Your opinion of Stalin?

[CountDeMoney]

After reading so many goddamned pages, I have come to the realization that most of you have little Stalins inside.

[jimmy olsen]

Nobody has yet taken the position that Tim has understood anything he has read other then the final score of yesterday's football game.

[CountDeMoney]

Nobody has yet taken the position that Tim has understood anything he has read other then the final score of yesterday's football game.

Suck it, Patriotard.  Brady's bunghole is still throbbing in pain.

[crazy canuck]

Nobody has yet taken the position that Tim has understood anything he has read other then the final score of yesterday's football game.

Ok, I may have been wrong.  Nobody has taken the position Tim understood anything other then the numbers setting out the score beside all the letters which described the beating the Patriots took.  Letters which formed words that Tim may or may not have understood.

[Pat]

I feel rather unfairly treated to be left out of your list, as I posted examples of Stalin debating with H.G. Wells on a fairly high level which clearly speaks against Stalin being a profoundly unintellectual man, and yet did not mention you. I could have said, for example, that whatever intelligence Stalin might have had he seems to have been a lot more pleasant to argue with than you are.

Is it too late to go back to Paradox OT?

I am very surprised that Stalin did not mention Grumbler in his discussion with H.G. Wells since it is well known within Languish that Grumbler has been a significant figure in history since at least the battle of Actium.

Also, it is surprising that everyone failed to grasp the importance of your post.  Everyone except you of course.  Could it be all of us or just you?

I never was much at Paradox OT to begin with. It should be quite obvious from the way I phrased my post that it was I who never mentioned grumbler; whether everyone failed to understand this or just you I don't know.

I was indeed serious in making my point and refrained from participating in the general anti-grumbler sentiment. I don't really have anything against grumbler, it's just that he tries to put me in my place time after time because I'm a noob but often find me going on the counter-offensive, at which point he accuse me of using ad homs and declare victory - I don't think I've gone on the offensive against grumbler unprovoked except possibly just now, but even this must be seen in a larger context.

Minsky is of course correct in saying that I would not like to argue with Stalin as a subject of his absolutist dictatorship, but he seems a perfectly charming partner of discussion in an argument between equals where neither party has the power to kill the other, such as in his argument with H. G. Wells (I might add that if I was under the rule of grumblers absolutist dictatorship I would like to argue him even less as he'd probably have me put to death on charges of semantics, something which Stalin, to my knowledge, never killed anyone for).

H. G. Wells was a socialist but not a marxist; he was of the opinion that the world would have been a better place if Marx had never been born; and while he was at first cautiously positive to the Soviet union he soon abandoned all hope in the project after Stalin came to power. And yet he speaks of his personal meeting with Stalin in the following words: "I have never met a man more fair, candid, and honest" and made it quite clear that he felt the sinister image of Stalin usually presented was unfair or simply false.

The discussion between H.G. Wells and Stalin, which is available in book form under the title "Liberalism vs. Marxism" which aptly desribes the argument between them, can be found here (I apologize for my earlier broken link and I hope this one will work better): http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/cc835_44.htm

[Razgovory]

After reading so many goddamned pages, I have come to the realization that most of you have little Stalins inside.

I keep mine in a big mayonnaise jar and feed him June bugs.  He shoots them in the neck before he eats one.

[CountDeMoney]

After reading so many goddamned pages, I have come to the realization that most of you have little Stalins inside.

I keep mine in a big mayonnaise jar and feed him June bugs.  He shoots them in the neck before he eats one.

Once in a while, when you're lucid and not hallucinating, you're funny.

[grumbler]

I keep mine in a big mayonnaise jar and feed him June bugs.  He shoots them in the neck before he eats one.

Once in a while, when you're lucid and not hallucinating, you're funny.

He's nearly always funny; it's just that sometimes he is also humorous.

[crazy canuck]

The discussion between H.G. Wells and Stalin, which is available in book form under the title "Liberalism vs. Marxism" which aptly desribes the argument between them, can be found here (I apologize for my earlier broken link and I hope this one will work better): http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/cc835_44.htm

You still lack a sense of humour.

A couple points. 

H. G. Wells visited the Soviet Union in 1934 and on July 23 he inter­viewed Joseph Stalin. The conversation, lasting from 4 P. M. to 6:50 P. M., was recorded by Constantine Oumansky, then head of the Press Bureau of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. The text, as printed in this pamphlet, has been approved by Mr. Wells.

1) There is not chance the conversation as recorded lasted almost three hours.

2) Given that fact and given the author of the "notes" there is a significant amount of spinning going on.

3) However given all of that some of the true Stalin still shines through the editing:

"Now I have come to you to ask you what you are doing to change the world. . . .

STALIN: Not so very much. . . .

[Pat]

The discussion between H.G. Wells and Stalin, which is available in book form under the title "Liberalism vs. Marxism" which aptly desribes the argument between them, can be found here (I apologize for my earlier broken link and I hope this one will work better): http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/cc835_44.htm

You still lack a sense of humour.

A couple points. 

H. G. Wells visited the Soviet Union in 1934 and on July 23 he inter­viewed Joseph Stalin. The conversation, lasting from 4 P. M. to 6:50 P. M., was recorded by Constantine Oumansky, then head of the Press Bureau of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. The text, as printed in this pamphlet, has been approved by Mr. Wells.

1) There is not chance the conversation as recorded lasted almost three hours.

2) Given that fact and given the author of the "notes" there is a significant amount of spinning going on.

3) However given all of that some of the true Stalin still shines through the editing:

"Now I have come to you to ask you what you are doing to change the world. . . .

STALIN: Not so very much. . . .

Not very surprising he should say that, given his policy of socialism in one country and his victory over Trotskij who favoured global revolution.

And I don't see why H. G. Wells would be practicing intellectual dishonesty in the defense of Stalin, and approve an editing of the text which he would feel to be incorrect. He was no friend of the Soviet union nor Stalin. Other interviews will give you the same impression of Stalin. See for example Emil Ludwig's interview of him that I linked earlier in the thread. I might lack a sense of humour, but I don't think Stalin lacked one, see for example his reply to this question:

Ludwig: Do you not consider that among the Germans as a nation the love of order is more highly developed than the love of freedom?

Stalin: There was a time when people in Germany did indeed respect the law. When I spent two or three months in Berlin in 1907, we Russians Bolsheviks used to laugh at certain of our German friends for their respect of the law. There was, for instance, an anecdote to the effect that on one occasion the Berlin Committee of the Social Democratic Party organised a demonstration fixed for a certain day and hour at which the members of all the suburban organisations were to attend. A group of about 200 from one of the suburbs arrived in the city punctually at the hour appointed, but they failed to appear at the demonstration. It turned out that they waited two hours on the platform of the station because the ticket collector at the exit was missing, and there was nobody to take their tickets. It was said in jest that a Russian comrade had to show them an easy way out of the situation, namely, to leave the platform without surrendering their tickets . . .

But is there anything like that in Germany now? Is there respect for the law in Germany today? What about the National Socialists, who should be the first to guard bourgeois law and order, do they not violate the laws, break up workers' clubs and murder workers with impunity? I will not speak of the workers, who it appears to me, long ago lost all respect for bourgeois law and order. Aye, the Germans have changed considerably in these days.

He first tells a rather amusing anecdote, and only then does he tie up his answer to the question, relating it to the anecdote. This is clearly not the work of polishing and editing: how would you create something like that through editing? It's impossible: you'd have to replace his real answer with an entirely different answer. This is clearly Stalins real reply: a funny anecdote. Nor does Ludwig have any reason to practice intellectual dishonesty in the defense of Stalin. Ludwig was a biographer: He interviewed many important men in his time including the fascist Mussolini. I own a collection of his biographies of historical figures; his row model is Plutarch and in his book he says something like, (I quote from memory), "the smallest details can reveal the true character of a person".  My impression of Ludwig is scarecly that he is an ideologue: his interest is in portraying humans. I have no reason to believe his interview is in any way coloured by political sympathies to Stalin. Nor do I have any reason to belive H. G. Well's interview is coloured by any political sympathies to Stalin (if anything, any such inclination would be the opposite one).

[crazy canuck]

I have no reason to believe his interview is in any way coloured by political sympathies to Stalin. Nor do I have any reason to belive H. G. Well's interview is coloured by any political sympathies to Stalin (if anything, any such inclination would be the opposite one).

Nor do I have any reason to believe this interview actually took place as published. 

[jimmy olsen]

Nobody has yet taken the position that Tim has understood anything he has read other then the final score of yesterday's football game.

Ok, I may have been wrong.  Nobody has taken the position Tim understood anything other then the numbers setting out the score beside all the letters which described the beating the Patriots took.  Letters which formed words that Tim may or may not have understood.

What the hell? Since when have been on your shit list?

[Pat]

I have no reason to believe his interview is in any way coloured by political sympathies to Stalin. Nor do I have any reason to belive H. G. Well's interview is coloured by any political sympathies to Stalin (if anything, any such inclination would be the opposite one).

Nor do I have any reason to believe this interview actually took place as published.

Both interviews paint the same picture. I'm not saying these are the exact words of Stalin: it is probable, for example, that interpreters were used in both interviews (this would also explain the length of the interview relative to it's time: everything had to be said twice). But there are characteristics relating to his mannerism and style apparent in both the Ludwig interview and the Wells interview; characteristics clearly going beyond what is possible with editing and polishing. Have both these interviews been fabricated independently? We also have Wells personal impression of Stalin.

Anyway I don't know if Stalin was good or evil or intellecutal or unintellectual, but I don't see the need for anti-marxists to cling to myth-making (Uncle Joe is our friend, oh wait, Stalin is evil). Surely if Stalin was not all bad, and yet did all the evil things he did, that is a stronger argument against marxism as practiced in the Soviet Union? At least that's how it seems to me.

[Pat]

Now it is of course entirely possible, not to say likely, even, that Stalin merely continued the cult of leadership where the Tsar was considered by the Orthodox church to be if not semi-devine then at least a little more than just a mere mortal. He expanded, so to say, to fill this role, as the Russian people would expect of a leader (after all that is all they had known). Stalin was a religiously inclined person who studied in an orthodox seminary before he traded this faith to faith in a kind of marxism little different from a religion.

He is, so to say, channeling a kind of spiritual leadership in his words. He knows people trust in him as they would trust a religious authority. This would explain his charisma - but he is enough of a realist to know, of course, that this is a gift that can be taken from him. And he will defend it by all means.

[DGuller]

The Ludwig's interview is a little creepy.  You actually get the feeling that Stalin believed what he was saying, and yet we know how things turned out after 1931.