this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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No, in no way is that comparable. The CIA didn't believe he was all powerful, and in his attempts to resign, he even tried to suggest eliminating his two positions overall. I suggest that Stalin could not simply do whatever he wanted because I understand, like the CIA did, that he was more of a "captain of the team." He certainly had extensive power and his opinions were held with high weight, but he did not have absolute command nor all-encompasing command. He had the power of his positions, and no more. I suggest reading books on Soviet History post-early 90s, after the Archives opened up.
Please avoid framing this document as the CIA's assessment of the USSR. This is merely collected comments from an undisclosed informant, not a memorandum or anything close to an official statement.
My friend, you're grossly downplaying the severity of your arguments here, and linking to a CIA document and a hexbear thread 💀 isn't assisting the argument. That document (and subsequently YOU) severely underestimates the extent of Stalin's authoritarian control.
Who wrote that document? No really? Talking about how Stalin faced limited external opposition. WELL NO FUCKING SHIT!! BECAUSE HE PURGED ANY OPPOSITION THE SECOND HE HAD THE CHANCE TO!! YOU'D BE OUT OF YOUR MIND TO OPPOSE HIM!!
Also, the document is talking about how he was merely the leader among many. Are you aware that Stalin had absolute control over the NKVD, the military, and the political system? The purges and repression of opposition eliminated any real collective decision-making. His control over the apparatus of power meant that, in practice, his word was final. Khrushchev’s rise to power came after Stalin's death, in part because of Stalin's purging of potential rivals—further solidifying that Stalin was more than just "the captain of a team."
I genuinely can't believe these takes and it can only be retorted by someone who was in support of the actions of his regime frankly speaking. I don't know why you can't be Marxist and condemn the actions of Stalin or all the other authoritarian communist regimes. It's quite frankly ridiculous that you would offer up these points to me as solid rebuttals. I may not be an expert in sociology or history or political science or whatever, and I may just be a college student who engages in political discourse merely as a hobby, but I refuse to take anyone who downplays the acts of Stalin and his regime, nevertheless in the face glaring contradictions, seriously. I'm sorry buddy. I tried to engage in this discussion with you unbiasedly, but i can't take it anymore.
I encourage you to, again, read history books, rather than taking any one person's word for anything. The thread I linked has references posted as well, so you can check the original sources yourself if you question their validity. In order to be a Marxist, it is critical that we learn to separate fact from fiction, and part of that is recognizing that we all have implicit biases. We should not fear searching for more truth. Stalin certainly wasn't a saint, and I am not making him out to be one. I believe you are over-correcting and making critical errors in judgement because of it.
I highly recommend the short, 8 minute article "Tankies" by Roderic Day, hosted over on Red Sails. For more in-depth reading, Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo is a good historical critique of Stalin that focuses on taking a critical stance towards Stalin and contextualizes him.
And i stopped reading there. I don't consider causing the deaths of 20 million people to be "doing more for humanity". I don't think there's anything wrong with Marxism. There's something wrong with the people that believe it however.
You freely admit to being unfamiliar with Socialist history, and yet are unwilling to even finish a short article? It's 8 minutes long, if you refuse to read things you don't agree with without doing the due research to overcome them you doom yourself to blindness.
Seriously, read the full article or you'll never be able to genuinely understand anything you don't already agree with. Better yet you could read the history book, but if you can't be trusted to read an 8 minute article I fear you're simply fine with never even daring to let your preconveived notions be challenged by historical and archival evidence.
I think I'll pass. This is like a Nazi coming up to me and suggesting i consider Nazism because it focuses on national and racial pride. Sounds like a good idea on paper right?
See, equating Communism with Nazism is fascist apologia and perpetuates Double Genocide Theory. This is something you desparately need to correct, if nothing else, because it is a common form of Holocaust minimization. Since you're already under the mistaken impression that Communists and Nazis could ever be in the same category, you definitely need to read Dr. Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Fall of Communism. Your refusal to read has taken on direct forms of fascist apologia, unintentional as it may be, and if not for me (as I assume you have no respect for me) then you must do it for yourself.
You just keep recommending more books I can't help but laugh. I used to have respect for you, but it has somewhat waned as of the last hour or so. I even finished that Politzer book.
Also, my comparison is based on how ready both sides are to trivialize the atrocities committed by them.
Hey, kudos for finishing Elementary Principles of Philosophy! credit due where credit is due, it's a phenomenal book and hopefully you understand Dialectical and Historical Materialism more.
Anyway, the core of the matter is that the historical evidence I have seen based on a combination of reading historical books, reading primary sources, and more have led me to have what I believe to be a different understanding of events in both qualitative and quantitative degrees. As an example, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-aggression pact. This was a strategic pact made because the USSR tried to align with the west against the Nazis prior to it in order to save Czechoslovakia, but the West denied and sacrificed it, hoping the Soviets and Nazis would kill each other off. It wasn't an alliance, but a means to force the allies to later join the war.
You admit to having no understanding outside Wikipedia articles, which means you have some serious digging to do.
I shall dig in the absence of Marxist propaganda and bias thank you