I know I may be alone on the issue of Trotsky on this list - he was just another intellectual thug the world would been have been better off not knowing of.
Chris, I think you misplace how Russians think about the Soviet Union and Stalin to please your own political interests. I think many on this list do the same.
Recent things I have written concern how nation states confront political challenges - I have never defended communist ideology or practices. Having seen it in practice has made me very skeptical of any project that promotes any such ideas.
Again the issue of context is lost. The Soviet Union and Stalin is thought about in Russia because of the important need to define national identity and a sense of being to assess the present. The Soviet Union and Stalin are not thought of in terms of politics or any particular ideology among the vast majority of Russians. You should know well that most Russians are more worried about inflation and other more mundane problems.
best to you, Peter
--- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> You write:
>
> "Thus, considering your love for Stalin and the
> Soviet
> Union found on his list,"
>
> I think we must have a misunderstanding problem. I
> think Stalin was a horrifically brutal modernizing
> dictator like Peter the Great on speed and
> (hesitantly) that the USSR was an outgrowth of
> Russian
> peasant culture faced with modernity that appealed
> to
> peasant values to justify itself and probably
> appeared
> to some extent "natural" to people with that value
> system. Where does the love for Stalin thing come
> from?
>
>
> Nu, zayats, pogodi!
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
> protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail