Soviet handover of German Communists to Hitler

[l'Enfermé]

I think that there was a relatively considerable number of German communists, who, after fleeing from Germany following the rise of the Nazi's(lest they share the same fate that befell the likes of Ernst Thalmann - concentration camps), settled in the Soviet Union(especially Hotel Lux), were handed over to Hitler by Stalin when Stalin entered his Hitler-appeasing phase(like the wife of Heinz Neumann, one of the Stalinist-era KPD theorists, main proponent of "social fascism" in Germany and editor of KPD's Die Rote Fahne - Margarete Buber-Neumann). Does anybody know any specifics about this?

[Zostrianos]

Here's a site (http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/judentum-aktenlage/hol/EncJud_Stalin-deportations-Barbarossa-flight-ENGL/01-Holocaust-rescue-from.html)with a bit of info:

31 Dec 1939: Brest Litovsk: Stalin hands over German and Austrian Communists to Hitler's Reich]
An event which typifies the Soviet policy of ignoring the Nazi attitude toward the Jews occurred on Dec. 31, 1939, at Brest Litovsk. In this city the Soviets handed over to the Gestapo several hundred Communist activists from Germany and Austria, both Jews and non-Jews, who had found refuge in the U.S.S.R. before World War II. (col. 908)

[Rational Radical]

And certain people on these forums try to defend Stalin and the Soviet Union as "a successful socialist nation that only met its demise due to capitalists" when it went out of its way to crush anything socialist/communist/anarchist,sickens my stomach. I honestly don't know if they're trolling or not because some spew in depth rhetoric,i hope they are. Let Stalin(the biggest enemy to socialism),and anything related to him,die and if you defend him or try to make him more humane than the monster that he was you're not a socialist.

[l'Enfermé]

At Brest-Litovsk? Oh, god, how funny is that...the same place where 21 years ago, the Bolsheviks capitulated to German imperialism, Stalin capitulated to Hitler?

[Prometeo liberado]

I have yet to see anyone here uncritically defend Stalin. He was a man, and like all men suffered the same insecurities and paranoias as most people. Building an entirely new society amidst total aggression and in one of the largest land masses on the globe was to come without a horrible costs and mistakes? Hmm, hindsight's a very tricky thing to play with.

[Zostrianos]

There's a difference between making a few mistakes, and being a murderous dictator.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I have yet to see anyone here uncritically defend Stalin. He was a man, and like all men suffered the same insecurities and paranoias as most people. Building an entirely new society amidst total aggression and in one of the largest land masses on the globe was to come without a horrible costs and mistakes? Hmm, hindsight's a very tricky thing to play with.

Would you be able to elaborate on this? I see this argument thrown around a lot, but there's a difference between mistakes and purposely executed decisions.

For example, the reinstitution of homosexual discrimination in the 1930s. Did that come down to material conditions forcing the state to take desperate measures, or was it just conservatism?

I think it's very dangerous to guess a controversial man's long term goals. How do you even know that stalin wanted to push Communism into it's final stage if the USSR had succeeded to spread throughout the world after multiple worker's revolutions?

[Rational Radical]

I'm sorry but actions like this,the murder and imprisonment of most of the original bolsheviks and dissent opinion in general, the repression of the Shinmin Region of Korea along with the Japanese and the Spanish Revolution,censorship of the media etc. makes him indefensible.

[Prometeo liberado]

Would you be able to elaborate on this? I see this argument thrown around a lot, but there's a difference between mistakes and purposely executed decisions.
Like I said before. No one is uncritically defending Stalin. Horrors did occur. Obviously there is plenty blame to go around as he did not govern in a vacuum. I would only reiterate that how do you propose to move on? Argueing truths and untruths? History has for better or worse judged and lynched a man and his epoch for crimes real and imaginary. Speculation is all that's left. I was not there attempting to create an entirely new society so I for one have to reserve my stones to throw at our current oppressors and the very real hell they impose on us.

[Liberty]

Here's a site (http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/judentum-aktenlage/hol/EncJud_Stalin-deportations-Barbarossa-flight-ENGL/01-Holocaust-rescue-from.html)with a bit of info:

31 Dec 1939: Brest Litovsk: Stalin hands over German and Austrian Communists to Hitler's Reich]
An event which typifies the Soviet policy of ignoring the Nazi attitude toward the Jews occurred on Dec. 31, 1939, at Brest Litovsk. In this city the Soviets handed over to the Gestapo several hundred Communist activists from Germany and Austria, both Jews and non-Jews, who had found refuge in the U.S.S.R. before World War II. (col. 908)

Finally, you deranged Communists have admitted to the Fascist traits of your ideology. I'm just happy Capitalism defeated the Communist-Fascist alliance before they could implant tyranny on the world.

So I take it that you've joined the real world now, as I take this admission as evidence of such an alliance of evil?

[ВАЛТЕР]

Finally, you deranged Communists have admitted to the Fascist traits of your ideology. I'm just happy Capitalism defeated the Communist-Fascist alliance before they could implant tyranny on the world.

So I take it that you've joined the real world now, as I take this admission as evidence of such an alliance of evil?

I don't know how to respond to your statement. It is such a ridiculous thing to say that I'm at a loss for words.

The "communist-fascist alliance"?

Fascism is just capitalism's default setting when in crisis. You know that right?

[Liberty]

Fascism is just capitalism's default setting when in crisis. You know that right?
That's Communist propaganda meant as an attack against Capitalism. Look at Nazi Germany. They had 4 year plans(doesn't that sound familiar to Stalin's 5 year plans). The state managed the economy(same as in the Soviet Union). They were both Totalitarian Socialist. They both had single autocratic leaders that represented their entire states.

I frankly can't understand why you'd call Nazi Germany 'Capitalist.'

[ВАЛТЕР]

That's Communist propaganda meant as an attack against Capitalism. Look at Nazi Germany. They had 4 year plans(doesn't that sound familiar to Stalin's 5 year plans). The state managed the economy(same as in the Soviet Union). They were both Totalitarian Socialist. They both had single autocratic leaders that represented their entire states.

I frankly can't understand why you'd call Nazi Germany 'Capitalist.'

The state in Nazi Germany was controlled by the ruling class elite. People like Messerschmidt and other owners of industry had huge say in what went down and how.

The Nazis didn't abolish private property, they smashed unions and other workers organizations, they didn't collectivize the land. they allowed for the bourgeoisie to profit off of the back of the working class.

The fact that they arrested Communists, and Anarchists should be proof enough. Communists and anarchists, and even unionists were the first targeted. The first groups imprisoned and send to camps. Hitler called communism a "Jewish conspiracy".

Big Business in the Third Reich, Arthur Schweitzer:

"Monopolistic price fixing became the rule in most industries, and cartels were no longer confined to the heavy or large-scale industries. [...] Cartels and quasi-cartels (whether of big business or small) set prices, engaged in limiting production, and agreed to divide markets and classify consumers in order to realize a monopoly profit"

Monopolies? Cartels? Private ownership? Sounds pretty capitalist to me.

[l'Enfermé]

That's Communist propaganda meant as an attack against Capitalism. Look at Nazi Germany. They had 4 year plans(doesn't that sound familiar to Stalin's 5 year plans). The state managed the economy(same as in the Soviet Union). They were both Totalitarian Socialist. They both had single autocratic leaders that represented their entire states.

I frankly can't understand why you'd call Nazi Germany 'Capitalist.'
The Nazis were brought to power by bankers and capitalist industrialists. The Nazi government reinforced private property, wage-slavery and didn't abolish generalized commodity production. The Nazi government completely disregarded all the rights the workers have won over previous decades of struggle, destroyed trade unions and other worker organizations and outlawed all pro-worker parties and sent their members and leaders to concentration camps long before the same was done to Jews.

You're full of shit.

[Tim Cornelis]

Liberty is an obvious troll, stop engaging with him/her.


I have yet to see anyone here uncritically defend Stalin. He was a man, and like all men suffered the same insecurities and paranoias as most people. Building an entirely new society amidst total aggression and in one of the largest land masses on the globe was to come without a horrible costs and mistakes? Hmm, hindsight's a very tricky thing to play with.

You forgo on one tiny little aspect: why should socialism be build by 'Stalin' and not the working class? That doesn't sound very socialistic, unless we're talking Blanquism.

[hatzel]

They had 4 year plans(doesn't that sound familiar to Stalin's 5 year plans)

Hey buddy I know you're just running around doing your best to be a massive tool with really shitty arguments because you think it's really funny or something, but can you at least try to run around being a massive tool with slightly better arguments, because there are much better arguments against the Soviet Union than stuff like this...? I mean, it's not much fun for onlookers seeing a bunch of eejits making really shit arguments against each other, with both totally convinced that they've 'won' the argument and successfully defended their position, not because they've made a remotely good argument themselves, but because the argument put to them is so laughably bad that it somehow acts to convince them that they don't even have to try any more...

If you want to continue down this...ah...line of debate, however, here's some more material you can make copious use of:


Both North and South Korea had survived the Korean War (1950–53). From the end of World War II, South Korea remained largely dependent on U.S. aid until an internal revolution occurred in 1961. In 1961, General Park Chung-hee grasped political power and decided the country should become self-reliant by utilizing five year plans.

The plans were designed to increase wealth within South Korea and strengthen political stability. A change in policy from import substitution industrialization to export-oriented growth occurred throughout these five year plans. South Korea had three five-year plans under the auspices of the Economic Planning Board, a state bureaucracy pilot agency.
The Five Year Plans of Bhutan are a series of national economic development plans created by the government of Bhutan since 1961.

The government of Bhutan has played a pervasive role in its economy and development. Since 1961 the economy has been guided through development plans, which the Development Secretariat and later the Planning Commission directed, subject to the National Assembly's approval. In the World Bank's 1989 appraisal, "Coming late to the development scene, Bhutan was eager to avoid mistakes committed elsewhere. Although strongly dependent on foreign aid, it was determined to follow its own set of priorities, keep public finance on an even keel, build up a well trained but lean bureaucracy, and prevent environmental damage from overexploitation of the forests or uncontrolled growth of tourism." To help avoid further mistakes, the government used traditional social institutions and involved people at the local level in planning and implementation for their own district, subdistrict, or village. "As a result of these factors," said the World Bank, "development in Bhutan has been remarkably free from seeing economic, social, or cultural disruption."
"I have begun meeting with some of the best minds in the country that believe in limited government, maximum freedom and the values of our Founders. I am developing a 100 year plan. I know that the bipartisan corruption in Washington that has brought us to this brink and it will not be defeated easily. It will require unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting, using only the battlefield of ideas." - Glenn Beck
In October 2008, the [United States] Postal Service released Vision 2013, a five-year plan required by law starting in 1993. One planned improvement is the introduction of the Intelligent Mail Barcode, which will allow pieces of mail to be tracked through the delivery system, as competitors like UPS and FedEx currently do.
'So Much for the Ten Year Plan: A Retrospective 1990-2000' was a compilation album by the band Therapy?, and the second to be released by Ark 21 Records. It was released on October 2, 2000 and allowed the band to fulfill some outstanding obligations to Universal Records. Two new tracks, "Bad Karma Follows You Around" and "Fat Camp" were specially recorded in May 2000 for inclusion on the album. The album reached number 111 in the UK Albums Chart.

The album was released on CD only. The UK limited edition contains a bonus disc with 6 tracks.I think your (already magnificent, it must be said!) arguments will be strengthened considerably by the implementation of these further examples of _____-year plans, and I obviously expect you to show me a great amount of gratitude, what with my doing all the legwork for you, you know...

EDIT: oh no, now he's been banned and all my hard work was for nothing! I'll never get the love I so crave. In vain I have struggled. It will not do :crying:

[l'Enfermé]

Liberty is an obvious troll, stop engaging with him/her.



You forgo on one tiny little aspect: why should socialism be build by 'Stalin' and not the working class? That doesn't sound very socialistic, unless we're talking Blanquism.
Meh we're all so negative when it comes to Blanquism but all of us here love to sing praises of the Paris Commune, yet the majority of the Parisian Communards were Blanquists.

[Prometeo liberado]

Liberty is an obvious troll, stop engaging with him/her.



You forgo on one tiny little aspect: why should socialism be build by 'Stalin' and not the working class? That doesn't sound very socialistic, unless we're talking Blanquism.

Socialism will be built however the working class sees fit. Stalin is dead, he won't be building much, either than the nightmares he seems to be building in the minds of some here.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Hey Liberty you piece of shit. You want to come and defend your positions or concede that your point is null?

After each schooling (free of charge of course ;)) you receive on this forum do you stay off the boards and think about the stupidity of your statements? Or do you hardheadedly with zero evidence continue your nonsensical claims?

[Lynx]

1939 was the year Germany and the Soviet Union signed a pact...

[Marxaveli]

That's Communist propaganda meant as an attack against Capitalism. Look at Nazi Germany. They had 4 year plans(doesn't that sound familiar to Stalin's 5 year plans). The state managed the economy(same as in the Soviet Union). They were both Totalitarian Socialist. They both had single autocratic leaders that represented their entire states.

I frankly can't understand why you'd call Nazi Germany 'Capitalist.'

Oh my, I think I just lost brain cells reading this post.

Are you really that brainwashed, or are you just trolling? Either way, should stop while you aren't too far behind.

[James Connolly]

I think that there was a relatively considerable number of German communists, who, after fleeing from Germany following the rise of the Nazi's(lest they share the same fate that befell the likes of Ernst Thalmann - concentration camps), settled in the Soviet Union(especially Hotel Lux), were handed over to Hitler by Stalin when Stalin entered his Hitler-appeasing phase(like the wife of Heinz Neumann, one of the Stalinist-era KPD theorists, main proponent of "social fascism" in Germany and editor of KPD's Die Rote Fahne - Margarete Buber-Neumann). Does anybody know any specifics about this?

The Soviets followed internationally respected standards instead of being unrealistic and unpractical? Oh no! This reminds me of that man who tried to kill Hitler and traveled to France, where he was captured and executed for attempting to kill a foreign leader...

Why should the Soviets have any support for the KDP? They refused to run a Revolution and weren't members of Communist International. They were simply Bourgeois politicians, draped in Red, who deserted the Revolutionary cause. Why should anyone take sympathy with these people?

And I'm sure Stalin himself captured and handed over these so-called KDP members to Hitler. :laugh:

[James Connolly]

I honestly don't know if they're trolling or not because some spew in depth rhetoric,i hope they are. Let Stalin(the biggest enemy to socialism),and anything related to him,die and if you defend him or try to make him more humane than the monster that he was you're not a socialist.
Yeah, and then let's execute the Stalinists! They are way too realistic and pragmatic! We need idealism and dogma, and anyone that disagrees with our categoricals are not Socialists!


There's a difference between making a few mistakes, and being a murderous dictator.

Who was a murderous dictator? I certainly hope you aren't talking about Stalin, whose only significant and personal position was as General Secretary(a party position.)
What made him dictatorial? Being a member of the C.C. and Politburo(a job he shared with several other people)?

And who did he 'murder?' A few Trots and other members of terrorist camps?

[James Connolly]

For example, the reinstitution of homosexual discrimination in the 1930s. Did that come down to material conditions forcing the state to take desperate measures, or was it just conservatism?


Why do you buffoons make such statements as if Stalin was at the helm of banning homosexuality?

Homosexuality wasn't legalized, rather the old Czarist laws were abolished(which Kerensky's government did as well.) Such laws also only applied for Russia, and most other SSRs, such as the Central Asian countries, continued to ban it. Do you think Stalin had much influence on a topic that was really meant for the Supreme Soviet, and not the party?

A point against Stalin would have been a banning of Homosexuality from the party.

[l'Enfermé]

The Soviets followed internationally respected standards instead of being unrealistic and unpractical? Oh no! This reminds me of that man who tried to kill Hitler and traveled to France, where he was captured and executed for attempting to kill a foreign leader...

Why should the Soviets have any support for the KDP? They refused to run a Revolution and weren't members of Communist International. They were simply Bourgeois politicians, draped in Red, who deserted the Revolutionary cause. Why should anyone take sympathy with these people?

And I'm sure Stalin himself captured and handed over these so-called KDP members to Hitler. :laugh:
I'm sorry? You have no idea what you're talking about. The KPD, the "Spartacists", were a member of the Comintern. In January 1919, 2 of their main leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht(son of Wilhelm Liebknchet, a member of the Communist League, for which Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, and leader of the flagship of Marxist parties at the time, the SDP), were executed captured and executed for participating in the aborted January Revolution. After the Stalinisation of the Comintern, the KPD was also Stalinised, with most of it's leadership being purged and replaced by hardcore Stalinists like Thaelmann. You should learn your history.


Yeah, and then let's execute the Stalinists! They are way too realistic and pragmatic! We need idealism and dogma, and anyone that disagrees with our categoricals are not Socialists!



Who was a murderous dictator? I certainly hope you aren't talking about Stalin, whose only significant and personal position was as General Secretary(a party position.)
What made him dictatorial? Being a member of the C.C. and Politburo(a job he shared with several other people)?

And who did he 'murder?' A few Trots and other members of terrorist camps?
A few Trots and other members of terrorist camps? During the severest period of the Great Purges, according to incomplete NKVD archives(i.e there were far more executions), 680,000 people were executed. During the entire Great Purges, 13 of the 17 remaining C.C members of the Bolshevik Party in 1917(the other 9 died during the Civil War and of natural causes before 1930) were killed by the Stalinist state. That's hardly a "a few". During the Yezhovchina, 98 out of 139 C.C. members were killed, and 197 out of 200 Ukraine Republic C.C. were killed. 79 out of 82 district party secretaries, killed. That's not "a few". That's practically the entire leadership of the Lenin-era party, and even the Stalinist-era party, killed, with the exception of Stalin and his closest allies.

So please. Enough.

[l'Enfermé]

Wait, genius, "Homosexuality wasn't legalized, rather the old Czarist laws were abolished(which Kerensky's government did as well.)". Are you serious? The laws prohibiting homosexuality were abolished...and you don't call this legalization of homosexuality? What the fuck are you smoking? That's how you fucking legalize something: you abolish the laws that criminalize it.

[Prometeo liberado]

What the fuck are you smoking?
Does anyone know what user was smoking yet?

[khad]

Wait, genius, "Homosexuality wasn't legalized, rather the old Czarist laws were abolished(which Kerensky's government did as well.)". Are you serious? The laws prohibiting homosexuality were abolished...and you don't call this legalization of homosexuality? What the fuck are you smoking? That's how you fucking legalize something: you abolish the laws that criminalize it.
No, because outside of the Russian SSR it continued to be banned, which gives you a sense of the overall climate of the nation. Even inside Russia the authorities used pedik trials to discredit the church.

It can be viewed as a situation where there was an undefined legal space just waiting to be filled.

[l'Enfermé]

No, because outside of the Russian SSR it continued to be banned, which gives you a sense of the overall climate of the nation. Even inside Russia the authorities used pedik trials to discredit the church.

It can be viewed as a situation where there was an undefined legal space just waiting to be filled.
Was (male) homosexuality banned in the Ukrainian and the Belorussian Republics? It wouldn't be hard to understand why it would be still banned in the Muslim Republics and the more conservative republics. However, what is usually implied by pro-Stalinists on RevLeft is that when the Bolsheviks abolished the old czarist laws and created their own, they accidentally forgot to re-criminalize gays and abortion. That just doesn't sound right to me. The October Revolution ushered in a new age of progressive culture, the tide of which was only stemmed by the Stalinist-Bureaucratic counterrevolution, which was accompanied by a conservative reaction to the Bolshevik modernism.

[khad]

Was (male) homosexuality banned in the Ukrainian and the Belorussian Republics? It wouldn't be hard to understand why it would be still banned in the Muslim Republics and the more conservative republics. However, what is usually implied by pro-Stalinists on RevLeft is that when the Bolsheviks abolished the old czarist laws and created their own, they accidentally forgot to re-criminalize gays and abortion. That just doesn't sound right to me. The October Revolution ushered in a new age of progressive culture, the tide of which was only stemmed by the Stalinist-Bureaucratic counterrevolution, which was accompanied by a conservative reaction to the Bolshevik modernism.
In the 1920s, they put priests in Russia on trial for pederasty, ie pedik trials. The word "pedik" today is synonymous with homosexuality.

However "not right" it sounds to you, the fact of the matter is that the bolsheviks opportunistically used laws and attitudes against homosexuality/pederasty where it would hurt their political enemies. ESPECIALLY under Lenin.

[l'Enfermé]

Yes, the Bolsheviks opportunistically used laws when it would serve the interests of the class struggle. Under Lenin, however, this was done to discredit and persecute the Church. After the bureaucratic counter-revolution("Stalinism"), the homophobia seems to have been merely a conservative reaction.

The ban on abortions in 1936 though seems to have been caused primarily by the disappointing population growth figures.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Yes, the Bolsheviks opportunistically used laws when it would serve the interests of the class struggle. Under Lenin, however, this was done to discredit and persecute the Church. After the bureaucratic counter-revolution("Stalinism"), the homophobia seems to have been merely a conservative reaction.

The ban on abortions in 1936 though seems to have been caused primarily by the disappointing population growth figures.

Was it really all stick and no carrot in the USSR, as it sounds like? Banning abortions and homosexual activity doesn't address the question of why people don't have more children.

[Ismail]

Was it really all stick and no carrot in the USSR, as it sounds like? Banning abortions and homosexual activity doesn't address the question of why people don't have more children.The decree restricting abortion had in it measures to make it easier for working mothers to actually maintain children. As Sarah Davies notes in Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia, the issue of restricting abortion was popularly debated before the decree, and there were basically no "moral" arguments concerning it on either side; it was confined to whether working mothers could endure more children or not.

As khad notes, homosexuality was pretty much synonymous in the USSR with pedophilia. In Albania it was seen as having a patriarchal character. In East Germany by comparison homosexuality was decriminalized in 1968 (although "gay culture" was looked down upon as a Western importation) and in the 80's, when AIDS became an issue, health care officials advised that homosexuals shouldn't donate blood yet at the same time should not feel discriminated against. Different cultures have different attitudes.

[Thirsty Crow]

Finally, you deranged Communists have admitted to the Fascist traits of your ideology. I'm just happy Capitalism defeated the Communist-Fascist alliance before they could implant tyranny on the world.

So I take it that you've joined the real world now, as I take this admission as evidence of such an alliance of evil?
Deranged? Why thank you very much.

Facist traits? Why do you equate communism with the realpolitik (I guess you're not familiar with this term - it means political manouvering, basically) of the Soviet state? That's dishonest entirely since communism then wasn't limited to a state ideology, but existed in its revolutionary form outside this sphere.
Also, how does that collaboration between two states have anything to do ideological traits? The contemporary American state collaborates just fine with China. Do you want to draw such stupid conclusions in this case or should I do it for you?

And finally, no, you're vague blanket terms like "the state managed the economy" do not demonstrate that nazism and fascism are actually socialist. For one thing, both regimes not only allowed, but encouraged private ownership of capital. How's that for socialism? But I know, you have your own nice definition of socialism so I'm pissing in the wind, right?


In East Germany by comparison homosexuality was decriminalized in 1968 (although "gay culture" was looked down upon as a Western importation) and in the 80's, when AIDS became an issue, health care officials advised that homosexuals shouldn't donate blood yet at the same time should not feel discriminated against. Different cultures have different attitudes.
Oh great, postmodernist cultural relativism in defence of "socialist states". And the cynicism, priceless, "hey, I think all homosexuals probably got aids or will get it soon so nope, we've got enough blood in our storage, but thanks!". What bullshit.

[Ismail]

Oh great, postmodernist cultural relativism in defence of "socialist states".It's no more "cultural relativism" than being able to more or less excuse Marx for believing in phrenology. Homosexuality was identified for centuries with bad things. It is no surprise that the GDR, the most Westernized country of the Eastern Bloc, was the first to adopt a relatively tolerant attitude towards it.


And the cynicism, priceless, "hey, I think all homosexuals probably got aids or will get it soon so nope, we've got enough blood in our storage, but thanks!". What bullshit.Considering the default view of homosexuality in almost all of the Eastern Bloc states was that it was "a degenerate relic of the feudal-bourgeois order," I'm pretty sure the GDR's decriminalization of it and view that "AIDS seems widespread among homosexuals so it probably isn't wise to have them donate blood for now, but we have to make sure we don't offend them in the process" is a step up from "we must institutionalize these people and subject them to therapy" or sending them to labor camps.

[James Connolly]

You should learn your history.
Darn, you must have really gotten excited at the site of perceived ignorance, however you took my comment out of context and looped it into some irrelevant circle that derailed my entire point(as if the Ultra-Leftists from a decade ago have anything to do with politics of the 1930s.)
This complete misrepresentation, as if an inept individual as yourself can 'teach' me history, represents stark agism on your part.



A few Trots and other members of terrorist camps? During the severest period of the Great Purges, according to incomplete NKVD archives(i.e there were far more executions), 680,000 people were executed. During the entire Great Purges, 13 of the 17 remaining C.C members of the Bolshevik Party in 1917(the other 9 died during the Civil War and of natural causes before 1930) were killed by the Stalinist state. That's hardly a "a few". During the Yezhovchina, 98 out of 139 C.C. members were killed, and 197 out of 200 Ukraine Republic C.C. were killed. 79 out of 82 district party secretaries, killed. That's not "a few". That's practically the entire leadership of the Lenin-era party, and even the Stalinist-era party, killed, with the exception of Stalin and his closest allies.
The user Ismail has well defeated these nonsensical points in the past. I will share some of the trove of information he has given.



Based on newly available archival material, J. Arch Getty, William Chase, Roberta Manning, and other historians performed interpretative statistical analyses of victims of the Yezhovshchina, such as Getty’s and Chase’s analysis of 898 members of the Soviet bureaucratic elite who held positions of power in 1936 (the start of Yezhovshchina), and Manning’s study of the numbers of Party members expelled in the Belyi Raion (Belyi district) of the Soviet Union. Modern scientific statistical methods were used to avoid, or at least minimize, bias and accession to preconceived ideas. In other words, the new wealth of evidence on the Purge’s victims was examined outside a paradigm as much as possible. The statistical methods used were the formation of contingency tables, multicellular analysis, and logit modeling...

Getty and Chase found that taking the above-mentioned 898 members of the Soviet elite as their sample group, 427 or 47.6% were purged. According to the totalitarian paradigm, the majority (at least 50.1%) of these 427 should have been "Old Bolsheviks," i.e., former revolutionaries who came up through the 1917 Revolution with Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, etc. al. Here the paradigm is utterly defeated, for neither Getty and Chase’s study, nor Manning’s, showed this. To quote Manning: "Contrary to popular belief, Old Bolsheviks of pre-Revolutionary vintage did not appear to be the main target of the Great Purges... ."

Who was primarily expelled from the Party or purged? Manning’s results show they were "local party members who joined (the Party) during the New Economic Policy (NEP) of 1921 - 1927... ." (The New Economic Policy was the Communist Party’s 1921 withdrawal from its previous policy of doctrinaire centralized socialism, which had been set forth in Lenin’s "21 conditions" at the Third International or Comintern. The NEP permitted freedom of trading, encouragement to foreign capitalists, ownership of private property, and other economic features that had just been abolished by the Revolution, permitting what may be called Lenin’s program of allowable private enterprise or private business under the control of the Proletarian Government.) Manning continues: "But the brunt of the purges fell most heavily on Communists who joined the party during the Civil War."

This fact had already been pointed out by Khrushchev decades ago in his much attended to "secret speech" to the Twentieth Party Congress, but has been completely ignored, since it does not conform well to the dominant paradigm. This is a good example of how an entrenched shared paradigm takes precedence over something everyone should have noticed before. According to Getty and Chase, there is "little support for Conquest’s assertion that there was a ‘plan to destroy the Old Bolsheviks,’ or for Armstrong’s claim that the ‘Great Purge almost eliminated from the apparatus the Old Bolsheviks, who entered the Party before the Revolution.’"

Who, then, according to these more scientific analyses of a greater amount of empirical evidence, was at risk to be purged? The statistically arrived at "profile" for a member of the risk group turns out to be someone who was village born, as opposed to urban born; not highly educated, but educated enough to have risen to some bureaucratic position or high rank in a certain field, especially a technical or military field; a Party member, as opposed to a non-Party member (many ardent Bolsheviks and Stalin-supporters, like the agrobiologist Trofim Lysenko, were non-Party); and who participated in the revolution in some way but later joined the opposition. To narrow it further, the most likely to be purged was a peasant who had joined the Party in 1912 - 1920; who was a military specialist and an opposition member.

According to Getty and Chase, "the most striking finding (of their study) is that elite members of the intelligentsia working in intellectual/artistic/scientific activities in 1936 were safest from arrest." This controverts the claim of Roy Medvedev, for example, that the diplomatic profession and especially the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs were "savagely purged." Also controverted by this study are the "histories" written by Roy’s brother Zhores and by Harvard’s indefatigable David Joravsky, both of whom have presented extensive studies on alleged purges of the intelligenty in artistic and scientific fields, such as genetics under Lysenko. Contrary to Zh. Medvedev and Joravsky, a member of this group - a poet, playwright, cosmologist, chemist - was safest from arrest. This fact clashes with the Orwellian version of the totalitarian paradigm for Stalinist society in which all scientific and artistic creation is minutely scrutinized and censored by "Big Brother’s thought police," the NKVD.

There is no doubt that there were many Old Bolsheviks among those purged in Getty’s and Chase’s sampling of members of the Soviet elite. As noted above, of the 898 sampled, 47.6% overall were purged. But only about 31% of all Old Bolsheviks perished. "Statistically, being an Old Bolshevik was not related to one’s vulnerability in the terror" (Getty and Chase, op. cit., p. 237). According to these analysts, "Old Bolsheviks in the present group suffered not because they were Old Bolsheviks, but because they held prominent positions within the Party, economic, and military elite," positions to which they no doubt rose in part because they had been Old Bolsheviks. This is quite different from what the totalitarian paradigmists have been asserting. Getty and Chase go on to say, "Old Bolsheviks were among the victims because of where they worked rather than because they were Old Bolsheviks." If one wanted to be safe during the Yezhovshchina then, it helped to be "an apolitical urban-born intellectual from the middle or upper class who received a higher education before the revolution and who avoided political or economic administrative work. ... Statistically, it was a purge of politicians - oppositionist or otherwise."


"Shortly before they left for Russia, Trotsky's emissaries, Konon Berman-Yurin and Fritz David, were summoned to special conferences with Trotsky himself. The meetings took place in Copenhagen toward the end of November 1932. Konon Berman-Yurin later stated:

'I had two meetings with him [Trotsky]. First of all he began to sound me on my work in the past. Then Trotsky passed to Soviet affairs. Trotsky said: 'The principal question is the question of Stalin. Stalin must be physically destroyed.' He said that other methods of struggle were now ineffective. He said that for this purpose people were needed who would dare anything, who would agree to sacrifice themselves for this, as he expressed it, historic task. . . .

In the evening we continued our conversation. I asked him how individual terrorism could be reconciled with Marxism. To this Trotsky replied: problems cannot be treated in a dogmatic way. He said that a situation had arisen in the Soviet Union which Marx could not have foreseen. Trotsky also said that in addition to Stalin it was necessary to assassinate Kaganovich and Voroshilov. . . .

During the conversation he nervously paced up and down the room and spoke of Stalin with exceptional hatred. . . . He said that the terrorist act should, if possible, be timed to take place at a plenum or at the congress of the Comintern, so that the shot at Stalin would ring out in a large assembly.'"
(Kahn, A. E., and M. Sayers. The Great Conspiracy: The Secret War Against Soviet Russia. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1946., pp. 248-49.)

[Ismail]

A Trot would throw out the latter quote since the authors are quoting testimony from the Moscow Trials.

[l'Enfermé]

Darn, you must have really gotten excited at the site of perceived ignorance, however you took my comment out of context and looped it into some irrelevant circle that derailed my entire point(as if the Ultra-Leftists from a decade ago have anything to do with politics of the 1930s.)
This complete misrepresentation, as if an inept individual as yourself can 'teach' me history, represents stark agism on your part.

So you did not claim that the KPD was not a member of the Comintern?

Which one are you, an idiot, or a liar?



The user Ismail has well defeated these nonsensical points in the past. I will share some of the trove of information he has given.
There's nothing nonsensical about "these points", my friend. Yet your quote refuted none of what I said. Congratulations.

You implied that Stalin only killed a "few" Trots and other terrorists. Then your quote shows that out of a sample of 900 top party officials, 47 percent were purged during the Yezhovschina. So which one are you, an idiot or a liar? Your own "evidence" speaks against you.

A Trot would throw out the latter quote since the authors are quoting testimony from the Moscow Trials.
Good, otherwise I would dislike Trots even more! In that regard, our Trot friends are being reasonable people. Evidence from the Moscow Show(you forgot this word, I think) Trials is as legitimate as evidence from the Cologne Communist Trial, the Dreyfuss Affair, and the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti.

[James Connolly]

There's nothing nonsensical about "these points", my friend. Yet your quote refuted none of what I said. Congratulations.
I beg to differ. The grave defeat that was inflicted on you gave you absolutely no maneuvering room, which is why you'll delve into a state of denialism.


You implied that Stalin only killed a "few" Trots and other terrorists. Then your quote shows that out of a sample of 900 top party officials, 47 percent were purged during the Yezhovschina. So which one are you, an idiot or a liar? Your own "evidence" speaks against you.

An idiot or a liar? Perhaps the former title is appropriate for your person, as you seem to state the responsibility was on Ezhov and Yagoda, while also claiming it was Stalin. So which one was it?

Was Stalin somehow responsible for the deaths of thousands of people when Ezhov gave him, and other C.C. members, lists with thousands of names on them? Something that would be impossible for him, and his Comrades, to know about in their entirety, while having to take Ezhov's word for it?

Such claims are absurd, which marks the deficiency in each one of your posts.


Good, otherwise I would dislike Trots even more! In that regard, our Trot friends are being reasonable people. Evidence from the Moscow Show(you forgot this word, I think) Trials is as legitimate as evidence from the Cologne Communist Trial, the Dreyfuss Affair, and the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti.
Based on what standard really? I mean the entire claim that the Moscow trials were corrupt forces you to rely on Trotsky's word.

I very much trust the Soviet legal system, even against pseudo-intellectuals as yourself, which I will defend with valid arguments(unlike you with baseless speculations.)

Kozhevnikov, the author of History of the Soviet Court, wrote that acquittal rates in 1936 represented 10.9 percent of verdicts, 10.3 percent in 1937, and 11.6 percentin 1941.
Compare this to modern Russia, or other contemporary Western nations, where acquittal rates are many times lower than it was in the SU.

As Voroshilov also pointed out, 30-40% of those questioned, during the Great Purge, were released.

[l'Enfermé]

I beg to differ. The grave defeat that was inflicted on you gave you absolutely no maneuvering room, which is why you'll delve into a state of denialism.
Bahahahahah


An idiot or a liar? Perhaps the former title is appropriate for your person, as you seem to state the responsibility was on Ezhov and Yagoda, while also claiming it was Stalin. So which one was it?
The two were Stalin's pets, I blame the master, not the slave.


Was Stalin somehow responsible for the deaths of thousands of people when Ezhov gave him, and other C.C. members, lists with thousands of names on them? Something that would be impossible for him, and his Comrades, to know about in their entirety, while having to take Ezhov's word for it?

Such claims are absurd, which marks the deficiency in each one of your posts.
Stalin is that stupid, then? Sure! If someone gave me lists with thousands of names on them, I would consent to their deaths without hesitation.


Based on what standard really? I mean the entire claim that the Moscow trials were corrupt forces you to rely on Trotsky's word.

I very much trust the Soviet legal system, even against pseudo-intellectuals as yourself, which I will defend with valid arguments(unlike you with baseless speculations.)

I guess that pseudo-intellectuals like me(where have I, or anyone else, claimed I'm a intellectual or pseudo-intellectual? - though lying seems to be in your nature, and this is simply another one of your fabrications) just don't believe in confessions obtained through torture and threats to family members.

It's not like '36/'37 trials were called the Moscow Trials. They are called the Moscow Show Trials for a reason.


Kozhevnikov, the author of History of the Soviet Court, wrote that acquittal rates in 1936 represented 10.9 percent of verdicts, 10.3 percent in 1937, and 11.6 percentin 1941.
Compare this to modern Russia, or other contemporary Western nations, where acquittal rates are many times lower than it was in the SU.

As Voroshilov also pointed out, 30-40% of those questioned, during the Great Purge, were released.

Oh yeah pretty fucking great, 30-40 weren't shot, fucking awesome. It's not like that in 37 and 38 almost 700,000 people were executed. Wait, it yes? My God!, that's more corpses than the Spanish Civil War, or the American Civil War, or the Continuation War, or the Bosnian War, or the Balkan Wars produced.

So many fascist terrorists, that 1930s USSR had. More than Germany or Italy, it seems!

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Who was a murderous dictator? I certainly hope you aren't talking about Stalin, whose only significant and personal position was as General Secretary(a party position.)
What made him dictatorial? Being a member of the C.C. and Politburo(a job he shared with several other people)?

And who did he 'murder?' A few Trots and other members of terrorist camps?

1. If he was 'only' a secretary, then why do you defend and revere him so much? This is absolute bullshit: he's the single-handed military saviour of the USSR in WW2 when it suits you, and a mere member of the Politburo/CC along with others when that sort of argument suits you.

2. How many people died in the great purges of 1937-38? Have fun little tankie with your e-Stalinism, i'm sure it'll take you far in life bro. Clearly you've never had the cajones to air your little views in public before, you'd get slaughtered.