In his extraordinary work, The Foundations of Leninism, J.V. Stalin, the principal leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin, explained, “Theory is the experience of the working-class movement in all countries taken in its general aspect.” In other words, theory is based on the summation of practical experience. General lessons are drawn from that experience, and then applied, tested and enriched through application in practice to our particular conditions. The 1938 work The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) – Short Course stands out as an invaluable wellspring of theory because it provides a summation of the experiences of the Bolshevik Revolution from a Marxist-Leninist perspective. It is a summation that we can and must learn from to apply to the revolutionary tasks at hand here and now.

Indeed, such was the value of the Short Course that during the Yan’an Rectification Movement, Mao Zedong wrote, “... in studying Marxism-Leninism, we should use the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course as the principal material. It is the best synthesis and summing-up of the world communist movement of the past hundred years, a model of the integration of theory and practice, and so far the only comprehensive model in the whole world. When we see how Lenin and Stalin integrated the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete practice of the Soviet revolution and thereby developed Marxism, we shall know how we should work in China.”

Stalin’s role in writing the Short Course

The authorship of the Short Course has long been a topic of discussion. Some have asserted that it was written by Stalin. Others have said it was written by a committee. The fact is that it was written by a committee of party historians under the political and theoretical guidance of Stalin. 

The book Stalin’s Master Narrative, edited by David Brandenberger and Mikhail Zelenov, shows exactly what Stalin’s contributions to the book were. He revised or rewrote significant portions of the book, and cut major sections as well. For example, he cut sections that praised his individual contributions too highly, as well as sections that overestimated or overstated the scope and strength of the counterrevolutionary Trotskyite conspiracy. Meanwhile, the section on Dialectical and Historical Materialism is entirely Stalin’s work. 

Liberals, Trotskyites, and anti-communist academics often look at Stalin’s direct involvement in the authorship of the Short Course and use that to dismiss the book as self-promotion. The revisionist Khrushchev even listed Stalin’s authorship of the Short Course among Stalin’s “crimes” in order to denigrate Stalin and bury this important text. Modern scholarship has revealed the “crimes” of Stalin in the so-called “Secret Speech” to be fabrications by Khrushchev, and this is no different. Khrushchev blames Stalin for self-aggrandizing in the book, but we now know that Stalin had no patience for such lavish personal praise, and we can see that he cut such praise heavily from the book. 

In any case, Marxists ought to understand that Stalin’s leading role in the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet State placed him in a unique position to give an accurate, Marxist-Leninist summation of events, in the interests of developing communist theory and practice. The purpose of the book, contrary to what the revisionists and other anti-communists claim, was to educate the Party from top to bottom in Marxist-Leninist theory from a decidedly practical point of view. Indeed, if there is one current that runs steadily throughout the book, it is the unity of theory practice. 

The unity of theory and practice in the Short Course

We can see then that one of the remarkable things that the Short Course does is to unite the practice that it is summing up with the theory that guided it at the time. In this way, it looks at the major works of Lenin and Stalin and contextualizes them, explains why they were written, and breaks down their main points in relation to the struggles that they sought to inform. 

As the book traces the history of the Bolsheviks from 1883 with the formation of the Emancipation of Labor group, through the development of the Soviet Constitution adopted in December of 1936, it strives to draw out both theoretical and practical lessons that can be taken up by revolutionaries, and to show the dialectical unity between theory and practice. It is a work of historical materialism, after all. So in it we see how the important ideological, political and organizational questions arose from the material reality of the time and place in which they were born.

The Short Course takes the time to explain practically all of Lenin’s major works and how they contributed to the revolution. It explains how many of Lenin’s writings formed the foundation for the Bolshevik party. Thus, it explains how Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? formed the ideological foundation for the Marxist-Leninist party. It explains how Lenin’s One Step Forward, Two Steps Back similarly formed the organizational foundation. And it explains how Lenin’s Materialism and Emperio-Criticism formed the philosophical foundation. In this way, the Short Course is an essential textbook on Leninist theory.

We can draw innumerable practical lessons from the book as well. For example, we can see how the Bolsheviks, despite being relatively small, were able, as early as 1905, to organize and mobilize the masses of the workers and peasants of the Russian Empire in order to have an influence that far exceeded their own numbers. It not only explains, but demonstrates, the necessity of armed struggle to smash the bourgeois dictatorship and institute the dictatorship of the proletariat: working class state power with the goal of building socialism and advancing towards communism. And it shows in practice how the Bolsheviks went about building socialism in the Soviet Union, for the first time in history. 

In its conclusion, the Short Course sums up its lessons. It emphasizes the central role of the revolutionary proletarian party itself: “The history of the Party teaches us, first of all, that the victory of the proletarian revolution, the victory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, is impossible without a revolutionary party of the proletariat, a party free from opportunism, irreconcilable towards compromisers and capitulators, and revolutionary in its attitude towards the bourgeoisie and its state power.”

Second, it emphasizes the pivotal role of theory, “The history of the Party further teaches us that a party of the working class cannot perform the role of leader of its class, cannot perform the role of organizer and leader of the proletarian revolution, unless it has mastered the advanced theory of the working-class movement, the Marxist-Leninist theory.”

Third, it emphasizes the necessity of the hegemony of the working class party among the class, “The history of the Party further teaches us that unless the petty-bourgeois parties which are active within the ranks of the working class and which push the backward sections of the working class into the arms of the bourgeoisie, thus splitting the unity of the working class, are smashed, the victory of the proletarian revolution is impossible.”

Fourth, it emphasizes ideological struggle against opportunism, “The history of the Party further teaches us that unless the Party of the working class wages an uncompromising struggle against the opportunists within its own ranks, unless it smashes the capitulators in its own midst, it cannot preserve unity and discipline within its ranks, it cannot perform its role of organizer and leader of the proletarian revolution, nor its role as the builder of the new, Socialist society.”

Fifth, it emphasizes criticism and self-criticism, “The history of the Party further teaches us that a party cannot perform its role as leader of the working class if, carried away by success, it begins to grow conceited, ceases to observe the defects in its work, and fears to acknowledge its mistakes and frankly and honestly to correct them in good time.”

And finally, it emphasizes the mass line, “the history of the Party teaches us that unless it has wide connections with the masses, unless it constantly strengthens these connections, unless it knows how to hearken to the voice of the masses and understand their urgent needs, unless it is prepared not only to teach the masses, but to learn from the masses, a party of the working class cannot be a real mass party capable of leading the working class millions and all the labouring people.”

The Short Course today

The lessons of the history of the Bolshevik party are as vital today as ever. Not only is this book a textbook of Marxism-Leninism, but, as Mao said, the Short Course is also “a model of the integration of theory and practice.” We can see many of our own problems reflected in it, and by studying how the Bolsheviks addressed those problems, we can better understand how to move forward. The Short Course addresses party building, organization, the national question, imperialism, war and peace, strategy and tactics, and so much more, all in an accessible and understandable way. 

Often, when we read the writings of Lenin, we may feel detached from the broader context in which they were written. This book can serve to bridge the gap between those texts and their context, helping us to better understand their meaning and purpose. In that way, we can better understand how to apply the general theoretical lessons of those important texts to our own particular conditions. 

The problems that faced the Bolsheviks are not unique, and many of them still plague revolutionaries all over the world, including in the United States. Indeed, while our conditions may not be the same, the theory of Marxism-Leninism is essential for understanding and advancing our own revolution. We are still in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. Our enemy is the capitalist class. Our goal is socialism, and ultimately, communism. And our way forward is the path first charted by Lenin, Stalin, and the Bolsheviks. 

#RevolutionaryTheory #RedReviews #USSR #Stalin #MarxismLeninism

To mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over fascist Germany, Fight Back News Service is circulating the following speech by Joseph Stalin. The speech was delivered on May 9, 1945.

COMRADES! Men and women compatriots!

The great day of victory over Germany has come. Fascist Germany, forced to her knees by the Red Army and the troops of our Allies, has acknowledged herself defeated and declared unconditional surrender.

On May 7 the preliminary protocol on surrender was signed in the city of Rheims. On May 8 representatives of the German High Command, in the presence of representatives of the Supreme Command of the Allied troops and the Supreme Command of the Soviet Troops, signed in Berlin the final act of surrender, the execution of which began at 24.00 hours on May 8.

Being aware of the wolfish habits of the German ringleaders, who regard treaties and agreements as empty scraps of paper, we have no reason to trust their words. However, this morning, in pursuance of the act of surrender, the German troops began to lay down their arms and surrender to our troops en masse. This is no longer an empty scrap of paper. This is actual surrender of Germany’s armed forces. True, one group of German troops in the area of Czechoslovakia is still evading surrender. But I trust that the Red Army will be able to bring it to its senses.

Now we can state with full justification that the historic day of the final defeat of Germany, the day of the great victory of our people over German imperialism has come.

The great sacrifices we made in the name of the freedom and independence of our Motherland, the incalculable privations and sufferings experienced by our people in the course of the war, the intense work in the rear and at the front, placed on the altar of the Motherland, have not been in vain, and have been crowned by complete victory over the enemy. The age-long struggle of the Slav peoples for their existence and their independence has ended in victory over the German invaders and German tyranny.

Henceforth the great banner of the freedom of the peoples and peace among peoples will fly over Europe.

Three years ago Hitler declared for all to hear that his aims included the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the wresting from it of the Caucasus, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Baltic lands and other areas. He declared bluntly: “We will destroy Russia so that she will never be able to rise again.” This was three years ago. However, Hitler’s crazy ideas were not fated to come true—the progress of the war scattered them to the winds. In actual fact the direct opposite of the Hitlerites’ ravings has taken place. Germany is utterly defeated. The German troops are surrendering. The Soviet Union is celebrating Victory, although it does not intend either to dismember or to destroy Germany.

Comrades! The Great Patriotic War has ended in our complete victory. The period of war in Europe is over. The period of peaceful development has begun.

I congratulate you upon victory, my dear men and women compatriots!

Glory to our heroic Red Army, which upheld the independence of our Motherland and won victory over the enemy!

Glory to our great people, the people victorious!

Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the struggle against the enemy and gave their lives for the freedom and happiness of our people!

#RevolutionaryTheory #Stalin #USSR #Fascism #WWII

Last month marked the 30th anniversary of one of the most colossal events in history. On December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union formally dissolved itself, bringing an end to the 70-plus year project of building socialism, and reintroducing capitalism to nearly a fifth of the world.

The Soviet collapse marked the rock-bottom low point for 20th century socialism, but it also wasn’t alone. Both before the events in Russia and for nearly a decade after, socialist countries in Eastern Europe saw sweeping counter-revolutions that brought down the ruling workers parties and restored rule by the richest 1%. Large protests, military intervention and ambivalent responses from disloyal or hopelessly despairing party leaders – these were the superficial hallmarks of the era.

In some countries like Bulgaria, the communist party put up a fight and actually won elections under the new capitalist-friendly constitution – a sin that quickly got them outlawed by the new ruling classes, no matter their empty rhetoric about “free and fair elections.” For Albania and Yugoslavia, it took outright military intervention by NATO members well into the 1990s to finally put the proverbial nail in red coffin.

It’s all worth reflecting on because of the untold misery brought about by monopoly capitalism in the last 30 years. As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, bringing death and widespread economic suffering to working people in the U.S. and around the world, there’s a growing collective sense that something has to give. This system, ruled by billionaires and banks who get rich off of the labor, land and resources of the rest of us, can’t go on. But as people explore alternatives to the capitalist hellworld of our time, the Soviet socialist project remains an important experience from which to draw lessons.

Let’s be clear on this: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the overthrow of socialism in eastern Europe was a catastrophe for workers and oppressed people around the world. Born out of the carnage and destruction unleashed on the world by monopoly capitalism, the Soviet Union became the first socialist state in history. It was a society ruled by the working class in alliance with the peasantry, who exercised political power through the communist party. Over the 20th century, revolutions—usually born out of similar conditions of war and devastation—saw other workers parties come to power, eventually encompassing nearly half the world’s population.

That’s fine history, but what was so significant about socialism in the Soviet Union?

Socialism is just a better system for the vast majority of people than capitalism. We know this because it has actually existed for over a century and still exists today in several countries. As the first socialist country in history, the Soviet Union represented a light in the dark for workers and oppressed people around the world. It showed plain as day that capitalism—with its obscene inequalities, rampant poverty and exploitation, war, disease, famine and oppression—was not the only possible way. The working class could take power for themselves as a class and use it to build a new type of society based on freedom and solidarity.

Here’s what the Soviet Union achieved in more than 70 years of building socialism: They created an economy free from unemployment, inflation, poverty, recessions, homelessness and massive income inequality. This wasn’t ‘sharing poverty’ either, as so many liberal and right-wing historians alike allege. The Soviet economy grew at a breakneck pace for most of its existence, mainly due to socialist planning, and increased its people’s living and consumption standards faster than any other country before it.

When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, Russia’s industrial output was 12% that of the United States; 50 years later, it had risen to 80% that of the U.S.—and 85% of the U.S.’s agricultural output. That kind of economic growth is transformational, but it wasn’t growth for growth’s sake or for the private enrichment of a few at the top. In the Soviet system, the people as a whole—ordinary working people of many nationalities—enjoyed the benefits of the growth that their hard work made possible.

At a time when inflation in the U.S. is at its highest rate in decades—especially for necessities like housing, gas, food, health care and utilities—it’s shocking to think that rent in the Soviet Union never exceeded about 3% of the family budget. Utilities ran only a bit higher at 5%. Certain luxury goods cost a lot more, but through central planning, the socialist state set prices for food and other necessities lower than their equivalent ‘market value.’

In the socialist bloc, workers had a guaranteed right to a living-wage job. Soviet workers in the mid-1970s took an average of a month’s paid vacation every year, traveling to state-sponsored resorts and neighboring countries with their families. Every worker had paid sick leave if they took ill. There were no health insurance companies, expensive premiums, high deductibles and co-pays or hospital bills at all. Health care was free for everyone.

It may come as a surprise to know that the Soviet Union had twice as many practicing doctors per person as the U.S. for most of its existence, but it shouldn’t. Education was also completely free, from elementary schools to post-graduate university programs. Soviet college students mainly came from working class backgrounds, but they never had to take out a crippling loan from a bank. The state provided living stipends for students, which meant more people could pursue their interests, talents and passions for sciences and arts. That produces more doctors and nurses, but it also produces world-class engineers, mathematicians, filmmakers, authors, architects and more.

All workers in the socialist bloc also belonged to a union, which administered their job benefits and protected them from over-zealous managers and job hazards. It’s tough to imagine in the United States, but unions in socialist countries exercise an enormous amount of institutional power on the job, over the economy and in the government. In the Soviet Union, for instance, unions could unilaterally veto discipline, including terminations, issued by managers. Workers could actually discipline or fire their supervisors and managers by recall petition through their unions.

But perhaps most staggering of all to reflect on 30 years after its collapse is the level of income inequality—or lack thereof—in the Soviet Union. Few features better encapsulate the fear and loathing of life in the United States than its gargantuan wealth gap between the top 1% and the rest of us. “The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That's Made the U.S. Less Secure” read a Time Magazine headline from September 2020—and its only gotten worse.

While working people struggle to make ends meet, stay healthy and keep the lights on at home, corporate vultures like Jeff Bezos and dumbasses like Elon Musk—both billionaires—are presented by the establishment media as icons of success and innovation. In this seemingly forever-COVID capitalist system, they have succeeded—in robbing the rest of us blind. Corporate CEO pay in 2020 clocked in at 351 times that of an average worker, according to an Economic Policy Institute report in August 2021. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the enormous wealth gap has led to higher risk of COVID infections and death among the poor and working class, particularly Black workers—although plenty of studies have proven the link anyway.

Just to say, what little income inequality did exist in the Soviet Union is unrecognizable by today’s standards in America. There was no class of millionaires or billionaires in the Soviet Union. People couldn’t own stock in companies they never worked for, collect dividends off the hard work of others and call that a job. Everybody who could work did work. Some people made more than others, but not in the way we’re used to in a capitalist country.

The highest earners in the Soviet Union were teachers and college professors, scientists and engineers, writers, artists, and public administrators. They might take home as much as 1500 rubles every month. Government officials made a little less than half of that at roughly 600 rubles. Industrial directors who headed up particular enterprises made somewhere between 190 and 400 rubles per month, largely depending on the industry and its performance. Workers earned between 150 and 200 rubles. In other words, even at its most egregious, the top-paid earner in the Soviet Union only made about ten times the income of an ordinary worker.

This widespread social and economic equality had other impacts too. The Soviet Union and the socialist countries in eastern Europe produced some of the most interesting, groundbreaking films of the time—even as American studios and theaters refused to show most of them. Ordinary working people packed movie theaters to take in everything from science-fiction like Solaris and Stalker to intense war films like Come and See—all three of which are regarded today as some of the greatest films ever, even in America. Artists produced unique, original art for working people, and state support for the arts insured that workers had unprecedented access to take it in, enjoy and learn. Most households had extensive personal libraries full of books, journals and art. It comes as no surprise that “Soviet citizens read more books and saw more films than any other people in the world,” according to a UN report from the 1980s.

Of course the impact of the Soviet Union and the socialist countries extended far beyond its own borders. Whatever its particular shortcomings or policy mistakes, the Soviet Union unquestionably served as a counter-weight to U.S. imperialism. Along with the Soviets, countries like German Democratic Republic (East Germany) provided tremendous material and diplomatic solidarity to liberation movements around the world fighting colonialism and national oppression. Socialism in action gave oppressed people around the world a living, breathing example of a society free from capitalist exploitation. Titanic freedom-fighters like Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro drew inspiration—and support—from socialism in the Soviet Union, as did countless Black revolutionaries, organizers and activists in the United States.

Driven by an unending desire for greater profit, the monopoly capitalist countries seized on the collapse of the socialist bloc as an opportunity to sink their teeth deeper into Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. Even Yugoslavia, which had split sharply with the Soviet Union shortly after World War II, saw itself carved up by NATO in the aftermath. The ongoing ‘forever wars’ of the U.S.’s so-called War on Terror are unimaginable without the overthrow of socialism in the Soviet Union.

Of course, capitalism’s restoration plunged working people in Russia and eastern Europe into a torrent of poverty, disease, starvation, unemployment, inflation and countless other miseries. Old national and religious prejudices sprung out of the hellscape ushered in by the overthrow of socialism. Vicious armed conflicts broke out among nationalities and ethnic groups that had lived fraternally for nearly seven decades under socialism. Hateful neo-Nazi and right-wing nationalist movements saw a massive resurgence, no longer held at bay by the socialist state. In no uncertain terms, the overthrow of socialism in the Soviet Union made the world a much, much worse place.

The Soviet socialist system wasn’t perfect. Starting in the 1950s, the Communist Party began to stray from its commitment to Marxism-Leninism and walk back important parts of its practice. The reasons for this shift, to revisionism and opportunism are myriad, but over time a deeply compromising ideological trend came to predominate among the Soviet party’s leadership. Many other communist parties in eastern Europe and elsewhere followed suit. Party leadership began tolerating and eventually encouraging economic and social trends that weakened the socialist system and strengthened the forces committed to bringing back capitalism. The re-emergence and rapid growth of the black-market ‘second economy’ helped lay the groundwork for the events of 1991. Outside pressures by the imperialist counties led by the United States had a hand in this too.

Thankfully though, the fall of socialism in the Soviet Union is not the end of the story. Facing a reversal of fortune for socialists everywhere, a few countries took a different path and resisted the tidal wave of capitalism’s return. Cuba stands strong, even after suffering under the U.S.’s barbaric economic blockage for more than six decades. Just last year, Cuba stunned the world with its ingenuity and efficiency in developing its own COVID vaccine and distributing it to more than 90% of people, giving it one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. Vietnam, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Laos have all seen similar success in the fight against COVID while protecting the livelihood of their people.

Socialist China and its unprecedented, roaring economic success stand out as a particularly important part of this story. Like it did in the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc, the grim reaper of capital eventually visited China in the form of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, which were plainly aimed at overthrowing the socialist system as similar protests had done elsewhere. A section of the Communist Party even supported these aims. At the decisive moment though, the party did the right thing and put its foot down. They used the socialist state to stop the slide back into capitalist oblivion and misery. For whatever mistakes and errors these parties have made in the last 30 years, their decision to continue building socialism has made life better for the vast majority of working people, both in their countries and around the world.

Point-blank, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc was a catastrophe for the working class around the world. Workers in countries like the United States might not have seen it that way at the time, but monopoly capitalism’s largely unimpeded 30-year reign has made life worse for all of us.

Between the carnage and torture of endless wars for oil, economic crisis after economic crisis, rampant police crimes and racist vigilante violence, the apocalyptic weather events brought on by climate change, and the explosive spread of COVID-19, it’s all too clear that December 26, 1991 did not represent “the end of history,” as liberal academic Francis Fukuyama famously wrote. The same class struggle that drove workers, soldiers, sailors, peasants and oppressed people to overthrow a centuries-old monarchy in Russia rages on in 2022.

People committed to ending our collective misery and creating a better world for ourselves and our children should look at the Soviet experience and learn from it. Socialism is not an elaborate system neatly worked out in the brains of intellectuals and academics, nor is it a political science checklist. Workers and oppressed people of many nations have built and are continuing to build socialism. It exists, past and present, for us to learn from its victories as well as its defeats in the hopes of building a future world worth living in.

Editor’s note: For those interested in learning more about the causes and history of the Soviet Union's collapse, Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny's book Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union remains a must-read English-language account. Several of the points in this essay are drawn from their book, which is still as thought-provoking and important for socialists to read as it was in 2004 on its release. For an equally insightful account of China's experience in the same period with the Tiananmen protests of 1989, as well as the CPC's different response, readers should check out Mick Kelly's Continuing the Revolution is Not a Dinner Party: Looking Back at Tiananmen Square, the Defeat of Counter-Revolution in China.

#UnitedStates #Socialism #PeoplesStruggles #USSR #SovietUnion

December 21 marks the birthday of Joseph Stalin, leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953.

Though reviled in the West, Stalin oversaw the period of socialist construction in the USSR. Under his leadership the country abolished illiteracy, unemployment, homelessness, and put an end to Russia's centuries-long history of famines. Under the leadership of Stalin, the USSR played a key role in turning back the tide of fascism and the defeat of Nazi Germany. This victory was not just a victory for the Soviet Union and socialism, but a victory for the peoples of the world. Under his leadership, the country went from an agrarian backwater to a major industrial power, well on its way to becoming the world's greatest space power. During the time he led the world revolutionary movement, the number of countries governed by working people grew from two to twelve.

The leader of the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Lenin, died in 1924. Upon his death, opposition forces in the country which had been cowed into submission by Lenin's personal prestige made their move, and a power struggle ensued. At a leadership level, the struggle pitted Stalin, who had been Lenin's closest political ally, against Leon Trotsky, who had fought Lenin many times over the preceding 22 years. The main policy difference was that Trotsky did not believe it was possible to construct socialism in the USSR; he believed they would have to wait until revolutions happened in other countries to move forward. Stalin's victory in this struggle was a political precondition for the construction of Soviet socialism.

Much of Stalin's time in leadership was occupied with the problem of defending the country from foreign invasion. In 1931, he remarked that the country was industrially and economically 50 or a 100 years behind the developed countries. “We must make good this distance in ten years,” he said. “Either we do it, or we shall go under.” The next ten years were spent in frantic efforts at industrialization, and great sacrifices were made in this effort.

But when, in 1941, Nazi Germany and a coalition of other countries invaded the USSR, only the great strides in industrialization that the USSR had made allowed them to fend off this genocidal assault.

Stalin also played a tremendous role in the anti-colonial movement. In 1924, most of Africa and much of Asia were still occupied by European powers. The Soviet Union under Stalin gave an enormous amount of support to the peoples in these countries struggling for freedom and equality. Vietnamese anti-colonial rebels even named a mountain after him.

The Soviet Union has been gone nearly 30 years, but it remains dangerous to the world's rich people, because it remains an example of a successful society which did away with rich people entirely. Because of this, the USSR and its leaders, and above all Stalin, are subjected to an unending litany of abuse and defamation.

Still, if the wealthy hate him, the revolutionaries still remember him positively. Stalin told his close comrade Molotov in 1953: “I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of history will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy.”

No one should expect to make a revolution with the approval and the advice of the class they are attempting to overthrow. The rubbish heaped on Stalin is itself simply a reflection of the reality that he held to a revolutionary course throughout his life. As the great Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara said, “In the so-called mistakes of Stalin lies the difference between a revolutionary attitude and a revisionist attitude.”

#UnitedStates #PeoplesStruggles #Socialism #USSR #Stalin

Michael Lucas, editor of Northstar Compass and leader of the International Council for Friendship and Solidarity with the Soviet People, died in Toronto on May 4. He was 94.

Lucas was a fixture of the Canadian left for decades, especially among communities of progressive immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia. He was longtime head of the Society of Carpatho-Russian Canadians. A musician, Lucas was deeply committed to preserving and sharing the culture and traditions of his people. Throughout his long life, he was a staunch supporter of socialism and the anti-fascist traditions of the Soviet Union.

“He worked tirelessly for international worker rights across the world, in support of trade unions and civil rights in North America and beyond,” according to his family’s commemorative statement.

Outside Canada, many of us first got to know Lucas through his work producing Northstar Compass. This print journal provided news and translations from the communist movement in the former Soviet Union following the capitalist counter-revolution of the early 1990s, as well as reports of solidarity actions in other parts of the world. At a time before the wide availability of the Internet, smart phones and translation apps, this material would otherwise have been unavailable to most activists.

In the difficult years after the USSR’s destruction, Northstar Compass played a crucial role connecting socialists and communists worldwide with the re-emerging working-class movement in the post-Soviet states. After Lucas launched the Canadian Friends of the Soviet People in 1991, branches sprang up in the U.S. and many other countries, helping to bring together socialists of different views who had weathered the storm with their revolutionary commitment intact.

The national chapters of the Friends of the Soviet People sponsored commemorative events for socialist holidays like International Working Women’s Day and the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, helping to preserve those working-class traditions until they could be revived by new generations of activists.

Northstar Compass was one of the few English-language sources for truthful information on the repression under the Boris Yeltsin regime. It published reports on the role of U.S. and Canadian imperialism in the October 1993 shelling of the Congress of Soviets and subsequent massacre of leftists in Moscow which the corporate media refused to print.

The final print edition of Northstar Compass appeared in 2017.

Lucas’ passing has already been taken notice of in several countries, including Russia, Nepal and the U.S. – an indication of the lasting significance and respect for his dedicated work. As his longtime collaborator on the International Council, George Gruenthal, wrote, Lucas “not only wrote most of the material [for Northstar Compass], but also did the layout, stuffing the envelopes and mailing of the journal. He kept up this work until he was in his 90s, with help from his wife Helen and other comrades from Toronto and around the world.”

Bill Dores, New York-based organizer of the Campaign for Solidarity with Labor in Russia in the 1990s, knew Lucas. He said: “Michael was Carpatho-Russian [a nationality from the region that is today part of eastern Slovakia and southwestern Ukraine] and grew up under Hungarian occupation. The Hungarian fascist regime didn’t allow them to speak their language. If soldiers heard children speaking the language, they would beat them.

“His father went to Canada to work in the nickel mines, hoping to bring his family over as soon as he made some money. But he got involved in union organizing and was jailed. It was several years before his family could join him in 1938.”

Dores explained, “As head of the Canadian-Soviet Friendship Society, the Society of Carpatho-Russian Canadians, and later International Council for Friendship and Solidarity with the Soviet People, he was frequently threatened and sometimes attacked physically by right-wing Eastern European emigres. He also struggled to keep the Carpatho-Russian Society Hall out of the hands of greedy real estate interests, who also threatened him.

“He was banned from the United States after he took part in a railroad construction project in Yugoslavia after World War II, kind of like the Venceremos Brigade that does volunteer work in Cuba,” said Dores. “But he was able to get in a couple of times during the ‘90s.”

Lucas is survived by his partner and fellow organizer Helen Lucas, his children Michael Jr. and Mary Ann, and comrades around the world who share his lifelong commitment to the socialist future.

Greg Butterfield is an editor of “Struggle – La Lucha”

#UnitedStates #USSR #NorthstarCompass

Tallahassee, FL – On November 7, students, activists and community members from around the Tallahassee area gathered at The Plant Arts Center to celebrate the 101st anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. The event was organized by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

FRSO member Regina Joseph introduced the event and then called on Zachary Schultz to give a short speech about the history of the revolution and its significance. “Under worker power, the Soviet Union used its wealth to help people instead of filling the pockets of the small minority. That’s what we’re trying to do here in the United States. To overthrow the rule of the imperialists on Wall Sreet, and actually establish true freedom, democracy and equality for the people here,” Schultz said.

The event included a showing of the 1981 film Reds, about American socialist journalist John Reed, who wrote about the October Revolution based on his firsthand experience in Russia in 1917. At the end of the event, the group was led in singing the socialist song The Internationale.

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Last year, I might have thought of Stalingrad as an interesting history lesson. But when I sat down in the theater to watch the new Russian war epic last weekend, all I could think about was the crisis in Ukraine.

In less than four months time, the world watched a large, right-wing movement in Ukraine force a democratically elected government from power and replace it with a coalition ranging from far-right oligarchs to out-and-out Nazis. Russia responded to the new fascist-led government by condemning the undemocratic takeover and stationing troops in Crimea, a small region in the southeast of Ukraine comprised of a majority ethnic Russians.

The move by Putin drew condemnation from all the usual players in the Western world, including U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. While Russia defends its defensive posture out of concern at the fascist takeover, pundits in the West ridicule them and downplay the very real threat of a fascist Ukraine, the largest country on Russia's western border. The New York Times, for instance, ran an op-ed titled “Putin's Phantom Pogroms,” that argued – against all evidence – that Russia's concern was a cynical ploy to dominate Ukraine. Funny, of course, for a newspaper that has a history of defending the U.S.'s many wars of aggression.

But the threat of fascism in Ukraine matters a lot to the Russian people, and movie-goers in the U.S. would do well to see Stalingrad to better understand why.

Stalingrad focuses on a small band of Soviet soldiers trying to defend a key neighborhood from the Nazi invaders. The neighborhood is situated in front of a major Red Army supply route, making the stakes incredibly high. Made up of a few sailors and the survivors of a war-weary combat unit, the group makes a courageous stand against the German occupation at great cost to themselves.

You see the devastation wreaked by the Nazis on the Soviet Union on full display in the film. The neighborhood where the bulk of the film takes place is full of wreckage and dilapidated buildings. Food is scarce, and fresh water is even harder to find. Having executed most of the men left in the city, the Nazis regularly terrorize women and children in the most barbaric ways, giving the audience a glimpse of the horror of Nazi occupation. They rape Soviet women, withhold food and basic goods from the population, and forcibly relocate entire neighborhoods of people.

In one particularly disturbing scene, a sadistic German lieutenant orders all of the women and children in the neighborhood to line up at gun point. He randomly accuses a darker skinned woman and her child of being Jewish, and the Nazi soldiers force them into a wooden structure and burn them alive. Other films on Nazi occupation explore this element of fascist violence, like the 1985 Soviet film Come and See, but Stalingrad shows how these acts of barbarism outraged ordinary working people enough to give their lives in order to drive the Germans back to Berlin. Anyone following the events in Ukraine will have a better understanding of why the rise of fascism in the neighboring country is so terrifying to the Russian people.

One point that stands out in Stalingrad is the class composition of the Red Army and the class consciousness of the ordinary soldiers fighting German occupation. One soldier reminds another during a dispute that they are fighting in a “worker and peasant army,” showing how ordinary Soviet soldiers conceived of the war in class terms. Another soldier, who remains silent for most of the film, is revealed as a factory worker with an incredible talent for singing. His factory committee, recognizing his talent, sent him to Moscow to sing in operas and arias. Although the film shows us that he is a well-known celebrity, we find out he enlisted in the Red Army the day after the German invasion in 1941.

Contrast that with just about any U.S. war film. Movies like Platoon show working class people in the U.S. forcibly drafted into the military to fight wars on behalf of the rich. Some justify it to themselves in nationalistic terms, but most soldiers were forced to risk their lives because of their class background.

In Stalingrad, the workers fighting Nazi occupation have pride in their class, not just their country, which directly contrasts with the Nazi soldiers. At one point, a German officer tries to psyche his soldiers up to storm the Red Army's neighborhood base by telling them that they will conquer India after defeating the USSR. Addressing a battalion made up of many child soldiers, some no older than 13, he talks about Indian women in the most racist terms and explains the Nazi imperialist project as their reason for fighting. Stalingrad highlights that while the Nazis fought for colonial and imperialist expansion, the Soviet Red Army fought for freedom from the jackboot of fascism.

Technically speaking, the cinematography of Stalingrad is masterful, which was released in IMAX 3-D. An early scene features a large battalion of Soviet soldiers storming a Nazi fuel bunker from the water. The amphibious landing blows up in their face – literally – as the Nazi commanding officers destroy the bunker in order to prevent the Red Army from capturing the fuel. The enormous explosion is only outdone by the sight of Soviet soldiers, burning alive from the oil fire, bravely charging the German barricade and tackling Nazi soldiers to the ground to also burn. Released the same weekend as 300: Rise of an Empire, the sequel to the racist fantasy war epic of the same name, Stalingrad provides all of the stunning visuals and thrills while remaining rooted in reality.

All of that said, you can tell Stalingrad was made in the Russian Federation, and not the Soviet Union, more than 20 years after the restoration of capitalism. The film mentions the Soviet Union and bits of dialogue pay homage to socialism, but the tone of the film is more nationalistic than any World War II films produced in the USSR. After the film, I couldn't help but contrast Stalingrad with Come and See, which focused on the Belarusian resistance to brutal Nazi occupation. If Come and See is the Apocalypse Now of Soviet war films, Stalingrad was much more like Saving Private Ryan. The political nature of the events on-screen is purposely toned down to emphasize the visuals and the plot, which might make the film disappointing to some Soviet history buffs.

The people of the former Soviet Union take the threat of fascism very seriously, and Stalingrad clearly articulates why they should. Most histories of World War II in the West would have us believe that the U.S. single-handedly defeated Hitler. Ultimately, this is why Stalingrad is such an important film for people in the U.S. to see. Of the 60 million people who died in World War II, the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the war against fascism, suffering more than 7 million military deaths and millions of other civilian deaths. Even the highest death tolls for the U.S. place the military death toll no higher than 420,000.

Stalingrad forces us to confront the reality of fascism and war from the perspective of Russians, which is more important than ever before with recent developments in Ukraine. The Soviet Union is gone, but the people of Russia all have parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents who paid the ultimate sacrifice defeating fascism during World War II. For people in the U.S., World War II films like Stalingrad provide important ground for discussing the roles of other nationalities in defeating the Nazis, which is often downplayed in Hollywood. Stalingrad provides such discussions, and that alone makes it worth the ticket price.

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