>From: New Worker Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >On the hundred and twenty first anniversary of Stalin's birth ANDY BROOKS >takes a brief overview of his life and achievements > >THE TWENTIETH century was one of great upheavals, world wars and >revolutions. It was the century of great revolutionary changes; popular >movements inevitably linked with the leaders thrown up by their times -- >Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim II Sung, Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro. It >was the century in which the ideas of Marx and Engels were put into >practice, the century when torch of the Paris Commune lit the flames of >revolution across the globe. > > The memory of all these leaders is subjected to denigration and abuse by >the hired hands of the bourgeois media and academic world. The unholy >alliance of bourgeois politicians, social democrats, Trotskyites and >revisionists stoke fires of their own every day to produce a seemingly >endless torrent of lies about the great revolutions that shook the world >and the people who led them. The name of Joseph Stalin heads the list. > > >colossal achievements > > Their hatred of Stalin should not surprise us. He led the world's first >socialist state from 1924 until his death in 1953. During those decades the >Soviet Union was the hope of working people across the world. > > The colossal achievements of the Soviet Union led by Stalin was living >proof of the validity of the socialist system. The Soviets swept out the >capitalists and land-owners and unleashed the immense potential of the >workers and peasants to build a new life for themselves. > > While the economies of the imperialist world crashed the people of the >Soviet Union saw their living standards rise twelvefold. While the >imperialists prepared for another world war, against themselves and >eventually against the USSR, the Soviet Union worked tirelessly for >collective security and peace. > > While the imperialists mercilessly plundered Africa and Asia the Soviet >Union helped the world communist cause and the national liberation movement. > > The oppressed nations or the Czarist empire were freed and lived as equals >in a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which guaranteed everyone work, >education, science and culture. The socialist system created new men and >women who rebuilt the country after the destruction of the Civil War; who >struggled to create the industries needed for the future; who sacrificed >themselves by the millions to defend the Soviet Union and defeat fascism in >the Second World War. > > >early days > > Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili was born on 21 December 1879 in the >town of Gori in the Czarist province of Georgia. He came from humble >origins. His father was a peasant who later worked in a shoe factory in the >Georgian capital, Tbilisi. His mother came from a peasant family. Neither >could read or write. > > But Joseph Vissarionovich was brilliant at primary school. He was >recommended for admission into the leading school in Georgia which was run >by the Georgian Orthodox church. > > The Tbilisi Seminary was a centre for Georgian nationalism and >opposition to the Czar's regime. Here the young man turned to Marxism and >revolution. > > "My parents were uneducated, but they did not treat me badly by any >means. But it was a different matter at the Orthodox theological seminary >which I was then attending. In protest at the outrageous regime and the >Jesuitical methods prevalent at the seminary, I was ready to become, and >actually did become, a revolutionary, a believer in Marxism as a really >revolutionary teaching," he said later. > > In his second year at the seminary, when Stalin was just 15, he made >contact with underground Marxist circles. Three years later, in 1897, he >joined the first socialist organisation in Georgia. Stalin started by >setting up Marxist study groups for students and workers. In 1899 he was >expelled and became a full-time revolutionary worker. > > He called hirnself "Stalin" -- meaning "Steel" in Russian -- most >Bolsheviks adopted movement names to work underground. > > The Caucasus was seething with discontent. The Georgians and other >peoples of the region were doubly oppressed by the Russian colonial and >largely feudal administration and the Russian and local exploiters who were >plundering the new industries in the province. Tbilisi was an >administrative and railway centre serving the oil-town of Baku, on the >Caspian Sea. > > Stalin plunged into militant revolutionary activity. In 1901 he was >elected to the first Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour >Party. He organised illegal strikes. He was sent to Siberia many times, >escaping twice to return to the Caucasus. > > In 1905 Stalin first met Lenin at the Bolshevik Congress in Czarist >Finland. In 1912 at the Prague Conference which led to the final break >between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks within the Russian Social-Democratic >Labour Party, Stalin was chosen to head the Bolsheviks' Russian Bureau. He >published the first edition of Pravda and organised the new party's work in >Russia. > > By 1917 he was regarded by most as Lenin's second-in-command. Stalin >represented Lenin at the key Sixth Congress as Lenin was in hiding in >Finland. That Congress drew up the plans to overthrow the bourgeois >Provisional Government which had removed the Czar in February 1917 >pretending to heed the workers, peasants and soldiers demands for "peace, >bread and liberty" but secretly working to keep Russia in the war and for >the restoration of the monarchy. > > When the decision was taken to overthrow the provisional government >Stalin was chosen by Lenin to lead the Party Centre which directed the >uprising. In the Civil War which followed Stalin held important military >and political commands. In 1922 when the post of General Secretary of the >party was established Stalin was elected, an office he held until his death. > > >Lenin's cause > > Lenin, crippled by an assassin's bullet, died in 1924. Stalin was >inevitably seen by the Soviet masses as Lenin's successor. But not by all. >Within the Bolshevik leadership factions were at work. Lenin fought the >same battle with the Menshevik defeatists and class collaborators when they >were all in the same party. Now the Staiin leadership faced the same >challenge, with much higher stakes -- the future of the first workers' and >peasants republic. > > Stalin fought first of all to defeat Trotsky, who had bitterly opposed >Lenin in the past. Trotsky, who without foundation believed he should have >succeeded Lenin, used a variety of bogus arguments to oppose the >construction of socialism in one state. Later his tiny band of followers >would abandon argument for treason and sabotage. > > Stalin upheld Lenin's legacy against Trotsky's left sectarianism and >against right deviation -- held by others who did not believe the >revolution could succeed in building socialism and were ready to capitulate >to local and international reaction. > > Stalin stuck to Lenin's strategy of building socialism in one country. >There was no other choice. The White Guards and the foreign interventionist >armies were crushed in the Civil War but the great upheaval in the other >imperialist heartlands which the Trotskyites said had to happen for >socialism to work did not occur. The revolutionaty upsurge in Germany and >Hungary was drowned in blood. Communist Parties were founded out of the >working class movement in Europe and the rest of the world but >social-democracy prevailed. As Stalin put it in 1927 "Our West European >brothers do not yet want to seize power, and we are obliged to do the best >we can with our own means". > > And did it they did. Agriculture was collectivised and the grasping >petty landlords, the kulaks, were liquidated as a class. Immense new >industries were established across the Soviet Union, the country was >electrified, universal education and a national health service that was the >envy of the rest of the world was established. In the Thirties, when the >capitalist world tottered on the brink of economic collapse and the ruling >classes in some parts of Europe established naked dictatorships in the form >of fascism, the Soviet Union ended unemployment and established a >constitution which guaranteed every Soviet citizen work, education, science >and culture. > > Stalin was a great revolutionary and a great organiser. But he was also >an outstanding populariser of Marxist-Leninist thinking and made some >important new contributions to the science of socialism himself. His >development of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the national question >provided the basis for the revolutionary changes which transformed the >Czarist Empire, which was a prisoner of nations, into a Union of Soviet >Socialist Republics in which everyone regardless of nationality, creed or >culture lived in equality and harmony. Stalin's Foundations of Leninism, >written back in 1924 remains to this day the best introduction to >Marxism-Leninism. > > Stalin always upheld the principle of collective leadership and putting >the Party first. > > >collective leadership > > "Comrades, I shall not comment on the matter of personal feelings, >although personal feelings played a rather conspicuous part in the speeches >of some of the comrades from Bukharin's group," he warned in 1929. > > "I shall make no comment on this subject because personal feelings are a >trivial matter, and it is not worth while speaking of trivial matters. >Bukharin spoke of letters he had written to me. He read some of these >letters and from their content one could gather that although we were still >friends some time ago, now we differ politically. The same mood could be >detected in the speeches of Uglanov and Tomsky: What is happening, they >seemed to suggest, how is it that we, old Bolsheviks, should suddenly be at >odds and have no respect for each other. > > "I think that these moans and lamentations are not worth a >brass-farthing. Our organisation is not a family group nor is it an >association based on personal friendship; it is the political party of the >working class. We cannot tolerate that interests of personal friendship >should be placed higher than the interests of our cause. > > "Things have come to a sad pass, comrades, if the only reason why we are >called old Bolsheviks is that we are just old. Old Bolsheviks are respected >not because they are old, but because they are eternally young, never-aging >revolutionaries. If an old Bolshevik has swerved from the path of the >revolution, or degenerated and failed politically, then, be he even one >hundred years old, he has no right to call himself an old Bolshevik; he has >no right to demand that the Party should respect him. > > "Moreover, questions of personal friendship should not be placed on one >level with political questions, for, as the saying goes -- friendship is >all very well, but duty comes first. We are all of us servants of the >working class, and if the interests of personal friendship clash with the >interests of the revolution, then personal friendship must come second. For >Bolsheviks this is the only possible attitude. > > "I shall not comment either on the subject of insinuations and veiled >accusations of a persona1 nature that were contained in the speeches of the >comrades from Bukharin's opposition. Evidently these comrades are >attempting to conceal the underlying political reason for our differences >behind a cloak of insinuations and ambiguities. They are seeking to >substitute petty political scheming for politics. Tomsky's speech is indeed >typical in this respect. His was the speech of a typical trade union >politician trying to substitute petty political scheming for politics. >However, this subterfuge will get them nowhere." > > >defending the USSR > > In the Thirties war was in the air. Fascists, the most aggressive >elements of the German and Italian ruling class, were preparing for war. >The Soviets knew another war was coming. Either all the imperialists would >combine against them as they did during the Civil War, or some of them >would attack -- which is what eventually happened. This made the drive for >rapid industrialisation even more urgent. > > Stalin put it like this in 1931: "Do you want our socialist motherland to >be beaten and lose its independence ... we are fifty to a hundred years >behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten >years. Either we do this or they crush us,". > > While the Party led the campaign for greater production others amongst >the leadership were plotting the Soviet Union's downfall. On the 1 December >1934 Sergei Kirov, regarded as second only to Stalin himself in the Party >leadership, was shot dead by an agent of the Trotskyite opposition. At the >17th Party Congress that same year Kirov had said: "Immense, indeed, are >the successes we have achieved. To put it in plain human language 'one >would like to live on and on'". > > The anti-communist lie-machine immediately claimed Stalin had ordered it >himself. In fact, as became clear in a series of state trials later, the >right-deviationists and the left sectarian Trotskyites had made common >cause in a conspiracy involving imperialismn to overthrow Soviet power. > > The leaders were put on trial. All confessed. The ring-leaders were >sentenced to death and shot for treason. The Party ordered a purge, a >cleansing of its ranks which led to waves of arrests. > > The professional anti-communist bourgeois "historians" and their >Trotskyite friends portray this period as the time of "Stalin's terror". >Ludicrous figures are given of the numbers sent to labour camps during the >crackdown and astronomic figures for those said to have died in the camps. >Most claim "millions" perished. The most rabid talk about "25 million" in >an effort to equate Stalin with the very real number of people who died on >the orders of Adolf Hitler and the German Nazis. > > In fact the figures were made public in 1990. Two Soviet historians >delved deep into the archives which revealed a totally different picture. > > According to Zemskov and Dugin the total number in the labour camps in >1934 was exactly 510,307. This number includes criminals as well as those >charged with "political crimes". In fact the number accused of "political" >offences oscillated between 127,000 in 1934 to a maximum of 500,000 during >the two war years of 1941 and 1942. > > From 1936 to 1939 the figure for all criminals detained had risen to >839,406 and then to 1,317,195. The largest number held in labour camps in >Stalin's day was in 1951 when the figure had risen to 1,948,158. Most were >ordinary criminals. The number sentenced for "political" offences totalled >579,878. Most of them had been Nazi collaborators; 334,538 had been >convicted of treason. > > To put this into perspective the population of the Soviet Union in 1939 >was 170 million. It should also be noted that in Krushchov's day, the >Soviet leader who did his best to denigrate and smear the memory of Stalin, >the labour camp population was still around two million, all convicted of >criminal offences. > > The masses closed ranks around the Party. The counter-revolutionaries >were crushed. Many workers took up the challenge of the Stakhanovite >movement and worked even harder to meet rheir targets. In 1935 a coal >miner, Alexei Stakhanov, overfulfilled his work target by 1,400 per cent. >Others followed. But Stalin never forgot that working people had to benefit >concretely from the revolution. > > >concrete benefits > > He told the Stakhanovites that. "The basis For the Stakhanov movement was >first and foremost the radical improvement in the material welfare of the >workers. Life has improved, comrades. Life has become more joyous. And when >life is joyous, work goes well. Hence the high rate of output. Hence the >heroes and heroines of labour. That, primarily, is the root of the >Stakhanov movement. If there had been a crisis in our country, if there had >been unemployment -- that scourge of the working class -- if people in our >country lived badly, drably, joylessly, we should have had nothing like the >Stakhanov movement. > > "Our proletarian revolution is the only revolution in the world which had >the opportunity of showing the people not only the political results but >also material results. Of all workers' revolutions, we know only one to >achieve power. That was the Paris Commune. But it did not last long. > > "True, it endeavoured to smash the fetters of capitalism; but it did not >have time enough to smash them, and still less to show the people the >beneficial material results of revolution. > > "Our revolution is the only one which not only smashed the fetters of >capitaiism and brought people freedom, but also succeeded in creating the >material conditions of a prosperous life for the people. Therein lies the >strength and invincibility of our revolution. > > "It is a good thing, of course, to drive out the capitalists, to drive >out the landlords, to drive out the Czarist henchmen, to seize power and >achieve freedom. That is very good. > > "But unfortunately, freedom alone is not enough, by far. If there is a >shortage of bread, a shortage of butter and fats, a shortage of textiles, >and if housing conditions are bad, freedom will not carry you very far. > > "It is very difficult, comrades, to live on freedom alone. In order to >live well and joyously, the benefits of political freedom must be >supplemented by material benefits. > > "It is a distinctive feature of our revolution that it brought the people >not only freedom, but also material benefits, and the possibility of a >prosperous and cultured life. That is why life has become joyous in our >country, and that is the soil from which the Stakhanov movement sprang." > > >victory > > Throughout the Thirties the Soviet Union worked to prevent war, proposing >collective security to Britain and France to counter the threats from the >new Nazi leadership in Gennany. But the leaders of Britain and France >feared communism more than they feared Nazi demands. They hoped and >encouraged the Nazis to look to the East for a new German empire. They >didn't realise that the most aggressive sections of the German ruling >class, those who had put Hitler into power to prepare for war, wanted to >settle accounts with Britain and France first. > > In the end the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with the Germans >in 1939, sparing the Soviet people the horrors of war for two more years. >The Nazi war-machine over-ran Western Europe and then turned its venom >against the land of the Soviets in 1941. > > Hitler and the Wehrmacht believed the Soviet Union would fall like a pack >of cards under their blitzkrieg. They expected the Soviet masses to welcome >the Nazis with open arms as liberators. What they got was ferocious >resistance. > > Soviet young men and women in the Red Army, the partizans, and working in >the factories and fields, rallied to the Party to defend their Soviet >Motherland. Millions upon millions, over 20 million, died in the struggle. > > "For the Motherland! For Stalin!" was the watchword as the Red Army >brought the might of the Nazi army to its knees in an epic struggle of >sacrifice, endurance and heroism. It ended in 1945 with Berlin captured and >the Nazi fuhrer dead by his own hands in his bunker. > > The defeat of Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire was largely due to the >Soviet Union's efforts, a fact recognised by British and American >politicians at the time but soon forgotten when the war ended. > > The Soviet victory was only possible because of the measures taken by the >Stalin leadership in the Thirties. Without rapid industrialisation the >Soviet Union would not have been able to withstand the blows of the Nazi >invaders. They would have made mince-meat out of the Red Army. > > Without the purges, the Nazis would have found plenty of collaborators to >work for them few offered to serve the swastika. The defeat of fascism was >the greatest achievement of the Stalin leadership. The alternative -- a >world run by Hitler and Hirohito -- would have set back humanity hundreds >of years. > > Stalin's last years saw the drive to reconstruct in a postwar world >which was dramatically different. In eastern Europe socialism had triumphed >and in the East the Chinese people had stood up, winning their own civil >war and establishing the People's Republic of China in 1949. > > The flames of revolution had spread to Korea and Vietnam. The people of >Africa and Asia were breaking the chains of European colonialism. And the >Soviet Union was able to stand up to the threats of the imperialists, now >led by the United States. Within a decade the Soviets would match their >technology rocket for rocket and bomb for bomb. > > Joseph Stalin died on 5 March 1953. The people of the Soviet Union were >overcome with grief. A file of mourners, sixteen across and ten miles long, >marched through the icy streets of Moscow to pay their last respects. >Hundreds of millions across the world paid tribute to the man who had led >the Soviet Union. > > In the years which followed much of Stalin's work was undone. Revisionist >and corrupt elements who had wormed their way into the leadership began by >attacking Stalin's record and then moved to attack what had been built >during his leadership. They paved the way for hidden traitors to rise to >top and lead the counter-revolution which destroyed the Soviet Union in 1990. > > >pro-capitalist cliques > > Now the Soviet Union has gone. The former Soviet republics including >Russia are all led by pro-capitalist cliques drawn almost entirely from the >corrupt Party apparatus which mushroomed after Stalin's death. Workers and >peasants live in poverty unknown since the days of the Czar. The cities are >run by drug-lords, spivs and profiteers and feudal relations are returning >to much of the rural areas. > > But Stalin's memory is now being recalled in Russia and the other >republics. The genuine communist movements all uphold his name. Old people, >old enough to have lived under the Stalin leadership bear his photo on >demonstrations. Noone carries posters of Krushchov or Brezhnev. The traitor >Gorbachov is probably one of the most despised men in Russia today. > > "It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes. It is >not heroes who create a people, but the people who create heroes and move >history forward. Heroes, outstanding individuals, may play an important >part in the life of society only in so far as they are capable of correctly >understanding the conditions of development of society and the ways of >changing them for the better" 'History ofthe Communist Party of the Soviet >Union (Bolsheviks), short course.' Moscow 1938. > > > > > >New Communist Party of Britain Homepage > >http://www.newcommunistparty.org.uk > >A news service for the Working Class! > >Workers of all countries Unite! > > > > > _______________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi _______________________________________________________ Kominform list for general information. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anti-Imperialism list for geopolitics. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________________
