A Revisionist History Of Stalinist Russia.Pdf

A Revisionist Account of Stalin’s Russia
S. Binza Qureshi
Queen Elizabeth Secondary
Communism can be used as a four-letter word in the 21st century West, with capitalism-inflected
policies being sacrosanct simply by the merit of being capitalistic. Joseph Stalin, dictatorial leader of the
CPSU from 1922 to his death in 1953, is often likened to Hitler.1
However, this essay will prove that
Stalin is not the tyrannical dictator the capitalist West seeks to portray him as, but a faithful and dedicated
- if ruthlessly logical - leader for the Soviet proletariat. This will be achieved by an in-depth discussion of
his policies, the resulting industrial boom, the progressive Soviet prison system (also known as the
Gulag), the cult of personality surrounding him (a facade for revisionist terrorists), a defense of the
Cheka, and lastly, an inspective critique of the West’s stigma and military interference in Communist or
Socialist regimes.
The American narrative of the Stalinist regime runs thus: Joseph Stalin conned his way to power
after the death of the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin.2
Lenin was unlike Stalin, for Lenin set equality
laws to protect women and minorities (in 1899, he was recorded saying “Women should be equal to
men”), which Stalin promptly ignored after coming to power, but still was a communist dictator, and we
mustn’t forgive him for that.3
His poor leadership elicited two rebellions, one from Ukraine and one at the
Kronstadt naval base in 1921, both of which were ruthlessly put down and the rebels shot or imprisoned.4
Stalin preserved Lenin’s cruelty towards the dissidents, but doubled his tyranny over the Soviet people as
well. During his rule, he forced the industrialization of the USSR, often to horrific costs. The purges of
1934 to 1938, where millions of kulaks (rich peasants) were sent to forced labour camps, are recognized
today as a heinous crime.5
Stalin often censored literature and media to protect his rule, issued five-year
plans for production output goals, and silenced the voices of the people.6|7
His iron rule and high grain
demands from the peasants led to a decrease of agriculture: grain production decreased from 80.6 to 75.2
million tons; cattle from 70.5 to 38.4 million; pigs from 26.0 to 12.1 million; sheep and goats from 146.7
to 50.2 million, all within a ten-year period.8
Peasants were forced, by means of threat, to collective
farms.9
Food was scarce, peasant farms and produce was forcefully taken, people were silenced, and the
outlook throughout the country was bleak. Due to Stalin’s cruelty and communism’s inherent faults, the
people suffered tremendously. Or so the capitalist narrative goes - without agenda, they claim.
The discussion will commence with an inspection of Stalin’s policies. In the isolated
echochamber of post-WWI USA, it’s easy to call Stalin’s methods harsh, but one must look at the broader
context in which they were issued. America profited immensely from the war, as did other Allied
countries, to a lesser extent.10
But after suffering through seven years of war, both civil and international,
Russia was absolutely ravaged.11
Industrial production was down, food bins were empty, the city workers
were starving, 25 million were left homeless, and the peasants were hesitant to part with their food.12
At
the end of the civil war, due to the depressing conditions, peasants of the Tambov regions and sailors at
the Kronstadt naval base revolted.

Both uprisings were promptly put down, but the mood throughout the region remained the same.
The famines of 1921 and 1932 worsened the wreckage of war.13
Due to their tumultuous inner state, the
Russians wanted no part any more in the raging battles of the Eastern front, but the Allies had established
a military presence in the Slavic region, and threatened repercussions if Russia withdrew from the war.14
Eventually, so desperate for peace, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was established, where the Germans
exploited Russia’s desperation for peace and usurped great sums of money and occupied Ukraine and the
Baltic regions.15
Even after the surrender of Germany, both the Allies and Germany combatted the state
for two more years.16
In response to the dire conditions, Stalin took charge. To truly fix conditions, Russia must
advance from an agrarian economy to an industrial one, and she must do it fast, lest she be open once
again to exploitation from the more industrialized countries. Firstly, production must increase, and the
people must be made prosperous, not by acquiring what the poor have, but increasing what there is to go
around, so all have more. The wealth of a nation, goes the Stalinist philosophy, cannot be built on the
backs of the poor, but on the backs of machine, and so “the machine becomes the ubiquitous slave of
humanity”.17
Industrialization must occur at all costs, and survival was bought at the cost of freedom.
What progress it was! Even Noam Chomsky, a known critic of Stalinist communism, admits that
Soviet Russia progressed significantly during the Stalin years, despite the wars and the occupation and
sabotage by the Allies (who found the nationalistic communism espoused by Leninist politics to be
threatening to the globalist capitalist status quo, and were afraid it would inspire similar insurgencies
elsewhere.)18|19
Industrial production increased immensely. From 1927 to 1937, coal production increased
from 38.9 million to 140.8 million tons, oil from 12.9 to 31.4 million tons, pig-iron from 3.6 to 16.0
million tons, and steel from 4.4 to 19.5 million tons.20
City workers, while some conscripted, were
provided with plots of land and seed to supplement their earnings (having added benefit of providing
additional food for the country).21
All industries were set production targets within five years, with
rewards being issued for high output.22
Under Stalin, a formerly unlearned population received the benefit
of an education, and those rendered homeless during the war were rehabilitated through massive housing
projects.23
Self-employment was subsidized, with incentive being not profit, which benefits only the
individual, but market price, which benefited all.24
Land and cows were distributed to poorer regions (in
Ukraine alone, 361, 000 cows were supplied to households who previously didn’t have them), and instead
of hire or purchase of expensive machinery, equipment such as tractors were shared.25|26
Kolkhozes, or
communal farms, were established.27
It is claimed that peasants were forced to relinquish their property
and join the kolkhoz by bayonet, however, membership was voluntary, though encouraged.28|29
The
peasants were to donate all or most of their land and work together, sharing seed, equipment, and labour.30
Leaving them, however, was difficult, as it wasn’t easy to take all your property with you. The poor
quickly adopted the scheme, however, the rich were unsurprisingly hesitant.
Opponents of Stalin claim that all this is mere propaganda, and the truth lost to history (aside
from what they offer), for any voice that dared speak the truth was brutally silenced by the Cheka, the
secret police.31
Anna Louise Strong, a Nebraska-born journalist, reports an encounter with one of these
famously bloodthirsty officers.

“There was the Cheka worker whom I met on the railway, going up and down Russia, hunting out graft
and counter-revolution. All his worldly goods were in his knapsack: a loaf of bread, a teapot, and under
these a couple of handkerchiefs and a pair of socks. And two hand-embroidered linen towels, brought
from home long ago. I admired them and he insisted on giving me one. What did he need of two? he
said.”32
The Cheka was formed after the October Revolution, when the need for a police force was
recognized after the assassination of several important Bolshevik party members, such as Uritsky and
Volodarsky, and an attempt on Vladimir Lenin’s life.33
While their judicial system was dissimilar to ours,
the officers were mostly comprised of men who were serfs under the previous feudalist system, human
beings who were genuinely passionate about their cause, and mainly targeted terrorists, spies, forgers, and
thieves.34
The Cheka later evolved into the NKVD, and under new regulations, their power to issue death
sentences was stripped.35
It must be noted here that to this day, certain US states still issue the death
penalty. Here, Stalin explains the need for the Cheka (at the time called the GPU), in a 1927 speech:
“[The GPU] has been...the terror of the bourgeoisie, the indefatigable guard of the Revolution, the
unsheathed sword of the Proletariat. It is not surprising, therefore, that the bourgeoisie of all countries
hate the GPU. All sorts of legends have been invented about the GPU…The sworn enemies of the
revolution curse the GPU.
But this is not how the workers regard the GPU. You can go to the workers’ districts and ask the workers
what they think of it. You’ll find they regard it with respect. Why? Because they see in it a loyal defender
of the Revolution…
But the trouble is that the enemies at home are not isolated individuals. They are all connected in a
thousand ways with the capitalists of all countries who support them by every means and in every way.
We are a country surrounded by capitalist states. The internal enemies of our Revolution are the agents of
the capitalists of all countries. The capitalist states are the background and basis for our internal
enemies. In fighting against the enemies at home we fight the counter-revolutionary elements of all
countries. Judge for yourselves whether under such conditions we can do without such punitive organs as
the GPU.”36
While not ideal, the Cheka certainly cannot be called malicious, notwithstanding the horrors
committed by the Cheka in the early stages of the Bolshevik revolution, under Lenin, or later under the
closeted Czarist Yezhov.37
Many NKVD officers and careerists were tried and executed or relegated to
labour camps for extracting confessions from innocents, especially during the leadership of Nikolai
Yezhov, who tenaciously clung to power by forging warrants, and often disobeyed orders.38
Aircraft
engineer Yakovlev later recorded Stalin saying:
“Yezhov was a rat; in 1938 he killed many innocent people. We shot him for that!”39
Finally Yezhov was toppled from power, and by Stalin’s personal initiative, his friend Lavrentiy
Beria was brought to take charge.40
Under his leadership, prisoners arrested under Yagoda and Yezhov
had their cases reviewed, and “Western press correspondents reported [that] many thousands of people

unjustly sentenced were released and rehabilitated.”41
It seems, rather a dark insidious force meant to
silence the masses, the Cheka can instead be likened to the Committee of Public Safety which formed in
revolutionary France as a punitive organ during unstable times.42
Stalin’s biggest offence, however, in the eyes of the general public, is the forced labour camp, or
the Gulag. Millions of dissidents are said to be exiled, and then executed, in these horrific prisons.
However, it’s about time to inspect these claims.
The precise figure of executions is in debate, with German researcher Stefan Merl proposing
300, 000 dead, to ex-CIA agent Robert Conquest insisting the number was closer to 6.5 million.43
American academics, conveniently, favour Conquest’s estimations, despite Merl - a known stringent
anti-Communist - insisting “that Conquest's writings show a `frightening lack of criticism of sources'.
Conquest `uses writings from obscure émigrés taking up information transmitted by second or third hand
.... Often, what he presents as `facts' are only verified by a single questionable source.'”44
He also says that
Conquest has the tendency to misreport information from his already questionable sources: “`The number
of victims put forward by Conquest is more than double the number of deportees, according to his
``proof''.'”45
Stefan Merl reports that 100, 000 kulaks were executed in distant labour camps in Siberia, in
“regions where there existed a considerable deficit of labor”.46
However, this claims presents two
problems. The USSR’s reports state that only 63, 000 were placed in that category.47
Also, the state was
direly short of labour, so it stands to reason that it will exploit all labour resources available. It simply
doesn’t make sense to execute 100, 000 kulaks, almost 40, 000 of which aren’t there to begin with, when
they could’ve been put to work. To account for death by natural causes, Stefan adds 100, 000 over his
original number, and another 100, 000 for the end of the thirties. All with “no precision or indication”.48
In 1990, Soviet historians Zemskov and Dugin published detailed statistics on the Gulag.49
According to them, in the collectivization’s most violent period (1931), 381, 026 kulaks and their family
were exiled to the unpopulous East, totalling to a number of 1, 803, 392.50
By 1932, 1, 317, 022 had
settled; 207, 010 fled due to the disorganized state; about 100, 000 died of epidemics due to the poor
living conditions (which were not much worse than most of the country).51
Others’ cases were reviewed,
and they were allowed to come home.52
Between 1932 to 1940, approximately 200, 000 kulaks died in
total, most of these due to factors such as a lack of clean water, food shortages, deportee populations
which included children, people over 65, and the sick, weak administration, and a sometimes chaotic
sociopolitical climate.53
In total, fewer than Merl’s
300 000 and much fewer than Conquest’s 6 500 000, “only part of the 63,000 first category
counter-revolutionaries were executed. The executions and these deaths took place during the greatest
class struggle that the Russian countryside ever saw, a struggle that radically transformed a backward and
primitive countryside. In this giant upheaval, 120 million peasants were pulled out of the Middle Ages, of
illiteracy and obscurantism.”54
When applied to ordinary criminals, the Soviet prison system appears entirely different, even
progressive. Education and training was offered in the more advanced prisons.55
Prisoners were not
required to wear uniforms, and well-behaved prisoners received a vacation of two weeks every year.56

People’s courts, composed of a judge and a jury, tried 80% of cases, with legal services available without
charge.57
They were also offered the alternative of “labour colonies”, such as the building of the
Baltic-White Sea Canal.58
At the completion of the project, 300 prisoners received scholarships, 12,000
were freed, and 59,000 had their sentences reduced.59
This paints a much more just reality than that of the
United States today, when a prison sentence - even a short one - cuts the individual off from the job
market almost completely. Perhaps rather than blindly scorning Gulags, we should learn from them.
All this is not to say that the USSR did not have downsides. The Stalinist regime was not perfect,
and mistakes were made. The progress made by Soviet Russia during the time came at a horrific cost, and
it doesn’t do justice not to acknowledge them. However, by proponents of capitalism, these costs are
grossly overexaggerated, and all in all, the USSR was a functioning state, despite the trying
circumstances. Even Western critics admit, albeit begrudgingly, that Russia achieved a surprising amount
of industrialization despite the looming war. For once in their lifetimes, the rich weren’t relentlessly
plundering the poor. So why does the Soviet Union get such a bad rap in our books?
Part of the reason is that there were several conspirators concealed within the Bolshevik party,
including Nikita Khrushchev.60
To mask their activities, they’d effectively built a cult of personality
around Stalin, the initiator of which was Karl Radek, who pleaded guilty to his public trial for treason in
1937.61
A quote, as an example of the rhetoric of the cult, reads thus:
“Miserable pygmies! They lifted their hands against the greatest of all living men, our wise leader
comrade Stalin. We assure you, Comrade Stalin, that we will increase our Stalinist vigilance still more
and close our ranks around the Stalinist Central Committee and the great Stalin.”62
These words were none other than Khrushchev, who after his death denounced the cult as an indication of
Stalin’s vanity and personal power, despite the fact that Stalin personally criticized the cult on numerous
occasions.63
Never mind the fact that it was Khrushchev himself who introduced the term Vozhd for
Stalin, the Russian equivalent to the Nazi term Führer.64
This cult enabled party revisionists to take actions such as the mass arrests of many innocents
during the 1930s, and then blame them on Stalin, who himself is recorded saying that this cult was built
by his opponents “...with the aim of discrediting him at a later date (Feuchtwanger, Lion; 1936)”.65
In
1938, the former People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, Yagoda, pleaded guilty to charges of treason by
having arranged the murder of his predecessor, which gave him access to Soviet security services.66
He
then used the position to protect those responsible for the murders of prominent Leninist figures such as
Sergei Kirov and Maksim Gorky.67
Later, he was successfully replaced by Yezhov, who intensified this
method.68
With much difficulty, he was later arrested and executed.69
Two months preceding Stalin’s death, nine doctors at the Kremlin were arrested for killing certain
Soviet leaders (such as Andrei Zhdanov) by deliberately administering incorrect treatment.70
Western
press correspondent insisted some of the most prominent Soviet politicians were investigated for having
connections with the case, yet Stalin died before the case could be brought to trial.71
Enver Hoxha, an
Albanian Marxist-Leninist intellectual, insists that revisionists leaders at the time admitted to murdering
Stalin, and Stalin’s own son was imprisoned for saying his father was killed as part of a plot.72
The
arrested doctors were then immediately released and rehabilitated, and Lavrenti Beria was in a military

coup, arrested, tried in secret, and then killed.73
Khrushchev and his fellow revisionists were finally free to
build a capitalist society as they’d like.
Yet when it comes to our view of Stalinism, the Soviet Union, and communism in general, a
much larger force is at play. I speak of anti-communist US interventionists, of course. Aside from the
Ally military engagement with the USSR for the two years succeeding WWI, the US also staged a
military coup in 1954 of communist Guatemala, to protect them from the “military dictatorship, social
backwardness, [and] economic colonialism” that fair wealth distribution and leftist economic policies are
often the harbinger of.74
During the Kennedy administration, to justify its presence in Cuba, American
ambassador Stuart Eizenstat asserted that the US “[is] more devoted to the true interests of the Cuban
people” for in Cuba, there was “troublemaking in the hemisphere”, though making it clear that the
American government didn’t want it’s intervention to be too obvious.75
It should be noted that despite
Cuba’s so-called problematic socialism, third world countries often recognized it as an “international
superpower” due to the great presence of Cuban doctors, teachers, engineers, etc., that often volunteered
for international service.76
Lastly, when it came to their care of Chinese communists, one recalls the
Kennedy administration’s advice: “As necessary, execute paramilitary, sabotage, and/or terrorist activities
against known communist proponents”, a term which, covers peasants, union workers, HRAs, etc.,
incidentally.77
All this was justified in the name of protecting the Chinese society from “[the] harmful
effects of a society isolated from American influence”.78
All this to protect the capitalist economic system,
which needed minimal governmental intervention, and is supposedly the natural way of the market.
Clearly, when it comes to action and information regarding communism, whether in eastern
Europe, South America, or northeast Asia, the US cannot be trusted to be unbiased. Information from
western scholars regarding communism is scattered, sharing little but it’s overwhelmingly negative tone.
There is no dearth of information regarding communism; this essay only touches upon the tip of the
iceberg. History is often written by the winners, as they say, and that is no less true when it comes to the
complex moral issues surrounding the USSR. It is the author’s greatest wish that the reader, perhaps, had
the chance to review their thoughts and opinions during the course of this work.

Footnotes
1
Susan Willoughby, The Russian Revolution, Rigby City, 1996, p. 42
2
Ibid. p. 43
3
Ibid. p. 42
4
Ibid.
5
Ludu Martens, Another View of Stalin, Rijswijk, 1996, p. 190
6
Willoughby p. 43
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
Ibid.
10
Anna Louise Strong, The Stalin Era, New York, 1957, p. 72
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
13
Adrian Gilbert, The Russian Revolution, Toronto, 1996 p. 37
14
Strong p. 72
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
17
Webb (Sidney, Beatrice), Soviet Communism; A New Era?, New York, 1936 p. 1020
18
Noam Chomsky, Profit Over People; Neoliberalism and the Global Order, New York, 1999 p. 29
19
Ibid.
20
Willoughby p. 43
22
Webb p. 726
23
Willoughby p. 43
24
Webb p. 721
25
Ibid. p. 726
26
Ibid.
27
Willoughby p. 43
28
Ibid.
29
Webb. 725
30
Ibid. 726
31
Willoughby p. 42
32
Anna Louise Strong, First Time In History; Two Years of Russia’s New Life, New York, 1924,
p. 1
33
Jerome Davis, Behind Soviet Power, West Haven, 1946, p. 29
34
Ibid.
35
Getty & Naumov, The Road to Terror, New Haven, 1999, p. 121
36
Davis p. 29
37
Walter Krivitsky, I was Stalin’s Agent, London, 1939, p. 153
38
Budu Svanidze, My Uncle, Joseph Stalin, New York, 1953, p. 138
39
Ian Grey, Stalin; Man of History, London, 1979, p. 288
40
Bill Bland, Stalin; The Myth and Reality, Paris, 1999 [lecture transcript]
41
Ibid.

42
Francois Furet, Revolutionary France, Hoboken, 1995 p. 134
43
Marten p. 92
44
Ibid. p. 93
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid. p. 92
47
Ibid.
48
Ibid.
49
Ibid. p. 93
50
Ibid.
51
Ibid.
52
Ibid.
53
Ibid.
54
Ibid. p. 94
55
William Henry Chamberlin, Soviet Russia, Boston, 1930, p. 124
56
Ibid.
57
Kenneth Cameron, Stalin; Man of Contradiction, Toronto, 1987, p. 128
58
Ibid.
59
Ibid.
60
Bland
61
Ibid.
62
Ibid.
63
Ibid.
64
Ibid.
65
Ibid.
66
Ibid.
67
Ibid.
68
Ibid.
69
Ibid.
70
Ibid.
71
Ibid.
72
Ibid.
73
Ibid.
74
Chomsky p. 51
75
Ibid. p. 80
76
Ibid.
77
Ibid. p. 135
78
Ibid.

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