
H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934) - giorgiofontana
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/h-g-wells-it-seems-me-i-am-more-left-you-mr-stalin
======
jrochkind1
The little preface says that Wells was critisized for being too 'deferential'
toward Stalin (Wells was a socialist, of course).

It is actually striking to me... today, one can imagine NO journalist engaging
in as _confrontational_ an interview with ANY politician or person in
political power. Politicians today don't even expect to talk about ideas,
certainly not with journalists for publication, let alone to be challenged on
ideas in such conversations.

It's also interesting to be reminded that Stalin was indeed a guy who could
talk about ideas.

~~~
pessimizer
>today, one can imagine NO journalist engaging in as _confrontational_ an
interview with ANY politician or person in political power.

Just a guess, but are you saying this from an US POV? As an USian, I can't
imagine seeing journalists confront or challenge a politician except by
accident. Even when those accidents happen, the _journalists_ and _civility_
become the center of a follow-up media frenzy, rather than the subjects (the
lives and deaths of millions.)

By contrast, I see confrontation in a lot of (less consolidated, less war-
profiteering) non-US media constantly. Paxman would be hounded out of the
industry within days here.

~~~
lostlogin
Came here and read your comment immediately after seeing the link I've left. A
(perceived?) weak press in the US has a way to fall before it get to the level
seen today in Russia. [http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/20/russian-
politician-ord...](http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/20/russian-politician-
orders-aides-to-violently-rape-pregnant-journalist-at-press-conference/)

------
vijayboyapati
The interview is interesting from the perspective of economic history because
it reveals the prevailing thinking of the era; namely that capitalism leads to
"anarchy" in production. What Stalin and others did not appreciate is that the
free market produces a "hidden order", which was understood by many 18th and
19th century economists. Another major error of the era was the belief that
central planning of an economy - socialism - could replace capitalism. There
was a major debate at the time, now known as the economic calculation
debate[1], between socialist economists Harold Laski and Oscar Lange on the
one hand and liberal economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek on
the other. In the 20's Mises had made the stunning argument that allocation of
capital was impossible without the price function that is inherent to the
capitalist system[2]. Laski and Lange obviously disagreed and provided the
socialist counter argument. It was many years later, after the fall of the
Soviet Union, that socialist philosopher and historian Robert Heilbroner
admitted in the New Yorker "It turns out, of course, that Mises was right. The
Soviet system has long been dogged by a method of pricing that produced
grotesque misallocations of effort".[3] Still, many do not understand or
appreciate the importance of economic calculation and the price function in
the rational allocation of capital, which has implications not only for
states, but for corporations[4].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem)

[2] [https://mises.org/econcalc.asp](https://mises.org/econcalc.asp)

[3] Reflections after communism, Robert Heilbroner (apologies to those without
a subscription)
[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1990/09/10/1990_09_10_091_T...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1990/09/10/1990_09_10_091_TNY_CARDS_000357236)

[4]
[http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_1.pdf](http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_1.pdf)

~~~
dang
This counts as an ideological tangent, and therefore off-topic. There is no
meaningful path from this article to Austrian economics.

Edit: Perhaps this needs more explanation. "Stalin -> communism -> capitalism
-> Austrians" is not a meaningful path, because there's nothing specific about
it, nothing to tie it to this _particular_ story. It merely uses the story as
a launching pad to jump straight into a perennial ideological debate, which—if
it continues—is likely to drown out any nuanced conversation that really is
relevant to the article.

~~~
philwelch
If you're serious about not letting every story dissolve into the same tedious
arguments we've seen for the past few years, I would be so happy.

~~~
dang
Definitely serious, and interested in your suggestions re how.

~~~
philwelch
I got your email. It'll be awhile before I have the time to compose my
thoughts on the issue.

------
arethuza
Not one mention of the terrible famine in the Ukraine which had occurred over
the two previous years.

As Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, initially a supporter of the Soviets until he
witnessed what their policies actually meant as a correspondent for the
Guardian in Moscow:

 _" The novelty of this particular famine, what made it so diabolical, is that
it was the deliberate creation of a bureaucratic mind, ... without any
consideration whatever of the consequences in human suffering"_

~~~
wsxcde
Honest question, what's the point being made here? Are you attempting to imply
that because Stalin presided over a terrible famine his political ideals must
be flawed?

Churchill and friends presided over the Bengal famine of the 1940s. Six
million people died in a famine during which food was exported out of Bengal
to aid the British war effort. Or what about the British East India company
raising land taxes from 10% to 50% during the great Bengal famine of the
1770s. A famine which killed 1/3rd of the population of Bengal. Also a famine
which saw the British East India company's profits increase from 15 million to
30 million (non-inflation adjusted) rupees.

Do you think any of this counts against capitalism or do you have any reasons
why we should disregard these anecdotes but count the Ukrainian famine against
socialism?

~~~
cynicalkane
There's no part of capitalism that requires the oppression of others, except
in maybe some metaphorical economic sense. In communism the ability to oppress
is a necessary feature of the system (and if you don't think so, read Marx).
The world has seen many implementations of capitalism that don't involve
forcing large numbers of people to starve. The same cannot be said of
communism.

~~~
wpietri
I think it depends on what you mean by capitalism.

A common notion of it is the "increase shareholder value" version, where the
only thing that matters to executives is profit. There, I don't think
oppression is a necessary precondition, but it is a necessary outcome. You can
see that in the company stores of yore, and the eternal reemergence of
monopolies and oligopolies that will treat treat both their workers and their
customers exactly as poorly as they can get away with.

There are other approaches to capitalism, of course.

~~~
steveklabnik
It also depends on what you mean by 'oppression.' To make an analogy, Marxists
also consider externalities oppressive, because they're talking about the
system as a whole. Libertarian/liberal ethical systems tend to focus on
individual actions. A transaction between two parties where one isn't pointing
a gun at each other is categorically not oppressive to libertarians/liberals,
but may still be an oppressive action to a Marxist.

------
nmrm
This was a particularly interested/relevant excerpt from Wells. I think of the
open source ethos as one small example of what he's calling for in the second
paragraph:

I object to this simplified classification of mankind into poor and rich. Of
course there is a category of people which strive only for profit. But are
not... people in the West for whom profit is not an end, who own a certain
amount of wealth, who want to invest and obtain a profit from this investment,
but who do not regard this as the main object?...

During the past few years I have been much engaged in and have thought of the
need for conducting propaganda in favour of Socialism and cosmopolitanism
among wide circles of engineers, airmen, military technical people, etc. It is
useless to approach these circles with two-track class-war propaganda. These
people understand the condition of the world. They understand that it is a
bloody muddle, but they regard your simple class-war antagonism as nonsense.

~~~
arethuza
Credit to Wells for then saying:

 _" They understand that it is a bloody muddle, but they regard your simple
class-war antagonism as nonsense."_

I wonder if Wells was one of the last people to disagree with Stalin who
didn't end up with a bullet in the back of their heads?

~~~
dang
The Bolsheviks cultivated celebrity visitors from the Western left. It
wouldn't have worked to shoot them.

(Edit: Originally this comment had a moderation bit in it as well, but someone
rightly pointed out to me that it isn't helpful to wear the moderator hat and
make a regular-user comment in the same post. So I've edited that out. I
considered restricting myself to _only_ making moderator comments, but (a)
that's never been how HN worked, (b) I was a user long before a moderator, and
(c) I'd burn out from boredom.)

~~~
arethuza
For what it's worth, I apologise, mostly for the initial comment I made that
mentioned the Ukraine - it looked very much like a partisan comment intented
to reference the current conflict and, in all honesty, it wasn't.

Sorry for any grief caused and keep up the good work.

[I promise to engage more brain cells when posting on obviously highly emotive
topics in future and, if I have any doubt, to not post].

~~~
dang
Thanks for being so kind about it. It means a lot.

------
dominotw
> But I have some experience in fighting for Socialism, and this experience
> tells me that if Roosevelt makes a real attempt to satisfy the interests of
> the proletarian class at the expense of the capitalist class, the latter
> will put another President in his place. The capitalists will say:
> Presidents come and Presidents go, but we go on for ever; if this or that
> President does not protect our interests, we shall find another. What can
> the President oppose to the will of the capitalist class?

Thats the truth we have all resigned to ourselves unfortunately.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
But then Roosevelt was quite effective in putting the capitalists in their
place for an entire generation, perhaps longer, until Nixon and later Reagan
turn us to the right again.

~~~
vidarh
That's putting it too strong. He reigned in some of their worst excesses,
which were detrimental to the capitalist class as a whole just as much as it
was detrimental to everyone else. "The capitalists" are not a single force -
it's a mess of conflicting interests, just as the working class. And many of
them have interests that are part aligned by parts of the working class. It's
not black and white.

------
Tycho
This strikes me as fake. Maybe entirely written by Wells, or someone else.

I thought this bit was interesting: _On the other hand we have the class of
the poor, the exploited class, which owns neither factories nor works, nor
banks, which is compelled to live by selling its labour power to the
capitalists and which lacks the opportunity to satisfy its most elementary
requirements._

What are these elementary requirements and aren't they now satisfied?

~~~
alyxr
> What are these elementary requirements

Food, water, housing, clothing, healthcare, education. The list is long, but
basic. I'm sure you can come up with the rest.

> and aren't they now satisfied?

Not for the vast majority of people living in the vast majority of countries.
Even in your own, I'm sure imperialist country, huge masses of the population
are in want.

~~~
Tycho
Well, let's see, I live in the UK.

We have running, clean water in every part of the country, I've never heard of
any problems relating to people going thirsty or becoming ill from the supply.

Likewise with food, I haven't heard of anyone actually starving, and while you
could conceivably run out of money to buy food, there's a safety net of food
banks.

Clothing is very cheap - for a day's wages you could buy enough clothes to
last years.

Education is provided for everyone to a level beyond what is necessary for
most jobs, and that's before you consider the subsidised further education and
of course the vast reams of learning material available for free on the
internet (access to which is provided in public libraries).

Healthcare is also provided for everyone via the NHS. You can of course get
better education and healthcare through private means, but most people don't
bother even if they can afford it (unless they can _easily_ afford it).

Which leaves just housing - only 0.1% of the people literally do not have a
place to stay, and local authorities are obliged to provide accommodation for
those people if they apply. There are also large private charities to address
this issue.

So, is there more stuff we should add to the list that would make it more
obvious how huge masses of the population are in want?

~~~
kybernetikos
I know some people working in this area and they tell me that there is
absolutely a problem with hunger in the UK. The existence of the safety nets
is more a sign that there is a problem than that there isn't, as such
charities get started when people who have the wherewithal to act realise how
bad the situation is.

You seem to be dismissing it on the basis of the fact that you simply haven't
heard about the problem, which is partly because there is no official
monitoring, and the current government like to claim that it doesn't exist.

The red cross apparently stepped in last year to try to help:
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-
red...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-red-cross-
launches-emergency-food-aid-plan-for-uks-hungry-8872496.html)

If you want to know more, check out some of the charitable campaigns:

[http://endhungerfast.co.uk/](http://endhungerfast.co.uk/)

[http://www.trusselltrust.org](http://www.trusselltrust.org)

~~~
Tycho
Put it in perspective. When Stalin was speaking, there were people actually
dying of starvation, millions of severely undernourished people, and huge
structural problems with food production. In the UK today, most people have
copious amounts of food, a lot actually goes to _waste_ every day, and while
some people might find it hard to put food on the table, it's within the means
of private charity to help them without the government having to intervene.
The reported increase in the problem seems a bit dubious to me, e.g. here is
an actual food bank founder speaking:

 _Consider again the views of Robin Aitken of the Oxford Food Bank, a former
BBC journalist who now collects unsold fresh food from supermarkets and
distributes them to charities in Oxford. He says: ‘Some people like to believe
that there has been this enormous upsurge in food poverty. My point is that
there have always been poor people in this country. You could have gone back
ten, 20, 50 years and there would be people who don’t get enough food. ‘The
fact is that food banks are a new phenomenon. Now we have got up to 500. If
you provide a service, people use it.’ Significantly, he believes that people
suffered greater hardship in the recessions of the Seventies and Eighties than
today, when food banks didn’t exist._

------
steve_benjamins
Fascinating how important the questions of class and revolution are in this
conversation (from both Stalin and Wells).

Equally interesting is how theoretical and ideological the answers are.

Great read!

~~~
akirarei
What I find even more interesting is that in our time class is not a subject
at all. We go along like the concept of social classes was never thought of.

And as for the subject of revolution, we glance over it like a ghost from the
past. We act as (a society and a culture) though the current system will last
forever although history, as both Stalin and Wells points out, shows us that
social and economic systems gets replaced, in many cases by force.

~~~
subdane
With such a huge middle class in the 20th century in the U.S. and the collapse
of the Soviet empire, I think a lot of politicians, economists and media
pundits felt that class was no longer an issue. I suspect it will become more
widely discussed again if our current economic trends continue.

~~~
vidarh
What I'm seeing is that people are raising the questions, but are largely
oblivious to the historical discussions of the same questions.

E.g. people are constantly - especially in tech circles - raising the spectre
of automation of production and how we will deal with it in terms of
unemployment, worrying about large numbers of people being plunged into
unemployment, as if this is a question nobody has considered.

But that was one of Marx' core criticisms of capitalism: That he believed that
while it would bring production to a point where poverty could be entirely
eliminated for the first time in history, rather than doing so, its dynamics
would instead lead to the paradox of overproduction and plunging millions
(back) into poverty at the same time.

People didn't use to ask these questions, and when they did, if you brought up
Marx' you used to get into a flamewar, and death threats were not uncommon
well into the 90's. Today you tend to get a reasoned discussion and honest
questions.

------
beaknit
great comment by nmrm

Stalin, in particular, has been a fascination of mine. Anyone interested in
learning how a man can literally seize control of the thoughts of millions of
people - utterly - in an age when the radio was considered cutting-edge
technology should read "Who Killed Kirov?"
([http://amzn.to/1moOVmE](http://amzn.to/1moOVmE)) That book haunts me.

------
vidarh
The class war part of the interview is interesting because it really
highlights the main part where Stalin (and most Leninists) diverged from
marxism. You see it clearly in Stalins later statement:

"You, Mr Wells, evidently start out with the assumption that all men are good.
I, however, do not forget that there are many wicked men. I do not believe in
the goodness of the bourgeoisie."

Where Marx saw capitalists (and workers) as forced by circumstance into
playing an inevitable role in society - neither inherently good or bad -,
Stalin saw capitalists as "wicked men".

In general, a lot of the worst flaws of the Bolsheviks boils down to the near
unwavering belief that they were on the side of good in a battle between good
and evil, and an idea of a "working class" that they fetishised as near super-
human.

While Marx would agitate against specific people, he would not categorise
groups of people in moral terms. He attacked ideas and behaviour, and expected
people would change with circumstance: The capitalist behaves like a
capitalist because that is what he needs to do to protect his own interests,
and if he don't act as a capitalist, he won't remain one - he will eventually
face financial ruin and become part of the working class, where he will act as
a worker.

In fact, in part I of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote:

"Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many
ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds
itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on,
with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become
antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of
foreign countries. In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to
the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus, to drag it into the political
arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its
own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes
the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.

Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling class are, by
the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least
threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply the proletariat
with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress."

This treatment of a persons class as a matter of circumstance was _essential_
to Marx: Large parts of Marxist theory was based on the foundation that
politics in the large is defined by people acting broadly in their self-
interest, moderated by their understanding of that interest (e.g. the extent
to which a class "buys" the justifications the ruling class gives; consider
for example Marx' Critique of the Gotha program, where he points out that the
proposed program is meaningless when it writes about "fairness" in part
because the current system of distribution is "fair" according to bourgeois
standards - without being explicit, the word says nothing)

But the world becomes so much easier to deal with when one can write off ones
opponents as "wicked men".

~~~
jokoon
Stalin was a leader, Marx was a philosopher.

> Where Marx saw capitalists (and workers) as forced by circumstance into
> playing an inevitable role in society - neither inherently good or bad -,
> Stalin saw capitalists as "wicked men".

Because politicians work for a reality change. It's not so obvious to make
effective, concrete, viable change in a country, so you have to take
shortcuts. Leading a country for change is like sailing a boat into space,
it's dark territory and you know there are huge political and economical
risks. The first effective thing Stalin could do was to neutralize self
interest, because that's the one smallest thing you can do when you listen
about Marx.

It's harder to sensitize everyone about the flaws of capitalism and expect
real change. Maybe he could have organized country wide conferences and
seminars to talk about the work of Marx instead, but you know that that's not
how politics happen and work.

The difference between Marx and Stalin ? One's a philosopher and the other a
politician. Even today politics cower at the ideas of Marx because of the
story of the soviet union. Nobody can really implements efficient policies
that 100% prevent the accidents of capitalism.

Stalin, Marx and Russia is just another example of incoherences between theory
and practice.

~~~
vidarh
Marx was a politician first, philosopher second.

Most of Marx' most influential works were political agitation written as part
of his work on organising the first and second Internationals, and actively
meddling in the affairs of various socialist parties.

He was under regular threat of deportation and arrest for his political work.
(edit: and moved countries several times because of these threats)

We only see Marx' as predominantly a philosopher today because his political
work was overshadowed by later developments.

> The first effective thing Stalin could do was to neutralize self interest,
> because that's the one smallest thing you can do when you listen about Marx.

On the contrary - self interest is _essential_ to Marxism. The very core of
Marx political agitation was aimed at getting the members of the working
classes to understand that _their_ self interests were separate from those of
the bourgeoisie.

If you eliminate self-interest, Marxist socialism becomes impossible.

~~~
jokoon
> The very core of Marx political agitation was aimed at getting the members
> of the working classes to understand that their self interests were separate
> from those of the bourgeoisie.

That's like teaching sheeps to unite. It's important to enlighten people, but
it won't prevent self interests to collide. Politicians in power can't listen
to everyone, it's always easier to listen and talk to powerful minorities who
have the strongest self interest.

> Marx was a politician first, philosopher second.

I'd say an activist. I don't see Marx as an active member of a political
party, making speeches and announcements. He was more of an intellectual.

When I say politics I say the original etymology of the word politics, meaning
having power.

------
ArkyBeagle
The thing that is most interesting is that neither of them seem to have ever
heard of "consumer surplus". This is two of the most ... "educated" men of the
time; now the concept is much more widely understood. Say what you will of
Milton Friedman, he'd done a lot to at least get people familiar with these
sorts of concepts.

------
listic
Very interesting. Was it ever translated into Russian? I wouldn't be too
surprised to learn that it wasn't.

~~~
alyxr
Stalin spoke Georgian and Russian, not English.

~~~
dang
I think what listic may be referring to is that the Soviets conducted a more
liberal discourse in their interactions with the Western press than they
permitted domestically.

~~~
listic
Sorry if I was unclear. As a Russian myself, I wondered whether this
interview, which we can read here in English, was ever, during the period
between 1934 to now, translated from English into Russian. The most direct
reason for this interest being to show it to my non-English-speaking friends.

~~~
dang
Ah, I get it. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'd bet a translation exists
somewhere (because Russians translate everything, or at least used to, and
this class of material would be of obvious interest), but have zero idea how
to find it. (Edit: uh, other than Google :))

------
Jun8
"We Bolsheviks call it “self-criticism”. It is widely used in the USSR."

Indeed! Coming out of Stalin, the irony of these word is unbearable.The first
Moscow trial was to take place in two years.

------
dang
All: this article is on-topic for one reason: it is historically interesting.

Predictable ideological tangents are _not_ interesting. Please keep them out
of this thread and off HN altogether. If it isn't clear whether a comment
counts as a predictable ideological tangent, err on the side of assuming it
does.

I know it sounds arbitrary to declare what's "interesting", but (a) the term
has developed a specialized meaning on Hacker News over the years, and (b)
editorial judgment plays a role on this site.

~~~
fludlight
Since HN seems to have an interest in Soviet history, I would recommend
_Darkness at Noon_ by Koestler and _Khrushchev: The Years in Power_ by
Medvedev.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
I can't recommend _all_ of Solzhenitsyn enough. You'll be forgiven if you
don't make it all the way through "1918"... I, frankly, didn't. Perhaps
someday. also it never cease to astound me how deeply Boris Pasternak drew his
picture of the thing. The David Lean film is almost better than the book, but
the book is amazing.

------
marincounty
When ever I mention anything about the current the gap between the rich and
poor; I get posts deleted? So, I won't even comment on this article. I hope
the Vigilant Moderators are happy?

