“The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.” - Josef Stalin
But also
“I am the best at industrial policy, Tariff the Ukrainians to Make the Russian Empire Great Again” - Josef Stalin, probably
Also Stalin wanted to pretend he was as good friends with Lenin as Trotsky was, OP’s painting is a massive manifestation of Stalin’s historical revisionism. Quite ironic to make this text+image with such an obvious example of historical revisionism.
Tell me you’ve never read Lenin without telling me
Trotsky arrived, and this scoundrel at once ganged up with the Right wing […]
What a swine this Trotsky is: Left phrases, and a bloc with the Right.
This is an instance of high-flown phraseology with which Trotsky always justifies opportunism… The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue.
Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other.
Trotsky behaves like a despicable careerist and factionalist of the Ryazanov-and-co type. Either equality on the editorial board, subordination to the central committee and no one’s transfer to Paris except Trotsky’s (the scoundrel, he wants to ‘fix up’ the whole rascally crew of ‘Pravda’ at our expense!) – or a break with this swindler and an exposure of him in the CO. He pays lip-service to the Party and behaves worse than any other of the factionalists.
This is just a random sample, if you want more I can go on, for as long as you like.
Literally pretty much everything Lenin wrote about Trotsky was him calling Trotsky an idiot who has no clue what he’s talking about half the time and was generally a nuisance to their party work and organizing. In what world was Lenin better friend, or friend at all, with Trotsky than Stalin?
The USSR was never imperialist, that’s really a poor analysis based on the economy of the USSR. It didn’t run an extractionary economy based on export of capital, nor was it under the control of financial capital.
Secondly, Stalin was better friends with Lenin than Trotsky. This isn’t historical revisionism, Trotsky retained his Menshevik roots throughout his life in his style of theory and practice, while Stalin was a Bolshevik from the beginning and worked with Lenin directly for a longer time. The idea that Lenin disliked Stalin mostly comes from a letter demanding Stalin’s resignation over the treatment of Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife, for which Stalin tried to resign but was rejected.
Third, the USSR wasn’t a monarchy. Even if Lenin personally liked Trotksy more, Stalin was voted in. Are you suggesting that the Soviet Union should have been a monarchy? Moreover, Trotsky’s plan of assaulting the peasantry and hoping Europe would have a revolution and save the USSR from the backlash would have been suicide. Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution depended on the peasantry being incapable of long-term alliance, but we know from history that that was obviously false and socialism was solidifed in the USSR.
Stalin was no saint, not everything he did was good, but at the same time not everything he did was bad, either. The CPC maintains that he was “70% good, 30% bad,” upholding him as legitimate but recognizing missteps. Most communist orgs hold a similar line. Overall, he was comparatively much better than contemporaries like Churchill, despite being remembered as far worse by liberal historians.
Demystifying Stalin
I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy.
Stalin's Major Theoretical Contributions to Marxism
I have come to communism because of daddy Stalin and nobody must come and tell me that I mustn’t read Stalin. I read him when it was very bad to read him. That was another time. And because I’m not very bright, and a hard-headed person, I keep on reading him. Especially in this new period, now that it is worse to read him. Then, as well as now, I still find a Seri of things that are very good.
Pretty decent overview, especially for the actual moments of the October Revolution, but I don’t see how that’s relevant to the USSR’s history and economic model following the revolution, the split of Trotsky from his temporary adherance to Marxism-Leninism back into petite-bourgeois menshevism, or Stalin’s merits/demerits. The sources I provided as a whole go far more in-depth, and go far beyond 1917.
Not really sure what you’re trying to say here, other than “actually existing socialism bad.”
As a side-note, the Prolewiki version of Ten Days that Shook the World is also a nice option for those who prefer that format while reading on mobile!
Damn, “Stalin is not a good guy, but he made great points here and there” bro WHAT
Replace Stalin with Hitler and it’s the same vibe, stop trying to defend the thing that killed millions of people : Communism
No, this is absurd. During the first 3 decades of the USSR’s existence, ie the core years with Stalin as head of state, life expectancy over doubled from the mid-30s to the low-70s, housing was free or up to ~4% of incomes, education and healthcare were free and high quality, there was sweeping democratization, and society went from what was known as a “feudal backwater” with living standards common to the 1500s to a developed country that even competed with the US Empire in the space race. Socialism was dramatically better than Tsarism and modern capitalism, and the vast majority that lived in it want it back.
The Nazis, on the other hand, instituted industrialized mass-murder, solidified capitalist rule, killed off communists, labor organizers, disabled people, queer people, and more, as well as the mass slaughtering of Jewish peoples, slavic peoples, and more. What you are doing is Holocaust trivialization. I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds. You also may want to read some of the articles, essays, and books listed under “demystifying Stalin,” all are free to read and easy to do so on mobile.
“The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.” - Josef Stalin
But also
“I am the best at industrial policy, Tariff the Ukrainians to Make the Russian Empire Great Again” - Josef Stalin, probably
Also Stalin wanted to pretend he was as good friends with Lenin as Trotsky was, OP’s painting is a massive manifestation of Stalin’s historical revisionism. Quite ironic to make this text+image with such an obvious example of historical revisionism.
So you took a real quote, and one you made up, and put them in contradiction?
Tell me you’ve never read Lenin without telling me
This is just a random sample, if you want more I can go on, for as long as you like.
Literally pretty much everything Lenin wrote about Trotsky was him calling Trotsky an idiot who has no clue what he’s talking about half the time and was generally a nuisance to their party work and organizing. In what world was Lenin better friend, or friend at all, with Trotsky than Stalin?
The USSR was never imperialist, that’s really a poor analysis based on the economy of the USSR. It didn’t run an extractionary economy based on export of capital, nor was it under the control of financial capital.
Secondly, Stalin was better friends with Lenin than Trotsky. This isn’t historical revisionism, Trotsky retained his Menshevik roots throughout his life in his style of theory and practice, while Stalin was a Bolshevik from the beginning and worked with Lenin directly for a longer time. The idea that Lenin disliked Stalin mostly comes from a letter demanding Stalin’s resignation over the treatment of Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife, for which Stalin tried to resign but was rejected.
Third, the USSR wasn’t a monarchy. Even if Lenin personally liked Trotksy more, Stalin was voted in. Are you suggesting that the Soviet Union should have been a monarchy? Moreover, Trotsky’s plan of assaulting the peasantry and hoping Europe would have a revolution and save the USSR from the backlash would have been suicide. Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution depended on the peasantry being incapable of long-term alliance, but we know from history that that was obviously false and socialism was solidifed in the USSR.
Stalin was no saint, not everything he did was good, but at the same time not everything he did was bad, either. The CPC maintains that he was “70% good, 30% bad,” upholding him as legitimate but recognizing missteps. Most communist orgs hold a similar line. Overall, he was comparatively much better than contemporaries like Churchill, despite being remembered as far worse by liberal historians.
Demystifying Stalin
[8 min]
[6 min]
[30 min]
[16 min]
[42 min]
[38 min]
[9 min]
[5 hr 51 min]
[5 hr 25 min]
Stalin's Major Theoretical Contributions to Marxism
Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
History of the CPSU (B)
The Foundations of Leninism
Marxism and the National Question
10 days that shook the world
Pretty decent overview, especially for the actual moments of the October Revolution, but I don’t see how that’s relevant to the USSR’s history and economic model following the revolution, the split of Trotsky from his temporary adherance to Marxism-Leninism back into petite-bourgeois menshevism, or Stalin’s merits/demerits. The sources I provided as a whole go far more in-depth, and go far beyond 1917.
Not really sure what you’re trying to say here, other than “actually existing socialism bad.”
As a side-note, the Prolewiki version of Ten Days that Shook the World is also a nice option for those who prefer that format while reading on mobile!
Damn, “Stalin is not a good guy, but he made great points here and there” bro WHAT Replace Stalin with Hitler and it’s the same vibe, stop trying to defend the thing that killed millions of people : Communism
No, this is absurd. During the first 3 decades of the USSR’s existence, ie the core years with Stalin as head of state, life expectancy over doubled from the mid-30s to the low-70s, housing was free or up to ~4% of incomes, education and healthcare were free and high quality, there was sweeping democratization, and society went from what was known as a “feudal backwater” with living standards common to the 1500s to a developed country that even competed with the US Empire in the space race. Socialism was dramatically better than Tsarism and modern capitalism, and the vast majority that lived in it want it back.
The Nazis, on the other hand, instituted industrialized mass-murder, solidified capitalist rule, killed off communists, labor organizers, disabled people, queer people, and more, as well as the mass slaughtering of Jewish peoples, slavic peoples, and more. What you are doing is Holocaust trivialization. I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds. You also may want to read some of the articles, essays, and books listed under “demystifying Stalin,” all are free to read and easy to do so on mobile.