Stalin...

[Captain]

Professor Robert Service is a senior professor of history at Oxford University. He specialises in Russian history since 1900 and has written many books on the subject.

His biography of Trotsky won the Duff Cooper prize which is awarded each year to the best english language history/biography. The Duff Cooper prize is sort of like the Academy award of the history world.

He is one of the few non-ideological professional historians, like Glantz, who is writing in this area. He has spent a lot of time studying the secret communist party archives which became available in the 90s and came up with many interesting new facts on the Soviet Union.

One of the things I like about his books is the fact that every sentence he writes is
backed up by footnotes so you can judge for yourself the reliability of the source. As you know, when studying Soviet history, the footnotes are as important as the text itself.

Of course, the real question here is if you are dismissing out of hand Service's works, what works are you relying on for your conclusions?

[Mehring]

I don't give a hoot what position Service occupies and where, or what awards he has won. Clearly, if you consider the criticisms of his work neither is a guarantee against historical fraud. You, though, in stead of attempting to refute the criticisms, pretend I have not provided sources or given references. Intellectual dishonesty or just laziness?

“There’s life in the old boy Trotsky yet—but if the ice pick didn’t quite do its job killing him off, I hope I’ve managed it.”

-Robert Service at the London book launch of his biography of Trotsky.

I think that demonstrates nicely the perspective which frames Service's approach to history, a rare moment of honesty from an intellectual fraudster.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Mehring
“There’s life in the old boy Trotsky yet—but if the ice pick didn’t quite do its job killing him off, I hope I’ve managed it.”

-Robert Service at the London book launch of his biography of Trotsky.

One might say the same of Jesus, Elvis, DB Cooper, JF Kennedy, Hitler, or any number of other historical figures who have somehow managed to be elevated to godhood by their overzealous supporters.

I'm not taking a stance on Service's work here. I'm merely saying that taking a quote like that, out of context, could be misleading - to those who you're trying to convince, or even to yourself...

[Mehring]

JAMiAM, taken in isolation you are right, such a quote could be used out of context to confuse and muddy the water. In this context, though, I think it epitomises Service's approach to his biographies.

In a world divided by bitter political and often sectarian feuds, and North's SEP are the most aloof of the aloof, one would not expect to find one organisation credit another. Neither can I find any reference to Patenaude's own work on Trotsky on North's organisation's web site. That a party member's biography of Trotsky should not be reviewed on his own party's web site, is unthinkable. As far as I can deduce, then, while Patenaude finds intellectual merit in David North's rebuttal of Service's work, Patenaude is not, to my knowledge at least, a Trotskyist of any pursuasion. It is indeed rare these days for a non-communist to defend the historical record of a communist. But doesn't that, and the asumption that anyone who defends a communist must be a communist, speak more about the integrity of today's intellectuals than about historical facts?

[Flaviusx]

For myself, I tend to think all these bolsheviks were bastards, Stalin was merely the biggest bastard of all, the most ruthless and the most successful one. But Trotsky was no sweetheart. Nor indeed Lenin. I've never bought into this mythology that the Revolution went wrong with Stalin. It was rotten at the core from the getgo and just got worse. Stalin was just Lenin on roids.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

For myself, I tend to think all these bolsheviks were bastards, Stalin was merely the biggest bastard of all, the most ruthless and the most successful one. But Trotsky was no sweetheart. Nor indeed Lenin. I've never bought into this mythology that the Revolution went wrong with Stalin. It was rotten at the core from the getgo and just got worse. Stalin was just Lenin on roids.

It would indeed be a mythology that a revolution went right or wrong with or on account of any individual. A revolution can only achieve its aims when the material prerequisites for it to do so are present. They were saliently absent in Russia and the Bolsheviks recognised this.

As for whether or not they were bastards, their conduct during the revolution and civil war generally compares favourably with bourgeous politicians in similar straights. Anyone wishing to trace Stalin's GULAG to Lenin's time might do well to trace the GULAG to the American and British concentration camps of the Phillipines and Boer Wars. Neither regime was in any way threatened by loss of the wars, let alone with their own extermination, yet they behaved dispicably and criminally; Trace the 'red terror' to revolutionary France directly, and you will also find parallels with the oppression of the English and US Civil Wars; Look at the extermination of the Paris Commune to discover the vehemence with which it was conducted, or to a never ending stream of abuses which popular history passes over in favour of victors we are often encouraged to venerate.

The Bolsheviks were determined and ruthless and they made many mistakes in their struggle. They never denied this and took responsability for the loss of innocent lives and livelihoods. Such losses have always been the case in war, even more so civil war, yet we owe all we have to such wars.

Who, before they sought to make cheap political gain against those percieved to be threatening their interests, would seriously question Samuel Johnson's statement, "The violence of war admits no distinction; the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness."

Unless you want to abdicate from politics in despair at the whole affair, whether or not they were bastards in your mind is decided ultimately by whether or not you agree with what they fought for.

But for the historical record, because Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin were at one time in the same political party, does not mean they remained all in the same political boat. They did not, and the worst of Stalin's crimes were commited not for revolution but its opposite.

[Rasputitsa]

I am reading Trotsky's 'October to Brest-Litovsk and only halfway through, but it's turgid stuff. Everyone is bracketed into groups and factions, there is no humanity, or personal detail. I thought that someone who has such a significant following and is referred to as one of the smarter revolutionaries, would be a more interesting subject.

I always try to go to primary sources, rather than rely on other views, but I am not impressed so far, whatever the critics and reviewers say.

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Mehring
As for whether or not they were bastards, their conduct during the revolution and civil war generally compares favourably with bourgeous politicians in similar straights. Anyone wishing to trace Stalin's GULAG to Lenin's time might do well to trace the GULAG to the American and British concentration camps of the Phillipines and Boer Wars. Neither regime was in any way threatened by loss of the wars, let alone with their own extermination, yet they behaved dispicably and criminally; Trace the 'red terror' to revolutionary France directly, and you will also find parallels with the oppression of the English and US Civil Wars; Look at the extermination of the Paris Commune to discover the vehemence with which it was conducted, or to a never ending stream of abuses which popular history passes over in favour of victors we are often encouraged to venerate.

The Bolsheviks were determined and ruthless and they made many mistakes in their struggle. They never denied this and took responsability for the loss of innocent lives and livelihoods. Such losses have always been the case in war, even more so civil war, yet we owe all we have to such wars.

The excesses of the Soviet regime did not stop after their revolution and civil war, when their regime was in its greatest danger. It went on for decades and on a scale that dwarfs anything in the rest of the world's history. Nothing in the examples that you give parallels the suffering that was imposed on the people of the Soviet Union and satellite countries.

[Flaviusx]

Mehring, the world is still waiting for an actual successful example of a socialist revolution. All the ones to date have gone to hell, more or less. After a while, you begin to wonder if the whole idea is half baked to begin with. If it is so hard to pull off, we may be better off without any more such future political experiments.

The actual, realizable goal for progress in Russia lay not in revolution, but evolution. What Russia needed was peace and time for the old czarist system to yield way to constitutional monarchy and a more liberal order. The country was already developing rapidly economically as it was.

But World War 1 ruined all of that and delivered the country to the hands of gangsters. The stupidity of the ancien regime didn't help here, to be sure, as they themselves were a primary agent in starting the war in the first place. They would have been better off doing whatever they could to avoid it.

[Mynok]

Unless you want to abdicate from politics in despair at the whole affair, whether or not they were bastards in your mind is decided ultimately by whether or not you agree with what they fought for.

Hooey. Humanity is demonstrably evil at the core. All of it. History is utterly decisive on that one. Wherever we go, we bring destruction and ruin.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Mehring, the world is still waiting for an actual successful example of a socialist revolution. All the ones to date have gone to hell, more or less. After a while, you begin to wonder if the whole idea is half baked to begin with. If it is so hard to pull off, we may be better off without any more such future political experiments.

The actual, realizable goal for progress in Russia lay not in revolution, but evolution. What Russia needed was peace and time for the old czarist system to yield way to constitutional monarchy and a more liberal order. The country was already developing rapidly economically as it was.

But World War 1 ruined all of that and delivered the country to the hands of gangsters. The stupidity of the ancien regime didn't help here, to be sure, as they themselves were a primary agent in starting the war in the first place. They would have been better off doing whatever they could to avoid it.

Flaviusx, firstly, let me define what I mean by 'socialist revolutions'

I don't judge a revolution or uprising by what it calls itself but by its social make up and program. If you want to discuss the varius nationalist revolutions that have been brought about by peasant movements under communist or socialist flags, that's for other posts. If by socialist revolution we share an understanding of 'working class', ie, brought about predominantly by and for the working class, people who make a living predominantly by selling their labour, we have maybe two examples in history.

The Paris commune was crushed by the French ruling class. The latter are not portrayed as gangsters because they won and our countries essentially see nothing wrong in what they did. They would do the same. Workers were rounded up and shot in cold blood, in their thousands.

We have the Russian Revolution which on a continental level, triumphed militarily against opponents, domestic and external, no less ruthless and brutal than its exponents. Interestingly, and since JAMiAM was talking about context, one BBC documentary a few years back told how Lenin had ordered the hanging of 100 rich peasants. Oh! What a gangster! What it left out was that it was a deterent in response to a plan hatched by a French interventionist general- he confirmed it in his autobiography, to create a famine in Bolshevik held territory and starve the revolution to defeat. How many would that have starved to death? Who has the moral high ground? Who are the gangsters?

The Russian revolution triumphed in such inauspicious circumstances that capitalism re-emerged almost immediately, actually within and around the leading revolutionary party. This serves to remind me, though others may draw different conclusions, that no ideology or political party is stronger than the economic base upon which it rests. What emerged was a nominal 'workers state' but with a working class that had all but disolved and an atomised economy of predominantly small peasant proprietors. It was, in fact, a resumption of a dual power between the working class and middle class, in which the working class temporarily held sway only because the middle class is organically incapable of doing so. It can only hand power to one of the primary classes.

We have the Hungarian uprising of 1956 which was working class and socialist at its core, and crushed by Russian tanks before it could unfold. Likewise the various soviet type councils that controlled regions at various places and times, particularly Germany and Hungary after WW1, never became workers' states, let alone socialist.

That leaves us, at best, with one example of a militarily successful revolution and establishment of an actual workers state. That is insufficient evidence, particularly given its circumstances, that the socialist project is congenitally flawed. Further, though the time in question is long, and might feel quite total in relation to a human life, it is really very short in historical terms. It does point to difficulties, I grant you, but what developer worthy of the name abandons a project when the first prototype fails?

I don't believe for a minute that Russia, whose economy was indeed unfolding, could have developed into a democracy. Indeed, even after mass industrialisation and tens of millions dead, it still isn't a democracy in the classical western sense. Had October not occured, the provisional government would undoubtedly have been crushed by a fascistic reaction. The provisional government was unable even to convoke the Constituent Assembly and was saved once from counter revolution by the Bolsheviks.

Whether or not the Czar had been reinstated, without the state as a barrier to foreign economic predation, Russia would have most likely fragmented into a number of western economic dependencies, only to be overrun by the nazis in 1941 or earlier.

Of the infinite counterfactuals, the only one that looks half promising for Russia, to me, was a successful socialist revolution followed by its linkeage with one or more in a technologically advanced country. That was the Bolshevik program. Either way was a path to millions of dead and terrible suffering of hundreds of millions more. Mynok believes this is because humans are evil. I believe it is because nature has no morals and in humanity's efforts to gain control over, and harness nature, it must resort to natural means. A tragedy for sure, but you can't turn your back on truth because you wish existance was otherwise.

[Klydon]

Couple of things come to mind:

1. German generals were told by Hitler that the Russians were preparing to attack and that the Axis must preempt that attack. This could have been in response to the Molotov visit in Nov of 1940 that essentially led to the 1941 invasion by Germany as Russia was busy asking about "spheres of influence" in the Balkans with Rumania, Bulgaria, etc which was not acceptable to Germany.

2. A couple of books I have read that include personal accounts from German officers who participated in the invasion indicate that they did not see evidence of a pending attack, but that Russian forces were deployed in a manor consistent to be "ready for anything" in terms of an offensive or defensive mission. If they were going to invade, it wasn't going to be soon.

3. The Russians were in the middle of a reorganization of their military. New units were being reformed from old units, especially in terms of the tank forces. This was not complete and was not going to be complete anytime soon to allow for a campaign in 1941. Granted, it is not like this stopped Stalin from being an idiot in the past when ordering attacks or other military matters (see widening the Russian winter offensive to include the entire front; against the advice of Zhukov).

My own opinion was the Russians were trying to win as much as they could with diplomacy. I also think the Russians were going to launch an indirect strike into the Balkans in 1942 and then try to finish off a resource exhausted Germany and take care of the rest of Europe.

[Mynok]

Mynok believes this is because humans are evil. I believe it is because nature has no morals and in humanity's efforts to gain control over, and harness nature, it must resort to natural means. A tragedy for sure, but you can't turn your back on truth because you wish existance was otherwise.

Now that's an interesting statement. Nature amoral...yes, I might agree. It is not a moral agent and follows the laws set down for it. Humans, however, are moral creatures. We make moral choices. And in the summing up of them, over all history, they are primarily evil ones. We know self sacrifice is good and honor it, but more in the breach. We know charity is noble but rarely act so. We cherish life and have laws to protect it but have spent much of our history destroying it, both in nature and of humanity.

Humans have corrupted nature by rebelling against our mandate. Yes, this is Christian theology and I make no apology for it. It is truth and I will hold to it as long as I have breath.

[histgamer]

I haven't read either the full work of Service nor have I read the full criticisms but Mehring you've gotta realize, Historians are paid to criticize each other. If you search through JSTOR or other academic databases you will find dozens of HIGHLY critical works of anything that has been written by pretty much any historian. I have been pretty critical of some well respected historians and I know many a professor who has done the same but that doesn't make the entirety of a work incorrect or even wrong when it has many critics. Many historians blow minor errors out of proportion.

Historians are expect to write critical articles and often they are far more critical then probably justifiable.

That being said I don't know Service or his work all that well. The Criticisms could be valid and they may not be. However, to cite a criticism or even a few of them as damning evidence of a historians failing is just as flawed as blindingly listening to anything a given historian argues.

[Mehring]

flanyboy, to get to the truth of it you really need to evaluate the criticisms for yourself rather than make generalisations about what academics and historians do.

What Patenaude says about Service's work sounds mild by street standards but it's about as robust as criticism can be by academic standards. With good reason. Don't trust me, read it up.

Mynok, yes humans are moral creatures, but our morality is not fixed. You doubtless believe God gave humanity an eternal moral code, but study of society shows that morality is socially determined. That said, there is no absolute good or evil, only what social interests determine it to be from one time to another.

I do not believe humans have corrupted nature, or indeed, that we have any mandate other than an innate drive to reproduce and overcome want as we percieve it. Morality has always justified the general way the dominant layer of society wants us to achieve these aims, or rather, achieve theirs. Such morality is only applied to that dominant layer in exceptional circumstances.

Nature, which we are encouraged to view as beautiful, is in reality somewhere between abattoir and torture chamber for all who inhabit it in its original state. Is that not why civilisation strives to control and harness it? Again, how it is controlled, or not, is socialy determined.

Whatever, I respect your beliefs however much I disagree with them.

[Captain]

ORIGINAL: Mehring


“There’s life in the old boy Trotsky yet—but if the ice pick didn’t quite do its job killing him off, I hope I’ve managed it.”

-Robert Service at the London book launch of his biography of Trotsky.

I think that demonstrates nicely the perspective which frames Service's approach to history, a rare moment of honesty from an intellectual fraudster.

Mehring, when I google the quote you posted, it brings me to the "World Socialist Web Site" which looks like a ultra-left "Trotskyite" web site and the very same hatchet-job review by Patenaude you linked to earlier:

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/jun2011/pers-j28.shtml

Service has been writing history books for years without any controversy, but he writes a biography of Trotsky that diverges from the Party Line and he is right away denounced as an intellectual fraudster by every loyal Trotskyite. The fact that "Trotskyites", or whatever it is the faction calls itself these days, feel threatened by a history professor really shows how irrelevant they have become.

Communism is dead. No one cares about Trotsky's ideas anymore, except his small band of supporters. Yet every loyal "Trotskyite" feels compelled to "denounce" Robert Service, just like Stalin's loyal minions during the Great Purges. It is actually laughable to think that anyone would fall for that.

By the way, I see the "World Socialist Web Site" has a link to "Mehring Books". When I click on it, it turns out to be the propaganda arm for Leon Trotsky:

One of the greatest lies maintained in the course of modern history is the false identification between Stalinism and socialism. For decades the Stalinist bureaucracy of the Soviet Union suppressed the heritage of classical Marxism, while western historians and bourgeois ideologues used the crimes committed by the bureaucracy to discredit a socialist perspective.

Mehring Books sets out to clarify the historical record. We are proudly associated with the writings of Leon Trotsky and other great anti-Stalinist socialists and are making many of their books available in English for the first time. With the historically-recent collapse of the Soviet Union, these works acquire an immense contemporary significance.

http://mehring.com/index.php/about

"Mehring Books", that would not happen to be you would it Mehring? I was wondering where all this hatred for an historian whose books you have never read was coming from.

[Mehring]

Captain, you have stiill not addressed, let alone refuted the criticisms of Service's books. Instead you appeal to Service's position and standing in an anti-communist environment where virtually nobody these days gives a jot about or will defend the historical record. You appeal to a long cultivated hostility to Marxism by trying, very selectively, to discredit the source of the criticism. That is the cheapest of tricks and has no place in serious discussion of historical facts and perspectives. By employing such techniques you denigrate yourself, not Marxism. Neither, by its selectiveness, is it factually correct.

Patenaude is surely nothing to do with the WSWS, as I have demonstrated. In fact, you need not consult the WSWS to gain understnding of Service's perspective on Trotsky. Just prior to publishing his own biography he reviewed Patenaude's biography in the Guardian newspaper, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/ju ... ude-review . While he siezed the opportunity to throw in a few more smears at Trotsky, he is unable to fault Patenuade's scholarliness. Perhaps he was hoping Patenaude might be gentle on his forthcoming book in return? I scratch yours, you scratch mine?

To his credit, Patenaude has stuck his neck out to object to a gross falsification of the historical record.

By your last post you are clearly fertile soil for anti-communist propaganda and methodically speaking, a chip off Service's block. In you, Service has found his niche market, one in which saying, to quote you "what you would expect", that is, confirming existing prejudice, is more important that discerning truth from facts.

Live long and prosper!

[Captain]

ORIGINAL: Mehring

Captain, you have stiill not addressed, let alone refuted the criticisms of Service's books.

refute what? You admit yourself you have never read any of his books and are totally ignorant of their contents. I can hardly have an intelligent conversation about them with you. Read them and then we'll talk.

If you had been up-front from the beginning and just said that you are totally ignorant about Robert Service's books, but are obliged by your Party leaders to blindly "denounce" him, we could have avoided all this nonsense. [;)]

Have a good life, comrade.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: Captain

ORIGINAL: Mehring

Captain, you have stiill not addressed, let alone refuted the criticisms of Service's books.

refute what? You admit yourself you have never read any of his books and are totally ignorant of their contents. I can hardly have an intelligent conversation about them with you. Read them and then we'll talk.

If you had been up-front from the beginning and just said that you are totally ignorant about Robert Service's books, but are obliged by your Party leaders to blindly "denounce" him, we could have avoided all this nonsense. [;)]

Have a good life, comrade.

You demonstrate that you have links to David North's articles on the subject and I have provided you with a link to a page of Patenaude's article. The criticisms of Service's books found therein is what you should be trying to refute if you wish to defend them in a principled manner.

In place of this we are showered with more of your currency, the ignorant aspersion. My ignorance of Service's books is your invention, as is my membership of and/or subservience to any political party. The next time you intervene on a thread airing your pretentions to erudition while denouncing others as juvenile I trust some good chap will refer people to this thread.

Bye.