NationStates Jolt Archive

The discussion of the Soviet penal system during Stalin's time, on which thousands of lying articles and books have been written, and hundreds of films have been made conveying false impressions, leads to important lessons. The facts prove yet again that the stories published about socialism in the bourgeois press are mostly false. The right wing can, through the press, radio and TV that it dominates, cause confusion, distort the truth and cause very many people to believe lies to be the truth. This is especially true when it comes to historical questions. Any new stories from the right should be assumed to be false unless the contrary can be proved. This cautious approach is justified. The fact is that even knowing about the Russian research reports, the right is continuing to reproduce the lies taught for the last 50 years, even though they have now been completely exposed. The right continues its historical heritage: a lie repeated over and over again ends up being accepted as true. After the Russian research reports were published in the west, a number of books began to appear in different countries aimed solely at calling into question the Russian research and enabling the old lies to be brought to public attention as new truths. These are well-presented books, stuffed from cover to cover with lies about communism and socialism.

The right-wing lies are repeated in order to fight today's communists. They are repeated so that workers will find no alternative to capitalism and neo-liberalism. They are part of the dirty war against communists who alone have an alternative to offer for the future, i.e., socialist society. This is the reason for the appearance of all these new books containing old lies.

All this places an obligation on everybody with a socialist world outlook on history. We must take on the responsibility of working to turn communist newspapers into authentic newspapers of the working class to combat bourgeois lies! This is without doubt an important mission in today's class struggle, which in the near future will arise again with renewed force.

Source: http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/lies.html

I thought I'd start this topic up with this work in order to refute the lies concerning the Soviet Union, most actually originally conceived as Nazi propaganda, whose techniques were soon adopted by the US anti-communists.

stalinsociety.org ...the name tells me everything I need to know.

EA, I recommend you read some of the works of anti-Soviet leftists: For starters, Emma Goldman and George Orwell. Soheran and others can probably name more.

Basil Exposition: Austin, the Cold War is over!
Austin Powers: Finally those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh? Eh comrades? Eh?
Basil Exposition: Austin... we won.
Austin Powers: Oh, smashing, groovy, yay capitalism!

I was gonna give this a couple of minutes just for lols, but then this came so early on: "Speech by Mario Sousa, KPML (r) Sweden"

KPML(r). Loons. Not even worth it for shits and giggles.

EA, I recommend you read some of the works of anti-Soviet leftists: For starters, Emma Goldman and George Orwell. Soheran and others can probably name more.
This Orwell you mean? (http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/orwell.html)

Basil Exposition: Austin, the Cold War is over!
Austin Powers: Finally those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh? Eh comrades? Eh?
Basil Exposition: Austin... we won.
Austin Powers: Oh, smashing, groovy, yay capitalism!

LOL :D

That site is too elaborate to be a joke.

I am confused now.

That site is too elaborate to be a joke.

I am confused now.

Think of it as the left-wing counterpart to the right-wing's holocaust denialists.

Think of it as the left-wing counterpart to the right-wing's holocaust denialists.

Exactly so.

Remember that Eureka Australis is a Holodomore denier (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=546504).

Exactly so.

Remember that Eureka Australis is a Holodomore denier (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=546504).

Shame you don't actually read these well sourced and accurate works then, and you would rather believe anti-communist Nazi and Western propaganda. Sad really.

Sad really.

Yeah, Daistallia is the sad one here... sure.

This Orwell you mean? (http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/orwell.html)

:p

Someone needs to re-read Animal Farm. And read (probably for the first time) Homage to Catalonia.

EA, I recommend you read some of the works of anti-Soviet leftists: For starters, Emma Goldman and George Orwell. Soheran and others can probably name more.

This looks like a job for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Socialism#Prominent_libertarian_socialists

And, some will claim that I am being particular, but they should note that the following individual is not included in the above list :D --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proudhon

EDIT: I misread "anti-Soviet" as "anti-state." While many of the individuals listed at the above links lived before the Soviet Union, many were in direct opposition to the general political/philosophical ideology which eventually resulted in the Soviet Union, exactly because of their anti-state perspective.

:p

Someone needs to re-read Animal Farm. And read (probably for the first time) Homage to Catalonia.
I have read Animal Farm, and I still think it's trash.

:p

Someone needs to re-read Animal Farm. And read (probably for the first time) Homage to Catalonia.

I read the wiki on Homage to Catalonia it looks interesting.

I have read Animal Farm, and I still think it's trash.

The "someone" in question wasn't you. Unless you wrote the nonsense you linked to.

You just need to grow up.

Oh, dearest AP, how, dare I ask, do you counter the tale of Peter Palchinsky, and his concerns about Soviet industrialization, and the fate that awaited him in the system founded by Stalin?

Thank you for the link on Orwell, EA. I'm going to copy and paste it as a perfect example of incompetence in critique.

I mean, honestly, over-emotional, ad hominem attacks, facts not in evidence - it's probably the worst critique I've ever read, and that is saying something!

I thought I'd start this topic up with this work in order to refute the lies concerning the Soviet Union...

My Russian History professor, who lived and taught in Nizhniy Novgorod for many years, and has spoken with more Russians than you ever will, would call bullshit...and so do I.

I just want to make sure I understand the premise of that site.

If we disagree with it, we've been fooled by propaganda. If we agree with it, we're right.

Not exactly the most diverse of options: heads I win, tails you lose.

Anything that labels literally everything that disagrees with it as propaganda may require a bit more than a skeptical eye.

Anything that labels literally everything that disagrees with it as propaganda may require a bit more than a skeptical eye.

Such calls for a skeptical sledgehammer with explosive reactive armor jacket.

EA, I recommend you read some of the works of anti-Soviet leftists: For starters, Emma Goldman and George Orwell. Soheran and others can probably name more.
How about someone who foresaw the impending darkness:

“In the People’s State of Marx there will be, we are told, no privileged class at all. All will be equal, not only from the judicial and political point of view but from the economic point of view. At least, that is what is promised...

There will therefore be no longer any privileged class, but there will be a government and, note this well, an extremely complex government, which will not content itself with governing and administering the masses politically, as all governments do today, but which will also administer them economically, concentrating in its own hands the production and the just division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment and development of factories, the organization and direction of commerce, finally the application of capital to production by the only banker, the State.

All this will demand an immense knowledge and many ”heads overflowing with brains“ in this government. It will be the reign of the scientific intelligencia, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant and contemptuous of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and pretended scientists and scholars, and the world will be divided into a minority ruling in the name of knowledge, and an immense, ignorant, majority.

And then, woe betide the mass of the ignorant ones.

Such a regime will not fail to arouse very considerable discontent in this mass and in order to keep it in check the enlightened and liberating government of Marx will have need of a not less considerable armed force. For the government must be strong says Engels, to maintain order among these millions of illiterates whose brutal uprising would be capable of destroying and overthrowing everything, even a government directed by heads overflowing with brains.”

Mikhail Bakunin, 1872

You know, rather than acting as if the only possibilities are that either (a) Stalin did every bad thing ever attributed to him, or (b) the claims of the "Stalin Society" are entirely correct, maybe you should all consider possibility (c): Stalin wasn't quite as bad as his enemies claim, but not nearly as good as his small fanclub claims, either.

You would also do well not to judge the Soviet Union as if the Stalin era was the only thing that ever existed.

How about someone who foresaw the impending darkness:

*snip*
Alternatively, of course, we could use democratic mechanisms and the rule of law to allow the masses to keep the government in check.

It seems that neither Bakunin nor Lenin ever considered that option. Oh well...

How about someone who foresaw the impending darkness:

“In the People’s State of Marx there will be, we are told, no privileged class at all. All will be equal, not only from the judicial and political point of view but from the economic point of view. At least, that is what is promised...

There will therefore be no longer any privileged class, but there will be a government and, note this well, an extremely complex government, which will not content itself with governing and administering the masses politically, as all governments do today, but which will also administer them economically, concentrating in its own hands the production and the just division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment and development of factories, the organization and direction of commerce, finally the application of capital to production by the only banker, the State.

All this will demand an immense knowledge and many ”heads overflowing with brains“ in this government. It will be the reign of the scientific intelligencia, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant and contemptuous of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and pretended scientists and scholars, and the world will be divided into a minority ruling in the name of knowledge, and an immense, ignorant, majority.

And then, woe betide the mass of the ignorant ones.

Such a regime will not fail to arouse very considerable discontent in this mass and in order to keep it in check the enlightened and liberating government of Marx will have need of a not less considerable armed force. For the government must be strong says Engels, to maintain order among these millions of illiterates whose brutal uprising would be capable of destroying and overthrowing everything, even a government directed by heads overflowing with brains.”

Mikhail Bakunin, 1872

Mikhail seems to have gone a bit light on the education I see, seeing as he knows next to nothing about Marx and even feebler knowledge of the dictatorship of the proletariat itself. I feel I must laugh at the naive attempts of silly idealists to make utopia overnight, to instantly get rid of all bad and reactionary attitudes in society overnight and suddenly once 'government' is gone everything is alright. I have spoken to many a anarcho-syndicalist and none can really answer this.

Marxism does not 'promise' utopia as he seems to suggest, in reality it's him and the intellectually-over giddy anarchists and 'democratic' socialists that are the political equivalents of snake oil salesmen, with nice bombastic empty rhetoric but no practical analysis of reality which only material dialectics can provide. It's quite the opposite actually, Marxist socialism does not promise anything overnight, it promises nothing straight away but reality, truth and a practical process to change that scientific proof. Marxism is analysis of material conditions and how those material conditions mold reality, thus the disproportionate wealth gap naturally causes class struggle. Marxism is the unflinching desire to see reality unclouded by any ideological or spiritual delusions, to see it wholly and completely materially.

Marxism is thus not an ideological which are spiritual but a science. Analysis of reality tells us unequal material conditions cause class struggle, at the moment in most countries of the world the 'dictatorship of the bourgeois(capitalist class)' have control, and thus that state exists to serve that class specifically, all it's legal framework and institutions exist solely to protect that class. The 'dictatorship of the proletariat' is literally the 'dictatorship of the bourgeois' 'turned on it's head', the workers overthrow the bourgeois in a revolution and replace their dictatorship with their own. This worker's state is socialism, a process by which the proletarian dictatorship represses the bourgeois and liquidates them from society, this is class struggle, and communism can only be achieved once these bourgeois reactionary people and tendencies are weeded out of society. This process (socialism) requires an amount of self-criticism in society. As Marx this process of socialism would result in either the victory of one class or the contending ruin of both.

Modern 'reformist' leftism, like social democracy, is simply false because it assumes that the bourgeois power can remain intact (and indeed grow) while socialism can be built. This is false because it does not understand that the bourgeois dictatorship exists as the purest example of classist self-interest. And though eager to shroud it's dictatorship in decorative niceties such as 'civil freedoms', 'personal freedom' and the 'rule of law', the bourgeois dictatorship will as quickly dispense with these superficialities if their power is threatened by the working class.

Fundamentally then, building socialism and class struggle are indeed mutually indispensable, if not the same concept. Building a society based upon the overthrow of all existing social relations into a classless and completely free society; ie socialism, can only be achieved when the bourgeois class enemies of communism are liquidated. Communism is essence cannot exist if parts of society oppose it, the society is so interdependent that it will only truly exist when the states of mind of the populace have experienced this revolution. Socialism is therefore the class struggle, characterized by an imperfect implementation of collectivist ideals, whereby the class enemies are liquidated by every part of society. Marx's conclusion is that the proletarianization of the working class breeds communistic relations, that is that socialism spells communism. Try to imagine it like this:

Bourgeois dictatorship - Can be at varying degrees, whether social democratic 'New Deal' societies, which shows the bourgeois is weak and is trying to bribe the proletariat, or even radical free market 'globalized' economies, whereby the bourgeois is in much greater control; both representing the bourgeois state in different clothing differing on how well or badly is to doing in the class struggle against organized labor - that is in repressing the working class.

Proletarian dictatorship - Can be effectively judged by it's prosecution of the class struggle, generally as socialism moves further along the bourgeois will become more and more desperate in tactics to dislodge the dictatorship, the kulaks would be a good example of this. Even beyond this they may infiltrate the party, as happened in China and the USSR. Generally the proletarian dictatorship is at it's most vulnerable by revisionist and deviationist tendencies in it's own parties, will threaten to usurp the state and replace it with the bourgeois one, thus counter-revolution and revolution.

stalinsociety.org ...the name tells me everything I need to know.As does the name of the html file.

As does the name of the html file.
So you reject any kind of pro-Stalin arguments out of hand without even reading them. Interesting.

So you reject any kind of pro-Stalin arguments out of hand without even reading them. Interesting.Nah. It's just that the thing kept on yapping on about "the right" and ironically, isn't any better. Hard-right propaganda lumps everything into the left corner to lampoon it, Stalinist propaganda lumps everything into the right corner to discredit. I mean, people that support Stalin are either delusional or methodically evil, so they aren't all that reliable as sources.

I thought I'd start this topic up with this work in order to refute the lies concerning the Soviet Union, most actually originally conceived as Nazi propaganda, whose techniques were soon adopted by the US anti-communists.

Gulag Archipelago disagrees with you.

Marxism is thus not an ideological which are spiritual but a science.

No, EA. This is one of the fundamental errors of socialism.

Ideology requires no spirituality, no religious aspect. It is simply a system of belief - and that is ALL that socialism ever was, or is today. To claim "scientific support" where there is none merely makes your ideal less, not more, believable.

Marx (and Engels) wrote of a period of time in which he lived, then attempted to expand the concepts to embrace the whole of human history. But what makes perfect sense in one era is utter nonsense in the next - today there is no "class struggle", no "bourgeosie", no "proletariat". These are terms of a less enlightened, more primitive time - we have passed beyond need of them, and beyond the fields of social order based on such primitive concepts.

This worker's state is socialism, a process by which the proletarian dictatorship represses the bourgeois and liquidates them from society, this is class struggle, and communism can only be achieved once these bourgeois reactionary people and tendencies are weeded out of society.

My, what pleasant and humane imagery that conjours!

I especially like the nice touch when you use the word "liquidate."

No, EA. This is one of the fundamental errors of socialism.

Ideology requires no spirituality, no religious aspect. It is simply a system of belief - and that is ALL that socialism ever was, or is today. To claim "scientific support" where there is none merely makes your ideal less, not more, believable.

Marx (and Engels) wrote of a period of time in which he lived, then attempted to expand the concepts to embrace the whole of human history. But what makes perfect sense in one era is utter nonsense in the next - today there is no "class struggle", no "bourgeosie", no "proletariat". These are terms of a less enlightened, more primitive time - we have passed beyond need of them, and beyond the fields of social order based on such primitive concepts.
Their are no classes?!? Is that what you are trying to say. I can't say I've ever read such distortionist bourgeois propaganda, well done. To ignore the existence of differences in property(classes) throughout the world is to deny reality. To say we have 'progressed beyond classes' is probably again the worst example of propaganda I have ever seen, but I must say you embody class struggle 101, divide and conquer.

Marx (and Engels) wrote of a period of time in which he lived, then attempted to expand the concepts to embrace the whole of human history. But what makes perfect sense in one era is utter nonsense in the next - today there is no "class struggle", no "bourgeosie", no "proletariat". These are terms of a less enlightened, more primitive time - we have passed beyond need of them, and beyond the fields of social order based on such primitive concepts.
Nonsense. In broad terms, present-day society is structured the same way as the society Marx lived in, so his analysis is just as valid today as it ever was.

The only real difference between today's Western societies and the Western societies of Marx's time is that the disparity between rich and poor is smaller today (but only within the West, not on a global scale), so class distinctions are harder to see.

Capitalists still own the capital, workers still work for wages.

Their are no classes?!? Is that what you are trying to say. I can't say I've ever read such distortionist bourgeois propaganda, well done. To ignore the existence of differences in property(classes) throughout the world is to deny reality. To say we have 'progressed beyond classes' is probably again the worst example of propaganda I have ever seen, but I must say you embody class struggle 101, divide and conquer.

I believe what he is trying to say is that, throughout the developed world and the western nations, the class system, rather than having become stronger and more robust, has actually been substantially weakened since the 1850's, this having been done through bourgeois social reforms, two world wars, the collapse of the European empires and the information revolution. Because of this, the once concretized and solidified class structure that was predominant in the "developed world" has been weakened. The "class lines" that were once so distinct are fuzzy and flexible, practically indistinguishable.

Further, consumer culture has elevated the cult of the consumer above the traditional class lines. The common rich and the poor both shop at the same stores, eat the same food, and (generally) wear the same clothes.

The ability of centralized authority to control information, is, in fact, probably the single most important element of the past fifty years. Even in autocratic Russia, where controlling information is a veritable national pasttime (right after vodka), the Soviet government found that the single greatest weakness in its system was that it could no longer control information as it once could.

To say the class system is gone is untrue, but just as untrue is to say that it is unchanged from the time that Marx and Engels were about. They were a reflection of their own time, of the time they lived in, and as we temporally move further away from them, we also move further away from their work being relevant, and an apt criticism of our time and system.

This worker's state is socialism, a process by which the proletarian dictatorship represses the bourgeois and liquidates them from society, this is class struggle, and communism can only be achieved once these bourgeois reactionary people and tendencies are weeded out of society.
See, that is the error that you "anti-revisionists" commit - you focus too much on people and too little on institutions. First you think that it is necessary to physically repress the [former] bourgeoisie and "people with bourgeois tendencies" - when in fact all that is necessary is to remove their ability to control the means of production - and then you think that it is sufficient to focus on the former bourgeoisie and not pay attention to the new socialist institutions you've set up, the incentives they give to people and the way they could generate a new ruling class.

Nonsense. In broad terms, present-day society is structured the same way as the society Marx lived in, so his analysis is just as valid today as it ever was.

If you paint with broad enough strokes you can claim that we have, generally, the same sort of society as the Romans, but that doesn't make it particularly relevant, valid, useful or true.

Capitalists still own the capital, workers still work for wages.

Except that those lines are increasingly become fuzzier. It is not now uncommon to find a union laborer with a substantial quantity of stock in his 401k or investment portfolio. Are there disparities in ownership? Certainly, but that's the thing, the system is similar to what it once was, and overall structures of organization are the same, but the system itself is substantially different.

This worker's state is socialism, a process by which the proletarian dictatorship represses the bourgeois and liquidates them from society, this is class struggle, and communism can only be achieved once these bourgeois reactionary people and tendencies are weeded out of society.

Your use of a computer (luxury item), the internet (unregulated communications), and NSG (political hotbed) are clear signs of bourgeois tendencies that are traitorous to the cause of Marxism. Prepare for liquidation.

[/irony]

You would also do well not to judge the hSoviet Union as if the Stalin era was the only thing that ever existed.
Of course not, which is why I posted Bakunin's critique of Marx and Engels' dictatorship in general, rather than Stalin's take on Marxism in particular.

Alternatively, of course, we could use democratic mechanisms and the rule of law to allow the masses to keep the government in check.

It seems that neither Bakunin nor Lenin ever considered that option. Oh well...
It'd be hard for Bakunin, an anarchist, to advocate merely keeping government in check.

#Marxism does not 'promise' utopia as he seems to suggest, in reality it's him and the intellectually-over giddy anarchists and 'democratic' socialists that are the political equivalents of snake oil salesmen, with nice bombastic empty rhetoric but no practical analysis of reality which only material dialectics can provide.
Dialectical materialism is far from reality, far from scientific. Among other flaws, it inaccurately describes capitalism, assuming nothing has changed in the capitalist system since the 1860s, working from the point of view that the current economic system is a perfect example of 19th century industrial capitalism. It exaggerates the power and number of the 'industrial proletariat'. It fails to note that modern capitalism has achieved many things that Marx 'predicted' only socialism would produce, and ignores the large role the state now plays in capitalism.

In short, you and other deluded souls are working on the assumption that a man living in the 19th century could accurately predict an exact system of economics 150 years ahead of his time.

This is known as blind faith. Unscientific nonsense at its most useless.

It's quite the opposite actually, Marxist socialism does not promise anything overnight, it promises nothing straight away but reality, truth and a practical process to change that scientific proof... Marxism is the unflinching desire to see reality unclouded by any ideological or spiritual delusions, to see it wholly and completely materially.
Then in that respect it fails utterly and miserably. Marxism, at least classical Marxism and all the Leninist and Stalinist reworkings, are completely inaccurate. They do not describe reality at all.

You can whine about how this is merely bourgeoisie propaganda, but the cold hard fact, 'unclouded by any ideological or spiritual delusions' is that Leninism, Stalinism and classical Marxism simply do not match up with modern-day capitalism and reality in general.

Modern 'reformist' leftism, like social democracy, is simply false because it assumes that the bourgeois power can remain intact (and indeed grow) while socialism can be built. This is false because it does not understand that the bourgeois dictatorship exists as the purest example of classist self-interest. And though eager to shroud it's dictatorship in decorative niceties such as 'civil freedoms', 'personal freedom' and the 'rule of law', the bourgeois dictatorship will as quickly dispense with these superficialities if their power is threatened by the working class.
And how is this any different to Leninist and Stalinist states dispensing with civil freedoms, personal freedom and the rule of law when their dictatorships are threatened by elements of society that don't fit in with their limited and inaccurate view of human society?

Communism is essence cannot exist if parts of society oppose it, the society is so interdependent that it will only truly exist when the states of mind of the populace have experienced this revolution. Socialism is therefore the class struggle, characterized by an imperfect implementation of collectivist ideals, whereby the class enemies are liquidated by every part of society.
And here we, again, come back to the state of mind that Stalin shared, a state of mind that lead to atrocities; Gulags, pogroms, enforced famines.

You try and claim that accusations of brutality by Stalin and his cronies are bourgeoisie or Nazi propaganda, but then you go ahead and, as far as I can understand from the above rhetoric, advocate the same brutality.

Shame, really.

Shame you don't actually read these well sourced and accurate works then, and you would rather believe anti-communist Nazi and Western propaganda. Sad really.

The historical evidence disproves your point.

My Russian History professor, who lived and taught in Nizhniy Novgorod for many years, and has spoken with more Russians than you ever will, would call bullshit...and so do I.

So would my Soviet Union Professor. Ironicly, he also taught Hitler and Nazism.

Their are no classes?!? Is that what you are trying to say. I can't say I've ever read such distortionist bourgeois propaganda, well done. To ignore the existence of differences in property(classes) throughout the world is to deny reality. To say we have 'progressed beyond classes' is probably again the worst example of propaganda I have ever seen, but I must say you embody class struggle 101, divide and conquer.

I didn't say there were no classes. What I said was, there is no class struggle, no bourgeosie, and no proletariat.

In Marx's time and place, a person who was born poor, barring fantastic good fortune, would grow up poor, live poor, and die (young) poor. Social mobility was a practical near-impossibility.

You had a stratified society with clear definitions. The bourgeosie owned; the proletariat worked with what the bourgeosie owned; wealth went up and never down the ladder. A proletarian of Great Britain had more in common with a proletarian of Japan than he did with a bourgeois citizen of Britain.

Today, the old definitions do not fit. If you define bourgeois as being the owners, then all save the most poor - a small minority, in fact - are bourgeois. Workers get stakes in the company they work for, get paid a fair day's pay for a fair day's work - they are not the poor, beleaguered proletariat of 150 years ago.

And they do not think of the boss as the enemy. There is no class struggle, because the classes do not hate each other. When someone can change classes relatively easily, such hatred is counterproductive. Why "join with your fellow worker" to bring down the rich when, with a bit of luck and a bit of skill, you can BE the rich, or at least set things up so your child can?

With social mobility and universal education, the old barriers are now more like speedbumps. And the old answers no longer serve - because we're no longer even asking the same questions.

This worker's state is socialism, a process by which the proletarian dictatorship represses the bourgeois and liquidates them from society, this is class struggle, and communism can only be achieved once these bourgeois reactionary people and tendencies are weeded out of society.



There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They� the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centred lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism� will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.


Looks like Communist and Capitalist can get along after all. Not a big fan of trains, myself.

**gets some popcorn and waits for inevitable nonsense about how "that's completely different"**

Looks like Communist and Capitalist can get along after all. Not a big fan of trains, myself.

**gets some popcorn and waits for inevitable nonsense about how "that's completely different"**I'm confused. It looks like a rant on Democrats and Communists by a Libertarian. And Libertarianism is the epitome of Free Market Capitalism. Your statement that Libertarians and Communists can get along makes no sense.

<snip>I see. Carry on. :)

I'm confused. It looks like a rant on Democrats and Communists by a Libertarian. And Libertarianism is the epitome of Free Market Capitalism. Your statement that Libertarians and Communists can get along makes no sense.

From another thread:

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13353978&postcount=88
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13354008&postcount=94
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13354064&postcount=102
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13354096&postcount=105
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13354163&postcount=106
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13354191&postcount=107

Basically, Eureka Australis criticized Hans-Hermann Hoppe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Hermann_Hoppe) because of Hoppe's rather disturbing desire to physically remove the politically undesirable from his "ideal" society. Eureka Australis then, in this thread, turns around and calls for the removal of the politically undesirable from his/her "ideal" society (invoking similar, if not the same, language as Hoppe in the process).

I'm simply asking for an explanation.

As to whether Hoppe has anything to do with "libertarianism" or "free markets:" obviously he does not. Neither does Eureka Australis have anything to do with socialism.

he also taught Hitler

He's got a lot to answer for :mad:

<snip>

-snip-
I wonder if it was wise to post that...

I wonder if it was wise to post that...

Me too. :D

You mean a possibility for a ban, or something different? Or that it was just stupid or against net etiquette?

The frst one. Twas just a very friendly warning from someone who truly understands why you said it. ;)

Alternatively, of course, we could use democratic mechanisms and the rule of law to allow the masses to keep the government in check.

Perhaps. But that is not enough for freedom.

True freedom means that the people themselves rule themselves, not that they elect representatives to a distant state body that rules or misrules them in their place, and creates its own concentration of power and budding class system.

Dzhugashvili has died, his personality cult lives on.

This is the most hilariously rubbish source I have seen for a long time.

Stalin's Soviet Union was one gigantic prison camp...the mass graves unearthed across the country, the GULag system, USVITLag and Dalstoy in Magadan (a perfect Soviet parallel of Auschwitz and IG Farben), the rampages of the NKVD in occupied Poland and the Ukraine...

Nothing can excuse the levels of barbarity and cruelty of the Stalinist era. The Man of Steel was an evil man, a murderer that deserves the same condemnation as Hitler or Mao, and the Soviet Union suffered from the scars of his rule for the rest of his history. Stalin did more to destroy the Soviet Union than any other leader in the country's history.

He's got a lot to answer for :mad:

Um....its a class PM. Hitler and Nazism. Offered in the Spring at the school I attended.

I already know that anti-Communist and anti-USSR propaganda is rampant and epidemic. I live it almost everyday.

I thought I'd start this topic up with this work in order to refute the lies concerning the Soviet Union, most actually originally conceived as Nazi propaganda, whose techniques were soon adopted by the US anti-communists.

You seem rather obsessed with the idea that Stalin was a marxist saint, you might want to read this: Душа и Колючая проволока

I already know that anti-Communist and anti-USSR propaganda is rampant and epidemic. I live it almost everyday.

Given that the Soviet Union's overall best leader led the charge against Stalinism with his Secret Speech, I'd say the only thing that qualifies as anti-USSR propaganda is the concept that Stalin was in any way a hero that represented the values for which the country supposedly stood.

And yes, Khrushchev is by far the country's best leader. At no other time did the country enjoy the kind of optimistic progress and prosperity that flourished under his administration. He was far, far from perfect, but the Soviet people benefited massively from his rule (and proceeded to see said gains collapse during the inept corruption of Brezhnev).

Perhaps. But that is not enough for freedom.

True freedom means that the people themselves rule themselves, not that they elect representatives to a distant state body that rules or misrules them in their place, and creates its own concentration of power and budding class system.
Yes, but ideals of "true freedom" must be tempered with a dose of realism. Direct democracy is the ideal political system, but it is simply not yet feasible to run a large society on direct democracy. With the development of IT and communications, though, one day it might be.

Stalin's Soviet Union was one gigantic prison camp...
See, that's the kind of exaggeration I was talking about. Yes, there were hundreds of thousands of political prisoners under Stalin's rule, but to call the whole country "one gigantic prison camp" is to suggest that most of the population was imprisoned, which is just plain ridiculous.

Now, I've never lived under Stalin, but if 1980s Eastern Europe is anything to go by (I won't mention exactly which country I'm from), I have a little secret to tell you: a totalitarian state - or any state, for that matter - does not have the resources to monitor or repress the majority of people. Most people are free to do more or less whatever they want in their own homes, though they must be careful not to say anything that might sound suspicious in public. Of course that's not exactly enjoyable, but it's not like a prison camp either.

Nothing can excuse the levels of barbarity and cruelty of the Stalinist era.
Well, Stalin did win World War 2, thus saving the Russian people from extermination and enslavement as part of the Nazi Generalplan Ost, which called for the territory formely known as the Soviet Union to be settled with German immigrants, for 100 million Russians to be killed and for the rest to be turned into an uneducated "slave race."

If you happen to be a pan-Slavic nationalist (which you're probably not), I'd also like to point out that Stalin pushed the borders of Germany further West than they had been for a thousand years, and conquered East Prussia. Basically Stalin's military achievements were something like Peter the Great's wet dream.

Unfortunately, however, there is also this:

The Man of Steel was an evil man, a murderer that deserves the same condemnation as Hitler or Mao, and the Soviet Union suffered from the scars of his rule for the rest of his history. Stalin did more to destroy the Soviet Union than any other leader in the country's history.
That is undeniably true.

Given that the Soviet Union's overall best leader led the charge against Stalinism with his Secret Speech, I'd say the only thing that qualifies as anti-USSR propaganda is the concept that Stalin was in any way a hero that represented the values for which the country supposedly stood.

And yes, Khrushchev is by far the country's best leader. At no other time did the country enjoy the kind of optimistic progress and prosperity that flourished under his administration. He was far, far from perfect, but the Soviet people benefited massively from his rule (and proceeded to see said gains collapse during the inept corruption of Brezhnev).
Believe it or not, I agree completely and absolutely.

So yeah. ^ What he said. :)

I guess the millions who went and died at the gulag simply decided to walk off the face of the earth. :rolleyes:

See, that's the kind of exaggeration I was talking about. Yes, there were hundreds of thousands of political prisoners under Stalin's rule, but to call the whole country "one gigantic prison camp" is to suggest that most of the population was imprisoned, which is just plain ridiculous.

Well, given how strictly all forms of travel were controlled (even internal travel was difficult, if not impossible for most people) and how it was nearly impossible to legally leave the USSR except on official business, even above and beyond the general restrictions of later years, it's not hard to argue people were prisoners of a sort.

It wasn't intentionally a prison, but Stalin's policies made it such.

Now, I've never lived under Stalin, but if 1980s Eastern Europe is anything to go by (I won't mention exactly which country I'm from), I have a little secret to tell you: a totalitarian state - or any state, for that matter - does not have the resources to monitor or repress the majority of people. Most people are free to do more or less whatever they want in their own homes, though they must be careful not to say anything that might sound suspicious in public. Of course that's not exactly enjoyable, but it's not like a prison camp either.

With a few exceptions, of course. The Stasi were pretty effective at monitoring a lot of people through their sheer number of informants, and the NKVD had similar systems in place during the Purges; instead of trying to literally control everyone, they created an atmosphere of fear that eventually did the work for them.

It was sort of like population immunity; convince a sufficient threshold of people that the various threats underlying the Purges were significant enough to justify the government's actions, and from there the government will be able to gain significant control over the population with a minimal amount of resources invested in actual systems to control them. It requires a combination of factors to work, but when it does, the government can really exert a lot of power above and beyond its actual commitments.

But you are correct. However, I don't think there was any system in place during the rest of the Eastern Bloc's history that reached the levels of terror seen in the USSR of the 1930's. North Korea is probably the closest approximation in the world today, although it still lacks the kind of economic growth and improvement that occurred in the USSR at the time (at the very least, the 1920's and 1930's saw increased material prosperity, even if at massive cost).

Well, Stalin did win World War 2, thus saving the Russian people from extermination and enslavement as part of the Nazi Generalplan Ost, which called for the territory formely known as the Soviet Union to be settled with German immigrants, for 100 million Russians to be killed and for the rest to be turned into an uneducated "slave race."

That's always been something I've had trouble really determining; Stalin undoubtedly coordinated the Soviet economic war effort admirably, but he also made a lot of mistakes that nearly cost them the war at multiple points early in the campaign.

If you happen to be a pan-Slavic nationalist (which you're probably not), I'd also like to point out that Stalin pushed the borders of Germany further West than they had been for a thousand years, and conquered East Prussia. Basically Stalin's military achievements were something like Peter the Great's wet dream.

Of course, there were some practical benefits to it; the Eastern Bloc did provide a cordon of defense against Western Europe and the US forces stationed there, and it also gave the Soviets access to several strategically useful points that might have been previously unavailable.

Plus, they were economically useful. The USSR gained a considerable amount from the agricultural production of states like Poland, the technical and research work in East Germany, and the industrial production of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. War reparations were a less savory benefit for the country, given the amounts of material dismantled and returned to the USSR, but did help accelerate its postwar reconstruction.

They.....are.....all.....LIES.

Um....its a class PM. Hitler and Nazism. Offered in the Spring at the school I attended.

I couldn't resist. It was too easy. :p

I thought I'd start this topic up with this work in order to refute the lies concerning the Soviet Union, most actually originally conceived as Nazi propaganda, whose techniques were soon adopted by the US anti-communists.

Gawd not more shoot and scoot nonsense from this guy

The USSR is dead and long may it remain so
It was nothing more than a single party dictatorship, and in the Stalin yrs, a one man dictatorship.
It bore no resemblence to socialism or communism dispite it claims.
And you saw in 1988-1991 that if you loosened the chains holding the masses down even slightly , the alledged communists got kicked out of power very fast.

I thought I'd start this topic up with this work in order to refute the lies concerning the Soviet Union, most actually originally conceived as Nazi propaganda, whose techniques were soon adopted by the US anti-communists.

To think that the whole world was duped into thinking that Stalin was a dictator when in fact he was just a big old teddy bear.

I actually wasted some time and read most of the stuff on that website and it pretty much boils down to: official KGB records that have been released suggest that Stalin's penal system was not nearly as bad as Solzehlnietsen claimed it was. The West made up all kinds of lies and exaggerations about Stalin that make him seem like a monster when he really wasnt. The purges were totally fair and justified.

Even if it was true that a lot less people were arrested for political crimes this does not get around the fact that there were lots of people arrested for political crimes. The way that I see it, any country with any political prisoners during peacetime is repressive. In fact, political prisoners in times of war also should raise some eyebrows.