Socialism

POSTED BY: SergeantX
UPDATED: Monday, August 26, 2024 16:07
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SERGEANTX

Friday, June 26, 2009 5:08 PM

http://www.gendercide.org/case_stalin.html

Stalin's Purges

Summary

Under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin, tens of millions of ordinary individuals were executed or imprisoned in labour camps that were little more than death camps. Perceived political orientation was the key variable in these mass atrocities. But gender played an important role, and in many respects the Purge period of Soviet history can be considered the worst gendercide of the twentieth century.

The background

According to the historian Robert Conquest, Joseph Stalin "gives the impression of a large and crude claylike figure, a golem, into which a demonic spark has been instilled." He was nonetheless "a man who perhaps more than any other determined the course of the twentieth century."

Joseph Stalin
Stalin was born Joseph Dzhugashvili in the Georgian town of Gori in 1879. In his youth he imbibed both the seminary training and the Great Russian nationalism that many would later link to his tyrannical exercise of power. He was an early activist in the Bolshevik movement, where he first assumed the pseudonym Stalin (which means "man of steel"), and was twice exiled to Siberia by the Tsarist authorities. When the Russian Revolution triumphed in October 1917, Stalin returned from exile, and was named General Secretary in 1922. The post was largely an undistinguished administrative one, but Stalin used it to fortify his power base and control over the bureaucracy of the ruling Communist Party. When the communist leader, Vladimir Lenin, died in 1924, a struggle for control broke out that pitted Stalin against his nemesis, Leon Trotsky, and a host of lesser party figures. Stalin's victory was slow and hard-fought, but by 1927 he had succeeded in having Trotsky expelled from the party and, in 1929, from the country (Trotsky was tracked down and killed by Stalin's agents in Mexico City in 1940).

By 1928, Stalin was entrenched as supreme Soviet leader, and he wasted little time in launching a series of national campaigns (the so-called Five-Year Plans) aimed at "collectivizing" the peasantry and turning the USSR into a powerful industrial state. Both campaigns featured murder on a massive scale. Collectivization especially targeted Ukraine, "the breadbasket of the Soviet Union," which clung stubbornly to its own national identity and preference for village-level communal landholdings. In 1932-33, Stalin engineered a famine (by massively raising the grain quota that the peasantry had to turn over to the state); this killed between six and seven million people and broke the back of Ukrainian resistance. The Ukrainian famine has only recently been recognized as one of the most destructive genocides of the twentieth century (see Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow, and the Web resources compiled by The Ukrainian Weekly). The Five-Year Plans for industry, too, were implemented in an extraordinarily brutal fashion, leading to the deaths of millions of convict labourers, overwhelmingly men. These atrocities are described in the corvée (forced) labour case study. The millions of deaths in Stalin's "Gulag Archipelago" (the network of labour camps [gulags] scattered across the length and breath of Russia) are dealt with in the incarceration/death penalty case study.

A leader whose callous disregard for human life was matched only by his consuming paranoia, Stalin next turned his attention to the Communist Party itself. Various factions and networks opposed to his rule had managed to survive into the early 1930s; many in the party were now calling for reconciliation with the peasantry, a de-emphasizing of industrial production, and greater internal democracy. For Stalin, these dissident viewpoints represented an unacceptable threat. Anyone not unquestioningly loyal to him -- and many hundreds of thousands who were -- had to be "weeded out." The Communist Party would be rebuilt in the image of the "Great Leader." This was the origin of the "cult of personality" that permeated Soviet politics and culture, depicting Stalin as infallible, almost d

SIGNYM

Friday, June 26, 2009 5:16 PM

SOCIALISM: SWEDEN, DENMARK, FRANCE, AND GERMANY

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We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy

Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy

CITIZEN

Friday, June 26, 2009 5:17 PM

You're actually describing Communism there Sarge

SERGEANTX

Friday, June 26, 2009 5:19 PM

Heh... I was actually making a point that it's silly to blame the evil that men do on political systems, economic systems, religions or ideologies. People do evil, not systems. But I'm supposing you knew that.

SergeantX

"It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

SIGNYM

Friday, June 26, 2009 5:23 PM

People do evil because the system allows/ rewards it. It has a lot to do with what people accept, and/or are willing to commit in order to right a wrong. Government oppression is checked and balanced though a functioning democracy. What is YOUR answer to economic oppression, if any?

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We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy

Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy

CITIZEN

Friday, June 26, 2009 5:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
But I'm supposing you knew that.

Actually I thought you were playing tit for tat with Rue.

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
Heh... I was actualy making a point that it's silly to blame the evil political systems, economic systems, religion or otherwise. People do evil, not systems.

So you're saying Fascism a good thing with a bad name, sullied by the likes of Hitler?

Some systems are conducive to 'evil' in one way or another. Or at least can't help rewarding and furthering baser instincts that lead to harm. One aspect of communism for instance means that if you steal, you haven't just taken a bit of cash from pay roll, embezzlement that can expect a prison term, you've stolen the necessities of life from everyone man woman and child! How can you possibly come up with a punishment strong enough for that?

Fascism is a system that largely requires subjugation as a matter of course, why can't we call such a system 'bad'?

SIGNYM

Friday, June 26, 2009 5:35 PM

Well, but then Sarge might have to confront the idea that his favorite "ism" might not be as good as some other "isms".

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We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy

Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy

SERGEANTX

Friday, June 26, 2009 5:36 PM

All right. I'll play. Human trafficking, slavery and the like are atrocities. They should be illegal. In most civilized countries they are. But simply outlawing something doesn't mean there won't be miscreants who pursue it anyway.

We should do much more than we are to hunt down these bastards down and put them out of business. Fortunately, it's relatively easy to put a stop to their activities once we catch them.

Governments commit atrocities too. Maybe not as often as individuals, but they tend to be more persistent and dedicated once they get on a roll. If we concentrate enough power in the hands of government, and the wrong people find their way to the controls, well, Stalin happens. And it's much, much harder to stop that kind of atrocity.

SergeantX

"It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

SERGEANTX

Friday, June 26, 2009 5:46 PM

Actually, I take it back - about the "I'll play" part. I've been trying to focus more on getting things done and this thread would likely turn into a huge time sink.

So tell us all about "economic coercion" and I'll do my best to avert my eyes and resist telling you how full of shit I think you are.

Maybe later.

SergeantX

"It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

SIGNYM

Friday, June 26, 2009 5:47 PM

So in other words, the answer to economic oppression is government, and the answer to government oppression is democracy (or, failing that, revolution).
ETA

Quote:
So tell us all about "economic coercion

And you wonder why pro-capitalist libertarianism doesn't get more traction??? You are so far out of the loop of everyday experience that most peeps react to your screed like you just grew a horn in the middle of your forhead. And no wonder.

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We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy

Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy

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