this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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I'm aware, my point is that I believe your analysis of power with respect to ideas of "corruption" don't actually follow when applied to alternative modes of production. Capitalism naturally selects for those Priests of Capital that best serve its alien interests in profit and accumulation, as those who do not do so end up cast aside. Capital is a fickle god.
On the other hand, under a Socialist system, Humanity becomes supreme to Capital. "Power" in a Socialist system comes with far less excess wealth compared to Capitalist systems, and moreover the ties to accumulation just don't exist as the driving factor of a centrally planned economy. What this means is that leaders of AES are frequently in it more out of ideological reasons, rather than personal enrichment.
You seem to conflate power with money.
I don't think there's many way to be more powerful than holding power in a society where the different access to goods are irrelevant.
You think ambition fueled by money are more powerful than the ones fueled by idealism, purity, rightfullness and, of course, narcissism and domination?
Do you really think it's all the same to those people, to Stalin himself, if he was farming potatoes or signing the 5 year plan under oh-so-genuine thundering applause of the assemply?
Come the fuck on.
I tie "pursuit of power" to actual, mechanical drives. What is the purpose of power? Why do you believe humans pursue it? I quite specifically mentioned that Capitalism itself selects for those in power within it by selecting the most ruthless and willing to do whatever it takes to accumulate the most, because the system requires it. Socialism does not, ergo you need to justify a "pursuit of power."
Secondly, I want to know where you are getting the notion that Stalin was not popular among his peers. Rather, he became more popular until the "Secret Speech," where Kruschev attempted to delegitimize Stalin in pursuit of his own interests. I think you would do best to read some of the books listed here by other comrades.
Luckily for us, we do live under capitalism, so there's no need to speculate there. As i'm sure you have plenty of chances to verify daily, it's not as efficient as you make it sounds. It tends to embolden those that are narrowly focused on the accumulation of capital, but even in doing that, it's an inefficient and rather messy machination.
In a similar way it could be said of power under socialism. It's possible despite its "best" effort that capitalist adiacent pulsions survived the new structure of... guidance? action? decisiont making? coordination? (it's still power)
Another point of touch can be personal greed. Capitalism leaves it unchecked by design, but it has always accompanied scarcity. It's hunger, if you will, and if you could argue such pulsion have been imposed onto the natural man, of conquered by ascetism, none of those equate the background of a pre-1917 Russia.
Some of those people, no matter the books they read, could potentially still thirst and hunger for "more".
I once again ask you if the simple asimmetry between giving orders and taking orders does not justify, theoretically, a selfish "pursuit of power".
The concept of hierarchy itself within democratic institutions does not justify a corrupting pursuit of power. Capitalism forces the pursuit of power via its zealots, the ones most efficient at accumulation remain, selecting for the greediest among us, while Socialism has no such drive that makes pursuit of power sustain itself. Additionally, I don't depict Capitalism as "efficient," the priests of Capital merely guess at what Capital wills, and the ones closest survive.
Of couse it doesn't "justify" it. It sure builds a nice playground for whomever loves doing it though.
That's why every democracy has an attempt to prevent exploitation, such as a limit to the terms of their leaders, popular referendum, separation of powers...
But of course you know that. It seems you are convinced that, by virtue of messiatic powers, somehow the Communist (transitional) apparatus was immune to that corruption.
When I say "justify," I mean "justify the existence of." You hint at an almost supernatural drive for power that is not materially supported by real economic and democratic structures. You claim it "builds a nice playground" with no further elaboration as to how or why it does so.
Communism is not immune to corruption. Communism lacks the economic foundations for corruption directly selected for within Capitalist frameworks, yet you seem to be posturing as though the opposite is the case without providing a materialist explanation of how or why.
You are surely well aware of the nefarious propaganda the west did against Stalin.
Imagine it was true and you have the perfect depiction on how such corruption would potentially look like.
Another simple example? Stalin could have promised an administraive role to a person in exchange for sexual favors.
I'm not saying he did, but, under Communism, or rather under the trasition toward communism, that would have been a possible abuse of [not power].
Propaganda isn't bounded by material reality, though, surely you can see how simply saying something is true doesn't mean it is. All of these ideas of what could have happened ignore the mechanical foundations of democracy and economic planning. Sure, Stalin could have sexually assaulted someone, but to our knowledge he didn't, and moreover such a reason does not imply there is a desire for power in Socialist systems to get away with sexual assault. You're making a confused argument here.
I used propaganda as an easy, inaccurate answer to your request for a potential scenario.
Of couse the obvious limits of propaganta (primarily, being lies) is not what I was focusing on.
If we agree Stalin could have sexually assaulted someone and get away with it, we cycle back to the messianic property of Stalin to be better than most other people in a similar position through history. Or to not be affected by dementia, to not grow complacent, to not hold grudges, to be permanently unbiased and pure.
We don't, actually. Your conclusion doesn't follow. Stalin was not a perfect and untainted figure. The point is that Socialism does not mechanically support corruption in the same way Capitalism does out of necessity, and you seem to be ignoring that at every turn.
But he never stepped down or reformed the system to account for these issues. Hence my opinion of him.
I didn't see your edit: I guess my point is Stalin did not act under socialism, or surely not in an environment where corruption, if not coming from necessity, would hinder or be neutral to one growth within society.
He tried to resign no fewer than 4 times, and what "issues" are you talking about? How could he have "reformed the system" in your eyes to be better?
I already mentioned that trying to resign and being met with unanimous rejection doesn't say much, other than possibly the obvious fact that he was in fact a human and not a robot.
To reform the system he could have rejected the idea of a single head of state in favor of a shared position, he could have set up the lenght of time by which a person can be head of state...
The possibilities are endless and history has made this kind of necessities abundandly clear to guarantee decision makers hold their position selflessly.
You specifically said that him resigning was something you wanted him to do. He tried 4 times. Would you have had him abandon his post? Absurd. You can't have your cake and eat it too here, either resigning doesn't actually matter to you or you would have rather had him put people in danger by abandoning his post and going AWOL.
Secondly, he tried to have his position eliminated. He was of the belief that it was superfluous, and that too was rejected. When his resignation was rejected several times, he countered with the idea of eliminating his position altogether, citing previous times where no such position was in place. This, too, was rejected. Read the transcript of December 19, 1927, where Stalin makes the case of its redundancy as opportunism and opposition had already been weeded out in his eyes, and specifically states that his power can be spread to those under him and nothing would fundamentally change other than a removal of what he calls "distortions."
We have archival evidence that what you proposed he could have done, but didn't, was actually tried by him and rejected. He wasn't a dictator with absolute control, but an elected official. He was no saint, but the idea that he didn't hate his position flies in the face of him outright telling everyone that he lacked the strength to continue and would rather live out the rest of his days in a quiet part of the country doing menial party work. Either you reject the archival evidence, or you reframe your thinking.
At the end of the day of course the solution to forming the most accurate opinion of Stalin is to study Stalin.
I'll point though that apparently my stance has some merit since Stalin himself with his "What was I to do?" is at the very least considering his situation as problematic.
As a last contribution to the discussion, which I've been glad to take part of and that I'm grateful you invested time and effort in, even in recent time we have instances of head of states that ultimately grow exhausted with their role and honestly desire to step down. That's not always possible, especially when so much of the state is directly tied to their person (kings, for example), and does not prove they previously chased, and/or held, that position with selfless disposition.
Thanks again for the thoughtful and well sourced contribution.
Nice thought experiment, but in most cases we have the declassified documents from the CIA and other such organizations who originated the accusations showing that in their internal communications and records that were not public facing that they knowingly and intentionally lied to the public as part of their campaign of information warfare.
The inherent problem is that skepticism is an inexhaustible well. If the only principle guiding your analysis is skepticism, you will inevitably end up stuck in a perpetual and ultimately unproductive cycle doing little more than tilting at windmills.
This is why theory is important to study. You need to have a framework for understanding the world to build off of if you want to have any analysis that's more insightful than "what if we imagine that he had bad thoughts? Pretty scary, huh?"
What if we imagine a purple elephant? What if we imagine flying sharks? Makes you think, doesn't it??
I'm not using speculation reaching for impossible scenarios.
I'm questioning the degree of freedom that anybody could have taken advantage of if they wanted to. The fact that this happened or not is irrelevant.
Given that, I also make another separate point about how greed can have many faces, even outside Capitalism.
Combining those two I question the amount of self reflection Stalin subjected himself and his role to through his life.
I'm not suggesting that what you're speculating is impossible.
I'm suggesting your analysis is facile and uninteresting
That's only fair.
No one has referred to capitalism as efficient or entirely rational.
We are referring to the incentive structure that the capitalist mode of production creates, and which behaviors that structure rewards and therefore elevates into positions of authority.
The framework you are describing as the foundation for your analysis sounds very analogous to the anarchist concept of "authoritarian personality disorder," and I personally don't find that to be a very rigorous or intellectually sound framework for understanding the world. To the contrary, it is an unfalsifiable orthodoxy. You are basically starting from an assumption of ill intent, and therefore any evidence that is presented is transformed into evidence of malice by speculating on internal and inherently unknowable "bad thoughts."
It's an entirely unscientific way of trying to understand the world.