917 Lenin Stalin Relations- A look from Vol. 45 of Lenin's Collected Works

I know that these particular posts of mine which relate to Communism / Marxism will not be read by anybody / or read by a very few people in this unipolar world, yet I cannot resist writing about these, in spite of knowing pretty well that this 21c. world considers Communism and Marxism as outdated theories, and in India RSS (Rashtria Swayam Sevak Sangh--a cultural organisation, according to themselves) loathes Communists. One can always say that Lenin and Stalin were dead long back, and are a part of a history, with only archaeological / or museum value. But, yet, the fact remains that as long as POVERTY CONTINUES TO HAUNT THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD, the search for an alternative Socio-Economic Theory will have to continue. If Communism / Total Socialism (not fabian-gradualist variety) / Marxism is fraught with grave evils of loss of individual freedoms, initiatives, creativities, then something else must be explored. Till such a time, the third alternative is found out and successfully tried, Leftism will remain as a desirable objective to the monstrous Capitalism.

Why a study of Lenin-Stalin Relations, is important? Telugu language: లెనిన్ స్టాలిన్ సంబంధాల అధ్యయనం ఎందుకు ముఖ్యం?

Ans: While Late Karl Marx dreamt of an ideal World of Equalities, Lenin is to be given credit for trying to introduce Marxian Theories, into the practical arena. In the process, there might have been some teething troubles. There might have taken place some grave errors, causing misery to millions of people. It is necessary to study all / or at least a bulk, of such omissions / commissions / shortcomings, as a sine qua non for a successful retrial or re-experimentation with the CMS (Communism, Marxism, Socialism) Theories, so as to avoid miseries to masses, misuse of authority-and-power by unscrupulous persons, and make CMS acceptable not only to majority, but at least to 99% of the people. Even in CMS, dissent can never be oppressed / suppressed, even if such dissent is only from a 1%. The deciding factor will have to be, whether what the 1% says has any sound reasoning and desirability in what they say. Though absolutely 100% peaceful introduction of change is not possible, as all the people cannot be satisfied at all times, yet we cannot have some barbaric or savageous justice. We cannot replace a cruel system like Capitalism, with another system say Marxism, through equally cruel methods. Methods are, and ought to be as important as the goals.

The Euro-American world views Joseph Stalin as a despicable tyrant, though may not be on par with Adolph Hitler. But, Stalin was used by the same Euro-American World, as a co-warrior against Nazis and Hitler in World War 2. Euro-American World has the audacity of using and condemning anybody at its whims and fancies.

Prima facie, one gets an impression that during the life of Lenin, his words and orders seem to have prevailed, while Trotsky seemed to be Lenin's favorite, and Stalin wanted to be Lenin's successors. Hence, we may need to study Lenin-Stalin relations, and about the contributions made by Stalin, during the reign of Lenin, and also examine whether / why Stalin deviated from the path of Lenin.

The following letter from vol5 of Collected Works of Lenin, was written on 5th March 1923. Lenin addressed this letter to Stalin, marked it PERSONAL, TOP SECRET, PERSONAL, and endorsed copies to Comrades Kamenev and Zinoviev. This endorsement might have become necessary, because they had already come to know about Stalin's rude talk. Lenin started this letter with "Dear Comrade Stalin", and closed it with " Respectfully yours, ". That means, Lenin was very cordial and courteous, even when he had to handle some subject which is somewhat unpleasant.

Dear Comrade Stalin:

You have been so rude as to summon my wife to the telephone and use bad language. Although she had told you that she was prepared to forget this, the fact nevertheless became known through her to Zinoviev and Kamenev. I have no intention of forgetting so easily what has been done against me, and it goes without saying that what has been done against my wife I consider having been done against me as well. I ask you, therefore, to think it over whether you are prepared to withdraw what you have said and to make your apologies, or whether you prefer that relations between us should be broken off.

Respectfully Yours,

ybdonkey's views not intended to be imposed on others

Lenin passed away on 21st Jan. 1924., i.e. approx. nine months after writing this letter. It is not clear whether the relations between Lenin and Stalin had improved during the intervening period of 5-3-1923 and 21-1-1924, either on personal sphere, or on political sphere. Political sphere is more important. We have to explore.
To continue, adding / deleting /modifying. सशेष. ఇంకా ఉంది.

799 (Part 1/10) of Lenin-Trotsky-MNRoy-Open Source Management and, Management of Truly Socialist Economy and Society

Here is a link to Sourceforge.net/blog/handling the banes of open source management, which depicts the problems associated with Open Source Management. click to go to Sourceforge.
Open Source Management, and Management of True Complete Socialism has some similarities. Managing a truly Communist / Socialist / Marxist economy amidst dozens of Capital countries blinking and glittering around with their goodies of luxury cars, casinos, film festivals, facebooks and twitters, may be more complex and complicated when compared to running repositories and patrons of Open Source Management, in the arena of Computer Operating Systems and Software. Open Source Management, prima facie, is not a lucre-accumulating vocation. Unless persons and institutions are endowed with some supreme commitment to their goals and ideals, there is a risk of their getting fatigued and tired in the midway. Like metal fatigue, fatigue of "providing something free over long term" without expecting cognizible rewards is greater-greater-greater than an acrobatic feat of walking on a thin wire across Niagara falls.

Photo above: M.N. Roy's 1920 encounter with Lenin, the Supreme Boss of Bolshevik Revolution and 1920 Soviet Union, and probably World Communism of the day. In this group photo, Trotsky and Stalin were apparently not present. We cannot read much from their absence, but this is just an observation out of curiosity.

OPEN SOURCE MANAGEMENT

The Open Source Movement, is to a large extent influenced by the problems faced by Computer-users with the incarcerating Operating System Windows of Mr. Bill Gates, and the commercial software churned out by business organisations. While there is nothing wrong with doing genuine, honest and legitimate business by discovering and innovating gadgets and widgets, Windows and their Associate Developers indulging in restrictive methods. Imposing some restrictions on distribution or usage, when software and/or code is provided free, is understandable, making these restrictions eternal, too cumbersome, preventing people from using the software purchased by them after paying through their necks and throats, could not be swallowed by user-society. From it generated, the groups of suffering users, searching for "Open Source". Such was their suffering, they even offered to spend a substantial part of their own time, money, and resources, for the cause of the Open Source Movement.

Like phoenix from ash emerged, the Linux Operating System from the Unix, to challenge the monopolies of Windows, Internet Explorer, and other commercial and proprietory software makers. Gradually, with the help of volunteer developers, Open Source Movement matured into a true challenger to Microsoft, Adobe and their ilk. Debian, Debian forked Ubuntu, Ubuntu forked Linux Mint, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Porteu, etc. operating Systems have started enjoying good support from users and have become substitutes for Windows.

In promoting the Open Source Movement, development and distribution of Open Source Packages, pioneers and leaders like SourceForge, Launchpad have rendered yeomen services by giving shelter and bandwith to the packages. From my own personal experience, I do not know, how many dollars ( I do not have such dollars and hence I might have been forced to forego, or indulge in use of pirated software) I might have been compelled to shell out elsewhere to download the bulky and bloated Windows packages both from so called genunine and dubious websites. As a person of small means, I can only express my gratitude to Launchpad, SourceForge, and many other Linux developers and donors which made the Open Source Movement a true challenger to some Commercial-Proprietory sharks.

Sameway, Open Office, Abhiword, LibreOffice have become good substitutes for MS Office.

BENEFITS OF USING OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

1. free of payment. Those who have money can voluntarily donate.

2. Those who are interested, can study the source code also, and improvise upon it for own use, and also distribute the improvised packages under the GNU public license system. Those who make such improvements can also contact the original developers and contribute to the development of the original software.

3. Most linux software, by and large, is virus-free and virus-resistant, unlike windows where if we download and install one package, thousand other things like bootsector viruses, file-proliferators, unsolicited unwanted tool-bars in the web-browsers will appear and make our work a hell as it is difficult to get out of the intrusions.

The SourceForge blog article linked by me above, discusses in length the pros and cons associated with Open Source Management. Apart from those discussed above, there is also the primary problem of finding out monetary resources for day to day work, such as payment of bills of rents, minimum salaries, electricity, computer hardware, bandwidth, etc. etc.

TRUE COMPLETE SOCIALISM

In our previous blogposts, I have already discussed some of the features which I have tried to attribute to the True Complete Socialism of my dreams or fantasies. Before, we can discuss some more of them, it is necessary for us to have a look into recent comments about the pirouetting ambulations and peregrinations of the socialist movement in United Kingdom. Here is a very thought-provoking article by Peter Hitchens in Spectator dated 20th Aug. 2016.

Click to go to Specator.co.uk. This article is also available at DeccanChronicle.com. Hard copy can be found in the print addition of DC dated 24th Aug. 2016 immediately after the Editorial page.

Honestly, I do not KNOW much about Trotsky. When I was reading about Late Manavendra Nath Roy (popularly called M.N. Roy) who was one of the pioneers of Indian Communism, some years back, I came across the name of Trotsky. I have some sympathies for Trotsky, because he lost his life in the hands of the power-mongering dictator Joseph Stalin.

Earlier, I had great respect towards Lenin, as a leader who has given a "practical effect" and "implementation" to the theories of Late Lenin. But a part of that was blunted and dented, when I learnt through history that Lenin did not hesitate to enter into treaties with the Adolph Hitler of his early rule. I am unable to write anything about it right now, because my own knowledge of Lenin is limited. But, after learning about Lenin's entering into pacts with Hitler, one question frequently lingered in my mind: "Had Lenin lived to the end of the World War II", would Lenin have acted / reacted to Hitler's manoeuvres and massacres, in the same manner as Joseph Stalin?". I could not reconcile to a possibility that Lenin too would have reacted in the same manner as Stalin. Personally, the horizon of my knowledge is limited, I view that Lenin and Stalin seem to have similar behavioral patterns. I seem NOT HAVE much adoration for Trotsky or M.N. Roy, probably because, I have started considering every writing about living powerful persons / or deceased celebrities/halo bearers as hagiographic exaggerations, thus requiring much search and research to accept them as facts.

Here is one quote from Click to go to http://www.sacw.net/article11101.html . This is said to be a narration by one of the pioneers of INdian Communism- Late Mr. M.N. Roy, about his first encounter with Lenin, the Supreme boss and founder of USSR after the Bolshevik Revolution.

"... Danton and Lenin are the two greatest revolutionaries of modern times, and Danton was also a romanticist. The soul of the Great French Revolution was killed when jealousy of the hypocritical High-Priest of Reason sent Danton to the guillotine. Like his great predecessor, Lenin also had the audacity to call for moderation before the cup was drained to the dregs, before it was too late. He had no rival, though Trotsky might pretend to imitate Robespierre’s fanaticism after Lenin’s death, if he had the chance. Therefore, had not the cruel hand of a natural death removed him prematurely Lenin might have turned the course of the revolution to a more fruitful direction. The New Economic Policy was the signal. Its unfoldment might have headed off the subsequent relapse into terrorism and coercion, which destroyed the utopian ideal of Communism. But Trotsky’s Left opposition compelled Stalin to kill the Dantonist spirit of Lenin. The two contenders for the succession to Lenin together did for the Russian Revolution what Robespierre had done for the French. ..."

ybrao-a-donkey's humble observation

We have seen the fiasco of Communism in Vietnam, which went through ghastly battles in rivers and swamps, and massacres in the hands of French Colonialists and the American air and chemical warfare. What did Vietnam learn after going through the hell? Nothing. Today, Vietnam is hand in glove with U.S.A. inviting American Multi Nationals into its land. Of course, Vietnam can always have an excuse of defending themselves from the military and territorial ambitions of China. Like a calf of a kangaroo which hides in the belly-pouch of its mother, Vietnam seems to find security in the guard of U.S., forgetting the past injuries. If this is the retrogression level of a country like Vietnam which had earned much reputation and sympathy from the World, what can we or what should we expect from the Socialist Parties of U.K., France, or the Socialist Facades of Mr. Bernie Sanders.

TAIL PIECE धूमकेतु తోకచుక్క

In India, priests and discoursers, whenever they cannot defend or explain a philosophy or phenonmenon effectively, they take shelter by calling it "VISHNU MAYA" (Glorious and Illusive Ways of Lord Vishnu). For the time being we shall also, self-amusingly SAY, that Communist Parties and Socialist Parties turning dictatorial, and bourgeoisie parties occasionally behaving like Socialist Parties as a part of their Vote Bank politics, also have some strains of Vishnu Maya or ISvar lIlA.

To continue. सशेष. ఇంకా ఉంది.