Date: Fri, 24 Mar 1995 01:36:20 -0500
From: XTROT666-AT-AOL.COM
Subject: Re: stalinism vs the working class


alfred joseph writes:
>You mentioned something about "gulags, purges, mass murder".  Making
revolution is no tea party.<
Even less of a tea party for the workers, revolutionaries and general
innocents that are murdered or imprisoned when Stalinism consolidates its
rule.
>Go back a few years
to the Sandinistas,  they held state power.  Instead of physically
destroying the officer corps and the remnants of the various police
elements, they were allowed to go free for the most part.  The majority of
this scum formed the       backbone of the murderous Reagan-created contra
army.  Instead of trying to impress the racist slime in the US congress
with how "democratic" they can be they should have been trying to build an
egalitarian society. <
   Its easy to second guess the Sandinistas for not holding the type of
executions that Cuba held after its revolution. But this did not keep the US
from forming a proxy army in that case as well (bay of pigs). Besides, if the
Sandanista's had shot half the population in the back of the head, it
wouldn't have delayed their downfall one hour. Funny that AJ regards the
Sandanista's lack of slaughter as purely a strategic decision, and not
resulting from the fact that maybe they, for all their faults, were pretty
decent folks.
>Where did
all of these horror stories about  Uncle Joe come from?  Again recent
history can provide some insight.  Think of all the outright lies told by
the media, and allies of Imperialism about the goings on in Kuwait after
the Iraqis invaded.  Remember the "incubator babies", the milk factory that
was a "poison gas factory"<
Actually, no. The horror stories about uncle joe came from sources like
Victor Serge (long before Solzhnitzyn), from the exiled revolutionaries who
weren't murdered, and from some guy named Kruschev (a CIA spy and
provocatuer, no doubt).
   Most of the early stories about the USSR concocted by the US were of the
ridiculous variety. Take a more modern example, Cuba. Homophobic America
never criticized Cuba for its horrible policies against homosexuals during
the 1970's (were these homosexuals agents of imperialism?). And today, robert
torricelli and Mas Canosa rarely mention imprisoned dissidents by name in
Cuba, mainly due to the fact that most of them (exiled or not) do not support
the US embargo or the CIA, and many of them in Cuba (and in jail) still
consider themselves supporters of the revolution. There are reasons why
imperialists prefer concocted lies to the real sins of places like the USSR.
Both Hungary (1956) and Berlin (1953) are part of those reasons.
>Are you afraid to challenge your preconceptions. 
If  this country had a revolution there would be literally millions who
would oppose the new order.  Some would engage in sabotage within and other
would leave these shores and spread propaganda for the enemies of
revolution.  The Soviet Union was no different.  Some had to be imprisoned.
 Some had to be shot.  Get over it.  The games are starting.  Grow up. 
Whose side are you on? <
  I'm glad to hear that you are revolutionary enough to fight to the last
drop of someone elses blood (kind of a stalinist Henry Kissinger). The thing
that bothers me the most is your unwillingness to see how stalinist
bureaucracies can be an impediment, or a destroyer of revolution. Who told
the workers in France in 68 to go back to work? The CP. Who tried to make a
deal with the Vietnames revolutionaries to chill out a bit? The CP. Who
crushed the workers in Hungary and Berlin? The CP. Who wouldn't support the
general strike against Batista? The CP.  Who murdered the revolutionaries in
Barcelona? The CP.  The list could go on and on. As Fernando Claudin once
said, the stalinists were the best thing to happen to imperialism, at a time
when it was threatened with worker rebbelions all over the world.
  The games are starting? Forget it. McDonalds is in Red Square. The GAMES
are over. Time to come up with PLAN B. What's plan B you ask? Something this
side of murdering the workers.
                                                       Don Kenner
   


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