[Marxism] Deaths under Stalin:

[John Rosso <ijrosso@xxxxxxxxx>]

Deaths under Stalin:



J writes:

Stalin was no socialist or communist, in my view, rather he was a nationalist.



JJR – True, a genuine socialist or communist would not act that way for
that's a contradiction of socialism and communism. Apparently Stalin
thought the "means" was more important than the "ends" even though the
ends were not getting any closer and had become stagnant by the 1970s at
the latest. However, Stalin's paranoia of the West, and his actions was
not without a certain amount of justification seen that :

1) Churchill proclaimed loudly that: "The baby Bolshevism must be
strangled in its crib" when the Russian Revolution occurred. What
quickly followed was the capitalist West sending troops from 14
countries until 1921 to kill it, and

2) The capitalist West refused to stop Hitler seven times, and then when
Stalin heard of Bonnet's and Ribbentrop's consensus of allowing Hitler
to "turn east" (with applause from the British and French upper class),
this may have been the trigger for his increased paranoia and escalation
of violence by his "means" in 1938 and 1939.

The second point J makes is his use of the word "nationalist". That
means nothing more than stating that a person or a country is for its
own self rather than serving foreign interests. It means acting
independently rather than collectively with other countries, and
emphasizing national rather than international goals, as well as
advocating a strong national governmen, or being a patriot.

A nationalist could be good or evil. Castro for example is a nationalist
– but Canadian governments (since the end of the Trudeau regime) are
not. They accept NAFTA, WTO and NAFTA which are anti-nationalist. And if
historical definitions were applied today, they would be classified as
traitors -- since NAFTA in particular is colonialism in disguise which
is is highly detrimental to the indigenous people's interest by being
dominated, exploited and oppressed by foreign owners or powers.
Accordingly, Stalin was nationalist and a dictator.

The last point I wish to make, but which may have already been concluded
(since I’m only a casual reader of this list) I would like to comment on
the classification of Stalin's economic system whether it's state
capitalism, state socialist or communist.

Well, economic systems are generally classified according to the method
of production and:

1) whether private or public ownership of production predominates

2) whether production decisions are made through the market or by
planning commissions

3) the degree of centralization and

4) who benefits from the production.

According to these guidelines, Stalin's ECONOMIC system is clearly state
socialism – but of a stagnant and inefficient kind -- due to many
internal and external reasons.

JJR



_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism