> The Americans want to rid themselves of the crisis on the basis of private capitalist activity, without changing the economic basis.
Here, Stalin is alluding to the idea of the "Base and Superstructure" of a society [0], where the superstructures of a society are built on top of the base over time. They are borne out of the base of a society. The superstructures naturally re-enforce the base. He's essentially saying that you cannot re-organize society at the superstructure levels, it must be re-organized at the base.
This also indicates that superstructures lag the base. (i.e. the idea lags the material.) This is the opposite of western thought, which emphasizes that the material lags the idea. (e.g. Plato's idea of a tree, or that "history is made by great men")
Likely it isn't necessary to remind that H. G. Wells was something of a genius, but possibly necessary to note that Stalin held his own in this dialogue and in fact comes across as a more mature political mind. There are caricatures of Stalin as being merely a thug but a reminder that he held his own also with Lenin and Trotsky and other very sharp minds (and came on top!)
"things would be different if it were possible, at one stroke, spiritually to tear the technical intelligentsia away from the capitalist world. But that is utopia. Are there many of the technical intelligentsia who would dare break away from the bourgeois world and set to work reconstructing society?"
Stalin's remarks on the "technical intelligentsia" and its inability to be the leader of socialist change is interesting in context of the past 20 years and the FAANGs. The entire thrust of his argument (now proven to be true) throws cold water on the fire of the techno-utopia promised to us.
I also thought about FAANGs at that point but in a different way:
I understood the technical intelligentsia to be the actual engineers - the people working at FAANGs. FAANG itself are the capitalist class.
Thought this paragraph by Wells was also relevant in that regard:
"I remember the situation with regard to the technical intelligentsia several decades ago. At that time the technical intelligentsia was numerically small, but there was much to do and every engineer, technician and intellectual found his opportunity. That is why the technical intelligentsia was the least revolutionary class. Now, however, there is a superabundance of technical intellectuals, and their mentality has changed very sharply. The skilled man, who would formerly never listen to revolutionary talk, is now greatly interested in it. "
The past 20 years were a period of economic growth. By Well's logic you wouldn't expect the technical intelligentsia to have many revolutionary thoughts during that period anyway.
The leading "technical intelligentsia" were not kids who just entered into the labor market in 2000. Many of them spent the previous decade_s either pushing techno-utopia, or in Brewer and friends case in 1997, actually raising red flags. Most of the tech-utopia ideology came out of 60s and 70s anyway. Technology was supposed to finally solve some long standing issues.
Wells doesn't address the fact that "superabundance" of geeks means nothing if these same geeks need access to facilities for their technical-intellectual pursuits that only Capital provides. This very moment I am sure, n AI geeks are internally having a debate over their ideological convictions vs working for one of the AI giants who do not share these convictions (in context of AI, minimally). I do not blame those who don't walk away from their careers and intellectual pursuits. Its a social structure issue that places difficult delimas. Your big brain can only insure your survival if it is working for pay.
The entire "do no evil" and primary color theme of Google was imo further signaling (falsely) that "here is a company that is on board with our utopian program". They actually played to that role until it could no longer be taken seriously. Now it would be laughable.
I mentioned the "last 20 years" as the QED period, not the actual formation of ideas, promotion of ideas, and finally leading "the common man" down the path of e.g. surveillance capitalism while pretending to those ideas. That process took decades and started in 60s.
Well, it was a complete disaster, by all means and measures. A good thing to remember while reading the rubbish flowing out of these intellectual idiots. Proven to be idiots by history - a title that should be written beside their name.
In hindsight, the first quote already perfectly summarises what happens next: "Important public men like yourself are not 'common men.'"
This binary thinking makes it a lot easier to throw people into the front line. According to Garry Kasparov, Putin thinks the same. Common people are not worth much and can be thrown at any task if the elite thinks that is necessary.
It is interesting to remind ourselves how intellectual were disconnected with the reality of their time. All theoretical debates without ground in how political, economic power really worked.
This is very common. The thing is that the reality only becomes apparent when it is beyond questioning. A lot of economists (e.g Samuelson) for example were bullish on the soviet style of centrally planned economics (which looks a very bad idea in hindsight). Lots of historically celebrated people look very very clueless when seen with the benefit of hindsight.
> The second objective is to develop a correct theoretical line in particular. At the moment this line is best defined in terms of the concrete stances we take in response to various ongoing debates in our shared context. In short: pro-Stalin (against historical nihilism, anarchism, etc.), pro-China (for their chosen road of Reform and Opening Up and against “Maoism” and Sinophobia), and pro-“identity politics” (for a broad understanding of class and against the idealization of “patriotic white workers” as the revolutionary subject, etc.).
It seems pretty unlikely that this audience will actually read this, which is a bit unfortunate as Stalin correctly describes the next 100 years of American politics and economics, even down to our current situation with the Fed and the labor market. Wells comes off as being completely naive. I think Bush and Kissinger were beasts as well, but there are still things that can be learned from reading about how they perceived the world.
Although it should be said, thay holodomor’s nature is still disputed by historians. Some people, especially politically or nationally biased, claim that that was deliberate genocide of specifically Ukrainians. While it serves specific purpose as a narrative, more historians agree that a) famine affected not only Ukrainians, but all people living in a wide region, including not only what’s considered to be Ukraine today, but millions of other, b) there are no direct evidences supporting the genocide claim, no evidence supporting any deliberation. Much more probable explanation is combination of poor organisation of food collection from the villages and bad weather conditions for multiple seasons (that region had regular famines and dry seasons in the past, before USSR too, and it only stopped after 40s, when various actions were taken to improve agricultural stability there).
It's a bit of a political quagmire to wade into, especially given the current events in the area, but I watched the film Mr Jones, which deals with the famine being reported to the West, and then read this article by one of his descendants:
> The new film Mr Jones aims to tell the story of my great uncle, the Welsh journalist Gareth Jones. It is based on his 1933 world exclusive exposing the great famine then raging across much of the USSR, particularly in Kazakhstan and Ukraine; a famine which Moscow was desperate to conceal. His scoop upset two governments and instead of being feted for his honest reporting he found himself denigrated by the pool of Moscow foreign correspondents, blacklisted by the Soviet Union and blackballed by the British establishment.
...
> The film leads the viewer to believe only Ukraine was affected, but, as my uncle reported, millions were dying across the Soviet Union. In his famous Berlin press conference, on 29 March 1933 on leaving Russia, he reports: ‘Everywhere was the cry, ‘'There is no bread. We are dying.'' This cry came from every part of Russia, from the Volga, Siberia, the North Caucasus, Central Asia.' Gareth was not just a ‘Hero of the Ukraine', he was also a hero for people suffering across the Soviet Union;
There's a lot of history revisionism being done by the current Ukranian regime's propaganda. It's understandable but it's also sad as its just poor short-term politics that is going to keep Ukranian society divided for a long time, as they continue to treat every Ukranian who has some nostalgic memory from the soviet era as an "agent of Russia". No one can run away from their past.
Not really. The nature of Holodomor is only disputed by the historians who care to push a specific agenda - be it politically or ideologically motivated. USSR is also did a fine job to whitewash any of its past crimes.
> "that region had regular famines and dry seasons in the past, before USSR too, and it only stopped after 40s, when various actions were taken to improve agricultural stability there" - care to elaborate on this?
It's pretty clear that Stalin used the famine to help liquidize non-Russian groups who had strong identites and had resisted collectivization. Ukrainians were #1 on this list. It's a textbook play.
Have you read it? It's very comprehensive. I would highly recommend you do so if you are at all interested in the subject.
What "non-biased" sources would you recommend?
It's also not very wild, from a historical point of view, for an authoritarian leader to destroy or decimate ethnic groups or communities. In fact, it's extremely common, as it is an effective way of consolidating power.
This not "evidence"; this is your (failed) attempts to build an F-tier argument by "spraying and praying" a bunch of rambling, unrelated sources. Anyway, I'm done wasting my braincells. Good luck in rebuilding communism for the umpteenth time (all previous attempts somehow resulted in deaths of millions and a totalitarian cult of personality springing up). You do you, comrade, I'm sure on n+1th time it will be different
The wiki article says most of what you cover. People were killed in ukraine and the wider surrounding areas too. It has a whole section for the genocide question.
Proving a political apparatus intended to genocide another race of people, is difficult. A competent politician will not record, share or allow that intent to be officially existant.
In popular culture, Joe Biden has cheapened the domestic meaning of the word genocide.
It used to be an existential threat to the whole west post-ww2 and now he is describing the russia-ukraine war in these terms.. probably accurately to some degree. But nonetheless genocide is on-the-table as a term people share liberally around when talking about small wars, in popular culture.
Not sure about Holodomor, but famine in Kazakhstan which killed almost half of population was real. Third of population fled to China during the 1929-1933 and still remain there. To be honest though while Stalin is cruel, he is more comparable to Kim Jong Un than Hitler.
It's unquestionably an enormous tragedy, but it's necessarily to reject attempts to turn it into a cheap ideological talking point, for the sake of the people of Kazakhstan and everywhere else.
Dealing with a famine against deliberate sabotage is very tough:
>[The kulak’s] fellows in the villages had no leadership, but decided as one man, with the unanimity and stubbornness of wronged farmers the world over, to oppose their oppressors. Their opposition took the initial form of slaughtering their cattle and horses in preference to having them collectivized. The result was a grievous blow to Soviet agriculture, for most of the cattle and horses were owned by the kulaks. Between 1928 and 1933 the number of horses in the USSR declined from almost 30,000,000 to less than 15,000,000; of horned cattle from 70,000,000 (including 31,000,000 cows) to 38,000,000 (including 20,000,000 cows); of sheep and goats from 147,000,000 to 50,000,000; and of hogs from 20,000,000 to 12,000,000. Soviet rural economy had not recovered from this staggering loss by 1941.
(Frederick L. Schuman, Russia Since 1917: Four Decades of Soviet Politics, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1957, pp.151, 152.)
Cannot be compared to e.g. Winston Churchill 1937:
>I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. I do not admit it. I do not think the Red Indians had any right to say, “The American Continent belongs to us and we are not going to have any of these European settlers coming in here.” They had not the right, nor had they the power.
>Expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble, as has been the case in Alsace-Lorraine. A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by the prospect of the disentanglement of populations, nor even by these large transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions than they ever were before.
>“I hate Indians,” he told the Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery. “They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” The famine was their own fault, he declared at a war-cabinet meeting, for “breeding like rabbits.”
There's no point in conjuring up boogeymen, or to go "East" to find people to compare Stalin to, when Churchill would be a much fairer comparison, and Stalin comes out far ahead of him.
Please don't post ideological flamewar to HN, regardless of how wrong other people are or you feel they are. We've had to ask you this before.
Two acceptable options are (1) engage by posting substantively and thoughtfully; or (2) just walk away and remember the internet is already wrong about nearly everything.
"Solzhenitsyn was just a fiction writer and totally made it all up" "The purges in the Red Army and of political dissidents were just western propaganda" "Trotsky shot himself in the back of the head" etc.
Solzhenitsin's own wife said his book was "folklore," a set of horror stories for Westerners compiled out of the worst hearsay he ever heard about a poor country's prison system:
>Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn's controversial new book on Soviet prison‐camps was described as “folklore” by his former wife in an interview published here today. Natelya Reshetovskaya told the conservative newspaper Le Figaro that the book, “The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956,” was based on unreliable information: She also told the newspaper's Moscow correspondent that she was still living with Mr. Soizhenitsyn when he wrote the book and that she had typed part of it. They parted in 1970 and were subsequently divorced. She said: “The subject of ‘Gulag Archipelago,’ as I felt at the moment when he was writing it, is not in fact the life of the country and not even the life of the camps but the folklore of the camps.”
There were about as many people in Gulags at peak, war-with-Nazis paranoia than in America today.
>Yes. The overall numbers at present are broadly similar (2.2 million prisoners in the US at present, compared to 2.6 million at the peak of GULAG, though that was drawn from a smaller population), but US prisons have much lower death rates (especially compared to WWII-era GULAG — hopefully there will be no similar invasion of the US and so we will not have the opportunity to see if a wartime US massacres its prisoners in a similar fashion), and a smaller fraction of the prisoners are slave laborers (in GULAG it was nearly 100%).
Whatever ranking you assign to her, she has less reason to lie than an antisemitic exile getting paid to lie by the American propaganda establishment.
If you like those horror stories check out the North Korean ones, they have oodles of stuff about people dying and reappearing, being shot out of cannons, eating human faeces, and whatever else the human imagination can come up with.
It's not about her. Mid-1970s were the golden days of the KGB. All communication in and out of the USSR was under total KGB control. All foreigners in the USSR and the people they were in contact with were monitored around the clock. You couldn't get something as basic as a copy of the New York Times in the USSR nor send a personal letter out of the USSR without a government censor going over it with a sharpie blanking out every unsuitable word. If you stepped out of the line and did or said something that the KGB didn't approve of, then there was a scale of things that happened to you. The mildest form was social ostracism. Since there was no private enterprise in the USSR, all jobs in the USSR were government jobs. You were kicked to the lowest ranks, to jobs like street sweeper that barely provided sustenance. Since there was no private property either, your apartment was taken from you and you had to move in with your relatives (if you had any) or survive in a tiny damp room of a communal apartment, sharing kitchen and bathroom with total strangers. If you had kids, their lives were ruined too: couldn't get into good schools, career prospects were limited, and so forth. On the far end of the scale, people who even then kept annoying the KGB like many dissidents did, were locked up in mental hospitals and pumped full of drugs until they became vegetables or imprisoned in forced labor camps. The last forced labor camp was closed only in 1987 during Perestroika under Gorbachev's attempts to reform the rotten country.
Unlike North Korea, I was born in the USSR and saw all that with my own eyes, and I personally know several dissidents who were imprisoned in the 1980s. To suggest that she had any freedom of speech, particularly to a foreign journalist, is deeply ignorant of the conditions at the time. People were scared to openly talk even with their relatives from the West. In 1974, a foreign journalist heard only what the KGB wanted them to hear.
That was the reality of daily life in the USSR in 1970s, not spy fiction. To anyone from the USSR, the first instinct is to check the date of that quote (pre- or post-1991?) and the rest needs no comments. You made a faux pas that revealed how little you are aware of historic context. The more you deny it, the deeper hole you dig yourself into.
The pro-Soviet view is that Katyn was done by the Nazis and blamed on the Soviets after the fact. I've never cared to investigate it in depth.
Mass deportations were a sad but not uncommon operation at the time, as seen for example by this Churchill speech from 1937:
>I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. I do not admit it. I do not think the Red Indians had any right to say, “The American Continent belongs to us and we are not going to have any of these European settlers coming in here.” They had not the right, nor had they the power.
>Expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble, as has been the case in Alsace-Lorraine. A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by the prospect of the disentanglement of populations, nor even by these large transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions than they ever were before.
Beevor is particularly vile with his rape-storytelling, and his stuff does not check out. See, "Hordes of Rapists: The Instrumentalization of Sexual Violence in German Cold War Anti-Communist Discourses": https://journals.openedition.org/rccsar/476
Here, Stalin is alluding to the idea of the "Base and Superstructure" of a society [0], where the superstructures of a society are built on top of the base over time. They are borne out of the base of a society. The superstructures naturally re-enforce the base. He's essentially saying that you cannot re-organize society at the superstructure levels, it must be re-organized at the base.
This also indicates that superstructures lag the base. (i.e. the idea lags the material.) This is the opposite of western thought, which emphasizes that the material lags the idea. (e.g. Plato's idea of a tree, or that "history is made by great men")
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure#/media...