An American professor defends Stalin

[kowalskil]

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"

Former Communist: Thoughts, Feelings, Reality

=================================

” 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 “

 

[Oldguy]

I'd have to disagree with him on several points, specifically the non-invasion of Poland by the Soviets.

However, I would defend his right to teach such stuff simply because it is only by examining everything and questioning everything that true learning occurs. If alternate opinions, even as blatantly twisted as this, are not allowed to be taught, then you don't have education: you have indoctrination and that's different.

 

[t_polkow]

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"

Former Communist: Thoughts, Feelings, Reality

=================================

” 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 “

I take it you have read Grover's book "Khrushchev Lied?

Grover had spent a decade studying the flood of documents from formerly secret Soviet archives published since the end of the USSR. In this detailed study of Khrushchev's speech he reveals the astonishing results and Lies about the USSR and Stalin. The facts stated came from anaysis of the former Soviet Archives.

Some more back ground for those of you who don't know of Grover Furr Welcome to Grover Furr's Home Page


And some further reading on Stalin and background of the misinformation , includes some very good scholarly work
Stalin Society

Note, Stalin was no saint but was a man who made some mistakes but was not the monster and bogyman portrayed by the misinformationists


Scholarly work and research on History is not dependent of "feelings" but facts gleaned, which ever way they show

I would suggest as an academician for you refute his points with counterpoints from reputable sources , then we can get to the truth. And that is what in my opinion is what higher education is for investigation and questioning

 

[editec]

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"

Former Communist: Thoughts, Feelings, Reality

=================================

” 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 “

Hardline tools of the Kremlin are the Left wing's equivalent to the Right's NAZI wing.

Like partisans of all stripes, they value TEAM more than TRUTH.

I have no use for apologists for Authoritarian tyrants, no matter their political/economic POV.

 

[t_polkow]

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"

Former Communist: Thoughts, Feelings, Reality

=================================

” 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 “

Hardline tools of the Kremlin are the Left wing's equivalent to the Right's NAZI wing.

Like partisans of all stripes, they value TEAM more than TRUTH.

I have no use for apologists for Authoritarian tyrants, no matter their political/economic POV.

So research of history and what the facts show have no meaning?

 

[Mr. H.]

Hey Mr. k where ya been?
Long time no see.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Not surprising at all, once you understand that American Liberals have more love for Uncle Joe than they do for Ronald Reagan

 

[editec]

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"

Former Communist: Thoughts, Feelings, Reality

=================================

” 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 “

Hardline tools of the Kremlin are the Left wing's equivalent to the Right's NAZI wing.

Like partisans of all stripes, they value TEAM more than TRUTH.

I have no use for apologists for Authoritarian tyrants, no matter their political/economic POV.

So research of history and what the facts show have no meaning?

I think you must have a reading comprehension problem.

I just agreed with the facts and identified one excellent example of the facts from US history... Hardline US communists LYING about what great guy STALIN was back in the 50s' and even into the early 60s.


Perhaps you do the favor of taking the meaning of what I've written at face value?

Thanks in advance for doing that..

 

[Sunni Man]

I'd have to disagree with him on several points, specifically the non-invasion of Poland by the Soviets.

However, I would defend his right to teach such stuff simply because it is only by examining everything and questioning everything that true learning occurs. If alternate opinions, even as blatantly twisted as this, are not allowed to be taught, then you don't have education: you have indoctrination and that's different.

Do you also feel that way when it comes to re-examining the Holocaust story of the jews? .......

 

[Oldguy]

I'd have to disagree with him on several points, specifically the non-invasion of Poland by the Soviets.

However, I would defend his right to teach such stuff simply because it is only by examining everything and questioning everything that true learning occurs. If alternate opinions, even as blatantly twisted as this, are not allowed to be taught, then you don't have education: you have indoctrination and that's different.

Do you also feel that way when it comes to re-examining the Holocaust story of the jews? .......

Yes, of course. I'm always open to new and different information. However, I must say this before you start posting reams of stuff, I've seen and read an awful lot which tries to discredit the holocaust, or blame it on the Jews themselves, but I've not yet run across anything even remotely convincing.

Something that does irritate me somewhat about that subject is how others who were targeted for extermination, such as homosexuals, the intelligentsia, the disabled, Slavs etc. are rarely mentioned.

 

[JakeStarkey]

We made sure in our local high schools that when our history teachers got to WWII, in line with state TASKs, that our teachers made sure to particularly point out and ensure that students could answer as follow:

Stalin and his cohorts intentionally starved millions of Ukrainians and others.

Stalin authorized the executions of nearly 200,000 "political enemies" in the later 1930s.

Stalin and the Nazis both engaged in executing the Polish leadership.

Stalin was a dictator who worked with other authoritarians.

The USSR did invade Poland from the East in September 1939.

The Polish Home Army did shoot some Jews who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and at other various times.

Plenty of evidence exists that the Soviets “massacred thousands of innocent” Poles.

That teaching that opposed the above were examples of poor critical thinking.

 

[Mad Scientist]

We made sure in our local high schools that when our history teachers got to WWII, in line with state TASKs, that our teachers made sure to particularly point out and ensure that students could answer as follow:

Stalin and his cohorts intentionally starved millions of Ukrainians and others.

Stalin authorized the executions of nearly 200,000 "political enemies" in the later 1930s.

Stalin and the Nazis both engaged in executing the Polish leadership.

Stalin was a dictator who worked with other authoritarians.

The USSR did invade Poland from the East in September 1939.

The Polish Home Army did shoot some Jews who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and at other various times.

Plenty of evidence exists that the Soviets “massacred thousands of innocent” Poles.

That teaching that opposed the above were examples of poor critical thinking.

Lies.

 

[JakeStarkey]

We made sure in our local high schools that when our history teachers got to WWII, in line with state TAKS, that our teachers made sure to particularly point out and ensure that students could answer as follow:

Stalin and his cohorts intentionally starved millions of Ukrainians and others.

Stalin authorized the executions of nearly 200,000 "political enemies" in the later 1930s.

Stalin and the Nazis both engaged in executing the Polish leadership.

Stalin was a dictator who worked with other authoritarians.

The USSR did invade Poland from the East in September 1939.

The Polish Home Army did shoot some Jews who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and at other various times.

Plenty of evidence exists that the Soviets “massacred thousands of innocent” Poles.

That teaching that opposed the above were examples of poor critical thinking.

Lies.

Absolute truth, podjo. The evil of Stalin and his regime will never be rehabilitated in American history classes.

 

[t_polkow]

Not surprising at all, once you understand that American Liberals have more love for Uncle Joe than they do for Ronald Reagan

I guess if you cannot debate historical facts and research the next best thing are Opinions and bumper sticker quotes

 

[JakeStarkey]

Not surprising at all, once you understand that American Liberals have more love for Uncle Joe than they do for Ronald Reagan

I guess if you cannot debate historical facts and research the next best thing are Opinions and bumper sticker quotes

Our far left and our far right and libertarians love Opinion and bumper sticker quotations.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

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"

Former Communist: Thoughts, Feelings, Reality

=================================

” 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 “

This is why it is so important to remind people of who these mass murderers were - Stalin - Lenin - Mao - Marx - all evil men beyond any shadow of a doubt - Stalin was the worst mass murderer in the history of the world - hands down. - J.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Stalin was a mass murderer.

 

[t_polkow]

I'd have to disagree with him on several points, specifically the non-invasion of Poland by the Soviets.

However, I would defend his right to teach such stuff simply because it is only by examining everything and questioning everything that true learning occurs. If alternate opinions, even as blatantly twisted as this, are not allowed to be taught, then you don't have education: you have indoctrination and that's different.

Do you also feel that way when it comes to re-examining the Holocaust story of the jews? .......

Yes, of course. I'm always open to new and different information. However, I must say this before you start posting reams of stuff, I've seen and read an awful lot which tries to discredit the holocaust, or blame it on the Jews themselves, but I've not yet run across anything even remotely convincing.

Something that does irritate me somewhat about that subject is how others who were targeted for extermination, such as homosexuals, the intelligentsia, the disabled, Slavs etc. are rarely mentioned.

First of all I am Jewish and lost family in the Shoa, which is historical FACT and evidence of the Shoa. Since the founding of the USSR their has been a documented concerted effort to kill it in its grave . This isn't revisionist history as the Holocaust deniers.

There is a direct historical link running from: Hitler to Hearst, to Robert Conquest, to Solzhenitsyn.
William Hearst - Friend of Hitler

William Randolph Hearst is the name of a multi-millionaire who sought to help the Nazis in their psychological warfare against the Soviet Union. Hearst was a well-known US newspaper proprietor known as the `father' of the so-called `yellow press', i.e., the sensationalist press. William Hearst began his career as a newspaper editor in 1885 when his father, George Hearst, a millionaire mining industrialist, Senator and newspaper proprietor himself, put him in charge of the San Francisco Daily Examiner.

This was also the start of the Hearst newspaper empire, an empire which strongly influenced the lives and thinking of North Americans. After his father died, William Hearst sold all the mining industry shares he inherited and began to invest capital in the world of journalism. His first purchase was the New York Morning Journal, a traditional newspaper which Hearst completely transformed into a sensationalist rag. He bought his stories at any price, and when there were no atrocities or crimes to report, it behoved his journalists and photographers to `arrange' matters. It is this which in fact characterises the `yellow press': lies and `arranged' atrocities served up as truth.

These lies of Hearst's made him a millionaire and a very important personage in the newspaper world. In 1935 he was one of the richest men in the world, with a fortune estimated at $200 million. After his purchase of the Morning Journal, Hearst went on to buy and establish daily and weekly newspapers throughout the US. In the 1940s, William Hearst owned 25 daily newspapers, 24 weekly newspapers, 12 radio stations, 2 world news services, one business providing news items for films, the Cosmopolitan film company, and a lot of others. In 1948 he bought one of the US's first TV stations, BWAL - TV in Baltimore. Hearst's newspapers sold 13 million copies a day and had close to 40 million readers. Almost a third of the adult population of the US were reading Hearst newspapers every day. Furthermore, many millions of people throughout the world received information from the Hearst press via his news services, films and a series of newspapers that were translated and published in large quantities all over the world. The figures quoted above demonstrate how the Hearst empire was able to influence American politics, and indeed world politics, over very many years - on issues which included opposition to the US entering the Second World War on the side of the Soviet Union and support for the McCarthyite anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1950s.

William Hearst's outlook was ultra-conservative, nationalist and anti-communist. His politics were the politics of the extreme right. In 1934 he travelled to Germany, where he was received by Hitler as a guest and friend. After this trip, Hearst's newspapers became even more reactionary, always carrying articles against socialism, against the Soviet Union and especially against Stalin. Hearst also tried to use his newspapers for overt Nazi propaganda purposes, publishing a series of articles by Goering, Hitler's right-hand man. The protests of many readers, however, forced him to stop publishing such items and to withdraw them from circulation.

After his visit to Hitler, Hearst's sensationalist newspapers were filled with `revelations' about the terrible happenings in the Soviet Union - murders, genocide, slavery, luxury for the rulers and starvation for the people, all these were the big news items almost every day. The material was provided to Hearst by the Gestapo, Nazi Germany's political police. On the front pages of the newspapers there often appeared caricatures and falsified pictures of the Soviet Union, with Stalin portrayed as a murderer holding a dagger in his hand. We should not forget that these articles were read each day by 40 million people in the US and millions of others worldwide!

The myth concerning the famine in the Ukraine

One of the first campaigns of the Hearst press against the Soviet Union revolved round the question of the millions alleged to have died as a result of the Ukraine famine. This campaign began on 18 February 1935 with a front-page headline in the Chicago American `6 million people die of hunger in the Soviet Union'. Using material supplied by Nazi Germany, William Hearst, the press baron and Nazi sympathizer, began to publish fabricated stories about a genocide which was supposed to have been deliberately perpetrated by the Bolsheviks and had caused several million to die of starvation in the Ukraine. The truth of the matter was altogether different. In fact what took place in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1930s was a major class struggle in which poor landless peasants had risen up against the rich landowners, the kulaks, and had begun a struggle for collectivization, a struggle to form kolkhozes.

This great class struggle, involving directly or indirectly some 120 million peasants, certainly gave rise to instability in agricultural production and food shortages in some regions. Lack of food did weaken people, which in turn led to an increase in the number falling victim to epidemic diseases. These diseases were at that time regrettably common throughout the world. Between 1918 and 1920 an epidemic of Spanish flu caused the death of 20 million people in the US and Europe, but nobody accused the governments of these countries of killing their own citizens. The fact is that there was nothing these government could do in the face of epidemics of this kind. It was only with the development of penicillin during the second world war, that it became possible for such epidemics to be effectively contained. This did not become generally available until towards the end of the 1940s.

The Hearst press articles, asserting that millions were dying of famine in the Ukraine - a famine supposedly deliberately provoked by the communists, went into graphic and lurid detail. The Hearst press used every means possible to make their lies seem like the truth, and succeeded in causing public opinion in the capitalist countries to turn sharply against the Soviet Union. This was the origin of the first giant myth manufactured alleging millions were dying in the Soviet Union. In the wave of protests against the supposedly communist-provoked famine which the Western press unleashed, nobody was interested in listening to the Soviet Union's denials and complete exposure of the Hearst press lies, a situation which prevailed from 1934 until 1987! For more than 50 years several generations of people the world over were brought up on a diet of these slanders to harbor a negative view of socialism in the Soviet Union.

 

[PoliticalChic]

We made sure in our local high schools that when our history teachers got to WWII, in line with state TASKs, that our teachers made sure to particularly point out and ensure that students could answer as follow:

Stalin and his cohorts intentionally starved millions of Ukrainians and others.

Stalin authorized the executions of nearly 200,000 "political enemies" in the later 1930s.

Stalin and the Nazis both engaged in executing the Polish leadership.

Stalin was a dictator who worked with other authoritarians.

The USSR did invade Poland from the East in September 1939.

The Polish Home Army did shoot some Jews who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and at other various times.

Plenty of evidence exists that the Soviets “massacred thousands of innocent” Poles.

That teaching that opposed the above were examples of poor critical thinking.

I sure hope that you also included the fact of who was the presiding judge when the Stalin purges put Trotsky on trial.


John Dewey
The Case of Leon Trotsky (Report of Dewey Commission - 1937)



You know who he was, don't you?

Your 'critical thinking' guru.

 

[JakeStarkey]

We made sure in our local high schools that when our history teachers got to WWII, in line with state TASKs, that our teachers made sure to particularly point out and ensure that students could answer as follow:

Stalin and his cohorts intentionally starved millions of Ukrainians and others.

Stalin authorized the executions of nearly 200,000 "political enemies" in the later 1930s.

Stalin and the Nazis both engaged in executing the Polish leadership.

Stalin was a dictator who worked with other authoritarians.

The USSR did invade Poland from the East in September 1939.

The Polish Home Army did shoot some Jews who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and at other various times.

Plenty of evidence exists that the Soviets “massacred thousands of innocent” Poles.

That teaching that opposed the above were examples of poor critical thinking.

I sure hope that you also included the fact of who was the presiding judge when the Stalin purges put Trotsky on trial.

John Dewey
The Case of Leon Trotsky (Report of Dewey Commission - 1937)

You know who he was, don't you?

Your 'critical thinking' guru.

Not mine, but one of several who influenced American educational philosophy.

Whereas Mises is yours, more the shame.