Man of Steel - Myth and Critique of Joseph Stalin

Bonus - Episode 5b: The Soviet Economy in Context - economic basket case or economic miracle?

In this short bonus episode, Pearse provides an overview of the Soviet Union's economic growth up until 1950, and contrasts it against Western Europe, East Asia and other parts of the world.
Far from being a failure, the Soviet Union had unprecedented levels of GDP growth per capita, far outpacing its nearest comparators in the early 20th century. 
Drawing on Robert C Allen's 'From Farm to Factory' this appendix to Episode 5 puts the Soviet Economic Experiment in a global context. It highlights the contradictory framing of the 'East Asian Economic Miracle', when compared to the equivalent success of the Soviet Union, which is often denigrated as a basket case economy. 
The episode also includes a brief discussion of the collectivisation drive in the early 1930s, the soviet unions agricultural productivity, and the consequences this had for industrialisation. 

Episode 5 - The Great Break: Collectivisation, Industrialisation and the First Five Year plan

Myth #1
Myth/Thesis: Rapid industrialisation was completely unnecessary and ultimately failed. “Socialism doesn’t work”, “Socialism is good in theory but in practice it is bad.” 
Critique/anti-thesis: The Tsar did not lay the groundwork for rapid, capitalist development. The use of state planning drove growth in an economy that would have stagnated if left to its own devices.
Conclusion/synthesis: In the absence of the communist revolution and the Five-Year Plans, Russia would have remained as backward as much of Latin America, or, indeed, South Asia... That fate was avoided by Stalin’s economic institutions. Rapid industrialisation is what enabled the Soviet Union to withstand and defeat the Nazis, raise living standards and support revolutions abroad. 
 
Myth #2
Myth/Thesis: Collectivisation was a failure, it did not improve agricultural productivity 
Critique/anti-thesis: The year after the famine, recorded the highest surplus in history. Peasants slaughtered their livestock in protest initially, but the year after the famine collectivisation reached 90%.
Conclusion/synthesis: Traditional peasant agriculture is unlikely to have achieved even the modest levels of productivity characteristic of Soviet agriculture. Collectivisation did succeed in providing enough grain and foodstuffs to support mass industrialisation, urbanisation and, in stark contrast to peasant-based production in 1914-1917, a massive war effort from 1941-1945. 
 
Myth #3
Myth/Thesis: The famine in Ukraine was a purposeful “terror” famine to crush Ukrainian nationalism. Stalin committed genocide against Ukrainians. 
Critique/anti-thesis: Drought, rain, and infestations destroyed at least 20% of the harvest, and this would have been sufficient on its own to have caused serious food shortages or even famine. Party leaders found the famine highly undesirable. Three times they curtailed grain procurement plans for Ukraine. The government also provided relief and helped peasants produce a larger harvest that ended the famine.
Conclusion/synthesis: Stalin and his fellow leaders did not seek to cause these deaths or annihilate all Ukrainians. Nor were Ukrainians the only ones who suffered in the famine. Members of other nationalities died as well, including Russians, Tatars, and Kazakhs. If we calculate famine deaths as a percentage of the population, Kazakhs suffered proportionally even more than Ukrainians, yeah the famine is not considered a deliberate genocide in Kazakstan.  

Episode 4: Lenin's Death and Succession

In this episode we cover the death of Lenin and the ensuing struggle for succession. In covering the history, we address the following myths:
Myth #1
Myth/Thesis: Stalin used his power as general secretary and control over appointments to build a following in the party apparatus, stacking it with his allies, and they then voted for him to be leader. In other words, it was fixed.
Critique/anti-thesis: The Secretariat never became a source of a personalistic control of the Party apparatus as is commonly assumed. He could not automatically command the support of officials in leading Party and state organs and there is no evidence he could control the slate of the central committee.
Conclusion/synthesis: Stalin appealed to party secretaries on the basis of his policies, engaging in a genuine political contest to win the leadership. He defeated Trotsky politically, not using any power of appointment. Trotsky’s ideas were fundamentally unpopular with wider party membership.  
Myth #2
Myth/Thesis: Trotsky was the rightful heir to Lenin
Critique/anti-thesis: Why? Says who? Trotsky and his followers? The notion of Trotsky as Lenin's natural heir is a myth. He was one of many contenders for the leadership. 
Conclusion/synthesis: Neither Trotsky nor Stalin emerge from Lenin’s Testament with his blessing as a successor. Also who cares? We are communists, not monarchists. Regardless, both Trotsky AND Stalin emerged after Lenin’s death as prime contenders for the leadership.
Myth #3
Myth/Thesis: Lenin hated Stalin and at the time of his death had completely broken with him politically
Critique/anti-thesis: Lenin and Stalin were very close politically, despite some disagreements. Lenin had severe disagreements with Trotsky. When very ill, it was Stalin who Lenin asked to give him a cyanide pill, showing how much he trusted him. 
Conclusion/synthesis: Trotsky exaggerated the extent of his alignment with Lenin and misrepresented the severity of the conflict between Lenin and Stalin during this period to bolster his own historical narrative (which has been uncritically accepted by many historians on both the left and right).
Sources:
Stalin: A New History - Edited by Sarah Davies and James Harris
Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend - Domenico Losurdo
Stalin: Man of Contradiction - Kenneth Neil Cameron
Stalin: From the Caucasus to the Kremlin - Christopher Read 
Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 - Stephen Kotkin 
The Stalinist Era - David L. Hoffman
Practicing stalinism - j arch getty

Episode 3 - Revolution, Civil War and the New Economic Policy

Episode 2 - Comrade Koba, The Young Stalin

In this episode we discuss Stalin's early life, focussing on how his material conditions shaped his world view and his path to radicalisation. We attempt to dispel popular myths that Stalin was a power hungry cynic, seeking only to further his personal interests. Instead, we present evidence that Stalin was from his early years a stalwart anti-imperialist and committed revolutionary marxist. We argue that Stalin's early life as a revolutionary is crucial to understanding his motivations as a political leader and the decisions he took in that position. Understanding Stalin's political impulses is vitally important for present day socialists to learn from past mistakes, as Left movements globally face a rising nationalist tide. Four main texts have been used to inform this episode:
Stalin: Passage to Revolution - Ronald Grigor Suny 
Stalin: From the Caucasus to the Kremlin - Christopher Read 
The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 - Terry Martin
Stalin’s Library: A Dictator and His Books - Geoffrey Roberts

Episode 1 - A (not so) brief history of the history of Stalin

For the first episode, we thought it would be helpful to provide a brief historiography (a history of the history) of Stalin and Stalinism, to show how perceptions of Stalin have changed over time, and contextualise these different perceptions within their respective material conditions.