: Jim Devine Gassler Robert wrote: > Not a blueprint for revolution in the middle of a war. I mean a blueprint for > the system once things have settled. No, not settled perfectly: settled once > the revolution and war are over.<
JD: If a country is not only impoverished but surrounded by hostile powers, how can things settle? if the working class is atomized by civil war and economic disaster, how can things settle in a socialist direction? The war against the Nicaraguan revolution during the 1980s showed that the more successful a leftist revolution is at achieving its goals (and thus the more things settle), the more it will be attacked. After all, the imperial powers that be can't allow a good example to exist or persist. ^^^^^ CB: Yes, I often use the Nicaraguan example as an analogy to try to understand the Soviet situation. Although, much bigger geographically than Nicaragua, Russia was very poor compared to the big power nations of the day. ^^^^^^^^ > I thought Stalin was a lunatic, so why worry about his blueprints? It's quite possible that Uncle Joe was a lunatic, though his psychiatrist's diagnosis has never been published (perhaps because the shrink was sent to Siberia, if not worse). But the question isn't really about Stalin as an individual. It's about the social system that was created in the aftermath of the decline of the 1917 Russian revolution. ^^^^^ CB: Yes, otherwise we engage in "Bigman theory of history" error. As "insane" or evil as Stalin seems have been (but he might have been crazy like a fox) , could he really singlehandedly have derailed the Russian Rev ? Controlled millions of people, who had just carried out a revolution overthrowing the ancient regime of the Czar ? Won the Civil War ? ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ 1. In a situation of chaos and foreign threats (with an _extremely large_ country to rule), a "strong man" is most likely to rise to the top. People want a strong leader who maintains law and order -- especially if he promises national economic development for a poor and dominated country. This is even more true of the budding bureaucrats and apparatchiks who benefit the most from an economic development-promoting state and (think that they) don't have to worry about being on the wrong end of law and order. That is, there are a lot of people like Stalin out there in the world and some of them are selected to rise to the top. I'm sure that there were other candidates out there who could have filled the bill. (In the fictionalized film "Reds," it was Zinoviev.) ^^^^^^^^ CB: Not to knock him, but Trotsky didn't seem to be averse to being a strong man, himself. He was sort of a liberal in transformation. Would have been difficult to lead the Red Army without authority. Lenin may have wanted him there to get some training. As Jim says, the objective situtation created the man, the type of leader necessary, not vica versa. So, Trotsky would have been correct to be a strongman, even if more of an artist-type. In the end, I think Stalin had too much experience "in the street" and gangster circles for Trotsky's more literary background. ^^^^^^^^ 2. Someone who lives through a long period of pre-revolutionary illegal activity, who do a lot of the grunt work, who figure out how to win inter-party battles and fights with other parties, etc. is more likely to develop a Stalin-like personality. While Stalin himself likely started out as a tough guy with few scruples, his experience likely destroyed any of the conscience he had and/or pushed him to redefine morality in ways that were totally to his own benefit. (Actually, he may have started with a lot of scruples, since he was a student at a seminary. But it's possible that either the seminary was totally cynical or that he was driven to break with them 100% by its hypocrisy or child abuse or whatever.) That is, in most cases, people like Stalin aren't born as much as made: social conditioning makes Stalin-like people even more so. If they want to rise to the top, they act like the "strong man" that is favored by the situation (see point #1). (The Zinoviev character in "Reds" seems to have started as an intellectual but became a would-be autocrat.) ^^^^^^^^ 3. Even someone like Stalin at his height doesn't have total power and must cultivate allies and handle enemies. Nobody can simply order things to be done: underlings need to be motivated at the same time that the leader has to have good information about whether they followed orders or not. For example, the form of the campaign to "eliminate the kulaks as a class" (which of course eliminated a large number of kulaks as individuals) didn't simply involve getting rid of a road-block to Stalin's ambitions and his version of national economic development. It also involved motivating a bunch of people to help by offering them some sort of loot and power (I'd guess). But then these folks become a potential barrier so new purges were on the horizon and/or such thuggish techniques become the normal way of running things. (In Iraq, for example, the US military discovered that their brutal techniques engendered new enemies (whose relatives had been murdered, jailed without cause, or tortured) so that continued savagery was required, though in a new form (the Surge).) 4. In an extremely insecure situation like that of Russia in the 1920s and 1930s, loyalty to the top leaders became the "coin of the realm" and much more important than expertise, competence, and the like. Different factions competed to prove the strength of their loyalty (and their ideological orthodoxy) while accusing others of disloyalty (and heresy). A lot of people pretend to be as loyal as is humanly possible while secretly plotting against other factions and even against the leader himself. Any bizarre behavior by the leader -- or merely actions that favor some groups over others -- encourages plots against him. So it's possible that Stalin wasn't really paranoid. He really did have secret enemies! His lack of information about who his enemies really were and the need to scare potential enemies encouraged blanket rather than selective purges. This encouraged loyalty to persist as the coin of the realm. ^^^^^^^^ CB: Very cogent post, in my opinion -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
