Given that this community has generally positive view of Stalin, I’m curious what he did that my comrades find irredeemable or out of line. Since it’s easy to criticize the Soviet Union from a western perspective, bonus points if you explain how this was detrimental to the development of socialism and/or communism.
You’ve been mislead in a very serious way. That “warning,” which is more critical of Trotsky than of Stalin, comes from Stalin’s only conflict with Lenin, which happened to take place during Lenin’s last days, over Stalin’s supposed “brutality” in Georgia. Since Lenin only got this information second-hand (he was bedridden), he never published that “testament.” Once he recovered, he began to investigate personally. After he did, Stalin was acquitted.
On another note, those “left-wing Bolsheviks” like Zinoviev and Kamenev betrayed Lenin at the very hour of the revolution. Trotsky had been against it until that hour. Stalin and Lenin had been working together to bring about the revolution for decades, longer than any of these “left-wing Bolsheviks,” and on top of that he never backstabbed Lenin. The idea that Lenin and Trotsky of all people were close friends and Stalin was a distant, shifty politician lurking in the background waiting to take power is absurd. Stalin was the only legitimate successor to Lenin, especially since he built the party into power even before Lenin’s death.
Stalin saved the world from the Nazis too, so you might want to show a little bit of respect for this great leader. I think part of that respect involves doing your research before you unknowingly reiterate these lies in an explicitly pro-AES community.
Lenin never recovered from this… This testament came from the series of strokes that lead to his death
Also I think you’re seriously confused. Zinoviev was part of the Bolsheviks since it split with the Mensheviks in 1903. Same with Kamenev. Stalin joined in 1917. Hell, the first time he even met Lenin was in 1906. And he was in and out of prison until the revolution (he was only out of prison for a total of 2 years between 1908 and 1917) so there’s no way he could have possibly been “working together to bring about the revolution for decades”
Furthermore Lenin was (once again) forced into exile in 1907. He wouldn’t even return to Russia until April of 1917 (hence the “April Theses”)
This is just a matter of basic dates. Like shit you could have simply looked up. Please don’t rudely ask me to do my research when you can’t even get the very basics right.
Next time you reply I hope you’ve at least learned to use Google
http://209.151.22.101/Journalists/Strong-AL/TheStalinEra-AL-Strong-1956.pdf
Lenin recovered from his second stroke enough to investigate the Georgia matter himself before suffering his third stroke and dying. You make it sound like Lenin was warning the world of the evils of Stalin on his deathbed, and that’s just not what happened.
And Stalin and Lenin had been colleagues and friends for twenty years by this time. They knew each other since 1905. And was he not in prison for working on the revolutionary socialist project?
And I apologize for being rude, but this is just contrary to everything I’ve learned about Stalin. Frankly, it feels indistinguishable from liberal histories of Stalin, which have been extremely falsified. So when I say you’ve been mislead in a serious way, I’m being quite serious.
Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out. I’m not sure how it sounded like “Lenin was warning the world of the evils of Stalin on his deathbed” as that was definitely not my intention. Lenin definitely saw Stalin as a comrade. I was just pointing out that there was clear signs Lenin did NOT want Stalin to be his successor.
And yes, Stalin was in prison for those reasons (mostly for bank robberies and such to attain funding for revolutionary groups. Sounds noble but it’s worth mentioning there was some seriously fucked up civilian casualties in some of these plots). But so were many other revolutionaries… The Bolshevikes were FAR from the only revolutionary group at the time. In fact they were still a pretty niche minority. The majority of assassinations of the Tsar’s officials were plots carried out by the SRs. The SRs were also unique amongst the revolutionaries in that they were the only group that actually had widespread peasant support. Most other groups only had proletariat and some military support.
I guess what I’m trying to say, is the fact that Stalin was one of the (thousands of) revolutionaries at the time doesn’t at all imply he “worked closely” with Lenin. In fact there’s very little evidence to support such a close relationship at that time. And no matter which way you spin it, it’s obviously true that Lenin knew the other Bolshevik leaders since before he even met Stalin. You admitted as much yourself when you stated that they met in 1905 (which is technically inaccurate, they met in 1906 for the first time). Whereas the split that created the Bolshevik party happened in 1903 and before that split Lenin had known the other members for AT LEAST 2 years.
Fair enough. Read the first chapter of that source and tell me if there’s some good reason I shouldn’t take it at its word. From what Strong claims, it sounds like Lenin had more serious conflicts with these other characters than he ever had with Stalin, even if he may have known them personally for longer. If Lenin was able to forgive these guys, I don’t think it’s fair to suppose that he wouldn’t have forgiven Stalin (assuming that’s what you’re saying).
I think “forgive” might not be the right word here. If you actually read Lenin’s Testament you will see that he had criticisms for basically all the potential leaders/successors. He was by no means targeting only Stalin. However, I think it’s pretty clear that most of his most fierce criticisms are aimed at Stalin (Note that there’s even more criticisms than the 2 quotes I pointed out. A simple
CTRL+F+"Stalin"should show you what I mean). And there’s no other member for which Lenin goes as far as to suggest they find a way to remove them from their postAlso worth noting is that the Testament is actually a collection of publications from his deathbed. There was like 3 different, progressively worse, strokes that put him in his bed. Stalin was actually assigned to be his primary caretaker during that time so they obviously had a close enough relationship (though Stalin did at one point request to be removed from this position). The specific call to remove Stalin from his post came as a post-script near the end of his series of strokes. I’d need to double check sources, but I don’t think he ever recovered enough after the publication of this post-script to “make up with Stalin” (PS do you have a source specifically about this “making up”? I don’t recall ever reading about this in his recoveries)
My understanding is that after Lenin “recovered” from his second stroke, after he started investigating personally, the scrutiny aimed at Stalin lessened. Lenin had his third stroke before the party met to discuss Stalin’s actions in Georgia, but Trotsky was there, and he gave a lot of ground to Stalin’s side. Strong talks about that in the book I linked. That to me indicates that Lenin’s investigations clarified things in a light that favored Stalin, but that’s just my speculation I suppose.
I am fairly certain that Lenin’s request to remove Stalin from office was dictated after his second stroke.
But I think I’ve lost the thread of the argument. If you’re critiquing the Great Purges, my understanding was there was a real threat of Nazi collaboration within the Soviet Union. That comes to me word of mouth, though I do recall reading something by Grover Furr explaining that Trotsky was guilty of this.