Communist Party of Ireland still justify Stalin-Hitler pact

by righteous pragmatist Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:26

The Russian T-34 tank based on design by the Americans turned the tide of WW2.
The numbers of King Tigers and Panthers tanks the Germans produced were fuel inefficent, parts quickly deterioted from wear and tear, crews has to be highly skilled and were difficult to replace when killed, wounded or captured.
Meanwhile the Americans helped the Russians by divising a way to produced T-34 tanks( they equaled the Panther tank in armour and firepower) like strings of sausages(their experience of capitalism came in handy). The tanks could literally begin fighting as soon as they left the gates of the factories often crewed by the workers who built them.
Russians used American General Motors trucks to bring their troops and supplies to the front. These vehicles also were superiror to any vehicles that the Germans produced.

With their tanks, modern weapons and motor transport the Russians would still have had to march into battle on foot with bolt action rifles against the German Blitzkrieg.

by Eoin Dubsky Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:43

The article explains very briefly the context of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact, saying "it bought necessary military time". That's how we learnt it in school too. The Soviets used the time gained to relocate loads of factories farther east, and manufacture tonnes of weapons for the ensuing slaughter. It doesn't justify their appeasement, but it might explain it a little, no?

For the most part though the article is about our airbrushing of the Soviet Union's struggle against the Nazis from history. America won WW2 and Europe should be grateful -- is the oft repeated lie. Two friends from Ireland were just over to visit me here in Paris and couldn't get over the metro station called "Stalingrad". Were it not for Stalingrad though the war may have ended quite differently.

Funnily enough, it took for a right-wing government in France this year to admit that the Vichy regime wasn't composed of just a handful of strangers, while the rest of France was busily resisting the foreign occupation. Oh and those Jewish Frenchmen, women and children who ended up on the trains to Auschwitz -- they weren't routed out from their homes and hiding places by the despicable Germans alone.

by Historian Thu Mar 10, 2005 11:42

There were Jewish people removed from the Channel Islands with the help of the 'friendly bobbys'.

by E. Zamiatin Thu Mar 10, 2005 13:13

The phenomona of sanitising totalitarian utopian ideological guilt for the Holocaust, Extermination, Experimentation and Darkness into which the European peoples were plunged by both Nazi-ism and Stalinism is a strange one, and every generation gives it a new and appalingly ignorant twist.

Don't let them.

think about it.

by non stalinist Thu Mar 10, 2005 13:48

The pact did not just buy time it sold out the class interests of european workers for the perceived gain of the soviet union, just as they would after the war when they betrayed the Italian and Greek communists.

The pact led to the CP describing the war as an imperialist war and later when the pact broke down as a popular war against facism.

Of course the Brits turned down an anit fascist alliance, they more than the CP understood the class nature of the Nazi regime.

by Soft Lass Thu Mar 10, 2005 14:02

"Of course the Brits turned down an anit fascist alliance, they more than the CP understood the class nature of the Nazi regime".

The Brits didn't give a proverbial about the class nature of the Nazis. They only got involved to protect their own interests and certainly not to protect the Jewry of Europe.

by historian Thu Mar 10, 2005 14:31

I imagine that Stalin did the workers of Greece and Italy a huge favour by allowing them to fall under the western sphere of influence. By so doing he spared them decades of totalitarian repression which apart from consigning the majority of the population to misery, also cost the lives of tens of thousands of eastern and central European communists purged in the 40s and 50s.

by better historian Thu Mar 10, 2005 14:59

Stalin defended the the Hitler pact right up to the moment Nazi Germany attacked him. He then seemed to go into shock, emerging after a while to responding to British offers of alliance and assistance.

During the period of the "Phoney War", it was generally assumed that Stalin was favourable to German interests, a potential pro-German enemy. Its hard to believe, but a well-instructed Communist knows how to those sort of verbal and mental somersaults.

Another point about Lend Lease, it didn't just provide tanks and trucks, millions of Soviet soldiers marched in US-made boots.

Russia did provide the overwhelmingly greater sacrifice in terms of blood and infrastructure. But do you really think Stalin cared about this? During the war he deported the Cechen population (one belongings case per family) to Central Asia in cattle trucks. Prisoners who fought in the Soviet army were sent back to labour camps after the war. Prisoners TAKEN by the Germans were sent to labour camps after the war. The "Doctors Plot" shows his true feelings towards Jewish people. The 1930s famine in the Ukraine, the millions of arrests, executions, etc...

by non stalinist Thu Mar 10, 2005 20:00

No I am not mad, merely pointing out that the Brits understood that Fascism was an ideology much more atuned to their own interests. The stalinists just never got it, not in Spain in the civil war nor anywhere, appeals to the capitalists to defend democratic values when they are in crisis inevitably lead th workers to getting a hammering as they are led into dangerous alliances with their enemies.

by R. Pipes Thu Mar 10, 2005 22:17

Stalin made use of the time between his pact with Hitler and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union to double the size of the army, which had already been built steadily through the 1930s. He also introduced ant-fascist campaigning in public months before the invasion. With out these actions all the "American" T-34 tanks in the world would not have saved the Allied ass. Strange how Westerners still cannot accept the fact that it was the Red Army that broke the back of Hitler's regime--so they come up with bizarre fairy tales of how one imaginary factor was the thing that made Stalin's army successful. It will be decades before the the West will ever look at the period soberly--and you don't have to be a "Stalinist" to do that. You may label him Satan or merely a ruthless politcian and shrewd military commander, but despite all labels he was not a God who could read the Hitler's mind.

As usual, politcal context is the first casualty of the anti-Stalinist diatribe. A small glimpse of that context is in order--Poland signed its own Non-Agression Pact with Hitler and Britain and France were holding secret talks with Hitler in the summer of 1939 in order to form an anti-Soviet alliance. Who provided guns to the Spanish Republicans?--it was not Britain, France, or Poland. Ireland remainded neutral in WWII for much less cogent reasons than Stalin had for cutting a deal with Hitler at the right time.

by Devil Dog Thu Mar 10, 2005 22:43

Would this be the same Stalin who decimated the Red Army officer corps in the 30's, continued sending supplies to Germany up to June 1941 and who basically had a breakdown when it looked like the USSR was going to lose?

I wonder where else you could find a defence of one of history's greatest mass-murderers?

by barry Fri Mar 11, 2005 03:40

whether he signed a pact with another mass murdering lunatic is largely irrelevant.
This debate is like watching Alien vs Predator and arguing which one is the ugliest, nastiest and most vicious.

by anthony blunt Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:34

Like it or not, the USSR - the soviet working class saved europe from the Nazis and lost over 20 million people in the process. Although if you are to believe hollywood and the yanks the war was won on DDay.

As for the non agression pact, from my limited reading I understand that the soviets made repeated efforts to secure a deal with the Brits and French to no avail. I would argue that they had no choice in the matter as the British/French were willing to let a war proceed on the Eastern Front.

The Soviets as part of the pact are alleged to have handed over German Communists to the Nazis hardly surprising when the mantra was the ends justify the means.

As for the T34 being 'better' than the panther, well it depends - The Panther was more powerful with better armanents and a better gun. The T34 was cheaper and faster produced. The Red army could afford to loose more tanks in battle than the Nazis.
It had sloped armor, something German tanks had not employed up to that point. In addition, it had wide tracks, which gave it better traction in the conditions prevalent in Russia. Next, it was more reliable than the German tanks. The problems in comparison to German tanks were that the Soviet crews were not as well trained as their German adversaries. In addition, the Germans employed a crew of 5, whereas the Soviets usually had only 4. This made a big difference in that the Germans had an extra set of eyes looking for an enemy. And last but probably the most important, the T-34 was mass producable. The huge numbers churned out by the Soviet factories made up for any difference. Tank vs. tank, the Panther (after it's teething problems were resolved) was better. But as a class of tanks, the T-34 was arguably the best tank in WWII.

I would like to see the sources for the assertion that thhe UK?US assisted in the T34? It sounds ridiclous when they decided to put their fate in the Sherman

by righteous pragmatist Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:10

"I would like to see the sources for the assertion that thhe UK?US assisted in the T34? It sounds ridiclous when they decided to put their fate in the Sherman"

Despite its deficiencies the American military machine outclassed the Russians and Germans put together. The Sherman tank could be mass produced in US factories and transported thousands of miles to the European battlefields less expensively and in greater numbers than the Germans could produce Tigers and Panthers and transport them a few hundred miles down the road to France. Statistically four Shermans were put out of action for every German tank however many of these vehicles were salvaged and repaired and fought again. By contrast German tanks that merely ran out of fuel were often abandoned.
The Sherman had a faster turret than the ponderously slow Tiger and had a faster road speed using less fuel than the slow moving German giant.

Post war the Russians used the German invented assault rifle as the model for the AK-47 while the Americans modeled the M60 machine gun on the German MG42.
In Vietnam the Americans used the M14 rifle and found that the semi-automatic rifle although more accurate and had the same killing power it did not offer the same volume of fire as the AK-47. The first model M16 that replaced it used a smaller 5.56mm round and often jammed during firing. This led to many of the 58,000 American casualties in the conflict.
If you want to use a stick to beat American capitalism use that one.

by Gaillimhed Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:25

Josef Stalin famously declared that any russian soldier captured by the Germans had betrayed russia and was to be regarded as a traitor and a spy. Stalin's oldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili (Stalin's original last name was Dzhugashvili), was then captured by the Nazis in 1941. The Nazis offered Stalin a trade: the release of a German general for the return of Yakov, his son. his response was "I have no son". Yakov was shot trying to escape from a concentration camp in 1943.
Talk about an iron fist!
Anyway the point is that he a was a paranoid psychopath with no human feelings, he had most of his extended family interned and murdered over time as he became suspicious of them in turn, and even left his eldest son to die when he could easily have been saved. Hard bastard.
Surely its not hard to believe him striking any sort of machievellian bargains with anyone, Hitler or the Divil Himself.
And its rather disingenuous to speak of the "heroism of the russian working class in defeating Hitler" -thats just plain crap-talking, sure they suffered immensely and tragically, but they sure as hell didnt volunteer to be machine gunned by the Germans. Stalin fed them like straw into the fires of war. His policy (well documented) was to have his troops more afraid of him than the germans, they marched into battle (some without a gun -to be picked up from a fallen comrade) because they had their officers machine guns trained on their backs, "Go forward and be killed by the germans or be killed by us".
Monstrous.
It is true in my opinion that the russian sacrifice was what contributed most to the downfall of Hitler, (The massive majority of germans killed were on the eastern front), but it was by no means a voluntary or heroic sacrifice.
In fact it could be said that it was Stalins madnes that won the war, A madness that matched Hitlers, that allowed him to so callously sacrifice 20,000,000 russian lives. And Im sure that if Hitler had left all well alone and not invaded Russia, Stalin would have let him at it.

by better historian Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:30

Stalin a "shrewd military commander"?

Laughable! Your obviously thinking of the propaganda film he had made after the war showing him planning every detail of the defeat of Germany. Completely air-brushing Zhukov and others out of the picture. And the earlier commentator points out how Stalin's purges and bad planning had made the Soviet army unfit for war.

The fact that the Soviets lost so many people during the war just adds to the tragedy of the Stalinist experience. As long as he was around the truth was they couldnt look forward to a better future.

Incredible there are still young Irish Stalinists out there...

by anthony blunt Fri Mar 11, 2005 12:28

I asked

"I would like to see the sources for the assertion that thhe UK?US assisted in the T34? It sounds ridiclous when they decided to put their fate in the Sherman"

righteous pragmatist answers
"Despite its deficiencies the American military machine outclassed the Russians and Germans put together"

What has that got to do with my question?
I repeat that it seems highly unlikely that the UK/US were involved in the design of the T34 when the M4 Sherman was the best that they could come up with for themselves

During the Normandy Invasion in June 1944, the M4 was outclassed by superior tanks such as the Pz. V Panther and the Pz. VI Tiger. The American concentration on mass production tended to stymie innovations in technology, and American doctrinal thinking was stuck in the pre-war period, when the tank was seen as primarily an infantry support weapon. As a result, the M4 was not up-gunned until late in the war, and American, British, and Canadian tank crews consistently faced better German tanks. The M4 had a faster rate of fire and greater speed, but both the Panther and Tiger had significantly greater range and accuracy. The German tanks were also more survivable.

The T34's technology was developed from purchased American prototypes, developed by Walter Christie. Thats different than stating that the UK/US were involved in its design.

by righteous pragmatist Fri Mar 11, 2005 15:24

The U.S. Abrams main battle tank pulverised Soviet built T-55, T-63 and T-72 tanks in the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq.
Nothing can beat its 120mm gun and its thick sloping armour.
HOT DOG!

by Ali H. Fri Mar 11, 2005 15:40

The only element of the T34 design based on American technology was the suspension which was designed by J. Walter Christie who sold the technology to the Soviet Union after the American military declined to buy them.

The other features of the tank such as thick armour, sloping design, wide tracks etc. and the overall design of the tank were put together in 1937 the Kharkov Tank Factory.

The T-34 was accepted by the Red Army in December 1939 and by Operation Barbarossa 1,225 had been built. During the Second World War the Kharkov Tank Factory produced 40,000 T-34 tanks and in the opinion of many experts, the T-34 was the best designed tank of the war.

Obviously this disproves the mitty-like fantasies of RP about the Americans having "designed" the T34. I suppose next thing he'll claim they invented the Kalashnikov assault rifle and Sputnik, Vostok etc.

by Fu Sat Mar 12, 2005 04:31

"The U.S. Abrams main battle tank pulverised Soviet built T-55, T-63 and T-72 tanks in the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq.
Nothing can beat its 120mm gun and its thick sloping armour" except random arabs armed with nothing but RPGs, improvised mines and a copy of the Quaran.
On another point Stalin may have given arms to the Republican side in the Spanish civil war but he also caused its demise by refusing to allow the other groups (such as the anarchists) to use them.

by Annette Curtin Sat Mar 12, 2005 18:40

"Who provided guns to the Spanish Republicans?" asks R Pipes. Presumably the answer, boys and girls, is "Comrade Uncle Joe Stalin".
But hang on a second. Did he 'provide' them with guns? Didn't he actually SELL them guns? And didn't he reveal how much faith he had in the Spanish Republic by refusing to accept Spanish currency as payment, insisting on Yankee dollars?

by midas Sun Mar 13, 2005 00:32

Surely the payment was in GOLD .............

Although it may well be that the transactions were denominated in dollars ....

by Novakova Sun Mar 13, 2005 10:23

As people who lived through Stalin's die off, media is transferred to Western owners, likes of SWP established as opposing, not promoting, war, denying communist genocide defined as crime (it is a 'crime' in Cz Rep), people paid money for coming up with anti-communist information (600 million allocated for that purpose in Cz Rep by law passed by mostly corrupt cz parliament on 23.2.05; until Nov 1989 some could benefit, primarily in the West), then hopefully the whole world will agree on Stalin’s monstrosity and goodness and truthfulness of anglo-saxon ubermenschen.

by better historian Mon Mar 14, 2005 17:55

They were conquered by the Normans in the 11th century.

by jeff Tue Mar 15, 2005 15:22

And anyone who supports gay rights must be a child molester? This is how the neo cons like to tarnish people, by associating them with the worst possible element.

Neo Cons are quite glib, though when it comes to defending say Nixon or Patriot Act 11. They forget that Nixon authorised burglary, which is not very intrinsic to ´western democratic values´now is it?

by Devil Dog aka William Kristol Tue Mar 15, 2005 15:37

As a matter of interest, can you define exactly what a neo-con is and give us some examples please?

by jeff Tue Mar 15, 2005 17:46

Neo Conservatives are a new, pragmatic branch of American conservatism. Many of them have backgrounds in 60s democrat liberalism ( see; 'The Right Nation; Why America is different', Wicklewaith and Wooldridge ( Alan Lane, 2004)). People such as Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearl have been described as such.

Basically, neo-cons believe in religion, not because they are such themselves but because it glues society togeter. The Neo Con approach to foreign policy was the one used in Iraq; i.e eliminate this dictator, once stabilsed, we move on to the rest of the middle east, presto, democracy, free market, American interests become global interests, hey presto wse won. The End of History by Francis Fukuyama, the book released just after the end of the Cold War, argues that liberal democracy is the be all and end all.

Neo Cons love Fukuyama because they can turn that argument into the Machiavellian ploy they have instigated; collateral damage, ok act a little sad, but in the long term, everyone will be happy.

It is easier to sympathise with this amateur checkmate version of the world, but only if you live in the west and you are not actually a victim of either a daisy cutter bomb or even the depleted uranium that you will probably die from in a few years if you live in Iraq. You might not be able to afford health care straight away because that is being privatised.

It'll be all grand in the end though. Once those people who have suffred in Iraq will be dead in a few generations, their great grand children will have outsourced jobs in call centers, so that makes it alright.

Unless your me because I hate the Neo Cons.

Ok? Or am I not doing my bit to defend western values?

by Devil Dog Tue Mar 15, 2005 17:54

You've actually read the book you cited ("The Right Nation") then you might not be using the term neo-con as a term of opprobrium - for example, where has any neo-con equated gays with child molestors? Or leftists in general with Stalinists?

by jeff Tue Mar 15, 2005 18:19

But if you go to American right wing site called( funnily enough) rightnation.us, people regularly write articles equating anyone left with not just Stalin, but Hitler. One thread had a regular contributer calling himself 'Hironymous' calling Nazism 'a leftist movement'.

On this site, a Mr. Avi H used to regulary respond to threads highlighting human rights abuses in Palestine by accusing people of 'anti Semitism.'

This is also regularly done by Ariel Sharon, whenever he feels the need to respond to allegations of war crimes. He never had a problem calling Arabs 'cockroaches'.

Did you read 'The Right Nation'? I know it is more a study on the attitudes of Americans, or rather, that 51%, and how that 51% came into being despite Kennedy and LBJs popularity regarding ' The Great Society', and the continuation of New Deal policies only forty years prior. This was a time when the likes of Ayn Rand was still seen as an intellectual ecccentric( she wore a dress with a dollar bil on the back of it, ffs!). Mind you the book was published August 2004,four months before tthe election, but it nonetheless is a fascinating read, and one I'll give to my children if we have not died out by then...

Here, how do you know I did not read the book? Are you another snotty neo con? Neo con, neo con! ( I like the word, what with it's emphasis on CON!)

by jeff Tue Mar 15, 2005 18:21

Name strikes a bell...

by jeff Tue Mar 15, 2005 18:23

Check web link!Infiltrator!


What interest does an American political commentator have in an Irish leftist site? Is it our syntax and sentence structure that makes you laugh?Blarney!

by Rooster Wed Mar 16, 2005 01:03

Stalin, just like communism was a complete disaster for the Russian people, anyone that thinks Hitler Killed more russians than Stalin did is just stupid or ignorant or both!

by jeff Wed Mar 16, 2005 17:23

... you do not have the moral highground anywhere. You believe journalists deserve to get slotted( see thread on 'Thats me, a Marine, a murderer of civilians.'

People here have given equal condemnation to Stalin and Hitler. You cannot condemn the actions of U.S troops, because you are a shallow hypocrite. You give yourself a stupid name because you believe you rile people up. You don't, you just leave normal humans feeling cold, like they would if visiting a morgue.

by Rooster Thu Mar 17, 2005 05:15

This thread is about the stalin-hitler pact,
not the shooting of a reporter.
So discuss the subject in the thread or thin out somewhere else.

by Ilyan Thu Mar 17, 2005 23:50

If the T34 was an American design how come the Americans had such crappy tanks themeslves? Had all the good American tank designers gone to work in the USSR?

Stalin was hiring western engineers. He was selling food that would have stopped a million Ukrainians starving to death in order to pay those engineers and build the factories.

The seedbed of Mahkno was extirpated by starvation, they were the shock troops who died in the early thirties in order to win the Battle of Kursk in the forties..

by Ivanova Fri Mar 18, 2005 10:19

The number of preventable deaths in eastern Ukraine (west was then a part of Poland, Czechoslovakia etc.) in harsh winter 1930-31caused by hunger, decease and collectivisation was 380; the matter was throughly investigated in 1988 and their names published in 'Literaturnaya Ukraina'. This is not to say that I do not consider this a very sad and distressing matter.

Millions of Ukrainians and others died in consequence of civil war, supported by the West, and anglo/french/japanese intervention in 1918-20, incl. in winter 1920-21.

Billions have been earned by enterprising Ukrainians, Russians and others by selling genocide and 'Stalin the monster' stories in the West, as well as by western journalists improving on them.

by Non-Stalinist Fri Mar 18, 2005 14:25

Ivanova you need to snap out of it....

by Ivanova Sat Mar 19, 2005 21:05

Russian people are not entitled to have a say, save a handful of enterprising would-be millionaire economic migrants

by red indian Sun Mar 20, 2005 04:05

Heading the bolsheviks, he entered into non-aggression pact with Prussian and Austro-Hungarian imperialists in 1917. This led to a huge loss of russian territory incl 1/2 of Ukraine, causing them suffer capitalism until 1941 or so. Regarding the leading article, my congratulation to the writer whose tale is exactly what we wanted to hear, so who cares whether any of it is true.

by huhuhuhuhuhuhuhu Tue May 10, 2005 20:17

who falsified the mobilisation figures on the Feb 2003 attendance in Belgium imc? over-estimating figures fo several key cities, leading to an over-estimate entering the popular self-identities of many cities?
I do love that illustration above, Mr Zamiatin, yes indeed. (we had a retired cadre member with Aspergher's syndrome do our attendance). We then compare them with known capacity figures for each point of concentration.

by Nick - Connolly Youth Movement Sat May 28, 2005 19:05 nick.paine at gmail dot com

In the interests of combating ignorance in regards to the Communist Party and dogmatic opposition to the party, I am re-publishing the following article from the May edition of Socialist Voice (Monthly publication of the Communist Party); it is particularly relevant to the above comment on the CPI and the Nazi-Soviet Pact. I hope it will help balance the debate.

The Article:

Sixtieth anniversary of the defeat of fascism

On the 9th of May the peoples of Europe and the world marked the sixtieth anniversary of the ending of the Second World War and the defeat of German fascism. This anniversary has once again given the forces of the right and the political establishment throughout Europe an opportunity to engage in an aggressive anti-communist campaign.
The subject of these attacks has been the history and the role played by the Soviet Union in the anti-fascist struggles of the 1930s and 40s. For people who consider themselves Marxists it is important to use the tools of our political ideology to look deeper into the forces, the processes and the historical conditions under which socialism was being built, the strengths and the conditions the left struggled under, the level of political development, what forces and struggles shaped that particular historical period.
The roots of the Second World War lay in the outcome of the First World War. (Even the term “world war” is incorrect, because it involved in the main only European imperialist powers, which drew those countries and peoples that they colonised into their fight for imperial domination.) The reparations that Germany, the defeated power after the First World War, had to pay to the victor countries caused great hardship for the German people, as well as for banks and corporations. These repayments also coincided with the major economic slump throughout the capitalist countries of Europe and North America.
The rise of fascism within the European imperial powers was a product of the crisis of capitalism and the inability of the ruling elites to rule in the old way. Fascism was their last line of defence. Another contributing factor was the carnage and the immense loss of life resulting from the slaughter in Europe in the struggle of the elites to carve up the colonial possessions of their competitors.
Millions of workers and demobbed soldiers and their families were left destitute. Their understanding of who was responsible for the carnage, and who benefited, was clear to millions. The workers’ movement, in particular communist forces, grew in strength at the end of the First World War, inspired by the success of the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution. The revolution inspired millions of workers around the globe.
In its infancy the Russian Revolution came under huge pressure from internal reaction, in alliance with fifteen foreign armies, which invaded Russia in their efforts to stamp out the workers’ revolution.
The Russia in which the Bolsheviks came to power had huge problems, drained by the massive loss of life during the war, with a small but developed capitalist basis. The vast majority of the population were peasants, with workers forming a minority. It covered one-sixth of the world’s land surface. Social development ranged from a small working class to a large peasantry, with primitive tribes, feudalism, and deep religious fundamentalism in the southern states. The North Caucasus was a patchwork of small nationalities and clans. (Since the dismantling of the Soviet Union, these differences have re-emerged with a vengeance.)
They inherited a country devastated by war, with very poor infrastructure, massive poverty, and the bulk of the population illiterate, with ethnic and religious tensions, surrounded by hostile forces, invaded, blockaded, and boycotted.
The Bolsheviks were a small party made up of workers, peasants, soldiers, and intellectuals. They had to rebuild a ruined country on a vast scale with limited resources. There were no plans or blueprints, no benefit of hindsight to draw upon. No-one had ever attempted to build socialism before. So indeed many mistakes were made. Revolutions are living, human processes: they are human constructs. Revolutions are the working out of contradictions within society to propel society forward to solve those contradictions. The outcome is never sure or clear-cut; one key factor is the degree of a coherent revolutionary leadership of the process.
So the Bolsheviks had to deal with both objective and subjective factors in very difficult conditions and new and unknown political terrain. They grappled with many problems, not without a great deal of internal debate and division on strategy and tactics. We also have to take into consideration the subjective approach of some of the prominent individuals central to the leadership of the Bolsheviks. The untimely death of Lenin, the great strategist and tactician, left a vacuum within the leadership.
Another factor that needs to be considered is the impact that the Civil War and the war of intervention had on the emerging new state, the role played by internal security organisations, and the feeling of isolation that bore down upon the fledgling state and the turning in upon itself.
In the rest of Europe in the 1920s and 30s, fascism was on the rise as capitalism was having great difficulty in finding a way out of what was known as the “great depression,” in which tens of millions of workers were unemployed, starving, and homeless. In the 1930s Portugal, Spain, Germany, Greece and Italy fell under fascist control. In many European countries there was the emergence of strong fascist movements; what they all had in common was complete opposition to workers’ organisations, such as trade unions and political parties of the left. Under the “non-intervention” policy, Britain, France and the United States refused to aid the elected Republican government in Spain, while fascist Germany and Italy armed and aided the fascist generals, and the Soviet Union armed and supported the elected government.
The Soviets had therefore a lot of experience of the duplicity of the western powers. They also understood the very nature of fascism.
The Soviet Union, despite past experiences with western powers, attempted to build anti-fascist unity with both Britain and France, but to no avail. They were conscious of the desire of certain British, French and American interests to use Nazism against them. As a last resort, the Soviets signed a pact with Germany in order to buy time to allow the removal of factories and other infrastructure beyond the Ural Mountains and to build the necessary military defences. The Red Army had suffered heavy losses from the Civil War and the war of intervention, and the purges of the 30s had weakened its capacity to rebuild.
This pact did cause a great deal of confusion within the world communist movement at the time. It caused a lot of soul-searching. Many were torn between supporting the young Soviet state and their own experience and understanding of fascism. Communists and other democrats in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and Portugal were suffering greatly under fascism at that time. The majority of communist parties came down on the side of the pact, recognising that it was only a matter of time before the fascists attacked the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union carried the hopes of millions, and its survival was primary, most importantly to the Soviet people but also for workers and communists around the world. Things that they may have believed to be wrong were put aside in the interests of the survival of the great experiment that was the Soviet Union.
Many things that happened at the time and that have only come to light, such as the handing over of German and Austrian communists by the Soviets to the fascists, were wrong and indefensible.
The “Molotov-Ribbentrop” and “Stalin-Hitler” agreements can be looked at in a number of ways. One was that Stalin was a fool and naïve; or was he attempting to turn the tables on France and Britain? Both imperial powers wanted fascism to attack the Soviet Union and smash Bolshevism. The British wanted to steer Hitler eastwards to complete what they tried to do in 1919, while the Soviets wanted to delay Hitler and, if not, to force a conflict on the western front first. So the Soviets were attempting to play the British at their own game.
When war did break out, two-thirds of the fascist army was amassed on the Soviet front. It was the heroic sacrifice of the people that tore the guts out of the fascist forces and liberated most of Europe.

• We will deal with the aftermath of the world war in the next issue of Socialist Voice.

Ref: http://www.communistpartyofireland.ie/sv/01fascism.html

by Dave Sat May 28, 2005 19:33

"It was the heroic sacrifice of the people that tore the guts out of the fascist forces and liberated most of Europe."

Yes there was great heroism in those who fought against the Nazis. There was great savagery as well -the Russian army raped 2 million German women during the war.

Furthermore, a look at the behaviour of the Russian regime toward the troops shows just how much they cared for the Russian people -those who turned to flee were shot dead by their officers, as were many survivors who returned from battle, who were labelled deserters. The Red army treated its fighters like cannon fodder. Stalin threw them into battle like they were mere ammunition.

So yes, Russian soldiers fought bravely and we owe them at least as much as we owe the British and Americans for the defeat of Germany. But there was nothing noble about the Russian war effort -Stalin sacrificed millions of his own people without blinking an eye-lid.

by rooster Sun May 29, 2005 01:00

Stalin and Hitler, both wankers

by Adrian Grant Fri Jul 29, 2005 14:55

Are we all forgetting that the British PM declared that Europe would live in peace with Hitler. And lets not forget the American refusal to enter the war before it was itself attacked.

by AfriKan Liberation Fri Jul 29, 2005 15:26

History has been re-written by those who cannot see that pre russo-german pact, the ussr had looked to the western "democracies" for a political and military pact against nazi germany.

It was rejected, so what was stalin to do ? wait for the west to make a military alliance with germany ?

Of course stalin was not a communist and he ruled by personal decree, imprisoned heroes of the revolution and executed loyal anti-nazis, however his paranonia was fueled by the anti-communist policies of the western democracies.

It is a disgrace that the defeat of nazism has been re-written as the "master race" met its match in the streets of leningrad and stalingrad..

Let us also not forget that in 1945 churchill was willing to rearm SS divisions to take the war to the ussr and that gen.patton was all for going head to head with the red army.

by Tom Joad Fri Jul 29, 2005 15:54

To be honest I don' t think one can look at the Stalin-Hitler pact in isolation. It needs to be put in the context of the period - of an stoppable march to world war. Therefore if the Soviet Union was not prepared for this inevitable war, then it was conceiveably correct to enter into any pact, alliance, detente or treaty to buy time. This is the essential argument of Stalinism.

But the failed policy of socialism in one country led the Soviet union and indeed europe to this second world war. Capitalism was unabble to solve the historic crisis facing itself, initially at the outbreak of WW1, through the 20's and 30's. Only the working class could solve this historic crisis (and indeed tried to in Germany, Hungary, Britain, Spain and France and many other countries). Had any of these heroic attempts succeeded then war could have been postponed and possibly averted altogether. The real crimes of Stalinism is not the dirty deals it did with imperialism (in its various guises) but the betrayel of the European working by the various CP's. The one which still sticks in my thoat is the coming to power of Hitler "without so much as a pane of glass been broken". It is this betrayel which forced Stalin in to a pact with Hitler

by McArov - Worker Communist Study Group Fri Apr 06, 2007 13:30

Attached is an interview with Geoffrey Roberts, Professor of History at the University College Cork. He is a frequent contributor to British, Irish and American newspapers and to popular history journals and he has acted as a consultant for a number of TV and radio documentaries. His publications include Victory at Stalingrad and The Soviet Union in World Politics. He is the author of the new book, Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953.

by auntie joesaphine Fri Apr 06, 2007 17:44

This is a stupid row with comments from people who havnt done their homework. Stalin was a murderer, yes. Was everything Stalin done wrong, no. Not even the Trotskite supporters can rationally believe so. The non=agression pact was forced upon Stalin by the consistant refusal of England and France to sign a similar pact with the USSR. The Brits were hoping that the Nazi's would do everyone a favour and head East rather than west. RP comes off withhis usual misinformation about the T34 being an american design. The above reply is correct. Christie got the bums rush from the yanks and brits but the soviets were quick to see the advantages of his design and also borrowed much from the Nazis in their design.

As for Stalin culling the officers and thus destroying the ability of the Red Army to defeat the nazi's in operation Barbarossa this could be true or not. Stalin was no idiot as many particularly the Trots repeat ad nauseam. Zhukov joined the criticism of Stalin during the Krushthev years where the easy fall guy, for everything that went wrong was down to Stalin. But even he admitted that Stalin by insisting that a reserve be kept from the front line - that collapsed in the first weeks of the invasion - wasn't the correct decision as they could have lost all their forces. As for the purge of the red army making it weak, of course it must have had some effect but the Nazi invader had new tactics that were successful in beating every army in western europe - none of which had suffered a purge of officers. Prior to the Nazi invasion the Red Army had dealth a killing blow to the Japanese Army in the East.

On Spain all the romantic nonsense about the anarchists is just that- nonsense. Any army that operates on the basis of soldiers having a chat to decide what to do next is doomed. "Comrade I won't be around for the next action as i have to go home and feed the cattle, milk the cow, see my girlfriend, go to the cinema - I will be back as soon as I can" The Anarchists were a militia at best - indiciplined, unreliable and disasterous in offencive action. Good in defence of areas that they lived in.

Anyway, do you really think that the Anarchists would have given weapons to the stalinists if it had of been the other way around? It boils down to deciding if yo agree that the priority was to defeat Franco or to redistribute the land. I opt for the former but many would disagree.