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To: "H-HOAC-ED-JEH" <haynes@mail.h-net.msu.edu> Sent: Monday, March 08, 2004 10:23 AM Subject: Re: Defending, not Stalin, but the Truth I'd like to reply to some quite erroneous statements made in recent posts. It's obvious that many people think that, in order to properly assess the activities of the CPUSA, one must make constant reference to what was going on inside the USSR. This is not so at all, and I intend to post about it at a future time. But it is true that many people seem to believe it, since deeds of the Bolsheviks and of Stalin, whether real or imagined, are constantly invoked on this list by those who would like to make a kind of "guilt by association." Therefore, my remarks. Two famous historians of the Soviet Union have recently stated that "Soviet history [as we have been taught it] is propaganda, and must be done all over again." In short, what we THINK we "know" about Soviet history, especially during the Stalin period, is largely anti-communist falsehood. My own research confirms this, in a small way. As to the question of a "moral issue." I believe there is a moral issue here -- the obligation to be faithful to the evidence, rather than to the political expediency of any interested party, whether communist or -- as is usually the case today -- anti-communist. As to the matter of the 'Gulag', no one on this list, to my recollection, had mentioned it. In any case, no one on this list has "dismissed these accounts," as has been erroneously claimed. Incidentally, far from being "superb," Ann Applebaum's book on the Gulag is a travesty, a dishonest and unscholarly work. As for the "Russian scholars" who have found evidence of a fascist plot to overthrow Stalin being “the ravings of anti-Semites and cranks”: Scholars of Soviet history are bitterly divided, as anyone who reads, say, the first few pages of Applebaum's book cannot fail to note. Those who claim that there is a consensus on Soviet studies are either ignorant or lying. There is virtually no evidence whatever that the confessions of the defendants at the public Moscow Trials were not, in the main, genuine. Indeed, there is now a little documentary evidence of this -- something that, in the case of a conspiracy, one would not expect to find. Mainstream, highly-respected historians of the USSR have written to this effect. I'm in touch with some of them, and read others. The idea that their views, well-substantiated with evidence, are "the ravings of anti-Semites and cranks," is not only ludicrous, but reflects poorly on those who would make such an outrageous statement -- out of ignorance, no doubt, rather than from any deliberate desire to deceive others. Insofar as Stalin's personal role is a matter of interest, there is excellent evidence that Stalin opposed the "Doctor's Plot" frame-ups. As for his plan to deport Soviet Jews to Siberia: This utterly false tale has recently been completely debunked, in a major Russian historical journal, by one of the leading ANTI-Stalin historians! Renowned anti-Stalin writer and former Soviet dissident Zhores Medvedev recently stated in print the obvious fact that Stalin was NOT anti-Semitic. It's clear from the context that Medvedev was publicly and firmly, though politely, disagreeing with some well-known authors of shoddy scholarship who have long been claiming the opposite -- Arkady Vaksberg, for one. In reality, Stalin was famously opposed to anti-semitism. He was, of course, very strongly opposed to Zionism. The latter was the subject of the trial of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which was not in the slightest anti-semitic. Beginning with Stalin himself, no one has ever denied that many, many innocent people were executed (and imprisoned, too) during the period 1937-38, when the NKVD were suddenly faced with a widespread conspiracy to overthrow the government, in collusion with Japan and, probably, the German General Staff, and involving military leaders at the highest level. Soviet leaders, well aware of Hitler's plans for the USSR, knew that the very survival of the state, as well as of tens of millions of its citizens, was at stake, and acted ruthlessly. But the NKVD and judicial system were unprepared to deal with a situation of this urgency and scope. Indeed, it was far beyond the bounds of what _any_ police and judicial system is designed for or could have dealt with. Many arrests, trials, and even executions of NKVD men involved in arresting, torturing, and killing innocent Soviet citizens were held during the pre-WW2 years. Transcripts of some of these trials have been published. I have some, in fact. Yezhov himself was arrested, tried, and executed for his role in this. Stalin's angry declaration to Yakovlev (the aircraft designer, not the former Politburo member and author of a mendacious book) -- that Yezhov had killed thousands of honest people -- is well known. There's much disagreement among leading historians of the USSR over the role of Yezhov. Was he an honest investigator who was simply overwhelmed by the task? Or, possibly, was he a competent bureaucrat but, psychologically, a very troubled person who "cracked" under the strain? These are basically the poles of the scholarly disagreement, as I read it, and I don't know where, within these limits, the truth lies. It is not at all a question of "defending Stalin," but of something much more important - defending the truth! Honest historians decide matters according to evidence and logic, not according to their political prejudices, be they pro- or - as in most cases these days - anti-Communist. Honest historians do not cut their views to fit the fashion of the day, even when doing so is the route to ample rewards, academic and otherwise. As for defending "communist mass murder": no one on this list has done so. It is important to note, however, that there is a lot of facile, irresponsible talk about "communist mass murder"-- for example, during the Spanish Civil War - that is utterly unsubstantiated by anything remotely resembling evidence. Responsible historians decide matters on the basis of evidence, not on the basis of wishful thinking or political prejudice. No one on this list would dream of accusing American soldiers and diplomats in, say, Vietnam, of "mass murder" without citing very good evidence that it was so. The same standards should be applied when speaking of Communists. In the Cold-War atmosphere cultivated by some, however, this is seldom done. As for comparing America and Nazi Germany: On March 4 I personally drew a comparison between the Jim Crow South and the racist policies of the Nazis. I continue to think the comparison very apt indeed! Many black Americans thought so at the time as well. The United States has a shameful history of violent repression and genocide against ethnic minorities. I also mentioned that the British, French, Dutch, and other imperialist powers were carrying out precisely the same kinds of horrendous atrocities against their colonial populations as the Nazis did in Europe. I can't think of anyone who knows anything about this history who would deny it. I should like to conclude by stating that it is outrageous, and a measure of the bankruptcy of anti-communist scholarship on the Communist movement, that any comparison is made between Stalin and Hitler, or between the USSR and Nazi Germany. As for "Holocaust denial", the opposite is the case here too. The mass murder of Jews, but not only of Jews, by the Nazis is very well documented. In the case of the Cold-War horror stories demonizing Stalin, the shoe is on the other foot -- all the evidence points in the _opposite_ direction. Sincerely, Grover Furr Montclair SU
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