[HN Gopher] Comments on the Change in Soviet Leadership (1955) [...
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Comments on the Change in Soviet Leadership (1955) [pdf]
Author : droptablemain
Score : 58 points
Date : 2021-09-19 19:48 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cia.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cia.gov)
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Note : this is about the PRC under Mao and the USSR under Stalin.
| Arguably Mao's China was more of a dictatorship that Stalin's
| USSR.
|
| You also shouldn't take this report too literally, some
| predictions such as the food situation not improving didn't
| actually come to pass. So take it with a grain of salt.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Mao was sidelined after the great leap forward and had to
| instigate the cultural revolution to take back the driver's
| seat. I was under the impression Stalin never faced any real
| threat of losing power?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Stalin indeed never faced any real threat, but he also didn't
| rule as long as Mao nor as unilaterally. Stalin always made
| sure that most of his decisions were popular with a fairly
| large segment of the population.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Yeah, I think it turns into apples and oranges the more
| detail one goes into.
|
| Mao was definitely more reckless, Stalin more paranoid, and
| it makes sense that Stalin's position would be more secure
| barring an assassination or something.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > Mao's China was more of a dictatorship that Stalin's USSR
|
| Mao's China probably better described as a "cult of
| personality", perhaps closer to Lenin than Stalin as a starting
| place to draw distinctions.
| mistralefob wrote:
| Nice. I was always thinking that western idea about dictators is
| stupid. People are the same around the globe. Only difference is
| amount of resources available at given point on earth.
| twofornone wrote:
| >People are the same around the globe
|
| This is a well meaning but totally naive misunderstanding of
| the degree to which culture influences individual and
| collective behavior. Brought to you by some 60 years of "one
| race human race" propaganda.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| While in general dictators aren't as definitive as it seems,
| communist system this report is talking about is quite
| different, historically many dictators had much more unilateral
| power and were much less reliant on their peers for support
|
| That is evidenced by the fact that the USSR had many, many more
| peaceful transfers of power than any dictatorship I can think
| of, and military/security service coups were always very
| unsuccessful. Ultimately this all comes from decentralization
| of power.
| zepto wrote:
| > military/security service coups were always very
| unsuccessful
|
| Until ultimately a KGB agent took over and has been in power
| ever since.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| He didn't take over the USSR, he took over the Russian
| Federation, which is very different. He overthrew a
| "democracy" as the US called it as part of the FSB.
| holoduke wrote:
| I would advise to watch some content with Putin speaking.
| A hell more intelligent and constructive than most US
| presidents. Russia is very power fragile country. It
| requires a very strict setup to hold stability. Lots of
| western countries (specially the US) are trying to break
| the stability by supporting lunatics which we in the west
| call the opposition. Those lunatics have one single
| mission and that is to destabilise or sabotage the
| Russian society. I will never say it's right to simply
| murder your opponents. But currently the country is very
| stable, safe and economically made enormous steps last 20
| years. Leadership in Russia is very strong. It has still
| many issues to resolve. But please can the west stop
| enforcing their so called 'freedom' setup in non
| democratic countries.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Yes, many do not realize that Putin is quite intelligent
| or the complexities of the Russian state that could cause
| some unfortunate power struggles without Putin.
|
| However, you're completely glossing over why Western
| countries have such problems with Putin. Do you have
| evidence of the West "enforcing" their ideals with the
| Russian state? Because here are a list of practically
| doubtless examples of the Russian state actually being
| the one enforcing their ideals onto other states:
|
| Poisonings / assassination attempts outside their borders
|
| Election interference in the US and Europe
|
| Donbass
|
| Crimea
|
| Georgia
| zepto wrote:
| > I will never say it's right to simply murder your
| opponents. But..
|
| Nice turn of phrase!
| webmaven wrote:
| _> Until ultimately a KGB agent took over and has been in
| power ever since._
|
| Amazing how Andropov has stayed in power so long. The guy's
| 107 years old!
| droptablemain wrote:
| Putin is a) not a communist anymore. b) quite popular in
| Russia.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| You would be if you jail/murder/disappear all the
| opposition figures.
| droptablemain wrote:
| The Russian mother of someone I know here in LA has
| pictures of Putin all over her house. I'm fully aware
| this is anecdotal, but by every metric, Putin is a
| popular guy within Russia. He's also probably unfairly
| demonized by the West, so our view of him is skewed.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| "Unfairly demonized"
|
| Multiple poisonings / assassination attempts, even in the
| UK
|
| Election interference in the US and Europe
|
| Donbass
|
| Crimea
|
| Georgia
| droptablemain wrote:
| Well, assuming the intel on poisonings and assassination
| attempts are true. Then again, the CIA certainly isn't
| afraid of a little ol' assassination.
|
| Election interference -- nobody engages in more election
| interference around the world than the U.S. Far beyond
| the scope of anything Russia has done.
|
| Crimea -- they held a vote where like 95+ percent of
| residents voted to join Russia. So what's the problem?
| vkou wrote:
| Many Russians supporting him believe that he re-asserted
| Russia's influence in the world, and see Donbass and
| Georgia in a positive light. My grandfather is one of
| them. (Although he has soured on Putin himself, over the
| past few years. Reminds him too much of Stalin.)
|
| I'd like to take a moment to point out that the people of
| any empire often see it's imperial ambitions in a
| positive light.
|
| Dig just a bit, and you'll find Americans who thought
| Vietnam was a good idea, Frenchmen who thought Algiers
| was a good idea, Brits with Ireland and India,
| Argentinians with the Falklands, etc, etc, etc. They've
| all got a list of excuses as long as your arm for why
| they think so, and so do the Russians.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| That's fair demonization. But we in the West have no
| issue looking past assassinations, electoral
| interference, coups d'etats, and invasions far past what
| even Putin has done.
|
| That being said, I still think Putin is an evil man. I
| just don't think he's really worse than, say, Bush, and I
| can understand while I massively disagree why so many
| Russians like him.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > we in the West have no issue looking past [...]"
|
| Au contraire, Bush is widely panned across the West,
| trust in or respect to the CIA is at an all time low, and
| most educated westerners acknowledge those examples as
| having been terrible ideas.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Maybe he is in your circles, he is in mine. Bush won
| reelection after doing all of those things, though, and
| even liberal media outlets began to rehabilitate him
| recently - see the whole Bush painting atrocity. Putin
| isn't universally liked in Russia either.
| zepto wrote:
| > b) quite popular in Russia.
|
| This is true, but from what I hear this is mostly because
| he's preferable than a power struggle between his
| oligarchs which is what people expect would happen in his
| absence.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Also because Russia under his rule is far better than it
| was during the 90's. Their economic progress has been
| remarkable after a major collapse.
| vkou wrote:
| And also in comparison to the utter diaster that was the
| brief period of democracy in Russia. The 90s were utterly
| horrible to live through.
|
| Now, the reason the 90s were a disaster were not because
| Russia was a democracy, but nobody will take a foreigner
| making that argument seriously (and Putin can deal with
| locals making that argument).
| webmaven wrote:
| _> That is evidenced by the fact that the USSR had many, many
| more peaceful transfers of power than any dictatorship I can
| think of, and military /security service coups were always
| very unsuccessful. Ultimately this all comes from
| decentralization of power._
|
| Saying the USSR had decentralized power is only true in a
| relative sense. What they actually had was a stable
| tripartite structure (security, military, party) where each
| 'leg' held a metaphorical gun to the head of the other two,
| but any two working in concert could take out the third. The
| party was the weakest of the three in terms of physical force
| but controlled promotions in the other two, the military had
| most of the big guns, and the security services watched and
| listened to everything and controlled information and
| movement. With a few extra checks and balances like political
| officers in the military, the whole thing was mostly stable
| even through transfers of political power, at the cost of
| periodic purges of the losers in power struggles (stable
| doesn't mean bloodless).
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Decentralization was of course relative.
|
| It's completely incorrect to say there was a tripartite
| structure - the party was in practice and in theory above
| the two other branches. The party routinely dictated to the
| security apparatus and the military, purged them, and so
| on, while the other two had so little power they saw the
| need to attempt coups which never came close to success.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > had many, many more peaceful transfers of power
|
| Only because 3 general secretaries kicked the bucket within
| 12 months of each others -- it was a complete black swan
| event for the system. And the 4th one was the anomalous
| ascend of Gorbaczev, and the Elczin.
|
| The later two were described as in one book I read as: "the
| constituent parts of factions in power were so preoccupied
| with fighting for the throne, that they never noticed how two
| grey suit career bureaucrats seized it just by following the
| formal procedure"
|
| KGB, MVD, the army were self-convinced that Gorbaczev will
| never have enough power to act independently, and that at
| most he will be "a talking head on TV," while they do the
| real business from behind, and remove him in a few years
| time.
|
| And Elczin was assumed to be "a complete nobody," and thus
| ignored altogether.
|
| These people never believed in power of an individual
| ability, and brilliance. Their concept of power was the one
| which only comes with a lifelong pursuit of favours,
| connections, and coercive influence.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There is more to the USSR than the 80s.
|
| Beyond that, it's outright false that the KGB expected to
| take down Gorbachev. Gorbachev was more radical than
| expected, and Yeltsin had a lot of support throughout the
| party and military, including in the KGB outside the
| highest level.
|
| If the military and KGB had both really fully turned
| against Gorbachev and Yeltsin there would be simply no way
| for them to resist. It's with support from the military and
| multiple KGB officiers that Yeltsin remained free.
|
| And that's exactly how Yeltsin was able to do his own coup
| and subvert control of much of the military including
| nuclear weapons away from Gorbachev and then banned the
| CPSU.
|
| I'm sure that the hundred of millions of dollars many of
| those anti-coup military members made under Yeltsin and the
| farce of Russian democracy was completely coincidental,
| though. Banning the only party that opposed you so they
| fragment into three and then appointing people loyal to you
| to all the media I'm sure was a legitimate mistake. It
| certainly would have nothing to do with a love of favours,
| coercive influence, and power.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| Where do I even start ...
|
| Most dictators (Mao, Stalin, Castro) died of old age in
| office. If you call that a peaceful transfer of power, you're
| delusional.
|
| Khrushchev was plotted out of office, with a scripted vote
| after the fact.
|
| Brezhnev became senile and was used as a puppet for a decade,
| much like Biden today.
|
| The oligarch's military coup against Gorbachev was because
| they wanted the status quo, and resulted in Yeltsin taking
| power.
|
| The popular vote had nothing to do with most of those leaders
| gaining power.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Submitted title was "The Western idea of a dictator within the
| Communist setup is exaggerated", which is presumably something
| the document says.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| You don't have to read too much to find it! Why 'presumably'?
| dang wrote:
| Because I didn't look.
| dimitar wrote:
| Stalin ruled for almost 30 years, it was always collective,
| however in the 1930s the cult of personality was at its height
| and the rest of the Politburo and the Central Military Commission
| (the really important subset of the Politburo) were entirely
| under his control.
|
| De-Stalinization was real and felt by the party
| bawolff wrote:
| I feel like the most interesting part is that a bit at the end
| was redacted. I guess im curious what could possibly need to
| still be secret 53 years later about a country that hadn't
| existed for 17 years.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| My guess is that the redacted section contains leading
| commentary on Soviet reactions to potential western actions and
| policies.
|
| The unredacted section reads are pretty neutral analysis, but
| you can see the section building. It opens with identifying
| that things are in flux, and a statement that western policy
| can likely influence soviet actions. I'd expect that to
| naturally lead into more detailed examinations, and open-ended
| but leading suggestions as to beneficial actions.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Well, the latter point also does concern the PRC, which still
| exists, I'd guess that's why.
| someonewhocar3s wrote:
| I find it interesting that there's stuff redacted from 7 and the
| header, and that the references are also blanked. The numbers
| (without further metadata) are not really tells on their own
| (close enough I guess).
|
| It's just a straightforward statement. Don't overestimate it -
| there's a guy, he's on top, he's human, there's a team. EOM.
|
| 3 still holds relevance. "grave outside menace" isn't specified
| :"), but might refer to civil unrest being avoided (the situation
| tolerated) due to risk of ''. (edit: 2 may also still be
| relevant)
| jsrcout wrote:
| The book On Stalin's Team by Sheila Fitzpatrick [0] is an
| excellent account of how Stalin and his inner circle operated,
| particularly the decision making process and the balance of power
| within the group over time.
|
| [0]
| https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691145334/on...
| rurban wrote:
| But the best book about Stalin is from his secretary Boris
| Basanov, who deflected as soon as he saw Stalin's insanity. Not
| in English, but the Google translation is good. The CIA and the
| Nazis knew about this book. The Nazis ignored it and this lost
| the eastern front.
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| "De-Stalinization" was not just getting rid of him as Dictator,
| but also the removal of the culture/mindset he was the Primary
| figurehead/sustainer of). Which is ultimately what Dictators are?
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