Stalin: A Marxist-Leninist Perspective

[@DinoCism]

The irony is that while Stalin is the writer that budding socialists are least likely to read he's actually one of the best writers to start with when it comes to theory. He's clear, concise, well-read and sharp as a knife. The biggest thing that changed my perception of him wasn't reading more about Soviet history it was reading what Stalin actually wrote. Combine that with his peasant background, agitation and revolutionary commitment throughout his lifetime and you can absolutely see why people in the Soviet Union would have thought he was the man for the job.

[@jistikoff2361]

yes, especially on the national question

[@wyattthewallaby7018]

Any books u would recommend, I tend 2 avoid reading stuff online because I process things better through print so im wondering if there are any printed works?

[@danielalzate7456]

@@wyattthewallaby7018 Iskra Books has the Collected Works of Stalin if I'm not mistaken. It's free on their website as a pdf and you can buy physical copies too.

[@jonbruh]

“stalin is growing on me” isn’t something i ever thought i’d say but it is the year of our lord 2019

[@McHobotheBobo]

Check out "Historical and Dialectical Materialism" by Stalin, I think it is a very clear representation of his understanding of Marxist philosophy and his style of articulation.

[@mikkykyluc5804]

Same, I pretty much used to buy into the "soviet union did it wrong and stalin ate babies for breakfast, lunch and dinner".

[@seedfamily1404]

When trying to bring someone over to the side of proletarian revolution, it's probably best to start persuasion elsewhere in Communist history, and eventually work your way to Stalin, that way you soften the blow and dont chase them off lol. To be honest, I had always heard horrible things about Stalin, but once I opened my mind to the reality of imperialism, the dirty deeds of the U.S., began learning about Marxism and so on, I had a feeling I was going to find that everything I'd heard about Stalin and the Soviet Union was bullshit. I'm so fucking glad I listened to this!

[@legrandfromage9682]

Lol me too comrade. Liberal propaganda is a hell of a drug.

[@GnosticTroubadour]

@severi saaristo I just talk about it to people openly. Most people flip a lid for sure but at the same time I am surprised to find folks who are very curious, skeptical but listen, I think a good majority of people are hungary for some explanatory power of their lives.

[@jonathanchavez2723]

Intro to Podcast: 0:00 - 5:05 Introduction with Proles of the Round Table: 5:06 - 9:14 1.) What does Bourgeois history and approaches to Stalin get fundamentally wrong and how do you as a Marxist-Leninist think of Stalin as a revolutionary figure in the broadest sense?: 9:15 - 14:34 2.) What are your criticisms of Stalin?: 14:35 - 26:52 - 1. The Spanish Civil War 14:35 - 21:22 - 2. Relocation of tens of thousands of Soviet citizens 21:23 - 23:04 - 3. Passage of Article 121 "Outlaws Homosexuality" 23:05 - 26:52 3.) What do you think of the killing off of or imprisonment of Bolshevik leaders, and do you think this stems from Stalin's scheming to consolidate more Power for himself?: 26:53 - 29:46 4.) Do you have any thoughts on this paranoia when it came to this perception of constant internal enemies: 29:47 - 30:42 5.) Myth Busting: 30:43 - 2:11:23 - 1. Who were the Kulaks, how does western history frame them, and what is the truth regarding them 31:22 - 50:55 - 2. The Ukraine Famine (Holodomor) 50:56 - 1:39:00 - 3. What were the Purges? Why did they Happen, and what were their excesses? 1:39:01 - 2:11:23 - 4. What are your responses of accusations of Stalin being Anti-Semitic, Orientalist, Overly nationalistic, or Chauvinist?: 2:11:24 - 2:22:10 6.) The Legacy Of Stalin: 2:22:11 - 2:34:45 7.) Why is it important to understand the legacy of Stalin?: 2:34:46 - 2:37:05 8.) What is your perspective on names like "tankie" or "Stalinist"?: 2:37:06 - 2:39:29 9.) Why is the USSR the best example of existing Socialism?: 2:39:30 - 2:41:38 10.) Outro/Recommendations for further reading/Listening: 2:41:39 - 2:48:30 Listening: - Revleft Radio: The Red Hangover - Proles of the Roundtable: The Fall of the Soviet Union Reading Sources: - Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard "Douglass Tottle" - Another View of Stalin "Ludo Martens" - Khrushchev Lied "Grover Furr" - Socialism Betrayed "Roger Keeren, Thomas Keeny"

[@seedfamily1404]

Thank you very much! I was hoping to find a table of contents/sources such as this. I'm quite certain this will greatly help me with my studies. 🙏✊

[@jonathanchavez2723]

Kelly And Sam Seed you are welcome comrade! I always find them helpful, especially with a long video like this

[@TheDickbeard]

consider your application for party membership approved

[@gaybroshevik4180]

Camarada Stalinista. 😢♥️♥️♥️ THIS IS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL NON ANTI-STALIN TIMESTAMP COMMENT.

[@luistoo]

Gracias, camarada! ✊🏾

[@kevincrady2831]

In comparing Capitalism and Socialism, we also have to take into account the starting positions of each side. Industrial Capitalism got its start in the British and French colonial empires, and the United States. The first two were world-girdling imperial superpowers that faced no serious external threats except each other. The USA won the geopolitical lottery like no other nation in history, being handed effective domination of two resource-rich continents on a silver platter. Like its British and French counterparts, it faced no serious external threats after the War of 1812; until the Cold War, its most dangerous enemy was itself (U.S. Civil War). In contrast, the Soviet Union emerged from a backward feudal despotism that had just collapsed after suffering disastrous defeat in World War I, followed by the Russian Civil War in which they were invaded by multiple Capitalist powers, then shortly afterward by World War II in which they lost 20 million people, plus economic isolation imposed by the Capitalist powers. In spite of all this, they went from wooden plows to leading the Space Race within a single generation. As for Soviet "paranoia and oppression," try to imagine what the U.S. would be if it had suffered repeated foreign invasions with losses in the millions or tens of millions. A generation after 9/11 (less than 3,000 deaths), the "emergency" surveillance powers (which Lavrentia Beria could only dream of) and restrictions on Personal Freedom (i.e., still can't carry a normal tube of toothpaste onto an airplane) are still in place, and the USA is still in a state of permanent war, lashing out with drones and troops, having killed innocent people by the hundreds of thousands if not millions. Not only is there no end in sight, the very concept of an end is not even thinkable. If you had two runners, one of whom had just been beaten down by a gang with baseball bats and had weights chained to his hands and feet, and had to start at the starting line, and another who got to train in a posh multimillion-dollar gym and start two-thirds of the way to the finish line--and it was still a difficult race for the second runner to win--is it really fair to call the first runner a failure?

[@emanuelneagu14]

I'm saving this comment for myself, it's amazing how well is this put, thank you very much.

[@MarLenBo]

This is the best synopsis of the Cold War I've ever read.

[@EngliscMidEadwine]

In my opinion MLs and MLMs are the leftists who understand realpolitik.

[@danieljliverslxxxix1164]

So paranoia and pathological persecution of political enemies is okay because they were invaded? Nothing to do with the choices of people or a diseased ideology? You commies excuse evil. You are morally bankrupt and have no business telling others what to do or think.

[@B_Estes_Undegöetz]

Nice summary comrade. A tad heroic in the aristocratic mode of literary characterization toward the end there, but excellent historical dialectical materialist summary leading to keen geopolitical insight of the previous two centuries. Like other commenters I too wanted to save this excellent paragraph for future reference. It’s so good. Thank-you.

[@Honni1949]

RevLeft gives me so much hope the way Breht is able to formulate a conversation that disables anti-communist claims that Western Leftists are so prone to believing without question. Thank you for your work!

[@mikemurray2027]

The USSR was practically incapable of supporting the Spanish republic. Fascist submarines began sinking Soviet transports and the USSR could not get its navy into the Mediterranean to convoy them. From 'A History of the USSR' by Andrew Rothstein.

[@SmthSmth-ee1js]

yes

[@totem91]

Here's a good read: "Lies concerning the history of the Soviet Union" by Mario Souza.

[@mcgoombs]

Thank you comrade 🫡

[@numbersix8919]

Thanks!

[@redElim]

Also Critique of a Black Legend by Losurdo

[@SmthSmth-ee1js]

yes

[@seedfamily1404]

It is absolutely unacceptable that this has only 1.8k views. This is the most informative, transformative, eye opening show I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. Showing this to as many people as possible has been added to my life's to-do list. To all my comrades out there that took the time to listen, I applaud and respect you. To Breht, the Proles, and everyone involved in this absolutely incredible show- you've changed my life. I have so much respect and admiration for you all. Thank you for your hard work! 🙏✊

[@jcrios1917]

All of their sources are outdated and biased save J. Archy Getty 1985! Grover Furr is not a sufficiently qualified or balanced scholar. With the exception of Professor Furr's 'Blood Lies' which was decent imo. Breht failed to challenge his guests, despite the fact that on an earlier RevLeft episode, featuring an actual scholar of Russian history: Gregory Afinogenov, they discussed the cannibalism the OGPU reported back to the centre, Gulag penal labor and the "why?" of the Moscow Trials being essentially team-Stalin's over exaggerated fear of a potential fifth column (Khlevniuk 2009). Breht knows the events described in this episode are far more complex, ugly and disturbing than his guests care to discuss. Justin and Jeremy rely heavily on Ludo Martens who was not a historian. 33:08 The Russian 'Obshchina' or village community was the traditional form of local self-government that regulated the commons and periodically redistributed the land. Agricultural production was not collective during the Tsarist imperial era. Basic farming was done by the individual household i.e private agricultural 'production'. There was also a growing sector of consumer and marketing co-ops. Of Course this is what James C. Scott refers to as the "Moral economy" of the peasant. This is evidence of 'communal ownership of the land' but not production. Bukharin, Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev forfeited their right to live by their very existence as opponents of Team-Stalin, it is in the nature of dictatorship where one for whom an opponent sacrifices, by his very opposition, the right to exist. 1:51:03 Lev Sedov went into exile with his parents in 1928! Even Grover Furr says the Moscow Trials in 1936 convicted him in absentia! 1:46:09 Justin and Jeremy claim Soviet Collectivization was already reaping benefits in 1932-33? During the Fucking Famine?! 1:58:40 On to Bukharin. For the sake of accuracy, there were rural farmers markets after collectivization, granted as a concession to the peasants. They were called the Kolkhoz markets or collective farmers markets (Bob Allen 2003) Recommending readings: Policing Stalin's Socialism by David Shearer and Social disorder, mass repression, and the NKVD during the 1930s. DAVID R. SHEARER Stalin's Police by Paul Hagenloh Master Of The House by Oleg Khlevniuk and Top Down vs. Bottom-up: Regarding the Potential of Contemporary “Revisionism” by Oleg Khlevniuk Stalinism And The Politics Of Mobilization by David Priestland The Great Fear by James Harris The Great Terror, The Polish and Japanese Connection by HIROAKI KUROMIYA, ANDRZEJ PEPŁOēSKI The Great Terror: Violence, Ideology, And The Building Of Stalin's Soviet Empire by Michael David Polano The Origins Of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing by Terry Martin 1998. Felix Wemheuer's Famine Politics in Maoist China+Soviet Union is a good reference point. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Lynne Viola, Mark Tauger, Michael Ellman, Alec Nove, Moshe Lewin, Phillip Hanson, Terry Martin, David L. Hoffman, Robert Kindler, Sarah Cameron, R.W Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft are all far more balanced scholars who have done invaluable research on Soviet Collectivization and the subsequent famine. The struggle for collectivization and the inevitable backlash resulted in a virtual civil war, which was caused primarily by Stalin's Revolution from above. Characterized by utopianism, radicalism and violence. Not exclusively a "genuine" class struggle or a firery mass-movement. Although there is room to argue that 21% of the poor peasants (bedniaks) supported early efforts at collectivization which were initially spontaneous imo. The Soviet state essentially declared war on the peasantry i.e the seredniaks and the kulaks, not to be too simplistic. Stalin said it himself, "socialist accumulation". Which means primitive accumulation: dispossession and brutality. The Soviet state did NOT intentionally create a famine, it was a man made famine on ACCIDENT i.e MASSIVE INCOMPETENCE (Wheatcroft 2004 & Kotkin 2015). However, the Soviet State saw the famine as an opportunity to discipline or punish the seredniaks (middle peasants) and the kulaks (rich peasants) who each constituted 68%-5% of the rural population. Therefore, there was a conscious policy of purposeful deprivation as a means of political terror. (Andrea Graziosi 2015, Michael Ellman 2005) The famine and state repression claimed the lives of approximately (lower and middle estimates between 4.6-5.7 to higher estimates of 6.5-7.7 million people). Whether most of the over 20 thousand villagers who were executed by the OGPU were actually innocent, is up to my own perverted Stalinist logic to decide. The SOVIET famine of 1932-33 affected (Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan) Wheatcroft refers to this particular famine as the first modern famine bc most ppl died of acute starvation as opposed to disease which characterized earlier famines. This is likely due to Soviet mass public health campaigns in the mid-late 1920s. Wheatcroft refers to this Soviet famine as an example of a 'development famine'. The Soviet Government and Team-Stalin were no doubt responsible. Legally speaking it amounted to reckless, criminal negligence.

[@xx-xk9uz]

@@jcrios1917 hey sir this comment really intrigued me. Would you mind to substanciate further on your issues with the sources used contra those you would cite instead? The reference list is too heavy for a layman haha

[@jcrios1917]

@@xx-xk9uz Well for instance the Marxist Isaac Deutscher's biography of Stalin was first published in 1949! Charles Bettelheim was a Marxist with no formal training in history and his work Class Struggle part 2 was published in 77 and Ludo Martens was not a historian either and if you read his book Another View which is a good intro with an M-L perspective but it is way to narrow and polemical, that was published in 94. If we are planning on being critical of bourgeois academia we should at least be well read in their current scholarship not quoting what some communist wrote in 1949. I would recommend 'Accounting for the Great Terror' by Hiroaki Kuromiya www.jstor.org/stable/41051345?read-now=1&seq=1 'Stalin And His Era' by Hiroaki Kuromiya www.jstor.org/stable/20175118?seq=1 Review: Problems of Communism: Gulag Authorities and Gulag Victims by Erik Van Ree www.jstor.org/stable/26394581?seq=1 Stalin: Revolutionary In An Era Of War by Kevin McDermott, Cultivating The Masses and The Stalinist Era by David L. Hoffman

[@justamoteofdust]

@@jcrios1917 what's wrong in _Another View of Stalin?_

[@jcrios1917]

@@justamoteofdust I've already provided plenty of sources to comb through to realize Ludo Martens was not qualified to be writing about such heavy subjects dealing with Soviet history under Stalin, especially considering the book came out in 1994. Ludo Martens went to school to work in the medical field so he had no formal training in academic history. Another View Of Stalin is only an introductory book of critical partisan history for people who are already communists. *Obituary: Ludo Martens (1946-2011) by Harpal Brar "In 1965 he entered Louvain University to study medicine, which promised him the career of an excellent doctor."

[@celestialteapot309]

'keeping up with the kulaks' love it

[@tigerstyle4505]

I tried. Ruined my life. Cannot recommend. ✌😂

[@ledssenrese2616]

Intro to Podcast: 0:00 - 5:05 Introduction with Proles of the Round Table: 5:06 - 9:14 1.) What does Bourgeois history and approaches to Stalin get fundamentally wrong and how do you as a Marxist-Leninist think of Stalin as a revolutionary figure in the broadest sense?: 9:15 - 14:34 2.) What are your criticisms of Stalin?: 14:35 - 26:52 - 1. The Spanish Civil War 14:35 - 21:22 - 2. Relocation of tens of thousands of Soviet citizens 21:23 - 23:04 - 3. Passage of Article 121 "Outlaws Homosexuality" 23:05 - 26:52 3.) What do you think of the killing off of or imprisonment of Bolshevik leaders, and do you think this stems from Stalin's scheming to consolidate more Power for himself?: 26:53 - 29:46 4.) Do you have any thoughts on this paranoia when it came to this perception of constant internal enemies: 29:47 - 30:42 5.) Myth Busting: 30:43 - 2:11:23 - 1. Who were the Kulaks, how does western history frame them, and what is the truth regarding them 31:22 - 50:55 - 2. The Ukraine Famine (Holodomor) 50:56 - 1:39:00 - 3. What were the Purges? Why did they Happen, and what were their excesses? 1:39:01 - 2:11:23 - 4. What are your responses of accusations of Stalin being Anti-Semitic, Orientalist, Overly nationalistic, or Chauvinist?: 2:11:24 - 2:22:10 6.) The Legacy Of Stalin: 2:22:11 - 2:34:45 7.) Why is it important to understand the legacy of Stalin?: 2:34:46 - 2:37:05 8.) What is your perspective on names like "tankie" or "Stalinist"?: 2:37:06 - 2:39:29 9.) Why is the USSR the best example of existing Socialism?: 2:39:30 - 2:41:38 10.) Outro/Recommendations for further reading/Listening: 2:41:39 - 2:48:30

[@DankeyKang]

I show this to everyone who asks me questions about Stalin

[@tlowry6338]

just gonna get them to watch a 3 hour long vid?

[@JohnSmith-gz4fs]

@@tlowry6338 it is the only way

[@red-baitingswine8816]

I'm here because you talked on a video about RLR re the holodomor. Thank you!

[@rajdeepvijayaraj4243]

They won't even bother

[@hack2true]

like what else are you suppose to do its easy to spout cia talking points but to actually debunk each point takes time.

[@thenomad4606]

Listening to this podcast for the first time. Subscribed.

[@politicalsongarchive232]

Many thanks for this episode, which helps to dispell the anti-Stalin tirade we are brought up on. Worth reading too is "Stalin's War Through The Eyes of His Commanders" 1997 by Albert Axell; as Wall Street journalist in Moscow he interviewed 30 surviving Red Army commanders and refutes the often ridiculous Cold War/Soviet Revisionist propaganda against Stalin's leadership of the struggle against fascism.

[@alancantu2557]

Another great read debunking the lies about Stalin: “Fraud, Famine, and Fascism” by Douglas Tottle

[@NS-pr8is]

2:27:00 hi Soviet German here(kind of). Yes but as ethnic German you still had a sort of hard time, I’m post Soviet generation but from what I’ve heard from my family, places where there were many Germans it wasn’t a problem but when you traveled somewhere or to different city or people found out your last name then there would be discrimination of some sort. Most of the time comments like fascist or Fritz, you would be treated differently even tough you or your ancestors haven’t been to Germany for more than a hundred years and you can’t even speak German. Again, not mayor problem just thought some people might want to know that if there is socialism there isn’t automatically no kind of prejudice

[@Ashish447]

Hi, if you don't mind me asking, please describe any accounts of Stalinist Soviet Union from your family members, if possible. Most of the books I've read, particularly those of Anne Applebaum have turned out to be questionable given her credentials

[@tottifan6979]

Could it be because Germans killed 27 million Soviets during WW2.

[@NS-pr8is]

@@tottifan6979 what im saying is that we were Soviets too, Soviet Germans had no connection to Germany or the Nazi regime. My relatives where also victims of the Nazis just as any other ethnic group in the Soviet Union

[@mikkykyluc5804]

Sorry to hear friend, a mistake for us to not repeat in the future.

[@morganfreeman544]

@@tottifan6979 Unnecessary. We should make no distinction based on ethnicity if it has nothing to do with material conditions. Soviet Ethnic Germans would have been Soviets just the same as Soviet Ethnic Russians.

[@AbtinX]

Next week in keeping up with the Kulaks, Natasha steals the neighbours chicken and Vasili refuses to work like a dog! Stay tuned for more

[@face_nemesis]

Wow ok im feeling kinda convinced

[@seedfamily1404]

I'm all the way convinced. Much to my surprise, on Netflix of all places (where there's anti-communist content galore), one can find Oliver Stone's Untold History of the U.S., and they give Stalin and the Soviet Union the sympathy and fair characterization they deserve (at least, as far as I've seen. I haven't watched every episode, but thus far the series is very critical of the U.S. and Britain). Edit: I got to the 50s, and the narrative changes drastically. =S

[@jcrios1917]

All of their sources are outdated and biased save J. Archy Getty 1985! Grover Furr is not a sufficiently qualified or balanced scholar. Trust me, I have tortured myself by reading his work. Ngl though, Furr's Blood Lies was decent. Breht failed to challenge his guests despite the fact that on an earlier RevLeft episode, featuring an actual scholar of Russian history: Gregory Afinogenov, they discussed the cannibalism that the OGPU reported back to the centre. Gulag penal labor and the "why?" of the Moscow Trials, being essentially team-Stalin's over exaggerated fear of a potential fifth column (Khlevniuk 2009). Breht knows the events described in this episode are far more complex, ugly and disturbing than his guests care to discuss. Justin and Jeremy rely heavily on Ludo Martens who was not a historian. 33:08 The Russian 'Obshchina' or village community was the traditional form of local self-government that regulated the commons and periodically redistributed the land. Agricultural production was not collective during the Tsarist imperial era. Basic farming was done by the individual household i.e private agricultural 'production'. There was also a growing sector of consumer and marketing co-ops. Of Course this is what James C. Scott refers to as the "Moral Economy" of the peasant. This is evidence of 'communal ownership of the land' but not production. Bukharin, Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev had all forfeited their right to live by their very existence as opponents of Team-Stalin, it is in the nature of dictatorship where one for whom an opponent sacrifices, by his very opposition, the right to exist. 1:51:03 Lev Sedov went into exile with his parents in 1928! Even Grover Furr says the Moscow Trials in 1936 convicted him in absentia! 1:46:09 Justin and Jeremy claim that Soviet Collectivization was already reaping benefits during 1932-33? During the Fucking Famine? 1:58:40 On to Bukharin, for the sake of accuracy, rural farmers markets were reestablished after collectivization, granted as a concession to the peasants. They were called the Kolkhoz markets or collective farmers markets (Bob Allen 2003) Recommending readings: Policing Stalin's Socialism by David Shearer and Social disorder, mass repression, and the NKVD during the 1930s. DAVID R. SHEARER Stalin's Police by Paul Hagenloh Master Of The House by Oleg Khlevniuk and Top Down vs. Bottom-up: Regarding the Potential of Contemporary “Revisionism” by Oleg Khlevniuk Stalinism And The Politics Of Mobilization by David Priestland The Great Fear by James Harris The Great Terror, The Polish and Japanese Connection by HIROAKI KUROMIYA, ANDRZEJ PEPŁOēSKI The Great Terror: Violence, Ideology, And The Building Of Stalin's Soviet Empire by Michael David Polano The Origins Of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing by Terry Martin 1998. Felix Wemheuer's Famine Politics in Maoist China+Soviet Union is a good reference point. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Lynne Viola, Mark Tauger, Michael Ellman, Alec Nove, Moshe Lewin, Phillip Hanson, Terry Martin, David L. Hoffman, Robert Kindler, Sarah Cameron, R.W Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft are all far more balanced scholars who have done invaluable research on Soviet Collectivization and the subsequent famine. The struggle for collectivization and the inevitable backlash resulted in a virtual civil war, which was primarily caused by Stalin's Revolution from above. Characterized by utopianism, radicalism and violence. Not a "genuine" class struggle or a firery mass-movement. Although there is room to argue that 21% of the poor peasants (bedniaks) supported early efforts at collectivization which were initially spontaneous imo. The Soviet state essentially declared war on the peasantry i.e the seredniaks and the kulaks, not to be too simplistic. Stalin said it himself, "socialist accumulation". Which means primitive accumulation: dispossession and brutality. The Soviet state did NOT intentionally create a famine, it was a man made famine on ACCIDENT i.e MASSIVE INCOMPETENCE (Wheatcroft 2004 & Kotkin 2015). However, the Soviet State saw the famine as an opportunity to discipline or punish the seredniaks (middle peasants) and the kulaks (rich peasants) who each constituted 68%-5% of the rural population. Therefore, there was a conscious policy of purposeful deprivation as a means of political terror. (Andrea Graziosi 2015, Michael Ellman 2005) The famine and state repression claimed the lives of approximately (high estimates of 6.5-7.7 million deaths to low and middle estimates of 3.3-5.7 million deaths). Whether most of the 20+ thousand villagers who were executed by the OGPU were actually innocent, is up to my own perverted Stalinist logic to decide. The SOVIET famine of 1932-33 affected (Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan) Wheatcroft refers to this particular famine as the first modern famine bc most ppl died of acute starvation as opposed to disease which characterized earlier famines. This is likely due to Soviet mass public health campaigns in the mid-late 1920s. Wheatcroft refers to this Soviet famine as an example of a 'development famine'. The Soviet Government and Team-Stalin were no doubt responsible. Legally speaking it amounted to reckless, criminal negligence.

[@maxibulle5671]

JC Rios Thank you for taking the time to write this comment👍

[@drill6739]

JC Rios all those sources but no source for your claim that the ussr was a dictatorship hm

[@jcrios1917]

@@drill6739 bro are you serious? Get real. DOTP, Aristotle "where the poor rule = democracy". Communist states were what i will refer to as 'participatory, developmental mass dictatorships'. *Stalinism ‘From Below’?: Social Preconditions of and Popular Responses to the Great Terror by Kevin McDermott 2007 *Stalin: History And Critique Of The Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo 2008 *The People's State by Mary Fulbrook 2005

[@mikeray9027]

This is based af

[@js_guyman]

Can you give us an example of something they got wrong?

[@MadJackChurchill1312]

@@js_guyman Not biased, based. Means GOOD.

[@joshuacox534]

@@js_guyman I can. at an hour and 52 minutes they start reading something from Trotsky, talk about how they'd love to talk smack about Trotsky, then after they're done reading what Trotsky says, all react negatively together. in the 30s there was the Anti-Comintern Act. The Anti-Comintern Pact makes glaringly apparent (in addition to mein kampf stating what hitler's actions towards the jews would be) that the axis powers had it in for the Soviet Union. Trotsky exclaimed multiple warnings about Hitler. Stalin didn't listen and maintained "neutrality" towards the axis powers with the rest of the ruling class (while capitalists were doing business with nazi germany). Guess what happened. they then switch gears again and talk about something else.

[@js_guyman]

@@joshuacox534 it's called biding time while you industrialize and build your military machinery... And they won, so it was a good strategy.

[@rasarrad]

@@joshuacox534 "Trotsky exclaimed multiple warnings about Hitler" You are so ignorant! trotsky worked with hitler! You liar...

[@ungusjr9391]

Somebody mentioned a video they did on "The death of Stalin " I searched both channels but couldn't find it, could a comrade assist? Also really really good episode, you create amazing content consistently, keep it up

[@ungusjr9391]

JC Rios Big thanks homie

[@yungyahweh]

@@ungusjr9391 what was the link?

[@shadanahmad6843]

​@@ungusjr9391what was the video

[@TellTheTruth_and_ShameTheDevil]

At around 1:45:10 You're mistaken ALEXANDER Sinoviev for GRIGORI Sinoviev! ALEXANDER wrote the book, GRIGORI allied himself with Trotsky & Kamenev.

[@GnosticTroubadour]

It's the common people who care about real history. Thank you for this wonderful video and giving some explanatory power of what happened in the U.S.S.R during the Stalin Era.

[@arlodjimd]

Yo the intro track made me hyped to listen to this, because I'm pretty sure that's a Sundanese instrumental song from West Java, Indonesia. Nice!

[@Gaiafreak6969]

I miss Proles of the Round Table

[@beepboop1044]

What happened

[@moonjunk9054]

@@beepboop1044 one of these two wanted to take the money from the patreon and fund a craft brewery, and it devolved into a real toxic group so they disbanded

[@jackpineda6379]

I do too, but a few of the hosts now have a new podcast named Build the Future, which is pretty darn good

[@caramelldansen2204]

completely eye-opening! thank you rev left

[@peteruncle6823]

32:27 The word kulak {and also miroed (мироед) (man who eats pesant commune)} was not invented by bolsheviks. You can find usage of that word by narodniks or in literature. For example it used by G.I. Uspensky in his works dated 1882-1883. You can also find that word in Worker's Marseillaise" that was written in 1875. "Богачи, кулаки жадной сворой Расхищают тяжёлый твой труд, Твоим потом жиреют обжоры; Твой последний кусок они рвут." Translation "Rich man, kulaks like a hungry swarm Are looting your hard labor Your sweat make them fat They are taking your last crums!” Kulaks were giving loans with 100-300% interest rate and use violent gangs of "подкулачников" (those who is under kulaks orders. Subkulaks if you want). And it was usual for villagers to burn kulaks even before bolsheviks. Because if someone get everithing from you and his bandits for example raped your wife the idea of burning that persons house will apear inside your head.

[@Booer]

Let’s goo, why y’all not posting these days !? Where y’all at

[@owenbelezos8369]

the cia must've got to them.

[@losmilosmi1917]

judging comrade Stalin for deporting ethnic Germans is problematic because in Kingdom of Yugoslavia, vast majority of ethnic Germans, i.e. "Švabe" happily joined SS and other nazi organizations as soon as nazis invaded the country, and created quite a lot of mess.

[@Literally-hw6jv]

ML here. I hope you're joking dude

[@losmilosmi1917]

@@Literally-hw6jv what I said is true and some political decisions are essential even if they are controversial

[@losmilosmi1917]

by deporting some people you prevent potential loss of life and other losses

[@UmQasaann]

@@losmilosmi1917 Long live Comrade Joseph Stalin for combating revisionism, liquidating opportunists and careerists out of the comlnterm, industrializing a semi-fudel back water into a space faring superpower! The supreme commander of the Red Army that liberated the concentration camps in Central Europe and destroyed the Nazi war machine and denying Hitler's dream of Lebensraum. 🇨🇺🇦🇴🌍🚩🛠✊🏽

[@Literally-hw6jv]

@@losmilosmi1917 So targeting people based off of their ethnic background is good? Are you listening to yourself? The state sponsored violence undertook by the Soviet Union under Stalin was only something that a state with an extremely tenuous grip on power would do. The reality is that Stalin's ultra-left policies resulted in a massive famine, food shortages and a bloated bureaucracy. Read J Arch Getty and Sheila Fitzpatrick and you'll understand that the reason Stalin utilised violence and mass repression was because these policies led to Stalin's government becoming extremely unpopular, especially amongst folks in the countryside. Otherwise what is the rationale behind deporting Soviet nationalities? They obviously wouldn't have resorted to something like this if they were popular, they weren't.

[@SithCelia]

I've only been loosely considering myself a Marxist-Leninist for a couple of years now. I realize that I still have decades of liberal unlearning to do in my life, so I'm not ready to rule out Stalin until I learn more about him and make my own decisions on him based on FACTS rather than pro-imperialist propaganda.

[@KomradeKlonopin]

Thank you for being so open minded

[@justamoteofdust]

That's the way to go. I'm in the same boat as you my friend. 👍🏾

[@snubnosedmonke]

1:36:58 - 1:37:17 i love how he called out almost every person involved in an argument on political topics that doesn't actually do their research, they just comment repetitive shit without any backup lol

[@llamagames6803]

👍👍👍

[@TheTriptamineDream]

Intro: 0:00 Proles Intro: 5:06 Start of Stalin Discussion: 9:10 Critique 1 of 3 - Spanish Civil War: 15:00 Critique 2 of 3 - Relocations of Citizens: 21:25 Critique 3 of 3 - Anti-LGBT: 23:12 Conversation on Stalin’s “Paranoia”: 26:50 Stalin Myth-Busting: 30:43 Finish the rest later.

[@andrebeaubec]

As an old communist I salute you for doing this!

[@why3521]

Just so you know, bolsheviks didnt create the word kulak, it actually appeared in peasant lexicon after 1861, they were literally called “kulak - the community eater” by peasants because the kulaks would exploit peasant and rural workers akin to capitalists

[@rapramix]

A great video but I would like to correct some things. First, there is evidence that many of the people who were rebelling against the Soviets in Spain were actually collaborating with the Nazis. Check out, Grover Furr: “Trotsky and Barcelona may days”. When it comes to homosexuality, I don’t justify it but I doubt that it was Stalin deciding it more than a societal decision. About the famine, it’s hard to know how many died from starvation and how many from disease. Furthermore, the harvest was actually much lower than you stated due to crop failures ( natural conditions) and some mistakes by the Soviet government and it was by no means limited to Ukraine and it affected Russia and Kazakhstan just as hard. If you look at the Gulag deaths, you see that in 1932/3 there was an increase of death rate. My point is that it was far greater than Kulak sabotage and decisions but more due to low harvest and epidemic. Anyhow, Stalin didn’t act in bad faith and it wasn’t collectivization that caused the famine nor was it a political famine. The best source is Mark Tauger on the famine of 1932/3.

[@jackpineda6379]

I dunno how I went from a politically illiterate jackass to full heartedly upholding Stalin and his teachings in about a year and a half, but I'm glad I got here.

[@electronworld4996]

Deniers of the Holodomor should all go to hell, along with their Holocaust denier buddies.

[@ftwallday3112]

@@electronworld4996 weirdo

[@dizzymetrics]

Based COVID is a hell of a ***

[@maxmeggeneder8935]

On Ukrainian Antisemisism. I made an aquaintance during a stay in a hospital. He was from Tschetchnia and had lived Ukraine for at least 5 years. He was a very nice and polite person. I talked a lot with him. One day he started talking much about "the Jews" and voiced every antisemitic opinion and trope out there. When i pointed out to him what i thought of that, he told me "Just ask anyone in Ukraine! Everyone there thinks like that and knows these things".

[@nerothos]

To be fair, any fascist will claim that about pretty much anything. Echo chambers etc etc.

[@AbtinX]

Did you follow his advice?

[@maxmeggeneder8935]

@@AbtinX I did not. Because it would be an impossible task to talk to every single Ukrainian.

[@AbtinX]

@@maxmeggeneder8935 haha yes of course. They aren't nazis! They just really love Ukraine, and so e of them really hate Jews, it's a free country man. The Russians are the real nazis. That's basically what an Azov officer told Haaretz in an interview.

[@gaybroshevik4180]

Look up, research and was Michael Parenti and GROVER FURR. 🌹🛠️✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽🛠️🌹

[@geoffdparsons]

It makes sense to me that the main opponents of collectivization would have been the Kulaks, and I'm trying to find concrete sources to verify this and find out more about who they were (what percentage of the farmers were Kulaks vs true peasants) and what the Soviet government did to them. I also would love to find out more about how the collective farms worked. Did the government choose what should be grown or did the peasants? Did the prices set by the government adequately compensate the farmers? Were peasants coerced into joining? The sources that come up first claim they were, but they make no distinction between peasants and Kulaks. I would also love to find out where I can hear more from Justin and Jeremy, but since Proles of the Round Table seems to have broken up and I don't know their last names I can't find them. I know this is an old video but I hope you or someone in the comments can help me find the answers to these questions. Thank you for making such an informative video.

[@jcrios1917]

All of their sources are outdated and biased save J. Archy Getty 1985! Grover Furr is not a sufficiently qualified or balanced scholar. With the exception of Professor Furr's 'Blood Lies' which was decent imo. Breht failed to challenge his guests, despite the fact that on an earlier RevLeft episode, featuring an actual scholar of Russian history: Gregory Afinogenov, they discussed the cannibalism the OGPU reported back to the centre, Gulag penal labor and the "why?" of the Moscow Trials being essentially team-Stalin's over exaggerated fear of a potential fifth column (Khlevniuk 2009). Breht knows the events described in this episode are far more complex, ugly and disturbing than his guests care to discuss. Justin and Jeremy rely heavily on Ludo Martens who was not a historian. 33:08 The Russian 'Obshchina' or village community was the traditional form of local self-government that regulated the commons and periodically redistributed the land. Agricultural production was not collective during the Tsarist imperial era. Basic farming was done by the individual household i.e private agricultural 'production'. Of Course this is what James C. Scott refers to as the "Moral economy" of the peasant. This is evidence of 'communal ownership' of the land but not production. Bukharin, Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev forfeited their right to live by their very existence as opponents of Team-Stalin, it is in the nature of dictatorship where one for whom an opponent sacrifices, by his very opposition, the right to exist. 1:51:03 Lev Sedov went into exile with his parents in 1928! Even Grover Furr says the Moscow Trials in 1936 convicted him in absentia! 1:46:09 Justin and Jeremy claim Soviet Collectivization was already reaping benefits in 1932-33? During the Fucking Famine?! 1:58:40 On to Bukharin. For the sake of accuracy, there were rural farmers markets after collectivization, granted as a concession to the peasants. They were called the Kolkhoz markets or collective farmers markets (Bob Allen 2003) Recommending readings: Policing Stalin's Socialism by David Shearer and Social disorder, mass repression, and the NKVD during the 1930s. DAVID R. SHEARER Stalin's Police by Paul Hagenloh Master Of The House by Oleg Khlevniuk and Top Down vs. Bottom-up: Regarding the Potential of Contemporary “Revisionism” by Oleg Khlevniuk Stalinism And The Politics Of Mobilization by David Priestland The Great Fear by James Harris The Great Terror, The Polish and Japanese Connection by HIROAKI KUROMIYA, ANDRZEJ PEPŁOēSKI The Origins Of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing by Terry Martin 1998. Felix Wemheuer's Famine Politics in Maoist China+Soviet Union is a good reference point. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Lynne Viola, Mark Tauger, Michael Ellman, Alec Nove, Moshe Lewin, Phillip Hanson, Terry Martin, David L. Hoffman, Robert Kindler, Sarah Cameron, R.W Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft are all, by far, more balanced scholars who have done invaluable research on Soviet Collectivization and the subsequent famine. The struggle for collectivization and the inevitable backlash resulted in a virtual civil war, which was caused primarily by Stalin's Revolution from above. Characterized by utopianism, radicalism and violence. Not exclusively a "genuine" class struggle or a firery mass-movement. Although there is room to argue that 21% of the poor peasants (bedniaks) supported early efforts at collectivization which were initially spontaneous imo. The Soviet state essentially declared war on the peasantry i.e the seredniaks and the kulaks, not to be too simplistic. Stalin said it himself, "socialist accumulation". Which means primitive accumulation: dispossession and brutality. The Soviet state did NOT intentionally create a famine, it was a man made famine on ACCIDENT i.e MASSIVE INCOMPETENCE (Wheatcroft 2004 & Kotkin 2015). However, the Soviet State saw the famine as an opportunity to discipline or punish the seredniaks (middle peasants) and the kulaks (rich peasants) who each constituted 68%-5% of the rural population. Therefore, there was a conscious policy of purposeful deprivation as a means of political terror. (Andrea Graziosi 2015, Michael Ellman 2005) The famine and state repression claimed the lives of approximately 6.5-7.7 million people. Whether most of the over 20 thousand villagers who were executed by the OGPU were actually innocent, is up to my own perverted Stalinist logic to decide. The SOVIET famine of 1932-33 affected (Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan) Wheatcroft refers to this particular famine as the first modern famine bc most ppl died of acute starvation as opposed to disease which characterized earlier famines. This is likely due to Soviet mass public health campaigns in the mid-late 1920s. Wheatcroft refers to this Soviet famine as an example of a 'development famine'. The Soviet Government and Team-Stalin were no doubt responsible. Legally speaking it amounted to reckless, criminal negligence.

[@jcrios1917]

The term "Kulak" became a class based pejorative and the origins of the term are still uncertain, i've read accounts that claim the original kulaks were not even villagers or farmers but urban bazaars who would travel to the villages but who were notoriously known as usurers and speculators. If say a seredniak resisted collectivization they ran the risk of being accused of being a kulak for non-compliance, so it essentially became a political term. A technology of power if you will. Again i would argue that more than half of the poor peasants (bedniaks) supported collectivization, perhaps 21% or 24% the estimates vary. Plus the semi-proletarian villagers on the State farms were granted rations and so i would include them as well. The first phase of collectivization was incredibly coercive, violent and disorganized, with local cadres and the 25 thousanders regularly violating central directives and the Party line. They had to because the rules were so vague. The second phase was less violent but still coercive. The seredniaks were NOT fairly compensated for their drought animals and farming tools. Expropriated kulak households were either deported to the far East, 300,000 died as a result or shot to death, killing approximately 20,000+ people. *The Question of Social Support for Collectivization by Sheila Fitzpatrick 2010 *The Crisis of Collectivisation: Socialist Development and the Peasantry by Mark Selden 1982 (dated) So if the seredniaks (middle peasants) accounted for perhaps 68% of the rural population, that would mean that the majority of the peasants plus the kulaks 4-5%, estimates vary, were bitterly opposed to collectivization, which resulted in what has been called the "second time of troubles" or the Soviet peasant wars. The Soviet Government attempted to socialize livestock and monopolize the grain trade. 50% of all livestock perished, either due to neglect in the newly formed collective farms which were poorly managed or peasant passive resistance. After the famine of 32-33 the Soviet government granted major concessions to the peasants, private plots which were similar to subsidiary gardens, a few animals for husbandry and allowed rural farmers markets to re-open legally. I've seen estimates of over 40% of gross agricultural output produced by this rudimentary private sector or "neo-NEP" as it's been called. Which imo, would mean a partial failure to fully collectivize food production.

[@BalkanSpectre]

@@jcrios1917 lol just came back from the Afinogenov video. Actually claiming that they have something to add just because they are a historian is laughable. They research imperial Russia plus they say the same old talking points. No basis understanding of Theory. Horrid display. Breht was a defeatist in that episode giving way to much room and platforming casual lieing. By a DSA member on top of that. A waste of an episode really... Someone not really an expert on the subject refreshing bourgeois historiography. I really haven't read Furr's works yet to examine the credentials but just ad homena rejecting someone for not being a historian and then present a historian that has nothing to do with Soviet History as an expert is just what one might expect for subjects such as yourself.

[@jcrios1917]

@@BalkanSpectre Irrelevant, here are better sources below, GET TO WORK! Cultivating the Masses: Modern State Practices and Soviet Socialism, 1914-1939 by David L. Hoffmann 2011 The Stalinist Era by David L. Hoffmann 2018 Stalin: Revolutionary in an Era of War by Kevin McDermott 2006 The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 by Terry Martin 2001 Opposing Jim Crow: African Americans and the Soviet Indictment of U.S. Racism, 1928-1937 by Meredith Lynn Roman 2012 Soviet Nation-Building in Central Asia: The Making of the Kazakh and Uzbek Nations by Grigol Ubiria 2015 Soviet Economic Development from Lenin to Khrushchev by R.W. Davies 1998 Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution by Robert C. Allen 2003 Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR, 1945-1991 by Philip Hanson 2003 Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society by Steven Anthony barnes 2011 Stalin's Gulag at War: Forced Labour, Mass Death, and Soviet Victory in the Second World War by Wilson T. Bell 2018 Stalin's World: Dictating the Soviet Order by James R. Harris and Sarah Davies 2014 The Great Fear: Stalin's Terror of the 1930s by James R. Harris 2015 The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1934 by Michael Ellman EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES 2005 Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33: A Reply to Ellman Author(s): R. W. Davies and Stephen G. Wheatcroft Europe-Asia Studies, 2006 The Soviet Famine of 1932-1933 Reconsidered by Hiroaki Kuromiya Europe-Asia Studies 2008 Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 Revisited Author: Michael Ellman Europe-Asia Studies, 2007 Arguing from errors: On certain issues in Robert Davies' and Stephen Wheatcroft's analysis of the 1932 Soviet grain harvest and the Great Soviet famine of 1931-1933 by Mark B. Tauger Article in Europe Asia Studies ·2006 The Crisis of the 1930s by Jacques Vallin, France Meslé, Sergei Adamets and Serhii Pyrozhkov 2012 The 1947 Soviet famine and the entitlement approach to famines Michael Ellman Cambridge Journal of Economics 2000 The first 35 years of Soviet living standards: Secular growth and conjunctural crises in a time of famines by Stephen G. Wheatcroft Article in Explorations in Economic History · January 2009 STALINIST TERROR NEW PERSPECTIVES Edited by J. ARCH GETTY and ROBERTA T. MANNING 1993 Crime and social disorder in Stalin's Russia [A reassessment of the Great Retreat and the origins of mass repression] by David R. Shearer 1998 SOCIAL DISORDER, MASS REPRESSION, AND THE NKVD DURING THE 1930s DAVID R. SHEARER 2001 Accounting for the Great Terror by Hiroaki Kuromiya 2005 Stalin and His Era by Hiroaki Kuromiya 2007 Heroes and merchants: Stalin's understanding of national character by Erik Van Ree 2007

[@jcrios1917]

@@BalkanSpectre More homework: Stalinist Values: The Cultural Norms of Soviet Modernity, 1917-1941 by David L. Hoffman (2003) Stalin's Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War by Robert Gellately 2013 1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II by Michael Jabara Carley 1999 The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing by Terry Martin The Journal of Modern History 1998 Racial Politics without the Concept of Race: Reevaluating Soviet Ethnic and National Purges Author: Eric D. Weitz Source: Slavic Review, 2002 Soviet Ethnic Deportations: Intent Versus Outcome by Alexander Statiev Journal of Genocide Research. 2009 The Gardening States: Comparing State Repression of Ethnic Minorities in the Soviet Union and Turkey, 1908-1945 Duco Heijs Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 2018 Perspectives on Norman Naimark’s Stalin’s Genocides Journal of Cold War Studies 2012 The Turn Away from Economic Explanations for Soviet Famines by Stephen G. Wheatcroft review of Anne Applebaum's 'Red Famine'. Article in Contemporary European History ·2018 Mark B. Tauger September 2014 Retrospective for Yale Agrarian Studies TaugerAgrarianStudies.pdf On Stalin's Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics by Sheila Fitzpatrick 2015 Stalin’s Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union Edited by Barry J. McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott 2003 The Anatomy of Terror: Political Violence Under Stalin Edited by James R. Harris 2013 The Soviet Gulag: Evidence, Interpretation, and Comparison. Ed. Michael David-Fox. 2016

[@roughneckjihad1003]

I really enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much! It gave me a lot to think about. Keep up the good work

[@dimentoplexitronum4923]

But what if I read a history book and it say communism is bad tho what then

[@Jay-rn6dt]

Still not sure what to think of Stalin but other perspectives like this are definitely helpful

[@homeyman1917]

Jay Fontenot you don’t have to worship him and you don’t have to hate him. But it doesn’t hurt to learn from past successes

[@Jay-rn6dt]

@@homeyman1917 I agree. Whatever people think about those figures and states and so on, whether they are "real socialism" or not, I think it's much more helpful to look at them analytically and see what we can learn rather than unconditionally love or hate them.

[@homeyman1917]

Jay Fontenot exactly

[@PartyComrade]

Extraordinary and informative show! Subscribed.

[@RenéSaussy]

Where can i get the sources on these harvests? or all the numbers and statistics in general

[@samuraikid33]

Hey guys, just to have one thing clear for me: So your opinion is that the Ukrainian famine never even happened? I mean its pretty clear that the idea of a "purposely famine-genocide" by Stalin is wrong but even the ML Communists I know never denied that the famine happened because of several factors.

[@coldcoffee1506]

He’s not saying that no one died, he’s saying the massive numbers have been exaggerated and it was not a targeted attack by the soviets

[@fun_ghoul]

Famines were common in all of "Imperial Russia" (the region, not just the empire) for all of recorded history before the 1930s. Also, more Kazakhs died in 1932-33 than did Ukrainians. How come we never hear about them? 🤔

[@xendedaii]

@@fun_ghoul Kazakhs haven't had their government overthrown in a CIA-sponsored coup yet. If that is to happen - we'll hear a ton of blatant... truth about dreaded commies starving 100 billion Kazakhs.

[@fun_ghoul]

@@xendedaii Word.

[@emrebekar2361]

This is pure gold. Thank you guys for putting this much work and research into it. There is just no way a normal person can withstand the imperialist propaganda without people like you helping out.

[@MYMINDism]

Delusions / communist liars

[@damian_taylor]

Wow. Awesome talk. Thank you so much comrades

[@nkenchington6575]

Makes what Putin and Lavrov were saying, about 'denazification,' understandable.

[@seedfamily1404]

Very important: does anyone know what song is playing during the outro?

[@noheroespublishing1907]

The red flag (Bill Bragg) I think.

[@Aliggan42]

Lovely historical discussion with immense value - especially the segment on Ukraine and starvation and sources. A few criticisms: -The presentation of the notion of Orientalism was extremely superficial and clearly not immersed in the current discourse on Orientalism, from Said to Jameson and otherwise. -The general myth erasure section towards the end of the video and after the purge section contradicts your mission statement to avoid the Great Man version of history in the beginning of the discussion. The interesting question is not really whether Stalin was antisemitic or orientalist, but whether Soviet society was... I don't think that one mention of the judicial stance on antisemitism is enough of a discussion at all. The discussion deemed the issue as done way too quickly. -The causes and excesses of the purges and tragedies perpetrated by the Kulaks did not happen by accident - A Marxist reading of history must find that things don't happen by accident; rather, they happen within a system. The Kulaks didn't spontaneously destroy food supplies because they are evil, they were more or less made to do so as a result of their changed position. In other words, perhaps it was the very approach of the Soviets that lead to these unfortunate events. Likewise, perhaps the conditions that caused an atmosphere of paranoia was endemic to the Soviet political model and ideology. This logic can be applied to some other issues in the USSR as well, just as it can be applied to the contradictions in capitalism. I don't think our interlocutors did their due-dilligence in this crucial respect, as it resuscitates Stalinism without touching on somewhat damning systemic factors underlying those events.

[@alexander33345]

Wow this podcast was incredibly interesting

[@maciekGTR]

funfact about cultural marxism: nazis had their term like that, "cultural bolshevism"

[@GreekOrthodoxRoyalist]

I was hopping to be on theory contribution and Marxist Leninist strategy by Stalin .

[@atomostrich6760]

Amazing video, thank you!

[@OH-pc5jx]

Was this posted before or after Rev Left became Maoist? I’d love an ep on a Maoist/MLM critique of Stalin.

[@SkepticalMantisCHANNEL10]

I wish they would have talked about the closing of the women's department (Zhenotdel) and the oppressed nationalities departments in the early 1930s.

[@Musterprolet]

The Zhenotdel wasnt dissolved, it was moved to the Department for Agitation and Mass Campaigns

[@xendedaii]

Товарищи, мы с вами.

[@PartyComrade]

#ProletarianPride 🚩

[@ShiningSta18486]

Soviet gay ppl were of the best treated gays in the early 20th century. Only about 2000 people a year were imprisoned by 121, and the sentence was v short. This was before Kinsey or any qualitative scholarship pertaining to lgbt ppl, and yet the official stance on gayness was the USSR didnt recognize "crimes of morality" and that harm reduction was how they would deal w homosexuality. Theres even a case to be made that homosexual, in the context of the law meant homosexual pederasty, bc of a negative association whichwe know now to be false, but didnt on a large scale in the 20s and 30s'

[@MultiAmmar2000]

Is Stalin a daddy?

[@Srymak]

uWu

[@gaybroshevik4180]

It's between Nurturing Daddy and Dom Power Bottom. ♥️😎🍆🦄🌈🌈🌈

[@dizzymetrics]

Late but got to it holy fuck there is so much information to check out

[@poli45]

How do you guys find your information? Do you use Google?

[@jonathanchavez2723]

1:43:25 Aren't they talking about Grigory Zinoviev?

[@xavier4503]

Alexander Zinoviev and Grigory Zinoviev. No relation, but it could have been clarified that there were two Zinovievs being referred to

[@Linjen_]

Great episode that i enjoyed much, thanks!

[@johnzalewski9936]

keep up the good work comrades

[@jasa_m7990]

so thorough and exhaustive! great work comrades

[@WesternPatriot-v8m]

Stalin Georgian Jewish Bolshevism. Marx Jewish Bolshevism Rothchild

[@mikemurray2027]

This is a brilliant and revelatory show.

[@eduardmacov2289]

Comunist vibes are all the good poetic vibes

[@aldhizak]

wait.... the song you played at the beginning of the video, is it Bubuy Bulan???? im sundanese

[@Musterprolet]

Great work!!!

[@dorinpopa6962]

The origin of Ukrainian Nazism and far-right was somewhat jumbled and didn't address the roots of it I believe. It is true that latent anti-Semitism was an important factor un the Russian Empire and the USSR had to contend with this problem, but this was only a secondary factor for the rise of organized Nazis formations in Ukraine. The most important groups formed in Western Ukraine when it was not yet part of the USSR, but part of Poland. Poland instituted a harsh policy of assimilation throughout its Eastern territories (Western Ukraine and Weatern Belarus). Schools in local languages were being closed, churches were transferred in favor of the Polish Catholic Church. There were concentration camps and military police raids to squash the most militant elements. There was even a colonization effort. The Polish state had financial incentives for Polish peasants and settlers settling in the Eastern territories. In response the UPA was formed by elements sympathetic to Hitler and his ideology. The group was involved in terrorist attacks against Polish politicians and the armed forces. It also had links with the german secret service and was used for sabotage against Poland and the USSR.

[@Alex-rb5fs]

Hey what's the episode with the Georgetown Prof called

[@shabbirahmeddar7765]

Very very informative.

[@omissamoris]

Billy Bragg says it's reasonable for Western Ukrainians to depict Stepan Bandera's movement as heroic in context of their anticommunism.

[@RhiSoundsLikeRye]

Where did Proles of the Round Table go?

[@DeusBash]

Does anyone know, what the episode about the fall of the Soviet union is called?

[@Sahilkumar-dr4en]

Great work

[@jessecosme14]

What’s the song at the end of the episode?

[@YellowSnow]

50:56 Is there a source for this? Just curious.

[@YellowSnow]

Amazing video.

[@TheMessiahOfPoo]

Okay but what does Stalin think about Dino Nuggies?

[@jopeco84]

Can i post this vídeo in my yt channel with portuguese subtitles?

[@revleftradio]

Absolutely

[@jopeco84]

@@revleftradio many thanks 🙏

[@1homelander179]

@@revleftradio A hungarian professor of economics who happens to be a marxist (by the way he is 70 years old) replied to me that (the translation won't be perfect but i will try my best. "the soviet system was truly one of the most important achievement of Lenin's revolution which replaced the representative democracy of civic democracy with the democracy of the delegate, who entrusts the specific tasks and monitors their implementation with regular reporting in the event of non-compliance. Which Stalin de facto abolished after 1928, the highest body of (real) soviet power (it's parliament, if you like) was the Congress of the Soviets. Stalin made it's operation totally formal and then replaced it with a one-party parliament called the Supreme Soviet, as well as the Supreme body of the party to Congress and the supreme body between the two congresses to the Central Committee. All political power was concentrated in the hands of a small body built around his person, (which did not exist in Lenin's time,) the Politburo, which was otherwise a perfect analogue of the "camarillas" of the monarchies. The "democratic centralism" is the most typical phenomenon of stalinism - gave this "camarilla" it's dictatorial power by banning never-defined factions (which can therefore be drawn to all critical opinions) (which is the essence of "democratic centralism"). Also "marxism-leninism" is a pseudonym for stalinism, a flattering of marxism, falsification, generalization and stiffening of Leninism into a dogma, as a specific application of marxism to russian relations at the turn of the 19th Century. " How would a marxist-leninist reply to this?

[@onehumanhistory]

Great job

[@TheDavid2222]

Where do I find the show with the prof on the fall of the USSR.

[@april_showers97]

Michael Parenti!

[@kaulthelegend]

This needs more views

[@glebperch7585]

What is the intro song?

[@fulanitoflyer]

Can't find the Goebbels quote anywhere :(

[@Persephales]

Hey man none of the links to proles of the round table work, everything returns a 404 error. What gives!?

[@drill6739]

they don’t exist anymore lmfao

[@Persephales]

@@drill6739 😓😨😬

[@asdqwe8837]

Thanks for the upload. ❤

[@Deckard93]

Does anyone know of a left wing review if the Death of Stalin movie? I thought it was Rev Left but i can't find it anywhere

[@jcrios1917]

For Ya'll who doubt me: "True to its ideological aspirations of promoting social and economic equality among its citizens, Communist regimes left behind more equal societies and more expansive welfare states than their non-Communist counterparts. Thus, judging by a series of statistical measures, ranging from GINI coefficients of income inequality to access to education and healthcare, Communist countries outperformed non-Communist countries with similar levels of economic development. Finally, many welfare benefits under Communism- including childcare and public housing - were channeled through state-owned enterprises." "Furthermore, the emphasis on egalitarianism extended - at least on a rhetorical level - beyond economic inequality to a commitment to gender and ethnic equality. While there was much more variation in the extent to which this rhetoric was matched by practice (or even the extent to which the rhetorical commitment matched other forms of rhetorical commitments) than there was in the case of single party rule, economic redistribution, and the state provision of social welfare, the advent of Communist rule brought with it an unprecedented - at least for these countries -(Eastern Europe, USSR) entry of women into the workplace, access to abortion and an end to legal discrimination against ethnic minorities.”(Gal and Kligman 2000, Martin 2001) *Communism's Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes by Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua A. Tucker 2017 "It is important to acknowledge however, that there were also positive social changes that occurred during the Communist period. These include the fact that all of these countries (Soviet Union, Eastern Europe) became more developed economically, and in most, the social structure became more differentiated." "Although Communist social structures displayed peculiarities that are well known, the level of urbanization and educational attainment increased dramatically in most countries (State-Socialist), particularly among those groups that were previously least advantaged, such as women and ethnic minorities." "The Communist social system offered a wide range of social entitlements to citizens, and it is clear that many citizens of post-socialist societies still attach positive evaluations to most of these entitlements." "SIPS respondents were asked, for example, to report on the degree to which they had been satisfied or dissatisfied with their standard living, housing, goods availability, jobs and healthcare during their "last normal period of life" (LNP) in the Soviet Union (that is, before they decided to leave), which for most respondents referred to 1978-83." "More than 60 percent reported that they had been either "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with their housing, jobs, medical care, and general standard of living." *THE SOCIAL LEGACY OF COMMUNISM EDITED BY JAMES R. MILLAR, SHARON L. WOLCHIK 1994 "The State-Socialist countries do generally provide: full employment, social security, subsidized (free or cheap) housing, public transportation, educational and medical services." *Socialist Planning by Michael Ellman 1989 2nd edition p.316 *Post-Communist Welfare States in European Context Patterns of Welfare Policies in Central and Eastern Europe by Kati Kuitto 2016 pp.19-25 "At the same level of economic development, the Socialist countries showed more favorable out-comes than the Capitalist countries in all these measures of PQL. The more favorable performance of the Socialist countries was evident in each of the 18 comparisons that could be made. Differences between Capitalist and Socialist countries in PQL were greatest at lower levels of economic development and tended to narrow at the higher levels of development." *Economic Development, Political-Economic System and the Physical Quality of Life SHIRLEY CERESETO, PHD, AND HOWARD WAITZKIN, MD, PHD 1986 "A poor country that adopted central planning could initially grow rapidly because of rapid industrialisation and high rates of investment in human and physical capital and infrastructure. The aggregate indicators show that the relative over-endowment of planned economies in education and physical infrastructure still persists 20 years after planning ended, particularly for the poorer countries." "Even in mature, industrialised economies, planning could be growth-promoting to the extent that market failures in capitalist market economies can prevent the adequate supply of public infrastructure and education. We show that the source of planning’s advantages lay principally in its emphasis on infrastructure and human capital." "The analysis of centrally-planned economies is that of “static efficiency” versus “dynamic efficiency”. The latter term, in this context, refers to growth and the rate of technological change. The Soviet Union, in this perspective, suffered from large static inefficiencies deriving from the many allocative failures of central planning, but nevertheless could - and initially did - grow quickly because central planning was an effective mechanism for achieving high rates of capital accumulation and the absorption of new technologies." "Adopting planning early in the process of industrialisation could generate rapid development and growth, and is the standard explanation for why the USSR grew rapidly in the 40 years after the adoption of the Stalinist planning system in 1928." *SOVIET POWER PLUS ELECTRIFICATION: WHAT IS THE LONG-RUN LEGACY OF COMMUNISM?* Wendy Carlin, Mark Schaffer and Paul Seabright

[@jcrios1917]

Centrally planned economies registered some accomplishments: when Communism came to poor, rural countries like Bulgaria or Romania they were able to industrialize quickly, wipe out illiteracy, raise education levels, modernize gender roles, and eventually ensure that most people had basic housing and health care. The system could also raise per capita production pretty quickly from, say, the level of today’s Laos to that of today’s Bosnia; or from the level of Yemen to that of Egypt. Around the time of the Soviet collapse, the economist Peter Murrell published an article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives reviewing empirical studies of efficiency in the socialist planned economies. These studies consistently failed to support the neoclassical analysis: virtually all of them found that by standard neoclassical measures of efficiency, the planned economies performed as well or better than market economies. First he reviewed eighteen studies of technical efficiency: the degree to which a firm produces at its own maximum technological level. Matching studies of centrally planned firms with studies that examined capitalist firms using the same methodologies, he compared the results. One paper, for example, found a 90% level of technical efficiency in capitalist firms; another using the same method found a 93% level in Soviet firms. The results continued in the same way: 84% versus 86%, 87% versus 95%, and so on. Then Murrell examined studies of allocative efficiency: the degree to which inputs are allocated among firms in a way that maximizes total output. One paper found that a fully optimal reallocation of inputs would increase total Soviet output by only 3%-4%. Another found that raising Soviet efficiency to US standards would increase its GNP by all of 2%. A third produced a range of estimates as low as 1.5%. The highest number found in any of the Soviet studies was 10%. As Murrell notes, these were hardly amounts “likely to encourage the overthrow of a whole socio-economic system.” (Murell wasn’t the only economist to notice this anomaly: an article titled “Why Is the Soviet Economy Allocatively Efficient?” by Whitesell, R. S. (1990) appeared in Soviet Studies around the same time. Two German Microeconomists; Erik Dietzenbacher and Hans-Jürgen Wagner, tested the “widely accepted” hypothesis that “prices in a planned economy are arbitrarily set exchange ratios without any relation to relative scarcities or economic valuations [whereas] capitalist market prices are close to equilibrium levels.” They employed a technique that analyzes the distribution of an economy’s inputs among industries to measure how far the pattern diverges from that which would be expected to prevail under perfectly optimal neoclassical prices. Examining East German and West German data from 1987, they arrived at an “astonishing result”: the divergence was 16.1% in the West and 16.5% in the East, a trivial difference. The gap in the West’s favor, they wrote, was greatest in the manufacturing sectors, where something like competitive conditions may have existed. But in the bulk of the West German economy - which was then being hailed globally as Modell Deutschland - monopolies, taxes, subsidies, and so on actually left its price structure further from the “efficient” optimum than in the moribund Communist system behind the Berlin Wall. The Red and the Black BY SETH ACKERMAN 12.20.2012 Jacobin Magazine (Matthijs Krul) Using mainstream productivity and growth models, the liberal economic historian Robert C. Allen compared the central planning and collectivization of the Stalin period to various alternative approaches. In his book Farm to Factory 2003, Allen astounded orthodox economic historians by finding that the ‘Stalinist’ approach (albeit credited to Preobrazhensky) was the best possible result among the alternatives. But, the narrative goes, Soviet planning could undertake labor-intensive industry well, but not capital-intensive industry. While the USSR could compete in sheer quantities of steel and coal and cars produced, as their propaganda often boasted, it couldn’t compete in spheres of production requiring substantial R&D and rapid technological upgrading of goods. Robert Allen’s account, for example, uses this as the explanation of Soviet failure. However, I believe evidence points to a very different conclusion. William Easterly and Stanley Fischer’s World Bank study of the ‘Soviet climacteric’ argues that Soviet R&D on civilian production actually increased substantially between 1959 and 1984, rejecting the common notion that the Soviet arms race combined with the inflexibility of Soviet production caused the consumer economy to come to a standstill. Moreover, Brendan Beare’s correction of the Easterly and Fischer paper has demonstrated that due to statistical mistakes in the reconstruction of the data, the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor in the Soviet economy was much higher than is commonly believed. In other words: previous scholars claimed that when the Soviet surplus population ran out, the USSR was unable to efficiently replace labor with machinery, leading to an inability to make the leap from labor-intensive to capital-intensive production. But Beare’s data show that the ratio of this replacement of labor by capital may not have been as bad as previously thought, but in fact may have been quite high, as it was in Japan, which did not experience such stagnation. Nor did investment itself falter: even as late as 1989 the Soviet investment share of GDP was a staggering 35%. In short, Soviet central planning did not fail due to its inability to develop or implement labor-saving technology. *Can Neoclassical Economics Underpin the Reform of Centrally Planned Economies? Peter Murrell 1991 *Easterly, William and Stanley Fischer. 1995. “The Soviet Economic Decline”, in: World Bank Economic Review vol. 9, p. 341-371. *Beare, Brendan K. 2008. “The Soviet Economic Decline Revisited”. Econ Journal Watch 5:2 (May 2008), p. 135-144. Josef Brada (1992) replies one year after that ('Allocative efficiency - It isn't so). "Nevertheless, Nove's reply does not resolve the central methodological and intellectual issue, namely, if indeed the Soviet economy is inefficient, then why does Whitesell's review of the econometric and statistical evidence lead to the opposite conclusion. I argue here that it is not a matter of poor modelling or bad data, or simply that modern economic theory has no use in the study of the Soviet economy [Like Murell also says], as Nove seems to imply in his rebuttal (pp. 578-579)". "What is relatively straightforward and legitimate information about the efficiency of the Soviet economy". *Brada, J. C. (1992). Allocative efficiency-It isn't so. Europe‐Asia Studies, 44(2), 343-347. One final study in this section is Escoe (1996), studying individual republics and industrial branches rather than aggregating at the national level, who finds high technical efficiency (firms producing near their PPF), but low allocative efficiency (gains can be made from reallocating inputs), It is not surprising to find evidence of greater technical efficiency than allocative efficiency in Soviet industry. Firms generally attempted to maximize output, given relatively stagnant production conditions (technology) and centrally allocated inputs. Output remained the key economic criteria throughout Soviet history. Thus, we would expect to find most firms operating near or on their given PPF (technical efficiency). However, the individual enterprises had a limited ability to control their inputs which were allotted in a way that reflected planners' objectives (many of which were non-economic) and incomplete or flawed information (as ministry officials had less information regarding the production conditions of individual enterprises than did the enterprise directors). Furthermore, the firm's management faced incentives that encouraged the hoarding of resources (especially labor) and that did not place a high priority on cost minimization. These later factors likely led to low levels of allocative efficiency. Thus, the answer to the question: "Was Soviet industry efficient?" is both yes and no. On one hand, the USSR, by virtue of bureaucratic competition, plan directives, and stagnant technologies, achieved rather high levels of technical efficiency. On the other, resource hoarding, poor information, and poor incentives resulted in increasing allocative inefficiency Escoe, G. M. (1996). The efficiency of Soviet industry. Comparative Economic Studies, 38(2-3), 71-86.

[@jcrios1917]

A major study on comparative productivity between European socialist and Western economies is Bergson (1987)’s. Assembling data for four European socialist countries (USSR, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia) and 7 Western countries for 1975, he adopts two different techniques to estimate the productivity gap between both groups of countries. On the one hand, he measures output per worker with and without an adjustment with labor quality, and then shows that socialist economies underperform Western economies for a magnitude ranging between 25 and 34%. Two studies use frontier efficiency techniques to assess technical efficiency of socialist economies in comparison with Western economies. Moroney and Lovell (1997) estimate a production frontier on a sample of 24 countries, including 7 European socialist economies for the period 1978-1980. They adopt a variant of the stochastic frontier approach for their estimation, and consider capital, labor, and energy as inputs. Their conclusion clearly supports the outperformance of Western economies, with socialist economies 76% as efficiently as Western economies. They also observe a relative heterogeneity of the efficiency scores between socialist economies: the efficiency scores indeed range from 68.8% for Hungary to 82.6% or 82.7%, 92.6% 95.0% for Bulgaria according to the years 1978, 1979 and 1980, representing the production potential of each economy in comparison with market economies. Koop et al. (2000) adopt a Bayesian stochastic frontier model to estimate technical efficiency. For the decade 1980-1990, Yugoslavia has a very high efficiency level (93.2%) Bergson, A. 1987. Comparative Productivity: The USSR, Eastern Europe and the West. American Economic Review 77, 3, 342-357. Moroney, J., and C.A.K. Lovell, C.A.K. 1997, The Relative Efficiencies of Market and Planned Economies. Southern Economic Journal 63, 4, 1084-1093 Koop, G., Osiewalski, J., and M. Steel, 2000, A Stochastic Frontier Analysis of Output Level and Growth in Poland and Western Economies. Economics of Planning 33, 185-202 *Productive Efficiency under Capitalism and State Socialism: The Chance-Constrained Programming Approach by Kenneth Land, Ca Knox Lovell and Sten Thore 1992 In retrospect, however, the economist Angus Maddison did view the CIA figures as a bit too high. Maddison’s own figures, posted on his website in 2009 (shortly before his death in 2010) showed the Soviet economy as peaking relative to America’s around 1975 at about 45 percent, as compared with the CIA’s estimate of about 58 percent. See the Excel file “Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1-2008 AD,” posted on Maddison’s website *Assessing Soviet Economic Performance During the Cold War: A Failure of Intelligence? by Marc Trachtenberg 2018

[@jcrios1917]

"According to the consensus view, it was primarily physical capital accumulation that drove economic growth during the early years of state socialism. Growth models incorporating both human and physical capital accumulation led to the conclusion that a high physical/human capital ratio can cause a lower economic growth in the long run, hence offering an explanation for the failure of socialist economies. In this paper, we show theoretically and empirically that according to the logic of the socialist planner, it was optimal to achieve a higher physical to human capital ratio in socialist countries than in the West. Using a VAR analysis, we find empirical confirmation that within the Material Product System of national accounting, the relative dominance of investment in physical capital accumulation relative to human capital was indeed more efficient than under the system of national accounts." "Former centrally planned countries measured their aggregate economic activity (or aggregate income) in terms of Net Material Product (NMP), loosely described as the sum of material production, while the West relied on the United Nation’s System of National Accounts (SNA), which also includes immaterial production, mostly in the form of services." *CAPITAL FORMATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH UNDER CENTRAL PLANNING AND TRANSITION: A THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS, CA. 1920-2008 by Péter FÖLDVÁRI - Bas van LEEUWEN - Dmitry DIDENKO 2014 *According to Marer et al. (1992), there are no significant differences in the growth rates of NMP and GNP in former planned economies. NMP is close to the Western concept of net national product less the value added of most services. *For details on NMP, refer to Becker 1972 Becker, Abraham, 1972. National income accounting in the USSR. In: Treml, Vladimir, Hardt, John (Eds.), Soviet Economic Statistics. Duke Univ. Press, Durham, NC, pp. 69-119. Marer, Paul, et al., 1992. Historically Planned Economies: A Guide to Data. World Bank. "The fourth section argues that a rapid rate of product development in the Western world during the 1970s and 1980s increased the efficiency gap between capitalism and state socialism. A simple numerical experiment involving an increased technological uncertainty in the capitalist countries (mirroring the proliferation of new industrial processes and new products) is shown to push the planned economies even deeper into inefficiency and shortages." "At a more basic level, we believe that the divergence between the two systems during the final decades of the 20th century was reinforced by the pace of rapid technological change. As late as in the 196Os, both capitalist and state socialist economies were still dominated by standardized and uniform products, like power generation, steel and other metals, fertilizers, cotton and synthetic rayons, and plastics. There were increasing returns to scale; many industries were dominated by a few large national manufacturers. But a subtle change in the nature of technology occurred." "In addition, strong psychological mechanisms were at work. Through Western magazines, books, radio, and TV, the citizens of the planned economies could fathom the abyss that separated them from the ever-expanding plethora of new consumer goods in the capitalist world. These signals fed a mounting feeling of rejection and frustration among the consumers in the socialist countries-of a gap between what was and what could have been. But the system did not respond to that gap. The pressure just grew on the existing inflexible social and technological structure." * Productive Efficiency under Capitalism and State Socialism: The Chance-Constrained Programming Approach by KENNETH C. LAND, C. A. KNOX LOVELL, and STEN THORE 1992 And here are two more indispensable recommendations *Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny 2004 *Revolution from Above: The Demise of the Soviet System by David Michael Kotz and Fred Weir 1997

[@jcrios1917]

In short, Stalin's policies of breaking the labor barriers and reducing the intertemporal investment frictions did succeed in the long run. The view of Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) that Stalin's policies lead to removal or reduction of barriers to effective allocation of resources. The proponents, however, point out to the rapid growth in 1928-1940 and to the fast reallocation of labor from agriculture to non-agriculture. This view holds that, although excessively brutal, Stalin's policies allowed Russia to develop a strong modern economy that sustained a successful war effort in 1941-1945 and propelled Russia into a position of a dominant power after WWII. Overall, there is strong evidence that the barriers both intratemporal and the intertemporal were significantly reduced in this period. For example, according to Allen (2003) "In the absence of the communist revolution and the Five Year Plans, Russia would have remained ... backward... This fate was avoided by Stalin's economic institutions. They were a further installment of the use of state direction to cause growth in an economy that would have stagnated if left to its own devices.“ Similarly, Acemoglu and Robinson (2012), while overall critical of Stalin's policies, note that "there was ... huge unrealized economic potential for reallocating ... labor from agriculture to industry. Stalinist industrialization was one brutal way of unlocking this potential.” As discussed in Sah and Stiglitz (1984) and Allen (2003), price scissors were an important policy for expropriating the "agricultural surplus". The state forced the peasants to sell the agricultural output at prices which were substantially below the prices for the same output in cities. The magnitude of price scissors was substantial. Based on Barsov (1969), Ellman (1975, Table 6) shows that black market prices for grain were more than twice as high as the state procurement prices in 1929. In 1930, the difference was 4.5 times, in 1937 - 7 times, and in 1932 - 28 times! This mechanism is consistent with the traditional historical narrative of collectivization (see, e.g. Conquest, 1986). Collectivization was essential to Stalin's industrialization policies as those were based on confiscation of "agricultural surplus" to subsidize the industrialization and to move labor out of agriculture. Importantly, Stalin introduced price scissors forcing the peasants to sell grain to the state at below-market prices; the state subsequently sold the grain to industrial workers at higher prices or exported grain to pay for imports of industrial equipment. The burden of the price scissors is best reflected in the level of violence that had to be involved to implement those policies. In 1929, there were 1300 peasant riots with more than 200 thousand participants (Khlevnyuk, 2009). This was a significant increase compared to the New Economic Policy period when the total number of riots for the two years of 1926-27 was just 63. In March 1930 alone, there were more than 6500 riots with 1.4 million peasants participating. In the short run, the policy of price scissors was perhaps too "successful" in moving people from agriculture so that the labor wedge had to increase to negate it. The reduction in trade pushing labor out of villages was another significant factor. However, the huge decrease in rural living standard did accelerate rural-urban migration. As Davies and Wheatcroft (2004) note "by the autumn of 1932 peasants were moving to the towns in search of food." The growth of urban population ceased, and was partially reversed, only as a result of restrictions on movement and the introduction of an internal passport system(p. 407). Realizing the fact that price scissors were too high, after 1932 the government decreased them substantially. Moreover, in 1932, the state legalized agricultural markets (so called collective farm markets, kolkhoznye rynki) where peasants could freely sell output that they produced in excess of their planned delivery quotas; the quotas were also relaxed (Davies et al., 1994, p.16). This allowed the peasants to reap at least some benefits of the high market prices for food but also reduced incentives to migrate to the cities. Industrialization was carried out in a centralized way. The central planning was introducing prescribing quantitative production and investment targets at plant level. The first three Five-year plans starting in 1928, 1933, and 1938, respectively, were not fulfilled (see Gregory and Harrison, 2005, for evidence from recently declassified archives). However, during 1928-40, industrialization and collectivization did succeed in moving tens of millions of people from villages to cities and to triple industrial production in constant prices. The system of crop rotation was severely disrupted and not restored even by 1935 when crop rotation was used only on 50 percent of the sown area. Wheatcroft and Davies (p. 124 in Davies et al 1994) argue that the positive elements of the centralized planning (economy of scale, some new advanced farming methods, increase in mechanization, etc). By 1936, the dramatic changes in the wedges subsided, and the economy entered a more stable period. By 1940, the level of Total Factor Productivity in agriculture is 22 percent higher than in the Tsarist economy in 1913 and 37 percent higher than in 1928. On one hand, there were two main positive factors that lead to increase in productivity. First, there certainly were important technological advances. The scale and efficiency in many industries significantly increased (for example, the new and larger blast-furnaces in iron and steel industry or use of explosions and pneumatic picks in coal mining). Soviet Russia was a technological leader in airframe manufacturing and had no equals in the world in design of tanks. Imported technology was introduced and became operational such as Gorkii car plant (based on Ford plant) and the giant Magnitogorsk iron and steel combine (modeled on US Steel in Gary Indiana). By 1940, Soviet Russia caught up with Western Europe in high energy transmission. The second positive factor was improvement in the quality of the labor force. The peasants who joined industry in 1928 by 1940 became quite seasoned and trained workers, some became managers with years of experience in rapid industrialization. Moreover, there was a marked increase in incentives with campaigns on "socialist competition" and Stakhanovite movement of rewarding over-achievers and production stars (see an extensive discussion on these improvements in labor force in Nove 1992, p. 234-235) However, the scale effects of the large collective farms and an increase in mechanization (e.g., tractors increased to 10.3 million hp by 1940) had their effects in growing productivity. COUNTERFACTUAL HYPOTHESIS: Our welfare assessment results are as follows. Stalin's policies led to the short run costs (1928-1940) amounting to astonishing 24.1 percent of consumption. However, in the long run the generation born in 1940 reaps the benefits of the reduction of frictions and yields a 16.5 percent lifetime gain. We find that the welfare of the generation born in 1940 is higher under Stalin's policies by 16 percent. *Was Stalin Necessary for Russia's Economic Development? By Anton Cheremukhin, Mikhail Golosov, Sergei Guriev, Aleh Tsyvinski January 2013

[@jcrios1917]

"In the aftermath of World War 2, members of the United Nations determined that the protection of human rights should be one of the primary goals of the newly created organization. There was recognition that the political upheavals preceding the war had been spurred by widespread inequality and poverty. The United Nations created the Commission On Human Rights in 1946. On December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights was adopted by the General Assembly Of United Nations." "It may seem surprising that the Soviet Union remained on the United Nations Commission On Human Rights after 1948 and became a powerful voice. After all, it had abstained from the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, which was to serve as the lodestone for the Commission's subsequent work. However, many Commission members were relieved that the Soviet bloc only abstained rather than rejecting the Declaration outright." "As one of the Security Council Permanent members, the USSR was represented in all the major U.N bodies. Furthermore, the Commission maintained a commitment to geographic and political diversity, which naturally included the Communist East. Giving the Soviet Union even more voting power, the USSR had not one representative on the United Nations, but three- one for the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR), one for the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkSSR)- and one for the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics as a whole (USSR)- with two of these three on the Commission For Human Rights. Simultaneously, the Commission typically included one other representative from the East European Satellite States. Although, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw States voted as one bloc, the West lacked such unity. The Soviet Union began negotiating with a conspicuous voting advantage in the Commission before capitalizing on disagreements within the perceived blocs." "Conflicting ideologies in Soviet and Western bloc countries after the Second World War, resulted in different conceptions of what constituted a "fundamental" human right. The decision to create the United Nations (U.N) International Covenant On Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) was the product of conflicting Cold War political ideologies." "The U.N ICESCR was adopted by the General Assembly on December 16, 1966. The Covenants came into force in 1976. Each State party covenanted to submit periodic reports outlining the measures that it had adopted and the progress it made in achieving the observance of the enunciated rights. The recognition of economic, social, and cultural rights as essential to human dignity, economic development and social progress, and their entrenchment in the ICESCR, appeared to herald the legitimization of this set of rights." "The Soviet States championed economic, social, and cultural rights, such as: the right or entitlement to employment, education, healthcare, housing, social security and social assistance, which they associated with the objectives of socialist society. Soviet States backed the adoption of a single, comprehensive covenant." "The Soviet delegation linked the Declaration and the economic, social, and cultural rights contained therein to the Soviet history of positive freedom. In particular they cited the Soviet Constitution of 1936, for example the Ukrainian representative highlighted the guarantees in the republic's constitution of the right to work, education, and medical services and the fulfillment of these rights despite initial economic hardship." "The covenants, in turn, follow the traditional dichotomies between "Negative" and "Positive" rights. A negative right connotes freedom from discrimination and exclusion or exploitation and oppression, as such appears to require mere forbearance on the part of the State. Conversely a positive connotes a right to something, and is perceived as requiring the (re) distribution of resources by the State. The Soviet representatives questioned the division between positive and negative rights. The Soviet delegation questioned the depiction of economic, social, and cultural rights as exclusively positive rights. They highlighted that the rights included trade union membership and equal pay for women and ethnic minorities, which were just as legislative as the right to vote." "In response to concerns about underdeveloped states, the Soviet representatives highlighted their own history of development. They pointed out that after the October Revolution, social security was granted to the workers, schools were built, and illiteracy was virtually eliminated." "The USSR ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1973, and both covenants entered into force in 1976. The first draft of the ICCPR was worked out in the early 1950s, primarily under Western influence at a time when Moscow was boycotting the UN over the issue of which government had the right to represent China. Later on, Soviet authors criticized the outcome of having two covenants as a consequence of Western, especially U.S., rejection of social, economic, and cultural rights as international human rights. Naturally, they took pride in the fact that Soviet diplomacy was the main force behind the ICESCR at the UN negotiations. When negotiating the human rights covenants at the UN, the USSR had some further immediate influence over the outcomes in 1966. For example, the USSR opposed the inclusion of review mechanisms directly in the ICCPR system since, in its view, doing so would have violated state sovereignty." "In the USSR of the late 1970s-early 1980s, debates about human rights were linked with the adoption of the new Soviet Constitution in 1977, which entered into force in 1978 (“The Brezhnev Constitution”). The official Soviet argument was that the USSR had played a historically progressive role in defining and protecting human rights, both internationally and constitutionally. According to the official view, the standard in Soviet constitutional law was so high that when the USSR acceded to the covenants in 1973, no legislative changes were necessary. In socialist Eastern Europe, efforts toward developing a socialist concept of human rights began in the 1960s. For example, a group of Hungarian legal scholars built their notion of human rights on Marxist-Leninist philosophy, combining philosophical and legal-political insights. They argued that, historically, socialist countries had been the forerunners in the international protection of human rights - in 1945, for instance, it had been the USSR that had proposed that human rights be included in the UN Charter." Three years before he became the leader of the USSR in 1984, Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko, then a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the USSR, published a booklet in New York in which he defended and praised the Soviet record in the context of human rights. The booklet starts by emphasizing the context of ideological struggle when discussing human rights: The freedom of the individual and democracy, human rights, equality and humanism - these major issues of our day are at the center of the ideological struggle between the two systems, socialism and capitalism, between the new and old worlds. As a concrete example, he mentions higher education, which was free for students in the USSR, saying that this was much more than that demanded by the ICESCR as a legal obligation for states. In another work published in 1981, Viktor Mikhailovich Chikvadze, who directed human rights studies at the Institute of State and Law at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow, claimed that since the adoption of the Universal Declaration in 1948, imperialist Western countries had tried to delay the adoption of legally binding human rights commitments at the UN. Nevertheless, the USSR had succeeded, despite the resistance of the Western states, to include the provision of the right of peoples to self-determination in Article 1 of both human rights covenants." *Human Rights in the Twentieth Century edited by Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann 2011 pp.148-152 *Giving Meaning to Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights edited by Isfahan Merali, Valerie Oosterveld 2001 p.41 *The Controversy Over Human Rights, UN Covenants, and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union 2019 by Lauri Mälksoo

[@hyperdemise9752]

37:00 statistics on kulaks and peasants

[@coryolsen2245]

Not sure if you are still responding or active here, but scholars are now pointing to Gareth Jones and his documenting the famine - in photos and articles prior even to Thomas Walker. I did not hear you speak about Jones. There are articles, films, and more galore coming out recently on him - including the movie Mr. Jones.

[@somethingelse9228]

Check his sources, they would eventually lead to the sources that he DID mention.

[@coryolsen2245]

This cannot be true; he reported prior to the sources given in the video. Additionally, Jones travelled to Ukraine and witnessed the starvation. If you can prove those wrong, I would certainly like to see the evidence.@@somethingelse9228

[@wscparks]

Dr grover furr a must for the truth

[@fun_ghoul]

Indeed, history will absolve him too!

[@NihilusDestiny]

I would say that Stalin is probably the greatest person ever lived.

[@gaybroshevik4180]

He wasn't perfect, he was only a Man, but he was definitely NOT a bad person. NEVER a bad Leader. EVER.

[@keemstarkreamstar7069]

Gay Broshevik “Never a bad leader” So appointing Beria (a serial rapist and murderer) as head of the NKVD and not giving him the boot past the most generous and latest time he could have found out isn’t a bad move? Bastardizing science by putting Trofim Lysenko on a pedestal and giving a charlatan state support wasn’t a bad leader move? Not to even mention shooting up the anarchists in the May Days (they lost anyway even without anarchist “interference”) or expanding the gulags and doing the Holodomor (inb4 attempting to wave it off with “those darn kulaks actually destroyed the food supplies for no reason even though they knew they would have been killed), or even his authoritarianism and the Doctor’s plot.

[@drill6739]

Keemstar Kreamstar stalin nominated someone other than beria to the position of head of the NKVD; the party elected beria instead. if you’re going to be so mad at least read some history.

[@AbdallahTeach]

don't have idols, that is anti-marxist.

[@jonkeuviuhc1641]

@@puppet1-170 the point is to know that Stalin wasn't the heartless monster the liberal media made him to be, and try to fight such misinformation that tries to keep people from left ideas by defaiming leftist leaders that actually acomplieshed something.

[@BeyondFunction1]

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

[@andylouie6217]

Isn't Grover Furr widely criticized / regarded as an unreliable scholar?

[@AutrevmlM]

He's "criticised" in a very loose use of the word. Most of the "critiques" of him either do some of these tactics: 1) call him a Stalinist 2) equate Furr with David Irving 3) use the same evidence that Furr critiques to try and debunk him 4) misrepresent Furr as saying "Stalin never did anything wrong" 5) misrepresent Furrs arguments I am yet to see a well Primary source backed critique of Grover Furr that isn't dishonest.

[@aderinolamiju]

he is not even a historian

[@62cky4powerthirst]

How do I respond to people arguing: "You denying the holdomor is as bad as neo nazis denying the holocaust?"

[@wadecarefully]

Ask them what they know about it and when they stutter show them this

[@ftwallday3112]

Why even try to argue with someone who has had their brain Fried by Destiny? Maybe ask them if they have the same level of betrayal for a even bigger famine caused by Winston Churchill in India? Maybe ask them why they think famines are comprable to systematic genocide? Maybe ask them why they are holding water for the nine million people who die annually of famine in a worldwide capitalist system?

[@dudeman5303]

So, my question is, in this podcast they insinuate it just didn't happen, was there no famine at *all* or what? I am just confused as to what the situation was because everywhere you look, most people say there was a famine in Ukraine, and a small handful of countries say there was a genocide? I haven't done much reading into it I just want to see if anyone else can fill me in on this because I personally hadn't even *heard* of the holdomor prior to this podcast. I'd heard about a "Ukrainian genocide" or "famine" but didn't know any details surrounding it.

[@62cky4powerthirst]

@@dudeman5303 There was a famine in the Ukraine, but right wing officials: both in the Ukraine and the US have a habit of overexaggerating death tolls by lumping in people who died of old age and natural causes, counting people who would have been born as official deaths, war deaths, and ignoring that the Kulaks burned their own food instead of letting the Soviets get their hands on it. There is also the fact that Russia and Ukraine were prone to famines long before the Soviet Union came to be and how the Ukraine famine was the last famine that occurred in the Soviet Block.

[@jxjc1]

​@@dudeman5303i think his source is from the book Famine, Fraud and Fascism something like that. You can check it out

[@tehpeasant]

All power to Marxist Memes though

[@gaybroshevik4180]

🔫🌹✊🏽♥️PotRT ♥️✊🏽🌹🛠️🌶️🔫🌻⚙️

[@mcmxxi1172]

This is like listening to someone explain why the Holocaust didn't happen, from someone who was told about this from someone with a relative who had first hand experience, utterly disgusting 🤢🤢🤮

[@Irene.kudria]

Yes.. yes… YES.. got this recommended by a colleague..