"Stalin for ASB President"

[Regular_Atheist]

Thank you for your response.

No problem.

What do you think of Grover Furr?

My experience with him has been quite limited, but from what I’ve seen his historical analysis is pretty bad. My main concern is that he really isn’t a Marxist, and just seems to have a strange fetish for Stalin. As a Marxist you don’t have to criticize the ethnic deportations and political terror to denounce Stalin, although it certainly helps.

What about Harpal Brar?

I know nothing about the man himself, but my experience with the CPGB-ML has been pretty negative. They’re a joke, really. Weird and creepy support for figures like Stalin, along with that weird brand of “anti-imperialism” that involves supporting the bourgeoisie of the developing world, along with Russia and China for some reason. No actual understanding of what capitalism is or how it works.

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

So why do you feel that affirming the view that Stalin has anything to do with communism somehow helps communism as a cause?

Would you say that anti-communism such as the vilification of Stalin inhibits the development of a robust class consciousness?

Even during a revolution most people would not be communists - the ruling ideology during any epoch is the ideology of the ruling class. The working class will revolt against the conditions of capitalism, against the contradictions inherent to it, and the synthesis of those contradictions will be communism. It’s not so much a case of trying to convince the working class to become communists.

I don’t think you can be “class conscious” if you support Stalin. If you do, you clearly don’t understand Marxism very well.

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.

Keep in mind that it’s the economic base that mostly influences the superstructure - capitalist relations of production will ensure that capitalist ideology remains dominant. Capitalism itself is unsustainable, though - it will collapse as a result of the contradictions inherent to it.

How does defending Stalin stop racism? The USSR under his rule was responsible for all kinds of racism.

 

[steve93]

I am orthodox and despise Stalin. He is, if anything, only slightly less evil than the turks.
That said, it is only natural that one do anything for national liberation. If the Catholic Church had been more accepting of populism they could have united the crusader spirit with the revolutionary left and liberated Ireland and Latin America from protestant domination.