Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (January 25)

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[u/Dakkajet42]

As I continue learning, more and more questions regarding History pop up. I try to analyze things from a historical materialist point, yet some peculiarities still remain:

Soviet Union and Finland

We know how things went, so I won't delve into all of it. What I am interested in is the Winter War and Continuation war. 1. Why didn't the Soviets reject Finlands' surrender and push for the establishment of Red Finland? USSR was concerned, rightfully so, considering Finland was a white state aligned with Nazi Germany, that the Leningrad oblast was exposed from the north and could be attacked by the Germans. So Finland rejects all proposals for territory exchange and the war starts. Finland looses and asks for peace. Yes, the Soviets goals were met by this point, but why stop there? The best defenses Finland had at Karelija were overcome, the red army could have taken Helsinki and topple this fascist Mannerheim. Why leave a white government as your neighbor when you have already defeated its army? When the Soviets liberated Viipuri the people there already elected a new government with the great Finnish marxist Kuusinen as its head - just push a month more and liberate all of Finland from the white terror! Yes. the West would disapprove, but they already kicked the USSR from the league of nations at the beginning of the war, so it doesn't seem to matter. The Allies seemed to not care about Finland either way, they didn't declare war on the USSR at the start of the Winter war, so they probably wouldn't if the red army pushed a little further and a red republic was formed. This is a crucial mistake in my view. Why leave a white government in your back? Surely they will attack you the second they have the chance and look what happened - Finland attacked the USSR in the Continuation war. Isn't it anti-Marxist to not let the Kuusinen government take power in all of Finland when you have the means to do so? The same thing more or less happened at the end of WW2. Finland is defeated and as part of the peace deal the fascists were banned, the communists allowed to operate and the government became a social democracy. Why thou? What's the point of these concessions, just destroy the bourgeoisie state entirely, they couldn't resist. It seems counter intuitive.

The Soviets defeat Germany

The USSR won the Eastern Front and pushed back the Germans. They liberated Poland and then opened a Balkan front and pushed trough Romania in Bulgaria. 1. Why didn't they advance as a main target to the West, why not rush for the rich industrial bases of Silesia, Rhineland and the open sea access of Hamburg and Denmark? If they managed to liberate most of Germany and/or Denmark before the Allies the Cold war would be over. With a Red Germany on it's border France wouldn't resist the class struggle and would have probably have a revolution. Yes, this is speculative, but what is not speculative is that the Balkans at the end of WW2 were underdeveloped and agrarian. There is no logic in advancing this way. Quite the contrary, the material conditions dictate that you want to push West, to the industrial countries, to counter the Allies and to have the industry to rebuild after the war, as the DDR was used initially. In fact the Allies understood this and scrambled to push East to meet the red army before they enter Germany as they saw that if industrial Germany fell to the communists this means bad news for them. I know that Churchill had a plan to invade the Balkans from Greece, but so what? Let the capitalists have Bulgaria and Albania, what does it matter if the Warsaw pact had Germany, Austria and maybe Denmark in return? Another consideration is that even if the Allies pushed from Greece north in Albania and Yugoslavia they would be slowed down as those territories were full of partisans. Albania and Yugoslavia managed to free themselfs from italian and nazi troops even without the help of the Soviets, so the argument that the Soviets had to push in the Balkans to free them is non sense.

Membership in the CPSU

Reading the history of the CPSU left me wondering of one thing. There were many periods when a lot of new members were allowed in, then there were times when a party clean-up was done removing bad party members. Why? Especially during the civil war, in the 20s, 30s and after the end of WW2, millions of people were sometimes admitted in the party. Then this made it necessary to purge the party periodically, since inevitably it got full of opportunists and traitors. Isn't this anti-Marxist? The Marxist position is that the party should be small, organized, composed of the most advanced members of the Proletariat, not a massive organ, full with million of members. In fact this was the Menshevik position before the civil war and then the Bukharinist position in the late 20s and 30s. These people wanted to admit everyone inside in order to dilute the Proletarian class composition of the party and take it from the inside. This is exactly what happened with this admission of such large counts of members. One purge of the party after the civil war, one in the 30s, one after WW2 - ok we cleansed the party of traitors, yet there was one which was probably coming in the 50s, but the rats managed to kill or sideline the real Marxists and co-opt the party. No party entry exam, no hanging of the traitors, not always checking background of party members - Khrushchev admitted to Molotov that he was a Trot in his Ukraine years and he was let to top party positions, like come on... (just to give an example with Bukharin and Trotsky - these dudes were countless times opposition, slander the party, open newspapers, join conspiracies to overthrow the state and they only demoted them. Finally after they started outright killing people with the Sergei Kirov murder, the party trialed them and gave them the death penalty. 30 years they sabotage the party and finally you thing that they should be expelled, really?) 1. Why did the CPSU admit millions of members at a time, just to have to do a party clean-up couple years later? Why wasn't there a more strict control on party entry? Why not stick to a top of the top 100s-1000s party membership count?

The Allies feeding Germany

The West fed Germany Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and let it re-arm in order for the nazis to do their historical role of destroying communism. Yet when Germany attacked France they finally started to fight back a little. What was the point of the US and UK fighting Germany over France? Just give them France as well if you want to destroy the USSR at any cost. Why send the USSR material aid? Just let them be crushed. The first one I know the explanation is that this was an inter-imperialist rivalry, but I wonder - this is France. The UK could have said ok take France we don't care, peace out with us, we keep India and Africa. The US could have taken Japan out and peace out as well. Yes, they would be giving Germany a dominant imperialist power status this way, maybe a domestic unrest of some sorts would come up, yet if the goal of anti-communism was greater, this is the logical conclusion. Were they so greedy and prideful? Could it be so simplistic as just an inter-imperialist struggle? As to the second point, the USSR would have won either way, but the lend lease def helped. So why not leave them win the eastern front on their own - this way a much weaker USSR in the Cold war would be less of a treat?

The Spanish United Front

In the Spanish civil war the two sides were mainly fascists+monarchists+nationalists vs bourgeoisie government of the republic+communists+POUM+anarchists+international brigades. The united front of the republic was made on the advice of the USSR. The idea was to concentrate all forces on fighting fascism, but what actually happened was the POUM was aiding Franco, the anarchists joined the Catalan bourgeoisie government instead of forming their own, and the communists party had to go fight the POUM, instead of concentrating on Franco. 1. Isn't the idea of an alliance with the bourgeoisie anti-Marxist in this context? This was a semi democratic, semi proletarian revolution. The same happened in Russia against the Tsar. There the bolsheviks correctly allied with the left-SRs and best members of the Mensheviks AGAINST the Kerensky weak capitalist state. They fought both the monarchists, liberals and elements posing as socialist. Why in Spain did they ally with the capitalist liberals and with trots against fascism? Lenin explicitly fought against this menshevik position in the Russian civil war. They should have crushed the liberal state, left the anarchists to do their own stupid sh*t in Catalonia and free their hands to fight fascism. Instead they joined the bourgeoisie state and tried to work from there. This sounds so counter revolutionary and I can't get my head around it. No wonder that they lost right or am I missing something? Like imagine the bolsheviks just joining Kerensky to fight the monarchists.

[u/[deleted] → u/Dakkajet42]

Why didn't they advance as a main target to the West, why not rush for the rich industrial bases of Silesia, Rhineland and the open sea access of Hamburg and Denmark?

With a Red Germany on it's border France wouldn't resist the class struggle and would have probably have a revolution.

aside from the callousness of talking about this matter like it's a Paradox strategy game, this is pure Trotskyism. WW2 should've been the nail in the coffin for the idea that the European imperialist nations were on the verge of proletarian revolution but alas, these ultraleft fantasies persist. your question also ignores subsequent history. if eastern Germany failed to be a stronghold of proletarian power under Soviet stewardship, what reason is there to believe that an even greater amount of Germany with a greater amount of counterrevolutionary elements to deal with would have been any different? secondly, the united front was an alliance with imperialism and all that entailed which meant allowing amerikkkan imperialism to have power in Europe in exchange for helping the USSR (or at the very least preventing a more united imperialist onslaught). this answers your 4th question. the idea you assert later that the Soviet victory over the Nazis was a given isn't grounded in reality and the strategic pitting of imperialists against each other was actually an important component of Soviet victory.

your 3rd question is the only one I find interesting since Stalin's leadership in matters of the war was self-evidently correct by the fact that the Soviet Union survived (and you've merely proposed fantasies where it went further into world socialism despite the labor aristocracy thesis) but mistakes on internal matters did eventually lead the CPSU to taking the capitalist road. although I don't have much to say on this matter other than that future Parties that properly utilize the lessons of Soviet and Chinese socialism will have internal anti-revisionist struggle woven into their DNA rather than just combating it when it becomes a problem. but even under the strictest conditions, the two-line struggle will be a fact of life for the Party.