Soviet Union's Possible Success

[chequita guevara]

Yes, but it was the Stalinists themselves who did that, isn't it. It was Kruschev, not the US, who pointed out what happened there.

And David, there was no "world wide domination." Even within the Soviet sphere, Eastern Europe had rather more leeway than your average Central American banana republic. Then consider that aside from the Warsaw pact countries, few of the socialist states got along particularly well. Maybe if they had, they'd still be around.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
And David, there was no "world wide domination." Even within the Soviet sphere, Eastern Europe had rather more leeway than your average Central American banana republic.

I'm pretty sure there are members of the Solidarity movement that would disagree.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I must say that it is suprising to see a pricipled pinko such as yourself defend the USSR given thier history of treating thier own people (genocide, etc.).

I defend what was good about them and excoriate what was wrong (reality is rarely one-sided). I also point out that a lot of their problems were caused by the West's hostility. Stalin wasn't murderous because he could be. He was murderous because he had to be, given his concrete situation (i.e., a bureaucratic dicatorship with hostile classes internatally--the Kulaks--and a hostile world without . . . and because he was rather a mundane intellect incapable of solving the problems by other means). Which isn't to justify what he did.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'm pretty sure there are members of the Solidarity movement that would disagree.

Perhaps, but how many member of Solidarity were killed by their own government? How many members of opposition groups in say . . . El Salvador were killed in the same period? I'd much rather have been a member of Solidarity than an oppostion member in any of the CA republics (except Nicaragua and Costa Rica).

A lot of hoopla was made about the preist who was killed by the police in Poland. For the same amount of press coverage, over four hundred priests would have had to have died in Guatemala (and while no where near that many were killed, quite a few were). And the police who killed that priest were immediately arrested, tried, and found guilty, unlike the murders of preists in Central American (I believe some were finally brought to justice in El Salvador).

Fun fact: when Solidarity started out, it was a socialist union group. One of its demands was to build a democratic socialism. Unfortunately, the Pope and the CIA got their claws on the movement and were able to replace the socialist leaders with Lek Walesa.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Stalin wasn't murderous because he could be. He was murderous because he had to be, given his concrete situation

What were his depredations in the Ukraine caused by?

[chequita guevara]

The need to bring the kulaks under control before they were able to overthrow the Soviet state. Trotsky had also recognized this problem that they represented, and also had a plan for dealing with them . . . by giving them posetive incentives to create collective farms, etc. It would have been more gentle and taken longer, and it certainly wouldn't have killed anyone. Stalin took part of the plan (never one to do his own thinking), and got rid of the incentives and shrank the time down into five years.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The need to bring the kulaks under control before they were able to overthrow the Soviet state. Trotsky had also recognized this problem that they represented, and also had a plan for dealing with them . . . by giving them posetive incentives to create collective farms, etc. It would have been more gentle and taken longer, and it certainly wouldn't have killed anyone.

Are we talking about the same Lenin that signed an order to murder at least 100 kulaks and confiscate thier grain in order to set the proper example? He even closed the letter with this phrase: "let's choke and strangle those blood-sucking kulaks."

[chequita guevara]

I wasn't talking about Lenin at all.

That's from the Pipes book, The Unknown Lenin, yes? Haven't read it, can't really copmment on it. If I guessed I would say he was refering to grain hoarders during the civil war. But it's just a guess.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I wasn't talking about Lenin at all.

You said Trotsky, I jumped to the conclusion that he must have been involved with Lenin's decisions regarding the disposition of the Kulaks.

If I guessed I would say he was refering to grain hoarders during the civil war. But it's just a guess.

Here's the text of the order:

11-8-18

Send to Penza To Comrades Kuraev, Bosh, Minkin and other Penza communists

Comrades! The revolt by the five kulak volost's must be suppressed without mercy. The interest of the entire revolution demands this, because we have now before us our final decisive battle "with the kulaks." We need to set an example.

1) You need to hang (hang without fail, so that the public sees) at least 100 notorious kulaks, the rich, and the bloodsuckers.

2) Publish their names.

3) Take away all of their grain.

4) Execute the hostages - in accordance with yesterday's telegram.

This needs to be accomplished in such a way, that people for hundreds of miles around will see, tremble, know and scream out: let's choke and strangle those blood-sucking kulaks.

Telegraph us acknowledging receipt and execution of this.

Yours, Lenin

P.S. Use your toughest people for this.

[chequita guevara]

I don't think I can defend that.

Trotsky's plan came much later, during the final faction fight between the worker faction (led by Trotsky), the peasant faction (led by Bukharin), and the bureaucratic faction, (led by Stalin). Seeing Trtosky's plan as a threat politicaly, the peasants and the bureaucrats allied, crushed the workers faction, then the bureaucrats turned on the peasants.

[David Floyd]

Which, IMO, is the end result of any communism attempt, because of human nature. Communism is against human nature, in general, and doomed to fail. IMO of course

[Heresson]

Any civilization is against human's nature.
Religion, monogamism, animal rights and all this stuff is against human's nature. But we, humans, can model our it.

[chequita guevara]

Human nature isn't anything but what we make of it.

[David Floyd]

How is religion against human nature? And love is a part of human nature, I think, therefore monogamy is OK...communism is against human nature because it involves losing your property.

[chequita guevara]

Property is only as old as agriculture. Universal property is only a few hundred years old.

Communism is more natural, therefore, since it returns humans to the state of common property. In fact, the first type of economic state (not governmental state) of humans is known as primative communism.