Thread 17951177

Why do some people say that Soviets won the war "despite" Stalin, even though the communist power was centralized around Stalin?

Stalin is the one who knew everything, controlled everything and killed everyone, but at the same time, the Soviets won World War II DESPITE Stalin, how does that work? To claim that the Party centralized power in Stalin's hands and, at the same time, that a war was won despite him is absurd.

Because Stalin became top dog due to one thing and one thing only: he was the most skilled man at exploiting Soviet bureaucracy and political culture in order to slaughter his competitors. Besides this, he was generally incompetent. He was a bad general and possibly the reason why the German 1919 communist revolution failed (he bungled his part in the Polish campaign and this caused a Soviet failure to link up with German communists).
But the hypotheticals are unimportant, the elephant in the room is the very real and very historical failure in managing the Soviet armed forces. Stalin set back and idiotified the Soviet military schools, exterminated the officer corps of the army, purged some of the brightest military minds in the world (Tukhachevsky), ignored intelligence about an impending German offensive, crippled the Red Army by forcing them to stay still in fixed positions against an enemy that practiced manoeuvre warfare (resulting in millions of soldiers lost to encirclements in the first stages of the war), mismanaged the Red Air Force and was responsible for its almost complete destruction at the hands of the Luftwaffe, who destroyed 4000+ planes parked in airports without having to do any combat (Goering actually didn't believe this and forced his officers to do a recount), continued to kill and threaten his senior officers even in the desperate days of 1941, and of course let us not forget, forced the Red Army to take much more exposed positions following the partition of Poland, and making them abandon their prior fortifications.
Frankly, that the Soviet Union managed to survive such a colossal idiot is a true testament to the power of that country. Of course, credit is due where credit is due - Stalin was at least smart enough to eventually learn to hold himself back a little and let the military men do the military work. Not all heads of state are so lucky.

>>17951210
>he bungled his part in the Polish campaign and this caused a Soviet failure to link up with German communists
qrd?

>>17951260
During the Soviet-Polish war, Stalin sent an army into Lwow when Tukhachevsky needed it to support him in the Warsaw direction. This caused the general Soviet advance to falter and fail. If the Soviets had managed to make it past Poland, it is very possible that the Soviet Union would have incorporated revolutionary Germany as well, and this would have made communism an unstoppable force that would have certainly taken over all of Europe in the near future.

>>17951210
Who commanded the Soviet Union's victory over Nazism? Who were the people who corrected Stalin's mistakes? Who overthrew Stalin to direct the victory over Nazism?

Because he sucked in military matters and a lot of the 1941 losses are his fault. Equipment wise WW1 Russia faced a much bigger gap lacking almost anything but basic rifles while in WW2 it had its own guns planes and tanks. But it took 4 years and palace coups for comparable territory losses in WW1 to what it took in the first 6 months in WW2

>>17951210
That might just be why they won. Purge em till we beat em was Stalins motto.
>now that we are communist, everyone hug and don't even think of betraying or complaining o.k.? The hugs will increase until morale improves.
>Stalin

>>17951582
>Who commanded the Soviet Union's victory over Nazism? Who were the people who corrected Stalin's mistakes?
The military command.

Stalin had an incredibly large, powerful army at his control, and yet blundered horrifically. The Battle of Moscow could have ended so much quicker if someone more competent was in charge.

>>17951210
>the German 1919 communist revolution
such a fucking nothingburger. who was Stalin supposed to link up with after not losing to the Poles? It wasn't a revolution because nothing happened. It's only called that to justify Hitlerism.

>>17951177 (OP)
Hitler invaded U$$R because stalin fucked up his invasion of finland and killed/imprisoned most of his officers and generals.

>>17951177 (OP)
Marxist history forks over Stalin. He's almost intolerable to ideological marx-leninists because of his laser focus on killing people and ruthlessly depriving them of political power. He's an icon of terror and dictatorship whether you like him or not. The majority don't like him because leftism is all about rhetorical and moral perfection. The idea that you have to oppress people to achieve future communism is decently popular, but messy. Only with those who are conservative normies at heart can stomach it, not true leftists.

>>17951177 (OP)
Stalin made a number of blunders that increased the damage Hitler and Mussolini were able to do.

First, the winter war convinced Hitler the USSR was a clown show and would be easy to knock out.

Second, his flip-flopping with the "social-fascist vs united front" theories. Prior to about 1933, the Third International under Stalin told Communists in Germany and Italy that fascists and social democrats were effectively the same and to fight social democrats as they would fascists. Then they reverse course and told the communists to join the social democrats they were just fighting, but it was too little too late.

Now I think Hitler was always going to invade the Soviets, because it wasn't just Hitler. Germany's foreign policy always determined to take over as much of Russia as possible. Even when the conservatives tried to assassinate Hitler in 1943, it was because they hoped Britain would join them in the war against the soviets with Hitler gone, not because they thought Hitler was wrong. But Stalin's flip-flopping, greed and poor planning definitely added a few million to the total death toll of WW2.

>>17952453
I think anyone who is a Stalin fan today is probably sick, but I can see how it "makes sense" in the context of the 1930s/1940s, because the situation of Europe at that time created a kind of totalizing environment. It's like, we roll with this, or total annihilation. Also if you don't roll with it, they will kill you anyways along with your family members.

>>17952453
>Marxist history forks over Stalin

Marxists wrote entire books about why he was wrong in Stalin's own lifetime. They don't "fork over it".

>>17952536
that's allowed in marxism, theoretically

>>17951210
>Frankly, that the Soviet Union managed to survive such a colossal idiot is a true testament to the power of that country.
don't forget he was responsible for dekulakization

>>17952519
That's the problem with Stalin, he makes sense. There's an inexorable logic that led to him despite the revolution starting with best intentions. It proved the real communist revolution is philosophical, not something you can achieve by force of arms. Matt 26:52

>>17952562
I feel like the reason there's such an angry hatred of Marxism and Communism, and the reason rightoids (and leftoids) are so neurotic, is because they think Communism or Marxism is supposed to be a Bible you can just consult that will tell you all the answers to the world's problems. and create a utopia

Sorry to say, there is no such thing, there's no higher authority who has everything figured out and can tell you exactly what to do, Marx, Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin, Keynes... these people had answers, but they could never develop complete answers because they were human beings. They didn't have the answers anymore than you do. Some of them made better choices or presented better evidence for their claims, and its up to you to figure out which one. Or can instead engage with Communism and Marxism as a pre-packaged ideology you're supposed to dogmatically hate or support, packaged by equally flawed people.

>>17952581
>Sorry to say, there is no such thing, there's no higher authority who has everything figured out and can tell you exactly what to do
I do like Mao because he'd say things like that, like, "well, future generations will look back on us today and also probably Lenin and Marx and think of them as rather ridiculous." He also said Marxism would die out but that's not necessarily a bad thing because something more advanced would come to replace it.

>>17952581
All communist revolutions are the local economy experiencing class struggle in their own unique way. It's a tool in the socialist's toolbox for improving conditions. In that way, communism is almost as necessary as capitalism, which it exists to critique -- but I'm referring to the process and political activity of communism, not international revolution. The determination of communist success or failure is always going to happen at the country level, to the benefit of local realities, because improving conditions at that level is the true purpose of its popularity.

Lenin (monster) and Stalin (monster) are the closest anyone came to leading an international communist revolution. Pushing harder would only create harder men.

>>17952606
I mean, the west whether rightly or wrongly condemned East Germany for not "letting its people go free", meaning freely migrate to West Germany.

Yet when Nixon asked Mao "why don't Communists let their people go free", Mao basically said "Okay, does America wants 100's of thousands of Chinese peasants? We'll gladly send them".

East Germany had a small population. It could not afford to train engineers and scientists at state expense and then just have them run away to West Germany. China had too many people and was happy to send them abroad to America to get education, If even 1% returned to China, they would still be gaining educated citizens who could teach others. These concerns rip ideology apart and show that survival and the calculus of power always come first.

>>17952611
I understand this is special pleading and feel free to call me me out on it, but the Russian (and Chinese revolutions) happened under strange circumstances. They basically filled the void where a "good, honest" liberal revolution revolution was supposed to take place but never did, owing to the cowardice of these countries liberal classes. So communists had to fill the void.

So while I understand the working class right's paranoia about everything going wrong, there's no reason a nation with a strong democratic tradition would create a communist regime that was anti-democratic.

>>17952667
It's not special pleading if they were literally modern world war circumstances, unprecedented. You're right, a severe power vacuum is required.

>>17952433
Yeah well the German government was even more of a nothingburger than the revolutionaries who toppled it. There was no will to maintain the country any longer. If a shared border with the actual communist revolution had been established in those fateful early days, I have no doubt that Germany would have been overtaken. The only people with drive and guts at the time were the commies and the Freikorps (who were still at the front as a part of regular army units at the time).

I'm sorry commies but you'll have to participate in your own survival, and a free market facillitates that best.

>>17952667
Communism is neo feudalism.
Literally. They treat people as serfs. It's same, serf can't leave lord.
It was on international scale (no migration).
And country regions scale. Soveits created institutions if internal passports and residential registration that made Soveit citizens into fuedal serfs tied to land. Especially Soveit peasants who were denied passports till 1974 and we're tied to their kholhoz like feudal serf to Lord's manor.

>>17952647
>>17953124

>>17952564
Dekulakization was a good thing though. Imagine fucking having privatized agriculture during the fucking war. Shit would fall like the empire did.

>>17953266
Soveit agriculture did fail during WWII though.
90% of all canned meat soveit military consumed was made in USA and Mongolia. Without foreign help USSR couldn't feed soldiers (no, soldiers can't fight on bread and turnips alone, that vegan fantasy doesn't work).

>>17952929
>shit that never happened

>>17952581
>there is no such thing, there's no higher authority who has everything figured out and can tell you exactly what to do.

I am, put me in charge. Seriously.

>>17951177 (OP)
His hesitation to move forward into Poland, and his officer purge sent a message of weakness that the opportunistic hitler hoped to take advantage of

>>17951295
yeah, nah: by 1920 it was already too late - revolution in germany was already over, bavarian commune faltered and jews have started being persecuted for what they have done.

>>17953631
>the German monarchy never fell
Okay retard.

I've never seen that before
Most scholars I've read begrudgingly admit that Stalin was the man for the war
>>17953019
Yes, from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs
Work is something to be loved and not avoided

>>17955645
was it toppled by communists, no.

>>17955938
Yes lol? Have you read nothing at all about the Kiel mutiny?

>>17955976
The weimar republic was not communist.