The greatest enemy of Communism

[Edric O]

1879 - 1953

Joseph Stalin, a self-centered megalomaniac butcher, is one of the most infamous people in history. Yet few realize that aside from being a cold-blooded killer, he was above all a traitor. He betrayed his family, his people, his closest associates and friends, and most of all he betrayed the very ideology which he claimed to reprsent. The immense amount of harm done by Stalin to communism everywhere is greater than anything any capitalist ever did. Stalin never cared for the cause of communism, or for the liberation of opressed people. He repeatedly used his influence to prevent honest communists from taking power in other countries, in exchange for favours from capitalist leaders. He brutally supressed all opposition and ordered massive purges, which ironically usually targeted communists... Stalin made the Soviet Union a repressive police state.

True communists, such as Leon Trotsky, stood up against Stalin's Terror. And for this, their families and loved ones were arrested and tortured, and they themselves were systematically murdered. Trotsky himself, the leader of the communist opposition to Stalin's regime, was chased by the NKVD all over the world for almost 10 years, until they finally caught up with him in 1940 in Mexico. By that time, all his close relatives were dead or missing.

Stalin was a traitor and a genocidal murderer. He couldn't care less about marxism or communism - he just used it as a smokescreen to cover his despotic regime. As a communist, I feel it is my duty to always be the first to speak out against Stalin and stalinism (= left-wing fascism). This man was our greatest enemy. And that is why I am posting a full list of Stalin's crimes and murders - taken directly from a Marxist forum. (it seems we communists hate Stalin even more than capitalists do)

The crimes of Stalin

(original topic can be found here)

Lenin begins his testament, Dec. 23 1922.

'Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People's Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work.'

'Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc.'

First Five-Year plan, 1928

In 1928 the peasants demonstrated their ability to organize effective resistance when the Soviet state tried to collect grain forcibly and at prices unfavorable to the peasants. Collectivization was calculated to eliminate effective peasant opposition to the policies of the Soviet state by reducing the number of separate units in the agricultural population from 25 million independent families to several hundred thousand collective farms.

Stalin temporarily called a halt to forcible collectivization with his famous ''Dizziness with Success'' article of March 2, 1930, but massive peasant abandonment of collectivization during the ensuing months led to renewed administrative pressure and violence against ''kulaks,'' the term then indiscriminately used to label all peasants who opposed collectivization.

When the peasants retaliated by destroying crops and killing their animals, the Soviet state confiscated foodstuffs the peasants needed to feed themselves. A particularly serious crisis developed in the Ukraine and northern Caucasus during the famine winter of 1932-1933, when apparently millions of peasants starved to death. The exact human toll resulting from collectivization is not known, but estimates run as high as 5 to 10 million. A recent study by Robert Conquest suggests the real figure is closer to 20 million.

Nikolai Bukharin ousted from Politburo, 1929

Repression and terror: Stalin in control.

During the second half of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin set the stage for gaining absolute power by employing police repression against opposition elements within the Communist Party. The machinery of coercion had previously been used only against opponents of Bolshevism, not against party members themselves. The first victims were Politburo members Leon Trotskii, Grigorii Zinov'ev, and Lev Kamenev, who were defeated and expelled from the party in late 1927. Stalin then turned against Nikolai Bukharin, who was denounced as a "right opposition," for opposing his policy of forced collectivization and rapid industrialization at the expense of the peasantry.

Secret Police

Once the Civil War (1918-21) ended and the threat of domestic and foreign opposition had receded, the Cheka was disbanded. Its functions were transferred in 1922 to the State Political Directorate, or GPU, which was initially less powerful than its predecessor. Repression against the population lessened. But under party leader Joseph Stalin, the secret police again acquired vast punitive powers and in 1934 was renamed the People's Comissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD. No longer subject to party control or restricted by law, the NKVD became a direct instrument of Stalin for use against the party and the country during the Great Terror of the 1930s.

Collectivization and Industrialization begins

In November 1927, Joseph Stalin launched his "revolution from above"(?) All industry and services were nationalized, managers were given predetermined output quotas by central planners, and trade unions were converted into mechanisms for increasing worker productivity. Many new industrial centers were developed, particularly in the Ural Mountains, and thousands of new plants were built throughout the country. But because Stalin insisted on unrealistic production targets, serious problems soon arose. With the greatest share of investment put into heavy industry, widespread shortages of consumer goods occurred.

Stalin`s Dizzy with Success speech, 1930

Ukrainian Famine, 1932-1933

The dreadful famine that engulfed Ukraine, the northern Caucasus, and the lower Volga River area in 1932-1933 was the result of Joseph Stalin's policy of forced collectivization. The heaviest losses occurred in Ukraine, which had been the most productive agricultural area of the Soviet Union. Stalin was determined to crush all vestiges of Ukrainian nationalism. Thus, the famine was accompanied by a devastating purge of the Ukrainian intelligentsia and the Ukrainian Communist party itself. The famine broke the peasants' will to resist collectivization and left Ukraine politically, socially, and psychologically traumatized.

The man-made famine of 1933 in Soviet Ukraine: what happened and why

The event which Ukrainians call "shtuchnyi holod," the man-made famine, or sometimes even the Ukrainian holocaust, claimed an estimated 5 to 7 million victims. Purely in terms of mortality, it thus was of the same order of magnitude as the Jewish holocaust.

The first man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine 1921-1923

Gulags

The gulag collection

From the mid-thirties on, the terror became yet more intense, the treatment worse still. These millions of totally innocent men and women were treated in ways that would have been thought grossly inhumane elsewhere even if applied to the worst criminals.

There were often executions in the camps. Ten thousand were specifically ordered by Moscow in 1937. Others were carried out for local offenses such as failing three times to work, or simply as a means of removing those showing any other sign of independence, or uttering any ?anti-Soviet? words.

Attacks on Intelligentsia

Stalin now asserted that art should not merely serve society, but do so in a way determined by the party and its megalomaniacal plans for transforming society. As a result, artists and intellectuals as well as political figures became victims of the Great Terror of the 1930s.

Anti-Religious Campaigns

The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labor camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited. By 1939 only about 500 of over 50,000 churches remained open.

After Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for the war effort. By 1957 about 22,000 Russian Orthodox churches had become active. But in 1959 Nikita Khrushchev initiated his own campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church and forced the closure of about 12,000 churches. By 1985 fewer than 7,000 churches remained active. Members of the church hierarchy were jailed or forced out, their places taken by docile clergy, many of whom had ties with the KGB.

Campaigns against other religions were closely associated with particular nationalities, especially if they recognized a foreign religious authority such as the Pope.

Kirov Murder and Purges

The murder of Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934, set off a chain of events that culminated in the Great Terror of the 1930s(?)It is doubtful that Kirov represented an immediate threat to Stalin's predominance, but he did disagree with some of Stalin's policies, and Stalin had begun to doubt the loyalty of members of the Leningrad apparatus. In need of a pretext for launching a broad purge, Stalin evidently decided that murdering Kirov would be expedient. The murder was carried out by a young assassin named Leonid Nikolaev. Recent evidence has indicated that Stalin and the NKVD planned the crime.

Stalin then used the murder as an excuse for introducing draconian laws against political crime and for conducting a witch-hunt for alleged conspirators against Kirov. Over the next four-and-a-half years, millions of innocent party members and others were arrested -- many of them for complicity in the vast plot that supposedly lay behind the killing of Kirov.

Sergei Kirov

In the summer of 1932 Joseph Stalin became aware that opposition to his policies were growing. Some party members were publicly criticizing Stalin and calling for the readmission of Leon Trotsky to the party. When the issue was discussed at the Politburo, Stalin demanded that the critics should be arrested and executed. Kirov, who up to this time had been a staunch Stalinist, argued against this policy. When the vote was taken, the majority of the Politburo supported Kirov against Stalin.

In the spring of 1934 Kirov put forward a policy of reconciliation. He argued that people should be released from prison who had opposed the government's policy on collective farms and industrialization. Once again, Joseph Stalin found himself in a minority in the Politburo.

After years of arranging for the removal of his opponents from the party, Joseph Stalin realized he still could not rely on the total support of the people whom he had replaced them with. Stalin no doubt began to wonder if Kirov was willing to wait for his mentor to die before becoming leader of the party.

Stalin Constitution promulgated

ARTICLE 125. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law:

a.freedom of speech;

b.freedom of the press;

c.freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;

d.reedom of street processions and demonstrations.

These civil rights are ensured by placing at the disposal of the working people and their organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public buildings, the streets, communications facilities and other material requisites for the exercise of these rights.

ARTICLE 126. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to develop the organizational initiative and political activity of the masses of the people, citizens of the U.S.S.R. are ensured the right to unite in public organizations--trade unions, cooperative associations, youth organizations,' sport and defense organizations, cultural, technical and scientific societies; and the most active and politically most conscious citizens in the ranks of the working class and other sections of the working people unite in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), which is the vanguard of the working people in their struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system and is the leading core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state.

Stalin's Final Solution: What Might Have Happened

Not accidently, a disproportionate number of those purged (arrested, imprisoned, and killed) from the party at Stalin's command in the 1930s were Jews. That Stalin allowed no news of Nazi brutalities against Jews in Poland during the duration of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939-1941) to be broadcast in the Soviet Union leads one to entertain serious suspicions as to his motives. That he initiated a broad campaign of culturecide against Yiddish-speaking intellectuals, directly after World War II in the wake of the Holocaust, further deepens these suspicions.

In a recently published book, L'holocauste inacheve (The Unfinished Holocaust) by Alexander Borchagovsky, that question is raised and answered. According to Borchagovsky, had Stalin not fallen ill and died, he would have embarked on a post-Hitlerian Soviet-style Final Solution. He concludes that Stalin had laid plans that included special concentration camps just for Jews, equipped with gas chambers. The first round of that campaign, Borchagovsky maintains, was the 1948 frontal assault on Jewish culture. His evidence comes from seventy volumes of documents found in the KGB archives.

Stalinshchina (Stalin terror), 1939-1941

Later Years

The events of these years profoundly affected Stalin personally. Although habitually choleric and withdrawn, he had lived in the 1920's an outwardly normal life, surrounded not only by many relatives, who spoke their minds freely in the family circle, but also by good personal friends among the Soviet leadership. In the early 1930's, however, his life began to change, especially after the suicide, on Nov. 8, 1932, of his second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, who left a letter indicting him both personally and politically. From the beginning of the purges in 1935 until his death in March 1953, he was extremely suspicious, ready to see others--even those with whom he had been united by many years of personal and political comradeship--not only as personal enemies but as enemies of the state. He was unable to resume his trust in anyone from whom he had once withdrawn it, and he was unshakably convinced that the system of political terror must be allowed to work even if it touched those around him. He spared neither his own relatives (the Svanidzes and Alliluyevs, most of whom came to a tragic end), nor former political comrades, nor even the families of his closest political associates. Polina Molotova, the wife of his foreign minister and closest colleague, was sentenced in 1948 to 10 years in prison.

Jewish Antifascist Committee, 1942-1948

The Jewish Antifascist Committee (JAC) was formed in Kuibyshev in April 1942. Two Polish Jewish socialists, Henryk Erlich and Viktor Alter (both of whom were later secretly executed), may have proposed the idea to Lavrenti Beria, the head of the NKVD.

A year after its establishment, the JAC was moved to Moscow and became one of the most important centers of Jewish culture and Yiddish literature until the German invasion. The JAC broadcast pro-Soviet propaganda to foreign audiences several times a week, telling them of the absence of anti-Semitism and ofthe great anti-Nazi efforts being made by the Soviet military.

In 1948, Mikhoels was assassinated by secret agents of Stalin, and, as part of a newly launched official anti-Semitic campaign, the JAC was disbanded in November and most of its members arrested.

Deportations

Joseph Stalin's forcible resettlement of over 1.5 million people, mostly Muslims, during and after World War II is now viewed by many human rights experts in Russia as one of his most drastic genocidal acts. Volga Germans and seven nationalities of Crimea and the northern Caucasus were deported: the Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachai, and Meskhetians. Other minorities evicted from the Black Sea coastal region included Bulgarians, Greeks, and Armenians.

Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact

Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, Part II, withdrawn from theaters, 1945

DEATH OF STALIN, 1953

Nikita Khrushchev delivers 'secret speech'

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[ordos45]

*raises glass of water in toast motion* At least he died when he did. I sincerely think he was unstable enough that if he had lived longer, we could have been thrust into nuclear war.

It is a pity that all the "Communist Nations" are not truly Communist, but are the horrifying example of a Stalinist Nation. Stalinist is not Communist.

[SurlyPIG]

He was by far the worst but his actions were not that much fundamentally different than his predecessor or some of his successors. They were equally brutal, equally traitiorous (though I don't see how any of them 'betrayed' the ideals of communism), equally opressive and equally heartless. Stalin was just...better at it. More extreme.

[ordos45]

Yeah 13 million peasants is a bit extreme...

[SurlyPIG]

Most definately. He was in power for far longer too, unfortunately.

[DukeLeto]

Bravo, Edric! You (and O45) are exactly right; The Soviet Union, China, they weren't true communist nations, but Fascist Dictatorships using Communism as a shield.

[SurlyPIG]

??? Uhh...I can see China but the USSR was communism...They studied it, they started it, they made it what it was.

[zamboe]

Indeed he was one of the destructors of a communist dream.

However IMO the greatest enemy of Communism is it's lack of practic ways to apply it's principles. The so called "real communism" is a good idealism but nothing else, it has no possible ways to be put in practice considering the human nature.

[exatreide]

Yeah 13 million peasants is a bit extreme...

In the words of vlad the Impaler, They had it coming

[SurlyPIG]

Quite true Zamboe. It sounds nice and fuzzy on paper but it's about as far from practical as can be...

[quote author=ExAtreides

[exatreide]

i was joking silly ;)

[SurlyPIG]

Good that you aren't serious...but it is no joking matter :-

[DukeLeto]

??? Uhh...I can see China but the USSR was communism...They studied it, they started it, they made it what it was.

I meant Stlalinist Russia...

[Edric O]

Oh yes, the USSR was on the path to Communism alright... that is, until Lenin died and Stalin came along. But even without Stalin, it would have still been a hell of a bumpy ride. Marx warned about the dangers of attempting Communism in a backwards 3rd world country. And Lenin was very much aware about it, and that was why he insisted that the Soviet Union could only survive as a Communist nation if the Russian revolution was followed by other revolutions, in the more advanced nations of Western Europe.

When Stalin came to power, he abandoned the idea of the world revolution, and said that achieving Communism in a war-torn impoverished country just out of feudalism was perfectly possible... and we all know how that turned out.

[Caid Ivik]

Sometimes biggest enemies of ideologies are ideologers themselves...

But he had no problem to spread the revolution - CSR, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia etc. And don't say that army of 50 thousand tanks on borders was a "defense force against western imperialism". Communists many times doom their internal enemies, like Chruscev demonized Stalin, or Breznev demonized Chruscev (we had same here: Clementis, Husak, Dubcek...today's slovak commie leader Sevc shit at all of them).

[Edric O]

Stalin never spread the revolution. He only spread his empire.

You don't spread the revolution by putting your loyal puppets in charge of other countries.

And the fact that stalinist dictators frequently demonize the other stalinists who were in power in the past is just an effect of their own selfishness. They don't want anyone else to share their "glory".

Of course, some of them, like Khruschev, were actually honestly trying to steer away from stalinism. But the rigid party structure stopped them in their tracks.

[Anathema]

I sincerely think he was unstable enough that if he had lived longer, we could have been thrust into nuclear war.

The SU already had hydrogen bombs when he died, so if he wanted to cause a nuclear war he could have. There's one fundamental difference that separates Stalin from Hitler. Stalin was more of a diplomat and far less agressive (towards other nations) then Hitler. So I honestly doubt he would have caused a nuclear war even if he had lived for another thirty years.

[Dante]

Well done Edric. How long did all that take to put together and construct?

[zamboe]

Fortunately Stalin got rid off of Trosky. If Trosky would have stayed as supreme commander of the Red Army there would have been more millions of inocent people killed.

[Dante]

I'm not so sure of that... Trotsky seemed to be less extreme than Stalin. Maybe even than Lenin but I'm certainly no authority on the subject.

[SurlyPIG]

[c]

Oh yes, the USSR was on the path to Communism alright... that is, until Lenin died and Stalin came along.

Wha??? Lenin was just as brutal as stalin. He too wanted to 'purge' Russia of tsarism and everything associated with it (including your own Orthodox Church)! Even a year after he had taken control of the country, and the Romanovs were being held in a house in Siberian Ekaterinburg, he had them taken to the basement and shot. Not just Nikolai II, his wife, and his children too. Even 14 year old, deathly sick Alexei.

But even without Stalin, it would have still been a hell of a bumpy ride. Marx warned about the dangers of attempting Communism in a backwards 3rd world country. And Lenin was very much aware about it, and that was why he insisted that the Soviet Union could only survive as a Communist nation if the Russian revolution was followed by other revolutions, in the more advanced nations of Western Europe.

So it could only survive by trampling more advanced, less agressive nations. Very communist indeed.

[Edric O]

Wha??? Lenin was just as brutal as stalin. He too wanted to 'purge' Russia of tsarism and everything associated with it (including your own Orthodox Church)! Even a year after he had taken control of the country, and the Romanovs were being held in a house in Siberian Ekaterinburg, he had them taken to the basement and shot. Not just Nikolai II, his wife, and his children too. Even 14 year old, deathly sick Alexei.

Yes, the same Tsar who brutally repressed his people and had any dissenters tortured and killed. The same Tsar who had millions of his people die in a pointless war, and who lived in luxury while the masses starved.

Excuse me if I don't feel sorry for him.

So it could only survive by trampling more advanced, less agressive nations. Very communist indeed.

Hmmm, I see you've been taking lessons from Nav on how to completely twist other people's words...

Edit:

Fortunately Stalin got rid off of Trosky. If Trosky would have stayed as supreme commander of the Red Army there would have been more millions of inocent people killed.

LOL, zamboe, that makes about as much sense as saying that you're happy Hitler got rid of all the annoying Jews... ::)

You don't seem to know much about Trotsky. Maybe I'll start a topic about him too, one of these days... Anyway, Dust Scout is right. Trotsky was a true communist, a man who wanted freedom for the people. Just read some of his writings!

(P.S. - Dust Scout, I didn't write that long list myself. I took it from a Marxist forum that I visit)

[Inoculator9]

Tsar Nicholas (my great-great-uncle or something) was not a bad person. He was naive, unaware, and he was not suited to rule. His oppression was mostly inadvertant. His rule was unstable and full of holes. He had no idea how to rule.

In response to the actual thread... Communism is the greatest goal and idea the world could have. But it is also among the hardest to reach. Communism, on paper, is beautiful and almost flawless. But it places to much reliance on the falsehood that all communists would be good, compassionate people. Stalin brought this wonderful ideology to the brink of destruction, and I will always hate him for it.

[zamboe]

Trosky real communist ?, some people need to get his/her facts straight.

With Stalin was enough for the terror, I can't even think of two dictators instead of one.

[Inoculator9]

I believe that Edric has the last word on the subject :P