Man of Steel - Myth and Critique of Joseph Stalin

Episode 7 - The Great Terror and Enemies Within

Myth #1
Myth: The terror was carefully planned by Stalin to crush the nation and to consolidate his totalitarian control. 
Critique: The initiative for the mass operations during the terror actually came from the regional chiefs (the middle level leadership) and were launched following negotiations with Stalin over the numbers to be arrested, executed, etc. Stalin agreed to the mass operations to eliminate anti-Soviet elements, but he wanted to try and keep the violence within his control. This failed, and similar to Mao’s Cultural Revolution, it spiralled completely out of control and went far beyond Stalin’s original intentions. The terror was a response to internal and external threats in the leadup to the largest and deadliest war in human history. 
Synthesis: There was no preordained plan, it was a reaction to internal threats and the rapidly deteriorating international situation. There were many zig zags. The terror can be seen as a series of ad hoc reactions to very real crises. Stalin didn’t want to be looking over his shoulder at internal oppositionists (who were making plans to assassinate Stalin) when fighting Hitler.  
 
Myth #2
Myth: The Moscow Trials were a sham, little more than show trials and all the defendants were innocent. 
Critique: We now know for a fact that many of the defendants were not innocent and there is archival evidence to support this. For example, we know that Trotsky’s allies in particular were guilty of planning terrorist acts against Stalin and received support from the Gestapo, as confirmed by recent scholarship from revisionist liberal historians (not Grover Furr lol) that we will dive into further in the episode.
Synthesis: There were admittedly some exaggerations during the Moscow Trials for propaganda purposes. However, the internal opposition to Stalin’s government was real and there were secretive blocs conspiring to remove Stalin. The essence of the prosecution case as it was presented at the Moscow trials was true. 
 
Myth #3
Myth: Stalin arranged for Kirov to be murdered because he was too popular in the party and a threat to Stalin’s position / he killed him as an excuse to begin the Terror against his enemies within the party
Critique: There is quite literally no evidence, archival or otherwise, that supports this theory. 
Synthesis: Stalin was not behind Kirov’s murder. This is just a fantasy of Cold War-era historians. 
 
Myth #4
Myth: The Old Bolsheviks were the main targets of the great purge
Critique: More recent archival research has shown that they were not the primary victims. Rather, where Bolshevik party members worked on the eve of arrest is a more reliable indicator. Party officials and economic administrators at many levels suffered heavily, as did their political networks or family circles. Among the elite, many victims served on the Central Committee (CC), which experienced a dramatic turnover of members between 1934 and 1939. But their CC status was often a function of their position in the party or state apparatus. The political and economic realities of the 1930s, not Stalin's past, not Leninism, provide better explanations for why Old Bolsheviks, members of the elite, and their networks or clans were arrested.
Synthesis: This is an old, outdated idea debunked by close, serious analysis of the available data. Those at greatest risk for arrest were former oppositionists-Trotskyists, Zinovievites, and others.
 
Myth #5
Myth: The Red Army was decapitated by the purges and was unable to function when the war broke out
Critique: At best, as a former Tsarist officer, Tukhachevsky (Marshal of the Soviet Union & First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense) was politically unreliable. At worst, he was actively involved in plans to overthrow the Soviet government. The strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet military position in the late 1930s were not simply the result of the purges. Aside from the purges, the red army was expanding at an unprecedented rate, this led to much of the disorganisation when the war eventually came. Any argument which suggests that the purges weakened the Red Army (and Navy) rests on a prior assumption that the pre-purge army must have been a more effective instrument. Such an assumption is clearly open to question
Synthesis: The post-purge leadership of the Red Army went on to win what was arguably the greatest military victory in history: the defeat of the Nazis. Stalin’s violent cultivation of a new Red Army top brass was very successful. The pre-purge military elite was fragmented by factional divides and tensions which could have potentially undermined a successful war effort.

Episode 6 - The Great Retreat” and The Build-up to War

This episode discusses with some of the most controversial policies of the Stalin era from the ban on abortions to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. 
Myth #1
Myth: in the 1930s socialism the Soviet Union took a right-wing turn or regressed. Historians accuse Stalin betraying socialism, embracing nationalism and conservatism, etc. 
Critique: The commitment to build socialism remained, but the material reality dictated that the leadership of the soviet union had to make pragmatic concessions in the  long term survival of the socialist project.
Synthesis: all the archival evidence suggests that Stalin and the soviet leaders remained committed to building socialism, but the pressures capitalist encirclement, the rise facism and the increasing prospect of another world war, and internal sabotage were a reality that could not be resolved through idealism. 
 
Myth #2
Myth: Stalin was a misogynist and anti-feminist because he banned abortions
Critique: Women in the Soviet Union under Stalin had the best access in the world to education, employment opportunities, voting rights - and the ‘anti-abortion’ policy itself was meant to progressive, it gave mothers welfare that wasn’t available anywhere in the world (childcare, maternity leave, women keep same pay at work, food supplements, etc.).
Synthesis: abortion remained illegal in the UK and US until the 1970s (the soviets re-legalised abortions in 1955), the reality is that social attitudes at the time were more conservative - even leading feminist thinkers in the Soviet Union like Kollontai saw abortion as a ‘necessary evil’, that would be abolished once socialism was achieved. 
 
Myth #3
Myth/Thesis: Stalin was unnecessarily “paranoid” and threats towards the USSR only existed in his suspicious, untrusting mind.
Critique/anti-thesis: There were numerous threats towards the USSR. Absurd that anyone argues that Stalin was too paranoid as this period literally involves the rise of Hitler and extremely aggressive Japanese militarism, therefore creating the possibility of a two-front war for the USSR. 
Conclusion/synthesis: Stalin was completely justified to be “paranoid” about the threats to the USSR, as Japanese aggression in the 1930s and the Nazi invasion of 1941 (the largest military invasion in human history) demonstrated.
 
Myth #4
Myth/Thesis: Stalin abandoned world revolution
Critique/anti-thesis: By the time of Stalin’s death in 1953, the socialist world had undergone an unprecedented expansion, encompassing roughly one-third of the global population. For example, huge support was provided to the Republic during the Spanish Civil War. 
Conclusion/synthesis: Largely of Trotskyite origin, this myth needs to be laid to rest. Stalin never turned his back on world revolution. It remained a permanent part of his mental map. 
 
Myth #5
Myth/Thesis: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a blunder/huge mistake and a betrayal of communist principles. 
Critique/anti-thesis: It bought the Soviet Union time and allowed the USSR was able to shift its entire western boundary 200-300 kilometres further into the heart of Europe. It was a desperate tactical decision in extraordinarily difficult circumstances to secure the USSR. 
Conclusion/synthesis: It was ultimately a successful tactical choice as it was the foundation of the later Soviet victory.  
 

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.