What is Stalinism and what does it actually mean to be a Stalinist today?

 By Nikos Mottas

Since the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, everything that relates to Joseph Stalin has been demonized. The so-called “destalinization” process initiated by Khrushchev and his political allies, within the broader opportunistic turn of the CPSU, tried to blame Stalin for all the evils of the world. 

Khrushchev's shameless campaign against Stalin was effectively used by the capitalist world in building the anti-communist arsenal of the Cold War. 

On the 70th death anniversary of Joseph Stalin

By Nikos Mottas.

Seven decades later they tremble at his name. For the bourgeoisie,  capitalists and exploiters, he is the personification of evil. For fascists and neo-Nazis, his image is enough to cause nightmares. Social Democrats, opportunists and other enemies of the working class movement have been trying for many decades to slander him with tones of lies and propaganda.

On March 5, 1953, 70 years ago, Joseph Vissarionovich Dzughasvilli, the man whose leadership influenced the course of the 20th century like very few others, left his last breath at his dacha in Kunchevo. The next day, in a joint statement published in “Pravda”, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the USSR Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet were announcing the death of Stalin: 

Truth and lies about Stalin - An exclusive interview with Grover Furr

On the ocassion of the 140th birth anniversary of Joseph Stalin we asked Professor Grover Furr to share with us his thoughts on some issues surrounding Stalin and the period of his leadership. Grover Furr, a Professor of medieval english literature at Montclair State University in New Jersey, is well-known for his research and writings on a vast range of issues about Soviet history. Some of his most famous books include "Khrushchev Lied", "The Moscow Trials as Evidence", Trotsky’s "Amalgams", "The Mystery of the Katyn Massacre: The Evidence, The Solution" and others. The name of Grover Furr is included in the list of the "101 most dangerous academics in America".

Stalin’s Ghost Haunts Capitalism

A Riposte to Stephen Kotkin’s ‘Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941’

By Raj Sahai*.

Source: Marxism-Leninism today.

Princeton University historian Stephen Kotkin is writing a monumental three-volume biography of Joseph Stalin. Kotkin’s is the latest in a large number of books on Stalin, starting with Isaac Deutscher in 1949. So, why yet another book on Stalin?

Kotkin says Stalin represents a “gold standard” in “personal dictatorship”, and more archival documents are now accessible, so now a definitive biography of Stalin can finally be written. He takes Isaac Deutscher’s three-volume biography of Trotsky as a model for his own work. Published in 2015, Kotkin’s first volume was titled ‘Stalin: Paradoxes of Power 1878 - 1928’. Volume 2, published in November 2017, is titled ‘Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929 – 1941’.

“Gulag Archipelago”: Exposing the anticommunist fabrications of Solzhenitsyn

 By Nikos Mottas*.

One of the most famous and celebrated works of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, the “Gulag Archipelago”, has been for a long time a kind of “holy bible” for every anticommunist. Firstly published in 1973, it- supposedly- consists an analytical record of the conditions existed in the so-called “labour camps” of the Soviet Union. Within the framework of the slanderous anticommunist campaign, bourgeois historiography has extensively promoted Solzhenitsyn's work as a source of arguments about the so-called “Stalinist dictatorship” and “communist crimes” in the Soviet Union.

However, there is a fundamental problem in the work of the deeply reactionary Solzhenitsyn: Gulag Archipelago is a completely antiscientific book, based almost entirely in rumors, speculations, third party opinions as well as interpretations of opinions by Solzenitsyn himself! In other words, the reader of this book becomes “hostage” of a novel type, unverifiable, recording to alleged events by Solzenitsyn and others who supposedly “saw”, “heard” or “learned” something.

Russia's bourgeois class still trembles at the sight of Stalin: The Moscow State Law Academy incident

Sixty-four years have been passed since the biological death of Joseph Stalin and, still, the bolshevik leader creates nightmares to the bourgeois class. They fear his legacy, his name, even his portraits or plaques which refer to him. 

According to an Agence France-Presse report (which is full of stereotypical anti-communist references to "Stalin's repression"), everything started when the Moscow State Law University last month reinstated a Soviet-era plaque marking a speech delivered there by Stalin in 1924. The plaque had been removed in the 1960s. A former student launched an online petition in order to have the plaque removed, while a defense lawyer called Genri Reznik and professors of another college break their ties with the university in protest. 

The remorse of a dissident: Alexander Zinoviev on Stalin and the dissolution of the USSR

SPECIAL TO IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM.

Alexander Zinoviev (1922-2006) was a Russian philosopher, sociologist, mathematician and writer. He is an extraordinary case of a dissident in the Soviet Union who later apologized for his anti-sovietism and anti-stalinism. In his youth, in 1939, he was arrested for allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate Joseph Stalin. As a head and professor of the Logic Department at Moscow State University, Zinoviev acquired a dissident reputation. In 1978 he left the Soviet Union - he lived in Western Europe until 1999. 

Having the opportunity to live both the socialist system in the USSR and Western Europe's capitalism, Zinoviev made a u-turn in his thoughts after the counterrevolutionary events in the Soviet Union (1989-1991). He profoundly regreted for his previous anti-soviet stance and even asked from the Russian people to forgive him for that. 

He wrote in one of his books: 

Solzhenitsyn — The rotten legacy of a Fascist

By Nikos Mottas.

It was August 3, 2008 when the “Patriarch” of anti-communism, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, died. The writings of Solzhenitsyn became a major source of anti-Soviet hysteria and blatant slanders against the first socialist state. Even today, Solzhenitsyn's major work “The Gulag Archipelago” is, more or less, regarded as the anti-communist “bible” of the world's apologists of capitalism and anti-soviet propaganda. 

The supposed “honest” testimonies of Solzhenitsyn- which he was never able to prove- were used in the building of an anti-stalinist, anti-communist obsession which the West had so much need to base upon, especially after the end of WW2.

However, who was really this nobel prize-winning Russian and how much credibility do his anti-soviet fairy tales contain?

How many people did Joseph Stalin really kill?

Source: anti-imperialism.com.

When discussing the merits and achievements of the Soviet Union, detractors of various stripes, from anti-communist to anti-Leninist, often point to a 2013 International Business Times article named “How Many People Did Joseph Stalin Kill?” by Palash Ghosh. The article, which depicts Soviet leader J. V. Stalin as an inhuman cold-blooded mass murderer, claims that up to 60 million people, nearly one-third of the USSR’s 1941 population, were killed on the part of the government and the leadership of the country.[1][2] But do these figures actually hold up? Through a careful read of the article, one can find glaring problems with the logic and the conclusion and deduce that the article is not much more than crude propaganda.

The article, having been published on the 60th anniversary of Stalin’s death, introduces Stalin as “one of history’s most prolific killers”, proceeding to list various events as atrocities. Included in the list are “imprisonment in labor camps”, “manufactured famines” and “forced displacements”, all of which are implied to be inherently atrocious like the other items listed. While these are indeed atrocious events, this should raise the question of hypocrisy, as a neo-liberal news publication lists these events with the intention of portraying a socialist leader as a “prolific killer” when historically they have happened on a number of occasions in the imperialist states and their semi-feudal colonies à la the American internment of Japanese and Germans in World War II, the systematic depopulation of indigenous lands by the US government, and the number of famines in British India in the 19th and 20th centuries. One might in response concede that the USSR was by no means alone if it is responsible for such atrocities, but,nevertheless, the actions of other nations does not absolve the Soviet Union. This is true. Therefore, we move on to see Ghosh’s backing for the assertion of Stalin as a mass murderer.

Robert Conquest's lies about Socialism, Stalin and the USSR - A presentation by Mario Sousa (VIDEO)

         

Source: ProletarianTV.

This presentation by Mario Sousa - less than an hour in duration - will change your view of history. "Most sane and educated people accept that there were serious human rights abuses in the Soviet Union, during the Stalin period." he says. The evidence is 'everywhere' - everyone says so, and there's no smoke without fire, after all. But what is the evidence? And where does it come from?

Mario Sousa- Lies concerning the history of the Soviet Union

From Hitler to Hearst, from Conquest to Solzhenitsyn.

The history of the millions of people who were allegedly incarcerated and died in the labour camps of the Soviet Union and as a result of starvation during Stalin’s time.

In this world we live in, who can avoid hearing the terrible stories of suspected death and murders in the gulag labour camps of the Soviet Union?  Who can avoid the stories of the millions who starved to death and the millions of oppositionists executed in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s time?  In the capitalist world these stories are repeated over and over again in books, newspapers, on the radio and television, and in films, and the mythical numbers of millions of victims of socialism have increased by leaps and bounds in the last 50 years.

But where in fact do these stories, and these figures, come from?  Who is behind all this?