In class you mentioned the whole "Was Stalin at all in any possible way even the smallest justified in his killing of millions?" thing. When we all loudly voiced our disgust at the slightest possibility of Stalin being justified, you brought up two things: 1. We all adopted somewhat Stalinish methods of advancing Russia into the twentieth century in our little groups, and 2. Russia became industrialized under Stalin.
In response to the first, nowhere did we check the box, "Kill millions... because." I know there are better sources for this but Solomon Volkov's Testimony indicates in a very personal (and somewhat suspect) way that Stalin's purges were motivated more by paranoia than political necessity. So fearsome was the person of Stalin that his death in 1953 was undiscovered for days because his guards did not wish to disturb the great man.
In response to the second, Stalin did more to keep Russia in the feudal era than to advance it. Although Russia was transformed into a country with factories and modern infrastructure, Russia was handicapped by the economic poison of socialization. Also, Stalin did little to advance his country into the future by killing the workers and intellectuals that could bring real improvement to the country.
I see your point. I still have a question though--do you believe that Russia could have ripped itself into the industrial powerhouse it did, without violence? And to the minimum degree that violence would be necessary--granting that the paranoia of Stalin made this infinitely worse--would you have undertaken it?
ReplyDeleteI think Russia could have been forceful, but, since I think it is a reasonable demand of a government to govern for the few just as much as for the many, it doesn't make sense to kill or imprison even a few in the name of the many. Industrialization is on the whole a good thing for the people as well as the government, so I don't see how violence would have been necessary to persuade the populace of this. Rather, the greater speed and quality of industrialized production would force the backwards part of Russia to catch up.
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