dead gay comedy forums posted:

I was talking about threat assessment and being proactive. in soviet military history (which is thankfully rather spared from REVISIONISM! ANTI-REVISIONISM! noise), Stalin disregarded intelligence from Soviet agents detailing Nazi planning, thought the anti-slavic exterminationist rhetoric wasn't serious at all and disregarded the advice of the red army commanders he allegedly trusted about preparing for war with Germany

I think nobody disagrees at all with your point about macro, but to deny the USSR was caught pants down unnecessarily is to deny the entire assessment of the red army about the war

but this sort of argument usually tends to get us going endlessly while the two men are dead and the socialism of the present requires a whole different approach rather than talking about joe versus lev lmao

comedyblissoption posted:

sounds about that time of year to armchair quarterback the nazi genocide machine murdering millions of soviets

THS posted:

i think stalin did the best he could

and that’s all we can really ask from anyone, and from ourselves

THS posted:

i think stalin did the best he could

and that’s all we can really ask from anyone, and from ourselves

Torpor posted:

fun side fact:

the USSR had basically no hope of defending their borders, they had fewer dudes on the line when the nazis started than France/UK did in the battle of France, but you might notice the difference in border size as well.

GalacticAcid posted:

even a .400 hitter gets out 6 out of every ten at bats. i don’t think we can begrudge the guy a few mistakes in a Hall of Fame career

GalacticAcid posted:

even a .400 hitter gets out 6 out of every ten at bats. i don’t think we can begrudge the guy a few mistakes in a Hall of Fame career

THS posted:

Ferrinus posted:

trotsky thought the NEP was a betrayal of the revolution from the beginning and wanted to end it immediately, yes. you'll never believe this, but when in the fullness of time the cpsu DID begin to dismantle the NEP and implement collectivization, trotsky was against it, called it tyranny, etc. this is among the things that persuade me that trotsky was not very principled

bedpan posted:

In HOI4 you can make Trotsky the general secretary of communist mexico. And if you don't want him as the leader you can still get him in your cabinet.

Mandoric posted:

IMO that's the issue with talking about 'Trotskyism': some people are -ists of the cogent thinker in Leninism who correctly identified problems with the immediately post-civil war program (some of which he had the pretty unquestionable correct answer for, like China in particular, and some of which he had the theoretically correct approach but refused to accept that material conditions were not permitting, like his preference for a more actively internationalist stance in Europe even after the Red Army tried to back it up and got bounced by the imperialist powers.) These are in general people with good takes, who are arguing that a successful revolution would not face exactly the same pressures as the RSFSR and thus the decisions made in light of those pressures should be reexamined.

Some are -ists-by-default of the only Communist faction that was allowed a foothold in the west, and haven't really thought about the slapfights of the '20s because their own local conditions are a far more important focus and later thinkers are far more relevant to those. These are also generally people with good takes, with the caveat that the faction was allowed to exist like that because when the '20s do come up its members can be nudged toward the following two positions on group-loyalty lines.

Some are -ists of the man who spent the rest of his life with a laser-like focus on attempting to own his posting enemies. These should probably be regarded as ripe for education, since a common refrain in this thread is reports of a younger phase where they came to understand the inevitable collapse of capitalism but the western media narrative on Stalin as all brutish autocrat all the time leaves him as an appealing Great Man explanation for why it was in fact evited.

And some are -ists of the Uncle Joe Anti-Fanclub, a blinkered project populated by a few true believers thinking they can use the US to drive the revolution like Lenin had used the Kaiser to drive the revolution, and many assets thinking they can use Trotsky to shatter Actually Existing Socialism like the Kaiser had used Lenin to take the Romanovs off his eastern flank but this time they'd make absolute sure the Whites won the ensuing carnage.

THS posted:

Hilario Baldness posted:

Is that seriously a Stalin quote?

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

he had a lot of sayings like "big ships go on long voyages." i once had this dentist who would have these posters with christian inspirational quotes covering the ceiling. i think stalin was kinda like that

quote:

It is said that commodity production must lead, is bound to lead, to capitalism all the same, under all conditions. That is not true. Not always and not under all conditions! Commodity production must not be identified with capitalist production. They are two different things. Capitalist production is the highest form of commodity production. Commodity production leads to capitalism only if there is private ownership of the means of production, if labour power appears in the market as a commodity which can be bought by the capitalist and exploited in the process of production, and if, consequently, the system of exploitation of wage-workers by capitalists exists in the country. Capitalist production begins when the means of production are concentrated in private hands, and when the workers are bereft of means of production and are compelled to sell their labour power as a commodity. Without this there is no such thing as capitalist production.

Well, and what is to be done if the conditions for the conversion of commodity production into capitalist production do not exist, if the means of production are no longer private but socialist property, if the system of wage labour no longer exists and labour power is no longer a commodity, and if the system of exploitation has long been abolished — can it be considered then that commodity production will lead to capitalism all the same? No, it cannot. Yet ours is precisely such a society, a society where private ownership of the means of production, the system of wage labour, and the system of exploitation have long ceased to exist

indigi posted:

wait a second. this is unrelated but I must ask. Ferrinus are you the one who did all those Zybourne Clock drawings

Ferrinus posted:

i'm sure this was posted somewhere in this thread but i don't see it in the last few pages



only some of them

indigi posted:

oh poo poo. did you do the one with the leg that has a coal conveyor belt scoop system or the steam generated hologram

Ferrinus posted:

i did the leg but not the hologram of the old lady. whoever did the hologram had a much sharper style than mine

Victory Position posted:

Johnny Fiveaces? You know him.

dead gay comedy forums posted:

that's a general outlook, if you guys want specifics, please do ask