Sam Webb on Fox New's Glen Beck Show

[heiss93]

Now after the Bush Administration has screwed up the country and the world with its economic policies and disastrous wars, the right wing wants to blame everybody but themselves for the mess we’re in.

For weeks now, right-wing bloggers and talk shows have been trying to paint President Barack Obama as a socialist in order to scare people away from his policies. And they have been telling lies about the Communist Party USA as well.

Yesterday, Communist Party National Chairman Sam Webb accepted an invitation onto conservative television host Glenn Beck’s Fox News show in order to give our side of the story.

Watch the full video on our website.
http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/1026/1/27/

Sam held his own against Beck despite being cut off repeatedly and other gimmicks. Beck’s claim that Hitler was a socialist doesn’t hold up to common sense and neither is the idea that “big government” is the source of our problems. Obviously Beck and Fox aren’t all that interested in a real discussion about the country’s problems.

As Sam said on the show, “This country has been brought to its economic knees because the policies of the Bush Administration and Wall Street.” You don’t have to be a communist to agree with that.

[Forward Union]

They should have got a younger person to do it.

[MikeSC]

That was pure bullying from that Fox prick (who was wrong on every point there, pretty much.)

It seems though, for the first time in Christ-knows how long, that the communists are a force... Karl Marx has been in every UK newspaper. A poll of the Murdoch-owned rabidly right-wing Times had more than fifty percent say that "Marx was right". The righties must be uneasy to pull stunts like this... and surely there must have been at least one thinking person amongst its audience who'd see through the obvious hegemony.

[Cumannach]

Another good example of why socialists need to push the rehabilitation of Stalin into the mainstream.

[Iowa656]

You know I thought an interview was were one person asked a question and someone else answered. Apparently not.

Whenever Sam was asked a question Glen interrupted his answer, talked over him and generally didn't listen to a word he said. If Glen would have actually listened to Sam's answers and then responded then he might have actually got somewhere.

MikeSC is definitely right, Marx is all over the UK press at the moment, most British people seem to be able to listen to his ideas without screaming how many millions "communists" have killed. Maybe it's all the anti-Soviet propaganda the US was fed for 60 years.

[Kamerat]

Are there people that take this bs as fact? Sam Webb has a very low voice. Or is it the Fox News propaganda machine whos raising his voice and screaming all the time, he dose not let him speak at all.

Another good example of why socialists need to push the rehabilitation of Stalin into the mainstream.Do you mean defend him in any way. Why should any socialist defend Stalin. Authoritarian state capitalism is not socialism. We need to distance ourself from him.

[Cumannach]

Raving anti-communists like Beck use the absurd lies about Stalin to frighten people out of actually thinking about capitalism and communism. Even if you don't believe the Soviet Union was socialist there's still every reason to push to make the true version of events the mainstream one, which as it happens, deprives McCarthyites like Beck of their falsified ace of spades. Even serious bourgeois anti-communist scholars have in recent years admitted, and proved all the claims about Stalin killing millions are nothing but lies. Even if you think Stalin was authoritarian or brutal, why would you continue to promote these false anti-communist rumours about the murdered millions? Makes no sense unless you're an anti-communist yourself.

[Kamerat]

So if im not defending Stalin im an anti-communist?

Even if you think Stalin was authoritarian or brutal, why would you continue to promote these false anti-communist rumours about the murdered millions?I do not promote the false anti-communist rumours about the murdered millions. I dont know how many he killed/purged, but i do know he was not a commie or a sosialist or a anarchist. So why defend him.

[Cumannach]

Defend the truth. He didn't murder millions. If bourgeois propagandists like Beck can use such fantastical lies in their arguments without being challenged, what hope do we have of getting through to people?

[Kamerat]

We can get through to people by supporting oppressed people, telling the truth about the capitalist system, why capitalist need unemployed poeple to keep the weages low and the need to produce more and more shit products we dont need to increase their funds. And how a socialist/communist society would improve this by a democratic economic system and equal distrebution of goods.

[Cumannach]

There's no such thing as a 'soviet holocaust' what are you raving about?

[Bilan]

Are you denying the Soviet holocaust then?

The Holocaust is a specific event in history, and not something that refers to genocide, or mass murder generally.

Also, the stupidity of this is on both sides.
What was Sam Webb expecting to achieve by going on a show which is just going to interrupt and talk over him, and abuse him?
There was no point in this.

[manic expression]

We can get through to people by supporting oppressed people, telling the truth about the capitalist system, why capitalist need unemployed poeple to keep the weages low and the need to produce more and more shit products we dont need to increase their funds. And how a socialist/communist society would improve this by a democratic economic system and equal distrebution of goods.

True, we must do that. However, when someone asks you about Stalin, what are you going to say? Remember: in politics, if you're clarifying yourself, you're losing. Socialists need to support socialist countries, even if we don't fully agree with everything every one of its leaders did. We need to point out how and why they were progressive (and where they made mistakes, of course) and how the capitalists are engaging in slander. I think this is very important.


Are you denying the Soviet holocaust then

Well, I am, because no such thing ever happened.

[scarletghoul]

America fails yet again.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Communist? He sounded more like a populist. :rolleyes:

And did anyone else notice the softballs Beck were tossing his way? I'd rather send a Revlefter with an average knowledge of communism to go out there to debate Beck than that guy! I mean, charity? "Name a successful communist nation"? NAZIS WERE SOCIALISTS?!

Hopefully someone from the left will get on national TV sometime and actually say something interesting.

[RedDawn]

Hopefully someone from the left will get on national TV sometime and actually say something interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXmMEFdcgRc

[Pawn Power]

You know the saying any publicity is good publicity? I don't actually think that's true.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

He reminds me off the OI trolls.

[Kamerat]

True, we must do that. However, when someone asks you about Stalin, what are you going to say? Remember: in politics, if you're clarifying yourself, you're losing. Socialists need to support socialist countries, even if we don't fully agree with everything every one of its leaders did. We need to point out how and why they were progressive (and where they made mistakes, of course) and how the capitalists are engaging in slander. I think this is very important.
I am going to say Stalin was an authoritarian narcissistic imperialist. Who purged socialist revolutionerys, mensheviks, bolsheviks, anarchists and he would surely have purged me (with my anarchist-communist views) if i had lived in USSR at that time. He created a personality cult around himself, i dont know about you but i find personality cults wierd, scary and very reactionary. Like all the cities named after him: Stalingrad (Volgograd), Stalinabad (Dushanbe), Stalinsk (Novokuznetsk), Stalino (Donetsk), Stalin (Varna), Stalinstadt (Eisenhüttenstadt), Imeni Stalina (Sovkhoz Nomer Shest), Oraşul Stalin (Braşov), Qyteti Stalin (Kuçovë), Staliniri (Tskhinvali), Stalinogorsk (Novomoskovsk), Stalinogród (Katowice) and Sztálinváros (Dunaújváros). Plus some other smaller places. Stalin made the worst "none aggression pact" ever. Not only was it imperialistic and a pact with the nazis but it was very little none aggressional towards the polish, lithuanian, estonian and latvian people. However hes ironfist rule did improve the industrial capacity of the USSR and help win the WW2 in a way. But it could have been won with far less casualties on the Soviet side if Stalin had gone for another strategy then the strategy of "you have to be braver to flee then fight". Sometimes its better to retreat and think of a better attack plan.

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

It a shame I'm the first to say this, but I'm going to.

Sam Webb had his ass handed to him.

He failed this interview on soooooo many levels, I don't even know where to begin.

1) The CPUSA line is capitulating reformism, obviously we acknowledge that. Any communist saying that "socialism isn't yet on the agenda" in such an industrialized country as the USA needs a slap in the face.

2) He upholds Teddy Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson as positive reformers.

3) He does not even attempt to correct Glen Beck's analysis of what socialism is when Glen says that Barack Obama would create "massive socialism".

4) He gets destroyed in the "charity" discussion. He makes no mention of the fact that it's a lot harder to give 20% of your income to charity when you only make $26,000 a year. However, that wasn't really the point.

5) He gets destroyed in Beck's attack on the USSR and Stalin. This is where the CPUSA line fails; in the 30s, they embraced Stalin. In the 50s, they embraced Khruschev, in the 70s, Brezhnev. Now that the Soviet Union is collapsed, they decide to finally break out all their critiques. This is well demonstrated by Webb's wishy-washy approach to the question.

6) When Webb tries to bring the discussion back to the US, Glen Beck actually makes more sense than the idiotic "tail the Democrats" line that the CPUSA supports when he says that corporations only see "consumers" and "markets". This is of course in the context of Beck being a reactionary capitalist, but still.

7) "Name the communist country that worked"... Webb's hesitation here is unacceptable. Repeating the question, and then not answering the question (and not addressing the fact that there is no such thing as a "communist" country. Then saying "you don't agree" that communists have killed hundreds of millions of people... Of course we haven't dumbass, call him out on it!!!! It's not a matter to agree or disagree about, it's about what actually happened, how spineless can you be?

8) The discussion about the Nazis. Webb should have known that the Nazis did espouse "National Socialism", and he should have discussed how their principles were actually corporatism and a degeneration of capitalism. Once again, no sense of history and no spine to confront Beck on his bullshit.


I can't believe CPUSA actually put this on their website... What an embarrassment.

[JimmyJazz]

Raving anti-communists like Beck use the absurd lies about Stalin to frighten people out of actually thinking about capitalism and communism. Even if you don't believe the Soviet Union was socialist there's still every reason to push to make the true version of events the mainstream one, which as it happens, deprives McCarthyites like Beck of their falsified ace of spades. Even serious bourgeois anti-communist scholars have in recent years admitted, and proved all the claims about Stalin killing millions are nothing but lies. Even if you think Stalin was authoritarian or brutal, why would you continue to promote these false anti-communist rumours about the murdered millions? Makes no sense unless you're an anti-communist yourself.

I take tremendous issue with the idea that fear of Stalinist totalitarianism is what prevents a workers' revolution in the U.S. That's such an idealist, anti-materialist view to take. I have noticed that many anti-revisionists harp on this point about public opinion of communism revolving around Stalin, and it's just so mistaken.

A Marxist revolution is made by the working class. It is not necessary to turn every worker into a Marxist for the revolution to happen, much less into a Marxist-Leninist(-Stalinist). It is just necessary for the right material conditions to appear. And insofar as historical memory affects people's consciousness, it is their memory of the (supposed) economic facts, not of political repressions.

Chegitz Guevara (who doesn't seem to post here anymore, unfortunately) once quoted a CPUSA party member/union organizer who told him that American workers in the 80's told him that what they didn't like about Soviet communism wasn't the repression, or lack of political freedoms, or party purges...it was the bread lines. To me, that rings true with the attitude most average working people take towards politics--they simply don't see it as very relevant to their lives, except where it influences the economy. When a sufficient number of working people come to the belief that the capitalist economy is screwing them, and that an alternative can be created without producing empty store shelves and bread lines, i.e. an alternative that serves them better economically speaking than capitalism does, then we'll see a working class revolution. The key issue isn't going to be working people's changing attitudes toward dusty historical controversies that most of them know/care little about.

If you want to engage in useful historical revisionism, here's what to do: tell people the truth about the concrete economic gains the working class made in places like Russia and Cuba. Because the only story they ever hear is of rationing and shortages and black market goods.

I'm not advocating a view of humans as apolitical drones who don't care about freedom. Heck, I wish they cared even more than they do. But look at the facts--look, for example, at America, which despite having probably the most overblown "freedom" rhetoric of any country in history, isn't that politically free. Yet who is really dissenting? Just students and intelligentsia and a handful of activists, as it's always been. People don't dwell on the loss of freedoms which they never even bothered to exercise, but everybody is affected by the economy.

[JimmyJazz]

Also, the stupidity of this is on both sides.
What was Sam Webb expecting to achieve by going on a show which is just going to interrupt and talk over him, and abuse him?
There was no point in this.

And after the Brian Moore debacle, too.

[Os Cangaceiros]

8) The discussion about the Nazis. Webb should have known that the Nazis did espouse "National Socialism", and he should have discussed how their principles were actually corporatism and a degeneration of capitalism. Once again, no sense of history and no spine to confront Beck on his bullshit.

I could have shot down that bullshit with one remark:

"Do you think that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is really democratic?"

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

I could have shot down that bullshit with one remark:

"Do you think that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is really democratic?"

...or a republic... or of the people?

... All this is without mentioning the fact that every time i looked at Sam Webb I just saw Tom Smykowski from Office Space.









http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/suicideos.jpg

"It's a 'jump to conclusions' pad!"

[Cumannach]

I take tremendous issue with the idea that fear of Stalinist totalitarianism is what prevents a workers' revolution in the U.S. That's such an idealist, anti-materialist view to take. I have noticed that many anti-revisionists harp on this point about public opinion of communism revolving around Stalin, and it's just so mistaken.

A Marxist revolution is made by the working class. It is not necessary to turn every worker into a Marxist for the revolution to happen, much less into a Marxist-Leninist(-Stalinist). It is just necessary for the right material conditions to appear. And insofar as historical memory affects people's consciousness, it is their memory of the (supposed) economic facts, not of political repressions.

...

I'm not advocating a view of humans as apolitical drones who don't care about freedom. Heck, I wish they cared even more than they do. But look at the facts--look, for example, at America, which despite having probably the most overblown "freedom" rhetoric of any country in history, isn't that politically free. Yet who is really dissenting? Just students and intelligentsia and a handful of activists, as it's always been. People don't dwell on the loss of freedoms which they never even bothered to exercise, but everybody is affected by the economy.

I agree with you that the proper course of discussion is to describe the immense achievements of Socialism in the SU and elsewhere, like universal healthcare, no unemployment, women's lib, the unheard of economic growth and development etc. But you just can't stay silent against the assertion that 'Communism killed 100's of millions' or 'Stalin murdered 20 million'. You just cannot let that go. People won't want to hear about universal healthcare if it implies gulags. What I would have liked to hear from Webb would have been a quick refutation, ' I absolutely am denying Stalin did such and such, Communism did such and such, that's anti-communist rubbish'. Not get drawn into the details unless Beck wouldn't let it go, and immediately move on to the achievements of Communism, including under Stalin and relate to the situation in America.

I really don't think you can divorce history from revolutionary agitation and propaganda. The struggle to build a revolutionary consciousness is a battle, fought partly with propaganda, so you can't simply ignore capitalist propaganda as if it was irrelevant, you have to engage in that battle.

[Picky Bugger]

Thankfully before this id never heard of Glenn Beck all I have to say is what a cock...

The bollocks about "What percent of your salary do you give to charity" pissed me off, Fox news is so utterly stupid.

I was rather disappointed with the responses of Sam Webb most of the time, I guess he was stuck between a rock and a hard place as he could hardly speak against America...

[Charles Xavier]

Sam Webb could have asked Glenn Beck to stop interrupting and let him finish a sentence. But instead he played into his game.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Your right, but he should have avoided this show altogether in my opinion. He should have known that Glenn Beck was the sensationalist moron that he is, perhaps he didn't get any offers from other shows, but there are better ways to convey a leftist point of view rather than going on a conservative talk show.

A better voice for socialism on TV is Carlos Alvarez: http://www.pslweb.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homepage

The video is in the middle of the page.





I Lol'ed at the part where Beck took his fingers and put them together while saying "NATIONALIZED-SOCIALISM". What a moron.

[Trystan]

"Nationalized socialism"

It's "National Socialism" you fucking twit.

[manic expression]

I am going to say Stalin was an authoritarian narcissistic imperialist.

Well done. Out of a sentence with 11 words, no less than 3 of them were empty, misapplied and completely irrelevant buzzwords. 3/11 is one of the best ratios I've seen so far.

Your post isn't worth responding to because it had nothing to do with what I wrote, and secondly it hardly made any sense at all. In case no one told you, rambling about how much you personally hate Stalin doesn't count for much of an argument.

Back to the topic: After watching that, I have to agree with others on how completely atrocious Sam Webb was. I'm willing to give guests on hack TV-shows the benefit of the doubt (they're usually shouted down and asked misleading questions), but he was completely ineffective the entire time. Even if he was able to make a point, he's not a socialist or a Marxist or a communist, so he had nothing constructive to say anyway. I knew the leadership of the CPUSA was bad, but this borders on farcical. I feel like I just watched Elmer Fudd pretend to be a socialist and get in an argument with Yosemite Sam.

If I thought Glen Beck was at all intelligent, I would suspect Webb was brought on the show because the CPUSA has been aligning itself with the Democrats (giving Beck another opportunity to paint Obama as a socialist) and because Webb apparently can't articulate his way out of a sleeping bag. However, Beck is an idiot, so I doubt that.

[KC]

Sam is a charming fellow, but his politics aren't the greatest in the world, and he didn't really do that well in this interview. He's not very smart, which is evidenced by the fact that he agreed to do this interview in the first place.

[PoWR]

You don’t have to be a communist to agree with that.

Apparently so, since Sam Webb and the left flank of the Democratic Party he leads is anything but.

[JimmyJazz]

But you just can't stay silent against the assertion that 'Communism killed 100's of millions' or 'Stalin murdered 20 million'. You just cannot let that go. People won't want to hear about universal healthcare if it implies gulags. What I would have liked to hear from Webb would have been a quick refutation, ' I absolutely am denying Stalin did such and such, Communism did such and such, that's anti-communist rubbish'. Not get drawn into the details unless Beck wouldn't let it go, and immediately move on to the achievements of Communism, including under Stalin and relate to the situation in America.

I really don't think you can divorce history from revolutionary agitation and propaganda. The struggle to build a revolutionary consciousness is a battle, fought partly with propaganda, so you can't simply ignore capitalist propaganda as if it was irrelevant, you have to engage in that battle.

That's a pretty sensible position. But I don't ever want to put too much focus on the historical stuff, because how many people did the various Bolshevik political police agencies kill even by a conservative estimate? The Cheka by itself killed several thousand, right?

The difference between hundreds of millions and hundreds of thousands is not negligible, obviously. We should correct it. But we're talking about spreading socialist ideas among a public that gets up in arms over the failure of the Venezuelan government to renew a broadcasting license for a TV station that openly called for a military coup. So clearly, if we put all our hope in correcting death tallies, we're still going to be a hell of a long way from convincing a majority to accept socialism as long as Lenin is seen as synonymous with socialism.

Incidentally, can you give me/link me to (by PM if you prefer) some summary of the political deaths under Lenin and Stalin, and the collectivization-related deaths under Stalin? Because despite my reading I still don't have any handy reference to refute the numbers from the Black Book, Conquest, etc.

[Buster Flynn]

Whatever else Stalin did (or didn't do), he rapidly industrialized the USSR (and for the record, the industrialization process wasn't so pretty or pacific in the Anglo world, either), and then signed that pact with Hitler (taking no end of shit at the time and in history), in every minute of which the USSR cranked out every single T-34 they could, which is more or less why we're not having this discussion in German right now. Bought some precious time, and stopped the fascisti in their tracks-- at least until Reagan et al. could effectively rehabilitate them (xref Berlusconi).

Name one good thing Stalin did, indeed. Only in the utterly historically a-conscious USA could such a question pass without mass ridicule. Yes, he broke some eggs. But we're all glad enough for the omelette, now aren't we? Well, aren't we?

I like Sam a lot, and like his thinking. But I, too, wish he'd be more forceful on this kind of historical point. However, he is an economist, not a historian... Anyway. The main thing for Sam was not to take the bait, and to come off not as angry, but as more reasonable than Beck. In that sense, he knocked it out of the park, without even trying. Plus-one, commies!

Now, go out there and get on the teevee! :cool: It's a relatively unique time in Amerikan history, people just might hear us, and a little goes a long way in this society. Why, some are even openl discussing the viability of (little-s) socialism on Daily Kos, fer crying out loud!

Go get 'em, tigers... :thumbup1:

[Martin Blank]

It took me about a week before I actually saw Sam's "interview" on Glenn Beck. To be honest, it was painful. I actually know Sam personally (having once upon a time been in the CPUSA) and still consider him a personal friend, so watching him get creamed on national television was not a pleasurable experience.

That said, Sam was so out of his league that, yeah, they should have found someone else to do the appearance. It's not that he's incapable of arguing or making a salient point, it's that he is not someone who fares well in a "hit-and-run" style of debate. Sam is more methodical and systematic in his arguing; he is someone who takes his time to build the argument, putting each piece where it needs to be before capping it off. That kind of debating style in this format and time is a recipe for suicide.

That said, if I was the Chairperson of an organization and was asked to appear, I would take it in a second. In one respect, the old saying that there's no such thing as bad press applies (just as long as they get the names spelled right). In another respect, I can do the "hit-and-run" style, and could hold my own against Beck fairly well (if I do say so myself).

Plus, I'll bring my own Peeps. :D

It should have been anticipated by Sam (and others in the CPUSA) that Stalin would be brought up. In spite of the fact that they've been running from Stalin's ghost since 1956, they are still the "official" Communist Party and will be forever linked to the Kremlin and its policies. They should have properly prepared him for the questions, and provided him with accurate and factual answers.

For example, it's easy to call into question the credibility of the "100 million" figure, which comes from the so-called Black Book of Communism. Even the two main writers of the book said shortly after its release, in an interview in Le Monde Diplomatique, that the editor cooked the numbers and inflated them to provide a hook for petty-bourgeois "public opinion" to hang its anti-communist hat on. Whatever one can say about the barbarism of the Russian model of petty-bourgeois socialism (and there is plenty that can be said), there should be no place for those who attempt to shoehorn the facts into their ideology.

And as for Beck's use of the Hitler-as-socialist strawman, that's one of the easiest to turn back on him. After all, the Nazis were the first to conduct on an economy-wide scale what we know today as privatization -- the very thing that Beck and others advocate as the "solution" to capitalism's economic woes. If Sam had been armed with this information, and possessed a little more venom in his veins, he could have accused Beck and the other pro-privatizers of co-opting Hitler's "final solution" for the German economy and wanting to implement it here.

[Bilan]

Miles still shreds. ;)

[Cumannach]

That's a pretty sensible position. But I don't ever want to put too much focus on the historical stuff, because how many people did the various Bolshevik political police agencies kill even by a conservative estimate? The Cheka by itself killed several thousand, right?


Communists all throughout the 20th century have killed hundred of thousands of people that opposed them. This is no secret, or shame. It's an unfortunate reality of class war. Revolution is bloody, but you have to remember what we're doing, you have to look at the context, for example of millions of children dying every year under capitalism from starvation or malnutrition. The people who enforce this kind of system won't give up easily. When Fascism swept over Europe in reaction to the threat of Communism, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union and killed about 20 million people.



The difference between hundreds of millions and hundreds of thousands is not negligible, obviously. We should correct it. But we're talking about spreading socialist ideas among a public that gets up in arms over the failure of the Venezuelan government to renew a broadcasting license for a TV station that openly called for a military coup. So clearly, if we put all our hope in correcting death tallies, we're still going to be a hell of a long way from convincing a majority to accept socialism as long as Lenin is seen as synonymous with socialism.


That's the reason to get it over and done with quickly. Make figures like'100 million' so laughable nobody will even dare to mouth them. And the public wasn't so up in arms, some were stirred up by the virulent propaganda spewing out of the right wing press about Chavez.



Incidentally, can you give me/link me to (by PM if you prefer) some summary of the political deaths under Lenin and Stalin, and the collectivization-related deaths under Stalin? Because despite my reading I still don't have any handy reference to refute the numbers from the Black Book, Conquest, etc.

Well, for online stuff:

Maybe the best summary introduction I know of is a chapter in a book by Michael Parenti "Blackshirts and Reds". It's chapter 5, 'Stalin's Fingers'. As it happens the most relevant pages of this chapter are available in the preview of the book on Google Books. Just follow the link, click 'preview this book' and go to Pages 76-80;

(http://books.google.ie/books?id=WSsGEsBUsVcC)

If you have access to JSTOR you can read the paper by Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov (who aren't pro-Stalin, or even socialist) that was written shortly after the opening of the Archives, in 1993. It's online here;

Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28199310%2998:4%3C1017:VOTSPS%3E2.0.CO;2-0&origin=historycoop)
(http://www.jstor.org/pss/2166597)

If you can't access that, Mario Sousa wrote an article providing a summary of the findings of that paper and another French one (which also based itself on the new archive documents). Sousa is very much pro-Stalin but in this section he is just presenting the findings of the above authors. This is the relevant section

http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/lies.html#Russian%20research

And the table at the bottom of the page is lifted from the paper by Zemskov, Getty and Rittersporn.

If you want a relatively short summary of not only the Labour Camps and purges but of the Ukrainian Famine you should read;

"Another View of Stalin"- Ludo Martens
(http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/book.html)

There are separate sections dealing with each. Martens is of course pro-Stalin, but all his arguments rely on evidence not collected from 'Stalinists' but from credible sources that are unlikely to be biased in favour of Stalin and the Soviet Union. You should read it and make up your own mind- the worst that will happen is that you won't be convinced.

If you want an in-depth exposé of the myth of the Ukrainian Famine Genocide you can download this tour-de-force for free;

"Fraud, Famine and Fascism" - Douglas Tottle
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/sp...ary/famine.htm (http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/famine.htm)

[bretty]

Wow. That was ridiculous. That wasn't the definition of a discussion by any means. None of the arguments the host of the show brought up related in any way to the topic on hand.

[Poison]

Ugh...I'm glad I'm not a CPUSA member. Stop blaming Beck so much, sure he was an idiot and bullied Webb, but Webb had his own issues. He didn't point out Beck's lies and inaccuracies. He wasn't prepared and he made us all look like fools.

Thanks a lot Webb...

[Poison]

The bollocks about "What percent of your salary do you give to charity" pissed me off, Fox news is so utterly stupid.

I thought that part was hilarious, considering in Fundie right wing America's own Bible is a parable (or two?) about how if you're poor, even giving a tiny bit is better than a wealthy person giving a large amount.

And here a communist is doing a better job of being a Christian than they are...

[Rosa Provokateur]

neither is the idea that “big government” is the source of our problems.
It's not the source but it definatly doesnt help matters. Less government the better, less taxes, less State interference on all levels.

[Tjis]

Haha

Difficulties?! They have killed hundreds of billions of people!
World population right now is 6.76 billion. I wonder what they did with all the bodies.

[Rosa Provokateur]

Glad I watched it, it points out several problems I've got with Webb.

1) He wants to increase the stimulus, the stimulus is ridiculously bloated and I dont trust the State with any amount of money so why increase it?

2) He never really answered where he stood concerning the Soviet Union, I know he got interrupted alot but the lack of an answer concerns me.

3) His use of the word "difficulties" is an understatement concerning how badly alot of nations have done under Communist Party rule.

Other than that he seems like a sweet, honest, and well-intentioned old man although a little slow on the come-back.

[MikeSC]

Other than that he seems like a sweet, honest, and well-intentioned old man although a little slow on the come-back.

Yeah, it could have done some good for people to see a Communist Human Being for possibly the first time in their lives- rather than the hideous caricatures the media paints.

[Sarah Palin]

I love Sam Webb but I was surprised to see him spitting the party line of the democratic party at so many points.

[Psy]

It a shame I'm the first to say this, but I'm going to.

Sam Webb had his ass handed to him.

He failed this interview on soooooo many levels, I don't even know where to begin.

1) The CPUSA line is capitulating reformism, obviously we acknowledge that. Any communist saying that "socialism isn't yet on the agenda" in such an industrialized country as the USA needs a slap in the face.

2) He upholds Teddy Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson as positive reformers.


3) He does not even attempt to correct Glen Beck's analysis of what socialism is when Glen says that Barack Obama would create "massive socialism".

The least of the problems



4) He gets destroyed in the "charity" discussion. He makes no mention of the fact that it's a lot harder to give 20% of your income to charity when you only make $26,000 a year. However, that wasn't really the point.

All he had to do was go into percentage of disposable income and explain most Americans can't afford to spend 20% as most of their income is tied up with necessities.



5) He gets destroyed in Beck's attack on the USSR and Stalin. This is where the CPUSA line fails; in the 30s, they embraced Stalin. In the 50s, they embraced Khruschev, in the 70s, Brezhnev. Now that the Soviet Union is collapsed, they decide to finally break out all their critiques. This is well demonstrated by Webb's wishy-washy approach to the question.

6) When Webb tries to bring the discussion back to the US, Glen Beck actually makes more sense than the idiotic "tail the Democrats" line that the CPUSA supports when he says that corporations only see "consumers" and "markets". This is of course in the context of Beck being a reactionary capitalist, but still.

That is totally embarrassing.



7) "Name the communist country that worked"... Webb's hesitation here is unacceptable. Repeating the question, and then not answering the question (and not addressing the fact that there is no such thing as a "communist" country. Then saying "you don't agree" that communists have killed hundreds of millions of people... Of course we haven't dumbass, call him out on it!!!! It's not a matter to agree or disagree about, it's about what actually happened, how spineless can you be?

That is inexcusable, he should have know something like that would be brought up and have had a answer. I'm surprised when he was thrown the bone of Cuba he still couldn't even make the argument that Cuba is actually better off then other Latin American nations.




8) The discussion about the Nazis. Webb should have known that the Nazis did espouse "National Socialism", and he should have discussed how their principles were actually corporatism and a degeneration of capitalism. Once again, no sense of history and no spine to confront Beck on his bullshit.

That would be the absolute low point of the interview.

[heiss93]

Heres Webb at a friendlier interview with more serious questions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Q4MIXGfa4

[Kassad]

It seems Communist Party USA has been getting a lot of media attention, mostly because if their members were put on a panel with members of the Democratic Party, I doubt anyone would be able to tell the difference. They had someone on Fox News a few weeks ago talking about Cuba and she watered her message down so much that it could've been a center-leftist argument in support of Cuba. From promoting incredible anti-communist viewpoints, to defending imperialist political lines, it's astounding that anyone can actually consider Communist Party USA revolutionary.

[scarletghoul]

Sam Webb is boring.

[spiltteeth]

This interview was the reason I decided not to Join the CPUSA. Webb came across as supporting Obama when he should have been getting the message out that the problem is systemic, it doesn't matter who's in office, the very system is not designed to serve the people, it never will. Also he should have distanced socialism from what Obama's doing - someone actually needs to tell Fox viewers what socialism is.
When Beck claims the Canada is a Socialist country because it has socialized medicine - "the word 'social' is right in there!" Web could easily have said, "I guess America has long been a socialist nation since we have 'SOCIAL' security."
Beck is leading an ACTUAL populist movement of thousands by tying his name to Thomas Paine, the Left could actually learn something about mobilizing people from this little toad.
Where's the outrage? Chris Hedges wrote a good article recently on truthdig on why the right is successful - they are passionate and use emotional language.

[Nwoye]

Watching interviews of prominent "socialists" on news networks and elsewhere only solidifies my view that participation in bourgeois elections and in the bourgeois political system is utterly pointless. I mean, these guys are our spokespersons? Brian Moore, and Sam Webb? Are you fucking kidding me!?

[heiss93]

Interesting Russian art exhibit with portraits of CPUSA members

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://www.vpered.org.ru/galery2.html&ei=0eVpSqvuDZTWNsjO6c8M&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=5&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522%25D0%259A%25D0%25BE%25D0%25BC%2 5D0%25BC%25D1%2583%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D1%2581%2 5D1%2582%25D0%25B8%25D1%2587%25D0%25B5%25D1%2581%2 5D0%25BA%25D0%25B0%25D1%258F%2B%25D0%25BF%25D0%25B 0%25D1%2580%25D1%2582%25D0%25B8%25D1%258F%2B%25D0% 25A1%25D0%25A8%25D0%2590%2522%26hl%3Den%26client%3 Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3Dmf3%26sa%3DN%26start%3D10

[RedCommieBear]

This is pretty similar to the topic at hand:

I thought John Bachtell of the Illinois CP did a good job of depending the CP's views. Mind you, this was in May 2008, so the true direness of the economy wasn't quite so plain as it was later in the year.

http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/964/1/123/

This is probably the first time I've heard "How Much do you weigh" as a measure of the economic success of capitalism.

[gorillafuck]

Why did the CPUSA put this on their website? Beck is obviously an ass and a bully, but Webb didn't even respond to the questions.

[genstrike]

This is pretty similar to the topic at hand:

I thought John Bachtell of the Illinois CP did a good job of depending the CP's views. Mind you, this was in May 2008, so the true direness of the economy wasn't quite so plain as it was later in the year.

http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/964/1/123/

This is probably the first time I've heard "How Much do you weigh" as a measure of the economic success of capitalism.

I thought the CP guy was doing okay, but that radio host was so bad that I couldn't get through it - I had to shut it off like a third of the way through.

[Misanthrope]

Webb made himself look like an idiot. Glen Beck is an ignorant, elitist, ****.

Thanks for this though.

[Conquer or Die]

Sam Webb and Brian Moore are fucking imperialist propagandists. By getting on right wing news channels and talk shows they could do everybody a service by presenting coherent rebuttals to idiotic right wing blathering but instead turn into puddy and spout pseudo-humanitarian gunk at every corner.

These people are fucking horrible for the communist movement. They are fucking cancer cells.

[Axle]

Sam Webb was really the wrong guy to do that interview. He had a hard time thinking on his feet and being assertive, and it looked like he was woefully unprepared for some of the questions.

Of course, I don't even know what the hell CPUSA was doing on Fox News anyway. The audience has their mind made up about Communism, and Glen Beck doesn't care about their ideas, he's there to mock them. The ONLY thing that would result is making yourself and your cause look foolish...which is exactly what happened here.

This was an embarassment.

[Lolshevik]

The CPUSA's tail-ism makes me want to hurl.

[RotStern]

Like Lenin? Like Marx?? What does that Beck think he's doing?
His show is not worthwhile at all.
Tell me what problems Stalin solved??
that has nothing to do with the conversation, then he says You cant have a real conversation.
This is what Communists do they take our water!
The Nazis were certainly not Socialist they only advertised themselves as Socialist.
Politicians lie. Why the fuck would HITLER be any different?
That whole "interview" was bullshit, really goes to show the quality of Becks show.