Thread: Pro or Anti Stalin

Long live Joe

An army expert once argued that the Red Army officer corps, whose origins came with Lenin’s benediction and Lev Trotsky’s methodological manner of thinking and management, was, for the most part, unprofessional throughout its existence and that this deficit of professional ability left it unable to defend itself during Stalin’s terror purge, caused the failure to conquer Finland, had disastrous consequences in the first year of the German invasion of the USSR in 1941-42, and contributed to the large number of casualties throughout the war. Its unprofessional nature compounded the debacle of Afghanistan and was the most significant cause of the public’s loss of faith when the military came under scrutiny during Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform era in the mid-1980s.

The question that concerns me is, would Lev Trotsky have made it a professional army if he had been in power? When the military situation deteriorated, Stalin effectively took control of the army. This was the sort of power of leadership the revolution required to survive, but it was a challenge to Trotsky, who had created the Red Army with the help of so-called ‘military experts’ - ex-tsarist officers. Stalin distrusted these ‘useful’ renegades and shot them whenever possible.

Always take note that Lev Trotsky had all the chances to stand up for Stalin, but instead turned him into a foe. Given the foreboding of a counterrevolutionary coup d’etat approaching and carried out by former tsarist officers, one cannot blame Joseph Stalin for arranging a massive purge that overwrought the whole chain of command, from top to bottom.

He opposed Stalin impertinently on all issues. The former tsarist officers were a real menace, but still Lev mollycoddled them under the expedient that an army is in need of military specialists in order to make it professional. Brushing off Stalin’s argument of political or ideological purity in the army, he insisted on contradicting him in all matters.

It might also be surmised that Trotsky had not anticipated a power struggle once Lenin died, despite Stalin’s malicious moves to shuffle or remove his appointed generals and commissars. Lev did not take the necessary precautions. He was good in political posturing and manoeuvres. But he did not expect a bloodbath, with Stalin as the executor.

Stalin, then, knew better. Trotsky was turned into a political mediocrity who should have known what to do, given his Machiavellian instincts in the realm of Soviet politics and totalitarianism. He was not in touch with reality.

Despite heavy losses during the war against Finland and the German invasion, the Soviet army was indeed a professional army. It was able to defy all the odds and it came to equal the United States of America in the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles, etc. The Soviet army was the most feared among democratic-capitalist states. The invasion of Yemen, the arming of North Vietnam, etc, proved not only its military stamina, but also its capability to subvert any country it chose.

Today we have Trotskyites and Stalinists in our midst. They come from all walks of life. The only difference between the two contending factions is that the latter always succeed in dominating the leadership of all recognised communist parties of the world and their central organs. The Trotskyites are justifiably condemned and persecuted because they denied Joseph Stalin the chance to explain himself or rebut their allegations. Without Koba, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would not have been a superpower. Long live Joseph Stalin!

Originally Posted by apparatchik

Long live Joe ... Long live Joseph Stalin!