would we be better off had Khrushchev not acknowledged Stalin's crimes?

[© tweed]

I'm reading an article now which isn't very good, but it brings up the interesting point which I have seen hinted at elsewhere, that the famous Khrushchev 180 on Stalinism in 1956 contributed to: a decline in the moral standing of Communism / belief in the moral bankruptcy of Communism; which in turn contributed to a premature resignation of whatever shreds of leftish activism exist to liberal capitalism as the final form of human organization, End of History-style.

I'm not sure I buy it because it glosses over the New Left, which cannot be treated as a monolith but clearly was not of the End-of-History... but clearly, the death of meaningful American radicalism came at least 13 years after Imre Nagy got bitch-slapped.  

the larger point remains.  the Western propaganda assault had at Leninism starting during World War I, and continues amazingly to this day, 20 years after we said the last rites of the USSR (which Chomsky more amazingly predicted in Manufacturing Consent, that the 'nationwide religion of anti-communism' would survive the end of the Cold War)... so why discredit it from the inside?  at the least, just ignore it.

[Redalgo]

I reckon Western propaganda would have continued unabated, and to similar ends, regardless of whether the full scope of Stalin's crimes came to light and got denounced by Mr. Khrushchev. Stalin was not singularly responsible for the decline in the moral standing of Communism. The outcomes of having varied Marxist-Leninist regimes dominate Second World politics through the 20th century was easily enough to take care of that on their own.

I certainly don't know if things would have turned out differently for the reputation of communism had the Bolsheviks failed to get their authoritarian mitts around the throat of the Russian people in the first place, but their sort came out on top, denounced and marginalized other leftist factions, and in doing so all but guaranteed that onlookers abroad would eventually come to associate communism with the offshoots of a single, dreadful ideological current. I take issue with some of the other stuff Khrushchev did - but at the very least I have to give him credit for breaking the silence at the end of an age of terror... for starting to unravel a cult of personality and taking a heroic, albeit symbolic stand against the worst oppressor the Soviet people ever knew.

Other forms of communism don't deserve to be tagged with that legacy. Nonetheless, I honestly fail to see how Mr. Khrushchev's actions played any major role in bringing about that outcome.

[© tweed]

+1 on your use of language to get an official stamp of approval as a Serious Person.  and +2 for referring to Russian "domination" of the Second World while simultaneously denying that the contemporary US is an empire -- get the anxiety problems under control, and you could be well on your way towards becoming an Official Ideologist.

[Redalgo]

With the utmost respect, and to the contrary, I think during the Cold War the United States of America was most certainly an aggressive, at times ruthlessly selfish, amoral imperialist power.

[© tweed]

my above was unncessarily mean, but I said it, let it stand.

With the utmost respect, and to the contrary, I think during the Cold War the United States of America was most certainly an aggressive, at times ruthlessly selfish, amoral imperialist power.

and this has changed?

[Dereich]

Putting aside the fact that I find the "premature resignation of whatever shreds of leftish activism exist to liberal capitalism as the final form of human organization" to be a good thing, it wasn't the revelation of Stalin's crimes that doomed Communist thought in the west. Communist parties still continued to attract mass support in countries like France and Italy and that Marxist thought was a bit more mainstream and less fringe until the fall of the Soviet bloc. That, not anything Stalin did is what refuted illiberal economics in the west, and I don't really see how it would have been any different if Khrushchev had kept quiet. I could see Brezhnev and possibly Andropov might have been a bit more heavy handed if Stalin's crimes were kept under wraps, but I don't see that stopping the ascent of Gorbachev or see him being willing to use any more force then he did. 

[© tweed]

Putting aside the fact that I find the "premature resignation of whatever shreds of leftish activism exist to liberal capitalism as the final form of human organization" to be a good thing

the continued existence of human civilization is incompatible with the institution of private property; if you don't consider humanity to be worth saving, that's certainly a justifiable position, but you should be more intellectually honest about it.

[Redalgo]

my above was unncessarily mean, but I said it, let it stand.

With the utmost respect, and to the contrary, I think during the Cold War the United States of America was most certainly an aggressive, at times ruthlessly selfish, amoral imperialist power.

and this has changed?

Yes. The U.S. has long sought hegemony but since the 1990s there was a shift in foreign policy priorities that in my opinion effectively scaled back its imperialist tendencies. I figure the Powell Doctrine signaled a withdrawal of the States from attempts to coercively micromanage the fates of developing countries at risk of falling into the hands of political factions that its leaders dislike on ideological grounds; the Clinton Doctrine marked a shift away from past interventions solely for pursuing national self-interest to valuing the well-being and rights of other peoples for their own sakes; and modern neo-conservatism and neoliberalism are only imperialist in a cultural way - not relying on American threats or force with knowing intent to subordinate the interests of people in other countries to those of its own.

The U.S. still at times engages in acts that profoundly disrespect other countries, maintains a very strong armed forces, exerts influence in the affairs of other countries - especially when it has a stake in the outcomes, and has latent potential to once again become a major imperial power. However, at this time I'm not convinced this country still playing a geopolitical game of Risk in earnest now that the USSR and so-called "spectre of international communism" have essentially been removed from play. Ideology was always important in the Cold War, I think, but survival was certainly more so - for both sides involved as they perceived their main rival to be a dangerous aggressor that must be deterred and met with appearances of might, prosperity, and superiority.

What do you think though? Are we interpreting imperialism differently, or maybe even seeing the intent of policymakers in different lights? I am open to being persuaded on the subject if you are willing to tactfully respond and further elaborate on your thoughts a bit.

Putting aside the fact that I find the "premature resignation of whatever shreds of leftish activism exist to liberal capitalism as the final form of human organization" to be a good thing

the continued existence of human civilization is incompatible with the institution of private property; if you don't consider humanity to be worth saving, that's certainly a justifiable position, but you should be more intellectually honest about it.

We shall have to disagree on the matter. I do not consider property rights or the lack thereof to be an inherently important factor in the long-term well-being of humanity. Nor do I think a person has to be unconcerned with the "saving" of humanity simply because they are a liberal democrat. I'm of an inclination that multiple political-economic orders are viably useful provided they are prudently implemented and compatible with the customs and values of the people to which they apply - it is merely that my subjective interpretation of morality and the things I most care for seeing nurtured in society are more compatible with some such orders than they would be with many of the others. I have no reason to doubt Dereich's vision for the future is less well-intentioned or favored for less admirable reasons than is yours or mine.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hanged. Nagy was hanged. Not 'bitch slapped', hanged.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Tweed, are you seriously arguing that the continuing cover-up of mass murder and slave labour was a good thing?

[© tweed]

the Clinton Doctrine marked a shift away from past interventions solely for pursuing national self-interest to valuing the well-being and rights of other peoples for their own sakes;

oh dear God, you actually believe this crap.  the West has been using this argument to justify exploitation, slavery, rape, and murder for 500 years, and a (D) bombs Africa, Eastern Europe, Iraq, and ties Aristide's hands behinds his back and you fall for it.

all the counter-argument you need comes from the Pentagon at the dawn of the End of History.  some of the more naive among us thought that the collapse of the USSR would spell a wind-down in 'defense' spending... of course not!  new justifications were spun out of the air, none of them having anything in the least to do with the "well-being and rights of other peoples" (I can't believe a bright person like you would fall for that utter sh**t.  who do you think owns everything in the country, runs the Pentagon?  Mother Theresa?  Tolstoy?)


http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb245/


hegemony, nothing else.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

this isn't 'cultural imperialism', it is a war crime if we are to hold the US to the standards we held the Third Reich. 

You must be logged in to read this quote.

'imperialism' transcends colonial relationships (or even direct control of states).  back in the 40s the US found more efficient ways to pursue its own material interest; most often this takes the form of the 'client state', whereby we contract with a state, to allow us access to expropriate natural resources and exploit cheap labor in exchange for weapons, cash, etc.  the US unconcern with the nature of the 'ally' is a proven fact.  in fact, in Latin America, there is an inverse correlation between human rights and US influence in a given country.  popular movements that seek to depose an elite and open the resources of a home country to the people at large are branded "communists", "Islamists", "economic nationalists", whatever and bombed into submission.  'democracy' and 'stability' mean 'willing to hand lack and key over to US capital'.  it takes a naive worldview to think more benign forces are at work in the highest chambers of power -- even if there are 'true believers' (GWB surely was one of them) scattered among them.

[© tweed]

Tweed, are you seriously arguing that the continuing cover-up of mass murder and slave labour was a good thing?

could have been, sure.  the great industrial unions of this country That Built the American Middle Class™ were in large part organized by loyal Stalinists in the 1930s and 1940s.  if a full light were shone on Stalin by the time of the Moscow Trials the organizers would have been put in jail or blacklisted or lynched.  we may not have had a UAW, United Steelworkers, etc. to speak of.  would that have been good?  no.  life is a complicated, counter-intuitive thing.

[© tweed]

We shall have to disagree on the matter. I do not consider property rights or the lack thereof to be an inherently important factor in the long-term well-being of humanity. Nor do I think a person has to be unconcerned with the "saving" of humanity simply because they are a liberal democrat. I'm of an inclination that multiple political-economic orders are viably useful provided they are prudently implemented and compatible with the customs and values of the people to which they apply - it is merely that my subjective interpretation of morality and the things I most care for seeing nurtured in society are more compatible with some such orders than they would be with many of the others. I have no reason to doubt Dereich's vision for the future is less well-intentioned or favored for less admirable reasons than is yours or mine.

the problem is a capitalist can only survive by subordinating all other concerns, including those of the species at-large, to growth.  this includes environmental or nuclear disaster. aggravated by the overpopulation caused by linguistic capability as a 'cheat code' in the evolutionary chain, most likely an evolutionary error that is doomed to be but a blip on the screen before it destroys itself.  such species-event disasters are statistical certainties on a long-enough time scale (not looking very long currently, we may well experience the major human apocalyptic-event), and are unable to be addressed so long as there is no democratic decision-making over the use of resources.  instead we have private dictatorships that need to profit to survive controlling production as well as attitude-framing through major media.  a counter-power to this would need to rise in order to avert disaster; 'regulation' will not do, it is an impossibility, a liberal apology.

[Redalgo]

. . . the West has been using this argument to justify exploitation, slavery, rape, and murder for 500 years, and a (D) bombs Africa, Eastern Europe, Iraq, and ties Aristide's hands behinds his back and you fall for it.

For that length of time the West has been using the argument of helping lesser-developed peoples become more “civilized” and portraying them as in need of beneficent patrons as rationalizations for imperialism, yes, but allowing folks to exercise a measure of self-determination in selecting their leaders is a relatively recent trend in U.S. foreign policy - although in fairness the States still tends to benefit from at least some of its past client states. I do not think that the country’s policy goals have done a full one-eighty from realist to idealist objectives.

Still, I’m honestly not aware of any efforts by the U.S. government in the last couple of decades to crush political or social movements in countries for the end of protecting past client states and preserve economically advantageous relationships with authoritarian regimes... unless we are counting the indirect impact of arms sales to other countries, in which case it is fair to say the States values profit more so than human rights in its dealings abroad. Voiced opposition by the state to left-nationalist and Islamist groups, in my opinion, is more a product of ignorance and ethnocentrism on the part of Americans than part of any sort of ongoing conspiracy to subdue the peoples of other countries and gain, nationally, from suppressing their aspirations.

all the counter-argument you need comes from the Pentagon at the dawn of the End of History.  some of the more naive among us thought that the collapse of the USSR would spell a wind-down in 'defense' spending... of course not!  new justifications were spun out of the air, none of them having anything in the least to do with the "well-being and rights of other peoples" (I can't believe a bright person like you would fall for that utter sh**t.  who do you think owns everything in the country, runs the Pentagon?  Mother Theresa?  Tolstoy?)

Na. I would explain the lack of wind-down in funding for the armed forces differently. First, the Congress tends to be an incrementalist – not rationalist – lawmaking body in that it continuously, expediently amends its past policies if/when big problems emerge instead of following up comprehensive studies of issues with broad-sweeping reforms aimed at achieving policy objectives in the most effective, efficient manner. This occurs at least in part because of limitations in the resources available to lawmakers and also in the mental faculties of the politicians themselves, neither of which can realistically be overcome in full.

Politics itself gets in the way of scaling back because base closures tend to be unpopular with people living in areas that economically benefit from their presence, cutting back defense spending in American political culture still carries with it the unsavory connotation of favoring a weak or under-prepared defense of the homeland (that could be in part to the public’s lack of comprehension about how their military’s capabilities and levels of funding compare to those of other world powers, and is made all the worse by post-9/11 fears of terrorism), and Americans seem to be used to being entangled in a web of strategic alliances with other countries we end up “obliged” by past commitments of capital to cast an umbrella of protection over (e.g. Israel, South Korea, Taiwan).

I also think a reason the military has remained so robust is because of lobbying on behalf of the defense industry, which has a major financial stake in continuing to get contracts even though the U.S.’s actual needs are changing. Aside from that, I reckon it’s hard for leaders to muster will enough to give up a high degree of hard power to be retained in reserve once taxpayers are used to and comfortable with financing it. There are several factors at work.

On the other hand, it would be fair to say I am somewhat biased in that I tend to assume people have good intentions until shown otherwise. It often (sometimes justly) lends an appearance of naïveté on my part but it is basically against my warm, kindhearted nature to assume the worst of people as a default. Indeed, I am one of the least inclined people I know to pass harsh, negative judgment on others - whether they serve in a public office or otherwise. It is yet another reason for me not to get involved in the day-to-day struggles of politicking, eh?

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb245/

This gives me more to mull over and is appreciated. I’m certainly closer to yielding now than was the case prior to reading. Would you say that these objectives cross over into the current administration? You shall have won me over if I can be shown the current administration gave in to such a foreign agenda for lack of a praiseworthy commitment to idealist principles.

this isn't 'cultural imperialism', it is a war crime if we are to hold the US to the standards we held the Third Reich.

In the case of neo-conservatism, quite possibly yes, depending on how it gets implemented. I’ve not seen the arguments put forth by both sides in that debate but - if discussion of policy goals are temporarily set aside - am confident that serious crimes have been committed by Americans partaking in recent conflicts, and that some U.S. strategies in pursuing the “War on Terror” have apparently been criminal in nature, as well.

'imperialism' transcends colonial relationships (or even direct control of states).  back in the 40s the US found more efficient ways to pursue its own material interest; most often this takes the form of the 'client state', whereby we contract with a state, to allow us access to expropriate natural resources and exploit cheap labor in exchange for weapons, cash, etc.  the US unconcern with the nature of the 'ally' is a proven fact.  in fact, in Latin America, there is an inverse correlation between human rights and US influence in a given country.  popular movements that seek to depose an elite and open the resources of a home country to the people at large are branded "communists", "Islamists", "economic nationalists", whatever and bombed into submission.  'democracy' and 'stability' mean 'willing to hand lack and key over to US capital'.  it takes a naive worldview to think more benign forces are at work in the highest chambers of power -- even if there are 'true believers' (GWB surely was one of them) scattered among them.

The italicized statement is perhaps one of the key points where we aren’t seeing eye-to-eye. My impression is such suppression by the States in the past decade or two has only been directed toward groups whose campaigns for increased political or cultural influence include violence against civilians, financial ties to violent drug cartels, and/or are (perceived to) threaten to markedly curtail the openness of civic life for people living in their respective countries. Your explanation makes a lot of sense to me in the context of the Cold War, but what I probably still need some help from you in understanding is how the U.S.’s conduct and ambitions today are more or less comparable to those it had prior to the arrival of my generation. The GWU article in particular was not at all a bad start I think, if you care to continue.

the problem is a capitalist can only survive by subordinating all other concerns, including those of the species at-large, to growth.  this includes environmental or nuclear disaster. aggravated by the overpopulation caused by linguistic capability as a 'cheat code' in the evolutionary chain, most likely an evolutionary error that is doomed to be but a blip on the screen before it destroys itself.  such species-event disasters are statistical certainties on a long-enough time scale (not looking very long currently, we may well experience the major human apocalyptic-event), and are unable to be addressed so long as there is no democratic decision-making over the use of resources.  instead we have private dictatorships that need to profit to survive controlling production as well as attitude-framing through major media.  a counter-power to this would need to rise in order to avert disaster; 'regulation' will not do, it is an impossibility, a liberal apology.

I am honestly sympathetic to most of what you’ve said here. Though some measure of democratic decision-making in the economy is highly desirable to me I do not consider it imperative. Liberalism can and at times actually has evolved, adapting to the problematic realities of an ever-changing world. Has it done so thus far to an extent which I find satisfactory? No. But I do strongly suspect in the future there will be forms of capitalism featuring ways to account for externalities such as environmental sustainability. For the time being there is little fear on my part that humanity is in imminent danger of snuffing itself out if it doesn’t spring into motion to embrace a democratic process of transition to socialism, and even if control of the economy were democratic I’m not convinced workers on their own would have wisdom enough to avoid making decisions that could ravage the environment and effectively screw over future generations anyway. Economic sustainability demands a change in cultural norms more than in the ownership of capital.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Tweed, are you seriously arguing that the continuing cover-up of mass murder and slave labour was a good thing?

could have been, sure.  the great industrial unions of this country That Built the American Middle Class™ were in large part organized by loyal Stalinists in the 1930s and 1940s.  if a full light were shone on Stalin by the time of the Moscow Trials the organizers would have been put in jail or blacklisted or lynched.  we may not have had a UAW, United Steelworkers, etc. to speak of.  would that have been good?  no.  life is a complicated, counter-intuitive thing.

Indeed. But was that worth a generation of dead Russians, the genocide of the Kulaks, the attempt to exterminate the Chechens, the Russian Koreans, the Volga Germans and many others?

[LastVoter]

. . . the West has been using this argument to justify exploitation, slavery, rape, and murder for 500 years, and a (D) bombs Africa, Eastern Europe, Iraq, and ties Aristide's hands behinds his back and you fall for it.

For that length of time the West has been using the argument of helping lesser-developed peoples become more “civilized” and portraying them as in need of beneficent patrons as rationalizations for imperialism, yes, but allowing folks to exercise a measure of self-determination in selecting their leaders is a relatively recent trend in U.S. foreign policy - although in fairness the States still tends to benefit from at least some of its past client states. I do not think that the country’s policy goals have done a full one-eighty from realist to idealist objectives.

Still, I’m honestly not aware of any efforts by the U.S. government in the last couple of decades to crush political or social movements in countries for the end of protecting past client states and preserve economically advantageous relationships with authoritarian regimes... unless we are counting the indirect impact of arms sales to other countries, in which case it is fair to say the States values profit more so than human rights in its dealings abroad. Voiced opposition by the state to left-nationalist and Islamist groups, in my opinion, is more a product of ignorance and ethnocentrism on the part of Americans than part of any sort of ongoing conspiracy to subdue the peoples of other countries and gain, nationally, from suppressing their aspirations.

all the counter-argument you need comes from the Pentagon at the dawn of the End of History.  some of the more naive among us thought that the collapse of the USSR would spell a wind-down in 'defense' spending... of course not!  new justifications were spun out of the air, none of them having anything in the least to do with the "well-being and rights of other peoples" (I can't believe a bright person like you would fall for that utter sh**t.  who do you think owns everything in the country, runs the Pentagon?  Mother Theresa?  Tolstoy?)

Na. I would explain the lack of wind-down in funding for the armed forces differently. First, the Congress tends to be an incrementalist – not rationalist – lawmaking body in that it continuously, expediently amends its past policies if/when big problems emerge instead of following up comprehensive studies of issues with broad-sweeping reforms aimed at achieving policy objectives in the most effective, efficient manner. This occurs at least in part because of limitations in the resources available to lawmakers and also in the mental faculties of the politicians themselves, neither of which can realistically be overcome in full.

Politics itself gets in the way of scaling back because base closures tend to be unpopular with people living in areas that economically benefit from their presence, cutting back defense spending in American political culture still carries with it the unsavory connotation of favoring a weak or under-prepared defense of the homeland (that could be in part to the public’s lack of comprehension about how their military’s capabilities and levels of funding compare to those of other world powers, and is made all the worse by post-9/11 fears of terrorism), and Americans seem to be used to being entangled in a web of strategic alliances with other countries we end up “obliged” by past commitments of capital to cast an umbrella of protection over (e.g. Israel, South Korea, Taiwan).

I also think a reason the military has remained so robust is because of lobbying on behalf of the defense industry, which has a major financial stake in continuing to get contracts even though the U.S.’s actual needs are changing. Aside from that, I reckon it’s hard for leaders to muster will enough to give up a high degree of hard power to be retained in reserve once taxpayers are used to and comfortable with financing it. There are several factors at work.

On the other hand, it would be fair to say I am somewhat biased in that I tend to assume people have good intentions until shown otherwise. It often (sometimes justly) lends an appearance of naïveté on my part but it is basically against my warm, kindhearted nature to assume the worst of people as a default. Indeed, I am one of the least inclined people I know to pass harsh, negative judgment on others - whether they serve in a public office or otherwise. It is yet another reason for me not to get involved in the day-to-day struggles of politicking, eh?

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb245/

This gives me more to mull over and is appreciated. I’m certainly closer to yielding now than was the case prior to reading. Would you say that these objectives cross over into the current administration? You shall have won me over if I can be shown the current administration gave in to such a foreign agenda for lack of a praiseworthy commitment to idealist principles.

this isn't 'cultural imperialism', it is a war crime if we are to hold the US to the standards we held the Third Reich.

In the case of neo-conservatism, quite possibly yes, depending on how it gets implemented. I’ve not seen the arguments put forth by both sides in that debate but - if discussion of policy goals are temporarily set aside - am confident that serious crimes have been committed by Americans partaking in recent conflicts, and that some U.S. strategies in pursuing the “War on Terror” have apparently been criminal in nature, as well.

'imperialism' transcends colonial relationships (or even direct control of states).  back in the 40s the US found more efficient ways to pursue its own material interest; most often this takes the form of the 'client state', whereby we contract with a state, to allow us access to expropriate natural resources and exploit cheap labor in exchange for weapons, cash, etc.  the US unconcern with the nature of the 'ally' is a proven fact.  in fact, in Latin America, there is an inverse correlation between human rights and US influence in a given country.  popular movements that seek to depose an elite and open the resources of a home country to the people at large are branded "communists", "Islamists", "economic nationalists", whatever and bombed into submission.  'democracy' and 'stability' mean 'willing to hand lack and key over to US capital'.  it takes a naive worldview to think more benign forces are at work in the highest chambers of power -- even if there are 'true believers' (GWB surely was one of them) scattered among them.

The italicized statement is perhaps one of the key points where we aren’t seeing eye-to-eye. My impression is such suppression by the States in the past decade or two has only been directed toward groups whose campaigns for increased political or cultural influence include violence against civilians, financial ties to violent drug cartels, and/or are (perceived to) threaten to markedly curtail the openness of civic life for people living in their respective countries. Your explanation makes a lot of sense to me in the context of the Cold War, but what I probably still need some help from you in understanding is how the U.S.’s conduct and ambitions today are more or less comparable to those it had prior to the arrival of my generation. The GWU article in particular was not at all a bad start I think, if you care to continue.

the problem is a capitalist can only survive by subordinating all other concerns, including those of the species at-large, to growth.  this includes environmental or nuclear disaster. aggravated by the overpopulation caused by linguistic capability as a 'cheat code' in the evolutionary chain, most likely an evolutionary error that is doomed to be but a blip on the screen before it destroys itself.  such species-event disasters are statistical certainties on a long-enough time scale (not looking very long currently, we may well experience the major human apocalyptic-event), and are unable to be addressed so long as there is no democratic decision-making over the use of resources.  instead we have private dictatorships that need to profit to survive controlling production as well as attitude-framing through major media.  a counter-power to this would need to rise in order to avert disaster; 'regulation' will not do, it is an impossibility, a liberal apology.

I am honestly sympathetic to most of what you’ve said here. Though some measure of democratic decision-making in the economy is highly desirable to me I do not consider it imperative. Liberalism can and at times actually has evolved, adapting to the problematic realities of an ever-changing world. Has it done so thus far to an extent which I find satisfactory? No. But I do strongly suspect in the future there will be forms of capitalism featuring ways to account for externalities such as environmental sustainability. For the time being there is little fear on my part that humanity is in imminent danger of snuffing itself out if it doesn’t spring into motion to embrace a democratic process of transition to socialism, and even if control of the economy were democratic I’m not convinced workers on their own would have wisdom enough to avoid making decisions that could ravage the environment and effectively screw over future generations anyway. Economic sustainability demands a change in cultural norms more than in the ownership of capital.

The most recent example is Panama. Also while there might be a policy change, there are a still millions of deaths in third-world each decade that are casualties of US imperialism, so the end result is the same.

[© tweed]

Tweed, are you seriously arguing that the continuing cover-up of mass murder and slave labour was a good thing?

could have been, sure.  the great industrial unions of this country That Built the American Middle Class™ were in large part organized by loyal Stalinists in the 1930s and 1940s.  if a full light were shone on Stalin by the time of the Moscow Trials the organizers would have been put in jail or blacklisted or lynched.  we may not have had a UAW, United Steelworkers, etc. to speak of.  would that have been good?  no.  life is a complicated, counter-intuitive thing.

Indeed. But was that worth a generation of dead Russians, the genocide of the Kulaks, the attempt to exterminate the Chechens, the Russian Koreans, the Volga Germans and many others?

I'm starting with 1956, at which point Stalin had already happened.  it would have been nice had he not happened (though the Nazis may have won WWII if Trotskyite aid hadn't propelled the German proletariat by then...) ... and then we get into the problem of counterfactuals and their endless web.


Redalgo I will address you later.  hang tight son.

[The Mikado]

Except that Khrushchev wasn't condemning Stalin as part of some sort of humanitarian concern, he was doing so to delegitimize Stalin's inner circle and cement his own grasp on power?  Khrushchev needed to legitimize his radical shift in Soviet internal policy somehow, and condemning the hell out of one's predecessor in order to legitimize your own rule is a token of Russian politics.  Wrecking Stalinism was a necessary byproduct of Khrushchev's effort to tear down Beria and then Malenkov.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Except that Khrushchev wasn't condemning Stalin as part of some sort of humanitarian concern, he was doing so to delegitimize Stalin's inner circle and cement his own grasp on power?  Khrushchev needed to legitimize his radical shift in Soviet internal policy somehow, and condemning the hell out of one's predecessor in order to legitimize your own rule is a token of Russian politics.  Wrecking Stalinism was a necessary byproduct of Khrushchev's effort to tear down Beria and then Malenkov.

There's also the point that the emphasis was on 'and he killed good Party Comrades as well!' rather than 'political murder is bad'.

[afleitch]

Back to the original point, had Khrushchev not acknowledged Stalin's crimes, there is no doubt that the Soviet standing would have declined at any rate and indeed probably faster. Remember that Stalin had effectively closed off discussion amongst sections of the left by opposing international leftist movements that weren't exclusively Marxist (for which read Stalinist) Khruschev's denouncement helped alieviate that tension amongst potential allies only to be overtaken by events in the Eastern Bloc. While Communists rose to power in many Bloc states by merging with other left parties by choice or by force it locked out remaining pro-collective/nationalisation leftist parties by default of not being sufficiently Marxist. This arrested decline in ideas lead to economic mismanagement that led to a recession in the Bloc in the early 50's at the same time the West started to boom. The tension between the institutional and non institutional left in the Bloc because of Stalin's style of political housekeeping would have fractured any political concensus in the bloc and would have likely led to internal rebellion in some states and likely a different, bloodier and less co-operative end to the Polish Crisis.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

It's not like world had no idea about Stalin's crimes before the Twentieth Party Congress.

[ag]

the continued existence of human civilization is incompatible with the institution of private property; if you don't consider humanity to be worth saving, that's certainly a justifiable position, but you should be more intellectually honest about it.

Wow! This is so good, I do have to conclude that the author of these words not only knows nothing about human civilization, but, in fact, has never visited our planet. Please, fess up: you are writing this from the vicinity of Alpha Centauri! Where did you learn a human language?

On a more serious note: the entire thread goes far beyond ridiculous and well into the confines of higlhy immoral. Discussing this seriously is demeaning to the memory of those killed.  Mercifully, I do believe the original poster is merely clueless, not outright evil. However, taking a remedial history course, most definitely, seems to be in order, before one can even engage into a conversation with this gentleman.

[LastVoter]

Tweed 1956 is not the year you are looking for, 1945 is a better choice. Also the events leading up to 1945 and failure of the leftists to take over continental western europe.

[LastVoter]

the continued existence of human civilization is incompatible with the institution of private property; if you don't consider humanity to be worth saving, that's certainly a justifiable position, but you should be more intellectually honest about it.

Wow! This is so good, I do have to conclude that the author of these words not only knows nothing about human civilization, but, in fact, has never visited our planet. Please, fess up: you are writing this from the vicinity of Alpha Centauri! Where did you learn a human language?

On a more serious note: the entire thread goes far beyond ridiculous and well into the confines of higlhy immoral. Discussing this seriously is demeaning to the memory of those killed.  Mercifully, I do believe the original poster is merely clueless, not outright evil. However, taking a remedial history course, most definitely, seems to be in order, before one can even engage into a conversation with this gentleman.

Serious people, private property is quite superfluous, or are you talking about the rest of Tweed's rambling quoted?

[ag]

Serious people, private property is quite superfluous

Try imagining life without it.

Without private property, you can't have legal markets. Without legal markets, life is goint to be a lot harder. For everyone.