where do you stand on the socialist spectrum? i’ll start: my socialist views are a fusion of market socialism, welfarism, georgism and left-libertarianism - i took the leftvalues quiz (as shown in the photo attached in this post), and i got “centrist marxism”. you DON’T have to take the quiz though.
EDIT: i just added the link
Hard agree capitalists and westerners hold more fear over communism than Nazism/fascism and that the truth of their history is often distorted however after reading Ivan’s War I’ve become a lot more critical of how communism was executed in Russia. Additionally, there were a few extremely rotten individuals that were allowed to rise to prominence within the communist party that I think undermined its efforts. People like Beria and Lysenko terrify me and reveal how the wrong people in the wrong place can cause mass death in an authoritarian system.
Just FYI, Beria’s black legend is nearly entirely fabricated between Khrushchev (who couped, murdered and smeared Beria to legitimise his powergrab) and anticommunist hacks like Simon Sebag Montefiore who is a pedofile himself yet he specialise in accusing socialist leaders of the same. I mean sure Beria wasn’t nice guy, no head of security apparatus ever will be a nice guy, but the numbers like arrest falling by 90% and executions by 99% after he took over NKVD or his actions post-war and during the Khrushchev coup are by itself enough to refute the most obvious accusations of tyranny, paranoia and cruelty.
So you disagree that the wrong man in charge does not lead to catastrophe? Even if Beria is more mild than he is made out to be surely you still can understand the flaw of having a singular point of failure in any system. Is it not possible to improve upon what the Lenin started? Is he truly the best we can hope to achieve?
Not necessary, stable systems, even authocracies, can survive having even a string of bad leaders. And unstable ones will fall even having generations of decent ones, it mostly depends on the material condition of society (compare for example Ottoman Empire with Tokugawa shogunate), not who is at the top, though good leaders naturally give better results.
Heh, even if we really see the Khrushchev coup decided by “singular point of failure”, then it wasn’t even Beria. More impactful was of courde Khrushchev decision of enacting the coup, or Zhukov siding with him, or Malenkov passivity, or Molotov being sidelined.
What does that pile of pretty vague Great Man theory questions even have to do with topic? I was just trying to deprogram you a little from the “It is Known” bullshit anticommunist media and education systems are keeping everyone immersed. I recommend reading Grover Furr “Khrushchev lied”.
Again Great Man, but i’ll bite, since the question is general enough - of course it is possible to improve, this is the core idea of Marxism-Leninism and it’s refutation of leftcom dogma. It was even done, in various areas, just look at Stalin or even somewhat later USSR which was not devoid of great achievements despite having revisionists at helm, at Cuba or DPRK incredible resilience and advances, finally at China which managed to improve Lenin idea of NEP and lifted itself to greatest power on Earth (albeit not without sacrifice but Lenin also promised hardships).
It’s important to recognize that works like Ivan’s War are common in the west, and often exaggerate or even fabricate narratives about the soviets. I’m not sure what the author said in that book, or with what evidence, but it sounds like the author repeats “human wave” myths. Good resources on the Red Army include books like The Soviets Expected It by Anna Louise Strong, who actually lived in and reported on the soviet union. There’s a lot of bias going on that you would do well to work through.
Catherine merridale uses accounts from red army veterans and personal accounts of those who worked in the work houses as the foundation of her book. I find it insightful despite present biases. And of course, identifying biases is inherent to good research which is why I’m aware that communist literature has its very own to be wary of. Thank you for the book recommendation! Keen to get through it