Stalin and Zionism - By A. Kramer in Israel

[Kez]

Stalin and Zionism
By A. Kramer in Israel
On February 11, 1945 in Yalta president Roosevelt asked Stalin, what he thought of Zionism. The answer he got shocked the translator Charles Bolen who had read Stalin's work on "Marxism and national question": "In principle I support Zionism, but there are difficulties with solving the Jewish question. Our experiment in Birobidzan (1) failed, because the Jews prefer to live in cities".

It is a well-known fact that Stalin personally did not like Jews. He also detested the British, the Chechens and several other nationalities. He had a narrow Russian nationalist chauvinist outlook. He was very far removed from the internationalism that was characteristic of Lenin and the Bolshevik party before the party succumbed to the Stalinist degeneration. While he definitely had these traits he also liked to cosy up to different petit-bourgeois nationalist movements in different countries.

Towards the end of the 1920s he had developed a strong relationship with Chang Kai Shek's Kuomintang. In spite of this "friendship" that cosy relationship ended with the massacre of the Chinese communists in Nanking.

Later he was to push the Spanish Communists into an alliance with the so-called "progressive wing" of the Spanish bourgeoisie in the 1930s. This was to lead to the defeat of the Spanish revolution. NKVD agents (the then KGB, or Russian intelligence services) were actively involved in such manoeuvres

During the Second World War Stalin formed an alliance with the Anglo-American bourgeoisie. Part of this was an agreement that was to lead to the liquidation of the Comintern (the Communist International). In Greece it led to the open betrayal of the Greek Communists who were left to be massacred by the British forces after the war.

All these "alliances" ended in big disappoints for "comrade" Stalin and what was even worse, they led to a large number of victims among the workers in the countries where this false policy was applied. However, there are people who never learn, and Stalin was one of these. The Zionist movement thus became the next adventure that Stalin steeped himself in. In the period immediately after the Second World War the Zionists were in conflict with the British masters of Palestine and were looking around for new friends.

We must point out that Joseph Vissarionovich (Stalin) had had some contacts with the Zionists in the past. The Russian Zionist activist Dan Pines wrote in his memoirs that he had visited Stalin when the latter was Commissar for Nationalities in the mid 1920s and got his support for his Zionist activities in Russia.

This position was in total contradiction to official communist policy. It flew in the face of all those Comintern decisions and also of the policy of the Jewish section of the Comintern that had declared Zionism as a dangerously reactionary movement.

In 1920 the Second Congress of the Comintern had issued a statement on the colonial and national question, in which we can read the following: "A glaring example of the deception of the working people of oppressed nations by the united forces of imperialism of the Entente and the bourgeoisie of these nations is the Palestinian adventure that is being put forward by the Zionists (and Zionism in general, which, in claiming to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, in practice is advocating the expulsion of the Arab working people from Palestine, where the Jewish workers constitute only an insignificant minority, a role that is exploited by Britain.)" (2) But Stalin completely ignored the genuine traditions of the Bolshevik Party and the Communist International (when it was led by Lenin and Trotsky). A sympathy for Zionism was typical of the "right Bolsheviks". Another supporter of Zionism was Felix Dzerzinsky, the head of the GPU, who was also a "right Bolshevik".

However, in line with the ultra-left turn of the Stalinists in the late 1920s, when most of Bolshevik oppositionist leaders were in prison, this sympathy towards Zionism was suddenly suppressed and it was outlawed in Soviet Russia. In spite of this, criticism of Zionism was never strong and systematic in the 1930s. In fact not all relations were bad between Zionism and Stalinism.

However, after having had their hopes raised about the "positive" aspects of Zionism, by the late 1920s many left wing Zionists had been disappointed by their experiences in Palestine and they returned to the USSR. The majority of these people were later executed in 1937.

Others understood that there was no way back from the "Zionist paradise". In the late 1930s the official position on Zionism in the USSR also began to change to a more favourable one. In the huge official Soviet Encyclopedia published in those times we find a positive attitude towards Zionism. It said that Jewish migration to Palestine had become a "progressive factor" because many of the immigrants stood on the left and were also workers and these could be used against the pro-British Arab sheikhs!

At the beginning of 1947 a very strange coalition had come into being over the Palestinian question – the USA, the USSR and the Zionists. They all supported the partition of Palestine. Of course each one of these had their own specific interests. The USA wanted to push out the old British colonial lion and replace him in the oil rich and strategically important Middle East. As for Stalin, he wanted to use the Jews in Palestine against British imperialism, and to establish a point of support for the Soviet bureaucracy in the Middle East. We also know what Ben-Gurion and his gang wanted – a "Great Israel" on both sides of the Jordan or at least encompassing the Sinai peninsula.

We could ask ourselves the question as to whether Stalin had any inkling of a Marxist understanding when he supported Zionism? The answer is, of course, that he did not. His approach was all reduced to playing the old game between Russian and British imperialism for control of this region. Stalin didn't support any drastic social changes in Palestine and thus a bloody conflict to divide Palestine was absolutely predictable.

The only solution would have been a united Socialist Palestine for both Jews and Arabs as part of a Socialist Federation of the Middle East, but this was a closed book for Stalin. Even worse than this was the fact that the Soviet authorities gave a "green light" for supplying Israel with weapons. Through their puppet regime in Czechoslovakia arms were indeed sent to Israel, and at the same time "communists" were encouraged to serve in the Israeli armed forces, those same forces that committed terrible crimes against the Arabs workers and peasants. The "Great Leader" of course had hoped to became a patron of the future Jewish state, and to achieve a so-called "Finlandisation" and thus to make Israel a capitalist ally of the Soviet Union.

The most ardent exponent of this line was Vacheslav Molotov, the man that was in charge of the Soviet foreign office between 1939 and 1949. He was the one who put his signature to the infamous Stalin-Hitler pact together with Ribbentrop in 1939. He was absolutely convinced that the USSR should abandon its policy of supporting the Arab communists because he regarded them as being powerless and that it should shift its support to the Zionists as he believed these were in a position to cut out a large chunk from the British Empire. Experts from the Middle East subdivision of the international department of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party had criticised this perspective, but nobody at the top of the Soviet regime would listen to them, and the head of this subdivision, Doctor of History, Peter Vladimirovich Milogradov, who had criticised Molotov's position, was consequently replaced.

But Stalin and Molotov had made a serious miscalculation. The Israeli bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy of the emerging Israeli state had always maintained deep economic and political links with the West and in particular with the USA. Golda Meir said at that time: "We cannot buy Soviet weapons with money that we have received from American Jews". Thus the Israeli ruling class cynically exploited Soviet help to their own advantage when they were setting up their state, but after the so-called "War of Independence" was over they began to develop closer relations with the West.

This end to the "friendship" between the USSR and the Zionists was easily predictable. The academic Ivan Michailovich Maisky, the soviet ambassador in London between 1934 and 1943 visited Palestine in 1943 on his way home. He met the Zionist leaders, and from the results of this meeting he drafted a report for the Soviet Foreign Minister, Molotov, in which he wrote the following:

"They are a very nice people, they have all completed their education in Russian colleges or gymnasiums. We spoke about classical literature and the Russian language, but they think in English with an American accent". This is an eloquent description of the real position of the Zionist leadership.

The failure of Soviet policy in the Middle East had become abundantly clear. Israel was lost to the Soviet sphere of influence. But as a consequence of this disastrous policy of Stalin many of the Communist parties in the Arabs countries disintegrated and lost their influence.

In Damascus mobs looted the offices of the local Communist Party after Gromyko had made his speech in the United Nations in favour of the partition of Palestine. The Communist Party of Palestine had both Arab and Jewish members and had always supported the position of one state for two peoples. But because it was linked to the Soviet Union it also suffered a large fall in support. Traditionally it had had close contacts with the Communist parties and movements in the neighbouring Arab countries, such as Palestine, Egypt and the Lebanon, but these were now broken.

Now Stalin did a complete 180-degree turn as he had done many times in the past. In 1933 Stalin had shifted his position from an extremely ultra-left course, in which even the Socialist parties were regarded as enemies, (or "social- fascists"), to an alliance with the so-called "liberal bourgeoisie" (the "Popular Front") .Thus towards the end of the 1940s Stalin moved from supporting Jewish nationalism to an outright anti-Semitic position. This manoeuvre also fitted well with his policy of the "creeping Thermidor" which included the restoration of some reactionary customs that harked back to Tsarist Russia.

Thus anti-Semitic hysteria was whipped up right until the death of Stalin in 1953. It was to be his last present to the Zionists. As result of this Stalinist policy of discrimination and oppression thousands of Russian Jews were pushed into the hands of the Jewish nationalists, the Zionists. Thus rather than weakening Zionism, Stalin's policy enormously strengthened it and provided it with more recruits.

It is curious to note today in Russia how some old hard-line Stalinists regard Stalin as "a great fighter against world Zionism". This had its mirror image even in Israel itself, among some on the left. In some kibbutzim until the beginning of the 1980s it was still possible to find pictures of Stalin hanging on the walls! For some he was regarded as the man that helped realize the Zionist dream. In spite of all these myths, however, the genuine Marxists in Israel today know the real truth.

(May 2003)

(1) After the 1917 revolution Lenin and the Bolsheviks granted those Jews who wished to live in their own autonomous region, the area known as Birobidzan. This was a gesture on the part of the Bolsheviks to demonstrate that the new workers' state was putting an end to all forms of discrimination. The vast majority of Jews did not take up the offer because they felt that their rights were now guaranteed in post revolutionary Russia. Unfortunately this was not to be the case under the later Stalinist regime.

(2) Translated from the Russian edition of The Communist International, 1919-1943. Vol. 1 Leningrad., 1960. P. 144.

Comrade Kamo
from
http://www.marxist.com/MiddleEast/stalin_a...nd_zionism.html (http://www.marxist.com/MiddleEast/stalin_and_zionism.html)

[James]

I read the first paragraph...

Nobody knows what he really thought do they? Didn't he just constantly contradict himself?

[Cassius Clay]

Okay I've addressed most of the points in there in numerous threads, the most recent being 'Why Trotskyism is reactionary'.

But just one point.

'It is a well known fact Stalin personally didn't like Jews'

This is a LIE which discredits the whole article.

"anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.
Anti-Semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightening conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-Semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-Semitism.

In the USSR anti-Semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system".

Josef Stalin.

Who wanted to set up a Jewish Automous Republic? Stalin, who was Lazar Kaganovich? A Jew. Where Trots come up with their lies god knows. Oh yeah the Capitalist propaganda machine allways helped.

[Kez]

explain to me while during Stalins reign of terror did he produce propaganda posters of Trotsky in the form of te devil with a big Star of David necklace around him?

[Invader Zim]

Quote: from TavareeshKamo on 12:47 pm on May 24, 2003
explain to me while during Stalins reign of terror did he produce propaganda posters of Trotsky in the form of te devil with a big Star of David necklace around him?

Excellent point, I can not see how CC can continue to avoid the fact that Stalin was the oppersit of every thing that Marx wanted.

[Cassius Clay]

A poster orginally done by White Guards in exile in 1920. Oh but I guess because Trots say it was during 'Stalin's reign of terror' it makes it right. Frankly Trots have lied enough times to be taken seriesly anymore.

Why don't you explain to me Stalin's quote? Why don't you explain the numerous Jews in the government? Or the Jewish Autonomous Republic? All this rubbish of 'anti-semitism' goes completly against known fact, but surprise, surprise the Trots ignore all reality and go on their crusade against Communism.

[James]

Old CC dose seem far more convincing....

[Kez]

oh Cass, when will you wake up and smell the shit.

"A poster orginally done by White Guards in exile in 1920"
-this wasnt teh poster i was on about, the one i was on about was published by the USSR durings Stalins time

"Frankly Trots have lied enough times to be taken seriesly anymore."
-Prove it

"Why don't you explain to me Stalin's quote"
-Which quote would you like me to explain matey?

"Or the Jewish Autonomous Republic"
-This if i am not mistaken was supposed to be in teh middle of russia, away from where the jews already lived ie in moscow or leningrad. The jews didnt like it, and so it didnt come about to the effeect that stalin wanted
-In any case, you dont have to be a smart head to see how Stalin was tring to get the Jews outta the positions they held or could potentially hold

"surprise the Trots ignore all reality and go on their crusade against Communism"
-Remind me again, who was head of REd army with the great october revolution?
-And who created this red Army?
-Who suggested as MARX did that there should be no standing army but instead militias? twas Trotsky, who went against Marx,Lenin and Trotsky and kept an army (whose generals Stalin slaughtered anyway?, making it even easier for Hitler)? it was your comrade Stalin.

Im gonna find that poster, and then im gonna come back to you on the jews in the government.

reply back to points in the meantime.

[Kez]

Stalin and the national question

Lenin hated Great Russian chauvinism with a passion and fought against it all his life. Stalin, on the other hand, based himself on it. He was himself a Georgian – a nationality oppressed by Russian tsarism for a long time. But just as the Corsican Bonaparte became the most passionate advocate of French centralism, so did Stalin embrace all the most negative features of Great Russian nationalism. In the autumn of 1945, in one of his victory speeches, Stalin referred to the leading role in the defeat of Hitler played by "the Russian people". This was a slap in the face for all the other peoples of the USSR who had fought against the Nazi invaders. It was also the announcement of a revival of Great Russian nationalism.

During the Revolution, most of the people of the Caucasus (except the Georgians who inclined to Menshevism) had supported the Bolsheviks, and they gained a lot from the Revolution. The Bolsheviks built roads and schools and brought civilization to the backward tribes of the Caucasus. They emancipated the women, who had been enslaved and oppressed. Ante Ciliga recalls a discussion at a Party school in Ingushetia in the late 1920s:

"A woman student of the school, chairman of a Soviet in an aoul of Kabardia, spoke in the course of the discussion. This fifty-year old woman expressed with serious enthusiasm, the hopes that mountain peoples were building on the Soviet Rule; with indignation she recalled the age-old oppression by the Czarist colonizers; at last, her eyes ablaze, she spoke of the emancipation of the Caucasian women, at one time uneducated and enslaved – an emancipation, all credit for which belonged to the October revolution." (Ante Ciliga, The Russian Enigma, pp. 42-3.)

But all these gains were undermined by Stalin. In the Second World War, he had whole peoples deported to the icy wastes of Siberia for alleged disloyalty. Seven nationalities – Volga Germans, Crimean Tartars, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingushi, Karachai and Balkars - were deported en masse. No exceptions were made – Communists, trade unionists, even soldiers from the front line, decorated for bravery in their fight against Hitler's armies – all were loaded onto the trucks of Stalin's GPU and shipped off to the frozen wilderness of Siberia, where many died of cold and hunger. The total number of deportees exceeded one million. A bitter legacy of hate was left behind, the poisoned fruits of which are still producing suffering and death today.

The most poisonous expression of Russian nationalism is anti-Semitism. The Bolshevik Party waged an implacable struggle against this Black Hundred ideology and fought the racist mobs on the streets arms in hand. After the October revolution, many prominent leaders of the Soviet state were of Jewish extraction. This was not surprising since the Jews, as one of the most oppressed layers of society, had always played a most active role in the revolutionary movement.

As early as the late 1920s, the Stalinists were using anti-Semitic poison in their attacks against the Left Opposition. But this was done in whispers, not publicly. Such a thing would have been considered shocking at that time, when the traditions of Leninist internationalism were not yet dead. But with the advance of the Stalinist political counterrevolution, these anti-Marxist tendencies grew stronger.

After the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, Litvinov, who was Jewish, was removed as foreign minister to please Berlin. There were thinly-veiled anti-Semitic tendencies emerging in the USSR before the German invasion. These tendencies had to be kept under control during the War. But they emerged with redoubled force after 1945. The Bolsheviks had allowed complete freedom for the development of Jewish culture. By 1949 all Yiddish publications were closed, as was the Yiddish theatre. A thinly disguised campaign of anti-Semitism was launched, using words like "rootless cosmopolitan" as a synonym for Jew. In 1953, almost all the leaders of Jewish culture in the USSR were shot. Mass arrests of Jews were taking place and this was only halted by Stalin's death.

The anti-Semitic tendency was exported to the other Stalinist Parties in Eastern Europe, where Stalin organized a series of show trials of the leaders of the "Communist" Parties, like that of Slansky in Czechoslovakia. Many of the defendants were Jewish. Most were shot. As a result, many of the Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union, who had seen the October revolution as their great hope, lost all faith in it and campaigned to go to Israel. The paradox is that at the time of the Revolution the Zionists had almost no support among the Jews of Russia, despite the terrible pogroms and oppression that characterised tsarist Russia. It took Joseph Stalin and the anti-Semitic poison propagated of the Great Russian bureaucracy to create sympathy and support for reactionary Zionism in the USSR.

There you go my stalinist "comrade"
read and weep, and dont bullshit about this being lies, dont be petty, try and make an argument

[Pete]

Your sectarianism makes me sick

[Reuben]

I really do not see how Kamo, for legitmately and correctly attacking the racist policies of a pseudo-leftist dictator makes him sectarian pete

[Cassius Clay]

Perhaps you then Reuben could explain Josef Stalin's quote which quite clearly (and rightly) explain's Stalin's opinion on anti-semitism.

Anyway I sent a PM to Kamo in reply to the post, and I'll post it here now since I couldn't yesterday. I think the evidence is clear and it's up to members of this board to decide, if they still wish to believe fairy tales then there's nothing I can do. Here it is.

I'm sedning you this because at the moment I'm unable to post, I don't know why perhaps it will fix itsself. Now I'll address your post.

''this wasnt teh poster i was on about, the one i was on about was published by the USSR durings Stalins time''

I know what poster your talking about and I'm talking about the precise same one. It was published by Tsarist exile forces based in Poland in 1920.

'Prove it'

Okay in 1975 the SWP in America published a book entitled 'Lenin's fight against Stalinism' written by Lenin himself. This has been proven to be a forgery. Let's also add Trotsky alledging that Stalin murdered Lenin, which is a total lie. There you go two examples.


''-This if i am not mistaken was supposed to be in teh middle of russia, away from where the jews already lived ie in moscow or leningrad. The jews didnt like it, and so it didnt come about to the effeect that stalin wanted
-In any case, you dont have to be a smart head to see how Stalin was tring to get the Jews outta the positions they held or could potentially hold''

Okay in the second part your just speculating. Please explain then why Beria and Kaganovich aswell who are Jews remain in there positions. The Jeiwsh Autonomous Republic was set up precisly because it would give the Jews self-determination where they could embrace there own culture, language and what have you free from prejudice. Is this the act of a 'anti-semitic'? No it isn't, and if some Jews didn't like it and Stalin was put of by this, this is hardly the actions of a mad dictator.

''Which quote would you like me to explain matey?''

Just the one where Stalin clearly states he is against anti-semitism and rightly describes what it represents.

''Remind me again, who was head of REd army with the great october revolution?
And who created the Red Army?''

And who got replaced because he kept on refusing to follow the Central Committe's orders? Who used tactics which Lenin correctly said 'Alienated' the workers and was 'Bonapartism'? Whose name wasn't in the Military Revolutionary Council which played a key part in the October Revolution? Who messed up in Tsaritsyn and elswhere when the situation had to be saved by a 'Asiatic'? Who else also won the highest military medal during the war yet didn't show of about it unlike Trotsky?

''-Who suggested as MARX did that there should be no standing army but instead militias? twas Trotsky,''

You are unaware then of his 'Military Discipline' in factories, his use of 'Military speicalists' who continued to act as spies. Trotsky was not interested in the 'people' read some of what he said. He's a Fascist.

''who went against Marx,Lenin and Trotsky and kept an army (whose generals Stalin slaughtered anyway?, making it even easier for Hitler)? it was your comrade Stalin.''

Lenin wrote something about how a army should be in 'State and Revolution' at the end of Socialism. Yet you expect Stalin to of acheived this after Lenin died in the stage of NEP. But two points are worth remembering, while Lenin was around did the army follow those condidtions? Also Trotsky was in favor of keeping a heirachy, see his actions and words. Oh yes and Stalin didn't 'slaughter' any Generals, the actual number of officers doubled during this period, and those trials were proceeded over by their own officers.

''Stalin referred to the leading role in the defeat of Hitler played by "the Russian people". This was a slap in the face for all the other peoples of the USSR who had fought against the Nazi invaders.''

Stalin then proceeded to give the reasons why he thought the Russian people deserved the most credit for victory during the war. It wasn't a 'slap in the face' just a opinion backed up by fact and circumstances. Your source dosen't mention that Stalin didn't simply say 'Russian people' he also said 'out of the entire Soviet people' and gave his reasons. Tell me if he had said the 'Uzbek Peope' you wouldn't call him a 'Nationalist' would you? So why?

''It was also the announcement of a revival of Great Russian nationalism.''

I'll just remind you that it was after a ex-Trotskyite came to power that it became compulsory for Russian to be learn't in schools in the other Republics. It was a ex-Trotskyite who shot down workers, peasants and students from all the Republics who fought in Stalin's name.

''But all these gains were undermined by Stalin.''

This is a really stupid claim. In Lenin's time 'Soviet power' was just a word, in reality Feudalism, rascism and sexism still reigned in the villages. It was under Stalin that Soviet power became a reality.

''News came of one village in Siberia, for instance, where, after the collective farms gave women their independent incomes, the wives "called a strike" against wife-beating and smashed that time-honored custom in a week.

The men all jeered at the first woman we elected to our village soviet," a village president told me, "but at the next election we elected six women and now it is we who laugh." I met twenty of these women presidents of villages in 1928 on a train in Siberia, bound for a Women's Congress in Moscow. For most it was their first trip by train and only one had ever been out of Siberia. They had been invited to Moscow "to advise the government" on the demands of women; their counties elected them to go.''


''In the Second World War, he had whole peoples deported to the icy wastes of Siberia for alleged disloyalty. Seven nationalities – Volga Germans, Crimean Tartars, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingushi, Karachai and Balkars - were deported en masse. No exceptions were made – Communists, trade unionists, even soldiers from the front line, decorated for bravery in their fight against Hitler's armies – all were loaded onto the trucks of Stalin's GPU and shipped off to the frozen wilderness of Siberia, where many died of cold and hunger. The total number of deportees exceeded one million. A bitter legacy of hate was left behind, the poisoned fruits of which are still producing suffering and death today.''

This was in cirumstances entirely bought on by WW2, much like the British put Austrian exiles into 'camps' and the Americans put the Japanese into camps. But there is a difference, many had collaborated with Fascists.

''A Chechen-language alphabet was then formed as was also the Ingush alphabet, since they did not have their own alphabet. By 1940 the literacy rate had risen to 85% of the population. There was very great work done in order to eliminate the last vestiges of blood ownership of land, the terrible conditions of women, who were practically slaves, the influence of the mullahs and other ills of a feudalistic mentality. The local Chechen intelligencia grew.

The success of the industrialization and all of the cultural growth gave rise to the birth of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic.

During the Great Patriotic War with German fascism, a substantial part of the Chechen people were actively supporting the front. The non-stop production of oil from the oil fields helped the front with gas and also oil while the collective farms gave produce.

During the course of the war, the German fascists occupied a large part of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, but then were stopped at the gates of Grozny.

Chechens, as Soviet patriots, were part of the Soviet Army and 36 Chechens-Ingush soldiers became Heroes of the Soviet Union. But, it must be admitted that a large part of the Chechen population very actively fought on the German fascist side. After the capture of the leader of the many battalions of Chechen fighters in German uniforms, Colonel O. Gube. said: "Amongst the Chechen people and also Ingush people I had no trouble finding willing volunteers to serve the Germans!"

The German command was able to organize very many battalions from the Chechen volunteers who fought to the death against the Red Army.

The Soviet government, fighting a horrible life and death struggle with German fascists and their allies, could not but be aware that a large section of the Chechen people were willingly killing the Red Army soldiers. At the beginning of the year 1944, the people in Chechnya and others who helped the Fascists were resettled in the northern regions of the country. The territory was made empty in order to prevent further deaths of the heroic Soviet Army fighting the Nazis. Only in 1957 was this part of the Soviet territory again declared autonomous.

A couple of years after the ending of World War II, all the Chechen people returned to their historic homeland and were helped in all manner by the Soviet people. In 1965 the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was awarded with the Order of Lenin and in 1972 with the Order of the Red Banner. By the end of 1977 over 13,060 people there were awarded different high medals and 32 people became Heroes of Socialist Labour.''

''It is denied, for instance, that a number of nationalities collaborated with the Nazism on the ground that they merely supplied food to the Germans under duress. Yet a recent analysis convincingly shows that a number of Turkic nationalities were guilty of mass treachery to the side of Nazi Germany. (W.B. Bland, 'The Enforced Settlements', London, 1993). The German army secured the support of the Crimean Tatars and various Caucasian peoples to form 'self-defence battalions' which took up the task of hunting down the partisan forces who were engaged in the struggle against the Nazi occupation. This is further corroborated by Molotov who argued as follows: 'The fact is that during that war we received reports about mass treason. Battalions of Caucasians opposed us at the fronts and attacked us from the rear. It was a matter of life and death; there was no time to investigate the details. Of course innocents suffered. But I hold that given the circumstances, we acted correctly." (op. cit. p. 195). The dissolution of the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the transfer of its population also took place for reasons of state security. The resettled nations were allotted land and given state assistance to establish their economic life.''


''As early as the late 1920s, the Stalinists were using anti-Semitic poison in their attacks against the Left Opposition. But this was done in whispers, not publicly. Such a thing would have been considered shocking at that time, when the traditions of Leninist internationalism were not yet dead. But with the advance of the Stalinist political counterrevolution, these anti-Marxist tendencies grew stronger.''

LOL, I've never heard such rubbish. Would you like to explain why the Left opposition got less than 6000 votes out of over 725,000 cast in a perfectly fair election? These 'wispers' were they Stalin saying 'Anti-semitism represents cannbibalism' and 'is punishable' in the USSR?

The USSR stuck by 'Leninist Internationalism', that's why half the world was Socialist by 1953 when Stalin died, without having to go through some clap-trap theory known as 'Permanent Revolution'. What is this 'Stalinist counter-revolution'? It's Trotskyite rhectoric, noting else. There has been numerous works done which expose how Khruschev and Brezhneve restored Capitalism, I haven't seen one which proves Stalin did this. Only the opposite Stalin built Socialism and put Soviet power into practice, even Trotsky admitted this. Was this 'Counter-Revolution' putting power into the hands of the workers so they could sack their own managers and decide on production quota's and such? Was it giving the people the right to get rid of officials who were corrupt and replace them with their own nominations? Fact is Trotsky was the biggest beuracrat, Lenin exposed this in the Trade Union disputes in 1921.


''After the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, Litvinov, who was Jewish, was removed as foreign minister to please Berlin.''

Litvinov was removed because he at that stage still favored a alliance with the western powers, something which as of August 1939 had been tried for years and was no long feasible.


''There were thinly-veiled anti-Semitic tendencies emerging in the USSR before the German invasion.''

Like what Stalin saying that anti-semtism is reactionary and represents cannibalism?

''These tendencies had to be kept under control during the War. But they emerged with redoubled force after 1945. The Bolsheviks had allowed complete freedom for the development of Jewish culture. By 1949 all Yiddish publications were closed, as was the Yiddish theatre. A thinly disguised campaign of anti-Semitism was launched, using words like "rootless cosmopolitan" as a synonym for Jew.''

From a Jew.

''Benjamin Pinkus, Proffessor of Jewish History at the Ben-Gurion University in Isreal, admit that

''It is important to emphasis that these attacks (the anti-cosmoplitaninism campaign. Ed.) there was no ant-Jewish tone, either explicitly or implicitly''

''The chief vicitims were two non- Jews- the satirist M. Zoshchenko and the poetress A. Ahianatova''

Note that by 'victims' he means in terms of criticism by the Soviet Authorities.

And finally.

''Jews took a active part in the anti-cosmopolinanism campaign''

Also the term 'Cosmoplitaninism' does not mean a referece to a 'Jew'.

''The term 'cosmopolitan' is derived
from two Greek words, 'Kosmos' meaning 'world' and 'polites' meaning 'citizen'. ''


''In 1953, almost all the leaders of Jewish culture in the USSR were shot. Mass arrests of Jews were taking place and this was only halted by Stalin's death.''

You mean people like Kaganovich and Beria? They were both Jews yet they somehow survive this terrible anti-Jewish campaign where 'All leading' Jews are 'shot'. That is odd.

''At the end of 1952, several doctors were arrested under the pretext that they wanted to murder party leaders. According to bourgeois propaganda, this is a standard example of Stalin's alleged despotism. However, Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, whose book was also placed at the service of anti-communist propaganda, writes that her father was "exceedingly distressed" by this affair. At the dinner table he remarked that "he didn't believe the doctors were 'dishonest' and that the only evidence against them, after all, was the 'reports' of Dr. Timashuk." (Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters to a Friend, p. 207, English edition)''

And 3 of these Doctors weren't even Jewish. Also note that Dr Timashuk alledged that these doctors had murdered Zhandov. In any society such a allegation would be taken seriesly.

I hope this finally puts an end to this ridiculious lie that Stalin was a anti-semite.

[Cassius Clay]

Well what a surprise the thread goes dead the moment it's proven that Stalin was NOT a anti-semite. Did Stalin ever make mistakes? Sure he did. But enough with this Zionist clap trap, he was not a rascist and neither a anti-semitic. The complete opposite infact, that's why firm Civil rights campaigners like Paul Robeson and W.E.B Doubious praised the man and Soviet society at this time.

So what I would like to know is why the label of a rascist has been put on Stalin throughout this entire board?

[James]

This you'll find is typical of Kamo. Very limited ability, as Socialist Appeal don't have an article that he can copy and paste from.

[Cassius Clay]

Oh it's not Kamo I'm particularly bothered about. Infact he told me it was a 'good' post. I just get annoyed at the blantant hyprocisy going on, the label of 'Anti-semitic' is one that since I've been here atleast has been put on Stalin. Why I don't know. People on this board are all to quick to jump in and join in the crowd in something which is a obvious lie, when I take the time and effort to disprove that lie suddenly the thread goes dead. It is kinda annoying.

Anyway believe it or not I would like to disscuss things other than Joe Stalin, which is what I do on most other boards.

[Kez]

yes, James is correct, "Very limited ability, as Socialist Appeal don't have an article that he can copy and paste from. "

and also i have 3 sets of AS exams next week, and i need to give a bit of time for research for the post that cass deserves.

Grow up james.

Cass, the reason people dont reply is coz people want to write shitty little coments which everyone agrees with, and cant be arsed look for real answers

They have substituted the theory section of the forum for The Communist manifesto and the State and Revolution witht eh politics forum.
anyway, i will give u decent reply start of next week, around the 7th of june. I ask a comrade to fill in, in the mean time

until then...

[Cassius Clay]

AS Exams ha? What your doing if you don't mind me asking. I've just done (well last week) my Sociology AS Level which I thought I did okay in, trouble is I left my coursework to the last minute. Anyway I've got History and Theartre Studies in A2 to do in a few weeks and I know I'm dommed in one of them, the question is which one?

Oh yeah sorry about last night, my 'girlfriend' stood me up once again. *****.

[Kez]

im doing business and economics, politics, history and german,
i dont my german exam, the other 3 i still gotta do
politics is a 3 hours exam :(

shud be good when i finish them

[James]

mine are all over this time next week
woohoo!

should start revision

[Invader Zim]

Quote: from Cassius Clay on 9:55 am on May 28, 2003
AS Exams ha? What your doing if you don't mind me asking. I've just done (well last week) my Sociology AS Level which I thought I did okay in, trouble is I left my coursework to the last minute. Anyway I've got History and Theartre Studies in A2 to do in a few weeks and I know I'm dommed in one of them, the question is which one?

Oh yeah sorry about last night, my 'girlfriend' stood me up once again. *****.


What history modual do you do?

Ive got Peel, Chartism, France Louis XV111 - Louis Phillipe and conditions of England.

That exam is on the 5th i think

I have gotcomputiong on the 4th... so boring, and ive done general studies and geography.

I hate exams.

[Kez]

for history im doing Peel, Poor LAws, and Louis 14th
fuckin boring as fuck

[James]

i was lucky enough it seems, to get the New Deal (30s america), Women's suffrage and Civil Rights (Malcom X etc).

I think Politics is by far my hardest and most boring

[Cassius Clay]

AK Well I'm doing a A2 in History, last year I did The English Civil War (=boring), International relations between 1914-40 and Nazi Germany. This year I've done America in the 30's (James I really haven't got a clue about that) and Russia between 1856-1956, which as you can probably guess I have plenty to say about the module.

So are we all in the 17-18 range? I'm staying at College for a third year then hope to go to University. Bumped into a old mate today, lucky bastard, who happens to be of his face most of the time is going to Universtiy in September.

[James]

the 30s, you know Roosevelt and the NEw DEal, the depression, the alpahbet agencies etc!

Yeah, me and Kamo are both 17.

[Cassius Clay]

Yeah I know all the stuff James. The trouble is my revsion for that topic constitutes watching a few gangsta fliks. IT doesn't really matter anyway I've allready failed. My coursework was awful and last year for my AS I messed up big time, three papers two U's and one A. For GCSE I got a A also so I know I'm capable of getting a good grade it's just I've spent more time messing around than actually doing work. Hence why I'm going to do a one year course next year.

Do you two know eachother in 'real' life then? From Manchester aren't you?

[Kez]

we did that america shit last year for gcse, pretty interesting
interesting the way they called army on its own veterans who wanted was it "bonus" spip payments or summit.
Also shows the inherent failure of capitalism

[Reuben]

well i have the best history course, Russia in revolution and Rise of fascism in itly. Italy is pretty depressing. THe socialists came pretty close to siezing power but the minimalists (reformists within the socialist movement ) held the moement back. At the time of the Bienno Rossi, the two years of socialist unrest whcih culminated in the armed month long occuppation of 300 factories by 500,000 workers, an anarchist said 'if we do not sieze power when the moment is right we will pay with tears of blood for the fright we have given the borugoiesie.' And unfortunately that is exactly what happene. The lieral political elite and itslies rulng class assisted Mussolini in siezing power and starting a dictatorship which killed over 1m.

[Cassius Clay]

Well this thread's gone totally off topic.

Anyway yeah Kamo a real tragedy. One officer remarked 'there's nothing sadder than seeing old soldiers getting shot down by young soldiers'. Note the General in charge of the whole thing, one McCarther.

Reuben. I take it your a fellow fan of the greatest of all sports then. As with all things Boxing has been corrupted thanx to Capitalism. Look at Cuba and how many great fighters they've produced, Teofilo Stevenson and Felix Savon. Look at Boxing today elsewhere. Alphabet groups handing out belts which mean nothing just to make a quick buck. Muhammad Ali's 'No Vietcong ever called me nigger' certainly summed up things. Reuben 'Hurrican' Carter is just one of many but to be honest speaking from a purely fight fan point of view he wasn't that greater fighter. Apart from his KO of Emile Griffith.

Ofcourse now your going to tell me you know fuck all about Boxing. LOL.

[James]

Me and kamo met through a gay chatline thing.


My american paper was sooooo easy (watch me fail now :( ).
I got 3 politics exams on tuesday (not at all confident on), and 2 history on wednesday (again, not confident). I should be revising. Its too hot though :(

[Kez]

"Me and kamo met through a gay chatline thing."

he called me, i didnt call him, just make that clear...

[Reuben]

interesting that you should mention Birobidzhan Cssius clay. While its existence may prove some intentions on the part fof the soviet to support jewish cultural/national interests, the experience of jews in Biro Bidzhan shows something quite different. t the end of world war 2 yiddish theatees were closed yddish was generally abolished jewish books were destroyed The only yiddish/jewish institution that remained was the newspaper Der Birobidzhan Stern. WHile they were lalowed to call themselves jews and the region remained jewish in nam the people were deprived of there language and culture

[Cassius Clay]

"Under the Poles education was only in Polish; under Smetona it was only in Lithuanian. Now we shall have to have schools in four languages, since there are four chief languages in the district: Polish, Jewish [Yiddish], Lithuanian and Byelorussian."

A Lithuanian Socialist in 1945. Note the 'Jewish' language is included. The American writer Ann Louise Strong who was there writes how the Bolsheviks were fully involved in the struggle to liberate women and end national discrimination among other things. All the evidence and accounts is against what you are saying Reuben. It was the complete opposite, I'm sure if even 5% of what you say is true then great civil rights campaigners like Paul Robeson and W.E.B Doubious would of been disgusted since they visited the USSR at this time quite reguarly and they praised it, especially in that it was free from rascism and discrimination.

''As G. N. Doidjashvili states in his article "Soviet Georgia - A Living Example of the Lenin-Stalin National Policy": "all the nationalities enjoy the same conditions of life. The conditions enjoyed by Armenians living in Georgia, or in Azerbaijan, say, are equally as good as those they would enjoy in their own Republic. Under the Soviet regime, Armenians in Georgia, or Georgians in Armenia, have opportunities of receiving their education in their native languages. They have their own national theatres. They can conduct any business they need in government offices in their own languages. They have the right to vote and be elected to all legislative, administrative, public and political organizations. They have their own newspapers, pamphlets and books printed in their own language. They can freely follow their religious customs, etc., etc." The same facts have been noted by honest bourgeois scholars as well. Thus, William Henry Chamberlin wrote, in an article entitled "Soviet Race and Nationality Policies" (The Russian Review, 1945): "The native language is used in schools, courts, and public business, and the development of national culture is encouraged in literature, the theatre, public festivals, and musical performances. As a general rule the higher officials in these nationality republics are drawn from the dominant nationality. The multi-national character of the Soviet Union also finds recognition in the second chamber of the Soviet Parliament, the Council of Nationalities, where each constituent republic, despite the great discrepancies in population, is represented by twenty-five delegates, with smaller representation for the minor autonomous units.''

Now this isn't neccessarilly the Jews but it is another example of how different cultures and nationalities were handled during Stalin's time. All of this applied to the Jewish people aswell just look at the first quote in this post, even in the Baltics 'Yiddish' language was taught in schools.

Reuben you haven't provided any evidence to back your claims which are very vauge ('yiddish theatres' ??? Define such a thing. And it 'may prove'?). Were you there and did you grow up during this period? Yiddish culture was fully respected and not interefed with. As I've allready shown Jews took a 'full part' in the anti-cosmopolitan campaign.

Your criticisms appear to be from a rather narrow-minded and somewhat nationalist perspective. Why I must ask are you so eager to label Stalin as 'rascist' towards the Jews when he clearly wasn't?

Want something to complain about when it comes to the USSR and anti-semitism go after that fool Brezhnev, he's the one whom made Russian complusory throughout the schools in the rest of the Republics and he's the one who allowed unofficial and 'Official' anti-semitism and discrimination to spread from prisons to the workplace.

[Kez]

Quote: from Cassius Clay on 12:56 pm on June 7, 2003

Under the Soviet regime, Armenians in Georgia, or Georgians in Armenia, have opportunities of receiving their education in their native languages. They have their own national theatres. They can conduct any business they need in government offices in their own languages. They have the right to vote and be elected to all legislative, administrative, public and political organizations. They have their own newspapers, pamphlets and books printed in their own language.

how to say stalin is great in 4 langauges, great

also, explain to me how the "communist" of azerbaijan orchestrated the pogroms of the armenians in 1989?

[Cassius Clay]

Kamo your just coming up with something there which is contray to all the evidence. Anyway Stalin is pronounced the same in most languages so your point is mute.

As for the incidents in Central Asia in the late 1980's I'll happily try and provide a link or article from a 'Stalinist' perspective if you really want. For the time being see the my last paragraph in my previous post.

[Kez]

no i meant:
how to say "stalin is great" in 4 different languages, great

[Cassius Clay]

And you can provide prove that that sought of clap-trap was taught in schools? Stalin fought against such nonsence and it's debatable if the 'cult' existed to such a extent that some would like you to belief. Even if it did it's been proven Stalin fought against it and tried his best to curbe it.