"Stalin for ASB President"

[Maxirad]

During my junior year of high school, some prankster(s) distributed flyers that, if I remember correctly, read: “Stalin for ASB President.” The slogan of the “campaign,” if I remember correctly, was, “He will make a difference.” An elderly man that I had had for a math teacher at my high school was apparently offended, bringing up atrocities Joseph Stalin committed. Keep in mind that the high school this stuff happened at is located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

[Catholic1954]

During my junior year of high school, some prankster(s) distributed flyers that, if I remember correctly, read: “Stalin for ASB President.” The slogan of the “campaign,” if I remember correctly, was, “He will make a difference.” An elderly man that I had had for a math teacher at my high school was apparently offended, bringing up atrocities Joseph Stalin committed. Keep in mind that the high school this stuff happened at is located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Not much of a prank. Stalin starved and murdered millions and millions of his people. San Francisco used to have a high Russian population, the math teacher may have had relatives killed in the purge.

 

[adamhovey1988]

The former Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin? If I recall correctly, he went to a Georgian Orthodox seminary. What if he would have been a priest? Would he have been a great Saint? Or a murderous priest? That’s the odd thing about history; unless you’ve got a DeLorean, you can’t change it. Stalin was smart, but he was manipulative. I would not have found it funny

 

[John_Lazarus]

ASB = Anti-Social Behaviour

Works for me.

 

[Latias]

During my junior year of high school, some prankster(s) distributed flyers that, if I remember correctly, read: “Stalin for ASB President.” The slogan of the “campaign,” if I remember correctly, was, “He will make a difference.” An elderly man that I had had for a math teacher at my high school was apparently offended, bringing up atrocities Joseph Stalin committed. Keep in mind that the high school this stuff happened at is located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Well, Stalin’s hardscrabble industrialized modernized the country and defeated the Wehrmacht. That is some difference.

The former Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin? If I recall correctly, he went to a Georgian Orthodox seminary. What if he would have been a priest? Would he have been a great Saint? Or a murderous priest? That’s the odd thing about history; unless you’ve got a DeLorean, you can’t change it. Stalin was smart, but he was manipulative. I would not have found it funny

Well, there is a common meme about Helicopters rides and Pinochet. Not many conservatives are the slightest bit upset about that.

Not much of a prank. Stalin starved and murdered millions and millions of his people. San Francisco used to have a high Russian population, the math teacher may have had relatives killed in the purge.

Well, that type of resentment is expected from anyone whose love ones have been killed by the government for political reasons. That that applies to any government.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Well, Stalin’s hardscrabble industrialized modernized the country and defeated the Wehrmacht. That is some difference.

Well, there is a common meme about Helicopters rides and Pinochet. Not many conservatives are the slightest bit upset about that.

Well, that type of resentment is expected from anyone whose love ones have been killed by the government for political reasons. That that applies to any government.

“Well, Stalin wasn’t that bad”. We’ve all got make our sacrifices for the great utopia, right?

So what if a few million people die.

 

[Latias]

“Well, Stalin wasn’t that bad”. We’ve all got make our sacrifices for the great utopia, right?

So what if a few million people die.

You could also say that for many of the other geopolitical agendas, such as the Vietnam War and US policy in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Millions died in the Vietnam War.

It all could have been avoided if there were the elections which was called for in the Geneva Accords.

 

[Maxirad]

San Francisco used to have a high Russian population, the math teacher may have had relatives killed in the purge.

If I’m not mistaken, the gentleman I had as a math teacher was born in present-day Slovakia.

BTW, if Stalin had never become leader of the Soviet Union, would McCarthyism have taken hold?

 

[Latias]

If I’m not mistaken, the gentleman I had as a math teacher was born in present-day Slovakia.

BTW, if Stalin had never become leader of the Soviet Union, would McCarthyism have taken hold?

I think it would. Much of what we “know” about Stalin is just anti-communist propaganda. A new Stalin would have been created by propaganda.

 

[JanetF]

Ummm, Stalin is responsible for the deaths of 20 million people, way more than Hitler, but ok, sure, let’s put him on a pedestal.

 

[Latias]

Ummm, Stalin is responsible for the deaths of 20 million people, way more than Hitler, but ok, sure, let’s put him on a pedestal.

That is just propaganda. There is absolutely no evidence that Stalin was responsible for the deaths for the deaths of 20 million.

 

[JanetF]

That is just propaganda. There is absolutely no evidence that Stalin was responsible for the deaths for the deaths of 20 million.

Forced collectivism under Stalin caused a famine during which 5 million died
The Great Terror of the 1930’s caused by Stalin’s paranoia contributed to the deathss of 750,000 members of the military and 3 million being imprisoned in Russian Gulags, ie slave labor.
The purges caused the deaths of 1.2 million

While no dictator will accurately record how many people they kill, history will record events that lead to death. The majority of deaths in Russian under Stalin’s rule were caused by neglect or repressive policies. I’m okay with assigning the blame squarely with Stalin. His policies afterall.

With that in mind, he’s still short of Mao who was responsible for the deaths of 40 million.

There’s a huge difference between propaganda and historical facts.

 

[Latias]

Forced collectivism under Stalin caused a famine during which 5 million died
The Great Terror of the 1930’s caused by Stalin’s paranoia contributed to the deathss of 750,000 members of the military and 3 million being imprisoned in Russian Gulags, ie slave labor.
The purges caused the deaths of 1.2 million

That doesn’t add up to 20 million. There were famines in Russia before, such as the lower Volga famine of 1921. There was also a famine in Begali, something that Winston Churchill isn’t blamed for.

There’s a huge difference between propaganda and historical facts.

There were 681.692 recorded deaths for the Yezhovschina, and that is not just the military.

Face it, the notion that Stalin killed more people than Hitler is propaganda.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

I think it would. Much of what we “know” about Stalin is just anti-communist propaganda. A new Stalin would have been created by propaganda.

Stalin was probably one of the greatest anti-communists that ever lived, at least in that he represented the ultimate point of failure for the Russian revolution.

You should read Marx. There is much more to communism than defending every dictator that claimed to be socialist.

 

[Faithdancer]

During my junior year of high school, some prankster(s) distributed flyers that, if I remember correctly, read: “Stalin for ASB President.” The slogan of the “campaign,” if I remember correctly, was, “He will make a difference.” An elderly man that I had had for a math teacher at my high school was apparently offended, bringing up atrocities Joseph Stalin committed. Keep in mind that the high school this stuff happened at is located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

More evidence that many high school students—certainly freshmen and sophomores–are still largely children. Though not so, according to planned “parenthood,” and some authors of “young adult” porn…I mean, fiction (like Jandy Nelson).

 

[Latias]

Stalin was probably one of the greatest anti-communists that ever lived, at least in that he represented the ultimate point of failure for the Russian revolution.

You should read Marx. There is much more to communism than defending every dictator that claimed to be socialist.

I think this portion of Grover Furr’s review of Robert Thurston’s Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia is relevant.

Anti-Stalinism Hurts Workers, Builds Fascism

 1. Billions of workers all over the world are exploited, murdered, tortured, oppressed by capitalism. The greatest historical events in the twentieth century -- in fact, in all of human history -- have been the overthrow of capitalism and establishment of societies run by and for the working class in the two great communist revolutions in Russia and China.

 2. The Russian Revolution was the first of them, blazing the trail for all revolutionaries to come. Its history -- its successes and failures -- are the essential textbook for all workers and others who recognize the need to get rid of exploitation and build a better world run by those who toil.

 3. Naturally the world's capitalists do not want this learning process to happen! So the ruling class try to spread anti-Communist lies, the purpose of which is to demoralize potential revolutionaries and make us passive. These wrong ideas -- wrong both in the sense that they are incorrect AND in that they serve the exploiters' interests, not the interest of workers -- include racism, religion, sexism, and anti- communism.

 4. The main form anti-communism has taken for the past several decades has been anti-Stalinism. If workers and others can be convinced that any attempt to build a communist society -- one based upon need, without exploitation, run by and for the working class -- will end up "as bad as or worse than" Nazi Germany, then we will never really make the attempt. This means we will be reduced to struggling only for reforms under capitalism. This reformism is ultimately acceptable to the capitalists since it leaves them in control forever.

 5. A second way the bosses use anti-Stalinism is to justify fascist repression and murder of any workers' attempts to rebel against capitalism. After all, if "Stalinism" is "worse than Nazi Germany", and if any attempt to build communism can lead only to "Stalinism", then any and all repressive measures to suppress revolution are justified, including torture, mass murder, and fascism itself. This anti-communism has been the main justification for imperialist slaughter in the period since World War II, as indeed it had been for the Nazis' aggression and atrocities.

 6. Because it is the main ideological form of anti-communism, fighting anti-Stalinism is therefore a vital, life-and-death issue for the world's workers -- for all of us.

 23. And Thurston repeats, time and again, what his sources show him: the Soviet government favored workers and poor peasants over all others in the population, while they were being exploited, killed, etc., in every other country in the world! Thurston's own evidence shows that the USSR was a "dictatorship of the working class".

clogic.eserver.org/1-2/furr.html

 

[JimG]

Perhaps students should be assigned to do some reading in “The Black Book of Communism.”

 

[Regular_Atheist]

I think this portion of Grover Furr’s review of Robert Thurston’s Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia is relevant.

I’d rather not be exposed to anything to do with Grover Furr, but if I have to be.

Anti-Stalinism Hurts Workers, Builds Fascism

This is incredibly idealist, and honestly this is one of my biggest issues with this entire article you’ve linked. If you’re a Marxist you understand that history follows a dialectic, and that it is the contradictions between wage labour and capital that will cause the working class to revolt and abolish themselves. Revolution won’t come about as a result of Marxists spreading certain ideas, it will come as a result of contradictions within the economic base. This is the “materialism” aspect of Marx’s historical materialism. Fascism, similarly, is the result of the crisis of capitalism, and does not arise as a result of certain bad ideas. Ideas are not the driving force behind history, this is basic Marxism.

1. Billions of workers all over the world are exploited, murdered, tortured, oppressed by capitalism. The greatest historical events in the twentieth century – in fact, in all of human history – have been the overthrow of capitalism and establishment of societies run by and for the working class in the two great communist revolutions in Russia and China.

What is exploitation, in Marxist terms? It isn’t just workers being treated badly. It is workers not receiving the full value of their labour, and is an inherent part of the dialectic between capital and wage labour. Capital is that set of exchange values that preserves and multiples itself through interaction with wage labour. Wage labour and capital cannot exist without each other. As long as wage labour exists, part of the value the worker produces will have to be taken from him to maintain and expand the means of production, to maintain and expand capital - this is capital accumulation. The only way to end exploitation is to abolish the dialectic between wage labour and capital entirely, and with it the law of value. Did Stalin’s USSR do this, or make any attempt to do this? Not at all, and in fact in Stalin’s USSR they were celebrating wage labour as being “socialistic!”

The point of revolution against capitalism isn’t just for the workers to control society, it is for the workers to abolish themselves by abolishing the conditions that make them workers. This is through the abolition of wage labour and its relationship to capital.

1. The Russian Revolution was the first of them, blazing the trail for all revolutionaries to come. Its history – its successes and failures – are the essential textbook for all workers and others who recognize the need to get rid of exploitation and build a better world run by those who toil.

The USSR failed to abolish exploitation. The point isn’t just to make a world “run by those who toil”, it’s to abolish the conditions that force people to toil. The point isn’t to make everyone a worker, the point is to abolish the worker.

1. Naturally the world’s capitalists do not want this learning process to happen! So the ruling class try to spread anti-Communist lies, the purpose of which is to demoralize potential revolutionaries and make us passive. These wrong ideas – wrong both in the sense that they are incorrect AND in that they serve the exploiters’ interests, not the interest of workers – include racism, religion, sexism, and anti- communism.

Again, the end of capitalism will happen as a result of the dialectic between capital and wage labour. It won’t happen or be hindered by any ideas, and it won’t happen because of a few particularly good revolutionaries with nice ideas. History isn’t advanced by ideas, that is not a Marxist position.

1. The main form anti-communism has taken for the past several decades has been anti-Stalinism. If workers and others can be convinced that any attempt to build a communist society – one based upon need, without exploitation, run by and for the working class – will end up “as bad as or worse than” Nazi Germany, then we will never really make the attempt. This means we will be reduced to struggling only for reforms under capitalism. This reformism is ultimately acceptable to the capitalists since it leaves them in control forever.

A society without exploitation would also be, by definition, a society without the working class.

Again, “convincing” people of anything won’t help or hinder the progress towards socialism. History isn’t advanced by ideas.

It is only pro-Stalin “communists” that propagate the idea that socialism can only be a Stalinist dictatorship. An anti-Stalin communist pointing out that the USSR and Stalinism was not communism is hardly promoting the view that communism has to be like the USSR was under Stalin - in fact, it’s doing the exact opposite! This makes no sense as a criticism of anti-Stalin communists.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

1. A second way the bosses use anti-Stalinism is to justify fascist repression and murder of any workers’ attempts to rebel against capitalism. After all, if “Stalinism” is “worse than Nazi Germany”, and if any attempt to build communism can lead only to “Stalinism”, then any and all repressive measures to suppress revolution are justified, including torture, mass murder, and fascism itself. This anti-communism has been the main justification for imperialist slaughter in the period since World War II, as indeed it had been for the Nazis’ aggression and atrocities.

This is often used as a justification for violence against socialists, but I don’t see how trying to disassociate Stalin from communism makes this problem worse. If anything, you’re making it easier to use this excuse as you’re the one trying to associate Stalin with communism.

As I’ve said before, the rise of fascism is not the fault of any particular ideas. Similarly, the ruling class will try to preserve the rule of capital as a result of their economic class interests, not simply because of any insidious ideas.

1. And Thurston repeats, time and again, what his sources show him: the Soviet government favored workers and poor peasants over all others in the population, while they were being exploited, killed, etc., in every other country in the world! Thurston’s own evidence shows that the USSR was a “dictatorship of the working class”.

The USSR treated its workers like trash, and its peasants even worse. It was a country of Draconian labour laws and terrible repression of the working-class movement. Absentee laws and internal passports are not my idea of freedom for the working-class.

 

[Latias]

Thank you for your response.

I’d rather not be exposed to anything to do with Grover Furr, but if I have to be.

What do you think of Grover Furr? What about Harpal Brar?

This is often used as a justification for violence against socialists, but I don’t see how trying to disassociate Stalin from communism makes this problem worse. If anything, you’re making it easier to use this excuse as you’re the one trying to associate Stalin with communism.

The anti-communists associate Stalin with Communism, and Stalin with Hitler.

As I’ve said before, the rise of fascism is not the fault of any particular ideas. Similarly, the ruling class will try to preserve the rule of capital as a result of their economic class interests, not simply because of any insidious ideas.

Would you say that anti-communism such as the vilification of Stalin inhibits the development of a robust class consciousness? The ruling class needs others to believe that their policies are in the interest of those below them, and to delude others into believing into racism.