a mode.

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I am really not suprised that your reading of soviet history is so shallow. Youcan't even seem to get through my posts without misrepresenting my views.

[ 31 October 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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1.In regards to the possible seperatism of various Russian/Soviet regions, would the world have ended if Lenin had allowed those areas to hold referendums on whether they wanted to be independent nations?

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Yes. Apparently Lenin, and the Bolsheviks, thought it would end.

The moral reality of this decision is muddied because these regions became the launching grounds for various anti-bolshevik Monarchist attacks against the center, whom the indepedence movements allied with. So, had the White Russians engaged in counter-revolutionary activities against the a hypothetical SR/Menshevik coalition, (something which is distinctly possible, especially if the Mensehviks allowed for secession of Russias hard won perpheral territories, which would have been viewed as wrecking Russia by the Whites, surely) I think it is very possible that they would have acted similarly, as Putin is doing today in Chechnya.

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2.Did the Communists have to be so brutal in suppressing the Kronstadt rebellion? Indeed, did they have to supress it at all?

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Exactly.

But faced with a similar rebellion within the armed forces, can we say categorically that the others, using any kind of model of "centralized government" would not have acted similarly. Had they not, would the strains of rampant unchecked rebellion spread throughout the country, yet again, once the center showed weakness, and would the country have fallen to the scheming of the Monarchists, taking advantage of the unrest?

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3.Couldn't Lenin have agreed to hand power to the Constituent Assembly and whatever form of constitution/parliament it decided on?

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Surely he could, but would that government have acted differently in the above two incident you described, or to take your thought experiment a little further, were the Bolshviks defeated and rousted from Moscow and St. Petersberg for agitation and sedition, might they not have moved to the periphery and begun agitation much in the same manner as the White Russians did, allying themselves with the independence movements, and creating similar conditions, whereupon the "democratic government" would feel compelled to repress the Bolsheviks, much in the same manner as the Bolsheviks felt compelled to supress the Anarchists at Kronsdadt?

Might we not today be crying about the sins of the blood thirsty Socialist Revolutionaries, and their terrifying supression of the Bolsheviks, whose sainthood remained unchallenged simply by the fact that their vision was left untried and untarnished by the test of actual power, as opposed to being viewed solely through the fine, yet forever theoretical, phrasings of Lenin's convincing hand?

[ 01 November 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Might we not today be crying about the sins of the blood thirsty Socialist Revolutionaries, and their terrifying supression of the Bolsheviks, whose sainthood remained unchallenged simply by the fact that their vision was left untried and untarnished by the test of actual power, as opposed to being viewed solely through the fine, yet forever theoretical, phrasings of Lenin's convincing hand?

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Had the Constituent Assembly written a constitution supported by the people and had a Duma been elected afterwards, then I think people looking back would have judged pretty harshly anybody fighting a government democratically elected (except for independece movements). I think people would have said is response to Bolsheviks using military means to achieve power:
1."Why don't they try to win power through democratic means like everybody else?"
2."Whatever the democratically elected government had to do to suppress the Bolsheviks was justified in light of the Bolsheviks using non democratic means to try to achieve power."

[ 01 November 2005: Message edited by: Adam T ]

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especially if the Mensehviks allowed for secession of Russias hard won perpheral territories, which would have been viewed as wrecking Russia by the Whites, surely) I think it is very possible that they would have acted similarly, as Putin is doing today in Chechnya.

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Might it not seem prudent to enter those peripheral national zones, squash the opposition and then set up an marginally trustworthy, adminstration, capable of ensuring that such attacks ceased?

This is what Russia is doing in Chechnya now. And this is more or less what the Bolsheviks did during the Civil War.

And it didn't allow all the republics to become fully independent, and in many case it was little more than a formality. Even in the USSR, these republics were formally indepedent. In fact they insisted that a number stay within the military economic sphere of Russia.

[ 01 November 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

I'm taking a class on World History 1900-1945 and I decided to write my essay on the Kronstadt uprising, specifically 'why did the Communists brutally crush the Kronstadt uprising'?

I read most of the posts of the original discussion. From the classroom discussion on the Russian Revolution, it seems despite all the knowledge on this board regarding Russia at that time, a couple points were left out to answer the original question (I didn't know them at the time)

1.In defense of the Tsars: One of the ministers, Stolypin, tried to reform agriculture by enabling the more productive peasants to become wealthier. As our instructor explained, the idea was to make the 'smarter' peasants supportive of the present system by giving them a stake in it. In this way, they would be less likely to lead a revolt. He was killed. His program created the Kulak farmers who were villified and eventually wiped out by Stalin.

2.In defense of the Bolsheviks: I don't know how much of the program was under way by 1921, but the Communists instituted a massive literacy program.

[ 17 June 2007: Message edited by: Adam T ]