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Marxist-Leninist ☭
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1h ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?
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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 1h ago
No, it was not "everyone in the free Poland." Many Polish people opposed the dissolution of socialism. Further, disparity in Poland is high, and the foreign companies plundering Poland is a direct consequence of the dissolution of socialism, purging of the left, and the dominance of the far-right.

1h ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 1h ago

7.7 million excess deaths in the first year. Stop minimizing millions of deaths.

2h ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2h ago

So in other words, the far-right used the standard red-scare playbook to purge communists and socialists, and now Poland has immense disparity and is entirely controlled by the far-right.

2h ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2h ago

Poland, prior to socialism, was 2/3rds controlled by foreign capital, and was severely lagging behind the rest of Europe industrially. By 1948, Poland's industrial output was 153% of what it had been in 1938. Post-war, the economy grew over 300% from 1945 to 1948.

In the 1930s, Polish life expectancy was ~46 years old. After the introduction of socialism, and improved healthcare, it reached 70. Before socialism, literacy rates were ~80% in urban areas and ~30% in rural areas. With socialism, total literacy rates were 98%. With socialism came legalized abortion and greatly expanded women's rights.

The dissolution of socialism, as I said, brought ~7 million deaths. You didn't dispute that, the argument seems to be on your end that these were necessary for economic growth. What Poland could have done is remain socialist.

3h ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 3h ago

Mhm. I get that your country is hostile to the world and its own citizens. I do. But that doesn’t make Stalin - or any era USSR - good.

The USSR was good based on its own progressive merits.

From your post I can see you preemptively dismiss any critisizm or argument and while you said MLs don’t idealise Stalin, it seems that you do.

I don't.

I’m from Poland. To us, to a country betrayed by the Allies and sold to Stalin, their occupation did not bring prosperity, or equality, nor socialism.

I've spoken to people from Poland that have the opposite to say. The fall of socialism in Poland brought a dramatic collapse in any kind of left, which is why Poland is so far-right today.

We were systematically robbed by the USSR from the wealth, intellect and industry (as noted by then governments and listed as a plea for USSR to stop), we were made take loans to invest in the Empire, while staying a satelite country. We did call then the Red Army - Red Locust. You need to realise that when you glorify it, you automatically dismiss our traumatic past. It is like getting told by a stupid child that if we’re hungry we should eat cake.

Again, I've heard much the opposite. That's why anecdotes are terrible measures of truth. The collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe brought skyrocketing poverty rates, prostitutuon, drug abuse, homelessness, and 7 million excess deaths.

Since USA wages war outside its territory and was never invaded, you might not know that trauma - especially from war and being a conquered nation - is transgenerational https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_trauma

I'm aware.

Were they people who thrived under USSR occupation? Yes, but they are thriving currently too, both politicians and capitalist leeches. Did Poland progress under the occupation? Yes, like every damn other country in Europe. We would progress more as free people, no historian thinks differently.

And yet Poland is now in a far-right spiral with far greater disparity.

When I read your comments I can’t not see you as anything else than a guilt feeling nepo baby. Or at least someone so privileged, that they never ever thought about other people lives outside of statistics. An empty headed academic.

Cool story, you know nothing about me. Believe it or not, statistics and historical fact do outweigh simple anecdote, and the idea that I have never thought about people's lives outside of statistics is deeply wrong.

3h ago

Iranian state media confirms death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 3h ago

Haven't seen anything like that, but it wouldn't surprise me if western-backed orgs were targeted.

4h ago

Iranian state media confirms death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 4h ago

The people of Iran are rallying around Khamenei for being martyred, and Maduro was democratically elected and supported by the majority. You have a very western viewpoint.

7h ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 7h ago

Statesian.

9h ago

Iranian state media confirms death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 9h ago

One can only hope.

9h ago

Iranian state media confirms death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 9h ago

Iran, or the US and Israel killing Khamenei?

9h ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 9h ago

I've spoken quite a bit about Katyn, and have not really seen any Marxist saying "the soviets definitely did it" and "that's a good thing." Katyn gets pinned on the Soviets because Goebbels reported on it and it became a useful story, but the execution method was distinctly Nazi, ie killing men, women, and children from behind into mass graves. The ammunition was German-produced in 1941, and the rope used to bind the hands of the victims was German made.

The Soviets absolutely killed Polish soldiers, but the character of their involvement was not anywhere close to what the Nazis reported.

9h ago

The problem with socialism

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 9h ago

♥️

9h ago

The problem with socialism

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 9h ago

Workers sell their labor-power for wages. Owners buy labor-power and raw materials, and sell the commodities created by them for a massive amount of profits. Both "do things," but workers live by selling their labor-power, not owners.

10h ago

The problem with socialism

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 10h ago

Norway relies on imperialism to subsidize its safety nets.

10h ago

The problem with socialism

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 10h ago

Owners do not work for a living, their incomes are not wages but a huge share of profit that comes from surplus value extraction. Doing some work here or there does not explain why their incomes are hundreds to thousands and even more times higher than workers, whose wages do vary but within a much more narrow band.

10h ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 10h ago

Churchill was largely responsible for starving over 4 million Indians to death, and had this to say to defend himself:

I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.

On top of this, Churchill was very close with the Nazis, to the point that Hitler was certain Britain would side with the Nazis in the coming war. When FDR and Stalin joked about executing Nazi officers after the war was over, Churchill stormed out of the room, as "those men were defending their country."

As for the soviet prisons, an enormous number of prison deaths occured during World War II, when famine was widespread due to the Nazis storming Ukraine, the USSR's breadbasket. On the whole, soviet prisons and the justice system itself were more progressive than their peers, Mary Stevenson Callcott documented it quite well in Russian Justice.

The soviet union, despite having a progressive legal system, was in a state of constant turmoil caused by pressures both external and internal. They couldn't simply delete all previously existing ruling-class people and ideology, class struggle continues under socialism. Further, pressure from the imperialist west, invasion both in threat and in action, and intentional sabateurs meant that the prisons certainly weren't empty. The soviet union never had a single year of normal, stable growth, free from intense opposition on the outside and counter-revolutionary forces on the inside.

11h ago

Fuck the Imperialist EU

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 11h ago

The EU exports capital to super-exploit the global south for super-profits. The EU lives off of the labor of the global south.

11h ago

The problem with socialism

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 11h ago

If you have a Real Job where you interact with the material world it is impossible to believe that 85% of the things you physically make or do are consumed by capitalists.

See, once I started working a "Real Job" I saw just how much surplus value was stolen, and turned to Marxist theory to make cohesive sense of it. 85% isn't an over-estimation, especially if we factor in imperialism. Workers in the imperial core are paid more and exploited less than workers in the periphery.

If you think under socialism we could work 15% as much as we do now and maintain the same standard of living then lol, lmao, etc.

We will probably all work 30-40 hours a week for the next great length of time even in socialism, but with far greater societal guarantees and a less predatory system of distribution.

11h ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 11h ago

The only alts I have are ones named "Cowbee" on other instances.

12h ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 12h ago

When people talk about "Stalinism," they usually mean one of 2 things:

Marxism-Leninism, the synthesis of Marxism with the advancements made by Lenin. Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism, so this gets called "Stalinism" despite Stalin's minor contributions compared to Marx and Lenin.
The policies of the USSR while Stalin was General Secretary of the CPSU.

The former, Marxism-Leninism, is the largest tendency of Marxism by far. This is because it has proven its utility in practice, establishing socialism in many countries with varying local conditions and contexts. Lenin's contributions to Marxism are near universally accepted by Marxists, and Stalin did not change from them in synthesizing Marxism-Leninism.

The latter, Stalin's policy positions, are largely either contextualized and explained, rather than actively defended, or are genuinely good feats. For example, under Stalin, literacy rates skyrocketed from ~30% to 99.9%, life expectancy doubled, education and healthcare were made free at all levels, jobs were guaranteed, and much more. Genuine faults, like criminalizing homosexuality, are recognized as such by Marxist-Leninists.

As Weng Weiguang says, The Evaluation of Stalin is Essentially an Ideological Struggle. Marxist-Leninists don't idolize Stalin. At the same time, Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism, and oversaw the world's first socialist state during its most turbulent period. The CPC rates him as 70% good, 30% bad, and this rating is roughly orbited by most communist orgs. Those who denounce Stalin entirely, also denounce the USSR, and existing socialism.

Stalin was a committed Marxist-Leninist, and oversaw the world's first socialist state for the overwhelming majority of its most tumultuous period. He was no saint, but at the same time was no monster either. He is remembered by liberal historians as far worse than comtemporaries like Churchill who in actuality were far worse than Stalin.

As Nia Frome says, we can either distance ourselves from Stalin, and by extension the USSR and actually existing socialism, or we can fight back against bourgeois narratives about Stalin and the USSR, acknowledging their faults while being able to uphold their tremendous successes as examples of the possibilities of socialism in power. Historical nihilism, and throwing Stalin and by extension much of the early soviet union under the bus, was ultimately what allowed for liberalization within the USSR and partially contributed to the death of socialism in eastern Europe.

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