Are Lenin and Stalin the same?
Apr. 16th, 2003 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipA recent and continuing contribution to the debate, a book review on the Gulags in the supposedly respectable New Yorker, has once again tried to combine Lenin and Stalin as one and the same. Yet there's something fishy about the claims, something is not quite right about some of the things they say....
http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?critics/030414crbo_books
Dmitri Likachev has evidently had a tough life, and memory and facts can sometimes be clouded. He claims that he was "a prisoner at Lenin's first concentration camp". Yet he wasn't arrested until February 1928 - that is, four years after Lenin had actually died. Oh to be sure, the Solovesky Island camps were built in 1923, and one supposes it is from here that we get the ridiculous claim of "Lenin's concentration camp". But historical facts are that by early 1923 Lenin had suffered a stroke which left him paralyzed and speechless - Stalin was in effective control of the country, as he had been for at least a year previous.
But of course it is necessary to condemn Lenin as somehow being the equivalent of Stalin. After all, if we just condemn Stalin then people will unearth the differences between the two characters - and may even discover what "Soviet democracy" was supposed to be like (Lenin's "State and Revolution" is perhaps the key text on this matter: (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/sep/staterev/)
The tragic result of the Soviet revolution of course in many ways mirrors that of the French revolution, but on a larger and longer scale. Born of fine principles, with a valiant and short-lived attempt to implement them and with rapid authoritarian reaction and neighbouring nations do their best to ensure that that the revolution is not successful - both France and Russia were invaded by almost European power after their revolutions. The success of the revolution in the United States can at the very least be mainly attributable to the fact that no European monarchial power could wage a war against them, their only real modicum of opposition were the indigenous people and the amazing real estate that existed under their feet. That these facts are often overlooked shows how much the reasons of historical context are gleaned over for ideological purposes.
We are provided justifications of Lenin's totalitarianism, apparently from Lenin's own works. The administration at Solovki put up a sign at the main camp, which captured perfectly the Leninist program. It read, “With an Iron Fist, We Will Lead Humanity to Happiness Very good. I wonder if any would care to check the veracity of that quote. Ahhh.. A search of the collected works of Lenin comes up with exactly... Ahhh... Zero references. Now there's a surprise. It isn't Lenin's quote. It's just something made up to justify and ideological conviction by the New Yorker and the Washington Times who have used the quote.
We can check further facts. The alleged claim that Lenin said that the Cheka were “inordinately soft, at every step more like jelly than iron?" It doesn't appear in any of Lenin's collected works, but it does appear in The Washington Times and The New Yorker. The same applies to Trotsky's alleged statement that soldiers who defy their officers in the Red Army; “nothing will remain of them but a wet spot?. Again, the Washington Times has this quote, but can it be found in Trotsky's collected works? Apparently not.
What about the claim that in September, 1918, he ordered the authorities in Nizhni Novgorod to “introduce at once mass terror, execute and deport hundreds of prostitutes, drunken soldiers, ex-officers, etc." Again, nothing in Lenin's collected works, but the Washington Times and the New Yorker once again provide these references.
I could go on, dissected every iota of falseness in the said article, but there's no real point. The initial tests have been conducted and with a bit of deductive logic we can safely state that the authors are on ideological agenda to conflate Lenin with Stalin. In other words, they'll tell lies for their political convictions. And these are people who should find themselves in the trashcan of history.
http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?critics/030414crbo_books
Dmitri Likachev has evidently had a tough life, and memory and facts can sometimes be clouded. He claims that he was "a prisoner at Lenin's first concentration camp". Yet he wasn't arrested until February 1928 - that is, four years after Lenin had actually died. Oh to be sure, the Solovesky Island camps were built in 1923, and one supposes it is from here that we get the ridiculous claim of "Lenin's concentration camp". But historical facts are that by early 1923 Lenin had suffered a stroke which left him paralyzed and speechless - Stalin was in effective control of the country, as he had been for at least a year previous.
But of course it is necessary to condemn Lenin as somehow being the equivalent of Stalin. After all, if we just condemn Stalin then people will unearth the differences between the two characters - and may even discover what "Soviet democracy" was supposed to be like (Lenin's "State and Revolution" is perhaps the key text on this matter: (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/sep/staterev/)
The tragic result of the Soviet revolution of course in many ways mirrors that of the French revolution, but on a larger and longer scale. Born of fine principles, with a valiant and short-lived attempt to implement them and with rapid authoritarian reaction and neighbouring nations do their best to ensure that that the revolution is not successful - both France and Russia were invaded by almost European power after their revolutions. The success of the revolution in the United States can at the very least be mainly attributable to the fact that no European monarchial power could wage a war against them, their only real modicum of opposition were the indigenous people and the amazing real estate that existed under their feet. That these facts are often overlooked shows how much the reasons of historical context are gleaned over for ideological purposes.
We are provided justifications of Lenin's totalitarianism, apparently from Lenin's own works. The administration at Solovki put up a sign at the main camp, which captured perfectly the Leninist program. It read, “With an Iron Fist, We Will Lead Humanity to Happiness Very good. I wonder if any would care to check the veracity of that quote. Ahhh.. A search of the collected works of Lenin comes up with exactly... Ahhh... Zero references. Now there's a surprise. It isn't Lenin's quote. It's just something made up to justify and ideological conviction by the New Yorker and the Washington Times who have used the quote.
We can check further facts. The alleged claim that Lenin said that the Cheka were “inordinately soft, at every step more like jelly than iron?" It doesn't appear in any of Lenin's collected works, but it does appear in The Washington Times and The New Yorker. The same applies to Trotsky's alleged statement that soldiers who defy their officers in the Red Army; “nothing will remain of them but a wet spot?. Again, the Washington Times has this quote, but can it be found in Trotsky's collected works? Apparently not.
What about the claim that in September, 1918, he ordered the authorities in Nizhni Novgorod to “introduce at once mass terror, execute and deport hundreds of prostitutes, drunken soldiers, ex-officers, etc." Again, nothing in Lenin's collected works, but the Washington Times and the New Yorker once again provide these references.
I could go on, dissected every iota of falseness in the said article, but there's no real point. The initial tests have been conducted and with a bit of deductive logic we can safely state that the authors are on ideological agenda to conflate Lenin with Stalin. In other words, they'll tell lies for their political convictions. And these are people who should find themselves in the trashcan of history.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: No idea
Date: 2003-04-16 07:35 pm (UTC)Like yourself, someone who is enjoying being a bit - just a little bit - secretive about their LJ identity ;-)
Mind you, I could have compelely mistaken you for someone else. Let me do a checklist.
1) You're a vet graduate?
2) A gamer, probably related to that infinite images bunch from UoM?
3) You used to live on Alexandra Pde in Fitzroy?
If not, these are indeed strange days!
Re: No idea
Date: 2003-04-17 12:03 am (UTC)Re: No idea
Date: 2003-04-17 07:46 pm (UTC)Ah, kewl. I can tag you then, if that's OK with you.
I'm not a vet (well duh!)
I was associated with Infinite Images.
I moved into your house after you left it. You came to my housewarming party too...
Ah, kewl. I can tag you then, if that's OK with you.
I'm not a vet (well duh!)
I was associated with Infinite Images.
I moved into your house after you left it. You came to my housewarming party too...
<and then the penny drops!>
some idea
Date: 2003-04-22 12:14 am (UTC)Re: some idea
Date: 2003-04-22 01:54 am (UTC)Ah ha! That'd be me (it was the Supreme Court, not that High Court, but believe me, I shared the pride! )
As for an amusing tale on how not to engage in a High Court appeal..
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/hca/transcripts/2002/C4/1.html