Introduction to The Essential Stalin Major Theoretical Writings, 1905-1952 by H. Bruce Franklin

[Michael Pugliese]

Introduction to "The Essential Stalin: Major Theoretical Writings,
1905-1952" by Bruce Franklin (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1972), pp
1-38.   Franklin's books on the POW/MIA myth, Prison Literature, his autobio
published in the mid-70's, and on sci-fi and Star Wars are great, but, what
was he thinking here! Carrol care to enlighten us on BARU?
Michael Pugliese
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=googlet&q=H.+Bruce+Fr
anklin+&btnG=Google+Search
http://www.owu.edu/~jawaldma/stalin1.html
Introduction to The Essential Stalin: Major Theoretical Writings, 1905-52 by
Bruce Franklin (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1972), pp. 1-38.
I used to think of Joseph Stalin as a tyrant and butcher who jailed and
killed millions, betrayed the Russian revolution, sold out liberation
struggles around the world, and ended up a solitary madman, hated and feared
by the people of the Soviet Union and the world. Even today I have trouble
saying the name “Stalin” without feeling a bit sinister.
But, to about a billion people today, Stalin is the opposite of what we in
the capitalist world have been programmed to believe. The people of China,
Vietnam, Korea, and Albania consider Stalin one of the great heroes of
modern history, a man who personally helped win their liberation. This
belief could be dismissed as the product of an equally effective
brainwashing from the other side, except that the workers and peasants of
the Soviet Union, who knew Stalin best, share this view. For almost two
decades the Soviet rulers have systematically attempted to make the Soviet
people accept the capitalist world’s view of Stalin, or at least to forget
him. They expunged him from the history books, wiped out his memorials, and
even removed his body from his tomb. Yet, according to all accounts, the
great majority of the Soviet people still revere the memory of Stalin, and
bit by bit they have forced concessions. First it was granted that Stalin
had been a great military leader and the main anti-fascist strategist of
World War II. Then it was conceded that he had made important contributions
to the material progress of the Soviet people. Now a recent Soviet film
shows Stalin, several years before his death, as a calm, rational, wise
leader.