Syria Disintegrating: Part 2

[The Minsky Moment]

  It was really conceptualized as a mutually-beneficial union and written as such, which is why it all so easily fell apart when republics wanted out.  They actually had the right to do it.

It fell apart because Gorby ended the Party's monopoly on power.  Otherwise the "republics wanting out" would have been meaningless, because the Party decided what the republics wanted or didn't want.  The USSR constitution was written to permit exit because the political structure gave the Party absolute control over what happened anyway, so why not make it look nice and consensual.

EDIT; sorry slow computer didn't see the prior comments on this

[Malthus]

What evidence do you have that he didn't actually believe in what he did?  He certainly said he did, and revolutionary was not exactly the natural path to power.  His ruthlessness and paranoia were already aspects of his personality long before he came to power, they were qualities he acquired by being hard scrabble revolutionary.

The fact that he just invented stuff to have people killed, even though it went directly against the interests of the nation he purported to lead, stikes me as being evidence.

Obviously he's never going to *say* "I don't believe in any of this shit, I'm only out for power no matter who I kill or what I destroy". If you are waiting for such a statement, no-one would ever qualify.

I think you're stretching it.  It is the nature of politics that it lowers the efficiency of the organization as a whole, by putting personal ambitions in conflict with organizational goals.  No matter whether the organization is a corporation or a country.  It is true that if you're a ruthless leader, your #1 goal is to stay in power regardless of what other objective it will conflict with.  That doesn't mean that there is no #2 goal.  Nothing that you mentioned really counters the theme that Stalin was a leader with a vision and a particularly destructive approach to boardroom politics.

There is no evidence that his "vision" had anything in common with Communism-as-benefiting-humanity other than the form, and considerable evidence that it did not.

The problem with the POV you and Raz are proposing, is that it is non-disprovable: no amount of rutheless self-serving actions can ever prove that the goals the leader is paying lip-service to aren't ones he "really" holds dearly, provided he takes the elementary precaution of not writing out a full confession. However, we aren't a court of law, or a scientific experiment, and we are allowed to draw reasonable inferences from the evidence. 

[Razgovory]

What evidence do you have that he didn't actually believe in what he did?  He certainly said he did, and revolutionary was not exactly the natural path to power.  His ruthlessness and paranoia were already aspects of his personality long before he came to power, they were qualities he acquired by being hard scrabble revolutionary.

The fact that he just invented stuff to have people killed, even though it went directly against the interests of the nation he purported to lead, stikes me as being evidence.

Obviously he's never going to *say* "I don't believe in any of this shit, I'm only out for power no matter who I kill or what I destroy". If you are waiting for such a statement, no-one would ever qualify.

That's lousy evidence, since he wouldn't have considered killing these people as weakening the nation.  In fact, he saw it as strengthening it.  These people were traitors and purging traitors doesn't weaken the nation.  Remember, he had people killed that he believed were double agents when he was in Georgia as a rabble-rouser before WWI.  Often he would just walk into a room and and upon meeting a someone declare he was a czarist spy and have him killed.  That he and the rest of the communists would kill vast numbers of people after they got into power is no surprise.  That he identified people who were his person enemies as enemies of the state is a sign of megalomania not cynicism.  I think you are far to influenced by Trotsky's critique of Stalin as a power hungry bureaucrat who hijacked the Revolution.  Stalin is a natural continuation of Lenin.  Lenin was a true believer and his actions precipitated Stalin's.  Terror, famine and murder were all tools of the early Bolsheviks.  That these tools would be used by Stalin to against other party members to consolidate leadership shouldn't have surprised anyone.  It is of no coincidence that this pattern of tools used against Revolutionary enemies was frequently used to purify the Revolutionaries own ranks is often repeated.  It happened in France, it happened in Germany, it happened in China.

[Malthus]

What evidence do you have that he didn't actually believe in what he did?  He certainly said he did, and revolutionary was not exactly the natural path to power.  His ruthlessness and paranoia were already aspects of his personality long before he came to power, they were qualities he acquired by being hard scrabble revolutionary.

The fact that he just invented stuff to have people killed, even though it went directly against the interests of the nation he purported to lead, stikes me as being evidence.

Obviously he's never going to *say* "I don't believe in any of this shit, I'm only out for power no matter who I kill or what I destroy". If you are waiting for such a statement, no-one would ever qualify.

That's lousy evidence, since he wouldn't have considered killing these people as weakening the nation.  In fact, he saw it as strengthening it.  These people were traitors and purging traitors doesn't weaken the nation. 

That's provably untrue. For example, he "purged" military figures who were competent to spread terror, then had the ones still alive "unpurged" and brought back when it proved necessary in WW2. If he genuinely thought these guys were guilty of spying or whatever, that would make no sense. He himself quite evidently knew that purging people was, in fact, weakening the nation - and he didn't care (unless and until the nation grew so weak its fall to a rutheless enemy risked him personally).

It is pretty obvious to anyone reading about the Great Terror that Stalin had no actual belief in the literal truth of the charges he brought against (or had brought against) people. If you read the book I mentioned, it goes into great detail about how he had evidence faked up against people on his orders - death and life had nothing to do with actually being "traitors" or "enemies", or even to Stalin actually thinking they were. He had people killed because it suited him, and simply on general principles, it kept everyone unsettled and avoided any alternative power base forming.

Here's one test: if Stalin was a rutheless man who actually cared about the nation he led, wouldn't he have made any provision for the succession? Well, no, he didn't. In fact, he did on occasion 'tag' someone as a possible successor - which was usually a sign they were going to be purged.

[Razgovory]

There is no evidence that his "vision" had anything in common with Communism-as-benefiting-humanity other than the form, and considerable evidence that it did not.

The problem with the POV you and Raz are proposing, is that it is non-disprovable: no amount of rutheless self-serving actions can ever prove that the goals the leader is paying lip-service to aren't ones he "really" holds dearly, provided he takes the elementary precaution of not writing out a full confession. However, we aren't a court of law, or a scientific experiment, and we are allowed to draw reasonable inferences from the evidence.

I'm not certain what you are talking about in your first sentence.  There is considerable evidence that what he was doing was inline with Communist beliefs.  There is evidence that it doesn't benefit people because we know that this bullshit won't work.  We don't believe in Marxism, so the behavior seems arbitrary and counterproductive.  If he was just in it for the power why continue along a path that is obviously not working as planned?  Even Lenin was less dogmatic.

The problem with your theory is that it doesn't adequately explain Stalin's actions.  Why have poets shot?  It's hard to see how that personally helps him.  Why set up the international brigades in Spain only to execute 10% of them?  Why refuse to trade your own captured son back?  Why not set up his family to rule after his death like so many strongmen?  His actions only really make sense in the context of his revolutionary past and his absolute dedication to Marxist ideology.

[alfred russel]

I guess we can at least relate to this.  But the sad fact is that people like Stalin killed people because he really believed that it was the for the best of their country.

Agreed.  Stalin was the ruthless CEO of a restructuring company, who had to make some difficult decisions and survive office politics.  Only the company was an entire country, and getting fired or laid off meant something different.

I think the corporate analogy is a good one, but don't agree with Raz.

In any corporate, from mid level to senior management, everyone will say they believe in the company vision and goals, that they are totally behind the company's mission, etc. I actually do believe most of them. But good luck finding managers willing to make decisions in the interest of the Company when it will negatively impact their own bonus. For a lot of people caring about the Company isn't just lip service--they really do care, but in the end they are really there for personal advancement.

There is a reason so many former communist leaders turned to nationalism or in some other way disavowed communism when communism went out of vogue.

[Razgovory]

What evidence do you have that he didn't actually believe in what he did?  He certainly said he did, and revolutionary was not exactly the natural path to power.  His ruthlessness and paranoia were already aspects of his personality long before he came to power, they were qualities he acquired by being hard scrabble revolutionary.

The fact that he just invented stuff to have people killed, even though it went directly against the interests of the nation he purported to lead, stikes me as being evidence.

Obviously he's never going to *say* "I don't believe in any of this shit, I'm only out for power no matter who I kill or what I destroy". If you are waiting for such a statement, no-one would ever qualify.

That's lousy evidence, since he wouldn't have considered killing these people as weakening the nation.  In fact, he saw it as strengthening it.  These people were traitors and purging traitors doesn't weaken the nation. 

That's provably untrue. For example, he "purged" military figures who were competent to spread terror, then had the ones still alive "unpurged" and brought back when it proved necessary in WW2. If he genuinely thought these guys were guilty of spying or whatever, that would make no sense. He himself quite evidently knew that purging people was, in fact, weakening the nation - and he didn't care (unless and until the nation grew so weak its fall to a rutheless enemy risked him personally).

It is pretty obvious to anyone reading about the Great Terror that Stalin had no actual belief in the literal truth of the charges he brought against (or had brought against) people. If you read the book I mentioned, it goes into great detail about how he had evidence faked up against people on his orders - death and life had nothing to do with actually being "traitors" or "enemies", or even to Stalin actually thinking they were. He had people killed because it suited him, and simply on general principles, it kept everyone unsettled and avoided any alternative power base forming.

Here's one test: if Stalin was a rutheless man who actually cared about the nation he led, wouldn't he have made any provision for the succession? Well, no, he didn't. In fact, he did on occasion 'tag' someone as a possible successor - which was usually a sign they were going to be purged.

He did tag someone for his succession. Zhdanov.  Zhdanov simply died before Stalin did.  Stalin didn't kill him (well not directly, the man drank himself to death.  You probably would to if Stalin was your boss).  You misunderstand the purpose of the terror.  The purpose of the Terror was to keep the revolution alive, motivate the workers and peasants and terrify class enemies.  He did not invent this.  It had ideological and historical precedents.  The Bolsheviks planned to use indiscriminate terror prior to coming to power.  That innocent people would die didn't matter.  Evidence didn't matter.   Remember the Bolsheviks were a "vanguard party", not a mass party.  They understood that if they seized control that most people wouldn't be with them.  The solution was to keep the country pacified with indiscriminate killings while they set up a new government/ Stalin would use this previously established tool as he moved into collectivization.  The Bolsheviks saw themselves as a continuation of the French Revolution.  The idea of the Terror has it's roots there as does the purge of the military.  The Reds were all to aware that French Republic died because of a military Coup.  Concern over potential "Bonapartists", resulted in the party treating the military as class enemies and thus subject to the terror.  It was typical Bolshevik heavy handedness.  Hitler managed to subject the military to his will by killing only a few hundred men and a little blackmail.

[Razgovory]

  It was really conceptualized as a mutually-beneficial union and written as such, which is why it all so easily fell apart when republics wanted out.  They actually had the right to do it.

It fell apart because Gorby ended the Party's monopoly on power.  Otherwise the "republics wanting out" would have been meaningless, because the Party decided what the republics wanted or didn't want.  The USSR constitution was written to permit exit because the political structure gave the Party absolute control over what happened anyway, so why not make it look nice and consensual.

EDIT; sorry slow computer didn't see the prior comments on this

I guess that means you agree with me.

[Malthus]

There is no evidence that his "vision" had anything in common with Communism-as-benefiting-humanity other than the form, and considerable evidence that it did not.

The problem with the POV you and Raz are proposing, is that it is non-disprovable: no amount of rutheless self-serving actions can ever prove that the goals the leader is paying lip-service to aren't ones he "really" holds dearly, provided he takes the elementary precaution of not writing out a full confession. However, we aren't a court of law, or a scientific experiment, and we are allowed to draw reasonable inferences from the evidence.

I'm not certain what you are talking about in your first sentence.  There is considerable evidence that what he was doing was inline with Communist beliefs.  There is evidence that it doesn't benefit people because we know that this bullshit won't work.  We don't believe in Marxism, so the behavior seems arbitrary and counterproductive.  If he was just in it for the power why continue along a path that is obviously not working as planned?  Even Lenin was less dogmatic.

The problem with your theory is that it doesn't adequately explain Stalin's actions.  Why have poets shot?  It's hard to see how that personally helps him.  Why set up the international brigades in Spain only to execute 10% of them?  Why refuse to trade your own captured son back?  Why not set up his family to rule after his death like so many strongmen?  His actions only really make sense in the context of his revolutionary past and his absolute dedication to Marxist ideology.

Having poets shot helps to spread terror and conformity. If he personally enjoyed a poet or writer, BTW, they weren't shot, no matter how "ideologically unsound" - that's why Bulgakov (who wrote "The Master and Margarita") survived: Stalin enjoyed one of his plays, saw it 15 times, and so protected him from being liquidated even though he could not be less communist. Another point against the "sincere believer" theory.

When one of Moscow's theatre directors severely criticised Bulgakov, Stalin personally protected him, saying that a writer of Bulgakov's quality was above "party words" like "left" and "right".[12] Stalin found work for the playwright at a small Moscow theatre, and next the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT). On October 5, 1926, Days of the Turbins, the play which continued the theme of The White Guard (the fate of Russian intellectuals and officers of the Tsarist Army caught up in revolution and Civil war)[8] was premièred at the MAT[9] Stalin liked it very much and reportedly saw it at least 15 times.

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

As for his refusal to help his own family - he was, apparently, a person with little empathy for others: he simply didn't care that much, even for (apparently) close friends and family. He cared only for himself. His surviving son, for example, was terrified of him, and his surviving daughter alienated from him; he occasionally had formerly close friends killed for little reason. These are actions consistent with being a psychopath - inability to have empathy, superficial glibness and charm (Stalin was, reputedly, very charming and charismatic in person), etc.

[Malthus]

What evidence do you have that he didn't actually believe in what he did?  He certainly said he did, and revolutionary was not exactly the natural path to power.  His ruthlessness and paranoia were already aspects of his personality long before he came to power, they were qualities he acquired by being hard scrabble revolutionary.

The fact that he just invented stuff to have people killed, even though it went directly against the interests of the nation he purported to lead, stikes me as being evidence.

Obviously he's never going to *say* "I don't believe in any of this shit, I'm only out for power no matter who I kill or what I destroy". If you are waiting for such a statement, no-one would ever qualify.

That's lousy evidence, since he wouldn't have considered killing these people as weakening the nation.  In fact, he saw it as strengthening it.  These people were traitors and purging traitors doesn't weaken the nation. 

That's provably untrue. For example, he "purged" military figures who were competent to spread terror, then had the ones still alive "unpurged" and brought back when it proved necessary in WW2. If he genuinely thought these guys were guilty of spying or whatever, that would make no sense. He himself quite evidently knew that purging people was, in fact, weakening the nation - and he didn't care (unless and until the nation grew so weak its fall to a rutheless enemy risked him personally).

It is pretty obvious to anyone reading about the Great Terror that Stalin had no actual belief in the literal truth of the charges he brought against (or had brought against) people. If you read the book I mentioned, it goes into great detail about how he had evidence faked up against people on his orders - death and life had nothing to do with actually being "traitors" or "enemies", or even to Stalin actually thinking they were. He had people killed because it suited him, and simply on general principles, it kept everyone unsettled and avoided any alternative power base forming.

Here's one test: if Stalin was a rutheless man who actually cared about the nation he led, wouldn't he have made any provision for the succession? Well, no, he didn't. In fact, he did on occasion 'tag' someone as a possible successor - which was usually a sign they were going to be purged.

He did tag someone for his succession. Zhdanov.  Zhdanov simply died before Stalin did.  Stalin didn't kill him (well not directly, the man drank himself to death.  You probably would to if Stalin was your boss).  You misunderstand the purpose of the terror.  The purpose of the Terror was to keep the revolution alive, motivate the workers and peasants and terrify class enemies.  He did not invent this.  It had ideological and historical precedents.  The Bolsheviks planned to use indiscriminate terror prior to coming to power.  That innocent people would die didn't matter.  Evidence didn't matter.   Remember the Bolsheviks were a "vanguard party", not a mass party.  They understood that if they seized control that most people wouldn't be with them.  The solution was to keep the country pacified with indiscriminate killings while they set up a new government/ Stalin would use this previously established tool as he moved into collectivization.  The Bolsheviks saw themselves as a continuation of the French Revolution.  The idea of the Terror has it's roots there as does the purge of the military.  The Reds were all to aware that French Republic died because of a military Coup.  Concern over potential "Bonapartists", resulted in the party treating the military as class enemies and thus subject to the terror.  It was typical Bolshevik heavy handedness.  Hitler managed to subject the military to his will by killing only a few hundred men and a little blackmail.

Zhdanov wasn't a serious "successor", as he was well known to be in incredibly bad health. Stalin expected to outlive him (and was right).

My point: that the system set up by the Bolshiveks enabled the party to be taken over by people who did not give a shit about Communism, other than as a route to power. Stalin was one such, but so were many of his close henchmen - look, for example, at Beria. Sexual predator and torturer, he very nearly replaced Stalin.

[LaCroix]

yeah, i don't see how any reading could suggest stalin was a visionary who did what he did for the good of the nation. he very clearly was obsessed with himself. exploits to enlarge the empire? his exploits, not USSR's exploits.

[DGuller]

These are actions consistent with being a psychopath - inability to have empathy, superficial glibness and charm (Stalin was, reputedly, very charming and charismatic in person), etc.

No he wasn't.  He drew Lenin's ire because he cursed out Lenin's wife.  He was the opposite of charming.

[The Minsky Moment]

I guess that means you agree with me.

Yes

[DGuller]

My point: that the system set up by the Bolshiveks enabled the party to be taken over by people who did not give a shit about Communism, other than as a route to power. Stalin was one such, but so were many of his close henchmen - look, for example, at Beria. Sexual predator and torturer, he very nearly replaced Stalin.

What does one have to do with the other?  You can't be a sexual predator and a communist?

Seriously, Malthus, you sound like someone who just recently finished a book you really liked, and now enthusiastically adopt every single thing written by one author in one book as the complete truth.

[alfred russel]

Seriously, Malthus, you sound like someone who just recently finished a book you really liked, and now enthusiastically adopt every single thing written by one author in one book as the complete truth.

Would you say "the complete gospel truth"?