[Politics] Gorbachev dead

[Icy Gull]

One of those who are admired by oppressive, colonisation-hungry westerners, and less admired elsewhere.

Care to elaborate on what you consider was so bad about his time in power? I gather you were not a fan.

Maybe you could also tell us who has done better for Russia and ordinary Russians since too

I do not claim in depth knowledge but he always struck me as one of the good guys in world politics

I found this interesting

One of the last to visit Gorbachev in hospital on 30 June was the liberal economist Ruslan Grinberg.

“He gave us all freedom – but we don’t know what to do with it,” Grinberg said, after his visit to his old friend.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Putin too busy to attend the funeral.

https://news.sky.com/story/vladimir-putin-will-not-attend-mikhail-gorbachevs-funeral-due-to-work-schedule-kremlin-says-12686818

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

Putin too busy to attend the funeral.

https://news.sky.com/story/vladimir-putin-will-not-attend-mikhail-gorbachevs-funeral-due-to-work-schedule-kremlin-says-12686818

View attachment 151430

No doubt organising a bomb at the funeral and false flagging it.

 

[Swansman]

Care to elaborate on what you consider was so bad about his time in power? I gather you were not a fan.

Maybe you could also tell us who has done better for Russia and ordinary Russians since too

I do not claim in depth knowledge but he always struck me as one of the good guys in world politics

I found this interesting

One of the last to visit Gorbachev in hospital on 30 June was the liberal economist Ruslan Grinberg.

“He gave us all freedom – but we don’t know what to do with it,” Grinberg said, after his visit to his old friend.

Not a fan, not not a fan.

I don't divide people into "good" or "bad" - it is just a simplistic view we've gathered through Hollywood brainwashing.

He played a part in changing the world. Improving it? Possibly for some, possibly not for others. For instance, I think the dissolution of the Soviet Union has been poor for Swedish society - the "liberal, free market economy" shit becoming the only plausible option for people has resulted in a lot of bollocks. Yeah, there's five different kinds of Coca Cola in the stores - go freedom! - but we also sold our education, healthcare and other vital functions of society because the yanks pushed for it without being contested from elsewhere.

 

[Icy Gull]

Not a fan, not not a fan.

I don't divide people into "good" or "bad" - it is just a simplistic view we've gathered through Hollywood brainwashing.

He played a part in changing the world. Improving it? Possibly for some, possibly not for others. For instance, I think the dissolution of the Soviet Union has been poor for Swedish society - the "liberal, free market economy" shit becoming the only plausible option for people has resulted in a lot of bollocks. Yeah, there's five different kinds of Coca Cola in the stores - go freedom! - but we also sold our education, healthcare and other vital functions of society because the yanks pushed for it without being contested from elsewhere.

I must have had too much Hollywood brainwashing (although I seldom watch movies these days, too zip zap for this old man) because I am struggling to make sense of your last paragraph

I have no concerns for the Swedes, you seem to live in a much better world than most Russians and I guess Gorbachev had more concerns about them than Sweden. I imagine younger people loved him, out and out communists hated it and older people who remember Stalin may have been fans. I really do know feck all about it though, never been there. Unlikely I'll be going for a while either.

 

[Swansman]

I must have had too much Hollywood brainwashing (although I seldom watch movies these days, too zip zap for this old man) because I am struggling to make sense of your last paragraph

When there was a balance between superpowers with different ideologies, it also provided smaller countries with the possibility to go in different ideological directions. The Swedish Left were in bed with Soviet, the Swedish Right were in bed with the US. It provided a middle way for us and for many other countries. If we lost a trade partner due to being considered naughty in one way or another (Soviet would not deal with us if we were basically one of many American satellite states, and the US doesn't trade with countries that are 'business-hostile'), there would still be options.

With the dissolution of Soviet, which Gorbachev played a big part in, the balance was destroyed. The US poured money into political "lobbyism" (or corruption as we say when it happens elsewhere), propaganda, "think tanks" and the likes, pushing us to abandon previous values thanks to false promises, and real threats such as being outsiders in a homogeneous neo-liberal world where either you obeyed the only superpower or you were against it, with all the consequences of that.

Essentially, Gorbachev played a huge part in dissolving the balance of the world, and after seeing the results of 30 years of unconstrained capitalism and neo-liberalism, I don't think the dissolution of the Soviet made the world or most people any favours really.

 

[Biscuit]

When there was a balance between superpowers with different ideologies, it also provided smaller countries with the possibility to go in different ideological directions. The Swedish Left were in bed with Soviet, the Swedish Right were in bed with the US. It provided a middle way for us and for many other countries. If we lost a trade partner due to being considered naughty in one way or another (Soviet would not deal with us if we were basically one of many American satellite states, and the US doesn't trade with countries that are 'business-hostile'), there would still be options.

With the dissolution of Soviet, which Gorbachev played a big part in, the balance was destroyed. The US poured money into political "lobbyism" (or corruption as we say when it happens elsewhere), propaganda, "think tanks" and the likes, pushing us to abandon previous values thanks to false promises, and real threats such as being outsiders in a homogeneous neo-liberal world where either you obeyed the only superpower or you were against it, with all the consequences of that.

Essentially, Gorbachev played a huge part in dissolving the balance of the world, and after seeing the results of 30 years of unconstrained capitalism and neo-liberalism, I don't think the dissolution of the Soviet made the world or most people any favours really.

You'll be delighted to hear China's on its way to challenge the US for supremacy, then.

I (obviously) totally disagree, by the way. Having one global superpower for the last forty years has enabled a period of relative stability. Now China is such a big player its upset the balance and there's an argument to say it emboldened the actions of Russia.

 

[Swansman]

You'll be delighted to hear China's on its way to challenge the US for supremacy, then.

I (obviously) totally disagree, by the way. Having one global superpower for the last forty years has enabled a period of relative stability. Now China is such a big player its upset the balance and there's an argument to say it emboldened the actions of Russia.

It might have enabled stability for the US, UK, France and other neo-colonial powers but the people and countries subjected to modern Western colonialism probably doesn't agree that the change in power balance did them any good. Further, Western ideology - which can be summarised as "growth above anything" - is completely unsustainable. 30 years of most of the world living like Americans will prove very destabilising in the end.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

There really is a lot of nonsense on this thread abour Gorbachev.

Gorbachev was part of the Stalinist ruling dictatorship in the Soviet Union - a member of its reformist wing, but part of the dictatorship nonetheless. The mass uprising of the Polish working class in 1980 sent shockwaves through the Stalinist dictatorships throughout Eastern Europe, but especially in the Soviet Union because opposition was already emerging among the Russian working class. In response the reformist wing of the Communist Party gained the upper hand, first electing Andropov as leader and then Gorbachev (after the death of Chernenko). Both Andropov and Gorbachev were from the reformist wing of the dictatorship. Andropov had played a key role in the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 - he openly supported the suppression of the Prague Spring and the invasion of Afghanistan. However, the uprising in Poland brought back memories of how the Hungarian working class pretty much wiped out the Stalinist leadership in Hungary in 1956 and Andropov began arguing for top down reforms to prevent the Polish events spreading to Russia and the Stalinist dictatorship in Russia suffering the same fate as their Hungarian counterparts 25 years earlier.

Gorbachev did not want democracy or a restoration of capitalism - his reforms were designed to prevent revolution from below by the Russian working class in order to maintain the Stalinist dictatorship. Neither was he interested in ending the Cold War - the Stalinist dictatorship's existance was in part predicated on maintaining the Cold War with the West. The problem for the dictatorship was that once the began, even on a small scale, lifting repression - they opened the floodgates and the movement for reform became unstoppable. The slow pace and limited reforms envisaged by Gorbachev and the reformist wing failed to stem the collapsing Soviet economy and wider demands for reforms in Russian society. Perestroika was a major disaster - by moving away from the bureaucratic planning fo the economy that had been the mainstay of the Stalinist regime for 50 years - perestroika resulted in the bureaucrats running the state industries siphoning off huge volumes of resources for their own private enrichment. The economy grond to a halt. Coupled with this was the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 which the dictatorship attempted to cover up - and the deaths of 25,000 people in Armenia from a series of earthquakes where the dictatorship failed to carry out any kind of a rescue plan. Both these instances resulted in rising national sentiment in the republics of the Soviet Union.

As mass opposition began to develop the dictatorship began to split and fracture. Mass strikes began with the strike in the Vorkuta coalfield which spread to a nationwide strike of 500,000 mine workers. However, the bureaucrats in the mining administration saw an opportunity and began using the strikes in their own insterets. Mine workers representatives were forced to endure week after week of talks in order to wear them down, some representatives were bribed to include demands in the interests of the administrations in the list of demands from the mine workers. The bureaucrats argued that the demands of the mineworkers could not be met as long as the mining industry was centrally planned and called for a free-market in the coal industry (effectively facilitating the robbery of the mining resources by the bureaucrats). Similar situations developed in other industries - leading to the wholesale theft of the state owned resources by those who ultimately became the oligarchs. These bureaucrats found an able champion in Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was part of the dictatorship and a member of the reformist wing. He recognised that the very real danger of a workers revolution, mirroring what happened in Hungary, was a real possibility and he felt the best way to avoid such a revolutionary upheaval was by attempting capitalist restoration through counter-revolution. This approach was mirrored by the dictatorships in Eastern Europe (with the exception of Romania where Ceausescu attempted to fight) - opening the floodgates for the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe. The last gasp of the hardline wing was the attempted coup in Russia in August 1991. Western powers openly argued that the Yeltsin regime needed to secure the support of the bureaucrats in the former dictatorship - in order to stabilise the political situation. The West argued that the ownership of the state run undustries should be transferred to former bureaucrats in the dictatorship to get them onside to support the capitalist counter-revolution.

The legacy of Gorbachev (following on by Yeltsin) is as follows - widespread inter-ethnic conflict in many of the former Soviet republics - wars in Armenia and Azerbaijan, Chechnya, South Ossetia, Dagestan, Abkhazia, Transnistria, a civil war in Tajikistan, a civil war in Georgia. Most of the former Soviet republics are now ruled by dictatorships (most supported by the West). In economic terms - widespread privatisation, theft of resources, increased taxation on the working class, huge price hikes, mass sacking of workers and mass unemployment, widespread proverty and the wholesale sell-off of housing to oligarch and Western interests leading to massive hikes in rents, mass evications and mass homelessness.

But the greatest legacy of Gorbachev - and the 'reforms' supported and encouraged by Western imperialism - is the creation of major political (and military) instability in the entire euro-asian region. Gorbachev started down the road that has seen millions die in wars, ethnic conflict, from poverty - and the world is living with the consequences of that legacy today with the current war in Ukraine.

 

[Icy Gull]

There really is a lot of nonsense on this thread abour Gorbachev.

Gorbachev was part of the Stalinist ruling dictatorship in the Soviet Union - a member of its reformist wing, but part of the dictatorship nonetheless. The mass uprising of the Polish working class in 1980 sent shockwaves through the Stalinist dictatorships throughout Eastern Europe, but especially in the Soviet Union because opposition was already emerging among the Russian working class. In response the reformist wing of the Communist Party gained the upper hand, first electing Andropov as leader and then Gorbachev (after the death of Chernenko). Both Andropov and Gorbachev were from the reformist wing of the dictatorship. Andropov had played a key role in the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 - he openly supported the suppression of the Prague Spring and the invasion of Afghanistan. However, the uprising in Poland brought back memories of how the Hungarian working class pretty much wiped out the Stalinist leadership in Hungary in 1956 and Andropov began arguing for top down reforms to prevent the Polish events spreading to Russia and the Stalinist dictatorship in Russia suffering the same fate as their Hungarian counterparts 25 years earlier.

Gorbachev did not want democracy or a restoration of capitalism - his reforms were designed to prevent revolution from below by the Russian working class in order to maintain the Stalinist dictatorship. Neither was he interested in ending the Cold War - the Stalinist dictatorship's existance was in part predicated on maintaining the Cold War with the West. The problem for the dictatorship was that once the began, even on a small scale, lifting repression - they opened the floodgates and the movement for reform became unstoppable. The slow pace and limited reforms envisaged by Gorbachev and the reformist wing failed to stem the collapsing Soviet economy and wider demands for reforms in Russian society. Perestroika was a major disaster - by moving away from the bureaucratic planning fo the economy that had been the mainstay of the Stalinist regime for 50 years - perestroika resulted in the bureaucrats running the state industries siphoning off huge volumes of resources for their own private enrichment. The economy grond to a halt. Coupled with this was the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 which the dictatorship attempted to cover up - and the deaths of 25,000 people in Armenia from a series of earthquakes where the dictatorship failed to carry out any kind of a rescue plan. Both these instances resulted in rising national sentiment in the republics of the Soviet Union.

As mass opposition began to develop the dictatorship began to split and fracture. Mass strikes began with the strike in the Vorkuta coalfield which spread to a nationwide strike of 500,000 mine workers. However, the bureaucrats in the mining administration saw an opportunity and began using the strikes in their own insterets. Mine workers representatives were forced to endure week after week of talks in order to wear them down, some representatives were bribed to include demands in the interests of the administrations in the list of demands from the mine workers. The bureaucrats argued that the demands of the mineworkers could not be met as long as the mining industry was centrally planned and called for a free-market in the coal industry (effectively facilitating the robbery of the mining resources by the bureaucrats). Similar situations developed in other industries - leading to the wholesale theft of the state owned resources by those who ultimately became the oligarchs. These bureaucrats found an able champion in Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was part of the dictatorship and a member of the reformist wing. He recognised that the very real danger of a workers revolution, mirroring what happened in Hungary, was a real possibility and he felt the best way to avoid such a revolutionary upheaval was by attempting capitalist restoration through counter-revolution. This approach was mirrored by the dictatorships in Eastern Europe (with the exception of Romania where Ceausescu attempted to fight) - opening the floodgates for the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe. The last gasp of the hardline wing was the attempted coup in Russia in August 1991. Western powers openly argued that the Yeltsin regime needed to secure the support of the bureaucrats in the former dictatorship - in order to stabilise the political situation. The West argued that the ownership of the state run undustries should be transferred to former bureaucrats in the dictatorship to get them onside to support the capitalist counter-revolution.

The legacy of Gorbachev (following on by Yeltsin) is as follows - widespread inter-ethnic conflict in many of the former Soviet republics - wars in Armenia and Azerbaijan, Chechnya, South Ossetia, Dagestan, Abkhazia, Transnistria, a civil war in Tajikistan, a civil war in Georgia. Most of the former Soviet republics are now ruled by dictatorships (most supported by the West). In economic terms - widespread privatisation, theft of resources, increased taxation on the working class, huge price hikes, mass sacking of workers and mass unemployment, widespread proverty and the wholesale sell-off of housing to oligarch and Western interests leading to massive hikes in rents, mass evications and mass homelessness.

But the greatest legacy of Gorbachev - and the 'reforms' supported and encouraged by Western imperialism - is the creation of major political (and military) instability in the entire euro-asian region. Gorbachev started down the road that has seen millions die in wars, ethnic conflict, from poverty - and the world is living with the consequences of that legacy today with the current war in Ukraine.

A good read I'll grant you, I don't know anywhere near enough to enter a meaningful discussion about it though. Interesting non the less.

 

[amexer]

There really is a lot of nonsense on this thread abour Gorbachev.

Gorbachev was part of the Stalinist ruling dictatorship in the Soviet Union - a member of its reformist wing, but part of the dictatorship nonetheless. The mass uprising of the Polish working class in 1980 sent shockwaves through the Stalinist dictatorships throughout Eastern Europe, but especially in the Soviet Union because opposition was already emerging among the Russian working class. In response the reformist wing of the Communist Party gained the upper hand, first electing Andropov as leader and then Gorbachev (after the death of Chernenko). Both Andropov and Gorbachev were from the reformist wing of the dictatorship. Andropov had played a key role in the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 - he openly supported the suppression of the Prague Spring and the invasion of Afghanistan. However, the uprising in Poland brought back memories of how the Hungarian working class pretty much wiped out the Stalinist leadership in Hungary in 1956 and Andropov began arguing for top down reforms to prevent the Polish events spreading to Russia and the Stalinist dictatorship in Russia suffering the same fate as their Hungarian counterparts 25 years earlier.

Gorbachev did not want democracy or a restoration of capitalism - his reforms were designed to prevent revolution from below by the Russian working class in order to maintain the Stalinist dictatorship. Neither was he interested in ending the Cold War - the Stalinist dictatorship's existance was in part predicated on maintaining the Cold War with the West. The problem for the dictatorship was that once the began, even on a small scale, lifting repression - they opened the floodgates and the movement for reform became unstoppable. The slow pace and limited reforms envisaged by Gorbachev and the reformist wing failed to stem the collapsing Soviet economy and wider demands for reforms in Russian society. Perestroika was a major disaster - by moving away from the bureaucratic planning fo the economy that had been the mainstay of the Stalinist regime for 50 years - perestroika resulted in the bureaucrats running the state industries siphoning off huge volumes of resources for their own private enrichment. The economy grond to a halt. Coupled with this was the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 which the dictatorship attempted to cover up - and the deaths of 25,000 people in Armenia from a series of earthquakes where the dictatorship failed to carry out any kind of a rescue plan. Both these instances resulted in rising national sentiment in the republics of the Soviet Union.

As mass opposition began to develop the dictatorship began to split and fracture. Mass strikes began with the strike in the Vorkuta coalfield which spread to a nationwide strike of 500,000 mine workers. However, the bureaucrats in the mining administration saw an opportunity and began using the strikes in their own insterets. Mine workers representatives were forced to endure week after week of talks in order to wear them down, some representatives were bribed to include demands in the interests of the administrations in the list of demands from the mine workers. The bureaucrats argued that the demands of the mineworkers could not be met as long as the mining industry was centrally planned and called for a free-market in the coal industry (effectively facilitating the robbery of the mining resources by the bureaucrats). Similar situations developed in other industries - leading to the wholesale theft of the state owned resources by those who ultimately became the oligarchs. These bureaucrats found an able champion in Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was part of the dictatorship and a member of the reformist wing. He recognised that the very real danger of a workers revolution, mirroring what happened in Hungary, was a real possibility and he felt the best way to avoid such a revolutionary upheaval was by attempting capitalist restoration through counter-revolution. This approach was mirrored by the dictatorships in Eastern Europe (with the exception of Romania where Ceausescu attempted to fight) - opening the floodgates for the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe. The last gasp of the hardline wing was the attempted coup in Russia in August 1991. Western powers openly argued that the Yeltsin regime needed to secure the support of the bureaucrats in the former dictatorship - in order to stabilise the political situation. The West argued that the ownership of the state run undustries should be transferred to former bureaucrats in the dictatorship to get them onside to support the capitalist counter-revolution.

The legacy of Gorbachev (following on by Yeltsin) is as follows - widespread inter-ethnic conflict in many of the former Soviet republics - wars in Armenia and Azerbaijan, Chechnya, South Ossetia, Dagestan, Abkhazia, Transnistria, a civil war in Tajikistan, a civil war in Georgia. Most of the former Soviet republics are now ruled by dictatorships (most supported by the West). In economic terms - widespread privatisation, theft of resources, increased taxation on the working class, huge price hikes, mass sacking of workers and mass unemployment, widespread proverty and the wholesale sell-off of housing to oligarch and Western interests leading to massive hikes in rents, mass evications and mass homelessness.

But the greatest legacy of Gorbachev - and the 'reforms' supported and encouraged by Western imperialism - is the creation of major political (and military) instability in the entire euro-asian region. Gorbachev started down the road that has seen millions die in wars, ethnic conflict, from poverty - and the world is living with the consequences of that legacy today with the current war in Ukraine.

Very interesting. What do you think should have happened that would have been best for Russia and rest of world ?

 

[boik]

A good read I'll grant you, I don't know anywhere near enough to enter a meaningful discussion about it though. Interesting non the less.

You can't just say that you don't know enough about something and leave it at that! You have to argue loudly from a position of ignorance. That's how the internet works!

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Not a fan, not not a fan.

I don't divide people into "good" or "bad" - it is just a simplistic view we've gathered through Hollywood brainwashing.

He played a part in changing the world. Improving it? Possibly for some, possibly not for others. For instance, I think the dissolution of the Soviet Union has been poor for Swedish society - the "liberal, free market economy" shit becoming the only plausible option for people has resulted in a lot of bollocks. Yeah, there's five different kinds of Coca Cola in the stores - go freedom! - but we also sold our education, healthcare and other vital functions of society because the yanks pushed for it without being contested from elsewhere.

Really? I'd have thought you had a lot in common

 

[Swansman]

Really? I'd have thought you had a lot in common

Pizza Hut... do I look like a ****ing amateur to you?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Pizza Hut... do I look like a ****ing amateur to you?

Good point, well made

 

[beorhthelm]

...

Gorbachev did not want democracy or a restoration of capitalism - his reforms were designed to prevent revolution from below by the Russian working class in order to maintain the Stalinist dictatorship. Neither was he interested in ending the Cold War - the Stalinist dictatorship's existance was in part predicated on maintaining the Cold War with the West. The problem for the dictatorship was that once the began, even on a small scale, lifting repression - they opened the floodgates and the movement for reform became unstoppable. The slow pace and limited reforms envisaged by Gorbachev and the reformist wing failed to stem the collapsing Soviet economy and wider demands for reforms in Russian society. Perestroika was a major disaster - by moving away from the bureaucratic planning fo the economy that had been the mainstay of the Stalinist regime for 50 years - perestroika resulted in the bureaucrats running the state industries siphoning off huge volumes of resources for their own private enrichment. The economy grond to a halt. Coupled with this was the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 which the dictatorship attempted to cover up - and the deaths of 25,000 people in Armenia from a series of earthquakes where the dictatorship failed to carry out any kind of a rescue plan. Both these instances resulted in rising national sentiment in the republics of the Soviet Union.
...

so are you saying the communist system only worked while it was under dictatorial control? what alternative to collapsing Soviet economy was there?

 

[chip]

Wow, I can't believe that he relesed this in 1989. Was a bit of a PW Botha, collapsed the system around himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2qe6XRY81w&list=PLn17C0KS7cuVmRC1YgQd1a1YPgQHdH-GW

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

Mikhail Gorbachev's cat once got into a fight with Dmitry Medvedev's cat, Dorofei. Dorofei got so utterly pasted that it had to be put on antibiotics for a month and was neutered to stop it picking any more fights.

Popbitch

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Very interesting. What do you think should have happened that would have been best for Russia and rest of world ?

A political revolution that would have overthrown the Stalinist bureaucracy and implemeted a democratically planned economy. Unfortunately the lack of organisation/s of workers that could have led to that development facilitated the capitalist counter-revolution and all its subsequent consequences.

so are you saying the communist system only worked while it was under dictatorial control? what alternative to collapsing Soviet economy was there?

No - in fact I am saying the opposite - the Stalinist dictatorships prevented the working of communism because it couldn't allow for a democratically planned socialised economy.

There is a myth peddled by the West, and by the vast majority of historians, that Russia was a dictatorship from the moment of the Russian Revolution in 1917. That was not the case - even at the height of the civil war the only political party that was consistently banned were the fascist Black Hundreds. The revolutionary government was a coalition between the Bolsheviks and a variety of other left-wing parties - and the composition of the government fluctuated throughout the period up to the mid-1920s. Widespread reforms were introduced - the distribution of the land to the peasantry - widespread rights for workers - rights for women (many of the measures introduced 100 year ago, still have not been introduced in the advanced western capitalist economies) - the decriminalisation of homosexuality - elements of democratic planning in the economy etc. Some elements were rolled back during the civil war, e.g. the requisition of grain and the banning of strike in essential industries - but these were abolished at the end of the civil war. It wasn't until Stalin began to consolidate power in the late 1920s (largely basing himself on the administrative bureaucracy made up for former Tsarist officials) that the democratic rights began to be rolled back. This was facilitated by - the impact of the civil war - the losses suffered by the Bolshevik Party (more than 90% of Bolshevik Party members were killed in the civil war) - and the failure of workers revolutions in the West, specifically in Germany in 1919-1922. Lenin fought a political campaign from his sick bed right up until his death in 1924 against the bureaucracy and demanding the removal of Stalin as general secretary of the Communist Party. His last testament was suppressed by Stalin because it called for Stalin's removal from power. It wasn't until the late 1930s that the Stalinist bureaucracy consolidated the dictatorship through the show-trials and the mass murder of the Trotskyist Left Opposition and other left-wing opponents (anarchists etc).

The dictatorship became a feter on the planned economy - limiting the ability of the economy to evolve and develop. Despite this - the advances made by the Soviet bureaucratically controlled economy, even the grossly distorted fashion of planning involved, proved the benefits of economic planning over the anarchy of the capitalist market. Russia of 1917 went from being comparable to the economy of India in 1900 - to becoming the first country to launch a satellite into space in the late 1950s. Again - despite the dictatorship - the vast majority of the Russian population and the populations of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Republics, benefitted significantly in economic terms. There was no homlessness, no unemployment, no inflation (capitalism needs inflation to drive profit growth), an exceptional health and education system, and the entire population were provided with basic needs (unlike today where globally 50million children die every year because they lack basic nutrition and health care). When Stalinism collapsed in Russia in 1989 the rents being paid fo accomodation, the prices of electricity and heating etc were at the same level as set in 1927.

Now - the important point of note here is the revolutionary process than unfolded in the late 1980s and early 1990s. When the working class in the Stalinist states moved onto the stage of history they were not demanding the resortation of capitalism. This didn't happen during the revolutions in Hungary in 1956, in Czechslovakia in 1968, in Poland in 1970 and in 1980, in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics. The demands of the mass movements that led to the overthrow of Stalinism were demanding the democratisation of society with the maintenance of the planned economy. Indeed - the demands of workers in 1956, 1968, 1980 and again in 1989 were mirrored on the demands of the Bolsheviks in 1917 and the programme proposed by Lenin and adopted by the Bolsheviks in 1921. The working class instinctively knew the benefits of the planning of the socialised economy and were fighting for an overthrow of the dictatorship of the bureaucracy. As the revolutionary process unfolded and the collapse of Stalinism became inevitable, it was the Western powers that persuaded the elements of the Stalinist dictatorship the actively support the capitalist counter-revolution - on the basis that they would be protected by the West against retribution by the working class and they would financially benefit from the wholesale privatisation and theft of the state-owned resources and companies.