Stalin
by Hans Heinz Holz
This article is the famous Marxist philosopher Hans Heinz Holz’s
treatment of the life and work of Stalin, far from apologetic worship, but also
the far from the demonization and vilification which today is so commonplace on
the left today.
In difficult times
JV Stalin, who was born on December 21, 1879, died on March 5, 1953
belongs to the history of communism. For better or for worse: as the architect
of the Soviet Union, whose incomparable rise and heroic struggle against the
Nazis was won under his leadership, as a tyrant, who with indescribable hardness
in political line, whose representative he was prevailed over and suppressed actual and
alleged opposition deviation . In Stalin's contradictions young socialism is embodied. Only in recognition of these contradictions, we understand not deny
the nature of Stalin, which his bitterest enemies recognise as his historical greatness.
When Stalin died, the people wept in the streets. Not only in Moscow,
also in Paris. It was the generation for whom the Soviet Union, had been with
Stalin at the head, hope and support in the fight against fascism. The
stability of the Soviet Union had priority for them, this stability was Stalin.
A later generation that was not exposed to this threat, could and should set
different standards. That not only victims had to be taken on the way to
stabilization, but also countless crimes were committed, could not simply be put to one side by reference to the inevitability of taking sides against fascism and for
socialism. Past returns for wrong actions do not do so the question
of political ethics; they reveal only conditions for their implementation. From
the knowledge of historical circumstances, not for moral appeals, arises the
political ability to avoid mistakes in the future.
The historical-critical approach to the construction phase of the
Soviet Union, which is connected with the name of Stalin remains a
necessary piece of our party history, that of our political self-understanding.
Transfiguration as dam would both displacement and abandonment of the historical
materialist method that we have to apply it to our own history. This is not to
"error" that are made in any political process, but also fundamental
strategic decisions and to reasons for degeneration of socialist democracy.
At the time of the October Revolution Russia was a peasant country
with a poorly developed industrial production. The majority of the population
was not literate. The property relations in the countryside were characterized
by feudal and large rural estates. With the destruction of the feudal lords in
the wake of the revolution countless small businesses that could not ensure a
sufficient supply of the population originated.
Thus, three central problems posed for building a socialist economy:
Technical development and accelerated development of industrial capacities, the
rapid expansion of investment, raising living standards and defending the state
against foreign intervention allowed; Collectivization of agriculture in order
to create efficient farms; Construction of an educational system that prepared
the masses to the requirements of modern production. The size of the Soviet
Union, the very different regional development and aimed at the destruction of
the Soviet power of the capitalist economic action abroad made a tight central
planning of the economy is essential. If a reasonable and solidarity, ie
socialist development of the whole are guaranteed egoism and special interests
had to be combated effectively. In particular, changes in agriculture were also
on two sides to enforce: The poor peasants who had just turned to owners of
small property, it was to integrate into efficient units; and the rule of the
rich peasants, who insisted on the prerogatives of ownership had to be broken.
The victory of socialism was closely linked with the emergence of new class
relations in the countryside. This had already been recognized Lenin, who
attributed the peasant question the greatest importance.
These three main tasks - industrialization, changes in class
relations in the countryside, construction of schools and education - have been
overcome in the short time between 1925 and the invasion of Nazi Germany on the
Soviet Union in 1941, in a surprising way. The basic decisions that were made
during this period of Stalin and his colleagues in the party are, I think, had
been correct and have the practical test, when the Soviet Union to resist the
attack in WW2 and the brunt of the defeat of German fascism could carry, and
even strengthened as the second world power in this struggle emerged on life
and death. It is hard to imagine that the alternative concepts, it was Trotsky,
Zinoviev and Bukharin, has been achieved the same result and the Soviet Union
would have been able to survive.
This power of Stalin - and Stalin stands for the great mass of the
Soviet people - determines the character of the first thirty years of the
Soviet society. The theoretical and political consequence, has persevered with
Stalin the basics of building socialism, contributed significantly to that,
after 1945, albeit unstable and constantly disturbed by imperialist aggression,
has received world order of peace in the balance between social systems and
national and social liberation struggles could be successful.
The socialist transformation of society could not be pursued without
hard class struggles. Stalin had correctly predicted that the class struggle
after the victory of socialism in one country would worsen. The contrasts reached well into the party, especially since these had incorporated many new
members after the revolution, who lacked political experience and ideological
training. Given the growing threat came by the imperialist powers. The Soviet
Union was as it were in a constant state of siege.
In this situation endangered factional fights in the party, in fact,
the existence of the young socialist society. In continuing tense situation, it
was not possible to build a democratic internal front in defense of socialism,
even though the vast majority of the people of socialist society faced
positive. The peculiarities of Russian history appeared after: the lack of an
epoch of bourgeois democracy and education, the acquisition of the former
Tsarist methods of administrative apparatus with its police state traditions,
the memory of the terror of just having thrown back counter-revolutionary
armies of intervention. So the authorities too become independent mechanisms of
oppression who exercised their power in an atmosphere of mistrust, denunciation
and arbitrariness.
Stalin was not this system, whose roots go back far before the
socialist time of the author. He was, however, its leader and thereby took
countless innocent victims and made unnecessary hardships in the acquiring of
it. Revolutionary upheavals have always been connected in history with
violation of the law and with the violence, but usually in relatively short
periods of time. The extension of the repressive phase of the revolution for
two decades seriously damaged the development of a socialist democracy in which
citizens revert to an active, self-responsible role in shaping policy.
Stalin was undoubtedly aware of this problem. At the height of his
power he gave the Soviet Union a constitution that designs the contours of a
socialist democracy and to bring the country on the path to an association of
free citizens. This Constitution is a program. It assumes the successes of the
economic and education policies, which would now be further built politically.
The outbreak of World War 2 derailed the implementation of this
program; and at the end of the war, which had caused immense destruction, the
Soviet Union did not attain a post 1919 status again as in a rebuilding phase.
Before the transition to normalization was completed, Stalin died.
His tenure coincided with the worst conceivable period which can live
through a organization in building a new society. His name symbolizes the will
of the Soviet people to persevere and move forward.
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