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Monday, August 25, 2008

Stalin the God and Stalin the Gangster

Judging by his latest article, Simon Sebag Montefiore and Vladimir Putin both share a passion for distorting history. The former describes Stalin as "Marxist fanatic" and writes "When Vladimir Putin presented Russian teachers with their new textbook last year, Stalin appeared as “the most successful Russian ruler of the 20th century”" Putin here reveals his blood red capitalist colours, as from what other perspective could Stalin's pitiless rule be seen in a positive light? Montefiore's nonsense is in the same league as a poem published in Pravda (28th August 1936):

O Great Stalin, O Leader of the Peoples,
Thou who didst give birth to man,
Thou who didst make fertile the earth,
Thou who dost rejuvenate the Centuries,
Thou who givest blossom to the spring...

Stalin died in March 1953. He was no Marxist as Monttefiore and his ilk claim. Indeed, "It was Stalin who completed the work begun by Lenin, the turning of Marxism, a revolutionary doctrine into its opposite an authoritative ideology of State Capitalism on a par and at times competing with other state ideologies, i.e. Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Corporate State." (Socialist Standard, April 1953) Read more here and remember that leaders come and go but capitalism continues to bring fear, misery, war and want to the multitude.

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