What happened in '37?
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Большой террор, The Great Purge, where Stalin murdered most of the revolutionaries who still had any influence and actually intended to make the USSR communist instead of Authoritarian with a red coat of paint.
![Cowbee [he/they]](https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/c18ce632-5fb5-4888-8226-3dc55a07acc4.jpeg "Cowbee [he/they]")
The ideological struggle that led to the Bolshevik civil war was not one of “authoritarianism” vs. “communism,” it was a war between Stalin’s centrist faction, which had the broadest support within the Bolsheviks at large, as well as Trotsky’s “left-opposition,” which distrusted the peasantry and felt that socialism was impossible without a revolution in western Europe. What changes do you believe those found guilty in the Moscow Trials and purge in general wished to enact that would have made the USSR “communist?”
Trotsky was kind of on to something, no? Yes, we can all agree that in the short term direct transition to real communism would have been a bridge too far to accomplish in a single generation, especially going from a largely pre-industrial Russia directly to a socialist society. People broadly lack the political will and understanding of how bad capitalism can get until they live under it. That said, there were more effective ways to actually move toward real socialism rather than an iron grip that gradually broke itself with its inefficiency. Unfortunately Stalin and his centrists were exactly the kind of довбойо́би to think they could strong-arm the process. In doing so he ended up undermining the whole project. I honestly do not know that the men murdered in the purge would have had a better answer. But they certainly understood the question a lot better than those holding the “trials.”
I disagree, frankly. Trotsky was, most charitably, someone who genuinely believed that constructing socialism was a doomed effort in the USSR, and that the peasantry would not end up allying with the proletariat. With this reading of Trotsky, he was an active sabateur of the socialist project helping organize very real and legitimate Fifth Column elements terrorizing the Soviet administration and public at large, out of a belief that this was necessary to implement socialism.
The problem is that Trotsky’s “permanent revolution” is wrong. The peasantry became fully aligned with the proletariat throughout the early 1930s, just before the purges. Stalin’s faction took the correct course of action, focusing on building up heavy industry to prepare for a coming resumption of World War. Communism must be global, and cannot be achieved in one country. However, the transition to communism globally must be made by socialist countries.
The Soviet Union was genuinely socialist. Social ownership was the principal aspect of the economy, and the working class did run the state and direct the social surplus. The Soviet Union was actually very efficient up until the Gorbachev era, it wasn’t Stalin that set the seeds for downfall but Khrushchev. The public by and large supported and loved Stalin until several years after Khrushchev’s secret speech, and Khrushchev’s reforms turned a blind eye to black markets forming a capitalist class that was effectively able to form a cohesive bloc. China has capitalists, but it integrates them into their system so as to control them and limit them. The later soviets did not, and this grew ideological withering within the CPSU.
To return to the purges, the assassination of Kirov by the Fifth Column elements prompted response. Regardless of the legitimacy of the trials, the fact of the matter is that there was a Bolshevik Civil War, so to speak. Even if we assume that all sides of it had good intentions, or even if we assume Stalin had bad intentions, it was still the more popularly supported and democratic decision to purge the party of the actual, real threat the Fifth Column presented, which is why Stalin was still so supported by the public until well after his death.
The idea that the Soviet Union was governed by an iron grip is a misconception. There were weaknesses in the Soviet democratic processes, and crisis after crisis effectively limited the extent to which democracy could effectively function. However, I intensely disagree with Trotsky’s suicidal plans, and I believe that the CPSU made the correct decision to reject such plans, and were forced to respond to real internal sabotage that stood to collapse the entire soviet project.
I will have to agree to disagree with you, because defending the path not taken can only be done entirely in hypotheticals and theory for which there is no concrete evidence, that said I firmly disagree with the characterization of the peasantry being fully committed to the socialist enterprise. They were cowed by fear, which is a weak substitute at best, which is why I find the bandwagon argument of “well it was popular” uncompelling. Stalin was a Tsar in all but name and he ruled like it. I have enough family who survived it to know who and what he was. Calling what came out of that period “socialist” is technically true, but socialism is a broad enough term to encompass many different systems, not all of which lead to good outcomes. Petty, punitive, and bigoted administration at many levels made a mockery of any claims of true solidarity among the people.
If you want to truly defend socialist principles, quit trying to sane-wash mistakes and wallpaper over the truth. The USSR was never a good example, let alone an ideal case of socialism in action. Pretending the lessons of the past didn’t happen instead of taking the opportunity to learn from them and do better is the most American thing I can think of. We do not win by stealing from the capitalist playbook.
Gotta love it when the lies survive long past the time the liars found them useful.
Declassified CIA memo:
This is about Stalins death…
And also makes indirect mention of Stalin’s earlier purges of political rivals, so it’s the exact opposite of the evidence they were claiming.
Or 1918-1921 for Russian Anarchists.