The Cosmonaut podcast episode on Stalin provides a comprehensive analysis of the Stalinist period that serves as a necessary corrective to the vulgar anti-Stalinist narratives proliferated by the Trotskyist left, which have little bearing in historical and archival evidence. The hosts draw on a vast array of strong historical sources to inform their discussion. It’s a difficult topic that every corner of the left struggles with, Stalinist or anti-Stalinist. Regardless, their account is incomplete in many ways.
The podcast begins with an overview of their historical literature as well as a good summation of Stalin’s revolutionary youth, his authentic relation to Marxism, and a refreshing commentary on Lenin’s testament. While I very much enjoyed the historical discussion, I still completed the episode feeling unsatisfied. The hosts distance themselves from Trotskyist “historical” interpretations yet ultimately endorse its tepid political conclusions regarding Stalin.
As we pass the hour mark, our hosts begin to detail the many crimes and failures of Stalinist leadership as we are given an overview of collectivization and the Terror. In their rendition, Stalin is no longer a one-dimensional, comic book villain; rather, he becomes a nuanced, complex, multi-faceted villain, who is reacting to events rather than orchestrating them. But he is characterized as a villain nonetheless. One that is, in some ways, even more monstrous than past depictions because he was a “real” Marxist “just like us.”
The violence and repression of the Stalin era shouldn’t be forgotten, it’s an important part of the history; but it’s only one part. It’s insufficient in understanding the totality of Stalinism. We are given a lengthy account of the irrationality of collectivization and rapid industrialization, but the long-term implications and efficacy of these policies are not made clear.
The podcast references a conversation between Historian Stephen Kotkin and philosopher Slavoj Zizek. Elsewhere in that same discussion, Kotkin theorizes that Soviet power would have likely collapsed without collectivization. The necessity of collectivization to the survival of Soviet power is reiterated by a number of historians. Arvind Vyas (1978) writes that “the decision of mass collectivization was made in response to the logic of objective circumstances.” Mark Harrison (2008) notes that the NEP economy could not be reconciled with the task of rapid, large-scale industrialization necessary for war mobilization. Hugh D. Hudson (2012) explains how a troubling upsurge in mass peasant revolt was a result of market dynamics introduced by the NEP, which created an intolerable war-time vulnerability and unreliable food source during a time of mounting external threat (indeed, collectivization proved absolutely necessary for the survival of the Red Army during WW2). Stalin deliberately took conscious steps to cultivate an economic base primed for war (Roberts, 2006). Despite their grave price, rapid industrialization and collectivization proved to be necessary measures during the period of interwar isolation and looming external threat.
During the war itself, Stalin’s individual decision-making and leadership were crucial. Geoffrey Roberts (2006), military historian and specialist of the Stalin period, writes that “without [Stalin’s] leadership the war against Nazi Germany would probably have been lost. Churchill, Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt – they were all replaceable as warlords, but not Stalin. In the context of the horrific war on the Eastern Front, Stalin was indispensable to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.” Roberts, while acknowledging the cataclysmic violence of the Stalin era, goes on to describe Stalin as leading the “greatest military victory in history,” which was a “triumph beyond compare.”
This colossal economic and social upheaval of rapid industrialization reverberated through society in the form of the “Great Terror.” I agree with the hosts that the slaughter of far too many accomplished and innocent Bolsheviks occurred. However, the Terror had a noteworthy effect on the mobilization efforts of the war. Historian Kenneth Slepyan described how, in the wake of the red fanaticism that gripped society, Soviet guerilla partisans internalized an iron “Stalinist ethos,” which cultivated a bloodlust for hunting down enemies—but this time they were all real. The militant political atmosphere of Stalinism and its highly efficient modes of military mobilization were essential to high levels of military effectiveness, morale and recruitment, which the war effort depended on (Reese, 2011).
The violence of Stalinism should not be beyond critique, but it truly pales in comparison to what could have been: the alternative universe Stalinist leadership prevented, where Hitler won the war and unleashed a ruthless campaign of settler-colonialism, slavery, and genocide across conquered lands.
Stalin’s absolute infamy is matched only by his world-historic leadership. His tenure was marked by an array of contradictions. Stalin was nation-maker and nation breaker; uncompromising communist and flexible pragmatist; principled defender of democracy and ruthless dictator; populist and elitist; butcher of the old Bolsheviks and savior of the Soviet Union; this, in the words of Zizek (2004), is the unbearable tension of Stalinism.
It’s a story more interesting than the apologetics of Furr or the singular atrocity-mongering of the anti-Stalinist left. Roberts (2006) reiterates this point when he says Stalin’s war methods were “unpalatable,” but “effective” and perhaps “unavoidable.” Stalin was not successful despite his brutality, but often because of it. Reducing Stalinism to either one if its “extremes” has allowed either side to pick what they like, ignore what they dislike, and construct their composite Stalinism. While the Cosmonaut rendition is closer to the truth than most anti-Stalinist accounts, it still misses the mark.
In its totality, 1930s Stalinism was a disorienting, costly, and bloody social upheaval, which allowed Stalin to secure and protect Soviet power from Hitlerite barbarism. We cannot make sense of Stalinism if we do not put these stakes front and center. Cosmonaut offers an insightful commentary, but one that is constrained by its political anti-Stalinism, which is unable to fully break with the limitations of Trotskyism.
Trotskyism is an impoverished theoretical framework that is unable to grasp the essence of historical Stalinism. Contrary to Trotskyite analysis, Sheila Fitzpatrick (2000) argues that Stalinism was not the October revolution’s repudiation. It was the completion of the revolution. She (2000) says, “ it was the ‘Stalin revolution’ of the 1930s, not the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, that created radically new and durable political, economic, social, and cultural structures that were to last for half a century,” structures that Stalin’s war effort preserved and which latter became the template for AES states that at one point housed one third of humanity. If we think the legacy of actually existing socialism means anything at all, as I know Cosmonaut does, we cannot erase the monumental contributions of Stalinism. But nor can we ignore its tragedies. The truth of Stalinism lies in its absolute contradiction.
- AH
Work Cited
Fitzpatrick, S. (2006). Stalinism: New Directions. Routledge.
Harrison, M. (2008). Guns and rubles: The defense industry in the Stalinist state. Yale University Press.
Hudson, H. (2016). Peasants, Political Police, and the Early Soviet State: Surveillance and Accommodation under the New Economic Policy. Palgrave Macmillan.
Lenin Vladimir & Žižek Slavoj. (2011). Revolution at the gates: A selection of writings from February to October 1917. Verso.
Roberts, G. (2006). Stalin’s wars: From World War to Cold War, 1941-1947. Yale University Press.
Roger R. Reese (2011) Why Stalin’s Soldiers Fought: The Red Army’s Military Effectiveness in World War II. University Press of Kansas
Slepyan, Kenneth. (2006). “Why The Fought: Motivation, Legitimacy and the Soviet Partisan Movement.” Transylvania University.
Vyas, A. (1978). Consumption in a socialist economy: The Soviet industrialisation experience, 1929-37.
