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.
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.