Question for Stalinists - Soviet-Empire.com U.S.S.R.

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Soviet cogitations: 3766
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 30 Mar 2010, 01:20
Ideology: Other Leftist
Forum Commissar

19 Jun 2012, 03:19

No 14 wrote:
Independently of each other, Stalin and Khrushchev both came down on Zhukov like a ton of bricks after the war, which may not be a nice way to treat a distinguished general, but you also have to be careful with creating new Bonaparte figures.

Aside from his military successes is there any particular evidence to suggest that Zhukov was a potential Bonapartist?

No 14 wrote:
This one is of Khrushchev's manufacture, I believe. This was one of many of the charges made in the 1956 speech, when Khrushchev tried just about every accusation to see if it would stick.

I wonder why something more wasn't made of the suggestion that Stalin had a hand in the death of Lenin.
If you're going to make up stuff then why not?

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No 14

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Soviet cogitations: 2858
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 22 Oct 2004, 15:15
Ideology: Marxism-Leninism
Party Bureaucrat

19 Jun 2012, 09:47

I'm not sure about Zhukov, but he certainly had plenty of enemies willing to make that assertion. Funnily enough, Khrushchev used Zhukov to get rid of "English spy" Beria, and Zhukov also participated in the denouncement of Stalin, but after that, he was forced into retirement himself. Later on, Brezhnev would trot him out from time to time, but didn't give him any prominent positions.

The thing about "Stalin killing Lenin" was made up by Trotsky if I'm not mistaken. Khrushchev certainly tried most anything that stuck against Stalin, but regurgitating all of Trotsky's claims would have been a bridge too far. In general, the speech doesn't really criticise Soviet ideology, nor things like the industrialisation. It was very much aimed at Stalin personally, the practice of killing opponents as "enemies of the people", Stalin's conduct during the war, and the "cult the individual".

Beowulf

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Soviet cogitations: 1
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 24 Jun 2012, 15:34
New Comrade (Say hi & be nice to me!)

24 Jun 2012, 15:41

Stalin was a great military commander indeed, and in 1918, 2 decades before WW2, he won one of the deciseve battles of civil war in Russia hich is called "Tsaritsyn Defense".

Misuzu

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Soviet cogitations: 3688
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 07 Jul 2006, 04:49
Ideology: Juche
Old Bolshevik

30 Jun 2012, 00:36

Quote:
It is purely due to the political reality of the Cold War that people probably know Stalingrad, but other than that, they think that the Eastern Front was some kind of picnic.

From what I've seen, what most Westerners know about the Eastern Front was most likely shaped by movies and other pieces of fiction like Enemy at the Gates (Politruks shooting retreating soldiers, soldiers going without rifles, etc).