The image attached portrays the defence of Stalin as a waste of time at best, this is frankly charitable compared to most self proclaimed leftists who think the rehabilitation of Stalin is actively harmful towards our movement.
There are reasons as to why the rehabilitation of Stalin is indeed an important issue and not just some trivial thing that we must halt in order to gain a larger following.
The rehabilitation of Stalin’s image is less about the rehabilitation of Stalin as a historical individual and more about defending and upholding Marxism.
Condemning or even refusing to uphold Stalin to at least some extent is equivalent to fighting our enemies on their terms. Why would we let our enemies decide who we should love and hate? There’s no reason to allow the historical narrative that our enemies have constructed to be our historical narrative, that’s just ideological surrender, may as well become a liberal at that point.
The total slander and demonization of Stalin’s image is what leads most people into deviationist tendencies, tendencies which are totally harmless towards the bourgeoisie. It’s only logical, if people believe Marxism-Leninism led to practically 1984 in real life, then why would they follow it?
Rather than keeping quiet about the USSR under Stalin, it is our duty to defend this period against the reactionary slander laid upon it. It was the first time in human history that mankind entered the socialist mode of production, and that’s something to be cherished.
Exactly.
Put it this way: If we as communists cannot defend practicing communists, then what business do we have being communists? Of course this does not mean we should dogmatically and religiously defend anyone who claims to be communist. But, broadly speaking, if all we can do is defend communism in the abstract, then we might as well go join a pacifist commune and cover our ears about what’s going on in the world.
And if our starting point for what’s “valid” to defend is what the imperialists, the colonizers, and the capitalists have said is valid to defend, then we’re left with no meaningful practicing communism to defend in the first place!
It’s absurd to look at a system that is exploiting you and go, “I’ll only criticize what they say is okay to criticize and only support who they say is okay to support.” It’s the stuff of newbie “leftists” who are dipping a foot in, who still believe in the system and what it taught them. They’re mad, but they haven’t yet come to terms with the idea that they’ve been lied to about a lot. In this sense, rehabilitation isn’t even the right word. It’s shoveling the lies out of the way so that people can see clearly. It’s challenging slander.
I notice a peculiar phenomena where some leftists will agree with base and superstructure theory as well as nod along at the quote “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas” but for some reason they don’t consistently apply them.
Needless to say, the dominant press is the bourgeois press. The dominant historiography is bourgeois historiography. Hell, even the dominant Marxism is an impotent bourgeois Marxism.
Some leftist want to look ‘reasonable’, but in this epoch it’s a choice between being right and looking ‘reasonable’. Demanding an end to private property is not ‘reasonable’, calling to armed struggle against the ruling class is not ‘reasonable’, wanting more than concessions is not ‘reasonable’; any true Marxist will not ever be ‘reasonable’ in the eyes of the dominant ideology.
Yep, good points. And if we look at successful communist revolutions in history, it was never like, “They got along swell with the ruling classes and then they did a peaceful of transfer of power after defeating the rulers in public debate.” It’s always, “They got in varying degrees of trouble with the law; often had to go underground to build and survive; some faced exile, imprisonment, or worse; and they succeeded not through better ideas in the abstract but through better practice: theory and organizing as a coupled dynamic, willingness to take power seriously, and making use of every advantage they could get from evolving conditions.”
In a word, the ones who seek to liberate from an exploitative power structure are always, in a sense, fugitives; if not in the beginning, they become that as their power and influence grows among the masses. It is not that they seek to be fugitives, not that they seek to violate the law, but that by opposing the exploitative system, a series of confrontations becomes inevitable, due to the unwillingness of the existing system to allow an alternative that unseats them from power. Those who seek to be only compatible and “change the system from within” are allowed more freedom of movement precisely because the exploiting classes know they can dilute and flatten some reformists on the inside with relative ease. What they can’t do with ease is manage the ones who refuse to comply, who insist there is a better alternative than what we have that is proven to be better in practice, and that the exploiting classes are only in it for themselves and are refusing a better life for millions for this selfish reason.
Reminds me of a certain section that think if communists are considered “normal” by “average” people then revolution is imminent.