The Moscow Trials and the "Great Terror" of 1937-1938: What the Evidence Shows [Archive]

Delenda Carthago

28th January 2013, 00:18

Grover Furr
July 31 2010
[To be added at the end of Part One of "Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform" (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html)]
Since my two-part essay "Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform" was written in 2004-5, a great deal more evidence has been published concerning the Opposition, the Moscow Trials of 1936, 1937, and 1938, the Military Purges or "Tukhachevsky Affair", and the subsequent "Ezhovshchina", often called "the Great Terror" after the title of the extremely dishonest book by Robert Conquest first published in 1968.
The newly-available evidence confirms the following conclusions:
* The defendants at the Moscow Trials of August 1936, January 1937, and March 1938, were guilty of at least those crimes to which they confessed. A "bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" did indeed exist. It planned to assassinate Stalin, Kaganovich, Molotov, and others in a coup d’�tat , what they called a "palace coup" (dvortsovyi perevorot). The bloc did assassinate Kirov.
* Both Rights and Trotskyites were conspiring with the Germans and Japanese, as were the Military conspirators. If the "palace coup" did not work they hoped to come to power by showing loyalty to Germany or Japan in the event of an invasion.
* Trotsky too was directly conspiring with the Germans and Japanese, as were a number of his supporters.
* Nikolai Ezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to late 1938, was also conspiring with the Germans.
Ezhov

We now have much more evidence about the role of NKVD chief Nikolai Ezhov than we had in 2005. Ezhov, head of the NKVD (People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs), had his own conspiracy against the Soviet government and Party leadership. Ezhov had also been recruited by German intelligence.
Like the Rights and Trotskyites, Ezhov and his top NKVD men were counting on an invasion by Germany, Japan, or other major capitalist country. They tortured a great many innocent people into confessing to capital crimes so they would be shot. They executed a great many more on falsified grounds or no grounds at all.
Ezhov hoped that this mass murder of innocent people would turn large parts of the Soviet population against the government. That would create the basis for internal rebellions against the Soviet government when Germany or Japan attacked.
Ezhov lied to Stalin, the Party and government leaders about all this. The truly horrific mass executions of 1937-1938 of almost 680,000 people were in large part unjustifiable executions of innocent people carried out deliberately by Ezhov and his top men in order to sow discontent among the Soviet population.
Although Ezhov executed a very large number of innocent people, it is clear from the evidence now available that there were also real conspiracies. The Russian government continues to keep all but a tiny amount of the investigative materials top-secret. We can’t know for sure exactly the dimensions of the real conspiracies without that evidence. Therefore, we don’t know how many of these 680,000 people were actual conspirators and how many were innocent victims.
As I wrote in 2005, Stalin and the Party leadership began to suspect as early as October 1937 that some of the repression was done illegally. From early in 1938, when Pavel Postyshev was sharply criticized, then removed from the Central Committee, then expelled from the Party, tried and executed for mass unjustified repression, these suspicions grew.
When Lavrentii Beria was appointed as Ezhov’s second-in-command Ezhov and his men understood that Stalin and the Party leadership no longer trusted them. They made one last plot to assassinate Stalin at the November 7, 1938 celebration of the 21st anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. But Ezhov’s men were arrested in time.
Ezhov was persuaded to resign. An intensive investigation was begun and a huge number of NKVD abuses were uncovered. A great many cases of those tried or punished under Ezhov were reviewed. Over 100,000 people were released from prison and camps. Many NKVD men were arrested, confessed to torturing innocent people, tried and executed. Many more NKVD men were sentenced to prison or dismissed.
Under Beria the number of executions in 1938 and 1940 dropped to less than 1% of the number under Ezhov in 1937 and 1938, and many of those executed were NKVD men, including Ezhov himself, who were found guilty of massive unjustified repression and executions of innocent people.
Some of the most dramatic evidence published since 2005 are confessions of Ezhov and Mikhail Frinovsky, Ezhov’s second-in-command. I have put some of these on the Internet in both the original Russian and in English translation. We also have a great many more confessions and interrogations, mostly partial, of Ezhov, in which he makes many more confessions. These were published in 2007 in a semi-official account by Aleksei Pavliukov.
Anticommunist Scholars Hide the Truth

All "mainstream" – that is, anticommunist – and Trotskyist researchers falsely claim that there were no conspiracies. According to them, all the Moscow Trial defendants, all the military defendants, and all those tried and sentenced for espionage, conspiracy, sabotage, and other crimes, were innocent victims. Some claim that Stalin had planned to kill all these people because they might constitute a "Fifth Column" if the USSR were attacked. Other anticommunists prefer the explanation that Stalin just tried to terrorize the population into obedience.
This is an ideological, anticommunist stance masquerading as an historical conclusion. It is not based upon the historical evidence and is inconsistent with that evidence. Anticommunist historians ignore the primary source evidence available. They even ignore evidence in collections of documents that they themselves cite in their own works.
Why do the anticommunist "scholars", both in Russia and the West, ignore all this evidence? Why do they continue to promote the false notions that no conspiracies existed and that Stalin, not Ezhov, decided to execute hundreds of thousands of innocent people? The only possible explanation is that they do this for ideological reasons alone. The truth, as established by an examination of the primary source evidence, would make Stalin and the Bolsheviks "look good" to most people.
Collectivization of Agriculture Saved The World from Nazis and Japanese…

We have an example of this ideological bias in the way anticommunist scholars and writers treat the Bolshevik collectivization of agriculture. Anticommunists have long attacked it as immoral and unjustified. Yet collectivization provided the capital for the crash industrialization of the USSR. And only industrialization made a modern Red army possible.
Without a technologically-advanced modern army the Nazis would have conquered the USSR. Then, with the resources and manpower of the USSR and the rest of Europe behind them, the Nazis could have invaded the British Isles. Nazi armies would have been a far more formidable foe against all Allied powers. Meanwhile the Japanese, strengthened by the petroleum of the Soviet Far East, would have been a far more formidable enemy for the USA in the Pacific war.
Millions more Slavs and Jews – "Untermenschen" to the Nazis – and millions more Europeans and American soldiers – would have been killed. That this did not occur can be attributed, in large part, to the Soviet collectivization of agriculture. This is an obvious conclusion. There was simply no other way than by collectivizing agriculture that the USSR could have industrialized, and thus stood up to the Nazis and Japanese.
The only alternative was the one promoted by the Right and Trotskyite conspirators: to make peace with the Germans and Japanese, even if that meant granting them huge trade and territorial concessions. That would have greatly strengthened the Axis powers in their war against the U.K. and the USA.
For purely ideological reasons anticommunists cannot admit that collectivization made it possible for the Axis to be defeated.
… And So Did The Defeat of the Conspirators in 1936-1938

Whether they were able to seize political power through a "palace coup", or whether they would have to rely on a German and/or Japanese attack as they only way they might be able to overthrow the Stalin government, the Opposition conspirators were planning some kind of alliance with the Axis.
In fact they would have had no choice, as they realized themselves. A USSR weakened by internal revolt, with or without an invasion from abroad, would have had to make trade, territorial, and ideological concessions to its major potential adversaries simply in order to avoid invasion and inevitable conquest.
At a minimum, a USSR led by some combination of conspirators would have made treaties with Germany and Japan that would have provided the Axis powers with huge natural resources, possibly with manufactured goods as well. The military conspirators were contemplating going much farther than mere trade with the Axis. They were contemplating an outright military alliance with Germany. That would have meant millions more soldiers to fight alongside the German Wehrmacht.
Therefore, in foiling the machinations of the Rights, Trotsky and his supporters, and the Military conspirators, Stalin saved Europe from Naziism – again!
No doubt this is why anticommunist "scholars" insist, in the face of all the evidence, that there were no conspiracies in the USSR and no collaboration with the Germans and Japanese. Once again they refuse to admit these truths on purely ideological grounds because doing so would seem to justify Stalin’s actions.
Bukharin, Not Stalin, To Blame for the Massive Repressions

One interesting aspect of this is that Nikolai Bukharin, leading name among the Rightists and one of its leaders, knew about the "Ezhovshchina" as it was happening, and praised it in a letter to Stalin that he wrote from prison.
It gets even better. Bukharin knew that Ezhov was a member of the Rightist conspiracy, as he himself was. No doubt that is why he welcomed Ezhov's appointment as head of the NKVD -- a view recorded by his widow in her memoirs.
In his first confession, in his now-famous letter to Stalin of December 10, 1937, and at his trial in March 1938 Bukharin claimed he had completely "disarmed" and had told everything he knew. But now we can prove that this was a lie. Bukharin knew that Ezhov was a leading member of the Rightist conspiracy -- but did not inform on him. According to Mikhail Frinovsky, Ezhov's right-hand man, Ezhov probably promised to see that he would not be executed if he did not mention his own, Ezhov's, participation (see Frinovsky's confession of April 11, 1939 (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/frinovskyeng.html#The%20preparation%20of%20the%20t rial%20of%20Rykov,%20Bukharin,%20Krestinsky,%20Yag oda%20and%20others)).
If Bukharin had told the truth -- if he had, in fact, informed on Ezhov -- Ezhov's mass murders could have been stopped in their tracks. The lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people could have been saved.
But Bukharin remained true to his fellow conspirators. He went to execution -- an execution he swore he deserved "ten times over" (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/bukharinappeals.html#I%20should%20be%20shot%20ten% 20times%20over)* -- without revealing Ezhov's participation in the conspiracy.
This point cannot be stressed too much: the blood of the hundreds of thousands of innocent persons slaughtered by Ezhov and his men during 1937-1938, are on Bukharin's hands.
Objectivity and Evidence

I agree with historian Geoffrey Roberts when he says:

In the last 15 years or so an enormous amount of new material on Stalin … has become available from Russian archives. I should make clear that as a historian I have a strong orientation to telling the truth about the past, no matter how uncomfortable or unpalatable the conclusions may be. … I don’t think there is a dilemma: you just tell the truth as you see it.
("Stalin’s Wars", Frontpagemag.com February 12, 2007. At http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/35305.html )
The conclusions I have reached about the "Ezhovshchina" will be unacceptable to ideologically-motivated people. I have not reached these conclusions out of any desire to "apologize" for the policies of Stalin or the Soviet government. I believe these to be the only objective conclusions possible based on the available evidence.
I make no claim that the Soviet leadership was free from error. Stalin’s vision of a socialism leading to communism was obviously faulty in that it did not come to pass. During Stalin’s time, as during the short period of Lenin’s leadership, the Soviets made a great many errors. Error is, of course, inevitable in all human endeavor. And since the Bolsheviks were the first communists to conquer and hold state power, they were in unknown waters. It was inevitable, therefore, that they would make a great many mistakes – and they did.
However, any objective study of the evidence and the historical record shows that there was simply no alternative to forced collectivization and industrialization – except defeat at the hands of some combination of capitalist powers. Likewise, the fact that the Right, Trotskyite, and Military conspiracies really did exist but were snuffed out by the Soviet leadership, which managed to out-maneuver Ezhov and foil his conspiracy as well, proves that once again the USSR – "Stalin" – saved Europe from Naziism and all the Allies from an immense number of additional casualties at the hands of the Axis powers.
* Bukharin's two appeals for clemency, both dated March 13, 1938, were reprinted in Izvestiia September 2, 1992, p. 3. They were rejected, and Bukharin was executed on March 15, 1938. I have put them online in English here. (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/bukharinappeals.html)
Additional Bibliography

Documents
Ezhov’s interrogations: I have translated all of Ezhov’s interrogations available to me as of July 2010 and put them online here:

http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/ezhovinterrogs.html (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/ezhovinterrogs.html)
(Russian original: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/ezhovpokazaniia.html (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/ezhovpokazaniia.html) )

Lubianka. Stalin I NKVD – NKGB – GUKR "SMERSH". 1939 – mart 1946. Moscow, 2006.

Frinovsky confession of April 11, 1939, pp. 33-50. http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/frinovskyeng.html (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/frinovskyeng.html)
(Russian original here: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/frinovskyru.html (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/frinovskyru.html) )
Ezhov confession of April 26, 1939, pp. 52-72. http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/ezhov042639eng.html (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/ezhov042639eng.html)
(Russian original: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/ezhovru.html (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/ezhovru.html) )

Petrov, Nikita, Mark Jansen. "Stalinskii pitomets" – Nikolai Ezhov. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2008, pp. 367-379.

Ezhov confession of August 4, 1939. http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/ezhov080439eng.html (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/ezhov080439eng.html)
(Russian original: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/ezhov080439ru.html (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/ezhov080439ru.html) )

Articles
Furr, Grover and Vladimir L. Bobrov, "Bukharin's Last Plea: Yet Another Anti-Stalin Falsification." http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/bukhlastplea.html (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/bukhlastplea.html) - translation of Russian original published in Aktual’naia Istoriia for February 2009 at http://actualhistory.ru/bukharin_last_plea
Furr, Grover and Vladimir L. Bobrov, "Nikolai Bukharin's First Statement of Confession in the Lubianka" in English translation, Cultural Logic 2007 - http://clogic.eserver.org/2007/Furr_Bobrov.pdf
Furr, Grover and Vladimir L. Bobrov, "Pervye priznatel'nye pokazaniia N.I. Bukharina na Lubianke." Klio No. 1 (2007). http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/furrnbobrov_klio0107.pdf (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/furrnbobrov_klio0107.pdf)
Furr, Grover and Vladimir L. Bobrov, eds. "Lichnye pokazaniia N. Bukharina." Klio (St. Petersburg), No. 1 (2007). http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/furrnbobrov_klio0107.pdf (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/furrnbobrov_klio0107.pdf)
Furr, Grover. "Evidence of Leon Trotsky's Collaboration with Germany and Japan." In Cultural Logic for 2009. http://clogic.eserver.org/2009/Furr.pdf
Holmstr�m, Sven-Eric. "New Evidence Concerning the 'Hotel Bristol' Question in the First Moscow Trial of 1936". Cultural Logic 2008. At http://clogic.eserver.org/2008/Holmstrom.pdf
Books
Furr, Grover.Khrushchev Lied: The Evidence That Every "Revelation" of Stalin's (and Beria's) Crimes in Nikita Khrushchev's Infamous "Secret Speech" to the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 25, 1956, is Provably False. Kettering, OH: Erythros Press & Media LLC, 2011. At Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Khrushchev-Lied-Revelation-Khrushchevs-Communist/dp/061544105X/); at Erythros Press & Media (http://www.erythrospress.com/store/furr.html): at Abebooks.com (http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=4350911417); at Abebooks.co.uk (http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=4350911417) (United Kingdom)
Furr (‘Ferr’), Grover Antistalinskaia podlost’ ("Anti-Stalin Villanies"). Moscow: Algoritm, 2007. Home page: http://www.algoritm-kniga.ru/ferr-g.-antistalinskaya-podlost.html Brief summary in this interview: "The Sixty-One Untruths of Nikita Khrushchev" (Interview with Grover Furr). http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/litrossiainterv0608_eng.html (http://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/research/litrossiainterv0608_eng.html) (original here: http://www.litrossia.ru/article.php?article=3003 )
Pavliukov, Aleksei. Ezhov. Moscow: Zakharov, 2007.

http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/trials_ezhovshchina_update0710.html

Crux

28th January 2013, 01:09

Grover Furr: Proving that reading 1930's issues of Pravda is enough to make you a "historian" in stalinist circles.

goalkeeper

28th January 2013, 02:15

Whether they were able to seize political power through a "palace coup", or whether they would have to rely on a German and/or Japanese attack as they only way they might be able to overthrow the Stalin government, the Opposition conspirators were planning some kind of alliance with the Axis.
In fact they would have had no choice, as they realized themselves. A USSR weakened by internal revolt, with or without an invasion from abroad, would have had to make trade, territorial, and ideological concessions to its major potential adversaries simply in order to avoid invasion and inevitable conquest.
At a minimum, a USSR led by some combination of conspirators would have made treaties with Germany and Japan that would have provided the Axis powers with huge natural resources, possibly with manufactured goods as well

Phew! Good job the resolute Comrade Stalin steered the Soviet state on the right path by crushing these traitors in 1937-8, so he could, er, make "treaties with Germany " in 1939

soso17

28th January 2013, 03:25

Crux

28th January 2013, 05:20

Thank you for posting this. I've read it before, but I think it's important to remind others about this research...especially those of the "Stalin was Hitler in disguise! He murdered Lenin! He killed 564,874,987 of HIS OWN CITIZENS!!!" persuasion.
Well, I'm figuring it's only people of that persuasion that could make Grover "stalin killed noone"/"the entire bolshevik leadership totally were nazi trotskyist japanese spies" Furr sound in the least bit convincing.

Geiseric

28th January 2013, 05:56

These threads are kinda beating the dead horse, I don't think anybody will buy these.

Ostrinski

28th January 2013, 06:50

Ugh Grover Furr. Why doesn't he write something about comparative literature or something, that's where his area of competence and professional training is in, not in history.

Overture

28th January 2013, 09:50

Ugh Grover Furr. Why doesn't he write something about comparative literature or something, that's where his area of competence and professional training is in, not in history.

Yeah. Speaking of, that Noam Chomsky guy should keep his fucking mouth shut too and write another book about linguistics because that's his area of competence and professional training.

LuÃs Henrique

28th January 2013, 11:00

(sarcastically) "Stalin was Hitler in disguise! He murdered Lenin! He killed 564,874,987 of HIS OWN CITIZENS!!!"

He wasn't Hitler in disguise. His regime had no genocidal intents as Hitlers, and was not bent on militarily conquering its neighbours.

He didn't murder Lenin. He did murder Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Tomsky, Piatakov, Radek, Preobrazhensky, Rykov, Béla Kun, Bubnov, Krestinsky, Rudzutaks. Sokolnikov, Uglanov, Chubar, Kosior, Yakovleva, among several other leading and outstanding Bolsheviks.

He didn't kill 564 million people, or 80 million people, or 40, or 20 million people. He was in power in the Soviet Union when it was involved in a huge war. He didn't start that war and it is clear, from the Nazi records where they established their power, that having not resisted to the invasion would have resulted in even worse carnage. His government, out of incompetence (a huge part of which due to its dictatorial nature and its habit of shooting the messenger), allowed a distributive crisis to go out of hand, resulting in the death of perhaps one million people. He actively and brutaly suppressed any dissent both within and without the Bolshevik party, resulting in the death of possibly 700,000 people, most of whom communists (probably making him the worst murderer of communists in history).

Straw burns easily, you see.

Luís Henrique

Ostrinski

28th January 2013, 15:21

Yeah. Speaking of, that Noam Chomsky guy should keep his fucking mouth shut too and write another book about linguistics because that's his area of competence and professional training.I agree that Noam Chomsky should stick to linguistics, tis where he is respected. His political writings are subpar and while the research is sometimes good, the analysis of it is always very simple and unoriginal. Most revlefters could do better with the same access to the documents and data he has.

I'd still take Chomsky's oversimplified and shallow political writings over Furr's attempts at historiography, though.

Ostrinski

28th January 2013, 16:04

http://c3201142.cdn.imgwykop.pl/comment_TODqiql1uCzpyfIhguNpRds9lUIJytwY.jpgHey now, don't post links to offtopic things like memes without adding to the discussion. I'm not gonna give you a verbal for it, though, because psycho set a bad example (:D), but for future reference try not to do this.

Thirsty Crow

28th January 2013, 16:11

I'm really surprised that more mass murder fetishist haven't lend their strenght of argument here.

Really, it must be that this place is slowly turning into a cesspool of revisionism.

Ismail

28th January 2013, 16:49

I'm really surprised that more mass murder fetishist haven't lend their strenght of argument here.

Really, it must be that this place is slowly turning into a cesspool of revisionism.What "strength of argument" do they need to deploy when the opposition is just talking about how Stalin was horrible because he had the audacity to oversee the execution of persons who were somehow loyal beyond reproach to the cause of socialism and could never veer from its path because they were in the ranks of Bolshevism for 35 or so years (you know, like Stalin, Molotov...)?

The fact is that there has never been any real evidence of torture used against the defendants. 30+ persons, a number of them hardened veterans of the Tsarist-era prisons and all of them standing before foreign journalists and diplomats in an open court, unanimously pleaded guilty (some to all the crimes charged, some to certain crimes) when one word uttered could have discredited the entire trial. All were engaged in pre-trial testimony for months beforehand and all of the testimonies were internally consistent with one-another.

There were many contemporary Western analysts of the Trials, including those who actually attended them as observers. They included Lenin-era leftists like Jerome Davis, bourgeois diplomats and legal scholars like Joseph E. Davies and John N. Hazzard, etc. They found the idea of one big "frame-up" hard to take seriously. Trotsky and other critics of the Trials were reduced to trying to find inconsistencies (not especially hard to do in trials) and trying to figure out "why" they confessed. Some went the easy route and suggested mysterious "Tibetan drugs," some suggested they did it out of "Party loyalty," that the fate of families was in the balance if the accused did not confess (no real evidence for this either), etc.

In the end, the most plausible explanation for the Moscow Trials is that their charges, in the main, were correct and the defendants pleaded guilty on this basis.

He didn't murder Lenin. He did murder Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Tomsky, Piatakov, Radek, Preobrazhensky, Rykov, Béla Kun, Bubnov, Krestinsky, Rudzutaks. Sokolnikov, Uglanov, Chubar, Kosior, Yakovleva, among several other leading and outstanding Bolsheviks.What's funny is that a number of the "outstanding Bolsheviks" you listed were "Stalinists" by any Trot definition, mainly Kosior, Chubar and Rudzutaks (who had infamously poor relations with Trotsky in the 20's.) They were rehabilitated after 1956, as were Béla Kun, Bubnov, Yakovleva, etc. as "victims" of "Stalinist repression."

Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist

28th January 2013, 17:30

And Bukharin kinda deserved it.

Invader Zim

28th January 2013, 17:48

l'EnfermÃ©

28th January 2013, 17:49

In other news, Heydrich, Himmler and Eichman were actually British agents. They orchestrated the holocaust in order to discredit the otherwise reputable Nazi regime. :rolleyes:

Yeah. Speaking of, that Noam Chomsky guy should keep his fucking mouth shut too and write another book about linguistics because that's his area of competence and professional training.
Ostrinski is a Marxist he couldn't give less of a shit about Chomsky.

Ismail

28th January 2013, 17:51

Sounds good to me, the man talks a load of shit half the time.I recall him once saying that Franco and Co. rose up in Spain not because of the continued existence of the Republic or the election of the Popular Front, but because of... anarchism. He basically claimed that Hitler and Mussolini sent troops to Spain to crush the "anarchist revolution," which is rather akin to saying that the Entente invaded Soviet Russia to defeat Makhno.

So yeah, his politics and knowledge of any history other than that of US imperialism (and even here he's not brilliant) are quite bad.

In other news, Heydrich, Himmler and Eichman were actually British agents. They orchestrated the holocaust in order to discredit the otherwise reputable Nazi regime.Nah, you made that up just now.

Invader Zim

28th January 2013, 19:43

Oh, and Grover Furr is a hack. And not even a vile intellectual one.

Old Bolshie

28th January 2013, 19:45

His government, out of incompetence (a huge part of which due to its dictatorial nature and its habit of shooting the messenger), allowed a distributive crisis to go out of hand, resulting in the death of perhaps one million people.

Tell me how Stalin could have avoided the food crisis of 32-33...

He actively and brutaly suppressed any dissent both within and without the Bolshevik party, resulting in the death of possibly 700,000 people, most of whom communists (probably making him the worst murderer of communists in history).

It seems that you don't know too much about the soviet political structure. NkVD was the most autonomous organ within the soviet regime specially outside Moscow where NKVD's officers had a great deal of freedom from Moscow. According to the sources where did you get the 700,000 number only 40,000 were signed by Stalin but when I consulted the source (Ellman, 2007) I didn't find any source or evidence for the 40,000 number in his work. I don't doubt that 700,000 people were executed and that Stalin personally ordered some of them but saying that Stalin is directly responsible for all those deaths is an exaggeration. At best you can blame Stalin for letting things to go out of hand.

Invader Zim

28th January 2013, 20:15

Tell me how Stalin could have avoided the food crisis of 32-33...

Altered state procurement policies in the light of the famine?

It seems that you don't know too much about the soviet political structure. NkVD was the most autonomous organ within the soviet regime specially outside Moscow where NKVD's officers had a great deal of freedom from Moscow. According to the sources where did you get the 700,000 number only 40,000 were signed by Stalin but when I consulted the source (Ellman, 2007) I didn't find any source or evidence for the 40,000 number in his work. I don't doubt that 700,000 people were executed and that Stalin personally ordered some of them but saying that Stalin is directly responsible for all those deaths is an exaggeration. At best you can blame Stalin for letting things to go out of hand.

Ah, so Stalin bears no personal responsibility for the regime he headed. You know I've read this precise same argument before: David Irving's "work" on Hitler.

Decolonize The Left

28th January 2013, 20:23

What if Stalin wasn't actually Staling during this time? Wait... now bear with me... What if he was actually... noted Manti Te'o prankster Ronaiah Tuiasosopo!!!!!

But seriously. Why are we still trying to side-step history?

Ismail

28th January 2013, 20:33

But seriously. Why are we still trying to side-step history?We're not. The Moscow Trials defendants were basically guilty of what they were charged with. As for the Great Purges, no doubt quite a few of those found guilty probably were, indeed, legitimately guilty. And many others were not, as Stalin himself later noted.

Ah, so Stalin bears no personal responsibility for the regime he headed. You know I've read this precise same argument before: David Irving's "work" on Hitler.No less a man than Grover Furr noted (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html) that, "Nothing can absolve Stalin and his supporters of a large measure of responsibility for the executions -- evidently, several hundred thousand -- that ensued."

Irving claims Hitler knew nothing about the Holocaust and bases this on him supposedly not "ordering" it (as in, no piece of paper has been found saying "please kill all Jews"), and other strange leaps of logic. He relies on the absence of historical documents, something which quite naturally leads him into contorted logic.

Getty, Thurston, Furr et. al. claim, on the basis of archival documents, that the Great Purges were neither directed by Stalin nor under his complete command. To put it more simply:

"In January 1938 the Central Committee passed a resolution which heralded what was to be called the 'Great Change.' ... The new enemy was identified as the Communist-careerist. He had taken advantage of the purge to denounce his superiors and to gain promotion. He was guilty of spreading suspicion and undermining the party. A purge of careerists was launched. At the same time mass repression diminished and the rehabilitation of victimized party members began... Stalin could not maintain direct control over the purge. He was aware that the NKVD had arrested many people who were not guilty and that of the 7 to 14 million people serving sentences of forced labor in the GULAG camps many were innocent of any taint of disloyalty. They were inevitable sacrifices, inseparable from any campaign on this scale. But he resented this waste of human material. The aircraft designer Yakovlev recorded a conversation with him in 1940, in which Stalin exclaimed: 'Ezhov was a rat; in 1938 he killed many innocent people. We shot him for that!'

Throughout these terrible years Stalin showed an extraordinary self-control and did not lose sight of his purpose. He knew what he was doing. He was convinced that the majority of the people liquidated were guilty in principle. And he acted with a cold merciless inhumanity. According to Medvedev, Stalin with Molotov signed during the years 1937-39 some 400 lists, containing the names of 44,000 people, authorizing their execution. Stalin could not have known or studied the cases of so many people, and he had to accept the advice of men who he disliked and distrusted like Ezhov. He would have acted, however, on the principle that such sacrifices were completely justified by the purpose being pursued."
(Grey, Ian. Stalin: Man of History. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979. pp. 288-290.)

We do have letters from Stalin to Kaganovich, the memoirs of Molotov, the diaries of Georgi Dimitrov, etc. which show that Stalin was generally reacting to events during the Great Purges, not initiating them.

What is it with you and Irving? I particularly remember one time you told me that I was dumber than Irving since, after all, Hitler and Co. were far more "efficient" and "smarter" than Stalin and Co. Of course the latter were trying to remould and revolutionize society in a certain way (socialism) for the first time in history, in adverse conditions, and naturally enough did not carry out their actions with perfect results.

l'EnfermÃ©

28th January 2013, 20:39

Tell me how Stalin could have avoided the food crisis of 32-33...

It seems that you don't know too much about the soviet political structure. NkVD was the most autonomous organ within the soviet regime specially outside Moscow where NKVD's officers had a great deal of freedom from Moscow. According to the sources where did you get the 700,000 number only 40,000 were signed by Stalin but when I consulted the source (Ellman, 2007) I didn't find any source or evidence for the 40,000 number in his work. I don't doubt that 700,000 people were executed and that Stalin personally ordered some of them but saying that Stalin is directly responsible for all those deaths is an exaggeration. At best you can blame Stalin for letting things to go out of hand.
Why is that Stalinists think that "it wasn't that Stalin had hundreds of thousands of communists shot in the 1930s, it's only that he was so incompetent and stupid that hundreds of thousands of communists were shot on his watch and he didn't notice until it was too late" is some sort of valid defense of Stalin?

Ismail

28th January 2013, 20:42

Art Vandelay

28th January 2013, 20:46

It's not really a case of incompetence considering that communications between the Kremlin and innumerable NKVD units throughout the USSR were hardly straightforward. Thurston notes that Stalin pretty much trusted whatever the NKVD was claiming, about its "successes," etc.

So then he sucked at his job...I know that when I'm (oh I don't know) watching over my little brother and he tells me he's doing his homework and that he got a 100% on every assignment, I tend to give it a bit of a look over to make sure he's being accurate. You'd think (given the importance of what was transpiring) he would of done some verification. Although, you can hardly blame the NKVD for lying, after all, they knew first hand how Stalin liked to deal with those who opposed or disappointed him.

Ismail

28th January 2013, 20:49

So then he sucked at his job...I know that when I'm (oh I don't know) watching over my little brother and he tells me he's doing his homework and that he got a 100% on every assignment, I tend to give it a bit of a look over to make sure he's being accurate. You'd think (given the importance of what was transpiring) he would of done some verification. Although, you can hardly blame the NKVD for lying, after all, they knew first hand how Stalin liked to deal with those who opposed or disappointed him.He did intervene in the case of Yagoda, who was protecting counter-revolutionaries and obviously adopted a hesitant attitude. Yezhov by contrast posed as an ardent admirer of Stalin and a man willing to do whatever it took to get to the root of all conspiracies.

That being said, Stalin did not always take an uncritical attitude.

"In September 1935 [Stalin] wrote to Kaganovich that NKVD materials suggested that Yenukdize [who had been expelled from the Party at the suggestion of Yezhov] was 'alien to us, not one of us.' But at the first plausible opportunity, two plenums later in June 1936, Stalin personally proposed that Yenukidze be permitted to rejoin the party. Then a few months later he approved Yenukidze's arrest and subsequent execution for espionage.

Aside from the year's delay between the Yenukidze affair and the actual terrorism accusation against Zinoviev and Kamenev, there are other signs at this time that Stalin was not prepared to go as far as Yezhov in prosecuting leading oppositionists. Yezhov had just finished his ponderous book manuscript 'From Fractionalism to Open Counterrevolution (on the Zinovievist Counterrevolutionary Organization),' and he asked Stalin to edit it. Stalin was apparently unable to get through more than fifty pages of Yezhov's masterpiece, but in several phrases in the initial sections he did edit, he changed Yezhov's characterization of Zinoviev and Kamenev as 'counterrevolutionary' to the less harsh 'anti-Soviet and harmful to the party.'"
(Getty, J. Arch. Yezhov: The Rise of Stalin's "Iron Fist". New Haven: Yale University Press. 2008. pp. 164-165.)

Invader Zim

28th January 2013, 20:58

No less a man than Grover Furr noted that, "Nothing can absolve Stalin and his supporters of a large measure of responsibility for the executions -- evidently, several hundred thousand -- that ensued."

Grover Furr also tells us that he isn't sure who killed the Katyn prisoners (the NKVD or the Nazis), but his website pages on the topic lead only to the conclusion that it was, in fact, the Nazis - which is, of course, the opposite conclusion to every actual historian (and no, Furr is not an historian) who has looked at the topic has come to. And this is because Furr is a crackpot who has made it his sorry mission in life to whitewash the Stalinist regime.

Oh, and Furr also said that he has yet to see any evidence that Stalin committed "one crime – one crime that Stalin committed."

So either Furr feels that mass murder is not a crime or he lied.

But, regardless, we can watch this particular Furr example of self-humiliation for ourselves, given that the view in which he made that claim proceeded to go viral:

hRPTZF5zSLQ

l'EnfermÃ©

28th January 2013, 21:08

Ismail

28th January 2013, 21:10

Grover Furr also tells us that he isn't sure who killed the Katyn prisoners (the NKVD or the Nazis),The subject is indeed debated in Russia, a country he visits and confers regularly with various academics and officials.

For the record, one can see Furr's page on Katyn here: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/pol/discuss_katyn041806r.html

His line, BTW, is that the bodies at the Katyn forest were of two different sorts: those shot by the Soviets and those shot by the Nazis, at different times for different purposes. It might lead to the "conclusion that it was, in fact, the Nazis" if you have trouble seeing clearly or are a vociferous anti-communist thinly disguised as a "socialist," but for anyone else it's pretty clear.

Oh, and Furr also said that he has yet to see any evidence that Stalin committed "one crime – one crime that Stalin committed."This is correct. Of course as Lenin pointed out, the bourgeoisie considers a "crime" what they themselves once thought (back when bourgeois democracy was revolutionary) as a great duty: the class dictatorship suppressing counter-revolution emanating from the remnants of the former ruling class.

So either Furr feels that mass murder is not a crime or he lied."Mass murder" in what way? If it's the purges then Furr already noted that Stalin bared responsibility for many deaths which would not have occurred had the purges not reached the height they did. This may be a "crime" in the eyes of the Soviet revisionists and anti-communists in the West, but does not quite qualify in the eyes of any objective observer.

But, regardless, we can watch this particular Furr example of self-humiliation for ourselves, given that the view in which he made that claim proceeded to go viral:Yeah, viral among... right-wing websites, the footage being shot by a libertarian and Furr's Wikipedia page being subsequently vandalized by people with usernames like "Lovinghimmler," "American Imperialist" and "Gas Reds."

Anti-communism and anti-"Stalinism" truly bring wonderful minds together.

Delenda Carthago

28th January 2013, 21:42

Anti-communism and anti-"Stalinism" truly bring wonderful minds together.
In the name of which, someone in here defended snitching, I shall remind.:lol:

Ismail

28th January 2013, 22:19

In the name of which, someone in here defended snitching, I shall remind.:lol:And supported voting for Obama.

Invader Zim

28th January 2013, 22:58

And supported voting for Obama.

You clearly have confused yourself.

Invader Zim

28th January 2013, 22:59

In the name of which, someone in here defended snitching, I shall remind.:lol:

Anti-Communism and anti-Stalinism are inherently contradictory. You cannot uphold the Stalinist regime while being a communist. You support the betrayal of a revolution. Which is, incidentally, why you are worse than any scab.

goalkeeper

28th January 2013, 23:13

Old Bolshie

28th January 2013, 23:35

Altered state procurement policies in the light of the famine?

The famine of 32-33 was result of a class struggle as it's obvious with similar consequences of a civil war. In face of collectivization the Kulaks would always slaughter their livestock rather than give them to collective farms no matter if it was a light collectivization or not. This meant that the food production dropped to lower figures than the civil war itself. So even if Stalin had changed his procurement policies you still would have a famine.

Ah, so Stalin bears no personal responsibility for the regime he headed. You know I've read this precise same argument before: David Irving's "work" on Hitler.

Completely different issues. Hitler's police system (SS, Gestapo) was built by him and his party from the bottom. Those organizations were formed from the Nazi Party itself. Stalin's state apparatus was inherited from the Tsarist heavily bureaucracy including its security system. This is referred by Lenin in one of his writings. The regime which Stalin headed was not shaped by him contrary to Hitler's.

Ismail

28th January 2013, 23:48

If we can 'excuse' Stalin for not being directly responsible for and entirely aware of the horrors of late 1930s Soviet Union, can we also absolve Obama of blame for presiding over a state who's "bodies of armed" regularly brutalise and abuse sections of the population and incarcerate them on an industrial scale?Why make such asinine comparisons to begin with? The Great Purges was an exceptional period of class struggle, democracy and terror. Obama happily presides over a capitalist state as its willing propagandist. Not comparable.

Anti-Communism and anti-Stalinism are inherently contradictory. You cannot uphold the Stalinist regime while being a communist. You support the betrayal of a revolution. Which is, incidentally, why you are worse than any scab.So what are you, ideologically? I know in the past you've denounced the concept of a proletarian vanguard, so are you like those left-communists who pretend to "support" Lenin while not supporting a fundamental aspect of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and who conveniently drop all pretenses of supporting the USSR after Lenin died?

Also you did, in fact, objectively support voting for Obama some time ago. I'm not the only one to notice this.

Thirsty Crow

29th January 2013, 00:00

Delenda Carthago

29th January 2013, 00:09

Anti-Communism and anti-Stalinism are inherently contradictory. You cannot uphold the Stalinist regime while being a communist. You support the betrayal of a revolution. Which is, incidentally, why you are worse than any scab.
Yeah, I know. You should go tell on me on your local CIA branch.

Ismail

29th January 2013, 00:09

Man, you're hilarious. One would assume that you'd actually know something about what you rant about. But that would be more than in good faith. Foolish, more like it.At least the anarchists are consistent in claiming that Lenin "betrayed" the October Revolution. At least the Soviet revisionists pretended they were "carrying forward" Lenin's theories rather than openly attacking the fundamental aspects of Leninism.

But you're definitely right that the Purges represent a part of class struggle, which is a two way street in fact.Yes, many local party bosses, trade union leaders, Central Committee members, etc. sought to keep their bases of power and connections in tact. The Great Purges coincided not only with the "Stalin Constitution," but with mass democracy in general, against corruption and the indifference to the voice of the workers on the part of the aforementioned officials. That was the direction of the street from the left. The direction from the right were careerists and other opportunists who sought to denounce others as a way of gaining the positions of those booted out.

This is all noted by both Getty and Thurston, and by some other authors.

Old Bolshie

29th January 2013, 00:10

Why is that Stalinists think that "it wasn't that Stalin had hundreds of thousands of communists shot in the 1930s, it's only that he was so incompetent and stupid that hundreds of thousands of communists were shot on his watch and he didn't notice until it was too late" is some sort of valid defense of Stalin?

If you had look carefully at my commentary you would see that I don't deny that Stalin ordered the killing of some people, some of whom sided with Trotsky in his struggle for power with Stalin like Radek, others with the Kulaks during the class war against them like Bukharin. Siding with the kulaks was the same or even worst than siding with the whites in the civil war (the kulaks openly supported the whites during the civil war).

However, NKVD officials outside the capital had a great deal of autonomy from the center and they didn't need Stalin's authorization to shoot somebody nor their actions were subjected to Stalin's personal supervision. Many of them took advantage of the political environment created by the Moscow trials.

Thirsty Crow

29th January 2013, 00:17

At least the anarchists are consistent in claiming that Lenin "betrayed" the October Revolution. At least the Soviet revisionists pretended they were "carrying forward" Lenin's theories rather than openly attacking the fundamental aspects of Leninism.Stand up comedy, I tell ya.

To reiterate, you're confused and don't know what you're talking about. Factually, you're wrong.

Ismail

29th January 2013, 00:18

Stand up comedy, I tell ya.

To reiterate, you're confused and don't know what you're talking about. Factually, you're wrong.You've failed to present any facts thus far.

Invader Zim

29th January 2013, 00:20

So what are you, ideologically? I know in the past you've denounced the concept of a proletarian vanguard, so are you like those left-communists who pretend to "support" Lenin while not supporting a fundamental aspect of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and who conveniently drop all pretenses of supporting the USSR after Lenin died?

Also you did, in fact, objectively support voting for Obama some time ago. I'm not the only one to notice this.

This is, of course, another lie. I realize, given that your Stalinist background, that, as far as you are concerned, lies and truth are irrelevant details to be glossed over with a thick whitewash whenever is convenient, but the fact remains that I have never championed any prospective US politician. None. Nill. Nada. Zilch.

Indeed, I have only mentioned 'Obama' in a grand total of seven posts (prior to this one), which you can read here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/search.php?searchid=5016134

Hardly grand advocacy.

Indeed the only manner I can imagine suggesting a vote for Obama is, in the circumstance, that one has no choice between the lesser of two evils - which is, of course, an intellectual exercise (a point worth noting in case, as I suspect, you won't quite have yet fathomed it by now).

So what are you, ideologically?

I have no need or desire to wed myself to any individual ideologue's pronouncements, and nor to describe an 'ideology'. Individuals incapable of independent thought, such as yourself, require an ideology. I, however, given that I like to think of myself as having more remaining wits than a bloody lump of road kill, do not.

Nevertheless, if I must pick one of the silly, intellectually deficient, and constricting, labels people (again, such as yourself) do so long to cling to (after all, your actual politics run no further than the label), then it would have to be 'socialist'. A term that I am pluralistic enough to include both Left Communists and, heaven forbid, even Leninists.

Sadly, you, however, are not any kind of socialist, even within the very broad spectrum of views it, as a term, may conceivably include. You are a scab.

Ismail

29th January 2013, 00:22

A revolutionary socialist - which you are not. You are not any kind of socialist.I suspect the same sort of "revolutionary socialist" as the good ol' Orwell you admire so fervently, who identified "socialism" with the Labour Party, spoke of how the USSR was gearing up to invade the West, and saw "useful idiots" and "dupes" of Communism everywhere. In other words, the worst kind of "socialist," the kind who not coincidentally wind up working for or providing their services to the bourgeois state against their genuinely revolutionary kin, just as Orwell did in the case of the latter and as his œuvre does in the case of the former.

Try being a bit more specific. What is a "revolutionary socialist"? What organizations could we expect to find them in?

Thirsty Crow

29th January 2013, 00:28

You've failed to present any facts thus far.
Yes, I would not expect that you'd recognize that the burden of proof is on you with regard to those enlightened assessments of the communist left.

So back again, no, try harder.

Decolonize The Left

29th January 2013, 00:34

It seems like what we're witnessing here is a cult of personality. And given that none of y'all were alive when all this shit was going down, I struggle to understand the obsession - but I would like to learn.

What, exactly, is the big deal with Stalin? Why was he so cool? And why do you need to dispute every piece of history, even one's which are largely agreed upon, in order to defend him (when he's dead)? In other words, what did he do or say that hasn't been done or said by someone else that matters so much?

Invader Zim

29th January 2013, 00:48

I suspect the same sort of "revolutionary socialist" as the good ol' Orwell you admire so fervently, who identified "socialism" with the Labour Party, spoke of how the USSR was gearing up to invade the West, and saw "useful idiots" and "dupes" of Communism everywhere. In other words, the worst kind of "socialist," the kind who not coincidentally wind up working for or providing their services to the bourgeois state against their genuinely revolutionary kin, just as Orwell did in the case of the latter and as his œuvre does in the case of the former.

Try being a bit more specific. What is a "revolutionary socialist"? What organizations could we expect to find them in?

Again, we see the irony of a man who upholds a regime which murdered more leftists than the Nazis, criticizing George Orwell, for writing an irrelevant list on his deathbed. I guess the irony is lost on you.

As for what organisations I've been in. I haven't given any personal details about myself on this board (beyond nationality and occupation) in nearly a decade. That policy isn't changing now. And certainly not to a scab like you.

Ismail

29th January 2013, 00:49

Yes, I would not expect that you'd recognize that the burden of proof is on you with regard to those enlightened assessments of the communist left.Does the "communist left" endorse the necessity of a proletarian vanguard, comprised of the most advanced sections of the working-class, operating on the basis of democratic centralism? Does it recognize the leading role of this Party in the revolution, its hegemony within it and in the subsequent state under the rule of the dictatorship of the proletariat?

If "no" to any of these then I don't care if you have a cardboard cutout of Lenin and make love to it every night, a fundamental aspect of Leninism, a fundamental doctrine Lenin consistently defended against opportunism of all stripes (whether "left" or right) is being rejected and a demagogical call for "supporting" Lenin is accompanying that rejection. In any other case where Lenin's line is being implemented, left-communists are some of the first to denounce it.

I have no need or desire to wed myself to any individual ideologue's pronouncements, and nor to describe an 'ideology'. Individuals incapable of independent thought, such as yourself, require an ideology. I, however, given that I like to think of myself as having more remaining wits than a bloody lump of road kill, do not.

Nevertheless, if I must pick one of the silly, intellectually deficient, and constricting labels individuals such as yourself do so long to cling to (after all, your actual politics run no further than the label), then it would have to be 'socialist'. A term that I am pluralistic enough to include both Left Communists and, heaven forbid, even Leninists.So you're too cool for labels and are incapable of taking a principled line on anything that doesn't coincide with reaction and anti-communism.

What, exactly, is the big deal with Stalin? Why was he so cool? And why do you need to dispute every piece of history, even one's which are largely agreed upon, in order to defend him (when he's dead)? In other words, what did he do or say that hasn't been done or said by someone else that matters so much?To quote Hoxha, "The Party of Labour of Albania thinks that it is not correct, normal or Marxist to blot out Stalin's name and great work from all this epoch, as is being done at the present time. We should all defend the good and immortal work of Stalin. He who does not defend it is an opportunist and a coward." (Selected Works Vol. III, p. 157.) He likewise noted that for the Soviet revisionists "to attack Lenin was impossible for them; it would have been a great catastrophe for the revisionists, therefore they confined themselves to Stalin and they dragged out a thousand and one things against him." (Ibid. p. 168.)

The denunciation of Stalin at the 20th Party Congress and onwards was a strike at Marxism-Leninism itself. The line of Stalin (which is a continuation of the line of Lenin) is denounced by all the opportunists within the communist movement, whether it be those who "uphold" Stalin only to negate him in practice, as the Maoists do, or those who openly denounce him.

Invader Zim

29th January 2013, 00:55

So you're too cool for labels and are incapable of taking a principled line on anything that doesn't coincide with reaction and anti-communism.

1. Yes, I am indeed way too cool for labels. 2. No, I do. For instance, I think that the Stalinist regime's homophobic legislation, abolition of abortion, anti-antisemitism, destruction of socialism, counter-revolution, and general mass-murder, were indeed, both morally repugnant and politically vile. Is that not a principled stand against reaction?

I know you disagree. But we know which side of the barricades scabs like you tend to prefer.

But ultimately we are losing sight of the original issue- you are a scab because you uphold a regime which betrayed a revolution. I am not because I do not.

Decolonize The Left

29th January 2013, 00:55

To quote Hoxha at the meeting of international communist and workers' parties in 1960 (wherein he directly denounced Khrushchev in his presence), "The Party of Labour of Albania thinks that it is not correct, normal or Marxist to blot out Stalin's name and great work from all this epoch, as is being done at the present time. We should all defend the good and immortal work of Stalin. He who does not defend it is an opportunist and a coward." (Selected Works Vol. III, p. 157.)

On another occasion Hoxha noted that for the Soviet revisionists "to attack Lenin was impossible for them; it would have been a great catastrophe for the revisionists, therefore they confined themselves to Stalin and they dragged out a thousand and one things against him." (Ibid. p. 168.)

The denunciation of Stalin at the 20th Party Congress and onwards was a strike at Marxism-Leninism itself. The line of Stalin (which is a continuation of the line of Lenin) is denounced by all the opportunists within the communist movement, whether it be those who "uphold" Stalin only to negate him in practice, as the Maoists do, or those who openly denounce him.

Well I get that Hoxha really dug him, and that you (and others) perceive attacks against Stalin as threatening the theories of ML in general, but that doesn't really answer my question.

I am asking, aside from the people who already are into him, what is so special about Stalin? Why try and re-write history for him? Why place him on a pedestal? Why worship someone ever?

That's what I want to know. Why the cult in general? Because for me, and I'm not trolling here (a claim to which I hope my reputation will atest), I don't see why we wouldn't want - as leftists in general - the broadest general theory in order to encompass the most workers possible. Why settle on some rigid point-of-view which fundamentally opposes others and causes tension and sectarianism?

Ismail

29th January 2013, 01:06

For instance, I think that the Stalinist regimes homophobic legislation, abolition of abortionThe East German revisionists (presiding over the most "Westernized" Eastern European state) decriminalized homosexuality in the late 60's. Pretty much all the East European countries ended restrictions on abortion in 1955. Using this logic they made great advances in socialism through these actions rather than these being general trends across the world.

destruction of socialismTrots and Left-Coms would not use this phrase, so that's one bit added to your authenticity as the vague "revolutionary socialist."

I am asking, aside from the people who already are into him, what is so special about Stalin? Why try and re-write history for him? Why place him on a pedestal? Why worship someone ever?No one is placing him on a pedestal, worshiping him or much less "rewriting history" for him. We are simply recognizing the fact that Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin constitute the four classics of Marxism-Leninism, as consistent fighters for the working-class and outstanding figures within the world communist movement.

I don't see why we wouldn't want - as leftists in general - the broadest general theory in order to encompass the most workers possible. Why settle on some rigid point-of-view which fundamentally opposes others and causes tension and sectarianism?"Rigid point-of-view" is quite vague. Lenin according to many had a "rigid point-of-view." Marx and Engels had more than a few factional fights with the anarchists and other opportunists within the labor movement.

The broadest general theory is Marxism-Leninism, under which one is capable of leading revolutions and constructing socialism. Through Marxism-Leninism, for instance, the Communist Party of Albania, without any Soviet assistance and even without any notable ties to the Comintern, was able to lead the struggle of the Albanian people against fascist occupation and to emerge from the war as the vanguard of the proletariat, not facing coalition governments with other parties and other problems which dogged the rest of Eastern Europe.

There was no secret that the Albanian Communists upheld Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. What mattered to ordinary people was the deeds of the CPA, not merely their words. Through uniting theory with practice the CPA gave Albania's own demonstration of the validity of Marxism-Leninism, and after the revolution demonstrated it still further in the period of socialist construction and the defense of proletarian internationalism.

No one goes around screaming Stalin's name and proposing to unite the broad masses in a country by creating the Joseph Stalin Great Communist Front led by the Stalinist-Communist Party of [insert country].

Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist

29th January 2013, 01:13

Well I get that Hoxha really dug him, and that you (and others) perceive attacks against Stalin as threatening the theories of ML in general, but that doesn't really answer my question.

I am asking, aside from the people who already are into him, what is so special about Stalin? Why try and re-write history for him? Why place him on a pedestal? Why worship someone ever?

That's what I want to know. Why the cult in general? Because for me, and I'm not trolling here (a claim to which I hope my reputation will atest), I don't see why we wouldn't want - as leftists in general - the broadest general theory in order to encompass the most workers possible. Why settle on some rigid point-of-view which fundamentally opposes others and causes tension and sectarianism?

I'll try to answer this as someone who is generally non-"Stalinist". After Stalin died Khrushchev denounced the legacy of Stalin and created most of the accusations that most bourgeois historians use against him today. The beginning of his rule marked a period of widespread unrest that culminated
in a revolt in Georgia. Not long afterward, he began instituting Capitalist reforms, removed any sembalence of democracy in the USSR and made good with the west on the basis of peacefully co-existence, all while threatening China with a nuclear war and invading Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, and a one or two others that I can't recall without looking them up. So defending Stalin for many serves as a way to reject Khruschev's betray of socialism.

Here's a short version:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1964/phnycom.htm

Here's a longer version
http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/Ball.pdf

I know it's an extremely shortened version but I hope that clarifies some things.

Thirsty Crow

29th January 2013, 01:17

Does the "communist left" endorse the necessity of a proletarian vanguard, comprised of the most advanced sections of the working-class, operating on the basis of democratic centralism?
Yes. Though, there are organizational practices which modify the framework of democratic centralism.

Does it recognize the leading role of this Party in the revolution, its hegemony within it and in the subsequent state under the rule of the dictatorship of the proletariat?If you're really asking if there is a support for a party-state, then a resounding no.

If "no" to any of these then I don't care if you have a cardboard cutout of Lenin and make love to it every night, a fundamental aspect of Leninism, a fundamental doctrine Lenin consistently defended against opportunism of all stripes (whether "left" or right) is being rejected and a demagogical call for "supporting" Lenin is accompanying that rejection.
First, the contemporary communist left discards leninism.

Second, the obssession with Lenin is more akin to historical roleplaying than to a development of communist theory and practice. Fetishism, that is.

And lastly, do you ever step aside and read what you write? If you honestly consider that nowadays a "support" for Lenin (which is ridiculous, as is monolithic, on its own) amounts do demagogy? If so, then you're acutely divorced from reality.

In any other case where Lenin's line is being implemented, left-communists are some of the first to denounce it.Yes, that is indeed the case. The problem of working in unions and parliamentary participation, for instance. And what does this amount to when it is clear, at least to informed people, that the left is not Leninist? And what does that have to do with bullshit you sling around, such as:

I know in the past you've denounced the concept of a proletarian vanguard, so are you like those left-communists...

...who pretend to "support" Lenin while not supporting a fundamental aspect of the dictatorship of the proletariat...

...and who conveniently drop all pretenses of supporting the USSR after Lenin died?

All three points are bullshit and actually rest on a cult of a Great Man while bringing up all sorts of ideological mystifications.

To quote HoxhaIt took some time, I was getting worried actually. You should try regular communication by means of Hoxha quotes.

Ismail

29th January 2013, 01:24

Yes. Though, there are organizational practices which modify the framework of democratic centralism.In other words, no.

First, the contemporary communist left discards leninism.And by so doing it discards Lenin in all but name.

Second, the obssession with Lenin is more akin to historical roleplaying than to a development of communist theory and practice. Fetishism, that is.
All three points are bullshit and actually rest on a cult of a Great Man while bringing up all sorts of ideological mystifications.These two quotes pretty much establish the fact that you and others who complain about how Marxist-Leninists "obsess" over this or that personality are not so much different from the likes of Mike Ely and other "non-dogmatic" types, preferring to fetishize "theorists" like Bordiga, Žižek, and many others to get away from Lenin and Stalin.

Decolonize The Left

29th January 2013, 01:28

No one is placing him on a pedestal, worshiping him or much less "rewriting history" for him. We are simply recognizing the fact that Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin constitute the four classics of Marxism-Leninism, as consistent fighters for the working-class and outstanding figures within the world communist movement.

But "fighters for the working-class and outstanding figures within the world communist movement" don't murder working-class people. At least, that seems contradictory to me. And it seems like the article in the OP is trying to say that, despite the evidence, Stalin didn't know about, or wasn't responsible for, the large amount of working-class people that were murdered under his watch.

"Rigid point-of-view" is quite vague. Lenin according to many had a "rigid point-of-view." Marx and Engels had more than a few factional fights with the anarchists and other opportunists within the labor movement.

True. But the communism espoused by Marx/Engels is entirely 100% compatible with almost every form of radical leftism. The same cannot be said for Leninism, and even less so for Stalinism.

The broadest general theory is Marxism-Leninism, under which one is capable of leading revolutions and constructing socialism.

Surely you can't believe this. Wouldn't, by simple logic, Marxism be more broad than Marxism-Leninism, the latter which is obviously a derivative of the former?

Through Marxism-Leninism, for instance, the Communist Party of Albania, without any Soviet assistance and even without any notable ties to the Comintern, was able to lead the struggle of the Albanian people against fascist occupation and to emerge from the war as the vanguard of the proletariat, not facing coalition governments with other parties and other problems which dogged the rest of Eastern Europe.

There was no secret that the Albanian Communists upheld Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. What mattered to ordinary people was the deeds of the CPA, not merely their words. Through uniting theory with practice the CPA gave Albania's own demonstration of the validity of Marxism-Leninism, and after the revolution demonstrated it still further in the period of socialist construction and the defense of proletarian internationalism.

And that's great - I'm all for working-class liberation in all forms. But the socialist republic was dissolved in 1991 and now Albania is a part of the UN, NATO, potentially the EU, etc... It's not really like everything your talking about actually worked in the long run. No more than the USSR did really. So why are we holding this up as what we should strive for?

No one goes around screaming Stalin's name and proposing to unite the broad masses in a country by creating a Joseph Stalin Great Communist Front led by the Communist Party of [insert country].

I get that. But doesn't it seem like you're living forwards while looking backwards? It would seem to me like dropping all the excess baggage and simply rolling with the simplest form of leftism would be the best bet for the future. Why fight over Stalin? He's dead. And Stalinism is dead. So forget it. Why fight over Lenin? He's also dead. We can learn from what they did, but they obviously did not succeed in their ultimate goals - even by their own admission!

We need to think about our class - the working class. This class does not exist in the world of Stalin/Lenin/Hoxha, it never will because that time is long since over. So I don't understand why articles such as the OP are even being published. It just furthers sectarian divisiveness and internal conflict. And if we think about this as a war against capitalism, then this is the worst possible strategy to adopt as it splits our forces and makes us easier to defeat.

Thirsty Crow

29th January 2013, 01:33

In other words, no.

...preferring to fetishize "theorists" like Bordiga, Žižek, and many others to get away from Lenin and Stalin.

Why would anyone take you seriously? Apart from the minutiae of the Albanian Party congresses, of course. The sheer stupidity of reference choices, along with a blatant disregard for what is actually said, is simply amazing here.

Ostrinski

29th January 2013, 04:14

Both Bordiga and Zizek were and are actual theorists, however useful or useless. Lenin was merely a political strategist and his own political theories were more or less handmedowns from pre-war social-democracy.

The only reason Ismail pays lip service to Lenin in this bizarre form of idolatry is because he feels he has to, he feels he has to because that's the countenance of his deity, the eternal Enver Hoxha. His infatuation with Stalin is really only an extension of his weird fascination with this goofy looking Albanian dictator that no one other himself really gives a damn about. One seriously has to wonder if Hoxha could have imagined the religious degree to which some guy on the internet named Ismail would one day worship him and make it his life goal to resurrect his legacy from the depths of obscurity.

Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist

29th January 2013, 04:17

Both Bordiga and Zizek were and are actual theorists, however useful or useless. Lenin was merely a political strategist and his own political theories were more or less handmedowns from pre-war social-democracy.

What about Lenin's theory of imperialism, which is considered a centerpiece of the core-periphery model and depedancy theory? Kind of an important thing to overlook

Ostrinski

29th January 2013, 04:27

What about Lenin's theory of imperialism, which is considered a centerpiece of the core-periphery model and depedancy theory? Kind of an important thing to overlookAlso important not to overlook is the fact that Max Beer and Karl Kautsky had completed their works on imperialism in the 1890's and that Nikolai Bukharin had completed his work on imperialism in 1915 and that Karl Radek had written extensively on it in 1914, all of which preceded and laid the foundations to the contents Lenin's own pamphlet. It's not like he just pulled it out of his ass.

Ismail

29th January 2013, 05:51

Both Bordiga and Zizek were and are actual theorists, however useful or useless.Quite tilted in favor of the latter.

His infatuation with Stalin is really only an extension of his weird fascination with this goofy looking Albanian dictator that no one other himself really gives a damn about.There has been and continues to be interest in the work of Enver Hoxha. Not just in the English-speaking or even Spanish-speaking world, although that does exist.

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/PCMLEHoxha_zpsf83a1420.jpg
(PCMLE banner in Ecuador some years back)

The Russian website (http://www.enverhoxha.ru/) for Enver Hoxha's works has had collaboration on the part of Russian academics and has received various contributions and books/pamphlets from across the world.

One seriously has to wonder if Hoxha could have imagined the religious degree to which some guy on the internet named Ismail would one day worship him and make it his life goal to resurrect his legacy from the depths of obscurity.First, there have been various admirers of Albania, most notably Bill Bland who as early as the 1950's expressed an interest in the country, learned the language, set up a friendship society, and wrote numerous pamphlets (as well as a book published by Oxford.) Second, various parties supported the Albanian line. Ernst Aust of the KPD/ML said on the occasion of the 7th Congress of the PLA in 1976 that "Albania is not only the great beacon light of socialism for Europe, but for all the world." (Peter R. Prifti, Socialist Albania since 1944, p. 252.) Another work noted that "Tirana has become a Mecca for the most fanatic Marxist-Leninist splinter groups." (The Soviet Empire: Expansion & Détente, p. 374.)

Third, if I am promoting Hoxha from the "depths of obscurity" then you, too, are trying to promote Kautsky from an even greater depth; 22 years versus 99.

LuÃs Henrique

29th January 2013, 09:26

What's funny is that a number of the "outstanding Bolsheviks" you listed were "Stalinists" by any Trot definition, mainly Kosior, Chubar and Rudzutaks (who had infamously poor relations with Trotsky in the 20's.)

Indeed, that's worth noting. You weren't safe under Stalin's dictatorship even if you were a loyal bootlicker to the dictator. In this particular aspect, Stalin's regime has no match in modern history.

They were rehabilitated after 1956, as were Béla Kun, Bubnov, Yakovleva, etc. as "victims" of "Stalinist repression."

And duly so.

If they weren't already dead, they should have been also prosecuted for their real crimes - as opposed to the imaginary ones that lead to their judicial murders.

Luís Henrique

Ismail

29th January 2013, 19:17

Indeed, that's worth noting. You weren't safe under Stalin's dictatorship even if you were a loyal bootlicker to the dictator. In this particular aspect, Stalin's regime has no match in modern history.Or maybe the conclusion to draw from this is "the Great Purges weren't some attempt by Stalin to consolidate power," or maybe "people you'd otherwise be denouncing as 'Stalinists' you're praising now as 'Old Bolsheviks' just because they got shot." Or both. Class struggle is not based on perceived personal loyalty to any one person, a bureaucrat should not be exempted from said struggle just because he praises Stalin constantly.

It is also worth noting that many of the former oppositionists pretended to shower Stalin with praise in the 30's. Bukharin was one of those who did this, and in December 1936 he and Sosnovsky had a "confrontation" (in Soviet legal parlance, the accused meets with the accuser) in which Stalin was present:

STALIN – These are servile attitudes, servility.
BUKHARIN – You don’t understand the life of the contemporary press. We very often insert appropriate words into one or another article because we believe that for former Oppositionists like me, for example, this is absolutely essential.
EZHOV – Who has been forcing you to do this, the Central Committee, or who?
STALIN – This is shameful behavior for a Party member.
BUKHARIN – I remember one such episode. At Kliment Efremovich’s [Voroshilov’s] direction I wrote an article concerning an exhibition of the Red Army. There were texts about Voroshilov, Stalin, and others. When Stalin said: What are you writing there? Someone replied: How could he dare not to write like that? I explain these matters very simply. I know that there’s no need to create a cult of Stalin, but for myself I consider it appropriate, normal, to do so.
SOSNOVSKI – And you also considered it necessary for me.
BUKHARIN – For a very simple reason – because you are a former Oppositionist. I don’t see anything wrong with this.As an aside, Dimitrov recorded in his diary on November 7, 1937 a conversation with Stalin in which the latter said: "Kun acted with the Trotskyites against the party. In all likelihood, he is involved in espionage as well. His role in the suppression of the Hungarian revolution is very suspicious." This is just one of many cases demonstrating that Stalin was reacting to events during the Purges based on NKVD reports, transcripts of confessions, etc.

Delenda Carthago

29th January 2013, 20:14

Things "antistalinists" say when they are out of arguments:

Indeed, that's worth noting. You weren't safe under Stalin's dictatorship even if you were a loyal bootlicker to the dictator. In this particular aspect, Stalin's regime has no match in modern history.

:laugh:

Cmon man! You are ready to say that the big bad wolf Stalin was ready to kill whoever, whenever, no reason why before you perhaps admit that maybe it wasnt about "who is likable to Stalin" or not?

Sasha

29th January 2013, 20:24

As an aside, Dimitrov recorded in his diary on November 7, 1937 a conversation with Stalin in which the latter said: "Kun acted with the Trotskyites against the party. In all likelihood, he is involved in espionage as well. His role in the suppression of the Hungarian revolution is very suspicious." This is just one of many cases demonstrating that Stalin was reacting to events during the Purges based on NKVD reports, transcripts of confessions, etc.

Next up we use the reports and confessions of the inquesition to proof that their victims where indeed heretics.

Questionable

29th January 2013, 20:33

Next up we use the reports and confessions of the inquesition to proof that their victims where indeed heretics.

If the NKVD reports and other Soviet documents are falsified or contradict reality in any other matter, it's a simple effort to point them out.

Ismail

29th January 2013, 21:45

Next up we use the reports and confessions of the inquesition to proof that their victims where indeed heretics.While I cannot speak for Kun's confession (the NKVD certainly did use torture in many individual cases), it is worth repeating once more that there is still basically no evidence that any of the Moscow Trials defendants were tortured. For instance, Bukharin managed to write long manuscripts while in the Lubyanka prison (they've been published in English recently), and his biographer Stephen Cohen has admitted he could not have been tortured there.

Lucretia

4th February 2013, 08:54

Geiseric

5th February 2013, 03:28

While I cannot speak for Kun's confession (the NKVD certainly did use torture in many individual cases), it is worth repeating once more that there is still basically no evidence that any of the Moscow Trials defendants were tortured. For instance, Bukharin managed to write long manuscripts while in the Lubyanka prison (they've been published in English recently), and his biographer Stephen Cohen has admitted he could not have been tortured there.

If they weren't tortured its likely the Nkvd kidnapped their familly, as was basically consistent as far bc as the cheka as a secret police method. As we know many famillies of purgees were sent to prison, where many of them hunger striked, and were ordered shot by Beria. Your disrespect for Bela Kun is as astounding as your misconception of a state bureaucracy ruling a country equating with socialism.

Ismail

5th February 2013, 08:56

I'm sure the English department at Montclair is glad they gave Grover Furr tenure. Instead of doing research in the area where I assume he at least has some degree of competence, he apparently spends the bulk of his time writing Stalinist apologia for show trials and the like under guise of doing "historical research." I've looked at this guy's work, and the idea that he can't find academic publishers for his garbage because of a conspiratorial bias by liberals/conservatives/trotskyists/fascists/monarchists/seahorses to silence "objective" soviet history, rather than the result of this guy's inability to apply minimal standards of historical analysis to his "sources," is nothing short of risible.Professor Robert W. Thurston wrote Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia and, despite being a liberal, was attacked for this work and apparently driven out of writing about Soviet history. He has thus progressed from writing about Soviet history to writing about the history of coffee. Regardless, both Thurston and Lars Lih have praised (not from an ideological angle, of course) Furr's book Khrushchev Lied as being of some interest, since it actually addresses every specific charge in Khrushchev's "Secret Speech," using largely Russian-language sources relying on Soviet archival materials.

It should not be surprising that Furr's book was not published by an academic press. It's a polemical work; neither Ward Churchill, Noam Chomsky, or other "radical" academics get such works published by academic presses either. That being said, I doubt Erythros Press (which seems to have ties to Marxists.org) is less professional than AK Press, Monthly Review Press, and other small left-wing publishers.

goalkeeper

5th February 2013, 09:52

both Thurston and Lars Lih have praised (not from an ideological angle, of course) .

Please direct us to where we can see this.

Lucretia

5th February 2013, 10:15

Professor Robert W. Thurston wrote Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia and, despite being a liberal, was attacked for this work and apparently driven out of writing about Soviet history. He has thus progressed from writing about Soviet history to writing about the history of coffee. Regardless, both Thurston and Lars Lih have praised (not from an ideological angle, of course) Furr's book Khrushchev Lied as being of some interest, since it actually addresses every specific charge in Khrushchev's "Secret Speech," using largely Russian-language sources relying on Soviet archival materials.

It should not be surprising that Furr's book was not published by an academic press. It's a polemical work; neither Ward Churchill, Noam Chomsky, or other "radical" academics get such works published by academic presses either. That being said, I doubt Erythros Press (which seems to have ties to Marxists.org) is less professional than AK Press, Monthly Review Press, and other small left-wing publishers.

There's a lot in this post that is just ridiculous. Thurston's book, which you correctly note took a far less less critical (but still critical) view of Stalin than is typical in academia, was published by a university press. Why? Because he made a historical argument that he supported with analysis of textual evidence. In contrast to Furr, who cannot get his garbage published in a university press because it makes political arguments by cherry-picking random primary sources (of many different languages), decontextualizing them, and drawing unwarranted and sometimes distorted conclusions from them in his "analysis."

Academic presses don't publish polemical works. They publish works of academic quality, works that made a contribution to the sum of human knowledge. That's why they're called academic presses, and not trade presses.

As for your claim that Thurston was "driven out" of the field of Soviet history, I would like to ask for a single shred of evidence for this besides Furr's unsubstantiated claim, which of course is entirely self-serving since it accords with his delusional conspiracy theory about a vast anti-communist firewall in academia preventing his "objective" Soviet history from being published in respectable outlets. Thurston is a tenured professor who can write about any subject he chooses, as long as his work is in keeping with accepted standards of academic integrity, without worrying about losing his job. That's the whole purpose of tenure, and why somebody like Furr is able to devote his time and energy into writing and publishing the most ardently pro-Stalinist polemics imaginable despite the fact that he has no formal professional training in the field he presumes to be crossing into, and despite the fact that he has apparently not produced in the past two decades a single peer-reviewed work in his field of expertise, the field he was hired to produce work in - all without any fear of being fired.

As counter-evidence to the claim that Thurston was pressured into changing his area of inquiry, I submit that Thurston's book generally received positive reviews in academic journals. Even Sheila Fitzpatrick, whose assessment of his work was quite critical, made a point to criticize sharply (more sharply than she does Thurston) the trade publication reviews, some of which evidently impugned Thurston's character. This kind of thing is the opposite of what one would expect to see if Furr's claims were correct.

Regarding your comment about Lih's take on Furr, I would like to see where specifically Lih talks about it. I already view Lih as an intellectual lightweight whose work on Lenin is overrated and often just restates what other, somewhat lesser-known authors have already uncovered, while completely mangling the question of the relationship between Lenin's and Kautsky's politics. (The reception his book has received among Leninists, I think, has less to do with its providing any groundbreaking interpretations and more to do with Lih's frankness in debunking the so-called textbook interpretation of Lenin's attitude toward workers and party organization). But if he actually praises Furr's work, that would lower him some on the reputability ladder.

Furr's work on Soviet history is analogous to Mr. Bean's contribution to art-historical scholarship: NNzMjrJQKsc

Ostrinski

5th February 2013, 11:31

What the fuck? Lars Lih never praised Grover Furr's work. His comment on Kruschev Lied was that it was a perfect glimpse into the mind of a 1930's Stalinist bureaucrat or something like that. If you actually think that is a compliment then I have nothing else to say.

goalkeeper

5th February 2013, 12:58

Didn't this Grover Furr guy also claim the J.A. Getty cited him also? Is there any truth in that?

Ismail

5th February 2013, 14:52

I quote Lih from the back of Khrushchev Lied, "Many people are aware that Khrushchev was careless with the facts, but even they will be surprised at the extent of the inaccuracies uncovered by Furr." "One does not have to share Furr's reconstruction of events to learn a great deal from the evidence gathered together in this book. Furr's strictly document-based approach gives the reader a sense of the outlook of the Stalinist elite in the 1930s that is hard to obtain elsewhere... Furr's argument throws new light, not only on the thirties, but also on the background and construction of Khrushchev's speech in the 1950s. All in all, a richly colored portrait of political struggle in the Soviet Union emerges from the pages of Furr's book."

Thurston states that "Grover Furr has performed a valuable service to the field of Soviet studies." There is also a quote from Jeff Jones (Associate Professor of History, University of North Carolina), "Grover Furr has written an intriguing book that challenges much of the existing historiography of the Stalinist 1930s." Roger Keeran, a pro-Soviet revisionist Professor, says that Khrushchev Lied is "a marvelous piece of work, formidable in its research and reasoning, clear and precise in tis writing, and breathtaking in its findings and implications."

Please direct us to where we can see this.Do you want me to hold up the book on national TV or something?

There's a lot in this post that is just ridiculous. Thurston's book, which you correctly note took a far less less critical (but still critical) view of Stalin than is typical in academia, was published by a university press. Why? Because he made a historical argument that he supported with analysis of textual evidence. In contrast to Furr, who cannot get his garbage published in a university press because it makes political arguments by cherry-picking random primary sources (of many different languages), decontextualizing them, and drawing unwarranted and sometimes distorted conclusions from them in his "analysis."Except it was precisely when Thurston wrote his book and got it published that the backlash against him, which had already existed in lesser form from the late 80's and early 80's, intensified. Roberta Manning apparently called him a "Stalin apologist."

Academic presses don't publish polemical works. They publish works of academic quality, works that made a contribution to the sum of human knowledge. That's why they're called academic presses, and not trade presses.In the first place assuming that polemical works have no value is absurd, especially for a supposed Marxist. Second, many academics write polemical works; using your line of argument Manufacturing Consent and A People's History of the United States contributed nothing to anything when, of course, both books are highly influential and cited regularly by academics and non-academics alike.

As for your claim that Thurston was "driven out" of the field of Soviet history, I would like to ask for a single shred of evidence for this besides Furr's unsubstantiated claim, which of course is entirely self-serving since it accords with his delusional conspiracy theory about a vast anti-communist firewall in academia preventing his "objective" Soviet history from being published in respectable outlets. Thurston is a tenured professor who can write about any subject he chooses, as long as his work is in keeping with accepted standards of academic integrity, without worrying about losing his job. That's the whole purpose of tenure, and why somebody like Furr is able to devote his time and energy into writing and publishing the most ardently pro-Stalinist polemics imaginable despite the fact that he has no formal professional training in the field he presumes to be crossing into, and despite the fact that he has apparently not produced in the past two decades a single peer-reviewed work in his field of expertise, the field he was hired to produce work in - all without any fear of being fired.In short, "I am going to arbitrarily define what 'accepted standards of academic integrity' are while insinuating without evidence that Furr should lose his tenure because he isn't doing his job."

Also for the record my source on Thurston being driven into writing anything but works on Soviet history after Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia is a former RevLeft user who communicated with Furr frequently, not Furr himself.

In addition, since you keep on bringing up the claim that Furr has no competence when writing about Soviet history due to a lack of majoring in this field, I figure an old post of mine is in order:

:laugh: I forget what is Furr's academic credentials in this field again?Who cares? Does anyone ask what the academic credentials of Tony Cliff, Ted Grant, James P. Cannon, Gerry Healy, David North, and all sorts of other prominent Trotskyists are? They've certainly written a lot on all sorts of subjects from math to history in the form of articles and published books.

Grover Furr has been a professor for over 30 years and has published books in Russia alongside prominent Russian personalities and academics. He clearly has wide access to all sorts of sources in English, Russian and some other languages on various aspects of Soviet history. No one has ever claimed that Grover Furr is a historian, just like no one claims the aforementioned Trots are. It's still amusing though that it is the "Stalinists" who tend to actually have some basic academic credentials in the first place. Besides Furr, Ludo Martens (an actual honest-to-god trained historian) comes to mind.

As Furr noted against David Horowitz's claims against him:

The "qualifications" game is nonsense. Every faculty member has to develop and teach courses outside his area of specialty.

The real, valid questions to ask include these:

Has the professor thoroughly prepared his course by studying the major research on the subject in question?
Does the professor attempt to be objective, reaching his conclusions according to the best evidence available?
Does the professor make explicit the underlying assumptions governing the differing viewpoints or perspectives expressed by experts on this subject?
Does the professor clearly state his own perspective; method, and presuppositions?
Does the professor encourage students to question all statements and viewpoints, including -- especially -- his own?

Neither Horowitz nor his "researcher", DiPippo, asked any of these questions about my teaching. In fact, neither of them ever interviewed a single student in any of my courses, or obtained a single complaint from any individual student!

Furthermore, Robert Conquest, the famous, anti-communist, and hugely dishonest historian of the USSR, is a poet. He has no academic degree in poetry or literature. Yet he has written about literature. Victor Davis Hansen, neo-con political commentator on any subject under the sun, is a Classicist.

What are THESE neocon liars' "qualifications"? Do Horowitz et al. complain that THEY are writing as "amateurs guided by political agendas"?

For that matter, what are Horowitz’s, or DiPippo’s, "qualifications"? They make basic, flagrant errors about Soviet history, and then accuse me of not agreeing with their nonsense.

I have done a great deal of research on the Vietnam War, and use the best research available. It is no mistake that the truth about the Vietnam War – truth as established by the best research – fails to support American and French imperialism in Vietnam.

Like "conservatives" generally, Horowitz and DiPippo are not interested in the truth.
I already view Lih as an intellectual lightweight whose work on Lenin is overrated and often just restates what other, somewhat lesser-known authors have already uncovered, while completely mangling the question of the relationship between Lenin's and Kautsky's politics. (The reception his book has received among Leninists, I think, has less to do with its providing any groundbreaking interpretations and more to do with Lih's frankness in debunking the so-called textbook interpretation of Lenin's attitude toward workers and party organization). But if he actually praises Furr's work, that would lower him some on the reputability ladder.Lih is quite lame, yes.

Invader Zim

5th February 2013, 19:10

The "qualifications" game is nonsense. Every faculty member has to develop and teach courses outside his area of specialty.

I've been teaching in a university history department for several years now, and I don't know anybody who teaches outside their field - at least not to the degree Furr attempts to justify. For instance, a scholar of American society during the 'progressive era' might teach a broad ranging survey course on American history in the 20th century. Indeed they may also teach specialist higher-tier courses on some point either before, or after, their period of study. Indeed, despite having primarily conducted research on Britain during the Second World War, I have taught on the Great War and, because of earlier research into Anglo-American history and that my current project dips again into that territory, I was dragged in to teach a very basic introductory course on US history. But in that instance, despite some qualification to teach it, I shouldn't like to do it again. It is unfair on the students.

However, what Furr has done would be akin to my proposing that I teach a course in medieval linguistics. Hell, I could probably pull something out of the bag, but the student's wouldn't be getting their money's worth and I have no training or recognizable expertise in that field, and thus am not qualified to teach it. This is, of course, the stupidity of the tenure system - it justifies a lot of the claims about the 'ivory tower' gravy train, and the real academics can only shrug and note that individuals like Furr are the exception not the rule.

Lucretia

5th February 2013, 20:07

Brutus

5th February 2013, 22:03

Do we really have to have this debate again? No ones opinions will change, we are all stubborn buggers here.

goalkeeper

5th February 2013, 22:20

Do we really have to have this debate again? No ones opinions will change, we are all stubborn buggers here.

The importance is not that the individual debaters views will change, but observers who are less sure of their politics might. I can imagine some 15year old Red Alert Stalin fanboy who has spent a bit too much time on the Soviet Empire forum may have his views changed by posters ripping into people like Grover Furr .

Ostrinski

5th February 2013, 22:45

Do we really have to have this debate again? No ones opinions will change, we are all stubborn buggers here.Why are you trying to shut down historical discussion? This is a history forum, where historical events are discussed.

Brutus

5th February 2013, 22:48

One simply has to look at the 1917 central committee to see that the ones who hadn't died by 1936-40 were all trotskyite-capitalist-fascist- imperialist-spies
Apart from Stalin, of course

Ismail

6th February 2013, 02:35

The importance is not that the individual debaters views will change, but observers who are less sure of their politics might. I can imagine some 15year old Red Alert Stalin fanboy who has spent a bit too much time on the Soviet Empire forum may have his views changed by posters ripping into people like Grover Furr .And that's probably for the best since I've seen plenty of Trots praise the Soviet Army in its "struggle" against Afghan "barbarians," plenty of Trots praise the foco theories of Guevara and the petty-bourgeois military-based politics of Castro and Chávez, and RevLeft user DNZ having the view that Stalin was bad because he didn't annex Eastern Europe and Mongolia into the USSR. Trotsky himself, after all, was head of the Red Army and had the most support in the 20's from that sector of the population and from students.

Such people shouldn't be "Stalinists," they should be far away from "Stalinism."

Any reasonably intelligent person would pick up the fact that the debate has shifted from the Moscow Trials and Great Purges to Grover Furr supposedly being lame due to not being published by an academic press. If Furr "cherry-picks" his sources, etc. it should be easy to give examples, no? David Irving was able to walk around for two decades as a "respected historian," traveling the globe and given access to various exclusive materials despite having no academic career and having outright falsified some of his sources. I suppose that's in large part due to the fact that he pretended to be "neutral" for a time, whereas Furr is open in his defense of Stalin and freely criticizes other academics (Conquest, Service, Snyder, etc.) And yet Hitler's War has been debunked and criticized both before and after Irving was exposed as a fraud. The whole thing is basically a red herring since Furr doesn't claim to be a historian of the Soviet Union. Treat his material as you would if I or any other person wrote it; just actually treat it and don't go around "disproving" it by swiping at academic credentials or lack thereof.

@Zim and Lucretia, I should probably have pointed out in my old post that Furr teaches courses on the Vietnam War. That is what Horowitz was objecting to (and Furr was responding to), not Furr's sideline writings on Soviet history which, of course, Horowitz denounced in a different part of his article.

revoltordie

7th February 2013, 20:06

what are some of the exact charges?

Ismail

7th February 2013, 22:46

what are some of the exact charges?The 1936 trial verdict stated that Zinoviev, Kamenev, etc. formed a united centre between the followers of Zinoviev and the followers of Trotsky (who had already united in the mid-late 20's) with the aim of overthrowing the government, including assassinations. Kirov was said to have been assassinated by this centre, with Stalin and other party/government officials also serving as targets subjected to various attempts on their lives. Trotsky was said to have been sending those supporters of his in foreign lands back into the USSR to assist in these plots. One of these, N. Lurye, was said to have worked for a time with a German living in Moscow who had connections with the Gestapo. Another person sent to the USSR, V. Olberg, was said to have obtained a fraudulent passport "with the aid of the German secret police, the Gestapo, having first received the consent of L. Trotsky, through the latter's son, Sedov, to utilize the assistance of the German secret police in this matter." (p. 178.)

The 1937 trial verdict stated that besides the aforementioned united centre there was also in existence "an underground parallel anti-Soviet, Trotskyite centre, members of which were the accused in the present case, Y.L. Pyatakov, K.B. Radek, G.Y. Sokolnikov and L.P. Serebryakov." They aimed to overthrow the government "by means of wrecking [i.e. sabotage], diversive, espionage and terrorist activities designed to undermine the economic and military power of the Soviet Union, to expedite the armed attack on the U.S.S.R., to assist foreign aggressors and to bring about the defeat of the U.S.S.R." (p. 574.)

To achieve this aim some of those accused entered into negotiations with representatives of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Trotsky was claimed to have negotiated with Rudolf Hess that "in the event of a Trotskyite government coming to power as a result of the defeat of the Soviet Union, to make a number of political, economic and territorial concessions to Germany and Japan at the expense of the U.S.S.R., including the cession of the Ukraine to Germany and of the Maritime Provinces and the Amur region to Japan. At this same time, the enemy of the people, L. Trotsky, undertook in the event of seizing power to liquidate the state farms, to dissolve the collective farms, to renounce the policy of industrialization of the country and to restore on the territory of the Soviet Union social relations of capitalist society. Furthermore, the enemy of the people L. Trotsky undertook to render all possible help to aggressors by developing defeatist propaganda and wrecking, diversive and espionage activities, both in time of peace and, in particular, in time of an armed attack on the Soviet Union." (p. 575.) During the trial the accused admitted that their policies would have objectively led to the restoration of capitalism, but that all this had been obfuscated in "Marxist" terms and arguments by Trotsky.

The parallel centre, having members in industrial positions, carried out acts of sabotage "chiefly in enterprises of importance for defence purposes, and also on the railways, was performed by the accused in the present case at the behest of the enemy of the people Trotsky, and on the instructions and with the direct participation of agents of the German and Japanese intelligence services, and consisted in disrupting plans of production, lowering the quality of product, organizing tires and explosions at factories or factory departments and mines, organizing train wrecks and damaging rolling stock and railway track." (Ibid.) The parallel centre, as with the united centre, also attempted to carry out assassinations of prominent party/government officials.

The 1938 trial verdict charges that Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda, etc. had organized a bloc comprising Rightists, Trotskyists, Zinovievists, Mensheviks and SRs along with Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Georgian, Armenian, Azeri and Central Asian bourgeois nationalists. Their aims were more or less the same as those of the parallel centre, and they too entered into relations with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to the detriment of the USSR, as well as organized sabotage in industry. Krestinsky was accused of having established connections with and becoming a paid agent of the German Reichswehr in 1921 on Trotsky's instructions; Trotsky himself having been an agent of the British and German intelligence services at this time. Rakovsky was accused of serving British intelligence since 1924 and having served as a Japanese spy from 1934 onwards, Chernov was accused of having formed connections with German intelligence from 1928 onwards with the aid of the prominent Menshevik émigré Fyodor Dan, etc.

One of the charges was that "on the instructions of the German, Japanese and Polish intelligence services" Rykov, Bukharin and Co. "mustered bandit insurrectionary kulak cadres in Siberia, the North Caucasus, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Uzbekistan and a number of other parts of the Soviet Union for the purpose of organizing armed actions in the rear of the Red Army, timed for the beginning of intervention against the Soviet Union." (p. 796.) Bukharin established connections with both domestic and émigré SRs to assist in this task. Yagoda was accused of having assisted in the cover-up of the Kirov assassination, and of having organized the murder of Maxim Gorky mainly through his family doctor, who had otherwise been threatened by Yagoda. Yagoda's predecessor in the OGPU, Menzhinsky, and Vice-Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Kuibyshev, were likewise murdered. Yagoda also attempted to murder Yezhov owing to the latter having become People's Commissar of Internal Affairs and thus posing a threat to Yagoda's efforts.

It was alleged that in 1918 Bukharin, then leader of the "Left Communists" within the Bolsheviks, sought in collaboration with Trotsky and the Left SRs to arrest (and inevitably assassinate, though Bukharin denied this) Lenin, Stalin and Sverdlov as part of preventing the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Bukharin likewise had knowledge of and supported the July 1918 Left SR uprising in Moscow and had a hand in the decision of Fanny Kaplan to attempt an assassination of Lenin.

You can read all three court transcripts in PDF format:
* http://sovietlibrary.org/Library/Union%20of%20Soviet%20Socialist%20Republics/1936_Report%20of%20Court%20Proceedings_Trotskyite-Zinovievite%20Terrorist%20Centre_1936.pdf
* http://sovietlibrary.org/Library/Union%20of%20Soviet%20Socialist%20Republics/1937_Report%20of%20the%20Court%20Proceedings%20Ant i-Soviet%20Trotskyite%20Centre_1937.pdf
* http://sovietlibrary.org/Library/Union%20of%20Soviet%20Socialist%20Republics/1938_Report%20of%20Court%20Proceedings_Anti-Soviet%20Bloc%20of%20Rights%20and%20Trotskyites_19 38.pdf

Geiseric

8th February 2013, 00:41

The 1936 trial verdict stated that Zinoviev, Kamenev, etc. formed a united centre between the followers of Zinoviev and the followers of Trotsky (who had already united in the mid-late 20's) with the aim of overthrowing the government, including assassinations. Kirov was said to have been assassinated by this centre, with Stalin and other party/government officials also serving as targets subjected to various attempts on their lives. Trotsky was said to have been sending those supporters of his in foreign lands back into the USSR to assist in these plots. One of these, N. Lurye, was said to have worked for a time with a German living in Moscow who had connections with the Gestapo. Another person sent to the USSR, V. Olberg, was said to have obtained a fraudulent passport "with the aid of the German secret police, the Gestapo, having first received the consent of L. Trotsky, through the latter's son, Sedov, to utilize the assistance of the German secret police in this matter." (p. 178.)

The 1937 trial verdict stated that besides the aforementioned united centre there was also in existence "an underground parallel anti-Soviet, Trotskyite centre, members of which were the accused in the present case, Y.L. Pyatakov, K.B. Radek, G.Y. Sokolnikov and L.P. Serebryakov." They aimed to overthrow the government "by means of wrecking [i.e. sabotage], diversive, espionage and terrorist activities designed to undermine the economic and military power of the Soviet Union, to expedite the armed attack on the U.S.S.R., to assist foreign aggressors and to bring about the defeat of the U.S.S.R." (p. 574.)

To achieve this aim some of those accused entered into negotiations with representatives of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Trotsky was claimed to have negotiated with Rudolf Hess that "in the event of a Trotskyite government coming to power as a result of the defeat of the Soviet Union, to make a number of political, economic and territorial concessions to Germany and Japan at the expense of the U.S.S.R., including the cession of the Ukraine to Germany and of the Maritime Provinces and the Amur region to Japan. At this same time, the enemy of the people, L. Trotsky, undertook in the event of seizing power to liquidate the state farms, to dissolve the collective farms, to renounce the policy of industrialization of the country and to restore on the territory of the Soviet Union social relations of capitalist society. Furthermore, the enemy of the people L. Trotsky undertook to render all possible help to aggressors by developing defeatist propaganda and wrecking, diversive and espionage activities, both in time of peace and, in particular, in time of an armed attack on the Soviet Union." (p. 575.) During the trial the accused admitted that their policies would have objectively led to the restoration of capitalism, but that all this had been obfuscated in "Marxist" terms and arguments by Trotsky.

The parallel centre, having members in industrial positions, carried out acts of sabotage "chiefly in enterprises of importance for defence purposes, and also on the railways, was performed by the accused in the present case at the behest of the enemy of the people Trotsky, and on the instructions and with the direct participation of agents of the German and Japanese intelligence services, and consisted in disrupting plans of production, lowering the quality of product, organizing tires and explosions at factories or factory departments and mines, organizing train wrecks and damaging rolling stock and railway track." (Ibid.) The parallel centre, as with the united centre, also attempted to carry out assassinations of prominent party/government officials.

The 1938 trial verdict charges that Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda, etc. had organized a bloc comprising Rightists, Trotskyists, Zinovievists, Mensheviks and SRs along with Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Georgian, Armenian, Azeri and Central Asian bourgeois nationalists. Their aims were more or less the same as those of the parallel centre, and they too entered into relations with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to the detriment of the USSR, as well as organized sabotage in industry. Krestinsky was accused of having established connections with and becoming a paid agent of the German Reichswehr in 1921 on Trotsky's instructions; Trotsky himself having been an agent of the British and German intelligence services at this time. Rakovsky was accused of serving British intelligence since 1924 and having served as a Japanese spy from 1934 onwards, Chernov was accused of having formed connections with German intelligence from 1928 onwards with the aid of the prominent Menshevik émigré Fyodor Dan, etc.

One of the charges was that "on the instructions of the German, Japanese and Polish intelligence services" Rykov, Bukharin and Co. "mustered bandit insurrectionary kulak cadres in Siberia, the North Caucasus, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Uzbekistan and a number of other parts of the Soviet Union for the purpose of organizing armed actions in the rear of the Red Army, timed for the beginning of intervention against the Soviet Union." (p. 796.) Bukharin established connections with both domestic and émigré SRs to assist in this task. Yagoda was accused of having assisted in the cover-up of the Kirov assassination, and of having organized the murder of Maxim Gorky mainly through his family doctor, who had otherwise been threatened by Yagoda. Yagoda's predecessor in the OGPU, Menzhinsky, and Vice-Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Kuibyshev, were likewise murdered. Yagoda also attempted to murder Yezhov owing to the latter having become People's Commissar of Internal Affairs and thus posing a threat to Yagoda's efforts.

It was alleged that in 1918 Bukharin, then leader of the "Left Communists" within the Bolsheviks, sought in collaboration with Trotsky and the Left SRs to arrest (and inevitably assassinate, though Bukharin denied this) Lenin, Stalin and Sverdlov as part of preventing the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Bukharin likewise had knowledge of and supported the July 1918 Left SR uprising in Moscow and had a hand in the decision of Fanny Kaplan to attempt an assassination of Lenin.

You can read all three court transcripts in PDF format:
* http://sovietlibrary.org/Library/Union%20of%20Soviet%20Socialist%20Republics/1936_Report%20of%20Court%20Proceedings_Trotskyite-Zinovievite%20Terrorist%20Centre_1936.pdf
* http://sovietlibrary.org/Library/Union%20of%20Soviet%20Socialist%20Republics/1937_Report%20of%20the%20Court%20Proceedings%20Ant i-Soviet%20Trotskyite%20Centre_1937.pdf
* http://sovietlibrary.org/Library/Union%20of%20Soviet%20Socialist%20Republics/1938_Report%20of%20Court%20Proceedings_Anti-Soviet%20Bloc%20of%20Rights%20and%20Trotskyites_19 38.pdf

I'm not sure if you believe all that stuff, however this is all completely false. Any "agents of trotsky" were pushing for collectivization and industrialization years before Stalin, who supported allowing Kulaks to sell their grain for private profit, untill 1929.

Ismail

8th February 2013, 04:32

I'm not sure if you believe all that stuff, however this is all completely false. Any "agents of trotsky" were pushing for collectivization and industrialization years before Stalin, who supported allowing Kulaks to sell their grain for private profit, untill 1929.And then after collectivization Trotsky penned pamphlets like "The Soviet Economy in Danger" where he called for a revival of private trade including the reemergence of kulaks. The whole argument Trotsky was said to have used for collaborating with reactionaries, as provided by the accused at the Trials, was that the Soviet "bureaucracy" would lose a future war with Germany and/or Japan and that it was necessary to "save" the USSR through concessions once the proper Bolshevik-Leninist forces came to power.

revoltordie

8th February 2013, 13:12

so there was argued a underground network that attempted to overthrow the ussr with the help of the germans, japanese and polish? is there any evidence for this except from the confessions?

Ismail

8th February 2013, 16:24

so there was argued a underground network that attempted to overthrow the ussr with the help of the germans, japanese and polish?Yes. The role of the Poles was, of course, relatively minor compared with that of the Germans and Japanese.

is there any evidence for this except from the confessions?As far as what was produced in the Trials goes, "There were witnesses whose evidence corroborated that of the accused. In the second Moscow trial - the Radek-Pyatakov trial - for example, there was the evidence of the five accomplices, Bukhartsev, Romm, Ligonov, Stein, and Tamm. Then there was the expert evidence of a committee of experts which demonstrated scientifically that certain explosions could not have taken place accidentally and were, therefore, the result of planned and deliberate sabotage. Add to this the diary of the accused Stroilov produced in court. This diary contained the telephone number of agents of the German secret service who had, by blackmail, caused Stroilov to do espionage and sabotage work for them. These numbers were carefully checked. The photographs of these German secret service agents were produced in the court for identity purposes, and Stroilov picked the right photographs from a multitude of others. The movement of these German agents confirmed official records produced at the trial. Letters received from the Japanese agent Knyazev, a prominent railway official involved in wrecking, were found among his belongings. Knyazev had failed to destroy these letters and he identified them at the trial." - Harpal Brar, Trotskyism or Leninism? p. 310.

As a semi-related aside, I had this thing I wrote down about two years ago from an American newspaper (Reading Eagle, January 26, 1937) which relayed what was going on in court while the second of the Moscow Trials was in progress. I put it here since the aforementioned quote mentioned Stein as one of the witnesses.

German Engineer Admits Sabotage
—
Testifies at Trial of 17 Russian Plotters
—
Moscow, Jan. 26 (AP) - Alexander Stein, German mining engineer, testified today at the trial of 17 confessed Trotzkyist plotters he engaged in Siberian sabotage to help “Germany recover her former power” in the Soviet Union.

The 55-year-old engineer, first foreign witness in the trial, declared through an interpreter he received his instructions through another German named Flesser, who told him:

“Germany had to recover her former power so Germans in the Soviet Union had to engage in wreckage so as to increase German strength and give her a free hand.”

Flesser relayed the wreckage orders, Stein testified, after receiving them from “a person in an official position in the U.S.S.R. who would help us in case of failure.”

Stein testified his activities were regulated by A.A. Shestoff, one of the Russian defendents, who has confessed to plotting overthrow of the Stalin government. Shestoff confirmed the German's statement.

Stein's testimony followed a heated debate between Prosecutor Andrey Vishinsky and Vasily Ulrich, the presiding judge, over mention of a “certain foreign official” in the trial.

The argument between the prosecutor and judge resulted in Ulrich reversing his previous order that evidence involving foreign officials be heard in secret. He allowed the testimony to continue under stern warning that neither the name of the official nor his nation be divulged....
And, in fact, the names of certain German and Japanese officials mentioned during the Trials are censored in the published transcripts for diplomatic reasons (though the unpublished versions obviously don't censor them.)

MP5

8th February 2013, 19:25

Ostrinski

8th February 2013, 20:52

Can you back that up wth a hoxha quote? Hoxha mist have a quote about it!Please try to refrain from making such comments. I know I set a bad example earlier in the thread by mocking Ismail's enthusiasm for Hoxha and so it wouldn't be fair to issue you an official verbal, but it's a derailer, it's offtopic, and it's a personal mockery of a user so please do not do it again.

Ismail

8th February 2013, 21:02

Since the thread is about the Trials, I figure Hoxha's comments on Vyshinsky are of minor, sidenote interest.

"The following day [while on a visit to Romania in 1948] Vyshinsky was to come from Moscow. The name and personality of Vyshinsky was great and well known to all of us on account of the important role he had played as state prosecutor in the Moscow trials against Trotskyites, Bukharinites, rightists and other traitors of the Soviet Union. During the war I had got hold of a French translation of the account of the Moscow trials and had had the opportunity to study the evil activity and treachery of these sworn enemies of communism. Their guilt and secret collaboration with the foreign enemies of the Soviet Union was brought out clearly and completely exposed there. Everything was convincing. And the claims of foreign enemies that the admissions had been allegedly extorted from the criminals by torture were slanders. Our struggle against local enemies, the trials which were held in our country after the war against enemies of the people, the struggle which our Party had waged against Trotskyite elements further reinforced our belief in the justness of the merciless fight which the state in the Soviet Union had undertaken against these criminals.

When they held power, the foreign and internal enemies of our peoples employed the most inhuman forms and methods. But naturally the foreign enemies will defend their friends within our countries, while our duty has been and still is to suppress the enemies of the people and to give them no possibility to operate against the constructive work of the people.

This the Soviet state did through the Moscow trials. In these trials Andrey Vyshinsky, outstanding jurist and Marxist-Leninist, played an important role. He displayed skill, acumen, wisdom, courage and determination in this important task. Through his acumen and strong logic, on the basis of a profound dialectical Marxist-Leninist analysis, he uncovered all the obscure angles of problems, the intrigues and plans of the enemies who stood in the dock, as well as of the external enemies who pulled the strings of this terrible and dangerous agency. And it was precisely this unerring method of unravelling matters which astonished the external enemies and their espionage agencies about how their secret plans were discovered and compelled them to slander and propagate that everything, every statement, every admission by the accused 'had been extorted by means of torture, drugs,' etc."
(Enver Hoxha. The Titoites. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1982. pp. 523-524.)

As is known, after 1956 in the USSR and the rest of Eastern Europe (except Albania obviously) it was basically forbidden to speak about the Moscow Trials, while Vyshinsky was pretty much ignored as well. The 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia claims that, "His theoretical works contain serious errors, which resulted in an incorrect characterization of the Soviet state and law. Vyshinskii overemphasized the role of compulsion and underestimated the role of education and prevention. He also exaggerated the importance of the confession of the accused as evidence in cases of counterrevolutionary conspiracies, and he made other errors as well. In practice, his mistakes led to major violations of the socialist legal order."

Brutus

8th February 2013, 21:14

Please try to refrain from making such comments. I know I set a bad example earlier in the thread by mocking Ismail's enthusiasm for Hoxha and so it wouldn't be fair to issue you an official verbal, but it's a derailer, it's offtopic, and it's a personal mockery of a user so please do not do it again.
I didn't mean it as mockery. Ismail is just a source for Hoxha, and Hoxha tends to have interesting quotes. I should have phrased it better to void misconceptions

Lev Bronsteinovich

8th February 2013, 21:26

so there was argued a underground network that attempted to overthrow the ussr with the help of the germans, japanese and polish? is there any evidence for this except from the confessions?
No comrade, none from any reputable source. Ismail can cite, in a rather remarkable way, all kinds of sources for these absurd charges. Don't get lost in these made up details. The big picture that you must believe to accept any validity in the Great Purges and Stalin's murder of thousands of the most politically conscious revolutionary elements in the USSR is pure fantasy. You must believe that almost all of the old Bolsheviks became counter-revolutionaries. People that had spent their entire adult lives trying to bring about the Russian Revolution, having succeeded made pacts with the fucking Nazis and Hiroito? Oooops, it was Stalin that made pacts with Hitler. It is as crazy as it sounds. To preserve his own power, Stalin might have resorted to such things (although he did not need to). There is no credible evidence that Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, Kamenev, Preobrezhinsky, Joffe, et al. ever did anything that they were accused of in the Purge Trials.

Also, if there was really as large an organized opposition to Stalin in the USSR, with all of those connections -- guess what? He would not have been able to rule. If hundreds of thousands of comrades, led by the leaders of the October Revolution had been organized to get rid of Stalin, they would have been unstoppable. The Bolsheviks in 1917 had far fewer resources. It is a grand pile of hoo ha.

Stalin was always having to kill people to hold on to power. He was immensely paranoid, probably with some reason -- but he was brilliant at manipulation and in-fighting in the party. He also represented the nationalistic and regressive political forces in the USSR that were not interested in world revolution and actually building socialism.

Lev Bronsteinovich

8th February 2013, 21:36

Stalin should have been tried and found guilty of being a complete moron for refusing to believe that Hitler would break the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact even as the Nazi war machine was building up on the Russian border and his military generals where advising him to act first. But of course Stalin could not be seen as being wrong so he literally let the Nazis goosestep right into Russia.

So really Stalin had no right to call anyone else a traitor.
It was worse than you might think. The Soviets had an unprecedented intelligence edge at the time of WWII (See The Red Orchestra). They had operatives in the German General Staff. They had detailed plans about the German invasion and ample warning. Stalin's refusal to accept the information he was getting -- was almost suicidal. All he had to do to avoid catastrophe was listen to the intelligence that he was receiving.

Why did the USSR have such remarkable intelligence? The reason is simple -- through the CI, there were dedicated, principled talented people, native to their own countries, that wanted to work for the USSR (in their minds for world socialism). These people were not paid traitors -- they were loyal, but not to their own countries.

Ismail

8th February 2013, 22:55

There is no credible evidence that Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, Kamenev, Preobrezhinsky, Joffe, et al. ever did anything that they were accused of in the Purge Trials.Preobrazhinsky is mentioned in passing in the second Moscow Trial, while Joffe to my knowledge isn't mentioned at all.

Also, if there was really as large an organized opposition to Stalin in the USSR, with all of those connections -- guess what? He would not have been able to rule. If hundreds of thousands of comrades, led by the leaders of the October Revolution had been organized to get rid of Stalin, they would have been unstoppable. The Bolsheviks in 1917 had far fewer resources. It is a grand pile of hoo ha.They weren't "unstoppable" in the 1920's when in conditions of legality they tried to change the line of the Party through innumerable public meetings and party politicking and clearly failed to gain the support of the people, least of all the workers. It was precisely for this reason that they resorted to terrorism and sabotage to change this line by force. This was not new; the Mensheviks and SRs did the same thing not long after the October Revolution and the Bolsheviks under Lenin noted the isolation of these groups from the masses as being the main reason for their change of tactics.

That being said, this organized opposition was accused of assassinations, sabotage, espionage, concluding agreements with foreign states and trying to foment armed uprisings. Hardly insignificant work, especially when one takes into account that this was the 1930's USSR which was industrializing and building socialism, and not 1917 Russia on the verge of starvation with economic stagnation and the mass unrest of an army and populace in general no longer willing to fight for an imperialist war.

Stalin's murder of thousands of the most politically conscious revolutionary elements in the USSR"Politically conscious" evidently being defined as having been in the Party for a long time, regardless of the history of one's activities in this Party or the fact that Stalin was in said Party for just as long.

Ismail can cite, in a rather remarkable way, all kinds of sources for these absurd charges. Don't get lost in these made up details.You might as well have said, "Don't actually consider that there's the least bit of truth to anything in the Moscow Trials despite any sources that may come your way to suggest this."

revoltordie

9th February 2013, 00:16

what did happen to the family of zinov'ev and kamenev? was there not an nkvd order that ordered the arrest of family of... how to put this... suspects?

second, this seems to be based on an assumption that japanese and germans were in charge of the under ground attempts at over throwing the soviet government. would evidence of this not be found in german and japanese hands?

third or fourth, the charges appear to be that of trying to overthrow the soviet government. would this not only be legitimate if it was accepted that the soviet government was indeed a good thing to start with?

Lucretia

9th February 2013, 01:51

Yes. The role of the Poles was, of course, relatively minor compared with that of the Germans and Japanese.

As far as what was produced in the Trials goes, "There were witnesses whose evidence corroborated that of the accused. In the second Moscow trial - the Radek-Pyatakov trial - for example, there was the evidence of the five accomplices, Bukhartsev, Romm, Ligonov, Stein, and Tamm. Then there was the expert evidence of a committee of experts which demonstrated scientifically that certain explosions could not have taken place accidentally and were, therefore, the result of planned and deliberate sabotage. Add to this the diary of the accused Stroilov produced in court. This diary contained the telephone number of agents of the German secret service who had, by blackmail, caused Stroilov to do espionage and sabotage work for them. These numbers were carefully checked. The photographs of these German secret service agents were produced in the court for identity purposes, and Stroilov picked the right photographs from a multitude of others. The movement of these German agents confirmed official records produced at the trial. Letters received from the Japanese agent Knyazev, a prominent railway official involved in wrecking, were found among his belongings. Knyazev had failed to destroy these letters and he identified them at the trial." - Harpal Brar, Trotskyism or Leninism? p. 310.

As a semi-related aside, I had this thing I wrote down about two years ago from an American newspaper (Reading Eagle, January 26, 1937) which relayed what was going on in court while the second of the Moscow Trials was in progress. I put it here since the aforementioned quote mentioned Stein as one of the witnesses.
And, in fact, the names of certain German and Japanese officials mentioned during the Trials are censored in the published transcripts for diplomatic reasons (though the unpublished versions obviously don't censor them.)

Perfect example of why these discussions go nowhere. An inquiry is made whether there is evidence outside of coerced confessions and testimony of this mass underground conspiracy linking Trotskyist oppositionists with an international fascist network, and what do we get? A link to a news report about coerced testimony from Alexander Stein, along with "material evidence" in the form of a diary containing the phone numbers of German engineers ("agents"), with whom the defendant would have had contact in his normal work anyway.

Whether this Mikhail Stoilov was actually a spy is unclear and is actually irrelevant. For even if he were a spy, there is no material evidence linking him to any organized political opposition under Trotsky. Instead, we have highly questionable testimony from Stoilov that he was recruited by other "Trotskyites" - including Shestov, who was also standing trial and worked with Stoilov as a mining engineer - and that he allegedly had contact with Trotsky himself. Oh, and supposedly read Trotsky's book My Life (an odd and most unlikely claim, since this is massive tome is hardly the kind of literature that would be passed around in underground political opposition circles - sounds more like the only title Stoilov could conjure up). And that's it. Again, no material evidence exists to prove any link between these defendants and actual Trotskyist opposition. Countless historians have proven that the coerced testimony of these defendants that they had been in contact with Trotsky actually contradict known facts about their whereabouts as well as Trotsky's.

It's the same accusations and "evidence" produced at the 1937 trial, and subsequently recycled by every Stalinist hack since then (Alex Bittelman, Ernst Fischer, Grover Furr, Harpal Brar, etc). No "new evidence" has surfaced, and in order to reach the conclusions that these stooges do, you have to go way beyond what the material evidence actually shows. Or in the case of "testimony," you actually have to ignore the fact that this "evidence" produced under highly questionable circumstances actually contradicts facts in a way that undermines its veracity. And of course, you have to ignore the fact that the accusations themselves contradict everything Trotsky wrote that we have on hand, both publicly and privately, about military defense of the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers' state -- a principle Trotsky was willing to lose large numbers of members of his own tendency over. Yet apparently this was just a facade being put up by a man who was secretly working with Hitler and Hirohito to overthrow Stalin :rolleyes:

When you stop to think about it, it's really odd that people like Furr, Brar and the rest are even bothering to try to link Trotsky as a person and Trotskyism as a movement to fascist wrecking and spying. It really is a relic of the 1930s and 1940s, designed by Stalin's regime on the reasonable assumption that, due to censorship, Soviet citizens would not be able to access Trotsky's writings and see the verve with which he relentlessly dissected fascism and defended the Soviet state. Without access to such content, it was very easy to smear any and all political opposition, no matter of what variety, as being "Troskyite." It really was a generic bogeyman that referred to any political opposition on any level for any reason, and nowadays anybody loosely acquainted with Soviet sources can easily see that. Of course, it made perfect political sense to set up the opposition this way, since painting opposition as uniformly "Troskyite" enabled Stalin to draw on a long heritage of Russian anti-semitism, and to promote the idea that such a menacingly monolithic opposition required massive repression. (Repression, by the way, that was very handy not just to Stalin but to ALL the non-Trotskyist participants in the inter-bureaucratic infighting that characterized the restructuring of the Soviet state during the purges, which is why J. Arch Getty's work exonerating Stalin from masterminding the entire thing doesn't really prove what Stalinists want to think it does.) So yes, Stalin's regime did their best to fabricate evidence tying Trotsky to these sundry and often random groups of people. It made very good political sense for them to do so. But to continue to uphold this tactic as having some basis in reality is just, well, strange.

The tricky part to all of this is that evidence DOES strongly suggest genuine and potentially violent opposition to Stalin, within the country and for obvious reasons (e.g., the likelihood that there was a plot among some top Soviet military officers -- a plot of course with no link to Trotsky, who himself conjectured that such a plot might have been real). So what you'll often get in these show-trial charges and their recapitulation by present-day Stalinists is a mixture of reasonably supported charges of resistance or even spying and foreign collaboration (which, again, might have been the case with Stoilov), combined with the completely fabricated and coerced bullshit-component about how the phone calls to Himmler were patched through by Leon Trotsky himself.

Most M-L's don't buy into the nonsense, and simply chalk these things up to "mistakes" made as a result of Stalin's personality cult, but mistakes which didn't alter the supposedly socialist nature of the USSR. They simply chalk up their disagreements to Trotsky and his followers as principled, and see no reason to carry on dead-end historical wild goose chases. Why? Because they actually look at and analyze the evidence people like Ismail and Grover Furr present, and think about what it actually shows, and what is being tendentiously inferred by them to suit their own rather strange agendas.

Ismail

9th February 2013, 08:06

what did happen to the family of zinov'ev and kamenev? was there not an nkvd order that ordered the arrest of family of... how to put this... suspects?Families of those considered guilty tended to be targeted, yes. The assumption was thus born that this was used to threaten those accused into confessing. Bukharin's family, however, only began to face reprisals after he had confessed.

second, this seems to be based on an assumption that japanese and germans were in charge of the under ground attempts at over throwing the soviet government. would evidence of this not be found in german and japanese hands?The large majority of the activities of the centres/blocs were of a conspiratorial character, meaning that things were transmitted orally. That being said, it is reasonable to expect evidence from the German and Japanese sides. And some does exist.

In the first place, there was the alleged military conspiracy headed by Tukhachevsky. Unlike the Moscow Trials, Tukhachevsky and Co. were tried in a closed military court, the transcripts of which do exist but were never published and in fact remain confidential to this day. That being said, we still know quite a bit about his case, and it involved connections with Germans and Poles and the aim of assisting the organized opposition in taking power. Like Yagoda, Tukhachevsky was said to have had no particular ideological affinities towards the oppositionists and in fact would move against them after the Stalin leadership was overthrown.

There are a number of sources from German hands which discuss the matter. All the way back in 1986 Furr noted them: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/tukh.html

Then there's something I actually brought to Furr's attention: André Géraud, who wrote journalistic articles under the nom de plume Pertinax, noting in a February 16, 1944 New York Times article the following:

The diplomatic negotiation to which I refer has not been disclosed to this day. It was made known by trustworthy Polish sources to evidence the danger of internal disruption that threatened Soviet Russia around 1935-36. Then Marshal Tukhachevsky and a number of leading generals in the Red Army plotted the downfall of the bolshevist regime, a crime for which they had to pay with their lives in June, 1937.

Polish officials had direct knowledge of what had been planned to pass because emissaries from Marshal Tukhachevsky approached the Warsaw government—and the Berlin government also—for the definite purpose of finding out on what terms Poland and Germany would agree to remain neutral and even friendly while the great counter-revolution was being carried out.

The demands forward by the German Government I am not in position to indicate. I don't remember them. But the Polish Government insisted on the fulfillment of one single condition. From Marshal Tukhachevsky was exacted the promise that, eventually, the article in the Soviet Constitution that provided for the right of secession—now used in revising the status of the Soviet Union—would not remain a dead letter.

In short, on the basis of that article, the men who had charge of Poland believed that the Ukraine could be induced to separate from Russia.Then there's another interesting article, in the New York Times (Furr considers neither it nor the prior thing to be evidence, just interesting information) in its March 2, 1937 issue. To quote Furr summarizing it, "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."

third or fourth, the charges appear to be that of trying to overthrow the soviet government. would this not only be legitimate if it was accepted that the soviet government was indeed a good thing to start with?Obviously the oppositionists thought it was a good thing to get rid of the "Stalinist bureaucracy." They said as such in the Trials. None of them presented Trotsky as saying "we must get rid of these great protégés of Lenin and valiantly restore capitalism." No government, of course, permits others to overthrow it, hence the charges of treason and the execution of many of the defendants.

A link to a news report about coerced testimony from Alexander Stein, along with "material evidence" in the form of a diary containing the phone numbers of German engineers ("agents"), with whom the defendant would have had contact in his normal work anyway.For the record I only gave that 1937 newspaper article about Stein to show that there were foreign witnesses, not simply fellow Soviet citizens operating as such.

Oh, and supposedly read Trotsky's book My Life (an odd and most unlikely claim, since this is massive tome is hardly the kind of literature that would be passed around in underground political opposition circles - sounds more like the only title Stoilov could conjure up).Large foreign works can easily be smuggled into countries, that was the whole basis of the samizdat movement in the 1960's-80's USSR. There is, however, a simpler answer to this question: Stroilov wasn't even in the USSR at the time; he was in Germany for over a year on official business, and had read the German edition published in 1930. The 1937 Trial transcript makes this clear if you had actually read it (see pages 245-248.)

Countless historians have proven that the coerced testimony of these defendants that they had been in contact with Trotsky actually contradict known facts about their whereabouts as well as Trotsky's.Name one that doesn't rely on the "findings" of the Dewey Commission, which had Trotsky talk about how it was supposedly "impossible" for him and certain defendants to do X at Y, with others outside the Commission showing that these were, in fact, quite possible.

Lucretia

9th February 2013, 08:36

Large foreign works can easily be smuggled into countries, that was the whole basis of the samizdat movement in the 1960's-80's USSR. There is, however, a simpler answer to this question: Stroilov wasn't even in the USSR at the time; he was in Germany for over a year, and had read the 1930 German edition. The 1937 Trial transcript makes this clear if you had actually read it (see pages 245-248.)

You miss my point completely. Why would Stroilov confess to reading only one work, and identify that work as being My Life? Then to follow this up by stating he didn't like it much because it used the word "I" too much? This has about as much believability to it as the dialogue in a '70s porn flick. And about as much dignity, too. It bears all the marks of a confession concocted by GPU henchmen feverishly projecting onto imagined "Trotskyites" all their own Stalinist misconceptions about what proper political leadership entails (devotion to a personality so intense that the one work you read isn't a political critique of the opposition, but a long-winded autobiography!), unevenly combined with the stupid bit about the word "I," which again reflects Stalinist bastardization of "socialist realism" in its denigrating of any "I" in society (except for the Great Leader of course) irrespective of context -- not something one would expect to hear from a devoted follower of Trotsky.

That's how these documents can be read productively by a skilled historian. Not for the truthful content in these confessions (of which there is very little, if any), but for the way the false narratives are constructed.

Name one that doesn't rely on the "findings" of the Dewey Commission, which had Trotsky talk about how it was supposedly "impossible" for him and certain defendants to do X at Y, with others outside the Commission showing that these were, in fact, quite possible.It's funny to see you moan and groan constantly about how people don't substantively address the accusations raised in the Moscow trials, only to see you nonchalantly and categorically dismiss every single shred of argumentation printed by the Dewey Commission just because it was raised by the Dewey Commission.

Ismail

9th February 2013, 08:49

You miss my point completely.Your point was that it was unbelievable for Stroilov to have been illegally carrying around and reading a 600+ page book distributed among opposition circles in the USSR. I pointed out that the whole claim was wrong since he was in Germany at the time he read it.

Why would Stroilov confess to reading only one work,Because no one at the Trials particularly cared about what books Stroilov read unless they were relevant to the investigation, and there were cases of Vyshinsky telling defendants to stop talking if they went on about irrelevant matters. The only reason he mentioned that he read My Life was as follows (page 248):

Stroilov: .... But the main thing which caused me to stumble was a certain conversation in September when visiting the Walram firm, which produced hard alloys and had certain connections with Krupp. I had a very nasty conversation with Berg during lunch. There was no counter-revolutionary statements made either on his part or on mine. But, seeing that I was in complete agreement with the Five-Year Plan and with everything that was being done in our country, he said: 'You say this because you are young, but I have lived in Russia fifteen years, I know the state of mind and the situation there very well, and I tell you that if you had read Herr Trotsky, you would speak differently.' I must confess that after that I did read Trotsky's book Mein Leben. During one of his visits von Berg suddenly asked me: 'Have you read the book?' And I told him I had.

Vyshinsky: What book?

Stroilov: Mein Leben—My Life.

Vyshinsky: How did he know that you were to read that book?

Stroilov: He recommended it to me. This is the book My Life, the period starting from 1917.

Vyshinsky: Continue.

Stroilov: I said that I had read it. He asked me whether I liked it. I said from the literary point of view he, as a journalist, wrote well, but because of the infinite number of 'I's' in it, I did not like it.
unevenly combined with the stupid bit about the word "I," which again reflects Stalinist bastardization of "socialist realism" in its denigrating of any "I" in society (except for the Great Leader of course) -- not something one would expect to hear from a devoted follower of Trotsky.Stroilov wasn't even a party member, nor was it claimed that he was a Trotskyist. In fact you could probably call him a sort of "Stalinist," as the quote above makes clear in-re praising the Five-Year Plan. He did what he did on the basis of being blackmailed. Another case of not reading the transcripts and presuming things.

It's funny to see you moan and groan constantly about how people don't substantively address the accusations raised in the Moscow trials, only to see you dismiss every single shred of argumentation printed by the Dewey Commission.Actually what happened was the very opposite of dismissing the arguments made at the Dewey Commission. The Danish Communists, for instance, made a whole investigation of the matter of the Hotel Bristol. Another claim, in regards to the alleged impossibility landing of a plane in Oslo at a certain date, was even alluded to by Vyshinsky during the Trials and the results of some minor investigative work were noted by him.

Lucretia

9th February 2013, 09:11

Your point was that it was unbelievable for Stroilov to have been illegally carrying around and reading a 600+ page book distributed among opposition circles in the USSR. I pointed out that the whole claim was wrong since he was in Germany at the time he read it.

Because no one at the Trials particularly cared about what books Stroilov read unless they were relevant to the investigation, and there were cases of Vyshinsky telling defendants to stop talking if they went on about irrelevant matters. The only reason he mentioned that he read My Life was as follows (page 248):
Stroilov wasn't even a party member, nor was it claimed that he was a Trotskyist. In fact you could probably call him a sort of "Stalinist," as the quote above makes clear in-re praising the Five-Year Plan. He did what he did on the basis of being blackmailed. Another case of not reading the transcripts and presuming things.

This actually points out another massive hole in the GPU narrative--errr, Stroilov's "testimony": he is a poor victimized Stalinist with no desire to work for, or with, Trotsky. Yet he takes the time to read a 600-page autobiography of the guy who represents the forces that are threatening to destroy not only his career, possibly even his life, as well as his beloved country? And on Trotsky's mere "recommendation"? You couldn't make this stuff up. Or, wait. Actually, it's the kind of stuff that could only be made up.

Actually what happened was the very opposite of dismissing the arguments made at the Dewey Commission. The Danish Communists, for instance, made a whole investigation of the matter of the Hotel Bristol. Another claim, in regards to the alleged impossibility landing of a plane in Oslo at a certain date, was even alluded to by Vyshinsky during the Trials and the results of some minor investigative work were noted by him.You seem to be mistaking two things here. I commented on how YOU were dismissing the contents of the Dewey Report without addressing its substance, and you respond by talking about how other groups of people, decades ago, didn't dismiss it offhand. So I guess if they claim to do some critical thinking, and arrived at conclusions that conform to your politics, well then that excuses you from checking into things for yourself.

Ismail

9th February 2013, 09:38

This actually points out another massive hole in the GPU narrative--errr, Stroilov's "testimony": he is a poor victimized Stalinist with no desire to work for, or with, Trotsky. Yet he takes the time to read a 600-page autobiography of the guy who represents the forces that are threatening to destroy not only his career, possibly even his life, as well as his beloved country? And on Trotsky's mere "recommendation"? You couldn't make this stuff up. Or, wait. Actually, it's the kind of stuff that could only be made up.You appear to have issues relating to reading comprehension. A German named von Berg suggested that Stroilov read Trotsky's autobiography, not Trotsky himself. Trotsky had nothing to do with Stroilov and vice-versa. Stroilov happened to read Trotsky's Mein Leben but this had little impact on his subsequent activities, as he made clear by saying he wasn't fond of the work. His motives for involving himself in the sabotage work of the opposition were based on having been blackmailed by the Germans. He was otherwise a non-party engineer.

It seems you're jumping from "ridiculous claim" to "ridiculous claim," trying to find one that you can convince others is actually ridiculous, and making an ass out of yourself due to obviously not having read the trial transcripts and thus wildly assuming whatever you'd like.

You seem to be mistaking two things here. I commented on how YOU were dismissing the contents of the Dewey Report without addressing its substance,Would you like me to bring up the refutations of Trotsky's claims, then? As for the Commission itself, it was led by a bunch of "left-wing" anti-communists; literally 10-20 years after their involvement in it practically every single member distinguished himself or herself as reactionaries. As for the more important issue of the actual conduct of the Commission, one of its members, Carleton Beals, withdrew from it after noting that it was blatantly biased in favor of Trotsky. RevLeft is actually the only place to have his article (thanks to the efforts of Intelligitimate to obtain it) on the Commission, and in subsequent posts the user IsItJustMe gives an overview of the reactionary careers the vast majority of the Commission members pursued after it concluded its work: www.revleft.com/vb/fewer-outsiders-better-t124508/index.html (http://www.revleft.com/vb/fewer-outsiders-better-t124508/index.html)

and you respond by talking about how other groups of people, decades ago, didn't dismiss it offhand. So I guess if they claim to do some critical thinking, and arrived at conclusions that conform to your politics, well then that excuses you from checking into things for yourself.Not simply "decades ago," for in fact there was a thorough debunking of Trotsky's claims vis-à-vis the Hotel Bristol a few years back. See: www.clogic.eserver.org/2008/Holmstrom.pdf

I know the claims made at the Dewey Commission; they're available online for anyone to view. People "decades ago" talked about it because the Commission, the Trials which it served as a response to, and the reactions to both all took place in the period of 1936-38.

Lucretia

9th February 2013, 09:53

You appear to have issues relating to reading comprehension. A German named von Berg suggested that Stroilov read Trotsky's autobiography, not Trotsky himself. Trotsky had nothing to do with Stroilov and vice-versa. Stroilov happened to read Trotsky's Mein Leben but this had little impact on his subsequent activities, as he made clear by saying he wasn't fond of the work. His motives for involving himself in the sabotage work of the opposition were based on having been blackmailed by the Germans. He was otherwise a non-party engineer.

It seems you're jumping from "ridiculous claim" to "ridiculous claim," trying to find one that you can convince others is actually ridiculous, and making an ass out of yourself due to obviously not having read the trial transcripts and thus wildly assuming whatever you'd like.

Wow. What a load of extraneous information. The contradiction is that a guy being blackmailed by an international terrorist wouldn't, on the recommendation of one of the conspirators, whether it was the lead conspirator or not, devote a significant amount of his time to reading a 600 page autobiography of the ring-leader.

But feel free to avoid addressing anything of substance, and continue piling on irrelevant minute details in hopes of appearing to have incontrovertible facts of Trotsky's fascist sympathies :rolleyes:

Would you like me to bring up the refutations of Trotsky's claims, then? As for the Commission itself, it was led by a bunch of "left-wing" anti-communists; literally 10-20 years after their involvement in it practically every single member distinguished himself or herself as reactionaries. As for the more important issue of the actual conduct of the Commission, one of its members, Carleton Beals, withdrew from it after noting that it was blatantly biased in favor of Trotsky. RevLeft is actually the only place to have his article (thanks to the efforts of Intelligitimate to obtain it) on the Commission, and in subsequent posts the user IsItJustMe gives an overview of the reactionary careers the vast majority of the Commission members pursued after it concluded its work: www.revleft.com/vb/fewer-outsiders-better-t124508/index.html (http://www.revleft.com/vb/fewer-outsiders-better-t124508/index.html)

Not simply "decades ago," for in fact there was a thorough debunking of Trotsky's claims vis-à-vis the Hotel Bristol a few years back. See: www.clogic.eserver.org/2008/Holmstrom.pdf (http://www.clogic.eserver.org/2008/Holmstrom.pdf)

I know the claims made at the Dewey Commission; they're available online for anyone to view. People "decades ago" talked about it because the Commission, the Trials which it served as a response to, and the reactions to both all took place in the period of 1936-38.I've read all of this stuff before, including the bullshit claims by Holmstrom about "new evidence" regarding Cafe (that's right, not HOTEL) Bristol -- who in fact did nothing but reproduce, along with a couple of old photographs, the argument made by Martin Nielsen in the Danish Communist Party daily way back in 1937. It seems there is very little new under the sun.

My point is that you are very good at copy-pasting quotes from Hoxha, citing pieces written Grover Furr or other Stalinist hacks, and amassing it all into a presentation that seems so dense that unsuspecting people will not see through the superficiality of your "knowledge." When it comes down to it, you blindly cite sources as truth solely because you agree with the authors' political conclusions, and out-of-hand dismiss other sources (the Dewey Commission report) for disagreeing with your politics.

Notice that I have not suggested that all the information that came out of the Moscow trials is false and should be glibly dismissed. The truth is always more complex than such stark black-and-white formulations. Which is why readers of this thread should take particular heed to the fact that you don't seem to recognize this basic reality.

Rurkel

9th February 2013, 10:04

I don't believe in the defendants' guilt, but I'll just remark that the Hotel Bristol argument seems to be a 0:0 for either side. There was something that could be plausibly mistaken for Hotel Bristol but not Hotel Bristol itself - meaning, that both Trotsky and his accusers could have genuinely and without deceptive intent advance the arguments they did.

Ismail

9th February 2013, 10:09

Wow. What a load of extraneous information. The contradiction is that a guy being blackmailed by an international terrorist wouldn't, on the recommendation of one of the conspirators, whether it was the lead conspirator or not, devote a significant amount of his time to reading a 600 page autobiography of the ring-leader.Where's the contradiction? The aforementioned von Berg threatened Stroilov with blackmail and had influence over him. He later suggested during an argument that he read Trotsky's Mein Leben, and Stroilov did so, concluding he wasn't too fond of it. I don't see what the big deal is unless the book is so damn boring (you admit it's long-winded) that whomever reading it would die before being able to carry out their activities. Nothing suggests he intensely studied it or spent months reading it, all we know is that he said he read it and its relevance to anything in the Moscow Trials ends there.

But feel free to avoid addressing anything of substance, and continue piling on irrelevant minute detailsLike fixating on a guy in Germany picking up Trotsky's autobiography and reading it and deciding it was not of interest? Stroilov reading Mein Leben occupies half a page in the trial transcript.

Also, since we're on the subject of the German edition of Trotsky's autobiography, there's an amusing aside here.

"In 1930, Hitler surprised a circle of his friends by asking them if they had read the just-published autobiography of Leon Trotzky, the great Jewish leader of the Russian Revolution, and what they thought of it. As might have been expected, the answer was: 'Yes. . . loathsome book . . . memoirs of Satan. . . .' To which Hitler replied: 'Loathsome? Brilliant! I have learned a great deal from it, and so can you.' Himmler, however, remarked that he had not only read Trotzky but studied all available literature about the political police in Russia, the Tsarist Ochrana, the Bolshevist Cheka and G.P.U.; and he believed that if such a task should ever fall to his lot, he could perform it better than the Russians."
(Konrad Heiden. Der Fuehrer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1944. p. 308.)

So yeah, it was evidently popular amongst certain persons who wanted to get the "truth" on Russia. Hence why von Berg suggested Stroilov read it.

I've read all of this stuff before, including the bullshit claims by Holmstrom about "new evidence" regarding Cafe (that's right, not HOTEL) Bristol -- who in fact did nothing but reproduce, along with a couple of old photographs, the argument made by Martin Nielsen in the Danish Communist Party daily way back in 1937. It seems there is very little new under the sun.There's only so much you can do to add to the disproving of Trotsky's grasping-at-straws attempt to "disprove" the Hotel/Café Bristol claim made by Holtzman.

Lucretia

9th February 2013, 10:25

Where's the contradiction? The aforementioned von Berg threatened Stroilov with blackmail and had influence over him. He later suggested during an argument that he read Trotsky's Mein Leben, and Stroilov did so, concluding he wasn't too fond of it. I don't see what the big deal is unless the book is so damn boring (you admit it's long-winded) that whomever reading it would die before being able to carry out their activities. Nothing suggests he intensely studied it or spent months reading it, all we know is that he said he read it and its relevance to anything in the Moscow Trials ends there.

The contradiction is that Stroilov testified that he was being blackmailed into participating in a conspiracy with other Russian "Trotskyites" by Germans who, apparently, were recommending that he read Trotsky's "My Life." So, after being forced into this "counter-revolutionary" milieux, he then voluntarily reads the flattering self-portrait of the person that everybody in these "counter-revolutionary" and "sabotaging" circles is speaking so highly of -- and who is also one of the forces behind the potential destruction of his life and country? He has every reason NOT to read the book. It's published by a guy who is being praised by people who are blackmailing him, by people who are trying get him to betray a country he supposedly wants to be loyal to, and the book is a long autobiography told from the perspective of those whom he has every reason to despise.

It's the equivalent of being blackmailed by Italians into spying for Mussolini alongside German fascists whom you identify as "Hitlerites", and one of the Italian officials then suggests you read a copy of Mein Kampf. Do you do it, and say that "journalistically it was good, but had too many subordinate clauses"??? Neither the decision to read it, nor the response to it, makes any sense unless viewed as a fabrication by people with ulterior motives.

If you have a hard time seeing a contradiction there, I would suggest the problem lies with a self-filtering mechanism in terms of what you're willing to see.

Ismail

9th February 2013, 10:40

The contradiction is that Stroilov testified that he was being blackmailed into participating in a conspiracy with other Russian "Trotskyites" by Germans who, apparently, are suggesting that he read Trotsky's "My Life.""Other"? I already noted Stroilov was a non-party engineer and not mentioned as a Trotskyist in the Trials. Berg wasn't a Trotskyist, he was a German national. Stroilov's had connections with German intelligence. He makes it clear in the trial transcript that he had no ideological connections with the Trotskyists outside of the fact that he met Shestov (who was a member) and agreed to partake in the underground organization in order to carry out sabotage since, in the words of Stroilov, "now the tasks that had been set them [i.e. the organization] by the Trotskyites and the Germans were the same as those that confronted me. There was no difference whatever." (p. 246.) Shestov had also blackmailed Stroilov; if he tried to turn in or expose Shestov's activities, Shestov would simply note Stroilov's ties to German intelligence.

So, after being forced into this "counter-revolutionary" mileux, he then voluntarily reads the flattering self-portrait of the person that everybody in the circles is speaking so highly of?At the time Berg suggested to Stroilov that he read Trotsky's work in order to help gain a "realistic" understanding of the USSR, Stroilov was already facing things like intimidation by the German police and the German firms he came into contact with as part of his official work in Germany. Stroilov's interactions with Shestov came later and Stroilov had nothing whatsoever to do with any of the underground opposition groups in the USSR during the time Trotsky's autobiography was suggested to him.

Lucretia

9th February 2013, 10:55

"Other"? I already noted Stroilov was a non-party engineer and not mentioned as a Trotskyist in the Trials. Berg wasn't a Trotskyist, he was a German national. Stroilov's had connections with German intelligence. He makes it clear in the trial transcript that he had no ideological connections with the Trotskyists outside of the fact that he met Shestov (who was a member) and agreed to partake in the underground organization in order to carry out sabotage since, in the words of Stroilov, "now the tasks that had been set them [i.e. the organization] by the Trotskyites and the Germans were the same as those that confronted me. There was no difference whatever." (p. 246.) Shestov had also blackmailed Stroilov; if he tried to turn in or expose Shestov's activities, Shestov would simply note Stroilov's ties to German intelligence.

At the time Berg suggested to Stroilov that he read Trotsky's work in order to help gain a "realistic" understanding of the USSR, Stroilov was already facing things like intimidation by the German police and the German firms he came into contact with as part of his official work in Germany. Stroilov's interactions with Shestov came later and Stroilov had nothing whatsoever to do with any of the underground opposition groups in the USSR during the time Trotsky's autobiography was suggested to him.

You spent one paragraph criticizing the fact that I said "other Russian Trotskyites" instead of just "Russian Trotskyites," then another paragraph explaining to me how the fact that Stroilov wasn't in contact with other "Trotskyites" until later explains why he would willingly read a massive autobiography by somebody who was already exiled and being demonized throughout his home country as a counter-revolutionary, on the recommendation of a guy who appeared to be a first-class asshole. But yes, I am sure he was intimidated into reading it. Although, of course, Stroilov says nothing of the sort.

And let's not get into the hilarity of a fascist German official, whether he had spent time in Russia or not, recommending that people read Trotsky's autobiography. Again, not his more overtly political writings. But the 600-page whopper, the majority of which isn't about post-revolutionary Russian society, "realistically" presented or not. It defies logic. It has all the earmarks of a convoluted fantasy of a Stalinist hack who cultishly equates politics with biography.

Ismail

9th February 2013, 11:51

Lucretia

10th February 2013, 21:54

This is ridiculous; the Moscow Trials are disproved because a non-party engineer is literate and decides to read a book in a foreign country at the suggestion of an acquaintance. It's precisely this sort of grasping-at-straws stuff that makes opponents of the Trials look ridiculous, always having a thousand "explanations" for everything and shifting from one claim to the next.

Only this is worse because you're creating a hard to follow web based on your own ignorance of the Trials and what was claimed in them.

Since there was no "other," Stroilov wasn't a Trotskyist although you certainly thought he was one (since you haven't actually read the trial transcript) when this debate began.

I never said anything of the sort. It was you who was claiming the following:
And all this can be thrown out the window, of course, by the fact that Stroilov was not a Trotskyist, was not even a Party member, had no connections with Trotskyists at the time he decided to read Mein Leben, and was judging the book on its own merits according to his own opinion of it.

Berg was an acquaintance of Stroilov's who also happened to be an informer for German intelligence.

Maybe he was slightly intimidated since he already had confrontations with German police before this and suspected Berg had links to them. Or maybe he was just curious. Or both. It doesn't matter; he had no personal stakes in the Stalin-Trotsky dispute, he was just an engineer. Why is it so hard to imagine him reading a book when it was perfectly legal for him to do so at the time in Germany?

Who said Berg was a fascist? In fact, the years Stroilov are describing in-re Berg, Mein Leben, etc. were before the Nazis even came to power.

I'd imagine his autobiography was a lot more prominent in German bookstores than random political tracts, and presumably more readable to the average person, hence why Hitler burst into a room extolling its information and not The Permanent Revolution or whatever. Just like in the 40's there was a fair amount of interest in the West for Trotsky's unfinished biography of Stalin (excerpts of which were published in LIFE magazine, etc.), much more so than any interest he generated with his political tracts.

No matter how you want to slice it, the story strains credibility. Whether Stroilov is a "Trotskyist," a "Stalinist," a "fascist." Whether he had met Trotsky or whether he hadn't. Whether he had met other "Trotskyites" or whether he hadn't. In some spare time over the past couple of days, I've had the chance to look over Stroilov's "testimony" quite carefully. And it's just completely unbelievable. It only makes sense to somebody who is in a kind of political bubble -- like you and, presumably, the GPU officials who brainstormed Stroilov's narrative.

According to the "testimony," Stroilov was a non-party engineer who was working in Germany on behalf of the Soviet government (he was in fact the highest-ranking non-party member in his field). The fact that he was in a position of such authority, without even being a party member, suggests to me that he was no half-wit. While in Germany, he was in contact with a number of German engineers (obviously), two of whom were men by the name of von Berg and Dehlmann.

According to the "testimony," Stroilov suspected these men were involved in German intelligence circles and were trying to "break him in" by threatening to tell German police that Stroilov was "carrying on Communist agitation on occasions when [Stroilov] visited the mines," occasions when supposedly Stroilov "talk[ed] about the good sides of life in the Soviet Union." Since this was fobidden of Russian visitors to the German mines, von Berg supposedly used this as a rationale for intimidating Stroilov, which -- Stroilov suggests -- took the form of German secret police checking his passport and of German authorities arriving at Stroilov's job to ask questions of one of Stroilov's associates (a "communist" by the name of Fritch. Stroilov even began to suspect, based on these and other occurrences, combined with von Berg's earlier accusations, that he was being shadowed by German police. Then, some time later, after von Berg had a "very nasty conversation" with Stroilov over lunch, Von Berg "recommended" Trotsky's My Life to him. Stroilov then read the book. It was after this point that Stroilov gradually became "enrolled" in espionage on behalf of the supposedly "Trotskyite"-connected German espionage network.

The first thing to note here is that -- when you strike the part of the story out that talks about Trotsky's book, the story sounds reasonably believable. We have German officials, perhaps tied in some way to security services, threatening and harassing a high-placed non-party official to do some work on their behalf.

But then when you throw in the bit about My Life, things fall apart. Apparently Stroilov is very distressed about this von Berg. Von Berg "accused [Stroilov] of carrying on Communist agitation on occasions," was having him shadowed and harassed, and even had a nasty conversation with him *precisely* at the moment when von Berg recommends that Stroilov read My Life. And Stroilov supposedly follows the recommendation! Despite the fact that he knows that these German officials are trying to blackmail him, that his source of protection are Soviet officials (who even the German blackmailers openly stated might try to "intercede on his behalf"), and that Trotsky is an exiled political figure deemed "counter-revolutionary" by the very authorities whose protection he depended upon from German harassment.

It makes no sense, either for Stroilov to read any book on the mere recommendation of a man who is basically making his life and living hell and being a total asshole to him at lunch; or, on top of the bad blood between the two, for Stroilov to read a particular book that he knows might alienate him from the one body that even his German blackmailers know are the one source of his defense.

The testimony, at least as far as links between German spies and Trotskyist literature is concerned, seems to be total bullshit. Even this one small chunk of one relatively minor case. And that's ignoring the fact that it is connected other cases premised on similarly absurd "testimony." As I said, Stroilov may very well have been some kind of spy (though, again, the objective, non-testimony evidence doesn't even prove that -- it proves that Stroilov had contact with people with whom he would have been in contact just in the normal course of his work duties). But the idea that there are these interlocking tentacles between German officials and "Trotskyites"/Trotskyism is beyond the pale.

I'm sure if I had no job and no life, and nothing better to do than to pick just through the testimony in these farce trials, I could come up with many more logical contradictions and absurdities. But none of it will compel you to cede an inch. Because you, like a fundamentalist Christian convinced that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, will always come up with some conjecture "possibility" that might explain away these glaring problems, in the same way that the Christian will explain that 6,000 years ago, God created fossils to look ancient and test people's faith.

But don't delude yourself into thinking your bizarre adherence to the 1930s CPSU line about "Trotskyites" is anything but faith-based.

Ismail

11th February 2013, 00:59

In some spare time over the past couple of days,Meaning yesterday considering the large amount of errors in your earlier posts on the subject.

and even had a nasty conversation with him *precisely* at the moment when von Berg recommends that Stroilov read My Life. And Stroilov supposedly follows the recommendation! Despite the fact that he knows that these German officials are trying to blackmail him, that his source of protection are Soviet officials (who even the German blackmailers openly stated might try to "intercede on his behalf"), and that Trotsky is an exiled political figure deemed "counter-revolutionary" by the very authorities whose protection he depended upon from German harassment.Berg and Stroilov had known each other beforehand. Suggesting that Stroilov read Mein Leben was an offer for "proof" for the former's arguments about the USSR. As Stroilov notes, "I had a conversation with Berg about our construction work. Berg, who had doubts about our construction and about everything else, advised me to read Trotsky's book, as I have already said." (p. 265.)

His stout defense (albeit from a non-party viewpoint) of the Five-Year Plan in his argument with Berg evidently wasn't based on much. As he noted, "At the end of November 1930 ... I paid a visit to the collective farm where my parents live. It seemed to me at that time that what was being done in regard to collectivization was on the wrong track.... I will not say that I had lost faith in everything, but I wavered, my faith was shaken and I lost confidence in the rapid industrialization of the country." (pp. 249-250.)

However unlikely you consider Stroilov picking up Trotsky's book in perfectly legal conditions to be, it is not implausible.

Also when you say:

According to the "testimony," Stroilov suspected these men were involved in German intelligence circles and were trying to "break him in" by threatening to tell German police that Stroilov was "carrying on Communist agitation on occasions when [Stroilov] visited the mines," occasions when supposedly Stroilov "talk[ed] about the good sides of life in the Soviet Union." Since this was fobidden of Russian visitors to the German mines, von Berg supposedly used this as a rationale for intimidating Stroilov,It's worth noting that Stroilov thought Berg was an informer for German intelligence only [I]after he had read Mein Leben, "for when I visited firms and reference was made to the fact that I had already done something, mention was also made of my far from pro-Soviet sentiments, for I had already read Trotsky's My Life. From this I drew the conclusion that Berg was an informer for a number of other bodies." (p. 265.) Before that he had warned Stroilov not to engage in "communist agitation," but otherwise both men worked together in engineering-related matters.

Because you, like a fundamentalist Christian convinced that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, will always come up with some conjecture "possibility" that might explain away these glaring problems, in the same way that the Christian will explain that 6,000 years ago, God created fossils to look ancient and test people's faith.This is coming from the same person who insists that 30+ defendants were tortured and gave false testimony based on NKVD "scripts" lasting hours and for multiple days despite no evidence.

Lev Bronsteinovich

11th February 2013, 02:15

"Politically conscious" evidently being defined as having been in the Party for a long time, regardless of the history of one's activities in this Party or the fact that Stalin was in said Party for just as long.

You might as well have said, "Don't actually consider that there's the least bit of truth to anything in the Moscow Trials despite any sources that may come your way to suggest this."

No, "politically conscious" includes most members of the Politburo and Central Committee, along with almost all active elements -- including people that had been in Stalin's faction for many years.

And, yes, I don't. Because it is nonsense. It is absurd. I also don't argue about the number of fairies that can dance on the head of a pin. That is because there are no fairies. I don't engage in polemics with clergyman about the age of the Earth -- it has been conclusively been proven to be more than 6000 years old -- so I don't have to consider "evidence" that dinosaurs and humans inhabited the Earth at the same time. There was no conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands of Communists to overthrow the USSR. Any sane reading of the history of the people involved, of the social forces at work, only underscores how mendacious the purgers were. The only "evidence" is the coerced testimony of terrified comrades -- who had every reason to be terrified.

Lev Bronsteinovich

11th February 2013, 02:21

And for the record, Trotsky defended the USSR against Germany and against all capitalist countries, period. Until he was murdered by a GPU agent in Mexico in 1941. He defended the USSRs invasion of Finland and Poland as well as being, overall progressive. This at a time when liberal public opinion had turned sharply against the USSR in many Western capitalist countries.

Lucretia

11th February 2013, 03:37

Meaning yesterday considering the large amount of errors in your earlier posts on the subject.

Berg and Stroilov had known each other beforehand. Suggesting that Stroilov read Mein Leben was an offer for "proof" for the former's arguments about the USSR. As Stroilov notes, "I had a conversation with Berg about our construction work. Berg, who had doubts about our construction and about everything else, advised me to read Trotsky's book, as I have already said." (p. 265.)

Huh? I just summarized the testimony in my last post, and clearly indicated that Berg and Stroilov had contact before the former recommended My Live to the latter. Why are you bothering to repeat this? The thrust of my criticism of the narrative is that their experiences in "knowing each other" prior to the recommendation were overwhelmingly of a nature that would make following-up on book tips highly unlikely. You are so confused about how to respond you're just stating random things that are totally irrelevant to my point.

His stout defense (albeit from a non-party viewpoint) of the Five-Year Plan in his argument with Berg evidently wasn't based on much. As he noted, "At the end of November 1930 ... I paid a visit to the collective farm where my parents live. It seemed to me at that time that what was being done in regard to collectivization was on the wrong track.... I will not say that I had lost faith in everything, but I wavered, my faith was shaken and I lost confidence in the rapid industrialization of the country." (pp. 249-250.)We've already established that, at least per his testimony, Stroilov wasn't an ideologically committed Stalinist. He was a non-party member who defended the FFYP and mentioned good things about the USSR to Germans in mines. The quote you mention about collectivization being on the "wrong track" comes from Stroilov's "testimony" about a meeting he attended in late November of 1930, after his "nasty conversation" with von Berg where the book was recommended. The conversation, according to Stroilov, took place when Stroilov was still "visiting laboratories and works in Germany" in September before the return to Russia and before any mention of discontent with collectivization, which you seem to imply is some kind of evidence that Stroilov would be interested in reading the book despite the fact that it was recommended by a man who was harassing him (and again, let's note, Stroilov himself does NOT make this connection between discontent and reading My Life -- only you are, in one of your creationist-fossil moments). Of course, the chronology Stroilov gives also makes sense because he -- not being a half wit -- is most likely not going to smuggle "counter-revolutionary literature" back into the USSR when its official institutions represent his only potential refuge from harassment.

Like the Stalinist hacks before you, Ismail, you aren't able to keep up with the chronology well enough to avoid glaring contradictions. And no amount of rhetorical conjuring is going to allow you to pull a "Cafe Bristol" out your rear end here.

It's worth noting that Stroilov thought Berg was an informer for German intelligence only [I]after he had read Mein Leben, "for when I visited firms and reference was made to the fact that I had already done something, mention was also made of my far from pro-Soviet sentiments, for I had already read Trotsky's My Life. From this I drew the conclusion that Berg was an informer for a number of other bodies." (p. 265.) Before that he had warned Stroilov not to engage in "communist agitation," but otherwise both men worked together in engineering-related matters.Stroilov saying that he realized that Berg was an informer for "a number of other bodies" is not the same as Stroilov saying he first understood that Berg had connections of some kind to German authorities. Stroilov very clearly connects his harassment by the German authorities with Berg's "accusations," viewing them, t the time all of this was occurring, as part of the same campaign: "I gathered from what Berg had said and from these two cases [of intimidation by German police] ... that I was being shadowed, that I was being intimidated" (p. 248 -- BEFORE the book tip).

Again, this is all just desperate straw-grasping on your part, the equivalent of the Creationist screaming, "BUT THE FOSSISLS WERE CREATED SIX THOUSAND YEARS AGO!!!!!" You maybe one of the last hundred or so people on the planet who think that Trotsky was trying to organize industrial sabotage in the USSR in order to facilitate fascist conquest of the country. Not surprisingly what you share with the rest of your *aherm* "comrades" who buy these lies is that you are all die-hard Stalinists in the truest sense of the word, even upholding the cult of personality and all the attendant show-trial fabrications. (As an aside, I always found it eminently contradictory that you true-blue Stalinists tout Getty's first monograph about how Stalin had little control over beginning or guiding the Purges, while at the same time arguing that these purges were a necessary remedy to "Trotskyite" counter-revolutionary plotting. Wouldn't you want your little hero to take all the credit for it if the allegations were true?)

It's so far out in left field that even your strongest attempt to claim some kind of credentialed legitimacy for these views is John Getty, who openly writes about blood spatters on confession documents, Stalin's "dictatorship" and "crimes," and so on. Why you don't join him, me, and the rest of humanity by leaping into the 21st century and rejecting these bold-faced lies is beyond me. I think it may be time for some political soul-searching on your part.

Ismail

11th February 2013, 09:44

The thrust of my criticism of the narrative is that their experiences in "knowing each other" prior to the recommendation were overwhelmingly of a nature that would make following-up on book tips highly unlikely.Well again, he had argued with a German engineer about the Five-Year Plan and said engineer wanted Stroilov to read Mein Leben to get the "truth" on the USSR and thus "prove" his arguments. Some intimidation may have been another factor, but evidently not a strong one.

The quote you mention about collectivization being on the "wrong track" comes from Stroilov's "testimony" about a meeting he attended in late November of 1930, after his "nasty conversation" with von Berg where the book was recommended.Yes, that's why I mentioned it. My point is that his defense of the Five-Year Plan, etc. evidently wasn't based on much; for all we know his argument with Berg wasn't going well at all and he was losing it.

Like the Stalinist hacks before you, Ismail, you aren't able to keep up with the chronology well enough to avoid glaring contradictions. And no amount of rhetorical conjuring is going to allow you to pull a "Cafe Bristol" out your rear end here.The fact that you consider the debunking of the "Hotel Bristol" claim to be "rhetorical conjuring" helps demonstrate that, no matter what, every inconsistency in the Trials are definitive proof that they were "cooked up" by the NKVD.

Stroilov saying that he realized that Berg was an informer for "a number of other bodies" is not the same as Stroilov saying he first understood that Berg had connections of some kind to German authorities. Stroilov very clearly connects his harassment by the German authorities with Berg's "accusations," viewing them, t the time all of this was occurring, as part of the same campaign: "I gathered from what Berg had said and from these two cases [of intimidation by German police] ... that I was being shadowed, that I was being intimidated"Yet Stroilov is referring at this time to the police, not German intelligence which is what he figured Berg was attached to later on. Remember, it was perfectly legal to read Mein Leben at the time, he would not have been arrested by German authorities on this pretext.

There's still no reason to think Stroilov would never read Mein Leben under the circumstances. This is especially so considering he was a non-party specialist and it's hard to imagine reading it would even be grounds for the Soviets removing him from his evidently important position, otherwise we would need to assume that Soviet nationals in Germany and other foreign countries, party members or otherwise, were not allowed to read any books except those published by the USSR.

You maybe one of the last hundred or so people on the planet who think that Trotsky was trying to organize industrial sabotage in the USSR in order to facilitate fascist conquest of the country. Not surprisingly what you share with the rest of your *aherm* "comrades" who buy these lies is that you are all die-hard Stalinists in the truest sense of the word, even upholding the cult of personality and all the attendant show-trial fabrications.Of course, the Soviet revisionists informally claimed that the Trials were fabricated. Trotsky's wife "applied for the rehabilitation of her late husband and within a day of the 'Secret Speech'. The fact that Natalia Sedova-Trotskaia learned of the supposedly 'secret' speech immediately it happened suggests that the Trotskyites may have still had high-level informants in the CPSU." (Furr, Khrushchev Lied, p. 15.)

And, as Kaganovich noted, in the 1920's Khrushchev had been inclined towards Trotskyism (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv1n2/chuyev.htm). In the "Secret Speech" Khrushchev makes clear his relatively sympathetic attitude to them:

Or, let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the Party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an active part in the workers’ movement before the Revolution, during the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? We are deeply convinced that, had Lenin lived, such an extreme method would not have been used against any of them.It isn't surprising that it was left to "die-hard Stalinists" to oppose the Soviet revisionist line on this subject, as with every other subject which they bastardized.

(As an aside, I always found it eminently contradictory that you true-blue Stalinists tout Getty's first monograph about how Stalin had little control over beginning or guiding the Purges, while at the same time arguing that these purges were a necessary remedy to "Trotskyite" counter-revolutionary plotting. Wouldn't you want your little hero to take all the credit for it if the allegations were true?)You're comparing the Moscow Trials, which were prepared by months of pre-trial testimony, attended by various foreign observers, and held to more or less the highest standards of Soviet legal practice, to hasty NKVD-organized trials in random areas all across the USSR under the authority of Yezhov.

Certainly the Purges were necessary, despite the great defects and fact that many innocents obviously died. This was the opinion of various outside observers at time. Stalin did not "direct" the Purges; this is a fact, but was in reality responding to events as they occurred. I've noted this earlier in the thread.

Lev Bronsteinovich

11th February 2013, 17:36

And, as Kaganovich noted, in the 1920's Khrushchev had been inclined towards Trotskyism (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv1n2/chuyev.htm). In the "Secret Speech" Khrushchev makes clear his relatively sympathetic attitude to them:

It isn't surprising that it was left to "die-hard Stalinists" to oppose the Soviet revisionist line on this subject, as with every other subject which they bastardized.

Certainly the Purges were necessary, despite the great defects and fact that many innocents obviously died. This was the opinion of various outside observers at time. Stalin did not "direct" the Purges; this is a fact, but was in reality responding to events as they occurred. I've noted this earlier in the thread.

LMFAO. Khruschev basically says that if Lenin had lived, maybe we would not have had to KILL thousands of comrades. This, of course, exposes his sympathy for Trotsky's positions:lol:. How Stalinist of you! We have to make sure we purge those that might not want to slaughter those that do not agree with our positions within the party -- because if they oppose us, they must be counter-revolutionary, fascist provocateurs, Q.E.D.:rolleyes:

Lucretia

11th February 2013, 17:43

Well again, he had argued with a German engineer about the Five-Year Plan and said engineer wanted Stroilov to read Mein Leben to get the "truth" on the USSR and thus "prove" his arguments. Some intimidation may have been another factor, but evidently not a strong one.

Then again, UFOs might have been a factor. This is another demonstration of your creationist-fossil method. Reading things into the document that aren't there in order to explain away the things that we know are there.

Yes, that's why I mentioned it. My point is that his defense of the Five-Year Plan, etc. evidently wasn't based on much; for all we know his argument with Berg wasn't going well at all and he was losing it.I don't know whether one can say that his defense of the Five Year Plan in Germany doesn't mean much by citing doubts he had after his return from Germany. What I do know is that it's bullshit to say that Stroilov had "doubts" about the regime while in Germany by citing events that happened after the fact, and then using those supposed "doubts" to try to explain why Stroilov would join the von Berg book-of-the-month club. In order to arrive that explanation, you have to rewrite the testimony into your own little version.

The fact that you consider the debunking of the "Hotel Bristol" claim to be "rhetorical conjuring" helps demonstrate that, no matter what, every inconsistency in the Trials are definitive proof that they were "cooked up" by the NKVD.Non-existent hotels, phantom flights, and a person being in two places at once are only quibbling inconsistencies in the mind of a die-hard Stalinist who has already accepted on faith that the Moscow Show Trials are the inspired Word of God, despite the fact that some of the words might be altered in translation from the original Hebrew and Greek.

Yet Stroilov is referring at this time to the police, not German intelligence which is what he figured Berg was attached to later on. Remember, it was perfectly legal to read Mein Leben at the time, he would not have been arrested by German authorities on this pretext.Huh? Again, you're getting so disoriented in your defense that not only are you bringing up irrelevant details, you're combining them with responses to things I've never said. Stroilov said hew as being shadowed by the police and harassed by the German authorities. He said he knew this at the time, and he said he suspected that Berg was connected, because Berg somehow managed to find out about Stroilov's remarks to mining engineers, and because German authorities (secret police?) were evident at one of the discussions where Stroilov supposedly made pro-Soviet remarks. It is clear from p. 248 that Stroilov viewed the plain-clothes police and Berg, with his direct accusations,as being part of the same campaign of harassment and intimidation. Whether Stroilov suspected that the German authorities harassing him, and apparently working in conjunction with Berg, were intelligence or just normal police is really a red herring.

There's still no reason to think Stroilov would never read Mein Leben under the circumstances. This is especially so considering he was a non-party specialist and it's hard to imagine reading it would even be grounds for the Soviets removing him from his evidently important position, otherwise we would need to assume that Soviet nationals in Germany and other foreign countries, party members or otherwise, were not allowed to read any books except those published by the USSR.Actually there's a very good reason to think Stroilov wouldn't read My Life, and your feeble attempts at trying to argue to the contrary are way off base. Stroilov was being harassed by German authorities, who were doing things like showing up at conversations that Berg somehow very mysteriously found out about, was subjected Berg's accusations that he was a pro-communist agitator, and then endured a "nasty conversation" with Berg, at which Berg supposedly recommended Stroilov read a book that would have undermined the strongest base of support for Stroilov to handle the harassment he was experiencing by German officials. This doesn't suddenly become a likely scenario just because My Life wasn't banned in Germany--who even said that it was? Another red herring.

You're comparing the Moscow Trials, which were prepared by months of pre-trial testimony, attended by various foreign observers, and held to more or less the highest standards of Soviet legal practice, to hasty NKVD-organized trials in random areas all across the USSR under the authority of Yezhov.

Certainly the Purges were necessary, despite the great defects and fact that many innocents obviously died. This was the opinion of various outside observers at time. Stalin did not "direct" the Purges; this is a fact, but was in reality responding to events as they occurred. I've noted this earlier in the thread.You don't see any connection between the NKVD-organized trials in the periphery to the Moscow trials? They just, in your strange little fantasy world, by chance happen to take place at the same time and be about the same kinds of accusations. But the spotlighted ones in Moscow were all incontrovertibly true in spite of the major holes in the "evidence," while many of the ones in the periphery were bullshit. And why do you think this? Why, because the Great Leader was involved in orchestrating the Moscow Trials. And how could he be wrong? :rolleyes:

Ismail

11th February 2013, 18:41

I've said all I needed to say about Stroilov and Mein Leben. The trial transcripts were already linked by me for anyone who wants to read them for themselves.

You don't see any connection between the NKVD-organized trials in the periphery to the Moscow trials? They just, in your strange little fantasy world, by chance happen to take place at the same time and be about the same kinds of accusations.The only connection was in relation to uprooting terrorist centers. Local NKVD made their own investigations independently of the Moscow Trials and dealt with affairs on a basis separate from those of said Trials.

But the spotlighted ones in Moscow were all incontrovertibly true in spite of the major holes in the "evidence," while many of the ones in the periphery were bullshit.Well yes, since we have various examples of torture and other methods used to get random people to confess in random areas of the USSR, whereas there's no evidence of torture used in the case of the Moscow Trials.

Lucretia

11th February 2013, 19:07

The only connection was in relation to uprooting terrorist centers. Local NKVD made their own investigations independently of the Moscow Trials and dealt with affairs on a basis separate from those of said Trials.

This is the problem with your position. It wants to claim complete independence between the Moscow trials and similar NKVD investigations on the periphery, so that there are these "terrorist centres" being dealt with earnestly in Moscow. Yet, on the periphery, you acknowledge that there are clear cases where investigations (being undertaken on the pretext of rooting out terror) clearly have nothing to do with national security and terror, and everything to do with power struggles within lower levels of the party and state bureaucracy. I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that all these investigations are taking place at the same time, under the same pretense, but that the ones in the periphery tended to be bullshit power struggles, while the ones involving the Great Leader were all good-faith, above-the-board legal proceedings having nothing to do with the power struggles going on at the top levels of the bureaucracy.

Well yes, since we have various examples of torture and other methods used to get random people to confess in random areas of the USSR, whereas there's no evidence of torture used in the case of the Moscow Trials.Yes, I'm sure the blood splattered on Tuchakevsky's confession was the result of his flossing too hard in the interrogation room just before signing his confession papers. Or are you going to suggest that, because this wasn't one of the public Moscow trials, it used different procedures of gathering "evidence"? Or, wait, I know -- the beating came after a completely legitimate and uncoerced confession of guilt, as a kind of initial punishment. Or -- hold on -- maybe a Trotskyite archivist secretly sprayed the blood onto the documents to discredit them? There's always some glib creationist-style explanation for those who want to believe at all costs, regardless of the preponderance of the evidence.

BTW, for those interested in Soviet historiography on this issue, and who want to hear from a leading professional on it, I advise you watch the highly informative interview with John Getty at http://www.thehistoryfaculty.org/a-levels/item/111-j-arch-getty-interview-pt1

Ismail

11th February 2013, 22:17

I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that all these investigations are taking place at the same time, under the same pretense, but that the ones in the periphery tended to be bullshit power struggles, while the ones involving the Great Leader were all good-faith, above-the-board legal proceedings having nothing to do with the power struggles going on at the top levels of the bureaucracy.Obviously there were rightist elements who continued to sympathize with Bukharin and Co. As for the "Left Opposition," its members, if we are to believe Trotsky, overwhelmingly "capitulated" to the "Stalinist bureaucracy" and thus represented no threat. Of course as was revealed by no less a man than Getty (relying on Trotsky's archived papers at Harvard), Trotsky did, in fact, work to reestablish his bloc on a clandestine basis after said "capitulations," particularly with Radek, Smirnov, etc.

My point is that you cannot compare the Moscow Trials with random NKVD trials held across the USSR which had as their aim the rooting out of terrorists and other clandestine groups. You had cases where local NKVD branches would "discover" children being involved in local plots. Comparing that to the proceedings of the Moscow Trials is quite ridiculous.

Yes, I'm sure the blood splattered on Tuchakevsky's confession was the result of his flossing too hard in the interrogation room just before signing his confession papers. Or are you going to suggest that, because this wasn't one of the public Moscow trials, it used different procedures of gathering "evidence"? Or, wait, I know -- the beating came after a completely legitimate and uncoerced confession of guilt, as a kind of initial punishment. Or -- hold on -- maybe a Trotskyite archivist secretly sprayed the blood onto the documents to discredit them? There's always some glib creationist-style explanation for those who want to believe at all costs, regardless of the preponderance of the evidence.Back in 2006 Furr discussed the "bloody fingerprints":

From 1962 to 1964 some researchers were charged by Khrushchev to find the evidence that Tukhachevsky et al. had been innocent.

In 1964 they produced the so-called "Shvernik Report," done from '62 to '64 but only published in '94. It's widely available now (in Russian). They did not find any evidence that Tukh. was innocent, and in fact did find some that suggested he was guilty. But really we don't know what they found, only what they put into their report. Probably these researchers were hedging their bets -- putting in stuff that would support either conclusion, depending on which way the wind blew.

One claim they made was that the brown spots on one page of Tukhachevsky's typewritten confessions were blood. A photo of these stains is now on the Internet...

It is obvious that these stains are not fingerprints. If they are blood -- why "believe" Khrushchev's people? -- we have no idea whose it is, and so on. They could have been put there in 1964, for all we know.What's interesting is that even though Tukhachevsky's trial was "closed" (even the materials, as I noted in an earlier post, remain closed in the archives to this day) there's quite a bit of evidence pointing to his links with German intelligence, as I noted in a 1986 Furr article I linked earlier in the thread.

Lucretia

12th February 2013, 00:53

Obviously there were rightist elements who continued to sympathize with Bukharin and Co. As for the "Left Opposition," its members, if we are to believe Trotsky, overwhelmingly "capitulated" to the "Stalinist bureaucracy" and thus represented no threat. Of course as was revealed by no less a man than Getty (relying on Trotsky's archived papers at Harvard), Trotsky did, in fact, work to reestablish his bloc on a clandestine basis after said "capitulations," particularly with Radek, Smirnov, etc.

You seem to have a hard time distinguishing the fact that there was resistance to Stalin in the USSR from people of various political stripes and inclinations, and the ridiculous accusation that there was a vast, wide-ranging conspiracy between these opposition figures to sabotage Soviet industry, spy on behalf of fascist governments, and make plans to divide up Russia so as to restore capitalism, all of course under the guidance of that madman Lev Bronstein. Evidence that Trotsky was making overtures to form a bloc with oppositionists in the bureaucracy -- a kind of new United Opposition -- is proof of the former, not proof of the latter. :rolleyes:

My point is that you cannot compare the Moscow Trials with random NKVD trials held across the USSR which had as their aim the rooting out of terrorists and other clandestine groups. You had cases where local NKVD branches would "discover" children being involved in local plots. Comparing that to the proceedings of the Moscow Trials is quite ridiculous.I know what your point is, have laid out the rationale behind your "point," and have explained why I think it's bullshit. It asks us to accept that, while all the trials were heavily inflected by inter-bureaucratic rivalries, these rivalries were just incidental to the Moscow trials -- which really did uncover plots of "Trotskyite" wrecking, substantiated by "evidence" with so many logical and factual holes that it resembles Swiss cheese. Yeah, right.

Back in 2006 Furr discussed the "bloody fingerprints":
What's interesting is that even though Tukhachevsky's trial was "closed" (even the materials, as I noted in an earlier post, remain closed in the archives to this day) there's quite a bit of evidence pointing to his links with German intelligence, as I noted in a 1986 Furr article I linked earlier in the thread.Hilarious! Furr begins his bizarre rant by citing as authoritative the findings of a report ordered by Khrushchev, finding "no evidence that he [Tuch.] was innocent" (what the hell would "evidence of innocence" look like anyway? admissions by the interrogators that they told him what to say, and that he was in fact innocent?). Then just two paragraphs after citing Khrushchev's report as confirmation that the general was guilty, he goes on to deride the idea of "believing Khrushchev people"! A perfect illustration of how Stalinist hacks like Furr operate: meshing together two completely separate, and in this case contradictory, metrics for evaluating evidence in order to force a conclusion that one is ideologically motivated to arrive at. Then, to cap it off, he actually does offer the explanation I jokingly suggested a Stalinist might put forward -- that the blood might have been deliberately put there. Apparently by people who were determined to discredit Stalin's case against Tuch., even while they issued a report citing no evidence of his innocence. This tortured bit of propaganda by Furr actually belongs in a museum somewhere for people to look at it in amazement of all the cognitive dissonance and distortion. Furr is actually funnier, in a twisted sort of way, than the Grover on Sesame Street.

And also note that none of this changes the fact that there was blood spatter on the documents -- I did NOT mention "fingerprints" and am unaware of sources that speak of "fingerprints."

But entertainment value aside, a growing number of professional historians -- not amateur hacks with ideological axes -- accept that the purges in the Comintern and certain affiliated parties were part an attempt to mount a fourth show trial. Take, for example, Boris A Starkov. In his essay "The Trial That Was Not Held" (Europe-Asia Studies, Volume 46, no 8, 1994), he found from NKVD documents that "Béla Kun was forced to stand on one leg for hours and Knorin was several times taken to the prison hospital in a state of unconsciousness. All this yielded results and they were broken" (p 1300). "Kun was not allowed to sleep and was forced to stand on one leg at night" (p 1301). Pyatnitsky was arrested on 7 July 1937, and was supposed to be the star defendant in the fourth trial, but proved a tough nut to crack. "The head of Lefortovo prison subsequently testified that Pyatnitsky had undergone 220 hours of interrogation with the use of physical methods of coercion." But it would be nine months and seven days from his arrest that his first testimony was produced. "Evidently this opposition and resistance played a decisive role in the fact there was no trial in the case of the counter-revolutionary organisation in the Comintern. This testimony… [contains] unauthorised insertions corrections and deletions" (p 1307). While the testimonies of the Comintern people were contradictory, and some had retracted them altogether, Pyatnitsky "had not been broken; not one of the interrogation records had he signed," Starkov writes (p 1310).

Reinhard Müller is another historian who has written on the planned Comintern show trial. In his essay "Der Antikomintern Block -- Prozessstruktur und Perspektive" (Utopie kreativ, no 81/82, July-August 1997, Berlin, pp 82-95), he informs us that "In numerous interrogations and in individual indictments of the Anti-Comintern Block, the NKVD tried, not for the last time, to repair by the 'statements' tortured out of the newly-arrested 'culprits,' the gaps in the 'evidence' presented, which had led to critical dismantling of the first two show trials in the foreign reports. So in several 'records' of interrogations by the NKVD investigators, the victims [that is, Hugo Eberlein] were again and again attributed 'links' to Trotsky in Norway and his son Leon Sedov in Berlin and Copenhagen or the financing of 'Trotskyist groups'" (p 88). Werner Eberlein, Hugo’s son, saw the NKVD files on his father’s case and quoted from them in his autobiography: "there were days on which I got three or four morphine injections" -- Hugo Eberlein wrote -- "and after that the beatings resumed. It was in this state of impotence that a confession was forced out of me" ("Obituary: Werner Eberlein," The Times, 20 November 2002) Eberlein retracted his confession once he had slept and recovered sufficiently from his torture.

But yes, I am sure this growing evidence of torture is Trotskyite cultist propaganda :rolleyes:

Ismail

12th February 2013, 09:38

Then just two paragraphs after citing Khrushchev's report as confirmation that the general was guilty, he goes on to deride the idea of "believing Khrushchev people"!Because it was precisely Khrushchev's people who wanted to present Tukhachevsky as a "victim" of "the cult of the individual," of "Stalinist repression," etc. Just like Khrushchev hinted during his "Secret Speech" that Stalin had Kirov killed despite the fact that neither a commission held under his watch or a Gorbachev-era commission could find any proof of this. If the commission found stuff alluding to Tukhachevsky's guilt it was against the interests of Khrushchev and Co., who wanted to portray themselves as "returning to Leninism" and "restoring socialist legality."

And also note that none of this changes the fact that there was blood spatter on the documents -- I did NOT mention "fingerprints" and am unaware of sources that speak of "fingerprints."Robert Service.

As for the "fourth Trial," I emailed Furr since I figure he's in a better position than me to reply.

His reply is as follows:

He trusts, or likes, or something, "Professional" historians -- meaning they have no "ideological axes." Well, that's that, I guess! The bourgeois historians tell the truth, and others of us don't...

Boris Starkov (still living) was an official CPSU historian till 1991. When Getty's essay on Trotsky appeared in Russian translation in _Voprosy Istorii KPSS_ (1991) Starkov wrote an afterword in which he "explains" that the clear evidence in the Trotsky papers of a "bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" beginning in 1932 -- well, that didn't mean anything.

Most of all, it did not mean that Khrushchev et al., and then Gorbachev, Iakovlev, et al., were lying when they said over and over again that no such bloc existed. Of course!

This article of Starkov's in EAS is copied word for word (translated, of course) from Vladimit Piatnitskii's book on his father. Whether Piatnitskii's book was really written by Starkov, or Starkov's article was really written by Piatnitskii, I don't know. But EAS did not know any of this when they published Starkov. I thought about informing them a few years back, but then decided: What's the point?

Starkov has no evidence for these claims. Neither does Piatnitskii, who is convinced that his father was innocent. Piatnitskii was a leading member of Moscow's Memorial Society, the super-anticommunist "human rights" organization devoted to lying about Soviet history.

But Piatnitskii's book is very, very interesting! Because he was given SOME of his father's investigative files. And ALL the information that he publishes from those files suggests

* that his father was guilty;

* that a number of other Comintern figures mentioned in them -- Mad'iar, and also Heinz Neumann, husband of Margarete Buber-Neumann -- were also guilty.

V. Piatnitskii has no evidence his father was tortured, or that anybody was tortured. That doesn't mean they were, or they weren't -- only that all such claims are rumor.

BTW, in a different article Starkov confirmed that Ezhov was indeed involved in a conspiracy -- he admits Ezhov "did not tell Stalin everything."

So it's not a waste of time reading these people, because they do (or did) have access to documents -- evidence -- you can't find anywhere else. Those documents are very interesting and sometimes very important!

But their interpretations are something else -- tendentious, guided by their ideological "idees fixes". It's the evidence, not their interpretation of it, that is important.

WERE any of these defendants "tortured"? We don't know, but my guess is: yes, some were.

It'd be nice if it were true that "all tortured persons are innocent of whatever crimes they confess to." But that's not the case.

A GUILTY person can confess, whether tortured or not (Bukharin was not tortured and confessed -- though not to everything). Or, not confess.

An INNOCENT person can be tortured or not, and confess (e.g. to stop the torture) or not confess (some people are strong enough).

So the fact someone has been beaten, tortured, etc., is not helpful in knowing whether or not they were guilty of whatever.

Therefore, the fact that Hugo Eberlein may have been tortured -- let's assume his late son was not lying -- does not help us to understand whether he was guilty or not.

* * * * *

However, your interlocutor is not an honest person; doesn't know Russian; has not bothered to gather any evidence; and "trusts" anticommunist historians.

In my experience Trotskyists are like this. It's not just this one person.

That's why it is a waste of time talking to them. They are simply not interested in the truth.

Lucretia

12th February 2013, 18:26

He trusts, or likes, or something, "Professional" historians -- meaning they have no "ideological axes." Well, that's that, I guess! The bourgeois historians tell the truth, and others of us don't...

There's a difference between writing history from a political perspective, which every historian does (including "bourgeois," "Trotskyite," and I'm guessing even some Marxist-Leninist historians), and writing polemics with an ideological axe to grind. Again, if you don't understand this distinction, Ismail, I suggest you read the earlier posts in this thread about the difference between academic history and polemical writing. That Grover doesn't understand this, and thinks his failure to be published in any academic journal is the result of a massive amti-communist conspiracy, just shows how hopelessly confused he is Just as he doesn't understand the difference between trying to remove Stalin from power and restore intra-party democracy, and trying to facilitate fascist invasion and capitalist restoration in the USSR. These are not subtleties, and Grover's mendacious glossing over of these differences in his hack-like responses is so blatant that it's almost amusing. Almost.

Boris Starkov (still living) was an official CPSU historian till 1991. When Getty's essay on Trotsky appeared in Russian translation in _Voprosy Istorii KPSS_ (1991) Starkov wrote an afterword in which he "explains" that the clear evidence in the Trotsky papers of a "bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" beginning in 1932 -- well, that didn't mean anything.

Most of all, it did not mean that Khrushchev et al., and then Gorbachev, Iakovlev, et al., were lying when they said over and over again that no such bloc existed. Of course!Completely irrelevant ad hominem that in no way relates to the veracity of the claims I posted.

This article of Starkov's in EAS is copied word for word (translated, of course) from Vladimit Piatnitskii's book on his father. Whether Piatnitskii's book was really written by Starkov, or Starkov's article was really written by Piatnitskii, I don't know. But EAS did not know any of this when they published Starkov. I thought about informing them a few years back, but then decided: What's the point?The book that I am guessing Grover is referring to is Осип Pi︠a︡tnit︠s︡kiĭ и Коминтерн на весах истории (Osip Piatnisky and the Comintern on the Scales of History) from 2004, ten years after the article was published. I am not sure whether Piatniskii plagiarized Starkov, whether Starkov gave Piatniski permission to use his article in full, or whether (as, I hate to say it, is a distinct possibility) Furr is simply lying about the relationship between the two works. But it's completely a red herring and a side story because it suggests my concern is with Piatnisky's guilt or innocence - rather than whether he was tortured. But to indulge Furr on the question of Piatnisky's guilt, I still see no compelling argument about the veracity of the claims contained within the article itself, which Furr has zero interest in discussing besides, stating:

Starkov has no evidence for these claims. Neither does Piatnitskii, who is convinced that his father was innocent. Piatnitskii was a leading member of Moscow's Memorial Society, the super-anticommunist "human rights" organization devoted to lying about Soviet history.Really? No evidence? Then what's this?

1. See Otkryvaypae rvyes tranitsy( Moscow, 1989);A rkhivyr askryvayutta iny (Moscow, 1991); Golgofa (St Petersburg 1993).

2. Pravda,3 0 June 1937; also KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh s"ezdov, k onferentsiii plenumov TsK, 7th ed. part III (Moscow, 1954), pp. 294-305.

3. This reconstruction of the work of the June (1937) plenum of the TsK VKP(b) is based on various sources and documents; not only the minutes of the plenum's work preserved in RTsKhIDNI but also documents in the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation (APRF) and a number of memoirs of participants in the plenum. For details on the fate of G. N. Kaminsky see G. N. Zhavoronkov & V. I. Pariisky, 'Skazavshii budet uslyshan', in Oni ne molchali (Moscow, 1991), pp. 199-215.

4. For details see B. A. Starkov, 'Ar'ergardnye boi staroi partiinoi gvardii', in Oni ne molchali, pp. 220-221.

5. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), f. 9401, op. 1. Operational orders for the NKVD SSSR for July 1937.

6. In the documents of the re-examination of the archives of the case of I. A. Pyatnitsky, former officers of the 3rd department of the NKVD SSSR often named Minaev-Tsekhanovsky as head of the 3rd department in their testimony. In fact, he performed the duties of head of the department for a short period after the suicide of V. M. Kursky. Officially the head of the 3rd department was N. G. Zhurid-Nikolaev.

7. Archive of the former Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation (AMBRF), archive investigation case No 967466, accusation of J. A. Pyatnitsky, t. 1, 11.28-31.

8. Ibid., 1.29.

9. AMBRF, case No 967832, accusation of Bela Morisovich Kun.

This is only 1/5 of the footnotes. But I don't want to beat a dead horse. Notice even in just this sample that Starkov isn't just some hack citing excerpts from books written years ago. He has clearly done extensive research in the fSu state archives, and is citing documents from those archives directly. Maybe none of this counts as "evidence" according to Furr, but I'd certainly like to hear some explanation as to why Starkov is incorrectly making flawed inferences or deductions from this evidence, especially in light of what Furr's track record shows to be his working definition of convincing "evidence."

But Piatnitskii's book is very, very interesting! Because he was given SOME of his father's investigative files. And ALL the information that he publishes from those files suggests

* that his father was guilty;

* that a number of other Comintern figures mentioned in them -- Mad'iar, and also Heinz Neumann, husband of Margarete Buber-Neumann -- were also guilty.Really? ALL the evidence? What is this evidence, and how does it show Piatnisky's guilt? Grover has presented none. But maybe he's right, and Piatnisky's son really hated his father and did his best to advance evidence showing that he was guilty. :rolleyes:

V. Piatnitskii has no evidence his father was tortured, or that anybody was tortured. That doesn't mean they were, or they weren't -- only that all such claims are rumor. In the same way that Starkov has "no evidence" in his article published in Europe Asia Studies? As in, "he provides a lot of documentation to substantiate his claims, but I don't agree that the claims he makes follows logically from his cited evidence?"? Or as in "he doesn't provide a single citation to any documentary proof of anything"?

It's difficult to know because Furr, for the third time in his obnoxious email, just declares in one line whether people have evidence or not, without explaining what he says or elaborating on his claim at all. For somebody who is awfully critical of other people's evidence, Grover sure hates to provide evidence of his own, doesn't he?

BTW, in a different article Starkov confirmed that Ezhov was indeed involved in a conspiracy -- he admits Ezhov "did not tell Stalin everything."Ezhov "not tell Stalin everything" (which I am guessing is the direct quote from Starkov), is different than Ezhov being involved in some kind of conspiracy. There are many reasons why Ezhov might not want to share information. Does Starkov [I]say that Ezhov was involved in a conspiracy? With whom? For what purpose? Does this conspiracy show evidence of a vast network of "Trotskyite" wreckers and spies working hand-in-hand with fascists to restore capitalism? There is a difference, you know, although Furr has a difficult time distinguishing evidence for one from "evidence" for the other.

But their interpretations are something else -- tendentious, guided by their ideological "idees fixes". It's the evidence, not their interpretation of it, that is important.Where is Furr's evidence for this? I see none.

WERE any of these defendants "tortured"? We don't know, but my guess is: yes, some were. At least Furr is honest enough to admit this -- something you, Ismail, cannot bring yourself to admit. We have documentary evidence of Stalin ordering the use of torture against Ezhov, after all. And I was about to quote it in my next post, but since the Great Grover Furr has issues his ruling, I'm sure you'll accept that prima facie, as you seem to accept automatically the claims of anybody who agrees with you politically without scrutinizing them.

It'd be nice if it were true that "all tortured persons are innocent of whatever crimes they confess to." But that's not the case.

A GUILTY person can confess, whether tortured or not (Bukharin was not tortured and confessed -- though not to everything). Or, not confess.

An INNOCENT person can be tortured or not, and confess (e.g. to stop the torture) or not confess (some people are strong enough).

So the fact someone has been beaten, tortured, etc., is not helpful in knowing whether or not they were guilty of whatever.

Therefore, the fact that Hugo Eberlein may have been tortured -- let's assume his late son was not lying -- does not help us to understand whether he was guilty or not.This is all completely obvious. And completely irrelevant. Nobody is saying that the use of torture means that somebody is definitely innocent. What it does show, however, is that there was intense pressure to produce testimony because of the lack of other kinds of evidence. That the testimony so produced is beyond belief suggests to me, and to every professional historian who works on this stuff, that the specific allegations made in the Moscow trials were bogus. It's the actual testimony itself, and how it contradicts known facts, that leads people to this judgment, not the use of torture per se. Though I do think it's telling that Furr appears to condone the use of torture by a regime that he thought was socialist.

I think it is also important to note that the reason I produced the Starkov article was precisely to show that torture was used to extract confessions in the Moscow Trials. And now here we have Furr admitting that there is plausible evidence to suggest that there was. Finally, according to Furr's logic above -- which again, is actually correct logic -- Piatnisky's guilt or innocence on the charge of "conspiring against Stalin" has no bearing on whether or not he was tortured, which was precisely the claim I was making in my last post. Even if we concede everything Furr says above, you'll notice that Furr makes no claims that the evidence of torture is fabricated. Like so many of Furr's other writings, Furr provides all sorts of argumentation that does not directly relate to the specific conclusion he is trying to (dis)prove. So he'll end up with a 90 page article full of "evidence" -- none of which substantiates the specific argument he is setting out to prove.

However, your interlocutor is not an honest person; doesn't know Russian; has not bothered to gather any evidence; and "trusts" anticommunist historians.

In my experience Trotskyists are like this. It's not just this one person.

That's why it is a waste of time talking to them. They are simply not interested in the truth.How am I "anti-communist"? Oh, right. I don't agree with the 1930s Stalinist line on the Moscow Trials. How am I dishonest? Well, Furr doesn't say, instead referring to the fact that I am a Trotskyist, which prsumably therefore automatically makes me dishonest!

This guy really is a piece of work. If he's anything like this in real life, it's a wonder to me how his colleagues in the *English department* put up with him.

Invader Zim

12th February 2013, 19:30

Lucretia

12th February 2013, 20:57

You are wasting your time Lucretia. Furr and I, again employing Ismail as a go-between, have had a similar argument - re the Katyn massacre. Furr will merely contend that you don't know what you are talking about, attack historians rather than their arguments, and dismiss any evidence that doesn't support his ludicrous view.

I am aware that debating these people is not going to get them to change their minds. If they based their views on an earnest consideration of evidence, they wouldn't cling to the views they do. Instead, as I have stated throughout the thread, they employ nine different standards for evaluating evidence, mixing and mashing them together in inconsistent and often contradictory ways just in order to arrive at the conclusion they already have in mind. And when even that doesn't work, and they are dealing with evidence that flatly and plainly undermines their claims, they employ hypothetical "possibilities" for which there is no evidence, in order to explain away evidence that does exist.

This modus operandi is clear, and you can even see it in Grover's email to Ismail, where -- after one clears away all the smoke that he blows -- he provides not a scintilla of evidence that the documented instances of torture I provided are untrue or fabricated, instead attempting to undermine the credibility of the people presenting the evidence. And even then, he is compelled to admit that he "guesses" torture occurred (though, of course, he doesn't need to guess in light of the evidence that exists). This is what makes Grover Furr not just a polemicist, but a hack polemicist. There is a big difference between the two.

My reason for indulging their nonsense has not been to change their minds. It has been to provide what I hope is useful material for lurkers and other onlookers who might be contemplating a trip down the Stalinist rabbit-hole, or at least might not be as far down the rabbit hole as Ismail and Furr are.

Ismail

13th February 2013, 11:49

Lucretia

13th February 2013, 18:36

I don't think it's necessary to constantly pester Grover Furr with emails asking for evidence. He replies to random inquiries out of his own free time, which is why he "declares in one line whether people have evidence or not, without explaining what he says or elaborating on his claim at all." In his books or articles which deal with various subjects he provides reasonably detailed rebuttals, sources, etc. since he is able to lay them out in an organized and effective manner, rather than go around searching for sources (if he even has digital access to them) just to please a guy who emailed him in an argument with a Trot.

Not only am I not asking you to constantly pester Grover Furr (I just noted that he doesn't provide any evidence or argument for what he says - big surprise), but I am not even the one who brought him into this discussion in the first place. You did.

I never denied that some of the defendants of the Moscow Trials may have been tortured, just that there's no real evidence of this and we know a major defendant, Bukharin, wasn't tortured as admitted by his biographer Stephen Cohen. Again, the idea that 30+ defendants, some of them having experienced Tsarist-era prisons, could all be tortured into giving testimonies for hours on end in day-by-day installments, in front of various foreign observers and telling nothing but flat-out lies, stretches credibility. When one puts "torture" and "Moscow Trials" together, it's almost always in the service of that ridiculous interpretation to "explain" them.It's called coached testimony, Ismail. It eve happens all the time in bourgeois legal cases (though, of course, without the torture). I don't know why you find this implausible, yet find it perfectly reasonable to think there was a vast conspiracy between top-level Soviet officials, mid-level bureaucrats, and foreign governments that produces no "evidence" besides outlandish confessions that even you now admit were "possibly" produced by torture and, in any event, do contradict established facts.

Law students are frequently required to learn about what is called "Argument from Silence" and the "Best Evidence Rule." The basic idea behind these rules is that each litigant in a case attempts to provide the best evidence he or she has at his or her disposal, so that when one of the litigants controls the lion's share of the evidence, yet doesn't produce any of it in court, he or she has something to hide -- is making an "Argument from Silence."

We see this all the time in the "case" produced by the Soviet officials in the Moscow Trials, where testimony about flights, stays at hotels, etc., could easily have been checked by the government -- and, if they had been true, probably would have been followed up and checked very closely in the hopes of spotting other "espionage" connections. The government certainly had far more resources to do so. Yet they weren't checked, and instead the case relied almost entirely on coerced and coached testimony. It was left up to the Dewey Committee to try to identify hotels, track flights, etc. To repeat: anyone who doesn't have an ideological agenda in place can easily read the writing on the wall here in regards to what this behavior means.

Ismail

13th February 2013, 20:36

Not only am I not asking you to constantly pester Grover Furr (I just noted that he doesn't provide any evidence or argument for what he says - big surprise), but I am not even the one who brought him into this discussion in the first place. You did.I did not insinuate that you were pestering him. I'm saying that I'm not going to email him with a reply asking for specific sources, since I know he is busy (writing a book among other things) and in the past has not enjoyed the prospect of responding to various Trots via intermediaries.

It's called coached testimony, Ismail. It eve happens all the time in bourgeois legal cases (though, of course, without the torture).I am well aware of the concept of coached testimony. Mixing it with claims of widespread torture is precisely why using "coached testimony" as an argument to aid in the claim that the Trials were false doesn't work.

To quote Dudley Collard, a British barrister who spoke up in defense of the Trial testimony: "If the story told by the defendants was untrue, someone must have invented it. Unless one makes the fantastic assumption that the seventeen defendants , instead of conspiring together to overthrow the State, conspired together to write their parts in the intervals between being tortured, someone other than the defendants must have written a seven days' play (to play eight hours a day) and assigned appropriate rôles to the seventeen defendants, the five witnesses, the judges and the Public Prosecutor. It would have taken a Soviet Shakespeare to write such a lifelike drama as was played during those seven days, but no matter. Thereupon the defendants must have spent the period since their arrest not in being interrogated, but in rehearsing together until they were word perfect (in company with Vyshinsky, the judges and witnesses). It is also necessary to assume that all the accused were such brilliant actors that, in spite of the pressure brought to bear upon them to make them play their parts, they were able to play their parts without one slip and without once being prompted during seven days in such a way as to deceive all those who were present into thinking the play was real." The man quoting this then notes that, "It only remains to be added that the accused knew that the reward for successful acting was death." (J.R. Campbell, [I]Soviet Politicy and Its Critics, p. 263.)

Lucretia

13th February 2013, 21:31

To quote Dudley Collard, a British barrister who spoke up in defense of the Trial testimony: "If the story told by the defendants was untrue, someone must have invented it. Unless one makes the fantastic assumption that the seventeen defendants , instead of conspiring together to overthrow the State, conspired together to write their parts in the intervals between being tortured, someone other than the defendants must have written a seven days' play (to play eight hours a day) and assigned appropriate rôles to the seventeen defendants, the five witnesses, the judges and the Public Prosecutor. It would have taken a Soviet Shakespeare to write such a lifelike drama as was played during those seven days, but no matter. Thereupon the defendants must have spent the period since their arrest not in being interrogated, but in rehearsing together until they were word perfect (in company with Vyshinsky, the judges and witnesses). It is also necessary to assume that all the accused were such brilliant actors that, in spite of the pressure brought to bear upon them to make them play their parts, they were able to play their parts without one slip and without once being prompted during seven days in such a way as to deceive all those who were present into thinking the play was real." The man quoting this then notes that, "It only remains to be added that the accused knew that the reward for successful acting was death." (J.R. Campbell, [I]Soviet Politicy and Its Critics, p. 263.)

Do you even think about this stuff before you accept it, or is it just automatic that if somebody arrives at the conclusion you desire, you give that person's arguments a stamp of approval?

The chunk of text you quote boils down to two basic claims: (1) it would be difficult to fabricate 17 different long stories that corroborate one another -- or at least don't conflict with one another; and (2) the defendants didn't slip up and would therefore had to have been amazing actors.

Both claims are baseless. It is *not* difficult to concoct 17 different stories that are mutually compatible and seem to suggest the same thing (though it is a little more difficult to construct narratives that don't, in their details, contradict established facts outside of the testimony of the other defendants -- and in fact, this is exactly what happened numerous times). The points of convergence, where actors claim they were together or did things together (usually just in pairs, which makes things much easier), are actually quite minimal compared to the personal narratives specific to each of the defendants, independent of the actions of the other defendants, which give far more creative latitude for fabrication. And let's also remember that not everything had to be fabricated. Nobody doubts, for instance, that Stroilov was an engineer who worked in Germany and had contact with German engineers. There is no need to make that up.

And the second claim is equally spurious. It presupposes that every single word of the testimony has to be memorized like a movie script. Anybody ever involved in rehearsal for testimony knows that that's not the way such things work. The focus is on how, in general, to respond to key questions ("When did you read My Life and why?) and on integrating those key questions into a narrative timeline that corresponds to that provided to the other defendants (you met so and so in May and began working with him in June). The idea that the defendants didn't "slip up" assumes that the argument of rehearsed testimony implies some kind of rote memorization from which the defendants didn't deviate. And that's simply not the way these things have ever worked. Rehearsal and coaching involve going over answers that can be expressed in a multitude of ways, as long as the content of those answers is generally consistent with the main points or ideas the people behind the testimony want to convey.

Numerous observers at the trial described how the defendants were dispassionate, mechanical and the like--not exactly the affect one would expect from guilt-ridden people coming cleaning about their betrayals to their motherland.

Ismail

13th February 2013, 22:45

Numerous observers at the trial described how the defendants were dispassionate, mechanical and the likeAnd numerous others reported the opposite such as American Ambassador Joseph E. Davies, American journalist Anna Louise Strong, German author Lion Feutchtwanger, etc.

Again, one is reduced to believing that 30+ defendants in front of foreign observers all made elaborate lies when one single comment could have exposed the entire process as a charade, and that someone like Bukharin who wasn't tortured in the least could give testimony in more or less the same fashion as persons who one supposes endured horrific torture sessions. Or that everything was staged even though you had cases like good ol' Holtzman who, as Trotsky himself remarked, must have recalled "Hotel Bristol" from memories of visiting it, meaning he wasn't acting as a voice recorder for some NKVD official and playing back to the court.

Geiseric

14th February 2013, 05:50

Lucretia

14th February 2013, 08:33

And numerous others reported the opposite such as American Ambassador Joseph E. Davies, American journalist Anna Louise Strong, German author Lion Feutchtwanger, etc.

Again, one is reduced to believing that 30+ defendants in front of foreign observers all made elaborate lies when one single comment could have exposed the entire process as a charade, and that someone like Bukharin who wasn't tortured in the least could give testimony in more or less the same fashion as persons who one supposes endured horrific torture sessions. Or that everything was staged even though you had cases like good ol' Holtzman who, as Trotsky himself remarked, must have recalled "Hotel Bristol" from memories of visiting it, meaning he wasn't acting as a voice recorder for some NKVD official and playing back to the court.

Again, you're attacking a strawman. According to this little fantasy that exists only in the Stalinist rabbit hole, people who believe the show trials were a farce (a) believe that everything that was said was a lie, (b) that everything that was said was equally crucial to upholding the charges leveled by the Soviet government, so that therefore (c) the entire testimony had to be memorized very carefully, lest one deviation from the script reveal a discrepancy and throw the entire credibility of the trial into question.

It seems you completely ignored every single point I made in my last post (except for the one about the defendants' affect, which you then latched onto for diversionary reasons, I presume). I explained very clearly how only certain portions of the testimony, which really isn't that long to begin with, had to line up with the conspiracy narrative in a very general way -- as in, the substance of the statements had to be consistent with the substance of what other defendants had said. The defendants obviously had some latitude in choosing how to convey this substance on the spur of the moment, and obviously not every question or statement related to details that could be checked against the other narratives since they involved details specific to only that defendant. And many of those personalized details were, to repeat, true. This is not even close to the kind of tightrope-walking you're making it out to be, especially considering the weeks and months of pre-trial detention that allowed for extensive preparation if necessary.

But to repeat for the umpteenth time, none of these arguments matter to you. They contradict your pre-ordained conclusion, so like the bible-thumper exposed to a thorough explanation about how there's not enough water on the planet to precipitate a "world flood," you'll just plug your fingers firmly into your ears and blabber on about possible miracles.

Lucretia

14th February 2013, 08:46

Also you're missing the fact that victims families were threatened, and sent to Gulags, even after the defendent admitted he was guilty.

Yes, in the Stalinist rabbit hole, the only method of coercing testimony out of somebody is through physical torture. Didn't you know?

Ismail

14th February 2013, 09:41

It is pretty obvious that the only reason you even claim there's "grains of truth" in the Trials and whatnot is because of the fact that not just Trial testimony, but outside sources make it rather obvious that there was underground opposition and that various aspects of the Trials had a basis in fact, such as, for example, the letters Radek said he received from Trotsky, which have been confirmed through Trotsky's archives at Harvard.

Had these not existed, you would have probably held that the entire thing was a "frame-up," and completely concurred with Trotsky who denied even an effort to organize opposition in the USSR after his expulsion from it.

But to repeat for the umpteenth time, none of these arguments matter to you. They contradict your pre-ordained conclusion, so like the bible-thumper exposed to a thorough explanation about how there's not enough water on the planet to precipitate a "world flood," you'll just plug your fingers firmly into your ears and blabber on about possible miracles.Clearly one should look to such paragons of open-mindedness as the Soviet revisionists and Maoists who attack the Trials and Stalin in general for their own ulterior motives, whether it be the former for Stalin allegedly "violating socialist legality," or the latter for Stalin supposedly employing "police methods."

Geiseric

14th February 2013, 15:02

It is pretty obvious that the only reason you even claim there's "grains of truth" in the Trials and whatnot is because of the fact that not just Trial testimony, but outside sources make it rather obvious that there was underground opposition and that various aspects of the Trials had a basis in fact, such as, for example, the letters Radek said he received from Trotsky, which have been confirmed through Trotsky's archives at Harvard.

Had these not existed, you would have probably held that the entire thing was a "frame-up," and completely concurred with Trotsky who denied even an effort to organize opposition in the USSR after his expulsion from it.

Clearly one should look to such paragons of open-mindedness as the Soviet revisionists and Maoists who attack the Trials and Stalin in general for their own ulterior motives, whether it be the former for Stalin allegedly "violating socialist legality," or the latter for Stalin supposedly employing "police methods."

Oh so sending letters to people equates with treason now? By whose right did the fSU's state kick Trotsky out anyways? There wasn't any terrorism pushed for by Trotsky, if he wanted to he could of used the red army in the 1920s to put a bullet in Stalin's and Yezhov's head, as well as the rest of the sick fucks in charge of the NKVD, and the state bureaucracy, but he didn't, perhaps regrettably.

Lev Bronsteinovich

15th February 2013, 02:58

Oh so sending letters to people equates with treason now? By whose right did the fSU's state kick Trotsky out anyways? There wasn't any terrorism pushed for by Trotsky, if he wanted to he could of used the red army in the 1920s to put a bullet in Stalin's and Yezhov's head, as well as the rest of the sick fucks in charge of the NKVD, and the state bureaucracy, but he didn't, perhaps regrettably.

Well, sure. But Ismail and other hardcore Stalinists have no conception of political principles. They have been steeped in the sewage that is Stalinism -- it's all about secret conspiracies, plots and such. Trotsky could have probably used the Red Army against the Triumvirate, but he would never have considered it -- he considered himself a disciplined member of the RCP -- he would fight to change the party, not simply use brute force to take over. Stalin never gave a shit about such niceties. His program for people that opposed him was first, political destruction, and later murder. Trotsky did call for regime change in the USSR, political revolution. This meant retaining the property relations and the state, just getting rid of the Stalinist "epigones." He DEFENDED the USSR over and over and over and over. He never abandoned this, even when there was intense political pressure to do so. He would not form unprincipled blocs -- he refused on numerous occasions to form political blocs with Bukharin and his international followers -- these are not actions of a murderous oppositionist waiting for any chance to bring down Stalin on any terms. This is impossible for Stalinists to believe, even though it is immensely well documented. Because Stalinists are taught that you should kill your grandmother if she does not take up your political positions with enough enthusiasm. And it is okay to form a political alliance with anyone to further your narrow bureaucratic aims (e.g., Bukharin, Chaing Kai Shek, Hitler). BTW, the idea that Stephen Cohen thought the purge trials were legit is either stupid, or immensely cynical (Ismail, if you have the chutzpah to say that you never actually said that, well I hope you get to experience some of the treatment the LO members exiled to Siberia got).

If Trotsky wanted to go over into Imperialism's camp, they would have welcomed him. He would have written brilliantly about the failure of the Russian Revolution and about the failure of communism. HE NEVER DID. He lost his life fighting for real communism -- Killed by a fucking agent of Stalin in Mexico. Trotsky had lots of options. Stalin had none. Had he lost power in the USSR, he would have spent the rest of his days in prison cell, if whomever took power actually allowed him to live. Maybe that's why he clung to power like a doberman on a T-bone.

Ismail

15th February 2013, 13:32

BTW, the idea that Stephen Cohen thought the purge trials were legit is either stupid, or immensely cynical (Ismail, if you have the chutzpah to say that you never actually said that, well I hope you get to experience some of the treatment the LO members exiled to Siberia got).I said that Cohen admitted Bukharin wasn't tortured while in prison. I don't know where you get "Cohen thinks the Moscow Trials were legit" from since he very obviously doesn't, and in fact Furr wrote an article on Cohen's biography noting the man's false accounts of the Purges and Bukharin's activities: http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/Furr.pdf

As for your claim that Trotsky was "principled" and would not form blocs, not only did he form a bloc with Zinoviev (whose attacks on Trotsky up until that point had actually been harsher than Stalin's), but in exile he worked to form a left-right bloc. This is confirmed by his own archives at Harvard, see: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1521611&postcount=7

This doesn't mean he thought Bukharin was a wonderful beacon of freedom and that both men would harmoniously rule as co-dictators of the USSR, and in fact during the Trials both sides ("left," right) occasionally took pot-shots at one-another.

If Trotsky wanted to go over into Imperialism's camp, they would have welcomed him.They did welcome him regardless of his public posturing. From being praised by LIFE magazine (which published excerpts of his Stalin biography and even used him as a sort of advertisement for the magazine, showing photographs of him reading it) to the FBI approaching him for information. See: http://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n2/trotsky.htm

Then there was the composition of the Dewey Commission, filled to the brim with bourgeois liberals and dubious "socialists" who would shed even that label before long. Again, on the makeup of this commission see IsItJustMe's two posts in this thread: http://www.revleft.com/vb/fewer-outsiders-better-t124508/index.html

Then there was the fact that Trotskyist attacks on the USSR were favored by reaction.

"A second, very serious blow to Mexico's left came when Trotsky and his Mexican followers disseminated the rumor that communists and Nazis had formed a coalition in Mexico to prepare a coup against the Cárdenas administration in the context of the approaching presidential elections. This rumor had first emerged in the U.S. Congress's Dies Investigative Committee, and it gained widespread popular attention on October 2, 1939, through a Ultimas Noticias newspaper article with the title 'Ofensiva Contra los Stali-Nazis.' It created a pro-Allied propaganda monster that, in the end, almost convinced Allied governments that its own propaganda were fact. In November 1939, the artist and sometimes Communist party member Diego Rivera reinforced existing fears when he stated that Mexico was already in the hands of the 'Communazis.' Right away, conservative Mexican anticommunist senators of Mexico's Congress jumped on Rivera's bandwagon and demanded the dissolution of the Mexican Communist Party and the denunciation of its members as traitors to the country. Against the background of the Soviet invasion of Finland, they argued 'that taking orders from Stalin and to agitate in such a manner as to be subversive in character and to undermine the framework of Mexican Governmental procedure' was un-Mexican!

The debate received new fuel on April 13, 1940, this time during the German invasions of the Benelux countries and France. Again, Ultimas Noticias published an article about 'outstanding members of the Comintern in Mexico.' Quoting Diego Rivera, a German exile, and other confidential agents as sources, the article claimed that the Comintern's goal in Mexico was to foment a civil war through agitation, with the intention of distracting U.S. attention from Europe and, subsequently, preventing the United States from entering the European conflict. Most importantly, it claimed again that Russian and German agents were working together to start a revolt in Mexico."
(Schuler, Friedrich. Mexico between Hitler and Roosevelt: Mexican Foreign Relations in the Age of Lázaro Cárdenas, 1934-1940. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 1998. p. 144.)

Even back in 1926-27 Mensheviks, Cadets and other reactionaries praised the Trotskyists. Thus prominent "left-wing" Menshevik Dan declared in Sotsialistichesky vestnik that, "By its criticism of the existing system, which repeats the Social-Democratic criticism almost word for word, the Bolshevik opposition is preparing the people's minds . . . for the acceptance of the propositions of the Social-Democratic platform." He further added that it was "fostering not only in the mist of the workers' masses, but also in the midst of Communist workers, the shoots of the ideas and feelings which, given the right approach, could very well yield Social-Democratic fruits." (quoted in The Bolshevik Party's Struggle Against Trotskism in the Post-October Period, pp. 227-228.)

He would have written brilliantly about the failure of the Russian Revolution and about the failure of communism. HE NEVER DID.The SPD didn't formally renounce Marxism until the 50's and Kim Jong Un would gladly reply that he is a Marxist if asked. What's your point? Trotsky's words already gave enough "evidence" of the "dictatorial" nature of the Soviet system, of how "evil" Stalin was, etc. Parading about "Lenin's would-be successor" was a lot more effective than showing off yet another embittered liberal or ex-"leftist." He spoke of how the Soviet economy was continuously in danger throughout the 1920's-30's, and was confident that without the downfall of the "Stalinist bureaucracy" the USSR would lose a war with Nazi Germany, hence it would "naturally" be deposed by the working-class during this war. The whole Opposition continuously prophesied doom, even including claims that kulaks were taking over the Party (until collectivization occurred, whereupon Trotsky called for reversing collectivization while duly "restricting" the returning kulak class.)

Lucretia

16th February 2013, 02:33

I said that Cohen admitted Bukharin wasn't tortured while in prison. I don't know where you get "Cohen thinks the Moscow Trials were legit" from since he very obviously doesn't, and in fact Furr wrote an article on Cohen's biography noting the man's false accounts of the Purges and Bukharin's activities: http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/Furr.pdf

As for your claim that Trotsky was "principled" and would not form blocs, not only did he form a bloc with Zinoviev (whose attacks on Trotsky up until that point had actually been harsher than Stalin's), but in exile he worked to form a left-right bloc. This is confirmed by his own archives at Harvard, see: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1521611&postcount=7

This doesn't mean he thought Bukharin was a wonderful beacon of freedom and that both men would harmoniously rule as co-dictators of the USSR, and in fact during the Trials both sides ("left," right) occasionally took pot-shots at one-another.

They did welcome him regardless of his public posturing. From being praised by LIFE magazine (which published excerpts of his Stalin biography and even used him as a sort of advertisement for the magazine, showing photographs of him reading it) to the FBI approaching him for information. See: http://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n2/trotsky.htm

Then there was the composition of the Dewey Commission, filled to the brim with bourgeois liberals and dubious "socialists" who would shed even that label before long. Again, on the makeup of this commission see IsItJustMe's two posts in this thread: http://www.revleft.com/vb/fewer-outsiders-better-t124508/index.html

Then there was the fact that Trotskyist attacks on the USSR were favored by reaction.

"A second, very serious blow to Mexico's left came when Trotsky and his Mexican followers disseminated the rumor that communists and Nazis had formed a coalition in Mexico to prepare a coup against the Cárdenas administration in the context of the approaching presidential elections. This rumor had first emerged in the U.S. Congress's Dies Investigative Committee, and it gained widespread popular attention on October 2, 1939, through a Ultimas Noticias newspaper article with the title 'Ofensiva Contra los Stali-Nazis.' It created a pro-Allied propaganda monster that, in the end, almost convinced Allied governments that its own propaganda were fact. In November 1939, the artist and sometimes Communist party member Diego Rivera reinforced existing fears when he stated that Mexico was already in the hands of the 'Communazis.' Right away, conservative Mexican anticommunist senators of Mexico's Congress jumped on Rivera's bandwagon and demanded the dissolution of the Mexican Communist Party and the denunciation of its members as traitors to the country. Against the background of the Soviet invasion of Finland, they argued 'that taking orders from Stalin and to agitate in such a manner as to be subversive in character and to undermine the framework of Mexican Governmental procedure' was un-Mexican!

The debate received new fuel on April 13, 1940, this time during the German invasions of the Benelux countries and France. Again, Ultimas Noticias published an article about 'outstanding members of the Comintern in Mexico.' Quoting Diego Rivera, a German exile, and other confidential agents as sources, the article claimed that the Comintern's goal in Mexico was to foment a civil war through agitation, with the intention of distracting U.S. attention from Europe and, subsequently, preventing the United States from entering the European conflict. Most importantly, it claimed again that Russian and German agents were working together to start a revolt in Mexico."
(Schuler, Friedrich. Mexico between Hitler and Roosevelt: Mexican Foreign Relations in the Age of Lázaro Cárdenas, 1934-1940. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 1998. p. 144.)

Even back in 1926-27 Mensheviks, Cadets and other reactionaries praised the Trotskyists. Thus prominent "left-wing" Menshevik Dan declared in Sotsialistichesky vestnik that, "By its criticism of the existing system, which repeats the Social-Democratic criticism almost word for word, the Bolshevik opposition is preparing the people's minds . . . for the acceptance of the propositions of the Social-Democratic platform." He further added that it was "fostering not only in the mist of the workers' masses, but also in the midst of Communist workers, the shoots of the ideas and feelings which, given the right approach, could very well yield Social-Democratic fruits." (quoted in The Bolshevik Party's Struggle Against Trotskism in the Post-October Period, pp. 227-228.)

The SPD didn't formally renounce Marxism until the 50's and Kim Jong Un would gladly reply that he is a Marxist if asked. What's your point? Trotsky's words already gave enough "evidence" of the "dictatorial" nature of the Soviet system, of how "evil" Stalin was, etc. Parading about "Lenin's would-be successor" was a lot more effective than showing off yet another embittered liberal or ex-"leftist." He spoke of how the Soviet economy was continuously in danger throughout the 1920's-30's, and was confident that without the downfall of the "Stalinist bureaucracy" the USSR would lose a war with Nazi Germany, hence it would "naturally" be deposed by the working-class during this war. The whole Opposition continuously prophesied doom, even including claims that kulaks were taking over the Party (until collectivization occurred, whereupon Trotsky called for reversing collectivization while duly "restricting" the returning kulak class.)

Wow. You've really run this thread straight into the gutter. Your latest post is just stupid guilt by association. It just doesn't seem to cross your mind that different groups might oppose Stalin for completely different sets of reasons, some really good and some quite wretched. The fact that some of these different groups might praise Trotsky for opposing Stalin, believing that doing so might advance their own long-term political agenda does not prove that Trotsky shared their agendas or was even willing to reciprocate by working with just anybody who opposed Stalin.

I mean, by your "Mensheviks praising Trotsky" logic, the U.S. government was working with Hoxha and Ceausescu because they all condemned the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. And Hoxha and Ceausescu represented "forces of reaction" because the American media commended them for their opposition.

Arguments don't get much slimier than this. It's a perfect illustration that what Lev stated above about Stalinists' lack of political principles carries with it a total disregard for intellectual principles as well. And the saddest part is that you're so mired in this unprincipled win-at-all-costs quasi-nationalist/cultist mindset that I don't think you even see anything abnormal or wrong with it.

Ismail

16th February 2013, 14:29

There are a number of significant differences at work here. Trotsky's faction, as Stalin pointed out, developed into a social-democratic deviation within the Party. It called for the freedom of factions and other liberal, anti-Leninist measures, adopted an opportunistic domestic and foreign policy course that amounted to submission to imperialism when stripped of its "leftist" verbiage, and was thus praised by the Menshevik press not because it happened to oppose the Party's leadership, but because its views were practically the same. Thus Dallin in 1929 declared that "Trotsky's analysis is very close to our own" while Shifrin, another Menshevik, stated that Trotsky had gone through "great positive evolution" to the point that a new trend in "revolutionary social democracy" was supposedly being born. (From the Other Shore: Russian Social Democracy after 1921, p. 229.)

Likewise the Titoites also found common ground with reaction.

"The most interesting and striking person we dined with [during a visit to New York in 1949-50] was Canadian Minister of External Affairs Lester Pearson. In the UN circles he was considered one of the most intelligent of Western diplomats—and rightly so. Half in jest, he remarked, 'I don't suppose I'll ever be a Communist, but if I were, I'd be a Yugoslav Communist!' Regarding the Soviet Union, he said: 'The Russians have the atom bomb now, but we Westerners are stronger. We could occupy them, but it would demand enormous sacrifice and who'd know what to do with them? They're such awful nationalists, they'd never simmer down.'"
(Djilas, Milovan. Rise and Fall. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1985. p. 264.)

"A representative Labour delegation, headed by Morgan Phillips and Hugh Seton-Watson, had spent some time in Yugoslavia in 1950, holding candid talks with our leadership. These talks, which I conducted in large measure, had done much to bring us closer. Official relations with the Labour government also grew more open and cordial. Thus the British Labourites, along with other European socialists, provided a bridge toward collaboration with the West, while also freeing us from our ideological prejudice that only Communists truly represent the working class and socialism."
(Ibid. p. 273.)

"Filled with curiosity and joyous anticipation, we went to see Churchill at his London house, an establishment no larger or more luxurious than the average middle-class villa at Dedinje—the type that our top Yugoslav officials acquired after the war. We found him in his bedroom, in bed. He begged our pardon for receiving us thus and at once invited us to dinner. We had a prior engagement for dinner with the British government, and so had to decline, with genuine regret. Churchill then said, 'I have a feeling that you and we are on the same side of the barricade.' We confirmed his feeling, whereupon he inquired with delight, 'And how is my old friend Tito?'"
(Ibid. p. 275.)

You can find nothing at all similar in the case of Hoxha, who noted that it was precisely the Soviet revisionists' deviation from the path of Lenin and Stalin which led to liberalization, the restoration of capitalism, and the dictatorship of the new bourgeoisie in the USSR with its very own imperialist foreign policy. Various statesmen in the USA, UK, etc. praised Khrushchev for his "realism," just as they praised Brezhnev in the "détente" period for "working to end the Cold War."

Hoxha noted that, "The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Stalinists, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is their aim. On the contrary, however, they glorify us with this epithet: it is an honour for us to be Stalinists, because, since we were Stalinists, the enemy could not conquer us, and never will conquer us so long as we remain Stalinists." (Selected Works Vol. IV, pp. 234-235.)

Whereas Trotsky worked with the FBI, vowed to testify on the Dies Committee, wrote for the Western presses and became an "authority" for the bourgeoisie on the USSR during his lifetime, and whereas Tito opened up his country to US imperialism, preached a form of "market socialism," and took imperialist lines on the Korean War and other subjects, there was no such analogous situations with Hoxha and Socialist Albania. Both the USA (which broke off diplomatic relations in 1946) and the USSR (broke them off in 1961) offered to restore relations with the Albanians in the 70's, the Albanian government refused.

Also for the record Ceaușescu did collaborate with US imperialism, which viewed him like Tito as a "good communist" with a "maverick" foreign policy that allowed for Romania to have "most favored" trade status with the USA and to receive American Presidents on its soil. He was on friendly terms with both Tito and the similarly "non-aligned" Kim Il Sung. To quote Hoxha once more, "Mao received Ceausescu. Hsinhua reported only that he said to him: 'Rumanian comrades, we should unite to bring down imperialism'. As if Ceausescu and company are to bring down imperialism!! If the world waits for the Ceausescus to do such a thing, imperialism will live for tens of thousands of years. It is the proletariat and the peoples that fight imperialism." (Reflections on China Vol. I, p. 536.)

Lucretia

16th February 2013, 17:21

barbelo

16th February 2013, 18:19

"Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform"

Oh my god, I need to read this title again, because I don't believe it.
What comes now, gulags as luxury houses in Siberia?

Ismail

16th February 2013, 19:37

"Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform"

Oh my god, I need to read this title again, because I don't believe it.Perhaps you should try reading it. The Great Purges had an interesting aspect in that they coincided with efforts towards democratization through the "Stalin Constitution," voting via secret ballot within the Party, and other anti-bureaucratic measures.

So instead of addressing my argument, you'll just engage in more obscurantist quote-mining that regurgitates the exact same "point" you were making your previous post.Your point was imbecilic and I noted as such. You are comparing liberal and nationalist attacks on "Stalinism" (e.g. Trotsky's claim that the USSR should have allowed a multi-party system, Ceaușescu's claim that Stalin "unjustly" annexed Bessarabia) which were backed in the bourgeois West, with Marxist-Leninist attacks on revisionism which were denounced in the bourgeois West for their "dogmatism," "fanaticism," and indeed "Stalinism."

You brought up Czechoslovakia. The Americans and Romanians denounced the invasion because they wanted to encourage the process of "different roads to socialism," of "combating dogmatism," or ensuring "socialist humanism," etc. The Albanians meanwhile noted that Dubček and Co. had been supported by the Soviet revisionists so long as they remained within their orbit, and that the rise of Dubček, as with the rise of Nagy in 1956, could be traced to the 20th Party Congress whose doctrines the Soviet revisionists, Romanian (and all other Eastern European) revisionists, and international imperialism upheld. The Romanians (who were merely more audacious than the other East European satellites) wanted to link up with the West and saw the Soviet invasion as a retrograde trend in this process. The Albanians instead saw that the counter-revolutionary process heralded by the 20th Party Congress was producing contradictions within the revisionist sphere between those loyal and subservient to Soviet social-imperialism and those who sought deals with or subservience to American imperialism.

It is therefore quite obvious that no basis exists to link the Albanian denunciation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia with the Romanian condemnation, much less with the American condemnation.

Lucretia

16th February 2013, 20:12

Your point was imbecilic and I noted as such. You are comparing liberal and nationalist attacks on "Stalinism" (e.g. Trotsky's claim that the USSR should have allowed a multi-party system, Ceaușescu's claim that Stalin "unjustly" annexed Bessarabia) which were backed in the bourgeois West, with Marxist-Leninist attacks on revisionism which were denounced in the bourgeois West for their "dogmatism," "fanaticism," and indeed "Stalinism."

You brought up Czechoslovakia. The Americans and Romanians denounced the invasion because they wanted to encourage the process of "different roads to socialism," of "combating dogmatism," or ensuring "socialist humanism," etc. The Albanians meanwhile noted that Dubček and Co. had been supported by the Soviet revisionists so long as they remained within their orbit, and that the rise of Dubček, as with the rise of Nagy in 1956, could be traced to the 20th Party Congress whose doctrines the Soviet revisionists, Romanian (and all other Eastern European) revisionists, and international imperialism upheld. The Romanians (who were merely more audacious than the other East European satellites) wanted to link up with the West and saw the Soviet invasion as a retrograde trend in this process. The Albanians instead saw that the counter-revolutionary process heralded by the 20th Party Congress was producing contradictions within the revisionist sphere between those loyal and subservient to Soviet social-imperialism and those who sought deals with or subservience to American imperialism.

It is therefore quite obvious that no basis exists to link the Albanian denunciation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia with the Romanian condemnation, much less with the American condemnation.

You obviously have no idea what my point is. You keep bringing up concrete differences between the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, why different parties had the views they did about that situation, and Trotsky's opposition to Stalinism, and why different parties felt the way they did. But my point was that despite these concrete differences, if you were consistent in applying your logic of condemning Trotsky because of who might or might not have supported him for their own non-Trotskyist reasons, you would have to condemn Hoxha because the bourgeois Western media lauded his stance against Moscow in 1968. So which is it Ismail? Do we judge political positions by their associations, by who supports the position for their own unrelated reasons, or don't we? Is this one of your principles or isn't it? If it is, you had better be prepared to accept as "reactionary" all sorts of foreign policy positions your beloved Enver Hoxha embarked upon, just because the US government supported those positions for its own unrelated purposes.

Because it's the exact same logical principle I am applying both scenarios, as concretely different as they obviously are. The only difference between the two is that you like the conclusion that results from applying that principle in one analysis, but not in the other. So you just jettison the principle altogether when it doesn't suit your purpose. Kinda like how torture authorized by Stalin can be condoned but not that authorized by Obama. You don't possess principles of any kind, and just invent principles on the spur of the moment to force your desired concrete conclusion, which just happens to be the deification of your favorite Stalinist personalities. You therefore aren't able to process this very simple argument about consistently applying principles of logic. As I said, it's not that you're deliberately being misleading. It's that principled thinking is so foreign to you that it doesn't register at all. Sad. Just sad.