A Voracious Reader: Stalin through his books • Hacker News Board

Re: A Voracious Reader: Stalin through his books

#91

Post by scarmig » Fri, Mar 11, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #35

jackallis wrote: post #26

everbody seem to fascinated by Stalin, but only mention Trotsky in passing. It should have been Trotsky at the center stage as secretrait, even Lenin wanted him but alas the man died. I dont think there would have been Stalin if it was not for Lenin and Trotsky. Zinoview and Kaminev were .......

This is wrong. Lenin never wanted Trotsky, in fact he used Stalin deliberately to block Trotsky. And he empowered many of Trotsky enemies. Trotsky was a late comer to the Bolsheviks and because of his popularity in the civil war he was a danger to Lenin. Lenin create the General Secretary position as a position of huge amount of power, 2nd only to himself as Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR. And Len…

> The authorship of Lenin "Testimony" (only called that later by Trosky supporters) has been put into question to a significant degree by recent scholarship. I suspect Lenin would be spinning in his grave when people suggest he would have wanted Trosky to be his successor.

Recent scholarship meaning Kotkin. His is still a minority viewpoint, but he makes a solid case for it here (interesting throughout):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ9KCG0KO4U

More broadly speaking, his historical project is dispelling the notion that Stalin was some amoral psychopath who deviated from Lenin and the original Party and betrayed the organic development of the revolution (the viewpoint of most Trotskyists), so he's coming from a particular angle.

Re: A Voracious Reader: Stalin through his books

#92

Post by pasabagi » Fri, Mar 11, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #81

pasabagi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was really just making a comment about the disparity between Bismark and Hitler. Bismark was a giant, in every sense of the word, while Hitler was sort of average. > a true Prussian conservative That's the issue. Bismark wasn't a true conservative. Conservatives of his time and place were anti-nationalist. Bismark merged nationalism, authoritarianism, and cultural chauvinism to produce a kind of new form of conserv…

Well, he retired in 1890 and died in 1898. He did push for the formation of the German Reich, that's true. It was the first German nation state, one that was truly formed as more than a alliance of various fiefdoms and kingdoms after WW1 with the Weimar Republic. In a way, it turned to shit when Wilhelm II took over and pushed Bismarck out. And was less Bismarck that created the feeling of a German Nation, he more ro…

> Nationalism, by the way, was pretty new back then. It was also way less negative then it modern nationalism is today.

That's what I'm saying. Bismark was (the? a? the most successful?) creator of modern-day nationalism. He proved that you could use nationalism to enhance state power, by transforming it from a movement of oppressed peoples for self-determination, to an homogenizing ideology.

Re: A Voracious Reader: Stalin through his books

#93

Post by cafard » Fri, Mar 11, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

sn41 wrote: post #40

hutzlibu wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The other interesting thing about studying Stalin is that very few people liked him enough to hide his dirty laundry after he died." I think that comes naturally, if everyone important around him, had to fear for their life for years. One wrong look, or just one bad mood of the great leader - and someone gone again. They never knew what to expect, when being summoned, praise or prison - and that was intentional. Abs…

"The First Circle" by Solzhenitzyn is a great read. The caricature of Stalin in that book is absurd, I am not talking about that. There is a historical character Abakumov [1], and in one of his reflections, (from my memory) he rues the fact that he was inducted into the inner circle of Stalin. One moment of displeasure, and he could be gone. And there is no way out of the inner circle other than perhaps, death. A tru…

The caricature of Stalin is a take-off or tribute to the picture of Nicholas I in Tolstoy's Hadji Murad, isn't it?

Re: A Voracious Reader: Stalin through his books

#94

Post by cafard » Fri, Mar 11, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #3

I'm reminded a bit of Marx's Eighteenth Bruminaire of Louis Bonaparte, where the line 'once as grand tragedy, and the second time as rotten farce' was coined, because just like Napoleon III to Napoleon I, compared to Stalin, Putin is a dwarf. Sadly, I don't find the comparison particularly reassuring. Hilter, another 'moon-calf', with his 'first available dozen debt-encumbered lieutenants', did far more damage than S…

Somebody (George Kennan? Gordon Craig?) quotes Bismarck as telling the German generals that it would be mad to fight a war with Russia: You would find no one to surrender to you, and the farther east you got, the worse off you would be.)

Re: A Voracious Reader: Stalin through his books

#95

Post by hef19898 » Fri, Mar 11, 2022, 4:36 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #92

hef19898 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, he retired in 1890 and died in 1898. He did push for the formation of the German Reich, that's true. It was the first German nation state, one that was truly formed as more than a alliance of various fiefdoms and kingdoms after WW1 with the Weimar Republic. In a way, it turned to shit when Wilhelm II took over and pushed Bismarck out. And was less Bismarck that created the feeling of a German Nation, he more ro…

> Nationalism, by the way, was pretty new back then. It was also way less negative then it modern nationalism is today. That's what I'm saying. Bismark was (the? a? the most successful?) creator of modern-day nationalism. He proved that you could use nationalism to enhance state power, by transforming it from a movement of oppressed peoples for self-determination, to an homogenizing ideology.

Same word, different meaning. nationalism back then meant that people started to build a common understand of nation states, as opposed to kingdoms and the like before. In Germany that meant the first step in a long journey to actual democracy. Back then France and Great Britain were unified nations already, Germany wasn't. I'd say back then nationalism was an actually good thing, it also provided the theoretical basis, e.g., for the creation of independent Poland after WW1 among other things. That almost 40 years after Bismarck died dick heads like the Nazis and other reactionists turned that concept into something really dangerous can hardly be blamed on Bismarck.

Re: A Voracious Reader: Stalin through his books

#96

Post by panick21_ » Fri, Mar 11, 2022, 8:59 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #91

panick21_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. Lenin never wanted Trotsky, in fact he used Stalin deliberately to block Trotsky. And he empowered many of Trotsky enemies. Trotsky was a late comer to the Bolsheviks and because of his popularity in the civil war he was a danger to Lenin. Lenin create the General Secretary position as a position of huge amount of power, 2nd only to himself as Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR. And Len…

> The authorship of Lenin "Testimony" (only called that later by Trosky supporters) has been put into question to a significant degree by recent scholarship. I suspect Lenin would be spinning in his grave when people suggest he would have wanted Trosky to be his successor. Recent scholarship meaning Kotkin. His is still a minority viewpoint, but he makes a solid case for it here (interesting throughout): https://www.…

He certainyl called him a psychopat.

But what he goes against is the typical historical narrative driven by exiled Soviets and sympothatic Western professors who wanted to believe in the 'Revolution Betayed' narrative.

And I dont remember the texts in detail but it doesnt directly call for Troskey to be his successer anyway.

Re: A Voracious Reader: Stalin through his books

#97

Post by sn41 » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 6:27 AM UTC

cafard wrote: post #93

sn41 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The First Circle" by Solzhenitzyn is a great read. The caricature of Stalin in that book is absurd, I am not talking about that. There is a historical character Abakumov [1], and in one of his reflections, (from my memory) he rues the fact that he was inducted into the inner circle of Stalin. One moment of displeasure, and he could be gone. And there is no way out of the inner circle other than perhaps, death. A tru…

The caricature of Stalin is a take-off or tribute to the picture of Nicholas I in Tolstoy's Hadji Murad , isn't it?

hmmm... never made this connection. I thought it was an independent portrait. Thanks, I will read Hadji Murad again.

Re: A Voracious Reader: Stalin through his books

#98

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 2:13 PM UTC

jsmith99 wrote: post #68

There is also a good review in the Financial Times which emphasises Stalin being well read. My favourite was 'On a book about the English Civil War, he made a mark comparing the Puritan chaplains of Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army with the political commissars of the Soviet Red Army.' This is apparently a popular comparison and Putin is a Cromwell fan too. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/af83a4c8-966…

It would seem just not celebrating any of them is the easy option. It's only when you need to justify Cromwell's statue outside Parliament, that your opposition to a Stalin statue becomes tricky.

In particular, Cromwell is accused of genocide against Catholics, so stating "Cromwell may have thought his was a divine task, but he did not arbitrarily decide that innocent people were suddenly enemies of the people, to be eliminated either on account of their religion, race, or supposed class interest." seems at best ill-informed, at worst outright propaganda. I mean he's fighting for power against royalists, how is that not class interests?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwellian_conquest_of_Irelan...

Re: A Voracious Reader: Stalin through his books

#99

Post by yyyk » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #56

panick21_ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bismark is a far more reasoned and careful strategist with incredibly different goals compared to Hitler. He wanted short wars for limited strategic gains and Prussia to be dominate within the German Empire. That is totally different then believing in a global race war. Its not at all like Napoleon and Napoleon III. They hoped for the same thing, but were just differently capable. > did far more damage than Stalin ev…

> That is a delusional take on the Bolsheviks. I don't really want to argue in detail about the character of the Bolsheviks. I agree they were extremely ruthless, and that they created a lot of the norms and institutions that Stalin later used. Taking a bit of a step back, however, I think most of this stuff is pretty normal for the winning party in a civil war, especially a revolutionary party. It was an extremely c…

>Ultimately, I think the Tsar's Russia was a deeply sick system that had to go, one way or another

Note that it already went away by the time the Bolshevik's staged their 'Revolution'. Also, there's an argument (ironically mirroring yours) that had Russia avoided WW1, the Tsar's system would end up evolving towards a constitutional monarchy, but without the piles of corpses.

Re: A Voracious Reader: Stalin through his books

#100

Post by pasabagi » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

yyyk wrote: post #99

pasabagi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is a delusional take on the Bolsheviks. I don't really want to argue in detail about the character of the Bolsheviks. I agree they were extremely ruthless, and that they created a lot of the norms and institutions that Stalin later used. Taking a bit of a step back, however, I think most of this stuff is pretty normal for the winning party in a civil war, especially a revolutionary party. It was an extremely c…

>Ultimately, I think the Tsar's Russia was a deeply sick system that had to go, one way or another Note that it already went away by the time the Bolshevik's staged their 'Revolution'. Also, there's an argument (ironically mirroring yours) that had Russia avoided WW1, the Tsar's system would end up evolving towards a constitutional monarchy, but without the piles of corpses.

> Note that it already went away by the time the Bolshevik's staged their 'Revolution'.

Sure. But that's also very normal in revolutions, to have a multiple-stage affair with different conceptions of what the revolution is for emerging throughout the duration. Karensky has often been portrayed as a sort of mini-Napoleon figure, so it's hard to see his overthrow as a pure 'palace coup'.

To be honest, I feel like the history here is very murky, full of misleading names and conflicting accounts, and the best you can do is to try and get a grasp of the characters of the people involved. With the old Bolsheviks, most of whom Stalin had killed, you tend to get the feeling of ruthless, dedicated, but ultimately idealistic people. Pretending that they were always just an evil clique is basically anarchonism: you're taking the fate of the USSR, and putting it on to the people who formed its early days.