Stalin: Genocidal Paranoiac or Great Revolutionary Leader?

the 500, 000 in iraq is a statistical extrapolation, not a direct headcount; aren't the stalin figures also? the stalin figure shoot up into the millions once it starts to be argued that stalin had deliberately engineered famines as a means of establishing political control through terror in economically recalcitrant regions - IIRC the 500,000 was a figure for prisoncamps alone; does this piece include "indirect" cause of deaths (which is the heading the iraq figures would mainly come under - deaths DIRECTLY from western bombing aren't as high as that).

"Genocide" is quite tightly defined by the UN, isn't it? It doesn't just refer to numbers of deaths. For example the Irish Famines in the 19th century aren;t classified as genocides, despite the fact that a relatively higher percentage of the population died than in eg the Ukraine under Stalin? Because the CAUSES were not deliberate (even if the refusal to organise adequate relief was a conscious political decision)

(ok i have googled nothing in this answer and looked nothing up, so don't rely on anything in it...)

Define recent, though. The Holocaust is within living memory.

Some of the hard left revisionism regarding Stalin is really sad, to be honest. I forget the book, but there was this one text on reserve where I work that essentially argued that whatever deaths there were were either exaggerated or deserved, and more to the point the majority of Russian people were secure against the tyranny of capitalism. Outrageously ridiculous, especially considering the author would likely have been one of the first people to go were he there at the time. Doubtless this hadn't crossed his mind.

These sorts of explanations (and Stalin's approach generally) are great examples of how pure economic determinism is such a wack idea. On my less charitable days I've wondered if economic determinists (of all stripes) don't deserve Stalin.

Needless to say, Stalin isn't considered to be a "great revolutionary leader" by the Poles. Their forced expulsion from the Soviet- occupied land at the beginning of WWII, their exile to the Gulag, and the Katyn Forest massacre are often forgotten.

Stalin cannot be a great revolutionary in short because:

1) However many people he killed he killed a hell of a lot of people.

2) The Soviet Union was basically a reactionary Monarchy after about 1928/end of the civil war.

You can't make an omelette without breaking a few million eggs.

Except for tens of thousands of dead leftists and liberals. Smart move, mr. "peaceful".

Hardial Bains will come and get Stalinist on your asses.

Has anybody read the book: The Historical Convergence of Maoism and Trotskyism? It was published by the Bolshevik Union of Canada. The book is out of print but the Marxist-Leninist analysis of both these revisionist trends is a major contribution to the ML anti-revisionist movement. I highly recommend it, if you can find it. Good luck!! I have two copies of the book, which I would like to put on the web, but I don't know how about doing it, any suggestions would be appreciated.

There is another book published by the Bolshevik Union, which is very controversial: The Political Meaning of the Assasination of Stalin. The book is available through the Barnes & Noble web site, under rare out of print books. I should warn any one interested, there is only one copy and it is expensive. This book should should also be on the web, in order to stimulate debate among Marxist-Leninists, with the intent of drawing firm lines of demarcation against the fake left i.e. Modern day Mensheviks. With Proletarian Regards, Ursla Redstone.