The Reporter Who Exposed Stalins Famine

by Irish ML - Irish Marxist-Leninist Workers Group Wed May 03, 2006 07:24

More of the historical revisionist lies about the Soviet Union and Stalin from the Hearst/Nazi press of the day. No surprise that the Trotskyites, Anarchist and other ultra leftists clutch at these straws.

According to Professor Frederick Schuman of Williams College in his 1957 book on the famine (in which between 1 and 2 million lost their lives –

“Their (kulak) opposition took the initial form of slaughtering their cattle and horses in preference to having them collectivised. The result was a grievous blow to Soviet agriculture…Soviet rural economy had not recovered by 1941”

More information can be had from the book ‘Another View of Stalin’ by Ludo Martens the chairman of the Workers’ Party of Belgium published by EPO in 1996. ISBN – 2-87262-081-8

by historian Wed May 03, 2006 09:46

You are no better than the creatures who deny the Holocaust.

by Mr. T. Wed May 03, 2006 10:37

Now I've heard everything. Pat C. warned elsewhere that there were some nutters out here who support Stalin. I genuinely thought he was taking the piss - I guess he wasn't.

Your lies don't hold water, Mr. Marxist/Lenonist man, even if you do quote one of Stalin's american "so-called" academic tools. Even if the kulaks were slaughtering their livestock rather than hand them over to Stalin, that doesn't explain why Stalin was dumping so much cheap wheat on markets when millions of peasants were starving. 1929 - 1934 were bumper wheat export years out of the Ukraine. See for more explanations: http://www.ualberta.ca/CIUS/announce/media/Media%202001...7.htm

Another journalist, Malcom Muggeridge, a well known socialist writer for the Guardian, also reported on the famine and didn't lie about it - he called it a genocide and spoke of Stalin as a "curious tyrant".

Perhaps the best known journo who did question the existance of the famine, and went on to win a Pulitzer for it while writing for the New York Times (that's your fucking Hearst / Nazi connection) - Walter Duranty - was posthumously and irrefutably exposed as a liar and Stalin's puppet. http://www.aim.org/aim_report/A107_0_4_0_C/

Ukraine's Pravda summarises the journalistic evidence: http://www2.pravda.com.ua/en/archive/2003/june/12/2.shtml

There is another summary with statistical evidence and personal recollections: http://www.infoukes.com/history/famine/gregorovich/

The Ukrainian government archives are full of evidence of Stalin's hand in the genocide.http://www.archives.gov.ua/Sections/Famine/Documents/PS...p#N02

Gareth Jones wrote the truth of what happened in the Ukraine even though it went against the popular socialist mainstream sentiment of his time. He was a hero. His heroism should be celebrated by progressive thinkers everywhere. I hope current and future journalists follow in his footsteps.

by Irish ML Thu May 04, 2006 07:09

I don’t give a flying fuck about your anti-communist/anti-Stalin bullshit. Those who get around in their Ché Guevara shirts should check out his attitude to Stalin, maybe Ché was a ‘nutter’ too? Have a read of Ho Chi Minh and Mao Tse Tung while you’re at it.
JV Stalin built socialism in the USSR by consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat against both the ultra-left Trotskyites and the rightists within the CPSU. Stalin led the USSR to victory over German fascism. The USSR liberated those Jews who survived the death camps and exposed for the whole world to see the extent of what the fascists had carried out.
Irish Marxist-Leninists since the founding of the Communist Party and the writings against Khruschevite revisionism by the Irish communist Neil Goold through to the founding of ‘The Internationalists’ which became the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist) defend Stalin as the successor to VI Lenin and as a communist who laid the road that mankind must travel to defeat Imperialism and create international communism.

The facts are that Hearst met Hitler in 1934 and that the Hearst/Nazi press itself started up the campaign about the “Ukrainian Famine/Genicide”. Far-right Ukrainian émigrés who collaborated with the Nazi’s during the Second World War/Great Patriotic War cant be trusted as been historically objective.
I notice you haven’t referred to any of the films about the so called ‘famine-genocide’. Seeing as you’re such an ‘expert’ this is most surprising! Would you like to refute the fact that the film ‘Harvest of Despair’ used footage from pre-1917 news films and footage of film from the famine of 1921-22 to promote anti-Stalin lies.

Facts about the Famine in 1932-33

1. The Kulaks did slaughter their livestock - you already admit this when you write –
“Even if the kulaks were slaughtering their livestock rather than hand them over to Stalin, that doesn't explain why Stalin was dumping so much cheap wheat on markets when millions of peasants were starving”
As you appear to be a complete imbecile, let me for you benefit say that the Kulaks were not handing their livestock to Stalin but were in fact opposing and sabotaging the Lenin/Stalin policy of collectivisation.
2. Drought hit the Ukraine in 1930,31 & 32.
3. The typhoid epidemic went through the Ukraine and North Caucausus in the same period.
4. Disorder resulting from the reorganisation of agriculture and the upheaval in economic and social relations led to famine.

Collectivisation was a process driven by the poor peasants who wanted to expropriate the kulaks but were less willing to organise a cooperative economy themselves.

In 1933 the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) sent its best cadres to organise work in the kolkhozes and hence the situation became better.

Finally the famine not only affected the Ukraine but also regions of the Lower Volga and the Caucausus. The famine affected a specific geographical area and was caused by the reasons outlined above.

by Mr. T. Thu May 04, 2006 10:46

How quaint to see there still exist nutjobs like yourself to keep the workers of Europe's mental institutions employed.

You say:
[...] As you appear to be a complete imbecile, let me for you benefit say that the Kulaks were not handing their livestock to Stalin but were in fact opposing and sabotaging the Lenin/Stalin policy of collectivisation. [...]

Sabotage? That's what you call imposing impossible quotas on private farmers? Then confiscating even their seed grain? Sabotage, eh? And I guess you must think Hitler's gas chambers were for nit control.

If I were a poor dirt farmer in the Ukraine in the '30s with maybe a couple of cows or cattle and just barely able to survive, and some fucking stinking thieving bolshevik came to my home to take away my property - I can guarantee that one of us would be dead. Fuck collectivisation - it's simply another name for state sponsored thieving and murder - just like the Nazi confiscation of Jews property a few years later.

I'm sure many of Hitler's minions relied on twisted fucked up logic similar to your arguments to justify the slaughter of Jews and others: they needed to establish state control of free markets and boost industrial production to support the war effort, etc. The Jews obstructed these goals for the Nazi's and provided them with additional fodder for public relations that whipped up their anti-semitic uneducated underclasses. Any way you cut it, it still boils down to a twisted, moronic justification of state sponsored genocide.

Oh, and by the way, I'm no wide eyed wet behind the ears Che sycophant. I recognise him for what he was - an upper class, bourgeois Leninist/Stalinist equivalent of Hitler's Goebbels - a murderous public relations cheerleader.

I believe it must be time for your medication...

by KevBranno Thu May 04, 2006 18:12

If you read Che's autobiography {the author escapes me at this moment} you will find out that Che did not think to highly of stalin or the u.s.s.r. In his youth and days of fighting for liberation in Cuba he idolisied stalin ,lenin and what was going on in the soviets at the time. He like many others at the time belivied the u.s.s.r was a continuation of the 1917 Revoloution and did not not it had been hi jacked by despots like stalin. After he became a statesman for Cuba he visited the u.s.s.r and commented on how bleak the place was and how it was not a workers paradise at all and quickly realisied how a few mad generals were running the whole thing in there own intrests. He then went to China and didnt find it to be much better and later stated that even though he admiried Mao to an extent his Great Leap forward was as damaging to the workers as stalins and lenins five year plans. Che unlike any of the afermentioned fascists was a socalist who but the poor and the downtrodden first in his efforts to free South America and Africa from America/Westeren Imperialism. stalin on the other hand was a murderer of his own people failed to give the republicands adequate supplies during the Spanish civil war and entered into pacts with hitler to save his own hide. any one who thinks he was a great man should be treated the same way as any skinhead who idolisies hitler.

by Mr. T. Thu May 04, 2006 18:44

I assume you meant biography, since if it were Che's autobiography we would indeed know the author. If the author's name comes back to you please post it back here - I would be interested in reading the biography.

by huh? Thu May 04, 2006 20:39

It is common practise for political figures to employ others to write their autobiographies, such practise is called ghost writing . Its a practical solution to the problem of functional illiteracy amongst the world's so called leadership class, who often have spent their lives reading speeches written by others and who then after retirement or fall from office / grace, embark on a tour of dinner dates.
I suggest the ghost writing option might a comically good one for Che. Now I'd love to know if you can qoute Che without resourcing to google or any other search engine, or even offer a small concise history as to why he was so great. Even where he died? I doubt you can "Mr T".

by KevBranno Thu May 04, 2006 20:56

Jorge castaneda, former member of the Mexicain Communist party who ran for president of mexico in the past, was the author of the book I read{ amongst others} on Che. In the future Mr T and other's, instead of dragging the name of Che through the mud by stating that he supported crackpot despots I suggest you read his book {or even just a book} and inform yourself and stop beliving Pravda..

by An Observer Thu May 04, 2006 21:40

Gentlemen please, or "gentlepeople", i'm not sure. What ever political persuesion you are from please remember that all of you have that wonderful benefit of hindsight, before you all pole vault yourselves onto your moral pedestals. The fact is that most world powers are guilty of genoside on a massive scale. For example the Americans killed up to 100,000 people a night, through the use of "fire-bombs" in Japan, BEFORE the atomic detonations on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. These are terrible scars on human history, i'm sure you will all agree. What i find amusing, however, is the people, who will remain unnamed for the moment, that like to tarnish the name of Socialism by using the dreadful consequences of Stalinism as their ammunition. These proved to be two very different things in the end. But all of you please continue, it's proving an interesting read.

by KevBranno Thu May 04, 2006 22:13

In my rush to post a reply i stated that Mr T was a defender of stalin I was wronr i take it back.and yes Observer hindsight is a great thing and with the benifit of hindsight people can see that Stalin and the USSR after 1917 is not a model worth following or defending. Thats all I am trying to say and also to figure out How people can still think that the type of Communism which existed in Russia and China was a good thing.. this is one of the problems with the left to many small splinter groups like the Communist party who will never achieve anythingand would be better off reforming there views and joining a left leaning organisation which doesnt idolise mass murders..

by Mr. T. Fri May 05, 2006 01:05

I certainly don't defend Stalin or any of the other Soviet leaders bar Gorbachev. I think their diseased legacy has destroyed the drawing power of the left for many generations to come - possibly for good.

My objection to Che is due to his popularised branding - his mug is on everything from t-shirts to knickers to , well... mugs. And then, or course, there were those 2 Hollywood pictures about Che released within a couple of months of each other. My general view is that anything so crassly commercicalised cannot be taken seriously... the cult of personality is what made Stalin what he was... and destroyed credibiilty of the left.

If you recall the writer of the biography - ghost or otherwise, let us know - it would be of interest to me - drop me an email at piddydafoo@gmail.com.

Cheers,
Mr. T.

by Mr. T. Fri May 05, 2006 01:34

I have the author's name from your previous post (Jorge Castaneda) and will pick up the book shortly. Thanks.

By the way, why do you think I am a blind follower of Pravda? I believe pretty much the opposite of the Pravda mentality - indiscriminate support for mass murderers based purely on ideology is bad faith. I had hoped my previous submissions would have communicated that message clearly but I guess they didn't/

People generally associate with others who share their immutable values and either thrive or perish as a result of those values. The fact that almost everyone in Stalin's immediate family committed suicide speaks volumes for Stalin's core values. He was a monster and should not be resurrected as a saint.

Thanks,
Mr. T.

by The Great Djerginski Fri May 05, 2006 10:53

The naieve actions of Gorbachov have killed many more innocents than Stalin. Look at the International Red Cross statistics that show the large scale liquidation of Soviet old age pensioners, the gulags are full as never before and with death rates as never before. Women who were born in the Soviet Union are sold for £2000 in East London. Meanwhile you parrot these CIA funded distortions of history.

by Historian Fri May 05, 2006 11:16

If you were more familiar with the history of the USSR/Russia you would know that mass poverty, degradation and corruption survived alongside totalitarianism up to the collapse of the rotten system under Gorbachev.

by A real historian Fri May 05, 2006 11:30

As someone who actually has a history degree and someone who has studied Soviet Russia I would like you to provide us evidence of this grandiose statement of yours "If you were more familiar with the history of the USSR/Russia you would know that mass poverty, degradation and corruption survived alongside totalitarianism up to the collapse of the rotten system under Gorbachev". I had not realised that poverty and degradation was worse in Soviet Russia, although perhaps this is me and most academic research as opposed to your own delusional dreams. I find your post absolutely farcical and you clearly have no idea about the history of Russia both post Soviet and pre glasnost or the economic reality of these periods. Perhaps you should change your name to some other subject that you have an imaginary grip on, perhaps you should call yourself economist or geneticist or nuclear physician. insult deleted. Whole posts may be deleted if/when they descend into mere abuse as the editorial collective does not have the time to edit individual posts. Please read our editorial guidelines to see how you can avoid wasting your time by writing a post that we will delete. Thanks - 1 of IMC Ed http://www.indymedia.ie/editorial

by historian Fri May 05, 2006 12:50

Unlike yourself, I don't have to parade my academic credentials :)

Are you upset because real history conflicts with whatever nonsense you have picked up from some leftist newspaper or pamphlet? Pridurki like yourself who defend Stalinism on the basis that there are prostitutes and poor people in modern Russia (as there always have been - ever hear of the criminals who added to the misery of the politicals in the camps?) are no better than defenders of the Nazis and Holocaust deniers.

by A real historian Fri May 05, 2006 13:00

"Unlike yourself, I don't have to parade my academic credentials" - Typical, you have missed the point which is not surprising. You have the arrogance to give yourself a name in which you try and pretend that you have some expertise in an area which quite clearly you don't. Your comments are representative of an idiots guide to false history.

Your second paragraph rant is utter nonsense as I neither defended Stalin nor the Stalinist system. Holocaust deniers deny the truth and attempt to recreate history in exactly the same way that you are. Not only have you failed to provide any proof to back up your completely baseless claims you then go on with an utterly ridiculous point of trying to compare me to the holocaust deniers. It is you who have most in common with these deniers as it is you who is denying historical fact, and then try and put an even more idiotic ideological spin on it. Go get a library card and do some reading as opposed to foaming at the mouth, giving yourself a completely ironic user name and denying historic and economic facts.

by Mr. T. Fri May 05, 2006 13:11

According to one historian (link provided), the worlds worst state murderers were USSR, with 61.9 Million civillians slaughtered between 1917-87, and PRC with 35.2 Million ordinary civilians killed.

So in answer to Real Historian's idiotic, rhetorical (?) question, the Soviets were at the top of the state mass murderering league tables by far.

Keep spinning your lies, Real Historian. Keep the Bolshevick flame lit is an act of futility. Those of us not on drugs or in mental institutions can see straight through your bullshit.

by A real historian Fri May 05, 2006 13:26

Thank you Mr. T for producing another idiotic post on this topic. Instead of actually answering any points you call me a bolshevik which is utter nonsense and then parrot on about State murders as if I defended State murders under Stalinism. You and historian are absolute nutters if you think that you can get away with slandering me with your idiocy. Not only have the two of you failed to provide any evidence to back up hisorians utterly false claims, you resort to petty name calling as your meager intellects can't actually examine any facts at all and resort to make things up or name call or try to move the goalposts.

Mr. T and historian are both Historical revisionists and are no different to the holocaust deniers who attempt to reinvent history for an ideological reason. Now the two of you go off to a library and do a bit of reading. Perhaps the two of you should wipe the foam off your mouth before you go out in public.

by The Great Djerginski Fri May 05, 2006 13:50

You are way too low with your 61million Red Dead Mr T. Andrew Roberts, a bone fide historian with a job at Cambridge University, has given the number of slaughtered Soviet innocents as 220 million. Your 61 million allegation is a disgrace to Daily Mail readers everywhere.

by Ronan Bennett Fri May 05, 2006 16:56

I have just looked at the website you mention Mr. T and I am quite definite there is something not quite right with the person who put the site up. Photographs of the "demicides" provided a particularily strong clue.

by Mr. T. Fri May 05, 2006 17:13

I suppose you must have a similar objection to whoever put up the Holocaust Museum website. They have entire section with huge amounts of photographs and even films. Check out their web page below and follow links to "Public Programs Multimedia Archive" and "Photographers Focus on Genocide". You'll get far more disturbing stuff that at the previous link I provided.

But you're right - photographic evidence of genocide or democide is very difficult to look at. It's disturbing and its sickening. But more sickening than the images themselves is the fact that a state - not just a single disturbed person but a coordinated government organisation - was the perpetrator of these atrocities.

Hopefully if enough people see these disturbing images they might think twice about blindly following official orders intended to slaughter entire classes or races of people.

by Stalin was not stallin.. Fri May 05, 2006 17:44

The legacy of the CCCP is that it defeated the German Nazi Party and kept the White supramacist USA and UK in check for forty years.

Living in Africa, India, Alabama or Indiana for Black people in the period 1917-1945 was a common experience of racism, oppression and starvation.

Uncle Joe and the political system he inherited and developed was hope to many millions of oppresssed slaves to capital, in the USA and the European empires.

by pat c Fri May 05, 2006 18:24

apparently the population of the russian empire was 150 million in 1900. given WW1 and the civil war that followed its unlikely that this figure was exceeded in the 1920s before the famines. now i accept that stalin was responsible for millions of deaths but i dont see how 40, 60 or 90 million could have died due to stalin plus the 25 million who died in WW2.

i cant get figures for the ussr as a whole but here are trends for russian federal republic:

1914 91.5M

1920 88M

1930 98M

1939 108M

1946 105M

1950 101m

1951 104M

1955 111M

I dont see how this allows for 40 million to be killed under Stalin. this isnt white-washing stalin, just querying dodgy statistics,

The source is:

"This website belongs to the Dutch "Werkgroep Seriële Publicaties" (WESP), in English: "Working Alliance on Serial Publications", in short: "WASP".
The "WESP" was inaugurated on January 9, 1991 in Groningen, the Netherlands. It is part of a higher organization "UKB-CAT", that consists of chiefs of cataloguing departments mainly in university libraries of the Netherlands.
The members of the "WESP" are library staff who are in charge of cataloguing serial publications, in university libraries, and other big libraries in the Netherlands that have large collections of serials (like the Royal Library and the Library of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences). "

More info at the link.

by Mr. T. Fri May 05, 2006 19:07

when in fact the USSR's own archives point to the picture that Stalin and others manipulated demographics to suit their propaganda objectives.

[...] At the 17th Congress of the Communist party Stalin claimed that the Soviet population had increased to “168 million” by the end of 1933 (Pravda, January 28, 1934). According to the memories of Mikhail Kurman (1993, p. 600), who was then working for the Soviet Central Statistical Administration,2 Stalin, on his own initiative, exaggerated the actual statistical estimate by about 8 million . In a subsequent conversation concerning this population figure, the head of the Central Statistical Administration was told by the dictator that he himself knew which figure to give. However, according to Kurman, Stalin’s original figure was lowered by one million in the publication of the Party Congress documents.
[...]
Today we know, thanks to the recent publication of archive documents, that for the start of 1934 the statistical estimate was at 160,465,200, and according to this estimate there was a population decrease in 1933 (Poliakov, 2000, p. 346). According to recent estimates, this human losses of the period of forced collectivization and the 1932-1933 famine were about 7 million people (Andreev et al, 1994, p. 431).[...]

These quotes are snipped from a research report ("The Failure of Demographic Statistics: A Soviet Response to Population Troubles",Mark Tolts, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) that quite convincingly lays out the evidence supporting claims that Stalin and his minders tampered with demographic data to mask their failed "workers paradise" and soviet genocidal activities. The bottom of the report provides detailed tables of data and all sources are clearly footnoted.

I don't know if the numbers that Stalin killed are 40 million, 60 million or 120 million. But even 10 million - a very conservative estimate - is a horrifically huge amount of people. Stalin was a monster of epic proportions whose crimes must never be forgotten or allowed to be repeated.

by Mr. T. Fri May 05, 2006 19:08

Providing it here ->

http://dmo.econ.msu.ru/demografia/Rus_census2002/Histor...s.pdf

by pat c Fri May 05, 2006 19:16

Its the WESP who take these figures as being accurate. These are all high ranking librarians in the Netherlands, its unlikely that they are all incompetent or naive. Their repuatations depend on them making accurate information available to researchers. If it was just any website I would not take it as being accurate.

I agree that Stalins death toll may be as high as 10 Million.

by Mr. T. Fri May 05, 2006 20:08

but as a library their job is to collect and disseminate information - they do not vet its authenticity beyond ensuring its sources are official or authentic. The WESP cannot certify the official CCCP demographics are accurate - only that these were the official numbers published by the appropriate government officials.

However, the paper I sent you suggests that the official CCCP statistics were fudged and forged for reasons of "national security" and propaganda. So what the paper, and in effect, I myself am saying is that any demographic figures published by the CCCP - even or perhaps especially the official ones - cannot be taken seriously.

I don't know how you could put a 10 million figure on Stalin's victems but if that is a number you're convinced of then so be it. I could accept the 60 million number assuming the tables provided that website are accurate, but I'm not yet convinced of that. What did Uncle Josef say - "a single death is a tragedy - a million is a statistic". So sure, I could buy 10 million...or even 60 million. Either way it's hard to imagine that level of carnage and brutality.

by Stalin wasn't stallin Fri May 05, 2006 20:26

Stalin Wasn't Stallin'

Stalin wasn't stallin'
When he to1d the beast of Berlin
That they'd never rest contented
Til they had driven him from the land
So he called the Yanks and English
And proceeded to extinguish
The Fuhrer and his vermin
This is how it all began

Now the Devil he was reading
In the good book one day
How the lord created Adam
To walk the righteous way
And it made the Devil jealous
He turned green up to his horns
And he swore by things unholy
That he'd make one of his own

So he packed two suitcases
Full of grief and misery
And he caught the midnight special
Going down to Germany
Then he mixed his lies and hatred
With fire and brimstone
Then the devil sat upon it
That's how Adolf was born

Now Adolf got the notion
That he was the master race
And he swore he'd bring new order
And put mankind in it,s place!
So he set his scheme in motion
And he was winning everywhere
Until he up and got the notion
For to kick that Russian bear

Yes he kicked that noble Russian
But it wasn't very long
Before Adolf got suspicious
The he had done something wrong
Cause that bear grabbed the Fuhrer
And gave him an awful fright
Seventeen months he scrapped the Fuhrer
Tooth and claw, day and night

Then that bear smacked the Fuhrer
With a mighty armored paw
And Adolf broke all records
Running backward towards Krakaw
The Goebbels sent a message
To the people everywhere
That if they couldn't hit the Fuhrer
Go down hit that Russian bear

by iosaf Fri May 05, 2006 20:47

Reporters of fact, investigative features and opinion forming columnists worked as hard in that period of global history as another. That is to say journalists worked, but against a different background.
As parts of the Soviet Union suffered famine from the fallacy of centralised state socialism (of that time) so did parts of the United States of America suffer famine from the fallacy of capitalist trickledown prosperity (of that time).

its not the same time now.

the illustration is perhaps the most famous photography by Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) who as a documentarist (which as know fuses all 3 types of journalism) arguably became a propagandist for what followed. I constantly and consistently express the belief that the 20th century was without exception one of the darkest segments of human history. If in alternative universe of historiography meets documentary meets journalism meets internet meets comment boxes meets interactive public opinion - - - the USSR had won New World Order

The USA would stand accused of everything that the mother in the photo went through and saw others go through. Stalin has such an odiously easy name to remember that he's easier to hate than those nameless robber barons of this earth who put that generation globally through hell.
Except of course she was a fake.
Learn. goto the encylopedia for a moment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Lange
Don't stay there (!), come back to http://indymedia.ie :-)

the USSR was shit. the USA still is.
most americans can't leave the USA, both canada and mexico being full, and europe to expensive to catch a flight too.

What had she really seen?

by Mr. T. Fri May 05, 2006 23:17

America had some people go hungry in the Depression years. They didn't starve to death by the millions. America's poor went hungry because the Depression crippled the economy. The soviet famine dead were a result of a calculated ethnic cleansing. But to some crackpots it's all the same severity.

Relativism is a cheap conjurer's slight of hand trick that leads the weak-minded to view two completely incongruous and in-equivalent situations as if they were of equal significance.

That comment about American's trying to get out to Mexico, Canada or Europe reminds me of those 70's Pravda articles on American class inequity that predicted imminent economic and societal collapse. The comparison between is so bogus that it's out-loud laughable - unfortunately, you're not laughing and I'm sure there are more of your type lurking out there who still sleep under the protective gaze of Uncle Josef's portrait on their bedroom wall. A sickening thought...

It's the fault of extremist Leninist, Maoist, Stalinist and the hard-core trots that the Left has been rejected by the mainstream public for the past 30 years. How can the left movement be taken seriously when idiots compare Stalin's forced famine with a few American rural folk who missed a few meals? Until we rid the progressive wing of the extremist marxist / lenininst / stalinist wing the centre right parties will continue to attract the voting public. It's hard for sane normal folk to take anyone seriously who talks the sort of stalinist apologist shite I've read in this thread.

by Stalin wasn't stallin Sat May 06, 2006 02:46

You're talking for the minority population of this planet

who hog all of the wealth, over consume, over produce waste and under produce equality

..at least Uncle Joe looked out fo the majority Black, Brown and yellow peoples of this planet by smashing Nazism during the second european civil war,

the CCCP also supported national liberation struggles against the colonial european powers, freeing us from the bondage of imperialism

Look at Stalin through the eyes of a colonial subject or the victim of the racist USA, what do you see...

One persons despot is another person's liberator...at least Uncle Joe did not hide his crimes behind the facade of democracy and wealth provision...

by Mr. T. Sat May 06, 2006 12:23

Another gem of wisdom from the "Stallinist": "One persons despot is another person's liberator..."

This relativistic bit of nonsense excuses George Bush Jr. and Sr. from their Iraqi and Afghani adventures, right? And by this diseased logic Pol Pot was a liberator - simply misunderstood for his "cleansing" of the bourgois impurities from his society. And why can't the same be said for Hitler - wasn't he just "liberating" the Aryan people?

The unfortunate thing about relativism is that as cheap conjurers tricks go, it is equally effective for manipulating and obfuscating facts regardless of the political ideology of its user. The extreme right wing uses this charming tactic when denying the Holocaust, excusing Hitler or supporting the BNP's racist policies.

Your excuses for tyrany and oppression can hoodwink the odd imbecile to two, but it doesn't fool me a bit. I'd rather be spend a lifetime stuck in the worst that the imperfect democracies of America, Britan or Ireland could possibly dish out rather than a single day in the "workers paradise" killing fields concocted by Stalin's zombies and executioners.

I represent no people, no party and no particular ideology beyond that of Mr. T. I am not a member of any political organisation, nor do I care to create, join or support one. I haven't found a particular label to adequately and accurately describe my political and social values, but anarcho-libertarianism comes pretty close.

I don't need the "credibility" (if that's what you call it) of a pathetic extremist fringe party affiliation to know with certainty in my heart and in my mind that Stalin was a monstrous murderering sociopath - he was certainly no liberator. I reckon a vast majority of the population of the free world would agree with that view.

by The Great Djerginski Sat May 06, 2006 17:11

I notice Mr T's Disneyesque world view does not include the genocide of the American Indians in his historical roundup of "murdering Monsters". Even today In Brazil they drop bags of poison for indigenous people living on land that may be of some financial value. Perhaps he could enlighten us as to where the myriad genocides of capitalism fit in to his "good/evil" scheme of things.

by Mr. T. Sat May 06, 2006 19:35

I have no argument with your observations on the Native Americans who were slaughtered or disenfranchised by the European colonists and early Americans. Start an article / discussion elsewhere and I'll join in with you to lambaste the American, European and Asian mass murder of indigenous people everywhere...

I am, however, limiting my discussion in this thread to state murders in the modern era (the 20th century), and in particular of Stalin's murders in order to stay on topic. Note that this article is about honouring the British reporter who heroically broke the story about Stalin's 1930's famine / genocide.

by Stalin wasn't stallin Sat May 06, 2006 23:49

..where would you be today Mr T if Uncle Joe and the heroic Red Army had not bled the German army to a standstill during the great Patriotic War?

The world understood the meaning of communism in the streets of Leningrad and Stalingrad...

Your 'heroic' journalist could of gone to India at the same time and reported on starvation, racist laws and a system of class and ethnic division which condemned millions to premature death and a life time of misery.

In fact journalists were told by the british government to surpress stories about India, as their governance of the natives was too similar to Nazi Germany's anti-Jewish laws. How could you recruit soldiers from the Empire to fight racist bigots when your army was officered by the same class of racist?

You live in a world Mr T of liberal democratic nonesense, ignoring the facts that the so called democracies have presided over millions of deaths ..in Empire 1800-1900, during their european civil wars and the post-1945 holocaust in Africa, Asia and South America.

Your taxes. Mr T are paying for starvation, the daily massacre of civilians, detention camps and torture ...today, where do you stand on that?

by Mr. T. Sun May 07, 2006 02:18

so you can dream more of your dreams of Stalinist conquest and perverted notions of so called racial equality. Reality differs significantly from your pipe dreams and I have no interest in exploring your hallucinations.

I'm here to discuss not what would have happened if a particular journalist visited India, nor do I challenge any views your've offered with respect to same. I'm here to discuss the tangible evidence that was uncovered by a socialist brother journalist that would make any sane person reconsider supporting the actions of the psychotic "Uncle" you hold so dearly to your breast.

Speak to this evidence or start a new thread elsewhere. This dicussion doesn't relate to India or Native Americans or any other unrelated attrocities, and I am not averse to discussing these in a different context.

If you can't stay on topic I will ignore you.

by Stalin wasn't stallin Sun May 07, 2006 20:54

"Gareth Jones wrote the truth of what happened in the Ukraine even though it went against the popular socialist mainstream sentiment of his time. He was a hero. His heroism should be celebrated by progressive thinkers everywhere. I hope current and future journalists follow in his footsteps."

Your quote...ignoring what his Empire was doing and jumping on the anti-soviet band wagon, Mr Jone's credentials as a journalist should be questioned...on the thread enough for you. if you cannot answer any of my questions about this pseudo journalist and anti-soviet propagandist.

Ignorance is bliss Mr T, keep taking the placebo which is liberal democacy and I'll stick to looking to a classless future : forward to the dictatorship of the proletariat, peace among people war between classes....you know it makes sense.

by Mr. T. Tue May 09, 2006 02:18

Stallin:

Jones' credentials are published and well known. The fact that he was David Lloyd George's Foreign Affairs adviser - speaks volumes for his credibility and politics. As I'm sure you are aware, George was a Liberal PM and champion of many progressive causes.

After publishing his expose of Stalin's genocide, Jones was vilified by pro-Stalinist / pro-Soviet journalist lap dogs such as Walter Duranty, who has since been discredited as a liar who knowingly collaborated with Stalin to hoodwink western leftists.

Jones, as well as socialist journalist Malcom Muggeridge, both reported the truth as they saw it. You had correctly mentioned that Jones had some of his articles published by Hearst media, but this represented only 3 articles out of dozens that he published for mostly british publications. It is ironic that the Hearst articles Jones' wrote were later sabotaged by the Soviets by subsequently planting false stories in Hearst media. This is reported as follows:

[...]On the New Years Day, 1935, Gareth met Randolph Hearst for lunch on New Years Day, on the terraces of his palatial estate of St. Simeon in California, , Gareth was personally commissioned to repeat his 1933 famine observations in three very heart-rending and most vitriolic anti-Stalin articles for the Hearst stable of US papers - in which he also correctly recognised that Kirov's recent murder in the USSR was probably committed by Communists themselves and as a result it a new wave of Stalinist terror ensued.

Instead of again trying to publicly deride Gareth's articles, a month later, and conveniently for the Soviets, whether by accident or more probably by design, Hearst was 'furnished' with a series of fraudulent articles and bogus famine photo claiming an on-going Ukrainian famine in 1934, by one 'Thomas Walker,' a then unknown convicted conman who had absconded from Colorado prison. Walker, whose real name was Robert Green, was easily exposed as a complete charlatan by Louis Fischer (armed with evidence that Green had only pent 5 days in the USSR in 1934, and therefore could not visited Ukraine - information readily supplied to him by the Soviet authorities). Without ever-mentioning Gareth's name, Fischer was thus able to destroy the credibility of all of Hearst's reporting of any Soviet famine.

Gareth would have been completely unaware of Fischer's 13th March 1935 letter (entitled 'Hearst's Russian 'Famine'') in the US weekly, The Nation exposing Thomas Walker's fake reporting, otherwise one would have expected him to contribute to the debate in the US, especially as he had spearheaded Hearst's first series of articles in 1935 . The precise timing of Fischer's article coincided with the exact start of a period when Gareth became effectively incommunicado whilst 'back-packing' around South East Asia in Search of News.
[...]

You can read the full text of the previous snippet at the provided link. You may also find links to dozens of full text articles and a 68 page privately commissioned journal Jones wrote regarding the Soviet Union and the famine...

Jones was very likely assassinated by NKVD for publishing the truth and that makes him a hero to those who seek truth and justice above buttressing a bankrupt ideology. So if you have any real evidence that Jones was either a spy for the west or in some way incredulous please provide that evidence here. But if stale, stalinist slogans and anachronisms about class struggle and worker utopia are all you can scrape up from your intellectual storehouse then you can continue to post that rubbish without further rebuttal from me.

by blackminorcapullets - www.cybercossack.com Sun Jun 04, 2006 16:04

A thorough read of Das Kapital will convince anyone that Stalin (and Lenin and Trotsky) had nothing to do with Communism as it was nothing more than fascist socialism with a bit of intellectual smoke and mirrors on the side.

The only issue to be discussed is when do we get a Russian Nuremburg - when do the trillions in present day dollars get stripped from Subway chandeliers and Hermitage amber and returned to where it was stolen.

Keep in mind that Russian Famine Genocide started in 1921 and continued as a political tool until 1947. Of course, 1930-1933 was the worst ; more victims than all the soldiers killed (on both sides) of WWI.

This included the "Bruder in Not", the 500,000 fundamentalist Germans (mennonites and such) who made the mistake of settling among Ukrainians and coassacks. Unbelievably, thousands of their letters made it back to Germany - and gave rise to the hysteria that spawned Hitler.

"Have a nice day.

http://ucca.org/famine/gordondispatch.html

www.lietuvos.net/ istorija/communism/

http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/order/nd_sd/vossler2....html

PS- Orwell had no problems with Gareth Jones' credibility - he wrote this a few weeks after his assassination.
-----------
I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And woke to find it true;
I wasn't born for an age like this;
Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?