Stalin is trending

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Re: Stalin is trending

Post by blindpig » Sun Dec 29, 2019 11:56 am

Saint Iosif: Stalin and Religion

…Stalin is unique among world communist leaders in at least one respect: he studied theology for five years at the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary, the training college for priests in the Russian Orthodox Church. He did so during a deeply formative time of his life, from the age of 15 to the verge of his 20th birthday (1894-1899). One of the best students, he was known for his intellect and phenomenal memory.

It may be somewhat acceptable to offer detailed studies of Marxism and theology in relation to Marx and Engels, Western Marxists, or even Lenin. But for many, to develop a study of Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jugashvili (more commonly known as Stalin) and religion crosses an invisible line, largely due to the ‘black legend’ (Losurdo) that has been developed in relation to Stalin by Left and Right alike. In order to test those assumptions, I propose in a forthcoming work to investigate Stalin through an unexpected approach: his intimate relation with religion.

Chapter One: At the Spiritual Seminary

Stalin is unique among world communist leaders in at least one respect: he studied theology for five years at the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary, the training college for priests in the Russian Orthodox Church. He did so during a deeply formative time of his life, from the age of 15 to the verge of his 20th birthday (1894-1899). One of the best students, he was known for his intellect and phenomenal memory. And he was notably devout, attending all worship services and even leading the choir. Yet, despite the importance of this theological study in forming Stalin’s mind and life, few if any take the time to analyse what Stalin studied and how he did so. Thus, this chapter investigates closely Stalin’s studies, especially the theological content of his study with an eye on the themes that would emerge later in his thought. The training was thorough. In the earlier years, he studied both secular and theological subjects, such as Russian literature, secular history, mathematics, church singing and biblical studies. By the later years, the focus was more intensely theological, with ecclesiastical history, liturgy, homiletics, dogma, comparative theology, moral theology, practical pastoral work, didactics, and the two staples: church singing and biblical studies. Years later, Stalin annotated the religious works in his library, and memorised long passages from the Bible. He also refused to include anti-religious works, calling them ‘antireligious waste-paper’. But I am particularly interested in the continuity (rather than the discontinuity) between his theological knowledge and the activism in which he increasingly engaged. Stalin left the college just before the final examinations in 1899, of his own will. But the experience had formed him deeply. In revolutionary circles he was for many years known as ‘The Priest’.

Chapter Two: Affirmative Action: Religions and the Church

In the early years of the Second World War, Stalin made a historic compact with the Russian Orthodox Church. In return for support of the war effort that eventually defeated Hitler, Stalin allowed the reopening of tens of thousands of churches and the re-establishment of the church’s leadership hierarchy. (These developments are far more complex than the common argument that a morally bankrupt government sought to harness the church’s influence to counter the Nazis.) However, one condition applied: the church was to respect the ‘affirmative action’ that already applied to ethnic minorities. Stalin was the architect of the policy of fostering the languages, cultures, education, and self-government of the many ‘nations’ or ethnic groups in the USSR. This policy included religion: the Muslim sharia in the south was permitted, Buddhism in the east was fostered, and anti-Semitism was vigorously opposed, with many Jews in the government apparatus and heavy penalties for anti-Semitism. The old imperialism of the Russian church was to be a thing of past.

It is not for nothing that from this period the religious iconography of Stalin began, fuelled by rumours of a ‘mysterious retreat’ in 1941.

Chapter Three: Writing Like a Poet

This chapter digs deeper into Stalin’s writing, beginning with his habitual pattern of biblical and religious allusions. Above all, I am interested in his poetic style, especially in light of his early publications of widely-appreciated poetry. His later texts reveal subtle variations in the balanced sentences, his rhetorical if not homiletical ability, his evocation of imagery, and the ability to tell a story – most notably in the creation of the ‘political myth’ of the communist party and the victory of the October Revolution.

Chapter Four: Modalities of Dialectics

Multiple modulations of dialectics appear in Stalin’s works. These include the staples of subject-object and form-content, but also an early articulation of what would later be called ‘constitutive resistance’ (Negri). In this case, the resistance of the workers becomes the determining feature of the constantly changing tactics of the capitalists and the bourgeoisie – initially on a national level but later in a world-historical form. The two major developments in dialectics are in terms transcendence and immanence, and in a dialectic of crisis. The former refers to the relations between workers and the communist party, between theory and action, and between the party and the multi-ethnic state. The latter – dialectics of crisis – emerges in a complex pattern, particularly in light of the civil war, sustained international opposition, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The key to this dialectic is that the closer’s one’s gaol becomes, the more ferocious become internal and external opponents. This is at heart a theological dialectics. The more grace is apparent, the more active do the forces of evil become.

Chapter Five: Towards a Materialist Doctrine of Evil

Crisis dialectics then leads to what I call a materialist doctrine of evil. This doctrine, worked out more in practice than theory – profoundly challenges the Enlightenment-inspired assumption of inherent human goodness so characteristic of many socialist movements. It entails a recalibration of the crucial opposition of good and evil, now in terms of socialism and capitalism, of workers and bosses, and of international politics. Above all, the Red Terror is the practical manifestation of this doctrine, in which good and evil are internal, with the one generating more of the other.

Chapter Six: Veneration and Demonisation

No other political leader has been – and continues to be – as venerated and as reviled as Stalin. This is so in Russia, where he is reviled by some but revered by many others (even to the point of religious observances in his native Georgia), and internationally, where he functions either in terms of the reductio ad Hitlerum or as the architect of a stunning victory in WWII and in the construction of socialism. This chapter argues that such polarisation has a religious dynamic as well as a political one, in Cold War and post-Cold War contexts. In order to understand that polarisation, I trace the path from his near universal appreciation at the close of WWII to the growth of a ‘black legend’ after his death (thanks to Khrushchev’s politically motivated ‘secret report’). I also focus on the dynamics of this polarisation by relating it to theological issues, Lenin’s veneration, the crucial role in extra-economic compulsion in the construction of socialism, the relation with Stalin’s dialectics of intensified crisis, and particularly the central role of Stalin in assessing the continued validity of socialism.

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Re: Stalin is trending

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 08, 2020 2:21 pm

International communists on the attack against anti-Stalin lies
Workers will never find courage in their own strength until they have learned to see through the exploiters’ lies about socialism.
Proletarian writers

Wednesday 8 January 2020

Josef Stalin worked tirelessly in the service of the people from the age of 15 until his death. He is hated and his legacy is feared by the imperialists because he led the working class in building a prosperous and peaceful life without exploitation.
The following resolution was passed by a gathering of communist and workers’ parties in Minsk, Belarus on 15 December 2019.

*****

Decisive resistance to anti-Stalinism is an ideological condition for the victory of a modern socialist revolution
We, representatives of the communist and workers’ parties, gathered in the hero city of Minsk for an international conference dedicated to the 140th anniversary of the birth of comrade JV Stalin, entitled ‘Resolute resistance to anti-Stalinism is an ideological condition for victory in the modern socialist revolution’, state the following:

I
Josef Stalin, becoming the head of the party, of the CPSU(b) and the proletarian state after the death of VI Lenin as his faithful disciple, for 29 years led the first country of socialism – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – in accordance with Lenin’s scientific principles.

He was the recognised leader of the Soviet people. Under his leadership in the USSR for the first time in human history real socialism was built as the first stage of communism; Stalin’s constitution was adopted – the constitution of the victorious, in its main, socialism; the Soviet people won a heroic battle over Hitler’s Germany which was supported by the labour of the enslaved countries of Europe, and also over imperialist Japan; in the postwar period the national economy was restored at an unprecedentedly rapid pace and the USSR began the transition to the construction of communism.

Under the leadership of Stalin the main obstacles to successful socialist development were eliminated: the activities of harmful and hostile elements who had embarked on the path of subversion and sabotage against the actions of the Soviet government were exposed and suppressed, as well as of the Trotskyites and right deviators, who were threatening the very existence of the Soviet country; a determined struggle against nationalism was waged; and powerful support for internationalist communist, workers’ and national-liberation movements abroad were carried out, in the struggle against imperialism, for peace and socialism.

As a result of Stalin’s activities, the conditions were created for the formation of the world system of socialism, which called into question the further existence of capitalism on our planet.

Having held fast to these obligations, in opposition to the conditions existing in all previous exploitative societies, JV Stalin led the creation of a socialist society, able to manage its own activities on a scientific basis, and developed Marxist-Leninist science in accordance with the requirements of his time, theoretically outlining to Soviet society the path to the realisation of the transition period to communism, and, above all:

– formulated the basic economic law of socialism and outlined the way to create the material and technical base of communism on the basis of scientific planning and the principles of the ‘Stalinist economy’, including its social orientation – a constant increase in wages as social productivity increases and a lowering of prices as the cost of production decreases;

– showed how society can gradually effect the liquidation of separate classes in the transition to communism, as well as of commodity production and of the market on the basis of rise of collective farms and the gradual replacement of cooperative property by state property (for this purpose at first restoration of machine tractor stations and other state bodies is required);

– determined the way of transition to communist public self-government by developing the dictatorship of the working class as the highest democracy under the leadership of the Communist party, which ensures the suppression of the possibility of the counter-revolutionary degeneration of Soviet society.

JV Stalin opened for mankind the only true way of getting rid of wars, especially important today, when the imperialists’ mastery of weapons of mass destruction makes them capable of sending mankind into oblivion. He wrote: “To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to abolish imperialism.”

Thus, there is every reason to characterise the theory and practice of Stalin as a Stalinist development of Marxism Leninism. This period of development of Marxism Leninism was aimed at the revolutionary victory of the world proletariat, ridding it forever of capitalist exploitation and wars.

II
This explains why imperialism’s struggle against Marxism Leninism took the line of discrediting Stalin’s personality, and of denigrating the practice of building socialism during the period of Stalin’s leadership.

This policy was criminally aided by Nikita Khrushchev, when in 1956 he imposed on the CPSU’s twentieth congress the so-called issue of the “cult of the personality”. Since then, the anti-Stalinists have been fighting the Stalinist theoretical legacy of Marxism Leninism and the Stalinist style of leadership in the construction of socialism in the USSR.

The future of mankind depends on the outcome of this struggle: either men will get rid of the shackles of imperialism by crushing it through the socialist revolution, or they will perish in a nuclear cataclysm, to which the general crisis of the entire imperialist system is inevitably leading.

The decisive factor in the victory over world imperialism, the continuation of the first victorious proletarian revolution – the Great October Revolution – should be the world proletarian organisation of the new Comintern, which would be the heir to the political line of the Leninist-Stalinist Third, Communist, International (1919-43).

Now it is necessary to actively carry out preparatory work in this direction. Such an organisation is designed to combine the national efforts of the communists in the struggle against their own national bourgeoisies with their joint efforts in the struggle against the world financial oligarchy.

III
In the struggle against JV Stalin, the reactionaries slanderously attributed to him immodesty and the creation of a cult of his personality, while keeping silent about the fact that Stalin enjoyed the highest and most deserved respect and authority among the working people. The people remember that the epoch-making successes of the Soviet workers and the world workers’ and national-liberation movement were achieved thanks to the activities and leadership of Stalin.

The theme of so-called ‘mass political repressions’ that were attributed to Stalin was used as a lever to denigrate all his activities. But it would be surprising if the dictatorship of the proletariat, which overthrew the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and landlords, refused to fight against the enemies of Soviet power: against anti-Soviet Trotskyists and Bukharinites, against the traitors to the Soviet Motherland such as Vlasov, Bandera, etc, such as the Basmachis in central Asia and the so-called ‘forest brothers’ (bourgeois nationalists) in the Baltic states, against malicious saboteurs of the political and economic line of development pursued by the Soviet government, etc.

Any state has the right to defend itself, and the Soviet state especially had many enemies. It was a just purification of the Soviet organisations from harmful and hostile elements, without which there would be neither creative nor military victories.

But there were also unjust repressions, which were deliberately cultivated by Trotskyists entrenched in the state machinery, including in law enforcement agencies, and by hidden anti-Soviet careerists for the sake of discrediting the Soviet power and bringing about its fall. Injustice was also allowed to occur by politically illiterate persons and by careerist elements who found themselves in those bodies.

Such actions during the time of Stalin were exposed and suppressed by the state itself, including the rehabilitation of the repressed. The attempt to shift the responsibility for the bloody acts of sabotage to the winner over Trotskyism, JV Stalin, is an insidious tactic of the ideologists of the world financial oligarchy.

The internal and external enemies of the USSR have maliciously distorted the picture of repressions as a whole. It was an remains purposely hidden from the public that JV Stalin supported fair punishment of the enemies of the working people and resolutely suppressed all unfair repressions.

It is also hidden that Stalin played a decisive role in the defeat of Trotskyism, and that this greatly contributed to the suppression of unjust political repression. Hidden also is the fact that on the initiative of Stalin the death penalty was abolished as a form of punishment in the USSR.

His enemies have blamed Stalin for the alleged ‘unpreparedness’ of the USSR to repel Hitler’s aggression, even though the victory of the Soviet people over the Nazi beast clearly highlights the unprecedentedly powerful preparations that were made for repulsing the enemy.

These took the form of the rapid industrialisation of the Soviet state, the collectivisation of agriculture, a cultural revolution, the all-round and comprehensive strengthening of the army, the actual defeat of the ‘fifth column’ – the whole building of a socialist society with its collectivist class homogeneity, moral and political unity, friendship of peoples, labour enthusiasm and social activity of citizens, with the fortress of unity of the vanguard of the working class and its labour allies.

Such concrete measures as the policy of re-equipping the Red Army with modern weapons and the advance deployment of the defence industry in the eastern regions of the country had a positive impact.

The conclusion of the non-aggression treaty with Germany gave the necessary respite for better preparation of the country for defence, allowed the splitting of the Munich front of imperialists directed against the USSR fronted by Germany and Italy, but with England, France and the USA standing behind them.

The reunification of western Belarus with the Belarussian SSR and of western Ukraine with the Ukrainian SSR at the same time allowed the moving of the state borders to the west. The reunification with the USSR of Bessarabia, previously illegally occupied by Romania, and the establishment of new borders with Finland also contributed to the strengthening of the security of the Soviet state.

Stalin’s skillful use of interimperialist contradictions, and his continuation of Lenin’s tactics of compromise must be especially emphasised. As a result of these the ‘democratic’ imperialist states became part of the anti-Hitler coalition and fought in alliance with the USSR against the Hitlerite bloc of states.

The myth of the alleged lack of preparedness of the country under the leadership of JV Stalin for war is cultivated in spite of objective facts, such as the fact that the concentrated power of all of pro-fascist Europe was brought down on the USSR.

Stalin is accused of establishing a system of totalitarianism in the USSR. However, the critics of Stalin frankly ignore the fact that he sought to prevent the bureaucratisation of Soviet society and the associated possibility of its bourgeois rebirth. He sought to intensify the efforts of the workers in the comprehensive communist construction through the development of socialist democracy, criticism and self-criticism

The elimination of antagonistic classes in the USSR made it possible to adopt the socialist constitution of 1936. Stalin laid out in this unprecedented social and political guarantees to workers. The Soviet constitution ensured equal participation in the elections of all citizens of the USSR, gave the right to nominate candidates for deputies from party, trade unions, Komsomol organisations and cooperatives (collective farms, etc).

These measures under the leadership of the Communist party ensured the dictatorship of the working class and guaranteed the protection of Soviet power from internal degeneration and external threats.

IV
After Stalin’s death, it was his opponents who revised the scientific path of the movement towards communism, transforming it into its opposite and sending it into oblivion in all its parts.

This opportunism opened the way for the deformation of socialism, the restoration of bourgeois relations and the revival of nationalism, followed by the explosion of the socialist superstructure and the destruction of the USSR.

The theoretical and practical legacy of Stalin is Marxism Leninism of the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism on a world scale.

Thus the purification of the mass consciousness of workers against the slanders of Stalin is the most important task during the ideological offensive of imperialism; an ideological condition for effective resistance of the counter-revolution in the USSR and in the countries of eastern Europe, and for the victory of the socialist revolution in individual countries and around the world.

Today the name of Stalin rightly stands alongside the classics of Marxism Leninism, the luminaries of thought and practice of the world proletariat: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and VI Lenin.

Glory and eternal gratitude to Comrade Stalin – the great leader of the Soviet people and the entire world proletariat!

Long live Marxism Leninism and its Stalinist legacy!

Long live the victory of communism on a global scale – a society without classes and social exploitation, with a single national ownership of the means of production, universal prosperity, produced by highly-organised and creative collective labour using the latest achievements of science and technology, in harmony with nature!

Communism is the only means of saving humanity from destruction in a nuclear cataclysm and of ensuring its entry into the path of progress and prosperity!

Let us repulse the attacks on Stalin and continue the struggle for the cause of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin!

______________________________

The conference also agreed on the following:
– On the proposal of the delegate from Moldova, it instructed the organising committee to draw up and publish a document against the demolition of Soviet-era monuments in a number of states and the prohibition of communist symbols.

– At the suggestion of the delegate from Bulgaria, it supported the creation of an international front against imperialism and fascism and called for the active holding of events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the victory over European fascism led by Hitler’s Germany.

– At the suggestion of the delegates from Belarus, it supported the international people’s movement ‘Immortal Regiment’ and the widespread annual commemoration of 22 June – the day of the attack in 1941 by Nazi Germany and its satellites on the USSR – as the day of the struggle against imperialism, war and fascism.

– At the suggestion of the delegate from Turkey, it decided to continue the development of the theme of combating anti-Stalinism, including the synthesis of experience in the application of its specific methods.

– On the proposal of the delegate from Ukraine, it agreed to continue the development of Stalin’s plan for the construction of communism and, above all, in its fundamental part – the economic.

– It has discussed the ways to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Lenin, whose faithful successor was Stalin.

Conference Organising Committee
In the hero-city of Minsk, 15 December 2019

https://thecommunists.org/2020/01/08/ne ... ism-media/
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Re: Stalin is trending

Post by blindpig » Sat Jan 11, 2020 3:09 pm

In Italy, Belarusian beat half to death a Ukrainian because of a dispute about Stalin
01:14 11.01.2020 (updated: 13:32 01/11/2020)

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MOSCOW, Jan 11 - RIA News. In Italy, a 59-year-old trucker from Belarus was detained, who during a quarrel seriously injured a 47-year-old colleague from Ukraine. This was reported by the press service of the Milan police .

The incident occurred on January 5 in Sordio, the administrative center of Lodi. According to the publication il Cittadino , the conflict between men arose during the discussion about the politics of their countries and about Joseph Stalin . As a result, the Belarusian attacked a colleague, hitting him on the head with an iron rod.

The Ukrainian was hospitalized in serious condition, Belarusians were charged with attempted murder.

https://ria.ru/20200111/1563277461.html

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Amnesty! Can we start a 'go fund me' for this guy?
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Re: Stalin is trending

Post by blindpig » Wed Feb 05, 2020 9:25 pm

Materials of the international conference "Stalin - 140"
02/02/2020

Speech Videos

In accordance with the work plan of the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee of the RKRP-CPSU, on December 21-22, 2019, an international scientific and practical conference dedicated to the 140th anniversary of the birth of I.V. Stalin. The conference was organized by the Moscow Committee of the RKRP, with the scientific leadership of the Ideological Commissions of the Central Committee of the RKRP and the Central Committee of the CPSU.


The main objective of the conference was determined by a scientific study of the role of I.V. Stalin in the world communist movement, in the development of the theory of Marxism-Leninism and in the practical implementation of this theory, the study of the features and contradictions of the formation of socialism and communism in the USSR, the difficulties faced by the world's first state of proletarian dictatorship, including those mistakes the struggle of the pioneers that were possible on this difficult and unknown path.

Prominent scholars - historians, economists, political scientists and publicists from Russia and other countries, leading party theorists of the RKRP and several other fraternal parties and organizations took part in the conference. The first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Ph.D. Alexandrov S.A. The Secretary of the Central Committee of the RKRP-CPSU, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the ROT FRONT Comrade made reports on pressing topics of the conference program. Tyulkin V.A. , famous historian and authoritative military expert Yulin B.V. , historian, author of several famous books and one of the leading experts on the Stalin era I. Pykhalov , Head of the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee of the RKRP-CPSU Ferberov I.L., Head of the Agitation and Propaganda Commission of the Central Committee of the RKRP-CPSU, candidate of sciences Batov A.S. , Ph.D. (Philos.), Associate Professor, Synergy University Osin R.S. , Chairman of the Marxist Platform (Belgium), Jeff Bossoit , representatives of the Anti-Imperialist Platform (South Korea), a student from China studying Marxism-Leninism, activist of the Revolutionary Komsomol of the RKSM (b) William Zhang , Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, First Secretary of the Belarusian Republican Committee of the CPSU, L. Shkolnikov E. , historian, teacher-researcher Glebov M.S. , Ph.D., scientific adviser, Youth University of Modern Socialism Mikhailov A.I., publicist, deputy chief editor of the newspaper "Labor Russia" Stavitsky AB , First Secretary of the Leningrad Committee of the RKRP Kuzmin D.V.

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The Organizing Committee and the conference participants were also presented the texts of the reports of the correspondence participants: Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Ogorodnikov V.P. , General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Syria Ammar Baghdash , Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece , General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkey Kemal Okuyan , General Secretary of the Party of Communist Revolutionaries of France Moris Kukierman , member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Italy) Guido Ricci , leading specialist of the School of History »REU them. Plekhanova, teacher of the Department of History and Philosophy Ruzanov S.A. , from the Julius Fucik Society - Comrade Joseph Skala(Czech). They asked to accept for publication and in the near future promised to submit their reports also: Harlamenko A.V. , Leading Researcher, Center for Political Studies, Institute of Latin America, RAS , joint report by candidate of economic sciences, editor-in-chief of the journal "Marxism and the Present" Pyatkovskaya and candidate of philosophical sciences Tereshchuk V.V. , report from the Communist Workers Party of Finland.

After each report, the participants of the face-to-face discussion were given the opportunity to ask reporters questions and exchange remarks in a substantive, sometimes very heated discussion, which took place at a high theoretical level. Different points of view were often expressed, but all within the framework of a strictly scientific, Marxist methodology.

Admittedly, the conference was held at a high scientific-critical, truly Marxist level, giving a new impetus to further joint research and educational activities.

On the first day of the conference, on the birthday of I.V. Stalin, the conference participants made a trip to Red Square, to the Lenin Mausoleum and to the grave of I.V. Stalin. I.L. made a short speech at the leader’s grave. Ferberov, after which the participants laid red carnations on Stalin’s grave and made a solemn vow, following Stalin’s example, to devote their lives to the struggle for the liberation of the working class and for the world socialist revolution.

The conference participants approved the draft final document outlining common positions, conclusions and recommendations for the further work of the theorists and practitioners of Marxism-Leninism and instructed the Organizing Committee to publish all materials, including reports of full-time and correspondence participants, and the conference greetings in a special issue of the magazine "Soviet Union ”and place on the official website of the RKRP.

Press Center of the Central Committee of the RKRP-CPSU


Speaker Viktor Tyulkin , Secretary of the Central Committee of the RKRP, 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the ROT FRONT. Theme of the report: “Some thoughts on the options in“ Stalin’s Defense ”.

In his report, Viktor Arkadyevich dwelt on the issue of methods for protecting Stalin, which is important for modern ideological struggle. In particular, he expressed advice to communist propagandists not to make excuses, to show more offensiveness in propaganda, not to fall into conspiracy theories and subjectivity, to consider the Stalin era as a struggle of trends: communist and capitalist. After the report, Tyulkin answered a number of questions and clarified his position.


Speaker is Alexander Batov , a member of the Political Council of the Central Committee of the RKRP. Topic of the report: “The struggle for the image of I.V. Stalin in the public mind. "

In his report, Alexander Batov analyzed three directions of anti-Stalinist propaganda: liberal, sovereign-patriotic and “left” (Trotskyist). After the speech, the speaker answered questions from other participants in the conference.


Speaker Boris Yulin , historian. Theme of the report: "The problem of the sequence of changes in socio-economic formations."

In his report, Boris Vitalyevich expressed a number of discussion points. In particular, he expressed the opinion that there is no consistent change of one formation to another in the real historical process. Yulin's speech caused a great discussion among the audience.


Speaker Ilya Ferberov , head of the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee of the RKRP. Theme of the report: "Stalin as the founder of the political economy of socialism."

In his report, Ilya Lvovich Ferberov revealed Stalin's contribution to the development of the political economy of socialism. After the speech, a discussion ensued, during which some issues were further clarified.


Speaker Roman Osin , Ph.D., member of the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee of the RKRP. Theme of the report: “I.V. Contribution Stalin in the development of Marxist theory. "

In his report, Roman Osin elaborated on Stalin's contribution to the development of Marxism. Particularly detailed were the questions of the Stalinist thesis of the aggravation of the class struggle under socialism and its importance for the successful movement towards socialism and communism, as well as Stalin's contribution to the development of the Marxist theory of the state. After the report, Osin answered several questions clarifying the provisions of the report.


Speaker Igor Pykhalov , historian, publicist. Topic of the report: "The myth of the death penalty for children."

In his report, Igor Pykhalov, relying on extensive factual material, exposed the myth of liberal propaganda about the alleged death penalty for children under Stalin. After the speech, the historian answered the questions of other participants in the conference.

https://www.rotfront.su/materialy-mezhd ... ferentsii/

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Videos of speakers at link.
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Re: Stalin is trending

Post by blindpig » Tue Nov 03, 2020 2:20 pm

J.V. Stalin Archives

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1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s
Collected Works Index

http://solidnet.org/.galleries/document ... ion_A4.pdf

What a fine resource. Here's a great example:
Our Disagreements

First Published/Source: Jan 19, 1921 in Pravda, No. 12
Source: Works, J.V. Stalin, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1953, Volume 5, pp. 4-15
Transcription/HTML Markup: Charles Farrell
Online Version: Stalin Reference Archive (marxists.org) 2000



Our disagreements on the trade-union question are not disagreements in principle about appraisal of the trade unions. The well-known points of our programme on the role of the trade unions, and the resolution of the Ninth Party Congress on the trade unions, which Trotsky often quotes, remain (and will remain) in force. Nobody disputes that the trade unions and the economic organizations ought to and will permeate each other ("coalescence"). Nobody disputes that the present period of the country's economic revival dictates the necessity of gradually transforming the as yet nominal industrial unions into real industrial unions, capable of putting our basic industries on their feet. In short, our disagreements are not disagreements about matters of principle.

Nor do we disagree about the necessity of labor discipline in the trade unions and in the working class generally. The talk about a section of our Party "letting the reins slip out of its hands," and leaving the masses to the play of elemental forces, is foolish. The fact that Party elements play the leading role in the trade unions and that the trade unions play the leading role in the working class remains indisputable.

Still less do we disagree on the question of the quality of the membership of the Central Committees of the trade unions, and of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions. All agree that the membership of these institutions is far from ideal, that the ranks of the trade unions have been depleted by a number of military and other mobilizations, that the trade unions must get back their old officials and also get new ones, that they must be provided with technical resources, and so forth.

No, our disagreements are not in this sphere.

I
Two Methods of Approach to the Mass of the Workers
Our disagreements are about questions of the means by which to strengthen labor discipline in the working class, the methods of approach to the mass of the workers who are being drawn into the work of reviving industry, the ways of transforming the present weak trade unions into powerful, genuinely industrial unions, capable of reviving our industry.

There are two methods: the method of coercion (the military method), and the method of persuasion (the trade-union method). The first method by no means precludes elements of persuasion, but these are subordinate to the requirements of the coercion method and are auxiliary to the latter. The second method, in turn, does not preclude elements of coercion, but these are subordinate to the requirements of the persuasion method and are auxiliary to the latter. It is just as impermissible to confuse these two methods as it is to confuse the army with the working class.

A group of Party workers headed by Trotsky, intoxicated by the successes achieved by military methods in the army, supposes that those methods can, and must, be adopted among the workers, in the trade unions, in order to achieve similar successes in strengthening the unions and in reviving industry. But this group forgets that the army and the working class are two different spheres, that a method that is suitable for the army may prove to be unsuitable, harmful, for the working class and its trade unions.

The army is not a homogeneous mass; it consists of two main social groups, peasants and workers, the former being several times more numerous than the latter. In urging the necessity of employing chiefly methods of coercion in the army, the Eighth Party Congress based itself on the fact that our army consists mainly of peasants, that the peasants will not go to fight for socialism, that they can, and must, be compelled to fight for socialism by employing methods of coercion. This explains the rise of such purely military methods as the system of Commissars and Political Departments, Revolutionary Tribunals, disciplinary measures, appointment and not election to all posts, and so forth.

In contrast to the army, the working class is a homogeneous social sphere; its economic position disposes it towards socialism, it is easily influenced by communist agitation, it voluntarily organizes in trade unions and, as a consequence of all this, constitutes the foundation, the salt of the earth, of the Soviet state. It is not surprising, therefore, that the practical work of our industrial unions has been based chiefly on methods of persuasion. This explains the rise of such purely trade-union methods as explanation, mass propaganda, encouragement of initiative and independent activity among the mass of the workers, election of officials, and so forth.

The mistake Trotsky makes is that he underrates the difference between the army and the working class, he puts the trade unions on a par with the military organizations, and tries, evidently by inertia, to transfer military methods from the army into the trade unions, into the working class. Trotsky writes in one of his documents:

"The bare contrasting of military methods (orders, punishment) with trade-union methods (explanation, propaganda, independent activity) is a manifestation of Kautskian-Menshevik-Socialist-Revolutionary prejudices. . . . The very contrasting of labour organisations with military organisation in a workers' state is shameful surrender to Kautskyism."

That is what Trotsky says.

Disregarding the irrelevant talk about "Kautskyism," "Menshevism," and so forth, it is evident that Trotsky fails to understand the difference between labor organizations and military organizations, that he fails to understand that in the period of the termination of the war and the revival of industry it becomes necessary, inevitable, to contrast military with democratic (trade-union) methods, and that, therefore, to transfer military methods into the trade unions is a mistake, is harmful.

Failure to understand that lies at the bottom of the recently published polemical pamphlets of Trotsky on the trade unions.

Failure to understand that is the source of Trotsky's mistakes.

II
Conscious Democracy and Forced "Democracy"
Some think that talk about democracy in the trade unions is mere declamation, a fashion, called forth by certain phenomena in internal Party life, that, in time, people will get tired of "chatter" about democracy and everything will go on in the "old way."

Others believe that democracy in the trade unions is, essentially, a concession, a forced concession, to the workers' demands, that it is diplomacy rather than real, serious business.

Needless to say, both groups of comrades are profoundly mistaken. Democracy in the trade unions, i.e., what is usually called "normal methods of proletarian democracy in the unions," is the conscious democracy characteristic of mass working-class organizations, which presupposes consciousness of the necessity and utility of systematically employing methods of persuasion among the millions of workers organized in the trade unions. If that consciousness is absent, democracy be comes an empty sound.

While war was raging and danger stood at the gates, the appeals to "aid the front" that were issued by our organizations met with a ready response from the workers, for the mortal danger we were in was only too palpable, for that danger had assumed a very concrete form evident to everyone in the shape of the armies of Kolchak, Yudenich, Denikin, Pilsudski and Wrangel, which were advancing and restoring the power of the landlords and capitalists. It was not difficult to rouse the masses at that time. But today, when the war danger has been overcome and the new, economic danger (economic ruin) is far from being so palpable to the masses, the broad masses cannot be roused merely by appeals. Of course, everybody feels the shortage of bread and textiles; but firstly, people do contrive to obtain both bread and textiles in one way or another and, consequently, the danger of a food and goods famine does not spur the masses to the same extent as the war danger did; secondly, nobody will assert that the masses are as conscious of the reality of the economic danger (shortage of locomotives and of machines for agriculture, for textile mills and iron and steel plants, shortage of equipment for electric power stations, and so forth) as they were of the war danger in the recent past. To rouse the millions of the working class for the struggle against economic ruin it is necessary to heighten their initiative, consciousness and independent activity; it is necessary by means of concrete facts to convince them that economic ruin is just as real and mortal a danger as the war danger was yesterday; it is necessary to draw millions of workers into the work of reviving industry through the medium of trade unions built on democratic lines. Only in this way is it possible to make the entire working class vitally interested in the struggle which the economic organizations are waging against economic ruin. If this is not done, victory on the economic front cannot be achieved.

In short, conscious democracy, the method of proletarian democracy in the unions, is the only correct method for the industrial unions.

Forced "democracy" has nothing in common with this democracy.

Reading Trotsky's pamphlet The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions, one might think that he, in essence, is "also" in favor of the "democratic" method. This has caused some comrades to think that we do not disagree about the methods of work in the trade unions. But that is absolutely wrong, for Trotsky's "democracy" is forced, half-hearted and unprincipled, and, as such, merely supplements the military-bureaucratic method, which is unsuitable for the trade unions.

Judge for yourselves.

At the beginning of November 1920, the Central Committee adopted, and the Communist group at the Fifth All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions carried through, a resolution stating that the "most vigorous and systematic struggle must be waged against the degeneration of centralism and militarized forms of work into bureaucracy, tyranny, officialdom and petty tutelage over the trade unions. . . that also for the Tsektran (the Central Committee of the Transport Workers Union, led by Trotsky) the time for the specific methods of administration for which the Central Political Administration of the Railways was set up, owing to special circumstances, is beginning to pass away," that, in view of this, the Communist group at the conference "advises the Tsektran to strengthen and develop normal methods of proletarian democracy in the union," and instructs the Tsektran "to take an active part in the general work of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions and to be represented in it on an equal footing with other trade-union associations" (see Pravda, No. 255). In spite of that decision, however, during the whole of November, Trotsky and the Tsektran continued to pursue the old, semi-bureaucratic and semi-military line, continued to rely on the Central Political Administration of the Railways and the Central Political Administration of Water Transport, strove to "shake up," to blow up, the A.R.C.C.T.U. and upheld the privileged position of the Tsektran compared with other trade union associations. More than that. In a letter "to the members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee," dated November 30, Trotsky, just as "unexpectedly," stated that "the Central Political Administration of Water Transport . . . cannot possibly be dissolved within the next two or three months." But what happened? Six days after that letter was written (on December 7), the same Trotsky, just as "unexpectedly," voted in the Central Committee for "the immediate abolition of the Central Political Administration of the Railways and the Central Political Administration of Water Transport, and the transfer of all their staffs and funds to the trade-union organization on the basis of normal democracy." And he was one of the eight members of the Central Committee who voted for this against the seven who considered that the abolition of these institutions was no longer enough, and who demanded, in addition, that the existing composition of the Tsektran be changed. To save the existing composition of the Tsektran, Trotsky voted for the abolition of the Central Political Administrations in the Tsektran.

What had changed during those six days? Perhaps the railway and water transport workers had matured so much during those six days that they no longer needed the Central Political Administration of the Railways and the Central Political Administration of Water Transport? Or, perhaps, an important change in the internal or external political situation had taken place in that short period? Of course not. The fact is that the water transport workers were vigorously demanding that the Tsektran should dissolve the Central Political Administrations and that the composition of the Tsektran itself should be changed; and Trotsky's group, fearing defeat and wishing at least to retain the existing composition of the Tsektran, was compelled to retreat, to make partial concessions, which, however, satisfied nobody.

Such are the facts.

It scarcely needs proof that this forced, half-hearted, unprincipled "democracy" has nothing in common with the "normal methods of proletarian democracy in the unions," which the Central Committee of the Party had recommended already at the beginning of November, and which are so essential for the revival of our industrial trade unions.

In his reply to the discussion at the meeting of the Communist group at the Congress of Soviets, Trotsky protested against the introduction of a political element into the controversy about the trade unions, on the ground that politics had nothing to do with the matter. It must be said that in this Trotsky is quite wrong. It scarcely needs proof that in a workers' and peasants' state, not a single important decision affecting the whole country, and especially if it directly concerns the working class, can be carried through without in one way or another affecting the political condition of the country. And, in general, it is ridiculous and shallow to separate politics from economics. For that very reason every such decision must be weighed up in advance also from the political point of view.

Judge for yourselves.

It can be now taken as proved that the methods of the Tsektran, which is led by Trotsky, have been condemned by the practical experience of the Tsektran itself. Trotsky's aim in directing the Tsektran and influencing the other unions through it was to reanimate and revive the unions, to draw the workers into the task of reviving industry. But what has he actually achieved? A conflict with the majority of the Communists in the trade unions, a conflict between the majority of the trade unions and the Tsektran, a virtual split in the Tsektran, the resentment of the rank-and-file workers organised in trade unions against the "Commissars." In other words, far from a revival of the unions taking place, the Tsektran itself is disintegrating. There can be no doubt that if the methods of the Tsektran were introduced in the other unions, we would get the same picture of conflict, splits and disintegration. And the result would be that we would have dissension and a split in the working class.

Can the political party of the working class ignore these facts? Can it be asserted that it makes no difference to the political condition of the country whether we have a working class solidly united in integral trade unions, or whether it is split up into different, mutually hostile groups? Can it be said that the political factor ought not to play any role in appraising the methods of approach to the masses, that politics have nothing to do with the matter?

Obviously not.

The R.S.F.S.R. and its associated republics now have a population of about 140,000,000. Of this population, 80 per cent are peasants. To be able to govern such a country, the Soviet power must enjoy the firm confidence of the working class, for such a country can be directed only through the medium of the working class and with the forces of the working class. But in order to retain and strengthen the confidence of the majority of the workers, it is necessary systematically to develop the consciousness, independent activity and initiative of the working class, systematically to educate it in the spirit of communism by organizing it in trade unions and drawing it into the work of building a communist economy.

Obviously, it is impossible to do this by coercive methods and by "shaking up" the unions from above, for such methods split the working class (the Tsektran!) and engender distrust of the Soviet power. Moreover, it is not difficult to understand that, speaking generally, it is inconceivable that either the consciousness of the masses or their confidence in the Soviet power can be developed by coercive methods.

Obviously, only "normal methods of proletarian democracy in the unions," only methods of persuasion, can make it possible to unite the working class, to stimulate its independent activity and strengthen its confidence in the Soviet power, the confidence that is needed so much now in order to rouse the country for the struggle against economic ruin.

As you see, politics also speak in favor of methods of persuasion.

January 5, 1921

J. Stalin
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Stalin is trending

Post by blindpig » Mon Feb 15, 2021 2:18 pm

On Valentine's Day, the liberal intelligentsia scolded Stalin
02/15/2021
Who hurts
On Sunday, February 14, "Kommersant" published a material with an overview of the positions of representatives of the liberal intelligentsia regarding the debunking of the Stalin personality cult and the current political situation in the country. Poet Igor Guberman, TV presenter and blogger Leonid Mlechin, actor Maxim Sukhanov and other influential persons took part in the poll of the publication.
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The respondents' answers included the words and phrases “totalitarianism” , “mass repression” , “decommunization” and “de-Stalinization” , “bloody executioner” . Figures of culture and science did not hesitate to use value judgments and put a banal meaning in significant historical events, unsubstantiatedly summarizing what they thought and what goals were set by individuals of the era.

“In order to debunk, it was necessary to carry out a process of decommunization in the country, similar to the Nuremberg one. For all authorities, both the current and the previous ones, the power itself is important. They do not seem to be interested in the cult of the bloody executioner, but they do not oppose that it continues to flourish by itself, "said the poet Igor Guberman .

The level of political analysis can also be assessed by the statements of Leonid Mlechin , Director of the Directorate of Historical and Publicistic Programs of the Public Television of Russia TV channel .

“The meaning of Khrushchev's report: all the blame for the crimes lies with Stalin and several of his henchmen. The main thing is to prevent the thought that mass repressions are a product of the system. The people should be confident that the authorities are always right, ”said the cultural figure.

Biological motivated fashionable word "totalitarianism" has summed up the actor Maxim Sukhanov , Stalin's role performer in the film "Children of the Arbat" , "Burnt by the Sun-2" (Editorial party site reminds that Stalin in the last motion picture explains that the main character was repressed, to "timely release "Curses and encourages the character for " letting poison gas on the Tambov peasants " ).

“But since any totalitarian power is close to instincts, it’s easy to fall into it, as in any simple act,” the actor analyzes.

Alexander Tsipko, Chief Researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, shared with Kommersant a shallow analysis of the reasons for the destruction of the Soviet Union, which is unusual for a scientist.

“In fact, Khrushchev rebelled - willingly or unwillingly - against the Marxist-Leninist approach: everything that serves the victory of communism is moral. Khrushchev raised the question of restoring the value of each human life as a whole. But it was precisely from the time of Khrushchev that the humanization of the Soviet system served as a start to its destruction, ”says Tsipko.

Being in excellent company, it would seem that the chairman of the Fair Russia party, Sergei Mironov , a social democrat who calls himself leftist, must restore justice. At the same time, the leader of the organization, which is in the process of uniting with Zakhar Prilepin 's party "For Pravda", spoke in a style worthy of mention alongside the previous speakers.

“Problems in the country were growing, and the orders and titles of the leader became more and more, the praises in his address were louder and louder. Therefore, the people embraced the changes in the mid-1980s with hope, ”Mironov said.
One way or another, if the topic of discussion of the Stalinist era is touched upon even on Valentine's Day, which Russians are used to celebrating with their loved ones and family, then the question of politics of that period is by no means idle. After all, for some reason, despite the many years of efforts of liberal political strategists and media makers, because of the Russian disorder and poverty, the cult of Stalin, according to Guberman, "continues to flourish by itself . "
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About Stalin
05/09/2018

From the editor:in the Great Patriotic War, the heroic Soviet people won. The victory was forged by everyone, the whole country. They forged from the heart, with all dedication, sparing neither their time, nor their health, nor their life. All efforts, of course, were made by the leadership of the USSR, organizing and ensuring this heroic struggle ("victory in spite of" is possible only in the heads of scum and idiots). On Victory Day, it is appropriate to recall the person who was able to organize and lead the resistance of our people to the fascist hordes. The personality of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief is strongly mythologized, even more slanderous. For the mass of TV viewers, his image is replaced by a grotesque villain who throws hordes of unarmed penal battalions at the all-powerful enemy. The author of the article brought to your attention saw Stalin only from afar, but he lived in those years and tries to convey his perception of personalities and events.

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On the day of Stalin's funeral, badly rumpled, returning from the streets full of people saying goodbye to the leader, I could not sleep, comprehending the impressions. I grew up watching love and hate for Stalin.

I finished school in the middle of the century, and wrote an essay about Stalin at my graduation. It was partly a manifestation of practicality - there was a lot of material, but it was also an ideological choice. December 1949 was his 70th birthday, and the newspapers had a lot of congratulations that made it possible to understand the historical merits and comprehend the historical role of Stalin. The scale of his personality that emerged from these assessments impressed me more than everything that sounded in poetry, songs and poured in a stream from the pages and from the loudspeakers. But I, a student at the time of his death, had complaints against him, I did not blame him for the repressions, although there were victims in my family, I blamed him for what he endured - I did not destroy social inequality. Prosperity and trophies - the rear rats that poured into Germany for profit, hit the eyes against the backdrop of post-war poverty, and swindlers from the trade who profited from the disasters of fellow citizens, and indifference to ordinary people of bureaucrats in the administration. The poor experience of my then still short life gave me the opportunity to see the manifestations of this. And everything that my country brought up in me from early childhood rebelled against this. Faced with the measure of grief with which the people saw Stalin off, I correlated it with my claims, and felt guilty - it came together in verses with the following lines:
.... So beloved by all the leader of the Motherland
So familiar, close and dear!
We are so accustomed that our lives
He directs with his hand

So who glorified my Fatherland for centuries, who
led us to military glory!
Biting his lips - cry, humanity,
Stalin died, your genius died.
Then there was a "thaw" with the exposure of the "personality cult" . Sholokhov then said, and it went across the country - "Yes, there was a personality cult ... But there was also a PERSONALITY!" And then from below, contrary to the scribblers and conformists - from below! - the exposure of the whistleblowers went. His portraits appeared on the streets of Moscow on the windshields of trucks, on dump trucks at construction sites in the country. I was happy to be convinced that I was right in assessing the situation, and the "thaw", portrayed as the embodiment of real socialist ideals, is in fact an illiterate attempt to compromise the party, an attempt to implement petty-bourgeois ideas about socialism, and the accusations against Stalin are shameless slander of pygmies and enemies.Especially convincing to me was the marshal who commanded the Victory Parade, remembered for the Battle of Stalingrad, for that first photograph in Pravda , where he interrogated, together with Marshal of Artillery Voronov Paulus - Konstantin Rokossovsky. He, repressed, was the favorite of the people and Stalin. In his "Notes of a Soldier", he refuted the Khrushchev myths, including the myth about Stalin's leadership of operations on the globe. But the flood of malicious insinuations hammered everything, and such revelations had to be found. The arrival of Brezhnev knocked down this wave somewhat, but its trace did not disappear.

But that's not what I mean. The television poll "The Name of Russia" unexpectedly for the organizers showed that slandering Stalin is powerless. The people remember him not as a villain, but as a leader. And honors. But on this attitude they begin to parasitize with might and main, they try to speculate with the aim of gaining political capital, attributing to it their positions, which are trying to reinforce it.

They write about this and will still write about it, but I need to tell about what I know about, although there is not much of it. This is information deposited from everything that I have read, heard and seen.

I saw Stalin live only twice. First time at the May 1941 parade. Carts rolled along the cobblestones, ranks of fighters passed, tanks walked, planes passed in the sky, and it seemed to me that at the same time the Japanese soldier, behind the ropes enclosing the place of foreign diplomats, grimaced painfully. But these were of course the fantasies of the first graders. And to my left on the bulk of the mausoleum were the leaders, and among them was the small figure of Stalin.

As a student in the fifties, I took part in workers' demonstrations on Red Square. Not representatives of the working people, but the working people themselves. And this participation was not perceived as an obligation, because in the columns there was fun, songs, dances, laughter. They lasted a long time, I remember, we even played a guessing game there - who slapped you in the palm. When they went out to the square, everyone tried to see the leaders, and first of all Stalin, he usually stood in the mausoleum for a very long time, but the last columns did not manage to catch him. And I succeeded one more time for these two years before his death. Were the November holidays, weather chilly guys running to warm up a bottle and went out into the area, but still far from the mausoleum in a row, driven by remarks of the organizers: - "Hurry, comrades, do not hold, for you are still many areas", - we ran almost to the middle of the square, and there we only slowed down. Everyone stretched their necks to the right, and stood on tiptoe. There were also those who took their children with them, not being afraid of bad weather and fatigue. They put the baby on their shoulders. When my daughters grew up, I also took them to the demonstration. Of course, they did not find Stalin. And this time I saw him again from afar, but I could not consider it for a long time, as in 1941. Although at that time I was more interested in the Japanese attaché - does he feel how we broke them in Khalkhin Gol ...

My father quite often saw Stalin at meetings on the production of weapons, since he headed the 7th Main Directorate in the People's Commissariat of Arms, the artillery. And in the fall of 1940, he became the chief controller of the newly created People's Commissariat of State Control in general throughout the People's Commissariat of Arms. Stalin himself presided over these meetings, listening to and delving into the problems of specialists and leaders of the military industry, the creators of the Red Army's weapons. During the meeting, he usually did not sit at the end of the table, but got up and walked behind the backs of those who were sitting, sometimes with his pipe, without interrupting the speakers. He evaluated the proposals of the speakers as follows: - "Let's vote who is for this proposal", and was the first to raise his hand, indicating his position. But if anyone thinks that it was an inexorable influence on the opinion of the participants, they will be mistaken. He did not tolerate "approvals" , did not pull back those who objected, and appreciated them. On the issue of evaluating the tests of one of the artillery systems and on launching it into production, he supported the opinion - "abstain . " The system designer, my father's classmate at the Grabin Academy, disagreed with this. Stalin again listened to his objections and yet did not agree. We parted, dissatisfied with each other. But, as Grabin later said, Stalin called him at night and said: “I thought through your arguments again - you’re right. Launch into production "... And it was the most popular gun in the army during the war. Stalin greatly appreciated artillery, appreciated its cadres, who had centuries-old traditions of Russian artillery science, the Academy of Artillery Sciences was created under him, Artillery Day was established with a festive salute on November 19 - on the day of the anniversary of the artillery offensive that began the Great Victory at Stalingrad. So, it was not for nothing that in the "March of the Artillerymen" they sang - "Artillerymen, Stalin gave the order! Artillerymen, the Fatherland is calling us! " Stalin and the Motherland were inseparably perceived.


After the war, the poet Isakovsky wrote the lines: "We believed you so, Comrade Stalin, how, perhaps, we did not believe ourselves!"And these are very accurate words. I remember November 6, 1941. I had just been accepted as a pioneer, although I was only 9 years old, and was even elected chairman of the detachment council. Father was at the front, and there were no letters from him yet. And my brother studied to be a pilot somewhere beyond the Urals, although he had already managed to get out of the encirclement together with the school, but then we did not know yet - and there were no letters from him. We were in the evacuation, in Soligalich - Kostroma region, and in our room 10 wives of front-line soldiers from the Council of Wives, where my mother was an activist (and even a chairman), gathered at the black plate of the loudspeaker next to the stove. Straining their ears, they caught every word that Stalin said at the Mayakovskaya metro station. The next day, the speech was already in the newspaper, of course, but they could not wait, they needed to find out more quickly what the leader would say, because behind his words, like on July 3rd, was the fate of their husbands, their children and themselves. And most importantly - the countries! He was a man of common fate with them, they really were"Brothers and sisters, my friends!"

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Moscow is under construction

Director Eisenstein (the creator of the masterpiece Battleship Potemkin) wrote about this speech that day in his diary, who is now portrayed as a dissident, dissatisfied with Stalin, who suffered from Stalin's censorship - after all, Stalin did not allow his second episode of Ivan the Terrible to be released. (Although I read from Cherkasov, - Ivan the Terrible, that Stalin found time to talk with them, the filmmakers, in detail, and after listening to their thoughts, he allowed them to give them the opportunity to correct the film).

Here is how Eisenstein took that speech on November 6th:
“War is difficult.
Not only in combat.
Not only in the rear.
But in one more area - the most difficult.
This sector is equally vulnerable both at the front and in the rear. This is a section of consciousness. The site, which should be even more inaccessible than the pillbox, even stronger than the fortress, even stronger protected than the fort.
For the enemy approaching him is also the most terrible: the enemy that paralyzes activity. Stops the heartbeat. Confusion, doubt, uncertainty.
To prevent this enemy from reaching the stronghold of our spirit, not allowing him to reach the great popular consciousness.
Unswerving faith in the victory of our just cause is the beacon of that conviction, the surest guarantee of victory that will lead to it. And on this path unforgettable words of Stalin shine. "
And this belief in the wisdom of the country's leader is very characteristic. In the story "Days and Nights" by K. Simonov, which went to war immediately after the victory at Stalingrad, there is such an episode. One of the commanders on the eve of the offensive says that there will soon be a turning point in the battle.
- How do you know that?

- And Stalin on November 7 said that there will be a holiday on our street - (This is 1942) .

- Well, when else, maybe not soon.

- If not soon - he would have said it in the New Year's greetings!
Is this a cult? This is not a cult, this is trust in the one who knows, who has all the threads in his hands, all the information, and who does not deceive - said, then it will be . And the cult, praise, often speculative in order to smear it - this is all extraneous, it was not taken into account, and was rejected by Stalin himself. He was a very sensitive person in this respect. By the way, he had an impeccable artistic taste. His poems in his youth were included in the anthology for schools in Georgia, Gorky valued his opinion, although aesthetes, who probably did not read it, laugh at the assessment of the poem "Girl and Death" . In 1940 in the magazine "Pioneer", which we subscribed to, chapters from the Georgian epic "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" by Shota Rustaveli were printed. It turns out that Stalin could not resist, and participated in the editing of the poem, and even there is his translation of the poems.

And here's another: Stalin believed that M.A. Bulgakov is “not our man”, but he appreciated his talent and his “Days of the Turbins” , for which he worried (he said, “I know, they are enemies. But I worry about them” ). And so Bulgakov wrote the play "Batum" about the youth of the future leader. Of course, the publishers presented such a book to Stalin himself. And Stalin did not allow it to be published, such praises are not needed. He perfectly understood the nature of the cult of personality - who created the cult and why he worked - he perfectly understood, and prevented that, and from his interview it is clear - that it was with Emil Ludwig, that with Feuchtwanger. And to tell the truth, this cult did not really affect the sanity of people.

Yes, after Khrushchev, they made a cult out of him, only the cult is not a personality, but a villain. In fact, we were very good at distinguishing for whom the name of Stalin was a pass to the good, and for whom it was sincere.

But I will also say about hatred towards him. About hatred from the pages, from screens, from headphones, when I listened to the hostile voices of Deutsche Welle, BBC, Voice of America , and even from Tito's Yugoslavia. - I will not spread. I've listened enough to figure out where they lie and where they say it out.

Better yet - also a memory of the war. Near Soligalich in the village of Neronovo at the beginning of August 1941 - they heard the alarm. A house across the river in the village was burning. Having run there, we found a picture: - the house is burning with might and main, the red fire pump does not work, even though there is water in the well. Swing, swing - in vain. They only splash with buckets, and this is also an empty matter, and the iron roof is already collapsing. An old woman under a tree on a chest - nothing else was saved. Scolds his son: "Herod, what have you done!" And he was drunk, tied to a tree, doused with water, next to a police motorcycle with a sidecar. The tied one shouts: “Bitch - Stalin! To die anyway, let everything burn! " I asked my mother - “What, is he against us? Against Stalin? Is he an enemy, a traitor? " Mom chuckled. And there have been no letters from my father for a month.“No, he’s just a cunning coward. He thinks to sit out the war in prison, but nothing will come of it. Go, you fool, to the front, and even to the most dangerous place! "

But I still thought - Mom is too kind. It's still the enemy. When the first news came about the Vlasovites, about the policemen, when I read about them during the war - "Invasion" by Leonov, "Unconquered" by Gorbatov and "Young Guard" by Fadeev , I knew that they were like that "Herod" . And I suppose this is not a first-grader's fantasy, although only a couple of months passed from the May parade to this fire in August.


Boris Pugachev

activist of the Moscow organization of the RCWP

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Stalin is trending

Post by blindpig » Wed Feb 24, 2021 2:10 pm

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The Demonization of Stalin is about Hiding his Great Contributions to Revolutionary Theory
February 21, 2021
By Rainer Shea, February 20, 2021

Why is “Stalinist” used as a pejorative, despite there not even being an actual ideology called “Stalinism?” Because under the worldview that anti-communist propagandists and their ideological lackeys seek to cultivate, studying Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory is associated with being complicit in the myriad of atrocities which Stalin is accused of. The false image of Stalin that these propagandists have manufactured is meant to serve as a representation of Marxism in general.

The dishonest nature of this rhetorical tactic is found in the very framing of the “Stalinist” insult. The implication of this insult is that a cult of personality has always existed around Stalin, one which those who study Marxism have by extension bought into. But this idea comes from the misleading narrative that such a cult existed around Stalin. The “Stalin has a cult of personality” claim was originally cultivated by opportunistic individuals within the Soviet government, who sought to discredit Stalin by portraying him as vain and those who supported him as naive. Stalin criticized and ridiculed the idea that he deserved any sort of cult around him, which makes the accusation that Marxist-Leninists are merely indulging the wishes of an egomaniac, totally absurd.

It’s also dishonest in that it portrays the fictional “Stalinism” ideology as something to associate with indefensible crimes against humanity. The claims that paint Stalin as some sort of genocidal war criminal all originate either from Nazi propagandists, or from anti-communist authors whose assertions have been debunked, or from those opportunistic Soviet leaders I mentioned. The “Stalin starved Ukraine” claim comes from the Third Reich, which got the US media to broadcast their lie. The accounts of the Soviet gulags and the Great Terror that Westerners usually get exposed to come from discredited sources like Robert Conquest and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The claims that Stalin was to blame for the Soviet legal system’s miscarriages of justice come from Nikita Krushchev, who’s been debunked on every single one of his charges against Stalin.

It all comes back to what Che Guevara said: “In the so called mistakes of Stalin lies the difference between a revolutionary attitude and a revisionist attitude. You have to look at Stalin in the historical context in which he moves, you don’t have to look at him as some kind of brute, but in that particular historical context. I have come to communism because of daddy Stalin and nobody must come and tell me that I mustn’t read Stalin.”

What information have the deceivers, demagogues, and manipulators who’ve slandered Stalin been seeking to turn us away from? What kind of knowledge was Che referring to in his statement about how powerful Stalin’s writings were? As I dive into Stalin’s works, I get a sense of how good a job he did of making proletarian revolutionary theory comprehensible, and therefore how dangerous his ideas are to the ideological defenders of capital.

The first Stalin passage I came across that struck me in this way was this one, from Chapter One of his book The Foundations of Leninism:

Imperialism is the omnipotence of the monopolist trusts and syndicates, of the banks and the financial oligarchy, in the industrial countries. In the fight against this omnipotence, the customary methods of the working class—trade unions and cooperatives, parliamentary parties and the parliamentary struggle—have proved to be totally inadequate. Either place yourself at the mercy of capital, eke out a wretched existence as of old and sink lower and lower, or adopt a new weapon—this is the alternative imperialism puts before the vast masses of the proletariat. Imperialism brings the working class to revolution.

This passage starts to give us a sense of why Che was moved to become a communist from reading Stalin. In it, he summarizes the reasons behind why workers and poor people will never have their interests represented under the existing state structure. And he supports this argument not simply by stating that the capitalist state is innately bad, but by explaining how even the supposed options for change that the proletariat is offered won’t be effective for as long as the capitalist state exists. He calls this harsh reality about life under capitalism the “first contradiction” of imperialism, where the development of capitalism towards its imperialist form fortifies the despotic power of the capitalist state and leaves the proletariat with no option other than revolution.

He then explained that imperialism’s second contradiction is the weakening of capital which emerges when the different imperialist powers inevitably fight amongst each other for dominance, and that imperialism’s third contradiction is the vast disparity between oppressor countries and exploited countries which inevitably leads towards revolutions within the exploited countries.

These innate weaknesses in the system we live under, said Stalin, are going to lead to “the acceleration of the advent of the proletarian revolution and to the practical necessity of this revolution.” Here we see Stalin, with the knowledge he had gained from the first world war and the Russian revolution, expanding upon the prediction from Marx that capitalism will one day eat itself. Stalin explained why the events of the early 20th century had totally vindicated the Marxist view of where capitalism was headed. And all the wars, revolutions, and economic crises under capitalism since then have only further proven Marx (and Stalin by extension) right.

Having established why capitalism was doomed to collapse and create the seeds for revolution, in the second chapter of The Foundations of Leninism Stalin explained why these post-collapse conditions would be able to specifically facilitate a proletarian revolution in the vein of the Bolshevik rise to power. He did this by repudiating the nonsense claims from the opportunistic bourgeois reformists, who used a series of dogmatic beliefs to say that the creation of a new workers democracy was unrealistic:

First dogma: concerning the conditions for the seizure of power by the proletariat. The opportunists assert that the proletariat cannot and ought not to take power unless it constitutes a majority in the country. No proofs are brought forward, for there are no proofs, either theoretical or practical, that can bear out this absurd thesis…Second dogma: the proletariat cannot retain power if it lacks an adequate number of trained cultural and administrative cadres capable of organising the administration of the country; these cadres must first be trained under capitalist conditions, and only then can power be taken. Let us assume that this is so, replies Lenin; but why not turn it this way: first take power, create favourable conditions for the development of the proletariat, and then proceed with seven-league strides to raise the cultural level of the labouring masses and train numerous cadres of leaders and administrators from among the workers?

In this section, he explained how relatively easy the task of creating a Marxist-Leninist workers state would actually be. The liberals, who continue to assert in various ways that the current conditions make it impractical for a dictatorship of the proletariat to be newly established in any nation, are proven wrong by these and the other arguments Stalin put forth. And as for the similarly demoralizing false belief that a revolution can only happen after an unlikely set of conditions arise within a given country, in Chapter Three Stalin applies Leninism to expose the truth:

Formerly, the proletarian revolution was regarded exclusively as the result of the internal development of a given country. Now, this point of view is no longer adequate. Now the proletarian revolution must be regarded primarily as the result of the development of the contradictions within the world system of imperialism, as the result of the breaking of the chain of the world imperialist front in one country or another. Where will the revolution begin? Where, in what country, can the front of capital be pierced first? Where industry is more developed, where the proletarian constitutes the majority, where the proletariat constitutes the majority, where there is more culture, where there is more democracy—that was the reply usually given formerly. No, objects the Leninist theory of revolution, not necessarily where industry is more developed, and so forth. The front of capital will be pierced where the chain of imperialism is weakest, for the proletarian revolution is the result of the breaking of the chain of the world imperialist front at its weakest link

And how can the chain of capital become weak in a given country? Through the unavoidable processes of imperialist and capitalist collapse that Stalin explained earlier. Whether the bourgeoisie will it or not, their system is going to result in increasing class tensions due to unacceptable worker conditions, the mutual weakening of the imperialist powers due to their own greed, and rebellions from the colonies that the imperialists have forced into subjugation.

I still have a lot more of Stalin’s works to read, but after absorbing these ideas of his, I’ve already gotten a sense of why his works are seen as so threatening to the guardians of the ruling class hegemony. The realities he exposes about the self-defeating nature of capitalism and the practicality of proletarian revolution are terrifying to the world’s exploiters, because they have the potential to show the masses why it makes logical sense to join the side of Marxism-Leninism. In the face of Stalin’s works, all the bourgeois propagandists can do is throw out slanders and keep repeating “Stalinism” as an epithet, unable to stop people like Che from coming to communism because of Stalin’s contributions to theory.

https://orinocotribune.com/the-demoniza ... ry-theory/

Bolding added.

The first(bolded) paragraph sums up the reason for the demonization of Stalin and to look elsewhere is hardly necessary. Well, the author of this piece is given to enthusiasms. As best as I can tell Stalin did not significantly deepen Marxism. What he did do, in ways just as important, was explain salient points of Marxism-Leninism in a way more accessible to workers than the brilliant but sometimes complicated works of Marx and Lenin. Here is reason alone to render Stalin 'beyond the pall' of any decent person beside the primary purpose of tarring communism generally. I have found Uncle Joe very helpful, if you get stuck at some point see if Stalin had anything to say about it, could help.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Stalin is trending

Post by blindpig » Tue Mar 02, 2021 1:52 pm

"Behind the name of Stalin there is quality" - an interview with the owner of Stalin Doner
03/02/2021
In early January of this year, the police visited a cafe located in one of the districts of Moscow. The outlet was reportedly closed and the seller was asked to leave the workplace. The reason was the name and design of the institution: a cafe called Stalin Doner was decorated with images of Stalin himself, as well as thematic posters, one of which was written "Life has become better, life has become more fun . "
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The owner of Stalin Doner is Stanislav Voltman. Photo: The Village

To date, the owner of the establishment Stanislav Voltman survived arrests, threats, and was fined . The institution itself was subjected to a pogrom by three unknown persons.

The ROT FRONT correspondent got in touch with Stanislav Voltman and asked him about what had happened and further plans.

- Corr .: Stanislav, tell us how the events related to Stalin Doner influenced you, in particular, the pressure from the police and negative citizens.

- Stanislav: I am very pleased with what is happening. After all, we invested zero rubles in an advertising campaign, and got results for hundreds of millions - now they know about Stalin Doner even abroad.


- Corr .: Do you plan to continue your business? What are the prospects for Stalin Doner?

- Stanislav: Yes, now the legal side is being carefully prepared for further actions. The nearest plans are to launch a delivery with the same design. In the future, we plan to reopen a cafe in Moscow, only in a different location. And then - to grow all over Russia, I have many franchise proposals. In general, I would call my actions “partisan”.

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Stalin doner

- Corr .: Soviet-style cafes are very popular now. But what exactly prompted you to open an institution dedicated to the Stalinist period, which, as we know, is strongly denigrated by the current government, both at the state level and at the level of culture, modern history?

- Stanislav: To be honest, I'm out of politics, I just wanted to make my own product that would be associated with good quality. And quality really stands behind Stalin's name!

***
Events related to a small Moscow cafe have added a "fly in the ointment" to the mantras of Russian liberals. For nearly thirty years we have been told about the freedom donated by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The freedom to throw mud at the Soviet, in particular, the Stalinist period of history: to shoot another cranberry about the "Stalinist repressions", to build giant centers dedicated to the person who is guilty of the shooting of people in the White House in 1993, to erect monuments to outright fascists against whom the Soviet people fought ... But if you open a cafe, the design of which is associated with the theme of the Stalinist period, then the police will come ...
Attention is drawn to the behavior of citizens who represent the Stalinist period of our country exclusively as a time of continuous executions and denunciations (not without the help of liberal propaganda). It was they who, in order to stop the activities of the entrepreneur, applied with denunciations complaints where to to the police.

https://www.rotfront.su/za-imenem-stali ... kachestvo/

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I am saving a portion of my SS check in order to open a Stalin Diner franchise here in SC.
It will be heavily insured.
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Re: Stalin is trending

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 16, 2021 1:21 pm

STALIN AND THE RED ARMY IN THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR
Posted by MLToday | Jun 15, 2021 | Other Featured Posts | 0

Stalin and the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War

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BY AMR ABOZEID
June 1, 2021

At the outset of the German invasion of the Soviet Union Britain’s chief of the Imperial General Staff declared that the Wehrmacht would cut through the Soviet forces “like a warm knife through butter.”[1] The prevailing opinion in Washington also held that the Nazis would “crush Russia [sic] like an egg.”[2] Against all odds and expectations the Red Army not only survived the German onslaught but blazed its way through to Berlin by May 1945. The Red Army’s victory over the German invaders was “the greatest feat of arms the world had ever seen.”[3] The war demonstrated the extraordinary resilience of the Soviet order and ranks as the one of the great victories of toiling humanity. Walter S. Dunn has observed that, “the achievements of the Red Army” in the Great Patriotic War, “surpass those of any other army in history.”[4] Soviet leaders even claimed that in the early months of the German invasion the Soviet Union “experienced the equivalent of a nuclear first strike yet survived.”[5] According to Glantz this claim “while overstated a bit … is not far from the truth.”[6] The aim of this paper is to outline how Stalin and the Soviet leadership led the Red Army to victory over the fascist invaders in 1941. It also offers a brief assessment of Stalin as head of the armed forces and his role in the Soviet victory.

The Nazi-Soviet Pact

Western commentators often describe the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact as an alliance but this is profoundly mistaken. Hitler’s ideology centered on the destruction of the Soviet Union and the creation of lebensraum in the east for German settlers. The Nazi-Soviet pact of August 1939 was a temporary expedient for the Nazi leadership which had originally hoped to expand eastwards but was stymied by the British and French declaration of war in support of Poland in September 1939.[7] In a letter to Mussolini in the early months of 1940 Hitler declared that “only a bitter compulsion” had led to the signing of the non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. “The pact with Russia, Hitler reminded the Duce, was merely a tactical and economic necessity until he had safeguarded his rear in the west.”[8] Fritz argues correctly that “achieving space for the German nation and the final confrontation with Bolshevism” were “the two great tasks” Hitler set himself.[9] On 11 August 1939 Hitler informed a League of Nations official, Carl J. Burckhardt, that “everything he undertook was directed against Russia. If the West is too stupid and too blind to comprehend this, he would be forced to reach an understanding with the Russians, turn and defeat the West, and then turn back with all his strength to strike a blow against the Soviet Union.”[10]

The Soviet leadership signed the non-aggression pact with Germany because it feared the Western powers were trying to push Hitler in to a war with the Soviet Union while standing back from the fight themselves.[11] Stalin had seriously attempted to negotiate a triple alliance with Britain and France in the months leading up to August 1939 in order to deter Hitler but received a lukewarm response from the British and French regimes.[12] A similar Soviet proposal for an alliance with Britain and France was put forward during the Sudeten crisis in 1938 and had also been dismissed.[13] Churchill understood that: “the Soviet offer was in effect ignored. They were not brought in to the scale against Hitler and were treated with an indifference – not to say disdain – which left a mark on Stalin’s mind. Events took their course as if Soviet Russia did not exist. For this we afterwards paid dearly.”[14] According to Dmitri Volkogonov, no Stalin admirer, Stalin had been prepared to go to war with Hitler during the Sudeten crisis.[15] On 20 September 1938 the Soviet government informed Czechoslovakia that the Soviet Union was willing to fight in its defense and a partial mobilization of Soviet military forces took place. Seventy divisions were readied for war by the USSR but the Munich agreement was signed on 30 September 1938 and the Soviet Union was ignored.[16] Christopher Read notes that by the summer of 1939 Stalin’s “preferred option of an agreement with Britain and France seemed as far off as ever … Without such an agreement the USSR was in danger of facing Hitler alone, an outcome Stalin was not yet prepared to entertain.”[17] To reiterate British and French reluctance to commit to an alliance with the USSR against Hitler pushed Stalin in to signing the non-aggression pact.

Warnings of War and Stalin’s Response

Many believe that Stalin’s stubborn blindness to reality led to the disaster that befell the Red Army in the months following the German invasion in June 1941. The truth is more complicated. Although Stalin was definitely “guilty of wishful thinking, of hoping to delay war for at least another year in order to complete the reorganization of his armed forces” there were plenty of reasons for Stalin to doubt reports of an imminent German invasion.[18] Stalin worried that Britain would try to embroil the Soviet Union in a premature fight with Germany by providing misleading information.[19] The Soviets also did not mobilize the entirety of their armed forces nor concentrate them in the border areas for fear of provoking Hitler.[20] According to David Glantz: “Stalin was not … the first European leader to misunderstand Hitler, to believe him to be ‘too rational’ to provoke a new conflict in the east before he had defeated Britain in the west. Certainly, Hitler’s own logic for the attack, that he had to knock the Soviet Union out of the war to eliminate Britain’s last hope of assistance, was incredibly convoluted.”[21]

The Germans mounted an “extensive disinformation campaign” to justify their massive military build-up along the Soviet border.[22] The German High Command (OKW) secretly informed the Soviet leadership that the concentration of forces in the east were there to deceive British intelligence and that the German forces needed to practice for Operation Sea Lion in an area outside the reach of the British air force.[23] Hitler also ordered that German troop concentrations appear to be defensive.[24] In addition the Germans put out rumours that their forces deployed along the Soviet border were there to extract economic concessions from the Soviets. This encouraged the Soviets to believe a German attack would be preceded by an ultimatum or a diplomatic warning.[25] The Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece in April and May 1940 also helped explain the presence of German forces on the Soviet border.[26] It also led to several delays in the invasion of the Soviet Union. Soviet intelligence correctly identified the 15th of May 1941 as the original date for the invasion but when the German attack failed to materialize on that day they were discredited in the eyes of the Soviet leadership. “By late June, so many warnings had proved false that they no longer had a strong impact on Stalin and his advisors.”[27]

Far from doing nothing Stalin responded to the German buildup by mobilizing 800,000 reservists between May and June 1941 and ordering 28 divisions to the Western districts of the USSR in mid-May. According to Dunn the month before the beginning of the invasion witnessed the formation of over 40 Red Army rifle divisions.[28] By the time war broke out in June 1941 the Red Army was composed of around 5.5 million men divided in to more than 300 divisions. 2.7 million were deployed in the western border districts of the Soviet Union. During the evening of 21-22 June these forces were “put on alert and warned to expect a surprise attack by the Germans.”[29] Stalin opted not to implement a full-scale mobilization because he feared that doing so would provoke a German attack which he hoped to delay for at least another year. Stalin and his generals also mistakenly believed that the Germans would initiate the conflict by launching limited probing offensives. The Soviet leadership assumed the decisive battles would be fought a few weeks in to the war and not at the start. They did not expect the Germans to commit their main forces to battle at once which they did to devastating effect.[30] “Paradoxically” says Geoffrey Roberts, “the German surprise attack on 22 June 1941 surprised no one, not even Stalin. The nasty surprise was the nature of the attack – a strategic attack in which the Wehrmacht committed its main forces to battle from day one of the war, slamming through and shattering Red Army defences and penetrating deep in to Russia with strong armoured columns that surrounded the disorganized and immobile Soviet Armies.”[31]

Stalin and his generals also succumbed to German deception efforts regarding the main direction of the German attack. The Germans concentrated their main attack on the Minsk-Smolensk-Moscow axis which was north of the Pripiat marshes but the Soviets expected the enemy’s main efforts to be concentrated on Kiev and Ukraine south of the Pripiat marshes. As a result “the Red Army was off-balance and concentrated in the southwest when the main German mechanized force advanced further north.”[32]

In addition to the strategic surprise achieved by the German forces at the outset of the war the Wehrmacht also benefitted from “institutional surprise.” By June 1941 the Soviet forces “were in transition, changing their organization, leadership, equipment, training, troop dispositions and defensive plans. Had Hitler attacked four years earlier or even one year later, the Soviet Armed Forces would have been more than a match for the Wehrmacht.”[33] According to C. J. Dick when the German invasion occurred the average Soviet mobile corps possessed only 50% of its authorized tank strength. Substantial deficiencies in trucks, artillery and motorcycles also existed. These combined to weaken the Red Army relative to its German foe.[34] Numerous Red Army commanders “were not astonished when the invasion started, though they had not foreseen the weight of the blow. They were surprised in the military sense that their army was in the throes of organizational and doctrinal change and thus unready to fight.”[35]

Glantz believes that the Soviet armed forces were also in serious trouble by June 1941 because of the Tukhachevsky affair which decapitated the Soviet High Command and led to the purge of more than 34,000 officers.[36] Although roughly a third of those purged were eventually reinstated during the war, the elimination of Tukhachevsky and his followers was a serious blow to the combat effectiveness of the Red Army. The timid, cowed, inexperienced and unqualified surviving Red Army officers could not adapt to the fluid tactical and operational situations that emerged during the early months of the war. This contributed greatly to the devastating defeats absorbed by the Red Army during this period.[37] Yet as Roberts observes, “it would be misleading to say that Stalin dominated a High Command consisting of a cohort that had stepped trembling in to the bloodstained shoes of their purged predecessors. When they had gained battle experience and learned from their mistakes Stalin’s wartime commanders performed outstandingly and developed a positive, collaborative relationship with the Soviet dictator in which they displayed initiative, flair, and a good deal of independence.”[38]

War

The German invaders scored spectacular victories against their Soviet opponent in the early months of the war. “By any measure,” says Glantz, the German victories “were unprecedented and astounding.”[39] The Red Army suffered devastating losses of men and equipment and was “all but annihilated” in the summer of 1941.[40] Nevertheless the Germans underestimated their opponent’s ability to mobilize reserves and were painfully surprised by the average Red Army soldier’s tenacity and willingness to fight on in the face of enormous odds.[41] Surrounded Soviet units “fought with a disconcerting fury while inflicting heavy losses on the attacking German infantry.”[42] “From the outset,” says Fritz, “the Germans encountered sharp, fierce fighting that unnerved even veterans of the previous campaigns, accustomed as they were to an enemy who would give up when surrounded, not one who put up a stubborn defense, refusing to surrender while inflicting not inconsiderable casualties.”[43] The ferocious fighting on the Eastern front prompted one German panzer officer to comment that: “War in Africa and the West was sport; in the East it was not.”[44]

It is often claimed that Stalin lost his nerve and became deeply depressed with the outbreak of war.[45] This is highly unlikely given that on 22 June 1941 Stalin approved twenty different orders and decrees. He also repeatedly met with other members of the Soviet leadership. According to Glantz and House Stalin met with 29 people on the 22nd of June 1941.[46] On the 29th of June Stalin ordered party members and government officials to fight to the finish against the invaders, arrest cowards and employ a scorched earth policy in the event of a forced retreat.[47]

Faced with such severe setbacks the Soviet leadership introduced far reaching organizational reforms in the second half of 1941 while accelerating the mobilization of Soviet divisions.

Reforming the Red Army

Stalin and his generals were forced to reorganize and radically reform the Red Army while at the same time adopting desperate stop-gap measures to try and halt the German juggernaut.[48] According to Glantz: “the fact that the Stavka was able to conceive of and execute so extensive a reorganization at a time when the German advance placed them in a state of perpetual crisis management was a tribute to the wisdom of the senior Red Army leadership.”[49] The changes introduced by Stavka included simplifying the formations at every command level by reducing the number of men under the command of its officers. In the early months of the war most Red Army officers lacked experience and were incapable of handling large masses of men.[50] To remedy this problem Stavka created smaller field armies that Red Army officers could more competently control. The size of a rifle division fell from 14,500 men to roughly 11,000 men while the assigned artillery pieces also declined significantly.[51] As the war progressed Red Army commanders gained experience and were increasingly entrusted with larger units.[52] The Red Army lost thousands of tanks during the first six months of war. This encouraged Stavka to abolish mechanized corps and assign all surviving tanks to infantry support roles. The Soviets temporarily abandoned the idea of large mechanized formations.[53] In 1942 however Stavka member Colonel General Iakov Federenko oversaw the resurrection of separate mechanized formations. These were combined arms formations that marked the gradual return to the prewar Soviet concept of the deep operation. Their size and complexity grew as the war progressed.[54] Although mocked by the Germans Stavka also expanded cavalry forces significantly. These served as effective transport units during the winter of 1941-42 when mechanized forces were incapable of action due to the cold weather conditions. They were also deployed in the escalating partisan war behind the German lines.[55] Stavka also initiated changes in Red Army tactics and operational concepts. Its directives were straightforward and seemingly obvious but helped inexperienced officers to understand and more successfully defend against a highly skilled enemy. Red Army officers gradually learned that direct frontal assaults against the most powerful German units were wasteful and ineffective.[56]

In the first six months of the war Soviet officers often made the mistake of not concentrating sufficient forces at important points in the German lines. This was apparent in the Red Army’s counteroffensive at Moscow on December 5, 1941.[57] Stavka issued Directive No. 03 on 10 January 1942 which ordered all front and army commanders to employ shock troops while mounting offensive operations. Attacks at the level of a front would have a width of only 30 kilometers.[58] The December counteroffensive in front of Moscow had been 400 kilometers wide at the front level.[59] Reducing the width of the attack would concentrate superior forces at specific points in the German lines making them more likely to disintegrate.[60] This method combined with Soviet deception efforts known as maskirovka misled the Germans in to thinking they were vastly outnumbered.[61] The same Stavka directive ordered the use of up to eighty guns and mortars per kilometer in artillery offensives prior to attacks on enemy positions. In 1941 Red Army forces on the offensive were supported by, on average, by 7 to 12 guns and mortars per kilometer. This figure increased to 45 – 65 tubes by the summer of 1942.[62] Far greater gun densities became the norm for Soviet forces later in the war but the improvements in artillery use in 1942 were “a key step in the rebirth of Soviet tactical skill.”[63]

To learn from its mistakes and gain a better understanding of all aspects of combat the Red Army leadership ordered all formations to keep track of fuel and ammunition expenditures, operational decisions as well as planning details. These records were studied by a separate department led by Major General P. P. Vechniy. According to Dick, “the Red Army reckoned that using large numbers of scarce, trained, knowledgeable, experienced, often senior officers for military historical research would pay dividends. So it did.”[64] The studies produced covered all areas of combat which improved Soviet military planning and increased the likelihood of success on the battlefield.[65]

The Soviet Mobilization System

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the Soviet military mobilization system in allowing the Soviets to survive Operation Barbarossa.[66] Soviet planners responded to the loss of 3 million men in the summer of 1941 by creating a new Red Army. This Army was also decimated by the Wehrmacht by December 1941. One hundred fifty-four Soviet rifle divisions perished at the hands of the German invaders in the first six months of the conflict. A third Red Army, formed between August and November 1941, halted the German advance on Moscow and a fourth, formed between December 1941 and the fall of 1942, defeated the Germans at Stalingrad.[67]

By June 1941 “the Soviet Union had a pool of 14 million men with at least basic military training. The existence of this pool of trained reservists gave the Red Army a depth and resiliency that was largely invisible to German and other observers.”[68] According to Glantz one of the main factors behind the Wehrmacht’s failure in 1941 was the Red Army’s ability to assemble new forces as quickly as the Germans were destroying existing ones.[69] Five million three hundred thousand reservists were assembled by the end of June 1941. In July 13 new field armies were summoned in to existence.[70] In August, September, October, November and December the numbers were 14, 3, 5, 9 and 2 respectively.[71] Prior to the invasion the Wehrmacht had estimated an enemy force of 300 divisions but by December 1941 the Red Army had fielded more than 600. “This allowed the Red Army to lose more than 4 million soldiers and 200 divisions in battle by 31 December [1941], roughly equivalent to its entire peacetime army, yet still survive to continue the struggle.”[72] A colossal 483 new divisions were assembled by the Soviets during the entire war. The United States only mobilized 90 divisions during the same period.[73] It is also important to note that the Soviets continued to fear a Japanese attack from the east and planned accordingly. Only 7 divisions were sent to the western front from the east and the size of the far eastern forces grew substantially.[74] According to Stahel: “Whatever one may conclude about the Soviet Union’s defeats in 1941, many at the time, including numerous German officers, commented on the remarkable ability of Stalin’s state to take so many losses while at the same time growing the size of the Red Army.”[75] “Soviet reserves,” says Stahel, “allowed for an unprecedented rate of force generation, which German intelligence utterly failed to foresee.”[76] Dunn believes the “herculean” mobilization efforts of the Soviet leadership led to the Wehrmacht’s first defeat in the Second World War during the Battle of Moscow.[77] “Like industrial mobilization,” says Dick, “the mobilization of manpower was a truly remarkable feat.”[78]

Stalin could not only tap in to an enormous pool of potential soldiers he could also count on the good health of the average recruit. The USSR witnessed a significant improvement in the population’s general health during the 1930s.[79] In 1926 3.8% of potential recruits examined had tuberculosis. In 1933 this figure had declined to 0.057%. Those who had heart conditions declined from 78 per 1,000 to 18.6 per 1,000. The number of potential soldiers with “poor physical development” also fell from 25.7 per 1,000 to 4.4 per 1,000 during the same time period.[80]

Contrary to Nazi propaganda the Red Army soldiers mobilized for battle were not fighting against their will for a Soviet system they allegedly hated. While the motivations of Red Army recruits varied considerably by and large they were eager to defend their lands from the German invaders and here lay “the real source of strength for the Soviet state.”[81]

It would also be a mistake to presume that the Red Army simply outlasted the Germans by overwhelming them with numbers. The Red Army also began to gradually outfight its enemy. The new Red Army that emerged from the ashes of the first was heavier in terms of the weapons it deployed and its forces became more operationally and tactically effective than the Wehrmacht. As Dunn has observed the conventional view of the Red Army as an army “composed of masses of poorly armed and poorly led peasants that overwhelmed the Germans does not jibe with details concerning manpower, leadership and the equipment of the Red Army.”[82]

The Soviet War Economy

The strength of the Soviet war economy allowed the Soviets to outproduce Nazi Germany in terms of weapons and equipment which helped secure the Red Army’s victory. The contest for production of arms and equipment between the two sides became increasingly important in the aftermath of the Battle of Moscow. In 1940 the German empire in Europe produced 31.8 million tons of steel while the Soviets produced only 18.3 million tons in the same year. Nevertheless the USSR was able to produce greater amounts of weaponry than the Germans throughout the war.[83] Soviet planners concentrated production on a limited number of basic, defensive weapons and did not waste resources on less important arms such as battleships and long range bombers. These were not essential to the Soviet war effort.[84] The Soviets also adopted the American idea of planned obsolescence in production which meant that even though the life span of the tank or weapon was shortened it took less time to produce and the number of rejected machined parts was kept at a minimum. In the long run the equipment would break down but this was several times greater than the expected lifespan of the weapon on the Eastern front.[85] Overall mass-production, cost-effective design and planned obsolescence secured the Soviet victory in the battle for production.[86] “The Soviet Union,” says Dunn, “with an economy severely disrupted by occupation of its most productive land, analogous to occupation of the United States east of the Mississippi, was able to outproduce Germany. This productive capacity was a major cause of Germany’s defeat.”[87]

The weapons produced in Soviet factories were in many respects superior to their German counterparts. The Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks were rare at the start of the war but as the conflict progressed they became more common on the battlefield. “Tank for tank the Germans were simply outclassed” says Stahel.[88] Only the German 88mm Flak gun was a match for the Soviet T-34s and KV-1s but it could only be used in a defensive posture.[89] “Soviet artillery was another bane of the Ostheer.”[90] During the opening months of the war the Soviets were unable to adequately range and coordinate their artillery fire but as Red Army commanders gained experience they began to subject the Germans to “harrowing bombardments” that were increasingly effective.[91]

Soviet industrialization in the 1930s allowed the Soviet leadership to supply its forces with the massive amounts of weaponry and equipment needed to defeat the invaders. Among the many strategic investments made in the Soviet interior was the Ural-Kuznetsk combine which was begun in 1930 and connected the coking coal of Kuzbas in Central Siberia with the iron ore of the Urals. This metallurgical base maintained a steady supply of equipment that allowed the Soviets to survive the calamities of the war’s early period.[92] Thanks to the industrialization efforts of Stalin and his colleagues in the 1930s on the eve of war the Soviet Union “possessed not only the largest military industrial complex in the world but also one with a trained cadre of administrators already experienced in managing a war economy.”[93] According to Fritz the industrialization of the Soviet Union “was decisive in 1941, as the Soviets absorbed extraordinary losses but kept fighting. The Germans did, indeed, kick in the front door but contrary to Hitler’s expectations, the structure wobbled but did not collapse.”[94] The Red Army used its own weapons and equipment to stop the Germans in December 1941 before British and American lend-lease began to flow in significant quantities in 1942.[95]

The head of the German War Economy Office, General of Infantry Georg Thomas submitted a study on the 2nd of October 1941 about the Soviet war economy. In it he predicted that the Soviet war effort would only breakdown with the conquest of the industrial regions of the Urals.[96] The Ostheer never came close to capturing those areas and the Soviet war economy eventually overtook its German counterpart despite the dislocations caused by the German advance. Hitler’s mistaken optimism about the war’s outcome led him to release War Directive 32a of 14 July 1941 which ordered the redirection of industry towards the Luftwaffe and the Navy and away from the needs of the Ostheer. This reduced the supply of weaponry and equipment available to the German forces in the east.[97]

Unlike their German counterparts the Soviet leadership recognized from the very beginning of the conflict that the war would be an expensive and drawn out affair and planned accordingly. “As a result,” by October 1941, “while Hitler continued to drastically underestimate the economic implications of fighting the war in the east, the Soviet Union was already three months into its ‘total war’ mobilisation, producing armaments in quantity.”[98] In October 1941 the USSR produced around 500 new tanks while Nazi Germany only produced 387.[99] By March 1942 the Soviets were producing 1,000 new tanks a month while German production in that month declined to only 336 tanks.[100]

The Evacuation of Soviet Industry

Soviet survival also depended on the leadership’s timely evacuation of heavy industry to the east and out of German hands. This effort was overseen by Nikolai Voznesensky who was head of the industrial planning organization GOSPLAN.[101] Most Soviet pre-war industrial production was located in the Western regions of the USSR especially in the eastern Ukraine and Leningrad areas. 1,523 factories were evacuated out of harm’s way between July and November 1941. They were transported to Siberia, Central Asia and the Volga. This task was accomplished despite intermittent German air raids on the factories and railways. Millions of workers were also relocated in what one authority has recognized as “an incredible accomplishment of endurance and organization.”[102] The Soviet government also sabotaged and destroyed what could not be evacuated so it could not be of use to the German invaders. In addition to saving Soviet industrial production necessary for sustaining the war effort the successful dismantling of Soviet industry in the West deprived German economic planners of important economic resources.[103]

Smolensk July 1941

In July 1941 ferocious resistance by Red Army forces in the area around the city of Smolensk which was located along the road from Minsk to Moscow blunted the German offensive on that axis. Stalin committed sizable forces led by Timoshenko and Zhukov. This forced Hitler and the German High Command to make fateful changes to their campaign strategy. The Germans ceased their attacks along the Smolensk axis for two months and instead focused their energies on Leningrad and the Ukraine. “Stalin’s resolve and the resulting attacks,” states Glantz, “in turn increased the pressure on Army Group Center, reinforcing Hitler’s interest in pursuing ‘paths of lesser resistance’ on the army group’s flanks to gain new successes.”[104] The limited successes of the Red Army around Smolensk raised the morale of Soviet troops and bought time for Stavka to organize the defense of Moscow.[105]

At Smolensk the Soviets launched numerous counteroffensives to stop the Germans. This offensive strategy was very costly and resulted in the loss of around half a million dead and missing Soviet troops in two months. Stalin has been rightly criticized for these attacks which were wasteful and callous. Yet as Roberts has argued, “the doctrine of offensive action was not Stalin’s personal creation or responsibility but part of the Red Army’s strategic tradition and military culture.”[106] Stalin of course embraced this offensive spirit and as head of the armed forces was ultimately responsible for the enormous casualties that resulted amongst his men at Smolensk and at Kiev in September 1941. A defensive posture would have been more realistic given the superiority of the Wehrmacht and would probably have saved many lives.[107] In any case the battle of Smolensk inflicted considerable casualties on the German army which failed to break the Soviet will to resist. According to Glantz and House the Soviet counteroffensives around Smolensk between July and September 1941 “halted German Army Group Center in its tracks for the first time in the entire war.”[108] They also “contributed to a palpable sense of crisis in the second half of July” 1941 amongst the OKH (German Army High Command).[109] On the 26th of July 1941 Hitler confided to the Chief of Staff of the Army High Command Franz Halder: “You cannot beat the Russians with operational successes … because they simply do not know when they are defeated.” German propaganda minister Goebbels noted at the end of July 1941 that, “It is clear that we have underestimated Bolshevism.”[110]

Kiev September 1941

The city fell to the Germans on the 19th of September 1941. Stalin overestimated the ability of his forces to halt German attempts to encircle the Kiev salient. He also ignored early warnings from Zhukov and other military advisers to withdraw the forces of the South Western Front and abandon the city. 43 Soviet divisions or 452,750 men along with 3,867 guns and mortars were eliminated by the Germans in the ensuing disaster.[111] According to Fritz the Germans captured 665,000 Soviet troops but Glantz and House believe the true number of prisoners was probably closer to 220,000.[112] In any case “Germany had achieved a colossal operational triumph”.[113] Stalin bore primary responsibility for the debacle.

The Battle of Moscow:

The Soviets benefitted from the “unchecked arrogance” of the German High Command which continued to underestimate its enemy despite the heavy resistance the Ostheer was facing.[114] They also failed to prepare their troops for a campaign beyond the summer of 1941. In the postwar period numerous German generals claimed that the arrival of rainy Rasputitsa (time without roads due to heavy rains) in October 1941 disrupted their otherwise sound plans. However, as Stahel has pointed out, “there was nothing unusual about the onset of the Russian rasputitsa by mid October.”[115] “That it is cold in Russia at this time [around October],” noted a former officer in the OKH, “belongs to the ABC of an eastern campaign.”[116] The German High Command had expected the victorious end of Operation Barbarossa by the end of the summer of 1941. They therefore made few if any preparations for the inclement weather they faced beginning with Operation Typhoon.[117] It was not “General Mud” or “General Winter” that defeated the Germans in 1941.[118] Instead it was the extraordinary resistance of the Red Army which saved the Soviet Union. The idea that poor weather conditions were the only reason Operation Typhoon failed “does not withstand examination.”[119] The Red Army faced the same weather conditions as the Germans and deployed all the troops it could to stop the advance on Moscow.[120] Roberts correctly concludes that, while the weather played a role, “the decisive factor” in stopping the Germans from capturing Moscow, “was Stavka’s manpower reserves.”[121]

The battles of Viazma and Briansk in October 1941 on the road to Moscow were undoubtedly an “unmitigated disaster” for the Red Army.[122] At Viazma the German forces pulled off a classic “Cannae” and set up a giant “mincing machine” that consumed hundreds of thousands of Red Army troops.[123] Over half a million Soviet soldiers were captured in the encirclement battles that followed. The Red Army lost 6,000 guns and mortars as well as 830 tanks.[124] Despite this the heroic Red army soldiers within the Viazma and Briansk encirclements fought fiercely and bought time for their comrades under Zhukov to organize for the defense of Moscow.[125] As Stahel observes, “Battles do not exist in a vacuum and cannot be judged simply on the index of losses for or against … Viaz’ma was an undisputed operational victory [for the Germans], surpassed in scale only by the battle of Kiev in September; however, strategic success depended on Viaz’ma bringing about the collapse of Soviet resistance or, at the very least, the fall of Moscow.”[126] This it failed to do.

Stalin carefully built up the reserves needed for the Moscow counteroffensive in the months leading up to December 5 instead of committing them directly to battle.[127] The cold December weather and snows affected both sides but slowed the Red Army advance against the Germans. As such the German setback at the gates of Moscow cannot be blamed on the weather.[128] Although the casualties suffered by the Red Army in the December 5 1941 Moscow counteroffensive were “biblical” the Wehrmacht was forced to retreat between 100 and 280 kilometers.[129] The offensive marked the end of the German blitzkrieg against the USSR. The Germans were thrown on the defensive and their complete defeat was staved off with great difficulty.[130] It would be appropriate to say that “the tide of World War … turned on 5 December 1941” with the Soviet offensive.[131] Already by mid-October 1941 the Vatican and the Swiss secret services had concluded that the Germans were bound to lose the war given their debacle in the east.[132] According to Pauwels Hitler personally recognized that defeat was inevitable after the Red Army’s December 5 offensive.[133]

Stalin displayed personal courage by remaining in Moscow as the Germans approached the city.[134] His speeches marking the anniversary of the October Revolution in early November galvanized and encouraged the Soviet people to resist the German invaders. They were printed and disseminated across the USSR.[135] According to the BBC’s correspondent in Moscow, Alexander Werth, “whatever bad memories and reservations [Soviet] generals may have had, Stalin had become the indispensable unifying factor in the patrie-en-danger atmosphere of October-November 1941.”[136] Stalin’s bravery was more than matched by his troops who faced the German onslaught “with fanatical levels of determination and their trademark resilience in the face of daunting odds.”[137] American journalist Henry Cassidy who was stationed in Moscow in the second half of 1941 reported that, “the Soviet Union made its own miracles” during those trying times.[138]

Soviet Operational Art and Operation Bagration

Many historians have erroneously attributed the Red Army’s victory solely to its numerical superiority. As noted above Soviet mobilization and numbers played an important role but the Red Army also increasingly outfought the Germans as the war progressed. “Some commentators,” says Dick, “have denigrated Soviet victories as being the product of mere numbers and a preparedness to suffer what would be, to a Western commander, unacceptable losses. This is mistaken on several counts. The Soviets demonstrated superior operational art by so effectively concealing their concentrations that the Germans did not carry out effective counterconcentrations until it was too late; then the Soviets so vigorously conducted exploitation that they negated the effectiveness of the belated response. It was necessary not only to penetrate the German defenses but also to do so very swiftly if the required tempo were to be achieved and the enemy kept off balance. The demands of time – that most precious asset in battle that can so easily work against the attacker – required massive tactical superiorities. Besides, as Lt. Gen. Sir William Slim replied to the suggestion that he was using a pile driver to crack a nut: why not, if you have a pile driver and you are not too concerned about the postoperation appearance of the nut?”[139]

The Red Army applied the principles of Operational Art against its German foe to devastating effect during Operation Bagration which liberated Belorussia from the Germans. Operational Art was a concept introduced by Soviet officer A. A. Svechin during the 1920s and 1930s.[140] It “is the realm of the conception, planning and execution of major operations and campaigns designed, through a succession of steps, to destroy the enemy’s centre of gravity … It determines where, when, and to what purpose tactical units and formations are committed to battle.”[141] Operational Art lies between the levels of tactics and strategy. It involves arranging and synchronizing individual battles so that their effect is greater than the sum of parts.[142] As Svechin put it: “Tactics makes the steps from which operational leaps are assembled, strategy points out the path.”[143] Operational Art was neglected in the United States and Britain for decades after the Second World War but it was applied by the Red Army in 1944.[144]

Instead of pursuing overambitious, difficult to manage, simultaneous strategic offensives that would destroy the enemy at a single stroke the Soviet leadership learnt from past mistakes and chose to pursue the more limited, staggered strategic offensives of the summer of 1944.[145]

Operation Bagration was launched by the Red Army almost on the third anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, 23 June 1944. It aimed at the liberation of Belorussia and the elimination of Germany’s Army Group Center. The outcome was a crushing victory for the Red Army and “a military disaster of epic proportions” for the Wehrmacht.[146] Army Group Center, the most powerful German formation, was decimated and the Red Army advanced more than 300 kilometers.[147] Bagration, in combination with the Lvov-Sandomierz and Lublin-Brest Operations which commenced a few weeks later, destroyed and mauled more than 30 German divisions.[148] According to German general Siegfried von Westphal: “During the summer and autumn of 1944, the German armies suffered the greatest disaster of their history, which even surpassed the catastrophe of Stalingrad.”[149] “This was Stalin’s retribution for Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa,” says Tucker-Jones. “In one fell swoop the Wehrmacht lost a quarter of its strength on the Eastern Front.”[150]

The German High Command expected the Soviet blow to fall south of the Pripyat marshes and concentrated their available reserves there.[151] The Red Army struck Army Group Centre north of the marshes and so faced fewer German troop concentrations. Even though it made up roughly 30% of the Ostheer, Army Group Centre was spread thin and incapable of properly defending its assigned section of the Eastern front. “There was,” says Dick, “precious little tactical depth, as main defense positions were only 5 to 6 km (3 to 4 miles) deep, and there was no depth at all at the operational level.”[152] In addition to insufficient numbers Army Group Centre was hampered by the thriving partisan movement in its rear areas. The partisans passed on “excellent intelligence” to the Red Army before Bagration commenced and carried out effective sabotage missions in the days leading up to the offensive. These disrupted the rail lines leading from Minsk to Orsha and Mogilev to Vitebsk for a number of days which slowed the German response to Operation Bagration.[153] The Germans also made the mistake of concentrating their forces forward in the tactical zone of defense which made them vulnerable to suppression and encirclement by Red Army forces.[154]

The Red Army prepared for Operation Bagration by secretly transferring formations from other fronts and regions. 2,332,000 men, 4,070 tanks and self-propelled assault guns, and 24,400 guns, mortars and rocket launchers were deployed to crush Army Group Center. These numbers meant that Red Army forces outnumbered their German counterparts by 2.5:1 in terms of manpower, 4.3:1 in tanks and self-propelled assault guns and 2.9:1 in artillery. The Soviet air force dominated the skies.[155]

Maskirovka was a crucial part of Soviet preparations for Bagration and made sure that Army Group Centre had no idea of what was going on deep behind the Soviet lines.”[156] It can be defined as a “single, all-embracing concept that includes concealment and camouflage, deception and disinformation, counterreconnaissance and security.”[157] As such it was vital to the Soviet victory. Soviet air superiority furthered the maskirovka efforts by denying the Germans air reconnaissance over Red Army lines except in those sectors where deception was occurring. The Soviet buildup of forces took place by night and openly defensive preparations were made to deceive the Germans. Strict communications discipline was observed. Newly deployed units were camouflaged and concealed well. The Soviets were also aware that the Germans expected the next offensive to come in the south (in southern Poland or the Balkans) and they did what they could to strengthen this expectation. As a result the Germans transferred six divisions and 82% of Army Group Centre’s tanks southward.[158] Overall Soviet maskirovka efforts were extremely successful and the Red Army managed to strategically surprise the German High Command which reacted sluggishly to the opening attacks.[159]

One of the main factors behind the Red Army’s outstanding successes in the summer of 1944 was that Stavka and its representatives involved front commanders in the decision making process. According to Dick: “By 1944, the goals set, the times to achieve them, and the means provided were subject to negotiation.” Front commanders “had real and not nominal influence over decision making.” This was an advantage because these commanders possessed a detailed understanding of the terrain facing them, the capabilities of their own troops and the state of the enemy forces in their sector. Stavka also allowed front commanders to exercise their own judgment and display initiative within the contours of the overall objective.[160] “After all, operational art was a creative process, not a straitjacket requiring the automatic implementation of an inflexible theory and rigid plan.” By 1944 Red Army commanders and general staffs “had profited from long, hard apprenticeships. With experience came realism, an understanding of what was essential and what was of minor importance, the establishment of well-grounded planning norms and an ability to work accurately and to good purpose. The quality of planning had improved immeasurably by mid-1944.”[161] The Soviets also fully grasped the need to follow up the initial attacks with rapid exploitation in order to keep the enemy disoriented and incapable of restoring the integrity of his defense.

Stalin

Under Stalin’s leadership the Red Army “was very much a learning organization.”[162] Both he and his generals learnt a great deal from the early defeats and increasingly understood how to wage war more effectively as the conflict wore on. Stalin listened carefully to his generals and nurtured the talent and creativity of his subordinates.[163] As their competence grew he increasingly began to trust his officers and follow their advice. He also displayed a personal interest in the wellbeing of his commanders and subordinates which cemented their loyalty to him.

According to Glantz and House, throughout the war Stalin “kept his nerve and eventually learned how to orchestrate the instruments of power to defend the Soviet Union; his cold-blooded insistence on near-continuous offensive operations in the face of the Barbarossa invasion and his patience in waiting for the correct moment to launch what turned out to be a decisive counteroffensive at Moscow contributed markedly to the survival of his regime.”[164]

Hitler paid tribute to Stalin’s organizational abilities when speaking to his propaganda minister Goebbels just before the Battle of Stalingrad. “Compared with Churchill,” said Hitler, “Stalin is a gigantic figure. Churchill has nothing to show for his life’s work except a few books and clever speeches in parliament. Stalin on the other hand has without doubt – leaving aside the question of what principle he was serving – reorganized a state of 170 million people and prepared it for a massive armed conflict. If Stalin ever fell in to my hands, I would probably spare him and perhaps exile him to some spa; Churchill and Roosevelt would be hanged.”[165]

We may close with Seaton who reminds us that: “If he is to bear the blame for the first two years of war, he must be allowed the credit for the amazing successes of 1944, the annus mirabilis, when whole German army groups were virtually obliterated with lightning blows in Belorussia, Galicia, Romania, and the Baltic, in battles fought not in the wintry steppes, but in midsummer in central Europe. Some of these victories must be reckoned among the most outstanding in the world’s military history.”[166]

https://mltoday.com/stalin-and-the-red- ... iotic-war/

Extensive end notes at link.(they wouldn't fit in post.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Stalin is trending

Post by blindpig » Thu Aug 05, 2021 1:05 pm

Almost half of the Russians surveyed supported the construction of a monument to Stalin
08/04/2021
The best monument is wrestling

According to a poll conducted by the Levada Center (an organization recognized as a foreign agent), 48% of Russians supported the construction of a monument to Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin for the next anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War. 20% were against. The number of supporters of the erection of monuments to Stalin has almost doubled in ten years.

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There are especially many who support the installation of the monument, among the older age group (over 55) and among young people aged 18 to 24. Also, 60% of those surveyed are in favor of the construction of the Stalin Center.

The change in attitudes towards the figure of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin in society is explained by the processes taking place in the country. And here it should be noted that no one has done more to promote socialism and Soviet leaders than the existing government. Over the past years, the health care system was pogrom: the number of hospitals decreased from 12.6 thousand in 1990 to 5.2 thousand in 2019; number of beds in them - from 2.037 million to 1124. In terms of mortality Russia has still not reached the 1990 index year, in fact, in 2020 the death rate in Russia rose to 14.5 persons per 1,000 population, while in 2021, more in total, will reach 15, as evidenced by the mortality datafor the first five months of 2021. In 2018, the authorities raised the retirement age, and quite possibly not for the last time. For today's youth, this means working to death. Prices are growing by leaps and bounds, and wages in real terms are falling.

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Looking back, workers see the kind of social progress that has taken place since 1917. In 1917, one of the first decrees of the Soviet government introduced an 8-hour working day in Russia, and already in 1918, Lenin signed a decree on compulsory annual paid vacations. In 1928, state pensions were introduced for workers, and the retirement age was set at 60 for men and 55 for women. Mortality fell from 30 ppm in 1913 to 9 ppm in 1953 and to 7.4 ppm in 1960 .

Stalin and top politicians did not build palaces for themselves. But palaces of pioneers, sanatoriums, hospitals were built. What do we see now? Hospitals are closed, palaces of pioneers and pioneer camps are abandoned, but palaces and summer cottages for senior officials, businessmen and top managers are being built.

But Stalin was not alone in building schools and hospitals. All this was done by the working people, who took power into their own hands in 1917. And if there were no class-conscious working people who worked under the leadership of the Communist Party, then there would be no great achievements. Now Stalin is gone. But there are workers who can and must fight for their interests. The working people can ensure new great achievements and improve their position by taking power again into their own hands. And this will become the best monument to Stalin.

https://www.rotfront.su/pochti-polovina ... ssiyan-za/

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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