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H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934)

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Re: H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934)

#31

Post by arethuza »

wsxcde wrote: post #23
arethuza wrote: post #4

Not one mention of the terrible famine in the Ukraine which had occurred over the two previous years. As Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, initially a supporter of the Soviets until he witnessed what their policies actually meant as a correspondent for the Guardian in Moscow: "The novelty of this particular famine, what made it so diabolical, is that it was the deliberate creation of a bureaucratic mind, ... without any cons…

Honest question, what's the point being made here? Are you attempting to imply that because Stalin presided over a terrible famine his political ideals must be flawed? Churchill and friends presided over the Bengal famine of the 1940s. Six million people died in a famine during which food was exported out of Bengal to aid the British war effort. Or what about the British East India company raising land taxes from 10%…

No - my point (as I mention below) was that I was surprised that Wells didn't ask anything about it even though he almost certainly had seen reports. My criticism is directed at Wells in this case.

steve_benjamins points out below that this really wasn't that kind of interview, which is a good point.

Re: H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934)

#33

Post by alyxr »

arethuza wrote: post #4

Not one mention of the terrible famine in the Ukraine which had occurred over the two previous years. As Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, initially a supporter of the Soviets until he witnessed what their policies actually meant as a correspondent for the Guardian in Moscow: "The novelty of this particular famine, what made it so diabolical, is that it was the deliberate creation of a bureaucratic mind, ... without any cons…

He probably didn't mention it because the Holodomor didn't actually happen.

http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc9912/lies.htm

Re: H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934)

#34

Post by vijayboyapati »

The interview is interesting from the perspective of economic history because it reveals the prevailing thinking of the era; namely that capitalism leads to "anarchy" in production. What Stalin and others did not appreciate is that the free market produces a "hidden order", which was understood by many 18th and 19th century economists. Another major error of the era was the belief that central planning of an economy - socialism - could replace capitalism. There was a major debate at the time, now known as the economic calculation debate[1], between socialist economists Harold Laski and Oscar Lange on the one hand and liberal economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek on the other. In the 20's Mises had made the stunning argument that allocation of capital was impossible without the price function that is inherent to the capitalist system[2]. Laski and Lange obviously disagreed and provided the socialist counter argument. It was many years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, that socialist philosopher and historian Robert Heilbroner admitted in the New Yorker "It turns out, of course, that Mises was right. The Soviet system has long been dogged by a method of pricing that produced grotesque misallocations of effort".[3] Still, many do not understand or appreciate the importance of economic calculation and the price function in the rational allocation of capital, which has implications not only for states, but for corporations[4].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

[2] https://mises.org/econcalc.asp

[3] Reflections after communism, Robert Heilbroner (apologies to those without a subscription) http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1990/09/10/1990_09_10_091_T...

[4] http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_1.pdf

Re: H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934)

#35

Post by alyxr »

Tycho wrote: post #17

This strikes me as fake. Maybe entirely written by Wells, or someone else. I thought this bit was interesting: On the other hand we have the class of the poor, the exploited class, which owns neither factories nor works, nor banks, which is compelled to live by selling its labour power to the capitalists and which lacks the opportunity to satisfy its most elementary requirements. What are these elementary requirement…

> What are these elementary requirements

Food, water, housing, clothing, healthcare, education. The list is long, but basic. I'm sure you can come up with the rest.

> and aren't they now satisfied?

Not for the vast majority of people living in the vast majority of countries. Even in your own, I'm sure imperialist country, huge masses of the population are in want.

Re: H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934)

#36

Post by ChuckMcM »

alyxr wrote: post #33
arethuza wrote: post #4

Not one mention of the terrible famine in the Ukraine which had occurred over the two previous years. As Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, initially a supporter of the Soviets until he witnessed what their policies actually meant as a correspondent for the Guardian in Moscow: "The novelty of this particular famine, what made it so diabolical, is that it was the deliberate creation of a bureaucratic mind, ... without any cons…

He probably didn't mention it because the Holodomor didn't actually happen. http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc9912/lies.htm

You might not want to base a conclusion on the statements of a single web page. That particular web page would have much greater impact if the claims it makes had a bit more evidence behind them, starting with some source material.

Re: H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934)

#37

Post by dominotw »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #26
osipov wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History is written by victors. Your image of Stalin is based on the history that was written about him after his death by people who openly declared themselves as victors over Stalinism. Remember, Stalin's image in 1930s was very different, culminating in Time's Man of the Year cover in 1939.

Could it be false that he was a mass murderer and a bank robber? (That's tangental to the original question of famicide, but it's interesting to think that his atrocities were fabricated.) Is there any evidence of this? It seems extremely unlikely, but I'm wondering what you're basing your comments on.

Evidence of what?

There are thousands of declassified soviet documents including death lists personally signed by Stalin himself.

I think the question is not weather they actually happened but if we can judge those events by modern moral code of 21st century. We are presented history as string of events and bullet points without much consideration for tradeoffs, alternatives and broader historical context.

In this particular example of Ukrainian famine, Stalin is potrayed as a maniac who starved millions without mentioning the global socio political climate of the time. Could russia have defeated Hitler had they not industrialized in that short span? Could they have done it without killing millions? Those are interesting questions to me.

Re: H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934)

#38

Post by wpietri »

cynicalkane wrote: post #30
wsxcde wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, what's the point being made here? Are you attempting to imply that because Stalin presided over a terrible famine his political ideals must be flawed? Churchill and friends presided over the Bengal famine of the 1940s. Six million people died in a famine during which food was exported out of Bengal to aid the British war effort. Or what about the British East India company raising land taxes from 10%…

There's no part of capitalism that requires the oppression of others, except in maybe some metaphorical economic sense. In communism the ability to oppress is a necessary feature of the system (and if you don't think so, read Marx). The world has seen many implementations of capitalism that don't involve forcing large numbers of people to starve. The same cannot be said of communism.

I think it depends on what you mean by capitalism.

A common notion of it is the "increase shareholder value" version, where the only thing that matters to executives is profit. There, I don't think oppression is a necessary precondition, but it is a necessary outcome. You can see that in the company stores of yore, and the eternal reemergence of monopolies and oligopolies that will treat treat both their workers and their customers exactly as poorly as they can get away with.

There are other approaches to capitalism, of course.

Re: H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934)

#39

Post by wpietri »

alyxr wrote: post #33
arethuza wrote: post #4

Not one mention of the terrible famine in the Ukraine which had occurred over the two previous years. As Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, initially a supporter of the Soviets until he witnessed what their policies actually meant as a correspondent for the Guardian in Moscow: "The novelty of this particular famine, what made it so diabolical, is that it was the deliberate creation of a bureaucratic mind, ... without any cons…

He probably didn't mention it because the Holodomor didn't actually happen. http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc9912/lies.htm

If you want to persuade people of that, using "Communist Party Marxist-Leninist Revolutionaries" as a source is pessimally useful.

Re: H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934)

#40

Post by pessimizer »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #28

The little preface says that Wells was critisized for being too 'deferential' toward Stalin (Wells was a socialist, of course). It is actually striking to me... today, one can imagine NO journalist engaging in as _confrontational_ an interview with ANY politician or person in political power. Politicians today don't even expect to talk about ideas, certainly not with journalists for publication, let alone to be chall…

>today, one can imagine NO journalist engaging in as _confrontational_ an interview with ANY politician or person in political power.

Just a guess, but are you saying this from an US POV? As an USian, I can't imagine seeing journalists confront or challenge a politician except by accident. Even when those accidents happen, the journalists and civility become the center of a follow-up media frenzy, rather than the subjects (the lives and deaths of millions.)

By contrast, I see confrontation in a lot of (less consolidated, less war-profiteering) non-US media constantly. Paxman would be hounded out of the industry within days here.

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