Why "left" reactionaries are dangerous ft Democratization of terror
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If you ask these lovers of thuggery aka "Communists" to write apologia for other dictatorships, they will more than happy to write about it, if they also can come up with some bullshit ideology. These people happen to be apologists for one form of thuggery & these people are no different than the propagandists that worked for Nazis & work for Western Imperial thugs.

I have negative respect for these assholes calling themselves "left" while holding some of the most reactionary views. Besides, I never understood whats the need to justify thugs from history. What does anyone gain now from writing reactionary dogshit by trying to portray worst segments of human scum, to not be scum?

Every dictator that wants to lord over large segments of population always have muscle men in various areas. Whats new about that? Does that make the vile thug at the top somehow less capable & pass the responsibility onto those at lower levels? How the fuck are you morons different from apologists from Monarchy (or) every other thuggish dictatorship in human history?

These dumbfucks that claim to be from "left" who write apologia for the worst kind of thugs of history are not scolded enough & should never be taken seriously on anything within their ideology.

If we follow the dumbfuck logic of these assholes, one can portray Nazi street thuggery as "democratic & populist uprising" (always happen to align with the interests of most powerful segments at the top) as apparently what happened in USSR was "Democratization of terror". Apparently, the "center" (masters at the top) had the right motivations & those at levels below sabotaged the great plans of thugs at the top who eliminated anyone opposed to the dictatorship.

Here are few snippets from this reactionary dumbfuckery (Apparently, Stalin was relatively "moderate", embracer of "democracy" & his purges were mere expressions of "democratization of terror", All dictatorship & centralization were for the good of peasants, Dictator stalin had less bloodlust than others, Totalitarian regime is not total enough & lot more).

> Democracy and repression, were closely intertwined, as mass participation in political organs enabled all citizens to draw upon the lethal violence of the state apparatus through the use of public denunciations.

> Stalin's views evolved and shifted over time, but he and his allies consistently drew on the populist and democratic elements of socialist thought, placing great emphasis on the mobilization of workers and citizens to advance socialist goals.

> Stalin’s recurring embrace of democracy and voluntaristic mass politics that more accurately explains the repression—by empowering everyday workers to carry out violent “class struggle” against the middle-managers and party bosses.

> The tendency to reduce Stalin’s motivations to power-seeking political maneuvering stripped of all communist ideology fundamentally misapprehends what drove him.

> While one can certainly disagree with Stalin’s interpretation of Marxism, his private correspondence, writings, speeches, meeting transcripts, and margin notes in his books reveal him to be someone who was not only completely immersed in Marxist thought but one who also espoused an interpretation of socialism that was more democratic than many of his Bolshevik peers. Nonetheless, it should be noted that, despite Stalin’s democratic politics, he was ultimately a moderate.

> Democratic reform would, in theory, facilitate the bottom-up assault on the various perceived external and internal threats plaguing the USSR, creating strong, secure, and durable socialist state.

> he supported the use of individual dictatorship to advance proletarian aims in the workplace.

> As these campaigns demonstrate, the Party and state did not disdain popular participation. On the contrary, they embraced it, albeit within prescribed limits.

> Rather, it places the Terror in its proper context as a form of intrastate war over “bureaucratism,” which spiralled out of control, as democracy enabled repression to penetrate every sector of society.

> … reveal good-faith and determined attempts to work with the peasantry in resolving their hardships stemming from the market economy.

> … If the police reports are to be believed …

> While collectivization involved severe repression against the peasant population, the extent to which peasants themselves initiated the conflict through open rebellion against the Soviet state is sometimes understated in the literature.

> The transition between the NEP and collectivization is better understood as the nascent Soviet state attempting to form a functional agricultural policy in the face of back-to-back crises—rather than an intentional plan of extermination carried out by a dictator with murderous designs.

> Thus, the decision to collectivize cannot be viewed as a Stalinist plan to punish the peasantry; rather, it reflected a pervasive opinion within the Soviet political and military elite, including Stalin’s rivals like Tukhachevsky. The fears around war and looming international conflict combined with the reports of hostile peasant reports solidified Stalinist leadership’s belief that wealthy peasants posed an existential threat.

> Getty describes how throughout the 1920s, interminable squabbling between various small factions vying for regional power obstructed central plans and made it extremely difficult for the Center to govern.

> … impeding the Center’s ability to govern effectively.

> … often at the expense of the broader national needs.

> The Center strengthened its governing capabilities through the lessons learned in the 1920s, acquiring the necessary skills and knowledge to develop and implement its own economic plans.

> While the Center permitted the use of purges to remove enemies, the instructions were vague, and the powers in the periphery used the orders as a pretext to pursue their own goals. The doling out of state repression was strictly regulated and guarded by Stalinist leadership who had to sign off on any requested repressive measures; the regional leaders’ bloodlust had to be curtailed by Stalin himself.

> … The right to shoot was something locals had to seek and something Stalin sought to control and protect.

> James Harris notes that new archival research has upended the “near monolithic consensus that … the camp system was an instrument of the dictatorship.” Rather, “central policy tended to be vague, to encourage initiative,” fostering a complex interplay between periphery and the Center around the use of repression.

> … democratization of terror …

> The “totalitarian” regime was actually not very “total,” lacking governmental capacity in its distant regions.

> Stalin’s conspiratorial anxieties were cultivated and validated by the real fact that Stalin’s men constantly lied to him;

> Forced collectivization accelerated mass rural-urban immigration due to country-side repression, which helped facilitate rapid industrialization, as peasants fled from the farm to the factory.

https://thestalinera.substack.com/p/the-enigma-of-terror