Mike Ely on Grover Furr [Archive]

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kasama-rl

26th June 2011, 06:35

"Nobody other than Grover Furr is translating and publishing the source documents from the formerly classified Soviet Archives"This is mistaken. There are actual, serious historical summations going on -- particularly by J. Arch Getty (who has written two valuable and highly respected books on the Great Purges) and who comes from a position of opposing (and actually debunking) the previous anticommunist verdicts.

Anyone interested in a materialist examination of those records (not a misleading pseudo-scientific manipulation of data) should read Getty's work.

kasama-rl

26th June 2011, 06:54

On the question of refuting Grover Furr:

Grover insists that the official Soviet charges of that period were proven by his own research -- i.e. that there is evidence of a major network of conspirators, saboteurs and assassins riddling the Soviet party and economy -- that was led (from abroad) by Trotsky, and that consciously served the coming Nazi invasion, and was conspiring to break up the Soviet Union. In other words, that these opposition leaders did not have opposing LINES and POLICIES for the Soviet Union, but that they had become a gang of Nazi-backed traitors and assassins.

He insists that this pro-Nazi conspiracy involved large numbers of Soviet officials, and officers -- and specifically that the verdicts of the Moscow trials were just.

This is all complete nonsense -- and though he claims over and over to have such evidence, he does not (and cannot) present it.

There is no evidence of this, because there was not such a Nazi-Japanese network riddling the Soviet state. There is no documentation. No records in German archives, no memoirs, no funds transferred, copies of orders sent, reports received in Berlin, nothing.

Instead Grover documents things that are not controversial: for example (a) that there were several organized political oppositions among communists to the Stalin leadership (which is obvious, of course). and (b) that there were extensive "confessions" made by people facing death in Soviet prisons (which is also obvious), (c) that there were assassins (which is also obvious since Kirov, a top soviet leader, was in fact assassinated). But none of this is credible evidence of a highlevel Nazi-led conspiracy inside the Communist Party directing saboteurs, wreckers and assassins with the goal of dividing up the Soviet union and destroy its socialism.

Similarly, Grover spends a lot of time trying to document that Stalin believed the charges. This may well be true. But if a government leader insists that he knows that xxx is a Nazi-collaboraror, and insists that his police find "evidence" -- those are the mechanisms by which false verdicts are fabricated. We will never know whether Stalin actually believed the conspiracy theory or whether he cynically helped invent it -- but in either case, the claims were (in fact) not true, and non-credible confessions were (in the end) the only evidence they could present.

Grover's endless articles are filled with various, available facts, data and quotes -- but they don't prove his claims.

So the answer to his mistaken and invented claims is not to engage each of those facts, data or quotes.

The error of his work is at the level of method: i.e. he dismisses any evidence that doesn't fit his thesis (including for example Molotov's memoirs, or evidence of coercive beatings in soviet prisons etc.), and he distorts other documentation (like the confessions) to present them as credible.

We have written about this a lot on Kasama. One of the more recent places is here:

http://kasamaproject.org/2011/05/25/the-illusion-of-the-obvious/#comment-38743

I think it is useful (by analogy) to compare the METHOD of Grover's pseudo-history to similar methods used by others. The example I give is Farrakhan's anti-Semitic writings trying to prove that Jews had a special role in the American slavery. That work too (by example) is filled with facts (many of which are in fact historically true) -- but here too they don't prove their book's claimed thesis.

Anyone with specific questions about this, should raise them -- because we can't be a serious revolutionary movement if we are not able to detect (and dismiss) crackpot arguments that "prove things" that are (in fact) not true.

Grover responds to all criticism by insisting that critics don't know anything, and must not have read his (endless) ramblings, or must not understand the issues, or (more significantly) must be anti-communists.

This is nonsense.

These things are being excavated (well) by a number of radical historians -- none of whom agree with Grover (because Grover is simply wrong). Grover's theories and assertions are simply not in the ballpark of serious historical (or communist) discussion) -- and his claims contradict what is actually known about these events. (Not each of the specific facts that Grover cites, most of which are actually facts, but the verdicts and claims he makes after citing those facts).

And (as above) I urge anyone interested in these matters to simply study the great work of J. Arch Getty (first his book on the Great Purges, but then his book on the Russian archival evidence "The Road to Terror -- Stalin and the self-destruction of the bolsheviks" 1932-1939). Getty's presentation and analysis of what we know is very powerful, and helps communists make a serious appraisal of these events and their impact.

Wanted Man

26th June 2011, 10:44

Mod note: this thread was not started by kasama-rl, and he didn't create the title. The posts were split from a Theory thread by me.

Ismail

26th June 2011, 16:13

Of course Furr has also commented on your allegations against him (and your attempt to link his methods of research to anti-semites and fascists) on your blog.

We will never know whether Stalin actually believed the conspiracy theory or whether he cynically helped invent itThere's no evidence anywhere that he was acting in a cynical fashion. Besides points that Furr raised, there's also Erik Van Ree who notes for instance that:

"It appears that already in the early 1930s Stalin was convinced that the oppositional leaders, who had given up their resistance against him, were involved in a widely ramified imperialist conspiracy. Starting in the summer of 1930, a number of prominent specialists in various state institutions – N.D. Kondrat'ev, Leonid Ramzin and others – were arrested on charges of sabotaging Russian finance, industry and agriculture on the orders of emigrant Russian capitalists and Western European governments, who were preparing an invasion of the Soviet Union. Stalin's correspondence suggests that he believed in the accusations....

And he directly linked the old oppositionists in the party to these cases. He wrote to Molotov that former leftist leader Piatakov was inspired by the plotters. He did not doubt that there existed a 'Rykov–Piatakov bloc,' allied with the 'Kondrat'ev–defeatist tendencies.'

And that was not all. During 1930, Stalin received a report from Menzhinskii that chief of the general staff Tukhachevskii might be preparing a coup d'état. Thereupon Stalin wrote to his comrade Ordzhonikidze that he did not know whether to believe this. But there existed at least the possibility that the 'Kondrat'ev–Sukhanov–Bukharin party' aimed for 'a military dictatorship, if only they can get rid of the CC, of the kolkhozy and sovkhozy, of the bolshevik tempos of development of industry.' Fortunately, the leader convinced himself some time later that, as he wrote to Molotov, Tukhachevskii 'appeared 100% pure. That's very good.' Subsequently, the matter petered out. Nevertheless, strikingly, in 1930 we already have the fully developed concept of a bloc of rightists and leftists, in league with conspirators in the Red Army and bourgeois specialists, who again co-operated with the imperialist powers to prepare military intervention against the USSR. And all this appears not from statements for public consumption but from Stalin's private mail...

In 1930, the authorities were informed that RSFSR Prime Minister Syrtsov was conspiring with First Secretary of the trans-Caucasian District Committee Lominadze. Stalin took this 'Left–Right bloc' seriously. He commented to Molotov about the 'anti-party (in essence right deviationist) little factional group' and added: 'They played at a takeover.' ...

Stalin always suspected even his closest comrades of not recognising counter-revolutionary plots. In August 1932, for example, he complained to Kaganovich that Politburo member Stanislav Kosior failed to recognise that, through his 'direct agents' in the Ukrainian party, Polish leader Pilsudski was organising an espionage network."
(Erik Van Ree. The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin: A Study in Twentieth-Century Revolutionary Patriotism. New York: RoutledgeCurzon. 2002. pp. 118-119.)

Getty, who you rightfully promote, has pointed out (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1521611&postcount=7) that Lominadze did, in fact, establish connections to form a "left-right bloc."

Van Ree then gives a few more examples.

Both Molotov and Kaganovich note that Stalin really did believe there were conspiracies. This isn't proof that they were real, but it is further evidence that he genuinely did think there were conspiracies. Both men, of course, also believed in most of these conspiracies in the main, although they disputed certain parts (e.g. Molotov rejected the claim that Trotsky agreed to sever the Ukraine to Nazi Germany.)

This idea that Stalin was "cynical" is rather hard to square with the Maoist assertion (or at least the variant of Maoism associated with you) that Stalin was a great Marxist-Leninist who just made a few "mistakes" (that, of course, Mao gloriously "corrected" and then some.) If Stalin was "cynical," and I know you seem to apply this "cynicism" to things outside of the Great Purges (such as events in Eastern Europe) as well, then Stalin didn't merely make "mistakes." This is the conclusion most people are going to take from your writings, and Maoism itself tends to encourage this view in order to bolster Mao.

The idea that there was no "Nazi-Japanese network riddling the Soviet state" isn't very accurate. I can't speak much about Nazi influence (although it should be fairly obvious that they tried to influence anti-communists in the Ukraine and such), but not only was there an active Japanese network, it freely shared its intelligence information with other anti-communist states. See: www.aheku.org/datas/users/1-burds-fifthcolumnists.pdf (http://www.aheku.org/datas/users/1-burds-fifthcolumnists.pdf) (particularly PDF pages 7-16.)

kasama-rl

28th June 2011, 01:30

"
This idea that Stalin was "cynical" is rather hard to square with the Maoist assertion (or at least the variant of Maoism associated with you) that Stalin was a great Marxist-Leninist who just made a few "mistakes" (that, of course, Mao gloriously "corrected" and then some.) If Stalin was "cynical," and I know you seem to apply this "cynicism" to things outside of the Great Purges (such as events in Eastern Europe) as well, then Stalin didn't merely make "mistakes." This is the conclusion most people are going to take from your writings, and Maoism itself tends to encourage this view in order to bolster Mao."

This is highly confused.

Mao had an overall assessment of Stalin (70/30) -- and a view that the Soviet Union was socialist while Stalin was in power.

But on the question of the 'source of capitalist restoration" -- Mao did not claim that Stalin has some great ML theory. He opposed Stalin's view.

The criticism Mao made of Stalin's view was multifaceted:

Stalin thought that after the socialization of production, society no long had a social base for capitalists restoration (other then defeat remnants of previous exploiting classes, and the influence of foreign imperialists).

Stalin argued that the desperation of these forces increases as socialism advances, so the struggle intensifies and takes more extreme forms.

Mao (by contrast) argued that the contradictory nature of socialism (not simply the defeated remnants of the old feudalism and capitalism) gives rise to capitalist headquarters -- right inside the party.

This is a radically different theory. And (based on the Soviet experience of the 30s and 40s, then the restoration of the 50s, and the whole sweep of the Chinese socialist experience) this is a more correct theory.

I think Stalin was a great revolutionary and leader who forged a path where none had existed. I suspect he did believe his own line -- i.e. that ongoing opposition in society and in the party was rooted in foreign conspiracies and domestic agents of capitalists. But the fact that he believed a mistaken theory is not a redeeming feature -- it led to terrible mistakes we don't want to repeat.

To use an analogy: The french revolutionaries believed that executing aristocrats would uproot feudalism -- but then Bonaparte (emerging as leader of the new state) crowned himself. In other words, killing representatives of an old order doesn't prevent the restoration of old relations.

Stalin may have "sincerely" believed that there "must" be Nazi conspiracies all around him -- that doesn't make it true. And it doesn't change the fact that executing layers of political leadership, and also executing hundreds of thousands of people on false charges deeply damaged the course of Soviet revolution.

The argument here is that Stalin had a false understanding of class struggle under socialism. And Mao (summing up the terrible mistakes of the Soviet experiences) developed a different and better analysis.

DiaMat86

28th June 2011, 02:20

This is mistaken. There are actual, serious historical summations going on -- particularly by J. Arch Getty (who has written two valuable and highly respected books on the Great Purges) and who comes from a position of opposing (and actually debunking) the previous anticommunist verdicts.

Anyone interested in a materialist examination of those records (not a misleading pseudo-scientific manipulation of data) should read Getty's work.

Many documents have become available since Getty's books were published. Do those documents count for anything?

You're original post has a quote of mine that you say is untrue. Can you please provide examples of work done in the last 10 years? I'm really interested.

kasama-rl

28th June 2011, 17:51

Diamat:

You seem to think that Getty's research is outdated and mainly in the past.

Yes, its true that Getty's pathbreaking book "Origin of the Great Purges" was published in 1985 -- obviously before the Soviet archives were opened. This work (and its analysis) was about the larger power questions of the Soviet state -- and a sharp challenge to the theories of "totalitarianism" that had influence in the Cold War era.

But Getty's later book "The Road to Terror" appeared in 1999 -- and represents a major summation of what was uncovered in the Soviet archives.

Since then he wrote the biography "Yerzhov: The Rise of Stalin's Iron First" which was published in 2008.

You wrote:

"Many documents have become available since Getty's books were published. Do those documents count for anything?"On the contrary, he has been writing and summing up as the material becomes available. Are you under the impression that Getty is not up-to-date or that there are major archival evidence that he ignores? If so, what precisely are those "many documents"?

Grover makes a number of claims regard to Getty.

For example Grover claims that Getty secretly agrees with him, but is afraid to say so in public. (Apparently, Getty hearing this claim cut communications to Grover and told Grover never to contact him again. I have not heard Grover personally describe this, but others say they have. And as far as I know, Grover has not denied this.) In fact, reading Getty's writings it is clear that he does not believe that the prosecutorial claims of Stalin's instruments (Yerzhov and Vyshinsky) were accurate.

Grover claims that he has unique discoveries from the archives that other people don't speak to. What is it? Grover has no special evidence, and has not presented any that confirms his false theses.

Put another way, if anyone (including Grover) uncovered previously unknown information that confirmed Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin et al were really Nazi agents and saboteurs etc. it would be frontpage news. It would be a shocking scoop, and a major histocial discovery. It would be debated (and embraced) by scholars. It would be big news in Russia, etc. etc.

It is not big news because it doesn't exist. Grover is making crackpot claims that are not confirmed by any evidence. I can't say it more clearly and simply than that. His cxore claims are simply bullshit. (He makes other side claims that are not particularly controversial -- but he uses them as red herring to build credibility to advance his false assertions.)

Or put another way: if there is somewhere evidence that Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, et all were part of some pro-Nazi mega-conspiracy that unleashed saboteurs, wreckers and assassins in order to help carve up the Soviet Union (i.e. if that the Moscow Trial verdicts are verified).... well where is it? What is it?

The key point I have disputed is Grover one-sentence summation in 2009:

"On the evidence there's no doubt that Trotsky conspired with the Germans and Japanese as alleged during the second and third Moscow Trials of January 1937 and March 1938."

I have said this many times:

Grover says there is "no doubt" based "on the evidence". Ok, if Grover has such news-making evidence what is it? Let us see a short tidy list or abstract of that evidence.

His work never has a real abstract, because he can't present his so-called "evidence" in a clear simple form. Grover doesn't to that, cuz he has no such evidence, and his method is to create a blur of unrelated red herring arguments -- like "trotsky lied at dewey commission," or that there was a political opposition seeking to replace Stalin (who doubts that there was?), or "did stalin believe his own claims" or whatever. That is why a key thing you need to do in critically evaluating Grover's main claims is to cut away the white noise and side issues.

If you find Grover's core pro-Nazi mega-conspiracy claims convincing, DiaMat, let me make a simple friendly suggestion: List the basic evidence that you find convincing so we can evaluate it. Just name the documents and what you think they prove. Not dispersed in vague and rambling narratives and assertions that prove nothing. Just give us an abstract with bullet points. What is this so-called evidence (other than the elaborate confessions of prisoners seeking mercy and facing execution?)

Is there a money trail? Is there documented reports from the Nazi spy rings? Is there a memoir? A description of a meeting where the orders and money were passed from Nazis to Trotskyists? Is there an organizational chart? Is there communications by the core conspirators? Where was the sabotage or assassination they ordered, and how did they order it?

Hope that clarifies things.

The Vegan Marxist

28th June 2011, 20:58

Jose Gracchus

28th June 2011, 21:18

Mike Ely seems to be desperately clinging on an idea that, when something as big as evidence pointing out the fact that Stalin was not in fact the mass murderer claimed to be for so long, that bourgeois states such as Russia and its media would jump all over this! Or, as Ely puts it, "It would be a shocking scoop, and a major histocial discovery. It would be debated (and embraced) by scholars. It would be big news in Russia, etc. etc." :rolleyes:

Yeah, like the media's "jumping all over" the mere fact that the FBI have been raiding the homes of anti-war and solidarity activists throughout the United States? This has been barely given any coverage at all, and the most of it's been the past month throughout an entire year of this going on!

LOL. Okay. I know you're really egotistical, but one of these things is really not like the other, regardless of where you stand on the issue. The FRSO repressions are related to continuing imperial policy by the U.S. and the Administration in power in particular. Revisionist history of Stalinism is not beyond the pale. Though Thurston and Getty got shit, they certainly did not get expelled from academia.

And the Russian establishment has definitely been rehabilitating Stalin as a figure of Russian statesmanship, versus the Yeltsin years. This is can't be seriously disputed.

You also seem to be quite ignorant to the reality of academia repression, since you seem so damn confused as to why Getty would want to keep a hush about his anti-bourgeois views of Stalin. Prof. Grover Furr takes shit from Montclair State University all the damn time, and spends a lot of time having to address bullshit propaganda made against him by his own colleagues in Montclair. Hell, even the school makes it really difficult for him to publish his work through the university, and he has to instead publish it through his own main webpage!

Because medieval English literature professors do not automatically get an inside to publishing under the auspices of history departments means jack. Getting published is a competitive world, and its not like people at my university simply can simply waltz into anywhere in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and be like I WANNA PUBLISH HERE SUCK IT.

I have a comrade who's got a PhD. in Philosophy, and is working as a teacher here in N.C., and he has to keep it very quiet about his Marxist ideology, or else the consequences of such would be devastating to his career! This is reality Ely. One in which you seem to be very misunderstood over.

No shit. I am in history, and I have to butter shit up all the time. That doesn't mean that what Furr publishes is reputable history. Take that "Stalin as democrat" piece. It relies on a bunch of innuendo without adequate corroboration from Zhukov's memoirs. And its not like the mass organizations that could put up candidates (multi-candidate is not multi-party, or necessarily authentically competitive election; a lot more criteria goes into than that) would be free of state and party control.

Maybe you should read up on this reality by reading Michael Parenti's "Repression in Academia (http://tinyurl.com/5shfp5l)", which can be found in his work Contrary Notions. Or maybe he's not enough. How about the entire work, written by several writers you know very well, Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic Industrial Complex (http://www.amazon.com/Academic-Repression-Reflections-Industrial-Complex/dp/1904859984).

This is like sentencing a guy to murder because he might have the motive to do it. Simply establishing that it sucks in mainstream academia to be a communist is like the most no-shit-Sherlock thing you could possibly say. Is anyone here really not aware how difficult it is to present face-value our politics on a day-to-day basis? That does not establish that Furr's work is correct, or would muster peer review, even if it was only with left historians.

kasama-rl

28th June 2011, 21:46

VM writes:

"Mike Ely seems to be desperately clinging on an idea that, when something as big as evidence pointing out the fact that Stalin was not in fact the mass murderer claimed to be for so long, that bourgeois states such as Russia and its media would jump all over this."Leaving aside the loaded tone ("desperate"..."clinging"), it is worth pointing out how distorted this view of the world.

Imagine, there are armies of lying "bourgeois scholars" covering up the truth and ONLY one (!) daring to speak the truth: the heroic Grover Furr. Is that credible? Is that how it looks? One homogenous monolithic reactionary mass of "bourgeois scholars" in some kind of (dare I say) conspiracy against the truth? And what about the radical scholars with whom we share a lot of values? What about J. Arch Getty? Why isn't he "all over it"? Or Sheila Fitzpatrick? Or dozens of other historical scholars (in dozens of countries) who are communist, or socialist, or at least sincerely progressive?

Only the lonely Furr against a vast sea of anticommunist deceit and hiddent "trotskyites"?!

It is nonsense. And it is (furthermore) nonsense that Furr consciously promotes. He portrays any work that undermines his thesis as "anticommunist or trot" -- and implies that any fact uncovered by an anticommunist can't be a fact. And he denies the evidence and testimony of people who are clearly knowledgeable AND communist. Molotov's booklength recollections are extremely valuable (as a personal justification of a major participant in that era). Furr just dismisses is, without daring to mention what it contains and reveals (i.e. Molotov makes it clear that he and Stalin knew of the police policies, and he even in retrospect essentially defends the approach.)

The numbers (the sheer size of the executions) are no longer in serious dispute -- archive documents show at least 600,000 people were executed in the two years heights of the Great Purges. Which is a stunning number... which had a massive impact on the political life of this socialist country, especially because these police killings were overwhelmingly without real trials or real evidence. How many ordinary people will raise criticisms or suggestions after that?

That is a serious indictment of a government and a leadership. And it is worth asking deeply "how did this happen? how was it falsely justified? how do we avoid it?"

But what does Grover do? He has to acknowledge the events, but tries to claim that the Stalin leadership didn't know and was not responsible. (And he tries to hand off blame toeveryone around, including bukharin and Yerzhov.) It is more nonsense. And it is a method that will (precisely) prevent us from understanding these sad events, and preventing them from happening.

Clearly, the point here (for communists) is not to find a scape goat or to demonize Stalin. I have always personally supported Stalin in a number of ways, and have always thought that the proposals of Trotsky and Bukharin were wrong (by contrast). In other words, the point is not to "blame" stalin, or his coworkers in some simplistic or childish sense... because that too will not replace a repeat. Our task has to be to uncover why these terrible events happened within OUR movement, and how to prevent them. And by playing silly games, Grover dodges that whole matter...

And so (btw) does Vegan Marxist. He acts like it is absurd to think Stalin had a role in the mass police executions that marked the Soviet Union. And he thinks it is credible that Getty is "sitting on the story" in a cowardly and dishonest.... that the justifications for these executions were (in fact) real.

"Prof. Grover Furr takes shit from Montclair State University all the damn time, and spends a lot of time having to address bullshit propaganda made against him by his own colleagues in Montclair. Hell, even the school makes it really difficult for him to publish his work through the university, and he has to instead publish it through his own main webpage!"Furr is a crackpot. The rejection of his work may involve anticommunism, but it also has to do with the fact that it is not credible scholarship. Obviously there is also anticommunism in the world... but putting out absurd left-tinged conspiracy theories and pseudo-scholarship does not help our communist cause (at Monclair or anywhere else).

Look: in the 1980s, Getty took on the whole anticommunist establishment. His book on the Purges was a huge challenge to the classic "totalitarian" theorists -- and essentially marked the end of their dominance. He was courageous (writing in the height of the cold war) and he was lethal in his debunking of cold war anticommunism. In other words, it wasn't Grover Furr who dethroned Robert Conquest as the reigning dean of Soviet scholarship.... it was J. Arch Getty and a host of real historians of his generation.

Do you serious think that this same Getty knows that the Moscow trials were right, and SITS ON THE EVIDENCE of a Nazi mega-conspiracy.... because he is too cowardly to speak the simple truth at the heart of his life's work?

Vegan writes:

" ...since you seem so damn confused as to why Getty would want to keep a hush about his anti-bourgeois views of Stalin."What you don't understand Vegan is that Getty is not hushed about his views on Stalin -- from the beginning of his work he has dismantled the dominant anti-communist views. You take the work of a rather remarkable progressive scholar with a communist personal history -- and smear him as a liar and a coward.

Information Candidate writes:

" I am in history, and I have to butter shit up all the time. That doesn't mean that what Furr publishes is reputable history. Take that "Stalin as democrat" piece. It relies on a bunch of innuendo without adequate corroboration from Zhukov's memoirs. And its not like the mass organizations that could put up candidates (multi-candidate is not multi-party, or necessarily authentically competitive election; a lot more criteria goes into than that) would be free of state and party control."No shit.

And, in fact, the academic world (while it has repression and repercussions) is full of people exposing imperialism and capitalism. Prof. Bertell Ollman (NYU) was denied the chairmanship of a political science department in Maryland (in a redbaiting frenzy)... but he was able to publish books on dialectics and sex-pol. Chomsky constantly exposes israel and U.S. imperialism from MIT.

So yes there is repression... but if you think there is evidence that Bukharin and Trotsky were fascist agents, and that EVERYONE in the world BUT GROVER FURR is too afraid to mention it.... then you seriously misread reality.

In many ways, VeganMarxist's distortion of reality is similar to Grover Furr's method -- it is half true and twisted to serve wishful thinking. It is logic that starts with a verdict then shaves the facts and arguments to fit. It is an example of how we should NOT be operating.

Ismail

29th June 2011, 00:45

Furr is a crackpot. The rejection of his work may involve anticommunism, but it also has to do with the fact that it is not credible scholarship. Obviously there is also anticommunism in the world... but putting out absurd left-tinged conspiracy theories and pseudo-scholarship does not help our communist cause (at Monclair or anywhere else).

Look: in the 1980s, Getty took on the whole anticommunist establishment....I don't see how what Furr does isn't "credible scholarship." Because you don't agree with it?

As for Getty, undeniably his books are very good reads, but at the same time he does have a history of backtracking "controversial" opinions. One guy I know (and who you also know) once said to me the following: "Getty told Grover Furr (as they used to talk back in the 80s) that he believed the charges in the so-called 'Show Trials' were mostly true. Furr, like a dummy, told people what Getty said on the H-list. Someone called Getty to confirm, and he denied it. He immediately called Furr back, and shouted at him and told him he'd never speak to him again for saying that. The anti-communism of this field runs deep. This is why Getty will preface all his articles with shit about how bad Stalin was and crap, and then proceed to dismantle all the myths about him."

And, in fact, the academic world (while it has repression and repercussions) is full of people exposing imperialism and capitalism. Prof. Bertell Ollman (NYU) was denied the chairmanship of a political science department in Maryland (in a redbaiting frenzy)... but he was able to publish books on dialectics and sex-pol. Chomsky constantly exposes israel and U.S. imperialism from MIT.I don't know what "sex-pol" is or why dialectics is a threat to the bourgeoisie, and Chomsky's personal politics are certainly not a big threat to anyone (http://communistvoice.org/25cChomsky.html). Criticizing imperialism, although it gets you mentioned by Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity or David Horowitz or something, is hardly an amazingly radical thing, especially since Chomsky isn't criticizing imperialism from a Marxist perspective. There's a ton of "radical" professors who in the end just wind up backing petty-bourgeois causes, but I'm under the impression that Kasama (and generally Maoism itself) is quite inclined towards such a fixation on these things.

So yes there is repression... but if you think there is evidence that Bukharin and Trotsky were fascist agents, and that EVERYONE in the world BUT GROVER FURR is too afraid to mention it.... then you seriously misread reality.Furr is reading the archives to the best of his ability. Obviously if more people were in his position they'd do the same, and then we'd see more Furrs.

I think Furr goes a bit far sometimes (e.g. claiming that Yezhov was also involved in a conspiracy, of which he basically seems to have nothing except Stalin's private insistence that he was a "rat" and Yezhov's own confessions that were repudiated by himself in the end anyway), but the idea of there being no conspiracy at all and the Moscow Trials just being one big ol' "frame-up" (to use the Trotskyist term) is also incorrect. You mention Molotov's recollections, but you'll also notice that Molotov in the main defended the accusations of the trials, although he clearly said that some accusations went too far.

DiaMat86

29th June 2011, 03:18

Furr is a crackpot.

Pot, meet kettle! Didn't you just split from The Chairman Bob Avakian Party?

Kasama, can you be specific? Or better yet, write your own essays about the USSR. At least post Furr's responses to your posturing on kasama blog. They are more lucid than your denunciations. What are you so upset about?

Furr responds to Ely & Co. from the Expresso Stalinist blog.

http://espressostalinist.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/kasamas-anti-stalinism-furr-on-bukharin/

http://espressostalinist.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/grover-furr-stomps-kasama-liberals/

North Star

29th June 2011, 05:42

Ely has asked for simple bullet points condensing Furr's main points proving a) a huge Nazi conspiracy in the USSR and b) the guilt of those at the Moscow trials. He doesn't call Stalin a counter-revolutionary, and he considers the USSR to have been socialist. I can't quite understand your anger at him and the accusations of being a Trotskyist. Furthermore, it does not help your cause that a) you denounce Mike in such a way for questioning what happened in the 1930's while he still considers the USSR socialist and b) that none of Furr's supporters can provide bullet points. If you are so sure of Furr and the guilt of the Trotskyite-Nazi Bloc then provide the bullet points! It does not help the credibility of Marxist-Leninists on this board if they can't come up with a few clear points to support their case.

Ismail

29th June 2011, 11:43

This is Furr's work: http://clogic.eserver.org/2009/Furr.pdf

Furr says in the work that, "That there is no 'smoking gun,' no absolute evidence, ought to go without saying. With the exception of the eye-witness evidence all the evidence we cite is circumstantial. What gives the complex of existing evidence its power is its mutually corroborative, or reinforcing, character, the sheer quantity of it, and the fact that it comes from different sources." (p. 35.) So, in essence, there are the confessions, the testimony from the Trials, the pretrial interrogations, some memoirs, and some miscellaneous stuff.

One example is that in the lengthy interrogations of the main defendants at the Trials, they all generally spoke of the same conspiracies and connections. Furr points out that, "There is no evidence worthy of the name that the defendants were threatened, or tortured, or induced to give false confessions by promises of some kind." (p. 43.) While psychological methods could be employed to get people to talk (e.g. confinement for extended periods of time, isolation, etc.) it's still worthy to note that, again, the defendants in the various private interrogations basically said the same things as others were saying, albeit from different angles and such.

RED DAVE

29th June 2011, 12:20

kasama-rl

29th June 2011, 13:53

Ismail gave us the link to Grover's essay. Thanks.

This is the piece about which Grover claimed:

"On the evidence there's no doubt that Trotsky conspired with the Germans and Japanese as alleged during the second and third Moscow Trials of January 1937 and March 1938."

But there is actually no evidence there about that main point. There is evidence that Trotsky was trying to maintain a political opposition to the Stalin group (which is no shock or surprise). There is evidence that foreign countries tried to recruit spies (which is no shock or surprise). And so on.

But the specific claim... that there is no doubt (!) on the evidence (!) that Trotsky conspired (!) with the Germans AND Japanese "as alleged" (this is key) in the Moscow trials. The words "as alleged" are key because many specific things were alleged.

This is a very specific and sweeping claim Grover makes for his work -- and it is the impression he is determined to give. It is his key claim.. Elsewhere I went and listed (quoted) what was alleged in the two trials.

In a nutshell, it is claimed that trotsky ran (in conspiracy with the Nazis and Japanese) a countrywide and partywide network of sabotage, wrecking, spying and assassnation aimed at carving up the Soviet Union, destroying socialism, and killing the government leadership. And that a wide swath of party leaders were in on it.

Grover actually has no evidence of this -- beyond what the Trials themselves presented.... which were the elaborate and ultimately unbelievable confessions of the condemned themeselves.

There is nothing else. No corroborative evidence. No new evidence of any significance. (And the new evidence as presented by Getty all goes in a different direction.)

The reason Grover has no evidence (let alone proof beyond "doubt") is that the charges and allegations of a pro-nazi spying and assassination network are not true.

but just go through Grover's essay carefully (as I did) separate out the red herrings and side issues (like proving what is not disputed).

And try (as I did) to construct a bulleted list of what he claims as evidence.

North Star

30th June 2011, 04:23

“If an objective research project on the events of those years were to be done, free of
ideological dogmas, then a great deal could change in our attitude towards those years
and towards the personalities of that epoch. And so it would be a “bomb” that would
cause some problems. . . .”

Furr's first problem is using this quote trying to argue he is some kind of disinterested unbiased researcher... He is clearly pro-Stalin and his obsession in denouncing everyone who questions his work as some kind of Trot is strong evidence of this.

kasama-rl

30th June 2011, 05:51

DiaMat86

30th June 2011, 06:08

DiaMat86

30th June 2011, 06:14

Furr is quoting someone else. This is not Furr's statement. This man has see the "smoking gun" evidence that is classified and this is his impression.

"If an objective research project on the events of those years were to be done, free of ideological dogmas, then a great deal could change in our attitude towards those years and towards the personalities of that epoch. And so it would be a "bomb" that would cause some problems. . . ." – Col. Viktor Alksnis, 2000.

Homo Songun

30th June 2011, 06:28

Mike,

You have a hard on for Grover Furr, I get it. How about you just link to your cheesy fantasies in your signature so I don't have to be subjected to it all over the leftist Internet.

North Star

30th June 2011, 06:31

I never said it was Furr's quote. He's using the quote to attempt to present himself as some kind of scholar who has stumbled upon this new history which shows everyone else as being wrong. Now since Furr likes to question everyone's motives, let's question the motives of Alksnis who made the comment. Though ethnically Latvian he was a supporter of the Soviet system and supports the return of the USSR mainly on a Russian chauvinist position. ie arguing that Russia deserves some of Ukraine's territory, that Transnistria will be used to re-create the USSR calling the Baltic states apartheid states (treatment of Russians is problematic there but is not apartheid and ignores the problem that they were settled there after WWII by the Soviet government)

kasama-rl

30th June 2011, 15:24

"Trotsky was running a bloc in the USSR, he and his son discuss it in correspondence. Do you dispute that?'No one disputes that. The records and correspondence are well known. Trotsky spoke of it in Sedov's obitutary etc.

And? So what?

Part of the issue is that some people think engaging in political life (and opposition) within a socialist country should be illegal... and should be subject to execution. Some people think that having a political group (in a socialist country) is a "conspiracy" and inherently suspect.

Why shouldn't there be opposition groups of various kinds? And newspapers of different kinds? People proposing bad policies should be removed from their top party posts (after struggle and debate), but do they need to be silenced, jailed and killed? Why can't they participate in public debate over policy and gather adherents? Doesn't the public consciousness of right and wrong develop through such debate?

And it is worth drawing that out, and having people here state it openly. Because some people think that "proof of opposition is proof of counterrevolution conspiracy." I.e. they believe that disagreeing with a socialist government should be a crime.

In fact, socialism should have a lively (and legal) political life. People should be free to criticize the direction of the government and its policies. There should be freedom of the press and having rallies. And if you don't think so, explain why?

No one doubts that various leaders of the CPSU(B) had political apparatus and platforms. And because such political life was illegal, it happened on the quiet. And in that sense, their political activity was criminalized. But (as Mao said) two line struggle is inevitable -- just suppressing it, and pretending you have "a monolithic party" doesn't change the fact that you will have (and need!) repeated two line struggles.

But that formation of opposition groups of various colorations is not the same as having pro-Nazi assassination and sabotage networks. And if you casually EQUATE political opposition (which obviously existed) with criminal treason.... it says more about your vision of "socialism" than it does about the events in the USSR.

This goes on all the time in Grover's "research" -- he documents that there was political opposition in the USSR, and then (like DiaMat above) acts like he has uncovered some crime. That says more about Grover and Diamat than it does about Zinoviev.

There will always be political opposition -- there will be revolutionary opposition groups, and there will be counterrevolutionary opposition groups (which are not the same thing). There will be sharp and widespread criticisms of any socialist government -- and some of those criticisms will be justified and some will not be.

But I make a distinction between political opposition and criminal pro-Nazi sabotage. Do you? If you have proven the existance of political networks, you haven't proven the existence of pro-nazi assassination squads within the Party.

Or to put it simply: The Moscow Trials (and their inventions) were inseparable from the massive witchhunt for traitors that swept away so many people. The trials need to be understood as the public showcase of justifications and methods and tones -- to be employed over and over again throughout the society.

So let's ask the next question too: If someone over the dinner table says "Fuck stalin, I want the Tsar back...." what is an appropriate response?

I think they are wrong. I think the other folks at the table should say "Uncle George, you always were a backward shit."

But should Uncle George be reported to the police? Should everyone at the table feel compelled to go to the police together to denounce him, so that no individual could afterwards be accused of listening passively (supportatively) to his great crime. Should the backward asshole Uncle George be fired, arrested and jailed for being a drunken Tsarist? Is this a prison offense? Should he be interrogated for being part of some Japanese/Polish spy ring in his factory and assumed to be guilty of the rat turds found in grain siloes? Should he be asked who is in his spy ring with him? (After all, who else would hate Stalin so but a wrecker and saboteur?) Is evidence of criminal activity needed beyond someone saying (to the local police) that he had made a drunken remark?

Tell us your views, cuz it affects what kind of society we imagine.

S.Artesian

30th June 2011, 16:09

I don't see how what Furr does isn't "credible scholarship." Because you don't agree with it?

Apparently you didn't read ME's posts, because he states why it isn't credible scholarship: Furr provides no evidence. That's why.

If you, or Vegan, want to dispute that, cut the crap about academic repression and favoritisim blahblahblahblah gabbagabbabullshit... and provide evidence this 1) is not circular-- "Stalin said it. He must have believed it. He would only have believed it based on evidence, therefore we can regard Stalin's saying of it to be evidence." 2) can be corroborated by sources supposedly party to the conspiracy-- i.e. the records of the German or Japanese high commands or intelligence agencies.

Teacher

30th June 2011, 21:08

Though Thurston and Getty got shit, they certainly did not get expelled from academia.

While they were not stripped of their jobs or anything like that, they definitely do have to lead a sort of "academic double life." I am fairly certain that Getty's politics are what people on this board would describe as "Stalinist," or at least they were at one point. But in order to be taken seriously in his field he has to make every appearance to the contrary.

Thurston was a little too open about it and was savaged by everyone (perhaps worst of all by Sheila Fitzpatrick). He is now relegated to writing books about coffee or something last I checked. He was not driven out of academia but he was driven out of Soviet studies.

And the Russian establishment has definitely been rehabilitating Stalin as a figure of Russian statesmanship, versus the Yeltsin years. This is can't be seriously disputed.

Only as a symbol of Russian nationalism though. This is like the mainstream U.S. embrace of people like Martin Luther King. They only accept the figure insofar as it helps tell a story that is flattering to the bourgeoisie. In the case of Stalin, it is mainly his leadership during World War II and making Russia into a world power.

kasama-rl

30th June 2011, 22:25

Ismael writes:

"As for Getty, undeniably his books are very good reads, but at the same time he does have a history of backtracking "controversial" opinions."No he doesn't. He has a record of rather bravely debunking (and dethroning) powerful anticommunist and "anti-totalitarian" mythologies over his career -- starting at the height of the cold war.

Here is how Sovietdude presents the gossip here on Revleft:

"Getty and Furr used to discuss things with each other. If you look through Getty's articles on JSTOR, you will even see an article where Getty personally cites Furr. Getty once told Furr that he basically believed the charges against the defendants in the Moscow Trials were true. Furr, perhaps not realizing at the time, or not being sensitive enough about political repression in academia, started saying this to people on the internet, I believe the H-net list. Someone from that list actually called Getty to confirm the story. Getty denied it, and then immediately called Furr, and pretty much told him he'd never speak to him again."This is not a story that confirms Getty was backing away from anything. This is a story of Grover trying to claim that Getty agrees with him and Getty saying "Get the fuck away from me." There is no reason to believe that Getty endorsed Grover's thesis, or that he backed away from anything.

If you want to see the standards of pseudo-evidence, Soviet dude provided a good example (http://www.revleft.com/vb/response-kasamas-attack-t142976/index.html).

First he fumed:

"But let's backup for a moment. Is it even true that “six decades” of research has not produced any evidence of collaboration?"Then what did he produce as evidence? Let me break it down.

First this:

" “In February 1937 the Japanese Minister of War, General Hajime Sugiyama, revealed in a meeting that Japan was in touch with oppositionists within the USSR who were providing the Japanese with military intelligence."Now this statement (even if true, and I have not gone back to the source for this claim) only confirms the fact that the Japanese had an intelligence network. Which is not a fact in dispute.

If they were "in touch" with (unnamed) "oppositionists within the USSR" does not even pretend to confirm the issue we are discussing: that leading communists (Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, etc.) were spies.

(To give an analogy: Some red squad cop in LA claims, in a meeting, that his agents are "in touch" with a supporter of the xxx leftist group who gave them info on the members of yyy leftist group. is this evidence that the leaders of the xxx are police agents? Obviously not.)

Spy networks are in touch with many people (who they bribe or milk). But the issue in the USSR was not whether there were Japanese spies, but whether Trotsky, Bukharin, etc were Japanese spies.

Second pseudo evidence from Soviet Dude's excavation of Grover:

"
Other examples of non-Soviet evidence attest to the real existence of the conspiracies alleged by the Stalin government. There is the “Arao telegram,” extant at least in 1962-63 though never heard from since."And? What is this disappearing telegram? What does it contain? No explanation.

Next snippet....

"We have direct testimony from the German ambassador to Czechoslovakia that Hitler knew that high-ranking military figures in the USSR were preparing a coup d’état. This document, in the Czech national archives, was only discovered in 1987. This document is corroborated by correspondence found in captured German archives disclosed in 1974 but not recognized until 1988. ” The Arao telegram and the German ambassador are both footnoted in footnote 28 which says (in toto):

"Our articles on these subjects are awaiting publication in Russia, but the existence of these documents has long been acknowledged by Western and Russian scholars."In other words -- this is an example of pseudo-scholarship. It has the *form* of research (i.e. it makes claims and footnotes them) -- but if you dig into it, it makes no sense.

What are they claiming about this disappearing "Arao Telegram"? Where is it referenced? What is it supposed to contain? If it is evidence of something, what is it? (Try googling it to see if it noted elsewhere -- zip.)

This is an example of exactly the kind of red herring I am discussing.

Let's assume (for a second) that Hitler got information that there were coup rumors in the Soviet High Command. Let's even assume (for a second) the report Hitler got had some truth (i.e. that somewhere in the Soviet high-command there were coup rumblings).

Does that make the Soviet high command into Nazi agents?

No. That is not even logically connected.

Again: the issue is not whether there were sharp struggles inside the Soviet leadership -- obviously there were. There was (after all) a massive bloodletting in which large parts of the leadership and military command were shot. So it is not surprising, or shocking, or controversial to allege there were sharp conflicts.

The issue is whether significant parts of the top Soviet leadership were Nazi agents working to carve up the Soviet Union on behalf of Germany and Japan. That's Grover's controversial claim.

Is the fact that Hitler heard this actually credible evidence that there were such plans to stage a coup in the USSR?

Not really. Unless it truly is corroborated elsewhere -- since we could list all day the things Hitler heard or believed that weren't true.

Another snippet offered by Grover:

"General of the NKVD Genrikh S. Liushkov defected to the Japanese on June 13, 1938. At a press conference prepared by the Japanese he claimed that the alleged conspiracies in the USSR were faked. But privately Liushkov told the Japanese that Stalin was convinced there were real conspiracies, including the military conspiracy."But if you think about this twenty seconds, you will see that this doesn't prove anything. This is precisely the conclusion GENERALLY drawn about these events: I.e. that the evidence of conspiracy were faked, and that Stalin (nonetheless) believed they existed (and demanded that subordinates produce evidence).

How is this evidence that Trotsky or Zinoviev were fascist agents?

It is the nonsense argument that IF Stalin believed the charges, then there must be evidence -- which is not necessarily true at all. On the contrary, he might have believed the charges, and demanded that someone provide him evidence (by any means necessary).

* * * * * * * *

These flimsy and illogical arguments are not side piece in Grover's work. This kind of nonsense is all he has. All of it can be picked apart because it isn't evidence. It is piles of quasi-data and rumors put together to *seem* to indicate something...

Perhaps aware that he hasn't found anything convincing in Grover's public work, Soviet Dude then writes:

"n another essay, released privately to some by Furr, Furr writes about a German document that admits to collaboration with Trotskyists."Yeah? Really? Some official German document "admits" to collaboration with trotskyists?

then you read the claim. And (typically) this is not quite the truth.

It is in fact a report about a trial of a man, Harro Schulze-Boysen, accused (in Germany) of being a Soviet agent. (Not his testimony, but a one sentence report).

"Anfang 1938, während des Spanienkrieges, erfuhr der Angeklagte dienstlich, daß unter Mitwirkung des deutschen Geheimdienstes im Gebiet von Barcelona ein Aufstand gegen die dortige rote Regierung vorbereitet werde. Diese Nachricht wurde von ihm gemeinsam mit der von Pöllnitz der sowjetrussischen Botschaft in Paris zugeleitet."

The court summation says that "In the beginning of 1938, during the Spanish civil war, the accused learned in the course of his work, that an uprising was prepared in the Barcelona with with the collaboration of the German Secret Service."

This claim, they say, was passed on to the Soviet embassy in Paris.

So, let's look at this fragment.

First, is it (as Soviet dude implies) some quasi-official German admission that they worked "with trotskyists." No.

It is in a German book (written in German), but it doesn't say anything about the credibility of the claim, and the claim is not made based on German sources.

It is a claim (noted by a German court) but nothing is said about the basis of this claim or its source.

Grover quotes another Soviet book saying:

"Concerning the connections of the leaders of the Trotskyist revolt in Barcelona in 1937 we were informed by Schuze-Boysen… Afterward, after his arrest, the Gestapo accused him of transmitting this information to us, and this fact figured in his death sentence by the Hitlerite court in his case.”

So, ok. Let's ask again. Is this evidence?

It is a claim made by some kind of Soviet agent that German Nazis and Trotskyites were behind the uprising in Barcelona (which, needless to say was the official Soviet line at the time.)

But where is there any evidence in any of this that the claim is true? And why does Grover present it as some kind of evidence at all?

That's it. That's what they have. And it goes on for pages like this.

kasama-rl

1st July 2011, 20:36

hmmmmm. Diamat made the following comment on the Theory forum -- but I have been asked to keep this discussion to history threads. So here is Diamat's comment, followed by my answer.

Diamat said:

" Kasama,

Do you have evidence of any kind that suggests Moscow Trials defendants were tortured or were innocent?

They were not tortured, even if they had been, guilty men are tortured. Innocent men are tortured. Torture does not prove innocence or guilt.
Why NOT allege torture in court if the KNEW they would be shot anyway. It would have been very embarrassing for Stalin for these men to have been tortured. According to eyewitnesses the prisoners were allowed to speak freely and often did. They looked healthy. Kamenev insults Smirnov, Zinoviev has outbursts. Some prisoners went outside with a guard. They dont behave like tortured men, they were caught, they knew it, there was was no point in denial. ays: "It is ridiculous wriggling, which only creates a comical impression."

Torture did not work on Smirnov but it worked on Kamenev? Smirnov denies and the others implicate him. The prosecutor trips Smirnov in one of his denial moments and gets enough confession to shoot Smirnov twice.

Kamenev says of Smirnovs denials: "It is ridiculous wriggling, which only creates a comical impression."* * * * * * *

There are many things to say about DiaMat's reply.

First, we are talking about events that (as Maoists say) "make us grieve." On our historical watch, under the leadership of our communist movement, some great injustices were done. And our approach to this should be a bit sober, thoughtful and self-critical.

Let's be clear: over 600,000 people were executed in two years, largely without trial or evidence.

This is not a small deal. It should not to be pooh-poohed. And the JUSTIFICATION for these events was the Moscow Trials -- since that is where it was claimed that there was a vast, intricate, network of spies and saboteurs that reached deep into the party and state itself.

So the discussion of the confessions at the Moscow trial is not just a matter of "what happened to these party leaders?" The invention of these bogus claims and the official endorsement of bizarre conspiracy theories was used (directly!) to whip up a spy mania, and then to round up, execute and jail large numbers of people.

So just on the matter of tone and communist humility -- i think we should not be so quick to dismiss, or pooh-pooh, or find cheap scapegoats for blame.

* * * * * * * *

Second, i feel like DiaMat is being deliberately distorting. He says:

"Do you have evidence of any kind that suggests Moscow Trials defendants were tortured or were innocent?"The fact is that the only evidence of the charges of spying, assassination and wrecking are the confessions of the condemned themselves. There is no corroborating evidence.

If you think for a moment "evidence of innocence" is a different burden of proof from "evidence of guilt." Can you prove that you are innocent of plotting a rape? You can't. The question is can the government provide evidence that you are guilty. By reversing the burden of proof, people can be railroaded into many things.

The question is also "innocent of what?" Some people think that forming a political opposition is a crime punishable by death. There IS evidence that the political leaders on trial were (in fact) political leaders (i.e. they had programs, policy proposals, followers, loyalists etc.) If you think that is a crime, then they are guilty of THAT crime.

But there is no credible evidence that they were guilty of the crimes they were SHOT for (i.e. forming a pro-nazi network of assassins, spies and saboteurs that operated throughout the party, the economy, the government and the military -- involving apparently thousands of people.) There is zero evidence of that (other than confessions that are uncorroborated).

As for torture: There is no proof that specific men were tortured. But there is basic grounds to dismiss the confessions as not sufficient and credible evidence. Do you see the difference?

The issue is that these men were executed, and thousands followed based on confessions extracted in prison. And (in general) if you think about it for a second: confessions emerging from prisons are not credible evidence unless they are corroborated.

Corroboration in such cases means that the claims in the confessions are then confirmed by finding and revealing other evidence. For example, a suspect confesses to being a serial killer -- Ok, but if he can't lead the authorities to any bodies or give unknown details of the killing, his confession is not credible. Executing a man based on his own claims of serial killer would be wrong, if there were no other evidence -- since the lack of other evidence immediately raises the plausible possibility that (a) he is crazy or (b) he was coerced into saying something incriminating.

And the fact that people can be forced to confess in trials (as well as in the solitude of a cell) means that confession at trial need not be any more credible than confession in private. But lets just note: there were a number of people who confessed at trial. Quite a few others (like Tukhachevsky) "signed" confessions and then just died without any public chance to speak.

To return to torture a second time: We do not know how the various defendants and arrestees were treated in detail. And we will never know. But we can document that there was tremendous means of coercion in operation within that prison system -- and that people were routinely beaten or threatened with retributions.

Let me repeat: there were tremendous means of coercion, zero corroborating evidence and evidence of fairly routine use of beatings and punishment.

Means of coercion:

1) they were facing death, and clearly hoped to achieve leniency through cooperation. (Read for example Bukharin's letter to stalin, or the various speeches to the court).

2) The fate of their families were in the balance -- even if they gave up on their own survival, they were often eager to save their families. And the families of the defendants suffered different kinds of punishment.... and there was an inexcusable and well documented policy in the USSR of holding families hostage to the actions of husbands (including generals, or people traveling abroad etc.)

3) There was evidence of physical coercion. I won't list it all, but documents deal with the legalization of physical abuse of detainees. There was reportedly blood on the confession documents of Tukha. There is evidence of orders being given to beat prisoners and so on. I won't list it all here, it is not hard to find (look in Getty). In other words, we don't know if xxx was done to prisoner zzz. But we do know that (in general) there was considerable physical coercion (i.e. beatings at least) involved in interrogations and the extractions of confessions.

4) The main point is (exactly because it is so hard to prove forced confessions) prison confessions are GENERALLY not accepted as credible evidence unless they are corroborated.

DM writes:

They were not tortured, even if they had been, guilty men are tortured. Innocent men are tortured. Torture does not prove innocence or guilt."First, on a simple plane of communist morality -- this strikes me as a very wrong (even brutal) outlook.

It is true (i suppose) that the presence of torture doesn't "prove" that prisoners were innocent. But why torture the guilty if you have evidence of their guilt?

In the U.S. police constantly think they are beating confessions out of people that they "know are guilty," or planting evidence on people they "know are guilty." But what legal system wants to trust that police intuition? Inventing evidence or forcing confessions from people "you know are guilty" is inexcusable, and grounds for dismissal of the whole proceeding (obviously).

Further, we really should be on record saying that torture is in contradiction to communist morality and goals -- and not be blase or pooh-poohing about it. Abusive treatment of suspects is not right. People should be protected from that kind of brutality. People should be considered innocent until evidence has been made public, and their guilt has been proven in a real trial (where they have a right of public self defense etc.)

A system where people are arrested, made invisible, denied trials, sentenced based on unexamined rumors and charges, denied access to the public (and their families) -- is not a good system for socialist politics and communist transition.

DM writes:

"Why NOT allege torture in court if the KNEW they would be shot anyway."

Who knows? But surely the fact that a prisoner emerged from months in prison, and (before returning back to the clutches of his jailer) does not allege torture, is not proof he wasn't tortures.

Further, we know that some defendants (who would not "play ball") simply did not come to trial.

"According to eyewitnesses the prisoners were allowed to speak freely and often did. They looked healthy. Kamenev insults Smirnov, Zinoviev has outbursts. Some prisoners went outside with a guard. They dont behave like tortured men, they were caught, they knew it, there was was no point in denial."It was a show. You don't know what went on behind the scenes. And in fact, it is not true that they "looked healthy" etc. Some looked terrible. There were incidents that suggested pressure. etc.

"Torture did not work on Smirnov but it worked on Kamenev? Smirnov denies and the others implicate him.'all of this is the kind of argumentation that is just apologia. You have a verdict that you WISH were true, and so you twist any fact or argument to fit the verdict.

And you may (perhaps) fool yourself that way. But no serious person watching such argumentation can take it seriously.

And if we go among the people, and display such a callous and indifferent attitude toward leaders who were executed (and then toward hundreds of thousands of ordinary peole who were executed) -- who would want such a movement to get influence or power? People will (with justice) find it all creepy and dishonest.

No one wants to live under a legal system that repeats the norms and events of the USSR in the late 30s -- though apparently a few people aspire to be police, guards, and prosecutors in such a system.

Ismail

2nd July 2011, 10:32

Means of coercion:

1) they were facing death, and clearly hoped to achieve leniency through cooperation. (Read for example Bukharin's letter to stalin, or the various speeches to the court).Obviously not many people are going to say "please shoot me, I did bad." I don't see how this is coercion though. The 1936 trial resulted in death sentences and then the 1937 trial resulted in more death sentences. You'd think that the participants in the 1937 and especially the 1938 trials would know that what they were confessing were things worthy of death sentences. People in prison seek leniency through cooperation all the time, hence things like plea bargains and agreements for serial killers to evade the death penalty through helping law enforcement agencies.

2) The fate of their families were in the balance -- even if they gave up on their own survival, they were often eager to save their families. And the families of the defendants suffered different kinds of punishment.... and there was an inexcusable and well documented policy in the USSR of holding families hostage to the actions of husbands (including generals, or people traveling abroad etc.)There's no evidence of this being used though. In one case, Bukharin's, we would expect total complacency and a servile attitude to the court, but instead people claim Bukharin was somewhat subtly dismantling the entire legitimacy of the trials, and of course Vyshinsky was quite annoyed at Bukharin's answers to questions.

Also the idea that all those at the trials were approached with "DO AS WE SAY OR ELSE YOUR FAMILY GETS IT" is a bit strange, especially since, again, we can't find any proof of this. Many of those who were sentenced later had family members arrested and sent into labor camps, but obviously that was after the sentences. Furr also addressed this point multiple times.

3) There was evidence of physical coercion. I won't list it all, but documents deal with the legalization of physical abuse of detainees. There was reportedly blood on the confession documents of Tukha. There is evidence of orders being given to beat prisoners and so on.It's worth noting that Tukhachevsky's trial was behind closed doors and was conducted entirely by a military staff. It differed from the Moscow Trials in any case, especially in that the trials were attended to by various foreign journalists, diplomats and miscellaneous observers. Tukhachevsky's trial was secretive.

Also the idea that Soviet interrogators of these major trials would be so meticulous as to somehow hide mass torture or what have you yet allow Tukhachevsky's own handwriting to be flanked by blood stains is strange.

I won't list it all here, it is not hard to find (look in Getty). In other words, we don't know if xxx was done to prisoner zzz. But we do know that (in general) there was considerable physical coercion (i.e. beatings at least) involved in interrogations and the extractions of confessions.Yes but there's no evidence that this was done in the case of Moscow Trials defendants.

It was a show. You don't know what went on behind the scenes. And in fact, it is not true that they "looked healthy" etc. Some looked terrible. There were incidents that suggested pressure. etc.It's worth noting that although the Moscow Trials were propaganda events (in that they weren't actually necessary and were done to publicly show how the state was fighting sabotage and such for workers and peasants to look at), there's still the whole massive piles of private testimony and confessions leading up to the trials (many of which still remain classified in the archives), which is what Furr mostly focuses on.

It's worth noting what Feutchtwanger said in his book Moscow 1937 (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/feucht.htm#7):

It is true, the Soviet people reply, that in the main proceedings we have to a certain extent shown only the distillate, the prepared result of the preliminary inquiry. We examined the evidence beforehand and confronted the accused with it. In the main proceedings we contented ourselves with their confessions. Anyone who takes exception to this should bear in mind that the hearing took place before a military court and that it was first and foremost a political action. The purification of the atmosphere of our internal politics was at stake and it was our chief concern that every member of the community from Minsk to Vladivostok should understand what was wrong. Therefore we did everything as simply and as transparently as possible. Details of circumstantial evidence, documents and depositions may interest jurists, criminologists, and historians, but we should only have confused our Soviet citizens had we spun out all kinds of details. The plain confessions were more intelligible to them than any amount of ingeniously assembled circumstantial evidence. We did not carry on this action for the benefit of foreign criminologists; we did it for the benefit of our own people.

kasama-rl

2nd July 2011, 13:14

Ismail: All of this is a red herring. Nothing hinges on torture or proving torture. It is a side discussion. It supposes that someone has to prove what specifically was done to each defendant (which is of course impossible).

Though, since you raise torture: why don't you go on record opposing the use of torture as a violation of communist morality (and contrary to the means that suit our communist goals). That basic agreement would be a good thing -- and seemingly obvious. Right?

But in regard to the Moscow Trials discussion your focus on "torture" is somewhat misleading. I am suggesting that a mix of coercive means are possible (including specifically threats against families). By narrowing the possibilities to the extremes of "torture," you want to imply that something would have gone on that (you then assert) could not be covered up. But in fact, no one needed to stick needles in Bukharin's eyes or under his fingernails. They just needed to promise to let his wife and son live. And beatings could have happened months before a trial, followed by weeks of testimony rehearsals.

The simple fact is: No one knows precisely why each of them confessed, or who chose not to confess, and so on. No one will ever know.

The issue we are discussing is something else:

1) First is a general assessment of confessions: Confessions produced (from prisoners in custody) are not credible without corroboration. This is generally true (even in bourgeois courts, but certainly to progressive people, and even more so in capital cases). You may not agree. That is your privilege.

2) There is no corroborating evidence to the extensive and detailed confessions at the Moscow Trials. This leads any thinking person to question the whole proceeding.

A vast global conspiracy of assassins, spies and wreckers involving thousands of people and many governments is alleged. And the only evidence found (after seventy years) remain the confessions of those few dozen people -- who are (more or less) repeating the accusations of their prosecutors.

3) Grover claims to have new evidence that places the whole thing beyond doubt -- but he provides nothing.

You may not agree with that assessment. Fine: just list for us the evidence Grover dug up? what is it? Give us a short list of the four or five things that convince you.

4) The reason Grover produces no evidence is that there is no evidence. This vast Nazi and Japanese conspiracy with Soviet party leaders, generals and countless factory-level saboteurs did not exist. It was invented to justify the execution of internal opposition (and then the escalating and uncontrolled witchhunt/bloodletting that swept through the society for two years). And (in various ways) those on public trial were convinced, or coerced into confessing.

A Marxist Historian

4th July 2011, 07:44

"And try (as I did) to construct a bulleted list of what he claims as evidence."

Why not ask Furr and post his response?

This an idealist statement: "Grover actually has no evidence of this -- beyond what the Trials themselves presented.... which were the elaborate and ultimately unbelievable confessions of the condemned themeselves."

Belief is irrelevant, you must weigh all the evidence and determine if it is corroborative. Then consider counter evidence. Isn't that how you evaluate things?

After all these years there is no evidence the trials were a frame up. Getty beleive's the trials were real or mostly real.

Kirov was assassinated. Who do you propose did it? Stalin?

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I propose that it was done by a disgruntled Lee Harvey Oswald clone named Nikolayev.

But don't ask me. The definitive work on the subject is Anna Kirilina's brilliant biography of Kirov, Neizvestnyi Kirov, St. Petersburg 2001. As she was a staff archivist of the Kirov Museum for fifty years (!) she knew something about the subject. Even though it hasn't, unfortunately, yet been translated into English, since this book came out all of a sudden mainstream academia is no longer claiming that Stalin killed him. Get hold of a copy and read it, and all will be clear. If you don't know Russian, learn some, nobody who doesn't know Russian should really be holding forth on stuff like this anyway.

-M.H.-

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Stalin had nothing to gain by creating such an elaborate scheme. He was already pretty successful. The party made the trials open to foreigners because the party needed the support of the international proletariat. Who the party knew would be unsettled by high ranking Bolsheviks being arrested.

If Stalin wanted to he could have gotten Trotsky out of the way much earlier. Why not assassinate Trotsky in 26 or 27 and frame somebody else? Why not stage an accident while he was in exile in turkey? Why readmit Kamenev and Zinoviev into the party after they were expelled?

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Simply, because if Stalin had assassinated Trotsky in 26 or 27 he would have been out of power the next week, and likely in prison. Efforts were made to sic the Turkish police on Trotsky when he was there, but they failed. The Turkish CP was pretty weak, and the Soviet intelligence specialist who had the Turkish desk was a Trotskyist, which is no secret, he was shot for it and Trotsky denounced this crime loudly and publicly.

He readmitted K and Z in '32 because his regime was extremely shaky at that point, with dissent from all directions due to the Great Famine in the Ukraine. He *needed* them.

-M.H.-

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It would have been much easier and quieter to dispense with trials if Stalin wanted those men dead.

Trotsky was running a bloc in the USSR, he and his son discuss it in correspondence. Do you dispute that?

Who was the errand boy? Lev Sedov, Trotsky's son who operated out of berlin. Cooncidently Smirnov, Trotsky's right hand man was in Berlin on officail business and met with Sedov. After Smirnov came back Kirov was assassinated. Zinoviev's secretary committed suicide.

The connection between these historical events is explained in the trial transcripts by Zinoviev and his thug.

Do you have an alternative explanation?

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Of course Trotsky was organizing a secret opposition bloc within the party, and Smirnov was the main man. Everyone knows that.

The assassination of Kirov happened a year and a half after Smirnov came back from Berlin where he met Sedov. And Smirnov never was in Leningrad and certainly never had anything to do with that neurotic low-level disgruntled party member in Leningrad who whacked Kirov.

Zinoviev's trial testimony is well known to be a farce by everybody, not least Arch Getty of course. Even Molotov in his memoirs said that some of the stuff they cooked up for those trials, in particular the alleged attempts of "Trotskyites" to assassinate him, were products of the NKVD's imagination.

-M.H.-

kasama-rl

17th July 2011, 00:43

It is known and obvious that Kirov was assassinated. It is not known by who.

The Soviet Union was a society still wracked by civil war -- even if the movement of actual armies had stopped, and the anti-communist forces were not represented in an above ground movement.

But the fact is that the specific claims of the Moscow trials have zero evidence to back them (other than highly suspect confessions). And (in fact) our subsequent and more recent understanding of capitalist restoration suggests a different source for oppositional waves of proposals (that don't require espionage and foreign support to develop).

DiaMat86

17th July 2011, 01:53

The Zinovievites shot Kirov. It was part of the terrorist plots they confessed to carrying out.

There is no evidence available for an alternative explanation.

A Marxist Historian

17th July 2011, 02:07

While they were not stripped of their jobs or anything like that, they definitely do have to lead a sort of "academic double life." I am fairly certain that Getty's politics are what people on this board would describe as "Stalinist," or at least they were at one point. But in order to be taken seriously in his field he has to make every appearance to the contrary.

Thurston was a little too open about it and was savaged by everyone (perhaps worst of all by Sheila Fitzpatrick). He is now relegated to writing books about coffee or something last I checked. He was not driven out of academia but he was driven out of Soviet studies.

Only as a symbol of Russian nationalism though. This is like the mainstream U.S. embrace of people like Martin Luther King. They only accept the figure insofar as it helps tell a story that is flattering to the bourgeoisie. In the case of Stalin, it is mainly his leadership during World War II and making Russia into a world power.

Getty was and is in no sense a Stalinist. He is an objectivist in the E.H. Carr mold, except more so and taken to extremes. He is literally apolitical, just wants to read the documents, draw conclusions from them, and ignore anything subjective, like memoir literature.

Sometimes his narrow-mindedness leads to his usefully noticing things others do not, sometimes it doesn't.

Thurston is no Stalinist either, but he is soft on Stalinism is the best way to put it. Making him a convenient whipping boy for former "revisionist" historians rejecting their pasts. Sheila Fitzpatrick definitely got hostile to him after they divorced, that happens in divorces. She is or at least was soft on Stalinism in her own rather different way back in the '80s, rather more usefully so.

Her analyses in the '80s of the phenomenon of "vydvizheniia," working class upward social mobility, in the Soviet Union are very valuable for understanding Stalinism, in some ways advancing over Trotsky's understanding IMHO. Unfortunately the last things she wants to do is combine her insights with Trotsky's, and in fact she has moved away from class analysis altogether lately.

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

17th July 2011, 02:19

The Zinovievites shot Kirov. It was part of the terrorist plots they confessed to carrying out.

There is no evidence available for an alternative explanation.

Hilarious. Kirov was shot by a disaffected and unstable Leningrad communist named Nikolayev, who in his personality was remarkably similar to Lee Harvey Oswald. All conspiracy theories to the contrary, whether from West or East, are baseless.

Alla Kirilina's definitive biography of Kirov, unfortunately not yet translated into English, has established that once and for all. Since it appeared, claims by Western historians that Kirov was assassinated by Stalin have quietly disappeared. The chapter in the book on the Leningrad Zinovievists, by the way, is one of the best, she went through the files on them thoroughly and perceptively.

Yes, he knew some of them, and some of his diary entries have lines he likely picked up from them about "Thermidor" and such. Leading Stalin to conclusions that were both paranoid and highly convenient for him. But no, there is no evidence whatsoever they even hinted at assassinating Kirov of all people, who happened to be more tolerant of Zinovievists on his staff than most Stalinist bureaucrats. Absolutely the last party official they'd want to kill.

Kirilina was employed as an archivist by the Kirov Museum for 60 years, and literally knows everything that there is to be known about Kirov and everything connected to him. Very fond of Kirov, as women in Leningrad so often were during his lifetime. Especially ballerinas, there's a reason why the Kirov Ballet is named after him.

-M.H.-

DiaMat86

17th July 2011, 02:32

"The" Marxist Historian Said:

"He (Getty) is literally apolitical"

No historian is "literally apolitical". You use this label as a euphemism for "sufficiently anti-communist"

"Stalinism" is an anti-communist construct. Trotskyists and bourgeoisies use it as club to bash Leninism.

S.Artesian

17th July 2011, 02:36

No, Stalinism has a specific political content; which is socialism in one country, and alliances with a so-called progressive bourgeoisie when it serves the interests of the fSU.

DiaMat86

17th July 2011, 03:26

No, Stalinism has a specific political content; which is socialism in one country, and alliances with a so-called progressive bourgeoisie when it serves the interests of the fSU.

Stalinism is not different from Leninism. Which is not to say Leninsim is flawless. Hindsight is 20/20.

Socialism in one country was a tactic of historical necessity, not a core political belief. Stalin sent arms to Mao. So clearly he believed in exporting revolution. World revolution was simply not militarily possible. Holding on to the USSR was difficult enough given the rise of fascism.

Lenin also believed capitalism has progressive elements. Marx said that capitalism will rise before socialism. Russia had a pre-capitalist economy so this was a difficult ideological contradiction for the Bolsheviks to navigate.

S.Artesian

17th July 2011, 05:02

Stalinism is not different from Leninism. Which is not to say Leninsim is flawless. Hindsight is 20/20.

Socialism in one country was a tactic of historical necessity, not a core political belief. Stalin sent arms to Mao. So clearly he believed in exporting revolution. World revolution was simply not militarily possible. Holding on to the USSR was difficult enough given the rise of fascism.

Lenin also believed capitalism has progressive elements. Marx said that capitalism will rise before socialism. Russia had a pre-capitalist economy so this was a difficult ideological contradiction for the Bolsheviks to navigate.

He also sent arms to the Spanish popular front capitalist government. I said he subordinated the requirements for international revolution to what he thought were the specific needs of the fSU.

As for Russia having a "pre-capitalist" economy. Not hardly. Study up on uneven and combined development in your spare time.

Raubleaux

17th July 2011, 06:35

Getty was and is in no sense a Stalinist. He is an objectivist in the E.H. Carr mold, except more so and taken to extremes. He is literally apolitical, just wants to read the documents, draw conclusions from them, and ignore anything subjective, like memoir literature.

Sometimes his narrow-mindedness leads to his usefully noticing things others do not, sometimes it doesn't.

Thurston is no Stalinist either, but he is soft on Stalinism is the best way to put it. Making him a convenient whipping boy for former "revisionist" historians rejecting their pasts. Sheila Fitzpatrick definitely got hostile to him after they divorced, that happens in divorces. She is or at least was soft on Stalinism in her own rather different way back in the '80s, rather more usefully so.

Her analyses in the '80s of the phenomenon of "vydvizheniia," working class upward social mobility, in the Soviet Union are very valuable for understanding Stalinism, in some ways advancing over Trotsky's understanding IMHO. Unfortunately the last things she wants to do is combine her insights with Trotsky's, and in fact she has moved away from class analysis altogether lately.

-M.H.-

What I said is based on people who know them personally and talk to them privately about politics. Thurston would be called a "Stalinist" by people on this board, as would have Getty at one point, although he took a right turn it seems.

A Marxist Historian

17th July 2011, 22:04

What I said is based on people who know them personally and talk to them privately about politics. Thurston would be called a "Stalinist" by people on this board, as would have Getty at one point, although he took a right turn it seems.

I've read Thurston's Life and Terror book, where he claims he is not a Stalinist. If he says different things in private conversations with friends, and if that is well known, well, that helps explain why other historians hate him so much. Honesty is the best policy.

My impression of the book was that he bent the stick as to Stalin in the opposite direction to that of most bourgeois academics, therefore providing a useful corrective of sorts, and that the book was no better and no worse than many academic creations, just slanted in a different direction.

I'd be surprised if Getty (who I have exchanged a few E-mails with now and then) ever considered himself a Stalinist. But who knows, I'm no mindreader.

By the way, on the question of torture, Stalin's letter to Yezhov formally authorizing the use of torture in 1938 has been published in many places, including by Getty I do believe.

And then there was Kaganovich's frank statement in his interviews with Chuev that the Trotskyists were tortured as otherwise they would never have confessed.

I have a copy and can translate the quote for Revleft if anyone seriously doubts this.

-M.H.-

RED DAVE

17th July 2011, 22:27

And then there was Kaganovich's frank statement in his interviews with Chuev that the Trotskyists were tortured as otherwise they would never have confessed.

I have a copy and can translate the quote for Revleft if anyone seriously doubts this.

-M.H.-Please do as this issue comes up fairly often.

RED DAVE

A Marxist Historian

17th July 2011, 22:42

Please do as this issue comes up fairly often.

RED DAVE

Will do! Shortly.

On this thread or as a new thread? What do you think?

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

21st July 2011, 11:18

Will do! Shortly.

On this thread or as a new thread? What do you think?

-M.H.-

Since this thread is dead, I'll post a new thread on Kaganovich and torture soon.

-M.H.-