This house believes that Stalin was not a true socialist

1. You did not refute my entire argument and you did not provide any links. I'd advise you to go to my profile and read my former religious affiliation.I was also Jewish. Second off, your entire argument is an appeal to emotion which I did not fall for. I respect you as a jehudi, BUT, you seem to completely ignore what socialism even is. My parents lived under socialism as well. I'm from Slovenia, the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, your personal experience is irrelevant and so is mine, I just threw it out there as a small factoid. 2. Your justification of how Stalin was a socialist was: 'Stalin did everything that every other communist leader did, executed his opponents, forced collectivization farms, established communes, centralized businesses under government control, and ruled unjustly with a biased eye and paranoid thought' This is outright false and you provide no references to prove it. You are aware that even the allies during world war 2 committed atrocities? Every single leader in history killed their opponents. Also, this is irrelevant to this debate. The Stalinist organization of collective farming was much closer to subsidized farming, a perennial mark of capitalism. Stalin actually abolished the Comintern, which you should have known, if you read my argument. Stalin continued SOME marxist economic ideals, but so have all the leaders of the modern era, do we call them socialists? The statement that Stalin ruled unjustly is exactly the point of why he was not a true marxist... 3. Allow me to lecture you on something any person with a decent education should know. Socialism is the set of beliefs of common ownership and proletarian control of industry. You seem to claim: 'They were all murderers and you're a nut' That is an obvious ad hominem attack, as well as a misunderstanding of history. Lenin did not murder Jews, Stalin murdered everyone, not just the Jews. That is why my argument is about why Stalin was NOT a socialist, which you failed to address. I propose you refute my first argument and my second one. 4. In hindsight, your argument is irrelevant and useless. I propose you actually read my argument when you try to refute it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, for my continuation. At the most basic level, a Marxist communist society: Is classless Is stateless Has no form of a currency Has the means of production owned in common by all people. Stalinism meets none of these requirements. 1) Stalinism does remove classes - see "kulaks" and "bourgeoisie" - but then creates new ones to fill the gaps while maintaining the pretense of a revolution. In essence, it's as hierarchical as capitalism, if not more so. 2) Stalinism does not abolish the state, it greatly expands it and its power, creating totalitarian police states ostensibly to "advance the revolution without the threat of saboteurs" etc. but actually to consolidate the power of the ruling elite. 3) Stalinism maintains currency and ration stamps as an element of coercion - the USSR, particularly in the early 30s during collectivization, used food, and currency - ration stamps, which ensured access to food - as a weapon against dissent on a near-unparalleled scale. Currency is a key feature and a key weapon of Stalinist states. 4) Stalinism does not have the means of production owned in common by all people, the state instead takes control of the means of production because it cannot trust the workers, whom it allegedly sets out to emancipate, with the responsibility of their workplaces - after all, they might speak out against the Dear Leader, now, mightn't they? References: [1]http://www.socialistrevolution.org... [2]http://www.workerspower.net...