I think the estimates for collectization deaths run up to 8 million. I am not sure what exacttly Brad's point is, but the fact is that on the best evidence we now have (1) the toll of imprisonment and death of innocent people during the Stalin Terror was unacceptably high, and (2) was much, much lower than the standard guesstimates made before the archive were opened (20 million dead according to Conquest, 35 million according to Pipes, 50 million according to Solzhenitsyn, and indeed 10-15 million according to Medvedev). That does not make Stalinism OK. jks
^^^^^^^
CB: It seems to me that the purpose of this recurrent thread on Stalin,
Stalinism, mass killings, the Gulag is to contribute toward making a judgment
as to what we or one on the left is "for" today and in the future. Does the
history of socialist systems that have actually existed prove that practice
of Marxist ideology inherently leads to something that is not OK ? That is ,
of course, the bourgeois claim. Or maybe Justin suggests that we need a heavy
dose of liberal ideology combined
> with Marxism to avoid things being not-OK ?
>
> However, Justin, what about the fact that the history of actually existing
> liberal societies has been terribly not OK - genocidal usurpation of the
> Western Hemisphere, and other areas of the earth, African slave trade,
> general colonialism, World Wars, enormous poverty, ecological destruction,
> other stuff , inveterate aggressive warmaking right up to today in
> Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq ? It would seem that the term
> "liberalism" should be as or more disturbing than "Stalinism", given the
> full historical record.
>
> Anyway, what is the purpose of periodically counting the victims in the
> Gulag ? At one time, Doug considered such discussions dated, stale.
> Actually, I think it is good to debate it, because I think the left must be
> able to deal with redbaiting and Soviet-baiting. If we are going to do
> that, shouldn't we, as leftists, be as much into counting the bodies piled
> up by liberalism-capitalism over the last 500 years ? - Not to "justify"
> Stalinist mass murder, but to counter the implication that somehow
> liberalism/capitalism is not murderous ,and with the overall purpose of
> choicing among ideologies. ( as Ian would say "................").
>
> On another issue here, I think there is a slight riddle or puzzle with
> regards to how "Stalin" pulled all this off. Certainly, formulations like
> "Stalin killed and imprisoned x - million" , as if he personally ordered or
> shot or guarded at gunpoint in prison that many people can't be accurate.
> But even more, if most people, especially Party members , were liable to be
> suddenly falsely accused and punished, how could the whole thing function
> without some kind of rebellion ? Was there a core group who were
> completely secure that they wouldn't be turned on, and who therefore
> diligently carried everything out ? Still this core group would have to be
> pretty big to do things on the scale always discussed.
>
> I guess what I'm thinking is that this gap in the plausibility of the
> typical picture makes one wonder whether in fact "Stalinism" was
> significantly some kind of dictatorship from below against the government
> officials and party officials; that the "core group" was not small but the
> great mass of people. Somebody noted how "Stalin" was harder on Party
> members than "workers and peasants". This is a very interesting point. If
> the average Soviet Joe was not a likely candidate for execution or
> imprisonment, but higher-ups were, then I can more readily see the thing
> "working". Was Stalinism more like the French Reign of Terror of "lower (
> sorry Carrol )classes and masses" against "upper classes and minority
> elites" than is often portrayed ? Is this why Stalin was so, literally,
> popular ? And since the literate , upper classes still write history, why
> he gets such a bad rap in the historical "record" ?
Everybody wants "democracy", but if and when the People really have gotten
and
> get Power, it is not clear that their initial rule might not be infinitely
> more angry and harsh and vengeful ( "irrational" even) than we of the
> scribbling class ( and I include myself in that) have in our paternalism
> dared imagined. Perhaps Marx knew this when he formulated the
> "revolutionary _dictatorship_ of the proletariat".
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