At what point did Communism become public enemy #1?

[erasure]

[quote=ovcatto;30380246]

Lenin and Trotsky's economic policies wouldn't have had any effect on restoring capitalism in the industrial sector which would have remained under state ownership.[quote]

Yes, but the problem was that there was not much of industrial sector to talk about, because tzarist Russia was lagging behind European countries in this respect. The country was still mostly ( like 85%) agrarian. The natural process of people moving out of the villages to cities and becoming industrial workers en mass didn't take place in Russia in the same manner as it happened in European countries much earlier, in many ways because of Tzar's policies. And that's what Stalin tried to change drastically, against the tide of history, moving all these people out of the villages and turning them into industrial workers practically overnight.

However, had Stalin stayed with the plan millions of Soviet citizens would have been spared from starvation as the NEP had brought back incentives and along with it higher agricultural productivity.

Again - NEP brought back incentives, but it brought them back in predominantly agrarian country. And when peasants received those incentives, they were not in a rush to change anything about their way of life. This way their lives were probably (and finally) on their way to stable development of the country with GRADUAL transition to industrial economy with generations ahead, but Stalin didn't feel like he had time for all that. As I've said - the European countries were all industrialized by then, and as the whole ordeal with Hitler showed - it was slogan "eat or be eaten."

This WIKI article on collectivization explains the problems that private farming ( reinstated with NEP) brought to the plans of rapid industrialization;

"The equal land shares among the peasants gave rise to food shortages in the cities. Although grain had nearly returned to pre-war production levels, the large estates who had produced it for urban markets had been divided up.[3] Not interested in acquiring money to purchase overpriced goods, the peasants chose to eat their produce rather than sell it, so city dwellers only saw half the grain that had been available before the war.[3] Before the revolution, peasants controlled only 2,100,000 km² divided into 16 million holdings, producing 50% of the food grown in Russia and consuming 60% of total food production. After the revolution, the peasants controlled 3,140,000 km² divided into 25 million holdings, producing 85% of the food, but consuming 80% of what they grew (meaning that they ate 68% of the total).[5]"

Collectivization in the Soviet Union - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That isn't what I wrote: "Those followed him into power, while...less brutal, were all students of Stalins intolerance of any opposition to Party dictates."



I may have been wrong but your post suggested some generational divide within the Party's leadership a point that I disagree with.

There was a generational divide, just not in a way you perceive it may be. A lot of those who surrounded Stalin, (particularly on earlier stages,) still belonged to Tzarist Russia ( and that includes education, which as I've said was more worldly,) than those who came to power later.

P.S. And no, by the way I do not hijack the thread - just tried to dig a bit deeper why communism was a public enemy in the US much earlier than it often perceived and why exactly Russia was a culprit of it all.

[Eugene L.]

Originally Posted by erasure

Of course I did, because your teachers and parents didn't represent the whole generation. They could of have been dumb peasants and then, again, they could be not.

Soviet leaders was a men of the people, you can look into theirs biographies. The revolution had interrupted a noble dynasties, it shuffled a people like a cement mixer. Sometimes Soviet elite have been corrupted by the power, but they was a representative sampling in other respects, include an intellect.

Originally Posted by erasure

Because been "graduated" in Soviet system didn't mean automatically to be intelligent, that's why.
You could have had high education there, and yet to remain brainwashed and programmed as "Homo Soveticus" just in case you've never heard this term.

I don't know why you can't 'to remain brainwashed and programmed', why your brain detergent less stronger than Soviet. Anything you say can be used against you (or anyone else) as well.

Originally Posted by erasure

So what can I do if it WAS a vicious circle?

You can try to conclude logically. Start here: Circular reasoning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by erasure

No, it looks like I have no idea what you are trying to say here.

Following your line of reasoning, the Great Depression happens because the capitalistic world dumbness. Any crisis happens anywhere because dumbness. Well, don't you know another causes at all?

Originally Posted by erasure

Err.. no, I don't believe somehow that the importance of Soviet victory in WWII ( where timely industrialization played big role) is my opinion only.

You have missed the point of well-known Russian phrase. He means that you can't turn back and rematch the history. There is the one real history and infinite unprovable visionary histories.

Back on track, Stalin hurry an industrialization on the one hand, and slowed on the other hand. E.g. many engineers and scientists were repressed, although they were relatively few. Many lives and things has been wasted by collectivization, forced labor, GULAG and etc.

Originally Posted by erasure

It's not my "ignorance" hon, it's my lack of interest, particularly when it comes to anything even remotely connected to "Hoover Institute."

You resemble an certain Italian Commando to me. Neither of you acknowledge historian pros, you both know the history better all round.

Originally Posted by erasure

What doesn't make sense here - is your writing, but you sure have a lot of pomposity here..

Try to use simple logic: if industrialization goes in any suitable countries with or without government intervention, is government intervention necessary? Market and socialistic countries, dominions and colonies - there was no face-control except a technology level.
Ahh... ok, I think I see what you are trying to say here.

Originally Posted by erasure

I was not talking about the "State property," - in Russia's situation this should have remained in state's hands. I am talking about the light industry, food processing industry, restaurants, bakeries and what's not - that should have been given to private sector long time ago, and then the Soviet economy wouldn't have nose-dived the way it did in the 80ies.

It should have been done, but political interests in USSR&Russia is traditionally more important than economical until is too late.

Originally Posted by erasure

Please try to start making sense again.
These people were Arabs, born and raised in different society, with different philosophy.
Think "Chechens" in this case and figure out where and how they differ from Russians, while living with them in the same country.

Any man, each Arab, Russian, Chechen, European, American and etc. lived within the his ideological box, and any box can be spiked and agressive. For this reason I said before that your opinion about all the people too well.
How about Dostoevsky?

“...I had to endure all the agony of that battle of ideas, Sonia, and I longed to throw it off: I wanted to murder without casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself alone! I didn’t want to lie about it even to myself. It wasn’t to help my mother I did the murder—that’s nonsense—I didn’t do the murder to gain wealth and power and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it; I did the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider, catching men in my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn’t have cared at that moment.… And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It was not so much the money I wanted, but something else.… I know it all now.… Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a murder again. I wanted to find out something else; it was something else led me on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the right …”
“To kill? Have the right to kill?” Sonia clasped her hands.
“Ach, Sonia!” he cried irritably and seemed about to make some retort, but was contemptuously silent. “Don’t interrupt me, Sonia. I want to prove one thing only, that the devil led me on then and he has shown me since that I had not the right to take that path, because I am just such a louse as all the rest. He was mocking me and here I’ve come to you now! Welcome your guest! If I were not a louse, should I have come to you? Listen: when I went then to the old woman’s I only went to try. … You may be sure of that!”
“And you murdered her!”