Comments on: Fear and Fervor under Stalinist Industrialization

By: Aleks

Aleks — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:19:32 +0000

I have often wondered how things might have turned out if Trotsky had overcome Stalin. OTOH he believed in spreading world revolution and using expertise from outside to drag Russia up, as did Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and others had done, yet on first glance it seems almost fanciful that this could have worked as well as Stalin’s mass industrialization drive in the short time up to the Nazi invasion.

OTOH, Trotsky the pragmatist, who organized the Bolsheviks in arms, used rail and showed general mastery of logistics that made the success of the revolution and victory in the civil war possible in the first place. Maybe his pragmatism would have been as effective as Stalin’s. As for the ‘master stroke’ of creating the industrial base on the other side of the Urals, was this really Stalin’s idea, rather than and idea that he championed? If anything I would imagine it was an idea that had been around a while.

By: AK

AK — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:51:20 +0000

The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia. Here's an interview of the author. I myself don't plan on reading it any time soon (not unless I specialize in Stalinism or something). Too much other stuff going down.

By: AK

AK — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:48:27 +0000

It’s disturbing how fast the “Russophile” sites are going down. First it was Guardian-PSJ (where I had my Moldova Twitter Revolution article), then La Russophobe Exposed which compiled information on that vile freak, now False Dmitri… We need new people.

By: Michael Averko

Michael Averko — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:24:22 +0000

I recall that book making the rounds as well.

The overview of it presented naive politically left of center Americans, who upon going to the USSR became a bit disappointed, while running into some difficulty.

By: Scowspi

Scowspi — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:43:34 +0000

The subject of Western enthusiasts who moved to the USSR is an interesting one, and there’s an increasing amount of literature on it, both firsthand and scholarly. Recently, a book came out about the fate of Americans in Russia in the 1930s; it got good reviews, but I haven’t read it (and can’t even remember its title now…)

By: Leos Tomicek

Leos Tomicek — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:42:59 +0000

I was trying to find out why False Dmitri closed the curtains as well. I think short time ago he wrote something like he is getting abusive comments, I don’t think he is going to advertise his email.

But if he reads this he can always email me here
leos.tomicek@gmail.com

By: Leos Tomicek

Leos Tomicek — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:30:56 +0000

The 5 reasons behind NKVD purges are a great summary of the arguments present. I always explained them by saying that the Soviet system was inherently brutal to its declared enemies. It wanted to build a new class less society and therefore those who enjoyed past privileges or deviated from the party line had to be removed. Somehow I have dismissed the idea of outside intervention in this way, although it definitely aggravated the paranoia on the part of the Bolsheviks.

By: Michael Kuznetsov

Michael Kuznetsov — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:21:11 +0000

Пять баллов! Молодец, Анатолий!

Your ‘golden’ key phrase is the last one:
“The USSR in the 1930’s may not have been a utopia or anything remotely close, but neither was it the unadulterated Hell of deportations, famines and gulags painted by today’s Cold Warriors and their fellow travelers.”
Absolutely!

A propos: How can one get access to The 100% Unofficial Blog of the Russian President?

Cheers,
Michael