Lies Concerning the USSR

[elijahcraig]

Article Refuting Lies About the USSR (http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Embassy/7213/lies.html)

I thought I'd go ahead and post this, various people have been speaking from an uninformed Trotskyist position, or have been asking questions about Stalin/Trotsky relationship, etc.

A very interesting article from a good website.

[Invader Zim]

Yes weve all read that bullshit before, whats this one from? The Maoist international movment? Or just some kid who thinks he knows better than most of the best historians and atrositologists?

propaganda, which is a waste of my time.

[gaf]

sorry i just could't resist
"The Kronstadt experience," as Berkman argues, "proves once more that government, the State -- whatever its name or form -- is ever the mortal enemy of liberty and popular self-determination. The state has no soul, no principles. It has but one aim -- to secure power and hold it, at any cost. That is the political lesson of Kronstadt.
"http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secH7.html
that's a link for you if you're curious.because you good in quote,
i won't answer this one so ciao. and open your mind(and your eyes)you we'll feel less alone.

[Salvador Allende]

That's a very good article Elijah Craig. Thank you.

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2004, 02:48 PM
Yes weve all read that bullshit before, whats this one from? The Maoist international movment? Or just some kid who thinks he knows better than most of the best historians and atrositologists?

propaganda, which is a waste of my time.
So, you think that The Guardian was lying when they exposed Conquest, or, that a pamphlet distributed to masses of people was not actually written by Conquest.

Did Hearst get his information from the Nazis or not? - and after the war didthe Americans let many Nazis move to South America in exchange for information on the USSR?

The French Historical reviews is not produced by Children. And, the individual who compiled some of the information on Conquest was not a Child.

[Louis Pio]

The author of the article is a member of a small sect from Sweden. Which are connected to other small sects around the world. None of them with any representation in the workers movement and mostly consisting of petty bourgios elements.

That of course doesn't mean that he can't be right in his points. The Gulag numbers from the bourgios media is greatly exagerated, no doubt about that.
The pathetic thing is just he uses these lies as an excuse for the purges without looking at them indebt.

From the article:
Our second example, that of the counter-revolutionaries convicted in the 1936-38 Trials which followed the purges of party, army and state apparatus, has its roots in the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia. Millions of people participated in the victorious struggle against the Tsar and the Russian bourgeoisie, and many of these joined the Russian Communist Party. Among all these people there were, unfortunately, some who entered the party for reasons other than fighting for the proletariat and for socialism.

This is indeed a valid point.The point is just that he fails to look at who brought these elements forward and placed them in for example the GPU so they could conduct the purges. The GPU quickly became a state within the state. Nomatter what it is clear that the old guard of bolshevics who joined long before that was purged. A well known example is the old leader of the revolutionary kronstadt sailors. Or the old cc.

[1949]

Nomatter what it is clear that the old guard of bolshevics who joined long before that was purged. A well known example is the old leader of the revolutionary kronstadt sailors. Or the old cc.

From "The Moscow Trial Was Fair" (http://www.geocities.com/redcomrades/mo-trial.html), article two:

The most serious statements which have appeared in the Press, and the most misleading, are: (a) that Stalin now stands alone, having "murdered" all the "Bolshevik Old Guard"; (b) that the trial was a "frame-up" because the accused all confessed their guilt; and © that this trial detracts from the significance of the new Draft Constitution.

If we just examine the present leadership in the Bolshevik Party, and the positions held by the leading personalities, we find that practically all are Bolsheviks of over thirty years standing. For nearly twenty years, therefore, they worked with Lenin. Just consider these:

Kalinin, President of the U.S.S.R. since 1922, was originally a metal worker. He joined the Party in 1898 (even before it bore the name of "Bolshevik"), and has been a member of the Central Committee of the Party since 1919. Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, has been a member of the Party since 1906, was a member of the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee in 1919, and Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for the years following 1920, and one of Lenin’s closest collaborators. Ordjonikidze, Commissar for Heavy Industry, has been a member of the Party since 1903, was elected to the Central Committee in 1912, and played an active part in the leadership of the Revolution in the Caucasus. Voroshilov, Commissar of Defence, was a worker who joined the Party in 1903, played an outstanding part in the Civil War, and was then elected to the Central Committee of the Party. Kaganovitch was a leather-goods worker, who joined the Party in 1911.

So that the youngest of these leaders had worked under Lenin’s leadership for at least ten years, and most of them for twenty years, and have now been thirty years in the Party. So it is fair to say that Stalin remains alone, and the "old guard" has been killed off? Ah, but it may be argued that only those now remain in power who were in minor positions when Lenin was alive.

So let us look at two individuals who, up to 1917, worked in close contact with Lenin all the time. People who had leading positions. Let us examine the records of these persons. In 1917, when the Party was preparing the armed uprising, the two intellectuals, Kamenev and Zinoviev, opposed this uprising in a meeting of the Central Committee. When defeated, they carried their opposition into the public Press---and gave away the Bolsheviks’ plans to the government. At that time Lenin wrote: "I should consider it disgraceful on my part if, on account of my former close relations with these former comrades, I were not to condemn them. I declare outright that I do not consider either of them comrades any longer and that I will fight with all my might, both in the Central Committee and at the Congress, to secure the expulsion of both of them from the Party. … Let Messrs. Zinoviev and Kamenev found their own party from the dozens of disoriented people. … The workers will not join such a party …"

So we find that two intellectuals, who were having "former close relations" with Lenin before October, 1917, and who are now hailed from "Daily Mail" to "Daily Herald" as the "Bolshevik Old Guard," were condemned by Lenin for their treachery at one of the most serious moments of the Revolution, and he tried to get them expelled from the Party. On the other hand, the Bolsheviks who are working in closest collaboration with Stalin to-day are working men, who have been in the Party for from 20 to 30 years, and who rose to power as a result of their activities in the Civil War, after Zinoviev and Kamenev had already discredited themselves.

And as for Trotsky, there is no claim that this man was with Lenin for years before the Revolution. Actually, he called Lenin the "leader of the reactionary wing of the Party" in 1903, and in 1917 he said that the "Bolsheviks had de-Bolshevised themselves" and that "Bolshevik sectarianism" was an "obstacle to unity." And to-day, in a recent interview with the "News Chronicle," he refers to the "new Conservatism" of the Soviet leadership---a direct repetition of his attack on Lenin as far back as 1903.

But even when inside the Party, between July, 1917---when it was clear that only the Bolsheviks could lead the masses to success---until his expulsion, Trotsky opposed Lenin, who was supported throughout by Stalin, on one issue after another. And in the leadership of the Red Army, for which Trotsky became famous, there were continual conflicts with the Party leadership and with Lenin and Stalin. But while Trotsky won fame by his speeches, Stalin was sent to one critical front after another as the representative of the Central Committee, and was determining policy by short and concise telegrams to Lenin.

And when Lenin died, Trotsky buried all his old quarrels with Lenin. No longer did he refer to his earlier accusations that the Bolsheviks had been "bureaucratic" and "reactionary" under Lenin, but introduced his attacks now on the "Stalinist bureaucracy," accusing Stalin of breaking with the policy of Lenin.

It is when the facts are seen in this light that the real position of Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, to mention only three of them, can be understood. They are all three discredited ex-leaders, who have lost the confidence of the masses, and therefore could never be elected back to the leading positions in the Party or the State. They are the Ramsay MacDonalds and the Snowdens and the Thomases of the Russian working-class movement.

[LuZhiming]

Funny how an article with only one source, with no footnotes, no bibliography, can catch the attention of those so desperate to provide a justification for the actions of their favorite mass murderers. Try harder.

[1949]

Are you referring to Elijah's article or my article, or both?

[LuZhiming]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2004, 06:34 PM
Are you referring to Elijah's article or my article, or both?
Sorry, Elijah's, I haven't even read yours yet.