Re: [Marxism] Deaths under Stalin

["rrubinelli" <rrubinelli@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Under his leadership...."  A more complete analysis will show that the
German army's initial success was, in significant part, a result of  "his
leadership," his refusal to respond to initial German troop mobilizations
with necessary prepartory actions; his fear of antagonizing Hitler; his
decimation of the command structure of the Red Army, etc.

In actual combat strategy, "his leadership" was also hardly glorious.  Time
after time, Stalin and the Stavka ordered operations with goals that simply
could not be attained, attacks that could not be sustained, etc.

None of the above is to denigrate the tenacious, and heroic, efforts of the
Soviet military, or to deny that the defeat of Germany was determined not in
France in 1944, but in the Battle of Kursk, 1943.   Still, the glory does
not belong to Stalin.  He was not, not ever, an architect of victory.

I would recommend that those interested take a look at the works of David M.
Glantz,  former director of the US Army's Foreign Military Studies Office,
for a thorough analysis of these matters.

I don't think  the Stalin- Trotsky debate should be taboo, but if the level
exhibited in the recent exchanges can't be improved, it should be ignored as
a waste of time.  The course of the Soviet Union in the 20s, 30s, 40s, is no
less a product of the interaction of specific material conditions of
production and struggle between revolution and the world maket, than the
history of every other particular country and struggle of that period.



rr


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