"Stalinism:" Linguistic Bias and the Fetishization of Lenin

"Once Stalin's ideas were attacked, vilified and destroyed, it became clear that Lenin's ideas had suffered the same fate."

- Ludo Martens, 1994

All too often in "leftist" online spaces, you'll hear denouncements of "Stalinism" when confronted with a question regarding the Soviet Union. It will be said that "socialism is good, but Stalinism destroyed it," or something along the lines of "Lenin was right, but Stalin took it too far," as if there was a continuity break between Lenin's theory and Stalin's actions. "Stalinism" is said dogmatically like it's a real concept, whether in the context of "Stalinist Bureaucracy" (Trotsky's favorite) or a "Stalinist Dictatorship" as opposed to "real socialism" in some attempt to save their face when talking to someone uninformed: "Well we're not like those other communists! We're the good socialists!"

Before speaking on the misguided fetishization of Lenin in order to establish that Stalin wasn't a successor of ML thought (as a Trotskyists would), it needs to be understood how "Stalinism" doesn't actually exist. For someone's ideas and theories to constitute an "-ism," they need to have something that sets their theory and ideas apart from what they're building off of. Lenin "broke" from orthodox Marxism by adapting Marxist thought to the conditions of the imperialist system and formulating the tasks of the Vanguard Party as the means of achieving socialist revolution. "Leninism" didn't exist as it is referred to today until Stalin synthesized the ideology into a name, but no serious Marxist has done the work to synthesize what actually sets Stalin apart from Lenin, because Stalin was a Marxist-Leninist to a greater degree than most other communist leaders. The main theoretical contribution Stalin made to Marxist thought was the further synthesis of the National Question, though it was not of Stalin's own thinking, but rather it was made through the lens of Marxist-Leninist analysis. Socialism In One Country (SOIC) is often regarded as a "Stalinist" concept by the likes of Trotskyists who claim that the "Permanent Revolution" should have been the leading ideology of the USSR, but not even Lenin sided with Trotsky on the permanent revolution:

"When we are told that the victory of socialism is possible only on a world scale, we regard this merely as an attempt, a particularly hopeless attempt, on the part of the bourgeoisie and its voluntary and involuntary supporters to distort the irrefutable truth. The ‘final’ victory of socialism in a single country is of course impossible."

- V.I. Lenin, 1918

Note the difference between the difference between the use of "victory" and "final victory." Lenin, Stalin, and even Trotsky agreed that socialism was an internationalist movement that would flourish fully on a worldwide scale, but where Lenin takes the side of Stalin is in the immediate tasks of the Soviet Government. Lenin and Stalin advocated for the development of SOIC because if they weren't able to prop themselves up and centralize power, they would be destroyed by foreign intervention in the absence of international support (which was the correct line to take). Without SOIC, the USSR would not have been able to survive the forces of reaction and onslaught of the fascist beast in WWII, and it's unreasonable to say they should have just waited for international support to build socialism, as socialist internationalism really only existed after WWII.

The distortion of Lenin to fit the agenda of the Trotskyist has killed Lenin's ideas in the modern "left" stage, simplifying the complex and uncharted territory of the early Soviet Union into an issue of the "nice" Lenin and Trotsky, and the "mean" Stalin. Lenin was fetishized by Trotsky and the revisionist Khrushchev in an attempt to legitimize their respective distortions of Marxism-Leninism. Both attacked Stalin, who actually followed Marxist-Leninist thought, and utilized Lenin to paint their revisionism and adventurism as the "correct line," in turn destroying Lenin's ideology in the process. Trotskyists have been the largest barrier to successful revolution, joining with the anarchists and "democratic socialists" in fetishizing revolution and "safe" leaders such as Lenin until the revolution is actually successful. When Stalin was elected as Premier of the USSR over Trotsky, he threw a hissy-fit when socialism wasn't achieved in the exact way he wanted to. As a result, Trotsky supported coups and other plots against the USSR while clinging onto the title of the "true" successor of Lenin. Trotskyists would rather see capitalism or social democracy in a country rather than socialism implemented in a way that doesn't exactly fit their dogmatic views of what socialism looks like. 

Socialism is a process and subject to one's material conditions, not a checklist to follow, and it certainly isn't a dinner party. Stalin acted as according to the material conditions of the Soviet Union and, while deserving of criticism in many places, followed the Marxist-Leninist line. By calling the early period of the Soviet Union the "Stalinist Era" and disregarding it is throwing away the achievements of Lenin's framework and Stalin's continuation of that line to create a society that was bounds better than what existed before their time.

"Stalinism" is the real face of Marxism-Leninism (meaning that "Stalinism" doesn't exist), but "Leninism" has been used to distort what Lenin believed to fit the dogmatism of revisionists and adventurists. So if someone is pro-Leninism, but claims to be "anti-Stalinism," can they be called a Leninist at all? 

In the Soviet Union,

Khrushchev started his destructive work by criticizing Stalin's errors in order to 're-assert Leninism in its original form' and to improve the Communist system. Gorbachev made the same demagogic promises to confuse the forces of the Left. Today, things have been made crystal clear: under the pretext of `returning to Lenin', the Tsar returns; under the pretext of `improving Communism', savage capitalism has erupted.

- Ludo Martens, 1994

Recommended Reading:

V.I. Lenin, "Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder (link)
Ludo Martens, Another View of Stalin (link)
Klo Mckinsey, Lenin Denounces Trotsky (link)
ES, Lenin on Socialism in one Country (link)