23 December 2024.
'The Stalin Problem is really a socialism problem,
and that is my problem with the Stalin Problem'.
—Upcoming Article, Musings on
The Stalin Problem for Gladsnost and Politstroika
Comrades, the next Merry Stalintime has come again. This is a glorious, noble holiday, which is the common legacy for all communists to celebrate. The spectre of our man of Steel yet haunts the Victims of Communism in DC, Rome, Berlin, and Wien, and soon perhaps Tel Aviv. Though revolutionary leader cults are detrimental to the proper organisation of the Left, it is men like Comrade Stalin, and of course Marx, Engels, and Lenin, who must fill our revolutionary pantheon. Every successful revolution, nay matter how meek or milk-water, has hitherto had a venerated revolutionary pantheon. If Comrade Stalin is venerable enough for Comrade Lenin, Comrade Bukharin, Comrade Brezhnev, Comrade Andropov, and comrades, including reformer-comrades, in the People's Republic of China, then with us he shall stay. In the words of Comrade Deng 'we think that Stalin's contribution to the revolution is much more important than the mistakes he made'.
Iosif Vissarionovich, born Dzhugashvili on this day in 1878, should in short order become forged by the revolutionary party of the proletariat into the Comrade Stalin we recall from the history of countless victories. Certainly there were missteps on the revolutionary expedition, but let only he who has built socialism perfectly strike the hammer first. Comrade Stalin incontrovertibly gave his life, both his trust and energy, to the distant dream of socialism. In the words of Comrade Deng once more, 'to use the Chinese way, the score for Stalin would be thirty per cent to seventy per cent: thirty for his errors and seventy for his merits'. Comrade Bukharin himself seems to have agreed with this estimation, judging by his actions until the very end. Comrade Stalin's achievements are equivalent to the entire Anglosphere Left. If American Leftists are unable to spare so much as a measly hour for a reading club discussion, how then may they accomplish but a quarter of what Comrade Stalin has? They can not, simply; and that is why they whine and cry about this or that great historical communist, retreating deep into liberalism. Many of the claims and charges these tendencies make reek of the Omni-Stalin Delusion, which is a 'great man theory' of history, that is liberal mental illness.
The purpose of Gladsnost and Politstroika is not, as some dubious elements should like it, to purge Comrade Stalin or Comrade Mao, et alia. Indeed, they and their legacies are in need of rehabilitation just as much as someone like Comrade Bukharin or Comrade Gorbachev. As Comrade Deng stated, 'the opinions that we have about individuals should not influence our actions'. So long as the renowned Leftist urge to purge runs rampant, the truth will remain obscured. It is good to recollect that in Soviet history, first they came for Stalin's errors and excesses, a perfectly reasonable correction amongst comrades; but soon they came for Stalin (wholesale); then they came for the ,,Stalinists''; then they came for Lenin; finally they came for the Party of Lenin and Leninists in totality; and there was nay tendency strong enough to help those who were Left. Boris and his buddies from Washington ought to sicken a Leftist far more than any perceived excess or error committed by Comrade Stalin, who was, even according to an anti-communist historian like Stephen Kotkin, a dedicated Bolshevik and follower of Comrade Lenin.
Howbeit for all that, I am still a (conservative) reformer, as Gladsnost and Politstroika attest to. I am neither an orthodox Marxist or Leninist, and have proposed many reforms and general ideas most dogmatic communists of various stripes and tendencies might decry as counter-revolutionary heresy. Gladsnost and Politstroika are not for simpletons seeking faith, nor for snipers of character. Often it is that impatient and inexperienced comrades triumph Politstroika (Upstanding), whilst leaving a historically centred Gladsnost in the mud which they sling. Yet there is a very good reason we call this initiative Gladsnost and Politstroika, for cordialness amongst comrades is requisite for a successful and productive upstanding, meant in both senses, rather than a wanton liberal de[con]struction as we saw occur due to Comrade Gorbachev's ill-consideration to the full nature and progression of his policies.
17/55 for ever more: cheers to the Seventh of November 1917 and Slava Stalinu! Remember in this Merry Stalintime, that any one might become the next Iosif Vissarionovich (do I mean this as an ominous warning, or as an encouraging celebration? I leave that for you to decide!), a lowly peasant who rejected the golden gates of priesthood for the proletariat and its party. If Comrade Stalin can do it, then why not we as well? We are the inheritors of a sacred mission: the emancipation of labour from exploitation of man by man, for the construction of a moderately prosperous socialist society. Never forget it that Comrade Stalin fumbled in the dark of the frightfully new science of socialist development, that we should have an easier path than he and his comrades. If you should forget him, you shall be forgotten.
Have a Merry Stalintime, and here is to a New Year of advancing
the policies of Gladsnost and Politstroika. Huzzä!
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