Broken man
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Perfect.....I was born in SU. It was hell on Earth. Anyone who believes otherwise is a psychopath with sadistic tendencies.
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Perfect.....I was born in SU. It was hell on Earth. Anyone who believes otherwise is a psychopath with sadistic tendencies.
History is made by the powerful for their purpose and agendaI'm aware of that. I think it's a little foolish to dismiss everything he has said about politics and not investigate further, particularly when he talks about a conspiracy. While I don't worship Stalin or the Soviet Union, I try to remain open to the possibility that life can be different (Stalin himself blanched and was disgusted by the idea of people worshiping him, and the cult of personality was already talked about after his death, but there was a renewed effort by Khrushchev and his thugs to use that idea of there being a "cult of personality" to completely dismiss one of the leading members of communism and basically use every single rhetorical technique in the book to spread rumors about things which simply did not happen) very few people seem to be aware of the conspiracy involved to tarnish the image of communism and part of that was the things that were said about Stalin and things said about the SU that simply did not happen by oppositionists and by Western propagandists.
Again, I am aware that communism is an imperfect system but certainly more humane than the one which exists now in modern America, as I said earlier in the thread, I am more of an anarchist in theory. But for the sake of understanding history, and modern politics, people cannot understand where the world is now politically if they don't understand true history of communism and can't wrap their head around the idea that their own governments lied to them about it and continue to lie about it. Which is why they cannot imagine any other political system than the status quo.
Fortunately, there has been a renewed interest in primary source documents from the official archives of the SU recently and it seems the most likely actual true history is very slowly its way from Russian historians to the West. Keep in mind, these historians themselves are working against the grain because of the interntal politics of the SU. Americans are not very open to alternatives. They think their way is the best, even when the system is collapsing under them, they get very angry if you suggest alternatives are not only possible, but better.
Stalin tried to resign 4 times from office, each time his attempt was rejected. He was a reluctant leader for many reasons. He was no dictator, he was elected General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee a few years before the death of Lenin, and was his protege. Decisions were made by majority rule. Stalin, like Lenin, wanted to emancipate the poor. The opinion that Stalin had unlimited power and trampled on the downtrodden is highly misinformed. Stalin had to to cede to Lenin and Krasin's opinions, and was just one vote in the Politburo and could be voted out by the Party Central Committee at any time if necessary. He was not an elite man by any means, he was born into a poor Georgian family and despised the elite. Part of the appeal of communism in the SU at the time was because for a very long time, Russia was ruled by the monarchs. The image of him as some lone, unhinged dictator is completely absurd (as is the image of him being some kind of christlike figure as well), but many in the West have been trained to believe this myth, same thing with even Russians in modern day, as there were opposition politicians like Kruschev and fascist collaborators like Trotsky that used every trick in the book to try to smear the name of communism and the easiest way to do that was by creating a narrative of Stalin as the big bad Soviet man as a "bloodthirsty dictator". Not at all accurate.
It's such a daunting task to even attempt to debunk all the propaganda and well beyond the scope of this forum that I recommend everyone who is interested in conspiracies and hidden history that can keep an open mind to check out the books I mentioned earlier, "Blood Lies" by Grover Furr. Another good one by him is "Khrushchev Lied".
Part of the reason I am interested in uncovering the truth about communist history is because I think it holds back even anarchist politics to not understand it as objectively as possible and to confuse propaganda with history. People instinctively associate anarchism with other left wing ideologies, even communism sometimes, and if the name of communism is held as a system even worse than oligarchical capitalism, the so-called "moderates" are more likely then to immediately recoil from anarchist politics and recoil from doing anything radical, because of guilt by association due to the anti-communist propaganda.
That is good to "hear" about some successes there for Brazilians that rejected the status quo! Bravo! These are the kinds of stories we need to hear and see.
"Also, the story of the Bolsheviks destroying the anarchists, Voline, Mahkno, Mahknovia is true?"
I don't know, good question. I will check their stories out. I am generally suspicious of Soviet defectors, but they may have some valid critiques, no political system is perfect after all, there were after all some problems with the communist party itself, but by no means the same kinds of categorical slander that gets bandied about. On the other hand, I personally think anarchism makes more sense than communism. However, I also think it's harmful all anti-communist propaganda that dominates in every Western university, on almost every corner of the internet, in many historians point of view just the same, as that can harm leftist political movements in general, the whole "guilt by association" thing, so I think we should be vigilant to carefully check all the sources, especially primary documents, and from those who actually lived during the Soviet Union and have first hand experience, and understand the meaning of their words in context (and within their own political leanings). A lot of leftist movements have been completely fractured by the propaganda spread about the Soviet Union, about communism and its historic leaders, and about Stalin especially. I think these sorts of lies are so detrimental, that they are actually holding back any kind of significant radical dissent in society and causing a decay in political morale.
Here's an interview from Stalin's grandson interviewing Furr: https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/georgiantimesinterv0910_en.pdf
I would also re-iterate Ray is able to read Russian and has traveled there many times, even before the fall of the Soviet Union, and is widely read in Soviet history (See his book, "Mind and Tissue" if you want a sample of his writing about the Soviet Union), so I think it would be foolish to completely ignore his perspective on the topic as some of the commenters in this thread have suggested. Neither does it mean he is automatically right about everything, but his perspective on the topic has something to offer, imo.
Here's another article by Furr on Stalin: Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform
History is made by the powerful for their purpose and agenda
Wow man, thanks! This was unexpected! You made strong points! And so far anyone nor I, have counterpoints. I have to read. Seemingly, I was very misinformed hahaha
Guess who influenced the propaganda against Makhno? Trotsky. Good everyone thinks Trotsky is a traitor, even capitalists.
It's funny to see people hating on communism, almost everyone, even here, can't even pinpoint anything rightly about communism it's funny seeing them hate something they misconceive so badly.
People also need to understand, the US is the most powerful country in the last decades, USSR fought lots of wars and was against lots of countries.
To people who say communism/ anarchism doesn't bring prosperity and humanity then I talk about the poor families who made communities, became billionaires and they prevail since near the 19 century! As the Indigenous people, takes place more cases, people and the media just close their eyes to their success against the State
"I believe that for real communists, Stalin weighs no less than Lenin. And in percentage of right decisions, he doesn't have an equal in world history."
I have a tiny bit of first-hand observation of Russia, in the 1990's, not too long after the "fall" of the SU. I was in Moscow twice on business. Here's what I noticed:
1. The pre-Soviet architecture in Moscow was beautiful - very beautiful and substantial buildings.
2. The apartments & buildings built during and after Stalin were ugly boxes and were not maintained. The apartment building I visited had crumbling stairs and a tiny old elevator. But people had decorated their front doors, often with a quilted leather-look. People were assigned to an apartment (2 rooms for a small family, where the kitchen, bath, and foyer did not count as "rooms", so one large living/dining room and one bedroom. In this case, a family of four lived there.) for life. They were granted ownership of their apartment after the "fall", but had no funds to sell and then buy something nicer.
3. In a shopping mall off Red Square, there were European stores (very fancy and expensive) next to Russian stores. The Russian shoe store had only rows of shoes on shelves against the wall - no decor at all. All of the women's and men's shoes were black.
4. The subway stations were beautiful, like the rooms of a castle.
5. The Bolshoi theater women's restroom had no toilet seats - they had been stolen as there was a shortage of toilet seats.
6. In the office, you had to bring your own toilet paper to the restroom. They were only stocked once per week and the stock lasted about one day.
7. The company chauffeur was a PhD physicist who worked part-time as a technician and part-time as a chauffeur. He had an old Volvo station wagon with a broken windshield, but I suspect no one else in the company had a car. It would be terrifying to have to drive a rental car in Moscow - we were thankful for the chauffeur.
8. Most of the small staff spoke decent-to-excellent English. It was a technology company, so the staff was well-educated.
These are observations, not political nor idealogical.
The amount of social programs in America are actually staggering if you know how to navigate the system (which is challenging). A couple I know chose here to live over equador (where she was from) because of this. They have a child and with subsidies an apartment was around 150 dollars per month, free healthcare due to being below 200% of the federal poverty level, have access to food benefits, etc.
USSR unfortunately conflates having a safety net with creating a hard ceiling. I believe in safety net (like what we have in America, but simpler and more accessible), but I can't be enthusiastic about the sort of homogeneity present in the USSR implied even by those who weren't bitter expats.
Admittedly I don’t know much about USSR politics or history. However, I’ve read a lot of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mikhail Bulgakov, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, and Orthodox Church fathers.
Taking Solzhenitsyn as an example is what he describes in “Gulag Archipelago” accurate?
Short answer - no. Gulag Archipelago has been debunked by many Russian historians in terms of exaggerated numbers and failure to provide the real reasons of so called "great purge". The mass arrest was initiated by NKVD management, with many Trotsky people in charge there, a as an attempt to shut down Stalin's new, more democratic constitution and his raising popularity among citizens. Unfortunately, innocent people has been affected by this internal battle.Taking Solzhenitsyn as an example is what he describes in “Gulag Archipelago” accurate?
Thanks for the comments, well said, especially about the war devastation, that is a crucial point in understanding the politics and histories of these countries that I think people often neglect. I am still in the process of researching Furr's work so admittedly I still need to do more reading up on it as well but it's interesting, I am hoping it will shed more light on what went wrong how it affected communist movements and self-described leftist movements today, as there seems to be working countries with it (China for example, although it is more of a mixed economy, they have a plan to go completely socialist by 2050), but considering how it's bringing so many Chinese people out of poverty, I am surprised it's not more widespread, but not too surprised I guess because of all the propaganda saying it doesn't work, but when China likely becomes the world superpower and leader in world commerce, I am not sure what the communist skeptics will be able to muster at that point because their party follows Marxist-Leninist principles adapted to Chinese philosophy.
President Xi Jinping himself said,
I think the Rightist-Trotsky conspiracy that occurred before the fall of the Soviet Union has helped divide the self-described left and caused even some anarchists to hate communists. Living in the US I can see how the idealized "free market" of capitalism is causing more and more disparity and that it seems to be headed towards a point where things will be unaffordable for the majority if things continue in this direction.
Yeah, the US gov't, and the CIA, and its allies have been able to go into nearly every communist country and subvert their leaders, install fascist dictators, and employ their own network of propaganda agents to "convert" the country to the imperialist agenda of the US empire. It is sad, like I said before, morale on the so-called "left" has been low I think in part because of all this anti-communist propaganda to sow division.
Thanks for your comments. I plan to visit Russia as well in the near future and Belarus, although Russia now probably looks much different from your visit (many of the relics of the SU for example, are probably gone by now).
Yeah, if it weren't for the social programs here in the US I imagine a lot of poor people would revolt, the government here gives poor people just enough to prevent such a thing and neutering revolutionary movements by channeling them into impotent identity politics squabbles that ignore class consciousness, while simultaneously supporting things which cause a decline in their living conditions, for example, rising costs of rent in certain areas, rent controlled apartments for example only cover specific areas and there are long wait-lists to get on them usually. I will cut Ecuador some slack on the lack of social programs since historically their people have been through a lot to say the least. I understand why certain business people would not want to live in USSR because of the "hard ceiling", I suppose that's sort of a personal thing if you're interested in making a lot of money.
Contrast the collectivist mindset in the USSR where people looked out for each other with what we have now in the US: seeing houseless people on the street everywhere and what do we do? We treat them worse than animals and ignore them. While there are certain social programs in place for them and charity organizations, these all ignore the root that tends to cause houselessness in the first place. Mental illness is another thing that tends to overlap with that, and the mentally ill are stigmatized by mainstream psychiatry and forcibly drugged or forced into programs which limit their own autonomy and make them dependent on authority figures. This all ties in with the ethos of US society that there are those higher in the hierarchy that "know you" and your problems (and what they mean) better than you know yourself and that those who can't hack it in the system, just "deserve" their position, similar to the caste-system of India, the inhumanity of it is rationalized by Social Darwinism.
I may be biased, but it seems, especially in light of the economic destruction from the Corona lockdowns and takeover of small businesses, it seems a conversation on alternatives for the US is long overdue. No system is perfect though, I'm sure there may be some specific problems with socialism and its implementations, but it seems people are more willing to implement that now, rather than the idea of living without governors at all, which a lot of people seem to think will lead to total chaos because they've been conditioned to believe they need to be ruled, even though personally, that seems to be the ideal system. I know better than to try to singlehandedly "save the world" but it's interesting to compare the different systems.
In Defense of Communism: Solzhenitsyn- The rotten legacy of a Fascist
Keep in mind, in the Western press, a book that would delineate a conspiracy to smear communism from the inside including with people such as Khruschev, Trotsy, etc, with outside collaborators would likely never get published with any major publisher and never have any mass appeal or popularity and in academia, historians that talk about such things could lose their jobs. There are some Russian authors who are aware of the conspiracy as well, but their work often gets little attention in the mainstream. The additional difficulty is these thorough Russian historians' work is often only accessible in Russian and thus all you see in English is largely stuff that supports the Trotskyist paradigm. If you look through my posts in this thread you can find some book recommendations that support the idea of an anti-communist conspiracy that contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. Anti-communism is the dominant paradigm in Western academia:
Right, so people in the USA who support the pararasitic, nation destroying, totalitarian, fascist present US govt. are similarly bad and stupid? The pejoratives get us nowhere.Well this is totally on Putin. People are essentially saying they would rather have a brutal dictatorship where the state hunts and silences differing opinions, than what they have now. Of course these are the same people who have been voting for Putin for the last 20 years.
Bottom line - people are mostly bad and stupid.
It’s quite clear that you’ve never lived in China. I have.
Nobody in their right minds would of their own volition want to live in China over virtually any other place in the world for their lifetime. Why do you think all the rich Chinese move away to the west once they are able?
Articles and statistics don’t even come close to telling you the full story
For you to suggest people can’t criticize the Soviet Union if they hadn’t lived in it while you are somehow justified in praising it despite the fact that you hadn’t lived there and were likely not even born before its collapse is laughable. “Yeah I was born in the US but I read some revisionist literature and well you see, communism is just better!”
I’m sure capitalism has destroyed any chance you had of prosperity. It’s so frustrating that there are no breadlines and the government doesn’t fully control your destiny
Can we really trust these polls from the Russian state? Can we trust any polls from any outlet these days worldwide, just look at the 2016 American elections or brexit as an example.
The lies are known and accepted now by the public, it seems for the sake of entertainment, politics and the elites are the new reality TV.
Russia is basically run by a criminal mafia, you don’t have to be anti-trump to realize this, search outside the mainstream hysterics on Russia and you can only come to one conclusion, as a country it can’t be trusted, obviously there are many individuals who are decent people. I’m implying western leaders are a safer bet and they are, they are still toxic and getting worse though.
Putin just changed laws so he can stay in power for decades, if this happened in America or Europe people would loose their minds.
Short answer - no. Gulag Archipelago has been debunked by many Russian historians in terms of exaggerated numbers and failure to provide the real reasons of so called "great purge". The mass arrest was initiated by NKVD management, with many Trotsky people in charge there, a as an attempt to shut down Stalin's new, more democratic constitution and his raising popularity among citizens. Unfortunately, innocent people has been affected by this internal battle.
Do Russians want to return to the Soviet Union? Was the Soviet Union only Russians? Maybe then it is worth asking also other countries whether they want this? Which the Soviet authorities forcibly and forcibly exploited without asking, for example the Ukraine Holodomor of 1932-1933 y. during collectivization. What you like about the union is a kind of theoretical utopian society, in reality it was different.
Thanks for the information!Good points, thanks for the author recommendation. Not sure I'd agree that much has changed in American society now, although on a small scale I suppose a case could be made for that but by and large there are still the top the 1% ruling elite that have a disproportionate influence over politics in America and over the lives of everyone else. Also the DOJ, FBI, CIA, and many other branches within the US gov't itself are all completely corrupt, just look at how this sex-trafficking case with Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and others is being handled for example if you need any reminder that the Swamp has not been drained.
Type in specific former Soviet bloc country names and "miss Soviet union" or "miss communism" in your search engine of choice and you may be surprised to find how many results suggesting a sentiment to return to communism and union of these countries, it's not just a sentiment in Russia (which makes sense diplomatically, as they can help each other easier and be stronger against foreign powers). I can't claim I know for a fact that this is the case, but it seems to be a significant current wanting this. I know it's not a utopia either, I agree with that. Holomodor is debunked in the books I linked in my earlier posts. Here is another article by the same author if you want the TLDR version:
Thanks for the information!
I am Russian Orthodox -
I’m not Russian though. What about the Saints and their accounts of the catacomb churches, etc?
Ezhov’s own confessions are evidence that Stalin and the central Soviet leadership were not responsible for his massive executions. Ezhov explicitly states many times that his repressions and executions were carried out in pursuit of his own private conspiratorial goals. In his confession of August 4, 1939 Ezhov admitted: “[W]e were deceiving the government in the most blatant manner.”11There is no evidence that these confessions represent anything but what Ezhov chose to say—no evidence of torture, threats, or fabrication. Ideologically, anticommunist accounts suppress the evidence of Ezhov’s conspiracy against the Soviet government. The apparent reason is the desire to falsely accuse Stalin of having ordered all the huge number of executions carried out by Ezhov.
“Great Terror” is a misleading name, but not because no one was frightened. It is misnamed because [Robert] Conquest invented the term “Great Terror” to mean“Stalin’s Purge of the ‘30s,” and it was no such thing. The falsehood is located not in the assertion that there was terror but in the claim as to who the terrorists were. Ezhov picked a great many of his victims at random, a process that must have sparked fear. But the Soviet population was not ruled by terror and the Soviet population generally was not “terrorized.” The term “Great Terror” is false in the way in which Conquest used it, and in the way it continues to be used in the field of Soviet history.