Grover Furr: Stalin was demonized

He even managed to use capitalist contradictions/difference in their aims (most of them were feeding Hitler) - attract western investments, technology for the industrialization (genius move).

Without regular serious funding of his movement, paying for a number of expensive events that made the German National Socialist Workers' Party (in the German transcription of the NSDAP) popular, the Nazis would never have reached the heights of power
Was this also a genius move?
 
Could you be a bit more specific?
Unfortunately not, it's more a feeling. Besides, in both cases, this same feeling came to me and so I wanted to know how to explain it.
Like a change of meaning? or a presumption, a divergence behind the story that doesn't coincide. And it's about the whole and not details.
What comes from his own word or quotes is not differentiated and maybe it's just that gap...
I also thought back to Laura's deciphering of a Whitecoast intervention and the realisation he made, how suddenly bright it all seemed.
The opposite is true here.
It's a notion that I think is important for me to recognise, a bit of a shield for the future :-)
It is very likely that I am wrong (and I am using the translator), and knowing where my mistake is will also help.
In that case sorry for the noise.

Malheureusement non, c'est plutôt un sentiment. D'ailleurs, dans les deux cas, ce même sentiment m'est venu et j'ai donc voulu savoir comment l'expliquer.
Comme un changement de sens ? ou une présomption, une divergence derrière l'histoire qui ne coïncide pas. Et il s'agit de l'ensemble et non de détails.
Ce qui vient de sa propre parole ou des citations n'est pas différencié et peut-être que c'est juste ce décalage...
J'ai également repensé au décryptage par Laura d'une intervention de Whitecoast et à la prise de conscience qu'il a faite, à quel point tout semblait soudainement lumineux.
Ici, c'est l'inverse.
C'est une notion qu'il me semble important de reconnaître, un peu comme un bouclier pour l'avenir :-)
Il est très probable que je me trompe (et j'utilise le traducteur), et savoir où se trouve mon erreur m'aidera aussi.
Dans ce cas, désolée pour le bruit.
Traduit avec www.DeepL.com/Translator (version gratuite)
 
Was this also a genius move?
Approaching Infinity,
If i correctly understood you question, the comparison of these cases. The Stalin’s case was hugely beneficial for my country, allowed to speed up the task. By the way for some projects we even managed not to pay the bill)

In Hitler’s-that is the statement of the mechanism how he was brought to power. Elites planned it for a long time and could not loose an opportunity/chance - to bring a ‘leader’ of the sts trial run.
 
Approaching Infinity,
If i correctly understood you question, the comparison of these cases. The Stalin’s case was hugely beneficial for my country, allowed to speed up the task. By the way for some projects we even managed not to pay the bill)

In Hitler’s-that is the statement of the mechanism how he was brought to power. Elites planned it for a long time and could not loose an opportunity/chance - to bring a ‘leader’ of the sts trial run.

I think you may be missing the point. For you, "the Stalin's case was hugely beneficial to your country" but it was beneficial in the same way as is beneficial for a fish to be given a good fat bait by fisherman. Not sure if that's what AI had on mind in his latest question but for me, those two facts (two quotes from your post) put together are just confirmation of the fact that the "capitalists" as you call them fed both dogs that had been meant to fight against each other and bleed out so that they are not a threat (imaginary or real) to those "capitalists" for many years to come. The more developed and strong they were made, the longer, more bloody and costly in many ways the war between them, and the more open to "capitalists" their markets and resources would be in result. Both, Hitler and Stalin, were sure they could outsmart not only each other but also the Brits and Americans. And look at the world as it has become after WWII. Yes, it was mostly the USRR who defeated the Nazis (and suffered the biggest losses) but it was the USA who's become the world's superpower in the aftermath of the war, while the USSR was turned from an ally into an adversary in no time.

By the way for some projects we even managed not to pay the bill
You paid with 26+ million dead and partial material destruction of your country.
 
Possibility of Being,

I understand your way of thought.
But question yourself, if Hitler was a bad side (there is no doubt about it) somebody was supposed to be (not telling - the good) at least neutral/positive-against New world order and all then already antihumanistic agenda? Who defeated their plans.
The west-who brought up Hitler-was obviously against Soviet - anticapitalist project. That perfectly confirms your statement-who was the first to straight away declare ‘new’ (old) enemy. Just as a fact. The United States should help the USSR while Germany is winning, and help Germany when the USSR begins to win. (On April 11, July 24, 1941, U.S. Senator from Missouri, future President Harry Truman).
We can study history, research facts-do our homework basically. But to understand the motive of the main actor in WW2 - was one of ideas that led me then to open my old thread. To understand with the help of Cs the Stalin’s motive. True or false basically💁‍♂️
 
Here are excerpts with quotes of the head of Soviet diplomacy. Just to better understand the context of russian-western relations then and what (if at all) changed nowadays.

The person who will be discussed in this article is a legend of world diplomacy. He headed the Foreign Policy department of the USSR for almost 30 years, and all these years insanely infuriated Western representatives with his professionalism, intransigence and rigidity. We are talking about Andrei Andreevich Gromyko, who is rightfully considered one of the best diplomats in the entire history of the world.

The Western media once gave Andrei Gromyko the nickname "Mr. NO". This is because the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR has always stood his ground and was guided solely by the interests of his state, which he would never exchange for any benefits of civilization. That 's what Andrey Andreevich said to himself:

"They haven't heard my 'NO' more often than I've heard their 'NO'. There is one reason – Westerners are very fond of manipulating, and I have never allowed them to do this with myself. The USSR is a great power, and no one was allowed to manipulate us."

When, during the reign of Mikhail Sergeyevich, the era of the Soviet Union of Gorbachev was rapidly approaching its decline, pacifist ideas began to gain popularity. The Kremlin was literally bursting with pride that it was abandoning its position of strength in international relations and wanted to achieve its interests exclusively by peaceful means. However, Gromyko was an ardent opponent of such methods:

"There's nothing to be proud of, period. Of course, peace must be sought, this is a blessing, but not at any cost and certainly not at the cost of the interests of own people. If you are proud of pacifism, admire it – never, never sit in the place of the head of a great power. Be proud and admire pacifism anywhere. On the street, in the yard, at home, but by no means as a head of the state"
And immediately Andrei Andreevich Gromyko added:

"I have never fawned over Westerners. I know many examples of leaders of countries who shamefully and fearfully defend the interests of their states. Everyone is afraid and worried - no matter how not to disturb or offend the United States. No, that's not how things are done."

Then, and some are doing it now, the opinion was expressed that they say Russia needs to give up nuclear weapons, since this gesture of goodwill will be highly appreciated by the West and will contribute to the establishment of world peace. But Gromyko, back in those years, made it clear that this was complete nonsense.

"Possession of nuclear weapons for the Soviet Union is always a necessity. Washington conducted a dialogue with us only because it knew that Moscow had as many nuclear weapons as they did. If there were fewer of these weapons, they wouldn't even listen and talk... Well, we will destroy it (nuclear weapons), and what will we achieve? In the West, no one is going to destroy it. They are only in appearance for the pluralism of opinions. In fact, their goal is to unify, to create a world where there will be "horses" and "riders". The propaganda machine works every day. If we relax, we will simply be crushed."

"The Soviet grouping in the GDR is the basis of security in Europe. This is a shield against a possible NATO attack. While we are there, there is a balance. There is only one alternative – the dissolution of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact Organization). But the West will not disband NATO. Andropov and Ustinov were well aware of this, but Gorbachev was not. We must keep our group there as long as NATO exists. It is not necessary to leave there with a big mind. But to pick up again is difficult, almost impossible. The country has paid millions of lives for its presence there. What kind of politician can forget about it? We will leave there only when NATO and the Warsaw Pact are disbanded."

Mine. What way it went-we know. Nazi sympathizers regained power in Europe, under the pretext of SMO united (again) on anti-russian basis and ready to escalate further... That’s the main run so to say, battle of the end of times in eschatological terminology...
 
Just adding a post I made elsewhere, in Febuary:

V24: Russia unveiled a new monument honoring Stalin in Volgograd, Feb 1st.

Does this make any say, "Huh?" I thought Russia tore down all statues of Stalin years ago because of the cruelty, starvation, and death under his rule?....Z


-5969800397805698004_120.jpg
 
When I woke up this morning, I was clearer!
The change is mine: I see that, from what has been called the dress rehearsal to the present completed programming, through the human (trans-human) and those who govern it, the selection/substitution would now prove to be total, i.e. body and mind. It is possible, isn't it?
Sorry for the inconvenience and the digression in this thread and also thanks.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
 
When I woke up this morning, I was clearer!
The change is mine: I see that, from what has been called the dress rehearsal to the present completed programming, through the human (trans-human) and those who govern it, the selection/substitution would now prove to be total, i.e. body and mind. It is possible, isn't it?
Sorry for the inconvenience and the digression in this thread and also thanks.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

I'm sorry, Deliverance, it has nothing to do with ignoring your request. I'd tried to understand what you meant and finally thought I've got it and then I saw your latest post... which confused me again, but as far as I can guess what you might have meant, I'd be careful with making too broad conclusion.

Can we start anew? Who, as you sensed it, was doing the selection/substitution and justification that made you post the initial question?
 
Do you even understand your own motivation? (I guess that's what you mean by "motive", or reason - "мотивы"; please correct if I'm wrong.)
Possibility of Being,

Yep, the motivation. Mine is - is to give a food for thoughts, that the story about one of the biggest leaders in history of 20th century is not so negatively straightforward. ‘Butcher, pathological and hungry for power’ - just by ‘happy luck’ for mankind won the most horrible war in recent history. An opportunity to reveal what seems to me one of the biggest fraud/fake about the person, who put his life for the better future of our country and humanity as a whole🙏, imo.
 
Excerpt from an article...especially actual on the day of Chinese leader visit to Moscow.

Why Is Joseph Stalin Remembered Abroad?

The figure of Joseph Stalin, whose 140th anniversary falls on December 2018, is still the focus of heated public discussions; this name still leaves few people indifferent.

Without going into a deep analysis of the motivating reasons and the historical conditionality of the course of "de-Stalinization" (which was initiated by Nikita Khrushchev and his famous report at the XX Party Congress in 1956), we note: to this day, in many countries, including the territory of the former Soviet Union, objects named after Stalin are preserved. As the complex pressure on the Russian Federation increases, the opinion is becoming increasingly widespread that it was the Stalinist Soviet Union, especially in the first post-war years, that was an example of successful counteraction to globalism, dollarization and transnational convergence of states and peoples.

The proof of this can be, in particular, the strategic measures of the last Stalinist five-year period, including:

– creation of the Economic Union of the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe (1949);

– elimination of the binding of the ruble to the US dollar with the transfer of the ruble exchange rate to the world average gold prices (1950);

– International economic meeting of 49 countries in Moscow, aimed at the formation of regional and global "non-dollar" markets for goods and national investments (1952);

– creation of alternative interregional economic structures with the participation of the USSR, which are still operating (the Danube Commission of 1948);

– abandonment of raw material priority in Soviet exports (early 1950s);

– perpetual agreement of 15 countries on international freight rail transport, 1951). (1)

"Yes, Stalin was our main opponent, especially after 1945. But he was an outstanding personality, deserving respect beyond time and political conjuncture," is Winston Churchill's assessment. No less characteristic is the opinion of General de Gaulle: "Stalin has not gone into the past: he has dissolved into the future."

The assessment of such a "friend" of our country as Zbigniew Brzezinski is also interesting:

"Under Stalin, the USSR became a great industrial power. The centralized socialist system was completely rebuilt. Moreover, the Soviet economy had a relatively high growth rate during the Stalin period. The fact that the Soviet economy achieved great success under Stalin cannot be denied. I must admit that Stalin was an incredibly capable and intelligent man, the level of Soviet governance under him was quite high. Then Stalin had already aged, became ill, tired. And after his death, this level began to decrease markedly. The Soviet system began to decline back in the 60s, and it all started with the decline in the level of governance of the country."

These and similar assessments to some extent explain the "survivability" of Stalinist objects in the People's Republic of China, whose leadership still rejects both the notorious anti-Stalinist decisions of the Khrushchev and Gorbachev periods, and the corresponding political and ideological practice. In particular, the head of the CPC Central Committee, Xi Jinping, in 2018, on the eve of the 65th anniversary of Stalin's "official" death (March 5, 1953), said:

"... to reject and falsify Stalin is dangerous and cynical nihilism, which is proved, first of all, by the tragic fate of the USSR, the CPSU, and the socialist commonwealth. And in terms of the percentage of correct decisions and political and economic plans, Stalin, perhaps, has no equal in world history."

 
Interesting stats, despite of all ‘atrocities’ allegedly committed by Communists🤔 Everything can be compared from a ‘distance’. Nowadays pseudo democracy represents a fascism not known even during Hitler...

Date of the poll? Exact question? Context?

As it is, there is no way you can get 75% for yes in Ukraine now, same with 47% in Poland, 55% in Czech Republic, 92% in Hungary (?!) and so on. Maybe there are more of such sentiments in Slovakia and the Balkan states, maybe in Russia, but that would depend on when exactly it was done. Overall, it looks to me BS-ish.

And I don't think any real results would have anything to do with Communists' crimes or 'communism' itself. What would be reflected is mostly people's nostalgia for their youth and relatively simpler life with simpler rules.
 
Dear PoB,

I have seen that graph before and memorized it. But i did not remember the year it was held. Yep, of course it was before the smo, but still relatively recently, between 2010s-2019.

Here is the short overview:
Eastern Europe longs for the socialist camp
The American Gallup Institute (Gallup) has published the results of a survey conducted among citizens of the former Soviet republics — how they feel about the collapse of the USSR.

The answer stunned American sociologists. It turns out that only 24% of former Soviet citizens saw this as a positive thing. While 51% felt that the collapse of the USSR caused harm both to them personally and to the republics (now independent states) where they lived.
Gallup experts were most impressed by the cross-section of opinions in Ukraine and Moldova. In "nezalezhnaya", contrary to the Maidan, 56% of respondents have a negative attitude to the disappearance of a single great country, and only 23% see this as a benefit. In Moldova, which initialed the Association agreement with the European Union, where the Constitutional Court recognized Romanian as the official language, 42% of citizens continue to see more harm in the collapse of the USSR, while 26% saw benefit. Russians are also not happy with the "dumping of ballast", as some democratic politicians presented the division of the USSR: 55% of respondents see harm in this, only 19% see benefit.
In December 2012, the American research organization Pew Research Center published the results of the work devoted to the study of how citizens of Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine assess the changes that took place in 1991, 2009 and 2011. It should be noted that the reforms in these states were carried out by different people and under different scenarios. So, the emergence of a market economy in 1991 was supported by 76%, in 2009 by 50%, and in 2011 by only 45% of the inhabitants of Lithuania, one of the first to break out of the "yoke" of the Soviet economic and political system. According to the respondents, the changes over the past twenty years have been beneficial to politicians (91% named them) and entrepreneurs (78%), and not ordinary people (20%). 56% of respondents in the republic said that the last twenty years have had a negative impact on the quality of life. 61% of Russians and 82% of Ukrainians responded similarly.

The most striking were the results of a sociological study conducted in 2010 by the Emnid Institute for the Study of Public Opinion in Germany. 80% of residents of the former GDR and 72% of respondents in Germany said that they could well live in a socialist state now. Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany, only 28% of respondents in the east of the country said that they consider their newfound "freedom" to be the main political value. The German leadership, led by former activist of the East German Komsomol (FDJ) Angela Merkel, was shocked by such results. Since then, such studies have not been heard of in Germany anymore. But in other countries, the results are no less eloquent.
Thus, in the Gallup World ranking, compiled in three categories — "prosperous", "struggling" and "suffering" people, according to the results of 2012, the people of Bulgaria became the most suffering. 39% of its residents described themselves as unhappy. The top 5 global sufferers also included the once prosperous Hungarians. 32% of the citizens of this country, who were once envied even in the USSR, also consider themselves unhappy. Romanians recall the Ceausescu era with nostalgia. Similar studies state the same thing in most of the states created on the ruins of the Yugoslav Federation, the Serbian publication Politika Online states.

Yandex
Here are some reasons other than ‘simplicity’ of life and nostalgia

In the case of the GDR, it doesn’t seem to be mere nostalgia talking. It is far better to have a secure life and dignified existence without poverty than to have the ‘freedom’ to wander from town to town, half starving and homeless, or be forced to journey to a foreign land to offer your life and labour for cheap exploitation as your domestic economy has collapsed under the direction of the local kleptocrats and imperialist financiers. In any event, travel within the socialist world was possible and every worker had the right to long and well-paid holidays, maternity leave, carer and sick leave, and more.

What is important here is that an average worker interviewed does not go along with the propaganda narrative of the author. Political scientist Klaus Schroeder, director of an institute at Berlin’s Free university that studies the former communist state is cited in the Spiegel article, admitting: “I am afraid that a majority of eastern Germans do not identify with the current [capitalist and imperialist] sociopolitical system.”

Another point of attack we often see in the bourgeois press is that those who miss their socialist system do so because they were the lazy and untalented elements who therefore enjoyed the security of the state. In fact, a successful businessman interviewed in the article says that although he has personally done well, he is unhappy with unequal wages and pensions, and misses “that feeling of companionship and solidarity”.

In other words, economic insecurity has worsened under capitalism, bringing with it an increase in social dislocation, poverty, crime and unhappiness.

Continuing and imo, that are the cliche you used:

It’s seemingly easy for the bourgeois press, who have to report these unfavourable findings to dismiss them as mere nostalgia. “Oh everyone loved their youth,” they clamour, “it is their youth they are nostalgic for, not socialism!”

Over the past decade, polls have been conducted in each of the former democratic republics, allowing us to gauge their experience of the wonders of free-market (ie, monopoly) capitalism. A number of well-known western-European capitalist journals seem to be shocked at their reported results. Bourgeois journalists couch their own surprise in customary cynicism and dismiss the longing of eastern European workers for the return of the decency and optimism of their lost socialist systems as ‘nostalgia’. In Germany, they have even coined the term ‘Ostalgia’ – a longing for the return of the socialist (east) German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Subtly twisting words to suit their agenda, these reporters attempt to cover up the truth when discussing the reality of working-class power and actual opinions of east European workers, derived from the lived experience of workers from the former socialist states. This kind of con game has long existed when discussing any country that doesn’t have a system of government of which western capitalism approves.

The full articles are linked to, and we invite you to read them – bearing in mind that every piece of data is used as a pretext for a subjective and irrelevant conclusion in order to launch an unwarranted attack on socialism. If the youth want socialism, they are ‘young and naive and not experienced enough in life’. If the old that lived under socialism want their socialist systems back, they are ‘nostalgic’ fossils, lamenting for their lost youth.

If we ignore the commentary and listen instead to the source, we will find that our old comrades – who have lived and experienced both socialism and the capitalist reaction, counter-revolution and restoration – themselves provide detailed and nuanced reasons for preferring socialism.

This is all the more remarkable given that most of those old enough to have lived under socialist systems in Europe did so when revisionism was already busy uprooting the gains of the planned economy and preparing the necessary conditions for the counter-revolution. In many cases, the years they experienced were the years of relative stagnation and decline (although the socialist countries never experienced absolute recession before capitalist restoration) that paved the way for full counter-revolution.
Down the link there are references to the related surveys:
Workers in eastern Europe and former Soviet states prefer socialism

And:

Russian ‘angle’:

The reasons why ordinary people remember the times of the Soviet Union with growing warmth and respect are not only in the economy. Psychologists believe that this is also a subconscious attempt to find protection from the total, including interpersonal, negativity that has grown to an incredible size. People everywhere have become more vicious. Angrier, more aggressive, greedier, more selfish, more unscrupulous, more ruthless, more domineering and self-serving. And this, as it turned out, neither helps to build nor to live.
Socialism worked to develop the best in man. And it was bearing fruit. "Even in the late Soviet period, despite the fact that in times of queues and shortages, another person was perceived as a competitor in the struggle for basic necessities, relations between people — including of different nationalities — were quite friendly," says Andrey Yurevich, Deputy director of the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

That phenomenon we already discussed:
Former Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s approval rating has hit a record high of 70 percent amongst Russians, according to a study published by the Levada polling centre. (Stalin’s approval rating among Russians hits record high, The Moscow Times, 16 April 2019)

That is 2017
For the Russians, the case is simple: in 2017, Russians were spending more than half their income on food. The return of capitalism has meant a complete stripping away of any security for the vast majority and incredible enrichment for a miniscule minority.
That is 2023-no difference. People are basically ‘surviving’.
Over sixty percent of Russians spend more than half of their income on food
August 22, 2023

Summarizing-people of Russia and post-soviet states definitely not out of prosperity and security are missing socialist system.
 
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