>From: "Bryan Atinsky" <bryan at indymedia.org.il>
>For non- or anti-socialists, it is important to cojoin and essentialize
>socialism in genreal to the specific socio-cultural and historical
>trajectory of the Soviet Union. Demonizing Stalin as an individual then
>exposes and demonizes the 'truth' of EVERY POSSIBLE socialism.
>
>For many on the left, on the other hand, the only way to save the idea of
>socialism is to dissasociate itself from what happened in the Soviet Union
>as State Capitalism, Tsarism in Communist clothing, or a mirror of Fascism,
>and the only way to saintify Lenin and the ‘October’ Revolution is to
>demonize Stalin as the individual who drove the revolution off its rails.
>
>
>Bryan
Exactly. It has everything to do with defining one's own political position, and absolutely nothing to do with what actually happened.
I look forward to the day wen we can discuss Stalin with the same objectivity with which, say, we discuss Charlemagne< Nero or Napoleon.
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