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

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

#71

Post by kybernetikos »

Tycho wrote: post #51
alyxr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well, let's see, I live in the UK. We have running, clean water in every part of the country, I've never heard of any problems relating to people going thirsty or becoming ill from the supply. Likewise with food, I haven't heard of anyone actually starving, and while you could conceivably run out of money to buy food, there's a safety net of food banks. Clothing is very cheap - for a day's wages you could buy enough…

I know some people working in this area and they tell me that there is absolutely a problem with hunger in the UK. The existence of the safety nets is more a sign that there is a problem than that there isn't, as such charities get started when people who have the wherewithal to act realise how bad the situation is.

You seem to be dismissing it on the basis of the fact that you simply haven't heard about the problem, which is partly because there is no official monitoring, and the current government like to claim that it doesn't exist.

The red cross apparently stepped in last year to try to help: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-red...

If you want to know more, check out some of the charitable campaigns:

http://endhungerfast.co.uk/

http://www.trusselltrust.org

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

#72

Post by dang »

arethuza wrote: post #66
dang wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bolsheviks cultivated celebrity visitors from the Western left. It wouldn't have worked to shoot them. (Edit: Originally this comment had a moderation bit in it as well, but someone rightly pointed out to me that it isn't helpful to wear the moderator hat and make a regular-user comment in the same post. So I've edited that out. I considered restricting myself to only making moderator comments, but (a) that's nev…

For what it's worth, I apologise, mostly for the initial comment I made that mentioned the Ukraine - it looked very much like a partisan comment intented to reference the current conflict and, in all honesty, it wasn't. Sorry for any grief caused and keep up the good work. [I promise to engage more brain cells when posting on obviously highly emotive topics in future and, if I have any doubt, to not post].

Thanks for being so kind about it. It means a lot.

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

#73

Post by tinco »

jamesbritt wrote: post #60
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…

It's telling when some of the most challenging interviews are done by Jon Stewart, the host of a comedy show. Sort of embarrassing: http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1761108

What does that link to? If I click that link I get redirected to a page about bunnies and a woman in a bikini.

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

#74

Post by BugBrother »

kybernetikos wrote: post #71
Tycho wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, let's see, I live in the UK. We have running, clean water in every part of the country, I've never heard of any problems relating to people going thirsty or becoming ill from the supply. Likewise with food, I haven't heard of anyone actually starving, and while you could conceivably run out of money to buy food, there's a safety net of food banks. Clothing is very cheap - for a day's wages you could buy enough…

I know some people working in this area and they tell me that there is absolutely a problem with hunger in the UK. The existence of the safety nets is more a sign that there is a problem than that there isn't, as such charities get started when people who have the wherewithal to act realise how bad the situation is. You seem to be dismissing it on the basis of the fact that you simply haven't heard about the problem,…

Which groups are hungry in England? How bad is it?

On a sliding scale: Mentally ill? Illegal immigrants without jobs? Drug users? Unemployed? Retired?

A related question for ending up homeless?

(Not English, just curious about the safety net there. Not trying to argue about anything, please. :-) )

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

#75

Post by tinco »

firstOrder wrote: post #57
cynicalkane wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tell me where in the world people did not live communistically prior to 10,000 years ago. So according to you, the entire world lived under a system that required the oppression of others prior to 10,000 years ago, when everyone lived in migrating hunter-gatherer bands where all wealth was shared. This was a system that forced people to starve, according to you.

Don't be naieve, you tell me that a band of hunter gatherers would hesitate to kill/oppress another tribe if they were strapped for resources?

"According to you", the entire world lived in a system where everyone was picking daisies and being sweet to each other prior to 10,000 years ago?

Also, how is communism like how people lived prior to 10,000 years ago?

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

#76

Post by BugBrother »

firstOrder wrote: post #56
vijayboyapati wrote: post #34

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…

This interview took part when the economy in the UK and USA had hit the skids, while the USSR's economy was chugging along like gangbusters. In fact, a significant number of English and west European workers moved to the USSR to work since there was a labor shortage. American firms went there as well. Whatever the economists were talking about, the US had just started to change to an incredibly centralized, semi-plan…

I got a bit of cognitive dissonance here. But I guess it connects, in a way.

>> Under Stalin the USSR's economy was doing great. Khrushchev made a lot of changes, and problems began cropping up

OK, this was in the middle of the great depression in USA/Europe -- while Soviet had tens of millions of dead/prisoners (hunger, political executions, camps, etc) in the 1930s.

So I can believe there was a lack of workers and lots of jobs in Soviet... :-)

And since many of the new immigrants (some from Sweden) were executed and put in camps, the lack of workers would continue...

From a strict economic perspective, if not humanitarian, I guess that could be called "great"? In a similar way that the Nazi Germany had "great" revenues from stealing murdered/fleeing jews' belongings.

(The discussion of markets and valuation I leave for economists, they've been discussing that a long time. I tend to think the capitalist method is less bad than the alternatives I've ever heard of, even despite the bubbles ever two decades.)

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

#77

Post by firstOrder »

tinco wrote: post #75
firstOrder wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me where in the world people did not live communistically prior to 10,000 years ago. So according to you, the entire world lived under a system that required the oppression of others prior to 10,000 years ago, when everyone lived in migrating hunter-gatherer bands where all wealth was shared. This was a system that forced people to starve, according to you.

Don't be naieve, you tell me that a band of hunter gatherers would hesitate to kill/oppress another tribe if they were strapped for resources? "According to you", the entire world lived in a system where everyone was picking daisies and being sweet to each other prior to 10,000 years ago? Also, how is communism like how people lived prior to 10,000 years ago?

What resources does a highly migratory hunter-gatherer band actually have to take? The whole point is there is no surplus production. Also, how exactly would one band of hunter gatherers continually oppress another band of hunter gatherers over a period of time? It's not really possible, for a variety of reasons.

How is communism like how people lived 10,000+ years ago? Communism is how all people lived 10,000+ years ago.

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

#78

Post by subdane »

akirarei wrote: post #69
steve_benjamins wrote: post #24

Fascinating how important the questions of class and revolution are in this conversation (from both Stalin and Wells). Equally interesting is how theoretical and ideological the answers are. Great read!

What I find even more interesting is that in our time class is not a subject at all. We go along like the concept of social classes was never thought of. And as for the subject of revolution, we glance over it like a ghost from the past. We act as (a society and a culture) though the current system will last forever although history, as both Stalin and Wells points out, shows us that social and economic systems gets…

With such a huge middle class in the 20th century in the U.S. and the collapse of the Soviet empire, I think a lot of politicians, economists and media pundits felt that class was no longer an issue. I suspect it will become more widely discussed again if our current economic trends continue.

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

#79

Post by Tycho »

kybernetikos wrote: post #71
Tycho wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, let's see, I live in the UK. We have running, clean water in every part of the country, I've never heard of any problems relating to people going thirsty or becoming ill from the supply. Likewise with food, I haven't heard of anyone actually starving, and while you could conceivably run out of money to buy food, there's a safety net of food banks. Clothing is very cheap - for a day's wages you could buy enough…

I know some people working in this area and they tell me that there is absolutely a problem with hunger in the UK. The existence of the safety nets is more a sign that there is a problem than that there isn't, as such charities get started when people who have the wherewithal to act realise how bad the situation is. You seem to be dismissing it on the basis of the fact that you simply haven't heard about the problem,…

Put it in perspective. When Stalin was speaking, there were people actually dying of starvation, millions of severely undernourished people, and huge structural problems with food production. In the UK today, most people have copious amounts of food, a lot actually goes to waste every day, and while some people might find it hard to put food on the table, it's within the means of private charity to help them without the government having to intervene. The reported increase in the problem seems a bit dubious to me, e.g. here is an actual food bank founder speaking:

Consider again the views of Robin Aitken of the Oxford Food Bank, a former BBC journalist who now collects unsold fresh food from supermarkets and distributes them to charities in Oxford. He says: ‘Some people like to believe that there has been this enormous upsurge in food poverty. My point is that there have always been poor people in this country. You could have gone back ten, 20, 50 years and there would be people who don’t get enough food. ‘The fact is that food banks are a new phenomenon. Now we have got up to 500. If you provide a service, people use it.’ Significantly, he believes that people suffered greater hardship in the recessions of the Seventies and Eighties than today, when food banks didn’t exist.

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

#80

Post by [deleted] »

osipov wrote: post #22
arethuza wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was merely surprised that someone could interview a leader of a country in which millions had died of starvation and not bring the subject up. Edit: Probably rather unwise of me to bring the subject up at this moment in time...

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.

[deleted]
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