What were the differences among Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin?

[Kritias]

The Second World War was not caused by capitalism. If anything, it was caused by the NSDAP’s desire to break away from systems of international finance, global trade and free enterprise, all of which were characterized as Jewish control mechanisms. The party attempted to achieve national self-sufficiency (autarky) via a centrally planned, Alexandrian scale conquest of eastern Europe, the purpose of which was to provide the Reich with agricultural and fuel security. Of particularly importance were the farmlands of Ukraine and the oil fields of the Caucuses (oddly, the NSDAP’s intention of perpetrating a comprehensive, state-sponsored theft of Ukrainian land largely mirrored Soviet policy from less than a decade prior which had resulted in the liquidation of the kulaks). Had the invasion been successful, Germany’s reliance on the western democracies would have been eliminated and the possibility of an effective blockade (as occurred in WW1) would have been prevented. Thus, the Reich could have become a global hegemon – the NSDAP’s ultimate objective.

The party’s alliance with the industrialists was one of convenience, not ideology (as is plainly evidenced by Nazi theory dating back to the early 1920’s). Here is a brief video on that. The initial purpose of the alignment was to resist the internal communist threat, but later the Nazis viewed it as the most expedient route to rapid militarization (in a manner not dissimilar to Lenin’s use of the NEP to protect the Bolsheviks takeover). The purpose of industrial sales was never to satisfy the interests of the corporate elite; it was an act of short-termism intended to maximize the rearmament effort. Even so, by 1944-45, the German war machine had been almost entirely nationalized.

On the point about American companies, it is overwhelmingly the case that they assisted in the defeat of fascism, both via their involvement with the US and British militaries and the lend-lease program to the USSR which supplied the Russians with millions of tons of modern equipment, including tanks, trucks and planes. The claim that American companies were “involved in the running and supplying of the death camps” is mostly misleading, particularly given that the liquidation of the Jewish people was not known about outside of the Reich until the final weeks of the war. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that state/government involvement in the Holocaust and other atrocities of the war (including by the USSR) was far more substantial than anything perpetrated by corporations.

Cope, no. What you’re suggesting about 1944-1945 was in fact the total conversion of the German civilian industry to full war economy, or the ‘Total War’ doctrine. This meant even more lucrative contracts between industrialists and the government, and a tighter cooperation with the army. In fact, the Germans did not run their economy in the home front any different than the US, or the UK: the only difference was that their situation was infinitely more desperate, requiring harsher measures to reach necessary quotas to continue the war. There is simply no evidence the Nazi economy nationalized, or aimed to nationalize industries in the future – instead the Nazi regime privatized en masse, favouring monopolies and Big Business to the detriment of the middle-class shop owners.

Hitler’s rhetoric regarding the International Jewry wasn’t native to Germany; in fact, this idea was espoused by many capitalists in the Western democracies and the theory finds its roots with Henry Ford’s hit collection of pamphlets subtly called “The International Jew”. If you ever get a copy of that, you’ll see that H. Ford’s arguments are eerily similar to Hitler’s concerning the Jewish plot of communism to overthrow the good, moral values of capitalism. The fact that Ford factories would later manifacture V2 rocket turbines (which were dropped on London among other places) is entirely coincidental.

Your assertion that the Nazis only cooperated with Big Business out of strategic necessity is also not true, since records show that it was Big Business that put the Nazis in power in the first place. A simple example of this was when the Krupp Group and IG Farben among others bailed out the Nazi party in 1932, financing their rise to power. Big Business also pledged 30 million to tne Nazi Party right after the elections. It is also true that Big Business spent money to various other candidates besides Hitler, in a sense spreading their bets, but since his rise to power the corporate elite came to flock under the Nazis. You can read "Crime and Punishment of IG Farben" for more detals about the role the industry played in supporting the regime, and how they profited off it. In this way the common saying that fascism is capitalism in degradation seems to hold its water.

The reasons behind WW2 have also been laboriously studied: the Treaty of Versailles is considered in tandem to the effects of the Great Depression as the main factors behind the rise of fascism in Germany. Plainly said, big capital in Germany were unhappy with their share of the global market, anxious to deal with the left elements inside Germany, and eager to make the big bucks through monetizing militarism (and getting those sweet, sweet contracts to roll out the panzers). With a simple word – capitalism. Whatever reservations they might have had on Hitler's populism prior to 1933 had been put at ease as early as 1931, through a series of secret meetings we have records of.

Your comments about American businesses and the war are true if I were suggesting that these companies only aided the German side. I do not make such a claim. Instead, I am suggesting that corporations know no allegiance and will play any side to turn a profit. Hardly a radical claim, and can be proved by a multitude of examples. I have already provided a list of foreign companies equipping the enemy as proof so I needn’t hammer the point more. But your claim that the Allies did not know about the Holocaust until weeks before the end of the war is also one big, fat lie: archives from the United Nations show that the Allies knew of the Holocaust and its scale as early as 1942. You can read more here. And if you still doubt this, here's an excerpt from Winston Churchill's speech, made through the radio on August 14, 1941 [1]. And if you're still unsure, here's a Daily Telegraph's article dated June 25, 1942, [2] reporting on 'travelling gas chambers' and the massacre of 700,000 Jewish Poles. In fact, there's archival evidence that London Times, the Montreal Daily Star, The Los Angeles Times, the Journal American and many other newspapers were reporting on the Holocaust with details since 1942. It just so happens that when there's big bucks to be made, corporations don't care so much.

So, no. You're not correct.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Cope is downplaying and whitewashing the involvement of american firms in the war efforts of the Third Reich, namely GM (Opel) and Ford:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged Nazi Collaboration

by Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 30, 1998; Page A01

German diplomats award Henry Ford, center, with their nation's highest decoration for foreigners, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, in July 1938. (AP Photo)

Three years after Swiss banks became the target of a worldwide furor over their business dealings with Nazi Germany, major American car companies find themselves embroiled in a similar debate.

Like the Swiss banks, the American car companies have vigorously denied that they assisted the Nazi war machine or that they significantly profited from the use of forced labor at their German subsidiaries during World War II. But historians and lawyers researching class-action suits on behalf of former prisoners of war are busy amassing evidence of collaboration by the automakers with the Nazi regime.

The issues at stake for the American automobile corporations go far beyond the relatively modest sums involved in settling any lawsuit. During the war, the car companies established a reputation for themselves as "the arsenal of democracy" by transforming their production lines to make airplanes, tanks and trucks for the armies that defeated Adolf Hitler. They deny that their huge business interests in Nazi Germany led them, wittingly or unwittingly, to also become "the arsenal of fascism."

The Ford Motor Co. has mobilized dozens of historians, lawyers and researchers to fight a civil case brought by lawyers in Washington and New York who specialize in extracting large cash settlements from banks and insurance companies accused of defrauding Holocaust victims. Also, a book scheduled for publication next year will accuse General Motors Corp. of playing a key role in Hitler's invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union.
"General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than Switzerland," said Bradford Snell, who has spent two decades researching a history of the world's largest automaker. "Switzerland was just a repository of looted funds. GM was an integral part of the German war effort. The Nazis could have invaded Poland and Russia without Switzerland. They could not have done so without GM."
Both General Motors and Ford insist that they bear little or no responsibility for the operations of their German subsidiaries, which controlled 70 percent of the German car market at the outbreak of war in 1939 and rapidly retooled themselves to become suppliers of war materiel to the German army.
But documents discovered in German and American archives show a much more complicated picture. In certain instances, American managers of both GM and Ford went along with the conversion of their German plants to military production at a time when U.S. government documents show they were still resisting calls by the Roosevelt administration to step up military production in their plants at home.
After three years of national soul-searching, Switzerland's largest banks agreed last August to make a $1.25 billion settlement to Holocaust survivors, a step they had initially resisted. Far from dying down, however, the controversy over business dealings with the Nazis has given new impetus to long-standing investigations into issues such as looted art, unpaid insurance benefits and the use of forced labor at German factories.
Although some of the allegations against GM and Ford surfaced during 1974 congressional hearings into monopolistic practices in the automobile industry, American corporations have largely succeeded in playing down their connections to Nazi Germany. As with Switzerland, however, their very success in projecting a wholesome, patriotic image of themselves is now being turned against them by their critics.
"When you think of Ford, you think of baseball and apple pie," said Miriam Kleinman, a researcher with the Washington law firm of Cohen, Millstein and Hausfeld, who spent weeks examining records at the National Archives in an attempt to build a slave labor case against the Dearborn-based company. "You don't think of Hitler having a portrait of Henry Ford on his office wall in Munich."
Both Ford and General Motors declined requests for access to their wartime archives. Ford spokesman John Spellich defended the company's decision to maintain business ties with Nazi Germany on the grounds that the U.S. government continued to have diplomatic relations with Berlin up until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. GM spokesman John F. Mueller said that General Motors lost day-to-day control over its German plants in September 1939 and "did not assist the Nazis in any way during World War II."


For GIs, an Unpleasant Surprise
When American GIs invaded Europe in June 1944, they did so in jeeps, trucks and tanks manufactured by the Big Three motor companies in one of the largest crash militarization programs ever undertaken. It came as an unpleasant surprise to discover that the enemy was also driving trucks manufactured by Ford and Opel -- a 100 percent GM-owned subsidiary -- and flying Opel-built warplanes. (Chrysler's role in the German rearmament effort was much less significant.)

When the U.S. Army liberated the Ford plants in Cologne and Berlin, they found destitute foreign workers confined behind barbed wire and company documents extolling the "genius of the Fuehrer," according to reports filed by soldiers at the scene. A U.S. Army report by investigator Henry Schneider dated Sept. 5, 1945, accused the German branch of Ford of serving as "an arsenal of Nazism, at least for military vehicles" with the "consent" of the parent company in Dearborn.

Ford spokesman Spellich described the Schneider report as "a mischaracterization" of the activities of the American parent company and noted that Dearborn managers had frequently been kept in the dark by their German subordinates over events in Cologne.
The relationship of Ford and GM to the Nazi regime goes back to the 1920s and 1930s, when the American car companies competed against each other for access to the lucrative German market. Hitler was an admirer of American mass production techniques and an avid reader of the antisemitic tracts penned by Henry Ford. "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration," Hitler told a Detroit News reporter two years before becoming the German chancellor in 1933, explaining why he kept a life-size portrait of the American automaker next to his desk.

Although Ford later renounced his antisemitic writings, he remained an admirer of Nazi Germany and sought to keep America out of the coming war. In July 1938, four months after the German annexation of Austria, he accepted the highest medal that Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle. The following month, a senior executive for General Motors, James Mooney, received a similar medal for his "distinguished service to the Reich."

The granting of such awards reflected the vital place that the U.S. automakers had in Germany's increasingly militarized economy. In 1935, GM agreed to build a new plant near Berlin to produce the aptly named "Blitz" truck, which would later be used by the German army for its blitzkreig attacks on Poland, France and the Soviet Union. German Ford was the second-largest producer of trucks for the German army after GM/Opel, according to U.S. Army reports.

The importance of the American automakers went beyond making trucks for the German army. The Schneider report, now available to researchers at the National Archives, states that American Ford agreed to a complicated barter deal that gave the Reich increased access to large quantities of strategic raw materials, notably rubber. Author Snell says that Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer told him in 1977 that Hitler "would never have considered invading Poland" without synthetic fuel technology provided by General Motors.

As war approached, it became increasingly difficult for U.S. corporations like GM and Ford to operate in Germany without cooperating closely with the Nazi rearmament effort. Under intense pressure from Berlin, both companies took pains to make their subsidiaries appear as "German" as possible. In April 1939, for example, German Ford made a personal present to Hitler of 35,000 Reichsmarks in honor of his 50th birthday, according to a captured Nazi document.

Documents show that the parent companies followed a conscious strategy of continuing to do business with the Nazi regime, rather than divest themselves of their German assets.Less than three weeks after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, GM Chairman Alfred P. Sloan defended this strategy as sound business practice, given the fact that the company's German operations were "highly profitable."

The internal politics of Nazi Germany "should not be considered the business of the management of General Motors," Sloan explained in a letter to a concerned shareholder dated April 6, 1939. "We must conduct ourselves [in Germany] as a German organization. . . . We have no right to shut down the plant."



U.S. Firms Became Crucial


After the outbreak of war in September 1939, General Motors and Ford became crucial to the German military, according to contemporaneous German documents and postwar investigations by the U.S. Army. James Mooney, the GM director in charge of overseas operations, had discussions with Hitler in Berlin two weeks after the German invasion of Poland.

Typewritten notes by Mooney show that he was involved in the partial conversion of the principal GM automobile plant at Russelsheim to production of engines and other parts for the Junker "Wunderbomber," a key weapon in the German air force, under a government-brokered contract between Opel and the Junker airplane company. Mooney's notes show that he returned to Germany the following February for further discussions with Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering and a personal inspection of the Russelsheim plant.

Mooney's involvement in the conversion of the Russelsheim plant undermines claims by General Motors that the American branch of the company had nothing to do with the Nazi rearmament effort. In congressional testimony in 1974, GM maintained that American personnel resigned from all management positions in Opel following the outbreak of war in 1939 "rather than participate in the production of war materials."
However, according to documents of the Reich Commissar for the Treatment of Enemy Property, the American parent company continued to have some say in the operations of Opel after September 1939. The documents show that the company issued a general power of attorney to an American manager, Pete Hoglund, in March 1940. Hoglund did not leave Germany until a year later. At that time, the power of attorney was transferred to a prominent Berlin lawyer named Heinrich Richter.

GM spokesman Mueller declined to answer questions from The Washington Post on the power of attorney granted to Hoglund and Richter or to provide access to the personnel files of Hoglund and other wartime managers. He also declined to comment on an assertion by Snell that Opel used French and Belgian prisoners at its Russelsheim plant in the summer of 1940, at a time when the American Hoglund was still looking after GM interests in Germany.
The Nazis had a clear interest in keeping Opel and German Ford under American ownership, despite growing hostility between Washington and Berlin. By the time of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the American stake in German Ford had declined to 52 percent, but Nazi officials argued against a complete takeover. A memorandum to plant managers dated November 25, 1941, acknowledged that such a step would deprive German Ford of "the excellent sales organization" of the parent company and make it more difficult to bring "the remaining European Ford companies under German influence."
Documents suggest that the principal motivation of both companies during this period was to protect their investments. An FBI report dated July 23, 1941 quoted Mooney as saying that he would refuse to take any action that might "make Hitler mad." In fall 1940, Mooney told the journalist Henry Paynter that he would not return his Nazi medal because such an action might jeopardize GM's $100 million investment in Germany. "Hitler has all the cards," Paynter quoted Mooney as saying.
"Mooney probably thought that the war would be over very quickly, so why should we give our wonderful company away," said German researcher Anita Kugler, who used Nazi archives to trace the company's dealings with Nazi Germany.
Even though GM officials were aware of the conversion of its Russelsheim plant to aircraft engine production, they resisted such conversion efforts in the United States, telling shareholders that their automobile assembly lines in Detroit were "not adaptable to the manufacture of other products" such as planes, according to a company document discovered by Snell.

In June 1940, after the fall of France, Henry Ford personally vetoed a U.S. government-approved plan to produce under license Rolls-Royce engines for British fighter planes, according to published accounts by his associates.


Declaration of War Alters Ties
America's declaration of war on Germany in December 1941 made it illegal for U.S. motor companies to have any contact with their subsidiaries on German-controlled territory.
At GM and Ford plants in Germany, reliance on forced labor increased. The story of Elsa Iwanowa, who brought a class-action suit against Ford last March, is typical. At the age of 16, she was abducted from her home in the southern Russian city of Rostov by German soldiers in October 1942 with hundreds of other young women to work at the Ford plant at Cologne.

"The conditions were terrible. They put us in barracks, on three-tier bunks," she recalled in a telephone interview from Belgium, where she now lives. "It was very cold; they did not pay us at all and scarcely fed us. The only reason that we survived was that we were young and fit."
In a court submission, American Ford acknowledges that Iwanowa and others were "forced to endure a sad and terrible experience" at its Cologne plant but maintains that redressing such "tragedies" should be "a government-to-government concern." Spellich, the Ford spokesman, insists the company did not have management control over its German subsidiary during the period in question.

Ford has backed away from its initial claim that it did not profit in any way from forced labor at its Cologne plant. Spellich said that company historians are still researching this issue but have found documents showing that, after the war, American Ford received dividends from its German subsidiary worth approximately $60,000 for the years 1940-43. He declined a request to interview the historians, saying they were "too busy."

The extent of contacts between American Ford and its German-controlled subsidiary after 1941 is likely to be contested at any trial. Simon Reich, an economic historian at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on the German car industry, says he has yet to see convincing evidence that American Ford had any control over its Cologne plant after December 1941. He adds, however, that both "Opel and Ford did absolutely everything they could to ingratiate themselves to the Nazi state."

While there was no direct contact between American Ford and its German subsidiary after December 1941, there appear to have been some indirect contacts. In June 1943, the Nazi custodian of the Cologne plant, Robert Schmidt, traveled to Portugal for talks with Ford managers there. In addition, the Treasury Department investigated Ford after Pearl Harbor for possible illegal contacts with its subsidiary in occupied France, which produced Germany army trucks. The investigation ended without charges being filed.
Even though American Ford now condemns what happened at its Cologne plant during the war, it continued to employ the managers in charge at the time. After the war, Schmidt was briefly arrested by Allied military authorities and barred from working for Ford. But he was reinstated as the company's technical director in 1950 after he wrote to Henry Ford II claiming that he had always "detested" the Nazis and had never been a member of the party. A letter signed by a leading Cologne Nazi in February 1942 describes Schmidt as a trusted party member. Ford maintains that Schmidt's name does not show up on Nazi membership lists.

Mel Weiss, an American attorney for Iwanowa, argues that American Ford received "indirect" profits from forced labor at its Cologne plant because of the overall increase in the value of German operations during the war. He notes that Ford was eager to demand compensation from the U.S. government after the war for "losses" due to bomb damage to its German plants and therefore should also be responsible for any benefits derived from forced labor.
Similar arguments apply to General Motors, which was paid $32 million by the U.S. government for damages sustained to its German plants. Washington attorney Michael Hausfeld, who is involved in the Ford lawsuit, confirms GM also is "on our list" as a possible target.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-sr...nazicars30.htm

Kritias is right with his description of the relationship between german industry and Nazis.

I will add only one thing:

The Law of the Organisation of the National Work from 20. January 1934:

It regulated the external structure of the factories and introduced the leader principle into the economy.

With the entry into force of this law, economic life was virtually "gleichgeschaltet" and the leader principle was introduced, according to which the superior as the manager had absolute authority and the subordinates as "allegiance" (not the workforce) were obliged to unconditional obedience. This severely restricted the right and the opportunity to lodge a complaint, and the employee's right of co-determination was even completely abolished. By virtue of this law, the last remaining democratic rights within the company were abolished, and a company justice system was introduced.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz...ionalen_Arbeit

This shows that the alliance between industry and Nazis was not out of convenience or temporarily, it was driven by the nazi ideology with the manager as the superior leader above their inferior workers.

The abolishing of employee's rights is definitely in the interests of Big Business and not in line with socialistic doctrine.

[Cyclops]

This is getting off topic a bit...

Cope is downplaying and whitewashing the involvement of american firms in the war efforts of the Third Reich, namely GM (Opel) and Ford:...

Indeed, Ford hated Communism so badly he helped Nazi Germany tool up for the war, at the same time as he was telling the US government he didn't want his plants in the US retooled for military purposes. I think he was more about greed than ideology, but backing Hitler to achieve his stated aim of carving up Poland is pretty immoral.

The abolishing of employee's rights is definitely in the interests of Big Business and not in line with socialistic doctrine.

Its a labour of Sisyphus to counter the brainlets who keep jabbering "bUt nAzIs WeRe SoCiAlIsTs, iTs In tHe NaMe..."

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Its a labour of Sisyphus to counter the brainlets who keep jabbering "bUt nAzIs WeRe SoCiAlIsTs, iTs In tHe NaMe..."

Hmm, can i then compare the Tories as "Irish Bandits" with some brazilian favela gang by applying the same logic?

OT:

In my opinion Stalinism has two main chararistics:

a) eliminating of every potential or only imagined rival to secure the absolute power of the ruling communistic party leader -> concentration of absolute power in very few hands (leader and his apparatschiks)
b) socialism in one land in opposition to the former idea of a communistic world revolution with a concentration on building up a strong heavy industry.

[Cyclops]

Hmm, can i then compare the Tories as "Irish Bandits" with some brazilian favela gang by applying the same logic?

Its somewhat trollish, but...

OT:

In my opinion Stalinism has two main chararistics:

a) eliminating of every potential or only imagined rival to secure the absolute power of the ruling communistic party leader -> concentration of absolute power in very few hands (leader and his apparatschiks)

So thus far identical to Leninism. I guess Trotsky was probably practically an autocrat. I don't know of any executions of rivals in his name but AFAIK he was quite happy to execute heaps of Whites, the bourgeoisie etc. and reimposed non-revolutionary unelected officers on the Red Army.

b) socialism in one land in opposition to the former idea of a communistic world revolution with a concentration on building up a strong heavy industry.

Obviously Stalin had to live with foreign hostility so "socialism in one country" was a good placeholder until he could bring the storm. This allowed pragmatic measures like tech and resource sharing with Weimar and even Nazi Germany. Possibly had Trotsky held power he might have bent his ideals similarly.

[Kritias]

In my opinion Stalinism has two main chararistics:

a) eliminating of every potential or only imagined rival to secure the absolute power of the ruling communistic party leader -> concentration of absolute power in very few hands (leader and his apparatschiks)
b) socialism in one land in opposition to the former idea of a communistic world revolution with a concentration on building up a strong heavy industry.

According to one declassified CIA document, named 'Comments on the change in Soviet Leadership': "...Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator in a communist setup is exaggerated. Misanderstundings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems that Khrushchev will be the new captain. However, it does not appear that any of the present leaders will rise to the stature of Lenin or Stalin, so that it will be safer to assume that developments in Moscow will be along the lines of what is called collective leadership, unless Western policies force the Soviets to streamline their power organization."

Since Stalin has been a controversial figure since the 1930s, and especially after the war, I think both right and left have come to a sort of unspoken consensus to view him as a ruthless dictator. This agreement serves both groups. The Right can demonize a socialist figure and erroneously extrapolate that all socialism is Stalin, and those supporting socialism can absolve any crime occuring in the Soviet Union by damping blame on a single person. But it might not have been the case. It seems plausible that crimes committed by Stalin were in fact collective decisions, insofar as we can even understand what a collective decision would constitute in the Soviet regime in the first place.

But I agree with Cyclops in thinking that foreign interference and hostility are often not taken into account when discussing Soviet policy in 1930s. For some reason politiking is eagerly and easily gulped down in any other case, though.

[Cope]

Cope, no.

What you’re suggesting about 1944-1945 was in fact the total conversion of the German civilian industry to full war economy, or the ‘Total War’ doctrine. This meant even more lucrative contracts between industrialists and the government, and a tighter cooperation with the army. In fact, the Germans did not run their economy in the home front any different than the US, or the UK: the only difference was that their situation was infinitely more desperate, requiring harsher measures to reach necessary quotas to continue the war. There is simply no evidence the Nazi economy nationalized, or aimed to nationalize industries in the future – instead the Nazi regime privatized en masse, favouring monopolies and Big Business to the detriment of the middle-class shop owners.

The late war economy was an extreme command economy designed to serve state interests. Industrialists and business owners did not operate independently of the party’s total mobilization scheme. Characterizing profiteering within this environment as “capitalism” (particularly to equate it with western market capitalism) is to falsely treat any form of profiteering, commerce or exchange (esp. under duress) as synonymous with capitalism.

Hitler’s rhetoric regarding the International Jewry wasn’t native to Germany; in fact, this idea was espoused by many capitalists in the Western democracies and the theory finds its roots with Henry Ford’s hit collection of pamphlets subtly called “The International Jew”. If you ever get a copy of that, you’ll see that H. Ford’s arguments are eerily similar to Hitler’s concerning the Jewish plot of communism to overthrow the good, moral values of capitalism. The fact that Ford factories would later manifacture V2 rocket turbines (which were dropped on London among other places) is entirely coincidental.

No one stated that the NSDAP invented anti-Semitism or that only the NSDAP was anti-Semitic. That is not relevant to their staunch opposition to international finance, global trade and free enterprise (which have all historically been opposed by socialists) or their conspiratorial view that such ideas/institutions were beholden to Jewish interests. More can be read on that topic here and be seen below.

It should also be noted that anti-Semitic conspiracy theories predate Ford (The Protocols being the most obvious 20^th century example) and that the Fordwerke (a German subsidiary) was not favoured by the party. Though it was known to have used slave labour, it was under the command of the NSDAP during that period (1941-45).

By the time that slave labor was introduced, Fordwerke was clearly under the direct control of the Nazi government, though administered through the company headquarters in Cologne (albeit by Robert Schmidt). The meetings of the board of directors had already been suspended, and didn't resume until after the war. Although the American parent company desperately sought to retain control of their German assets, they failed to do so. Fordwerke became an instrument of the Nazi state. I certainly found no evidence that American management ever sanctioned the use of slave labor or that it even knew of the use of slave labor.

On the company's profiteering:

I personally have found little evidence that Fordwerke made money during the war. The net-profit figures I have uncovered reveal that while modest profits were recorded during the first few years of the conflict, these were wiped out by enormous losses during the last three years. Fordwerke received compensation from the Nazi government for bombing damage in 1941. But a 1942 German law denied such recompense to businesses whose majority ownership was held by foreigners from hostile nations.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org...he-third-reich

Your assertion that the Nazis only cooperated with Big Business out of strategic necessity is also not true, since records show that it was Big Business that put the Nazis in power in the first place. A simple example of this was when the Krupp Group and IG Farben among others bailed out the Nazi party in 1932, financing their rise to power. Big Business also pledged 30 million to tne Nazi Party right after the elections. It is also true that Big Business spent money to various other candidates besides Hitler, in a sense spreading their bets, but since his rise to power the corporate elite came to flock under the Nazis. You can read "Crime and Punishment of IG Farben" for more detals about the role the industry played in supporting the regime, and how they profited off it. In this way the common saying that fascism is capitalism in degradation seems to hold its water.

None of this contradicts any of the claims made above (despite posing as if it does). As mentioned, the party had no ideological commitment to capitalism, but viewed the industrialists as means to its short-term imperialist objectives. In actuality, the relationship between state and industry was cynically reciprocal and ostensibly contradicted the party's stated economic ideology (much like Bolshevism and the NEP). Unlike the Bolsheviks, the regime's military failures and collapse prevented it from pursuing a coherent, peacetime economy.

In terms of theory, the claim that the sozialist element was merely a marketing ploy which was exposed by the party’s persecution of its socialist opponents (as if the Bolsheviks didn’t also persecute competing socialists) is also false.

Some further reading on the party’s ideological position, (esp. regarding the influence of Marxism):

As for communists, he [Hitler] opposed them because ‘basically they are not socialistic’; they created mere herds, Soviet-style, without individual life, and his own ideal was ‘the socialism of nations’ rather than the international socialism of Marx and Lenin. The one and only problem of the age, he told Wagener, was to liberate labour and replace the rule of capital over labour with the rule of labour over capital. These are highly socialist sentiments, and if Wagener reports his master faithfully they leave no doubt about the conclusion: that Hitler was an unorthodox Marxist who knew his sources and knew how unorthodoxly he handled them. He was a dissident socialist. His programme was at once nostalgic and radical. It proposed to accomplish something that Christians had failed to act on and that communists before him had attempted and bungled. ‘What Marxism, Leninism and Stalinism failed to accomplish’, he told Wagener, ‘we shall be in a position to achieve’.

Watson, George. The Lost Literature of Socialism.

7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood.

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.

14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.

15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small tradespeople, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.

18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.

Select points from the NSDAP’s 25 pt plan.

The reasons behind WW2 have also been laboriously studied: the Treaty of Versailles is considered in tandem to the effects of the Great Depression as the main factors behind the rise of fascism in Germany.

Plainly said, big capital in Germany were unhappy with their share of the global market, anxious to deal with the left elements inside Germany, and eager to make the big bucks through monetizing militarism (and getting those sweet, sweet contracts to roll out the
panzers). With a simple word – capitalism. Whatever reservations they might have had on Hitler's populism prior to 1933 had been put at ease as early as 1931, through a series of secret meetings we have records of.

It is certainly true that the NSDAP blamed capitalism, democracy, republicanism and Versailles for the war. So, I concede that these were war causes, but only from the perspective of fascists and Soviet sympathizers.

Your comments about American businesses and the war are true if I were suggesting that these companies only aided the German side. I do not make such a claim. Instead, I am suggesting that corporations know no allegiance and will play any side to turn a profit. Hardly a radical claim, and can be proved by a multitude of examples. I have already provided a list of foreign companies equipping the enemy as proof so I needn’t hammer the point more.

The point certainly needs to be “hammered” more if the intention is to suggest that there was systemic co-operation between corporate America/western capitalism and the Nazi war machine.

On the broader point about collaboration, I note that the Nazi-Soviet imperialist venture in Poland is conveniently forgotten, along with Nazi-Soviet trading partnership (weapons for raw materials) which existed in between the partition of Poland and Barbarossa, (during which time Polish Jews were being forced into ghettos where half a million died). It turns out that unhealthy relationships with fascists don’t occur “only in capitalism” after all.

But your claim that the Allies did not know about the Holocaust until weeks before the end of the war is also one big, fat lie: archives from the United Nations show that the Allies knew of the Holocaust and its scale as early as 1942. You can read more here. And if you still doubt this, here's an excerpt from Winston Churchill's speech, made through the radio on August 14, 1941 [1]. And if you're still unsure, here's a Daily Telegraph's article dated June 25, 1942, [2] reporting on 'travelling gas chambers' and the massacre of 700,000 Jewish Poles. In fact, there's archival evidence that London Times, the Montreal Daily Star, The Los Angeles Times, the Journal American and many other newspapers were reporting on the Holocaust with details since 1942. It just so happens that when there's big bucks to be made, corporations don't care so much.

First, the Allies did not know about the full extent of the Holocaust until the end of the war. Reports and intercepts out of eastern Europe did reveal mass killings and inhumane prison conditions, though Allied leadership struggled to confirm the scale of the genocide. Citing a Churchill speech given months before the Wannsee Conference serves only to prove that point.

Second, my comment was not about what the “Allies” knew, but about what was widespread knowledge outside of Reich (esp. w/regard to the Final Solution), such that corporate America could have willingly participated in a systematic fashion (which, despite your insinuation, it did not).

Third, contrary to your claim, the provided chart is not a list of companies which were involved with “running and supplying of the death camps”; it is actually a partial list of companies which collaborated with the Nazi regime, almost all of which are German.

[Kritias]

Cope, give it a rest. Every state reserves the right to utilize every mean at its disposal to defend itself when it is invaded. What the Nazis did during the last year of the war would happen to every nation at the same position. To turn around and present this desperate measure as long-standing economic doctrine, completely disregarding that during 1944-1945 the Nazi Reich was at its death throes, invaded from every side, is simply ludicrous.

What’s more ludicrous is to keep insisting on cold war propaganda that Marxism and Nazism are brother ideologies, a theory credited only in the circles of militant right. This claim is so ludicrous, and debunked so many times it’s simply laughable it still goes around. And don’t get me started on George Watson; a guy internationally discredited for transliterating Marx to claim he was the first person to advocate genocide (Ivar Ljabs; Robert Grant). Marxism is based on a class analysis, where workers from every country in the world have more in common with each other than with their respective ruling classes. I have already gone in detail about its tenets, so I wonÂ’t do that again. For the Nazis, the superior Aryan race was being cuckolded, betrayed, and lied to by an international conspiracy of communistic Jews - and the solution presented was to kill every one of them. In one sentence, your argument is hot garbage.

Let’s come to the 25 points plan. Oh man! You really brought out the big guns, haven’t you?! Do you honestly quote the Nazi electoral promises from 1920 to try and prove a point against evidence of their actual economic policy over 10 years? Really? Maybe while you’re scanning the 25 points plan you can check the point where it says they were about to murder millions of people in gas chambers? What? No mention of that? Curious… The Nazis would never lie in their electoral pamphlet! Right, Cope? It seems you have no clue at what low point capitalism was following WW1, and especially the Great Depression; the fact that the Nazis co-opted parts of the Left’s arguments to steal it’s audience doesn’t prove that the Nazis were socialists. It merely proves how the Left failed to understand and adapt to the Nazi threat. Apropos, it still does - case in point, this discussion.

Regarding corporate America, you try to move the argument sideways to suit your purpose here, Joe. My argument is that corporations will play any side to make a profit, and they did; IBM, Ford, Standard Oil, Coca-Cola and others had business with the Nazis throughout the war. “Systematic” collaboration (which is a strange thing to ask, as if corporate America is one indivisible thing) has already been proven to you by Morticia in the case of Ford industries. Just click the links and read. They aren’t there just for show.

Next, the Holocaust. First, you said the Allies didn’t have any knowledge until the last weeks of the war. Now you say they didn’t know the full extent. Now that’s a revision of your position! Clever, clever to incorporate the word ‘full’ there: the absolute full extend would only be reached after the war, wouldn’t it? As you know, the Holocaust did not begin with the camps but with mobile gas chambers – trucks with their exhaustion pipes turned inwards to suffocate the people seated in. That articles about the extermination of Jewish Poles in mobile gas chambers were out in several newspapers since 1942 has already been proven to you. Now, do we have any reason to doubt capitalists throughout the world read the newspapers and had seen the reporting of mass atrocities in Poland, and the Eastern Front? I guess not. Is there any reason to believe capitalists would not also have more inside information from the government and as such would be better informed than the common public? Again, no. Simply put: if there was a peep about it publicly, the corporate elite would know more about it. The fact they kept doing business with the Nazis regardless proves the fact that capitalism is beyond the question of morality.

Regarding the cooperation comment, read my bit about Stalinism in my first post – your comment simply proves you half-read my posts before you reply. Sad. But not as sad as trying to equate being in war and trading with your countryÂ’s enemy with not being at war and trading with another country. The aforementioned foreign companies continued to supply the Nazis well after a state of war existed between their country of origin and them and in Ford's case right until the end of the war. On the other hand, after numerous attempts from the Soviet side to form a coalition against Hitler (defensive and mutual assistance pacts with France and Czechoslovakia in 1935; failed overtures to France & the UK for an alliance, 1939) and the dubious diplomacy towards Hitler from the Franco-British side (AGNA, 1935; Munich Agreement, 1938), the Soviets signed a non-aggression with the Nazis to protect themselves from war, providing raw material for much needed weapons and technology. The pact also expanded their territory west-wards and it can be argued it's basically what saved them from the Nazis in the long run, putting kilometers between the Wehrmacht and Moscow. I do not mean to lessen the evil of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact here, but we need to see the larger historical picture before we start pointing fingers. Trying to protect yourself from invasion isn't the same as looking the other way while you are making a buck.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

About the famous 25 points programm of the NSDAP from 1920, which shall prove for historical uneducated far rights, that nationalsocialism is the same as socialism:

Historian Karl Dietrich Bracher summarizes the program by saying that its components were "hardly new" and that "German, Austrian, and Bohemian proponents of anti-capitalist, nationalist-imperialist, anti-Semitic movements were resorted to in its compilation," but that a call to "breaking the shackles of finance capital" was added in deference to the idee fixe of Gottfried Feder, one of the party's founding members, and Hitler provided the militancy of the stance against the Treaty of Versailles, and the insistence that the points could not be changed, and were to be the permanent foundation of the party. Bracher characterizes the points as being "phrased like slogans; they lent themselves to the concise sensational dissemination of the 'anti' position on which the party thrived. ... Ideologically speaking, [the program] was a wooly, eclectic mixture of political, social, racist, national-imperialist wishful thinking..."^[3]
...
The 25-point Program was a German adaptation — by Anton Drexler, Adolf Hitler, Gottfried Feder and Dietrich Eckart — of Rudolf Jung's Austro–Bohemian program. Unlike the Austrians, the Germans did not claim to be either liberal or democratic and opposed neither political reaction nor the aristocracy, yet advocated democratic institutions (i.e. the German central parliament) and voting rights solely for Germans — implying that a Nazi government would retain popular suffrage.
...
Throughout the 1920s, other members of the NSDAP, seeking ideologic consistency, sought either to change or to replace the National Socialist Program. In 1924, the economist Gottfried Feder proposed a 39-point program retaining some original policies and introducing new policies.[10] Hitler suppressed every instance of programmatic change by refusing to broach the matters after 1925, because the National Socialist Program was “inviolable”, hence immutable.[11]

Historian Karl Dietrich Bracher writes that to Hitler the program was "little more than an effective, persuasive propaganda weapon for mobilizing and manipulating the masses. Once it had brought him to power, it became pure decoration: 'unalterable,' yet unrealized in its demands for nationalization and expropriation, for land reform and 'breaking the shackles of finance capital.' Yet it nonetheless fulfilled its role as backdrop and pseudo-theory, against which the future dictator could unfold his rhetorical and dramatic talents."[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...ialist_Program

About Anton Drexler, the founder of the DAP, the original name of the NSADAP:

"Drexler approached Hitler and gave him a copy of his pamphlet My Political Awakening, which contained anti-Semitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist, and anti-Marxist ideas."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Drexler

About Gottfried Feder:

Feder briefly dominated the Nazi Party's official views on financial politics, but after he became chairman of the party's economic council in 1931, his anti-capitalist views led to a great decline in financial support from Germany's major industrialists. Following pressure from Albert Voegler, Gustav Krupp, Friedrich Flick, Fritz Thyssen, Emil Kirdorf and especially Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler decided to move the party away from Feder's economic views. Schacht wrote in the 'Magic of Money' that "National Socialist agitiation under the leadership of Gottfried Feder" aimed to curtail "private banking" and "the entire currency system." He further explained that the goal of Feder and his pupils was to destroy their entire "banking and monetary economy" and concludes that he "had to try to steer Hitler away from these destruction conceptions." (p. 154) When Hitler became Reichskanzler in 1933, he appointed Feder as under-secretary at the ministry of economics in July, which appointment disappointed Feder, who had hoped for a much higher position.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Feder

About Dietrich Eckart:

"In December 1918,[11] Eckart founded, published and edited the anti-Semitic weekly Auf gut Deutsch ("In plain German") – with financial support from the Thule Society[1] – working with Alfred Rosenberg, whom he called his "co-warrior against Jerusalem",[12] and Gottfried Feder.[13][14] A fierce critic of the German Revolution and the Weimar Republic, he vehemently opposed the Treaty of Versailles, which he viewed as treason, and was a proponent of the so-called stab-in-the-back legend (Dolchstoßlegende), according to which the Social Democrats and Jews were to blame for Germany's defeat in the war.

Eckart's anti-Semitism was influenced by the fraudulent publication The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which had been brought to Germany by "white Russian" emigrés fleeing the October Revolution. The book purported to outline the international Jewish conspiracy for control of the world, and many right-wing and volkisch political figures believed it to be a true account.[15]

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Eckart

All this show clearly that the NSDAP was not a socialistic party.

At least for everyone, who doesn't equate far right hate propaganda against socialism and social democrats with historical facts.

[Heathen Hammer]

If persecuting socialists renders one not a socialist, then I have some bad news for our democratic socialist comrades in regards to their heroes Lenin, Stalin and trotsky because boy did those fellas kill a lot of leftists!

[Kritias]

If persecuting socialists renders one not a socialist, then I have some bad news for our democratic socialist comrades in regards to their heroes Lenin, Stalin and trotsky because boy did those fellas kill a lot of leftists!

Very droll. Socialists adhere to a class analysis. Believing in pseudo-science and that there is a superior race that is being cuckolded, betrayed and lied to by communistic Jews makes one not a socialist.

[Heathen Hammer]

Very droll. Socialists adhere to a class analysis. Believing in pseudo-science and that there is a superior race that is being cuckolded, betrayed and lied to by communistic Jews makes one not a socialist.

Nah, only Western marxists suffer from oikophobic psychosis, majority of non-Western marxist regimes are turbonationalist in their nature. Just look at China, Cuba, Nepal or Best Korea. It seems that your viewpoint is ironically suffering from Eurocentrism, since you didn't acknowledge that very crucial nuance.

[Kritias]

Nah, only Western marxists suffer from oikophobic psychosis, majority of non-Western marxist regimes are turbonationalist in their nature. Just look at China, Cuba, Nepal or Best Korea. It seems that your viewpoint is ironically suffering from Eurocentrism, since you didn't acknowledge that very crucial nuance.

And your reply seems to suffer from short attention span syndrome. This thread is about Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky. I think the thread justifies some discussion on the Soviet Union and its policies, and the war/Nazis played an important part in those. If you would like to talk about International Communism, you can definitely go ahead and open another thread. But spare us the 'gotcha' zingers when you know you're being disruptive.

Having said that... Oikophobic psychosis? That's an extremely convoluted way to call someone a fifth columnist! Can you prove what you just wrote, in the context of the Soviet Union (since we're discussing their leaders)?

[Heathen Hammer]

And your reply seems to suffer from short attention span syndrome. This thread is about Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky. I think the thread justifies some discussion on the Soviet Union and its policies, and the war/Nazis played an important part in those. If you would like to talk about International Communism, you can definitely go ahead and open another thread. But spare us the 'gotcha' zingers when you know you're being disruptive.

Having said that... Oikophobic psychosis? That's an extremely convoluted way to call someone a fifth columnist! Can you prove what you just wrote, in the context of the Soviet Union (since we're discussing their leaders)?

Nice evasion attempt, but the specific nuance was whether NSDAP was socialist, and the argument you used was the fact that the racial element in their ideology didn't make them socialist, despite the fact that plenty of conventionally recognized as marxist regimes back then as well as today have that element.
As for oikophobic psychosis our syphilitic boy Ulianov could probably fit the bill perfectly. Trotsky was more like bin Laden/Bagdadi figure of his time, while Stalin was clearly disillusioned with certain aspects of his comrades, hence why he probably wiped out more communists in his tenure as Genreal Secreatary then all social nationalist regimes of Central Europe of that time.

[Kritias]

Where are you getting this garbage from?! Marxists never had a racial component to their theory. Is that what you're taught in schools, or is this just Fox drivel? Marxist primary consideration is the economy, and who controls the means of production. Neither Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism or even Maoism focuses, or even gets bothered by the concept of race. On the contrary, race is the primary consideration and the moving force of Nazis. Mainly how the Aryan race is being cuckolded, betrayed, lied to by an international conspiracy of communistic Jews, and how they should wage war against them to set themselves “free” or some such lunacy. Provide proof that Marxist movements have any kind of ‘racial’ element.

Next, Dr. Heathen, on your oikophobic psychosis comment. Criticism or even overthrowing your economic system isn’t treason to the country. Unless you’re willing to admit that a country’s rightful owners are the capitalists and the rest of us worthless proles aren’t citizens with a say about it, and should stop whining already. In which case, better do away with democracy, too, and let’s get to whatever post-medieval nightmare you have in store for us. And frankly, it’s best if right-wingers stay away from medical metaphors for a while. We have all caught up with your ‘cure’, doctor.

The level of self-confidence and complete, mind-bending ignorance of the comment about Trotsky begs further explanation. Please do tell how Trotsky was like either of the men you compare him to.

Lastly, on Stalin. According to the only archival research ever conducted on the Soviet prison system, aptly named “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence”, in the period 1921-1952, out of a documentable convicted population of 2.5 million people, the research unearthed documentation that the Soviets executed 800.000 people for political crimes. Mind you, political crimes included retreating without orders, desertion, panic-mongering, stealing state property, espionage, and sabotage among other crimes. It is also estimated that up to 1 million people died in the camps, but it isn't clear if the executions are included in the tally or not. Whereas Hitler’s invasion costed the Soviet Union 27 million people. So, no; Stalin didn't kill more people than "all the national socialist regimes of Central Europe of that time".

Incidentally, this is what 27 million dead in a short span of time does to a culture. If Stalin had killed anywhere near the numbers some 'scholars' accuse him of - rest assured, the Russians would be the first to tell the world. Open a book, not another podcast.

[Heathen Hammer]

Marxists never had a racial component to their theory.

Okaaaay, I forgot that whole Han lebensraum that Chinese government is doing is not racism and is just cultural differences, silly me. Or how ole Joe annexed a number of other regions to Georgia, to which he totally wasn't a nationalist for.
Lenin was many things, but he wasn't an anti-capitalist - he passionately hated Russia and Russian people (himself he was of mixed German/Chuvash ancestry IIRC) and was little more then a paid provocateur, funded by not-so-socialist bankers and Central Powers.
Trotsky was just a genocidal lunatic, whose beliefs hold little to no academic merit beyond case study for why people become like this.
As for Stalin apologism, I think we are entering wooden doors in gas chambers territory and I have neither desire nor interest in arguing against sophistry from edgy tankie blogs. The fact that Soviets and pretty much every socialist regime (except for North Korea and China) basically denounced him speaks for itself.

[Kritias]

Okaaaay, I forgot that whole Han lebensraum that Chinese government is doing is not racism and is just cultural differences, silly me. Or how ole Joe annexed a number of other regions to Georgia, to which he totally wasn't a nationalist for.
Lenin was many things, but he wasn't an anti-capitalist - he passionately hated Russia and Russian people (himself he was of mixed German/Chuvash ancestry IIRC) and was little more then a paid provocateur, funded by not-so-socialist bankers and Central Powers.
Trotsky was just a genocidal lunatic, whose beliefs hold little to no academic merit beyond case study for why people become like this.
As for Stalin apologism, I think we are entering wooden doors in gas chambers territory and I have neither desire nor interest in arguing against sophistry from edgy tankie blogs. The fact that Soviets and pretty much every socialist regime (except for North Korea and China) basically denounced him speaks for itself.

At this point I’m beginning to wonder whether you’re a real person, or just a bot spreading right-wing conspiracy myths. Let’s begin with Lenin being an agent for the German Empire. This whole claim stems from the Sisson Documents and this myth has been in circulation since 1918. Unfortunately for you, the documents were proven to be forgeries in 1956 by Kennan.

The Sisson documents were using the same typewriter even though they were supposed to be coming out of different agencies, intra-departmental communication between German officials was carried out in Russian (?), key figures appear to be in places we can prove they weren’t during the document dates, dating and authentication systems used in the letters had been dropped by the time the letters are allegedly written… The list of discrepancies goes on. You can read more in Kennan’s article in the Journal of Modern History (1956), issue 28, no 2, pages 130-154. Again: open a book, not another podcast.

Explain what you mean by ‘Han’ lebensraum with examples, please. Just so we’re on the same page with what you claim.

Your obsession with race tells a very intriguing story about the dark paths you’re currently treading here, Joe. Explain how Lenin allegedly being German/Chuvash played any role in his alleged ‘anti-Russian’ policies. Then explain how Lenin ‘hated’ Russians with examples.

You still fail to explain why Trotsky was a genocidal maniac, or the same as the two men you mentioned; I only read opinions here, not an iota of evidence. Can you give some examples?

Disproving your fictions about countless millions dying under Stalinism isn’t the same as defending Stalin. I just wrote he was the reason behind 800,000 – 2.5 million people dying from 1921-1953. That’s documentable fact. Only in the make-believe world of the alt-right there’s an arbitrary ideological marker where murder is considered cool and normal. The only reason we know Stalin killed so many people is because Khrushchev ordered an investigation on the Stalin proceedings and informed the Congress of the Communist Party. Then he published his findings internationally.

[Heathen Hammer]

So now we "progressed" from denial of Stalin's atrocities to outright genocide denial of what ChiComs are doing to Uyghurs and atrocities of Trotsky's terror in Russian civil war.

Like I said, I have neither energy nor interest in debating talking point from tankie blogs.

My suggestion would be to read actual academic sources instead of leftypol, reddit or wherever you guys get your sources from.

[Kritias]

So now we "progressed" from denial of Stalin's atrocities to outright genocide denial of what ChiComs are doing to Uyghurs and atrocities of Trotsky's terror in Russian civil war.

Like I said, I have neither energy nor interest in debating talking point from tankie blogs.

My suggestion would be to read actual academic sources instead of leftypol, reddit or wherever you guys get your sources from.

What are you on about? I am backing my claims with academic studies published by Chigago Press Journal (the Sisson Documents), and the American Historical Association (the Soviet Penal System and its victims). If anyone spewls unsubstantiated drivel here, that's not me, Joe. Unless if by actual academic sources you mean PragerU.

Again, go open a book. Youtube podcast ain't telling you the full story, Joe.

PS: You also lied about Stalin and Georgia. Maybe you should read about the Transcaucasian SFSR, Stalin's effort to create a common entity of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia on the Caucasus. What you presented as Stalin's Georgian nationalism was in fact fiercely resisted by Georgians who wanted to be incorporated in the USSR as an independent full republic. It got quite out of hand with the Georgians petitioning a sick Lenin, and him writing in the newspapers against Stalin's proposal.

[Heathen Hammer]

Like I said, you haven't presented any actual sources, just insinuations that are clearly debunked by conventional ones. Like German government itself confirming that they funded Lenin and his insurrection in Russia.
Perhaps the problem is that sources you refer to are just blogs and weird darkweb forums or wherever is that whole Stalinist revisionism stuff is coming from.
I don't think simping for the biggest mass-murderers in history is going to make you ideology seem sane or attractive to normal people. Even fascists try to present themselves as wholesome from time to time, so the whole "Stalin did nothing wrong" thing just makes you guys look bad.
And its funny how its always some Western college kids that think USSR and Communist China were/are great.