The widely promoted demonization and lies about Stalin stand in the way of gaining a real understanding of the historical role that he played and the great accomplishments of the Soviet Union. The USSR was an exciting and emancipatory society. Stalin led the struggles to carry out collectivization of agriculture and to socialize the ownership of industry. The revolution created a socialist economy based on public state ownership, social cooperation and conscious planning. This had never been done before. Throughout Stalin's leadership, the Soviet Union faced incredible pressures: counterrevolution, encirclement by hostile imperial powers, and invasion by the Nazis during WWII. The German Capitalists killed 27 million Soviets, who fought for their country because Socialism was making their lives so much better. Stalin led people to stand up these attacks by other nations. But in defending the revolution, he relied less and less on the conscious activism of the people and resorted more and more to administrative and repressive measures. This led to not seeing the contradiction between struggles amongst the people and seeing people as agents of foreign powers and enemies. Egregious mistakes were made, and thousands of people were killed, sometimes unfairly and many were imprisoned. During much of the time this was done during the greatest armed conflict the world had ever seen with the Nazi invasion, or imminent threat of Nazi invasion. At the same time there was real and unparalleled democracy for the masses of people in which the 'Dictatorship of the Proletarian' the rule of the poor made the USSR a qualitatively more participatory society than the USA has ever been. The old exploiters were thrown out and the masses had the right and the ability to change the world and participate in society in a different way from Capitalist countries, which are dictatorships of the rich. --Bill Gibbons
The widely promoted demonization and lies about Stalin stand in the way of gaining a real understanding of the historical role that he played and the great accomplishments of the Soviet Union. The USSR was an exciting and emancipatory society. Stalin led the struggles to carry out collectivization of agriculture and to socialize the ownership of industry. The revolution created a socialist economy based on public state ownership, social cooperation and conscious planning. This had never been done before. Throughout Stalin's leadership, the Soviet Union faced incredible pressures: counterrevolution, encirclement by hostile imperial powers, and invasion by the Nazis during WWII. The German Capitalists killed 27 million Soviets, who fought for their country because Socialism was making their lives so much better. Stalin led people to stand up these attacks by other nations. But in defending the revolution, he relied less and less on the conscious activism of the people and resorted more and more to administrative and repressive measures. This led to not seeing the contradiction between struggles amongst the people and seeing people as agents of foreign powers and enemies. Egregious mistakes were made, and thousands of people were killed, sometimes unfairly and many were imprisoned. During much of the time this was done during the greatest armed conflict the world had ever seen with the Nazi invasion, or imminent threat of Nazi invasion. At the same time there was real and unparalleled democracy for the masses of people in which the 'Dictatorship of the Proletarian' the rule of the poor made the USSR a qualitatively more participatory society than the USA has ever been. The old exploiters were thrown out and the masses had the right and the ability to change the world and participate in society in a different way from Capitalist countries, which are dictatorships of the rich. --Bill Gibbons
ReplyDelete