Historical Narrative: Why Turkey Is Authoritarian, by Halil Karaveli

Unlike many nations within the past century, who had drastically different political structures, Turkey is one that stayed pretty true to one side save for a short exception. This is not to say that the climate didn't undergo constant changes; quite the opposite. Turkey has had quite a handful of coups, bouncing between different capitalist modes around Islam and secularism. But note the constant there; capitalist modes. Halil Karaveli describes the nation as the point where east and west meet, with these religious and anti-religious sentiments being used to disguise the interests of one ruling class. In his book Why Turkey Is Authoritarian: From Atatürk To Erdoğan, this very statement gets looked at in deep detail, discussing events all the way back to the Ottoman rule prior to what would become the Republic Of Turkey, and the Eurasian nation's continual maintenance of the capitalist system. Despite being a member of NATO since 1952, it's a nation that gets less discussion than deserved amongst leftist circles, and the details in this book paint similar issues that I see in the United States, under different umbrellas. While this book works somewhat sequentially, I find it one that deals with more broad issues on a common front very well, and for this reason, we're going to break down its contents down chapter by chapter.

A Violent History

Rather self-explanatory, what's first talked about is the recurring theme of violence that's been used to maintain power, a feat very natural to right wing domination. As recent as 2015, one hundred left-wing peace activists were blown up in the capital of Ankara, consisting of Turks and Kurds. The cause was a military threat on Kurdish citizens in the southeast region, destroying their towns in the process. Only months earlier, thirty socialists were killed in a suicide bombing known as The Ankara Massacre. In 2013, even U.S. President Obama, despite being a liberal centrist, severed his ties with Erdoğan thanks to the crushing of Gezi (a political alliance of left-leaning parties) protests.

But it goes back far deeper than this. In 1969, leftist demonstrators were slain by fascists in Beyazıt Square, İstanbul. This would show a trend of the right wing government defending killings carried out by fascists, rather than punishing them. In 1977, on International Labor Day, forty people were assassinated. Only a year following, hundreds of Alevis (an underprivileged sect of Islam) would be the victims of a mass killing, which rooted back as far as Ottoman rule.

To understand where these patterns start, we have to look back to the final couple Ottoman years in 1914. As the book says, in this time period, the empire consisted of modern-day Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Its fall would result in the British and French squandering to gathering territories. Mustafa Kemal, later renamed Atatürk (Father Turk), would play a more important role at this point, as he had a successful record in the first World War. He would go on to lead a resistance movement, and take charge aside an insurrection against Ottoman policy, having Bolshevik Russia as an ally. It may sound like an odd combination, but Lenin and Kemal had a common enemy: The British Empire and western imperialism. Kemal was far more nationalist than he was a socialist, but this was enough for the two to work side by side. The Treaty Of Moscow was singed in 1921 between Ankara and Moscow.

Knowing this, it becomes easy to understand why early Turkish parties had odd blends of leftists and liberals. The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), or the "Young Turks" would establish itself out of that exact combination, meaning it consisted of conflicting ideologies. Unfortunately, with the nationalist identity holding too much weight, it would also play a role in the Armenian Massacre from 1915-1917, causing the death of about a million Armenians. To this day, the Turkish government rejects this as an act of genocide.

Mustapha Suphi, a party member that adopted the Bolshevik way of thinking, lead the Turkish Communist Party. But it wouldn't be long before Kemal would dispose of him and his party leadership. After being denied entry into Erzurum, the largest city in that region of Turkey, they were instead shipped to Trabzon, off the coast of the Black Sea. They were being told that they'd be sent back to Russia, but were instead killed and dumped in the Black Sea in January of 1921. This saw the beginning of the pattern, being the first mass killing in what is now considered Turkey.

Kemalist "Left"

One of the easiest ways to permeate leftist circles is to disguise right-wing ideology with leftist colors, which peaked its head in the prior section. Kemal gained full control of Anatolia, the westmost region in Asia that makes up much of Turkey's land. This is where the first step towards a secularist government began, amidst the Grand National Turkish Assembly finishing off the final sultanate. Popular or official, if it was religion, he attacked it. Dissolving religious courts and laws would unify a public secular education system, which could be seen as a progressive move. But reforms were enacted through rampant brutality, which worked in the form of a cultural revolution without an actual social revolution.

The biggest key ingredient for that was missing. Class conflict hardly existed amongst citizens, due to the Ottoman Empire not permitting a powerful landowning class to take fruition. Thus, Atatürk saw no need to suppress any popular uprisings of a working class that didn't exist. Nazi Germany and fascist Italy operated differently; they targeted left movements and people groups through brainwashing amidst economic crises, while Atatürk won a following simply by fighting off foreign enemies. Strikes didn't appear until a smaller working class was able to emerge in İstanbul. The industrialization of peasants into a working class would eventually see the actual suppression of international waves of strikes, revealing how Atatürk had bourgeoise radicalism in mind to persecute the left. Now the banned Communist Party of Turkey saw some real potential, proving to be vital when all of its leaders were killed.

From 1923 to 1950, the state would remain a one-party dictatorship without any free elections. In 1925, party general Şefik Hüsnü took charge in secret, who saw little conditioning for mass popular uprising. Unlike in China, the peasantry mostly owned their land, and the underdeveloped industry kept the working class weak. Though Kemalist Turkey still had its common enemy with Bolshevik Russia during the Sixth Congress of Communist International, the Turkish "left" still sided with Atatürk, despite earlier repressions. But it wouldn't take long for others to wise up.

By the 1930s, Hüsnü started to disprove of the state, calling it a "violent oppressive terror regime." Atatürk showed no love for Hitler or Mussolini, but their admiration of him speaks volumes. They valued his national purity-adjacent ideas, and praised his way of nationalizing society beside mass killings and deportations. The Anatolian War resulted in the cleansing of Greek-Orthodox peoples and prevented surviving Armenians to return following that massacre. But the Kemalist "left" still justified these acts in the guise of anti-imperialism, showing the faulty foundations. Prior to his death in 1938, Atatürk mended relations with the west, hosting Frederick D. Roosevelt and King Edward VIII in İstanbul. Some leftist supporters did not favor this, but Turkey ended up joining NATO as a result in 1952.

Distrust and isolation by the masses and an attempt to go against NATO was what saw the demise of the traditional leftists within the CUP. Kemalist "leftists" saw the state as the solution working beside "enlightenment" away from religious superstition, borrowing some ideas from a planned economy. But it was still in the interest of a ruling class, which eventually bred a liberal left in the 1960s. The Kemalists remained loyal to nationalist authoritarian measures as a tool for right wing control, while the liberals arose as a capitalist counterforce to the nationalist state's authoritarianism. Thus, tensions between two different right wing classes wore "leftist" colors to appeal to the masses in their own interests. Furthermore, a labor party leader named Mehmet Ali Aybar took issue with Kemalism and Marxism, claiming that the latter did not apply to Turkey. His view of class struggles was that it rose from the military-civilian bureaucracy. The Turkish right was able to hide behind the façade of conflict between the silent Muslim majority and the westernizing state elite. Class interests of the right were distorted and hidden, causing the liberal "left" to overlook authoritarian records of the right's past, to the point that they even made excuses for it.

Roots To Grow Capitalism

To understand capitalism's rise, we must first look back at the aforementioned Ottoman structure that prevented a rising landlord class. This is what Marx and Engels referred to as Asiatic modes of production, alongside China and Persia. As capitalism grew in the west, small pockets of Christian bourgeoise existed within the Empire's regions, which put Muslims at a disadvantage, seeing that so few of them were employed. So instead of a rising working class, Muslim identity emphasis took root over working class unity (which also gave way to Balkan and Slavic nationalism).

Enter Sultan Abdülhamid II in 1876, who declared a constitutional monarchy to see Christians, Jews, and Muslims as equals. The purpose to create a unity front was meant to crush the threatening revolt in the Balkans. If they could give the impression to Great Britain that their empire was a liberal monarchy, there was a far heavier chance of gaining support. Not even a decade later, the chances of a Turkish revolution arose with Mithat Pasha, a democratic reformer that got kicked out of parliament and was later executed. His larger following meant the need for repressive measures by 1895, and the first Armenian massacre was carried out in Anatolia and Constantinople.

Sultan Abdülhamid II

While a Christian bourgeoisie class was arising, Abdülhamid II sought to create an educated middle class of Islamic people to compete against the growing capitalist class. 1909 would prove this to be far too late in the making, as the Young Turks had taken formation and overthrown him. By 1913, their front called for a boycott on Greek and Armenian stores to grow their own wealth, which was heavily aided by the first World War. Indeed, the Ottoman Empire may have fallen after the Great War, but this class succeeded in emerging as the ruling class, paving the way for what would be come Turkey.

All that remained was a seizure of feudal assets to grow the capitalist class's wealth. One example was the cotton gins and fields found in Cilicia bordering Syria, which were remnants of the booming economy during the American Civil War. Atatürk himself moved into a stolen Armenian mansion in Angora (now Ankara). The Armenian genocide was seen as a justified act due to the previous Balkan War that caused millions of Muslim deaths. Another named Hacı Ömer started as a peasant, but with access to looted property quickly worked into the capitalist class. By the standards of the 1920s and 1930s in Turkey, liberal radicalism was progressive in the way it answered to the current needs. But as always, it shortly turned to bourgeoisie conservatism. Religious influence and business liberalism worked side by side by the 1940s. So to put it shortly, legal reforms from Kemalism followed capitalist foundation that got its roots from genocide.

Right Wing Tactics and Social Democracy

Of course, you couldn't maintain power like this without convincing enough people that it was the right move. How else could Hitler have played the cards he played? There's a reason he admired Atatürk, as stated earlier. For starters, no free elections took place until May of 1950, when the Republican People's Party of Atatürk were beaten by the Democratic Party founded four years earlier. This was nothing short of applying traditional values to the already existing capitalist machine. The right saw this as a victory, while the Kemalist "left" saw it as religious reaction. Liberal "leftists" saw it as revolution, Turkish "left" saw it as counterrevolution.

This was a time period of unrest between all of the capitalist ruling parties, and each saw the other as unfit for maintaining bourgeoisie power while appealing to one group or another for support. The state simply turned towards religion in the 1950s to combat socialist scares, so no regime change happened, just a different flavor of the same thing. The head of the Democratic Party was Celal Bayar, a rich landowner and banker. Wartime saw businesses thrive while peasantry suffered under heavy taxation and poverty. Urban folks wouldn't turn against this for about a decade, when the Menderes coup was carried out in 1960. This was only possible because of the right's destabilization through political turmoil and constant contradiction. But Menderes shot himself in the foot by alienating capitalists and allowing a clash between them and agrarian economics.

Only a year later, Alparslan Türkeş carried out another coup that returned things to the secularist Atatürk way of thinking. A constitution was now written to give the military rights to intervene in all politics. The entire decade was a boiling pot for class consciousness in the industrial economy. The Conservative Justice Party came to fruition in 1965, expanding religious education and furthering divide between right wing leadership that gathered heavier followings as this all went on.

As western nations saw a slight surge in social democratic leaders, such as John F. Kennedy, Turkey would also take a swing this direction, the only time they were ever even remotely left. Bülent Ecevit was the prime minister in question's name, securing a victory in striking and collective bargain rights in 1963. Any gains won by him would be removed by the right wing military junta in 1980. This collapse paved the road that allowed for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to inherit power and benefits.

Bülent Ecevit

Ecevit took a lot of issue with pretentious elites that wore a "progressive" skin, many who felt the need to "enlighten" peasants to their lifestyles. It should be evident by now that this was a rampant trend in Turkey for the prior fifty years. Instead of meddling within the ruling class, Ecevit won support through door-to-door work, and talking to workers directly to gain followers. The left wing of the Republican People's Party managed to secure power entirely by 1972, allowing for his victories.

Radicals didn't trust Ecevit entirely until he voiced a call for an antifascist rally in Taksim Square in 1976. Standing up to right wing violence was a way to unite actual leftist groups, and while he wasn't a Marxist, he went a long way to challenge capitalist power. The private sector was no longer allowed to dominate the economy, and mines were nationalized while foreign capital became regulated.

Right Revenge and Islamist Rise

It's unfortunate that leftist victories only played a small role in Turkey's history. With so many right wing groups within the borders, it was only a matter of time before ruling class opposition stepped in. Islamic Nationalists and the Nationalist Front formed, and began attacking his supporters and their homes, even taking to measures of hurling rocks at him on the campaign bus. The fascist group known as the Grey Wolves emerged, and worked its way into the state machinery by establishing close contacts within the military. Alparslan Türkeş was the leader of this group, who was responsible for the death of thousands of leftists between 1975 and 1980.

It also doesn't help that the nation's geopolitical position would cause any left movements to snag the attention of the United States. Carter's general secretary Warren Christopher met with Ecevit in 1979, which alerted Washington that he had to go. They arranged for the Turkish military to overthrow him in order to restore their interests and cancel democracy. This was kicked into action in 1980 when Kenan Evren assumed power via coup, granted by Washington. Through this neoliberal revolution, the public sector was slashed, and a reformation package was issued by the IMF and the World Bank. It also saw the return of religious influence pairing with a liberal government, a seemingly endless trend.

Ranks of Islamists in government through this period was how Recep Tayyip Erdoğan managed to work his way up. He took over as prime minister within the movement under Necmettin Erbaken following yet another coup. Universities bred grounds for right wing student associations, ensuring these ideals stuck with younger generations. The bourgeoisie class began to unite under globalization and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Religious government practices to combat socialism appealed heavily to the west in the past, but the anti-communist threat that held Turkey's ties close went away. Relations were breaking, and were only made worse when Turkey didn't allow the United States to invade Iraq through them in 2003. The U.S. wouldn't forgive this, just as they wouldn't forgive Ecevit not allowing them to spy on the Soviets. The prior coups in the past always answered to the bourgeoisie, but when these conditions called for another one against Erdoğan, there was no U.S. endorsement. This was the second condition that always helped maintain right wing power, and since Erdoğan's interest didn't challenge the U.S. bourgeoisie's, a 2016 attempted coup against him failed.

My Conclusions

Karaveli closes things off with an overall point that refers back to an earlier trend in Turkish history. He notes that cultural identity (Turks vs. Kurds, or Islam vs. secular) always took priority over class identity, which prevented leftists from challenging the authoritarian right wing. This alone is what I find most important, and backs that Why Turkey Is Authoritarian is a very important read for leftists in the west. American leftism has faced a similar issue all throughout history, almost like a playbook. The capitalist class does what it can to divide the working class by presenting different interests to buy into, turning the workers against each other. This is done with racism, sexism, and similarly, religious appealing. Turkey has a very different history from the United States, which caused differences in their class struggles, but the tactics are the same. Much like the Democratic and Republican parties of the United States, Islamic, Liberal, and Secularist parties operated to divide the population into serving their needs. The Kemalist "left" only got that tag because of its origins in fighting off western imperialism, and keeping the Kemalists under a right wing umbrella through their rise proved to be very easy.

One key difference is the fact that the U.S. and stronger western powers played a role in keeping the right in power in Turkey. As soon as the slightest hint of a leftist threat emerged, Washington did everything it could to rid the land of that influence. Weaponizing violent right wingers and military connections made this entirely too easy. Turkey's geopolitical position also played a heavy role in the U.S. influence. Being the NATO country right on the Soviet border, it became imperative that the United States kept their ruling class interests in line with the west.

As the book outlines, the Ottoman history also made Turkey differ from western powers in its prevention of large capitalist owning classes and landlords for so long. Karaveli mentions the fascination Marx and Engels had of these regions, and the Asiatic modes of production. It's an important note that gets overlooked, showing the problems that can arise within leftist circles in nations encompassed by an empire. The history of violence existed within the Ottoman borders, and they carried over to the first capitalist uprising, which set the stage for everything.

Opportunism played a large role in Turkish authoritarianism as well. Lenin outlines the dangers of this in some of his works, and it shows how this can be fatal through Turkey's history. As I stated already, Kemalists aligned themselves as leftists by fighting imperial powers. As soon as they gained the upper hand, they disposed of all communist leaders and severed the already weak left before they even had a chance to rise. This pattern of violence remained the main weapon to stopping leftist movements, and still continues today.

While Turkey may have little to do with Socialism on paper, it's a really good country to study the history from and dissect exactly why they've remained right wing, and how the authoritarian measures were used to yield to the capitalist class. Even when it had a chance at the left, it was met with aggression from the nationalist groups inside the country, and imperialist ones outside.

Historical Narrative: Patriots, Traitors, And Empires - The Story Of Korea’s Struggle For Freedom, by Stephen Gowans

Korea has been the subject of controversy for many years, despite how little much of the population could accurately speak about in good faith. Very little is actually known about the East Asian peninsula; certainly not enough to measure up to how much coverage it receives. Koreans have struggled for their freedom for well over a century, and author Stephan Gowans has put together an incredible work that highlights everything around this subject; from Japanese rule, to the Korean War, through the cold war and into today. Titled Patriots, Traitors, and Empires, he states that there is only one Korea, but two Korean states. Each one claims the other as illegitimate, which is a popular topic of discussion in our society, often backed by very little research. This book clears everything up, being loaded with research to point to the whys, in attempt to break any misconceptions one might have. My goal with this piece is to bring to light the important points outlined by Gowans for easier consumption, mostly focusing on the cause of the struggle and why it still remains.

Japanese Empire

The start of the struggle takes its roots near the end of the colonial days, when Russia, the United States, and Japan all had their eyes on Korea. Along with being a strong geopolitical location, Korea has always been very rich in natural resources and arable land. Japan's own land in particular was getting difficult to provide for enterprise needs, likely due to its small island size, especially in comparison with the Russian Empire and the United States. In 1894, Japan went to war with China due to Korea being a tributary of theirs. This was known as the Sino-Japanese war, and Japan seized control of the peninsula barely a year following.

But it wouldn't be long before Russia's ambitions would come into fruition. By 1904, the Russo-Japanese War commenced, also ending with a quick victory for Japan. Much of this war took place in northeastern China, playing into Japan's conquering of Manchuria. In 1905, U.S. president William Howard Taft would recognize Japanese control of Korea for the sake of East Asian stability, strengthening U.S. control over the Philippines.

Japanese control over Korea following these events saw the beginning of Korean struggles for independence and brutal repressions by foreign powers. Uprising caused tens of thousands to be killed or imprisoned, which was followed by the outlaw of Korean culture. Their political organizations were disbanded, education now focused on Japanese history and interest, Korean newspapers and public gatherings were prohibited, Japanese names and language were forced on everyone, and the worship of Shinto shrines would replace Korean religious practices.

While the building up of mines, railroads, industry and economy is typically a good thing, this was not done for the interest of Korean people, but Japanese benefit. Since Koreans were seen as a "sub-human race," they were super-exploited as a workforce, especially following alienation from their language and culture. By 1938, nearly 70% of Korean rice was exported to Japan for their own gain. Additionally, as many as 200,000 Korean women were sent to "comfort stations" for sexual slavery to the Japanese military. All of this horrendous treatment of the Korean people by Japan lasted through the end of World War II.

Kim Il-sung

All of this repression is what would lead to the patriot movements, most notably Kim Il-Sung. Because Woodrow Wilson's "Doctrine Of Self Determination" did nothing for Koreans, this guerilla fighter looked to Lenin's model in the USSR. Born Kim Sung-ju, he would later change his name like Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and other leftist figures had done. Kim was born in 1912, the son of a guerilla fighter who also rejected Japanese colonization. His father was jailed for a short time, and upon release moved north to Manchuria. For a while, Manchuria acted as a safe-haven prior to becoming another Japanese puppet in 1931. Kim Il-sung joined the Chinese Communist Party, after spending years studying the works of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, which explains why Koreans made up such a large portion of fighters in Manchuria. 

From this point forward, Kim devoted his life to fighting for Korea's freedom. Western propaganda would have you believe that he became a puppet of Joseph Stalin, despite it being clear that Koreans themselves saw him as the fit leader for their people. By 1936, at the young age of 24, Kim Il-sung became a communist party leader, the commander of the Third Division. His role was so significant that the Japanese military sought to hunt him down personally. A year later, he had gained so much popularity that even the U.S. turned their attention towards him. By now, he was commander of the Sixth Division of the Anti-Japanese Army. 

Lifted from the book, Kim Il-sung
greeting Women's International Democratic
Federation in 1951

United States Occupation

Japan's largest hit came upon entering World War II, as they would lose many of their assets. The eventual surrender is what lead to the Korean split. In 1945, John J. McCloy, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of War, ordered colonels to divide the peninsula for the Soviets in the north and the United States in the south in order to accept Japanese surrender. The 38th Parallel was strategically chosen to place the capital of Seoul in the south, where the United States would occupy, since Washington deemed Koreans incapable of governing themselves. Once again, the dehumanization of Koreans was taking place. 

No Korean wanted their land split between superpowers, considering the possibility of future war between socialist and capitalist forces. So it was understood that after five years, both superpowers would end occupation and let Koreans govern themselves. Three years later, in 1948, the Soviets left. They recognized the indigenous government structure, leading to the north becoming what it is known as today, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or the DPRK, with their capital being Pyongyang. The United States didn't grant the south the same liberties. Instead, they denounced the north, refused to recognize people's committees that formed in the south, and imposed a military occupation.

Throughout Japanese occupation, Japan enlisted Korean traitors to fill their ranks and rule over their own people, acting as puppets to the Japanese state to carry out their interests. When the U.S. entered the picture, it became as simple as swapping them out for Washington's interests. When the south went under U.S. military control, they were integrated into roles for the same reason.

Democratic People's Republic Of Korea

Considering how far Korea's efforts had come with expelling Japan's parasitic occupation, the United States would reverse as much as they could. As U.S. forces marched onto their land after not spilling an ounce of blood against Japanese occupation, the DPRK looked to the Soviets once more for inspiration, especially since they did play a role in assisting with liberation. 

Korean people groups quickly took formation to enact democratic reform. This included redistributing land to workers from landlords, nationalizing large industries that previously belonged to Japan, and reducing the working day to eight hours. Kim Il-sung took the leadership role in provisional government as early as 1946, following his return from Manchuria to a now liberated Korea. The Korean peoples' admiration for his liberation struggle was what got him this role, reaffirming that it was not orchestrated by the USSR.

Autonomous leadership came out of the aforementioned people groups, which is easy to understand when you consider the four decades of hardship and humiliation by Japan. Kim was highly designated for his role in this, but it should also be noted that Soviet efforts between 1945 and 1948 didn't go unnoticed, either. By the time the North Korean state took formation, landlords would flee to south, where parasitic lifestyles were far more acceptable.

Republic Of Korea

Things were a bit different in the south, which would become the Republic of Korea, or the ROK. John R. Hodge was the commanding general of U.S. forces in Korea, and he proposed a four-point plan to stop the independence movement in the south for America's own gains. This consisted of building an army of former Japanese officers, rebuilding their former national police, strengthening right-wing collaborations/anti-egalitarian alliances, and jailing opponents of the new U.S. imposed regime. Uprisings, strikes, and rebellions would form. By 1949, as many as 30,000 leftists were rounded up and jailed. Prisons would get so full that the puppet government resorted to establishing concentration camps. Simply forming a union strike could land you in one.

American occupation forces and their Korean military puppets would have anywhere between 100,000 and 200,000 Koreans killed by 1950. After spending several decades in the United States, while Kim Il-sung was fighting Japan in Manchuria, Syngman-Rhee would take power in the south. He was seen as the perfect puppet-leader in the south due to still having some anti-Japanese sentiments, working in the new puppet state's favor. Declassified CIA documents reveal that there were strong communist movements in the south, which needed to be dealt with. The National Guidance League was set up to coerce patriots into disowning their commitment to revolution. When the Korean War broke out, many were never heard of again, up to 300,000.

Syngman Rhee

National Security Law is something that still exists today, a product of this campaign enacted in 1948. It's used against patriots committed to the liberation of their country, or showing sympathy to the DPRK. It paints the north as a state illegally occupying the peninsula, despite the DPRK's government being made up of Koreans, not remnants of Japan or the United States. Sending money to anyone in the north, forming movements against the ROK, or even publicly speaking statements that are made in Gowans's book can land you in jail.

The Korean War

Both states saw the entire peninsula as its own jurisdiction, projecting any movement over the 38th parallel as an act of aggression by the other state. The ROK's very foundation was seen as an act of war by the north, considering that Koreans didn't want to be part of another empire, but instead wanted self determination. These complications also make it difficult to note which side crossed the line first, but it makes little difference considering that hostilities existed several months before with both states claiming full sovereignty.

The Korean War started on June 25th of 1950. Within literal weeks, Seoul was liberated and the ROK collapsed rapidly. Syngman Rhee and some of his forces fled, while others defected to the north. By August of that year, 9/10 of the peninsula was freed, with the ROK only maintaining control in Pusan in the southeast tip. Kim Il-sung would call for the restoration of people's committees, organization of land reforms, and redistributing property that was handed to landlords from prior Japanese occupation. Most of this was simply taking what already occurred in the north and applying it to the south

About a month later, Douglas MacArthur, the General of the Army for the United States, landed in the Inchon portion of Seoul to recapture it. On president Harry Truman's authorization, he marched north towards the Yalu River, which acts as the border with China. This caused China to enter the war, and Mao Tse Tung deployed an army force of 300,000 to help prevent the occupation of U.S. forces. Many see this as a mini-war within the Korean War, known as the Sino-American War. U.S. forces had been pushed back to the 38th Parallel by December.

This action caused Truman to declare a national emergency. MacArthur would call for the use of a nuclear strike, much like was done in Japan five years earlier. Truman declined this request, but the damage done over the next two years was more than equivalent to that of a nuclear attack. MacArthur was told to "create a wasteland, and burn to the ground every city, factory, and village between the 38th parallel and China." Roughly 635,000 tons of bombs were dropped, including 32,557 tons of napalm. Nearly 10% of the Korean population died or were injured from this action.

By the end of the war in 1953, only single modern buildings remained standing amidst the rubble in the northern cities. 8,700 factories, 5,000 schools, 1,000 hospitals, and 600,000 homes were destroyed. Subterranean methods of survival became necessary in this time period, which is why it's said that by autumn of 1952, the DPRK had been sent "back to the dark ages." If this wasn't enough, irrigation dams along the Yalu River became targets by the U.S. Five reservoirs were destroyed, and acres of farmland and towns were flooded. Today, this is still considered an imperialist war. Open hostility still exists, since the war "ended" in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Anti-Communism And The Police State

Following complete devastation of their state, the DPRK's focus would have to shift from full sovereignty over Korea to a defensive narrative against Washington's threat. The ROK became a full military dictatorship, once again suppressing Koreans' goal of sovereignty over themselves. They were in the hands of Japan from 1896 until 1945, and the grip of the United States ever since. Kim Il-sung's picture became banned from publication, and his story was told to be placed by the hands of the USSR.

Brainwashing didn't end there. Syngman Rhee and the National Security Law caused this to go on for decades. A poet named Kim Chi-ha was arrested simply for writing about class division in the 1970s. In 1976, Koreans who signed the declaration commemorating up-rise against the Japanese were imprisoned. The law even permitted university students reading about DPRK ideology to be arrested. Demonstrators against unemployment and economic crises were arrested by military leader Kim Dae-jung, one that would defect amongst a death sentence, and later return to become president. Kim Suk Hyun served 32 years in prison for refusing to denounce the DPRK, being released at the age of 79.

On the other hand, in 1960, Kim Il-sung proposed a re-unification of Korea under two governments of one single state. This was meant to maintain both systems, but rid the peninsula of foreign troops occupying their land. It greatly displeased the United States, considering that the ROK was (and is) their largest power projection in the east. Upon rejection, a crowd of 100,000 angry citizens and students gathered outside of Syngman Rhee's presidential palace. Police opened fire into these crowds.

Rhee would eventually flee, leading to military leader occupation of the government for the next 32 years. Park Chung-hee took over next, commencing the writing of a new constitution, banning any criticism of government and allowing himself full control over the government. This lead to the prevention of work stoppages, and eventually to the economic crises in 1979. The KCIA (Korean CIA) disposed of him.

General Chun Doo Hwan took over in the form of a coup at the command of the U.S. general John J. Wickham Jr. In the spring of 1980, students protested this, and the government sent out paratroopers to murder indiscriminately. This resulted in 1,500 deaths, including that of women and children. A year later, he was inaugurated as president, when he mentioned Nazi Germany's effective use of concentration camps to terrorize the left. A system like this was then set up in the mountains of South Korea, and he remained in power until 1993.

U.S. Power Projection And DPRK's Alternative

Due to the collapse of the USSR (read more about this here), political space opened up for Korea. Command was handed to Koreans in the south in 1993, keeping all prior laws in tact. The U.S. was also still allowed to intervene, should a time of war erupt again. This is where rumors of the DPRK being a threat, rather than being threatened, came about. This is a fallacy, considering that the ROK military already severely outdid that of the DPRK. In fact, the DPRK's entire military budget is equivalent to that of the New York City Police Department. The ROK has the ability to blast the DPRK "to oblivion" (again). This should be enough proof to show that the U.S. presence in Korea isn't out of defense, but to project power. They've even used South Korean military arms to fight wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq for their own interests.

The DPRK's constitution is that of a socialist state, said to represent all Koreans, guided by an ideology called Juche. Juche is about self-autonomy and independence, stressing the importance of patriots' national history and not relying on world powers, since that let them down with Woodrow Wilson's doctrine. The ROK's constitution is one of "democracy" and "freedom," two terms that it fails to define. If you look at the ROK's history, it becomes obvious that this is exclusive to right wing collaborators only. It should be noted that the DPRK uses the term "re-unification," while the ROK uses "unification."

Unity with people all around the world who wish to defend their independence is also considered important in the DPRK. They run two different types of economy; one through the state, and co-op enterprises. The eight hour workday is even shorter for what's considered "arduous tasks." They are allowed to work based on their skills, and are paid according to how much they contribute. On the contrary, workers in the ROK often work 60+ hour weeks, and many don't take paid vacations.

Weakening of the DPRK is carried out through Washington via aggressive military pressure and isolation. The former takes this position by threatening them with military presence at the borders, causing a need to flow cash from civilians to military efforts for security. The latter is the effect of a network of sanctions to prevent vital economic input. Hunger and malnutrition in North Korea has caused more deaths than the atom bomb in Japan, which can be directly linked to this isolation and military threat. 

There's a long history of economic growth under socialism until the point of outside invasion or sabotage; see the USSR, China, or Cuba. A report in 2010 by Amnesty International blamed the sanctions' effects on the current state of the DPRK, saying that it could not protect nor fulfill the health needs of its citizens. Military border hostility includes warships patrolling DPRK maritime borders, flying close to its airspace, and keeping nuclear weapons on the peninsula (prior to the north acquiring their own nuclear capability). In summary, you could say that the U.S. boosted the ROK economy as much as it could, giving them aid, and trying its best to cripple the north as much as it could. 

My Conclusions

Personally, I found Stephen Gowans's Patriots, Traitors, And Empires to not only be one of the most eye-opening books I've ever read, but one that also made me sick to my stomach at some points. Everyone knows how bad the horrors of war can get, but certain aspects seem exponential in comparison even to that; the Korean War is no exception.

It often begs the questions; "Why is North Korea so weird?" "Why are they so isolated?" "What actually goes on there?" etc. Seldom does the explanation include U.S. meddling and colonial roots to explain the problems that a nation faces in capitalist media. The DPRK is perceived in horrible light to many Americans, including some self-proclaimed "leftists" who tend to be liberals that won't do a lick of research on something that might seem too bizarre to be true. Odds are, it is. The power projection mentioned several times in this book shows the sourcing of our information on North Korea commonly coming from the south, where a claim is picked up, fabricated, and viewed as truth despite it either being entirely false or mostly false by leaving out crucial context. It's far easier to get clicks and clouts by bringing up some nonsense claim about a nation that's projected as a crazy one-man dictatorship, rather than proper logic and research that would explain the undeniable issues of an isolated third-world nation. You have to wonder how journalists can be okay with being this dishonest.

DPRK capital, Pyongyang

All things considered, the DPRK is a state that rose from the ashes of brutal Japanese suppression. It then suffered through a complete obliteration of their land at the hands of the United States within living memory. It then rebuilt and recovered amongst merciless sanctions, and still continues to live under U.S. threat at the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) and surrounding areas today. I'd wager that the only reason the U.S. hasn't launched another direct attack is because of them attaining nuclear weapons for the sake of defense. Infrastructure has since grown tremendously, cities have popped up, and when you look at the nation's history, it becomes easy to see why they have the problems they face.

There are plenty of valid criticisms around North Korea, Kim Jong-un, and the state. None of them line up with the popular picture that is painted of the DPRK, and while this is usually where I would discuss them, we're going to save that for another time, considering that it gets enough invalid criticism as is. The focus here is Korea's struggle for freedom, not what I think should change in the DPRK. Issues that are valid, along the lines of hunger, poverty, and state laws are brought up time and time again, yet almost none of them will link to the horrendous history they've faced, nor the sanctions imposed to prevent vital needs. The amount of money that the U.S. dumps into South Korea's economy and how much they control it is also left out every time. Ridiculous, and often times racist rumors are peddled to the point that I'm baffled that grown adults believe it. The plague of looking to anecdotal evidence and nothing else runs rampant in America, and North Korea is no exception. Stories of trying to escape the impoverished nation due to its imperialist struggle will be told, yet nobody will mention why things are the way they are. Furthermore, no mention of the cash incentive for defectors to demonize the DPRK to media gets brought up. You could escape a poor situation in any country and weaponize it against that nation itself. Never will the mention of South Korean military dictatorships and mass suppression of socialists hit the surface. At the end of the day, the goal is to paint the DPRK as this horrid, underdeveloped, haunting state that acts as a world threat, while painting the ROK as a developed nation of their own accord, as if it wasn't propped up by the world's largest superpower, and all but completely controlled by it. Such narratives about many countries have taken hold all throughout U.S. history, particularly in countries they either invaded, meddled in, or funded death squads for. This book does an incredible job of showing that role in Korea's case, and I can't recommend reading the book yourself enough.

Koreans have struggled for freedom for well over a century now, and only half of the peninsula has self-autonomy, made very difficult by capitalist powers. The other half is stuff under occupation, keeping the entire peninsula at war. North Korea is far from perfect. It's a third world country that faces all of the issues that any third world country would face. There is so much to understand about it, and to get a good idea of how the nation operates theses days, check out this Youtube channel. To any educated individual, it would make sense that the DPRK faces so many issues, but it's equally important to understand its history, its culture, and view things in a nuanced sense that aren't so black and white.

Historical Narrative: Socialism Betrayed - Behind The Collapse Of The Soviet Union, by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny

Seen by many as one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th Century, and by others as a massive victory worthy of praise, the collapse of the USSR marks one of the most significant, life-changing, and controversial events in world history. Its aftershock effects not only radiated through the fifteen republics and the Eastern Bloc, but also would see change on the entire globe. This is understood by most people who have at least a small understanding of world history. What's less understood, however, is what lead to its cause. Many will simply point to one thing: "communism inevitably fails" or "it was a dictatorship." Some even say it was doomed from the start, where others will point to some factors without mentioning others. Endless arguments can be made about what's true, and what isn't. We can never be 100% sure regardless of your narrative. With that said, I have a plethora of opinions myself based on things that are true, and a lot of extensive research has been done by many on the topic. Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny put out a book more than a decade following that fateful year, titled Socialism Betrayed - Behind The Collapse Of The Soviet Union. I'm taking it upon myself to do a deep dive of this work, break it down as best I can, and present some of my own understandings of it.

To get a decent comprehension, it's first important to know what the USSR accomplished during its existence, and note the largest changes upon its fall, which is what the book opens on. The Soviet Union was the first nation to eliminate unemployment, homelessness, inflation, and poverty. No other country has rapidly grown its quality of life and consumption to such a degree in such a short time-frame. In only decades, it brought the feudal status of the Russian Empire to the level of a world power that rivaled the U.S., which had been growing for over 150 years by then. Healthcare and education were seen as essential, and trade-unions could veto firing as well as recall managers. Food and housing prices were subsidized. All of this certainly had its struggles, considering outside invasion, fighting world wars, brutal sanctioning, weather conditions, and having to work with what they had. Thus, it would be unfair to call this any kind of paradise, but the building of a worker's state allowed so much growth for its people. By the time the the early '90s rolled around, all of this would be reversed. The toppling of these systems would see some of the worst reverse outcomes on citizens. The counterweight to imperialism and colonialism was now gone, having an effect on the entire world. American military power would now dominate the world, shifting the narrative from anti-communism to globalism. The U.S. saw this as the "end of history" (a phrase that pretty openly points to the problem of American exceptionalism, and those who think the world revolves around America), and it was said that capitalism had won.

Simplified Soviet History

Nearly a century of a nation's time coming to an end couldn't be seen as a failure simply by ceasing to exist, and inherently having defect from the start certainly offers nothing, looking at the history. Sure, there may have been complications in all periods, but you could say this about anything from the Mongol Empire to the British Empire. Were those inherent failures? Do either exist in 2022? Certainly not. Economic crises and popular uprising didn't cause Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, but it was quite the reverse, if you look at the events chronologically. His reforms mishandled all underlying issues that any nation could face, and worked as the straw the broke the camel's back. So it's important to look into the general history and trends that may have lead to such a position. The next section breaks down the Soviet Union by eras based off of their leaders.

Reforms aren't evil in and of themselves, rather it's how they're handled. Lenin himself saw this as early as 1921 with the New Economic Plan, or NEP. At the Tenth Congress of the Bolshevik Party, he proposed this plan to allow peasants to freely exchange surplus grain, as well as allowing small markets to exist, all for the purpose of regrouping down the road following the civil war and other constraints. This would be a necessary time period without the aid of revolutions in the west. Following Lenin's death in 1924, it came down to three different options for how to proceed. One option would be that of Leon Trotsky's thinking, with the idea that Russia could not sustain nor build socialism on its own, pushing for revolutions elsewhere prior to continuing forward. This eventually lead to the Left Opposition, a traitorous group whose strategies would work underground with fascist powers, despite being turned down by 1925. Mass industrialization could commence after this period, a very necessary effort. The thinking of Nikolai Bukharin was another option, which was to build a state around the petty bourgeoisie. He believed that the capitalist phase could not move so quickly. This line of thinking was gone by 1927, leaving only the ideas of Joseph Stalin.

Right about here is where we would see the start of agricultural collectivization, the next phase proposed by Lenin's plan. Stalin had four facets to how he would carry out the growth of socialism. For starters, his rejection of Trotsky would show his belief in socialism in one country. With this, he would move past Bukharin's problematic solution and focus on heavy industry, financed with agricultural exports. Thanks to the inability to work with foreign aid from western sanctions, this was needed for mass industrialization. Mechanized production was the third piece, needed from large-scale industrial farms, changing the ways of the backwater, underdeveloped Czarist Russia. Finally, the central planning would frame all of this together. Industrialization was emphasized due to the impending war, ignored by Bukharin, but seen as a vital step for Stalin. It was his three decades of leadership that brought on the ability to raise the wealth and know-how ability of industry, as well as raising the education levels in all republics.

Nikita Khrushchev with
Joseph Stalin

Struggle would not cease in this time period, especially when you consider some of the disasters in the 1930s. We won't go into detail of these, since those basically require their own breakdown. But political difference over the socialist future certainly continued under Stalin. Even at the highest levels, there was political discourse, such as with Zhdanov and Malenkov, and it followed after Stalin's death under Khrushchev. In fact, it's his leadership that would begin unrolling conditions that would allow for a future dissolution. While some advancements were made, it was his "secret speech" that took the unbalanced approach at condemning Stalin. Vyacheslav Molotov, Georgi Malenkov, Lazar Kaganovich, and K.E. Voroshilov would see this as giving no credit to his contributions to building the nation, nor would it give validity to certain repressions (read more on that here). That was only the beginning. He would also begin decentralization, and incorporate too much marketization and capitalist production. Inevitably, that lead to a focus on light industry, placing a race for consumer goods against the U.S. which would not be possible to win. Bad situations were made worse when he would cut spending on military and other necessities. Lenin's praise of Stalin before his death was highly ignored, focusing only on his remark about him being rude. Incomplete or exaggerated anti-Stalin campaigns would spearhead division, producing results below the desired outcome at times. Soviet archival evidence would estimate executions between 1921 and 1953 to number around 799,455. This is far below the different sets of "millions" that anti-Soviet scholars would come up with. A whole period of revisionism would foreshadow Gorbachev to a scary degree.

Khrushchev's handling of aid in socialist nations of the world was decent. Putting missiles in Cuba in 1962 and intervening the counterrevolution of Hungary in 1956 would see to this, but he was too trusting in the U.S. to also cut down on military size alongside him as he began that, shown later in Vietnam. Eventually, collective leadership would force him to retire, where Leonid Brezhnev took over to fill the shoes until 1982. Stagnation was symbolized in him, through poor health, personal vanity and political weakness. While little was overtly revisionist, enacting change was seldom, and the loss of the peoples' fervor would show with the aging leaders, considering we're moving to a third generation removed from Lenin's movement. That said, we do have to credit him for aiding socialist movements in nations like Angola, Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan, as well as for fighting Apartheid in South Africa.

Opportunity to tackle the aforementioned issues arose with Yuri Andropov. With a strong Marxist-Leninist base, firm leadership experience, and a good grasp on the stagnating issues, he would see to reforms in a way that could have prevented the collapse. Unfortunately, he didn't have time on his side. Communists took a lot of hope in him, as he stressed the importance of cultural consciousness, rational diet and consumption, quality of public services, and the use of free-time over basing quality of life on consumerism the way it was in the west. He also had a tough background in dealing with the counterrevolution in Hungary of 1956. This occurred from following 25 years under Nazi occupation in a mostly peasant-based community. The growing pains were co-opted by fascists, which lead to the beating and killing of communists and their leaders. Andropov's hand in dealing with this revealed his will. Timing wasn't great, considering the second cold war that had opened under Carter (and worsened by Reagan). The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars, made relations with the U.S. more challenging, leading him to conclude that imperialism could not be stopped by idly standing beside the problem. His tough minded approach led to reforms that were left on the board following his death, remaining during Chernenko's time without much action put towards them.

Second Economy

The second economy is something that basically never gets talked about, regardless of narrative. It may sound like a different class of people, however it was anything but. Instead, this was private activity that allowed workers extra money on the side, be it legal or illegal. Capitalism existing aside socialism isn't too foreign of an idea, especially when you consider that the peasantry only made up 20% of the population by 1985, compared to 83% in 1926. This was kept under proper restrain under Stalin, and was significantly boosted with Khrushchev. Obviously the state cannot account for every transaction across an entire nation, so it was only logical for legal private activity to remain as needed, so long it's kept in bounds. The black market certainly became a problem, one that is not unique to socialism, as we know many exist in, and sometimes even run, capitalist nations. 

What exactly did legal private activity include? Housing was the biggest one, assuming you were housing yourself and your family, and not hoarding property. Doctors, dentists, teachers, and tutors could use their knowledge on the side for extra cash, as could craftsman work on houses and other private affairs. Private prospectors could mine and sell ore to the state, and anyone could sell personal belongings they no longer wanted. This all served the purpose of filling in the cracks of the public sector, fulfilling wants that it couldn't always meet. The legal second economy wasn't an issue.

Illegal money making proved to be the problem. The lack of lawful control of this under Khrushchev would create a spike, and a surge towards rendering the legal private market less useful. This often came from time and material being stolen from the public sector, which was often carried out by gangs and criminals. A need for reform would present itself as issues would continue to grow into the '60s and '70s. Cadres in the party, typically those who followed Bukharin, would sometimes take advantage of this, or accept bribes, allowing for corruption. The fact of the matter is that none of this was enough to destroy the Soviet economy until Gorbachev weaponized it into his own interests, and fanned the flames that could have been put out. Communist party members unfortunately weren't aware of the danger of this until it was too late. By the end of 1988, wholesale private trade with the interests of the black market became legal, which caused the shortages, discontent in the outlying republics, and eventually mass protests.

Perestroika And Gorbachev

To put it the way that the book did, Perestroika (restructuring) was not the outcome of the USSR's inevitable demise, but was the cause of a set of balkanized countries that became dominated by oligarchies and lawless capitalism that impoverished many. While in a tough state, you could not compare the Soviet Economy prior to this to that of 1920s Germany or The Great Depression in the U.S. Issues and shortages did exist by this point, but not to the point of rampant opposition to the system. Perestroika was what caused the massive discontent, not the inverse. Even in 1990, only about 4% of the population favored removing price control, and about 18% advocated for private property.

Gorbachev more or less took advantage of a bad situation in a way that would serve his own interests, as noted. I already mentioned the increased pressure caused by the arms race from the United States. This was done through reckless spending to fund opposition movements in Poland, Afghanistan, etc. The latter costed the Soviet economy 3-4 billion dollars per year, thanks to western warlords. Tens of billions was needed in order to combat Star Wars. Radio Free Europe was a Reagan-funded form of ideological warfare, allowing him to pump opposition propaganda into the Eastern Bloc. 

Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin

But Gorbachev didn't use these to his advantage immediately. It made sense that people supported him in the beginning, as he would carry out Andropov's policies until 1987. After that, his use of Andropov's Glasnast (openness) got distorted. Instead of its intended use for openness to the party, state, and government from the public to fight corruption, it was handed over to platforms that were hostile to the CPSU. Complete control of the media to enemies of socialism, allowing them to distort history and Marxism to fit their narrative, was handed over. Despite being responsible for the reforms, he would act as an innocent bystander with representatives of the media to incite attacks on those very reforms. Agitprop leaders worked on fronts to transform unions of creative writers and filmmakers into tools to push liberal approaches in culture. That played a hand in helping Gorbachev's partitions into leadership roles.

To sum it up, a journalist by the name of Mike Davidow stated that "Never in history did a ruling party literally turn over the mass media to forces bent on its own destruction and the state it led, as did the leaders of the CPSU.” Anti-imperialist means were stopped, and by 1987 Gorbachev was completely contradicting his initial policies. To make matters worse in the outlying republics, Russian nationalism took an extra step forward with his reign, a problem that was slowly growing as is. Take Kazakhstan, for example. Only 40% of their population by this point was made up of Kazakhs, causing them to feel like outsiders in their own land. Leader Dinmukhamed Kunaev, a Kazakh native, was replaced with Gennadi Koblin, a Russian who had no experience with the land or culture. That fatal move caused massive uprising in Kazakhstan, leading to attacks on buildings and state headquarters. But these riots in Alma-Ata were only the beginning.

1987-1988

1987's Central Committee Plenum and the Nineteenth Party Conference of 1988 would see the turning point with the undermining of Soviet socialism. A campaign to (again) revise party history was launched, particularly at Stalin. The withdrawal of Afghanistan agreement was not aligned with a demand of the U.S. to do the same thing. Thus, aid to the mujahedeen continued, and harm to Afghan communists and party leaders was no longer prevented. The Brezhnev Doctrine (which allowed intervention to counterrevolutions in satellite states) was also abandoned.

Any strong leader knows that reforms are necessary in times of trouble; what's important is how they're carried out, which I touched on earlier. Lenin had done this properly in 1918 with the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and in 1921 with the NEP. In 1939, Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Germany since other western nations wouldn't join him. Acts like this are meant to be a small backwards step in a period of struggle in exchange for a greater step forward down the line. Reagan's drastic escalation of the arms race nearly made this unavoidable. Gorbachev, instead of working in the interest of the people, adopted a capitalist model. What exactly did this entail?

Half of the Soviet economy gained the right to buy and sell output in wholesale, private markets after the reduction of state orders. By 1988, consumer shortages ran so rampant that the nations saw inflation for the first time since World War II. 1,064 departments and 465 sectors of central committees were slashed in the union republics, undermining leaders' willingness to follow directives from Moscow; the party's withdrawal from the economy saw this through. Huge protests in the Baltics broke out by July of 1988, and the economic crises set off by these reforms only strengthened nationalist separation. Power over production was being handed over to private owners, preventing people without money from reaching needs.

1989-1991

By 1989, popular up-rise against Gorbachev could be seen everywhere, but this wasn't a call for capitalism. At first, repression against Baltic protesters was tried, before being flipped into negotiations. By 1990, dual leadership now existed, with Boris Yeltsin leading Russia, and Gorbachev the USSR. Corrupt leaders now had the ability to transform state property into private property of their own self-interest. Second economy wealth flowed into the pockets of rising pro-capitalist politicians.

While a U.S. war buildup could certainly strain Soviet Union, it alone couldn't crush it, as shown. Abandoning third-world allies was exchanged for financial support from the west, which meant ending arms shipments to Nicaragua, despite the terrorization caused by U.S.-backed contras. Soviet betrayal and a tightening of the U.S. embargo saw Cuba's GDP cut in half. An independent Yugoslavia and hope for independence in Africa, a continent most heavily wronged by imperialism, were all left at the hands of NATO.

This also aided in a collapse of Eastern Bloc countries. Ending the subsidies of oil, gas, and raw materials for easy exchange of consumer goods from the USSR sent the Eastern European nations into economic shock; they now had to rely on the western capitalist states. These nations already had foundational weakness. It was less rooted in socialism from popular movements carried out by the people, and more from Red Army advancements during wartimes. As the book puts it, it was less "home grown."

Soviet workers voted in March of 1991 to preserve the union, 76.4% voting in favor. Six of the fifteen republics didn't favor it in majority, that being the Baltics, Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia. This was heavily ignored, and the SCSE, allies of Boris Yeltsin, had become the government. An attempted and failed coup in 1991 sealed the fate, and on December 31, 1991, the USSR was done away with. Yeltsin banned the CPSU, the CPRF, and took over everything in Russia, backed by large masses who faced several years of misery under Gorbachev.

Popular Criticisms

Within only three years following the collapse, the economy was in such atrocious shape that production output was cut in half from its already disastrous amount in 1991. The five pillars of this really boil down to party liquidation, media handover to enemies, privatizing the public economy, pushing separatism, and surrendering to imperialistic forces. Since its collapse, a lot has been learned about the history with the aid of Soviet archives and declassified information. Example? Bourgeoisie historians will number Stalin's victims anywhere from five, to twenty, to one hundred million, showing the sorry state of historical understanding. Yet, some have since retreated from this idea, as the archives prevent anti-communists from having the final word. As the book says, the best way to honor the USSR's memory is to learn from these lessons, and prevent it from ever happening again.

Before getting to my own conclusions, we should observe the "reasons" that the authors disprove at the end that tend to be strawman arguments. First and foremost is the idea that socialism is inherently flawed. The "human nature" argument gets tossed around, but few historians will subscribe to this. It fails to explain how the Soviet economy survived agricultural collectivization and German invasion in World War II, yet somehow "fell apart" during the lighter challenges that arose by the 1980s.

Secondly, popular opposition is usually brought up. This hardly holds any weight, considering that the opposition happened following Gorbachev's reforms, not before them. It was this action that kicked mass protests into power, not just the nature of the Soviet economy. Next would be the effect of external factors. This holds a little more weight than either of the first two reasons, as they at least played a part in the overall collapse, though were far less than the actual cause. The pressure from the U.S. arms race wasn't as problematic as that of the sanctions and foreign invasions during the union's earlier days. So this can't be a single-factor explanation.

Bureaucratic Counterrevolution is a less often noted idea but one worth mentioning. The issue with it is that from 1983-1993, the party simply reacted to the events carried out, which in that timeframe were very inconsistent. True, some party members certainly went the opportunist direction, but it still backed three inconsistent events in particular: Andropov's Marxist-Leninist reforms in 1983, Gorbachev's revisionism in 1987, and Yeltsin's shock therapy in 1993. This shows no signs of the party rising up against the leaders, but reacting to them as events unfolded. 

And lastly, "lack of democracy" and Gorbachev himself are tossed in, which somewhat tie into the prior reason. Saying there was a lack of democracy is objectively wrong, considering that the Soviet state had a higher percentage of workers involved in the government than any capitalist state. Disunity and lack of active participation wouldn't have allowed them to defend themselves in World War II, and building a strong socialist state never would have commenced. Moreover, socialism has embraced democracy from the start with its classical root in ruling of the lower classes. Liberalism, on the other hand, only gradually claimed democracy as a value when it was convenient.

My Conclusions

With the gist of the book broken down, considering it's a heavier source for my own explanation, I can't recommend giving it a read yourself enough. It's wonderfully sourced, descriptive, and does far more justice than I could here. Almost all of my reasonings are mentioned somewhere in these texts, with the addition of a few more points.

For starters, it's worth acknowledging that while Gorbachev spearheaded the movement to take down the entire apparatus, it wasn't just him, but things that allowed him to take power. The biggest of this is the fact that the party got way to bureaucratic over time. As the book mentioned, the further the leaders got from Lenin's initial people movement, the less interest the public was going to take in the leadership. Poor health and old age became a common factor the closer we got to the collapse, and this certainly prevented party members from being wary of the dangers on the horizon. Party participation was still high, but you can be a member of something and still take little interest in it. It may also be worth mentioning the Chernobyl incident, which shook an already problematic state. It certainly didn't cause people to favor the government any further.

Secondly, Khrushchev's revisionism had several outlying effects that were never dealt with properly. While some of his tactics proved to be effective, like focusing on the Soviet Space Program, he stepped a bit too far into the marketization and desire for consumer goods. For most of Stalin's era, the country was in the midst of industrialization, fixing the backwater remnants left by a feudal Russian Empire, facing merciless sanctions from the west, defending themselves from Nazi Germany, and working out the kinks on building socialism with party disagreement. So it only makes sense that once all of this resolved, the nation was able to kick back a bit. But Destalinization and overemphasis on the consumer markets proved fatal. For one, it allowed for the stagnation, and caused rifts of distrust from certain allies, letting revisionism cause internal distrust. Externally, it's ultimately what lead to the Sino-Soviet split, another event that shook communism, giving the west a point of weakness to weaponize. If that's not enough, the second economy to got out of control, especially when black markets weren't properly dealt with. The "promise of communism by 1980" was just ridiculous, and completely ignored what's needed in order to achieve the higher stage of communism.

Russian nationalism is something that the book addresses, but I hardly think is talked about enough in typical leftist circles. The reason for Lenin's creation of the republic borders was to give ethnic regions their own autonomy, boosting the motivation for sticking with the Bolshevik party in the first place. In the latter years, Russians filling up leadership roles in outlying republics caused friction, and straight up revolt near the end. It completely went against the National Question that was originally held up wonderfully.

Dangers of competing with the west in consumer goods output did more harm than help. Several times, it's mentioned how propaganda got worked into the Soviet borders, and as citizens saw certain luxuries from the west, it pushed for a demand that couldn't be matched. Even many capitalist countries would have faced the same problem. Creating this "culture war" mentality was no good, as it stirred up interest without proper explanation of how a consumer-based economy doesn't provide the needs that are met with a socialist/worker's state. In other words, it allows for an idealization of capitalism that doesn't exist, and ultimately, the Soviets lost this culture war that never should have happened in the first place. While I understand the importance of keeping outside influence in check, it's a criticism that I have even of modern day People's Republic of China. I'd even go as far as saying that the Berlin Wall wasn't a good idea. Not only did it cause a disunity between a nation, but again, created this mindset of each side selling the other on why they're better (or worse). This isn't a knock on the GDR, but just one facet of it that I personally don't like.

Speaking of which, the Eastern Bloc as a whole was problematic, and something that I criticize more than most other past and present socialist states. A revolutionary state without an actual revolution is rather counterintuitive. I'm not saying life under all of these states sucked, but there was far more to complain about. Most of them were within grips of prior empires and occupations, and while I'm ok with the Soviets' use of arms to put down fascist uprisings and counterrevolution, it shouldn't have done any occupation further than that. Losing that support after decades of basically being satellites clearly didn't sit well with many Eastern Europe citizens. Truly, seeing that the socialist states that survived this time period weren't bound to others in leadership (China, Cuba, The DPRK, etc.), it also goes to show that independence from country to country is important. 

There's no doubt that the Soviet Union achieved wonders in its time, and did anything but fail. Quality of life, and life expectancy went up significantly (save for the World War II period). The nation industrialized and nearly caught up to the United States in a fraction of the time. Stalin crushed Nazi Germany even after invasion and millions of casualties. The USSR beat the United States in every corner of the space race outside of landing on the moon first, a fake parameter that the west set up to give the illusion of winning. Revolutions took after Lenin's model all over the world, especially within oppressed borders. Needs were met for the majority of its existence, and it would be completely silly to say that ceasing to exist is equivalent to failure. If that's the case, then the poorest existing capitalist country must meet the definition of success to people who hold this belief. Capitalist nations yield millions of deaths due to its material conditions every year, but it's never measured the same. The USSR was the literal first experiment outside of the Paris Commune, and to say it failed is to say that every empire, pact, or alliance prior to it also failed. With all of its flaws, the USSR brought a lot of innovation into the world medically and technologically; there's so much to take away. A lot of things could have and should have been carried out differently, which could be said about any nation. But like the book said, the best way to honor it is to learn from the lessons it spawned.

Book Review: Yezhov Vs. Stalin, by Grover Furr

A very controversial author and professor, Grover Furr has a diverse selection of books on the USSR, especially on Josef Stalin. They tend to focus on one event, aspect, or misunderstood idea of history involving the Soviet leader, aiming to debunk false claims and going into deep detail on why a situation may be less black and white than what we’re led to believe. The first one I decided to step into is Yezhov Vs. Stalin: The Truth About Mass Repressions And The So-Called ‘Great Terror’ In The USSR, and the title itself is pretty much a dead giveaway about what this one hones in on.

I’ll admit right from the gate that this title could be misleading, as it isn’t so much a narrative around whether the repressions happened or not, as it may suggest at first glance. Rather, it’s a deep look into what caused the repressions, who was actually responsible, and how they could happen under the nose of Stalin if his hand wasn’t the one that orchestrated the mass repressions. The book’s intro and ending goes through this very point, and as a matter of fact, the last couple of chapters are not only some of the most important, but some of the best chapters in the book readability-wise.

For the bulk of it, Yezhov Vs. Stalin is a very dry read. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, seeing that many of the broken-down sections contain parts from interviews that were actually given at the Moscow Trials and other documentation taken right from the Soviet archives, much of which was classified for decades. Sourcing, for the most part, checks out, because of this. Furr not only refers to direct documents from the era, but also notes claims made by other respected historians of the subject, such as J. Arch Getty. Cross references with sources that he considers to be less valid, or not sourced in good faith (if at all) are brought up from time to time to point out contradictions within their own words, and why they aren’t correct. Additionally, weblinks are added in some footnotes to allow the reader to type it in themselves and check out the evidence he’s referring to. My only real gripe is that sometimes he cites his own work, which in super small doses like this is fine, but not preferred. This was only really done in instances where he sums up something else related, but doesn’t want to stray from the point too much. There are also a few spots that use wikipedia, which is fine for non-controversial research, however for this I’m unsure if I would have used it. Regardless, there is a lot of great work cited, with plenty of evidence to back his claims. A few questionable ones as well, but not enough to be concerned. 

But like I said, things are presented very matter-of-factly, not leaving much room for extrapolation. A good majority of this will present the evidence exactly as is, with little intermissions of his own comments to point out why something is (or isn’t) evidence regarding the repressions or democracy in the USSR. Thus, the reading experience itself can be an absolute trudge to get through, especially if memorizing many Russian names of others involved isn’t a strength of yours. 

Things are formatted chronologically, beginning with USSR democracy and the drafting of a new constitution. The first few chapters are harder to get through since this is an even dryer subject than the bulk of the Yezhov parts. Outlining this shows how the struggle of organizing secret-ballot elections following a bloody civil war and years of rebuilding from a backwards empire had complications. Focusing on elections, the need for greater democracy was stressed not only by Josef Stalin, but also by Andrei Zhandov and Nikolai Shvernik. Factions and opposition parties meant to undermine the CPSU were illegal, a point meant to display the difference between laws preventing corruption or coup, not being democratic. 

Right around here is when the conspiracy talk begins. Details on the Mikhail Tukhachevskii Affair are laid out, which was his confession to be working alongside Nikolai Bukharin as a German agent as early as 1928. This would set into motion the rest of the conspiracy sections and the documentations of each, some being presented with evidence of happening, while others were made up by oppositionists. Furr points out how this is all completely ignored by anti-communist historians that, rather than looking at the actual history, would instead follow the Anti-Stalin paradigm. This term is repeated throughout the book, and it always stresses the fact that all of this is commonly rejected as bogus, and a Stalin frame-up to dispute all of the evidence. It’s then to be understood that the election implementation taking place around this time got glossed over considering these conditions, and the rising of fascist Spain, Finnish aggression, and anticommunist pacts arming up in the west.

Trotsyists, Rights, and Zinovievists are mentioned throughout, as these clandestine types were the seeds that lead to the conspiracies after the United Opposition was defeated in 1927 and Trotsky expelled from the USSR in 1929. Understandings of members being in contact with Japan, Germany, and other powers were revealing themselves more and more as the 1930s progressed forward, including attempted coup and assassination of Stalin and his leadership. Sergei Kirov was a close-companion of Stalin that was murdered early on, which was another large spark in 1934. Leonid Nikalaev, the murderer and his accomplices, were executed.

Where Nikolai Yezhov enters the picture is when news of him using his power in the NKVD for mass suppressions is uncovered. Lavrentiy Beria takes over, and the repressions are immediately stopped. Roughly halfway through the book is when we reach Yezhov’s confessions. This information is also pointed out to always be suppressed by anti-Soviet researchers, despite all of the information being available to them. Furr also notes why these reports check out to be what Yezhov himself wanted to say, and how no other evidence has yet contradicted this. 

Room for motivation is plentiful, as several chapters are dedicated to. One of Yezhov’s reasons was to cause distrust amongst Soviet citizens by curating mass arrests and repressions, and gain opposition to the Bolshevik Party. Arresting anyone who got in his way was also a tactic to win himself power in the politburo. Yezhov had personal gains to achieve through working with foreign powers; the killing of Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov was just the final step. In these sections, Furr begins to show counter-evidence by researchers following the Anti-Stalin paradigm, such as dissecting and pointing out contradictions in passages by the likes of Jansen and Petrov. This is to do away with the misconception that Stalin saw Yezhov as his “loyal executioner.” Interrogations of Yezhov are outlined to dig up as much evidence as possible, which should make it easy to understand why this format gets very difficult to follow after a while.

Nikolai Yezhov

Others close to Yezhov are interrogated as well, with confessions from Mikhail Frinovskii, Samoilovich Liushkov (who agreed to be a spy for Japan), and Stanislav Frantsevich Redens, showing their roles in the plot to seize politburo power and the unfolding of events that led to Yezhov’s mass repressions. Shown are their connections to foreign capitalist powers and how they will be recognized once this work is carried out. These are detailed to reinforce what is referred to as Ezhovchina throughout the book, when Yezhov himself is interrogated for several chapters, tying it all together. Near the end, the role of GULAG is mentioned, and how the prisoners themselves were used to further their plan. 

The last few chapters of the book concludes all of this, and revisits the outlined points of “did the repressions happen, who was responsible, and if it isn’t Stalin, how could he have been oblivious to everything?” This follows source criticisms to validate where all of the information came from as it was used. It’s noted that the term “Great Terror” is misleading in and of itself, not because no terror happened, but because it’s attributed to Stalin and meant to be understood as an intentional mass murder or imprisonment of innocent people. Furr mentions that some conspiracies that were fed to Stalin were falsified, while others were true. This made it easy to blind him to what was actually happening during Yezhov’s repressions. It was done for his own self gain, aided by assisting fascist powers at the time. It would have been impossible to be certain of this immediately, considering the constant intelligence of conspiracies to be studied, preoccupation with the upcoming war, and figuring out what to believe over time. It’s noted that once this was realized, many of the prisoners arrested during Yezhovchina had their cases reviewed, and were set free, which was done with Beria in 1939.

So what do we make of all of this as a reader? It’s certainly a very well-researched book that can be overwhelming. Furr reinforces why these details are left out of so much history, and how it goes against the idea of “Stalin the dictator.” Statements as such are meant to address many of the uncertainties we as the readers might have, myself included. My personal opinion? It’s one of those works where the information contained in it is very valuable, but it probably won’t serve most as a great read from cover to cover. It works well as something to reference, especially if you familiarize yourself with one read to get a general understanding, first. Once that is understood, then perhaps pick through the documentation and Furr’s explanations of it as desired. Don’t expect to retain everything after just one pass. Noting the important parts and returning as needed could be helpful.

If nothing else, this gives us a nuanced look into something that many will dismiss as cut-and-dry. Would I take absolutely everything here at complete face value? Perhaps not right away, as this type of subject is good to analyze after reading several sources yourself. But it’s very clear that everything is viewed through the lens of someone writing for a different understanding, and not trying to sell a false narrative for no apparent reason. Yezhov Vs. Stalin shows that there was a heavy level of involvement in Soviet leadership, which was built with different levels of participation in differing areas and O’blasts, and how this can play into tragic events. In other words, it doesn't come down to just one guy, or some crazy idea of who he was. Josef Stalin may not be the ideal figure to everybody, but this certainly debunks any ridiculous claims of him being a murderous tyrant that mowed down anybody that voiced any kind of differing ideas.