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Thread: An American professor defends Stalinism

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    Council Member kowalskil's Avatar
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    Default An American professor defends Stalinism

    The message below has been posted at our university forum. The author once accused me of spreading cold war propaganda (referring to my two books).

    Ludwik Kowalski, author of "Diary of a Former Communist"

    http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/life/intro.html

    March 7 2013

    To the Editor:

    Istvan Deak’s review “Could Stalin Have Been Stopped?” (NYRB March 13 2013 - http://www.nybooks.c...…topped/?page=1) is filled with statements about Soviet history that are factually false. Here is a partial list:

    * There was no “intentional killing by starvation of millions of Ukrainians” by Stalin. Every Western expert rejects the “Holodomor” myth, which originated with pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalists in the 1950s.

    * Stalin did not “shoot hundreds of thousands of imaginary political enemies in the later 1930s.” NKVD chief Nikolai Ezhov did so, as a part of his conspiracy against the Soviet government. In 1939-40 he and over a hundred of his top NKVD men were tried and executed for these horrific crimes.

    * Stalin did not “attempt” to “eliminate much of the Polish leadership”. It was the Nazis who did so, in their “AB-Aktion.”

    * There exists an important dispute over who shot the Poles in the murders known as the Katyn Massacre and good evidence that the Soviets shot some Polish POWs and the Germans later shot the rest.

    * Stalin was not a “dictator.” He worked collaboratively with other Politburo members and was sometimes defeated. Stephen G. Wheatcroft has termed Stalin’s prewar method of rule “Team Stalin.”

    * There were no “combined Nazi and Soviet invasions.” The Red Army did not “invade Poland” on September 17 1939. Abandoned by its government the Soviets had to prevent the German army from marching up to the existing Soviet border, something no country would have permitted. Winston Churchill said that the Soviets were right to do so.

    * Though armed and equipped by the Soviet Union in 1941-42 the “anti-Nazi army formed by General Władysław Anders” refused to fight the Nazis until 1944.

    * The Polish Home Army”, riddled with anti-Semitism, shot Jews escaping from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and collaborated with the German army against the Red Army.

    * American and British pilots were not “routinely denied landing rights” when “trying to help the Home Army.” They were denied such rights for a few weeks in August-September 1944 because, like General Władysław Anders, Stalin considered the Warsaw Uprising to be a crime against the Polish people.

    * There is no evidence that the Soviets “massacred thousands of innocent” Poles.

    A Hungarian, Deak fails to mention that Hungary invaded the Soviet Union side by side with Nazi Germany, and Hungarian forces murdered at least hundreds of thousands of innocent Soviet citizens, including many Jews.

    Grover Furr, Montclair State University
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 03-08-2013 at 10:58 PM. Reason: cited text in quotes
    Ludwik Kowalski, author of a free ON-LINE book entitled “Diary of a Former Communist: Thoughts, Feelings, Reality.”

    http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/life/intro.html

    It is a testimony based on a diary kept between 1946 and 2004 (in the USSR, Poland, France and the USA).

    The more people know about proletarian dictatorship the less likely will we experience is.

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    I think the outlier is the line "the Russians shot some Polish POWs and later the Germans shot the rest".
    What happened? did Professor Furr get disoriented for a few minutes? How could the Russians under Stalin have shot anyone?

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    Default Stalinist

    Grover Furr, whose post you copy, is a well known defender of Stalin. He published books in the former Soviet Union alleging Khrushchev's Secret Speech of '56, was all, complete, utter lies. You might wish to watch this video. Here he claims that Stalin did not commit one crime. It is truly astonishing.

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    Council Member J Wolfsberger's Avatar
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    The post would have been more accurately titled: "Stalinist Defends Stalin."
    John Wolfsberger, Jr.

    An unruffled person with some useful skills.

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    * There were no “combined Nazi and Soviet invasions.” The Red Army did not “invade Poland” on September 17 1939. Abandoned by its government the Soviets had to prevent the German army from marching up to the existing Soviet border, something no country would have permitted. Winston Churchill said that the Soviets were right to do so.
    Quite right, although he only gets half of the story correctly, allow me to add the second half:
    * There were no “combined Nazi and Soviet invasions.” The German Army did not “invade Poland” on September 1 1939. Knowing beforehand that it will be abandoned by its government the Germans had to prevent the Martian spaceships from landing on the existing German border, something no country would have permitted. Winston Churchill said that the Germans were right to do so.

    Dear lord, calling this nutcase a "historian" is like calling a crackwhore "sociable".
    Last edited by shlomz; 04-09-2013 at 01:03 PM.
    "Nowadays people seem to imagine that impartiality means readiness to treat lies and truth the same, readiness to hold white as bad as black and black as good as white. I, on the contrary, believe that without integrity a man much better not approach a problem at all." Orde Charles Wingate, 1938

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    Council Member J Wolfsberger's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shlomz View Post
    Dear lord, calling this nutcase a "historian" is like calling a crackwhore "sociable".
    That comparison was a nasty and uncalled for insult to crack whores.
    John Wolfsberger, Jr.

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    Default "Scholar of the Year"

    Not knowing any crack whores, I can't competently comment on the comparison.

    Dr. Furr is certainly verbal - and he was 2008 "Scholar of the Year".

    Trained indifference and integral rigidity do abound.

    Regards

    Mike

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    Quote Originally Posted by J Wolfsberger View Post
    That comparison was a nasty and uncalled for insult to crack whores.
    I would have agreed, felt ashamed and apologize, but there is no proof that your post was actually ever published
    "Nowadays people seem to imagine that impartiality means readiness to treat lies and truth the same, readiness to hold white as bad as black and black as good as white. I, on the contrary, believe that without integrity a man much better not approach a problem at all." Orde Charles Wingate, 1938

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    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shlomz View Post
    Dear lord, calling this nutcase a "historian" is like calling a crackwhore "sociable".
    I used to know a lot of crack whores and they are very sociable we call them "crackhoes" in the South.

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    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
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    It is interesting to see that he apparently failed whatever course (or boxtop) he read regarding web design.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

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