Re: Stalinist Terror: New Pespectives

[SHAWGI TELL <v600a8e6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Chris, London wrote:

> Thanks Shawgi for coming back to me. Whether people agree or disagree with
> you, I think it will help to locate your polemic if you can track down
> parts 1 and 2 of your denunciation of the "Young Liberal Fascist".

I'm really busy, but sooner or later I'll post them.  Got to track them
down again.

>
> However I think we have a very long way to go before we can identify
> even some areas of agreement of what was positive in the Soviet Union, while
> taking seriously the negative lessons that many people feel so strongly about.

If by "we" you mean those who have swallowed all the propaganda produced
by fascists hook, line and sinker, then, yes, these people have a long way
to go before identifying "even some areas of agreement of what was
positive..."  Many people, on the other hand, have already learned of
all the fascist,  anti-Communist, anti-Soviet and Hitlerite lies
propagated  by this Big Lie machine.  They have made a conscious, honest
effort to  approach matters scientifically.  They have questioned the
utterances of the imperialist war pigs who run mass slaughterhouses. They
have not forgotten who defeated the fascists.  They have not forgotten
that it was the U.S. and other imperialists that backed Hitler.  They have
understood the strategic significance of the Hitler-Stalin pact.  They have
distinguished between revisionist and scientific historiography.  They
have...

> I thought I would quote here from the introduction to the work with the above
> title by Getty and Manning because I think it puts a serious focus on the 
> debate.
> It was good to read the comments from Justin and from Matt about their
> positive opinion of these authors.
>
> "Serious academic study of the Stalin period began in the 1950's. Carried out
> mostly by political scientists and supported by the "know your enemy" mandate
> of the Cold War, research on the USSR fairly quickly led to a "shared 
> paradigm"
> of Soviet History. [footnote reference to Kuhn -  IMO a coded way of 
> indicating
> a challenge to the whole paradigm] That view, which was loosely labeled
> *totalitarian*, reflected scholarly consensus in a scientific manner and
> seemed to explain Soviet reality in a satisfactory way. Of course, like all
> scientific paradigms, it did not spring from nothing. Writings and testimonies
> of active anti-Soviet or anti-Stalin politicians (Trotskyists, Mensheviks,
> and former Whites) combined with memoirs of victims and with our limited
> external view of a closed society whose existence and survival were based on
> terror. Research evidence available at the time confirmed totalitarianism as
> logical, honest, and scientific.
>
> "In a nutshell, and necessarily at the expense of nuance, the totalitarian
> paradigm went as follows. The Soviet system under Stalin consisted of a non-
> pluralist, hierarchical dictatorship in which command authority existed only
> at the top of the pyramid of political power. Ideology and violence were
> monopolies of the ruling elite, which passed its orders down a pseudo-
> military chain of command whose discipline was the product of Leninist
> prescriptions on party organization, and Stalinist enforcement of these norms.
> At the top of the ruling elite stood an autocratic Stalin whose personal
> control was virtually unlimited in all areas of life and culture, from art to
> zoology. Major policy articulation and implementation involved the 
> actualization
> of Stalin's ideas, whims, and plans, which in turn flowed from his
> psychological condition. By definition, autonomous spheres of social and
> political activity did not exist at all in Soviet society, although the
> more sophisticated advocates of totalitarianism, like Merle Fainsod,
> allowed for the input of bureaucratic interest groups, like the party and
> state apparatuses, the armed forces, and the NKVD (Peoples' Commisariat
> of Internal Affairs), which intervened periodically in politics to promote and
> defend their own institutional concerns. In any case, the Societ populace and
> rank-and-file party members remained outside the political process, objects
> acted upon or manipulated from above but never actors in their own right."


Chris, I think these quotes (which discuss the emergence of the
view of Stalin and the Soviet Union as "totalitarian") reflect an
ahistorical - and therefore idealist - view of the period of Stalin's
leadership.  I don't see how this routine villification puts a serious
focus on a non-existent (list)debate.  It is only an uncreative
variation  of the thousands of "Mad Monster" caricatures of J.V.
Stalin.   In my opinion, it is the kind of information which is palatable
to  the Young Liberal Fascist.  How does it take us beyond such previous
regurgitations?  Whether Getty and Manning endorse this view or merely
decribe it as a product of the Cold War, it is untenable anyway.

In my opinion, Chris, it would make more sense if we asked:  Why all
the propaganda against J.V. Stalin?  What is it that J.V. Stalin
represents that has got the ultra-reactionary world imperialist
bourgeoisie and its agents constantly smearing him?

The fact that people almost always choose to begin a "discussion" on this
topic by starting out with villifications is, I think, a damning indictment.

>
> Chris B
>
> London


Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
V600A8E6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


     --- from list marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---

     ------------------